This is London Calling, London Calling. I think it's worth going back a
bit and remembering too that Net zero came in without even a vote in Parliament.
It was unbelievably unscrutinized for such an enormous transformative project. And now people
are starting to see what it actually means to do things like, you know,
band petrol cars, new petrol cars from twenty thirty and these are the
kinds of things that Michael Gove appears to be backtracking on. Welcome to London
calling with me James Delingpole and my very good friend mister Toby Young. I
can see that you are back from mad Yorker. I'm back from isn't it
pronounced Mayorka? Yeah, of course it is. I was, Yeah,
No, of course it's Yorker. I remember that ad the Remember the had
the kind of Cockney girl having elocution lessons, started out as Eliza Doolittle and
ended up sounding like Lady Dan. In the first version she said the wola
in Majoka don't taste like what older and then after she's I think drinking heinicken
or something. She then she then lled Carlsberg. She then she then comes
back and says, the water in Mayorka doesn't taste like what an altar.
And I can confirm, James, that the water in Majorca doesn't taste like
what an altar. It's actually pretty disgusting. It's very chlorine. Did you
did you have sun? Yes, there was a lot of sun. It
wasn't kind of um unbearably hot all the time. It was on a couple
of days pretty hot. I thought, probably too hot to leave the villa,
although my children insisted on going to the beach nevertheless, but it was
about forty degrees CENTI that's hot. Which which is hot? I mean in
America and in old old money, that's what that's about eighty degree maybe?
I think getting on for ninety and with the sky is blue. The skies
were for the most part blue, so they hadn't been too cantrailed. The
only real disadvantage of the very hot weather was that in the villa we were
renting, we didn't have any air conditioning. No, it was quite difficult
to sleep because it got very hot. Did you know what then troubled with
the wife who booked it? Well, my wife booked it. So what
was she doing? What was she playing at well. She she she hadn't
thought of that in the summer in the Mediterranean. She hadn't thought that maybe
air conditioning might be a prerequisite of a good night's sleep. Or it may
be that she just assumed that it would have air conditioning wrongly, as it
turned out. So did you sleep with the windows open? We saw the
windows open, and there were kind of electric fans in every room. And
actually, one thing I did was I got a bowl full of ice and
placed it just below the electric fan, which did produce a kind of slight
cooling effect but obviously melted quite quickly, but did not moses get through the
window. Yeah, we all got pretty badly bitten. Oh it sounds hell.
I mean, I think there is something pretty hellish about being abroad,
I think, particularly in the Mediterranean during the summer. I mean, I
don't think even you know, I don't think these temperatures were unusually high.
I mean, I think it's pretty typical of New Yorker in July for the
temperatures to reach forty degrees centigrade. Well, don't tell that to the newspapers
and all the weather people on TV, because they're all channing to you that
this is the hottest ever it's ever been in the Mediterranean and it's just another
sign that climate change is so bad. You've got a right now, did
you see? Beyond Lumbourg had quite a good tweet in which he compared the
temperatures across Europe as advertised by the BBC using their bright red weather map,
compared to much more accurate temperature readings at the same time and in the same
place as showing that the BBC we're exaggerating the temperature by a couple if not
three degrees in almost every major European city. Yes. Well, the BBC
is a line machine and has been since time immemorial. So what do you
think have you been following the Roads story? Yeah, Roads and now Corfu
as well? Yes? And what do you reckon to that? Do you
do you know that these things have been Is a man made these fires?
Yes? I just we just we're about to publish a peace actually on the
daily Skeptic, pointing out that not only do local firefighters in Roads blame arsonists
and local officials in Corfu, but actually the number of forest fires in Europe
in twenty twenty three is not above average and NASA's satellite data shows that between
two thousand and one and two thousand and fifteen, global forest fires declined by
twenty five. Yeah, yeah, it's all I mean. And you have
to ask yourself, are these just is Corfu and roads full of these just
kind of rogue actors who just can't help but start fires, or do you
reckon that they're maybe being paid by the climate lobby? And I wouldn't go
as far as that. I can see what I can. Why not?
Why wouldn't you? I don't think do you think that? I suppose it's
possible that they could be kind of free agents who are climate alarmists and are
starting fires in order to kind of advance their agenda. But I would have
thought that for you know, the IPPC or other arms of the climate change
lobby to actually pay any of these people would be very us because the moment
that got out there because you've made it wouldn't be the IPCC that has done
it. It would be it would be the people who are making money out
of out of carbon credits, out of out of winterurbines, out of all
all the the green industrial complex. I mean, then there are billions to
be made if not getting all for trillions, and so where money is at
stake, they would be absolutely ruthless. And and don't forget this is part
of the World Economic Forum's agenda that that that absent a fake pandemic, they're
going to be pushing the climate agenda because it serves their interests. So like
money would be no objects. So of course they're going to pay in the
same way that just our oil are paid and extinction rebellion paid. They're all
financed by the same groups. Yeah, I would have thought that it would
just be too great a risk for any of those groups to actually pay anyone
to start a forest fire, because if that was discovered then I mean,
not only would they be liable for tens of millions of pounds possibly more,
but it would just completely discredit their cause. And I don't suppose they they
have to. I'm sure these things just just just happen organically. But terms
that would presuppose that the we had a media capable of doing its job,
whereas the media is actually not interested in uncovering this stuff because the media is
part of the problem. And that would presuppose that the court system was working,
which it isn't That that these people are are not prosecuted because because the
our legal system is brought and paid for. Two. I think, I
well, I prefer to think that members of the climate are for the most
part acting in good faith, just as come on, opponents are acting in
good faith. And you're often your your accusations sound a bit like when they
accuse us of being paid by big oil um, which is clearly ludicrous.
