Rural Concerns - The Kynren, basements & cupboards within cupboards

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Sunil's being haunted, Producer James remembers the time some bloke lived in his basement and Chris has been celebrating Englishness. The lads also consider excellence in hospitality. If you want to learn more about the Kynren, head to their website! It’s also worth mentioning that the actors and crew are all drawn from the community which is nifty! Do you have a Rural Concern or countryside related query? Chris, Sunil and James would love to hear about it! Drop us an email at [e-mail]. You can support Rural Concerns via Patreon. For less than a fiver you can get bonus episodes and access to our Discord community, The Creamery. Learn more, here. Our music is by Sam O’Leary and our artwork is by Poppy Hillstead. Rural Concerns is edited by Joseph Burrows and produced by Egg Mountain for A Lovely Time Productions.

Welcome to Moral Concerns, a podcast about the mysteries of the countryside. And forbidden inner city delights. Was that alright? It was weird. We'll keep it. We'll lock it in. Do you know what? I'm proud of you because you made a choice.

That's right. Thank you. As an actor, that is, you know, a lot of people fail as an actor because they refuse to make a good choice. You made a strong choice. It wouldn't be for everybody's palate. It would be like, we've got to keep going.

Yeah, we do have to keep going. Come on. And Chris, he's subtle. And we're corralled by our producer, James. A cruel but undeniably detail-driven man. Yeah, that's good. You've made the choice. That's the choice.

That's the choice. Locked in. Locked in. Nicola messaged me quite pointed. It's her birthday today. It's a big birthday. She's having a great time. Sent me a nasty message to say that I actually do struggle to apologise.

She says you apologise over trivial things very easy, but when it's something serious, you don't apologise at all. So I said, well, we don't have to be married anymore, if that's what you want, if that's how you want it to be. But we decided to p.s happy birthday happy birthday but we decided to stick it out for a bit i think that is a happy birthday that is a happy birthday how are you two james has got wrist problems it's getting they are actually getting better i got dequire veins chris what does that mean it's this tendon here that goes down the side of your thumb if you do that

so make a fist with your thumb on the inside yeah on your main hand and then try and turn it to the right if you can't do that if that really is that's really tight that's de quavines it hurts a bit it hurts a little bit but i can do it and it's not i wouldn't yeah don't strain yourself oh god this listening to this podcast is just listed to biological decline i'm older since we started doing this i'm physically older science isn't it chris chris what mouse do you use oh i've got a cheapy one nothing nothing cool and like you know if it's good a good pc device if it has rgb lighting in it and i just have a normal i need to start the i'm i'm reaching epidemic point with me not being able to game properly you know it's like getting serious that is an epidemic you you're not being allowed on

steam anymore yeah we've hit the thing now post edinburgh of like getting back on his feet financially and we've now run out of like it now that we're making money just to get through paying the rent so we can't like all the home improvements have stopped you know so i would say this today it's like it is quite depressing to just be living in a bit of a building site with no end to it per say you know yeah i mean you said it was a multi-year project yeah quite an intense birthday chat we've had but i don't we're having a good time we're like i was like they said how we're gonna did you have a vape so now yeah yeah that's not a ghost it's just lingering around yeah i know i've got no airflow in this room because i've had to

close it because of noise. I'm seeing faces in that cloud as well though, Chris. Don't worry. It looks like that bit in Ghostbusters. Well, I've told you about the ghostly goings on in my flat, haven't I?

No. You told us about a worm. I'm just going to, can you just allow me one minute just to completely, with no point looking at the Google document at all now, let's just delete that

and talk about the ghost we tried we really did try to keep to a schedule but we've got to talk about the ghost i think it's good i've told you about the teaspoons no just loads of teaspoons just appear i think about about five or six teaspoons appeared in our drawer one night and helen swears it's not her and it wasn't me no no no no who's keeping an eye on the volume of teaspoons well i am because i take ergonomics of um cutlery very seriously and i only have good like well-weighted cutlery in there really and some of helen's holographic ones princess die yeah princess there's one princess die one there's six exactly the same really cheap catering style teaspoons in there really

so that happened and then um one night recently actually a couple of weeks ago i woke up and i walked into the living room and a murakami book had been taken off the shelf it was protruding from the shelf quite a way yeah and it was called after dark we need to get helen interviewed this like you rule out what is possible and probable, and it's like either you're doing it by accident or Helen's gone fully mad. I think she's either sleepwalking or lying to me, and I will not stand for either.

