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This is London calling, London calling. No crystal Ball is perfect, but

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yes, I think the banking system
is very stable. All of the Act

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deposits outlaws because of quite a fit
of tightening. It wasn't because of these

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people are having runs. There are
only so many banks off side this way,

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and I think this is There may
be another smaller one, but there's

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pretty much resolves them all. But
this is part of the crisis. Is

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over. Welcome to London calling with
me, James, Denny pol and my

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very good friend mister Toby Young umb
So are you back from from Canada?

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I am. I'm back from Canada. I'm in fact, between when I

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last spoke to you and now,
James, not only have I got back

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from Canada, but I've been on
a weekend trip to Stoke, which I'll

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tell you all about in a minute. But you're still in Asia. I

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am, yeah. I'm now in
Malaysia. Um in the in the the

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tropical heat, and I'm a bit
slow. Actually it's it's it's very humid

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and it's hot, and there are
ants. There are ants crawling all over

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me. I don't know. I'm
in this sort of rainforest, you know

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place, and for some reason,
there are lots of ants everywhere. Um

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and the type of ants of the
bite these ones are. They're not like

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those those soldier ants that people get
choose to get bitten by on those extreme

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extreme programs where where you try and
test your how much pain you could enjoy.

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They look like English ants there.
I'm sure there are some nasty ants

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out there. I was a bit
disappointed to learn that there are no piller

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sharks and apparently no salt water crocodiles
in the vicinity. And I was thinking

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I was in jungle hell. But
but it don't seem to be that many

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top predators here. I remember,
I think, in what twenty eleven,

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being on safari on New Year's Eve
in Kenya with my family and my kids

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rule obviously much younger then, and
on New Year's Eve, we were kind

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of standing around, you know,
this kind of food area, when suddenly

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these red ants started crawling up our
legs, and we initially kind of pretended

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to panic, thinking it was quite
funny because all these people around us were

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panicking. We were like, they're
being pathetic. We're not going to be

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killed by a couple of these tiny
creatures. Why are you freaking out,

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and then they started biting our balls
and we all started jumping around and shrieking

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and taking our trousers off to try
and get rid of these bloody things.

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It was just unbelievable. Yeah,
I wouldn't be messing with ants, and

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now I was just I was just
observing. I'm not feeling threatened by these

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ants. Are these are friendly ants? Okay? Good? So so how

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much longer are you in Asia?
Four? Well, ideally forever. I

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mean, I'm going to have to
come back, I think at the end

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of the week, but I don't
want to. I'm I'm just thinking that

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this is going to be The West
is dead. Um, not that I'm

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sort of necessarily saying I want you
to big up communist China, but it

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is going to be. The East
is the future. The West is absolutely

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stuffed. And if you don't know
that terms, you're the only person in

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the UK set I thought. I
thought China was also heading for a fall

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m It's suffering from a declining population
um most of it's most most Chinese people

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are hugely overextended. A lot of
their wealth is wrapped up in property.

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The property. I'm not, I'm
not, I'm not trying to present the

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CCP run China with some kind of
paradise. I'm just saying that the West

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is more stuffed and I it kind
of makes me want to puke every time

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I read an article by normals,
sort of conservative talking point, normals pretending

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that we still live in this thing
called the free West and that and that

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that it's all it's all kind of
fine, and everything we've been through in

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the last year is just three years
as a kind of blip, and that

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and that it's all going to be
great, and what we've got the coronation

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coming and and God bless the rural
family. And I will think, I

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think you want to talk about the
coronation, but you must be one of

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the few people that's actually spent any
time recently in Hong Kong um and concluded

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not that the Chinese Communist Party is
this appalling authoritarian, anti dramatic you've concluded,

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You've your your conclusion from being in
Hong Kong is to be become even

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more jaundiced about democracy. Yeah,
that's it. You see this this word

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you bandy about democracy. You don't
even know what it means that you've got

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three elections every five years. Yeah, communist China, those elections me and

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anything. And you've also got this
notion that I'm trying to say that that

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that communist China is some kind of
great thing. I'm just saying that at

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least, at least the communist Chinese
completely upfront about who they are and and

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and how evil they are, whereas
we have to live in this this bizarre

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world where we have to pretend that
we that we're free and and and that

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we have these things called electric electric
representatives whose job is to serve our interests

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and respond to the you know this
thing you called democraty, it's absolutely rubbish,

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that's all. I remember. My
um, my son was last summer

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went on this um like was was. It was in this sort of residential

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summer school, UM run by an
organization called the John Locke Institute. It's

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very good, um and Um.
One of the people on the course was

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Um, a Chinese national. And
when Ludo showed him various anti Boris things

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he'd been putting on his Instagram,
this boy was absolutely shocked. He was

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like, won't you get arrested for
saying these things? How? How could

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you? How could you take such
incredible risks, and Luda had to explain

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to him that that, unlike in
China, you can criticize your leaders in

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the West without risking arrest. It
seem I mean, there do seem to

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be some pretty fundamental differences, even
if in you know, in some respects

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people are exactinate them. But and
you feel good about this character that this

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this this this construct called Boris because
you know that that that that's the level,

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that's the level you're you're working on. There's this sort of lovable,

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lovable buffoon called Boris, and we
call him by his first name. I

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mean, it's it's a joke.
Well, I wasn't necessarily praising Boris.

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I was just pointing out that if
you criticize I'm saying leaders in China,

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you can get into an awful difficulty. As the Chinese Democracy campaign has discovered,

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some of them are still imprisoned on
it. These are these are just

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straw men you're you're erecting in front
of me. It's kind of embarrassing terms,

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James, I don't think it's it's
it's not it's not a legitimate argument

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to say, you know, instead
of responding and saying, well, well,

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you may be right that it's harder
to criticize political leaders in rest in

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China than in the West. You're
just saying that's an embarrassing point of it.

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Why is it embarrassing not even trying
to to to to pick up China.

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I'm saying that the way I'm saying
that. The problem is that the

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way you're saying there's no difference.
But I'm pointing out that there is a

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difference, which is that you can't
criticize. You can't criticize your political masters

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in China, whereas you can here. I mean, that's one of many

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different Surely, to answer the question, I go back to the original question.

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I would much rather be be out
of the UK forever if I possibly

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could. And I think I think
a lot of Americans feel the same way.

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I'm a lot of Canadians feel the
same way. A lot of Australians

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feel the same way. I think
a lot of New Zealanders probably feel the

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same way. Now, now why
is that, do you think? Why?

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Why does so many of us feel
completely jaundiced? And it's not even

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whether we belong on the left or
the right, in so far as those

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terms have any meaning, It's that
we've all recognized that the systems that we've

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been brought up indoctrinated at our schools
to believe a kind of sort of bastions

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of freedom and and fine traditions are
just just a lie. Well, it's

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all we should say. Most people, I mean, migration flows are largely

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in the other direction, James.
I mean, I think something close to

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five million people a year on average, either legally or illegally try and into

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the United States, and I think
up to a million people are awaiting um

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judgment about whether they can become citizens
in the United Kingdom. At present,

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net migration into the UK and into
the US has never been higher. Well,

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they're coming from I mean the replaced, like Malaysia, Hong Kong,

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Malaysia, Hong Kong. They're coming
from l holes, They're coming from a

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lot of them are coming from Albania. It seems rather rather too many are

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coming from Albania and being housed in
every hotel in in in the land.

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It seems hotels are being given over
to house these people who are this this

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fighting agent. There was there was
an interesting stat actually, James, recently

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which showed that Albanian migration into the
UK has actually declined recently, and I

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think Indians now are the largest single
nationals to enter the UK in the most

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recent migration words, which isn't not
a million miles from Malaysia anyway. So

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let me tell you about my weekend
adventures, James. So, yeah,

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I got back on the Red Eye
from Calgary. So I flew, took

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off on Thursday night, got back
on Friday. Didn't sleep. It's a

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pretty long flight. And not only
that, but there was like a four

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hour coach journey to get from Lake
Louise to Calgary, and then I had

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to because that was the only coach
I could get to make my connection or

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to make my flight. I then
had to wait at Calgary Airport for like

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four hours plus, then got on
a plane, on the plane for nine

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hours, then had to get the
train from Heathrow back to Acton. I

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mean, I've been up for a
long time and been traveling for a long

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time. Managed to get a little
bit of sleep on Friday night, and

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then had to get up crack of
dawn on Saturday to dry my three sons

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to Stoke because QPR were playing Stoke
on Trent in the last away game of

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the season. We've got one more
game that's at home next week, and

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it was a must win game for
us because if we won the game,

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it would mean we were safe and
wouldn't be relegated to League One. We

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would stay in the Championship. So
there was quite a lot at stake.

