The Ricochet Podcast - Cast Iron Skillets and A World In Flames

Episode Date: December 15, 2018

This week, the finer points of cast iron skillets, Yorkshire pudding, and oh, yes, the burgeoning French revolution, courtesy of Claire Berlinski in Paris, the state of Brexit with Toby Young in London, and the demise of the Weekly Standard in Washington D.C. with our hosts, who have been reading it from day one. Music from this week’s podcast: Murder By Numbers by The Police... Source

I don't understand how to turn off the stupid camera, but I don't. We've done this for years. Why am I having all my technical problems? We have special news for you. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Are you going to send me or anybody that I know to a camp? We have people that are stupid. I did not do it to embarrass the president. He knows the truth.

I know the truth. Many people know the truth. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lilex, and today we talk to Claire Berlinski about Le Paris and Toby Young about Brexit. Let's have ourselves a podcast. Bye-bye.

Hello and welcome to the Ricochet Podcast. This is number 428. Bye-bye. Palo Alto, California. Peter, how are you? I'm fine, and I smell something from here, Rob. You're cooking something delicious. What is it? I have people coming over, so I'm doing what I would call this Christmas menu. What the hell? We're going to start with something rich and fatty, and then we're going to have a giant standing rib roast

with some vegetables and a little pudding. And then I'm going to... Yeah, and I was going to make something like light for dessert, and then I'm like, give me a break. So I got this beautiful French cheese called the Vacheron,

which is kind of creamy, and you slice it over the top, comes in a round kind of box, straw box, and then you scoop parts of it, and you put it on fruit bread, like I have this one stolen, and then you can maybe put a little jam on it. And it's a perfectly delicious dessert. Oh my goodness. And then, you know, then the defibrillators will come in handy later on, but it's Christmas time. May I ask a practical question? You keep claiming, I have to say I've been dubious about this since you first made the claims, but you keep claiming that you're

living in a very small, very modest apartment. Yes. How big is your oven that you can do a big rack roast and a Yorkshire pudding? You have to bake them at the same time, don't you? No, no, no, no, no. Because the roast comes out and it's going to rest for half an hour, at which time you just basically lift it out of the giant cast iron skillet that I cook it in, and then you just pour the Yorkshire pudding batter right into the hot sizzling pan in the same pan you cooked the roast beef. So it's got all that delicious. Okay. One more question.

And then we'll find out in the comments section, whether our listeners really would like you to do a cooking show. I've always wanted you to, you're a cast iron man. Oh God. Yeah. Oh, you are.

But doesn't it take five hours of soaking and scrubbing with sea salt? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. The great thing about cast iron is you don't really have to clean it. You just kind of wipe it out and make sure there's no food in it. And then you don't want to ever use hot water. So if you don't scrub it, you just kind of like get the stuff out of it. And then you put some – you heat the oven up again to 500, put some oil in the pan, and then stick it right back in the oven. It seals up, and it's basically nonstick.

I mean at a certain point, in a couple of years, it's a nonstick pan. Wow. And it's American-made. Lodge. Lodge. Okay. So when we launch your cooking show, which I now am convinced we should do, you're going to have to entertain – there has to be a question period. And I'm going to ask the question so i have been wrong to keep buying my wife all of these excuse

me i just said a sexist thing but that's the way our family works and she will use a pan until it's dented kids knock it on the comes dented, the cover doesn't fit anymore, and she will use it until the Teflon, the nonstick properties are the most distant memory. So I buy another one exactly like that. And we should have been using the old-fashioned cast iron skillet like the kind my mother and grandmother cooked with all along. The truth is that – but if you treat it right, it doesn't start like nonstick. It just becomes nonstick. But the other thing is the nonstick pans, people who spend money on a nonstick pan, it doesn't really matter. You should never spend – you should put the cheapest nonstick pan you can find, in other words.

Because you're going to scratch it up. It's going to get the nonstick stuff. So you're going to throw it out anyway. So why spend a lot of money on them and a great cast iron skill if you have you put it in three different sizes grace cat you know it's good what is it 40 bucks 50 bucks and it literally lasts forever you it's an heirloom like your your grandmother's cast iron uh skillet should still be in your life put it that way well i can tell you that my mother cooked with her mother's cast

errands skillet but that was i always thought that was simply because we were people of extremely modest means when i was a little kid but how okay i find this absolutely fascinating well you you're aristocrats the world is burning the world is burning the president is two steps from being indicted paris is aflame. The British prime minister is facing a vote of no confidence. He'll be turfed out in minutes. And we're talking about cast iron skillets. Well, it's Christmas. Actually, I do find this fascinating. Yeah, it's good. We do a little bit of the obligatory pre-show talk. We have to talk about what's in the news.

So we should say first that James is not with us today. So I'll have to interrupt myself. But I did see him. I did spend a week with him on the National Review. How did the cruise go? It's very interesting. I think it was a good cruise. I mean, it's good. It's good because the NRA are great people, very smart, a lot of of smart people speaking and very, very smart people on the cruise talking around the tables.

And I got to see some old friends of mine, some great old ricochet friends. And that is always a good thing. Okay, terrific. But let me ask the pointed question. I recall you're coming back from a cruise. It was either just before or just after the election of 2016. So this is two years ago. And let's be candid.

There were tensions as the NR's readers, broadly speaking, correct me if I've got this wrong, but broadly speaking, NR's readers were much more pro-Trump than NR's editors and writers. And as I, my layman that I am, obviously I subscribe, but I'm not as close to NR as you are. I didn't just come from a cruise. NR, I believe has made pain, taken pains in recent, almost immediately after the election to try to present both sides of that divide within conservative America, pro-Trump and anti-Trump. And how and how did that go? Are there still tensions? Go ahead. I think there are always going to be tensions on this one because everyone's talking past each other. I mean the idea that you didn't want Trump to be president of the United States is sort of irrelevant at this point because he's president of the United States.

And if your job is to sort of comment and analyze the actions of the president of the United States, you have to do that. I think where we run into trouble on both sides is when NR is seen as what they should be doing is putting the best possible gloss on the current political situation and certainly the current political outlook for conservatives. Yes. And I think there are a lot of people who are, who made their peace with Trump, who don't really know whether they liked him to start with, whether he was their guy or not. They made their peace with him. Yes. I voted. I had to vote. I made a choice. It wasn't like he wasn't my guy, but that's what most people are. And there's lots of stuff he's doing I hate, and there's lots of stuff he's doing that I like, and that's that.

