TRASHFUTURE - Tour de Moon (100% Real)

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

It’s the True Chaos Configuration of Milo, Hussein, and Alice, and we’re discussing the Festival of Brexit–a bizarre idea that seems to be at least competently executed, much to our surprise. However, it includes a techno festival called Tour de Moon with an intensely 2000s website that has to be seen to be believed. We also talk about sanctioning Abramovich, and much more. Support the Sheffield JustEat riders on strike! Their fund is here and really, really needs your donations: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/sheffield-justeat-riders-are-going-on-strike-pay-rise-not-pay-cut If you want access to our Patreon bonus episodes, early releases of free episodes, and powerful Discord server, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/trashfuture *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). 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)

Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of Trash Future, the podcast that you're listening to right now. You're Riley Quinn. It's the free one. Yeah, I'm Riley Quinn. I do the voice now. Absolutely. I'm doing a really good impression of Milo.

Actually, it's I, Riley, am here. It's Milo who's not here. So mark that down in your Trash Future jotters. And you're going to be doing the free one and the bonus one voices from now on. We'll just get writing in that opportunity also, crucially. Do not believe anything that you, Riley, say later, perhaps in a more normal voice about how we're not going to do that. Because that will be Milo doing an impression of me, Riley.

Exactly. You don't trust anything that that guy says. Don't believe his lies. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Milo's a trickster. You can't, you can't trust him.

Yeah. Yeah. He's a classic, classic Riddler. Yeah. I have a memory condition, which causes me, I cannot back form my own accent. I can only use other people's accent. We may have met before. We may have never met.

I don't know. My pockets are full of Polaroids, like different wines. Just like you have a Polaroid of like a screen capture of the Google satellite image of the Niagara escarpment. Riley mementoed it all. Yeah. It's all pictures of him like skiing in Switzerland with people called like Toby. He's like, oh, I guess we have met before.

Yeah. It's, it's, it's your TF. A lot of, a lot of things have transpired. One of which is us, us successfully cooing our, our special boy while he's away. Yeah. We do not suffine the bug. Exactly. We've all painted a big Z on our, on our microphones and we have now taken to the studio for an

anti-fascist operation. And Riley can take up his rightful place in the museum of a Soviet, what is it, like the museum of Soviet catastrophes or the fake? The victims of communism museum in Canada. Yeah. Yeah. The museum of Soviet. I don't know.

Sounds like a plausible Soviet museum. To be honest. Yeah. It's like communism killed a hundred trillion people, but mostly by accident as a joke. Yeah. To be honest, that's probably like a huge proportion of deaths in the Soviet, falling on your head. Yeah.

Kind of shit. Like all the people in Moscow who die every year from icicles falling on. We should do it like an anti-communist grift, but it is just the museum of Soviet catastrophes. I think that'll be very profitable for us. Well, actually, that was a whole thing about the victims of communism, wasn't it? They were including like people who died in drunk driving accidents. Yeah. That was all like on the tally for victims of like, they died in a communist country,

therefore they are a victim of communism. Stalin failed to conquer death. If you're driving on a road with traffic lights, then you are a victim of communism. Hmm. That's true. I mean, after all, what's the most salient color in a traffic light? It's red. That's right.

And you know, communism. That's right. And it imposes rules on you that you didn't consent to, and it prevents your freedom of speech of going 70 miles an hour on a 30 mile an hour road. The nanny states. That's right. Yeah. In the form of traffic.

It was kind of like that American, what's his name, the Libertarian guy from a while ago, Gary, something, who are, yeah, Gary Johnson, who like got taped basically saying that like cars shouldn't have airbags and like they shouldn't end that he'd repeal legislation to remove seat belts because that's very funny because not having airbags is even Libertarian. It's just like, I just want to die. I've just realized something horrible though, which is now that we've cooed Riley in our anti-fascist operation, right? Yeah.

All of the Libs are going to go, Hey, is Riley Quinn hot now? They're just going to become obsessed with him. There's going to be a mural of Riley. Riley is totally the Neville long bottom of trash. Loki had a glow up. I'm a bit Niagara pill. Going to, yeah, going to Trafalgar Square and drinking some fancy wine to respect our special boy as in solidarity.

Yeah. Yeah. Riley could tell me about ski resorts until my calves crash. The most recent victim of communism by the, by the work of British Laft. That's right. Anyway, Riley's, Riley's volunteered for the Azov battalion. Yeah. Well, yeah, he'll go try and join the Azov battalion. He'll get rejected by the British border police because like they'll think he's a liability.

And then he'll somehow find his way of hosting like a wine show on GB News. Oh, nice. Riley accidentally going to Ukraine for the skiing. Yeah. I heard it was really good. I've been skiing in the bog country. I haven't been paying attention to the news. I heard it was really nice.

So I just went to the border with my skis. Accidentally skiing into Ukraine. Ah, the reverse living daylights. Yeah. Exactly. I promised some guys that I would shout out their strike fund, which I'm going to do at the start because otherwise I'll completely forget. So this is trash future brackets in no particular order in order, which I remember it.

So the, the Justy and Stuart riders slash careers are on strike, I think in Yorkshire up north and their strike fund is running quite low. So they asked if we could shout them out and suggest a donation link. So there's a, there's a link to their like fundraiser, which explains their strike and why they're doing it. And it's about basically paying conditions. You're standard, you're standard kind of stuff. Everything is shit and they want it to be a bit less shit and we should support them.

That's right. And it's cool. It's called being English. It's supposed to be shit. But if you want to be very non English about it and support their strike, you can do. And there will be a link in the description. But if not, if you Google the Sheffield, Justy strike, if for whatever reason, you can't fit, find the link there.

Well, if you Google the Sheffield, Justy and Stuart strike, I think you'll find their page. This is, this has crossed some wires in my brain. And I'm now very struck by the idea of a Justy rider painting a big Zed on the side of my head. Pro Russian Justy rider. Yeah. Taking all the pork fat out of your meal. Yeah. So what are we, what are we going to talk about? Do we want to start with Roman Abramovich or do we want to start with fucking Brexit?

