Rural Concerns - Bowls, boundaries & a heartfelt apology

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Sunil hits the bowling green, Producer James continues to stoke regional division and Chris accelerates into corners. The lads also read a stinging letter from Chris’ pal. You can now support Rural Concerns via Patreon. For less than the price of a pint, you’ll get bonus episodes once a fortnight and access to The Creamery, our nifty Discord hangout for top chillers. You can see Chris’ show at the Edinburgh Fringe! He’s there right now and he’s having a great time! He’s walking 25,000 steps a day! Grab your tickets here! Thank you for listening to Rural Concerns! Our music is by Sam O’Leary and our artwork is by Poppy Hillstead. Rural Concerns is edited by Joseph Burrows and produced by Egg Mountain for A Lovely Time Productions. 

Welcome to Mobile Concerns, the only podcast brave enough to discuss high-end gaming PCs and parish council meeting minutes. He's Chris Cantrell, I'm Sunil Patel. And the whole thing is held together by long-suffering our producer, James. That's not a great sentence, is it? That's not a great bit of script. Yeah.

Well, it's written like that. I'm not going to change it. No, I'm not going to change it either. Oh, no. I was rushing. This is the episode. I was rushing. No, you were not.

I think it's fine. I think they've done good. I think it paints a picture. We don't. It's been pointed out to us that we don't say his name at all. So think they've done a good job. I think it paints a picture. We don't, it's been pointed out to us that we don't say his name at all. So I was trying to rush it in.

I was doing another podcast. I've been. You've got nothing to apologize. I do not want another apology, Andrew. This episode is full of apologies enough. That's the best way

I hear stories about, you know, like parents where one of the parents speaks, like they're speaking two different languages to them at the same time. Yeah, it's meant to be a third of the time in the second language, at least, interactive language. Does yours speak two languages? It can be a little posh boy when he wants something,

but he started speaking fluent Geordie, which I find is really interesting because obviously Nicola's, Nicola's like half Irish. Her mum's from Manchester and she does code switching, you know, saying like, she is from Ireland.

Yeah. And then she is from Manchester, like in just how she talks day to day. Yeah. It's like if you drop it, you stop and be like, that's, you're just speaking in a Manchester accent now. Yeah. And then she'll'll revert whereas i find it really interesting because i'm she's from

northern ireland i'm from bradford we live in cumbria yeah and our son is picking up it sounds like a jordy accent to me but it's not it's like a border accent but it's a very distinct you know like it's like oh dad man literally he says that so he's sad that is geordie no it is to us but if you put them next to a geordie then they would it'd be like wildly different to him but to us it it does sound the same but i find it interesting because my son will not have any connections to the old words of his accent. Do you know what I mean? Like,

like basically I, like I go through life and try and pick up, you know, like basically our old Yorkshire farmer would speak in old turns of phrase and stuff. I think it's important that that doesn't sleep. So with that, it won't have a familial connection to it.

So, and I just think it's interesting. What's the rivalry like up there between the border accent and the geordie one well my there's there's like a split like between that and like the cumbrian accent and my village is actually quite unique in that you cross the bridge and you straddle county lines so like my village is a dividing line between cumbria and northumberland. So you've got different council services and stuff like that.

And when I moved. Fascinating. Yeah. Yes. It is interesting. It is bonus content actually. I was actually living on the road. This is a bonus.

In London, I was living between two on the road, which split two local authorities and one had the lowest council tax in the country and the other one didn't. So there's a difference between like 700 quid a year and 1500 quid a year was just a few houses. Which one did you end up in? Cheap one, Wandsworth. Yeah.

But do you know like these local rivalries, I guess like it's all a bit of fun, isn't it? They're not like shooting each other or anything, are they? No, nothing like that. I had some like comment, because I do the Village Magazine, so I'm basically plugged into the pensioner community. And one of the guys who's like, he'll send in like, I don't know, you know, like the kind of indecipherable witty letters that are like,

you know, like the satirists. I don't know. Very like private eye magazine type. the satirists. I don't know. Very like private eye magazine type. The satirists pen type pieces. I'm like, I don't know what to do with this. But one of those guys made a, when I moved, because I was in Cumbria and then I moved to Northumberland. And one day I was late handing out the magazines

because I shouldn't be doing this. I work weekends and I'm busy. But he went in and he said, ah, now you've moved over the border. I assume you haven't picked up the Northumbrian work ethic. You know what I mean? Like a big slag on people from... What does that even mean?