That but that that's that's projection to be. Of course, of course,
criminals always accused their enemies of the things that they're doing themselves as part of
their coverup. That's how it works. I just I just think you're your
your faith in authority, in the in the system, be at the media
or the courts, whatever is is your fundamental problem that you're never gonna I
mean, I ton'tally understand this because when I was, you know, like
you, I used to have faith in the system. I thought that,
oh, yeah, journalists they cover without fear and favor, that they speak
truth to power. Yeah right, I don't. I don't believe any of
this anymore. And that and until you understand that and introduce these to trust
authority, you will always be stuck in you'll always bind to the propaganda you're
I mean, the way you're framing it, you're suggesting that if that that
that that my thinking that if climate lobbyists were paying people in Greece to start
fires betrays a naive faith in journalists to expose that. And that's naive because
it would only be naive. I think if you think that all journalists have
essentially been captured, bought and paid for, and there are no honest reporters
out there anymore, yes, it would only take a handful I think for
that kind of crime to be exposed. And I don't think whereas I think
I you know, I don't disagree with you that perhaps most journalists aren't willing
to interrogate the climate change agenda. I think there are still a few honest
journalists out there, not least you and I James, who are prepared.
If we were given if we were given this story, I think we'd publish.
Suppose supposed the word is these, you know, and let's let's assume
that there are these one or two honest journalists, about where would they get
their stories published? I mean, let me give you an analogy. During
during COVID, we know that even even within the BBC, or so they
claim, there were people who were saying to their their editors, well,
I on a second, some of this doesn't add up. We should ortimately
be reporting this. All that, and I know that there were one or
two skeptical journalists maybe on the newspapers. Every time they got knocked back by
their editors. They could not get their stories into print. I've noticed this
in in Climate Change that I mean, don't forget I was writing about the
stuff that you're writing about now at the Daily Skeptic, and you know,
I'm glad you're doing it. But I was writing about this stuff fifteen years
ago. And at the time I mentioned this before that you would get articles
by to for Booker being published in the Mail, being published in the Um,
the telegraphs on the Telegraph. Now you you you wouldn't get space for
these stories. They're just they won't won't run them. They won't. I
think you're don't think that's true. I mean Ross Clark for instances, Yeah,
Ross Clark. But I've read Ross clarks Telegraph and the Mail. I
read Ross clarks piece and they have to be prefaced by a disclaimer saying,
of course climate change is real. So so they are hedged about with these
disflamers of denying the fundamental fact about climate change, which is that it's not
a problem. It's not happening in any dangerous degree. It's completely made up.
But of course they concede all that to the enemy, that you are
invited to accept that climate change is a problem. It's just a question of
how we address it. And maybe there are there are questions about this,
and that that's how it goes. Well, I think you can. You
can. You can be a climate contrarian, even a climate skeptic, without
denying that climate change has taken place over the past. Oh yeah, I'll
forget. Let's not even go that if if that's the game you want to
play, if you are sure it's playing into that If even you are saying,
if even you are trying to tell me that actually, oh there is
something to this climate change thing, then fair for you as a genuine skeptic.
Well, James, surely it's playing into the hands of the climate lobby
for us to say it's about think there's been any climate change over the past
one hundred and fifty years. That enables them to call us climate change deniers.
When the argument isn't about whether there's been any climate change. The argument
is about what's causing it and will the reduction in carbon emissions argument? The
argument is climate change a problem or not? And I A simple answer is
if I change is necessary problem. But if you start out said if you
start out by saying climate change isn't real, there's been no climate change,
it's complete scam, then you're you're you're playing into their hands. You're conceding
too much. The issue isn't whether there's been a climate change. No one
denies that climate change has happened. Average global temperatures have increased over the past
one hundred and fifty years. The argument is about, well, what's caused
that? How big a part does to carbon emissions play? How big a
part do does the oil and gas industry play? That's the argument. The
argument isn't about whether climate change has actually taken place. I mean that it
always annoys me James when people who who defend climate alarmism refer to their intellectual
opponents as climate change deniers, as though it's a simple binary choice. Either
you admit that climate change has happened or you don't. In which case you're
a denier and you can be ruled out of court, when actually the argument
is more nuanced and complicated than that. No one denies, but I don't
think many people from a contrarian side denied that climate change has actually taken part
that I wrote the book on this fifty getting on for getting on for fifteen
years ago. Why are you falling into the tie and and I'm not falling
into any traplig you just just don't. It's really tiresome. I said in
the book that that that post industrial temperatures have risen to such a small degree
as it to be well within the bounds of normality. And yeah, on
the trivial, on the trivial level, on the most trivial level, yeah,
climate change is happening. But the climate change as it is soldiers,
climate change as a thing we should care about, is something altogether different.
So yeah, I agree on the trivial point that yes, there has been
a slight increase in global temperatures, less than that the temperature increased that between
breakfasts and your mid morning coffee. It's not a big deal. Therefore,
I am saying, no, climate change is not a problem. If you
are conceiving that that territory to the enemy and saying it is a problem.
Then I think you are not a skeptic. Well, no, I didn't.
I'm not looking at the facts. I'm well, we're talking at slight
Cross Pubs. Is I'm not as we are because because you because you're using
climate change to mean any form of change in the climate whatsoever. And I'm
talking about climate change as this thing which has been sold to us as something
we should worry and care about, and it is not anything which you started
out by. You started out by dismissing whatever. Toby, I've made my
perfectly clear. Now you advise you revised your position, which is good.
