Triforce! - Triforce! Mailbag Special #48: The Customer is almost never Right

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Triforce Mailbag Special 48! We want to know the criteria to become a prisoner firefighter, we get a load of emails about retail work and we try to figure out the numerical values of a couple, a few a...nd more! Go to http://expressvpn.com/triforce today and get an extra 3 months free on a 1-year package! Go to http://buyraycon.com/triforce to get 15% off sitewide. 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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Starting point is 00:00:00 Pickaxe. America's number one sports book. You can bet on touchdowns, turnovers, heck, even total kicker points, don't you know? Anywho, enjoy your podcast or whatnot. Please play responsibly. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to konexontario.ca. Hello, everyone. It's the mailbag. Excuse me, excuse me, sorry. I don't want to stand on tradition here, but I do the introductions.
Starting point is 00:00:54 Oh, I stole it. Sorry, I'm used to... And also, I think the last time we recorded, we agreed that we would get a big house viewing update from you as well? Yeah. Oh, god. Well, I forgot the cardinal rule of everything to do with houses. It's that estate agents are cunts. Wow.
Starting point is 00:01:14 They are the worst of the worst of cunts. But they're all cunts. If you work for an estate agent, I'm sorry, you're a cunt. I'm just sorry. So that went well, I guess. You know this as well. So wait, you're calling them out specifically. What went wrong? So I went there to the property. I got there, stood outside, five minutes pass, ten minutes pass, fifteen minutes pass.
Starting point is 00:01:41 Obviously I rang them after a couple of minutes. No reply. I ring the other office, no reply. So we stood there, it's freezing cold, it's like minus two. So I'm fucking stood there freezing, someone turns up on a bicycle. It is the owner of the house, which says to me, what are you doing here? And I say, oh, sorry, I'm lurking around your house. I'm not a creepo. It's the house viewing on.
Starting point is 00:02:04 And she's like, no, there isn't. I've not been told anything about any house viewing. And I was like, oh, I booked it a week ago and I have not been, and they sent me a confirmation email and a reminder email actually as well telling me to turn up at this time. And so I ring them up again, no reply, ring them. So I say, well, look, I'm just going to have to sorry about this. You know, it's not, not my fault. It's the estate agent.
Starting point is 00:02:23 So I leave and the estate agent calls me, you know, five hours later. Five hours? He's like, oh, we emailed you, we called you, we tried to cancel. I was like, is this your phone number? I'm like, yeah. Is this your email? I'm like, yeah. I said to them, look, even if you did, which I don't believe, okay, I don't believe you actually emailed me or called me, even if you did, you didn't even tell the owner that there was going to be... you didn't even ask the owner about... you clearly didn't even organise this meeting at all in the first place. Yeah. They never organised it and then they realised they hadn't told you that it wasn't organised and tried to cancel it and that nothing had been done.
Starting point is 00:02:59 But here's the thing, they could have done. They actually could have done it. Like, it's not like she was busy or going out or something. Anyway. Fuck em. I don't know what I expected, but there you go, that's typical shit, isn't it? Yeah, that's their absolute bastard. It's a miracle that anybody buys a house, to be honest. I rearranged a recording to do this. My partner had taken the day off to come and have a look at it, do you know what I mean, with me. Like, it was a lot of faff to book this. Yeah, no, you don't need to make excuses for how much time it cost you, even if all they had done was booked it and you were free, the way they've acted is incredibly unprofessional
Starting point is 00:03:33 and dog-chugged. Send them a bill. Bill them for your time! Tell them, do you fucking know who I am? Is this your sweet Louis Brindley do-yogs cast? Yeah. Anyway, the thing is, they're A-Sate agents, they'll do the absolute minimum of work for the most possible money. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:03:47 And no one ever can answer any of your questions anyway. So actually, it was quite useful because I met the owner, so I actually smooth talked to him to give me a number. And now I can just ask her the questions directly. I can even go round the back. And cut them out. That's perfectly legal. Yeah, I went to a viewing one time to to view, we were looking to buy a flat.
Starting point is 00:04:08 We were, we're moving out of the first flat that we ever bought. We wanted a slightly bigger flat because at this point we were planning on having one child, you know, so we thought we could, we could just about do it. You know, we just get a big enough flat. We could definitely have one child. So we were looking around, we must've looked around for like a year at all these different places and some of them were just shocking. Like some of them were unbelievable.
Starting point is 00:04:32 And this one we went to see was so small inside, like there was, I think it was like 200 square feet and it was, it was, it was so absolutely tiny and it, and it had this huge, huge backyard. Like, it went out into a backyard that was about 15 times the size of the apartment. And the guy's like, yeah, but look at this backyard. And we're like, okay. He's like, you just spend all summer out here. He's like, I'm not living in a backyard. I need to live inside somewhere. ALICE And also, how long is the Canadian summer? Like, six weeks? It's like the same as ours, right? You know, you don't get... Oh my god!
Starting point is 00:05:05 What are you going to do for the other nine months? It's unbelievable! Eleven months. Ridiculous. It's just insane the kind of shit that they come up with. They can't be serious, like most of the time. They're just chancers. They're charlatans. And don't even listen. I've had it it before when we were looking at office spaces, and this guy took us around, he knew our specifications, and he insisted on showing us this tiny yoga
Starting point is 00:05:32 studio and he was like, oh look, you could fit loads of desks in here. And I'm like, well this isn't at all what we asked for. And we've come like 15 minutes out here. Why don't you fit a bunch of fucking desks in here? See how you like it. I literally said to him at the time, I was like, thank you for wasting my time. It's just polishing a turd all the time with the state agents. That's all they do. They're turd polishers. And it just rolls off their back as well, like they're tearing them off.
Starting point is 00:05:54 They just don't hear it. They get so much fucking abuse, I think they just used to it. They're just, that's part of their whole thing. Yeah. Oh god. It's shocking. Anyway, that's the world we live in. But don't worry, because the thing is the Mark House market's so ridiculous, that a
Starting point is 00:06:07 house will be sold next week anyway. Do you know what I mean? Someone will be like, I'm so desperate for a house, and this one looks okay. Do you know, I think the crazy thing is, people organise so many things online nowadays, and everything is out there for... There are websites out there where you can list your home for like a few quid relative to the amount of the percentage that you have to pay the estate agents. Stop using estate agents.
Starting point is 00:06:31 Just do it. Do it yourself. Like I know it's a pain, but you're selling a house. You are selling a house. Surely you could take the time to do that rather than have to deal with these. As Lulu said, see words that we call estate agents. Anyway, let's have an email. Alright, this is, uh, this is... Thanks for the update, Lewis.
Starting point is 00:06:50 I was really waiting for that. That was fantastic. If you've got stories about bad experience with estate agents, I'd love to hear them. We would love it. And we will join you in our... You're gonna get like a tidal wave of emails, because to. It's like almost every single experience is a bad one. I'll do a state agent special. I don't give a fuck.
Starting point is 00:07:08 I used to move fairly regularly, you know, when I was especially with the uni, you know, and moving around with the early days of Simon and YouTube, you know, we saw a fair few estate agents and I got kicked out of my flat to the land side to sell it and then, do you know what I mean? So, but I haven't had to do it in years, and I sort of thought something might have changed, but no. Nope. Nope.
Starting point is 00:07:29 It's only gotten worse, probably. It was probably like this in fucking Babylonian times, you know what I mean? I needed a fucking, you know, to get a viewing on my temple, or my hovel, or whatever the fuck I live in. Yeah, we know a lot about history here, as a podcast. And this day, just like, yeah, this whole full is don't mind that. We're just, uh, he's fermenting some manures to fill in the grouting. Yeah. The shit's going to be ready in about two weeks.
Starting point is 00:07:58 By the time you move in with the weather right now in Babylon, you could live out there all day. You won't even be inside. You've got four wheat fields here for fuck's sake. There's hardly any rampaging hordes coming through this countryside, like pillaging everyone. You'll be... It's beautiful. The goat does own the back room.
