The Blindboy Podcast - Pleasuring myself about sycamore trees above the top of Croagh Patrick

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

A thesis on the Sycamore  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Hulu original series Murdoch, Death in the Family, dives into secrets, deception, murder, and the fall of a powerful dynasty. Inspired by shocking actual events and drawing from the hit podcast, this series brings the drama to the screen like never before. Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark, watch the Hulu original series Murdoch, Death in the Family, now streaming only on Disney Plus. Fetch the herons, breadcrumbs, you perpetual declans. Welcome to the Blind by podcast. If this is your first podcast, please consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarize yourself with the lore of this podcast. We're in the clammy bars of autumn.

It's very autumn at the moment. Winter beckons. I don't mind a bit of winter. Big fan of winter. Winter won't. let you down, you know what you're going to get with winter, not like summer. But the light is disappearing, the skies are darkening, there's a chill in the wind, nights are colder, and the wind is aggressive, very aggressive, that autumn wind that takes

the leaves off the fucking trees. And I've been out having wonderful walks. Look what I love about this time of year. It's not that I have a problem with summer. It's just, there's too much of an emotional load with summer. If it's raining, you're disappointed, because you're like, fuck's sake, it's summer and it's raining. If it's hot and sunny, you're worried about whether you're enjoying it enough. Summer's a big deal in Ireland because

we're not built for fucking summer. The houses aren't built for summer, so when it's hot, it's too hot. Nobody has air conditioning. Summer just feels like a very demanding house guest. And when summer is gone, you're kind of like, fuck it, I can relax now. Autumn. I know what I'm getting with autumn. Good all autumn won't let me down. And you know it's going to get shitter. You just know. So you expect nothing because you know tomorrow is going to be

noticeably darker than today and colder. I find comfort in the reliability of that. And I get to wear my Gartex. Most importantly, I've given up on fucking fashion. If you're a long time listeners to this podcast, you'll know my battles over the years with outdoor clothes. I've completely given up. I don't give a fuck anymore. Head to toe. I'm talking shoes as well. All right? Every single piece of clothing that I wear is purchased because of what it does. Waterproof, breathable Gortex trousers. Multiple pockets. Multiple pockets. I have a pocket near my shin and yesterday I put an apricot

an apricot into my shin and reached down when I was on my bicycle and ate a shin apricot you can't do that with a pair of denims I've got full outdoor shoes steel toe caps I could jump in a puddle if I wanted

I'm 100% I'm protected I'm breathable I could comfortably tumble into a small stream and salvage the rest of my day. I can step over inches of autumn leaves and not be concerned about slipping. I feel smug. That's the best thing about fucking autumn. This is the opposite. So do you know it's summertime? It's summer. It's summer. It's like Spain. So you're in the middle of June, we'll say.

Really fucking hot, clear blue skies. It feels like Spain and you're in Ireland. I can't enjoy it. Because you're just thinking, am I doing this right? Should I be at the beach? Fuck it. Should I be washing and drying my clothes? Feeling guilty about sitting in the shade. Feeling guilty about being indoors. Looking out the window and going looking at wonderful weather. I should be out in that. And then you're out in it. And it's like I should be doing something different. Until eventually, you're just like, we've had enough of it now. We've enough of it. Well, the exact opposite of that feeling, the precise opposite of that feeling, is going for a walk or a cycle in the freezing cold, aggressive rain of autumn and being

completely toasty and bone dry, knowing that I've got like a microporous membrane that lets air in but my body heat can escape, walking into big giant puddles. inch deep puddles going Might these shoes are fucking waterproof There's no fear of me Looking up at big trees Getting battered by wind The bows

Fucking bending With big strong wind And then the same wind is hitting me And I'm slicing through it Like a Stanley knife Cause my jacket has strategically placed Wind slits Being conscious of my storm flaps

It's not a fucking storm flap is Watch him off with his storm flaps I think about storm flaps now So when the wind When the freezing wind and rain is battering off me And I have potential openings in my clothing via zips There's a little A little strip

Protective strip of fabric that goes over the zip And that's the storm flap I love wearing a set of trousers And when you buy the fucking trousers Like the label The label that hangs off them It's not like a regular label It's like a little 16-page booklet of diagrams of all the different layers that make up the trousers.

Drawings of how water can't fucking penetrate it. Reassuring me that I'm creating my own localised microclimate in my body. But that mastery, that mastery over the forces of nature. Looking up at a tree and feeling smug, that's the exact opposite of thinking that I'm not enjoying a summer's day enough. I'm walking around going, this is awful. My God, sideways rain and a sky the color of a headbutted testicle. This is disgusting. This is bleak. I have no doubt that I'm doing the right thing here. Look at that person. Over there, their hair is wet. Uh-oh, still wearing a t-shirt like it's July. I can see your nipples, sir. Ah, look at that person. Fashionable baggy,

boot-cut jeans in the rain, is it? Why are your shins so dark? And then someone over there is wearing a pair of converse. Wet, wet soaking converse. Not me. I'm toasty and dry. I feel amazing. I'm like a large bird with multiple layers of air being trapped

between breathable waterproof clothing. But this all comes at an aesthetic price. I used to joke and say that. You know, if you wear head to toe. outdoor gear. You look divorced. You look like a divorced person. I used to joke about that. Nothing against divorced people. I've gone beyond that now. I look like I'm on a Catholic, a solo Catholic pilgrimage to the top of Croke Patrick and I'm doing it because I can't stop myself wanking. I look like someone

who has intense, deep sexual shame about masturbating and is trying to turn towards Catholicism and pilgrimages to try and fight it

or find answers. I'm dressed like that, someone who someone who has sexual fantasy, not even about, someone who wants to fuck a wardrobe. I look like a person who's sexually attracted to war drop.

