BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 64 - Monkey PawPod

Episode Date: May 27, 2020

Accurs-ed monkey paw! Phil Wang and Pierre Novellie chat about cursed wishes, the Queen, conspiracy nutters and mad preachers, Dominic Cummings, Sally Rooney's Normal People, Warzone, the heat, killing wizards and more! Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Budpod 64! 64-bit Budpod! 64 old monkey paw! The monkey paw twitches and so Pierre and I log on for another week of glorious top quality chant. How are you doing? Yes, I'm all right. My monkey's paw wish was that I would get really into overly elaborate recipes and now look where we are. into overly elaborate recipes and now look where we are. Yes, my monkey poor wish

was to have more time to myself and not work so hard. Yes. Oh, I also made another monkey's poor wish that there would be a coronavirus pandemic. Oh, okay. That might be the culprit then. What a strange wish.

That monkey's paw always finds a way to make it come back on you in a bad way, doesn't it? Of course, there's a theory that coronavirus actually began when the virus made its transmission from a monkey paw to humans for the first time. So you might have caused this in more ways than one. Yeah, well, the monkey I got the paw from was eating a bat sandwich when I attacked it.

So that makes sense, actually, if you look at the science. Yes. The story of the coronavirus, I've just realized, is sort of the opposite of A Christmas Carol, where I, having wanted to work far less... Three mostly old men visit a really rich ghost? No, it was more that I have learned the lesson of my laziness and now will learn to appreciate work more and leisure time and relationships with

friends less so from your point of view you think that the coronavirus pandemic has been like uh oh you like not working hanging out with your friends eh well what if we make you smoke the whole pack yeah yeah and in this case hanging out with your friends albeit on on zoom but of which i still i'm already tired of yeah i actually talk to my friends now more than i did before the pandemic probably oh way more way more i mean i i've got friends who like like old friends who i like but the the arrangement for a long time has been that we see each other two or three times a year maybe like at most yeah and all of a sudden it's like week weekly stuff going on it's like we weren't weekly when we would we were not in the apocalypse. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think is the worst part about this pandemic, actually, is how up to date I am with my friends from school's lives. Yes. It's too up to date, especially like, it would be better to be this level of up to date if it was during a period of great action and change but the irony is that we're extremely up to date when we know that none

of us are doing anything yes of course it's this it's it's a self-fulfilling curse isn't it the only it's like a twilight zone episode the only time you the only situation in which you finally have time to keep up with everybody is when no one's doing anything yes yes exactly like uh yeah the the there's no news and the only tv channel is 24-hour news. Yeah. It's endless. It's so, yeah, well, that's how I am. How are you?

I am okay. The lockdown is very much like a marathon and you have second and third winds. And I think I've just received another wind. I've lost track of the winds at this point, but I have received a recent wind, which is good. That's good. How did you identify this new wind in yourself? What were the symptoms? How did you identify this new wind in yourself?

What were the symptoms? The whirring of my fridge has caused me to grind my teeth ever so slightly less. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's very much like everyone's getting so into where they live that every day is like a telltale heart. It was the whirring of his hideous fridge you Pierre you currently have hay fever

which means you're really getting into hay yes you've been getting into the hay craze. There's just so many varieties. Hay fever, guys. Everyone's got it. You know what, Phil? I think at this point, I would search through a stack of needles

for a single piece of hay. That must be fun, to be locked inside, but have a nose that thinks it's outside. Yes, well, to be locked inside but have a nose that thinks it's outside. Yes, well, to be locked inside and to be so warm that you're forced to open all the windows and let in all the jizz that your body thinks is poison. Yeah, it's like a Greek myth. Yeah, and I've got to the point of lockdown where I think I've just run out of wind. I think I'm hoping that today and tomorrow constitute a new wind.

I've reached the point where I'm like peering out of my flat balcony window, like on my block of flats I live in. And there's a little patch of green grass that I can see right now and now that the lockdown is essentially unofficially over and everyone's doing whatever the fuck they want I've become like the guy who I never see anyone litter but litter has started

to appear and I look at the litter and I angrily I try and imagine who who did it do you not get a sense of of humanity returning though i do not shed a tear for a pack of walker's crisps and just think we're back it's all still here it's all still here pointing at all the used condoms and shopping bags. And you were there? And you were there? That is the most terrible dream.

Yeah, exactly. Well, that kind of, but the trouble is that like, I think that this is people overcompensating. Like they weren't picnicking this much when it was allowed. I think it's like that Italian mayor who released that video shouting at everyone in his village for jogging all of a sudden yeah yeah and walking the dogs yeah it was like you guys never fucking walked this much before why is it just now that you can't do it it's walk o'clock that's exactly it with picnicking i think um and i was i was

pleased that like the pic like the litter was bad but i thought oh it's sometimes it's just like kids and kids have started drawing like chalk um hopscotch things on pavement squares and stuff and it's all very that's all very wholesome oh okay and then yesterday phil i saw a piece of child litter and that ruined it child litter like a light-up sneaker just flashing alone in the dark? What's child litter? It was a big turquoise birthday balloon. Deflated? Semi-deflated, like a ball bag.

Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes. That is sad, isn't it? Yeah, and it was dead on the lawn outside, and I thought, even the children have succumbed to sin. God, that sounds like a fucking piece of Banksy art. That's the kind of thing

simpletons would stroke their chins at. Yes, Phil, sounds a lot like... Trying to imply that I'm Banksy there. Do you think that banksy's visuals have become so hack that now he doesn't want to own up because it would be like embarrassing well he had to do that fucking um uh painting stunt do you remember that he was a shredder yeah which was good that was a good little bit of work there but it was he it was

of it reeked of someone who realized how uncool he was becoming he was like an old rocker who had to go electric you know i mean not rocker but it's like bob dylan trying to go electric whatever and but in this case it sort of worked yeah i think it worked because it was it was such a fuck you and what was funny about it was that everyone involved in the fuck you had to endorse it immediately or they would lose all their money. Well, what's funny about it was that the... Because I know someone who sort of works in the auctioning sector. And the minute...

So it was bought. Then the moment it was bought, the shredder started and shredded the piece about three quarters of the way and the moment that happened the piece increased in value by about five times yes and it was so far from so far from sort of sticking it to the man he just created a wonderful investment opportunity for a very lucky buyer in Russia, probably. Do you think that trying to screw over and prank people of that type in the art world with that type of art is like... It's like trying to be so rude that even the Mormons go away from your front door. Like, with each attempt at repelling them,

they just forgive you and try again, you know? Right, okay, yes, yes, yes, yes. I mean, yeah, I think the art and culture world are very good at that. It's very difficult to spurn a sector of society who sort of want to be spurned or can find some merit and value in being spurned yeah they're like art poetry and music exactly yeah they like to be beat

yeah the more you punch them the more they think you're brilliant and will keep coming to your punching festivals oh i can't wait for punching festivals to come back pier. Oh, I can't wait for punching festivals to come back, Pierre. Oh, man. I can't believe they had to cancel Punchfest 2020. So sad. I just bought my boxing gloves.

Speedfest was going to headline as well. That was the thing. And he never comes to the UK. He hates it. He says we punch wrong. I don't know what he means by that well in keeping with our very up-to-date uh satire um yeah i'm sure you uh you've been um as excited by this week's uh political developments and that we can finally revisit car showrooms oh it's about time the car showrooms are back baby you can get one in durham to test if your eyes work uh listener pierre and i have

already actually um arranged to meet up uh together local uh toyota dealership and um you know just sherry Aris for an afternoon. Can't wait. Having them delivered just hasn't been the same. That's the thing, isn't it? Is that so much of the first taste of food is with the eyes, you know. And it's the same with cars.

If you don't see them unaccountably parked inside an enormous gym with glass walls, it's not this it's just you know and also seeing that the value of a new car is wiped off the second is driven off the forecourt you know i i don't miss that experience yeah i mean if only i don't someone else to drive the value off for me yeah i mean if only they drove the cars through a big shredder. It'd be the only way to increase the value.

Are you enjoying the fact that you can go, pretty soon you'll be able to go to car showrooms and Primark, but your mum can't visit your house? Yeah. Yeah, unless my mother and I start sharing the same taste in clothes, we're

unlikely to see one another again. I like to think that the reason Boris Johnson is so keen to allow everything except families seeing each other to happen is just because of how many secret families he has. And like ex-wives and random kids and whatever the hell else he's got. And he's like, no, no, no, for very important reasons, that is illegal still. for very important reasons that is illegal still.

I mean, talking about wishing on a monkey's paw, Boris Johnson must really be starting to regret wishing for an excuse not to see his children. Yes, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and how are you reacting to Dominic Cummings' insane reasoning? Why, what's he done? Well, you've been... I'm kidding.

I've been working on my voice acting. That's good. Thanks, man. How do I... I don't... Well, at first I was like, eh, man. How do I... I don't... Well, at first I was like, eh, whatever. Then until I noticed that

it wasn't now. It was literally when the most people were dying in hospital. And also they were sick. That... It took me a couple of hours to realise those details. Yes, yeah. And like, they were sick that that that it took me a couple of hours to realize those details yes yeah and like they were sick and then they said oh no maybe my wife was sick and then i was

sick and then in the end neither of us were sick and you go what what's going on then oh but then i was so sick my eyes stopped working so i had to drive to a castle yeah it's like trying to figure out what happened in a playground incident from a five-year-old right yes exactly that's exactly what it's like it's like rambling with all these weird details like logic that isn't quite hold it's it's such a peculiar notion that this is likely to be the political um few um furore of the year and it's about someone driving up the m1 what a time to be alive yeah and and also just like yeah and just the fact that it's like the guy who's supposedly the genius architect of making us all follow the rules, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, sexy fuck scientist was one thing, but this is a whole different escalation. Do you think, yeah, I mean, the horny scientist is just like, he just made science cool. That's all that happened. The horny scientist is my favourite tarot card. Oh no. What is it? You got the horny scientist. Well, that's good, isn't it?

