This is London calling London. I don't know how the crowd is doing really
well, there is nothing to say. She doesn't want to shake hands with
Russian Balareshian people. I respected her decision. I did what what what should
I have done? Stayed and waited like I mean, it's it's there's there's
no thing that I could do that there would have been. Right. Welcome
to London calling with me. James Denny pol and my very good friend mister
Tebby Young Nobbs, Brian the Evil Producer and I have been speculating. I
can see, I can see image an image of you. You've got a
kind of some sort of palm type thing, leafy thing in the background.
I glimpse your bathroom, which is absolutely doping, I mean, really hideous.
I'm doubting some of the furniture in your apartment wherever it is. You're
obvious somewhere abroad, and you've got a weird sort of whispy chin beard,
like like a sort of like a blonde person just who hasn't shaved properly.
No, I don't think my beard has changed. But I am abroad.
See if you can guess where I am, well, I was going to
guess, looking at the bathroom, I was going to guess somewhere in on
the front line in the Ukraine. But but maybe somewhere ritzier than that.
Well, I don't know. I'm in Ibitha. Oh are you? Oh
that's interesting him. I got here on Saturday and I'm heading home tomorrow Tuesday.
Well have you just come to do a bit of Mandy and and and
hit hit the space? The space still exist in Ebitha? You know.
I don't know. But I was told yesterday were at this restaurant yesterday and
people were singing the proises of a restaurant called a club called DC ten.
But I think manumission may still exist, and I think is to have phone
parties. I thought manumission was the one where the couple had live sex in
front of you. Must have got very wearing after a time. Do you
know about this? I think I think, yeah, I think that's right.
Yeah. But to tell you the truth, James, my wife only
agreed to come to a BA on condition that we didn't go clubbing. Um,
so we really haven't been clubbing. We're here for a friend's birthday party,
which is actually today, and the late lunch is due to start in
about an hour. Yeah, I was wondering about the odd timing of this
podcast. I must say you are very very diligent about you never liked to
I'm kind of yeah whatever, I'm on holiday. I don't care, but
you're like, I must allocate some time in my table way to make sure
the podcast goes out. Which is which is? Which is? To your
credit? Um? So is it be for? Are you in it?
Beat the town or what? No, we're in the country, overlooking a
beach in quite a nice villa. Um for me, the bathroom seems perfectly
fine, but I don't think you've got a very good look at it.
Actually, it's actually, it's all very nicely done. Okay, it's very
comfortable. Sorry for dissing your your your What do you get on Airbnb?
No? No, we're actually staying as guests of this friend of mine.
His birthday is oh, okay, okay, Um, and um, sorry
to grill you. I'm just I'm just curious about the sort of thing because
this is this is no friction conversation. Um, do you find it quite
as you get older? It's quite difficult staying at other people's houses. Do
you find sleeping and stuff. And yeah, I'm I'm I'm always inclined,
always tempted to bring my own pillow with me. The thing I find more
difficult than anything else is generally how uncomfortable, how sort of solid the pillows
are. I like a very soft pillow. But my wife is very scornful.
She she refers to whenever I try and pack a pillow, she says,
that's typical day boy behavior, HARKing back to her days as a boarding
school girl. Um And so I find it. I'm too too much of
a cut to actually pack a pillow very often. So I do struggle to
sleep with the kind of very hard pillows. Well, you know how you
Toby Young have an annucdate for every occasion. Weirdly, I'm going to play
the Tobes role here. Um and I do have an outdode about pillows.
And one of my friends, one of the one are the very few friends
I've got left. Actually, um Is was in the sas um you know
he was. He was an officer rather than a ranks or NCO who were
the real who are the who did the real fighting and stuff. But nevertheless,
he was in the SAS and on his last tour of duty. Um,
he went to Afghanistan and he took out with him his favorite pillow.
Um. And also I know that who's that slightly sort of Queenie Shrill,
Not not David Starkey, but the other the other one TV historian, Um
sort of quite highly strung. Um. What's his name lefty Um? Oh?
Only he mean, uh who writes a lot about the French Revolution?
Yeah, intense, Yeah, Simon Sharma. Simon Sharma. Apparently. I
once I bumped into some people who'd been filming one of his series, and
I think I think I'm right in saying he's very, very fussy about his
special pillow. And I think one day his special pillow may have been lost
in transit and there was a there was a massive major meltdown while we're there.
Do your friends actually have they retired to Abitha vertically? No, they
haven't, but we did. We're sort of renting a house from someone who
rents villas to numerous people, and he lives quite nearby and he had a
party on our first night and we kind of wandered over to his party.
