The Blindboy Podcast - Lestrygonians

Episode Date: August 28, 2019

A critical deconstruction of the Argos catalog, and making the case for eating insects as a way to tackle climate change Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Batten down the hatches you bare chest brendas, because it's episode number 99 of the Blind Boy Podcast, 99 episodes, what the fuck are we at? What is the crack? Um, how are you getting on? Charming evenings all round, charming mornings all round I hope. charming evenings all round charming mornings all round I hope I was gigging in Kerry at the weekend

down in Waterville doing a rubber bandits gig em you forget that rural Kerry is one of the most fucking beautiful places on earth Christ we

so we drove down from Limerick to Kerry, to Waterville, it's Waterville is like, it's on the coast, so it's a fine drive, you're talking about three hours from Limerick, and we fucked it into Google Maps, you know, now I think Google Maps deliberately, when you're going somewhere like Kerry or somewhere rural or the same thing up in Donegal I think Google Maps deliberately takes you on a scenic route because it didn't take us on this direct route it took us through these really small winding roads

through the countryside of rural Kerry and it blew my fucking mind I just could not believe how stunningly beautiful parts of Kerry were in particular we got to this place I think it was called the Ballahedrine Pass

and it's just this real straight road like you'd see in America surrounded by these mountains do you know enveloping in on top of you and I don't know if I fell asleep you'd have woke me up

and told me I was in the middle of Afghanistan and I'd have believed you it was like Afghanistan it was just this I think it was by getting a squint at it, it looked glacial, looked like there would have been somewhere with a glacierint at it, it looked glacial. Looked like there would have been somewhere with a glacier there at one point. I could tell by how the stones were kind of picked out.

But there was a couple of sheep minding their own business, and then just this vast, beautiful expanse of plains enveloped by rocky mountains, and then up hills to queer old areas that had pine trees and moss

and this lovely wet smell so it was fucking gorgeous it was fantastic being a city person and to be confronted with the awe and beauty of nature but somewhere that's only like two hours from where I live you know um it got me thinking about another place in Ireland that's the most one of the most beautiful

places I've ever been quite close to where I was in Kerry Valencia Island which is Valencia Island's in Kerry it is yeah it's off nearle. And then there's another place which I haven't been but I absolutely want to go to. And not only do I want to go there, but I think I want to do a podcast from there just myself with my mic. There's a place called the Garnish Islands off West Cork which has a microclimate.

It has a slight Mediterranean microclimate because of the Gulf Stream and part of the island is shielded from the Atlantic so there you go go to rural Kerry if you're near it it's fucking beautiful Christ

so this podcast is not about rural Kerry it's also not about I was just thinking about I ended up inside an Argos you know to buy some weight lifting gloves and

I I I saw a pile of Argos catalogues and I realised holy, I haven't read an Argos catalog in years because of the internet and smartphones. And it got me thinking back to, Jesus, when I was a fucking child, right, there was no fucking internet. And especially if you're in bed right so there's no tv there's only one tv in the house downstairs so if i'm up in bed and i can't sleep i've no fucking smartphone i've nothing i used to read the argos catalogue

like i'd have one they only did two a year i think it was, and I would read an Argos catalog back to front, utterly enthralled in it, just looking at various products, household products, and I'm talking nine years of age, ten years of age, looking at cufflinks, you know, and it used to keep me engaged for fucking hours and i think back and i go how the fuck did i spend so much time staring at an argos catalog you know accepting this as perfectly reasonable entertainment for bed but i did and so what I did now was because the thing is I've spoken about it before I'm not great at sleeping I won't say I have trouble sleeping I don't have trouble sleeping I just don't like sleeping when I get into bed I don't really have the type of brain that just switches off so if I get into

bed I'm liable to get excited about I don't know cockroaches I get excited about cockroaches and do a lot of reading about cockroaches on my phone but I was always like that of course right before I got a smartphone like I would have gotten a smartphone in 2012 maybe, 2013, before that, I would just have a large pile of books beside my bed, like four foot pile of everything and anything you can imagine. Encyclopedias, psychology books, nature books, whatever. And when I was in bed, I would simply read them until i'm ready to wind down but now i don't do that anymore i have no books beside my bed because i've got a smartphone and i've got wikipedia or you know the guardian or whatever

fucking articles i want to read so now when i go to sleep I crack open the fucking the iPhone and just inject a lot of blue light into my eyes which keeps me continually awake so I end up getting maybe five six hours of sleep whereas back in 2011 I was getting eight hours of sleep because I was just reading books and I'd love to go back to that I may I know I made a promise in January I said my new year's resolution was to get more sleep and for a while I managed to keep the phone away from my bed but I just couldn't I couldn't do it I would get too excited about I I don't know the the Lebanese civil war in the 80s I would just get an insatiable desire to learn about the Lebanese civil war in the 80s I would just get an insatiable desire to learn about the

Lebanese civil war and I have to satiate that desire by taking out my stupid fucking smartphone and blasting my face with a lot of blue light that's just gonna keep me awake more but before the smartphone

if I got an insatiable desire to learn about Lebanon I I'd have to... I used to write it down. Yeah, I'd have a notepad beside me and I'd say, go on to Wikipedia in the morning on your laptop and learn about Lebanon if it's that important to you. And I'd write it down as a note of things I have to look up. And then I'd simply grab into my pile of books and read about whatever was present do you get me that all changed as soon as I got a smartphone now I'm like

if I think it I can learn about it but going back before that when I was a kid or a teenager and I didn't have any money um and I didn't have a big pile of books that I liked beside my bed all I really had was the fucking Argos catalog that was it really and Argos catalog or if I was lucky something like FHM that would have belonged to one of my older brothers which were great FHM was, because it was just a lot of interesting articles, and a lot of interesting facts, I used to enjoy it, but yeah, I'd spend hours reading the fucking Argos catalogue, so I got one today, to just sit down, I made a promise to myself, I'm going to sit down with a cup of tea, and I'm not going to have my smartphone and I'm going to try and read

an Argos catalog not because I'm looking for something to buy because it wasn't about purchasing my engagement with the Argos catalog as a kid it was never about I want this I want that it it really wasn't I would you'd sometimes fantasise about what would it be like to have this thing but you'd never aspirationally go to this catalogue because I didn't have any fucking money and there's no way my parents were getting it for me I mean my dad worked in an airport

my ma packed shelves in duns so running in with the Argos catalogue and saying I want this was not going to be met with positive results we'll say so I sat down with it Running in with the Argos catalogue. And saying I want this. Was not going to be met with. Positive results we'll say. So I sat down with it. And.

