TRIGGERnometry - What I Learned From Leaving Mumford & Sons

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

Musician Winston Marshall discusses how one tweet changed his life and why more artists are self-censoring. Check out Winston's podcast *Marshall Matters* here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDCXLWdvtIuaFd0xwS2k2i6JFAKaZcfvX Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/​​​ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/​​​ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod​​​ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All these sort of far-left extremists, they're very effective online. So within hours, my Wikipedia was changed to is a fascist. And you're like, what the fuck is going on? Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kisholm. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant guest today is a musician and a friend of the show, Winston Marshall.

Welcome to Trigonometry. Thanks, Constantine. Thanks, Francis. How are we? Yeah, we're very good. It's been a while since we've wanted to get you on. We've been obviously chatting, you've been around, we've been having theological debates, we've been talking about all sorts of stuff, and we just thought it'd be great to get you on the show for us to have this conversation like this. But... I have an agenda. You have an agenda? Yeah. Do you?

I do. What is your agenda? I'm plugging my own podcast. Wait, so how do you do this? What you do is you do some interesting stuff first. Okay. And then you go, by the way, I was talking to Alexander. the Solzhenitsynitza's son on my podcast and you do that later so we'll talk about your podcast full play Winston okay no we got that though that was good that was great I'm glad we're open with that so Winston since we're talking to full play let's let's do a little bit of that tell everybody a little bit about who you are how are you where you are and what has been your journey through life now of course you were a musician for a long time then you had your own sort of self-cancellation

which we'll talk a little bit about but you've you've actually had an interesting life in general so Just tell us to everybody who are you and how are you here? My name is Winston. We've established that. We've also established I'm a musician, and I started playing pub circuit around London as a teenager with various bands.

My first band, Gobblers Knob. It was a Zizi Top cover band. The name was inspired from Groundhog Day. Classic, I'm sure you remember. And then I was in a country rap band, a crap band, called Captain Kick and the Cowboy Ramblers. We were never the same lineup for each show, but we were always at least nine players,

and it was a total shambles, and we had an American slees rapper and sort of smutting his way over some very out of time and out of tune stringed instruments. And that lasted about a year, and we did tour the UK in a very messy, shambolic, yeah, that was fun. Actually, no one lasted that tour. It was like an eight-day tour across the UK, and it started about 15 of us, and by the last

gig, there were only four, and I was organising it, and I wasn't even at the last gig, it just kind of like disintegrated over time. And then from that started playing, sessioning with various bands still in London. Laura Marling was one, Alessie's Ark and a few others. And then that kind of evolved into Mumford and Sons. That would have been 2007. And that band just so we really clicked. and for 14 years it kind of was a bit of a miracle

and it went very well. We were sort of toured relentlessly and the stars aligned for us. We were very lucky in many ways, but those three guys are fucking talented as well. So a combination of hard work talent and a lot of good luck. And it was kind of amazing. And then, but now I am no longer in that band

And that oddly is because I suppose of a tweet. I tweeted about Andy No's book. In the pandemic, in the lockdown, I was tweeting about the books I was reading. There's a minor theme on my social media that wasn't really being followed by anyone, which makes what happened next even more bizarre. but one of the books I tweeted about was Annie Knows book. And even, I think on Twitter I had like 3,000 followers or something. So no one.

And then within a day or two, it blew up. And it was a positive tweet. It was like, you're a brave guy's an important book. And which I thought it was. As far as I know at the time, or I knew, it was the only book on Antifa Far Left Extremism in the States. And I'd been living in the States before. So I was, even though it seems like a niche talk.

for a guy living in London, like it was a topic that wasn't, didn't seem that niche from the life I was living in America and also I suppose when the mainstream media was so ignoring the far left extreme and covering far right extremes and rightly but didn't cover far left extruse in the same breath. So I guess maybe that's why I was curious about it and that's why perhaps I came to the book. And, you know, you know, you Yeah, that completely blew up. And before long, I sort of apologized for the offense it caused. And then over the few months after that, my conscience just sort of,

I just felt just wrong, but that I'd apologize because I don't think it was actually anything wrong with the book. I mean, there's no book. There's above criticism, obviously, even Shakespeare. But apart from the good book. yeah yeah yeah

so so even though I kind of just kind of went into it deep I said what's wrong with this book

what's wrong with the author and there's lots of criticisms there's a lot of fucking nonsense and lies written about

the author and and and I was I guess aware of that as well because a lot of those

lies then came at me, you know, for example, like, they change your Wikipedia, all these sort of far-left extremists, they're very effective online. So within hours, my Wikipedia was changed who is a fascist, and you're like, what the fuck is going on? And for, and for, like, a lot of, you know, friends in their life who don't understand the cultures, or don't understand they'd never heard of the book, maybe never heard of Antifa, never understood the topic, they see all this and they're like what the fuck what's you know what's going on here and so that

and they want to sort of protect you at the same time they don't really understand what's going on so it just it was like a total it's a very hellish period privately and publicly and publicly I guess but

so as I kind of got to into this more I realized like I it was it was wrong of me to have apologized. I don't think it was wrong of me to apologize for bringing that, kicking that hornet's nets and bringing those, you know, that, that, that, that, that, um, storm onto, onto my colleagues, onto my bandmates. I think it was right for me to apologize that and I stand by that apology. But, but I, um, the kind of conundrum I had was like,

well, it's not true for me to, you know, there's nothing wrong with this book. Um, or, or, or certainly, So I certainly stood by, at least, let's put this way, I stood by my original tweet. He is a brave guy and it is an important book. Have you read the book? Yeah, we've had Andy on the show to talk about it, yeah. What do you think? He's a brave guy? Well, Andy's definitely a brave guy.

I mean, people can quibble with some of the things he says. I personally haven't seen anything worth quibbling over, but people do. And as you say, no books above criticism. But, I mean, the guy's got brain injury for reporting on extremist organizations. Well, that's actually, in the period between my initial apology and when I quit the band, he was attacked again. Yeah. And actually that footage has come out last week. So I've seen, so I heard about it.