Not when it's paired with Barnard Castle. Why do you think this is so much more of a story than The Horny Scientist? Is it just because The Horny Scientist instantly resigned? Do you reckon that's it? Yeah, I think it's because he instantly resigned and because it was just both of their houses in London. Right. Right. And they weren't actually sick at the time and they weren't sick it was just their houses and it was for jizzing purposes on both their

parts so people are happier with that generally yeah whereas if your story is i was sick but no it was my wife that was sick we were both sick except that we weren't so we drove to durham because no one except all the people who were related to in london could help us but they didn't help us in durham in the end so we stayed but only for a bit and then i drove to a castle for for my eyes what the fuck are you talking about well this is the other thing i ended up one thinking is doesn't does does number 10 not have some kind of child care provision i mean he's he's possibly the most influential man in the country yeah and and also like he's from durham the guy himself but his wife is from london and they have loads of relatives in london and

also they are rich so right but then i also find it hard to believe that he would drive all that way just to be in a nice field for a bit or is that literally it I think well he's he's he's from there remember and he's very like pro pro Durham and pro like it's it I think it's a classic case of like let's just try get out of London for a bit I think that's a classic case of like uh let's just try to get out of london for a bit i think that's what it is do you reckon do you reckon he really was as prosaic as that yeah i think that he's one of those people like his entire life has been spent saying that he's like a special genius that can see the future and everyone else is an idiot worm um or member of the blob um right yeah and he writes these long rambling blogs

about what a genius he is and how only he can see the spider web that connects the world events. He's a lunatic. I mean, it's almost as if you shouldn't employ fucking edgelords in the highest office in the land. Because he's a Reddit edgelord fundamentally.

Yeah. Yeah, and it's fundamentally yeah yeah and the government's surprised that he he's proved to be a little more trouble than he's worth yeah and it's not fair because in the olden days you would at least if the if the leader of the country had an insane advisor it would at least be someone as cool as like rasputin yeah it wouldn't be this little turtle man who's addicted to driving to Durham if Dominic Cummings had any respect he would survive several poisoning attempts and a load of gunfire before being thrown into a frozen river that he then tried

to claw his way out of yeah hello it's me Chong Fu and I'm delighted to Yeah. Yes, yes. Hello, it's me, Chong Fu. And I'm delighted to announce the reopening of Chong Fu's car showroom. That's right. I bet you didn't even know that I, Chong Fu, had a car showroom. Well, I didn't.

And now I'm reopening it. Because lockdown is over for cars. But I tell you what isn't over. Great deals on cars. So come on down to Chong Fu's Car Showroom. We're in the middle of a roundabout. That's right. The actual middle bit of a roundabout.

There's no underground access from a safe location. You just have to get to the middle of a gigantic roundabout. Maybe park your car in a field. And then run along the perimeter of the sort of circumference of the roundabout. Dodging the cars to get to us. Like some sort of Parisian monument. Chong Fu's car showroom. Come check out the cars. Look at the cars.

Drive the cars. Take a car. You don't have to pay for now but the debt will be settled one way or another chong fu's car showroom come socialize chat around the cars buy a coffee put the coffee on the car put it on the roof hang about talk to the staff there's only one staff member it's me me, Chong Fu, and I'm pretty busy. Chong Fu's Car Showroom. Remember, you'll pay. If you broke lockdown to go fuck the queen, would that make you a patriot or a traitor?

Are you showing symptoms at the time? Well, maybe you go to have sex with the queen to make her, because you're so confident in her power as our monarch that she would overcome the disease and then become immune. Yes. Maybe that could be spun as a patriotic action. Yes. Yeah, or if the queen was demanding it and you were like, well, I can't refuse.

She is the government. Right, yeah. She's the head of state. How can I say no? I got a little scroll with a wax seal. Yes. Fuck one, she says. Fuck one. Come here and fuck one. A booty bugle.

