Triforce! - Triforce! #32: Putu, Putu and You, Too

Episode Date: February 1, 2017

Look after the old, watch out for angry cocks, haggle hard and most importantly: Remember that Sips is a pu55y. We're back in the Triforce Podcast!   Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Please play responsibly. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Triforce podcast. Woohoo! Oh yeah. Do you like that? Like the big, and then the sudden stop? The two people excited clapping in the background. Makes the sound.

Woohoo! Oh yeah. Yeah. So we're back. This time we're not on the road. I'm at home. I'm in my cold ass dad garage. It's cold.

It is cold. Holy shit. Is it ever cold? Oh, man. I hate the cold. You know what? It's so cold. I drove my wife and my baby daughter somewhere this morning and it was cold doing that.

You know, normally that's not like a cold thing to do like if you have to walk somewhere yeah you're cold uh or if you're like standing outside you know if you're on a construction crew of five people and you work for the government you're looking down a manhole all day yeah that's why you're having your pack lunch on a girder you know yes that can be pretty cold it can be pretty windy up there but normally you know you do something like you know you drive somebody in somewhere to avoid the weather. But like even inside the car, the steering wheel was so cold. I had to like constantly remove my hands from it while driving. It was that cold.

Safe. Fuck me. That sounds safe. Pretty safe. Very safe dad thing. Yeah, yeah. It's a classic English winter thing. That's like a dad joke, though, in itself, isn't it?

Like, hey, kids, watch this. You take your hands off the steering wheel. They're like, Dad, what are you doing? Like, that's fine. Don't worry. Yeah, we'll be fine, kids. I do remember my dad driving me to school in early, you know, very, very cold winter mornings. And I got a lot of respect for that because it was really cold

really dark when you wake up you know you have to get up you have to get the kids up get them washed you know get them cleaned up get them some food i don't think people appreciate how hard the school run is and i think that's why i think in asia they get it they understand that the school run is like really fucking hard work you gotta do it for years and years and years you become like a hollow shell of a man after it's all said and done and that's why your kids look after you when you're older in asia but over here they don't what do they do they get government jobs and then they don't give you your pension anymore and then you're on those commercials where you're frozen to death in your apartment because they didn't put the heating on you know what i mean

like what what's up with that why can't why can't we take care of old people in britain um like they do in asia well in asia they do really well in asia those old people are like looked after super duper well yeah i don't know who you who i in my life i don't know any old people who are not looked after well well yeah fair i mean i don't know who you're talking about how many old people are in your life well we've got not many more now they're all gone yeah but a few a few of them gone i don't know who you're talking about here and that is that's not being looked after i'm talking about those people that you see on documentaries all the damn time you

know on the news every day they're like oh the price of heating fuel has gone up again and then they show that crippled old woman who just looks like nobody ever visits her. And she's got one of those fake fireplaces. She was probably a miserable person in real life when she wasn't an old person. Just because she's now an old person doesn't mean that... You're saying if she was a mean old lady, she deserves to... She was probably a mean middle-aged lady. And then she was probably a mean old lady, she deserves to- She was probably a mean middle-aged lady. And then she was probably a mean young lady, you know?

Come on. I've not got any sympathy for her, is what I'm saying. Well, you're an animal. Well, what if her whole extended family died in a plane crash on a vacation, okay? That she wasn't invited to. I'm just saying I'd like to see some evidence of that you know before I'm nice to her

evil listen are you a person who needs heat and cold and freezing to death because you're a miserable old bitch

or due to extenuating circumstances because I need to know that man go stand outside for 10 minutes okay in uh and just

wear a cardigan and that's it and maybe like a like a blouse and come back in and tell me how you feel about this old lady i think you'll feel sorry for it why is she doing it she got no sense at all standing outside in a cardigan and a blouse zero degree what she can't afford to put her heat on it's as cold inside as it is outside that's what i'm saying and she's not moving around she's too old she's just sitting in a chair and she's even colder than you because at least you've like stood up and gone outside like you know you got your circulation going her circulation isn't going it doesn't go anymore that's why she's so cold we're not gonna have to worry about this problem much longer by the sounds of it, Sips, if she's got that little go for it.

Oh, my God. She's got able to move around. Come on. All right, Adolf. Let's not start euthanizing the old silly. What? Oh, my goodness. Is that punishment for not being a nice person?

Is that what we're saying now? We're going to kill people? Listen, so my nan is 90. She's the same age as the queen. And for her whole life, she has very much modelled herself. Had the queen there, as this same age, sort of fashion icon, kind of role model. And so she's a very stout, proactive old lady. Did you just call your nan stout?

Yeah. She's not, well, she's not, I wouldn't call her, she's not, actually, she's certainly not very, but she is one of these people who permanently thinks she should be on a diet, you know, even though she's now 90. And so she's constantly, you know, worried about that because I guess she has been her whole life. And so it hasn't changed because she's 90. But this Christmas, you know, we made a decision to put her in a home. You got her the Kerry Katona exercise DVD. It's been a very gradual process.

It's a bit, oh, yeah, okay. It's a very gradual process because she was very independent, wanted to do her own thing. And so we sort of moved her from her bungalow to a smaller sort of flat nearer to us so we could visit more often. And so, you know, we always used to take turns. So when I was there, I would visit my nan like a couple of times a week. And then when I moved away, my brother would do it and pop in and stuff.

Anyway, it was a very gradual process. And so eventually she found that she wasn't able to go walking out every day. And so we got someone to push her out in the wheelchair. And then she wasn't able out every day. And so we got someone to push her out in the wheelchair. And then she wasn't able to do this. And so we got someone to do this. And then it was a very gradual sort of process. And we were very aware of it the whole time. And now I think her mind is going a little bit as well.

And it's very sad to see. And I don't want to make jokes about, you know, not caring for the elderly. No, you know you're going to hit or something. No, you know you're only joking. Because I think I'm very, very consciously aware of this, and it is a big problem in our society. But I don't think we should just have these blanket assumptions where, oh, our society is mean to old people.

Why can't we be more like Asia? I think they are. I don't think Asia have the right model necessarily. But I like the Asian model, which is basically you're going to go, you're going to get your grandparents to move in with you again, kind of thing. You know, that sort of happens.

Then it's actually a very, very good thing to have these social things where lots of families live together under the same roof. Until they accidentally see you naked. And then it's not such a good thing because I don't know, there's a line, isn't there? Right. You know, like you want to be, you want to free and in your own house to do whatever you want so like

you know then again sometimes you don't want to get undressed in the bathroom take a shower sometimes you want to get undressed outside of the bathroom and then walk your naked ass into the bathroom to take a shower and my nan has seen me living with you loads of times though you know i mean if your parents have too right up until the age loads of times though you know i mean if your parents have two right up until the age of about sort of you know i don't know maybe like 13 i was just naked all the time what no i was gonna say maybe the cutoff was like five or so like 13 like my grandma did not see me naked when i was 13 i can guarantee well okay not not not naked help wiping your bum and stuff when you were 13 is that fully fully fully nude um but but you know she saw my balls but not

my dick they're hanging out of my shorts but she didn't see my dick so it's fine culturally in a lot of asian countries it's different about um sort of looking after the elderly i'll give an example okay when i when i went to bali on my honeymoon about let me think about 17 years ago now i guess it would have been oh and actually it was a different place 16 years ago yeah it is but but um we were there it is we were there the year before the hot weather you have to look after yourigans or anything. Free heating. You have to look after your parents if you're the youngest child, right? You're the youngest child, you've got to look after the parents.