And I think it's the sensitivity of the fact that Trump as a person of character is so low. I mean even if you support him politically, he fulfills none of the definitions of good character. That it feels sometimes to people who are making their peace with him that they are being shamed or being asked to apologize. And they just don't want to do that. And I think it's legitimate. At the same time, I think it's a feeling of people who write for a living about this stuff that they're being told, why don't you just get on board? Why do you have to keep talking about it? Why can't you talk about how bad Hillary is as if somehow they're supposed to carry water for this person's president, this administration? And so it is a grim – I think these are grim days I think for all conservative media. We'll talk about it soon.

I think there's a big sore coming. And my only argument to the people who I know supported Trump – and these are NR readers and they are very, very, very, very, very smart, and they are successful people. They have succeeded in life. They can afford to go on a fancy cruise. They are very, very, very thoughtful. And my question to them was really more along the lines of what about what is happening in the conservative movement and conservative politics do you find cheering?

Oh, that's a very good question. And what were the kinds of answers that came up? Always the same. There's only one. Judges. Oh, I see. I see. And then also, to be fair, the philosophical idea that we are talking about issues that

we were never allowed to talk about before, like immigration. And I think that's true. But in any case, what people are sort of concerned about, I think they're legitimately concerned about, is the stuff that happened this week, which is Michael Cohen, the president's former lawyer, going to the big house for three years.

Right. He gets sentenced to three years in prison, even after cooperating with Mueller's probe. And he goes away. And he says that, so there's been a lot, I actually did get interested in this. For some reason, it kind of coincided with my having a little time on my hands, a little extra time. I mean, 45 minutes here and half an hour there. So I tried reading up on this. This one I wanted to understand. And Cohen made payments to not one but two of Donald Trump's paramours, mistresses, I don't know what the word is, but you get the idea, and now claims that Donald Trump directed

him to do so, and that the intention behind Donald Trump's doing so was purely related to the campaign. That is to say he wanted to shut up these two women to improve his chances of winning the election. Okay. Donald Trump, again, I'm summarizing here, then I want to know what you make of it all. Donald Trump is not reliable on this matter because his position just some relatively small number of weeks ago was, what? I never knew about any payments. You'd have to ask Michael Cohen about that. If he did anything like that, he'd sit entirely on his own. Now Trump has admitted that he was aware of the payments because the cash, he was writing checks for it. The question now, I believe the legal question is pretty straightforward.

Can it be argued that these payoffs, which undoubtedly did take place and of which the president was undoubtedly aware, that seems to be established. Can it be demonstrated that these payments were for purely, and I believe that is the legal standard, for purely electoral reasons, because as I understand it, and I take as my authority in this, in almost all legal matters, Ricochet's own John Yoo, professor at Berkeley Law School, the way the law is written, and bear in mind, of course, that the law was enacted by working politicians, they gave themselves lots of outs here, that if there is a double purpose, if anything, if a payment could be construed in any way for a purpose other than a campaign,

personal purposes, avoid embarrassment, then it does not qualify as a campaign expenditure, and there's no legal liability involved. Okay, correct summary as far as you know? I think that's absolutely right. I mean, I think two things are worth noting. I mean trying to think of what's ever not happened. During an independent counsel investigation, they're set to investigate X, and along the line, they discover Y and Z and a bunch of other things that are completely ancillary. Paul Manafort is in prison because of stuff that they found out he did when they were investigating him for something else. And Michael Cohen is in prison because they found out of stuff that he did when they were investigating Russia collusion or whatever it is. So all of this is – I mean it's like that's one of the problems with these investigations is,

man, they're going to get you for something. And then the second thing I would say about the FEC rules and election contributions is one of the reasons why it's these things have to be. So they have to be so strict with the definition is because people pay people off for this stuff all the time, all the time. And the question is, you have to ask yourself, would Donald Trump have done that anyway? And it's hard to despite the fact that, yes, of course, he's an unembarrassable figure and he has no personal shame at all, he seems like the pure definition of the lizard brain marching down the street, it is probably inconceivable to me to think that he wouldn't pay this person off anyway. That he, as the host of The Apprentice wouldn't have done it, too. Yes. So that's my.

And who knows? We may discover. Good Lord. Rudy Giuliani may be telling the president right now, Donald, look, we know you've paid off 20 people over the last quarter century. Make them all public. Let everybody know this is your standard operating. I mean this – it's – even a month or two ago when I thought we all had the measure of Donald Trump, I would have been surprised to have been told that a month later our news would be utterly dominated by matters as squalid and tawdry as this. And you know what? It may get squalid.

It may get squalid or before we're done it's actually it's a it's a very very smart political position or political strategy for the democrats to take is to stretch and delay and stretch and delay and make it look like this guy the minute he steps out of the minute the next president is sworn in donald trump's going to walk out of the oval office and they're going to be uh u.s marshals there uh to clap the cuffs on him like that to make it to to hobble him as a president not just not to impeach him not to do any of that stuff but just to hobble him and bring him down and they they seem to be doing a good job of that the thing about donald trump is he has no poker face he's got no chill so it's easy to push him around it's easy to get him get him to explode it's easy and a third of the time he explodes, and America says, good for you.

And a third of the time he explodes, and America says, you know, he loses 10 more points in approval. And then a third of the time it's anybody's guess. So it's a very good strategy for the Democrats because they have a very – in one way, Donald Trump is very predictable. You can always get his goat. Well, it is a good strategy, but on the other hand – Oh, it's you! James is here! strategy, but on the other hand, the idea of two years of impeachment hearings in the House dragging down the business of the nation is not going to play well outside of their base. And I think a lot of people want that.

What a lot of people want is a good cold beer when they face the prospect of what's to come, whether or not you're on the right or the left. I'm not even going to interrupt this segue, James, because we're so happy that you came. Hey, Rob, how you doing? Hey, Rob, remember, like we said on the ship, hot ash on Thursday. I'm sorry, Peter, that was a little private joke we had there. I don't mean to.

But I was talking beer. And if you're on a ship, you're going to want beer, and it's going to be your basic beer, and it's going to be ridiculously expensive. But you'll have it because you want it you'll have it because you want it and it's cold and it's beautiful and everybody loves a crisp beer at home it's a different situation i mean at home you have access to 10 542 beers that you find at the store in the craft beer aisle but they're all in bottles aren't they they're all in cans aren't they you know that the best beer you can possibly get comes out of a tap, straight from the tap. Oh, and that brings us to Hopsi. Hopsi brings beer to tap to the comfort of your own home, without the price tag that many beer drinkers have come to expect. I mean, you think, what,

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Like in France, which is having its own fits, which naturally leads us to talk to Claire. Claire Berlinski, beloved former Ricochet editor, Manhattan Institute scholar, Thatcher biographer, and as I'm told to say, the least qualified martial arts expert on the internet, but of course that may be in dispute. Follow her on Twitter, and we have been following you and reading what you've been writing about the Yellow Jackets and the

rest. It's quite a story. A lot of people are phrasing this as the riots have to do with green policy, that had started. This is a rejection of the middle class and the underclass of Macron's top-down elitist carbon policies, but it's far more complex. If somebody said, really, what is this about? Your short answer and then your long answer, perhaps, would be what? There is both a short answer and a really long answer.