Booty summons. You know, I don't think I'm going to vote for Dominic Cummings after this. No, I don't think I will either. Or the Queen. Or the Queen. Yeah. No. I was saying to someone the other day do you think the queen is like completely not bothered by this this is my

theory is that she's not bothered by it because when you're a monarch your mindset is inherently like the mindset of a of a monarch and it's sort of inherently medieval. So when your government advisor comes to you and says, oh, your majesty, the peasants, they have a terrible plague, you are just like, oh, yeah, yeah. Because that's what peasants do. They've got plagues all the time. They can't keep track of these little guys. That is true.

But is it going to affect even her, right right i'm sure there's social distancing in place at the palace now even oh like it's not that it's not because god said those gods have stood far apart for years yes they march away from each other for god's sake um like obviously it's going to affect her but what i mean is then like we're all like what some kind of disease a disease we can't control what modern science whereas the queen would just be like right yeah so i'm going to stay in my palace like i would do anyway but especially now because the peasants have another plague that's right i'm going to move to a countryside palace which is what all of my ancestors did during all the other plagues and i've read about it oh really where where where have they gone oh in the in the during the black death and stuff all the other plagues and i've read about it oh really where where where have they

gone oh in the in the during the black death and stuff all the richest people and all the monarchs and stuff they would all leave london they would all leave the city they wouldn't be like well i'm going to stay here where the stench of corpses is completely overpowering and the rats and dogs run wild in the streets and mobs burn things down and no they all leave to the countryside and isolate themselves like that's they've always known that that's better than going and licking the butcher's face or whatever um that's they didn't need medical science to tell them that i just think that she's inherently like oh my great great great great grand uh uncle also had to isolate himself from dirty peasants, so I guess we'll just follow the household plan.

Yeah. Yeah, probably. Unless they already have a vaccine. They probably already have a vaccine. Phil David Ike Wang. They tested them on lizards, and the lizards all survived, so they work, so they have got vaccines now

the royal family are the bats that's something that would be interesting to try and uh convince uh convince people that um david eich only wants you to believe the royal family are secretly lizards to distract from the fact that he's secretly a fly or like a rival species of some kind right i mean that's a that's confusing conspiracy theory even for david ike but that's how it would beat him you know it would get it would it's always about you got to add a layer yeah yeah okay that was his that was his genius he took the whole illuminati thing and he went you know what i'm adding lizards onto the top of this cake i've always wondered about people who are that crazy i always like to picture them just waking up in the morning and getting dressed and having a shower you know i mean i'll just go into

the shops because they still have to eat it's like the royal family are actually lizards uh oh 30 percent off tortellini you know yeah like yeah are they crazy in their spare time that's a good question yeah exactly do they take a day off like crazy street preachers they're always very well dressed and I love thinking about them putting their tie on in the morning looking in the mirror he's coming back we'll all be dead

ooh bit tight today I'll redo that one we'll all be judged sinners will go to hell and like on the train in to start screaming at people in leicester square and central london they're just on the train doing like vocal warm-ups like oh you're going to hell going to hell i wonder what they've been doing in lockdown who they've been preaching to how they keep zoom they've been doing in lockdown. Who have they been preaching to? How do they keep a zoom?

Have they been doing zoom calls to just random people? Anytime there's an open zoom meeting, they're just there going, I've got to go where the people are. And this planning committee meeting is wide open. Yeah, I wonder. Maybe just tweets, just spamming tweets at people um have you watched anything good recently um i have have been entirely consumed uh by war zone i re-watched a couple of classic episodes of arrested development but i have just

become i'm i think now i'm more familiar with the city of verdansk than i am with my own hometown where is verdansk verdansk is the is the fictional city in which warzone takes place oh i'm gonna sound real to me i could have said verdansk was a real place well it's it's it's. It's all in one city. Yeah, it's like a GTA map that gradually shrinks. Oh. So there's like an airport and some hills and suburbs. And the map is always the same.

Yeah, always the same, yeah. But where the circle shrinks to is not always the same. Yeah, okay, okay, okay. But where the circle shrinks to is not always the same. Yeah, okay, okay, okay. But it's massive. It's like, I think it's two or three square kilometers, maybe more. That's pretty good. And you can go inside buildings and stuff. Actually, no, what am I saying?

That would be two times, it would be like eight or ten square kilometers. I'm not doing math. Oh, yeah, you can go inside buildings, smash windows, all kinds of mad shit. There's cars you can drive around,uggies that's pretty neat yeah it's very addictive and it's very it's sort of it's addictive because it's sort of sociable so i've been playing it like with people and like old school friends and things so it's it's useful because you don't have to just sit and go oh do you still have hair and they go yeah do you and you go yeah it's a lot more engaging because you and your old school friends are instead discussing the the precise way to breach and clear a particular building with grenades and that's you know that's a conversation starter just like in the old days

just like at school just like at school exactly and um i school. Exactly. And I do have to say, one of the funniest things that they've done on Call of Duty now is... So, from... I mean, I'm not on a PlayStation or whatever, but from my understanding, basically everyone who buys the game, it comes with a little headset thing, right?

