If I Speak - 103: Will getting back to nature heal my feelings of burnout?

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Ash wants to cultivate a better relationship with nature, but Moya detects a deeper issue around burnout, and the lure of the countryside for busy city dwellers. Plus: advice for a listener who’s lost sexual interest in her partner. Got a dilemma? Email [e-mail] Join us at Crossed Wires festival in Sheffield on 4th July! […]

Crank up the content machine. Trying to roll up the sleeves that don't roll up. You're like, I'm a blue collar worker. Yeah, I'm a blue collar worker who's collars are too tightly tied to go up her large wrists. Okay, what are we doing here? What's the day with the show? What we're doing here is Moy is telling you she's swell, and this is If I Speak, the podcast for Overthinkers, Neurotics,

And Hotheads, I'm Ash Sarker. And before we get started, just a couple of bits of housekeeping. Yeah, bits. Housekeeping, the first, you know we've got merch. I know you know that we've got merch. And if you want to buy our merch, go to Navarit Media.com and look for our shop. We have a bagu, and it is capacious. It is sturdy.

And best of all, it says, special one. on it. I actually, at the event that I did a Monday, someone came with their bagu and asked me to sign up. I love that. See, Capacious Baggy for the Rapacious fan. Mine. I love that. And it was stuffed to the gills. I was like, wow, this bitch is strong. Yeah, she holds a lot. She kind of reflects the hosts. She holds a lot. She carries a lot. She carries a lot. She got a lot of baggage. What else do we have to tell the people about? We have to tell you about Crosterweiss Festival,

which is July the 4th in the Great City of Sheffield. We will be doing a live, if I speak. There'll be other people doing podcasts too, but they're not as important as us. I don't support that message. I refuse to alienate our fellow podcasters. I don't want to go to the green room. We'd be like,

we heard that you were talking shit. You didn't pick the agony. I would hear it. It's like, we want to have mics. They can hear it. Well, look. It's a dog eat dog world out there. I'm a cat.

You can get tickets from CrossWire's Fest directly, and there'll be a link in the description. So that's the housekeeping done. Wait, I have a bit of housekeeping. Oh. If people would like to come get their baggage signed, I'm actually going to be interviewing Ash as part of her non-side hustle hustle. on the 5th of March in Leicester

at the Y Theatre because Ash's paperback version of her best-selling book, Minority Report. It's not a report, what we're talking about? Minority Rule. Minority Rule. Starring Tom Cruise and Samantha Morton. Is out. I think at the end of this month

with an updated chapter, am I right? Yes, there is an afterward. The afterward discusses Donald Trump, Zoranam Darni, the Belgian Workers Party. I do a bit of reflecting on left organizations. building. And there's some like WWE metaphors

as well in there. I'm waiting for my up to actually chapter to arrive but yeah I will be grilling ash about this on the 5th of March so you can come and see us if you aren't able to catch us and if I speak fest

and we'll be talking all things politics intellectual Ocachapassie let's go but today we won't be talking all things politics because I have some questions for you some very silly stupid questions Yeah. Number, oh, this is 73 questions, guys.

We don't have 70 of them. Oops, they weren't missing in action. So we've just got three. Number one, most inopportune time you've needed the loo. Do you know something? I'm having this like recurring anxiety dream at the moment where in the dream I wet myself and it feels really real and then I wake up and I haven't and it's fine. but that's like a recurring anxiety dream at the moment

I'm having lots of toilet anxiety dreams most inopportune time there is a particular time where I can think about leaving a wedding and I got on the train and I just forgot to go before leaving and I always do that I always forget to do the like just go now

and then I needed to I couldn't know this because this is so mental it was really bad I had to piss so badly when I got off the train and I happened to know that there's an unoccupied house on my walk home. So I pissed behind the bins there. Oh, that's not bad. I thought you were going to break in.

No, no, no, no, no, no. That's not that bad. It's not fun. No one enjoys it. It's not fun, but it had to be done. Yeah, but I thought you were going to break in and use the toilet there, which would have been crazy. I'm not that skilled.

Not a cat burglar. Car with my set of burglarizing tools that I keep on my person just in case I need to go to the toilet. Oh, yeah. When I, obviously, festival cues are a big one for me, but since I discovered the magical power of those bags which absorb your piss. Ah, yeah. It's not been a problem. You're just piss in the bag. It's amazing.

Incredible. I kind of, I'm not sure if I can't, if I'm capable of pissing in a bag. I think I'm too much of a princess for that. it depends what you're wearing in a skirt if you're in a skirt fine so easy if i'm in trousers i'll go squat somewhere okay question two oh you're 15 years old mesostophiles appears in front of you and says you could run the country one day you could be very famous and have lots of money or you can find the love of your life but you cannot have any of these in combination, which you're picking? 15 year old me, love of my life.

100%. That's the same answer as 32-year-old you. Why? Continuity. Where's the continuity? 33-year-old me? Maybe I'd be like, nah, love my life again.

I just want to see if it's the person I'm actually with. That's very black mirror. Double check. Double check the homework. Very black mirror. Okay. Well, that was a very nice answer. Okay.

Last one. So boring. Early AM gym or PM gym? My preference is for early AM, but I can't always do that because of work. Wow. I never... What's with the... I am, I hate early... Like today I had to, because my schedule is so packed right now, today I had to get about 5.40 to go to the gym. And it was, I could only do cardio if it's that early in the morning. There's no way of lifting weights because you've got to eat beforehand, which means I'd have to get up an hour. earlier and all of this.

So I'm always impressed by an AM gym goer because you guys are foreign to me. I'm an AM everything person though. But this is what's weird. I love mornings. It's just exercise in the mornings because you've got to eat like a mid-morning gym amazing. A mid-afternoon gym, fantastic.

Oh, a 10 a.m. gym. Oh, that would be like crap. Hits like crack. However, due to work, I often can't do that. So. Due to employment. Due to the constraints of employment. much my I love very much.

The unfortunate conditions of my continued employment. In unfortunate conditions of the job, I love very much, may I just add? It's hard to do that. Also, it's very funny on the odd occasions you do get to go to the gym in the other day. You're like, what are all you other fucking layabouts doing here? I'm here now. So this week, I can't really talk about why yet because I can't. Like legally, I can't.

But I was very, very angry and very, very adrenalized this week. and I went up in weight so much in terms of what I was lifting. Like on the day of maximum stress, I was just like, I was like, oh my God, I'm hulking out. You went full Hulk. You were like, you were like those cool WD. There's a WWE or something else wrestling woman called Alicia Cargill, who I followed when she was a basketball player.

