The Chaser Report - Ethical Dilemmas Of A 13-Year-Old | Angus Firth

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

School holidays have returned, which means Charles' son Angus Firth returns to the podcast studio. Angus poses a series of intellectual quandaries to Charles and Dom, which bring to light a greater ethical dilemma: Is Charles a good dad? Listen and find out. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to the Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Charles, there seems to be a third person in this room in our studio here. Yes. Smaller than you, more handsome than you. Boy. Who are you, young, young gentleman?

I'm his son, Angus. Hello, Angus. We've improved the average standard of Firth that we have on the podcast. It's very, very good to see. Cool. Now, but the thing is, Dom, it's school holidays here in New South Wales. Oh, of course. And so the thing that I want to talk about today is that school holidays should just be

completely banned, right? What a brilliant idea. Yeah. And so this is my thought is just there's one day a year when school kids get a break, which is Christmas Day. They like that. They love Christmas Day. And it would make it more special because it's like they're one day.

off. It'd be a real, the good day itself would be a gift, wouldn't it? You'd have to get them gifts. And they'd be more grateful. So they'd help out more, you know, cleaning up afterwards, you know, after the doing all the washing up and stuff like that. I like this a lot. I like this a lot.

I disagree. I think the school holidays, that is six weeks at the end of the year is the best. Well, hang on a sec. I mean, there's something fundamentally wrong about a world where we all get four weeks of leave a year, right? That's the standard amount of leave. And you get 12 weeks a year. And those in private school get, I don't know, 16 or 17 weeks.

How is it possible to have children with three times as many school holidays as we get? How are we supposed to look after you? I don't know. And the thing is that socialists would say, oh, well, then parents should have more school holidays. But I think it's the opposite. The solution is the opposite thing, which is just get rid of school holidays completely. Yes. Yes.

You've got the rest of your lives to frolic and play and have a days off. I disagree. Because the school holidays is not just a break for the students, it's also a break for the teachers because they're like, oh, fuck off. I don't want the kids. I must say, I want... But what makes you think the parents want the kids, Angus? I once said on radio that I wished I was a teacher because they get 12 weeks.

Oh, no. Oh, my goodness, the snippiness I got from teachers. None of them argued that they spend that time working, like, that they're actually doing a nine to five job during the school holidays. They just said, you don't know how hard it is during term. And I'm like, yeah, but every other job. job is hard too. But we were, we did actually experience, remember the pandemic. Yes. It was about three days in of homeschooling. Oh, that's true actually. You ended up going,

oh my God. I should actually get dangerous. The teachers don't get enough. Right. But so, Charles, there is a model for the world that you want. There is a world in which that is actually what happens. Oh, great. There are no days off where, I mean, public holidays are the only days that, um, that are off. Yeah, yeah. And that's childcare. So my two-year-old. It doesn't matter whether it's school holidays or what it is. It doesn't matter when it is. She can go and I can drop her off from 7am till 6pm every day longer than any school. Yes.

Admittedly, it's horribly cripplingly expensive. Yes. But what you get in return for that is absolutely fantastic. I don't have to think about it. They even feed her. I don't to pack lunch. It's as though I don't have a child. For 11 hours a day, it's a dream come true.

I wish they could do it on weekends as well. You saying that sounds like you're a child neglecter. No, because I'm not neglect. collecting my child. I'm just paying someone else with expertise and qualifications, by the way. Don't you realise? They're better at playing with the kids and me. They're 20, these people. Don't you realize that you're leaving your daughter at a place for 11 fucking hours? She loves it. She doesn't have any sense of time. To her, it's five minutes. She goes running down the hall towards to go and play with the friends every single day. She is a model to you. Angus, you should be

looking at her and doing what she does. And frankly, I don't know. Surely you'd rather be playing outdoors somewhere or with friends or doing anything else other than sitting in some fetid little podcast studio in your school holidays. This isn't better than school. What are you getting out of this? Look, that's one way. But what we want to do today is Angus is now 13 years old.

Long-term listeners of the Chaser report and the radio chaser might remember that we used to run the ethical dilemmas of. of, what, a nine-year-old? Yeah, even seven-year-old, maybe. So you've been exploiting your kids for content before. Yeah. Is Radio Chaser even still available? This is the radio show we used to do that was available as a complete kind of catch-up podcast.

Yeah. I wonder if it still is. Probably is. Yeah, it still is. Yeah, so there you go. That's nuts. That's massive. Don't go and listen to that.

