BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 153 - WW3

Episode Date: March 2, 2022

Phil Wang and Pierre Novellie chat WW2 and custom armour, black hot clothes, nuclear war, correspondence is Rose's Siberia adventure, sketch is Pierre lazily parodying the Soviet anthem Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Budpod 153. 153, bun hay, please. That's me ordering at a Vietnamese restaurant, some bun hay. What's bun hay? Bun hay is the spicy soup dish with vermicelli noodles that hails from the ancient capital, the ancient Vietnamese capital of hay, H-U-A, Hay. You know where the...

Oh. It was hit hard during the war. Not the Hay Offensive. Hue City, the Siege of Hue. Yeah, it's called Hue, yeah. Yeah, they always call it Siege of Hue in Vietnam films and stuff. But what Vietnam films don't tell you

is that while they were sieging was a load of delicious spicy soup noodles as well it has ancient walls i seem to remember from dan snow's military history tv show yeah it's supposed to be a really grand ancient city so hey hey bun bun bun bun way please please one five one five three Please. Please. One, five. One, five, three. Bun hai. I'm pronouncing hai, hai. Hai, hai. Bun hai, please. And you just had some Asian food? I did.

Actually, a Vietnamese place is probably why I thought of it. But I didn't get bun hai because I had bun last night at a different Vietnamese restaurant. Your second tour of Nam. Yeah, Charlie has done well out of me The last couple of days Charlie and the trees He's laughing all the way to the trees Let's just say

I've been fattened up by the man in the black pyjamas What's that? That's how they used to refer to Viet Cong The man in the black pyjamas Oh yeah they do wear black They must have been hot A lot of hot countries They wear black. They must have been hot to wear black in Southeast Asia. Yes, true.

A lot of hot countries, they wear black. And I always think, is there something I'm missing? Is it like when you have a hot coffee on a hot day and it actually kind of feels fine? Yeah. There's a clothing version of that? When I see ladies in, I don't know, Saudi Arabia, and they've got full black. They're wearing just full black all over. It's like, oh my God, that must be so hot.

Just soaking in the sun. Like wearing a black t-shirt on a hot day in London. Is like, you can feel the mistake the second you walk onto a bit of pavement that the sun's touching. You just go, uh-oh. Like the second the sun hits your back you go oh oh no if it was all of you it's gotta be hot in there and it's all channeled upwards right because it's like it's hanging as a robe so that has to channel up yeah yeah is that are there can you get them with vents like an academic gown has got big vents in it you know like underneath the armpits it actually doesn't like go up Are we talking about the niqab here

Is it the niqab or the full I forget Everyone always says burka but it's never right Because I think burkas are the ones that have like a mesh face thing Oh maybe that's what That is what I'm thinking about I'm thinking about the full cover up It's a cover up

Alright They're hiding women down. It's a cover up! All right. They're hiding women down there! It's a cover up! It is, niqab is a face veil. Oh, okay. A burqa is a veil that covers the entire body and face

with a mesh window or grill across the eyes. Okay, so I'm thinking a burqa then. Yeah, but a niqab is the same thing but with no mesh. Oh, with no mesh. Okay.

Well, maybe not the same thing but you know what I mean I'm talking about in terms of visible Birka you can't even see the eyes Yeah Niqab you can see There's like a visor Yeah

Suffice it to say Hot Wearing black in those countries is hot And the traditional dress of my My native people Is the Karazandusun of North Borneo Also wear this I mean this beautiful

Outfit of like black trousers and black thick shirts with beautiful gold trimmings. It's just black, black, black. It looks like not the first skin you'd unlock in a game, but like a cool

prestige skin. Yes! Black cloth with gold trim. It's the best armor you can get in assassin's creed 2 yeah you have to collect all the pieces around the world and you get the black yeah yeah yeah you collect yes it does look enchanted yeah from the point of view of someone who's played too many video games it looks like like... Okay, I know it looks like cloth, but in the game it's actually the only plus 50 armor available. Yeah, all the Karazendusans looked like they had to go on cheatmaster.com

to find all the places where they found the pieces of their outfit. Yeah. They gave up eventually. Like, okay, fuck this. I can only do this organically for like 30 pieces. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, they... It's hard to be from that group mainly because of the quests it's just a lot of questing um i'm trying to i've just

googled is is it hot to wear a niqab yeah um and there is like a kind of guide and the guide is like yeah try and wear lighter clothing or like don't wear polyester um um it's loose though that's the advantage is like keep it keep the clothes loose okay underneath as well yeah moves around. Get some ventilation in there. Here we go. Yes, it is hot under a hijab according to Sarah Mushtaq. That's the headline. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Sarah.

