The Rest Is Entertainment - Libel Laws and Protecting The Free Press

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Are the UK’s stringent libel laws preventing journalists from exposing predators in the UK media? Why are all pop stars seemingly non-stop? Why does Richard think of the Netflix adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club as his grandchild? Actor Noel Clarke has lost his libel case against Guardian over their sexual misconduct investigation. Richard and Marina discuss the fragile nature of investigative journalism, the shortcomings of British libel laws and if being famous still renders you 'untouchable'. At a star studded premiere in central London, the world finally got to see the film adaptation of Richard's book 'The Thursday Murder Club' - the pair chat about the economics behind getting a bestseller onto screens. From TikTok to touring, podcasts to penning novels - why are modern stars seemingly 'always on'? We think we have the answer... Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.com The Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Requires relevant Sky TV and third party subscription(s). Broadband recommended min speed: 30 mbps. 18+. UK, CI, IoM only. To find out more and for full terms and conditions please visit Sky.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Assistant Producer: Aaliyah Akude Video Editor: Kieron Leslie, Charlie Rodwell, Adam Thornton, Harry Swan Producer: Joey McCarthy Senior Producer: Neil Fearn Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everyone, this episode is brought to you by our good friends at Sky. Now, whether you're dancing through life in the Emerald City for the first time or flying back for a magical encore, Wicked is now on Sky Cinema and with a Skyglass TV, Oz feels closer than ever. Bring the gravity-defying ballads home with a Dolby-Atmos soundbar built in for a truly cinematic experience. The high notes and the harmonies have never sounded better. Skyglass automatically adapts the picture and sound to whatever you're watching. Brumsticks whoosh faster, ballads hit harder, Emeralds, gleam brighter. And with voice control, the real magic is doing it all without lifting a finger.

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hearing poetry in motion. Benjamin Moore, see the love. Searchlight Pictures presents The Roses, only in theaters Friday. From the director of Meet the Parents and the writer of Poor Things Comes The Roses, starring Academy Award winner Olivia Coleman, Academy Award nominee

Benedict Cumberbatch, Andy Sandberg, Kate McKinnon, and Alison Janney. A hilarious new comedy, filled with drama, excitement, and a little bit of hatred, proving that marriage isn't always a bed of roses. See the roses only in theaters Friday. Get tickets now. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Resters Entertainment with me, Marina Hi. And me, Richard

Osmond. A good day to you, Marina. A very good day to you, Richard. Good bank holiday to you. Yes, we're recording on a bank holiday, aren't we? We are. We are. I quite like working on a bank holiday so long as I get a day off in lieu. Yeah. But don't you think? Because I would rather have a day off when no one else has a day off. Having a day of when everyone's got a day off? You go, well, we're going to go to Lego Land like everyone. Whereas if you go to Legoland on a Tuesday and no one's there, that's a proper treat. I can't wait to attend with you on an upcoming Tuesday.

Were I, Prime Minister, which looks increasingly unlikely to happen. It's one of the very few things you haven't done. Despite my best efforts, that and a grime album. How many bank holidays we have a year? Like six. Something, no, I think it's a little more, is it? But I'm wrong probably. Something, yeah.

It's not like America. If you include, like, boxing day and stuff, which I don't. But I would say, that people can take them whatever days they want. I would let people take their own bank holidays, so they don't have to all have them at the same time. I love that. Don't you think?

Yes. Yeah. Now, what are we talking about? We are talking about the Noel Clark, the actor and producer, has lost his libel case against The Guardian. I have a lot of things to say about that, as you can imagine. Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing all about it.

I've had some inside knowledge of it. And, yeah, I was thrilled. So I'd be very interested to hear the inside thing. We're also going to talk about always-on culture. This idea now that, you know, with podcast, television programs and musicians, that you have to be permanently churning out content, which something didn't used to happen. You know, you could go five years between albums or five years between books or five years between all sorts of things. And now our culture is permanently on. And that seems to be in every endeavour and the way that things are going.

And we're also going to talk about an event I was devastated to miss, as you know, the Thursday Murder Club premiere last week. And we want to talk about the film on Netflix. Yeah, talk about a week in the life of Thursday Murder Club and it's out on Netflix on Thursday and also why it's not in the cinemas, why it's on Netflix, all of those different things. So try and get some lessons for the industry via the medium of plugging the film, I suppose.

Okay, well, let's start with Noel Clark. Now, Noel Clark is actor. He was most prominently perhaps in Doctor Who, but he's also a very successful film producer in his own right. He did the Kid Alt Hood trilogy of films. He won in 2021, he won BAFTA's Outstaffters, standing contribution to cinema. Also in 2021, an investigation began by The Guardian and this resulted in the publication of a series of articles by Sirenkale and Lucy Osborne. He was accused of

all kinds of sexual misconduct, professional misconduct, taking advantage of people in workplace situations. By the time they first published, they had managed to get 22 women to come forward. Remember these sort of numbers because they are actually quite significant. This was an investigation overseen by the Guardian's investigations editor, Paul Lewis, who's absolutely brilliant. Noah Clark ended up suing the guy, he launched the case in 2022. He ended up suing the Guardian saying that, for libel, saying that he's not perfect, but doesn't recognize the man in these articles. You know, some of this was just, it was just sort of banter. We think differently about these things now because of historical revisionism, but they were acceptable at the time.

By the way, yeah, arguments we see in our broader culture all the time. And arguments that, you know, people who jump to the defence of people will always use all the time as well. And those were the arguments that he was using in his defence. To clarify a lot of the complaints related to bullying, taking and sharing explicit videos and photos without people's consent, unwanted sexual contacts in some forms quite extreme. And anyway, so the Guardian had to defend this and they regarded it's very important to defend it. And there's two ways you can defend these things. You can say the stories are true or you can say there's a public interest. case in running them anyway

and the Guardian defended on both of those and they won on both of those points now on Friday the judgment came down and these judgments are very very long and they're 200 pages plus always and kind of what you fear is that it will be one of those

ones that as Paul Lewis would say you know sort of through gritted teeth judgment where it's a bit of this and a bit of that and you know you get awarded it in the end and the other part you can come out and say Well, I know I lost, but you know, you can see from the judgment that what I was saying was substantively true, typical of the press. In this case, they won emphatically, which is sort of fantastic.

