The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1385
Aired: 2026-03-30
Duration: 01:28:54


=== Self-Driving Car News (01:32) ===

[00:00:00]  Hello and welcome to Podcast of the Lotus Eaters.
[00:00:02]  It is episode 1385 and it is the 30th of March, Year of the Lord, 2026.
[00:00:09]  Joined by Harry and Josh.
[00:00:12]  Hi.
[00:00:12]  And we're only mildly late.
[00:00:15]  Mildly?
[00:00:16]  Yes.
[00:00:16]  Very good.
[00:00:18]  Today we're going to be talking about a car.
[00:00:21]  A car has done something.
[00:00:22]  I can't believe it.
[00:00:23]  Yes.
[00:00:24]  Cars are always doing that.
[00:00:25]  Car driven by an Indian national.
[00:00:27]  They made sure to actually get that news out quite quickly this time.
[00:00:29]  Oh, really?
[00:00:31]  I caught the story at the point where it was just saying a car, which basically told me that it wasn't.
[00:00:36]  But you are still required to keep an open mind about the situation, of course.
[00:00:40]  Oh, absolutely.
[00:00:42]  Perhaps the car took on a mind of its own while an Indian man happened to be driving.
[00:00:46]  I'm surprised they haven't argued it was a Tesla and it was self-driving and it's actually Elon that's behind it all.
[00:00:51]  Well no, it was a black Suzuki Swift.
[00:00:57]  So no, I don't think they make self-driving versions of those yet.
[00:01:00]  Well we will learn more shortly.
[00:01:02]  And Dubai.
[00:01:04]  Yes.
[00:01:04]  Balling.
[00:01:05]  Yes.
[00:01:06]  Very sad.
[00:01:07]  Lovely.
[00:01:08]  And I will be appreciating Japanese racism, which is a chef's kiss.
[00:01:14]  So with that, we've got the segment of Hawaii.
[00:01:20]  Hawaii.
[00:01:20]  What does that mean?
[00:01:21]  Hawaii is when they have little cats' faces on everything.
[00:01:26]  Oh, they're lushed cheeks.
[00:01:28]  I thought I have got some of that.

=== The Boris Wave Census (14:11) ===

[00:01:32]  No.
[00:01:33]  That's a shame.
[00:01:34]  Tell us more about the car.
[00:01:36]  Well, not at first, because I have good news and then bad news.
[00:01:40]  Bad news to start the week off, folks.
[00:01:42]  Apologies for that, but there is good news first.
[00:01:44]  The good news being that you can come and see us live at the Lotus Eaters Live event, which is happening on the 11th of April.
[00:01:50]  That is a week on Saturday between 7 and 10 in Swindon.
[00:01:56]  That is a little bit of bad news on top of the good news, but it's mostly good news.
[00:02:00]  And you can have fun seeing us do a live podcast, seeing us do a live lads hour.
[00:02:04]  And for some reason, Carl has decided to get bodied in public by having me debate the prequels with him.
[00:02:10]  Can I join in on that, by the way?
[00:02:11]  Is that allowed?
[00:02:12]  I mean, I don't really even know the rules.
[00:02:15]  Carl just sprang the whole thing on me and was like, oh, Harry and me are doing a debate on the prequels.
[00:02:19]  So please feel free.
[00:02:20]  I'm just going to get the audience to start throwing rotten vegetables at him partway through.
[00:02:25]  I don't think we're strong on rules around here.
[00:02:27]  No.
[00:02:28]  Exactly.
[00:02:29]  I might get AA to come in Sean Michaels style halfway through and zip line from the roof so he can join me for the debate.
[00:02:36]  Either way, should be really great fun.
[00:02:38]  On to the bad news.
[00:02:40]  So over the weekend, there was another incident, an attack where a man drove a car into a crowd of people in a British city.
[00:02:48]  This time it was Derby in Friargate.
[00:02:51]  Let's just get it straight out of the way.
[00:02:54]  If we go to Derby, which is down here, we've got the census map right here.
[00:03:00]  Friargate is around this area, somewhere up here.
[00:03:05]  As you can see, if you have Asians, there is a quite ethnically split city.
[00:03:13]  There is a significant population of Pakistanis, although this was not a Pakistani attacker.
[00:03:19]  This was, in fact, an Indian attacker, which there is not quite as much of a population of.
[00:03:24]  But as you can see, as with all of the diversity that we have imported into the country, bear in mind as well that this map data, as much as we use it and reference it, is now about six years out of date and it is pre-Boris wave.
[00:03:37]  So bear that in mind.
[00:03:39]  All of these census maps are pre-Boris Wave.
[00:03:41]  It was the 2020 census.
[00:03:42]  It was released in 2021, but the information was taken in 2020, which makes it pre-full Boris Wave.
[00:03:48]  Right, well, because for the past couple of years, I've been looking at these maps thinking, God, it's bad.
[00:03:54]  I didn't realize all of these maps were significantly worse.
[00:03:58]  It was far worse.
[00:03:58]  You've got to remember as well that some of the main ethnic groups that were coming through in the Boris wave were of, say, like Indian and Nigerian extraction through student visas and other routes that they were taking, unskilled visas.
[00:04:13]  And so the numbers here, where you can see it goes up to maybe like 12, 15% in some areas are probably much higher now because these ethnic groups will go into these cities, move in with their family members who are likely already there.
[00:04:26]  So these will have inflated since then.
[00:04:29]  Either way, as with all of the ethnic diversity that we get, they don't actually like each other very much.
[00:04:34]  So they tend to self-segregate quite often.
[00:04:37]  But if you go into the ethnic group data and you can go into, say, for instance, White English, Friar Gate is actually, according to this outdated information, still in one of the more British areas.
[00:04:54]  Obviously, there's a few pockets here and there, but it's still maybe 50%.
[00:04:58]  It's technically supposedly even Derby, one of the more populated nightlife areas.
[00:05:04]  In other words, if you were driving around looking for a population of natives, this is the sort of area that you would go to.
[00:05:10]  On a Saturday night, when people are going to be out and about, because the attack took place at about 9.30 in the evening, people out and about in pubs, going to businesses that are still open because it's a city center.
[00:05:22]  Yeah, this is where you would go.
[00:05:24]  And you're calling it an attack, so it seems to be deliberate rather than just disembodied car is idiotic.
[00:05:30]  To be clear, a man has been arrested, an Indian man.
[00:05:34]  Let's just get that straight out of the way.
[00:05:36]  He has been confirmed as an Indian national.
[00:05:39]  They were originally saying Derby man, but they have since confirmed that he is an Indian national who had been living in Derby for a few years at this point and clearly hadn't enamored him with the natives.
[00:05:51]  So this might in fact actually be a Boris Wave arrival that we're talking about here because several years, again, Boris Wave 2020 to 2021, that five to six years can count as several years.
[00:06:04]  So this might be a direct result of the Boris Johnson government.
[00:06:07]  So thank you very much for that.
[00:06:09]  Yeah, he just, to go into the actual information that we've got here, as you can see, we're being told to keep an open mind about the motives.
[00:06:17]  He has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder because the good news, the slight silver lining to come from all of this, is that while people, seven people have been seriously injured, nobody has been hit with life-threatening injuries.
[00:06:33]  So nobody died, which in the case of an incident like this where somebody's plowed a car into a group of people is a very rare occurrence.
[00:06:43]  Most of the time, not only do these take lives, they take tens of lives.
[00:06:48]  Like lots of people tend to die during these events.
[00:06:52]  So it hasn't happened this time, although it's serious.
[00:06:57]  As daily diversity events go in this country, nobody dying or getting raped is quite good, I suppose.
[00:07:03]  Of course, the tragedy itself is completely avoidable, completely unnecessary.
[00:07:07]  It's a direct result of us having these populations in the country in the first place.
[00:07:12]  As pointed out with the census map data, I say that this is potentially still one of the more English areas of the country.
[00:07:19]  But in the radio news coverage that I was listening to this morning, a lot of the witnesses that they were interviewing sounded also of South Asian extraction, subcontinental extraction.
[00:07:30]  So for all we know, a lot happens in this, in this country these days.
[00:07:34]  It might have been an attempt of the diversity against another group of diversity that they don't like.
[00:07:40]  It's entirely possible.
[00:07:42]  I mean, I already know all I need to know about this, which was it was an Indian national that's come here in the past few years who obviously shouldn't be here.
[00:07:50]  Bye-bye.
[00:07:51]  That should be it, right?
[00:07:53]  Yes.
[00:07:54]  So, the police, just to report on what they have been saying, they said there was a range of serious but not life-threatening injuries.
[00:08:00]  The incident occurred in Friargate at about 9:30 on Saturday in the evening.
[00:08:05]  The force said that, contrary to online speculation, there were no deaths.
[00:08:09]  Again, thank God for that.
[00:08:10]  It said detectives were working alongside officers from counter-terrorism, terrorism, policing, but were not yet designating the incident as a terror attack, and were keeping an open mind about the potential motives.
[00:08:22]  A lot of people originally were speculating that this was some kind of Islamic terror attack, and then when it came out that he was an Indian national, I saw a lot of people online saying, Ha, you guys jumped to conclusions.
[00:08:33]  Not necessarily, there is still a sizable Islamic population within India itself.
[00:08:38]  It's a pretty big country with a lot of people.
[00:08:40]  There's still almost 200 million Muslims within India.
[00:08:44]  But also, there are other types of terror that have been exported from India, which obviously we don't know as of yet.
[00:08:51]  But other groups that come from India like that could be Hindutva.
[00:08:57]  I don't think I'm pronouncing that right.
[00:08:58]  Close enough.
[00:08:59]  But they are considered somewhat of a nationalistic terrorist group from India as well.
[00:09:05]  I'm not saying it had anything.
[00:09:06]  OD quite a lot.
[00:09:07]  Yes, they do.
[00:09:08]  Not saying it had anything to do with those groups as of yet, but I'm just saying that those are some examples of groups that could come from India.
[00:09:17]  So the police officer reporting on this said that officers apprehended the suspect on the other side of the city centre within seven minutes after the incident took place, saying the swift action would not have been possible without eyewitnesses who contacted us about the vehicle's whereabouts as it was driven away from the scene and around the city centre.
[00:09:33]  I am waiting for them to pick out one of the eyewitnesses who reported it having been a foreigner so that they can try and turn this into some kind of diversity success story as they did with the train terror attack that took place near Cambridge.
[00:09:46]  Or the Bondi Beach.
[00:09:47]  I mean all of them.
[00:09:48]  Or the Bondi Beach.
[00:09:49]  They try to take one random foreigner who was involved in acting against the diversity attack and say, see, this is why we've got diversity here in the first place to protect us from when the rest of the diversity attacks us.
[00:10:03]  It's a silly argument because if none of them were there, it wouldn't have happened.
[00:10:07]  Yeah.
[00:10:08]  So the driver was driving a black Suzuki Swift.
[00:10:11]  He was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, causing serious injury through dangerous driving, inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent and dangerous driving.
[00:10:19]  He was described as a Derby man, aged 36, originally from India, who has lived in the UK for several years.
[00:10:26]  So again, probably a Boris Wave import.
[00:10:29]  Thank you very much for that.
[00:10:31]  So this hits a little bit close to home because on my mother's side of the family, the whole side of the whole side of the family, I've looked through the records, goes back through to Derby for centuries, for about 400 years, at least, maybe 500 years.
[00:10:46]  My grandfather on my mother's side was directly from Derby.
[00:10:51]  So I have quite a lot of family history there.
[00:10:54]  And so just even as recently, as outdated as this information is, seeing that parts of the city centre have just been entirely colonized.
[00:11:03]  It's very similar to Swindon, isn't it?
[00:11:05]  Where the outskirts are probably quite white still, whereas the centre has been entirely surrendered to Boris Wavers and the like.
[00:11:14]  You know, my family on that side, they were industrialists around Derbyshire in the 19th century, you know, like classic textiles factories, owners of large manufacturers and places like that.
[00:11:26]  So just seeing that somewhere that's so close to my own personal family history has gone to the dogs in this way and having the same sort of attacks that everywhere else in the country is, it's quite upsetting, quite depressing.
[00:11:37]  But just to show the sign of the times and what kind of place it is now, so the mayor at the moment is this man, Ajit Singh Atwal, classic British name right there.
[00:11:48]  And people have been pointing out this as well.
[00:11:51]  Not that I think it plays too much into it, but just to make a note of it because people are talking about it, that back in 2014, he was a magistrate for the Derby Council and was actually removed for a short time because of the fact that he went on holiday to India and decided to take this photograph with an AK-47 and post it all over his social media for some stupid reason, which they considered to be quite a breach of their council rules.
[00:12:17]  Because it looks somewhat threatening.
[00:12:19]  I know.
[00:12:20]  When you see a gentleman of that part of the world with an AK-47, one presumes the worst.
[00:12:26]  There are certain connotations that it brings to mind.
[00:12:28]  Of course, this attack, ironically enough, was taking place in the same day that a stand-up to racism refugees welcome event protest organized by a totally not astroturfed Socialist Workers' Party of Britain.
[00:12:45]  How come they've all got the same sign?
[00:12:47]  That's always a great question.
[00:12:50]  Their blood is on your hands.
[00:12:52]  Yes.
[00:12:52]  Yes, people's blood is on your hands, retarded refugee activist.
[00:12:56]  Congratulations.
[00:12:57]  Good job.
[00:12:57]  We're all proud of everything that you do to keep us safe.
[00:13:01]  Thank you very much for all that.
[00:13:02]  That sign does not come off as intended, does it?
[00:13:05]  No, it certainly does not.
[00:13:07]  And, you know, people have just been pointing out it's the classic thing now.
[00:13:10]  It's all about perception management.
[00:13:12]  It's not about actually solving any of the problems.
[00:13:14]  It's all about the perception management of making sure that despite the fact that he was from India, despite the fact that he was originally from, I don't know, Rwanda, we are talking, of course, about a Derby man or a Welsh choir boy.
[00:13:26]  We can't draw any great connotations between this and foreign populations coming into the country and the intentions that they may have for us because we can't have there being any kind of distress, any kind of division within the public,
[00:13:42]  except for all of those divisions that again already exist because clearly these people do not want to be living near one another again like well this 2021 census is like the resounding evidence to suggest that the multicultural experiment has failed that everyone has self-segregated um with no direction from the government In fact, the government tries to disincentivize it and it doesn't work.
[00:14:04]  Again, like, just look at that.
[00:14:05]  I mean, it's the thing with all of these, like, in my local area, there are now complaints and protests being organized against it.
[00:14:14]  And I don't mean just going out in the street and holding up a sign saying we don't want this, actually organized protests going to the council, trying to make official complaints and stop it from happening, where there's lots of local land being taken up, so more big Dino box new builder states can be built.
[00:14:30]  And the thing that happens with them, and the thing that I expect will happen with them as they keep being built, is as the town centers empty out, this is the same sort of thing that happened with the suburbs in America when you had the great northern migrations of all of the southern blacks coming to America and immediately taking the city centers, for instance.
[00:14:49]  As those city centers empty out, and this will be the towns as well as the cities now, of the natives, they'll all just move into those into those new builder states.
[00:15:00]  They'll all just self-segregate over there as well.
[00:15:03]  And you'll have a few diverse families in there, but mostly it will be natives.
[00:15:09]  And that is what's going to keep happening.
[00:15:11]  It will keep balkanizing because of the inherent tensions that come with importing all of these populations.
[00:15:17]  Again, like, here's the town centre.
[00:15:20]  Pakistani population pretty heavily concentrated here.
[00:15:24]  Indian population heavily concentrated around where all of the Pakistanis are because they don't want to live with one another.
[00:15:32]  Well, all of Britain is just a microcosm for every geopolitical conflict going.
[00:15:37]  Like, if India and Pakistan play each other in the cricket, we have fights on the street.

