I wanted to give a plug for Sal to her CFA who listens to London
Calling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, recall that Sal is team Toby backs the Free
Speech Union, but not QPR. He's fond of you, James, but
will not indulge your woolier theories. He will nonetheless jump in the trenches with
you when the zombies attack. Listeners check out Sal's podcast, Angel Invest Boston.
It's mostly on building technology startups, but it's not all about business.
Sal also delves into other aspects of human flourishing, such as creativity, good
relationships, and healthy aging. Sal is planning a series of episodes about his
lifelong struggle with obesity and how he's managed to finally lose and keep off a
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Do follow Angel Invest Boston on your podcast app and leave a rating and
a written review to help it get found. This is London Calling. I
want to give respect firstly to the judges who heard us today, because they
were very attentive and they listened to us, and they led us three so
I have to give absolute respect to them. I have no resentment in my
heart for the country of Romania or for anybody else. I just believe in
the truth. I believe in God, and I think that the fire of
truth will eventually destroy our lies, and anybody who lies on a long enough
timeframe will feel the sting of regret. And I believe in this. Welcome
to London, calling with me James Delingport and my very good friend mister Toby
Young. Toby's what adventures if you had this week? Well, nothing very
exciting. I had actually quite a quiet weekend. QPR. We're playing away.
I wasn't about to inflict that misery on myself again, which is just
as well, because we lost one nil to Wigan, who are bottom of
the league and are so poor. I mean, they're in such disarray Wigan.
They actually went on strike during the international and refused to train because the
club's owners haven't paid the players their wages. But even playing bottom of the
league Wiggan, who've just been fined three points and whose players aren't actually being
paid, we still lost. So I'm quite glad that I didn't make the
four hundred mile round trip to Wigan. To endure that particular bit of misery.
So yeah, without wishing to extend this football conversation any longer is strictly
necessary. What I wanted to ask you was I watched I've given up watching
it, but I did watch for a time that series about those two Hollywood
actors who brought up Wrexham Football Club, which you were quite down on,
and one of the things I learned is that, Okay, so we know
that Premier League footballers get paid what several million a week, but what was
quite interesting was realizing that even in the low leagues until you get when you
get to the level Wrexham will rap that. Then then it really is amateur
ur But even like in Division is the Division two, Yeah, that it
goes Premier League and realistically not all the players. I mean I think that
the highest paid players get you know, more than six figures a week.
Sorry you get get six figures a week, but probably most of them are
between fifty and one hundred a week that is in the weekly wages. But
yeah, there's there's the there's the prem there's the Championship, there's League one,
League two, and then you go down to the league that Wrexhams in
okay, and what league are human We're in the Championship so the old second
division second okay? So okay, right, yeah, No that I was.
I was just I was just very interested to realize that you could be
in someone where I was miserable, as the second Division or the Championship League,
and still earn a decent whack as as a footballer. Yeah, we
had a footballer on loan at QPR who was a Premier League player, a
Watford player called Andre Gray. He also plays for the Jamaican national team.
We had him on loan at QPR last season and I think we paid,
you know, the lion's share of the wages he was being paid at Watford,
which is fifty thousand pounds a week. So yeah, there are some
players in the Championship earning upwards of fifty thousand a week. Well that's what
you get paid when you participated in bread and circuses, because that's that's all
the purpose of football is. Really. It's designed to distract the masses and
make identify with with people kicking a ball around identity to be doing a great
job of distracting me. At the moment, they're just making me more miserable.
But tell you what I did. The exciting thing I did. I
went to buy a new car. That is exciting. And when I say
I went to buy a new car, obviously I don't mean I went to
buy a new car. I went to buy a cut Yeah, so I
because I've been driving a a land Rover Freelander for the last ten years and
I've run it into the ground. And a Freelander is a good car to
have if you live in the sticks. For example, Sam going to a
meet and I need to, you know, get get on my horse.
Um. Sometimes you have to park your car somewhere where, whether the ground's
all muddy or bumpy or whatever, and you really don't want the humiliation getting
stuck in the mudd. You know, people look, people look down on
you if if you it's a bit of a fat part and the lander.
Remember do you remember the time when we went grass shooting and I took my
car up onto the grass walls and I was ferrying around Paul Dacer. He
became my little friend for the for the duration, remember, And the car
had had the clearance and all that, and it was it was you know,
so I was quite pleased about that. Anyway, I wanted to get
something like a Landrover, but m wife never liked like the Landrover. She
found it too heavy and and it is like driving a sort of an overlaid
and galleon. They're they're they're quite sort of clondery. Um. They're good
on bumpy ground and stuff, and they're good in the snow, but they're
not they're not really a joy to drive, especially if you're a girl.
So I asked my my mate James Ruppert. James rupport is probably the greatest
expert on second hand cars. He just he just knows everything there was to
know about it about it and he knows which are the good second hand hand
cars to buy and which are the not good second hand cars to buy.
So he told me, I didn't what I want is not a Landrover.
Um. I mean, obviously a Defender would be kind of a good thing
to happen. You know, then what you want? So he said,
either I wanted a subar Ru something or other or a Toyota Rav four.
Do you know about either of those? Yeah? I think that you're talking
about they're both SUVs, right, Natoyota Rav four is a kind of Japanese
version of a landrover exactly more comfortable. Yeah, yeah, so I was
drawn because super U is quite expensive, and all the ones he showed me
being advertised were quite high mileage. But I saw what was your price bracket,
James, I hadn't really got one. I just knew I didn't want
to pay much for a card because I don't really like I don't value cars
very much. For me, there are just a means of getting around.
Then did you hope to get did you have to trade in your landrover and
get a bit of a DISI? You know what? Do you know what?
The trade in value of my landrobe was one hundred and fifty quid.
Well, it wasn't that bad that it was. It was less than a
grand. And one of the reasons was that a few years ago, like
five years ago, wife, when she was coming into our drive, was
looking instead of looking at the direction she was going, and she looked at
the grass and noticed how it needed cutting, and whapped into this telegraph pole,
And rather than repair the door, which the door was completely stove in,
I left it there as a constant reminder of what she'd done. And
also because I don't know. I don't I don't want to spend money on
bodywork anyway, that's by the bye. So I was trying to sell this
new car. Well, the car when we're going to look at I say,
we've got to go and drive to this garage in Hartfordship to go and
look at this car. And she said, what's it like. You know,
I don't know anything about this car. I said, well, it's
called to Rav and she said, well, we sell it to me.
