Rural Concerns - Suits, snails & meatheads

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

The lads regroup following the greatest live podcast show since records began. Spirits are high, but sadly it doesn’t take long before it descends into finger pointing. James wants us to clarify that he doesn’t write the introductions, Sunil unleashes the full force of his networking prowess and Chris is just relieved that it wasn’t his fault. Also, if anyone wants to nab the best part of a 250ml bottle of Horace cleanser from Belfast International Airport then crack on. If you want to experience the full force of Rural Concerns Live, you can grab tickets to our Manchester show at Fairfield Social Club on 22nd November.  You can also see Chris perform his Edinburgh Comedy Award nominated show for the final time on 14th June in Newcastle at The Stand. Grab your tickets now! Do you have a Rural Concern? Drop us an email at [e-mail]. 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, the only podcast in the history of humanity that amplifies the voices of three high-impact male leaders in their respective communities. This podcast is orchestrating a dynamic nexus of multidimensional collaboration where top-tier innovators synthesise breakthrough methodologies for exponential market acceleration. Through strategic cross-pollination and purpose-driven ecosystem alignment, we're architecting a seamless conduit of adaptive frameworks that revolutionise impact delivery across emerging opportunity landscapes. I am Sunil Patel, a London-based visionary thought leader. I am Chris Cantrell, a countryside dweller and agile solutions-based trailblazer.

By listening to this podcast, you will activate unprecedented value creation models via immersive knowledge co-construction, interactive relationship building experiences, and intensive strategic dialogue sessions, delivering a comprehensive re-imagining of operational excellence. This isn't merely a gathering. It's a transformative catalyst for paradigm shifting evolution. Say it. Say it, you coward. James, say it say it you coward james say it i'm producer james and i live in the suburbs if i was to categorize all the animals i've

watched fucking in order of horniness i'd put dog at the top and snail at the bottom okay let's begin the podcast. We've got a lot. Yes. Right. So let's stamp this. Let's put this in, lock this in amber as to when we are recording it. Yes.

So this is post. I mean, you've probably read about it in the newspapers at this point the London show do you know what I mean it was probably a major incident it was like Oasis or something wasn't it

yeah yeah like loads of the fans got kettled and beaten savagely yeah foolishly

we used Hell's Angels as security that didn't pan out alright three three yet to be found actually security was so tight at the venue we weren't actually allowed in to do our own podcast for about an hour yeah it was unbelievable they were like you're here to do a podcast all right we

you're early sit down over there sit on a sofa in front of everyone and then they said are you gonna sit there until it starts we're like yeah, yeah, we've got nothing else. We've got nothing else. I would say to James, it's the same thing that happens. I've had this loads of times. It's like, do you know when you know that something's not right in the interaction? And that thing is that they don't understand that you are doing the podcast. I get this with stand-up gigs all the time. You're like, can I get in?

It's just that doors aren't open yet. It's just that i am doing the show i am in the show and you're like okay well if you could wait with the ticket holders no no no like you have to do it a few times and this definitely felt like that they could believe that we wanted to get in early and then when we actually got in early and there was nobody there it's like there were so many places we could have just been allowed to have a sit down. Yeah.

You know what I mean? It's not like we say in the episode. It was like the festival started the day after. So they were still building the festival. Like there's people. So everywhere's empty apart from our little room that had a couple of podcasts in it. So yeah, we definitely could

have had a sit down in a chair that's all we wanted we wanted a big sit down i think we're sat in a 300 seater venue waiting to go on our green room was larger than our venue yeah that's the tipping point we're supposed to show me Yeah. I do. I've got a couple of points to raise, Chris, though, because you very clearly, as we came up to the door, said, don't worry, I've got this. And then we got ushered to a sofa to sit outside for an hour before the gig. And then you've just admitted that that happens all the time to you. Maybe you just don't give off the air of someone who's on stage.

You give off the air of someone who would turn up two hours early to a gig. You look like a Harry Tech or producer, that's for sure. I think I sit betwixt all three, really. Yeah, you do. Just a good one. No, yeah, I was like, listen, James, let me deal with this situation. You started rubbing your hands together. My voice instantly goes two octaves higher than it should do.

Please. Please, can we be inside? Can we talk about you thinking you'd forgotten your laptop? Oh, yeah. I think we allude to this in... Just for context, we only allude to this in the outro of last episode i think we managed to yeah it's brushed under the carpet for the for the duration of the show but do you want to paint a picture of what how it panned out so now yeah it was i think maybe we got to the point where

we wanted to get into the room to start testing yeah they said you can come in the room now and then we'll set up your tech obviously chris has prepared a huge presentation on a program called q lab which is on his laptop and then he says where's my laptop because he's also got a what i think is a 13 inch ipad i watched him go over to his to his ipad case and flip it open and and see no laptop in it and i saw like he like a flush i saw come out from his t-shirt i almost saw the ringing in his ears at that point i was so i feel this might be i feel for the listeners this might be a repetitive topic that nobody everyone's worried about it was like in the you know have you seen minority report the tom cruise film where he loses his kid at the swimming baths? That was Chris right then.

