Rural Concerns - Nosey neighbours, city boy fight clubs & bats

Episode Date: April 7, 2024

The boys are back with another steaming helping of two top lads having a chat and that. In this episode Chris talks libellously about the pensioners in his village and what really went down re; Sycamore Gap. Sunil talks about slugs and his desire for a bunker. And Producer James? He’s already regretting coming aboard tbh. They also do an internet speed test which is sure to become a regular feature.   Got a burning issue you want to share with Chris and Sunil? Got some detailed feedback for Producer James? Email us at [e-mail]! Rural Concerns is produced by Egg Mountain for A Lovely Time Productions. Our artwork is Poppy Hillstead and the music is courtesy of Sam O’Leary.   Chris and Sunil both have web domains you can check out and see what they’re up to… - Sunil Patel: www.sunilpatelcomedy.com  - Chris Cantrill: www.christopher-cantrill.com

Hello and welcome to Rural Concerns. I'm Sunil Patel and when my good friend Chris Cantrell Hello Governor! moved to the middle of nowhere during lockdown, I thought it'd be funny to chronicle his mental unravelling in the form of an ongoing regular podcast. OK, thank you. You're welcome. And in each episode, I'll be praying that the internet doesn't cut out as I shake Sunil down for my fix of cultural trends

and try and process the existential horror of my own self-imposed rural exile. It's a comedy podcast as well. Yeah, we're near flagged at the top. Yeah, yeah. I only met my upstairs neighbour properly yesterday, and I've lived here for nearly two years. What are they like?

Yeah, they're nice. I got home about 4am and they were outside smoking and then they gave me a cigarillo. We exchanged numbers, but I was so drunk, I don't know what his name is. I've written it in,

in like garbled nonsense. So let's see what happens. Should we bring it live on air? You can probably hear me through the ceiling but yeah i would never have um basically our whole street has a whatsapp group but without our building on it uh because they all know each other uh and they talk about us in that group like if ever like myself and my housemate are um doing anything on you know on tv or doing any stand-up they they message each other about it so they know about what our lives and our careers without us finding out which is sort of like village life

isn't it yeah well being a minor celebrity yeah yeah i guess having having people know about you without ever talking to you yeah yeah well don't i mean you must be doing very well if uh if the the community whatsapp group's picking you out. Or maybe they're trading notes when you're like, oh, he's on tour this week. Let's rob him. Let's rob him. Let's rob him blind. But we're far from the most well-known people on our street.

There's way more famous people on our street. What? Is that just London? Do you live in a gated community? No, just people everywhere. You can walk down the street and be like that. That cunt's on telly somewhere. I'll tell you, when I was living in London,

I once heard a tale on a train, and it was a man and a woman catching up, and then he was like, yeah, I'm out of London. And she was like, oh, why? And he went, well, you know, I've just got little ones and worried about them growing up in somebody, what do you call it, peer group control and stuff like that in London.

He was a bit worried about it, so they moved. But he was like saying, yeah, my car got keyed a few times or something like that. And then he said, but the real thing that sort of tipped us over the edge was one night the house at the end of the street um a SWAT team raided it like one in morning and it turns out that some gangland types were running it as you know like chaining up i don't know like um sort of trafficked people or something like that. And weird and city boys were like paying money to,

you know, like go and batter them and stuff. And he was like, he was like, he was like, yeah, that's when we decided to move. Fucking hell.

That's London, isn't it? Well, look, there's bad people everywhere. I think that some of the stuff they do in the countryside is, uh, obscene from what I gather. Yes, what are Chris's rural concerns?

I suppose we should move on to that segment. My rural concerns this week, and I think for this James, producer James, I would like some sort of quite in-depth sound design running on to it. No, no, he's shaking his head. It's not that sort of vibe. But I was thinking like

if we had me going like, oh, that's a big bat. And like, oh, isn't that a big bat? That far, that's... And then what? I don't know. I'm just going to tell you what's going on. You get bats up there?