Starting point is 00:08:17 You're not allowed in the back room. That's the goat. All right, here we go. This is from Kelly. Hi, Perian. You asked if anyone eats food in strange ways in one of the previous mailbags. One of my favorite topics we've had. This one just comes up. Well I most certainly do. It does keep coming up. This comes back every time.
Starting point is 00:08:32 It does. I eat popcorn weird. I like to pinch off and eat the crunchy kernel bits while saving the fluffy bits in a separate container. Once I'm through and left with a bowl of soft bits, I eat them all up like an absolute animal. It became apparent that this is weird when I do it in elementary school. I'm 29 now. During movie days, I'd have an extra tissue for my bits.
Starting point is 00:08:55 The other kids vehemently explained to me how gross it was. Now granted, back then I didn't pinch it off. I bit it off. So they were right. Hence why I graduated to pinching. So Kelly has then also included a picture of a piece of popcorn. I know what popcorn looks like, but this picture is meant to say this is the ideal. So you know when you've got the big fluffy frame bit on top,
Starting point is 00:09:15 and then the sort of exploded bit, you bite off or pick off the bottom bit, and then you just have the fluffy bits. I think picking off sounds worse, but it is at least dry, and I think the issue is that if you're biting it off you're gonna get soggy bits in that, and it's gonna soggy down that mushy fluffy. I don't like that. I don't like that. So picking is actually okay here. Just eat some Quavers.
Starting point is 00:09:36 It's like kind of the same thing, right? Yeah, you might be able to find a similar fluffy... It's not the same. But is the crunchy bit the bad bit? Or is that the good bit? No, no, no. It's just, I would say the number one theme of all of these eating food the strange way is a very childlike thing that a lot of us still do, saving the best bit till last. So it's almost like- It's what my dad would always say is, don't play with your food! You know, I mean, that's what it would be.
Starting point is 00:10:01 Right, no, but this is if you have a meal and there's like the part of it, whether it's a chocolate bar, or whether it's a full meal or whatever, if there's a part that is your favourite part, you save that bit till last. Because otherwise, especially as a kid, you know that you're probably going to have to clear your plate for your parents to give you dessert, right? So you save the best bit till last because then even if you're not that hungry, you fucking love Yorkshire pudding, you're going to smash that down no problemo, whereas you're not going to plough through that broccoli that's gone cold and you're not really a fan of. So I think a lot of that is a habit that's carried over from childhood.
Starting point is 00:10:33 That would be my guess. Or just, you know, you're used to eating things without really paying attention. You've just got a little system, but it's always to save the best bit till last. That's the thing. Yeah, I'm not like much of a system person saving the best bit to last. That's the thing. Yeah, I'm not I'm not I'm not like much of a system person like saving the best bit to last. I'm a mixer. I mix it all up. You know, there's multiple ways to eat as long as we're all full.
Starting point is 00:10:53 It doesn't matter. That's true. Yeah. As long as we've all had had something to eat. You know, all right. This one is topical or it is for the time of recording. This is about prisoner firefighters. Yeah, gosh, that is very topical. Yeah, that is happening right now. Happening in LA right now.
Starting point is 00:11:07 I think I mentioned it on one of the footages. So, I just listened to the most recent mailbag that included an email from a guy talking about leading prisoners to fight wildfires in Washington state. That was quite an old one. I've recently learned some facts about these programs I thought I would share. Historically, in California, at least, about a third of the wildfire fighting force is made up of inmates. Most recently, it's grown up to about 40 percent. These programs are often regarded highly among prisoners as they're able to shed a lot of time off their sentences and gain valuable experience that will allow them to gain a firefighting job after they get out. Prisoners in these programs also get to stay permanently
Starting point is 00:11:42 at a different facility, which is much nicer than their normal prison. However, there is a lot of controversy surrounding this because the prisoners are paid about $5 an hour for one of the most dangerous jobs out there. The pseudo slave labor is legal in America because of a stipulation in the 13th Amendment, which is the one that grants slavery, which excludes prisoners from these rights. It's kind of a nuanced situation given the other benefits awarded to them, but still pretty astonishing. There's been a bit more press about this recently, given the situation in LA, but I think most Americans are still unaware of programs like this, and the criminally low wages that these guys make.
Starting point is 00:12:14 So yeah, interesting risk. The thing is, these people have forfeited their freedom through crime and are in jail. Alright, alright, Elon. I'm saying, I'm just saying, I agree. It's very low and that, you know, it is a dangerous job and you know, perhaps they could get paid more or whatever, but the alternative is you just sit in a cell in jail for your sentence, which might be forever. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:12:38 Like, uh, if I, if I was, if I was in jail for a very, very long time, I would want to do something like that. Um, and you know, even if, if, even if the pay very long time, I would want to do something like that. And you know, even if the pay was really low, I'd still rather just do that than sit in a jail all day long with nothing else to do. Well, you know what, it could be worse too, because in Russia they're sending them to the front lines, which is much worse, right? At least you're fucking only fighting a fire rather than a Ukrainian drone.
Starting point is 00:13:04 Do you know what I mean? fire, rather than a Ukrainian drone. Do you know what I mean? There is a difference there. So I... But I still think it's on the borderline, isn't it? I think only cosfire fighting is seen as a kind of sexy, noble, brave profession. I think it gets through the gaps. People are like, oh, a prisoner should be delighted to be given such an opportunity. But if it was something like coal mining or something, I don't know, where's the line
Starting point is 00:13:30 on what's actually okay here? I feel like this is right on the fucking line. Yeah. I think the payment is... those prisoners are so exploited as well in prison. Like everything costs money. They are. Phone calls are... I will say one thing... Everything is monetised so heavily. It's awful.
Starting point is 00:13:44 There is... I mean, a lot of the manufacturing in the States is done by essentially slave labour because it's prisoners, they're just paid barely anything. But this idea that, wow, they're prisoners, they've given up their human rights is obviously not true. You know, they still have rights and I think they should still have labour rights and stuff. You have human rights, but I mean, you can't... What are you going to do? You know, pay, pay a prisoner 60 grand a year to be a firefighter. Like for what? Like it's, you know what I mean? Like it's, well, maybe they could have just not gone to jail and become a
Starting point is 00:14:15 firefighter somehow, or maybe, you know, like, I don't know. It's just like, I think you can go way too far the other way too. I agree. $5 is like criminally low, but I wouldn't expect somebody to be a CEO in jail and still making a tonne, I guess that does happen. In the right prisons, it doesn't matter. I would say we're certainly looking at this from the perspective of presumably working class and poor people going to prison and being exploited.
Starting point is 00:14:44 But here's the thing, when it comes to the firefighting thing, fighting fires is not a for-profit thing. No. Right? You would assume. Like, I'm sure there's private firefighters out there. It's America, after all. I know that guy on Twitter was asking for one before his house burned down. Yeah. But the point is, firefighting is a sort of for the greater good.
Starting point is 00:15:03 Like, it's a thing that people pay into and say, yes, obviously throughout human history, our settlements have burned down. We need people who are dedicated and trained to deal with this shit. And when there's a forest fire, we need people to train for that. So five bucks an hour for what is a nonprofit, you kind of think, well, maybe, you know, the firefighting service can't pay them huge salaries because they need a lot of them and there's not enough money to go around. And these guys do benefit with the shorter sentences and better conditions.
Starting point is 00:15:27 So maybe that's a decent deal. I don't know. But the point is, a lot of these other things, these companies are making a fucking fortune and they're doing it with essentially slave labour. So, I mean, who is making the money here? It's a couple of billionaires at the top who are really making all the money. And I think that given, I think that you have to kind of give these people a chance to build up a bankroll so they're not just homeless when they come out of prison and they can't afford anything. There is a level of exploitation and there's a level of rehabilitation. A lot of crime comes out of necessity. It comes out of poverty. If you're just going to perpetuate that cycle, it carries on. And also, if you establish
Starting point is 00:16:06 a meta where you can get these things for cheap because you're exploiting slave labour, they stay cheap. No one else invests in them. It's why no one's doing cocoa plantations, because they can get it so fucking cheap from the Ivory Coast, right? From basically slavery. And so, until that changes, right? Until there's competition, until we fix those problems there. I mean, there must be criteria for these people to be able to do these programs in the first place as well, right? Like a serial killer is not going to be fighting fires out with a team. Or am I wrong about this? I killed ten fires this week!
