Rural Concerns - Escape rooms, socks & beautiful cobbled streets

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Chris and Sunil remember their 24 hours together in Amsterdam veeeeeery differently.   We’re performing a Rural Concerns live show in Manchester on 22nd November 2025! That’s very soon. Come on now! Grab your tickets here.    If you have a Rural Concern you can send us an email to [e-mail]. We promise we’ll be very kind! The best way to support this educational podcast is through Patreon. For less than a fiver you can get bonus episodes and access to our Discord community, The Creamery.   Our artwork is by Poppy Hillstead, our music is by Sam O’Leary and our legal due diligence is by Cal Derrick, Entertainment Lawyer. Rural Concerns is produced by Egg Mountain for A Lovely Time Productions.

Hello and welcome to rural concerns, a podcast about the countryside and other things. My name is Chris and I reside in a small community. It's a sort of place where everyone knows your name and nobody locks their doors. Well, apart from once a year When the knocker comes to the village When I first moved there I didn't believe he was real A man told us a lamp post

We're in a big top hat Arms long And they got a quality in Too many joints Like the legs of a spider Yeah, as if But then in the dead of night I was walking up by a knock, knock, knock

Very light on the door As I approached I put my ear to the letterbox and I heard like a frantic whispering. I inch closer, straining to hear her. He said he needed to come in so that he could complete his horrible work. And it just felt inevitable.

So I reached for the deadbolt. But bus before I opened it, my wife wrestled me to the ground and my son held a drill to my temple. And the knocker moved on to the next house. We also have a farmer's market every Wednesday. Bing Bong, bong, idiots. famous Sunil and I live in London. Status means everything down here and it's imperative that I'm

seen in all the top clubs, shops and restaurants. Recently, I was invited to the launch of a new West End Bistro, which serves ancient Celtic cuisine on bits of circuit board. The food was dreadful and I broke a tooth on a diode. But this is the price I must pay if I'm to maintain my reputation as a cutting-edge liberty. When I'm not out on the town, I stand in a completely dark room without any lights on because I don't really exist if I'm not being observed. Like that lad with the cat in a shoebox. My name's James and I'm the producer of this show.

It's my job to keep an eye on the recording and make sure we don't, for example, let Chris go too mad on the accents or go boots in on Britain because we do do crisps well. That sounds like a brilliant set of guidelines. Let's plough ahead. Both of you look worse than you've ever looked. Yeah, Chris.

That's amazing. Chris looks ghostlier than he's ever looked. Chris, you look like you fucking died. I look translucent. James, you look like you're being interrogated. There's a man from East Berlin holding a bulb in your face. Is that how you get that look? It's a giant, you know, like a desk lamp, an Anglepoise desk lamp.

What's it got in it, a daylight sort of mimicking light bulb? Sunil, we're recording a podcast, we're getting vitamin D. The problem is you two have too many rooms to record in, and you keep pottering around with your little lights. So you never get a consistent setup. Well, this is my office now, so it's going to stay. I had a meeting today. It's different every week.

It's a different corner of the office we see every week. What's going on? We are in a position where we have the spare room finished. It's gorgeous. It's been kitted out at IKEA in a way where its function is to serve guests. I will not let this room lapse into being a junk room. So all of a sudden, we've lost a room that was full of rubbish. from the floor to the ceiling,

that now has to be somewhere else. It's just off the shoulder to my right. Do you guys ever think about sort of just torching everything in your lives and just keeping on moving? Given that includes children, no. You? I think there's something to be said for...

I could get rid of 100 copies of GQ magazine, I've still got. Yeah, I'm ready to... You want a minimal life. The thing is, Chris, you're looking behind you. All I can see is maybe four paintings. That's it. Let me show you this. Oh, okay.

What's that? Like basically 12 years worth of stuff. I'm in Attic A now and there's a partition in the middle. I need a door for that so we can seal it off. But on the other side is just rubby. Not rubbish. It looks like a room where you hide a family member you're ashamed of. Yeah.

Right over the top. I think that side is destined to become a teenage boy space, you know, for a beanbag and a... I know what they do. doing that space, don't worry. Yeah, exactly. It's like, it's where he can play, because right now we'll play his games and stuff in the front room and that's all good.

But I think at some point, he's now got to a point where he's like, can you please leave the room while I'm playing Fortnite? You know, and you're like, okay. What's he doing? What's he up to? Well, he's mate from schools on there, so he talks to his mate from school.