It was. It was weird. I had to actually fight. So I was sitting down. Just the whole. The way you'd read an Argos. For listeners outside of. The UK and Ireland. The Argos catalogue.

Argos is a shop and it sells everything. Everything you can imagine. Not food, but everything that isn't food, Argos sells it. And they would sell it through these huge catalogues, these giant books like a phone book. And it just has pictures of everything you can buy in there hundreds of thousands of things with the prices beside them and very brief descriptions

and it has, I don't know, how many pages has this got? 2000 pages of just objects and pictures and you go into the shop, with the number of the thing you want,

and then you buy it, they have it in a warehouse out the back, so that's Argos, so I sat down with it today for the crack, this is not sponsored by fucking Argos, by the way, I would let you know if it was, it is not,

but, yeah I was just flicking through it the way you do the whole way i used to flick through the argus catalog i'd never get a particular pang interestingly enough i was never interested in age appropriate items i never went to the toy section i never went to the video game section i wasn't about that i was into coffee machines or gardening tools again no intention of getting these things I don't know why it just it used to just make me feel good so I started looking through it and noticed after a while the first thing I noticed was trying to fight my hand if I saw something that I liked like I think I saw a set of cutlery and I wanted to see it more so my finger fucking pressed on it as if I could enlarge

it like it was on a screen so that freaked me out a little bit and then I found my brain wanting me to turn up the brightness on the page so once once I'd gotten over this, which, it was shocking and depressing. Like, I don't, I'd like, it's maybe once every four months am I actually going to read something on a piece of paper. I very much use my Kindle a lot for reading. And, like, I still have a bunch of books but i don't crack them open that much i certainly not books with pictures in them like an argos catalog so i had to get my brain around like dealing with right this thing is not on a fucking an ipad and then i finally got into it and my mind kind of went back to how i used to very calmly

appreciate the argus catalog and i found myself on a page full of bins it was kitchen bins do you know because that's just the type of page i would have looked at in bed when I was a kid. Something boring and utilitarian like kitchen bins. Because I'm just confronted with this plethora of different bins. And what I soon find is I'm looking at it and you try and find yourself within the page. Like this is a page full of various different bins and it follows this narrative you've got at the very the top it always goes from cheap to obviously most expensive and that sets up immediately that's like the setup

of a story and your brain will find the narrative in it so i start off and it's like the first kitchen bin there is 18 euros and i'm looking at it going right 18 euros very basic bin and you read the specs of the bin you know what does it say it's it's it's got a bin bin liner retaining weight ring it holds the bin liner in place it's semi-circular in shape and it has a stylish metal look that's it for 18 euro and once you read that you're going yeah okay it's a bin i wonder what's next wonder what's next i wonder what this bin here for 50 euro does and then you look at the 50 euro bin and you notice ah it's a bit bigger 73 centimeters in height a depth of 29 centimeters it's bright red it has a 50 liter

capacity it's got a fucking pedal so then you start going right okay that's the middle bin that's the middle bin and once you get that far it's like the middle bin. And once you get that far, it's like the middle bin is your bit of conflict. The first bin that's 18 euros, that's your setup. That gets your tongue hanging out for bins. And then you start getting aspirational and thinking, what's next? You know, what's next in this story? But then, you know, once you get to the middle bin,

there's got to be like, you're going, what's the fucking high-end bin these are just bins you just put rubbish into them they're in the kitchen they smell but what's the best bin and that's when you start to look to the other page and there's a fucking a kitchen bin for 220 euros and you realize at that point, because when you see the €220 bin, you're immediately struck with this really, I'm struck with a strong reaction, a sense of contempt, a sense that this €220 bin is cheeky. It's like, who the fuck are you? Who the fuck are you, €220 for a kitchen bin, you cheeky bollocks? The fuck are you doing on this page? for a kitchen bin you cheeky bollocks the fuck are you doing on this page who the fuck would buy a 220 euro kitchen bin and you go into the specs and like okay it looks different it looks more like a pc tower than a bin it's larger it's still only 50 liters like so it's

the same it holds the same amount of rubbish as the bin for 50 quid, but it's 220 euros, it's got a 10 year guarantee, alright, fair enough, alright, here we go, you don't have to touch it, you wave your hand over it, and it magically opens with a robotic flap at the top, but you realise, this bin is the baddie. Okay. 18 euro bin. Nice little humble bin. Not out to harm anyone. 50 euro bin. 50 euro bin is grand. Maybe a bit of notions about itself.

