BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - BudPod 274 - Hello Labour!

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

This week the boys dive into a new post-election world, the first BudPod under the new Labour government! Phil and Pierre breakdown some of their favourite moments from Thursday night, Labour's first few days in power, our weekly correspondents of course, and...a little treat for you guys at the end...stay tuned!Pierre's book is out in less than 10 days!Pre-Order here! Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Bud Pod 274. 274. Hello, Labor! Very nice. It's the first podcast, full podcast under a Labor government here in the UK of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. What a time to be alive. It is true, isn't it? Because it wasn't even coalition when we started.

It was pure Tory. Yeah, this is the first Labour government of our adult lives? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Certainly the first Labour government of our careers. Yes, Labour was in charge when we moved to the UK, but then we didn't move to the UK, we moved to the Outer Man, which has its own government. So I wasn't living under Blair or Gordon Brown. Right. Oh, I didn't realize it was that separate a government. It's its own government. Oh. Like Jersey, Guernsey, it's a Crown protectorate. Okay. Yeah.

So no change for those guys. Sorry. No, sorry, guys. And then when I was at uni, it was like Gordon Brown for what, like three months or whatever? However long it took for the 2010 election? Yeah. And then it was coalition. I agree with Nick and David Cameron and the betrayal on tuition fees and the PR referendum. Yes, which I guess the right wing of the UK are regretting not voting yes on now. Yeah, and I'm regretting voting yes on then because I was so...

I remember the day after the PR referendum and this is kind of what fucking 19 year old I was. I was like getting down to vote for PR for proportional representation in the UK. And the next day it was, I wouldn't feel that upset until Brexit again with a democratic result. And then looking back, I was like, why was I so into PR? I now see PR as an ungovernable nightmare of the situation to have. Belgium. Belgium, Israel, France.

Sometimes. It's not proportional, but they do the rounds. The rounds of voting. Where else is proportional representation? Is this somewhere weird? Like Brazil? Ah, Brazil, yeah. And it ends up, they've got like 40 different parties or something. proportional representation. Is this something weird like Brazil? Ah, Brazil. Yeah. And it ends up, they've got like 40 different parties or something. It's crazy. And they're all in parliament at the same time.

Well, there used to be the idea was that proportional representation would lead to a constant progressive government. Yes. Right. That was the theory. Yeah. And it's, and, and, and it Yeah, and it would more directly represent the people's interests. Yes, which it may or may not. But eventually with enough proportional representation, you tend to every single person in the country having a voice in parliament, which is not...

The most proportional representation would be for every decision to be a full national referendum. Yes, that would be correct. Because then everyone would be fully represented on all things at all times. And we all know how that turns out. But just doing it with like a road in Wales. Yeah. A whole country has to vote on this.

Otherwise it's not fair. But the important thing is the centrist dads have won. We won. We won. Thank you very much to the pod bird who sent us that clip on election night. Yes, certainly the next day of you. A clip of me recounting election night 2019. I went to a very Tory posh party where everyone was wearing

ski jackets. And at the end of it, a lady girl just came up to me and said, we won. We won. We won. She had the voice of, um, is it, is it the, the Caesar in Futurama, the robot Caesar? Oh, decadence, but yeah, it's almost called a decadence. Oh, Decadence Bot. Yeah, I think it's called. Oh, grapes! The one who's always got grapes on his, he's got like a robot belly. Yeah, that's right. Decadence Bot voice. His body is the... Oh, he's the Shazlong. He's the Shazlong. Yeah, that's right. He's sort of built into it. Yeah, she did sound like that. Now the centrist dads have won. The most boring people you know have won and they're gonna, you know, people have always

worried about what happens when the centrist dads take power. And we've seen what happens, which is they immediately start doing really boring things like reform planning, planning laws. I mean, the speed with which this is great. I mean, they worked on Saturday, this Labour government. Imagine they've already they've already killed Rwanda. The policy, not the policy. Thank goodness.

Yeah. And they've already killed that. They haven't gone. You can't send anyone there if it's not there. But it's great. You know, and Kirsten Thomas, a news conference I thought was great. He was just He was just answering questions. It was crazy. It was so weird after the last eight to ten years to watch Prime

Minister just answer the questions. Just, no, yep, no, this is what we're doing. And like a news reporter said, is the random policy dead in the water? And Kistama just goes, it was already dead in the water. It was never workable. Great. Just great. It was never workable. Great. Just great. Just done already. It's the things that people are saying that they like about the new government are in a good way so pathetic. Yes.

The things that they like are pathetic. They like about the new government. Yeah, it's pathetic to hear someone saying, someone's answering the questions. There's not even a poo in my sandwich. Like I say, embarrassing how bad it's been. Yeah. That we're like delighted and surprised that someone is saying yes or no to it.

Yes or no. I was reading. It's so humiliating. Hugo Rifkin's column in the Times, and he's like, we're going to have to get used to stability, because already, right after Labour won the biggest majority since Blair, everyone's going, oh, but it's built on shaky ground.

What are they going to do in, oh, yeah, 2029. Oh, yeah, there's five years of this enormous majority. I saw a crazy stat, which was, um, if the Tories repeat, uh, their performance in 2005 and 2010 elections, they would like the number of MPs they added going against Blair, let's say they did that again over that period of time, 10 years, they would still not reach the number of Tory MPs they had in 1997 after the landslide defeat. Wow.

They're having to climb to the 97 defeat level. Wow. They're really fucked. It's so funny. I heard today that the Labour's majority is more than the number of Conservative MPs there are. That's the amount of Labour MPs more than Tories is more than the entire number of Tories. I wonder what they're going to do. Rees-Mogg's gone. Rees-Mogg's gone. The ghost of the parliament has gone.

Liz Truss is gone. So it's not all good news. I do. I don't know why I hold a candle for Truss. There's something I just love. Whenever she comes on, I go, I don't know why I just her kind of gormless face. There's something in her face that suggests she's never sure what room she's in. Yeah, she looks like me walking around a sort of conference center in a country where I

know no one speaks English. So not like a conference center abroad in like, you know, Berlin or Amsterdam or somewhere where they all speak English. That's it. But like I'm in a conference center and I'm lost and I'm in, I don't know, let's say like rural Thailand. Yes. Just sort of walking around like this.

Is this the... She looks like she's walking around. She looks like an actor walking around a comic con in Romania, trying to find her to the show that she's meant to be on a panel on, you know? She looks like she's about to very hopefully say the name of the show she was in 10 years ago, and just hoping that whoever she's chosen to talk to goes, ah, yeah, and sort of point her. Ah, yes. Space gun four. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, yeah, yeah. Just going, ah, yes, yes. Family disaster. Yes, yes. The sitcom. So she's a-

Please, this way. She's an ex-prime minister who lost her seat and then didn't even have the sense of duty and honor to do a speech, a goodbye speech. Because people like Jacob Rees-Mogg and Grant Schaap also lost their seats and they gave, and surprisingly in Rees-Mogg's case, classy enough goodbye speeches. Well, for a man who owns that many top hats, class is what he's obsessed with. I mean, you somehow find, Rhys Mock has somehow managed to find a pair of glasses that look like two monocles. You know what I mean?

