The Blindboy Podcast - Juniper Shrew

Episode Date: November 21, 2018

HOTTEST TAKE YET, IT'S ABOUT THE SWASTIKA Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lend me your ears you juniper shrews You long nosed little shrews Crawling around a juniper bush Forced into an eternity of sucking the juice out of juniper berries And spitting it out so that it may be fermented and created into a gin like product in a type of

very horrible dystopian future where we're all shrews it's the blind buy podcast and I'm actually not sure what number fucking episode this is

because I haven't checked and I was away in Spain last week I think it's episode number 59 what I do know is that it is the 21st of November 2018

which that puts us that's one year, that's exactly one fucking year away from the events of the film Blade Runner, which is shocking, and my studio where I record this podcast well I've gone out of my way to make it look like Blade Runner the character Deckard played by Harrison Ford my recording studio looks a little bit like his apartment

slightly more cheerful I've got a shit ton of like neon lights and panelling on the walls and stuff like that em how the fuck did I get onto this so this is the blind buy podcast

we're getting loads of new listeners em lots and lots of new listeners and I can tell by the the comments that I get online from people who just are a bit confused about certain things you know

why do you play a whistle halfway through the podcast so a lot of newcomers please go to the very start of the podcast and start from episode number one there's loads and loads of podcasts where we covered very diverse and strange things and I don't I don't root podcasts in in a time as such so that they don't really date there might be a mention here and there of what's happening in the world.

But in general the podcasts are about. Various bizarre things. So you can go back to the start. Listen from the start. That's the proper way to do it. And it won't affect you. Rather than starting now. A central tenet of the podcast is.

The hot takes and a hot take is I don't know for me it's a half informed opinion do you know because I'm not an authority on anything I'm just

I'm just someone who likes ideas and I like talking about them a good hot take for me is something that if I said it on Twitter would piss off a lot of people because the problem with Twitter or any social media in particular Twitter because it tends to be more political um people will say things and because as, brevity is a factor in Twitter, you know, you've only got, I think it's 256 characters,

people have to get, political messages across, messages about, opinions on politics or society across, in a short amount of time, which means that, the wording is very brief, and it lacks tone,

so, Twitter can make people incredibly angry so a good hot take for me is something that if i said it on twitter would really trigger people into anger but because i can say it on the podcast the opinions that are come across as controversial or uninformed you can take them with a pinch of salt, because you can hear my tone, so that's a good hot take for me. And this week's episode is going to contain a roaster of a take. A very, very hot take. Recap on last week's episode.

That was a live podcast with the legendary Bernadette Devlin-McAuliskey, and, again, a fucking phenomenal response to that thank you so much to Bernadette obviously for coming on but people really really enjoyed that podcast and so did I I just kept my mouth shut and I was a member of the audience for that podcast because I don't know when you're sitting beside someone like Bernadette like for me you know someone who's lived that life with that much wisdom I truly am confronted with the fact that I'm just some cunt from Limerick

with a bag in his head so I shut the fuck up but thank you for all the positive feedback about that podcast surprisingly thank you too for I had a little monologue at the start and as you know I was over in Spain last week, and wasn't in my studio, so I recorded it from a Spanish park, and I was worried about the fidelity, I was worried that you wouldn't enjoy that ambiance, but you did enjoy the ambiance. you did enjoy the ambiance.

Loads of you loved the fucking sound of me in a Spanish park. I think what it was, people reported that it was soothing. And this is, I was using a microphone that had, it has three separate kind of outputs on it. It's got left, right and up. So it was able to capture my voice and also give a stereo image, an image of what was happening left and right, so I might do a few more outdoor podcasts with that mic,

and to recreate an ambiance, I'm going to be in London for about two months, pretty soon, London for about two months pretty soon shooting my BBC thing so expect more of that hopefully we will do the long promised British Museum

podcast where I go to the British Museum and talk you through some stolen artefacts in the British Museum I'd love to do that and if I can do it I will

one of the issues that can happen with the microphone is that when you move around it makes shitty sounds so I'll see what I can do there you can't also a lot of newcomers wondering what's that fucking noise i make when i pause

it's my vaporizer you pricks it's a vaporizer and it vaporizes a solution of nicotine and skittles flavored juice another common question that i'm finding myself getting these days from new listeners to the podcast. People asking, what's with the piano music in the background? You can hear it there. Well, the piano music is central to kind of a theory I have about podcasts called the podcast hug. And it is something that I try and achieve with this podcast the podcast hug for me is i take the position that the contemporary experience of living

involves a fierce amount of social media right we spend a lot of time with our heads in our phones spend a lot of time with our heads in our phones using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, whatever. It's a very bombarding, even though it doesn't feel that way, it is cognitively quite a bombarding way to live. You're consistently being confronted with strong conflicting opinions and ideas non-stop and this is quite stressful so our existence is quite stressful purely because the sheer amount of ideas that are baiting into our face every day from our phones and what podcasts do for for me certainly and for a lot of people when you listen to a decent podcast it's the only bit of quiet that a lot of us actually get in our day because you know when you listen to a podcast you know you might go for a walk or it might be on your commute on the way to work but podcasts are that little space of quiet