Thank you for writing that in the London Free Press. What is that? The London Free Press? That sounds like one of those papers people make up to like spread anti-vax theories. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. It's the the news outlets you should always look out for like um world news today yeah yeah or like um yeah or like top story network it's like vague it's like which is called like truth news yeah um yeah it just seems to say that it is it is pretty warm under there but it's not crazy okay that's good it seems like that's often the case with anything isn't it as in like any any any any question is often the most boring reasonable answer yeah it's always like it's fine actually yeah kind of but not really you go oh okay like most things in life are that yeah well uh how about this question uh pierre yeah um are we a week away from nuclear

annihilation well yes this is it isn't it um i'm sure like many of you listeners uh you've been doing a bit of the old doom scrolling i uh have lost my mind and i'm like following there's some there's a few twitter accounts you can basically follow people trying to like retake an airfield i don't think you should be doing that. I know I shouldn't be doing it, but it's happening now, you know? Yeah, I know, I know. You can't do anything about it. You've got enough on your plate. But even that feels insane.

If Europe is wiped out of nuclear holocaust, it won't matter that you knew it was coming anyway. No, I don't think the nukes are going to be a thing. Really? Do you not think so? No, because you know how Vladimir Putin said, like, send the nukes to double secret readiness. Oh, double secret readiness oh yeah yeah the thing he said isn't a name yeah he said put the put them deterrence on it's like the he said he's activated deterrence it's like well they're already deterrence they're already there yeah they're floating around

constantly but like so in like Russian military doctrine, they were saying has like actual names for the stages of nuclear readiness. There's four stages. Right. And the thing he said isn't any of them. It's always at level one. You have been following this closely. Yeah. And the thing he said is just like going double secret probation.

Like it's just a fucking freak people out. Yeah. Well, it worked. Well, it did work. Yeah. I don't know what he was worried about happening, because everyone seems to already be doing everything they can to fuck him up, apart from declare war.

But maybe he really thought we'd do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just more Putin brinksmanship. He's such a brinksman here. He loves the brink. That guy lives on the brink. He loves a brink.

He loves a tall, cool glass of brink, that guy. He's a heavy brinker. He's a sipper brink and he wants more. He's got a brinking problem. I think he's got a brinking problem. I didn't know Foden has a brinking problem. I think he's got a brinking problem. He loves the brink.. He loves the brink.

Night out on the brink. First thing he does in the morning is have another brink. Have another brink, yeah. There's another brink. You can't stop him. And he's on a real bender these days. We've had about nine days on the brink. So far.

On the demon brink. Oh, gosh. My main worry, uh-huh is that well i mean ukraine is all ukraine's already putting up a bigger fight than he'd expected oh than anyone expected i mean it's absolutely astonishing yeah um i mean it's it's it's real battle of helms deep stuff oh yeah it's 300 spans. Yeah, and all these sanctions are being placed against them. The Russian citizens can't get

cash out of the cash machines. They can't buy shit. All the fucking oligarchs can't enjoy the very things they became oligarchs to enjoy. They can't spend money in the West they hate, but it's also the only place where it is pleasurable to live so that's where they go yeah um and so i'm worried my main worry is that

russia and putin are defeated but then he just nukes everyone out of embarrassment it's like the ultimate rage quit that's what i'm worried about right okay so you think he's gonna take his ball and go home so now no one can play football he's gonna make this nuclear football in the briefcase oh i didn't lob it over the fence you give everyone yeah yeah he's gonna pop the world's football i suppose yeah yeah maybe i mean the good thing as well is that even if he does decide to do that it's not like he just has like a button in his pants that he can just press he has it's like america it's nice to go through like a button in his pants that he can just press. It's like America.

It still has to go through 15 different weird generals and an admiral. Yeah. There's a theory that eventually someone's going to say no. Well, it could be the final test, right? If all the oligarchs are like, he might turn it around. Okay, if we rebel now and we fail,

he'll kill us and then we'll definitely won't be oligarchs but the second he puts up the phone and goes nuke everything then that might be the point where the general who he calls says he says nuke everything the general goes of course sir puts the phone down immediately picks it up yeah we gotta kill we gotta fucking kill this guy yeah yeah we gotta get rid of this guy anything's better than not than being dead in a nuclear winter yeah yeah yeah any amount of oligarchy is nicer than that. A small yacht is better than being irradiated. My worry is that if there is a country out there

where the leader can skip all those steps, it's Russia. I mean, North Korea more so. There was someone on Twitter who was pointing out that, have you seen those crazy videos of Ukrainians just stopping tanks by just standing in front of them? Standing in front, yeah. Well, if the Russian soldiers aren't willing to just smush ukrainians with their tanks they're willing to nuke the earth that's true that's true at some point they're going to go i don't think and there's examples

from the cold war where there's that russian submarine guy who basically saved the world by not launching a load of nukes when he should have yeah even though he was he as far as he knew knew a nuke had been launched yeah he just They'd recently been doing exercises and he suspected that something was... Like, it just couldn't be true. Right, right. But he just made the decision either way to be like, no. And then, like, ten minutes later,

they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, don't worry about that. That was just like a fly on the smudge on the screen. And presumably then he immediately collapsed. Okay, so, I mean... So I don't think... You're putting me at ease here

with regards to the nuclear stuff, but you're still very anxious. What is it you're anxious about? Ukraine. Just like... Yeah. Do you think this is his Poland? Yeah, I do.