It might have done good for itself. But ultimately the 50 euro bin. I can't imagine the 50 euro bin being a prick to the 18 euro bin. But that bin that's 220 euros. You better believe that bin is a dickhead and this dickhead bin has arrived into this this story of the argos page to fuck everyone else's shit up to be mean to be rude so i always found myself rooting for the cheaper bins i was never rooting for the expensive bin because I recognised it's frivolity I recognised that

this bin is silly and it's the same with all Argos pages you know frying pans fucking hedge clippers lads you've got your entry level hedge clipper then you have your medium hedge clipper and you go

ok it's more expensive but I can understand why it's value for money and then you've got this fuck off hedge clippers made by jcb or someone jcb who have no business making hedge clippers and it's 60 quid and you're left wondering who the fuck buys a 60 60 euro hedge clippers lads who buys a 220 euro bin 60 euro hedge clippers lads who buys a 220 euro bin and at a young age I found myself forming these strong narrative opinions about

whatever objects were on the page because what the fuck else am I supposed to be doing I have no internet, this is all I have like it's not only represents it's frivolity it's what happens when consumerism goes too far

and the feelings that I was getting I was getting those same feelings when I was nine it's like I was learning to critique the frivolity of capitalism at a young age and that's what the Argos catalog was doing for me what you have on an entire

page is essentially it's like a capitalist class structure based on what's achievable and attainable and most people will look at it and when i was looking at it i was going right i'm that 18 euro bin that's that that's the bin i can imagine having but with hard work i'd like to see myself being able to get that 50 euro bin but that 220 euro bin something about that is wrong I felt that

and it used to excite me and make me angry the same way it did this morning when I sat down with the Argers catalogue and I reappraised what was it did this morning when I sat down with the Argers catalogue and I reappraised what was it about this that would actually entertain me as a child so the big expensive bin

is the baddie and that baddie bin is battling with the more humble bins for supremacy the fuck am I talking about this week the fuck am I talking about so week, the fuck am I talking about so that was it, so I was there, yeah 13 years of age, forming very

strong opinions about hedge clippers and fucking desk lamps that I'll never own what was I not interested, never give a shit about duvets outdoor gazebos I used to like outdoor gazebos I used to like outdoor gazebos and I used to very much

fetishise outdoor camping equipment I used to enjoy that I had a thing for power hoses yeah so I don't know just a little look fuck it

it's the whole thing about this podcast I can talk about whatever I want I felt it necessary to give 20 minutes of my time there to reappraise and re-evaluate the strange cultural relationship I had as a child with Argos catalogues and I think

I think it rings true I think it's something that a lot of people would have had unless you're 19 in which case you just went onto Amazon or played a freemium app when you were a child then of course as well

look let's be honest now this was the dregs this was the dregs of it lads but later millennials such as myself will remember, like, now this is the dregs lads, but when you're 12, 13, all you're doing is thinking about sex, and there was no pornography in Ireland, there was none. pornography in Ireland there was none there really wasn't there no access to the internet for it and if you were lucky someone's sweaty grubby father had managed to smuggle some in from England and then a magazine was passed around a very privileged circle in the schoolyard but you're talking rare shit lads so you had to turn to the fitness section of the Argos catalogue

that's what you had to do that's all you had do you know and what what it sometimes reminds me of is uh there's a chapter in james joyce's novel ulysses uh the chapter lestrigonians i think is the chapter and the character leopold bloom visits the national gallery and he goes to the national gallery under the pretenses of appreciating art but really what he's doing is there's some plaster statues of greek and roman goddesses and he looks at these plaster statues and he basically gets the horn off the statues he's not there for art he's there to sexualize these naked plaster statues because it's what is it 1914 or something the novel is set 1914 1915 and in that society there was nothing in any way visually sexualized in any way anywhere so this character leopold bloom is now sexualizing fucking greek

statues and his internal monologue is sexualizing them i think he even gets a horn and he wonders whether or not the statues have got rectums underneath their plaster gowns do you know but leafing through the argos catalogue the fitness section as a child as an adult i now kind of realize is it quite similar to what joyce was chatting about there you know looking back now i'm wondering was the argos was the fitness section of the argos catalogue unnecessarily sexualized or was it merely my teenage brain sexualising it? I mean, I feel kind of bad, because it was just some poor model working, trying to sell a fucking treadmill in a sports bra, or a pair of shorts. Actually, for argument's sake, now, let's look at this

month's Argos catalogue and see. Fitness section. No models. They have gotten rid of models from the Argos catalogue. It's just treadmills. And there's one. Yeah, they've definitely massively desexualised the Argos catalogue in 2019. Which is probably a good thing. I remember it being slightly I don't know I'm biased

I'm biased I Argos catalogues in my time when I was a young fella I don't know what was it were they actually getting models

and asking them to pose in ways that were suggestive or was it my young horny mind I don't know but I can say in 2019 slim pickings lads if you were to have a crack

at an Argos fitness section catalogue if you were on a desert island and had no access to any pornography you know that's how it worked but mostly my relationship with the Argos catalogue

was wholesome. A very wholesome relationship. That I don't think it was about... It wasn't aspirational capitalism. I wasn't looking at these things really going, I want that, I want that, I want that. It was a narrative of structure of society and culture and how in our society you judge people by what they own. If you remember one of the earliest episodes of this podcast, I think it might even be the first episode,

did you hear about Erskine Fogarty, which is one of my short stories where I wrote a short story about a man who overly fetishized an incredibly expensive american fridge freezer to the point that it destroyed his life and he lost his house in the recession he lost his family in the recession everything was gone because he had managed to build his personality around the things he owned but then at the very end when everything is crumbling the one thing he won't leave go of is this two and a half thousand euro american fridge which he drags with him down home to limerick and i do think my childhood of flicking through argos catalogs a lot of that would be in arsken fogarty i knew. You'd look through the Argos catalog.

And you'd look at the fridge for three grand. And you'd go. What sick fuck wants that? What emptiness and sadness exists in a person's soul. That they need the €3000 fridge when the €500 fridge is perfectly fine. Do you know? When the €500 fridge kind of does the same shit. You can't justify that €3000 in the same way you can't justify the €220 bin, lads.