I went to the countryside the other day. Loads of fucking bats. Yeah. They're in the house. They're in the walls. Why don't you get them down here then i think you do it's just that they and i'm getting they probably stay away from cities because they sound they see via sound don't they but up here about eight o'clock twilight you look up and you can see hundreds and hundreds of bats just above your head, like zipping through, picking up flies and stuff. And if I like that, but I could see how in a certain light

it might be nightmarish if that's not your thing. But at 10 o'clock at night, the walls start like erupt, like scratching, scratch, scratch, scratch you know they're waking up because I live in an old farmhouse with lots of basically gaps in it and stuff so Oh they live in the walls? Yeah I think so some of them do Are they vermin?

Or are they just like that's cool? I think they're like rare species I don't think I think if we wanted to move them out we legally couldn't do I think we have to

bow down to them Yeah you might want to think twice about to bow down to them so you might want to think twice about mentioning that on recorded medium that you've got bats in your walls it's quite expensive we don't have bats in our walls that's nice to hear that's good to hear james just tighten up that's not your rural concern so let me tell you about rural concerns this is a segment where i'm just going to tell you the stuff that's going on in my local community, the stuff that's upsetting everyone.

I'm just going to give, like, I live very close to Sycamore Gap. Or as we know it up here now, Gap. Oh no, I shouldn't, I shouldn't.

Don't have me laughing at that. So going on up here, do you know what Sycamore Gap is, Sonal? No, no idea. Up here, there's this ancient oak tree. Kevin Costa was, what is it? No, it's not an oak tree. There's a tree.

It's really old. I would guess it's a sycamore tree. It's a sycamore. Yeah. Okay. Okay. It's a sycamore tree. Yeah. Okay, okay. It's a sycamore tree. Yeah.

There's an ancient sycamore tree that had been there for, I think, 300 years. It's a very famous image. It's like built into all postcards and the marketing for the area. And Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves was filmed in 1993 or whatever was filmed there. And Kevin Costner was there. But then, and people walk from, and they walk along Hadrian's well, and they stop there.

It's a big tourist attraction. Anyway, someone just took it down overnight with a chainsaw. What is it? Active? Yeah. Vandalism. Vandalism.

No one knows. How big is the tree? Well, not very big now. No, but how big was the tree? Um,'t know size of a house yeah like two like two stories hang on how old was the tree 300 years fucking hell so it's an ancient i think it's an ancient tree it's cost us so it's seen a lot um that's the kind of thing like if you cut

it down then you get a curse on you forever or something yeah but what was really interesting was when that happened it's really sad but watch and on the media like in the news trees being cut down but in the local whatsapp groups things were moving at pace do you know like uh it this guy, he's done it because of this, this, and this. And then it never, it never, but basically had a bit of a head start on like,

this guy's been arrested. But the WhatsApp group, I was like, oh, he's been arrested because of this. Do you know, I was getting more intel. It was exciting,

but obviously overall tragedy. And it just gave me the sensation that it is quite risky around here. If like misinformation gets around quickly do you know what i mean there's no police around to protect you from vigilante justice is there from from from the from the the will of the the will of the rural land yeah so that's it so that's one but that's fine that's all that's happened now so what happened who got caught did anyone get? The rest of two people. I probably won't go into exactly who,

but both were, I don't think they had any evidence, so both were let go. So now it's unsolved and they're looking at what happens next with the area and stuff, whether it's replanting another sycamore tree or whether it's making some sort of installation.

And apparently someone was going, yeah, let's get some sort of installation um and apparently someone was going yeah let's get another tree in there but apparently there was someone was saying we could get the lads that done the angel of the north sculpture to do things like shut up with your tree i want an angel of the north there that'd be that'd be cool could you get yourself onto the planning committee for that i could try and wrangle it i could try and wrangle it. I could try and wrangle it. So rural concern one, sycamore gap, that's an ongoing issue. Okay. Rural concern two, I'll just tell you,

there's been a schism with the Domino's Club within the local community. Sort of an ongoing developing issue, but basically someone tried to put the cost of the the dominoes up but from £2.50 to £4 but included a male that's a big job that is a big job yeah yeah it's £4 so you're like that's no but really it's like a hundred percent but it's going up that much yeah it's like it's huge increase so there's been a big fallout there's different factions how many people in this dominoes club i don't know like um know. Like, I'm not getting involved in it, but it's like, it's the pensioner community again.