He looks like he's double monocle. He looks like he's double. When you look at Jacob Rhys Mock, you don't go, oh, that guy has two specs. You go, why does that man have two monocles? And you go, oh, there's a pair of glasses. He's managed to give the appearance of a man who is also a portrait of himself. He looks like his own oil painting. Yes. But he said a goodbye, good luck speech. But Liz Truss, who was prime minister,

just rage quitted out of it. Just wandered out the door. Lost. Rage quit it out of there. Just wandered out the door. Lost. Yep. In fairness, yeah, that is annoying because I guess it's unprofessional. It's not very respectful. But mainly she

denied us the chance to enjoy what would have been one of the most mental speeches of the night. Rambling on about the deep state and all the people trying to sabotage her, all that Fox News shit she's been saying in America. And that's what she says after a full night's sleep.

Can you imagine her at 7 a.m. having no sleep? 7 a.m. Humiliated. What kind of space lizard shit will she come out with then? Yeah, just David Icke level. If you'll notice, a lot of the votes are covered in lizard goo, something like that. It could have been great. Although I will say, I'm not surprised that Jacob Rees-Mogg gave a classy speech because he's obsessed with that sort of politeness. How funny would it have been if

that, like him finally being defeated, he'd been like, you know, when the charming aristocrat just admits he's Dracula. Oh, yeah. And just him just like going up to do the speech, like all dignified, all like long set somber face. And as he gets to the microphone, he just grabs the lectern and like leans in or hunched. He goes, well, you've done it. Like a full insane, like horrible teeth, like just going full evil and his accent's not even the same anymore Just like screaming you fool like a full on insane villain because vampires have to be invited into Parliament And then as he left the stage like pulling his coat his cloak across himself Yeah, God, they're just going fuck Candidates just doing a polite clap as he disappears. Monster raving loony party twat just nodding while he's talking.

Just the least funny idea in the world, the monster raving loony party. It is such a good example of a joke that has run its course. Oh yeah. It's over. It really is. The joke is, imagine a silly man. Imagine the silly man wanted a serious job. Wouldn't that be silly? And the answer, of course, is yes. But it

used to be yes. What? Where's hang on, hang on. A silly man wants a serious job. But that would be bad. Wouldn't it? That would be silly. Well, and some of his policies are sort of tongue in cheek, like, socratically reasonable through pure logic, like in a silly way. Like one of their policies was, um, replace the border force with GP receptionists because

then no one would ever get through. Oh, right. You should go, oh, that's good. That's good. That doesn't justify the... No, it doesn't. Well, another silly man has gone is George Galloway in Rochdale. Always good to see a silly man beat.

This is the election where men with eccentric hats got kicked out. Yes. Pretty smart, Galloway. If you're wearing an old-fashioned hat, you're out of here, son. We stayed up all night. Full disclosure to Pot Buds, Pierre and I and Felipe almost, stayed up all night watching the election results. 5.30 AM.

We mistrust losing. That was like 7.30 AM, thank God. Yeah. Because there was no speech. Thank God we didn't stay up for it. That's true. It would have been disappointment. Yeah.

But we did. We stayed up hooting and hollering as various, well, not nearly enough stats went across the screen, actually. Also, the commentary being delivered by people who just say the same thing over and over again. You just keep saying, wow, that's it. That's this. This is this is different to the previous government is. Yeah, I did just want pure numbers on the screen. We did. We got occasional, you know, doing doing the vote counts, you go, oh, if there was close between reform and like watching reform beat the Tories by pretty big margins in seat after seat.

Crazy. But then like they stopped showing that and just started having people who were in politics 17 years ago who are trying to sell a memoir now. Yeah. Interviewed about nothing. ago who are trying to sell a memoir now, interviewed about nothing. And it was an election broadcasting for the podcast stage. You had you had ex Tory politicians already seemingly trying to pivot into the podcast era. You know, because that is now the immediate next step after a job in government is you you get a podcast and go hang it.

Yeah, that's, that's it. You it. You had people who are ministers only hours ago saying how much they love Lisa mattress. They're just pause a quarter and going, I probably wouldn't have come up with a crazy budget if I'd had a good night's sleep. Yes, of course, some of these outgoing Tory MPs will be so devastated by their loss, they'll have to talk to BetterHelp, who I recommend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. Yeah.

So, are you excited about the new Boringa Age? They've already said that local councils can't stop wind farms, and the central government's going to decide that. And they ended up lifting the ban on onshore wind farms. So now we can stop wind farms. Central government's going to decide that. And they ended up lifting the ban on onshore wind farms. So now we can build a wind farm. In my ass. The ground. I will let you build a wind farm on my fucking head. Just get it

done. I don't care how many rare slugs there are. I don't care if birds like nesting nearby. I hope all the birds die in the beautiful wind farm. Well, do you remember early on about pod? We said we wanted to start a party that was called the well, too bad party where it's like we want to build a wind farm here. And if local residents said, oh, it spoils our view of a blade of grass, we go all too bad.

Well, too bad. Well, on the first on basically the first day of this labor government, they've already gone all too bad. Yeah on wind farms. It's amazing. One of them will too bad. We well too bad. On wind farms. It's amazing. Well too bad. The local government can't decide anymore. It's up to us.

It's very good. Jenrick or some other Tory was complaining about one of these things they're just forcing through, ruining some beautiful green space in his constituency. And then someone posted a satellite, Google Earth satellite image of the tiny square where it'll be built. And the entire area around it is just pure green. It's just rolling forests and fields and hills and things. And it's like, oh, so that's the impact. But even then, like, that's how much green is left. It's still fucking

there, man. Also, whenever they say it spoils the view for residents. Sorry, if there are seven residents, they can fuck off. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not not transferring to a green power source for the sake of seven grumpy retirees. It's not happening. Also, I like how they look. The wind, I think wind turbine looks brilliant. It looks sick. It's like calming the, it's like having a space windmill outside. It's like you're in Space Holland. Yeah. It's like being in fucking Space Holland. Who wouldn't want to live in Space Holland? Can you imagine the weedon style laser bike lanes?

Oh man, the sex workers from Zygron 6? Controversially moving to Space Holland? Forget it. The far right ascendancy in Space Holland? The far right ascendancy in Space Holland. So already in a since since since a bonus pod went out, the the Labour government has done more than the Green Party ever have and ever could because the Green Party are already opposing the windmills. Yeah, well, one of the Green Party leaders is pro wind farms but against the electricity pylons required to transfer the electricity from the wind farms to the grid. Yeah, because you might think, oh yeah, I'm for wind farms.