Jade Cargill now. That's her name. Jade Cargill. hench. Yeah, I'm not meant to be in this world. This is an accidental. I followed her back in the day when she was in sports and she was just like a hench lady because I follow lots of ripped ladies of colour. And then she got into wrestling, I think it is. And now she's like a big star. If you want another hench lady former basketball player wrestler, may I recommend lash legend? Lash legend. And at the moment she's sort of starting out and she's just putting belt to ass.

on everybody. It's an interesting pipeline because I guess obviously wrestling is like mostly a performance right and a lot of it's like fake. What do you mean? Are you telling me

that in a real fight you wouldn't do a handstand first before dropping the shit? Depends if you're not doing Marvel or not. But I'm quite interested is this a new influx of like because they're also beautiful like black women ex basketball players

ex college athletes ex professional athletes or is there something that's always been present in wrestling? So it has mostly been present before for the men So you've often had a gridiron football To wrestling pipeline For women it was much more traditionally

Bodybuilding was the way in Because like the thing about The thing about wrestling is that like you don't need To have muscles that look like that to be that strong Like you don't need to have that like super strong Like you don't need to have that like super-shunders shredded, super jacked body type. You just have to be strong and agile and like have a good amount of like bodily self-control

so you don't accidentally kill somebody. So bodybuilding was the way in because like these are people who are training for aesthetics. And that's really changed. So there's a lot more gymnasts who have then gone in like basketball players. And I think maybe even there's been a couple of models which I'm really impressed by because they have to go from like not eating anything of it to like, okay, every chicken breast in a tri-state area into my body. I'm going to recommend something to the viewers right now.

If you don't understand why wrestling is a joy to watch and like really, really funny, watch Mr. Iguana in the 2006 Royal Rumble. Just Mr. Iguanhas parts. That's it. Mr. Iguana. Mr. Iguana. The duffest superhero of all time. That's Mr. Iguano to you.

Mr. Aguano, if you're nasty. Okay. Okay, that was a pleasant little detour into wrestling chat. I enjoyed that. But you also have an intrusive thought. I have an intrusive thought, and it's one which I think you will really be able to help with because when I was trying to think about

what to bring to the pod this week, I was a little bit stuck for ideas. And like, what I do when I'm in that place is that I make a list and I make a list of the ways in which me and you are similar and the ways in which me and you are different. That's fascinating. Fascinating. That's how the sausage gets made, baby.

I didn't know that. And so then I picked on a difference and realized that that difference sort of animate something that I'm feeling at the moment, which is a nice way back to, this is what I'm actually thinking and feeling. So there are lots of things which distinguish myself and yourself

Moira. But perhaps the deepest difference between us is that you're a field mouse and I'm a city rat. You know? I'm a rat that was raised eating other rats and bits of chicken wing. That's what happens in the fields too.

It's a horrible world out there. Anyway, go. No, I've just imagined you like people living on pieces of grain. Like, we do like grain. We do eat it, not grain. You're like, oh, here's my acorn cup. but I'll get into the brutality of the countryside in a minute. Let me let you finish.

Let me let you land. All right. So I'm a city rat. And I've been knocking on the door of burnout for a little bit and I need rest and I need restoration. And also considering that the man to whom stay are married comes from like a semi-rural small town. Maybe if I got out there and touched some grass and got more comfortable in the countryside,

it would be good for my relationship too. So to speed run things. through why I don't have the best relationship with the countryside in the world. One, I'd always had the best time because of a racismo. So I can recognize that there is natural beauty and there are vistas and that those vistas are stunning. But I remember going to Cornell and like 10 minutes in, someone was yelling out of a car, packy go home.

And I was like, don't have to tell me twice. I'll leave, right? I don't want to stay where I am not welcome. But it's not just that, right? and I know I could make it all about race if I wanted to, and that would be considered, like, somewhat legitimate. The other thing is that I think I feel a bit physically vulnerable. And I feel a bit physically vulnerable in the absence of infrastructure

and in the absence of lots of other people. And I have weak ankles. I have very weak ankles. And so where the ground is uneven or slippy, I'm like, I don't want to die. Like, there was one time, me and my partner went on a walk, in a place called slippery stones. And it was very slippery.

And it was very stony. You're shocking me. And when I was walking down the slippery stones, I was like, why did you do this? There were easier ways to get rid of me if you want rid of me. You didn't have to kill me. Just have a normal breakup. He was like, no, I thought it would be a lovely day. Have you seen that in TikTok where it's this woman, it's posted by the woman who's in the TikTok

and she's out with her British judgment. it says, when you take your Slavic wife on a hike and he's like, we're out here on this lovely walk and she's like, no, Simon, this is hell. And he goes, and he's like, no, we're having a nice time. She goes, I just thought you on a short walk and now I have to shit in the woods. Oh, I think she's basketball in the world.

It's so funny. I love her. That's me. I'm the Slavic wife. Right. I think about the whole time, no, Simon, this is hell. that's how I feel that's how I'm feeling I mean let's not say that I don't have fun on walks right like I've gone on walks and I've had fun

gone on walks taking a suicide dose of acid had a great time I must be under the influence to go on a walk this is the only way you're getting me anywhere I better be out of my gourd because in my right mind I'm not doing it but like I can have fun on a walk but I never really want to go on a walk.

There's never a point where I'm like, I want to do this thing. It's different in hot countries, like when I've been in hot countries, and I'm in like a little village somewhere, and, you know, there's a beautiful, there's a what on a hillside and there's a big old Buddha, and you just have to, like, trump your way up there. I love to do it. I don't like to do it in this country. But what I'm suggesting is this is that it's probably bad for me.

in terms of stress levels, like constant stimulation, low-level noise of the city. I mean, you know, that's going to have an impact on your base-level cortisol. And I want to know from someone who was hatched, somewhere thatched. Oh, amazing. Amazing.

How can I cultivate a better relationship with nature? You want to talk about this, but I want to talk about what I think this is really about. Oh. Which is, how do you deal with burnout? I don't think you give a fuck about the countryside. I don't think you give a fuck about the countryside. And I don't think this is a nice way in talking about this topic. Okay, we can start with the burnout, but I do want to talk about the countryside.