James, No, I haven't started out. I've got a book which says
my position. They've written the book. You've clearly forgotten what you wrote in
it. You started out by saying James, by dismissing, dismissing Ross Clark
by saying that he prefaces many of his articles by saying, I don't deny
that climate change is real, which which in your because he was using it
in the day of current sense, which is that climate change is a problem.
I think it's help. It's now It's just a helpful bit of throat
clearing before any argument about what the causes of climate change are, in how
seriously we should take it, and whether it's a problem, because it means
you spike the guns of those opponents who accuse us of being climate change denials.
Our only duty, Toby, is to the truth. And what you've
made me suspect is that actually your position is not is not really very skeptical.
Because if if you are, if you were, if you were not,
if you will not accept the point which every intelligent informed person does,
that climate change is not a problem, then you have you have view of
given away that the territories of the enemy. It's as simple as that.
That's if you've just you've completely moved the goalpost, James, what we're are.
Okay, that is my position. But that is my position. You
can ague with that, argue with the point I've just made. I think
that's that's my position too. James. Absolutely, I don't think it helps.
I don't think it helps the case for that position. If you start
off by saying climate change isn't real, it's all a scamp, that just
that that enables our opponents to brand as climate change denials and stop listening to
us. Anyone listening, anyone listening to the anyone listening to this show will
know exactly what my position is, and and that that you are quibbling over
over nervoices. It's just anyway to get back to the original point. I
think there are plenty of decent journalists who climate change contrarians like Ross Clark can
be right regularly, right regularly for both the Mail and the Telegraph. And
even if the Male or the Telegraph wouldn't publish a piece exposing the fact that,
according to you, the climate lobby of paying arsoness to set fires in
Greece and elsewhere, the Daily Skeptic could publish the piece. So I don't
think it's it's I think you know, I think you're you're I think there
are still some good journalists and there are still some people willing to I mean
this this, this, I guess came up recently, James, with the
Conservatives surprisingly clinging on in the Uxbridge by election for the benefit of our American
listeners. There were three parliamentary by elections last Thursday, and the Conservatives were
predicted to lose all three. There were all three Conservative seats with quite sizeable
majorities, one of which was Boris Johnson's seat in Uxbridge and Ricelip. And
they didn't lose all three. They lost two of them, but they clung
on in Uxbridge and Ricelip. And the hypothesis of the kind of commentariat is
that the reason the Tories clung on is because there was a rebellion over the
expansion of the Ultra Low emissions Zone, which is a traffic calming measure that
the Mayor of London wants to expand to the whole of London, whereby,
if your car, I think is older than twenty sixteen, you have to
pay twelve pounds fifty to drive within this zone anywhere in London. And that
that that that that There's been quite a lot of debate since about whether the
Conservatives should water down their commitment and at zero abandon the pledge whereby supposedly you
won't be able to buy a petrol or diesel driven car a new one from
twenty thirty onwards. And there's been quite a lot of debate in you know,
in the Telegraph and in the mail about whether the Conservatives need to row
back on their kind of green policy agenda, and quite a lot of you
know, climate contrarianism, at least in those fairly mainstream publications. So I
don't think it's right to say that everyone is completely signed up to this agenda,
and any newspaper would reject a story exposing a link between the climate lobbying
as part of this illusion that all the parties are offering slightly different things.
The Conservatives, which who have been pushing this agenda NonStop since they've been in
office, And now you've got the absurd spectacle of Michael Gove, of all
people, Michael Gove, who knows fully well that that this this whole thing
is a massive line, a massive scam. Gove is now saying, oh,
yes, maybe we're maybe maybe net zero is something we're pushing for too
too hard and fast. Gove. Gove who appointed as that Are you aware
of Natural England and a government quango as they're known, I mean that they're
they're supposedly these arms length institutions which is supposedly acting independent of the government,
except they're not. They're just designed to sort of advance government policy in the
under the pretense that they're they're thinking independently. Who appointed the guy who's in
charge of Natural England, Michael Michael Gove. And do you know who the
head of Natural England is? Is it Chris Packham? No, it's it's
somebody, It is somebody of that ilk. It's a guy called Tony Juniper.
Now now about twenty years ago, the sort of the hair shirt environmentalists.
There were one or two of them. They all were sort of chunky
knit sweaters and they all sort of talked at nauseam about the need to mend
our ways and yadda, YadA YadA. And one of them was the honorable
Sir Jonathan Porritt. I don't know what's happened to him. This seems disappeared
from the scene, thank you. One of them was the was the incredibly
tedious George Monbiott. And and then of course there was Tony Juniper, I
think was involved with with the eco fascist organization Friends of the Earth otherwise known
as Fiends of the Earth, because that's such such eco loon radicals. Gove
appointed this guy to be head of this quango. Juniper has has recently said
I'm not going to allow I mean as if it was in his gift,
which apparently it is I'm not going to allow any developments of all these houses
that we need to to house all these immigrants that we're importing. Willy nilly,
Um, I'm not going to do this unless ULA's restrictions are imposed on
the areas. And all these, all these these villages, all these all
these communities that we that that I'm not I'm not allowing to be built.
And Gove is the guy responsible for this, And now he was go asking
us to believe that he somehow has decided suddenly that or maybe it's too far,
too fast. It's just appalling, And you still think you still I
think he's a great guy. I think, um, I think you know
our friend Michael um Off friend Michael often often cuts his cloth um to um
absorb the um passing wins. But I think one of the reasons he's recently
made some made some more skeptical noises about the parties net zero commitments, um,
is because it's been suggested that he might lose his job. That one
way Rishi can kind of your dad adapt to these by election results, it
will be to sack Michael and to sack Jeremy Hunt and replace them with more
robustly contrarian people like Jacob Ries Morgue. So, James, I got a
nice letter from one of our fans, which I'm now going to read out.