=== Protected Groups and Segregation (03:03) ===

[00:15:44]  But Leo was bringing up the point of, like, what is even a Derby man then?
[00:15:49]  I've never lived in Derby.
[00:15:51]  I have much more of a claim from my mother's side to be considered a Derby man than any Indian who's lived there for a couple of years ever could.
[00:16:01]  So, again, it's people trying to take the heritage of myself and other people and just hand it to the entire world, which I don't respect.
[00:16:08]  I once lived in a farmhouse.
[00:16:10]  Does that make me a farmer now?
[00:16:11]  I mean, it is absurd, isn't it?
[00:16:13]  You're not from Derby, really, if you're from India.
[00:16:16]  Born in a stable, are you a horse?
[00:16:18]  I guess so.
[00:16:19]  Clearly.
[00:16:21]  And other people have been pointing out the complete lack of a response, really, other than the perception management by the overdrive, by the establishment, contrasting it with the incident with the Jewish ambulances just last week, where immediately the police, the king, the prime minister, all of them went into overdrive to make sure that we knew that this is a protected community.
[00:16:49]  We have to protect these people.
[00:16:51]  We won't stand this kind of behavior in our country.
[00:16:54]  Where, you know, you could see that, like, for instance, King Charles immediately got named the patron of a British Jewish security non-profit following the ambulance attack.
[00:17:05]  Has King Charles made any statement on this attack?
[00:17:09]  No, because the only time the establishment will make any statement about these things is if it is against a protected group.
[00:17:19]  Jews count as one of those protected groups.
[00:17:21]  Muslims count as one of those protected groups.
[00:17:24]  Diversity counts.
[00:17:25]  The British don't.
[00:17:27]  That's just how it goes.
[00:17:29]  And you can see it's not just again with the Jews of this country.
[00:17:32]  It's also King Charles himself has a long history, as this article goes into in depth, his veneration of Islam and the protection of it.
[00:17:40]  And we'll just contrast it again with the fact that back in 2024, immediately following the Southport riots and the attacks that took place in Southport, which killed a number of young white girls done by Axel Rudicabana, the Rwandan, who should never have been in this country in the first place, Kier Starmer went on to make an impassioned speech against the people who got angry about it and wanted to protest that he was even here in the first place.
[00:18:05]  And if I remember the timestamp, let me just try and get that for everybody.
[00:18:12]  What was it?
[00:18:12]  What were his exact words on it?
[00:18:14]  We'll all remember this, won't we?
[00:18:15]  If you target people because of the colour of their skin or their faith, then that is far right.
[00:18:24]  And I'm prepared to say so.
[00:18:25]  But it doesn't matter what apparent motivation there is.
[00:18:30]  Your concerns don't matter.
[00:18:32]  And that was from the highest office in the land with any real political power that's supposedly accountable to the public.
[00:18:42]  But something like this happens and we're just told, you know, keep an open mind.
[00:18:46]  Keep an open mind.

=== Dubai's Shiny Excesses (05:56) ===

[00:18:47]  He was from Derby.
[00:18:48]  He's just as British as the rest of us because we're all so well known for getting into our cars and plowing through streets on a busy Saturday night.
[00:18:58]  So, yeah, bad news to start the week, chaps.
[00:19:08]  Got a few Rumble games.
[00:19:09]  Yeah, got two rumble rants here.
[00:19:11]  I was expecting one of you to say moving on or something.
[00:19:13]  That's a random name.
[00:19:14]  There could be Suzuki's around here.
[00:19:17]  And Sigil Stone says he was just attempting to rid the world of the evil of pooing in the loo.
[00:19:23]  Well, if there was any takeaways going on open down that street, I doubt there was much of that going on to begin with.
[00:19:31]  What's going on in Dubai?
[00:19:33]  So I have some good news.
[00:19:35]  That's good news if you hate Dubai like me.
[00:19:37]  And there are many reasons to hate Dubai.
[00:19:40]  And before I tell you the good news, I want to prime you with hatreds to get the maximum payoff for why it's failing, why it's going to fall, and why that is a good thing.
[00:19:48]  But it looks quite nice in all the pictures.
[00:19:51]  That is true, but I feel like it is a monument to the worst excesses of the West with none of the positives.
[00:19:58]  My back garden looked a lot bigger in the pictures that the real estate agents had on file as well.
[00:20:05]  But yeah, I feel like there's lots of baubles and showy aesthetics and things like that, but it's sort of like mecca for materialists, isn't it?
[00:20:14]  It's like where they go.
[00:20:16]  If you love flashy, shiny objects, you've basically got the mind of a magpie and you just like shiny things.
[00:20:23]  Isn't it a tax haven?
[00:20:24]  Yes, that too.
[00:20:26]  But it is basically people sacrifice their soul and having a nice way of life.
[00:20:32]  And I think nothing epitomises this more than the Burj Khalifa.
[00:20:36]  So it is the tallest building in the world, but it has no reason to be because Dubai is built basically on top of an old fishing village, arbitrarily picked by the ruling family as the site of this new holiday destination.
[00:20:53]  But it's not like New York where the land was really valuable and so there was an incentive to build upwards.
[00:21:00]  Most of the land around Dubai is not built up on.
[00:21:04]  There's no scramble for expensive land here.
[00:21:08]  So there's no reason to build it up and it's entirely artificial.
[00:21:13]  It's just a great big monument to vanity.
[00:21:16]  It's an empty desert.
[00:21:18]  And there's another element to this as well, in that they're so focused on this vain ambition that it doesn't even have proper infrastructure.
[00:21:27]  So the world's tallest building has to have trucks to come and collect the human waste because it doesn't actually have proper plumbing.
[00:21:35]  So they have poo trucks coming in and out.
[00:21:37]  Good God.
[00:21:38]  So this goes to the market.
[00:21:39]  You better make sure those tracks keep coming.
[00:21:41]  I know, otherwise.
[00:21:42]  Because, I mean, there's a lot of people at the top and the lower floors.
[00:21:45]  I mean, you're going to get an issue.
[00:21:46]  You don't want to be one of the lower orders, do you?
[00:21:48]  No.
[00:21:49]  But yeah, this symbol of the advancement of the UAE in reality is just pure vanity.
[00:21:57]  It's not practical.
[00:21:58]  It doesn't exist for any of the reasons that the Western buildings exist like that.
[00:22:02]  Because if you look at the skyline, it's by far the tallest.
[00:22:06]  And there's no need for that.
[00:22:08]  But there are other reasons to hate Dubai as well.
[00:22:11]  You have to spend most of your time indoors because it can reach about 52 degrees Celsius or 125 Fahrenheit, which is...
[00:22:19]  It would burn to a crisp.
[00:22:20]  Exactly.
[00:22:21]  And so maybe you can spend some time on the beach, but it's very hot.
[00:22:24]  And so most people spend their time indoors in air conditioning shopping.
[00:22:28]  So if that's your idea of a nice place, just in an eternal shopping mall.
[00:22:33]  It's like just a big sunny Milton Keynes, isn't it?
[00:22:36]  Pretty much, yeah.
[00:22:37]  It's going to be lost on a lot of people outside of Britain, that reference.
[00:22:40]  But there's also this weird double standard that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, where obviously it's an Islamic country, but the authorities turn a blind eye to people, you know, Westerners, breaking the tenets of Islam.
[00:22:54]  So they have these convictions, but they're like, well, for the right price, you know, if you're going to spend money here, we'll let you drink alcohol, just as long as it's not on the beach, because that's against the law, and you'll go to prison.
[00:23:07]  Or if you're publicly intoxicated, prison.
[00:23:10]  But if you're in a hotel or a licensed premises, that's okay.
[00:23:13]  But don't you dare step outside with that beverage because that's against the law and they're pretty harsh.
[00:23:20]  And of course, there is also an elephant in the room here, the questionable labor practices that has built the place in the first place.
[00:23:29]  Lots of reports of indentured servitude and manipulative contracts to get people to build these buildings.
[00:23:36]  And multiple instances of housemaids throwing themselves out of windows to supposedly willing people receiving a salary coming to the point of throwing themselves out of windows to escape their servitude makes one wonder if perhaps it's not as consensual as you might imagine.
[00:23:57]  And then also, if you want to walk anywhere, say you've had a drink in your hotel and you can't drive anymore, well, too bad.
[00:24:05]  Because the whole thing is designed around cars, and because the whole place is...
[00:24:10]  It really is just Milton Keynes.
[00:24:11]  It is, yeah.
[00:24:12]  And because the whole place is designed around cars, there are lots of traffic jams in lots of high-traffic areas.
[00:24:19]  And so, yeah, it sounds like my worst nightmare is just a materialistic monument to all of the worst excesses of the West with none of the perks of it.
[00:24:30]  It's a sparkling little bauble that stupid people go and live there.
[00:24:35]  But you don't have to pay tax.
[00:24:36]  That's true.
[00:24:37]  But there are also other places that are tax havens that are not this basically materialistic and degenerate.