And there's no version of the... Like, put it this way. Sweden is arming the Ukrainians. Yeah. And Switzerland is joining in on the sanctions. Sweden and Switzerland were neutral to Hitler. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's huge for sweden to be like okay we fool me once crazy borders guy and even switzerland like okay we basically refurbished our government buildings with

nazi gold and even we are going to at least pretend to do something which and even pretending to do something is enough to annoy putin yeah that's true fucking massive yeah the whole thing's massive and basically i don't know i mean if there's no because there's no like i what i don't know and and what worries me is that there's no clear understanding of what exactly the goal is yeah yeah it sometimes seems like he doesn't know what he wants because here's the thing there's a very good analysis of it by lawrence friedman who's the professor emeritus or something fancy of war studies at king's college london and he was saying that look the number of troops that russia has to throw into this which is like at most 250 000 is around the same number of troops

that America and Britain needed to invade and occupy Iraq. Right. Iraq has 20 million fewer people than Ukraine. And Ukraine's like five times the size, four times the size. Yes. It's nowhere near enough people.

So what's the plan? Are you going to occupy it? And that was with a population that at least initially welcomed us. We're talking aboutaq yeah ukraine all of them hate them already and they all have anti-tank missiles and they're all furious yeah yeah yeah yeah what is the end game what's the point yeah and they and that was assuming they do well that was assuming they do as well as we did on day one of the iraq war which was basically just to win immediately and delete their air force for like delete air force.exe yeah just like highlight all the different planes on your desktop and just

go ben just delete like the fact that ukraine even still has an air force is actively weird right day one every single ukrainian fighter plane should have just been ash and it's not they're still tootling around in the sky it's fucking mad it's weird it's not just incompetent it's actively weird the only way russia's performance could be any weirder in terms of its badness is if it turned out all their guns were made of ham and there was like a viral tiktok video of a ukrainian going like what the fuck and i'm picking up a gun and just going through his hand going like he's ham that would be that's the only thing we had than all the stuff that's already happened like there's footage of them just abandoning tanks even sometimes when

they have fuel yeah yeah it's just in the middle of the road there'll just be this empty tank with an engine running like something out of a gta game something in battlefield are you yeah yes oh tank spawned yeah yeah it's fucked up and i mean like on a more like on a less existential geopolitical level people are just being shelled in the fucking apartment blocks and it's like harrowing the the missile that hit just the center of kiev today yeah just appalling just enormous i think it was an iskander missile yeah i mean the whole thing's crazy and also it's going to be a refugee crisis and it's the first time in a long time that like two appreciably solid serious states have gone toe-to-toe yeah yeah it's first time two sort of

comparable militaries have gone well not even comparable but just like so like armenia and azerbaijan had that war like a few months ago or last year whenever it was but even that was about like like long disputed territory and it was like no one no one involved had a nuke yes and you know it was in a very like small area of dispute whereas this is like ukraine the only country in europe bigger than ukraine is russia like this whole the scale of this is enormous refugees are flooding into the eu um yeah it's just this is bigger than 9-11 in terms of its change to the global order sweden sweden and finland might join nato i'd fucking join nato if i was them yeah if i had a border with russia i'd be pooping my pants yeah um but yeah i've been losing my mind basically but i don't think we'll get nuked

okay i've just been losing my mind over every other aspect of the car of the conflict yeah yeah it is it is it is big stuff and it's sort of the the latest in a string of large-scale events over the last, what, what's it coming to now, six years, of going, no, the worst possible thing's not going to happen. Yeah. Or it's threatening to happen. But it's not going to actually happen. Well, that's it. And time after time after time it has.

Yeah. Brexit, Trump. Well, he's not going to actually, they win. Or he's not going to actually, he wins. Or the COVID, it's not really, it's just the flu. It's not going to actually he wins it's not really good it's just the flu it's not well it can't come back after yeah it's back

it's back again yeah three times yeah yeah yeah everything's dead yeah it's a good point for four years six years now for six years now it's just been constantly like well you wouldn't hit

a man with glasses would you just getting punched in the face by reality again and again yeah i think that's it i think the the chastening experience especially of covid has meant that whatever i what like i i'm so willing to believe now that worst options are more possible. Because they just, in a way, the way that Vladimir Putin got so strong was that we always thought like that. Yeah,

it's the era of Sod's Law. It's Sod's Law on steroids. Yeah. We can't catch a break. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's not that far away i mean i went to i went to school with a guy from ukraine well my my my folks flew back to malaysia the other day

and obviously you know it's a flight around well yeah they had to fly around but i mean even that was like because you know last time a malaysian plane went down it's because some fucking separatists in crimea thought it was a fighter jet and we're just yeah knocked it out knocked it out the sky with definitely russian military tech yeah because you know how sometimes phil in the middle of a village where there's just like every back garden has chickens they just cobble together some some copex some little bronze pennies and they buy a buk launcher with anti-air capability and million dollar missiles you know yeah my son can't go to ethan i can't go to harrods i'm no longer golfing on the best golf course. I can't buy some hookers.

I can't go to Vegas. My Caribbean island is covered in dust. We fucked up on Ukraine. Now we feel world shame. Shout out to any oligarchs listening. Do we have any oligarch listeners? I should hope so. Someone's got to sign up to the highest level on Patreon.

