Rural Concerns - Potatoes, crashes & the shadow world

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

The lads must rally to save the recording when Jeff Bezos drops the ball. Luckily the failures of Big Tech doesn’t stop Sunil from eating a single potato on its own with nothing else, nor does it impede Chris reminding everyone about his big house. Here’s that video of a dorky teen playing footie. And here’s a link to Daddy Superior, Benjamin Partridge’s short film featuring a very engaging young man. We’re performing a Rural Concerns live show in Manchester on 22nd November 2025! It’s going to be a heady mix of slander, skits and choice-based adventure gaming! 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 edited by Joseph Burrows and produced by Egg Mountain for A Lovely Time Productions.

Hello and welcome to Rural Concerns, a podcast about weird countryside business. I am Sunil Patel. I'm a comedian, actor and a prominent investor in the emerging AI girlfriend sector. The newest models are almost indistinguishable from the flesh-based alternative, especially once you've invested in the suction pump add-on. I understand that people are anxious about AI funneling their secrets to their Silicon Valley-based overlords, but I love the idea of a room full of dwebes coming in their pants instantly whilst listening to my darkest fantasies. It's my job on the podcast to provide a rational counterpoint to Chris's countryside ranting. My name is Chris Cantrell, and I'm a comedian who lives in rural Northumberland. I love nothing

more than exploring the natural world, and I'm currently in the process of organising. in a three-day wilderness retreat. I intend to sleep under the stars and forage for my meals. During this time, I will be completely unavailable to provide parental support. When my wife protested,

I very calmly informed her that this retreat is essential for my mental health. I tell her that if she doesn't let me go, I'm going to smash every plate in the house and spray paint Prince Andrew on my own front door. And Mel be on her.

I can't believe she's fucking being like this. Does she want me to be sad? I wonder if I'm going to find any cool mushrooms. My name is James and I'm the producer of this show. It's my job to monitor the audio levels and make sure that we aren't affected in any way by the AWS server outage. I've not got an upload thing.

This is the AWS special. I've got an upload thing. I've now got an upload thing. It only starts out for a few seconds. Thank you, Jeff Bezos. Thank you for working around the clock. Thank you, AWS. Do you think he's just going to roll down his sleeves now and be like,

that's it? He's going to put his top back on because he's jacked. He is, isn't he? I think he got jacked from human growth hormone. I mean, there's a lot of things that we can say about people that is probably wrong. It's not press-ups, is it? Men over 40 that are getting that much muscle mass. You're working against a biological clock.

it is it's basically it's drugs that we don't know what they are yet you know like they're not available in boots I think it's we I think he's just it's just hard work it's chicken breast

it's rice cakes chicken and brock chicken brock and rice yep yep yep I had potato tonight sorry Chris you were going to say about Jeff Bezzles

just no no no just a single potato hot was it hot cool anything on it is lukewarm eating it in the dark crunching through a potato What sort of, what format, baked, jacket, jacked. It's sophorific, isn't it?

It makes you very full, very quickly, potato. And I had one potato and then I was full. What a story. I'm just concerned that there's not a vegetable being mentioned, and his daughter. Answer me, what is potato to you? What is potato? Potato is an incredibly, it's a nutrient-dent source of food.

It's that stuff that you're spraying between the cavity in your house, just to fill it out. That's cavity filler. That's what that is. That's expanding foam. It's cavity filler. Listen to me both of you. The Ohio Potato Commissioner at Just Potato for a month,

and he was healthier than he'd ever been. Yeah? What would he just been eating beforehand? Yeah. Just been eating mud. But just to prove that it's got so many, not calories, vitamins and stuff in it already. Who's been slagging off potatoes?