that you get to exist where it's just you and another person's voice and you can come away from a good podcast feeling relaxed and feeling kind of nourished you know your mind feels nourished and you feel relaxed and you feel happy and you're you don't have that that hum of stress that you get from social media where it's not just you know having opinions and ideas that are confronting and making us angry it's the other thing with social media is you know open up instagram you could be looking at you're continually comparing yourself to other people you know because on instagram we just are on instagram in particular we're trying to sell the best version of ourselves possible so when all

your friends are doing that it's you can feel like a piece of shit just using instagram but you're not aware of it the podcast most podcasts, good ones will take you out of this space into a calm meditative state of simply listening and having your brain nourished and massaged and I call that the podcast hug

and the ultimate goal for me with this podcast is to give you that hug the music really helps i find it it creates kind of a relaxing lounge feel do you know just those particular chords there's there's an element of hope to them with a little bit of pessimism. And then. Something smart arsery about it as well.

So they're not completely sad cards. They're not really joyous either. Do you know? And I don't think I'd change it. I wouldn't change that card progression. For the podcast hug. So that's why the piano is there. It's to create a relaxed spa-like atmosphere for you. You bastards.

So let's move on to this week's hot take. This week's hot take. I think it's going to be about the swastika. Now when I say that word swastika. I guarantee you I know exactly what image has just come into your mind. You're thinking of Nazis and Hitlers. Hitlers. There was only one Hitler.

But you're thinking of Hitler and the Nazis you're thinking of this bright red banner with a white circle and a big black swastika in the middle and what we associate with that you know hatred violence terror um and. And it's a forbidden symbol. In Germany, it's flat out illegal. The Germans tried to make it fully illegal all over the EU in 2007, but it's as good as illegal, you know. Try walking around anywhere with a Nazi swastika. It will inflict terror and disgust in everyone who looks at it

because the swastika for us in the 20th century, it just means genocide. It is one of the most powerful symbols of hate that we know. But the thing is that the swastika, Hitler is very late to the party. we know but the thing is that the swastika Hitler is very late to the party with the swastika the swastika is one of the earliest symbols in

humanity and Hitler just kind of appropriated it the swastika is present in the art of nearly every single culture in the world like for example like the earliest the earliest example of a swastika is fucking what was 15 000 years old in and around where ukraine is now they found this a bird right the bird was made out of the tusk of a mammoth so that that'll tell you how old this is so there was this little fucking bird

made from the tusk of a mammoth it was carved out of the tusk of a mammoth that has various designs on it and there are swastikas on it so paleolithic humans 15,000 years ago were carving out swastikas on a mammoth's tusk, an animal that is now extinct they found a swastika

on an owum stone in Ireland there's Native Americans who had no contact On an Awam stone in Ireland. There's Native Americans. Who had no contact. Outside of Native America. Have got swastikas present. And they're in their native designs.

In Buddhism. Swastikas are massive. They represent. Eternity or reincarnation. so the swastika is completely ubiquitous as a design in pretty much every culture in the world um now you know why is that i would go for the kind of the reading that it's just a very simple design. Like, if you think of the stone, the Pashad Stone at the front of Newgrange in Ireland, which is a 4,000-year-old passage tomb in Ireland, if you look at the stone on the front of that,

there's a lot of these very simple abstract shapes you know diamonds lozenges semicircles spirals all these simple shapes on the newgrange stone which is 4 000 years old one of the earliest examples of abstract art but they're just simple iconic designs now there are theories that with newgrange will say it's because of the type of psychoactive mushrooms that would have been available around Newgrange at the time that the artists who made the Newgrange

the rock at the front of the Newgrange tomb were tripping on mushrooms and that these shapes and spirals were what come to your mind when you're tripping but I would go for a Jungian reading Shapes and spirals were what come to your mind when you're tripping. But I would go for a Jungian reading. We speak about Carl Jung a lot on this podcast.

And Jung's idea of the collective unconscious. The idea that humans are animals. And what makes us unique to other animals is that we we have language we communicate via language no other animal has language no other animal has the capacity to hold an idea outside of itself and use language to communicate that to another member of its community only humans can do that abstract ideas but like young young was obsessed with this oh yeah and the collective unconscious is that in all of us all human societies there are what are known as archetypes certain ideas and myths that are common to all of humanity and that's why cultures across the world who've never had any contact but have similar stories and commonalities in their thought

that this is the collective unconscious, human instinct as such, but as manifested through language. So Jung has a thing called a mandala. And a mandala is, it's just a circle really. It's just a circle really. And this circle is. An abstract shape. That's present in.

