If I Speak - 26: I’m so sorry, I’m English

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

Moya has a big theory for Ash – but the script goes out the window when they start talking about the far-right violence engulfing the UK and unpacking their own emotional reactions to English racism. After that: playing matchmaker with the first batch of Missed Connections. Content note: This episode includes discussion of racist language and […]

hello we are back again unasked for this is if i speak with me moya loathe mclean and me ash sarka fresh from finishing the manuscript so i'm a brand new woman oh it's done it's done three years congratulations ash of fucking panic attacks and it's done wow okay congratulations because that's a huge undertaking and the idea of writing a non-fiction book and the research and that it takes especially post naomi wolf um is terrifying so i i'm always in awe when someone does it yeah you know what the naomi wolf thing is so true because when i saw her getting savaged i did feel this like oh my god like there but for the grace of god go i because we can make mistakes we can make clangers and you do just live in fear that it could be you um so i tried dotting every i and crossing every t but who knows

maybe maybe i'm due a fall we will well we'll see in february if you don't know across the routine i'm sure you've got a fact checker and a copy editor who will be able to assist in case there are any teas left uncrossed anyway regardless we before february before your book is out you still got work to do sadly because on the 15th of september 15th of september at king's place with london podcast festival we have got a live if i speak show so get your tickets now grab them while they're still hot i don't know where this metal is going um and before that we have this show to do so coming up today i'm going to chat about the joy of missing out and dun dun dun dun it's missed connections time baby i know you've been waiting for this one

um but ash what is news with you i i do have to say while we're recording this and in a week hopefully this will have dissipated but there are quite a lot of racist pogroms going on so the energy is we're low vibrational right now yeah i i mean that's the thing is that you can be like oh how are you doing racist pogroms aside and it's like what that there is no racist pogroms aside you know like it's so and i'm saying this as someone who who lives in a part of London where the far right don't go. Like I feel very, very safe here. But I feel shaken up and I feel afraid and I feel sad and I feel despairing. And if I'm feeling that here, imagine how you must be feeling if you live in Hull and you're black or you're Asian and you've watched, you know, an Asian guy being pulled out of his car

to be like beaten up on the street or you live in Tamworth or you live in Rotherham or wherever wherever um like I got a text from my auntie last night because the office where she works had to be evacuated it's in uh Solihull which is in the Midlands and the EDL had gathered because they work with unaccompanied asylum seekers so you know young unaccompanied asylum seekers so had to evacuate the office and then the place where she normally stays when she's working in Solihull she's like EDL really strong here like I'm just gonna have to go all the way back home to Wales and I was just like you know what like you're in your 60s you lived through the 70s and the 80s and the bad days of the NF you should not have to be worrying about this anymore do you know I mean there was

something about that which on this kind of like very visceral emotional level really disgusted and upset me because, you know, her and my mom and my grandma, they'd been out in Newham in the eighties fighting the NF. It's like, you've earned your peace, you know, you've earned your peace and you shouldn't have to be fleeing in fear because you're worried about, you know, and let's not, let's not be too like you know coded about this because you're worried about being paki bashed right like that that's how that's how people are talking in the community like oh paki bashing is back because you know people are like oh no it's about asylum seekers or like oh no it's just about like you know islamism no it's paki bashing and if you listen to these like right-wing protesters that's

what they're saying so yeah i do i feel upset i mean what about you as a as a fellow brown person as a fellow brown person i mean the thing is the warning signs have been here for ages um just remembering that woman in ashfield in nottinghamshire she's just like you're not english and said so boldly i've been thinking about that quite a lot recently because at the time i was like it's sad about these pockets of like uh declining english towns where the white population fears this incursion that doesn't exist isn't happening um and yet still looms so large in their imaginations because it's been you know wrapped up in all these other narratives of like as i said decline and like entitlement

etc etc uh and that should have been a real clue that a storm was coming because i'm very light skin you have to be very very very very very very very very very very mad and racist to be counting that light-skinned privilege ain't what it used to be that light-skinned privilege ain't cutting it anymore you know it's been devaluing the one the one drop rule is really cutting through no that's a not i don't want to trivialize it it's just like the levels of like overt racism that's on show basically and there is like massive amounts of colorism and who's able to move and who's not and the fact that those things i'm not saying that's like i love having that i love having that but i'm just saying that the fact that

even the colorism that existed before the oh don't worry you know my grandma used to say to me don't worry dear you're still one of us you know which is racist in its own way but like as a very telling comment to make that sort of being eroded in these spaces um and i just you know i've got i've got friends who are in places like southeast london who are aware that the the threat to them it the threat to them in reality is not high but the psychological burden is so much they've had friends sleeping over their house you know it's that kind of like psychological warfare uh on people who previously felt at least a degree of safety being out in public and now are like oh wait everything has erupted and changed and they've realized that this thin veneer of security and

safety just doesn't exist anymore and i think the comments that are being made as well by the people on the news just openly able to speak about their like racist beliefs it's not about immigration at all like you said it's about the basic idea of like just racist pogroms um you know there's one we were talking about how i understand how the native americans felt because when white people went to their country and pushed them out except we're the native americans now it's just it's just this rebounding of like guilt and fear and this this constant paranoia that what what like white english people have done in the past as well like this is the funny thing it's like your ancestors went over and fucked up America or what was not America at the time, but fucked that up.

And you just have this paranoia that there's these conspiracies of revenge among minority populations. And as my friend was like, she was like, we're not going to, like, we haven't got a plan for anything. That's the whole point. Black people don't plan. Like, if we were going to plan, do you not think that we would be more organised right now?

