Strangers on a Bench - EPISODE 38: Casinos, Cheating, and Chamomile

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

Tom Rosenthal approaches a stranger on a park bench and asks if he can sit down next to them and record their conversation.This is what happened! Produced by Tom RosenthalEdited and mixed by Eloise WhitmoreTheme tune by Tom Rosenthal & Lucy Railton Incidental music by Maddie AshmanEnd song: 'Might Go Outside' by Seb LoweStream it here: https://ffm.to/mightgooutside————————————————————————————Instagram: @strangersonabench Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello. Sorry to bother you. Can I ask you a slightly odd question? It is for me. I'm making a podcast called Strangers on a Bench, where essentially I talk to people I don't know on benches for 10 or 15 minutes. Are you up for that? Do you want to give it a go? First question is nice and easy, man. Really easy starter. Is there a day of the week that you favour? I favour the Friday. I favour the Friday. Just the beginning of the weekend. Weekend signals when a lot of your mates and stuff like that are going to be free as well.

So you kind of forget that you had the past week and then back to reality on Monday. So yeah, I favour the Monday. I favour the Friday show so much. Almost, almost today, the Monday! Definitely don't favour the Monday. So tell me, what's an ideal Friday lived for you? You know, what's the dream? Well, a perfect Friday to me right now would look like waking up with no alarm, straight off the bat, wake up when the sun's coming through the windows and then make some food for myself or go to one of my favourite breakfast spots, have a nice greasy spoon breakfast.

Yeah, what's on your greasy spoon list? It's got the whole shebang, the mushrooms. The mushrooms I've just started liking them recently. Oh yeah, alright, mushrooms, just get into the mushrooms. Yeah, I've just become a mushrooms guy. Yeah, it's just coming out. Exactly. If I'm feeling extra greasy, which is a bit of an abomination, but I'll have the chips on it as well.

The abomination chips. Exactly. No, I think if you're there, you're there. What makes you feel extra greasy on the whole? I don't know, I just like the greasy food. The mind creates for greasy food. I'll be honest. Oh, the sausages, if I haven't said that.

Yeah, yeah, you haven't said sausages. Okay, yeah, definitely got to have the sausages there. And you've got the toast as well, with English breakfast, tea on the side. Beautiful. That's what it's looking like to me. Out of interest, what was the moment the mushrooms came in? You said it was like a late bloomer. You know, hang on a minute, I'm going to put that out of my mouth.

I don't know, I just started, I feel like I started becoming a bit more health conscious about myself. So then even when I was eating these greasy spoon breakfasts, I I was still trying I might as well get the veggies in as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What triggered that? Suddenly thought about your own mortality? I don't know, exactly, yeah exactly. Because I'm quite young, I'm in my 20s so up to about a year ago I thought of myself as invincible. I guess many people do and then you start getting the health scares like randomly. And then you start getting the health scares, like randomly. And most of it was self-induced just through overthinking.

But I started getting pains in my back and just random pains. And then when I started just to take it easy and just start eating better, then one of them just kind of went away on their own accord. It's amazing what the mind can do to the body. Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

Anything else you're introduced? Yeah, well, just loads of tea drinking. So I drink tea a few times a day, while trying to cut out the smoking, which is still kind of on and off for me. Yeah. What's the tea about? Tea? I don't know. I just love tea.

I'll be honest. I love different types of teas. Yeah, lovely. I like that there's so many of them all around the world. There's a lot of them. Exactly. And they've all got their own uses. And I've started getting very interested in herbal medicines and herbal remedies. And it's just that whole area of alternative medicine. The way that the Western world views medicine is by the head of the snake. It doesn't go to the root of the problem in my opinion. If you come in with a consistent recurrent cold, let's just say for example, the doctors

will just tell you that you've got a cold. But what they won't tell you is that this may be linked to a deficiency in certain nutrients that you aren't consuming, which literally just translates into you not being able to have the power to fight off these infections. Very true. So you're feeling better now? Definitely. After these revelations? 100%.

And now like how many teas a day? I mean sometimes I'll be on a crazy one, I have four to five. Four to five, nice! Sometimes I'll just manage one. And when you're drinking them, how are you honouring these teas? Right, that's a good question. I mean, how do you bring the tea with me, whatever it is I'm maybe doing. So if I'm doing some work for something, I'll have my tea there. If I'm maybe playing a game online or something, if I'm going to go have a smoke or something, I'll have a tea there. Exactly.