The art of every single culture in the world. And I would argue that the swastika. Because the swastika is. It's more or less a circle. It's an incomplete square. You know but. I would argue that the swastika is a mandala and young said that the reason human cultures all around the world would draw circles as an abstract shape is that it's

it represents the self so the reason the swastika is present in the collective human unconscious is that it's just another way of drawing the self. And I don't mean the self as in trying to draw your face. It's an abstract attempt at trying to draw your understanding of self, your consciousness. when paleolithic humans were drawing a circle or a swastika maybe they were just like they didn't have the words they had nothing but it was like this is my my sense of being this is me this is this is this is my it's my introspective inner me it's not the me that other people meet it's not my body it's my sense of self and that's what Jung says mandalas are you know when they appear to us in dreams or you know even when people have near-death experiences and they imagine the tunnel of light that that is a mandala so I'd argue that

the swastika is a Jungian mandala that's part of the collective human unconscious and this is why it is present throughout the art of all societies going back 15,000 years the only other place where you will see the swastika in its non-nazi context is

in the form of a very annoying tattoo that people from Galway who have dreadlocks will get. So people from Galway who have dreadlocks and who play bongos will get a tattoo in a visible place such as their wrist or knee of a swastika right and the purpose of it is so somebody will come up to him and go hey dude what are you doing with that swastika on your wrist are you some type of nazi we don't tolerate that here this is shop street this is air square and we have a functioning tourist industry and we're going to be the European city of culture in 2020 even though Limerick should have won it because they needed the cash from the EU

but Galway got it anyway, even though they didn't need it and have loads of festivals already. And then the Galway man with dreadlocks goes, Well, actually, this swastika is from an Eastern culture and it means reincarnation. So i'm not being a nazi maybe open your mind up dude so that's that's a galway a galway man's tattoo and that's the second worst tattoo of a swastika that you can get and the first worst tattoo of a swastika you can get is the nazi tattoo the second worst one is the ironic galway well actually tattoo so don't get that because then a man from limerick who wears a

plastic bag in his head will slag you on his podcast over it so back to the history of the swastika so then hitler comes along decides that the swastika is sufficiently iconic which it is for him to use as a symbol of oppression and hate now the thing is with swastikas like if you look at we'll say

swastikas from ancient Greece or swastikas from pre-Christian Ireland or swastikas within Buddhism-Christian Ireland or swastikas within Buddhism. They're all pretty much the same, but with slight differences. But the Hitler swastika, the Nazi swastika, that's very particular

in how it uses colour, really, you know. That really, that bright red, that red, you know know that means blood it means danger it means stay away you know it's not a very friendly image it's straight up in your face warning Hitler's

representation of the swastika which he first conceived in 1925 and then by the early 30s he had it in flag form when he got out of jail was when he first started unveiling the swastika as this

symbol of the Nazi party so the only place I've ever seen Hitler's representation of the swastika is through fucking Nazi imagery. There's one other place that I have seen the swastika represented the way that Hitler represents it. As in a strong black swastika with a circle around it and the colour red. I've only ever seen it in one other place. And that is in Dublin. Now not literally,

I haven't seen it in Dublin, but in images of Dublin from the 20th century. So here's the crack. There was a company founded in 1912. Okay, now that's a good 10 years, if not more, before Hitler. There was a in dublin called the swastika laundry and they were a laundry service and quite what's really interesting about the swastika laundry in dublin it was in balls bridge founded in 1912 so it was quite a big laundry and they used to have these vans laundry vans that would go all around the city really interesting is that the swastika laundry vans were electric vans in 19 fucking 12 fully functional electric vans going around the city you know if you if you want to buy into the

i don't even know what i call it in a myth. But, you know, the idea that... Yeah, it's not a fucking myth. If the swastika laundry in Dublin had a fleet of fully functioning electric vans in 1912, then this idea that throughout the 20th century that we absolutely had to have petrol is bullshit that was created by the incredibly rich petroleum industry and that electric technology in cars was suppressed. But I digress. In 1912 in Dublin,

there was a fleet of vans of the Swastika Laundry flying all around Dublin. And if you look up photographs online now of Swastika Laundry Dublin, and you look at the van, it is a bright red van and in the middle of it a large black and white swastika near identical to hitler's nazi swastika the only difference is that the swastika part for them was white

they were white on black with red around it and Hitler was black on white with red around it but when you first see this image you just go what the fuck lads and the swastika laundry it ran from 1912 up to 1987 very big laundry company in Dublin and the swastika laundries depiction of the

swastika was so similar to the Nazi depiction that there was a writer, I can't remember his name now, but a German writer visited Dublin in the 50s. And obviously a 50s is fucking, that's only what, 10 years, 5 years after World War II ends. So this poor drama and cunt of a writer is walking around Dublin and he gets the fright of his fucking life. He gets, like, PTSD attack when this laundry van pulls up in front of him. He full-on believed it to be, like, the Gestapo

because it looked so much like the Nazi swastika so I'm like what the fuck why are there vans in Dublin who looked exactly like Hitler's swastika 10 or