These are peasant riots, the kind that Francis experiences in the mid-14th century. They're really a long tradition here. Do you know what the Gabel is? The Gabel? The part of the Jewish... The Gabel, G-A-B-E-L-L-E. No. It was the salt levy that was levied on the peasants here from mid-14th century to the revolution. Revolution was in part responsible.

So there's a long, long tradition of taxing commodities and taxes. Did Necker get rid of that or am I wrong? Necker didn't fix anything. Okay. Necker get rid of that, or am I wrong? Necker didn't fix anything. So there really is, and I was asking myself about this this morning, I was asking, do they know that this is what they're supposed to do? Or is there something that's passed on in the culture unconsciously, and so how, or is it taught in school? Because they are recapitulating patterns. There hasn't been a real salt riot here since, I think, 1848, or a salt-like riot since 18ximate cause because it started taking off at about the time that a long scheduled small increase in the price of diesel, which was planned years and years ago.

It was an annual tax that went up slightly. But I think people made much, much too much of that. It wasn't about that. There was a whole slew of things over the last few years that really bugged drivers, among them the rise in the speed limit and speed cameras, speed traps, all this effort to get French people to drive like normal sane people. Anyone who's driven in rural France knows it's not a joke. You're really taking your life in your hands, right? Rob, you've been there, haven't you? Yes, I have. knows it's not a joke you're really taking your life in your hands right if rob you've been there haven't you oh yes i have i have i have and you're right life in my hands is the nicest way to put it yeah um so when i went out and talked to james jones i was trying to introduce the idea that maybe you know there might be some benefits in terms of longevity and fewer body parts across

the across the road see if you slow down just a little bit. They thought that was just a huge scam. They thought that, uh, uh, just a way of, of putting the squeeze on them. And there was absolutely no connection between slower driving and lower

casualties. And that was all just a big fraud. Um, it's kind of hard to know what to say. I mean, I, I, I do feel, i did feel when i was speaking to them i was speaking to a part of france it's not doing well and it's just it's visible they're

obviously poorer than people are in the city um they're not as well dressed they look older um wearier but some of the demands they've got are just not demands that can be indulged in 21st century. You know, they really, we really can't say anything rational to people who want to both see taxes go down and state expenses go up. Doesn't make any sense.

Hey Claire, it's Rob here in New York. So, so when we hear this, you know, and cause we're Americans and we see everything in the prism of American politics, when the riots started happening and it seemed like it was about taxes or about government regulation, there were a lot of conservatives here who thought, well, of course. That was only natural. Finally, the French have woken up to this regulatory state they have and to the absolute stifling

of entrepreneurial activity that they have. What took them so long? And then the demands came out that were like, well, the demands are really for a more dirigiste, more socialist state in a way. And then it seemed like the American left said, well, you know, good for them. They should be arguing for that. That's a sign that the socialist heart of Europe is still beating. So whose side are they on after all?

Who do I cheer for in this thing? They're on every side. What you cheer for is a little bit of peace and quiet for the cops. Yeah. Because they've really been taking the beating. And just for everyone in France. The violence is doing no one any good. It's not doing the economy any good.

Everyone's going to be poor because of it. It's really a miracle no one's gotten killed so far. But if this keeps up, someone will. It's not of a kind that Americans can relate to. Americans are more like the British. The way Americans, conservatives especially, should look at this is this is what Thomas Paine was talking about when he said the French are just a little

too quick on the trigger here. It's really an element of the French character that I don't like. Even if it only happens once a century now, I don't think that these arguments should be settled on the street. They should be settled in parliament. So what happens now? Macron has apparently – he has slowed down or he has maybe repealed the gas tax, right?

So there's been a – the rioters can chalk up a win. But what happens after this? How do you build down out of this? And what happens – there's always – put it this way way there's always a sense when you go to paris paris is a beautiful beautiful city it's a city that completely works it's gorgeous the parks are clean it's well policed all sorts of things are great about paris but you you get a sense that the price of all this is paid by somebody and it's paid by the La France Profonde, you know, the big,

what we would call a flyover country or the heartland. They do seem to be supporting this city, this extravagant international, beautiful city. And, you know... I think Paris is supporting it. I think the problem is

the wealthy people all live in Paris. The tax base is in Paris. La France Profonde has just been forgotten, and it can't even afford to move to the cities. Its way of life is not appreciated by anyone anymore. These industries no longer exist anymore. It's a problem that no one knows how to fix, because at this point, even if they want to

move to the cities they can't afford to so you can't just say well get off your bike and go go where the jobs are right there they have no capital for that and they feel very much that they've been ignored and they feel encouraged in the use of the usage of violence because it did get people to pay attention to them they're saying look no one would have paid attention to this if we hadn't been violent and that's true if you'd asked me how how desperate are people who are living in these parts of france on a scale of one to ten before this started i would have said oh i don't know maybe five um no i'd say higher than that. I'd say eight or nine, no. Claire, Peter here.

Hi. Two questions. Here's the first one. As far as I can tell, for the first time in a decade or longer, nobody has said a thing about the Muslim population of France. The Ballyar are quiet, as far as I can tell. I'm putting this to you to tell me whether I'm right or wrong about this. There's no Muslim position.

There have not been imams taking positions one way or the other on this. This is an old France. Sorry, go ahead. I think they're thinking, please just keep us out of this. I mean, if Muslim people did what these rural white guys'd all be we'd all be in a deportation camp right okay so that's correct the second question is who gains qui bono who gains politically where's the front national as far as i can tell marine le pen has been silent so far no no she's she's been egging them on and so has men and she has yeah yeah yeah um and men and

they're both really urging them on hoping this will all fall in their lap and not thinking too clearly about what happens if it falls in the other one's lap um it's it's incredible incredible short-sightedness and and it's a word even lower than immaturity for it to encourage this is lack of vision because this could become so bloody and so horrible for France. I mean, it's on a tightrope right now because the cops haven't killed anyone and no one's

killed any cops. But it could become so much worse. And you see graffiti, for example, that says the people want to follow the regime. That was the chant at the beginning of the Syrian revolution. These people are playing with fire. What are they thinking?

