The Blindboy Podcast - Zen and the Art of repairing the Testicle Bicycle

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

The connection between bicycles, snails and the housing crisis Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Drag your gonads on the lanky and lanky and lopiose scandalous anthony's. Welcome to the blind boy podcast. If this is your first episode, consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarise yourself with the lore of this podcast. Last week was the eighth anniversary of this podcast. Thank you to everybody for all the kind messages. And we begin. The first week of Year 9.

This is year nine, isn't it? I'm shit at Matt's. Is this year nine? If the podcast is eight years old. No. This is the first week of year eight. My podcast is old enough to have its first holy communion. My podcast is old enough to eat a piece of bread which has magically transformed into the flesh of a 2,000-year-old carpenter.

That's actually blasphemy there. You're not allowed refer to it as magic. I got in trouble before for calling it magic. What I'm referring to there is transubstantiation. The belief in Catholicism that a piece of bread can turn into Christ. The actual flesh of Christ, even though it still looks like bread, in substance, and you're touching it and you're going, it's bread. It's like, no, it's actually Christ.

actually Christ. It's actually Christ. It's a carpenter from the Iron Age. That's what this is. You have to eat it now. And if you say, fuck off. There's no Christ in that. It's only bread. Then you're a Protestant. That's what, that's what Protestants are. They protest that and a few other things. But Catholics are like, no, there's a bit of bread here. And it's actually Christ. And when you eat that, then you have your communion. Right? You, you, you, you you have a union, you participate in Christ and this podcast is eight years old so this podcast is, if this podcast was a human being

it would be preparing to have or may have just had its first Holy Communion, which is a particularly Irish way of ageing a podcast. So when the priest turns the bread into Christ, if you refer to that as magic, that's blasphemous and disrespectful but if you say that it's a miracle then it's not blasphemous and disrespectful

I suppose because magic magic is a human being manipulating the fabric of reality and then a miracle is God doing it and God's allowed to do it so I think that's why

it's quite a lot to take on board even now as an adult with faculties of critical thinking what has me thinking about it now was snails. When I was a child, you made your first Holy Communion even younger, like five or six. You had to make your first confession first, where you confess your fucking sins. You confess your sins where as a tiny child, you're introduced to the concept of sin

and you have to confess them to a priest so that your soul is clean enough to eat Christ. I'm still a little bit angry that that was part of my education at such a young age and that wasn't my parents' fault it's just what you had to fucking do it's what you had to do the church was deeply ingrained in the school system when I was a child so I'm having extreme difficulty with my bicycle at the moment my bicycle is broken

I can still cycle it but they're serious issues and the other day when I was trying to investigate you know what's going on at my bike I was down on my knees looking at the gears the wheels the pedals going on it's something going on with the chain

when I cycle too hard if I press too hard on my pedal the chain slips and then my testicles slam down on the crossbar and I scrubs I do it in public

about four times a day it's painful and it's embarrassing so I was investigating my bicycle to try to get to the bottom of this testicle business but while I was down there I looked up and just underneath my saddle was a snail

she's been stuck up there all along and it wasn't just any snail the snail was like white and dust and I went wow I've been cycling around on this bike the whole time a snail has been just living underneath my seat

going with me everywhere and I never knew about it and I'm only finding out about it now isn't that incredible and I reached up to touch the snail to take it away from the saddle and then I thought no now at this point I'm lying flat on my back looking up at the saddle

from underneath the bicycle. Now I know what you're saying, blind by. You're supposed to flip the bike upside down to repair it. I'm not a bicycle repair person. I'm terrible at this. I'm being distracted by a fucking snail. I've forgotten about the bike now.

So I'm down on my back. Just gazing at this, this calcified snail, this white dusty snail stuck to the inside of my saddle. And I reach my hand towards the snail's shell to pluck it, to pluck it away and as I place my fingers around the shell and pull gently

I notice the resistance this snail is really stuck it's not like a regular snail when you pick it up and move it this snail is stuck it feels dormant and I also got a vestigial memory I don't go around the place

touching a lot of snails as an adult but the vestigial memory and when I stay vestigial there what I mean is a memory of touching snails and I couldn't fully recall the context a sense that

this was once very important to me and it's now no longer important or serves a purpose but then it came back and it would have been about the age the age that I would have been when I was making my fucking first Holy Communion

I used to handle a lot of of snails. You see, I had neighbours. My neighbours had American grandchildren who were the same age as me. And they would come and visit Ireland every summer. Now again, this is the early 90s. No internet. America was like Mars. So when Americans visited Ireland, they were living five or six years in the future. Everything about them was different. Their clothes, the things they spoke about, the films that they were watching, the TV that they were watching, the music that they were listening to, Americans were fucking aliens from a more advanced planet. And that's how it was in the early 90s.

And my neighbour's grandkids would visit for like a month and tell me everything about America. Most importantly, they were playing with teenage mutant ninja turtle ties before we had it in Ireland. Okay, they had a Donatello and a Leonardo figurine and they'd play with them. And they would describe to me this cartoon in America called the Turtles, which was the greatest thing in the world. And I can't watch it, I can't see it, it's not on television, I can't go to anybody and ask to see the Turtles, there's no internet. It had to exist in my mind as a story that the Yanks were telling me. about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before it was in Ireland.

And then the Yanks left. And they went back to New York. And I was stuck in Ireland, having spent a month, hearing about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, playing with the Donatello and Leonardo. And knowing, because the lads told me, there's four fucking turtles. Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael.

and their bandanas are orange, blue, red and purple. So I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with this cartoon I've never seen. I'm imagining what it could be, what the turtles look like, what they sound like. All I have is the memory of the two figurines that I played with. But now it's all gone. It's all gone.

The yanks are gone. And all I have is my memories. So I said to myself, the closest thing we have the turtles in Limerick is fucking snails. They're green and slimy and they have shells and that's the closest thing that we have here to turtles. So I went out my back garden and I started collecting snails and I got four of them and I painted red, purple, orange and blue bandanas on their shells. I was about five or six years of age and I used my brothers. airfix paints, to do it.

