TRASHFUTURE - Battle of the Bosh ft. Screen Rot

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Jake and Jacob from Screen Rot join us to talk about the two men who post videos of themselves saying “bosh,” and why everyone in Britain (and elsewhere?) seems keen to project their politics onto these men. Get more TF episodes each week by subscribing to our Patreon here! TF Merch is still available here! *MILO ALERT* Check out Milo’s tour dates here: https://www.miloedwards.co.uk/liveshows Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and November (@postoctobrist)

Jacob, can you say something for me, please? Yeah, I can say I've had an emodium for dinner because I've got a dicky tummy. Wonderful. Jake? I'm, we're modium free, currently. Emodium free? Clean and sober from a modem. I've had like free bowling

I've had four days of it now and I am worried that I've got like fucking crones or something in Germany great to be in a small room with you so you've got a

possibly infectious stomach disease Milo has you have you had emodium no I haven't no but that means

I could explode at any moment so that's part of we're all of an age now where if we try and do over an hour long podcast without

my deem we're all running a bit of race men in our 30s with bad coffee addictions anything could happen they call it

they call it they call it the podcaster's butt plug well I'm glad to know how much had, Hussein. What's your emodium situation? I do not have any in my house because I think I've taken

all of them. So, yeah. Not because you disagree with them in principle. That's right. Well, no, I probably just like went ham one evening and like I just forgot to replenish. So if I keep a modium in the house, I will do all of it. So I can't. I've got hay fever tablets. I don't know whether there's something in that. Yeah. Hello, everybody. Welcome to TF. It is the slightly remote one because of the

tube strikes. Uh, it is. Riley Hussain and Milo today. We are joined by Jake and Jacob from the ScreenRot podcast. Jake, Jacob, how you doing? Happy to be here. Yeah. Plugged correctly. A huge day for guys in their like mid-30s to early 40s. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guys in baseball caps. With glasses. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of boyfriends who are very happy. Boyfriends who are medically dependent on emodium. Huge day for those guys. Yeah, yeah. IBS suffering boyfriends.

Yeah. If you were hoping for like a romantic dinner or something with your boyfriend or, like, you know, yeah, something like, you know, you're, you're not going going to, it's not going to happen tomorrow. Good luck. Just, just, just, just like, just write one that one off. Yeah, yeah. They're, they're parisocially doing emodium with T.F.

and ScreenRot. They're going to be like, they're never going to go to the bathroom again. No, no. So we've got, we've got the Screen Rock boys today to discuss something I've been interested in talking about for a while, which is the Boschman. And how it seems like a lot of British. political commentators appear to have started relentlessly projecting on, and in some cases trying to draft at least one of the Boschman into being into a political party, which I think

is hilarious. And you guys have been like, you've been following the two men who say Bosch on the internet, and they're different political valences for a long time. There used to be a time where Bosch was just a derogatory term for Germans. And that was a, what a great time that was during the Second World War. Now, Bosch, of course, attached to these two men from Essex. And we've been doing our bit down the content minds trying to explain it to, I'd say, varying degrees of success, I think it's fair to say. I think our first ever episode was about Big John.

Is that right? Yeah, that's right. The first episode of our podcast was about Big John. And, like, that was, what, two years ago? You would have thought that it might have tailed off or his peak might have hit. Every time you think he's done, he just keeps coming. And he doesn't have to change. Also, what they say at the Chinese takeaway.

Also, what he was like as a boxer, right? You couldn't knock it down. You would just keep coming at you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just keeps coming forward. Just keeps coming forward. And whereas, but he hasn't done the sort of Madonna thing. He hasn't evolved. It is very much the same shit.

Do you know what I mean? Like, it's the same stuff. Whereas Skinner, it kind of feels like it is. And I have to hold my hands up and say, I'm guilty of being reluctant to acknowledge how skin is evolved. Do you know what I mean? I think I, I think, I had affections for him

that made it harder for me to accept oh, this is going a bit and yeah so now, as you correctly point out Riley I think things are being projected onto both of them but I think also in Skinner's case there is an eagerness and I think that's the difference between the two

is like I think fame fell on Big John whereas I think Skinner has sought it out in so many different ways over the years and now it's kind of you know like 600 word tweets chat cheapity created that have this sort of like he's towing the line so strangely

between like not quite I mean he's made he deletes loads of them but most of the time he toes the line would be like well I can't woke people let you have a cook breakfast in the morning he's genuinely like a living Stuart Lee routine

by the way if you're not in Britain and you think that why can't woke people let you have a cook breakfast anymore is like an exaggeration I believe that literally was one of the things he posted about and deleted. Pint on a Friday and a cooked breakfast, yeah. And hard work, hard work. That's the other, yeah, that's the other strange thing.

He thinks they're trying to stop us working hard. It's not clear who they is. It's never clear who they is. But, yeah, they're trying to stop us working. They're trying to stop us having cooked breakfast and they're woke. And every now and then it's like, and also there are some boats. It's just directed in there. I mean, that's the thing.

It's worth saying at the beginning. this is like he did write and then delete a tweet about asylum seekers. Yeah. Which is genuinely like over the line you know, not just like, is it illegal to have a pint? It's like, how can't one part of it verbatim was

why are they giving them flip flops? It's still mental. Good morning, you lovely people. We've got proper British asylum seekers and they're trying to make a bloody Australian. Make it make sense. All right. Abash. Yeah. It's like, when it's like with Big John It's just like, he ate a lot, he said Bosch, and then people were like, oh, Big John, we love when you say Bosch, and he was like, yeah, thanks.

And then because he also says Bosch, I think, and he's not overtly right wing, a lot of people began projecting progressiveness on to him, even though he's just like a normal guy. We had him at a live show. He's just a completely normal bloke that is understandably, massively bemused by what's going on. Like, he doesn't know what's happening. And he does this line and he did it on stage and everyone lost their fucking minds where he went, I didn't find the Bosch, the Bosch found me. Now, that doesn't mean anything. What does that mean?

That's what you would say if you were like a spy captured in 1943. Yeah, it's like a line from the great escape. Yeah. It's also like a kind of excuse. Daddy tunnel collapsed. Good luck. Yeah. The SS guy on the bus saying,

Bosch, you're like, Bash, oh, fuck. Should have said Z-Bash, which is the German version of Bosch. Yeah, he's just like, he's entirely abused by it. He's not as Craven as Skinner in his pursuit of fame or like any political influence.

And then I just opened up my phone the other days. I'm fucking Newsnight talking about immigration. It's like, what are we doing? Okay, who at Newsnight? Which Newsnight Booker listens to screen? Rott is my question for you. Many years ago, I interviewed, I interviewed for a job at Newsnight as a producer. And they were like, this is part of the BBC thing where like you have to go through like

a thousand rounds before like you get to speak to the final boss who's just like, no. So I got to like maybe round four. And they were like, okay, pitch us some ideas. Because the thing about like, if you're a pitcher, you don't want to give them like your really, really good stuff because they'll just nick it anyway. So I was like, okay, I'll give you something, I'll give you something good, not like top tier like A or B. So I'm just like, we should do, you guys, you guys, you guys,

guys should do a story on illegal Pokemon cards and the fact that like and this was like 2017-18 so this was like this was becoming a thing in the sense of like there was this like trading card market and it was kind of massively over like overinflated and it was fucking up all the trade games hobbyists whatever and that stuff and the woman who's interviewing me is it's like looking at me as if I've said like the most insane which I guess maybe to her I did say the most insane thing ever and she was just like um could you have any more serious stories and I was like well no no I'm not more serious than that yeah should have said Bosch at the end well what I what I what I should have said is that there's this guy in Essex,

this guy in Romford, and he's a crazy amount of Chinese food. So I did not get, I did not get that job, but it is very, it is very amusing to sort of see, like, partly what News Night has become, but also just like, but I think this is kind of it, too, like, it's really like a reflection of kind of like

information, like, of the current information culture and the fact that like, you know, for news organizations, they're very much like reliant on social media influences of whatever type to tell them what is happening because they can't send people out to do it themselves or like they just don't really want to do it

but also if you are just like a normal person that goes viral because like Big John presumably went viral like the way in was TikTok right and then all the other and the reason I mentioned that is because like on TikTok there is that kind of version of fame particularly like in Britain whereas it's like a relatively

ordinary guy just does a thing and people are just like broadly amused by it I'm the guy who ranks phone box yeah totally it's like four million followers and it just kind of like blows up And, you know, it crosses all the thresholds of like every kind of interest category online until like the person who does like the flagship news channel on the BBC gets the same TikToks as like, you know, one of us or like me doom scrolling on my phone while like I'm trying to put my kids to sleep. And we're seeing the same stuff and it's just like, oh, okay, yeah, like this guy. But yeah, this guy absolutely should be on the news.

