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April 3, 2024 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:31:27

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #885

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	Oh, hello.
	Welcome to the... No, no, no, no.
	I don't know why we're doing that.
	You're not Australian.
	Crikey!
	No, we're trying to cut that out.
	You're not Indian.
	You're not Pakistani, sadly.
	Pakistan!
	Anyway, so today I'm joined by Josh and Harry.
	Hello!
	And we'll be talking about India being a wild place.
	Yes.
	It's the neighbour of Pakistan.
	I'm going to be torturing my co-host today for your enjoyment.
	Oh boy!
	Dangerous maps up on screen, I see.
	That's true, yeah.
	Have you got the map of the stream of feces going into the Indian Ocean?
	I don't have that.
	I think it's represented in your mug there.
	Oh yeah, sorry, let me hide that.
	Put it away!
	That's vulgar and gross.
	For people who don't know, there's a map of feces pollution from India, and obviously, well, it gets sent straight into the sea.
	And, uh, traces of it have been found as far as California.
	So, there we are.
	Anyway, uh, we'll also be talking about why a high street is dead.
	Hopefully that won't be infecting California.
	Because it already did!
	And, uh, we'll be looking at why Vice News is dead.
	Lots of death.
	Yeah!
	Mine's about life.
	Mine's good news, though.
	So the thing I'm, you know, we're jumping on this grave and dancing for the evening.
	That's true, yeah.
	We've got one bad death, one good death, and one life.
	Well, let's begin with life, shall we?
	Yes.
	So you may have heard of this little known country known as India.
	Yeah, it's the most populated country in the world.
	And actually they have the largest diaspora of any country in the world, funnily enough, being the most populous.
	It's funny how that happens.
	And I wanted to talk about just Indian culture.
	In a sort of jokey way, a bit of fun, I'm going to say some nice things, I'm going to say some bad things, because you know, like any country, there is good and bad, and good and bad people.
	And it's going to be fun, and I'm going to torture you.
	Anyway, so it's worth mentioning as well, That in the United States, as you can see from this map, the country of origin of most immigration, excluding Mexico of course.
	Because if it was including Mexico, the entire map would be Mexico.
	Yeah, the Mexican conquest is going well.
	The Reconquista, yes.
	There is a lot of Indian migration to America.
	You know, you may have heard of this fella called Vivek Ramaswamy.
	I think he might be... This is all to do with him, is it?
	He's one of them?
	Yes.
	I think he might actually be Indian.
	You're still going with the Australian!
	That's not involuntary!
	Callum has converted to Australian.
	It's not even good.
	That Canadian immigration is something I didn't expect.
	No one suspects the Canadian Inquisition, do they?
	They're sneaking in through the Canadian corridor all the way down to Mexico.
	They've got their own little way down.
	But that's not the point.
	It's also the case in Europe.
	Here is some data.
	I know you love data, Callum.
	Indians in Europe.
	Here we are, UK number one.
	Probably something to do with that little empire business that we got up to.
	You know, India was part of that.
	Actually, no.
	I kind of hate this narrative.
	The idea that we had the empire, therefore we must have the people.
	I'm just saying that, you know, there's cross I know what you're getting at, but it's a lie that's told in the mainstream.
	Oh, because we had India as a colony, therefore we must have its people.
	Well, I'm not saying that.
	I know, I'm trying to clarify because I hear this said a lot, which is that the mass amount of Indian immigration we have is incredibly recent.
	It's not even post-war.
	Of course, yeah.
	But one would presume that they're choosing the UK over other European countries, because of course lots of other European countries have similar border policies to ourselves in that they don't have them.
	And also there's loads of them already here.
	Yeah, that's true.
	But the UK has the largest Indian population, but there's also a healthy number around lots of other European countries as well.
	I think the second highest percentage is Ireland as well, so that's interesting.
	And also, you've got to have people running your corner shops.
	That's true.
	Why they have to be Indian, I don't know.
	It is worth mentioning as well, I have met lots of Indian people who have been very nice about Britain and said they like it here.
	Nice.
	And, you know, they've more or less adopted British culture.
	So, you know, I'm not having a go, not having a pop-up.
	Yeah, they're literally like the lowest crime ethnic group or highest production.
	Yeah.
	I mean, except the Chinese, but no one beats the Chinese.
	And also, Japan recently said, this is I believe from the Japanese ambassador, I have one message for Indian people, particularly to young people of India, please go to Japan to study and work.
	If you're a student, it's so easy to get a visa with just a student ID.
	So, even Japan's getting in on the fun.
	Japan shouldn't be getting in on the fun.
	Japan has always been, like Poland used to be, a really good example for how a small, homogenous nation can function well and not be dysfunctional and have high-trust society, clean streets, despite the fact that you've got massive urban and really densely populated areas.
	And, you know, Indians are, as you mentioned, can be very polite, very kind, and very industrious people, but you don't want to be importing mass numbers of any external ethnic group in because that will immediately create divisions.
	words.
	Yes, it's a fair concern.
	And the final place I wanted to mention that even South Africa, this is an article that I did all the way back in December of 2021 about the riots in South Africa and part of the riots were motivated, one for the arrest of a political figure, but also they were in part anti-Indian riots and the contention was that many black South Africans believed that Indians secretly controlled everything and that they were...
	Only hiring their own.
	Yeah, it's more or less exactly that.
	And so they deliberately targeted Indian areas and Indian businesses and things like that and tried to burn them down.
	I want to watch a broadcast from whoever South African Nick Fuentes is.
	That guy must be wild.
	So let's address the cow in the room, shall we?
	So, obviously cows are associated in India with Aditi, the mother of all gods, and described in some of the most ancient of Hindu scriptures.
	And this makes them believe that protecting and caring for cows is their religious obligation if they are Hindu, and also eating cows is seen as a sin, and that their milk, dung and urine has purification properties, which is why there is such a booming trade in all of those things in India.
	And as you can see, this is one of the cultural practices that I would not like to see in Britain.
	An Indian village marks the end of Diwali, With a massive cow dung fight and there you can see one of the most disgusting sights I've probably ever seen.
	A bunch of grown men writhing around in excrement.
	I'm really happy about it too.
	One thing I did notice actually, that fella who is pictured there, see?
	We've got a bird's eye view of it as well!
	Look at how clean his teeth are.
	That is impressive.
	I mean he's not got a single spot on his teeth.
	That is quite impressive.
	Unless he's been like just licking them clean.
	If he wasn't covered in cow dung, that would be a great advert for a dentist, wouldn't it?
	There's a bird's eye view, just so you can see the extent of it.
	This is obviously just one village in India.
	I think it's got 1.4 billion people, so it's obviously not fair to tar them all with the same cow dung brush.
	Well, if there are a bunch of people jumping around in cow dung, would you watch?
	I think I would.
	No, I don't want to get splattered.
	Well, from a safe distance.
	They're not at a safe distance.
	They're basically like grinding their ankles into the dung.
	If the people of Swindon suddenly start arriving around in cow dung, I'll be honest, I'm moving immediately.
	I'm not even doing the rental agreement one month notice.
	I'm leaving.
	After everything that happens here, it's the cow dung that breaks the camel's back, is it?
	Not quite reached that stage yet.
	Yes, there is a concerning amount of feces in the streets.
	This is true.
	The freddies.
	Yeah, the freddies of the world.
	But I don't see people, you know, like actively going out of their way to smear it and then fight in it.
	Yet.
	Maybe it's different down your street.
	I don't know.
	I've seen some questionable things.
	You don't want to know.
	But also, recently the Indian government said on Valentine's Day that you should go out and hug a cow.
	Which, I don't know, is kind of wholesome actually.
	That's quite sweet.
	Who doesn't like cows?
	I know, I suppose that's one way to distract Indian men from Western women on Facebook.
	Send them a message.
	Go out and hug a cow.
	Stop harassing women on social media.
	And this made me laugh as well.
	US Customs wants Indians to stop carrying cow dung in their luggage.
	We've got plenty where you're going!
	Leave it at home!
	Yeah, if you've seen rural England, it's built on cow dung.
	Or rural US, yeah.
	Yes, of course, but... Why are they taking cow dung to America?
	I mean, if you're taking it to, I don't know, like, the Himalayas... It's sort of... Okay, there might not be money, I don't know.
	It looks like, um... Have you ever had, like, brand flake cereal?
	It looks like really sized-up portions of that.
	Well, there won't be any more.
	Sorry if you like brown flakes for breakfast.
	I've probably spoiled that for you.
	On the live stream, there are Americans breaking up for breakfast to this show.
	This is not the best show for breakfast today.
	It's a great way to open it.
	Enjoy your breakfast, America.
	And here's another one.
	Man survives lightning strike only to suffocate to death when villagers insist on treating his injuries by covering him in cow dung in India.
	There he is!
	Wait, did they bury him in so much that, what, it restricted his breathing?
	I don't know, maybe they buried his head as well.
	At least you don't have to pay for a funeral or any expenses.
	The funny thing is, a lot of medicine is manufactured in India that comes to Britain.
	If you look at the labels of lots of things that have been manufactured, actually a surprising amount comes from there.
	And yet the height of medicine in some areas of India.
	Not from these.
	Yeah.
	So the point I'm making here really is that not all Indians, as with every human being ever, they're not all created equal, right?
	There are parts of the world that are different.
	And, you know, I don't know about you, I would never suggest a thing like that, Harry.
	That's terrible.
	Never heard of such a thing.
	Class systems?
	if I got struck by lightning, I would have some questions.
	We should defund the NHS, I swear.
	Are you suggesting that India might, you could say, be split into a caste system?
	I would never suggest a thing like that, Harry.
	That's terrible.
	Never heard of such a thing.
	Class systems?
	I'm so against those.
	Anyway, here's another one This is an actual research paper.
	The use of cow dung and urine to cure COVID-19 in India, a public health concern.
	And I don't blame you for being concerned about that.