or vinegar. Someone who can't get an erection unless they're sniffing a bottle of vinegar and I have to climb Krog Patrick to stop myself wanking about wardrobs. That's how I'm dressed. Krog Patrick is one of

Ireland's highest mountains in Mayo. It's said that St. Patrick spent 40 days up there in the 5th century and people climb it on religious pilgrimages. Some people climb it barefoot, it's a serious mountain to climb. But it's mad religious. You most certainly need to be,

you need to bear a lot of outdoor gear, really resilient outdoor gear if you're going to climb Croke Patrick. It's no joke. And I mean, not everyone, not everyone who climbs Croke Patrick is doing it for religious penance or to absolve themselves of sin or to mortify their flesh. Sometimes it's just influencers, influencers in wonderful Patagonia jackets looking fantastic or

it's a middle-aged man who's sexually attracted to wardrobes and can't stop masturbating about it and needs to go to the top of Croke Patrick to confront this very shameful part of themselves so I look like the latter I look like that these days

and I'm absolutely fine with it because it's that are cold shins and I was out marvelling at sycamores I was getting battered by just sycamore seeds you know

helicopters watching a strong breeze tear through a sycamore tree and seeing it send hundreds of its seeds into the air and just watching them perfectly spin and float for miles off into the distance

and just marvelling at the efficiency, the sheer fucking efficiency of that as a seed dispersal system. Marvelling at the wonder of nature. And sycamores... So sycamore trees, they're not actually indigenous to Ireland or to England. They'd be what's called,

and they know as native the right word it's naturalised so sycamore trees they're not invasive that's the other thing so they're not invasive but they don't come from here they're naturalised they exist comfortably

within the ecosystem but they're still a little bit odd they're a bit odd like for instance like I have a complicated relationship with wind and sycamore trees so right now the leaves are yellow and brown, their dying leaves.

But like a month ago, a month ago, early September, late August, when those leaves were green. But you get that little blast, the little blast of wind that you get that autumn wind. Well, the leaves are still green. You have to be fucking careful like sycamore trees

because wasps. Have you ever seen a sycamore tree around late August and there's a strong breeze, right? And the leaves are shaking and then the you end up with hovering wasps the wasps like loads

like what the why there's so many fucking wasps in the sycamore tree you'd be thinking there's a hive in there there's not the wind goes through the sycamore tree and you're walking down the road and then all these wasps like 16 of them just get blown about a foot out from the tree

towards your face and so first off the interesting thing about sycamore trees is that They're actually maple trees. So they're not from Ireland. They're not from Britain. They're from Central Europe.

They came to Ireland and Britain in the 1500s with monasteries. Monasteries brought a lot of them over. But anyway, so sycamore trees, they're very thick with sweet sap because they're in the maple family. And because they have this sweet sap, they have a fuckload of aphids, those tiny little green aphids, live all over the leaves if you look at sycamore leaves

in the summertime you'll just see hundreds and hundreds of aphids on each leaf and what those aphids are doing they're eating the sap right

and then on their backs they're producing honey dew which is mad sweet so then if you look at a sycamore bark in the summer the trunk of the tree you'll see all ants going up because the ants

will farm the honey dew off the backs of all those aphids. But then, again, it's, it's, it's the, the late August, the September wasps, you know, the country wasps. Now, I've spoken about them before, but, you know, we, we all know that the wasps are aggressive around late August. The wasps are definitely aggressive. So when you're walking on the road and you see that wind going for those sycamore leaves, you're frightened, you're like, shit, there's going to be about 10, 16 wasps floating into my face now with that wind.

But what makes it interesting is, you've definitely seen this, you've seen this happen. When the wind hits that sycamore tree, those green leaves, and it juts the wasps out by about a foot, the wasps are fighting to get back to those leaves. Whatever's on those leaves, those wasps really want to get back, right?

When the wind blows through it. What those wasps are doing? they gather to the sycamore tree, because now they're licking the sugar, the honeydew, off the backs of all those aphids. But then the sad thing about that wasp behavior is, I've done a podcast on this before, but the fascinating thing about September wasps is they're actually highly traumatized. so those wasps at one point had purpose and a community so those wasps over the summer

used to have a hive a wasp hive and they had jobs and they had families and what they would do basically is like wasps wasps are decomposers so wasps will eat meat wasps will eat a dead rat

so wasps would eat meat during the summer bring this protein back to their wasp hive to the colony then they would feed the protein the little baby wasp larvae but then the larvae excrete a sugary substance and that's what the wasps eat for most of their lives and then what happens is those larvae they grow up to become queens and drones

they flee the colony and then you're left with all of these wasps that have no purpose and have no food source and that are addicted to sugar so this happens around September so you've got these aimless wasps

with no home to go to just craving sugar that they can't get anymore they don't have jobs community or access to their sugar it's gone so they just wander and wander searching for sugar

searching for that hit. So they'll either chase me and you because we might smell like aftershave or perfume or we're drinking a sugary drink or they're trying to get into our houses because they can smell sugar in there or they're hanging around the leaves of sycamore trees

licking the backs off aphids. So that's why in late summer when those leaves are green and the wind goes through it you'll see all the wasps getting gently blown off the fucking sycamore tree. But this week those wasps are gone

