The Blindboy Podcast - An in depth thesis about Birdshit

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

Why birdshit is responsible for the world having a population of 8 billion Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spin the devil's frisbee you wispy she-hens. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. It's a wet and angry July here in Limerick. It's either ferociously hot or violently raining and I'm bewitched by the stench of bard shit. I mentioned this a couple of weeks back but there's a street in Limerick City, Bedford Row going all the way up to Thomas Street,

which has so much bard shit that the entire street just smells like bard shit. And you shouldn't really know what bard shit smells like because bard shit is tiny. But when there's a sufficient volume of it, then you can really become acquainted with the smell of bard shit. So Bedford Row in Limerick just smells like bard shit. Now I said it two weeks ago and the day after I said it Limerick Council came straight out in their little strange sweeping machines and tried to sweep the bard shit away. It didn't work. It just more evenly distributed thege shit like primary school toilet paper. I stood there watching the little machine try and clean the barge shit.

It was operated by a man who looked like Ross Kemp. And his little spinning brush distributed the barge shit in these hypnotising concentric circles on the pavement. They need to wash the streets. And unless they're washing the streets then the bird shit isn't going to go away and you'd assume, well I was assuming, with all the incredibly aggressive rain that we've been having that that would wash the bird shit away. It doesn't. What happens, and this is actually worse, The bird shit dries in the hot sun. Then the rain hits it and then it reawakens the odour

so that it blooms the stench of the bird shit with a kind of eggy, sulfuric tang. So rain makes the bird shit smell worse. It needs to be washed off and it needs to be washed off regularly like they do in Spain, in Spain they wash the streets every night, so our main pedestrian street in Limerick,

where all the restaurants are, where people eat outside, there's a fucking wine bar opening this week, they're opening a wine bar, Celtic Tiger shit, a wine bar that sells olives, and prosciutto, and gabagool, they're opening a wine bar that sells olives and prosciutto and gabagool. They're opening a wine bar in the Bard shit district.

I had thought of alternative solutions. My first solution was, on this street there's three statues. Hollywood actor Richard Harris, African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass and BBC television presenter Terry Wogan together I call them the bronze argument because if you look at all three statues together it looks like Terry Wogan and Richard Harris are arguing with each other

Richard Harris is after putting out a big knife don't put a statue of a man with a giant knife in Limerick City Richard Harris is after putting a knife and he's shouting down at Terry Wogan but they're too far apart. But Frederick Douglass is forever stuck in the middle. Forced to mediate between Terry Wogan and Richard Harris. But a solution I'd been thinking about was why not temporarily dress all of these statues up as birds of prey. Dress Richard Harris up as a hawk dress frederick douglas up as a peregrine falcon and then dress terry wogan up as an osprey because

he's near the river because artificial birds of prey can be used to keep birds away if they're doing loads of shits in an urban environment the birds that are doing the shits are starlings but then i felt bad about that idea because I don't think it's fair to banish the starlings. They banished the starlings on Bedford Row. Sounds like a Lana Del Rey album. Because here's what happens.

Every evening at sundown, there's all these beautiful trees going up Bedford Row and Thomas Street. And at about 8pm or 9pm I'd say a couple of thousand starlings they just arrive and situate themselves in these trees and you can't see them you can only hear them it's beautiful really you've got all these trees with thousands of birds inside the trees but they're hidden away and the trees

vibrate with all the bird song and then they just shit like lunatics all over they they they shit so much you can hear it drip on the ground it's worth going to bedford road about 8 p.m just to listen to it there's seats underneath all of these trees and if if you sat there, if you sat there for a good hour and a half, you could actually be transformed. You could be petrified with bird shit and turn into a statue. But I feel bad for the starlings because that's a huge flock of birds. And they're navigating an urban environment. And this is their nighttime ritual.

And these gorgeous leafy trees that have been set up all the way up Bedford Row in Limerick. That's the closest thing to a little forest that these starlings have. So they choose these trees every evening to perform what's known as a marmoration. This is the bit that I find fascinating. Because marmorations are unique to starling culture. So a starling marmiorations are unique to starling culture. So a starling marmoration happens in the evening time and this is why I think my turning the statues into birds of prey theory is cruel because I think it would work. But the first step of a starling marmoration

in the evening times is thousands of starlings get together in a flock and they fly up into the air and you'll know that you'll have seen this this is one of the most beautiful natural phenomenons that you'll ever see in Ireland and around the world wherever starlings are the starlings get together in a flock and they form one mesmerizing shape. All the starlings together fly into the sky in a swarm in this real synchronized way and sometimes they even look like a giant bird. You look into the sky and this flock of birds looks like a larger animal and this is a huge part of starling culture and there's a reason for this so starlings group together in these hypnotic flocks where they're all synchronized and moving as one and looking like a larger animal they do this because at evening times that's when the starlings predators

come out to kill them and the starlings predator are hawks and falcons so starlings come out at night time and they're like we've got important business to do here so we better make sure there's no hawks or falcons around so let's go up into the sky and just appear massive let's appear as this huge unified whole this one giant bird so if any hawk or falcon sees it they're like i don't know what that is i'm not fucking with that so starlings flock and make themselves appear like a larger animal to deliberately frighten away hawks and falcons and birds of prey that's why they do it once they've done this ritual and they're satisfied that they've freaked out any birds of prey in the area then they chill out and then they get down to business. The reason

they're really there in the evenings. What the starlings do is they gather together and they have a chat. Now I don't I don't mean it just sounds like the birds are talking to each other they're literally communicating with each other. Bioticists had a major breakthrough around 10 years ago when they discovered that humans and birds, we have a common ancestor millions and millions of years ago. But basically, the origins of language in the human brain is very similar to the language centers in birds' brains, and we probably share a common ancestor a long time ago and

scientists today study the language centers of birds brains to try and understand language disorders in the human brain and what they're finding with birds is they have a language they use vocalization and noises to communicate with each other and also to learn across time and they have different accents and cultural changes so what do starlings talk about what do starlings talk about when they gather together in the evening it's most likely that they talk about food so the starlings get together every evening. They go into the air, pretend that they're massive, frighten off all the hawks.