He was Tom Cruise at the swimming baths. Have either of you lost your kids? Yeah, a little bit. But James is really tall. I'm about as tall as my own son. Do you know what I mean? He's eight years old, Chris. I haven't got an advantageous eyeline of him.

He's Viggo's. He's lost in a sea of people I haven't got a vantage as eye line of him. He's very good. He's lost in a sea of people that are also about five foot tall. James can just stand on a little box and, you know, like he's got the God's eye view of the entire shopping centre. But where you live, isn't everyone like quite short up there, Chris? Yeah, no, like a sort of, you know, like there are horseback people people appear, you know. There is a countryside bit.

But why would them being on horses make them shorter? They're like built to be in a symbiotic relationship with the horses and the ponies. But elves are tall, aren't they? And they're on horses in Lord of the Rings. Yeah, that's true. But have they got little legs so their legs don't get caught on things when they're riding around on horses? The typical Northumbrian person is, yeah, stout, sharp of eye, dull of...

No, don't say it. Do you get what I mean? Vocab? Yeah, they're not as good. They're not that good with words in the same way that I am. That's why I'm there. That's why, to the Northumbrian people, I am brought in to basically help them navigate the wider.

Right, yeah. I mean, I've met a lot of them and they seem all right. I don't know why you're having a go at them. They seem like the sort of people who, if they think they've lost a laptop, wouldn't go back and check the laptop case a second time just in case it had turned up, which is what I definitely saw happen, which was beautiful.

It really did. But you weren't totally relaxed either. Do you know what I mean? No, no, no, not at all. It was a nerve-wracking experience, and losing the only thing that we'd prepared for it was probably the icing on the cake at that point wasn't it i mean the the the fact that this q lab thing has taken you so much effort to build you spent so much time on it it was it was like it was you know a horrible shock

for you to realize that you'd lost your laptop and phone up the office where you'd left it two hours ago and only to realize that it was right behind you all along. I phoned my, I phoned my friend Hannah, who had been within the day to be like, Hannah, is my, are you still in the office? Is my laptop in the office? And she's like, I'm not there. I'm pretty sure that you didn't leave it. But I was like, it's definitely there. You know what I mean?

Tears streaming down my face. Can you tell us why you have a laptop and a large iPad? I'll tell you honestly why I bought them. I bought the iPad in case I needed to, because what I don't have is like Photoshop. I stopped paying for Photoshop. I used to have just Photoshop, but they're really taking the pace. It's like 500 quid a year now and I can't afford it.

But I have got a software application on my iPadad called procreate which is a graphic design illustration app and i used that application to design the background slot like i've drawn an illustration of us all that we use as a little animation in the background right basically i took that because if we needed to make any tweaks that that's the only – I'm not living in harm. Honestly, a bit of me wishes I could just pay for Photoshop and just have it, but I don't use it very often. Used to how it works and stuff like that. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. And so at the minute, I feel like over years, I've taken a step back from software applications and started like working with people. Do you know why? So when I've done an Edinburgh show, my friend Delphi, they do my tech. So Delphi does the tech of my shows. And what I don't have to do is worry about Delphi. Do you know what I mean? Delphi knows the business. They've got all of my sides locked in and stuff like this. So I don't worry. I, there was a time when I, when me and Amy Gledillard started out, where I was designing and making and putting together and like running

the tech, but over the years, I've just gradually offloaded little bits of that process onto other people that I would pay money to do because it takes me out of the focus of the, do you know what I mean? Like pre-show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you laughing at? But now with this show, because there's no, because there's, these are, these are delightful sausage shows. These have a, these have a team. These are the production people. Do you know what I mean? Now, with this podcast,

I'm bumped right back down to the bottom of the... I'm back in the gutter. So I'm having to learn a load of stuff. You can just pick up that phone, make a couple of quick calls and then find the computer

on the table you put it down 10 minutes previously. Like that. You could log into your iPad, tap find my Mac and it would show you it's right behind you or you could actually you could have logged into your ipad put on camera and then just see the laptop do you know what i could have done i could have raised my eyes one centimeter and looked at it oh but i know the pan i I absolutely know that pan. No, it's horrible, no.

It's got stickers on it that I put on, so it's very distinctive now. It was immediately in front of me. I've just remembered something else. I've just remembered something else about the set-up for the show. I didn't do anything else. There was one other bit, which you've actually alluded to there when we were – and this wasn't your fault. This wasn't your fault.