I mean you could go as far as so we gaate crash because we weren't
formally invited, and it was pretty amazing games. It was exactly what you'd
expect Ibitha to be. So, you know, it was full of kind
of men in their fifties and sixties, clearly sort of pacing themselves, and
girls in their early twenties kind of dancing and obviously high. And there were
kind of they were they were they were kind of a mayor in kind of
bowls full of every kind and wine, cold beer on tap. I mean,
it was just like it was Nix. It was just exactly what you'd
expect to be that to be. There was a pool, there was a
dj they do they have dwarves with with with with plates on their heads with
with with with pills and lines of coke and stuff. No, no dwarves.
I think that's probably only in the movies. But you know, it
was about it was about as close to the kind of movie cliche idea of
a Betha that you could possibly get. And how these people made their money,
Yeah, good question. I think I did ask that actually of our
host, how did your land would make his money? And he thinks that
he inherited it a right inherited. So the old fashioned work. I see.
Well, okay, well, I'm sorry to have to bring you down
temporarily from your your mandy cloud to come and you don't even do that to
come down to the reality of doing a London calling. Oh can I just
bore you briefly with my progress on this sodding stupid keto diet. So I
over my second week and I haven't even gone into full keytosis. I've been
peeing on this little stick which changes color to tell you how much ketosis you're
in, and I'm really I'm many on the outer fringes of it. It
just seems to me that you do it, you make a slight mistake and
you come out of keytosis. Or maybe it's just really you've got to so
restrict every last tiny bit of sugar and carbs that you can't really you really
can't eat anything apart from steak and bacon and an egg and clotted cream,
which is nice. But it does get a bit a bit wearing to imagine
that that's that's good for you as well. It sounds a bit like Jordan
Peterson's diet. I've signed up for something called the Zoe Program. Do you
remember during COVID, the Zoe app. There would always be data yielded from
the Zoe app, which supposedly rivaled the ONS data about how many people were
infected at any one time, and often the data on Buya the Zoe app
was a bit more optimistic than the data being produced by various public health authorities
and the NS, so we occasionally reproduce some of the data in Lockdown Skeptics.
There was anyway I've signed up that you can sign up to a kind
of Zoe health program, And of course they do monitor all your kind of
data and you have to kind of consent to that, but they also send
you this kit and you have to kind of pooh in a in a lovely
sample bag of stunt kind and send it back to them, and they analyze
your pooh, and they analyze your pee, and you tell them what your
typical diet is, and after sort of after crunching the data, they then
get back to you and tell you, you know, how many bananas you
should be eating a day, what percent your diet should be meet, what
percentage of vegetables, how much rougher union, et cetera. Am I doing
it with my wife and she she persuaded me to sign up to on the
grounds that would be something nice we could do together. So I've signed going
bags together. Hers poo bags when you're when you're when you're young, it's
kind of you know, you can you can go off to parties together,
learn ballroom dancing, but when you're our age, it's pooing in bags.
But yeah, so I'll be able to join you on this weird diet.
Okay, time, James, have you you haven't had any any result,
you haven't been told what you've got to do, haven't sent me the kit
yet? I only signed up to it last week. Has it occurred to
you? You know those things where you can research your ancestry and see whether
you're descended from Genghis Khan as we all are, of course, as in
twenty three and me, you mean genetically that kind of thing. Yes,
exactly, those those things, and they seem like a tremendous wheeze at the
time, and everyone was sort of exchanging notes on how how you know how
Mongol they were or how scout Chewish, How Jewish they are? Yeah,
how Jewish they are. I don't know how you measure that, but I
think it's it's I think, I think. I think that is one of
the um bits of data you get when you do twenty three. In me,
it tells you how much how much Jewish ancestry you have and what percentage
of what percentage of you you are And one reason I haven't done it,
so I'd be very disappointed if I wasn't at least fifty percent. What are
you well, No, probably not. There's probably some Jewish blood. I'd
only like to be m Jewish from the actual, you know, proper kind
of children of Israel, sort of Palestine Jews. Um, you know,
the original, the original deal. I wouldn't want to be because you want
to be so Ashkenazi. Not yeah, you're not Ashkenazi? The other the
what do they call Misserrahi? I'd like to be Misserrahi? Um? Have
you done it? Is this way brought it up? No, I was
going to say I was tempted to do it, But of course you realize
the real purpose of it, don't you. They can gather information so that
they can later on work out how to kill you. Basically, do you
do it? I haven't. I haven't. No, I haven't done it.