The judge, Mrs. Justice Stein, found that he was not a credible witness or a reliable witness, not Clark. I think the case is so interesting. It's so interesting. We'll talk about it in two ways, I guess, I'm imagining. We'll talk about it in terms of what it's like to be involved in one of these investigations to run it and then to have to go through something like this. and I'm talking always, always first about the victims in that, but also about the people who then have to defend it, the journalism. Also, I suppose, what it means for wider TV culture and some of those other things.

There was a really memorable New York Daily News cover when Bill Cosby's accusers came out. And they did, he said, she said, she said, she said, she said, she said, and they did 51, you know, 51 accusers. now there were 22 accusers here 20 and the Guardian had 26 witnesses people say oh you can maybe the inside word on these kind of cases that you can maybe get them over the line if you have four or five incredible witnesses or two or three like absolutely extraordinary witnesses who you know will go go go all the way for you but here they had 26 a lot of Noel Clark's ones didn't turn up which I think is quite significant because a lot a lot of the the witnesses for his defense.

Five or six of his didn't turn up, perhaps not wanting when it came down to it. That works both ways. It's very, very hard. And actually, when you're running investigations like this, because of the nature of our libel laws, which believe me, I'm going to come to a proper sidebar in a minute, you need to say to people,

and you have to say to people when you were writing these stories, would you be willing to testify? You're not held to it. Of course, lots of women say, yes, a lot of women think it's hard enough to even say anything about this to anybody. enough to talk to a journalist, even under the cover of anonymity. So a lot of people say, okay, I would testify, but when it comes to it and you realize how much it involves. And also, you know, we're all human beings and we read the news and we do see that people get away with

it sometimes and somebody gets away with it suddenly has more power than they had before. And this is someone who had a power over you in the first place. So that's a very, very scary, very brave thing to do. It's incredibly brave. Actually, Michaela Cole at the time said, speaking about these incidents takes a lot of strength because some call them grey areas they are however far from grey these behaviours are unprofessional violent and can destroy a person's perception of themselves their places in the world and their career irreparably and some of the stories totally agree yeah and also that's great coming from macaela cole because she is someone who has more power than no clock so if you are worried about coming forward do you think well someone's someone's got my back as with so many people there were many many many stories about him and yet none the it took a huge amount to get it over the line and you spend your time talking to people and to try and trying to build the case. And as I say, that first story that came out there they'd had 22 women. That's very much as she said, she said, she said. And another thing that people don't know, which is that even a few weeks ago, Noel Clark was shopping a big

kind of poor me interview to all the, you know, to major titles where he would say, we've sort of put his side of the case and it's quite extraordinary I mean that is someone who hadn't had the judgment passed down at that point to say he remains non-reflective is I saw his statement only one person

only the BBC ran his statement afterwards which did not admit any form of guilt at all and in fact misrepresented the judgment completely investigative journalism is so expensive people will always say why don't newspapers do more investigations well I'll tell you some

just some cold you know is it incredibly expensive to run an investigation like this. You have to have a long commitment to something that may well never be published. I mean, you know, I've been talking, there's various investigative journalists I've talked to in the course of sort of preparing this item and I can tell you that many of them are working on things which will never see the light of day. A lot of that is to do with our libel laws. The huge difficulty is that you have to investigate in such a way that every single thing is so watertight, that if it ends up in court, which it often does, you are in a strong position.

Yes, I mean, he was suing for 70 million pounds. I mean, it's just, it's enormous. To achieve the standard for publication has to be very, very significant. And there may be in, I'm not saying it's this case, but other cases, some of the allegations actually, you'd think would meet the threshold for criminal charge. But unless you can fully get those over the line, they may not even be included because you're either going to write a story in a way that's dealing with libel laws or you're dealing with criminal behaviour. This will have cost the guardian money which they will not fully get back. But it's

fantastic, I should say, that, you know, to be found for, on both points is great. The judgment, if there's anyone still listening to this thinking, yeah, but you know, sometimes when you go digging and people come up with stories, read that judgment. I mean, it leads you in absolutely no doubt If he had one, the injustice would have been mind-boggling. I mean, he said it was all a conspiracy and that his nine-year-old child had drawn a map of how all the accusers related to each other. I was like, that's some interesting parenting. But, I mean, that's our culture is in his nine-year-old children drawing charts of how things connect to each other. Do you know what, do GCC sociology, all that stuff, you get that stuff out of the way immediately.

But sometimes there are conspiracies, but I tell you, there's not one against Noel Clark. The amount of time it then takes to defend one of these libel actions is extraordinary. I spoke to Paul about it, the investigations editor to The Guardian, who's, as I say, he's fantastic, amazing journalist. This was his full-time job working on this from August last year to April this year. If you think of what that means, he is the investigations editor. So all the investigations come through him. So it's the kind of opportunity, the opportunity cost, basically, of what's lost,

all the other things you can be doing when you're gumbed up on this. there are other journalists who are also involved in various types of these kind of defences and there's, you know, there are certain, I guess there have been some big exposures of alleged sexual prejudice, so you've got the financial times are currently fighting a huge and really expensive libel claim from Chris Vinoday, their hedge fund manager who was accused of indecent assault. The big story that has now involves criminal charges so we can't talk a huge amount about it is Russell Brand, which was a Sunday time. time story run by the brilliant Ros Irwin, who's fantastic. Talking to her a bit earlier this year

about another very high profile man in television and we were discussing some things about him and she was saying, you know, it's difficult at the moment that Noel Clark judgment hadn't come out and you're sort of thinking it's been such a legal nightmare. All sorts of different investigations editors across all different titles feel they can't risk the investment unless maybe sometimes people say, oh, is criminality the bud? If criminality is alleged then maybe we should should follow those stories. Equally, there is a counterview. The one thing you don't really want the police to do. First of all, you're doing, you're thinking, oh, we want justice. We want this person to be brought. If the police immediately bring it forward and this person is immediately interviewed

under caution and charged, in some ways you've lost control of the story because there's so much more to come out. And what happens is you now can't write about it at all because of contempt of court laws. Would it be fair to say that sometimes people listening will be on different sides of this fence that sometimes journalists believe that maybe a story is safer with them than it is with the modern police force. I would definitely say that is the case. And once there are charges, you cannot write about it at all because of our contempt of court laws. Therefore, you no longer have control of the story. All sorts of other things may be coming into. We'll obviously pass them on to the police. But you have to trust that they will hunt them down in the same way that you would

have done. And in some ways, it's better for it to play out for much longer before something happened. And then the newspaper is going to have to decide when does contempt kick in. And in the case of Russell Brand, I think you could see from their reporting, the second he was interviewed under police caution, they decided that contempt of court would kick in there. And some people, you might say, well, when someone's formally charged, but you've got to be very, very careful and you can't do anything that will jeopardize the case. So that's why that story has gone a little quieter more recently.

