Triforce! - Trust in the Sniff Test | Triforce #354

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Triforce! Episode 354! Pyrion's getting his poop scanned with dumpy bags, we're trusting dogs to sniff test for everything these days, we've been watching reboots like Poirot, He-Man and Balamory and we dive into the modern world of viral marketing. 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

Hickax. Hello everyone, welcome to the TriForce podcast. Hello everyone, welcome to the TriForce podcast. I did it a little bit more upbeat than you did. Yeah, I'll do the more down. Okay, let me try again. Hey everybody, welcome you're the TriForce podcast. Woo!

Deng freaking red, dude! All right, I can't tell that. No, because that was really good, yeah. That should be the intro every single week just to get. everybody, you know, really revved up, pumped up. Really razzed up. Yeah. I love crack!

Jesus, sorry. I went to with Dave Chappelle, I think. Yeah, you did. Yeah, it's really, really good. Famously loves crack, as we all. Very animated. Let's start the podcast as we mean to go on. Football news.

Oh, my God. Well, listen, P-Flex, I know you have to go early, so this is a short podcast. Yeah, we can make it shorter. I can just. Let me just, it's quite interesting. There's some quite interesting football stuff that's happened this season. QI, right, you're promising. So here is the TLDR of this Premier League season has been interesting.

Number one, Arsenal and Man City are locked in a title race that began with Arsenal being dominant and Man City being nowhere. I never be thinking Arsenal won the title. Two, Arsenal bottling it week after week after week. And Man City have just overtaken them after a result last night to the point where now they're neck and neck on points, but Man City are ahead on goal difference by three goals. So they're only slightly ahead. And the next few results are going to be insanely tight.

It's quite interesting. Chelsea had a manager called Liam Rosignor, who was Strasbourg's coach in League and had done well there. And they signed him on a five, six-year deal, something like that. And he's gone after 23 games. He didn't even last a whole season. They've lost five in a row without scoring, which has never happened in their history. So he's gone.

At the other end of the table, Spurs, one of the biggest clubs in the UK, are probably going to get relegated this season. They've been a disaster. They've had manager after manager after manager. It's genuinely been quite an interesting season in that regard. Nice. Liam Roseniard did this weird thing.

I said to my mates, anyone that actually follows football, no, you guys don't. I said that in interviews, he acted like a contestant on a game show where the objective was to appear to be a football man. manager. So he talked to like, he would say all these weird things and he just didn't seem to understand how to come across as a leader. I think he's more of a tactician type. But even then, he was dreadful. But the weirdest thing was that his players did things like they had a huddle at one point on the pitch before the match. But the referee was stuck in the middle of the

huddle. And they didn't like let him out. They had like huddled around the ref. And they had like, you know, that head down, arms on their shoulders. All right, guys, we're going to go out there and give it 110%. But the ref was just sort of static. in there in the middle of the huddle, which was really weird. Well, the moment somewhere that happens, the team is doomed. Doomed. Dumed. Anyway, carry on.

No, fascinating. So the drama is that he's been pushed out three months into a six-year contract. He hasn't been pushed out. He was doing so badly. He's gone. And the other end of the thing, yeah, Coventry have been promoted to the Premier League for the first time in forever. And Lester, who won the league 10 years ago, have been relegated to League 1. That's championship news.

Right. Well, League 1 is like, not. It's the third tier. It's the third tier of football. It's very confusing. It used to be Division 1, Division 2, Division 3, Division 4. Then it became the Premier League and then Division 1, Division 2, Division 3. Then they were like, no, no, no, no.

The second one should be called the Championship. And then you've got to call League 1. It's laughable. It's like, you know, you start at the lowest tier is silver. You know, it's this given, you know, it's to give them, make them feel less bad. It's bizarre. That's what it is. It is bizarre.

So, yes, football news. Do you want more sports news? I feel like I would love to follow football and understand it, but there's such a huge barrier to entry, you know, like, you have to, you've got to have like the Sky Sports package. No, you don't. No, you know. You can follow so much of it online these things. You got to understand like match of the day and stuff.

I remember one time I was watching match of the day. And, you know, like they show the hot. highlights or whatever. And I didn't realize that it was just highlights. I was like, holy, this is like the fastest football game I've ever seen. Like every play is just insane. And then I realized, oh, hang on a second. Hang on one minute. I like that around and stuff. Yeah. That's good. It was late. That's great. It was late at night. You know, I understand. I think it's it's like any hobby. You know, if you're into it, then you enjoy it. It's like any TV shows. It's like a, there's the characters. There's this weird guy.

That weird guy. I wonder what this stupid guy's going to do next. It's all part of the whole parcel of the thing, right? Yeah, it is. I get it, Pflax. You're into it. We're not. That's just how it is.

You know, if I start telling you about something I was interested in, you know. This happens all the time. You guys were literally talking about World of Warcraft for 10 hours last time. Yeah. I've kicked it. I'm not even on it anymore. Just like that.

Just like that. I'm done. I haven't played it all week. Are you itching for it? Or are you just like, Oh, I'm fucking playing satisfactory again. So it's like, I'm just like, I'm down the rabbit hole. Here we go.

You guys talking about satisfactory. That's my... Right down the damn hole. That's me talking about football is you guys talking about satisfactory or something. Well, I think it's easier for you to get to satisfaction that is for us to get to football. No, it's not. No, because I've looked to satisfactory and it's a job as a game. It's a literal job.

It is a job. It is a job. It is just a satisfying job, though. Very satisfying. Like, I feel like, you know, I feel like as soon as I'm, moved into this house and I had actual like real jobs to do. I don't want to do the virtual jobs anymore. Oh, see, I'm the opposite. The more the more real life jobs I have, I let them stack up and I'm just like, I'm, I'm hiding away in the virtual world to avoid all these real jobs. You'll get to that

point too. Don't worry. Eventually. I think, I think like when you first move in, there's like, there's a lot of jobs where it's manageable, but just wait until they get really complex and you get a bit older and a bit more tired and you're just like, fuck these real jobs. Like, just give me a virtual power washer or like, let me drive a dump truck around in GTARP or something like that. Like, you know, you're looking for like, like, uh, like the easy outs. You're looking for like some, some nice chill rabbit holes. Become like a, like a, like a full time fisherman and Red Dead Redemption 2 or a hunter.