The thing is that your life is, you live a life where people want to be running pranks on you all the time. People want to study you and want to see how you, like you don't give anything away. So people want to put you in a high stress situation to see how you react. I thought about it. James has persuaded me against several ideas that involve like studying you and monitoring you without your consent.

I don't understand how I'm that different to a normal man anyway. You just keep anyway you just keep you just uh i think it's a man fully in control of his own responsibilities you know it's right and like the marriage the married man with children wants to study the freedom we want to be inspired by the freedom of the basically the inner city liberty who does exactly what he wants when he wants and doesn't care about the consequences i'll strap a gopro on and you can watch me kick out cereal then i listen back to the episode where you're talking about gelato ice cream and i did think like there's a man who's free that was my overriding feeling when i got it i was like i can't have it

yeah you can all you have to do is just go and get it yeah but we have to schedule it in the diary i need to get permission it's a big thing to do that i can't just show up with gelato ice cream and introduce it to my family home with my boy that doesn't eat peas you know it's like yeah it's like yeah it's like introducing a predator into an ecosystem isn't it yeah it's i can't do it i can't do. So is that what you've been up to in the city this week? Being haunted. Well, no, the teaspoon thing's been going on. That's happened once and they arrived and it arrived.

Actually, do you know what? It was after we got burgled. So we got burgled in February. The teaspoons arrived in about April, May. What happened after we got burgled? An extra knife arrived maybe a week after we were burgled as well have you checked all your cupboards properly for people yeah all the crawl spaces there's no crawl spaces there's flat above us downstairs is a cellar there's no one living down there are you

sure yeah yeah i've looked we had a guy live in our cellar when i lived in london he tried to use a motorbike cover as a duvet. Are you fucking serious? Yes. Where was he from? What was he up to? I think he knew the woman in the flat downstairs and she wouldn't let him stay there anymore. So he went in the cellar and used my brother-in-law, who I was living with's motorbike cover as a duvet.

And we sort of heard bangings down there and we went to investigate and he kind of tried to come out and he'd put his hands in the bits where the wing mirrors go. What, like gloves? And he kind of got tangled up. Yeah, like a little glove. He kind of got a bit tangled up. Was he sat on a motorbike

with his hands in there to keep warm fast? Like fast asleep, totally prone. Another time he was using the doormat as a pillow, like a doormat. He'd rolled it up to be a pillow. I said, sorry, how did he get using the doormat as a pillow like a doormat he'd rolled it up to be a pillow i said sorry how did he get into the cellar i guess it was just unlocked he had like a door to the road and it wasn't locked oh it's a separate entrance to the cellar was he like he'd been banished and was being incredibly petty like well if you're gonna kick me out i'll have to live downstairs then i guess guess. On eBay, I ordered one of those.

Do you remember those like cheap robots that are like a little sort of cheap Asimo? Yeah. Little human robot. I ordered one of them off eBay and it went missing. And there was a bit where I could legitimately say, I think the man who lives in the basement has stole my robot. I thought, I'm glad that's where it went

because I thought for one second what you were doing there was, rather than having a direct adult conversation with him, you were buying a robot as a buffer. That's like trying, trying to get the robot to prod him out of the basement. Like a bomb disposal. You know when they

send a bomb disposal robot in and you're like with a little speaker, hello, please can you leave this basement? We feel very awkward. Take the motorbike cover off and fold it up and leave it by the door. So Neil, did you, is that flat where the guy,

is that the one I stayed at, which was the one where there was a big hole in the floor and the guy covered it with a table tennis table? Oh right, no, you stayed there? Goodness me. I've stayed in your horrible flat. Where did you stay there? On the sofa? In Finsbury Park, on the sofa.

