War With A Mate - Episode 93: I’ll Do Another Fake Newspaper I Swear To God

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

The spreadsheets are looking nice and well-formed following some hefty prep work, and the guys relax after such prep with a quick and friendly “game” on-mic. The Mailbag looks at the origin of Andy and James as friends, Andy’s History Corner unveils a super overt smear campaign and Common Ground asks that we call a spade a spade. Announcement is now up for the grand beginning of the full game in all its glory, via a live-streamed Episode 100: https://youtu.be/Jy61r6e1YSw?is=IeRm4tVjxJVUffFv

Hello and welcome to Warwick Mate with me, Andy. And me James. We'll switch around there. Keeping things fresh. We need to. It's been so long, Andy. We've been doing this for, I mean, it's coming up to two years since we got this game. So we've got to keep things a little bit, you know, keep the audience on their toes.

This is War with a mate, the podcast in which. James and you Andy play. Still have to do that thing, did you? You caught that. Play the campaign for North Africa. A board game notorious for never having been finished. As you probably know, if you're listening at this stage, we are not playing the campaign for North Africa currently.

We're in a hiatus during which we're preparing for the full play-through. We've wrapped up a six-turn practice play, and the full 11-turned-turned-game awaits us in the future. It's looming, but I guess. we can say what it'll be now? Yeah, well, we've got the when it'll be, but now we've got more specifics about the how it'll be because we mentioned a little while ago

that the full play-through begins on episode 100, and we mentioned 30th of October, which is, you may think, very specific because our release schedule is kind of spotty. Less specific. Yeah, it's usually around the weekend, but that one is very specific for very good reason. And as we've announced on our Instagram and YouTube,

check them out, if you haven't already, because we've done little promotional materials. Yeah, you did a really cool promo video for it. Thank you. Thank you. I had a lot of fun putting that together. It's one thing to edit a podcast from scratch, but I've been doing that for two years now. I've made a video as well. That was fun. So that's on the YouTube. Please check that out. That was a lot of fun to make. And it was to announce that episode 100 will be live streamed on YouTube.

Yes, we're going to try something new for the first episode of the... the full campaign. So we won't actually be playing much. We're going to do some of the first dice rolls, but it's more going to be a launch party type thing. Launch party is a very good way to put it. It'll be building up to and starting turn one. Because realistically, if we were playing on a live stream, that's not going to be a whole lot of fun. So it's going to be a full episode in the usual sense of

doing all the segments you know and love and some of the ones you don't. which is, and you'll be dropping a history segment. We'll be doing some common ground. We'll have, what our plan is as well is to have live listener call-ins. We'll be working that out and get some of you guys to dial in so that you can ask us some questions on the live stream and we can wax lyrical up to the start. And we will commence the full game live on air.

The first dice rules will be made to the likes of weather, I'll have to double check if initiative I think you just have it for the first time I did for the scenario I don't know if it is for the full game

Oh good point yeah But we'll double check Either way We'll do whatever dice rolls we can We'll set up all of the nitty gritty Beforehand so you won't have to sit there Watching us put down all the pieces For I guess that would be like

Four hours So we'll not do that But it's going to be live We wanted to make sure that When we're starting it It's a spectacle And that everyone who's been listening so far and are stuck around can enjoy that and be part of it. And we'll release the full thing

afterwards as well. If you miss it on the live stream, time differences and all, then it means you can tune in afterwards. But we've picked a time and day that we think works well. It's the 30th of October. It's a Friday and it'll be 7.30 p.m. here in the UK, so hopefully everyone's wrapped up their workday. And overseas it means in the US, yeah, it's kind of midday Friday. But maybe you can squeeze an early finish. If you work from home, check it on in the background. Yeah, stick it on. What does it matter?

And for the folks in Australia, our big listener base, just set your alarm early. Show up for it then. Have a nice cup of coffee while you watch. It should be a lot of fun. We're really hoping it will be. And it's also, coincidentally, 30th of October was the day that we found the eBay listing of the game. A nice bit of synchronity. Yeah.