We just have, we're just here to enjoy our time, you know. We just want to enjoy our time. People don't plan. Like if we were going to plan, do you not think that we would be more organized right now? We just have, we just, we're just here to enjoy our time. You know, we just want to enjoy our time. We want that peace. But it's this paranoia and guilt. And I think that that guilt powers so much of the violence we see around the world from places like Israel to places like Rotherham. You know, it feels really good having this space

where I can just talk in a much more emotional register because I want to give the dispassionate analysis where I look at something in the round and I'm able to give the context I'm able to give the history and I can talk about the economics of it and I can talk about you know Blair era asylum policy which has led to this point but I also just need to like say the things I feel because it's it's powerful and I can feel it like bubbling up within me and it's like like one of the things I feel because it's it's powerful and I can feel it like bubbling up within me and it's like like one of the things which I wrote about in the book and it's it feels really shit to be vindicated in this way where I'm like oh I literally wrote about this whole like

set of impulses and that was happening but the line between fantasy and nightmare is way for way for thin so there is a fantasy of persecution there's a fantasy about being a sort of noble victim who's having to fight like a decolonial war because the white man's being pushed out like it gives you a sense of purpose of like historical purpose where there is none like you are not being colonized you invited us here and you keep saying oh we didn't vote for this. I mean, like, yeah, you did. Like you voted for governments, which were like, oh shit. Like we have an aging population or like, oh shit. Like our country has been like bombed to smithereens

in the blitz and we need this like labor force to come here and rebuild our country. We're a reflection of choices that you made as a political community like i'm sorry you are not victims here and and this whole thing about like demographics and demographic change like i know that there are people who will disagree with me who are people of color but i feel this so so strongly race does not come from me. Race is imposed on me from the outside. It is not an inherent quality that I have that's projected outwards. Racism is what creates race and it is imposed on me from the outside, right? I am a humanist. I think that our experiences make us who we are. I think that our choices make us who we are. I think that our choices make us who we are. I

think our conditions make us who we are, but race isn't real. It's not this like imminent quality. And so when people are like, oh, well, it's just human, you know, it's just human that like, you know, you feel like you're being outnumbered. No, what's human is that people come with different skin colors and different hair textures and different eye colors and it doesn't fucking mean anything. Like I am not fundamentally different in any way from someone who is from Africa or from Latin America or whose heritage is from Europe. There are no inherent differences. There are only differences of experience. And I just, this is really like anti-racism 101. Like I'm talking like Sesame Street, do you know what I mean?

Like this is Fisher Price levels of political thinking. But I just feel that we all have to like remember it. Like these aren't points which are being made enough. These aren't arguments which are being, you know, made back in the face of this like demographic panic. And I also think that people of color have for reasons that I understand and it comes from it comes from fear and it comes from a sense of threat and it comes from wanting to protect yourself have also embraced logics of separatism and I just it makes me feel so depressed because ultimately the thing which moves me is a really

deeply felt sense of a shared humanity and when i see people just willingly giving that up like it it bums me the fuck out yeah i mean what it reminds me the most of is that history is not linear we always imagine history is like this linear sense well we don't always a lot of us don't but there is still an overriding narrative that history is this set of progressions where you just learn from the past and you improve but it's not like the moment right now is so evocative of say the 1960s where you had all these like you and that that would not in some ways you saw these brand new like radical left movements come up in response to like language of separatism that was used both by people categorized as white and both by people

categorized as you know back then it was everyone was just black uh didn't matter who you were if you're brown you're black and that's changed since but there were there were people advocating for separatism you know like malcolm x was very into separatism at a while and he was like a huge thinker in america and the people in the uk advocating separatism because that was the response to fear it was like okay well we will take ourselves away and then you had you know malcolm x going down hanging out with the kkk and trying to do deals for like a state where black people could go and the kkk were like amazing that sounds so good great plan great plan my brother and then at the end of his life he he changed his views but because of when when racial and that but those were those were also moments again of like great economic stress and

upheaval and changing power and it was like post-second world war you had like the the nation state decline all that kind of stuff i'm seeing i'm seeing similar similar vibes some of the vibes it's not the exact same but the same kind of forces are here and you're seeing the same responses and either obviously we sit on the left but it's either the difference is now that we have like this this into the internet and the internet i feel is more of an obstacle to doing to stop chattering and actually get out there and do stuff because there's constant just sort of draws on your attention and what you should do whereas before you might just you know you'd hear a call you'd be like right i'm gonna get on the street and i'm gonna defend against fascists now

it's just like constant opinions so one person will be like don't share these addresses of these places don't go down it will actually just make the violence worse someone else is like no you should absolutely go we should all be out in the streets we should all be defending this site someone else is like it's all you know a red herring no one's gonna be there in the first place they're actually gonna be down the road you didn't have that in the same way before and i think it confuses and divides the responses. And also the anti-fascist sort of movement in places like London has, and I won't get into it because that's a topic for Navarra FM or Downstream, but has been

split and divided over internal struggles and internal fighting. So it's not robust in the way that it was previously. Whereas I think we're going to have to just see if, like in places such as Southport, it goes back from there's going to be specific anti-fascist groups, just like the community comes out and they say, no, fuck this. We're going to defend the mosque. We're going to rebuild this. We're going to defend the black guys being attacked in the middle of Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester. So it might come down to a very much more basic just knee-jerk no we actually just have to get out rather than all the kind of ins and out of who's organizing this who's doing this who's doing this i don't

know i don't have any answers i just know it's a frightening moment but one that we've been leading up to for a long time and anyone anyone who's been like following the right the far-right groups who've been using you know these hotels in particular these asylum hotels as a wedge organizing issue and just getting out into like these really these neglected communities and all gonna like every week there was there's one hotel in in manchester that uh i think mill media been reporting for ages they had like 75 different monsterings by far-right protesters over the last year, where they would just go every weekend and stand outside and, you know, protest, they called it. I don't think that's a fair thing to call it, but protest.

The fact it was being used to house the science seekers. And it's not about science seekers, but that's the issue that's been the gate inwards. being used to house asylum seekers and it's not about asylum seekers but that's the issue that's been the gate inwards it's also like like just before we move on can i say what a protest is and isn't a protest is not going to a hotel which is housing asylum seekers many of whom will be unaccompanied minor minors and um intimidating them all right if you want to protest that policy you could go to the fucking home office right you could protest the government whose policy it is but you're not because what this is about is intimidation harassment and the fear of violence right that's what it's about and every time you hear in the bbc like oh these are anti-immigration protesters oh these are pro-britain

protesters which is even more like tapped like i'm like but but they're not they're not protesting right like if they were protesting outside their home office i'd be like well look i disagree with your entire framing of the thing but it's a political protest right ultimately i believe in freedom of speech like whatever what this is about is making vulnerable people feel afraid and you want to make them feel afraid because it makes you feel like a big man and it makes you feel like you've got some kind of like purpose in life this is not purpose it's nihilism and it makes me feel you know I flip back and forth right because it makes me feel really depressed and then also at the same time it does just give me the

sense of like we've got to fight this we've sense of like, we've got to fight this. We've got to change this. We've got to redirect this. It's, you can't afford to give up hope. Like we don't have the luxury of nihilism. Like we just don't have it. I've got some questions for you though, which are much less serious. Do you? We could just keep talking about this if you want. I don't mind.

