BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 128 - The Taliban Can

Episode Date: August 18, 2021

Pierre is at the fringe prepping for a Best Of comedy taping, tickets here: https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/pierre-novellie-garrett-millerick-its-about-goddamn-time#overviewThe lads discuss the Fringe, the plague and the awful situation developing in Afghanistan Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Budpod128, is that right? 128, yeah. Got. I128... I128abigsteak. I128... I128... I128...

I128, yeah, but I can't. I love you. That's good, that's good. That's good. That's a good good a kind of um a very sort of emotionally generous uh cockney man i want to eat love island but it's just such good tv yeah and that's good because that's the kind of conversations that people are having now that they're out of lockdown yeah exactly that's going to seem relevant to our that they're out of lockdown. Yeah, exactly. That's going to seem relevant to our listeners. They're going to be back at the water cooler.

Those water cooler moments. We've never had a water cooler in our line of work. No, what do we have? Green room moments. Green room, yeah, I guess. Sometimes green rooms have a kettle. Yeah, they have a kettle that is the same kind of slightly upsetting yellow. It's a kettle from back in the days before they had swivel kettles. So it's the ones that you can... It's with the square plug-in bit on the base.

So you have to get it pointing in the right direction. Yeah, it clunks in. Did you know the ring contact kettles were originally invented for... Well, they're designed for people with arthritis so that they could place a kettle down at any orientation and they didn't have to turn their wrists. And then they realized this is just better for everyone and now it's the leading design.

Gosh, and everyone just went, get me some of that. Yeah, I want some of that sweet arthritis shit. I want an arthritis kettle. Why do they get, why do all the rheumatoids get all the fun? I've just come up with a new slur for people with rheumatoid arthritis.

Yeah, that's another Star Trek race. The rheumatoids. Their spaceships are designed for people with rheumatoid arthritis. I was going to say, yeah, that's another Star Trek race. The rheumatoids. The rheumatoids. Their spaceships are designed for people who can't really bend over or grip. Yeah, they can dock at any angle. The ship can dock at any angle. Well, the war between the rheumatoids and the crevassians has been going on for a very long time.

The crevassians from last week time the crevassians from last last week i'm buying the crevassians yeah um yeah that's amazing i i uh i one of the there's not that many people who went to my school phil who have uh amazing achievements there are a few but one of them is a guy who invented the thing that turns the kettle off once it's boiled But one of them is a guy who invented the thing that turns the kettle off once it's boiled. Oh, wow. Okay, well, this is from a while back. I presume you're talking about someone who was a contemporary of yours, but that's an old invention. No, this is the 50s or whenever, a long time ago.

Yeah. Right, so the device, the mechanism that turns off a kettle when it's boiled is an Isle of Man invention. Yes, although I assume he was long off the island and busy working as an engineer somewhere when he did it. But yes, it is, yeah. Wow. In a sense. In a sense. I'm never clear on whether Americans have proper kettles or not.

Because in TV shows, for them, them drinking tea i've learned this because it also came up and i know we've already discussed this extensively but it came up when i was watching hate watching the punisher the only people who ever make tea in american tv shows or movies is like whoopi goldberg yeah or like a grandma or a psychic or a therapist. Yeah, or like a yogi or a hippie or something. Yeah, Americans don't have kettles. It's weird. They have these big metal cowboy kettles that they have to put on a stove.

Yeah. They don't have electric kettles, and they only ever make tea in an effort to kind of hold it with both hands and sip it and go, Are you okay? Like, it's a sort of... And it's never tea tea. You have to specify black tea.

Yeah. You're more likely to find turmeric tea than English tea. Yeah, yeah. Would you like... Yeah, thekick in the movie says I'll make us some tea she's pouring

fucking cranberries into this cowboy kettle I mean I remember when I went over to America to do my first ever American gig

when I filmed my Netflix set in 2018 oh yeah 50 minutes for the comedy lineup it was in Atlanta, Georgia and

I was taken to my trailer and they're like, would you like a coffee? And I just said, oh, I'll just have a tea, please. It's a tea with milk. And the runner too confidently, well, like misleadingly confidently said, sure, tea with milk. Gotcha.

And then I went and I got my makeup done and I came back and I found a paper cup of hot water, a tea bag that was orange tea, as in like dried orange or something. Right, yeah. Flavoured tea, a cinnamon stick and just a plastic cup full of milk. A full cup of milk. He got you a little bit of Christmas. That's astonishing.

