This is London Calling, London Calling. I don't know what happened to Dald
Trump. This is a different guy per day then when he was running in
twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. And I think I did the direction ad gone
with his campaign. It's the wrong direction. Welcome to London calling with me
James Denny Pole and my very good friend mister Toby Young. So toobs.
Yet again, we are working on the day when we're supposed to be not
working because these communist strokes satanic Satanic calendar three days off, and the Americans
have one as well. I gather they've got Memorial Day and we've got what's
our excuse for having this bank holiday? I think it's just I'm not sure
what the excuse is. Is it an extra holiday because of the coronation?
Oh no? Or is it a regular holiday? If it's, if it's
onthing to do with the coronation, I'm jolly glad than I'm working to show
my contempt for I don't think it is. I think I think it's called
the Spring Bank Holiday, at least according to my calendar. Anyway, I
have no idea, but like you, I haven't let up at all.
I've been working all day. I've been writing my Spectator column. We're now
recording the podcast. I'm going into gb News to do Jacob Ruse Mook show
later. It's a normal working Monday for me, and I can hear my
neighbors in their garden sitting around the barbecue getting drunk, having a nice time,
and I just think, you know, I feel like slightly kind of
alienated from that that normally world because I'm such a great I always stop it,
James, don't trump normally world like you're not one. You are totally
a normal I'm not in the hours I keep, James, I'm just claiming
in the hours I keep, I'm not a normal. Yeah, I'll give
you that. You are a workerholic. Well, we know you're on the
spectrum. You're kind of You're weird and it's what you do. You can't
help it. Now. I feel wretched and full of self loathing. If
I don't work, or if I do less than six hours work during the
day, I'm consumed with self disgust. M Yeah, yeah, well I've
been even though I hate these these public holidays because you know what they do.
I was complaining to our evil producer of evil brand before you appeared that
they kind of cause log jams of things like suppose you want to book an
appointment with your chiropractor or your dentist or whatever. Instead of having to wait
a week, you've probably got to wait two weeks because that extra day they've
they've had not working means that they haven't got any gaps in their schedule.
And yeah, yeah, that that is correct. And it also kind of
pushes the kind of rubbish collection timetable here in Ealing where I live completely out
of wax, so you know, because because we had a bank holiday on
Monday, it pushes everything back by forty eight hours and it takes them about
a month to readjust to the original timetable. And in the meantime, people
are putting their bins outside that clue as to whether they'll be collective or not
the following day, and the foxes get hold of the food waste and it's
just chaos for the next month. Because almost almost do you think as if
it's by design that is they look because look, they want to they want
to crash the economy. They want to they want to put a um for
the spoke to talk about jam a stick in the in the in the in
the cogs of the machine or whatever, and yeah, cause chaos. They
want to they want to cause chaos. I didn't believe this, but but
I did. It's just let public holidays are assigned that we are approaching the
end. It's a bit like this alleged where do you shock? Do you
do? You get to waitresses? And I there reason to waitress anywhere near
me because I live in Acting. But now I gather there's been some um
what food supplied problems in Waitrose. It has been like I mean, I
yeah, I shop at waight Rose and Aldi because there's there's the tube,
so you know, get your cheap stuff at Aldi and you get your your
fancy So what do you what do you get at Waitrose? And what do
you get it Aldi? I'm actually curious. Oh, Aldi steak Their steak
is really really good, good value. Um roots right? Often is better
at better at Aldi? Um uh? Parmesan. Aldi is the only place
to buy parmesan. Well, I don't know about Little maybe they're the same,
but yeah, parmesan is really in chunks, really cheap. So so
I will go to Aldi maybe once a month and buy a load of steaks
and a load of parmesan black pepper I get from Aldi. Um, they're
good for wine, if you drink wine. They're high end wine is always
quite well chosen. There's a sort of mix of mix of things, and
so what do you what do you what do you still go to wait ros
for? Oh? Well, I go wait go to waitress because I'm because
I'm lazy, because I don't want to. I don't want to have to
do multiple supermarkets. Or I mean I should, I should. I should
be going to the bakery for the bread, and the fruit roof for the
fruit, and the green grocer for the vegetables and stuff, but and the
fishmonger for them. But I don't. Right, well, not least because
there's not a fishmonger anywhere near me. But but yeah, I go there
because they've got all the high end things you need, like the posh tin
tomatoes. I mean there's some really poshed tin tomatoes that my son uses to
make ratatui, right okay, like like they're they're they're about two pounds sixty
a tin, but they're really good. Um. Yeah, and they've got
a fish counter and you go on Fridays you get your twenty percent discount return
for giving them your information, so so so they know they're know every last
detail of what you like to do and where you shop and what you buy
and stuff, and obviously they then feed it to the enemy, who can
then control you. But at least you get twenty percent of your monkfish,
which otherwise be completely unaffordable, right right, Okay, gosh, will I
envy you all these choices jebs. To imagine like going to Waitrose because it's
the nearest supermarket to your house just out of laziness. I mean, I
have to travel several miles to get to the nearest wait Ros, the nearest
well even London. Yeah, everything is isn't Isn't London full of stuff that
you'd want? Well, it's it's actually where I live that there is a
kind of up and coming shopping street called church Field Road. When I first
moved to Acton, there was one, and I'm not exaggerating, one coffee
shop, one vaguely respectable posh coffee shop on church Field Road, and within
months of my moving in, it's shut down because you know, there just
wasn't enough business to sustain it. Now there are multiple coffee shops. There's
a greengrocer, there's a Sainsbury's. There are two Japanese restaurants, So it's
a it's gradually turning into you know, Marlbon High Street, but it's still
got a ways to go. But it's yeah, so you can't you can
get there's a there's an Italian Delhi which does nice sandwiches. There's a chimney
bakery. I think it's a Romanian form of baking. But anyway, so
Hungarian perhaps, any So, there are there are, there are, there
are some nice shops if you can be bothered to. But but the nearest
supermarket is literally Londis, which is the kind of supermarket they have attached to
Esso gar Rogers, Um not it's okay, but you know, you can't
get kind of parmesan and that kind of thing. I remember my in laws.