That would be very bad for our reputation. It's five years old now. I reckon it'll be good. Five or six years old. Yeah, right. You know, because Craig and Chris used to drop in. Oh, yeah. They're amazing.

Yeah, they're famous. And also, if you want, if you have the urge to go watch it, don't. It's embarrassing. Thanks, Angus. Thank you. Anyway, so Angus, I've asked him to prepare a few ethical dilemmas that he's been thinking about. So Angus, what is the first, and so just for people who don't know this, this is just sort of

the things that, you know, you've been thinking about, the, the thorny problems for a 13-year-old. An insight into the mind of a 13-year-old. And you will conclude at the end of this, like I will, that this child needs to spend more time in school and not have holidays. Take it away, Angus. Okay, so for the first question, would you rather stick a knife up your ass or stick a knife in your mouth? Oh, I know what I wouldn't like to do. I would not like to stick a knife in my ass and men in my mouth. That would be very unhygiened.

That would be the worst. I don't want to do that. I think it's fine to stick a knife in your mouth. Like, you don't have to, oh, like, stab a man, like. No, you stab the knife into, you put your neck up straight, and then the knife will actually head into your esophagus. Oh, my God. Is this child well, child?

Or in your ass. And so does it cut your ass? No, it just feels like something's shoving up your ass. I don't, I don't think either of those options is something I'm keen to pursue. Does this reflect well on me as a parent? Never. The segment never reflects well on you. That's part of the fun of it.

Okay, well, we've got to choose. You can't not choose, Dom. Well, I, okay, I'm going to say a, I'm going to say clearly the mouth. Clearly the reason I say that is, there's so many reasons. But the first is, there is such a thing as a sword swallower. So people do actually train themselves to do this without dying. Yes. Whereas I believe that putting a sharp object in one's rectum is a recognized manner of execution

and a very unpleasant one. Although talk to any ER specialist who works on the emergency wards of any hospital and you'll know that it's actually just a common Saturday afternoon experience. Well, I know about the knife, but it's certainly true that for many people, the rectum is a playground. And also,

we don't want to kink shame. It's a place to store convenient objects in many cases until suddenly it's not inconvenient anymore. It's a medical emergency. But until that point, it was fine. So the answer is the mouth. Problem solved. We're both going with mouth.

Okay, next one. Have you got an answer for us, Angus? For me, I didn't think about choosing anything. Very wise. That's the correct answer. Yes. What's the next one? Okay, so the next one is, would you rather have infinite money but die at 18 or have, or be as you are now and die at 100?

Oh, poor Dom. This is hard. It's really tough. I think in my case. Because you'd never want to be as you are now. I'm not going to, neither of those things. Like, both those scenarios are better than my actual life, right? Can you choose stick a knife up his ass?

No, I think, no, I think 18's too young. I think, particularly me at 18. I was hopeless at 18. I think, giving me all the money in the world wouldn't have made me any happier, which would have made me even more confused and lonely. So, no, I think the 100 and broke. And frankly, that's better than my medical prognosis. So we'll go with that.

But then you've got to live to 100. You can't even... Like, you have to get 100. Oh, I have to live to 100. I think that might be very unpleasant. When I say he died 100, you cannot commit. And also, like, but the other thing is being rich is overrated. Sure.

Like, it doesn't seem to make anyone happy. No one's happy when you're rich. Mind you, no, you're not happy when you're not. No, that's true. But I mean, but look at Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson and Elon Musk. Like, they don't enjoy it at all. They don't seem to have a single day of enjoyment. No.

I'm always doing crazy shit like trying to, you know, fly a spacecrafter. Oh, I'm reading Elon Musk's, the latest book about Elon Musk. It's called, no, it's called Character Limit. It's the sort of unofficial biography. That's a great name. It's about his takeover of Twitter. And he just keeps trying to add more companies and more work. You know what he's doing now.

If Donald Trump wins the election, he's going to completely reform the public service, apparently. On top of all the other jobs. We've talked about this, Schedule F. It's absolutely demented. Yeah. Yeah, so I think being rich is terrible. So, yeah, I'll be poor and long-lived. And frankly, it's better for the planet to have more years of us doing this podcast

for the next 53 years in my case. Yeah. Great. Your answer? No, my answer is definitely rich and I don't. Look, I would have been very happy. Fuck that. Yeah.

You were pretty good as a teenager. I knew you as a teenager. And no, because the thing is, if you're that rich, you can afford all the sort of anti-acne. Like, you could live a lifetime. Oh, yes. Like, if you've got infinite money. She had a lot of money. You would have had a lot less acne than you did.

