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This is London Calling, London Calling. I think it's worth going back a

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bit and remembering too that Net zero
came in without even a vote in Parliament.

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It was unbelievably unscrutinized for such an
enormous transformative project. And now people

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are starting to see what it actually
means to do things like, you know,

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band petrol cars, new petrol cars
from twenty thirty and these are the

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kinds of things that Michael Gove appears
to be backtracking on. Welcome to London

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calling with me James Delingpole and my
very good friend mister Toby Young. I

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can see that you are back from
mad Yorker. I'm back from isn't it

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pronounced Mayorka? Yeah, of course
it is. I was, Yeah,

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No, of course it's Yorker.
I remember that ad the Remember the had

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the kind of Cockney girl having elocution
lessons, started out as Eliza Doolittle and

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ended up sounding like Lady Dan.
In the first version she said the wola

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in Majoka don't taste like what older
and then after she's I think drinking heinicken

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or something. She then she then
lled Carlsberg. She then she then comes

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back and says, the water in
Mayorka doesn't taste like what an altar.

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And I can confirm, James,
that the water in Majorca doesn't taste like

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what an altar. It's actually pretty
disgusting. It's very chlorine. Did you

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did you have sun? Yes,
there was a lot of sun. It

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wasn't kind of um unbearably hot all
the time. It was on a couple

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of days pretty hot. I thought, probably too hot to leave the villa,

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although my children insisted on going to
the beach nevertheless, but it was

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about forty degrees CENTI that's hot.
Which which is hot? I mean in

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America and in old old money,
that's what that's about eighty degree maybe?

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I think getting on for ninety and
with the sky is blue. The skies

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were for the most part blue,
so they hadn't been too cantrailed. The

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only real disadvantage of the very hot
weather was that in the villa we were

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renting, we didn't have any air
conditioning. No, it was quite difficult

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to sleep because it got very hot. Did you know what then troubled with

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the wife who booked it? Well, my wife booked it. So what

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was she doing? What was she
playing at well. She she she hadn't

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thought of that in the summer in
the Mediterranean. She hadn't thought that maybe

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air conditioning might be a prerequisite of
a good night's sleep. Or it may

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be that she just assumed that it
would have air conditioning wrongly, as it

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turned out. So did you sleep
with the windows open? We saw the

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windows open, and there were kind
of electric fans in every room. And

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actually, one thing I did was
I got a bowl full of ice and

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placed it just below the electric fan, which did produce a kind of slight

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cooling effect but obviously melted quite quickly, but did not moses get through the

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window. Yeah, we all got
pretty badly bitten. Oh it sounds hell.

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I mean, I think there is
something pretty hellish about being abroad,

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I think, particularly in the Mediterranean
during the summer. I mean, I

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don't think even you know, I
don't think these temperatures were unusually high.

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I mean, I think it's pretty
typical of New Yorker in July for the

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temperatures to reach forty degrees centigrade.
Well, don't tell that to the newspapers

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and all the weather people on TV, because they're all channing to you that

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this is the hottest ever it's ever
been in the Mediterranean and it's just another

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sign that climate change is so bad. You've got a right now, did

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you see? Beyond Lumbourg had quite
a good tweet in which he compared the

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temperatures across Europe as advertised by the
BBC using their bright red weather map,

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compared to much more accurate temperature readings
at the same time and in the same

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place as showing that the BBC we're
exaggerating the temperature by a couple if not

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three degrees in almost every major European
city. Yes. Well, the BBC

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is a line machine and has been
since time immemorial. So what do you

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think have you been following the Roads
story? Yeah, Roads and now Corfu

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as well? Yes? And what
do you reckon to that? Do you

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do you know that these things have
been Is a man made these fires?

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Yes? I just we just we're
about to publish a peace actually on the

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daily Skeptic, pointing out that not
only do local firefighters in Roads blame arsonists

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and local officials in Corfu, but
actually the number of forest fires in Europe

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in twenty twenty three is not above
average and NASA's satellite data shows that between

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two thousand and one and two thousand
and fifteen, global forest fires declined by

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twenty five. Yeah, yeah,
it's all I mean. And you have

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to ask yourself, are these just
is Corfu and roads full of these just

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kind of rogue actors who just can't
help but start fires, or do you

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reckon that they're maybe being paid by
the climate lobby? And I wouldn't go

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as far as that. I can
see what I can. Why not?

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Why wouldn't you? I don't think
do you think that? I suppose it's

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possible that they could be kind of
free agents who are climate alarmists and are

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starting fires in order to kind of
advance their agenda. But I would have

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thought that for you know, the
IPPC or other arms of the climate change

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lobby to actually pay any of these
people would be very us because the moment

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that got out there because you've made
it wouldn't be the IPCC that has done

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it. It would be it would
be the people who are making money out

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of out of carbon credits, out
of out of winterurbines, out of all

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all the the green industrial complex.
I mean, then there are billions to

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be made if not getting all for
trillions, and so where money is at

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stake, they would be absolutely ruthless. And and don't forget this is part

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of the World Economic Forum's agenda that
that that absent a fake pandemic, they're

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going to be pushing the climate agenda
because it serves their interests. So like

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money would be no objects. So
of course they're going to pay in the

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same way that just our oil are
paid and extinction rebellion paid. They're all

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financed by the same groups. Yeah, I would have thought that it would

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just be too great a risk for
any of those groups to actually pay anyone

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to start a forest fire, because
if that was discovered then I mean,

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not only would they be liable for
tens of millions of pounds possibly more,

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but it would just completely discredit their
cause. And I don't suppose they they

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have to. I'm sure these things
just just just happen organically. But terms

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that would presuppose that the we had
a media capable of doing its job,

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whereas the media is actually not interested
in uncovering this stuff because the media is

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part of the problem. And that
would presuppose that the court system was working,

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which it isn't That that these people
are are not prosecuted because because the

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our legal system is brought and paid
for. Two. I think, I

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well, I prefer to think that
members of the climate are for the most

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part acting in good faith, just
as come on, opponents are acting in

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good faith. And you're often your
your accusations sound a bit like when they

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accuse us of being paid by big
oil um, which is clearly ludicrous.

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That but that that's that's projection to
be. Of course, of course,

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criminals always accused their enemies of the
things that they're doing themselves as part of

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their coverup. That's how it works. I just I just think you're your

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your faith in authority, in the
in the system, be at the media

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or the courts, whatever is is
your fundamental problem that you're never gonna I

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mean, I ton'tally understand this because
when I was, you know, like

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you, I used to have faith
in the system. I thought that,

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oh, yeah, journalists they cover
without fear and favor, that they speak

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truth to power. Yeah right,
I don't. I don't believe any of

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this anymore. And that and until
you understand that and introduce these to trust

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authority, you will always be stuck
in you'll always bind to the propaganda you're

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I mean, the way you're framing
it, you're suggesting that if that that

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that that my thinking that if climate
lobbyists were paying people in Greece to start

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fires betrays a naive faith in journalists
to expose that. And that's naive because

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it would only be naive. I
think if you think that all journalists have

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essentially been captured, bought and paid
for, and there are no honest reporters

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out there anymore, yes, it
would only take a handful I think for

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that kind of crime to be exposed. And I don't think whereas I think

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I you know, I don't disagree
with you that perhaps most journalists aren't willing

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to interrogate the climate change agenda.
I think there are still a few honest

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journalists out there, not least you
and I James, who are prepared.

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If we were given if we were
given this story, I think we'd publish.