And these were my turtles. Four living snails with bandanas painted on their fucking shells. And I used to bring him into school and people would ask me what the fuck are those? And I'd say they're my turtles. These are the turtles. Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo

and Raphael. I had them in a lunchbox and of course everyone thought I was fucking mental. I'd say to the children, it's a cartoon. It's a cartoon in America. What are you talking about? I'm like in America there's a cartoon called the turtles but what are you doing with a lot of snails?

They're not snails they're Donatello and Raphael The fuck is that you silly boy There was no context There was no internet It would have required Another child

To have either met Americans Or been in America The teenage mutant turtles didn't exist Even though I later learned It was actually being animated in Dublin It was actually being animated in Dublin the cartoon hadn't arrived in Ireland

the merchandise hadn't arrived in Ireland instead I had four snails and I was telling people these are my turtles alright I was so adamant and so absorbed in the fantasy of it that people

they just eventually just went along with it my family certainly at home they just started referring to all snails as turtles now I think I've mentioned that story on this podcast before a few years back but the memory that actually did

come back to me, which I didn't mention was this was the time when I was training to make my first Holy Communion. And before you made your communion, like I said, you had to do your first confession. You had to confess your sins. But you're fucking five or six. So the teacher's explaining to you what a sin is. And you're a child. See, you haven't actually done anything bad because you're a child and there's no such thing. There's no such thing as a child doing so bad because everything a child does is an act of curiosity. Even if it's naughty or misbehaving, a tiny little child can't sin. It's not possible. But every Friday, we had to practice confessing our sins to the priest. We had to practice because eventually in six or seven weeks

time, we were going to actually sit down with a fucking priest, go into a confession box, and then confess our sins to a strange man in an upright coffin. this was going to happen. So we'd have to practice our sins with our teacher every week. And sure the biggest problem was, I don't know, I don't know if I did anything bad or not. Or I don't think I did anything bad this week. And then the teacher would give you sins.

Or the teacher would make you look through all of your behavior and figure out which could be contextualized as a sin. So anyway, my, the teacher basically said, look what you're doing with those snails is actually a sin. Firstly, they're God's creatures. So you took the snails out of the garden and now you have them in a lunchbox. You're painting them, you're interfering with God's creatures

and then worst of all, God gave names to all the animals. God gave them their names and these are snails but you're calling them turtles. And then of course I'd go, no, miss, miss, these are the turtles. They're not snails, these are the turtles. And she'd go, I know, I know, but it's a startles. sin. Now she's clutching at straws. She's got a classroom full of children and she's trying to teach them what fucking sins are and she's trying to do her job. So she probably just says to me, look,

just confess to me that you've been stealing snails, painting them and calling them turtles. Okay, then I'll pretend that God is going to forgive you and then you go and just learn a few Hail Marys. That's it. This is just practice confession to prepare you for when you do meet the priest and have real confession and then you'll have better sins but right now it's practice and then I'm like I can still play with the turtles

can't I? And she's like yes you can look just confess that you've done it so we did that like these are my favourite ties like I was obsessed with the teenage mutant ninja turtles I hadn't even seen them yet and all I had was descriptions

from the fucking yanks so these were very important these were my turtles I mean this was a little religion for me it was a little religion with ritual and looking back it was a bit like Christianity

I mean no one's fucking seen Christ you just have someone describing how brilliant he was oh he died for your sins they nailed him to a cross and now all of a sudden you've people making little figurines

at the crucifix and trying to remember things and imagine him what it'd be like to be near him Shribe's doing the exact same thing with the snails and the stories about the turtles I mean

imagining what's seeing an actual turtle cartoon would be like. That was my idea of heaven. I was like a Christian in a rapture imagining the kingdom of heaven. That's what the fuck I was with these snails. So I keep bringing my lunchbox full of painted snails into school. And that was grand until when we were training for confession, eventually then you start doing fake communions in class. The communion, First Holy Communion is a big deal in Ireland. You dress up, you get money from your fucking relatives. It's your day in church, you have to walk up the fucking aisle.

Ritualistically, it's quite important in Irish culture. I don't know what the crack is anymore but when I was a kid it was very fucking important. And you're a tiny child and it's the first thing that you can't fuck up. You can't fuck up your communion. This is, it's in the church, it's really important. You have to walk up with your partner and you have to put your hand out or your tongue out and you have to get the communion after the priest. So it was rehearsed to fuck.

So we used to rehearse getting the communion. I think it was every two weeks and the teacher would come in with a biscuit tin full of communion wafers. But they weren't blessed. So they were just wafers. And this is when you're first. introduced to the idea of transubstantiation. Even though we were five or six, we'd been going to Mass. People went to Mass on Sundays in those days.

And the only bit you would remember from Mass as a child, because Mass was boring, it was a priest talking. You remember two things. When everyone shakes everyone else's hand, the peace be with you bit, everyone remembered that because you get to shake hands with strangers, and you remember the bit where some people walk up and get communion and others don't. And immediately you want to be part of that club.

I want to be one of the ones who gets to walk up and eat whatever the fuck that white thing is. And then the teacher now is telling you that white thing that you see every Sunday, that's actually the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. But she's saying that to five-year-olds. And now we're all going. But it looks the exact same as that wafer that's in your hand right now. That doesn't look like flesh and blood to me on Sunday. That looks like a wafer. And then the teacher has to go, no. What you see in mass is actually the flesh and blood of Christ. What I'm holding here is a wafer. Then why did they look the same teacher? And then she goes because of a miracle. The priest blesses these wafers and then God transforms them into the flesh and

blood of his son and then you eat it. And you don't question it because it's a miracle. It's gaslighting. It is mass gaslighting because everybody just goes along with it because you all want to dress up, make her community and walk up the aisle and get money from relatives. So everyone goes along with this utterly irrational, absurd, ridiculous thing that they're telling children. But I was sitting at the back of the class with my lunchbox full of fucking snails. And then I start thinking, oh, so one thing can actually be another thing. Even though they look completely different, one thing can be another thing if it's a miracle. How could this be a sin?