In fact, I think I think posh posh people generally um pronounce it
Lundus that's in London, in the same way they would pronounce Covent Garden Covent
Covent Garden. And I thought, isn't isn't Aldi pronounced all day? Probably
anyway, well, I would have thought it's German. It is German.
Yeah, Aldi, do you think, Yeah, Aldi, Oldie, I
did think, old Aldi. We do have a little that's opened relatively nearby
that lead Okay, yeah, that that's recently open next to a kind of
newly created residential development down the road. That's our second nearest supermarket, and
we my kids like it because you can get much cheaper chocolates, cheaper even
than Cadbury's dairy milk. I'll bet the Americans, the American listeners are bloody
loving this conversation about in the supermarkets that they've never heard of before and completely
can't relate to it. You know. I think there might be adults all
these and liddles now in America, but who knows. Anyway, James,
before we started, you were admiring my clip on glasses sort of clip but
they're their glasses that break in the middle and then I kind of and then
they reattach and then they just hang around my neck on a very loose on
a very tight sort of plastic rope as it were, so they don't swing
about. So yeah, I love these glasses. I saw them on this
American TV show and this character who was supposed to be this incredible nerd he
was. Add investigator wore them in order to kind of, you know,
just underline what an incredible nerd he was. And I looked at them,
I thought, I'll have a pair of those. So I managed to trek
down a pair, and I've got two, and I'm expensive that well,
they're not very expensive if you just buy them off the shelf, because they
come with, you know, just standard lenses as opposed to prescription lensers.
But I had the standard lenses removed and replaced with prescription lenses so they suit
my prescription. But you were going to say that you're not a fan of
glasses. Yes, I know, I got you all excited by because the
way I phrased it was I said, I reckon that glasses are part of
the conspiracy, which obviously I don't. I don't, I don't mean literally,
I'm trying. I'm trying not to wear glasses because I had a bit
of a shot. Did I don't tell you this? I had a bit
of a shock the other day. I went to my optition and normally i'm
I go in there for my eye test, and he tells me how even
though I wear glasses, is um for you? Know for driving and stuff
that my my sight is amazingly good, and this time my site, my
vision had gone to pot like one of my eyes had had dropped whatever that
you know, it had dropped onto the next level. And I was a
bit shocked by this. And as I understand it, UM, glasses,
although obviously they make you seem more clearly, also contribute to the deterioration of
your of yours. You know, they create a need. And if you've
got the self disciplinary obviously I haven't that you know, there are all sorts
of things you can do to improve your site. These these these tricks that
you can play, these sort of eye muscle improvement things and looking into the
looking at the horizon and so on. So anyway, that's what I'm trying
to do. Also, the clincher for me was when I talked to the
old mask of our hunt UM. He told me that when he'd worn glasses
hunting, he'd on two occasions he'd come he'd come off and mashed the glasses
in his face. And so I'd stopped wearing glasses and started wearing contact lenses.
And this had never occurred to me, that you'd actually land face first,
but I suppose the thing is the stuff they don't tell you about hunting.
I mean this, people are so sort of blase about it, for
one, and they're so sort of brave that they don't they don't talk about
these things, but they don't. They never explain all the horrible things that
can go wrong. You'd have to discover them for yourself. I hadn't known
about glasses glasses accidents. So have you go? Are you what is your
visual impairment? Um? I don't. I don't like to think of it
as an impairment, like I think it as a blessing. Toby, and
I think that you shouldn't talk about these things as if they're disabilities. But
what is my what is my vision? Blessing? My vision? Blessing is
the time? Very very good at reading small print, like Anna Karenina,
I'm now on well past the middle point, I think, Um, but
I can't when I'm watching TV. I can't work out what's going on with
without glasses. That's the real point. In fact, the misery of our
lives, every single evening, without fail is we've got the supper. It's
it's it's good, it's hot on the plate. Needs to be eaten now,
and then I say wearing my glasses, and the wife loses it completely
because she wants to watch TV while her food food's hot, and I can't
watch TV until the glasses have been found. And you know, it's just
that's why you need glasses like this, Jess, because they'll always be around
your neck when they're not being worn, so you'll always know where they are.
That's the whole advantage of these glasses. When you get to our age,
you do lose your glasses. It is a bit of a problem we
should break at this point. There's some messages from sponsors. Hey, folks,
James Llax here for ricochet dot com. The other day, I was
looking at the member feed, which unless you remember, you can't read,
and I was writing a little private piece about my daughter's graduation, and I
set it to private because I wanted it to be for the community that is
Ricochet, and gosh, I wish you would have been able to read it.
But that's on you, isn't it. Now. I know everybody on
the internet wants you to give them money streaming services and subscriptions, and your
apps have subscriptions, and it's just it's annoying, and you look at it
and you say, you know, I really don't want to be burdened with
another thing to pay. But the thing is, Ricochet is not a burden.
It's a gift. And once you go there and start seeing all the
voices, meet all the friends and the diverse post. I mean we talk
about a radio and jazz and old music and sports and everything else, you'll
realize this is the place you've been looking for all these years on the internet.
