The Blindboy Podcast - Landlords, Medieval Snails and Nightclubs

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

Landlords Medieval Snails and Nightclubs. I answer yere questions about these things  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Invest in some tennis shoes, you tin pan Andrews. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. It's been an incredibly humid week in poor old Limerick. It's been hot and sticky. And the mad thing is with Ireland, it's always humid in Ireland. It's forever humid in Ireland, but you don't notice it when it's cold when it's cold humidity is refreshing

but when it's fucking hot it's inescapable an inescapable stickiness there's nothing you can do about it so I spent the past week being chased by invisible water vapor

like we have a culture of shame in Ireland we tend to punish ourselves when we enjoy anything and we blame it on the Catholic Church we blame it on the influence that Catholicism had on Irish culture

but every year when we get our heat wave I'm more and more convinced that our culture of shame comes from the weather because anytime we get a heatwave here we can't enjoy it you can't enjoy your seven days of dry sunshine

because you know it's going to end in this violent torrent of rain like however intense the heat wave is, that's how intense the rain will be when it ends suddenly and violently. And this means you can't actually enjoy the weather. I can enjoy a nice bit of dry heat when I'm in Spain. I can't enjoy it in Ireland.

Not a fucking hope. Because I'm thinking about the rain that's going to come. And I'm also... Whenever it's hot in Ireland it's such a rare such a rare thing that you end up feeling that you're not enjoying it enough and you can't plan anything because you just don't know when the rain is going to come like when did the rain come? On Sunday. My poor fucking neighbor was having a barbecue. My neighbor had invited everyone he knows over to have a barbecue out his back garden. And how was he supposed to know the rain was going to come? And if you're planning something like a barbecue and you're an adult and you want to invite a load of other adults

to your barbecue you need minimum 7 days to give people enough notice you can't do that in Ireland you can't predict with confidence that in 7 days time it'll still be sunny so everyone called around to his gaff he had the barbecue going out the back

people enjoying themselves then the fucking heavens opened violently. Thunderstorm, big fat cold rain. Everyone has to run back inside and he's left with a bunch of cold meat that he has to cook in the oven. And I think this is why we have difficulty enjoying things or feeling guilty about enjoying things because we know the punishment is coming. And if we're being really honest we prefer the rain to the sun even though the sun is lovely like i love the sun if i'm in a different country but i'm not mad about the sun in ireland because i can't trust it i don't trust it i don't trust the sun in ireland and when we do get sun i'm skeptical sceptical of it, and I can't enjoy it in the moment,

because I'm like, fuck, the sun is here. Shit, it could be gone tomorrow. I hope I can use my time in the sun effectively. I hope I can enjoy it in the moment. So I sit down on a sun lounger, put on some suntan cream, and then read a book. And then after about five 5 minutes I start feeling guilty

thinking what are you doing lying down in the sun it could be gone in a couple of hours why aren't you washing and drying clothes there's great drying out here so then I leave the sun lounger, start washing and drying clothes, hanging up the laundry for the wonderful heat that's there and then I feel

guilty that I'm not sitting down reading a book and then I say to myself just give me rain, just give me fucking rain, at least I know where I stand with rain, it's predictable I know it's going to disappoint me not this sun shit fuck off, I'll see you when I'm in

Spain so this week on the podcast what I'm gonna do is answer some of your questions because you're always asking me questions and people are frequently asking me to do question answering podcasts I have a backlog of about fucking 700 questions that I need to answer so I went through them and I picked a few and I'm going to answer what I can. So Lisa asks, Blind Buy, what is it about Ireland

right now that concerns you most? That's a good one. Corporate landlords. That's something I'm very concerned about corporate landlords I don't think people are taking it as seriously as we should be taking it I don't think people are as informed as they should be around it

I don't think people understand how shitty things will be when corporate landlords get a proper foothold and this isn't just happening in Ireland, it's happening the world over. It accelerated rapidly since the COVID pandemic. Basically what's happening globally and big time in Ireland is investment funds and pension funds, which is basically loads of people's money

together in one pile so all these different people thousands, millions of people put all their money into one pile and then this pile of money is managed by a fund who exist as a company in Ireland we call them cuckoo funds

but basically what's happening is these giant piles of cash that are being managed as companies are buying loads and loads of property so that they can rent this property out to make a profit for the people who've invested in that fund they're making it impossible like buying a house in Ireland is difficult enough but they're making it impossible like buying a house in Ireland is difficult enough but they're making it really impossible for any person to buy a house because the investment fund just has so much money so even when a house goes on the market