=== Flying to a Dangerous Hub (14:19) ===

[00:24:44]  And that's not even mentioning all the things we hear about the weird sort of open secret that it's a hub of prostitution in the Islamic world as well.
[00:24:55]  The worst things I've ever heard about Dubai is when you read about Instagram models being invited over undercover, you could say, by weird princes to pay them lots and lots of money to do really disgusting things with fish and other assorted wildlife.
[00:25:15]  Yes.
[00:25:16]  But you know what's not going to result in you having to do disgusting things with fish?
[00:25:20]  Lotus Eaters Live, which is going on.
[00:25:24]  And Carl's already sprung the prequel debate on me, so who knows what else he's got up his sleeve?
[00:25:29]  This is going on on the 11th of April, 7 o'clock till 10 o'clock, and we're going to have some fun.
[00:25:35]  It's going to be a blast.
[00:25:36]  Be there or be square.
[00:25:39]  So, first things first, I suppose I may as well talk about the attacks on Dubai, because that might put a little bit of a damper in their public image.
[00:25:50]  The fact that there were drones, Iranian drones, flying into buildings.
[00:25:55]  That might be enough to put you off, I think.
[00:26:02]  Not the best video, I'll admit.
[00:26:06]  But...
[00:26:08]  There you go.
[00:26:09]  Yes, that's not good.
[00:26:13]  As an Indian.
[00:26:16]  I forgot about that, to be fair.
[00:26:18]  But there's lots of Indians saying, very dangerous, not drone.
[00:26:22]  Because lots of the workers there are Indian, of course.
[00:26:25]  So, yes, it's very dangerous at the minute to be there.
[00:26:29]  And lots of people, understandably, a bit worried.
[00:26:32]  And I'm just going to play this video from the mail because it's accumulated all of the videos of the attacks much better than anywhere else to their credit.
[00:26:43]  So you can see lots of things on fire.
[00:26:46]  The airport was temporarily closed after there was a drone strike on a fuel tanker, which, if I were flying to Dubai, the main airport getting hit by a drone attack, would be enough to put me off.
[00:27:00]  I don't know about you guys, but I don't like to live quite that dangerously.
[00:27:03]  A number of my friends were on holiday right as the Iran war started and they all had to have delayed or redirected flights because of what was going on in Dubai.
[00:27:14]  I mean, if you're going around Southeast Asia or across the Eastern Hemisphere, like the all of the East, like Australia and Indochina, etc., you do eventually have to go through the Middle East and Dubai for connecting flights and it just ruins.
[00:27:28]  Quite common for layovers, isn't it?
[00:27:30]  Yeah.
[00:27:30]  So you can see here, this video shows lots of people fleeing.
[00:27:34]  I've got another video of that as well.
[00:27:37]  Of just waves of people just fleeing for their lives.
[00:27:44]  This isn't the best demonstration.
[00:27:46]  Yeah.
[00:27:47]  This isn't the best demonstration I could find.
[00:27:49]  But we'll get onto why there's not very good videos of what's going on at the minute in a second.
[00:27:56]  But if you did want to get out there, British Airways has cancelled all flights into Dubai until the summer.
[00:28:04]  which is quite a long time to be cut off, and particularly around a popular tourist time.
[00:28:10]  And in fact, I was able to find quite a long list of all of the airlines that have cancelled their flights to Dubai.
[00:28:17]  Some of these are also other areas in the Middle East, to be fair, but they're still going to have knock-on effects to Dubai because it connects.
[00:28:26]  It's a major hub.
[00:28:27]  I mean it is.
[00:28:28]  Loads of times I've stopped at Dubai.
[00:28:29]  I've never been to Dubai, but I've stopped in Dubai because it's a hub to everywhere else.
[00:28:34]  So you've got Aegean Airlines, Air Baltic, Air Canada, Air Europa, Air France, KLM.
[00:28:41]  They've directly suspended them to Dubai specifically.
[00:28:44]  Cafe Pacific, which is Hong Kong, Delta, Israeli Airlines, which I'm not surprised.
[00:28:51]  Emirates, Etiyad.
[00:28:53]  You get the idea.
[00:28:54]  There's a long list.
[00:28:55]  I'm not going to carry on reading all of them, but it's looking pretty difficult to get a flight in and out of Dubai at the minute.
[00:29:03]  So that's probably going to harm their tourist industry, I would say.
[00:29:07]  I mean, I feel bad for anyone who was laid over while all of this started happening.
[00:29:10]  They're caught in the middle of it a little bit.
[00:29:12]  I think people were able to get out in the end.
[00:29:15]  I think a lot of the people who did try and get out from Britain, those are the people that I've followed with this story, have been able to.
[00:29:23]  I don't think too many people are trapped from what I've been able to see.
[00:29:26]  I mean, still, it'd be a terrifying situation and probably would.
[00:29:28]  It ends up being massively expensive to get out of there.
[00:29:30]  You also wouldn't want to be stuck in the airport because, as we saw, it's a target.
[00:29:35]  So you're in a dangerous place if you're stuck there.
[00:29:39]  And I think people are well aware of that.
[00:29:41]  And I think also if you were flying to Dubai in one of the limited flights that might still be going there, I wasn't able to find any myself, then they're probably going to warn you, listen, this is dangerous.
[00:29:52]  I mean, I do also feel a bit bad for all of the expats over there who really, as much as I wouldn't do it myself, have gone to a place that's been advertised as this land of wonder and opportunity where you barely have to pay tax on anything and they've gone, great, I won't have to pay taxes for a load of government policies that absolutely despise me and make my life worse.
[00:30:12]  And then they go over there and then this happens.
[00:30:15]  Yeah, well, I don't want people to be drone striked because they live in a place I disagree with, obviously.
[00:30:22]  I'm not that mean, don't worry.
[00:30:24]  No, obviously I want everyone to be safe and I want everyone to get out safely.
[00:30:28]  But my problem is with the premise of the place in the first place, right?
[00:30:31]  Oh, yeah.
[00:30:33]  So now everyone's fled.
[00:30:36]  This is the situation in the airport in Dubai.
[00:30:42]  And by the way, if you've ever been to any major airport anywhere in the world, at any time it's always busy.
[00:30:47]  I've never seen an airport that looks like that.
[00:30:50]  Yeah, it's completely empty, isn't it?
[00:30:51]  And I mean, it's to be expected considering that all the flights are cancelled, but I've never seen an airport this empty in my entire life.
[00:31:00]  I've done a fair amount of flying in my time.
[00:31:04]  And in fact, it's not just the airports that are empty from some of the limited flights that are going on.
[00:31:12]  Yeah, there's no one on them.
[00:31:14]  I'm amazed that flight's still going ahead, to be honest, with one person there.
[00:31:20]  But this isn't really getting much attention, to be honest.
[00:31:24]  The entirety of their tourism industry, which they rely on very heavily, has basically completely vanished to zero.
[00:31:32]  It's not like, you know, Cornwall in Britain, where it relies on tourism to a significant degree.
[00:31:37]  And sometimes there might be a year where slightly fewer people go.
[00:31:42]  I don't know whether many industries can weather an entire year without any tourists whatsoever.
[00:31:48]  I think that's enough to put a business that is leveraged, as many of them probably are, under too much strain for them to bear.
[00:31:56]  Well, it's probably more like Iceland, where the entire country's economy relies on tourism.
[00:32:01]  the entire country's economy is based on tourism.
[00:32:03]  And if all of a sudden...
[00:32:04]  It's oil and tourism in the UAE's case.
[00:32:08]  Yeah, but oil's not doing great over there either.
[00:32:10]  Yes.
[00:32:13]  Yeah.
[00:32:13]  So if Iceland suddenly you couldn't get flights or boats over there, all of a sudden would probably collapse within a year.
[00:32:21]  And I saw this video, which I found quite endearing, of an old Yorkshireman who's still in his hotel, still braving it out, just narrating the lack of people there.
[00:32:31]  So obviously this is one of the most famous beachfronts and hotel areas in all of Dubai.
[00:32:38]  And it's 10 in the morning, as this gentleman points out, and there's no one there.
[00:32:46]  Well, good morning.
[00:32:48]  Start of another day.
[00:32:50]  It's going up 10 o'clock in the morning now.
[00:32:53]  And I think you've heard me going on about how quiet the hotel's getting.
[00:32:57]  Well, if you look down here, I know it's in a bit of shade, but even so, there's just nobody about.
[00:33:06]  I know there's a few guests in hotel, but there's not many.
[00:33:11]  So if you like, this is why I'm showing you this video, really, because, you know, there's just normally a couple of weeks ago when we first arrived, them beds have been nearly full.
[00:33:23]  You'd be lucky to get a bed, to be honest.
[00:33:27]  You get the idea.
[00:33:29]  I just wanted to include this because just so you know, I'm not making things up.
[00:33:34]  You've got the voice of a very trustworthy Yorkshireman there.
[00:33:37]  I hope he got back safe.
[00:33:39]  Yeah, me too.
[00:33:40]  I hope he enjoyed his holiday.
[00:33:41]  It'd probably be quite a nice time with no one around.
[00:33:44]  You can guess.
[00:33:44]  Just having to dodge a drone every now and again.
[00:33:47]  Yeah, well, if you're in a swimming pool, you know, you just go under the water.
[00:33:50]  You'll be alright, won't you?
[00:33:51]  I mean, that's absolutely not the sort of place or hotel I would go to.
[00:33:54]  But if I were to, it being completely empty is about the best case scenario.
[00:33:58]  Yeah, I would say so.
[00:34:00]  So I hope you had a nice time.
[00:34:02]  But the point is here, of course, that everywhere is empty, that people are not going.
[00:34:06]  And it's probably going to stay like this for a while, isn't it?
[00:34:09]  Because it's not exactly the most decisive conflict, the Iran-US and Israel conflict.
[00:34:17]  It could drag on for who knows how long.
[00:34:20]  And even after it wraps up, if it wraps up anytime soon, people are going to be wary because the idea of getting, you know, staying in a nice hotel and a drone blowing you up is enough to put me off.
[00:34:32]  And I already was, you know, quite averse to going there in the first place.
[00:34:36]  Well, you can imagine when all those people move to Dubai and they're drawing up their pros and con lists, getting attacked, being in the middle of a desert when their water supplies and fuel supplies run out, I'd imagine didn't even feature on the cons list.
[00:34:50]  I would imagine so.
[00:34:51]  So from now on, everybody thinking about Dubai is going to have to add those on.
[00:34:57]  And I think it's going to take a very, very long time for them to have to recover to the point that they were before all of this went on.
[00:35:06]  If they can recover at all, which I'm not entirely sure.
[00:35:10]  But lots of the countries around there, the oil-rich countries, have been trying to turn themselves into holiday destinations.
[00:35:17]  And the Saudis are trying to do the same thing in Riyadh and a number of other places.
[00:35:22]  Like they're spending an inordinate amount of money on things like the Line City, and they've got like a water sports complex and a skiing complex and all sorts of things.
[00:35:31]  The Saudis have a huge WWE deal as well.
[00:35:34]  They do.
[00:35:35]  And they keep hosting events there as well.
[00:35:36]  So I don't think there's going to be quite as many this year.
[00:35:40]  I would say so.
[00:35:41]  Well, I mean, all these Arab countries, they realized, yeah, we've got loads of oil, but the oil is going to run out.
[00:35:46]  So we need to start building up secondary industries now.
[00:35:49]  And that's why they did all of those things that you mentioned, that whole long list.
[00:35:53]  And Iran was like, oh, well, we're not allowed to sell oil, so we'll buy drones and missiles instead, which obviously turned out to be a...
[00:36:00]  It's like rock, paper, scissors.
[00:36:02]  Drones and missiles beat building infrastructure, usually.
[00:36:06]  Seems they do.
[00:36:07]  But the problem is that this has come at a time when there's growing competition.
[00:36:11]  And what you would ideally want if you were running Dubai would be to make it the go-to place in the Middle East to go on holiday.
[00:36:19]  However, you've got other rivals coming up who are going to be less affected by this.
[00:36:25]  Like, I didn't hear any strikes on Saudi tourist destinations, for example.
[00:36:31]  And so people might gravitate more towards them than they would have otherwise because of this going on.
[00:36:35]  So it could be the thing that puts Dubai into a death spiral.
[00:36:40]  And another thing that is doing that is the fact that many people who have realized, wait, I don't want to live here anymore, can't actually sell their homes in Dubai.
[00:36:50]  And yeah, there's one person who faces making losses on their £1.5 million mansion as all the property prices collapse.
[00:37:01]  So if you've invested in property out there, it might have seemed like a good idea at first because it was a growing industry.
[00:37:07]  However, if you can't sell it, your assets are basically worthless, aren't they?
[00:37:12]  If you can't turn them into actual money.
[00:37:14]  And also, this isn't the moment you sell either.
[00:37:16]  No, it's a terrible time to sell and you'd be very stupid to do it.
[00:37:19]  But people are for some reason.
[00:37:21]  But again, at the same time, like if the city collapses within a year, I mean, the question is, do I try and wait it out and hope the city is still standing?
[00:37:32]  Or do I try and sell now and get out and get whatever money I can?
[00:37:35]  Yeah.
[00:37:35]  I have heard it's like 80% drop in prices.
[00:37:39]  Yeah, it's steep, isn't it?
[00:37:40]  Not great.
[00:37:40]  And this is the concern when you get people like Peter Hitchens saying you need to leave the country.
[00:37:47]  Well, if you go to another Western country, the same problems that we have here are happening over there as well.
[00:37:53]  And then if you try and go to somewhere that's presenting itself like Dubai did as an escape for you, you won't have to pay too much tax.
[00:37:59]  You'll be able to live in this world of paradise and opportunity.
[00:38:02]  Well, they're in incredibly unstable regions of the world where this can happen at any time.
[00:38:06]  And also, you're just putting yourself at risk by living in the middle of a desert anyway.
[00:38:09]  Yeah, it's not very appealing.
[00:38:11]  Just like, would you like to live in a shopping mall in the desert?
[00:38:14]  No, actually, I don't.
[00:38:16]  Why would anyone want that?
[00:38:18]  And it's even worse than that because the Brits that were there are getting locked up because they videoed the drone strikes or took photos of them.
[00:38:27]  And at the minute, up to 70 Britons are locked up in the UAE, including tourists, expats, and even cabin crew on flights.
[00:38:37]  And even receiving an image in the UAE can be treated as a crime with punishments of up to 10 years in jail or fines reaching £200,000.
[00:38:48]  So this is the reality of your shopping mall in the desert is that if you take a photo when you're getting drone striked and send it to your loved ones to say that you're okay and you survived, then you could face 10 years in prison and bankruptcy.