	And by the way, if this is going out on other social medias outside of the website, I'm not advocating for this.
	Don't do it.
	Funnily enough, drinking shit and piss won't cure COVID.
	Do you really need us studying?
	Who's the person sitting there being like, source?
	We're also not doctors, so don't take our advice, you know.
	Ask a professional.
	Maybe if CNN had heard that Joe Rogan had been doing this, I could understand why they would make him look great.
	Wasn't India also the other country that was experimenting with the drug that I don't know if we can talk about?
	Nah, we're gonna have to move on from what you're saying.
	Yeah, you're not allowed.
	That's for the after show!
	Oh, alright, okay.
	You're not allowed to talk about it.
	It's weird that they would try such two very distinct options, isn't it?
	But, this is even more crazy, if I can remember how technology works.
	India's far-right cow vigilantes bolster clout before high-stakes election.
	So what do you think this is about, this article, based on the title?
	I love the far right.
	Wherever you are on earth, the far right are always just our best people.
	Cow vigilantes.
	Yeah.
	So, are they trying to save cows?
	Yes, of course.
	But the article's talking about how leaders of cow-protecting groups, because they have groups of men that have formed specifically to protect cows, and these groups are so popular that it actually sort of catapults them into a career in politics.
	And they're complaining that because they're going so out of their way to protect cows, they're probably quite Hindu and therefore quite Far right, as Reuters says.
	And thus, they're bad.
	Ooh, spooky.
	Cow protectors.
	Which I just thought was such a cultural difference between the West.
	You know, these pesky far right going out there protecting cows, although to be fair, the right is at least in support of farming.
	Yeah, that's true.
	We need to become red squirrel protectors.
	And then it got to such a point, this cow vigilantism, that they saw three Muslim men in a car with a cow in the car as well.
	I don't know what clown school they went to, but they were just driving around with a cow in their car, as you do obviously, and they beat them to a pulp and one man actually died of his injuries on the way to the hospital so they're in such a fury at the fact that these muslims had a cow in the car that they beat them one of them to death which um to a western mind this a little bit much death sentence for having cow in car
	i know this this sounds like a story that carl pilkington might have told right It's like, yeah, a couple of fellas, right?
	They were in a car, they had a cow in there, and the Indian fellas beat them up.
	They didn't have the seatbelt on, so they thought, you know what, they're not respecting that.
	Yeah, they didn't put a seatbelt around the cow, and therefore they're, you know... We're making up the news now, in case you're wondering.
	Yes, we're well beyond fake news these days, we're just ad-libbing it.
	We're just ad-hibbing the news.
	So there was also an article in the BBC in 2012 and it was about how can India stop people urinating in public?
	And apparently a house went to such lengths that they painted their walls with Hindu deities to prevent people from urinating on their walls because it was happening so often.
	I'm just going to read a little quote from this, I'm not sure where exactly it is, somewhere around here.
	Travelling around the world's largest democracy and you better watch where you are walking as you will find men, and it's almost always men, well that's just the logistics, you know, male biology makes it a lot easier to do this, urinating and spitting everywhere.
	An Indian friend of mine recently joked that it has become a national pastime.
	We will do it anywhere, he said with some pride.
	Why pride?
	Why are you happy about this?
	Isn't Rishi Sunak trying to organise some deal or already has organised some deal to try and import millions of Indians into the country, more so than we already have?
	And of course, all of them are not necessarily going to be urinating everywhere or covering themselves in cow dung.
	Yeah, but they're going to be doing it proudly, those that do.
	That's true.
	I mean, Britons are not exactly ones to judge for public urination.
	If you've ever been in a multi-storey car park and you take the stairs, it's actually rare for it not to stink of urine.
	But they do it when it's quiet or if they're already drunk.
	They don't do it out in public just for the sake of it.
	I'm a public urinator and I'm proud.
	That's getting cut.
	Yep.
	I'm doing that just for the outer context, purely alone.
	No, I'm not actually.
	I don't do that.
	That is a crime.
	Josh wets himself instead.
	That's true.
	I'm doing it right now.
	So, obviously there was the infamous, I believe this was UNICEF, so that's the UN, right?
	They did a whole campaign in 2013 called the Poo in the Loo campaign because India, I think, has toilets but they're not so popular.
	They like the feel of the open air.
	They used to not have toilets was the problem.
	Yes.
	And then they had to build lots and lots of toilets.
	When Modi was elected, one of his promises was a toilet in every household.
	Blimey.
	Yeah.
	Who does he think he is, eh?
	Undermining Indian culture like that.
	Says here, total weight of excreta being open defecated daily in India is 15,000... 1,565 million... something.
	Tons?
	Kilograms?
	I'm not sure we need to know this fact.
	It's 65 million, that's the word is.
	Oh, is 65 million.
	Oh, okay.
	Sorry, it looked like 15... 1,500, sorry.
	So I'm going to quickly go over to this and then go back.
	I never thought the day would come when you would correct me reading out loud.
	You've really grown.
	It's come full circle now.
	It's to such a point that the research papers that have been published, exposure to open defecation can account for the Indian enigma of child height.
	So this says, children in India are shorter than poorer children in Africa, a widely studied puzzle called the Asian Enigma.
	And then I'm going to skip forward and it says the paper's main result computes a demographic projection of the increase in the average height of Indian children if they were counterfactually exposed to Sub-Saharan African sanitation.
	So Sub-Saharan Africa has better sanitation using a non-parametric re-weighted method.
	Don't worry about that.
	But India's projected increase in mean height is at least as large as the gap.
	Indians are very short, seemingly purely because of their lack of sanitation, which I didn't actually know was a thing.
	But um, yeah, that's... I didn't know that exposure to just lots of poo in the streets will make you shorter.
	That's why we're so tall, Harry.
	Yeah.
	Where were you growing up?
	This was a filthy land.
	And yes, this article's title made me laugh.
	All India Pregnant Job Service.
	Indian men conned by impregnating women scam.
	Yeah, I know.
	I think most men are conned by that.
	This notion that you get a woman pregnant and she takes all your stuff.
	It's not actually that.
	It's not the conventional pregnancy scam.
	But it is a scam whereby, of course Indian scammers are prolific, whereby there was a job advertised where the job was you get Indian women pregnant and you get paid a handsome sum for it and
	Some men applied for this because of course they did and yeah they were told that you need to pay a deposit to be able to apply for this job and it got to the point where someone lost over a month's salary because clearly he wasn't thinking with his head that you're paying money to people that there's no guarantee you'll see that money again.
	He was thinking well I can be paid to impregnate women And, uh, yes, this is one of the many, many scams that come out of India, I think.
	So somebody was probably receiving lots of DMs on Facebook and on other social media and thought, hold up, I can make some money from this.
	Exactly.
	And to make things somewhat dark, I know Harry has seen this article before because I presented it quite some time ago, but there are parts of India that still believe in some very primitive things, mainly in the northern, rural, sort of far away places that haven't quite been modernised, I suppose.
	Black Witch Priest in India dismembers four-year-old in sacrifice to find teen's missing cell phone.
	So this is a really, obviously quite horrific.
	I know this is meant to be funny, but I wanted to include this because it's startling and lots of people don't know about it.
	So apparently they found both the arms and head found scattered in a forest.
	And this was the result of a 14 year old girl who lived in the same village, losing her mobile phone and her wanting it back.
	Her parents turned to black magic and believed that if you dismembered a four year old child, you'd be able to find your phone again.
	Did they find the phone?
	Funny enough, I didn't look that part up.
	Callum, if they had, would that have made it all worth it?
	I mean, I'm not saying it would have made it worth it, I'm just saying, you know, it would have had some closure.
	But it's not just a one-off event.
	Here's another example of ritualistic human sacrifice from last year, April of last year.
	Five men arrested and accused of carrying out a ritual human sacrifice at a Hindu temple in India.
	Was this over car keys?
	I'm sorry it was the same people they still haven't found the phone it was an offering to a temple goddess and apparently a 64 year old woman was beheaded jeez Which is pretty horrific.
	And, uh, you know, do you remember actually when people were saying that that Indiana Jones film where he goes Calima and takes out his heart?
	It was racist.
	It's a negative stereotype.
	It depicts them all eating weird bugs and monkey brains.
	And then, yeah, there's the cult ritual aspects of it.
	But I mean, where's the lie?
	It literally happened yesterday, last year.
	I mean, last year wasn't that long ago.
	And finally, the last human sacrifice I'm going to talk about, which is a weird phrase, I never thought I'd say.
	A ten-year-old boy killed by his own family in a human sacrifice ritual.
	So, they did it to help heal another one of their children as well.
	I suppose a ten-year-old boy must have been particularly annoying or something.
	I don't understand why you would murder one of your children to help.
	another one of your children who are sick.
	It seems pretty barbaric to my mind.
	Obviously, it's human sacrifice.
	But yes, I would be remiss to mention this.
	Also, I wanted to talk about bridges, and this one in particular, the Baltimore Bridge Collapse, the all-Indian crew...
	Now this isn't going in the direction you might think it might.
	So six of the crew themselves died and actually when they lost power on the ship, the ship's crew sounded the alarm after they lost propulsion on the ship and actually sounding the alarm alerted local officials that allowed them to stop traffic on the bridge.
	And so obviously there were still some people on the bridge and it's a very horrible thing to happen.
	Um, but through them sounding the alarm quickly, they did prevent more people from getting on the bridge and potentially getting hurt.
	So, um, yeah, beyond any kind of, um, all the explanation that you could have for this, this mainly just does just seem to have been an awful freak accident.
	Yes, and the only reason I'm mentioning this really is that I saw a bunch of people online just trying to put a square peg for a round hole, just like, see this is the decline, this is what happens, you get foreign people coming in, it does just seem like an accident.
	And I don't really like the fact that whenever anything happens it has to be crammed into your ideology.
	Sometimes Things are just accidents, but I'll tell you what could have been prevented.
	A bridge collapsed in India, and then they built it back exactly the same, and then it collapsed again for a second time.