U and I think when you do your stuff, mate, No,
I haven't done it. I haven't done it, but I think when you
do twenty three me, I think you can kind of you have to tick
a box if you want them to be able to share your data. As
far as I know, oh yeah right, they're really going to observe that.
The kind of people who run only twenty three than me and not going
to have any moral conscience about anything, They just yeah, well, I
think that the their argument, James is that contributing to these global genomic databases
will help us tackle disease and find cure. Do you think that's why Bill
when that's what Bill Gates wants to do at philanthropy. But I think it's
part to release malaria mosquitoes into into America in the interests of of philanthropy,
just finding out how to cure malaria by giving people hilaria. I don't think
he's holy philanthropic, but I think I think curing malaria and dealing with other
chronic diseases is probably a bigger part of why he does it. Do you
do you genuinely believe that you genuinely believe that that Bill Gates is well intentioned?
Well, I think I think he Well, it depends what you mean
by well intention, but I think he I think well, I mean,
do you do you don't? You don't you think he's genuinely good and he
and he wants to do good. You don't think he's evil and wants to
work evil. But I think his his primary motive is to make as much
money as he possibly can. But I think his secondary motives. I don't
think he's pursuing a kind of a kind of a depopulation agenda was used sometimes,
You don't, I think more likely, more likely, you know,
for vainglorious reasons. He wants to be the person who goes down in history
as having cured a major disease like malaria, used his money. Do you
think he does? You think that that's even at the back of his mind,
that he might try and cure any disease? Yeah, I think,
yeah, I do. Blimey, I've got a new a new range of
bridges for sales, and when you get back terms, I can't wait to
show you them to you. Well, pictures, I've only got pictures,
but but they are good. They're a special price to you and my friend.
Yeah, I think you're you're, you're, you're, you're willingness to
believe the worst of everyone is. It's slightly jaundiced. It's like in terms,
it's like it's like looking at, you know, across the room is
a guy with horns and a forked tail, and he's got sort of he's
got this nasty tongue, and he's looking at us with sort of red glowing
eyes. And you'll say, James, why do you think why do you
want to think bad at this guy? He's just like, obviously he's just
born a bit, you know, with a with a horn defect and a
forktail defect, and and he seems to like, oh, poor guy,
he's addicted to eating children, and but actually he means, well, it's
a more accurate picture would be, you know, you're looking at a guy
sitting opposite you. He's one of the world's most famous philanthropists. He appears
to have devoted much of his fortune to curing malaria and other majors. He
hasn't he's made like a bandit, and and you know, more likely he's
someone sitting obviously with a halo over his head. He doesn't rather than horns
and a forked tongue. Well, he was a regular. What do you
think he was doing on Epstein Island all those times? Do you think he
was just kind of admiring the view and a game, a game of snorkeling.
Well, I have no idea why he was what he was. I
mean he went loads of times. We should we should probably you should probably
not speculate too much about that. We don't want to don't want to know.
He's not going to do any hard perspect might we know he was a
regular visit to Epstein Island, and we know that Epstein Epstein was a compete,
pedo and pervert. So you know, join the dots anyway. Okay,
who's going to do the first ad? Shall I do the first read?
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Need to hire you need indeed us. Before we move on to whatever agenda
you wanted to promote, UM, I just wanted to mention something that I
didn't mention last week and should have done, which is has the plight of
my friend Abbe Roberts crossed the Free Speech Union's radar. UM. Abbe Roberts
is it is a comedian and a very funny comedian and lovely person. I'm
very fond of him. And she went down to the hearings for the stupid
COVID hearings, the kangaroo whatever it is, the halt inquiring. Yeah,
and she turned up to see Matt Hancock arrive, and she shouted him at
him that he was a word beginning with C and ending in hunt. And
I know that I know that it's it's a rude word, but I'm not
sure that shouting a rude word at Matt Hancock justifies what happened to which she
was held. She was arrested and held in confinement for seventeen hours, so
she was in a prison cell overnight for calling Matt Hancock something, which is
I think the very mildest of terms to describe somebody with so much blood on
his hands. I was wondering what your position would be on issues like this.
Should people be being arrested for calling terrible loser? Well, I mean
psychopathic politicians what they are? Well? She charged, do you know when
did this happen? But I mean seventeen being helped seventeen hours suggests to me
that she was, um. Well, it was an abusive police power,
isn't it. Why did they need to hear people for seventeen hours. Yeah,
I don't know. I don't know anything about it, haven't seen the
story. When did this happen to James M that just before our last episode?