They're dead It's autumn The leaves are brown And now what I'm witnessing Is The leaves being stripped From the sycamore trees And then carrying those seeds

Those beautiful wonderful Helicopter seeds And watching them just shoot off Like catapults Into the fucking distance And be carried But the interesting thing about sycamores And I had a hunch

I had a fucking hunch right? Because think of it. What type of fucking tree? What type of tree needs that? I suppose I was thinking about it because of my outdoor clothes, the resilience of it. What type of tree needs to have seeds that have evolved over millions of years into being perfect little helicopters? What type of tree needs helicopters that can fly off into the distance to plant another tree? Why would a tree need that? I mean, conquers just fall onto the ground. Conkers just fall onto the fucking ground.

Same with acorns. They're just chilled out. It's going to drop a load of fruit and seeds onto the ground here, and it'll sort itself out. What's going on with sycamore that it needs to try so hard? Because a sycamore helicopter seed, it's a fruit. It's called a Samara. The sycamore helicopter seed, that's so unbelievably.

unique and efficient. It can travel for miles on a wind and grow into another sycamore tree. I'm looking at it going, why does it need that this doesn't make sense? But here's the thing. It's not indigenous to Ireland. It's not indigenous here.

It's naturalised and it thrives. It fucking thrives in Ireland. But this isn't its indigenous ecosystem. Why does that tree need to be that much? of a hard cunt. So where sycamores are from, they're from really thick forests in central Europe. Montane forests, they're called,

that have steep mountain sides. And sycamores, in their indigenous habitat, they're opportunistic trees. So sycamores in their native habitat, they grow, think of a very dense thick forest. much taller trees

sycamores grow in whatever little space if there's a little space that opens up that a bit of sunlight can get through the sycamore will grow there much older, taller, stronger more dominant trees

outcompete the sycamore in its indigenous environment so it has to be hard as fuck it has to have real high tolerance for shade because it's a mid-level tree all the trees around it are way, way taller, the bits of sunlight are getting true, but the sycamore can still do its thing, and then, because its environment is so harsh and there's such

competition, it needs to have these helicopter seeds that can disperse for miles away, because if it was like a conker tree or an oak and it's just dropping its seeds on the ground, that's not going to work in its native environment, so it needed to have. I just think of the millions of years of evolutionary adaptations it took to have this a seed that spins and flies like a helicopter like that's astounding and then you take into consideration that it's in these mountainous forests and then you can imagine that seed for travelling for miles and miles and miles just spinning and spinning on a wind.

I'm talking the mountains in the Balkans, the Alps, the Pyrenees and also what Sycamore does in its indigenous environment on the side of the Alps right massive mountains I'm talking about the fellas going up to Croke Patrick because they can't stop wanking about wardrobs

fuck Croke Patrick that's nothing compared to the Alps giant mountains right with very poor rocky soil and these strange forests of tall trees and in the middle of this is the Sycamore and what the Sycamore does in its indigenous ecosystem

it protects the mountain it works within the ecosystem to prevent avalanches prevent erosion so the sycamore has these really first off the the thick thick leaves

right so the thickness like at the height of summertime if you're sitting underneath a sycamore there's proper fucking shade it's a very shady tree because of all those thick leaves. In the Alps, where it's indigenous, the thickness of those leaves, that protects the soil, right, and the floor of the forest that protects that soil from getting battered by raindrops, because the consistent battering of raindrops in the Alps will erode that thin mountainy soil.

Then the roots of the sycamore tree, they go pure deep, and that then stabilizes the soil of the mountain so you don't get avalanches, you don't get erosion, you don't get just a bare rock face, and now you have an ecosystem because the wonder of the sycamore tree. And then of course its leaves returning to the earth and creating soil, but then it's roots making sure that that soil sticks and doesn't wash away. It's one of those things that's hard to describe because you start describing it and before you know it. Before you know it, you're talking about God. That's the problem with this shit. I'm not a God person. But when you look at something like a sycamore, and it's so, again, the word designed, it's not designed, it's evolution over many, many years.

But as a human being, it's impossible not to look at it and think that it's designed. The sycamore is so perfect for protecting a mountain. And then you have to ask yourself, who wants to protect the mountain and why? Well, it's protecting the valleys and rivers below. and when you look at the Sycamore's role in its indigenous mountain and everything it does for the health of that mountain and the rivers and the valleys below your brain starts thinking well someone designed that for a fucking purpose

but that's not how it works it's evolution across millions of years and deep time and it's just it's that human brain the human brain we look at something and we find those patterns to say this has been created or this has a purpose. And also, in its indigenous land, right, in the Alps or the Pyrenees, the sycamore has like hundreds and hundreds of species that depend on it that live in it. Like there's 130 different species of aphids that live on it.