Oh, the wires that connect the turbines to the electricity grid, I'm against those. I'm okay with ice cream. I just hate spoons and mouths. I hate spoons and mouths. I want ice cream to just be in a fridge somewhere. I just hate spoons and mouths. I just hate spoons and mouths. I want ice cream to just be in a fridge somewhere. I just want ice cream to be in my mouth. I just want it to be in my mouth. I want it to be in my stomach.

I'm against mouths. Oh, even mouth is too much. I'm against mouths and spoons. Wow. Okay. I want the ice cream that's over there to be in my stomach right now. Cause I'm really smart and I care about the future of the planet. What annoys me is that the same people who say Dumbass shit like that are the same people who go on and on about how it's an emergency today and people are dying right now Yeah, and it's like it's an emergency if this every second we waste is another

Mountain of skulls and then you go right so we're gonna build a wind farm and they go. Oh, no, no, no No, no, no, no, no, no there slow down. Come on now. Slow down. People about you need an 18 month planning review. occupied by much of all Doris's fucking the most furious old women you've ever met writing letters to clog up the system. One of the green MPs candidates, maybe even the guy co leader. Yeah, I can't remember what the guy co leader name is. Also, the other couple of days ago, posted posted a bit of spoken word, a poem with just straight out Ukraine conspiracy theories.

These people don't think they're not serious people. Why can't they be like the German Greens? What do they do? They're just about science, from what I can tell. And they're more pro-arming Ukraine than Schultzes. Ah, great. Militant greens. Militant German greens. Sounds like a salad. A very bitter salad.

So the rump steak comes with chips or militant German greens that have been saed. So a great week for the centrist dads. I mean, a great week for the left, let's be honest, by any parlance pre 2015, a great week for the left. Now we have to say a great week for centrism, but it's a great week for the left. The Labour Party is in a very strong position in the left. Now we have to say a great week for centrism. But it's a great week for the left. The Labour Party is in a very strong position in the UK. The most state-educated cabinet in history. Mm-hmm. First female come chancellor of the extracar.

Loads of stuff like that. And everyone who considers themselves on the left in the UK is upset. Yeah. They're more upset than the Tories. Oh yeah. Because there's nothing to be done about that. They were going to be upset anyway. That has to be factored in. And they've won Islington North. Congratulations. Oh yeah, yeah. I saw them all canvassing. I think I saw his son.

Five more years of jam and whinging. Great. Congratulations. I hope you enjoy the mud bed you've made for yourselves. But it's five more. want, they wanted was five more years of the same thing from the same guy. Yeah. Yeah. And they'll get it. They'll get it. They'll get it. Cobham was always a constituency MP above all. Well, I saw, I got the leaflet. I mean, I don't live in the constituency,

but I got handed one anyway. Oh, right. Yeah. I live next, I live, if I live 10 meters further north, I think I'd be in the constituency. So I'm right on the border. And the leaflet was full of like the achievements. And most of the achievements were local stuff, like council level stuff, like a bus lane being stopped from happening. A highway thing.

No, a bus lane being saved, a route, and then a highway being stopped, which is council shit. You elect your MP to make laws. But we've got all confused. Everyone thinks your MP is your councillor. Yeah, but the MP does take on local issues. But they have no official power. It's like hiring a bully. That's really convincing. It might work, but it's got absolutely no government framework to work. Okay. So whenever people are like, I wrote to my MP and now the council have fixed something,

that's the council either doing the MP a favor or being afraid of the MP. The council have no reason to listen to the MP legally. It's just a way of getting attention. So people get confused. They go, I wrote to my MP about the bin collections. Well, you shouldn't have done that. That's your council. But then, so is Islington North Council Labour then? Islington Council in general is like 52 Labour councillors and like two Greens or something. Yeah. Oh, and it has been for 100 years and will be for 100,000 years.

Yeah. Come on. Well, in conclusion, let's keep this shit boring for five years. We finally might have boring politics. I can't wait to not remember who's minister for what. Yeah. As opposed to remembering in the same way I remember if I've left my wallet somewhere. Just going, oh God, they're ministers. But I'm so excited by how like just professional everything is. David Lammy is already going around Europe basically saying, sorry, let's work this out now.

Let's be, no, we're not, no, Custom Union, you're not interested at all, wink, wink, toink, toink. No, that's not what we're here to talk about at some point maybe. We just want to be closer, toink, toink, wink, wink, to you guys. Do you know what? I can't wait to be let down. Really?

Yeah, because I have a feeling that when I am let down and disappointed in something that the government has failed at, it will be for reasonable reasons. As opposed to, sorry, we failed at that because I hired my cousin's boyfriend to fuck it, you know. Yeah. I mean, a headline today on the Times was, Stammer under pressure to increase military budget. And it's written like a big scary headline. And my body was already prepped to go, oh, Jesus Christ. And I went, oh yeah, well, that's just something

I have to consider. After all these years, I'm just so prepped for the headline to be about a crisis or something. Or a scandal. Or a scandal or a clearly obvious decision that's been fucked up Yeah, but it's just like oh, yeah. I mean, that's something I have to consider now is them whether or not to increase defense spending Yeah, that's become what it always should have been. Yeah quite a boring political headline. Yeah, it's fantastic. I'm so

Happy in such a quiet Professional way Yeah, it's fantastic. I'm so happy in such a quiet professional way. I'm just, yeah, it's just great. Rachel Reeves, I like her a lot. She's a chess champion. Oh, really? Yep. She has a husky ass voice. She worked with the Bank of England. She's an actual economist working as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Can you believe that? That can't be right. That's the kind of thing that you just think is science fiction.

It sounds like science fiction to me. You mean it's not just like a guy, some fucking chap. It seems mad to me. But I know they'll let me down at some point. I get really annoyed with them. Yeah, but hopefully it'll be like... It'll be for something boring. It'll be something boring. It'll be like not enough money has been put in this particular branch of this particular railway system instead of someone accidentally sold Cornwall to Brazil. How do you even sell Cornwall to Brazil? How did that happen? I don't know. We just accidentally sold Cornwall to Brazil for like 15 pounds. Wow! I don't know. We've set up an inquiry to figure out how it happened. That guy with criminal convictions we hired turned out to be quite bad at his job. Also they've said they're going to and they're looking up all the

COVID contracts that were given out people who should not have had COVID contracts. People are going to jail. Yeah. Yeah. And they're saying we're going to get all that money back. It's like, wow, really? Can you imagine? I still don't believe it. I'm still like, yeah, whatever. I've been trained not to expect anything good or effective to happen now. We're like the public are like a beaten dog. Yeah. We're so delighted that we're just being allowed in a house and fed, wagging our tails. It's embarrassing.