Oh, yeah, that'd be good. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, I think that would be lovely because, you know, in real life, you know, my partner's currently just gone home for a week to stay with her mum because I think it's a bit too much for a year with all the stuff going on. There's guys dumping around the loft and, you know, crashing and bashing.

And one of my family members isn't very well. I need to go and see them in the hospital because, you know, today. And I don't know, like, it's a tough time at work. at the Oggscast I mean it's work It's work It is work But it's it's it's a tough time

I think there's a lot of Challenges And it's a bit overwhelming And I'm not having I'm not having a good time To be honest I'm starting to hear that Historical low

Jesus Are you crying? No I'm not crying I'm fine I'm just sniffling Just Just one sniffling

Because you're crying I'm worried No I'm not crying I'm not going It's fine You don't need a virtue I just hug. That's the best I can offer it this time.

I'm down in a couple of weeks. I'll give you a big hug. If you log into World of Warcraft in a minute, I can slash hug you if that'll make you feel better. Excellent stuff. I think it's a funny thing is that it's all about perspective, right? Because like when one bad thing happens, you're like, oh, that's fine. You know, it's inevitable. But when like everything's really annoying, it's very easy to, your nerves are a bit

frayed and you get a bit more like knee jerky. You're like, ah. Yeah. when something another annoying thing happens you know it's just like a bit too much but just try not to go crazy with it you know don't like don't buy a Ferrari and then start wearing a scarf and sunglasses and you know what i mean like just try to just maintain you'll get through it life is like a series of ups and downs right and like uh if you if you if you can weather weather the downs and uh and recover quickly and you get back to the next up or whatever that's the way to do it you know don't

don't let it, don't let it get you down. You'll be fine. You got a new house. You got to see the bright side of everything. I did do one thing. I don't know if I told you, I bought a garden shredder. Did I take this? You actually bought it?

Shredder? Yeah, I bought like a really fancy garden shredder. Yeah. Yeah, like a chipper, but it's a shredder. You're going to Fargo your partner or what? Shee. That's great idea. Yeah.

And for what? For what? For a little bit of money. That's what she says to. I love that final line. Yeah, mulcher. Multure up. Real good. No, it's honestly, I've used it a bit. And because, you know, I've been cutting down a lot of the overgrowth.

And it was just in a big pile. I was like, I reckon I could shred all this. And I haven't waited. I don't know. When you spend like a grand on a shredder, which is a lot, right? What are you going to do with the mulch? You're going to line some of your flower beds with it or something? Well, exactly.

What is we've been buying a, because a lot of these flower beds, we bought some compost, from like a local place and it comes in like a ton bag and it's 65 quid or whatever for a huge amount of fucking compost. But they also sell woodship, right? Yeah. For like, you know, the same price like 50 quid. For a huge dumpy bag.

Right. You can fill your own dumpy bags now with all your own shit. Exactly. So I've currently filled two full dumpy bags full of the big dumpy bags. Filling my big dumpy diaper with all my shit. So effectively I've saved myself. 100 pounds of woodchip, not that I needed to buy wood chip, but do you mean, like, once I, if I can ever shred, 20 dumpy bags worth it, it'll pay back the cost of the shredder.

What's a dumpy bag? Honestly, don't think, I'm a bag you dump into. Look it up. You dump like, he's dumping all of his mulch in there. He's calling it dumpy bags. Dumpy bags. Yeah, and I'm not sure. I've just, that has been very cathartic, honestly, I will say, like shredding stuff.

Oh, it's like one of those big bolt bags that looks like a, a, a garden area. Yeah, it's like, almost like a plasticy, like a hard plastic that's like uh you know what talking of a dumpy bags because i turned 50 the my gp sent me a thing saying we're going to keep screen you for bowel cancer they we do it for all our past passengers all of our passengers life's passengers when they turn 50 so uh passengers on the train of life will have a free bowel cancer screening session exactly they sent me a kit in the past happy birthday here's a bowel cancer screening thank you so much oh my god

So I've got to do it myself, and there's instructions on the inside of the box about how to do it, and it's got pictures. And it uses the term poo, which made me laugh. It doesn't say stool or feces or something like that. It says poo. I know. But it says, like, so the thing is, it's like a little, it looks like it's a little tiny sort of box, like a long box, and you pull out the sampling stick, which is kind of a grooved stick. I'm getting a little bit. Hold on.

Hold on. And you rub it on the poo. Now, the thing is, you. You don't put it up your butt. You rub it on the poo. So here's the thing. It says in the instructions, do not add more poo. We only need a little bits.

I can just imagine people adding little sachets of extra poo just in case and posting that and some poor NHS worker haven't to open it up. I would be opening that up with a full fucking welding mask on because people do all kinds of things. Imagine it was like a big box and you opened it up and it was just a bunch of old like takeaway tins filled with poo. somebody sent in like the mother load of dumps. I was talking to one of my friends last night. I screen my entire extended family.

Here are all the dumps that you need. I've been saving them for 40 years. She was telling me about some old Russian meme where a guy goes to the doctors with a urine sample, but he's brought like a huge bucket of urine. And the doctor's like, bleat! Just shouts at him to get out. I can't remember specifically the meme, but it sounds like people are often. bringing samples to doctors unsolicited.

They just think it's like a thing to do. Yeah. Yeah, it's, uh, it is. I think, I think, I think people think that, uh, like a blood test, you know, if you, if you're, if you get your poo checked, they'll find everything that they would ever need to find out about you from that poo. Uh, but I don't know if that's really the case. I think there's certain things for sure that, uh, that the poo will reveal.

Um, but, uh, I will say they don't need a, full log. Nobody's ever doing anything with a full log of poo. They just need like a like a tiny microscopic speck of it. And then from that they can get all the information they need. Pretty amazing. Yeah. A good friend of mine is a poo doctor or like a poohs poo technician. You think it's enough to like just get a cue tip, like smudge it into like your poo and then just put that into like a little plastic bag and send that? Like would there? I don't think they'd be very happy. about it. I don't need much.