And in a couple of months, it can be like the guy who ranks phone boxes or scooter scorer. Yeah, if they have, if they end up with Scottish pervert, Daniel Ewan Henderson on there talking about Scotland. which independence, then we know there's a screen rock mole in the building. I think they should get the schooner scorer to talk about HS2. I don't, especially like with stuff, as I say, I used to listen to Trash Future a lot. And I like, so I'm wary of going out on a limb too much because I'm not, I'm worried that I'm ill-informed. I feel like...

That's never stopped you before. Yeah, because I audience are fucking idiots. But say anything on there, I don't know. They can't read. But, like, I feel like the reason, like, it gets projected onto both of them is as much as, like, our political system is falling apart, it's because there's no one on either side. Like, we're obviously, like, broadly, like, and different ends of special, we're all left wing, right? And it's easy for us to look at the left and go, there is no one. There's no one there to get behind.

There's no one there who will just go, right, flags, fair enough, but it's fucking horrible the way this is being used. Don't trash Chinese restaurants. Stop making people feel horrible about where they can. from Britain is welcome to everyone. No one on the left is willing to just say that. So they have to get the Chinese takeaway guy. But I think it's also, we don't realize this because we're on the left, that the right is the same.

They don't have a guy either. That's why they're doing skiner. No, no, no, no, they're not happy with Nige. Why? Yeah, but not really happy with him because, well, they think that he's like kind of work. They think that he's sort of on the, on the... What? So, yeah.

He's rich as well. They don't like him. Well, the interesting thing about the right from what I can see is that, Like, they have the same, they have, like, a similar problem in the sense of, like, they're constantly looking for guys who will sort of, like, be their sort of, like, match their extremes. Yeah. But also, they have politicians in sort of a conservative party, for example, who are, like, trying to be those guys. So, like, Robert Jenrick, who, like, a few years ago was just, like, I don't want to say, because, like, none of them were particularly normal, but he was just, like, a Tory politician. He was less internet, I think we can say.

And, like, yeah, and just sort of, like, was a bit of an oafish guy. And then over the summary is, like, he's taking a Zen pic. also he's doing all these like face to camera videos. He's like, I've got my gauntlet and I will challenge any fair dodger to a jewel. Pistols or swords, sir. This is a thing. And speaking as quite comfortably in the most right-wing person on this podcast. On this planet.

He's too authoritarian. He looks like your boss. He looks like someone to make you work through your lunch. That's the thing. He's a suit. Whereas, like, Skinner is the loudest guy in the pub who is saying the things that no one else dares to say. And I honestly, it's as ridiculous.

that we're projecting onto, as you say, Riley, like Big John, it's just a normal guy who didn't really say anything on New Zealand. It was almost politician-like in his kind of, like, I'm not really going to say anything. You can see that he's shitting himself. He sat there going, fucking hell, because he knows that he literally sits in the fucking bank middle.

He's got as many right-wing people that love him as he does left from people. And like, he manages to do what no Labour politician has managed to do in the last year 12 mums, which is just sit there and appease both without being a cunt. I'm someone who's been associated with Charno's typewise. I think it's important that we'll remember that it's not just about the numbers of people coming in on the boats. It's about other numbers, like 69, sweet and sour pork. But also, like, I think it's, I broadly agree with what you're saying, because, like,

but also it's, it has to do with, like, who News Night will book, right? Because Zach Polanski, for example, has, the Greens have exactly as many MPs as reform. and Zach Polansky just won a huge mandate to lead the Green Party. And he's not getting invited on the chat shows, right? And so it's also, if you're a BBC Newsnight Booker, it's like, we have to get someone to talk about like this Chinese takeaway that was vandalized in Yorkshire, hobbed with paint and hung with England flags and stuff. Again, the hanging of an English cross of St. George flag being an aggressive act.

Not just, oh, I'm a bit patriotic. I think I could do with hanging some flags. Guess I'll put them randomly on different business. That one wasn't for the lionesses, wasn't it? Yeah, that wasn't for the Lionesses. That wasn't for the Andorra game. It's for the Andorra game, I say to my local Bobby as I stand with a spray paint can outside my mosque. What, what, you say Muslims can't like the football now?

I think you're the racist one, actually, PC won't. And so it's, it's a big John, they're just like, okay, we can't get, we don't want to put Zach Polanski on because he's, He's just going to say the stuff that, like, Corbyn would say, which is absolutely we should welcome asylum seekers. The hanging of these flag, sure, is the cross of St. George in a vacuum bad, but like, no, it's clearly being done in an intimidating way. Like, all these things are like, well, we can't get anyone who's say that. What if we got the guy who's most associated with the type of property that was vandalized?

The other thing that was very funny about the Big John, and like, because he was like really, like, he was like an angel on social media for three days after that news night clip went viral. And you're right, Riley. Like, that would have been the producer's dream, right? Is that he goes viral for saying what no politician said. But then everyone was like, oh, the kindness that he's shown that takeaway. All he said is he's going to give him his custom. Yeah.

Like, he wasn't like, oh, I'll put 10 grand in and I'll get it cleaned. It wasn't like, yeah, I'm going to set up a fundraiser and we'll put some money. He's just like, yeah, I'll buy a 10 pounds, set me all that. By the way, I don't think hate crimes are good. Yeah. I'm a, I'm a kind guy like that. We're not trying to, like, reduce what John said, like, we love John. I think it's more that, like, it's amazing that that's...

People wetting themselves about it is a bit much, I think. Yeah, but that's enough to fill the space because no one else will. Yeah, or not, like Riley says, they're not willing to book people that might. Yeah, maybe, yeah. And on the other Boschman for a second as well, like, we have... Oh, God. So we have Big John... Two Boschmen, unalike indignity.

Who's like, who, I think he's in Malta right now, just like, drinking pints and eating cook breakfast. Which I guess you're allowed to do there. because the walks haven't taken it over yet. Good morning, you lovely people. I'm here in Malta. One of the last outposts of Christendom before you get to the perfidious moor. Yeah, it's like,

Tom Skitters is just like still angry about like what Sullivan the magnificent did to Malta in the 15th century. Dressed up as a full Gozo night just riding around on horseback around the cobbles. I just think Granada's Spanish. Fuck the Alambra.

Ambrat. Wait, wasn't Big John also dressed in Malta like fairly recently? Oh no, he's still there. Oh, my God. Well, they're both there. No, no, we're imagining the... Oh, sorry.

Yeah, we're imagining the Skinner's there for the purposes of a humorous comparison. But Jason Clown, very much is. With John, the one thing the left would not love about him is his fucking carbon footprint. That come, honestly, he tours like the fucking Rolling Stones. Oh, my God. He's not in the same country for more than a week. He's everywhere. He did a tour of America literally a month ago.

It was under... I was going to ask, like, I'm so curious about what he... does for, because like, when I watch his videos, when I watch his reels and stuff, he's got like a very nice and quite large house, right? Yeah. Like he's a very, like he's done, or his family have seemingly done quite well for himself. His wife does

have, probably does work or probably does have a job. And like, I don't think, like, his son, the boxer Johnny's like, he's not making that much money from boxing, surely. Yeah, he will be. He will be. He sells a huge amount. Because of his dad, he's got a really his profile relative to his skill level.