I know. It feels a bit like, you know, my therapist is on holiday and i really needed to be like we could we could talk about this if you like i don't i'm not actually that we could do questions but we could also just chat about this for a bit if you want i think it's an interesting topic and it's one that's directly affecting our lives we also don't have to you can just just anything you want ash anything you want to do i just i don't know i think it i think there's yeah i think there's like levels within this the pogroms and this this idea that like the the the people who's meant to speak for us are politicians and i'm like mainstream media they can't name what's going on most of them

they can't admit to what's going on part of the power of the far right is that they can speak to something which is real and the thing that they can speak to that's real is you are governed by people that don't care about you and the way they say and you can tell they don't care about you is because look at all these fucking foreigners right like that's the next step in the connection that they make but the thing which is true is you're governed by an elite that doesn't care about you another thing that's true is that every single government is like oh we're going to bring down immigration and then they're like shit everyone's just getting really old and we're not going to have a tax base and we're not going to have enough people to run any of these services

so like guess we can't bring it down there is a huge level of deceit in immigration policy and so what they do is then they use the asylum system as like this sort of like pressure valve for hatred, where it's like crackdown after crackdown, going to make it harder for asylum seekers time and time again, to cover up for the fact that they can't actually bring down immigration without like completely destroying the standard of living in this country. box themselves into this place of complete dishonesty with it but I don't know if you're if you're feeling this and again I'm just like pulling it back into like a more emotional register rather than like talking about my analysis of the situation but I always pride myself on being able to manage my anger right like it's my superpower right right? Previous episodes have said dissociation is my superpower, like emotional control is my superpower. But I find it really difficult because at times like this, I feel like my anger's got no place to go and I'm just absorbing everyone else's. So I go onto like Twitter or I check my DMs on Instagram and it's full of racist abuse. So it's people calling me packy, people calling me shit skin, people accusing me of being in favor of the rape and

murder of white girls. People who are, you know, there is a level of vicious racism that Elon Musk has allowed to proliferate on Twitter to the point where someone with the literal Twitter handle n-word raper like and doesn't say n-word just says the whole word like that Twitter handle is able to like get through like content moderation and it's like posting like swastikas and stuff and so when you're reading that all the time and you're also thinking I want to do journalism and I want to get out there, but the far right are making me a hate figure again. They're sharing the same out of context, like clips and tweets to misrepresent me as something that I'm not. Like I'm scared of being visible because like I'm a dark skin brown woman, but also because

they're going to recognize me specifically like how can i go out there and do the work which gives me a sense of purpose and also gives me a sense of being able to process stuff by being active and like agentic in the world and how can i also retain empathy for people and communities who who've been devastated by austerity and de-industrialization and there's just this like huge void of nihilism which races that racism and the far right have filled like how can i like maintain empathy for those people in the face of the disgusting things that some people within those communities are doing. And then it feels like my own anger, my own sense of, of like wounded dignity as a South Asian person living

in this country, like that's got nowhere to go. That's got no expression. And I don't know if you, if you feel the same thing or you, have found different ways of of managing that anger I will I can talk about myself a bit but I'd rather ask you first what impact does that have on you having to sit through that as both a journalist and a private citizen what does it do to the way that you live your life beyond this idea of like the frustration and the anger like what else does that do to you it feels intensely isolating it feels really really really isolating um because obviously my mom will really understand it but i don't want to make her worry so i don't talk to her about it uh you know my my husband is really concerned for my safety so I don't want to be like oh hey

I actually want to like get out there and cover this demo because he's going to be like what the fuck are you mad like I don't want to be a 32 year old widower like you know I don't want to make him worry either there's also an element which is you know me and him can talk through these things politically but it's going to take him a little bit more time to get his head around that very like intense fear and despair that comes from being a person of colour, asking yourself questions about like, are the bonds of belonging strong enough to withstand this like onward rush of hatred that we're all facing like it's going to take him a bit more time and within that time it makes you feel a bit more you know isolated and then when you're reading like when you're reading people just racially abusing you and

like doing it in the most disgusting terms and you see how much they're enjoying it so sometimes when when I'm feeling extra petty I put in just a little bit of time to like find out who these people are because they're fucking idiots and they're so bad at like info security so this one time someone was calling me a packy and I managed to find out his address because he'd been like tweeting complaints at Domino's that they'd not like delivered his pizza and like put his address on it and I felt the sense of like I could bring the whole weight of the state crashing down upon your head right malicious communications act inciting racial hatred like you it. But then I feel that power and I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can drive a bulldozer through someone's life like that. Like, I don't know if I

can. And there's a strange feeling where, okay, I'm going to use the most inappropriate analogy ever. So please don't cancel me. It feels like having nukes. I've got them, but I can't use them. You know, like I've got this power and I can't use it. And yeah, I was talking to my therapist about this because I don't want to go into the specifics too much because I don't want to give this person the satisfaction of recognition but there was someone who I used to know has become like a neo-nazi and become

very very fixated on me and it feels so intrusive and so invasive and I feel like well I've got this like I you know I know what you're doing I know what you're doing and I've got this power I could just bring it down on your head but something something in my own morality is holding me back and I feel frustrated with myself I feel frustrated with myself that I have the desire to like drive a bulldozer through their lives and I don't have the gumption to do it. And I don't know which is the better impulse, the desire to do it or the reticence to do it. I mean, you call it gumption, but as in like, you're saying that's a failing, but you don't want to drive a bulldozer

through these people's lives but i don't think that's a failing i think that's an assessment of like what what would the state actually do okay they could get prosecuted uh they might get locked up for a bit what is that you know what is that going to actually do to those people how will that change their beliefs how will that be a meaningful justice outcome in any way like what you might want which is these people not to be neo-nazis and to find their way back into some form of community that isn't based upon you know ethno-nationalist ideas linked to this idea of nihilism is not going to be achieved by contacting the state i think if it would be you'd probably contact the state in a second but you know that's not going to be the

outcome and the outcome is probably not going to satisfy you so then you are trapped in this sort of like i don't know what i can do i have this information and i you know i have i'm sitting on a bad boy piece of information that i literally can't use i'm sitting on a bad boy set of noops that i literally can't use um but i don't think it's got anything to do with gumption i think it's that you have assessed it in your head and you realize that the outcomes are just not going to be satisfying and also would probably undermine a lot of your own principles tell me if i'm wrong i mean look i'm not a i'm not an abolitionist all right like no i know this is this is this is a political journey that i've got a lot

i am not an abolitionist i believe in in in really, really like decarceralizing society. I'm not an abolitionist. For me, it's much more about like, to what extent can you be motivated by revenge? And like, I don't have an answer to that one. I do not have an answer to that one. I guess it's the difference between you and these people because a lot of them are motivated by a sense of revenge. This idea that something has been taken from them.