=== Lightning Strikes and Floods (06:34) ===

[00:39:03]  Yeah, great.
[00:39:04]  I mean, it's a weird contrast with here where people are allowed to murder native Brits and basically get a slap on the wrist or in America where people can go on stabbing sprees on buses and basically just get away with it.
[00:39:15]  And in Dubai, if you get sent a photo, you go to prison.
[00:39:20]  Yes, it does put into perspective a little bit our own laws on these sorts of things, doesn't it?
[00:39:27]  That it's even harsher again, at least on some things by the looks of it.
[00:39:32]  And it's to the point where apparently our prisoners are just getting beaten in their cells.
[00:39:40]  And there's journalistic proof of this, supposedly, and it's a known thing that they do.
[00:39:46]  So for taking videos like this or pictures of the missiles, you could be jailed for 10 years and face regular beatings in a country that you might not even want to live in anymore for the crime of documenting things that have happened in your life.
[00:40:04]  I don't know, that's not for me.
[00:40:07]  I think that should be enough to put off most people, to be honest.
[00:40:11]  But God wasn't done with punishing Dubai for its vanity and hubris.
[00:40:18]  And so yeah, there was a really big storm and the world's tallest building was struck by lightning.
[00:40:25]  You can see here the streets were also flooded and this is when they're receiving drone strikes and the like and missile strikes as well.
[00:40:34]  And some of the videos I've seen from the flooding is unbelievable.
[00:40:40]  So this one I believe shows the airport being flooded.
[00:40:44]  Of course this is the same airport that was recently struck by drones, now being flooded and turned into, as they say, the world's most expensive swimming pool.
[00:40:53]  But also you see the buildings that have been built by Indian slave labor falling apart as well.
[00:40:58]  There's all of this plastic artifice and the contact with the weather you get in the desert.
[00:41:04]  Is that plane trying to take off?
[00:41:09]  I'm not entirely sure.
[00:41:10]  It's very stupid for it to take off.
[00:41:15]  We'll turn this out.
[00:41:19]  Tell you what, God's not subtle.
[00:41:22]  No.
[00:41:23]  I mean, striking the world's tallest building with lightning and then flooding their airport is a pretty strong omen, isn't it?
[00:41:31]  In a town where, as somebody in the Rumble Rance pointed out, they need to bus in water.
[00:41:38]  Well, here you go.
[00:41:40]  Oh, my God.
[00:41:45]  Sorry.
[00:41:49]  Here are some of the buildings just falling apart with a bit of rain.
[00:41:54]  You wouldn't get this back in Britain, would you?
[00:41:56]  If it just rained?
[00:41:58]  You are used to rain, though.
[00:42:00]  Yes.
[00:42:00]  They're not.
[00:42:02]  That's true.
[00:42:05]  But not in our shopping malls, usually.
[00:42:07]  No, no, no.
[00:42:09]  Also, we're not in desert, so we're kind of used to it and expect it.
[00:42:13]  Exactly.
[00:42:14]  So, obviously, they don't really have the infrastructure properly built out there to deal with these sorts of things.
[00:42:20]  Obviously, to deal with missile strikes, not many countries do, and drones, but also just rain and flooding.
[00:42:27]  And, of course, it floods there relatively regularly.
[00:42:29]  And scenes like this one.
[00:42:35]  No.
[00:42:36]  No credence.
[00:42:37]  That will get us in trouble.
[00:42:39]  But yes, just the roads into the city getting flooded.
[00:42:44]  As well as here's some more.
[00:42:46]  Here you go.
[00:42:48]  Doesn't Dubai look lovely this time of year?
[00:42:50]  If you don't get flooded out, you can get drone struck.
[00:42:54]  So yes, my point is that the city is terrible.
[00:42:59]  There are many good reasons not to go there.
[00:43:01]  And hopefully, if you did live there, you had family there.
[00:43:04]  They're out and they're safe.
[00:43:06]  And they're not harmed by all the things going on.
[00:43:08]  But there should be a cautionary tale not to move to places like this because they are, you know, castles built on sand, foundations of sand, right?
[00:43:19]  It's all going to come down eventually, and it's just a matter of time.
[00:43:23]  Got plenty of rumble rants from that one.
[00:43:27]  People wanted to talk about Dubai.
[00:43:29]  Do you want to read through them?
[00:43:30]  Sure.
[00:43:30]  Ramshakalotta says, Dubai, the city where all drinking water has to be shipped in, but they make a road called Rainy Street where sprinklers make it rain every 15 minutes.
[00:43:40]  Great use of resources, guys.
[00:43:43]  Sigil Stone says, Can you imagine if Iran hit the huge convoy of sewage trucks, instantly terraformed Dubai into Mumbai?
[00:43:51]  To be fair, the majority of the population is Indian, so they'd feel quite at home.
[00:43:56]  Ramshakalotta says, Also, more than 70% of Dubai's population are Indians, Pakistani, and Bangladesh.
[00:44:01]  There we go.
[00:44:02]  It's nice to be vindicated immediately.
[00:44:04]  Only 12% are native Emiratis.
[00:44:06]  That's true.
[00:44:09]  JDK Moody says, thoughts from the panel on Ukraine signing defense cooperation deals with the UAE and other Gulf states while Russian forces suffer casualties on the scale of 9-11 every two to three days.
[00:44:25]  I mean, I'm not surprised that Ukraine is signing deals with whoever they can, but it's just further building ties to the United States and NATO countries who are on paper at least aligned with these states in the Middle East, even though they sort of do their own thing and these alliances don't really mean very much.
[00:44:45]  Also, it doesn't seem like the greatest time to be signing deals with the Gulf states.
[00:44:49]  Yeah, I don't really see what's in it for either of them, really, because either one of them could drag them into a conflict potentially.
[00:44:55]  And with the Russian forces losing casualties like that, historically, that's been Russia's number one tactic.
[00:45:03]  Send wave after wave after wave of men to die.
[00:45:05]  Assuming those numbers are true.
[00:45:07]  Yes.
[00:45:07]  But either way, you know, the loss of life in the conflict is obviously a tragedy.
[00:45:15]  That's random name.
[00:45:16]  Dubai is the real-life equivalent of a mimic chest from Dark Souls.
[00:45:21]  Filters out all the low impulse control people.
[00:45:23]  Marvelous, really.
[00:45:25]  Yes, except for the fact that whenever I play Dark Souls, I always open those chests and get munched on by them.
[00:45:31]  You know, there's a difference in the type of chain.
[00:45:34]  I'm not patient enough.
[00:45:36]  I see a big chest.