So, like, pretty much everyone's mic'd up. And the mic picks you up when you speak. Like, you don't have to press a talk button. It just broadcasts when it senses sound coming out of your mouth. And when you kill someone, you get like a one or two second burst of their microphone. Oh, wow. Well, just you specifically. use you specifically just you yeah if

you're the one who killed them yeah so what's all things that people say sometimes it's just screaming um so very accurate very really funny but sometimes yeah you'll kill someone and like you'll shoot their character to death and there'll be like an 11-year-old and you just hear an 11-year-old going, and sometimes you just hear like a burst of really like angry Russian swearing. What do you play it on? I'm on PC, but my flatmate's on his PS4.

But it's all compatible compatible you play with each other wow that's crackers yeah it's nuts so yeah you just snipe someone and then you just hear like it's all the more funny for how suddenly it cuts off you just hear someone go oh yeah it's like suddenly screamed out by a russian man and then he's gone he's deleted what sort of thing do you say when you're killed um well i'm on pc so it won't pick it up automatically well done just like that congratulations well played tell my papi to take care of the farm um that'd be really funny if you

if you managed to do to say something so very earnest and realistic every time you got killed if you could remember to yes or or really sarcastic so they kill me and they just get a burst of ooh that would be quite funny yeah oh oh nice gun yeah good one yeah thanks yeah thanks just really

passive cheers really enjoyed that thanks a lot yeah lovely i think mostly what i end up saying is oh just generally yeah that's right that's very much you yeah oh come on what sort of class or character are you are you an orc it's Call of Duty style so you just pick your

pick your type of weapon and go nuts assault rifles, submachine guns, sniper that kind of thing what do you favour you gotta have an assault rifle assault rifles, submachine gun, sniper, that kind of thing what do you favour? you've got to have an assault rifle and you might have a sniper rifle as a backup because the map's so big you can get shot if it's someone good

you can get shot from like 600 metres away or whatever if they're really good so that is extremely annoying when it happens to you and extremely funny when you do it to other people like a lot of bullying that does sound tempting That is extremely annoying when it happens to you and extremely funny when you do it to other people. Like a lot of bullying. That does sound tempting, but I'm going to resist.

You've never been much of a first-person shooter boy, though. Not really. I like it for sort of story-based things because they're more immersive. So like an Elder Scrolls game or Half-Life but yeah multiplayer, eh not really yeah I just don't find

it all that fun, I find it stressful and scary and relentless but I've enjoyed them in the past. Currently, I'm not really. I still remember being amazed that your incredible force of will

when you bought and downloaded Battlefield 1 played through the campaign and then deleted it. It's not very good either. No, the campaign was the weakest element of it but that was as amazing to me as when an alcoholic sees someone pour a half finished beer that's got

a bit too warm down the sink well because I don't actually have the subscription to playstation online so I don't think I actually can play online unless I think I've got another rolling direct debit and I have enough direct debits

yes yes donkey sanctuaries so many of those how are you coping we're both from hot countries and we don't like it being hot how are you coping with the heat it's not got too bad I find we're both from hot countries and we don't like it being hot. How are you coping with the heat?

It's not got too bad, I find. But this is how lazy I am. Even in the summer, I'm too lazy to take the duvet out of the duvet cover. So I just lie under the full duvet. No. Yeah, I just try and fix the elements around me. So I open the window, turn on the fan, and just hope it's cool enough to be under a full duvet. Do you not just wake up like the Crypt Keeper,

just removed of all moisture? Sometimes. Oh, God. Why don't you... I mean, I'm a lazy old boy, but even I've managed to take the duvet out for sheer hydration purposes. Otherwise, I would just wake up a lazy old boy, but even I've managed to take the duvet out for sheer hydration purposes. Otherwise, I would just wake up like a raisin, like a horrible raisin boy.

Yeah, I mean, I will. I think it's just finding a place to fucking put it. Duvets take up a lot of space. Yes, that's true. I'm lucky enough to have a place to shove mine. But are you not so dehydrated in the mornings after that that when you do a pee it's just like a solid pencil of just yellow

it's not even a liquid anymore it's just like a little it's like the inanimate carbon rod from the Simpsons yeah yeah it's pretty dark stuff but I don't mind, I don't mind so far yeah it's pretty dark stuff but I don't mind I don't mind so far yeah it's been okay

I think I'm getting a little I think I don't mind the heat so much anymore it's quite nice to wear shorts in the house that's what I've been doing yes I love a short I've been a shorts boy for weeks now and I'm worried about when I have to put jeans back on again how trapped and clammy I'll feel

I don't think I have to put jeans back on again how trapped and clammy I'll feel. I don't think I'll fit my jeans very well. I think I've been reckless. Yeah. I try not to catch myself in the mirror when I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt because I look like I should be on a boat with the kind of clothes I have. I look like

an annoying character from succession when i wear shorts and a t-shirt i don't know why i don't know how i managed to look so preppy i do i yeah i it depends on the shorts i'm wearing i think i i think my my clothing today meant that someone yelled something at me from a van someone yelled something to me from a van. Someone yelled something to you from a van? Yeah, well, they didn't yell at... But they did, like, definitely address me directly and ask a sort of...