Like we all contain multitudes, right? And like, you know, so I feel angry and I feel frustrated and I feel like I want to like wreak some havoc on someone else's life because you know, that they're racially abusing me and it, it, it's, it, it, I hate for that to go like unanswered. I'm like, I, I don't know if it shows fortitude or weakness to just absorb it. And that's, that's one thing that I really feel and then the other thing that I really feel and like I truly believe is just like so much faith in the ability of human beings to connect with each other across all sorts of differences like be they racial or religious

or cultural or to do with gender identity or to do with, you know, national origins, whatever. You know, I feel this huge sense of hope in people's ability to like love one another. And I know that that sounds really, really hippie, but I think that is just the core of my politics and my belief that I've seen people relate to each other, connect with one another, see the self in the other across all sorts of manufactured divisions and i just think that you know there are going to be times where it's harder to hold on to to that hope than others but it's just such a such a consistent part of of human life and human history that yeah you you've got to hang on to it where you can. The thing is, it looks like there's lots of people joining in with this.

Again, it is a minority in the grand scheme of things, but it's a bigger minority than we've seen in a long time. And I think there's a lot of like soft support for these positions um and it's like how do you find the sort of hope and way out of it because it's the thing that worries me is not just the this outpouring of rage it's also that it will be met by an outpouring of rage because just as there's lots of disaffected people who've turned to far-right belief there's lots of defect disaffected people in minority communities who are also spoiling for a fight as well not on the same terms but like if they get the provocation they're like you know what let's let's fucking go actually we've been

i've been i'm glad you brought this up like i'm glad you brought this up because i've been waiting to go and there is all this frustration i do think that part of this as well is like you say you don't know what to put your frustration you want to wreak some havoc the difference between you and other some other people is that they also are feeling frustration for a variety of different reasons some legitimate some not but they're not they don't have any any taps they don't they've turned the taps on they're ready to wreak the havoc and it started with the far right being like knowing which buttons to press and like pulling people in but there will be answering you know an answer from different parts of society as well and I don't think that answer will lead us any closer to resolution but i also can't knock it

because it's like well you're being the bear is being poked again and again and again and it's like there is no easy answer this question do you fight back do you sit down and take it what do you do where do you channel this energy that you're saying to me you're like i'm frustrated i don't know where to put this energy and it often ends up like and on the left as well but just in general you'll you'll end up blowing up at someone who just says something completely innocuous on like twitter or in your dms and you'll be like for fuck's sake someone messaged me the other day being like about um some analysis i'd posted on like instagram or whatever being like oh like something quite pedantic and i just want to be like shut the fuck up like shut the fuck up but i was like no no that that response is not actually proportionate to what they're saying at all this is like a comrade etc this is just you being so

fed up and i i didn't answer your question earlier i numb myself and i've realized i do that like people lots of my friends are messaging me you know being like just a stream of anxiety texts streams of like i have no hope i can't go on i don't know what's happening but etc etc i'm just like i send the most sort of like dispassionate soothing responses and i feel nothing i feel totally numb inside and then someone will send something to me that's totally innocuous and i will just want to fucking kill them and i realize oh you're just repressing all your emotions you're like oh they're gonna come out the feelings were still there they were still there like we found the trip wire yeah yeah literally they were there the whole time it just took someone to you know press the right button and then they would come out and i would explode um and so i struggle with the same question as

you it's like where do you i just maybe i'm less aware of that i have these frustrations and anger until suddenly i'm on a front line somewhere or like i'm in a protest and i see the police is this happened this has happened to me quite a lot of times like i'll have i feel like i'm totally numb and then i'll see like i don't know the police kicking off or the far right kicking off somewhere and i'll just want to like go ham like throwing myself you can't do And I'll feel myself being so hot and adrenaline. I'll be like, oh my God, it actually scares me. It scares me, the physical response I have. I'm going to say some cheesy shit.

Can I say some cheesy shit? Yeah, I think the moment calls for it. Yeah, I fucking love cheesy shit. Because like one of the things that I've been seeing a lot online has been from people of color being like, oh, this is why I'm never leaving London. And look, I get it. Like London for me, I'm a London nationalist. All right.

Like, you know, I am. I am like, I love this place. Like in so many ways, especially the area where I live, it's got a lot of social problems of its own. But it feels a bit like a fortress because I feel very safe from street racism. Obviously you get institutional racism, the institutional racism of like policing and discriminatory decision-making,

but you feel like you're not going to be under attack from just like random racists in the street because like, this is Tottenham. You wouldn't do that if you wanted to live. And I just think that you can feel very, very proud of like where you live, but you shouldn't, that whole thing about, oh, this is why I'm not leaving London. It's like, well, no, like one, there are like historic and established communities of color up and down this country with their own histories of anti-racist struggle and their own histories of cultural expression, which are worth fighting for and standing up for. And also reflecting on those things

will give you a sense of hope. And I think we will sort of counteract that nihilism and that sense of overwhelming despair. And I think that you shouldn't take pride. It's not about taking pride in, I guess, what can be sometimes very macho expressions of like community self-defense i think in some cases community self-defense is justified particularly where the police are absent or overstretched or and simply there needs to be people who are protecting the mosques and the community centers and you know the the minority run businesses and stuff like that but you do see those images of just like, you know, young guys were just like spoiling for a fight.

And it's a way of dealing with their own sense of vulnerability and humiliation. And I can understand that and I can empathize with it. But you have to draw a distinction because one of those things will just like go off like a runaway train, whereas the other one is actually justified and controlled most importantly has a sense of proportion has a sense of control um but the cheesy thing that i wanted to say is that um this is a couple of years ago now i'd like been away from london had experienced a lot of racism uh cut my trip short come back home and the day after I got back home I was just walking around my neighborhood and it was one of those like gorgeous sunny London

days where you know everyone is here to show out like everyone is here to show out and I was just people watching and just saw this dude this like absolutely gorgeous dude he must have been in his like late 40s or something but the skin was glowing he had cocoa buttered he had his locks and he was walking with his shoulders square and his head held high and there was such a sense of confidence and just pride in who he was and you could see it just like kind of rolling off of his body and seeing you know a black guy in this country just walking like that so comfortable in himself so confident in himself there was something about that where I was like no this is the feeling that we're deserving of this is the feeling that we're fighting for and it gives you

I think just this like little door into a different kind of pride it's not about a sort of like macho eye for an eye like you know you move mad we'll move madder but a sense of of pride and confidence in your belonging here and I think about that guy lot, even though obviously I've got no idea who he was, because he was able to inspire in me a really powerful sense of pride in who I am as a British person of color, just through how he moved through the world. And those little moments, those little moments

will get you through times like these i think i do think it's fascinating i know we have to move on in a minute but i've been thinking i did a panel talk as this was all kicking off about uh englishness recently the weekend and something i think about a lot englishness you know there's not really a actual english national identity anymore because it got subsumed into the british. So the only people who've got territory or domain, dominion, over the sort of idea of what being English is tends to be the far right.