Are there any that combine, you know, when you're playing a game, you make yourself an oolong? Are there the combinations? Yeah. Let's say if the friends come over. So the guys have come over and I'm thinking, you don't want something that's just gonna put everyone to bed. You want something with a bit of stimulation and I'll get some chai ready. So a bit of black tea in it, even if it's late. So the friends come round the first thing you think, let's get the tea out. Yeah definitely.

And then let's say if I wake up I'll have myself an English breakfast with a bit of lemon. I've not heard of that. Have you tried it? I've not tried it. Definitely. Tomorrow morning I'm gonna try it. I'm telling you try to cut out the milk just put quite a bit of lemon and a bit of sugar in there and it just does wonders. If I put lemon in there no milk. Lemon and milk seem like a funny combination. Yeah, I don't think I could see that one working. So it's gotta be lemon without the milk. Yeah, exactly.

If I want a bit of energy, I'll have something with ginseng, with ginger, those type of things. They just have quite a fiery nature. What would you do if you were having like a really difficult moment in your life and you were thinking about stuff and what would you get then?

I think I'll just put on a camera, I'll just calm down and be in a better state of mind. Okay so back to the, you had your breakfast. Yeah, after that I have a dog so I'll go probably take out my dog for a walk and probably come to this park here and yeah, take it easy for the day and then I'll go to pay my respects in some sort of way, whether it's to family or to God, just to be grateful. What is the manifestation of that? What does that look like? Well, I would either go see my family, so I've got some cousins or grandparents or uncles and aunties who are around, to spend some time with them because I've realised recently that they appreciate that a lot more than we think.

But as I got older I started to realise that they're not going to be here forever and a lot of them are quite old so I don't want to spend the other three quarters of my life regretting the first quarter. So I do it for the love but at the same time the fear of regret keeps you on your toes. When you're spending time with them, with the elders of regret keeps you on your toes. When you're spending time with them, with the elders, what do you do with them? Just a whole bunch of things. We might be playing games, like dominoes or cards, traditional games. Or we could just be eating.

Usually the elders in the family, they'll prepare some food and then everyone will get together. I'll just talk about stories from back in the day and who knows how long those grandparents will be alive for. It's just nice to be around that. Do you ask your grandparents big questions? Do you ever open any big thoughts? Yeah I definitely do but very very rarely. When does that happen? I mean, my family, my grandparents, back in the day, they went through some hardships during the war. And so sometimes it's very difficult to talk to them

about those type of questions. They really don't like talking about them. They just get unwillingly uncomfortable around those type of discussions. So I just... What war are we talking about? Just war related stuff. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Are there kind of a lot of mysteries? Not really any mysteries. They're good people of course, but they just went through a lot so... A lot of the things that maybe would help me get the clearest picture, I don't feel comfortable asking. And I don't ever see myself in that position. Do you feel like you're like them? Like, do you see a kind of pattern from them to you? I don't know.

At the end of the day, I'm 60 years older than me. So our similarities are going gonna be very limited just because of that but then some of the traits that I say my grandma has like very clean and persistent and hard work and I like to see myself as having those as well. What do they think of you? Oh they think I'm good now. Now? Yeah. But not before? No before definitely not. I mean maybe they did but I was just getting up to trouble you

know. What is that? Come on then what's trouble? Like just being a kid fooling around, staying out late, meeting girls. Oh so nothing too bad? No nothing crazy but it's just that. You're allowed to meet girls? Of course but when you're growing up it's a bit of a problem. Is there anything you look back on and go I was really stupid then? I think everything I went through resulted in me being the man I am today so it was worth it. So there's no like particular now that's the end of that cycle of my life and I'm now a man. No, no. What is a man? That's the thing. How does one become one? He has to die. That's the irony in it. Because you're always learning until the day you die.