15 years before Hitler even unveiled his swastika scratching my fucking head what is going on? This is, you know, can this be a coincidence? They're too similar. What makes it kind of particularly ironic and triggering as well for an Irish person, you know, when I first saw photographs of these vans is the word laundry in Ireland. You know, it brings up ideas of fascism. The word laundry is tainted in Ireland in the way that the swastika is tainted,

because when you say laundry to me, I think of Magdalene laundries, which were these massively oppressive institutions. And I'm explaining this now for my American and British listeners but in Ireland we had these things called Magdalene laundries they started in about the 1840s but basically young girls who were from poor families if they had a child or a wedlock they were imprisoned in this laundry and forced to work in horrible conditions and separated from their children and beaten and killed and sexually assaulted. This stain on Ireland where thousands and thousands of girls

who didn't come from the right families and got pregnant before marriage were imprisoned and punished and beaten um and that's you know that's what laundry means to me as an irish person when i when i heard the word laundry so it's ironic to see these laundry vans with a fascistic symbol on the side of it um it's nuts too because i was know, I was in Spain last week, as I told you. And when I walk around Spain, I always say to myself, fucking hell, isn't it so mad that this lovely modern country, Spain, had a fascist government up until under a lad called Franco, who was a pal of Hitler's. And Franco took power, took control of Spain after the Spanish Civil War, which would have ran before and I think a little bit concurrent with World War II. But the fascists won in Spain. Franco took over well into the 70s.

And Spain was not a democracy. It was a fascist dictatorship and I'd be walking around Spain going fucking hell isn't that mad you know isn't that insane Portugal was the same they also had fascism but sometimes I think back to Ireland and I go maybe Ireland was fascist too we just didn't call it that you know if you look at how Ireland was run like under De Valera and not not even Dev Ireland was a fascist country under the Catholic Church for most of the 20th century you know when we got rid of the Brits when you think of things like the Magdalene laundries you know this enforced labour and imprisonment of innocent young girls who just had a child out of wedlock.

That's fascism. Or when you think about industrial schools, you know, where young boys who came from the wrong families were similarly kind of imprisoned and punished for the wrong behaviour, for being sinful. And you think of the massive censorship that existed there's no harm kind of reframing 20th century Ireland and going yeah we were kind of a fascist dictatorship a bit like Spain too we just didn't call it that way

we had the illusion of democracy politically but ultimately you know it's just controlled by the church I'm digressing again um so the swastika laundry in dublin with their nazi imagery 1912 got me thinking and formulating a hot take so what i want to talk about is a young couple a a young couple in Dublin in, I think, about 1913, 1914. And there's a young girl called Bridget. She's 17 years of age from Dublin.

And she's just out of school. And she meets a lad. And he's a foreign lad he's from the he's from the continent in europe and she's just swept off her feet because she thinks this fella is the most charming cunt that she has ever met in her life and this lad's name was alois so you've got alois and bridget living in dublin 1913 1914 and he takes her on dates to the National Gallery you know, and she's falling head over heels

for him, he's charming, charming the pants off her telling her fibs though you know, he gives her the impression that, you know, the country he comes from in Europe, that he's an incredibly wealthy man and he's just on a tour all over Europe. Because that's what wealthy young lads used to do back in the day. They'd go on, they'd have their parents' money and they'd just fuck off all over the world on a tour

instead of going to college. Not quite the grand tour of the 17th and 18th century, but Alois starts telling Bridget man I'm fucking dripping in wealth, my parents own hotels, all of this. So she falls for him anyway and ends up marrying him. Turns out that Alois, he is foreign and he's charming, continental European man, but he's not wealthy. He's just a normal waiter working in the Shelburne Hotel. So that's Alois' day job.

Nothing wrong with that. It's just he was spoofing your one. He wasn't minted. He's just working as a waiter in the Shelburne Hotel so in his day to day in the Shelburne Hotel as a waiter you know he'd have been waiting tables or he might have been fucking getting tablecloths taking them downstairs to the laundry room

so it's fair to say that Alois who worked in the Shelburne Hotel in Dublin circa 1913, 1914. It's a reasonable assumption to say that this man Alois. Most definitely. Had contact with the laundry vans.

Of the Swastika Laundry. Why wouldn't he? He's a waiter in the Shelburne fucking hotel. What would a laundry company. Where would they get most of their business from fucking hotels hotels have so much bed clothes clothes of the pit of the customers tablecloths to be washed so Alois is going doing his nine-to-five in the Shelburne hotel every single fucking day. He sees.

These. Bright red fucking vans. With their swastikas. On the side of him. As part of his daily existence. In Dublin. Okay. What if I told you.