And I said, well, Toyota are the It's the favorite brand of the
Taliban and also of the you know, when when we went to war with
Libya, all those people with anti aircraft guns or heavy machine guns on the
back of there, they all drove in Toyota high Lux. I said,
this has got to be a good thing because Toyotas are rugged, and when
it all kicks off, we're going to be able to replace the parts very
cheaply that they're not overdesigned. So it's the perfect car for us. And
it was the wrong thing to say, And this was explained to me afterwards.
It was it was told that that this argument would have been fine for
a man, because it's true I've tried it on men and they all go,
yeah, yeah, Toyota. Do you see the top Gear episode where
they tried to they mute to Toyota and it still started. And so for
a man, this is just great. But girls don't like this stuff.
She said to me, she said, look, I really wasn't interested.
It's all I could think of was bearded men with AK forty sevens, and
it's not It doesn't sell it to me. It doesn't sell it to me.
So luckily, she asked some of her colleagues whether whether they had heard
them a Toyo to rav and somebody who was a sheep farmer said, yeah,
it's a really good car. It's really reliable. So that's the sheep
farmer sold it to her and drives like a car sold it to her.
But Taliban's favorite vehicle did not set it. So there's a lesson to men.
Anyway, I've got the car and it's fine. I think. I
don't know whether I got ripped off or not, but okay, um,
yeah, so you said it sounds like you had a marginally more interesting weekend
than me. I did some sort of boring household purchases. I've been putting
off for ages. So we had two completely knackered pedal bins in our upstairs
bathrooms. So I went to I went to John Lewis and replaced them.
And for some reason, our neutral bullet had started making a really high pitched
sound when you do that, well, I know they do. Any this
was louder than the noise it routinely makes. There's definitely something wrong with I
think the end the motor had burnt out because we we put not enough liquid
in the shape and smoothies we were making, so it was like deafening.
It was like you had to cover your ears when making a smoothie. It
was a kind of stressful process. So anyway, I've replaced the neutral,
did a bit of gardening and cooked cooked all the family meals, including roast
chicken and roast potatoes yesterday for Sunday lunch. Give my wife a break and
so, yeah, I feel quite a two weeks holiday. She doesn't deserve
a break. She should be chained to that stone for the rest of her
life. Abandoning your kids for how many weeks? Two weeks? No way,
two weeks in Barbados, Yeah, leaving me to hold the fort.
But I'd have a word if I wouldn't, I wouldn't take that. I
think, given that she was we worked out the other day, pregnant for
more than fifty percent of the time over a five year period, it's their
job, I think her debt. I'm never going to scale that Brownie point
in Mountain. I'm still in the foothills. James, you bought the feminazi
lie. I mean, okay, I talk a good game. I'm similarly
by my wife, but it doesn't mean that I'm going to defend it.
Being oppressed by one's wife on this show should at least one should at least
be properly, properly embarrassed by it, rather than trying to advance it as
a kind of serious intellectual case. Are you are you're sending like you're sending
like the top G who was released last week Top G Andrew Taate. Yes,
yes, he was finally released from his Romanian dungeon, though I think
he's still what under house arrest or something? Um And yeah, So I
was talking about my kids. My teenage sons were asking me about top G.
Is he someone the Free Speech Union would defend, etc. And they're
quite interested in him and they don't claim to be fans, but some of
their friends are fans. And when I went and talked at the British International
School of Marbaya week before last, some of the young adolescent boys were very
interested in Top G one or two, clearly fans. And there is this
kind of moral panic within school, certainly in the UK, probably elsewhere too,
about the influence of the Top G on you know, male teenagers.
And I think the reason he has kind of acquired this cult like following,
it's because he's really the only pro masculinity voice that they hear, whether at
school, from their wives and sisters and girlfriends. Within the kind of pop
cultural firmament, everyone is down on men. Masculinity is demonized. It's toxic,
even in children's television programs, you know, the male figures, the
father figures, people like you know, you know, Daddy Pig in Pepper
Pig. So so the reason he's acquired this cult like following is because he's
the only person out there saying positive things about what it means to be a
man. If only there were a few more, you know, then he
wouldn't he wouldn't be attracting all this attention it's because there's such a death of
anyone defending masculinity and making a positive case for men. But he's so really,
they only had themselves to blame. That was my That was what I
That's what I said to my wife and daughter yesterday. Have you made him
listen to my podcast with him? I did it. I did it a
while back. And yes, he's a very he was. He was definitely
one of my most fluent, entertaining and interesting guests I've had. I don't
know what I mean, whether it's whether it's a good, good thing or
a bad thing. I'm still not sure. I think he's got I think
he's he comes from a CIA background, which which which makes me suspicious.
I think there's something slightly dodgy about his conversion to Islam. I don't know
what that's all about. So so I'm kind of agnostic on him. But
he is a good He does talk a good game, or we did on
my on my podcast anyway. But yeah, I mean one of the kind
of one of the things which makes him a complicated figure is that he's obviously,
you know, in the same way that when we were kind of baiting
liberals back in the eighties, we would kind of exaggerate just how right wing
and reactionary we really were in order to kind of trigger them, and we
became sort of deliberately, in order to kind of show them that we were
indifferent to their good opinion, happily played up to the stereotype, the caricature
of kind of toxic, toxic right wing Oxonian males, but in the same
way that they then pointed to us as sort of poster boys but everything they
disliked about kind of right wing Tory boys. So by playing up to the
toxic masculinity stereotype in a kind of performative way, Andrew Tate has also provided
all the people that want to demonize masculinity with, you know, copious amounts
of ammunition. So even though he's sort of defending masculinity, he makes it
easier for those who want to demonize it to do that because you know,
he's now been charged with sex trafficking, and he's different logistic things and the
rest of it. I think you're conflating different issues that there is. There
is nothing that he's that he says, and when he goes on a podcast,
I mean, I'm assuming that what he said on my podcast was not
dissimilar what he says on others. He talks absolute sense. There is nothing
that I heard him say in our hour and a half chat together that I
would have gone, oh, Andrew, you're pushing it a bit far this
time. I'm embarrassed. I wouldn't want to be associate none at all.
He's absolutely bang on the money. I think the problem with Andrew Tap is
that what he and this I agree with you on his behavior is very very
dodgy, or of what I understand about it. His actual treatment of actual
women that's a different issue. But what he says is not. He's not
He's not like some sort of Oxbridge Tory from the nineteen eighties trying to wind
up the enemy. He's absolutely he's right. Okay, so he's not so
when he so, when he's sort of talking the talk, he's not trying
to troll the Libs. He's just trying to make sense as best he can
and sort of make a sort of conservative case for traditional gender roles. Normal.