We're a spider, we're the spider dog. Do you know about the spider dog? Have I ever told you this? In Australia a spider, we're a spider dog. Do you know about the spider dog? Have I ever told you this? In Australia, there was something called a spider dog. What? It's like, I think it's from like, I think it's like Australian farms and homesteads in a country. They have a spider dog who they keep saying spider dog. They keep the sort of spider dog is a dog.

They don't let in the house. They don't let anywhere near that has to circle the perimeter of the house who isn't fed and has to eat spiders. Fuck off. And they're called spider dogs. And I'm not sure what the point of having them is. I guess they stop spiders approaching your house. And I think they also are so ravenous, they attack intruders, intruders quite intensely. Okay. So it's a guard dog brackets eat spiders.

Yeah. Felipe bring that up. Would you the spider dog? What's the say about spider dogs? All I'm getting is mutant spider dog. No, it's not mutant spider dog. Also, maybe I dreamt a nightmare to this idea of the spider dog. Those videos of where they make a dog dressed like a big giant spider and like run around. That's what I'm thinking of. No, it isn't. The spider dog is definitely something I've heard of, but maybe it's an urban myth. Spider dog Australia. Spider dog Australia. Maybe I was punked in Melbourne. Maybe you were, like the whole drop bears thing. Also drop bears. It's like in an urban myth, Australians taunt tourists with like this, these

special bears called drop bears that fall off trees and attack your head. So maybe that's the new drop bears, is a spider dog. Well, what is real, also that happened over the weekend. Also another win for the left is a prize left-wing win in France. Everyone's thinking Le Pen's going to win this. But I was always like, no, what France likes to do is threaten Europe with a far-right autocracy and pull out. They do it a lot. They do it a lot, and they've really done it at the last second this time. And it took a lot of effort though. It was such a dumb risk.

Yeah. And like people who normally... And Macron is kind of pretending this is what he was aiming for, but now he's sort of... Just as I planned. A knife in my bum. Now I will get you... In my left cheek. In my left cheek.

Hmm. But like he had to get to the point where he was asking his coalition of centrist dads to vote for the communist party in a particular district and standing down his own candidate. They had to do this in really, which isn't a sign of a hugely successful party. If you're having to say we've destroyed our own candidate, he's not available anymore. Please vote for this communist academic. Yeah. Yeah. So now this guy, Melon Sean is very powerful. The guy who heads up the far left coalition. And he's very commie, he's like very, very left-wing.

Well the one thing that everyone in French politics agrees on is that the French state should be massive. None of them seem that opposed to it. None of them are putting the pension age up to 70. None of them are cutting anything. Yeah, right, yeah. So it's just different flavors of whatever. I'd be interested to see what happens, but France is crazy. None of them are cutting anything. Yeah, right. Yeah. So just different flavors of whatever. I'd be interested to see what happens, but France is crazy.

Well, talking of crazy. Talking of crazy statists. Let's read our first correspondence of the Labour government. That's right. Yes. Letters, emails, phone numbers, tweets, your sister will never forget. Correspondence. We can only get letter. As in a letter you write to us.

The letters you send us. We can only get letters. Our internet's down. We can only get letters. We can only get letters. Our internet's down. We can only get letters. So in terms of correspondence, I have an idea for people to send stuff in. Topic. Okay. Oh, great. We're going to be more like radio now. Nice. This is Bud Pod 2.0. This is our decolonization. What is the most pathetic thing that annoys you?

So it's something that really does genuinely annoy you. Yeah. But it is pathetic to be annoyed by it. Okay, would you like to give an example? Yes. Mine is... I feel like you have one ready to go. In the chamber.

Yeah. Mine is, on City Mapper, often, like, if I say to City Mapper, how do I get to my friend Phil's house? It will be like, oh, walk to the station, get this train, this train, and then walk from the station to Phil's house. And then as I approach the part where I'm going to have to walk to someone's house and I'm trying to zoom in, I'll look at city mapper again and it's just zoomed me into like the square meter tiny to the start of my journey. Oh, yeah. And then you have to hit the little location button on the bottom right to your just zoom out and like scroll down a railway line for ages. Oh, yeah. Because the city mapper constantly thinks you

know, people want to look at really close up view of their own roof, where they were where they were our users all very nostalgic because I don't want to press start my journey. Because I don't like the way the app tracks you down the line going like now to the train at seven. I never started on Google Maps. I never started the journey. Never start the journey. I just look at where I am on the map. I just look with my eyes. What would you want less information? It just zooms in and you just I can see the street in front of me. Yeah, I need to know the big picture. I don't need to look and go, oh good, I still exist. I need to know how far until the station.

So I need to zoom out. And you're constantly making me zoom out, zoom out, zoom out, zoom out, and like scroll, scroll, scroll to try and find where I am now. So that's a pathetic thing that is entirely up to me. But can you not press the little arrow button? Not unless you start the journey. Oh, I'm pretty sure there's a button that goes just that goes just not on city mapper really don't think so

we we we we like it's done it again I've just opened city map and it's zoomed in on London Bridge okay but error oh there you go yeah just as zoomed in oh yeah yeah but I want is this okay Okay. Zoom down to the actual. So the point is that it's pathetic. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And infuriates me.

The other thing that annoyed me was a lady describing her own arousal as feeling fruity. Oh, tweet, tweet sexual stuff. I hate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, I know we discussed how you find a lot of the British talk of like shagging in fact horrible. It's very, very orc like orcish language. But the alternative, yeah, but the alternative is re-smog upper class or like artsy fartsy people. And the alternative is tweenus. Oh, for a second there,

I thought tweenus was a cute name for penis. I was like, oh, do people say tweenus? Tweed people probably call it their tweenus. Would you like to see my tweenus? I feel it rather fruity. Should I get my tweenus out? Horrible, horrible, horrible. So you have to choose between orcs and twee. Orcs and twee.

And when people say, I'm feeling a bit fruity, rumpy-pumpy, all this fucking shit, it doesn't sound like they're talking about sex. Yeah. It sounds like they're talking about having a picnic with their bums out. Yeah, it sounds like they're talking about a croquet game or something. Yeah, something else. Yeah. Horrible. Yuck. Okay. Yeah. Those are pathetic things that really annoy you. Pathetic things that make me sure it is. So send us your pathetic irritations.

What pathetic things really annoy me? Oh, I have squirrels in my garden. I hate these fucking squirrels. I didn't realize squirrels literally dug up your lawn to hide literal nuts in. They hide nuts in the grass. They did. One dug a hole up in front of my house and put a little like cartoon walnut in there. I was like, this is real. This actually happens. I couldn't believe it. I feel like a fucking Warner Brothers character now. Cause I'm an enemy in squirrels. I'm like, I feel like Elmer Fudd or something. You're standing with your hands on your hips going, ah! You saw me chase away a squirrel just now. If I see a squirrel through the window, I'll

open the door and I'll shake my fist at it. I'll say, get out of here! Or a fox or... It's Dennis the Menace shit you're on now. I am an enemy of like small woodland creatures. You're the bad guy in a kid's book. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I'm like, if Snow White had a modern enemy, it would be me. I'd be like, you're enabling, hey, Snow, you're enabling some pretty antisocial behavior. Hey, snow, you just gesture to your lawn.