The wire was a bit dodgy linking your computer to the screen in the room. Yeah. But at one point they couldn't find the mouse because it had linked to your iPad as a sort of a second screen at one point. But also sideways as well. It was just sort of moving around. And at that point, everyone was very flustered. And to be fair, you know, none of this was anything to do with you. There was a point where we were getting really close to doors opening.

And there was a really nice guy. I think it was Phil, but I can't remember. But he was from up my way. And he knew what he was doing. But there was a problem where the screen wasn't connecting to the laptop. Now, I was just like, again, it's more complicated than just plugging it in with QLab. But basically the guy was testing it and after a minute figured out

that it wasn't anything to do with a computer. It was to do with their cable and receiving box or whatever it is. So I just said to him, I said, can you just clarify? It isn't my fault. And he said, no, no, it's all our equipment. And I was like, that's fine then. That's fine. Can you say this to this recorder, please?

Yeah, I was like, yeah, legally, that's fine. And then I was like, you know, take as long as you want, guys. Nobody blames anyone here. But as long as it's specifically not me. While this was happening, I don't think you noticed, but twice I just walked into the room next door and did a big vape and came back in. I saw you vaping indoors.

It's pretty cool, if you don't mind me saying. But look, good show. Went off without a hitch in the end. Yeah. Like, I'm really, really choked, like, just to be honest for a second. It's high pressure. Those pre-show things are high pressure. They feel very high pressure to me.

And I largely don't feel anything. I don't know how to describe it, but, it, but like sort of jaded now to the, you know, like we're about to go on stage nerves. On that show, I felt it acutely. It was such a corporate venue. It's not our usual sort of room, which is, it's not sticky enough for us really. It was all like dry and like nice and lit.

It just didn't make sense. Our ideal podcast venue, hay on the floor, that'd work for the lads just pissing and stuff like that, you know, and a cow just off, just off screen giving birth. And like a big,

big pot of like broth that's been there for six years, but they just keep adding bits of ham too. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? The lad, the workers from the field come in to just spoon the hands of it. No spoons or bowls, just a handful of hot broth because they've been working all day in the fields.

That's the venue where we should be playing. So it was an odd show. So thanks to the cows and people that did turn up. But can we move to conversation? Right. So post-mortem of the show, I am very proud, despite technical issues, or not issues, despite pressures and figuring it out, we did very well.

And the work that we've done, that's the work that we've done on the format is paying off and these shows are becoming a lot of fun a multimedia mixed visual and audio show exclusively that makes the live experience different to this load of shit that you listen to every week on a tuesday it's really exciting so i'm very proud of us for that. Sorry, Chris, before we move on, are tickets still on sale for Manchester? Yeah, that was a perfect advert for Manchester.

We haven't stopped selling the tickets or something, have we? They are still on sale. They're still on sale. Thank goodness. This is it now. We will not be doing another live show this year. It's the end of the year. It's going to be

like we call it the words someone said extravaganza yeah I couldn't handle any more than that a multimedia

a multimedia intensely musical extravaganza a flushed face extravaganza from Chris let's not promise multimedias

in that show, because it's in the venue that me and my friend John booked the comedy for, I can promise you this. Yeah. We will be allowed in the venue before the show.

But then, but also if you're teching it, then it's going to be your fault if you can't get the screen up. I'm going to get, yes, I'm going to, I'm going to learn my lessons from the delightful sausage

and get a technical person in to tell off. Wait a minute, wait a minute. This point now, this was about a week ago, wasn't it? Was it?

Yeah, about a week ago. Yeah. Yeah. At this point, the Rural Concerns team went in two different tangents. First off,

I would like to go with where did james go the day after we did the show home none no day after the day after oh i went into the actual podcast show exhibition explain to me what that was like high profile movers and shakers yeah i mean there was a bbc sounds booth where you could record your own. Yeah. What free stuff do you get? Come on. I got some popcorn.

I got, I got a notepad. I got a pen. I got a lens cleaner. Oh, I got, Oh, I got a lovely tote from Spotify.

Oh, lovely. That's good. Oh, I've got a, I've got a sandisk bum bag. Yes. That's cool. That's I've got a SanDisk bum bag. Yes. That's cool.

That's very cool. Did you tell Spotify, did you say, listen, do you know what I mean? There's a podcast. You need to get behind this podcast because if you don't, we will destroy you. Did you say that? Yeah. No, no, I didn't actually. Did you tell them we'll use Lexar cards instead?

Well, who? Spotify? SanDisk? No, i had a chat with quite a bored looking guy who was basically my questioning was why why are you here what have you got have you got something like distinct just for podcasters and he was like nah and i was like well why why why are you here then and he was like well you to put your data somewhere. Yeah, I guess so. He's right. I think that's, if ever there's a slogan for a company, then that does the job, doesn't it? You've got to put your data somewhere.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do. What about, yeah, yeah. It's them and the cloud, isn't it? That's the only competition. So you, mate, you got all this free stuff. Did you talk any rural concerns? Did you at any point go, yeah, I do a podcast.