Forget Twitter, forget Facebook. Ricochet that's the community that you have been
looking for. Ricochet dot com. I'm not AOTU. You go there right
now. Um, what I was going to say was um. In your
brief absence, I've discovered from Brian Evil, Brian the producer, that they
do have Aldi in in America everywhere, and it's pronounced they pronounced it aldi.
So maybe you're right. Maybe I too. I had a real problem.
Do you remember the band um alt Jay or alt Jay? No?
Okay, they're they're good, they're good. Um, they've got they've got
a very good I recommend if you google a song called um. This is
from Tilda. It's really good. Okay, Um And yeah, they're they're
a good band um and I could never remember whether they're pronounced alt jay or
alt jay because it's it's from the key the key on your on your computer.
Is that an alt or an alt? I think it's an alt.
I think yeah, as in the alt right or alt media. I think.
I think I think there maybe there is a maybe maybe we're supposed to
pronounce it out if in the UK. I don't know, but I've ad
it's like, yeah occasion, I mean, you're particularly bad at this.
You your your grandmar is appalling because of your comprehensive education. But even in
with my near perfect English, I make mistakes, like, for example,
apparently I mispronounced Malaysia. I think occasionally I say Malaysia. Okay, it's
not how do you say it? I think I say Malaysia too, yeah,
yeah, no, No, Malasia is correct. Okay, okay,
you're not meant to say Malaysia. I say, do you say tissue or
tissue? Tissue? Yeah? I think I sometimes get into trouble for saying
tissis you tissue? I think is this such a thing that you would I
can imagine no coward might pronounce it that way? If he was trying to
ingratiate himselves with upper class circles and then get maybe. Then they look at
him like, you're frankly common law. We don't. We don't say it,
as you right, whether they do, maybe they do. I also
mispronounced coriander. I think it's coriander, isn't it. Yeah, although Americans
say cilantro, I know, yeah, which is very no no no no
no, no, no no no cilantro. I think a spring onions.
So the American scallions. Oh, you're right. I think I speak American
better than you, shameful galleons. So, James, has anything caught your
eye in the news? Have you noticed this Target brew her half? So
there's this American supermarket chain called Target, and um, they've gone into trouble
with various conservative commentators and influencers because they've gone all in on promoting Pride Month.
I think it is um and uh and they're and they and they're promoting
like rain the Rain Rainbow insignia to kids in the kind of kids LGBTQ plus
clothing section of their big department stores in Middle America. And so there's been
a sort of boycott Target campaign and I think it's resulted in their stock price
falling by twelve percent. These these these conservative boycott campaigns, finally taking a
leaf out of the kind of woke left stop funding hate playbook, are unbelievably
affective. I mean, almost destroyed bud Light now target is in their sites,
and it seems to be equally equally devastating. I don't I don't believe
the stories. I think that they're just they're just fabrications, that they're there
too to distract us from other things. I mean, for example, I
think inexcusably, I think I may have shared somebody's I saw something, you
know how on Twitter you sometimes see it a tweet and you can't resist retweeting
it just because of your instant Pavlovian reaction. You think, oh, yeah,
that's that stimulated me. Someone going to stimulate other people by sharing it
with them. Um, there was there was a picture of unsold bottles of
or other cans of bud Light piled high, and and and and even though
that the the price they were asking for, it was like, you know,
they were almost giving it away. It was like sort of one dollar
sixty for twenty cases or whatever. And still they couldn't. They couldn't give
it away, and I was thinking, actually, I shouldn't have shared it
because this is just the current game they're playing with us. They're toying,
you know, and and they they want to something to be fair that they
are right here, aren't there. They want you to use the phrase get
woke, go broke because they love it because it was you. You've taken
the bait, you believed it. What what? What this is this is
down to? I think it's just the running again, the running down of
the I hate to use the word capitalist, but the system we've gone at
the moment. They just want to undermine it. They want to you know,
who owns a bud Light is Anhoiser Bush? Yeah. I mean I
don't care whether they whether they go under or not, because I'm sure that
they're many owned by black Rock and so they're all they are going to be
part of big evil. But I think it's it's all part of the two
and fro, the Punch and Judy show of just like let's get let's get
the right wing commentators worked up about this and let's get the left when people
worked about that. I just think it's it's meaningless. I just it's it's
your your your ability to detect hidden hands and all these events. It's quite
something. It's almost like detecting a hidden hand in the weather, Yeah,
which I suppose it was some respects you do. There is there is a
hidden of course there is where you think I forgot. I was trying to
think of the most absurd possible thing. They call it, described to a
hidden hand. But of course I've hit on something which she do believe has
been controlled by the cabal. But they're up front about it. They call
it. They call it duo engineering. I mean, I mean, this
is legit. If you, if you, if you even if even Google
probably will tell you that it will show you places where you can find examples
of geo engineering. So yeah, they are. They are controlling the weather.