My name is MICHAELA and I'm twenty seven years old and my dad and
I are huge London Calling fans. We've been listening to it since twenty twenty
and absolutely love it. Thank you both so much for continuing with it.
It's really funny. Could I ask, if possible, if you could give
my dad, Jamie a shout out on Monday's episode. He turned sixty three
on Friday, July the twenty first. You can also mention that me and
my dad a team Toby. We love James, but we two are also
normalis thank you so much in advance, and also for keeping the podcast going
well habitedly that MICHAELA consider this a shout out to Jamie. Happy birthday,
Jamie. Anyway, we should probably hear from our sponsor, James. Let's
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extra three months for free ExpressVPN dot com slash London. Now, James,
I have to tell you about my scare. I thought I had been hacked
in the way that Express vpn warn us about. So when I was in
Spain, I bought a Spanish simcard from a slightly Dodgy shop in the mayorcan
Airport and I replaced my simcard with this Spanish SIM. I do that as
a matter of course when I go to a new country now, because I've
had my fingers burnt too often with being overcharged by my English carrier, even
when supposedly yeah, I think actually in Spain it probably you can prove just
use your English SIM card without being charged an arm in a leg. But
anyway, I'm paranoid about it. So I switched to the Spanish network and
then on my way home, I swapped out the cards and put my old
SIM back in and I couldn't connect when I arrived in London, and I
couldn't get phone service. And that's actually, as you know, that's kind
of that's that's that that that's incredibly m It makes your life incredibly difficult.
You know, you try and pay for something, your bank can't send you
a confirmation code. If you get pinged out of Twitter, you can't get
back on because it wants to send you a confirmation code. You're you're almost
helpless without without without any phone service. And I spent this morning trying to
get back, you know, get back online properly get my get it all
up and running, and I ran these various you know, I was googling
it, and I asked the question on Twitter, and I contacted you know,
the support the kind of the kind of freelance support service that we employ
at the Free Speech Union, and eventually I figured out what I'd done,
which was I put my Canadian So when I gone to Canada earlier this year,
I bought a Canadian SIM card and I put that in the same place
that I put my gift Gaff SIM card when I replaced my gift Gaff SIM
card with my Spanish SIM card, so i'd instead of putting back my original
British SIM, I'd inserted the Canadian SIM Absolutely unbelievable stupidity. So I hadn't
been hacked, nothing had gone wrong. I just made it was just bog
stadded human error, user error. I'm started to worry, you know,
with your reference to get to Canada and you've been to New Yorker. I'm
right that you're racking up more air miles than me. And I don't like
it because I feel that it is my moral duty before they closed this down
all together, which of course is the plan. You know, you and
I are not going to be if we're alive by then. I mean you
might be, but I won't be. By twenty thirty, We're not going
to be allowed to travel anymore, and they'll they'll gradually bring about the closure
of all our airports and stuff, and they'll do it in the name of
climate change, etcetera, etcetera. Um, I want to get some traveling
in before it's too late. I'm feeling I haven't even got a sung holiday
books yet. So where have you been this year? I've I've, I've
I've I've I've actually been to Spain or Spanish territories, to three different ones
this year. So I've been to Malbaya, i Bitha and Mayorka. But
apart from that, I think I've only been to Canada. Or I think
you've been more further afield I've I've been to Malaysia and Hong Kong. Yeah,
I suppose so in terms of distance covered, I might be going to
Amsterdam at some stage. I've been invited over by by one of my one
of my heroes, Cheery Bode. If you know him, he's the He's
one of the few politicians anywhere in the world who've fought tooth and now not
just against the lockdowns but also against the death jabs. Um, so I
might get The thing is it's not like I don't smoke nearly as much weed
as as I used. And surely the only point about going to Amsterdam is
to smoke loads of weed, isn't it. Well you don't have to go
to Amsterdam for that, now, do you? I mean plenty of you
why you don't. And Canada legal and the whole of Canada was shocked to
discover. Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's good for I mean,
despite having once been one of those people who said, you know, if
only man, if only people you know, drink less and smoke more weird,
there will be a better place. Yeah, I mean, I think
that it's all part of There's a reason why that marijuana uses was financed by
George Sauros. You know why why he campaigned for this all this um legalization
all around the world. It's because they want us to be these kinds of
stone zombies. Um yeah, um yeah, I'm I'm I feel a bit
certainly more ambivalent than I used to about the legalization of marijuana. Partly because
it's so much stronger now than it was when we were young. M.
Well, do you know what you know what that is? It's it's actually
it's it's it's actually more complicated than that. It's it's them. There are
two there are two things in in two active ingredients in cannabis. There's the
CBD and there's the THHC, and they are the kind of the yin and
the yang of the They're meant to work together so that if you want a
sort of harmonious, pleasant um high, then you need decent levels of CBD
and THHC to balance each other out. And what's happened is that is that
that a lot of the CBD has been bred out of the stuff that the
kids smoke, so they just get this kind of razzy, nasty, aggressive,
not relaxing, sort of tense, nasty high um and they're on edge.
And that's that's the real problem with weed. So you want to get
the I mean, it's one of the ways actually of you know, but
if you have a pull whitey, yes, yeah, okay, so when
you pull a whitey, the reason the way to cure that is to have
to hand a bottle of cbdal and drip a few drops in your tongue.
