TRASHFUTURE - Dave Courtney's Illegal Cinema feat. Olly Thorn

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

It sure is good that the UK government is giving out funds to help the arts! And it sure is weird that they’re funneling money into Tory donors and their friends from school, to include multi-billion pound interests getting more money than entire cities in the North East! Whoever could have predicted this? To discuss it, we brought on friend of the show, actor, and YouTube star Olly Thorn (@PhilosophyTube) to discuss it with Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), and Alice (@AliceAvizandum). If you want access to our Patreon bonus episodes and powerful Discord server, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/trashfuture We support the London Renters Union, which helps people defeat their slumlords and avoid eviction. If you want to support them as well, you can here: https://londonrentersunion.org/donate Here's a central location to donate to bail funds across the US to help people held under America's utterly inhumane system: https://secure.givelively.org/donate/the-bail-project If you want one of our *fine* new shirts, designed by Matt Lubchansky, then e-mail trashfuturepodcast [at] gmail [dot] com. £15 for patrons, £20 for non-patrons, plus shipping. *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind GYDS dot com). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and Alice (@AliceAvizandum)

You're watching 69 Minutes. I'm Brian Kilmeade, and we now return to our interview with British conservative peer Roger Heismith, the second Earl of Dartford, and the fourth Earl of Billy Rickey. Mr. Heismith, before you began your career as a conservative politician, you had a career in rock music. Is that right? I suppose you could call it that, if you like. I released four studio albums from 1974 to 1990. Hot Sounds, Richard Heismith, Higher Than Smith, Touched by Jehovah, and Hard Pussy. Touched by Jehovah? It was an exploration of Afro-Cuban rhythms. I had shaken Stevens on it performing on the Marimba. And correct me if I'm wrong, but it was through your music career that you came to be friends with Jeffrey Epstein. No, no, not at all really. I barely knew

it, much less getting to know him personally. I mean, I barely heard of the bloke. You didn't know Mr. Epstein at all. I mean, the name rings a bell. I think he was around on the scene, but I'd never spoke to the man. Well, Mr. Heismith, we have 19 separate photos of you together with Jeffrey Epstein. Three of them were taken in the last five years before his death. I mean, that's news to me. I suppose I do have a habit of forgetting things. You also wrote your hit song, Call Me Mr. E, Brackets, You Don't Have to Tell Me About Him. Sorry? On your 1987 album Hard Pussy, the lead single was entitled Call Me Mr. E, Brackets, You Don't Have to Tell Me, and was dedicated to, and I quote,

my best friend Jeffrey Epstein. Look, I think you may have mixed up with someone else, I'm afraid. The idea of the song was that it was Call Me Mystery, like mysterious. We just thought it would be clever to spell it that way. Mr. Heismith, I have a copy of Hard Pussy right here, and we can go over the track list if you want. Jeffrey Epstein is credited on this album as executive producer, Gackman, my best friend, and the co-author of three of your songs. Look, the late 80s were a real blur for me. I mean, we were cutting more lines than a panel of script editors. The point is, I don't really remember much of it, but that album, Hard Pussy, was supposed to be kind of a response to Francis Fukuyama's end of history, or that's at least

what I think it was about. So, correct me if I'm wrong here. You're claiming to not remember anything about making this album? Look, Brian, let me paint you a picture. I was in Bermuda, trying to finish this album. I'd been working on it for three and a half years, and the studio had given me six weeks to get it done, or I was toast. There were three tracks missing, and I had no ideas. But it was one of those weird rock and roll coincidences that you get. My good friend, the Dutch musician Johannes vonk, the vonk, as I call him, was in the studio around that time, too. He was also in Bermuda, and he was working on a blue-eyed solo album. Anyway, let me tell you, when JV is in the studio, it is gack time. It is marching powder o'clock. We were honking more

lines than Dirk van Beer. I'm digressing. We got through an entire key loan a week. There were 100 faders on that mixing desk, and we did a line off of every single one. The vonk, at that point, was having his favorite shoe polish brought in by Seaplane. We were unstoppable, right? It was the 1980. You can't do that in the studio now, but then you could. Anyway, by the end of it, I'd put so much tropical snow up my nose, and I had to relearn how to play the guitar. That probably explains why I don't remember that particular track that you're talking about. I understand that. Maybe we can just refresh your memory. So, reading from the lyric sheet here, in a stanza of Call Me Mr. E, you tell a Mr. Epstein

that, quote, won't you give me a look? I know you've got my name down there in your black book. You are aware of Mr. Epstein's infamous black book of high-value contacts. Are you not? I think you're misreading that. I was more going for a sense of, if I remember correctly, I mean, it is a bit hazy. I was going for this kind of black book of the devil, selling your soul, you know, making a reservation with a man will bring you to temptation, but also deliver the goods, if you know what I mean. Well, all right. Perhaps we'll just let our viewers make up their own minds as to what you meant. So, from the 1987 album Hard Pussy, here's a portion of Roger Heismith performing Call Me Mr.

E. Brackets, you don't have to tell me. Waters means there's no cars here. Oh, Mr. Epstein, let's forget tonight. Oh, Mr. Epstein, I'm before a flying. Oh, Mr. Epstein, won't you give me a look? I know you've got my name down there in your black book. Yeah, I don't remember making that at all. Hello, and welcome back to this free episode of TF, that podcast that's in your ears or possibly around your room, or maybe that you've typed out a transcript of and are reading right now at this very moment. Yeah. Does that imply they listen to it first in order to type out the transcript, but they're more of a visual learner, so it doesn't go in when they hear it.

No, they touch type. Getting a long telex off of a ticker of the transcript of this podcast. That's right. I got all my podcasts through Seafox. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it has stop at the end of every sentence. It's Riley. What if a Swedish man but Italian stop? Yes, exactly. It is Riley Milo and Alice today, and we are joined by three Pete friend of the show, Ollie Thorn. What's up, Ollie? Hello there. It's good to be here. Yeah. Ollie is Matt Berry there. Yeah, the voice of Matt Berry. The disembodied voice. And look, we've got a lot to talk about today. We're talking about acting in the arts again.

We're reading a really fun article that I think everyone's probably expecting from us. But first, I want to ask everyone here with me. If I'll start with our guest, Ollie, are you ready to take back control of your money? Oh, I've been waiting for you to ask me that. It's so long, right? Yes. I'm taking control of all bits of my life, starring with money. For those of you who can't see, all of Ollie's money is currently being blown around the room by a massive fan. I love the closing game of an episode of The Crystal Maze. So it is in desperate need of some control.

I need a rubber band. Is that what you're selling? Yeah, I'm selling you a kind of conceptual rubber band. Yes, indeed. Alice Milo, your money, you want to take control of it? I so badly want to take control of it. I want to bite every coin. I have everything to take control of my money. In the Rio. Yes. All my money is chocolate coins. That's my secret investment. Alice's finances keep on just get draining to eBay so that she can continue to drown herself in

foreign countries they gave to North Vietnamese Lake Wardens. Yeah, there's that Native American proverb about how money can't be eaten, but they're going to look pretty stupid when I show up with my fortune of chocolate coins. I swim around and chew through the boil of Scrooge McDuck. Yeah, but it's also going to depreciate massively the more global warming kicks in. Yeah, that is true. But also, the more that just all food becomes scarce, I might be sitting at my office. So, look, anyway, I think we're all good candidates to apply to join, apply to join, anyone can join. That's one of the benefits of this program.

Anyone can join? I'm even more excited now. It's the Fortune and Freedom Daily newspaper published by Daily Newsletter, rather, published by Nigel Farage. Everyone's on Substack now, huh? I was going to say why does fortune and freedom sound like a Nazi thing, but then I remembered it's Nigel Farage's newsletter. Information which I'd received literally seconds before. So, basically, he says, sign up now for my new Daily Email Fortune and Freedom. And by the way, this is his promo picture.

Cool. Awesome. Got the classic pinstripe suit going on. We're looking at Nigel. He's got a purple tie on. He's got his pinstripe suit. He's almost doing. But not exactly in a big boy's stance. It's like your dad and he's like, I'm about to have my first. Exactly doing the, you know, I had to do it to him pose. You know. He looks quite like something out of the compare the meerkat extended universe.

This is like a meerkat ass neck. Yeah. Your little one is to sleep with new fluffy Nigel. New fluffy Nigel says, you'll get the truth about your money behind the headlines jargon and spin. Cool. Smart idea. The truth about your money. Yeah. For example, where is it? Used to be a stockbroker, right?

Like that was 40 years ago. Like, so this is going to be like some insider insight, not an obvious scam. Hello, I am Nigel Farage and I have been working here with Otto Sergei to invest your money very smartly. And if you invest, you get two for one at pizza express. Leave the thing in go market.com. It's ironic that I'm doing this voice given my political legacy. So basically it's true. He says that he's going to use his insights from being in the city 40 years ago,

but like his job as a stockbroker has largely been automated. It was mostly like going around shouting hurrah things, right? Yeah. Yeah. Now you just wear braces. That's what being a stockbroker is. I can't imagine he has a particularly keen understanding of how high frequency trading algorithms work, but boy does he understand how he can tell a bunch of like confused old people that he's going to fight the establishment for them again.

Is the answer to buy gold and bury us in your yard? The answer is to buy gold. Yes. Fuck, it's always to buy gold. So guys, so far articles have included the first one, why Britain will boom after Brexit and the second one, why gold could be the number one asset to own for the next decade. That's always a sign of things going very well is when gold is worth a lot of money.

When the advice is put all your money in gold, that always means the economy is doing brilliantly. But like, unfortunately, none of these people have the thing that American scammers can do of getting people to buy guns and ammunition, but they do have the gigantic novelty gold coin market. And so I for one look forward to like bludgeoning someone to death in 2027 for their stash of Farajarands. Yeah, in Minecraft parody.

