Triforce! - Triforce! #99.4: The Roaming Rome Man

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

Triforce! Episode 99.4! Lewis had an adventure in Rome where he's Matrix dodging bracelets, squatting over busted toilets and working out the next big scam! Support your favourite podcast on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2SMnzk6 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Eligibility restrictions apply. See casino.draftkings.com for details. Please play responsibly. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Triforce podcast With me, Sips and Pirian Flax I had a week off, it was nice What episode is this, Dumba? This is 99.4, baby Every week we record this.

We're frozen in like a sleep casket for the week. And then they thaw us out about five minutes before the show every week. Slap us awake. Get our juices flowing and stuff. It's like the start of most sci-fi movies set in space. Yeah, and then we deliver our podcast, whatever number it is, for like an hour or so. And the whole time we're trying to figure out ways to like you know go out and see what's going on outside and stuff before the man comes back and freezes us like the rest of the week and that's our that's our trouble

that's that's our strife that's our that's what we do that's every week it's like a living hell i love that actually yeah i love that trope of the frozen guy wakes up yeah everything's gone to shit on some horrible dystopian thing yeah you're like forced to do a podcast and then you're forced to stream for a couple hours here in the future we have no entertainment what does he do for the frozen from the 21st century because your podcast our historians have gauged was the greatest podcast of all time. You must bring peace to the world. That's it.

It's the best podcast of all time. Defrosting sips. There's no way for anyone to live forever, but they want the podcast to go on forever for the next like hundreds of thousands of years. So what they do is they thaw us out for two hours a week to deliver the podcast, and then we're on ice the rest of the

time and that's how generation after generation after generation we keep on steadily delivering it's crazy because we've been doing it for so long that's why we keep destroyed we keep thinking we i'm sure we've said this before because actually yeah we've done millions of episodes of triforce it's just that we get frozen i'm playing a game at the moment called Outer Wilds. I heard that's really good, actually. It's excellent. I played it like ages ago. It's like something to do with the world ending

and you have a certain amount of time to do stuff before the sun supernovas or something, right? Kind of. It keeps looping back. You're sort of in a time loop. If you die, you go back and it's like yeah so you're sort of in a time loop and if you die you go back and and it's like nothing happens so you can play out your day again sort of thing that's awesome but you remember so you're gradually unraveling stuff and it kind of made me think about when i've been really bored

yeah i'm thinking this podcast is essentially i do a bunch of stuff and then i forget it all and then i wind back and it's the same podcast I start I wake up I do the podcast and then my life is just the same and it's a common mechanic for a game no it's not and this it's worse it is actually quite a few things that similar to it well yeah you would have you're you're fucking scraping the barrel every week it's an explorative game um it's you have played about a thousand games like that. In the sense that it doesn't have objectives. It's a quest tracker.

You're just left to do what you want. And you've got a journal that you unpick a story. And it's very cleverly done. It's this guy's labor of love. He spent about five years on it. And I played it about three or four years ago. Is it there now? No, but it's been taken by various people over the years and iterated on and improved

upon and the version I'm playing right now is unrecognizable from what I played years ago. But no, it's actually, it's a great little game. I recommend it. I recommend it to anyone. If you like exploring a little solar system and discovering all these crazy mysteries and land on planets it's exciting i mean i like mysteries i like solving mysteries there's a lot of things i do like i like i like i like a good great it kind of reminds me do you remember

when you quit dota lewis and you said that it felt like every day you were just doing the same thing you'd get home from work you'd load notes and we just play and it made me realize i i'm basically this guy but i'm not on unraveling a mystery i'm just in a time i'm just in a time loop i i do pretty much the same things all the time lots of people are in time loops right where where that's what they do they get up they go to work they get all they go to school or they they do the same thing they eat the same same thing for breakfast. They have a shower. They do the same routine every day. And it's about, and happiness is about,

happiness isn't the opposite of sadness. Happiness is the opposite of boredom. Happiness is the opposite. What nugget has this, where has this nugget been gleaned from? I can't remember. I think nugget is the right term for this as well. It's a nugget. It's about like forming positive habits if you're going to do them,

but also like breaking out of routines to give yourself like a bit of excitement, a bit of something different every day. Yeah. But do you know what? Playing Outer Wilds made me realize that more often than not in a game, when I die and I go back to the beginning, I'm pissed off if that's the game where it's like well all your progress is lost you go back you know you're alive again whereas in Outer Wilds you don't feel that because there's always something new out there to explore and it kind of made me think what an interesting

philosophy that is. Stanley Parable is a bit like that too isn't it? Yes. It's a little bit darker it's like more psychological I guess then. I like that too though I like all these. Stanley Parable is a bit like that too, isn't it? Yes. It's a little bit darker. It's like more psychological, I guess. I like that too, though. I like all these types of things. Stanley Parable is really good, yeah. Man, so no, I went on holiday this week. Where'd you go? And I went to Rome.

What did you think? The city of dreams. Angels. I don't know. Was it the Eternal City? God knows what it's called. Is it the Eternal City? Maybe it is.

What's it called? It's been there for fucking ever. It's an interesting place, though't it lots of history yeah super interesting lots of italians as well so i will obviously like okay first of all being a tourist i think is feels like a dirty word i think of tourists as like a future insult right people will be like fucking tourist i mean it is basically it, kind of insulting. And I went and did all the touristy shit, and all the touristy shit was horrible because of the amount of

fucking people there. It's a lot of people. And just, you can't avoid it. You know, the Coliseum and the Vatican City, they're rams. You're like on a conveyor belt as you walk through, and it's like, so many fucking people. And they're very epic to see. But it's kind of like, you look up and you're like, wow.

And then you're instantly like worried about being jostled by the guy in front of you and stuff. It's like, fuck me. The guys in the Sistine Chapel, right? With Leonardo DiCaprio painted that amazing ceiling, didn't he? Yeah. In the movie, The Departed. With the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Fair play to him.