Starting point is 00:16:46 Yeah, no, but you know what I mean. What is the criteria? Is somebody who's raped 30 people out there fighting fires? I don't think so. I think it's probably people... a lot of people are in prison for pretty bullshit reasons. The prisons are not full of serial killers and super murderers. They're mostly full of people who... Yeah, they're in Congress, am I right? No, but some of them in there are, of course. It is kind of ironic that we are now, in 2025, we're in the first quarter, we've gone through
Starting point is 00:17:23 a quarter of this new century, the 21st century, and we've got a criminal as the leader of the free world. Brilliant. And we got like a dictator on the other side of the world, fucking threatened to nuke everyone. Maybe he did go to prison and this is his prison program. He just gets to be the president. Yeah, but he only makes five bucks an hour. That's the problem. Yeah, he's only making five bucks an hour. Who's going to be next? You get to be president for a week and then we got this serial rapist on the phone. We got a huge, we got a huge raper. He's, he's up next. He's coming in.
Starting point is 00:17:56 He's going to drain the swamp. Oh God. All right. Let's, let's get another email. Yeah. No, that was seriously like, I would love to know what the criteria is. Yeah sure, if people have more, let us know. Based on your sentence, the length of your sentence, the severity of your crime and stuff. Firefighting is an incredibly difficult job. Of course it is. I mean, imagine it's the youngest fittest man, not the sort of 50 year old.
Starting point is 00:18:22 Yeah, no, maybe I'll just go off and have a look and read up on it. Cause I feel like I'm probably not alone in my first knee jerk reaction to all this being like, well, are these, you know, these people were put in jail for a reason. Are they dangerous? Like, I know that they're doing something brave and heroic and they, you know, of course like they should get paid more for it. They're risking their lives and stuff like that. But then there's the other side where it's like, well, okay, they did get put in jail and like, what are they in there for?
Starting point is 00:18:54 I mean, why are they out? They should be in. I mean, Americans have a lot of people in prison. Yeah, they can't just have more criminals than everybody else. I think a lot of the time the stuff you go to jail for is fucking... America though, right? They'll lock you up for a lot of shit. This is the situation, right? You're a black guy, you walk across the street at the wrong
Starting point is 00:19:16 place, they get you, they arrest you for jaywalking, walking while black, right? They find some little one spliff, you know, or something like this on you, and you go to prison, you get, you know, enacted into the firefighting program, you get injured, and then you get bankrupted, do you know what I mean? Because you've got to pay the medical bills and then, you know, you're just... It's just a fucking disaster. This is a typical scenario that you're describing. Typical American life. This is every day. Alright, let's move on get we get swamped here. This is from Sam.
Starting point is 00:19:46 This is stories from a retail manager. All right. I love retail stories. If you want to send more retail stories, please do. Because I fucking love hearing about crazy. Speaking of getting paid five bucks an hour. Here we go. Here we go. Dip Perian and the lads fellow Baldy and hater of volcano worthy old people here.
Starting point is 00:20:04 That's an earlier episode, apparently. I think that was old people that are worthy of being chucked in a volcano. Right. Anyway. In a few recent podcasts, the topic of retail workers has come up. I'm a manager in a clothing retailer located in a seaside town in the southwest. You are definitely correct in the way that retail and hospitality workers get treated like crap.
Starting point is 00:20:21 Yeah. We're constantly having arguments over menial things and having the customer is always right thrown in our faces. I've witnessed on several occasions members of the public making staff cry from yelling and making personal insults. Our company tracks any aggressive incidents with staff and in the few months after Covid our store had the most accounts in the southern region from Bath, Round, Portsmouth by almost double. Last year we had over 10 assaults against staff and we've all had threats from the usual I'll be outside waiting to I'm going to come back and cut out your eyes. Wow.
Starting point is 00:20:54 The other thing mentioned was theft. Which retail store is this? Just a clothing store. I'm going to guess this could be somewhere like Plymouth or it could be like Torquay. I wonder if any of this stuff happens in sex shops, where there's already like some degree of like I feel a bit weird being in here. Do you think somebody kicks off like You fucking charged me for six dildos you fucking idiot!
Starting point is 00:21:17 If I see you outside, I'll be holding my big bag of dildos and fuck everyone's lungs and I'm gonna kick your ass! Of all the places, I think that is probably the least, right? You are trying not to be seen going around there, right? Absolutely, yeah. You're not gonna kick up a big stink like... Could you imagine though? I'm still like, you're just in a queue! You forgot your massive bag of cock rings. Well, I'll be right back to get that as soon
Starting point is 00:21:39 as I kick your ass, fucking idiot! I'll see you outside! Hold my sex dolls, I'm going in, I'm gonna kick this guy's ass, you know? But was it the made-COVID that made people go so crazy about, like, being assholes to people in shops and stuff? I think everybody went mad. Where do you think people go the most mad, though? Of every retail shop you've ever been in, what has been your most frustrating experience where you felt like you could potentially go off on one? For me it's the Apple Store. I don't... I guess I very, very rarely ever feel the need for physical aggression.
Starting point is 00:22:18 No, I mean, I've never come even anywhere close to... It's never like... I know some people feel it like up within them and they get an urge and it's some sort of animal thing that they can't control. I don't think I've ever gotten angry with the staff in a shop. I'm trying to think if I ever have. I've gotten angry with other customers in a shop who were being fucking awful to people, but I've never lost my rag with the staff. I did get angry, didn't I, in the shop which was the one in Bristol.
Starting point is 00:22:49 Just chips. Shout out to No. I was gonna say just chips. What was it called? The small furniture shop, whatever it's called. Because I ordered a futon. I told this years ago. Where is my futon?
Starting point is 00:23:01 Like that? Well, no, no. I bought it in the shop and he said he would deliver it and then I got a phone call saying they're not gonna deliver it. I want my fucking futon right fucking now. And they told me I had to come and get a van and get my own van to come and pick it up from the shop. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:23:16 Do you remember this? No. So I sort of said I'd like a refund and he sort of said no. And I was like, well, what the fuck am I supposed to do? And then he was like, don't swear at me! And then we sort of got into this bargy bargy. You started swearing more because you... Yeah, yeah. He was like, don't swear at me. And then we sort of got into this. What you started swearing more because you, you. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:23:27 Yeah. I was just swearing in general. I can swear. You know, suppose to do is definitely not swearing at someone. Like if you said you fucking asshole, what am I going to do that swearing to someone? But if you say what the fuck am I going to do now? That's just an expression of, uh, you know, you're at the end of your rope. But to say, don't swear at me, well you're a fucking adult, mate. You're a groomer. Well, you've never heard
Starting point is 00:23:51 swear words before. Get the fuck. Exactly. I think I was obviously trying to lighten the mood, you know, by being sort of jokey about it, but he obviously didn't take it like that. I think this must highlight the source of people's frustrations, especially like in a retail. I don't think I've ever been frustrated in a retail environment. I'm very much like, I'll go in, I'll buy something, pay for it. I'm out. But you worked in retail, right? I've worked in retail, yeah. So I think I have as well. I think if you have, you just know what it's like from the
Starting point is 00:24:18 other side. And you just know, like, well, I'm not going to fuck with some people just have put the gun. But the frustrating part must be if there's a perceived lack of being reasonable, you know, like in the case of the futon, it's so unreasonable to expect somebody to come and pick it up, you know, especially because they're selling a big item. It's it's perfectly reasonable to expect that you're delivering that big item one way or another. That's fair enough. But you will find a time of purchase at the time of purchase. They've said to you, oh, I'll bring it to you.