You hover your hand over it and it opens big fucking swinging mickey it's not worth 150 quid more than the grand bin for 50 quid do you know this week's podcast is not about bins and it's not about argos catalogs

it's it has nothing to do with any of these things i like i i heard recently that there was i can't remember what it was but there's podcast courses are becoming a thing now like in america there's full-on how to do a like a degree in making podcasts right and there's podcast courses in england and ireland now and it got back to me that one podcast course it was like a beginner's podcast course they had like a lecture that used my podcast as an example to analyze because of the success of this podcast how it went from nothing to having a big load of listeners

God fucking help them God help them if they decide in their podcast course that this is the fucking episode they decide to analyse because I've just spent a fucking half an hour talking about the Argos catalogue and then

the fuck you're worse for listening you're worse for listening lads about the Argos catalog, and then, the fuck, you're worse for listening, you're worse for listening lads, that's all I'm going to say, right this isn't about Argos catalogs, okay, I wanted to do something completely different,

and I am going to do that, we're a half an hour now, so we might as well do the, we'll do the old ocarina pause, I have, both the ocarina, and the Aztec death whistle with me, so we're going to mix the two of them actually yeah we'll do it

here we go now here's that old bit of synchronicity the bit of synchronicity is kicking in unbeknownst to myself I want to do this would be a climate change podcast I touch upon climate change the odd bit on the podcast

so I want to speak a little bit climate changey. Currently, at the moment, the Amazon is on fire, which is fucking heartbreaking, because that prick Bolsonaro up in Brazil is a right-wing bollocks, who's a climate change denier and wants to open up the rainforest for utter exploitation for its resources. Evil prick. But for this week's Ocarina Pause. I have in my left hand my trusty ocarina. Which comes from Peru.

A section of the rainforest is in Peru. And I have my Aztec death whistle. Which is from Mexico going down to I think Honduras again touching on the rainforest so I have two instruments in each hand that are emblematic and indigenous to the Amazon rainforest more or less so I'll have a crack at each one first off we'll start with the little ocarina first of all the ocarina pause there's going to be an advert here for something some bullshit hopefully bins wouldn't that be nice but we'll play the ocarina On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girl.

Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe a girl is to be the mother. Mother of what?

Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil movie of the year the first omen only theaters april 5th will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever join the sunrise challenge to raise funds for cam age the center for addiction and mental health to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind.

So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. The sweet tones of the Peruvian Andes. Now let's get fucked up. Let's bring out this death whistle. The violence of it. Bit of sepulchre.

They were from Brazil, weren't they? Right, here's the Aztec death whistle. It's supposed to sound like someone's screaming to their death. But it just sounds like me when I get a chest infection. So there you go. That was the combined ocarina and Aztec death whistle pause. Support for this podcast comes from you the listener via the Patreon page alright it's a free podcast

I put it out for free, you can listen to it for free if you want it's not sponsored, I don't have any sponsors on it, no one's sponsoring the podcast, fuck em, it's grand instead, this is a patron funded podcast more or less

so it's funded by you you the listener go to patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast and you can give me the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month all right and that keeps me going that pays my my pays my wages pays my fucking all my bills everything it is incredible it's life-changing for the first time in my life i have a regular source of income while also being creative thank you so much to everybody but if you can't afford it you don't have to that's how it works it's a model of soundness and fairness and it keeps everyone happy to be honest and it keeps this podcast churning out every week god bless so yeah like i said i want to i want

to do a little bit of uh a climate change podcast because i was about 50 60 podcasts deep and a lot of people were asking me you know why why was i never talking about climate change and the answer that i gave about 20 30 podcasts back was i didn't I never talking about climate change? And the answer that I gave about 20, 30 podcasts back was, I didn't want to talk about climate change because it was too depressing. And I don't like this podcast being a depressing space. I like it to be uplifting and inspirational and motivational. And for me to be dwelling too much on climate change, I felt at the time was too bleak.

And then I changed my mind. It's still possible for me to speak about climate change, but to do it in a way that inspires. Like, I don't want to go into the what ifs or what may happen or what will happen of climate change i don't want to do that because of people's climate anxiety you can find that shit out for yourself but what i do want to look at is uh solutions ways that we can change things that we can do to either feel a sense of personal empowerment the one thing climate change is fucking real the science is there it's happening

it's a given right um don't believe these climate change denial pricks climate change denial if you follow the fucking money there lads climate change denial is very heavily funded by some incredibly rich evil cunts so fuck that do not don't even argue with them just go about doing what you can do ultimately it is the people with the most power are politicians around the world and we ourselves in our individual lives can make changes obviously but ultimately this all comes down to politicians corporations shit like that they're the ones who have the who have to put things into action so that we can reverse this shit so this is i think i realize now why my unconscious mind decided to talk about the argos cat like for

a half an hour because it is kind of tying in a little bit with what i want to talk about one of the like in order for us to go forward as a society with significantly reduced carbon right in order for us to go forward as a society that is more environmentally friendly and isn't doing as much damage it requires i don't want to say a reduction in our quality of life right but a huge driver of climate change a massive driver is consumerism now consumerism isn't about meeting our needs consumerism is about meeting our desires specifically our irrational desires consumerism means really really wanting a ton of shit that we don't actually need consumerism is it's it's where happiness gets tied into a culture of um owning shit so we live in a culture and society where we

are conditioned from a very young age to believe that happiness and contentment comes from purchasing and owning things. And that results in a huge amount of unnecessary waste. Okay. And the Argos catalog is actually a perfect fucking example. Because yes, I said I was looking at it as a kid and I learned to critique capitalism from it but at the same time if you sit down with an argos catalog lads and you flick through the what the argos catalog is really it's loads and loads of choice of different things that you can own and different tiers of choice and i get a comforting feeling from it because i come from a culture of consumerism I come from a