So if during the course of the investigation, you discover that an actual crime has been committed, are you duty bound to tell the police? Are you allowed to continue investigating? I would have thought you would run the story and then, of course, you will turn as much as possible or speak to as much as possible to the police about the evidence you have. However, you don't, you still protect your sources.

Your sources may not wish to speak to the police for one reason or another. So if you know a crime's been committed, but it depends on that source going to the police and make you a complaint and they're not going to, you just keep investigating yourself. Yes, you keep investigating, but the police will often open an investigation in tandem

and they may come to you and say, we like to talk, you know, and you will have to make judgments accordingly, but you won't give up your sources and say, oh, well, the person I was speaking to is anonymous in my story is this person, you'll never do that. Talking, you know, about the libel laws, a huge amount of the problem of this is our libel laws, is that we have the worst libel laws in the world, basically. You can, in America, you can do far, far more, obviously they have the First Amendment and that means that you can say almost anything if you claim that you've got a couple of sources telling you it. In the UK, it is so expensive. It's well over 100 times more

expensive to fight a libel action here than in most other places in Europe. It's extra... Why is that out of interest? It's the system and it's the way it comes to court and the way... I mean, it's just incredibly expensive. It's just tradition. Yeah, it's tradition. You know, when I see a lot of, you know, you see the politicians and you're talking about these cases and men in television and all this sort of stuff and I see Lisa Nandi saying, I won't be watching the new master chef or will be watching the new master chef or whatever it is. A much better way in many ways to put a little daylight on lots of this stuff would be to change the libel laws. Politicians are much more able to change laws than they are to deal what may or not be happening on individual

sets and talking about specific hotlines or whatever. It would be much better. I mean, the trouble is if we had more relaxed libel laws because there is so much of this stuff out there. And, you know, I talk to investigative journalists all the time. and they are looking into so many different things. And the volume of stuff, you never have heard any of these stories. Even though there's a huge volume, there's a lot of people who will only talk anonymously. There's all sorts of reasons. There's a huge volume.

And these people really care about it. Investigative journalists really care about this stuff. They will work any time. You know, Paul's on his holiday, spoke to me this morning. They will work any time. And also, by the way, these are not people being paid millions of pounds and, you know, having big Instagram accounts and, you know, selling energy drinks. And a lot of their work, as I say, ends up being completely fruitless and it can never meet the bar. for publication. And it would be much more helpful for politicians to do something about the libel

laws than it would be to start going on TV sofas and saying soundbites about, you know, something about culture and television. Of course, the other thing is that if politicians relax the libel laws, then perhaps more would be written about politicians. Here's a good example of it. Charlie Elphick, who was a Tory MP, who in the end was sentenced two years for multiple sexual assaults proven, was suing the Sunday Times from inside prison. so that's our our libel laws are incredible I mean it's ridiculous what was his case do you know I'm actually not even going to be bothered to look it up

as I say it's almost like a form of lawfare people talk about oligarchs using law fair which is kind of the use of endless lawsuits to gum reporters and reporting up in this kind of stuff and you get as I say you know you almost have to come off all your other work there are a huge bottlenecks if you're an editor like Paul Lewis is other stories which he's very you know he's overseeing them

Yeah, and big business does it all the time and Trump does it and Maxwell did it. You know, they will just throw lawsuits in the way of things and it just becomes incredibly expensive and very messy to make any progress. Yes, it does. And people, so all of these things, there are many, many stories about lots of different, there are men and television and to some extent film that people are trying to write and they have a lot of different people and they have a lot of different sources. Even now, our libel laws are preventing their stories and that people are waiting to see what happens in different judgments, wait to see what happens. happened in Noel Clark. That came out well. We'll see what happens with Chris Binode. And, you know, obviously we will watch in a different, not a civil court, a criminal court with Russell Brown. What happens there. But the other thing is that most of these cases are civil

because they're libel cases. And what people don't realize is they think that we have a US system where you can get any witness to appear. You have to persuade the witnesses to appear. We can't subpoena people in the way that they can in the States quite understandably. and any investigative, a good investigative journalist will tell you this, particularly for the women involved in something like this, it's really traumatic. And the idea of having to go and sit on a stage and be told you're a liar, I mean, it's really unpleasant.

Yeah, especially with the culture in the world as it is in the moment, and the fact that anything that seems to sort of smack of wokeness in any way suddenly becomes ammunition for the other side. And I would say to anybody who is on the right of the culture wars, really, really, really think very hard when you start defending people just because it's good for your side. You know, it's like being a football fan and, you know, we know that someone, you know, is a shithouser, but we cheer him anyway. Be very careful who you choose to side with. You know, you can disagree with people, but still be on the side of right and of justice.

So just any single time of something like this happens, just look into it properly. I couldn't agree more. I do think that this in the US where the Me Too pendulum has just swung so completely back the other way, almost reflexively anyone is defended. I don't think that the same thing is happening here, which is good. But again, it still can be very, very difficult and take a long time. If we're talking about the wider TV industry and what this means, it's, well, it's another difficult week for men and television, Richard.

It's amazing. He really didn't get it, Noel Clark. You know, he's one of a class of men who don't think that sex pests are men like them. And I think that we've had some, we've had lots of those stories. He thinks he's a charmer of some sort? Yes, or that this is, I just don't recognize this person and just completely unable to see, particularly in things like some of the really harrowing stories

are like auditions or filming scenes on set. The same thing remains true, and also often it's not reported, so they're never pulled up on it. And the reason that people don't report it, as we know, is because it's such a precarious industry. You don't have a proper contract. The case of some of his productions, maybe you didn't have some, you know,

kind of really complicated contract that you would have had if you were employed by a BBC production, but it doesn't matter. What the story is, is that you're working temporary jobs. It's a form of gig, and you may not get another one if you say something. Also, you do at the end of a month move on, and you're not working with that person anymore, and there's a bit of you that goes, do you know what, maybe I just chalk that up to experience, but then other people come up, you go, do you know what, I'm not going to chalk it up to experience, because that's going to happen to the next person who's on a temporary contract with him and the next person and the next person.