Sound before last weekend? Right? Well if she, if she is
being charged with being grossly offensive, which is Section one to seven of the
Communications Act, then we are defending someone else who was charged and convicted of
being grossly offensive. Do you remember you talked about this before, but when
Captain Tom, the NHS campaigner who raised millions of pounds the NHS by walking
around around his garden when he was one hundred years when he when he died,
an intemperate Scotsman tweeted the only good British soldier is a dead British soldier
and friends of his contacted him to tell him that they thought that was offensive
and he might get in trouble, so he, I think deleted it within
fifteen minutes, but Police Scotland already it had already been reported to Police Scotland
by then, and he was duly arrested and convicted under Section onety seventh of
the Communications Act and sentence I think he wasn't sentenced to prison, but he
had to do community service and pair of fine. We are helping him appeal
that conviction and we think it'll end up in the European Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg, and we're hoping that if we can get that conviction overturned on
appeal, it'll make it very difficult to convict people in future of being grossly
offensive, which is often why people like Abby Roberts are arrested and sometimes charged
for I see that. Did that legislation come in the grossly offensive? Was
that? Was that a recent thing? Does that come from the Blair areas?
It's comes from the blarea. Yeah, just just like you think the
things that people used to do in the eighteenth and nineteenth century to m peace.
You know, they'd often rough them up physically if they if they get
the chance, and they certainly would would chuck stuff at them and things.
And the idea that a word, even if it's a rude word, I
mean, I have to say I would would if I were myself a vagina,
I would be very upset about seeing my name taken in vain to describe
Matt Hancock. I think that is offensive to vaginas around the world. But
apart from that, I just I see nothing wrong with it. I mean,
you think of what Matt Hancock is and what he's done. It's it's
just small beer, isn't it just just tossing of a few rude words at
him. I'll tell you a story, James. Actually know, maybe I
shouldn't tell you the story going because it might it might be telling telling tales
out of school. But it's something that happened at the Spectator party. But
why weren't you there? When? Was it? It was on Wednesday of
last week? I'm sure invited that invite all the writers. Um, yeah
I didn't. I do you know what it's sailed over my head? Was
it good? Yeah? It was? It was It was fun, yeah,
you know, like it normally is. The thing is ters? I
tell you what I mean, you know, I genuinely didn't know it was
on. But I you know, I mean people often say to you,
don't they you know? What what's happened to James? What? Why has
he gone? Um? You know? Absolutely? Without leave? Um,
I think that there was there would be too many sticky conversations. Wasn't there
anything? It would be kind of awkward for me? Do you record you
reckon people? Would would I suppose when they became sort of after they've had
a few drinks and became disinhibited, they might they might start asking you about
some of the conspiracy theories. Oh you know, I wouldn't mind that at
all. I totally love that. It's just I find it quite hard,
um making nice to people that you that you kind of despise, you know,
that's the thing. Wouldn't Quite a lot of them would be old friends,
wouldn't they. I don't know what I've got any old friends. I
mean, you know there you are clinging on by your fingernails tapes, but
we were we know where the marriage is. It's rocky, but but we
you know, we have good makeup sex. But I just think some of
the people have you have you broken up with them? With most of your
old friends. Yeah, no, it's not officially, not formally, I
haven't. I just haven't seen them, and it's just like embarrassing. I
mean, it would be embarrassing enough just just seeing Dave Dave, whom I
last saw one of what I was smoking splits with him in in PEC three.
Um, I don't think I don't think Dave David Cameron was there actually,
so you wouldn't affect to see him anyway. So what were you saying
so before I went into this riff about well, no, I just I
just swallowed. I just bit my tongue. But one notable absence, obviously
at the spectator parts was Jeremy Clark. I used to really likes, well,
yes, his memorial services today, and I rather regret the fact that
I won't be able to go because I'm in a betha um But yeah,
he's and they're not having it at Saint Bright. They're having it at another
church in h what's it called again, I can't remember now, but a
bigger church because they're expecting five hundred people. When I heard that, James,
I couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy and think, crikey,
how many people are going to come to my memorial service? I dad,
it'll be five even be a memorial service for me. But anyway, he's
having a memorial service and over five hundred people are expected to turn up.
So yeah, that's a good bloody impressive. That's a good turn out.
I'm sorry are you telling me that? Because I went on to my digression
about friends. You're not going to go ahead with this indiscreet anecdote now you've
got to Well, no, I really I realized that if I do,
I could be accused of, you know, um telling tales out of school.
What happens at the spectator party. I think it's supposed to stay at
the spectator party. And it wasn't too too embarrassing because I use lines.
This conversation didn't happen at the Spectator party. I think it's too late for
that man. Anyway, Matt, it's what your favors for foot in Mouth.