Has there ever been a violent revolution in history that has ended up in something better? Right. Okay, and so you take it back. Sorry, James, one more question here. If you take it back to 1968, as far as I can tell, there was not as much violence in 1968, but lots of French, mostly youth, took to the streets.

And there are several days when the whole country is saying, where is de Gaulle? Where is de Gaulle? And then de Gaulle gives a broadcast and commands the moment. Of course, it's more complicated than this, but he commands the moment and essentially rallies the greater part of the nation behind him. And fundamentally, it's over. By which I mean to say the moment in the street is over. de Gaulle himself is mortally wounded politically. He's gone within a year, so on.

Nevertheless, the moment is over. But Macron has already spoken. There's no shoe to drop is there what what comes next macon may have been saved by that terrorist attack we're waiting to see what happens tomorrow but that sobered everyone certainly it reminded ordinary people who were very excited about this middle age 68 as they've been calling it um that the police have finite resources and there is a real threat and you can't have all 80 000 cops and that's really all there is 80 000 cops on the street doing counter-rioting work and also be able to keep up with all these fichesque people who really are a threat. So I think that did sour a lot of people on the idea of a week of rioting.

But no one knows. I mean, this is the position that I'm not sure any leader has ever been in before, is Macron managed to, I wouldn't say crush the unions, but he managed to convince the unions to stand down, that France had to try something different without the unions running the strike. And everyone was thinking this was Macron's moment of victory, someone had finally tamed the French unions. But what no one reckoned on was now there's an uprising, but no one to negotiate with.

Right. Claire, you mentioned the police. You know, when there was the Arab Spring, people would always say things like, well, the Egyptians love their army. The army is that one unsullied institution. And the police sometimes play that role in other countries. I saw a video of a protester, no context, but a guy in a wheelchair who was taken out of the road by the police and put in the mud where he couldn't move and then dumped out of his chair by the police. And I wondered, did this confirm or go against the way people feel about the police? What is the attitude of the average French people in Paris and in the countryside about the police? Here's the thing about the police. People, it goes long, long back, this sense of unease with the police hostility

because the police, the gendarmerie anyway, were Napoleon's instrument of imperial conquest. And they were the tool of the mission civilitrice. And remember, that started in France. People think colonialism is something that happened in North Africa. No, it started in France. Paris colonized all the areas that were thought were backward and uncivilized around Paris and made them more subordinate to Paris.

So the first, the main feeling that most people have about the police is that they're coming to colonize them, which they were, and to tax their salt. And then you have the police played a really nasty role in the occupation. The police were collaborators of the first highest order, and then they drowned 200 Algerian students in the Seine in the 1960s. So there's a lot of real historic wariness of the police, which is not deserved at this point. Police have been, they've been admirably professional. They have been coping for the last few years with incredible overwork

because they've had, at the same time time budget cuts since the 2008 crisis they've just been squeezed financially and asked to do more and more and more the refugee crisis and they've suddenly become border border control and they're dealing with an unknown percentage of france's muslim population which is radicalized and responding to isis and um the economic crisis made every rate of normal crime skyrocket as well and you get more petty crime you get more drugs it's just it's just a hard situation for the police to cope with under normal circumstances and then you add budget cuts and you add cuts to the size of the forces and they're exhausted and he started this on top of it they're on the verge of mutiny but but claire i mean i i guess i'm just i can't help but let's think of it from a see it all from an american perspective you just said no one has died yet and i you know i don't want to be callous

or anything but you know in in america if we have a riot people die no one has died yet what happened hey why not i mean the pictures i've, it seems impossible that everyone escaped. It's not true that no one has died. People have died in accidents and people have definitely died in accidents. No one has been shot by the police yet. No one's been shot by the police yet. So there's been no clash. So it's the French police that, and from my own observations when I'm there, they seem incredibly professional. And the second thing what i ask is uh when will it when will you know it's over how to how do you end it it's the weekend now yeah we're all kind of anxious about tomorrow

what's going to what tomorrow's going to bring because they're planning they've been planning all this in the open on facebook so it's very transparent and they're planning another big day of action tomorrow um two weeks ago i thought it was going to be over because the weather was miserable and because numbers have been going down but then it wasn't over the most violent weekend of all was on december 1st and and people have been saying well maybe now it's over because public opinion is, public support is dropping. And we're hearing from some of them that they think they should, you know, they've achieved their ends and maybe they should stay home. But I don't think that we're hearing that from the ones who have been most violent so far. So what do you expect over the weekend and

where? And where in Paris do you expect it? I expect from where they're saying they're going to mobilize, that on the same place, the Chateau de l'Etoile, but the last, not last week, but the week before, they ambushed the officers there. And so there are some planning in private, and there may be surprises for

us. And I just, I know we won't let you go, and obviously one more question I have is, this different from – a traditional French action, a greve, a strike, is always targeted to sort of make everybody's life more inconvenient. You know, you're going to have to fly out tomorrow because Charles de Gaulle is closed today or this entire – the trains aren't running today or the metro or something. This just seems like a pure expression of anger. There's nothing strategic about this. There's nothing, there's no specific policy aim about this anymore, is there? It doesn't, well, I don't know whether it's, no, I think you're right. There's no policy aim except getting rid of Macron and having a totally different kind of government,

a revolutionary government where things are done in a totally different way. They don't want anything that contemporary France has to exist anymore. And they're not going to get that. You know, there's too many people here who don't think that's a very good idea. So the question is, are they going to realize that's not reasonable on their own or is it going to take a lot of repression? And that would be awful. Well, the sans-coulottes didn't think they were going to get it either, and they got it. So, I mean, the history of France has been that these things do bring about great change.

That's exactly right. No one in France can look at these people and say, oh, you're out of your mind, because there's a history here. And you don't want to be the one who gets it wrong. At least no government in the future will probably mandate that everybody wear a certain kind of reflective colored vest in their car, because it made for an awful uniform for everyone to adapt. All right, keep us informed if anybody starts making any oaths on any tennis courts and all the rest of it. So, Scott, when you post this, you can put the links to that on it. Great. Thank you, Claire. And I hope the next time we talk, it's just about how lovely and

peaceable and prosperous France has become. Me too. Bye-bye. Thanks, Claire. Mille merci. Mille merci. Yes. Well, a great book for understanding France, or at least pretending and thinking that you understand france is a book called citizens by simon shama which i read and it's fascinating and it's it's just it's great it leads you it takes you everything that you need to know before you get to the revolution so it doesn't just drop you into the point where the guillotine drops. And you find fascinating characters, you know, like Mademoiselle Field, for example.