I can discuss that. The other thing I was thinking about was with last week's episode when we were talking about, Wuthering Heights. What's really important? Nature, the self-reflected in nature and the self-shaped by nature. Which is very true, but there is nature in the city that you love and call your home. In fact, it's one of the greenest cities in Europe, maybe the world. I go to parks. Yeah, you go to parks. But like when I moved away for a whole six months, I moved to, obviously, Glasgow, which calls itself the dear green place. And let me tell you, that's a misnomer. I was shocked. there's lots of green around Glasgow

but Glasgow itself is not as green as it thinks it is And I realize Nothing green about it But I realise once again There's some great parks, some lovely parks But I realised once again I've been spoiled By the capital Which is far greener than the name

The Big Smoke would ever imply So I don't think that it's Exactly that you're cut off from nature That is the issue here I think it's probably You know where you go to access it And what headspace you go to access it And if you move to the countryside

or for even a short period. Yes, it might help, but then you will come back and you will still be burnt out. So the question I think really is about, okay, yes, we can talk about the countryside, but we also should probably talk about, and I know listeners want us to discuss it, what happens when you're at the end of your tether

to the point where you're imagining I need to run away and reset for two to three months in order to get my life back into a place where it feels manageable again? and I don't feel like I can drop any of my responsibilities but something has to give and that I think is correct me if I'm wrong

does that feel like it speaks to you in some way okay okay I'm speaking about an emotion I'm experiencing presently so the Italian accent that must come out it's the only way I can do with her and that is okay

oh I'm at the end of my tether Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so sorry to the entire nation of Italy. It's okay. They forgive you.

And they've got lovely nature too, which we can talk about. But you've become part of my emotional repertoire. I am going away for a month. Where are you going to? Not exactly. Australia and then Thailand. Are you working? No.

Oh. You're in Australia for like a couple of the days and then it's basically a month. Ash, I'm very pleased for you that you're not working. Basically a month and I work. So like that is happening. and I'm taking a much more active approach to the fact that like I have to, you know, I want to do this for the rest of my life. Yeah. Which means you can't just be running off a fumes forever and ever and ever and expect that to have no effect.

Yeah. I suppose when it comes to how do I deal with that when I mean, this period, where like I'm still having to work and all the rest of it like just a big bit of it is cocooning like my body wants to sleep and I'll have that thing where a nap takes over me so like I'm sitting and I'm doing some work and then just the nap descends

like envelopes because it's going to like hibernation protective mode I think burnout's a really interesting concept because it feels very modern but obviously we can't go and ask our Victorian ancestors in the factories did you feel like, did you feel burnt out? Do you get too tired?

Did you get overstimulated? And they're like missing a limb. Speaking to the six-year-old chimney sweep. Literally. Are you experiencing burnout? It feels very modern. It feels like something that is obviously a product of 24-7 on culture because I don't know about you,

but there's specific things that cause me to burn out, to max out. And it's often when there is some unhappiness going on or lack of fulfillment in some area of my life, plus all my other responsibilities. So the last time I was properly burnt out was when I was doing a role that didn't quite fit me, and I was in a new place as well. So I was having trouble acclimatizing to the place and the role was very taxing and demanding a lot. And I wasn't energized by the exact work that it was asking of me. So it felt very frustrating like I could not see an end in some. site to this and I was maxing out seven days a week working on this stuff. And it was a lot of thorny things as well. I was expected to juggle so much. And because I wasn't being fulfilled

by that aspect, it was a knock on effect to everything else. And then my relationship suffer, which then, you know, feed into the kind of like exhaustion more. But also, I was on all the time. So the more disregulated I got, the more I'd be online, the more I'd be like looking at things, posting things, reading things, constantly like, there's always something to take in. I'm never going to learn everything. I'm never going to know enough to do this thing. I'm never going to do this thing. And rather than seeing the world or even my job in like chunks and manageable,

you know, manageable tasks or things where I could work my way up to something, it was like suddenly I have to do everything now and fix everything now and do everything now. And that's when I stopped being able to literally read or write. I could not. I sat down at the computer one day and I just started crying. I couldn't even write like a basic sentence because I was so. burnt out. But I think burn out itself, I hate the word because it sounds so like, oh, I'm burnt out. But it's really like you have, your systems have broken down because you have, they're

overloaded with so many different, on so many different fronts, I think is how I describe it. I think for me, I experienced it differently. Because it's not really to do with the lack of fulfillment. I feel, I've got fulfillment coming out of the wazoo. I'm oozing fulfillment. just secreting it, leaving a trail of sticky fulfillment wherever I go, like an incontinent mouse. What the hell? I've got a beautiful turn of phrase. We're a mice today, one big mice today.

We're all little rodents. It's not that. What it is is my fight or flight being constantly activated. So it's much more to do with feeling exposed. feeling at risk feeling that harm is going to be done to me, feeling that people can get to me. And like that's what that's what it is. And for me, my fight or flight is mostly freeze. So over the weekend, like, and again, like, I'm really sorry I can't like, once I can bring this story to the pod, I will, but like I just, I literally legally can't right now. But like the weekend was the sort of

like peak stress of this thing of being like, oh shit, something really bad's going to happen. And like, I'm just caught in it. And the main way in which that plays out for me is that I dissociate like a motherfucker and I can't physically talk. So my partner will be like, I'd need you to tell me how you're feeling right now because you are wired and everything about your face and how you're holding yourself as telling me how stressed you are, but I can't get the words out of my throat.

Like, I physically can't do it. And that for me is the burnout. Like, there are other times where I go, yeah, I feel stressed and I feel tired, or I feel like I've maxed out on my intellectual or creative ability. But in a way, that's a little bit simpler to manage because I just go, all right,

like, I need to prioritize my tasks and it means that I'm going to do these things but not these things and I need to communicate that to the people around me and I think I've gotten better with that. This is much more about, oh, I'm just having like a 24-7 trauma response and the thing is, is that I'm constantly having that because I'm constantly being exposed to violence and racism and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then what we're talking about is something on top of that base level of feeling a sense of threat. and like that thing which like takes it to like it's overflowing like it's gotten to an unmanageable level and so I suppose maybe why I'm thinking about the countryside and nature is that I'm thinking about a space where there are very few people around other than the people of my choosing I'll get onto the countryside because I know you do want to talk about the countryside I'm happy to like answer your questions do you no Is that true?