From their... I couldn't quite make out what they said because they had some sort of accent and there was a lot of traffic noise going on. But they definitely addressed me directly and asked a sort of a humorous question. You know, like a kind of banterous inquiry. Right.

Right. Like, hey, do you know any good leg shops around here? It seems like you do. Seeing as how you've got your legs on display there. Yeah, exactly. It was exactly that kind of tone of humor genius. What's the matter, Hart? He's like in a full parka. What's the matter, Hart? He's like in a full parka.

What's wrong? You warm? Hey, cool guy, are you feeling cool, temperature-wise, I mean? Yeah. It was that kind of classic Bence, but I wish I could have made it out, because I thought, before I left the house, oh, I've made a weird combo here because i've got like black shorts on like

like you know like athletic slash casual wear shorts okay like the kind of shorts that you could also wear while jogging on a treadmill yep yep yep and just and that but also bad here's the thing phil and a black t-shirt so I'm an all black boy in brown sandals okay so you're absorbing a lot of radiation up top and then dispersing the heat through your head and shins

yeah I guess so and I thought I looked like a beach referee right okay okay okay or um you look like you could be sat on a very high chair on a beach yeah or like a very warm mourner yeah yeah yeah you look like a heavy metal fan at a friend's funeral yes or like a heavy metal fan who has to nevertheless admit that he does live in hawaii sure sure yeah exactly where that's

why i wanted to know what the guy said because i was interested to see aside from being a bit like oh don't you know yell things at me from a van, I also wanted to know, like, oh, has he picked up on something I thought before I left the house? You're such an odd target for van shouting. Yeah. You don't look like someone who it would fun, who it would be fun to harass. But I maybe maybe it was not. Maybe I you know what?

Maybe I'm wrong about the whole looking like a referee thing or a funeral man. Maybe it's just like I've got quite a big beard at the moment. And maybe that was enough of like, hey, nice beard or whatever, because there's a certain type of person for whom even having a beard is enough of an an unacceptable eccentricity that you must be cut down hmm the man the man didn't come across as though he was particularly tolerant of of of differences in appearance in in in life right Right. Okay. So he was like a shaved face activist or something. Did he work for Gillette? It's the new very direct marketing campaign.

It's called Bully Away the Beard. And they're just trying to see if maybe with bullying harnessing the power of bullying for the razor community yeah yeah maybe i wonder yeah but like it was the guys were driving this van and they seemed like kind of um i would say their vibe, the best way I can explain it to you is someone who also knows like audience vibes. They were like a kind of young but not that young, like late 20s, early 30s sort of Essex guy on a night out appearance. Okay. And when you say they had an accent, it was like an Essex accent? Well, no, that's just how they looked. They just, their accent, whatever it was, like, you know, sometimes you get like an Essex accent. Well, no, that's just how they looked. Their accent, whatever it was.

You know sometimes you get a regional English accent. So close-fitting button-up shirts? Yes, yes, yes. Polo shirts, both of them. Pink and light green. Oh, polo shirts. Yep, yep, yep. So some sort of Fred Perry going on.

Yeah. But it's one of those accents where you go, well, either you're just really Essex or, I don't know, you're fucking Dutch? I haven't got a clue. When it's just like a burst of kind of semi-slurred speech, you're like, what? Yeah, when the part of England you're from is so far southeast, you're in Holland. You're actually just a Dutch fisherman who got lost. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. You and your boat full of muscles have been accepted into the Braintree Essex community. But yes, it's a rare pleasure for me, Phil, to be yelled at from a van. I would say it happens, I don't know, once a year, maybe. Really? It doesn't never happen. I don't think I've ever received something from a van that wasn't a delivery. Yeah, I don't think so.

You never had a drive a drive by yelling i've had a drive by laughing from a van driver as i tried to parallel park a moving van on my own that's a real kick out of that yeah yeah you know how how how sort of generous of spirit the professional driving community are, whether they're taxi drivers or delivery people. They're very eager to share the road, aren't they? Yes. It's quite funny, isn't it? They're almost always coming across as portrayed as sort of mean-spirited racists until it's time to give a free lift to an old man with medals on his chest on uh poppy day yeah it's always that kind of headline that's positive

about them them offering free journeys to someone in some kind of semi-crisis yeah they load up a goodwill and then slowly spend it over the year like camels yes yes yes again. Like camels. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Goodwill camels the rest of the time, spitting in everyone's face. Goodwill camel, of course, a very strange sequel to Goodwill hunting.