And they name their kids in order that they were born. So if you're the firstborn, your name will generally be Putu. Putu or Gede or Wayan. These are the kind of names. And then the secondborn kid has a couple of names that they can choose from. So you know which order they're in. So our guide for the two weeks we were there, we had a

guide who would meet us at the hotel and we'd get in his van and him and the driver would drive us around and he'd tell us all about the island. His name was Putu. And Putu is normally the first born son's name. But when they have too many kids, it just wraps around. So he's the younger Putu. So there's his older brother Putu, and he's Putu too, but he's the youngest Putu. So because he's the youngest, he has to look after the parents. The youngest looks after the parents. All the older kids get to leave,

he has to stay behind, look after the parents, and the older kids get to leave. He has to stay behind and look after the parents and then they'll have to live with him and that's the way it is. That's the way it's done. So we don't have any kind of system.

Brothers and sisters just argue with each other about who's going to have to look after mum and dad now they're getting on and I think it's kind of sad but they've had to

structure it into the fabric of their society. It's a social responsibility. Given the choice given the choice nobody wants their parents living with them. Once they're a grown up and you've got your own place, you don't want your mom and dad moving back in with you. It'd be awful. No, it's like everybody loves Raymond all over again.

Yeah, exactly. I know they don't quite live with them, but they're too close for comfort. It feels like you live here with me. I'm Raymond and my wife is Raymond. Raymond, you've got gotta respect your mom. Yeah, Raymond, he's right. That's like, that's the whole show. It's about how miserable it would be to have your parents around all the time.

That's what your life is like in Bali then, I guess, when your parents live with you. Everybody loves Putu. That's what the... It's really appropriate because I guess what happens is as a civilization, when you have like eight kids in each family, okay, It's really appropriate because I guess what happens is as a civilization, when you have like eight kids in each family, okay, at least then you've got like, if you're naming them, if Poo-too means first and, you know, Roo-too means second or whatever.

You increase the odds of not having to look after your parents, I guess, when you have like a lot more kids. Sure. It's not going to increase your odds, is it? Are you shushing me? You're not going to. Well, anyway, I'm just saying in a class of kids if everyone is called

if the average family has got 6 to 8 kids that's fine maybe you've got 5 putus or 6 putus but you've got a lot of other people nowadays

people only have 1.5 kids 1 or 2 kids nowadays they do I think it's because we're really precious nowadays especially like people that are approaching their mid-20s or like their early 30s nowadays are used to having like lots of free time you know and then they have a kid and and they think that it's going to be just like they saw in the movie and they realize it's a lot of hard work

and then they're like never again i'm gonna to get my, I'm chopping off my dick. I'm not doing this again. Exactly. I just don't know how. And then they just have one kid. I can't imagine how the teachers would handle that class, though, if literally everyone in the class is called Putu. Putu.

So how does that work, Pyrrhon? I don't know, dude. I'm not Balinese. I mean, they make it work. Well, why didn't you ask this question? This would be the first question I asked of the Putu. They think they barcode them. Can you ring them up?

Putu. They barcode them. Putu, it's Pyrrhon. Pyrrhon F them up it's Pyrrhon I know you don't remember me but listen I've got a question for you how would you know that you're talking to the right guy as well if you just rang him up and said Poo 2 because anyone in that family could answer the dad's called Poo 2 the brother's called the same it's not that far fetched

because in the west everybody just like uses the same names as well. Every year, there's like two or three really popular names and guaranteed your kid's going to be in a class with like 10 of them. Like Khaleesi. There's literally 10 Khaleesis in my son's class. I'm not even kidding. But let's say you knew three Teds. How would you differentiate them? The same way you do everyone else.

I'd be bold Ted and then there'd be big ted and little ted or whatever you guys have an infestation of toms in the office and you guys go well there's like 10 toms in the office but i think do you know what i think what would happen though it's a little bit like if you just if you if you say putu do this that'll someone will get up and do it okay the most appropriate putu will get up any putu affixes like they'll have like smelly putu and tall putu and dumb putu and bucktooth putu there'll be ways to differentiate them for sure because all of them they'd have nicknames like they'd probably call the youngest the youngest one would be like little brother or something like that so they just say little brother you go do that so you know they'd have a way i mean it's not like they're just walking around confused all the time you know

someone goes putu and everyone on the street turns around and goes who could he mean i don't know you why are you calling me i'm just like an ant colony and just you know anyone will be able to do it anyone would be able to answer your question you know you'll just stop a putu on the street and he'll talk to you as if he's the one you already know. It sounds like the name of a Pokemon. Is that where they got their inspiration from? I think so, yeah. And the Poodoos evolve into

Mega Poodoo. I choose you Poodoo. Gotta catch them all, but they've only got like seven names. There's like 20 of them in a field. Huh? Me? You mean me? A Poodoo ball. Catch them in the putu ball. Jesus Christ. So, yeah, man, tell me more about Bali.

I want to know more about what you got to. I went to a cock fight. Oh, you did? I did, yeah. It's a ceremonial thing that in the temples that they have in Bali, for the morning, sort of before the morning prayers and everything, they shed blood by sort of sacrifice, okay? The second son has to be sacrificed.

They sacrifice. They go through a lot of people. Not my little poo-too. Bloody poo-too, they call him. He's always got cuts and things. So they'll kill a chicken or something. So to get around the fact that cockfighting is illegal in Bali, because you have to make that kind of stuff illegal,

but everybody's like, oh, it doesn't matter. So they just kill a chicken by cockfight like so they're still technically it's a blood sacrifice so they make out like it's a religious thing so we're driving past this temple and there's all these guys shouting and waving and holding chickens and I said to Putu stop the van I want to see a cockfight here before I go back he's like okay but I'm really against it and I was like yeah fair enough uh but I you know I just want to see see one. Just once, I want to see what's up. I've never been to one. And these guys look like they're having a great time.

So I'd just love to see it. He was like, okay, I'll take you to the cockfight. So we go into the temple, and there's all these guys. I'm like the only foreigner there. They all look at me for like two seconds, and then they're back to looking at the cockfight. And they've got these two things. And I didn't realize that they put a razor

on the sort of spur of the cock roll. Otherwise, the fight goes on too long. So you put this on there, and then whichever one does it will just razor the other one, and that's it. Fight over, blood sacrifice done, no suffering. They kill the chicken, and on you go. Well, minor suffering anyway. So there's all these lads there, and they're gambling like crazy.