When you're in there, did you see the guys that had just paid to shush people that was my literal you're not allowed to take pictures in there yeah but they just walk around going when do you get to the point in your life where that job is okay to do where you you decide you know what i'm cool with this like i i'm not even bored by this anymore i'm gonna stand here and i'm gonna diligently shush people i'm never gonna have any ambitions post a job ad for that as well wanted shushes must be extremely opposed to old no no i imagine that if you're like 60 years old that's a pretty cool job i guess like previous experience in a library you know or like in a school yeah huge huge ears and a really good hearing i mean if you've got kids you're pretty good at shushing already like you're you're pretty much shushing all the goddamn time i reckon like

you could apply if you were one of those guys because there's other weird jobs right like squeezing people into subway trains like i think they're called pushers yeah yeah they like yeah they drink at a pusher could like adapt to being a shusher it's very different like very different but i think yeah you have to have a you have to basically different skill set the public i think is the thing like you can tell they don't like well in both cases you probably i mean if you have to shush people all day you'd see the worst of people don't you shush me you asshole yeah you know what i mean you get that reaction occasionally of course you just have to touch people though too which is yeah they do but again i think if you dislike people

you either want to be you either have to want to grope people so you could employ perverts or you have to hate people and enjoy some of them get away from me this is why i could never work in anything that is either in hospitality where you have to like deal with people because you're a pervert is that where you're going with this most of them are i'd want to push them yeah because when you push you want you want the result to be murder not just getting onto your train that's why but equal equally people are just assholes i think for every nice guy you get an asshole i went to like rome zoo and you know you go to like the fucking through this air and it's like this is the dark room don't flash your camera in here and who's in front of me a fucking parent with taking flash photographs of their kids who's behind me a guy

with his camera phone with like super bright fucking volume like i can't see anything in here get my phone get your flashlight out i'm like for fuck's sake what am i looking like people hell is other people like it makes me so angry seeing that kind of shit, man. It is, but, like, you've got to look at it from the other side, too. Like, why the fuck can't you take a picture? Like, what's the big fucking deal that you can't take a flash picture? Who gives a shit? In the fucking dark room.

You're in a fucking zoo. Who cares? Like, fucking just let people take their dumb pictures. You know they're going to do it anyway. You're just asking for trouble putting up a sign saying don't stress is distress is the animal talking about the animals that like nocturnal animals Like a fucking thing with huge eyes that put them into captivity in the first place Like because some people are dickheads Are kind of dumb anyway,'t they no i'm not a

big fan of zoos oh let's make them blind as well then fucking hell blind the animals what do they care they're stupid animals anyway i mean i don't think we should traumatize animals more than they already are they're out there and their habitat is under threat because people are stupid and then we put them into a zoo where they are subjected to even more stupid people like what chance do they have it's crazy fucking fucking people you're right though hell is other people but at the same time i we don't we don't fucking make it any easier for ourselves with all these stupid ass rules like all the time like you know what i mean like if you put a sign up say not not to do something fucking everybody's gonna do it aren't they like it it's just like it's just human nature that's

true nobody tells me what to do i'm gonna take a fucking flash flash photograph like it fucking happens all the time yeah it's true it's my audio fuck town yeah you're not all robot-y all right like a like a like a rome touristy robot you know it is it is the city of love the eternal city and the city of the seven hills right i mean if you're going to take someone somewhere on holiday if you're going to take someone somewhere on holiday you don't say we're going to the city of the seven hills why would they go with that one eternal city and city of love seven fucking hills loads of places you got seven fucking hills you can find seven hills all over the place anyway that's a bad nickname can i also say westeros has seven kingdoms and seven hills as well

rome was fine like i feel like a little bit like it's run by italians who are a little bit i don't know if their economy is at breaking point or if they're like just a little bit like it's run by Italians who are a little bit, I don't know if their economy is at breaking point or if they're like just a little bit lazy and it's just like the Italian way of living where they're just a little bit laid back. I think Italy's doing fine. Everything is just a bit shit. Just bearing in mind that the Colosseum is like fucking the most popular tourist attraction in the world.

Like every year it gets like 7.5 billion people. It's the most, most visited place judging bearing in mind that that the ticketing system is completely aids uh to the point where you kind of have to like this the streets are filled with i guess it's like it's in every major city okay um but the streets are filled with these guys saying skip the line skip the line there's like loads and loads of people who are wearing non like things that say staff or official but they're not actually staff or not actually official and they're trying to hawk you like skip the line tickets or like tour tickets or all sorts of extra crap because the queues to get into these places are so unmanaged and messy and getting tickets

officially is such a ball ache and there's like like okay let me talk about rome for a second first of all rome what the fuck is it with toilet seats okay what year are we living in right every single i don't think i've found a single toilet seat in rome and it's not that they're building toilets without toilet seats every toilet has its toilet seat ripped off is there like some sort of gang of people going around yeah ripping off yeah fucking toilet guy who's in the fucking nocturnal animal enclosure taking pictures. He's the guy who's also taking the toilet seats off. I need an explanation for this, because it's insane.

I went to some of the biggest tourist attractions, and also I tried to get off the beaten path a bit and went to some much nicer places. I went to some amazing palaces and art galleries where no one was there, and they were fucking beautiful. But the toilets were like something from fucking Roman times. They probably had better toilets in fucking Roman times. Do you know what I mean? Oh, in Roman times, we had underfloor heating and mosaics

and we had flush toilets. Why don't you have them now? What's going on? In general, how often do you leave your house? Because I find it weird that you're surprised by tourist attractions being garbage and public toilets being substandard as well. I'm a 35-year-old man. How is this new to you at all?