But it's like the confidence of like, tea with milk, got it. Okay, some dried orange, a cinnamon stick, and a full glass of milk. Was your runner a five-year-old making a potion from ingredients around the house. What you experienced there, Phil was not just the unerring confidence,

excuse me, not just the unerring confidence of an American whose job is to, to serve you, but also the absolute dedication to whatever insane fucking request someone involved in entertainment might have. Yeah. I guess, yeah. In the entertainment biz in America,

the wackier the option, the safer it is, probably. The more crazy your request, the more serious it is to get it right. Because you're clearly crazy. Clearly. So if you'd asked for some white dog shit in a brown paper cup,

and some lemongrass, he would have brought it. You wouldn't, okay. It would have been just as positive about it. But I mean, no wonder like when Americans are like, and the english drank their tea with milk and it's like well i would also be skeptical and disgusted by that if i thought it was dried bits of orange

and cinnamon oh yeah yeah exactly that's a good point yeah you know fair enough yeah that would be insane or like ice like lipton iced tea like mango lipton just poor lipton's a big that's a that's the big brand in amer for black tea is Lipton. Yeah, and it's just... Same in Malaysia, actually. It's the colonial tea brand, it seems, Lipton. Yeah, anyone who poured a load of fucking cream into that would seem insane. Like they're trying to create some sort of Solero drink.

Speaking of drinks, Podbuzz, you might notice that Pierre's Tambra is even more baritone than usual. Yes. Because he is in Edinburgh, Scotland, home of the drink. It's true. You're

hearing the sound. Home of pints, pints, pints. What was that? Home of pints, pints, pints. What was that? Home of pints, pints, pints. Yeah, that's what they have on neon signs instead of girls, girls, girls. Yes, that's right, Podbuds. You're hearing the sounds of the effects of kilograms of haggis and liters of whiskey. Because I'm talking to you from Edinburgh, Scootland. Scoot over to Scootland.

Scoot on by. That's right. You're the Edinburgh Fringe. The Edinburgh Fringe reborn. Yes. Edinburgh Fringe rises. Yeah.. Edinburgh Fringe Rises. Yeah. That's the movie.

Like a cautious phoenix. Like a masked phoenix. Yeah. The masked phoenix sounds like quite a good sort of 1950s cartoon character, like a comic strip. Yes. Very film noir. When danger's's around the masked phoenix is sure to be found

the fringe is very weird Phil it's very very strange I've only seen when I arrived everyone assured me there would be no flyers as opposed to 10 hundred million flyers which is normal it's not quite none. A few have survived the nuclear war.

They're like cockroaches, yeah. Yes, and some breeding pairs of human statues have lived as well. The wild population of human statues has not been depleted. There are a few on the Royal Mile calling for mates.

It's very hard it's it's very hard to get human statues to mate of course because they won't move not where they won't mate while you're watching that's for sure they want that money if you yeah you have to look away yeah yeah they need privacy a few um a few street performers and i didn't realize this would be something strange for me, Phil, until it's happened, this fringe, but see how you think of this. See if you agree with me that this feels strange when you really consider it. An entire Edinburgh fringe royal mile with some street performers on,

but not a single Australian or Kiwi accent. Wow. Yeah. It's coming home. The fringe is coming home. The fringe has come home. Almost everyone is Scottish. It's terrifying. Wow. Yeah. It's coming home. The fringe is coming home. The fringe has come home. Almost everyone is Scottish. It's terrifying.

Wow. Yeah. It must feel like how it was in the very first one that celebrated the end of the Second World War. Yeah. I mean, everyone's disproportionately local. There's not really that many flyers. Most of the places that you and I know is having basically been wallpapered with posters for

hundreds of miles of of wall and council property and bollard none of that's here really um so it feels like and everything's kind of sold out i mean everyone's shows are really really full there's people sort of waiting to get in it feels like so there are people there are punters oh yeah yeah yeah oh there's plenty of punters i think there's there's there's obviously fewer punters but there's disproportionately like let's say punters has decreased by you know 90 percent but shows have decreased by 99.9 so proportionately there's actually loads of punters per show um how interesting so actually everyone's having a very good time. It feels like this must be what the fringe was like

in the 80s or something. Are there awards in that happening this year? No, no, no, sadly no. Oh, rats. That could have been... Everyone's chances are so much higher. That's right, yeah. It's like some sort of mid mid-world war ii olympics

yeah oh interesting i didn't know that so wow so it's a real like for this just for the sake of the craft year yeah it feels like machansleth for for anyone who doesn't know machansleth comedy festival in wales is the is a very small boutique comedy festival in a tiny town of machanthleth and the brecon beacons and all sort of industry by which we mean like reviewers journalists prs producers they're all banned they're not allowed to be there and if they are there they have to come as customers they can't you know work it and turn it into edinburgh eg. an arms race. And it's such a small town that you can just walk around trying to buy Welsh rare bits from someone

and you can see Stuart Lee and sort of Sarah Pascoe or whatever or everyone just sort of walking around in the same little town. So it's very nice. And the Fringe is as close to that as I think it's going to be ever again. That's true, yeah. I mean, you are making the most of this unique opportunity you know no one is going to be able to enjoy this particular version this comfy version of the number fronge that's right it's normally a very intense month i'm