It was like the sequel to the... But a camel who's really good at maths, but no one in the Sahara appreciates it how do you like these camels that was one of the lines you like camels how do you like these camels that's funny yeah well it's the sequel uh it was by the same people who made that sequel to the sex in the city movie where they go to a sort of vaguely Middle Eastern place and teach them the value of sass. Yeah, they go to Dubai.

I think there's a great uplifting moment when all the burqa-clad local women take off their coverings to reveal they too have sort of Gucci handbags and fashion-y tops and it just goes to show that underneath it all we're all really the same or no matter what religion or culture we adhere to we're all sort of slave to a sort of capitalistic obsession with looks and material attainment. And it's a very touching moment, apparently. It's funny that you would need a whole film to illustrate to someone that people are materialistic in Dubai.

to illustrate to someone that people are materialistic in Dubai. I can't believe a series of golden skyscrapers built by slaves in the desert would be so similar to our own lust for gold. Sweaty, sweaty knees sweaty knees sweaty sweaty knees sweaty oh yes my knees are sweaty oh running down the back of my cough yes sweaty knees they're a problem When I sit on my chair by the window And look at the kids leaving later I'm gonna go down there, give them a kicking With my increasingly sweaty knees Can you kick with a knee?

Or is it a kneeing? Which part of the knee is the knee? How much sweat will it take for me to lose my mind and dab my shins with a towel? Yeah. It's too warm. Oh, festive. It's too warm.

Oh, festive. What would you say, Phil, is aside from North Korea, is like the most cartoonishly evil place? Aside from North Korea? Yeah. Ever heard of the UK PA? Let me just think, uh, Phil,

I didn't know you were a columnist now. Like, like in terms of like sort of vaguely functioning countries. Well, just anywhere really. for me, what springs to mind is, is the fact that Saudian or saudi arabia

must be saudi arabia yeah well see that's what i was thinking because saudi arabia always it always seems bad even before you look into it and then when you look into it it becomes weird like the fact that they actually kill people who they legally refer to as wizards and stuff yeah like imagine if you were the one country lucky enough to as wizards and stuff. Yeah. Like, imagine if you were the one country lucky enough to have wizards and you only go and bloody kill them. Yeah, why would you do that?

You've got wizards. Who needs nuclear warheads when you've got fucking Gandalf? Yeah, exactly. If you found Harry Potter and your first instinct is to chop off his head. You see him doing magic and you think well we can't be having this

other evil places but specifically cartoonishly because there's loads of places that have like low level boring like administrative evil but it's the idea of going well we've got to have a big sword for killing the wizards what the fuck are you talking but it's the idea of going well we've got to have a big sword for killing the wizards what the fuck are you talking about it's so like it seems like a slur it seems

like someone's made it up to discredit them right gosh i mean that many many places I want to say sort of on a recording that they might hear. Because I might want to go there in the future for maybe personal or heritage reasons. I'm not going to say which countries those might be. Well, the thing is, listeners, the main thing is that once we come out of lockdown, Phil's going to do a tour of Pyongyang and yeah and just basically every major city in Iran

so it's wise of him not to my professional model has always been to be the Dennis Rodman of comedy I would love it if like some crazy dictator got so into Bud Pod that they just demanded that you come and talk to

them about shit well I mean there's stories I used to go to school in Brunei which has a sultan and apparently I didn't know about that at the time but there's an island, here's a resort island that has to be ready for him to visit at any time they there's an island he has a resort island that has to be ready

for him to visit at any time they don't get any warning as to when he might get go there but if he decides on the whim to go there has to be entertainment um a food a harem ready and waiting so you can get a gig where you're like a comedian or musician or whatever and you just have to go and you paid thousands and thousands of pounds just to be on the island and ready to go for like a month or two weeks or whatever. And there's every chance he will never turn up and you never actually perform. Oh, the dream.

I guess, but I mean, there's the dream until he turns up and you're faced with one of the tougher gigs of your career, probably. Yeah, it would be strange if he turned out to be just like a really great crowd on his own. Like really open to a bit of experimental comedy, you know, high concept stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The brief is like, so the Sultan, he really likes sort of Andy Kaufman and sort of adult swim shorts so if you could uh if you can replicate those in the grand hall and those would be that'd be really appreciating they went down so well on the condition that they cast them in something weird oh my god yeah that would be a terrifying gig. I finally watched

over the weekend Normal People. Oh, you finally got into Normal People. Normal People. Which is it's sort of how would you describe it?