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Suppose supposed the word is these,
you know, and let's let's assume

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that there are these one or two
honest journalists, about where would they get

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their stories published? I mean,
let me give you an analogy. During

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during COVID, we know that even
even within the BBC, or so they

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claim, there were people who were
saying to their their editors, well,

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I on a second, some of
this doesn't add up. We should ortimately

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be reporting this. All that,
and I know that there were one or

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two skeptical journalists maybe on the newspapers. Every time they got knocked back by

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their editors. They could not get
their stories into print. I've noticed this

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in in Climate Change that I mean, don't forget I was writing about the

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stuff that you're writing about now at
the Daily Skeptic, and you know,

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I'm glad you're doing it. But
I was writing about this stuff fifteen years

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ago. And at the time I
mentioned this before that you would get articles

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by to for Booker being published in
the Mail, being published in the Um,

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the telegraphs on the Telegraph. Now
you you you wouldn't get space for

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these stories. They're just they won't
won't run them. They won't. I

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think you're don't think that's true.
I mean Ross Clark for instances, Yeah,

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Ross Clark. But I've read Ross
clarks Telegraph and the Mail. I

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read Ross clarks piece and they have
to be prefaced by a disclaimer saying,

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of course climate change is real.
So so they are hedged about with these

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disflamers of denying the fundamental fact about
climate change, which is that it's not

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a problem. It's not happening in
any dangerous degree. It's completely made up.

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But of course they concede all that
to the enemy, that you are

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invited to accept that climate change is
a problem. It's just a question of

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how we address it. And maybe
there are there are questions about this,

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and that that's how it goes.
Well, I think you can. You

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can. You can be a climate
contrarian, even a climate skeptic, without

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denying that climate change has taken place
over the past. Oh yeah, I'll

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forget. Let's not even go that
if if that's the game you want to

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play, if you are sure it's
playing into that If even you are saying,

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if even you are trying to tell
me that actually, oh there is

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something to this climate change thing,
then fair for you as a genuine skeptic.

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Well, James, surely it's playing
into the hands of the climate lobby

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for us to say it's about think
there's been any climate change over the past

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one hundred and fifty years. That
enables them to call us climate change deniers.

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When the argument isn't about whether there's
been any climate change. The argument

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is about what's causing it and will
the reduction in carbon emissions argument? The

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argument is climate change a problem or
not? And I A simple answer is

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if I change is necessary problem.
But if you start out said if you

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start out by saying climate change isn't
real, there's been no climate change,

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it's complete scam, then you're you're
you're playing into their hands. You're conceding

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too much. The issue isn't whether
there's been a climate change. No one

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denies that climate change has happened.
Average global temperatures have increased over the past

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one hundred and fifty years. The
argument is about, well, what's caused

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that? How big a part does
to carbon emissions play? How big a

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part do does the oil and gas
industry play? That's the argument. The

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argument isn't about whether climate change has
actually taken place. I mean that it

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always annoys me James when people who
who defend climate alarmism refer to their intellectual

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opponents as climate change deniers, as
though it's a simple binary choice. Either

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you admit that climate change has happened
or you don't. In which case you're

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a denier and you can be ruled
out of court, when actually the argument

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is more nuanced and complicated than that. No one denies, but I don't

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think many people from a contrarian side
denied that climate change has actually taken part

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that I wrote the book on this
fifty getting on for getting on for fifteen

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years ago. Why are you falling
into the tie and and I'm not falling

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into any traplig you just just don't. It's really tiresome. I said in

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the book that that that post industrial
temperatures have risen to such a small degree

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as it to be well within the
bounds of normality. And yeah, on

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the trivial, on the trivial level, on the most trivial level, yeah,

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climate change is happening. But the
climate change as it is soldiers,

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climate change as a thing we should
care about, is something altogether different.

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So yeah, I agree on the
trivial point that yes, there has been

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a slight increase in global temperatures,
less than that the temperature increased that between

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breakfasts and your mid morning coffee.
It's not a big deal. Therefore,

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I am saying, no, climate
change is not a problem. If you

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are conceiving that that territory to the
enemy and saying it is a problem.

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Then I think you are not a
skeptic. Well, no, I didn't.

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I'm not looking at the facts.
I'm well, we're talking at slight

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Cross Pubs. Is I'm not as
we are because because you because you're using

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climate change to mean any form of
change in the climate whatsoever. And I'm

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talking about climate change as this thing
which has been sold to us as something

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we should worry and care about,
and it is not anything which you started

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out by. You started out by
dismissing whatever. Toby, I've made my

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perfectly clear. Now you advise you
revised your position, which is good.

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James, No, I haven't started
out. I've got a book which says

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my position. They've written the book. You've clearly forgotten what you wrote in

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it. You started out by saying
James, by dismissing, dismissing Ross Clark

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by saying that he prefaces many of
his articles by saying, I don't deny

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that climate change is real, which
which in your because he was using it

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in the day of current sense,
which is that climate change is a problem.

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I think it's help. It's now
It's just a helpful bit of throat

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clearing before any argument about what the
causes of climate change are, in how

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seriously we should take it, and
whether it's a problem, because it means

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you spike the guns of those opponents
who accuse us of being climate change denials.

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Our only duty, Toby, is
to the truth. And what you've

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made me suspect is that actually your
position is not is not really very skeptical.

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Because if if you are, if
you were, if you were not,

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if you will not accept the point
which every intelligent informed person does,

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that climate change is not a problem, then you have you have view of

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given away that the territories of the
enemy. It's as simple as that.

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That's if you've just you've completely moved
the goalpost, James, what we're are.

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Okay, that is my position.
But that is my position. You

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can ague with that, argue with
the point I've just made. I think

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that's that's my position too. James. Absolutely, I don't think it helps.

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I don't think it helps the case
for that position. If you start

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off by saying climate change isn't real, it's all a scamp, that just

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that that enables our opponents to brand
as climate change denials and stop listening to

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00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:03,080
us. Anyone listening, anyone listening
to the anyone listening to this show will

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00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:07,079
know exactly what my position is,
and and that that you are quibbling over

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00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:14,759
over nervoices. It's just anyway to
get back to the original point. I

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think there are plenty of decent journalists
who climate change contrarians like Ross Clark can

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00:17:22,680 --> 00:17:26,599
be right regularly, right regularly for
both the Mail and the Telegraph. And

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even if the Male or the Telegraph
wouldn't publish a piece exposing the fact that,

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00:17:32,960 --> 00:17:36,160
according to you, the climate lobby
of paying arsoness to set fires in

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00:17:36,200 --> 00:17:40,240
Greece and elsewhere, the Daily Skeptic
could publish the piece. So I don't

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00:17:40,279 --> 00:17:42,920
think it's it's I think you know, I think you're you're I think there

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00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:47,400
are still some good journalists and there
are still some people willing to I mean

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this this, this, I guess
came up recently, James, with the

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Conservatives surprisingly clinging on in the Uxbridge
by election for the benefit of our American

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00:17:57,400 --> 00:18:03,440
listeners. There were three parliamentary by
elections last Thursday, and the Conservatives were

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predicted to lose all three. There
were all three Conservative seats with quite sizeable

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majorities, one of which was Boris
Johnson's seat in Uxbridge and Ricelip. And

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they didn't lose all three. They
lost two of them, but they clung

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00:18:17,759 --> 00:18:23,119
on in Uxbridge and Ricelip. And
the hypothesis of the kind of commentariat is

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00:18:23,160 --> 00:18:30,680
that the reason the Tories clung on
is because there was a rebellion over the

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expansion of the Ultra Low emissions Zone, which is a traffic calming measure that

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the Mayor of London wants to expand
to the whole of London, whereby,

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if your car, I think is
older than twenty sixteen, you have to

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pay twelve pounds fifty to drive within
this zone anywhere in London. And that

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that that that that There's been quite
a lot of debate since about whether the

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Conservatives should water down their commitment and
at zero abandon the pledge whereby supposedly you

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00:19:04,039 --> 00:19:10,200
won't be able to buy a petrol
or diesel driven car a new one from

241
00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:12,960
twenty thirty onwards. And there's been
quite a lot of debate in you know,

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in the Telegraph and in the mail
about whether the Conservatives need to row

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00:19:18,519 --> 00:19:22,960
back on their kind of green policy
agenda, and quite a lot of you

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00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:26,880
know, climate contrarianism, at least
in those fairly mainstream publications. So I

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00:19:26,839 --> 00:19:30,680
don't think it's right to say that
everyone is completely signed up to this agenda,

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00:19:30,720 --> 00:19:37,359
and any newspaper would reject a story
exposing a link between the climate lobbying

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00:19:37,279 --> 00:19:44,240
as part of this illusion that all
the parties are offering slightly different things.