I mean... He's saying that they're lazy. What, just by being, just having been born maybe half a metre away from another house? Yeah, it's nonsense. And as like a sort of guest north northumbria and i was just like i felt like do you want to fuck off yeah well that's why you're that's why you're getting defensive about being north northumbrian isn't it

what why because you got no choice oh yeah yeah yeah and it's it's it's i find it interesting it's like i'm in it but i don't do you know i mean i still feel i feel when i go back into yorkshire you drive past the thing it says you are now in yorkshire and there's like a white rose i feel like it recharges me my spirit do you know i mean as soon as you're over there do you feel like that when you go back to the fanciest city in the world bath avon um avon doesn't exist anymore avon council that's the thing a lot of these a lot the fanciest city in the world, Bath. Avon. Avon doesn't exist anymore. Avon Council.

That's the thing. A lot of counties got changed. Like Yorkshire, there is no Yorkshire. Yorkshire doesn't exist, Chris. There's no Yorkshire. Point out at me, Yorkshire County on a map. Oh, please don't trigger a load of letters. There's no Yorkshire.

Why have you gone after this? We have just got over the absolute slagging that you did for Leeds Bradford. And now you're going right back in. I got a real, I got a real ante. Both of you need to fucking calm down because you've been doxing people, Chris, like children.

Yes, I've been doxing children. But what about, does it change? Does it make a difference if the children if the child that I was doxing was cheating at a race? So there's two sides to every story. Yeah, Yorkshire side is not relevant. Right. Right, should we get on track and you can tell us

why Yorkshire doesn't exist? Because there's no Yorkshire, there's South Yorkshire. East Riding, the ridings are the ancient the ridings of the ancient area that was divided up and you've got west yorkshire and you've got east yorkshire and then the whole thing north yorkshire so you know what i mean you know what i do but together they are yorkshire and if anyone tries to come for us we produce so many olympic athletes we will kick your head in. That's not enough.

That's not enough to, fine. Well, I'm from Baines, which is a unitary authority. Can I tell you one more? This is also an over-boring thing, but I drove past. I drive past all the signs, you know, and it tells you, I'm learning about my area because when you drive through the signs for the place, they put facts of information underneath right so you do you know i call it this is very disrespectful but you know these are the sort of places where you wouldn't go to i don't think unless you live there so you drive through

and you know it's one of those places if they've got a sign and underneath the sign they put a bit of trivia so in my area we've got haltolt Whistle the centre the centre of Britain that's what it says under the sign and it is if you it is if you include

Scotland and all of the islands and a decent chunk of Norway and don't really know what centre means yeah the middle come on

it's not it's in the top right don't be facetious do us a favour have some of it do you know what I mean I don't want to do it again I don't want to do it again. I don't want to say it again

because I could... Is this a bonus episode? No, no. This is a full, this is a full far. This is a full, this is going out to the full public.

This is part of the, we're prepping now, James... We've come in pretty hot on this. We've come in hot. We've got in with the energy of a bonus episode. And then we've immediately gone

that James doesn't know what centre means, which is an astonishing claim. It's honestly, it's our most aggressive. This is our most like toxic masculinity charged episode yet. But right, one, I was driving through. So you've got a hot whistle to the centre of Britain. You've got West Auckland, home of the first world cup.

That's genuinely interesting. I drove through a sign that said i was in county durham and it says underneath county durham the land of the prince bishops and i was like my mum was with my mum was with me and i was like you need to get on that stop what you're doing immediately get up on your phone and basically the prince bishops of county durham it was basically a separate country in ye on times. I need to look it up a bit more. It was its own facility.

It was its own authority that basically. Was this pre Henry VIII or post? Well, it was definitely, it was, it was post Big Bang. Right, right. Just a quick fact check. West Auckland in the World Cup is famously but erroneously named the home of the first World Cup. Yeah.