for sale and even if there's some couple who can afford to buy that house to make a home for themselves. A big giant investment fund worth a couple of billion just buys the house because they can outbid the people. And then they buy the house so that it can be rented. So they're driving up the price of houses, which put houses out of the fucking hands of regular people. And then forcing

everybody into renting and then that pushes the rent up like just this evening on Twitter I saw a queue of 150 people in Dublin just trying to view a house that's available to rent and if you're thinking so what if I have a corporate landlord

what's the difference between a corporate landlord and just a regular landlord? Well, both situations are fucking shit. But with a corporate landlord, like let's just say you're renting a house at the moment. And the washing machine breaks. At the very least, you can ring up your landlord and say the washing machine is broken can you come and fix it and you're going to have to go through all that bullshit that you go through but at least you're speaking to your landlord when it's a corporate landlord you could be

renting a gaff and then you have a phone number that you ring and the phone number that you ring to fix your washing machine is some call center halfway around the world so now trying to complain to your landlord will become as difficult as trying to speak to Ryanair customer service you ever tried to get a refund from Ryanair holy fuck that's difficult so Cocoa Funds corporate landlords I think that needs to be literally illegal that needs to be illegal in Ireland

it's not ethical and it's abusive and is the Irish government gonna gonna do that no guess why because the Irish government are creating tax subsidies for these fucking corporate cuckoo funds to become landlords in ireland not only that the irish government views these cuckoo funds as the solution to the fucking housing crisis. How?

So if one of these. Investment funds decides to. Buy an entire block of apartments in Dublin. Or in Limerick. Or Cork. So a multi-billion investment fund comes in. And buys 40 apartments. To rent. They can avoid.

10% stamp duty tax. If they promise. to rent those apartments to the government for social housing. They passed this in the Dáil in 2021. So instead of the government like building homes, building social housing, they're putting it all to the private market where these investment funds can profit from Ireland's need for social housing. Which completely takes the absolute piss out of the taxpayer. Like I have no

problem whatsoever with taxes being used for social housing. I want that. I don't want homelessness. Take my fucking money. Tax me and provide people with homes. But the government aren't doing that. I don't want homelessness. Take my fucking money, tax me and provide people with homes. But the government aren't doing that. They're setting up a situation where, yes, people can access social housing. But the government pays the investment fund Dublin rent in order for that to happen.

Dublin rent in order for that to happen. So the investment fund is still getting four grand a month profit to lease out social housing. How does that happen? Because the fucking COCU funds lobbied our government into doing this. So it's not a compassionate solution that provides homeless people with homes.

It's a system that looks like that on the surface but is actually so that coco funds and investment funds can profit massively and then it actually worsens the housing crisis because that pushes all the rents up and reduces the housing supply so is that a solution to the housing crisis no No. What it is, is a system that perpetuates the housing crisis. And the worse the housing crisis gets, and the more expensive rents get, then the more profit these investment funds make. It's a way to milk misery for profits. And does that sound familiar?

Yes it does, because it's what the government has done with both direct provision and emergency accommodation direct provision is where asylum seekers who are seeking asylum in Ireland are not actually given any compassionate solution but rather kept in a type of prison in perpetuity and then companies who run direct provision centres have an endless supply of profits from taxes. So it doesn't solve anything, it's not compassionate. The system is stitched up where misery is turned into profits for the private market. Same with emergency accommodation. If a person is living on the streets, are they provided with a home, a place of security to live a meaningful life? No, homeless people are put into hotels in Ireland. Why? Because there's hotels up and down

the country who have full occupancy every single night now. This has been happening for over a decade. Families are placed in hotel rooms, living in awful conditions, supposedly as a temporary solution, but actually living there long term. It's infinitely more expensive than building social housing, but it's not about that. It's a system that's set up for hotels to earn money in perpetuity. It's turning people's misery into something that can be milked for profit.

And in my personal opinion, this is why I think there's so many hotels being built in Dublin that they don't need. Because in Ireland, hotels are recession-proof. If there's no tourists to fill the hotels, it doesn't matter, because the hotels can fill themselves up with homeless people,

and each night that bill is paid for by the government instead of them just simply building and providing social housing so this emerging trend of cuckoo funds and investment funds buying property in ireland so that they can become landlords and renting that property to the government as social housing that's like a much larger way more fucked up version of what we've been seeing the past 10 years because now it's not just how do we exploit the most marginalized and vulnerable in society it's how do we exploit the most marginalized and vulnerable in society and everyone else too who doesn't own a home and needs to rent and this isn't just Ireland this is global this is

happening in every country since the pandemic all of these investment funds are stepping up and buying property to rent and here's an example of how widespread this is becoming. Did you ever see that film, The Big Short? It's a very good film about the fella who predicted the recession, we'll say, of 2008. He's played by Christian Bale. It's an excellent film. But he's a real dude.