You've written the whole books. Look, you've you've made a career out
of this. Well I did, I have, but I have regretted some
of the indiscretions over the course of my career. James So, for instance,
in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, I wrote about an episode
at the groutche Club I was filming. I was trying to arrange a photoshoot
for the Cool Britannia issue of Vanity Fair, which is in ninety six,
and it was a photo shoot with Keith Alan Damien Hurst and the chat from
Blur, who's become a cheesemonger? Alex James. Yeah, and as a
condition of agreeing to cooperate, they demanded cocaine, not just to be applied
with vodka and as much as they could drink, but also drugs, and
so I had to kind of admittedly not terribly difficult to obtain in the Grautcho
Club. I had to do a bit of kind of scrabbling around, and
they behaved like complete prima donors. I mean, they couldn't have made my
life more miserable. They were like the kind of worst cliches of kind of
pampered, entitled celebrities like you know, you mentioned Simon Sharma throwing a hissy
fit when his pillow got lost in transit. I mean, they were like
Simon Sharma pillarless times ten. And my revenge was to write about just how
appallingly they behaved in Hadley's friends and alienate people. Because I mentioned the Graut
Show Club, Matthew Freud, who was then one of the owners of the
Graut Show Club, banned me from a graut show club. And I've been
one, I've been a virtually a founder you were, and it was my
home away from home. And since then, not only am I not allowed
to come as a member, even though they haven't refunded my membership for you.
Obviously, I'm not allowed to be taken there by anyone either if there's
a book part even now or even now, and so a couple of times
since people on the membership committee friends of mine have said, do you know
what, Toby, I think there's been enough water under the bridge. I
think we can get you back in. Let me, let me make a
pitch to the membership committee. But it would probably help if you wrote to
the chair of the Membership Committee and profit some kind of apology. And so,
of course I've duly done this, only to be then told I'm afraid
Toby. The Membership Committee took a vote on this and they've decided to uphold
the ban. It's like so humiliating, it's bait and switch. I feel
like the kid in the Peanuts cart being baited by Lucy with the football.
And it's happened twice now. And even though people still suggest to me even
today, you know, I think I could get you back in. I'm
on the membership committee. Let me have a go. I'm like now,
I'm like, no, I've been humiliated three times over this, not never
again. I didn't even know the Grout show was still going. That's how
out of touch I am. Do you think we ought to do our Yeah,
let's say from our Yeah, let's let's let's r another aud Going online
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extra three months free express vpn dot com slash London. So, James,
before we go onto Culture Corner, and we better go to Culture Corner because
lunch is going to be served now in about twenty minutes. I just wanted
to make make a minor peace offering to you. I remember a few episodes
back you said you thought the kind of real reason behind mass immigration and the
authorities tolerance for all the small boats arriving there, the lack of any real
will to do anything about it, the fact that you know, net migration
in the most recent year was something like was it something like eight hundred thousand,
highest number one record, And you said, well, it's all part
of the plan. These are essentially the WEF's foot soldiers who are going to
turn on us and start attacking us. I think you you you were thinking
it was part of some diabolical plan to kind of assert control, reduce our
liberties, erode democracy. But curiously I noticed that one of the first things
Makron has suggested as a solution to the ongoing rioting, the outbreak of civil
disorder across France in response to the murder of this seventeen year old boy.
May not be murder. I don't think if guy's been tried yet, so
let's not pre empt that. But one of Macron's first responses was, let's
let's let's cut off the internet in these areas where civil disorder has broken out,
Let's impose curfews. It was almost as say they were building up to
let's impose another lockdown. So even though you know, I'm not suggesting that
the youths of North African heritage rioting in city on the outskirts of Paris are
doing it at the bidding of Klaus Schwab or Bill Gates. Nonetheless, the
the the policy of mass immigration in France, dating back to what the nineteen
fifties does seem to have produced a kind of tinder box which is now being
rolled out as an excuse to interfere with basic liberties. Right yeah, well,
look, I mean it's ultimately it's I don't know how you pronounced it.
Is it the clergy or clergy, but either way, clergy couldn't have
plan which has been around for a long long time. It's it's it's white
replacement. It's it's part of the destruction of our culture, the takeover.
Yeah, but I also think that that that that in the in the medium
term, they want to use these people as kind of police, as as
paramilitaries with no loyalty to their host community, who are prepared to go in
hard and and and and crush any resistance when things kick off. But you
know, I mean, we're we're talking about we're talking about the devil.