It was like an artist's commune, wasn't it? I never sat on that sofa, let alone slept on it. There was a bathtub in the living room. Yeah, and there was mushrooms in the toilet and stuff. It was like... That toilet's abandoned. You're supposed to use the upstairs one. But it was one of these flats where it's like,

yeah, I don't know. It wouldn supposed to use the upstairs one. But it was one of these flats where it's like, yeah, I don't know. It was, it wouldn't exist now in that area. We were the last ones that could live in that. You were the last ones that could get that sort of rent deal in that bit of Finsbury Park. He plumbed in a new kitchen in the conservatory illegally.

And then there's a pipe running across the floor, the water pipe. And the plumber came around once cause there was a leak somewhere and he looked at the pipe and he went, this isn's a pipe running across the floor, the water pipe. And the plumber came around once because there was a leak somewhere and he looked at the pipe and he went, this isn't a pipe. It's a hollow mop handle. No. He's used as a bit of piping, yeah. Wow.

But what can you do? Because worst case scenario, you've raised these issues. They throw you out and get someone else in, don't they? I think at that stage, if you're in there, you're doing it to pay rent, cash, and then it's very low and you can move in and out whenever you want. No checks.

This is how the arts community they're sort of being decimated into and being, they can't live where do they live? Where do the poor comedians live? Nobody. I don live? Yeah. Now, where do the poor comedians live? Nobody. I don't know actually. Nobody's thinking about the poor comedians.

How much is rent in a house share these days? I think in London it's like a grand and a half, 1,800 or something. I think that's the going rate. What, for one room in a flat? I don't know. No, it's not. You don't even live here. Why am I asking you?

Yes. We don't need to find out london stuff from chris you live in a house share in london james things got away from us there we played opposite roles and we don't know why and if someone had kept an eye on the general tone of where we're going we might have been able to avoid it that's yeah to be fair yeah i just let you go there and never tried to stop you i've got a fascinating proposal for you chris as part of my news from the city last week i was in well i was in a seaside town it's not really the city i was in folkestone last week i'll be there again this week i'm so filming in a abandoned hotel one of the biggest buildings i've ever been in

it was not abandoned there's about 10 people living there in various suites and they bought the hotel. Is one of them a writer? No, I don't know what they are. I think they're sort of like, they're, they're hoping to,

to, to bring it back to its former glory, but it's an incredible place. It's like, it's still got the original like grand piano in the ballroom and stuff. What, what sort of era are we talking? Like twenties,

thirties? Yeah. Something like that. Old. Hundred years of era are we talking? Like 20s, 30s? Yeah, something like that. Old. 100 years? Yeah. Oh, the hotel's, yeah, at least a couple of hundred years old. I think the king stayed there once or something.

But there's loads of these mad old buildings around that you can essentially take over and swarm as an arts community. It's been hired by a film production company type thing. And apparently the owner of it, the last owner who was done for embezzlement, he just built loads of cupboards everywhere. So there's cupboards inside cupboards and cupboards inside that and nothing in them.

That sounds like the 1980s film Hellraiser. Just like that sounds like a portal to hell. Cupboards in cupboards. What? Can we have pictures of the cupboards in cupboards? Are you back next week? This week? Yeah.

Yeah. And I'll take some photos. We need some photos. So what, so the hotel isn't in operation. It's not in operation as a hotel, but some people do live in some of the suites. What do you mean they live in the suites?

Like some, some of the film crew were living in the suites and they were getting nightmares. Oh, it's a temporary thing, not just like there's some weird tenant with a gas lantern. No, no, no. Yeah, the consortium that bought it were just a handful of people and they sort of lived there. But the film crew were getting nightmares,

they said, living in there. I bet they were. I've got some pictures. I'll try and send it. And do you, as part of what you're doing, is that you staying, are you staying over? I'm not staying in there. I'm sure you could.