But do you think what you've just, because, okay, I've seen you when you're maxed out, like, creatively or, you know, professionally. And you still will try and give it. Like, you'll still, you'll still turn up and give what other people would see as their, like, 8% for you. You're 20% of someone else's 70%, you know? But this sounds, and that, that I would describe as like, burnout. What you're describing here, you kind of said the word, which is like,

you're in a trauma response because something very traumatic is happening. And I think those two things are slightly separate because like I do think burnout there is there's not a trivial thing per se but there is definitely a, it's so like work based isn't it? It's like so I have been maxed out on all my like professional fronts and often people in like creative industries who work over time and I wouldn't say underpaid but aren't remunerated. I can never say that fucking word. is how do you say that what? Remunerated. Remunerated. Remunerated. I just imagine the moomids coming every time.

Remuminated. Remunamimimages. Anyway, so compensated. You aren't compensated perhaps to the level of work they're doing. I think that's when there's like, it's not even about the money, but like there's a mismatch with like the amount you're doing and the amount you're seeing back, even if you're fulfilled by it. That to me is like a burnout situation where what you're talking about is like,

like a very serious, constant, you know, you're constantly being thrown into things that will, again, not to use the bads words, but trigger you because you're constantly being exposed to like threats of violence and racism and things that really, any person, if they underwent a little bit of it, it would be like, fuck me, this is too much. So that, those feel like slightly different things. And I too would go to Thailand. So I suppose like for me, those two things are connected because that's something that comes with my job. And I think maybe to like think about burnout for a second. It's interesting to me that you hear about burnout most from people who work in the knowledge economy in some way. And I think that there are two ways to look at that. There is one way to look at that, which is you say, okay, this is about a particular aspect of what it means to be human being overworked and overtaxed. So your intellectual capacity being way overworked and your ability to be embodied and to feel physically capable being really underworked.

And so there's this like massive imbalance. And then you add to that, you know, social media, internet, constant intellectual stimulation, constant demands on your attention. And then also living as most people do in this country in an urban, setting where you're not even conscious of all the demands on your attention. You're navigating them kind of almost as muscle memory is that that's one way of looking at burnout, which is it is a form of mental exhaustion and it's because of all the forms of mental work that people have to do in modern society. There's another way of looking at it, which would be the argument, I think of, say someone like Morris Glassman,

who was really funny to talk to you because he kept talking about how much he respects plumbers. I'm like, have you ever done any plumbing? And he's like, no. He fetishized those who do something completely separate. 100%. He was like, I hate graduates. I was like you went to Cambridge.

But like someone like him might say that this is a sort of, it represents the coddling of a generation of people who have been primed and trained for the knowledge economy. And what that means is that their kind of hot house, hours and they lack resilience. And I suppose I don't want to be too quick to dismiss that simply because it's uncharitable and can come from a contemptuous place. I do think there are some elements of truth about people who've gone through the kind

of education system that we've both gone through, often lacking a kind of resilience and the sort of like language and values around resilience. resilience is always seen as an imposition rather than a virtue or an aspiration and I do think that there is like a kind of like socio-economic component to that but I don't think that means that mental exhaustion isn't real two things can be true

you can be mentally exhausted because you lack resilience but also you know sometimes you're not I think yeah I think I think you're very right I mean, I see burnout invoked a lot in people where I'm like, you've just been asked to do work. But then I also see invoked by people who have been pushed to sort of the very edge of their capabilities and capacity. So it's not one size fits all thing. Where I think what you're saying about the countryside is interesting as this like cure for an ill. Both yes and no, because I wish to take the waters.

It's like very victorious. This is what I was about to say. Like it is very Victorian. And I think it's interesting how the middle class in the Victorian area invented this idea of leisure. And the upper classes obviously were already engaged in this, where you would go and, you know, you'd go on holiday, which we do now anyway,

but holidays have become so much about fitting in, and this isn't true for everyone, obviously, but like fitting in experiences. And there's like an optimisation, I think, sometimes around the holiday as an expansion of one. world travel and sometimes the holiday should be that. Like I love to go on holiday and do things and expand my world. I've always quote them, what's his face? The guy wrote the tourist where he says, De McAnnell who says, you know, you should always come back and say, and I have something

to say. Like, what did it give you to say? But there is, and we've talked about this elsewhere, a sort of like, a contempt for doing fuck all, a contempt for doing nothing. And in the Victorian area, there was this real focus among the moneyed classes on going to recuperate, to take the waters. The very upper aristocracy would always retire to their country piles. You know, you didn't spend the whole season in London or Bath or whatever. You would retire to the country pile because you needed a break. And they'd go and like hibernate and do their little like winter, winter cubby cubying up, coasing up. obviously if you're part of the laboring class you didn't get any of that shit

like you just had to stay and lump it um but it is it is interesting how the holiday has gone from like yes throughout the sort of 80s onwards when all-inclusive holidays etc became really big from lying straight on a beach this idea of a resort holiday get everything given to you and now that's looked down upon as sort of unimaginative people who don't want to expand their world view, you have the caricature of the working class going to Benadorm and just lying on some... Uncultured. Uncultured and tasteless. Uncultured and tasteless. And it's interesting to me, obviously you're going to Thailand, but it's interesting how when we're thinking about recuperation, like, I need to go to a beach somewhere for two weeks and, or I need to go to the

countryside and like learn to take in the air and the beauty of the countryside, which is a great and noble thing. But what if you just went and lay down in a room for two weeks and red. Like, would that not be a recuperation in some sort? It's an interesting thing about this idea of like always having to get something out of it. So I think, I think that that is an interesting thing. And I suppose one of the things that struck me is that there's the like Victorian element of it. But then there's a sort of slightly earlier than that. There's a like capital R romantic version of it. Which is, you know, when I'm like, yeah, like go take a suicide dose of psychedelic. looks in the countryside. I'm like, I'm basically

Coleridge, baby. Like, I'm basically Samuel Taylor Coleridge. You are? Like, my man just neck in some lordidum, like, where's worth of the mushrooms? Where's this for the shrooms? Wondering lonely as a cloud. Do you know what I mean? Like, fuck is the daffodil. They did not write those sober. Like, come on.