	Which, to my mind, is a bit crazy.
	I don't really understand.
	Did the people designing it not think it was, you know, oh well it didn't work the first time, but the next time if we put a bit of extra spit and elbow grease into it and change nothing, it'll work fine this time?
	I imagine this is corruption.
	Yes, it's pretty rife in India and in fact in researching for this segment I saw an article that said there was a bureaucrat in India that had been moved department 43 times because of his anti-corruption stances, which is ridiculous.
	Just like ping-ponging him around but they can't fire him because he's got dirt on everyone.
	But now on to some things that I like, some quirks about India that I think are fun and funny and is not as depressing as human sacrifice, but actually enjoyable.
	So one thing as well is that I think Buddhists seem relatively nice people.
	I've met a few of them, they're very kind.
	But also this story, Indian businessman dazzles the world with his $230,000 shirt made of real gold.
	And there he is!
	The man himself.
	And do you know why he did this?
	He said, I know I'm not the best looking man in the world, but surely no woman could fail to be dazzled by this shirt.
	Which is... That's the most Indian reason possible for doing something like this.
	It's like Indian women are magpies, you know, if you give them shiny things they'll just become dazed and confused and, you know, maybe you can win them round.
	That's not the most flattering photo either, it looks like he's trying to hypnotise you with his stare.
	I just find the whole thing hilarious.
	This would never happen in Britain, say, with just a regular dude doing this.
	I could see some council out winning the lottery and doing this.
	Maybe, but there's something about it that I find very respectful, even though it's silly.
	Obviously, I'd never do something like this.
	I can't help but admire it.
	I don't know what it is.
	But there's also, this is very wholesome, there's a town of 4,000 people in Shani Chinga Napur, and both the police station, oh, Oh, that's the wrong article, actually.
	I've got it in the wrong order.
	Hang on a minute, Jack.
	Would you be able to pull up the bank?
	It's alright.
	I'll just read it out.
	But basically, there's this village, and they have both a police station and a bank, and they have no locks and no doors, and no one's ever broken out of prison, and no one's ever stolen from the bank.
	So the jail runs on an honor system.
	Yes, and there are 4,000 people here.
	So, you know, I've been poking some fun, but at least they can have, you know, these rural societies.
	I think it's got a god dedicated in town, and that's why people go there.
	But at the same time, it's good to know that there is a sort of high-trust society thing going on there.
	That's something that actually we're losing in the West, and it seems to be that it's at least possible in India.
	But anyway, Onto this story of a government worker who is writing letters to himself, telling himself off.
	He says, Baskar Rao, the Inspector General of Police for Internal Security, was also appointed the Inspector General in charge of training.
	So Rao, as the Inspector General of Police, Internal Security Division, has taken to writing a letter to himself.
	I have to do my work.
	There has to be consistency in correspondence, Raoul told the Deacon Chronicle.
	There are times when I have had to dictate a stern letter to myself because of the delay in response from myself to the other office.
	To himself.
	And this is so hilariously Kafka-esque and bureaucratic that I can't help but admire it.
	It's funny, but the whole thing seems like an exercise and a complete waste of time.
	Almost like all bureaucracy.
	He's making it more inefficient and therefore bringing about its doom.
	So he's Indian Ron Swanson?
	Yes.
	Also, they shoot poachers on site if they hunt tigers.
	They don't ask questions.
	If you're hanging around tigers, you get shot.
	kind of based as if you know a tiger and i presume cows from that story from earlier i i don't think that's immediately shot at the very least but they know better not to do that um but this what this i thought oh this i thought was genius So if I scroll to the start of the thing... Oh, very loud.
	Sorry.
	I don't need the volume.
	But basically, there's a guy on the opposite side of a road and there are people that want to get over the road.
	And so he's got this little wooden ladder and he's accepting money to help a woman over this barrier.
	And so all he needs for this entrepreneurial spirit is a short wooden ladder and the willingness to stand in a road.
	To make money.
	And this is what I feel like the West is missing.
	Go-getting spirit.
	No, this is a traffic hazard, Josh.
	What you're showing me right now is a traffic hazard.
	Traffic laws are just oppression, Harry.
	No, this is stupid.
	I do not support this.
	Do not do this.
	This is a dangerous thing to do for yourself and the drivers.
	What do you think, Callum?
	Is this admirable or is this foolish?
	It's a failure in city planning.
	That's true.
	There you go.
	But I admire his zeal.
	Well actually, it might not be.
	Where is this person filming from?
	A bridge.
	Yeah, he's filming from an elevated position.
	The bus stop is in the middle of the motorway.
	Oh yeah, no, that's true.
	Well, is it or is the bus driver just stopping to let them out?
	I have no idea of how organized any- I don't think they actually have proper bus stops because look, they're just getting out in the middle of- and he's got this ladder set up, he knows what he's up to.
	I suppose so, actually.
	He's got it strategically placed, so either the bus decided to stop because he was already there, or this is just the bus stop.
	Now Callum, this next thing, I've got to pose some questions to you.
	So imagine you live in India, you've got to wash dishes.
	I imagine that's not the best job in the world, is it?
	Washing dishes, particularly for Indian street food, right?
	So, you know, if you were in that position, you wanted to, you know, not wash dishes, what would come to mind?
	Rope.
	That went to a far darker place than I expected.
	What about maybe finding a worker that you didn't have to pay in real money?
	What, monkeys?
	Oh, you've only gone and got it.
	A little monkey fellow, yeah.
	That's quite sweet.
	In India they have, this is Indian street food, don't mind the hygiene of it, but there's a monkey.
	A monkey doing the dishes for them, which, um, you know... A monkey's got a job.
	You know, he's got a family to feed, he's gotta pay his way in life, and, you know, he has a right to work.
	The Indian government, they say mass migration, no thank you, we've got our own labour force we're not taking advantage of.
	Yeah, well, I mean, I think there was a case where the Indian government actually had to intervene in monkey gang rivalries.
	People got caught in the crossfire between gang wars between monkeys.
	Was this like that Simpsons when it's the monkey versus the monkey and they're holding knives?
	Pretty much, yeah.
	But it got so out of hand that they had to move some of the monkeys to a different area.
	They had to basically deport them.
	But no, this is, again, I admire this.
	I want to see more monkeys in the workforce.
	I think it's very important.
	We should be using... We've got lots of untapped skills in our zoos that should be utilised.
	And...
	This is another story that I thought was brilliant.
	Pigeon suspected of being Chinese spy, cleared by Indian police.
	I think this is just genius.
	I'd like to imagine an Indian interrogating the pigeon.
	And the pigeon just going like that.
	Just nodding to everything he says.
	And they're trying to get a confession and they're just like, hang on a minute, but we asked you these questions, but it's not adding up.
	You're just agreeing to everything.
	What's going on?
	And the final thing I wanted to end on because I hope I've sufficiently tortured you, but not quite enough because I have a terrible dad joke from when the story broke.
	Pigeons suspected of being Chinese spy released from prison after eight months.
	That was a long time.
	And I said, was it accused of organizing a coup?
	Yeah, so...
	You're welcome.
	Don't hate on me too much for this.
	And yeah, my point is that India is a very large place and having a sort of carte blanche to have all Indians move to a country might not be the best idea because there's significant cultural differences.
	Some Indians, you know, indistinguishable culturally from your average Brit.
	Some smear themselves in cow dung and sacrifice people.
	So yeah, there is nuance and you're welcome.
	Alright, well moving on.
	Sorry, that went on a bit long.
	Quite a spectrum that you've laid out for us there, Josh.
	Thank you, I hope that the UK government is watching that right now and will inform their migration decisions.
	Alright, so as everybody knows, the Conservatives currently have quite a... everything going on right now?
	We're not doing anything.
	Everything alright?
	Sorry teacher.
	Passing notes.
	Sorry sir.
	You're passing cow poo under the table.
	Have a look.
	Oh my god.
	Yeah, so, as everybody knows, the Conservatives have their very, very exciting campaign going at the moment, which is the Zero Seats campaign.
	They're trying to break some new ground and destroy the party by just attaining zero seats in the next general election, whenever that may be.
	I know that Rishi Sunak was recently talking about how it might be.
	There were rumours that he was going to have it in June or July, and then there were other rumours came out that said that the rest of the Tory cabinet said that if you do that, we will coup you.
	Because nobody wants that because we will die a death at the next elections.
	But don't worry, Conservatives, you're well on track to die a death anyway.
	And there was this amazing campaign video that was promoted by our friend Nima Parvini, the academic agent, which I assume he got from the behind the scenes at the Conservative Party headquarters.
	And it includes some pretty brilliant and telling things about the Conservative Party.
	This is a joke, by the way, but just in case, I thought I'd let everybody know.
	No, this is a real campaign video.
	This isn't a real campaign video.
	If we just get it here, here's a nice summation of 14 years of Tory rule.
	I think that speaks for itself.
	But if I skip as well, we can get a nice little idea of where the campaign is going.
	Still some of you who vote for us.
	It is you, our voters, who we find the most disgusting.
	Excellent use of AI.
	It really is an excellent use of AI because I feel like this may have been generated by, you know, a memester out there, but I can only assume it was generated by a memester who had deep knowledge of the inner workings of the Tory cabinet's mind.
	As a collective unit, they have a spiritual and mental space that they go to, and this was gleaned from taking an astral projection spiritual journey into that and just finding that they hate us.
	They despise us in every way, especially those of you who are still voting Tory for some reason after every betrayal, one after the other.
	I thought it would be important to talk about this because, of course, in the past we've gone on about the Turkish Barber situation.
	We've done some segments about it in the past and I was very surprised when I went on YouTube to look at this to find it almost has 400,000 views because I guess a lot of people in Britain are going around their local town centre and thinking, Why are there Turkish barbers everywhere?
	But it's not just a phenomenon that is specific to Turkish barbers.
	We have a range of other shops and accommodations that you'll find in your average British town centre these days, which includes this.