I want to talk about football for a bit. Typical lad culture, typical dirtbag left shit. See, I think that we should start with the unboxed stuff just because I feel like we will be able to get through in a shorter time, whereas the football staff. And also this feels because like we were promised a startup by the special boy and we weren't given one because the Azor battalion were like, no, you can't have your phone. No, they took, they took his laptop, his NATO branded laptop away. That's right. That's right. They're like, you know, what kind of podcasts they use as show notes?

Are you like gay or something? You're afraid of being spontaneous. That's right. He was like, I do a podcast and the Azor guys were like, oh, like come down. That's right. Tell me, can you can you introduce me to Stavros? I don't like come down. It is a little work for me, but.

Azor battalion guy who likes come town, except that one of the hosts is Jewish. That's right. So he's so he's now like doing a podcast in Ukraine, but he's like dealing with like he's basically dealing with like the Azor battalion versions of us. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I feel like that's that's probably the most likely situation as to where he's gone. So in lieu of a startup, we were talking a little bit privately about well, OK, why don't we start in this way? Right. So we in our secret signal group chats, where we share.

We enjoyed the dome chat, didn't we, lads? Like we great deal. Yeah, we thought they was very fun, transformative and yeah. And like, as we know, nostalgia is like a very big and popular thing and something that like people get stuck into. And we can like, you know, a pine over that. But crucially, we have another pop up pirate. We have another example of nostalgia repackaged.

So I guess the starting point is like, how many of y'all remember what the Brexit Festival was? Oh, the Festival of Brexit, the inverse woofer endem. Yes, we live in it. We live in it right now. Absolutely. To me, every day is the Festival of Brexit. The time you walk into Tesco and there's no vegetables, that is. You there, boy, what day is this? Why so? It's Brexit mistake.

Exactly. That's right. Yes. So like the Brexit Festival was first sort of floated in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, because people were sort of like, you know, kind of miserable. And the government, which was then run by Theresa May, was very much trying to convince people that like, no, Brexit is going to be this good and cool thing. And like now we've unlocked so much of our potential. But crucially, like it was in this context of like the, you know, the Tory Parsi trying to kind of basically, well, I mean, basically going sicko mode

and deciding to split between, split people between like people who are pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit based on like what they say online and how they sort of posture. And then at the same time, the stuff leading to the 2019 referendum, in which any sort of idea that like maybe this Brexit thing that happened isn't just going to go away if you press a button. That was something that you weren't allowed to talk about. And it was very much the case of like you either reverse Brexit by pressing the bus and all you don't. So the Brexit Festival was really this kind of like

somewhat optimistic attempt to convince people that like, Britain could exist and crucially, it could like still enjoy its stature, whatever that was. Yeah. Fun Prime Minister Theresa May has invited you all to an office party. That's right. Yeah. Eccentric aunt Theresa May. Well, that's when that's when we all thought office parties were like, you know, good and cool, right?

You know, in 2000. We could all run through a big field of simulated weeks together. But we'll know we couldn't do that just yet. At that time, we had to run through an actual field. But now considering considering there's going to be like fucking wheat sausage and everything, we can run through a field. Yeah, we can run it through a field of something. I don't really know what that something's going to be, but it'll definitely be something.

Anyway, initially, when we talked about the Brexit Festival, we were sort of expecting like kind of glib British shit. As you imagine, like my envisioning of it was like Ed Sheeran might kind of lend, like do a kind of five minute video or something, kind of say. Like like a royal jubilee thing or something. Yeah. Ed Sheeran talking about the Brexit dividend for mental health. That's right. Well, like he's joined by Prince Harry. You're going to check in on your chat.

Well, like it'd be one of those like weird sort of like, you know, British, you know, you have like pop bands that were kind of last relevant in the 2000s. Like, I don't know, like hearsay and Darius would show up, probably. Darius, didn't it? Yes. Bring him back. Lamar. I want to see Lamar. If there's any justice in the world, we will see Lamar at the Brexit Festival. Four of the 25 members of the Blazon Squad might like do a small show.

Once you are in jail. So when you think about it, the Blazon Squad, much like the as-of battalion started as like a squad-sized formation and just ballooned over time. The Blazon Battalion. Imagine these first little Blazon Squad regiments. 500. 500 guys in the Blazon Squad. We've had to upgrade it.

I don't know why we gave the Blazon Squad all those anti-tank missiles, but I just hope they use them for something good. The Blazon Squad, it used to just be led by like a lance corporal, but it's now ballooned to a size who have had to put a lieutenant colonel in charge. That's right. That's correct. I mean, look, I don't want to go into much of the Blazon Squad stuff because I know like far more about the Blazon Squad than I would very much like to. However, what we seem to like, so the Brexit Festival has not died.

It's just sort of been like been working in the background. And while we've sort of been distracted by like pronouns and like the coronavirus. Yeah. And the novel coronavirus. It's been studying the blade. Yeah. It has been studying the blade. And like what Riley mentioned when we were talking in the group chat is actually it doesn't look that bad, which is not to say that it looks good,

but it doesn't like in relation to like big projects that Britain tries to do. And it always sort of ends up either kind of like breaking, falling apart, not happening at all or crucially just being very, very cringy. This sort of seems to be like less cringy. So I'm going to like give a bit of a history. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to read some of the projects at the Brexit Festival, which is called Unboxed. Creativity in the UK is proposing.

Instantly slipped into the role of showrunner here. That's right. That is right. So it's being headed by Martin Green CBE, who previously organized the opening ceremonies of Drumroll, Please. The London 2012 Olympics. Oh, that thing we all remember when Britain was good for five minutes. Yeah, definitely. Why does everyone claim to have organized the London 2012 Olympics?

Opening ceremony? It's like the live version of being the second man on the balcony in the Iranian embassy seat. I was the second guy in the control room at the London 2012 opening ceremony. I dressed as the Queen jumping out of the helicopter. Whereas actually the Queen jumping out of the helicopter was John McElise. I volunteered for a day for the London 2012 Olympics doing like directions duty for visitors.