only here i'm only here for six nights six nights six nights only six pints pints pints pierre pierre pierre in neon pierre pierre pierre six nights only and Pints, pints, pints. Pierre, Pierre, Pierre in neon. Pierre, Pierre, Pierre. Six nights only. And the sort of neon animation is me sipping one of the pints. With a cowboy hat. Yeah, yeah. And a whip. Yeah, yeah, winking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like sort of old classic, like Golden Age of Vegas songs playing. Tom Jones, whatever. What's like sort of old classic, like Golden Age of Vegas songs playing. Tom Jones, whatever. What's the vibe among Edinburghians? Are they like, we'll never take you for granted again? Or have they gone straight back to bloody southerners coming up and taking over the city? They seem, the ones that I, well, I mean, disproportionately, obviously, I meet the ones who have re-engaged with the fringe. Yeah, of course.

But there do seem to be a lot of them and they do seem to be very sort of ruefully like, oh, you bunch of scamps. I mean, that goodwill will dissolve almost immediately on contact with air. But it's very

refreshing because normally, as you say, even though the festival brings in you know a billion pounds for just one month clowning around they tend to be very resentful um a lot of people tend to hate it or just leave for a month as if it was genghis khan coming i mean i guess i've you know i i'm being a bit of hypocrite because i guess that's how i feel now about tourists in london yeah you know when uh when a spanish family stops still in a road for no reason at all yeah i go you know what no more tourists ban tourists but at the same time it brings money in doesn't it it pays for the same the very roads that they've

stood in the middle of for no reason that's it yeah that's the price we pay it is a price that's the price we pay phil and i'm i'm up here preparing as you know for a recording me and um garrett millerick friend of the podcast and feature of um the the uh his his own uh oh god what's it i'm blanking on the name of his podcast help me phil oh i'm also blanking on it now it's um um relevant relevant and has it got the word relevant in it? I don't think so. Laughable, for goodness sake, Phil. Laughable? Why didn't I think it was called relevant?

It would be a very funny name for a podcast. Relevant. No, laughable. Garrett's podcast is called Laughable. It's a big hit smash podcast. And me and him are recording an hour of our stand-up each to put on the YouTubes for free. Because we think YouTube's going to be big, Phil.

Yeah. Get in on the ground now, Pierre. This online video thing is... I think it's going to blow up. Yeah, I wouldn't want to miss out. Through my own... Of course, my first two solo stand-up shows are on YouTube. I made them and put them on YouTube.

That's it. Years ago, I was a trailblazer. That's right. I wish I'd copied you immediately as opposed to just now. They're now sort of curios, really, because at the time I was like, I'm brilliant at stand-up

and if no one will put my specials out, I'll do it myself. And looking back now, I'm like, these are pretty... Yeah, I mean, these are sophomore offerings. But I leave them up now just as sort of like... I don't know, for the odd sort of comedy fan, Phil Wang fan who kind of wants to see, you know...

If you ever think watching me now like he's alright you can go back and realise that it could be worse Sophomore Offerings

was a fantastic cellist do you find that do you look back and do you think it's well I mean obviously it's not as good as you are now you would you would hope so yeah exactly exactly but you don't find that it's bad hopefully

well i haven't actually watched in a long time because i'm actually worried that if i do watch it i'll be tempted to take them down and i don't really want to take them down i kind of i think it's neat to have that archive yeah up there i think yeah leave them leave them be let let sleeping wangs lie yeah excuse me but the point is pod buds these recordings that garrett and i are doing are happening in london second and third of september at pleasance in islington um so do come along garrett is going to be advertising it to the laughable podcast crowd and so it's become a classic pod fight Phil

it's a pod off it's a good old fashioned pod off it's a pod off Texas rules whoever gets the biggest laughs for their niche long running podcast in jokes wins that's how a Texas style pod off happens biggest laughs for their niche long running podcast in jokes wins. That's how a Texas style pod off happens.

But yes, do come along and you will be immortalized in recording both visual and audio. Great. On the 2nd and 3rd of September. It's it should be good. It's a best off. I'm doing a sort of selected, a bit of new stuff,

but a bit of COVID new stuff, get it out of the way, and a selected best of of the last five years or so, which has meant that I, similar to what you're saying with your specials, Phil, I've been going through my archives and pruning. That's great. I think it's a lovely thing to do. And sometimes you rediscover an

old bit i think we've talked about this before you come you come up with the idea an idea for a bit when early on in your career and you're not actually good enough to make it work yet and it's like in an up it's like in a fantasy rpg where you pick up a level 30 sword but you're only level 10 but you should keep the sword and wait until you're level 30 and there's some bits of material i think you can go back and actually you can probably now do. Yeah, and up till then you try and swing it and it just goes...