It's a Twilight Years crew. Yeah. So it's fine. I'm just trying to, but basically the Village Magazine becomes a source, you know, where people settle scores. So you have to like keep an eye on who's putting what in and how it's tempered and stuff.

I'm assuming there is a online forum for the local area, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got a Facebook group. Oh, right. Okay, yeah. But the magazine, the printed magazine, there's some people that don't. It's basically a lifeline.

It collects information. We print it. And there's some pensioners within the community that are as online as the rest of us. So it's a good thing to do. Right. What's the circulation numbers of this magazine that you spent so much time working on?

It's like 350, but I think we're overprinting. I think we're closer to like 305 or something like that. So it's a small village, a small community. 305 distributed copies that you think are red or just put on like kitchen tables or something maybe the latter out of how many people that live there i don't know it's a small village there's a bigger village nearby i think innately it's just not it's not that huge no but that's pretty good penetration for the market it's like a working class village do you know it's like yeah everyone's like sheep farmers and there's a line marking

company in the village i've been there and there's not many like range rovers about there's a couple but it's that's what i like about it because i do like to identify as working class do you know what i mean i see it's just my type of working class is writing the words on post-it notes and being like yeah we're hard down the graft mine today coming up with ideas for online sketches most of your work as a working class man is redefining what working class means and the graft is hard you know i mean i'm so tired so rural concerns other one final one is uh there's a decaying badger on the walk that I do around the village in the morning.

Yeah. Just in terms of the update, it started off in the middle of the road. I didn't touch it, but someone did because it moved to the side of the road and now it's just sort of decaying. So, I'll come back to that. No one comes around to collect dead animals then? They just leave them to rot? Who would that be, Sonil? The police? I don't know, just like the council. No one comes around to collect dead animals then. They just leave them to rot. Who would that be, Sonny?

The police? I don't know. Just like the council? No, not around here. There's so many dead animals. If you drive down the road, this is when I moved here, I was like, oh, it's only a matter of time until I hit an animal. And I did.

Oh, what did you hit? I've hit two things. The first, well, the most significant was i hit a baby deer yeah it's bleak i caught it with i caught its back end oh and but i couldn't stop because i was on a um i was on a jerking off so hard um it was bleak it was i i couldn't i i mean if i'm totally honest with you i still think about that once a day at least well what you got to do now is kill loads more so you forget about the first one well the other week i killed a hare oh another sweet animal and i was driving to a show

one of the best shows i've ever had in my life so now i'm thinking is there some sort of what's that what does that say to you some sort of sacrifice mechanic in play I don't know to the god of stand up but the but the last one the hay

didn't I didn't think about that at all oh god totally totally numb to it but there's so many like pheasants yeah

I saw a barn owl a dead barn owl that was that was mad why eh why was that mad just because it's like you don't expect

to see a barn owl let alone a dead one and they come out at night and you can see traffic coming at night can't you yeah stupid owl are you name any animals down south well we catch a lot of mice in this house my flatmate gets quite attached to them gives them names catches them starts crying and then we've got to walk half a mile to a big park to release it and then three days later there's loads of fucking mouse shit on the counter again they're not going away i think so those are the only animals we get really and slugs yeah yeah we get slugs as well try it do you like wake up at the trails of all over the house and stuff no we haven't got them inside the house thankfully just in the garden but um no no animals we're like i wouldn't mind you don't have any pets either do you should get some pets that's house, thankfully, just in the garden. But no, no animals. I wouldn't mind.

You don't have any pets either, do you? You should get some pets. That's the whole point of living in the country. We don't have a lifestyle for a pet. Cats are very independent. Dogs can just do what they want half the time. It's hard enough getting in-laws to look after my son. I can't.

You don't need in-laws to look after a cat. Do you think the cat will look after my son? Get a couple of feral dogs and some like scrawny cats. What you should do, which is my dream about living in the countryside, is just like having enough land

to buy old cars off eBay and just pile them up on top of each other in the garden. To what end? Huh? To what end? Show of strength.