They've probably been controlling it for controlling I say, they probably presumably can't
micro manage every last detail, but they have a they have a pretty good
go at it. Yeah, I mean I do, I do spot the
hidden if you have you seen that film? Um they live? Yes,
Yes, I thought that was going to be why you originally said that you
thought glasses were part of the kind of conspiracy to kind of you know,
destroy our critical faculties and turn us into kind of servile supplicants. I thought
you were going to appeal to that. Actually the glasses are kind of doctor
to stop us seeing what's really going on. Oh yes, no, the
version of that. They live concept when you watch to see what's really going
on, So they live For those who haven't seen it, is this John
Carpenter film which has become a kind of, um, a meme, hasn't
it, apart from anything else. The glasses, you know, and they're
about these glasses, these special glasses that when you put them on, you
see the world as it really is. And so that this guy is handing
out the glasses so you could and what you see is that that when you
see when you when you walk down the street and you see a post post
of advertising something and then you put on the glasses and it says consume eat
by or whatever, and and you put on the glasses and you see that
that the world is really controlled by these these kind of alien alien people and
you can see them beneath the skin once you wear the glasses. Well,
so when you when you saw that movie Tobes, what did you think it
was just sort of amusing satire about people like me, or did you think
there was anything in it? Well, I didn't. I think I didn't
see it until I already knew that it had been kind of taken up by
people like you as a sort of cult classic which actually, in a sort
of metaphorical way, revealed the truth about the world we live in. And
I thought what I thought it was, And I thought, in that respect,
it was sort of it was quite prescient, wasn't it. It was
sort of for it did seem to be it was a kind of crude indictment
of capitalism and the way we live now from the point of view of,
you know, a conspiracy theorist who thinks he knows what's really going on.
I mean, I didn't think it was I didn't think it was intended to
satirize people like you. Rather, I thought it was intended to kind of
reflect your your view. I mean, I think I think Carpenter's sort of
probably in the same gang as you. I wonder. I mean, i'd
really like to think so, because I love John Carpenter. He's one of
my favorite directors, not least because his soundtracks are so good. But he
was a composer, wasn't as well as a filmmaker. He composed those kind
of the classic theme to Halloween and some of these other films, and the
Saught on Precinct thirteen his his soundtrack to that. And I've seen quite I've
seen quite a lot of John Carpenter films. Ghosts, Ghosts of Mars is
one of my favorites. Dark Star one of my favorites. When I was,
you know, a teenager, I thought it was absolutely was that.
That was That's very old. Was that was that? I think that was
his first movie. I think it was. Yeah, that's that's one.
I too. Oh, actually, this is this is where where we're venturing
into culture. We are venturing into culture territory. In the news, I
was thinking, I was. I was looking at that obviously, you know,
I don't believe in the news, and I was thinking, what what
what is happening in Karrent affairs that is worth mentioning? And I was wondering
what you might mention? And I was thinking, well, maybe you'd want
to mention the fact that urdu Ian has won his third election. Yes,
and I'm happy about this. Whereas I think it's great. I haven't.
I haven't really been following it. But why do you think it's great?
Isn't he a bit of a Well? It's interesting, isn't it? Um?
I remember where Boris Johnson? Do you remember him? This? Yes,
somebody character who used to edit Edit the Spectator. And then I came
up with a with a with an amusing yet obscene limerick about Erdigan the one
Spectator competition. Didn't it he did? Can you remember how it went?
Non't either? Um? Is it repeatable on a family show like this?
Well? No, I mean I I can't actually remember how it went,
but it was It was certainly rude and cheeky, and it was awkward.
Wasn't it created awkwardness when Boris Johnson became Born's secretary? I think was that?
Was that the scandalous thing? Yes? I think so, I think,
yeah, yeah, yeah. It was sort of felt that you can
either be a journalist or you can be a foreign secretary, but you can't
be both. I think I've got it. I think I think I'm going
to read it out, James. I think it's just about within the limits
of our of our family friendly show. There was a young fellow from Anchora
who was a terrific wanker until he sowed his wild oats with the help of
a goat, but he didn't need him stop to thank her. Yeah,
I don't think wanka is a rude words of America, is it. I
don't think so. No, they don't. I don't think they know exactly
what it means. So they just think it's a kind of ticky swear word.
Some words in America that we think can not rude, they think really
rude, don't they. I can't remember they do. Well, you can't,
can't mention it. We can't say, we can't. The C word
is much more offensive in America than it is here. People don't use it
sort of, they don't. They don't pepper everyday conversation with the C word
in the US like they do here. They reserve, they particularly loath.
Yeah, if you've got somebody a cut in America, it's like really really
bad, whereas here it's just kind of term affection, isn't it. Head
Yeah, anyway, So what we're gonna say about, why are you pleased
that erdigan has been reelected? Well, it's it's done to this terps.
But since my awakening I've remember how I was telling you that when I was
growing up, I used to watch narm movies with my brother Dick, and
we you know, we watched Apocalypse Now six or seven times and became familiar
with all the lines, and we watched the watched the scene where in The
Deer Hunter we watched. We watched The Deer Hunter about six times, but
the scene in the cage with with with the Russian Roulette about fifty times.