We could change the name. Our patrons on Patreon who do the highest level are now oligarchs we have big sinister conferences with them what must be done yeah putin's really going full bond villain it feels weird that we were discussing his bond villain la and Lair, his Black Sea Palace. Yeah. Only the other day. Yeah. And now he's living up to it. But why doesn't... What's his problem? Why doesn't... He's got a palace. Why doesn't he just go enjoy the palace?

It is weird. Why are you doing all this? Do you think it's the same thing that means that like... That's why like Elon Musk and Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos don't just like... Just stop now. Just stop now just stop working yeah that's why i don't get why is mark zuckerberg even going to meetings that's why i never don't understand dude retire yeah you've done it go barbecue baby back ribs yeah and great sweet ribs and go surfing with a white face go surfing with your face paint on have a belly full of ribs.

Your two favorite things, Mark. Marky Mark. Why are you bothering with all this nonsense? Instead he's like, I've built this huge company that's worth a kajillion dollars and I'm going to fuck it into a bin by making everyone play Wii Tennis. With a headset. What you and I don't understand is that there are some people out there for whom a comfortable life is not and has never been the end goal it just goes on and on and on yeah well it's like walter white breaking

bad syndrome i was good at it yeah yeah yeah that's just them all the way through yeah whereas i mean at least bill gates eventually just went no i'm leaving microsoft and i'm just going to go around giving people mosquito nets. Yeah. And being a cool charity guy. Nice Kermit frog charity, frog-voiced charity guy. Nice frog-voiced charity man. Yeah. That would be a Halloween costume for Bill Gates. Frog-voiced charity.

Frog-voiced philanthropist. Yeah, maybe that's it i mean yeah you've got a palace and everyone's afraid of you and you've got like creepy portraits of you all over the country that people can like kiss there's you know i heard like a good origin story it's honestly like a villain and it's almost like a superhero villain origin story the one i heard about putin of like it's just not about the rats oh i don't know this one but when basically when when when the soviet union collapsed he was an officer or a guard at some outpost somewhere in the soviet officer in the kgb right yeah in uh in east germany yeah

that's right yeah and all of a sudden like this mob forms and comes at him, comes at his outpost. And he runs in. He has to lock the doors. He has to grab a gun. And he's facing all this mob down. And it's that moment that he's cornered like a rat. And he has to accept that the Soviet Union's fallen to pieces. And that he's alone on this new border, this new frontier.

And ever since that moment, he's been like, I'm going to get it back. I'm going to get it back. We won it. We won it. That's him pointing at Eastern Europe. We won it.

We won it. We'll win it. We'll win it. It's fucking, yeah, it's mad. I mean, I remember, I read the story about him when he was growing up in like sort of the ruins of Leningrad, I think he was from.

He's like Magneto. He's an evil Magneto instead of a complicated Magneto. And he, something about, they would go around chasing rats and stuff like the big rats that like went around all the bomb craters and things that were still there

oh like a fallout yeah just to get them out of the apartment block or something and there was something about they cornered

this particularly big he cornered this particularly big rat and once it was cornered it just jumped at him and he was like and ran away and he

like apparently this is a story he told someone who then recounted it. Yeah. Um, some general who retired and put it in his memoirs or whatever. Anyway,

source source needed. I can find it again if anyone's interested. And, uh, apparently that was his, like he tells that story as a way of saying never, never corner a rat, like either kill it immediately or let it have some way of squirreling out of it

that means it doesn't jump at your goddamn face. But then in a way, he's the rat. Well, he's the rat, but in a way he's cornered the Ukrainians. They're leaping at his face right now. It's rat on rat. It's like the Spider-Man meme, but with two cornered rats.

Are you pleased that we gave them all those launchers? They are using them. Who, the Ukrainians? With the British. We gave them launchers. We gave them anti-tank missiles. Well, yeah, if they put them to good use. Yeah, there's footage of it.

We weren't using them. Yeah, that's true. ISIS never got tanks. Well, no, that's they did they nicked some from the iraqi army but yeah yeah yeah um yeah i mean i don't know how it could possibly end it's yeah i sometimes think is this just going to be like as you say another like an iraq or afghanistan like a 20 years occupation slash war just insurgents an insurg, like a 20-year occupation slash war, just insurgents, like a decades-long insurgency war or something.

Yeah. Yeah, it's an odd one. And even if it is that, then all the countries around Ukraine that are anti-Russia are definitely going to be doing the equivalent of funding the Taliban. You know what I mean? Is there any chance there'll be like one of these one of the peace talks i have and and ukraine gives i guess you you give him an inch you'll take him out but

like they go okay here's like you can have this little corridor if you just back off now well you just have that those bits that want to that are like separatist yeah before yeah maybe but i mean i mean maybe at some point putin starts looking for a way to climb down or just like that's the trouble is that all the ways that are about climbing down require the ukrainians are like fighting for their existence to hand over a slice of something to that fucking maniac have you already lost crimea yeah exactly and and those bits of danesk danetsk and lugansk i i don't know yeah i, I mean, I was tempted. I was thinking, like, I was tempted.