There's lots of theories, aren't there, about how someone becomes a man? Learning how to accept pain. That's interesting. Pain comes in all shapes and sizes. I mean, you've got, let's say, emotional pain from grievances, from loved ones or friends passing away, or you could have physical pain from illnesses, worrying pain, there's so many different types of pain. So once you can realise how to see those thoughts as not you, but just your problem, and just kind of separate those two,

then I feel like you have the ability then to become a man quite easily. Interesting. What's been the greatest pain of your life, would you say? I'd say letting myself down. I lost some parts of myself that I'm still working on getting back. All in all, being more in touch with myself, being more in touch with my feelings, my emotions, my state of mind, knowing when and where I need to do something, the way I express my love to other people,

those aspects of myself, I'd say. What was it that made you lose touch with those things? Well, trying to cut them off, actually. Those feelings, those connections to my emotions. The younger me thought that was the way you had to become a man. I felt like I had to cut off my emotions. the way you had to become a man, I felt like I had to cut off my emotions. One example would be where I thought

that I had fallen in love with someone and I was wrong, but not necessarily about them, but about myself and about where my feelings were lying. So after it all went wrong, I kind of spent a lot of time trying to feel nothing. Are you good in a relationship? I mean I always enjoy the beginning of it, I'm end before you get to shit. Why do you think your relationships in the past have failed?

First, simply, I was just immature. I didn't know how to treat a woman. Just my whole perception of what someone deserves is kind of mixed up. Okay. So... When was the turning point when you realised, okay, that's actually maybe how I should be treating people? Well, it took me cheating on someone.

Okay. And finding out their reaction to it. Okay. That kind of... They weren't happy about it. Yeah, they were definitely not. Yeah. That made me realise that this wasn't right.

Yeah. And I'm quite strong on morals, like, I pride myself on having morals, definitely not. Yeah. That made me realise that this wasn't right. Yeah. And I'm quite strong on morals, like, I pride myself on having morals, especially now. So if I don't have to, like, treat it warmly properly, then that's a big lack in morals. Yeah. What was it like being found out? I mean, what was that emotion like? It was just annoying in the beginning. It was just annoying that I got caught because Me and my girlfriend at a time

we Were at her house. Yeah, and then She basically sent me to the shops to go get something and then while I've been gone she's gone on my phone Somehow logged into my account Then just seen messages. Yeah. Yeah. So you come out from the shops, and it's like, Bosch.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I was caught. And I didn't know what to do. I had no plan in my head for the moment. Do you have someone that likes to have a plan? Yeah, exactly. So this would be really like your kryptonite. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This wasn't a good time. Exactly. So you're back from the shops, she's found out. She started with questions. She hasn't necessarily given me a chance to own up for it, but she just wants to see if I'll admit to it if through slight questioning. I see. And I haven't. I see.

I see. And then it's just got shitter and shitter from there because I just kept on lying. Oh no. Because I lied from the beginning. Of course. And by the time it got to the point where she... A lie and a lie and a lie. Yeah, exactly.

It all gets very messy. Yeah, and by the time it gets to the point where she's showing me messages, I'm just lying for no reason, realising that I'm fucked up. Yeah. Oof. And like, when she had gone, in the days or time after that, what do you remember feeling? In those following days, it was just regret, kind of. But then, as it got into the months, I started doing some more deeper thinking into the whole situation and onto me as a character and my traits and then I started realizing it's not a

thing where you can just think for a bit about how to be a better person and be a better person it's a constant lifelong thing like There's always room to improve, there's always ways to be a better person. But yeah, she did change you in some way. Yeah, I would say that, definitely. And it's good because she made me realise how maybe wrong I've treated girls in the past as well before her. Does she know that she's helped you with that? I don't think so. I mean I wouldn't admit it to her. There's no way that she can say for certain but

maybe she's had a hint. I don't know. Maybe. To be honest it's kind of backwards because now I don't really talk to women that much anymore because I'm in that mindset that the next person I talk to I want to marry. So if I... Wow. Yeah. Hang on. Let's do a little rewind for a minute.

When you say talk to... Oh, when I mean talk to, I mean to get into a relationship. I don't really see the relationship. I just see like a partner. Oh, right. Yeah. That's a big... Responsibility. to get into a relationship. I don't really see the relationship, I just see like a partner. How might? Yeah. That's a big... Responsibility.

Well yeah, it's like a, it's a big call in terms of like, you know, the next person I'm in a relationship with, that's my like... I'm not saying it will be, but I'm saying that... You're taking it seriously. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I don't see any point in waiting any longer and I'd rather be with someone from younger than later. Do you want to get what I'm saying? Have you got any potential people in mind?