Yeah, he's good. He's talking. He's Tommy Fury but like Bosch Tommy Fury he's going to go on he's going to go on Love Island I have been so curious as to like what was his life before the Chinese he was a cheese monger

so he was a cheese and meat guy yeah and yeah and they're kind of part of the origin myth now I've got to get into cheese monging looking at that house fuck me they've had the house though since pre well I think this was the issue there was a large amount of mortgage on the house

and COVID took the bottom out of the cheese market so people were at home eating cheese he could have moved not in the quantities they were really I was getting fucking crazy shit delivered

I got this Malaysian girl's mum to send me food once spent like it's 80 quid on it it was really good but like I did feel like I was like this is mad there's lots of people just starting like pop-ups

from their kitchen at that time wasn't it no so that was the John Foundation and then and then he'd go into boshing after his son became like a promising heavyweight boxer

and his talent is like he's such an incredible sales and they sell boatloads of tickets to these boxing matches kind of disproportionate to the level of the boxing and now he goes to nightclubs all over the world, Chuck's prawn crackers at people and shouts Bosch

and he's having the time of his life trust me on that. Is it this like what Mark Wright is supposed to do? Like this is supposed to be the Bosch guy. Yeah, but he's too polished, isn't he Mark Wright? He's like, he's too kind of teeth and hair. And also like it's interesting

because like we, it's a big John came to do. new segment that I was going to go into it. We just went right into the poshman. Oh, yeah. Don't don't tempt us with some boshing and then we can't be stopped. We booked Big John. We were doing like a live podcast of screenrun and we booked Big John

to come and do it. And it was, I was shitting myself because all day, like even like three hours before he was due to be with us, he was posting stories of himself playing paddle in Cornwall. And I was like, fucking hell, he's not going to get it. But he's posting stuff on a delay. He posts

sort of lifestyle stories that haven't actually happened that day. It turned out he'd actually been in Blackpool the night previous. Doing a nightclub appearance had slept at a service station and come straight to us. And so he's doing loads of these nightclub appearances. And I think like the kind of mark right to this world, as someone who's made a living from standout comedy for the last six or seven years, like they don't love the road. Do you know what I mean? Like a lot of those guys, there's like former Tawi stars, whatever, they don't love the road.

They can't keep doing it. John fucking John keeps driving I think because he was formerly like bankrupt almost he just keeps driving A bootful of cheese and a head full of dreams yeah As long as that his merch at the nightclub

On the way out he's selling cheese in the smoking area You want that shun, a lovely little bit of cobbler That is, get that down you I can tell you that he does still invoice from the cheese and meat company I'm not sure if I should say that or not but he's still invoicing from the cheese and meat company One of the two Boschman has like

reverse acquired his own cheese and meat company like a sort of SPAC but for Boshing yeah he's on a

bear hug with his own cheese and meat company in reverse yeah Bosch has gone public vibe

the cheese and meat company yeah oh my god so like the holding company

but I guess like it's just so odd to me right that it's like you know like we say

Big John goes in TV and it's like but before even he went on TV because there are

two Boschman like the political culture of this country is so bankrupt and so devoid of anything

that because one guy says Bosch in his right wing, everyone's like, well, you're the other one, but like just to remember, like we sort of have been alluding to, but to go into it a little more, did you get the sense? Because I certainly got the sense that people were waiting on like the Big John Bosch politics reveal

because it's just such a tidy narrative and people just start projecting off a good Bosch man. But it's like, because he's a normal person who just lives in Britain and isn't particularly politically engaged, you just have received wisdom, right? So if you were to ask him,

what do you think about a wide range of political hot button issues? He would probably give you the pretty much exact answer of any normal person, which is a hodgepodge of a bunch of contradictory things that don't really fit together kind of based on whatever's around.

It doesn't mean you're a bad guy. It just means you're like politics is not something you're engaged in in a media environment where politics is entertainment. Right? So it's like all. All of the stuff that you think politically, probably, just comes from a bunch of different sources, doesn't fit together that well, which is why, like, I'm worried that at some point there's going to be a great fall when people who've been projected. That's right wingers as well, like, Sargon of Akad, that's Calvin, Carl Benjamin is like, I hate them for the big Bosch man.

He's so woke. It's like, I don't think you know that. No. And he's like, also, Big John is, like, up until this point, like, self-declared, like, they're all. as bad as each other, which is like the political opinion that's held by everyone in Stevenage, in my experience growing up. Everyone in every suburb in the country.

Every rural area, yeah. And then like probably vote Tories with it. I'm also, I'm 99% sure that the only reason he did that, that he did that news night appearance is because it was related to a Chinese takeaway. Because I've seen people on Twitter or Instagram before try and rope him into like,

oh, Tom Skinner said this. What do you reckon, John? would you give that a Bosch or No Bosch? And he'll be like, leave me out of this. Like, he doesn't like it. He doesn't want to get into those waters. It's only because he thought he might get a chance to say Chalmin. He went on these.

It's like Drake's drum. If a takeaway is attacked, like, Big John is like involuntarily summoned. Like, he has woken from his slumber to protect the thing he holds most dear Chinese restaurant. It would have happened because people would have tagged him. It would have happened. Like, people on Twitter would have gone, shit, a Chinese has been done. What do you reckon, John?

That genuinely would have happened. to the sky. Shine the prawn cracker. He's got a gun that shoots prawn crackers. He brings it to get it. But, like, yeah, I think he knew. He sensed he had the opportunity to say on national television, I'm a man who's associated with takeaways.

And you don't turn that opportunity down. That only comes along once in a generation. Yeah, I'd go on TV to say that. Yeah, 100%. I'd drive to Salford now to get on the BBC to say that. I think, look, I think everybody on this recording, and probably many of the people listening, we can quite comfortably assume all of us would love to go

on TV and say, I'm associated with Chinese takeaways. But then he actually goes on. It's like, I'm also associated with takeaways in general. And he lists a bunch, like, Greek, Mexican. Yeah, it's true. Listen, I'll eat any takeaway. It's not a problem for me. And I also like that he went on

like the criminal connection podcast and the only professional advice he's ever gotten was like META has like an account manager for him, right? Like Meta fucking loves him. And they just like, what he says in this other podcast, he was interviewing this guy. He was yeah, so what does META say to do?

It's like, yeah, my family says I post too much, but then Mata was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is perfect. Do change nothing. Yeah. Don't stop posting, yeah. Keep ordering those Chinesees. Don't worry about the hardening of your arteries. And so, like, I just, I guess I, I just think that it's like,

I've seen this story before where, like, some normal person just blunders into, like, get sucked into, like, a political vacuum by just being regular. and then at some point he's just going to keep being regular and then all the people who've like imprinted on him birds are going to be like, wait a minute, you're not like, I used to think you should be the, like, run as a candidate for your party and you should be Justice Secretary,

but I just don't think that anymore. You sir have won the internet today. No, he's like, he's like going to definitely happen and I hope it doesn't, because I've met him, he's a lovely man, I hope it doesn't happen in a bad way. So like recently the boxer Tony Bellew had a spat with Tommy Robinson on Twitter, which is not a fucking sentence

you ever want to have to say. God, what a meeting of minds like, Tony Belly and Tommy Robinson. And basically like Tony, like Tony Belly was sticking up for people of the Islamic faith and Tommy Robinson was doing his fucking thing as he always did. And Big John kind of went like, well done Tony, like there's really good people in all religions or something like that. And Tony went, yeah, and all rapists should obviously be put to death immediately.

And it was just like the light, it's going to cross. I think Big John was kind of like, didn't oppose solely in the affirmative. I think it was kind of like, yeah, yeah, you're a good guy. You're a friend of the family kind of thing. But it's like, if you wade into these waters, you're going to get dragged down by the crocodile, right? Do you know, one of the biggest giveaways, and I saw someone tweeted this, have they, the biggest giveaways that, like, Big John isn't like a manufactured thing.