You say, I know they help you get dressed in the morning, but they fuck up my lawn. Yeah, I can't believe that. And also you care about a lawn, which makes you the worst man in the world in any American film. I know, I get it now. A guy who cares about his lawn with his hands on his head. I just got this beautiful new lawn put in. Enemy of all children. It's not cheap and you've got to keep it going and I don't want weeds to return and they'll return if fucking squirrels keep digging out my

beautiful grass. What if the squirrels were putting in little wind farms? Okay well then we can talk. Adorable little squirrel wind farms is cute. Yeah, sustainable nut grinding windmills. But that's the most pathetic thing about me at the moment is that I my genuine enemies are squirrels. Yes, that's good. That's pathetic. Yeah. We've also been sent some tat from my friend bags. Hey, bags. It's you like it. It's sort of art installation tat. It's a neon sign. It's quite hard to describe. It's a big neon sign. And there's lots of words all linked together by neon lines. And they're all in a big jumble. And if I read them as if I was reading text, it says, you, if going lost, you are me together can't get no don't. So it's like a constellation of words and these lines are connecting these words. Crisscross.

As though you're supposed to like, as though if you found your way around the words in the right order, it would say something profound. Yeah. Is the implication. Yeah. So you can't... Have you found it? You can't get lost if... You can't get lost if me don't know together going you are. So it's Grandma Caveman.

She's a bank. Grandma Caveman's working with neon lights these days. She's a very avant-garde cave woman artist. Me want to play with form. Me want to paint with light. She's very ahead of her time. Me want command space. Me want make other cave people question what art for.

Grand, Grandma caveman is way ahead of her time. And her time of course is 40,000 BC. And we have also Sam on Instagram has sent us. We're big fans and well acquainted on this podcast with the rambling psychotic t shirt. Oh, yes. Big time. Yes. My boyfriend is a skeleton. And if you and if you hurt him, they will never find your eyes. Your eyes and he is he is crazy and I'm a bitch. And together we both buy knives and like knives is capitalized

and in a sort of Germanic font or something. Or that duvet where the art was like a skeleton and a sexy lady sort of kissing. And it was like, oh, this is us. And it's like, you're going out with a skeleton. Like Gen X biker tat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gen X wrestling heavy metal biker tat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right X, wrestling heavy metal bike attack.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Skeletons, motorbikes. My boyfriend is a skeleton who's on fire. Yeah. Right. I don't know what to take from that. And you see him, he's just like just a fat bald guy.

Yeah. He's just a fat bald guy. He's just a guy with a cheek tattoo called Rudy. But also they say like, this is my boyfriend, he's like a skeleton who's on fire on a motorbike. And you go, but what do I infer that he's nice? He doesn't look nice. No, he doesn't. He's frightening.

And you tell it you're telling me that you're in danger. Are you in? Am I in danger? Am I in danger? Who is this for? It's the same as the people on Facebook who go on about don't underestimate. All the captions are always like like don't underestimate and then the description of them. Oh, right. Because it's less pathetic

somehow than just saying don't underestimate me. Just posting a Facebook status every day saying don't underestimate me by the way, not today. And then again, the same day, same thing tomorrow. Yeah, okay, I won't. But about what your high jump ability? Do you about what? So it's one of these. Okay. It's a sign, not a t-shirt. But it's still the same. Okay. Or like a sort of enamel sign you put up in the house. Yeah. Lot of fonts. Oh, great. I'm going to try to vary my voice as the fonts varies. Okay, great. That's what I do in my head when I

read too many fonts. My brain changes the voice. Rules for dating my son. Oh, rules for dating my son. My son. Yeah, I mean, we've had, there are plenty of like rules for dating my daughter, which of course are gross and excessively paternalistic. Yeah. But rules for dating my son is

that's weird. It's quite Yeah, it's quite Freudian. It's from an account that seems to be about Freud. Okay, but it's for sale in a shop. I mean, someone's holding it up in a shop. You can just buy this rules for dating my son. Right. He is not your ATM. Oh, God, not this shit. He's not your ATM Phil. Fucking hell. He's not your ATM. This fucking uncle humor. What is this uncle humor? That could be a fun character. Uncle humor. It's a very vague comedy character. He's very, very ill-defined. Uncle Humor. Horrible, creepy. Who's this?

Uncle Humor. That's the creepiest name for a clown ever. If I was ever a clown, I'd call myself Uncle Humor. Oh, that's fucked. No one's hiring Uncle Humor. Hi kids, I'm Uncle Humor. I'm Uncle Humor. I'm Levity the clown. So rules.

Uncle humor is a revolting name for a clown rules for dating my son. He is not your ATM. Understand I don't like you. Why? And I never will. This is all this sentence is always in these rules for dating my child. Yeah. By the way, I hate you for fucking my kid.

Ugh. It's the implication. Yeah. It's... every single one is so Freudian. It's so obsessed with what your kid's getting up to in a way that's no longer protective because they're clearly old enough to date. Yeah. So it's like, well, presumably you want them to date someone.

So there's got to be someone you're happy for them to be sleeping with. And what's peculiar about the someone is like the rules for dating my daughter things of stems from a very long and still gross, but well established tradition. History. History of men being like being protective of their womenfolk. Yeah. And so it stems from all that. And like my daughter is my property and if I sort of sell her to you, then you should

take care of her. Yes, right. And the resulting children are also kind of indirectly mine as well, through dissent. So also that and stick around. And dating my son tat means that someone's had someone's come up with this now. Yeah, yeah. That's new. That's new. We're like in Jurassic Park where they go, this is a new whole new mutation. Dinosaurs weren't supposed to be like this. We've played God. Okay. So I'll never like you. I don't like you. I don't like you. And I never will. It never is like highlighted and massive.

Never will. Because you know what parents love is when their son never finds a partner. Yeah. And never starts a family. Well, he does and they hate them forever because they've decided they will in advance because they're unwell.

Understand I don't like you and I never will. Next slide. I'm everywhere. Not realistic. I'm everywhere. What does that mean? You're 65. I don't believe you. You're 65 and out of shape. You can't work a GPS. You aren't going to be everywhere. You're barely going to be there at home. You're barely going to be awake. You're gonna follow me to the supermarket? In case I do something bad at the supermarket? And then what you're gonna do you're so out of shape.

I say to I say, I'm the lady going out with your son and I say to him, Oh, can I borrow 20 quid for then you like pop out of a bush? He's not your ATM. Read the sign. What sign? The one in my house. Come come with me. Come on. Get in the back of this motorbike.