And you do yourself 10 damage. What's your living sitch in Edinburgh like? Are you in a lovely flat? I'm in a lovely sort of flat that's more like a hotel, to be honest, because it's only six nights, whereas normally, as you know, Phil, we would be in a student flat let out by a tyrannical local landlord a few miles out of the centre. Exactly.

With a light that is without exception covered with a big, that circular lampshade that all lights in Edinburgh have for some reason. All ceiling lights a single bulb hung with a round, like circular, spherical lampshade. Sort of paper ball.

Sorry? Sort of paper ball. Yeah, like a paper ball lampshade. As seen, actually probably not just edinburgh all of scotland as seen in the yeah because it's in limmy it's on limmy shows isn't it's that limmy sketch it's one of my favorite sketches yeah where he becomes addicted to wearing the paper ball on his head yeah it must be a scottish thing i wonder how that happens where just one particular country or place just decides that you know what maybe it's just because scotland has disproportionately at like got all these really high ceilings and single bulbs hanging yeah i think that's right yeah i mean just looking to my i mean in my flat

now the ceiling is just too low to have something like that you you just take out a lot of headspace also like if you had a high ceiling of quite a big room with a single bulb lighting it, a lampshade would look silly. Yeah, you look like you're trying to set up a Vietnamese pop-up restaurant. And you're trying to make it look like the streets of... I've forgotten the... I've forgotten the... Oh no, I've forgotten the... I've forgotten the... Oh no, I've forgotten the capital of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City?

Ho Chi Minh City. But I think a normal bedroom lampshade in a giant Scottish living room with a high ceiling would look like a tiny Ebola hat on a very large man. Yeah. Yeah. You need something a bit more substantial. Why do Scottish buildings or Edinburgh buildings,

they have all these high ceilings? In my head, if it's a colder country, you don't want these high rooms that can get much colder. That's a good point. Yeah. Also, they're such old buildings, and old buildings usually have lower ceilings because everyone used to be shorter. Yeah. At some point when they. Also, they're such old buildings, and old buildings usually have lower ceilings because everyone used to be shorter.

Yeah. At some point when they built them, they just went, you know what, we're going mental with this. We're going nuts. Two doors in height. I do like the Flat in Edinburgh. I do miss this thing in Flat in Edinburgh.

Yes, the Fring, Phil. The Fring, the Professor Fring. Oh, and noodles and dumplings. Have you been to noodles and dumplings? Oh, we should do that. Oh, God, we should do that today, maybe. One of the greatest restaurants in the world. God damn.

Noodles and dumplings, Edinburgh. Yeah, that's a good point. Gosh. The one that started off the Slurpees. My Slurpee Awards. Yes, well, I mean off the Slurpees. My Slurpee Awards. Yes. Well, I mean, your Slurpees recently made all the difference to a local business. Yeah, Macau Kitchen, a brilliant restaurant in Edinburgh of Macanese food,

which I'd never had before, food from Macau. They won the Slurpee in 2019. And Ben Partridge, who makes the fantastic Meat and Dairy podcast, went there and took a photo of the framed and self-made Slurpee Award. Macau Kitchen have framed up and made a Slurpee Award with a picture of me on it. Saying winner of the 2019 Phil Wang Slurpee Award. saying winner of the 2019 Phil Wang Slurpee Award, which is the... I've never felt more honoured in my life. It looked amazing as well. They put a lot of effort into making it look like a real...

They really did. It looks like a real proper award, and it is, I guess, it is. But yeah, apparently they said it helped them out. It got people in through the doors, which, you know, it's mad. Something I just sort of started doing on Twitter for a bit of fun. This is your newfound power.

Yeah. I will wield it irresponsibly. This is you realizing that you have that kind of lightning force from Star Wars in your hands. Yeah. You're just going to go... Customers for a shop. Yeah. Yeah. You just sort of go... Customers for a shop. Yeah. Yeah, I should...

Yeah. With great noodle power comes great noodle responsibility, I suppose. That's right. That's right. That's fair. Yeah.

And are you missing noodles and dumplings? Are you missing... What about the fringe? It's the middle of August, Phil. Are you having phantom fringe pregnancy? I mean... Yeah, I'm waking up hungover even though I haven't had anything to drink it's a

I don't know it's weird well I mean no I don't I don't have this umbilical tie to the ember fringe that a lot of comedians seem to but I don't have much of a tie to anything

if I'm away from something I'm quite happy, I'm away from it I don't think about it it's that international brain syndrome again yeah, international school brain yeah, definitely it's a gift and a curse you're like a well-travelled baby

you have no object permanence But this is all inside This is all inside baseball, Phil Let's get global Yeah Let's get global and congratulate the Taliban And all their recent successes They've done so well, the Taliban

20 years of hurt, Pierre. 20 years of hurt. The Taliban is coming home. Yeah, it's... You know what's funny, right? You know what's funny is after 2016, after Brexit and Trump, all everyone kept saying was, we need to turn the...