Fungus. So there's a type of fungus that. grows in the soil with sycamore in its indigenous land where it's a type of fungus that fuses with the tree's roots itself like a conduit between the tree and the soil. There's lots of bards that live in the sycamore tree. There's loads of fucking lichen that grow on it. There's thousands and thousands of creatures and animals, and fungus that exist with the sycamore tree in its native habitat, in the Alps. And all of these things live with the tree and benefit from the tree. And loads of them kill the tree as well. There's bark beetles that bore into it. There's loads of

different leaf-cutting insects that eat all the leaves of the sycamore tree. There's funguses that kill the tree. Like, the sycamore is a hardy tree because it grows up. It's from a tough, tough environment in the Alps. And it has evolved perfectly to work on that mountain range. But now they're in Ireland. They're here in Ireland and they're not from here. And they're not necessarily invasive. You see, they probably were at one point when they came here in the 1500s. Now they're naturalised. So sycamore's in Ireland. They thrive under what's called the enemy release effect. It doesn't have all these leaf cutter insects that eat it or these funguses that kill it. They don't exist in Ireland or over in the fucking UK. So now you have this

hard bastard of a tree, this really tough tree and the environment isn't tough on it at all. Like in the Balkans a sycamore tree might have, might support maybe 130 different species of insect. in Ireland the sycamore has maybe 20 species of insect that depend on it like what I described when I say be wary of a sycamore in late August with the wind because you get a slap off a lot of wasps like that's strange behaviour there that that behaviour is only 500 years old that's weird there are Irish aphids Irish wasps and it's just weird So weird things are happening on the sycamore tree. The wasps are wanking about wardrops.

Sycamore trees in Ireland and over in the UK, they've got quite low biodiversity value. They're not... Like, an indigenous tree is like a giant apartment block. An indigenous tree is like a city, like a city. Or all different types of organisms survive within the ecosystem. Not sycamores. Sycamores are just these...

these hard, hard trees, these really resilient, tough trees in an ecosystem that doesn't challenge them. And this is, sycamores, they don't need their helicopters here in Ireland. They've no need for them. But they still, they go far and wide

and this is why, I don't know, you could be on a train. You're on a train in a shitty railway track, in the middle of nowhere, and there's sycamore trees, little saplings of sycamores growing next to train tracks.

And it's like, why? Number one, their wonderful helicopter seed got to travel that far to make it to the train tracks. And two, Sycamore doesn't give a fuck about gravel. The sycamore is supposed to be grown on a mountain that has fuck all soil. It doesn't care about the gravel

or on a train track. It'll find its way down there and establish it itself. You won't see an oak tree. A native oak near a train track though. but it's hard to really because they're naturalized now you see sycamores are no longer

they wouldn't be actively invasive it's like they've won they've done their thing they came over in the 1500s to 1600s with the gardens of monasteries really monasteries and then when the monasteries were dissolved gotten rid of under Cromwell

and everyone after Cromwell, then monastic gardens in Ireland were then replaced with the big Protestant houses. But Sycamore, it displaced our native trees. Ash, hazel, barch. I mean, Ireland was a rainforest. Ireland was a rainforest covered in indigenous trees.

And now it's not at all. Ireland is a strange landscape. Like the tree, They weren't just cut down by people. They weren't just cut down and felled. The likes of Sycamore played its part. I mean, you think of the Irish place names. Derry means dirre.

That means an oak grove. There's no fucking oak left. Yawl, down in cork, means yew. A fucking mayo means plain of you trees. Trim, in Clare, elder tree. Inishkin means island of the ash trees. Sycamore with its wonderful, big, thick, thickets of leaves. These thick, thick leaves that evolved to be in the fucking Pyrenees or the Alps to stop rain from battering off the mountain.

Now this is in Ireland and those thick canopies of sycamore are covering the earth and the native trees can't grow. And it's sycamore as well as highly tolerant of wind and very, very tolerant. of salt. Any coastal salty wind, sycamore doesn't give a fuck about salt. And it's seeds, it seeds, of course, that disperse everywhere. So I was just thinking about sycamore this week while I was walking and looking at and looking at those wonderful seeds. I suppose what struck me was, you see, I knew I'd never really had a good think about sycamore seeds. I've been dealing with it in my entire life. But this week, I just went, holy fuck. What's going to? on with that tree that it needs to have those helicopters?

Nature does that for a reason. What's going on? I got to follow that. And I did. And I was so fascinated with the results. It's like, yeah, this tree grew up tough, really, really hard. And it needs those seeds. But here in Ireland, it doesn't, it, it's, you think of, I'm always conscious of invasive species. You're thinking about your Japanese knotweeds and your rhododendrons and these things are spreading, spreading and killing everything

and they're invasive and it's just fascinating to think of the sycamore as that was once invasive but it won, that won and now it's native and it's impossible to see its trail of destruction its trail of destruction can only be measured by absence

its trail of destruction can only be measured by why are so many counties in Ireland named after trees but the trees aren't there anymore and like I said an indigenous tree is like an apartment block for all different life forms and a forest is like lots and lots of apartment blocks So you lose all your hazel and you and ash and elder and elm. Then you lose the massive amounts of indigenous insects that rely upon these trees.