I'm on a regular schedule now. I can't hold my poop all day. I'm not like a fucking 20-year-old. I have to poop like once a day. Well, man like how often have you traveled before like you gotta know not to like stray too far from your hotel for too long like you don't go somewhere because you have to go back every once in a while have a snack and a poop or like you know go to the toilet and just have a little rest you have to do like a figure

eight of your hotel you know pretty much come back go out, come back, go out, come back, yeah. Well, if you're sensible, yeah, you would. Yeah, well, do you know what? That is smart, but I kind of didn't do that this time because my hotel was kind of on the outskirts, so I sort of spent the day walking around because it was nice enough weather, and I went to little gardens and stuff. Anyway, you know, every fucking coffee shop,

I'm like, oh, God, I need to shit, so I find a coffee shop, but of course, it's a really nice coffee shop the toilet is like just a fucking disaster like like oh there was no way to predict it as well i've only had good toilet experiences in rome uh no and i'll share one with you right now are you ready i can't believe you guys have remembered your experience this is a very memorable experience for me we were we were on that we were on a train trip across all of europe okay um and the way that we did it was we'd pick us like the next city we went to we did we did one city a day okay so we go to a major city and then the way

that we picked our next city was what's the furthest away that we could take a train overnight and sleep on the train arrive in the city like first thing in the morning spend all day in that amazing strategy you had definitely told this before on try okay that's so that was the strategy right but what happened was because we were traveling overnight a lot and stuff uh we didn't really have a lot of time to like wash right right? So like, I think in two weeks, I took like two showers, okay? This is the figure of eight strategy. This is where you came up with it, isn't it?

On this fucking train. You were like, don't stray too far from the train because we're going to be back on it to sleep and have a shit. So we're on an Italian train, like an overnight train, and then with an aim to arrive in Rome in the morning, right? And the Italian trains are like pretty creepy. They've got like, there's like a picture. train um and then with with an aim to arrive in rome in the morning right and the italian trains

are like pretty creepy they've got like there's like a picture yeah it's like we were on a sleeper train and there's uh the ceiling like in your little pod had a picture of jesus on it i guess so you could just like look at jesus for a bit before you went to sleep and stuff i mean he's watching you anyway so you may as well have a look back it was it was a little bit creepy so so i got into my little jesus sleeper and i was like all right i mean you know i haven't had a shower for a couple of days this isn't looking too good i'm probably not going to be having a shower today right but i was really stinky and i was like fuck i i could really do with having a shower so we get to the train station in rome and we're like all right let's look around like for a bathroom before we

like get going or whatever see if we can just like know, freshen up a bit sort of thing. And then I see like a sign with a shower. It's like, holy shit, there's showers like in the train station. And there's like a bit of a queue. So we're like, fuck it, let's try it. You know, even if it's super bad, you know, just leave your flip flops on or whatever and just wash under your armpits quickly. And then we'll get out of here. Be like two seconds sort of thing.

So we're standing in this queue and we get to the lady there's like there's a lady sitting there and there's like there's people everywhere dressed up like in you know staff clothing or whatever like holy shit like what the fuck is this place and she's like okay it's like two euros we're like what fuck really two euros so so all right whatever two euros so this guy like takes my bag and leads me down this hallway i was like what the fuck and then he sort of dumps me in this room and there's the hose there's a toilet and a sink and i was like sprays you okay perfect this is great you know i'll just wash in the sink and take a shit or whatever and we're out of here and then i look in the corner

and there's a fucking like uh it was like a wet room it's like there's a drain in the corner and there's a shower just like in the middle of the ceiling it's like oh my god this is fucking incredible my own room this like beautiful shower I was like going to the bathroom while showering at the same time because the toilet was like part of the wet room and stuff and there was a sink I could like brush my teeth and everything and and the seat was on the toilet and it was clean as anything and it was fucking amazing it was just like you tried to open the door and it didn't open yeah you banged on the door no no it was it was perfect and it was it was the most satisfying um sort of pizza under the fucking door that's why it's flat so they can slide it under doors it was a very satisfying

personal hygiene experience probably the the most satisfying i've ever had in my whole life oh it was incredible man i was clean as a whistle when i came out of there it's the opposite for me fuck i'm sure those are used on the regular by homeless people well i don't know but i mean it it opened my eyes like if i was homeless yeah, if I had to beg people for money, I would definitely put my money towards it. But did it have a fucking toilet seat? I bet you it fucking didn't. It had a nice toilet seat. It was really clean.

It must have been brand new. I swear to God, okay, obviously Rome is beautiful. But I think there's this gang sort of attitude. There's a concerted effort to knock the heads off every statue. And I realise that that's partly because they're fucking old. Partly because when they fall over, because they fall over all the fucking time, people push them over because they're assholes,

the heads come off, or the hands come off, or the arms come off. Or they hit themselves, or someone's either hit them in the face and knocked the nose off, or when they've toppled over, they've hit themselves on the nose because the nose is always protruding. So half the fucking statues in Rome look like Voldemort. The rest don't have fucking heads. And there's no toilet seats.

I mean, Rome is, to me, the city of headless fucking statues and no toilet seats. Also, people just driving into literally Roman architecture. There's a bit of Roman aqueduct ruins. People just fucking, like, it's like a three-lane motorway through that, you know, with no fucking, it's like crazy. And I mean, the other thing about driving in Rome, like obviously everyone knows they all just beat their way down

one-way streets on mopeds and stuff. But actually, more recklessly was that it really made me take for granted the traffic crossings. Like, you know, in America, every road has like, every junction has... Yeah, traffic is like a bit more orderly. You can walk in a straight line for an hour and you have to go across like 10 crossings. But in Rome, it's kind of similar, except there are no traffic lights, right? And there are no fucking crossings.

And what you've got is like some faded white lines on an eight lane super motorway and you just have to fucking vietnam your way across it do you know what i mean like as fucking cars like zip zapping around you taxis like beeping you and you're just you just have to sort of after a while you're just like fuck it i'm just taking my lives into my own hands and like i don't know whether i'm maybe maybe maybe they've got it right because like they're obviously it's obviously a decision right I went to this this big modern art gallery right and it had this quite new looking road outside which is a big fucking

big fucking four lane road right and yeah just flat outside a big fucking crossing with no lights nothing and you're just cars zooming past you and I'm like they clearly this is they've chosen not to put traffic lights here, right? I mean, I get it. Like, when I cross the road here in the UK,

like, I see the green man and I just fucking walk. I don't wait for traffic to stop. I don't check or anything. Really? And sometimes cars are fucking, well, a lot of the time, you're reassured by that, right? You've got to fucking check. What's wrong with you?