I stayed in a hotel around the corner, which is run by one, it's like one of those hotels run by one man who's on the door and then making you some eggs in the morning. I don't think that's a hotel. It's called a hotel. He's called it a hotel.

What's the font? Something off word. Right. But it's not hotel. It's called a hotel. He's called it a hotel. What's the font? Something off word. Right. It's not, but it's not like that sort of Gothic style. No, it's all cursive. Fuck.

Well, that's something, isn't it? We haven't, it'd be good if you could, in terms of this podcast, commit yourself to a night in the haunted hotel. I think that's.

Yeah, I'm recording it. I'll tell you what I will do. I'll take a video of, if I can, I i'll ask because someone brought a head torch they could explore the cellars so i might still go and have a look see if i can do that yeah take a video for you yes please yeah no worries take the spoons and it says this is going to be like blair witch style footage yeah just on my iphone my friend who makes social media sketches says that iphones are basically just really good now so are they good enough that they can pick up the undead i don't know

probably say a couple of orbs yeah this podcast the tenants of this podcast improvisation and top end milk or, Arbs, it's not like, it's the natural. Chris, now then, should we get back to the document that you made? I want to tee you up for this thing, but I don't know how to say it. Are we discussing stings here for like, this is the countryside and this is the city.

We talked about, we've had a six month check in we're doing it we thought break these bits up with uh there is there is this countryside bit here is the city bit yeah we'll put a placeholder bit of music in yeah boom boom boom like that okay so yeah boom boom boom like that there is there is this countryside bit. So what has been going on in the countryside? Thanks for asking. It's crucial that you do continue to ask because that is really the main thing of what this podcast is. Okay.

So this week, my father-in-law and mother-in-law took me and my son. Nicol was away. She's having a big birthday. She went to a spa with the girls. They got a stripper. Oh, dear, Chris. A spa stripper? A stripper came to the spa.

My wife didn't want to look at it. My mother-in-law laughed about it, but she thinks that girls these days do let themselves down, you know? So that's that. So she was away. So me and my son went to an event. This event was called the Kinran. The Kinran.

Which is the Kinran, which is, as revealed throughout the show, the Saxon word for generations. It is. I don't know quite how to describe this. I want to do a job. I want to do a proper job to make sure I am describing it accurately and respectfully as possible. But it was an absolutely wild night. It's basically the best thing that I could tell to put it clear in your head is, do you remember

the opening of the Olympics in 2012? Oh, yes. Open air, which I think we all watched, you know, like, even the most cynical people in the world would watch that and be dazzled

by the scale of the production. So the Kinneran was sort of like that. And at the top level, it's about the history of England, England's greatest historical point, plus myth and legend mixed in. And it's the history of England, the history of us, told kind of through the eyes of the North East, County Durham, a.k.a. the land of the Prince Bishops.

The Palatinate County itself. That's what, is that what, yeah. It's called the Palatinate County. County Durham. I think, yeah, I think the Palatinate County of Durham, I think Palatinate refers to Prince Bishops. The Prince of, I think weatinate refers to Prince Bishops. The Prince of... I think we've touched on Prince Bishops before.

I'm very interested in the era of the Prince Bishops and want to learn more. But Bishop Auckland is just gradually exposing itself to be this very interesting thing. I've never heard of this event before. That doesn't mean anything. I'm newish to the area. But I have lived here about coming up on five years now. And it's about an hour away from my house, but it's still long enough where I've never heard of this. But it was one of these events that is

unfathomably huge. It was, I think it seats 8,000 people and they run it for two months a year it's basically a telling of the history of england and it starts i'm trying to describe it i can't quite get my head around it but it's like right i'll tell you how it starts and i think that'll give you an idea of the scale so it starts with it you're at your outdoors oh you're sat in a big grandstand-style seating thing. It starts as the sun sets, pretty much. And it starts with a little 1940s-era boy. It's a couple of boys, couple of girls playing football, running around this field.