It's just like, this is my land. I've carved out my piece of the world and fuck all of you. Yeah, I like that. I want a bunker. I piece of the world. And fuck all of you. Yeah, I like that. I want a bunker. I'd love a bunker. And I want a house with secret passages.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A nice bunker would be good. Put a nice TV sofa down there and some cans of tuna. And some tinnies. And some fucking tinnies. You know what I'm saying? Loads of hip flasks of Commissioner whiskey. Yeah.

How often do you have to go shopping? Once a month or something? Do you get a cardo out there? We do, but we don't. I basically have attention focus challenges and I keep forgetting stuff. So we're routinely having to pop out to the little co-op.

What are the opening hours? It's like eight o'clock or something until 10 o'clock. That's better than my local shop. But it is like a 15 minute drive. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. what they've got in sweden in rural communities is like they just airdrop not airdrop you know like like they get a helicopter and they drop a little like porter cabin and inside that porter cabin is a tiny little shop you can just walk inside and it's all like self-serve you should

get you should get one of them and every day they just like pick it up and fly it off i don't know i saw it on youtube did you get that there oh we don't really get the internet really like i'm surprised we've lasted this long but if we're moving and we're moving a little bit into the big city of the middle of the heart of the village is the plan yeah but my pc's absolutely jiggered because like surging power has ruined my network card. But we have like... Oh, right. You know what? I'm going to do an internet speed test now and we can put the results in.

Whoa. What website is that? Internet speed test. Should I just Google internet speed test? Just Google internet speed test and Google brings it up. Oh, it's not that bad. I've got 67 download. Okay.

And upload. Very important. It's coming up. Oh, it's not that bad. I've got 67 download. Okay. And upload. Very important. It's coming up. 10. 10. Mine's much worse. Is it? 34 download.

And I think it's going to settle on about 2.63 upload. Yeah, that is bad. 140, 134. Whoa. Is that your upload speed? 134 upload. We just got fibre on our street. That's it, we don't have fibre.

I was thinking of starting a Twitch stream, but I need a rainbow computer. You don't need it. I mean, I haven't figured it out yet, but there has to be money in it. So far I'm down £1,500. But that's

the jigsaw piece. And I'm sure once I put a couple more corners in, there's, yeah, big money's going to come rolling in. What's Sunil's cultural highlights? Sunil Patel's cultural highlights of the month. Yeah, so what's going on in the big city? Because the stuff that's going on in London, when I'm down there, I'm like, you know,

I'll see a poster for something. I'm like, what's that? And then, like, literally 12 years later, it's i'm like you know i'll see a poster for something i'm like what's that and then like literally 12 years later it's touring do you know what i mean like stuff so oh do you mean live events which i don't like i mean like what's going on what are the trends are people wearing like stuff with a hat so is everyone wearing a mask uh some people are wearing masks on buses and they're like yeah but apart from that uh not really much going on in terms of like fashion that you wouldn't already be aware of with the current shacket uh craze that's taken over the middle-aged men of this country apart from that what i've been doing is visiting lots of little restaurants this month and we're going to lots of little

restaurants in my local area because there's about a thousand here i also went to a michelin stard restaurant this month okay what was it called I don't think it's Michelin-starred, actually. But it's a good one. It's a St. John's restaurant. And I had a spotted dick. And apart from that, I've been trying to work my way through all the greasy spoons in my area. And I've done about four so far. And every single time I've walked out of them, I felt absolutely awful.

But I keep going back. Absolutely awful. The one I went to yesterday was the menu. You'll get these absurd menus down here and it's like, it does obviously English, full English.

It also does lasagnas, curries, stews, kebabs, and American pancakes. And they just try, they basically just try and do everything and it's fine, it's fine.