Starting point is 00:24:47 Then you're buying it under the impression that, oh, that's something that I don't mind. Yeah, of course. I can say you can buy it, but you're going to have to sort all the delivery yourself. You might say, oh, well, then no. Yeah. But yeah, so it's kind of false pretenses. Yes. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:00 And I think that must be like a root source of some people just having a meltdown. You know, like just going insane. I've remembered the one store I ever got angry with the guy in. All right. This was a small electronics slash computer shop near me. I bought some headphones like a USB headset, you know, that you put in. It's got a little mic that's arm that swings down. And I bought that and I went home and I was I was I was using them. And the bracket that goes over your head snapped and the whole thing swung down,
Starting point is 00:25:32 hit the side of my chair and shattered. So it's sort of like pendulum off my head, hit the metal leg of my chair. And the it was it was broken beyond repair. And I took it in and I said to the guy, the arm here broke and I'd like a new pair. He said, well, that's clearly a manufacturing area. You need to send it back to the manufacturer. And I said, well, that's not the case. And he was like, yeah, he says,
Starting point is 00:25:54 otherwise shops would have to be returning stuff all the time. He goes, you need to get in touch with the manufacturer and sort it through them, which is against the, which is absolutely not the case. No, that's, it's for them to send it back to the manufacturer after they've given you a replacement. It's for them to claim it back. It's a faulty product. That is literally the law. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:13 And he was adamant he wouldn't. So I told him that I was going to come back with a placard and protest outside his shop and warn people away. He said if he did that, we'd have fucking words and I didn't. I wish I had. I'm tempted to do it now to revive a 15 year old feud. Well, no, let's shout him out. Let's shout him out right now. I think you want me to name the business. Yeah, I've already done it.
Starting point is 00:26:37 You're right. I'll do it. Hold on. I'll tell you. That fucking small furniture company. When did you buy this headset? It was like 14, 15 years ago. Was it a creative fatality? Fat-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-fait-f it back to the manufacturer. I looked up the law when I got home and if you look at the Trading Act and all the rest of it, trading standards, you take it back to the shop, they deal with the manufacturer. Look at their website.
Starting point is 00:27:10 Very angry. Very angry. Look at this, look at this, guys. This is some gold stuff here. They've got like a doggo doing their losing their laptop. He doesn't know how to use a computer. This is the problem. Pflac, the company's run by a dog. I know. Yeah, well, that was him. That was the guy, there's no chance he's ever going to be dealing with the manufacturers. The guy with the sunglasses and the tie on the website. I said to him, he said, maybe you're treating him a little rough. Okay, we'll send him a replacement. Sorry. I enjoyed that P-flags treated a little rough. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:27:43 Well, he's a very bad boy. You're a bad boy. Go downstairs. All right, anyway, let me finish this email. The other thing you mentioned was theft. This is Sam's email again. It's a big issue, but I thought I'd tell you some of the funnier theft stories from their time in retail. A man with over 50 kitchen knives concealed on him with no bag. They were just up his sleeves and down his trousers and so on. A man who came in dressed as Jared Leto's Joker, a prostitute that was showing us her breast, which had been bitten by a dog, and then asking the officer if it was going to take long as she had a blowjob in a car park soon as it was blowjob Thursdays. So she'd obviously been nicked for theft
Starting point is 00:28:21 and was explaining what happened. She had a blowjob appointment in the car park. Blowjob Thursdays. I think more shops should run blowjob Thursdays. I think if it's blowjob Thursdays, you save your shoplifting for another day. You don't want to, you don't want to scupper your chances, you know? And shoplifting children. As duty of care, we have to wait for a parent or police once they're detained, which has led to a few memorable moments. A police officer who came to grab his kid and was completely silent silent but stared into your soul to where I felt like I'd done
Starting point is 00:28:48 something wrong. Interesting. A mum hitting her son over the head repeatedly shouting think you're a big man now, apologize to these men. And police officers attended and made the three young females write over ten apology letters to each store that they'd stolen from. So everyone had to write an apology letter to the stores. That's, that's interesting. Uh, I think some of these ideas are very dad ideas. Dear Dwayne sex shop. I write to you today to apologize. I stole a giant bag of cock rings the other day when we were having an altercation and the police have now made me write an apology letter to you.
Starting point is 00:29:22 There's it is without doubt. This is a low point in my life today. I see this as a tipping point going forward and would like to make restitution to your fine establishment. I have purchased you a 10 replacement doughnuts. Close please find and close 10 unused cock rings. Fortunately I used all the other ones and didn't want to send them back. Oh my God. That's closed.
Starting point is 00:29:50 That's detached. Thing is, that's only the first letter. There's nine more. Yeah, there's like all the every sex shop in the land. Betty's corner. I'm so sorry. I had to send 10 unused cock rings back to Dwayne's sex shop. Please find enclosed five unused cock rings.
Starting point is 00:30:12 I'm trying to get them out. There's not many left. I went to 10 sex parties last weekend. Oh man. Do you think there's something, like I've been watching The Office, the old US office again and I find it comforting. It's a very good show. My father had never seen it.
Starting point is 00:30:31 I might do a re-watch of that actually. It's been a while. It's a great show. And a lot of things, one of the things I noticed was they have these dramatic confrontations, these things, these moments, these things that happen, which are obviously, you know, it's a comedy show, so stupid shit has got to happen, right? But particularly stuff, particularly stuff happens where people fall out and have this terrible argument, or these terrible, have wronged each other in terrible ways. And yet, at the end of the episode, they kind of hug it out. Right? And it made me think
Starting point is 00:31:02 that this shit you do not see anymore. Or ever, I think, in real life. Most of the time, if people have some sort of beef or drama, they block each other, they cut each other off, they have... It's hard for them, very hard for them to talk it out and actually remain friends. I think it depends on the people. I think when people block people out though, it's because probably deep down they know that they are no longer able to remain civil.
Starting point is 00:31:33 It's just going to be like an explosive argument or something like that and they just think, you know what, it's never going to resolve anything or accomplish anything so I'm just going quiet. I mean, well, so me and Joe, me and Joe Hickson had a falling out last year, towards the end of the year, and it was a bad falling out. I felt awful about it for weeks. It was just a Dota... It was a Dota thing, yeah.
Starting point is 00:31:54 It was a Dota thing, where one of you got grumpy with the other. Which honestly, when I played Dota with you, I felt like sometimes you had fallen out with me. And I'd spend a couple of days afterwards thinking... That's because you were so fucking bad! And just going off on your own, and you would never win this! I'm a lone wolf! It thinking... You were so fucking bad! And just going off on your own, and you were never with us! I'm a lone wolf! Okay?
Starting point is 00:32:09 It was like you were playing single player Dota! I can't even remember it! There's no one inside me! Ow! I'm changing! One of them is the leader in the pack, but the other is the lone wolf! And I have to follow my calling! And for my own and die and throw the game. And you just went by yourself and pushed some lousy tier 2 that we didn't give a shit about while the whole team is dying. You did that every night for years.
Starting point is 00:32:37 Years. Years I did. Alright, anyway. I think we've all been there with flax and boulder though. Some of the best years of my life I gave to that. You ungrateful cunts. Well, no, it's, it's interesting though. I think it's tough to play Dota with flax because he plays it so much.
Starting point is 00:32:52 So he has the standard, you know, and he expects the, he's used to playing with a group of people who understand that standard as well. And they gel, you know, it's hard to play a competitive game with somebody, you know, like you're on different levels, you know, it's- It is. But I will say this, obviously that falling out with Joe made me reevaluate how I approached Dota and toxicity and that I was probably very unpleasant to play with. And as a result of like, the medication I'm on, I found that I've become much more chilled out and less stressed. And I felt like that Dota was such a game that required so much focus and so much intensity.
Starting point is 00:33:31 And all of my concentration that that combined with anxiety just made me awful to play with. And I've made a concerted effort, although I do for humor's sake still occasionally lose my mind with people. Shout out to Mitchie, who played yesterday. May have yelled at him a little bit. But it was like, I've really, really, really tried to stop doing it. And I hope it's made a difference. I think the thing is, if you do have that kind of argument with a friend, if neither of you is willing to back down and admit fault and say, yeah, that was my bad, the friendship
Starting point is 00:34:03 is probably not meant to be. And it's just kind of doomed. I mean, I've fallen out with really close friends of mine before. We've always made up because that's what friends do. I mean, if you're actually mates, you'll make up. It's like, nah, I'm done with that guy. It wasn't a proper friendship. Somebody getting frustrated at a game or something like that is completely forgivable.