They run towards his house. This little lad called Arthur takes a big kick, kicks this ball at this house big smash you hear and then it's like the vicar comes out shaking his fist at the vicar's the vicar's housekeeper comes out who's also called arthur and then we've got young arthur and old arthur he comes out and he's like, you know, oh, come on, you little scamp. Do you know the history of England? Unrelated.

I've done a rough segue there, but it wasn't much. But the audio is being blasted by the most impressive commercial grade speakers that you've ever heard in your life. Are they mic'd up or is it like, do you reckon they're saying it live? No, it's like they're playing it and the actors that are visually on this field uh act you know like playing it big to convey the conversation that they're having with their bodies like when i want to see bluey live yeah like bluey live so that that sets up And then there's a bit of a jump narratively in the old Arthur sends young Arthur on a quest through time via a cock tower that comes.

At this point, a cock tower comes out of a lake. Like the production value of this was off the charts. This was like this giant. And then from that point on, the little boy goes through like lots of eras of history. And like we go to a Roman, the Roman invasion and Queen Boudicca fighting back against the Romans. And it's like a celebration of that.

But it goes up through, and then we end up everything from like a Viking invasion that happened in the Northeast and coming over and a big battle. So it's like battles and a long boat, a Viking long boat, not submerges, the opposite of submerges. Emerges.

Emerges from this lake with Vikings under it coming out of the sea. What? And there's battles, there's fires. They recreate 1066. Someone gets some, like Harold gets an arrow in the eye live. There's fire. There's explosions. And it goes all the way through from like the Roman era, right through to,

and just brace yourself, boys, because this is going to hit you emotionally, the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Whoa. We go from there to there. It was, and then I started, I just, like I said, this is sort of gobbling my mind up. And as well, I'm like, you know, like any production that I watch now, I watch it with the eye of a technician.

It was so big. And apparently when we started asking people once a year, September and August at the weekends, like Friday, Saturday, they do a show. It is put on by, it is funded by, or was kicked off by this guy that is a big financial benefactor in Bishop Auckland, which I knew anyway, and is a very interesting thing where this guy who's, I think he's on the Financial Times rich list, has basically invested loads of money in former mining town Bishop Auckland, which has elevated,

like you walk around Bishop Auckland, it's like a town in the Northeast, but it's got just inexplicably really fancy stuff in it. Do you know what I mean? It's got like cutting edge. There's like a clock tower that's really striking and they have loads of fancy events. And it's because this guy has basically organized a big flux of investment into the town,

which fascinates me anyway. You know, like that sort of thing of somebody using a town as a hobby. But he sort of pioneered this kinron, this story of Britishness, Englishness, not Britishness specifically. There are Scottish people in it, but, you know. Are they the baddies? Do you know what I mean? So he pioneered this kinron and the kinron is cast and acted by the community.

Oh yeah, they're all volunteers. So yeah, so much of it is like a thousand people involved. The cast are trained and acted to be in this. And it like, I got some, with this one, I want to, I don't want to, I know we don't redo research because it really hinders us from just making stuff up on the fly. But with this, I wanted to get it right. So I just Googled, I went on the Wikipedia page.

The Kinran has attracted 250,000 people and welcomed like 30, it said this, I don't know exactly when it was written, but 35,000 visitors to the community. And it's like, that's amazing. It's by and large the whitest thing I've ever seen in my life. There was a very, there was a very concessional nod to Windrush in the, you know, like almost just before the credits. They're like, yeah, a nod to it.