And Putu, who told me he wasn't into it, is front and center with a wad of money, like take a bet, so make a bet. And he was really into it. And he says to me which one's gonna win and they think because i'm like this foreign outsider i'll pick the lucky chicken so i was like i think that one's gonna win and they're so like the betting was changing based on my prediction because they were all like oh yeah get get in on the the foreigners bet i went in on this that's gonna be lucky sort of thing so they're all betting and the betting's exchanged and then the guy's holding up the chickens and everyone's number in on this. That's going to be lucky sort of thing. So they're all betting and the betting's exchanged and then the guy's holding up the chickens and everyone's

numbering like this and then he holds up the other one. Fuck me. And then they sort of they poke them at each other. They're holding them tight and they're jabbing them

at each other to get them all riled up and they throw them into the middle of this sort of little dusty ring and they just go at it. It's over in like two seconds. One of the cockerels

raises the other one in the throat. Job done. They hold up the winning cockerel. He gets taken off to have sex with all the chickens he wants and they wring the neck of the other one and job done and on we went and then money changes why do they fight though what do they do to them to make them so angry because they don't well cockerels will fight like they're kind of if you if you get a couple of angry cocks sips right shit's gonna kick right off okay like just yeah but i

guess if they're out in the wild they can back off and go back to their stuff and not claim the dirt and because you've been poking them at each other it's like starting to fight it's like grabbing someone's hands and pushing another person making them push each other and then pushing them into a ring and they're so stupid they're like hey why were you pecking me you know they don't say wait a minute why are we being forced into this futile struggle just for for another being's entertainment let us be friends and then the other cockerel sees an opening slashes his throat and lives that's pretty much it it was it was it was brutal it's cockfighting is a little bit like what people did before pokemon right you know it's it's man i can't i can't think of cockfighting

and not think of that seinfeld episode with the with the cockfighting and little little jerry i've never been to like an animal fight like dog or i know like i guess they're super illegal as well but like they're sort of well documented, right? Like you always see them in movies and stuff. There's always a dog fight or a cock fight or, and it's always something to do with like, you know, it's like some shady underground, like, all right, we got to go find Mr. Mistoffelees. Where is he? He's underground. What's he doing?

He's at a cock fight. Wow. Let's go find him. Like it's always there, right? Cause it's like all the gambling and stuff but like yeah you're pretty fortunate in in a weird sense that you've seen one because like i don't think everybody will get to see one in their lifetime and i mean i just thought when i'm i am never gonna get another chance it's like it's like a tradition here so i kind of felt like i wasn't going to some seedy backroom thing like if you if you were if you were to do that in like

england you would feel horrible because like and like all that stuff like the caliber of people there as well would be like fuck holy shit stone cold killers i mean they're gonna kill they're gonna kill a chicken anyway and this just adds yeah perhaps a cruel moment in the front the chicken's still gonna die it's still gonna get its neck wrung and they're still gonna eat it like you know that's the way it goes so i didn't feel terrible yeah it wasn't like a couple of dogs where you think shit this could have been somebody's pet and now they're forcing it to fight like that's brutal this is it's a chicken man it's gonna die anyway come on well yeah i think it's it's um it's a big

religious there's a lot of religious attachment to it it's a lot it goes back a very very long way and i think that obviously one of the things that they're doing with those razors, I guess, is to shorten the suffering of the birds. It goes on forever otherwise. They're just raking at each other. You want it to be quick. That sounds bad. Because back in the day, people had the stomachs for that. But nowadays, everybody's like too much of a pussy.

They just want it to be over quick and they want to get their money. Just a chick with his eye hanging out. What? You watch a two-hour cockfight. You watch the whole thing you're not a man these guys got to get to work man they got to do the temple stuff and go go to work oh shit that's the bizarre thing that got me initially i was like the temple they have to go into the temple to i guess religion you know it's very set in its ways maybe you know

maybe the blood spilled on the blood sacrifice on the temple floor harkens back to something. I don't know. Yeah, it was a big part of it. And the other thing is they have temples all over the island. Each family has a little temple. Going back for generations, that's been their little shrine, if you like. So they're small. It's like maybe the size...

You know a portable toilet right yeah imagine a building with about three three three square of those so about three cubed so it's about three wide three long and about and about one high that's it's like a shrine all right you don't really go in it it's just you know it's got a little garden you could easily have one of those in your backyard sort of thing yeah often they do so you're like a banana stand right exactly and there's money in the banana stand, as we know. So you can go to... There's cocks in that. There's cocks in that banana stand.

Can you like upgrade each individual square? Like you could have like on one square, you could have like a little like a basin for water. And then on another square, you could just have like one of those Japanese toilets that like sprays mist up your ass. I'm sure you could. But I don't think they go to them often. Pimp my shrine?

It's not like a daily visit, oh, we're going to go to the shrine again. It's just sort of something they tend. Do you think it could be a daily thing though if you were smart about your pimpage? It could be, yeah. If it was in your house, yeah. But it's like having an allotment. It'd be like having a hot tub. It's more like having an allotment.

You tend to it occasionally sort of thing. But they're literally everywhere, and legally they're not allowed them. Okay. So they're there and that's that. So when you're going around, the road will sort of meander around this little shrine that's there in the middle of the road sort of thing. And they're just sort of there everywhere. And the hotel we were staying at was a ridiculously nice hotel because my dad was like, I'll send you guys somewhere nice for your honeymoon. I was like, thank you so much. That was like his present to us. So we're at this amazing, stunning five-star hotel with this golf course. I don't play golf, but I thought I'd play it anyway. I'm sure I've told this story before, maybe even on the podcast.

So you just did everything while you were there. Yeah, it was great. It was the best two weeks. But I'm playing golf on the golf course, and there's a shrine in the middle of the fairway on the fourth hole. So there's this shrine. And my instructor the fairway on like the fourth hole so there's this shrine and the my instructor i'd had like a week of lessons every time i had a lesson he just sort of shake his head we'll try again tomorrow like that like i just couldn't get the hang of it i was terrible i was really stiff and i didn't didn't get the hang of the swing and i was just like hacking

it's all in the hips you gotta like exactly it's kind of loose you know and i didn't get that and his english was very halting. So he couldn't really tell me what was going wrong, but he knew to say very bad, very, very bad like that. But it's pretty much what he knew. Putu disappointed with you. Swing hips! Putu hates you. Putu hate your swing.