If I was them, I'd be tempted to be like, we swear to never join NATO. And when Russia troops leave, just immediately join NATO. And when they complain, be like, oh, violating treaties is bad, is it? Upsetting, upsetting, is it? When someone violates a treaty? Isn't Zelensky saying now,

let us join NATO right now. Let's join. EU. EU, that's it. Well, either one. I mean, he'd be overjoyed with either one. Yeah. Gosh, that would be,

that'd be some brinksmanship. We'd be brinking then. Yeah, we'd be brinking real hard. We'd be brinking the Kool-Aid. We'd be brinking the hard stuff. Yeah. Someone was pointing out out like someone online was like oh you can't join the eu if half your country's like occupied or disputed and someone

else was like well cyprus did all right because half of cyprus is turkish cyprus oh interesting and then apparently the reason that happened is that greece was like you will let cyprus join the eu and the eu was like no half half of it's disputed territory. There's like a DMZ. And Greece was like, we will veto every other fucking country that wants to join. Hungary, Poland, you name it. We will veto every last one of them.

Unless you let Cyprus join. And they went, fine. Fine, Greece. You can have what you want again. So maybe. But I don't really know how it would help zelensky i guess it would mean that russia was attacking an eu country and that would mean something but i mean the eu's well fair play the germans are rearming phil really yeah they've just

added like another hundred billion euros to their defense budget and who'd have thought we'd find ourselves in a place not even a century on going, Yay, the Germans are rearming. Good. Well, it's like with China and just being like, let's hope Japan has a powerful navy. Yeah. Oh, God. The whole thing switched around. Yeah, complete flip-flop.

It's like a very long-running show. Yeah. And you go, oh, what? It's like Power Rangers when the evil, is it? Yeah. The Green Ranger becomes the White Ranger. And you go, oh what, it's like Power Rangers When the evil Is it, the green ranger Becomes the white ranger And you're like, oh good, they're the good guy now Yeah, and you go, oh yeah, they can help They can help, yeah

Yeah, it's I thought Germany Was still Prevented from Building up too large a military No? Oh, they're not. No, not anymore. I don't think since they merged. But I mean,

even if they were, they'd be waged around. Every country calls its military a defense force now, basically. You just change the definition of defense. It's funny that the Ministry of Defense used to be the Ministry of War. And you'd be like, I'm the Minister of War.

You want to start a war? You talk to me. Yeah. Everyone was very bold back then. There was no fucking around. It's how, like, vegetarian food is now called plant-based. Trying to leave, just trying to be a little more neutral about it. It's based on plants.

It's based on plants. It's based on plants. And I'm not going to say I'm going to shove vegetables on you But if you want something that's based on plants We don't copy plants But it's based on plants Based on a true story It's plant based You can only actually call it a plant if it's from the plant region

Of France So this is just plant based Plant inspired These are just sparkling crops of France. So this is just plant-based. Plant-inspired. These are just sparkling crops. Yeah. I don't know what China's thinking. That's why I always wonder about...

Is he like, come on, dude. Calm down. I think China would have been fine with it if it had worked. It hasn't worked. And it's basically united the west really strongly and loads of like fat lazy european countries that never wanted to actually have a proper defense budget and now going go and buying tanks on ebay yeah the interesting thing between like putin and china is like putin's like hey everybody look at me look what i'm doing

and china's like everyone look at them don't look at us yeah whereas what I'm doing. And China's like, everyone look at them. Don't look at us. Yeah. Whereas the last thing China wanted is everyone on edge and nuclear, which is what's happening. Yeah. And also like Putin disrupting like all of China's customers. Yeah, and their global economy.

Yeah. Also, China has a real Yeah, and their global economy. Yeah. Also, China has a real boner for sovereignty of countries. Like, don't interfere in another country. Yes, but also they're also like on the side of big countries taking countries that they know are supposed to be there. They do like that,

but their rhetoric is constantly, it is our affair. None of your business. So when another country does something like that but their rhetoric is constantly it is our affair none of your business so when another country does something like that it tries to change president of another country also like given that china's absorbed like you know tibet mongolia even like um what's the uyghur territory called again xinjiang. Xinjiang. Then anyone who's like, these ancient lands need to be restored to their original, like that's going to make you sweat a bit, right? Uh-huh.

Given that Mongolia is still a country and officially half of Mongolia is just in China. Yeah. They're going to be like less of that. Less of that sort of talk. Yeah. Well, the main thing that I find myself always thinking this, when all this, like, border stuff happens

and, like, when countries want to take land, it just feels so, like, it feels so last century to want more land. It just feels so old-fashioned. Yeah, yeah. It's like, I just go, you want more land? Well, that's the thing. Why don't you just get more money?

Russia's problem is not having land. Yeah, why do you want more land? They've you just get more money Russia's problem is not having land They've got the most land in the world Yeah It just seems It's such a boomer thing to do That's what it is It's just such boomer shit to want more land More territory

Putin is such a boomer Old man That's my reaction to the tanks rolling Roll through your village Okay boomer Tanks real original Nice What are you going to do block the radio

Block the radio networks It's yeah But that's the other thing why it's so gripping It's like something from what 1939 Yes It's fucking thing why it's so gripping It's like something from 1939 Yes It's fucking crazy Yeah it's all It's also like

Something from literally The Call of Duty games Where they go Russian ultra nationalists Have invaded Eastern Europe And it's like actual levels you play through Oh yeah I was getting red alert flashbacks For the last week. Yeah. Yeah, it's red alert.