But I don't want to knock it. It was just, it's very interesting. And I very much like that community-based involvement in stuff. How much are tickets? I don't know. I'm far from all gone, but I don't think they're cheap. I think it's expensive. It sounds like one of them mad French theme parks that you drive past and it's just like it's I just read up about it it's it's

inspired by one of them you read up about it while I was telling you about it yeah I read when you when I when you talked about it I googled the word because I was like what does that mean we're never gonna hear from Chris I was listening I also like to do my own research in case of misinformation that's the one message that you need to take away for this podcast do you on research they'll lie they'll lie so it's a huge community project i just like how do you tell it covered everything i had world war one world war two included the like one of winston churchill's finest hour speeches you know like and it took at, like my son was absolutely enthralled by it. But like basically it starts off very cool with Vikings and stuff,

but then when we're hitting World War I, tonally it does, you know, it gets a lot more sombre. The Legend of King Arthur, how much of that is just properly just all made up, like the Holy Grail stuff? It was historical events. But then at a couple of intervals, there's a bit where the guy pulled the sword from the guy. Where King Arthur, but it was the young Arthur in this one, pulled the sword from the stone. And then the set that had been the house where he smashed a window

span around and revealed king arthur's round table and i was like hang about like whoa whoa what bit are we in here like it's sort of mixing oh yeah myths and legends with history you're right myths and legends with history. Very interesting. I love seeing the scale of it. My son had a magical time. One hour in, he did say like, what time is it, dad?

You know, like this sort of thing. But you know, like an eight year old boy, one hour of adventure. And I think basically as we got through history, like I said, tonally,

it started getting a lot more somber. Whereas the first bit was like a horse, like horses. And there was like farm people, you know, like walking around with geese, like legions of geese and sheep running down the track. This is like live animals, lots of animals. How big is this? How big is the staging, like the actual arena?

It's like a horse track size. Oh my God. It's like one of them North Korean things that you see. Yeah god it's like one of them north korean things that you see yeah is it like one of them north korean things that you see it feels north korean now that you say it there's a tone to there's it's like a there's a pageantry type element to it we don't really have do you know in america it's like they've got these like renaissance fairs type thing there's a big culture of it well i think that's it felt like almost like something that would have been one of them but i don't think that's something you really see over here in a lot of ways like i would love to do that you know before we went in there was a

viking village and it was so busy that we just you didn't have time to walk around it but it was it was a viking yeah it was viking but but then you're walking through a big procession and there's a lady tilling the earth and talking about the vegetables that they have. There was an old guy who was whittling, and he said, he made a compass with Viking symbols on it, and he goes, but it's very overcast here. So they used a bit of quartz that they called a sunstone and they put it on this

and that captures tiny amounts of light i think that's the sundial rather than a compass but yeah that's cool obviously my son's favorite bit was probably the gift shop at the end yeah what did he get did he get a compass no he got a little figure of a Roman gladiator. This is when thousands of people are leaving. I just, you know the thing with having kids and you're like, there's just this shite that's going to go straight that you'll play with and look at once and then he's going in a landfill. I hate it, but I understand it's like, I've been a kid. I understand the fixation on the gift shop but i was like are we reducing the

entire trip down to what can you get for the gift shop you know like this sort of thing i don't begrudge you mate i just i was i would say to him i was like just do you what does it feel like when you get this thing yeah but i think the more you deny him something from the gift shop the more he's likely to turn into me which is someone who something from the gift shop the more he's likely to turn into me which is someone who buys from the gift shop over and above visiting the actual

gallery or museum I feel like we've got a lot to unpick there so no I've got two questions was there an interval no it was one hour

and a half it started at half seven and ran straight through till nine any drinks and snacks served during like is anyone walking around

not during there was a there was a massive food operation that you got in a queue, but it moved like grease shit. It was very, you know, like, I don't know about you, but you know, like being somebody involved in running live theatrical performances over the years, I've developed like a strong passion for every organisational element of it. You work for a restaurant chain as well.

You know how hard it is to... Exactly. The operational finesse. This place, the back of house, moved like clockwork. It was very, very impressive. They had like so many people, like must have been like thousands thousands of people and they moved them around quickly they'd gotten them in the seats at the right time there was no lag in that operation which to me was as exciting as the main theatrical performance it's like when

your game of like theme park absolutely just works perfectly you've got everything out you've remembered to put the toilet block in can i I ask what food options there were there? I'm assuming curry wasn't on the menu. Curry wasn't. There wasn't curry. That is the concession to multicultural England. Yeah. It was like the menu was very simple, but again, operationally,

what we do, we're dazzled by the simplicity of the menu because they're turning it around in records. Dazzled by the simplicity. You're just trying to get her no context, aren't you? I'm not trying, I'm not trying. That's it. I thought it was very interesting. I'll think I'll go back.