And it's like, I don't want to stop that. Like, it's, uh, I want to keep quite a close eye on it, you know? In Fortnite, he's, he's premier league. and they can't keep up and I'm like I'm saying to Nicola I'm like let's indulge this

I think he can go pro and he's really good at it and I've been playing these games long enough to know he's good at it you know and I taught him a few stuff and now he's the past me and now he makes quite cruel jokes about me he said dad

this is you in Fortnite he said this is the gun and he held his hand up like a gun and then he just pointed a good at the ceiling he was like that's you not even looking at the map You don't even know what's going on. And I was like, oh.

I played my kids at Marriott the other day, and I accidentally, I try and be nice to him. I accidentally beat them three times in a row. Accidentally blue-shelled one when he was about to win the race. Well, that's good. He has to learn. He just came over and turned my controller off at the end of the race and just reset the game silently.

What do you think about this, James? Like, next big birthday being 50, Are we ever going to not be gamers? No, I don't want to... I remember as a child thinking, I want to make sure I keep up to date with games so that I can play video games with my kids. I don't want to be embarrassed or embarrassing.

And you still get a bit to go because you are absolutely lapping them. Yeah. Well, if you understand the rules of Maricott, it means that he was in first place when I blue-shelled him and I was far enough back to be getting a blue-shell. Of course, that's what the blue-shell is. goes after number one,

doesn't it? Exactly. But when they get involved in, like, more sort of advanced games, which require, like,

lots of different buttons, they're going to surpass you very easily, aren't they? Thanks to know. Just saying. I suppose it's a good thing as well.

You want, you know, your kids to do better than you, be better than you. I know that you'll have to, like, when you get older, you might, your hands might go

a bit of something like that, but, you know, I still like the idea of elderly age being, booting up some high fantasy thing. And the amount of accessibility, you know, like a toggle

where you can be like, are your hands proper old and fucked? Yes, toggle this and it's just a bit easier as someone. You know, he can just like knock around. You know, like Zelda where you can just knock around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd be happy there. Yeah, yeah. Leave me there.

Yeah, but by then they'll give you some of those glasses, won't they? And you'll be inside the world. Just wanking yourself off inside a fantasy. So, getting myself so tough in a digital realm. And they'll put us on top of each other. like a three-tier coffin and that, the heat that we will generate

being tucked off by a digital, by like a digital version of, I don't know. Well, look, whatever it is, that's not the clip. This can't be. That's not the clip. It's sucked off by a digital ghost of my long dead X-Y. What are the accessibility options, like, if you adds a dead old and null for that one?

it's just a it's just the case of attaching a suction pump really they do that they tuck you in and honestly from 9 o'clock at morning till 10 at night

I won't need any assistance you know what I mean especially if especially if the suck off valve can filter it round so it pumps the protein that I produce back into my own

Close loose. You are not going to be producing any protein in that age. So the protein goes back into it. Oh, God. A little fan that just blows the dust. Self-sustaining mayonnaise. A mayonnaise pump. Is Charlie Brooker still making Black Mirror?

Yeah, boy, he's ever been as sexy as this. 86-year-old man. And all of them. they have to do is every few hours come out with like a Kleenex and just some of the, some of the pumped some of the pumped Mayo, occasionally leaks

the valves in what it used to be. Bops up the tears. It's such a violent image and yet he still refuses to use the word come. Maybe you can't consume you own maintenance. So maybe you can't consume you on my ears. So what if we have a talk? That's why we're in

a three stack. How did this happen? We're having a three. We're in a freeware. There's a nice chat about connecting with your children and it's turning to lose less. I am starting to think about that torching thing now, Sunil, though. Torture life, move on, get away from this. Oh, my days.

One, two, three. Holiday report. It's been a minute since we've been on this call, one of these calls. Where the heck of you two been? So now, do you want to say? The Sex Palace in the Red Light District in Amsterdam. That's where we went. The Sex Palace?

Well, we went outside and got a photo of ourselves and then went to a bar. We only had a day together, didn't we, Chris? A short moment of time. Natsunel made sure that we dedicated about 60% of the time to him getting a pair of socks. I was trying to find the Uniclo. He was trying to find Uniclo in Amsterdam. Lookers into away from, I would say, touristy, year-oldy Amsterdam into industrial shopping centre, Amsterdam.