That Alois's second name. Was Hitler. And what if I told you still that Alois's younger brother his name was Adolf and if you read Mein Kampf which is Adolf Hitler's book

which he wrote in 1925 I believe he says I myself meanwhile after innumerable attempts had laid down a final form. A flag with a red background a white disc and a black swastika in the middle. After long trials I also found a definite proportion between

the size of the flag and the size of the white disc as well as the shape and thickness of the swastika. Adolf Hitler's fucking brother Alois worked in the Shelburne Hotel in Dublin this is a fact

swastika laundry bright red vans Dublin vans with the swastika exactly as Hitler portrayed it would have been part of Alois Hitler's daily fucking life 10 years later

Alois' younger brother is designing a swastika that looks exactly like the swastikas that were on the vans in Dublin. Now I know this is violent hot, but is it too mad for me to suggest there might be a fucking connection? Come on the fuck, are you telling me that Alois Hitler didn't pick up the phone every so often or write a letter to his brother who would have been, what are we talking 1914? His brother, he would have been getting rejected from art, Hitler would have been getting rejected from art college at that point. He would have been, he would have because then he went to the front lines of World War I about 1915 or 1916, I think.

Hitler would have been getting kicked out of art college. Maybe Hitler was, like, writing or telegramming his brother Alois back in Dublin and going, ah, fuck it, man, I'm after getting kicked out of art college, cuz. And then Alois is like, ah, it's not too bad. What did you want to do in art college? I just wanted to paint and shit. And then Alois goes, did's not too bad what did you want to do in art college I just wanted

to paint and shit and then Elois goes do you ever think about graphic design no what's that I just like branding and stuff you know it's really nice things like there's these vans there's these lovely vans that come into work every day he goes fuck off what type of vans just these vans and they're bright red and everywhere they are and they're electric as well fuck off electric vans yeah Adolf yeah so there's these vans these red vans

and you could be looking out onto Sackville Street and you'll always see these red vans a mile away because they're the only vans in the street that are red and then when they pull up

they've got this like this design on the side of it what was it called a swastika someone told me so it's this bright red van with a swastika and like they're just really recognizable you know and then adolf goes yeah yeah what are you getting at well like that's graphic design that's you know someone would have had to design that maybe maybe if you can't get into art college as a painter maybe you should try and be a designer you know and you have to remember as well at the time designer would have been considered an artisan which is much much

lesser than an artist you know if like if you didn't get into art college as an artist you would have had a chance as a graphic designer because that's artisanal graphic designers would have been seen the same as carpenters or fucking what else is an artisanal craft a furniture maker or something you know that's what a graphic designer would have been in 1914 I'm going leaps and bounds here lads

this is an imaginary conversation between Adolf Hitler and his fucking brother but I think I might be onto something and if I'm onto something that take ranks as possibly the hottest take

of this podcast so far almost as hot as two weeks ago when I tried to justify the ideology of ISIS but this is a hot one boys Adolf Hitler's brother worked in the Shelburne Hotel. He saw the Swastika laundry vans.

Boom. His younger brother creates the most iconic image of utter hatred. Because of an electric red van being driven by some lad called Deco from the Liberties. Who probably got shot in the rising. I don't think it's that mad and if it's a coincidence fuck me what a coincidence there you go right it's time for

the Ocarina Pause and then I'll take a few questions off you. The Ocarina Pause is the segment in this podcast where digital adverts are inserted and what I do is so that the advert doesn't come in as just a big loud surprise I will play my Spanish clay whistle the ocarina as a warning and you may or may not hear an advertisement um now here's the issue this week my swivel chair that I'm on right

so the floors here are fucking like wood and I'm on a swivel chair my ocarina which is this little clay whistle has a string lanyard on it so the ocarina fell onto the ground and the string got involved in

one of the wheels of the fucking swivel chair so now the ocarina is it's on the floor and i can't get the ocarina i can't remove it from the the wheel of my swivel chair basically right and i don't really want to cut the twine i'd rather figure out how to remove the ocarina in a sensible fashion but for the time being the ocarina is on the ground tied to the bottom of my chair so I'm going to have to walk away from the microphone now

crawl onto the ground and play the ocarina from the ground extra loud as part of the pause okay extra loud as part of the pause. Okay. I don't know if you can even hear me down there. On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girl. Witness the birth.

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no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. that was the ocarina pause live from the floor which I'll try and extract it during the week which I'm not looking forward to because swivel chairs are just fucking heavier than they look

and they're awkward and by nature because they swivel they're grand when you're sitting on them but when you have a swivel. They're grand when you're sitting on them. But when you have a swivel chair on its side, they're unpredictable. And they're the type of things you get your fingers caught in and pinched. So I'll have the hellish task of untangling a lot of fucking twine from the the spindle of a. A swivel chair. And hopefully I won't have to.

Take out the scissors you know. Because it's a nice bit of twine. On the end of that ocarina. So. This podcast is. Supported by you. The listener. You the listener are effectively.

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switch on what people see on their feed so the years and years and years and thousands of hours that i put into trying to build up a facebook following of half a million people is now useless if i want to talk about the podcast on facebook i might as well be wanking into a can of Fanta. It's pointless. No one can see anything about it unless I give them money. And in order for me, put it this way, this is how cunty Facebook are.

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Got 40k followers on Instagram. Twitter is the best at the moment. I have 180,000 followers on Twitter. All my social media is under Rubber Bandits by the way. Because the Rubber Bandits have not gone away. We will be releasing tunes at some point. But yeah. I hate relying upon these fucking social media cunts.