I'm going to do more of a deep dive into Bishop Auckland. Yes, sir. Was anyone hopelessly drunk at the event? No, but in front of us, there were two girls that were young and they recorded every single fucking second of it on their phones. They would take the phone out. You know, like there's lots of amazing stuff happening. There's like horses.

There's a castle coming out of a lake. There's so much mad stuff happening. There's like horses. There's a castle coming out of a lake. There's so much mad stuff. They're projected into water streams. Do you know what I mean? So like Winston Churchill projected into a massive water event. This is staggering stuff. That's what he would have wanted. This is staggering stuff.

But recorded, if I showed you a video of that on a phone, it'd look like dog shit. And these girls, they weren't recording it solidly from start to finish. Every time something had come in, they'd get their phone out and just zoom in and take a picture. And you're like,

you boring bastards. Who, can I show you the pictures of this open air theatre event? No. That sounds dreadful. At the end, I nearly was like, I nearly said to him, said, you know, like, did you get it all? Just like, when are you going to release it? You know, they were, but just held my tongue.

Yeah. And there was a guy, they got to the point of, they did this, the suffragettes and one guy booed. Because they were in the horse racing, I guess, didn't they? Yeah, they were in the horse racing for everybody. Sounds spectacular.

This is something I've never heard talked about at all. Nope, me neither. It was like a secret, like an open secret or something like that. It's just... In Ireland, they have this event called the ploughing.

Apparently a quarter of a million people visit it every year. As in it's a one-off, it's like a weekend or a week or something. It's a ploughing competition, I think. I'll need more info on that. I'll look it up for the next episode. Right. We need to further dig in. Ploughing?

Yeah. Further dig in. Ghosts. Ghosts. Ghosts. Further digging Bishop Auckland's mysterious benefactor. These are things that we'll come back to in every episode. I actually have heard of him, but yeah. We'll talk about that.

Of course you have, because I've been sitting here talking for fucking 20 minutes. You've been Googling everything. Perfectly silent. Thanks for your involvement. I was letting you speak. I was giving you space, no, no. Perfectly silent. Thanks for your involvement. I was letting you speak. I was giving you space to speak, actually. All right. Gift shops.

We'll do that. We'll do more digging. We're going to have to wrap up the recording soon-ish. Yes. Because I've got an appointment. What's that? In my commitment to the countryside and a desperate scrabble for regular content. Go on.

I was in a pub this weekend and it was the annual finale of my village's leak club. The leak club, apparently I found out, was established in 1958 in my village and once a year people submit leaks to be judged by a committee to win prizes apparently post post it took a break in covid came back last year with 10 people involved and it's this year had 16 people involved and they're just really keen for people from the community. So I know they were like, does anyone want to join? And I was like, in the head, I'm like, well, this is a, this is something that we can talk about. We can keep everyone up to date with the ongoing trials of rearing leek to a professional competition grade.

I won't lie lads, I'd put away quietly four pints of Guinness. I was like, yeah, I'll be there. I'd put away quietly four pints of Guinness. I was like, yeah, I'll be there. I'll be there for the AGM tomorrow. So I'm going to go to the League Club AGM in 15 minutes. Well, that's great. Can you come back to us with a list of what qualifies a league to be competition worthy? Yeah, I need to.

The list is quite, honestly, it's quite go focused. Is the winner the one you can't get up your ass? You can't get back out. I don't know the ins and outs. Ha ha. Literally. But I'm going to find out, and then we're going to go on a leak journey.

Someone, there's a man in a village that has never given a mick time a day before, never spoke to me. I've nodded at him, I've waved to him. He's never, almost thought I'd been invisible, but last night talked to me at great length about leaks. But there's lots of stuff to consider. The only thing I'll say is there were lots of leaks that were too big.