I was like, okay, I get it. So we're out there on the fairway. Go inside and Putu will give you massage. This is different Putu, not me. This is Lady Putu, don't be afraid. So I'm on the fairway and i i'm ready to drive and he says to me don't hit the shrine it's like okay he said do not hit the shrine we'll get in big trouble i was like okay okay okay so now it's it's like putting a ball through your neighbor's

window exactly so what do you think i did i sliced this thing and hit the shrine pins off the shrine this chunk of masonry falls off the wall a mini nuclear detonation small mushroom cloud on the fairway you know when you hunch your shoulders like you're sort of like that I look at presumably Putu

and I can't remember his name and he sort of looks at me and he's making the same expression and the girl on the golf cart is making the same expression so we all hop in the golf cart and zoom to the next hole he's just like just play on play on the door to the shrine opens up and like two chickens and like two men come running out oh man it was rough like it was just unbelievable it was absolutely unbelievable but we just went to the next hole but the the girl that drove the golf cart was also responsible for going and fetching the golf balls that i would slice into the undergrowth. And she did it like she was

unbelievable. Like I would slice this thing into what looked like a jungle and she'd just leap off the golf cart and chart like sprint in there full pace. And she'd have the ball in like two seconds. And at the end, the guy said to me, because you tip everybody in Bali if you're a foreigner, because they all earn so little. Right. And I him how much should i tip her because she worked really hard he said oh don't give her much she's just a golf cart girl and i was like and so i gave him a good tip and i gave her the same amount and this caused some kind of friction but the amount that i'd given her you have to be careful yeah you do but the amount that i'd given her was was so much that she was like stunned but it was like five pounds but to them that was like like most of the amount that I'd given her was so much that she was like stunned. But it was like five pounds.

But to them, that was like most of the people that worked at the hotel didn't earn a salary. They earned like a meal. That was what they got paid in. So they'd come into work. Fuck. They'd eat breakfast at home. They'd come into work. They'd get a lunch at the restaurant.

It would be nice food because it's like the hotel food. But that was it. And then in the evening, they were off. But they worked like 18-hour days for no actual money, just food. So that's saving the family some money, and she's out of the house, I guess, and tips is what they live on.

So they're at the hotel. They don't get paid by the hotel because the hotel's like, what, we're feeding you, and you get tips from all these rich foreigners. What more do you want? It's shocking. So when I gave her the tip,

that was like a big chunk of change for a Balinese lady. But yeah, it was scary. I mean, that was the problem, is it was was this beautiful island but i felt super depressed because anytime you went anywhere there were just all these incredibly poor people who were so grateful they were trying to sell shit all the time if we're taking a coach trip somewhere they're running alongside the the van that we were in like banging on the windows and holding up shit they're selling and this guy's got like this beautifully carved mahogany sort of little sort of

snake thing he's trying to sell this other guy's trying to sell some some sort of wooden uh kitchen implements and this other guy swear to god he's carrying this full-size grandfather clock that he's carved out of a tree he's just running alongside just bong it away just carrying how much is that gonna be because you know he said ten dollars ten dollars i was like and they love to haggle so if i'd said i'll give you five dollars for the grandfather clock he would have been like yeah no problem so i just thought you could come here with a hundred pounds and leave with like a van load of stuff just by exploiting how desperate they are it was crazy haggling is hard isn't it because like i think

haggling works if you're from that country and you sort of know your way around haggling but when you're from a foreign country that's perceived as like very wealthy and that you're just like a walking atm to them sort of thing um it's impossible to haggle they're just like nah fuck you i'm not haggling with you it You're going to pay me a full premium price. I don't even want to haggle. Yeah, I'm sure they stick the price high, but they still haggle. Like if you go up and they'll say 100 whatevers and you'll say, I'm not paying 100. And they'll say 80, 80 whatevers.

And you'll say, geez, 80. Come on, I'll give you 60. And I realize I'm haggling over 5p. Like that's how much it is to me. But they're doing it and I'm doing it. And you realize you're haggling over literally pocket change. I mean, I tried to haggle with an Egyptian taxi driver one time and he was just not having it. I was like, I was ready for it too.

I was like, oh, fuck. Okay, here we go. Now we're going to haggle. And he's like, 20 pounds. It was like Egyptian pounds. 20 pounds. I was like, no, no, come on. Come on, 90s.

Like 20. Well, how about 18 right 20 pounds i was like no no come on come on 90s like 20 well how about 18 20 pounds he was just not fucking having it he was so mad he was so fucking grouchy as well and i was like all right fine let's get out of here 20 pounds just like ran out i don't even know where we just got out in the middle of nowhere as well fucking plate like egypt was i i went on a similar trip uh to egypt uh it was like um kind of it wasn't like a honeymoon or anything like that though it was just it was just a trip for the for the sake of a trip sort of thing and like i don't know if bali's like this but you know we got a five-star hotel and we thought fuck it's gonna be amazing it wasn't like that amazing like a five-star hotel in egypt is just like not not great like they need like a higher star rating or something for the better hotels because

like right five stars just wasn't enough everything just sounded like it was going to be so much better than it was and like we were just like like it was just like disappointment after disappointment and then when we left you were like oh fuck that's a shame i don't i didn't like egypt and i never want to come back it was oh god it was haggling though it's much easier to haggle when you don't want something right it's like you know someone comes comes up to you you know you're a place like browse around they say you know yeah carpet hundred pounds you say well like you know i don't want to go 80 no no i don't want it 60 no, I don't want a carpet. And then they go, £80. No, no, no, I don't want it.

£60. No, no, I don't want any carpet. £50. It's like, okay, fine. Do you know what? I'll have a carpet. That's the best way to negotiate, right? But if you went in there and said, hey, I'm looking to buy a carpet.

What have you got? And he's like, I got this, £200. And you're like, well, I don't even. If you say, oh, sure, I want a car for £200. But that's a bit expensive. You may have to pay £180. Do you know what I mean? If you don't want something in the first place,

or at least if you have the attitude of not wanting it, that's the best way to move forward. If you go out with the intention, they see you, they clock you. It's all about body language. It's about doing it. This is their thing that they've done day in, day out for like 50 years. You know, they can read you. They try to sell so much crap though like

i remember when we went around europe we took trains around europe and just like for two weeks just took trains and tried to like visit all like the major cities did you give them back anyway so we ran around and and every every train station is littered with people who are are clearly on massive amounts of drugs all the time, like real down and outs and stuff. And people trying to sell stuff like, but not, not,

you know, not a guy with a hand carved grandfather clock. Like they buy really cheap shit, like, you know, dancing Mickey mouses, you know, those like wiry things that dance when music plays somehow,

but they're the cheapest as anything and you just saw them everywhere like there's always like a guy standing outside the train station with like a bed sheet on the ground and it was just covered in these dancing fucking mickey mouses yeah yeah and then occasionally you'd have like you know like in paris they'd have people selling like all these like they looked like they were made of pewter but they weren't they were just plastic with like gold paint on them eiffel towers and shit like that but when we were in i think it was rome or it might have been venice there was like there's this there's this one street we went down and it was just full of these people um selling these then like the mickey mouses were there

of course but but like, you know, all these like souvenirs and stuff. So this is all like laid out on the ground, like on a bed sheet or like on a pillowcase or something. And these guys just standing around listening to music, trying to sell the stuff. And so we're going through, and then we come across this guy and he's got this sheet down and he's like,

the stuff he was selling was just somebody's purse and the contents of that purse that he sold, clearly. It was like one purse. And then there was like a lipstick and like a little mirror. And it was just like, it wasn't even like duplicates of anything. It was all, you can just tell, he just snatched this person he was just trying to sell everything inside it fuck it was so weird it was pretty funny yeah i got a complete change of subject here this was something that really really made me laugh this morning okay i'm on the way back from dropping the kids at school and it's recycling day around here on a thursday and so

everybody's put out their recycling something has fallen out of one of the recycling bins. And it's a piece of junk mail. I can tell straight away because I got the same piece of junk mail. It's like something from Barclaycard. It was for Mrs. F. It was just like their usual mass billing thing that they do that not billing thing.