They won the Sir Thomas Lipton trophy and were able to keep it forever. This Googling in the background stuff will stop us. It will stop our flow of nonsense. It will, it will. I apologise. They stop our flow of nonsense. You know, it will, it will. I apologize. They then pawned the trophy. Carry on Chris.

No, carry on. These, all of these facts are like great for like, Oh, that's a fact. Then you'll forget about it. And it is not interesting in any single way whatsoever.

Prince bishops. Let's stick on that. You don't know enough about Prince bishops to talk about it. All right. But all those little facts that places have are like completely like yep you'll it'll be in one ear out the other not relevant we live in a post-fact world what we don't need to be doing right now is taking what we are saying and checking it against the database sorry i'm being facetious here on on this issue i have i have a little bit of admin that i would like to address which has been

inspired by my wife because she was listening to our most recent episode and i woke she was up she she sort of wakes up at mad times you know i get up at like seven half seven but she's been up for two hours she gets up at four she can't she's like lady. And we're trying to, it's something from when, you know, like a what's it from a hangover from when our son was very young and he just used to keep these mad hours. But now he sleeps until about six, half six, but she's just up doing, she can't get her mind out of the thing. Anyway, I woke up at seven and she's like waiting for me

at the end of the bed. And she's like, please, can you end of the bed. And she's like, please, can you stop slagging people off? I said, what do you mean? She said, the people of Darlington.

You owe them an apology. Cause in one of the recent episodes, I really went two boots in cause I had a slightly shaky preview in Darlington. And I used that inference to mean that it wasn't my fault, that it was the people of Darlington's fault and they didn't deserve culture. And she said that that might not be my finest hour and I should offer a full-throated apology

to the people of Darlington. Is that it? Was that it then? Your apology was you saying your wife told you to apologise? I think, I don't know. Would you like to do a proper apology? Do you want her to send you a notes? Do you want to write it in her notes app? Yeah.

And post it out. I think I've started, people, the people at Darlington know that I should have done an apology. So I think they're fine with that now. I will go back to Darlington to. You haven't even done the apology yet. You just said the people of Darlington know that I want to do an apology.

Where is this apology? It's coming. I'm just building on it. I just, I have an issue where I struggle to apologize for things. I mean, I don't think you need to apologize. No, I want to apologize to Darlington. I really do. Just do it.

Just quick. Just quick one. Just say sorry. I'm sorry to Darlington. I really do. Just do it. Just quick. Just quick one. Just say sorry. I'm sorry, Darlington. It wasn't you. It wasn't you. It was me. Why are you shouting at them?

I didn't know my... I don't know. I'm just furious all of a sudden. I didn't know the show well enough. I will be... If you will have me back, Darlington, I'll be back. Wow.

If you don't. You should be a politician. Are you the Fonz? Does the Fonz not apologise? Yeah, he literally can't say sorry. Like the way you can't say facetious. Don't start thinking you're the Fonz either. All I'm doing is joining two dots that were laid out for me next to each other.

He's the Yorkshire, you're the Yorkshire Fonz. Hey. Happy days. Mr. Fonz, and I'll tell you what, that's not the only similarity because I do most of my meetings in toilets with teenage boys. Tip Fonz.

It's a mad show when you look back into it. How old was he meant to be? Was he meant to be a teenager as well? No. He was older, yeah. Yeah, he was like a 20-something. Vagrant. He used to hang out.

Vagrant. He lived in the shed, didn't he, or something? Yeah, it's fine. It's a mentor-mentee relationship a lot of the time. It's fine. Yeah. I'm self-employed. I'm self-employed.

I'm also an artist. I am an artist. So my life is, my life is furthered by, what's the word? By experiences. this is the same tone as the darlington apology i'll tell you what this is london this is why people just live in london that are just just dips because they don't have expect they have experiences that are like i'm going to m&m world i'm going to this brand new restaurant that everyone else in in london's

going to that's not a rich life yeah yeah all right do you want to do it should i do a cultural highlight then eminem world's not a restaurant chris disney restaurant eminem world i'd say if you if you see eminem soup to start. Table for two, please. You're talking to the green M&M. Table for two. Table for two. If you're wearing a little,

if you're wearing a little, you know, like napkin tucked in, you know what I mean? Anything's a restaurant. But Sonal, that segue of me saying that London is a cultural vacuum is a great way to talk about your cultural highlight. What's going on in London that I personally love and visit quite frequently?