That one you've sent, you've sent us pictures, the one that came first. The one that came first is a monster. It is. That is Farmer Neil. He has won for the last three years. You can't play if you're a farmer. Well, yeah, because I've got a raised bed in my garden.

So how many leaks am I looking at? And you have to submit two leaks. But I've got a raised bed in my garden so how many leaks am i looking at and you have to submit two weeks but i've got a raised bed i'm getting like four leaks out of that you know so they all have to be winners presumably and i'm not this intercycle family at all i like family is a good lad but presumably can throw like a big swathe of land at that it's a numbers game for family yeah yeah so i might have to bring in my mother and father-in-law with a bit more land

to play with than we do because we don't really have a garden and nor do I want one. Nor do I want a garden. But I said to my mother-in-law, I was like, do you want to come and do the leeks? Should we do the leek growing competition next year? What did she say to that? She said, I'll leave it to you young ones.

The thing is, what you could do as a young man is use the power of the internet, which I assume a lot of the other people aren't using. Yeah, they'll be using like old fashioned. Yeah, you can type in how do I grow big leak into Google. Talk to chat GPT. Yeah. Explain. We're not talking about ai but i can get the ai to plan out the no but the ai if i talk to ai it'd be like crack batteries into the soil water do you know i mean they go mad don't they the ais i was hallucinating maybe some listeners know like

good leak technique i think we offer the leak. They can name the leaks via the Patreon support. Well, you're four leaks. But I wonder, some of these, like, some of the leaks that were the lowest in the leak, you know, like the last place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were just like, they were like the leaks, the leak leak. That's pretty good.

Those leaks were not much different to the ones that you would buy in the shop do you know what i mean i wonder if the ones that were the winners and were bigger than the winners because you can be too big there's a size limit which is very interesting i find out what it is tonight but the i wonder whether they taste horrible i wonder whether they're being bred for qualities that don't necessarily make... Like them big strawberries that just taste the water. Like the big strawberries, like, wow, it's massive, but it's that fruitless, it's that joyless experience.

I wonder, but all I can say is we've got a year's worth of exciting stuff to bring back round to the league contest. Hopefully there's an award for most amount of friends made while making leaks. Oh, yeah. This is what it is. I'm already bringing my friend, my new friend, Dave,

from the village. I was like, should we do this leak thing? And I think he was hoping that I'd sobered up from my four points and changed my mind but no he's like no let's I said let's give it a go let's do it Thank you for listening to Rural Concerns.

If you're a regular listener, please consider supporting us on Patreon. For less than the price of a pint of Graham's Gold Top Viscous Discharge, you'll get bonus episodes and access to the Creamery, our Discord server where everyone talks about barista-grade coffee and very salty butter. If that sounds like fun, get involved. Head to patreon.com forward slash rural concerns. Yeah, or alternatively, you can drop us a five-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Please note, it does have to be a five-star review.

If it's four or less, it will signal to the internet algorithm that oversees our content choices that you're a deviant, and every time you open your phone, you'll just see pictures of monkeys sucking themselves off. You should have read it before you read it out loud. Yeah. Yeah? Should have.

Rural Concerns was edited by Joseph Napster Burrows and was produced by Egg Mountain for A Lovely Time Productions. Our artwork is by Poppy Hillstead. Our music by Samuel Leary. And here is an inspirational quote from 50 Cent. If you die in an elevator, make sure you press the up button. What does he mean by that? So you go to heaven.

Does an elevator go to heaven? I mean, it's metaphorical. What if you die in an escalator? Or if it's going up already, you're all right. Yeah, I see you're all good. Wise words. It's not technical, Chris. You're too loud.

What am I meant to do about that? Just calm down. Stop shouting. I can't do that. How do I do that? Oh, no, I can't. Is that touch focused? Yeah, across the top.

I don't even know how this bit of kit works. No. I don't want to apologise. Stop shouting then. You won't have any need to. Bong. Like that.