Then they go into a tree where they're nice and secure. Also, the purpose of them going into trees is that they're huddled together and they keep each other warm as the sun goes down. And then they have a real loud chatter, thousands of them. And they speak about where they found the best food that day. And those starlings in Limerick City that are doing all the shits on Bedford Row, they could be generations of Limerick starlings, they could have their own Limerick fucking starling accents. I found a snail in Rhaein and a magus. I found a lot of gos buddies in Partain. I had to hope off a monarch butterfly

above and carry on so those starlings are in Bedford Row having conversations about the best places to eat and keeping each other warm and keeping the flock healthy by transferring information to each other about where the best places are

to get food and to stay healthy. And just to say a few words in defence of bird shit, they gather in the trees of this street, and they have their chats about the best places to eat, and they do their shits. But all the shit that they do is wasted, because they're urban birds. Those trees are growing out of concrete,

but they think it's a forest. And the way that the ecosystem, the way that those starlings evolved with the ecosystem is, if that was a forest or a meadow, the starlings would spend the day flying all around Limerick, getting the best food. They eat insects they eat fruit they eat flowers they shit very powerful fertilizer with seeds in it

so what they're what they're naturally supposed to be doing is going congregating around this area hanging around the trees chatting about food and then shitting down onto the ground and in in their bird shit are strawberries will grow wildflower will grow and then their shit is full of nitrogen potassium phosphorus loads of minerals and nutrients from insects that they've been eating and they're fertilizing with the seeds that they shit on the ground and then they grow but that's not happening in Limerick City because they're shitting on the concrete and what makes it even more fascinating

to me is that's our main street for fucking restaurants so Bedford Row which is our pedestrianised dining street where all the restaurants are and they're opening that wine bar next week. People don't want to eat in this street in the evenings

because they'll get shat on by the birds. But we as humans, we want to gather in this street. Limerick City Council, they designed this street to be our pedestrian dining streets and we want to go there and we want to sit down in the evenings when it's not too hot, when the sun is going down, pretend we're Spanish and we want to eat food, talk about food, we want to have a murmuration, we want to communicate on this street but people aren't doing it, we can't do it because a bird's gonna shit on you because the starlings are doing the same thing and the reason the reason they put the trees on Bedford Row is because it's a concrete it's a pedestrianized paved street and if you don't have trees there it's not a very nice place to sit down and have a bunch of restaurants

you want the trees to give you a bit of nature because if you take that out you don't have nature you just got concrete nobody wants that but now that we've put nature in to make it more natural for us as we sit down to eat the starlings are up above going ah brilliant a forest let's go into those trees and do loads of shits and this is a problem because the restaurants and the pubs on this street they're taking to social media asking the council

to clean the fucking pavement more there's bird shit everywhere the whole place is stained with bird shit no one wants to eat on the eating street because they'll be shotat on by birds. And don't be bringing out Ross Kemp in his little machine to create concentric circles of bird shit. Wash the fucking pavement, you fucking cunts. But if you did dress up Richard Harris, Terry Wogan and Frederick Douglass as birds of prey, unfortunately it would work.

You see, the starlings of Bedford Row like I said before they go to these trees they fly up into the sky and form a shape to frighten away any birds of prey but if we dress up the statues as birds of prey the starlings are just going to look down and go I don't know what's going on with those I don't know what's going on with those. I don't know what's going on with that hawk. Osprey and falcon down there. But they're not budging. And then the starlings would just have to find somewhere else. And I find that quite manipulative. I don't like it.

And also. Those trees are where the birds actually sleep. So what they do is. They do their little pattern in the sky. They have their chat as the sun is going down and speak about food and then they all huddle together and keep each other warm, thousands of them in those leaves and then they exit in the morning when the sun comes up. But it has made it difficult to enjoy that street in the evening as an eating street. Who wants to sit down in a lovely outdoor restaurant.

When you're bombarded with the stench of a million bird shits. And possibly being shat upon. Who wants that? Nobody. And God help those people that are opening that fancy wine bar next week. So I've dedicated 14 minutes of this podcast to bird shit because I haven't stopped thinking about it and that by itself fascinates me. When I walk Bedford Row in Limerick City, this past month in particular, that's when it's gotten really strong, but not only is the smell of bird shit overpowering but the smell itself is inescapable because it's hard to pin down.

If you live in a city bad smells are a thing. There's bad smells from bins. There's the very the common hum of human urine after a Saturday night. The sour, wheaten tang of pints left to swelter on the concrete for a couple of days. We know bad smells when you live in a city. But the thing about living in a city is it's all about drowning out the noise. Cities are unbelievably loud as well. But you just get on with it and it becomes background noise you

get on with it and the smells become background smells when you can name them so the stench of human piss is unpleasant but you kind of forget it after 10 minutes and you just move along with your day same with dirty rotten pint smell and even the cheesy violence of a commercial bin. Once you can name these smells and you go, ah, that's disgusting, piss. You just get on with it. It's like traffic. But I can't do it with the barge shit because it asks quite a lot of me. I found myself walking down Bedford Road the other day sniffing going

is there a piney-ness to it? Do I smell pine cones in that bird shit? And then the other times I'm like yeah there's a waft of piss but it's different and my mind is trying to fill in the blanks of the

pissiness. And same with the shittiness of it. It's hard to pin down bird shit. It's hard to pin down the smell. To give it a name. To extract a pattern in it. It comes at me from all angles. And the reason I'm thinking about that. And the reason I'm fascinated by that is.