My snails are turtles, the way that that bread is Christ. It's a miracle. I've performed a miracle. Teacher, teacher, I've performed a miracle. My snails are turtles. No, they're not. That's another sin. That's another sin that you can confess.

That's actually worse than the first sin. You can't perform miracles. That's called magic. So is the communion way for magic? No, it's a miracle. If you're an elder millennial like myself or older, you'll be listening going, yeah, I remember that. And if you're one of the younger listeners, if you're like 20,

then thank fuck. Things were different for you. But I was the, I'd say the last generation that had to deal with being thought by nuns, pretty hardcore religious doctrine as part of your school education. And I got the soft end of it because as my ma used to say to me, if I'd have been in school 15 or 20 years earlier, because I was so disruptive as a child, I could have been taken offer, I could have been taken offer and sent to a boys home or an industrial school. Like, that happened.

I'm sure plenty of noradivurgent or strange or eccentric kids ended up in those industrial schools. And this is what came back to me when I was lying on my back. Staring up at that chalky, white snail, stuck to the inside of my bicycle saddle. And the memory came back to me when I had my fingers around it and I was pulling. and what I loved it was the tactile nature of it it was the feeling of the snail shell in my hand whatever that did to my brain it brought back that old memory

because it was about touch and I decided I'm not going to remove that snail that snail is A, it's there for a reason and B I want to find out what that reason is so this snail now gets to live

underneath my bicycle my bicycle which I slam my testicles off four times a day I'm not removing this snail it shows that place it's there for a reason I'm going to figure out what the reason is

and I gave the snail a name its name is Sligo Sligo is a place in the north-west of Ireland I love Sligo it's magnificent a gig there about a month ago Sligo is like

if they sold Galway in TK Max. Sligo town, it's very culturally Galway, but not Galway. The reason I called the snail that was stuck underneath my bicycle saddle Sligo is because the name Sligo means Sligok and that means a place with a lot of shells and what that comes down to is calcium. so humans of always had rubbish dumps humans of all of us had waste

but generally human waste our food our clothes throughout history before we discovered plastics most of what human waste was would just decompose and disappear

and we wouldn't have a record of it But when humans would eat, crabs are oysters, shellfish or snails, when humans would eat, snails are their relatives. Their shells would never decompose. So what you end up with is it's called a midden. And a midden is a unique archaeological feature. It's shells. It's a human waste dump made mostly of shells from crustaceans from snails and it doesn't decompose and they're incredibly valuable

because you're left with human waste that you can actually look at and touch and feel and study and that tells us a lot about the humans that live there and what they eat what they ate and that's why Sligo is called Sligo because Sligo had a fuck ton of these middens Like even there's a town up in Sligo called Balas Ordair and it's built entirely on an ancient waste dump of shells Now why is that important? Because you're dealing with like a bronzade rubbish dump You can find out what type of boats people had 2,000 years ago

Based on the type of shells that you're finding The shells are placed on top of each other over hundreds and thousands of years So you get a stratified layer And then the shells themselves they preserve geo-kele chemical data so scientists can analyze the shells in the midden to find out what sea temperatures were like, what the seasons were like, what the quality of the air was like, you could find out if there was a volcano in fucking another part of the world that year because of shells are brilliant and middens, ancient dumps of shells that don't decompose are fantastic.

And then Sligo, Sligoc, the name itself tells us the story. a place with an abundance of shells so I named the snail that was stuck under my seat I called him Sligo the snail but naming the snail and making the choice not to remove it to leave it there created a problem for me

see the only reason I was I was even looking at the bicycle is I knew look if I can't fucking fix this if this isn't something as simple as rearranging the chain then I'm going to have to engage in the utterly impossible task of getting my bicycle fixed in Limerick City

and now I'd have to do it wherever I was going I'd have to say to them oh by the way there's a snail underneath the seat can you leave it there please if you're willing to fix the bike and I say if you're willing because it's impossible to get your bicycle fixed in Limerick City I can

I can get you crack cocaine in the next 10 minutes I can go out into the street and I'll get you two different types of crack cocaine but I can't get my bicycle fixed in Limerick City I could there's a swinger sauna and the Bally Simon Road and I could go out there and have a threesome

with a taxi driver and his wife and I could do that quicker and easier than I could get my bicycle repaired in Limerick City. I could stand in the park in front of Arthur's Key Shopping Centre with a lit cigarette in my mouth and there's a craw there and that crow will fly down and steal that lit cigarette out of my mouth quicker and easier than I can get my bicycle repaired in Limerick City.

Because what's happened is independent bicycle repair shops can't stay open in Limerick City because their rents are so high. We lost our last great one six months ago. Evolution cycles. There's one independent bicycle repair shop left. But that bike shop is so busy

that you could be waiting. I've been waiting six weeks before to get a basic repair on my bicycle in that shop so it's not an option. So what you're left for? with are two giant multinational bike corporations on the hostile hellish outskirts of the city who will most likely refuse to repair your bike and who can refuse to repair your bike if it's not their brand and they're doing this to try and force you to buy their bike brand

and also I started thinking I started to see that the patterns emerging the correlation between snails and bicycles. Snails are fucking fascinating. Snails are indicator species. Snails will tell us a lot about the wider ecosystem. They're detrovores. They feed on detritus. They feed on rotting organic matter. Leaves, twigs, bones. They help in the process of remineralization, taking organic matter and converting it back into the chemicals that it's composed of so they can return to the soil as nutrients. Snails are essential for the remineralization cycle. Snails are like nature's litmus test. They immediately reflect the soil chemistry or pollution or habitat stability or even the health of the general health of biodiversity.