There's a resurgence of bowls happening in London at the moment. A lot of people playing bowls. Like Crown Green? Yep. Basically a gentrified bowls green recently. Has a nice bar serving loads of lagers and cocktails. And then you go and have a little bowl on the green. It's lovely.

Because the old people all died off. They stopped playing. That's a bit sad, but I'm glad it's still, I'm glad it doesn't mean that it stopped. Yeah, I got fucking smashed. Do they make you wear the silly, the very, very flat shoes? No, you can wear any shoe you want, actually. Or they have relaxed that since I was a teen then. Very relaxed, you can wear any shoe you want actually. Or they have relaxed that since I was a teen then.

Very relaxed. You can wear any shoe you want. You can pretty much throw it anywhere you want around the green as well. But watching people do bowls proper, they just look, everything about it looks like they're so smooth. Yeah.

The bowls are so like, I don't know, the bowls look magical, don't they? And the way that they glide. They take it seriously there whereas i'm doing an overarm best to shut it down really aren't they no no rather it be remembered as with quaint nostalgia as good times in the past that absolutely ruined by you over let the new generation come in chucking it over i'm drinking apple spritzes and do what they want yeah also there's new cornetto in shops which is nice oh go on it's called cornetto soft

serve it might be it's new to me i haven't seen it but just got it and it solved the problem of ice cream getting hard when it's frozen okay so it comes out the fridge soft can you imagine that yeah yeah that sounds it does but with soft serve ice cream is it not like flavorless no no no this one has flavors in it it's like a mr whippy but you can get out your freezer whenever you want okay now that does sound pretty interesting presumably so if you're if that's a new product that you're getting in london now in 2024 presumably it'll be hitting the countryside in the, you know, the December 2028 calendar,

like window, you know what I mean? That's when I'll get it. What are you eating at the moment? Ice cream sandwiches. We're eating it. It's churned on the farm, fresh out of a milk pail.

Oh, that sounds quite nice. No, not even cold. We're getting it straight from the teat. Hot, sweet. Our ice cream is, our ice getting it straight from the teat hot sweet our ice cream is our ice cream is straight from

the teat it's probably temperature in between in between sucking it in we get a vanilla pod and crunch it

down and we're like this is as good this is as good this is summer easy to romanticise that kind of life isn't it frothy hot

frothy hot milk unpasteurised, full of bits. Actually, I wanted to ask you this. Can you go to like a dairy farm and get some unpasteurized milk whenever you want? I believe that I can. We have a dairy farm that's like open to the public to sell, selling things on the top road. But to get on it, you need to take quite a severe left off a busy A road.

So I'm too scared, so I don't go in. Right. Well, what you need to do is, as you approach that turning, indicate and start slowing down at the same time. No, because last time I did that, I accidentally put my foot on the accelerator and it was sped up into the corner. Why?

I don't know. Never tired for your crunchy milk anymore. Yeah. All the parasites dead on the top. I was like, so excited. But I'll tell you this. Do you remember I did that thing where I was like sagging off the wife's semi-skimmed milk thing? Oh, yeah.

Like Nicola, she'd gaslit us all into thinking that semi-skimmed milk was better than whole milk for years. And then I've been pushing back, getting two milks. But now she's conceded that it's the better milk and we are a whole milk blue top family. And I'll tell you what, us moving to blue top milk coincides with the fact that my son drinks milk all the time. This is a win for the podcast and your family.

The way that I articulated it, the thing that got it, it's like a logic victory. I told her that he's a growing boy, so he can't have semi-schemed. He needs whole because he needs to grow up. He needs to get big. That's right. So I dominated the intellectually and now the family is a blue top milk one. And it's the closest I've got to a win with her in 12 years.

How big are you going to grow this boy? I'm going to go him as big as he'll grow. You know like we're goldfish and you're like, just chump it up big in its tank. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically you want him to smash up. Hey, obviously. Stop saying the name.