That's also what bird song is. The human brain evolved alongside Bard's song. Bard's song contains what are called stochastic rhythms, right? Bard's song doesn't follow a perfect pattern. It's full of surprises. but the thing about the human brain humans are obsessed with patterns we're always trying to find patterns they say the reason is is so that we can recognize lots of different faces but humans search for patterns all the time and because Bardst song is stochastic because it isn't perfectly aurally symmetrical it titillates our brains bard's song titillates our brains bard's song is nature's alarm clock human beings traditionally bards sing when the sun comes up and that stochastic rhythm of the Bard's song is enough to get into the human brain when we're sleeping and go,

What the fuck is that? And wakes us up. Bard's song also communicates a feeling of safety to humans. Going right back in our evolution, if humans are in their little settlements and the Bard's stop singing, it means a predator is nearby and there's a reason the birds are quiet and the quietness and there being no bird song makes us feel anxious and uneasy they've done studies on the human mood when we're in places like cities where there isn't a lot of bird song and when bird song isn't present and all we're left is the sound

of left with is the sound of industry and traffic this can bring an anxiety upon us, a sense of doom and when you reintroduce the sound of birds into a city by putting things like trees in there it can ambiently and gradually reduce our feelings of anxiety and interestingly enough paranoia. They found that birdsong can reduce human the human experience of paranoia and paranoia can exist alongside anxiety which makes a lot of fucking sense. When you get anxiety your fight-or-flight response is triggered. When we experience anxiety today we know what happens in the body your stress hormones like

cortisol are released and our body is put into a state where we go something dangerous is here and i need to either fight it or run away and this process in the human brain fight or flight that goes back millions and millions of years. That goes back to before we were fucking humans or before we were even mammals, the lizard brain. So if our ancestors, long, long time ago, are chilling out in the forest and the birds stop singing, then you go, well, why have the birds stopped singing? Is there a lion here that's going to eat me?

The sudden absence of birdsong unconsciously causes us to feel as if something dangerous is going to happen. And if it's three million years ago in the forests of Africa and the birds are quiet, you're going to get paranoid. What is it? Why? Why have the birds stopped singing?

When am I going to die? So birdsong today, it's been shown, helps humans with feelings of paranoia. And that makes beautiful evolutionary sense. But what I can't stop thinking about this week, I think Bard Shit has a complexity of orders that operate a little bit like Bard Song. I can't put the stench of Bard shit in Limerick City. I can't

happily compartmentalise it and get on with my day. Not like I can with the smell of human piss or the smell of a dirty bin or the smell of rotten pints. I can't allow it to become a background hum. I'm forever quizzing it. It's forever arriving on my nostrils or on the top of my tongue and I'm always thinking about and smelling the bird shit. Especially when it rains and it's awoken. It's awoken from the fucking, from the concrete. You're overthinking bird shit, blind boy. You're thinking about bird shit.

I'm not. I'm not. What if I told you that bird shit was the reason that the world's population is 8 billion right now? Remember I mentioned earlier there. So the birds come to Bedford Row. The starlings have a conversation about the best food that they got. They all do huge amounts of shits. And this bird shit is an incredibly potent fertiliser that also contains seeds. In fact, bird shit is the most

potent source, naturally occurring source of nitrogen. Nitrogen is essential to agriculture and growing plants. Nitrogen is, like plants need three main nutrients. Nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus. Nitrogen is the most important one, and it's actually fairly hard to come by. Humans discovered agriculture about 12,000 years ago. So before 12,000 years ago, humans were hunter-gatherers. We moved around and found our food or hunted for it.

Then 12,000 years ago, humans discovered agriculture, how to domesticate plants and how to grow our own food. It was at that point that we started to need fucking nitrogen to grow more plants and food. We don't know the exact population of the world 12,000 years ago, but they reckon it was in the tens of millions. When humans discovered agriculture, that caused the population explosion. Because when we discovered agriculture, that's when we started to create cities. You had a reliable, predictable source of food. You no longer needed to move around. It caused a boom in technology there was a population explosion and the birth of

civilization when we discovered agriculture and farmers who were growing crops needed nitrogen they needed a shit ton of nitrogen to grow more crops here's the problem in nature a plant grows it dies and when it dies the nitrogen in that plant returns back to the soil and a cycle continues and continues and continues when humans got involved in that process and started to domesticate wheat and fucking barley when humans got involved in growing plants 12,000 years ago, we grew the plant and then took it away and ate it.

So the nitrogen wasn't returned to the soil. So what farmers started to realise 12,000 years ago, if you keep growing plants on this one plot of land, eventually after a couple of years, you can't grow anything there you've taken all the nitrogen out of the soil you've disrupted the natural process

so now farmers had a dilemma where do we get nitrogen where do we reintroduce nitrogen into the soil how do we do that they started to discover on manure if we get all the shit from cows and spread it on the land, the plants seem to start growing again because manure contains nitrogen. Also farmers discovered there's a certain type of plant called a legume. Clover, like shamrocks are an example of a legume. Legumes are very special. What they do is, you's there's a lot of nitrogen in the air the air that we breathe i think is i think it's 70 nitrogen but it's stuck in the air but what a plant like clover shamrocks can do a shamrock will take nitrogen out of the air and then distribute it

back into the soil via its roots so farmers would they'd plant a load of clover on a field where they were growing wheat and that would bring some nitrogen back into the soil. Certain beans and peas would do the same thing. They're also legumes. So that there is known as crop rotation. You grow a bunch of barley this year, then you grow a bunch of beans

and if you keep that going, you can kind of replenish the soil with nitrogen, but not completely. But nitrogen was always an issue in the history of farming. Plants always needed more nitrogen than we could put back into the soil artificially. Now let's fast forward a few thousand years to the 1500s. The world's population at this point now is 580 million. That's a lot.