Snails can tell you what your cup of tea is going to taste like. is gonna taste like? Because snails have shells and their shells hold a huge amount of calcium and snails absorb calcium through the food they eat and also through their feet. Snails have feet that just don't look like feet. If an area, if an environment has lots and lots of snails then that means that there's abundant calcium in that soil but if there's abundant calcium that means that that the pH of the water, it's going to be hard water. That means if you've got a lot of snails in your area, you're going to have the type of kettle that gets limescale really quickly

because snails thrive on calcium, the availability of calcium in the soil. If soils become toxic or contaminated with heavy metals or pollutants, you'll be able to see this in a snail's shell because of bioaccumulation. they'll take cadmium, lead, zinc, nickel, they'll take all these things into their, into their fucking shells and it'll also show you a record, a record of the pollution of that soil over the year. So snails can indicate everything about the health of soil and the health of an ecosystem. And if snails start disappearing, here's the mad thing. If snails start disappearing, you can then predict that the birds in the area will start

die and it's like why will the birds start to die? Because bird shells, birds lay eggs, their shells are made from calcium and most of the calcium that birds get it's from eating fucking snails. So if the snails aren't healthy or snail populations are disappearing you're gonna have birds who don't have enough calcium to lay eggs and then the bird population collapses. So snails are fascinating because they're they're indicator species. They're health indicates wider ecological collapse. Bicycles are indicator fucking species. So I can't get my bicycle repaired in Limerick City. That shows a

collapse of economic diversity. Okay? It's not about the bicycle. It's the fact that I can't get it fixed tells us about the financialization of property. The rents too high. Even though when there was a bike shop open in Limerick City, it was out the fucking door. Non-stop busy. The rain is really heavy on my tin roof here, lads, and we're just

going to have to put up with it. There's a storm out there. We're just going to have to put up with this nice... I'm being silenced by big rain. Fuck it, that's heavy, isn't it? I've to cycle. I have to cycle home on that in the dark and slam my

testicles off my handlebar. Fuck it. That's what being alive is about, isn't it? I want that. I want to suffer like that. I want to find meaning in that suffering. Jesus Christ. The bicycle is an indicator species in Limerick City. I can't get it repaired. Even with demand for bicycle repairs sky high, even with that demand, it's not financially viable for a person to rent a property and open a business. That there is collapse. That's economic and civic collapse. They're trying to build greenways. They're trying to build bicycle tracks. What fucking good is it when the average person in Limerick can't get to and from work on their fucking bike? That's collapse. That's what that is. The two large multinational corporations and the only reason I'm not calling them out

by name is to protect the workers. It's the only reason I'm not calling these fuckers out by name. It's to protect the workers, the kind people who work in their repairing bikes, who have to turn you away because you didn't buy the bike in their shop. Bicycles are an indicator species and they're telling us, what the fuck was that nice? I have a water bottle here, a water, there must be something happening with the pressure outside because of the storm. Because of a water bottle that just did a violent click. That's very fascinating. The bicycle can tell us about the collapse. that neoliberalism is causing.

The rents are too high because the economy has shifted from production and repair towards extraction through rent. Neoliberalism shifts everything towards rent.

Okay? Not just buildings but the products that you fucking own. When was the last time you got a toaster fixed? You don't get toasters fixed anymore.

You buy a new toaster. I've got a washing machine, I have a washing machine and if I want this washing machine repaired it has to be repaired only by the company that made the washing machine and in order to repair it I have to take out a subscription fucking repair service with the washing machine company so that they'll send someone out and if I don't I can get fucked

if you wanted to repair your washing machine or your toaster does the shop even exist in your city or does a person in there who can just simply repair your appliance? No, it's gone. The last time a fella came out to repair my fucking washing machine, he said to me, one of the most common reasons he gets called out is because snails and slugs climb into the washing machines looking for warmth and their trails go across the circuitry on the inside and that shorts the brains of the washing machine. Isn't that fascinating? In Limerick, independent bicycle repair shops, small scale, local, labor,

pairs of anything can't exist under high commercial rents because of the financialisation of property. The goal of neoliberalism is that a small amount of companies own non-producible resources, land location, and that they then rent these things out, forever rent. I don't own my fucking washing machine. I think I own it, but I don't because I have to be part of a subscription service if I want it repaired and there's no other way to get it repaired. The financial ecosystem is effectively coercing me. It's putting my back against the wall. Here's the situation I want. I have a bicycle. I love this bicycle. There's a little snail that lives under the saddle. I'm happy with this bike. I use this bike every single day to get to and from work. It's essential to my life.

Because I use it so much, it breaks down frequently. Because I need it for my job, I don't have time to learn how to repair it myself and I'm shit at repairing things and I'd prefer to pay someone else to repair it properly and safely. I can't really do that. What I can do is go to one of these large corporation bike shops. They're going to refuse to repair my bike because it's not their brand. They're going to say we don't have the parts. We only have parts for our own bike. I'm going to be coerced into buying one of their bikes and then once I purchase one of their bikes, now I have access to repairs in their shop. But to simply go in and get it repaired every so often is quite expensive. So now they're going to say to me, you need to get our gold package or our silver

package. This is a monthly fee that you pay. And once you rent this service from us, then it's cheaper for you to turn up and get your bike fix whenever you want. Now I'm renting a bike. That's the neoliberal model. That's not just bicycles. That's fucking everything. You see, you might be thinking. What do I give a fuck about bicycles? I've got a car. This doesn't impact me. That's not the point. The bicycle is the indicator species. Like snails. Oh, the population of snails is declining. Oh, there's not enough snails anymore because there's not enough available calcium in the soil. Something's going wrong here. I don't care about snails. It gives a fuck about snails. But now you see, because there's no snails, now the birds can't eat their shells

and now you don't have birds. The bicycle model that I just described there, where I'm being effectively coerced into buying a corporate bike so that I can sign up to rent their repair plan, okay? Which I'm being backed against that wall. That's what's happening with housing. You see, now it's a problem. People are being coerced into renting forever.

What would people like to do? I'd like to buy and own a house, please. Think of two average menannials. Oh I'm a millennial I did everything I was supposed to do I went to college I have a job I have a partner

They've done the exact same thing Both of us together Have jobs I think we could get a mortgage to buy a house Let's go try and buy a house Oh there's new houses being built Uh oh can't buy it Why is that

All of the houses got purchased By an investment fund What's an investment fund It's a giant faceless pile of cash and they can buy houses for as much money as they want. Why would they want to do that? Well, they're buying them just to rent them. It's called a corporate landlord.