Because we only bring out English on the national stage when we're playing football. All those people with St. George's flags. And the idea of English generally is mostly just a cultural thing. We don't have like a political national identity i don't know whether we should this is just something i'm thinking about

but this idea of like you know people like a lot of people of like color that i know tend to shy away from identifying as either english or british and they're like no i'm uh and this is more of a trend it's the separatist move like idea the more that they see racist pushback from both the state and both from like grassroots organizing uh the more people like no actually I'm Jamaican I'm Nigerian I'm this and it's like well your heritage is that and you've got you know the cultural maybe uh signifies of that. But I'm sorry to say, you're also very fucking British. We're very fucking English. And it's an interesting thing,

like watching people want to move away from these identities of British and English. And I totally get it. I didn't describe myself as English for ages. And I've recently, when I was on my trip in the Balkans, I found myself people asking, what are you? And I was like, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm English. But I'd never described myself as English before and i'm like i am so fucking english though it's really annoying my heritage is jamaican like and i've you know i'm very

shaped by the place i am but i'm so i'm so english in my cultural identities like there's mishmashers in there but i do and i'm not saying like oh you guys should just start like identifying as English or you start identifying as British I'm just interested in like how do we move to a place where we are comfortable claiming these identities warts and all if we're not planning to like up and leave you know like I think if you're planning to stay in England or you're planning to stay in Britain and you are very british in both your birth certificate your culture identity you're like the way you are in the world if you go to the country that you claim you're from and you find that you feel like a fish out of water and then you come back to like london and you're like this is actually yeah my home i think you've got to accept on some level that you're british and just

because those people like those far-right people in fucking tam on some level that you're British and just because those people like those far-right people in fucking Tamworth are saying that they're the real English people doesn't make you any less British I feel like we should we should try and reclaim that but I also really it's such an unpopular idea people be listening to something like no why on earth would I want to do that you know why would I do that don't make me stand alongside these racists but it's like how do we be proactive about these things look I understand that? Don't make me stand alongside these racists. But it's like, how do we be proactive about these things? Look, I understand that people will come to different conclusions. And I understand that there are people who feel that they want to repair the disconnection between themselves and, you know, their countries and places of heritage.

And I also think that that's a good thing. You know, there are people who change their names, there are people who learn the language, there are people who, you know, even move back to what they consider to be their family home or, you know, do so for periods of time because they want to have that sense of connection be really, really strong. And I think that those are things which are good. I can only speak for myself and say, which are good. I can only speak for myself and say, I haven't felt that as an authentic desire coming from within me. I've sometimes felt it as like a duty, like I've got a duty to do this thing because otherwise I'm not authentically Asian enough or like have I internalized racism and have I internalized ideas around like what's culturally inferior and what's not? But all of that comes from duty and obligation and it doesn't come from like, yeah, I really, really want to do this thing.

That also might change as I get older. Right. I'm speaking as like a snapshot like, you know, of today. You know, Pocahontas said you can't step in the same river twice. I reserve the right to change my mind all the time. You know, I really understand people doing that but you know this is the only home I've ever known and it's and it's a home that I love and that's why like again coming back to like what pisses me off about the far right like I fucking hate these pricks I fucking hate these idiots and I hate how much my time they waste because like this is so petty right in a way this like annoys me more than like people like literally calling me packy

it's when people are like oh you know like she hates everything about English culture or like when Martin Daubney who like honestly I hope he's listening to this so he can hear me call him like the world's biggest prick because he is you are the world's biggest prick um during the euros in 2021 um owen jones shared like a picture of me him and and two of our friends just like watching the football in a pub i was the only one not looking at the camera because i was watching the football and martin daubney was like calling me like a fake england fan who'd like never like been into football before and i was so annoyed because i was just like i've been part of this agony for decades i too have watched us get like knocked out of the quarterfinals on penalties that's my trauma too like you can't

claim that and then i discovered you didn't even like club football and i was like you egg you absolute whopper i hate you Because there's this thing about like, and I don't even like English culture. It's like, I studied English literature because I love it. Because I love the evolution of this language. I love how it is absorbed words from other countries and other cultures. And I love how it's still doing that. I love, you know, that at first, it was a story about colonialism. So like, you know, the English go to India and they come back with words like, you know, thug and loot and, you know, whatever else. And now, like, you know, multicultural urban vernacular, you've got words which have their origins in Arabic or in Somali or in Hindi because that's what kids are speaking at home and then that's what they're sharing together like it makes me so happy when I hear like a Hindi word or a Punjabi

word like in the mouth of like you know some kid whose parents are from Nigeria or like you know some white kid and I'm just like I'm really into that and that is a love of English culture like I don't know what else you call it other than a love of English culture but you bring that into the realm of like the political and you'll have like you know right-wing racist chuds like yelling at you and being like no you really hate us and then you'll get some people and I used to be one of these people on the left and you know my mind has changed where I'd be like there's no thing, you know, and very much trying to eliminate any ties to national culture, because I thought that that meant that it was a tie to nationalism.