It's not planned. This is genuinely just someone's dad who's got a bit of, if you look at his Twitter handle, it's, like, if you can bring it up, I don't know if anyone's got the opposite. It's like Big John. And then like a load of numbers. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's a real dad's Twitter handle.

Yeah. It's an actual dad's Twitter handle. And it's like he will just have like a dad opinion. Like he will just come out as someone who hasn't really considered this. Who hasn't pitched himself as a candidate and there will be like a hole in his morals. Do you know what I mean? There'll be one policy where it's like, I do think we should kill people who hurt dogs. Do you know what it'll be something like that?

Yeah. And it would be. Oh shit. No. It will be exactly that. It will be exactly. Yeah. If anyone hurts Rockwilers, they should be fucking hung.

Yeah. Like. I specifically didn't look at his old tweets because I don't want to know. I do remember the first time I thought that oh, he might be heading down like a sort of reactionary band that I'm not particularly fan of is when the XL bully ban

was sort of taking place. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was doing a bunch of these videos that were just like, but it was very much in the vein of like, dogs are lovely, it's actually the dog owners. And I was just like, I enjoyed you eating your chicken balls, mate.

It was a wonderful experience. But I'm sorry to see that this is where you're heading. And he just like, Someone, like, you know, pulled him back from what seemed like quite a dark face. Like an exiled bully going for a toddler. Someone pulled him back. Someone muzzled him. Yeah, he used all of their might.

But he's also got like a dog, but it's not an exiled bully, but it is one where like, I was watching one of the Big John Chinese sit downs. I'm not sure who was on there. But when the guest came, but when when the guest came into like his house, the dog was coming after him. And like, he had to be stopped. And then the dog and then one of the sons kind of stopped the dog before like he was going to jump on the guest.

But like, I'm very sure the dog was like biting. the guy's of his boy's arm. The most Essex, the most Essex or Hartford's thing you can do

first, say they're all as bad as each other to have a large very dangerous dog who when it jumps at people you say oh he's just playing

don't worry about him he's fine that's the most that's the most Stevenage or Gidea Park thing you can do and so like

so this is the number one Boschman right this is in my view the main one except no substitutes

yeah and so I want to talk about the second Boschman for a moment well because it's interesting though that you say that Big John is the main Boschman

because Skinner is the more long-term Boschman. Skinner has been a fixture in British media for a much longer. Skinner's on like mainstream television once a week. He's done Vine. He's been on everything. He's on Strictly. He's put in YOWAS. Yeah, he's put in YOWS.

He's on strictly and I think he might get Master Chef as well. And this is like, this might be reformed. Christ, what's he going to cook? Fuck me. Yeah, well, but this might be reform's next mayoral candidate. But this is the thing. It's like, I don't know I want to sound like I'm different

I almost think the reason he hasn't fully lent into the reform thing it's not because he doesn't necessarily think those things or that he doesn't think he could profit for them but I think he thinks he could be Jonathan Ross do you know what I mean

I think he sees such a future for himself in television that's the reason that he's treading the line is because he's like I'm a fucking TV star I can't be mayor

I can't do this dirty politic shit and he spent his entire life chasing money he'll be trying to go well, there's probably more money in getting my own chat show which he probably thinks is possible.

God, imagine what the house band would be called if they gave Skinner the Jonathan West show. Fucking hell. That's the thing, right? Because like, Reform's conference has just happened. And, like, they are heavily hinting. There's normal people having a normal time.

Yeah, that karaoke. A bit of fun. Well, they had impromptu karaoke when Andrea Lenson walked on stage. Yeah. Genuinely, she sung a song, like, her own song that she wrote as well as the National which is the sign of a normal person in my view

everyone knows whenever you're at a funeral or a wedding and someone's like a member of the family has written a poem you're sat there thinking this will be really good this definitely won't be a horrible shift in tone that's been gravely misjudged this won't have weirdly sexual metaphors about the bride by her uncle yeah this would be normal but still like I fully expected

at that conference because like the Tories and are both trying to draft Tom Skinner right now because they're like with reformed they're like we could win the London mayoralty with the Tories they're just like we've gone so internet that you're the our last connection to like the normal

world out there no but like the this was a reform conference they had like the the vaccine skeptic doctor Assim Malhotra they had Lucy Connolly right who's like just crazy yeah who's Lucy Connolly she's the woman who went to jail for the

Yeah, of the tweets that just burn all the asylum hotels down for all I care. Okay. Yeah, that one. For all I care is such a funny thing to put on the end of such an aggressive tweet. I don't know. If anyone even listens to me. No one would probably listen to me. I guess commit a grave racialized act of violence, if you even care what I think.

Probably won't listen to me. If you're asking me. Yeah. What am I like? Anyway, they have her. They have Andrea Jenkins. I totally thought that that was going to be their big announcement that the reform candidate for mayor of London's going to be Tom Skinner.

But I... WWE style. Yeah. Is that Tom Skinner's music? They lie. Yeah, but also it's very funny. The conference, like, there was no major corporate advertising. Like, they were all there, but there's no major corporate advertising.

The only thing that there really was, was like a bunch of gold dealing websites for, like, paranoid old people. These people are obsessed with gold. They're all obsessed with breaking their money into natural minerals. They're not a little pirate. Imagine having a five-bedroom house in Surrey and being like, Like, no, this isn't secure enough. I need to get some gold.

I have a bit about this at the moment, because Farage has been shilling for this company called Bullion Direct. That's the company. That's the company that was advertising there. It's an amazing name for a company. Bullion direct. And in the ad, yeah, well, we've got to get your bullion somewhere. Might as well get it direct.

It's cheaper that way, presumably. Don't waste your time on the market. Go direct to Bullion Direct. If you want to secure your pension and make sure that your grandchildren are going to grow up in a nice university, you want to go to Billy and Direct. You've got to get proper British gold from food. Bullion direct.

And he's like, there's an ad where he's talking about why you need gold and it's all about how uncertain the world is now. And the clips, and he's got like clips of like the war in Ukraine, like genuine like tanks being blown up by drones and stuff. And then it cuts back to Faris in the studio and he just goes, and of course, China. No one knows what they're going to do. I just, some people are like, fuck, he's right. I've got my gold.

I've got to call this number. I need to liquidate by imagery. Someone in their conservatory in Rueb and Essex is phony. their financial prize. We get it all out the stocks and sheds. We need gold. Can we take the money

out of the walking bath? I don't want that anymore. I want the gold. Buying their adult nappies with little chunks of gold down Astor. You change that for me, love? Like you're in

like the show Deadwood? Just buying whiskey with gold. But also, just before we get back on to the Boschman, this is just from the FT article about the reform conference. I got the fucking news in.

I told you I was going to do a news segment. Nice. I seglated the fuck in. At the afternoon sessions came to an end. Members don their glad rags for evening's entertainment, a 25 pound ahead party, including, this is one of my favorite sentences,

a performance by the surviving members of the Jackson's. That's class. Wow. Like, Jacob did a really funny tweet about this the other day, not to be like, oh, my friends do funny tweets, but like, they are, as a party, like, they look unbelievable. We've talked about this on the podcast before,

like about Joseph Valenti, who's also a kind of reform-adjacent, Apprentice contestant. And I'm not saying they're ugly. I'm disparaging their looks. They're just like truly unbelievable. I've never seen people that look like that before. They've never seen.

I've never seen faces like this before. They almost, a lot of their faces look like they've been sort of like transposed onto them digitally from a black and white film. Do you know what I mean? It feels like a news program. Which is the last thing you wanted to the Reform Congress. It's crazy. It looks like one of those.

streets in New York where the people are walking a little bit too fast because they've made the sped up silent footage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're all, like, they're very outcasty. They're very weird. I thought you meant like the Atlanta rap duo then for a second. They all dressed like Andre 3000, carrying a flute around.