Can we try turning the world off and on again? Can we turn the world off and on again, please? Can we reset? And then COVID happened. And they kind of got what they were asking for. COVID was a hard reset on the world. Yeah. And now,

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are back together and the Taliban are back. It's 2002 again, baby. It worked. We turned the world off and on again and we're back at 2002. That's right. That's right. It's terrifying, but it's true. And the president is an old guy with a kind of whispery voice.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It's not quite perfect because he's a Democrat, but you know, it's 2002 again, yeah. I mean, gosh, yeah. Well, you know, George W. Bush oversaw a disastrous invasion and Biden's overseen a disastrous withdrawal. So

it's a kind of a neat reflection, really, of one another. It balances out, yeah. They're an inversion of each other. I read today that when they started planning the 11th of September withdrawal from Afghanistan this year, American troops, there was one US intelligence assessment predicted that Afghanistan would return to Taliban rule

in about six months and in the end it was 10 days even the most pessimistic one apparently was the most pessimistic prediction from anyone really was 90 days right

I mean it turns out Phil that if you set up a system whereby when you're trying to report on the effectiveness of the Afghan National Army and the only news allowed is good news, you won't really have an accurate picture of if they even exist. Say that again? Well, all the articles are about how the U.S. who are mainly training the Afghan National Army, the only news they really reported upwards was good news. Right. So it was like the stereotype of what happened with the Soviet Union, where it's like everyone is incentivized to lie to the guy above them, and at the end of the chain,

someone has to stand in front of the Senate and make sure they still have funding. So they just go, yeah, it's going brilliantly. They've got laser guns now. Their eyes can see really far. They're 50 feet every one of them and everyone goes brilliant whereas in reality they had like ghost battalions like money was being paid for entire battalions of infantry that didn't even exist it was just going oh really yeah yeah no it's an absolute fucking disaster yeah it's a joke oh my god yeah yeah absolute joke and like depending on where there's some very good um

twitter accounts of sort of academics and journalists if you guys want to get more up to date on this incredibly depressing situation um and lots of it is like local politics like people who are actually from the same you know ethnic group or sect just making deals a lot of it's just deal making um so in fairness sometimes when they say the city of whatever has fallen what's actually happened is they've just gone and rung up their cousin and gone hey do you want to surrender and the cousin's gone like yeah okay yeah yeah seems fair what else can they do yeah you should be like well fuck it there's no one else here i mean there's nothing there's no help yeah it's yeah it's just amazing what

the middle east is just a series of lids on boiling pots and and every couple of decades america just goes i think we'll just take the lid off and And he's always hard to tell, I guess, what the lid is. With the Iraq war, it turned out the lid on Iraq was Saddam Hussein. It didn't look like it because he was a terrible dictator. But he was the lid on this boiling pot. But surely everyone should have seen that american presence this time around was the lid it was quite clearly the lid yeah well this is the thing is that everyone you know unless you go out and like there's an interesting article from a from a

who's a lieutenant colonel in the u.s army or something and his job was to go around checking on all this kind of thing like auditing it and seeing what people needed, kit-wise. And he wrote an article in the Armed Forces Journal in 2012, where he was saying literally none of the reports in Washington tally with anything I've seen. None of the

Afghan National Army I met leave their bases. Some of them are not even there. None of the US troops like them or work well with them because they don't support each other like just on and on and on that was in 2012 so just add another eight years of total decline um so it's just incompetence and mismanagement yeah i don't know but yeah so then does that mean that that this outcome was inevitable and it's only a matter of time no no no i don't think any failure is inevitable. If they'd actually gone around and

made sure the money was being spent on actual soldiers who existed. Afghanistan is famously this unsolvable place. But I think that's too easy because it's unsolvable in the sense that you can't do what the Russians did and try and stay and govern it as basically as Russians.

Whereas you could, in theory, hand it over to some other Afghans because it's not like when we leave, it's... The Taliban are governing it, so it's clearly possible to govern, right? Right, right. It's not like it's magical and impossible to govern. It is possible. Right. Right, right. It's not like it's magical and impossible to govern.

It is possible. But it's not possible if what you do is you create a system so corrupt and overflowing with money that you don't track that a bunch of Afghan soldiers and policemen who want to help but can't fight the fact that they haven't been paid in four months because the guy in charge of their regiment

is just stealing all the money and now he lives in Dubai. So unless you create some kind of system where everyone's really accountable and if a civil servant steals all the money that's supposed to go to the army they get hanged in the town square i don't know something really horrible happens to them so everyone gets terrified or it's it's just that thing where there's no incentive to behave why would you yeah i don't think i think it's no incentive to behave. Why would you? Yeah. I think it's too easy to say that it was inevitable. I think that lets everybody off the hook for being stupid, to be honest.