It's called rural concern anyway rural concerns yeah it keeps popping up in our ceo grade board meetings you know what i mean ceo grade board meetings yeah is that like anything of any conversations of that caliber did you talk about us at all yeah nicely i nicely. I said nice things. What did you achieve? No, I did. I had a couple of chats with a couple of movers and or shakers and, you know, things might be afoot. Imagine doing an advert read. Imagine doing an advert read, Chris. Yeah, I'd be like this, like, listen up, telling what could we sell? I don't know. Let's just try it with just crisps for now.

Crisps. Man, do you want to have some of these crisps? No, no, read out what they sent you. What did they send me? I don't know. It's got to sound more professional than that, isn't it? Hey, when we're not busy talking about rural things and what's going on in the city,

you know what I love, Sunil? What? Crisps. Oh, they're great, aren't they? What kind of crisps flavours are available? We've got, we're stocking now, blue. Is that salt and vinegar or cheese and onion? Do you know what?

It was, no, what was it? Green with salt and vinegar. Green was cheese and onion, wasn't it? Yeah. Land grab. There was the switch. And why was that switch? No one's explained that to me.

It feels like something European to me. They did it in honour of Nelson Mandela dying in prison, I think. It feels like Jif becoming Kif, doesn't it? It feels like a change that's been made to appease the European market. I'm going to do it. I'm going to look it up. Why crisp? Which is exactly why...

Someone is rattling their microphone. No, I'm tapping the keyboard. I'm typing in why crisp packet change colour. Okay. Ah, it's a widespread though incorrect belief actually. What? Walker's has always had salt and vinegar and green and cheese and onion in blue.

Was it Smith's or something? Or are we in Mandela effect? It's a Mandela effect. This confusion likely arises from the fact that other popular brands like Golden Wonder use blue for salt and vinegar and green for cheese and onion, leading to the perception that walkers change their colour.

Ah. Classic Mandela effect. What is the Mandela effect? I've never heard of that before. Neither has anyone else in the world. Well, do you remember when Nelson Mandela died? In prison? He didn't die.

He's alive. He's alive now. He's going to live for another hundred years. He's behind you. That is the mandela effect right so that is a crisp advert so you went to so you had a good right so you you laid some seeds that are going to go into mighty oaks of advert reads yeah yeah that's coming i believe that that's coming. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Will the organisers of the festival have us back next year? Let's see.

Well, we did something very exciting, James, actually. Yes. What did you do? We boarded a flight to Belfast. Ooh. Here is the city, mate. That's where we parted ways for a bit, me and Sunil. Was it the very next day?

It was the very next morning. And I had to bring a suit holder for Chris because he'd torn his up going through a train barrier or something. Yeah, I remember we met up before the gig and you just sort of brushed aside that your suit holder had got all ripped up. And I really wanted to know what had happened. He got in elephant and castle. The barriers snapped like that and it just ripped it off.

It was a cheap suit bag. Were you walking right behind someone? Yeah, I was dodging. I was jumping through with them. It gives you an idea of just how corporate and high-end our getaway was, that we had suits. Yeah. So me and Sonal went to Belfast for two days to do a panel at a BBC comedy event, which was there for like every year.

I think the BBC does, they go to a different city. Like I think it's been Glasgow and Cardiff and now it's Belfast. And the aim is to like boost, talk about the comedy industry and boost like comedy investment in these specific, like basically out of London places. And me and Sunil were doing a panel. A keynote panel. A keynote panel.

What is a keynote? It's what we did. Right. So you know exactly what it is. It's been talked. It's been, it's speaking at an event when the only people in the room are there because the other event has sold out.

The other event, which is the lady who came up with Demi Girls in conversation is completely sold out. So they had nowhere else to go. That's the keynote speech. Yeah, they were presenting the new iPhone next door and we were just talking about some random old bollocks. That was essentially what it felt like. But it was fun.

We got away with it. We had fun. Nice. Couple of beers. No problem. Did you talk to anyone about rural concerns? Did you meet any sort of movers and shakers and be like, hi? Chris actually mentioned rural concerns in the keynote speech.