I think that's why they look at Skinner and they go he could be our guy because he's normal. He looks like a guy. They're all fucking, they're so weird. And Farage isn't cutting the mustard anymore. Like, he's not cutting through anymore. Yeah, Elon hates him. I think, Elon's like, You're woke because you're towing the, like, sort of British government line on Tommy Robinson.

Sorry, what, is he unwilling? Oh, he's, okay, great. Great. That is now a signifier in wokeness. And with Tommy Robinson, because they are trying to appeal to people in their conservatories, and I see this on Twitter a lot, a lot of the people don't like Tommy Robinson. Genuinely, I've seen so many people say this because he swears too much. There's so many of them say that.

No, I don't like that, Tommy Robinson. I don't like his language. Oh, charming. He's not a nice boy. No. Literally. He's not like that one. agree with that.

Was that footballer that's a nice boy? Michael Lohen. Yeah, that's the one. Saka, Eze. Yeah, but Buckeh, Sack would be the nicest boy in London, I think. But I think this has always sort of been a problem. Like, it's always been like both the gift and the curse for all of the Farage political projects.

Like, UKIP was always a very weird party, right? Like, before Brexit, there was a very small UKIP sort of, like, society at my, the uni I went to. And it was the biggest UKIP society in the country. And there was, like, six people in there. So, like, that tells you everything you need to know about the University of York in the early 2010s. And, like, they were always very, like, where they dressed very, like, eccentricly. They had very sort of, you know, they were always, like, they were always political

misfits and oddballs. And, like, I guess, like, the thing that Farage has always been able to do is really realize that, like, there was, like, political potential in them. And I think at the time, like, it was very easy to sort of dismiss them as oddballs because that's what they were. But, like, the thing about, you know, we sort of fast forward to now, it's like, well, the oddballs are sort of, like, it's not that they necessarily have the political energy, but it's because, Because like politics is so chaotic right now and because it's so like, you know, the establishment parties have no sort of sense of control. They have no sense of narrative. They can't really kind of tell any story. And in the meantime, you have like the internet and internet culture that

distorts those types of narratives. So anyone, so like cutting through is very difficult. And so the curse that Farage and the gift and the curse that Farage and like reform seem to have is that like they've identified that, oh, there are lots and lots of oddballs in this country that have become like increasingly radicalized by like looking at screens too much and like buying too much bullion or like you know just sort of like being online or like just mixtures of lots of things like you have just like you know again like you know you guys all we like a lot of us come from suburbs like these types of suburbs and we know like there are people there but just have really weird it's really weird to interact with him i've been i've been watching like

a few videos of like the absent probably the process outside of like that hotel um the one in epic epic epic not abs yet not the one in epiope and also the one in canary wolf and like these are these are interviews by like so-called like independent like journalist it's like one guy who's like really looks he looks at Adam Brooks SXPR is who you're talking about there's another guy whose name I can't remember

but I think you guys probably would have come across him like considering how many videos you guys watch and like this guy this guy has like this guy like it must only be like in his 20s but he has the face of like a 40 year old it's so like weird and jarring to watch but like his videos always show up on my feed

so I'm like watching them and he's like interviewing like people on both sides of you know His whole thing is I interview both people from both sides or whatever. But clearly, like, one gets more airtime. But, like, when you see the interviews that he does with, like, the far right groups, like, they all, like, lack every, they all just, like, completely lack coherence. And so they're like, and also, like, these people that they interview, like, have no attention span at all. And so they'll ask them, like, oh, what do you think about, like, the migrants in these hotels?

It's like, oh, yeah, they're shit, isn't it? But, like, then, like, 30 seconds later, they'll start talking about, like, something completely unrelated to, like, you, les, or the back scene. It'll be like Sadiq Khan Ulaz, the vaccine they're putting new chips in our phones to spy on us

digital ideas already here and like you can buy it in news agents is one thing The phrase fighting age men will come up That's right I'm genuinely calling

my next stand up to a fighting age man It's just very incoherent but it's like that's always been the energy and that's always been and that's the thing that like reform is trying to sort of capture

and build into something like that can lead them to like political victory. But the question I always come back to is, it's like, well, what are you going to do with it when you get it? Because, like, this is completely unconcentrated. As you mentioned, like, Farage has no power over this. They've already sort of started turning on him. But the thing is, they'll start turning on, like, fucking, what's his name? Rupert Rupert Lowe as well, right? Because he, because no politician can really sort of harness that type of, like, erratic. I don't even know what to call it. It's not really power, but like, they can't really, they can't really, like, they can't really sort of control that erratic energy. They can't. They can't really, like, they can't really sort of control that erratic energy. but he just can't do it. And I think that's like most, like, it seems most kind of visceral to me in like Nige, who's wanted to be the Prime Minister since he's probably about five

and was always like, it's never going to happen and it's probably going to happen. And as it's about to happen, he's letting like a load of 19-year-olds like run hull. Yeah. They're just turning up in their next suits and they don't know what to do, bless them. It's not their fault.

It's like someone needs to stop them. Just getting bullied by whole 19-year-olds for wearing a suit. Yeah. And it's just like, there's probably some jaded civil servants sat across from them being like, no, sorry, we can't bring back public executions. That's not within the remit of Hull Council, actually.

I know you've spoken to Tony Bellew, but unfortunately, he doesn't have that power either. But this is a mad thing, though, because I think the way you described that, Hussein is 100% correct. It's like, they cannot control this energy they've created. I mean, they also just don't know what they want. This is the other thing, too. And it's like, that's not like a criticism. It's not a sort of like, you know, all these guys are so stupid. It's like, you don't actually know what you want. It's completely undirected. They haven't directed it in one particular direction. it's because they don't have anyone at the whole.

Like, this is the moment. Like, I personally, I don't know much better. I think there'll be a flash election next year. Really? And I think reform could take it. If Nigel Farage wasn't in fucking America every week. Why is he in America? It's trying to break America.

It's a bigger political market. He's trying to break America when his first album's about to come out in the UK. It's like, you have to be on Jonathan Ross. You have to do Graham Norton. You're like, it's insane. He's been working for 15 years to get this opportunity. He's finally got it. He's in fucking America.

Ladies and gentlemen, he's back with an album of jazz standards. Please, welcome Mr. Nigel for Wage. He's singing a song by Andrea Ledsom. He's like, Andrew Ledsom are doing like the famous Tony Bennett Lady Gaga duet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To Hussain's point, like, like, all it takes is for someone who isn't a fucking thug in Tommy Orinson. Who isn't just a violent fucking moron who can't be in the country for more than two weeks because he'll get arrested? Or someone who isn't the most ridiculous suit in the world.

All it takes is for someone to just unite a bit of it, point it in one direction. They will win it so, so comfortably. Tories are gone. Labor are imploding. They will fucking walk it, but none of them can do it. It's mental. But I think this is a good time to bring it back around to our second Boschman, which is like we ask why people project on these guys and why they're like, oh, we got a draft the Boschman. He's able to

like thread this needle because again, most of what he down, he's much more nakedly political Tom Skinner than Big John. Big John is a normal man who ate a lot of Chinese takeaways and it sort of saved his imploding cheese and meat business and helped this son's boxing career. And he's not negative thanks to

bear right now. Thanks very much. Tom Skinner is someone who has been on who's been trying to be famous since forever. It was a market stall trader but who went to like a private school that I believe he was excluded from. The classic market stool trader origin story where you first you go to private school and then you start selling mattresses on a market stool. Yeah.

It's the normal career and then you go on the strictly come down. And then he goes. He goes on your working class. But he goes on the apprentice. He goes on like lots of these shows and he gets this traditional media career. Again, only in Britain is I am famous for being on several reality shows that don't have much to do with one another. Only in Britain is that a traditional media career. And then he says he also, instead of going.

to the Blue Orchid, Chinese. He goes to Dino's breakfast. He likes a fry. He likes big breakfast is Tom Skinner and Pints. And so he's like, has this legacy media career. And I think he sees the opportunity, because he wasn't always so political, right? He was also just like, oh, I'm a cheeky chappy. You know, I'm an Essex, you know, I'm an Essex guy, cheeky chappy. Bit of like a sort of only fools and horses character. And I'm going to like, I just believe in graft, hard work, you know. Special cuddles with your wife. Yeah, well, quite. And, like, I have a family, do a bit of hard work,

have a big house in Romford. Bosch. Drive a van. No one knows what's in the van. Let's not ask any questions about what I'm doing with a van. I'm just in a van. Don't worry about it. So don't ask why I'm at the CAF at 4 in the morning.