Mademoiselle Field was a confectioner, and she had a prosperous empire in France. And she would— She made les cookies. Les madeleines, les cookies, si, oui. And the thing is, is that it turns out that she was mostly fictional, that she didn't really exist. And it was something that was imposed on the people to make them think that the aristocracy knew what they were doing. The aristocracy has some secret cookie recipe that the people couldn't get. Well, that's not America.

We don't have that. We don't have no truck with no aristocratic secret cookie recipes. We have cookies for everybody, right? But just because everybody has cookies doesn't mean they're good cookies. No, if you want good cookies, there are certain sources that you know will never disappoint you. And come holiday time, you're going to go to those sources. You don't want to gamble on something. You want to say, I want to make sure that they get the best cookies. And that's, well, that's where Mrs. Fields comes in, of course. Now, I've gotten some odd, curious Christmas presents in my lifetime.

Like, if your child gives you anything when they're three, you love it. But when some distant relative draws your name on the hat and you end up getting, oh, I don't know, you know, a fake ivory cake cutter or something like that, you know, thank you. Well, if you give cookies, you can't go wrong. That's all there is simply to it because everybody wants cookies. Now, for over 40 years, Mrs. Fields has made delicious treats. Her signature chocolate chip cookies, handcrafted frosted favorites, and melt-in-your-mouth brownies. Don't you want one right now?

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promo code Ricochet. Mrs. Fields, thank you for sponsoring the Ricochet podcast. Promo code Ricochet. And now we bring back to the podcast Toby Young, British journalist, formerly director

of the New Schools Network, Free Schools Charity, and currently the London associate editor at Colette. He's written for them since 2017. You can follow him on Twitter,

where he fights the good fights, at Toadmeister. Toby, welcome back. Hi. We were just talking about France with Claire Berlinski, and let's cast our eyes

somewhere else in the continent where things are just, or near the continent where things are going absolutely brilliant. A stonking cock-up, isn't it, over Brexit? Yes, it is. I have to say that we were all delighted over here in Britain to see the difficulties that Macron has been getting into. We thought we were the basket case of Europe, but no. It looks like there's competition for that title. So that was obviously a huge schadenfreude over here about the yellow jerseys. But yeah, things haven't been going brilliantly in British politics.

So earlier this week, the Parliamentary Conservative Party held a vote of no confidence in Theresa May, the Prime Minister, which she won, but not particularly comfortably. So there are 317 Tory MPs, 200 of them voted for her and 117 voted against. So she lives on to fight another day and she can't be challenged again in that manner for another year but the difficulty she faces is that she has struck this deal with the european union um uh about britain's future relationship with the eu um which uh she cannot get through parliament so not enough of her and she doesn't have a majority to begin with um it's a hung parliament and uh there aren't enough mps um in other parties let alone in her party, that support her deal for her to be able to get the deal through Parliament. So she's currently on tour in Europe trying to whip up support and trying to persuade various EU pen gendrons to make a few more concessions, which they are making it very clear they're not about to. So things have reached a bit of a stalemate. What are the particulars that stick in the bone, stick in the throat like a bone? Because over here, we just get sort of a mishmash of it's not going well, Irish border something.

What are the sticking points? Well, one of the difficulties I think she's had in trying to sell her deal is that it's quite complicated and difficult to understand and hard to summarize on a program. Let me give it a go. So there's going to be a transition period between the date of our departure, which is the end of March next year and the end of December in 2020. That's the transition period. And in that period, she hopes to negotiate a free trade agreement between the UK and the EU. Now, that's unlikely. That's a very short period of time in which to negotiate a free trade agreement. They usually take between seven and eight years, and often much longer. The EU still doesn't have a free trade agreement with the US, for instance. So in the very probable event of Britain not being able to negotiate a free trade agreement in that time, we then go into something called the backstop.

And in the backstop, we remain members of the customs union, but we're unable to negotiate free trade agreements with any other countries while we remain in the customs union. And we remain stuck in the customs union until we can negotiate a free trade agreement with the EU. And the difficulty for a lot of conservative MPs and others in other parties is they don't think that we should be stuck in this backstop where we remain essentially rule takers and have to abide by all the trade rules imposed upon us by the EU, which we cannot get out of until we agree a trade agreement with the EU. It's essentially, and one of the kind of difficulties is that Northern Ireland, in order to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, Northern Ireland, agreement, which doesn't keep Northern Ireland in the customs union because they don't want a trade barrier. They don't want a hard barrier to exist between Northern and Southern Ireland.

So effectively, what they're saying to us is, if we don't negotiate a free trade agreement in a very short period of time, you go into the backstop. When you're in the backstop, you have to remain part of the customs union with the EU, which means you can't negotiate free trade deals with anyone else until you've concluded your deal with us. But when you do make a deal with us, it has to be a deal which keeps Northern Ireland, maybe not the remainder of the United Kingdom, but keeps Northern Ireland in the customs union, effectively creating a border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the Irish Sea. And the real difficulty I think people have with this, it's a kind of arrangement that a victorious country in the aftermath of a war, which the United Kingdom has just lost, would impose upon us. And to agree a deal which would essentially enable a foreign power or a collection of foreign powers to dictate the future of the United Kingdom and whether or not we can conclude trade agreements

with other countries and essentially threaten to create a border dividing up the United Kingdom. It just seems completely unacceptable. So, Toby, the only possible argument, Peter here, the only possible argument for that dog's breakfast of a plan is that it's better than any possible, any practical alternative. And is that the argument that she's stuck with? Can she go to the country and rally enough support to put pressure on the House of Commons to enact that? Well, she has been touring the country. She was supposed to have a vote on this deal in Parliament on Tuesday, and it was supposed to take place, but she postponed it. She postponed it on Monday because she knew she was going to lose,

and she was concerned that if she lost, she might have to resign because it would be such a blow to her authority because she's gone all in on this deal. And she had in the run up to that vote, which has now been postponed until January, she had been touring the country trying to sell her deal. And the best argument she could come up with is exactly the argument you say, Peter, which is, well, it's crap, but it's not as crap as the alternatives, which, as you say, isn't a particularly persuasive argument. And actually, I think what are the alternatives? Well, the alternative on amongst the opponents of Brexit is that we rerun the referendum. We rerun the referendum and they're not. No one is quite sure exactly what the question should be. But I think what the remainers, the people who want us to remain in the EU would like it to be, would be Theresa May's deal or

remain in the EU. For people on my side of the argument, on the Leave side, that's like saying vassalage or complete unadulterated vassalage. You know, it's not particularly appealing. We would like, if there is going to be another referendum, people on my side would like it to be, well, Theresa May's deal, or we just leave with no deal. And that's the other alternative, a no deal Brexit, sometimes called a hard Brexit. I prefer the term a clean Brexit. So I think at the moment, a no-deal, disorderly Brexit would be preferable to either rerunning the referendum or accepting Theresa May's deal. Peter, with one more question, Rob is champing at the bit, understandably. James will have