It's just a mail out that just says, hey, you can get a credit card now with the incredible rate of 1000 APR sign up here. Like you can see the branding was the same logo on the front, same little word and I could see it and everything. But written on the front of the envelope was stop moving. My letters, right.

Was written there, like scroll there in biro. And I realized like this had been written because someone in this person's house was moving their letters around and they'd seen this letter wherever they leave their posts like most people when the post comes in they've got like a little table or they tuck it in like there's a place where you put the post so it's not just on the on the mat next to the front door right and they'd obviously been someone in their house that they're living with was moving their letters now maybe it was like a like a like a house like that converted into flats or something

these are all flats so this this bit along here is all flat they're not not me but like a house that converted into flats or something. These are all flats. So this bit along here is all flats. Not me, but our house is all, our road is all terraced houses. But the other part sort of next to our road that I walked past, it's all, it's ex-council flats that are now just flats, right? So this is someone living in the house and whoever they're living with, their family or their housemate or whatever, has been moving their letters. Their nan. It's actually your nan, isn't it? It's your house.

It's my nan, obviously. It is not. I want to stop that right there. This is not me. Okay. I do not care about who moves my, quote, letters. I do not move anyone's letters. I do not.

It was not me. You have, like, where the letters go you've like drawn a square and they have to fit in there perfectly a dotted line and the letters go in there exactly but what i liked about it was this very angrily written very like scratched really scratched so first of all whoever's writing it i like the idea that their letters have to be in this place not in the other place okay and then they've obviously re-put the letters where they were and they've written on the top one stop moving my letters not good enough for the next person like whoever it is just move them is going to come to move them we're going to be like whoa and see that

note which i thought was really funny but they didn't just say to them can you stop moving my they've had to really angrily right stop moving my letters. That's a very British thing as well, isn't it? But second of all, nobody gets letters anymore. It's all junk mail or a bill. That's it. So I also like the idea that this person sits there with their letters. Oh, my correspondence has arrived. And they sit in their armchair.

And they open it up. Oh, Barclaycard. Yes. I'm on very good terms with Barclaycard. They write to me often. Thank goodness this letter wasn't moved, or I would have missed this important missive from Barclaycard. I don't know what I would do if somebody had moved my letters.

I would never have known about this fabulous offer, but with a short time of availability. How would I know that you can get 10% off a greasy pizza from the local established pizzament for only the next 14 days? This cab firm

has been in contact with me before. I believe I shall do business with this local cab firm. They also run a car to Heathrow, did you know? I would not have known that had someone moved my letters i don't know but maybe listen some people just have very spidery angry looking handwriting because people don't write very often these days you can tell a lot by handwriting like you know yeah you know remember remember when you used to exchange notes with girls in school and girls always had really upbeat, bubbly writing?

Yes. You know, like with big circles on the eyes and stuff like that. Yeah. And it would always be like, oh, man, I can't believe like, I can't even remember what she looks like, but I bet she's pretty hot based on this handwriting. Yeah, it's all boobs and butts, all of that lettering. Yeah, yeah. It's like really curvy lettering and stuff and then me is like all just it looked like a like a three-year-old with a crayon crayoning yeah yeah my handwriting doesn't reveal much about me except that i'm a dumbass yeah same people look at my handwriting like i have to write in the reading

records so when my kids come home from school with school with, with reading books, we read them. And then I write in the little record book, what books they read and how they did. So the teacher can keep tabs on, on how their reading's going and what, whether they should move them up a group or down a group or whatever. And I've realized now that the teacher must look at my handwriting and think such a shame that their father is mentally backwards. because oh man so my wife does all that her handwriting i'm not even joking is like fucking amazing it's like reading a printout like from a computer it's like so clear and perfect and then mine just looks fucking awful like it's offensive it's like yeah for me like i guess of course i, because I grew up having access to a word processor and a computer and typing stuff.

Fancy. Look at Mr. Fancy Pants here. I grew up in a word processor household, so I have a privileged upbringing. At the time, that was pretty unusual, right? I only had that. It was like a BBC computer, and the only reason we had that was because my dad did accounting on it. It expensive to buy that did they have quick books back then was it like a big deal like i have to take a week off work to do my i don't think you even i don't

think he even these computers he only had he didn't actually do accounting on them he just used it to send out posh looking letters and it was like almost like an expensive typewriter kind of thing yeah nice i still have only half learned joined-up writing. So my writing was always – my writing's not very good either, but I kind of obviously got about halfway through learning joined-up writing when someone said, ah, don't bother. No one's going to need to write anymore. And so my writing is sort of – so some letters I do joined-up

and others I don't. I guess everyone's at a different stage. But the same thing, though, happened with touch typing and learning to type fast. So I see some people around the office and it's people that you wouldn't think, OK, they are right down looking at the keyboard, pecking away with like two fingers. And it's it's very surprising who those people are. And I don't I can't touch type perfectly when you see someone who can, you're amazed. But I was very self-taught, and I guess a lot of people must be. But back then, you could learn.

You could go through programs and teach you how to type. Maybe speak and teach you typing. And it's a good investment to have, by the way, to properly learn. And there's probably websites you can go to now. The thing, the quick brown fox jumps over the brown log. Did you guys do those? Lazy dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The lazy dog, yeah. That's the thing they used to show all of the letters on the... The quick brown fox jumped over the brown fox. I'm pretty sure... The two conk rules are enter the shrine And the man hits the golf ball And Pooh 2 gives him a rubdown I don't know What's going on

So no I'm exactly the same as you I half learned to write and I half learned to type I don't think he said that That was the case with him though He just said his handwriting is fucking bad I mean it's bad because when I'm writing... Like me.

And I'm sure this... Like, my handwriting wasn't always terrible. I mean, recently I have uncovered all my old D&D books. And I put them up because I've got these new shelves. Anyone that's watched my stream will have seen. I've got new shelves and I've liberated all my nerd stuff. Hey, I saw. Right.

It's all up. I noticed that the weird clinical bed is still in there, though. I guess you can't really... It's just a bed. But there's nowhere else to put it. Like, Mrs. F was like like get rid of the bed but we need it it's just his ground has to sleep somewhere no she's in this she's just put the mattress on the floor and get rid of the frame it's terrible the frame isn't it is a nice frame i don't know why everybody hates it it is a nice frame it's just because it looks like an an asylum yeah but it's honestly you're seeing the other end

of it if you see the nice end of the frame, it's nice. It's like... Well, turn the fucking bed around then! No! I don't want to have to turn it around. Because then I'd have to take it apart. The room is small enough that I can't actually turn it around. Oh, that sucks, yeah. You know what I mean?