I'm just imagining a bunch of pirates earnestly reading this newsletter. He makes a good point. So he says, I don't know where it is that map is crudely drawn. I never finished art school. These coins are chocolate. He says, where is my load? Let's play a game.

They've biodegraded. Let's play a game. True or false, the government will do all it can to provide for you. True or false, the financial establishment have your best interests at heart. Financial establishment, but dodgy term, I think. Financial establishment. Yeah, the financial establishment. Yeah, a bit of a dodgy term there.

True or false, you can trust all you read in the mainstream media. If you answer true, you need to open your eyes and read Fortune and Freedom. Open your eyes. I mean, to be honest, you could do that with Fortune and Freedom as well. Yeah, you do need to open your eyes before you read Fortune and Freedom. I think that's pretty much. Open your third eye. You'll get the same amount out of it, I bet, if you have the most.

Yeah, so what I think is really interesting, though, is that this is being distributed via a FCA-regulated entity called South Bank Investment Research Limited. So, in an interview. And it has the inside scoop on some protocols that I think you'll find very interesting. So, he says, they do not have that. Hey, Alice didn't say what protocol. You are the one who embossed on this thing. It's been impossible five.

I regret it. So, they go out. Who are you working with and should we trust them? Who do you serve for? Are you a cop? You have to tell me. So, if you respond, I was first approached by South Bank in 2001. I was introduced by Lord Rhys Mogg, the former editor of The Times, who at that point

was writing for a newsletter called The Fleet Street Letter, rather, which was penny share tipping that had been going on since before the Second World War. Basically, it would be illegal to say it's a pump and dump scheme. First vibe. That's like the erotic review, but for stocks. Horrifying. Essentially, yes. Like Tijuana Bibles, but for a company that's definitely got the next penicillin.

Oh, that's it, yeah. I invest in draft excluders, that's right. What I meant by that, but what I meant by the erotic review is not necessarily that it's pornographic in nature, but that it's the worst kind of Tory side project. What, writing a penny stock newsletter? Yes. Again, as someone who's supposed to be trying to ape all of these, I've invested in a swingers club in romp.

Well, literally, yes. The other Tory thing to do with your spare time is to write another newsletter, but it's about things that you write about women putting their sex into men's sex and them having sex, you know? Yeah, they do. Oh, the Matt Ridley approach, where you just write a book about nothing. Yeah, yeah. It's a thing called Ridley.

It is why they call him the Ridley. So I looked at some other publications. Covered in question, Mark. Yeah. This is the side you can cut out, but did I tell you I went to school with Matt Ridley Jr.? I think you did mention this on the DM. The son of Matt Ridley, yeah. I've actually met Matt.

Wasn't he kind of a nice guy? The younger Matt Ridley was kind of a nice guy. Yeah, I mean, it's a shame really. He was kind of hamstrung by the fact that he'd been born into this enormous wealth and privilege, and was therefore like destined to just live a life of exploitation and wasting his obvious time. But one time he called us all commoners and we threw rhubarb custard at him. Cool. That's the correct answer.

Yeah. So that like a classic British playground Tom Foolery there. Americans listening may have just had a stroke. So anyway, so there are some other bits of South Bank investment research, promotional material I've read, which I think should lead us to... How much money have you put in? Well, originally I was going to make fun of it, but then I saw they were making some pretty good points.

Yeah. So this is not investment advice for legal reasons. This is not investment advice. I was really one round by their, I would say, 10,000 word Dr. Bronner label looking investment advice about something called the world brain. Oh, wow. You can throw this cream into your dick. It makes your investments better.

The world brain. Yeah, the world brain. I remember the whole from X-Men. Where the whole world gets brain. Oh, shit. It's got the whole world in his brain. So the world brain technology as predicted by Nikola Tesla in 1926 is about to be rolled out. Google, Microsoft, and Apple are all already flooding it with cash.

And those are just three of the multi-billion dollar companies pouring billions into it. So basically I've only pulled a few paragraphs and sentences from this. It is literally like 10,000 words of just like trying to... It's like the thing where he's like, Gabbo, Gabbo, Gabbo, world brain, world brain, world brain. Okay. Lots of world brain. Yeah. So as you read on, he just keeps saying,

and I'm going to give this secret to you after then 10 more lines of text. Is this going to be exactly like regular Dr. Bronner's in that it seems weird, but the actual weirdness of it has been bought out by a massive corporation and is now in fact not weird at all. Yeah. And then when you invest in it, it makes your balls tingle. They say it involved the technology so powerful, it did have a sudden and irreversible impact in every man, woman, and child on the planet.

Point doesn't do the ball tingling thing though. In much the same way as the printing press did. I don't even have balls in that tingling. I'm getting morse off somewhere as furious that someone's used the printing press example again. So this goes on for pages, but it transpires. He's talking about 5G and how you have to invest in 5G and 5G is the world brain. Oh, that doesn't make any of the conspiracies about 5G. Like that's not reminiscent of them at all.

Yeah. It's basically just like, it's just being like, buddy, I wish it made a trap. No, I swear I don't take estrogen. It's the 5G towers. They're making my boobs get big. I'm just force-femmed by Elon Musk. Doing Huawei about your big naturals. So like they say, it's this simple fact

that could hand you one of the biggest paydays of your life. And then they say it could go up. An investment could go up by 652 times. Could it? Could it? And that could be the answer to it. Yeah, could it? Hypothetically, if a lot of planets were to align.

Yeah. So they say it's the simple fact that could hand you one of the biggest paydays of your life when the world brain switches all the time. World brain gets me every time. When you get the world brain. Yeah, getting that world brain. Getting that world brain. You're getting domed off by the entire world, it rules.

That's right. If you're rich enough, you can get domed off by the entire world. So when the world brain switches on and scales to all, to tens of billions of devices, I see this as the first early rumblings of a tech quake. It's just, you can be on your phone, but it's slightly smarter. Yeah. Well, the examples, they...

They're slightly faster, rather. The reason that the thing is right, like this... And it gives you big naturals. Exactly. The thing is though, right, is, you know, like there, there is a lot to talk about with regard to 5G, but all of this also seems to be about boosting what appears... Yeah, it goes from like a B to an E. Yeah, but he's, this appears to then all he'd be about

is he's talking about like a small German company that's clearly a penny stock, and that by paying him a bunch of money to subscribe to his world brain series, you can learn what that company is. Which definitely seems on the up and up. I've got suburb brain in my basement. Yeah. And so... Sounds a little connery at the end. Yeah.

So, so... Some things in here don't react well to the brain. So anyway, this guy also appears to be writing the newsletter with Faraj. So with this guy and Faraj together, you know, you're finally gonna, you're gonna take on the fat cats in the city and a bunch of like, and a bunch of like, you know, angry pensioners from Kent who feel like they've politically gotten everything they wanted, but are still mad, can have a new establishment to take on at great personal expense.

This has the energy of one of those like West African self-help churches where they take out like a full page ad, but in like a shitty newspaper, like The Metro. And it's like, and it's explaining about like the winner's success church. And it is a church, but it's also about you succeeding in life. And it has like a big picture of the preacher who's invariably called like, Dr. Something. And it gives you this vibe. My question is, to what extent is Nigel Faraj actually involved with this? Like, is he writing any of this copy himself?

Or is it all just Nigel Faraj presented by? I believe he is writing a good deal of it. I've looked at it and it looks like his voice. The meerkats have taken him over. Yeah. It's like a weekend at Bernie's, but with meerkat. They've bought his, they've bought the rights to his image. I have to be clear, he is alive.

Legally, we have to say, legally Nigel Faraj is a living person. He's enjoying a pint in front of a tiny television as we speak. But now he's watching like the employment numbers. He's no longer watching the Queen. Oh yeah, that's right. So this just seems like it's that Robin Hood or E-Toro trading app, but it's marketed towards people who don't use apps. E-Faraj.

It's marketed, it's basically, it's a newsletter. Nigel Faraj has become an ego. You should have put this on only fans in my opinion. Yeah. But this is just like Reddit. It's like Reddit's trading shit, but it's for old people. But it's also just, it appears to mostly just be about buy gold. Buy gold, don't trust the banks.

Buy gold, buy gold, buy gold. Buy a big gold coin with Nigel Faraj's face minted onto it. It's free, but he says there are going to be embedded ads. And I can only imagine the ads will be for like, you know, a bathtub that you don't, that you can step directly into or, you know, gold coins with his face on them. Yeah, exactly.

It's both an investment and a practical home decor. Or like a, like a, like a, like a stair elevator, you know, but again, also the way in which this is written is such a like bogus official kind of coming to check your grand's gas meter and stealing all the silver kind of vibe. It's kind, it's such a hard sell of like, oh really, you can't afford not to. They'll sell you a platinum commode.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, if you want to, if you would like to invest in what I imagine is like a gold ear trumpet, I suppose this is going to be the place to learn about it. Yeah. And you get a free pen. Yeah.

Ooh. Just for inquiring. How, how could I lose? Legally, you do not get a free pen. Legally, if you get the pen, you have to give a reverse mortgage. No, the Farage Corporate. I'm Michael Parkinson.

And if you, if you take out an investment with the Farage, Farage.com, you'll get a free park of pen just for inquiring. Totally. It is a saga thing or like a wills thing. You would see this advertised at like five in the afternoon on TV, right? Yeah.

Well, the Farage, Farage is ambitious. This is in the break on tipping point. But the thing is, he is, he is ambitious and he does, for better or for worse, he does understand that if you want to get people subscribing to your, you know, finance newsletter, where you just say to buy gold, there may be other things in it,

but that's, that's all I've seen or seen talked about. That's all I'm interested in. Yeah, but right. If he gives me other investment advice, frankly, I don't want to know. But what I mean is, right? He has decent political instincts in terms of what makes people do things.