Right, which which film do you rank more highly, Apocalypse Now or The
Deer Hunter. I think it depends on whether you used to what used to
enjoy The Deer Hunter more? Because I used to enjoy de Niro's tiger stripes,
special Forces uniform and and and the rats and the and the Russian Roulette
scene. But we didn't used to watch the whole movie because the whole movie
was quite boring. But after I've taken drugs for the first time, I
think suddenly Apocalypse Now became became more appealing. Right, I wonder which one
I haven't seen either of them recently. I wonder which one stood up better
with stood the test of time. Um, I imagine is probably held up
a bit better. But who knows. Um. I think there we had
to have a whole nun movie, because I watched all the non movies,
you know, including the obscure ones like um, like the Odd angrysh Shot,
which is an Australian one about the Sas, and there's there was one
called Incident at Mukwa. I think it changed its name. It had Burt
Lancaster in it, and I remember it only because I watched it at an
open air cinema in Greece when I was on my gap year travels. And
then I afterwards I picked up this girl, Um and we went off to
NIreland together and had quite a saucy Weekum Australian girl called Anne UM. So
anyway, so I remember that movie vividly. UM. I always think a
bit very fondly UM. But yeah. So, So the point is that
since my since I realized that the Americans started the vie Now War, and
that it was that it was started by the same people, the same forces
that started the First World War, Second World War and all wars you know,
the Iraq Wars and stuff. So so my sympathy with UM countries around
the world oppressed by the American hegemony, my sympathists all have gone away from
the West because I narrowized the West as a baddy and to my sympathis are
now for the countries which are being used as pawns in the schemes of these
the evil American kabbal. So I look at Turkey and I think that the
West is currently again air Dowan. But what he's trying to do is trying
to establish a Turkish identity rather than he doesn't want to be sucked into the
American notion of democracy, which means obeying all America's rules. I mean,
I know, I know you think American democracy is great, and you you
buy into all that, but I don't. I think that. I think
that the Western way is not good. I think we're sold apart up and
I think that the kind of imperialism that the Americans and the British used to
control the rest of the world and rape their economies and control their politicians is
not a good thing. So when one of their guys, I du you
know, when when when a country's when somebody who is not pro America,
the enemy of the worst is my friend. But he's not exactly the enemy
of the West, is he because Turkey is a member of NATO. Sure,
but but I think certainly your friend Putin has has said how pleased he
is that the Duan has been left, and so so you might consider that
a tell as to where Urduan's sympathists lie. So so I'm saying, well
done, Urduan. I'm very pleased. And if you want to invite me
to the presidential palace to help celebrate your victory and we can drink tea,
because because presumably you don't do doesn't ye, I might fretm okay, Well
that's how he's listening. The the the the event I was going to discuss
was I don't know if you saw any of it, but Rhonda Santis's announcement
which he made on Twitter spaces and he was sort of being interviewed by Elon
Musk, and it was all a bit of a disaster because Twitter spaces crashed
because so many people wanted to use the spaces to hear the announcement and watch
the interview. It was all delayed by I think more than an hour,
and lots of you know, de Santis's enemies on the left and the right
were kind of gleefully celebrating the kind of cock up that was his presidential announcement.
And I read one explanation for that, which is that when Elon Musk
took over Twitter, Twitter Spaces had over a hundred employees, but he fired
all but three of them, so so he didn't have the kind of digital
infrastructure to cope with this kind of presidential launch or presidential bid launch. And
I'm sort of curious as to why Elon Musk is sort of was was was
hosting this and why he's sort of being I mean, you know, I
think he has made perfectly rational reasons perhaps for supporting De Santists, but maybe
do you think there's any any chance that in the course of the you know,
in the course of his campaign, Descantists is going to tap up Musk
as his vice presidential running mate. I wonder if that's what Musk has in
mind. I don't know, I spose about campaign funding. If Musk is
on the ticket, I don't trust Desantists at all. My my take on
De Santist is that essentially he's Conservative Inc. Masquerading as somebody who's quite red
blooded. That I think that the whole behavior of Florida during the pandemic.
You know, like we don't believe in the in the in the vaccine and
stuff. I mean, it was red meat to people like me. But
actually I think it was just part of the cover. I think. I
think, I think that the only purpose of desantists is to try and sabotage
Trump's m Trump's electoral campaign. And by the way, I mean, I'm
not even I don't carry account of a Trump either. I'm just that's just
my take. It could be wrong, but that's I think it's UMB's supposed
to learn. I think it is a genuine bid for the Republican nomination,
and I think he'd like to be president, not just sabotage Trump. But
I thought that, you know, his response to the pandemic, unlocking sooner
than all the other US states that had locked down, remaining unlocked, expressing
caution about the vaccine. I think he's been generally, you know, a
better governor, has handled the pandemic and it's aftermath, better than almost every
other US governor. And he's also been I also obviously sympathized with his war
and woke I think, you know, his his his attempts to root out
critical race theory, and gender identity ideology from you know, American high schools
is obvious admirable um. And you know, I thought his his way of
trying to troll the Libs over you know, open borders by shipping off illegal
migrants to places like Martha's Vineyard was was a master stroke. And I think
that you can really accuse him of not being a properly conservative when he when
he barreled those things in mind, I think he actually his his his kind
of record on the pandemic was obviously better than Trump's, who was a bill
over the place. Oh, I look, I think Trump was absolutely rubbish.
I think that's the main on the list of charges I would lay against
Trump, that would be the main one. That he seemed to push the
death job as much as any of the people that want hates, like like
Fauci and so. But on on the Santists point, I mean, you've
you've given him a list of of of red meat things he's done. It
doesn't really undermine the point that I was making, which is that these are
these are things that he's done in order to as part of the smoking mirrors
of politics that that he's Yeah, sure, he's done some things that make
people like you and me go, yeah, go to scantists. He's great
critical race theory, U freedom. Yeah. Um, But if if my
theory was correct, then he'd behave in the same way, wouldn't he be.
I mean, if if if if, if he if he were trying
to portray himself as as a as a a sort of a Margaret alternative to
Trump, then he would be doing those things. He wouldn't be saying,
well, I think that we should have more um, more wokeness in schools,
and I think we should we should get jabbed up with the death jab
just like people did in the in the Blue States. He wouldn't be doing
that. So the only difference in that in our takes is we both like
some of the things he's done, but I'm cynical about it and you're not.
You're cynical about his motives. Yeah, um, I think that.