The fungus, the lichen, the mycorsiae. Then you lose your pollinators. Then you lose your birds and animals that live in that forest. You lose the leaf litter, the root structure, the soil carbon declines. then you end up with groundwater flow you see because all that leaf litter by the indigenous forests, that's forests that soaks up the rain

but now that's gone so now you end up with floods and then that changes the rivers of Ireland but now the soil integrity of the rivers has changed because you don't have the native trees and the root structure and the soil holding them together

and it goes on and on until you end up with no salmon in the river or no muscles and you have an empty landscape, the empty landscape that we see today, but you've plenty of sycamore. And nothing's named after sycamores. There's no ancient Irish names named after sycamores. The only shit that's named after sycamores are like modern housing estates. You'll get modern housing estates and they're called like Sycamore View, Sycamore terrace. And I find that fascinating. And I suppose the other reason I'm fucking thinking about it because of Mankan, because Mankan died

and thinking about things that I've loved to have said to him, I'd love to have an old sycamore fucking hot take for Mankan because he's the only person I can think of who would be willing to listen to me, who would really want to hear that. The only person I can think of would like to hear that Sikamore hot take.

is man gone, and he's gone. And I wanted to do a question-answering podcast this week. I didn't intend to speak about sycamores for that long. I wanted to do a question-answering podcast. But one question I was fucking asked, I can't remember who asked it, but it stuck out to me. Someone asked me on Instagram about the artistic experience of grief, and if that's different.

And I reckon it is a bit different because... So my definition of friend, Mancon was my friend and I might have only met him once every two years like physically, in person I might have met Mancon once every two years and any person who I'd consider to be a friend I might see this person

physically once a year but I'd stay in contact frequently via text or email and only only about mutual interests that's the thing with the autistic experience

like I don't have friends friends I don't have any person who would just hang out with for the sake of hanging out I don't understand it I have people with mutual interests my contact about these interests and that's often the autistic

experience of friendship and I've lost about three very close friends over the years and the experience of loss is really strange because for the most part it's it's a person in your phone who just doesn't respond anymore and it's an area of interest that now gets really lonely

like I'd have a very close friend about maybe 15 years ago and this person they were my music partner person, that this person was my music person and they died and the grief pops up, still pops up as, I don't know, I'll hear a song and I'll want to share this song with that person more than anything in the whole world and they're gone, I can't. And now this, this week there with the Sycamore, the Sycamore hot take, the one person I want to send that to, the one person who I want to get feedback on that idea from to speak.

speak to a but that's man gone and he's gone. I know what he'd have loved specifically because you heard him last week on the podcast. He was big into, you know, the Irish sacred trees and big into places that were named after trees. I mean, that's where I learned it from from listening to him. He would have loved the little quark there that the only time in Ireland you hear shit named after a sycamore is, it's a modern housing estate. All right, this was supposed to be a question answering podcast. I don't think I've gotten to one question. I'm going to have an ocarina pause now, and then maybe I'll answer a question after the ocarina pause. For this week's ocarina pause, I'm going to shake some chewing gums, and then you're going to hear an advert.

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You'd have heard an advert there for some bullshit. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash the blindboy podcast. If this podcast brings you mirth, merriment, distraction, entertainment, whatever the fuck has you listening to this podcast. please consider paying me for that work because this is my full-time job this is how I earn a living

this is how I rent out my office pay all my bills pay for the podcast equipment most importantly it's how I have the time each week to write and research the podcast to fail sometimes I record a podcast and it's not good enough

I don't put it out so I record a second one, a new one. I have the time to do that and to explore and to fail because this is my full-time job. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month, that's it. If you can't afford that, don't worry about it. You can listen for free. You listen for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free. Everybody gets the exact same podcast.

I get to earn a living. It's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness. Patreon.com forward slash the blindbuy podcast. Also, it keeps this podcast fully independent to be listener funded. It means that no advertiser comes in and adjusts the content in any way. Upcoming gigs. Last gig of the year. Right. On Halloween night, if you're around Meath and Halloween night, come along to the Poca Festival. Poca Festival in Trim in Meath. What does the word trim mean there? Trim literally means

Baja Ahah Trim. It means townland of the ford of the elder tree. So that tells us about trim and mead. At one point there was elder trees there there. There might have been one elder tree that was quite old that people could have worshipped.

Whatever was going on, there was an elder tree there that was so important they built the town around it or a castle. If you want to know where I'm getting these names from There's a brilliant website called loganem.I-E, L-O-G-A-I-N-M-D-I-E. And that'll give you names, history and meanings of places in Ireland if you type them in. 2026 gigs, Waterford on the 23rd of January.

In the Theatre Royal, come along to that. Then, 2nd of February, Vicker Street, up in Dublin. 12th of February, Belfast, the Waterfront Theatre. 15th of February, Galway. Leisureland 28th of February Calarney in the eye neck I've got some fucking work cut out

for me in February lads Then Carlo I'm gigging in Carlo In March I don't think I've ever gig Carlo have I Fuck it fair play

We'll give it a go In the visual arts centre in Carlo Then Cork Beautiful Cork On the 26th of fucking March Cork Opera House Listen there's more

we'll chill out. I'm working on a website that has all my gigs on it. We'll chill out now. Well, we throw in there for the crack. Oh, fucking Limerick. I'm gigging the University Concert Hall in Limerick on is that the 9th of April? Should we worry about it later? University

Concert Hall Limerick, you can't miss that. That's the one. That's the one I did it last year and I didn't think I'd be able to. I didn't think there was enough people in Limerick who listened to my podcast. because my podcast is more of an outside of Limerick thing. It's more of a fucking outside of Ireland thing. I said a lot of fucks this week, I think.