That's the bravery of these women. It's much easier to do nothing. It's much, much, much easier for their career, for their bank balance, for their sleep. Because as I say, it's years of it. Yeah. You know, the advice, you know, I always say, never litigate anything unless you really can't do anything else because it will be the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing you think about before you go to bed.

And he, as I say, it's been three years of these people's lives. knowing that this case was just working on it. It's great that they're doing more, but I do think it is still incredibly, I do think it's still widespread. First of all, because it doesn't get reported, and I think people are reporting more. Second of all, because you can see that if it does get reported,

it could end up like this, which is, that takes up a lot of your time. I think people are just still very bad at asking and trying to work out whether it's happening to people below them. I think it's very easy for senior people. I mean, I have known of certain cases, of sort of abuse on set and I was really surprised that people immediately senior to people involved didn't know anything about it at all and it was a complete sort of open secret amongst the level below

and it's amazingly stratified those walls could be broken down a bit more yeah I do think sometimes giving something a name is the useful thing so something like this judgment is very very helpful because if someone you know reports upwards in the chain about something that that's happening is easy you know to be dismissive of it but if it's like it's this thing that happened it's like what Noel Clark did. So you kind of go, oh, so, because not everyone has an amazing moral compass. No. And that's okay. You know, not ever, we're not all born the same. And if you report something to someone who doesn't have an amazing moral compass and they're kind of going, I don't know, is that, I don't know. I mean, it sounds sort of, that sounds like banter to me. And then you go,

oh, look at this court judgment and look at what happens here. Then you kind of go, oh, I understand now that that's not okay. So if you've got someone with a good moral compass, great. If you have someone without a good moral compass, it's very useful to say to them, you know you might end up in court here. I remember once talking to a producer who said something along the lines of, you know, this person's really lucky because if it had gone any further, you know, an American company would have become involved and then they've got really different procedures. And I remember thinking, why are you saying this?

You should know that this is a really serious thing that has happened. And the idea that, oh, it's lucky it didn't go any further is not always the position to hold. Yeah. And, you know, it's for those, it's institutionally to put that inside. companies to understand that sometimes there's a pattern of behaviour and this is not the way to this is not the way to employ people. Yeah, there is a body that has been set up the creative industry's independent standards authority which they're trying to sort of amalgamate this and get people to contribute to it, you know, to take their guidelines to helping people in the

reporting of all of this. I still think we're in the relatively early stages of lots of this. But as I say, I do honestly find politicians banging on about it when their house is such a mess. not particularly helpful then, but I do think that they could do something about the libel laws because that would enable much more, much freer reporting in this country. And it's amazing the stuff and the investigations that I know about that are happening right now that may never even get to print. And there is so much on certain individuals and very high profile people in television and you know about them and they still may never be published because it's just so hard. And these people are really rich and successful. And they have all the resources to fight.

entertainment allows for specific, and I don't want to, you know, I don't want Michaela Cole to be rude about me, grey areas. It allows for the, there are so many weird scenarios. I mean, you know, but isn't that the case in a hedge fund? Isn't anywhere where you've got star performers or, you know, you know, the salesman who brings the most money into the office? Sure, but you don't have staged sex scenes in hedge funds. That is true. You know, things like that. That is true. The things like that, the stuff that happens on stage or the stuff that happens sort of Backstage and some sort of deliminal area between, is it real? Are we doing, are we improvising here or what even is this?

Those sort of things allow in the same way that certain abusers, types of abusers are drawn to working with children for very obvious reasons. I think there's an element here where it allows a sort of a sense of license to be taken. Also, I do think that there's something about the nature of stardom. and of success that makes people think, I can do anything, I'm cavalier, and whatever. And Noel Clark thought you could behave in this way is very much, that sort of sense of complete cavalier entitlement underpins the libel case, surely,

that you're, well, I'm just going to get away. I'm going to sue these people, and I'm just going to say it's all a massive conspiracy that my nine-year-old's connected. His genuine shock that this behaviour was seen as anything other than I'm just a Jack the lad and I'm the producer, and, you know, so I've got a lot of charisma. I'm gorgeous, I'm Bafthus Rising Star.

Actually, you're just a sex pest and other people really hated it. They hated what you did and you are one of those men. They're not just like old people from night entertainment in the 70s. People really didn't like what you did. I think it's interesting as far as it goes for the industry but of most help would be a reform with the libel laws for me. Can you name the two investigative reporters who ran this case again?

Shirin Carle and Lucy Osborne. and the editor is Paul Lewis at the Guardian and they have gone through years of a very difficult defence of this and I can only offer my heartfelt happiness that they managed to see it all the way through. And we owe them a great debt. But most particularly we owe them.

As we owe a debt to all the women who came forward and anyone who's sitting on the fence, please I beg of you, look at this judgment and if you haven't looked at this judgment, shut up about it. Following the break, we've got sweetness and light in the form of the first of the ones. Earth Club, but also always on culture. Should we go to a break?

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where we bring you the best stories from the world of spies and secrets. We have just released an absolutely cracking new series on the infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, how the US spent decades fighting a war on drugs to bring his cocaine empire to justice. By 1989, Escobar was the seventh richest man in the world, wealthier than the entire state of Colombia. He was a husband, a father, and the most feared narco-terrorist in the world. But to the poor in his hometown of Medellin, he was kind of a hero. He built roads, houses, soccer fields, became almost a Colombian robin hood to a nation weary with a very unequal and violent political and legal system. Over the next few weeks, we'll take you deep

inside the murky world of the hunt for Escobar. Using accounts from members of the secret military units deployed to find him. We'll reveal how Colombian and American forces work together to track down the man who controlled a global cocaine empire. If this sounds good, we'll have to clip for you at the end of this episode. Welcome back, everybody. Now, I was devastated to miss the Thursday Murder Club premiere last week. Can you tell me all about it? How's it going? Yeah, Good. So the movie's out on Thursday on Netflix. We had the premiere last week because it opened in cinemas last week. And lots of people have said that it's interesting that thing about because originally wasn't going to be on in cinemas at all. And, you know, the reason for that is just if this is interesting to people. So I sold the rights to Amblin many, many years ago, 2020, before the book came out. And because, you know, I wanted it to be a movie. I thought that would be fun. And everything was sort of Sunday night TV shows at that time. and I thought a movie would be more fun. And when Spielberg came in is what I thought, well, that's definitely more fun.