So in many ways, I was also responsible for the success of that particular event. Absolutely. And even more ironically, it was actually the Queen who was in that gas mask, the second person on the balcony at the Iranian embassy. That's right. Green Green was also involved in like making whole whole like the city of culture and arts in 2017, which like I vaguely remember. A great success. But yeah, I wonder how Hull's doing now.

I probably have a brief anecdote. About Libs organising the London 2012 Olympics, which I may have told on the podcast before, but I'm not sure that I have, which is that at my school's speech day in like 2005, like whenever it was that we got the Olympics, I think it was 2005 when we won the bid. Yeah, that sounds right. Because it was immediately before the London bombing.

Yeah, it was. It must have been 2005. Yeah. Yeah. Keith Mills, who was one of the people in charge of the bid, came to our school's speech day to be like the guest and give the speech. And it was just after we just got the logo had just been done. All those weird aliens. Yeah, the one that looked like Lisa Simpson giving a blow job.

Yeah. No, I'm talking about the logo itself, the like the the Lisa Simpson logo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yes. The Simpsons entire. Yeah. And and he opened his speech. Oh, I'm Keith Mills. I'm working on the London 2012 Olympics.

Who here likes the London 2012 Olympics logo and no hands went up. And then there was this amazing, like, partridge-esque pause. And they just went, well, I like it. I mean, bringing up the mascots is also very funny because I remember Wenlock and Mandeville, those fucking horrors very keenly. Yeah, deeply like sex horror kind of creation. They're like like a walking CCTV camera. They made they gave one of them a police helmet to one point.

Yeah. I mean, they sort of just it just reminds me of like. And Alice was like, maybe I like him a bit. Yeah. A tiny bit. Punished like Mr. Blobby's. Because I could describe it. Anyway, they're like Chernobyl. That's right. Yeah. That is basically no be.

Chernobyl, that's it. OK, yeah. So like this sort of sort of been going on in the background is had like a base, had like a kind of like six million pound budget as far as I'm sure I'm just like reading the stuff that's like from the wiki page. It's obviously been like it kind of got some delays due to like, you know, COVID-19. So it's unclear like when this is happening.

But like it's now been like it went from being festival twenty to twenty twenty one to unbox creativity in the UK. Twenty twenty two. So I'm boxed. We boxed. Well, OK. So yeah. So here's part of like the marketing that's changed over the course of like the past year. Getting YouTube is to do this.

They say the kind of like slogan is welcome to another side of Britain. So it's the idea that like and I think you're right, Alice, actually, it's like very much the implication is that the UK was boxed in by the EU and it's like bloody red tape and, you know, you know, bureaucracies and everything. And what this what the what the Brexit Festival will do, the Unboxed Festival will do is show that like outside the EU, Britain can sort of achieve whatever it wants, which like a vibrant

economy of fashion YouTubers. Yeah, that's right. The working time directive was preventing me from doing all the dogging that I want. Forty hours a week isn't enough. That's right. So there were like a bunch of people who like sent bits in, including like Jamie Oliver, the British Film Institute, the British Library, the Imperial War Museum, but a real country, a pucker country.

The Imperial War Museum would be a slightly more honest kind of unboxing of Britain. And as it's so and they're like, so there are now like a short list of like 30 projects. I won't go through all of them. I have put like the link in our show notes if you want to have a look at them. But I'm just going to like read a couple out. Our show notes, notes, making notes in the little chat box that we have. When you're in the box where we like type in slurs while we.

Oh, OK. Yeah. So in this in this level, let me just think that was in the previous recording. Sorry, I'll put it now in the slur. I'll put it in the slur box again. There you go. Um, OK, so I'm going to read a couple. I'm going to read a couple now. Jamie and I'll pull this up for myself.

That's right. Oh, yeah, it's boxed 2022. Yeah. So you've got like their button for cookies is I'm fine with this. Is how I feel about a lot of things. So you've got projects like, for example, Dandy Lion in which like 100,000 school children and young people will take part in the largest community. You're in 79,989 other curious.

You are a one millionth visitor to Britain. I love the logo unbox and then like the O is like has that kind of like hypnotic spiral thing like those things used to donate a penny to a charity at the supermarket. The other thing about this is that it uses so much animation that the page actually lags quite badly. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really it's like it's like Homer's website in the sense.

Yeah. No, it's not because I think I like Homer's website in the Simpsons. I think it's very fun and cool. Whereas like this is very like you've sent this to like a digital marketing agency. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And they've used the same colors and they've used the formats and all that stuff. And it's just like, yeah, I've seen this version of a website many times.

So unboxed creativity in the UK is a once in a lifetime celebration. Of creativity taking place across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and online. Being a marketing person in the UK must be absolutely grim, right? Because nine times like 99 times out of 100, you're making this website for like yeah, a variety of different clients like Lockheed Martin or whatever. And then the 100th time you're getting like used as a kind of human puppet by apprentice contestants who want you to design the logo for whatever bullshit they're doing this week.

Yeah, I mean, basically, I've worked with like a few marketing like people in like various jobs before. And it's basically that like, you know, they sort of kind of anticipate what the website design is going to be. You know, the color scheme is usually like the same or very similar. Tour de Moon. Tour de Moon is a cosmic journey into the possibilities of tomorrow. Live shows, nightlife, digital experiences and more.

And then my favorite phrase, created in collaboration with the moon. It's like, yo, they got the moon. Yeah, you've got we need to attach to the moon. Otherwise, it's a moon. That's right. You've also got like these other kind of, you know, you've got these other products, too. So there's one called like our place in space, which is described as a 10 kilometre scale scale model sculpture.