His name is Michael Burry or Michael Burey. But he's viewed as a genius in the investment world. He's the guy who predicted the fucking recession. He saw it when nobody else could. If you look at his investment portfolio at the moment, since 2021, 60% of his investment fund is in these things called REITs. Real Estate Investment Trusts. And that's what I'm talking about here. That's what these things called REITs, Real Estate Investment Trusts. And that's what I'm talking about here.

That's what these things are. Real Estate Investment Trusts. It's a giant pile of money, a faceless pile of cash, loads of people together get into one of these trusts and then they're managed like a company and they become corporate landlords and these funds have so much money that they can buy all the property they can outbid everybody

they don't care how much they pay they will simply buy all of the property because they know they're going to make that money back really quickly through rents and through the Irish government who are saying please please come in buy all the property please do we won't even charge a tax to give you that extra advantage just come in and buy everything please and then we the government will use tax money to rent social houses from you and you can charge whatever the fuck you want and rents can go up as high as possible because we're going to keep paying and then to say it again how how is something this ridiculous happening because the investment funds lobbied the government and if you're wondering what is lobbying lobbying is when a private company approaches politicians and says to the politicians, can you change the rules and regulations of your country? Not to suit the people, but to suit my business.

Can you do that? That's what lobbying is. And it's a huge problem in Ireland because, what's so special about Ireland? We have one of the lowest corporation taxes in the world. So massive companies come to Ireland supposedly to pay a 12% tax. Most of them end up paying less than 1% tax.

Ireland is where the largest corporations in the world come to launder money. And it's why the largest corporations in the world have their corporate headquarters in Dublin and in Cork and in Limerick and in Galway. And it's a double-edged sword for us as Irish people because in Limerick for instance we have Uber. Uber is in Limerick but Uber is also employing a lot of people in a poor city so it's tough to see that it's benefiting a small amount of people in my own city, but also by not paying tax, widening the gap between which rich and poor the world over.

And speaking of Uber, I'll give you an example of corporate lobbying and how it occurs in Ireland. Again, this is fact. As ridiculous as this sounds, this is fucking fact. So Fine Gael, who are one of the largest political parties in Ireland, they're currently in power. Fine Gael's part of Fine Gael's 2016 election manifesto was written by Uber. Uber, the fucking

the company, their headquarters are based in Limerick but yeah, Uber, this big American company, wrote part of Fine Gael's election manifesto and Fine Gael were too stupid to fucking change the words but that's sickening that's sickening that a political party which is supposed to represent the people is allowing its manifesto to be written by some fucking corporate taxi company and we know this because of investigative journalism from Arthur Beasley

and Simon Carswell of the Irish Times. They went and found this out. Otherwise we wouldn't know about it. Which is why investigative journalism is so essential to a functioning democracy. Because if you don't have investigative journalists looking into this shit, we'd never know that Fine Gael are letting their fucking election manifesto be written by Uber. The main parties in power in Ireland are turning into the political wings of corporations, which isn't very democratic, if you ask me.

Now, if you're a new listener to this podcast, or if you're hearing it involuntarily because someone's playing it in your workplace or whatever, and you're thinking to yourself, who's this fucking idiot with a plastic bag in his head talking about politics and talking about housing? What the fuck does he know? He's out of his depth now. Stick to speaking about art. When people say that to me, I point out that a central focus of my work for the past decade has been the question, why can't my generation have access to home ownership and why are rents

so high? That's a question that I've been attempting to unravel and that I've been tracing for a long time. And I'm not an expert and I'm not an academic in this area. But in 2017, I dedicated like a year and a half of my life with BBC working with a team of investigative journalists into the global housing system into the corruption of it into where the money is going

where the money is coming from I was looking at the roots of what's happening now and we made a documentary and it was called Blind by Undestroyed Housing and it was long listed by undestroy his housing and it was long listed for the BAFTA I'm not bragging about awards or any shit like that but I'm just saying if you make a piece of TV and it gets long listed for the BAFTA that's a peer-reviewed industry stamp of approval that denotes rigor so that doesn't make me an expert, but it does make me informed enough that I can express opinions around the area of housing.