Why is that? You? Just now. You're saying it's cavity war. I want to say, I don't want to come out, I don't want to come out anti-potto. old potatoes Well, you're

sounds like you're pushing your anti-potto message whereas Sunil is big potato potatoes are good it's just

you shouldn't fry them in oil well you can go off someone so now please eat a vegetable I had

I have one vegetable New London paper deliver every night I'm not I'm not doing deliver anymore hate it

it's just really sad seeing the lads on their horrible little e-bikes Have you heard I've been read

I'm not going to go on about it roads but I've been reading Cory Dock and justification, and he was talking about the term algorithmic wage discrimination,

which is these lads getting, you know, like, like the wage is being fiddled with in real time. Microsecond, Mike, and it, when you describe it like that, it sounds like hell. It sounds like we are living in hell. Do you? I'm often struck with, I live in, I live in a big house. I don't want to, it's bigger than both of your houses. It's a big house. It's just for the listener

For the audio lister I want you to imagine a house That's got Sutherland James in it Then a bigger house that's got me in it Sonnell's house is the smallest house James's house Is a second house It's not a house

But James's house has got nicer James's house has got windows That aren't fucked and stuff Sunil's got baby bears house You've got Daddy Bear's house And my house is just right Your house is in a very desirable area Listen

Your house is in the least desirable area, Chris. My house is in a very lovely. I live in a rural community, son or in a very big house. But listen, why was I talking about having a really big house? In shittification. Are you haunted by the fact that there's like another shadow world that sits just under our world? You know, like black site cookery places and Uber drivers and stuff? And I'm like, they're living in a different world.

You're talking about poor people? To what I am, and it's hell. It's the future. It's different, but it's also like a lot of them are earning, like, all right money and then having a nice life. I'm not sure about that. I've spoken to some of them. Right. Okay.

Yeah. Man of the people. I think we should probably just point out, I think it's my duty to the listener to point out here. We're all, we're recording this on the day when all them servers went down. We've had a bit of trouble getting into our recording software. And I think we're kind of just saying any old thing. This is a cursed recording. We're not bringing our A-game now.

This is A-game. I think it's A-game. I've had a potato. That is true. James, Senil's had a potato. I live in a very big house. This is kind of as good as this gets. You're saying in shittification for the 50th time this year.

Hey, listen, I'm that sort of thick person who's read one book and it's my entire life. Do you know what I mean? Yes. For me, that was Freakonomics, and I've never moved on. You're Freakonomics? I told him to read Jaron Lanier as well. He hadn't never heard of him. But you're just talking like, blah, blah, ble, blue, blue.

I said, here's an justification in you where, why don't you read blah, blah, blah. These are just... That's not... Why don't you just listen to? I bought a very expensive audio book and I'm determined to get value out of it. I was 20 quaid you spent on an audio book. 25 pounds on an audiobook. Oof.

That's more than an audible subscription, isn't it? Yeah, but then if I go via an audible, it's locked into Amazon. And at any point, Amazon can decide that I don't own my property. Or it could just go down. Or it could just go down. Sunil, the AWS server crash? Can you give us the top line? I'd say this is the first time Bezos has let us down.

But he's fixed the problem. And he's taking his top off, fix the servers, put his top back on, and I think we're all right. Put his cowboy hat back on. Hopefully he'll get those rockets going to Mars or whatever. those fuckers are doing. I don't know. Where's he going with his? Jeff Bezos. Yeah, you've let us down here, lad. Obviously, I'm the only one on the call. As far as

I'm aware, has a personal connection with Jeff Bezos. Oh, that's that. No, no, no, that's just, that's the serviceman's entrance. Oh. Do you know what have you got? I've had an email exchange with him. I thought he had a dodgy fire stick. Have you not got a dodgy fire stick?

I think I told you about this before, but I was watching the boys. Yeah. I was watching the boys, TV, made for lads, which is fine. It was a TV that used to be made for ads like it's in the 1990s and it's fine. So I was watching that and there was an issue with the subtitles where

the subs of the people speaking in a different language. Yeah. Were not working. We're not present. You know, so I was missing out on vast waves of the conversation where two characters that are Asian were talking to each other and it wasn't translating on the

subs. So obviously you can email Jeff Bezos directly, he's Jeff at Amazon.com.com.com.com.com.com. No, no, dot, dot, go.com.com. Yeah. But Jeff at Amazon, and apparently he don't, you like, you won't have a chat with Jeff Bezos, but what he does is forward it to the most senior person. So, like, my fire stick thing will have gone to the head, the European head of

entertainment, something like that, you know. And he's like sort it out. So within 24 hours, this lad. was on phone panicking and he was like, hey, we're looking into this. Do you want a fire stick? And I was like, yeah. They phoned you from,

like, not Jeff Bezos, but someone from Dublin. Because Bezos got on them. Bladio, you little snitch. No. And you should go through the official channels. Yeah. Is that true?