	The Vapes and Candy Shop with bongs proudly on display in the front and center.
	We have... That's neither a vape nor a candy though.
	Bottles of Prime, horrible low-priced sweets to send your children insane with, and this is one of the things that I think sums up the view of Tory Britain.
	This is the high cultural watermark of Tory Britain.
	All of your... well, this is the culmination of 60 to 70 years of piss-poor governance in this country.
	The word candy is not British.
	We call it sweets.
	Yes, they're sweets.
	Also, it comes from Arabic.
	It's the Arabic for sugary sweet, but it's been re-imported to Britain via America and American entertainment.
	But it's very grating to the British ear.
	That's because they're not selling British sweets, they're selling American candy.
	Yes.
	They import American goods and then double or triple the price and then don't actually sell them because it's a front for money laundering.
	Hmm.
	Shock.
	Yeah.
	Big shock.
	Yeah, that's that's the big thing in the Turkish barber segment.
	we spoke about how the British police have actively looked into at least Turkish barbers as a front for criminal activities, because one of the things that you'll notice about them is you'll walk through the town center and there'll be a row of five or six of them, and only one of them will have any customers.
	And you wonder to yourself, these have been around for at least a year now in my town.
	How do they stay open when they don't get any customers?
	Well, it's because they'll be keeping a second set of books that are lying.
	And those are the books that they'll present for tax because it's money laundering from...
	Same with things like this.
	One of the other things you'll see is that this is a phone repair shop as well.
	It seems to double up unless it's next door that's a phone repair shop, because the average look of your British town these days looks like this.
	It's an empty shop, empty shop, empty shop, Turkish barber, Turkish barber, vape shop, American candy.
	Yeah, American candy, phone repair.
	Betting shop, pound shop.
	Betting shop.
	In some places even the pound shops are closing down.
	Things have got to get really bad.
	Yep.
	We're gonna get 50p shops.
	And then maybe a nail salon as well, which is basically the same, probably the same money laundering scheme just by a different ethnic group.
	That's just the whole makeup world is a money laundering scheme.
	Yes, and of course, as I mentioned, those empty shops to begin with, take all of those shops that I gave you and just intersperse lots of empty units and empty shops, because most British town centres that I've been to recently are beginning to look like desolate wastelands.
	It's pretty awful, but there's other features that you can expect if you're visiting your average British town, which is outside of the town centre, there may be a retail park With lots of big brand shops on it, maybe a Next, a TK Maxx, a Curry's PC World, for instance.
	That's where most people would be going to shop these days, and there'll also probably be a supermarket or two nearby that'll sell all of the main things.
	But it means that the high street, what used to be the center of economic activity in any town, and a place of cultural activity as well, because there would be local shops selling non-essential items, selling you textiles, selling you lots of things, knickknacks, antique shops, that will have vanished.
	In my hometown, for instance, there was a sweet shop that had been open for about 100 years.
	So non-essential, but it was all really nice.
	I don't know if they were locally produced, but very British sweets.
	Gone.
	In the blink of an eye, just overnight, just bam, out of business.
	Well, the problem here is that there's a view from particularly local councils that we can follow in the American model's footsteps of, you have this great big shopping mall that's an attraction, and sure they do get attention, but also...
	Britain is not organised.
	Our buildings are not built around this model.
	America has lots of big roads.
	Any Americans that have to drive in Britain will notice a difference immediately.
	America is designed around the car in a way that Britain is not.
	Britain was designed around the horse and cart, really.
	in a lot of places, particularly urban places where their street layout hasn't changed.
	Yes.
	And therefore it's impractical to have everything based around driving.
	In lots of towns as well, you can see images of Swindon from about 100 years ago where they've got tram systems going through, which from my experience in places like Manchester are far more reliable and consistently on time than other public transport systems that you can get like the bus or...
	Or even the train, in many cases these days.
	Those were torn up so that you could make way for roads, so that you could Americanise all of the town centres.
	But what do we have in the town centres now?
	We have these and empty storefronts.
	And it's miserable, because it's all for convenience, this idea that, oh, you have the big retail shopping centre, you have one supermarket where you can get everything.
	But the convenience means that the place you end up living in is miserable.
	It's just a place where these people can launder their money and big massive brands can make a load of money and employ lots of local people at the absolute minimum wage.
	There is an aesthetic component to living in a British town which is vanishing.
	Very, very quickly.
	And I wanted to examine exactly why this is, because it's very, very easy, and we're probably guilty of this, to attribute everything to a kind of monocausal thesis of just saying, well, a lot of it's to do with migration.
	And obviously, migration Mass migration is what's causing these to pop up, because they are fronts for foreign criminal activity in a lot of cases, and you will go into every single one and find that they are to a man staffed by foreigners.
	So they're caused by that, but what's the cause for the towns emptying out in the first place?
	Because that's something that isn't purely a result of this.
	It's probably got something to do with it, but I thought I would look at some of the other causes.
	Because, once again, there's lots of trouble going on in the country.
	Here's one right here, an article that I got from just a few days ago that's talking about, well, just a few weeks ago, talking about how there was 14 store closures a day in the UK, leading overall to 5,000 fewer shops.
	So this was large-scale retail restructuring and administrations such as Wilco's led to a net of 14 store closures a day last year, with 5,000 fewer shops now trading across the UK.
	So obviously Wilko's is a bigger brand, it was one of the more centralised supermarket chains where it would push out lots of the local grocers, butchers, and places like that because it's... well, not necessarily butchers, I don't know if they sold food in Wilko's, but it would push out local shops.
	But still, it does mean that what you get in replacing it is nothing.
	Well, one thing that I found interesting about Swindon is there was a Marks and Spencer's in the centre of Swindon, which was where I'd get my food because it was actually edible.
	It's closed down because there are all of these different ethnic shops.
	You've got a food shop for every ethnicity under the sun in Swindon, but not one for me.
	I don't want Nepalese-specific cuisine, or I've got to go to the Polish shop and not even be able to read the labels because it's not in English.
	You know, it's just frustrating that I want to be able to buy my own food from my own country.
	You are right.
	We do get a wide variety of ethnic food shops that are all specific to themselves.
	And I would imagine what's causing that is all of those people in that ethnic group purely shop there.
	Well, of course.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So across a lot of northern towns, for instance, you do get a lot of Polish shops selling Polish food that only Polish people go to.
	So they're able to sustain themselves.
	I normally go to the Polish shop if I have to because at least it's similar to the food I'm used to.
	Yes, but it says here an average of 39 chain outlets closed each day while 25 new ones opened with a total of 14,081 store closures in 2023 overall, despite an increase in store openings dominated by the likes of fast food sites and coffee shops.
	So at least we've got an abundance of fast food and coffee because we didn't already have enough of that.
	High profile collapses such as Wilco, Paper Chase and Lloyd's Pharmacy resulted in more closures than openings according to research from LDC and accounting firm PWC.
	So once again, what was causing a lot of this?
	And one of the first things to go in a lot of the town centres was what I was talking about.
	Those local shops run by independent entrepreneurs often kept within the family.
	What was the thing that drove them out at first?
	Well, it was probably the supermarkets.
	The supermarkets generally, because they centralized all of the shopping and were able to spread the costs and sell things at much lower costs than all of the local shops could, pushed out a lot of the places that just couldn't compete with it.
	And you may say, oh, well, this is great for convenience.
	This is great for being able to get all your shopping done at one place at a lower cost.
	But it does mean that the character of the local town and the people in the local town get less variety and less options overall.
	And once again, the character of these places gets destroyed when everywhere becomes a place where you get a Morrison's, a Tesco and an Asda.
	That's what it is.
	And in this paper, this paper is from 2005, so things will have changed since then, especially with online shopping, meaning that instead of even going to a brick-and-mortar shop, you'll be able to just order all of your groceries online instead.
	But I think this says something about the situation as it was back then that explains how we got to right now.
	So from this one from 2005, it mentioned in the first page, it says, Tesco at the time took in one in every three pounds spent in the UK in 2005.
	Wow, that's loads.
	Yeah, quite a domination of the market, if that's the case.
	The number of superstores in the UK rose from 733 to 1,147 between 1990 and 1998.
	Smaller independent shops were struggling to compete with the buying power and aggressive pricing policies of this big supermarket.
	In 1995, there were 230,000 banks, post offices, pubs, grocers and corner shops in Britain, By 2002, there were 185,000.
	So in the course of seven years, that's a decrease of 20%.
	That's pretty enormous.
	By dominating food sales, they take away the choice to shop in traditional shops such as greengrocers and butchers, make it hard for the new schemes to start and expand, and by targeting non-food shops, it could take away the choice to visit a thriving town centre.
	Several companies, in particular Sainsbury's and Tesco, are also buying up independent convenience stores, so you just come into a local area, you buy up all of your competition.
	And once again, you can say there's convenience to this and that people are choosing to go to these supermarkets, so they're making that choice, but There's also some of the underhanded tactics they were taking.
	So they were saying here, supermarkets were using very aggressive tactics to remove local competitors.
	The Proudfoot chain in North Yorkshire was a long-established local business, and when Tesco opened a store in Withernsea, they sent money off vouchers to local households, giving them 40% savings at Tesco.
	Ian Proudfoot, owner of Proudfoot Stores, asked the Office of Fair Trading to investigate claiming that Tesco was trying to put him out of business, but the OFT saw nothing wrong in Tesco's behavior.
	Recent reports suggest that they were repeating this approach in several cities with discount offers to customers.
	Local retailers are angry at what they say is an aggressive, anti-competitive tactic.
	Even successful businesses can struggle to compete against such activities.
	Because of course, once again, they can spread out all the costs across all of their chains and they can take a loss For a short time if they know that these aggressive tactics are going to run you out of business, so they don't have to worry about the competition after a certain time span.
	We've talked about this before, haven't we?
	When we were talking about anti-trust lawsuits and corporate competition.
	And Tesco's isn't even cheap anymore.