No, they absolutely did not. Absolutely did not. Like, you know, he's like, taking a fruit tower and he's like, in Zanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasuredeme decree I think these guys were out there good so I'm saying that I'm keeping a certain romantic tradition alive by being like come on fire up the shroom balloon we're going

and so I think that there's something there which is that like you know as a response to urbanisation culture has had a way of fetish the countryside in some way. And so whether that's having a transcendental experience, which is, you know, something that takes you closer to being overwhelmed by the divine, or whether it's this slightly daintier, quaintor,

you know, idea of rest and recuperation and you do your little watercolours, like that's the sort of feminized version of it, the masculine version of it was shooting, right? You know, he has a very well-stocked park, a well-stocked lake. Like, you know, the countryside being a site of leisure. And I suppose this is something which I am interested to, like, he talk about, is the countryside is not simply a space of leisure, right?

It's a space of work. That's where all of our fucking food comes from. and I suppose I'm interested in hearing about what are the things that city folk get wrong about the countryside it's hard to say because I don't actually know what myths you guys hold about the countryside obviously like there is racism in the countryside but it depends on where you go and there's racism everywhere they're down the street in peckham there's a loads of people who've got their big English flags up which I'm pretty sure they put up in the in this summer of 2025 which sends a very clear message.

And that's in the middle of, you know, an area that is populated by black, less South Asian, but like a lot of black populations, a lot of West African populations, that is a clear signal of intent that they're doing that. So if you go somewhere like outside Sheffield to some of the surrounding countryside areas, there's a lot of brown people, less black people. There's a lot of brown people there. If you go like near someone like Bradford or whatever, Again, lots of people have been increasingly moving to the countryside from marginalised demographics, nowhere near London, but it's not like there isn't a presence there.

So I think that's one thing. Like when I go back to Herefordshire now, there's so many more black and brown people than when I was growing up. That has become like an obvious trend and an interesting trend that people are moving to these places. The second thing is like, yeah, you can go full baron if you want. If you want to go to a Bothy and the Scottish Highlands, you can. but most countryside places we have amenities like yeah

if you don't want the amenities go to some island go to like Orkney go to Aaron and even then there's a ferry that comes regularly in a co-op you know but if you go to

my little village in Harryfetchers yeah it's rural like my friends when they came up were like I didn't realize how rural you were and I'm like what

it's only a 37 minute walk to the pub which in London by the way we do But 37 minutes feels very different when you're walking down like a series of country lanes than whether you're walking down, you know, you're walking from Peckham to broccoli. They feel like different walks. Obviously there's an inability to get deliveroo or Uber's. Cars are very much needed unless you stay in a town that borders that has good routes into the big cities or the smaller villages.

Bus is a cut. That's something that is a big thing. So it's connectivity that really defines the countryside against the city. But I don't know what myths do you really hold about the countryside? I don't. Okay, all right. This is not a myth, but it's a really interesting difference in how me and my partner perceive risk. So he's from a small town near Barnsley.

And it is surrounded by fields and countryside. So like it itself used to be a market town. There's lots of pit towns around it. And there's just like loads and loads fields around it. And we'd gone to see his aunt and we were walking back and it was dark. And he was like, we can just cut through these fields. And I was like, it's pitch black in there. And he was like, yeah, man, but it's fine.

And it's just like walk through. And for me, I'm hard coded to go, never go through a park at night. Right. Very city thing. Never go through a park. night, that's where the rapists live. And I was, like, I physically couldn't make myself do it. I was like, like, my feet were just glued.

It was like, no. And obviously, for him, he's like, well, just there's no one there. Like, there's, you know, there is nobody that. Like, it's the safest it can be. So I associate safety with people. He associates risk with people, right? Big difference in how we're assessing the space around us.

I mean, that'll probably be a good thing for you to have exposure therapy to learning that in the countryside you can leave your doors unlocked, which people do all the time, all the fucking time. It's actually insane. You can leave your doors unlocked. But then again, in London, I once stayed somewhere where I accidentally the door unlocked for like three months and didn't realize

and it was fine. No one broken. So that was, that's not where I live now, by the way. But that was an interesting lesson in, oh, sometimes you will do things that you've been coded to see risk in. And that actually, it actually isn't as risky as you think. For example, again, I haven't been mugged in London, knock on wood. I've only had my phone stolen when I've left it in bars when I've been drunk. So it all kinds of, like in the country said, yes, you were probably not going to get attacked in the middle of a field. In Herefordshire, for example, Herriford, there's been a series of.

rapes in the city itself, but in the fields it's less likely to happen because some would have to come out, wait in that specific field. Why would they be there? No, most of the violence takes place even in the urban areas within rural places or in the home. So that's something that the isolation can engender, which is violence within the home and less ability to sort of reach out and support services have been massively cut in places like the West Midlands. So in rural areas, you do have a lot more of, well, I don't even know a lot more, but those things are more likely to happen in those spaces. So you're actually safer outside of the house, walking through fields, which is an interesting one. I used to have to walk home a mile lane every night from the

age of 15 to 19, I would say, maybe even more because I was at high school. So as soon as my mom stopped picking me up for the bus. So you'd go in the morning, it'd be quite dark in winter. night it'd be dark in winter pitch black. Nothing ever happened to me. The worst thing that happened to me is the story that I've told on the podcast which is why I've ripped my own trousers running from sheep. And that was my own fucking fault for getting in a

foggy field and carrying a basket of like lasagna ingredients. Oh, and the sheep are like, oh. The sheep I was going to feed them. I will say in the countryside, respect the animals. A lot of people are like, the cows won't hurt you. The cows can hurt you, especially if they've got calves.

Don't be stupid. Oh, I'm so spooked by cows. Yeah, you don't have to tell me. Horses are getting to spook me out a little bit, but they're fine. Sheep, fine on their own. In masses, they can be stupid. And the mob mentality creates a mob stupidity. But again, all these things are, it's fine.

It's fine. I think the main thing about the countryside is don't think it's going to fix all your problems. And also have things planned. If you're a city person, yeah, there'll be some people who can go out there and just sit and be like, I'm in heaven now. But a lot of city people, like, you're going to have to wean yourself into country life, which means don't immediately move to a completely remote spot for two months. Move somewhere where you do have access to other places.

I would go to a town that is on the edge of somewhere. So you can get into the full countryside, but you can also get into town. Another thing, I saw it, and I'll finish talking about the countryside in a second, but I saw a TikTok recently, which perfectly encapsulated this for me. Some people are outdoor people Some people are outside people The difference is crucial And a lot of people are getting confused

Because they're like, I like a hike I'm an outdoor person No, you're an outside person If your limit like me is a three hour hike Maybe five pushing it But you know, you can do three hours Before you start going like Let's think about ending this soon

You're probably an outside person I love to like go on a long walk have a lunch in the middle, go on a long walk back. Delicious. I don't want to be there for four days camping. I don't want to be there for 24 hours camping. Maybe you can push me. But my rule, my rule is no pooping outside.