No, not really, not yet. Yeah? Not yet. We'll come if it's meant to. So where do you find people at W? Where are they? Ehh, nowhere man, they ain't around, they're not about. But when I do meet people, usually at a club or something like that. Yeah. You're a good dancer?

Oh really? I'm quite stiff when it comes to dancing. Do you put in an effort? Yeah, if I'm drunk then I'll put in the effort. Just loiter around the edges. Yeah exactly. I'll just be like this is not my life. Hope for some eyes.

Exactly. Are you a good seducer? What do you say? I couldn't tell, I think I'm alright but I just go based off on their vibe and I just try and match that if I'm feeling it but I don't have a specific go to. So you go to clubs but you're not a big clubber? I'm not a big clubber, no. We've all kind of grown out of it. We never really had that Experience though you hear the older generations talking about my kind of friendship group we never really had the

Club experience the nightlife experience where just everything was crazy like the pre cell phone era Because I grew up in a time where the iPhone started coming out around the time when I was in secondary. So you're the peak bad timing when your phone's coming out. Yeah exactly, just when they've proper started coming out and they're becoming a bit more affordable. Do you wish you lived in a nearer without them? Definitely. I wish that every day. Every day? That's big. It just makes you so reliant.

I read a little part of a book recently called The Anxious Generation, which I didn't buy nothing, I'd just seen it and I've read a few pages and it's just talking about how a mix of social media and smartphone use have deteriorated everyone's ability to think for themselves and kind of made everyone just fall in line with social norms and they have no attention span because they're used to going on social media and scrolling every two seconds and yeah. So if you could press a button and like just wish them away, would you press the button? Yeah, I would definitely.

And everyone's cell phone free? It's gone. Yeah, you do it That's a serious idea definitely because we were living before without them Yeah, you could live today without them, but you just rely now on technology and the simple answer Yeah, I would I would if you feel a bit annoyed that it's like do you feel a bit like you're gonna guinea pig? I think we're kind of set up, honestly, as young people these days. We go into secondary school and primary school just taught how to be straight as a ruler. There's no creativity in most of the things you do.

And then we told this lie about how uni is the most important way of life. And I don't know, there's just too much stress when I was a kid it's like so much of the things that I was learning they've just never helped me in any way and I get it you need them to get your qualifications and so forth but what about the 50% at least of the workforce who don't use a university degree. Do you wish your schooling and everything was different then? don't use their university degree. Do you wish your schooling and everything was different then? I feel like school is essential to life and growing up, because you need the socialisation,

you need the social skills. That whole experience, it just prepares you for later on in life. And so I kind of feel school is essential, but you also need to kind of encourage certain things and not put as much emphasis on STEM subjects, which are all good, I agree with them all, of course. What were you good at at school?

I was good at science. Oh, you're science? Yeah, I was quite good at science. Nice. And... Has that carried on? No, it hasn't. Oh.

Not really. What carried on? From school? Not much. Not much at all. Except for social skills and... You could have gone there to home. Nah, not home. No way. Come on now. Talking to your parents? Nah, you need the laughter, you need the jokes, you need the character building you go through as well.

You see, it's like captive animals that get released into the wild. They just like, most of the time there's a specific age limit where you can release them because if you release them when they're too old and they haven't been in the wild, they'll just get like obliterated. Were you in the cool gang at school? Were you one of the cooler ones? I had like, I had my batch, I had my batch of friends. Batch of cool ones? We had about, I don't know, like about eight, nine, ten.

You still see them? Yeah, yeah, I still friends with every single one of them. Batch is strong? Yeah, batch is strong, so of course, tight. That's lovely, you all look out for each other? Yeah, of course, always, always. How often do you see each other? Well, some of them I see minimum two, three times a week,

but some others I won't see for two months at a time. It's fine because everyone's just focusing on their own things. So, you know, I'm not going to hate you for trying to better yourself. That's the biggest favour you can do to me, trying to better yourself. I like that. All the batch men? Yeah. Do you know where we've talked about what a man is and all that stuff? Do you talk about that with your batch of men? Yeah, some of them have the opinion. They think quite traditionally, which I also agree with, being strong and being able to fend for yourself. But they focus too much on the traditional macho man, which I get as well and I respect because I liken that part.