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The Conservatives, which who have been
pushing this agenda NonStop since they've been in

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00:19:48,839 --> 00:19:56,200
office, And now you've got the
absurd spectacle of Michael Gove, of all

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00:19:56,240 --> 00:20:00,160
people, Michael Gove, who knows
fully well that that this this whole thing

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00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:06,480
is a massive line, a massive
scam. Gove is now saying, oh,

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00:20:06,559 --> 00:20:11,440
yes, maybe we're maybe maybe net
zero is something we're pushing for too

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00:20:11,720 --> 00:20:18,640
too hard and fast. Gove.
Gove who appointed as that Are you aware

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00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:25,519
of Natural England and a government quango
as they're known, I mean that they're

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00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:32,440
they're supposedly these arms length institutions which
is supposedly acting independent of the government,

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except they're not. They're just designed
to sort of advance government policy in the

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00:20:37,799 --> 00:20:42,119
under the pretense that they're they're thinking
independently. Who appointed the guy who's in

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00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:48,039
charge of Natural England, Michael Michael
Gove. And do you know who the

259
00:20:48,319 --> 00:20:52,759
head of Natural England is? Is
it Chris Packham? No, it's it's

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00:20:52,759 --> 00:20:57,200
somebody, It is somebody of that
ilk. It's a guy called Tony Juniper.

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00:20:57,359 --> 00:21:03,960
Now now about twenty years ago,
the sort of the hair shirt environmentalists.

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00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:06,160
There were one or two of them. They all were sort of chunky

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00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:11,480
knit sweaters and they all sort of
talked at nauseam about the need to mend

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00:21:11,519 --> 00:21:15,160
our ways and yadda, YadA YadA. And one of them was the honorable

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00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:18,960
Sir Jonathan Porritt. I don't know
what's happened to him. This seems disappeared

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00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:21,960
from the scene, thank you.
One of them was the was the incredibly

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00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:27,519
tedious George Monbiott. And and then
of course there was Tony Juniper, I

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00:21:27,559 --> 00:21:33,480
think was involved with with the eco
fascist organization Friends of the Earth otherwise known

269
00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:38,839
as Fiends of the Earth, because
that's such such eco loon radicals. Gove

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00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:45,480
appointed this guy to be head of
this quango. Juniper has has recently said

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I'm not going to allow I mean
as if it was in his gift,

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00:21:48,519 --> 00:21:53,200
which apparently it is I'm not going
to allow any developments of all these houses

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that we need to to house all
these immigrants that we're importing. Willy nilly,

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Um, I'm not going to do
this unless ULA's restrictions are imposed on

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the areas. And all these,
all these these villages, all these all

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these communities that we that that I'm
not I'm not allowing to be built.

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00:22:11,799 --> 00:22:17,839
And Gove is the guy responsible for
this, And now he was go asking

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00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:22,720
us to believe that he somehow has
decided suddenly that or maybe it's too far,

279
00:22:22,799 --> 00:22:26,920
too fast. It's just appalling,
And you still think you still I

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00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:30,279
think he's a great guy. I
think, um, I think you know

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00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:37,880
our friend Michael um Off friend Michael
often often cuts his cloth um to um

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00:22:37,559 --> 00:22:47,839
absorb the um passing wins. But
I think one of the reasons he's recently

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00:22:48,079 --> 00:22:53,640
made some made some more skeptical noises
about the parties net zero commitments, um,

284
00:22:53,880 --> 00:23:00,039
is because it's been suggested that he
might lose his job. That one

285
00:23:00,079 --> 00:23:06,839
way Rishi can kind of your dad
adapt to these by election results, it

286
00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:11,119
will be to sack Michael and to
sack Jeremy Hunt and replace them with more

287
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:18,720
robustly contrarian people like Jacob Ries Morgue. So, James, I got a

288
00:23:18,759 --> 00:23:22,599
nice letter from one of our fans, which I'm now going to read out.

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00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:26,720
My name is MICHAELA and I'm twenty
seven years old and my dad and

290
00:23:26,759 --> 00:23:32,599
I are huge London Calling fans.
We've been listening to it since twenty twenty

291
00:23:32,759 --> 00:23:37,279
and absolutely love it. Thank you
both so much for continuing with it.

292
00:23:37,279 --> 00:23:40,759
It's really funny. Could I ask, if possible, if you could give

293
00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:45,559
my dad, Jamie a shout out
on Monday's episode. He turned sixty three

294
00:23:45,599 --> 00:23:48,720
on Friday, July the twenty first. You can also mention that me and

295
00:23:48,799 --> 00:23:52,759
my dad a team Toby. We
love James, but we two are also

296
00:23:52,079 --> 00:23:56,920
normalis thank you so much in advance, and also for keeping the podcast going

297
00:23:56,039 --> 00:24:00,839
well habitedly that MICHAELA consider this a
shout out to Jamie. Happy birthday,

298
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:06,160
Jamie. Anyway, we should probably
hear from our sponsor, James. Let's

299
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extra three months for free ExpressVPN dot
com slash London. Now, James,

315
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:26,079
I have to tell you about my
scare. I thought I had been hacked

316
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:32,720
in the way that Express vpn warn
us about. So when I was in

317
00:25:32,799 --> 00:25:40,599
Spain, I bought a Spanish simcard
from a slightly Dodgy shop in the mayorcan

318
00:25:40,799 --> 00:25:45,920
Airport and I replaced my simcard with
this Spanish SIM. I do that as

319
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,920
a matter of course when I go
to a new country now, because I've

320
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:55,519
had my fingers burnt too often with
being overcharged by my English carrier, even

321
00:25:55,559 --> 00:26:00,440
when supposedly yeah, I think actually
in Spain it probably you can prove just

322
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:03,359
use your English SIM card without being
charged an arm in a leg. But

323
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:07,680
anyway, I'm paranoid about it.
So I switched to the Spanish network and

324
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:12,160
then on my way home, I
swapped out the cards and put my old

325
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:18,359
SIM back in and I couldn't connect
when I arrived in London, and I

326
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:21,680
couldn't get phone service. And that's
actually, as you know, that's kind

327
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:26,680
of that's that's that that that's incredibly
m It makes your life incredibly difficult.

328
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:27,880
You know, you try and pay
for something, your bank can't send you

329
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:32,160
a confirmation code. If you get
pinged out of Twitter, you can't get

330
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:34,480
back on because it wants to send
you a confirmation code. You're you're almost

331
00:26:34,519 --> 00:26:41,720
helpless without without without any phone service. And I spent this morning trying to

332
00:26:41,759 --> 00:26:45,559
get back, you know, get
back online properly get my get it all

333
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,880
up and running, and I ran
these various you know, I was googling

334
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:53,319
it, and I asked the question
on Twitter, and I contacted you know,

335
00:26:53,480 --> 00:27:00,319
the support the kind of the kind
of freelance support service that we employ

336
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:03,480
at the Free Speech Union, and
eventually I figured out what I'd done,

337
00:27:03,519 --> 00:27:07,400
which was I put my Canadian So
when I gone to Canada earlier this year,

338
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:10,880
I bought a Canadian SIM card and
I put that in the same place

339
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:15,000
that I put my gift Gaff SIM
card when I replaced my gift Gaff SIM

340
00:27:15,079 --> 00:27:19,279
card with my Spanish SIM card,
so i'd instead of putting back my original

341
00:27:19,599 --> 00:27:26,200
British SIM, I'd inserted the Canadian
SIM Absolutely unbelievable stupidity. So I hadn't

342
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:30,559
been hacked, nothing had gone wrong. I just made it was just bog

343
00:27:30,599 --> 00:27:34,039
stadded human error, user error.
I'm started to worry, you know,

344
00:27:34,079 --> 00:27:38,599
with your reference to get to Canada
and you've been to New Yorker. I'm

345
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,240
right that you're racking up more air
miles than me. And I don't like

346
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:45,720
it because I feel that it is
my moral duty before they closed this down

347
00:27:45,759 --> 00:27:48,720
all together, which of course is
the plan. You know, you and