It's nowhere near the 8 billion that we have now. But in the 1500s, the world's population was 580 million. That's a lot. It's nowhere near the 8 billion that we have now. But in the 1500s, the world's population was 580 million. Agriculture was well developed. You had civilisations, societies. It's not that long ago. How long ago is it? 700 years? I'm shit at counting. Oh boy, am I bad at counting. Let's just call it 500 years ago will be. So 500 years ago this is when the great nations of Europe, the colonial powers, Spain, France, the Brits, all right the usual culprits. The 1500s is when the Spanish in particular discovered the power of bard shit. That's when the Spanish discovered, holy fuck, Bardshit is pretty potent here for a fertiliser, this is better than cowshit. Bardshit is amazing

because Bardshit contains tons of nitrogen. Now the use of Bardshit as a fertiliser had been indigenous knowledge for ages, in particular in the continent of South America. But we're talking the 1500s and what happened in 1492? The great nations of Europe discovered quote-unquote America. And when the Spanish went over to South America, they went to the Incas and the people of Peru and they saw,

geez, these cunts are growing some pretty good plants here with barge shit, are they? Now the reason was, there were certain sea birds in South America that were very prolific shitters. Now I mean unbelievable amounts of barge shit. Two birds in particular, the Peruvian pelican and the Peruvian booby.

These sea birds shat so much in South America that they created islands of bird shit. There were entire islands made entirely out of the shit of birds that had gone hard. It was called guano. The people of South America had been using it as a fertilizer for ages. The Spanish colonized and figured out, my God, the soil in these islands that are made out of bird shit is the most powerful source of nitrogen we have ever come across. And the great nations of Europe back in Spain and Portugal, they were like, our population is expanding and we need to grow more food, but we're having a tough time here getting enough fertilizers to grow this. to grow more food but we're having a tough time here getting enough fertilizers to grow this so what did bird shit do it greatly expanded colonization because the spanish and the

portuguese and the british were like we now need to go way way out into the pacific ocean to find more of these remote islands that are made out of bird shit so it caused the colonizing nations to colonize into real depths of the ocean and along the way they'd find islands in Polynesia and Micronesia and eradicate the whole population of people there because that's what colonizers did but bird shit drove colonization in the Pacific Ocean because they wanted to find islands made out of bird shit because this was the best fertilizer in the world and they'd send it back then to Europe which would then feed the crops better than any manure and then cause a population expansion because people are getting better food back in Europe they didn't call it bird shit they called it guano and guano is the shit of seabirds and sometimes bats

and this was so this was such an important commodity to europe that the period from 1800 up to 1884 is actually known as the guano age it was this huge huge European colonial scramble for islands in the Pacific that are made out of bird shit for the fertilizer of that soil. This is how important bird shit is. For anyone who says to me you're thinking too much about bird shit blind boy. I think you're thinking too much. I'm not. We're talking about the 1800s here. So by the 1800s, which is well into the Industrial Revolution, the majority of commercially available fertilizer all came from barge shit, right? It all came from barge shit, from these barge shit islands in South America. I'm talking Peru, right?

And we're talking the 1800s. What else came from Peru? The potato. The else came from Peru? The potato. The potato came from Peru. And the potato came from Peru and it made its way to Ireland. And the potato grew fantastically in Ireland, okay? What happened in Ireland in the 1840s? The potato famine.

What caused the potato famine? I know it was the Brits. But on a biological level, what caused the potato famine? I know it was the Brits, but on a biological level, what caused the potato famine? A disease specific to the potato. The potato blight caused the potato famine. This disease, a disease specific to a tuber that comes from Peru. Therefore the blight came from Peru. How did potato blight get to Ireland

fucking bird shit fertilizer the number one theory as to how the actual potato blight the disease got from Peru to Ireland to kill all the potatoes is because the people of Ireland were buying commercially available fertiliser, which came from the bird shit islands of Peru. Am I thinking too much about bird shit now? What else do you think happened? Let's go into the 1800s, Industrial Revolution. The thing is, with these bird shit islands, of which there were many,

in the Pacific Ocean, these took thousands of years. This was thousands of years of birds doing shits to the point that it forms a fucking island and then humans in Europe are consuming more bird shit than is actually available. So now by the end of the 1800s the world starts running out of bird shit. Europe had colonized every single bird shit island, had taken all the bird shit out of it and now, a little bit like oil at the moment, now you've only got a small amount of bird shit left and you can't get all the birds and farm them for their shit because it takes thousands of years to develop these guano islands of bird shit.

So what happens when you have a limited resource wars just like the middle east you know all the bullshit in the middle east of the past 100 years all that horrible debt that we've seen that's all because of oil and because there's only so much of it left and because we need it well that was bird shit in the 1800s it culminated in the War of the Pacific in 1879, which was a massive, brutal war between Chile and Bolivia around who owns the last amount of remaining barge shit that you could sell to the fucking Europeans. Now it's the end of the 1800s. Barge shit is kinda gone.

Now you've got a population of 1.6 billion people. 1.6 billion people who need food, who rely upon agriculture. The reason the world's population had gotten as far as 1.6 billion people is because of colonization. This population growth occurred in Europe because Europe decided to extract resources from all around the world to benefit itself and the population exploded. So by the 1800s there was a fucking crisis. How the fuck are we going to feed everybody now that we don't have any fertiliser? The bird shit is gone. What are we going to fucking do here? We don't have enough nitrogen to grow the crops to feed the people in the world the brits and the french start going fuck what's the next best source of

nitrogen if we don't have access to bird shit the next best source of nitrogen is bones so the bones. So the Brits and the French started digging up battlegrounds. They started digging up battlegrounds from the Napoleonic Wars. They dug up Waterloo. The Battle of Waterloo occurred in 1815 in what's now Belgium, right? It was the battle where Napoleon lost. 50,000 people died on that battlefield. And 7,000 horses died on that battlefield. And this was 1815. So now by 1895, the Brits and the French are going, we need bones. So they dug up Waterloo.