Bless you. 30th of October, 2024 is the day that we found the game listed on eBay. And it makes no better sense than two years later for us to begin

the full play-through with that. Yeah. So please come along for that. We'd love to see your numbers in there. Dial in if you can. It'll be an experience. It'll be the start of the rest of our lives.

But that's the future. And in order to get there, we've had to do some preparation. And that's what the hiatus is all about. And today, I think, Andy, correct me if I'm wrong, has felt like the most productive part of this hiatus so far. I guess for you, I've been working on it in the background, so for me, I didn't see anything new today. That's very true.

So today we sat down, and we haven't played another sideboard game today. We decided today to get right down to brass tacks and see what we're working with to get the full game going. and Andy you sat me down and you showed me the spreadsheets you've been working on and if I had two words for it they would be goodness me or maybe holy shit because those spreadsheets are incredible. The things you've pulled together for some context when we've been playing the practice room we've had our own spreadsheets we've kept track of things in our own hodgepodgeways which as the game went on fell into writing stuff on paper notes and a phone notes app and it just kind of I went all over the place. But because we're going to be showing you guys these spreadsheets when we play through the full game, we need them to be refined and kind of readable.

And also something we can rely upon that doesn't require manual updates to the extent where we can't keep on top of them and we're relying on things like paper notes and stuff on the fly. But Andy, you've been working on some crazy good sheets with some formulas in there that are going to make things like evaporation and store expenditure, nice and smooth. Yep. You've linked them up together so supply dumps and trucks can work with some synchronicity. Yeah, you can transfer from one convoy or a supply dump or vice versa. Yeah.

Update both sheets. So these things work in tandem beautifully. It means that we don't have to worry about translating information from one sheet to another with weird incongruity. It means that anything that is a supply dump in the sense of it's a village or an actual built-up supply dump or an airfield all function the same way, so they're tracked the same way. And as for trucks, if it's a convoy or first-line attached truck, it's all going to look the same. Yeah, so, yeah, because they're a convoy attached trucks or just a convoy that moves when something else does. There's no reason to split them into different things, just attach a convoy to a unit.

And it makes perfect sense. It's something I should have really been doing the whole time. And now that we've got that, it means we do now have spreadsheets that are coming up to being finished. Everything you showed me, there's so much functionality. It's pretty much done for the most part. There's some parts like the unit spreadsheets are... That's been the biggie.

Still under maintenance, because we've got to keep track of cohesion, toe points, which are the big ones, and also some of the things like combat values, how that all links into things like barrage, close assault. So you've got them ready, you've got ideas, and you've shown me the skeleton of those sheets. But the truck ones, and trucks are the game. They are. Fuck the trucks. That's why I did them first. Yeah, you've got to get them out the way. You don't want to be sat there with a truck day looming over your head.

No. So we're in a really good spot. Andy has been a godsend with this. So everyone give Andy a round of applause for that. Silence in the studio. Do you hear that, Andy? These people don't appreciate the work you've put in, but I do. Well, the celebrity doesn't like clapping for people.

Well, he's fast asleep, as always. I don't know when he slurked back in, by the way. After JPF took his spot, I don't know. what point he just managed to slink back in there. I think he heard J.P. JPF was coming in and scarpered and slunk back in when he left. Yeah, you need to get the locks looked at here in this play. I've changed them once a month since I moved in four or five years ago.

He just keeps getting a new key. So this guy's a master lock picker as well. Or he's bribed my locksmith. I mean, he's got Hollywood cash. He does, yeah. Even though his career's not being on the up and up, so to speak, he's got enough behind him from previous films. I mean, there was a franchise that he was in.

So that's good money. We're running up to the edge of the NDA year. I didn't sign shit, all right? I don't know what rental agreement you've got with this guy. I don't know what slice he pays. For all I know, he's the guy that keeps the lights on here, but I'm not buying into this. I'll expose him the first opportunity I see fit.