Sorry, Joe. I'm going to edit that out. Edit, you've got to put the bleep in. You've got to put the bleep in and then he'll just say the name of the name. Sorry, Joe. I'm going to edit that out. Edit. You've got to put the bleep in. You've got to put the bleep in. Son-El just said the name of the villain. B, obviously. Who cheats. He cheats.

That's it. That's all. Deserves everything that's come into it. Because I told you about, we got some feedback saying that we don't edit anything out. As a peek behind the curtain i do edit some stuff out and i did bleep that guy's name but i leave in you saying we should edit that out and make it about something much more innocuous so you seem absolutely paranoid yeah yeah yeah you're like oh i went to the i went to the imax today can we edit that out

please i don't want people knowing my movements do i know if they can see the pattern i think yeah if i had a map of london it's like you go to three places you go pizza express and cinema and it helps but i think i could start to zone that in and i go to the imax a lot yeah but there's a lot of blockbuster films out at the moment I know but if I could zone it in I believe I could begin to zone it in I'd be like what sort of I could do the same for you yeah garbage on the A road

speeding past the milk farm going straight home terrified of turning into the milk farm yes James lure him in with a trail of gin cans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no, he's not having that.

He's absolutely not having that. No, that was... No, no, no. I think it's fun to have a laugh at that, but this is people's lives. We've got to do a job soon. We've got to... There's going to be a running with this guy and we've got to do a job soon. We've got to, when we, there's going to be a running with this guy and we've got to be prepared for it.

I'm going to, if I say him on his own, I'm going to try and record it for this podcast and confront him. And I think I probably the best, even though the other people in the group have probably done more of the tracking and stuff like this and are reaching out to the police officers in the community and sending polite letters. I think if they want someone to confront this guy, and it should be me, because we talked about this before, stand-up comedians are used to having more adrenaline in their bodies.

So I think I'd keep relative calm in quite an aggressive, high-pressure situation. I think you'd go quite red. I think I'd go with a big red face, and I'd say, sorry. I'd end up saying sorry to him. I think you'd go red and then get white patches on quite red. I think I'd go with a big red face and I'd say, sorry, I'd end up saying sorry to him. I think you go red and then get white patches on the red. Like one of those hams that you get in,

like, like yeah, sandwich ham. Yeah. Or you'd look like a global hyper-colour t-shirt. Yeah, I think that's fair. But what was I going to say?

Someone said, oh, I'll tell you what i haven't put it in the letters document but somebody do you remember we were talking about that thing and i was like i don't know what it is quite quite oh yeah yeah yeah someone from nearby me says being listening to the podcasts and he said where he lives and it's really close to my house. He's saying, I think you live, he says, I think you live in the same area as we do. And just FYI, we have a quite class once a week on a Monday

if you want to come down. And I'm like. What is it though? Yeah, exactly. It's like if you want to see it in action. Spell it for me. Spell it for me again. Is it Q- O I T S.

I just, I typed it into my search bar and it came up with quotes.carwow.co.uk. I need to find his email address. His name's Ed and it's, it's called Quoits, which is Q U O I T S. Quoits, a ring of iron. Yeah. It's like a gameits, which is Q-U-O-I-T-S. Quoits, a ring of iron. Yeah, it's like a game you play in the garden.

So he's invited me to go down for a sort of taster of that. And I was like, really? My initial reaction was, you know when someone asks you to do something, he's like, ooh, like feels weird, feels like panic, like I shouldn't be doing that. But now I'm like, no, no, no, no. This is exactly why we set this podcast up to further the knowledge

of the countryside business. This is a dictionary definition of countryside business. So I'm definitely going to go. I might learn something about a sport that I haven't played. I might come away with some new best friends. Also, this game has different rules depending on which county I learned something about a sport that I haven't played. I might come away with some new best friends. Also this, this game has different rules depending on which County you're playing it in.

Does it? Yeah. So you can start fights with it. Yeah. Good. As long as it, as long as it continues to strengthen divisions, like,

like, like count as long as it keeps the County line divisions going strong, then I think that's good. Absolutely correct. Good. Well, I'm glad you're going to play. I hope you report back, maybe batter someone. Yeah.