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And then on Sunday I was planning
to take my three sons to Alton Towers.

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It's like a birthday treat for my
fourteen year old Charlie who will shortly

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be fifteen. Anyway, we did
manage to get to Stoke. We met

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some friends in a pub and wonder
was actually from Rugby, not far from

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where you are, and were actually
what we had for lunch days. I

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promised I would mention them on the
podcast because this chap who I met and

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his mother are both fans of London
Calling and he said I had to try

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Staffordshire oatcakes and there was this particular
outlet on London Road in Stoke on Trent

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that makes the best North Staffordshire oat
cakes in the country. And he'd been

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raving about this particular hole in the
wall for a while. And this was

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on a street called London Road which
used to be the main Thoroughfare, the

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most glamorous shopping high street in Stoke
on Trent now looks pretty run down,

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and in fact, as my friend
Tom pointed out to me, was actually

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used in a party political broadcast a
couple of years ago by Macron to illustrate

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what would happen if you voted for
La Penn. He said, vote for

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La Pen We'll leave the European Union. This is what can happen. This

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is post Brexit Britain. And they
showed a shot of London Road in Stoke

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on Trent as a warning to the
French people. And anyway, so he

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produced these North Staffordshire oat cakes.
You could get different fillings in like all

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day breakfast, bacon and cheese,
cheese and tomato, etc. And I

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might have to say my hopes were
not particularly high, you know, I

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sort of we have to take all
this kind of praising of local delicacies with

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a pinch of salt. But actually
North Stavage oatcakes, at least from this

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particular place on London Road, they
were fantastic. They were absolutely delicious.

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Me and my son's just devoured them
and we even got some to take home.

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And my wife has subsequently become a
North staffageer oatcake convert so anyway,

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so I was very glad to try
this local delicacy. And then QPR went

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on to beat Stoke one nill,
which means QPR and how safe. We

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were not going to be relegated.
We're going to stay in the championship,

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which which didn't look like a very
likely prospect a couple of weeks ago.

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But two wins on the bounce very
rare for QPR, very rare, particularly

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in this season. We beat Burnley
top of the league. Burnley already been

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promoted at the Premier League, beat
them last week, beat Stoke this week,

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so now we are safe. So
that was great lot of celebrating in

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the stands with the QPR fans,
the traveling faithful. And then on Sunday

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less good day, so we got
to Alton Towers. Alton Towers is probably

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Britain's premiere roller coaster park for those
who haven't heard of. It has ten

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roller coasters, seven of which are
premium roller coasters. And we got there

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at quarter to ten so we wouldn't
have to queue. Park opens at ten.

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We were in the queue for a
roller coaster called Rita. By ten

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past ten, twenty minutes later,
after we've been queuing for twenty minutes,

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we were told that there was a
technical fault and RITA wasn't going to be

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operational. And I asked one of
the members of staff, well, you

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know, is it worth staying in
the queue. We've been in the queue

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now for twenty minutes. Is it
going to reopen soon? And he said,

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could be ten minutes, might not
open for the rest of the day,

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up to you whether you take that
gamble. So we left that queue,

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and of course it reopened about ten
minutes after we'd left the queue.

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But it turned out that four of
the seven roller coasters that my son was

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very keen to do, and he'd
worked out the order in which he wanted

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to do them at four of the
seven were closed. They sort of due

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to technical difficulties or maybe because it
was raining bloody typical of Britain to design

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a theme park in which the best
rides don't work in the rain, you

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know, given that it's in Stafford, that did seem an extraordinary oversight.

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Anyway, it was. It was
quite disappointing. It was it was a

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weird kind of almost a sort of
similar arcrum of Brexit Britain James Alton Towers,

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like everybody was dutifully queuing and following
these kind of road markings and being

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very obedient and compliant, all for
the sake of getting some little tiny injection

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of pleasure. Though needless to say, the machines that was supposed to produce

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this kind of little rush, this
little dopamin hit, for the most part,

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weren't working. There were even signs, you know, as you were

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queuing in an orderly way to wait
to get on these machines, saying,

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you know, report any troublemakers you
see. And there was this kind of

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awful kind of music kind of pumping
out everywhere, and it did seem almost

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like a kind of dystopian vision of
the future and quite reminiscent of the whole

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kind of lockdown experience. Anyway,
a pretty ghastly day at Alton Towers.

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And i've i've i've i've, I've
submitted a complaint to Customer Services and I'm

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hoping that I'll be refunded. But
anyway, good to get out of London.

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I was hoping that you're very long
outdate about GPR was going to have

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a happy ending at least I was
going to. I was gonna let's have

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a good laugh at the end,
but it didn't even have that type you.

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So you haven't been relegated? No, No, that would have been

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00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:07,200
a very unhappy ending. I don't
think you would have. Genuinely, surely

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not. Surely you're happy for me
that my team has survived and we'll go

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on to fight another championship season later
this year. M Yeah, are you

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00:17:18,319 --> 00:17:25,799
a fan of of of? Have
you been following the Wrexham series on Disney

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00:17:25,839 --> 00:17:32,960
Plus in which about Ryan Reynolds and
Rob mcilvenny's purchase of Wrexham FC. I

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started watching it and I thought it
was good to begin with, and then

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I realized that the problem is that
so those two fairly famous people buy up

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an obscure football club, and you
kind of wanted to be like it would

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00:17:51,359 --> 00:17:56,640
be in Hollywood, where fairly quickly, after a few a few pratfalls and

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mishaps, the team suddenly enters the
next league and they all they win the

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00:18:02,359 --> 00:18:06,440
FA Cup whatever. Um. But
it just went on, didn't it did?

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There was there was there was so
much boring stuff that you just kind

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00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:18,480
of thought they've actually they've actually bought
this club to remake lost about a football

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team, and it just goes on
and on and on, and you were

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never going to get out of here, So I'm trying to stop watching.

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00:18:26,839 --> 00:18:30,400
Did did Rexam ever get promoted?
Um? Well, it's a bit of

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00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:36,000
a spoiler if if you haven't been
following the news and you're only getting your

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news about Wrexham from watching the TV
show, because I think there's going to

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be another season of it. But
yes, at the end of this football

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season, I mean it hasn't quite
ended yet, but they've secured enough points

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to secure promotions, so they've now
they're now going to be in League Two

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00:18:49,880 --> 00:18:55,200
what we used to call the fourth
division in the English Football League next year.

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I did find quite interesting, just
mildly interesting about that football series was

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that even with lots of money,
you can't really buy your way, because

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I remember that they paid lots of
money for this striker from several at least

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two divisions above where Rexhall were.
Yeah. But but but you're only as

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00:19:18,039 --> 00:19:22,160
good as the team, the whole
team, aren't you. They can't feed

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00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:26,480
him the balls whatever it is you
do as strikers. That then if it

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00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:30,920
didn't work out, terribly well in
you know, during the first season in

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which I mean they got into the
playoffs, so they did. They were

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00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:41,240
in contention to be promoted out of
you know, the National League back into

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00:19:41,359 --> 00:19:44,640
League one, League two, but
they didn't make it. So it had

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00:19:44,640 --> 00:19:48,359
it had but in in in In
in the most recent season, I think

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00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:51,519
he's the highest goal scorer in the
season. So it has made a difference

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00:19:51,559 --> 00:19:55,720
ultimately, that has been for them, the difference between remainers in the National

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00:19:55,799 --> 00:19:57,519
League and getting promoted, and they
have got promoted, I guess for me,

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00:19:57,599 --> 00:20:03,079
the slightly odd thing about the series
is that, you know, Rob

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00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:11,680
mcilvenny and Ryan Reynolds kind of present
themselves as being kind of almost philanthropists.