Irish achievement it's sort of uh how would you describe it irish achievement porn and also irish actual porn okay you know it's about uh two irish kids who do very well at school but then also get to fuck loads which is but that's not the most unrealistic aspect the most unrealistic aspect is that you can see behind them in various um shots when they're at school and later in that university that they definitely have one or two east asian classmates who are somehow not top of the class and it was at those moments that i have to say i turned off a little from sally rooney's epic well okay now here i have a question phil because what subjects were these classes now yes i mean this is the crucial caveat in that they both excel at... Well, I mean, Connell, the male figure,

he excels at English, and I think Marianne, she does well at History, and, like, Politics, and PPE, or something like this. Yeah. Now, you could argue the Asian kids would not be the top of those classes. They're in the class, though, aren't they? That's true.

And it's still exams. It's still exams. So I don't think it would make that much difference. That's true. Once they've decided they want to do it, slash their parents have made them. Yeah. So you might have a case in the school scenes,

like, oh, they're having to take these classes against their choice. But there are definitely a couple in their university supervision groups. And you go, okay, well, they've decided to do the history of politics, so they're going to be the best. And then, no, it's still Marianne who gets the grant.

I don't think so. Maybe that's just... I think Sally Rooney can now enjoy a strong position among our great fantasy writers. She's the Tolkien of our time. What would you... How quickly would you have written a letter of complaint if she had portrayed, for example, an all-female, non-Asian, white engineering lecture? Yeah, I mean, that would not have reflected my time at university, certainly.

I remember meeting one of the few female engineering students, and it was like meeting someone who had been surviving the Hunger Games this whole time. Well, it's funny you bring it up, because the head of our year at Cambridge of engineering was a Chinese girl. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Obviously. Um, would you,

um, would you, would you accept something? There's something. Yeah. Maybe that's just like the way the education system works in Ireland. Like this, they've, those kids are in there with a handicap.

Right. Yeah. I've had, I've tweeted about this and I've got some pretty funny replies from um Irish people oh yeah who I think are maybe a little disillusioned with the Irish educational system and think it it is in such a state of despair that even the Asian kids are brought down, which I thought was pretty funny. I mean, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can neither agree or disagree with these people as I come from a position of ignorance with regards to the Irish educational system. But it's still, there's still funny responses. It's really, it's really hard to judge anything about Ireland, I find, because all the Irish people who moved to London are like hyper liberal,beral, extremely educated, and often very funny, like working in comedy as well. So you just get the impression that Ireland is like this futuristic super society where the arts are sacred

and everyone is having a lovely time. Yeah, it sort of epitomizes that category of country where people from the country criticize it to shit. But if you're not from the country, you are not allowed to degrade it in any way. You know what I mean? Yeah. They're very protective about their unique right to talk down their country. Yes. Especially if they're talking to an English person, which historically speaking is understandable.

Yeah. Well, it's like people from the UK with the NHS when the Americans were like, everyone who uses the NHS dies instantly. And everyone in the UK was like, how dare you say something mad like we've been saying. But yeah, Phil, I think that's pretty much the pod, really.

We've managed to cover a wide range of satirical territory. It is. It's been a real satire port. Yeah. Yeah. Watch out, John Oliver. Here's a deep dive.

I'll give you a run for your money. Yeah, you think you've cornered the market in powerlessly arch highbrow satire? Well. Oh, you can do eight minutes on one topic well have a look at 54 minutes on loads yes how about that yeah and only people with degrees listen to us too luckily that's not true for us at least i mean i think john oliver's kind of hamstrung by his level of appeal but i think we have got a very wide cross-section of noble and handsome

listeners. I think John Oliver has maybe now suffered from the loss of his unique position as an exasperated person. I think

exasperation is now such a common feature of everyday life that it is no novelty to watch a man exasperated at the news anymore. Yes. If anything, it's very, very bland observational comedy. Oh, God. All right.

Well, thanks for listening, everybody. Yeah. So I guess no correspondence this week, but seeing as how we're so on top of it that we had an episode to spare without touching it, I guess. It's true. It's true. We'll get back to it next week. let's do that because there's always so much and it's always so

very very fine fine stuff absolutely fine um have everyone enjoy another week uh drive safely yes yes yes yes um endanger your families to check your eyesight for no reason please enjoy yep uh maybe i think at a gun range or something yes yes yes yes um if you want to check if you've lost your sense of taste or smell just pour boiling water into your mouth and and please remember to petition bbc3 for more accurate portrayals of East Asian students yes, yes Phil will be tweeting out a petition for that and if you could just retweet it

that would be great, that would be very useful yeah, I'll be using the website 38degrees which is named after the number of degrees the average Chinese parent expects from their firstborn. Yes, exactly. All right. Thanks, everyone. Bye.

Bye.