Well, I'm looking a little bit, you know, but sometimes you don't necessarily, you don't pay as much attention when it says you can go, so you go, right? And I wonder how many accidents are caused in that situation where on the Italian version, you're fucking fearing for your life, like every second of the day.

It's like, oh, and you're like, you know, you kind of have to force yourself to not, like, just keep a steady pace. So cars that are zooming past you know where you're like you know you kind of have to force yourself to not like just keep a steady pace so cars that are zooming past you know where you're gonna be we have the second safest roads in europe second only to sweden because there's just not as many cars in sweden driving in in the uk is incredibly safe because people look both ways before they cross the fucking road and because we have lots of pedestrian crossings and people don't drive like assholes it was that hedgehog follow do you remember him no the fucking greek cross code hedgehog he fucking he was like don't get hit by a car mate or else you'll get fucking

kevin keegan or someone when i was a kid hey what you doing not looking before you cross the road hey i can't do a scouse accent but yeah that's that's one of the my that was pretty good though it's better than mine so talking about like gangs right, crazy people in Rome, the other major fucking things that were really surprising to me, and I'm sure they're like this in other major cities and in London too, is there's two groups, and I'm kind of trying to be careful not to like be racist about saying this. You don't want to get involved in a gang war. Well, no, but yeah, maybe.

But there's like, I think i read about it right so there's this group of like bangladeshi sort of men mostly men who sell selfie sticks and umbrellas yeah yeah i saw loads of them at the coliseum there are literally thousands i'm pretty sure that one of those guys was the guy that was trying to sell that lady's purse to me that one time i told i definitely told this story i won't tell it again the cry of selfie selfie is like and they've they've they're they're quite pushy but not that pushy they still have those stupid um dancing mickey mouses the ones that like dance to to music they have one working one and a box full of broken ones that you can buy yeah well the current the current thing that I saw about 100 of

was they have a little table, a little wooden table, and they have this squishy ball. It's like a slime ball with eyes, and you throw it at the table from high, as if you're throwing it at the floor, and it splats completely flat on the table and makes a meh sound sound like a meh sound and it's really it's kind of funny but also annoying okay and you could imagine kids just loving it like little kids

seeing that are definitely wanting one and everywhere from like Spanish Steps to the Trevi Fountains to the Coliseum there is one of those guys every, like, 20 yards with a little table, and it's like, meh. And it's like, meh. And you see they're so bored. Their face, they're so fucking bored because they stood there for the whole day boredly throwing this slime ball at this table. And then between them are, like, selfie stick guys going, selfie, selfie. It's like, so, okay, they're not that pushy about it, okay?

But they're all very, they're part okay they're not that pushy about it okay they're but but they're all very they're all they're part of a gang it's clearly like i didn't see anyone who wasn't like a kind of bangladeshi looking man doing it right doing any of the self-eustach selling doing any of that so there are so so many questions here about about the setup like you call it a gang they call it a limited company who's just interested in making a but there must be there must i mean first of all these guys have obviously all probably from the same place right there probably are all Bangladeshi or something so there must be a guy some Bangladeshi ringleader who started this and then got more of his mates to come over saying yeah look you won't believe how many euros I made

uh just selling these stupid toys I bought from china now where's he getting them from is he going on the internet and and looking up stupid toy china it's like ghost there's like ghost shops okay which are like off the off the off the like that shops that aren't don't have like an uh they look like a house or a front right but you don't a little bit like a ghost restaurant so deliveroo and these um and uber eats and all these other big food transfer companies like Grubhub, I think is the big one in America. They've caused the rise of these things called ghost restaurants

who are people who sell stuff to those food delivery services but don't actually have an actual premises, an open restaurant. They just do it out of their house. Oh, that's way less interesting than I thought it would be. I thought it would be...

No. Here is your food. It's the ghost of all the people who died trying to sell something. Go right through the plate. it would be I thought it would be no here is your food you go to eat it it's the ghost of all the people who died trying to sell psychos to go right through the plate

what yeah alright well that makes more sense that would be fucking awesome that's awesome no so there's like there's these like little squares

that sometimes you go into and it's just like it looks like it should be shops but it's and it is you can see people shopping in there but there's no like signage or anything like that

it's all just like off the books kind of unregulated stuff sounds like sheffield town center if i'm honest with you don't order the curry there's no toilet seats it's gonna be hell later oh fucking hell the amount of squatty shits i had to do. I've never done so many in my life. I mean, I had to do a couple in Japan because they had a few hole in the grounds. I've had to do a few in France and stuff before, and Germany occasionally. I just don't go in those toilets. I've got a pretty good timing.

You don't got a choice. Yeah, I've got a pretty good timing down on my poops. About 8.30 every day, I wake up, have my cup of tea, have a bit of a vape, and then my stomach goes, let's get going, and I'll have a poop. Well, let's rock. And then I'm pretty much good for the rest30 every day. I wake up, have my cup of tea, have a bit of a vape, and then my stomach goes, let's get going. And I'll have a poop. And then I'm pretty much good for the rest of the day. I might have one later in the day, maybe, but more often than not. Treat yourself.

I'm usually like a poop a day. Sometimes, like, depending. Before we go back into poop regular chat, there's another gang, okay, who are much more, who are quite different, okay? And I looked up these guys and apparently these guys are all from like senegal right okay and they're these big black guys they're all big like like six foot and they are super friendly like big smiles like hey how

you doing like nice to meet you and as soon and they like try and shake your hand or like fist bump you or high five you and they're're super chatty, really in your face. And they're like, where are you from? Blah, blah, blah. And as soon as they can, if you shake their hand, they'll wrap a bracelet around your wrist. Yeah, and then ask for money for it. And then ask for money. And it is the most obnoxious thing.

It's threatening as fuck, too, because you're worried that they're going to break your arm or something if you don't pay them. It's terrifying. But it's not like a reasonable price for them either. It's like yeah 20 euros. They want a note. And you're like what? They want like a note like a five euro note or ten euro note. And it's like oh boy. And the thing is like sometimes like I started finding myself getting less and less tolerant towards them. Okay, as it went on. First of all, I was like, oh, hey, sorry. No, hello.