But but but when he but in his behavior, he enables the kind
of feminists to depict him as a typically toxic male. Yes, and I
think he's I don't think he's the karag. I appreciate that distinction person personal
behavior. Yeah, anyway, whereas where the opposite, aren't we in in
in when we when we talk the talk, we we we make ourselves see
much more villainous, much less virtuous than in private we really are in reality.
As you say, you know, like at the beginning of this show,
you said, don't don't don't don't admit that you actually do the cooking
and do your shore of a household jewels, pretend to be a more toxic
male than you really are. I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed of my of my
failure to be to be more manly. I believe absolutely everything I said.
Look, I think I think feminism, the feminist movement was was one of
the evils promoted by the enemy to undermine the family unit, to bring to
to ensure that. Look, the powers that be, the Kabar whatever you
want to call them, that they're upfront about this. What they really wanted
is to bring women into the tax base. And they funded the feminist movement
because they wanted to advance these sexy reasons why women should should become more liberated
and and and have their own income and stuff. But it wasn't really about
that. It was it was trying to exploit women financially through the tax system
and undermine the family, because which is what you do when you take women
out of out of the home and put them in the workplace. So so
no, I'm not going to stick up for the feminism in any way,
shape or form. But can't you be can't can't can't you can't you you
know, be skeptical about some aspects of feminism. Presumably you don't think it's
wrong that women have the vote, um, but but but no doubt there
are some aspects of feminism you don't agree with. But can't you be skeptical
about some of the some aspects of feminism and still want to be you know,
a supportive and helpful husband who does his share of the household jaws does
his share of them. I think what people want to do, whether whether
if a man wants to help out well, I mean a partromly else,
which is quite like doing the cooking. So I'm not sure that that's but
that should be a private issue. It's like it's like one's relationship with one's
wife, what one gets up into the bedroom I don't think anyone should know
about it. I think it's but you said earlier you were you were ashamed
about cooking meals for your family. No, no, no, I didn't
say I shouldn't talk abou unashamed. Way now I'm not at all. I'm
not ashamed about the cooking aspect, because I enjoy cooking. But no,
I do wish what I said was I wish I was more of a manly
man. For example, I wish I were one of those fathers that takes
no ship from his children, they would have done better. I think had
I been stricter, for example. But you think you mean, could you
have been stricter? I mean, you know, because I'm a victim of
feminized society aspect, but also probably it's not just It's not It's not just
that, is it. I mean, you know, children, um,
even the most manly men I think, might have difficulty ruling their families with
a rod of iron unless you're a kind of living in a kind of Hasidic
Jewish community, or I'd like to bruise them with ad of iron and break
them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Frankly, I think that that should
be the deal. But there we are. I'm not sure it's even possible
to play that kind of role anymore, not just because we've changed, but
because children have changed too, and particularly teenagers. Yeah, it's horrible they've
been I don't find mine too are anyways, So should we have an ad
James? Yeah, I think we should. Every week, as you know,
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dot com slash London to learn more. So, I think since we last
recorded, James Donald Trump has been indicted, yes, or into hated,
as he put it, I think on truth social m One thing I wondered
about him, you know, complaining that he'd been indicated and putting it in
caps, is that that that obviously immediately triggered an avalanche of kind of piss
taking, kind like from the kind of educated global you know, the educated
elite. You know, what a what a reprehensible, deplorable man this is?
He doesn't he can't, he can't even spell indicted when he puts it
in capital letters. Do you think he did that deliberately? Because when when
people pour scorn on him for being uneducated and vulgar and getting things wrong like
that it actually just you know, it galvanizes his base. It doesn't make
him look ridiculous in there wise, it makes the people criticizing him look ridiculous.
It worked, didn't it. Do you remember the CoV fefe thing when
he tweeted out CoV fefe cv fefe and he made this nonsense word into a
word of words at the moment, and all the all the kind of or
all the Trump paigers piled on and saying, what is this man talking about?
What is comfe? And it became this fashionably. It became like that
gorilla, didn't it, harambe. It became a meme. It became a
meme. And I think that Trump, after all, his his familiar is
Pepper the frog, and I think Trump was the first, maybe the last
meme meme president, So he knows how to he knows how to work social
media. So I'm sure it was deliberate. Yes, absolutely absolutely, And
I think it's going to It's going to do his election campaign no harm,
apart from possibly the gagging order which is being presumably which which has has it
been imposed or is it about to be imposed? It's been threatened with being
imposed by this, And I think we paid for Alvin Bragg. Yes,
And and one of the terms of the gagging order will be that if he
breaks it, then he has to pay what one hundred thousand dollars fine or
something. So there was a thousand dollars and I was I was thinking,
maybe I misread it, but I thought, how is he ever going to
find the money to pay a thousand dollars fine? So maybe it's not such
a big threat after all. But nevertheless, I do think it's bizarre that
the leading election candidate for the for the Republicans at the moment is being it's
been threatened with gagging by kangaroo court for a something he may or may not
have done seven years ago. So beyond the statute of limitations and somehow this
I mean, but where, by the way, are you with me yet?
Do you do you still maintain that the presidential election was not stolen?
Do you do you still maintain it was a legit or are you with me
that the whole thing stank? No? I don't think the whole thing stank.
I think there were some irregularities at the margin. I mean, is
do you think Biden won legitimately? I think that, yeah, I think
he did attract the larger share of the popular vote. I think, and
you genuine you genuinely believe that if somebody, if you were admissioned to if
you were going to burn the hell fire for line here you actually you're telling
me, and you're in awesome territy. You don't think the election was stolen?
Yeah, No, I don't think the election was stolen. Wow,
okay, um, so so yeah, just to clarify what we were previously
saying, I just googled it. Yeah, you're right. It's a thousand,
one thousand dollars fine if he breaks the gagging order, which hasn't yet
been imposed, plus up to thirty days in jail. So I imagine that
will that was there terry, Yeah, than the Crown ground. Fine,
but yes, do you not think it's weird that you and I were brought
up to believe that the American system that the miracles leader of the free world.
We really we were amateurs compared to the Americans in terms of um,
they're having a constitution, you know, we're okay, so we had Magna
Carter, but they've got the found the founding father's they had that created this
fantastic all these checks and balances, and America was a model for the free
world and democracy and stuff. And you're looking at this stuff now and you're
thinking, hang on a second, So this, this kuangaroo court, bought
and paid for by George Sauros in one jurisdiction, can somehow indict or attempt
to indict on this really trivial, trivial charge from seven years ago, that
they can do this to the guy who is popular but at least one half
of America, and that this is somehow justice, this is legal. Are
you not starting to question whether America is not as as broken as I constantly
suggested it. Well, I never started out believing that America was completely uncorrupt
and a kind of model liberal democracy. Um. I mean, it's it's
always thought it was a basket case to begin with. That there's always been,
you know, a gap between the aspirations of the founding fathers and American
democracy as it operates. Or they've built in a lot of safeguards, um
anticipating that you know it would be ye know that. I mean, I
think it's um but I think that that lawfairs nothing new, Um, you
know, political this is unprecedented Toby have engaged the unprecedented. You can't saying
this is unprecedented, this has never happened before. That's what it means.