It's happened. And they go, oh, there's a load of helicopters coming in with Russian ultranationalists on and they're coming down on ropes and you're like, that's happening now. That's the news. Yeah. The news is a Call of Duty fucking intro. Yeah. Yeah.

It's nuts and yeah i don't know i can't believe how brave the ukrainians are like the footage is just like computer programmers just like picking up an ak is like yeah well if they if they can't i'll i'll shoot him maybe they'll shoot me yeah and like klitschko and the other boxer usik oh i don't know this all the heavyweight like you know vladimir klitschko and the other boxer usik i don't know this all the heavyweight like you know vladimir klitschko no the world heavyweight champion okay he's the mayor of kiev of kiev really he's the mayor he's been the mayor for ages of kiev yeah he's ukrainian yeah loads of heavyweight boxing boxing champions are ukrainian and he's a world heavyweight champion well yeah he was oh right hang on

he's not old he's old for a boxer but i mean you know he's like 45 or something how old is klitschko do you not know this no and then like the other guy that must add attention to city council meetings yeah you don't want to fuck with him vladimir klitschko yeah he's 45 and he was a world heavyweight He held the world heavyweight championship twice. Gosh. He's considered one of the best heavyweight champions of all time. My lord. Yeah. So he's

Ukrainian. He's the mayor of Kyiv. Gosh. And then I don't know how you pronounce it. Usyk? Oleksandr Usyk is the world champion in two different weight classes

I think he was in America when it kicked off and he flew back to just join the militia he's like a multi-millionaire I think he's cancelled the fight with Anthony Joshua and he's lost like the million dollars because he's got to join the militia that's what I'm saying, this is like movie shit and the head of state is a comedian who played the president in a TV show and he's got to join the militia. Yeah, this is what I'm saying. This is like movie shit. Yeah. And the head of state is a comedian

who played the president in a TV show. Yeah. And he's nailing it. Yeah. This is why it's impossible to look away. I mean, it would be impossible to look away without all this and the bravery and the suffering and so on.

But it's also got this. I think there's another boxer. In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade. You wouldn't want to be a fucking Russian conscript who, up until the day before, you'd been told that you were just going on another exercise. And you end up being punched into jam by fucking Klitschko. I'm the mayor. I'm the mayor.

By fucking Dredrick Tatum from The Simpsons. He's like a giant cartoon man beats you to death the whole thing's insane I can't really bear to watch though I'm just I'm burnt out of tragic frightening news

I can't keep absorbing it i think i might listen to ukraine cast on bbc sounds because i love sounds and i learn everything from the bbc radio now um so i might i might just listen maybe if i listen that won't be too bad that would yeah that that's not a bad idea um and you can uh listeners you can donate money to the red cross in ukraine and various other organizations um yeah don't if you if you are a crypto person don't just donate it to any old place either they are accepting crypto donations yeah but do it only do it all through the ukrainian government's official twitter account has got lists of this stuff so just do a bit of research see see what you want to give money to.

Has a national army ever crowdfunded like this? Yeah, even in World War II, you could buy war bonds. Let's all fight together. Every little helps. But is this the first Patreon war? Is this the first Patreon army?

Is this the first buy me a coffee army? It's the first GoFundMe army. Is this the first Patreon army? Is this the first buy me a coffee army? It's the first GoFundMe army. It's the first GoFund Army. Yeah. GoFundAnArmy. It's the first time that an ordinary person can have a taste of what it's like to be a 17th century aristocrat.

And to sort of help raise a regiment of fusiliers using your own private money it is mad yeah yeah there's some someone's someone's already like um donated like three million dollars in crypto or something some yeah yeah they've raised a lot it's impressive yeah yeah but yeah give it a if you if you're listening and you're interested the resources are all on the ukrainian government twitter feed um don't uh don't trust any other person ask it this crypto scams already about it really of course yeah fuck man there's some people you're shameless

just the grift on some people it would be it's always interesting to me to imagine if you could just track someone like that down and be like what's wrong with you are you a demon where did you come from were you born of a woman were you born of a human were you born of the jackal that's the antichrist yeah it is um but then like you always like if you ever watch a documentary about someone who goes around like scamming elderly pensioners They're always like well they're stupid they deserve it They're always like a mad sociopath I needed it I needed it to buy things

They've always got some insane Like four year old child Level justification for it Well shall we do some correspondence Yes correspondence Before we get nuked. Or not. Some pre-nuke correspondence, please.