He mentioned it in the keynote. What? In the keynote. Boom. How? In the keynote. What? In the keynote. Boom. How? In the keynote. Well, I just,

we were talking about the difference. Finding a good producer. Talking about, yeah, we were like, well, listen, we know how badly it can go from the podcast that we do,

but we did, we were just talking about why a radio show is different from a podcast. The general vibe, my opinion, which is very much up for discussion because i don't know it's a radio show somewhere where you drill into the format and you do that for like blocks of six ongoing whereas a podcast is you do it all the time so you've just got to talk continuously um so No, no, I was actually saying minimal editing, you keep a very rigid

format, which is why, and it's worth pointing out at this point in the episode that Rural Concerns is about the countryside and countryside affairs, even though it's exclusively about two of the biggest cities. No, no, but we have talked about

people from Northumbria being short because they grow up on horseback. Yeah, no, but we did, we have talked about people from Northumbria being short because they grew up on horseback. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, riding around on horseback. And something about people sort of just eating food out of a big pot.

And hands eating, eating broth. Eating boiling broth, just scooping it with their actual hands. And also there was a cow in the audience.

When you, when you went to the local inn when you got back chris were people blown away by your tales of belfast yeah again they sort of gather around my legs around the fire and listen to yeah listen to tales of the big city we had a good time we were on with ashley story yep who i haven't met before and took an instant liking to also i was a bit pissed off with Sunil and the producer, Benjamin Sutton, who came. He produces both our radio shows.

Oh, you met James. He came to Bill Murray. Am I going to have to edit this out again? No, no, no, this is fine. Him having me and Sunil diagnosing him with ADHD and him not really liking that at all, it doesn't matter. We're not going to talk about that. Basically, I wore...

Have you seen the studio with Seth Rogen? No. Right. You don't need to for what I'm going to say, but basically a man of an age who's wearing this sort of cut of suit that is really stylish, the way that it's paired, I was like, so I'm going to look like that. Then what happened is that these two got wind of it

and just showed up in suits too. So we looked like, you know, in the film Step Brothers with Will Ferrell, where they both go to that job interview in tuxes. We looked like that backwards. I wanted them just to wear their normal clothes, but they were crashing my look. We all have very different distinctive styles because I was the only one who didn't wear trainers with my suit, firstly.

Oh. You were wearing a t-shirt. I was wearing a shirt. Ben was wearing what was like sort of a wedding suit with a shirt. Like a wedding suit. He looks like he was a concierge at the Hotel Mario. He's got the type of suit you'd buy if you've got a job interview that afternoon. You looked like you were going to the garden centre via the tip.

You were crashing my vibe and bringing the entire look of the suits down. No, no, we all had different vibes. That's what's so interesting. So it was very, like with this, do you know the thing that I've learned over the years is when you're always scrabbling for what's next, particularly if you're like self-employed and you're like, I've done this. Now what are we going to do next? That's the sort of vibe day to day, which can be quite claustrophobic. But every now and again, something happens where you're like being asked to do a London podcast

show where it's a little bit of an honour and a good time. And it's just an opportunity that you need to take a breath and be like, this is good. We've had a good time. We've done well. My laptop is, of course, on the table immediately in front of me. So it was like that. It was a good moment. But then we were, basically, it's this two-day event,

all talks and networking drinks between the London media elite, who by and large are just very massively into kneecap, which is yeah, great for them. So we went there and then basically what we found out is that it's all these talks and they were just, you needed a ticket for a free ticket, but you knew it was a ticketed event and we hadn't booked one single one. We didn't know what was going on. I mean, yeah. We didn't know what was going on. So we were just in Belfast. So we were like, let's go for a pint. I consulted the Northern Irish contingent in the WhatsApp group, being my wife, Nicola, and her cousin, Charlie. And they were like, you should go to this pub.

And they sent us into this pub, which was, how would you describe it so no it wasn't it wasn't welcoming but it wasn't unwelcoming but it did have a portrait of Gerry Adams in it okay which we all saw and didn't reference but then didn't say we had three points and didn't mention it but we went in the barman was I'm just gonna say a big meat head the size of his head compared to his shoulders was insane, wasn't it? It was like his entire body was like a mech suit and his head was like normal human size, like Pacific Rim. He was furious. It was full of tourist stuff. We also went to a park because we had nothing to do

and a man there was singing Bob Marley covers. Nice. Full accent, white man singing Bob Marley covers. And he was actually very good. He only had four strings on his guitar. Oh. He was great,

but it almost got a little bit... It got a bit hairy, didn't it? It got a bit tense, didn't it? And that, again, we had nowhere to be.

So it's me, Sonil, producer Ben, and comedian Mary-Elaine Robertson. Oh, yeah. From the Shetland Isles. It was very funny.

And she was with us just for a bit and she was like loving this, but basically she was tired and was asleep on some grass in the park. And one of the, the guy playing the guitar was with a lady. They were pissed, so pissed. And the lady was like, are you?