But I don't think it is. Like, I'm intensely not nationalistic. Like, I believe in class politics, not national politics. That doesn't mean you have to let go of an attachment to national culture. But I think that boils down, that goes back to my point that i made earlier which is that all the english national identity has this culture it doesn't have anything else to like plant its flag on because as i said england england merged itself so much at the heart of the british empire that everything it's like anglo-britain right whereas you look at like scotland and wales they've got very distinct national identities and like separations you even if you look at the political

setup like okay they all have their own parliaments yes unfortunately have to count out westminster but they have their own governing executives they have stuff like uh distinct political parties and chapters so you have you know you have late you have a scottish So you have, you know, you have Scottish Labour, you have Scottish Conservatives, you have Welsh Labour, Welsh Conservatives. In England, it's just UK Labour. It's just, you have the centralised. Westminster, we don't have our own parliament. Again, we don't have, like you can't, on the census form, you can be Black Welsh, you can't be Black English. You can be Black Britishish though so it's very telling that there's not really like a a national english identity that except in the cultural sphere when it's fully like england england and it's always around football because when it's wimbledon it's andy murray and

he's scottish so now we're british you know like it's it's this thing england became britain and england england's very rarely been on its own it conquered wales in what like we really took over the kingdom of wales existed before them but like when the tudors kicked into gear i think that's when it really all started going then 1700s we the crack the scottish and english crowns emerged and then you had union acts of union and then you had the united kingdom just a little bit later and that's and then we we also had we ruled over island as well and then obviously everything kicked off with island and then we took northern island but like britain england scotland wales england's not been on its own for a lot of like

medieval and modern history and uh medieval early modern and modern history i should say any of my old history tutors that are listening um so there's not really an english national identity also because we've always been like the the conquerors and you know the the heart of empire so there's not been anything to define ourselves against really whereas like scotland and wells part of that's been they've been very clear identities but they've also been defining themselves against english identity too um although i'm sure the scotland shrew people listen to this be like fuck off it's got nothing to do with you and it's like i'm so sorry but it has slightly got stuff to do with us because we did fuck up your countries for a very long time and continued you do so today but yeah england hasn't had to be england in many spheres and the cultural one is one of the only places we

we have to be england sometimes one of my favorite lines on this was written by Kojo Karam and Kerem Nishinjolu in an essay about imperial amnesia, I think. And what they wrote was, it's often said that Britain had an empire. It's more true to say that an empire had Britain. So, you know, this idea of Britain was constituted in conquest, right? And Britain itself is an expression of English conquest, of English domination, you know, over Wales and over Ireland and over Scotland, although Scotland's slightly different process in terms of how that happens um and in the in the absence of that empire there's this massive identity crisis and i suppose what you know where i'm agreeing with is i'm like we can't we can't let the far right we can't let the racists define that identity crisis because what

the impact of that is going to be are racist pogroms of the kind that we've been seeing in the last week and i really really hope by the time people are listening to this it's over um we can't we can't give that up and i think that it's it's possible to have a strong sense of identity tied to place without it being exclusionary you know i i truly believe in my heart of hearts that everyone who lives here belongs here right that for me is my my line you live here you belong here um you can have multi-linguistic multicultural multi-racial democracies other countries have them other countries have multi-linguistic democracies um you know you can have democracies

which which are made of people of different cultures and and and different races the thing which i think makes the difference between multiculturalism being divisive and multiculturalism being something where people can share difference with a kind of um you know underlying togetherness is class politics right i think i think that class politics is an essential component of multiculturalism because who do i have more in common with and i mean really do i have something in common with you know the like ambani family of like ind Indian billionaires who have been paying the world's celebrities to attend their weddings?

Or somewhat troublingly, do I have more in common with even the people who are waging racist assaults on asylum centers? In terms of values, don't have a lot that's different in terms of shared material interests yeah that's there and so i just think it's so you know it's again like maybe i'm being a bit sesame street about it and a bit like you know fisher price politics but it's like you do just have to keep coming back to that and it's it's so immensely difficult and it's so immensely challenging to to look at these scenes of of communities and vulnerable

people being literally terrorized and go i have to preserve a sense of shared humanity with the people who are victims of it and also with the people who are perpetrators as well where i differ is that i'm like you got to lock them up though deterrence baby deterrence and consequences if anyone wants to read more about the um the switch from this robust class conscious anti-racist movements that we saw a lot in the 70s and early 80s to this like top-down multiculturalism like oh we're on all the posters and in on the transport you know the transport oh we're on all the posters and in on the transport you know the transport systems and we're all the posters it shows how diverse the

workforce is kind of vibes uh then race race to the bottom uh by ellis nagdy and i think it's asif but i need to check that um my internet's too slow to to this in real time, but Race to the Bottom, Anti-Race and Below, very good book, very readable book, very easy, very short on why that changed in the UK. It's really good. And even if you're not into politics in that way, I just think it's a useful thing to understand why we kind of move that focus a bit in the UK. I think we should probably do some misconnections to give people a bit of light relief if they've made it this far let's do some misconnections but i'm really glad we talked about this and you know listeners who would have been like but what about the thing about fomo you're gonna hear that another time all right you're gonna hear that another time

they're getting fomo for my topic about fomo oh go to jail go to jail that's why i'm not an abolitionist go to jail lawyer but like i think this is really important emotionally this was completely necessary for me so thank you ash i'm so glad that we gave you this space also if people turned off you won't be able to hear this now but sorry you're can't listen to that cancelled i will be checking the stats and doxing you and finding out exactly who turned off no we won't do that we don't actually have the ability to thank you like absolutely driving a bulldozer through our gdpr compliance that i'm can i do my very three quick icebreaker oh yeah shit if you want to why not yeah we've we've mixed everything up let's let's do that you've got to do it so quickly though

okay i'm just so quick all right um question one um what song is stuck in your head right now at this moment red wine supernova just literally i was like what and i was like it went baby why don't you know it's red one supernova isn't it okay mine there's a you know rich girl by hall of notes yeah of course love it question two which country does the nicest breakfasts breakfasts uh oh i don't know turkey or maybe india i don't know i don't know because it depends where you've had the breakfast um where have i had amazing breakfast to be fair in albania i did have some really fucking good breakfasts. Albania's food culture is incredible, but it wasn't my favourite country. That's what's interesting.

So maybe Albania. It might be Albania. Maybe Albania. And question three, would you describe yourself as an optimist? I used to, but then I listened back to all the podcasts and I realised I'm very much a pessimist I think do you think that's fair I believe in the book Graham she said about a pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will yeah I think it's difficult because I always used to

describe myself as a pessimistic optimist someone who like expects things doesn't tries not to expect too much and then is always happy and I feel like genuinely i'm always kind of a bit cheery but then i can be very pessimistic about stuff i don't i think you know what i am an optimist i'm an optimist ultimately i'm a long-term optimist there you go reclaiming optimism reclaiming optimism redefining it was our icebreaker towards the end of the show. The ice was well and truly broken before, but we were just dancing on its grave to make sure it was like completely done. We're actually sitting in the water

paddling around at this stage. The ice is gone, mate. The ice all melted. It's 1.8 feet. Just like Jack after he got pushed off the door in Titanic. I've never seen that film all the way through. That film doesn't do it for me at all. Not for me, but...