For my career effectively. So when you subscribe to the podcast it kind of it cuts out that the social media giant well it puts it into the hands of Apple and Acast but it's a bit more reliable it's a more direct subscription

so you can do that ok I have a sore neck now from being on the ground and playing that ocarina. I'm going to read out a couple of questions from you and answer them because I haven't done that in a good few weeks. Alan says, blind boy, a couple of weeks ago you mentioned that you wanted to lose a bit of weight. Can you tell us how you're getting on with that? lose a bit of weight can you tell us how you're getting on with that yes now before i begin content warning for the next 10 minutes i'm going to be talking about weight loss and eating some

people don't want to hear that fair enough absolutely fine so skip ahead 10 minutes if you don't want to hear about that if you do want to hear it continue listening five weeks ago i said to you that i wouldn't mind losing about a stone um and yes i have i have lost nine pounds in body fat in five weeks and it wasn't that difficult to be honest um like i'd mentioned in that podcast podcast, I noticed that I was about a stone overweight for my height, we'll say. And I was like, what the fuck? Because I'm incredibly active. I run 10 kilometers three times a week. And the days that I'm not running, I'm in the gym lifting very heavy weights I take one day off a week to rest but every day I'm highly active with intense exercise on top of that Monday to Friday I eat very well I enjoy cooking so every everything I eat is home cooked ingredients fresh ingredients

vegetables and you know no bullshit so I was quite shocked to see that i was a stone overweight so i was like what the fuck is that about i was blaming a slow metabolism so what i did was i got an app called my fitness pal and what this app does is that it you basically type in literally every single thing you eat and it tells you exactly how many calories there is in is in that food and it gives me a goal of 2000 calories a day and i also weigh out the food with digital scales and scan the barcode and all that shit so what i found was all the hard work that i was doing during the week of watching my food and exercising like a lunatic

was being negated at the weekend through the consumption of Polish cans so using my fitness pal what I was able to do was let's just say I had Saturday night 6 Polish cans

that's 2000 calories 6 Polish cans that's 2000 calories 6 Polish cans is 2000 calories then having 6 Polish cans and possibly smoking a bit of Boldy too I get the munchies, so then I order a pizza so the pizza that I

order is maybe 3000 calories so now on Saturday night I'm up to 5000 calories then I wake up the next morning. On the Sunday. I have a hangover. Getting nothing done. Too depressed and fearful. From the hangover to cook.

So I want to reward myself. With a chicken curry. From the Chinese. Another 2000 calories. So now we're up to. 7000 calories in a weekend. So that act. One act of. Ind indulgence once a week was negating all my

hard work for the weekdays resulting in a slow gain of a stone over about six months so i got rid of it all i got rid of it in five weeks and it wasn't that difficult and I'm actually really happy because um it's it's just really it caused me to very sensibly look at the food that I was eating and it's my drink tolerance has gone down because now what I'm doing is I'm still having my cans at the weekend but I'm switching to Bud Light I'm only having maybe five of them which is about 600 calories I'm not getting takeaway because I'm preparing in advance to have something sensible to eat and the next day as well just sensible eating so it was a really good thing for me i'm quite chaotic as well you know being able to religiously put every single thing i eat into an app and knowing

how many how much vitamins i have out of this it gave me a great sense of order and control in my usually chaotic attitude to food where i'd normally be eyeballing things i have a digital scales as well so i weigh out everything so i'm exactly 2 000 calories a day so for me that worked brilliantly it inadvertently curtailed my drinking as well which is no harm even though i was having six polish cans you know fuck it that that's considered binge drinking under under the alcohol laws or alcohol guidelines in ireland six cans is considered binge drinking anything over four i think so six cans of bud light isn't really binge drinking i've no hangover i'm more mindful of everything i eat um when i feel like having an irresponsible snack i won't know because i'll scan the snack

into my fitness pad and it'll go show me how many empty calories are in it and i just go what's the point in that that's a bit stupid isn't it because what i found with because i do so much exercise and eat well during the week when it came to the weekend and the cans i wasn't even questioning it because i was going sure i'm after working like a lunatic all week i deserve it but looking at the everything on my app i was going no that's wanton overindulgence and what's the point in that there's no point in that and as well it's you don't need that much excess i don't need that much excess do you know um now my fitness pal is not going to work for everybody it simply isn't some people

to put that much um kind of obsessive control into what you're eating that could be very bad for some people that could be quite triggering you know for OCD or for eating disorders so if you're that way inclined don't bother your hoop um but yeah quite happy with that last nine pounds don't really notice it because that's not a lot it is actually when it's it's nine sticks of butter but I wouldn't really notice it because that's not a lot. It is actually. It's nine sticks of butter. But I wouldn't really notice it. But I'm happy anyway. And it's a lifestyle change. So I won't be going absolutely apeshit on cans and pizzas anymore.