Right, but I only say that because it's just... I mean, the history repeats itself with Afghanistan so specifically. It's become cliche now. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's also just very invadable in theory you could say it's the most invadable place by using the same logic

no other country has been invaded so often by so many powers maybe Egypt yeah I don't know I think it was always going to be withdrawing was always going to fuck everything up but this is like this is the worst version

of all possible worlds that they've done it just seems like such a waste oh it's a huge waste I mean what did we spend 460 million? billion? 46 billion? what was it i was in like 65 billion or something there's a was i mean that's 2.2 2.2 trillion

we spent half a track and trace program on afghanistan and and given the way our troops were probably just on helmand, right? Yeah. And that was the first one to fall. I mean, wouldn't it have been cheaper just to hire the Taliban? Right. At a certain point. And convert them. Just hire them somehow or just say, look, we'll pay you the salaries directly.

It won't be corrupt, but just switch sides. Because everyone seems to be switching sides. So clearly, a lot of people, it's just about money survival i always think that when my favorite current my favorite genre of comment from world leaders is um the taliban must promise to to uphold liberal values. I love that. Yeah. I like all the people who are anti-military interventionists and sending their solidarity to the women of

Afghanistan. It's absolutely pathetic. Thumbs up, sisters. Fucking pathetic. I mean, if you can watch what is happening in Afghanistan unfold and still be blanket against all intervention, you're beyond help.

I think you don't actually care about the world and women and people who live in these dire circumstances yeah I mean you don't care you just want to say war is bad yeah and of course it's not like it's good in the sense that it's ideal but yeah

I was quite surprised that some people sort of being like there's some public figures some newspaper outlets starting to sort of go, the Taliban have just retaken this city and they're being awful to everyone there. And these are sort of people or news outlets who are very sort of like frowny about the war generally or about the idea of it sort of going, oh, what a waste. Oh, isn't there a better way? And sort of it's like, well, you weren't pro like this is what this is what's going to happen like you can't you can't be anti it and then not understand that this is what's going to happen

like make your peace with it don't be surprised yeah what did you think they were going to do the taliban were going to go no we were only against new girls' schools. I mean, there's that statement from the Stop the War Coalition that we both saw, which was like, the West must now pay reparations to the Taliban for occupying Afghanistan and also accept all refugees from Afghanistan. Yeah.

It's like, okay, so then should the Taliban have been in charge or not? What do you believe? What is it you think should have happened? People are so thick. They're saying we should take refugees from Afghanistan because they're fleeing the Taliban who we should also give hundreds of millions of pounds to.

To kind of supercharge them. I don't know. It's one of the thickest organizations out there, I'd say. And it's a real shame that the fact that they were clever enough to be the loudest voice and the best physical presence on all the Iraq war marches in 2003, it's given them this level of prominence when they're so strange

and run by such a bunch of weirdos and have these insane takes. I mean... I mean, it goes to show the power of a good name. Just call yourself Stop the War. That sounds good. Sounds sensible. No one wants to join the keep the war going

please coalition I tried to start the first meeting Phil of the keep shooting people club and no one showed up the only people who showed up

were people from stop the war to protest it yeah I mean I was expecting it's terribly it's terribly depressing tested. Yeah, I mean, I was expecting... It's terribly depressing, but also kind of retro. Yeah. It's kind of retro, Pierre.

Yeah, it's all back. It's the early noughties again. This just goes to show how far our nostalgia culture has gone. I mean, you know what I mean? Yeah. You know, we're making sequels to Avatar.

We're rebooting... What the fuck's getting rebooted at the moment? Making fucking Cruella. Yeah. Where they're bringing back all these old franchises, including the Taliban. This is nostalgia culture gone too far. How soon do you think it'll be

when nostalgia culture catches up so quickly that it's just back to making current affairs programs? Or just the news? The news is nostalgia culture for what happened that day. Yeah, I want repeats of the news from 2005. How soon do you think Netflix will do a kind of like, you know, Narcos- style drama about just the Taliban? It's definitely going to come.

It's got to be on the way, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'd probably be pretty good, actually. I mean, it'd make for a good drama. I mean, I'd be like Homeland, homeland basically but maybe from the afghan perspective it'd be very game of thrones because there's all different warlords and factions of course of course and it would be funny that more research would go into that netflix um series than has been done clearly by the u Department of Defense over the past two decades. Two decades, Phil.

There are people fighting in that war who were not born when it began. Terrible. Crazy. Well, I mean, that's my tickets to Kabul ripped up. Oh, man. Another holiday.

Another holiday ruined. Thanks a lot, 2021 holiday Another holiday ruined Thanks a lot 2021 Another holiday ruined I can't believe they've put it on the red list The government can't make up its mind about what countries Yeah, God When do you think in life, when do you think we'll get to the point where we can

go as tourists when it would be something that people do and it isn't doesn't sound too insane it'd be a bit like going to india to afghanistan yeah well i mean when was the last time that was the case 1970s yeah so so huh um i would say i would say maybe when you and I are 80 years old. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair, yeah. We go on some kind of like pensioner's cruise. A desert cruise. We have to wait for Jeff Bezos to buy Afghanistan.