So it's like, this is the way it is. I built it this way, it's going this way. It's fine. It's fine. Is the room too small or is the is the room too big both that's a good question what kind of what size bed is it just to give us a little single bed idea it's just a single bed all right but so that i've realized that the the width of the room is a single bed plus maybe two feet so when i'm trying to turn this thing with all the other furniture in here it's not that room like the box room this is the box room the box room. It's so small that it's not even really a room.

Exactly. I made it into an office and now it's got all my shit in it. That's a good idea. It is. So, I mean, I'm now looking through all my old D&D books and role-playing books and my handwriting used to be pretty good because I had to write all these adventures and shit. So I'm looking at it and I'm like, wow, my handwriting used to be pretty good. But I didn't have a computer back then.

And I've realized that now I've got a computer. When I'm writing, what I'm thinking is, why isn't this quicker? Like I could type this quicker. So I'm writing the speed I type. Not just that.

Your wrist hurts like after two seconds of writing. But honestly, it's just the fact that I'm trying to write at the same speed I type at

and it's just so slow and laborious. I just get bored of making the letters look like letters and they just turn into squiggles. Yeah.

It's a shame. I see. That it's shorthand and stuff like that comes in there yeah listen um just to um change the subject again i know that we don't talk about video games on this podcast much because it leads to um depressing chats but i don't normally play horror games because i don't like them um but i played resident evil 7 and i saw it is fucked up like no it's good though it's well it's well done like if you like that sort of thing i would play it like okay it's like 10 hours apparently and it's like the story seems cool i had to read about the story because i have there's no hope of me ever finishing the game but like really it's pretty cool yeah it's like are you just everybody's everybody's saying that this this game is like um saved like the resident evil

franchise because the the last game was like not very good and whatnot so they stripped it right off save the fucking franchise like it's had like four bad games in a row they put this this one would have been shit they would have made another one it would have sold enough copies to make another one and that one would have been shit i don't think just because a good one comes along they can say oh it suddenly saved the whole it would have gone down the can for sure like you can't you can't just keep releasing bad games it's never gonna it's a little bit like i don't think that's how it works you know with xcom we were talking about this last night they made xcom and they were good games then they made like 17 bad ones and then they

and the franchise was dead they stopped making them it died it was only it took them 20 years for somebody an old fan

of the genre and the original games to revive it and make it good again well maybe it was better off dead no it's great

shut up the studio and the publisher that made the original games are both long gone now because they were so terrible like uh they had to they they had to sell the ip like three four times to different companies who picked it up and and did worse with it sort of thing it's only now that x-com is back so it's back i think that they could easily ditch um resident evil or it was heading for the ditch by the sounds of it isn't it oh yeah and they decided with this game that they were going to strip it back down make it like just a horror game a really simple horror game and i mean don't take

it from me because i don't play horror games i don't know which ones are good and which ones aren't but this this game really scared the jesus out of me so was it jump scares it there there was a couple of jump scares in the hour and a half that i played it but it the lead up to them was super well done like there was a lot of like tropes and a lot of like sort of things like that i could guess you're gonna happen there's a creepy child in it somewhere at least least there's some imagery alluding to that. Is there a clown mask? No clown mask, which I was surprised about. So I was streaming this yesterday,

and I was pulling out all the stops in terms of trying to not be scared of this game, okay? Okay. So you were playing in broad daylight with, you know, midday. The sun was shining in. Okay. I was like, and I was literally resorting to shit that you resort to when you're like six years old and you're scared of something. So were you playing in a window with Twitch chat on the other monitor?

Fingers in front of my eyes, like just like looking through the crack of my fingers because I was so scared. I had to put music on to like lighten the mood a bit i had to pause it like constantly and like sort of that's the one which i do when i'm watching a horror film just pausing it yeah pausing it and like stopping and you pause it and you just have to like you you know you just have to calmly collect yourself again and then you know you know sort of like beef yourself up a bit sometimes though sometimes all these things make it worse though sometimes you think these things are going to help but they actually just make it worse yeah my in my mind it was much worse than the reality because like when when

stuff finally did happen it was like oh it was like kind of scary but at it was like oh you know it wasn't that bad i i'd really built it up to be this huge thing that it wasn't do you know what the key is the key is to to playing horror games and not getting scared and i've started doing this if i ever play one right okay this is some good advice this is this is not being a pu55 white this is good advice this is how you get past it all right for anyone out there watching and thinking oh i always try to play horror games because I get too scared fail a lot early on just get killed by everything find out all the scary stuff

if you're scared just run through it as an experiment and say alright this is creepy but let's find out let's just run through treat it like a game so don't get so invested in it this is if you want to somehow play and not really enjoy the game I still think for it i think my

experience was better because i was so fucking scared and i think that that's it's designed to be like that and if you play it that way and you are fucking scared and you're just so fucking reluctant to do anything like i i just noped out like 20 times i literally press alt f4 and i was like fuck i can't play this like i'm about to have a heart attack but like yeah yeah but but then i came back because i was like oh fuck i want to see like because it's it's it's a really creepy fucking story like it's like it it borrows heavily from the first season of true detective i found you remember that you know i don't know if you guys watch it but it takes place like in in the fucking um you know the deep south yeah yeah yeah and it's all these like old ass fucking shitty houses and and they're like you know you go in them and there's

just like fucking plates of maggots and stuff like that like florentine noir horror stuff yeah yeah yeah so the first part of the game and maybe even the rest of the game i'm not sure but i'll never know now but um the first like hour and a half of the game you're in one of those houses and it's dark and there's nobody there but there's people there and like because you can hear them every once in a while and shit but you're you're sort of like thumbing around with a flashlight trying to find out what's going on and shit and it's like the lead up to shit happening is like so fucking creepy and stuff and like eventually you go down into the cellar and it's like a fucking torture dungeon. And there's like all this shit.

And it's like, play it, man. I think you'd like it, Lewis. Like for a single player experience. I'll pick it up. Yeah, this weekend. Blast through it in like 10 hours and see what you think. But it's fucking good, man. It's like really like somehow, even though I was super scared, I was like, I wanted like i wanted to play it more but i just i can't i'm too much of a pussy

i want to play that i want to play that game uh my neighbor i think it's called okay or hello neighbor i think it's called and it's basically you have to break into your neighbor's house and he's it's very cartoony like he's this big burly guy that looks like uh a slightly sort of a fairly wealthy middle-aged guy who's maybe he used to be kind of athletic in his youth and now maybe he still goes shooting occasionally you know he's got that look about him he chases you around you've got to try and hide from so it's like a stealth game but he also you have to run from him you can barricade stuff and sometimes he he will do stuff to try and trap you so he will barricade doors and you can take out light bulbs to sort of hide in the dark and stuff if you watch some videos it looks absolutely petrifying so it's coming out in summer it says hello neighbor is a

stealth horror game about sneaking into your neighbor's house and figuring out what he's hiding in the basement right however he is an advanced ai who learns from your actions so you have to try and outsmart me so so another thing that apparently is like a big thing that you can do with resident evil 7 is you can play it in vr oh which fuck that like there's no fucking way i did i made it one minute into the vr horror demo where you're just walking around a creepy house and then something jumps out at you one minute all right i started i'm walking down the down the the the hallway a picture falls off the wall i took off the headset i was like i'm done that's it and they were like this was the demo i startle really fucking easily too like if i'm outside walking and uh and a horn honks

that'll start me i'll be like oh you like i so like fucking jump scares i'm hopeless like i literally i can't do honestly like i i i the people have got so good at picking like making these games and making these films where they really just hone in on what is what makes you scared what makes a human like terrified that when it comes to doing it for vr i feel like it's like easy mode all again you know it's like if we apply these things that we know work well on just a 2D thing, now put it into like a much more immersive environment. And oh my God. Some people absolutely worship these horror things though.