And in the five years since the cinema industry, which wasn't in the best of shape, collapsed even further. So even halfway through the process, you know, Ambin is saying there might come a point where we have to take this to a streamer rather than to a theatrical release. How would that be with you? And the point is that it doesn't matter what I say because they got the rights, but they're always very polite and they say, and I say, look, I, you know, I get it. You know, I've got Netflix.

Now, when it comes to the film actually being made and Chris Columbus comes on board and Helen Mirren says she wants to do it and Ben Kingsley wants to do it, that suddenly becomes an expensive movie. So this movie is probably, don't quote me, 60 million, something like that, which seems insane to me, but there it is. That's the price of it. There was not a single theatrical studio who would fund that. They could maybe do half of that. Netflix funded it. okay Netflix funded it because you know they've been incredibly successful in content over the years

and so when Netflix fund it that's it it's the next Netflix show and their business model is stuff stays on Netflix so it's not going to be in the cinemas at all then there was a huge outcry in the UK anyway saying how is this not in cinema so they said all right well we'll we'll release it for a week

and so we said okay we're going to release it for a week and then everyone's like why is this on so few cinemas and I think the truth is because you don't go to the cinema Yeah, the short answer is because you don't go to the cinema. Because if you went to the cinema, cinema would be able to pay this budget, which would have been a completely normal budget for a cinema movie 10 years ago, but now it seems to be beyond the reach of the traditional movie industry.

But yeah, so it opened in cinemas last week. It's not in a huge amount, but it's like, God bless them, they've taken advantage of the fact there's not many cinemas. The one I looked at the other day, it's got 11 screenings a day. Yeah, you can see places like every man picture house, all those great independent which is lovely and which you know

you're a fan of all of that but I would say thank you to Netflix because they didn't need to do that at all that is not in their interest financially or otherwise to have that opening in any cinemas at all.

This is another about 12 items in general about what they're doing in terms of theatrical release because when they first started pre-pandemic let's say as you say before to collapse and they were working with people like Alfonso Quaron or with Scorsese

so the Irishman Roma These films were so expensive. They really needed to make it back at the box office in the theatres where they put them and they didn't. And so Netflix are no longer in the business of making those kind of movies. And they do do smaller little art house things or whatever, you know, stuff like Amelia Perez or whatever, stuff like that. But those are not expensive to make. They get a lot of buzz at awards season.

So it's kind of worth it. But in terms of big expensive things and then putting them in the theatres, there are very few. And the main one they're doing that's coming up, which everyone's saying, well, if she has it, why can't I? It's Greta Gerwig's Narnia movie. If she's doing it, and they are putting that in cinemas, and then there'll be a lot of IMAX and it will make money back on those sorts of things. But I think it's so interesting what this last week, I mean, it's funny that your movie is out this week when I'm looking at the box office. And number one at the box office is the K-pop Demon Hunters, two-day events, sing-along version, okay? So that is number one.

And that was a Netflix movie, which was never going to go anywhere near a cinema. It was just a punt from Netflix. I don't think they had enormously high hopes for it. They just thought it was a fun bit of content. It has gone so nuts. They are now putting on the sing-along version onto Netflix as well. They're going to do that. It's already, I think it must have even by now.

Last time I looked it hadn't overtaken their biggest, which is red notice. But I think it will now have overtaken red notice. But also, what is very significant is, That is Netflix's first ever number one at the box office. They don't release their box office figures, Netflix. So lots of this is on guest work, but simply on what people know about their theatre receipts. And it's not even on lots of theatres.

It's not on the biggest release. It's bigger than like Beyonce's concert film. So sort of like weird properties that are... But it's, yeah, we live in a sort of very unusual world where cinema releases come about. And Thursday Metal Cup has been very, very confusing for an awful lot of people, I think. But the base level is, it is Netflix exclusive,

but they let us play it for it. In fact, and all those Everyman's have now extended it as well. Yes, I saw that. So it's going to be playing for a while in those cinemas. But no, the... My dream, you see, Richard, is that it has its life as this movie franchise. But then the rights return to you. And each novel becomes a Sunday evening BBC show that's played,

where it's played out very slowly. And that is my dream, Richard. I've spent a bit more time over it. Yeah, listen, a movie is much shorter. The premiere, I have to say, was wonderful. They put those things together. so brilliantly. And the whole cast has been here for the whole week doing, you know, when you sign a thing that says, I'll give you a week's worth of publicity or whatever. So we did

an amazing event for libraries around the country. I saw that. On Tuesday, it was such fun. We did it at the British Library, but libraries all around the country were, we're phoning in. So I didn't do a lot of publicity for the film because it's not my film. I write the books. But that one, when they said, look, it's going to go free to libraries. I thought, well, that's a lot of fun because, you know, and Chris Columbus was there and the rest of the cast. And then the premiere Yeah, it was amazing. Yeah, because they didn't invite any celebrities. It was just the cast and fans, which was really, really...

Fortunately, there are so many celebrities, the mega celebrities in the cast. There were quite a few celebs in there. But you sort of get taken in and then, you know, you do a huge loop of interviews and everyone's doing interviews with the same people. And all your kind of friends and family are already in the cinema and they're watching the whole thing on a big screen. Do you know what? Well, you know when people always say, I'm a thrill.