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That's why they bought the club.
They care about football a bit, you

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00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:19,559
know mcailveny seemingly a bit more than
Ryan Reynolds. They didn't know much about

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00:20:19,599 --> 00:20:22,880
it, They didn't know much about
Rexham, didn't have any connection really to

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Wales as far as I could determine. But they sort of became invested in

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the community. They realized how much
the club meant to the community, and

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investing in the club and hoping the
club would succeed became important to them because

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they valued Wrexham and they realized that, you know, this was God's work

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they were doing. Any sort of
They very much sell themselves as these kind

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of you know, altruistic, caring
individuals who who've got invested in this community

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and want to kind of revitalize it. But you're sort of thinking in the

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back of your mind all the time, hang on, this was always a

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commercial project. Surely you knew going
in that you were going to sell the

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television rights to Disney Plus to a
series about trying to you know, take

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this failing club from the National League
back up the divisions and it's it.

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It may not have been entirely you
know, commercial exercise, but that's that's

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surely the kind of you know,
they've talked to their managers, and they've

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talked to their you know, investment
advisors, and they've talked to executives at

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00:21:21,759 --> 00:21:23,920
Disney Plus. They probably set up
a production company to make the series,

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and it's done very, very well. It's a big hit for Disney Plus.

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You have you run the numbers,
have you have you looked into the

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Has it been profitable for them?
I think I think it must have been.

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I haven't actually looked at the numbers. No, I'm just assuming it

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has. But it's sort of slightly
odd. You was thinking, well,

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the reason they're making this, the
reason everything's happening on screen and they're seemingly

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making this effort and everyone's kind of
celebrating them, is because it's happening on

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screen. And you know, it's
sort of like Schrodinger's cat if if if

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there wasn't a TV series being made, there would be nothing to make the

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TV series about, because that's really
what it's there for. That that's the

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whole purpose of the exercise. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, But

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I hope with some diligent journalist much
to do that. Yeah. Absolutely,

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Yeah. Let's break for an ad. This is Stephen Hayward of the power

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00:22:21,440 --> 00:22:25,839
Line Blog and the power Lines Show
on Ricochet, inviting you to tune in

285
00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:30,039
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286
00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:34,880
along with the pseudonymous Lucretia power Lines
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287
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:41,440
week's top stories and continue our long
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288
00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:45,799
the best whiskies available in the world. That's power Lines three Whiskey Happy Hour,

289
00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:57,880
hosted by Ricochet and found on all
of your favorite podcast platforms. Okay,

290
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:03,359
Janks, We're back. UM.
Did you spot that? I don't

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00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:07,359
know if you you you've been following
the news whilst out in Malaysia. But

292
00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:18,200
Uh, First Republic UM, a
big American bank, was taken over UM

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00:23:18,559 --> 00:23:25,240
over the weekend and is now going
to be sold to m JP Morgan.

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00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:30,920
And it's the second biggest US bank
to fail I think in history UM.

295
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:37,119
And it's the third US bank to
fail UM since what in the past couple

296
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:41,640
of months, the first being Silicon
Valley Bank. And I've just been writing

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00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:47,680
a piece about it for the Daily
Skeptic, sort of examining the question of

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00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:52,599
whether it's another example of get woke, go broke because one of one of

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00:23:52,680 --> 00:24:00,680
one of First First Republics great claim
to fames is that in two and twenty

300
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:06,799
one it became the first bank to
achieve carbon neutrality, so it disinvested in

301
00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:10,599
fossil fuels, said it wasn't going
to invest in fossil fuels again, achieved

302
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:15,960
carbon neutrality, and it's put great
importance on doing what it can to tackle

303
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:21,160
the climate emergency. ESG is high
on its list of priorities. The chief

304
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:26,559
security officer talks about addressing climate risk
as one of the risks that she's addressing

305
00:24:26,559 --> 00:24:32,440
in her capacity as chief chief risk
officer. And yeah, it looks like

306
00:24:33,319 --> 00:24:36,839
it may not be the major reason
for the banks collapse, but certainly they

307
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:44,279
appear to have prioritized climate risk over
other more substantial existential risks to a banking

308
00:24:44,319 --> 00:24:51,519
company. Yeah, with respectives,
I'm just not buying that argument that all

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00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:56,039
it's not just that particular bank,
it's all banks, it's all businesses,

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00:24:56,119 --> 00:25:04,960
they're all, they're all that they
all count out to ESG because companies like

311
00:25:06,319 --> 00:25:11,720
black Rock have such a significant shareholding
in all of them that and Larry Fink

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00:25:11,799 --> 00:25:18,279
of black Rock is obsessed with ESG
um so as Vanguard. So all these

313
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:22,640
these requirements are imposed upon them.
If if if, if they don't,

314
00:25:22,759 --> 00:25:29,240
if they don't pay the line they
get, they get that, they lose

315
00:25:29,279 --> 00:25:33,119
money essentially. So it's it's it's
I think the whole work thing is is

316
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:40,480
is a complete distraction. It's it. I mean, everyone is worke and

317
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:42,559
and and yes, the banks,
the smaller banks are going to go broke

318
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:48,359
because all what we're seeing around the
world is this this consolidation of the financial

319
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:55,559
sector where where soon the world will
will will consist of about what five banks

320
00:25:55,640 --> 00:26:00,200
or something. It's this is going
to happen continuously in the next two or

321
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:07,519
three years. It's not as it's
not a product of people being silly about

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00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:14,319
pronouns or or climate change or anything
else. Well, I think you're right

323
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:19,559
up to a point in that I'm
sure that one of the reasons First Republic

324
00:26:21,519 --> 00:26:27,279
embraced ESG and makes a big song
and dance about diversity, equity and inclusion

325
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:36,440
and virtue signals and the rest of
it is in order to attract investment from

326
00:26:36,759 --> 00:26:42,119
large investment funds like black Rock,
as well as attract millionaire customers on the

327
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:45,359
East and West coast of America.
It was largely a kind of millionaire bank

328
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:52,920
First Republic. But that doesn't mean
that it's not the embrace of these particular

329
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:57,119
policies and prioritizing things like ESG which
have contributed to the bank's collapse. And

330
00:26:57,119 --> 00:27:06,960
it may be that stakeholder capitalism as
defined by the WEF and promoted by big

331
00:27:07,079 --> 00:27:14,160
funds like black Rock and Vanguard,
if it's identified if ESG, the broader

332
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:18,559
stakeholder capitalism agenda is thought to be
actually partly responsible for the claps of these

333
00:27:18,559 --> 00:27:25,160
financial institutions, then surely that will
undermine that agenda. But I think it's

334
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:29,119
still a case of you know,
get woke, go broke being a contributory

335
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:34,279
factor, regardless of why the banks
in question got work. Well, you

336
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:38,400
know, my beyond the culture wars, they're just this this kind of made

337
00:27:38,519 --> 00:27:48,119
up, silly thing designed to give
give conservative commentators something to get their teeth

338
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:52,160
into and feel angry about. And
while they're getting angry about this and writing

339
00:27:52,319 --> 00:27:57,880
endless screeds about how palling it is
that all these pronouns are everywhere and how

340
00:27:59,079 --> 00:28:04,960
ghastly esg is, meanwhile, the
world is being taken over by all Our

341
00:28:06,039 --> 00:28:11,279
freedoms are being taken away, Farms
are being farming landed. Farmland is being

342
00:28:11,279 --> 00:28:15,920
destroyed. Farmers, farmers are having
their livelihoods destroyed. We're heading towards food

343
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:22,480
shortages, we're heading towards financial collapse. And and meanwhile, people in the

344
00:28:22,599 --> 00:28:25,240
in the mainstream media, you know, who've got their job to be edgy

345
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:30,079
right wing commentators are saying, isn't
it isn't it infuriating? Here's somebody saying

346
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:33,559
something really stupid about about how how
men and women are the same, or