I looked away for a second again. You have to keep an eye on him, James. You know that. Is this your father-in-law's tent still going strong? Yeah. What's he doing? He's putting a tent up in your garden. The kids are playing baseball,

and he's bought them like a golf practice net to hit the ball into for baseball oh that's nice and you're you're going in into it intermittently to help yes oh that's very nice that's very nice does he know we're making a podcast could you tell him that this is urgent business podcast time do you know what i mean right and just there's an audience waiting for this yeah i wasn't i met somebody i did a preview in manchester where the people are much more culturally away than other places in the country per se they are much more refined but she she was saying and then was roof and she was saying that she loves this podcast and saves it up for when she's going on a walk and she listened to the choose your own obviously and apparently her husband said that i i could write one of those as a job

so we can't use that word we can't use those words you can't use those words so um a decide decide your destiny quest yes that's a good one is it all right yeah it's better it's different words to the other one so it's great yeah yeah so that's good people do like it people do like it thanks ruth's husband thanks ruth's husband you've just damned us to 20 more episodes like that yeah i don't know what the fuck you were thinking, giving out that. You can't compliment people in the same way you can't, you know. No, it's like, yeah,

feeding the narcissism into its disaster, really. So much alive comedy is just like, tell you what, about to go to the fringe. I've never, like, basically all performers to some degree have this big narcissistic streak that is probably more pronounced than it is in most of the population. I believe narcissism is just part of the human condition, isn't it? But it's something that is bigger and smaller depending on who the person is

and manageable in most cases. But I remember being at the Edinburgh Fringe and it's just, it's a real pressure cooker environment to drop a narcissist in sort of unprepared do you know yeah and i feel like very i remember as well because i'm a little bit older now and you go up and you meet the kids that are sort of doing it for the first time and stuff and i feel very parental do you know what i mean and you're like oh you're absolutely broken in your little narcissistic brain oh you are like the fonz more than we thought yeah exactly you moved into that garage i moved into the garage you know that's uh yeah but imagine imagine we wouldn't be doing

this if we weren't delusional at some level when we started yeah yeah yeah i think that's fair you know we wouldn't be anywhere near but But yeah. I suppose that judging that, judging that between narcissism, delusion and ambition, that's the sort of soft spot that I've been working in for a long time. But you know, you Google, because we put out like 15 episodes, we're in the top 5% of all podcasts in the world.

And you're like, simply because we keep going simply because we haven't stopped. And that, and that is not, that is not a textbook definition of success, but I think it's kind of as close as you get in this world. We just haven't stopped. What should we do?

What do you want to do, James? Should we talk about another thing or should we?'t stopped. What should we do? What do you want to do, James? Should we talk about another thing? Or should we? I reckon. What's the next letter? Okay, this is a letter from Flux. Great name.

Now, they say hello. Well, they don't say hello to us. They say hi, Chris. But the email address is christopheratalovelytime.co.uk Using your work email for this? Well, it's just a dedicated email. Fair enough, yeah, okay. I'm not really part of a...

You're not going to give me a login for that either, are you? You don't need it. I'll filter it. You'll get the best of the best. Thank you. You're like a prison warden. Yeah. If you are sending Sunil nudes, I'm willing to set them.

Right. Hi, Chris. As you were talking about VR experiences, have you guys ever tried naughty VR stuff? Many thanks for entertaining me on my walks. I presume Sunil is an AI, which is the reason the nationwide advert got pulled from telly. Best wishes, Flux.

Where do we start with that? Where do we start? We need to circle back on VR. Right, let's circle back on VRr let's circle back on vr that's obviously the sooner the better for me you know it's an issue that we need to come back to frequently i absolutely don't know anything about naughty vr stuff i have the whole man's up and say i'm an innocent and all this i have no idea what you're talking about me too we don't have all right that would necessitate a home vr setup wouldn't it unless this place is where you just a headset yeah but where are you getting a headset from playstation has one done

it did playstation one as the meta quest so james can we ask you then because you're clearly a bit more up to speed what's going on with the mucky stuff on the vr i haven't used it for mucky stuff but i've heard that it can be done how'd you do that how'd you do it well they're three it will be i guess it would be a it would be filmed on a 360 camera or a 180 camera and then you just it would just look like you were the you were in the room with whatever was going on was going on and you could look around so you could like yeah but if you look down that's not your that's not yours if it was taken from a pov and you look down it wouldn't be yours no it'd be someone else's that would freak you out it'd be whoever had filmed it and i'd just be awkwardly looking around at the fixtures and fittings do you know i mean like

like trying to figure out if it's america or england like have they got a cookwares kettle in the background you You know what I mean? Yeah, so you can just look around that while someone's in front of you just chatting. It wouldn't be live, I think. Although maybe they can do live stuff, but I think... I assume that's in the future, isn't it? Yeah.