Maybe once every six weeks. If I feel like it. But I'm much happier now to be moderate and sensible. And as well, as you know, I'm just back from Spain. And when I go to Spain on a writing week, normal rules don't apply. So I'd usually kind of drink every single day when I'm in Spain. Mightn't get shit-faced every single day,

but I'd be getting shit-faced minimum three times in a week. And I was not drinking every day in Spain I got pissed twice that was it and even then I was drinking half what I would have been able to the last time I was in Spain and I wasn't eating as much shit I didn't have the appetite or desire for it so those are all positive things that just happen in five weeks of a lifestyle change my body's perceived needs for alcohol and fatty salty things changed so that's class steven says hi blind boy i've never been particularly creative and this annoys me because i'd love to be I've got lots of creative

interests but when it comes to creating I don't even know where to start any advice um I'll tell you what Stephen I'd be very surprised if when you were a young child you didn't play with crayons or paints or lego it would be exceptionally strange if you were the one child who did not do these things because all of us when we're toddlers play with crayons we draw things we fuck around with paint we play with plasticine or marla whatever you want to call it we work with our hands and we work with aesthetic stuff and then what usually happens is i think it's when you go to school and you get to four or five and you start to become aware of yourself and other people and you see that other kids are better at it and then we start to decide this isn't my thing or maybe it's messages from your teachers or from your parents but

we divide into people who are arty and creative and people who are not and this is not how it should be it is it is not how it should be. It is not how it should be. I think it's a product of how our society commodifies creativity. Some people are going to be naturally gifted at creativity and have the ability to go on and become professional artists. That doesn't mean that everybody cannot involve themselves in the creative process. The important word there is fucking process okay when when you're two years of age with lego you do not give a fuck about what the lego looks like when you're finished with it you don't care what you care about is the

enjoyment of doing it same with the crayonsons, same with the paints. Young kids have that sorted. Any creative endeavour that I engage on now as a professional adult creative person, whether it's music, whether I decide to do a bit of painting which I haven't done in years or writing. painting which I haven't done in years or writing I'm trying to get back to that stage when I was two three years of age where I didn't care what I was doing I was simply involved in the process to achieve a sense of flow so what I'd say to you Stephen is it's a myth it's a myth in your own mind that you can't create something you mightn't be able to create something that you step back from and think is amazing or other people will think it's brilliant but maybe you know that who says that's the fucking goal carl jung has a huge thing about this carl jung up until his death used to create an hour a day for playing as an adult he used to go out his back garden and play with sticks and

stones like he was a toddler because of the importance of play in as as part of our mental health journey and process so easiest place to start is an adult coloring book okay because that's like training wheels with an adult coloring book it's easy to do you've got the mindful experience of it all of this nothing wrong with paint by numbers as well airfix an airfix kit you know these things that are lego what figure out your thing that you enjoy doing but most importantly you have to go at it with zero expectations and even if that means taking out a few paints trying to paint something from a magazine or paint some flowers if you want to fuck that into the bin afterwards and show nobody that's fine but go at it the way you would a bike ride.

If I said to you, hop up onto your bike there and go out for an hour, you're not going to say to yourself, ah, no, no, no, I won't be any good at it. Because it's a fucking bike ride. You're going to get up on the bike. You're going to go up the road, up the mountain. You're going to come back down and be home in an hour. Therefore, it's not intimidating. You're like, yeah, I'm going to come back down and be home in an hour therefore it's not intimidating you're like yeah I'm going to

fucking cycle the bike and I'm going to listen to a podcast or listen to an album think of use that attitude when it comes to anything

creative paints colouring book marla whatever the fuck you want go at it for the process uh without fear because we we have this fucking idea that only creative people or only artists must engage in this bullshit that's just if you want to make a career out of it we were all

creative as children we can all be creative as adults and let's try and change that one in our society for our collective fucking mental health i mean those paleolithic societies that i spoke about at the start of the podcast like the people of newgrange like if you look at cave art you know people sticking their hands on the wall and spitting paint in their hands just making handprints on the wall and spitting paint in their hands just making handprints on the wall and then other people trying their best to draw bison or to draw wolves art in in paleolithic times would have been a communal thing it wasn't necessarily just artists doing it it was everyone making their mark and with too much spare time on her time

appreciating that when i do this thing with my hands i feel calm so it's good so i'm gonna do it that's where we should be as a society today there we should value the space as adults for playing there's nothing wrong with it will asks hi blind boy would you recommend some good music you used to recommend an album each week on the podcast but don't think you have for a while yeah i used to recommend an album a week at the very start and then i think i repeated an album and that was enough for me to stop recommending albums um i just didn't want to recommend an album every week but i tell you what like as you'll know if you listen to this podcast like i'm obsessed with fucking music i i adore music so much in all shape of shapes and forms and i love giving people

new music so what i'd recommend to you to do if you're interested in my music recommendations if you go on to the rubber bandit spotify page and on spotify you will find playlists that i have made i've got a disco playlist that that that's specifically made for the two podcasts i did about the history of disco i've got a post disco and a roots of house music playlist but i also have a playlist on the rubber band at spotify and it's called objectively classed tunes and this is a playlist about 300 songs all different artists and i add to it every single week of decent music tunes that are objectively classed and 90 no 80 of the music you probably won't have heard