That's got nothing to do with you. I might have been out on night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm up at 3 o'clock in the morning. We're picking up a asylum seekers in Calais. We're putting them in the back in the van. And we're sneaking them across the channel because we love a bit of hardroft early in the morning, how bad.

He also has spun his brand into a lot more than Big John has. He also has the Bosch Gym, the Bosch mattresses. The Bosch Gym. The Bosch Gym. Yeah, Big John goes to the gym. Tom Skitter started a gym. The Bosch Gym in XX. But that's what the way you've just described the gym is, is all of it.

It's like Big John fell into it. Tom created it for himself. Do you know what I mean? And I think it's easy to forget. Tom's had a media career that he has fought for and he put himself into. for what, 10 years now? And as anyone who had any kind of career in legacy media over the last three years

has done, it's pivoted towards the internet, social media, all of that stuff. He's like relentlessly tweeting. I know people who know him and like he also on top of all of this has what he calls the Bosch Taxi, which is genuinely a black cab driver that he has on like salary

to just drive him around all day while he's doing these TV appearances so that he can drink and smoke in the back of the cab and doesn't have to drive. Get himself back to Essex for a pot. Critical support for that specific aspect. He's calling it Essex's answer to Uber. Yeah.

But this is what I'm trying to get to is this is a sort of like a pitchman, a salesman, a wheeler dealer. He'll often be like, I just love selling stuff. And this is genuinely like that attitude it so fits with right wing politics, which is I'm going to, through force of personality as opposed to what I'm doing, excite you about something, get you excited about it.

And if you're selling something, you're not giving someone something they need. You're trying to persuade them to do something you need. Right. This is, this is why like so many sort of right-wing politicians through history have been salespeople, actors, stuff like this. Anyway, he is, again, emphatically, he's not a politician. A lot of people, I think, want him to become one. In fact, the last couple of months, there have been so many articles about him in traditional media, like, you know, unheard or the new statesmen or whatever, they're like, no, they want this guy to be a literal politician. We did an episode about him when he must have been negotiating the final, like, contract

to go on Strictly Come Dancing, which is like, probably get a couple, at least a couple hundred grand for Americans, for the Americans listening to this. Yeah, what is, what is? Dancing with the Star, right, okay, that's what it's called, Dancing with the Stars in America. Yeah, why do we call it Strictly Come Dancing? I don't know. Because they used to be a show called Come Dancing. Wow.

In, like, literally in the 40s. Wow. that was like a ballroom dancing show, but not celebrities. And then I think we took that and we smashed it together with the parody Australian film Strictly Ballroom. This is incredible. And turned it into Strictly Come Dancing. Again, it's TV for the dying.

It's walking bath. It's got bully and direct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's like, he was about to become like even more of a mainstream celebrity than he already. And that was when he started putting out these particularly like inflammatory tweets and then deleting them and saying his agent was talking about. And it's like, like you say, he was on the verge of getting everything that he'd ever wanted. And that's what I'm particularly interested in or scared of

is that he thought, no, actually the way to increase this or ratchet it up is to appeal to those mad right-wing people. Do you know what I mean? As opposed to like, I'm going to become apolitical at this moment. Like, he's lent into that, which is, that's fucking frightening. Why do you want to go and hang around with Big Bad Bobby Jenrick? Fuck that. You want to be hanging around with whoever presents.

Is it Holly Willoughby? No, who does, God, I don't even know he presents strictly. Test Ailey. There we go. There we go. You pulled it out. Yeah, because like, it's like, Tom's skis. are always he treads the line. He's like, look, knife crimes out of control. There are too many small boats. I just think we should house veterans instead of giving asylum seekers like Bentley's. The usual Facebook nonsense, but just like a Facebook comment, but like coming from an original poster who happens to be like being astroturfed into being a genuine celebrity by everybody around him, it seems, as well as trying to be drafted into the two main right wing. But like, he's like every single influential force.

in the British establishment they're trying incredibly hard to make Nigel Farage Prime Minister they're trying just a little bit less hard

to make Tom Skinner utterly ubiquitous I cannot begin to tell you how much he would hate doing a job in politics Oh God yeah He would quit so fast It's unbelievable

Like we've got some intel from his neighbours Oh yeah Yeah yeah yeah Yeah and despite like having clearly loads of money

I mean I couldn't possibly begin to speculate why the assets that he own would be slightly less revealing of how much money he has or why he's chosen to live in a slightly smaller house than he perhaps has money for. But he lives in a terrace house with neighbours on either side and someone who listens to our podcast, their best mate moved into him next door to him recently. The best mate was in the house already and then the best mate was like, I've got these new neighbours.

They're an absolute fucking nightmare. They've taken one of the fence panels off so that my kids can go in their garden and their kids can come in mine. It's a guy called Tom Ski. It just wants a bit of community, posh. Normal person has no idea who Tom Skinner is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He keeps talking to my wife.

He's taking a fucking fence panel out of my garden. He keeps insisting we have barbecues. He's making noise every fucking week. He's got this weird black cab that stays outside the house. There's a guy called Barry saying a black cab outside the house. A fucking Unibor or something. He's like the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. Like the people, they just live in terror of this sort of like big red ogre who is going to

The way that we, and we described him in this way somewhat more affectionately because it was before he'd kind of pandered to this sort of nasty stuff. But like, we described him as like the loudest dad at the all-inclusive buffet. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the biggest, reddest English father shouting at the swimming pool on your holiday and who's ready to kind of unionize the other tourists against the people that are running the entertainment. Do you know what I don't we just take over?

They don't need to run the karaoke. I can run the karaoke. Why can't we have darts in the morning? Yeah. Actually, we can only have darts after dinner. Why don't we have it in the morning? What's wrong we having darts by the bouncy castle? Let's have a vote.

You'd vote for dance, wouldn't you? Yeah, yeah. You'd all vote for darts. I'll go get Stabros now. Stabros, we'll start. Yeah. Tom Skinner reeking of lager, scaring the kids on the bouncy castle. Yeah.

By having a go just for a laugh. Let me on there. Yeah. So what if I've got a steak pie on me? Let me on. Yeah. So, like, this is genuinely like the guy of the moment on the right, it seems, who is supposed to be.

like the next celebrity slash politician. What did him and J.D. Vans talk about, man? Oh, my God. I would give anything to know what was going on that. I mean, you guys know how... I also think we should have darts. I have a normal guy too. Yeah.

Can I fucking know. You guys know how that gets set up, right? Like the Tom Skinner J.D. Vance thing. Who, who isn't, doesn't Tom? Yeah, Tom Skinner has some kind of like weird political kind of like, what's the word, like patron who's like nand person working for. for Skinner. Yeah, no, it's this guy James Orr, who's a

professor of the philosophy... Pimping him out to the ruling classes. Yeah, he's the professor of philosophy at Cambridge. Specifically, the professor of the philosophy of religion, like, one of these like weepy high church Anglican guys. And he basically... I'm fascinated by this boss. Yeah, that's literally what we're talking about.

He's like, oh, yes, fascinating. I think he's entertaining, but he should entertain, of course, the masses, and then we'll bring back hanging. Gosh, I bet he could... I bet he could just get his hand around your neck and just squeeze. Life out of you. Yeah, just sore.

Those big, meaty. We face criticism from our own listeners of our podcast for a while because they were like, you were too kind on skinny, you should have hammered him harder. And it was kind of a sort of quirk of recording schedules that like he'd gone a lot further right wing between us recording and releasing an episode. You know what I mean?