This the Devil's ultimately in charge, and he controls things like the Triatural Commission
and the counsel and foreign relations and lesser players like the WF and we are
heading for very grim times seven years of tribulation. The problem with that hypothesis
is partly that the people rioting are not exclusively first, second, third generation
migrants. Some of them are seemingly white, indigenous French people. And it's
as though, you know, it's it seems to me to be more symptomatic
of a general lack of respect for the rule of law, a collapse in
the family, Western civilization teetering on the brink, and and not not a
kind of malaise that's just confined to migrant communities. So it doesn't feel like
it really is part of of a plot or a conspiracy. That's that's a
separate point terms I mean, I mean, I'm not saying that that that
people with fair skin haven't got as much right to to to riot as as
any other other nationality or skin color or whatever. It's not it's not that.
I'm just saying that if you if you import loads and loads of people
from an entirely different culture to your country and you've housed them in say well,
I mean scarily on ex military basis or x on decommissioned air fields,
which is what or you put them in hotels in every single town around around
Britain at massive expense to the taxpayer. And you know, France is analogous,
although it's got its own problems. Um that you have to ask questions
about why these people are there, and I have to say that that it
tends to encourage suspicions that die things are heading our way and we can only
speculate on it because we weren't known until it kicks off. But there's something
really odd about it, you know. But most people are right in rural
Britain are very disturbed about the fact that there are these these hotels where they
were perhaps planning to have their wedding or something. Suddenly the hotel has been
closed and shared. Loads of money has been chucked at the hotel owner by
CIRCO or whatever been you know, by by the government. Basically i'd buy
you me the taxpayer to house these people, and it's it's weird. What
are they doing here? What they have They all come to to pick fruit
or or or work McDonald's. I'm not seeing any evidence of this. Well,
I think I think most of them. I mean, I think i'd
agree with you that the claim that a majority of illegal migrants end up on
our shores because they're genuine asylum seekers, I think that's that's probably not right.
But I think most of them are economic migrants, that they are coming
here in search of better opportunities, a better life, because we're so much
better off than the places they're leaving. But I was thinking more in the
specific French context. One thing that struck I mean, people say, you
know, it's because they have people in these communities haven't been properly integrated.
They feel alienated by the French policy of trying to impose French culture on them,
and ye know that they have a less kind of lay say fair multicultural
approach to assimilation than arsen It appears to have backfired. The banning of the
burker and so forth has left these communities feeling very alienated from the French state.
And they have much more regard for their parents' cultural heritage than frances cultural
heritage and as everyone, and that's what a lack of loyalty to the French
state is what's prompting this kind of outbreak of civil disorder. I think one
shortcoming of that hypothesis is that many of the rioters when you see them when
their interview, seem very French. I mean they may not be white,
but nonetheless they have that kind of you know, gallic arrogance. They kind
of have that kind of you know, French in soisions. And also,
you know, it's virtually a tradition in France to riot. I mean they're
almost continuous riots in French cities, but you know, the republics are kind
of typically defeated after thirty five or forty years. Revolution is virtually a cultural
tradition in France. So perhaps the issue isn't that they haven't been probably integrated
and they're not French enough. Perhaps the issue is that they've become too French.
Yeah, maybe I think it's probably the Sabbatian Francis who taught the French
how to revolve. I mean, look that France was a was a great
was a great power and a great country and a great people. And I
think that I think that the powers that be have long sought to destabilize France
in different ways as they have to to destabilize Russia and and and so forth.
And I mean, let you present these things as kind of national characteristics,
but I'm not sure where they are really. I'm sure that what it
comes down to is that the forces of darkness know how to manipulate different countries
and push their buttons. And I mean I don't ultimately, I think that
the people who are controlling these riots, you know, although that the individual
writers may feel they have autonomy and that they they are they made the decision
and they're protesting, I think that this this, this this violence was fomented
by by bad actors. Anyway, Um, okay, should we should we
take a break now for a programmatic ad and then yeah, I think we
should everybody James Lilax, you're for the Ricochet podcast, the Flagship Podcast.
It's July. That means it's hard. What better to do than sit inside
with the air conditioning going? Well asked why they listened to the heated,
sparkly, brickly fireworks like opinions of Peter Robinson, rob lag and myself as
we talked to Well, you'll just have to tune in and find out,
won't you. It's ricochet dot com where the Flagship podcast can be found every
week. Don't miss it. Okay, Gems, what have you seen in
the past week? Wow? Well, I've my family have been watching Wimbledon
and the Third Test, and I there's no point raining on their parade by
saying this is Bread's bread and circuses. This is designed to distract you from
from the horrors that are being imposed on you by the elite. I mean,
it's I think it's typical that the BBC is all over Wimbledon. The
BBC arch propagandists wants to keep hold of these these cultural events and do weird
things like you know, it's this thing they do where they interview They stand
up on the on the court after the match and they interview them about twenty
feet away from the from the player. What's that all about? Yeah,
no, I haven't I'm not sure. I haven't watched much of Wimbledon,
but so like a legacy of of COVID. Well, well, I'll bring
it up to speed. All the Brits have been knocked out. I didn't
know that. Yeah, yeah, um yeah, And I saw I saw.