culture where I've been raised since birth to believe that happiness comes from buying things and it comes from owning things all right now that's bullshit that's not true that really isn't that's that's something we can reverse like i said opening up that page full of bins you don't need the 220 euro bin a bin is just something that you store waste in you know so in in a more environmentally friendly society there'll be less choice regarding bins because there doesn't need to be 60 bins on the page. 60 bins on the page is a hell of a lot of fucking waste. Think of all the materials that go into those bins. The metal, the plastic. Okay? None of them seem to say recycling on

them. Think of all the waste when those bins get thrown away. Do you know what I'm saying? when those bins get thrown away do you know what I'm saying everything on the Argos catalogue what am I looking at here I'm looking at at least 150 different toilet seats lads so what you have there is excessive

choice sold to us as happiness so an environmentally friendly future you will need to have a reduction of choice that does not mean a reduction in quality of life it means truly addressing and critiquing the frivolities of consumerism you know and some of us grew up with that to an extent I mean Jesus look my fucking anyone who grew up in Ireland in the 50s 60s 70s they grew up with that there wasn't that huge amount of choice and it doesn't need to be the Soviet model where

there's just one type of toilet seat it means instead of a hundred toilet seats or 100 bins, there's 20. And we can live with 20. Okay, so it means a whole rehaul of the culture of consumerism. And to do that would have a, it would reduce the carbon footprint of the world greatly. of the world greatly because as i've talked about in previous episodes as well about just the exploitation of of natural resources in africa and all this to keep our lives going to keep us buying the things that we think we need so also what i want to speak about is a huge thing that will need to be addressed in our society going forward is our diets. Now as you know from listening to this podcast, I for the past maybe six months have switched to a mostly plant-based diet. I am plant-based five, six days a week and I have meat one day a week and it's it was just a very very easy transition really really easy transition and what it's done too is it's made me really appreciate

that bit of steak that I have once a week or the chicken that I have once a week it's made me really appreciate it and look forward to it and the rest of the week it's pulses and lentils and vegetables and I'm flying it I'm getting on great and it's caused me to be far more creative with my cooking or whatever but not everyone has got the horn for a 100% plant-based diet. Not everyone wants that. So where are the alternatives? Global demand for beef, lamb, chicken is fucking destroying the world, right? The evidence is there for a number of reasons. Like even there I mentioned Bolsonaro and the Amazon rainforest.

They're burning the rainforest, a lot of it, so they can clear that forest and put in pasture lands where they can accommodate beef farming. Because beef farming in particular is hugely demanding of land, right? So there was an intergovernmental panel uh there about a week ago who report on climate change and and the the things that are facing us a huge issue at the moment is because climate change is multifaceted a big issue we're facing at the moment is the supply of food versus the amount of people on earth currently like we're at i think six billion people at the

moment on the earth in the next 30 years that's going to grow to nine billion uh simply because medicine is advancing people are living longer and healthier this is this is a given 72 percent of the earth is currently in use simply to feed and clothe human beings so we're going to be reaching a tipping point where there will be shortages it's there's going to be too many people on the planet to feed and clothe now an issue with the a big issue around that is it doesn't really need to be that way right okay so if you look at meat the beef and lamb require massive amounts of land in order to be sustained there's the where the animals themselves can roam but also it's feeding the animals that's one thing you don't think of it's feeding

the animals a lot of these global animals cattle and lambs and pigs are fed they're not pasteurizing they're not they'reizing, they're not grazing. They're fed using crops like soy. So huge amounts of forest are cut away and you have acres and acres, millions of acres of soy being grown, which is essentially a monoculture. And this is then being fed to the cattle. The cattle are farting out all this greenhouse gases and it's destroying

the planet now this is a very much as a result of european western dominance okay um the dominant culture of the 20th century and you can include the united States of America in it because the United States of America is essentially a European colony if you're to look at it honestly the you know it's it was stolen from indigenous people but ruled by Europeans so in European cultures, beasts of burden such as cows, cattle, pigs, all these animals, ruminants, these feature heavily in the European diet going back years and years and years. So because of Western European supremacy, the world's diet is these cows and pigs you know and

again that doesn't need to be that way that again is a fallacy it has more to do with desire than need now I don't think a future where everybody is plant-based is realistic you're just always going to get people who need meat of some description all right so

it's not fully realistic to say to everybody lentils and beans forever and fuck cows i don't think that's realistic there is an alternative which is very sustainable and quite realistic but what it requires is for the western taste bud to move beyond its taboos and what i am speaking about is the large-scale farming and consumption of insects now insects are already widely consumed in asia in particular thailand vietnam people love eating insects okay um but one of the issues is like if anyone's been to vietnam or thailand they'll be they'll know this they'll know they'll go to a market and you'll see deep fried spiders or crickets or grubs but one of the things is is that even in those countries like in insects are a novelty they're sold to us as this tourist novelty which means that they're

like you can go online now and you can buy insect lollipops or whatever but they're not sold to us as food it's like think of that fucking reality tv show i'm a celebrity get me out of here and there's always a challenge where they have to eat insects but it's it's sold to us as this disgusting thing the entire insect is eaten whole you know we when we eat meat pork beef or whatever we we never see a fucking cow or a pig it's become completely sanitized and removed we buy minced beef we buy cuts of lamb. These things are far, far removed from the animal in the field. We don't even see these as formerly living things. But insects are these whole objects and they're currently marketed as a novelty food to, as a dangerous novelty food to freak people out, you know so that needs to kind of change