They're now actually seen the footage. It's fucking horrific. Of course it is. And I remember being like, it was just like another like, you know, you're on, you're assisting these evildoers, these violent hooligans in apologising because you're accepting that they're right, they're right, but they're not right. But the problem I had was that if I say or said, no, actually I stand by what I said, then my bandmates were going to get in loads of shit. Like little examples that radio stations said they were not going to. play the band. For me, personally, I was supposed to DJ at one festival that I got, you know, cut from

the bill because the headliner they wanted to condemn me online. A lot of musicians and artists, even once we'd worked with, not all, but obviously, but a lot had, you know, come after me in a nasty way online or, like, in an ad home in any way. Not just criticism, criticism is fine, but, like, gone a bit further than that. And so my conundrum was, do I live a lie to protect, or stand by a lie to protect the band, or protect the band and leave, which is where I, the conclusion I came to, which meant that I didn't have to lie and they wouldn't suffer for the truth that I thought I was telling. And that might seem like not such a, like, not such a,

a big thing but for me it was like quite it was hellish few months as well like I was not sleeping I was like I it was felt like a puzzle I couldn't escape from I was like what like and and I didn't see a good way out of it so anyway but I actually think now it's been difficult rebuilding since but you know I'm a big boy I'll be all right but um coming through it now, you know, life's sort of slowly building it back up against us. Exema is unpredictable. But you can flare less with ebbglis, a once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema.

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topical topical cortic steroids. Don't use if you're allergic to ebbglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with ebbglis. Before starting Epgless, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about Ebglis and visit ebglis.lis.lily.com or call 1-800 LilyRx or 1-800 545-9779. We'll see. Well, you know, you're someone who thinks very carefully about things.

And one of the things that struck me was when we, Franz and I came up to your house. You've kindly invited us. Your house... So for the listeners, I'm a huge fan of you both as comedians and have been following you both well before all of the events that I Yeah, well actually you were a comedy unleashed And you messaged me and that's how we connected So I don't think you were...

I saw your show, yeah, in January 2020 Yeah At Comedy Unleashed Yeah And thought it was great Yeah And then, yeah, touch base up there. Yeah, that's...

So you weren't a fan of trigonometry initially You were a fan of us comedically, I think, more than anything Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so but anyway, when you kindly invite us to your house it's not the tidiest house and that's because sorry Winston I didn't mean to offend you it's because it's covered in books

right you've got books everywhere and they are books from people like Andy No there are books from people who would be the very opposite you're clearly someone who likes to take in different perspectives think about things you read about history

you read about philosophy and it's it's clear to me that you're someone who thinks carefully in the nuanced way and is very interested. And I think the reality of your situation partly is that we no longer live in a world that that understands that that's possible, that you can read a book and think someone's brave without necessarily being right wing or read a book and think it's interesting without necessarily being left wing. And I think that's kind of partly what you came up against. You're sort of measured by each tweet as independently

of your entire track record as a human being. Yeah, and if you went through the other books I was reading that I was speaking about, it was like fucking Mao, you know what I mean? And, you know, that's actual evil. Yeah, I mean, perhaps, you know, reflection, I perhaps, well, I definitely didn't understand Twitter for the thing that it was. And if you, the whole point is each tweak does have its life of its own as soon as it's out there and it's almost like a statement.

If you're, for some people, tweeting is just like trying to thought, but for other people or like artists, I guess, or institutions, each tweet is a statement. I guess I got that wrong, which I'm now, ironically now I get that. What a way to learn the lesson. Are you tired of using bulky old wallets, giving you a bulge where you don't want it to be? my old wallet was massive, so it brought all the ladies to the yard, which was a huge distraction

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and free worldwide shipping and returns. To take advantage of of this incredible offer, go to ridge.com forward slash trigger. That's ridge.com forward slash trigger and use our special code, which is, of course, trigger. Obviously it shocked you by what happened with the tweet, but did it shock you the behavior of your fellow artists? Because one would think that particularly in the music industry,

you know, rock and roll, freedom, fuck the man, I'm going to say what I think, what I want. Did that surprise you that there was that backlash? I was surprised by a cup of the artists who said stuff who I'd work with because they could have done it privately instead of adding fuel to that fire. Again, I don't think anything's above criticism,

so fair enough, you know, if they felt like they needed to. But then, yeah, the idea And absolutely, as I said, I only had a few thousand followers. So it was insane to me within, within like a day or two, it was on the view. And Tucker Carlson is like, what? Like, how is this, you know, just seemed like an act of God, which, you know. And so with the other artists, it doesn't really surprise me that I do think, I've written about this in a piece for Barry Weiss last week, her common sense substack.

All communities, all groups are prone to a certain amount of homogeneity of thought, and that's absolutely normal, it's forgivable, it's definitely not good, but what can you expect, in particular in the music industry, when it's a community of people who will have similar personality, traits and being open and the only, it's not that strange that there's a kind of agreed upon or a popular opinion within a group, even if it's not popular. No, actually, Barry Weiss sent me a, because I did an interview of her one. I didn't do very many interviews, but I did one with her because I just wanted to get my story out and I didn't, I wasn't, like, trying to, I just wanted to

gets set the record straight so I just did her. Yeah, such high regard for us, so you didn't do it with us, by the way. I did, I-Anne. Yeah, but Barry sent me a one poll, which I should dig out, but the Antifa in the States had a 5 to 6% approval rating, which is the, that is the fringe. That's like, now in America, 5 or 6% of people is a lot of people, right? But nevertheless, as a society, that's the fringe of society.

And that's the extremist. I mean, that's probably what the far right is, 5% or 6%. Probably less even. Yeah. Yeah. Is that right? So it was an extreme thing, and they're very effective. They know what they're doing online. They know what they're doing.

Or it looks like they... Do they know what they're doing in real life? Well, I don't know. But they're causing all sorts of havoc and damage, and it's appalling. So where we're going? We were talking about were you shocked by the reaction of your fellow artists? Yeah, so I was shocked, but again, I sort of understand now with hindsight over Twitter's kind of, That's the world I was engaging in.