And I was like, me? She's like looking at me she's like i asked you if she's okay all right yeah yeah she's fine she's just lying down she's all she's she's on the floor i said she's lying down on the grass she said i asked you you know drunk people with her you know like it wouldn't stop would it it just wouldn't stop it's the same with a drunk mind into it's just a loop yeah they can't get off the thing that annoys them so i was just like yeah yeah and then she was like yeah i'm i'm fine do you know what i mean and this is not she's not she's just she very much has agency in this yeah but then she talked to her realized she's completely sober she's completely fine but couldn't get off the fact that, so I was like, let's just go.

Yeah, so we had to leave the park. So that was our trip to the park. It was my- That was our trip to the park. And we still had time to kill after that, didn't we? So we had to go to a, anyway, we had a nice time, I think. I tell you what, it was nice. James was part of, James ringing me up to berate me about social media.

Yeah. Was like asking whether us two together for 48 hours. Yeah. You could have done a video. We did record one. We couldn't record one little video for social media. And I was furious at the tone. But I was talking it through with Nicola and we both agreed by the end, full heartedly,

that James very much did have a point. The thing is... Definitely. The thing is, James... Definitely recorded. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, because when you're in an airport with someone... Oh, yeah.

It's busy. It's busy. You're constantly doing stuff all the time. You know, you're constantly... You've got to take your shoes off. You've got to put them back on again. You don't at any point just sort of sit around looking at your phone. No, well, we actually didn't.

Were you late? We actually didn't. The thing is, throughout all this time, we were so on and sort of we were dealing with lots of industry, networking, selling ideas, making money 24-7. We didn't have time to think of the larger, sort of more holistic picture, which is we ought to do a video for rural concerns

because that's a different part of the puzzle, you know? Can I tell you one other little story, which is, and then we'll move on from this, but when Sunil, this reminds me that Sunil's talking about powerful high-end networking. When we got to the airport and we got a taxi to the hotel, we were sharing the taxi. We ended up being in a taxi with one of the commissioning editors

from the BBC, a very lovely young man. But we were talking to him and I couldn't tell you why I did this. I can't. There was a lull in the conversation and I just asked him whether he'd ever seen a dead body. And he fucking said, yeah, yeah. And he had. It was, and then he had.

He told us a story, which was kind of horrific, like real dark story. Yeah. There's never going to be a fun. A fun dead body story. Like it's one in 20. James, case in point, I've got some evidence in the counter direction.

Weekend at Bernie's. That was a laugh. That was a laugh a minute. Anyway, he told us his story, got out in a taxi and then it was like, yep, see ya. It was a good way to start the weekend or the week, the couple of days, yeah.

It's a good way to start a weekend and end a career. Because you asked that question, even though you have never seen one. After that, we had that. We've, again, locked in further huge developments for the Mobile Concerns podcast. Yeah.

I woke up the morning when it's time to go home. I woke up at 4am, went to the airport, but there was some mix-up with a taxi driver where I basically got in the wrong taxi and he was absolutely livid. It was absolutely livid. It was, there was some confusion where it was meant to have a number via an app, but he said, do you have a number? And I went, well, yeah, I've got a booking reference. And he went, yeah, if you've got a number, that was the sequence of events.

What I had was a booking reference. It wasn't what he needed. I got confused. He realized a bit of a way into this trip and was living. He was giving you a free lift. He, no, but he went,

but he was like, well, we don't take the BBC stuff. And I was like, and I said, I'll just pay for it. And he, and he was like,

he went, well, you can claim it back on account card. Yeah. And I was like, he went, well, you can claim it back on account. Yeah. And I was like, probably not. No, but it's okay.

I'll just pay for it. And then I watched the text, the taxi. It was literally the taxi meter. He was one of those ones. Whenever I looked away and looked up, it was two pound more. And I'm talking like blinking.

Do you know what I mean? It was two pound more. And I was like, just after I said I'd pay for it, I looked at where we were on the map and we were less, it was 25 quid and we were less than a third of the way there. And they thought this is like a 50, 60,

70 quid taxi ride. It's a 12 minute ride. How is it that much? No, no, because I was going to Belfast international airport. Oh, you're going to the other one.

To go home to newcastle yeah so it was a very long way away so it was gonna be so i was like yeah i'll pay for it do you know what i mean thinking okay seven 20 quid or whatever and i was like this is a 50 60 quid taxi ride but then something happened on radio and he went it's okay it's all sorted so i went yeah and then he like i say he was living it calmed down i got out of the radio and he went, it's okay. It's all sorted. So I went, yeah. And then, like I say, he was livid. It calmed down. I got out of the car and I went, I said, listen, I'm really sorry. That was my fault.