They're like anti-tourist groups though, right? Because they teach you as a tourist never to just idle around somewhere. I never snapped at any of them. I never was like, fuck off. But I was very close to it. I was very, very close to saying, fuck off. Anyway, one time I did actually um because one guy tried to like try to throw one at me right because he wanted me to catch it and i just dodged

and it fell on the floor did you did you neo dodge it this is lewis in road like bullet timing all these bracelets it was quite it was quite slow-mo um I was able to just let it fall on the floor. And because it was raining, you know. Was he trying to, like, frisbee it onto your wrist? So you were pointing, and he's like, doom, just throws it. Just trying to lasso you. Spinning through the air. You spot it the last second. Neo dodging coming.

It lands in some guy's coffee. Oh, man, I'm in the morning. I'm in the present in my coffee. Mamma mia. So he, anyway, this is a bit of a serious story, because this really stressed me out. It was like, I was pretty serious with the coffee, you just ruined a guy's cappuccino. Sorry guys, like stop making funny jokes about my serious story. No.

He fucking, so he goes, so he was like, he was like, oh you're having a bad day man. I was like, I was, I was terrible at it. He day, man. I was like, I'm sorry. He obviously has an accent. I don't want to do it because it's racist. But I feel like it's part of it, though, right? Because you can tell that they're all part of this gang, it feels like. And anyway, so I was like, oh, well, not really. And he's like, oh, do you not like black people, man?

And I was like, what do you mean? I was just sort of stunned by that i was like the reason i don't want to talk to you and buy your fucking bracelet is not because i don't like black people i thought you were going to say to him are you a triforce listener oh shit you know me so but it's just an angle he just wants to make you feel uncomfortable that's it i know but it was constant that kind of stuff it's horribly aggressive it's horribly aggressive what i want to know is why don't we have that in london what what have we put in place to stop that because obviously we have something in place now either that it's that our police are more

keyed into if you're selling shit you've got to move the fuck along because i don't see it anywhere near as much in london as i do like you said in places like rome and i mean i've been to some plenty touristy spots in london there's always fuck loads of tourists in london and i just don't see them what are we doing that rome is not uh are they getting are the police getting a little backhander from the gang boss so that it's like it's cool we'll give you you know thousands of euros a month in exchange for you leaving our dudes alone. Or is there just no law against it? What's the deal?

I don't know. Because it is fucking obnoxious. They probably just shuffled lots of people along. Yeah, like it's the same sort of like in America. I guess like, Lewis, you went to San Francisco a couple of times and it's instead of like gangs of people trying to sell you stuff, it's just it's normally like kind of wacky of people trying to sell you stuff it's just it's normally like kind of wacky homeless people accosting you from time to time isn't it well i think in big city centers they get they get this is the other thing i was warned about extensively

in rome was was pickpockets everyone i spoke to said you've got to watch out for pickpockets you got to watch out for these guys you got to watch out for scammers you got to watch out like there's beggars on the floor who will sort of try and trip you up and stuff and then try and claim that you stepped on their leg or something, you know. And I saw a lot of that. It felt like nothing I've seen, you know, before. I really felt on edge a lot of the time, like, especially around the tourist hotspots.

But once I was out of those, actually, it was really totally fine. I had a great time when I was away from those, overrated um you know tourist hotspots partly because they're ruined by the tourists um like the problem with being a tourist and going to somewhere like that is everybody else has had the same fucking idea everybody it's like when people say are you going to go see niagara falls i'm thinking i'm sure it's amazing but there's going to be like thousands of other people there at the same time and it i don't know why it takes something away i think it's because it reminds you that all the experiences you've had in your life very few of them are unique to you i think you're all just part of billions of people doing mostly the same shit in the west at least man-made stuff is different though because

it's not like you know niagara falls yeah it'll be busy if you want to go on the boat that goes like right up to it or whatever but otherwise it's vast like you could fucking see it from anywhere you want basically like you could find a spot you know away from everybody and just sit there and look at it as much as you like all right do you know how many people go to niagara falls every year how many lots take a guess fucking five millions of people take a guess i did five billion five million uh it's 30 million jesus which which means every day you go there on average 82 000 people will be there at the same time probably probably more so in like summer months too yeah

so that's just part of the world that's dividing it by 365 so i'm just saying on any given day on average taking seasonal variants out of the equation and holidays and all the rest of it obviously weekends it's going to be even more so that number is actually going to be higher on the day you're likely to be going there 82000 other people will be having the same fucking idea to go and see Niagara Falls. Isn't that depressing? Yeah. It doesn't feel like that when you're there, though.

It's not like... But you're trying to take a picture of yourself with Niagara Falls in the background. But what you could see is you could see literally 100 people also doing that. And it kind of is like, I kind of don't want to take a picture of myself with this thing now because I've seen all these other people do it and now it's like i don't know

like i don't know like oh it's really mind it's a mind fuck um anyway well i did have a great time actually i really enjoyed getting out some of these places that weren't just full of people and they were fucking awesome actually and rome's a really pretty city. It's had a limit on how high it can build to preserve the skyline. So there's no skyscrapers, nothing's higher than six stories, even the super mega rich banks and stuff and all the corrupt businesses are all like... Even then they can only build a six-story villa or whatever. And as a result, the place doesn't feel like it's all full of disgusting shitty areas i'm sure there's some i mean i only sort of was really in the central central like sort of five

mile ten mile radius of it i'm sure outside on the outskirts there's probably some absolute shitholes but i i thought it was really beautiful to walk around and had a really nice time florence is a very very beautiful city and yeah far less touristy and well this is this is but this is what i heard as well but i i i was like i wanted to see the sieve wonders yes of course no i mean you've got to go to rome and then i can go to the better places later because i thought if i went to florence first and then it would seem even worse just be like oh fuck whereas now you'll really appreciate florence i've been to rome a couple of times honestly like i i think i i like i've been to rome a couple of times i've never been into the coliseum i've never been like to i've been around the big attractions and stuff but only really just passing them by

saying oh did you get one of those bracelets um no really cool enough not in rome i've got like five i got uh one in paris one time i I went to Paris and I got one of those bracelets. The guy just sort of surprised me. I was coming out of the metro and he just sort of jumped me and slapped this thing on my wrist and I wasn't ready. So I was like, all right, you got me.