And also, I do think that artists generally, I do think there's a problem of homogeneity of thought in the creative industries. Like, you see this, and this is what I wrote for Barry last week, is whatever the topic is, unorthodoxy is established pretty quickly. And even if this doesn't mean everyone disagrees. Like, for example, on Antifa,

But I think the only other musician that's publicly outspoken on Antifa is Nick Cave, who on his blog has written about it criticizing them. And I know he got pushed back from doing that. But otherwise, I don't think there's many who have. And because I do think there's probably a decent amount of consensus within the industry, even if society at large doesn't, there isn't evidence of that consensus on Antifa. But you see, you've been very diplomatic. Winston, and I understand why, because I think you're a far more conciliatory person than I am.

But it enrages me. It enrages me because the whole point of art to me, whatever type of art is, is that it should be welcoming and celebrating of diverse viewpoints. It should challenge the status quo. It shouldn't be just one particular viewpoint. It's celebrated and everybody else should be silenced. That, to me, is an ethymour to art. Well, that's what has been particularly shocking this year with what's happened to Rogan. It's artists forming their own leading the mobs against freedom of expression. And again, I'm not saying that Rogan's First Amendment rights are in question here, although the White House did follow up by saying, yeah, more needs to be done to combat misinformation. but it's artists like Neil Young, Crosby, Stilton Nash, here was Stuart Lee here.

It was Johnny Mitchell. Johnny Mitchell, who are closing down conversation. I mean, the whole career, the whole job is expression. So how can they not see the kind of paradox there? But you actually saw signs of this before your tweet because... you were doing interviews not in a cultural way necessarily with the band when you were touring. Yeah, so for sure. So the last, touring the last record.

Well, let's put it this way. Like, we did a record in 2015, and then we did another record in 2018. And we were doing promotion for then 2019. In 2015, none of the questions were about politics. In 2018, none of the questions were about music. And that's a bit piffy And it's not totally true But that's kind of how it felt like a little bit

And something about Essentially Brexit and Trump meant that all the interviews were like Trying to get in that Even though the music wasn't remotely political It's not remotely relevant to the To the music And to the product and to the album

And to the band Or not in my opinion And And then there were certain topics that, yeah, there was group consensus on in the industry. So doing interviews, I got to a point where I was, you know, very nervous going interviews because I'm going to, I don't want to say the wrong thing, get my bad mates in trouble, because they're probably going to ask about that, in politics, whatever topic it might be. and even though I don't think their opinions that are publicly

particularly controversial at all that's just you know in exact I think there's a lot of sensitive to it because that photograph come out with Jordan Peterson who I was and I'm a great admirer of and it kind of blew up to be this thing it's like what like and he's this is a guy sold

millions of books, he's incredibly popular, he's changed so many lives for the better, and obviously he's divisive and there's some people who dislike him, or at least dislike the person they think he is. But then after that, it's like, wow, well, like, what I consider, I don't think he's remotely controversial, so if that, if a topic like that can blow out like that, like anything can go like that. So you'd go into these interviews and you'd be very hesitant about saying anything at all, even though you were being asked about it. You were being asked political questions as a musician who's not political.

And you'd just sit there going, I really don't want to say the wrong thing. And the interviewers generally, or not generally, but would often either have an agenda or you could almost be certain that the way they would present it would be not fair. it would be, they would be pushing their own agenda because they would care about the topic. Or you can see this with some of the legacy music magazines like NME, it's incredibly political. I think they had Jeremy Corbyn on the front cover

and it's like, of a music magazine? Like what, what's the, I think that would have been, when would that have been? Was it, 2019 that election? Yeah. So, you know, all these music magazines where it's not politics were putting, we're turning into political magazines with an agenda. And so you couldn't, I was just like, well, they're not,

they're obviously not going to present this fairly, so I don't want to engage in this conversation like that. Did you feel, did you ever have conversations with other artists talking about how they felt that the Overton window was narrowing and how things were becoming more fraught. Now, having gone through this experience, I've had amazing artists, very high profile, not just in music, but across the board.

I'm going to talk all the time. Like, we'll be remembered for centuries type artists, and I'm not going to name them, but... We have the same. We have the same. And again, most of them won't say anything publicly, but... Yeah. But we all love Eric Clapton.

Big fan. So there's definitely a lot of artists that see this as the ridiculous situation that is. The ridiculous situation that is. And hopefully that will, I sense it will like DSK. Like last week, for example, there's a photograph of Skrillex came out with Jordan and Michaela. And it's like, and he's like, and he's. He's a big artist and I imagine he's probably getting a bit of flat behind the scenes, but I don't know if he's surrounded by good people anyway.

And it's sense like, and more and more people do that and it's just like it will expose the lunacy of the of the state of those industries by just more and more people having encouraged, realizing that they're untouchable, so more people like that do that. Do you think it's going to help at the fact that the music industry, because of the internet, because of social media, because of Spotify, it's losing its power. It can't really shut people down like it used to. Like if you were dropped by your record label in the 90s,

I mean, that was potentially career ending. And it, for many, many people. But now if your record label drops you, you can still release your own stuff. You can still have a career. You could definitely release your own stuff. And you don't need any of that stuff. But music industry is very small. and pretty much everyone knows each other.

So it depends what kind of career you want. If you want to be huge, you do need the industry to get to that level. But if you just want to release music, you don't. You don't. You can just release music. And so you still think that if you're dropped by your label, that's still a career ender, potentially? I think so. I think so.

It doesn't stop you from putting out music, but I do think it stops you from getting to a certain level. It's a very significant deterrent, in other words, to making sure that that doesn't happen for you. And Winston, one of the things you talked about your apology, and I wanted to explore this because you and I've talked about this in the past, because you apologized really because you wanted to protect your band, right? Would that be fair to say?

Yes. And then you regretted the apology because it wasn't authentic to who you are, but you still wanted to protect your band. Yes. Right. I didn't regret the apology to the band. Yes. Yeah.