Get on the back of this motorbike I drove here. I am everywhere. You hurt him. I hurt you. This is I mean, what happened here is they've just taken one of the daughter ones and replaced. Yeah. They've tried to accommodate a market that I can't think exists. Maybe they're following the Steve Jobs playbook of create the desire for a product that people don't know they have.

Yeah. So there's a mom walking around with a bunch of fucked up Freudian instincts. She reads the fucked up sign and she's like, it's being expressed. Someone's put into words this thing I've always thought. The sentiment I've always unconsciously had. Yeah. So you hurt him, I hurt you. Next line. Respect me as his mama. Oh, okay. So it is, we are now clear it is from the mother's perspective. Oh, it's a mom, baby. And mama is capitalized. Respect me as mama. Is there a name for this complex? So Oedipus complex is

mother to so it is Oedipus. This is Oedipus. Electra is father to daughter. That's Electra. Yeah. It's not quite perfect. Given the story. Yeah, it is just yeah. Yeah, this is this is Oedipal but at theums sort of insistence through signage direction. Yeah. Respect me as his mama. Yeah. As his mamma.

Mamma. His mamma. I don't think they say mamma. Mamma. Mamma. Respect me as his mama. Yeah. I'm everywhere.

I'm the Omni-mama. I'm the Omni-mama, Uncle Huma. Uncle Huma and the Omni Mama. I'm the Omni Mama, Uncle Huma. Uncle Huma and the Omni Mama. A disgusting double act. Uncle Huma and the Omni Mama. And the Omni Mama. A creepy clown with a little wig on. And a sort of Dr. Manhattan middle-aged woman.

Blue and nude and sort of hovering above a lady as the boyfriend pays for their meal out of kindness as she goes, Oh, no, it just destroys her. Being using him as an ATM. Don't lie to him or to me. Okay. All right. Yeah, that's just that's good policy to have in general for anyone. So apart from the one word I'm going to say quite loudly, this is all in very curly whirly

cursive. He is my prince. Oh, every time I think this can't get any worse. He is my prince, not your toy. But the wordplay doesn't work because there's no connection in culture between princes and toys. So like, well, you know what they say about men? They're either a prince or a toy.

Something we all say. Ladies, what's your boyfriend? A prince or a toy? This is the new quiz in the magazine. The next line is very revealing. And it's written in a far too cartoony a font. I don't mind going back to jail. Who's this signed for? X-con. X-con women with a- Both protective mothers. You have to be an X-con. You have to be a mom. You have to have a son. And he has to be dating.

Yeah. How many people in the world are there who fit that description at all? Well, reoffending is very common in the UK. So I guess that one isn't too hard to satisfy. Recidivism. This is a poster for recidivist mothers in the US. I don't mind going back to jail. Understand, I can make you go away. And that's underlined. So murder. Yeah.

And again, we've covered this before. Whatever you do to him, I will do to you. You're going to you're going to fuck him. God, I hate these. No, no, she's going to fuck her. The girlfriend. Anything you do to him, I'll do. Yeah.

She's going to wank the girlfriend off. She's going to wank the girlfriend off. And also buy her dinner. Maybe it's a really long way of a mom saying she's going to use her as an ATM. Okay. Or let her use her as an ATM. It's even more confused. It's very confusing. You let him give you money. So now I'll make you let me give you my money. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The girlfriend's probably like, okay. Oh, no, no, no. But it is. He says

what you do to him, I'll do to you. So if the girlfriend uses the son as an ATM, the mother will use the girlfriend as an ATM. God, this is a tough riddle. I've never been in the mafia, Phil, but I imagine if they were to hold a sort of seminar on the art of the threat. I think brevity. Brevity and clarity. And this is neither. It is a rambling, unclear threat. I'm not even sure how much of it is a threat or a recommendation or the kind of thing you just find squelching crayon on a wall. Blood and feces. How threatening a sign would you ever hang on your own home?

Please take your shoes off. Yeah. That's the most threatening sign I could ever put up my own. Even that I'd be like, sorry, sorry. Obviously it would get more. It's just there's a lot of carpeting. So you know, oh man. Well thank you for that guys.

Also special cool bonus thing for listeners. My book is out next week. Seven days. Truly we are in the centrist paradise. Kirstammer, government, Piers book coming out. My book coming out. God damn it. Everything's going to be so sensible.

Also Bud Pods on video clips. Some of you will have seen little clips on the official Bud Pod Instagram account. We finally have an Instagram account. Please follow at Bud Pod official. And TikTok. Oh. Bud Pods on TikTok. Oh, I did not know that. Little clips. Oh. It's all happening. Gosh. We're like out of touch kings. We just sit in this tower and Felipe comes to us and says that he's conquered a new port. Wow. And we just say, oh, good.

So in order to help us out with Bud Pod 2.0, more correspondence, please. My suggestion is the most pathetic thing that annoys you. But just in general, use your judgment. But that's my suggestion. Most pathetic thing that annoys you. Yeah. Or any comment on the topic that we cover. Yeah. Yeah.

Tat, generally, always welcome. The coolest, uncool, things like that. All our classics. And yeah, come follow the official Bud Pod account on Instagram. Follow it on TikTok. Drive up the traffic so that people are aware that these marvelous

new video clip opportunities exist. And secondarily, we're going to slap onto the end of the podcast now for you guys as a special treat. Because my book out, my book out. Because my book out. Because my book out. Pierre good at words. He make book.

Me take paper. Big pile. Many words. Okay. You like now. Many words. Okay, you like now eat it. Because my book out in in seven days. Seven days. I can't not do that from the ring. Seven days. Because my book is out next fucking week. Yeah. And that's in ebook, Kindle, whatever form, hardback and audiobook.

We're going to stick the introduction onto the end of this episode. Fantastic. You get a free... A little taster. A free taster. You can hear the introduction. You can hear what I sound like when I'm reading a book I've written off an iPad in a little room. Can you imagine? If he has this good off the cuff. Can you imagine him off the page? Off the page. It's a fantastic book. I've said many times. It's a brilliant book. I can't wait to hear the audio book. Link in the description. And yeah, enjoy. But aside from that, we'll see

patrons on Friday. Yeah. Do sign up for the Patreon if you want extra Butterpod per week. the Patreon if you want extra Budapod per week. And otherwise, love you lot. We won! When you are a professional stand-up, the most common question people ask is, what's the best heckle you've ever had? The second most common question is whether you're a full-time stand-up or a contributing member of society who does open mics a few times a year. People want to know if they're talking to a bold hobbyist or a true weirdo. And fair enough. It's bad business to puncture popular myths,

but I find confirming people's cheerful misapprehensions, even when the misapprehensions benefit me personally, to be total agony. So here we go. In fact, I had to learn to stop correcting people when they claimed my career was doing better than it was. These were people who I wanted to think I was doing well. I mean, what the fuck is wrong with me? Let them think the good thing. As long as it's not something provably false. I mean, you don't want to look like a liar. I'm stressed thinking about it. Anyway, the terrible truth is that 99% of heckles are absolute dogshit.