When you see your name on the credits of a TV show, you see your name on the front cover of a book. And I've always tried to feel that thrill. I've never quite felt it. There's lots of thrills, but that I haven't. Weirdly sitting in that cinema and just watching the end thing, the film just saying based on the book by. But this is tangentially related to your thing

where if someone happens to be watching pointless on a TV drama, it's so much of a bigger deal than like you're doing pointless or whatever it was, you know, or something like that or House of Games or whatever it may be. It's so much bigger of a deal if you see someone doing that. funny week for me in lots of ways because when the books come out, I'm very, very nervous because I'm very, you know, I'm proud of them. They come from my head and from my heart and I throw everything behind it. This, because it's not my film, I'm obviously involved, but I was thinking the other day, this film is like having a grandchild rather than a child,

that I'm just, all I get is bonus from this. I can even even... And you can always give it back at the end of the day. I mean, I can even read the reviews. I never read the reviews of anything, but this, because it's not mine, I can just read them and go, oh, that's interesting, because I know that with a film that they don't matter. So, but if it's my book, I still wouldn't be able to read them. But with the film, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is, this is interesting and I can look at the numbers and what have you. It's a rare example of having something out there in the market and not having any nerves at all. It's just all it is is upside.

All it is having the whole family came along. Mine and Ingrid's family all came along to the premiere. That was really, really lovely. They all got to, you know, hang out with Celia and Dame Helen and Pierce Brosnan and afterwards, and, you know, that's an awful lot of fun. The whole thing is just fun for me. never experienced that before because I get so nervous when a new show comes out or a new book comes out or anything like this. Whereas this is just like I sort of feel like I'm visiting someone else's circus, but I've got a free ticket. It looks so fun. I was so sorry not to be there. The pictures

look brilliant. Poor David Tennant who when Spielberg came down to set, he was stuck in a, he was shooting him driving a car so he couldn't come and meet Spielberg. And he's filming rivals at the moment and they tried everything to get him up to the premier and um he couldn't make it and Spielberg made another surprise appearance at the premiere so tenant missed him again the third time will be a charm oh won't it just he'll just be the lead in the new spilberg movie a few people i want to say hello to tom ellis who uh it's weird so tom ellis over here we still sort of know from miranda yeah and in the states he's like one of the biggest stars in the world because he's in lucifer and he's in a new dick wolf thing he's the only person in the world has ever come up to me and said

you know when you talked about Anora and the Oscars and how the Oscars loved Anora and you said the world had gone a Nora Batty he said I just have to give you so much respect for that pun I think I even said at the time there'll be three people in the world who like that pun. I'm very glad that Tom Ellis. I'm very glad that Tom Ellis is one.

I have to say hello to Henry Lloyd Hughes who plays Bogdan because last time I talked about and I called him Henry Hughes Hallett because I was reading a book by Lucy Hughes Hallett at the time and he said that's okay but off the back of this film Spielberg was set in the edit saw him in this film and has just cast him

his next big movie as well so that's nice on but really i've had a really lovely week i'm looking forward to seeing how the film does but it's like a grandchild rather than a child and it's lovely lots of people getting in touch saying they've seen in the cinema already but yeah starts on netflix on thursday who knows how it will do but as i say it's the um the next book is a thing i'm always concentrating on but i did just seeing you know based on the book by that was that was a nice a very very nice moment but i listen i hope people in enjoy the movie but it's so much icing yeah and of course this Thursday's Q&A is a special with Chris Columbus it is yes yes Chris came in last week and um all of our listeners had sent questions in

and I asked those questions of Chris it's really really good fun you sadly were not with us but that's okay I can't believe it was away um but yeah we talk about home alone we talk about potter we talk about mrs doubtfire a little bit about um Thursday murder club as well but he's such a charming funny interesting man so I hope people will will really enjoy that. By the way, I know I said there were no celebrities at the premiere, but there was one because there was a celebrity who was invited by Sir Ben Kingsley. So all the kind of friends and family go into the cinema first. And they're there for like an hour and a half. There's a thousand seats of cinema. They're all sitting there. So my family

here and in the row in front of them, John Major. No way. Yeah. Sitting there very happily eating his popcorn, chatting away to people. God, you buried the lead in this item. I know, didn't I just? Yeah. He was sat next to Sir Ben. Oh, I'm screaming. This is incredible. I love it. He's looking good. I'll say that. Hasn't I used at all. No. I think he's just been that age now since the unblood. I think it's useful if you look old in your 40s. Shall we move on? To always on culture.

That's one of those things that has happened very gradually and very slowly, and perhaps people haven't noticed. But talk us through what that means. Well, I thought it was interesting. Last, you know, whenever it was that Taylor Swift introduced, she announced her new album, Life of a Show, which first of all, in the old day she had done it on like Good Morning America or one of those sorts of things, or even on a sort of Instagram post, I suppose, but in fact she did it on her boyfriend, Travis Kelsey's New Heights podcast,

which she does with his brother Jason, and always on Venture. And there was something about, which is mega, mega successful that podcast. That episode alone will probably become the most listened to podcast episode of all time. Until, and if they're listening, Shed 7, if you want to announce your new album on the rest of entertainment, you are very, very welcome. Most Warkham. And I thought it was sort of interesting that she is such a sort of always-on artist, as it were. Always on, this podcast is, and if you don't, I'm not familiar with the term, is called Always On.

It's here every week. We haven't missed, I think this is episode 180. We haven't missed a week. Can you believe it? Yeah, no. Yeah, I can believe that. I guess we can start talking about it in terms of music, because modern musicians are, in large part, not all, and there are some exceptions, sort of always on. And obviously Taylor Swift is the sort of apogee of this, as she is the apagy of many things.

And by the way, the counter to this would be, you know, if you think about in the 80s or something, you know, Duran Duran would release an album, then they might have a year off, then they come back, you know, and they do three singles at the same time, then they might have another year off. And in between the fans might get fan club things, but they're not constantly bombarding you with content or collaborations or here's a video we shot on our tour in Japan where we're, you know, trying Japanese sweets. thing of you're constantly giving content to your fan base and we can talk about why that is for instance she was on the era's tour when she got the grammy for midnight and in her acceptance speech for the grammy for midnight she said she announced the torture poets society her next album double albums turned out and there was a lot of backlash for that where people just said oh

you've overshadowed all the other winners by saying she was just like i just like making music and i'm going to keep doing it yeah exactly i mean that's you know the the the the the whole of culture is your playgrounds now in a way it didn't used to be. But release schedules have contracted absolutely massively, as you say, in the way that, you know, lots of artists put out two albums a year. There are also, as you say, there's like there's deluxe editions and like, you know, re-recordings or whatever it may be. And the whole idea of the album is part of the reason why the idea of an album has been

sort of degraded because studio albums used to be the absolute jewel of the music industry. They weren't when they started. They were kind of invented. Columbia Records in the 40s. And then in the 50s, people would constantly put out lots and lots of albums, you know, compilation. And they were doing lots of covers and things so, so on. But by the 70s, it's become the idea of it's like the pinnacle of artistic expression

and it really means so much. And so they came out necessarily far less often. And it was a big event. But you could have big events. And this is part of what it is. Now we have this atomized culture where there's lots of sort of subcultures and there's streaming. and their social media, you have to stay visible on the streaming platforms.