I regretted the public apology. Exactly. Exactly. That's what I meant. And the reason I'm delving into it is that I think one of the things that happened with you is when you did apologize, there was also a lot of people from the other side who then decided to come after you. Yeah. That was an eye opener for me. I was like, oh, yeah, you guys behave exactly like the people you've been taught to be against.

the anti-woke mob. They're just as quick to cancel people as the, you know, the progressives on the other side. And, you know, now I hope you get cancelled and this kind of stuff. It was really quite helpful for me to see that. I was like, oh yeah. And I would be very reluctant to kind of take that, go flip onto that side of things for sure. There's another sort of inspiration for me in that sense, well, there's a sort of inspiration for me, well, I mean, there's someone I've spoke about so much so that it's probably boring at this point. But, um, uh, in Salznitsyn's warning to the West, and he came over and he gave a bunch of lectures across the, um, uh, the UK and, and the States, I suppose it would have been the 70s or 80s. Um, I'm not sure exactly, uh, when, but, um, he, he comes over and he could, and he still loved

Russia. it was his country, but he could very much have, you know, it's Cold War, he could have come and been like, fuck Russia, like America, and America would have loved him, but he came over and he criticized America. People went off him very quickly when he did that. They did. He could have played to the crowd. He could have, and it would have turned him into another, he didn't buy into any of that and he saw it for, or he, I mean, it, that's really, I mean, that's integrity to another level. And that's the, that's the, not sort of the archetype really, I think,

dealing with that sort of, the mobs and crowds. It's the opposite to like politicians. Politicians have to play to the mob to further their careers. And that's the great thing about an artist is he doesn't, well, actually an artist does in a weird way, but Solznitsyn didn't let that affect him. The reason I bring it up is something that, and I've been thinking about a lot in dealing with because there's no question that we are

not woke and against workness. We are anti-woke, right? But the problem is if you are anti-cancel culture and you then engage in canceling people because they said something he didn't like or, you know, I see this quite often, you know, on YouTube, you'll get somebody on who's more left-leaning or who may be woke even. And you want to have a conversation with them. And people are, I'm not watching this. You know.

And it's like, well, you're not anti-cancel culture then. You're just anti-that cancel culture. And you actually quite like to engage in your own thing. And so, and that's the evolution of all of us. I think initially for us as artists as comedians, that was the feeling like this industry has become very homogenous and everyone's supposed to have the right opinion. I'm against that.

But then also as you move away from that, you're starting to see the flaws in some other arguments. And, you know, we're generally trying to build our own picture of issue by issue, topic by topic, subject by subject, as you do with the books that you read. And the, I think it's, it's big tech, it's social media, it's just designed to just push you into an echo chamber. It's just pushing you, you're either woke or you're anti-work. You know, you can't just be human being with different opinions.

Like it's going to feed you this. is going to feed you that. Do you know what I mean? Absolutely, and it's great that you've identified that. And as you, you know, take trigonometry forward, and this is how I say it. For example, for me, another, it's not exactly speaking to that, but I got invited to every news thing under the sun, and I've been very careful to, like, not go on to certain shows because I, you know,

I don't need to, like, I can play to now the anti-woad crowd very easily. But I don't, because I don't want to play that game at all. I don't want to engage that game. I know what it's like to lose my integrity, and I want to fucking keep hold of it, keep hold of my bloody soul, and just kind of see above it and see, and not play quick, you know, games,

which you're in a tricky position because you're building a business, so you kind of need to play quick games, but at the same time, people will see through you in the long run. We never, we never looked at it like that, man. We never, ever looked at it like that. Yes, of course,

we have staff and people helping us make the show, we've got to make sure that we've got a salary to pay them. But we think of it as the integrity that we try to maintain. And look, we're human beings and we're fallible. But it's the integrity that attracts people. So when we say this is our opinion and now we've changed it, for example, because we've changed our opinion. That, to me, is what people recognize as a human beings. and you hope that there's an audience out of that. But it's like when I started comedy,

people would always ask me, you know, comedians are desperate to succeed and whatever. And I always said, if I can't do the comedy that I want to do, I don't want to be a comedian. It's part of the reasons I don't do comedy now anymore. I feel like I've got more interesting things to do, you know. I don't want to play to any crowd.

You know? Do you not find that crowd, though? The crowd finds you. And the crowd I'm interested in playing in, I suppose, there is one, is the crowd of people who are interested in exploring ideas and making up their mind on an issue by issue and still retain that genuinely liberal feeling of, I'm interested in hearing people that I don't agree with. You know, that's the goal for us.

I think you've done, you've done well at that and inviting this kind of range of people. Yeah, we're not interested. I'm not interested in being a partisan. I'm not interested being partisan left, right, or whatever it may be. It's an easier path to take. Much easier. because you find your tribe and you can all agree it and we're built to seek the tribe. We're built to be part of the tribe. That's how we are, evolutionary speaking. But I don't want that. I'd much rather be apart and actually have my own thoughts and my own views and my own sense of integrity

than to be part of a group where I have to become disingenuous and lie not only to other people but more fundamentally to myself. But I'm going to ask this question because I think, sorry, go for it and then. Well, I found that with now launching my new podcast, and the people I've got on, it's a range of people, I think probably all my guests, a liberal if not progressive, I don't think I have any conservatives yet.

But, and I certainly don't agree with them on everything to different degrees, but I want to make them look good because they're humans, and because, there's no reason, even if I disagree with someone, that they aren't an interesting and nice person that should be given the time. And I think that that's that vilification that happens

when you get into the tribal stuff. It's so cheap. It doesn't need to be like that. You can be mates. Everyone at home's got mates who they disagree with massively, but they don't let that get in the way of their friendships. It should be the same on these sort of shows. I think that's starting to die out, Winston.

what you said about people having mates that they disagree with. I actually agree, I agree with you on that. Yeah, I think that used to be... Since 2015, it's like... You know. It's been very... Yeah, I think sadly that's going... That's starting to ebb away.

The question I was going to ask is the artist. I'm someone who's always been a big fan of art, music, film, whatever else. Why do we now believe that the artist has to be a good person? When did we start judging the artist for their actions and not for the art they produce? He's asking you to defend paedophiles. Well, the example I went to my head was R. Kelly because I frigging loved that song Ignition. Oh, it's a banger. It's a banger. It still is.

Do you have any moral qualms listening to that song? No, I don't. I think this idea that we should judge artists and say that, you know, if they have done reprehensible things, which many of them have done, suddenly we can't have access to all the beautiful things that they've created. I find ridiculous. I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. Louis Carroll, probably a paedophile. Probably.

Everything that we know about him. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly, right? We're going to get sued by the Lewis Carroll Foundation. Yeah. I'll get a message in my Twitter. Yeah, eliminate that, take it down.