But the original question I was asked was, you know, what is it that's bothering me about Ireland at the moment? So that is the, that's the concern. Corporate landlords. What does the country look like when most of the property is owned and run by corporations who manage properties what does the country look like when the housing supply is bought up by these corporations and then you have the government renting social housing from these corporations what does Ireland look like then well I predict there's going to be a lot more evictions and not just regular landlord evictions you're being evicted by a corporation who's your landlord who be a lot more evictions and not just regular landlord evictions you're being evicted by a corporation who's your landlord who has a lot of money what's that going to look

like well my fear is that an eviction industry will flourish that private security companies will start popping up and profiting from evictions like the way that you have clampers you know there's clamping companies that make loads of money from clamping. That, but violently kicking people out of their gaffes. Like we saw in 2018 in Frederick Street in Dublin. There was a group called

Take Back the City. They were a protest group. They occupied a building that was being run by a slum landlord. They were violently evicted. Not by the Gardaí, not by the Irish police, but by another group wearing balaclavas in an unmarked car. Well, the Gardaí stood back.

It was a very frightening moment in Ireland to see the Gardaí step back and allow masked men break the law behind them. To me, it looked like the Gardaí openly breaking the law. In order to appease a landlord. And it was quite disturbing. Because it sent a clear message that in Ireland. The rights of landlords and the rights of property. Are more important than the rights of people.

And I was concerned at the time that it didn't set a new precedent or that this wasn't an ongoing problem or part of something larger and systemic but there was something I saw this weekend that really fucking pissed me off so the Irish Times which is the Irish paper of record ran this piece and the piece was kind of very sympathetic to landlords and it was interviewing landlords in Ireland who are having an awful time and their tenants aren't paying and it's just a nightmare being a landlord it's so unfair in Ireland for landlords and I knew by the look of this piece what it was because it's a trend that I've been seeing in US journalism as well. This new phrase has popped up in the past year called mom and pop landlords and a mom and pop landlord

is it's just a person I think who owns underneath six properties. I think that's the phrase and mom and pop landlord it's a phrase that's designed to make us feel sympathetic towards landlords. That landlords are just like a mom and pop shop. Small businesses, just people trying to feed their families. Because the word landlord is a horrible word. The word landlord denotes aristocracy and oppression. So mom and pop landlord is this new term that's arrived in the past year to make landlords appear a bit softer for us to sympathize with them to portray landlords as victims now i personally

i just have a gut feeling i don't have evidence for this this is a gut feeling i reckon the phrase mom and pop landlord was thought up by one of these investment funds because it started to appear in American media like I said over the pandemic now I see it being used in Irish media even our own housing minister used it last month I think in the Dáil but I'd wager

based on a gut feeling that mom and pop landlord was thought up by a think tank that was funded by these investment funds, because that's what they do. They also lobby journalists, or not even lobby journalists, they can pay for fucking articles to be written. Mom and pop landlord does two things. For the citizen, for you and me,

it makes us more sympathetic towards the landlord it makes us feel as if the land oh man it's so tough out there for landlords jesus i never thought of landlords as just this person trying to get by wow so for us it does that then what does it do to landlords well to an actual small landlord who has one property or whatever. To them it communicates that this industry is impossible. Get out now. You're fucked. Look at the newspapers.

Mom and pop landlords are fucked. Their tenants are terrible. This is awful. It's a terrible industry to be in. Sell. Sell your house. You don't want to be a landlord. So the small landlord

sells to who? the fucking investment fund because they're the only ones who can afford the houses now I'm not saying this in defence of any fucking landlord but I'm just saying the phrase mom and pop landlord from every angle it benefits the investment

funds and that's why I think they thought it up. It makes us think of landlords as poor cuddly fluffy victims and it makes landlords want to sell their property to investment funds. But anyway the Irish Times ran an article at the weekend that had this mom and pop landlord theme. Poor old landlords in Ireland. Their tenants are awful. Oh, it's a terrible time to be a landlord in Ireland. No one supports you. And they ran this piece with interviews with landlords. But in the middle of it, there was this incredibly disturbing fucking paragraph. And I'll read it out for you. The couple inherited the house after the parent died.

The couple decided to rent it. Things went fine for a few months until the rent was not being paid. The tenant told the landlord, F off, take it to the RTB. Footnote, the RTB is the Residential Tenancies Board. They're the body that mediate disputes between tenants and landlords. So the article continues. The landlord went to the local guards to seek advice, only to be told, take it to the RTB, not our jurisdiction. But outside the Garda station, the Garda gave the landlord a number to ring

on a strictly confidential, I never gave you this number basis. The contact told him on the phone that he's specialised in solving such problems for a fee. The contact turned out to be a guy who went to the property and requested payment of rent and arrears. On being told to F off, the tenant found himself on his back on the front lawn and within 30 minutes the lot had fled. The happy landlord then spruced up the house. So that was up on the Irish Times, that bit in that article,

for I think about eight hours, and then it was suddenly deleted by the Irish Times without any explanation as to why they deleted it. They just said this article has been edited. Now what they've described there is a very fucked up crime. In this fluff piece about mom and pop landlords where we're supposed to feel sympathy for the poor old landlord they tried to recount to us this funny anecdote about this poor landlord. This poor landlord and the tenant was in pain and there was nothing he could do about it.