=== Russian Casualties and Tactics (15:45) ===

[00:45:37]  I'm like, this is good.
[00:45:39]  If you wait long enough in some of them, you can see them snoring.
[00:45:42]  That's true.
[00:45:43]  I think in free, you can throw something at them and it opens its mouth and everything.
[00:45:47]  Yeah, they fall asleep.
[00:45:48]  I'm very confused by this conversation.
[00:45:49]  Sorry.
[00:45:50]  If you see a big chest, sometimes they're snoring.
[00:45:53]  Dan's not a gamer, confirmed.
[00:45:55]  It's all right.
[00:45:56]  Don't worry.
[00:45:56]  We're not talking about that kind.
[00:45:58]  Yeah, Dan plays particularly.
[00:45:59]  But why he should.
[00:46:01]  And Sigil Stone says, guys, I'm currently in Dubai and all the flood water just turned into blood.
[00:46:06]  There's frogs and locusts just everywhere.
[00:46:07]  Should I be worried?
[00:46:08]  No, I think you'll be fine.
[00:46:11]  I think you should just make sure you've got lambs.
[00:46:15]  Make sure you've got a lamb nearby.
[00:46:16]  That's random name says, Josh not beating the POC allegations.
[00:46:20]  What does that stand for?
[00:46:21]  Person of colour.
[00:46:22]  Oh, right, okay.
[00:46:24]  Is there a smoke alarm chirping in here somewhere?
[00:46:27]  Or you could alternatively call it like a piece of charcoal.
[00:46:31]  Piece of coal.
[00:46:32]  Yeah, piece of charcoal.
[00:46:33]  Just an old chunk of coal.
[00:46:36]  So, I've got a bit of a bit of a more upbeat segment for us now.
[00:46:40]  it's all about appreciation um and and there's many things to i mean let's start with appreciating elon musk because not only did he give us a new feature on on twitter which we can we can we can basically block regions so you can now turn off india Isn't that only replies, though?
[00:46:57]  It might be.
[00:46:58]  It might be, but he seems...
[00:46:59]  That's enough.
[00:47:00]  It's a start.
[00:47:02]  He seems to have made a tweak to the algorithm that has, because he probably noticed everybody was turning off India, he was like, okay, well, let's deprioritise them.
[00:47:11]  And who are we going to stick in their place?
[00:47:13]  And they obviously had a bit of a think, and they decided the Japanese.
[00:47:18]  And it is the best upgrade ever.
[00:47:22]  Because once we started getting the Japanese on our timeline, it turns out that they just really appreciate everything.
[00:47:31]  Charming and delightful.
[00:47:32]  They are charming and delightful, appreciative people.
[00:47:36]  For example, they seem to really like America, especially Texas, for whatever reason.
[00:47:42]  Probably the hats.
[00:47:44]  It seems sort of idiosyncratic with America, isn't it?
[00:47:47]  Exactly how they're dressed there, the blue jeans, the cowboy hats, the Czech shirts.
[00:47:52]  Well, they love it.
[00:47:54]  They also like England quite a lot from what I recall, that there's a whole genre of people over there called tiaboos.
[00:48:02]  There might even be a bit of that in here.
[00:48:04]  Have you got the thing about how this completely destroys all of the cultural appropriation arguments as well?
[00:48:10]  Well, I haven't got that, but you make that at the appropriate point.
[00:48:13]  Well, I'll just say, I mean, just immediately, look at this.
[00:48:16]  If this was, say, white people dressing in non-white attire, you'd be told that, oh, no, this is cultural appropriation.
[00:48:24]  This is horrible.
[00:48:25]  Because a lot of the other cultures of the world are horribly resentful and don't like it when we do that.
[00:48:30]  Whereas we, the white people, see Japanese people dressing up like us and go, oh, that's charming.
[00:48:35]  Yes, that's what I mean.
[00:48:36]  That's delightful because we don't feel that same resentment.
[00:48:38]  It's flattery, really, isn't it?
[00:48:40]  Yeah.
[00:48:41]  There's appreciation.
[00:48:42]  When I hear Japanese people talking about England and our beautiful gardens and our tea and our manners and the beautiful countryside, it makes me very proud.
[00:48:51]  And, you know, I can say the same thing about Japan as well.
[00:48:55]  Yeah.
[00:48:55]  You know, we're sort of, I see Japan as Britain of the East, really.
[00:49:01]  Here they are appreciating a bit of Take Me Home Country Road.
[00:49:10]  I mean, it's a nice song anyway, but they just do it so endearingly and charmingly Japanese.
[00:49:28]  It is very sweet.
[00:49:29]  Also, what you tend to find is when Japanese people learn Western instruments, they get really, really good at them.
[00:49:36]  They're Asians, so they get good at stuff.
[00:49:37]  They're the typical skill of their sort of musicianship is always very good.
[00:49:41]  Japanese jazz music is crazy.
[00:49:43]  Japanese power metal is awesome.
[00:49:47]  If I find an album that is like a that has a sort of fun cover and it's from Japan, I'm just like, I put that on.
[00:49:55]  I'm just like, wow, there's some good musicianship there guaranteed every time.
[00:49:59]  The Japanese are also absolutely fascinated by American barbecues.
[00:50:03]  And there's a huge number of posts of them just appreciating the concept of a barbecue.
[00:50:08]  So that's absolutely endearing.
[00:50:10]  If you are an appreciative person and you want to, you know, unlock your inner Japan, come and appreciate Swindon for our live event, which will be on the 11th of April.
[00:50:21]  It's almost as good as Japan.
[00:50:23]  Not really, but we'll be there.
[00:50:25]  So there's that.
[00:50:28]  And Dan really likes Japan and Japanese people.
[00:50:31]  So what's the difference?
[00:50:32]  A whole bunch of posts of Japanese people practicing their pistol skills and, as you say, getting really good at it because, you know, obviously they're intelligent Asian.
[00:50:45]  So when they decide to dedicate themselves something to it, I don't know if they have autists or whether they're just all like that, but they all just get really good at doing stuff.
[00:50:52]  I think they've got a culture that values mastery of a skill.
[00:50:56]  And so it really incentivizes people to pursue it.
[00:51:00]  It's sort of similar to ourselves, but to a degree that is a bit further, I think.
[00:51:05]  Yes.
[00:51:06]  Yes.
[00:51:07]  This is another one of those many posts of them appreciating the American barbecue.
[00:51:12]  And then went on to say, look, they just really love honky tonk in general.
[00:51:19]  Combine that with a Japanese love of karaoke and proper honky-tonk events where they all dress up.
[00:51:25]  They really do love Texas.
[00:51:27]  They do.
[00:51:28]  Sort of country Western aesthetic, isn't it?
[00:51:31]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:51:32]  But I mean, they just appreciate stuff in general.
[00:51:34]  So, I mean, this charming young lass was going around somewhere in the mountains, she says, and found a cherry blossom.
[00:51:41]  Just stopped to appreciate it because it's something worth appreciating.
[00:51:49]  This lady is just saying that she just really appreciates the alarm clock.
[00:51:54]  Just how delightful it is to wake up to a new day in Japan and appreciate the light clock.
[00:52:02]  These are the Japanese customer service at an airport, I think it is.
[00:52:09]  And they just want to let you know that they really appreciate the customer.
[00:52:14]  And they're all going to come out in a line before they do the serving bit so they can bow to you and let you know how jolly appreciative they are of the fact that you're queuing up in an airport.
[00:52:27]  I mean, just compare that to British customer service where they might grunt at you, but they probably wouldn't.
[00:52:33]  They probably wouldn't even maintain eye contact even once.
[00:52:38]  And yet the Japanese do this.
[00:52:40]  Quite charming.
[00:52:41]  Apparently, it is a culture in Japan to, if you're early to work, park far away so that late arriving colleagues can have a car park right by the entrance.
[00:52:53]  Again, just the complete opposite.
[00:52:55]  I mean, what a lovely.
[00:52:57]  Bit of an unfortunate parking job in that AI-generated image, though.
[00:53:00]  Yes.
[00:53:01]  in the middle i'm sure they wouldn't do that but um no they wouldn't They're far too nice for that.
[00:53:05]  That's the level of consideration that hasn't even occurred to me, and I obsess over politeness a bit.
[00:53:10]  Yes, exactly.
[00:53:11]  It wouldn't have occurred to me that.
[00:53:13]  They're going to get neurotic through the rest of this segment, finding all new ways to be overly polite to everyone.
[00:53:18]  Oh, I mean, it's going to feel like an underachiever.