So you have to keep putting new stuff out. Obviously, I should say there are exceptions to this rule. I mean, part of the reason I thought about talking about this week was because everyone's like, oh my God, Harry Stars isn't going to put out a new album maybe till the year after next. It's like, okay, well, you know, that used to be quite normal. And they're like, oh, but they've had to really push it even further than they'd like to because they want him to headline Glastonbury that year and, you know. Oh, really?

Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, which would be fun. And obviously someone like Adele, who has famously not. and suddenly it comes out and it's this huge event and whatever. But these are Adele and Harry Stiles. If you're not Adela and Harry Stiles and so few of us are. Who is? Neither of us, for example. Neither of us being two examples.

They feel like they have to constantly put stuff out and less established artists really rely on frequency. So as a result, albums are much less valued than frequent singles. And they're almost trying to release singles like episodes of a hit TV show in days of not all that you're where you're trying to do one a week over a course of 10 weeks. And it's interesting in that way because in the old days, you know, an album every five years would make you a fortune because that's how you made money. And you would tour to support the album, but the tour would lose you money and the album would make you money. Now the thing is,

the touring is what makes you money. And so you want to be touring all the time. And if you want to be touring all the time, you need to be in the news all the time. And that means you release records all the time and you know it might not have got anywhere near the charts but you know the fan base know you're releasing records the fan base is constantly engaged with what you're doing and then you can play a hundred shows a year and that's how you make all of your money but you have to be permanently on it can't be like the stone roses and you know five years between albums but you can't also be off at all in any format so you must be on in social media you must be on on all the different platforms this is you know chapel around when she was stood up at the grammies said we talked about burnout and

all of these sorts of things. And there is a real sort of grind set culture, which is not very artistic, right? I get it. In the old days, you know, artists could only be persuaded into the studio when the muse was got, or whatever it is. And now it's like, you need to do this many things for socials a day, whatever. This always used to happen with people who are in boy bands or girl bands

where in some ways people thought the music wasn't classy or wasn't this kind of pinnacle of artistic expression or whatever we're talking about, by the way, I love pop music, so I don't mean that as a judgment. But it was sort of regarded as that, that was. was graft. You went out and you worked seven days a week and they pumped you with vitamins and other things even worse. And after three years, we move on to the next. Yeah, and we move on to the next thing. But it's interesting to widen it to other bits of culture. I've talked a bit about that podcast, Jason Travis Kelsey's New Heights podcast, which is huge. Because Amazon shuddered

their Wondery section very recently, just recently. Now, they bought that for four years ago for 300 million. That was their podcast company, right? That was their narrative. Port-Cross company. And that's interesting because everyone's like, the one thing I can tell you that there isn't is there's not a contraction in the podcast industry. But narrative podcasts, which I suppose the first enormous and amazing one

that everyone talked about was serial. That sort of serial era has passed. And it's very interesting what the new podcast, they are always on. They are consumed primarily through, not exclusively, but a lot through video. even if people just listen to them but they're consuming

via YouTube and their talk shows effectively they are talk shows we are on a talk show now as it were but they must be always on and that's the interesting thing that those ideas of those kind of sees a season where you'll follow something in a eight part this is the economics of that are not judged

as being worth it enough to something like Amazon which is obviously a huge company it is reflected everywhere the kind of always onness of things because I thought in a way I don't want to say it had him first in it certainly happened to the news cycle, the idea that there would be a much more leisurely one day, news cycle, as we've talked about on this podcast before, that has completely gone.

Things are happening all the time, day, night. Gaming, I mean, those live service games are, I mean, as someone who lived through Saturdays grow a garden update, and I've now have my children talking to me about effectively inflated. The game has been ruined, apparently, ruined. Oh, no, that's a shame. Fertilizer. Mind you, that doesn't ruin it.

It's one of the feet. Yeah, the garden is the only thing that fertilized. are actually improved. Yeah, well, they're now talking to be about inflation because everyone's been made, it's, I think Grower Garden might have entered it's Fymar Germany phase. But it's, yeah, it's all very complicated.

But those games, like Fortnite, everything that has to be updated all the time. Books is a fascinating one. So, you know, when I, you know, sign my first deal, I said, look, I want to do a book a year. And because I come from TV and I come from, you know, constantly, if people like something, they want to see the next episode, then it's episode.

Now, in my view, you can't do more than a book, a book a year is about as quick as I can go. But I was at Lee Child. What did they say? Oh, Lee Child. Lee Child always did a book a year. So I thought if Lee Child can do a book a year, I can do. The publisher was like, yeah, you know, that's nice.

And my agent said 100% because other people come along. So I thought I'd do one a year. But since then, well, like one a year starts to look tardy. So the really massive thing that's happened in books recently, so the two biggest selling authors in the world, Kaleen Hoover and Friedem McFadden. So do anyone who thinks you have to be a celebrity to write books, these people both self-published and Freedom McFadden I suspect made about

$80 million last year so it's you know that's the route through but in the last five years Freedom McFadden has bought out 19 books no way yeah some of which were books she had written previous to these few years in here because she'd self-published for a while

but she knocks out a book every kind of three months new ones come out so the housemaid is a huge book which they're making a movie off at the moment the X was a big book as well fans who are called Mick Fans every three months they get a new book

all the time the plots have similarities to them but all the time there are new things coming out Kaleen Hoover as well has had 23 books

in the last 13 years now this is I was about to say how can you be a slouch but it turns out yeah I am a slouch Richard yeah exactly

but you constantly need to be feeding the beast these days as you say we're so siloed and you know we all exist within fandums and the one thing of fandom wants is to constantly be fed.