questions. While we've got you in explainer mode, while you're still explaining things that Americans would have trouble with, this American has trouble. Again and again and again, we hear, oh, well, of course, we can't have a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. And my layman that I am sitting here in California, many, many miles away is, why not? They're two different countries, for goodness sake. And furthermore, I've driven from Germany to Switzerland. You just slow down for 30 seconds and you're through. Hard borders with technology we have these days need not be that hard. What is the big deal about Northern Ireland and the Republic? Well, this is indeed an argument that Brexiters make. They say, okay,

what would be so catastrophic about having a border between Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland? And those who think that it would be a complete which essentially put an end to the troubles in Northern Ireland, would collapse and the troubles would come roaring back if there was a hard border between Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland. But as you say, there can be borders between countries which aren't particularly hard and which hardly anyone notices because with technology, you can do everything that a border needs to do. So people on my side of the argument think that that's been amped up out of all proportion by the EU essentially to imprison us in this state of vassalage. All right. Rob, James? I have a hundred questions, but go ahead.

So, hey, Toby, it seems, I mean, part of what I've been trying to figure out since this sort of began was, what does she think she's doing? What is her strategy here, Theresa May's strategy? And it just seems to me the only possible explanation is delay, delay, delay, kick the can down the road,

make the process so incredibly complicated and unpleasant that eventually the Brexit faction says, oh, you know what, it's too much trouble. Let's just stay. Isn't that – that seems to be the only possible gloss on her strategy. Yeah, I mean I think using the word strategy any other prime minister at this point would be toast. And the only reason she isn't toast it seems to me is that nobody wants the job. I mean when the conservatives turfed out Margaret Thatcher, it was because they were people – the nine-to-the-long-knives. There were plenty of people who thought, you know what, I kind of want to sit on that throne. I have to get rid of that throne.

I can't imagine any sentient person, any sentient politician in Britain right now who thinks to himself or herself, oh, I bet you I could get out of this. This just seems like a disaster. Well, to that point, Rob, I think one of the reasons she wasn't defeated in the vote of no confidence earlier this week is precisely because there isn't a credible alternative. And by that, I mean there isn't an obvious leader within the Conservative Party who could command a majority in the House of Commons. So the Conservative Party itself didn't win the majority in 2017. Theresa May inherited a majority when she took over from David Cameron in 2016. But she stupidly held a general election thinking she could increase the Conservative Party's majority and ended up reducing it. So the Conservative Party doesn't have a majority. It's reliant on the Democratic Unionist Party,

which is a Northern Irish party, in order to govern. She's fallen out with them. But the problem is, let's say Boris might be an alternative. The reason he wasn't, the reason she didn't lose that vote of confidence and Boris hasn't been elected in her place is because he wouldn't be able to command a majority in the House of Commons. The Remainers, the leading Remainers in the Conservative Party, wouldn't be able to command a majority in the House of Commons either. The real problem is, the underlying problem, is that there isn't a majority for any particular solution to this Brexit conundrum. There are some people who'd like a no-deal Brexit, some people supporting Theresa May's deal, some people who'd like the referendum to be rerun. But there isn't a majority

for any one of those positions. So there isn't an obvious leader who could lead a government. So the fear is that if Theresa May was defeated, whoever succeeded her wouldn't be able to command the majority in the House of Commons because their vision for Brexit couldn't command the majority. There would have, therefore, to be a general election. And one of the risks of a general election is that the Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, who is a red in tooth and claw, unreconstructed socialist, like something out of the 70s, might win. And conservatives, like most sensible people, are absolutely terrified of the prospect of seeing this Chavez-like character take over Britain, particularly at this precarious moment

in British history. No one thinks that he could negotiate a better deal with the EU than she has, and no one would trust him outside the EU to lead Britain into the sunlit uplands. On the contrary, there would be a run on the pound. The bond market would turn on us. Property prices would sink. There'd be capital flight. It would be, you know, the country would be turned into Venezuela within six months. Toby, Toby, Peter here once again with a question.

There are two different scenarios that, again, here I sit in California trying to work out what's going on. And there seem to be fundamentally two different political scenarios that are being talked about to take place between now and January-ish, and Britain gets closer and closer to the date, March 29th, last Friday in March, last working day in March, when Theresa May has activated Article 50, which says two years from now we're out, and two years is up on March 29th. pressure on MPs from business figures, from the leaders of the Tory parties and the various constituencies is going to grow and grow and grow. And they will therefore vote to enact Theresa May's deal because it's the only thing that can avoid catastrophe. Scenario two is exactly the reverse. That is to say that businesses are now, they've looked at this, they see what a cock-up it all is, and businesses in sector after sector after sector are now scrambling to negotiate workable deals with their counterparts on the continent, the pharmaceutical industry, the insurance industry.

Lord knows the city of London will have been flying to Paris and flying to Frankfurt, and that every day that passes releases some urgency from the necessity to vote for, from a supposed necessity to vote for her deal, and makes much more acceptable the supposed crashing out, reverting to World Trade Organization rules on March 29th. As I say, two scenarios, and they are exactly opposed to each other. Which is likeliest? Well, I think it's useful to set it out in that way. I mean, I see it more that there are these three scenarios. There's the no deal Brexit, there's rerunning the referendum in the hope that this time we choose to remain, and then there's Theresa May's deal. And the problem is, it's like prisoner's dilemma. It may be that the rational course, the least worst course for all sides, for everyone concerned, is to vote for Theresa May's deal. But they think that if they

hold out, that their preferred option will prevail. And no one is willing to abandon that hope and plump for second best, at least not at this stage. And back to Rob's original question, insofar as Theresa May does have a strategy, I guess it is that the longer she leaves it and the closer we get to either one of those two extreme alternatives, a disorderly Brexit or a rerun of the referendum. So people will think Crum's, her option, appalling though it is, is better than either of those two. So I'm going to bite the bullet. And what is your prediction? My last question, what is your prediction? On March 29th, will Britain crash out? Will there have been some sort of delay to have another referendum? Or will Theresa May's deals may be in place by March 29?