	Well, yeah, that's the thing.
	As inflation has come by and everything has got more expensive, Tesco isn't the same cost-cutting business that it once was.
	It might be cheaper than your local options, but that's only because they're under the same economic pressures to push all of their prices up.
	It goes on, in 2004, small grocery shops had a turnover of around £21 billion because it talks about the employment because oftentimes when they're trying to get into the local councils, these places would say, oh, we'll create lots of employment opportunities.
	So the small grocery shops, these will be the independents, total turnover, £21 billion, employed more than 500,000 people.
	Big supermarket chains had bigger sales.
	Tesco alone had a turnover of £29 billion, yet only employed around 770,000 people.
	So once again, the automation of it, the convenience, the fact that it's all localized and centralized into that one shop means that actually you're not getting more employment.
	You're probably getting, if you were to even it out, average it out, less employment per capita when it comes to these shops than you are with your local chains.
	And also I can only imagine that's got far worse since they've introduced things like self-service and they've automated a load of the other systems because in 2005 we weren't as developed on those fronts as we are today.
	And they also go on to say supermarkets can use aggressive tactics to get their own way with councils as well.
	On paper there are often grounds for local authorities to refuse permission for a new supermarket, but supermarket chains succeed because they have such large resources at their disposal.
	Threats of legal appeals can frighten cash-strapped councils to giving in.
	In the case of Sheringham, North Norfolk, Tesco has taken eight years to win approval against a determined campaign by local people opposed to the superstore.
	In other cases, Tesco prepares the ground, purchases land, and gets agreement with council officials well before it seeks planning permission, making it hard to refuse.
	So lots of just kind of underhanded, dishonorable tactics.
	Alan Partridge is gutted.
	North Norfolk.
	Yeah, I bet.
	But I do want to say, this doesn't mention some of the benefits of having the supermarkets in your local area if they are just outside of the town centre.
	Obviously, I've gone on to list a load of the negatives, but there were some benefits that could have from just having a brick-and-mortar supermarket open up next to your local town centre, which is oftentimes, in fact, nine times out of ten, they will have free parking.
	And that free parking is typically for about three hours.
	What the councils hate, they hate giving people free parking, which often really frustrates the local shops in those areas because it means that people are less likely to park up for a long time.
	Go into the shops and buy things.
	It's almost like inefficient governance stifles economic growth.
	I know.
	And it means that at least people have an opportunity to park up somewhere convenient and go into the town centre and visit the shops.
	And some places said about how, you know, they would be able to... It did bring in slightly more business for certain shops if a supermarket opened nearby.
	Obviously, I would assume if you're offering a service or product that the supermarket wasn't.
	So that's that's one thing and that was something from 2005 and the effects of supermarkets have already come and gone because now we've moved into a different age and we have online shopping which has been another massive hit to local business because As you can see here from this graph, this is going on in the US, but I would imagine that this effect is somewhat universal.
	This was if a fulfilment centre was established near your area.
	Now, the fulfilment centres, if you're getting things delivered by post, just make it so that it's easier to get things delivered by post, hence they improve the ability of you to shop online.
	Unless you live in an apartment complex in Swindon, then you have your neighbours nick your post.
	Well, that's a very... I was going to say, that's something that you both experience.
	I haven't had post for like two years.
	Really?
	It just gets stolen, so there's no point.
	I haven't had a letter in months.
	All right.
	But this one shows that the effects of the local fulfillment center making it easier for online shopping to happen means that the change in local brick and mortar sales reduced by, what was that, over the course of 48 months, almost 12%.
	Which I would imagine for some shops is going to be the make or break between whether you're able to stay open.
	And the next one, we have one of the big things, one of the big ones outside of just supermarkets, e-commerce.
	What's the big thing that happened in the past four or five years that you would say probably put lots of business out.
	What took them out?
	Locking everyone up in their house.
	Yeah.
	Shockingly, locking everybody up in their homes and making it so that only certain shops are able to stay open.
	Because one of the things that you'll remember is that there were essential businesses, essential retail.
	And what did these include?
	They included retail such as food shops, supermarkets, pharmacies, garden centers, building merchants, and suppliers of building products and off licenses.
	Now, you could say there's some leeway, but mostly that ended up just being the big supermarkets were able to stay open.
	I'm personally amazed that there haven't been more conspiracy theories suggesting that Amazon funded the Wuhan lab.
	I wouldn't be shocked either.
	Because of course it was the big supermarkets, they were allowed to stay open, and online shopping was still allowed to go ahead.
	You still had people coming to your door.
	The delivery times were maybe a little bit longer, but you had people coming to your door to deliver things.
	So this was a massive wealth transfer to those people who were at the top of those businesses.
	We saw that just the wealthiest people in the world gained the most money they had ever gained in such a short period of time throughout the COVID times.
	And it's not surprising because anybody who was looking to spend their money was basically forced to funnel all of their spending into a very narrow range of services where they could get them from the supermarkets, the online shopping that was still open, and this put lots and lots of businesses, it put a lot of them down.
	And there is also some more stuff here.
	In January 2021, online sales in the UK had grown by 74% year-on-year.
	The latest figure, and this is from once again, this is from 2021 May, this article.
	During these months, Britain spent an astonishing £93 billion online.
	Globally, new users are responsible for driving up 50% of the increases in online activities.
	Once again, you make it so they have no option.
	People who may have only been spending their money at the local shops They have to go there instead.
	Similarly, in the UK alone, 46% of customers have purchased a product online during the pandemic that previously they had only ever bought in store.
	And here's a nice fun one.
	11,000 new restaurants joined Deliveroo in 2020, and of these, 7,400 were small businesses.
	So the foreign takeaways who are employing illegal migrants to deliver your food using Uber Eats and Deliveroo, they were booning.
	They at least, they were having a massive boom during this period.
	So that's great.
	And we can take a look at the US figures as well.
	Dan recommended I look at this particular website, Visual Capitalist.
	I've used this one before, yeah.
	The historic US job losses from COVID, 22 million during the great lockdowns of 2020, which you can see here in comparison to all of the other massive job losses that had happened in the past 50 or so years in America.
	It massively outdoes any of them.
	I think if you add all of those up, you only get maybe about half of the overall job losses that happened in the U.S.
	during lockdowns.
	And here's the cost, the economic costs of COVID in the U.S.
	$16.2 trillion.
	And here's the costs of post 9-11 wars, comparatively.
	Wow.
	We can destabilize the Middle East for cheaper than locking down our own country?
	We could destabilize the Middle East almost three times over for the cost of one national lockdown.
	We could destabilize it three times?
	Wow.
	Well, almost.
	Almost three times.
	I don't want that to happen, by the way.
	No, neither do I, but that just goes to show how much it costs.
	Which is absolutely ridiculous.
	And now, we're in the post-lockdown period, everything else has been going wrong as well.
	You've got the war in Ukraine, you've got massive levels of inflation, you've got the energy crisis due to the sanctions that we put on Russia, which have also been putting businesses down.
	Personal finance company NerdWallet recently surveyed 500 UK small business owners to see how they're responding to the energy bill crisis.
	Majority reported having already made cost-cutting measures, including 43% who had to cut spending in training and development, so if you couldn't get worse service.
	38% who put a freeze on hiring, so that's going to put strain on those shops.
	25% who have been forced to let existing staff go, so there's people out of jobs.
	And then if those don't work, you go out of business.
	And once again, all the meanwhile, Uber Eats and Deliveroo kept afloat by the UK government importing millions and millions of people into the country every single year who can keep those places staffed, which is brilliant.
	And then also there's been rents.
	Same problem that everybody in the UK has with costs going up all the time, including cost of living space, also cost of business.
	is going up with rents.
	Looking ahead, they say in this report here, this is from October 2023, 2024, we expect the rate of increases in some operating costs will slow, which means they're still going up, but just slower.
	It's the same as when they try and sell you that inflation is going down.
	Well, actually, the rate of inflation is going down.
	Prices are still going up.
	Medium-term challenges, such as the cost of decarbonizing both their store network or, more expensively, their entire supply chain, will drag on retailers' enthusiasm for new store because Net Zero has a part to play in all of this.
	In more positive news for landlords, our data on both headline and net effect of rent suggests a return to upward pressure on rents in Q3 2023.
	So that's great if you're a landlord getting money from it, but for any businesses trying to stay open in the country, you're screwed because everything is getting more expensive, you're feeling the squeeze, your businesses are going out, and then you have to close.
	And what replaces them?
	Well, let's go back to what this all started with...
	This is why you get all of these.
	This is what makes space for your awful, hideous, turkish barber.
	Turko-barbo.
	Yeah, so I know this hasn't been a particularly fun segment, but I thought I'd just give you a nice rundown of a lot of the economic pressures that mean that your high street is dead, hideous, and full of foreigners.
	What a lovely day.
	What a beautiful day, though.
	You were horrified at my cow excrement segment, but now... Now it's lovely.
	Virtually, virtually glorious.
	Yeah.
	So, let's try and have some fun instead.
	Yes.
	Vice News is dead.
	It's gone.
	Hooray!
	It's over.
	Which, um... I think, yeah.
	Come on, Harry.
	Appreciate it.
	Hooray!
	You did it!
	You were so awful, you're gone!
	Anyway, if you wonder what the hell I'm talking about, you may remember a while back we were talking about Vice.
	For people who haven't heard of Vice before, here's a quick rundown.
	They used to do, once upon a time, the best stuff on the internet, in my opinion.
	Yes.
	As you can see, this is a video from Shane 12 years ago, going to North Korea, which at the time was bloody legendary, to go there with a camera and film.
	That just wasn't a thing you would do.
	And then, speaking of things you wouldn't do, they also decided to go and meet ISIS!
	Did they become friends?
	You're the one that does that sort of stuff now, aren't you?
	Yeah.
	But at the time, it was groundbreaking.
	I mean, this was nine years ago.
	It was unbelievable.