That's happening all over Ireland right now. So the bicycle, what's happening with the bicycle and the bicycle repairs, that's an indicator species of that. And it was on my bicycle that I started to make those connections. I mentioned last week about hot takes. Like I thought I was going to do a snail podcast. a month ago and I didn't do the snail podcast

because it wasn't right sometimes I just have to let a topic sit in my unconscious mind and then the hot take will reveal itself and that's what happened to me this week on my fucking bicycle while I was cycling

near the Ballet Simon Road near the Swinger sauna that's why I was cycling past the Swinger sauna smashing my bollocks off the handlebar thinking I could go in there and have a threesome with a taxi driver and his wife easier than I can get this fucking bicycle

repaired. So I'm cycling all around the most hostile outskirts of Limerick City and when I say hostile I mean this is not designed for pedestrians or people on bicycles. Cycling on a broken bicycle through hard shoulders

with trucks flying past me no footpaths and that's what you need to do to get out to these corporate bike pricks. And when I was on the bicycle, that's when I got the idea. I was like, fuck it. This week's podcast needs to be about snails. Because ideas hit me when I'm on the bicycle.

But often what I do is I'll scream out, because I'm on the bike, I'll scream. Hey, Siri, this week's podcast needs to be about snails. Siri better shut the fuck up now and not wake up. I say, hey, Siri, this week's podcast needs to be about snails. But I'll be cycling on a busy road and the wind is against me, so I have to scream it. Hey Siri, this week's podcast is about snails. Remind me of it in an hour. And I did that and as I did it I fucking pressed down too hard and then slammed my bollocks on the crossbar and startled the van driver and this area of Limerick. It was a very cyberpunk experience. I mean it is

to be in a suburban retail park business park area is we think of cyberpunk. as flying cars blade runner it's not it's being on a bicycle risking your life in a very weird corporate industrial park that's only built

for cars and I got so pissed off I said to myself fuck and I'm going into TK Max I want to feel good this is not a TK Max advert I don't know anything about TK Max if they're ethical

unethical I'll just throw in a little Fuck TK. Max. Fuck TK. Max. In case you think this is an advert. I'm just saying, it's a great place if you want to feel good, isn't it? So I went into TK. Max.

And again, it drew me back to snails so heavily. So I go into TK. Max to buy fancy shower gels. That's what I love about TK. Max. Real fucking good quality shower gels. because fancy shower gels are just too pricey. Like you ever go into Brown Thomas? And he just, I'm not paying 40 quid for a fucking shower gel. Are you mad?

But I'll pay a tenor for it in TK Max. So I go into TKMX to buy proper luxury shower gels for a tenor. Luxury shower gels that clearly have scoff marks on the side because they fell off a pallet in a warehouse. I fucking love that. That makes me feel great. I feel great. when I buy luxury shower gel for a tenor.

So I found one. It was Korean and it was made from snail slime. And I smelt it in the shop. It smelled incredible. It smelled like peach and lichy. And it was like a litre, a liter of luxury Korean shower gel made out of a snail's slime,

snail mucin shower gel. And I couldn't believe the synchronicity of it. And I'm like, I'm buying this fucking Korean snail shower gel. But then I started to think more. Why do I need luxury shower gels? And it's not just I like them. I've got a lot of snails in my garden. There's a lot of snails in limerick.

Fucking loads of them. Why do you think there's so many snails in limerick? Because of all the limestone. Limerick is a porous limestone. lime and calcium is very bioavailable in the soil and groundwater of limerick fucking snails love it but the abundance

see I can read the snails like a book I can look out into my garden and see all the snails and go that's not a lot of snails that's a novel that's a novel in the same way that I can look at a lot of starlings and that's also a novel why are those snails a novel what story is it telling me

that that pack of snails there in my garden is telling me me a story about what my cup of tea is going to taste like and it's telling me a story about what my shower is going to be like. My tea is going to be delicious. Because I was raised on it. Drinking tea from an area of hard water that has a lot of calcium in it, I just love that taste. When I was owned my fucking English tour and I was going to parts of the country in England and the tea was tasting weird, I knew I immediately went and checked the soil acidity. And the areas that had an acidic soil, I hated the taste of the tea.

Because I'm used to alkaline calcium flavour in my tea. I'm used to looking into the kettle, which I can't get fucking repaired. I'm used to looking at that kettle and seeing lime scale on the inside of it. That's because limerick is limestone. It's an area of hard water and calcium, right? And the abundance of snails tells me that. Those snails also tell me you're going to have a shit shower. you're going to have difficulty washing yourself in the shower.

Why? So, limerick, like I said, it's limestone. Calcium leeches into the soil. That then leeches into the water that we use. So when you try to use soap in limerick or any area that has hard water, you're more likely to get like soap, kind of a greasy soap scum, than you are to get bubbles and lather. So it means if you're taking a shower in limerick,

you need more soap to get clean you need more washing powder to wash your clothes and for me I can't use cheap shower gel I end up needing to go to TK Max to buy the fancy stuff because it's just better quality shower gel

and now I get a good shower but I found it so ironic that I'm there in TK Max and I'm buying Korean Korean shower gel made out of a snail's slime and that's going to get me nice and clean limerick city but it's also the abundance of snails in my garden can tell me that about my water and I think that's beautiful and I wanted to go out to my bicycle I purchased the

shower gel and it's magnificent it's fucking wonderful I can't tell you the name of it because it's in Korean but it's Korean snail mucin shower gel in a liter bottle and I know the way TKMAX operates it's probably in yours as well I was procrastinating going to the big bike corporation to try and get the bike fixed out in the retail parks. But after I bought it, I wanted to go out to the fucking, to the bicycle and whisper to Sligo the snail under the seat and say to him, or her, oh no, snails are hermaphrodites actually, that's an interesting thing about snails. Snails are two genders at once, so Sligo the snail is at them.