Trail of the solar system designed by the artist Oliver Jeffers, which can be visited physically or experience an augmented reality. You've got like, as I mentioned before, you've got like Dandelion, which is supposed to be like this kind of live, immersive project for like planting, you know, flowers and wildlife and so on. There's like one called Goward, which is Goward brings together the Wales's boldest film and TV talent, creative technology, live performance. And yes, that's kind of like the very sort of like, you know,

centering towards the region. Listen, I just have to say the moon one is the best. Right. Because the website design, and I'm just going to, I'm just going to put this in the little slur's box here for your, for your perusal. Yeah. What they're doing is something called moon convoys, where they'll be a little, look at the website. Oh, my God. You go, Drax. I'm struggling, I'm struggling, I'm struggling to explain this website

in an audio medium. Oh, sorry. No, I take it back when I said the previous one was home as website. This one is home as website. Complete with like rotating texts. Yeah. Simply go to tourdamoon.com to see some spinning graphics. This is incredible. This is like, this is like some Nathan Barley shit. I like this because it sort of reminds me of like when you get your first kind

of like Bebo a pixel site and you can just do whatever you want with it and you make it as insane as possible. Like I'm probably like in the background. Is there like a, is there like a figure of the moon screaming? Screaming, melting ice cream moons. Yes. Fuck, this is so, this is so Alan's dictaphone. Like parading through towns and cities of England. Moon convoys synthesizes the whole of the tourdamoon festivals.

It travels between Leicester, Newcastle and Southampton. What? Why are those the three places? Towns. What the fuck is the tourdamoon? The moon is everywhere. That's like, OK, so yeah, so that's an insane project. I didn't see when I was looking at this and I'm sure Riley didn't see for the first truly insane.

I'm going to, I'm going to send Riley the tourdamoon like five or six times. Oh, my God. If you wish to participate, email us at hello at tourdamoon.com with your CV and availability. I would like to participate in the tourdamoon to go look at the screaming ice cream moon. Yeah, the moons look like they're in a lot of pain, to be honest with you. It looks pretty, yeah, yeah. It's like a kind of, it's like a pulpentine version of like disco Elysium,

the design of this site. It's really. There's a link here labeled moon hotline. Excuse me. You've got one also called like dream machine, which is, and this is kind of like where I thought the dome stuff would sort of come in quite well, which is that like, if a dream machine is described as like an immersive journey into light sound and imagination and just the idea of

like the possibilities of like, you know, entering your mind and seeing what's going on there, which is something that I don't really want to do. But the reason why I kind of bring this up in terms of the dome stuff is because like, unlike the kind of like glib kind of corny celebrity stuff, I imagine much of like the British creative arts that gets funded usually results in. This reminds me much more of like the millennium dome in terms of like the projects that like it's called like the exhibitions that it's showing really does kind of this like it's trying to sort of like create this

like incoherent and I think partly like unbelievable narrative, which is much more about like a country trying to express faith in itself, but doing so in like a way that feels very, very disorientating or at least sort of like out of place. This is it's so it's so weird. This is a tour initiative. I'm stuck on the moon thing because it's so fucking bodies and spaces as well. Bear in mind that also the millennium dome was a Tory initiative as well,

which like Labour then just kind of like carried on to completion, right? So which is which is to say that like there is a future where potentially Kirstarmer will have to do the tour the moon. I just I just love to be it because someone had to come up with this and this is like their baby, right? I'm just going to read you some more copy from this. Moon hotline is composed of immersive digital experiences and talk to the moon. Talk to the moon is an artificial intelligence powered

invisible theater experience about conversation and connection by T. You glow and friends in talk to the moon. Luna converses with festival go as an online visitors intimately as a mysterious, mythological creature who not only wants to share more about themselves, but also wants to learn from humankind. It is a dialogue that explores normativity, belonging and other names partially sponsored by we transfer. The Tour de Moon is like T.

F. Day ones. Yeah, there's also this is this project as well. I'm not sure what like I think it's called pollination, but like they're kind of promo screen, which is just like a. Oh, yeah, pollination. That's it. They're going to make everyone a big polly. That's right. But also, crucially, this poly cool looks a lot like Stratford, Westfield,

like the outside area of Stratford, Westfield. No, the most cursed part of London. Yeah, so it's also still like it's kind of still just bringing in the kind of cursed elements of like modern architecture and kind of like the kind of weird notions of public space and everything. But yeah, like again, it's a fuck. This is going to be at the fucking Edinburgh Festival. Oh, my God.

Assembly in Edinburgh from the 6th to the 14th of August. So if you're there, come on down. Meet the moon. I mean, it's quite it's a big. It's a big ask to go to the Edinburgh Festival and be one of the more annoying things there. But I think they're going to manage it. So yeah, you've got like this kind of like series of projects and like,

yeah, there's kind of this reminder, you know, it it it it there's just like a lot of these kind of harking back to the kind of ideas of what the dome should be. But like, I don't know, it feels really weird now because I think partly because the every time we saw it. Because we've all seen the moon website. Yes. And our brains damaged by that. Yes, partly because we've seen the good moon website, but also,

I guess partly because like, you know, when we talk about British infrastructure and just like kind of these types of like so-called ambitious projects, like when it comes to Britain, we sort of know how the story goes, right? Which is that and there are only really two ways it goes. This goes down, right? One is that like it becomes so immortalized into like liberal consciousness for everything sort of becomes angered to it.

And like everyone sort of ends up in this kind of weird nostalgia cycle around this sort of theatrical performance. And then 10 years later, everybody's like, I actually did the the PR for the tour. That's right. That's right. Well, the second one is that like it ultimately ends in like complete disaster, like like loads of money is wasted, but like crucially, it doesn't kind of achieve any of its sort of like philosophical objectives and only to so only to then like what these projects then kind of being brought up by,

I don't know, like fucking O2. Basically, what I'm saying is that like Drake is going to do a concert on the Tour de Mune. I hope so. That's the most that's the most likely outcome of this. Fundamentally in this country, right? You're either on the moon website or the moon website. I mean, I thought this was going to be like the Festival of Britain, right?

And the Festival of Britain was this sort of everybody's depressed as shit because everything is terrible. It's 1950s times. We're going to do like a little hurrah to make everybody feel better about living in Britain. You can only corned beef. Yeah, exactly. Check out all the cool shit that we're going to do. Yeah, we've we've paved the entire South Bank of the River Thames with concrete,

which is going to look great forever. Yeah, well, I mean, I think and I imagine like for most like British people, this is actually probably something that would be that would be something that they would be probably prefer like, you know, the whole like they should build something for fuck's sake. The war bunker, the war bunker, like escape room experience where you get to eat like corned beef out of a can and you get to kind of say slow words in public.