I would like to go to the gym more and work out more. Do you think you'd be more macho? Not necessarily macho in my eyes, but it's just more fit, because health is wealth at the end of the day, so... They're doing themselves the best favour that they can by doing that. But at the end of the day, if you're putting all your eggs in that basket, then you're not giving yourself any space to grow in other ways. Yeah, it's very true. It's very true. So what are you good at?

I don't know, I consider myself a hard worker. Do you remember your first time you really worked hard at something. I remember one time when I was a kid, I was on holiday with some of my cousins and we found an old pedal boat, you know the ones that have the two seats in the front that they use to pedal and they're... Pedalo, is that what they're called? I don't know, God knows. We found one of those that was washed up on the shore and it was abandoned and I was using it. And we all wanted to fix it and take it out into the ocean.

And so we thought, yeah, cool, how are we gonna do this? And I've come up with the idea to just, all of us go sell our things. So we've got together all of our possessions at that moment. I remember I was five years old when this happened and all I've had is my sandals and a book on spaceships. We were chipped in our own little thing, God knows what else was there, I just remember my sandals and the book. So we've gone around on the beach just asking people, who would you want to buy these things and then everyone's just ignoring us, ignoring us, ignoring us until one woman just bought

everything off us and then she told us oh no keep the things so she's obviously just felt bad for us and just respected it and then I don't know we got about like 10 euros 15 20 euros from this and we've tried to talk our parents into taking the money to go fix the boat but yeah of course they knew that 20 euros wasn't even nowhere near what they needed to fix that. And so we've just taken the cash and gone to a bar down the road and each had our funders and yeah that was it. That's great. I remember working hard for that. When I was five years old, I just remember in the boiling sun. With your sandals. Exactly, it was mad.

So what does hard work mean now then? That was then. What's the modern hard work? Well, sticking to whatever your job is at the moment. Whatever you say you're going to do, get it done. Making sure that my responsibilities, the basic ones are taken care of, so the house is clean. Making sure that the dog's walked and fed. Making sure the family's all right. That's hard work. That's the best type of work as well in my opinion.

Do you work for people? Yeah, you could say that, yeah, I work for people. And is it kind of long work? Yeah, some of it's tiring. When I take a gardening shift, it won't be much of gardening. It'll just be a bunch of heavy labour, which is fine. I definitely am the type of person who enjoys hard labour more than mundane tasks, standing behind a cash register or something like that.

Sitting behind a computer. A computer, yeah exactly. That's not me, I couldn't do that. You need to be out of the bag. Exactly. So it's a bit of gardening? Yeah, that's just, yeah that's one of them. You've got gardening, give me a little hint of another. Barista.

So you like doing loads of different stuff? Yeah, that way I don't get bored as well of what I'm doing. It's always a different type of group, different crowd, different types of new people. Of course. It's interesting, I like that aspect of it. Who do you meet gardening? Gardening, I don't really meet people like that. But I like that about it.

I just get to work. You just get down to it. Just me, whatever it is, I'm shoveling in my thoughts. That's kind of like therapy. It is. That's the best thing for you, isn't it? Exactly. Gardening.

It's just a space to do it. Most people don't have the gardens to garden. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Everyone should have this space. 100%. 100%. You know, it shouldn't be a fight. I think it's quite clever of you to get lots of different gigs

and just figure out what you're actually passionate about, what really helps you. Do you feel like you're going to do that for a while, do a lot of different stuff, or do you feel like at some point you're going to specialise? I'd like to specialise, I'll be honest. But when I find the thing I want to do, I'll just do it. I spend a lot of time rushing, so now I just want to take my time and let it all come to me and just...

What do you spend your money on when you've got your money? For example, sometimes I go to the casino. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I'll be down and I'll lose. Oh, hello. Yeah, exactly. Casino. Literally. I'll just go and lose 200, 100 and a night.

How often do you do that? No, not often. That's happened every now and again? Every few months or so. Have you ever had a good experience? Yeah, definitely. That's why I go back. Oh, of course.

Hit me with the high, come on. It was the first time I went where I'd just never been before and I was freshly 18. I'm going to the casino with one of my mates and I've literally just put £20 down and we've ended up on the roulette table for the next like five hours and I've just gone up down, up down, up down. The casino would not let me go until I've gone to about I think 200, 240 something like that and I just cashed up and I've left. That was just mad. What was the highest you were at any given point in that time? Do you remember?