I don't believe in the pairing of Kate Winslet and Leo. I don't believe it. I'm sorry. Okay sorry okay we're gonna have to dedicate a whole episode to that um i think you've got some missed connections for us yes okay so let's get let's get into this missed connections this is my segment which i'm calling it saying is monthly but maybe ad hoc depending on how many we have and how desperate it is. Whenever. Whenever I feel like it. This is when we get listeners to send in their missed connections with people.

So if you saw someone, talked to someone, you know, you think you've balled it up by not getting their details and you want to talk to them further, whether it's platonic, romantic, whatever. Send in the details. We're going to not just read them out we will share details on social media and circulate them in the hope that you find your missed connection um i actually have my own missed connection which i might do at the end if you ask me nice oh my god uh okay but let's go into the let's go into the listing missed connections first one first missed connection let's see how this goes hey team long time listener first time emailer i met charlie at a pub in west london about a month back we were both there for entirely separate birthday parties but somehow got talking at the bar and immediately hit it off

he's a slightly older man very handsome i found myself thinking i'd like to be him when i grow up interesting edge to this already uh we bonded over spending our younger years in oxfordshire he shared a lot about his really inspiring community work initially in the northeast but now in southeast london we talked about our mutual love of electronic dance music and he even showed a real interest in or pretended to in my PhD on 18th century Chinese history. The night wound on as these things do and we lost sight of each other. I asked my friends the next day but beside his first name none of us had any more specific information about him. I honestly think there was a connection there. We had such a good time it'd

be great to reconnect even as friends. What gives me some hope is that we both discussed being fans of navarra and i did recommend him this podcast so charlie if you are listening and you are birthday party in the cross keys in hammersmith on the 8th of june please get in touch it would be lovely to see you and i'm not reading out the name of the person as i promised i wouldn't when i started this but if charlie's listening, send us an email to ifispeak at navarramedia.com and we will do the rest. Okay, next one. Ash, do you want to read out the next one?

Yes, I do. Hello, I sat beside a lovely lady at a poetry and music event on Thursday, 18th of July at the Purcell Room Southbank Centre. The event was organised by outspoken we spoke briefly her name is shade and she was with her friend kilechi i would have loved to get her details but i didn't get around to it hoping you can track her down i mean we don't track her down she tracks us down i think i think the name is sharday i have to sharday button there

i think the name sharday not shade but, not shade. But I might be wrong. Excellent. I might be wrong. Just based on my context. It was written without an accent. It was written without an accent acute. So I did what I could. I imagine it's actually spelt like Sade the singer. But because this writer doesn't know that they've written Sade like that.

That's just what I'm guessing from the context clues okay so Sade if you're at the Purcell rooms you know what to do do you want to read out the next one let's go I'm really enjoying this because give me an insight into like how many people just sound about having these misconnections right this is quite a long one I might try and translocate it as I'm going but I also might read it oh let's see right this is a hell of a shot in the dark about a year and a half ago

maybe more I was walking along the golden jubilee bridge with my then partner on our way to catch a show in the west end we were on the side north east of the rail tracks

close to the city the side where skateboards go to die I think it was cold but this is the UK so it doesn't tell us much about the time of year. This is in London, I guess, because the Golden Jubilee Bridge. Yes.

Yes. As we near the north side of the bridge, a feminine presenting person slash woman in her mid to late 20s walked past us, heading in the opposite direction. She had blonde hair stood about five five ish and if my memory serves me well was wearing a long dark coat because mysterious strangers always are i guess i think this person's a writer um as she passed me i felt this mad wrangling cosmic pull towards her as if someone had reached into my chest and was lobbing my organs

in her direction it was bewildering and exhilarating and gut-wrenching how i imagine it would feel to bump into someone you thought you had mourned at that funeral that kind of crazy being rattled and trying to play it cool i kept walking but couldn't resist a glance back to see if i could discern whether this person might have experienced something similar um there's actually like quite a large bit now just describing uh how they felt but she turned stopped turned around was looking right at him or them i don't know i think it's a him um having explored healthy ways of communicating tricky conversations since i might have said something had to happen today god damn my therapist brain

you're in a relationship go back to therapy if you think you would have said something anyway i've never felt anything like that before from meeting someone new let alone a simple passing encounter uh sometimes i wonder what it was love at first sight a ghost of my past or maybe some form of eon i might have said this wrong because i can't remember how this in past lives uh this is a korean quote from past lives which is it's an union in union inion if two strangers walk by each other on the street and their clothes accidentally brush because it means there must have been something between them in their past lives uh a few weeks later i scoured websites and forums about chance encounters on the golden jubilee bridge hoping for design nothing uh so without much hope and with an agenda here i am putting this out to the universe maybe it's better for the experience to say mystical or maybe fate will play its hand so

that is a sighting golden jubilee bridge uh west end no description what this person was wearing who's writing in but the other person feminine presenting person slash woman late 20s long blonde hair no blonde hair five five ish long coat. You turned and looked back at the letter writer. Let us know. Right, next one, Ash. We've got one now, which I love for how practical it is. Like, honestly, this is the platonic ideal of a missed connection.

Location, standing, packed tube at rush hour with loads of school kids, central line,pool street to layton time 6 15 to 6 25 pm date wednesday 10th of july i was wearing sweat it was boiling black white jeans dark gray high neck sleeveless top ott earrings and hair clips trainers green woven plastic bag with a brown leather jacket in it boy it wasn't you no it wasn't me um he was wearing long sleeve zip up dark blue or black worn fleece top with a small logo could have been tommy hill figure encounter my black clay bracelet broke with all the small pieces

falling all over the train floor but the carriage was too full to do anything about it everyone packed into the section by the doors and trying not to squash the kids standing by the seats i spot him by the other doors diagonally away as people get on and off he moves towards where i am and we end up face to face not literally because i am five foot four and he was about six foot holding onto the poles like dance partners we end up just feeling the sway of the train and electricity flowing between us for a few stops he grazes my hands with his more than once i enjoy the energy and get off at layton without looking at him in the eyes that's a really good one and recent that was about yeah a month ago

great misconnection although i do quite like the ones that are a bit more woodley doodly because they're fun to understand the psyche of the letter writer but that one is very practically good i'm i'm practicality is my love language all right woodley doodly doesn't do it for me whereas like if my husband was like we were on this train together and this happened i'd be like oh they're serious about it the next one is very woodley doodly i will warn you okay ready for a woodley doodly one love the pod and navara media's content thank you just got back from a beautiful weekend at beat herder festival in lancashire doodly i will warn you okay ready for a woolly doodly one love the pod and navara media's content thank you just got back from a beautiful weekend at beat herder festival in lancashire if you include the date that would be amazing but i will just check it myself um it was the 18th to 21st of

july this one's fresh so this is on the 18th and 21st of july beat herder festival in lancashire a weekend of skanking and communion with like-minded people. I'm a shy guy and usually struggle to initiate conversation with anyone. But after three days of blissful music activity, I was feeling a lot more comfortable in myself. During the Channel One set at the Bush Rocker stage, noted, I was deep in the dance and soaking in the music. It was a high point of the festival for me personally.