Well, what a candidate has never been president? What is it that's never
happened before. Well, that an ex president has never been I don't think
indicted in this way that I'm not sure that's true. But there have certainly
been, certainly been sitting presidents who've been indicted. So Bill Clinton was indicted.
Okay, Well, whatever this is, this is the naked sabotage of
the electoral process. I mean, in my view, they stole that that
they Biden stole the election, and now they're rubbing out phases in it.
But I say not that I particularly hold a countdal for Trump. By the
way, it's not that. It's just more about the principles that you cannot
you cannot in a local jurisdiction stop the guy who is leading the Republican campaign
to become a president. You can't. You can't just dag him on the
basis and something in mam and have done seven years ago. Surely this must
be making you think we'll hang on a second, this is wrong. Well,
that there was I mean, legal action being taken against presidents, vice
presidents, presidential candidates is not unprecedented. It's a feature, not a bug,
of American democratic politics, and have been for at least two hundred years.
So I don't think we should get too over excited about this. I
mean, I remember reading, um, you know that the famous series of
biographies of U. LBJ. And when LBJ ascended to the presidency in nineteen
sixty three, there were several cases pending against him, including I think a
congressional investigation, and they were all dropped when he became president, partly in
the aftermath of Kennedy's assassination. No one wanted to tarnish the presidency anymore.
So but then you know, there was coordinate Nixon Nixon. Nixon was being
prosecuted and had to be pardoned by Gerald Ford, his successor, Clinton was
indicted. There was an attempt to indict drump when he was the sitting president.
So um, you know, this kind of this kind of law fare,
I think has long been a feature of American politics. And you know,
we don't yet know that the system has failed. It could be that
he will be able to successfully fight this, um and he hasn't yet been
gagged. So it might be a bit quick to kind of write off American
democracy because of this kind of unprecedented use of law fair by this particular what
by the New York Attorney General. I don't think that's um, you know,
it's it's it's, it's it's I don't think it will serve the Democrat's
purpose. I don't think it will damage Trump's candidacy and may even have sealed
his nomination for him. I don't think. I don't think it's a new
low. According to the Simpson Well, that's because the base is so low,
not because not because hitherto American democracy has been in the last three years,
has been a paragon that we should all admire. But um, Simpsons
last two hundred, of course, predicted Trump's first presidency. I think also
predicted that Trump would come back in um in twenty twenty four. And I
think that Matt Greening I read this somewhere. Can it be true that Matt
Greening is a thirty third degree freemason so he'd know, is it? What
can it be that? Yeah? I read it. I mean, obviously
people who are who are reached thirty third degree are quite a quite reticent about
having reached that level. But yes, I think it could be that he
is a member of the luminati, so he would know where of he speaks.
So this is a well that's the sort of odd of reasoning. Um,
well, I don't know, I mean, I mean, the Simpsons
does seem to have remarkable prescience and predicted powers. Doesn't It's probably predated like
like like presumably like kind of those you know, m fortune tellers who stand
up before large audiences. They create the impression of having these predicted powers because
they throw out a kind of huge number of predictions, and when some come
true, even though the vast majority don't, they say, see see,
I could only think the symptoms is predicted that you're going to be president,
or Justin Bieber's going to be president, or but it definitely definitely did predict
that Trump was going to be president, which at the time seemed outlandish.
Was a prediction or was it just intended to be a kind of sata I
think I think it was. There was a news item where where from the
future or something, but that was that that presumably was just intended as satire,
not as a prediction, but that's the point that that's that's what I'm
saying, that that that what what we thought of that at the time as
satire then became true. But I expect that also, But I don't think
that. But yeah, but I don't suppose the people who who created that
episode of the Symptoms thought it would come true. They thought they were that's
your theory, comical point a point, that's your theory. America couldn't be
quite that bad. They probably thought, you know, this is this is
our kind of dystopian vision of America's future, which they I don't imagine they
thought would actually come to pass. So we already Dan, we'll understand how
the Simpsons work, but all understands that it is is joky sat up.
But at the same time, I'm afraid to say that there was any number
of people that the that the Simpsons could mockingly have suggested it might become presidents
in the future, and the fact is that spookily then they are lighted on
Donald Trump. Yeah, well, I'm just going to rupt you here,
James. We have to do one more ad, so I think it's your
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on your mortgage. I watched the video of your event at the Emmanual Center
with a lot of them, which should pick up chips on how to how
I was, I was, I was. I wanted to see how it
worked, and and I thought you were you were, You were very good.
You were a great showman, and Neil was charming, and you had
a great rapper and the audience seemed to love you. But but but you
did you occasionally kind of introduced very you sort of at one point it sound
almost I think he accused you of trying to trip him up and ask him
trick questions. So at one point he said he'd been to an island called
Skull Island, and it was it was it was such a remote place that
more people had set foot on the Moon than on Skull Island. And you
immediately picked him up on that, because of course you don't believe the moon
landing was real, and um, and there was another into it. There
was another episode like that too, in which he I think he referred to
dinosaurs, um, and you picked him up on that too and said,
but of course dinosaurs were a hoax, they're not real. And at one
point you started talking about the Lost City of Atlantis as if that was an
indisputable acts and so forth. I mean, it was just but in a
sort of slightly jokey way, and the audience was laughing, and he was
laughing too, And I couldn't tell whether you actually believe these things or whether
you were kind of slightly satirizing yourself. And you don't quite believe them,
but you're willing to kind of entertain them because you don't like people who do
believe them being demonized as conspiracy theories. I mean, I couldn't quite work
out, couldn't quite read how chronic you were being, or how look okay,
so let me ask you a question before I answer this one, which
is I was looking at my wife's copy of the paper I used to write
for the Telegraph the other day, and I can't bear to look at accept,
you know, with utter contempt. And there was a feature on this
new exhibit. Have you seen this at the Natural History Museum. It's called
something like tighten the saur or even bigger saurus or something, and it's it's
they had a previous they had a previous dinosaur which was called Dippy, I
think, And they've got rid of Dippy. He's no longer fit for purpose.