Not even the police could help him. So then a member of the police gave the landlord the number of an illegal evictor who went and assaulted the tenant and kicked him out of the fucking gaff. The Gardaí, the police said we're not touching this but here's the number of someone who will and they'll do it illegally.

And then the Irish Times just deleted it without offering an explanation as to why. Someone needs to do investigative journalism on that. If that story is fucking true. If the journalist spoke to a fucking landlord. Then the Irish police are now engaged in a conspiracy. Like put it this way. Imagine your neighbour is playing music really loudly or something.

So you go to the guards and you say, Here guards, my neighbour's playing loud music, it's really disturbing me, they won't stop. And then the guards say, there's nothing we can do about it, but here's the phone number of someone who'll kick their head in if you like. Like, that's what happened here. An Irish policeman gave a landlord the number of a fucking thug who quote unquote put the tenant on his back in the front lawn within 30 minutes. So are the guards now colluding with people who do illegal evictions? Like can someone do investigative journalism on

that please? Surely the Irish Times can go back to the person they fucking interviewed. Why did that bit not become the article? Why did that bit not become the article? Why did that bit not become a new fucking investigation? Maybe it is. Maybe it is. And we need to give it time. But the other thing too, why couldn't the landlord go to the RTB? Why couldn't the landlord go to the body that mediates disputes between landlords and tenants? Because that's what they're there for

what is the landlord frightened of if the landlord is legit and genuinely has a gripe with the tenant and the tenant isn't paying rent as they say take it to the rtb and let them sort it if everything's above the law if you're behaving within the law respecting the tenant's rights why did you need someone to come in and physically assault the tenant? The whole thing is fucking tone deaf. But I really hope some journalist or somebody investigates that specific incident because if a fucking guard gave the landlord the number of someone who would

do the brutality that the guard couldn't, then someone needs to be held to account there and worse was that just one guard or is this something that a lot of guards are doing and what's it going to look like when everyone's landlord is a corporation and what can you do stay informed stay informed about this don't vote for people who support this shit find out whether your politicians support this shit. Find out whether your politicians support this shit. Find out what they're doing about it. Listen to people like Dr Rory Hearn who I've had on this podcast twice who's a social policy expert who is an expert in this area and dedicates all of his time to exposing this shit. He's screaming and roaring about it. And also consider joining a community

action tenants union. In Ireland, it's called CATU. C-A-T-U. You might have a branch that's near you. You could start up a CATU branch if there isn't one. Visit catuireland.org. And what is it? It's a community action tenants tenants union you join a union of not only tenants but also people who have mortgages what katu does is it tries to protect people from illegal evictions or having their rights violated so if your landlord or the bank or whoever calls these heavies to come to your house to forcibly evict you. Every member of your local cat who also shows up to stop them. The physical presence of numbers and also camera phones to expose any wrongdoings.

And don't forget, this shit is our history. Your great-grandparents were doing this. Standing up to landlords, standing up to illegal evictions. Irish people have been doing that for hundreds of years. Geraldine asks Why are there so many snails in medieval European art? Now here we go.

Here's a question I'm academically qualified to answer. So snails are very present in European medieval illuminated manuscripts. Especially from about 1100 to 1300. You see these getting turned into memes nowadays. You'd have someone share a medieval image and all of a sudden there's a lot of people fighting giant snails and it looks out of place and strange.