now firstly the case for insects as as a protein as a meat protein to feed the world i mentioned earlier about you know cows being this incredibly inefficient inefficient farm of food they first off a cow i think it's like for for one for one kilogram of meat from a cow it requires 25 kilograms of grain or soy to be given to that cow right so that's a 25 to 1 ratio for a kilogram of meat now a kilogram of meat is fuck all lads you go to to duns or aldi and you buy mince for your spaghetti bolognese it's it's 500 grams so for two packets of mince in but beef mince in duns and aldi that's 50 fucking kilograms of grain and soya that were required for that that little bit of meat now 50 kilograms what's a kilogram a box of cornflakes is a kilogram okay so 50 boxes of cornflakes need to be fed to one cow in order to give you two

packets of mince that's fucking insane that is a lot of land that is required to produce that much grain to feed like i'm just talking about a kilogram lads, how many packets of mince are in one cow, okay, so that's insanity, that is an insane ratio that is required, and that's half the problem, like I'm saying, it's not just the cow's farts, it's the amount of land and resources and water that need to be used to feed the cow in order to give us a bit of meat it is a very inefficient animal in that respect an insect like a cricket or a beetle or whatever the fuck these cunts need two kilograms of food in order to produce one kilogram of meat okay so that's a two to one ratio that's that is in terms of efficiency a hell of a lot better so now think of the amount of land that like that you need less

less shit that you need in order to feed these insects insects also they're not particularly, they're not very picky. Insects will eat our food waste, do you know, in order to grow. Back to the water actually. A cow requires 2,000 gallons of water to produce one kilogram of meat. And cricket or a beetle or a cockroach requires two gallons of water to produce one kilogram of meat. Okay. So those mathematics lads. Two thousand to one versus fucking two to one. Come on to fuck. Because water is going to get scarce too.

And one of the fights that we're going to have going forward is to stop utter pricks trying to privatise it. Let's move on now to, we'll say nutrition. Because one of the issues, like I said, like when I'm doing my plant-based business and eating a plant-based diet as much as I can, I go to the gym. So I'm conscious of protein. Like when I lift weights. I want to make sure I'm getting enough protein.

Into my body. That is a bit of a toughie. When you're fully plant based. There is ways to do it. But you're relying mostly on. Soy is a good source. There's a thing called seitan that isn't bad. I think seitan might even come from soy. Beans. There's a thing called seitan that isn't bad i think seitan

might even come from soy beans there's a way to get the protein in but on a plant-based diet it can get a bit complicated you got to really look at it to make sure you're getting a full amino acid profile um insects and and simply the fact too like if you say to me like why why would i use meat like now now i'm plant-based for a reason but meat offers great convenience if i'm cooking a meal and there's meat involved the meal is naturally simpler like if i'm making a spaghetti bolognese or anything it's like tomatoes a couple of vegetables fuck the meat in load of nutrients there with the meat makes things very simple when you go plant-based it becomes a little bit more

complex when you're in the kitchen a small bit more complex because you have to be thinking of you have to be much more conscious but with with meat, it's convenient and easier. This is why I think insects going forward is a great meat substitute, okay? Now, nutritional value of insects kicks the living fuck out of most meats that are available, out of beef. First off, it's got a full amin most insects have and the thing is there's all different types of edible insects crickets grubs cockroaches loads of them and they all have different tastes and they're all they're different little animals you know and they've got a huge a greater amino acid profile than most animal meats.

Huge amounts of iron, calcium, B12, omega-3. They've got prebiotics, probiotics. So nutritionally, insect meat is phenomenal for what humans need okay the problem is simply our taboos and our customs with this global diet that's very western influenced that's what we need to challenge we just need to challenge a fucking idea and it's not that mad do you eat shellfish a lot of people will say yes fucking a prawn is just an insect of the sea look at the state of lobsters if you're saying to me

I'm not eating a cricket ugly pricks look at the state of lobsters big ugly bastards squids rotten cunts fucking I mean look

we eat sausages and black pudding that's just ground up rectum of pig we're already we're already eating food that by traditional standards should kind of disgust us but because of social conventions

it doesn't black pudding is a lot of blood so to make the cultural leap requires a huge effort. But to make the leap to insect, it's not that mad. I mean, who remembers the horse meat scandal? If I said to you, do you want a horse burger? You'd go, oh no, I'm not eating a horse.

But we were all eating horses for about three years there. Because from 2010 to about 2015 a huge amount of what we thought was beef in large supermarkets around the world particularly in europe it was actually horse meat that was passed off as beef how did that end up happening romania some there was a lot of stray horses in Romania and the Romanian government I believe brought in some law that these horses had to be killed so Romania had a load of dead horses on their hands

and gangsters got stuck in ground up the horses and sold it to Europe as beef and we all ate it you know, and we didn't know any different now I'm not saying horses are the future of meat they'd be just as unsustainable as beef but insects are let's look at

aside from the amount of land and water and resources that are being wasted let's use the word fucking wasted lads on this ridiculous western led obsession with ruminants as a source of food like Ridiculous. Western led obsession. With ruminants.

As a source of food. Like. Forty. Two percent. I think. Of the dangerous greenhouse gases. That are emitted. That are causing global warming.

Right. A big culprit is methane. We all know the farts of the cows. Are the big issue. Forty two percent of the methane. that is causing the planet to heat up is caused from uh cattle right the large-scale farming of insects not only uses fuck all space and land to house the insects because it can be done vertically in warehouses not only does it use less land to house the insects because it can be done vertically in warehouses not only does it use less land to feed the insects insects would produce one percent of the amount of methane that traditional cattle and pig production or whatever would cause another huge benefit of insects as food is insects don't require like fresh food

to eat right now i said this earlier but just to expand on it like cows you're either looking at a huge amount like in ireland we're lucky a lot of our cows are actually grass-fed but we still have this huge amount of land that's cleared just for fucking grass, where there should be meadows and forests for the production of oxygen and to help pollinators. So you're misusing this land and you're feeding the cattle huge amounts of food that's specifically grown for them. huge amounts of food that's specifically grown for them. Insects, they feed on already decaying plant matter, which means insects feed on waste. So if we are moving towards a society where we're more plant-based in our diets, you know, all plant-based production is going to have waste. All plant-based production is going to have waste.