Right? Created one of the most brilliant works of children's literature. in Alice in Wonderland. I want to have children. If I have a little girl, I will read her Alice in Wonderland because I think it is a book of brilliance. It just is.

And I taught it every primary school class I had, we read Alice in Wonderland together. It is a magical book. Is there any artist that committed a crime too much for you to enjoy their work? or sponsor their work. Because that's another line is, if you know that by listening to them or watching them, that they're getting paid

and that money is then fueling insidious behavior or inappropriate immoral shit, then that's, is there a line there for you? Because, you know, you can talk about people who are dead. It doesn't make a difference. Yeah. You know, but I don't want to... I'm much more ambivalent about it.

I also think it depends on what you're talking about, For example, if you look at someone, the music may be different somewhat, but comedy, how you experience a comedian's material depends very, very much on what your perception of their character is. It's one of the reasons someone like Jimmy Carr gets into a lot more trouble than someone else doing the same jokes because Jimmy Carr presents a kind of fairly normal person on stage. He's not vulnerable.

He doesn't talk about himself. It's all, there's no authenticity to it. It's just jokes, right? And so people look at the joke on it on its own. And he's not necessarily the most likable persona on stage either. Whereas if you took someone like Jerry Sadowitz who says things that are way worse than what Jimmy Carr says, but his persona on stage is someone who is completely mental, right, and very vulnerable and very sort of unhinged.

And that means he can get away with stuff that someone else can't. So the knowledge, for example, that someone is a sex pest or whatever, changes how you experience the joke they might do about that issue, right? So I don't think it's as simple as just going, well, you know, the art and the artists are separate. Well, on some issues, some situations they are, and then some of them are, it's much more complex. And I don't have an answer. I just know that it's not a simple answer. What do you think?

I probably, there's, I can't really think of an artist that I wouldn't listen to. I would still listen to Arkelly. But Arkelly's the only one, because as far as I understand it, and this is, I'm not sure of this is actually right, but he's an interesting example because he's someone who's still alive, who still profits when you listen to his music. However, I don't think he's still engaging in that behavior. So you're not funding, you're not fueling that necessarily. but the idea that artists are infallible and morally sort of untouchable is insanity

and so there's no art you can't listen or engage with or enjoy at all if they have to be a good guy because no one's good guy. But even more, to me art comes from flawed people. If you think about some of the greatest songs, the greatest art, literature. A lot of it stems from pain. And when someone's in pain,

quite often, they inflict it on other people, whether they intend to or whether they don't. An artist is never a well-put-together person when they're at their creative peak. So to then expect them to be this flawed, perfect person who's then producing incredible works of art, to me the entire thing doesn't make any sense. It's completely in Congress.

I just see the way that we're putting artists on a pedestal now and expecting them to be perfect, both from what they create and in their private lives and in their political opinions and in who they are. It's completely ridiculous. Agreed. And I've never, I've never let's say political opinions because that's maybe where it's most relevant to my life.

I have no problem listening to, to like Marxist, communist musicians, like that even though it's obviously an abhorrent and completely immoral political ideology that's killed hundreds of millions, doesn't mean I can't enjoy the music, I have no problem separating those things. But I don't think that that's the case for everyone.

I think that we're in a period where it's not the art that's judged, it's the person by whatever kind of whatever the faddy morals of the day are. Hey, Constantine, do you believe every business needs cyber security to succeed? Yes, of course, because otherwise Uncle Vlad will heck the hell out of it. Wouldn't that be a gross violation of international law? In Putin, Russia, we don't have law. Well, if you don't live in Russia, then pocket seam is the company for you.

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company at a reasonable price, then go to pocketseam.co.uk. That's P-O-C-K-E-T-S-I-E-M.com.com. Dot-O-U-K and get your company protected by the best in the business. Well, let me ask you this because you're a religious person and a lot of people have made the comparison that the thing we're going through now is a sort of new religion, if you like, but one that has no forgiveness and has no redemption of any kind. Do you think that's what it is? Do you see sort of religion or cult-like features in what's happening now? This is Euphoria Calvin Klein, the new elixir collection featuring three perfume

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brings them tremendous meaning and and so there is a that that is one of the kind of consequences of God dying in modern times. So I do agree with that. And I do think that, I mean, I've written about this a bit as well, but good faith and just remembering that we're all flawed. I just want to work out why that is not, so many of my friends still talk about goodies and baddies.

Like life is a Disney film. But even a Disney film's got more nuance than that. but I'm trying to work out I've been just thinking about why is it that that so many people see the world because that's not Christian thinking at all Christian is very much that we're

thought is that we're very much all flawed and one of the reasons is maybe I think we've been taught history really wrong like with Nazism which everyone learns in school which they should learn in school you know nazi's bad

Brits good or allies good rather and so and because that's quite an easy story to tell perhaps that's one of the ways we see the world and that's maybe why Nazi is the word that comes up so often when you're having political arguments

like if you're pro-Brexit you're a Nazi that was happening a lot of that kind of but actually and the other side do it as well you're a kind of remain a fascist. You know, it's not just one side doing that. I wonder if that, and before the interview started, kind of a little bit toward of the idea of, like, communism, why is that so difficult to teach?

And is that taught? And you're both from communist backgrounds. I know he's difficult to teach at all. Do you not? No, it's not difficult to teach at all. I think it is very difficult to teach. Why do you think it's difficult to teach? Because the thing I hear so often is, even from friends, intelligent friends, my age, are like, oh, yeah, well, it's conceptually brilliant.

It's just, in practically speaking... That's what I think. No, but that's nonsense. Conceptually, it's... It fails to take into account of human nature and it's utopia. And that's so conceptually it's nonsense. You know what? I take back what I said, you're right.

It is conceptually nonsense. What I mean is it's well-intentioned with something. people. I'm not even sure it's well-intentioned. For some people it is. For some people it's not. For some people, it's just about the opportunity to turn the tables and to be the authoritarian at the top telling other people what to do. I'm at the bottom now. I want to switch everything, so I end up on top. And a lot of people who led the Russian Revolution were motivated by that. But some of them were also motivated genuinely by a desire to uplift people and to share and whatever. I think there is some good

society. There's no one who doesn't really. Well, there's probably a couple. But most people do. But I don't think communism is very difficult to teach. I could teach communism to a class of kids in an hour. I'd like to be in that class. It's very easy. All you do is you take some resources like sweets or whatever and you

get some of them to produce them, let's say to make them or whatever and then you distribute equally to everybody. See what happens. See what happens. See what happens when one person sits in a corner doing fuck all and one person is doing all the work and then you distribute everything equally over and over. And then the person who did nothing gets to demand from that other person what they should and shouldn't do.