But I still hadn't gotten to the bottom. I set off on the bike anyway towards the first corporate bicycle repair shop I'd love to mention their names but I'm not protecting the brands lads and protecting the employees that work there

the lovely people who work there who hate working there can't say that they do these are bicycle repair people who'd love to be in who used to be in fucking independent bike shops and they're not anymore these are people who want to repair your bicycle

but they can't. They can't. Instead, they have to say, I can't repair your bike because we did, it's not one of ours, but you can buy that one over there and I can repair that. Anyway, why was this snail under my, under my bicycle seat and why was it dusty looking? And why did the snail look like it had been there for ages? Well, snails are doing a very interesting thing at the moment. They're waking up.

So Sligo the snail who's underneath my seat. they are actually they're in what's called an epiphram right it's like a unique calcium cocoon that a snail puts around itself the snails do this twice a year

in the summertime when it's really hot and in the wintertime so about come November they go into another epigram it's a cocoon type of hibernation that's snails do when it's just a bit hostile out for them, but they need fuckloads of calcium in order to create this hard exterior and that's what's happening underneath my saddle. And Sligo the snail is probably going to wake up and come out of this ephogram.

This week, and I tell you why, it's beautifully timed with the amount of leaves that are out there. So the snails awaken from their cocoons and then they gorge themselves, they guard themselves right now on all of the leaves that are falling off the trees and they guard themselves so that they can store all that energy for their, I don't know, I don't think we call it hibernation, but it's going to get freezing in November like I said and the snails are going to form another cocoon and they're just, just going to, they're going to find somewhere warm and do fuck all for winter and stick themselves underneath my bike seat, that's what they're going to do. But right now they're waking up so that they can gorge on all of those leaves, because that's the role of these snails. They're detrovores. The leaves are detritus, okay?

And those leaves, like again, this is the wondering beauty of nature. Like those leaves took all of their nutrients from the soil nitrogen phosphorus potassium fucked loads of carbon from the air and that's stored in those leaves but that needs to return to the soil so the snail does the job

of breaking that detritus down into small enough pieces so that the bacteria and fungus can once again return those leaves into the constituent chemicals that it makes it, the nitrogen, the phosphorus, potassium

so that it can go back into the soil. So that's what those snails are doing right now, but they also need a fuck ton of calcium so that they can make their new ephogram, their new cocoon. And what I love about that is that's it's transubstantiation. Now, in the same way that

this is not an advertisement for fucking TKMX it's also not an advertisement for Christ or Christianity you know I don't give a fuck about these things but I ref I mean look at the end of the day when it comes to not just Christianity but any religion you're talking about

shit that managed to survive you're talking about writing and ideas that have survived thousands of years so there's many different ways to interpret it and obviously I don't believe that bread turns into fucking Christ but there's a way to look at that as a metaphor

for just the wonder and has nothing to do with a creator nothing to do with a god give a fuck about that I'm talking about nature the ecosystem what we can touch the here and now that a leaf will transform into nitrogen

potassium phosphorous and return to the soil to grow another tree and to become a leaf next year. That's the transubstantiation I'm into. That's one substance transforming into another. That's the miracle, the miracle of nature. So what you're going to start seeing now, especially if you've got at night time right now, you're going to see loads of snails on walls. If you're having a little nighttime walk now, listening to this, when the fucking clocks went back last week, it's cold and it's dark, and you're struggling to find beauty and to find

peace in the here and now. There's your beauty. It's the snails on the walls. What are the snails doing on the walls? They're sucking minerals out of it. Through their feet. Snails climb walls because they're literally taking

calcium and minerals out of that stone so that they can bring it into their shells and also to form that effigram, that big, thick, calcified cocoon. So these were all in the same. the things I was thinking about this week trying to get the testicle bike fixed. So how did it go? I was refused, refused in both places.

We didn't make that bike. We can't fix that bike. That's not our bike. We don't have those parts. We've got a bike that's very like your bike. Would you like that bike? And the thing is, and you'll know if you're a 10 foot Brenda. I've already done it.

At the same fucking bike problem a year ago, I bought one of their fucking bikes and I don't use it because it's a bag of shit terrible. So what I did manage to find is I was complaining about it on Instagram So now one of the people who used to own an independent bike shop in the city and had to close

is now gone black market And they're just going to fix my bike black market That's what's happened It's going to be black market bike fixing So I'm getting my bike repaired next week illegally paying cash because the system has forced it underground and just to take it back to the snails. These giant corporate landlords, the huge investment funds that buy up swathes of property, expensive property, just to rent or sometimes not even to rent, just a hard cash in there.

In cities like London in particular, a giant investment fund, will own a huge office buildings that no one ever moves into just to own that property we see this in Limerick giant developments new office blocks no one moving in who's buying what why build all these buildings

that no one will ever live in why own all these office blocks that no one rents out what's going on and again that's part of neoliberalism it's shifting things towards if you're in the middle of London or even Dublin, Dublin around Grand Canal Dock or parts of Limerick

and you see a giant office block with nothing in there that's just a giant pile of money it's not a building, it's a giant pile of money also what happens especially in bigger cities right huge investment funds with giant piles of cash they have so much money that they will

keep a property like a giant office block empty because they profit from scarcity. They'll keep property empty to artificially restrict the supply. And this then pushes rents up around it because they own those buildings too. And then you and I walk around cities that feel empty. And you're just left with this feeling of confusion of what the fuck is going on here. This doesn't make sense. Why are they building giant brand new state of the art offices? But no one's going in there. What is this? It's strange. And now in London, over the past six months, when people have started going into these empty office buildings. Completely empty. No people. But loads of boxes. And when they walk up to the boxes, they're

snails inside there. Snails having argyes and cannibalising each other. The fuck's their boxes of snails doing in giant empty office buildings, what the fuck is going on? So the ultra

wealthy, billionaires and investment funds. Now they own all this property that they're deliberately keeping empty, these giant piles of cash. But in London in particular, there's a tax you pay tax on your property

if there's no one living in it so you're penalised for vacancy so what the investment funds and the billionaires they're after turning to people who are involved with the mafia, the Naples mafia who are called the Nandretta

they're different to the Sicilian mafia so basically they're turning their office blocks into snail farms because then it's legally considered an agricultural venture like a farm and then they don't have to pay that tax they don't have to pay the local taxes so it's a way to avoid the taxes

like I did a documentary for the BBC in 2019 about this about the early days of this about I went around the wealthiest parts of London and we looked at kleptocracy, we looked at how these giant towers of cash, these giant empty office buildings were being used to effectively launder dirty money.