Like, what can I think of off the top of my head? I don't know, a fucking carrot. Or tomatoes. Tomatoes are very sustainable products. When you eat tomatoes, you're just eating the fruit. But the stalk of the tomato plant, the leaves of the tomato plant, that's essentially waste. Insects eat that.

They can eat that. Insects can be eating the organic waste that we don't need from the production of our own food. So how do I see this rolling out? Because this isn't something you can do overnight, unfortunately. You can't just start demanding people start eating insects in the same way you can't start demanding everybody starts eating plant-based diets. I'd love to think that it works like that.

It doesn't. Humans are humans and a certain percentage of us are contrarians. And that's just how it is. Humans and a certain percentage of us are contrarians. And that's just how it is. I would see the first step in moving towards insects as food. Is firstly start opening up insect farming. The large scale production of insects.

Not for human consumption. but as animal feed. Now this is already happening. In fact, in the past six months, Ireland has given out the first licenses for people to produce insects specifically for human and animal consumption. There's a company, because I just checked them out based in me they believe they're only about six months they're only going about six months they're called hexafly h-e-x-a-f-l-y now even looking at their their website right you can kind of tell where is it now so from glancing at the website you can kind of tell, where is it now? So from glancing at the website, you can kind of tell that they're dancing around the fact that what they're actually doing is farming insects and their specific thing. They're not selling insect protein for humans, but they're selling it as an

alternative for animal and fish feed, right? They have a logo of a fly. A fly is in their logo, and it says Hexafly, sustainable natural commodities, which to me would suggest that they're growing larvae, like grubs, and they're making these grubs into a feed that's being fed to, that they would like to see fed to cows, cattle, and fish, because you can go into the shop,

and they have sample products. In the shop,'s uh insect oil insect protein and then straight up grubs quite expensive but they're just after starting and they're based up in mead and that right there is a move in the right direction producing insects as a form of incredibly nutritious protein that is given to the beef and fish that we eat that's already being farmed as an alternative to grain that are soy that requires huge amounts of deforestation and massive amounts of lands and land and water this company hexafly which as i can as far as i can tell her the first ones in ireland are going fuck that we're growing insects or raising insects probably vertically in warehouses and here is an alternative type of

equally nutritious feed that we can give the animals so i would see that as step one. I think the future is going to be, we're not going to be sitting down to a plate full of crickets or a plate full of grubs. That's not going to happen, I don't think. That is one of the issues at the moment, as I mentioned. The insects currently are a fetishized object. It's, I'm a celebrity, get me out of here. Eating a deep fried tarantula or a

cricket lollipop that you buy online no all that does is it serves to it's like you know buy you know you can buy ostrich meat and alligator meat and fucking what is it ostrich alligator what's the third one emu you know they're novelty foods they're what you do for a laugh but they're not you wouldn't seriously be thinking of eating them every day in the same way you're not going to buy a bag of deep fried crickets and throw it into your stir fry it's something you do to shock your friends it's a novelty thing that's we need to move away from that if we're to accommodate this into western diets what most likely this will take the form of is the insects being ground down into a type of flour now currently because insects are such a niche product in the west like you can go onto amazon now and you can buy yourself a bag of cricket flour right ridiculously nutritious huge amounts of protein amino acids

fucking omega oils the whole shebang ridiculously what you would call even though the term superfood is bullshit insect protein is most definitely a superfood kicks the shit out of everything else right so you can buy insect protein online there's insect protein bodybuilder bars, you know, but again, it's still a little bit novelty-ish and incredibly expensive. And this is what breaks my heart because it shouldn't be. So if I was to buy now a bag of cricket flour, which is a highly nutritious protein flour made from crickets, it's on amazon currently 12 quid for 250 grams okay so that means a kilogram of cricket flour to buy today for human consumption is 12 and 12 24 50 quid for a kilogram of cricket flour a kilogram of beef will cost me

i don't know eight euro probably eight euro for a kilogram of beef less maybe depending on the fat content so that doesn't make sense l. If the cow is this incredibly expensive, insustainable animal, that, you know, 500 fucking, I can't remember the fucking figures, but, was it, one kilogram of beef requires 25 kilograms of grain, incredibly expensive,

why the fuck can I walk into a shop and buy a kilogram of beef for eight euro? That doesn't make sense. beef for eight euro that doesn't make sense do you know why it doesn't make sense because it's unsustainable and of course it's destroying the planet yet a kilogram of cricket flour costs me 50 quid that's more expensive than fucking wagyu beef wagyu beef is the most expensive or kobe beef these japanese beefs which is the one is wagyu or kobe wagyu is the one where they Kobe beef these Japanese beefs which is the one is Wagyu or Kobe Wagyu is the one

where they fucking wank off the cows and massage them and that'll cost you 50 quid for a kilogram I think it could be less but

that's nuts so because there's such little interest in growing I have to stop saying growing in farming insects

in the west it's 50 quid for a kilogram so the future what I would like to see if we're to actually try and save this fucking planet is insect cricket flour and grub flour

or whatever you have and all the different flavour profiles that each of them have are going to find our way into the supermarket as a kind of a mince product like mince beef in the same way that