And the fact that he has set himself up as I've rebelled against one establishment, now I'm going to help you rebel against another, by the way, invest in the following, make the following investments. And there's ad supported in this newsletter. It's just, again, he's very good at weaponizing people's just sort of ambient feelings of discomfort

and resentment to get what he wants. Well, like you could not write this more, I mean, less subtly, but this, the ad that you presented to us for this ends with a button. Yes, I want to take back control of my money. And that is the logical endpoint of the messaging of take back control is just to end in like a buy gold kind of quasi. It's 9pm. Do you know where your money is? I told you last night, no.

It's my money and I want it now. Yeah, exactly. So like, you know, that's the thing, right? You wonder sort of where all the big Trump people, the big Brexit people are and are going like. The smart ones are just running these. Just resting, yeah. Yeah, the smart ones are all, you know, signing up to Nigel Farage's Patreon.

Yeah, signing up to Nigel. The dumb ones, the dumb ones are riding the wreckage all the way down and getting arrested in Florida and like weeping to the cops about how their wife won't have sex with them anymore. Yeah, like, you know, UKIP was never about, fundamentally, it was never about all of those local counselors who kept appearing in local papers for getting in like daytime fistfights. Oh God, this is what Sargon's going to be doing in three years, isn't it?

Oh, well, let's see. This is what Sargon, in three years, is going to be on YouTube. Just like buy gold, buy gold. I have children that I need to support. Yeah. Like three years and optimistic. Or maybe it goes like, does the rogue like left wing pivot and become Sargon of ACAP?

Yeah. And then we get the real saving that one in the back pocket. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, you know what? To you now know, I think what the bell weather is of like smart right wing monster is once their political project has either concluded what it needs to do or has run its course and is now starting to crash and burn, they'll start selling gold.

Yeah, it's just a smash and grab on the institution. I love gold. So, hey. Like this is genuinely why I love them, right? They treat the institutions of like electoralism and of liberal democracy with exactly the respect they deserve. It's just that their only interest in doing that is to cash out early with buy gold.

Yeah. Exactly. And they will at least give you a free pen, which is more than you can say for this interest. That's true. Jeremy Corbyn, I never gave me a free pen. And what does that tell you? What would you get from him?

Free jam. Yeah. Free pen endorsed by a man. Rather have gold. Oh, a free North Korean flag is probably what you'd get. Yeah, in my opinion. You know, as you've free cotton candy at Marx and Spencer. Five extra tenders that I don't want.

I should clarify. I'm spelling that with an X. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's what Corbyn gives you. Max. Don't even... I bet he'd probably try to borrow your pen and not give it back

because that's what Marx said to do. That's what socialism is. Yeah. It's when you borrow... It's socialism is when you borrow pens and lighters and the state keeps them. Right. To Nigel Farage and critique his business plan on the basis

that giving people a free pen for inquiring is socialism and therefore he shouldn't be doing it. Yeah. So, let's move on a little bit. We're talking... We're talking arts because we have a bona fide festivity with us. Yeah, Matt Berry.

Oh, you get out of here. Matt Berry's here. It's good to be on the podcast. Yeah. So, yeah. Basically, we're going to start this by reminding everyone or maybe for our American listeners, telling them for the first time that Rishi's...

About art. Yeah. About something we have over here. Yeah. Yeah. You may have seen programs such as This Is Us. It's not like those. Yeah.

So, Rishi Zudak responding to a question about the plight of people in the arts during various lockdowns and pandemics and things that are current events of nature. The last 20 years. Yeah, absolutely. Said that, hey, if you're struggling, you should just seek new opportunities. Yeah. And then we got the famous poster, which was used without the multiple

or the photographer's knowledge of a ballerina. And the line, Fassima's next job could be in cyber. She just doesn't know it. I hate to be that guy, but that's actually a total coincidence that Ad was from last year. Yeah. It's big. It's actually that Ad was from last year.

It just got dredged back up again because it happens to... That story broken on Trash Future. Now you know. Anyway, weird though that picture was taken on a Ring doorbell. It's actually quite an eerie ad. Like, she absolutely had no idea. So, basically, right, but yeah, said that if you're in the arts and you can't either support yourself from family money,

which is heavily implied, or have one of the... No one in the arts is like that. Or have one of the four well-paying arts jobs that are left, that you should go seek new opportunities, go train in cyber, basically. But he's not offering to pay anyone's debt from drama school. He's not offering to make the retraining free. He's like, why don't you just now double the amount of pay? Why don't you just learn to code?

Yeah. Become and learn how to make a Wigan kebab, a respectable trade. So, anyway, that is the basic... Programming a Wigan kebab. As my Wigan kebab shop has been redesignated a hub of cyber exos. Yeah, I've decided to put this Wigan kebab on the blockchain. It is as gross. Absolutely, yeah.

So, basically... So, I've got this, right? But yes, people have been told to retrain. That's the context that we're talking about. But I've got another sort of story that I found here. Oddly enough, in the Telegraph, while I was looking for a reading, someone... Because not all bits of the Telegraph are as frothing reactionary as every other bit. Some of them are merely sponge-brained reactionary.

Some of them are just still reactionary. Some of their lifestyle writing can be just pretty relatively neutral. And so, this came up in another... This season's best peacocks. So, this came up in another article. And you'll can see that it's not... So, it says, for three decades, Anna Jane Casey had been a West End leading lady, but her new role is a good deal less glamorous.

Casey is now working as a delivery driver, earning a pound per parcel, after the shutdown of the arts left her, like thousands of others in the industry, unable to do the job she loves. Since June, Casey has been working for a courier company with her husband and fellow actor, Graham McDuff. And she has played Velma Kelly in Chicago, Anita in West Side Story, Mrs. Wilkinson and Billy Elliott. She says, I've been acting since I was 10.

I've paid tax all that time. And yet, you're telling me that my industry just suddenly isn't viable, and I should probably retrain and do something else. Well, that's not what I'm going to do, but I have a mortgage and two kids, so I need a job right now. So, Ollie, you are, in addition to being a YouTuber, are also a thespian and a POA, a person of the arts. So, I wanted to know if you could be...

Pussy on arrival. And Ollie, you were pussy on arrival. So, anyway, can you speak to that a little bit, like the floor falling out of one of the things that makes life worth living to do and to take in? Well, I think, as Milo highlighted earlier on, this has actually been happening for a long time. Even before the pandemic, the acting industry has very slowly been getting a lot more... Like, we were hit really hard by austerity. A lot of people think, oh, like, entertainment industry is austerity-proof, but no, no way.

So, it's like the nexus of a lot of problems have come together. So, it's always been the case... There's a catch-22 in acting that in order to get into something, you need to have an agent. But in order to get an agent, you need to be in something. And the solution to that was always like, you've got to make your own work, which obviously requires a hell of a lot of money, but was at least theoretically possible for some people. But now, you can't really do that anymore. Well, you can, but it doesn't work. And the reason it doesn't work is that assistants

to agents and casting directors are paid like 23, 24 grand a year, and you cannot live on that in London. So, nobody can get a job as an assistant to an agent or a casting director. So, all the agents and casting directors work 60-hour weeks, and they don't have time to see anybody new. So, even before the pandemic happened, the whole acting industry was just like, absolutely fucked and completely on its ass. And I very much sympathize with this lady. Like, I was in a play a while ago with a very talented young actor, and she went to Radha, which is like, for American, this is Radha is like the primo drama school in the UK. It's like the Oxford or Cambridge drama. And I said to her, it's like, you know,

you've been out of drama school 18 months. How's it has it been? Has it been hard? And she's like, Oh, well, you know, Kenneth Branagh came to our graduation show, and he liked me so much that he put me in Hamlet with Tom Hiddleston. And that was my first job. And then Ken liked me so much that he put me in this film that he's doing in the US. So I went to that for a few months. And I was like, and now you're in this unpaid play in which I'm playing the lead. And she was like, Yeah. So there's like, there's no job security. There's no career plan anymore. You've got like Olivier winners. Stuart Lee famously talks about a guy who won the Olivier for opera, then like, two months later, he was sleeping under a canal bridge. Like, there's no...

Yeah, to prepare for a role. There's just no, there's no job security. There's nothing, there's nothing for us at all. He was the Phantom of the Opera. Who's the Jerry Springer of the Opera? Yeah, but like actors are... Jerry Springer, the Phantom of the Opera. Please stop inverging. Fucking writing that down right now. That's brilliant. The Phantom is the father of my child.

Coming soon to the... Oh my God, that's just the plot of Love Never Dies. But yeah, actors are... People don't really think of actors as workers, but we are an incredibly casualized workforce. And it has been getting worse and worse and worse. So as another example, a sizzle insight into the industry, like, if you do an advert for McDonald's, right? You then can't do an advert for Burger King for like five years, right? Yeah, it clashes, right? If you're the face of McDonald's, they don't want Mr. McDonald's doing their Burger King ads, right? Yeah, because Ronald McDonald and the Burger King guys...

They hate each other, like they used to work together, but they had a big falling out. He even smells Ronald on you. You're fucked. Yeah, yeah, because Ronald fucked his wife and it's just a whole thing. So you can't do that. If you do Bacardi, you can't do Budweiser for like five years, right? And the way it's supposed to work is they, in addition to paying you for the day that you're filming, if you're a bit of the commercial heirs, you get what's called the buyout, right? Depending on how many countries the ad is in or how big it is, the buyout can be bigger or larger or smaller. But like, for McDonald's, the buyout would be like a few grand, right?