You got me. Here you go. Good game. I gave him some money. You got to congratulate those guys for their hard work. Yeah, I don't know. I think him some money. That's like the only time. You can't congratulate those guys for their hard work. Yeah, I don't know. I think at some point I definitely stopped visiting big tourist attractions because of all the reasons you've listed.

I think it just, in your mind, you think, fuck, I have to see these places. They must be important. Everybody raves on about them. And you get there and you realize that it's just like like yeah everybody's doing this it's taken away all of the interesting bits of it because i hate people it's either bigger or smaller than you expect and there's more people there than you realize there would ever be ever the most the most fun i've had on on trips and cities that i visited and stuff is is doing like what said, like getting off the beaten track, you know, and just like experiencing, trying to like experience

like the culture of the city, like, you know, how people sort of live there every day rather than going to like big tourist attractions. Yeah. That's always, you always leave, you always have that experience. You always leave that experience feeling like, oh, this is great. I really enjoyed myself.

You know, it was nice. Yeah. But I don't think i've ever come away from visiting a big tourist attraction and been like that was totally worth it if anything i've always come away feeling like fuck why did i waste my time on this like some of the best things i found were like just completely just bumped into when you were going around somewhere that you got slightly you know sidetracked like you walked a couple of streets thing is if you walk a couple of streets in the wrong direction in San Francisco,

you'll get into like the fucking drug overdose district. You know, if you walk a couple of districts in the wrong direction in Rome, you'll fucking go into this beautiful Roman fucking park and there'll be like orange trees there. You'll be the only person there. There'll be like the ruins of a villa. You'll like walk up to it.

You'll be like, fuck, can you imagine what it was like to live here in this time? And like, you know, it's a very different feel um but no i definitely like i definitely got i mean rome is one of these places where the romans really feel very attached to the stuff whereas actually you know what happened was the whole city got completely razed to the ground about 10 fucking times to the point that no one lived there for about 200 years at all. And then the church sort of moved back in and then that all got kicked out again and burned to the ground

and then they came back in again. Do you know who's been there continuously? Do you know who's been there continuously? Those lads from Bangladesh selling those fucking toys. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they're the most sort of dedicated Romans that they have. Centurion, would you like to buy a splatting selfish thing

with ice? I've got a bracelet for you. I've got a friendship bracelet for you. Only one denarius. What the fuck? Here's the way I see it as well. Those guys might also be selling drugs. So if I'm selling you a little squishy thing, what's to say that I don't

just walk up and give you the code phrase, I would like to buy some drugs, please, and you give me one from the other box. So you can sell drugs in public as well. I'm just trying to, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. I come up with these ideas. Hidden in plain sight. Do you know what I also saw a lot of? I saw like five or six people who were high on aerosols doing those space pictures.

Yeah. Right? Do you know those fucking guys who do the space pictures with the dirty saucers and the fucking plates? Go to Europe and take trains around Europe. Holy crap, you will see some shit. Train stations seem to be like the universal meeting place for people who like to get high on aerosols, etc.

Yeah, why do they go to the bus station the train it's always the bus or the train station i don't know these places are just the scummy exhaust fumes it's unbelievable it's obvious when you think about it who's coming and going from those places oh tourists i mean the only time anyone's ever tried to rip me off in london was when i was at victoria on my way to the coach station uh i'm not a tourist, but I was going to the coach station anyway. And this guy said to me, oh, excuse me, mate, I really need some help. And I said, what's the problem? Because I'd only been living in London for like a couple of years at that point, I think.

And I was just kind of a little inexperienced with bullshit. So the guy comes up and says, I need some help. And I said, oh, what's the matter? Because I like to help people. And he says, I need 12 quid to get back. I've just, you know, I've lost my wallet wallet this is the oldest fucking con trick in the book right they tell you the needs of money give me your address i'll mail it to you and all the rest of it i'm never giving this guy money in a million years but i said to him i don't think it's a great idea

mate i'm like no no thanks and he said just come into this alleyway over here and we can talk about it like he literally wanted to take me to an alleyway because it's broad daylight he couldn't drag me there he wanted to invite me there and i guess at that point he mugs me and i'm thinking that's the reason these skeezy people hang around is because you don't like you either go to the tourist spots but there's always police there police don't give a fuck about the coach and the train station they're hardly ever there it's just people nowadays they are like in, nowadays they are. Everywhere, yeah. But it didn't used to be that way. Back in the good old days when you could scam people free from police attention. I remember back in my day.

I had three cups and a bowl. I used to be able to scam everybody. They called me Mr. Scam Man. Went on a tour of Europe by train. Went to Rome. I didn't just tie friendship bracelets around people's heads. I tried belts around their waists.

I tried handcuffs. I tried nooksies around their necks. I'd sell them anything. I'd trip them up and tell them they broke my leg. I sold those goopy things that you chuck on the ground and they got eyes. They make a noise. There is someone out there where that's basically their life story.

What have you done for the last 10 years? Traveled around Europe, sold a bunch of crappy shit to tourists. Sir, thank you for applying for the position of bank manager. We're just looking through your CV here. It looks like you've got about a... There's a few gaps. There's a 15-year gap here where it says that you sold dancing Mickey Mouse wire figurines? Yes, it was a

booming market at the time. In Rome? On a blanket? Rome, Barcelona, yes, all those places. Paris as well. Very well travelled. Very well travelled. Met a lot of people. Sold very few bracelets. Fuck's sake.

The uptake rate was very low, but fortunately the pass-through of people was so heavy that I was able to just steal a lot of money out of people's wallets as they went by. Also, since I slept at the coach station and showered there, my outgoings were very low.