And now what's happening? And they used to do it through shell companies. That's, this is why it's all connected. Shell companies, shell companies. So now what's literally happening is, and this is, I don't know, is it legal or illegal, It's so novel it hasn't really been challenged. It's in a grey area.

If you set up any business and the purpose of that business is to avoid tax, then that's illegal, right? But it's being done out in the open. So how it works is... If you're a giant investment fund in London and you own a huge office block that you're deliberately keeping empty, okay? And you don't want to pay property tax on that. Or you don't want to pay tax for not having any occupying. you can then approach this fella who sets up a shell company and this is a snail farming company and then all of it he then gets people to move into your office and they just put boxes of

snails there and then they can tick and say this is actually a farm but the snails are having orgies and cannibalizing each other which means they're not healthy snails I asked collie Ennis who's a snail expert if snails are cannibalizing other is that natural behavior and he's like no if snails are cannibalizing each other they're starving so the ultra wealthy investment funds the ones that my bicycle are acting as an indicator species for they're getting into snail farming to avoid paying tiny amounts of property taxes this is the world we're living in this is what we're dealing with and if you want to learn about that

that final fact there about the snails the snail farms in the office blocks That's just mad. And I want to give a shout out actually to the journalist who did the work around that. A fellow by the name of Jim Waterson. That's brilliant original research there. And just type in Jim Waterson, Snail Tax, Dodge or something into Google and check out his article. Wonderful stuff. So I wanted to give you a full interrupted hot take this week.

Because last week I kind of half took a week off. So I wanted to do that. and it's full entirety without breaking it up with an ocarina pause as a little treat. And now I think we'll have an ocarina pause.

I do have an ocarina. I can't play this one. It sounds like it's being tortured. It sounds like an ocarina that's really in fucking pain. I'll need to figure that one out. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast.

This podcast is my full-time job. It's how I earn a living. It's how I have the time and space to think about snails and bicycles and to find connections between those two things and then provide you with a written monologue podcast. that requires time and space to fail and it's only possible because of patrons of this podcast 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 and if you can't afford that don't worry about it you can listen for free I want everybody to get the exact same podcast whether you pay or not the person who is paying

is paying for you to listen to listen to the podcast for free. And it's a model based on kindness and soundness. Everybody gets a podcast, the exact same podcast. I get to earn a living. It's a wonderful model. And it also means I'm not beholden to advertisers.

This week, Louis Theroux, who I'm up against for the Grierson Awards. Well, that's another fucking story. I'm going to have to go to London for an award ceremony, lads. I don't go to awards ceremony.

but this one, this is a pretty big one and I think I kind of have to, and it's a big category, it's best presenter. So I think I have to go to that one, so I'm going to have to fucking figure out how to do that. I want to wear my plastic bag for any bit where there's cameras and then disappear and be nobody. I don't want to wear my plastic bag all night at a fucking award ceremony, sitting at a bar or drinking soup through a straw. That's the thing. So I need to figure this out. but anyway look Louis Thoreau this week

on his podcast he platformed Bob Villain Bob Villain about genocide spoke about Palestine nothing he said was remotely controversial everything that Bob Villain said

aligns with the findings of the International Criminal Court, the UN but because Louis Thoreau platformed Bob Villain British Airways dropped their sponsors sponsorship. And that's a way to coerce Louis Theroux and basically say, you better talk about what we want to fucking talk about and don't deviate from that. So I'm not beholding to advertisers. Advertisers can go fuck themselves. If anyone advertises on this podcast, they do it under my rules. Simple as that. And no advertiser can tell me what to speak about or or how to speak about or dictate the content in any way. Advertisers don't want podcasts about snails, bicycles and neoliberalism.

I'm sorry to hear that, but this is a listener-funded space where listeners fund curiosity, playfulness and failure. Before I announce my gigs, I want to give a little shout out to a festival because my buddy Anisha is running this festival and he's been really sound to me over the years. He runs the minefield gigs at Electric Picnic and has been really sound to me over the years. So he's running a thing called the the Ken Mayer Design Festival, right? The website is design kenmare.com. If you're into design, graphic design, ceramics, the world of design, the 14th to 16th November,

go to the Ken Meyer Design Festival and there's a lot of speakers there who are speaking about design some people are really into that shit I studied graphic design in college I fucking hated it really hated it but some

people love design some people get very excited about type faces fair play to you I didn't ever understood it myself but I believe you if that's what you're into okay my geeks this Halloween night couple of days away. This is my last gig of the year.

I'm at the Poca Festival in Mead. Trim in Mead. I know it's a little bit out of the way, but there are a couple of tickets left, right? Trim's a bit of a trek. But I'm going to be chatting with the neuroscientist Dr. Michael Keane who was fucking fascinating and he specialises in the neuroscience of Irish trauma and he also recently scanned my brain. He did an EEG scan on my brain and

it was an incredibly helpful experience. It's an incredibly helpful experience and it's the reason why I had a decent hot take this week and I'll explain that in a few minutes. But if you're around for the poker festival in Meath, Halloween night, a couple of days away, come along, it'll be good crack, a couple of tickets left. So then 2026, these are your

the tickets you can get people as Christmas gifts if that's what you'd like to do getting someone a Christmas gift of a live podcast would be a wonderful a wonderful gift for somebody so anyway look when's my first one

23 January 26 right 2026 Waterford Theatre Royal Yum yum yum give me some Waterford Waterford's odd Waterford is like

it's like finding out Dublin it's like finding out Dublin has a weird stepbrother that I didn't know about. Type a fellow who steals lead from the roof of churches to melt them down into tiny little soldiers that he takes very seriously. But you have a gig in Waterford there in January.