And they've got enormal enormal titana saw and they've got somebody from the paleontology
department saying, yeah, it's amazing. This is the biggest dinosaur that's ever
been, that we've ever had in the museum. And it's got this,
it's got this. It's like it's designed to be kind of impressive and yet
not scary at the same time. It's got this sort of big but kind
of friendly mouth. And you've got all this information about how big its heart
was and how long it is, and lots of arrows showing how long it
is. Do you believe any of this stuff? Do you you think this,
this, this enormous beast really stalked the earth? Do you believe that
when you read that? Why would they be lying to us about it?
Um? Oh, that's a really interesting question. I would say that if
you look back into the by the way, this is not I'm desperate to
find somebody to do me a proper podcast on this. So this is a
fairly rudimentary understanding of why dinosaurs or bullocks. But what it comes down to
is that these these dinosaurs, which you imagine on a the results of loads
and loads of bones found in in tar pits and so on, or in
Patagonia or whatever, and they've all been pieced together and to form these huge,
huge beasts, but they're not. They found a few bones and the
rest are just kind of imaginative reconstructions based on the paleontologists fantasists idea about what
the dinosaur might have been if only we'd found more than one tooth, And
I'm just not buying it, particularly when you look into the history of dinosaurs
and you see that there were these two sort of Barnum style showman dinosaur collectors
who sent teams around the world looking for looking for dinosaur bones, and they
were the ones who kind of competed to name new new specimens. So now
I think that I'm not certain that dinosaurs are completely made up, but I
have a strong suspicion that pretty much every specimen we see in natural history museums
are are there for to draw kids in um, to promote evolutionary theory,
but really have no basis in historical fact. Couldn't they promote the theory of
evolution without invoking dinosaurs? Wouldn't they just they? Probably they probably could,
but the two but evolutionary theory came about about the same time. So no,
I think I think probably those questions a bandwagon. But the answer my
question is there is there is? There is? There isn't a kind of
ironic dimension when you refer in a kind of offhand way to these various conspiracy
theories. Um And referred to Matt Gronigg as being a thirty third degree freemason
and therefore a member of the Illuminati, and therefore I don't know for certain
that's true, but it's something I read and it seems to be possible.
Yeah, I am definitely an out Dyno skeptic. Okay, so I'm probably
not going to be in Tom Holland's Christmas card list anymore because as you know,
as you know, our friend Tom Holland loves dinosaurs. He thinks they're
fantastic, like the best thing ever. He's probably got dinosaur pajamas. Um
kim trails, yes, obviously, but but they're disguised that they're disguised as
whether as whether they seldom as the weather modification, right, Okay, I
mean one, I guess one one one one reason when I was watching UM
you and Neil Oliver talking to each other on stage, a lot of it
was devoted to what's happened over the past three years, pandemic response, vaccine
rollout, et cetera. And I guess one thought that struck me was if
you're if you're trying to persuade people not to take the mr NA vaccines because
you believe that they're going to be harmful, and you're trying to persuade people
to wake up because they've been victims of a kind of big farmer conspiracy.
Why why invoke you know all these other conspiracy theories? Aren't you Are you
going to lead people? I mean, my worry would be that you're going
to undermine your own credibility. People might be a little bit skeptical about,
you know, the safety and efficacy of the mRNA vaccines. They might be
on the cusp of becoming mRNA vaccine skeptics. But if you then tell them
that you believe all these other conspiracy theories, isn't that going to undermine your
credibility and make them kind of makes you take their distance. I get this
all the time from people on your side of the argument, and I'll say
to you what I always say, which is, I'm only really interested.
The only thing that matters to me is the truth, regardless of whether it
makes me look crazy, regardless of whether it's unpalatable. I think if you
don't make the truth your watch word, you end up like utobes. That
I suspect, and perhaps this is unfair of me. I suspect that you
self censor. That you are you are. You are determined to preserve your
place in the mainstream medium by never straying outside the Overton window, the Overton
window being the sort of the acceptable bounds of discoorse. So would never question,
for example, whether or not nine to eleven was planned by a man
in the cave. You wouldn't go there. You would never You would never
question the moon landings because it wouldn't be it wouldn't be an article that you
could write in the newspapers. You would never look at vaccine injuries and the
extent thereof until it became politically palatable to do so. I mean, you
know it would be you wouldn't want to be out on a limb like Andrew
Bridging. But if people like Jacob rees mug started talking about vaccine injury,
then suddenly you'd be going, Yes, it seems that vaccine injury is real
and it's a terrible thing. So I don't can. I personally do not
care whether I am laughed at by people on your side of the argument.
The only thing I care about is the truth. So if I don't know
something like if I don't know whether or not Matt Greening is a thirty third
degree freemason, I'll say, well, I read this on the internet,
but I'm not sure. But I wouldn't say I wouldn't. I wouldn't bet
my life on it. Okay, the same with dinosaurs. I don't believe.
I think they are a made up thing. I'm happy to be proved
wrong. But as far as I understand at the moment, I think dinosaurs
are made up crap. Okay, so you've you've ascribed mercenary motives to me?
Not well not, I mean I could have been worse. I could
have been paid for it anyway. Um, I mean I guess I could
throw back, throw that back at you and say, you know, one
suspicion that I haven't quite been able to put to bed is that actually you
don't really believe all these things. You say you're you're only interested in the
truth, but you haven't actually bothered to drill down too deeply into many of
these conspiracy theories. You believe it because you read it. Hold on,
hold on. It's sounds like you know, one suspicion, James, which
which may which may may be groundless. But one suspicion Um I have is
that you know that your livelihood now depends upon being given money selling tickets to
people who believe in these conspiracy theories. So if you to challenge any of
them would be to jeopardize some of what is now. That's quote quit Toby,
that is that is a rhetorical fallacy where you're accused the person the accused
is something that they've accused you of, and it's tipotat and it's fine.
Look, I really don't care whether you think that I am I am saying
that stuff in bad faith. I know that all the people who support me
um believe that the reason that they listen to my podcasts and stuff is because
they know I'm absolutely a listeners to right up. They don't think I'm prepared
to accept that you do believe all these things in good faith, not because
you have a an ulterium note of for professing you'll believe in them. But
can you extend the same courtesy to me? Well, no, because it's
it's it's a different kettle of fish that that I am constantly possible. I
called you out on this the other day that it seems to me that the
right areas you will not go. It seems to me that the for example,
I mean, where are you or Kennedy James James. The reason I
haven't when you say one of the areas you identified a few seconds ago that
I'm unwilling to go is the idea that the moon landings were faked. The
reason I don't go there is not because I'm worried about, um, you
know, being excluded from the mainstream media, which I was long excluded from
anyway. No, the reason I don't go there because I don't think it's
true, and I think you should extend that courtesy to me, just as
I will extend to you the courtesy believing the moon landings were faked I'm prepared
to believe that you think it's since you believe that's sincerely, yeah, that
I remember. I remember the many years when I was part of the mainstream
narrative um. And this is why I'm always going to give you the benefit
of the doubt, because I was like you once. Which is that,
Which is why I didn't accuse you of having essentially being bought and paid for.