Straight to the top. Why would you email Jeff Bezos? I don't tell lies. I take an emotional truth and then, you know, like change the dressing. Do you know what I mean? But it's called it's a truth.

But this is an actual. true story. Really? The boy who cried Bezos. Yeah. I spoke to Jeff Bezos. And what? You got off a fire stick.

He invited me to go up to the moon, but I said, no, thank you. I do not care for the work of Katie Perry. I'm going to stay down here. Did his car have tell he's in the back of the seats? When I spent a day with Jeff Bezos, he gets around everywhere by drone. I told it's dark. Is it like one big drone, or is it like two? that he stands on.

Oh, I thought he was being, like, like, hung like a claw. Like a rescued cow. I do like two, two drones to stand on and ride him like surfboards. No, that's so scary. I'd rather be, I'd rather be hung like a cow. Like a slab of meat being dropped down into a minter. It's more comfortable. I've realized I'm thinking of the cow at the beginning of Jurassic Park.

What, they get dropped into the enclosure. They just slowly lower a cow carcass in for the raptors to pull apart. Oh, carcass. But, Chris, what else did you do on your day with Jeff Perzos? We went to... Did you go to Alton Towers, even though it was out of season? Yeah, he paid for that. And I said, let me treat you now, Jeff.

Afterwards, we went on the nemesis. And then I said, let me treat you. He said, what do you mean? I said, come with me. Open door, Frankie and Benis. You didn't. My pictures of New York. wise guys eating spaghetti meatboats.

I was like, sit down there at the bar. We're going to have the original New York. What was nice is you got on Photoshop and you put yours and his face on all the New York wise guys, aren't you? And stuck them pictures of blue tacked them over the ones in the frames around the Franken Benis. And I said to him, I've got a spare room in Northumberland with your name on it. And your wife's name, I don't know who that is, but she can come too.

And now I've got a place in your house. Do you understand? That's how it works. That's what you did to me, Lars. No, no, but it's your room and it's Jeff Bezos's his room. Oh, is it? I'm sharing a Bezos and his wife. And if you come over and there's both of you want to use their room in Northumber

and then I will put one of you in the B&B over the road. That's the level of the commitment to which I want you to give me a flight in London. There is this countryside bit. Trying to put together a desk. Yeah. Oh, yeah. How's it going? Oh, it's a standing desk?

Is it a motorised one? No, it's not motorised. I taught Nicola how I was spending 400 quid on a motorised one and was like, just get this one with a little mechanical handle. Yeah, it's like a car window from the 80s. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, you're not in that much of a rush to go. I'm sitting to standing.

Like we can, we can, I said you can have that minute and a half while you cranking it up to take a break from screens. I mean, what other, what other workout equipment do you have in the house? Oh, we have weights. Do you? And a yoga mat. Whoa. How heavy are your weights?

Like one kilogram because the lady weights. I think Nicola's weights peak at one kilogram and the rest of it, you know, like they go down from one kilogram to old lady's breath. As a, you know, I made as a weight measurement. Yeah, 17, 17 little dandelion seeds, that's another word. Oh, if you just do them gradually, a little one kilogram one. Yeah. John's seen a swise by it.

No, he doesn't. That's what Bezos did. That's what we said in the Bezos party. I've just had a message for Nicola. I've just upgraded to 5KGs, you prick. How is she hearing this live? I don't know how she's... Am I speaking that loud, Nicole?

I'm not speaking loud at all. I'm going to, I'm in the attic office. She's not called you up on any of that Bezos chat, though, so it must be true. There you go. Yeah. That's legal due diligence. He did have a tango ice blast with him. She says, she says, can you remember me?

She says, yes. She says, there's no door, you break. I like a new sign-off. Oh, yeah, that's what she does all the time. I bought her book today, actually. Did you? Yeah. What's it called?

It's called The Secret Erotic Diaries of Michael Gould. I bought it off. I bought it off Jeff Bezos. Where is it? On the mic. Voice training for voiceover artists, podcasters. Oh. Speakers and presenters.