I can walk into Dunn's today and I can buy a plant based minced beef and there's no beef in it it just it looks like beef and that's it's convenient and handy because you just fuck it into a spaghetti bolognese but insects are even more sustainable than that so it will creep its way into like open up the ingredients of most kind of processed foods you'll see a lot of soy protein in there to save money on meat protein maybe it's supplemented maybe you know you go and buy your burgers your

beef burgers and it's 75 cricket and 25 beef because you're not looking at a future where you completely eradicate pork beef and lamb you just simply return to how it would have been 100 years ago when these things were really a fucking treat, as they should be. People didn't eat meat like this lads. This is only the past 100 fucking years post-industrial revolution that we're going to ape shit on meat. But this isn't the way things are supposed to be. Now I notice the argument of, well people were malnourished back then, but we don't the way things are supposed to be now i noticed the argument of well people were malnourished back then but we don't need to live in a society where we're fucking malnourished we just need to live in a society where we can still access incredible nutrition still have very

flavorful food we just have to confront taboos about how we do it and move the taboo away from what we consider disgusting or yucky and move it more towards what's good for the planet and what's not and I'm sorry but a kilogram of beef for eight euro should be disgusting it should be insulting that kilogram of beef taking it back to the Argos catalogue earlier when I was affronted and disgusted at that €220 bin, that's your kilogram of beef. It's ridiculous. It's the two and a half grand American fridge freezer. it's a stupidly extravagant insane uh product that through mass exploitation for some reason is cheap and cheapness leads to fucking waste so i suppose that's my that's my climate change little podcast let's start thinking about insects

change little podcast let's start thinking about insects let's start start talking about it start moving your brain towards becoming a person who is okay with eating insects shift the taboo do you know these are the things we can do that globally and governments need to do it corporations need to do it for us to move into a place where the planet isn't totally fucked for our children and grandchildren and you know like there's nearly 1.5 million listeners to this podcast globally lads and like you know the last climate podcast that i did was called chucky Garland, where I tried to introduce kind of a militant republicanism, republican fucking eco-terrorism into making seed bombs and planting wildflower all around Ireland.

Like, Carly Ennisnis who I had on this podcast six fucking 40 podcasts back or whatever I don't know but you know Collie was talking about the lack of biodiversity in Ireland

and how insects are dying and how frogs are dying and all of this in the past year there's been a slight awareness and improvement like

you know county councils in Ireland now they're aware that it's it's not good to be mowing all the mowing all the public spaces a lot of county councils have been putting effort into putting wildflower on roundabouts and and collie told me on twitter that in the past year they've seen a slight increase and improvement in biodiversity because of these small things that people have done around the country um so there you go right there something small like that awareness for everybody can make this little difference so what i'd say to you listen to this podcast now are you a food scientist? Are you a chef?

Well, if you are one of these things, I ask you, please, particularly if you're a food scientist, start getting interested in insects as a type of food. Start thinking. Be the pioneer. Use your expertise. Use your knowledge to be, I want to be the person who

can westernize insects as a type of food who can accommodate insects into the western diet and play your part in saving the fucking planet we've seen this with that, like when I was over in Canada, in Vancouver, in Toronto, I went to, they have a burger chain over there called A&W, which is gorgeous, it's fantastic, it's really lovely, it's like a Canadian Burger King, and it's a bit more natural than Burger King, you know, it is a lot nicer, but when I was there, like, I didn't want to be like, I'm on holidays, it's grand, I'll have a burger, but I was half going like,'t want to be like I'm on holidays it's grand I'll have a burger but I was half going

like ah fuck it I'm on holidays so I went in going fuck that alright I know it's a Wednesday but I'm getting my burger so I went in

to get my burger and in A&W they were selling a burger called Beyond Meat which was a plant based burger so I said fuck it

give me that so they gave it to me I didn't notice to me i didn't notice the difference i didn't notice the difference it was lovely but that happened because of food science food scientists had to go how are we going to get plants to taste like meat so that people like me can rock into a burger joint when i'm pissed and not cheat on my diet and it worked so let's go there with insects if you're a food scientist or if you're if you're a chef if you're a chef and you're interested in

food and you like getting creative try and get your hands on some insect protein online and see what you can come up with you can pioneer this shit know? Move it towards the western diet. Because. Fair play to the people in the Asian countries. Who are sitting down eating entire bags of deep fried crickets. But. I think that's a hard sell here. But a pound of cricket mince.

I could see. I could see people eating that. I could see your da eating that. That's who you need to feed. You need to feed your stubborn father who's demanding his steak. What can you feed your stubborn da? As he leafs through his grubby German pornography that he smuggled up his jumper from a

Stansted airport in 1983. That's called a callback lads. That's how you do it. A circular narrative to the podcast to make it seem like I had a structure all along. All right. God bless. I'll talk to you next week.

I think that's it. I think I covered all aspects of insects as food. I think that was it. If I left anything out, I'll talk next week. Yart. All right, finally, just gigs. Australian tour tour lads almost sold out, okay

Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne Sydney, look it up online blind buy live podcast Australia I'm aware of the fucking irony finishing my climate change podcast by taking a big dirty plane to Australia but what are you going to do, trying my best to address my

personal, what would you call it do trying my best to address my personal offset my carbon emissions but I still want to go to Australia and do a few gigs there's lots of gigs in September I'll tell you more next week next one is in Moth Theatre in Nace

that's the 6th of September lads Kildare wait is Nace in Kildare it is the Moth Theatre in Nace. That's the 6th of September, lads. Kildare. Wait, is Nace in Kildare? It is. The Moth Theatre. Did it the last time. Sold it out.

It was a good crack. 6th of September. Almost sold out in Nace. There's a gig in fucking Sligo coming up, lads, and I'm having my heart broken. A gig in Sligo is coming up. I believe it's September, is it? No, it's October.

It's October, I think. Please, for fuck's sake, come to the Sligo gig or tell your friend about it because I'm getting my heart broken by a promoter. Go on. 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 host 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.