You want to go down the CBD, don't you? When you go Amsterdam. I wanted to show them a shop called Feebo, all right, which you only get in Amsterdam or the Netherlands, where it's a vending machine with, it's a vending shop with windows full of burgers and sausages. Ooh. Yeah, tap your card, open a window, take a sausage out. It was interesting, but when I was there, do you know what I mean? I was struck by, I said to me on Sunday.

because we went with Amy Glad Hill, it was her birthday so I said to her I was struck by I think Sunnels are very You know like a tiger In a zoo he's happy Because it likes, it's a wild animal But it knows it's every inch of its terrain

And that is like Like their life out in the wild It's pure stress Sunil I only see him in places that he knows He's very calm He knows all the people He knows all the haunts He's very habitual.

Amsterdam is adrift. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's panicking. And he's panicking because he wants to know everything about a place. He can't not have knowledge. So this manifests in him walking ahead of us. So he has more knowledge of the street further down the vein. So he can walk back and say, yeah, there's a cafe just up here.

You know what I didn't know. Oh, we'll have all discovered that in 30 seconds time. Don't listen to him, James. What happened was the day before, we'd stayed in an area that I sort of vaguely knew. And the next day, there was no plan. Sex Palace. Yeah, Sex Palace was the only thing Chris said when he got to Amsterdam was when are we going to the Red Light District.

I didn't say. No, come on now. You wanted to have a look, not as a perv, but as a sort of anthropologist. That's what you wanted to do. A social anthropologist. A pervy anthropologist, yeah. But there was no plan. So I just gave up.

I said, I'm tired of leading you lot around. Somebody decide what to do. That's all it was. And then we went. And I said, but specifically, we need to go to unicloat. I didn't pack any socks. That was it. Was that an oversight or was that?

No, I do that sometimes. What? Forget. I don't pack any socks. So I just think, I just get them out there. And now I've got so many socks. That's why.

But I also like, I got a bit in my own head about how to pack because I was going to Amsterdam and then I was going somewhere very hot. So in my head I was like, I don't know what socks to take. I don't want to think about it. I will pick up socks.

as and when I need them. Like, you know, Damon Dash, head of Rockefeller Records. Yeah. Is he the one that chucked the trainers away? Yeah, he chucks their socks and pants away after he uses them. I don't. I keep them, but I'm very well prepared to buy new socks as and when I need them. I think, do you know what?

As mad as that is, I do, there is something in that that, when I've had a big mad week and I've got something going up and you like, I've definitely gone, when I've been down, I'm just going to buy some more socks. Socks I haven't got enough these outside. I'm just going to get some socks and underpants. It's very under a lot of people don't think about it, but you can

actually buy socks and underwear in most towns in this country and in the world. Whoa. Something to think about. Yeah. Whoa. Damn. Truthful. Genuinely, more people should do it. Just buy socks

and pants. They're very cheap. No, but I was struck by the fact that I was struck. by the fact that you're a deeply strange man. This is, he is odd, didn't he? He is an odd man. The problem is there's like, there's four of, there's three of you and me, and no one really is making any decisions to do anything,

and you're waiting for me to take you around. So at one point I was just like, right, I've had enough. Somebody decide what they actually want to do or whether they want me to take charge. Yeah. And then no one can decide, so I said, right, you're on your own. 24-hour out. I'll meet you outside this Unicloin 5-5.

I mean, that's exactly what I did. I said, sit in that pub there. I'll be back in a minute. I'm going to Uniclo. We had a nice time. We had a lot of drinks. Chris saw a lot of sex workers. He was blown away by one of the sex workers.

And we had a good time. He was actually quite, it was quite astonishing, wasn't it? You've never seen that before. I had been there when I was younger. But I think we basically, we talked it up and we were like, we've got to have a look. Did, instantly panicked. Yeah. Because they look out of the window.

you in, we just got scared and we got up to the floor. So we did the red light district street and I would say 0.12 seconds, you know what I mean? We're in and out straight away back to quite a high to like a high class hotel bar to like to settle us nerves with an 11 pound bottle of I think that was a rough night for me because I went, I managed to make it to bed

by about what, 2 a.m. we finished. Yeah, but you were going, you were at far, won't you? Well, the taxi was picking me up at three to go to the airport. For an hour, I lay down. I thought I could sleep on the flight, but I had a coffee,

couldn't sleep on the flight. I thought I'd sleep when I got there, but I had to go straight into costume, so I had a coffee then, and finally got to sleep, I think maybe midnight that night. Fuck. So that's a fool.

That's a big... That's a big one. We went to an exhibition called Body Works that is looking at dead bodies. The Plistination. I loved it. We had as heart. There was a heart monitor.