Did you say about not tapping your mic, Chris? She distanced herself from me professionally. She don't want to do with me professionally with my weird up and down voice and my touching the mic all the time. Yeah, because the quote on the front of the book isn't from you. It's from Sarah Milliken, isn't it? Why would it be for me? I'll stop calling me a prick Chris Cantrell

Chris Cantrell yeah Right what's next on the fucking list I did some DIY What'd you do I did some incredibly hungover DIY for my in-laws What got you pissed up I similarly to you being attacked By the the drinking houses of Soho

Yeah I think perhaps Google is trying to poison me because it allowed me to Google what's the recipe for a porn star martini three times and then a couple of hours later what's the recipe for a B-52 shot. Is this what you found out in retrospect,

like a detective? Looking back at my search history. Yeah. It's the 2020's equivalent of like emptyingie pockets in the morning into taxi cab, Wendy's, hamburger. I went to a friend. a house for, they had a house party for their birthday and I became Tom Cruise in the film

Cocktail, specifically in the film Cocktail. What did he do in that film? I would just make cocktails then threw up in the next morning. You used to run that gig in a cocktail bar, do you remember? Yes, the cocktails weren't part of the gig, though. That was nothing to do with me. No, no, there's nothing. We were just allowed to use the basement, wouldn't me?

Yes. Horrible gig, that. Yeah, terrible time. shout out Simmons, Caledonian Road. Yeah. Or not shout out, I don't know. Do we shout out? Gone but not forgotten.

Is it gone? Probably. Subway sandwich now, hopefully. I can't imagine a load of smelly open, Mike, comedians being in a cocktail, put what are in a cocktail place for, taking a... Can I have a bottle, please? Yeah, no one bought a cocktail. No one bought a trip. Even though it's a happy hour.

Sometimes bought a bottle of lager. I'm furious they didn't do draft. I think this is it, isn't it? Sometimes venues and stuff they're like, oh, it's quiet on a Monday, Tuesday. if we can put a comedy night and we can bring all these people and you're like, yeah, but they're not going to drink at all goal.

They're going to have little notebooks with little half-baked ideas in and stuff like that and they're going to have tap water. Sorry. Yeah. You might as well shut. How many people?

We used to get a couple of audiences, didn't we? A couple. Every now and then, yeah, weirdly audience would turn up but mostly it was not an audience-based event. Well, that must be what. Did you learn about cocktails there? No, no, no, no.

I don't know what I learned from that. How many years did you do it? Time is precious. It has a value. Even though we don't apply it one very often. I think this is really good news. How many we're showing off at the party? A little bit, yeah, sure.

I wasn't flipping it in the air. Yeah. But I was giving it a bit of giving it some welly and kind of doing a bit of a high paw. When me and Nicola first started going out, we went to our friend's house. well to my friend's house and he was having a house party

and the friend got you know like a ham on like a Spanish ham on a little leg with knives where you cut it Oh no like a little like a wooden frame type thing Yeah with a wooden frame that you So he got that for the party

so you like cut that and basically there was a guy who was the guy that cut all the cut the ham on do you know what I mean and he had one of his his wrists was full of festival bands and, you know, like, things. And he was making a thing about how you cut it properly.

And me and Nicola were shitted and were cutting it very badly to wind him up. You know, like, just hacking it down the middle. And he's like, at one point he, uh, but basically, like, he was so, I'm the meat guy that he had like underlings that were like, look how she's cutting it. And I was like, I love this, I love this broad. Even as she spies on me in my own home. She's got a big day tomorrow. Bezos coming around.

She just got mugged as well, she said. Oh, no. What? She just got mugged. Test of the love, she knew my number. Do you know what I mean? So it was a big phone snatched out of her hand. So she phoned me and then we reunited otherwise.

I want to say in her. To this day, I do not know her mobile telephone number. Wait on. When did she get on? When was she in the city? I can't remember which bits of it. it we're in I'll say London.