But then my kind of like, I guess, childish reaction to that, I was like, oh, fuck off. And there was a bit of me. I sort of thought to myself, I was like, God, as if the left are threatened by him, right? As if this is what's going to take down the left. And then now that I've seen it kind of the way that people are projecting onto him, like, God, as if this is what the right need?

Do you know what I mean? It's one thing the left being scared of him. It's another that, as you say, Riley, like, the two biggest right-wing parties in the country are doing anything to beg this guy. Yeah, which one's sadder? Being cowardly afraid of him or desperately trying to come to come to your house. I found this chap he's a mattress salesman And I think it could be just what we need

Do you support the hammers, Tom? Do you look like a hammers guy to me? Have you ever blown a bubble, Thomas? Would you like some? James Orr, this like, who's in like all the same fucking discords The Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance are all in. It's just like, yeah, it's just like, yes, there's a, there's a mistress salesman. He seems quite peculiar.

I think he would like him. He runs a few gymnasia. Yeah, no, clothed, I know So this is from an article in Unheard by Nile Gooch What's the name? Come on! Come on! Don't try and sneak that one past me.

What's his real name? Nile Gooch, I'm afraid. I'm afraid his parents. Not the old Gucci are coming around from unheard, sticking his beak and everything again. Yeah, so I'm afraid. That's a name we would make up for this guy. That can't be his real name. Full Gooch, quick.

Got, I've got to get the scoop to Gooch. James Orrish found a mattress salesman who's going to barnstorm the country. Get Gooch on the Bosch beat. Damn it. The words of James Orr, a socio-professor of the philosophy of religion at Cambridge, is a champion of Skinner. I'm not champion of

Skinner. Tom Skinner's like society lawyer. He's a very busy man. He's up at 3.30 a.m. grafting. Giving for those revolting breakfast. He gets in his van, drives her in the southeast living mattresses. It's a cheeky pint of the local. They talk about him like they

talk about King Kong in the film. Come, come, look upon him. Look at the revolting breakfasts. Also, like, I swear he gets up earlier every day. Like, every new birthday, it's like, he gets up a 3.4 a.m. He gets up at 1am. He gets up at 11. He gets up before he goes to bed.

All right? That's how much grafting he does. This is going to end up with him, like, chained up in a conference centre for their conference in Manchester. Look at him. Look at the mighty Skinner. Will he break his chains and come and run a mock in the conference area? Hanging off, Big Ben. It was Orr who match made him with Vance, having earlier identified something in Skinner that he felt deserved a wider audience.

Behind the cheeky chappy persona was someone he felt who was England incarnate, a patriotic, straight-talking family man with the kind of face William the Conqueror might have stared at in 1066. Fuck me. William the Conqueror won. Yeah. No, but like... This is not a good... Hence that I'd be.

Kind of face an arrow might have gone through in 1066. I guess what he means is like, oh, he's probably... He's not like these fucking... Normans, he's proper English, and he's going to bring back, like... Not like, he's a feat Normans coming over and writing down everyone's name in a big book. Isn't there a bit where he's like, it's the sort of, it's the sort of face you might have seen on the quarter deck with Horatio Nelson or marshalling troops at the song? Yeah, that's at the beginning. It says, there's something timelessly reassuring about Thomas Skinner's face.

Nile Gooch can't stop talking about Thomas Skinner's physiognor. Yeah. Oh, this is horny. This is 100% horny. There were Tom Skinners in the Saxon Shieldwall, the Battle of Hastings. and on the quarter deck with Drake and Nelson, Sergeant Tom Skinner held the troops steady at Bledham in Waterloo and the Somme

with indomitable cheerfulness. He doesn't have a sergeant energy. He has the most unruly Lance Corporal in the brigade energy. He's constantly on latrines because he's done something horrendous. Of course. He doesn't exude competence.

He exudes, I've just done a shit in your helmet and like, good luck. The bar. Although he sounds ambivalent. on the question of entering politics himself Politicos from across the spectrum are seeking to hitch their wagons to him and quote seeing where the philosophy of Bosch may be

where we're heading. The philosophy of Bosch isn't it? It's just being on camera and being kind of like you know, um, cheeky and then saying, ah, the greens make you, they want it to be illegal to be cheeky. And everyone's like, yeah, that's right. They do. I read that. The paper, it's just repeating

the same stuff from the paper that everyone reads. So then they're like, yeah, they could, so he said, I read in the paper that the wokes and the Greens are going to try to make breakfast illegal, that everyone else who wrote the same article in the telegraph, that's like, woke Greens come for rashers, is going to be like, oh, fuck, I heard that. He tells it like it is.

I kind of do think we've gotten stupider, you know. I know people say, like, oh, you know, the Nazis were stupid or whatever, but I don't know. I don't feel like Oswald Mosley was like, we found this chap. He's got a fruit and veg stance. I think we can base our whole political philosophy on it. Yeah, there's two distinct groups.

There's loads of high church people running around. And Oxford being like, he's got the soul of someone that would have stood at Blenham. And then everyone else being like, he has a steak pie for breakfast. And everyone's just like, this is the guy. It doesn't matter why. It's two groups of people. We're sort of equally trepidatious of Skinner, but like one group is afraid that he'll beat us up. And the other group is hoping he'll beat them up in kind of a sexy way.

One of them is afraid of their own feelings about Skinner and what it entails for their for their parishioners. So Orr went on. There's something timelessly English about him. Rejecting the idea that his appeal may be rooted in some sense to extend nostalgia for a vanishing imagined England of pites down the local. Quote, it's the energy, the sunny optimist, and the authenticity, and maybe a glimpse into what's been lost. What the fuck you're talking about? That's insanity.

Nothing's been fucking lost that Tom Skinner represents. You can still have breakfast! He lives in a fucking barrette home and he drinks pints. That's like most people in the country. There is that exact man. in every pub in the country. You can find a Tom Skinner in every pub in the country

and every one of them is trying to go, you can't live like this anymore. It's like, there's a million of you living like this. You're all living like this. It's tough to be the Tom Skinner of the Devonshire. Yeah, yeah. Trying to desperately get any attention. James Orr rang Skinner every day for six weeks.

Skinner did not. And it took like six weeks of calling constantly for Skinner to like pick up the phone and then come to this, like, conference put on by the spectator? The CIA couldn't have waterboarded that one out of me. I rang Tom Skinner every day for six weeks, so he'd agree to come to my nerd barbecue. There's a video of this online where they get Tom Skinner to, like,

participate in, like, a panel conversation, and he leaves, I'm very sure he leaves, like, halfway through, because he has to take a phone call, he says. I mean, he never comes back. Amazing. Got to speech a man about a mattress. And you can kind of see, and you can kind of see, like the other, like, panelists are sort of waiting for him, but they don't know if he's going to come,

like, they don't know if he's coming back or not. And so they're like kind of on this. It's quite, it's very, it's very, very funny to watch. It says, so he rang Skinner for six weeks. And then he comes to this conference that was called Now and England by the Roger Scruton legacy foundation. Roger, imagine, imagine. Roger Scruton is like summoned back from the dead for 10 minutes just to be told what his foundation is up to now. And you just show him. Here, We have this, this guy's the most popular thing that your foundation did. And he's just like, want a mattress, want a pie? I saw you a pie for the price of a mattress.