Yeah, with his arm... He could just buy out the Taliban. Yeah, as a franchise. And he also has more drones than the US Army. He's also probably... Amazon has so much data he probably would have found Bin Laden faster as well.

Just looked up where he was getting all those packages delivered oh yeah we sent him like 20 Brita filters last weekend we know exactly where he is yeah he's got a subscription going on them don't know what he's drinking but god yeah in his little compound they should have i mean what would have been the smartest thing to do the second you shoot bin laden in the face just then leave afghanistan and say yeah that's who we came here to kill and even though he was in pakistan we're gonna leave

that would have at least made it seem like you had a consistent mission and you'd done it and at least there wouldn't have been the sense of loss having brought afghanistan to some level of stability and democracy only to lose it again yeah maybe that would have been maybe that would have been the second worst version of all possible worlds but i mean this is this is literally the argument of people like to stop the war. It's like, we shouldn't have done anything and just let this have been the case for the last 20 years as well. Just put up with them existing

and just Bin Laden just hanging out filming videos. His video is getting gradually more advanced than joining TikTok. They'd be on TikTok. He'd have a TikTok account. They'd have a kind of Bin Laden filter. He'd be putting his own music up there. But you know one thing I have to give props to the Taliban for and it's not something I like to make a habit of

is their commitment to those outfits. It's been 20 years. They still dress exactly the same. They have seen all the fads come around. Bum bags, sportswear, bucket hats. And they've gone, no, no, no, no.

We know our wardrobe. We know what works. They're like Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah. They have an outfit they're too busy to they there's one less decision to make in the morning because they're busy they've they've been extremely busy i mean we should have known we could never conquer any group strong enough to ignore the ug boot craze what else have what else have they missed?

it's funny when you look back and realise that the clothing of your era did have a thing yeah what else have they missed? sort of skinny jeans they were never going to go for that no

no far too revealing skinny jeans, wheelies. Wheelie shoes. Yeah, maybe that's how they've taken the country so quickly. Just wearing light-up sketches, yeah. God, well. Yeah, I mean, yeah. But then, okay.

It certainly puts problems into perspective right but now this is where my Middle Eastern scholarship fails me from here on you know is it going

is it going to be effectively like a terrorist group has its own country now or is it a new kind of stability in the middle east is it the kind of stability that we had before 2001 well they well before that 2001 it was it was still like an ongoing civil war so either it's going to be like that or the the new stability is so precious that even the taliban wanted and they i mean certainly like the the keta shura like the kind of doha based external like world-facing taliban figures are all yeah they have an office in doha yeah yeah i wonder if it's in like a nice building i was

trying to imagine it we go in and it's like a reception it's like if it's in like a nice building. I was trying to imagine it. We go in and it's like... Is there a reception? It's like the Apple offices. It's like Google. Yeah, it's like really nice and like metal and glass. Yeah, but they've got like thought pods and bouncy ball rooms and... And a pick and mix. A pick and mix in the break room.

Yeah, those guys, people are skateboarding. And they're just like, this is where we just like to sit and brainstorm ideas on how to take back Afghanistan. They're just really cool and young. So they keep saying very... You like the hot desk? I guess every desk is a hot desk in Doha.

Just our little joke. But they've all been saying things like oh no everything's going to be brilliant and it's stable and wonderful and fine and we're going to keep everything going um but they've also more importantly given that they share you know borders with russia china and pakistan they've been also saying it to them so they do have a massive incentive to just keep everything because they probably have more control now than they even did in the 90s because they don't they control a lot more of like the northern provinces were like the northern alliance is what helped us invade in 2001 in the first place i see so maybe i mean god knows but then equally like they say all that stuff internationally,

and everyone sounds very reassured. But then the stuff they're saying locally is the same stuff they said before. So we'll find out who's lying, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be interesting. Everyone's wondering what the fuck China's going to do. Because it's not like China's really in favor of

Muslim and non-Chinese ethnic groups suddenly gaining a lot of power and making their own country. Yeah. And they have a lot of interest in Pakistan, which is right there. Yeah. That's going to be the big thing. What the hell are those guys going to do? Because, I mean, as much as America does care,

once America's gone, it's quite far away. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. So, yeah, God. Interesting times, unfortunately. I mean, first... Do you reckon this will be, like, sort of, ironically, Biden's Iraq?