If the public was truly consistently funny, there would be no demand for stand-up. Everyone would just sit around the dinner table being spectacularly witty, like characters in an American sitcom. Every now and then, a comedian will tell an anecdote about a particularly witty audience member or someone out in public, often on a bus. Generally, these stories are outright fiction. The comedian has imagined something witty for a given situation, and has contrived to put their own carefully honed words into a random mouth, thereby boosting the perceived funniness of the comment. A filthy insult from someone who spent days writing it is embarrassing, but it's delightful off the cuff from a kindly pensioner. Context is everything, and sometimes comedians make up the context or spice up the disappointing,

realistic dialogue that the public provided. Warning signs that the heckle story you are hearing is bullshit are the use of any phrase such as a voice from the back, clear as a bell, quick as a flash, any reference to a precocious child or an eccentric pensioner, or the story taking place in Glasgow or Liverpool, two cities that are, rightly or wrongly, obsessed with their own reputations as citadels of wit. My own experiences of heckles is that they are generally committed by the sort of men who make awkward, ill-judged remarks in WhatsApp groups, or the funniest bloke in the office. Men heckle

to prove something about themselves to their social group and to test the comedian. So even if they lose the battle of wits, it was only as part of demonstrating their authority as examiner. They don't generally want to destroy the gig, but they do want to spray their scent on the evening as a whole. Women do sometimes heckle, but are generally doing so because they are sincerely, personally offended by the comedian and wish to destroy them, if not derail the whole show. Ask any comedian if stag do's or hen do's are worse, you will see. Both men and women will also heckle when paralytically drunk, but these are more noises than words, and so are useless for comedic purposes.

Trying to be witty in response to a senseless howl is like quoting Oscar Wilde at a barking dog. So, caveats aside, this is the story of the best heckle I have ever had. The year was 2022. The gig was called Comedy Den. It was a small hipster night in the basement of a Bristol craft beer bar run by the comedian Bert Williamson. I was a small hipster night in the basement of a Bristol Craft beer bar, run by the comedian Bert Williamson. I was headlining both evening shows. At the later show I was on stage at something like eleven o'clock on a Friday, so everyone was quite boozed. Some fans of the podcast I do with Phil Wang were in, and the small basement crowd of about forty people was friendly and even a little conversational.

It's not safe for comedians to admit that sometimes we like a slightly conversational crowd because only the wrong people take that as encouragement. It's like when a single woman complains that men don't approach women these days. The sort of man who leaps on that suggestion like a hungry toad is not the man she meant. Anyway, the crowd was the good kind of drunk and the good kind of responsive. The two things you need to know for the heckle to make sense. The MC had talked to an audience member who was studying the fall of the Roman Republic and introduced me as a history buff. I had then come on stage and established my nerd credentials by reciting some facts about the fall of the Roman Republic, saying, you see, I'm just as much of a nerd as you were promised.

Secondly, the material I was doing was new material written for my show, Why Can't I Just Enjoy Things? All the material was focused on either my social failures or areas where I did not gel with most people. Immediately prior to the heckle I had finished a routine about how I didn't see eye to eye on something with an axe and did my best to explain my apparently unusual point of view. Suddenly a man seated to my left piped up, you just sound like me. Now when someone heckles you the first thing you need to do is repeat the heckle into the microphone especially at the larger gigs. There is a good chance

the audience didn't hear the heckle, and so anything you say in return, however witty, will not get a laugh, since the audience has no idea what you're replying to. Sneakily, it also gives the comedian a crucial few seconds to think and to look at the heckler for important information, like appearance, age, level of drunkenness, social grouping, level of anger, and so on. It also puts the onus on the heckler to repeat themselves or say another thing that can be responded to. If it sounds like I am turning comedy into something vaguely scientific, systematized, and slightly manufactured, then God help you if you ever read about magic shows.

What was that? You're saying I just sound like you, a shot back, wittily, quick as a flash, etc. Well, I have Asperger's and you just sound like me. I don't think he shrugged physically but this heckle was certainly delivered with an implied shrug. The man was not shouting or emotional but offered this information the way one might tell a colleague that there's an easier route to work. "'You have Asperger's and you think I just sound like you,' I said, repetition my old friend. I was certainly surprised and needed the time. "'Yeah,' he said, nodding calmly. "'As in you think I might have it too?' I pulled a baffled face and drew some laughs from the

tension. Yeah, maybe. Why? I was genuinely interested now, but I was trying to hide that from the audience. It can make you look distracted or overly affected by the heckle. Well, you knew all that stuff about the fall of the Roman Republic. That can't be the only criteria for Asperger's. I'm sure that's not the only question on the form. Do you like history? I mimed a doctor ticking a single box on a form. Well, then I've got some news. A decent enough laugh from that to switch back to addressing the rest of the crowd

and bring everyone back into listening mode. I've been heckled many times in my career, but never this medically specifically. Decent enough laugh. I moved back into pre-existing material and thus the gig was broadly back on track. I had felt the crowd grow wary during my interaction with the man. This was partly because there was no clear moral high ground. Yes, the man was heckling me that I might have a medical condition, but in fairness it was a condition that he himself had, and based on my own description of my own mind. Also, I wasn't annoyed, and the man wasn't either, so there was no combativeness, nothing at stake. It was just a sort of unsettling demi-conversation about a sensitive

issue conducted in public by accident. The audience may also have been worried about how I would react. Would I be hurt, confused, dismissive, rude, escalatory? I could have ruined the gig by denying his claim so fervently that I made it clear I found the idea of being like him, horrifying or awful. But a few good-natured jokes and some vague meta-commentary had us safely out of the woods for the remaining ten minutes or so of the set. It passed without incident, and afterwards the other acts and I lightheartedly discussed the heckle in the bar upstairs. In all honesty it was not the first time someone had suggested it. Two or three friends of

mine over the decade or so since I left university had put it to me, with varying degrees of gentleness, that I may be on the spectrum in some measurable way. They tended to say these things shortly after they had come to me for some advice, or vented on some life issue or other, and I had, in my opinion logically, helpfully pointed out the shortest route between them and their preferred outcome. This, I have learned, is often a mistake. When most people casually ask you for your advice, they are silently begging you to guess which answer they secretly want and immediately suggest it as the only sane course of action. Upon receiving my unsuitable advice, these friends would balk

and suggest that, while logical, my advice was not delivered nicely enough, and perhaps I was on the spectrum, or simply, God, you're such a robot. You might be wondering, why was this heckle such an important revelation given your apparent years of Spock-like blundering. The distinction is that these friends who found me robotic were often my most emotions-led, impulsive, and touchy-feely friends, people for whom the phrase, trust your heart, was actual advice, people who would struggle to break up with a serial killer if the killer seemed like he was doing his best to stop. I felt within my rights to think, well, of course I'm robotic