Although, actually, you know what? You could do it live. I watched football games live on a 180. Did you? Yeah, they stopped doing it now. It was really annoying. It was really good. It was like being sat in a stadium.

Oh, right, not on the field. With a live football game. No, but you could have pitch side cameras and stuff. You don't want it to move around too much. You get sick. Sick, yeah. Go on, Chris. Sorry, Flux has also sent something else.

Flux has sent us, and I'll forward it on after, but a video, a VR internet speed test. Yeah, it's absolutely bonkers. It took me a while to get my head around what I was looking at. What, so you're in the fiber optic cable? No, no. Like this silly bugger sent us a video. He's wearing a headset.

Yeah. He's narrating it as well. He's wearing a headset. Is he closed? As far as I can say, he's it a space station and he's getting his internet speed he's projecting his internet speed test on a wall in the space station i think this person is trying to lure us into a into a naughty vr setup i don't want any of that do you know what i mean i can't be i'm not going on i'm not going on that. Do you know what I mean? I can't be, I'm not going on. I'm not going on that.

I want to do what Sonil did in Hoxton Wanted, which was like smash goblins. Holborn. Holborn. Yeah, smash goblins and skeletons and that. I want to smash goblins and skeletons. And that's it.

And I think that's, I think we should turn the rest of it off. Really? In my opinion. Well, maybe not all of it, but you know what I mean? I think it'd be nice to get like vr like

when it's integrated into just like normal glasses you can record everything that's happening in front of you if you want but you can also like get maps and google stuff on there did you ever have a go on google glass no i i would love one i watched i remember when they were you know when they do like technical demos of what it could look like. I remember watching for the Google Glass on a Microsoft augmented reality thing. And it showed a world where you've got these glasses on, you're talking to a customer services person or a plumber or an electrician or whatever. Friends.

Friends, yes, we know them. And they are looking through your eyes through the glasses and can interact with what you're seeing in real time so they can they can circle you know like the wire and be like snip this one that sort of thing to help you through obviously there's lots of mad implications i can't thinking about that now logistically i can see why it's very cool but i know that basically if you're a company you can't be saying cut that wire and the other one kills you because it's too high risk but but well we forget the the other aspect of it is that it will bring more friends into your life

what digital friends yeah digital well online yeah but that'd be good for you and you can just put your headset on but my pc i did a bit of online gaming with my friends but my pc is imploded so it's just like yeah but a lot of this processing will be done in the cloud so you just need a good internet link yeah like this what was it the stadium google stadia yeah discontinue now nobody wants it nvidia have got one as well haven't they yeah that's too that's that's much. We're not talking about that anymore. If you don't know, Nvidia produce graphics cards, high end graphics cards.

If you don't know what they are, you need to Google them and get yourself on Steam. It's also one of the biggest companies in the world right now. Let's have the other letter. Let's have the other letter. This is getting too much. Anyway. Sorry.

Yeah. Do you want me to address the bit where Flux accuses me of being an AI? Yeah. I'm not or am i the nationwide advert got pulled from the telly because other banks complained about it and then i think they changed some of it so that it could go back on telly not because sunil was an ai not because i'm an ai so we got another letter that's actually a letter from my friend shona who is absolutely livid she hasn't been mentioned on this podcast before because i she needs to get a skill over over my recent so over the time that we've been doing this i've mentioned in passing quite a lot of friends and she's just absolutely furious that she's not been in the list she's got in touch off the back of friends and she's just absolutely furious that she's not been in the list. She's got in touch off the back of producer James saying that Leeds and

Bradford, that Bradford ain't really a thing. It's just part of Leeds. Obviously a huge amount of controversy off that one. And we had to do a lot to calm it down. So she says, hello boys. Well,

despite your, despite your, despite your podcast having no discernible objective or structure, I can't wait for each episode. Chris, do you even bother editing these letters before you read them out? Sometimes I do, but I think you get about nine words from that sentence. Yeah, but I think it's good to say, and I just think on behalf of all of us, Shona, fuck off. No, it is nice that she's listened. But there is a structure and it does have an objective.