I saw Andy Well, I saw him getting back into a match against
a Greek player whose name I went trying to pronounce, but he sits it
pass, that's it, um and he and I didn't watch him. It
looked like he was going to go on to win that. I mean,
he came back from one set down to then take the next two sets,
and then match play was stopped because it was quite late, and then he
resumed the following day and lost, which I thought was pretty disappointing. Well
is it? That is it? I mean I was watching. I was
watching my favorite m player, obviously, because he was no Vaks and stuff,
Novaks Djokovic, and he's just so good. He's so good that I
find it hard to believe that in twenty thirteen, Andy Murray beat Djokovic in
the finals. How did that happen. I could only have been the noisome
partisanship of the Wimbledon crab, which I find I find loathsome I can't fathom.
Yeah, yeah, the way that they cheer when the player that don't
like misses a shot or flush, or maybe the ball hits the net and
doesn't go that lands on the wrong side, you know, luck doesn't go
their way and they boo and it's awful. Well, I thought we were
supposed to believe in good sportsmanship. I think they should sit there and watch
and shut up. Yeah, I agree. I think that is very poor
form. Did he see that when the Belarusome woman lost to the Ukrainian woman,
the crowd boo booed the belarus as she as she walked off, not
not realizing that Belarus is a completely different country from Russia. I suppose they
think of it as a as a Russian ally. I don't know anyway,
So much for Wimbledon. Have you seen anything else? Not much on TV?
I do what I tell you what I've been doing. Book books wise,
we have finally reached the point wife and I where we can no longer
bear to listen to another book from the Utred series. I've just had of
the Shield war and wasp sting and the smell of shit and blood and guts
and detailed descriptions of people being disemboweled and then trodden on, and the jabbing
of wasp sting and blah blah blah, and how tough it is in the
Shield. I think enough already, I've had enough. I've I've I've heard
every variation on the theme of combat in in the era of King Alfred.
I don't want it, so so we've we've moved on to Trollop, where
we listened to one hundred percent Trollop now rather than just on car journeys,
and we're listening to Um the the second one in the with the Irish name.
I keep forgetting his name. Isn't it something finn about the Irish MP.
I don't know why I keep forgetting the name. I mean, it's
sort of it's it's a really odd book title, because why you know a
book. Oh, I suppose it's like Anna Karennin who I suppose that's the
named after a person doesn't exist as well, But anyway, Finnish Finn just
doesn't doesn't do it for me. Um there's a lot. There's a lot
of nineteenth century politics. Yeah, that's the second in the Palace and Novels,
isn't it. Yeah, there's there are a few hunting scenes in there.
Seem to recall Oh yes, oh Tobes the hunting scene where he stakes
his horse or whatever the whatever the term is when you're you're jumping up a
river and your horse goes headlong into the other side and breaks its neck and
old Lord Wat's his face breaks. Actually, Lord Wats's face has the same
injury that I had when I was hunting with the heath Thrip a few years
ago, where he breaks his collar bone and several ribs, and um,
so I had great sympathy for him. Yeah, the hunting scenes are really
good. The politics scenes are just so darn You think, why Anthony,
why are you taking this crap seriously? All They're all a bunch of Charlatans.
Stop it already enough. You know that I love the Palace and Novels,
and I still got one left actually in that series. I haven't read
The Prime Minister's Children. I've read away the other it's very very good.
And I'm currently listening to Framley Parsonage, which I think is the fourth novel
in the BArch To Chronicles. But yeah, very good as well. He's
an eminently listenable, readable writer. It wasn't to him which which a better
would you say? I think? I think the BArch To Chronicles marginalie better
than the Palasin novels. But much of a much you don't get. They're
all rated by Timothy West, which which is he's a joy, isn't to
listen? He's so good, he's a really really he was almost like it
was born to read, to read, born to do it. Yeah,
but what's extraordinaries I find when when he does he does the women's voices,
I mean does he's great with accents and but what's really impressive is that when
he does a woman's voice, you know, you can completely believe it's a
woman talking. Um. He's just remarkable like that. You're you're absolutely right,
he's he's brilliant. I was going to ask you, does the kind
of the clerical stuff get in the way and the way the politics does in
the political novels or is it handled lightly? No? Not no, no,
it's it's it's all handled quite lightly. I mean you have to kind
of you know, you immerse. You're you're immersed in the kind of office
politics of the Church of England. Yeah, but that's how all quite interesting
and you realize, I mean, it's amazing contrast during the Church of England
today. But back then, you know, being an archbishop, being a
bishop in the Church of England was a position of extraordinary prestige. Even being
a dean or an archdeacon was you know, you were virtually at the top
of the kind of Victorian social hierarchy. And it's in such it's so different
today, isn't it. Oh totally tays in my my, my, my
fantasy, my historical If I had to go back in time and be anyone
anywhere in history, I would be. Um. I'd have a nice rectory.