I don't mean the Democratic establishment and their outriders, you know, in the
legacy media certainly seemed to think that, judging from his terical reaction to his
declaration that he is pepos is a greater threat to Biden in twenty four than
Trump does. They seem much more sanguine about the prospect of a Trump Biden
runoff than they do about the prospect of a Desantist Biden runoff. And you
know, the hysteria branding him a racist. And I think you've seen any
of this stuff. We ran a piece about it in the Daily Skeptic from
a recent contributor. He's started contributing some great stuff called Tony Morrison, and
he lives in America originally English, that he documented the kind of hysterical denunciations
of Desantists from various organizations like the ACLU, claiming that he has created a
state which is unsafe for people of color Latinos, when in fact, you
know, more than fifty percent of the Latinos who turned out in the twenty
two gubernatorial election vote of a disantist, and actually there are more I think
African American owned businesses in every state in Florida than every other state apart from
California. And you know, the claim that that he's created this environment which
is no longer safe for people of Carla because he's such a white supremacist.
I mean, it's all crazy, hysterical blooney. But the fact that they're
kind of trying to hit him with this stuff suggests that they think he poses
a greater threat to ill that. I'd call that Muscovka. It's it's given
that that the entire political class is in is in on these games. Um
So, I mean, okay, suppose suppose you were a LIB and you
were desperate for Trump not to win. Um, who would you? Who
would you say you were you were most scared of Um? You know you
You wouldn't admit that you're you're most scared of Trump. You'd want you'd want
the enemy to think that that their guy, their guy, the guy that
you didn't feel threatened by, was was more of a threat. It's like
everything you get told in politics is a line. It's like an episode of
Succession. They just scheme and plot and scheme and plot. Everything they say
when they open their mouths and their lips moves. They're lying to all of
them, all of them their scum. They're a bunch of pedophiles, perverts
that they're on the today. Have you seen them? I haven't actually seen
the finale of Succession. I haven't actually. I think it comes out tonight,
doesn't it say? In culture corner, we can talk about how we
haven't seen succession. If you have another break and then we can go into
the culture corner. This is Stephen Hayward of the power Line Blog and the
power Lines Show on Ricochet, inviting you to tune in each weekend to our
three Whiskey Happy Hour, where John, You and I, along with the
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Ricochet and found on all of your favorite podcast platforms. Before we move on
to discussing how we haven't seen a succession. Yeah, I just wanted to
say I kind of apologize. I think two people that I've encouraged to watch
Silo, I'm now about five episodes in and I'm starting to think they're spinning
it out. They're just like, all I want to know is what's it
like outside the silo? Are they lined to us? Have they been lyned
to us? What is the world beyond the silo? Why do they die
when they go out there in their space? Suits. Is it because their
poison or stuff. I don't think we're going to find out the answer to
this, you know, for another two seasons, because apparently there's three books
in the series. In the series, this first series deals with the first
book, and they do this, they do this trick. The only thing
you want to know is the thing that they withhold from you, and they
all, I know, let's make it a who done it? Let's let's
what's the secret motivation of the guy played rather badly paid by the Canadian rapper
common toy called Commons That I thought at first, this is this is quite
interesting world building and stuff, but they're really really drawing it out. As
as as my tip, I would much rather people went to watch Sanctuary,
the Japanese sumo series that I recommended. What I watched to the end,
and it's although it ends on a cliffhanger, it's it's still it's more interesting
than Silo. What about I watched. Yes, so I haven't watched Silo
yet and it doesn't sound like I should now, but I did watch most
of the first episode of food Bar. Food Bar is a new Arnold Schwartzen
nigger TV series. You've lost he played. He plays like a ci a
kind of James Bond like agent who is on the verge of retirement but is
asked to do one last job to go in and rescue and undercover agent.
He's about to have her cover blown, and it turns out to be his
daughter. So it's kind of like it's sort of like, I suppose an
action adventure slash comedy in the same mold as True Lies. I suppose,
But my god, it's bad. It was just bad. I abandoned it
about two thirds of the way for Channel. I can't watch any more of
this. It's on Netflix. Is it really? Because obviously that they're trying
to jump on that bandwagon that our friend Mark Miller spotted a while ago where
they rehabilitate your favorite Ages stars and the action stars. Now they did it
with who I probably looked it with Stallone. Yeah, they probably looked at
the success of Yeah, you're right, of the thing is, Yeah,
Watson is so fundamentally unlikable. I mean, it's it would be like trying
to think of the Matt Hancock having a sort of TV series with Matt Hancock
or something. Yeah, and he's such he's such a bad actor. As
well. I mean, his his his line readings in Fubar are just appalling.
His attempts to kind of convey emotion. I mean, it's all at
a sort of cartoonish one dimensional level anyway, but even that he can barely
manage. His range is so limited. I mean, he's just he's sort
of sort of gurning and hemming his way through the whole thing in a in
a just unbearable to watch way. And I guess what when he you know,
when he was a kind of you know, when he when he looked
like a condom stuff with walnuts to use, you know, Clive James's famous
description of him. You know, there was something sort of oddly kind of
mesmerizing about his kind of physique and and and he was sort of almost a
sort of walking, living cartoon. But now that that's sort of gone.
It hasn't entirely gone, but it's largely gone. And he's sort of a
little bit you know, he's I think he plays a sixty five year old
in this series, but I wouldn't be surprised if actually, in real life
he's about seventy five. So he's kind of, you know, he's sort
of sort of trying to trying to kind of, you know, be an
action man and kind of run after lorries and jump on the back of them,
and it's just kind of hopelessly implausible. I've suddenly remembered, sorry,
the thing I was going to tell you at the beginning of the show,
and I've remembered it just in time. Do you know what I'm going to
do after this? We Oh, I've got to go to the gym and
do weights and stuff, do resistance training. Do you know why on a
doctor's recommendation. No, my sodding son has said to me, has banned
me from wearing short sleeve shirts because my arms are so stick skinny that he
feels embarrassed to see me with him, and so like when when I went
to the races with him a couple of weekends ago, Remember I wore my
favorite polo shirt and it says Khaki um polo shirt. And he said,
you'll never to wear that again because your arms aren't thick enough. And he
said, Dad, you've got to You've got to put on some muscle.