I got confused. And he was like, it's okay. No shit happens like that. And I thought, I thought that wasn't the vibe of, that wasn't the vibe for 99% of the trip, but fair play. Then I went through airport security and i've got horace you know like there's a skincare product called horace i got my fucking expensive horace cleanser was too big to go home back to london it was 250 mil so i had to throw that away how'd you get it

i've technically put it in belfastast International Airport lost and found so if anybody listening to this wants to go there and claim to be me then you can have. But how did you get it to Belfast? Exactly it was good enough to get into the country but it's not good enough to get out They have a different scanner so they don't

have the liquids rule at London City but Chris you're a man of the people you would have turned that taxi driver around, wouldn't you? You'd have bonded with him. How many dead bodies is he eating? Not so, yeah. No, he hadn't seen any. As far as I'm aware, he hadn't seen it.

He just said, so shit happens. So it was fine. And basically I just, it was sort of my fault. It was confusing. Anyway, I was just, I would have paid my way out of it just to, for an easy life, you know, but I lost that. Do you know when it was double things? And then when it, that and the cleanser, I was like, this is,

do you know when it's easy, I can feel myself spiraling. I upset a taxi driver. I've lost my expensive cleanser. I'm on the. Life is shit and I'm a maggot. I've lost my expensive cleanser. I'm on the- Life is shit and I'm a maggot. Do you know what I mean? Like this was the, these were the dots that were heading out and this was the situation that I needed to control

because I was going to have, it was just going to ruin the day. It was a good social video though that you did. I did a social video. I came home furious. So I've like, so I come home and then I went to sleep for one hour and then drove to Birmingham. And when I got home, I said to my wife, I said, the idea that I'm going to finish today in Birmingham makes me want to cry. Do you know what I mean? Like the traveling, because it's a five hour drive from my my house to Birmingham because I was breaking the back

of the journey to Somerset the day after to do the Wales Comedy Festival, which was brilliant. But why didn't you fly to Bristol and then get a train down to Wales? There's no train station in Wales. Or whatever, the Oval. Probably get a 70-quid taxi. Because then I need to source lifts

and stuff like this. It was the best route. I can't rely on anybody. That's not the best route by any stretch of the imagination, Chris. That is not the best route. Belfast to Newcastle. Belfast to Wells via Newcastle and Birmingham.

And home. And name redacted. Name of town redacted. Hadrian's Wall. No. How could I have played it a different way? Belfast to Bristol. And name redacted. Name of town redacted. Hadrian's Wall. No. What? How could I have played it a different way? Belfast to Bristol. Hire a car or taxi.

Train to the closest station. Taxi on the last bit. Yeah. That was how I got from McCuntleth to a campsite. I can't think in five dimensional ways like you. You just go into the, you've got like, is it like grooves that you know, sort of thing.

So it's like, right. I know how to get from my house to Birmingham. So I just need to get to my house and then boom. And then boom, five hours I'm in Birmingham. It's easy as that. It's like the map slowly revealing itself to him as he goes further.

Yeah. Like exactly. Like when you play an Elden Ring. You know what I mean? Like I can only see a bit of the map to begin with. No, I don't. But crucially, I don't want to talk about that in case it could have been a lot easier. Yeah.

But it's hard when you're not, when you're sort of planning stuff late. And I got to a point where I was just like, I just need to drive myself there and back. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. I need to be in control. And the thing is, like recently, whenever I've been going somewhere to go to work, it's beyond all measure totally fucked.

Do you know what I mean? Like the trends in this country. Like when I came down for our show, I mean, Nick came down the day before. If I'd have been coming down for the day, it would have just been fucked. It took like an extra four hours to come down to London, the full day. Disaster. It is mad how you never complain about that, though.

You just always take it on. You never say, oh, trains were fucked. But I assume they are like 50% of the time, those ones. Yeah, it's sort of the cost of doing business. And what I don't want to do is, you're often, as someone who lives outside of London, you're fighting against a perception, what I don't want to do is, you're often, as someone who lives outside of London, you're fighting against a perception, which I don't like, but people, especially when you're newer, people like, I remember doing a radio show, they don't make it anymore, so it

doesn't matter, but it was called News Jack, like an open door thing. And they did a special edition in the first one they'd done outside of London in Manchester. And I was in that and that paid like a standard rate. I can't remember what it was, but it was like 240 quid or something like that to be in it. So I did that in Manchester, which was brilliant. And at the time, it's a radio, four credit. Do you know what I mean?

It's like exciting and important career wise. I'd not done it before, so I was over the moon. And I think when I'd done it, the producer was saying like, oh, you could come down in London, but, you know, we don't really pay enough like that. And you're like, you can't make that presumption, particularly to Northern people or people that live regionally, because it's like for that 250 or whatever,

it can cover a megabus. It can cover a train and your food and stuff. And then past that point, all you really want is to have the, like you've done a thing for Radio 4, which is a huge deal. Yeah, the credit is a big deal. It's worth more than- It's like they make the decision for you when you don't live in London. So I spend a lot of my time, even now,

basically creating the illusion that I'm omnipresent. Do you know what I mean? You just come down when you have to. And also, let's not forget the tax rules being what they are. You're getting a huge amount of money off your tax. You can claim 40p a mile for travel, which is astonishing when you think about the miles you travel. You can declare a massive loss every year.