Okay. He has no power over me. I'll let you find that out for yourself. What does that mean? What kind of blackmailed this piece of shit got on me? But it's beautiful. The work you've done, Andy, is awesome. It means that we've got something that's going to be effective for us to use. It's going to be efficient. And it also means that we can show it to you guys. Yes. And we'll let you know the release cadence of that on probably episode 100 during the live stream. Why not? Yeah. As to what that looks like when you guys can access it and how likely through the website I would expect maybe links elsewhere. But you'll be you'll be able to see it in granular detail. You'll

see the ins and outs of what we're doing, which we assured you from the start would happen and we're making sure that happens. This practice run was, I mean, it was kind of piecemeal and patchwork, but it was a lot of fun. It got us an idea of the game. It also got all you guys here. Everyone who's listening now came along on the back of that. And if you've listened from the startup to now, thank you and kudos. And if you're sticking with it the full way, you will have the payoff. You will get to see the spreadsheets finally in all their glory, week in, week out. You'll be able to see what the layout of that is. So that's exciting stuff. I was really, really hyped seeing those sheets. You've done great work. And when it comes to the other parts, we've done a bit of work on

other aspects of the podcast and what that looks like going forward. Yep, some planning discussion about, yeah, stuff we've got coming up. Yep, I mentioned there. Our release schedule has been kind of all over the place. We'll make sure that that is consistent. We've got an idea for that as to when episodes will come out reliably and you'll be able to depend on it. And how we can do it reliably.

Yeah, we've got a structure for that. We've got some bonus things, which we've mentioned quite a few times, where we're set on what that looks like. We just want to wait until episode 100, so we'll try not to bang on about that too much since we now have a day to talk about it. So tune in on the live stream. We'll let you know what that bonus stuff looks like

and where you can get access to that. And that was kind of it, wasn't it? Yeah, it was just, yeah, and going over some of the changes we would have for the sheets, like what would be useful for us. Yeah, it's been a bit of a, sheet day. Yeah, it's been, it's kind of like a truck day, but exciting. Yes. We're going to go through a bit of a tech demo sometime in the next couple of weeks where we run through the sheets and

see how convoy production works, because you've even built in a way to create convoys using this formula, so we can access a new convoy with relative ease, generate a new convoy, and then input all the values. So we'll have a little dry run of that sometime soon. That'll be cool to see it in action. And all in time for the Big 100. Yes. It's crazy that it's now, the hiatus is when it started. I know it's only been a few weeks, but it felt kind of infinite. It felt like we had all the time in the world. Yeah, I also have felt that this week where it's become, oh, it's like a very specific date that's fast approaching. Yeah, I think there's something about tipping into September

and seeing that it's October that we start the full game. It's next month. Next month we begin the whole thing. So you kind of have to really shift gears and get ready for it. So we didn't even play another game.

We didn't play another board game this week. No. Which is a shame because I like to play games. Instead, we've had all of the admin and prep work of a board game a specific board game that requires a lot of it, but no fun. Hey, it wasn't that bad.

How about Andy? Yeah. Game of rock paper scissors, just to keep things fun. Let's give it a go. Okay, so we'll do rock, paper, scissors, go. Okay. All right.

Rock paper scissors go. Rock paper scissors go. What's that? Okay, so the first round, we both got paper. And then you just point it up. It was meant to be scissors, but my finger clenched too much. My thumb didn't let the middle finger go. So we'll go again.

Okay, that was scissors versus scissors, but you fucked up with scissors. Rock paper, scissors go. Rock paper, scissors, go. Oh, he beat me. That was a rock versus scissors. So that was a game for the week. Andy, yes. Rock paper scissors.

What are you ranking that out of ten? It's got to be hard. You think? I think it does. I don't know. I think I'm going to give a 7.8. That is high, that is high, but not as high as I thought it would be. I think, you know what, I'm not going to go too far off.