Oh, I don't think I went about 300. Like I wasn't in any crazy ranges, I was just going up down, up down. So that got you into it? Yeah, exactly. And then since then? It's more the thrill, I just enjoy the thrill of losing money. I feel like, money is an important thing to me yeah and just enjoy the thrill of being able to win more and possibly losing it

yeah I know what it is I guess release adrenaline, dopamine but whatever it is it's what's the weirdest thing you spend money on? Weirdest? I buy camping equipment or something yeah that's not weird. So you go camping? Here and there. Yeah. Enjoy it. Where'd you go? Do you remember your first time? I've gone before when I was a kid, for my parents. That's sweet. That's how I started it, yeah. And then as I got older I just started going by myself, with my dog. That's lovely. They just asked me. That's sweet. Yeah, that would be nice. Look at that, Pete. She's looking at you. You can use that.

Sell camping to me. Slash anyone listening who's like, oh, never go camping. Have you seen Nuts in May? Nuts in May? No, what's that? It's one of the best films ever about camping. No way, I need to watch that. It's incredible. Nuts in May.

Anyway, let's go back. Sell camping to me. I know loads of people that have experienced camping but they don't enjoy it. But I feel like they don't enjoy it because they're seeking comfort through the camping. A lot of the comfort in camping comes from the unpredictability of it. Not knowing comfort through the camping but a lot of comfort in camping comes from the unpredictability of it and not knowing in how long you're gonna have your next

meal because you're on this like hike or whatever trying to get firewood to do this and you've got to do it all yourself and I don't know that feeling of just surviving off I feel like the modern young man needs to just get out and just build a fire, have some food over it, maybe catch his own food through fishing and just chill by the fire and just that's the day, that's the night for you. I don't know, have I sold it to you? No, that was pretty good. I think you've done a good job there.

I just forget about everything, live with nature basically. This is the best feeling ever, just properly. What's it like to go camping alone? What's that feeling like? Well I mean I don't know I really enjoy it alone just because it's just me and my thoughts and I have so much time and so much motivation to think. And it's not false thinking, it's just the flow of thinking that makes it so nice. How big's the tent? Small, proper small. It's a one man tent.

What about the dog? Sure the dog gets in there. Yeah, summertime he sleeps outside. Oh yeah, first place. Yeah, he likes it outside. He hates coming in the tent. Oh really? Absolutely hates it.

I have never thought about a dog's tent. Yeah, exactly. Even the bigger ones, with maybe a bit of ventilation, a few open ends and that, it would be better, but my little tent with the smallest little holes for ventilation, don't do him nice. Oh yeah. It's amazing. Have you had any kind of great disaster that you've kind of come through the other side

and felt great? Definitely. Have you had any kind of great disaster that you've kind of come through the other side and like felt great? Definitely. I've gone up this mountain with two of my mates and my dog in the beginning of February Oh, so it's cold. It's the coldest. Exactly. So we've gone to the top Hiked it. Can I switch mountain? It was in the Lake District. Okay Yeah, we didn't check the weather or nothing. We just fuck it. Let's go and on the way mountain? It was in the Lake District. Yeah, okay. We didn't check the weather or nothing, we just said, fuck it, let's go. And on the way up, it was alright, it wasn't too bad. It was raining like shit weather for a hike,

but it wasn't too bad. When we got there, we wanted to have a fire, because it's just so cold, it's just freezing. We've gone on a little expedition to find wood to burn. So we've set off, I don't know, it must have been about 2 or 3 o'clock or something. We walked for about 20, 30 minutes. And as we found some logs to burn, it started to rain.

We're there trying to break up this fallen log and chop it. So we're there just hacking away with a hatchet until we finally got a piece but it just got dark, like completely dark and the problem was that to get back to our camp we had to cross a river and the only way across the river was just by stepping on stones and during the daytime it's scary but during the daytime, it's scary. But during the nighttime, it's even worse. Because you can just about see where you're stepping.

We've got to the river, and not only that, we've had this... Exactly. We've got all this fat tree on us, that we're trying to take over the river, and the fog has started so you can't even see more than a few meters in front of you and the water is proper proper fast flowing

so you're definitely dying if you fall in that. We've got no other choice so we have to cross. We managed to cross it somehow with this tree on our backs. We finally got on back and my friend was just like, he was just amazed to see us. He thought we were dead. He literally thought we were dead. He didn't know what to do. And he was just there with my dog. And the next few hours we spent trying to light the fire. It didn't work. Strong winds, strong rain and fog so it was just the worst conditions ever. Going to sleep that night and breathing in and just feeling like my lungs were covered in ice. It must have touched the minuses.