348
00:27:48,759 --> 00:27:51,440
I are not going to be if
we're alive by then. I mean you

349
00:27:51,519 --> 00:27:53,519
might be, but I won't be. By twenty thirty, We're not going

350
00:27:53,559 --> 00:27:57,559
to be allowed to travel anymore,
and they'll they'll gradually bring about the closure

351
00:27:57,559 --> 00:28:00,240
of all our airports and stuff,
and they'll do it in the name of

352
00:28:00,279 --> 00:28:04,359
climate change, etcetera, etcetera.
Um, I want to get some traveling

353
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:07,680
in before it's too late. I'm
feeling I haven't even got a sung holiday

354
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:11,160
books yet. So where have you
been this year? I've I've, I've

355
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:17,799
I've I've I've actually been to Spain
or Spanish territories, to three different ones

356
00:28:17,799 --> 00:28:21,720
this year. So I've been to
Malbaya, i Bitha and Mayorka. But

357
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:25,200
apart from that, I think I've
only been to Canada. Or I think

358
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:29,599
you've been more further afield I've I've
been to Malaysia and Hong Kong. Yeah,

359
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:33,839
I suppose so in terms of distance
covered, I might be going to

360
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,599
Amsterdam at some stage. I've been
invited over by by one of my one

361
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:44,039
of my heroes, Cheery Bode.
If you know him, he's the He's

362
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:48,880
one of the few politicians anywhere in
the world who've fought tooth and now not

363
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:53,680
just against the lockdowns but also against
the death jabs. Um, so I

364
00:28:53,839 --> 00:28:57,920
might get The thing is it's not
like I don't smoke nearly as much weed

365
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:03,480
as as I used. And surely
the only point about going to Amsterdam is

366
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:06,359
to smoke loads of weed, isn't
it. Well you don't have to go

367
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:07,839
to Amsterdam for that, now,
do you? I mean plenty of you

368
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:11,759
why you don't. And Canada legal
and the whole of Canada was shocked to

369
00:29:11,799 --> 00:29:17,799
discover. Yeah, yeah, I
don't think it's good for I mean,

370
00:29:18,519 --> 00:29:19,960
despite having once been one of those
people who said, you know, if

371
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:23,799
only man, if only people you
know, drink less and smoke more weird,

372
00:29:23,839 --> 00:29:26,720
there will be a better place.
Yeah, I mean, I think

373
00:29:26,759 --> 00:29:30,640
that it's all part of There's a
reason why that marijuana uses was financed by

374
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:37,240
George Sauros. You know why why
he campaigned for this all this um legalization

375
00:29:37,279 --> 00:29:41,119
all around the world. It's because
they want us to be these kinds of

376
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:48,240
stone zombies. Um yeah, um
yeah, I'm I'm I feel a bit

377
00:29:48,039 --> 00:29:53,599
certainly more ambivalent than I used to
about the legalization of marijuana. Partly because

378
00:29:53,759 --> 00:29:59,519
it's so much stronger now than it
was when we were young. M.

379
00:30:00,079 --> 00:30:02,440
Well, do you know what you
know what that is? It's it's actually

380
00:30:02,519 --> 00:30:07,319
it's it's it's actually more complicated than
that. It's it's them. There are

381
00:30:07,319 --> 00:30:12,799
two there are two things in in
two active ingredients in cannabis. There's the

382
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:18,839
CBD and there's the THHC, and
they are the kind of the yin and

383
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:22,920
the yang of the They're meant to
work together so that if you want a

384
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:30,640
sort of harmonious, pleasant um high, then you need decent levels of CBD

385
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:33,680
and THHC to balance each other out. And what's happened is that is that

386
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:38,400
that a lot of the CBD has
been bred out of the stuff that the

387
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:44,319
kids smoke, so they just get
this kind of razzy, nasty, aggressive,

388
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:51,160
not relaxing, sort of tense,
nasty high um and they're on edge.

389
00:30:51,599 --> 00:30:56,079
And that's that's the real problem with
weed. So you want to get

390
00:30:56,119 --> 00:30:59,200
the I mean, it's one of
the ways actually of you know, but

391
00:30:59,279 --> 00:31:03,319
if you have a pull whitey,
yes, yeah, okay, so when

392
00:31:03,359 --> 00:31:07,000
you pull a whitey, the reason
the way to cure that is to have

393
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:11,200
to hand a bottle of cbdal and
drip a few drops in your tongue.

394
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:17,920
That will that will sort of ease
you down. Okay, But when you

395
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:18,880
go to one of these, I
mean, I've never actually been into a

396
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:25,119
kind of marijuana emporium, but I'm
assuming when you enter one, you know,

397
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:30,279
it's like being at a kind of
artisanal chocolate tear. It is,

398
00:31:30,079 --> 00:31:34,440
and every kind of high is kind
of catered for. So if you wanted

399
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:41,000
something quite mild and not too nasty, something quite kind of you know,

400
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:47,119
relaxing, then presumably that's available.
It's been a very long time since I

401
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:52,559
went to I went, I mean
we're talking about when I was at Oxford.

402
00:31:52,119 --> 00:31:56,839
I went on a trip with my
friend James Ferguson, a pilgrimage.

403
00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:04,680
Pilgrimage with James Ferguson. We took
the ferry from the one that goes to

404
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:08,000
Hook of Holland, I think,
and we went to Amsterdam and we went

405
00:32:08,039 --> 00:32:12,160
to the Bulldog count I don't know
whether even Bulldog even exists anymore. Went

406
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:14,960
to the Bulldog Cafe and it was
fantastic, and you know, you went

407
00:32:15,039 --> 00:32:17,599
in there and you looked at the
menu and you could talk to the guy

408
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:22,200
behind the counter and he would he
would take you through all the different options

409
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:24,240
and you go for really strong or
really weak. I don't know, I'm

410
00:32:24,279 --> 00:32:28,440
presuming it's like that now. I
mean it's it's quite civilized in its way,

411
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:30,720
and that you don't feel like a
criminal. You just feel like you

412
00:32:30,759 --> 00:32:35,039
know that it's that it's a normal
thing. But yeah, things may have

413
00:32:35,119 --> 00:32:37,319
changed. I mean, I know, I know Amsterdam, like a lot

414
00:32:37,359 --> 00:32:45,920
of countries like Portugal, is regretting
it's it's liberalization, liberalization of its marijuana

415
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:50,480
laws because people now just smoke in
the streets and you get this whiff of

416
00:32:50,559 --> 00:32:52,240
skunk, don't you. And it's
kind of not really what you want in

417
00:32:52,279 --> 00:32:57,359
the daytime when you're going from walk
down the street. I have to say,

418
00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:00,119
in West London, it's quite hard
to get away from smile. Oh

419
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:04,759
but it is, yeah, I'll
bet it is. Yeah. When you

420
00:33:04,799 --> 00:33:07,720
said, James Ferguson, that that
I thought I got, I momentarily confused

421
00:33:07,799 --> 00:33:13,720
him with Alex Renton. Was well
that his cousin his cousin. Okay,

422
00:33:13,799 --> 00:33:17,039
yeah, um we ever a friend
of Alex Renton's. Yes, I like

423
00:33:17,079 --> 00:33:27,160
Alex very much. Yea. He
wrote a book recently called Blood legacy reckoning

424
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:31,680
with a family's story of slavery.
Um and and it was all about his

425
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:40,759
own somewhat aristocratic, wealthy family's links
to the Transatlantic slave trade. Um and

426
00:33:42,359 --> 00:33:45,519
and you know, and he kind
of, you know, struggles with this

427
00:33:45,599 --> 00:33:52,000
and tries to figure out whether he
should make a man and so forth,

428
00:33:52,200 --> 00:34:00,200
and um and I gather that he
hadn't told many members of his large then

429
00:34:00,279 --> 00:34:04,519
did kind of dynastic family that he
was intending to write this book, and

430
00:34:04,559 --> 00:34:09,000
a lot of them are absolutely furious. Would profer, Yeah, you know

431
00:34:09,079 --> 00:34:12,840
what I think you should do.
If I were him, I would employ

432
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:17,000
a butler and make sure he was
black and pay him a really good salary.