It's more of an outside of Ireland thing. But yeah, come along there to Limerick on the 9th of April. And then we've got that big massive tour. Make sure no one put leads inside there. Got that big massive tour of England, Scotland and Wales in October 26th. Brighton, Cardiff, Coventry, Bristol, Guildford, London, Glasgow, Nottingham and Leeds is there with a big red cross through it, so that I don't accidentally call that out. Apologies Leeds, there'll be no Leeds.

You know the crack, it's a lot of fucking gigs, live podcasts, good fun, good enjoyable fun. If you want those English dates, Fane.coma, UK forward slash blindbuy, the rest of the days you're going to have to fucking Google it. Google's gone to shit. That's the thing, no. Like Google has gone to balls. It's really, really bad the past year. It has to be deliberate.

It has to be deliberate. I'm getting ready to stop using Google entirely. I think they're trying to push everyone towards AI because Google is not working as a same. search engine anymore. Like all of those live dates I called out there, I don't know, fucking mead, poca festival blind boy. Normally you just type that in and it brings it to where you get your tickets. I don't know if I can trust Google anymore. I don't use it for podcast research. Simply can't use it for podcast research because Google search now prioritizes just very recent.

so if I was to try and learn about sycamore trees there and I wanted articles on sycamore trees like the best sycamore tree article might have been written in 2012 but Google isn't going to give me the most relevant result for my search it'll give me the most recent result for my search I've stopped using Google for podcast research

duck, duck and go is a very good that's a very good Google replacement duck duck and go that feels a bit like old internet if you search for something on duck duck and go it'll give you relevant research

and it won't give you fucking adverts either you might have guessed this week's podcast is a bit of a phone call look lads I'm rattled from Mancon Megan's death to tell you the truth like last week's podcast my head was fully up my arse

it's just a big shock it's a big shock it's a big shock when someone's here and then they're not and your brain has to do catch up with that reality like I know that

Mancon is dead but I don't really I don't really because when I was doing my sycamore tree walk this week and getting excited about it and thinking about sycamore trees

I was getting excited because I was thinking fuck it Mancon's gonna love that now And I wasn't verbalising that But my emotions My feeling was I can't wait to tell Mancon About all this sycamore tree stuff He's going to love that

And then I have to come around to the reality No, he can't do that That's over That's over, that's gone forever Can't do that And the experience of that is shocking It's shocking and confusing And my thoughts are a bit

Scattered and rattled this week As a result of that I can answer some questions Ashling O'Brien asks, can I ask you a potentially annoying question as a new listener? Is there one episode that is your favourite of all you've done? I've made an episode every week for the past fucking eight years. So to say, is there one episode that's my favourite?

I can't answer that question. The one episode that pops up is, I think it's called Hieronymus Bosch, from maybe 20-20, think I called it Hieronymus Bosch. The reason, so Hieronymus Bosch was a painter, a very surreal painter from around the 1500s. And I was having difficulty for a long time trying to find information about Hieronymus Bosch because there was very little information about him. But I knew I wanted to do a Hieronymus Bosch podcast because his paintings were

were so unique, so surreal, so strange. He used to paint visions of hell in the 1500s. And I knew I wanted to do a Hieronymus Bosch podcast. But I was holding off. I'm like, no, not until you have your hot take. Not until you have your hot take. It will come. Something will reveal itself. And then eventually it did. I like the thing with Hieronymus Bosch is he stands out as being so unique, is painting this fantastic. landscapes of hell with weird creatures in the 1500s. But I ended up finding out that he was actually heavily influenced by

an 11th century poem from Cork in Ireland called the Vizio Tnug Dallas. And I found out that Hieronymus Bosh... I found out that our modern vision of hell may possibly come from Cork. And then I found out about Hieronymus Bache. He was good friends with a bishop or a priest. Catholic who used to sell indulgences

which means that this priest used to if you were wealthy enough you could give this priest money and then you could buy your way into heaven and this priest used to hold dinners for wealthy people and Haralam's Bosch would come along with his paintings and his paintings

were there were triptitch there were three panels like a wardrobe that you'd open out and he'd open the first panel and it's like here's the Garden of Eden and then he'd open the middle panel and it's like this is your life now, your life of sin, and then you'd open the final panel, this is hell. This is all the torturing that's going to happen to you because of all the sins you're doing, the drinking and riding and whatever. And this pattern started to

emerge where it's possible that Hieronymus Bosch's paintings, what they were were like scary propaganda movies to frighten rich people into paying indulgences, to basically to frighten rich people at dinner parties to say, you're sinning, like you're doing loads of sins, loads of riding, loads of gluttony, you're going to go to hell, and give that man money over there, and then you won't have to. And it reminded me a bit of those conferences that they have now for billionaires in New Zealand, where they're trying to sell doomsday prep or compounds to billionaires by freaking them out about societal collapse. So to answer your question, I wouldn't say that's my favourite episode

but it just came What I like about that episode is that I've got lots of hot takes all the time different pots that are on the boil but I might wait two years three years before I'm ready to do a hot take on a particular subject I wait until the information reveals itself to me

and I don't do premature hot takes and that episode sticks out for me because I waited. I knew I wanted to do a Hieronymus Bosch episode. I didn't have the information and I chilled out and I waited and I said something's going to reveal itself for me. Just trust the process and it took about two years. And then that beautiful hot take just came to me and the information, the research aligned with it.

