The Chaser Report - Freedom Day! | Sarah Kendall

Episode Date: July 25, 2021

In this special episode, Charles and Dom interview UK-based Australian comedian Sarah Kendall to find out whether the UK is a paradise now that all the COVID restrictions have abruptly been ended. We also discover the secret of Boris Johnson's appeal, and a thoroughly gross story about a staircase. Plus, Rebecca De Unamuno with all the latest headlines. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by Cups. Use them, fill them, make them, spill them. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to the Chaser Report for Monday the 26th of July 2021. And Charles, a special episode today. Yes. In the UK, last week they had a special Freedom Day, a day when all restrictions were stripped away, and life went back to normal. No masks, no caution, no social distancing.

And speaking as someone who's now in the fifth week of lockdown in Sydney, this sounds like a fairly appealing idea. It does, unless you're concerned about COVID absolutely exploding all over the country. So we thought we'd look into this and see whether there really is a better life on offer in the UK. Sarah Kendall's a very old friend of ours. She's a legendary comedian, and she did the ABC series Freid, which you should check out a you haven't previously come across it. So the whole episode is just us talking to Sarah about life without restrictions. But before we do that, Charles, let's go to Rebecca Dean Amino in the Chesa Newsroom. Thousands of protesters in Sydney and Melbourne gathered on

the weekend to protest against the lockdowns and punch horses in the face. Most of the protesters did not wear masks to protect themselves from the virus. However, authorities say that so far all of them have tested negative for IQ. The New South Wales State government has today called on all other states and territories to do the right thing and hand over their excess stocks of Pfizer vaccine to ensure that New South Wales has enough supplies to vaccinate their private school boys. Dictator of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, has announced a plan to build a wall around Victoria and make Sydney pay for it. When New South Wales send us their people, they aren't sending their best, Andrews claimed at a press conference. They're

sending Peter Creadlin, they're sending Alan Jones, and some, I guess, are good people, but we can't take that chance. That's the latest news you really shouldn't trust. I'm Rebecca Deunamuno. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecues lit, but there's nothing to grill, when the in-laws decide that actually they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer, so download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders, service fees exclusions and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver.

Today's episode of The Chaser Report brought to you by that cup of tea you made this morning and then you forgot to drink it, so you popped it in the microwave, and then you forgot to get it out of the microwave, so it's just still in there. Now, while more and more of Australia is locked down with each passing day, it seems, over in the UK, where almost everyone's vaccinated, they celebrated a thing called Freedom Day last Monday, the day when all the restrictions were wound back and life returned to normal while there were COVID cases going on

and while the Prime Minister was in isolation. So not entirely free, perhaps, but certainly doing a lot better than us. So to gloat, our very good friend, Sarah Kendall, comedian and star at the ABC show, Freid is on the line from London. Hello, Sarah. Hi, I'm also the Taskmaster winner, so you might want to just... And also the Taskmaster winner. It's no big deal. It's no big deal, but I'm just Series 11. Sorry, what's Taskmaster? So how's freedom? Sarah, you look relaxed.

Very relaxed, Dom. It kind of... I was trying to think of what this reminds me of. And I don't know why I remember this, because I don't particularly like this movie. Do you remember Fight Club? And there's a scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden just says, to the other guy. He says something like, oh, just stop trying to control everything. And then he takes his hand off the steering wheel and puts on his seatbelt and accelerates the car

and they drive off a cliff sort of into a ravine killing everyone on board. It just feels like that's what we're doing. We're just going hands off the wheel, accelerate, put your seatbelt on. You know, you've had your vacs. I mean, they're sort of saying that it's now conceivable

that we're going to be looking at 200,000 infections per day. I don't know why I'm laughing. I just don't know why I'm laughing. But I think that the logic of the government is to get the devastating third wave to actually bring it forward so it doesn't coincide with winter. I have read that that is an actual strategy to get all the people dead and dying and in hospital before winter. Because in winter you get all of the other sort of seasonal, you know, you get flu season. So what they want to do is just bring the tsunami of death and destruction forward by a few months.

If you're going to cop it, you might as well cop it now, right? I think, yeah. Nobody knows what's going on because on the one hand, when Boris Johnson had been exposed to a cabinet minister who had COVID, he said, we're doing a pilot scheme, we're actually not going to self-isolate. And then everyone went, what? And he went, no, wait, we are going to isolate. Everybody isolate. But you don't have to.