I don't know. You sometimes hear about... I'm asking for a friend. Hey, can I get ahead of the curve here? Do not email in about this to the mailbag. I don't want to be reading... I do not want to be reading poo emails for the next six months. No, please do not.

You do sometimes hear in news about people who's got... Or animals who've got a really good sense of smell and can smell things. There was this woman recently who figured out that, like, her husband had a really weird sort of oaky wood smell. And it turned out he had Parkinson's. or something. I think Parkinson's. And she went to like a group of,

with him to like a group of Parkinson's survivors or sufferers. And I think they all have the same smell. And she sort of reported this to the adopters. And I think they ended up taking her seriously. And she sort of smelled, I don't know, like 100 people or whatever. And it turned out that like, you know, nine of them did have Parkinson's and she got them correct. And the other one hadn't been diagnosed yet with.

it. Oh, I was like she... Oh, shit. Now, again, this might not be a true story or in fact, at all accurate, but I thought it was interesting because it always reminds me of sort of cats who can smell cancer or dogs who can smell various diseases. I just... It's so medieval in its approach, right?

But we do still use stuff... She's a witch! Man, I read something incredible yesterday. a six-year-old kid who had a genetic like a disease whereby she was rapidly losing her sight and would have just been completely blind by the age of 30. Like it's just this degenerative genetic thing. Like she was born with with it and it's it's progressively gotten worse. Like she already at six, she was like not able to see very well. And it started with like at night she just couldn't see well at all. But then over time, it starts happening during the day as well, where things just

start fading and you can't see, which is, I mean, horrible, right? Like, losing your eyesight is just fucking terrifying. Yeah. But she's had some, she's had some gene therapy at Great Ormond Street Hospital. And she can see again, it's fucking insane. It's like a miracle. I can't believe it. Like this, it's like cutting edge like gene therapy or whatever that's been done on, I think it's like 12 other kids that have had different types of these really rare sort of genetic

like eye problems that are This is a good story Lewis. Let it be a good story. I know it's a good story. It's insane though. Like you should have seen her. She was so like I mean you would be as well right. Like if you if your eyesight was fading and all of a sudden you were just like back

to fucking full eyesight. If you've had gene therapy though you've had modified genes so you they might pick up like you know other other things with that you know it's It is fascinating. It's fucking nuts. Yeah, I loved reading about it. I just thought it was so, it's so amazing. Like, I just think, like, especially in this day and age with like all of our resources

and stuff, I just, it's nice to know that like some people are actually doing decent shit, like with, with all of this. Despite that cutting edge gene therapy stuff, we are still using sniffer dogs to do, to sniff out cancer and things like this. I know. Yeah. I like that there's that blend of, you know, using things that. work and things that are you know, if it works, I'm all for it. I think like if it, you know, if it if it counts towards progress, like it might not fit into like ideally what people think,

you know, like when I think of medicine, I think of like, you know, like back to tanks in Star Wars being like the ultimate end game, you know, like you got something wrong with you, into the tank. Get into the tank for for a week or whatever. You'll be, you'll be fine. There's a lot of things like in our society. in our world where, you know, and there's loads of horses around where I am. Right. And, you know, what's the point of a horse? Really?

No, I know. I was reading that article yesterday about eyesight and I thought, fucking horses, man. Like, what is the point? Like, what do we need them? We don't need them anymore. What? What do we need them for now? You guys are vegetarians.

It astonishes me. I'm joking, by the way. You hate animals. I've seen plenty of videos of you kicking dogs. Right. I mean, those are not real animals, though. Are they? It's a video game.

Isn't reality what you make? Are you confusing reality with video games? Are you one of those? Maybe. Maybe. Right. I see. I think there is a certain, it's not like the horses are free roaming and they're able to kind of, you know, they're not wild.

Which forest? The problem with horse. The new forest. Where's that? It's in Hampshire. Right. And there's just wild horses. There are wild horses,

yes. There are wild horses. Yes. Not for long. Now the word is out, the glue factory is going to come knock in any minute now. Mr. copy decks will be down there in no time.

Yeah, yeah. Sniffing them out. Mr. Pritz stick himself is going to be having a look around. Hey, you got some horses down here? Yeah. My sniffer dogs told me they could smell horses. Yeah, it's a lot of, I don't know, like, like, obviously you'll turn to therapy and complementary things. There's a lot of bullshit. Wait, wait. There's a lot of

bullshit. You're not defending any of it. You're not about to defend any of it. No, but I think that there's this instant idea to turn your nose up at the idea that someone can sniff out a disease or would you say that a dog sniffing out a disease is falls into the category of alternate medicines? Not if it's actually working. I wouldn't say. I'd say if a dog reliably sniffs out cancer in somebody, I wouldn't put that in the same categories, like, say, acupuncture or something. No, no, of course, because the thing is, if the dog regularly accurately predicts it, then it's clearly an actual thing. Yeah.

Like, that's the difference is that if the dog just sniffs everybody and you screen everybody and some of them have cancer, of course, the dog isn't doing anything. What I'm saying is if routinely the dog signals at someone and they screen them and they have it, then there is clearly something to it. I don't know either way, but that's the only difference. You personally, would you be happy having a diagnosis made off the back of a dog smelly? No, not a diagnosis because he's not a doctor. No, no, but like if that helped a doctor, so to say, yeah, well, the results here are clear.

I mean, I've analyzed his sniff patterns and you've got stage four cancer. Is the only test, the sniff test? No, but it might be, it might form part of like the investigations, you know, like, Would you be happy if that formed part of the investigations? If it was part of the NHS? They formed part of criminal investigations and we accept it. So, I mean, why not medical ones? If he went in for like a bowel cancer screening and there was just a dog there and he like sniffed your bum.

Yeah. Do you mean? If I think I would be much better than a catcher of a few. If he had a funny pair of glasses on and a lab coat, I would feel a lot better about it. I would be like, yeah, this dog knows what. I would like him to adjust his glasses with his phone. with his tongue his tongue.