433
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:22,320
I think that would ease his conscience. Great. He may not see

434
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:24,000
it that way, but I think
I think you should suggest that to him.

435
00:34:24,039 --> 00:34:29,480
James Still, maybe someone someone,
someone will will will say, Alex,

436
00:34:29,559 --> 00:34:31,440
you were mentioned on this podcast,
and James, because he likes you

437
00:34:31,559 --> 00:34:36,840
very much, came up with this
very helpful suggestion. I think. I

438
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:43,639
think, I think probably what he
has in mind is acting as acting as

439
00:34:43,679 --> 00:34:49,199
an unpaid butler to a wealthy black
family, possibly for the next twenty five

440
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:53,159
years. Oh dear, Yeah,
it's it's the problem with with with these

441
00:34:53,159 --> 00:35:00,800
sort of liberal liberal the very very
rich liberal people, with all their sort

442
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:04,360
of self hatred and guilt and stuff, and you just kind of think,

443
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,440
deal with it. Well, it's
it's sort of you. It is self

444
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:09,079
hatred and guilt. I mean that
that's certainly a component. But it's also

445
00:35:09,119 --> 00:35:12,400
a form of status signaling, isn't
it. It's a way of kind of

446
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:17,239
advertising your membership of the Brahmin class. I feel guilty about benefiting from the

447
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:22,920
Transatlantic slave trade. Behold, I'm
now going to self flagellate in front of

448
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:28,920
you, because that's what posh people
do. You know. Yeah, I

449
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:31,320
was going to mention this actually in
the context. But maybe is this more

450
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:37,039
of a culture corner thing? Have
you? Have you watched the New University

451
00:35:37,119 --> 00:35:42,400
Challenge? Yeah, I know,
we large. Let's let's let's get onto

452
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:45,679
that in culture corner. No,
I haven't. I haven't, but I

453
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:47,880
do. I do. I do
quite like him, So yeah, I

454
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:53,039
probably should. So should we should? We? Should? We hear from

455
00:35:53,079 --> 00:35:58,679
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456
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474
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Need to hire you need indeed.
Okay, Well, shall we move

475
00:37:28,519 --> 00:37:31,159
on to culture? Yeah? Yeah, so yeah, okay, tell me

476
00:37:31,199 --> 00:37:37,519
about the tell me about the mL
presented. So we ought to explain,

477
00:37:37,639 --> 00:37:45,000
oughtn't we to the Americans? Anyway? That University Challenge is this is the

478
00:37:45,119 --> 00:37:50,079
dwy n let's say, of quiz
shows in the UK, and it's quite

479
00:37:50,519 --> 00:37:57,440
it's quite highbrow and it every week
a team from well there's normally one Oxford

480
00:37:57,519 --> 00:38:02,480
or Cambridge College and one so called
Red Brick University Manchester for example, I

481
00:38:02,519 --> 00:38:09,280
think one more more titles than any
other other institution, and they compete against

482
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:14,639
each other and they want to win
some sort of trophy on University Challenge.

483
00:38:14,679 --> 00:38:16,760
It's it's a quiz show, but
it's a high brow quiz show where you

484
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:22,280
got I think in America it was
called College Bow. I don't know whether

485
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:25,760
it's still going, but predated University
Challenge. Yeah did it really? Yeah?

486
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:34,119
Okay, okay? In the UK
It was originally hosted by a man

487
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:40,000
called Bamber Gascoyne who had an impeccable
pedigree. He was eaten, I mean,

488
00:38:40,199 --> 00:38:46,159
even more impressive than yours, Toby. He was eaten Maudlin, Cambridge,

489
00:38:46,159 --> 00:38:50,800
which is one of the sort of
smarter Cambridge colleges. Then he went

490
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:55,199
into the Grenadier Guards, and then
he got a scholarship to one of the

491
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:02,320
Ivy League universities, and then he
established himself as a playwright. He had

492
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:06,840
a hit in the West End.
He was an historian. He was just

493
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:10,159
and and he was stinking rich.
I mean, he was absolutely loaded.

494
00:39:10,519 --> 00:39:15,840
And he was descended from all manner
of of toffee toffee families, and he

495
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:20,679
and and he Bamber always gave the
impression that he knew the answers to every

496
00:39:20,679 --> 00:39:22,880
single question, and that he was
a bit He was quite donish in his

497
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:30,599
approach to universe, to to to
the Grotti undergraduate charmingly condescending, charmingly condescending.

498
00:39:31,039 --> 00:39:35,880
And then and then after that you
had Jeremy Paxman. I think was

499
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:40,760
there an interim candidate. I don't
know. I think that bambered in it

500
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:45,320
for years, didn't he. So
Jeremy Jeremy Jeremy Paxman two was was really

501
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:52,119
quite impatient with these scrotti. Yes
he's charmlessly condescending. Yes, yeah,

502
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,679
And and Paxsman two gave the impression, I think, sometimes falsely, that

503
00:39:55,800 --> 00:40:00,679
he too knew the answers to all
the questions. Now, how we've got

504
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:04,000
a guy called Amal Rajan who,
like you, I means, whenever I've

505
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,360
met him in real life, I've
always found him perfectly affable. But he's

506
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:12,159
a complete spiv. I mean,
his his, his, his his his,

507
00:40:12,159 --> 00:40:15,320
his delivery man all right, all
right, he drops his he drops

508
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:20,480
his h's even though he's came with
educated you realize. And when he went

509
00:40:20,519 --> 00:40:22,480
to not necessarily one of the grandest
Cambridge colleges, he went to Downing,

510
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:27,800
which is Georgian. It's not it's
not a medieval institution, but it but

511
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:30,159
but it's it's, it's it's pretty, it's I think it's probably a hearty

512
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:34,199
college, isn't it. And he
didn't. He did only get a two

513
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:42,480
two in English. But nevertheless he's
now got this job as the Chrismaster on

514
00:40:42,599 --> 00:40:47,519
University Challenge. And he's completely unlike
Bamber Gascoyne or Jeremy Paxman. And he

515
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:51,360
doesn't give the impression he knows the
answer to every question. He looks like

516
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:55,159
he's plums. But the pronunciation of
all the complicated foreign words, he pronounces

517
00:40:55,239 --> 00:41:01,360
his h h um and and he
gets really excited when when when one of

518
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:07,559
the one of the teams spots something
actually pretty obvious. I mean, they

519
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:12,800
had they had an excerpt from Young
Person's Guide to the Orchestra, and they

520
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:16,679
had to demonstrate which two composers were
involved. And somebody got it very quickly.

521
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:22,760
It was Purcell and and and Britain. But actually he was he was

522
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:28,039
really impressed because she was very quick. But actually, any even halfway educating,

523
00:41:28,079 --> 00:41:30,000
I mean every every everyone who attended
my prep school, none of them,

524
00:41:30,039 --> 00:41:35,199
necessarily that bright would have known because
because you got played it in musical

525
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:38,079
appreciation classes, it's not an obscure
piece of music. So anyway, Amos

526
00:41:38,119 --> 00:41:44,239
really you know, he's like Amos
by these by these students. Anyway,

527
00:41:44,519 --> 00:41:46,800
So I wrote, I wrote a
review about this in the It's a long

528
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:51,280
long wind of webcout coming to my
point. I wrote a review about this

529
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:54,599
in The Spectator, and I said
that it would be nice to think that

530
00:41:54,679 --> 00:42:00,679
Bamber Gascoyne was turning in his grave
about what has happened to University Challenge.

531
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:06,239
But I'm afraid he'll be rather applauding
it because you know what bound mcgascoin despite

532
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:10,760
eaton Cambridge, the guards Ivy League
University blah blah blah and loads and loads

533
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:15,000
of money. I know from people
who were friends with him that he was

534
00:42:15,039 --> 00:42:19,960
a he was a raging liberal.
He was raging libtard. That they all

535
00:42:20,039 --> 00:42:23,280
do it, they all, they
all betray their cause by embracing these horrible

536
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:28,360
causes which don't affect them because they've
got so much money they didn't care.