[00:53:21]  They are the final boss of politeness.
[00:53:24]  Then this emerged once Japan replaced India on our timelines.
[00:53:29]  Best upgrade ever.
[00:53:31]  It turns out they also just wildly appreciate Victorian tea cafes.
[00:53:38]  And so they've set some up.
[00:53:40]  And so this cafe was becoming a bit viral because what they do is they have lots of pretty young lasses in sort of 1870s maids costume who will serve you in a cafe, a full-made tea service.
[00:53:58]  I'm sold on this.
[00:54:00]  When are you booking the flights, Dan?
[00:54:01]  Yep.
[00:54:02]  Very soon.
[00:54:03]  And it's got the whole cutesy aesthetic as well.
[00:54:05]  That's what I meant for.
[00:54:06]  Kawaii.
[00:54:07]  Yes.
[00:54:07]  Kauai, whatever that means.
[00:54:11]  What does Kauai mean, Samson?
[00:54:14]  It means cute in Japanese.
[00:54:15]  Ah, right, there you go.
[00:54:18]  And at this cafe, they paint you a little cat and little messages of encouragement on your plate.
[00:54:23]  Yeah, that's kawaii.
[00:54:25]  Like the happy cat pictures.
[00:54:27]  Oh, okay.
[00:54:28]  There you go.
[00:54:28]  There's three kawaiis in one place and a little, you know, little message.
[00:54:32]  Or a little, they might even take the time to draw you a little maid.
[00:54:36]  Again, what a wonderfully appreciative culture.
[00:54:40]  Here's Japanese people coming to London.
[00:54:45]  Now, if you've seen sort of videos like this before, there was a spate of those going around not so long ago of different foreigners, people who our press would describe as a derby man or something, being very aggressive with the household guard.
[00:55:04]  Trying to provoke a reaction.
[00:55:05]  Trying to provioke a reaction.
[00:55:08]  But of course, all foreigners are not equal.
[00:55:10]  Japanese tourists, I mean, just look at the way that they behave.
[00:55:16]  I'll give this a whirl.
[00:55:18]  There you go.
[00:55:18]  She comes up.
[00:55:19]  She bows.
[00:55:21]  Doesn't get too close.
[00:55:22]  Maintains on the right side of the line.
[00:55:25]  Takes her photo.
[00:55:27]  Bows again.
[00:55:28]  I mean, this one, she bows twice.
[00:55:30]  She bows to the horse just to make sure she's bowing enough.
[00:55:37]  Slightly there, though.
[00:55:39]  A quick bow again.
[00:55:40]  They're all like this.
[00:55:41]  They're all just wonderfully respectful and appreciative.
[00:55:47]  This used to be commonplace in our country before mass migration, didn't it?
[00:55:50]  Well, we did do the bowing, but we did a level of politeness and we did.
[00:55:54]  There was a nod of the head to people.
[00:55:56]  Particularly if you're in sort of the suburbs of the city where it's still weird to say hello, but you give like a head nod to someone as they pass by.
[00:56:04]  Tip your hat to someone.
[00:56:06]  We have lost something there.
[00:56:07]  Lost the art of that without the top hats now.
[00:56:10]  Yes.
[00:56:12]  Of course, they are also on their travels when they come around Europe sending back words of warning.
[00:56:20]  So, you know, this is one of many videos.
[00:56:23]  This one is a Japanese person has had the misfortune to find themselves in Paris.
[00:56:27]  Well, it's nice to see the French have tidied up a bit.
[00:56:29]  Yes, sending a warning.
[00:56:32]  Because Japanese also have this weird, I can't remember what it is.
[00:56:35]  Samson might know.
[00:56:36]  For the culture shock they get when they go to Europe and find that there are no Europeans.
[00:56:40]  It's specifically about Paris called Syndrome.
[00:56:43]  Paris.
[00:56:44]  I was just going to say, Samson can back me up on this.
[00:56:46]  Supposedly, the Japanese have such an idealized vision of Paris in their minds, which comes from pop culture, Disney films, old classics, that when they actually go to visit Paris, the shock is so much that they become physically ill.
[00:57:01]  Right.
[00:57:02]  I mean, I have a similar feeling, although I know what I'm going to expect.
[00:57:07]  Yes.
[00:57:07]  But imagine turning up not expecting that.
[00:57:10]  Even worse.
[00:57:10]  The culture shop must be even worse.
[00:57:12]  You're expecting ratatouille, and instead you get parrots.
[00:57:16]  Oh, yes.
[00:57:17]  I think they outnumber the people in Paris still, don't they?
[00:57:19]  Yeah, well, keeping traditions alive.
[00:57:22]  The only thing that I couldn't quite figure out is Japanese Twitter from my timeline, now that this is a thing, now that we get Japanese post, they don't seem to like their new Prime Minister very much.
[00:57:32]  not fully sure why i don't well i've heard tell that she's trying to open the gates for a start right of immigration And yeah, that's a little bit questionable in my opinion, from what I've seen.
[00:57:48]  But my understanding was, is that her policy was something like, you know, you can come over and work, but you won't get citizenship.
[00:57:57]  And you can only stay if you're culturally aligned and you behave yourself or something like that.
[00:58:02]  So I would have thought that's all right, but I don't know.
[00:58:05]  I don't really get how it works.
[00:58:07]  But first female prime minister and she's heavily criticised for being a little bit girlish and flirty.
[00:58:23]  So again, I don't fully understand.
[00:58:25]  Because I mean, they've only just elected her.
[00:58:28]  But Japanese Twitter seems there's a lot of this as well.
[00:58:31]  Well, as far as I'm aware, one of the reasons that people like yourself like the idea of the Japanese girls so much, Dan, is the fact that they are so feminine and girly.
[00:58:40]  Yeah, but she's 65, so young at heart.
[00:58:45]  Strikes me as good diplomacy to, you know, be a lady in the room and try and charm all the men.
[00:58:52]  Well, that's what I thought, but there was just so much of this that maybe it's just, I don't know, maybe 50%.
[00:58:57]  Maybe it's just a politically divided like everywhere else.
[00:59:02]  And maybe it's just 50% of Twitter.
[00:59:03]  But there was a lot of criticism of the new Prime Minister for whatever reason.
[00:59:08]  And videos like this, because of mocking the whole thing, but done in a sort of cutesy way.
[00:59:14]  My finger is on the button.
[00:59:17]  Anyway, probably better move on.
[00:59:18]  I wonder how you found this video, Dan.
[00:59:23]  I don't know.
[00:59:24]  I just want to talk.
[00:59:26]  Appreciation algorithm.
[00:59:28]  Why are you appreciating?
[00:59:29]  That's what you found out.
[00:59:33]  Appreciation doesn't just go one way.
[00:59:37]  Foreigners going to Japan, for some reason, get absolutely enamoured by the toilets, by the high-tech Japanese toilets.
[00:59:48]  Again, I'm not really sure what's going on here.
[00:59:51]  Can anyone who's...
[00:59:52]  Samson, why are the toilets in Japan so good and high-tech?
[00:59:57]  What are these videos you're showing us, Dan?
[01:00:02]  Samson?
[01:00:03]  It's just technological innovation.
[01:00:05]  They're allowed to do it.
[01:00:07]  Okay, but I mean, what do you get?
[01:00:09]  Like a calming mist or sea breeze?
[01:00:11]  It launches water up.
[01:00:13]  Water jet.
[01:00:14]  And I think that might be why the reaction.
[01:00:17]  Oh, okay.
[01:00:17]  Right, fair enough.
[01:00:19]  Harry's red.
[01:00:20]  He's embarrassed.
[01:00:21]  What you're doing to Harry.
[01:00:23]  Well, there's so many buttons.
[01:00:24]  I would have thought there would be a whole selection of options.
[01:00:27]  Some of my friends recently went to Japan and came back saying how much they fell in love with the place.
[01:00:32]  You know, they'd been for months across all of East Asia and Southeast Asia, Australia, and then they'd ended up in Japan basically by accident, not planning on going there.
[01:00:42]  They said of everywhere that they went, Japan was the only place that they wanted to go back to and the one place that they would actually consider moving to in the future.
[01:00:50]  This was not what they were raving about.
[01:00:52]  Okay, right.
[01:00:53]  They were raving about everybody was so polite, they were so quiet and well-behaved, everything was clean, the culture was delightful.
[01:01:00]  They didn't go, and I really loved the bidets.
[01:01:03]  Okay, well, I'm simply reporting what I found.
[01:01:06]  That's fair.
[01:01:08]  Maybe the high-tech toilets are just the cherry on top of all of the other stuff, but fine.
[01:01:13]  Okay, I'm just reporting.
[01:01:15]  Don't shoot the messenger.
[01:01:17]  At least it's not like China where they don't even have toilet roll.
[01:01:19]  You know, they're a rung above.
[01:01:21]  They've got water jets.