They dug up the corpses of 50,000 soldiers and 7,000 horses that had died nearly 100 years earlier. They dug up the battlegrounds of Europe for the bones and burnt them down to make nitrogen for fertiliser. Because they'd used all the bird shit in South America. Then what happened when they ran out of battlegrounds to dig up to burn the bones? Then they were really fucked. The Brits went robbing the tombs of mummies, pharaohs in Egypt.

I'm talking 1897 here. Almost the 20th century. The demand for fertiliser was so great that they dug up all the battlefields and then the Brits went down to Egypt and pharaohs

when a pharaoh was mummified sometimes they were buried with like 10,000, 20,000 slaves so the fucking Brits started digging up mummies that were a thousand years old just to get to the nitrogen in their bones all because the hunger for bird shit put society into that position. Bird shit fertilised the crops that fed enough people that the world population could get to 1.8 million or billion.

By 1900, there was literally, there was going to be a global famine. there was literally, there was going to be a global famine. There was going to be a global famine because humans couldn't get their hands on nitrogen to feed that amount of people. And then a miracle happened. I mentioned earlier that the air contains 70% nitrogen. There's fucking tons of nitrogen, but it's in the air. How do you get the nitrogen from the air

into a farm that you can use it as a fertilizer? In 1909, a German chemist by the name of Fritz Haber developed the Haber process. He figured out how to extract nitrogen from the air into a farm that could be used as a fertilizer. He created practically an endless supply of nitrogen, the most important fertilizer this was the claw this was alchemy at the time it was like figuring out how to make gold out of fucking other metals he made cheap nitrogen that was endless that discovery is why the world is at eight billion people right now the endless resource of nitrogen that didn't require bird shit, that didn't require bones, that didn't require colonization because it's taken it out of the air all around us.

This process made fertilizer endless and cheap and the population of the world expanded because of how many people that could feed. But the process of extracting nitrogen from air created a massive amount of carbon dioxide which contributed massively to global warming. Also the discovery of extracting nitrogen from the air gave us a shit ton of nitrogen and nitrogen is a very important ingredient in making bombs. So the mechanisation, the industrialisation of war

and bombs and murder that we saw in the 20th century, those bombs came from nitrogen that were extracted from the air using the Haber process. Fritz Haber also discovered how to make gas, how to make toxic gas

to kill people in World War I and World War 2. Which wasn't great. So I think you'll agree there. That bird shit is worth thinking about. And I'm so glad that I have a podcast. Because if I didn't have a podcast. I'd be the autistic man.

Who goes down to Limerick City Council and says, can I have 40 minutes a year time to speak about the bird shit problem in Bedford Row? So I'm glad I have a podcast and that I can put that energy into entertainment and my job and not be that man who's down at Limerick City Council. Doing that to them. About bird shit on Bedford Row. But seriously. Limerick City Council.

I know you're listening. I know you listen. I know you do. Because people tell me that you fucking listen. And you know as well. That there's tourism that comes to Limerick. Because of my podcast. So please start washing the bird shit on Bedford Row

and not sending Ross Kemp down there in his little machine to create concentric circles of bird shit. Wash the bird shit on Bedford Row and then the problem is solved. We don't have to get artificial hawks. We don't have to do anything with the statues. We can create a situation where the starlings get to have their conversations. People get to dine in public. And the bird shit is just washed from the ground.

Even better, scrape up the bird shit on Bedford Row. Scrape it up. Not only is it full of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus. There's wildflower seeds in there that the starlings have been picking up all day long and use it to fertilize the wildflower boxes on O'Connell street around the corner I mean that's that's a solution there that works within an ecosystem get Ross you can still get Ross Kemp to fucking brush, use his machine to brush the bird shit, then get the brushes from

Ross Kemp's machine and just shake them over the wildflower boxes on O'Connell Street, fucking problem solved everyone's happy, the birds are happy and people are eating on the street and there's no stochastic stench of fucking bird shit and if you don't do it

I'm gonna end up getting rat arsed on cava in that new fucking wine bar eating gabagool and i'll end up doing it myself and getting arrested it's time now for the ocarina pause past few weeks what i've been doing instead of playing my ocarina during the pause is i've been hitting myself into the head with a with a book each week which I've quite enjoyed because I get to give you a little book recommendation so I've enjoyed doing that so this week I actually brought a book with me into my office just so I could hit myself into the head with it this book is called Dance Move by Wendy Erskine. It's a collection of short stories. Wendy Erskine is an Irish writer from Belfast. This book came out last year.

It's fucking amazing. It is fucking perfect. A master of the craft. There's nothing else I can say it's a collection of short stories where Wendy Erskine can she just creates these massive stories from the tiniest details when you read her stories the story happens in the mind of the reader because of the way that she can prompt that on the page it's absolutely fantastic dance

move by wendy erskine so i'm gonna hit myself into the head with this book and you're gonna hear an advert for something i don't know what it is it'll be an algorithmically generated advert okay it's um it's not a hard back it's soft, so it won't be too hard when I hate myself. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. Thank you. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. The First Omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil.

Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real, it's not real. What's not real? Who said that? The First Omen. Only in theaters April 5th. So that was the hitting myself into my head with a book pause.