I had my heart rate monitor. Guess what my heart rates? Guess what the bud pressure is? I don't know what's good. Good. It's good. I had good bud pressure. I had good blood pressure.

I saw like half a Willie cut down middle. I was like, that's my dad. And then we did an escape room, which was, I think it's one of Amsterdam's leading escape rooms. And from what I can tell or from what I've heard, but haven't researched. Amsterdam on the Netherlands is like a world leader in escape rooms. You know,

like they're really good at it. You know, like you'll get so you get them all over now. But this one, let me tell you, I don't want to give away the story. But it started in a car park. Like a multi-story car park and we got a text.

And we had to find a car with a license plate. And we found this old sort of Cold War era. at, like, German BMW, you know, and you, like, you found it, you opened it up. Inside there's a suitcase, which you can't open yet, and there's a walkie-talkie, and then you start talking, and you basically, the first bit of it is we had to go to this address nearby, which we were told was an art gallery, and you, and we need to get, to gain entrance to the art gallery, we have to come up with a plausible cover story.

So this is a sort of thing where I think it would be like really awkward. And you know, obviously I've talked about this before, but in this situation, this is a sort of thing where I'll be an engaged observer, but not necessarily bring the full force of the acting to the forefront. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I want to let other people shine.

Absolutely. Absolutely right. But this was just us. And we open and we put us heads. together and we went, not, not, knock it up at the door and this like, uh, this, uh, uh, Dutch, like games master guy or opened. He went, welcome to the gallery. And we were like, listen, we are here on behalf of King Charles DeFird. Uh, we are his pre-arrival security team and we're here to do a preliminary sweep. We're in playing clothes. Don't make a big deal out of it. We will be in and

out. It's going to be about 10 minutes. Is that okay? And I said afterwards to the girls, I was like, this guy's never encountered this level of a this this guy he's never encountered anyone who's hit it this hard and committed and committed this much because they'll get loads of people that are just like normal people that'll just be like can we come in why are my key I left my keys and we were like listen we're here for the king the king of England yeah okay do you know I mean I'm

I could see in his face instantly, he's like, what is this? Oh, right. I thought there was a bit where it was a room full of lasers. You know where you have to walk through? I saw that I heard about this, Chris, and apparently you did one of the most incredible maneuvers to get past it. And then put my ass up and they all went off. He went down.

He went down to the ground. You know, if you're crawling along the ground, you want to go ahead first, don't you? Apparently he went legs first and then realized it didn't know where he was going because he couldn't see. He was just pushing his legs out in front of him. And I was pushing. I pushed off the floor was really like polished marble. I put my arms up, put my hands against a skirting board,

and I like pushed into the moon. Yeah, like that. Nice. Triggering many lasers. Do you know when you watch curling at the Olympics? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's that big unit of stone. Amy and Heidi just brushing the ground.

Yeah, just brushing the ground. And it got to a point, I was like, I don't know what's happening. So I moved a little bit, everything went off. And it's one of those things where they don't really, it's in, it makes a noise and scary. But it doesn't, it doesn't, they don't stop you playing the game, basically, you know. Not for me, but I would have thought it was right up your street escape rooms. That's exactly where you would thrive, I think. But I'm surprised you've not done a lot more.

I'm not sagging off the women, but there was perhaps a lack of urgency. as the clock was counting down there was a time on this is not there was definitely a point where we should have you know like maybe we're not going

at a clock a bit more not not to defend the women but right they are on holiday and trying to have a nice time and how do you have a nice time it's by not just doing everything straight away it's by step one

studying your surroundings in great detail listen we all indulged you squealing and giggling around the red light district so they you know I didn't do that. I didn't do that.

I won't. And as well, I got Amy to film me from the start to the finish like a body cam. So you knew exactly. You know, like one of those. Trackers that tracked my exact eye. And let me tell you, it looked just down at the beautiful cobbles. And then Sunil took us to a bar that was, I would just describe it as like a hotel lobby. I was saying to Amy, you took us in this bar that it felt like,

I don't know how you found it but like a function suite of a corporate hotel is the only one there that isn't full of like stags yeah but that's what I was saying to Amy I said I think me and her

from our sort of background would be drawn to I see yeah to a rat there so but we did see her out there that's a holiday in a nutshell nice holidays

and me and Amy had Heidi went but she had a nightmare getting home but me and Amy had tea together on on the evening

and we had like a Dutch Sunday lunch and it was it was I can't even describe it like yeah yeah nope

like all I'll say is it was pretty it was pretty dang mom I didn't even say it didn't even say it to the mic I couldn't bear that

But we basically decided that we had like, one night we had traditional Dutch food, didn't we? Yeah, a sausage and mash. It was lovely. Different types of mash. Three mashes. What? Cale mash and a third mash that I can't remember.