I'm going to nudge it down a bit. I'm going to go 7.4. Okay. I think there's a few things that bring it down for me. It's that part at the start, the clarification. It's when do we go? Oh, yes, is it. Everyone has their own homebrew version of how it works.

It's kind of like monopoly where it's like, do you put the tax money under three parking. How many times do you get a roll doubles to get out of jail? Can you pay before you roll a double? Do you have to wait until after you've tried a roll? You know, what way does that work? So rock paper scissors also has its kind of nuance in there, and that brings it down a bit. Also, you can only do two-player. No, you can do more. No, you can't. You can do as many as you want. What would three-player rock-paper scissors look like? What do you mean? What if you all do different ones? Then you go again. And what if you...

No, no, no. Yeah. Never mind you go again. Right, okay, there's seven people. Okay, so you're very unlike... Well, that's fine, actually. Is it? Whatever there's the most of.

No, no. The thing that loses to that loses. What the fuck are you determining with that game of rock paper scissors? That's another thing as well. It's not for fun. It's for sorting stuff out. It's for sorting stuff out. Even now today, it's just been done as a, as a, an,

administrative step in the podcast. We've just been going through the motions we need it to play a game. Okay. So even that doesn't count. I don't know what to tell you, man. Well, no, you had something to say. Yeah. Let's hear the end of it.

You can play rock paper scissors with more than two people. It's not just the two-player game. It's not a game. Like we said, it's not a game, though, is it? What else is it, then? It's just a very simple game. It's a sorting mechanism after a certain point. if it's more than five or more people,

it's a sorting mechanism. I guess it's a boarding system. Playing a game of Mario Car could be a selection process if the person who wins does something different from the people who lose. Don't be facetious. That's a sorting system. No, it's not. That's a game.

No. It's designed with the express purpose of being entertaining and it can't be used another way. You think when the cavemen were coming up with rock paper scissors, they wanted it to be boring? You think the caveman had paper and scissors. They played... What the hell are you talking about that?

They played Leaf and River, but it was similar. Leaf and River. Leaf River Rock. Leaf River Rock. Yeah. That sounds like a country song. So what did the cavemen have in mind with that? They were bored, were they?

I mean, probably profoundly in a way we can't fully understand. No, I don't think they were bored. What the fuck do you mean? They were always busy. No, they weren't. Do you think lions are bored? Yeah, they look incredibly bored. They look depressed most of the time.

I'll be honest, I picked a bad animal. They spent all day sleeping. Yeah, I picked a bad animal, but that's because they're tired from the hunt. No, it's not. Well, yeah, it is. They're saving energy because they're depressed. They're saving energy for the hunt. Yeah, they're not saving energy to be depressed more later.

Elephants, are they bored? No, but they have perfect recall So they can just go back into a good memory And relive it totally Perfect recall, great film Sure I love a neo-noir thriller All right, okay

Then I'm going to go for Moles When do you think about mules? Are they bored? Yeah, they're basically just stuck underground They're basically buried alive So you think all animals are bored Probably quite a lot, yeah.

I guess what do you define as bored? Because I feel like whatever is going on between us here, there has to be a disconnect. You know what bored is? No, I know what, I know what bored is for me. Yeah. What do you think the objective sit point of bored is? I guess none of your stimuli is that stimulating.

But for these animals, they don't have like a, I'm trying to think of a way to say this without making it seem like animals are objects. They don't have like a conscience. They don't have a rich internal life. Yeah, I guess that's definitely part of it. Did you know that for sure? I've got a bloody good feeling. For all you know,

lions are lying there doing maths. They just have an unrented writing to put it down anywhere. There's no way that lions have invented maths. We can't know. We'd see patterns. They also, they have no way to pass it on to each other, which means they all have to

independently come up with the idea of maths. It's in their genes. You've played Assassin's Creed. If mathematics was in the genes of lions, something would have went wrong for us by now. Are things going great? I guess that's not objectively, no,

but I don't think it's the lion's fault. Maybe we check in on them. Although, Andy, you do have the lion's share. Why is he getting that share? How did he cook those? books. What's he done to figure out of them? That's, uh, that's impressive.