Although you know, people people are asking me this all the time,
They say, well, why is Toby? Why why is Toby so determined
to take a line not done akin to the governments? You know, he
poses as a skeptic, but he seems very reluctant to going hard about vaccine
damage and stuff. And he seems very hard despite the massive accumulation of evidence
to suggest that this wasn't a various plot. He seems always he's always reluctant
to go there. It's always always pulling back. Why is this? And
I say, I think it's this is I do? And why challengeable exclamation
for this is that you are not even aware that your your self censoring.
You aren't You just have, as so many journalists have a conscious, a
subconscious awareness of where the limits of the Overton window lies, so you would
you would you would never do what you would consider to be a waste of
time looking into nine to eleven, or looking into the moon landings, or
or looking into for example. I think this is about the fifth or sixth
time on this show I've mentioned event two O one. You've never shown any
interesting You've never gone well, hang on a second. Isn't it weird that
JOHNS Hopkins was war Game in the pandemic scenario a year before it happened on
Online's remarkably similar to the ones that were war Game by John Hopkins. You've
never You've never gone down that one because I think that your your internal self
censor. I said that that's too conspiracy theory crazy. I don't want to
go there. Well, I think you've got a slightly odd idea. I
think of where the Overton window is. I'm way outside the Overton window.
I'm just not as far outside it as you, but I'm still outside it.
So I don't think you can ascribe my not wanting to discuss event two
O one to wanting to remain within the Overton window. You're still saying it's
up not conspiracy. When I thine overwhelmed. The evidence shows that it was
a conspiracy. Well that's as maybe, But I'm I'm way outside. I
mean, I know we disagree on that, but I'm still I mean,
I think you you, you, you've got a very odd idea. I
think of where the Overton window sits on on on the government's pandemic response in
almost every regard, I'm way outside the Overton window. Well, I don't
know vaccines, when the vaccines were necessary for certain groups of people. Even
now you're saying this, right, the window, the Overton window is that
everyone benefits from the vaccines. Is that is outside the Overton window. Didn't
you even grasp this? It's up the cock up. It hasn't moved to
encompass my position yet. The cock up theory is outside the Overton window because
that suggests that what's gone wrong requires an explanation, and most people don't think
anything went wrong. Most people would you still think the government pandemic response was
right? So cock up or conspiracy, either way, you're outside the Overton
window. Would you say that the telegraph, the day telegraph, which is
which is a broadsheet newspaper. Would you say that that is within the Overton
window. I think there. I think they're I think they're on the on
the edge of the Overton window on some establishment as they are about as mainstream
as you can get. And they made great, great play of these these
Matt Hancock, the Matt Hancock story, which was all about how, oh,
look, it's all the fault of this of this minister. So that
was that was cock up theory in ex chelsis being promoted by a national newspaper.
I think if if days on end, if if if you think that,
if you mean I think that, if you think that the things the
government got wrong can be explained by cock up the premises the government got a
lot of things wrong. Now that is not the mainstream view. That is
not a view I don't think which sits within the Overton window, at least
the things we things I think the government got wrong and are not things that
most people within the Overton window I think the government got wrong. They agree
that the government screwed up in some ways, but they think that overall the
lockdown policy was right probably one, two and three, and the rollout of
the vaccines was what got us out of it, and so on and so
forth. So I don't see how in the Telegraph. I think, you
know. I think what you haven't realized, James, or I don't know,
is that there is a kind of broad liberal consensus represented by the BBC,
by Sky News, by ITV, by newspapers like The Independent and the
Guardian, by radio stations like LBC BBC Radio four. That's the Overton window.
And if you, if you are a conservative, even quite a mainstream
conservative, now you're outside the Overton window. If you think that women can't
have penises, you're outside the Overton window. The Overton window is much narrower
and much further to the left. And I think you've grasped the Telegraph is
not really firmly within that Overton window. The Telegraph is an outlier, and
in some respects it's outside the Overton window. I well, I think the
only acid that matters because I'm not buying into the cultural war nonsense. I
think that the culture wars are a distraction designed to enable supposed edgy right wing
commentators to shirt their duties by saying, look, I'm not going to I'm
not going to talk about the vaccine rollout, that the vaccine that I'm not
going to talk about that your government forcing you to take this experimental therapy because
I'm fighting the pronoun wars and I'm fighting you know, it's like other stuff.
I haven't got time to do all this. So where that fits in
the overtoed window, I don't know. But what I do know is that
all the newspapers, the entirety of the mainstream media, they're all the print
media, and a lot of alternative media as well, basically pushed the government
that the same line as the government, which was that lockdowns were Oh,
well, you've got you've got people like you, people who are sort of
you know, conservative talking point communists. Yes, you're all allowed to say
that lockdowns are a bad idea. Now. That's that's that's allowed, although
it wasn't for about two years, but you could. That is definitely been
in the ovided window. You're not yet allowed to say because I see this
and all the all the newspapers, you're not you're not less. You're allowed
to say that that these experimental medical treatment should never have been forced on the
populace by the government, that especially not on children, That women have been
sterilized by this staff, that the the this is, this is an outrage.
This is probably the biggest war by governments ever conducted on their on their
populace around the world. It's extraordinary that they forced us to do this stuff,
and that we had to We had to come up with all kinds of
excuses in order not to get vaccinated those of them who who wanted to resist
it. So yes, I'm saying that that there are things you're allowed to
say, which which are lightly critical, which which are within the ovisial window,
but still not not there, not where I am. That's true,
it's not where you are, but you're I'm way outside the way i'd say,
I'd say you're still you're still safing within it. No, I'm definitely
within that cozy frame. But I think I think it. I think it.