That will that will sort of ease you down. Okay, But when you
go to one of these, I mean, I've never actually been into a
kind of marijuana emporium, but I'm assuming when you enter one, you know,
it's like being at a kind of artisanal chocolate tear. It is,
and every kind of high is kind of catered for. So if you wanted
something quite mild and not too nasty, something quite kind of you know,
relaxing, then presumably that's available. It's been a very long time since I
went to I went, I mean we're talking about when I was at Oxford.
I went on a trip with my friend James Ferguson, a pilgrimage.
Pilgrimage with James Ferguson. We took the ferry from the one that goes to
Hook of Holland, I think, and we went to Amsterdam and we went
to the Bulldog count I don't know whether even Bulldog even exists anymore. Went
to the Bulldog Cafe and it was fantastic, and you know, you went
in there and you looked at the menu and you could talk to the guy
behind the counter and he would he would take you through all the different options
and you go for really strong or really weak. I don't know, I'm
presuming it's like that now. I mean it's it's quite civilized in its way,
and that you don't feel like a criminal. You just feel like you
know that it's that it's a normal thing. But yeah, things may have
changed. I mean, I know, I know Amsterdam, like a lot
of countries like Portugal, is regretting it's it's liberalization, liberalization of its marijuana
laws because people now just smoke in the streets and you get this whiff of
skunk, don't you. And it's kind of not really what you want in
the daytime when you're going from walk down the street. I have to say,
in West London, it's quite hard to get away from smile. Oh
but it is, yeah, I'll bet it is. Yeah. When you
said, James Ferguson, that that I thought I got, I momentarily confused
him with Alex Renton. Was well that his cousin his cousin. Okay,
yeah, um we ever a friend of Alex Renton's. Yes, I like
Alex very much. Yea. He wrote a book recently called Blood legacy reckoning
with a family's story of slavery. Um and and it was all about his
own somewhat aristocratic, wealthy family's links to the Transatlantic slave trade. Um and
and you know, and he kind of, you know, struggles with this
and tries to figure out whether he should make a man and so forth,
and um and I gather that he hadn't told many members of his large then
did kind of dynastic family that he was intending to write this book, and
a lot of them are absolutely furious. Would profer, Yeah, you know
what I think you should do. If I were him, I would employ
a butler and make sure he was black and pay him a really good salary.
I think that would ease his conscience. Great. He may not see
it that way, but I think I think you should suggest that to him.
James Still, maybe someone someone, someone will will will say, Alex,
you were mentioned on this podcast, and James, because he likes you
very much, came up with this very helpful suggestion. I think. I
think, I think probably what he has in mind is acting as acting as
an unpaid butler to a wealthy black family, possibly for the next twenty five
years. Oh dear, Yeah, it's it's the problem with with with these
sort of liberal liberal the very very rich liberal people, with all their sort
of self hatred and guilt and stuff, and you just kind of think,
deal with it. Well, it's it's sort of you. It is self
hatred and guilt. I mean that that's certainly a component. But it's also
a form of status signaling, isn't it. It's a way of kind of
advertising your membership of the Brahmin class. I feel guilty about benefiting from the
Transatlantic slave trade. Behold, I'm now going to self flagellate in front of
you, because that's what posh people do. You know. Yeah, I
was going to mention this actually in the context. But maybe is this more
of a culture corner thing? Have you? Have you watched the New University
Challenge? Yeah, I know, we large. Let's let's let's get onto
that in culture corner. No, I haven't. I haven't, but I
do. I do. I do quite like him, So yeah, I
probably should. So should we should? We? Should? We hear from
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Need to hire you need indeed. Okay, Well, shall we move
on to culture? Yeah? Yeah, so yeah, okay, tell me
about the tell me about the mL presented. So we ought to explain,
oughtn't we to the Americans? Anyway? That University Challenge is this is the
dwy n let's say, of quiz shows in the UK, and it's quite
it's quite highbrow and it every week a team from well there's normally one Oxford
or Cambridge College and one so called Red Brick University Manchester for example, I
think one more more titles than any other other institution, and they compete against
each other and they want to win some sort of trophy on University Challenge.
It's it's a quiz show, but it's a high brow quiz show where you
got I think in America it was called College Bow. I don't know whether
it's still going, but predated University Challenge. Yeah did it really? Yeah?
Okay, okay? In the UK It was originally hosted by a man
called Bamber Gascoyne who had an impeccable pedigree. He was eaten, I mean,
even more impressive than yours, Toby. He was eaten Maudlin, Cambridge,
which is one of the sort of smarter Cambridge colleges. Then he went
into the Grenadier Guards, and then he got a scholarship to one of the
Ivy League universities, and then he established himself as a playwright. He had
a hit in the West End. He was an historian. He was just
and and he was stinking rich. I mean, he was absolutely loaded.
And he was descended from all manner of of toffee toffee families, and he
and and he Bamber always gave the impression that he knew the answers to every
single question, and that he was a bit He was quite donish in his
approach to universe, to to to the Grotti undergraduate charmingly condescending, charmingly condescending.