And he wants to he wants to give me protein drinks um, and he
wants to force me to go to this. I've I've I've I've caved and
I've said, Okay, I'm gonna go and push some weights or whatever you
do this evening to keep you happy. Um. And he's he's really on
it. And he showed me this this article today from the I think the
Telegraph saying something. I had a picture of Daniel Craig, which is which
is why you reminded me of this when you're talking about schwartznigger and he wants
me to have a body like Daniel Craig. Um. And I don't like
Daniel Craig, I particularly don't like what she did. This is what I
wanted to move on to. Um, that Daniel Craig destroyed. I think
the Bond franchise didn't. He turned it from being something fun into being something
really ponderous and ugly and sort of sado masochistic and pretentious, I mean,
help by directors like Sam Menders and stuff. And my son said to me,
well, what about Skyfold. Skyfield was a good movie, and I
said, yes, it was a good movie, but it wasn't a good
Bond movie. Are you with me on this? That that that Craig was
the end of that well, he's certainly been, you know, a more
earnest, kind of high minded, pretentious, politically correct bomb than some of
his predecessors. But I had I had grown a little bit tired of Pierce
Brosnan, and I suspect he'd grown a little tired of playing the role.
And you know, I mean, there really isn't anyone apart from Connery who's
really done a bang up job of Lazon By. I'd love do you know
what? I urge you to go and rewatch service and the scene where they
go up to the restaurant with all the girls from different nationalities. He's wearing
a kilt. It's it's so fantastically UNPC. It's just glorious. Actually,
I could have done with more Lason bum boy, But yeah, he was.
He recently got into trouble, didn't he for saying something UNPC on stage
about all the women he'd slept with I think when he was playing the Bond
role. Yeah, yeah, recently got canceled. Isn't it originally a KeyWe?
I think it was originally a KeyWe. Maybe it's Australian um. Yeah,
but yeah, I found it difficult to watch on her Magically Secret Server
because it has those kind of speeded up sequences, you know, the car
chases. In order to make them seem somehow more dramatic, they took the
very poor decision of actually speeding up the film in a really obvious way.
Looks like Benny Hill sketch that was That was rubbish. I agree. Apparently
they're talking of speeded up things, or well actually not really talking speed up
things. I used to get quite annoyed by the editing of the the Tutorberg
Forest battle in Gladiator, right, you know where where the editing sort of
whether you want to use sort of the cuts to deceive your eye and just
into makings you think you've seen things that you haven't seen, or just like
messing with your head so that it feels like action and fast pace. And
I'm thinking, now, I want to see what's happening. I don't want
to be tricked into seeing what's happening. Um. You know they're making a
new Gladiator film. I know. I think I heard about, Yeah,
who's going to be playing the Russell Crowe character? Well, presumably he's is
he does he come back from the dead. I don't think it's him.
I mean he oh, Is it a prequel, I don't know nothing about
it. Cgi to kind of make Russell Crowe look young again, I don't
know, So, James, I saw a film a couple of nights ago
called Air, which is on Amazon Prime. It's any recently come out from
the cinema, but it's already on Amazon Prime. And it's it's it's set
at Nike in the nineteen eighties, and it's about Nike's pursuit, or the
pursuit of one man who was the kind of basketball guru within Nike, his
pursuit of Michael Jordan to become a kind of partner of Nike, to promote
Nike basketball boots. And it's all about, you know, the attempt to
kind of win this contract and persuade Michael Jordan and his mother played by Viola
Davis, who is kind of the woman who wears the pants in the family,
makes all the big decisions. So you have Matt Damon as the basketball
guru working for Nike, trying to persuade her that it's in Michael Jordan's interest
to sign with Nike, even though at that point Nike was the least cool
of the Big three Converse, Adidas, and Nike and Michael Jordan's supposedly an
Adidas fan and whatnot. And you wouldn't think it would be very good.
And it's sort of it is, in its own way of kind of eulogy
to woke capitalism. Um you know, um he eventually I won't tell you.
Well, I guess everyone knows what happens, so it's hardly a spoiler.
I mean, does he does he sign up with them in the end.
In the end, he signs up and creates this shoe called Air Jordan,
which is unbelievably successful. Does it transform the brand? Transforms the brands?
After that, Nike becomes the dominant player in the kind And it's funny
because and it's odd. It's odd that you kind of you're being told a
story in which you know quite a lot. You know, you're kind of
kept in suspense as to what happens throughout. You know, will Matt Damon
managed to nail this deal or will it slip through his fingers and go to
Adidas? And it's like, well, it's not alternate history. Everybody knows
how it ends. And yeah, the odd thing about films like that in
which you absolutely know the ending is that somehow the kind of suspense still works
at some level, and you feel this kind of great sense of relief and
satisfaction when it ends in a kind of happy way, when it has a
happy ending instead of an unhappy ending, even though you know exactly what's going
to happen from the word go. But and I don't quite know how that
how that particular sleight of hand works, but it works. But but you
know, it's definitely a eulogy to woke capitalism. And at the end we're
told that Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, gave two billion, has
given two billion dollars to charities. I think, oh, well, he's
a nice book, you know. And this deal, this this extraordinary deal
transformed the fortunes of athletes who went on to make similar deals with big brands
and enriched them in a way that they couldn't have been before. I supposed
to kind of applaud this guy. It's like, capitalism is fine, provided
it's a bit more inclusive and welcomed diversity, equiting inclusion. That seems to
be the kind of theme of the movie Becnetheless, you know, directed by
Ben Affleck, reasonably well done, quite entertaining. Where's the Corinthian spirit?