347
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:37,359
how how women, how men should
have babies, you know, men should

348
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:42,119
have wombs. It's just like it's
distraction, it's not it's not real,

349
00:28:42,359 --> 00:28:49,599
it's silly. I would I would
have thought that that stakeholder capitalism, which

350
00:28:51,119 --> 00:28:56,079
was until fairly recently, until really
twelve months ago, thought to be the

351
00:28:56,119 --> 00:29:00,319
best way to save capitalism, and
that was a sort of basis on which

352
00:29:00,319 --> 00:29:04,880
it was promoted by the WF and
on which people got behind it. Um,

353
00:29:06,519 --> 00:29:08,519
it's now, it's not a lot
of the luster has gone from stakeholder

354
00:29:08,559 --> 00:29:15,119
capitalism fancial philosophy thani by the w
EF. I mean the reason that Tony

355
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:22,240
Blair started partings the word stakeholder.
You realize this sty stakeholders is just this

356
00:29:22,319 --> 00:29:26,559
kind of weft word. I just
said, yeah, you're not that,

357
00:29:26,559 --> 00:29:30,519
That's what I said. I said, it's it is very much a WEF

358
00:29:30,799 --> 00:29:37,680
initiative. This concept of stakeholder capitalism
is kind of claud Schwarb's big contribution to

359
00:29:37,759 --> 00:29:41,880
the kind of debate about the future
of capitalism. And he's gone all in

360
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:45,759
on it, and I said,
certainly encouraged others to do so, and

361
00:29:45,799 --> 00:29:49,799
it's it was until about twelve months
ago kind of the trendy orthodox he certainly

362
00:29:49,839 --> 00:29:55,200
within the financial services sector. But
it looks as though that that that that

363
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:57,799
that that that that maybe that bubble
may be about to burst, and that

364
00:29:57,839 --> 00:30:04,440
will I don't think that you know
that that following this particular agenda is inevitable

365
00:30:04,559 --> 00:30:08,599
because there are these all powerful forces
that won't let banks diverge from it.

366
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:14,160
I think that, you know,
they believed that it actually would be good

367
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:18,480
for the bottom line and would make
large financial institutions more sustainable, and would

368
00:30:18,519 --> 00:30:22,279
be good for the world, and
turns out it's not. It's actually contributed

369
00:30:22,359 --> 00:30:27,000
to a global financial crisis and the
collapse now of three banks. So it

370
00:30:27,039 --> 00:30:33,119
maybe the death now I'm saying for
this particular w e F inspired agenda,

371
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:37,319
which is a good thing, surely, I don't think that's going to happen.

372
00:30:37,359 --> 00:30:44,119
I mean, I think you have
this this um romantic, archaic notion

373
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:49,079
about about the idea that that there
is this thing called the free market,

374
00:30:49,279 --> 00:30:53,119
and and and that people try out, try out things, and if they

375
00:30:53,119 --> 00:30:56,519
don't work, then they'll try something
else, and that they constantly on admission

376
00:30:56,599 --> 00:31:02,559
to provide value and to create a
system that works. It's that's that's not

377
00:31:02,599 --> 00:31:07,960
the deal. These the people who
run these banks are parachuted in from institutions

378
00:31:07,119 --> 00:31:12,200
like like the w w EF.
And if if it seems like the wheels

379
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:18,160
are coming off stakeholder so called stakeholder
capitalism, it's not because it has been

380
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:22,440
proved to be unworkable. It's just
because they've found a different way of executing

381
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,720
their their their plan. It's not
it's not that it's not that they've they've

382
00:31:26,799 --> 00:31:33,200
learned lessons. I would have thought, James, that actually your world view,

383
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:38,559
your analysis of what's going on,
what's going wrong, is ultimately more

384
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:47,400
rooted in romanticism than mine, a
kind of gloomy Wagnerian romanticism. You think

385
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:53,400
it's essentially a tragedy, a tragic
loop that we're stuck in and which is

386
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:59,319
going to inevitably end in collapse,
and it's fate. There's very little we

387
00:31:59,359 --> 00:32:02,640
can do about. The wheels are
turning, the whole the whole machine has

388
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:07,839
been set in motion and it will
end in tragedy. That's surely a more

389
00:32:07,359 --> 00:32:14,079
ultimately a more romantic or a view, more more rooted in kind of nineteenth

390
00:32:14,079 --> 00:32:20,880
century romanticism than mine or whatever.
I mean, I don't I don't really

391
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:25,200
really care to quibble about about who
who's the most who's the romantic one and

392
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:30,680
who's not. I just know that
I'm right that that that that this is

393
00:32:30,799 --> 00:32:37,319
that if if, if it seems
as those stakeholder capitalism is failing, it

394
00:32:37,359 --> 00:32:40,440
probably means that that was always part
of the plan. Yeah, it's not

395
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:44,759
that. It's not that they've learned
their lessons and things are suddenly going to

396
00:32:44,799 --> 00:32:50,400
get better and maybe there's going to
be some kind of remarket so called right

397
00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:53,960
wing backlash where where suddenly sense is
going to be restored. It ain't going

398
00:32:54,039 --> 00:32:58,880
to happen. Terms where where where? Where at the final stages of the

399
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:02,920
collapse of the system. Well,
James, I I think the system's in

400
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:07,680
trouble, as we've discussed before.
But I don't think. I don't think.

401
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:10,039
I don't think the future is set. I'm not. I'm not fatalistic

402
00:33:10,079 --> 00:33:15,240
like you. I think it's up
to us to save the future. And

403
00:33:15,039 --> 00:33:20,480
if we organize and energize and galvanize, then we can don't. You can't.

404
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:24,160
You can't save the future until you
wake up and see what the problem

405
00:33:24,319 --> 00:33:30,759
is. If you're if if you're
cropping up a paradigm that was always always

406
00:33:30,759 --> 00:33:36,559
a fake narrative created by these people, then as long as you go and

407
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:40,079
playing their game, you're never going
to be able to fight back because you're

408
00:33:40,079 --> 00:33:45,319
playing by their rules, not our
rules. Yeah, I'm never quite sure

409
00:33:45,359 --> 00:33:49,400
what what fighting back looks like for
you. I'm clear what it looks like

410
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:53,880
for me, and I'm clear,
but fighting back just what a fighting back

411
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:59,039
consists of for you, apart from
carping on the sidelines about how the collapse

412
00:33:59,119 --> 00:34:04,599
is inevitable if you're if you'll allow
me, I you know, rather than

413
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,920
rabbiting on and accusing me of things
that I'm not doing, I would say

414
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:15,400
that our first duty is not to
participate, is to really not vote,

415
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:20,960
for example, not not participating the
electoral system. To use cash. I've

416
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,760
mentioned this before, use cash wherever
possible, and I think they try and

417
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:29,639
make us do. Don't do it. So, don't take the vaccine so

418
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:34,719
called vaccine, um, don't don't
don't call this a vaccine, We call

419
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:37,119
it what it is, a death
jab or clot shot whatever. Don't wear

420
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:42,440
masks, don't do whatever they tell
you to do, because that's the only

421
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:45,920
way we are going to be able
to stop them doing what they want to

422
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:50,559
do, which is turned us into
into slaves basically. But that sounds like

423
00:34:50,599 --> 00:34:57,400
a kind of grassroots movement which depends
upon mass participation. If it's going to

424
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,599
sue a few people refusing to take
more refusing to get vaccinated, that's not

425
00:35:00,599 --> 00:35:05,000
going to make much impact, is
it. I'm not, I'm not.

426
00:35:05,079 --> 00:35:08,559
I'm not sure what your point is
here. What because because most people were

427
00:35:09,039 --> 00:35:19,519
persuaded by this military level um psychological
operation whereby we had all our PB channels,

428
00:35:19,639 --> 00:35:24,760
all our newspapers bought and paid for
by the government, entertainment industry.