And it's a recognition that in the time that you can't do Burger King ads, you still need to eat. You're an actor, you're a professionally trained, you're a pro, you've got to still pay a rent and everything. But buyouts have been getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller over the last few years to the point where now there are major brands doing commercials and they'll say 250 quid, no buyout. And you just don't get anything. And young actors who don't know what it's going to do to their career, well, someone will sign up to that. And you don't realize that you've just signed away your rights to do competing commercials for five years. So, you're getting 250 quid for the day and you're sitting opposite David Beckham or whoever the celebrity is in the ad and he's

getting 25 million and you've just fucked your entire career. Because all the money's stayed at the top. But as wages for actors go down, agents have to take on more actors on their books to keep up the money. So they don't have as much time to invest in your career and pay attention to you so that it's more and more competitive. Meanwhile, you have to pay to be on casting websites. So like, for a long, long time, acting has been getting increasingly casualized and then Rishi has the fucking goal to come along and say, just retrain. And it's like, you retrain. Hey, why don't you get up here? You try this. Yeah, give it a go. But that's the thing though, once you've been the conservative chancellor of the

Shekhi. You can't be the labor chancellor of the Shekhi for at least five years. Give your starver a chance. I'm sure he'll bring him over. He's signing it away. Yeah, that's the sensible centrist policy. But you know, Ali, I think that's like very true of like the arts in general. I think acting is like even more mental than comedy. But I think what you said about the adverts is very telling that like, there's a lot of things where like, you get paid absolute dog shit on the basis of like, the economics of the industry. And it's like, no, but the economics of the industry is just that you can get away with paying me that. It's not because you can't afford to pay me more. So it's like McDonald's

aren't like hurting for cash. They've just worked out that like, oh, I can just pay you like piss because you'll take it. We had to sell grimace. From what I hear McDonald's are actually quite good. A hypothetical McDonald's type. Yeah, they had to sell grimace to a libertarian intentional community, which was kind of what was getting me a bit with the like, with the saving the comedy clubs thing, which I kind of like a half agree with. But also like a lot of the comedy clubs are like badly run. And they like they've lit they subsist off of not paying a lot of their acts and paying and paying a lot of the acts they do pay not enough. And they've got you have to bail out Baz Pit who will absolutely refuse to pay you for like jokes. And then he's got a sold out room

for the people who pay 20 quid. And they've all had eight points and they're going to sit there and call you a cunt for 15 minutes, but I can't pay it. Yeah, Milo, you and I both actually know Baz jokes. And the thing is his real name does rhyme with that. Oh, it does. Yeah. No, no, that guy isn't as successful as Baz jokes. That guy is like unsuccessful. He's like washed up wannabe Baz jokes, which is the worst person you can possibly be. But something something that is worth highlighting and like two connections that people don't usually make is that financial exploitation in the creative industries breeds sexual exploitation as well. In the last few years, the acting industry, but we've had a big reckoning with the Me Too movement of like,

people not being safe on on set or on in rehearsals of like people being assaulted or exploited by directors. And part of the reason that happens like part of the reason you have so many ads on casting websites was like, Oh, I want a hot girl to come and like take her clothes off to be photographed in a hotel room for like 10 quid an hour. Part of the reason that they say no. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 10 quid an hour is a living wage. So I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, I I have been inappropriately like advanced on by directors. I could be like, I've taken it. No, no, no, no, no. I've been like felt up by directors. I've been sexually assaulted by a director on stage in front of an audience before. And yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can't like you

can't do anything about it because I need the fucking money. Was that when you were in the Gary Glitter story? And I mean, that's it goes to show right that it is that it exploitation exploitation is exploitation is exploitation and that the big guys will do what they can get away with. And especially like if we want to sort of if we think about like where much of the support has gone, right, when we spoke about this on the bonus episode with Josie Long, we talked about how how things were structured that this is going to end up flowing into the pockets of the already wealthy by and large. And part of that part of those that reason, right, is that by breaking by breaking those relationships, those employment relationships between like companies and actors

and so on, not only are they able to like, you know, be, let's say be exploitative in some of the ways that you were talking about, including like sexually, but equally, it means that like when that support comes through, the government can only identify the companies rather than failed out Baz jokes limited. Yeah. So because they cannot identify or don't want to identify the casualized nonworking actors who might insert there aren't actors, they are a casualized worker. Very dangerous. Very dangerous for them to do that. Because like if you start doing that with one casual workforce, you have to do it with all of them. And then all of a sudden you're like, wait a second, are these people employed to deliver packages or drive ride shackles?

And so with the long term casualization of any industry. And I think this is this is the one we're talking about now because of the because of the support that's flowing to us. That's why it's so interesting that that that actor is like delivering packages is it's all the same thing. And like as soon as that ratchet turns to one industry, whether it's delivering parcels or whatever else, it turns a little bit further. Yeah, transferable skill. It turns out as being an insecure and underpaid labor. But like that's also why if you if you're listening to this and you're like, well, you know, I have no human soul. So I don't give a shit about the arts. Why should I? It's because like it's going to be your job also if it isn't already.

Precisely. And then this what happens with then the support then ends up going to private equity firms and the like. So I've got some breakdowns of how it's gone here. So from the first Toronto payouts from the Culture Recovery Fund regionally, it broke down 30 million in the Northwest, 10 million in the Northeast, 87 million in London. Northern powerhouse, baby. And some of the recipients of this as well, again, are combinations of like holding groups, asset management firms, private equity companies, because the main beneficiaries of casualized workforces are these kinds of investors.

Yeah, all the relief money is going to like companies or theaters, which means it's going into the pockets of the landlords who own the theaters. None of the relief money is actually making it down to actors, the actual workers. Are you saying that it's not, it's not so good to give 87 million quid to the suspiciously young man? So one example of a company that received funding, which really sort of got my go, was Secret Cinema. Secret Cinema. You can get funding so long as you're the most Tory aesthetic So for those who don't... Yeah, the ball pit bar and alco-tras are also part of the arts now. Yes, actually, not those specifically, but a similar bar and restaurant group was also bailed out.

Oh, fuck off. This is just so fucking annoying. It's like, it's like how much like it like wasn't because the fucking like the Albut Hall was part of this as well. So was Wigmore Hall. And it's like one of these things was like, oh, as if the Albut Hall is going to collect like the Albut Hall could put out a fucking donation link on their website and they would have enough might like, what? Yeah. And also the guy who runs the Albut Hall is on like X million pounds a year. Yeah. Also, if you want to like be bailed out by the government for telling jokes, have you considered telling jokes that the people in government want to laugh at? Oh, yeah, I could get a job on spitting image. So Secret Cinema, for those of you who don't know,

is basically like something that, you know, whatever like stockbrokers are left that haven't been automated. Nigel Farah. And people whose job title includes like product manager or whatever, they basically go there on dating updates. And then you like, they show a kind of like movie that, you know, like people like they show the movie from a top 10 films ever list on Reddit or whatever. It's like, we're seeing Indiana Jones or Star Wars. We're like, we're watching Heathers. It's not, it's not mean girls. It's mean girls if it was cool. Yeah. No, they only watch the 80s. They only watch sort of the gigantic blockbusters that came out in the eras that millennials were children in basically. So it's a childhood simulator. And then you go, you go, you dress up as the thing.

Why is Gary Glitter here? And they take you on a little, on a little adventure. So it's like, oh, we're showing Star Wars and you have to infiltrate the Death Star. And then you like do two hours or so of like soft play activities for like, I get a preschool with cocktails. And then you get cool preschool, cool preschool, then you get sat down and do a Griffin share and you watch a movie and it costs 60 pounds a ticket. So I actually went to, I got in for free because I would have made who was working there. I went to the Secret Cinema for Christina Royale. So cool. And like, you know, we dressed up in dinner jackets and everything. And then they go and like, they say, oh, you're part of like queue team. And then you're going to like infiltrate

this. And it's like a little improv, like improv loop basically. And if you are an actor and you're going to improv, then you can have a good time. Yeah, you do, you do. And if you, if you haven't done any of that and you're shit and you have a rubbish time. And I actually did end up having quite a fun time, mainly because I was there for free and mainly because the person behind the bar also just gave us free wine. But I mean, the central, not artistic, but the central design weakness of Secret Cinema has always been that if you are not the perfect amount of drunk when the film starts, you're going to have a really bad time. Because if you're not drunk enough, you're sitting there, so be like, I feel like a fucking idiot. Well, but if you're too drunk, then 20

minutes into casino, while you're like, I really need to piss and I can't pay attention. Well, you'll be happy to know that Secret Cinema, the company that just has very expensive and theatrical screenings of already famous movies, has received 10% of what's gone to the northeast in total. See, like 8.7 million quints. No, no, what's gone to the northeast in total. So they got a million pounds. Oh, three minutes. Yeah. Oh, okay. They got a million pounds, 10% of 10 million. I love when I go and see train spotting at the Secret Cinema and I have to share a needle with the archers to get that in. Yeah. There are things. So I know people who have worked at Secret Cinema, like actual actors in the cast. And there are things that I can't talk about that make it

disappointing that this money has gone to the people who own that company, rather than the actors who work there. So some of the companies that have received money through this scheme are just like exploitative of their actors and have very high turnover, because they just treat them like shit and they expect you to work far too hard for not enough money. And that's we have accidentally given 90 million quid to Kevin Spacey for some reason. So they also, they are a loss making company. They laid a loss of 2.9 million pounds last year. So that's what I'm looking to know. How the fuck do you lose that much money when you do a thing that's screening films? It's a counting. You let people in for free. It's to do it. A lot of this

is also avoiding tax. Well, legally, yeah. But a lot of this is also like when you say we talk about like these loss making companies, some are genuinely loss making because they're trying to like monopolize and capture a market. On the other hand, Ollie, why did you drink 2 million quids worth of wine? Yeah, it was a very nice bottle of wine. That's why they can't pay the actors very well. Because I've been drinking wine. Yeah, that's right. Also, it's the fat cash. You're like one chasso nerf to pap, please. So basically, the other thing, right, is that secret group is the thing of getting the money, which is a parent company. And we can talk another time about how like a good sounding

company. We can talk about how another time about how you can shuffle profits and losses between companies to basically every year equal out and not have to pay any corporation tax. I did a gig for a ripoff of Secret Cinema. Yeah, I'll have to tell you about it off my mind. But I did a hell of a gig for a company that was like even more dodgy, that was like trying to be even more exploitative version of what this is. Top secret cinema. Dave Courtney's Illegal Cinema. So I'll have to tell you, officer, the rates that I'm paying these actors is highly illegal. I'll comply with firing. Pornography we're showing, let's just say the actors are not as old as you might think, which is illegal as I understand it.