Like Hannah loves the adrenaline stuff that comes from getting a bit scared. You know, and so she's like a big aficionado, plays all the horror games, watches all the horror films. Just can't get enough of it. I hate it. it i i honestly hate it yeah it's really not like an adrenaline junkie thing maybe it's like a little bit like doing skydiving or something i mean if you if that's the case just go fucking skydiving yeah like uh don't well that's pretty scary right weird fucking debasing horror movie like it you know it's awful like even in the game like the shit that like i you fight this well i don't want to spoil it in case you guys play it but like it's

fucking gruesome man like some really gory shit happens and it's like jesus christ like you know there's different levels of of heart of of hit horror like there's obviously you can sometimes have a film that's all psychological horror and you never even see that kind of the creepy there's never any gore like when a stranger calls back like a suspense one remember do you remember that movie when a stranger calls back do you remember watching that when you were like smaller i don't remember like in your teens or whatever i went to a sleepover party okay like when i was like 10 okay like it was a birthday thing. The big thing was you always had to rent a horror movie.

You couldn't rent something too gory because your parents would never let you. This is obviously something from your childhood. An hour and a half long, 1993, made for TV, psychological horror film. Sequel to the 1979 when a stranger calls so when a stranger calls back was the follow-up yeah yeah yeah and the whole movie is a woman

alone in a house okay and it's like there's like a fucking thunderstorm outside of course like this spooky night this person keeps phoning and at first it's like he phones up and he's like oh hey um you know i live a couple doors down and i'm uh you know i'm on my own or whatever is is jenny around or something like no no jenny's not here i'm babysitting and it starts off all nice and stuff and then it just progressively gets creepier and creepier and he's and he's like i'm in your house now and she's like stop and everything and you know it's this huge suspense trip and it is like this psychological thing and the whole time yeah yeah and and it's one of these ones where you're just like the whole time you're just like i can't look i don't want to pause it all right i need to go to the bathroom

you're just trying to like not wimp out and like you're in a room with like all these other guys that you're having a sleepover with and some of them are just like no the fuck this fucking movie sucks let's go smoke or something you're like jeez oh god what am i gonna do it's like oh fuck me yeah like suspense and and horror and stuff is just like not for me at all i can't't do it. Oh, it's really interesting. This is so, oh, flipping heck. There's this like, a lot of these things come from something before. Okay, everything's built on each other. So when I just looked this up on Wikipedia

and it took me on this little journey backwards. So it said, you know, When a Stranger Calls Back is obviously a sequel to the classic When a Stranger Calls, which is from 1979. I don't know which one you saw, but I assume when it, I assume when it i think it might have been when a stranger calls but it could have been when a stranger calls back it feels like it feels like that's the kind of thing you might watch like when you were it was the one where where she's trying to find him and she she knows he's in the house and she can't find him and then it turns out in the end

he was wearing like uh it might have been when a stranger calls back because it sounds so fucking dumb. Like maybe it is when a stranger calls back. He's wearing like a fucking bodysuit with like bricks painted onto it so that he can blend in with the brick wall. That's so stupid. And that's the thing at the end. And it's like, oh, fuck, the whole time he was in the house. He was phoning. He was phoning from within the house and he was camoufl oh fuck the whole time he was in the house he was phoning the phone

that sounds ridiculous yeah yeah yeah but you know it's like what i love that so so that was that was inspired by the classic folk legend of the babysitter and the man the phone calls coming from inside the house that's what the operator says. The first time I heard that story, it scared the shit out of me. I would have been about 11 or 12 years old. And my friend and I were reading, he had this book of scary stories and we were reading it together

and we were sort of reading it and we just sat there next to each other, like in his room, we're just reading the book next to it together. And you could tell we were reading at the same speed because we both got to the final, like the reveal and we both went white as a sheet.

Like we were both petrified by this story. And it was like we both sort of looked at each other with this look of utter terror. And I mean, it's not scary now. Like it's a trope, you know, it's like so cliche. But the thing is, the first time you hear all this stuff, it's not cliche for you. It's genuinely terrifying. So we were like, oh, my God, that was so scary. scary like we couldn't believe it and we went downstairs and told his dad his dad was like geez that's like the oldest story around come on how does that scare you and we're like

well we only just heard it for the first time it's still scary so yeah then similarly i remember being in my friend's basement okay i was sleeping at his house and we were watching jerry springer at like two in the morning. Okay. And we're, we're just sitting there watching it. And, you know, it was, it was like talking about like this, you know, this lover's tiff or whatever. And this girl, Cindy comes on and she's all like, oh, you know, like we dated a couple

of times and they said this and that, and they're like trying to work it out or whatever. And like, Cindy came out and we're like, holy shit, Cindy's pretty good looking. And so we this and that. And they're like trying to work it out or whatever. And like Cindy came out. We're like, holy shit. Cindy's pretty good looking. And so we're watching this. And then Springer comes out. He's like, all right, everybody. But there's a twist to this. And you're like, all right.

All right, Jerry. What's the twist? And you're like, well, what Gary doesn't know is that Cindy is actually a man. And it was like, it was that moment. It was the same moment you just described. Me and my friend both like turned our heads, looked each other both white as a sheet we're like what this is possible like bearing in mind this is like 1990 yeah it was new then like the first time they did the cindy's actually a dude everyone it blew everybody's mind he is a man how the fuck she

looks so much like a woman like is this what is this what we have to look forward to in our adulthoods like we're not gonna know and stuff like we were so fucking scared it was like unbelievable about the dumbest fucking thing like when we were kids right so but it's just like i'll never forget that moment like we've just he just, it was just like, we were just, you mean is Poo-tee? What is going on? Yeah. Oh, geez. All right. We got Bodega. We do. It's, it's, uh, it's an interesting one this week. It's very, very different to the other ones, but are you ready? Is it? Yeah. I don't know quite how to pronounce this. It's Spanish for 12. So is it doce or doce?

I can't remember anyway. Part 12, let's say it that way. Bodega, part doce. Zero, one, one, zero, zero, one, one, zero, one, zero, one. Droned Kratos Nebish, one of the most surveilled men in the galaxy. He was arguably the best and most prolific computer hacker in the galaxy, and for three years he'd been under house arrest in his apartment on Snide 4.