And then and then after that you had Jeremy Paxman. I think was
there an interim candidate. I don't know. I think that bambered in it
for years, didn't he. So Jeremy Jeremy Jeremy Paxman two was was really
quite impatient with these scrotti. Yes he's charmlessly condescending. Yes, yeah,
And and Paxsman two gave the impression, I think, sometimes falsely, that
he too knew the answers to all the questions. Now, how we've got
a guy called Amal Rajan who, like you, I means, whenever I've
met him in real life, I've always found him perfectly affable. But he's
a complete spiv. I mean, his his, his, his his his,
his delivery man all right, all right, he drops his he drops
his h's even though he's came with educated you realize. And when he went
to not necessarily one of the grandest Cambridge colleges, he went to Downing,
which is Georgian. It's not it's not a medieval institution, but it but
but it's it's, it's it's pretty, it's I think it's probably a hearty
college, isn't it. And he didn't. He did only get a two
two in English. But nevertheless he's now got this job as the Chrismaster on
University Challenge. And he's completely unlike Bamber Gascoyne or Jeremy Paxman. And he
doesn't give the impression he knows the answer to every question. He looks like
he's plums. But the pronunciation of all the complicated foreign words, he pronounces
his h h um and and he gets really excited when when when one of
the one of the teams spots something actually pretty obvious. I mean, they
had they had an excerpt from Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, and they
had to demonstrate which two composers were involved. And somebody got it very quickly.
It was Purcell and and and Britain. But actually he was he was
really impressed because she was very quick. But actually, any even halfway educating,
I mean every every everyone who attended my prep school, none of them,
necessarily that bright would have known because because you got played it in musical
appreciation classes, it's not an obscure piece of music. So anyway, Amos
really you know, he's like Amos by these by these students. Anyway,
So I wrote, I wrote a review about this in the It's a long
long wind of webcout coming to my point. I wrote a review about this
in The Spectator, and I said that it would be nice to think that
Bamber Gascoyne was turning in his grave about what has happened to University Challenge.
But I'm afraid he'll be rather applauding it because you know what bound mcgascoin despite
eaton Cambridge, the guards Ivy League University blah blah blah and loads and loads
of money. I know from people who were friends with him that he was
a he was a raging liberal. He was raging libtard. That they all
do it, they all, they all betray their cause by embracing these horrible
causes which don't affect them because they've got so much money they didn't care.
But for you and me, we get affected by it because they are pushing
the wet squidgee liberal agenda. It's hard. I mean, if you were,
if you were a kind of BBC commissioner James, how would you modernize
how would you woke ify University Challenge? Because it's quite hard to get away
from the basic premise, which is that you know they've done it. Actually
committing facts to memory and and acquiring knowledge about you know, the romantic poets
and classic or music and the complete works of Shakespeare is actually useful. How
do you get away from how do you kind of they did it? They've
already undermined it. I mean, University challenge has already fallen long ago.
I think it. I would date it to sometime perhaps after when Ted Loveday
was was the start of the show, which I think was Was it about
contestant? Yeah, yeah, he was. He knew what happacks ligomenon meant?
Okay, do you know what it means? It's it's it's where a
word only appears once in the entire ov of a writer. So there might
be a word that Shakespeare uses but once, or a word in the Bible
that appears but once, and that is happacks legomenon. Anyway, what they've
done is that they've they've changed the nature of the questions. So instead of
that phrase I often hear you is the greatest there's ever been thought or written?
Um. Instead of being about genuinely celebrating greatness, what it now does
is celebrating greatness but as long as they are black, female, or otherwise
ethnic or gender impaired. UM. So so when you get when you get
a question about scientists, you know that at least one of the answers is
going to be married curie um. When you get a question about novelists,
you know that Tony Morrison is a pretty good bet for one of the answers.
When you get a question about Renaissance art, it's a shoe in for
Artemisia Gentileski and so on. So so the answer questions have all been taken
over by these kind of slightly woke answers them the science, so the geography
questions, it's it's no longer what's the capital of of of of Mongolia or
where is the you know, where is land battle or whatever it's about.
It's about climate change, and it's also about you'll get questions about kind of
organizations like the IPCC, so pushing the same agenda. So it's it's it's
it's shifted from being about genuine sort of intellectual excellence into pushing an agenda.
I don't watch it anything. The only reason I watched this episode is I
wanted to see how Spivy and or Ragin was and you didn't disappoint Okay,
okay, well you haven't. You haven't sold it hard, but I may
check it out. But it sounds like has it become I mean, give
it given the kind of then the wokerification of it and the way you describe,
has it become easier to guess the answers than it was twenty five years
ago. No, because the science questions are still as abstruction boring, and
the mouth questions are still as relentless to tedious. It's just that that only
fun might have one might have had knowing the answers to the arts questions is
dissipated with one's by one's fury and having these all these kind of you know,
work work figures being being celebrated, right, okay, um so,
um, I mean, I think I think we discussed the Tulsa King last
time because I just finished it when we did our podcast. Since then,
I've I've watched very little apart from I've watched two more episodes of Hijack the
series on oh Plus, and but I've continued I didn't but I should I
Yeah, Well, the entire series, well at least i've seen episodes one
through six don't live up to the promise of the first episode, right,
and it's it's um it all takes place almost in real time, I think,
possibly in real time. Um So it's a sort of um it starts
with the plane being hijacked. That happens sort of midway through episode one,
and then the remaining I don't know how many episodes there are, possibly ten,
but so so the next nine episodes all seemed to take place on the
plane, at least I'm assuming they do, because we haven't were any over
I mean episode six and we're any flying over hungry it's any Pera's any about,
you know, halfway home from Dubai to London. So I think it
all takes place on the plane, seemingly in real time, and so they
have to kind of invent I mean, it's quite it sort of stretches the
capabilities of the scriptwriters to come up with a sufficient quantity of drama to fill
this kind of eight hour flight with or seven hour flight with. So yeah,
it feels sometimes the dramas feel a bit manufactured, and you know,
the hijackers seems sort of slightly implausibly stupid, and Idris Elba seems to constantly
get the better of them, even though he's caught getting the better of them
over and over again, and yet somehow that doesn't stop him from be able
to get get the better of them in the next episode. So it's it's
sort of yeah, it's all right, quite entertaining, and I'll probably watch
it till the end, but it's it's it's certainly not a kind of class
A thriller. I'd say it was a kind of class C thriller. Ah,
right, have we found out yet why did they hijack the plane?