So she's wrong. So she's already wrong. Good defense, Chris. Yeah. So Shona continues. She says, following on from your offensive discussion of Bradford and Leeds, I thought I'd supply some local knowledge, which Chris is clearly lacking.

Good to hear. The bottom end of Tong is Leeds and borders Full Neck and Holbeck. There was some mad beef as well where some of TSL's postcodes got changed from Leeds to Bradford. There's a point near the Odeon where there are two houses next to each other and one has a BD postcode and one has an LS postcode. That's what I said. But then again, there are also parts of the lower end of the lakes

that are part of the Bradford Metropolitan District. So producer James can suck it. So it's good that part of Bradford is the bottom of a lake. Silt. And Saltaire is Bradford and is also a World Heritage Site. Also, Oprah was filming in Little Germany last year or something. Oprah! And Shona finishes by saying,

P.S. Full neck is near Pudsey. My cousin went to private school there, full of rich motherfuckers. That's Pudsey for you. I've got to say, I don't really care about what James said about Leeds and Bradford. Right.

Fair enough. But I think it is important to be right and to be wrong, isn't it? No, it is, yeah. I mean, local rivalries like this don't really make sense to me. They only really matter if you're arguing over pastry or cake products. I just thought it was the thing. I genuinely did think it was part of it.

I'm surprised it kicked off so much. Yeah. So basically what we've learned today is that everybody's bloody apologizing that's apology accepted producer james okay i've got nothing to apologize for yet apology accepted Thank you for listening to Rural Concerns. If you enjoyed this show, please consider supporting us on Patreon. For much, much less than the going rate for 20 B&H cigarettes, you can get fortnightly bonus episodes,

blog posts, and access to our Discord community, which is known as The Creamery. Ooh. I mean, 20 B&H is like, what, 18 quid if you get it at WH Smiths? That's absurd. Yeah, exactly. That's like four months worth of support.

Disgraceful. Alternatively, you can drop us a five-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It'll help us game the algorithm. And as long as it's five stars, you can drop us a five-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It'll help us game the algorithm and as long as it's five stars, you can say what you want. For example, this is from Apple, Joe, a good laugh.

I look forward to hearing how Chris's house refurbishment goes. Like Escape to the Chateau, but with more dog piss. Please note, if you give us a review below five stars, then we'll immediately stop doing the podcast. Yeah, we'll just unplug everything and sell it all. That's it, we're done. We won't talk to each other again either.

I don't think we should give people that opportunity. No, you can, if you're out listening, you can end this podcast tomorrow by giving us a four-star review. End it? Oh, yeah, no, yeah. Yeah, as in that's it. That's it. If we're not creating the funniest, most perfect podcast,

then there's no point doing it I'll get on way I'll stop caring I wish you'd said this months ago best thing you can do is give us three stars and subscribe to the

patreon so we have to keep doing it but no one's listening to it yeah I that's come on this is the only thing ideally I don't come on now

rural concerns was edited by Joseph the lot-all-out reincarnate, Burrows. And it's produced by Eggmounted for Lovely Time Productions. Our artwork is by Poppy Hillstead. Our music is by Sam O'Leary.

And here's an inspirational quote from 50 Cent. You shouldn't throw stones if you live in a glass house. And if you got a glass jaw, you should watch your mouth because I'll break your face. I would like to bring this episode... Do you know what? I should have a gavel to finish the episodes, don't you think?

Just do the outro. Let's bring this episode to a close. Hear, hear. Bong. Okay. just do the outro let's bring this episode to a close here here bong okay fine but what's the sound what sound does a gavel make i'm thinking it's like there's a metallic element to it so it's like bong that's a big bell that's a big bell the end of the episode bell bong bong yeah yeah i'll put it in when he goes there's a gavel bong yeah edit that in would you yeah I'll put it in when he goes there's a gavel

bong and then and every episode ends that way from now on bong like that