And for that entire period, even in his sleep, he'd been emitting a string of binary digits. Investigator Pata knew this, because for those three years she'd been watching Nebbish on a small monitor in her tiny, cramped, hateful surveillance truck, jammed up against her large, sweaty, hateful tech assistants. Anything today, she asked, wheezing on a vape and sipping a scoffy. Nah, said the tech guy. Even in those three years she hadn't spoken with the tech guys other than in a professional capacity. She'd just sat there fiddling with her phone, waiting for Nebbish to do something, to give himself away somehow, to slip up. He hadn't. The binary was, presumably, Nebbish's way of flarving with the feds. As soon as his trial at the Supreme Court

of Snide had ended the way it had, in a legal deadlock, he was doomed. Any trial on Snide was essentially a life sentence, thanks to the insanity of their judiciary. 90% of the beings on Snide were lawyers, or worked for lawyers. The other 10% were cops or judges. Every other need and function was handled by robot. Everything was automated. Except, by law, the law. As a result, the planet's entire economy was structured around lawsuits. And naturally, Pata was being sued by both of her tech assistants, and she in turn was countersuing them. The cases would never see a courtroom, thanks to the decades-long backlog. However, since the economy of Patar depended on people's possible lawsuit settlements, this was fine. She could get a mortgage using her lawsuit as collateral. Her bank would

naturally sue her in return, but this was all part of the arrangement. 0-1-1-1-0-0-1-1-0-0-1-1-0. For the first few weeks, the surveillance team had worked around the clock to figure out what the binary code meant. Sometimes it turned out to be a recipe for soup. Other times it was just a string of prime numbers. Once it was the transcript

for the entire 12 season run of How I Sued Your Mother, a popular sitcom starring, of course, robots. After they realized he was messing with them, they stopped trying to work out what the code was

and just recorded it. Years worth of ones and zeros and none of it meant a thing. Nebishisch knew that there were hundreds of people watching and listening to his every move. Not just the feds, but every law firm in town was also watching him. He had chosen to defend himself in court, and under Snidean law, this meant he was open to being sued by every law firm that he hadn't hired. Each was entitled to surveil him themselves, and each did. And since his apartment, by nature of of his crimes was a faraday cage it was impossible to listen in from a distance no communication could be made into or out of

nebbish's layer except by hardline hence why the outside of his apartment was a mass of cables and wires each leading to a van parked in the melee of vehicles that encircled his dwelling his apartment itself was isolated raised up on stilts so that it could be observed from every angle. The interior was a mass of tiny cameras and bugging devices. If Nebbish moved, the cameras knew. When he was eating, watching TV, sleeping, taking a crap, it was all being recorded by hundreds of people. Worse still, Nebbish was locked in and they were locked out. He'd placed an impenetrable Shrovian force field around the apartment to protect himself from assassins, and the code lock was on

the outside, so he could never be coerced into opening it. He was unassailable and uncorruptible. No legal compunction or physical threat could force him to open the forcefield because it was impossible for him to do so. Similarly, nobody could ever crack the code, so it was impossible to break in. He couldn't signal outside anyway, thanks to the Faraday cage. It was a remarkable stalemate. Nothing got in, nothing got out, except for the surveillance footage and the feds and the lawyers had control of that. As a result of this mess, the Nebish case was the number one employer on Snide 4. If the case ever ended, it would disrupt the economy so much that it would lead to a runaway recession. Investigative Patar shuddered. Her entire existence and the livelihoods of billions

of people involved surveilling a man whose case was so important it couldn't be allowed to end. She picked up her phone and checked the news feed. Nothing of interest. Pork belly futures were up. There was a traffic jam between sectors 18 and 19 and there was going to be a brief scheduled power outage in their area in about 10 minutes time. Nothing to worry about. The power outage was bang on schedule. Streetlights blinked out one by one then after about a minute they blinked back on. One of them seemed to be taking its sweet time as she stared at it, hypnotized by its incessant blinking. Blink, blink, blink, blink, pause, blink, blink, blink, blink. Pata yawned. What a life. She checked the monitors. There was Nebish droning on. 0-1-1-0-1-1-0-0-1-1-1-0. After a few minutes of listening to zeros and ones for the billionth time, she checked her phone. Another scheduled power outage? Jeez, what was going on at the power

plant? She would sue, but it was all run by robots and they had no legal status. The lights again went out. Again they flicked back on. Again Pitar yawned. Uh, holy flav, said one of the tech guys. Pitar heard nothing. For the first time in three years, there were no zeros, no ones. Had Nebish died? Was it over? He's, he's gone, said the tech guys. Ptah heard nothing. For the first time in three years, there were no zeros, no ones. Had Nebish died? Was it over? He's gone, said the tech guy. Ptah's blood ran cold. Impossible! Impossible! She ran out of the van. In the street, a thousand other investigators and lawyers, all staring at the apartment. Then up at the sky, as a sleek black vessel soared into the upper atmosphere. She blinked a few times. Her brain and an idea were having a serious fight right now.

The tape! Run back the tape! The last five minutes, she shouted, diving back into the van. They looked at the footage. Same old Nebbish and his binary droning. What's he saying? Run it, she said. The tech guy punched in the numbers and the computer spat something out.

Something meaningful this time. Not a recipe. Not a sitcom. A 753-character code. It had to be the code to the force field. He was signaling someone, whispered Pitar. He knew they were coming. One of the tech guys, starting to tremble, raised his hand. What? barked Pitar. What would be the point of giving out the code? He couldn't have known there was anyone coming. Remember, the Faraday cage. No signal gets in or out except, he paused, except through us, said Pitar. Run the outside footage back,

from the power cut. There it was, the blinking of that streetlight. She quickly encoded it to binary. One blink for zero, two for one. Run it, she screamed. The code said, Howdy, pard. Here to bust you out. Breath and shuttle cloaked over your ranch.

Need the code, pard. She began tearing the van apart, ripping up the seats, the monitors, the fabric of the roof. That's where she found a tiny bugging device and a tiny cable that led out into the street. She followed it, pulling it up as she went. It had been glued down to the pavement, tucked into the cracks. It wended its way across the busy road to a shop. A small market. There was a neon sign over the door. It said simply, Bodega. Pataar dropped the cable and fell to her knees. Snide 4 was ruined, and the worst and therefore best hacker in the galaxy had just teamed up with one of the most wanted men alive.

The end. Oh, man. That was a good one. That was really fucking good. Holy shit. That's some great fucking work, setting that up. That was glorious.

That was really good. Holy fuck. Hats off. Thank you. That was a magnificent little short i liked it a lot yeah me too man i was so deeply that was one of the best you've done i think really i didn't think you guys would like it i thought it was going to be a bit too i thought that was fucking weird perfect it was so good i especially like the bodega thing yeah the side above the market. That was a nice touch. Thank you.

That was really good. Oh, shit. Oh, man. That's great. Okay, well, that's all we've got time for this week on the Trifuls podcast. Hope you enjoyed it. Yeah. I did.

I had a great time. I didn't. Yeah, I did. Thank you to Sips. Thanks. And me, of course. Poo2. Thank you, Poo2. And my name.

And Poo2. See you next time. Don't move my letters. Bye. Goodbye. Bye.