No? Not yet. Well we have hints at it. Yeah, but
it seems it's it's so sort of implausible that that that it's it's it's hard
to credit that that's the real reason. But yeah, I won't, I
won't no spoilers, but yeah, that that's gradually emerging. Um by the
time you get to episode six. So have you seen Barbieheimer? Have you
seen either Barbie or Oppenheimer or Mission Impossible seven urbs. It's a nightmare.
My wretched family all want to go and see Oppenheimer. You know how long
it is? Three hours? Three hours of just kind of made up shit
about about made up nuclear bombs. It's just I don't believe any of the
narrative about about Oppenheimer. I don't believe that that when he when he witnessed
the first nuclear bast that the thought came into his into his head. Um,
whatever it was that quote from from that Sanskrit um you know, I'm
become death, destroyer of worlds. I just think that was just kind of
made up to kind of ratify this this non event, which obviously you'd expect
this take from me. I listened to this really good Germ Warfare podcast,
UM talking to a guy I think he's German who talks about the Hiroshima and
Nagasaki bombs, which were you know, we're told fat Man and little Boy,
you know, all about the crew that took part in this and stuff.
Um. I am persuaded having listened to the very compelling evidence that they
did not have nuclear bomb technology ready between August the sixth and the ninth,
nineteen forty five. But that was just that they were actually just far bombing
raids which which were which rebranded as nuclear nuclear bombs. And the reason we
know this, by the way, is the remarkable lack of nuclear or whatever
it is, nuclear efficient, or that the things you would expect to be
there indicating a nuclear bomb had gone off in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not there.
So I'm thinking that the release of this film is very suspicious making.
I don't buy into anything it's going to tell us. Even though I haven't
seen it yet, I'm sure it's going to be lies because Hollywood is the
lie machine. I mean, it's one of the main reasons that it's the
main ways that they control us. That it is just a massive, massive
style. So no, but I'm going to have to go and see it,
and I'm going to bloody hate every moment I know it. I'm going
to have to I'm probably going to try and see all three, probably not
on the same evening, but I need to go and see Barbie. I've
already been asked James to to Well to write one piece on Barbie and to
come on, I think, to GB News, possibly someone else, to
Channel five that's right to talk about Barbie. And I keep having to confess
that I haven't actually seen it yet. So I'm going to try, I
think, and go and see it tonight, so next time I get a
kind of Barbie request, I'll be able to fulfill it. It's clearly kind
of stoked the culture war in America because I mean, I don't know if
you've read a summary of Barbie, but apparently Ken is portrayed very unflatteringly,
and hell, he wears pink. And he goes off to Los Angeles and
discovers something called the patriarchy, which he's absolutely delighted by because it means he
can then predate on vulnerable women and exploit them. Meanwhile, Barbie, who
thinks that she's an empowered working girl, discovers that nothing's really changed, so
leads a kind of revolt to actually genuinely empower women. And it's just it's
just kind of reheated feminist propaganda of the most kind of banal kind, supposedly,
and lots of Republican movie girls who've been forced by their demanding daughters to
take them to see it in the Midwest of very cross that they've been bombarded
with this kind of anti family propaganda. So I think I do have to
go and see it so I can I can talk more eloquently about it.
Have you heard, by the way, the AI AI I think it is
AI has done this thing where it has got Johnny Cash singing I'm a Barbie
girl in the Barbie World to the tune of of um you know, I
shot a man in Reno and I watched him die that one, right,
um, and it does sound like Johnny Cash singing I'm a Barbie girl in
the Barbie world. Well it's really spooky. So so you don't know anymore
that the technology is sufficiently advanced. You don't know whether I am actually an
AI bought here not to celebrate James Danningpole, but to bury him, right
right? Could be that would explain a lot, James. Maybe maybe I
say, I've to say all this crazy ship because I'm not the real James
Danningpole. The real James Dannypole is in a seller, and the real James
Dannipole complete tit that he is. He's still teamed Toby. He still agrees
with everything Toby says, but he can't say it because he's locked in the
cellar. I knew the term would come when you'd come up with a theory
about yourself. So yeah, that's I'm surprised it's taking you this long,
James. I've also I've now very nearly finished Anna Coronina. I found out
how she dies spoiler alert, sorry, she does die, and of course,
as soon as I read it, I remembered how she died. I
was getting confused. I thought that it was Madam Bovary that died like this,
not Anna Corona. Anyway, I am now I can say absolutely that
this is the best novel it's ever written. And I don't know where to
get well, I know where I'm going to go next, because I was
halfway through Gogol's Dead Souls and I haven't finished that yet. But I would
say now that my top three novels I've I've read are number one Anna Karnina,
number two Warren Peace, and I think I think number three Crime and
Punishment, probably edges it over Brothers Karamtsof, which is which is sort of
unwieldy and kind of yeah, I think I think it's a more perfect book
crime punk. What are your top three? Let me chack The Destroyer Men
one, destroy two and Deathly Hallows. I think I'm I don't think I've
even read the Deathly Hello's, so um well, I could certainly recommend the
Destroyer Men books, so I think there's fourteen of them internal possibly even more.