Excellent facilities, by the way. Excellent facilities. Five stars every time. Well, I think this interview is over. Your high end's clearly qualified. You're overly qualified. Overqualified, in fact. I think you need to be more corrupt to work here as a bank manager.

What would be your first suggestion if you were to take on management of this bank? Well, we need some more Bangladeshi gentlemen in the lobby area. Very hardworking. Selling squishy screaming toys. Do we have an adequate pool of Senegalese? management of this bank. Well, we need some more Bangladeshi gentlemen in the lobby area. Very hardworking. Do we have an adequate pool of Senegalese? They need to be very pushy. Find me the pushiest Senegalese you can.

They must all be gigantic. Gigantic. Some Senegalese newspaper canon advert tall intimidating pushy very black

come to England you can work in a bag I would say like you know those those guys who do do that fucking space art on the floor

like and they what they do is they you look at them and they look like the dirtiest homeless guy ever and he's like

got some like pink spray paint you know up his nose from where he's been sniffing it or whatever like and and they look like the dirtiest homeless guy ever. And he's got some pink spray paint up his nose from where he's been sniffing it or whatever. And they're using the dirtiest mismatched set of plates and pots and pans to do this art. And they have a dirty bit of newspaper or whatever. And they tear off a bit of that.

And they sort of skankily drop that on the fucking art. But it comes out looking great. Great. It's not like great it's garbage they all i know but they always manage to make them look like the same like every time you see it i've they've been doing these for about fucking 30 years right these street art fucking space scenes okay and they're obviously very simple and obviously they can teach the next you know aerosol addled lunatic to to do them you know but like they're i don't know there's something there's something there like you could see that it's just not shit enough to get people to buy it but but the whole like fact that they're selling

it on the street and making it with such skanky materials is so off-putting at the same time. You know? So middle-class. You know, it wasn't fucking Michelangelo was not fucking lying on his back at the top of the

fucking Sistine Chapel with a fucking aerosol and a fucking dirty bit of newspaper being like, oh yeah, let me just do God's like,

fucking, God's like, God's sexy ribbed abs. Yeah. Oh, quick, get that fucking bit of newspaper. We need that to like

smear it it's like oh yeah dirtier dirtier get a saucer i need to do the sun it's like what the fuck are you do you mean like it's such a contrast oh but also there's so much art and so many sculptors they obviously did have like schools of people being taught you know often artists sort of took their pupils and they they did the faces until their pupil and their people just did all the background until they were good enough you know they were certainly like in in the back of the day they had like teams of apprentices yeah i mean think how long it takes to paint a massive painting you don't want to do all the blue in the background get some fucking lad to do the blue bit and then you'll touch it up and

make it look good i guess what i'm saying is that there's probably people like that in the streets as well like the guys who sell like all the selfie sticks they're like training up the young selfie stick guys you know here's what you have to say selfie louder there must be there must have been a time when instead of selling this tat these people would have had either a trade or a job somewhere what's happened what's happened that means that i mean is it just that there are fewer and fewer need we've spoken about advancement before in technology and everything but we've got eight billion people surely that should mean there's a shitload of jobs why aren't these guys doing something more productive is it robot in a giant hole or a fucking filling in a hole they didn't want anymore something like that is it is it is it that there

are any other options are working in a horrible factory making fucking cheap cheap jumpers for you know h&m right but people have been doing those shit jobs for years so what's changed that now these guys would rather travel to italy and frankly do a pretty humiliating job selling these things what what has changed that means they now want to go there and do something as a group like they're all coming from probably the same area and they probably know each other. Oh, that's my cousin. That's my cousin's mate. You know, all this kind of stuff.

I mean, the weather's quite nice. It's not nicer than it is in Bangladesh, is it? I mean, a thing so bad in Senegal and Bangladesh that you would rather go to Rome and sell crap. And I'm sure they don't live a particularly nice life. I mean, I feel awful for the fact that this is what they have to do. These are young men with nothing better to do, really? Like, what the fuck has happened? I think you could look at all over the world

and see people in trouble. Yeah, but they've managed to get to Italy. I'm angry about them, but I also feel very sorry for them. It's awful. I'm just wondering what the fuck is... This isn't the future. This can't be the future. The poor people just have to go to rich places and sell crack that theycrack that they get from china kind of shit that you'd see yeah

that's just depressing that's what would be in cyberpunk 20 23 that when that new one comes out cyberpunk 2047 or whatever which i'm kind of i'm kind of like i mean i'm looking forward to but at the same time i'm like there's gonna be guys like selling selfie sticks on the street what's the new selfie stick do you mean what is the next thing in the cyberpunk world because already selfie sticks are getting a bit like fucking you know your gran has them and your mom has them you know but they've already turned the corner do you mean like what's the next what were they selling 10 years ago because selfie sticks weren't a thing then were they selling like hats they were selling those wiggly worms on a little invisible thread. I always used to see people selling those.

Yeah. What about invisible dogs? Yeah, invisible dog, the dog collar. They were selling those too. I used to see those when I was a kid. I haven't seen an invisible dog in years. Yeah. Didn't see them at the time either.

But I mean, I haven't seen the leash either. They're missing out on a marketplace. When I was a kid, I saw a guy walking along in the street with one of those. This is when I lived in New York and he had one of these invisible dog things i was blown away like i was like six seven years old i could not believe it my mom was like it's just it's not real it's just a leash like i was like he's got an invisible dog like i could not believe what i was seeing oh yeah how young i was exactly but what i'm talking about is like that kind of stuff like i was sold

selfie sticks and bracelets. Where's the other stuff? Do you want me to be more diverse? Yeah. We're in 2019. You need to diversify your portfolio, my dear man.

I want to go back to Senegal. There's got to be more stuff that we need. You know, no one was selling bottles of water. I guess they're too heavy to bring in from the fucking sticks.