It must have. And so yeah we spent that night in agony, like pain. Oh no. And then we were planning to stay for two days, poof, straight away next morning, straight back down, and that was the end of that. I mean it's impressive that you just lasted the night. Yeah, but we couldn't go back down during the night. That would have been probably even worse. Oh man. You have to like huddle up together for walk. No, I was in my own tent with my dog and this night I just grabbed him and I threw him in

my tent and they were in their tent. So yeah, I was just there with this smelly wet dog next to me. But he did provide a lot of warmth though, I'll be honest, a lot of warmth. Incredible. So you thank your parents for the camping time. Exactly, I thank them for introducing me to it. Very sweet. Yeah, it's a proper thing.

What else do you thank your parents for apart from making you? They've shown me right from wrong. That's the most important thing to know right from wrong. Here's a big question for you. You like camping, right? Could you just live like that forever? Do you know what I mean? Do you ever think about that? Honestly, all the time. All the time? Yeah, literally, our dreams are just, I don't know, going to a wilderness, Tibet or something. It was that classic dream of just going into the mountains and just living off the land.

I do see myself doing that and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what I turn out. Really? I don't think I'd be annoyed at all. I'd love it. What's the top thing you do sooner rather than later? Trying to sort my family out a bit, give it back to my parents. Do they understand though, if that was in you? Most Hollywood parents would be like, well if that is your thing and that is your spirit,

then how to hold that back? My mum would stress a lot. They want me to keep in contact of course, but they'll be stressed, but I feel like they'll accept it. You could take a look at their air tag. Yeah, exactly. How far do you have to be? They're probably GPS so must be worldwide.

There you go. Get an air tag. I saw it. Look he's up the mountain again. Exactly, exactly. Oh look he's at the bottom. He's in a river. Could have quite a lot of fun.

Literally just making bets on me. So what's your dream wilderness? I want to see everywhere. I want to see three places specifically. I want to see South America, the East, Asia, the North West of Asia as well. So towards Kazakhstan and all the st stars up there, I'm currently named them right now. See every star you can, that's what I'm saying. Exactly. I love seeing videos on the wilderness and all three other

spaces and I just want to see the way of life and nature and just like the world and I like seeing different ways of life and taking what I can from them. I like the sun, so I need to go somewhere that's got some sun. That's absolutely fair. You could always just do a bigger trip and just see how you feel in that bigger trip and then do a couple of months somewhere. Exactly. And then see how you feel after that.

That is the plan. That is the plan. That's the plan? Exactly, yeah. How amazing. Just to see how we save up some money, go for a bit. And also you can be a huge inspiration to other people, not just yourself. Like, think of all the people you meet and what you then give them spiritually through

how you live, you know. Yeah. There's a lot you can pass on. No, 100%. That's it. That's why I just always try to explore different ways of life and different ways of thinking about things and going about things. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I hope that works. Thank you. Hopefully works. I hope you get out there. It's all for you too. What are you going to do next? I don't know.

That was a long, long pause for I don't know. That was a long old pause, for I don't know. This is such a good question. Survive and then thrive. Beautiful. Well, there we go. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for the questions. Gave me a lot to think about.

That's the dream. That's it, man. MUSIC PLAYS Sometimes a man's only built for himself Boots and a stick I can stick to myself I was born inside On the sofa by the tally So comfy I died in it Deep where the coma Died in a deep weather coma Woke up with forty years work and a hangover My head was cocooned, couldn't get in Sometimes a man has to be his own shoulder to cry on Climb off that hill that boy said that you'd die on

got too cold out there it's fine you got thick skin sometimes a man is to simply get old I get straight like a soldier and send me off into the wild what can this man do? To fix what that boy did Sometimes a boy has to love himself first Sometimes a boy ends up treating you worse

But I'm going outside and I'm up on my feet I've enough to survive if there's enough room for me If there's room for a fire and there's somewhere to sleep There's nothing to do and there's no one to see There's a hill or a mountain with a river downstream You just keep your head up, cause the drop's kinda steep Sometimes a man can forget what that means Jump in some river and see where it gets me