429
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:31,320
I mean, you name it,
pretty much every institution pushing the same the

430
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:37,679
same story. We had. We
had nurses, nurses in hospitals which were

431
00:35:37,679 --> 00:35:42,360
supposed to be uh, you know, almost unworkable. They were so they

432
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:45,920
were so overrun with dying patients,
you know, who badly needed ventilators,

433
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:50,639
and yet somehow they had time to
make TikTok videos. We had, we

434
00:35:50,679 --> 00:35:53,960
had, we had. You know, it goes back to my original point

435
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:59,079
about you think you think that we're
so different communist China? What what?

436
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:00,920
What? What? What? Is
one of the things we really associate with

437
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:06,719
with with with with countries like North
Career and and China. It's these massive,

438
00:36:07,079 --> 00:36:12,760
massive sort of public displays of of
of coordinated action of of of of

439
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:15,480
sort of dancing and stuff. And
we had, we had, we had

440
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:20,920
the na forming these these dance routines, just as you might have might have

441
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:24,920
performed for the glorious Leader on on
on on May Day. We had we

442
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:32,039
had the people who sort of pride
themselves and having defeated the Armada and having

443
00:36:32,159 --> 00:36:37,760
beat the French at Waterloo, turning
out of their houses on a Thursday evening

444
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:44,039
I believe, to bang pots and
pans in celebration of a stylist institution and

445
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:47,920
in celebration of this character that had
been presented to us, a bit like

446
00:36:49,039 --> 00:36:52,800
stacking off the tractor. We were
stacking off the coal miner way and the

447
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:58,000
Soviet Union. We had a character
called an invented character almost called Captain Tom

448
00:36:58,079 --> 00:37:00,960
who who who Who'd written a on
motorbikes in the war, but we somehow

449
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:05,840
presented to us as a war hero
and that we should suddenly we should suddenly

450
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:12,800
um celebrate this man, celebrate this
institution. I don't I don't know tapes.

451
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:17,280
I worry about what's happened to our
country or right, most people have

452
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:22,559
been brainwashed by this, this this
cynical, ugly machine. But that's what

453
00:37:22,639 --> 00:37:25,320
I'm saying. We need to wake
up, and until we do wake up,

454
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:32,119
collectively, there is no hope.
That does sound like a prescription for

455
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:38,239
kind of despair and fatalism and just
waiting for things to waiting for things to

456
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:44,000
get worse and collapse before before anything
can get better. I'm not saying we

457
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:45,559
should. I'm saying that everyone should
be more like me, unless like you.

458
00:37:46,199 --> 00:37:52,159
That's the solution if you're in a
nutshell, so we might stand a

459
00:37:52,239 --> 00:38:00,000
chance. Well, there is the
recipe for disaster. Well I'm sorry here,

460
00:38:00,039 --> 00:38:01,679
I'm sort of do you think about
James? Um? I like to

461
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:07,800
think I was making a difference.
Um, but um, anyway? Should

462
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:10,400
we should? We cut for another
commercial and then come back at a second.

463
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:17,400
Hey, happy spring everybody. Technically
it's spring here, it's cold.

464
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:21,360
Maybe where you are it's really warm. The one thing, however, that

465
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:24,679
it's true no matter what climate you're
in, is that ricochet dot com is

466
00:38:24,679 --> 00:38:29,199
the place where you want to go. Ricochet dot com has got the flagship

467
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:31,920
podcast, and it's got so many
of the things that I can't even start

468
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:35,880
to tell you about it without taking
an hour of your time. So spring

469
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,639
forward into a new way of looking
at the Internet and a new way of

470
00:38:38,679 --> 00:38:50,519
listening at ricochet dot com. So
tell me about your travels, Chames.

471
00:38:50,559 --> 00:38:52,800
What have you been up to in
U in Asia? Have you done?

472
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:57,920
Have you been on any kind of
long bus journeys and eating food? I've

473
00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:05,920
discovered my my new favorite thing um, which is called hey. Which is

474
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:14,440
this? So I we're looking at
when whenever I travel in somewhere like Malaysia,

475
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:17,000
What you're always trying to do,
well, what I'm always trying to

476
00:39:17,039 --> 00:39:23,159
do is get away from what they
wanted to give you is Western food or

477
00:39:23,159 --> 00:39:27,599
a sort of what what they think
is what Western Westerners want to eat.

478
00:39:28,079 --> 00:39:31,039
And of course we don't want to
eat Western food or or sort of or

479
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:38,639
um versions of the local cuisine which
have been which have been toned down because

480
00:39:38,679 --> 00:39:43,800
they're worried that the spices might be
too too aggressive for our palettes. What

481
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:50,599
you want is the real thing.
So I eventually persuaded my hotel to tom

482
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:55,800
send us off to this restaurant where
no tourists went and we went to this

483
00:39:55,800 --> 00:40:01,119
this this restaurant in the middle of
nowhere were are indeed the only people who

484
00:40:02,039 --> 00:40:06,199
there who were not not Malaysian.
And it was it had a kind of

485
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:09,840
strange vibe. I mean that Malaysians
are generally very very friendly and welcoming and

486
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:15,199
and and sweet, and this was
there was a sort of slightly standoffish air

487
00:40:15,519 --> 00:40:19,119
in this place. Um. And
we couldn't read the menu because it because

488
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:23,239
there was no English translation, and
tried to get a beer and we're told

489
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:28,679
we couldn't because it was a Muslim
You know that there were Muslims. I

490
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:34,880
mean Malaysia, Malaysia is sixty two
percent Muslim. But but but the sort

491
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:39,239
of Islam is is that that slightly
the dominant religion. Um. Even though

492
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:43,960
they have freedom of religious you know, you can, you can, you

493
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:46,559
can belong to whatever religion you want
here, but Islam is the dominant ideology.

494
00:40:47,119 --> 00:40:54,079
Um. Anyway, Um, because
I couldn't have beer were we ordered

495
00:40:54,119 --> 00:41:00,559
tea instead and the tea was brought
to us. It was it was like

496
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:06,800
a really good strong cup. The
color was like a cup of Builder's tea

497
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:14,400
which had been brewed for a long
time, and I tasted it and it

498
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:16,199
was just about the best cup of
tea I've ever had. It was just

499
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:20,639
amazing. Um. I mean,
I'm a big fan of Massala chai,

500
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:23,400
which is what you get in India, you know that were flavored with cardamom

501
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:29,440
and stuff. But this Malaysian take
on it, the tea is really good.

502
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:32,239
It's grown in the Camera and Highlands. It's got a particularly robust flavor.

503
00:41:34,079 --> 00:41:38,159
It's dark, and they make it
with condensed milk and they pour it

504
00:41:38,199 --> 00:41:42,840
from a great height so that it's
sort of bubbles, I suppose. As

505
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,880
anyway, tear tarik ifever you can't
come to Malaysia. That's that's really good.

506
00:41:47,159 --> 00:41:50,320
So the tea in this restaurant was
good. What was the what were

507
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:54,760
the spicy dishes like? Um,
well, because we're right next to door

508
00:41:54,800 --> 00:42:00,280
to Thailand, actually I'd accidentally chanced
on a Malaysian restaurant doing Thai food,

509
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:02,920
and yeah, it was nice.
It was. In fact, In fact,

510
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,719
I had a fish dis which had
I would say, probably the best

511
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:12,639
broth I've ever ever had in a
in a time in a time meal.

512
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:15,920
It was. It was the lemon
grass and the and the ginger and everything

513
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:22,400
were just absolutely and and the spices
were absolutely perfect. Many qualm was that

514
00:42:22,639 --> 00:42:28,639
I wasn't totally convinced that the fish
was actually landed by fishermen in a traditional

515
00:42:28,679 --> 00:42:31,239
fishing boat that they had. They
have fish farms, and I really don't

516
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:36,719
like fish farms at all. I
think they're horrible things. I got.

517
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:39,679
I got very upset. The night
before we went to this Japanese restaurant and

518
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:43,440
in the in the in the Japanese
in the in the in the area outside

519
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:49,239
was a was a tank with these
unhappy looking fish in it, and some

520
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:52,960
of them only had one eye.
And I said to the woman, I

521
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:55,960
don't this. This makes me sad
seeing this fish with it with one eye.