Oh, this is long time ago. This is a very long time ago. I thought this was breaking news. Bone snatching is quite a new thing, I thought. No, no, sorry. This is when we're out at this night with the meat night, with the meat hacking, but we,

this is like over a decade ago now, you know? Yeah. The phone would be worthless now. Yeah, it'd be terrible. Scrap for parts now. Not even. Just try and strip the copper out of it. She's saying she knew my number,

because when we started going out, she was living rurally so they had no signal so she was manually ringing me from the house phone. So that's why she... Landline? You had a landline-based relationship? A landline-based relationship. When was the last time you used to telephone box? There's one in our village now

and I'll keep looking at it and someone smashed the receiver in recently but he got replaced. Get a camera up. You want to see who's doing that? There was one that you could see from my mate's house. You could see it from his window. and we one day wrote down the telephone number in it and then when people were walking by we'd ring it and play pranks.

We were basically jackass. Basically pre jackass. Before jackass were really jackards. We'd say like nice blue coat. Let's just quickly rollplay one of these calls. I'm walking past. Bing, bring, bring, bring. Hello?

Hi, yeah. Hi. I like your brown cardigan. Oh my God. How do you know? I've got a brown card. What's brown and sticky? A stick, click.

Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah, I'd be freaked down. It's my favourite joke. This is pre-salted caramel as well, isn't it? Oh, big time, yeah. Kit Kat Junkies are barely on the scene. I spent a day filming myself and my friends falling downstairs trying to make 250 quid off you've been framed.

Nice. Yeah, but it's really hard to do to make it seem natural. Yeah. Falling down the stairs. I think we made, no, no, we didn't even bother the sending it in. I don't know where it is. It's just we got hold. If you get hold of a camcorder, they were quite rare. We just got hold of a camcorder for a day. And after you've done the usual, like, oh yeah, it's quite fun, just zooming it around, zooming into stuff. It's like,

now, well, let's fucking make some videos of everyone getting hurt. Yeah. I gave my mate a DV camcorder and it had a, basically, he's like a kid who makes short films and stuff. And I give it to him and I had me doing some sort of skit from when I was like a teenager on and he's basically now making a shot he's making a feature film that I'm going to have a very tiny rolling but he's going to splice between me as a 15 year old

and he sent me a picture saying like it's going to be mad when we cut from this to this and sent me a picture of myself from now do you know what I mean? And he was like, that's going to be mental and I was like, do you know that I've just done an Edinburgh fringe show about I had a breakdown because I was getting older?

Have a look at this YouTube link I've sent you in the Riverside chat because I just realized this video still exists. It's from 1996 and it's me playing footy. 14 years ago, I got uploaded. You forget that I do forget that you were a dog. What, what you mean I was a dog? I just wore glasses. That doesn't make me a dog, does it?

Oh, but you're very cool now, whereas back then you're not cool, but it's weird, isn't it? I just realized that video existed. Can I send that to Amy Glidell? Oh, well, I'm going to do a shout out. Benjamin Partridge has just released the short film that we all made. Me, it's Ben's film, but it's got me in it. Mike Wozniak, Sammy Dobson, about two monks. And that's, he's put it on YouTube for free so you can watch it.

Oh, nice. It's good people, everyone who's watched it, it's been really nice about it. So that's good. I know he's been tatting it around the short film sort of competitions and stuff for a year. I'll put, yeah, I'll put a link in the show notes. I'm just texting Amy saying, do not watch. the link, Chris just said. No, you don't have to say that.

Yeah, we're obviously bad ideas have a video playing on an audio podcast, but I reckon we can put it in the description. So now. Amsterdam. Amsterdam. I found some lovely restaurants we can go to. We're going to have a lovely walk around the park.

Did you see the comment that I sent you? Do you remember you were saying there's a type of food that's really here? But then someone sent me a thing saying it's actually this food as well, more so. Yeah, it's not Indonesian, as I said. It's more so Surinamese. food, it said. Right, yeah. So that sounds good. Have you got a couple of them restaurants to go to? Yeah, I've starred a couple on the map. That's definitely something we can do for, is it your birthday? Amy's. Kind of. Oh, it's A-Bs. Well, we'll do it

anyway, don't we? We'll do not. There's that. We'll have a couple of waffles. And Frank Museum. Well, I think you have to book in advance for that. It might be sold out, so you might want to book it now if you want to go. I can't be asked. I can't be asked either. I've been. We should definitely get apple, pie, and cream. Yes. And I do want to go to the zoo, but it feels like a waste of half a day in a different city. Someone told me there's a place. It starts with a Jay and I can't remember its name, but it's a suburb that's very cool

away from the main tourist track. Oh, I see. Yeah, well, there's Nord, which I've never been to, which is the northern bit of it, which is supposedly very cool. Do you think we'll survive there if it's cool and we're not, perhaps?