Yes. Correspondence from the before times. We're double before times now. Think about that. What do you mean we're double before times? So, like, the before times is, like, pre-COVID. And now it's also pre-Ukraine. But now there's a brief before times that's before Ukraine Yeah

Letters, emails, phone calligraphies Toilets, your sister And your best friend Letters, correspondence It's oddly fitting Rose Rose, Rose knows Rose knows

Subject line Tales from Siberia Wow! Yeah What a serendipitousness Yes Rose says, hi pals, since you mentioned on the last episode that you were

A. interested in Siberia and B. very disappointed by the film of the same name. Remember I was talking about the Keanu Reeves film? Yeah, yeah, a while back Terrible. As delightful and weird as it was to watch Keanu Reeves speak very good Afrikaans to a South African actor also speaking Afrikaans,

which kind of melted my head. The rest of the film around it wasn't worth it. That's a shame. Kudos to him for the Afrikaans. Yeah, and he speaks Russian in the same film as well Although I mean John Wick he's been learning Russian I think for that as well So I guess that makes sense

I thought I would share a story of the Or two of the year I spent living in Yakutsk Wow Like from the Risk board game map Oh I've not played Risk You've never played Risk I've not played Risk My girlfriend had not heard of Risk

That's one step too far. That's too far. That's too far. Now, hold on. Yeah, I need to play Risk at some point. It's great. So the only reason I know... So on the right-hand side of Russia,

there's two provinces called Yakutsk and Irkutsk. Oh, right. And they're sneaky because one of those provinces, you can go to Alaska Alaska other side of the board because the world's round Phil and as a kid melts your head blows your mind there's only theory of the world's round but okay

yeah I mean you know there are other theories out there oh interesting a story of the year or two I spent living in Yakutsk the capital city of Yakutsk officially the world's coldest city and I think the putative location of the Keanu Reeves film. The putative? Putative, as a potential but not sure, I think.

Okay. Suggested, I believe. Let's see. Definition. Putative. Generally considered or reputed to be. Okay, putative. The putative author of this book

putative the putative Putin that should be the name of his collection of essays putative Putin and he started strong with an essay that he basically uploaded to his blog just before he invaded a country did he?

yeah he wrote a big essay a mad rambling semi-historical essay about how... Like Dominic Cummings? Who is this guy? Genuinely. Like a fucking crazy essay about how Ukraine is a made-up country and they're actually all just the same as Russians.

Why do these guys always have to write a thing before they invade it? Why do they have to write a fucking book or a plot? Genghis Khan didn't sit around going like, Webster's Dictionary defines horde as... You're Genghis Khan. Just admit that it's about doing whatever you want. Yeah.

Well, actually, I think you'll find I've got some quite clever... Dorks. Dorks. Dorks. Fucking Reddit Genguses He's a real Reddit Gengus I have no idea what that would mean But it sounds like

What a slam, you'd feel bad all day If someone called you that Reddit Gengus Fuck, I've been slammed Shit Since yours is primarily a lavatory-based podcast, I'll cut to the chase. I believe I have had the privilege

to use the world's coldest toilet. Oh. Poo on ice. The world's coldest toilet is always the one where it's ice cold with an open window and you're planting your bed-warm bum on it. Yeah. Crisp. It's a wee on an open window after, and you're planting your bed warm bum on it. Yeah. Crisp.

It's a wee on the rocks, Pierre. It's a wee. It's a stirred, not shaken. Wee on the rocks. It's the bum cheeks equivalent of a crisp beer. Yes, yes. cheeks equivalent of a crisp beer. Yes, yes.

Ah. At some point in December I had to travel for work from Yakutsk to the nearby city of Vilyuysk. Gosh, what a couple of years. And by nearby I mean it was an eight hour drive down one very long highway through a massive pine forest.

Like a screensaver. Oh my lord. Fuck that. I'm not doing that. Eight hours. In one line through a forest. Driving straight for eight hours. You'd lose your mind. Oh my lord.

That's a lot of like... You could literally just put a brick on the pedal and go to sleep. Yeah. You wake up in Narnia. Obviously at some point in the eight hours we had to stop at a service station for food and a toilet break. And in all fairness to the roadside station it was actually pretty nice. A little wooden

hut serving hot food. Oh, that's nice. And far superior to some of the absolute horror shows I've encountered on the roads in China, Central Asia and elsewhere in Russia. Oh, I'm sure. I asked the proprietor where I could find the toilets. And she, proprietess perhaps, and she pointed out a separate little wooden hut

a couple of meters away from the cafe. Before continuing with the story, I'd like to point out that in the middle of winter, the average daily temperature in that region is about minus 45 degrees. No, thank you. No, thank you. I i like i like the cold but my limit's minus five she says it's celsius and fahrenheit i i remember when i was in toronto

and it's a bit after it was in january one year um and were like, yeah, New Year's Eve was minus 45 degrees. And I was like, that must have been... They were saying that people huddled in bars, then their breath would condense on the glass inside and then freeze on the glass inside. Oh, get fucked. Yeah. Because inside it was so warm, it was only minus two.

And I was like, How is that bearable And someone was like After minus 20 you don't really feel the difference I mean I guess that's true Well it's because all your Your limbs have fallen off You're just dead All your capillaries have receded back into the bone

Yeah you're just dead Once you're dead you're just dead. Once you're dead, you're not cold. Minus 45 degrees Celsius is so cold, it's almost the same in Fahrenheit. That's minus 49 Fahrenheit. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. That's insane.