Sarah Clifford asks, what's the strangest experience that you've had with the podcast? you know what's really fucking weird is just the concept of fame right and what I mean by that is so this year I went to I did a tour of Australia and I sold out

the Palais Theatre in Melbourne which is the largest seated venue in the southern hemisphere it's like three and a half thousand people sold that out in fucking Melbourne in Australia like who's playing there at the moment Tim Minchin

a crowded house UB 40 those are household names you could go to anywhere anyone in Melbourne in Australia and say have you heard of UB 40 and they'd all go

yeah yeah I know UB 40 might not be a fan but I have a vague awareness of who UB 40 are but you could walk around Melbourne and say who is blind by and like no one

knows. Like literally, I'm nobody. But at the same time, I can sell out the same place that UB40 is setting out. And that's really strange. I don't know what that is. I think we're leaving a monoculture. So UB40 existed in a monoculture. UB40 were played on the radio, played on TV, so everyone had a cursory awareness of UB40. Or Tim Minchin. Everyone knows the comedian Tim Minchin. But now we're moving away from that monoculture into polyculture. So you can be not famous at all, unknown, but sell out the largest seated venue in the Southern Hemisphere.

And the dichotomy of that, I just find it's nuts. Now I love it obviously because I don't want to be fucking famous. And then the other really, really strange thing that I found, and I'm using Australia as the example because it's so far away and also after eight years I don't have the Irish audience anymore. Very small amount of Irish people at that gig maybe 20%, which is odd for an Irish podcaster. Any other Irish podcasters that would be gig in Australia, it's going to be mostly Irish people at the gig. So what I found nuts was, see, three and a half thousand people showing up. Those are mostly people who just stumbled across this, this weird Irish podcast

where a fellow with a bag in his head talks and they just stumbled across it and listened to it privately. And then all those people come together at a gig and because I got mails afterwards. Like there was one person and their neighbour, their neighbour just like three streets down. They met their neighbor at my gig and then they went, oh, you listen to that Blindby podcast? I do too. And that's why they're both at the gig together. But these people like live a couple of doors down from each other and I've never said to each other, I listen to Blindby. And that's a real, a very strange trend that I see in Australia and also when I'm gigging somewhere like fucking Norwich. You do the gig.

It sells out. There's all these people in the audience and then everyone's looking around going. Oh, I live in Norwich. Here's a bunch of people around me from Norwich. I know some of these people. And I guess we've all just been listening to this podcast, but we haven't spoken about it or said it to each other. And I get messages from people confirming this. Like Norwichians and whatever you call people from Norwich. Just going, oh, I thought I thought. I was like the only person in Norwich who listens to your podcast. We know now, because we're in the same fucking room and blind boys up there, and I find that so fascinating and confusing and a little bit scary because it's like the exact opposite of how mainstream media

worked. You can sell out the venue in Norwich or in Melbourne where famous people sell out, but no one knows who the fuck you are. And it's way bad. It's better because you don't get, you don't get any bandwagon people. Everyone who's showing up for the gig is there because they really want to be there. And if you have an audience full of people who really want to be there, then you get a wonderful gig. You get a really lovely, lovely wonderful gig. And you have to remember too.

I'm 20 years gigging. I'll be 20 years giging next year. I've been doing this a long time up on stage gigging. And for the first 10 years of my career, I know what it's like to have that monoculture mainstream fame in fucking Ireland, in Ireland, monoculture mainstream fame. And to do a gig and 40% of the people are there because they genuinely like what you're doing. But 60% of the people are there because they have a vague awareness that you're on television or doing something, a vague awareness. And when you have those type of gigs, it's actually, it's very difficult to do a good gig. It's very difficult to do a good show and to make it an enjoyable experience because you don't have audience cohesion.

You don't have that wonderful collective empathy that you get when everyone wants to be there. So to come around full circle where just the absolute privilege to be doing live podcasts and knowing that every single person in that audience is there because they want to be there and they really like the podcast. Oh, fuck it. I love it. I love it so much. And I really want to protect it.

I want to protect it and keep it that way. And try and not have that type of mainstream. Like, so I had a tough week this week. After, because of Mancon, I had a bit of burnout. Which meant I did fucking silly things. Actually, I was quite proud with how I handled it. Three deeply triggering things happened to me last week. Triggering things for an autistic person.