I would be a hunting parson, and I would save the souls of
my of my my parish, and I can actually been very happy doing that.
I'm so happy. I can picture you now in a dog collar.
Yeah, golden horses. I'd be I'd be really I'd be really happy doing
it. Um and um. And also I'm finishing. I'm finishing. I'm
on the on the home strait of Anna Karna and the disappointment about reading.
Anna Karna is realizing that you will never read a book, a novel as
good as that. Again, it is absolutely pete lit. It will never
get better in my view. And are you reading that or listening to it?
I'm reading it, okay, I just now it's completely switched to audience
books. I go, I find it hard to read a book. But
having said that, I have just read most of What About Men, the
new book by Caitlin Moran, which may surprise you to learn I read most
of it because I'm writing about it in my spectator car I was gonna say,
you're being paid to write to read it, otherwise to read it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would not recommended that one. James,
She's, she's, she's it's all about how how men men's the mental health
crisis, the identity crisis amongst men, particularly young men, can be addressed.
And she's concerned that they're turning to these toxic gurus like Jordan Peterson and
they really need well, they really need it, James deningbor. What they
really need are wholesome gurus like Caitlin Morran. And she thinks the less that
women have taught themselves. The feminist movement and its successes over the past hundred
years have an enormous amount that men can learn from. So she sort of
thinks she portrays She portrays the community of kind of liberated women as being a
kind of joyful community in which they share each other's they share their problems with
each other, they give each other mutual support, very quick to come to
each other's aid when they get into trouble. It's a sort of utopian picture
of the kind of feminist community. And contrast it with kind of these poor,
sad, lonely men who can't talk about their problems, never come to
each other's aid, end up kind of feeling suicidal, suffer from acute anxiety,
and so on and so forth. But first of all, it's such
a cliche. It's it's sort of you know, even you wouldn't even even
you'd even expect Prince Harry to come up with something more original than the reason
men have got problems It is because they don't talk about their feelings and cry
enough, you know. But of course, if that's that is exactly but
that's exactly her hypothesis too. And yet James, you wouldn't believe this,
But she talks about. She says, you know, but actually everything I
know about Jordan Peterson his second hand. So I decided to take the plunge
and listen to some of this podcasts. And she listened to this podcast of
him with Russell Brand in which towards the end of the podcast, Jordan Peterson
starts crying and having encouraged men to cry more and having kind of railed against
the taboo against crying amongst men, she then absolutely ridicules Jordan Peterson for crying
when he was talking about his feelings in this podcast. And also, so
you know, you think you've got problems as a successful man, you have
the occasional stalker. What about successful women? They get rape threats all the
time. They can't disclose the fact that they have children unless male stalkers go
to their children's schools and attack their children. You've never had it so good,
mister Peterson. You don't know what. You don't know the half of
the trials and tribulations of being famous. And it's like, so, having
encouraged him to cry when he cried, she then ridicules him for being a
cry baby. Um, so yeah, it's what they do because they're because
they're not bound by the rules of logic or let Les Marquess of Queensbrough rules.
They're just they played dirty. Anyway, I've written about it in my
Spectator Colum this week. Oh good, I actually look forward to reading that.
That that really yeah good? Would you want to go and snort some
lines off off the back of a dwarf the dwarves heads? Yeah, now
that I can see the dwarves beckoning James. So that's what Freddie Mercury used
to do. Apparently that's why I brought it up. Apparently parches they used
to have dwarves with cocaine on their silver trays on their heads. I think
right, And I'm afraid this is very middle aged and sedate by comparison.
Anyway, is it is? It's the it's the sky blue, um and
and is the sea clear? The sky's are maybe a little bit hazy and
can't can't quite see the sea yet, but I'm hoping it's going to clear
up. We're gonna have an azure sunset later one good. Well, I
have a good have a good Timetabsum. I envy you your thanks. James.
By back next week. Hi Yah's London fully Ricochet join the conversation