compared to you. The difference that night at the gig was that this heckler, well, he was qualified. The man had the damn thing himself. He was recognising himself in me, something far more profound and meaningful. The next morning, after an impersonal night in a chain hotel, I was on the train from Bristol back to London mulling over the heckle. It had left my confidence in my own normality shaken, but if you'd asked me then and there, I'd still have wagered I fell on the neurotypical end of things. I had been friendly, well, friends-friendly, was friends with, but sometimes see, but not often. The

categorisation of relationships has always filled me with panic, since other people's expectations sometimes don't match my own, and accidentally wounding a friend by misdescribing your relationship with them is horrifying. Anyway, I had been friends with a guy at school, with Asperger's, and I didn't feel kinship with him on that basis, and thinking back during that train journey I still didn't. I confess I had even taken some of the shorter online spectrum questionnaires in moments of idleness, though no more seriously than I had enjoyed taking online tests for anything from Where on the Political Spectrum am I? to Flags of the World, and the autism tests had yielded vague and varying results. Unlike online IQ

tests, autistic spectrum disorder or ASD questionnaires can be the same ones a medical professional would have you fill out. Results will still be more accurate with the guidance of a qualified professional, but you can glean your place on the spectrum within an acceptable margin of error, in my opinion, if they are the longer and more modern tests. Despite having already taken these tests in my life, I figured I would use the dead time of the train to try again, and came across a website called Embrace Autism, a very useful website scattered with a sort of unsettlingly cheerful cartoons you'd expect to find in a children's hospital. The site hosts many, if not all, of the questionnaires one would use to measure neurodivergence,

along with helpful annotations explaining terminology, which questions or concepts are now out of date, and so on. You can easily fill them in online, even if you're drinking a pint of black coffee on a train sat next to a coughing lady. I filled in pretty much all the questionnaires, and when the autistic spectrum ones came back with a high score, I filled them in multiple times with different answers for the borderline questions to achieve an average, and to see the highest to lowest range of score I could achieve without lying. Honestly, at that point the website should have had a pop-up that said, Congratulations! Only an autist would have this level of dedication to statistical accuracy. Please consult your nearest model railway salesperson.

I have to admit I was a little unsettled at this point. How was I scoring this high? I had met quite a few Asperger's or autistic people in my life, and I had never particularly felt that they were all kindred spirits. In fact, I had found some of them deeply frustrating. Besides that, I was a professional comedian with friends and a romantic partner, and all the stereotypes were clear that that made me far too sociable to be on the spectrum. Nevertheless, however normally I attempted to answer the questionnaires, I could not score within the normal range without giving false answers. Shit. Well, time to do an enormous amount of research that becomes an obsessive interest over the next few weeks. Then we'll see who

has autism. On that train journey I began reading accounts of late or adult diagnoses and I found them very relatable. Previously, I had only read accounts by men who were diagnosed sometimes as early as seven, which were completely unrelatable to me. Generally, the late diagnosis accounts that I found more relatable were from women. Due to societal factors like sexism or medical misogyny, women don't generally get early diagnoses, except in more extreme cases. A surprising number of medical professionals still believe that spectrum disorders are more prevalent in boys and will wave away girls on this basis,

letting evidence fit their presumptions. For example, if a boy gets obsessed with train schedules, he'll get prodded by medics, but if a girl is obsessed with horses to the same degree, she won't. Girls also have higher social pressure to conform, which leads to better masking, which is hiding your autism through learned behaviour. Boys are freer to behave as they like, and so the autistic behaviour pops out and can be seen and quantified. Autism has been said to present differently in women even at a physical level in the brain, so much so that male and female autistic brains can be distinguished from each other in a

way that non-autistic male and female brains cannot, though this is currently being disputed. We are still unpicking nature from nurture when it comes to neurodivergence, and I recommend reading accounts from people whose demographics don't match your own. I found reading outside my group especially valuable because, as someone who is excellent at masking, or hiding my autism through changing my behaviour, certainly good enough to make it in live comedy and avoid diagnosis for 30 years, I related to late diagnosed female accounts far more. It had never occurred to

me that consciously monitoring my body language or facial expression during conversation was unusual, or that most people didn't use tricks to make eye contact easier. Who knew that it was unusual to have spent a lot of time watching people's public behaviour and reading articles or books about socialising in order to learn how to do it, like, say, an alien. Pretty much everyone, it turned out, but it was news to me. Suffice to say, I emerged onto the concourse at Paddington Station a shaken man. I arrived home and said to my partner, you know, I think I might be on the spectrum, and she reacted as if I'd just burst in, jabbed my fingers at my chest and said to my partner, you know, I think I might be on the spectrum. And she reacted as if I'd just burst in, jabbed my fingers at my chest, and said, I think these might be nipples.

I would say duh is a concise approximation of her response, and it was in its own way reassuring. It's not always the response one wants, though. I'd have been fine with some version of you, the glowing socialite, the man they banned from the Caribbean for being too relaxed, British eye contact champion ten years running, fie, nonsense, I'll have any doctor who confirms it struck off. But there you go, we are who we are. Normally a heckle is followed by a put-down. This heckle was followed by months of introspection, questionnaires, appointments, and eventually a diagnosis. As is

often the case with medical issues, especially with matters of mental health or the brain, once you start researching it you realise how terrifyingly shallow our knowledge is. We know so little about how the brain works and why. We take what little we know and then misapply it using biased out-of-date or cultural metrics further distorting the image. Fortunately for all of us lots of very clever and motivated people are working on that sort of thing, at least until their funding is cut, so I'll stick to what I do best. Communicating with the public in an amusing way. Maybe you chose this audiobook

because you never felt you could ask, why can't I just enjoy things out loud? Maybe you've never asked the question for fear of seeming like a miserable shit, or revealing how measurable a gulf there is between you and the normal majority of people with their baffling and comprehensible behavior. Maybe the title reminded you of someone you know. Then again, maybe the question struck you as so bizarre you felt compelled to see what I was on about. I wouldn't force anyone to get a diagnosis, and even if I tried to, there is often a years-long waiting list if you can't afford private care. However, I suspect that far, far more people

meet the threshold for autism than we would ever have imagined. It certainly seems likely that there are more of us out there, judging by the unsettled reactions of friends when they hear about my diagnosis and they ponder how much we have in common. Or when I let someone fill in a questionnaire for a laugh and they score high, in some cases even higher than me, to say nothing of the ever growing trickle of celebrities coming out as diagnosed. I'd love to reach the silent autistic people hiding in plain sight, if only because I can personally attest to how much their lives

will improve when they have a good answer to that terrible question that's followed them for as long as they can remember. Why can't I just enjoy things?