The parasocial relationship needs to be fed. Influencer culture is a daily prime storming siege. So someone like James Patterson is interested because James Patterson,

you know, the great thriller writer. Now he doesn't write his own books and he's very open about that. I mean, he does write some of them, but you know, he'll write with collaborators.

You know, he's done the Bill Clinton collaborations, Dolly Parton and stuff like that. Now, this decade, which is what, five years old, 56 novels.

have been released with James Patterson's name on this decade, plus 17 for children. So that is what, 73 books he's released in the last five years. Because there's the fandom. Was it, Enid Brighton always on? Because she did about 700. Agatha Christie often did to a year. You know, the book industry is very, very interesting because economically, you can't get paid to do one book every three years.

You know, maybe if you're Donna Tart or Sandy Rooney or someone like that, there are ways and means of doing it. But you just can't do that anymore. And the fact that the two bestselling authors in the world, Freedom McFadden and Kaleen Hoover, are both bringing out multiple books every year and have kind of online fandums and all this kind of stuff. Every single creative endeavor now is the grind.

If you are a brand in and of yourself, then your constant job from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep is to take care of that brand and to feed the furnace. And if you think of even things like fashion in the old days, you know, there would be seasons and things would be in the shops a long time. And now, because of fast fashion, new things all the time, often related to the algorithmic fashion as they're starting to call it. It seems that the whole of culture, which used to be episodic, has now become continuous. There's no sort of seasonal appointment-based viewing or consumption.

it is now much more fragmented and the subcultures are constantly evolving and must be constantly fed all the time. Certainly in the creator economy which very soon will be all the creative economy is. It is always on and if you just take that phrase

and just over the next couple of weeks just look at the content that you're consuming you see it literally everywhere. The first time it really came home to me that always on thing because weirdly a very early version of Always On are daily quiz shows. Yes.

So when we were doing Pointless, it was on every single day. And that elevates you very, very quickly into the public consciousness, you know, and gives people a loyalty very, very, very quickly. So I was very, very aware of how effective that was. You become part of a daily routine. That's the difference. That's the absolute key. And so we started at roughly the same time as the Chase.

And we were on at the same time of day, sort of five o'clockish. And for the first, I want to say, five years, pointless would outrate the Chase. And the Chase was doing well, by the chase. way, but point this had its nose in front for about five years. And then we got to the stage where Kevin Liga at ITV said, I'm going to not show any repeats of the chase. All I'm going to do is do new chase all the time. So suddenly they were doing 250 new shows a year and we were doing 125 or something like that because the BBC couldn't afford to do 250. And within six months, the chase got its nose in front and now is the biggest franchise in television. And just because

Kevin understood very early on. This thing of always on, it doesn't really count if it's a repeat. You know, you've constantly got to be feeding the beast all the time every single day. Kevin Lago was a very early adopter and Bradley Walsh of always on culture. Yeah, the burnout is going to be crazy for people, I think, because it's a lot. You know, if you're Freedom McFadden, I mean, that's a lot of books coming out all the time. And fascinating to see what her schedule will be over the next few years because they've run out of back catalogue things for Freedom McFadden, but, you know, the fans have not run out of wanting

one book every three months. You know, in some ways, when you look at something like what Ryan Murphy has done in television, where he has so many different shows on at any one time, and he's a sort of presiding intelligence or he'll issue instructions, whether you just become almost a studio. Which is what James Patterson. Yeah, which is what, clearly what James Preston's done. Yeah, I know, I absolutely get it. But I mean, Freedom at Fadden as well, she has got a job. as well. She's a doctor treating brain disorders in the US. So she's got a day job. She does it less these days. You're so right. You are so lazy. I have never, I've never applied this work to you. I really am. I think her first book was called The Devil We're Scrubs in 2013. She did it. She said,

it's a hobbyist, maybe a thousand people who buy it. And yeah, now she's the best selling author in the world. I'm exhausted just talking about it. Always on. Always on. Should we go off? Should we go off? But we'll be back on Thursday with Amazing Chris Columbus. Although actually, just me. Yeah. So I'm always on. I'm sometimes off.

No. Yeah, you're a occasion. Come on. It's just. Yeah, no, I get it. It's a one off to do with the schedule. I'm very, very sorry. And on Friday, we've got for our bonus episode,

deep dive into the history of charity singles, which is funny. There's some great stories there as well. All right, then. If you want to join our club, you can join at the rest of entertainment.com. Be lovely to have you. But for everybody else, we'll keep churning out the always-on things, because we love it. And this, you know, this, by the way, I was absolutely fascinated by everything you told us about the Noel Clark investigation. I really, no, I thought that was incredible.

So that's, thank you for filling us all in on that. And I hope that there is some insight in my Chris Columbus interview on Thursday as well. That most certainly is. All right, everybody. See you on Thursday. See you on Thursday. This episode was brought to you by our good friends at Sky, who've made something rather special.

Yep, a TV and a smarter one at that called Sky Glass. No box, no dish, no cables, creating abstract modern art on the wall, just one sleek screen that does it all. It adapts to what you're watching to, a Spanish villa in the Day of the Jackal, a jungle paradise in a nature documentary, or poolside in the White Lotus, the crystal clear picture quality will make you feel like you're right there,

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Here's that clip we mentioned earlier. Victory over drugs is our cause, a just cause. And with your help, we are going to win. Pablo Escobar, the head of the Medellan drug cartel. The world's 14th, which is man. He was, in many ways, a terrorist. This is an economic power concentrated in a few hands and in criminal minds. What they cannot obtain by black men.

They get by murder. And I don't think he expressed any regret at all. He tries to portray himself as a man of the people, this kind of like leftist revolutionary outlaw. Nearly everyone in Medellin supports the traffickers, those who don't are either dead or targets. If you declare war, you've got to expect the state to respond. This is the moment where he goes too far.

13 bombs are drawn off to Medellin since the weekend. By the end of 87, Qatar is essentially a war zone. U.S. spending for international anti-drug efforts is going to grow from less than $300 million in 1989 to more than $700 million by 1991. It is the certain knowledge that no one is really safe in Colombia from drug cartel assassins. It's a conflict where the goal wasn't even to stop, the flow of cocaine. It was to bring down this, this narco-terrorist. Everything has turned against him off to this point. The whole thing he was building is collapsing. To hear the full episode, listen to the rest is classified wherever you get your podcasts.

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