Illuminated manuscripts were what were produced in monasteries. Think like the Book of Kells. But not the Book of Kells. What was happening in France or Italy or Germany around the same time. Because Irish illuminated manuscripts are quite unique. We retained design elements of our pre-Christian culture so Irish illuminated manuscripts are considered some of the best because they're just unique and different

but on the continent they also had illuminated manuscripts which were fantastic but didn't have the uniqueness of the Irish design but what they did have was a fuckload of snails. And a lot of these drawings of snails would happen in the margins of these illuminated manuscripts. These manuscripts were usually like the Gospels. You'd have monks dedicating their lives to recreating the Gospels. You'd have hundreds of monks in a scriptorium

all painting and drawing all day but they used to use the margins of the pages to write their thoughts down or to have little jokes and to draw loads and loads of snails and a common sight is like a medieval knight in full armor with his sword out and he's battling a giant snail. And you look at it thinking, what the fuck is that about? Why is the snail putting up such a fight? This looks ridiculous. Is this supposed to be humorous? Well there was this art historian in the 1960s called Lillian Randall and she wrote an essay called The Snail in Gothic Marginal Warfare and she actually

went and studied this and developed some theories because she noticed I'm looking at all these illuminated manuscripts from the 1200s and the 1300s what the fuck are all these snails doing inside here so she she reckons that the snails represent a group of people called

the Lombards the Lombards. The Lombards were a Germanic people who had been beaten by King Charlemagne in France and were kind of exiled. They would have been marginalised in society, so the Lombards became moneylenders. And because they were moneylenders, a bit like the landlords I was speaking about earlier, because all these Lombards became moneylenders, because they were moneylenders a bit like the landlords I was speaking about earlier because all these Lombards became moneylenders people fucking hated them because they owed them death and snails at the time to be called a snail was an insult because snails were seen as cowardly they were slow and they would retreat their head into their fucking shell and like the Lombards they had no home they're continually moving around with their homes

on their backs and also the thing with snails is their power creeps up on you their power, they accumulate like a debt, like I have this problem at the moment, I'm trying to grow San Marzano tomatoes in my fucking greenhouse and I'm being inundated with snails

I see one snail and I go it's just one snail don't worry about it. Then I go to bed and wake up the next morning and 20 of the cunts have been eating my fucking tomatoes. You can never underestimate a snail. You look at one, you think it's moving slow, you don't worry about it, you turn your fucking back and now there's 20 of them destroying your crops. Snails operate in a way that is quite similar to death. So Lillian Randall reckons that's what they

represented in medieval manuscripts they were money lenders, they were the Lombard people who everyone owed fucking money to. So the monks when they're having a bit of crack in the margins would portray heroic knights slaying these snails and fighting them as it expressed their frustrations and gave them a small little feeling of power not too unlike you know comparing the debt collector

to the landlord in Ireland around the time of the penal laws. Folk tales emerged of these Irish superheroes and highwaymen who would rob landlords. We created cartoons within our culture to regain symbolic power against landlords. Also and this is just my opinion about why I think snails would have been present in illuminated manuscripts. opinion about why I think snails would have been present in illuminated manuscripts. So these monks who would be in the monastery, in the scriptorium, working on illuminated manuscripts, and the work was considered unnatural in that it was separated from nature. But because of this, something that you notice in medieval illuminated manuscripts, because of this something that you notice in medieval illuminated manuscripts especially the ones from the continent whenever they draw animals the animals always look shit now especially

exotic animals like lions or zebras they look nothing like lions or zebras and they're often funny looking but even sometimes something like a chicken or a horse or a cow, they look shit as well. And the reason is the monks were stuck inside. They weren't drawing from nature. They were drawing from either their imagination or a book known as a bestiary. And a bestiary was a little, it was a large book that contained drawings of all of the animals of the world. It was a large book that contained drawings of all of the animals of the world. So if a 12th century monk wanted to draw a lion,

he would open up this bestiary, see a drawing of a lion that's already in there and copy it. But the problem is, the person who made the bestiary could be talking out of their arse. They may never have seen a lion in their life. So the lion just looks like a large dog with a skull. However, I do reckon monks would have had access to snails. There would have been snails

crawling around the monastery. So maybe they drew all these snails because it was the one animal they physically had access to while in the scriptorium. Maybe a little snail would crawl up on the desk and the monk, who's a fucking artist, these are artists, they're human beings, was just like, fuck it,

I'm going to draw this snail. I don't have to open the bestiary to see what a snail looks like. There's one right here. He's on my desk. I'm going to draw him. What else am I going to do? There's no internet. There's no TV. I'm going to draw the snail. So that's why snails are so present in medieval manuscripts. That's why I reckon anyway, the bestiary thing and then your one Lillian, she has her

opinions about debt collectors. It's time for an ocarina pause. I think my voice is a little bit weird this week because I have a little swollen throat. I think on grand, just little bit weird this week because I have like a little swollen throat I think on ground just a small little swollen throat probably the humidity here's the ocarina pause you're going to hear an advert

for some I don't know what the fuck you're going to hear an advert for 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. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever?