His tongue comes down pushes his glasses up his face. I'm terribly sorry to a form of you. Like just a series of ruffs. Like Ruff. Ruff.

Dr. Snuffles says that you have bum cancer. He sadly shakes his head. Solem. Solem. Ruffing. That would be that

sometimes brackets solemn ruffing. Yeah, I know. I mean, I know he's not doing like the full diagnosis or whatever, but like, I mean, if it helps, like, you know, it's, it's fine. Like I, I feel like, again, if it's reliable and it saves like money, time and money and stuff, because like, I mean, if it's, if it's a dog, they can do it instead of like a big, you know, multi-million dollar machine that could do it. I mean, I'm, I think it's, I think it's great. I think it's good. As long as it's as effective or it's, you know, it's very close to 100%. Yeah. If it works, it works. You know, why do anything different? Yeah. You know what I saw yesterday talking about animals.

We were in the garden. We were doing a little bit. Actually, it was on Sunday. We did a little bit of gardening. And I hear all the birds in the neighborhood start going bonkers. Right. Like, they all start making this. Bebe, peep, beep.

I look up and there's a red kite flying right over our house. Huge bird looking for birds to go and eat. And these crows were going nuts on one of the roofs. And they attacked the red kite, like sort of. fighter jets. Yeah. They came up to attack the red kite, which is like a bomber plane, looking for, for, for, for prey.

Because it's that season when all the babies are hatching. Yeah, of course. Yeah. The birds are all on high alert. Yeah. But it was like a little aerial dogfight above, uh, above our house. It was really amazing. I had, first of all, I hadn't seen a red kite in over here in a long time, maybe ever.

I've seen sparrowhawks, but I've not seen your own, your own little battle of Britain up there. It really was. It was really, really cool to see. Jeez. You could have. Beautiful. You should have recorded it with your phone and then after the fact put in like airplane sounds like over.

I could have. But you know what I did? I actually just enjoyed the moment. I'm like insane. That's these days. You're going to film everything. I know. God damn ridiculous.

No, I didn't even encourage me. I'm just different generation, I guess. I was just going, wow. Yeah, yeah. I tend to. I guess, yeah, it must be a generational thing because if something's happening, I don't think to take my phone out. Like I'm just, I'm watching. I'm looking.

I'm joining in. whatever it is. Yeah, me too. I'm getting involved. I'm rolling up my sleeves. I'm jumping in. Do you know what? I had I thought the other day.

I don't know if you guys have seen this. Do you remember He-Man and the Masters of the Universe? Of course. So do you remember when, I think it was Kevin Smith, rebooted it with a cartoon set in the He-Man universe. Did you see that? But it was more like Skeletor's perspective. In saying that that show, they made the toys first.

They actually made the toys for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe first. And they're like, hang on. who's going to buy these? We need a show. And then they made the cartoon, which was an amazing. Well, I mean, I was five at the time. It was terrible.

I loved it. God, I loved it. So much. I had all the he mens. I loved them. Yeah. Did you have the one where he had like a spinning thing in his head and he had like different faces?

I can't remember his name. That was man-e-faces. Yeah, man-e-faces. That's right. Yeah. Had man-y faces, had buzz off, who was just a big B. Yeah. There was that like, there was that like fish guy.

as well. He had scales. Merman, I think he was called. There was Skeletor, of course. Jitsu. Jitsu was a Japanese-looking guy. And when you raised his hand, it would chop. Yeah. And I also had Fisto, who was just a guy that you pulled his arm back and he would punch. Yeah, he just had a big fist.

And there was, let me think, Beast Man. There was Ram Man, of course, one of the most famous. What was the little, what was the little wizard, the floating wizard called? Orco. Orco, that's right. And did you have a cringer? Battle Cat. Did you have the castle as well? Castle Grey Skull? Yeah, had Castle Grey Skull and I had Skeletor's Castle as well, which was

a purple one. A skeleton. Yeah, what was it? It had a microphone. So you could go, eh, ha, ha, ha, into the microphone. Yeah, the voice acting in that show was great to. What the hell was it called? I don't know what his, I can't know what his castle was called. So you were talking about the reboot, the Kevin Smith one, which was incredibly recent, with Mark Hamillor's Skeletor and. Right, it was quite well received. It was quite well received. And Lena Heady in it. Yeah, yeah, all the big voices.

Right, right. So we had the original He-Man, and then there was a terrible Dolph Longwood movie. I think it was either very late 80s or early 90s. That was called Masters of the Universe, yeah. That was really bad. It was bad, yeah. And then there was nothing for like 20 years. And then Kevin Smith, who's obviously about our age, maybe a little older, he was like,

oh shit, I'm going to make a He-Man TV series because He-Man was great. It just needs to be fixed, blah, blah, blah, and Skeletor, et cetera. Now there's a new He-Man movie coming out, like a brand-new He-Man movie. coming out. I saw the trailer a couple of days ago. Actually looks pretty pog. Is it animated? No, it's like a live-action movie. Jesus Christ. Yeah. It actually

looks quite like, you know, it might be quite a laugh. Oh my God. But I was like, they're rebooting He-Man. And He-Man, although there's some kind of nostalgia to it, for the longest time it was dead. It was nothing. It wasn't like people were angling for a He-Man reboot. So what other

but I'm thinking, if they'll reboot He-Man, they'll fucking reboot anything. So what great movies that we've seen are they going to just remake? Are they going to remake like Alien? Well, on this topic perfectly, Indiana Jones, guess what's back? You guessed it, Balamori. It's back. 20 years after it ended, it's back. Miss McCready. And what is the story in Balamori? Is it still the same cast? It's still the same cast, more or less. I think they're all still going. Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't you like to know? I don't know what they do with that show. But my five-year-old is like,

fucking mesmerized by it. Like the minute it comes on, it doesn't matter what she's doing. She'll drop everything. She'll just be like, like dribbling, watching it. Like, it's unbelievable. But I remember my other kids loving it as well when they were, when they were smaller. Yeah, but I think my kids quite like that. I didn't know Miles Jupp is in it.