I mean that's it's It's like athlete should not get paid this this amount of
money. It's just just bread. And because, isn't it, we should
just break for one more message from all sponsors. Hello, I'm Dennis Neil
and here's what's bugging me. The media are burying some of the biggest scandals
of our lifetime, and I'm here to call them out on it and make
fun of them for it. The Twitter files and government censorship, the Biden
documents, the Hunter laptop, the lies of the FBI and the Russia Gate
hoax, China spy balloons and toxic chemical burnoffs. Join me to hear things
no other journalist will dare tell you. All that and more on What's Bugging
Me? Available for download and streaming every Thursday right here on the Ricochet Audio
Network and wherever you get your podcasts Ricochet Join the conversation. UM watched the
terrible film last night. An old film. I don't whether we only watched
half of it. We just wanted to see what it was like. You
ever seen Velvet gold Mine? Uh? Isn't it? Todd Haynes film about
the velvet underground. What's said? What's What's what? We were trying to
look up Todd Haynes. Apparently he makes films about gay people or something.
No, he's now, he's now. Yeah, he's now. Isn't he
quite a celebrated director in his own way, sort of the king of indie
cinema. Yeah, Velvet Gold gold Mine is really, really, really it's
it's supposedly based on well, it is obviously based on nakedly based on Bowie
with a bit of iggy pop. Is that there's you and McGregor plays an
iggy pop character, um who gets his kit off, and that sort of
pretty boy actor with three names. He plays the bully. But it's just,
oh, it's awful. It's awful, awful. I'll take your word.
So I watched something. I watched something awful in its own way,
James. It was ant Man three, Quantum Mania. I'm sure it would
be attempted to watch it, James. But I came home, I went
to I went and saw the playoff final, the Championship playoff final at Wembley,
Luton v Coventry. A friend of mine is a big Luten fan.
Got a box, a corporate box at Wembley, and we went there for
lunch and watched the game, and I drank a fair amount of wine.
Came back and in my impaired state, decided with my fourteen year old son
to watch ant Man three Quantum Mania, and I fell asleep mercifully within about
fifteen minutes. But the fifteen minutes I saw were just unbelievable. Drek confirming
to me that Marvel has completely jumped the shark and is incapable of producing another
movie worth watching. Having said that, I probably will give at least fifteen
minutes of my time to Guardians of the Galaxy three, which is, by
the standards of the current Marvel cinematic universe, is apparently not not the worst.
Um So, well, I think that's enough culture, isn't it.
I've got to got to go and drink. Yeah, But I show,
say, James, my kids are constantly trying to get me to go down
to the gym with them too. So two of them anyway, have have
gone into you know, going to the gym. They've become real gym rats,
and they do weights and the rest of it. And they're constantly telling
me that, you know, in order to in order to avoid becoming kind
of elderly and infirm. I need to start lifting weights, and they always
present it not it's not not not a cosmetic thing whereby they they're embarrassed to
be seen with me because I'm such a blob. It's it's more that it's
supposedly for my own good. You know, it's a tyranny exercise for the
good of its subjects. To paraphrase, yes, yes, Lewis. Yes.
Now that's the other thing I get told about muscle weight that after forty
you've got to blah blah blah because blah blah blah blah blah. What that
generation? Um, I mean, I suppose children maybe that do they belong
to the same generation or I don't know, but um, it's they don't
seem to do things like go clubbing or have sex or anything like that.
They seem to be just just well, yeah, I don't I don't think.
I'm not sure. I think that I think that going to the gym
isn't a substitute for going clubbing and trying to pick up girls and going to
concerts and leading this sort of life that we did at their age. I
think it's more of a kind of substitute for religion, isn't it. There's
a very moral component in it, as though as though they're they're they're kind
of discharging their moral duty to themselves to kind of to become the kind of
best physical versions of themselves they can. It's it's odd that they're having they
kind of they kind of preach from this Bible with a kind of righteousness,
as though there is something morally virtuous about spending time in the gym, looking
in the mirror and lifting weights and admiring your muscles. It's kind of it's
always been slightly you know, odd to me, and I guess Schwartzenegger,
you know, to go back to to him. There was always that that
kind of that that sort of ethic of self improvement, of kind of looking
after yourself, of exercising of self discipline. There was always a kind of
moral component to it. There was a kind of you know, it was
like a teutonic version of kind of muscular Christianity. Yeah, anyway, it's
gone, it's gone viral. It's now mainstream, and that seems to be
that generation's version of muscular Christianity, muscular secularism. Next week, Toby,
when you look at the picture of me on the screen. You will see
absolutely no difference because obviously weren't Willie. I mean it's going to take bloody
ages and I'm not sure, yeah, exactly. Well, I'll tell you
what, though, you should take a before picture if you are going to
take it up and do it regularly. Take get your get get get Ivo
to take it before picture. And then in a year's time he can he
can, he can take an after picture. You can compare and contrast now,
because I don't want to be carrying too much weight and muscle for the
for the hunting season, which I think is going to be the last.
I think that. I think when when your man Stymer gets in, it's
going to be all over for not just hunting, but the entire country.
And I'm going to flee abroad and watched watching and watch Britain burns from a
distance until wherever I've gone gets destroyed as well. Now at the end of
the world and end, and that's it. A pessimistic picture you paint,
James. Yeah, so I want to leave that thought people's heads for their
post bank all the day day. Okay, James, good constitute And we're
talking next week right, Bye Bye. Ricochet joined the conversation