See what happens. It's not that hard to teach. The reason we don't teach it is historical, in my opinion. You asked me this before. That's why I'm answering. We needed the Soviet Union to win. We, the West, right? The West needed me.

The Soviet Union, if you like. I'm getting very confused now with my identities. The West needed the Soviet Union to win the war and to defeat Nazism. And because of that, it meant that they were willing to turn a blind eye to all the atrocities. Curiously, Churchill didn't, by the way. Churchill was, if you read him throughout that period, he's like, we've made a deal of the devil here. Yeah, absolutely.

But if you, this is one of the my favorite things, people who are, read Orwell, obviously read 1980, Ford and Animal Farm, etc. But if you read the preface to Animal Farm, he talks about how difficult it was to get it published because criticizing the Soviet Union at that time, which of course Animal Farm does very directly, was seen as one ought not to do this thing.

It's called, I think, on censorship is his essay, which I recommend everybody read. You know, it was a pragmatic decision. And also, people in Britain, people in America were not affected directly by communism, for the most part. How many British people died fighting against communists? How many British people were taken to concentration camps by communists? How many British people were repressed by communists? Very, very few.

Well, the story is even worse than that bit. And it's from your great mighty guest, Charles Udi. Who you recommended, thank you. Whose book, Labor and the Gulag, should be mandatory reading, I think, in schools in Britain. But the feeling at the time after the Russian Revolution, and for a long time afterward was you mustn't criticize the socialism and communism in Russia

because it's, you know, we've got to support it. So even when there were stowaways on ships of the timber that was being cut down by Goulag slave labor, you know, the timber itself had carvings like help in Cyrillic or whatever, so obviously they wouldn't really read it. But there were actual stowaways that ended up in Britain, and that stuff was ignored, so the revolution could be supported. But I don't think it's difficult to teach. I don't think it's difficult to teach.

No, I don't think it's difficult to teach. No, as someone who's got a teaching background, it's relatively simple to teach. Your big mistake is doing it with sweets because the little fuckers would eat. Well, even better, what you do is you get them to all to make something, then you get them all to sell it, make the money, and then you split it equally between people who've done absolutely nothing and people who worked hard. See how long that lasts.

That's going to last about a day, mate. It's not hard to teach. It's just about being willing to teach. Yeah. But again, the example, well, not again, you're not, it's not a, you're, you're, it's a practical thing. So you're still not articulating why communism birds there. You're just saying, try this kids.

Whereas with Nazism you could be like, you and you are like, this was an evil ideology where they, they prioritize race over common humanity and these were the consequences. Whereas you still haven't. Well, that part is, if you mean what is the intellectual argument, against communism. I don't find that difficult to articulate at all. I just think if you're going to teach people practical ways of doing it are usually much better because they experience it directly. But intellectually, the idea that we should pretend that human beings are not aspirational,

that human beings are not hierarchical, that human beings didn't evolve to seek to be more successful than other people in society, and that that is a healthy desire in a very large way, which is why we live in a, in a, in this world instead of mud huts, right? I don't think that's difficult to explain to people. And whenever Francis talks about his experience of Venezuela, or I talk about, and as I do in my upcoming book, about communism or the experiences, I haven't found many people who've struggled to understand that. What I have found is that even very well-educated people here in the West have absolutely no fucking idea what actually happened in the Soviet Union. what actually happened in China, what actually happened in Venezuela,

what actually is happening in Cuba, what actually is happening on, they just don't know. It's shocking, you know, knowing educated adults who have never heard of Mao. Yeah. And I wonder what the polls are there if you look at, like, who was Stalin, who are these people? And I bet you'd be appalling, like, there's just no education on it. But you see, the problem is, is that we don't prioritize the teaching of history at the schools. we touch on it very, very lightly, right the way through primary, right the way through secondary.

You get what? An hour of history education at school? What total? Yeah, every week. That is bad. An hour a week. Is you get an hour, maybe two hours a week? Which, if you look at the practicalities of school, it's five minutes to get the kids in, set up the lesson, then five minutes to pack away at the end.

So 50, 45 minutes of quality teaching. I mean, really, can you go into depth into any particular subject? Not really. So the reality is we just don't teach history. Most people have a very, very poor and limited grasp of history. And that's the reality of it, which is the reason a lot of the time where you saw, like you saw people marching down the street during the BLM demonstrations saying things like abolish capitalism.

And, you know, I had lots of friends. who were in the comedy industry, they were neither intelligent nor well educated, but we're going to skip past that. And they were saying things, you know, like, oh, this is great. And I go, do you know what that means? Do you actually know what that means?

Have you ever seen capitalism abolished? And then just look at me, and I'm just like, so why do that chant? Unless you know what that chant means, unless you know the implications of that chant, unless you know what effects that's going to have on society and the people around you, don't do the chance. And that's the problem, because what it is is a utopian fantasy.

It's a utopian fantasy. And you're asking people to believe in this utopian fantasy. But like all utopies, it doesn't lead to a utopia. It leads somewhere incredibly dark. But because people haven't been educated about it, you can lead them down the path. I'll tell you the story. I used to live in Wimbledon and there was a coffee shop down the road for me

and it was run by a Cuban guy and every week I would go in and we'd sit down and I'd pick a moment when the cafe shop was empty and we'd sit down together eat and talk politics and it was always one of the highlights of my week and I remember talking to him

his name was Joel and I was saying I was really frustrated because at that point I could feel the community, the common industry marching ever more leftwards and it was really starting frustrate me. And he said to me, I remember him saying to me, Francis, trying to explain why communism is bad to someone who's never really experienced it. It's like saying to somebody

who's always lived in a wonderful area, don't go down that path. Don't go down the alley. He said, it's only when you feel the punch across the back of your head. It's only when you feel the blood in your mouth that you ever truly understand what communism is. So there is that element of it. This is the point I was trying to make earlier, though. It's much easier to teach why Nazism's evil than to teach why communism, because the both of you makes it in the case

to teach how communism is bad, you have to, like, show it practically. Not necessarily. You can teach it. It's a little bit more tricky because Nazism, it's so obvious. You just say how many people died in concentration camps, et cetera. Okay, but I'm going to argue with you here.