But if you get pinged by the app on your phone, you might want to isolate. But you don't have to. It's very much a personal choice. So it's just chaos. Most people have deleted the app because it was pinging so much that I think nearly 20%. I think 10 to 20% of people have now just deleted the app. Wow. Like the vaccination rollout has been phenomenal over here.

But I'm not quite sure how that works in terms of, I think you can still spread it and you can still get sick and you can still catch it. Like I do know a couple of people who are double-jabbed who have caught it, but they're not dying. But I don't know. What the fuck do I know? I'm not a virologist. The thing that I heard was that it's just a different sort of set of expectations,

which is that, you know, you had 160,000 people or so die last year from COVID. Right. And so, you know, the idea of, like, I'm pretty sure the expectations, expectation is with this freedom day, you'll see, what is it, a thousand hospitalisations per day as a result of this way. That's the, in contrast, you know, like New South Wales is in a panic because we've had 100 people hospitalized from COVID in the last three weeks, right? But the whole difference is that, you know, you had 160,000 people die from it.

We had hardly anyone. And so, you know, like there's a different baseline to go for. Are you saying the low-hanging fruit's already been picked, Charles? No, I don't know. What I'm saying is that, like, actually, you know, with Boris Johnson, like, Freedom Day, it's totally acceptable to go, oh, well, you know, like if 50 people a day die from it, you know, who cares? I think that even that is suggesting that there's some sort of strategy.

I actually think that even even what you said then sounded like a strategy and what I think is abundantly clear there is no there is no coherent strategy

and it's sort of got a bit of a hunger games feel like you just kind of go well you know it is this kind of well you know if your time's up your time's up you do get this existential

It's quite an extraordinary thing in a first world country to kind of go, well, I've had a good life, you know, like I'm 45, I've had my kids. It's all downhill from here anyway. Like, I can already see the writings on the wall that I'm just going to get wrinklier and sicker. Yes. I'm just, I'm at the lost stage of life. Like, I've peaked and now things are going to be taken away from me. It's all decay.

Right, exactly. I've turned the corner with my sort of biologically. So, and then you kind of go, well, if I got taken out now as opposed to when I'm 55 or 65, in the grand scheme of how all the universe is, is that realistically a tragedy. So in some ways, Boris Johnson is like a philosopher king. Like he's a genius. He's a genius. Yeah, yeah, he actually gets the pointlessness of life more acutely than any philosopher.

And he's running with it. Like philosophers think it and write a boring book. He's thinking it and he's. running a country and he is actually ruling a country going really we are just a nanosecond in time if you think about it it's kind of like a second Brexit right like the people of the UK have just gone nah we're done yeah no we don't yeah we're done for this we don't even have this works now but we're just yeah we're just done no no strategy yeah fuck it yeah it's we are bored it's actually we are so bored of lockdown that i think because and and bear in mind the last

was horrific. It was wintertime. It was a very cold winter. It was like three degree days. Everyone was locked down from January through to March. And doctors were handing out antidepressants like lollies. Like all you had to do is go to your doctor, I'm struggling. I know like four of my friends who went on to antidepressants during that particular lockdown.

And there's just no questions asked. You know, it was just people behind masks handing out antidepressants. handing out antidepressants to other people behind masks going, do whatever you've got to do to get through this. And I do think that there is a weariness over here about, okay, if we do lockdown, then for how long, and then another lockdown after that, and then for how long, and then another lockdown. Like, I can understand people's frustration, but on the other hand, you've got every scientist in the country and every NHS trust going, yes, that's all well and good. but we are actually going to face an absolute crisis of health care.

We're canceling major surgeries. We're canceling transplants. We're canceling cancer treatments. And that's the part of the argument that is almost like the third argument removed, which is, well, sure, there is that level of frustration. But even a partial lockdown would alleviate a lot of these sort of knock-on effects that you're going to have when the hospitals are struggling, even just the things of you ought to wear a mask and just meeting outdoors,

which is in the summertime is absolutely fine. They don't even have fucking air conditioning in this country. So you want to meet outdoors anyway. So it just kind of feels like... Hang on, but you don't have to wear a mask. Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah. Is that part of the freedom, I think? Yeah, you're allowed to just get infected and infect.

Like, that is like holding onto your freedom that you do. It's not... And the mayor of London said you still have to wear one on transport. And he's a... He's a communist, is he? Yes, yes, he's an absolute, yeah, yeah. I mean, he's a real problem. What's better than a well-marbled ribby

sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribai you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered.

Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0-dollar delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. I was hoping, Sarah, that by talking to you, we'd be able to get a bit of a preview of life at the end of this when it's summer here in Australia.