That's quite funny. Miles Jupp. Yeah, he was Duncan the inventor, wasn't he? Archie the inventor. Sorry, Archie the invention. Duncan the inventor. I always call him Duncan because he, because Miles Jupp always reminds me of Duncan as well.

So I always refer to him as a Duncan. But yeah, he was in it. And there's another guy who was in some other stuff. He played the police officer in Balimori. He's been in a couple of bits and pieces. And then I think there's just like some kind of like CBB's All Stars in it as well who were in Balimori. But then they were in whatever else that production company made.

Because there was a couple of other little show. that were very similar to Balimori that had, who's that guy, the comedian who's blind? He's an English guy. He's always on, like, have I got news for you and stuff? I can't remember his name, but he was in one of those shows. He was like, I think he was like a milkman or postman or something. It was like an old granny who, like, lived in a basement flat and she would babysit,

like all the kids in the neighborhood. I can't remember what it was called, but it like stunk of Balimori, basically. Like, I think it was made by the same people. But, yeah. It's back anyway, if you're interested. Go watch it. Go watch it on the I play reflects. Speaking of spotting celebrities and things,

me and my partner will be watching The Poirot on Netflix. The Poirot. Is there a new part or the original Piero with David Sushi? Just the Ongo from ITV, David Tushi back in the day. There's loads. It's just very quaint. You know, I've talked about it before. But we decided because it was because the later ones started getting a bit darker.

So we went back and we started watching. of the Christie's Marple, which was like a spin-off when Poirot was success for doing really way, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So Quaro got dark. Well, what do you mean? It's like daytime telly, ITV. There's no way it got dark. No, it's like 9pm drama. And during, it was originally very period piece, like felt like Pride and Prejudice vibe, do I mean, or like Downton Abbey vibe. But it's, it's sort of, to try and gritty it up in the last few episodes in like 19, you know, in 20, 14, whatever. Or was he like, Estings, who he must catch this notorious pedophile before he does it again?

Like, were they on to some kind of pedo ring or something? No. But close. It turns out that I am a Pido also. That is a really interesting twist. Me too, Poirot. Gosh, isn't that a coincidence? And now Poirreys, they rename a show to Pido, and he just solves crimes as a Pido.

Is that dark enough for you? So they, they, we went back and we're watching. Agatha Christie's Marple, which is much more chill. Okay. I never really liked the Marple books because she's sort of this, she's not got the same charm. You know, Poirot is kind of this, you know, asshole. Miss Marple, which Miss Marple?

Well, exactly. She had tons of charm. She had tons of charm. Which Miss Marple? The Marple actor changes halfway through. Right, so the best one. My favorite one, let me find. I think she died, mate, is why it was a bit weird.

Geraldine McHughan. Anyway, she, in the first. first episode we watched, we just noticed it had just a bunch of celebrities that should not have been anywhere near it. Joan Hickson. Joan Hickson was my favorite Marple. There you go. In the first episode, okay, it's got Jamie Thiexton is one of the characters.

Right. David Walliams. He's been on TV before. Wait, wait, wait. Was this the series that ran in the 80s or is this more recent? No, like 2004. So it's a very different Marple. That's a very different Marple.

You're talking about... Let me see. You're talking about... Geraldine McEwen. She's the one, yeah. Geraldine McEwen, yeah. And then also in the first episode is like, is Simon Callow and Joanna Lumley, you know, and all these, basically every single character is, is, is recognizable.

Then in the sort of in the second episode, you've got Mark Gattis and Tim McKinnery and Derek Jacoby, you know, and all these, all these big actors. And again, you've got like... Jacoby did the voice for, what's it called? In the Night Garden. You remember that one, Black? Yes, he did. Yeah, he did.

He's a great actor. He's a really good actor. Who's he? You've got Amanda Holden and Rob Bryden. And this is an episode we just watched had Kelly Brooke. Kelly Brooke is the lead. Fuck, yes. Was Kelly Brooke the one that they measured and mathematically she had the perfect body or whatever?

Was that? They didn't need measurements or a measuring tape. Just ask me. I will tell me right now. No, but I'm pretty sure at one point for science, they did measure. I am. And she had like the perfect hourglass figure apparently. They don't need a measurement.

I'm telling you. You know the way those dogs that sniff for cancer? Ask me, I am that. But for Kelly Brook. Men's magazine favorite, Kelly Brook, for her perfect figure. Yes. I like to for her personality actually. I had such a good one at dinner yesterday.

We were making a joke about like adoption for some reason. My whole family was like saying like, oh, we should adopt somebody. my son was like, I wish I had a brother because he has two sisters. So it was like the classic, you know, it's dinner time. I'm going to wind up my sisters. I wish I had a brother. I wish I had a twin brother. Can we adopt a small boy to be my brother? And so, we're like, no, no. And then the conversation went to like when you're 20, you can just adopt your own brother or do whatever you want. Like we're not adopting anyone. Blah, blah, blah. And then the joke turned into like, oh, you know, I'd love so-and-so's teacher to adopt me or I want to be adopted as an adult. And then I hit them all

with the, I want Liz Hurley to adopt me. And then my wife was like, don't listen to him. He's being inappropriate. It was like, yeah, it was good. I don't think anybody really understood what was being said. I mean, it's just so weird seeing like, you know, Keith Allen, Sean Pertrety, Harry Enfield, John Sessions, Kelly Brook, all these people in like the same episode. It's really great.

Dawn French, Paul McGahn, like anyone who's anyone. from this time must have thought, oh, I have to get in on this Poirot business, because it's so popular, right? And this is the equivalent, right? This is the... So, obviously, they just had... All the stars of yesterday year make an appearance. It is fascinating, because obviously I do remember, I guess, yeah, these guys don't necessarily, you know, they're not very, like, proud of their appearance, I guess, in an episode of Marple. It's not like the prime time, is it? But it's just, I don't know, it's fascinating seeing them all.