Yeah. Now I have to shit in the woods. I don't want to shit in the woods. I will do it. I've really pushed. I've shat in the woods before. Do I look at the countryside? In the country side, you've got to try at least ones.

No. No, no, no, no. I mean, like, this is the thing is that, you know, I know that there's a civilization and it's discontent. I'm not discontented with civilization. There you go. I love civilization. I do, but I do sort of, like, I think this is the note that I'm going to wrap up on, which is when we're thinking out burnout, I do you think alienation from the natural world is a component of burnout. But because I think that being close to the natural world is also a way of feeling embodied.

it's a way of detaching yourself from all of these things, whether it's work or whether it's social media or even whether it's just like being constantly available to your friends because of something like WhatsApp. That's like fragmenting and weakening your attention span. Like do you think that communion with nature is an escape from it? I agree. But my final note would be, if you think you're going to get all that just from going to like the countryside,

No, you've got to put the phone down. You've got to leave the phone at home, take out the flip phone with you for emergencies. And you can do that in the city. You can go to Ruskin Park. You can go to, I wouldn't go Richmond, because the flight path is really ruining it nowadays. You can go to regions.

That was the most 50-year-old woman thing I've ever heard you say. Am I not dressed? Like, for those who are listening to the pod, Moyer is wearing a very sensible cardi. A very sensible judicardy. A collar up to the top. up to the top. And the extent to which you're

embodying this character. It's a fucking travesty, Ash. It's a fucking travesty. The flight path over Q Gardens and Richmond Park is horrendous. It is ruining a place of Sag Street. Anyway, so don't bother with that. But you can find, there's like green chain walks, like, goes

through Beckham and Place Park, all of these beautiful long walks, the Regents Canal. The thing that is ruining it for you in terms of like taking your stress with you, not you specifically the generalise you, is you've got to leave the phone at home. And the phone will come with you to the countryside. You've also got to leave that at home.

Leave the phone at home. And also, for me, this is the thing about city nature, right? So this is probably why I'm feeling it so acutely now is because the weather has been shined. It's been raining continuously for about four weeks at this point, is that if it's sunny and there's beer garden or there's park or there's Walthamstone marshes, or there's going along the canal, right? Any one of these things, I'm in heaven.

Heaven. Like, summertime tinny, that's my shit. That's my shit. I love it. Like, I will park up, like, a particular spot, and people can come and people can go. Love. Love.

Wait, I actually do something else to add on that. The countryside is not good for that. Because you will have to, when it is rainy, trapped inside. You will be doing the same walks every single day if you can't drive. You have to drive to a different area to get different scenery. There is a reason addiction issues are so high in rural places because people do turn to mind-altering substances when they are feeling isolated. Those things will not be alleviated by the countryside. The countryside is good for like a two-week holiday where you have lots of nice things planned, is what I would say. But you can see the stars.

That did blow our minds when we went back. We saw the full Milky Way. Oh, stunning. It's a daffodil, babe. It's a daffod. Oh, my mind was blown and I wasn't even on. It's a daffodil. But yeah, cut your side. Pros and cons. Love it, but it's not going to solve our problems.

Shall we move on? Because we've got some problems that we need to solve. Yes. This is our regular segment. I'm in big trouble. And if you are in big trouble, you want our help. Email us at if I speak at navaramedia.com. That's if I speak at Navaramedia.com.

This is so long. This is a really long one. Guys, you know, I know you're in big trouble, but what if you just go up big edits? Yeah. Okay, right, I'm going to start reading this.

This is a marathon. Let's go. Oh, sorry, I've actually got a limber up for this. Dear Ash and Moyer, I'm a recent convert to your podcast and your lovely voices have been accompanying me everywhere I go ever since. I'm 22 and in my final year of university. I've been in a relationship since my first year with a lovely boy who I met here. I would count our relationship as having begun much

earlier than when we actually said we were dating because for a long time, although we're spending all our time together and having sex, I was sleeping with other people. He wasn't. The reason for this is that never having being in a relationship before, I basically didn't understand that we were falling in love. I was always frustrated. He did not tell me how he felt and that passivity has been a pattern that has continued throughout a relationship. My boyfriend is not the kind of person I thought I would end up with. I assumed I would date someone older than me, well dressed, a cool London artist writer type. I don't do it. That is not the man for you. There's plenty of time for that, to be honest. My boyfriend is not like this whatsoever. At the risk of sounding shallow, there's certain

clothes of his that remind me of a emo 15-year-old. I'm trying not to make comments. He's not interested in making art or interacting or engaging with the creative pursuits which I am embedded in. And he's a year younger than me. But he's extremely intelligent, brilliantly funny, good-humoured, utterly without pretensions and kind to his core. We have incredible rapport and we constantly spar intellectually. He has taught me to engage politically with the world and has fundamentally changed me as a person. He's also universally loved by everyone in my life. He's also universally loved by everyone in my life. I was a late bloomer, but all my sexual experiences have been quite intense and condensed in a small period of time. For a long time, all I ever wanted was to be desired,

and I gave myself over entirely to every man I met who I thought might want to sleep with me. This was sometimes fun, sometimes regrettable, and sometimes actively damaging to my body and ego. I was almost always in some way intoxicated when I slept with people. I lost my virginity while very much on drugs, and this seems to have set a pattern. I don't really think I've ever had good sex. I know this is definitely usual at my age, but I feel at this point I've failed to understand my body and what it wants at all. I've treated it badly, and I think this is most evident in the carelessness with which I have submitted to the male desire. I think this has affected me more than I've been able to process, and this is why I get to the present situation I'm in with my

boyfriend. I've stopped being able to have sex with him almost entirely. This happened suddenly. One day my body reacted against him so strongly that I started crying. From then onwards, sex felt like an impossible task, something I just did not have the will or strength to go through with. My sex time drive plummeted. I turned him down every time and eventually we just kind of gave up. We talked about it a little, but probably not enough. When we did have sex, after much reassurance, I didn't enjoy it. I wanted it to stop. He has been incredibly respectful of all of this and never pushes me to do anything I don't want to do. He seemed actively upset when I attempted to apologize him for what I feel to be a first of kind of failure.