Swede. I think it's sweet. Swede. It meant me really, but basically me and Amy think that these people are like basically our more evolved. not descendants, but like an offshoot of northern people. Yeah, they are. An offshoot, the Dutch are an offshoot of northerners that are like more refined and

like, and where we stopped with mash and sausage, they've like kicked it up again with smoke sausage, kale mash. Like, it's like we've got the base ingredients and then they've continued to evolve. And it was amazing. It was lovely, yeah. What was the Dutch Sunday lunch, though? I'm intrigued. I don't even know how to describe it.

It's like they called it a Sunday roast, but it was like a pickle carrot and then like chunks of vegetable and like mad stuff of lamb sausage, different types of things like mad stuff. Soon as we started eating it. How did it sounds mad, Chris. It sounds absolutely bonkers.

Show this guy a coughed her. Sort of a sausage and a bit of carrot. This was a nice place. Amy had the bread and she went, and I had some and I went, you know what? That's best fucking thing these dickens are done. I said, I was pissed at this point. I was like, guys, well done.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just waving a slice of bread. Just waving a slice of bread. I don't get the bill. I don't want anymore. Yeah. And then I think Heidi had a, but Heidi had a terrible time getting home

because they cancelled a train. Apparently it never happened. Very rarely happens they cancel a train. But yeah, cancel the train. And then she had to go home the next day, didn't she? Well, we went home crack a dawn. Yeah. But getting onto the train, basically they told us to be there at 5.50 we were.

And then we were there waiting in the queue until after the train was due to leave. And obviously, I'm full of, I have trains booked in England to get me to, like, so it was, I was like, oh, God, I'd left myself a bit of a window, just anticipating issues. But I was panicking a bit, but said to the people in the, in the Amsterdam Central Station just said, Are you going to hold... King Charles? Yeah, King Charles. I'm the security team of King Charles, if you remember that. But I said, are you going to hold the train?

And they went, yeah. And you're like, well, that won't happen in our main country. And I tell you what, it was, I tell you what, it was clean. Yeah. And it was lovely. And every bar, do you know, like when you go past a British bar and it looks like a, you know, like a sort of semi-militarized outpost, you know, like the windows. like obscured

and there's bars over and stuff like this this looks like the bars in Amsterdam like paint single pane glass window warm light

spilling out into the street people having fun and you're like oh that's better it's clean got home giant mountain

like Kings Cross giant mountain of rubbish like a mountain of rubbish in you like oh that's it really did clarify

how are horrible and main Here we go, let's do 10 minutes and now this country's gone to pop. One, two, three. Holiday report. But when you were having that Sunday lunch, or actually that evening,

I was having one of the very first all-inclusive buffets I've ever had in my life. Talk to me. There we go. I was in Spain in an all-inclusive hotel. Bloody hell it's stressful

because there's a lot of Spanish people there and they know exactly how to hit it up so they were getting the giant prawns and the tuna steaks I went accident yeah I accidentally started with potatoes

it's just potatoes with tomato sauce on you're fucking idiot chicken dippers wedges and kids buffet not even not even the kids buffet you took that handed it over to the chef

and was like Can you get a man quay for me, Mussela's bag. Can I keep going back to the ice cream station? My first plate had chicken dippers, wedges, rice and chicken curry on it. An absolute, that's just a low point for me. That was mad. And then I went back and I was like, I should have done the protein first. Yes.

Got a tuna steak, but a calamari. And then I was full, absolutely wasted. Absolutely wasted. I just was so sickened by the experience. I never went back to it. Oh, Sunil. It's so stressful. So what did you eat for the next three days?

We were right next door to an Iceland, an LD, and a McDonald's, so I was all right. I had a pipe of Bringles one night. But you were at an all-inclusive? No, no, you have to... I had to pay extra for it, so it's 20 quid for the all-inclusive buffet. Oh, I see, I see. We were working, weren't you? So was it on the company?

I suppose it could have been. I didn't charge it to... Yeah. But I don't... You had the option of just all this feed-few. You don't want an all-inclusive every night. It's horrible. It's horrible.