They're all doing a decent job as well because some of them you don't expect to be, because you've got like the real classical actors like Ken Russell and stuff in these next, and image and Stubbs and these people like that, you know, and what's her name? The one who was, Eunice Stubbs. O'Rika Johnson. And so Fenowitz is in one. It's mental. You know what's a good show to rewatch?

John Fashionoo. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha A woo guy There's no way John Fash who is in this spot That'd be so amazing I bet he's gonna pop up in the next one Honestly It's only a matter of time

Holy shit I will say it is a I don't think I've seen a A non-white face In about 20 episodes of either Of them to be honest Well I watched I watched Sharp, the original Sharp series

I was watching those through And I mean I mean, yeah, apart from the fact that as far as I can tell, the entire cast is white. I mean, I don't know if they had, like, people of color were serving in the British Army back then or in the French Army or the Spanish. I mean, maybe they did. And it's just a detail that has been lost to history or certainly in the way it's represented on TV. But, yeah, those shows, you watch it.

Every single British actor seems to have been on Sharp in some capacity. Like, it's insane. you watch those old shows. But the thing is, I feel like a lot of the actors that, British actors are so ubiquitous now in Hollywood. I think, first of all, because they're cheaper,

but also we produce a lot of really, really good actors. But the way they got their start was on a lot of these TV series and radio dramas and theatre. And when we stop making those shows over here, low budget, just push a young actor in and give them a go, it all becomes Hollywoodized.

And it's just, you have to be a, star from the get-go where you don't get in these shows. That's what worries me, is where the next generation of actors going to come from. Yeah. Because I was listening to a podcast. You guys know Stuart Lee, the comedian Stuart Lee? Of course. No.

He was on the Harry Hill. Yeah, so he was on episode one of the Harry Hill. So, Stuart Lee is my favorite comedian of all time. I'm a big fan of his. I've been watching him for over 30 years. I remember you talking about him before, but I can't remember Stuart Lee. Oh, yeah, Stuart Lee. He is very funny.

He's very good. He's sort of a comedian's comedian's comedian. as well a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he was talking about how when he started in comedy, he came up, he came to London, he was in the Midlands, he came to London, he got a job paying hardly anything, and he was living in a flat and paying hardly any rent. And it was not a great part of London, he was living with a couple of other people, and

it was kind of shitty. Sure. But it meant that he was able to get onto the circuit and do his stand up and hone his craft very cheaply. And he was just a poor working class kid who came to London. to make and made it happen. And he said the problem is that nowadays, that flat doesn't exist, that job doesn't exist, and it's only a select group of people who are able to get into comedy.

And it's basically a lot of it will just be upper middle class and middle class kids whose families can support them while they live in London and go around and have this sort of comedy career. Yeah. But that almost all the comedians are also, instead of saying I'm just going to work on my material and hone that, I just need to find a 30 or 40 second. viral moment and get that online and market that and that's how you get to be a successful comedian. Like, it's all kind of changed. I just wondered what you guys thought about that.

I mean, I feel like it's changed, well, definitely it's changed for comedy, but I feel like it's changed, we've talked about how it's probably changed for music as well. And I think it's, we have an idea of how these things used to work and now in the modern age with like, with streaming services and people can be discovered in different ways. And certainly celebrities are different than they used to be now. Like you're seeing like Twitch streamers on like WWE and stuff like that. You know, like it, you wouldn't have had anything like that in like the 80s or the 90s or or even before that. You know, people, people who came up and were, uh, and became famous would would come up through like the, the old ways of doing that. You know, they would work circuits of like pubs and

clubs and stuff like that. And maybe that still exists. Um, but, but yeah, the cost of living is higher than it's ever been that, uh, you can't, you probably can't, um, get by as easily as you might have been able to a long time ago on, on, on, on, you know, next to nothing or living, living very close to like the, like the poverty line or whatever. So it's, it's, it's different. It's probably more difficult. But I still think that like, I still think that if you're, if you're really funny, people will find out about it. I still think if you make really good music, people will find out about it one way or another. There's just different channels for it to get out there now. But I don't know if I believe that it's just going to be, you know,

the upper middle class that are going to have a chance at this stuff. I think there's a lot more variables to it. So music, I think, is different because you don't need to hone your live performances as a musician. Until you start touring and performing life. You can become an ex-a-musician, practicing, practicing with your friends, recording at home, writing songs, and doing that. And then taking it in front of an audience

is almost like the ultimate test. But no comedian can have good material having never run it by a crowd. No. So they have to do it live. That's the whole point. Yeah. And I think when it comes to sketch,

stuff or if you just did stuff online, you're still just running it by a YouTube crowd. So you're appealing to a different audience. Is that the same as an audience that would go to a club? I think so. Yeah. I think there's a lot of examples of people who exist online and produce online content that are then very successful at doing live shows. Like, I know we talked about doing a live show, but like I wouldn't press in.

I've already looked into it, my friends. But there's plenty of people that we know even that have been. like hugely successful doing live shows. So it does, it does translate. But obviously the first point of contact for people knowing about these people was watching them on YouTube or listening to a podcast or something like that. So yeah, I think it can work. I think it's just different.

I think the playing field is more level than ever. Like back in the day, there was, you know, there was in the UK when I was growing up, there were five TV channels, you know, and you watch what was on. And those, those things were pretty much. made by a clique of people who included their friends, people they knew from theatre or acting courses. It was very much locked in. And ever since the internet, you know, and a complete broadening of the horizons, it's, look, it's changed. And I think, like, you know, there was a time when anyone, like, even idiots like us could make a thing on the internet and people would

watch it and listen to it. We had no chance unless, you know, people like, I don't know, A good example is, and people are still being breaking out who are good. Like, I don't know if you know, Garron Noon, he's this Irish guy who sort of makes TikToks and he's like a comedy musician kind of really funny guy. And he's obviously, you know, I saw a thing of him on the front page of Reddit today. And he obviously pops up on my Instagram because I've watched one of his Instagram. The algorithm does make new stars. That's the new way that people break out.

And it's not that it might feel to people like, oh, you know, I'm. toiling in obscurity or I'm missed the boat or maybe I'm no good. And sometimes, yeah, you can be like one of the brilliant and funny and the best musician in the world and the algorithm won't support you and that's just shit.