Just a guy who's so enthusiastic about crime, he starts committing the really grim ones. Yeah, but not because he has any like perverse tendency towards them, but just like... Sounds like some pedophile. There we go. The non-liberalist use of that drill. That's right. I told you I'd find one. So look, the secret group also is backed by a private equity company that already has tie-ups with Netflix and Disney. So basically... Why is the show that I'm doing not that private equity company? Does anyone know a private equity company? Right, he's raising his hand. We know quite a few.

Yeah, we don't fear a lot of them. Can we introduce you to this man with a soundproofed office? If you want to get supply chain financed, I think we can hook that up for you. Or, hey, do you want to buy or be involved in the sale of an illiquid bond? Can we introduce you to our friend, Jan Marseilleck, to large men rolling an oil from? Actually, I've just been talking to Nigel Farage and he says we're pretty sure we can buy an extra producer if we just had gold. You've already stepped into my soundproof office, but can I invite you to take a seat

in my perfect mint-conditioned Renault Clio? It is inside the soundproof office. Basically, yeah. So if you think of it that way, UK government money has gone to supporting what I think amounts to a large and complex flash mob to advertise new Netflix releases. And we know exactly why, because the CEO or whoever it was who came up with Secret Cinema is absolutely some public school twat who has a degree from a Russell Group University and says, I'm actually going to go into a business, but not like dad's business. I'm going to do cool. I know so many people from Cambridge who are like, I'm going to start an app. And it's always something like, it's an app that helps you meet people who want to go bowling.

And it's like, fuck off. And Secret Cinema has that written all over it. Uh, his name is Max Alexander. Max Alexander, yeah. I'm just looking at company's house right now. He did a stint at McKinsey and Sky and then worked at Carpool warehouse. And then he worked for Dido Harding at Talk Talk. You can't escape these fucking people. Dido Harding. Yeah, you cannot, you cannot escape the people who are like, which is she's fucking up Test and Trace right now.

Oh, that's her. Yeah. Not to be confused with Pop Impressare, who never gives us her name, so she could be Dido Harding. Yeah, that's what I thought as well. So she is, so basically, yeah, there is, if you think that, if you think that this is an improper relationship, you simply have to complain to the government, anti-corruptions are, who I believe is Dido Harding's husband. Yeah. Uh, Dick Harding. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. If I, my last name was Harding,

I absolutely would name a, name a child a pun. You know, I don't want, because I wanted to see what it does. I know Robert, but I go by Dick. You'll understand when you hear this surname. So basically, also included is an agency that has been invested in by a, by a billionaire's asset management vehicle. By the way, the, the agency is the paradigm talent agency, which is led by the billionaire's brother. And then, so, you know, just basically, we're putting a lot of money basically into businesses like theaters and stuff that just will give it to their landlords. And then asset management firms and private equity funds

that have got their way into and have really casualized and sort of exploited a lot of people who are actually trying to make their living doing the actual labor of making things that are fun to interact with. Why does the billionaire's brother sound like an Adam Sandler movie? Right. I'm trying to get some business done here. And he's like, oh, I'm trying to get business done. Oh, I make all the money. And then there's some kind of like Adam Sandler.

There's some kind of mix of where he has to run the business because it's his identical twin brother. Also kind of out of something. Okay. Adam Sandler, if you're listening, we're going to have it be the tone of uncut gems, but the script content of what you would have been doing in the early 2000s, almost. Copyright. TM, TM, TM. This is going to be a secret cinema in three years. Yeah. We're going to give Ollie a job. We're going to make money. Yeah. So the last one I've pulled out here is Mission Mars, which is the restaurant and bar

group. Oh, Christ. How will they ever go to Mars? Well, they're going to build a restaurant on Mars? Mission Mars, actually, can you tell me if Mission Mars is getting more funding than the European space agency from the UK now? Well, they have to build a restaurant on Mars because you can't have a pub with six people standing up. That is true. There you go. Exactly.

I'm going to see Mission Mars. There's nothing more socially distanced than going to Mars. I've got the spreadsheet open. Million pounds. Secret cinema and Mission Mars and Ministry of Sound together are getting 30% of what the entire Northeast got. Yeah. Well, the Ministry of Sound is a government department, if that makes sense. Isn't it almost literally? Isn't it owned by like a Tory peer now?

Yeah. Well, it always has been. It was started by Lord Palumbo. James Palumbo. You sold the case. So, no, but Ministry of Sound has always been like a ludicrously Tory establishment, which is why they have a tendency to play deep house, the most Tory kind of music. I'm not sure if it's the most Tory kind of music. Housekeeping. It really is.

The landlords all play deep house. Deep house is what they play in the Abitha Super Clubs, where it costs like, you know, 250 euros just for a ticket. It's a very Tory kind. It's what they play on yachts now. It replaced Funky House as the most Tory kind of music. Because it used to be and like... Funky, Matt Hancock would enjoy Funky House so much. The Kings Road used to be all just basically Paces playing pop and Funky House.

And now it's all places like... I was wearing an ecky on my bell, which was the start of the time. And now it's just places playing deep house. And so, yeah, deep house... Well, now it's nothing. But, you know, deep house sucks. Awful. Now it's vape shop.

Yeah, now it's vape shop. It's directors that I really feel sorry for. Because a lot of these privacy equity companies and like secret cinemas, I'm not saying secret cinemas do this, but I know that similar companies do, is the owner or the CEO will assume, oh, I'll just direct the show. I'll just do that. And they don't know how to do it. They don't know how to interact with actors.

They don't know how to direct. It makes everybody miserable. Has it happened in the past? That has happened to me. When I did my gig for a ripoff secret cinema, the CEO of the company was just some random fuck, who just decided I'm going to direct the show. And he couldn't direct.

Like, in fact, he couldn't direct this way. I have a wet paper bag because he had no artistic or people skills at all. Well, it's because most people, I think, as well, have that role of CEO as just someone who has projected competence. They can do anything. I'm the in charge guy. Yeah. Well, it's why we have like...

Again, if you want to think about Dido Harding, it's why she's running and deeply bungling Test and Trace, because she was the CEO of the worst phone company. She was ran the worst phone company in the UK. You know, it's just once you get to that level, you are now congratulations. You're protected from failing. And also we're going to give you this

and you can pay yourself however much of it you want. And then, you know, you give it, you just disperse it how you want. Yeah, he ended up playing the lead as well. To that story, I once got booked to do a club comedy night in Ware in Hertfordshire, which was through a booker. And the ruse was...

In Ware? Yes, quite. It was actually the same place where they played that baseball game in the Abbott and Costello sketch. And this is a national booker in the UK who were like notoriously a piece of shit run as like a very like vampiric profit-making enterprise. Anyway, but the ruse was from them

that if I did this free gig, that I would then get paid gigs from them. So I show up and I assume that I'm going to be the only free act on the bill, which is normally what will happen. They'll be like a sort of an opener and then like a paid headliner. And then they'll be like an unpaid middle is quite a common structure.

And I show up and it's an entire lineup of unpaid middles who have all been booked to the same thing. And like this was at the time when like, I really should have been doing paid gigs. So I'm like out of all these people, I'm like the best person and even I am like technically not a professional. So this is like and people have paid like 20 quid to get in.

So I'm like, oh boy. And the guy who was running the comedy night had decided to emcee it himself to save money. He was not a comedian. And now people have paid like good money to get in, right? So they're like, they're sat at tables. It's like the people are like, they're like, we're on a fucking night out.

So they're like, they're expecting it to be good. And so for the first 10 minutes of him doing absolutely aimless emceeing, they're like, he's going somewhere with this. This is like, this is a bit. This is like, this is like a character doing a mid-bed book thing. And the second 10 minutes of his, he did 20 minutes up top, which is mental in and of itself.

But his is hit the second 10 minutes of his like opening bit was he just told a long story about a car insurance dispute. He was recently in. Which ended with- This is Alan Partridge. Oh, it was the most powerful. It was the most powerful. Was it a car insurance dispute recently?

It was the most powerful- Is this filmed anywhere? Can we put this on the YouTube? I wish. It was the most powerful fucking accidental part should I've ever seen because the way it ended, and this is a verbatim quote is, anyway, it turned out they had the whole thing on CCTV.

So he's banged to rights really. It was just like, man, you're the best act. Anyway, I had the last laugh. Basically, yeah, needless to say. I had the last laugh. Fuck off. Yeah. So when I did my-

No, Peter. When I did my gate for ripoff, secret cinema, Schmeckwitschminimar, the CEO decided to play the lead that evening. And director show. Yeah, he decided to play the lead. Are you sure it's wise to name Schmeckwitschminimar? No, he did decide to play the lead.

And at the end of the night, we ended up with a cellist bleeding and in tears because he knocked over a music stand onto her. And then his assistant- That does sound like a porn hub title to be fair. Yeah, his assistant had- Oh, God. His assistant had to basically gas like this,

poor cellist, because I know he didn't say that. He didn't say that. Like, and then he was telling- You were bleeding. He said, you're not bleeding. That didn't really happen. And then he came out to us and he was like, oh, look, we have to sell more vodka and champagne on the tables.

You all need to get out there and like persuade the people out there too, who were all like, you know, Tories, young Tories, to like buy more bottles of vodka. And we were just like, you're not paying us for that. Like, no, no, I'm here to play a role. I'm not here to do your fucking table service. And at the end of the night,

and like all the Cleontel were like, you know, coming up to the actors and like trying to fuck it up and like interfering and six, they're all drunk. And at the end of the night, I was outside and I changed out my costume. So they obviously didn't- And some of the guests were out there and they obviously didn't realize that I had been in the cast.

So I said, oh, what have you been at? And they told me, I was like, oh, yeah, I've been at this like Chmiquich min-mar thing. And I was like, oh, what was it like? And then this guy was like, oh, yeah, it's pretty good. But there was like a lot of Euro trash and Asians. And I was like, oh, fuck. This is just a night out for you.