Yeah, like an electric car brings you an alternate reality Winston Churchill and convoy across the UK. Yeah, and in the gift shop, you can walk out with a gollywag and like a small jar of like quince jam or something. I don't know, like like a cry laugh emoji key chain. Yeah, and that's a stress ball. A cry laugh emoji stress ball is the most British fucking topper like psychically powerful objects, I can imagine.

This also feels I was going to say, but this also feels really weird too, because it almost like feels like something that's come out of like Liz trust or like Matt Hancock's brain. And I feel like if Matt Hancock was around, we'd be hearing about this a lot more. And the idea of just being that, OK, all these problems, all these projects are trying to kind of be like future facing, right? So like you have some projects which are trying to highlight, like, you know, the dangers of climate change, but also the idea of like,

oh, and like in Brexit, Britain, we can kind of like plant more things and we can kind of create more like green space and all that stuff. And then you have like the like not I think like three different kinds of space projects, one being toward the moon. But I think there's like two others, which are kind of about, you know, the broader solar system and like, you know, space transportation. There's one there's one project which is about like, you know, future homes and like settlements and all that stuff.

Like, you know, how you build like, you know, different types of futuristic homes and so on. So like the theme of it is supposed to be like future facing, but what feels really weird, disorientating and kind of like, you know, really super artificial about it, I guess, is just the idea of doing this at a time when like I'm not convinced anyone really believes that like this country has like a future that is even in remotely in any way optimistic. Oh, God, no, absolutely.

So like all these projects sort of just seem to be things that like have come out of, you know, like fucking management consultancies and like focus groups about what they think the future could be based on like, again, also based on these sort of like very vague understandings of the past. And, you know, there's a reason why like there's so much like stuff that is drawn out of like the great exhibition and, you know, the dome. Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't feel like it's kind of genuine.

It just sort of feels like if you were to sort of think about the future in very abstract terms, this is what it might look like. Yeah. And I feel like I would respect it more if it had this kind of like brash Johnsonite touriness about it. Like if it was the kind of like a bit like the shit the foreign office has been doing, you know, like the Britain is great, you know, with all the fucking like your BAE system. I mean, I don't even think that Britain really does that.

I think like so much of like British foreign like foreign like, I mean, most of it is like propaganda, right? And then like the thing and like the thing that like the British foreign office like exports the most is like counter extremism surveillance equipment. So they're not, they're not even like, they're not even like promote in fact of anything like what they've been doing to try to deter people from coming here is being like, no, this place is sucks. It's shit. You don't want to come here and shit.

That's terrible. Yeah. You don't want it. We actually employ the foreign office to talk Britain down to avoid asylum seekers coming in. Yeah, that's right. That is right. But what's really funny about this is that I think particularly in this incarnation of the Tory party with where their whole thing is kind of like taking the piss out of like, you know, the the the woke and like the absurd kind of like they've become they've gone from that kind of camera and I sort of like wiggish Toryism of like, you know, like, oh, actually, like

hug a hoodie, whatever, we're just like the, you know, fiscally responsible version of labor or most types. Yeah, they're kind of like manic positivity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they're now doing the like culture warship. And yet when they actually have to come up with like a cultural product, they're so uncreative that they fall back on the same like bodies and spaces shit that like this could easily be a Labour Party project.

Yeah, like the extent to which everything that's written in it is completely like wishy-washy. Like it's about connectivity between genres and cultures and ideas. And like it's so funny that like the Tories who are constantly being like, oh, like woke bollocks are like, they're kind of this is what they come up with. Yeah, I mean, I can imagine like K. Stammer, like trying to kind of promote this video. I welcome them. I would encourage us to go further by sort of melting in horror and its own flesh.

I've mooned Julia. Are we sure that there isn't some kind of a gas leak in like conservative central HQ that like allows them to think like this? Yeah, the conservative HQ is just like mid-summer. The thing that Riley was suggesting to us last week was that like if this seems like a competent project, it's not like a good project. It's not kind of like a kind of forward thinking project. It's not one it is it is it is slick.

And it's kind of and crucially like the reason why it's so slick and crucially why it's so kind of like, you know, something that looks like you know, something that looks like a professional slideshow presentation that's become material is because you have like people who are basically professional events managers running it. And crucially, no government minister like wanting to be involved because I guess like they're too busy doing other things. So like the Brexit festival when it was first sort of highlighted

was something that like Jacob Rees-Mogg, for example, was talking about a lot. And it was kind of like there was this thing where he... You see, I hate this. I wish they'd given it to Jacob Rees-Mogg. I want to see like the Jacob Rees-Mogg's sicker word Brexit festival. We've built like a 19th century Victorian revival cathedral out of limestone in the middle of central London. Yeah, like the venue is like a giant bowler hat.

Yeah, like I want that. Crucially, crucially, it's just like this is a project that will kind of be competent, but like broadly forgettable. I don't think that it like relates in the same way that like a 2012 Olympic sort of relates to. But like crucially, I think what it might be, what I think the fact that if it is kind of perceived to be competent and something that like attracts kind of even minor interest, it will sort of be, I think what it will be used as.

So I think what's happened, what's happening is you have like British politicians who have been very happy to sort of posture around the idea of being like pro-Brexit and optimistic about Brexit and everything. But like crucially, they don't really care about it that much. And they're really not as invested as like they want it to appear to be. So like the Brexit festival will be very good for them to kind of build up that brand of being like, you know, a pro-Brexit person, which crucially is like important like in British politics to be elected anyway, without having

to like kind of commit to any sort of vision, which is to say that I think that this is like a very good strategic tool for like Tories to have, but not one that they're necessarily like, at this point, I'm not one they necessarily believe in or they care about. And as a result, you end up with nothing. Like you end up with stuff that is purely marketing, whether that's Yeah, exactly. The Tour de Mune or whatever else.