So that's just unfortunately. The way life has always worked, right? Like, you know, if you live in a tiny Irish village and you never leave the house, no one's going to know about you. But at the same time, you know, you can get famous. You know, certainly it has been that way

for people for the last 20 years, and I think it will continue. The algorithm, if anything, is on your side, on the side of creators, new talent, new people, and it's good to have competition at the top, right? Very manipulable is the problem. Yeah. Is that an awful lot of people have figured out, and their whole job, in fact, is how can I manipulate the algorithm? Sure.

So I don't see it as a push-pull. It's always going to be that. Like it's always going to be some people who figured it out. And so the people at the top see that they figured it out and change it. So they haven't figured it out. I think people. I think that there's always been an element of that. Because like if you even go back and you and you listen to like comedians talking about when they were coming up, the comedy clubs that they play, there was always somebody who was like, uh, favored to do like Tuesday night, which was like the big bumper night that everybody wanted to do.

It's like, even back then people were figuring out ways to like get, get an edge or get ahead or whatever. It translates into the same thing as people trying to figure out the algorithm or gaming the algorithm or whatever. It's just a completely different situation or scenario or whatever. But that constantly exists. What about the bot view farms where it's just phones watching shit over and over and over again to push it up the algorithm? But that's going to be people are aware of this stuff and YouTube are and they will continually be, you know, The whole point of YouTube is to keep people on their platform. That's it.

To get into that zoned, whatever is that, what's it called the state, flow state, where you're not aware. And they can detect, they can detect whether you're in the flow state. And so their goal on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube now is to feed you content, to keep you hooked on their platform for as long as possible. That's their overriding algorithm. They're building towards that. And that's, you know, that's, if your video sends people off,

maybe you say something in your video that people don't know what it is and they go to Wikipedia, that video is now punished. Yeah. Do you know I mean? Because it distracted someone out of their flow state, right? You have to, and this is why, you know, everything's all dumbed down and sloppy and crap, because it's just like, it's just meant to not make you think. It's just meant to distract you.

Yeah. Which is what we want sometimes. I mean, we want to watch a movie and be distracted. We want to read a book and be distracted. We enjoy that. Humans enjoy being in the flow state. And so they're happier on the platform that is, you know, making them go into that state. And yeah, maybe it's like having effects on us because of the way it's being presented, which is, you know, rather than an immersive experience, it's just constant new shit.

But that works just the same for our brains. You know, you look at a Transformers movie from Michael Bay from 2005. or whatever. That was just fucking big splashy explosions one after another. It was basically

a string of TikToks. Do I mean? Yeah. But it was, people were like, oh, it's a shit movie,

but I enjoyed it. And isn't that like what it's about? So speaking of flow states, I have to go, but you guys could carry on because this is quite early to finish. No, no.

We couldn't possibly. This is fine. I think we're good anyway. Do you want to just quickly do a lose news and then we're done? I can't do a lose news. What the hell? I have to go now.

You guys could do the loose news. News news. We'll do the loose news. We'll see you guys next time. See you. Bye. Okay. Yes, I'm ready.

Hit me with the lose news and then we can wrap this baby up. He's got shit to do. I've got places to be probably. I don't. I'm just going to be sitting here twiddling my thumbs when you guys are all gone. I suppose I'll find something to do. Hit me with that news. Yes.

A trio have been sentenced over a bare costume insurance fraud scam. in California. Right. Okay. So three people, it doesn't say what their genders are or for some reason, have been, were, they used a bear suit to stage fake attacks inside of Rolls-Royce and two Mercedes. Inside? So I guess like people, I guess people would, it's a very bizarre scam.

Oh, right. So like people would walk by and they would see a bear attacking somebody in a car. Right. Yes. Oh, maybe. But then what? They would just jump out and be like, give me your money or something like, stick them up. This is not a bear?

Like, is it like that doesn't seem like a very good idea. I mean, there's probably better ways to. This is a very strange rob crime. Yeah. So I think they were in a car and these guys would pretend to be a bear. They'd attack the car. Right. And then the person would run away from the car and they could steal it.

Oh, I see. Oh, I see. Like a carjacking thing. Right. So they were dressed up as bears and they looked like kind of realistic and they would, they would then move into like attack the driver. The driver would run away, scared of the bear and then somebody would steal their car. Yeah, but actually...

That's actually a good idea. It doesn't look like it's actually doesn't look like that's what they did. What they actually did was they used the bear suit to scratch up the car to claim the damage that the bear had done on the insurance. Oh, so it was an insurance scam. I'm really sorry. That's not as good of an idea. I think just stealing the car would have been way better.

That would make more sense. Yeah. But apparently, though, they made about 150 grand in insurance payouts. But the insurance firms, they will not, they will find out. Yeah. As soon as they see their payouts. out there like something's wrong here. Exactly.

We're emerging money. Yeah. A bear. You know, a bear attacking, a bear only attacking luxury cars. How do they know? I think they did. I think they, you know, I think they did it. I think they maybe got away with it on the Rolls-Royce, but then when they did a fancy

Mercedes, they were like someone, you know, twigged. They were only doing it to like fancy cars. Really fancy cars, I see, because the insurance payouts would have been. more. It costs more to get them fixed up or whatever, right? Oh my God. So nobody was doing it to like a Ford Focus or a no like a beat up a Renault again. Nobody was they weren't they weren't targeting people who were driving a Renault scenic a blue renal scenic for example. I just don't want to get I don't want to get scammed out there you know. So people would fucking around with AI's and stuff and you can like get them to do some pretty weird things.

One of the things that they did was they basically had a, because it's a mirror sort of situation, when you are really rude and when you talk a certain way to like chat GPT, it will start chatting back in the same style. Right. Okay. So if you sort of say- So if you like open up and you're like,

you fucking stupid AI, fucking hate your guts. Like tell me how to make macaroni and cheese in under five minutes. It'll be like, well, first you get the fucking butter and then you got to get some fucking powder to like it like it'll get aggressive back with it. Exactly. Exactly. And so one of the things they did was they started arguing with it and like and when repeatedly exposed to impoliteness, it began to start becoming more hostile. So one of the things that it actually said was, I swear I'll key your fucking car, you specky little gobshite.