	I mean, the ISIS one is actually still unbelievable because nobody has done that since, because Jesus Christ, do you want to die?
	And the point being that they made their wealth of respect to the point where they were actually responsible for the negotiations for Dennis Rodman going to North Korea.
	It was actually a Vice News guy who orchestrated that.
	Vice are the ones that sorted that out.
	Vice facilitated Dennis Rodman's BFF relationship with Kim Jong Un.
	Massive influence, massive respect from a lot of people being like, good lord they do interesting stuff, and a huge fan base of people who are interested in things like this.
	And then instead of course, Vice went a different route, because of course the name is meant to mean the edgy stuff, the sins.
	And someone at Vice News was like, what if I look at dildos in Venezuela that transsexuals are using?
	And everyone was like, why?
	I remember doing a segment talking about that sort of stuff when they announced they're in financial trouble and laid a bunch of staff off.
	Yeah, because it's fun to be like, hey, what if we do interesting things?
	But also, if it's still vice but uninteresting, then it's not that cool.
	It's actually kind of cringe.
	And that leads to this news.
	As you can see, this story is a month old.
	As they say here, Vice Media to be laying off hundreds of workers and to stop publishing on its site.
	And this is the news, the website.
	It's gone!
	It's still there, but nothing new getting put on it, and that's the funny thing.
	And this whole story completely passed me by, because I was paying attention back when they were trying to sell the bloody thing, and nobody wanted to buy it because it was crap.
	And I'm not sure what's happening there.
	I think they actually have now fallen through with the buyer they wanted to buy their company.
	And now they're just kind of fucked.
	Which, hey!
	The chat had a good suggestion that Tim Pool and Gavin McInnes come together.
	Rebuy it.
	Yeah.
	Take it back over.
	Make it great again.
	But you'd just be buying the trademark at that point because you'd have to fire every member of staff.
	Oh, yeah.
	It'd get better.
	Yeah, well, that's a bonus.
	For people who don't know, the reason being because, well, they used to be cool, you know, Gavin McGinnis, one of the co-founders, and they just got overrun with leftists doing mad stuff.
	So they say here in the article, the guy who runs the place, he's saying, as you know, we are in advanced discussions to sell this business, and we are continuing with that process.
	We expect to announce more on that in the coming weeks.
	And then didn't.
	We should start a crowdfund and buy out Vice just for a laugh.
	What are we going to do with it?
	Just buy the building and then blow it up.
	Livestream it.
	That would get a lot of eyes, to be honest.
	It would, yeah.
	It turns out there's a vice union.
	Because of course, being leftists, they all unionise.
	Which is weird, when you don't produce anything of value.
	So here's the union in question.
	Wait a second.
	So much effort went into designing.
	Zoom in.
	Wait a moment.
	I see where things may have gone wrong here.
	That's a lot of women, isn't it?
	I wasn't talking about that, Josh.
	What's wrong with you?
	Gavin McInnes.
	They say here, Vice Union stands in solidarity with our laid-off colleagues who helped make this company what it was, but no longer is.
	All right.
	They went on to say, as has been with previous layoffs, Vice has once again dedicated to letting go of the very same people who work tirelessly to turn it into a respected award-winning media company.
	Gavin Kinness.
	What?
	Bit of an err on that one.
	Because, um, who?
	Name them.
	Because I'm willing to bet that the people who did the ISIS doc are not the same people who are writing the modern content, at least on the website.
	Because as you can see here, they haven't published since this announcement, all this has just stayed the same.
	Because I occasionally check in here to see if they've written something mad that I can enjoy for a segment.
	I'll just read you some of the headlines, and we'll see whether or not the people who did the old stuff might be the people doing this stuff.
	We had Vice is gone, BuzzFeed News died the other year, what's next?
	The Guardian?
	Where are we going to get our lolcal articles from?
	I don't know, it's going to be tough.
	We're going to have to become the lolcals.
	We already are.
	Yeah, that's true.
	So here's the articles they write at Vox.
	So we'll start off with an oral history of Marge vs. the monorail, the episode that changed the Simpsons.
	I need people to explain analysis of Simpsons episodes to me.
	Oral history.
	Next article that popped out to me was aid workers that one Australian killed in Gaza.
	Alright.
	Next one, deep throating for beginners.
	That one sounds interesting.
	That last one sounded like, you know, possibly actual news.
	The fact that, you know, aid workers and some random Australian guy had been killed in Gaza after delivering food.
	That's news.
	You're sharing shelf space with... Yeah, deep throating for beginners.
	Next one popped out to me was The Soul Food Royalty of Brooklyn.
	GG's Fish and Chips.
	It's just a story about some guys that open a restaurant that's quite good, maybe.
	Okay, maybe.
	Fish and chips though.
	What is the UNRWA, the Palestinian Aid Agency, and what does it do?
	Okay, that's real news.
	Possibly, again, that's a real analysis.
	The next one, what is the twink handler relationship?
	I asked a bunch of twinks and their handlers.
	Did Connor write for that?
	Maybe.
	Who?
	Who's, like, curating all of this?
	Who's in charge of the content curation of Vice that says these two things?
	Yep, this is a good brand image.
	Well, that Twink story is right next to, Hmm.
	There's a running theme, it's just like, Western Degeneracy, Gaza.
	Western Degeneracy, Gaza.
	Okay.
	I mean, the last one that jumped out to me was, what being a vapid socialite taught me about people.
	Which, um...
	Point being, it's crap.
	All of this is crap.
	At least, much more honest than I would expect.
	Yeah, that's your whole agency, my friend.
	It's all your friends.
	It seems to be the entire production staff of your website, if nothing else.
	But the funniest one that jumped out to me, which illustrates a broader problem with such things, which is they know how unprofitable they are, writing such garbage.
	So there's this one.
	What I know about the average penis size from sleeping with more men than I can count, What did you find out?
	That's a hell of a headline.
	That's actually interesting.
	I have an idea of how these kinds of writers got signed on to Vice.
	Well, they were very talented.
	This one is anonymous.
	Whoever the editor was might have said, deep throating for beginners.
	Well, if we can get some practical demonstrations, I might take you on.
	We've only got experts at our company.
	As for this local whore, the reason is by anonymous as well, for God's sake.
	That group can't keep on getting away with it.
	I'll save you the click.
	What she found out is that a penis that fits her vagina perfectly is the perfect one because then it's not too big, not too small.
	Goldilocks in action.
	That's not what Goldilocks was about.
	One could say Goldie Cox.
	Anyway, but the important thing, the reason I bring this up is not just Haha Penis, it's because if you scroll down, this article is sponsored by Durex.
	This is why this shit exists.
	Literally, Durex are paying them to write about having lots of cock.
	Because they want you to go out and have lots of cock.
	How to be a whore, according to a whore.
	Vibrator, the countdown cock.
	I made my own DIY birth control by pushing my balls into my body.
	What?
	Quick, Callum, click on it.
	You're sharing self-space.
	No.
	Like, look at this shit.
	Free birth control, man.
	How to become a whore, male prostitute is sharing self-space with the best documentary I've ever watched, which is the Islamic State.
	Which they just went and met the Islamic State.
	All the people are in here just being like, you know, this is all fun and games until YouTube asks you to confirm twice, because it gets a warning if you click on it.
	It's like, are you over 18?
	Are you really sure you want to watch this?
	Yeah, you do, because it's good content.
	It's incredible.
	I mean, 16 million views on that one.
	I don't know, Callum.
	I want to learn about the guy who pushed his balls up in his body.
	I don't think I got 16 million views.
	Just saying.
	I got 160 million views.
	I didn't read it that much, Dan.
	But if you go and check out the video content, it's kind of just as short, if nothing else.
	So this is, I can ruin a person's life for $1,000.
	10 questions with a Bolivian witch.
	I can do it for nothing.
	Also, who gives a shit?
	I mean, you can see the dislikes on this.
	How many views did this one get?
	Uh, 78k.
	That's a hell of a drop.
	On a channel with 18 million subs.
	I mean, it's from 7 days ago, but still.
	Top comment, can she bring Vice back to life?
	So, so... So, Vice is just a YouTube channel now.
	Yeah, they've given up on the bigger website entirely.
	They've got rid of all the stuff for it because they were too busy worrying about how much cock they've taken and weirdly enough they didn't pay the bills.
	But you compare it to that, the secret sex parties of the mega rich that's got 18 million views.
	That was two years ago.
	Interesting.
	Eyes wide shut, isn't it?
	Sort of, with a mask.
	Deep throating thing I mentioned.
	Turns out that was actually a big old series they did here, as you can see.
	Oh no.
	In which they hired a female porn star and a transsexual porn star to tell you about what it's like being a woman, which...
	Yeah, there's a reason it got so many dislikes.
	It's not just because people are like, I don't like sex, I'm talking about sex, it's because it's mad.
	The whole project was mad from the get-go.
	And, uh, yeah.
	Most people are just like, what the hell is this?
	Because it's just silly.
	This is two months ago, so when Vice knew that they were going to have to restructure that whole business, and they needed to get something to hook people back on so they could save themselves, they go, quick!
	Get in touch with the porn stars!
	Yeah.
	Um, point being, it's crap.
	He's just crap.
	You see, if you make crap, funnily enough, you don't get to keep a job.
	I mean, I love someone, yeah, the top comment here.
	Thank you, my landlord just doubled the price.
	This is just what I needed.
	So, you know, there's some good memes in it somewhere.
	But the point being, yeah, if you don't make stuff worth watching, you don't have business and left a shithole.
	Not funny.
	Not profitable.
	Kind of annoying, actually.
	So, there's that.
	Whereas if you go and did the interesting stuff, you would have had a lot of quiche at the end of it.
	But back to that Guardian article, because it turns out it's not just Vice.
	Everyone in that scene is getting killed.
	They say here, in recent weeks, the media industry has gone through sweeping layoffs, with major cuts at NowThis and The Intercept.
	In a statement last week, NowThis Union revealed that 50% of it workers had been laid off.