=== Japanese Politeness and Racism (15:40) ===

[01:01:22]  tech i there must be a mist option on there i won't spend long on this but i'm just saying one of the buttons must be a nice gentle mist A mist would just give you the sensation that you've wet yourself, surely.
[01:01:36]  Yeah, maybe I don't think.
[01:01:37]  Or maybe like a little smoke machine so you can stroke it.
[01:01:43]  Anyway, moving on.
[01:01:44]  I want that, yeah.
[01:01:45]  Great.
[01:01:45]  Moving on.
[01:01:46]  On China, I'm still traumatized from Idiot Abroad when Carl Pilkington goes into the public and finds there's no doors and there's just a hole in the floor.
[01:01:54]  Oh, yeah.
[01:01:55]  I saw that in France.
[01:01:57]  That doesn't surprise me.
[01:01:59]  In France, yeah.
[01:02:00]  Yep.
[01:02:00]  Very, very disturbing.
[01:02:03]  Why is Japan like this?
[01:02:05]  I mean, another question about this is, look, this is an Apple store in Japan.
[01:02:10]  And as you probably notice, they don't even bother locking anything because, I mean, why would you?
[01:02:16]  We used to be like this as well.
[01:02:18]  Well, you remember the Apple stores down my way being like this.
[01:02:23]  I don't think there can be any more.
[01:02:24]  No, there can't be because, well, here's an Apple store in California to give you the contrast.
[01:02:36]  Yep.
[01:02:37]  Oh, it's an urban scholar doing it.
[01:02:40]  I never would have guessed.
[01:02:42]  A boy's training to be an architect.
[01:02:45]  Yeah, one phone at a time.
[01:02:47]  And of course, the staff can see him doing this, but there's not a damn thing they can do because if they were to intervene, they, of course, would go to jail and he, of course, would not.
[01:02:59]  What's the point in a Second Amendment in that country at all?
[01:03:02]  If this were the Wild West that the Japanese so admired, he would be like Swiss cheese at the minute.
[01:03:09]  He's not even able to pull his trousers up properly.
[01:03:11]  Look at those ridiculous shoes.
[01:03:12]  What a pillard.
[01:03:15]  Yeah, it is a bit unfortunate.
[01:03:18]  Now, because Japan has been getting a little bit enriched, it has had a bit of this.
[01:03:26]  It's starting to experience it because, of course, you know, population isn't going up as fast as I'd like.
[01:03:31]  We need you.
[01:03:32]  Got the video of the African getting turned into sushi?
[01:03:35]  God, no.
[01:03:36]  Really?
[01:03:37]  You haven't seen it?
[01:03:38]  Oh, I know what you're about.
[01:03:39]  Yes, I've seen it.
[01:03:40]  Wonderful.
[01:03:40]  It's wonderful.
[01:03:41]  There's an African playing up in public, and so they wrap him in a big green plastic sheet like you would roll up a rug and sushify him and then put him into a car.
[01:03:53]  Right.
[01:03:54]  Oh, good.
[01:03:55]  Not literally turned into sushi then, because I mean, even for the Japanese, that would be a good idea.
[01:03:59]  I mean, we don't know what happened after the video ended.
[01:04:01]  Possibly.
[01:04:01]  That's true.
[01:04:02]  Possibly.
[01:04:04]  But Japanese racism is just, I have to say, it is just like everything else they do.
[01:04:11]  It's so sort of sincere and pure.
[01:04:17]  There was just absolutely no holding back.
[01:04:19]  I thought originally I was going to do the whole segment on sort of sincere, sweet Japanese racism.
[01:04:27]  But I quickly realized I just cannot post almost any of it.
[01:04:33]  That's the problem with racism, I've long said, is that it's impurity.
[01:04:38]  The problem is that it's not pure enough like the Japanese have achieved.
[01:04:41]  Yes.
[01:04:42]  But I mean.
[01:04:46]  How does Rose is?
[01:04:47]  I don't know how the Frez is.
[01:04:49]  I mean, you could just read it out and give everybody a taste, Dan.
[01:04:52]  No, no, I won't do that.
[01:04:55]  I won't do that.
[01:04:56]  It's just that they don't have any of the sort of cultural hang-ups and assumptions that we have.
[01:05:00]  And you realise, when you start to go through Japanese Twitter, imagine the biggest racist that you know.
[01:05:09]  What an amateur, what an amateur we are, compared to even just the most casual Japanese chap, which I thought...
[01:05:19]  They are the professionals, aren't they?
[01:05:20]  They are professionals.
[01:05:22]  I mean, the Japanese are the people who did basically just try and genocide parts of China less than 100 years ago.
[01:05:29]  Oh, yeah, but those are different Japanese.
[01:05:31]  And still haven't really apologised for it.
[01:05:35]  Not that I'm asking them to.
[01:05:36]  No, no, but for whatever happened in about halfway in between then and now, obviously cause some sort of reset, however it works.
[01:05:45]  And here we go.
[01:05:46]  Here's a Japanese person explaining.
[01:05:47]  As a Japanese person, I can tell you people are incredibly racist.
[01:05:51]  It's beautiful to witness zero guard, and it's not hateful.
[01:05:54]  It's just like you people are troublemakers, go away.
[01:05:57]  Just sincere and pure.
[01:05:58]  I like the image there with this as well.
[01:06:00]  Like weird dragon ballsy builder for some reason.
[01:06:04]  Like Goku with a hard hat just racistly telling people to leave Japan as a spirit in the sky.
[01:06:11]  I don't really understand that either, but I put it in.
[01:06:14]  Don't understand a lot of this, but I'm putting it in.
[01:06:17]  I mean, again, this is an example of so much of this stuff.
[01:06:21]  And, you know, saying, I hate those foreigner tourists who come to Japan because of the weak yen.
[01:06:26]  The shitty foreigners who come for work but can't even speak Japanese.
[01:06:30]  You know, blah, blah, blah.
[01:06:31]  He's going off about it.
[01:06:32]  And I understand.
[01:06:33]  I mean, I would like to go to Japan at some point.
[01:06:35]  And if people have to protest me being there and, you know, tell me to go away.
[01:06:40]  I mean, I completely understand because you've got to keep the country Japanese.
[01:06:44]  That is ultimately the most important thing.
[01:06:46]  Polite Englishmen are not the problem in Japan.
[01:06:49]  Well, probably not.
[01:06:51]  But if they need to do it, I understand.
[01:06:53]  I mean, I have pointed out before that some of the white tourists that they've had, like the streamers like Logan Paul, have been some of the ones, sadly, to open the floodgates to the other streamers to come over where they've basically made a genre out of live streaming themselves, purposefully upsetting Japanese people and being rude to them.
[01:07:09]  I really despise that.
[01:07:10]  I've covered this before where the streamers are causing chaos and it's they're obviously taking advantage of their goodness.
[01:07:18]  That's enough to justify them closing their borders.
[01:07:20]  Yeah, this is a bit of an example, actually.
[01:07:23]  There was, I don't know if he's a streamer, but he was obviously trying to do something.
[01:07:27]  He decided this chap down here to do a dance routine on the train.
[01:07:34]  And this one went kind of viral in Japan.
[01:07:36]  It got a lot of attention.
[01:07:39]  And as you can see, the Japanese with their endearing, innocent racism, basically they just have zero tolerance for this sort of breach of protocol.
[01:07:50]  He's a top candidate for sushification, I would say.
[01:07:53]  Yes.
[01:07:55]  And I blanked out the word here because, of course, we can't in this country translate Japanese Twitter directly because they go so much harder and purer on this stuff.
[01:08:08]  But because this one did go a bit viral, the train company themselves had no problem making exactly the same analogy by putting up these signs in response advising people that you kind of need to behave yourself when you are on public transport.
[01:08:27]  Wait, sorry, go back.
[01:08:28]  That's interesting that the two figures that they've chosen to represent like good-ish behavior is the yellowy orange fox.
[01:08:39]  I don't think we can read too much in this.
[01:08:41]  Yeah.
[01:08:41]  But that's interesting.
[01:08:44]  Yes.
[01:08:45]  But you see what I mean.
[01:08:47]  And the pure white polar bear whose child is being upset.
[01:08:50]  Yes.
[01:08:51]  But the Japanese, they don't filter, they don't have to think through 13 different layers of how do I avoid offending people.
[01:08:58]  No, they just cut to the quick of it.
[01:09:00]  I appreciate that.
[01:09:04]  Yeah, stuff like this, lots of this.
[01:09:06]  Whenever immigrants badly behave, I mean, it just becomes a thing immediately and they don't hold back on any of it.
[01:09:12]  So they had a big problem with the Kurds for a while as well.
[01:09:14]  Did they, didn't they?
[01:09:16]  You didn't think there'd be any relationship with the Kurds, you know, Middle Eastern people in Japan, but they've built up a little bit of a so-called community and have already started causing problems.
[01:09:29]  I mean, this is a black woman who's been living in Japan apparently for 10 years, and it's significantly ramped up lately, apparently.
[01:09:37]  The desire that they and they're having these sort of protests now basically to try and get the foreigners out because they can see what's happened to Europe and they're like, no, thank you very much.
[01:09:50]  You're not having that.
[01:09:51]  So again, if I do go to Japan and you have to protest me, I completely understand.
[01:09:54]  To be honest, it would be an honor to have a Japanese person be racist to me.
[01:09:59]  Yes.
[01:09:59]  I'd sort of be like, oh, well, thank you.
[01:10:01]  You know, I'm touched.
[01:10:03]  Yes, I like that.
[01:10:03]  It's nice to be on the other side.
[01:10:06]  I mean, this is another example.
[01:10:08]  I mean, I won't play all the video, but basically, yes.
[01:10:12]  Oh, actually, no, this isn't the one.
[01:10:14]  There's another one I was going to talk about as well.
[01:10:16]  There was a sort of for the small Muslim community there, they set up a pressure group to basically say, Well, look, the norm in Japan is cremation.
[01:10:26]  Well, we want burials.
[01:10:28]  What are you going to do?
[01:10:30]  And this Japanese politician stood up and said, Go back to your own country and have a burial.
[01:10:37]  I mean, I've said the same thing before when they tried to, they were going to build a mega Islamic cemetery in Cornwall of all places.
[01:10:46]  And I just said, you know, you've got no shortage of sand in the Middle East, stick them in there.
[01:10:51]  Well, quite plenty room.
[01:10:53]  And this one is another similar thing that's getting shot down.
[01:10:56]  Apparently, a lot of Pakistani and African-American men are suing the Japanese police for racial profiling because the Japanese have noticed that certain groups commit crime at a higher rate, and so they just focus on them.
[01:11:09]  And apparently, white Europeans pretty much get left alone because they're leasing, isn't it?
[01:11:13]  Yes.
[01:11:14]  Policing based on evidence.
[01:11:16]  So there's a bit of profiling as well.
[01:11:20]  And again, just generally endearing stuff.
[01:11:25]  I mean, I don't agree with everything that she says, but I mean, obviously.
[01:11:29]  Excuse me, ma'am.
[01:11:31]  If you could bring back one person dead or alive, who would it be?
[01:11:39]  Yeah, exactly.
[01:11:44]  Anyway, moving on.
[01:11:47]  Charlie Chaplin fan.
[01:11:49]  Big Charlie Chaplin fan.
[01:11:50]  I've seen this video.
[01:11:53]  They like their karaoke as well, so they are reliving all the classic bangers.
[01:12:08]  I'm not sure how long this can be played on YouTube.
[01:12:11]  Yes.
[01:12:13]  Probably best done there.
[01:12:14]  Then we go.
[01:12:15]  I mean, there's nothing wrong with this.
[01:12:17]  Do you think it's copyrighted that the original owner of the song might come after us or something?
[01:12:22]  I mean, it's about a girl and a flower.
[01:12:24]  I mean, it's not that.
[01:12:25]  I mean, out of all the songs from that period, it's the least bad one.
[01:12:28]  Apparently, she does all of them.
[01:12:29]  Okay.
[01:12:30]  She's working her way through.
[01:12:31]  Is that her specialty?
[01:12:32]  Now, I'm not endorsing the messages of the underlying song.
[01:12:37]  I'm just saying that they just don't have the whole baggage that stops them having the conversations that they need to have, which I think is quite rare.
[01:12:45]  I don't think they're quite as ashamed about their axis relationship of the past, are they?
[01:12:50]  Yes.
[01:12:51]  So that's more or less what I had to say.
[01:12:53]  I do have a couple more links if we've got time.
[01:12:55]  Have we got time?
[01:12:56]  I'll go on them.
[01:12:57]  All right, then, fine.
[01:12:58]  I'll do the next bit, which is a bit of a twist.
[01:13:02]  The weird sexualization in Japan.
[01:13:06]  I'm immediately regretting.
[01:13:09]  You ask Rick, Josh.
[01:13:11]  I don't quite get how this works, but apparently.
[01:13:13]  But this is another part of the culture that at least I appreciate.
[01:13:32]  Again, I'm not really sure Again, I'm trying to interpret the culture to understand how this all works.
[01:13:39]  I've never seen this on British television, I must tell you.
[01:13:42]  Although, you know, there are some good Japanese game shows that I've seen.
[01:13:46]  Takeshi's Castle comes to mind.
[01:13:47]  That's excellent.
[01:13:50]  I don't know.
[01:13:51]  This one, we've got a nice girl in stocks.
[01:13:54]  Again, just your thinly veiled fetish.
[01:13:58]  I don't think it's particularly thinly veiled.
[01:14:03]  Now Dan has just found a way to show us his favourite fetish.
[01:14:07]  I had never seen any of this until today.
[01:14:10]  I just think it is a.
[01:14:11]  I never said you'd watched it before today.
[01:14:13]  I'm just saying now your favourite fetish content.
[01:14:16]  No, I'm just saying it's a fascinating culture in all its different aspects.
[01:14:23]  You can say that, yes.
[01:14:25]  I think that's fair.
[01:14:28]  A lot of this, I'm just genuinely confused.
[01:14:30]  I don't truly understand it.
[01:14:31]  Because, like, for example, in the West, you know, obviously, when girls go to the gym these days, they wear the tightest possible lycra and then presumably vacuum seal that so they've got freckles on their labio, you can still see it, and then they get upset when you look at them.
[01:14:47]  Whereas watching one clip where a Western girl was in Japan and saying she has to wear really baggy clothes when she goes to the gym, otherwise, people just stare at her like she's a complete whore.
[01:14:59]  So I'm not entirely at the same time the television has programmes like this.
[01:15:03]  Yes, that's what I'm getting at.
[01:15:05]  That's what I'm getting at.
[01:15:06]  There is a strange confusion.
[01:15:07]  Samson, having been to Japan a number of times, would probably be able to better tell us about it because he said that when it comes to like advertising and such, it's kind of like held off to particular districts where kind of in an old-fashioned European way is understand that there is degeneracy in the city, but if you just make sure that it all stays in this one place, how does it work on the toilet?
[01:15:28]  Which spill everywhere else?
[01:15:29]  Is there a similar cord and sanitaire to this?
[01:15:32]  Watershed.
[01:15:33]  Yeah, is this a watershed thing, Samson?
[01:15:37]  I don't know.
[01:15:37]  This looked like general entertainment to me.
[01:15:39]  And the final one.
[01:15:41]  Wait, look, Samson, I didn't catch that.
[01:15:44]  We can't hear you now.
[01:15:45]  Testing cut off.
[01:15:48]  Always busy.
[01:15:48]  They're keeping the truth from us.
[01:15:52]  And then finally, on this, I think it might all be the same thing.
[01:15:56]  I don't anymore.
[01:15:56]  Come on, get some of it.
[01:15:58]  Start off!
[01:16:01]  But apparently, for whatever reason, they needed to invent an exercise bloke bike that is a sort of coochie blower.
[01:16:09]  Again, I don't fully get how this works.
[01:16:11]  But anyway.
[01:16:12]  I'm amazed that that exists, but I'm horrified that I witnessed it on camera for the first time.
[01:16:17]  So, there we go.
[01:16:18]  Let's appreciate the fact that the Japanese have replaced the Indians on social media.
[01:16:23]  Here's a broad sample of what you can expect.
[01:16:27]  I think it's an upgrade.
[01:16:29]  I don't know about you, Japs.
[01:16:32]  I agree.
[01:16:33]  Just sincerity, appreciation, casual, sincere racism, and a little bit of however you describe the last couple of bits.
[01:16:43]  Because I think it's good, but you know, take it as you will.
[01:16:47]  Got plenty of rumble rants.
[01:16:49]  That's true.
[01:16:50]  Okay.
[01:16:54]  Where do I start?
[01:16:55]  At the very least, after my depressing segment to start it off, I think you've both brought smiles to everybody's face.
[01:17:01]  Yeah, so I was trying to cheer everybody.