537
00:42:28,679 --> 00:42:30,800
But for you and me, we
get affected by it because they are pushing

538
00:42:31,119 --> 00:42:37,119
the wet squidgee liberal agenda. It's
hard. I mean, if you were,

539
00:42:37,559 --> 00:42:45,000
if you were a kind of BBC
commissioner James, how would you modernize

540
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:47,199
how would you woke ify University Challenge? Because it's quite hard to get away

541
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:52,239
from the basic premise, which is
that you know they've done it. Actually

542
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:59,199
committing facts to memory and and acquiring
knowledge about you know, the romantic poets

543
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:05,960
and classic or music and the complete
works of Shakespeare is actually useful. How

544
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:09,000
do you get away from how do
you kind of they did it? They've

545
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:13,199
already undermined it. I mean,
University challenge has already fallen long ago.

546
00:43:13,599 --> 00:43:21,760
I think it. I would date
it to sometime perhaps after when Ted Loveday

547
00:43:22,079 --> 00:43:28,400
was was the start of the show, which I think was Was it about

548
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:31,599
contestant? Yeah, yeah, he
was. He knew what happacks ligomenon meant?

549
00:43:32,199 --> 00:43:37,599
Okay, do you know what it
means? It's it's it's where a

550
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:43,679
word only appears once in the entire
ov of a writer. So there might

551
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:46,320
be a word that Shakespeare uses but
once, or a word in the Bible

552
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:52,119
that appears but once, and that
is happacks legomenon. Anyway, what they've

553
00:43:52,159 --> 00:43:58,480
done is that they've they've changed the
nature of the questions. So instead of

554
00:43:58,639 --> 00:44:02,480
that phrase I often hear you is
the greatest there's ever been thought or written?

555
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:08,840
Um. Instead of being about genuinely
celebrating greatness, what it now does

556
00:44:09,079 --> 00:44:15,880
is celebrating greatness but as long as
they are black, female, or otherwise

557
00:44:15,119 --> 00:44:22,440
ethnic or gender impaired. UM.
So so when you get when you get

558
00:44:23,199 --> 00:44:27,719
a question about scientists, you know
that at least one of the answers is

559
00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:32,519
going to be married curie um.
When you get a question about novelists,

560
00:44:32,679 --> 00:44:37,519
you know that Tony Morrison is a
pretty good bet for one of the answers.

561
00:44:37,119 --> 00:44:43,119
When you get a question about Renaissance
art, it's a shoe in for

562
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:49,760
Artemisia Gentileski and so on. So
so the answer questions have all been taken

563
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:55,440
over by these kind of slightly woke
answers them the science, so the geography

564
00:44:55,519 --> 00:45:00,880
questions, it's it's no longer what's
the capital of of of of Mongolia or

565
00:45:00,519 --> 00:45:05,679
where is the you know, where
is land battle or whatever it's about.

566
00:45:06,039 --> 00:45:10,960
It's about climate change, and it's
also about you'll get questions about kind of

567
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:16,719
organizations like the IPCC, so pushing
the same agenda. So it's it's it's

568
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:22,159
it's shifted from being about genuine sort
of intellectual excellence into pushing an agenda.

569
00:45:22,199 --> 00:45:24,920
I don't watch it anything. The
only reason I watched this episode is I

570
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:30,280
wanted to see how Spivy and or
Ragin was and you didn't disappoint Okay,

571
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:34,840
okay, well you haven't. You
haven't sold it hard, but I may

572
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:37,679
check it out. But it sounds
like has it become I mean, give

573
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:42,159
it given the kind of then the
wokerification of it and the way you describe,

574
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:45,519
has it become easier to guess the
answers than it was twenty five years

575
00:45:45,519 --> 00:45:50,480
ago. No, because the science
questions are still as abstruction boring, and

576
00:45:50,519 --> 00:45:53,599
the mouth questions are still as relentless
to tedious. It's just that that only

577
00:45:53,679 --> 00:45:59,400
fun might have one might have had
knowing the answers to the arts questions is

578
00:46:00,199 --> 00:46:06,280
dissipated with one's by one's fury and
having these all these kind of you know,

579
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:10,639
work work figures being being celebrated,
right, okay, um so,

580
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:17,000
um, I mean, I think
I think we discussed the Tulsa King last

581
00:46:17,039 --> 00:46:22,159
time because I just finished it when
we did our podcast. Since then,

582
00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:27,400
I've I've watched very little apart from
I've watched two more episodes of Hijack the

583
00:46:27,440 --> 00:46:32,639
series on oh Plus, and but
I've continued I didn't but I should I

584
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:40,159
Yeah, Well, the entire series, well at least i've seen episodes one

585
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:46,239
through six don't live up to the
promise of the first episode, right,

586
00:46:47,039 --> 00:46:54,360
and it's it's um it all takes
place almost in real time, I think,

587
00:46:54,480 --> 00:47:00,159
possibly in real time. Um So
it's a sort of um it starts

588
00:47:00,159 --> 00:47:04,880
with the plane being hijacked. That
happens sort of midway through episode one,

589
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:07,239
and then the remaining I don't know
how many episodes there are, possibly ten,

590
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:12,119
but so so the next nine episodes
all seemed to take place on the

591
00:47:12,119 --> 00:47:14,880
plane, at least I'm assuming they
do, because we haven't were any over

592
00:47:15,119 --> 00:47:20,920
I mean episode six and we're any
flying over hungry it's any Pera's any about,

593
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:24,440
you know, halfway home from Dubai
to London. So I think it

594
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:30,440
all takes place on the plane,
seemingly in real time, and so they

595
00:47:30,519 --> 00:47:34,960
have to kind of invent I mean, it's quite it sort of stretches the

596
00:47:35,079 --> 00:47:42,719
capabilities of the scriptwriters to come up
with a sufficient quantity of drama to fill

597
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:46,239
this kind of eight hour flight with
or seven hour flight with. So yeah,

598
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:51,800
it feels sometimes the dramas feel a
bit manufactured, and you know,

599
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:58,360
the hijackers seems sort of slightly implausibly
stupid, and Idris Elba seems to constantly

600
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:00,920
get the better of them, even
though he's caught getting the better of them

601
00:48:00,920 --> 00:48:02,920
over and over again, and yet
somehow that doesn't stop him from be able

602
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:07,119
to get get the better of them
in the next episode. So it's it's

603
00:48:07,159 --> 00:48:09,119
sort of yeah, it's all right, quite entertaining, and I'll probably watch

604
00:48:09,119 --> 00:48:15,440
it till the end, but it's
it's it's certainly not a kind of class

605
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:20,599
A thriller. I'd say it was
a kind of class C thriller. Ah,

606
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:23,239
right, have we found out yet
why did they hijack the plane?

607
00:48:23,599 --> 00:48:27,920
No? Not yet. Well we
have hints at it. Yeah, but

608
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:32,320
it seems it's it's so sort of
implausible that that that it's it's it's hard

609
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:36,719
to credit that that's the real reason. But yeah, I won't, I

610
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:42,719
won't no spoilers, but yeah,
that that's gradually emerging. Um by the

611
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:46,360
time you get to episode six.
So have you seen Barbieheimer? Have you

612
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:52,559
seen either Barbie or Oppenheimer or Mission
Impossible seven urbs. It's a nightmare.

613
00:48:53,239 --> 00:49:00,440
My wretched family all want to go
and see Oppenheimer. You know how long

614
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:05,199
it is? Three hours? Three
hours of just kind of made up shit

615
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:12,480
about about made up nuclear bombs.
It's just I don't believe any of the

616
00:49:12,559 --> 00:49:17,719
narrative about about Oppenheimer. I don't
believe that that when he when he witnessed

617
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:22,320
the first nuclear bast that the thought
came into his into his head. Um,

618
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:29,000
whatever it was that quote from from
that Sanskrit um you know, I'm

619
00:49:29,039 --> 00:49:31,599
become death, destroyer of worlds.
I just think that was just kind of

620
00:49:31,639 --> 00:49:37,920
made up to kind of ratify this
this non event, which obviously you'd expect

621
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:42,920
this take from me. I listened
to this really good Germ Warfare podcast,

622
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:47,599
UM talking to a guy I think
he's German who talks about the Hiroshima and

623
00:49:49,039 --> 00:49:52,599
Nagasaki bombs, which were you know, we're told fat Man and little Boy,

624
00:49:52,639 --> 00:49:57,079
you know, all about the crew
that took part in this and stuff.