522
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:59,079
So they packed each other's eyes out
and the tank. She says,

523
00:42:59,199 --> 00:43:02,119
Nana, it happens at the fish
farm. You know, either they get

524
00:43:02,199 --> 00:43:08,559
they attack each other in these these
these whatever fish fish living in fish farms,

525
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:12,719
or or it happens when they're being
removed. And I was thinking,

526
00:43:13,159 --> 00:43:19,079
this is really no life that I
don't I don't want fish being treated like

527
00:43:19,159 --> 00:43:22,199
this. I'd rather not eat a
fish than I have a fish and at

528
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:24,239
fish farm, or I'd rather pay
twice or even three times the price.

529
00:43:25,199 --> 00:43:30,400
And I think if fish farms is
another consequence of this horrible environmental agenda where

530
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:36,079
we have to feel guilty about eating
food stuffs and you know, meat products,

531
00:43:36,079 --> 00:43:39,880
and we're told that we have to
find new ways of creative ways of

532
00:43:39,559 --> 00:43:45,119
of of feeding the world and saving
the environment. And I'm thinking, if

533
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:49,559
if fish farms are the answer,
then then I don't like that solution.

534
00:43:49,639 --> 00:43:55,000
I think it's actually worse than the
problem. Um, didn't you tweet midweek

535
00:43:55,159 --> 00:44:01,280
that you'd you had a stomach up
set? No, it was actually somebody

536
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:06,639
else. I know I hadn't got
dysentrue, and I know I wish I

537
00:44:06,639 --> 00:44:09,400
hadn't tweeted it. Now I had
dysentry since you ask. I had it

538
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:15,920
when I was traveling through Africa on
my gap here in in nineteen eighty four,

539
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:22,800
and I came out of I've been
traveling through Zaire and you know other

540
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:27,559
other difficult countries. You know I've
been in. I've been in the rainforest.

541
00:44:27,599 --> 00:44:30,519
I'd caught I'd got jiggers in my
feet, these things that bury themselves

542
00:44:30,599 --> 00:44:35,679
into your into your skin and lay
eggs. Um, I got Jardier,

543
00:44:36,039 --> 00:44:40,199
I got amy bit dysentery. And
when you've got amer bit dysentery, you

544
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:45,800
really know it. You get the
worst stomach cramps imaginable you get. I

545
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:47,320
mean, I won't tell you what
I did to the downstairs lou of this

546
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:51,840
this this, this calapless couple that
were friends of my fathers, that had

547
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:55,000
agreed to look after to Nairobi.
It was just ideous. But anyway,

548
00:44:55,079 --> 00:45:00,320
so so so, No, I
haven't had dysentery, but somebody I know

549
00:45:00,679 --> 00:45:04,800
had thought they might have, and
I when I quizzed them on the phone,

550
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:07,119
it was clear to me that they
hadn't got it. So no,

551
00:45:07,639 --> 00:45:13,000
don't answer your questions. This is
this is the equivalent of you being disappointed

552
00:45:13,039 --> 00:45:16,639
that my story about going to see
QPR against Stop didn't end the QPR being

553
00:45:16,679 --> 00:45:22,039
relegated to League one. It's like
I was hoping this story about you being

554
00:45:22,079 --> 00:45:25,800
in would be pursuing these kind of
not trying to go off the beaten track

555
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:30,199
at a non touristy place, this
genuinely spicy local food had ended with you

556
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:37,599
getting dysentery. But you're all right. I acquired any really really juicy travelers

557
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:45,840
anecdotes other than the Tarrick that's far
as I can go, and I sorry

558
00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:52,239
about them. I had a te
I have a tea story as well from

559
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:58,519
my Canadian trips. So at this
resort called Lake Louise, where I discover,

560
00:45:58,559 --> 00:46:04,960
because I'm reading churchill biography that Churchill
actually visited Lake Louise in the nineteen

561
00:46:05,039 --> 00:46:14,239
thirties and did some paintings of the
local mountains. Anyway, instead of lunch,

562
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:19,519
we were offered at one stage afternoon
tea. And this was at noon.

563
00:46:20,679 --> 00:46:23,159
And I bridled in a kind of
typically British way, thinking, why

564
00:46:23,159 --> 00:46:28,119
are you calling it afternoon tea but
serving it at noon? Surely you know

565
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:32,199
you can't serve afternoon tea any time
before four pm at the very earliest.

566
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:37,199
But nonetheless, and they had these
kind of very different types of tea,

567
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:40,840
and I was immediately consulted by the
other journal I was the only brit one

568
00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:45,440
of two Brits in our in our
group of journalists, so the other people

569
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:47,719
present immediately consulted me, thinking,
well, you're British, you must know

570
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:51,119
which teased to choose. And of
course I know very little about tea,

571
00:46:51,199 --> 00:46:55,760
much much more about coffee. And
in addition to you know, a cup

572
00:46:55,840 --> 00:47:00,920
of earl gray creamy earl gray,
which takes did a bit oddly perfume to

573
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:06,519
me. Not the best couple of
people ever had. Then we would get

574
00:47:06,519 --> 00:47:09,960
then brought a kind of you know, one of those towers with kind of

575
00:47:10,199 --> 00:47:14,840
scoms at the top, with what
they called Devonshire cream, which I thought

576
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:16,920
might be clotted cream, but was
in fact just whipped cream. That the

577
00:47:17,079 --> 00:47:22,719
jam it came with was very good. And then beneath that what were build

578
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:25,639
as finger sandwiches, but weren't in
fact finger sandwiches at all. So one

579
00:47:25,679 --> 00:47:30,679
of the finger sandwiches was a slice
of cucumber, was something on the cucumber,

580
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:36,320
It wasn't like a cucumber sandwich cut
into fingers, and that all the

581
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:40,000
sandwiches were odd in different ways,
but none of them were finger sandwiches.

582
00:47:40,159 --> 00:47:45,039
And then at the bottom there were
kind of sort of about half a dozen

583
00:47:45,079 --> 00:47:47,519
different cakes. But it was it
was a rather odd experience and like no

584
00:47:47,679 --> 00:47:53,679
afternoon tea I've ever had. And
yeah, it sounds like your cup of

585
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:57,960
tea was was more of a success
than mine in other respects. Late Lewis

586
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:01,880
was very nice. I have to
say, um, do you think we'll

587
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:08,440
doing other the ad breaks. I
want you because I'm dying, dying about

588
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:13,039
this what I've been reading. Sure, yeah, let's do it. I

589
00:48:13,119 --> 00:48:27,960
break and come back in your culture
corner. Hello, I'm Dennis Neal,

590
00:48:28,119 --> 00:48:31,559
and here's what's bugging me. The
media are burying some of the biggest scandals

591
00:48:31,639 --> 00:48:36,519
of our lifetime, and I'm here
to call them out on it and make

592
00:48:36,599 --> 00:48:39,880
fun of them for it. The
Twitter files and government censorship, the Biden

593
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:45,800
documents, the Hunter laptop, the
lies of the FBI, and the Russia

594
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:51,840
Gate hoax, China spy balloons and
toxic chemical burnoffs. Join me to hear

595
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:55,880
things no other journalist will dare tell
you. All that and more on what's

596
00:48:55,880 --> 00:49:01,599
bugging Me? Available for download and
streaming every Thursday right here on the Ricochet

597
00:49:01,679 --> 00:49:24,800
Audio Network and wherever you get your
podcasts Ricochet. Join the conversation. So

598
00:49:25,039 --> 00:49:31,199
what have you been reading? As
you didn't? Haven't finished any but now

599
00:49:31,199 --> 00:49:35,079
I haven't. Now I'm on them
on the other about page two hundred and

600
00:49:35,079 --> 00:49:37,360
twenty or something. It's really good. It's really good. There's a very

601
00:49:37,519 --> 00:49:42,280
very good Do you remember it?
Have you read it? And I haven't

602
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:45,360
read it? Okay, there is
a very good steeple chase seen in it.

603
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:49,280
I mean it's quite it's quite traumatic, but it's but it's but it's

604
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:53,599
really it's it's it's really good.
He obviously understands horses, Um told straight.