=== Sincere Appreciation and Bias (05:29) ===

[01:17:03]  I slowly built it back.
[01:17:04]  I was mainly talking about how much I hated something, so it was difficult for it to be cheery.
[01:17:08]  But as I like all of them, brought it around.
[01:17:11]  There it is.
[01:17:11]  I enjoy it.
[01:17:12]  There was nothing on the Japanese segment I didn't like.
[01:17:14]  As a British person, I prefer to be miserable anyway.
[01:17:17]  Being happy is sort of, you know, not patriotic.
[01:17:20]  Right.
[01:17:20]  That's a random name.
[01:17:21]  Says, fun fact: the Japanese word war to escape is to flee, etc., is niggaroo.
[01:17:29]  I'm sure it's just a coincidence, Dan Side Eye.
[01:17:33]  Based Ape said he was about 15 minutes behind, but that was the most British thing that he'd ever heard related to Josh's segment.
[01:17:39]  Let's go to Dubai in the middle of a war for a nice bit of peace and quiet.
[01:17:43]  Sounds lovely.
[01:17:44]  I don't know why you're going all the way down there.
[01:17:46]  It's just a sigil stone as well.
[01:17:48]  So, what kind of kimono is Samson wearing during this segment?
[01:17:52]  Well, he didn't start off wearing one, but he might have changed whilst we weren't looking.
[01:17:55]  It just appeared upon him.
[01:17:57]  I don't know how it's happened.
[01:17:58]  So, go from that to random name.
[01:18:01]  That one.
[01:18:01]  Oh, okay.
[01:18:02]  Oh, you go up, do you?
[01:18:03]  Right.
[01:18:04]  Didn't the Japanese try to genocide parts of China?
[01:18:06]  I already like Japan, Harry.
[01:18:08]  No need to try and sell me.
[01:18:09]  Oclidor says, Which would you prefer, the Japanese game show or the current BBC?
[01:18:15]  Well, personally, I would say the game shows have.
[01:18:18]  It's not even close.
[01:18:19]  They've captured my imagination.
[01:18:22]  I might even pay for my TV license if that was.
[01:18:25]  Yes.
[01:18:26]  I couldn't resist.
[01:18:27]  I'm sorry.
[01:18:28]  We found something that Josh is willing to pay taxes for, fellas.
[01:18:32]  So a machine that fires ping-pong balls at a woman's ass, and another machine that fires air up it.
[01:18:41]  I presume it's more willing.
[01:18:42]  I mean, it wouldn't be cold air.
[01:18:43]  It could be cold air.
[01:18:45]  I'm not sure which would be better or worse.
[01:18:47]  Leave a comment if you know.
[01:18:49]  Do we have any video?
[01:18:51]  There was one last one as well, which is Siddle Stone at the top.
[01:18:56]  It's like you're explaining boomer.
[01:19:01]  Have you seen the size of the mouse when he's been in the second studio doing daily?
[01:19:06]  He has the boomer mouse.
[01:19:07]  It takes up half the screen.
[01:19:09]  That's an exaggeration.
[01:19:11]  I'll just make it a bit bigger so my old eyes can see it.
[01:19:14]  They're not playing the Japanese cover of I Wish I Were in Dixie.
[01:19:19]  Alright.
[01:19:20]  I don't know what you're talking about.
[01:19:21]  Shameful display.
[01:19:22]  Right, let's write it out quite like that.
[01:19:25]  Good Shogun 2 reference there.
[01:19:27]  Let's do the video.
[01:19:28]  Oh no, this study shows my side in a bad light.
[01:19:30]  Let's have a look to see what's been going on recently.
[01:19:33]  Well, this is stupid behaviour, and he was punished in a court of law after expressing regret and remorse.
[01:19:37]  I'm not sure why the headline is sceptical about him being drunk specifically, as if that's in contention after he merged from a pub.
[01:19:43]  Oh well, I condemn.
[01:19:44]  How about the other side?
[01:19:46]  Oh, would-be terrorists detonated themselves in an attempt to attend a protest, no quotes around that word for some reason, to release an actual terrorist.
[01:19:54]  Well, I can see why the study was removed.
[01:19:58]  Yeah, that's the thing.
[01:19:58]  It's the same thing with the ADL reports in America on left versus right-wing extremism, where they massively inflate the number of right-wing extremist events by taking it so that, I don't know, some guy who has a tattoo of the American flag punched his girlfriend in the face, and they count that as a right-wing extremist event.
[01:20:17]  Punched her for America.
[01:20:19]  Well, freedom.
[01:20:20]  She got in the way of his view of a bald eagle.
[01:20:24]  I've just returned to Canada from a trip to the UK, necessitated by the passing of my father.
[01:20:29]  Here he is leading a formation wheelbarrow team called the Red Barrows as a local fate to raise money.
[01:20:35]  I was horrified to note the general attitudes of the people there.
[01:20:38]  As much as sites like Lotus Eaters are doing stolid work with analysing what's going on, you must not think that you are winning.
[01:20:44]  The grip the BBC has on the public at large means that Matt Goodwin may be a bit useless, but he does understand the confused minds of many of the public who only get their news and analysis from the mainstream.
[01:20:56]  Yeah, I mean, it's fair that the boot, the TV-watching Brits are a challenge.
[01:21:04]  That is true.
[01:21:05]  Also, sorry to hear about your father.
[01:21:06]  Yeah, he's doing all right.
[01:21:09]  Do we have any more videos, Simpson?
[01:21:10]  Those were all of the videos, but those were all of the videos.
[01:21:13]  Right, let's do some comments.
[01:21:15]  Let me get the mouse, Samson.
[01:21:18]  Thank you.
[01:21:20]  All right, I'll read through some of mine.
[01:21:23]  Michael Dre Belbus, King Charles is a big fan of his uncle Edward, so if he was a fan of a traitor king, what kind of king would he be?
[01:21:30]  HM Butterknife Permit Registry.
[01:21:32]  You can usually tell it isn't one of the usual suspects driving the car in these types of collisions by the fact that it either isn't a truck or a white German luxury performance car.
[01:21:42]  Baron von Warhawk, the difference between the state's reaction to a few empty Jewish ambulance getting burnt and the reaction to seven English people getting run over by a third worlder shows who are the true masters of the country and guess what?
[01:21:54]  They don't care about you.
[01:21:55]  Well, I would say regarding that, it's just basically any ethnic minority group that isn't native Brit is going to get a much more favourable treatment by the establishment.
[01:22:07]  Obviously, the reaction to the Jewish ambulances was massively overblown, but at the same time, again, a Rwandan kid stabbed a bunch of white girls at a Taylor Swift dance hall thing, and we had the Prime Minister himself coming out to tell you you were wrong for being angry about it.
[01:22:25]  Lord Inquisitor Hector Rex, listen, I know he hit you with two tons of steel, but did you die?
[01:22:31]  Yeah, and that's a random name.

=== Demographic Insecurity in the UK (05:37) ===

[01:22:33]  What kind of world would there ever in what kind of world would there ever be Indians in Derby?
[01:22:38]  A clown world.
[01:22:38]  Yes, we do live in clown world.
[01:22:42]  Okay.
[01:22:43]  I'm not going to read that name because that sounds incriminating to Carl.
[01:22:48]  With the current demographic makeup of Milton Keynes, why bother leaving if you want the Dubai experience?
[01:22:53]  You're still going to pay taxes.
[01:22:54]  That's something.
[01:22:56]  Omar Award.
[01:22:57]  Early on in the conflict, a clip was circulating where the Western tourists appeared to have fled and all that remained were crowds of South Asians.
[01:23:05]  Honestly, Dubai looks much more appealing now that it's completely empty.
[01:23:09]  That's true.
[01:23:10]  I mean, a lot of the help are from the subcontinent, aren't they?
[01:23:14]  And I imagine they're not treated particularly well or given sanitary conditions.
[01:23:19]  So make of that what you will.
[01:23:21]  Frankly, most tourist destinations are nicer when they're empty as well.
[01:23:24]  I agree.
[01:23:26]  When I'm forced to be a tourist by circumstance, I like the places where there are no tourists.
[01:23:32]  AZ Desert Rat.
[01:23:34]  I've never been to Dubai, but the few people I've known who have visited say that it is miserably hot and humid with ridiculously expensive prices.
[01:23:43]  I'm not surprised.
[01:23:44]  That's the impression I got.
[01:23:45]  It's basically a playground for people who want to pretend to be important because they have some money.
[01:23:51]  It's like, oh, I've made lots of money in sales.
[01:23:54]  I'm going to fly out there and get some lip injections or something.
[01:23:57]  I didn't say it on the segment itself as well.
[01:24:00]  But the Burj Khalifa, the thing with that is, right, I don't want to sound like a feminist.
[01:24:04]  It is basically a giant insecure penis in the sky, isn't it?
[01:24:08]  It's an ego thing, isn't it?
[01:24:09]  Yeah.
[01:24:10]  You know, it can be related to that.
[01:24:13]  But the only reason they did it and built this really tall building is just so it's like, oh, we've got the biggest building.
[01:24:18]  We're so advanced.
[01:24:19]  But it's sort of, you know, it's like someone saying how strong they are.
[01:24:23]  It sort of reeks of insecurity.
[01:24:25]  You don't point it out.
[01:24:26]  You know, you don't go out and build the tallest building.
[01:24:29]  It just sort of happens.
[01:24:30]  It's like, whoops, we needed this, but I guess it's the tallest building now.
[01:24:34]  Like, that's how Europe and North America broke boundaries, is we sort of did it with a practical reason.
[01:24:42]  Derek Power says, this is what happens when you build your economy on sand, literally.
[01:24:48]  I already made that joke.
[01:24:50]  You might have said it before I did, to be fair.
[01:24:53]  And then finally, Henry Ashman says, whilst the UK gets more rain than the UAE, generally speaking, when it rains, it will thump it down.
[01:25:00]  Plus, any rain will cause flash flooding because the soil is essentially baked solid.
[01:25:05]  Can be a bit like that in the UK after a drought.
[01:25:08]  That is true.
[01:25:08]  However, with all the money that they've got, they can easily build the correct infrastructure.
[01:25:13]  Like, it's not that hard to build drainage that works.
[01:25:18]  I know most British councils might beg to differ, but that's only because they prefer to spend their money giving free stuff to minorities rather than, you know, clearing drains.
[01:25:30]  Your section, Dan?
[01:25:31]  All right.
[01:25:32]  I've got the answer that I need.
[01:25:33]  So, Furious Dan's, a strong aim, by the way.
[01:25:36]  Japanese toilets automatically raise and lower the lid.
[01:25:39]  They have heated seats, built-in fans, ocean mist, and B-Day functions.
[01:25:46]  The tragedy that Japan has no Mexican food, why own a Ferrari when you can't take it to the track?
[01:25:52]  That's why they're importing a few Indians here and there.
[01:25:55]  Once they've got the curries flowing, the toilets will finally validate it.
[01:26:04]  Oh, there you go.
[01:26:06]  But they do have Ocean Mist.
[01:26:07]  I mean, so I was right.
[01:26:09]  Because...
[01:26:10]  Your dream of a wet arse, it can be a reality.
[01:26:13]  No, what?
[01:26:13]  Not where?
[01:26:15]  Sorry, walking around with a wet ass.
[01:26:17]  I'm just saying, you know, after a hard day, a little gentle mist, I mean, it wouldn't go a mist, would it?
[01:26:23]  I'm just trying to.
[01:26:26]  You're looking at me like I've gone mad.
[01:26:27]  I mean, surely.
[01:26:28]  I'm thinking of circumstances where I need a misty bottom, and I can't think of any.
[01:26:33]  Yeah, I see your point.
[01:26:35]  But I'm just saying it's the only function that I think I would.
[01:26:41]  It could be quite nice sometimes.
[01:26:42]  I don't know.
[01:26:43]  I don't know.
[01:26:46]  That's a random name says, crime in Japan is so low that something like 75% of stolen bikes are found and returned to their owner within a week or two.
[01:26:55]  Yes.
[01:26:56]  I wonder who the culprits are.
[01:26:58]  They don't have that.
[01:26:59]  A terrible demographic, do they?
[01:27:02]  The bicycle thief demographic.
[01:27:04]  Amy points out that the Japanese ambassador to the Britain is highly appreciative of British culture.
[01:27:11]  That is true.
[01:27:12]  He's quite delightful.
[01:27:13]  He's the best example of an ambassador I think I've ever seen.
[01:27:16]  Also, Japan, like, if you're going to look at it from a perspective of geopolitical strategy, right?
[01:27:22]  Okay, just being nice to the other countries and being really respectful of their cultures has done so much, so many wonders for them.
[01:27:33]  Less than a hundred years ago, they were supposedly the greatest threat to all of our Eastern Empire and all of our territory in Asia.
[01:27:40]  And now we love them.
[01:27:42]  Why?
[01:27:42]  Because they make funny cartoons and seem really nice.
[01:27:47]  Yes.
[01:27:48]  I mean, they nearly killed my grandfather, and now I'm defending them.
[01:27:53]  Those lovely people.
[01:27:55]  I mean, a bit of a miss, the grandfather thing, but apart from that.
[01:27:59]  Dan wants to experience the feeling of a Ukrainian rent boy having spat on his ass.
[01:28:05]  That was a $2 rumble rent from Sigilstone.
[01:28:08]  Bloody don't.

=== Loving Former Enemies (00:44) ===

[01:28:10]  Don't.
[01:28:11]  Gale in which she rents.
[01:28:12]  An ocean mist and one of Keir Starmer's bloody cue.
[01:28:18]  At least you won't catch a disease from the toilet, will you?
[01:28:22]  I'm not obsessed with a mist.
[01:28:23]  I'm just saying, if I when I because there's so many buttons, I thought, what could the buttons do?
[01:28:29]  And that was where my mind.
[01:28:30]  I mean, what do you think the buttons do?
[01:28:33]  Well, I know what the buttons do.
[01:28:34]  I'm aware of what the toilet is.
[01:28:36]  It's kind of just like a thing that people know culturally.
[01:28:39]  Okay, well, I don't know.
[01:28:40]  I don't know how to use the free seashells.
[01:28:42]  Sue me.
[01:28:44]  Anyway, that's it, I think.
[01:28:48]  So thank you for coming.
[01:28:51]  Hopefully, not literally in that last segment.
[01:28:53]  And see you in the next one.