No, but you get a tuna steak and then... Yeah, but then the temptation is there to pop back for some wedges and chicken dippers, isn't it? It's always there. Amateurs. Amateurs. My method, I was at an all-inclusive on my actual holiday,

and I have the mindset of, I wish to bankrupt this company. Yeah, that's what everyone does. Make them rue the day that they let me come in. What are you going for? Fish fingers. Yeah, I'll have been two fish fingers, thank you. I just a triple course breakfast

minimum triple course though you get like you get a dinner each and then just one for the table spare dinner for the table so everyone has a little extra pick what are you hitting up first what you're just trying to fill it with me

yeah I'll go or do you did a dance of a bowl of musler oh yeah that's I'll finish off the break so I'll have a self a home sort of created version of Eggs Benedict from getting all the bits

getting the component parts for an eggs Benedict boom I've made that second course probably pancakes with a little bit of fruit on the side so I don't feel terrible third finishing off with a nice little bowl of yoghurt and musli and honey and Nutella

throughout that everyone stabbing away at the pile of sausages in the middle of the table just to get you between mouthful. Yes, exactly. But what about the dinners? That's what I'm concerned about.

It's the evening ones. That's where it gets difficult. That is, that can be more difficult. You kind of have to go like, okay, I'm going on a trip around the world here. And then you're going to the pizza man.

And I'll visit the pizza man for a bit. You shouldn't have the pizza. That's carbs. That's going to fill you up. You want to go to the meat man. Well, I'll also be visiting the meatman. Yes, of course.

Yeah. But I'm just going to use it. You need the pizza. That's on the table for. everyone to share table pizza pizza for the table thanks

yeah but when you're on your own it's a different game that's what I'm saying it is yeah when I used to run working the B&B when I first moved up here because basically

people are staying in a string of B&Bs you can have too many fried breakfast yeah you can basically by the time they got to us they're paying for it it's built in like this we did a very

very good not entirely profit breakfast because it used all this like conical tea black pudding these local cumber and sausages stuff like that it was gorgeous proper stuff but when you've been eating it basically for four days or whatever like that you just like just give me toast please just give me toast yeah yeah well i mean i don't know what other countries have for breakfast really like what i mean what's going to what's going to be as interesting as an english breakfast Germans bits

I went to a German exchange. It was dreadful. I don't want to talk about it. Cold, like big platter. Slava of that slice of chocolate. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, and the French have

what, a bowl of hot chocolate and a bit of baguette. Yeah, and a fag. Start, I'm young. Very nice. Well, the Spanish, I don't know what they have. I think they have similar French stuff. But they also have, very interestingly,

a small bowl of sort of tomato sauce. I don't know what to do with that. What, do you, do you mean this? No, like, like, like, like, like, like, sort of, as in tin tomato, sort of like tomato sauce out of a tin, something like that. Salsa, that's what they call it. That's, that'll be salsa, I guess.

Oh, right. What'd you, what'd you do with that, though? You did crisps in it? Huh? Crisps? Yeah. There's no crisps at breakfast. Oh, it's up for breakfast?

Yeah. No one does, I've got to say, I know you're slagging off Britain earlier. but no one does crisps as good as Britain. Telly what is interesting, the Iceland and Spain, exactly like the one here. Exactly like it.

Kit Katz, Twixes, Chicago Town Deep Dish Pizza, everything. Was it a theme? Were you in a themed place? Were you actually men of shopping in the Iceland? I was in a real Brits abroad sort of area of Spain. Did they have a spa?

No spa. Do you know when you go out, it's like in a city and it's, do you know, I don't know how to describe this. And maybe it's just where you go because it's holidays. But don't European cities feel alive

in a way that British ones often don't. Yeah. That's a certain time. But maybe I'm just in a place where, but like, my Nicolet, Valencia, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, busy, bustling on the streets. People full of life and colour.

But then you go to the little towns around dead. Everyone moved out, gone to Valencia. Yeah, but we have that, but that little town is London. 9.38 p.m. Empty. Central. There's places.

There's places, Chris. Are you talking about the egg club, James, near Kings Cross? What are you doing up there? For a price, you can stay up until half one. Well, I think... A bottle of water, eight pounds, please.

Yeah, beat it. Sender, Michael. Hello, Michael. Hello. Hello, boys, and producer James. Love the podcast. Hi. Love the podcast, still catching up and enjoying the sheer amount of waste and refuse chat.