That's true. But you wouldn't have, you wouldn't have angus. Angus would never have existed. Double bonus. Yeah, all right. Well, I kind of agree with you, Dan, because I have to suffer through acne every few weeks. Let me tell you, my friend, you were very different from Charles. You've got the good genes.

The Chaser Report. Less news. Less often. Okay. So what's the last one, Angus? Okay, last one. Would you rather destroy your computer and never see it again or destroy your girlfriend or slash wife and have all the money in the world? Wow, that's quite complicated. Multifactorial. I think whether you would rather have a girlfriend or a computer, you don't ever have one for the, or, you know, a partner or a computer forever. That would be a genuine. I mean, Charles and I like computers. Yeah, because I feel like, I mean, I suppose computers and, let's call it.

call them partners. Partners, yeah. Whatever the status. Yeah, it share similar traits, don't they? Because they sort of... Spend all your time. Well, no, no, but it's also like, it's sort of like the first few months of a computer is always the nicest.

Oh, for sure. And the first few months. Until they get cluttered. Of a partner. He's also the nicest. So, like, is it forever? Like, or is it? Well, that's the other thing.

It's much more socially acceptable to upgrade a computer. And computers do get better. every year on year, whereas, you know, partners... Actually, let me rephrase that. Let me rephrase that. Would you rather get your computer confiscated for two years or get your girlfriend away for two years? Two years with no computer or no partner.

I guess I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding in your view of what a middle-aged man would like to do. I think that's, I think we probably shouldn't answer that question. I think this is one of those incriminating. Yeah, Charles and I are both happily married. Let's just leave it there. Let's not play this one out any further. Let's just say, Oh, I'm going to really miss that computer.

Oh, gosh, solitude for two years. Angus, does that mean I can also not have my children for two years? Is that all right? No, you have to have your children. Oh, okay. That's more of a dilemma. And if you had to choose, like if you had to choose, what would it be instead?

Am I allowed to have my phone? Because frankly, I barely use my computer now. You can't have your phone. It's just your computers. I need my phone in order to text to all the people. I needed to text while I didn't have my partner for two years. Not that I'm saying anything about what I do. Yeah, I think that's one of the more an ambiguous dilemmas you've given to Sankas.

Yeah. And look, if you've got a different perspective on that particular dilemma, please email us at podcast at chaser.com.com. Yeah, don't text us because we'll get in trouble. All right, well, look, this has been really interesting. I mean, at the end of this, I've learned a lot. I've thought through a lot of things about my life, but I'm not convinced, Angus, that this is better than you being in school.

Yes. In fact, I think if you pay more attention in, you know, science or English, you get more literary and nerdy dilemmas. Like, where was the Shakespearean dilemma? Yes, we needed one where it was like, you know, do I, Shall I compare They to a summer's day Or to be or not

To be or not? Shall I kill myself or not? That's a proper dilemma For a 13 year old, isn't it? Okay, this just got deeply worrying. You can contact lifeline.org today, You beyond blue The authorities

If you think Charles's son Should be taken away from him All these options are open to you. Or, you know, the other dilemmas that Shakespeare has, of course, other than that one. Yeah.

Can you think of any? Well, the one about, you know, oh, I think that my boyfriend or girlfriend is just to kill themselves. I'm not going to check. I'll just kill myself now. I won't check for a pulse. Yeah, yeah. I'll just, no, that wasn't so good. I mean, they're all terrible dilemmas, the Shakespeare one.

Well, it's, yeah, it's. Or should I like kill my uncle because I'm ambitious? Like, they're all terrible. I like the one about should I dress up as in yellow stuff? dockings and flirt with my employer. Yeah, well, you played Malvolio. No? Oh, what did you play?

I don't know. It was much smaller part. Anyway, I thought you played Malvolio. No, I would have loved to have played. You would have been perfect for Malvolio. Yeah, no, that was Philip Choi. Philip Choi, you did a very good job. Yes, we, Charles and I spent too much of our lives in the same place, clearly.

Angus, thank you for showing that there are better furths out there than the one we have. Yes. Well, there's one more. Hartley. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Hartley's even better than Angus. Well, he's older. Are you saying you have a favourite child?

If you have a favourite child, I am going to shove this knife I have in my hand up your ass. And that shows he's learnt a callback joke. There you go. There you go. There you go. Well done, Angus. Perfect way to wrap up the podcast. We are part of the Iconiclass Network and I am deeply worried about Charles's parenting.

Okay, I'm going to go to bed and see ya. Go to school, Angus.