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There was a digitally inserted advert there or something. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page. Patreon.com forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast. Does this podcast bring you distraction, entertainment, enjoyment, solace? Well, if you are enjoying this podcast and you listen to it frequently, please consider paying me for making this podcast. This podcast is my full-time job. This is how I earn a living. I adore this work. I adore every second of it. I love doing my hot takes. And I also love episodes like this where I get to answer your questions.

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service entertainment or creativity. So support your favourite independent podcasts. And if you want to support mine. Patreon.com forward slash TheBlindByPodcast. Let's take another question you glorious cunts. If I need gigs I need to plug. What am I doing? I'm in Electric Picnic.

Ah you know the crack with Electric Picnic. I don't even know what I'm doing there. The same thing I'm in electric picnic you know the crack with electric picnic I don't even know what I'm doing there the same thing I'm always doing there I'll play it by ear play it by ear I'm not going to be thinking about it now it's fucking three weeks away or something

be grand I'll start thinking about it now I'll freak myself out about wasps those fucking September wasps at electric picnic I'm not looking forward to that fuck me Electric Picnic

is the the only festival that happens at the start of September and the wasps are bastards and

every year you know this you've been listening to this podcast long enough I didn't have to deal with it because of two years of the pandemic the fucking wasps go for the mouth of my plastic bag especially if i've drank anything sweet so i have to strictly stick with water if i cider man if i took if i am at

electric picnic it's september start of september and I take one sip out of a can of cider, and that cider sticks to the plastic bag on my lip, forget about it, I'm getting chased by 17 wasps, guaranteed, every one of them violently interested in my lips, and every year I slap myself into the face trying to kill a fucking wasp at an electric picnic, is it even worth it, is it even worth doing the fucking face trying to kill a fucking wasp at electric picnic. Is it even worth it? Is it even worth doing the fucking gig at this point with the wasp hassle that I get? I need to invent a big blue set of electric lips that I could find in a kebab shop for zapping the wasps that want to fly into my mouth.

I spilled a full pint of beer on David O'Doherty once running away from a wasp at electric picnic. Who, I don't have the name of who asked this question. They want me to comment on the death of Irish nightlife. That's an interesting one because I witnessed that one first hand. I remember the days of the Celtic Tiger. There was, there was like three massive nightclubs in Limerick nightclubs were a huge thing

in the mid to late 2000s in Ireland like every town had a huge fucking nightclub and people would go to the night we used to go to the nightclub at 6 o'clock seriously

young people used to go out at six o'clock and go into town and have pints and buy pints and then go into the nightclub at like 10 pre-drinking wasn't even a thing i mean shit was just cheaper i suppose rent wasn't expensive rent wasn't a thing that people even spoke about rent was just like a given it was just a thing that was there drink drink was still kind of

expensive-ish now you'd always have your one pint that was was it 2 euro? I think Bavaria was the 2 euro pint the late Celtic Tiger as well. Guaranteed. On a Friday and Saturday night, some drinks company was doing a promo,

so there was free drink. College didn't cost as much money. Like, I went to college on a means-tested grant. Right? I got a means-tested grant. And I think it literally, college literally cost me like, I think it was about 400 quid a year, materials fee, and that was it. People used to have jobs,

like just normal jobs, just working in a fucking shoe shop or a petrol station, two, three nights a week, and that was enough to be able to go to the nightclub on a Friday and a Saturday, maybe a Monday if you wanted to. That was another fucking thing. Limerick in the late 2000s, before the recession, there was big nightclubs open six days a week, sometimes seven days a week. And you could go to the nightclub on a Monday and it was fucking full and it was amazing except the only thing that was incredibly weird about it was that the music that was popular at the time was like R&B on you'd go to the fucking nightclub in the late 2000s and they're only playing R&B like it was it was weird to play like dance tracks so what you'd be hearing would be Pharrell, Timbaland, 50 Cent, R&B and hip hop.

But then the strange thing with that is people still had to dance. But then you had all these like Irish lads from Tipperary and Bootcut Jeans and Man United jerseys breastfeeding pints. And they're bumping and grinding to the Neptunes. Countrymen, hurlers, bumping and grinding. Bump it, doing sexy, sexy hip hop dances. Because that's all you could do. Nursing a pint with their long pants. So that was incredibly strange.