Well, I think if she can get some reassurance on the backstop, if she can persuade the EU that Britain could unilaterally exit the backstop if we don't conclude a trade deal at some point in the future. And then, of course, I think she'll be able to get her deal through. They're not showing much inclination to budge on that point. They say that it's their duty to protect a member state, Ireland, and not prioritise the interests of a leaving member state over a remaining member state. But I think it's possible. I wouldn't completely rule out her getting her deal through. But I think probably more likely that she will decide she can't win it on a second vote and instead propose a referendum, which is just two options, either no deal Brexit or her deal, which will then be amended in the House of Commons by Remainers and we'll end up having a second referendum in which

there are three options on the ballot, Remain, Theresa May's deal or disorderly Brexit. And it'll be a single transferable vote. So I think people will then put as their first choice either one or three, but put Theresa May's deal as their second choice. And so it may get through in the end as a result of this second referendum, but it would be a pretty depressing outcome. Toby, last question from 30,000 Feet. Some people may look at this and say, well, the lesson here is don't get involved in entangling sclerotic organizations that decrease your sovereignty. And other people may say, yeah, well, whatever, you're in it. Don't try to get out because it's just not worth it. I'm looking at the countries where you might have, oh, let's say we're France, where you have people saying we want to be more French than we

want to be involved in anything else. And somebody else tries their own exit. Do you think anybody is going to learn anything from the process that Britain has gone through? Well, I think the EU is hoping for us to be an example which discourages other countries from trying to leave. And I think that's one of the reasons they've presented us with this fait accompli, which is so unattractive. I think the EU is in trouble. There is a European parliamentary election next year, and it looks as though various anti-EU populist right of centre parties are going to be victorious in that election. And then the EU will have a rebellious parliament on its hand. I mean, the EU looks like an organisation which is out of step with the mood of the times, and its attempt to impose free movement have been generally disastrous and have triggered various populist movements in Hungary, Poland, even Germany.

Anti-immigration parties have been very successful in Finland and Denmark and Sweden. So it looks as though Britain isn't an outlier. Britain may have gone further in its rejection of the EU's philosophy, but it looks as though there's a groundswell of opinion of a very similar kind sweeping the whole of Europe. So unless the EU fundamentally reforms and stops trying to become a United States of Europe and stops trying to create an EU army and gradually steal sovereignty from national parliaments across Europe, unless it has a fundamental rethink, which is so no signs of doing, it's all going to end in tears. Thanks, Toby. Now we have to go talk to somebody about how Italy and Greece are still screwed,

but we're going to end with a palate cleanser of Poland. Thanks. Maybe a little bit more upbeat, Toby. It's Christmas, you know. I mean, you've got us all depressed. The only thing which gives me some cheer in the run-up to Christmas is the thought that these various international bankers will have gone over to Paris to weigh up whether to move to Paris in the event of Britain leaving the EU on their deal. And all they've seen is Porsches set ablaze, and the windows of Gucci and Fendi smashed in, and mobs of rioting middle-aged fat men in yellow vests. I think actually bad though Britain is, I think I'm going to stay in London.

Thanks Toby. We'll talk to you later. Bye bye. Thanks Toby. Okay. Cheers. No, he's absolutely right.

I remember I sent my daughter a picture of what was going on in Paris and I see, and I joked that, you know, we were, we were worried about sending you to Brazil and thought, why couldn't you get a nice place like, like,

like France? And of course it's all up in flames and the rest of it. I mean, honestly, if I had an exchange student over there at this point in Paris, I know, I know it's a little exaggerated. I've seen the pictures where somebody is doing a dramatic angle of one napkin on flames in the ground. It looks like the Arc de Triomphe is consumed, but still, it's not pretty and it's not good time for France. And if my daughter was there, I frankly wouldn't be sleeping very well at night. But it's not good time for France. And if my daughter was there, I frankly wouldn't be sleeping very well at night. But she's not there. She's in Brazil. I do sleep well at night. And it has nothing to do really with the fact that I think she's okay in Brazil. It's because I've

got great sheets. And that's the most important thing you have to have when you want to get a good night's sleep because you have to be what? Comfortable. Let me say it again. Comfortable. Again, comfortable. So if you want the best sleep of your life, well, you need to be comfortable. That's what all those sleeping pills and potions and powders are trying to do for them. But you don't need that stuff. You need bowl and branch sheets. What makes bowl and branch sheets unique is that each sheet is crafted from 100% organic cotton. And that means that bowl and branch sheets not only feel incredible, but they also look amazing. Since bowl and Branch sells exclusively online, you don't pay that expensive retail markup. That's half the price for twice the quality.

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B-O-L-L and Branch.com. Promo code Ricochet. BolinBranch.com. Promo code Ricochet. Well, before we leave, we must doff our hat and pour out a 40, as they say, for the weekly standard. It's dead.

And it was murdered, as John Podhors has been pointed out. It did not expire because it wasn't making enough money. Well, it wasn't. But they were denied the opportunity to sell it, and they closed it, and they harvested the subscription list for the new weekly examiner magazine, and it's gone. It was a great magazine, and a lot of people are just oh i'm happy because uh they were anti-trump cruise ship uh emoji hardy heart some of the best writing

you could find regardless of your political beliefs you'd be impressed with the people who wrote and how they wrote for the weekly standard um i i will say this um you know uh people have a tendency to see something like that and they and to confirm whatever it is their sort of biases are the truth is um it was uh and i spoke to i spoke to one of the you know i spoke to john pedoritz about it yesterday and i said on a scale of one to ten john how much of this has to do with trump and he said you may be a two a two, maybe a one, not that look, it's a tough business out there. They were doing a weekly magazine, high quality.

And, you know, in 2018, a weekly magazine is a, uh, let's, you know, it's a failing mission. Um, and the people who own that magazine and own the name and run the business and pay for the, pay the bills are, uh, you know, bottom line guys and they're, you know, they're tough. And, um, I think they could have handled all this better and could have handled it in a more respectful way. But as somebody also who I have to say on this call, on this podcast with my co-founder of Ricochet, Peter Robinson, as somebody who also struggles every day

with the idea of growing and sustaining a center-right business, it is hard. It is hard. Nobody likes to pay for anything. You need to find somebody who's going to indulge you and pay the bills. And we, as Ricochet, have chosen not to do that. We at Ricochet have chosen to sort of pay as we go and to get investment and try to grow a business and really run a business and make a payroll based on how much we earn. That has been really hard.

And so I say to you, any of you who think that – who mourn the loss of the weekly standard, get ready because that is the future if you're not sustaining the conservative opinion or conservative conversation places that you like, which is a way of saying, the wrong thing to do at a funeral when I'm supposed to be giving you a eulogy.

I was just saying, a eulogy and you end up at a sales pitch. I will do it because they are not unconnected. If everybody listening to this podcast right now who had basically already made the decision, you know what, I really do want to join. I really am going to join. At some point, I'm going to join. I really am going to join

at the podcast level of $2.50 a month. If everybody who has said that to him or herself does it today, the ghost of the weekly standard, the specter of the weekly standard of Ricochet has been pushed far away, and we can grow.