Starting point is 00:34:22 You know, like unless unless they really like go in on you, you know, like, is completely forgivable. You know, like, unless they really go in on you, you know, like calling you a big mouth breather or something. Because- Remember, right? There was this guy that we played with called Pearson, right? And I'm still with my friends, I see him playing games and he was, I think, I think he was like the son of a priest. Okay.
Starting point is 00:34:41 Right. Or something like this, because maybe not but I'm even thinking somewhere else. But I think he like, has this thing where every time something would happen, he would either blame himself, okay. Or take responsibility. He was like, oh yeah, my bad guys. I made that mistake. I did wrong there. Like he would be the, everything to a fault, right? He would take the blame for stuff. Okay. And it was kind of endearing and actually it didn't kind of work out like, because we were raiding, right? And it's like playing Dota and someone would fuck up and we'd be all frustrated because we'd lost half an hour of progress or whatever, like because someone had stood in the fire or fallen off the edge or fucked up in some way, right? And he would always take the blame
Starting point is 00:35:21 for everything. And a lot of the time you knew that you'd fucked up and it wasn't his fault. Okay. And so you kind of gave him like a little credit. You're like, Oh, what a nice guy taking the fall for me, you know? But also like, I think a lot of times the general group knew that it wasn't his fault as well. And so they were kind of like, Oh dude, like don't, don't feel bad. Don't take the blame. And so it kind of, it diffused the whole situation. Some people have these character traits, you'll notice them throughout your life, and you'll think damn, like, that's a weird one, but kind of, I like being your friend. You know? And I think, I think we all have friends like that who you can't put a reason on why you
Starting point is 00:36:00 like them, but there's something, some traits that people have are good ones. You know, obviously like being light about stuff, being funny. Everyone knows someone who's just unreasonably funny. Like Ozzy's mom is just so funny and that is so endearing and she doesn't take herself seriously. She always has like, she's always trying to see a little joke in everything and it always sort of throws you off guard. And it's just, I don't know, there's just certain people like that, you just hug those
Starting point is 00:36:29 people and tell them you love them. Cause sometimes they don't know it. I think, I think Dav is one of the nicest guys. Unless they follow up your lane in Dota. And then it's... Well I've yelled at Dav a lot in Dota. Well yeah, if obviously his mum was messing up my lane in Dota, I think I'd be mad. I loved that. I loved when I came out to Bristol and Dav came to see Ghostface with us, if I was his mum was messing up my lane in Dota, I think I'd be mad. I loved that. I loved when I came out to Bristol and we, and Dave came to see Ghostface with
Starting point is 00:36:48 us and he was like, I'm having a mental health weekend. And he was like, gonna be in a Dota tournament. And I just thought, that is hilarious. So, Dave, so, okay, so I, we had that thing, right? And I like, was like, oh, I can't go to this important charity meeting, because I've agreed't go to this important charity meeting because I've agreed to go to this gig with Ghostface, with Sips, right? Not realising that it didn't start, you know, I thought we had to be there at like eight, but actually he wasn't even on till like half nine. So, Daff went to the charity meeting on my behalf, like dressed up in a nice suit, changed
Starting point is 00:37:19 into like regular clothes, came to the Ghostface gig, got there just in time for Ghostface, and then left, changed again and went to Motion to do a night of clubbing. And then he went straight after he was clubbing, he came back home and played Dota 2 like, boy, that guy is living a better process. That is his mental health weekend. Love him. Respect to that. Yeah. Ever heard of a data broker?
Starting point is 00:37:46 They're the middlemen collecting and selling all those digital footprints you leave online. They can stitch together detailed profiles which include your browsing history, online searches and location data. The data broker then sells your profile off to a company who delivers you a really targeted ad. No biggie, right? Well, you might be surprised to learn that these same data brokers are also selling your information to the Department of Homeland
Starting point is 00:38:09 Security and the IRS. I, for one, don't want the taxman showing up at my door because of some search I did on my phone. So to mask my digital footprints, I protect myself with ExpressVPN. Yes. With ExpressVPN, your IP address is hidden. It makes it much more difficult for everyone to track you online. I use it at home and on my phone. It encrypts 100% of your network traffic to keep your data safe from hackers especially when you're on a public wi-fi. And it works on all your devices, Lou. It works on all of them, phone, laptop, tablet, you name it, just tap one button and it's on.
Starting point is 00:38:48 I have it on my phone, I have it on my desktop. It's that easy. Protect your online privacy today by visiting expressvpn.com slash Triforce. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash Triforce and you can get an extra four months free. Expressvpn.com slash Triforce. Thank you. So this week, a lovely pair of Raycon headphones arrived at our house. I don't use headphones very often.
Starting point is 00:39:15 Mrs F uses them every time she commutes in and out of the office. She's been using them since we got them a couple of weeks ago, and she loves them. And that's because everyone says that 2025 is going to be different. For better or for worse, it will be. The world will change whether you want to make a big resolution or not. So maybe just keep it simple and say you'll hit the gym once and take it from there or call your mum. You can plan a big trip, I don't know, listen to more podcasts or something. Anything to clear your head. And one of the things that will help with that is these Raycon everyday earbuds. I recommend them. They're fantastic. Can I ask you a question?
Starting point is 00:39:44 Go for it. A quick question. Are these earbuds perfect for the gym, for at work, if I'm working and I need to listen to music while I'm working or at the gym? Yes, I absolutely think they would be. I haven't tried them at the gym yet but they have like, you know the bud bit that goes in your ear? Like the bit that? There's like different sized ones that it comes with. You can find when it fits you. If you've got a big pair of luggles like me and they fall out all the time, you'll find a pair that fits that if you have delicate little holes, they'll go in that as well. And they're nice and snug. They don't fall out.
Starting point is 00:40:13 Do they do noise cancellation? Absolutely. And if you're a busy commuter like Mrs. F, let me tell you something. It's a blooming racket traveling everywhere in London. And luckily, with the active, active noise cancellation, she's nice and snug listening to her music and can I get them in all sorts of weird and exciting colors that help me express myself to the max? You can. We got to think. Oh, oh 30 day happiness guaranteed policy of returns. No questions asked.
Starting point is 00:40:48 You can just return them. And you can get 15% off site wide at buyraycon.com. Raycon is R-A-Y-C-O-N.com slash Triforce. 15% off at buyraycon.com slash Triforce. So there you go. Go for it. On with the show. On with the show.
Starting point is 00:41:04 All right. Let's move on to the next email. Hi, guys. My name is blank and I'm going to censor it. And I'm a delivery driver for Sainsbury's in the great north of Yorkshire. Nice. I've been listening to the podcast since the dawn of time. And I've gotten through the whole podography at least three times. Driving for eight hours a day, five days a week means I have a lot of time for listening. Anyway, I thought you all might be interested in hearing a little bit of the behind the scenes of being a supermarket delivery driver. Yes.
Starting point is 00:41:29 I'll bullet point these to make your life easier. Thank you. Uh, number one, we have the power to give you almost anything from your order for free. The handsets we are provided with give us the option to refund and return any item that is on your order. Substitutes, short dates, etc. However, we also have the option to leave with customer. This refunds you the money for the item and lets you keep it free of charge. Most of the drivers I know will use this feature so that we don't have to put the items back on the shelf at the end of our run. So if you're nice to us and you aren't 100% certain
Starting point is 00:41:57 about a short life or a substituted item, just let us know. Most of the time, we'll let you keep it. Wow. That is like a little hack there. That is a little hack, Wow. That is like a little... A little hack there, yeah. That is a little hack, yeah. That's nice. Well, I do remember this when I worked in... when I worked on the bar.
Starting point is 00:42:11 I only did it for a couple of years, at this hotel. What, as a lawyer? On the bar. I'd get people off for free. Yeah, do you know what? I think you're a nice guy. How many murders you done? Don't worry about it.