Yeah, it's horrible. So, quite literally cold enough, she says, to freeze your eyeballs if you're out in it long enough like like freeze the jelly in your eyes must be you must have to wear goggles right oh my god i didn't even conceive of that the last thing you want is to be out in weather that cold and for someone to say something surprising. Dung! Huh? Huh? Odyssey, a very sexy lady approach. Dwing! Dwing! Ah! With a frozen, solid, fishnet-clad leg.

Like when Bugs Bunny tries to trick Elmer Fudd. Oh, yeah. You see the sexy fishnet leg, and it's got an icicle on it, and your eyes, oh, God, and they freeze, too. Disaster. Horrible.

On entering the little toilet hut I found Toilet hut is the toilets in Pizza Hut Turd hut On entering the little toilet hut I found to my dismay But not to my surprise That it was a squatting setup Yes

I know it well I know the arrangement well Interesting I didn't know it existed in Russia as well I thought it was a pure China East Asia thing well there's squatting toilets in France

fair enough and service stations I sit corrected on reflection it's possible that using a conventional western toilet

in that temperature would actually run the risk of freezing you to the seat so fair enough yes and the water in the bowl yes yes

I'm told it would just hit some ice but wouldn't that be the case with the squatting one as well? but at least it's going down a long hole like it could be quite a drop you know what I mean? like away from you I guess you could be a pit filled with antifreeze like a chemical toilet

but yeah I mean it's probably freezing on the way down yeah as it's coming out your, it's probably freezing on the way down. Yeah. As it's coming out your asshole, it's just frozen. Oh, God. So, as I went about my business as briskly as possible, without incident, unfortunately, for your podcast, and I spent the remainder of the journey with my legs firmly crossed,

trying to defrost my lady parts. What? Frozen puss. Oh, no. The ice cold ball that sickle oh wow makes sense yeah yeah that makes sense I guess we'd

like a polar like a polar explorers beard can you imagine how high your balls would yeah like what's his face um the explorer Scott Scott Scott of Yeah, like what's his face? Explorer down there Scott

Scott of the Antarctic Yeah And his frozen purse Can you imagine what your balls are doing in that kind of cold? How high up they'd go? Oh, they'd be behind your eyes And they'd push them out and then they'd freeze So she's trying to defrost her lady parts

Yeah And wondering if I'd doom myself to infertility By accidentally and quite literally freezing my eggs Wow On reflection I can heartily recommend The Sub-Zero squat experience As it was far far less stinky than roadside drops I've done in warmer climes

The stink is frozen Frozen to it Stuck to the poo less stinky than roadside drops I've done in warmer climbs. Of course, yes. The stink is frozen. Yes. Frozen stink. Frozen to it. Stuck to the poo. Yeah. Those stinks ain't going nowhere. Although on a different Siberian road trip on a much busier route, the squat toilet experience was more perilous as the entirety of the toilet

floor was covered in frozen urine. Ooh. Skating. Skating. Skating. Skating on piss. BB skates. BB skates. BB skates. You don't want a pirouette on that stuff. Yeah. Pooping on ice.

You don't want to slip on frozen piss. But Memphis Frozen's not going anywhere. Yeah, but I think there's something so... It's humiliating to slip on ice anyway. But if you know for a fact that you slipped on piss specifically, that really, that's salt in the wound. Yeah.

That's salt in the wound. Thanks for all the laughs and company this year. Good luck with live stand-up returning and whenever I'm in the UK I'll come to a gig or two Koji Rose.

Imagine falling through the ice in a pee lake. A frozen pee lake. A frozen lake of piss. And you go... That's just the image I got. That's like a punishment from hell. That's in Dante, isn't it? Dante's Inferno?

And behold the lake of piss with Brutus. Bunch of old sinners in it. And some fridge magnet tatters attached. And... It's quite funny they say

the quote is please find attached a photo of some outstanding fridge magnet tat I encountered in the house of an acquaintance unfortunately I didn't know him well enough to ask if he was aware how insane it was so the quote is it's two women in bikinis jumping on the beach yeah

and it says never put off until tomorrow the fun you can have today oh lovely i mean absolutely meaningless disgusting yeah and the quote is attributed to aldous huxley the famous satanist i think oh well i mean that kind of makes sense oh no i'm thinking of someone else it's the guy who wrote brave new world oh no he didn't say that no well this is it who was else. It's the guy who wrote Brave New World. Oh. No, he didn't say that. No, well, this is it. Who was I thinking of? Who's the famous Satanist?

Oh, he wasn't a mysticist. He wasn't a mysticism, actually, to be fair. And psychedelic drug experiences and stuff. Maybe... Yeah, he did a lot of mescaline and things. That's right. But yeah, so I don't think he said that but it's very funny to see it attributed to him in front of some jumping bikini women

so she says i can't decide what i love more that they felt the need to attribute such an incredibly anodyne quotation to a famous person or that they chose to attribute it to aldous huxley of all people very nice thank you uh rose well thank you rose now it's time for us to leap through the frozen door of piss into the VIP area. Very important piss. Into the VIP Siberian service station. Yes, yes. Of the Patreon,

of course. Follow us there if you dare, listeners. And if you are Patreon patrons, we will see you shortly. Come Patreon in. Nice. Bye. Bye.