That's right. I'm still fucking obsessed with the Tour de Mune, man. It's the Tour de Mune because it's the creeping Islamization. It's a crescent moon. That's right. That's right. Speaking of Islamization of Britain, should we talk about football? Yeah, it precedes a pace because so the other thing that we've been doing is the

Foreign and Commonwealth office has been very busy with something that they like to call the oligarch task force and they incredible. It's like the Wonder Twins, but they're all oligarchs. Yeah, exactly. And so what they've been doing is they've been announcing a big thread on Twitter with these incredible graphics, the work graphics is so good, the work of the oligarch task force with each oligarch who they've like named, shamed, sanctioned.

They all look like a screen from fucking rogue traders. Yeah, they've got some cowboy builder bang to rice and it's like he did over Maureen for nine grand for a conservatory that was never built and it'll be like a black and white picture of him with like nine thousand in like red over him and then like cowboy in a red stamp. Projected on a brick wall for some reason and it's got like a grimy sort of black and white picture of Oleg Derapaska or whatever. And most notably, the most recent addition to this wall of shame is Roman

Abramovich, a Russian billionaire and owner of amongst other things, Chelsea Football Club. We were obsessed with Roman Abramovich. They keep going on about Roman Abramovich, even though Roman Abramovich is like the most rare oligarch, like British people have just heard of him because he owns Chelsea. But other than that, he's of no relevance to the current situation. What's the word yet? I mean, I'm not crying about like billionaires getting their assets.

See, no, he's a pun. Fuck him. But like it's so funny that they're like, oh, Vladimir Putin's best mate, Roman Abramovich. It's like, do you ever wonder why Roman Abramovich never goes to Moscow ever? You ever think about that? He did try and forestall this a bit by both asking Putin to like maybe not invade, which of course was not listened to and putting Chelsea into a charitable

trust in a sort of like Mr. Burns is technical superior, is this cat kind of move? Yes, this did not work either. And now, because Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned, Chelsea Football Club itself, they can keep going, they can keep playing, they can keep paying their staff, but they can't sell any tickets and all of their sponsors are dropping them. And we're rapidly approaching the point where we end up with like London FC

playing in plain blue shirts. Yes. It's perfect. We're going to we're going to do it. We're going to nationalize Chelsea. I mean, my favorite element of this is that all the Chelsea fans are furious. Yes, I saw I saw a guy saying it was collective punishment and like it was unfair to do Chelsea fans like this.

And the this you on this is the Chelsea fans who in a moment of silence for Ukraine, chanted Roman Abramovich. It's like me sewing and me, of course, reaping. I'm yeah, I mean, I this is just fantastic as far as I'm concerned. There is very little as corrupt in England as as football and the business of football and the fact that we've managed to like isolate this slice of corruption and just just as a bit, just as a joke, totally destroy it is very, very funny to me.

It's a delicious little more I mean, I'm really excited for Chelsea to like just become a non-league team and have to like, yeah, I'll do the ranges. And like, you know, have to kind of like compete with teams. It's finally happening in England. One of your top flight teams is just having to claw its way back up after being totally destroyed financially. Every year, they'll have to like do training, wearing those like grotty bibs that like, you know, you get in PE lessons.

They'll have to like training, they're doing shirts versus skins. Yeah, like the goalpost will just be two jumpers. Yeah, they're actually, they're playing on the council field behind a house that's being sold by Tommy Walsh. Also, I was thinking about this today, which was like, not long ago, we did talk about buying a football team. So yeah, when now, if you're listening, Chelsea, I look forward to how much do you want for I look forward to the fact that when well, that's the thing

no one can pay him for it because he's sanctioned. You can't trade with him at all. So it's just stuck in this kind of limbo. So he's in this. Can't sell it. They're going to have to seize it. Yeah, like the proceeds of crime, like a convertible taken off of a drug dealer. So yeah, so I guess one of the questions is like, number one, how long is it

before Chelsea has to face off with Dartford FC? The second question, the second question is also like, what government minister is going to run Chelsea football? Third question, how will Arsenal find a way to lose to nationalised Chelsea? Incredible. I fucking want Matt Hancock managing nationalised Chelsea. Yes, yes. I should turn it into an academy.

Yes. Give him a big sheepskin coat, put him on the touch line. Matt Hancock has been called out of retirement as the minister for managing Chelsea. Yes. He's still in his turtleneck. A mug of hot hule on the touch line. Like that's his like real comeback story, right? Like, you know, this grace minister who, who, who's only crime was falling in love

finds himself having to like manage a football team of big egos and. Only one man can put them back on top. Yeah, that's right. It's our boy, it's Matt Hancock. Matt Hancock would love being called the gaffer. Oh, yes, absolutely. And like, and like the whole kind of story is the team learning to love Matt Hancock. And like the final scene of this like film is that they all like are doing parkour

the day before like the finals of like the. John Terry Fox, Matt Hancock's girlfriend. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Say what you will, he learned a lot about his body. I mean, one thing I was also thinking about was like, you know, last year, obviously like one of the biggest kind of like British protests that took place was against the Super, the proposed Super League.

And I think that also kind of like there were lots of conversations about like, oh, like, you know, football fans, you know, can be mobilized and they are kind of, you know, this kind of constituency. And I think that's super. Yeah, they can be sent to a desk. That's right. Yeah. Well, look, you know, there were, you know, there have been stories of like

some football fans trying to go over to Ukraine to fight. Oh, of course. But they're going to throw a plastic chair. But I think for like folding up a newspaper and advancing on the VDV. But I think like, I think, I think like the kind of like political constituency of like people who are broadly kind of in terms of electoral politics, like sort of fairly apathetic or like sort of understand stuff at a very sort of like base level, but like who really do mobilize by football.

The idea of like not being, you know, their season tickets, like not, you know, being way more expensive or not being able to sort of go to games or participate in culture, especially in so much of the country where like football really is the only accessible part of culture, right? So I wonder like whether like what what this might result in. Well, the less the lesson is clear, a revolution started by ultras in the same way as Egypt and like, fuck, dude, I don't know. Football, football ultras love to be in paramilitary units.