The first part of a relationship was pretty much entirely based of having drunk and sex on nights out. But now we've grown together and built a wonderful warm companionship. But over the course of time, I stopped enjoying the way he had sex with me, which is often quite intense, and I think in my head, even aggressive at times. It's like he is another personality, one I don't necessarily like. For example, I've tried to tell him I would like to be talked to while we have sex, and he looked confused at me and didn't seem to register. I had to repeatedly remind him to be gentle and often had to get him to stop,

which he always did because it was too painful. This, combined with the psychological aftermath of my prior sexual experiences, have added up to a kind of fear of him. My boyfriend has now been away in another country for a while. This has given me a lot of time away to reflect my options and how I feel about him. What it sometimes feels like is that I simply do not love him. When I think about I'm coming back, I dread the moment we're in bed together. I have to decide whether to go through with it or guilty turn away. Sometimes I think about having sex with other people, and makes me wonder if it's not sex in general but sex with him.

This is the only person I've ever wanted to be in a relationship with, but I've recently been wondering how I can be with someone for the foreseeable future who I'm not sexually interested in. My friends have said to me that it's my responsibility to tell him what I want and that this will help. The problem is, I don't really know what I want. I've never even had an orgasm by myself. Since I've become sexually active,

my body has been quite simply a vessel for male desire. Now I feel closed off for my own sexuality, unable to pursue the desire I hope to cultivate explore for myself because I do not feel it from or with my partner. I think I'm asking here whether sex is so important that I should be prioritising it as something I need to understand in myself and whether it's worth staying with someone who I've not just lost my sexual desire for, but I'm actively afraid of sleeping with. His passissivity, as I mentioned, has led me to convince that I have all the power here. He will not break up with me, just as he did not know how to say he wanted to be with me.

I don't want to hurt or lose him, but I'm scared that my feelings of sexual desire and passion will never come back, and that my life is made smaller because of it. want to live my foot 20s fully and be full of desire and life and everything. What should I do? Can I stay in a relationship that's so good and healthy if my body seems to be rejecting it physically? And is this my fault for wanting more? Thank you so much for reading. This was incredibly cathartic to write. What miswishes, special one. Ooh. Bloody hell. So much going on. Ash. Yeah. Where are you beginning?

I'm going to start with my practical advice and then afterwards maybe we can get into like the understanding and analysis part. My practical advice is this, is that I actually think you guys probably should break up. I think that when you take all of this together, you've focused a lot on the sex, but I think that's one aspect of what's really going on. There's all the stuff you've said about who you pictured yourself ending up with, that you don't like the way he dresses. I think you are feeling, not unreasonably,

there's a whole host of experiences that you haven't had, both in terms of experiencing sex as being something that you want to do and is happening on your terms and it's a way of you understanding your own desire and not just male desire, that there are kinds of people that you might want to explore relationships and connections with to sort of see how that shakes out for you. And I think that you are deep down wondering whether it's too soon, to commit to somebody forever.

And it's the thing that we've said on this pod a million times, which is you don't need a... You don't need someone to have done wrong to have the right to break up with them. Breaking up because there are aspects of your life that you want to experience single is a good enough reason. What do you think?

Wow, so much going on. I'm going to start with this story. When I was 21, I was in a relationship with a lovely, lovely man. We'd been together for about 20, nearly two years, nearly two years, 20 months. He was attractive, he was kind, he was older than me, he was very cool, he introduced me to all these new experiences, we went traveling to cool places, he was very loving, he encouraged me, he supported me, and one day I lost all sexual desire for him. and it wasn't actually that sudden when I look back it'd been a gradual thing I don't think even from the beginning of the relationship

I'd been fully open sexually even though he was very attractive very skilled and I managed to tamp it down for a while and I ended up at a point where I would just do things to him to avoid having penitative sex and he was very aware of this he noticed this

and one day he just you know turned to me after this. I thought in my head loads, I should break up with him. I should break up with him. No, I can't break up with him. This is my life forever because he's so nice and good. Very similar to stories you've told. You know, they're just like, this is a great person. So I just sort of resigned myself. I became apathetic about the idea that I would ever leave his relationship. And he one day just said, we're not having sex anymore. And I said, yeah, we should probably break up actually. And he went, yeah. and we cried a lot and we broke up. And after that relationship,

I would say it took probably three more years before I started having really mutual amazing sex. And that wasn't even necessarily with a partner, although I think my next partner was someone who I really opened up to a lot more. And again, the one after him is someone that I've opened up to. Actually, the next one was amazing. Oh, God, he was so good.

The one in the middle were like, yeah, really had like a very sexual-based connection. That was amazing. And then the next one again, we had a loving and sexual connection. So, but it took me a lot of bad sex or sex that just was, I wasn't fully in the headspace for. And a lot of it was when I'd been drinking, sometimes when I'd had drugs. Sorry, mummy. Sometimes that I'd had drugs. And I don't think I had sober sex until the next short-term boyfriend, which was mind-blowing. Just to put that way. And what I'm trying to say is you're right to identify that what you've been through is traumatic in some ways you know, I don't know the exact ins out of your sexual experience but also you're not broken.

It is not massively unusual and you have such a long period of experience ahead of you. And I think Ash is totally right in that she's identified that you are probably responding to feeling trapped in this relationship because you can't, you can't. You said it.

You said it as you're. You know, you nailed it. Because you can't see a reason why, exactly as you said, to break up with him. And you're like, it's so healthy, is it? Your body is literally closing down when you think about him touching you. He's also far away. So I imagine the distances, as you've said, given you time to think about this more. But you have, sex is really important to a relationship, I think, because it is a bellwether.

And no, that doesn't mean all relationships have sex. I'm sure there's some, you know, connections out there whether like we're asexual, we don't have sex. Fine, whatever. I'm not talking about this right now. If you are someone who sees sex is important, it is important, right? Whether that is because you see it is important because you have issues with it, because you might be too fixated on sex as the be all an end all, or whether it's because you recognise that your sexual approach or your sexual experience

is something that is indicating deeper feelings going on. And this person and you, I think you've fallen out of love with them, and that is okay and that is normal. Maybe you weren't ever in love. Maybe you just loved them. My first boyfriend, I loved him. I don't think I was ever in love with him. That is fine.