Um yeah, the artillery Men the sequel isn't quite as good, but
I think my favorite novel of all time, James is um David Copperfield.
I'm a huge Dickens fan, and I struggle to um rank David Copperfield Great
Expectations, Um, Hard Times, Bleak House, little Dorit. I love
them all, but I think David Copperfield just just pips it um. And
I'm also a big Jane Osten fan. Um. I like you know,
all of her novels, but probably Pride and Prejudice the best. She was
a woman. Yeah, and I guess either Vackeray's Vanity Fair or George Elliot's
Middle March. You don't like, nobody likes I do like I do like.
So a crusty old vicar called doctor Kasaba Kazabon spends his time in his
dusty tone and what's her name, Dorothea is married to this dry old stick
and they hang around the Midlands. And it goes on for about how many
pages? How can you love that boring book? No? I didn't find
it boring at all. Life and it completely bewitching and absorbing. And I
always stopped by George Elliot's grave when I visit my own parents grave in Highgate
Cemetery, And people have always put pens in the grave. That's their way
of paying tribute to George Eliots. So it's like a sea of pen stuck
into the ground. How how very how very very tarsome. Now, I
don't I don't think that's the way you're looking for. It won't be doing,
can't be doing with Georget, It can't be doing with Dickens. There's
only one Dickens book I enjoy because it is so unlike Dickens that it feels
like you're not reading a Dickens book. Do you know what that one is?
A Tale of Two City. Yes, it's it's so weird. It's
so unlike Dickens. It's like reading something that I don't know what was it?
Really? Yeah, It's like it's like a yeah, it's more of
a kind of historical adventure story, isn't. It's more like Bernard Cornwall than
Charles Dickens. It's almost like he had an editor for a change that he
ain't being paid by the word. Yeah yeah, now, I yeah,
I see. I enjoyed that. I think the least of all his novels.
I much prefer, you know, classic Dickens. It is unlike the
others. Yeah, yeah, oh well so um yeah, so I'm I'm
I'm still working my way through Framley Parsonage. Um, And it's funny you
should mention the death of Anna Karenina, because the heroine of Framley Parsonage,
who is delightful girl called Lucy Roberts. I've just where I'm about three quarters
of the way through, and she's so selfless and saintly that she is just
embarked upon. She's moved into the house of a poor Vicker's wife who's got
Typhus, having moved the children out to protect them, and she's moved in
in order to nurse this ailing woman. And I'm now terrified that Lucy Roberts,
who I've obviously come to love, is going to die of Typhus,
and it's going to have a tragic ending which would be quite untroulliped like.
So I'm reasonably confident it won't happen, but I guess you know, I'm
now caught up in the drama and terrified that she's going to catch Typhus and
die. Well, exactly, I think he dangles these prospects before you to
frighten you, and it's all it's all about. It's like a conjurings trick.
It's all about misdirection. And actually the trajectory novel has been obvious from
the start, because one knows what kind of moral arc that his novels tend
to follow. And we know, for example, I'm guessing that Phineas Finn
has to marry the nice the nice girl from Ireland rather than you know,
the millionaires or or whatever. In the same way, I feel quite strongly
that Phineas Finn should somehow be made to abandon his career um if you can
call it that, in parliament. What I what I've noticed that that Trollop
and told story that they're not often compared because they don't have much in common,
but they both seem to be at this point in their career, is
quite skeptical of the of the kind of the state of the of the parliamentary
system. You know, there are characters who point out really how appalling it
is that that somebody with no discernible talent talents should be given a job and
paid um from the public purse from the taxpayer to make legislation which is probably
deliterious to the taxpayers interests. And I think it's fair clear that Trollop is
of that party. Tolstoy certainly is. I mean, I wouldn't like to
have lived in Russia in that time, because either you had to have massive
inherited money or because there was no little class where it was, or you
or you had to work for the States somehow. Get that's certainly true of
Dickens too, who actually worked as a parliamentary reporter in the kind of that
was the sort of first writing gig. I think, Um, yes,
So the equivalent of the circumlocution Office, which is dickens kind of parody of
how Whitehall operates in um friendly parsonage, is the office of the petty Bag.
So the Office of the petti Bag is a kind of obscure Whitehall department
which essentially gives out grace and favored ball balls to kind of favored creatures of
the government. Yeah. Yeah, well good, So novels, novels aren't
aren't totally destructed? No, actually no, well they weren't. They weren't
then anyway, Right, Well, I suppose we should go and do our
things. Yeah, so hopefully next week I'll be able to talk to you
about Barbie, and maybe maybe we'll both be able to discuss Oppenheimer as well.
Yeah, I know, three hours, it's quite grueling prospects, three
hours of acting, actors doing acting. It's it's going to be, isn't
it. Yes? And I'm sure, I'm sure it has a kind of
anti nuclear subtext, which is, you know, reach across to nuclear energy
as well. We've essentially unleashed this demon and we've condemned ourselves as a consequence.
Anyway, maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But it was
interesting. Actually, it's just before we go, Matt Ridley, I'll opposed
the question how many films actually celebrate innovation, science and technology compared to how
many portray innovation, science and technology as kind of mankind undoing. And I
think he's certainly right. There are very It's very hard to think of many
films which are kind of optimistic from a kind of sci fi tech point of
view. About the Top Gun Top Gun one and two, Yeah, and
the Star Trek films of course. But but but they are the exceptions.
Mostly they are kind of they portray the future as kind of techno dystopias.
Tech noir is a much more popular genre than films celebrating tech like Star Trek.
Yeah, right, okay, James, next week, this is London,
fully Ricochet join the conversation.