Everything's fine. It's like whatever someone comes in and asks for. They'll do it. And it's like, well, someone's asked for it now. So it. Put burritos on there. Yeah. But I, I've always long since had a,

I think, yeah, I think I don't like a place. Like, I think you should have a specialism. Like of a, like I don't like a place, like I think you should have a specialism, like I don't like a place that does pizzas and kebabs and fish and chips and stuff like that. It's like, and I think I want my fish and chips done by a white lady called Linda. Lazy. And fish shops, because they only open at like odd times don't they you know like

they only open like tuesday tuesday friday lunchtime from 11 o'clock until 1 35 or something like that and that's like lazy times uh but apart from that because i don't do any of the cultural stuff in london that would interest people i actually don't like crowds i don't like live events um don't like buses uh don't like uh people on pavement that's why i moved i lived in london and there's all this cultural stuff but i really looked at what i love doing and if i'm really honest with myself back then it was smashing tinnies and buying second-hand computer games from cex and cex has branches all over the uk it also sends you stuff by post you don't actually need to go i don't need to go anywhere so we're like we can move and i can still go to the theater once every

two years that's that's fine actually to be fair i've been going to the theater a lot here and i regret not having gone before because i'm like this is is good. It's a shame it's like 50 quid a ticket, but you know, I am now getting to the point where I'm like, I'm going to try and make the most of this. Yeah. What's the last play each of you saw?

Last play I saw was The Effect at the National Theatre. Heard of it? No. What's it about? No, have you heard of the National Theatre? Yeah, is that where they did Harry Potter?

Is that where they did Harry Potter? Is that where? No, I saw it. It's about a medical trial, but it's very, very good. I didn't realise, I always thought plays were like, oh, they'll just stick a load of lads on the stage and I'll just watch that.

This one was like in the round. The stage was incredible. It's a lot of money spent on the staging of it. It looks amazing. Uh, and, um, I wasn't bored.

I liked it. I think he's gone now, is he? He has froze. We've got a new section called Chris, the racist Gorman though. I'll make, I'll make a bed for that.

Yeah. Great. I think, um, it's rule Britannia. I'll make a bed for that yeah great I think it's rule Britannia Chris the racist Gormont and what animals has he killed this week and what does he want to kill hopefully

he should log out and come back in again yeah I have a lot of things I change when we do another recording for myself. My computer fully crashed at the point, like I don't think it has ever crashed before.

That's crazy. That badly. What, fully just reset? Yeah, just turned off. Like as I was feeling really smug about Chris's computer. How has Chris's crashed? That's insane. He thinks his internet is gone.

Oh, is it? Shall I ask him to hotspot just for audio? Well, I'll say that. Yeah. Make me sound official. Sorry, I just did it. Oh, you've made it. Yeah, get him to turn his camera off.

My internet's gone. Oh, fucking hell. Is that just the camera off? That's good. Yeah, that's a bit better. Could we do it via... Ask me what player I've seen. I thought you were going to talk about the play you directed.

Oh, I did a play. I directed a play in the village. It was Arts Council funded. Well, it's about... Because I live in a Roman history place. It was called... It was about the Feast of Saturnalia. Sorry, James, is that...

Is that going to record clean? Yeah, it'll record on its so the glitches won't come through. Just tell us the name of that play. And my father-in-law was the main character and on day one he sort of said, I think the script's

just sort of a starting off point, a guideline and I was like, but could you do it as written? Could we try it as written could we do could we try it as written once sounds like there's lots of shagging in there um and yeah i did that but that was that was it was called oh what was it called it was the feast it was the feast of saturnalia oh yeah and i've shifted i've had to shift to my phone now because my internet crashed

because that's the countryside which is good for uploading content I reckon we're done let's I will stop recording now

yeah that makes sense I'm fine I'll do it my own just make talk to yourself what do you like are we done all right that's it. Thank you for listening.

Woo! Yeah, thank you. It means a lot. And if you want to ask us a question about the countryside or reprimand us for something terrible that we've said, then you can get in contact with us via email at christopheratalovelytime.co.uk. It can be to both of us.

I will maybe show it to Sunil, but for every person who emails us, I'm going to send you a picture of both of our feet. How does that sound? It'll be a JPEG. Right. He doesn't have any pictures of my feet and I'm not sending him any pictures of my feet, but thank you for listening.

It means a lot that you've given us your time. If you want to go the extra mile, give us a review on Apple Podcasts, five five stars obviously or um recommend us to a friend or something like that that's it um little concerns was produced by producer james for a lovely time my internet's gone oh fucking hell