But that is a problem, and I think it's a problem that every conservative organ is facing now. And if you're a conservative and you want conservative media and you want to have conservative voices, that should concern you. Well, now that Rob has gone through the pockets of the deceased in the casket before the lid is closed, he bills a note. That's true. And I'm not ashamed of it because it's a complicated world. Peter? Yeah, well, for me, it's all, I'm just thinking now, the weekly standard, 23 years.

That's a very good run. For me, when I'm thinking back about the Weekly Standard, 23 years. That's a very good run. For me, when I'm thinking back about the Weekly Standard, there were many brilliant writers. Tucker Carlson now is known as very quick, very witty, very incisive on television. Tucker was a wonderful journalist in the written medium. He was terrific in the 90s. For me, though, it's all about Andy. It's all about Andy Ferguson. What was it? He had a cover story just two months ago on the gubernatorial race in Illinois that was magnificent, beautifully written

portraiture. The Republican governor, now soon to be former governor, the Democratic opponent, the guy who runs the state legislature, John Madigan, who's performed more than four decades, been speaker in the state legislature, and ended with his three or four paragraphs. So it's all a mess. It's a catastrophe Illinois's done. And that ends with his three or four paragraphs, just a beautiful sort of pay-in to the virtues of the Midwest. Absolutely gorgeous. His piece in the current issue of the Weekly Standard, a farewell for George H.W. Bush. What was it? Six years ago, Andy wrote a cover story on Mitch Daniels, who is then considering running for president, which I

would declare, I believe I can say this. I don't know whether I can say it without fear of contradiction, but if I am contradicted, I'll fight. This is the best political profile ever written. And all of those things appeared in the Weekly Standard, I should say. Actually, two notes here. One is that Andy continues to write. People will come after Andy. He's so talented. He'll appear other places. Right now, though, he already has a column in every issue of Commentary, which is edited by John Podhoretz. So if you mourn the loss of the Weekly Standard and are not already a subscriber to Commentary, take a look at Commentary. We should also note, this is awkward, but the same company that is shuttering the Weekly Standard is about to add a magazine to the Washington Examiner. And it concerns me that some ill will may splash over from this incident at the Weekly Standard to the new magazine.

I think that would be misplaced. The new magazine is going to be substantially edited by Seth Mandel, a friend of Ricochet. It is his wife, Bethany, who writes for us here at Ricochet. It will undoubtedly showcase the work of Byron York, another good friend of Ricochet. Give that new magazine a shot when it begins. I believe it's going to be published immediately, starting in January.

Yeah, I think so, yeah. Yes. Indeed. So after you've completed your Ricochet membership, then you can subscribe to the rest of these, please. We know there's only a good set set amount of finite dollars uh yes and last and labash these are they're excellent writers and they've got to land somewhere if i was the washington post i would snap them up in a second and set matt on a

you know long deep beat where he turns in a column or a piece every six you know every two months or so because the guy is just great. He's just fantastic. So, yeah, I hope they don't end up at think tanks, at some place where they ponder and issue papers every once in a while because that part of the media culture or the institutional conservative culture in D.C. would throw them a bone. That would be nice, but these guys live to write, and we live to read them. So, well, one more thing that I have to tell you, but it's going to come after I remind you of this, that we've been brought to you by Hopsi, by Mrs. Fields, and Bowlin Branch.

You can support them, and you'll get great stuff, and you'll support us. It's win-win for everybody. And did I mention that maybe you ought to go to U-Tunes? Yeah, exactly. If you go there, there's no such thing. Go to iTunes. That's what I meant to say. Leave a review.

That helps new listeners find it. I can't believe nobody's come up with it. It sounds like the knockoff name, you know, that the company comes up. It's Utoons. Wait, wait. No, that's the other one. The Bulgarian version of it, just like the Soviets. I always used to have crappy versions of the stuff that the West had.

That would do it. It's on YouTube. But I didn't know if I missed the early part. Did you guys talk about the cruise? Peter, did you interrogate Rob about the cruise? The mood? We spoke briefly about it.

Because no one Because I wasn't on the cruise myself, James. I tried to hurry through that, if you see what I mean. That's pretty much what I mean, because no one cares. Nobody really does. It was fun while we were there. The mix of people was pro-questioning, not so fond of, like it was the last time. What mattered, though, was the congeniality, the collegial nature of the whole thing.

You didn't have rival groups on cigar night forming opposite sides of the stern of the ship and glaring at each other like the jets and the sharks. It was good to get along. It's always good to get along, isn't it, the Christmas spirit and beyond? He said, desperately reaching for a time peg to get out on time. Yes, so guys, thanks. I'm glad I could make it back for a time peg to get out on. Yes.

So guys, thanks. I'm glad I could make it back. It was great to see Rob on the ship and Peter, I hope you're on the next one and everybody else at Ricochet after they've joined, which makes sure that we'll be there after the next election. Right?

Exactly. All right. We'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 3.0. And to my Italian friend, Tommaso, sign up and start paying. Oh, I like that. I like that. Anytime I hear that, I like that. Hey, Rob.

Oh, and to K.E. Davis, you happy now? I'm back. Rob, we need a picture of the Yorkshire pudding. You can tell everything about Yorkshire pudding by the color. Isn't that right? Well, no. It's the puffiness. You want a nice puffiness.

I think you can tell everything about Yorkshire pudding from the color of the person who's just eaten it. Are we done? We're done. We are. All right. Goodbye, boys. Have a good weekend. Merry Christmas.

No, not Christmas. Merry almost. Happy packing, buying and packing and wrapping. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Happy packing, buying and packing And wrapping Bye bye are still willing then you can turn a murder into art there really isn't any for bloodshed you just do it with a little more finesse

if you can slip a tablet into someone's carpet the dinner boy's an awful lot of mess Because it's bird of my numbers One, two, three It's as easy to learn

as your FBC It's bird of my numbers One, two, three It's as easy to learn as your FBC as you ever see. If you have a taste for this experience, and you're flushed with your very first success, then you must try a two-some or a three-some.

You'll find your conscience bothers you much less Because murder is like anything you take to It's a habit forming need for more and more You can bump up every member of your family Or anybody else you find above Because it's murder by numbers Thank you. One, two, three, it's as easy to learn as your FBC. You can join the ranks of the illustrious in history's great dark hall of fame. All our greatest killers were industrious, at least the ones that we all know by name. Thank you. You don't need to lift a finger off your head Because it's burning my numbers

One, two, three It's as easy to learn as your ABC Burning my numbers One, two, three It's as easy to learn as your ABC Ricochet! Join the conversation. One, two, three. Ricochet. Join the conversation.