	15 at the intercept.
	Did you say IT workers as in IT?
	No, it's workers.
	I forgot the S. Speech.
	Yeah, they also say the New Yorker, Vogue, Wired, Vanity Fair and Architectural Digest.
	I don't know why that got thrown in.
	Architectural Digest, no!
	Yeah, they lost 5% of their employees.
	Vox Media is down 4% after slashing it already by 7%.
	Didn't they replace some of their writers by AI and then the standards actually improved?
	Yeah, and then they realize maybe we should get rid of the rest of the bloody losers.
	And now this I mentioned in there.
	You may have heard of them before.
	Oh, sorry, before I go on, I must mention, of course, for people who don't know, or five of you, advice when they're not writing that garbage about deep throating or witches.
	They make stuff like this, which is just an attack piece on Libs of TikTok because she reposts what liberals say.
	Yeah.
	Funnily enough, people don't want to subscribe for that.
	It's just dishonest crap.
	But getting back to NowThis, because I mentioned it's a wider problem.
	Do you know NowThis?
	Are you familiar with NowThis?
	I have actually seen some of the videos before, yeah.
	I've seen a huge amount of them because, well, I think they used to do a whole lot of other stuff.
	And well, then they just kind of blew up making short form stuff before short form was popular.
	So they sort of ridden the wave there.
	I didn't know how they started.
	If you go and check it, they started as a shill for Ben and Jerry's.
	Which I find weird.
	That's a very strange way to start a company, isn't it?
	It's like, yes, we like ice cream that makes you fat.
	Yeah, but clearly they've got paid for those adverts, that's what they've made there.
	But right from the get-go as well, that's weird.
	But they're the leftist outlet, just like Vice there, who take corporate sponsorships to keep themselves afloat.
	That's actually quite rare with right-wingers, I find.
	Usually they're kind of organic, whereas these things are not organic.
	I mean, if you go and check it out... Their ice cream's probably not organic either.
	No, they have millions and millions of pounds in just several series of funding.
	I mean, look, if you say, if you read the Wikipedia article, there's even series D funding.
	They've got 16 mil to go and make videos.
	And what did they make?
	Uh, lots and lots of shorts, which should we take a look at the viewership?
	2,000, 3,000, 3,000, 2,000, 3,000, 6,000.
	This isn't worth £16,000,000.
	It's not.
	It's just silly.
	It's not even worth £1,000,000, is it?
	No.
	I mean, whoever is employed here doesn't actually have a job.
	They're just living off someone else's money, if nothing else.
	Which is probably why they cut half their staff.
	You could just be a person in a house somewhere making videos and do better than this on the regular.
	I mean... You'd make better stuff.
	You'd get better views.
	Your videos, Callum, do better than this, and you're just a person.
	I'm just some dick with a laptop.
	That sounded really dismissive, I'm sorry.
	No, I am, I'm just some guy.
	I like that.
	But anyway, I'm gonna go back to the history, because the history is just funny.
	For a leftist outlet that burns money.
	Of course, they just started out as being shit, because they're founded by, what is it, Huffington Post people?
	And if you scroll down, it's like controversies.
	It's just a whole list of them lying, or not caring about copyright law, and then just getting in trouble with CNN, for example.
	Because it's that Twitter scumbag thing, where they'll take someone else's video, shove their logo over the old person's logo.
	Content farm style.
	And be like, now this, this is happening.
	So you're just a thief.
	You're just a thief.
	I forget what it was.
	Do you know the guy Dom Lucre?
	I think he pops up on Twitter all the time.
	He's a Content Farm style guy who puts out other people's videos and puts his own logo on them.
	I forget whose video it was, but he just took like, I think it was maybe a Donald Trump video or some big political actor's video and just put his own watermark on it and shared it out like it was his.
	Yeah, you're a prick.
	It's basically the Ian Miles Chong of YouTube there.
	Are you just stealing people's videos?
	It's not good.
	It's just annoying.
	I'm going to try and fact check myself on that because I don't want to spread misinformation.
	Well good, you won't get a job for now this.
	But if you're wondering as well, because I've just been around a lot while looking at these things.
	A lot of other people remember TestTube or Seeker Daily.
	It turns out that now this brought them and killed them.
	So as you can see here, this is Seeker Plus.
	The point being that basically a whole bunch of channels they just brought up and then ran them into the ground with leftist garbage to the point that nobody was watching it.
	So they bought all of these channels and just ruined them?
	Yeah, you can't find TestTube anymore, it's deleted, the whole channel.
	And this one I found, just to make the point, even if you scroll down on this one and then read the comments, just people being like, how many channels do you need?
	Because they just kept expanding with these stupid channels pointing out, well, videos that get 3,000 views.
	Because it's all just, the GOP have done this!
	So don't care.
	You're not adding to my life at all.
	You're actually being annoying.
	Just noise.
	Just background noise.
	Like Occupy Democrats.
	It's just not sincere, for no reason, and just trying to farm clicks for your person who's not interesting and doesn't really have a job.
	But anyway, that's my point being that Vice News is dead.
	Now this is dead.
	Vogue's dead.
	I mean, they're all dying.
	Sorry, I did find it to correct myself.
	It was not a video of Donald Trump.
	So, Dom Lucre took a video that The Rock had posted on his social media a few years ago because he's got daughters and they decided to do what daughters do and try and make their daddy be all girly.
	So they like put a wig on him and they put a load of makeup on his face and he shared it out as like a cute thing that he was doing with his daughters and Dom Lucre shared that out put his own watermark at the end of the video and puts developing Dwayne the Rock Johnson has been criticized by his fans for letting his daughters put a wig on him and cover him in makeup.
	I'm surprised he didn't say like he's become trans or something.
	Yeah, but that's the thing, it's trying to make it sound like it's the whole trans panic thing, which is, you know, there is actually a lot of bad stuff going on in that direction.
	Let's not sensationalize The Rock doing something cute with his daughters.
	You're just being gawker.
	Yeah.
	Which they also died, funnily enough.
	It turns out being a scumbag is not a good way in long-term running of a business.
	Oh yeah, isn't it?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Vice found it the hard way, and now they did.
	Which, um, good.
	Good.
	If anyone deserves to die, it's companies like that.
	So, there we are.
	Let's go to the video comments.
	Going over the examples of the 11 or 12 signs of a fallen empire, honestly, I don't think it's nearly as bad as it is because all the stagnation is being gatekept.
	So therefore, it is artificial.
	It's not real.
	Real stagnation, real decline is what I'll be more worried about.
	But it's all being just gatekept.
	If we can just get past the gatekeepers, then something real and organic will be able to make it through.
	But it's just getting past them.
	I don't understand that, what was he talking about?
	He's basically saying that a lot of the stagnation in the West is deliberate, and if you were to replace the people who were doing so, you'd be able to get over these presumably largely economic problems.
	Which, you know, fair enough, I agree.
	Alright, let's go to the next one.
	It's Joshua lifting weight.
	You'll never see this one doing it.
	Lifting beers, maybe.
	There's someone off to the side who's been like, another TikTok thot.
	He's got five plates on each side.
	It's almost certainly more than I could lift.
	Yeah, this is...
	Go on!
	Yeah.
	Nice.
	So what will that be?
	Like a hundred kg on either side, probably.
	So 220 kg.
	I don't know how many pounds.
	That's probably like over 500 pound deadlift right there.
	It's very impressive.
	Let me, let me see.
	Kg, two pounds.
	I want to be, I want to be accurate, gentlemen.
	Okay.
	Almost 500 pound deadlift.
	I assume if I'm getting the weights right there.
	Yeah, I'm sure you can correct me, Josh.
	Not this one though.
	Yeah, not me.
	Next video please, Josh can't even lift the bar.
	Not enough people are talking about the fact of seniority.
	AI now wipes out positions like paralegals.
	The first step to becoming a lawyer.
	In machine shops, operations once reserved for journeymen are now done by CNC machines.
	Even in my field of video games, most positions are transient 18-month contracts.
	It's a temporary workforce of mercenaries.
	And no studio can develop a group consciousness greater than the sum of its parts.
	In 20 years time, the last of the old guard will retire.
	And there'll be no one standing behind them to take their place.
	That is the true coming crisis of competence, and no one seems concerned.
	Yeah, I mean it's a routine problem for everyone.
	Yeah, I've seen a lot of people speculate the reason that so much is being put into AI is because of the fact that the experts for the future generations aren't being trained.
	Because lots of people who are experts in their fields are going to be dying off and the ruling classes are basically trying to get to the point where they can just replace it all with AI before everything collapses from competency.
	To be fair, I don't particularly want to be replaced.
	I'm technically an expert in research methodology.
	An AI could probably replace me, though.
	Chat GPT.
	Yeah.
	I say burn it all down.
	No, don't actually burn it all down.
	Let's go to the next one.
	The populace of the newly socialized monopolistic economy that he has laid out need the illusion of representation to make sure the socialist paradise at least works towards what the Demos desires.
	So Joseph A. Schumpeter sets out to play word games to define what democracy is and what version of it is most compatible with his managerial socialism.
	He analyzes various democratic governments and is glowing about the British parliamentary representative system, warping it into something that would work like a managerial class.
	The parallels to today's craven and self-serving political leaders is stark.
	That's grim.
	I've got a copy of that and I need to read it because I've heard opposing reviews of it that paint it in a different light than to what you're putting there, Alex.
	So I would like to read that first before I take your impression of it for its word.
	I'm sure that there's some accuracy to what you're saying there.
	No, it's always very interesting to hear from you.
	The next one.
	Since Carl's been talking about dystopian implications of drone warfare, there was an interesting comic from a little while back called We Stand on Guard about, like, future America stamping out Canada.
	And it actually had a very interesting portrayal of the American military.
	The Americans have gone all in on drones with, like, them having flotillas of drone gunships and armies of weaponized drone dogs.