Starting point is 00:42:23 We'll sort that one right out. He's a cracking firefighter. That's all I'm just saying. Don't worry. You only get two terms as president for that crime. Yeah. So no, I worked and I would give people free drinks if I liked them all the time. And you know, it's, it's, it's, you know, the manager was like, you know, just, you
Starting point is 00:42:42 want to keep people happy, keep people sweet, you know, get them coming back. You know, you got to lean into that. And you do, you, yeah. Just how about you're nice to people and you get free stuff as well. I used to work at Blockbuster and I was too lazy to, to, uh, charge people late fees. So I'd waive them all the time. And, uh, man, I made so many friends at that job is crazy. Well, this is it.
Starting point is 00:43:02 I'm not nice to servers because I want, because I'm nice. I'm nice to them because I want free stuff. You know? That's the, play the game people. Well, here you go. We can and will, this is the dark side of it. Blacklist your address from ever making another online order. This is a scarcely used power that we have that is saved for the worst of the worst.
Starting point is 00:43:22 For example, I once delivered to a guy who had no intention of controlling his dog when I was delivering to his house. The dog came running out, jumping up at me and was constantly barking at me. The customer laughed it off and said he just wanted attention. The dog then proceeded to run around me and scratch the back of my leg, I was wearing shorts as it was summer, drawing a decent amount of blood and leaving a long cut on the back of my calf. The customer did not apologise or make any attempt to stop the dog. He just laughed and called the dog a little rogue. After my run, I returned to the store and told my manager and they agreed it was unacceptable and blacklisted the customer.
Starting point is 00:43:54 That customer no longer shops with Sainsbury's. Number three, your frozen food is not quite as frozen as you think. Our vans are not equipped with freezers on board. We do have a refrigerator which stays at a chilly two degrees when the engine is running. This is where most of your chilled items stay, along with large black cooler boxes that have a frozen plate inside. Your frozen items are kept in here merely with the hope that they stay frozen. However, they do not. Over an eight hour run they do begin to defrost. Only slightly, but nonetheless, if you're worried about defrosting and refreezing, I recommend you don't order frozen food. And finally...
Starting point is 00:44:26 Yeah, well I don't eat meat, so it's less of a problem for me. But I think the other thing is, it's fighting in the UK right now, for three months a year at least, it's fucking minus two anyway. So, you know, don't need to worry about that. Yeah, especially up north. Christ. Worse if you live in LA, I imagine. God.
Starting point is 00:44:44 Yeah, God. I mean, your food would be on fire, for one thing. This is a small PSA. I've lost count of the amount of customers who ask me, why have you given me X when I ordered Y? When I explain to the customers that there are not enough hours in the day for me to pick all of yours and the other 19 customers shopping, load it all into my van and then come deliver it to you, they're always surprised. They think the delivery guy is the one doing the picking. So what they call picking is when... ALICE Yeah, somebody goes around the store or the warehouse and loads up your order.
Starting point is 00:45:09 SEAN Exactly. That's what my mum did for a while when she worked at a supermarket before she retired. So yeah, that was it. It's the picker that does it. Sometimes they'll even give you the wrong sausages. Regular sausages instead of vegan sausages. ALICE I think we saw a lot of this during Covid, like, people's shopping lists were fucking insane. Like, I think one of my cousins... I don't know how he's related to me. My cousin...
Starting point is 00:45:33 My uncle's... Well, he sounds like your cousin. My uncle's wife's uncle, or something like this. His shopping list during Covid was like, two bottles of whiskey, like, just steaks, and crisps. That was it. That's what he lived on for the week. You know, it was good. Yeah. What a legend. I used to collect shopping lists that I found at the supermarket. Oh wow. Before we did online shopping. I probably still got them in my office somewhere. I had dozens and dozens and dozens. And one of the guys at the waitress near
Starting point is 00:46:03 me saw me doing that, and said that he would keep an eye out for shopping lists for the next time I'd come in, and sometimes he'd give me a couple. And my mum would collect them from the waitress that she worked at, and when I'd get down to see her she'd give me a bag of shopping lists. Nice. Oh, do you mean handmade ones? Yeah, handwritten shopping lists. They always find them in the bottom of trolleys, people always leave them behind, yeah. Or on that little clipboard that's on the front of the trolley.
Starting point is 00:46:25 It's got like a little metal clip that you can fold up. Yeah. That's to pop your shopping list on. They sound fascinating. It's all old people handwriting, and the fascinating thing is, first of all, people's spelling is hilariously bad at times, and also the list you can see, if this is a list that's been left out, and people are just meant to add stuff to it throughout the week, so you'll have multiple different handwritings and different pen styles, you know, like different coloured pens.
Starting point is 00:46:50 So this is obviously the family list, and then someone's brought this in and done the shopping. I used to love it, some of them were hilarious. I'll try and dig them out. I'll try and dig them out. ALICE Yeah, god, have you got like a box of them under your bed or something? RILEY Yeah, look, I've literally got a bag somewhere
Starting point is 00:47:03 with all these lists in, I just... ALICE There's a little mission for Triforce listeners. Send us in your weird shopping list. If you are out and you see a shopping list, don't... you just send a picture of a shopping list. Yeah, absolutely. Or like, even if it's mundane, you know, just normal stuff. I still want to know what...
Starting point is 00:47:19 I want an insight into the minds of the shopper. I mean, especially people who still write lists out. Because what I'll do is if me and Mrs. F are... Oh, we need the lady with the coupon voice. The coupon lady voice. But I'll do the WhatsApp. So I'll say send me a list of what you want and I'll just read it off WhatsApp. I won't write it out. Oh, right. I'll just go with it. Yeah. I just...
Starting point is 00:47:39 Yeah, so I guess it's a certain generation. Yeah. So it's mainly older people and the things that they buy are very interesting. I used to work at a grocery store and occasionally, well, occasionally, every week somebody would come in and it was like a shopping list for a charity. So they had this charity set up whereby they would give people a set list of groceries that they could go get. So if you came into the store and you presented this list at the front desk, they'd be like, okay, yeah, we'll go get that for you and then bring it back and either deliver it or whatever.
Starting point is 00:48:15 So the lists were always the same, but like depending on who did it, some people would pick like all the value stuff, you know, like the, like the value range stuff. They would load up like every item on the list. They would find like the cheapest thing and put them in. But if I did it, I would always put the most expensive, like all the branded like really expensive stuff in. Like I'd make the whole thing. I actually got in trouble for doing it one time. Crazy. Like I go like, you know, like you put like all like the, uh, you know,
Starting point is 00:48:43 like, you know how you got like tiers of stuff you have like, like, like the, the, like the everyday or the value range. And then you have like the middle tier, which is normally like the branded stuff. And then you have like the high tier, you know, like if you go to MNS, it's like, uh, you know, like the, the, uh, president selection or, you know, some shit like that, you just load the whole thing up with like all the president selection stuff. But, uh, yeah, I got, got shit like that. You just load the whole thing up with, like, all the president's selection stuff. But yeah, I got got in trouble.
Starting point is 00:49:07 So I had to I had to bust it down. I had to go for like the branded stuff. It was too much. It was too exquisite, you know? All right. This this is a question, an office question that has sparked a little bit of controversy around the office, this person's office. And we're going to we're going to try and resolve this for them. So how many items would you have if you had the following quantities? All right, so give me a numerical value for these quantities.
Starting point is 00:49:34 A handful. A handful, like five. A handful is, yeah, I'd say like seven. Okay. A couple. Two. That's two. Right. Several. Three. That's like three or four. Okay. What about a few? Three. That's three. A few is three. A couple is two. A
Starting point is 00:49:51 few is three. A handful is like more than several. Yeah. Several's like four. Several's in between a few and a handful. So, so this is what old Mitch has come up with. A couple is two. Obviously a couple is two. Yeah, of course. Like if someone says a couple, that means two. We are a couple. If somebody says, I'll give you a couple and they give me three, I'll even go as far as to say you've given me a few here. Yeah, this is a few.
Starting point is 00:50:15 I asked for a couple. You give me a few. Exactly. A handful. Sure. Handful, four to six. Around five, because that's how many fingers you've got. That's a handful.
Starting point is 00:50:24 Yeah. Oh, okay. That's a half. Yeah. That makes sense. I like that. I like that. So Mitch lists a few as three to four. And I think that makes sense. It's just a few, three or four. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:50:32 What about a ton if somebody says I ordered a ton? Oh, I'm talking dozens. Yeah. Absolutely tons. What about a metric ass load? Oh, that's so much. That's multiple tons. That's too much.