And then Roger Scruton would just die again. Big Douglas Murray has to be the one to tell him. Has to be the one to tell Roger Scruton's ghost. Sorry, old boy, we've fucked it a little bit. Danny Kruger is just like, I'm afraid we've had to use an elf. Yeah, the headquarters is a static caravan now. In Baltimore, it's just like, and again, everyone's fucking right. about this. He also was releasing

a single called Bosch Drink Stella. Oh, yeah, we've covered this before to the tune of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax. Relax. Drink Stella, you know, make you feel better. It's as bad as it says. Yeah, because he did it. I've seen a clip of him doing this. This was like a viral video

back in the day. It's from lockdown. It's from lockdown. Yeah, I mean, he is, he's it's one thing that I think isn't spoke about enough with Skinner and Big John, the Boschman. Is it like they both got huge in lockdown. And I mean, on the internet as well as within their bodies. There was something

and it's because there's a somewhat anti-authoritarian feeling to both of them like, I want to just have six people in my garden. I want to see my nan at Christmas. Does that make me a fucking criminal? It really harnessed that energy. But you can't put that energy

in an office. Do you know what I mean? They're trying with Tom Skinner. This is why I don't think he would do it. You know what you were saying, Hussein, he was at that panel and he got up and left. guarantee you that as he was leaving that panel,

whatever it was, he'd a text one of his mates and gone, fuck this. Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. I feel like the fascination, like, among the sort of like intellectual, right, whatever you want to call them with him, is really less to do of him and more to do with,

like, this portity of ideas in general in British politics. Like, nobody has any idea about what to do or, like, who they are, what they should be, what their values are. And there are, like, you know, there are sort of very long, explanations for why that might be, lots of theories, etc. We don't need to sort of go into them. But there is this sort of sense of like aimlessness. And I feel like, you know, they've sort

of looked at what's happening online and they're seeing that, oh, you know, and I think there is something also to be said about just the effects of like videos and online content that just makes you dumber. And the fact that, oh, this is like the new popular form of media and the sort of establishment media, the sort of mainstream media have no real answers as to like how they counter this, right? Or at least it's like the answers that they might have is like are deemed to be either unworkable or unaffordable. Like this is very, like, my theory, like, if you really want to go back to me, is like this is very much like a long tale of austerity type of story.

And so instead of, like, presenting a challenge to that, whether in terms of narrative or in terms of, like, creative output, everyone has decided in terms of establishment stuff to, like, lean into it. But, like, how, if you are someone who is like, someone like James Orr, like, who I went on Wikipedia and looked him up and it's just like, okay, this is a guy, went to the same private schools as Rishi Shunak, basically has lived in. Oxford and Cambridge his entire life in terms of like being a university done like his entire life. Like when he started out doing this thing in like the 1970s and 1980s or whatever, I feel like,

you know, at that time it was very much like, okay, I'm just going to become like an intellect, like that's going to be me. I'm going to be an intellectual and I'm going to like occupy the status that has been bequeathed to me by like the English class system and it's never going to like be disruptive. And all of a sudden you find yourself like being like, oh, like, you know, no one's listening to you. No one's paying attention to you. Your ideas don't work. everyone thinks you're stupid. Everyone's giving you a wedgy every time they see you, right? But you don't, you know, what do you do then to cling on to any sort of sense of like,

you know, who you want it to be? Like, well, you kind of have to find it in this guy. You have to find it in these types of characters who, I think for like the most part, you know, they are very few of them are sort of like overtly political. They sort of give off vibes sometimes of like where they might be, right? But I feel like a lot of it is it's very much just they're confused about like what they actually think and how they feel. And it's just, you know, I see.

stuff on, it's like everyone else. I see stuff on my phone and I get angry about it. Um, and that stuff can be like, you know, your Excel bully being put down or, you know, the, the Chinese takeaway sort of like putting up the price of porn of prawn balls or something like that, like things that just make you angry. And then the question these guys, like, you know, a lot of the political operatives are having is like, well, how do you channel that into anything that is politically productive? And like, they don't really have an answer, which is why you then just get all these pieces in like, in unheard and everything, which is like, he has such a beautiful head and it reminds me of like, he has a beautiful skull that reminds me of like the Norman

conquest. Like, but it doesn't mean anything, but none of this means anything. You can say what you want. I don't fucking know. James, could you come in and sit down, please? Yeah, you're a bit behind on your marking and we've, we've read the article where you said that you called Tom Skinner three times a day for six weeks. You're definitely, you're obviously fired, gal.

So it's like, and I think this is what you say, what you're describing is why the moment a guy comes along, it has some kind of organic appeal, they have to slot him into, like, these guys, these like right-wing intellectuals have to slot him into a category they understand, which is why Simon Evans and Spiked is like, yes, he's an avatar of the Arthurian myth of the sleepers under the hill that will awaken to England's diarist need. It's like, what the fuck you talking about? That doesn't make any sense. Also, like, another thing, and I'll say this very quickly, which is like, there's kind of like the lack of sort of any type of interest in arts and culture, I think, in the UK. I can't speak about other countries.

But like the lack of interest in arts and culture and the lack of like arts critics and cultural critics in sort of mainstream, like, yeah, in the mainstream kind of means that all of this stuff is left to like the dwindling number of like political pundits who are the only people in journalism to be allowed jobs. You know, that goes back to answering the question that we were answering at the very best game at the very beginning, which is why on earth is Big John on Newsnight, but it's also why like, you know, your architect, you know, your, you know, your Guardian architecture critic or whatever. I think that's who he is. It's talking about like, you know, Tom Skinner and these forning terms or like how you have political pundits who are sort of like trying to interpret

internet culture in a way that sort of makes sense and kind of to understand elections and it feels very vacuous and it feels embarrassing and very good and I do like more I think about it it is just very much like well when you've just decided to like decimate arts and culture and music and like everything that isn't just like politics then you turn politics into entertainment like this is the stuff you get and then as but like in practice it means like you desperately try and put Tom Skinner or Big John or like, I don't know HS Tiki-Tocky into like some type of, like you know, is

HS Tiki Tiki Tockey a Lib Dem? I don't fucking know, maybe, yeah, sure, go on, go for it. Going down a helter scale to a with Tim Farron yeah, beating up Beaver at the bottom. God, yeah, who's going to draft? Who will draft the humble beaver? Yeah, who wants him? You don't need to chew, vote with Ben.

I've chased the old wheel of cheese down the ill down, and swallow it a hole. I want to finish by reading a little bit of Tom Skinner's speech from this like Roger Scruton event. He says, England is the absolute governor. For the whole of the rule of law,

the Industrial Revolution, and the internet. But it's built on family, graft, and community. The single mum up at 5 a.m. getting her kids ready for a long day of work, who still finds a strength to smile, but those failed left behind of their own country. Single mum having a fucking fry up.

Still finds the strength to smile. With kids being taught, be ashamed of their own flag. He advocated as well for better child care, as well as more forceful police, because, quote, let's be honest, they're all Pussies at the moment. Fuck, you, hell.

That's all the time we have today for this the Battle of the Boschman. This fake battle of the Boschman, the Boschman aren't battling. People just like to... They're friends. They're friends. They hang out.

But guys, what an absolute pleasure to have you here talking about these two strange men and what they mean for British politics. No, not strange men. These two unstranged men. Normal men. These two very normal men. Innocent men, yeah.

These normal men who've been made strange by the fact of being here. Yeah, no, thanks for having it. It's pleasure, absolute pleasure. Products of modern Britain. Is there anything you'd like to plug? We do a podcast called The ScreenRot Podcast, where we watch the Rott so you don't have to, and we explain internet personalities, which is how we got into Big John. Yeah, yeah.

So check out ScreenRot. Hussain listens to it. I've been listening to it. I think Milo listens to it. Yeah, I listen to it, yeah. I listen to it to, like, ignore my kid. so if that's like by way of like any sort of Jacob does it to ignore his kids

so it's what I've got loads one in each arm podcasting beer on the go this is one of those ones that's been a little while coming so glad to have you guys on Milo you have some cities to list dates yeah this month I've still got Cambridge on the 21st

Oxford on the 25th Cardiff on the 28th also London I've got a special taping on the 27th and I've got a warm up show on the 23rd, which is a little bit cheaper. It's the same show. If you're looking to save a fiver, then do that. Otherwise, October, November,

on pretty much every city in the UK, Marlow Edwards.com, UK slash live shows. Come and see the show. Hey, well, with that, we'll see you on the Patreon in a few days. Bye, everyone. Bye. Stop taking up.