It's what I've promised myself is that I'll never look at how much I'm earning in relation to how much I spend on travel. I won't do that. I deserve not to do that. It's the long game. You're like when the Saudis funded Uber until it made money, right? Exactly. The vibe of being a professional entertainer in 2025

is that it's 1am in the casino, you know what I mean? And you're going for another roll of the dice and at some point you're like, this is going to pay off. You're getting a pretty lady to blow on your dice and you're having another go. I don't think it's actually a casino, Chris. I think it's the cashino and it's in a service station. Do you know what I mean?

Where they give you little treats every now and again. They give you a drink, you know what I mean? Free Coca-Cola. Do you want some nibbles from the kitchen so you don't leave the table? I think that's tragically kind of true. Can I tell you about Somerset? What, Wells? Or do you want to save it for the next one? It's not enough to say about it Can I tell you about Somerset? What, Wales?

Or do you want to save it for the next one? It's not enough to say about it. We don't need to come back to it, but it's a lovely place. I was saying to the people there, I was like, you know me, I'm a full-blooded Northerner. I love it.

I love living in the North. But when I got down there and you drive around somewhere like Wales, you're looking around and you're like, I've been lied to. Yeah, this is where I'm from isn't it that's literally yeah well from somerset are you this little somerset boy a little farmer little cider swinging farmer boy from what bath but then like every summer it'd be a lot of like drives out into the country

dad and his mates getting steaming and then driving back. Dad driving? Dad drunk? Everybody drunk drive back then in the 60s. Yeah! No, it was the day. I think there was definitely points where we were, like, driving back from a place called Mel's, basically, which had a festival. Upside down Wells. And there'd always be a farm with a, like, bit of cardboard

and some marker pen written, like, homemade cider. And you'd go into this farm and they'll just be like empty old plastic milk bottles yeah you dunk it in and just disgusting stuff that would have killed you and then after summer we had just like this weird cider in the fridge so my dad never drank at home so it was absolutely pointless what a time to be alive well around there you'd also get all the you'd get like country pubs with traveling strippers in them as well quit in the pipe quit in the pipe traveling strippers bloody hell something to think about for us after this podcast i guess our life is a hard life being the life of a traveling stripper actually probably in many ways kinder than what we experience kind and they'd have a

minder as well who'd look after them whereas we have nothing of the sort we have. And they'd have a minder as well. Who'd look after them. Whereas we have nothing of the sort. We have no minder. They would be going to an audience, an enthusiastic audience. They'd always be up for it. You know what I mean? Who want them, who want to see them.

Exactly. Who want to see the art. It's certainly not, it's certainly not you and Kent, is it? Shout out SIGCUP. Never coming back. Shout out SIGCUP.

Right, on the shit list, SIGC up Darlington thank you for listening to Rural Concerns. Just a reminder, you can get tickets to our last live show of the year. It's on the 22nd of November at Fairfield Social Club in Manchester. And tickets for that show are in the notes.

I'm doing the final tour day of my show, Easily Suede, which was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award. And that is going to be on June 14th in Newcastle, and then I'm not planning on doing it again. In terms of ticket sales, yes, there's definitely scope for you to come with, I don't know,

70 or so of your closest friends. Yes, so please do check that out. The best way to support us, the podcast Rural Concerns, is by becoming a rural concerns patreon at patreon.com forward slash rural concerns for a small donation you'll not only be supporting an independent podcast and by independent that means we can talk about how horny dogs fucking is but you'll also get weekly bonus episodes as well access to the creamery which is our dedicated

discord server i didn't write that you don't need to say every time that you didn't write it they have on that on that there's just i think we put out something just for the patreon every friday and it's just like we're building up me and James are trying to work it out this like other week hours and hours and hours of stuff on there check it out our artwork Poppy Hilstead

music Samuel Leary and our legal due diligence is by Cal Derrick entertainment lawyer at law of rural concerns

is edited by Joseph Nez emulator borrows and is produced by Egg Mountain for a lovely time productions by Joseph Nez Emulator Burrows and is produced by Egg Mountain for Lovely Time Productions. We have to wait till the clock ticks down to zero.

You have to wait till the numbers, till the countdown gets to... It doesn't actually do a zero, does it? That's like a media thing, isn't it? Like, you're on the air. Yeah. I'm assuming we all learned this from the film Wayne's World.

Wayne's World, yes. Okay, cool. Cool, good, yeah. God learned this from the film Wayne's World. Wayne's World. Yes. Okay, cool. Cool. Good. Yeah. God, that's a film. It is. Bong.

Like that.