And some of us are trying to like fucking make something worth seeing. And you just like, what a twat. If you want to- Euro trash and Asians, what an amazing- Yeah, there's just too many like Euro trash and Asians. He just rolled the bigotry dice. Why did you do your role in The Persona of Jerk Van de Cooley?

There were too many whops. It's like spinning a wheel with old-time slits. So basically, right? Like I think if you want to look- Full of papis. If you want a vision of the future, it's just about the- The arts is now going to be CEOs or like booking agents or whatever deciding, I could probably do this.

To be fair, full of papis is a review you'd get in Glasgow. Yeah, yeah. Right, but this is what's coming. It is just because it has gotten to the point now where it is so exploitative, the bottom has dropped out so much that it's just CEOs on stage now. Everyone's- It is a fantasy camp.

It is a rock and roll fantasy camp for the people who own- The five guys who like actually own anything. And just to drop another lump of turd in the toilet bowl is this conversation. This is- Please. You're listening too. This exploitation also goes on at drama schools,

which have been fully neoliberalized to the extent that universities have as well. Especially if your drama school is attached to a university as mine is. And then a lot of it's becoming about performance metrics. Like when I did my drama school course, there was one day when an inspector from the university that we're attached to came around and had to interview all of us. And then we all had to like prepare and basically get in character for these interviews. Because it was like, oh, so do you feel like you're getting value?

Do you like believe that you'll get value after graduating from this institution? And like, that's such a- You can't really talk to a drama school student about that, especially the drama school I went to. Because we were all like, yeah, we are so deep in the mojo here that we all believe that we can control the passage of time. And like, we spent all of yesterday talking to a tree. So it's kind of hard to like quantify the shit that you learned at drama school.

And like intense emotional breakthroughs that you have. But a lot of things- Are you saying you can't put a direct pound value on each individual lesson that you're being taught and therefore act as an intelligent consumer? No, I can't. There was a fucking point! A little bit more on Mission Mars. This restaurant and bar group has already had-

I had 10 million pounds invested in it by a growth fund two years ago. Cool. To expand its restaurant concept, Albert Schloss, all around the UK. Albert Hall's other project. It's read by Roy Ellis and Neil McLeod. My Austrian cousin, Albert Schloss. He built the revolution bar chain. Oh, Rivo!

Vodka revs, baby! Oh, God, I have had no good nights out in those. Well, thank goodness, all the stuff you like is gone. But that's going to be still here. The only people who enjoy a night out of vodka revs are the kind of people who end up in a magistrates' court the following month for what happened outside vodka revs. No, no, in Newcastle, we used to go out to vodka revs.

We have a couple of shots of vodka revs. And then this was on a Thursday or a Friday night. You went over the street to Tiger Tiger and they did three triples for three quid. It was great. The only get- I'm looking at Albert Schloss right now and the front page is Manchester is to wunderbar.

So I'm looking forward very much to this kind of like beer keller, like actual bodily harm experience. They have an Alpine cook house. What's the point of a German restaurant? Like no one thinks that I want to go out for a German. Yeah, I think that. Oh, yeah. But you just love German.

You don't want to go to the cook house? You don't want to get a worst on a bun? When I used to tour in Russia. 14 quid for a bratwurst. There was a g... What? Yeah, there was this big chain of like beer hall type restaurants that could seat a lot of people.

Like you could see like 300 people in front of a stage and then I had like performance areas called Maximilions. And when we were touring it, quite often used to be in a Maximilions because like you'd go to like some shit town in Siberia and that was like the biggest venue there was was like the German restaurant. And I suspect that maybe the guy who owns Maximilions

had some fucking in without like tour manager or something because it used to happen suspiciously often. But like the menu was just like cursing. Yeah. It's just like 800 different kinds of sausage that all tasted the same. And like you can also have soggy potato. And then like random Ukrainian foods just thrown in

like it's basically German. Fuck it. Can I interest you in an 18 pound currywurst platter? No, I don't think you could. Is that weight? This is your whole basement. A lot of people who have baby brains like to be like, oh, it's just like the late Soviet Union.

No, it's like kind of more like 1990s Russia. Of just at least the late Soviet Union had good theater. Yeah. That's right. This is now just like cool badges. Yeah. But I say this is now basically just like I talk about it. Like I take me back.

Take me back to the time when Forest Wardens could get badges for parachuting into things. Yeah. Parachuting directly into a fire. So, but for me, right, this feels kind of something like the like 1990s Russia, the end of the Ottoman Empire, where it's just various viziers and functionaries of a of a rotting state where everything is for grabs.

Everyone's got their feet up on a little stool. Just trying to grab as much of it as they possibly can before everything just falls apart. That's that's also why I wanted to talk about the other big ankle here to me, which was localism, as we're currently seeing Andy Burnham being the last bastion of opposition to the government, as we're just deciding that like, oh, Manchester is in lockdown,

but like the we're all is fine. Yeah. I thought I'd die fighting side by side with Andy Burnham. Yeah. Well, it's right. It's that if you want to get if you want to go one level up from the arts conversation, overall, it's that there is this hard biological limit

of what you can do with the fetishization of free industry. Don't be a tough. But there is a biological career agenda. Yeah. But like I say, there's a biological limit defined by the coronavirus that of how much like market fetishism and, you know, like subsidizing CEOs or trying to like. Yeah, there's how there's a certain level of state capacity

that you need to be able to exercise. Yeah. In order to have normal things. New Zealand has that, Vietnam has that, Germany has that kind of. The UK very much does not. Yeah. And instead of that state capacity, what we have are all of these stakeholders pulling in different directions.

So that like, for instance, pubs with like that serve meals that are food based pubs will not close because Tim Martin says. Yeah. Well, what you end up with, right, is when you are trying to solve a one large problem with the conceptual framework of a different, of a unrelated problem. So you're trying to solve an epidemiological problem by like pulling on what are essentially business regulations

because you can't imagine the state as having any entrepreneurial capacity or you don't want to imagine it because it's not in your and your friend's interests, then you end up with a set of rules that demonstrably don't have such bizarre edge cases. Like you can go to a pub if it serves a Cornish pasty, only if it has a salad. My comparison isn't the Ottoman Empire, by the way. It's like the late war Third Reich, right? And bear with me on this one because I know that's a bit spicy.

Right. So it's a nice time, very normal. Not just the proliferation of beer killers, but also the fact that you have an over-weaving central leader who is suddenly incapacitated after a lifetime in politics of like deliberately cultivating this kind of like backstabbing, you know, local fiefdom shit. Now, absolutely ravaged by coronavirus and out of it, you're just left with all of these kind of mid-level bureaucrats

with their own ministries to coordinate. And what they end up coordinating is just like kind of mid-level graft with their friends. It all pulls in like seven or eight different directions. I've got to say, like we doing Dracula, listens, if you don't know, I'm going to be fingers crossed. Like I'm going to be in Dracula at the end of November. We've brought the show.

Beautiful plug. Thank you very much. Well, we're very lucky that we're able to do it because the venue that we're doing it in technically serves food and therefore counts as a restaurant. It's a classic pasty and salad that everyone loves to go out for. Yeah. Well, actually, the food is actually really good. I was there, I had something the other night. And but we are very lucky that we can put the show on again

because technically the place is a restaurant or at least it is attached to a restaurant. Technically, it's a restaurant on your gast and you failed to control me. Take the small print on your contract. So there's going to be some tickets as well. So I want to see you all there. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, but I think that if whatever kind of metaphor of a falling apart polity,

you want to use, I think the the just obvious, the obvious surrender and the commencement of just looting what's left of the state by smash and grab, smash and grab by the government. And it's or by the government, by sort of fame, it by prominent people who realize that they can, they can have a role here by the seat, by CEOs of companies that realize that some like public funding is going to come in their way. This is the Farage thing. Yeah. This is the Farage thing is all the same thing.

Yeah. It's just, it's just, there's, there's, we realize that all the furniture is gone. There are leaks all over the house, but damn it, there are still copper wire in the walls. And we can get that. Yeah, we absolutely can. And then Elon Musk gets to play Richard III. Yeah. Yeah.

Effectively. And that's, that would be cool. I'd watch that. And this would be so weird, but in like a fun way. Yeah, but you'd know that all the professionally trained actors around him. Discontent. All the professionally trained actors around him would just be like, Grimes, Grimes, my horse.

My fortune for a horse. Right. So this is, and this is beyond just like the sort of dozens of examples of, you know, conservative party bigwigs, like channel, getting like, or Nick, the friends of conservative party bigwigs, getting like money channeled to their, your lemonade stand to like provide all of the masks for the doctors. Because again, like this, because for a long time, right? Again, this isn't new.

It didn't start in 2016. It didn't start now. It started in 1980. That where the, where in order to get out of stagflation, you know, there was an agreement in the UK and US that we're going to rebuild what society is and is for. We're going to reconceptualize what the state is and is for. And that train only goes one way and we only know how to keep shoveling coal into it. And it's a private kind of strain.

When it's your job next, right? The start of that are the coal miners and it's taken this long to get to the actors. Yeah. Basically, that's it. You know, it's the close down. Ironically, Billy Elliot's dad and Billy Elliot ultimately both had their careers destroyed by the same phenomenon. Oh, that's a good button to leave it on before we go into the, a very short reading for the end.

It's a haiku. Yeah. So let's, let's talk about this last article, which is we had to do this. We had to do it to him. Where Ross Clark's article, Jacinda Arden is no hero after. She's a very naughty boy. After basically, you know, the New Zealand has just reelected its labor prime minister, who to be clear is like a centrist and we'll get into that.