625
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:02,400
Um. I am persuaded having listened
to the very compelling evidence that they

626
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:08,199
did not have nuclear bomb technology ready
between August the sixth and the ninth,

627
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:12,400
nineteen forty five. But that was
just that they were actually just far bombing

628
00:50:12,639 --> 00:50:16,880
raids which which were which rebranded as
nuclear nuclear bombs. And the reason we

629
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:22,559
know this, by the way,
is the remarkable lack of nuclear or whatever

630
00:50:22,559 --> 00:50:29,000
it is, nuclear efficient, or
that the things you would expect to be

631
00:50:29,039 --> 00:50:35,199
there indicating a nuclear bomb had gone
off in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not there.

632
00:50:35,840 --> 00:50:39,719
So I'm thinking that the release of
this film is very suspicious making.

633
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:43,920
I don't buy into anything it's going
to tell us. Even though I haven't

634
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:46,000
seen it yet, I'm sure it's
going to be lies because Hollywood is the

635
00:50:46,119 --> 00:50:51,480
lie machine. I mean, it's
one of the main reasons that it's the

636
00:50:51,519 --> 00:50:54,639
main ways that they control us.
That it is just a massive, massive

637
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:58,559
style. So no, but I'm
going to have to go and see it,

638
00:50:58,559 --> 00:51:01,760
and I'm going to bloody hate every
moment I know it. I'm going

639
00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:06,679
to have to I'm probably going to
try and see all three, probably not

640
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:09,840
on the same evening, but I
need to go and see Barbie. I've

641
00:51:09,840 --> 00:51:14,760
already been asked James to to Well
to write one piece on Barbie and to

642
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:17,639
come on, I think, to
GB News, possibly someone else, to

643
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:23,000
Channel five that's right to talk about
Barbie. And I keep having to confess

644
00:51:23,039 --> 00:51:25,960
that I haven't actually seen it yet. So I'm going to try, I

645
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:29,880
think, and go and see it
tonight, so next time I get a

646
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:35,840
kind of Barbie request, I'll be
able to fulfill it. It's clearly kind

647
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:39,679
of stoked the culture war in America
because I mean, I don't know if

648
00:51:39,719 --> 00:51:46,559
you've read a summary of Barbie,
but apparently Ken is portrayed very unflatteringly,

649
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:53,000
and hell, he wears pink.
And he goes off to Los Angeles and

650
00:51:53,039 --> 00:51:58,280
discovers something called the patriarchy, which
he's absolutely delighted by because it means he

651
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:04,599
can then predate on vulnerable women and
exploit them. Meanwhile, Barbie, who

652
00:52:04,639 --> 00:52:09,079
thinks that she's an empowered working girl, discovers that nothing's really changed, so

653
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:15,960
leads a kind of revolt to actually
genuinely empower women. And it's just it's

654
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:22,679
just kind of reheated feminist propaganda of
the most kind of banal kind, supposedly,

655
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:29,800
and lots of Republican movie girls who've
been forced by their demanding daughters to

656
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:34,719
take them to see it in the
Midwest of very cross that they've been bombarded

657
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:39,239
with this kind of anti family propaganda. So I think I do have to

658
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:43,000
go and see it so I can
I can talk more eloquently about it.

659
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:50,360
Have you heard, by the way, the AI AI I think it is

660
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:58,079
AI has done this thing where it
has got Johnny Cash singing I'm a Barbie

661
00:52:58,079 --> 00:53:04,519
girl in the Barbie World to the
tune of of um you know, I

662
00:53:04,519 --> 00:53:07,159
shot a man in Reno and I
watched him die that one, right,

663
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:13,559
um, and it does sound like
Johnny Cash singing I'm a Barbie girl in

664
00:53:13,559 --> 00:53:19,800
the Barbie world. Well it's really
spooky. So so you don't know anymore

665
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:22,920
that the technology is sufficiently advanced.
You don't know whether I am actually an

666
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:28,239
AI bought here not to celebrate James
Danningpole, but to bury him, right

667
00:53:28,559 --> 00:53:30,679
right? Could be that would explain
a lot, James. Maybe maybe I

668
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:34,719
say, I've to say all this
crazy ship because I'm not the real James

669
00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:37,199
Danningpole. The real James Dannypole is
in a seller, and the real James

670
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:43,079
Dannipole complete tit that he is.
He's still teamed Toby. He still agrees

671
00:53:43,079 --> 00:53:45,000
with everything Toby says, but he
can't say it because he's locked in the

672
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:49,639
cellar. I knew the term would
come when you'd come up with a theory

673
00:53:49,679 --> 00:53:53,159
about yourself. So yeah, that's
I'm surprised it's taking you this long,

674
00:53:53,239 --> 00:54:00,519
James. I've also I've now very
nearly finished Anna Coronina. I found out

675
00:54:00,599 --> 00:54:04,599
how she dies spoiler alert, sorry, she does die, and of course,

676
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:06,719
as soon as I read it,
I remembered how she died. I

677
00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:08,840
was getting confused. I thought that
it was Madam Bovary that died like this,

678
00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:14,920
not Anna Corona. Anyway, I
am now I can say absolutely that

679
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:17,000
this is the best novel it's ever
written. And I don't know where to

680
00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:19,920
get well, I know where I'm
going to go next, because I was

681
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:24,280
halfway through Gogol's Dead Souls and I
haven't finished that yet. But I would

682
00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:34,119
say now that my top three novels
I've I've read are number one Anna Karnina,

683
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:37,119
number two Warren Peace, and I
think I think number three Crime and

684
00:54:37,199 --> 00:54:42,840
Punishment, probably edges it over Brothers
Karamtsof, which is which is sort of

685
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:45,239
unwieldy and kind of yeah, I
think I think it's a more perfect book

686
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:50,159
crime punk. What are your top
three? Let me chack The Destroyer Men

687
00:54:50,239 --> 00:54:58,199
one, destroy two and Deathly Hallows. I think I'm I don't think I've

688
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:01,840
even read the Deathly Hello's, so
um well, I could certainly recommend the

689
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:06,519
Destroyer Men books, so I think
there's fourteen of them internal possibly even more.

690
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:09,679
Um yeah, the artillery Men the
sequel isn't quite as good, but

691
00:55:10,079 --> 00:55:15,559
I think my favorite novel of all
time, James is um David Copperfield.

692
00:55:17,360 --> 00:55:24,840
I'm a huge Dickens fan, and
I struggle to um rank David Copperfield Great

693
00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:31,679
Expectations, Um, Hard Times,
Bleak House, little Dorit. I love

694
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:37,920
them all, but I think David
Copperfield just just pips it um. And

695
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:43,559
I'm also a big Jane Osten fan. Um. I like you know,

696
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:47,480
all of her novels, but probably
Pride and Prejudice the best. She was

697
00:55:47,519 --> 00:55:54,639
a woman. Yeah, and I
guess either Vackeray's Vanity Fair or George Elliot's

698
00:55:55,039 --> 00:56:00,599
Middle March. You don't like,
nobody likes I do like I do like.

699
00:56:00,679 --> 00:56:07,280
So a crusty old vicar called doctor
Kasaba Kazabon spends his time in his

700
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:13,920
dusty tone and what's her name,
Dorothea is married to this dry old stick

701
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:17,320
and they hang around the Midlands.
And it goes on for about how many

702
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:21,719
pages? How can you love that
boring book? No? I didn't find

703
00:56:21,719 --> 00:56:24,880
it boring at all. Life and
it completely bewitching and absorbing. And I

704
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:30,000
always stopped by George Elliot's grave when
I visit my own parents grave in Highgate

705
00:56:30,119 --> 00:56:35,280
Cemetery, And people have always put
pens in the grave. That's their way

706
00:56:35,320 --> 00:56:39,280
of paying tribute to George Eliots.
So it's like a sea of pen stuck

707
00:56:39,280 --> 00:56:44,800
into the ground. How how very
how very very tarsome. Now, I

708
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:46,920
don't I don't think that's the way
you're looking for. It won't be doing,

709
00:56:47,039 --> 00:56:50,599
can't be doing with Georget, It
can't be doing with Dickens. There's

710
00:56:50,679 --> 00:56:53,800
only one Dickens book I enjoy because
it is so unlike Dickens that it feels

711
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:55,760
like you're not reading a Dickens book. Do you know what that one is?