No, no, that's not true. When we went to the Coliseum, there were lots of people selling bottles of water. Lots and lots lots was it maybe it wasn't hot enough here's an advancement for you that i've been reading about a buddy of mine sent me these these uh this new york times article about these pilots in the american air force i think they fly hornets or something like that the plane not the insect and they have seen these weird things on their radar that and then when they get them on

their little infrared camera it's like moving unbelievably fast changing direction all the usual kind of ufo crap and i kind of dismissed it because i've heard all this kind of stuff before but i was like why is this in the new york times that's that's like a legit publication they interviewed these guys and they confirmed the story like these are actual air force pilots so the air force is like saying we don't want to do like they made official reports and everything this is all above board you can you can look it up so i mean a buddy of mine who are into this kind of stuff uh he listened to the triforce podcast sorry so what are they seeing like fast moving very fast moving objects and so they can be quite high well they can be quite high or they can be very low like very very low to the

to the to the sea so they spotted these things so what navy navy or air force pilots flying like fucking f-16s yeah fucking mac3 or whatever really fast are seeing things that are moving even faster and almost like stopping and then going like unbelievable changes of speed and direction like like a ufo literally the same thing that we would we would normally think oh it's a ufo so that was the story and my better And my friend and I talked about it a bit. And we came to the usual conclusion, it's a load of bollocks. But here's where it gets interesting.

There was an article in the Metro last week about how the US Navy has patented these new kinds of drone or like a new way of flying that basically removes inertia from the equation, okay? So you can go very fast and then stop or go from very, from almost up to very fast

and there's no inertia, there's no problem with it. Like it reduces it to like 10% of what it would be or something. So if that technology is real, they might be sort of preparing people for the fact that this game changing piece of technology is about to come out. I urge people to have a look at it.

I was intrigued. It's probably absolute bollocks. I'm not one of these, the truth is out there types. I'm just saying that these are like actual newspapers running stories that have an element of truth to them and are quite interesting. So that could be the next thing. There was a story about that this week because there were a load of UFO sightings and it turned out that Elon Musk was just sending up like a hundred new satellites or whatever.

So everyone was like, what the fuck are all this is like these are not manned vehicles yet like these are drones and things like that they're probably quite small but the fact that they can move as fast as they do and they can move underwater as well you could move them in space like the the speed potential is ridiculous so it's like a new way of of traveling that we haven't really thought of before so just just interesting but it was interesting i'm not i thought it was i always hope it's aliens because i figured they'll they'll say we will push the climate fixo button also man yells perfect government you know and all this stuff we'd be like oh my god we're saved but instead sometimes i think like that where where our technology was given us it's given us by aliens like do you mean like like how how complicated is a mobile phone like the miniaturization and the 4g technology was given us by aliens. Do you know what I mean? How fucking complicated

is a mobile phone? The miniaturization and the fucking 4G. Right, but think how many years it took for us to get there. It took us a hundred years. I know, I know. I know it's not aliens, but it's dazzlingly complicated. It's been an iterative process, I get it, the whole way. You could look at a hard drive and see that they used to be the size of a fucking room, and you could see every single... It's been an iterative process. Yes. I get it, the whole way. You know, you could look at like a hard drive and see that they used to be like the size of a fucking room and you could see every single... It's like an evolution of man.

Each hard drive gets smaller and smaller, right? Until you've got like a fucking micro SD card with like more memory than a fucking Apple Mac. Each hard drive, less hairy than the last. That's the key to advancement. Oh, Jesus Christ. Anyway, like fucking aliens man I don't think they're real but

you don't? well they are real I just don't think they're coming here it's too far right but anyway I thought this was an interesting piece of technology and if it's real

I mean it could change transport it would be incredible wait you don't believe that there's aliens out there? in the universe Lewis in the whole universe I just don't believe they know about us or are in any way interacting with us. I don't think that for a second.

You don't think they've been secretly... There's definitely aliens, but who knows how advanced they are. You don't think that they've been secretly living under the ground here the whole time? No. Watching us and manipulating us? I'd love to find some aliens and see what they are. You would? I reckon, yeah.

Wow. That would be fucking awesome holy shit yes i think most people would yeah but i spoke to a friend of mine and he he pointed out that the unlikeliness of us being here is is like it's so slim our planet has to be the right size the right distance from the sun it has to have liquid water it has to have so much going on for life to even have a chance of forming yeah it has to have like buffer planets to like clear out all the asteroids that would have wiped out earth life every like million years i've read another i've read a book about aliens and the guy basically said well the

probability may be small but the fact that we exist is like 100 we do so therefore there must be other aliens which i thought was kind of sketchy other people should exist but yeah what if we don't though okay have you ever thought what if we don't exist yeah simulation what if we're ghosts what if it's like super mario 2 and it's just a dream it's all just well that's the that's what elon musk thinks isn't it is that we're all simulation well simulation theory is it's it's it's it's not impossible that's that's the question you've got to ask is it impossible that we're a simulation? No.

Well, it would be easy to simulate, right? I'd love to see the reports on me post-simulation because, man, I watch a lot of weird porn. Unit 384847374AB. Like the process is working overtime to generate brand new fucking weird shit for you to watch. It looks like Subject 6969 is watching weird porn again. Oh, Jesus Christ. File it under no news today. Allocate more rams to sips.

We have to create new stuff. I wonder if they're watching. How has he watched all of it already? I wonder if they're watching the shit that we come up with and thinking, why are these amazing creations that we simulated just fucking playing video games all day? We should never have added video games into the simulations. Why are they trying to make a simulation? just fucking playing video games all day. We should never have added video games into the simulations. Why are they trying to make a simulation?

Why are they not living the simulation that we made for them? Why did they put so many Senegalese and Bengalis men in Rome in the simulation? What a crappy simulation we are. We ran the numbers and it turns out that we've accidentally put too many of these men in Rome and we've given them too many shit wares to sell as well there's not enough jobs to have to sell the balance is off we got to take it down

for maintenance, take Rome offline reset it all two hours we have to rebalance and recalibrate the economy holy shit, okay that's trifles for today all right thanks everybody um that was a good one we'll be back next week yeah um where we back to business as normal talking about same old shit week in week out that's right i won't have gone away there's one thing you can depend on it's the same old talking about the same old cheese.

Same old cheese. All right, thanks, everybody. Love you. Bye. Love you, baby. Bye, Patreon. Bye. Patreon.