Let's say how many people died in Goulags. It's more than in the Holocaust. The Holodomor, which was the Domew, which was the deliberate starvation of people in the western parts of the Soviet Union, killed more people than the Holocaust. Did it? Yes, it was over 7 million.

That's the official figure confirmed by the Russian Parliament. Right, it's more, and probably a lot more. But there was also the racial element to it, which is just, you know, and that, for whatever reason, that invokes a stronger reaction in us. It does, it's true, it's true. But let's look at the figures, man. Yeah.

I agree. Let's look at the figures. So if you, if you, the problem is, this is one of the things as well, it's historically. What happened with Germany after Germany lost World War II is there was a very, very, very thorough denatification program. If you were a German and you wanted to go and get a food parcel from the Allies to survive, which you needed to survive, you'd go and have to see a movie about what happened in the camps. That's what they did. They made you watch that, right? Did that happen in, in Russia in 91? No, no. And the people who run Russia are the direct inheritors of the very people who did the GULags. The same people who used to be in the KGB, they now run the country. So that's another reason. There was no decommunization thing. There was in some parts, in the western parts, in I think Estonia, Latvia, they did something about that. So I just think it's not so much that it's difficult. It's just that it hasn't been done. I don't know why that is. Do you think, do you have any thoughts from it? why that is?

Yeah. I don't think it's difficult, man. And whenever we talk to people, people who are not necessarily open-minded to our way of thinking, when you tell them what it was like, they understand. They understand.

But it's like a lot of everything that's happening in society now. If you believe in utopias, and you care more about virtue signaling than truth, and you care more about your idea of what's right instead of what actually works, yeah, that's what you're going to end up. You're going to end up believing in all this stuff, you know.

France has now been talking about this a lot, you know. We're living through a period when people are really embracing utopianism again. I don't know necessarily why, but I think that's a big part of it. It's a big part of why these ideas are coming back. Maybe it's because we're so comfortable now that we can afford to be oblivious to reality. we can just be, you know, sailing away with our thoughts in our own head. It's also because it's a simple solution to complex problems. If we do this, then we're going to reach a promised land.

When the reality is, there is no promised land. And maybe these problems that we're faced with at the moment, maybe they certainly don't have simple solutions. Or even worse, maybe there are no solution. Maybe this is just what it is. Well, look at something like our conversations around racism, for example. Does anyone who's actually thought about it for more than two seconds think that a society of human beings who evolved to be suspicious of foreigners and of others

will ever get to a point where there is no racism in society? There's not a single racist person ever. Are we ever going to get to that place? No, but that doesn't mean it's not worth trying to deal with those. In fact, one must. Yes, agreed. The problem is, so I absolutely do think racism should be fought against and combated. But I didn't say it shouldn't be.

See, this is where we get into the problem, right? I never said it shouldn't be dealt with. I said, are we ever going to get to a point where there's not a single racist left in society? Right? And the problem is, and actually Peterson, who talks about this a lot, is the first 95-5, percent of the problem is usually solvable with pretty simple and normal means. The last five percent takes an awful amount of social engineering to get to, right? And so we've now got to a point where I think most of the normal ways of dealing with the issue of racism have been exhausted. And you are now

doing things that are actually counterproductive, not you personally, you, us, the society, right? where we are, we've got to a point where we think that just chastising people for saying the wrong word is going to make them less racist. Well, let's look at the evidence. Let's look at the evidence. Since Obama was elected, have race relations improved? No, they haven't. The more we bang on about institutional racism

and the more we talk about all of this stuff, the more difficult this conversation becomes. There's another problem is that the solutions are wrong and this is an example I gave in my piece of Barry a couple weeks ago which was there was a BBC I was still with a band and we did a show with BBC Orchestra and the producer in preparation was insistent on doing having a racially diverse orchestra

which of course is nothing at all wrong with having a racially diverse orchestra, although her approach was that it should be, that the orchestra would be chosen by their immutable characteristics rather than their hard work and skill. And a lot of people would argue, yeah, that's how you deal with racial inequality, and I'm absolutely prepared to agree that there is racial inequality, but I wouldn't say that then picking people by the colour of their skin is the answer. Blind auditions would be the answer. But here's where we come back to my point.

So the solutions are all out of whack. Exactly, but that's exactly what I'm saying. You're reinforcing the point that I'm making, which is if you start discriminating against some group in order to correct past mistakes, are you gonna create less racism or more races? If you keep discriminating against the majority of people in this country.

I felt this so much, because I, For a period I was going back in forth between England and America and that country is so racialized And they see everything through the prism of race not and obviously I'm generalizing about a hell of a lot of people But it's by compared compared to British society and in the last couple of years we're taking that on which is just horrible moving back to England I was like I've got to escape that kind of racialized nightmare of seeing the world through that lens when I think beforehand, I thought Britain was pretty good at not, you know. Well, right, but let me, and there was racism in society before, but let me ask you. Oh, of course it's racism.

But let me ask you this, right? Because how do you get people from different racial groups to get on better? How do you do that? We were, we visited a friend of ours who watches trigonometry and she was telling us about a plumber that comes around to a house who also now, thanks to her telling him something, watch his trigonometry. And she was saying, oh, I love that interview. I love, yeah, you know, they explore such different topics. But the only thing I'm not sure about is the Jews. Big Labor, man.

And Francis was kind of like sort of, I don't know what your reaction to it was, exactly. But my reaction to it was good, good. This person has some kind of thing that he's got about the Jews. right and now he's watching a show hosted by a Jewish man right co-hosted by a Jewish man and enjoying it and before he knows it he's going to go oh maybe he'll start with maybe they're not all like that right that's where we start and then he will continue down the path it's intermarriage it's living together it's being friends it's having mates who are Muslims it's having mate who are Jewish it's having mates who've come from another country who are dark-skinned

light skin that's how you solve racism You don't solve racism by chastising people, by insulting people, by telling them that they should be discriminated against, because people who looked like them 200 years ago did something that you now don't like. That was accepted all around the world as the normal way of doing things, by the way, right? You don't solve racism by doing that. You make it worse. And that's why you're seeing the racial tensions increase instead of decrease. Because you're creating it.