712
00:56:59,159 --> 00:57:01,880
A Tale of Two City. Yes, it's it's so weird. It's

713
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:06,599
so unlike Dickens. It's like reading
something that I don't know what was it?

714
00:57:06,679 --> 00:57:09,239
Really? Yeah, It's like it's
like a yeah, it's more of

715
00:57:09,239 --> 00:57:14,280
a kind of historical adventure story,
isn't. It's more like Bernard Cornwall than

716
00:57:14,599 --> 00:57:17,239
Charles Dickens. It's almost like he
had an editor for a change that he

717
00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:22,599
ain't being paid by the word.
Yeah yeah, now, I yeah,

718
00:57:22,599 --> 00:57:27,239
I see. I enjoyed that.
I think the least of all his novels.

719
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:31,480
I much prefer, you know,
classic Dickens. It is unlike the

720
00:57:31,519 --> 00:57:37,519
others. Yeah, yeah, oh
well so um yeah, so I'm I'm

721
00:57:37,599 --> 00:57:45,639
I'm still working my way through Framley
Parsonage. Um, And it's funny you

722
00:57:45,639 --> 00:57:51,000
should mention the death of Anna Karenina, because the heroine of Framley Parsonage,

723
00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:57,440
who is delightful girl called Lucy Roberts. I've just where I'm about three quarters

724
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:04,280
of the way through, and she's
so selfless and saintly that she is just

725
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:12,039
embarked upon. She's moved into the
house of a poor Vicker's wife who's got

726
00:58:12,079 --> 00:58:15,320
Typhus, having moved the children out
to protect them, and she's moved in

727
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:22,800
in order to nurse this ailing woman. And I'm now terrified that Lucy Roberts,

728
00:58:22,840 --> 00:58:25,960
who I've obviously come to love,
is going to die of Typhus,

729
00:58:25,960 --> 00:58:29,760
and it's going to have a tragic
ending which would be quite untroulliped like.

730
00:58:29,880 --> 00:58:34,000
So I'm reasonably confident it won't happen, but I guess you know, I'm

731
00:58:34,039 --> 00:58:38,039
now caught up in the drama and
terrified that she's going to catch Typhus and

732
00:58:38,159 --> 00:58:44,360
die. Well, exactly, I
think he dangles these prospects before you to

733
00:58:44,440 --> 00:58:46,800
frighten you, and it's all it's
all about. It's like a conjurings trick.

734
00:58:47,119 --> 00:58:52,519
It's all about misdirection. And actually
the trajectory novel has been obvious from

735
00:58:52,559 --> 00:58:55,920
the start, because one knows what
kind of moral arc that his novels tend

736
00:58:55,960 --> 00:59:01,079
to follow. And we know,
for example, I'm guessing that Phineas Finn

737
00:59:01,599 --> 00:59:06,079
has to marry the nice the nice
girl from Ireland rather than you know,

738
00:59:06,199 --> 00:59:12,000
the millionaires or or whatever. In
the same way, I feel quite strongly

739
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:16,360
that Phineas Finn should somehow be made
to abandon his career um if you can

740
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:22,880
call it that, in parliament.
What I what I've noticed that that Trollop

741
00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:28,079
and told story that they're not often
compared because they don't have much in common,

742
00:59:28,599 --> 00:59:32,039
but they both seem to be at
this point in their career, is

743
00:59:32,159 --> 00:59:38,599
quite skeptical of the of the kind
of the state of the of the parliamentary

744
00:59:38,599 --> 00:59:43,480
system. You know, there are
characters who point out really how appalling it

745
00:59:43,559 --> 00:59:47,880
is that that somebody with no discernible
talent talents should be given a job and

746
00:59:49,039 --> 00:59:54,679
paid um from the public purse from
the taxpayer to make legislation which is probably

747
00:59:54,719 --> 01:00:00,239
deliterious to the taxpayers interests. And
I think it's fair clear that Trollop is

748
01:00:00,280 --> 01:00:05,239
of that party. Tolstoy certainly is. I mean, I wouldn't like to

749
01:00:05,239 --> 01:00:08,639
have lived in Russia in that time, because either you had to have massive

750
01:00:08,679 --> 01:00:14,199
inherited money or because there was no
little class where it was, or you

751
01:00:14,320 --> 01:00:19,960
or you had to work for the
States somehow. Get that's certainly true of

752
01:00:20,159 --> 01:00:24,360
Dickens too, who actually worked as
a parliamentary reporter in the kind of that

753
01:00:24,639 --> 01:00:28,920
was the sort of first writing gig. I think, Um, yes,

754
01:00:29,119 --> 01:00:37,440
So the equivalent of the circumlocution Office, which is dickens kind of parody of

755
01:00:37,559 --> 01:00:43,760
how Whitehall operates in um friendly parsonage, is the office of the petty Bag.

756
01:00:44,360 --> 01:00:46,880
So the Office of the petti Bag
is a kind of obscure Whitehall department

757
01:00:46,880 --> 01:00:52,119
which essentially gives out grace and favored
ball balls to kind of favored creatures of

758
01:00:52,159 --> 01:00:58,719
the government. Yeah. Yeah,
well good, So novels, novels aren't

759
01:00:58,719 --> 01:01:04,000
aren't totally destructed? No, actually
no, well they weren't. They weren't

760
01:01:04,039 --> 01:01:07,079
then anyway, Right, Well,
I suppose we should go and do our

761
01:01:07,119 --> 01:01:08,920
things. Yeah, so hopefully next
week I'll be able to talk to you

762
01:01:08,920 --> 01:01:13,440
about Barbie, and maybe maybe we'll
both be able to discuss Oppenheimer as well.

763
01:01:13,760 --> 01:01:17,960
Yeah, I know, three hours, it's quite grueling prospects, three

764
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:22,400
hours of acting, actors doing acting. It's it's going to be, isn't

765
01:01:22,440 --> 01:01:24,920
it. Yes? And I'm sure, I'm sure it has a kind of

766
01:01:25,039 --> 01:01:32,239
anti nuclear subtext, which is,
you know, reach across to nuclear energy

767
01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:37,840
as well. We've essentially unleashed this
demon and we've condemned ourselves as a consequence.

768
01:01:38,760 --> 01:01:43,599
Anyway, maybe I'm wrong. I
hope I'm wrong. But it was

769
01:01:43,599 --> 01:01:46,199
interesting. Actually, it's just before
we go, Matt Ridley, I'll opposed

770
01:01:46,239 --> 01:01:52,239
the question how many films actually celebrate
innovation, science and technology compared to how

771
01:01:52,280 --> 01:01:59,760
many portray innovation, science and technology
as kind of mankind undoing. And I

772
01:01:59,760 --> 01:02:02,079
think he's certainly right. There are
very It's very hard to think of many

773
01:02:02,119 --> 01:02:07,239
films which are kind of optimistic from
a kind of sci fi tech point of

774
01:02:07,320 --> 01:02:09,960
view. About the Top Gun Top
Gun one and two, Yeah, and

775
01:02:10,280 --> 01:02:14,840
the Star Trek films of course.
But but but they are the exceptions.

776
01:02:15,079 --> 01:02:21,880
Mostly they are kind of they portray
the future as kind of techno dystopias.

777
01:02:22,440 --> 01:02:27,920
Tech noir is a much more popular
genre than films celebrating tech like Star Trek.

778
01:02:29,440 --> 01:02:37,119
Yeah, right, okay, James, next week, this is London,

779
01:02:37,239 --> 01:02:57,199
fully Ricochet join the conversation.