Starting point is 00:50:44 That's like a That's too much. That's like a double. Yeah. And, um, old Mitch thinks that like, uh, between six and nine is several. Cause several is around seven. I like the amount of thought you put into this Mitch, because I know everybody thinks about this stuff deep down, you know, like you, you have thought about shower thoughts for sure. Just like shower thoughts. Yeah. For sure. And then I realized, well, stupid thing to be thinking about. But we use these words all the time.
Starting point is 00:51:08 Get me a few. And, you know, get me a few cans of cider. Right? Now, if someone comes back with two, I would say no. I didn't say get me a couple. Yeah. I would say get me a few, which is three to four. But if I said I want several, several different varieties, you would want a range, right? That would be like five, six, seven. So, it makes sense. Anyway, some of the colleagues think that a couple is more than a few, that a few things is less than a couple of things. Unless a few means one, it cannot be less than a couple. There's no way. I'm with you, Mitch. I'm with you.
Starting point is 00:51:38 We're with you, Mitch. I think we all line up here. We are with you. We got an answer to the Tenerife dogs questions you had, Lulu. Oh, sweet! Hello? Sweet, yeah. I'm talking, I'm talking. Sorry, I was like, oh, someone listened to my...
Starting point is 00:51:52 I was interested, yeah. Yeah, good. I was like, I couldn't figure it out. So, aloha, Jack here. To answer Lewis's question about the outdoor dogs on Tenerife, due to the average temperature year round being rather comfortably warm, the locals probably keep any dogs that's not absolutely tiny outdoors permanently. I don't want probabilities. I don't want any assumptions here. You started this email with an aloha which made me think you were some sort of not from Spain. Hold on, hold on.
Starting point is 00:52:22 As they can tend to stink, especially in subtropical and tropical climates, resulting in them becoming extremely territorial of their locked up area, like any indoor dog does in their own home with intruders. So it's best to have them on a leash or behind a fence rather than mauling unsuspecting tourists. Where my family is from, which is an even smaller island with similar weather, it's odd to keep dogs inside the house. Every now when I go on walks day after day around the same block, the dogs still bark unceasingly at me. So this is a temperature thing.
Starting point is 00:52:52 Right. People keep their dogs outside. Okay. Right. That's the answer. It's because they're sweaty and they get territory about the garden that smells of them. Yes. I think that's it. Wow. Okay. Really crazy. Yeah. Cause we went for a walk and actually, there were some big dogs locked up in a cage and they started going and there was a much smaller
Starting point is 00:53:12 dog, like a toy poodle that was loose. And it just came out into the middle of the road and it was barking at me and yapping at me really loud. And my partner was obviously scared of it, but compared to the other dogs that I'd seen on this walk, this little toy poodle looked like the most, I could have, basically I could have kicked it into space. Do you know what I mean? If I'd wanted to, you know, just a quick movement and that dog would have been a twinkle in the sky, you know? But I, I obviously, but I, cause I'd been quite frightened, you know, on this walk by these big dogs, like pause up, you know, barking at me at head height. Got you.
Starting point is 00:53:46 And suddenly I was sort of confronted by this one, which obviously they don't need to keep in the garden, because even the most scared of dog guy will not be that, like, threatened by this toy poodle's barking. But I sort of almost went the other way. I was like, oh, good on you. I'm going to let you have your little moment where you think you're a big scary dog and have defended the house and I just edge around you as if you were... It was almost like I was playing with a toddler though and I was like, oh, you got me! Oh, well done! Kind of thing.
Starting point is 00:54:19 Yeah. You just gotta placate them sometimes, for sure. Yeah. It's like, I'm slowly backing away. You win, big guy. IICE I'm slowly backing away! And I'm gonna eat sausages! ALICE You win, big guy! You win, big guy! RILEY This is, with regards to the lengthy discussion about rice and chips in episode 287, I think this is after I'd been up to Birmingham, and I said that they wanted to give you chips with everything you could curry.
Starting point is 00:54:40 ALICE Oh, I'd have chips with rice easy, that'd be good. RILEY Right, well, that was a big discussion. ALICE Half rice, half chips, great, great. SEAN You might be interested in some of the fast food traditions we have in my region of Sweden, which is Värmland, I think I'm saying that right. ALICE Right. Ooh, vermland, this sounds bad already.
Starting point is 00:54:55 SEAN It's V-A-R-M-Land, but the A has two dots over it. ALICE Right. Oh. SEAN So I think it's Värmland, of Värmland, anyway. In Sweden it's common to be able to order mashed potatoes with most of your fast food. Right. Chips are, of course, also available in the whole country. I'll say varmland, however.
Starting point is 00:55:12 It's common to order your burger, hot dog, et cetera, with harterhärta. This is basically regional dialect for half and half. I apologize, Swedes, for my help. Härta. Härta. It means you get your serving with half chips, half mash. Nice. Sounds fantastic. The way of eating this is commonly to use the mashed potato as a dip for your chips.
Starting point is 00:55:30 Oooh, that does sound nice. Is it like really creamy mashed potato? I don't know. I don't know. It's mash. That sounds good. I mean to me that is disgraceful. Well it does need some other thing.
Starting point is 00:55:42 You have to have something like gravy or some sort of sauce on there. Oh, do you? Well, apparently this is chips and mash, Lewis. And you dip the chips in the mash. No, no, no. You can put a bit of gravy on there. They must have other things. But then why not just have gravy and chips or gravy and mash?
Starting point is 00:55:55 Gravy and chips. Or maybe they have pickles. Let me ask you a question. Would you make a sandwich where you've got a piece of brown bread, put a piece of white bread in there, and then another piece of brown bread on top. That sounds crazy. Would you do that? Well, what's in between all the bread?
Starting point is 00:56:10 Nothing, mate. It's bread and bread. It's just bread and bread. But that is a thing. There's a toast sandwich, is that? Isn't it? Do you ever eat them? No. Why not, Lewis? It's bread and bread. It's much like potato and potato. I do agree with the whole doubling down on the same thing's not a good idea, but I still think with the sauce it'll be fine.
Starting point is 00:56:31 I could eat of an evening a bowl of mashed chips and a bit of gravy, that would be a great boy dinner. The thing is, you're talking about a whole region of a country where this is clearly popular. You're just one single man with this opinion. No, I am. This is in place. This is a solid in place thing that people, many people enjoy, more than one person enjoy. So sometimes you just can't question it, you know?
Starting point is 00:57:01 Yeah, you can't question it. Like all those people in prison, I'm sure they're all good people, right, Sips? A lot of people are breaking crimes and going to prison, mate. You can't question it, you know? Yeah, you can't question it. Like all those people in prison. I'm sure they're all good people, right, Sips? Well... A lot of people are breaking crimes and going to prison, mate. You can't question it. Well, I mean, you can. I'm saying these people should be locked up. You're eating chips with mash?
Starting point is 00:57:15 You should... You have betrayed the ways of our constitution by combining one carb with a similar carb in a kebab shop takeaway. You have broken our cardinal rules. And must be punished. Madness! It's childish!
Starting point is 00:57:29 Just stop doing it! You will be banished to the far north! I think it sounds great. I would totally eat that and enjoy it too. Like, it's perfect. I still think they're half rice half chips, Welsh strategy on the kebab. Great. Half of you?
Starting point is 00:57:43 You could have rice and chips with some curry sauce on there. That'd be delicious. I'd eat that. Yeah. I think also as a veggie is easier because I think, you know, most people might think half rice, half chicken or half chips, half chicken. It's just that, it's just, we just like the rice had, I like, I do, I love like a garlic naan bread, but I don't mind how it is. I don't mind if it's like, you know, if it's just been nuked in the oven by accident and it's crispy. I like it like that. Or when it's just like really soft and fluffy. I'll have it like that too. I don't care. I'm just like.
Starting point is 00:58:21 And would you fill that naan bread with rice? Sometimes. Yeah. If I feel like it. Just right. I would put it with loads of rice in there. What about slices of bread? Yeah. I might put some slices of bread in there. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Right. Yeah. How many slices are we talking? I love bread. So I have 50, Several. How many loaves is that? Several. Several. That's weird.