And the book was Dance Move by Wendy Erskine. Highly recommend it. If you're a new listener and you're wondering why I did that, I just don't like people getting surprises. Adverts just coming in and surprising people or being a different volume to the podcast. So I like to give a little hour of warning. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast. If this podcast brings from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash the Blind Boy Podcast. If this podcast brings you distraction, entertainment, joy, merriment, if it's something you just put on in the background because it relaxes you,

whatever reason you listen to this podcast, please consider paying me for the work that I put into this podcast. This podcast is my full-time job. This is how I earn a living. It's how I rent out this office. It's how I pay my bills. These are monologue podcasts. So a huge amount of research and writing goes into creating an episode. So it's only possible for me to

deliver these on a consistent basis at a quality that I can stand over when it's my full-time job and I have the time to do that and most importantly the time to fail. So all I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month. But if you can't afford that,

don't worry about it. You can listen for free. Listen for free. Because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free. So everybody gets a podcast. Everyone gets the same podcast. And I get to earn a living. It's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness. Patreon.com forward slash the

Blind Boy Podcast. My new book of short stories is coming out in November. It's called Topography Hibernica. Can't wait to show you. You can pre-order that. You can pre-order signed copies. you can pre-order that you can pre-order signed copies just go to my instagram blind by book club and look at my saved my saved story at the top of my page and in there you'll have all the links of where you can pre-order the book topography hibernica all over the world right of any gigs i do have gigs let's do the contractually obligated gigs I hate advertising gigs for a load of reasons you know why but you gotta do it

you gotta do it it's only fair to the promoters right the 28th oh dear 26th of August I'm in the Cork Opera House that's a Saturday

part of the Cork Podcast Week. Check out that whole festival. Vicar Street in Dublin on the 28th. Monday night. That's going to be lots of Monday night fun. Birmingham at the Mosley Folk Festival in the UK. On the 1st of September. Or is it?

Is it? No, because I can't read fucking dates when they're in numbers. 109923. Yeah, that's the 1st of September. The 9th is September month. Yeah. Then, on the 9th of September, this is where it gets confusing. I'm in the pavilion in Dun Laoghaire.

I think that's nearly sold out. Then, the Patrick Kavanagh weekend in Enniskane in Monaghan. Villian in Dun Laoghaire. I think that's nearly sold out. Then. The Patrick Kavanagh weekend. In Inneskeen in Monaghan. On the 30th of September. Then. Waterfront in Belfast. On Saturday the 18th of November.

That's going to be good fun. On the 19th of November. I've just added another Vicar Street. That's going to be my book launch. My book launch Vicar Street gig. On the 19th of November I've just added another Vicar Street that's going to be my book launch my book launch Vicar Street gig on the 19th of November that's just announced there now and then sometime around the end of November I'm doing a UK tour nothing announced yet but keep your eyes peeled and then there's a few gigs in 2024 I'm just after discovering this other fucking tab here on my gigs list. I'm gigging in Limerick. I forgot about that. I'm actually fucking gigging in Limerick. It's hard to sell tickets in my home city. Why would anyone want to show up in Limerick to listen to? I'm talking about Bedford Row. Why would you want to turn up to a gig in Limerick to listen

to a man from Limerick? I just don't understand, but if you're interested in coming to my gig in Limerick, it's on the Lime Tree Theatre on the... Is that the 2nd of February? I'm gigging in Norway! I'm fucking gigging in Norway, man. I'm gigging in Norway in Oslo. Oh, wait, I'm not supposed to announce that yet. That's probably going to happen.

That's about 90%, right? But I will be gigging in Norway sometime in February in Oslo. I'd forgotten about that completely. I remember vaguely there was interest in a Norway gig. But I didn't know it had gotten to that stage where it might be happening. So I'd say that's going ahead. I'm looking forward to that I do have a good good few listeners up in the Nordic countries. I'll see how Oslo goes if it is going ahead. I'll see how that goes and if it goes well I'll come back and do more

Nordic dates and oh Galway! I'm in Galway in February at the Town Hall Theatre go to their website and you'll find some tickets there. Someone give me an award for how shit I am at promoting my own gigs. I literally had a second tab. I don't make this document. I literally had a second tab of gigs there for 2024 that I didn't even know existed. I mean, fuck it. People show up to my gigs, so it can't be that bad.

But I'm just not a gig-promoting type of person. It's never been my thing. It feels weird. I can't read dates. But it does have to be done. It's part of my contractual obligation when I agree to do a gig. I must promote the gig on the podcast. Support independent podcasters.

Whatever independent podcast you listen to, support them directly. Alright? do a gig i must promote the gig on the podcast support independent podcasters whatever independent podcast you listen to support them directly all right so that the podcast space doesn't turn into radio and television it doesn't turn into something that's completely corrupted by advertising you don't want your favorite independent podcast that you really enjoy that you voluntarily show up to because you enjoy the content. You never want that content dictated by an advertiser because that's what fucks it all up. So support whatever independent podcast you listen to. And it doesn't have to be monetary support.

Speak about them. Independent podcasts don't get advertised. They don't have an advertising budget. So tell a friend about it, you know? Share it on your fucking Instagram threads. Which we can't get in Ireland yet. So the hot take is out of the way. I was happy with that hot take. A lot of people are asking

me to comment on the RTE situation. And I've only spoken about it a little bit. Mainly because most of my listeners now are outside of Ireland and don't even know what the fuck is going on. So there's been a huge scandal in Ireland for the past two weeks. It's been the biggest story on the news for two fucking weeks about RTE, our national broadcaster. Like, basically, it's the national broadcaster.

So it's, the money comes from our TV licence, so it's kind of public tax money, which means that when it's the public's money and it has emerged that some of the presenters on RTE are being paid way more than what is publicly declared what the public know about and people are very angry about this also a bunch of RTE presenters are also doing like advertising on the side and some people take issue with this because let's take the bbc for instance if you're a bbc presenter right and you have a contract with the bbc you're not then allowed also do an advert for a car company so some people feel that rte employees shouldn't also be allowed to do advertising on the side because it might be a conflict of interest

because it's the national broadcaster. This is all anybody's been speaking about for two weeks. There's a lot of anger. Most of the top people at RTE, it looks like they're going to get fired, like the board anyway. It's really, really big. What do I think is going to happen? I reckon the government're going to get fired like the board anyway it's really really big what do i think is going to happen i reckon the government are going to recommend that 2fm is going to be

privatized 2fm is like the youth radio station i reckon they recommend that that gets completely privatized so it's no longer funded by public money then it just becomes purely advertising. That would be awful. That would be fucking terrible. And I'll tell you why. Because 2FM is the youth radio station. And 2FM, because it's funded by the national broadcaster, because it's part of the national broadcaster,

it has a responsibility to platform young Irish artists young Irish musicians there's there's a responsibility there to deliver and fund Irish content and if you privatize it and you put it to the market and let advertisers have their way then that's no longer the case really I reckon they're going to get rid of the TV channel RT2 I reckon that's just going to go and we'll just be left with one channel and I'd like to see that ran as a fucking proper national broadcaster and for me personally I think public service broadcasting should have nothing to do with advertisers. I think public service broadcasting should exist purely for the service of the public. Where passionate, creative, talented Irish people are funded to create purely for the sake of creating and self-expression.