That's us. My bin is a black bin. We put our recycling in an array of large plastic boxes in York. A green one for cans and plastics, black ones for paper and glass, separately not mixed together. I take my soft plastics to Big Tesco for recycling. Oh, diligent. Also, and this is a screenshot of his speed test. We're looking at 355.07 down and 249.06 up with a ping of 9.04 and a jitter of 0.17. What's that?

I don't know. What even is a ping though? I can, in it. I think it's when your internet asks the general internet, can I have some pornography and it comes back to me on the internet? And it sends a, it pings back. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, you are. Hello, yes. It says 9.04 milliseconds. Minleseconds. What's that a thousandths of a second? Hundreds? Millions.

Some of eyes. We have no idea. Fast. Anyway, I'll continue. I think it's good. Finally, my ex-urban and international concern, I have to go to Dubai for work every few months. The flight is long and boring,

so I pass it by playing video games on my steam deck. However, the battery isn't big enough, So I use a chunky 88 WH rapid charging USBC PD power bank to keep me sane slash from annoying my co-workers with ceaseless chat. 88? What does a big one? What does that mean? Is that like the battery goes, have I got power? And he goes, yeah.

I don't really know. I don't know. But look, it's an energy QC, energy core 65. I got off Ali Express that almost certainly represents an eventual fire risk. Yes, that does. But let's not let that get in the way of anything. Why would you get a battery pack off Ali Express? I've got to wait three weeks for that to arrive.

Anyway, but now airlines are banning using power banks on flights, even our beloved anchor ones. Is this true, guys? I don't know. That's not what he's saying. That's what I'm saying. Anyway, so he says, so I have questions. One, what should I do with a seven-hour flight?

I refuse to raw dog it. Two, is this woke gone mad? Should I still take my fire risk battery pack with me and use it on the sly? Three, what are your steam deck game recommendations? If I'm going to burn to death using a power bank, I may as all be having fun while it happens. Thanks, Mike. Mike, a lot of things to talk about here.

I did not know about this ban. I've heard it mentioned. Did they mention anything? You went on the train, didn't you? I flew back. I flew to Spain and then flew back. And they didn't mention it on that. Literally, there was no mention it.

They were like, you can use whatever you want. Just don't get up. But maybe it's one of those things where, do you know, like where an article might have hit the news saying that this is happening, but the difference between that and it coming into law or into practice can often take a while because of the excess of bureaucracy that's stopping the productivity of this country. A, yeah, yeah, yeah, hey, aye, hey, hey, but crisps. Yeah, I think it's often on an airline by airline thing.

I remember the flight that I went on, they did say, couldn't charge your vape while it was flying at all. Yeah. Why would you want to? And you just had to keep an eye on things was literally the message was like, if you're using a battery pack, keep an eye on it. What else you're going to do with it? That feels all right.

When I was on the Euro star on the way at home, I was struck by how it's the most 1990s. It's like a museum of the 1990s. Because they were built there and whatever, 96, 7, and they haven't been really So they haven't been touched since. So it's just perfectly preserved as like a 1990s museum. And I think if you introduce that ancient like biome to the contemporary like Anker Powerbank, do you know what I mean? Pure Farm, like that's a, that's going up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's going up. I think if you, not even, I said Ankenen and I shouldn't have done because Anker products. Gold standard. Do not. They are the standards. They do not fuck about when it comes to retaining charge. But if you buy one off like some third rate, mad drop shipping internet site,

that is going to burn up and go through the Eurostar, like, backdrops. The Euro star is going to go up. Like, you know, there's, remember when you're your kids, you get adverts for, like, sofas going up because they're next doing an electric fire. Or Blue Peter don't wear shell suits on bonfire. That's it. Shell suits. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

mad how much stuff was flammable back then mad how come it's not flammable now because someone's put a sign on it saying just keep an eye on it just no lit tabs next of this shell suit so what like so if we're taking electronics yeah out of the equation oh forgot about the actual question yeah yeah what do you do seven hours book book no one's reading a book you haven't read a book so no i can't my brain's gone He's gone to mush. Brain's gone to mush. I read a page of a book every night unless every now and again I click into it and then I read the entire thing in about four hours.

Do you know what I mean? James, are you reading a book? I took two books of short stories on holiday with me and I read two short stories the whole holiday. Can't be bothered with a short story book. Is it one author or multiple offers?

It's that British Library Tales of the Weird one. Well good would record. Once you go and one, it's over, isn't it? You got to start a new one. How could you recommend it? You read two? Well, the two story.

Yeah, the first story in one of them is really good. They always put the best ones at the front. Yeah. But I always think with a shot, they always put a really good one at the front, and then they'll bury someone like a real big name. Do you know what I mean? You're like picking it up. H.G. Wells wrote one.