We've got vaccines. We can just go outside and enjoy life again. Evidently not. Well, what we're doing is just walking into a next inevitable lockdown. Whereas if we just kept a few restrictions in place, If we just, not fully locked down, but by taking away all the restrictions, the inevitability of the NHS being overwhelmed is, like, that's what you're trying to do. You're just trying to keep enough hospital beds.

That's, that's, it's just a numbers game. Look, this is, this is my opinion. I mean, I'm just a person who just, you know, like, I'm just another person with another opinion. There's no, and please, can I just say the caveat on all this is, this is just my opinion. Like, are people moving against Boris Johnson? Like, does he have the endorsement of his cabinet? Like, it sounds suicidal.

He, look, I'm not the person to ask about this. I think the general sense is that there is a lunatic fringe of backbenchers who have just cocked a rifle to his head. It's exactly like Brexit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and they've gone, if you want to remain in place as the Prime Minister and take it out of favour. You've got to make lots of people die.

But last year, this was the plan, wasn't it? Weren't they going to lock away all the old people and just let it go freely in the community before anyone was. vaccinated. Well, they did a half version of that where they locked away all the old people and then brought COVID into the care homes to kill them all, which was an extraordinary then diagram of the two plans. What they did was combine the two plans that you just mentioned and what can only be described as a catastrophic strategy. So what they did was they under Matt Hancock's watch,

they moved a load of people untested and who had tested positive for COVID into care homes and it just went right through the care homes. And that, you know, when we talk about 157,000 deaths, a lot of that we're talking about the care homes and the fact that they just put people untested and positive cases into care homes with, What I'm starting to feel like it was a strategy.

There was something about that that felt. Oh, really? Well, how can you not? How can anyone with even a basic understanding of how a virus works? Well, hang on, hang on. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Yes, yeah. Like, that sounds like you're suggesting that a leader would know what they're doing.

Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right to assume that's a strategy. It's not true. You're right. You're absolutely right. No, you're right. And that's every conspiracy theorist ends up at this point where they think someone's running the show.

You're like, no one's driving the bus. Nobody's driving the bus. We've got Scott Morrison. On Wednesday, he came out and for the first time took responsibility for something. He said, oh, yeah, actually the vaccine rollout was my responsibility. And then he blamed it immediately on a target. No, you're absolutely right. Absolutely right.

To suggest that there is a method in the madness is not a hill I want to dial. Like I always think of the thing from the London Olympics where he went on the, he went on that zip line. And then he fucked it up and he was just sort of dangling there in midair, giving a thumbs up for the cameras. I sort of imagine that as his entire political career, like as Prime Minister, he's just dangling, enjoying the freedom of being in the air. And every time he does that, more people like him.

That's the bit that is so difficult. And that's, you know, that's what you get with a sort of populist cult of personality as we see in North Korea. You just see a, there is literally, I can't think it was that sort of Donald Trump thing where you go, I can't think of anything that you haven't already done that could turn the tide. Like, you've done all the things that should have turned the tide against you. And eventually it did with Donald Trump. But there's something very triggering for British people about borrowing. Johnson, in that even though he's an object of ridicule, he is the kind of person

British people and the British electorate love. They love posh, bumbling, funny, bit of a rascal. I mean, obviously, a bit of a rascal in a world leader is not, I mean, that's not a character trait that you want. But he just taps into something that is so uniquely coded into the class system over here that he is born to rule and there's a there is just he gets so much goodwill because he's born to rule and it's just the it's just the residue of centuries of of a very rigid class system i believe but i also think he he actually understands the theatrics of politics

yes yes and the point is that he has never once been defensive about anything so oh yes Oh, 160,000 people died. Yes, I'm probably responsible for that. And the emotion that, but try, like, if you, if you think about it, if you're watching theatre and then there's never any shame, then that character is immediately charismatic. It doesn't matter what they do. If you're loosely watching and not paying attention, then it's.

There was a wonderful interview where he, He was questioned about, there was a conversation he had with somebody about a journalist getting their kneecaps broken. And they, the interviewer was basically going, this is outrageous, that there was a conversation where you didn't say no, don't do it. When the person said, you know, I could basically mess this journalist up, you kind of went quiet and went, well, whatever happens, happens. It was that kind of, it was that kind of answer. The answer wasn't emphatic. No, you must not beat up a journalist. I don't know how, but Boris Johnson made it look like university hijinks.