And then the recession happened and everyone went to Australia everyone the recession happened and like that boom all the nightclubs were empty and then they weren't open seven nights a week they were open one night a week and then they were struggling and then the nightclubs closed and there was only one nightclub left and it was depressing it was dark it was very dark and I was I was deeply entwined in this because

when Irish Nightlife died truly died was when Horse Outside came out as a song because Horse Outside came out in 2010 but I remember having that song made in like late 2008 or a version of it at least maybe having the beat because I remember going into a nightclub in Limerick Trinity Rooms in like late 2008 or 2009

and I had Horse Outside on a CD because I'd probably just been mixing it that day at home and I wasn't finished with the mix and I brought it into the nightclub because I would have known the DJ so I would have just walked up quietly to the DJ who would have been my buddy and said to him here you'd never snake that on there so I can hear what it sounds like over the system and he put it on. And no one would have really even known the Rubber Bandits, to be honest. But he put that song on. And I remember hearing it over the sound system and going, fuck it, yeah, I've nailed that.

That sounds right. It sounds as loud as the Timbaland song that was just played before it. And also, I remember looking at the crowd and everyone just going what the fuck was that? and that was about late 2008 maybe 2009 and then a year later 2010 everything was fucking empty

and we had to do the Horse Outside Tour which was a tour of every single awful nightclub up and down Ireland and it was just going to these empty sad nightclubs Of every single awful nightclub. Up and down Ireland. And it was just going to these. Empty sad nightclubs. Because all the young people had fucking left.

Like here's the mad thing about fucking 2010. With the level of. 300,000 young people emigrated in 2010. So. It was a bad time. To have. A song. That was big. Like put it this way, when Horse Outside came out, that was a really, really big song, like that was all over the newspapers for like three weeks, and the best we could do was almost sell out the Olympia, like if we were that age now,

and we brought out Horse Outside now and it was that popular now we'd literally sell out the three arena not a bother three arena but in 2010 we could barely sell the Olympia and that was a song that was so big it was on the news like so that's how little money people had in 2010 and how many young people had left the country and that's when I first witnessed the Irish nightlife scene taking a real hit a real dive and the first thing I'd start to notice was as we got more and more into that tour going to the nightclubs in towns up and down Ireland the more we got into the tour the more the managers of the venues would say

can you hold off going on stage for another hour and we're like what are you talking about we're supposed to go on stage at 10 o'clock and then the nightclub owner would say there's nobody here they're not going to get here till 12 they're all drinking at home

and it would get later and later and later until eventually by about mid 2010 whoever was fucking left in the country they were only drinking at home and then arriving to the club at half 12 or 1 to get the ride because there was no tinder there was nothing like that people still had to go to nightclubs to meet each other and that there started the culture of not going to the pub not going to the nightclub and placing the emphasis on pre-drinking as opposed to going to the club I mean I don't even know if nightclubs are a thing anymore like I'm fucking old now so what would I know but I don't even think nightclubs are that popular anymore and I tell you one thing mad I remember from that era

so when in 2010 when we used to be doing these gigs in these nightclubs that were fucking empty recently a lot of songs came on my Spotify like songs from we'll say 2010 just come on randomly like LMFAO

and Rihanna and they come on to my headphones and I hadn't heard them I hadn't heard these songs since that time and when they came on my headphones I'm like fuck it this sounds different I don't remember this song sounding like this why does this song sound different and it was a Rihanna song and then I realized I was used to hearing 2010 Rihanna in an empty nightclub with a big echo around it that was the only context I had for hearing that music doing a gig in Mullingar doing a gig in Thurles doing a gig in Leitrim arriving to the local nightclub which would have been fucking hopping two years previously. We'd get to the nightclub,

and there's no one there. And then the manager is saying to us, you're going to have to wait till 12 o'clock to go on stage because no one's coming to this nightclub until 12 or 1. So we'd be there sitting backstage in this completely empty nightclub, but the DJ is still playing Rihanna, LMFAO, Calvin Harris and just this loud booming sound of that music playing to nobody and that's what I remember hearing so when I heard those songs on my earphones it sounded different deeply deeply depressing period of my life i fucking hated

hated those gigs because i never understood it we'd go up on stage then at one and the audience the thing was is because we were gigging fucking nightclubs and they weren't our own we couldn't do our own gigs with tickets because no one would have bought it because no one had money so you had to just gig the nightclubs because people were showing up anyway. But people hated the fact that you were in their nightclub gigging. So we'd get up. We were only allowed to do horse outside. They didn't want to hear any other songs.

And then they'd throw bottles at us and we'd leave and go back to Limerick. But yeah, I witnessed the decline of the Irish nightclub. Completely witnessed it. There's a dark nostalgic ramble for you there. I managed to answer three questions. One about housing. One about medieval snails.

And one about the decline of Irish nightclubs. Alright. That's not too bad considering most podcasts I managed to answer one fucking question. Dog bless. I'll see you next week. 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 Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. 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.