605
00:49:54,159 --> 00:50:01,320
But the other book I was reading
was it's called something like Seventeen Years

606
00:50:01,360 --> 00:50:08,280
among the Dyak, and it was
published in nineteen eleven by somebody called Gomez

607
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:14,599
who despite well I'm presuming that's how
he pronounces his name. Maybe it's Gomes.

608
00:50:15,119 --> 00:50:16,960
It's spelled g O M E.
S unt. He was the son

609
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:22,159
of a missionary, and he's a
missionary himself, an English missionary who spent

610
00:50:22,679 --> 00:50:30,039
seventeen years living among the Dyak,
the sea dias of Sumatra. Bornea,

611
00:50:30,280 --> 00:50:35,320
I forget m one of one or
the other Sumatra. I think Sumatra.

612
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:45,639
Yeah, Sarah Waka Sarah and Um
it's supposed to well, it's suddenly in

613
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:51,719
its time it was considered the definitive
text on the Dyak people and the diets

614
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:58,119
is you probably know work were these
these headhunters and um they lived lived in

615
00:50:58,119 --> 00:51:01,079
in the jungle in their long houses. And he goes into detail of all

616
00:51:01,119 --> 00:51:07,199
the kind of weird things they do, like filing down their teeth and they

617
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:12,159
dye their teeth black because it's it's
considered to be more more more attractive,

618
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:19,760
and their their courtship rituals. So
when they're courting each other, they because

619
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:22,440
there's no privacy in the long houses, the only the only time they get

620
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:27,320
any privacy for courting is it in
the middle of the night when everyone's asleep,

621
00:51:27,840 --> 00:51:32,920
and the man goes up, climbs
up into the women the area where

622
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:40,719
the young female virgins sleep, and
he carries a beetle nut wrapped in a

623
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:50,119
leaf, and um, he wakes
her up. If she if she's interested,

624
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:52,559
then she'll let him to stay,
let him stay, and they'll they'll

625
00:51:52,679 --> 00:51:58,840
live side by side, chewing beetle
nuts and leaves until until the morning.

626
00:51:59,280 --> 00:52:02,000
And if not, she says,
hadn't you better go and light the fire

627
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:06,440
or light the light or something like
that. There's some sort of code phrase.

628
00:52:07,119 --> 00:52:10,119
Um. And it goes into it
goes into all these details about every

629
00:52:10,159 --> 00:52:15,920
aspect of diact life, including head
hunting, which was which was banned by

630
00:52:15,960 --> 00:52:25,039
the White Rajah of Sarawak Jay James
Brooke. Um and um uh, I

631
00:52:25,039 --> 00:52:29,320
mean, I mean you know it
took years for for head hunting to be

632
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:35,360
completely got rid of out of their
culture because because getting heads was was the

633
00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:38,920
mark of a man in their culture. If you wanted to get a really

634
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:42,800
good wife, or if you wanted
to be head of the tribe, you

635
00:52:42,880 --> 00:52:45,519
really needed to go out of and
and go to another tribe and chop,

636
00:52:45,599 --> 00:52:49,199
chop one one or two of their
heads off and bring it back home,

637
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:53,440
and then they'd be a great feast. But my favorite section of the book

638
00:52:54,159 --> 00:53:00,119
is the one on their superstitions UM, because obviously they have many, many

639
00:53:00,159 --> 00:53:07,599
superstitions. They're constantly look looking for
omens in things. And there are seven

640
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:14,599
types of bird of omen bird in
their culture. And UM say they're going

641
00:53:14,639 --> 00:53:22,880
to say they're going to plant a
field. They they go up and they

642
00:53:22,920 --> 00:53:28,079
have to listen to the foot of
a specific omen bird calling from their left,

643
00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:31,039
and if it calls from their right, this's the first omen bird,

644
00:53:31,039 --> 00:53:35,679
the particular variety of omen bird.
Then the day is absolutely ruined. They've

645
00:53:35,719 --> 00:53:38,199
just got they've just got to give
up because there's no point going on because

646
00:53:38,199 --> 00:53:43,079
the omen bird is called from the
wrong side. But suppose that the omen

647
00:53:43,159 --> 00:53:45,039
bird, the right omen bird is
called from the left side. So they

648
00:53:45,159 --> 00:53:50,360
collect a twig, and then they
have to get the next variety of omen

649
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:53,199
bird to call from maybe from maybe
from the right, and they have to

650
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:58,639
hear the calls the seven omen birds
and collect a twig, but each each

651
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:05,159
open bird buried in the Yeah,
that's elate. I was thinking. I

652
00:54:05,199 --> 00:54:09,440
mean, I thought I had obsessive
compulsive disorder because I used to do things

653
00:54:09,480 --> 00:54:13,960
like I used to get told off
by the wife. She catches me touching

654
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:16,559
walls with my hands. You know, like when you're walking down the corridor

655
00:54:16,599 --> 00:54:22,280
and you have to touch both walls
evenly with even pressure. Do you ever

656
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:25,519
do that? No, whatever,
I've never heard of it. Well,

657
00:54:25,559 --> 00:54:30,320
I sort of wards off evil,
you know, I mean, what one

658
00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:34,639
invents these rituals that that one does
or I used to do. I salute,

659
00:54:34,639 --> 00:54:37,519
I salute magpies. Yeah, I
suppose magpies are an omen bird,

660
00:54:37,559 --> 00:54:43,440
and in order in order to kind
of neutralize any negative effect seeing the magpie

661
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:45,800
might have, I'll salute the magpie. But beyond that, I don't really

662
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:50,159
have any superstitions they are that that
that would be our Roman bird. Yeah

663
00:54:50,199 --> 00:54:52,760
exactly. Yeah, But anyway,
if you can get a hold of a

664
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:59,280
copy, I strongly recommend seventeen years
among the diac Okay, I remember I

665
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:04,599
remember getting a great deal of pleasure
from Into the Heart of Borneo by the

666
00:55:04,719 --> 00:55:07,079
poet James Fenton and if you've read
that, But it's about this kind of

667
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:15,840
trip that he and I think Ian
Hamilton and possibly Christopher Hitchens made to Borneo

668
00:55:15,880 --> 00:55:20,280
in sort of nineteen eighty three or
maybe a bit before that. And he

669
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:24,360
had James Fentin in particularly, had
the most terrible time, what what disasters

670
00:55:24,400 --> 00:55:30,360
could befall him, what infections he
could contract, he got and and it's

671
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:36,320
it's a sort of amusing kind of
disaster story about this trip they made to

672
00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:42,400
Borneo, totally unprepared but quite entertaining. I really want to go there,

673
00:55:43,519 --> 00:55:52,599
um so um. I've I've been
continuing to read Andrew Roberts's magisterial biography of

674
00:55:52,679 --> 00:55:57,639
Churchill. I'm up to nineteen thirty
seven and greatly looking forward to his comeback.

675
00:55:58,199 --> 00:56:01,159
He's still in the wilderness years at
the moment, but over the next

676
00:56:01,159 --> 00:56:07,880
three years he's going to he's going
to gradually reascend the Greasy Pole. So

677
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:12,639
I'm looking forward. I read it. I can tell you he just he

678
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:21,800
surrenders in thirty nine and he's really
crap. Okay, well that's disappointing.

679
00:56:22,159 --> 00:56:25,280
I'd understood it to have a different
ending, but so anyway, I'm looking

680
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:30,599
forward to reading the next section.
But I've also I haven't really watched it.

681
00:56:30,639 --> 00:56:37,239
I've been so busy traveling around,
whether to um the Rocky Mountains in

682
00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:40,880
Canada or to Stoke on Trent,
that I haven't had a chance to really

683
00:56:40,920 --> 00:56:46,280
watch anything new recently. James.
I'm still working my way through The Playlist,

684
00:56:46,280 --> 00:56:51,320
which I'm still enjoying, and The
Night Manager, though I'm plodding through

685
00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:52,519
that rather slowly, but I expect
to get to the end of it.