Yeah. But much like Nicola Sturgeon and I feel like there's a lot of overlap with the way that she's just cut me Trudeau. Like having a popular neoliberal, but like slightly center left woman, elected resoundingly absolutely boils people's piss. It rules. And like the thing is, the other thing, right? And I want to be very clear that we're here making fun of this like psycho telegraph journalist,

not giving some anconium to Arden, because like the pandemic policy in New Zealand has been comparatively good because New Zealand is a functional state. Yeah, it works. But it's still had a very neoliberal flavor. So mostly like a lot of income support has been channeled through business. Arden might have lost had COVID not happened. Like she promised to like end child poverty and fix the housing crisis. And she didn't really do either of those because her politics don't allow for that possibility.

Yeah. She insured poverty. It was fish and chips. But like also like what happened is a lot of people are farther in debt because a lot of the way that they've got money to people is through credit rather than grants. Like this is not... People only idiots on the left should look at New Zealand and be like, that is all of what a good response is.

And I don't think anyone serious really is. But again, you have to... And look to Vietnam. Yeah. Yeah. That much better response, great response. It has been very funny to see people assuming that Kier Stalmer is going to repeat this success in a few years time.

Yeah. Because he's got all the same charisma and likability as Arden does. But also like it's repeat this... Recurring to end child poverty. But even that, right? The idea that... What voice was that? The idea that Stalmer by just basically...

To sing the role of an ass Kier Stalmer. Coming in to the government and then saying, I'm just going to do a bunch of sensible policies, the same ones New Zealand did. Probably also wouldn't have worked because those require a functioning state. Yeah. And also it's slightly lean on the advantages New Zealand has of being on our tiny island in the middle of the Pacific with... Again, that's why I think Nicola Sturgeon is such a good comparison.

And she's also been managing the COVID response in Scotland, which has been significantly more successful than in England, but still nowhere near as good as New Zealand because it's attached to England and a lot of the institutions have been like lucid. Yeah. So with all of that in mind, we are now going to talk about this ludicrous article written by someone who appears to be angry that more people haven't died.

I'm not quite getting this here. The biggest hair boiling still. Oh, he's a Malsusian. He says, I've long been an admirer of New Zealand, not least for its decision. That's an amazing start. That's not the start of a New York Times recipe. And the recipe is for like beef Wellington.

So Clark writes, not least for its decision back in the 80s, to stop subsidizing and protecting its farmers into open its markets to the world. Well, some farmers went to the wall. Well, some farmers were gulag. We went to the wall. Yeah. The agricultural sector as a whole boomed. No, no, not the world. It's what we normally do because they're sheep, but we went to the wall.

Yeah. So again, when we say some farmers went to the wall, but the sector as a whole boomed, what we mean is a few giant companies took over all of it. But a few actors went to the wall, but Secret Cinema was a whole boom. Yeah. But I won't be cracking open a bottle of very fine oyster bay. Also, no, no, no, bad wine. I am now playing the role of Riley, the bad wine. Yeah. New Zealand has good wine, but not that.

If you want to make a personal recommendation, if you want wine from New Zealand, you want to go Central Otago for your Pinot Noir, and I do, I do hardly recommend Sam Neal's two paddocks. It is very, very good. I was about to say Sam Neal's wine. It is my favorite wine in the world. It is really fucking good.

Sam Neal's two paddocks, and his wine is not bad either. The thing is, columnists are all anhedonic, and so they just like, they're like, oyster bay, we're going to do that. So I won't be cracking open a bottle of very fine oyster bay. Because it doesn't exist. Oyster bay is finest. Their fact checking is wrong.

You've completed the fact checking of the wine recommendation. I don't know what kind of smellier they consulted on this column. But I would like to talk to his manager. I'd like to talk to the guy who awarded him his MW. So I won't be cracking open a bottle of all that stuff I said, to join in Jacinda Mania, as Jacinda Arden almost certainly wins her turn. She's just popular.

She's just popular. People quite like her. And it's so funny to me that like, whether it's Blair as someone they like, or Jacinda Arden or Nicola Sturgeon as someone they don't, all of these freaks think that someone being popular with the electorate is a form of magic. Yeah. Right.

And so like, as soon as someone does actually likeable politics and has some level of personal charisma, they're just like, fire from their fingers. He's making jam! Jam! I had a dream. Like, it's the same thing that made them think, Obama is a once in a generation political figure.

Yeah. Because only he had the like, pro-lomancy to build that coalition. They like a jab, you can keep it. Yeah. So if I had a vote, it would definitely have gone to Crusher. Crusher?

Oh yeah, she's so cool. That's the head of the National Party, which locked their Twitter account after they lost. Oh, damn. Yeah. They dug some old tweets out of the National Party. You don't text. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They found the National Party's thirst trap. Yeah. So the opposition leader, Judith Collins, who earned her nickname after her policy while police minister of crushing cars that had been used in illegal street racing. Now, that only ever happened one time.

She did that once. But maybe New Zealand's not that big. It's been a real problem with illegal street racing. I've hit to crush one-fifth of New Zealand's cars. Exactly two cars. It's meant to put the holding in the car compact. If Collins ever feels like throwing in the political towel, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, New Zealand has got off lightly from COVID-19, not because it had an earnest leader in a trouser suit, but because it is the- No, that's correct. That's not why. I just, hey, women. Yeah. Just, hey, women.

Okay, hey, women. Hey, women wearing trousers suits, specific. Yeah. But because it is the global version of the Isle of Lewis, the Outer Hebridean Island, which hadn't suffered a single COVID death until this week. And where everyone's called Lewis. Yeah.

To, again, in labored metaphors in columns today. Yeah. Yeah. There's only one island I can think of. Yeah. I can't just say it's two very distant islands. No. It's everything has to be relatable to something in Britain.

Yeah. Britain is the template for the world. It's the global equivalent of Little St. James Island, where they have had no COVID cases. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Britain. Due to its young population.

They've had a really good- Britain sounds like some pedophile shit. Yeah. Britain, by comparison, is Piccadilly Circus. Well, that's- Yeah, I like Britain. Britain is in- Piccadilly, okay.

Well, Piccadilly Circus is in Britain, yeah. But also Britain is Piccadilly Circus. And, um- You said Pilla Dickie. But also the island of Lewis is in Britain. Don't change the name of the group DM. I'm sorry. I'm going to change the-

I'm going to change it. I've taken a bit too much MD this evening, and I'm suffering from Pilla Dickie. I'm afraid there's no chance this evening, love. Alice, please don't change the name of the group DM. I won't change it. Pilla Dickie, sorry. Let the record show.

Oh, God, I will change the name of this. Quotstenographer, please change the name of the DM to Pilla Dickie. Okay. We just know so basically, as opposed to get some crazy metaphor about how everywhere is the equivalent of somewhere in the UK, including the UK. We can't cut ourselves off in the way New Zealand can,

situated as it is a thousand miles from the nearest other country and self-sufficient in fact. Unless we get a large tugboat and a powerful rope. Moreover, once the virus was in Britain, it could spread far faster on our crowded tubes and buses than in New Zealand's less dense urban areas. So I guess they do have public transport in New Zealand. He just didn't look it up.

They have like two large-ish cities in New Zealand. Not a very good intercity bus network. Also, he got the capital wrong. He said the capital is Auckland. I hate to get the bus down from Auckland to Pilla Dickie. Yeah, that's right. So basically, what I find really interesting about this is the the British, the British reactionary columnist brain is so

so just steeped in resentment that they can look at someone. Basically, they can look at an example of a country that has for many reasons, a couple of the ones, including some of the ones he names, but for many reasons, done much better than England ignores the, you know, Scotland's similar policies did better than England too. And just try to explain it away as though England is must always be seen as a Panglossian country

that is the best it could possibly be. The only place that can ever be better than England in these people's minds is America. Because in America, you can do whatever you want, as long as you're rich, which is cool. Auckland has a population of like 1.6 million, which like, I don't know, maybe it just wouldn't spread there because you think that like every third seat is taken up

by a herd of sheep or something. And it's also, he also says like, look, for a squash and COVID-19 flat and only suffering 25 deaths, New Zealand has paid a terrible economic price. In the second quarter, GDP fell by 12.2%. Oh no, not the line. No, not the GDP. My line.

That's terrible. What are we going to fucking do? What's the point of everyone being alive if the line is sad? What will we do? This just goes, it's the climate change thing again. It's the same thing where they're like, oh, solving this huge existential problem is a bit expensive, so we better not do it.

Like, why are we going to be dead? We'll just be dead. You're going to take all your gold and be buried in an enormous sarcophagus. Exactly, yes. Literally, they want to live the life of a pharaoh. They want to be buried, have their brain pulled out through a hook in their nose,

which I think actually in this guy's case it's already happened, and then be buried in a fucking gold sarcophagus in a big pyramid, which is actually under the sea. Yeah, that's right. Britain's GDP fell by 19.3%, more than New Zealand. Yeah, but we had Dishirishi, so it must have been good. Let me ask you one question. How many deaths have we had so far, and is it more than 25?

You might have to do some math first. How about this? If we're thinking about numbers in terms of the scale of geology or the age of the universe or whatever, the difference is pretty small. If we're doing a Fermi estimate, then yes, the number of deaths is equal to 25. Yeah, if we're doing an estimate based on big enough numbers,

then it's a rounding error. But if we want to use boring, old, normal human numbers. If you want to use base 10, like some sort of cuck. Some kind of base 10 cuck. To the nearest billion, it's zero. Yeah, that's right. So we actually did less than New Zealand, so. Tens of thousands.

And again, this whole thing of just the job of the right-wing columnist when all of the reactionary jobs have been completed is now just to explain stuff away. So he says, that's smaller than Britain's fall, but it is a horrendous collapse, considering the far lighter footprints of coronavirus in New Zealand, probably because they dealt with it properly

because they have a functioning state. Yeah, it's almost as though these two things are related. Yeah, maybe. Like what were they expecting to happen? Were they expecting some like, what was the ideal that their economy would grow somehow? Yeah. Well, also like.