In a festival situation, I pride myself on maintaining a level of party-related composure. I'm nicking that phrase. I was on a perfect level most of the weekend until Saturday. I crossed the margin in the evening. My head was working fine, but my body and motor skills were definitely impaired. Been there. During the set, I noticed a proper cutie looking over i noticed she kept looking and initially kept disregarding this putting it down to wishful thinking however this became quite clear that she was and i began to work up the courage to go to

ask for a dance however my body was beginning to fail and i nipped out for a cigarette to bring myself some peace and regroup out of, she was there in front of me. She looked beautiful. She notified me my jacket pocket was leaking. Not a great start. My can of water I'd placed in there while rolling had taken a tumble. I remember turning to her and opening my mouth to acknowledge this and thank her for letting me know,

and hopefully started striking up a conversation. Now the words in my head definitely didn't translate to my mouth the combination of heavy session and yorkshire accent means i don't know what kind of jumble fell out my mouth but it was enough for her to walk away back to the dance i don't blame her at all the following day i kept seeing her at all the acts i was going to see she may not remember anything and i didn't want to harsh her vibe but i really wanted to head over and apologize i wish we could have conversed properly she deserved more than that interaction you could tell she was lovely hopefully the one for societal change and socialism can come to my age let's see what

happens right so that is be heard a festival channel one set bush rocker stage on the saturday you talked to this guy and said his jacket pocket was leaking he said absolute gibberish to you but he wants to get in touch let's see if we can make it happen right we've got one last missed connection are you ready i'm so ready on a sunny afternoon saturday 22nd of j, I made my way to the newly opened library in central Nottingham to do some writing. Since it was the weekend, I parked at the nearby train station where all-day parking is £5. I forgot I had my shades on as I walked through the car park to the station. Before I reached the exit to the street, I passed her, coming out of the toilets.

Her big bright eyes broke through the UV protection of my sunglasses. We locked eyes as we passed. My heart was fluttering. This never happens to me. I usually look away. I didn't take my eyes off her, but I didn't stop either. I don't know why I didn't stop. Our gaze broke as we kept moving in opposite directions. That's when I did something else I never do. I looked back. She was still watching me. Stop, you fool, I said to myself, but I couldn't see clearly. I wasn't sure if someone was waiting for her. I kicked myself until I got to the library.

I got a seat near the window, opened my laptop and stared at the people walking by, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. She never did. I got no work done. That encounter stuck with me for days, but I don't regret not stopping. I value so much the moment we had,

the flutter and joy I felt at the time and the smile that followed me since I'm now more confident a little more smug but very grateful I didn't spoil that moment by stopping whoever the beautiful girl with the big eyes was I'm the tall guy with the oversized shades who wore jeans and an unnecessarily tight t-shirt with a grey rucksack who hasn't stopped thinking about you thank you for the beautiful moment sometimes it's nice to let the missed moments disappear into the ether who knows who i'll get the courage to talk to next time oh that's very nice but this is missed connections not disappearing into the ether right we will finally submit if you're ready for the connection to be renewed yeah 22nd of june nottingham central library that's that's

that one remember if you recognize yourself in any of these misconnections and you would like to be connected with them or you simply want to say that's me don't put me in touch then please send us an email at if i speak at navarra media.com i actually have two more misconnections one is my own misconnection this is an abuse of power and the other is this misconnection which we got sent dear if i speak help me find my misconnection fair-skinned short mixed race girl with shortest dyed blonde hair seen on the final full day of glastonbury walking past the car while on the phone said person may or may not have a social political commentary podcast you know where i am you could have just dm'd me this is from a man a man walking past wearing a cowboy hat this is very funny i have to say you're not the first

person to have done this within the month that miss connections has existed but i do like a cowboy hat so therefore i am going to say just DM me and we'll assess DM me John Wayne DM me I don't John Wayne I wasn't even thinking about John Wayne I just I just feel like cowboy hat as a I know that they're so passe now and they're everywhere but I do like a sense of whimsy that comes with a cowboy hat it's like okay he was definitely going to see Shania Twain if you wear a cowboy hat on the last day of Glastonbury. Okay, and then my misconnection is... This is a real abuse of power, but I was like, goddammit. I went and did a panel at Wilderness Festival on Friday.

On the... what was it? The 3rd? No, the 2nd. The 2nd of August. 2nd of August, Oxfordshire. Did a panel. Wilderness Festival. the 2nd, the 2nd of August, 2nd of August, Oxfordshire, did a panel, Wilderness Festival. And after my panel, I had to get back to London very quickly because I had some karaoke to do. And I was walking through the site and emerging from an area that only someone with a wristband, whether that's a performer, crew,

no idea, could go to, was someone who presented as a man who was tall, wearing a yellow t-shirt, blue jeans, brunette, brown skin, stunningly gorgeous. And they went and sat under a tree and looked at their phone. And if that was you, and you're not annoyed by how i sounded this podcast just send me a little text just hit me up on on the socials uh let's chat let's have a little chat let's have a chat and if it was you and you don't want to get in touch um i just want you to know keep keep doing what you're doing because it's working whatever you're doing is working whatever you're doing is really working and if don't, if you're not the sexual orientation

that is interested in me, then slay mama, slay queen. And that's my misconnection. Excellent. Well, look, I love misconnections because I just like it when people fancy each other. Makes me very happy. Makes me happy to know that that energy is out there in the world. But you know what? All good things must come to an end, like this podcast. Yes. I have nothing else to add to that beyond like we've just, we've talked about some very heavy stuff.

And then we had the lovely reminder that people do want to connect. And that was really nice coda for me. So thank you for trusting us with your little missions but also just getting out in the first place sometimes there's no you can tell about your misconnections and i'm glad this is a receptacle you can go to who've you been i've been moira mclean and i probably will be her again uh i've been ash but maybe i'll leave that persona behind. And this has been If I Speak. Goodbye. Bye.