Yeah, right. Right near the back. Yeah. Tucked in to lure you in. But I found with those sorts of anthologies, whatever, short story books by multiple or, authors, you get railroads, you get derailed by one of them being a bit iffy, you know? Yeah. I read a collection of short stories by Marianna Enriquez, who wrote our share of night

and the danger of smoking in, I think it was the dangers of smoking in bed. Yeah. That was the short story collection I read. I would recommend that. That was sensational. What's it about? It's a collection of short stories. So it really just changed chapter to change.

Not to your fucking idiot. Yeah, what are they, what else? The last one was about basically, I can't even describe, I can't do it justice, but it was about a weird, it was a weird horror,

sexy love story about a woman who was obsessed with hearts, like dying hearts, and she found someone and they basically together, bone-sword his heart open and watched it die, and I was like,

this is horny, horrible stuff. Check it out Yeah So Anyway So summary Book Well hang on

If he's on a seven hour flight They've got him Fly Entertainment Have you thought about that Michael By the time it's Come on plane

It's already been On Netflix You'll find it Yeah Plain used to be Didn't it like This film This is out with cinema

Cinema Plain Rental by Telling But all gone now Because they've rush from the cinema within three months. Frankenstein's coming out on Netflix.

Do you know what I mean? And you like, so there's nothing, so you can't watch that. Other solution, pocket game of chess, but you have to make a friend. Pocketball games. And friends. What about one of those, um, choose your own adventure books? That's nice. Short, to the point.

Re-readable. What about one of those, um, what are those games you can play on your own? the, like, little book, board game, little book, choose your own, what's it called it? Role playing games on your own. The ones that I read about someone. Choose your own adventure? That's a choose your own adventure.

No, there's other ones where you like got to draw it out on a bit of paper. Draw it out on a bit of paper. Draw it out on a bit of paper. Fighting fantasy. Yeah, you could do that. Yeah, you could do that, son-il. Just draw. You could just draw.

You could draw. Or just roll some dice. See if you can guess the number. Dice. Just tap on the seat of front to you for six hours. Yeah, tap on the scene of running. Or, Mike, think about modern slavery for seven hours if you're going to Dubai. Think about summer.

Ask a question that you've been putting off. Yeah. When I'm on a train, I don't think, but I do save up a bit of work that requires like a puzzle, something that's naughty. Do you know what I mean? That I've been meaning to get my head around. Like at the minute I'm writing a blog. for someone and you're like it's not it's hard to get to but i'm on a train tomorrow for a few

hours so i've got a clean where the internet's so patchy um so during that time i'm gonna i'm going to i'm going to solve the problem with his blog yeah it's a two train problem it's a two train pump oh fuck off fuck off shale look over Thank you for enjoying this podcast. Not long now until we be performing at the Fairfield Social Club in Manchester. It's on the 22nd of November 2025, which is very soon. It's very soon. And tickets.

And tickets. Really soon. A ticket. If you want tickets. And tickets. There's there's, there's, there's. There's guides, guidelines, but links in the notes. Music, Sam O'Leary, who was also got his own podcast coming out.

And it's called Skinwigs. And he messaged me in the name of it, like a while back. He was like, we're looking at them and said, what about this one, Skinwigs? The girl who was doing it with Ash, she didn't like it. And then I said, that's it. It's crystal clear. It's super memorable. And then about a week and a half later, he called me.

and he was like, yeah, I've sort of locked it all in now, but everyone I've spoke to hates it. But it's going to be brilliant. I saw a clip of it. It was very funny. Our legal due diligence is by Calderick, an entertainment lawyer from America. Oh, looking forward to one day meeting him.

Rural Concerns is edited by Lawrence, buried at sea by the CIA like Ben Lard and Highsea, and it's produced by Egg Mountain for A Lovely Time Productions. This is interesting. May get cut out. McDonald's meals in Spain consist of burger,

chips, drink and an ice cream. We need cut out. That's too spicy. Everyone's going to leave. We can't be. We can't be...

Don't everyone moving to Spain. Yeah. Everything's bad at you and getting worse by the day. And now if you're holding that, then they're getting an extra thing. Wait, no milkshakes.

available at all yeah interesting they've got the ice cream they've got the ice cream facilities they're the ice cream the most flurries but no milk shakes yikes well all right

something to think about so it's not all bread and roses over in continental Europe cancel the flights Bong. That out.