They invested in the virus. I think you're cutting Britain too much slack by saying it doesn't have a functioning state. Britain doesn't have a functioning state when it wants to. But the problem with our state is that it doesn't have functions, although many of them have been eroded. It's like, it's run by sclerotic morons

who refuse to pull on the levers that they have there specifically for this situation. They're like, well, how are people supposed to, you know, sit at home and not work while you borrow money and you use it to pay them? Oh, never, we're not going to do that. So how are they supposed to? That's impossible, so I'll just have to die.

That's actually the, which is why like lots of countries that actually don't have a functioning state have dealt with this quite well. Like Greece, because Greece, just like they were like, okay, what do we have to do? Okay, you tell us, we do it. We have to be careful.

Okay, the guy who comes from the European Union, he tells us where the masks stay at home, so we do it. Like that, like, and they did it better than us. Greece, a country where like every fifth person is employed as a tax inspector and traffic warden and doesn't pay any tax and earns a million euros a year, paid via an offshore fund from the Greek home office. They did it better than us.

Yeah, and also like, if you want to know the countries that really did it a lot better, Vietnam, you can look or areas under like sub-country areas, as we've talked about in the podcast before, Kerala and India for a long time was doing it a lot better. Now, even now, like by this point, China is so on top of it because its entire state capacity, which is considerable, has been mobilized to like do the thing.

Yeah, and the problem is testing an entire city in five days. And the thing is right, I think a lot of the, a lot of people who are, again, made their political and media careers in the 1990s and early 2000s, a lot of them see any alternative to the train that was set in motion in 1980 in both of these countries. They see any alternative to, if they're liberals,

then there are two kinds of politics. You can solve the problems of the 1970s, which gives you the 1990s. And then if you ever stop solving the problems of the 1970s, you'll go from the 1990s to the 1970s again. And that's what politics is. And then for, and then there's a broader assumption that trying to think about an entrepreneurial state,

or what an entrepreneurial state might be, or ways of solving problems that don't just after 40 years descend into everyone's in casualized employment, except the people looting everything. Anyone looking at somebody other than that is reflexively gainsaid as, well, that is authoritarian. And effectively, and the inability to distinguish between building state capacity and creeping authoritarianism,

as I think fundamentally, it fundamentally means that in a world of constant escalating and overlapping crises, we're going to be more and more of them. And this is probably going to end up being the one we dealt with best. Also, we do have creeping authoritarianism. Yeah, we also have that. We also have that.

Like, yeah. Remember how we just made crimes legal for cops? Yeah. Like, and how this week as well, all the test and trace data is being shared with cops. Who can now do crimes? Yeah. Like, or just whatever crimes they want,

including rape and murder. Basically, cops are allowed to, cops have been allowed to do now any crime, but also more things. Nights a year, crime is legal. But equally, on the other hand, now a massive amount of the population has been criminalized for relatively ordinary activities.

And that happened in the space of a week. Just before, just before you do a crime, you have to quickly put in an application to join the police so that it's a clever loophole. Just imagine Dave Courtney somewhere just really dispirited, just like, I used to be able to commit crimes and sell police officers,

but now they're all criminals as well. I don't know what's going on anymore. They're moving in on me patch. Time was, you had flat nose geysers and you had the filth, but now I had a filth for trying to become flat nose geysers. It's out of control.

And he says, there's nothing to admire in New Zealand's coronavirus performance. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing, not a single thing. Nothing at all. 25 deaths.

Nothing to admire about that. I wish it was higher. Yeah, it's just in an ardent KD ratio. The blood for the telegraph! Just in the ardent KD ratio is terrible. Yeah. 24 of deaths. There's nothing to admire in that.

It is sheer panic taking the precautionary principle to absurd new heights. But like, what? Like, okay, you could say that at the start of the crisis. Like, you could say that then when you're like, oh, look at them

taking all these measures and no one's died yet. But after like, what is it? 60,000 deaths or more that we've had and we're going to have a lot more. That's what they're referring to. Globally well over a minute. Yeah, after like Britain has had

it's like, you know, 65,000 deaths or whatever. Like you can't really then go, well, but New Zealand sure did overreact. Like, no, they reacted. That's what happened there. Yeah. Is their state did... Because again, like the other, the,

when you, when all you know how to do is shit on things like any kind of precautionary principle because you just don't believe that bad things can happen. This is like Neville Chamberlain still doing appeasement in 1946. Like it just makes no sense.

Like we know about the Holocaust now, Neville. Like, what the fuck? 50s, like it's dead for years and he's still trying to repeat it. Trying to make a deal. So you sure you don't want to check this back yet? But what I'm getting at here right is that, you know, it's that when you,

when your view, when your world is shaped like that of a, you know, 60, 50, 60 year old telegraph columnist, your whole thing is just, I just think we should take more risks, more risks, more risks, more risks, more risks. Yeah. And if 65,000 people have to die, so be it.

And he concludes the article, but you said more risk, more risk, more risk because you just like a precautionary principle that's for pussies. Yeah. But then, but then you, again, you have one lever and it goes one way. This is the article.

This is the article form of the sign on a pickup truck I saw in Alberta online that said, no airbags, we die like men. Not like women who die on an airbag. Yeah. Yeah. See, he says, I also love Alice that you clarified

that I saw in Alberta online. I didn't leave the house. Don't worry. And the final step to transition is having airbags installed in your car. Yeah. But then having airbags installed in your chest. Oh, yeah.

Boom, yeah. But Arden's problem now is having isolated her country from the rest of the world. Does she ever open it back up again? I don't know, probably. Yeah. Statistically, yes. It's going to be like fucking Mordor.

Yeah. If an effective vaccine... Mordor is there. Yeah. If an effective vaccine does emerge in the near future... In many ways, Mordor is the isle of Lewis in New Zealand. So he says, if an effective vaccine does emerge in the near future,

she might come out of the pandemic looking wise. But if, as is arguably more likely to happen, the COVID crisis eventually dies away due to a combination of treatments and herd immunity. What if we just get bored of it? Yeah, she'll also be proved right. Because then it will be over and no one in New Zealand will have died.

Yeah. You fucking idiot. You fucking credulous moron. Like, did you not think about where that sentence was going when you fucking started it? Are you Michael fucking the Scott? Like, what is it like living in this man's head? Making breakfast for this man must be a terrifying ordeal.

Like, he's just mixing things in a bowl and just hoping it turns out into something he can eat. But some days it's like nuts and bolts and milk and he's like, oh no, I guess I just have to battle through it. Is that his approach to writing columns? Just slap words together and go with whatever happens? Yeah, Milo, something has happened to you that I've increasingly have started personally

referring to myself as your relaxation vein. It's become visible on your forehead. It shows I'm ready to go. I'm warmed up and safe. He says, so basically he says, yeah, but what's more likely to happen is the COVID crisis eventually dies away due to a combination of better treatments and herd immunity.

One concept that has been fully disproven. Don't have, like, don't have object permanence. This is a baby. She will have to keep New Zealand's borders closed forever as hardly ever citizens will be. It's going to be like the hermit fucking kingdom. That's right. Yeah, awesome.

That's right. Yeah, you can't make people quarantine when they come to New Zealand. You just have to close the borders permanently. New Zealand is woke North Korea. Yeah, effectively. She becomes president for life. To a telegraph columnist,

a functioning state is the same as a totalitarian state. These motherfuckers, they love immigration controls unless they actually serve a verifiable public good and then they're totalitarian. Anyway, he's going to go and have a bottle of oyster bae with a delicious New Zealand meal. I've had a very nice time speaking with all of you today. It's talking to you today, the listeners,

and talking to you today as well, Ollie. It has been a pleasure. Oh, it's Matt again. Matt Berry, you haven't really said much during this podcast. Anyway, so if you feel like going for a pasty in some salad and seeing Dracula, what can you do about that? You should follow Immersive Dracula on Twitter. If there are any tickets left,

then we will be announcing it soon. It's very hard to design three different versions of a show, depending on what tier of lockdown we're going to be in, but we fingers crossed Dracula is going to be up at the end of November. We are rehearsing hard. And it's going to be a fucking amazing show. Yes, audience members will get wet with their own blood. So, with all that being said, you know all about it.

We have second episodes a week, five bucks a month on the Patreon, or you can sign up for a year, and you get, I think, a month free or something. And this is also very good for us, so we will try and find a way of rewarding you with some sort of Google or like charge kit down the line. Invest in gold. Yeah, something like that.

A Nigel Farage crew grand. Yeah, exactly. We're going to get you if we should make that. That's very funny. We can totally make that. Anyway, what else? What is the shirt situation? Are they sold out?

Oh, they're so sold out. They're sold out. I'm still getting emails about those. They sold out in 45 minutes. Please stop emailing me. Looking through the podcast, banging a big bass drum and labeled, we should do dropshipping because we're too popular now not to.

Anyway, we will be doing another mainline shirt. But hey, who knows? Maybe another dusty box of Johannes vonk and the clog heads tour shirts might make its way into our hands at some point in the new year. Although at this point, is this coming out next Thursday? Yeah. Yeah, by this point, you may have become obsessed with our new musical creation.

Oh, right. Yes. No, this is coming out on Tuesday. You will become obsessed with the new musical creation about an hour and a half ago. Yeah, and you're about to hear the full song right now. Yeah. So without any further ado, it's who's the who's the artist?

Our theme song is call me mystery brackets. You don't have to tell me by Richard Heismith. All right, later everybody. Bye. Bye. Oh, Mr. Epstein, won't you give me a call? Oh, Mr. Epstein, we could have a ball. Oh, Mr. Epstein, there's no reason to fear.

International waters means there's no cops here. Oh, Mr. Epstein, let's book it tonight. Oh, Mr. Epstein, I'm booked for a flight. Oh, Mr. Epstein, won't you give me a look? I know you've got my name down there in your black book. You don't have to tell me the secrets you've been keeping. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

I've seen all the cameras. I know what you've been filming, but it's all right. I swear I'm living without a care as long as I get my share of all the fun you've been having here. You