That is the point of having relationships. You find all that out. You learn, you discover. And I think you'll be very hard on yourself to have everything from both your sexuality and relationship to sexuality to your relationship, to knowing exactly what you want all figured out

at the age of 21 when you're undergoing massive amounts of change. And yes, there's practical advice, which is, you know, if you want to discover more about your sexuality, start, you know, working on like yourself and masturbation techniques and you know actually feeling it like these are practices fantasy fantasy what's going on yeah like for me the orgasm is not the be all and end all right like I can have orgasms where I'm like yeah yeah you know and I can have sexual experiences where I don't

climax where I'm like I was the most intense brain rocking thing ever yeah and for and like and everyone's different. You know, it's a cliche, but like everyone's different. For me, what's going on in my head and the story that's playing out in there and the fantasy and like whether or not there's someone else that's there that's a part of it, like those are all the things, which for me, it's like, am I locked in or am I not? And the advice that I'm giving you special one because you're 22, it is different from the advice I'd give to someone who's 32 or 42 in this kind of situation. because dealing with the loss of sexual momentum is I think something that every committed relationship has to contend with. Because what sex is changes.

Like in the earlier stages of a relationship, and by earlier I mean like this can be two or three years, sex is catalyzing and creating a bond of companionship. And I'm not trying to say it's transactional, right? like sex is the coin and you put it in the machine and you pull the lever and love comes out. But there is a bit of that, which is you're having sex to establish this person being close to you and wanting to come back to you. And then once you have that companionship and that loyalty and that feeling of permanence, lots of people find that their sex drive together completely disappears because you've got the thing that you were having sex for. and Esther Perel writes about this really well in mating in captivity.

It's a thing that everyone has to contend with, and it's a paradox that needs to be managed within a relationship. And, like, certainly for me and my partner, realizing that sex had transformed from something that we were doing to establish a bond to something that we're doing to nurture a bond and experience our bond and feel that bond was really important. and like what what it looks like for us and like what we're doing it and when and how

is really, really different. So like all relationships have to contend with that. But because you're 22 and because you said that this is your first relationship and you haven't had much sexual experience and that the entirety of your sexual experience really has been you put sex coin in, pull the lever and male desire comes out you really need to have all those experiences which can tell you that it's possible

for it to be something different. And if also he's feeling confused, right? As you said, he seems sort of like a bit baffled by the idea of like it being gentle or they're being talking. Is that he also is probably feeling like he's been conditioned to do one thing. You know, and that he thought he understood

how to please you and now he doesn't. But, you know, he's sort of been trained to do one thing. Like there might be a whole set of experiences that he needs to have as well. And so Moyer's completely right that sometimes you break up with lovely people. Sometimes you break up with people

who are totally deserving of your love. It's not the fact that they've done something to betray or endanger that right to your love. It's just that's not how love works. And I mean, if you really want to do, you could probably sit down have like long conversations about desire and working them out with each other, but also like you're 22. There's so much that you've got. I'm, I'm very against staying with your university

partner. Sorry to everyone who's married there's who's listening in there right now, but I'm very against staying with them. I think there's such a huge world out there. And I think sometimes, it doesn't sound like, I'm not saying this person's unsafe. I don't think they're unsafe at all. But it sounds like you don't recognize them as a safe place for whatever reason to have these conversations or explore your sexuality in tandem with them. And like Ash has talked about, you know, you've got to go off and kind of like find that on your own and find a partner wait or find a person. Might even be a one-night thing. Sometimes I've had some of the best most sort of like, oh, this is unlocked a whole new thing that I want in my mind. God damn. And a real

tell for me is with previous, with some experiences, I would fantasize about other people or other scenes and while I was having the sex. And in my later years, I'm like right now, I fantasize about the person I'm with. And I'm not saying you can't, you have to do it all the time. It's not unfaithful to sometimes fantasize about other things. That does happen. It's not fucking crazy. Like, that will happen to me. But there is a leading role that my boyfriend will take in my fantasies now, both on my own. And if I'm thinking about stuff when I'm, when I'm in the day before I'm going to see it. That shows that I'm sexually excited and really invested and feel really like connected

to this person sexually and emotionally. And that I think was, that's come of time. That's not something I'd be able to do at 22. I also, I also to pick up on something that you said is that I'm actually not entirely sure that your previous experience is being traumatic and that sort of like living in your body is actually what's going on here. I think that your body's having this shut down reaction because you're trying to force it to have sex with someone

because you think that that's what you're supposed to do in a loving relationship. And it's a reflection of like maybe falling out of love or knowing that this isn't right or like I think that you're getting a panic response because you feel trapped in the relationship and you're trying to force your body to go through the motions of having sex.

I would agree. Like I don't want to say it for 100% because I don't know I'm not in the room with you but obviously I want to offer. that up as a potential thing, but it sounds really similar as what happened to me when I just ended up giving blowjobs all the time. Because it's like, it's easy, it's easy, let's just get this done. But they notice, and it's not good for them. You notice. This is another thing. People think that, you know, often men are these completely oblivious creatures. And yes, your boyfriend, obviously,

is not taking in the messages you're giving him about sex. And I don't know how those conversations are being conducted, so I can't say why that is happening. But they, they're not. They're They do notice when the sexual relationship is breaking down. They are aware of it because it is a way to connect. Anyway, I think we've given you loads of advice. You're not broken. The relationship might just be at a natural end. Yeah.

And it's okay to break up. It's not a cry. Start like exploring. Really explore yourself and what you actually get pleasure out of, whether that's physical masturbation or like fantasy and thinking about what's actually titillating you. Because that's what's going to open up your sex life. For Lent, I've given up mechanical masturbation.

destination. Ah. Because I'm like, it's time to go back to Manula and see what happens with the hands because I think it created. Like when Jesus was in the desert, he could only use his hands. He could only use his hands. But that's, I'm sorry, that was easy for Jesus. Like, it's easier if you have a, if you have a dick.

It's easier if you have a dick. We're just talking about good Christian things. Enjoy your lent. Happy Ramadan. Everyone who's doing Ramadan. They coinciding this year. How funny. I know.

A great time. Christians and Muslims United and slapping sweets out of people's hands during the day. Yeah, when I said to my boyfriend that I was going to originally give up refined sugar for Lent, he sent me a meme which said Christians, diet culture. Is this a Lentian practice that God have moved up? So now I'm giving up the vibrator. Okay. Thank you, special ones.

You've been a blast. Ash, you've been even more of a blast. You've been blastier. Bertie Ahern said that when the Irish economy was booming, things have boomed and they're about to get boomier. All right, that's time to go bust. Goodbye. Bye.