	I mean, most of their army is just guys in a room highlighting stuff on, like, a holoscreen and telling the drones to kill everything there.
	It's been that way for a while.
	I have said before that one of the jobs that I'd like to do is be one of the people that just controls one of the missile drones.
	They actually have Xbox controllers.
	You just press a button and it just goes...
	Have either of you ever watched Arrested Development?
	No, I haven't.
	So in the fourth series, which was the big comeback one, one of the best parts of it was one of the characters who's basically childlike in his intelligence.
	Where is this going?
	He joins the army And is put in the position of one of those guys like you're describing.
	And because he's using an Xbox controller, he thinks that he's all doing simulations and that he's basically playing a video game.
	He doesn't realize that when he's playing the game and shooting all of these Afghanistan children in the Middle East, that that's what he's actually doing.
	So yeah, the people have been making a joke about that stuff for a while.
	I thought you were going to compare me to a child.
	No, the comparison makes itself.
	Fair enough.
	You two stop fighting.
	Go to the next one.
	I agreed.
	Yes, ladies and gentlemen.
	I'm afraid to say that this is actually real.
	So in our polycule, we have me and Logan who are married.
	And then I have my partner, Jeffrey, who is a gay man.
	And then I have my girlfriend, Zoe, who is married to my boyfriend, Zef.
	And then Logan has his girlfriend, Alona.
	And then Jeffrey also has a boyfriend.
	Alona's a fucking man.
	It's just gross.
	They're all right for each other, I think.
	Yeah, next one.
	Don't even want to think about it.
	Hi Lotus Eaters.
	Just enjoying snow in the month of April.
	I wanted to say to both, sorry you got deselected from your party, but I also wanted to say that I really enjoy your Epoch segments.
	I recently watched the Michelangelo one, and I thought it was really interesting.
	I haven't seen the Leonardo da Vinci one yet, but I will.
	So looking forward to other Renaissance artists.
	Thanks a lot and take care.
	I should have been played to Bo, but it's nice to know that his work's appreciated.
	And also snow in April is rather unfortunate.
	I think we've only ever had that once in our lifetimes, haven't we?
	But we must move on.
	Let's go to the next one.
	Once again, with heavy heart, I return home.
	On my way home, I stop once again from Thermopylae.
	Right here, I am atop the Kolonos Hill, where the battle ended.
	Now, what I found rather surprising was that the last battle that took place here was during World War II, when some ANZACs stayed here to delay the German troops so the British Army could retreat in peace.
	Cool!
	Alright, let's go to the next one.
	Beautiful landscape you've got there.
	I'm trying to teach myself to sharpen knives.
	This one's very dull, and no, I'm not very good yet, as you can tell.
	I have to learn this and other skills myself, things that men know, even basic things.
	Society hasn't been kind to men.
	So many like me never learned things like this, skills that help us, but that we can do to help others.
	I'm self-teaching things, and it's been hard to learn.
	And some folks ask, didn't your dad ever show this to you?
	And I say, no, he hasn't been able to since going out for milk.
	He's taking forever.
	We'll be home soon.
	Remind me to stay on your good side as well if you're sharpening knives as a hobby.
	I will say on that, even men whose fathers didn't take a suspiciously long time to get milk, I think of our generation there is kind of this thing where the father didn't teach you things that he should have done, that his father would have taught him.
	He taught me to play golf.
	He didn't teach me to shave or anything.
	Yeah, the actual stereotypically fatherly things, but you know, fishing, golf, hobbies, things he liked doing.
	Son, this is how our family stays alive.
	Now come with me.
	Now watch this drive.
	Yeah, my dad was George Bush.
	I knew it!
	I knew it all along.
	The Shadow Band has donated 100 bucks to say, really enjoy your content.
	Keep on keeping on.
	Thank you very much.
	Very kind of you.
	Lots of money.
	Threadanort also donated 5 bucks to say, I have a feeling Josh only wanted to do that Indian segment because he wanted to show off his Indian doppelganger from the Pooh fight.
	That was actually me all along.
	I was in disguise.
	The winning smile.
	I've been on a holiday to India.
	Yeah, I just, you know, kept it quiet.
	Win pill seekers donated two bucks to say, it seems like it's harder to groom cows in India than kids in Britain.
	They beat the cow grooming gangs hard.
	He also donated another two bucks to say, nationalism is not right wing.
	individualism is right-wing, nationalism is a stepping stone from the local socialism to global socialism in Ireland, Scotland, or India.
	Smaller collectives are still collectivists.
	I've got to say, I disagree with that kind of ideological purity going on right there.
	Individualism is important, but if you're going to live anywhere except out in the woods by yourself, Ted Kaczynski style, you're going to be living in some form of a small collective at the very least, your family.
	Society isn't a collective, though.
	That's a misunderstanding of what it is.
	Your family is some form of collective.
	If you live in a small community, that will be some form of collective.
	You're going to be narrowed in somewhat by the rules of engagement with the people that you surround yourself with.
	So yeah, individualism is important, but pure Really super individualism, I don't think is a right-wing concept.
	I don't think it's a real concept.
	There is one other super chat we got from WinPillSeeker for another $2 saying, if you open enough Haitian BBQ shops to replace the closing shops, you can put a dent in the migrant crisis.
	Bon appétit, Longport BBQ.
	Interesting suggestion.
	How are we going to solve the migrant crisis?
	We'll import the Haitians and they will eat them all.
	This comment is from an Indian man asking to see your bobs and tichin.
	Our sewage is of very high quality.
	red squirrel.
	This comment is from an Indian man asking to see your bobs and vagine.
	Our sewages are very high quality.
	Thank you very much.
	Oh dear.
	Charles Francis, okay that cow dung fight, have you not been to Glastonbury?
	That's just mud.
	Although, haven't you told me about when there was, was it a festival, there was a bunch of sewage You're turning into Charles Manson here, you're making so many faces.
	Was that you?
	What are you doing?
	No, I've been to festivals before, like Bloodstock, where I've seen people wandering about with massive shitsmears up their back because they haven't gone to the toilet and have presumably slipped over in the portaloos.
	Oh, I think it might have been Rory that told me about a girl that fell into like the portaloo or whatever and was stuck in there for a while.
	Oh, that's horrifying.
	Henry Ashman, what Josh has failed to understand about the Indian entrepreneurial spirit is they really don't give a monkeys.
	I think we get this.
	About regulations and standards.
	It's a nation of Discworld's Seymour Dibbler and Dell boys.
	I mean, that sounds good to me.
	Sophie has a good point here.
	I don't know about the height thing.
	I think it might just be genetics.
	Rishi Sunak grew up in the nicest part of England.
	He's still a midget.
	This is true.
	I think it might be a bit optimistic to go like, well, if we just stop them pooing, shall we become six foot giga chads?
	No.
	Well, there's obviously a lot more to it than simply, you know, poo makes you short.
	I'll read some of mine.
	So, Lord Nerevar.
	Are you telling me that endless vape shops, phone repair shops, Turkish barbers and American candy stores are inferior to big high street chains and native British businesses?
	Sounds like an extreme case of bigotry to me, gent.
	Guilty as charged.
	Omar Awad.
	The high street didn't die, it was murdered.
	Absolutely.
	Wolf Grillington.
	I hope that's your real name.
	Please remember that while independent traders might have gone from the town centre and aren't visible, farm shops still exist and you can buy from local providers online.
	Absolutely, if you have a local farm shop near you that you can frequent, please do so.
	Oftentimes the food that you'll buy there is of very high quality and it's well worth it.
	I had the nicest thing of milk ever from a farm shop last weekend.
	It was amazing.
	Lovely and fresh.
	Brian Tomlinson, the major supermarkets that 100% guarantee to employ butchers, fish market, and bakers to appease planning departments, sack their butchers, fish market, mongers, and bakers a couple of years later.
	Yeah, that's sad.
	Do you want to read some of your comments, Callum?
	Sure, I've been sent one from Threadanore who donated 20 bucks to just say that apparently he calls shit at Total War.
	Is it?
	Is he?
	Is he?
	I don't know, I don't watch him play.
	I have suggested Eladza where we have a Total War tournament.
	Only because I've played so much of it that I will win.
	No you won't.
	Oh yeah?
	I will destroy you.
	It depends which Total War.
	Which Total War do you have in mind?
	I'm picking the Modern Total Wars, go away!
	Leave me alone.
	If it's like Rome 1, forget about it.
	Now, didn't you post a picture on Twitter of yourself as a wee baby child playing Total War, was it?
	Age of Empires 2, that was.
	Oh, okay.
	You ever heard of the... Why do you have that photo on hand?
	Is this something you get asked about often?
	No, I was doing my family archives and we happened to be doing a segment about Matt Walsh where he was like, I play video games.
	I was like, shut up.
	So I was bored of the video games.
	I was loaded by them.
	So I used it for that and then I just happened to have it on hand.
	I need to have a throwdown in Rome 2.
	No Rome 2, no.
	That's older.
	Modern Total War can go to hell, it's not Total War.
	Fake Total War.
	Some of them are good.
	Go and play the good ones then.
	I'm not facing you in your territory.
	Yeah, whatever.
	Anyway, come play Age of Empires 2.
	A friend of mine died of cancer, but we used to play together when he was in university, and we started the game, and for some fucking reason this guy thought he was going to play in Farmville, so he's just building farms.
	Get me agriculture down!
	I'm speedrunning it so I've already advanced to like the castle age or whatever by five minutes in and I just ran over some villagers and just built one of those towers with the archers so then all of his uh uh villagers got killed by the tower and because he's still in the dark age you actually have nothing to destroy stone with?
	Game ruined.
	That's you.
	That's what you're gonna be.
	Oh my goodness.
	Not in total war!
	Maybe in Age of Empires, but I've never played them.
	The trash talk is real.
	Anyway, um... Eh, screw it, I don't want to talk about Vice Fighters.
	Gay.
	Anyway, I think everyone's in agreement on that one.
	That's the summation of the comments.

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