I think we are cool. Also, we're going as like, not old people, but like not kids. Do you know what I mean? I think we'll be ushered into play. is not normal. I think we'll be sat down and someone's going to put

a blanket over as legs. I'm a bit scared that you're going to be wandering around openly smoking a spliff because you're so excited by it. That's why I'm... It's not like in a spliff.

Phone speaker, booming out. Do you know what I mean? Eminem. I'm the real slim shading. You play in shittification by Cory Doctra. I get your 20 quids worth

and I know that you'll be spending hours and hours without us somewhere and you won't tell us where you've been. No, I'm not there for that long so we'll be together and I've said to it but thing is I wouldn't be for loads of marijuana stuff no no no no I'll just I'll like I'll rub my eye until it bleeds or just I'll ask you like

do you like me a million times you know what I mean but do you like me can imagine we've got we've got have a good night on the Saturday because I'm not there on the Sunday yeah and Saturday is when I get there so Saturday is the night but let's just go mad on expensive European Continental Lager. Or cocktails. That hotel we're in has a cocktail bar. Oh, that could have a little cocktail. Could have a couple of B-52s, WKDs as well.

Get one of those big bowl things they do at Wetherspoons. Yeah. Pretty sir, pointers in the direction of your nearest, giant jug of woo-woo. Couldn't believe the fucking price of Wetherspoon's breakfast I had the other day. It's absolutely extraordinary. Full English breakfast, £3.70 something. Yeah, it's mad, isn't it? It's a loss leader, surely, to get me in, to get on the lagers early.

Exactly. So, you know, all day, isn't it? Also, just the scale of the company. I mean, it's no surprise, is it, that it's like Weatherspoons and Greggs have just, no, Gregs is now very, like, it used to be very northern, but now I think it's, like, there's definitely a lot more Greggs down south, Greg's in London, and you're like, what's this mystery thing? And you're like, it's just one of the few places where you can go out and it

don't cost you 50 quid for... Yeah, there's also they know exactly what the British like and that is as much sort of carbohydrate and mass for as few pence as possible. Thank you for listening to verbal concerns. We're not long now until we're going to Manchester on the 22nd November at Fairfield Social Club. There are tickets in the show notes. It's going to be a great fun time.

And if you'd like to support Rural Concerns, you can wang us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Alternatively, you can head over to patreon.com forward slash rural concerns, where for less than a pint, you'll get access to weekly bonus content. And there's a sneak peek of that after the credits. Our artwork is by Poppy Hillstead. Our music is by Sam O'Leary. and our legal due diligence is by Calderick Entertainment Lawyer. Rural Concerns is produced by Egg Mountain for a lovely time productions. It's a crazy day, crazy recording.

Hopefully we could salvage something out of that. So, no, I've got a question for you. Yes. Were you in attendance at the Bezos Venetian wedding? No, I wasn't. Should have been invited. I'm a subscriber. the prime subscriber

they're like get the guy one guy you know what I get the toxic avenger guy no I wasn't didn't he have two weddings didn't he

I think this is his second wedding and that he's been divorced oh I mean sorry I meant like two ceremonies perhaps for this one yeah like some other people

that we might be on this call yeah a real one and a lie one yeah yeah like the queen and her birthdays RIP

multiple yeah I was going to say about his weddings Really tasteful, low-key No, he's got a massive hedge Have you seen that? He's got a hedge around his house That's about 30 metres tall Wow

And local like housing bylaws Say you can only have a hedge It's like a couple of metres tall But he just pays the fines And that's like 35 grand a year Just to have a massive hedge Oh my God Yeah

That's like when you're like You know what I'm parking at Birmingham City Centre. I'm just whacking it here on these WOs because it's 35 quid and it'll cost me like triple that and an NCP. And right now,

I'm parked in the middle of a roundabout. Got the best view of the city. Bong. Like that.