Within the space of a half an hour, I lost my keys. Now, that was my keys for everything. My fucking GAF, my studio, everything. I lost my fucking keys because the tracker that I have on my keys to find them, I lose my keys all the time. It's a nor-divergent thing. So I have a digital tracker on my keys. all times, so I never lose them. The battery went on that, so I lost my keys, was locked out

of my gaff, then I smacked, then I was so pissed off with that, I dropped my favourite tea mug and smashed it, and then I got a puncture on my bicycle. Now those are quite triggering things to happen for me. They can, I could really shave myself over that, but I didn't, I was very happy. I dealt with all of that really calmly. I managed to find my kids. I managed to find my keys by being calm regarding the mug. I said fuck it the mug is broken. I then found the exact mug on eBay and had it sent to me and then I calmly repaired my own bicycle tire and I was very happy with myself because like I said those are very triggering things and they're a pure autistic person in burnout things. I lose the keys then the keys. I broke my mug because I lost my

keys. So this is how burnout works. You lose the keys, really important, right? Then you begin to panic because you're panicking, then you drop your mug. Then the panic of that means I cycle into glass. A cycle of clumsiness that just spirals and spirals and spirals until you stop functioning. And I mindfully, I dealt with every part of it and I addressed each other. issue and I was solution focused and got it sorted and I felt fucking great. I felt wonderful. I didn't panic over the keys. I found them because I was calm. Ordered a new mug, repaired my own bike. Felt great. Then I went to the supermarket. And as I got into the supermarket, right, it was duns. I'm like, why can't I get in the door? What's happening here? And there was a kerfuffle.

and I was going this is strange it's like a Wednesday why is there a queue and then as I got into Duns I realized oh lots of people were gathering around a person

and the door was being blocked and as I got closer I recognised the person it was a limerick it was a limerick micro TikTok influencer this person has about maybe 50

thousand followers, right? So that's micro-influencer. Someone who, that's, we'll say not enough followers to get an ad sponsorship yet. And I know this person to see because they come up on my TikTok algorithm every so often.

And she's, she's an influencer. She's an influencer. She's very good at posting content at speaking. People like to look at this person and engage with their content and they're popular in enough in Limerick to have 15,000 followers. Now I'm not shitting on influencers or

anything like that. I've respect for anybody, anybody who goes online and does, as long as you're not being mean to people or hurting people, gives a fuck. Anyone who goes online and goes on TikTok and puts themselves out there with anything and has the confidence to do it and they're not being mean or hurting anyone. Anyone who does that has got my respect. I'd much prefer to see a person expressing themselves and putting themselves out there than not doing it because they were scared to try and that includes influencers. But the point I'm making is I couldn't get into Duns. I couldn't get into fucking Duns because there was a crowd around somebody around a limerick micro-influencer and as I got closer to her I could see she had big

shades on and she had the cap, the peaked cap that celebrities have to wear. And I'm like, oh my fucking God, this person can't go to Duns. There's like seven women talking to her and trying to get photographs with her and she's just trying to shop in Duns. And this is a limerick micro-influencer with 15,000 followers. And I'm just saying, having spent the fucking morning with my punctured bicycle and my last keys and my smashed fucking and coupled with that dressed

dressed, dressed like a Catholic going up to Croke Patrick because they can't stop wanking about wardrobs dressed in full head-to-toe Gartex looking like an elbow was I fucking glad was I fucking glad that I've got a plastic bag on my head and no one knew who the fuck

I was I thought if someone with 15,000 followers can't go to Duns and do their shopping and has to wear shades and a hat. And I've 250,000 fucking followers on Instagram. If they can't do it, what the fuck would that be like for me and throwing autism in on top of it? It was hard enough just getting myself, that's the thing. I'd a morn and a burnout. And it was hard enough just getting myself to Duns to buy my dinner. Thank fuck on top of that. I don't have to take

into consideration. If I go to Duns today, will 20 people try and cry and around me and talk to me and ask for photographs and it's like it's a strange thing I can't it's hard for me to judge whether or not that would happen if people knew who I was I can't tell you see because I've never fucking dealt with it but Christ I just thought to myself I hope that person is built for that and I think I think they are because I think the type of the type of personality who would like to be an influencer to the type of person personality who's totally comfortable with. Here's a video on me buying

a coffee today. The person who's comfortable with that is probably also comfortable with being stopped in dunes. But what I'm getting at is I wanted questions this week and I asked everybody on Instagram for questions. And

I got about I get about 43 messages a minute on Instagram. That's how many messages I get a minute. And I try and read as many as possible. And to anyone who sent me a message on Instagram, apologies if I've never responded.

I do try and read all of them if I can, but having the time to if I left my notifications on my fucking phone, my phone gets hot, like literally hot and Instagram just shuts off because of the amount of messages I get every minute.

But thank you to everyone who was sending me messages and asking me questions. I appreciate every bit of it. So also, I don't have time left to answer more questions this week, even though I think I just answered two. And there were thousands of questions sent in. But I'm going to be back next week. Because a hot take will reveal itself to me.

And in the meantime, rub a dog, marvel at a sycamore tree, wink at a trout. A wank about a wardrobe of Croke Patrick. Doug Bless. regretting you, a film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's best-selling book, regretting you. If there's anything I love more than an adaptation, it's an adaptation that's going to make me feel something. And with Josh Boone, yes, the director of the Fultonar stars, at the helm, I'm ready.

Between the first loves, secret relationships, and second chances, I am prepared to be going through every single emotion. This film also has a stacked cast starring Alison Williams, McKenna Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Fames, and so many more. Go see Regretting you only in Theater is October 24. Time to check on the skies. It's another sunny day in Calgary. Forecast calls for high levels of economic activity. Late afternoon, we've got a burst of potential in a place ranked North America's most

livable city. Tomorrow, blue sky thinking in the blue sky city should hold steady, and the outlook remains optimistic throughout the week. So come grab your dreams and enjoy watching them take hold. It's possible in Calgary, the blue sky city. For the full economic forecast, visit Calgary Economic Development.com. Thank you. Thank you.

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