because I try my best to pick from relatively obscure places or unexpected places and I guarantee you if you're into music and you go onto the Objectively Classed Tunes playlist on Spotify you will find artists that you will love that you've never heard before so do that instead of me recommending an album every week owen asks paparazzi i watched an interview with kate moss a few years ago and something she said stuck with me she said she was a blonde girl in her 20s

running down a street in la in fear being chased by 10 men but because they had cameras in their hands it was okay. I know you have a strong feeling towards your privacy which I relate to and sadly a bag over your head can't work for all creative professions. I have a two-part question. Do you think a law will ever be brought in to protect famous people from paparazzi? Personally the mindset of the paparazzi turns my stomach and I feel they are the root of many deaths of amazingly talented young people over the years secondly do you think it's impossible to make it as an actor and musician

in today's day and age without having an online presence I'll answer the second question first it would be very difficult to make it as anything creative today without an online presence unless you're daft punk

very difficult the an online presence is the greatest tool that any prospective professional creative person can have because it means you take ownership of your own career rather than handing it over to a pr agency or a manager online presence is a great thing yeah regarding the paparazzi thing it's fucking disgusting it is that I don't know why it's legal I don't know why it's legal um I've spoken many times about privacy like my thing is is that I'm I'm a creative person, I'm an artist, I have a strong, insatiable desire to create things and put them out for public consumption. That doesn't mean that I want to become part of the spectacle of notoriety or celebrity that goes along with being creative. being creative so instead I've got a plastic bag

on my head which it's the same as just having a puppet do you know what I mean like my plastic bag is like Kermit the Frog like no one gives a fuck

about the hand that's underneath Kermit do you know what I mean you need the green frog is that thing that engages with the spectacle

of celebrity and for me my bag is that thing that engages with the spectacle of celebrity. And for me, my bag is that thing that engages with the spectacle. But underneath the bag is just a knuckle. Do you know? So, I absolutely hate that invasion of privacy. The fact that a person who's in the public eye can't live a normal life. Coupled with the fact that today famous people are no longer really earning money a very small percentage of famous people are

earning money but a lot of famous people you know people in your favorite bands instagram celebrities whatever you have they're not earning fucking money they're not earning the type of money whereby they can hire security where they can live in houses that have high gates they have to live the exact same life as you or me

so throw onto the middle of that the continual invasion of privacy and becoming public property fuck that and the way that paparazzi behave like i've seen on fucking youtube some of them upload videos like they'd be following people around deliberately asking them horrible personal questions so that the celebrity has a strong

emotional reaction can get angry and then the photograph of them being angry, is what they sell to the papers, it needs to be fucking illegal, why is that legal, if, like as Kate Moss said, if they didn't have cameras in their hands, every right thinking person would go,

hold on a minute, what are you doing, or if you walked into the pub, and decided that your mate was famous for the day so you see all followed him around with fucking camera phones it's unacceptable like please make that illegal it's disgusting and stop buying the fucking magazines and stop clicking on the shit it's fame dehumanizes people it's it's like as soon as someone gets any bit of notoriety we assume that that person

must be incredibly happy and so much better than us so it's okay then to throw rocks at them fuck that human beings it's unacceptable right on that note I will end the podcast I I liked answering the questions,

I haven't answered questions in a fucking while actually, and that was lovely, thank you for those questions, have a lovely week, be sound, be compassionate, all this carry on, next week I'll be over in London, actually no, I'll be able to record the podcast in the studio. Not sure what I'll do it on next week. Hope you enjoyed this one. A nice boiling hot take. Have I any gigs to plug? There's three dates in Cork.

Coming up in December. In St Luke's Church. Two of them are sold out. One of them has just been added because those two are sold out em there's ones coming up in Dublin in like February yeah I have a few nights in the Sugar Club

in Dublin in like February and I'm deliberately doing these because I just did four sold out nights in Vicar Street in Dublin and those were large gigs they were big gigs with a large audience so I want to do we'll say boutique

that's a fucking hipstery thing to say I want to do some boutique live podcasts where it's a small venue small audience and it allows me then as well to get more obscure guests because when i'm doing vicar street when you choose a guest you have to it has to be someone who is comfortable with an audience of 2 000 people not everyone's comfortable with that so when i do the sugar club i can bring bring on guests that may not be comfortable with a giant audience.

And it's more intimate. Small, I think Sugar Club's like two, three hundred people only. So there's a few of them. I think they're online if you want to get them. God bless. Go fuck yourselves. Have a bit of self-compassion. Have some compassion for other people. don't be too hard on yourself if you embarrassed yourself you know

if you did if you spoke to someone a friend of yours in a mean way take ownership of it apologise to him make a connection with that person through the apology. You'll grow as a human being. Yart. 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 30 p.m 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.