You're creating it. And it does my head in, and that's why I'm so against it. So in the sense that I am anti-woke, I am very anti-woke for this reason because they're making things worse. Agreed. Great interview. But you know what? You said you said you wanted to ask us questions, so we're giving you a bit of... Yeah.

So we finally come to the end of the interview. Before we ask you, not only our last question, but also our questions for our supporters. Plug the podcast. Thank you so much. I am following your footsteps, starting my own show with the spectator, interviewing comedians, actors, writers, everyone in the creative industries to try and work out what the difficult totemic issues are, which you've been doing, but I'm looking more specifically, I guess, at the arts. And so far we had Ignat Salzunitsyn, which is Alexander's son,

speaking about his work as a composer and conductor in the classical music world and also he's an expert on his father's work and we talked about Live Not by Lies which is the essay Alexander published right before leaving and got a little bit of a disagreement because you know this essay is like if you don't stand up for what you believe you're a carc, not a cuck, you're a coward or you're craven And Ignat sort of made the case that it wasn't actually that stronger. It was more of a gentle plea.

But anyway, that was very interesting. And David Badegh, we spoke about Jews Don't Count his book. I do think anti-Semitism is one of those serious issues. Anti-Semitism is like Israel-Palestine as well is one of the... Israel-Palestine is an example of a topic that the creative industries are completely orthodox on. And actually unlike other issues, it's a bit more of an anti-establishment position. But I think last year there was the musicians for artists, there's over 600 musicians signing this anti-Israel declaration. Fifteen hundred artists signed another similar such thing. And

it's like, well, it's really anti-Israel. And then anti-semitism, I think, is such a certainly linked to that, but there's another issue that needs to, it's one of those sort of difficult topics. And even hearing that I've heard from Jews privately who are very nervous, even if they're not pro, you know, they're skeptical about Israel, they feel like when that topic comes up, they have to keep quiet because it's one of those issues that really sort of angers and is very divisive. and spoke to Don McLean. Apparently, he saw it all coming.

If you listen to the song, American Pie, he saw this state of the world a long time ago. I look forward to listening, man. It sounds like a great bunch of guests, and I'm sure you've got plenty more lined up. It's exciting, man. Thank you. I'm really keen to see what happens

in the next stage of your journey. Thank you. And, you know, you're working your way through it, and it takes a little time sometimes, you know. to work out exactly what you want to do and how you want to be. And you're a very thoughtful man, and you've got plenty of books to read, I think, as well. Thank you both for giving me the time and being so thoughtful in your questions

and for letting me plug my thing. And supporting me in my new, you've been very supportive. For your listeners, should know that you two have been very supportive friends behind the scenes as well as in front of them. And I'm very grateful for it. And you've been wonderful. friends with me in this last couple years, so thank you. Thanks, man.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to know you. We've got one more question for you before we ask a couple of questions from our audience only. But, Winston, the last question we always ask is the same, which is what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that you think we really should be? The thing that pisses me off, or not as pisses me off, perhaps, well, it occasionally pisses me off, but I can't quite work out,

is why the issue of the Uyghurs in China, where it's the largest interment of human beings on the planet. At the moment, it's between 2 and 3 million, or 1 and 3 million Uyghurs in camps in Jingjiang. And we've got all sorts of heinous, horrific stories of rape and organ harvesting and just the worst possible things you can imagine. And it seems to me to be one of the great atrocities. is happening right now.

And there's certainly a lot of, there's been a decent amount of coverage across the board. And it is one of those issues, a bit like Hong Kong, which seems to, in this country, be bipartisan in that there's no one, it's not a divisive issue. It's, everyone's pretty much on the same page. I mean, there are extremes who are hesitant to criticize China, but I would say they're the extremes. But nevertheless, and even though, let's say, the, the, we're. Uyghur issues in Hong Kong gets a fair amount of press coverage. I don't think it captures the imagination of my contemporaries and peers.

And perhaps this is because Uyghur culture is so alien. This is another thing with maybe one of the reasons why we got so, the George Floyd captured the imagination all the way over here, and it's probably about the same, similar distance to how far away the Jingjiang is from here, is because we're so marinated in American culture growing up that it feels like our culture. Whereas not only is Jingjiang a remote province of China, which is completely unimaginable to us,

but China itself, even though it's the biggest country in the world, is I don't think it's something we're educated on at all. Talk about being not educated on communism earlier. We're not educated on China. I certainly wasn't. And it's really difficult because the language is very strange or like very different to ours. It's a difficult, complicated, long history. And so China, generally speaking, I think it's something we should all be striving to understand better.

But the Uyghur, that specific ongoing tragedy, I think, needs more attention. And for any guests who are interested in learning more about the Uyghurs, I recognize. I recommend following Rahima Matmutt, who is in Britain. She's a Uyghur who, she's also a singer, and she does various performances, which we've been working together, putting on cultural events together in the UK to try and enlighten or try and show us the other side about Uyghurs that isn't just the horrible things that happenings.

What is Uyghur culture? What is Uyghur food? There's various Uyghur restaurants across London. There's not many Uyghurs in the UK. I think there's about 500 Uyghurs here. But maybe if we can paint the picture of who they are and their wonderful music, their wonderful traditions, then we can eventually push the needle on this horrible, heinous atrocity. Winston, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you for watching and listening. Before we go, I should just say, China is not the biggest country in the world. That's obviously Russia. You meant by population. By population. Yes, but we are the biggest. We are the biggest, Winston. Careful now.

Anyway, thank you guys for watching. We are back very soon with another brilliant interview like this one, Orr Orr Show. All of them go out at 7pm UK time. And for those of you who like your Trigonometry on the go, it's also available as a podcast. Take care and see you soon, guys. It's a great pun.

It's a great pun, once. I got it. This is how you do it in comedy, by the way. If they don't laugh, you just make them Russian way anyway. Yeah, exactly.