The way he was in the interview, he kind of laughed and went, well, I mean, okay, it wasn't my finest hour. And it just didn't stick. It just in the same way, there was nothing that Donald Trump could do or say that would stick. And it drives, I mean, I know it drives his opponents mad, that Boris Johnson just has this ability to emerge from practically every scandal, just unscathed. And I can't, I would have thought that the death toll over here would have been such an outrage. But it just hasn't been. And people

are so punch drunk and tired. It's very much like the Trump thing where you just go from day to day and it's another scandal and it's another minister breaking, another rule. And there's this sort of sense of chaos where you kind of go limp. You sort of go, oh, well, that's just the way things up, yeah. Does he do the same thing that Scott Morrison does over here, which is Scott Morrison will occasionally drop another scandal that his government is involved in in order to neutralise the negative press of a previous scandal, just to get the conversation to move on. Oh, completely.

And I know that because I, that's such a major part of being in a relationship. a tool that you learn very early on in a relationship is to go, I've done a terrible thing and then tell them the least bad thing that you've done to cushion the blow of the genuinely awful thing that you've done. Well, it was odd the other day when at the end of an interview, he said, look, I just want to bring something up. And he was talking about the rumor about him shitting his own pants. I mean, that's an unusual thing to do in politics,

is to voluntarily go to the pooping incident. I mean, that's unprecedented, I think. That's incredible. I mean, speaking of pooping pants, that was something I did want to touch on. And there is a, in the weekend before Freedom Day, I mean, even the fact that it's called Freedom Day, the way that they are selling this to the public, that you're being giving your freedom back, not we are dancing off a cliff. Like, that's what is so amazing about this. But anyway, in the lead up to Freedom Day, we're having extraordinary heat over here. as with, you know, we're seeing the climate change. Every summer, we're seeing the new hottest summer on record.

Like, we just smash, each year we're now smashing last year's record. So on the weekend, people were out in the sunshine drinking like only the Brits do. And just lobster red people absolutely out of their mind drunk. And I was in Margate, which is a seaside town. And because of, we still got a lot of travel restrictions. and a lot of flights are being cancelled. So we used to have this wonderful system in place that with companies like EasyJet

and all the other cheap airline companies, it would sort of, it would transport a certain type of British person and plonk them somewhere in Spain or Italy and then they weren't our problem. But with restricted travel, they're all here. Oh. And you actually get to see,

it's why Europe hates us. It's because they're the people who travel to the Costa del soul and go and, you know, vomit on taxi drivers and, but now they're here. Like, we've got to spend our summer together. And, uh, I was, I was walking down a flight of stairs and, um, I said to the person I was with, um, I can, I can smell shit very strongly. And, uh, and she said, yes, I can I? And then we got to the bottom of the stairs and there was a 25 year old man sitting in his own shit, um, with his pants, his pants are around his knees. And there was, um, there was, his own shit everywhere and his friends were videoing him and a security guard was wanted to

remove him but didn't want to touch the situation so you know there was a security guard sort of saying so can you please get up and this person could not get up he'd drunk so much he'd lost control of his bowels and it just feels like that that person should be in the costa del soul they're not meant to be here but with with travel restrictions that british guy is doing that here and that's what I resent is that I feel like, yes, the cheap flights were meant to remove him and make him a problem in Italy or Sicily, but not here. I just imagine if that person was Boris Johnson

and he just got up and went, do you still love me? Everyone would have gone, yes, we do. Yes. How much do you have you? Yeah, another landslide, yeah, another landslide. Yeah, I mean, it would be another landslide. I am genuinely sympathetic to British people going,

we are in a never-ending cycle of lockdowns, enough's enough. But by taking away all the restrictions, what you're doing is actually contributing to another inevitable lockdown. If we just kept the common sense restrictions in place and still had a life, I just, there is something about this that when you see that all the virologists and scientists are going, we're now going to be looking at 200,000 new infections a day to be dancing towards those sorts of figures. And then, of course, there's going to be another variant. Like any time you get a variant, it's when the infection rate goes rife. So it's like, okay, so we're also going to be bringing on another variant.

Well, isn't the whole thing that England's going to actually create the new variant? Because you've got the perfect thing, which is tons of infections and then evolutionary pressure against the vaccine. So the virus basically has to go, well, how do we get around this fucking vaccine that half the population has? And it's the perfect environment. Yeah, I mean, we are, and that's why the world is watching going, what the fuck are you doing? This is why I think that the World Health Organization was wrong to get away from place names for the variants.

I think we should just name them, name and shame them. It should be the Margate variant. It's not going to be Epsilon variant. It's the fucking England variant. Fuck you. COVID's coming home. Bring it home. What's better than a well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue?