686
00:56:53,880 --> 00:57:01,800
I'm hoping to see air the new
Ben Affleck Matt Damon film about out the

687
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:10,519
Nike's decision to sponsor a basketball shoe
UM and It's partnership with Michael Jordan,

688
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:15,480
which which is apparently, I mean, quite entertaining, quite surprisingly, even

689
00:57:15,480 --> 00:57:20,039
though it's really just about you know, a corporation becoming successful, so he

690
00:57:20,079 --> 00:57:22,360
wouldn't have thought would be entertaining,
but apparently it is. Um. So

691
00:57:22,400 --> 00:57:25,159
I'm going to go and see that. But beyond that, I haven't really

692
00:57:25,199 --> 00:57:30,679
seen anything or read anything since since
the last talking Jemraframe. Oh, I

693
00:57:30,719 --> 00:57:32,880
did watch the second half of that. You remember I've mentioned on the on

694
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:39,119
the flight I started watching this thing
about this morbidly obese man, the whale

695
00:57:39,199 --> 00:57:44,599
whale played by that actor the year
that I don't know. Brendan's umber other

696
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:47,320
Brendan Fraser. Yeah, he was
in the Mummy film. You watch films?

697
00:57:47,519 --> 00:57:52,400
Who is he? What is he
was? Originally he was his his

698
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:57,719
his his um. He was made
famous by the Mummy films, which I

699
00:57:57,760 --> 00:58:04,599
guess you know. There was a
series of films about action comedies about Laura

700
00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:10,000
Oh and the Curse of the Mummy. They were kind of yeah, mildly

701
00:58:10,119 --> 00:58:15,000
entertaining popcorn movies. Yeah, that's
the worst genre of all, isn't it.

702
00:58:15,159 --> 00:58:17,079
It was like kind of it was
like like a kind of a b

703
00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:23,519
tech version of Raiders. Yeah,
exactly exactly. But you wouldn't call Raiders

704
00:58:23,679 --> 00:58:29,119
action comedies, would you. They're
they're like action No, I think you

705
00:58:29,119 --> 00:58:31,039
call them. I think you call
them action comedies. I think you wouldn't.

706
00:58:31,159 --> 00:58:35,960
You wouldn't, absolutely not. This
is going to be another another division

707
00:58:36,039 --> 00:58:39,239
of that. It's going to really
code I would suggest that most people would

708
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:44,480
not describe Raiders as an action comedy. What would you what genre do you

709
00:58:44,519 --> 00:58:50,840
think it fits into? Just action? I mean, what do I don't

710
00:58:50,840 --> 00:58:52,239
know? Just not action comedy is
what I'd say. Okay, okay,

711
00:58:52,760 --> 00:58:58,639
But anyway, as I watched on
the whale, I mean, it's quite

712
00:58:58,639 --> 00:59:02,480
interesting watching him play this morbidly abased
man. You know that the grizzly detail.

713
00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:09,079
Um. But it's it's clearly but
clearly based on a play, and

714
00:59:09,800 --> 00:59:17,519
the play was clearly written by by
somebody who has a sort of a set

715
00:59:17,599 --> 00:59:23,960
of standard woke values. For example, homosexuality is clearly, in his mind

716
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:34,639
the highest form of love um.
Christianity is essentially um stifling um. And

717
00:59:35,320 --> 00:59:37,400
for example, there's a there's a
sort of there's a there's a there's a

718
00:59:37,400 --> 00:59:45,800
plot detail whereby one of the characters
mentioned in the play has committed suicide because

719
00:59:45,800 --> 00:59:50,880
he used to be he used to
belong to this kind of Christian family,

720
00:59:51,440 --> 00:59:55,079
and then when the Christian family discovered
that he was gay, they chucked him

721
00:59:55,079 --> 00:59:59,920
out of the house and he starved
himself to death or something other. Id

722
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:05,000
I think this is the sort of
scenario that only exists in the mind of

723
01:00:04,239 --> 01:00:10,079
a liberal American playwright. It's not. It's not it's not a kind of

724
01:00:10,599 --> 01:00:15,320
it's not most of us encounter in
real life. And it's just the kind

725
01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:17,800
of thing you would work into a
player that was probably a big hit off

726
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:22,719
Broadway or something and then got made
into a film by Darren Aronofsky. I'm

727
01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:24,599
just guessing. But a lot of
a lot of that stuff prepped in a

728
01:00:24,639 --> 01:00:29,159
bit and left a bit of a
natas in my mouth and what was otherwise

729
01:00:29,239 --> 01:00:34,840
quite a good art house film,
and and and I guess it's odd that

730
01:00:34,480 --> 01:00:38,400
that I didn't realize. But it's
funny that the film should pander to kind

731
01:00:38,400 --> 01:00:45,079
of you know, white liberal Upper
east Side wokeys, when actually it's been

732
01:00:45,559 --> 01:00:52,159
quite criticized for, um, the
kind of fat equivalent of cultural appropriation of

733
01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:59,280
Yea from the action movie. Yeah, this is like, this is fat

734
01:00:59,320 --> 01:01:02,519
face. It's equivalent of Blackfoot's.
You know, I think he was a

735
01:01:02,519 --> 01:01:06,000
good fatman. I only wanted see
him in a fat suit from now on.

736
01:01:06,159 --> 01:01:10,480
Actually, I think we can make
as of fat comedies that I mean.

737
01:01:10,960 --> 01:01:15,480
It's it seemed like, I mean, Brendan Fraser has been sort of

738
01:01:15,679 --> 01:01:22,400
almost universally praised, apart from by
the kind of fattists for um for kind

739
01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:24,519
of being so brave as to kind
of put on a fat suit and play

740
01:01:24,519 --> 01:01:29,880
a fat man. But yeah,
back in the day, I remember Robert

741
01:01:29,880 --> 01:01:35,440
de Niro was enraging bull. When
you know the central character has to get

742
01:01:35,559 --> 01:01:37,760
fat. Towards the end, Robert
Robert DeNiro actually gained the weight. That

743
01:01:37,840 --> 01:01:42,239
was what really good actors were supposed
to do then. That was the method.

744
01:01:42,480 --> 01:01:44,719
If you were playing a fat person, you had to get fat.

745
01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:46,599
If you're playing a thin person,
you had to lose the weight. Um.

746
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:50,239
So it does seem a bit,
a bit it's slightly cheating, even

747
01:01:50,280 --> 01:01:53,079
from a kind of purist acting point
of view. So he kind of you

748
01:01:53,199 --> 01:01:58,000
lose at both ends, whether whether
you're someone who doesn't think acting is real

749
01:01:58,079 --> 01:02:00,400
and you have to actually be the
per and you're playing, whether it's gay

750
01:02:00,480 --> 01:02:06,119
trends or fat or white or black
or whatever. To even the purest actors

751
01:02:06,119 --> 01:02:08,679
a year, you have to transform
yourself into the person you're playing. He

752
01:02:08,679 --> 01:02:13,559
hasn't really done either, has he. But yeah, so, but it

753
01:02:13,599 --> 01:02:17,880
didn't stop him winning the Oscars.
You won the Oscar the Best Actor.

754
01:02:17,960 --> 01:02:22,760
Yeah, Oh I see, Oh
right, Okay, so I've actually watched

755
01:02:22,760 --> 01:02:24,280
a film which is won an oscar. Right, okay, yes, there

756
01:02:24,320 --> 01:02:28,719
you go. Right, it's my
bedtime now, so I'm gonna have to

757
01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:30,960
go, okay, James, Well, look good to talk to you.

758
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:32,760
Thanks for staying up. What it's
like take eleven pm there, right,

759
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:38,199
whatever. You have to get up
early too, because otherwise it gets too

760
01:02:38,280 --> 01:02:44,960
hot, right right, don't be
out of ten really? Okay? All

761
01:02:45,000 --> 01:02:46,920
right, well, look good to
talk to you. Don't get don't get

762
01:02:46,960 --> 01:02:52,719
dysentery. Go easy on those exotic
exotic local cuisine full of spices. I

763
01:02:52,719 --> 01:02:55,320
don't want to lose you Jones anyway, so talk to you next week,

764
01:02:57,000 --> 01:03:19,880
okay. Right by its unfold,
Ricochet joined the conversation