Yeah, it's annoying, isn't it? Because there's that clip everyone sharing on twitter of donald trump boasting about how he started the withdrawal and biden can't stop it right which is true but biden's always been correct me if i'm wrong he's always been anti um afghan occupation he's wanted to leave yeah yeah but yeah he's like since like 2008 basically yeah but it's the obama days he's wanting to get out it's a shame that something that donald trump wanted to have credit for and openly said it was his idea is now going to be used as a stick to beat the other guy with but you know right but had biden not wanted to withdraw he they wouldn't have sure obviously that it's still

but like the the decisions various decisions had been made before he took office he just happened to agree i'm just saying that put it this way the blame is going to be put on the democrat party not on america okay yeah yeah i'm saying i wouldn't mind the blame as much as if they were like oh no donald trump and joe biden did this stupid fucking bad geopolitical decision or at least a good geopolitical decision done at the wrong time in a bad way but it's not going to be that but equally nixon withdrew from vietnam and that got that was completely fucked as well and no one cares well this is what i think biden has said as much is that he's kind of betting on this being like his Vietnam and eventually no one will care. Yeah.

This is far enough away. I mean, that's why Donald Trump said it, because the groundswell of American people seem to just be like, who gives a shit? We never even heard of this place before. Fuck it. Let's go. Yeah, I mean, we've got Bin Laden. Why are we still there?

I mean, that's a completely understandable attitude to have if you're a Joe Six pack. Yeah. It's only soppy, wet little internationalists like us that care, Phil, I'm afraid. We are soppy, wet. We're also closer. That's the main thing for us. Yeah.

Yeah, that's true. You know, it's like we've already had a refugee crisis and now we've got a new refugee crisis chaser to wash down the refugee crisis Europe was already in yes yeah and during a period in which

it's the most justified period in which to take Afghan refugees at a period in which countries are the least in favour of it, especially like Macron and Merkel. Yeah, so that's going to be another delightful thing. Well, thank God COVID's over. Imagine that.

Imagine having your city taken over by the Taliban and then you get COVID. Yeah, I mean... It's just a disproportionate amount. It's not like you were going out anyway. It's not like you were... Oh, I have to isolate. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, the nightlife is going to suffer regardless, I suppose. Gosh. Well, if you can, Yeah, the nightlife is going to suffer regardless, I suppose. Gosh. Well, if you can, donate any money to any of the... I mean, there's a million and one different causes being tweeted about that are designed to help people in Afghanistan. And if you can spare any money, then give it. But otherwise, I don't know, write a letter to your MP or your congressman or whoever.

But yeah, that's kind of it really we've just got to sit here Phil and focus on our little jokes our little important jokes Pierre, our crucial jokes don't forget how important our jokes are and that comedy can change the world that's why you're in Edinburgh

you're there to change the world I'm in Edinburgh because if I can amuse just one high ranking member of the world. I'm in Edinburgh because if I can amuse just one high-ranking member of the Taliban, maybe I could win him over. Yeah. He'll be like, when you and I win over audience members who are

very sort of laddy and aggressive. Yeah, you're like, huh, wow, I guess we are kind of just all the same. Yeah yeah and he'll be like to be fair i was ready to hate you but that was pretty that was actually pretty funny to be fair and you'll be like oh thank you thank you you know i don't normally like infidel comedians but you you're good you're good i hate it when they say that

yeah that's you afterwards yeah why can't they just say they liked it why do they keep having to point out that I'm an infidel infidel comedians don't have to deal with this shit

I mean non-infidel comedians don't have to deal with this shit they're just assumed to be doing comedy for comedy's sake. Because I'm an infidel. I'm an infidel before I'm a comedian. It's like...

That's... Yeah. Mike Al McIntyre would never have to deal with this. Oh my gosh. I would love to see someone who can do a really good McIntyre impression trying to do a whole set as a kind of Taliban observational comedian. Yeah, I mean, that as a combination feels so retro. That is mid-naughties shit.

Yeah, that's true. Mike Al McIntyre. Yeah, and he's doing observational stuff about how all the kids are on Facebook now or something. Keeps mentioning MySpace. Well. Well, it's a heavy one this week. Yeah, it's a heavy week though, I suppose.

But if you need cheering up, then... Ah! Pianovelli and Garrett Millerick. 2nd or 3rd of September. Pleasant Sizzlington, London. Special recordings. It'll be a good time. Lovely.

It'll be a good time. Lovely. Please do come along. It'll be an hour from each of us, so it's good value for money. Yeah, meanwhile, my special Filly Filly Warring Warring is still on Netflix. I haven't taken it down yet. Not yet. And I'm taking it on tour to finish the 2020 tour in September and October. Runda, UK.

Yes, nice. So catch that tour. Or can they do anything to somehow make it more powerful on Netflix, Phil? More powerful? Well, they can watch it. I don't know if those thumbs-ups are calculated. They must be.

They must be. Are they still there, the thumbs? I think so. I think you can hit the... Yeah, I think you can hit like, I like this, or whatever.

Okay, well, keep thumbing it, everyone. Yeah, keep thumbing it. Thumbing it. All right. Thumbing it, thumbing it, thumbing it. All right, everybody.

Cheers, everyone. Bye.