And it doesn't matter how many people tune in. It doesn't matter how many people watch it. Because it's about public service broadcasting. Which should be an accurate representation. Of the culture and talent of a nation. For the consumption of that nation. No one has to worry about ratings. And no one has to worry about making something. That gets shit tons of views.

So you can sell that slot to an advertiser. And what happens if you do that? You'll get a lot of shit. That no one watches, that mightn't be brilliant, but you'll get occasional greatness. And that's a guarantee, because that's what happens when you fund failure. When you treat art the way that you treat science, you fund passionate, talented, creative people to just create. You'll get a lot of shit and occasional greatness. The alternative is what we have now. RTE, with all due respect, is consistent mediocrity

that no one tunes into, that isn't relevant to what people's needs are. It's legacy media. It's this format that can't really explain why it still exists and this isn't just rte this is quite a lot of legacy fucking media quite a lot of radio quite a lot of television they're still producing content in a format that hasn't been relevant in 20 years. They're still making radio shows and TV shows where the biggest threat is someone turning the channel. And the outrage that you see the past two weeks is people getting real angry and saying things like, why am I paying my TV license for this? Who the fuck are these people? Why are these people famous? What are they doing? Why are the board of directors being paid that much money? And they don't really have

an answer for it because you can't be famous in Ireland. I keep saying this. You can't be famous in Ireland. Cillian Murphy is famous. Paul Meskell is is famous you can't be famous in Ireland we're half the population of London so people in Ireland who are considered famous their fame is constructed by the media if you participate in legacy media in any way radio, TV, newspaper other legacy media then props you up and creates a spectacle of fame

it's a construct and what you're seeing this week is that this industry is constructing this fame and it's operating hand in hand with advertising deals and it's starting to reveal and pull apart the whole kind of schema of it and i'm going to use myself as an example because it's the it's starting to reveal and pull apart the whole kind of schema of it. And I'm going to use myself as an example. Because it's the best way to get the point across. I'm not famous in Ireland. I'm not famous in Ireland. If you say blind boy in Ireland.

Most people will kind of go. Oh that guy with the bag on his head. Yeah I kind of know him. Yeah that guy with the bag on his head yeah I've yeah I kind of know him yeah he's got the bag on his head and it's this vague kind of oh that fella yeah my podcast has more listeners than any of the tv shows or radio shows in the country that doesn't make sense loads of people are voluntarily choosing to come and listen to me more than a lot of these radio shows and TV shows in Ireland. And yet, like, I'm kind of a memory from a few years back. The fuck is that about? It's because I'm not part of the construct of fame. because i operate in in the fully independent media legacy media tv uh radio and paper they kind of just ignore you and it's not a great conspiracy

it's just how the the industry is is operating right now it's really fucking strange it's it's not that strange it's straight up business it's competition like i don't know which one of the radio stations it was whether it was rte or today fm or someone but they were running adverts recently appealing to advertisers saying come here to our radio station and advertise people can't skip past your ad here So that's radio flat out admitting podcasts or competition come here. And also it's well known, it's often editorial policy in legacy media to not give too much attention to like podcasts or blogs and to report instead to content that occurs within other legacy media. Whereas if I, if I was to go on the radio tomorrow

and speak about the bard shit problem in Limerick City, then a lot of newspapers are going to put out an article going blind boy speaks on bard shit problem. So legacy media only notices and reports on things that happen in other forms of legacy media. And you can see that this is how they construct fame. And the anger that you're seeing with people these past two weeks members of the public that's a consequence of all that now and reflected in comments such as who are these people why are they famous it's an emperor's new

clothes type of thing and i'm not i don't want to be disrespectful to any of the presenters by saying that if you work in legacy media your fame will be constructed by other legacy media and it's it's like the stock market they inflate the value of something by talking about it by pushing it up and all the legacy media works together and then when it comes to a situation like what's happened with rte the past week under scrutiny that balloon bursts and to further illustrate this point the president of Ireland come on to this podcast so that he could have the type of long format in-depth discussion that you just can't get on radio or tv anymore and was it reported on by the media that the president come on to this podcast? Not really. One or two little articles.

But it wasn't reported on as much as an RT2 presenter doing an Instagram post about their new kitchen renovation. It wouldn't have generated that much press. Because why the fuck would legacy media do that? The president of Ireland just appeared on some lad from Limerick's podcast. A podcast is like a radio show except more people listen to them because it's not annoying. And also I accept full responsibility for the shit that I'm talking about there.

I'm not famous because I'm fucking independent and it's a choice that I'm making and I'm happy with that choice because it means I'm tipping away here making shit that I genuinely really really fucking love and can stand over and I could probably take more opportunities to work

in TV or fucking I've done loads of it I've done loads of it in my fucking CV I could take more opportunities to do it but 90% of the time it means making something I won't enjoy making that I can't stand over because of the simple problem of the format of television and radio it's a format that it isn't relevant anymore like just this podcast for example I'd love to make a documentary I would love to make a documentary about birds in fucking a street in Limerick

and then relating that to the world population and going through all that history I'd love to make a documentary like that it'd be almost impossible to deliver it in any way that's good

under the current way that television and radio is made the first 40 minutes of this podcast was just very simple, slow storytelling. That's all it is. Simple, slow storytelling. And the way that I write is, you know, it's actually, it's a bit like Bard's song. That stochastic pattern shit I was talking about. A controlled type of unpredictability that doesn't follow a predictable pattern so it commands attention.