Then, Vickers Street in February. That one is nearly sold out actually. There's only a small amount of tickets left for Vickers that's selling quickly. Vickr Street gigs are magnificent up in Dublin, what can I say? All right, so that's going to be early January. Or early February

Saturday for Vickr Street. then Calarney in the Ineck Carlo there on Saturday That's fucking March is it Bullocks have a load of gigs in fucking February I'm a silly bastard I am Book too many gigs there for February

That's going to be a tough month Dublin Belfast Galway Dublin Belfast Galway There in February Then Killarney in March Kark there in March as well.

Limerick University Concert Hall can't forget that on that's the 9th of April or is that the 26th? I don't know. Limerick University Concert Hall there in April. It's fucking ages away. Giant tour there

of England, Scotland and Wales in October 26 Brighton, Cardiff, Coventry, Bristol, Guildford, London, Glasgow, Gateshead, Nottingham. You'll find those on feign.co. UK forward slash the blind by podcast

or forward slash blind by. And I've my own website now as well. I shouldn't have even said that. I've had such bad luck with websites. I've an attempt at a fucking website and there's a few dates on it but I wouldn't trust the links. That's called the blindbypodcast.com.

Have you anything else left? Next week's going to be my Science Week podcast. every year I do a podcast with Science Week where I get the wonderful opportunity to speak to a scientist in an attempt to democratise what they're doing so I have a real treat in store for you next week and if you want to find out about Science Week 25 you got to Scienceweek.i and you'll find loads

and Science Week is starting from the 9th November to the 16th November you'll find loads of brilliant free events all over the country that are about democratising science and it's brilliant Science Week is absolutely fucking fantastic so engage with it I want to close on thank you to everybody for being so nice about last week

I more or less took a week off last week the podcast that I did wasn't really a podcast it was more of a phone call but I really did need the week off because like I said I got an E-E EG scan of my brain, and an EEG scan, it's a bit like a weather report, you know. It's like a weather report.

It'll show you loads of wind and loads of rain, but that's all it'll tell you. It won't tell you what type of rain or the strength of the wind or the ecosystem. It's just a little indicator. And my scan showed someone who was very, very stressed and hypervigilant. and it was actually wonderful. It was actually fantastic to see that. To see, oh, okay, this, I have a picture of how I actually feel. Because sometimes I don't experience stress as stress.

I might experience it as excitement. But what I rarely experience is switching off, relaxing. That's what I don't do. I'm thinking, thinking, thinking all the time, making connections, making hot takes and I'm consistently in overdrive. But the beauty of, you know, I can take it back to the bicycle.

I do keep slamming my testicles on that bicycle. But I didn't today. What I did is I had to change how I used the bicycle. So I'm very mindful about how I cycle that bicycle now. I don't press down on the pedal. And I had to learn gradually not to do it. And now I'm forming a habit.

I'm forming a habit of not slamming down on that pedal and then not injuring my testicles. The brain is the same. Neuroplasticity. The neurons that fired together wired together. And that scan that I saw of my stressed out brain is a snapshot of how my brain was when the scan was taken.

And I know, I thought it's not even about knowing. There's overwhelming evidence. Overwhelming. That the way to quiet in a brain is regular meditation. And that's what I've been doing for the past five days. You see, my relationship with meditation has been on and off. I do it maybe once a week if I feel. felt stressed. No, if I'm serious about self-compassion, then I need to be meditating. I need to

make the space to meditate every single day, just like if I've got a, my sciatic nerve. It's really bad sciatica there about two months ago. Now I don't because I went to a physiotherapist and I made the time to do my stretches and exercises every single day and I recovered and the brain is no different so I've been just 15 minutes a day

I've been doing mindfulness meditations for 15 minutes every single day and I'm already starting to see the benefits of it even this early on very simple things like

being much less emotionally reactive. If an email comes in, that's a bit stressful or annoying, any of the stressors of my day, I'm less reactive to these things. It's less likely for an emotion such as anxiety or anger to pop up, and instead I'm just responding. there's a difference between reacting and responding

reacting is when the emotion is controlling my behaviour responding is when I'm in control of my behaviour so every day I've found my 15 minutes to meditate and I've really watched myself around the excuses that I make I was starting to feel guilty I was starting to feel like 15 minutes of sitting there doing nothing was indulgent when I should be working and I'd say to myself you're wasting time

you have to write, you have to get this done you can't afford the luxury of 15 minutes to sit and do nothing but seeing that scan on my brain it was a wake-up call but it was also very welcome and was very welcome because I know the evidence and data shows regular meditation, a regular meditative practice, and like it's fucking free. It's free. It's the most natural thing in the world.

It feels amazing. After four days of it, I'm really starting to enjoy it again. Like that's the thing getting back into meditation. It's going to be ropey the first few sessions and you're going to get distracted and you mightn't go deep into that. really skilled flow state where your breath is so low you're wondering how you're even breathing and I'm not there yet

but in two weeks time maybe I'll do a mental health podcast in two weeks time I'll speak about meditation in order to help you for other people who want to get into it and I'll do a little a refresher of psychics

because here's the thing I want to get into the meditation to calm my mind and then once my mind and my nervous system is calm then I bring in the psychology then I start challenging ways of thinking about myself about other people and I begin the journey of becoming a calm happy person again

because I haven't really been a calm happy person since the fucking pandemic that lockdown put me into a state of hypervigilance which I haven't really come out of and I'd say there's a lot of ye that are the exact same we don't talk about it anymore but

Jesus Christ there was 2020 the height of lockdown a lot of us were in quite a sustained state of terror for months on end because it was really fucking scary and some people were able to come away from it and other people weren't I didn't come away from it

I stayed quite vigilant and then other people have lost their fucking minds completely and they're looking up at the sky for chem trails all right that's all the time I have this week dog bless I'll catch you next week

in the meantime you know don't go picking up snails just marvel at fucking snails they're brilliant and notice snails climbing on walls alright notice the snails climbing on walls and just say to yourself

I know what that snail is doing that snail is sucking calcium off that wall using its feet in order to strengthen its fucking shell and some of that wall is going to end up

in a sparrow's egg. And isn't that amazing and isn't that wonderful? And why the fuck do I need God or Christ or communion waifers or any of that shit when that's just there in front of me? All right, dog bless you glorious cunts. We're going to be able to be. You know, and You know,

I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.