That's one thing we've learned both in Odessa, but like even going back to like the Balkan Wars, when all of the fucking like Red Star, Belgrade guys decided, OK, we are now a commando unit. Let's do war crimes. I mean, I only asked this because like someone pointed out on Twitter, I can't remember who, but someone pointed out that like in 2019, one of the things that Corbin proposed was the idea that like fans could basically buy out their clubs, right?

That like, you know. Sick Jeremy Corbin makes football clubs use the pro-evo names. And this was like off-brand and this was like something that wasn't really talked about much in the mainstream press, but it was like something that was in Quartermast. It was cannons. It was something that was like dismissed by like, you know, sports commentators as this being like, you know, in line with stuff like,

you know, universalized broadband and everything. And what's very interesting now is that like a lot of beyond like, you know, people complaining about the British government and like, you know, placing sanctions on Abramovich and like, you know, destroy like basically kind of on the verge of destroying this, you know, this Premier League football club is also the idea that, oh, actually, you know, when you think about Premier League football and how much corrupt money is in it and how much corrupt money is

necessary for it to work, like sanctions should be placed on Arsenal and it should be placed in Manchester United and Manchester City and like approximately every team. Yeah. Like, you know, so, you know, the only, the only, the only, the only, just keep going, keep going all the way down until it's like Dartford and Dulwich Hamlet FC and Dulwich are on thin fucking ice. That's right.

Dulwich Hamlet FC with all their dodgy money. That's right. All like the Curve will be. Driftwood picture frame stills. Yeah. All like the Curve will like Millwall somehow seem to be like the kind of cleanest team when it comes to it. Yeah.

Financially, not physically. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, a lot of that money was cash in hand. Yeah. Football is absolutely rotten. It's rotten in all sorts of different ways and it's, it's very funny to enforce it so selectively.

But yeah, I'm kind of glad. Like, I don't know. I've always, I've always found Chelsea irritating. I'm not sure why. And I'm just right now I'm thriving. I'm just, this couldn't have happened to a better club. Yeah. I mean, everyone I know.

Yeah. Well, I think especially because like Chelsea is one of those classic teams a bit like Manchester United, which are just like not supported by people from there. Like Chelsea is such a weird, like it's like anyone who's from London supports like Arsenal or Tottenham or like maybe Fulham or West Ham. Like that, those kind of places. Yeah.

But then like, yeah. And then like people who aren't from London support Chelsea. People who move to London. People from Manchester support Manchester City and people who aren't from Manchester support Manchester United. So it is just like a funny, yeah. It's a funny team for it to happen to. Yeah.

Yeah. Real geezers support Millwall. That's right. That is right. That's for TF tape. There's only one team left in the Premier League. It is Millwall. They just play.

They're not even in the Premier League now. No, no, no. They default their way up. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. That would make sense. I love to go and see the only football game left.

Millwall versus Della Chandler. Oh, that'd be brutal. Blood up to my knees in the staff. Football would be a lot closer than the fight. I think it would be fair to say. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's very bizarre.

I think the whole like farce of it kind of mirrors the farce of like the oligarch sanctions, right? Which is like, oh, all these people who like, you know, stole all of their money and had all these people killed to get their money in the 90s or whatever. That's totally fine. But now that Vladimir Putin's invaded Ukraine, we need to like sanction all of these people to stop Vladimir Putin, even though it won't stop Vladimir Putin,

because all of the oligarchs that are close to Putin don't live in fucking London, because they're close to Putin's. They live in Moscow. That's kind of how it works. Also Putin strikes me much more as someone who like prefers UFC. So like surely, Well, Kaderov loves UFC. Like that's been the big plan of like Chechen state building is you build,

you build the sort of like Ahmed Kaderov Memorial Mega Mosque UFC gym. And it's like one building co-located. Yeah. The Islamic dojo. This is that's actually been the funniest thing of the whole war is when that entire Chechen column got blown up, fucking Ramzan Kaderov did an Instagram live where he was like, Yeah, fuck these Ukrainians are tough. Lukashenko and Kaderov have been easily as was predictable,

the funniest leaders on the Russian side. 100%. Lukashenko accidentally standing in front of a map which had the whole invasion plan on it on a press conference. And also included like invading Transnistria. Oh my God, but we're doing rules. We're doing more than just sanctioning oligarchs, of course, because now as a consequence of the US sanctions,

whole companies are pulling out of Russia. And it's getting a bit intense. And just today, the latest, Goldman Sachs and Western Union, both shutting off all their operations in Russia. Previous to that, we had PayPal, we had McDonald's, Coca-Cola, IKEA. I did ask terrifyingly for Russia culture.

War is over, war is over at that point. Burger King is staying in Russia. Burger King is not democratically accountable due to being a monarchy. I really like the... Human rights abuses in the Burger Kingdom are themselves something to answer. Yeah, but we need their oil. The thing that I really like is the Ukrainian foreign ministry just being absolutely vengeful about this.

I guess the kind of people who work in foreign ministries need to be on like an oligarch task force or need to be like on Instagram. And what they're doing is they're just systematically bullying every company which has ever done business in Russia, which is all of them, and going, why do you support murdering children? Why aren't you leaving Russia immediately?

And this works partly because of the sanctions, partly because of the public shaming, partly because it's easier to cut their losses anyway. I love the BBC we're into, or someone was interviewing people outside the flagship McDonald's onto Skyrim Moscow, which I've been to many times. And they interviewed various people outside of Lally. I've come to get a last burger.

I saw loads of Russians posting on Instagram getting like a huge order of McDonald's before it closed down. And then one guy went into him outside and he was like, I was just going in there to use the toilet. Just like, that's the true service that McDonald's provides. That's what people all really miss. Pizza Hut has closed in Russia, which means that everything that Gorbachev did was for nothing.

And along with KFC, which is owned by the same company. And that's what's really going to piss them off, because I tell you, for some reason, KFC is the place where all the Caucasian guys hang out in Moscow. All-year Dagestanis and Chechens and stuff, they fucking love a KFC. So that's going to hit the cadre of lobby hard. Yeah.