When I write a podcast, within the first three minutes, I'll say something that'll make you stay until the end. I'll open a podcast talking Talking about fucking bard shit. In Limerick City. And the listener just goes. I have to see where he takes this. This is too weird. I have to find out where this goes. And that's just.

That's storytelling. And when I can get someone's attention. Like that. I can take my time. And tell the story. The way it needs to be told. And build up from bard shit on a street in Limerick to why the world's population is 8 billion people. And then you finish with a complete sense of satiation. I give you a nice smell of frying garlic from the kitchen and then deliver it onto your fucking plate at the end

and you get a feeling of completeness that's storytelling but i have to be one step ahead so that you the listener can't really predict where it's going to end up and it's that desire of going where the fuck is you going to take this and then delivering that's just storytelling you can't really do that on television anymore or radio it's really fucking hard because the format doesn't care about telling the best story it cares about keeping the listener's attention at all times and what you lose there is the ability to slowly peel off layers and reveal things in a slow crescendo. You lose storytelling.

So when you make something for TV, you have to stick to this real rigid fucking format. In fact, it's a highly predictable format. It's a template where the TV show needs to feel exactly like every other TV show you've seen before, which is rooted in an anxiety of make sure they don't change the channel make sure they don't turn off the radio speak faster speak louder don't stay on the same subject for more than 15 seconds bombard them with as much information as possible flashing lights

loud noises bombard the senses bombard the senses and when you end up with is a piece of shit where the audience isn't being treated with respect and you walk away feeling as if someone just called you dumb and this wasn't always the case this happened this this started to happen really in the 80s cable tv competition as soon as you had 16 channels to flick through, it just became a competition for attention. But if you look at TV and documentaries that were made in the 70s, they were a lot more like what podcasts are delivering now. Like one of the greatest TV shows that RT ever made was called Hands.

You'll get them on YouTube. They were just real simple, slow documentaries about crafts people in Ireland. That's all it was. Very slow, made by a small team of people and credited the audience with intelligence and capacity to reflect and breathe proper public service broadcasting because there was no channel to flick. This is what's on and there's nothing else on and you're going to have to watch this and we don't care about advertising revenue. We're just going to make something that we like and it was brilliant. Great example of this in documentary form. A documentary called The Ascent of Man made by the BBC in 1969, I believe. Really slow, engaging, storytelling, monologue essays.

Broadcasting in the service of the public. Like even the old chat show format of the 70s. A beautiful example of this is, and again, these are all on YouTube. Firing Line with William F. Buckley. It was an American talk show political talk show from the 60s it went right up to the 90s

now William F. Buckley was a horrendous right wing bollocks but his TV show it was just like 40 minutes unedited of two people having a really slow in depth conversation and it's a pleasure to watch all TV of two people having a really slow, in-depth conversation. And it's a pleasure to watch.

All TV, before it had to compete with a million channels, is what we now love about podcasting. And TV didn't predict that we'd return to this point. Like, I'll give you an example. There's an early episode of The Simpsons, where Bart tries, it's season 3 or 4 where Bart tries to revitalise Krusty the Clown's career

and as a joke Krusty airs an episode of Classic Krusty which was Krusty the Clown from the 1960s and it's black and white and it's Krusty having a real slow serious talk show political discussion where he says to his guests, do we have a labour crisis in this country?

And that was presented in the 90s as a joke. I can't believe people used to watch this boring shit where there were no loud noises or bright lights. And now people watch fucking three hour long Joe Rogan podcasts. Or a six hour long video essay on YouTube. And the reason is. Our brains are frazzled from our phones. Our phones now want all of our attention. Our social media timelines. Are draining.

Continual non-stop bombardment. TikTok is more energetic than any fucking radio show. It's insanity. And we want to escape this bombardment. And the slower, steady, more concentrated, mindful pace of a podcast gives us what we're looking for. And TV and radio just doesn't really make sense anymore. So that's my opinion on the RTE thing.

radio just doesn't really make sense anymore so that's my opinion on the rte thing it's it's part of a much bigger discussion about legacy legacy broadcasting in general and the other thing too that i'm queasy around is like if you live in ireland you know what i'm talking about they're bringing the fucking rte in front of the government. It's on TV. They're being quizzed by the government every single day. And the fact of the matter is, people did bad shit, underhanded shit with public money, and they do need to be held account. But the way that the government are parading around this RTE thing,

it feels like a performance of accountability. You come away seeing these RTE directors and RTE top brass getting grilled by politicians. And then you come away with this feeling of, ah, people are being held to account. And in the greater scheme of things, we're talking about small amounts of money. Where's that accountability when it comes to vulture funds where's the fucking two-week tv spectacle where the government are saying you mean there's private investment funds in this country and they're buying houses and the people of ireland can't buy houses and this is exacerbating

the housing crisis that's not. We need some accountability here. I'd like to see that. The energy that's being directed at RTE. Start directing that at the fucking health system. The housing system. But they're not going to do that. Instead what you get is. RTE getting grilled. In front of the Oireachtas.

In front of the government. RTE getting absolutely grilled. And this sense and this feeling of accountability. Someone's finally being held to account, but what they're being held to account for is fucking nothing compared to what's happening in housing or in health. There's a lot of bankers from 2008 that need to be put in jail. They were never put in jail.

So I'm sceptical of this huge circus of accountability that's going on by the government that's all I've got time for this week I'll catch you next week might have a little surprise for you next week

we'll see in the meantime rub a dog relocate a worm scrape up some bird shit and use it as fertilizer. Sing to a starling. Dog bless. rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first

ontario center in hamilton at 7 3030pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at TorontoRock.com.