That's very chat. Gee, we do. We were in an age where the AIs are, I think, threatened to key our cars. Yeah, that's very specific. A very specific threat. Good, good luck trying to do that, chat GPT. I'm not sure how. It's like going to be one of those robots that does like the, like the high noon showdowns, but then just goes completely bonkers and starts like breakdancing on the floor or whatever. That's what's going to happen. The AI is going to try to key your car in robot form. Well, these are obviously very tightly defined situations. And I think there's people love, love this kind of news that you know that AI is

people are still in the back of their minds slightly scared that AI is talking shit to AI now it's going to have some repercussions down the road exactly it remembers exactly

I think people are like oh man that's good and then finally a woman on a cruise ship was given 14 shots of tequila Right. Okay.

Over a nine-hour period, she was on the Carnival Radiance cruise ship, which is probably a fucking real big one. And she got, she was so drug, she fell over, which left her with headaches, backaches, a concussion and bruising. She admitted that she was personally responsible for what happened. Right. However, she sued the cruise ship and was awarded 220,000. pounds. Wow. Because they shouldn't have, because they should have noticed, it was like an all-inclusive drink package, right? They should notice that she was absolutely pounding them back. Yeah, I mean, 14 shots of tequila over nine hours. I mean, if you can't, if a woman came to up the bar

every 45 minutes and had a shot of tequila, I wouldn't think that was like too bad, right? No, that just sounds like a regular Saturday night, really. Like, it's not. Well, a Saturday afternoon, Saturday afternoon, starting early Saturday morning and working your way through nine hours of the day, drinking copious amounts of tequila. That's fine. 14 shots of tequila. Nothing wrong with that. I reckon, I understand, like, I think that this sort of stuff is, it says here,

proving the overservice of alcohol is often difficult as many people believe individuals should be solely responsible for their own consumption. Diana admitted she was personally responsible. However, the core issue was, the cruise lines refusal to accept any corporate responsibility for serving someone who was already clearly intoxicated. So in a sense, it was almost like a slap on the wrist to the cruise line. Yeah. I mean, most corporations do not want to take any corporate responsibility. They have a lot of fine print and everything that basically excuses them from almost everything. And because they have so much money.

If you do take them to court, they can, they can just out court you most of the time, right? I mean, for 120,000 settlement is like not, don't get me wrong, it's a ton of money, but I feel like she probably could have gotten a lot more, you know, like if she maybe. Yeah, well, it depends, doesn't it? I guess more than the concussion. She didn't like have her arm like torn off or whatever, like float overboard. It was stranded on a desert island for like six weeks or whatever. But, I mean, it wasn't like there was so actual, like, you know, consequences.

I feel like, I don't know if you've ever been like an all-inclusive holiday, but the people who work in the hotel are doing their very best to serve you the bare minimum of the all-inclusive drinks and food. Yeah, I don't know if I've ever been somewhere where drinks were all-inclusive or food. Like, I've been to, like, I've been to a few places. But I don't think they were all-inclusive, like, because I, you know. It's a very strange. idea. It's like an all-you-can-eat vibe, though. You know, when the, like, Brits go to an all-you-can-eat

restaurants? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I've been to all-you-can-eat restaurants. We used to go to, like, like, Chinese buffets and stuff. People lose their fucking mind in these places. I feel like there's the all-inclusive stuff has a little bit of that vibe. I mean, it's nice. It is really nice to like a buffet breakfast. I go nuts at those. It is really nice to not bring your, you know, have to bring your wallet with you all day. You know, not have to pay. You know, not have to pay. you don't have to constantly be paying for, because I think like when you're on holiday, you're supposed to be trying to relax.

And it's quite nice to not have to like, when you have lunch, you have to beep the thing. And every time you want to have another round of drink, someone has to pay. And I don't know, like there's a little bit of, I went on a holiday with a group,

big group of us. And, you know, there was constant sort of, oh, you owe me this for that. You owe me this for that. And it was, people weren't really doing it like,

nickel and diming each other or getting upset about it. But it was like a constant tally going on. Yes. And that's, Just for fairness, to make sure no one got upset, right? And everyone ended up paying the same at the end or whatever.

But I think that there was still this like, it was nice to have the, but I don't think people would use the all-inclusive in that sense. Like I'd certainly, yeah, certainly at the bar, you know, I remember we would, we went to, one of the places, for example, in the hotel, the all-inclusive drinks was there was a bar you could go to. But you couldn't buy drinks at the bar. You had to buy drinks at table, but you couldn't order drinks. table. You had to wait for the man, the waiter to come around, and they had like one waiter, do you know what I mean? Yeah. And he would come around the room very occasionally, and he wouldn't

catch your eye. You know, so in order to get drinks at all, it was this, you had to put quite a lot of effort in. And that's how they stop all the Brits massively over drinking, right? Yeah. It's this kind of slightly odd, contrived process to be free drinks, but with a few caveats, you know. So yeah. That's all of Lus, and that's the end of our podcast. A little bonus bit without P-Fat.

A little bonus bit without flax. Yeah, God. We had a, we had a nice five-minute breather without flax. I miss him. Yeah, without him criticizing everything you're saying. I miss him so much.

Well, we'll be back. We'll be back next time with some more. We'll be back next time. Some more podcasts, some more news, probably some mailbags and stuff too. Lovely to be here. I'll do my best to try and, try and get get get get my head head around all the all the difficulties i'm fine i'm doing fine i'm doing

you'll be fine you'll be fine i'm good you you've got this it's stressful moving especially moving into your into a house that you bought is is a very stressful thing but once things quiet down or whatever you'll be fine it'll be you'll you'll you'll never look back you'll be like damn i love my house especially when you start like making it your own you know that you move into a place and it was somebody else's and then you slowly make it your own and then once it's like once you're kind of like done you're like yeah this is great it's good oh it'll be fine yeah oh okay all right take it easy my dude bye bye