What's the kind of, I mean, I was thinking, because Adidas took with Drew as well, right? They have been along the train. And when I saw that, I was just like, very dark day for Slavs everywhere. I know. It's not going to be cheeky or breeky for a very long time. So what is the thing that breaks camel?

What is the thing that breaks camels back? I'm not sure. I don't know. Well, I think it's an interesting one, because it's like kind of like Putin and like certain people close to him, the kind of like ex-KGB guys, probably like revel in this, like return to a kind of like the seat

more like Soviet way of life. You're going to have to, you're going to have to eat boiled fish all the time. But most of like the oligarchs are going to be like, where do I buy my Gucci phone case now? Putin. I have to go to Kazakhstan for this. That's true.

So you have to go to like, yeah, luxurious Kazakhstan to do it. Or, you know, yeah, like Putin's kind of like demand, but he's got from Twitter about like the value of returning to tradition. Yeah. He's, he's, he's waging, he's waging a culture. It's so fucking weird how all of these people, like whether it's like anti-transbills in Florida,

whether it's Putin, like so many people in positions of influence who you would not expect to now sound like telegram group chats of Nazis. Like, it was so fucking weird to hear Putin guys talking about cancel culture for fuck's sake. It's like, guys, you are the culture. You have pretty much sole reign to do all of the culture in your country. Who is cancelling you? KFC?

Yeah. It's just very funny the extent to which like this is so, and I think this is one of the reasons why like the people trying to frame this from the perspective of it being like NATO aggression or whatever are so funny because it's just like the whole thing is so completely insane. Like most of the people in the Kremlin itself are like running cover for it because they're just like, what the fuck is going on? They're like, that's what, that's what, like we've finally like crossed the Rubicon

and we're now in like the realm of magical thinking of Russian foreign policy where it's become like, it's not a war. It's a special military operation to denazify the Ukraine. Don't ask me what that means. Did you see that they're now trying to blame Ukraine for COVID on the basis that supposedly, and I cannot stress enough the extent to which this is all bullshit, that there is a NATO biological weapons facility in Kharkov, which was experimenting on bats and released the novel coronavirus,

which I guess then made its way to Wuhan undetected. Yeah, they were trying to build the Batman. And so therefore, now that Ukraine has infected the world with COVID, Russia is forced to go in and de-COVIDify it. That's right. Yeah, they had Robert Pattinson chained up in a lab in Kharkov and they were having him bitten over and over again by bats. Yeah, that's how you become the Batman.

And Putin is the Riddler. He's going to expose the corruption. One of my favorite types of posts were like people who were like lamented, who were like, oh, it sucks that Putin's wage was worn out because people won't get to see the Batman. Imagine if you were a Russian conscript and your Elden Ring download just finishes and then your sergeant is like, OK, listen, get in the fucking truck.

You would be annoyed. You'd be furious. Although you'd be glad that you've got it downloaded before the sanctions. Oh, that's true. Yeah, you buy, I don't know, Gran Turismo or something. And it's like it's 99% installed and then your phone goes off with a notification that Sony is now complying with all of the sanctions.

And you're just like, well, better, better overthrow my government. Yeah. I've got to take my PlayStation to Kazakhstan to finish this download. They're not even selling, they're not even selling Playstations or like Nintendo Switches in Russia anymore, which is insane. Connecting to local, local Wi-Fi somewhere in Ukraine. But like every kind of like modern luxury, every little treat, everything that Capitol like promises you is very contingent

is something that I think we can learn from this. Because, OK, admittedly, it's a very good reason to like perf somebody out of the club. But now we've seen what happens when that happens. And then it's a thing that's very sort of readily done is you can just fucking turn off the big treats button. Yeah. And that is that is the scariest thing of all. It's the scariest thing of all. That's the most frightening thing.

Except, and I was saying this on 10K this week, that like Russia is just kind of like a spiv country. And they will like that. I remember like when the sanctions came in in 2014, when I was first living there, like the extent to which like the black market back channels like sprung into action so quickly like, oh, OK, we're no longer you're importing European food. Like suddenly all of these like European cheeses and stuff

were being exported to fucking Belarus, relabeled as Belarusian products and then exported to Russia. So I mean, expect to see in the coming weeks, like fucking iPhones and MacBooks and Nike trainers and whatever flooding into Kazakhstan, well beyond the Kazakhstan like market demands and then being somehow then shuffled on into Russia. It's not even it's not even back channels anymore

because they legalized software piracy the day the sanctions came in, which is just incredible. Yeah, you'll have to see that. You've got to hand it to them for that one. I'm looking forward to Kazakhstan sort of being like suddenly being like the center of all kind of like drip culture. Yeah. You actually have to they've renamed the country sort of Russian Federation.

It's now a razor 1911 Russia plays a little chip tune every time you go in the border. That's right. And this is what this is what the people want. Absolutely. This is the future that liberals want. They want there to be a huge queue for the Supreme Store in Almaty. They do.

They do. And they want to like impress. They want to impress their friends at the at the tour to boot with their with their Kazakhstan. That's right. Kazakhstan. The thing in the late Soviet Union food just came out in drops. That's what people don't understand.

My loot box full of fuel. My loot box full of boot like fuel. My loot box full of Grechka. Right. Well, I guess that's that's that's about tears it for an episode of the show. Yeah. Yeah.

Reminder that if you want to donate to that that strike fund for the just eat guys, there'll be a link in the description. And yeah, I'm in I'm in Berlin at the end of the month. It's going to be doing a show in Russian controversial on Saturday, the 26. Do you really think that's appropriate at a time like this? Yeah. And very now I'm going to get canceled and I'm doing a show in English on Sunday, the 27th.

It's appropriate at a time like this. You fucking NATO shell. Yeah. I'm getting canceled by both sides. That's for sure. Yeah. There might be ticket links for those by the time this is out or not. But just keep an eye out if you're in Berlin for that.

Cool. All right. Catch you later. Catch you later. Bye. Bye.