I think it is important if we we've discussed before that, as as
documented in the National Review, one of the um virtues of this podcast is
that we to a certain extent, model how to disagree in a good humored
way about whether all the plava and upheaval of the last three years is a
conspiracy or a cock up. And that is the and it's important to model
good humored disagreement about that particular issue, because it's an issue that's dividing people,
certainly on the right the world over, even to the extent of dividing
families couples. But I think if we are going to continue to play that
useful social role, we ought to credit each other with believing in our respective
points of view in good faith because we believe them to be true, not
because we want to maintain our respectability or our income streams, or because we
perceive our positions as being inside or outside the Overton window and we're competing for
who can be more rebellious. I think we have to just accept that each
other's positions are held in good faith. We disagree, but we disagree about
what we think is true, and that's because we, you know, we
read the world slightly differently. But it's you must think I have a memory,
Toby, Why you must think that my memory won't stretch stretch back as
far as last week's episode when you diagnosed my position as a product of mental
illness, which, by the way, is what if you've ever studied the
Soviet Union under Stalin or Germany under hit though, is what the regime did
to discredit dissidence. One of the things the person they do to sign ups,
that would be to accuse them of being mentally ill. So a pretty
speech, pretty lecture. But I think if you're going to make these little
homilis, you ought to at least be prepared to live by them every week
rather than just whatever week it seems to you. I think I did.
That was sort of intended slightly humorously, James, it was throw bard in.
It was it was like, I think a lot of people listening were
wondering where on earth it came from, because it wasn't a sort of natural
It didn't smoothly introduce a new topic. It was just like almost like you
decided an advance this is what you were going to do to discredit me.
So no, it wasn't. It was, No, it was I think
it was. I think I think it had occurred to me as something we
could talk about in the episode, but not in order to discredit you.
I just wanted to run that theory up the flagpole. But it was,
you know, like like many of the things, like many of the theories
intended packs and be careful and we'll try and avoid upsetting the horses. Okay,
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seeking to sign an independent author with proven commercial success. So James should we?
Is it time for culture Corner? It probably is? Well. I
wanted to first talk about James a movie I think you probably wouldn't like,
which is sixty five. So the premise of sixty five. Actually went and
saw it yesterday in the cinema, first time I've been to the cinema I
think all year. The premise of sixty five is that this astronaut is flying
across space in a cryogenic suspension because they're going a long distance, and they
enter an undocumented asteroid belt and asteroids damage the spaceship. He is woken up
with a jolt from cry gen suspension, manages to crash land the ship on
a planet and it turns out that he is from the distant past and a
wholly different civilization, and he has landed on planet Earth six sixty five million
years BC or sixty five million years ago, when dinosaurs still roam the Earth,
and he has to do battle dinosaurs. And there's also a little girl
has also survived the crash, and he has to kind of protect her and
get them both off the planet before an asteroid strikes. And it's the asteroid
that wiped out the dinosaurs. So that's the premise and how it was.
It was. It was actually not bad and only got sort of like I
think, something like like forty or something on Rotten Tomatoes, possibly even less.
But I thought it was one of those movies that does badly with the
critics but gets a very high audience score. So our own kind of adaptation
of the tomato meter would suggest that it's a movie well worth seeing. And
I thought it was quite fun. I'm not sure it's worth a trip to
the cinema, but certainly worth watching. When it becomes available on a streaming
platforms, you can watch it at home. It was quite entertaining, not
very ambitious, starring Adam Driver um and um you know, there was some
there was some reasonably good suspense, suspense sequences in it. The action is
reasonably well choreographed. I mean, you know, a light diverting form of
entertainment on a rainy Sunday afternoon. So two lies dinosaurs and space. It's
like, yeah, dinosaurs, It's like yeah, yeah, yeah. Have
you have you seen Have you watched Succession yet? Yeah? I did.
I see the first episode of Succession. I thought it was. I thought
it was pretty good. Um, I mean, it's the standard. The
quality is consistently high. Um, and yeah, I watched it the day
after we recorded our last episode of Blood and Calling. I thought it was
I thought it was pretty good. I mean, I think they're they're struggling,
as we discussed I think before to sustain the premise that you know,
um, that that that that the kind of patriarch at the head of the
family business is about to expire, and so there is a kind of succession
crisis as his children battle it out between them to see who gets the throne.
They've kind of that that then that we're now into sort of this fourth
season in which Brian Cox is still sort of in the process of dying and
actually he seems more vigorous than ever. But but but it's still it's still
very and I can see why they can't sustain it now beyond the four seasons,
because presumably at some point he just does have to kick his clocks.
Do you think there'll be a winner at the end of this season? Do
you think one of the one of the pretenders to the throne will actually succeed
to the throne in the final episode? And will it be? It's difficult.
It's difficult, um. I mean, all these writers want to keep
the doors opened there for a possible sequel, and I suppose that they're going
to have to kill off Logan Roy because Brian Cox doesn't want to play anymore
unless they have in one a kind of life support machine or something and just
you know, yeah, and see how they can keep my eye. Um,
but I don't know. The characters are too good too. I mean,
I could happily see a spin off series with with Greg and Tom that
would just be so good. Um what would what would potulbarly? Greg won't
be working for j Star or whatever it's called. Um what what? What?
What would he be doing in the spinoffs? It would he be working
as a kind of concierge and a sort of white lotus. Like people tell
me that better call Saul is they actually prefer it to Breaking Back, But
I could never quite get on with the sort of the whimsical tone of it.
Yeah, and perhaps and the House of Dragons I don't think is a
patch on Game of Thrones. I think I think that that think. I
think the bedical Saul. The gap between Breaking Broad and bedical Soul is smaller
than the gap in quality between Game of Thrones and House of Dragons. So
yeah, it's always risky making it making Also, if you had the Greg
and Tom show, that the reason we love Greg and Tom is that they
are the comic relief after the serious stuff. But if they were holding up
a show on their own, it would be a bit It would be a
night might tedious to be just an out and out sitcom. But to make
a prequel, it would be a prequel about, you know, the rise
of Logan Roy starting out in the slums of Glasgow. It would, But
then I think that the dialogue wouldn't be as good because one of the joys
about about Jesse Armstrong's dialogue is it's kind of postmodern and internet age and stuff,
and I'm not sure you could have characters talking in quite the same snappy
way in a in a kind of the early years of in a Glaswegian tenement.
Yeah, exactly, tell me, do you do you don't remember how
we started out. I think our first podcast, one of our early ones,
was our Thrones cast thing where every week we'd appall more experienced, knowledgeable
viewers by how little we understood the characters or their names or any of the
things that happen or anything of significance. Yeah. Do you not find that
slightly with the business element of succession, I haven't a clue who is bidding
for what or from where. And I'm not even sure that Jesse Armstrong is
either. I think he's much more interested in in the kind of the nightclub
scenes in the locations and they're getting in and out of helicopters. I don't
think he really cares about I get the impression that they've done a bit of
research and have got the detail of kind of you know, that kind of
high sort of high end business world, right. I don't just mean all
the kind of social details. I mean, you know the details of the
deals and the kinds of things that they kind of fall out over. The
person who who wrote the kind of play about Enron is now a you know,
a sort of writer on succession, and I imagine partly got hired in
order to get that kind of Probably it still goes out in my head.