Starting point is 00:58:48 Weird food to one of my friends. So like seven, we're talking seven slices of bread inside, like a really nuked crispy naan or like a really soft one. With whatever, however you want, have it your way mate. This is your car bloat. You could get, I reckon you could put anything in a toasty. My friend does do this quite often. They get a mug, like a big mug, and they break, they rip up pieces of bread, put it in the
Starting point is 00:59:12 mug and pour milk in. It's like hedgehog food or something. And they have this, they sort of eat this like, bready, milky, floating, weird cereal. I don't think I would do that. That does not sound very good for me. I can't think it would be, it looks so unappealing to me. I like dipping bread in gravy, you know, like if you have some gravy left over on your plate. I like to, I like to soak up some bread. That's what it's for.
Starting point is 00:59:38 Do you ever use your bread to pick up other bits of bread? Yeah. Like if, if like a couple of bits fell off, like a previous attempt at dunking, I would use my bread to pick up those bits. Yeah, you can dab those up. I'm right, but I'm saying, you've got a slice of bread in your hand, and a slice of bread on the plate, do you just press that slice in your hand into the one on the plate, and then, mmm, two pieces of bread. I mean, I'm gonna have to get back to you and try it.
Starting point is 01:00:06 That's not a typical scenario for me, but I'm not come across it. I'm adventurous. I'll try it. Yeah. That is wild man shit right there. I'm more into that than the mug of milk and bread. Yeah. I think I would be more likely to try that over seven slices of bread inside my naan bread as well.
Starting point is 01:00:27 Yeah. So, here's a quick email from Jacob, why did we stop doing the best things episode? We just forgot. Yeah, I think that's literally it. What was the best things episode? Best technology, for example. It was like, we can do one. But the thing is, the mailbag...
Starting point is 01:00:42 Like, is this... No, no, no, no, no. Like, when we said, what is the best technology? Oh. Like, the most... It's a timing right, and stuff, we can do one. But the thing is, the mailbag. Like, big ups, or like, is this... No, no, no, no, no. Like, when we said, what is the best technology? Oh. Like, the most... It's a timing thing for us. I mean, we did the best Minecraft block, and people hated that. I've been watching a lot of 24 Hours in Police Custody recently, and I think the best technology
Starting point is 01:00:55 has got to be CCTV. I also watched a London bombings documentary, and CCTV was key in tracking down... Was it? Yeah. documentary and CCTV was key in tracking down the failed bombings like two weeks later. They managed to track them all down with CCTV. I mean, it did also result in the death of that Brazilian guy, Jonathan de Menezes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it was awful.
Starting point is 01:01:19 Here's the thing about this podcast. We record on Thursdays pretty reliably and we have done for years and we usually try and talk about things that are going on, current events, what we've been up to, blah, but then sometimes we also record on Fridays. Now not every week because we're busy, but and then we tend to do the mailbags then to cover us in case we miss it. We didn't used to do mailbags. And so since the mailbags come along, we haven't needed to do these other silly ideas. Now I have got some funny ideas for other things. Oh, you're not going to pitch them?
Starting point is 01:01:52 Not going to pitch them. Just because they're not fully formed yet. Okay, alright. But we might do that. I mean, it's tricky to think about, right? We do have a Patreon where we put out ad-free versions of this, but we don't really push it and we don't really ask for it too much. I was talking to... We're not doing special kind of content on there. I know some podcasts make absolute
Starting point is 01:02:12 bank doing that, but we... I don't know, we've got enough... There's already enough members things going on. You know, you guys, if you like, you can sub to, on Twitch, to Sips and Pflac, who are streaming, often at the same time. Yeah, we do. Funnily enough. almost every weekday. Jason Vale I mean, I stream in the evening sometimes. Jason Vale Very similar hours, yeah, during the day. Jason Vale Yeah, but during the day. I mean, because otherwise I'm just fucking sitting around.
Starting point is 01:02:32 Jason Vale Yeah. Jason Vale It's literally, I would just be sitting around. The days when I, like if we record, and then I have to do something, and then it's like 1.30 and I think I won't stream, I just sit there playing fucking video games anyway. So I would, you know, normally I would stream because I'm just like, well, I mean, if I wasn't a streamer, I would still just be playing video games all day. Yeah. Because I'm a degenerate. Yeah, same. There's a lot. Last one here.
Starting point is 01:02:53 This is from Adam from Ireland. I just want to say love the show. Blah, blah, blah. Catching up on the podcast. I've just listened to, by the way, the blah, blah, blah was Adam's. I'm not blah, blah, blah. Adam's email. Catching up on the podcast and have just listened to Mailbag 15. This is 28th of June 2023 when the first mission of a Triforce geocache has come up. I am a software engineer for Ericsson Ireland working in their software campus in Athlone and thinking that Triforce
Starting point is 01:03:17 geocache is a great idea, have taken a small slip of paper with the words, if you find this, email the tiny penis podcast, hearingflags.gmail.com and hidden it somewhere in the office. I'm hoping that by the time I catch up to more recent podcasts and when, if this email is read out, someone else will have also found the paper and mailed in. I love the show really brightens up my day. Thank you, Adam. I have received no such email.
Starting point is 01:03:37 So someone's, so you've hidden a piece of paper in your office. Yeah, somewhere in the office that says to email us at the tiny penis podcast. Now no one's going to email that, in my opinion, no one's ever going to email that. What I would like if somebody does do this weird geocache thing, go for it. But maybe just say email the Triforce podcast with the words, I have a tiny penis. That way it's only a serious people that will bother doing it. And you got to take a picture of the geocache and tell us where it was. Maybe you got to like, I don't really care about incentive as well. Say if you want like five bucks, do
Starting point is 01:04:09 this. No, I ain't giving nobody five bucks. No, neither am I. It's just like a scam. No, but you don't want to write too much on this. No, do you? You don't want to say on the note, if he, please email this thing with a picture of where you found it and a, and your name and address and we'll send you send you five bucks is ridiculous. You can't do all that nonsense. What are you talking about?
Starting point is 01:04:27 You're not giving somebody five bucks so you wouldn't pay a prisoner to be a firefighter? Is that what you're saying? That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah, I knew it. If your house was burning down, would you pay a minimum wage slave prisoner to come out and save your house? Yeah. If I was desperate, I would do anything, honestly.
Starting point is 01:04:46 Okay. I know. So anyway, that's enough podcasts. That's the podcast. Let us know about that geocache. I never got into geocaches anyway, but if you want to do it, then do it. Yeah. I've got something to talk about similar to that, but it can wait.
Starting point is 01:05:02 Cause I'm again, it's a little secret thing I'm working on. Right. It's 2025. He's a, he's a, it's a, it's a mystery year. Lewis is he's in the lab. He's cooking up, he's cooking up all sorts of great new ideas, surprises and mysteries and secrets. Oh, I spoke to Dav about something I think would be quite fun to do.
Starting point is 01:05:20 I'll talk to you about it afterwards. I've got an idea of something that'd be fun to do. Really? All right. Let's have a little mini meeting. I'm going to you about it afterwards. I've got an idea of something that'd be fun to do. Really? All right. Let's have a little mini meeting. I'm going to tell you right now really quickly. No, no, no. Don't do it on the popcorn. Taking the TGV to Paris. We're going to take the Euro tunnel, the Euro star to Paris. We all are. Me, you and Lewis. We're going on the road this year. It's going to happen.
Starting point is 01:05:42 Okay. But where from? From what? What is our departure? We're going to leave from St. St. Pancras and then we're going to go straight to Paris, France on the Euro Star. Sounds great. Sounds great. Let's do it. That's okay. And then we're going to we're going to go to Paris for a couple hours and come back the same day. Fantastic. Wow. It's going to be wild. Okay. I love it. Oh, it's going to be OK. I love it. Oh, I can't wait.
Starting point is 01:06:06 All right. All right. Thanks for the emails. Thanks for listening and thanks for writing. And we'll see you next time. Goodbye. Goodbye.

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