A well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribby you ordered without even leaving the kitty pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Well, Sarah, I must say, it is fascinating how differently, given our common history and everything, has the British government's dealt with this virus. And it's just great to know that the massive, weird, crazy getting it all wrong is continuing even as you all reembrace society. So I'm quite cheed up to hear just how awful things are in the UK right now.

I thought this is going to be the opposite of you. Yeah. We're really helpful for us here in the start. Oh, yeah. I mean, and we used, I used to have a, I don't know, there's something about watching the floods in Germany and the heat wave in Canada and the, like, and Siberia being on fire. Have you seen that one? Yeah, Siberia, Siberia, and of course, the ocean was on fire briefly there. I don't know if you saw the ocean, the fucking ocean was on fire. And there is something very calming when you go, oh, it's just the end of, it is actually the end of days. Yes. It's all in the book of revelations. Yeah.

I mean, we've got a mice plague in Australia. I saw the mice plague. I saw the mice plague. And again, that is biblical. There is no. It's so biblical. Did you see the desert full of dead flamingos? Did you see the...

Oh, yeah. Lake Nacru. Yeah, yeah. That was amazing. Yeah. Mind you, that's actually just like capitalism. That was just fertiliser. It wasn't it?

Oh, well, that's all right. Somebody put some DET or D.D. T, whatever it's called into the lake and they will die. And to all the pink flamingos, all the native pink flamingos in the world are dead. You know that I went there on my honeymoon.

I went to Lake Nekuru. Well, fuck you, Dom. It was part of a, I shouldn't have shadden that well. It was an intrepid tour. It was an intrepid tour. And they went to like three amazing, like, parks. But this one we went to, it was the home of the amazing flamingos.

but there were literally not a single flamingo was there. So we just went and saw no wildlife for three days. Oh, amazing, amazing. I mean, there's something that, you know, when I look at how, like the bad shape that the planet's in, and I should say to the listeners, we've all known each other since university, we've known each other for a very long time. And I do remember during a university days when somebody's lease on their shared flat was coming up, they'd generally be a very big party where,

you'd go well fuck it we're moving out so you just kind of trash the joint slightly um and i kind of feel like that's what's happening with planet earth and us with planet earth as we're going our lease is pretty much expiring soon so we might as and and we're already looking for other planets to go to really look for other flats we're looking for other flats we're already how something and there's just this kind of well whatever happens happens you know it's um yeah we're moving out soon anyway so everyone's got syphilis so we might as well fuck each other so yeah or at least one of us is syphilis so we all know Sarah thank you for giving us a few laughs on our collective way down the plug hole yeah look I just want to say I feel like I must say this because I always get

the horrors whenever I do any podcast is that I'm just another Joe Schmoe with an opinion and it's just I hate the idea that anyone's going to get in contact and pull me up on any of this Oh yeah We'll just do a disclaimer You're not an epidemiologist You're just an expert in life I'm just a barely functioning moron Who reads stuff on Twitter

Late at night And cherry picks what they're going to use In a conversation You just do an expert in confirmation bias If there's one thing That we've so far established In the months we've been doing This Daily podcast, Sarah

It's that No one should take advice from us about anything. Thank you, Sarah. I think what our listeners want to hear is confirmation that everything is turning to shit rapidly, and I think you've delivered that with great, great success. Thank you so much. Thanks, guys. That's great. No trouble, no trouble at all. I'm just going to go and cry now. So I've got to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just going to go and shit on a step.

I think, but there should, aren't you meant to be boyed up? Boyd up by what? the ocean being on fire oh great i'll get out my marshmallows yeah i do i gotta stop recording and start crying today's episode of the chaser report brought to you by the complimentary coffee that your co-worker brought you this morning but it's actually a really awful cup of coffee but you and your co-worker are not yet in a place socially where you can tell them your real coffee order so you just sit there and begrudgingly drink it

I hope you enjoyed today's special episode with Sarah Kendall, I'm assuming you, because you made it as far, or maybe you're in lockdown and you're just really fucking bored. That's more likely. No, no, actually, go to Apple iTunes, leave us a five-star review and let us know whether you enjoyed today's episode, but always just give us five stars, whether you liked it or not. Do five stars and then just say you hated something that we're doing. We don't really care about that. But, yeah, we're going to try and bring you some more special episodes of longer chats

with people in the weeks ahead. Our gear, as always, is from Road Microphones, and we're part of the Acast Creator Network. A normal episode returns tomorrow. Catch you then. See ya.