Um, yeah, yeah, I mean it's sort of it's always it's always
a bit silly and perhaps the least credible aspect, I suppose, you know,
and and and because but that doesn't matter terribly because you don't care that
much about it. You know that, you know, nothing's really going to
happen. They're going to carry on being the owners of Logan Roy is going
to carry on being the owner, and he's never going to sell it,
and the kids are never going to get their hands on it. I mean,
but but I think, I mean, I'm going to make a prediction.
I do think that at the end of season, I do think it'll
have an ending, and I think the ending will be the death of Logan
Roy. And I think his successor is likely to be amongst his children,
and I think it's likeliest to be Roman. Roman seems to be emerging because
he's keis the one with the kind of biggest arc, isn't he At the
very beginning he was kind of an absolute fool and dismissed by his brother,
his sort of more serious brother and sister than not the presidential game about is
an absolute holy fool. But but he's becoming kind of shrewder and seemingly a
little bit more business savvy as the as the as the, so he could
end up inheriting the crown. I think you mean Chekhov's sensible remark, because
he did make a sensible remark in the first episode, and that could that
could be the clue that we're getting right. What was his sensible remark in
the first episode where he said where he pointed out as they were engaged in
their bidding war for this for this useless company. Um, he said,
has anyone done a cost benefit of analysis? Has anyone actually worked out how
how much this company is actually worth? Yeah? And neither Shiv nor nor
a Kendall had they look him a blank look at that point. Have you
watched rabbit Hole yet? No? I haven't. I was going to subscribe
to Paramount Plus so I can watch it. Is it worth watching? On
the on the first episode, I would say not but I think we should.
I'm going to we should both have it a look and come back to
it. I'll tell you what my tip of the week is. I don't
know what it's names always forget to look at the names. It's it's on
Netflix and it's Norwegian and it is about Norwegian merchant shipping in the war.
Okay, And had this been made by a had it been about the merchant
navy in the war, there would definitely have been lots of sort of black
and transgender people shoehorned into the into the cast. But because because it's Norwegian
where you know whatever, it feels totally authentic and totally honest and understated.
It's it's really good. I mean, I've I've almost had my fill of
World War two things, which is a thing for me to say, but
it's it's true. But this was really well done. Oh look, Brian's
done the research for US Ye war sailor war sail What a crap title war
sailor maybe that's a direct war sailor. Yeah, that is all that must
be. Something got lost in translation there. But I wonder what the Norwegian
for wars. I'm gonna I'm gona look at war Sailor because it's a bit
like it sounds quite like Anglo Saxon. Ye doesn't it war sailor? Yeah.
Less literal translation is oh, how do you do how do you do?
Translate? Let why don't we ask Brian to do that for you?
In the background, and I wanted to talk about one more creak sailor Creek
sailor that sounds better? Um, yeah, yeah, it does, doesn't
it? But it sounds quite German. It does sound quite German. I
really recommend it. Okay, all right, I'll check that out. And
it's a drama is it not a doc? It's one of those limited dramas
three parts? Okay. Um, So I've I've got rather depressing news because
I've just been giving up on things. I've finally given up. I think
on Fleischmann is in trouble after watching I think episode seven, and it's just,
you know, it's these quite well observed upper east Side, professional,
upper middle class Jews in New York and at first, you know, it's
almost like I really liked it. It was like a kind of grown up
kind of you know drama dy which which seemed to have a kind of connection
to Seinfeldt. It was like kind of Seinfeldt being brought up to date with
slightly older, slightly more angst ridden, slightly less funny characters. And I
really enjoyed the relationship between Fleischman and his kind of spoilt, bratt ten year
old daughter. And the cast is great with Jesse Eisenberg playing the lead.
But nothing's really happened, you know, we've got to episode seven, the
mystery of you know, what's happened to his wife, why she's you know
gone a well that has still hasn't been resolved. The other characters seem to
be stuck and sort of not going anywhere in their relationships and their lives.
Jesse Eisenberg is becoming increasingly solop cystic and boring and he's always belly aching.
The daughter is not nearly as brattish as she used to be, and their
relationships improved, and you feel like this is just a bit samey. You
know, nothing's really happened and there's no development, So I've lost it.
You were never really solted it. Their ch I was never solved. I
like the idea of it, but the execution was always not great. But
and I've also I gave up on season three of ted Lasso after one episode.
It was so unbelievably poor. Um So, I'm not going to carry
on with that. Um And yeah, and the night it wasn't called The
Night Manager, it was called something similar. Anyway, I don't think I'm
going to go beyond episode two of that. And I was really looking forward
to rabbit Hole. So I'm disappointed to learn. Well, yeah, but
you might like it because it's it's a bit like twenty four. I hoped
it would be a kind of you know, a fried brain conspiracy thriller in
the Three Days of the Condor mode. Well, indeed, that's what would
have liked, preferably starring somebody like me, But I don't. I don't
get that impression at all. Um So, but just but just watch the
Norwegian thing. Um So. I also saw one more film, James I'm
not going to recommend, which is The Boston Strangler, which seems to have
gone straight to streaming on Disney Plus, and it stars Kieran Nightly as a
doggie. It's not the Boston Strangler, No, she's a dogged reporter at
I think a made up Boston newspaper who who pursues the Boston Strangler, who
tries to find out who it is and who browbeats the police into kind of
um properly investigating it and catching the baddie um. And it's and it's kind
of it's a sort of, you know, it's a feminist, horrible one
of those stories about female empowerment, as well as an indictment of the authorities
for not taking the Boston Stranglers seriously, because after all, he was just
killing women. And the conclusion of the film spoiler alert if you haven't seen
it, switch off now, but the conclusion is that there wasn't just one
Boston Strangler. There were many Boston Stranglers. And the reason that was overlooked
by the police and the authorities is because they were unwilling to confront the fact
that there is an epidemic of violence against women and girls and always has been,
and all men are capable of strangling women and girls because we're all predatory
rapists beneath the surface. So it was a kind of ghastly, kind of
woke feminist version of the Boston Strangler story. And I'm sure most of it
was made up. And yeah, Kira Knightley does her best to kind of
frown her way through it, but yeah, it was totally unwatchable. Okay,
it's time for my proegy terms. Okay, James, good to talk
and yeah, talk again next week. Bye, it's under calling. Ricochet
joined the conversation.