That, maybe I'm wrong. Yeah. Maybe every single lion invents mathematics from fierce principles in the head. So during the hiatus, we've been sure to keep on track by. Yeah. Covering, covering other board games and, uh, our preparation work for the full playthru. And we've, we've started to get the spreadsheets pretty much sorted. Yep, they'll probably be another week or so until they're pretty locked down.

Yeah. And then some, I've got a few of the other ones that, like, prisoner and breakdown that we haven't. Yeah, some of the more niche bits that we didn't really keep track of to in depth. But they also probably won't be that complicated. No, it's just feed people for the most part. Yeah. There's also going to be a case of keeping track of, well, sorry, not keeping track of, logging our units, our starting positions.

getting them in place because that's something we'll have to do probably with the board out. Manually. Yeah, I think maybe that'll be something probably not next week. I'm working pretty late next week, maybe the week after. Yeah.

We look at setting the board out and maybe start planning our opening positions. Yeah. That'd be a big one. Yeah, set stuff back to the start so we can figure out the place anyways and that sort of thing. Yeah, well, we'll have to take all the pieces off the board

because we still currently have the board all set up in the corner of the room where it has been since we finished in the game state that it was in when it finished. So we need to take all the pieces off the board, start sifting through the box to see if there's anything that we missed that we need this time round,

which I don't think we do. I think the only thing is we picked out some of the pieces that have printing errors. So, not printing errors, sorry. There are some with printing errors that don't have division markers, but that led us to pick out the wrong piece. Like I've got a few divisions.

divisions where I've picked one of the, like, battalion groupings that have a lower stacking value. Oh. Where it's essentially the same piece, but it doesn't have the division strip on it. Oh, the number's right, though, right. The number's right. It's like, yeah, like first Libyan. Yeah.

But I've picked the sub-headquarter rather than the divisional headquarter. Yeah, we want to get that right for the... Just for, well, verisimilitude. Yeah. Can't help but realize that under your name. is playing music real loud again. It is ramping up. It is ramping up.

It started off at the start of the recording, quite mellow. He's doing it again. Fuck's sake. Sick of this guy. We've got stuff to talk about, guy. You yelling at him. The ceiling's definitely helping. He can't hear me.

He definitely can't hear me. If I can hear his guitar playing this loudly, this badly, this badly, there's no way this man can hear me. Okay. It's like a, it's like a, Jimmy Hendricks was shit. And upstairs. An excellent music review.

I'm all for practicing. Practice makes perfect. But if you're going to start badly, be less bold with it. It's also pretty wild to be starting at half eight. Yeah, half eight on a Tuesday. It's a weird time to start. start. That's when we're recording

this, I guess, guys. It's half eight on Tuesday. What we're doing is way better than what he's doing. We've got more to say than the timeless music of Jimmy Hendrix. But, uh, you know who else has things to say? Oh, we're doing that. We're jumping straight in. Yeah? I guess, sir. I guess, yeah, we've covered all that. Why not go straight into the mailbag?

Well, it's one of those ones where we add a lot of progress this week, but until we show the spreadsheets, it's... Means fuck all. It's nothing to like talk about. Yeah, that's a very good point. Right now, all we've got are our own memories of the spreadsheets being very effective. But yeah, I hope that game recap was fun for you guys. And rock paper scissors, hey, that's a 7.4 out of 10.

And delving into the mailbag, we start with Matthew. Matthew's been in touch before. Matthew is a longtime emailer. He's given us plenty of insight as to the game and its functionality. Yeah, he's kept us honest of quite a few rule mistakes we made. Yeah, yeah, point out some early stuff, early misses. Real fact checker, and it's good to have someone

waiting in the wings to keep us right, especially in those early days. Yeah. And Matthew reads, or writes rather, I read. Hello again, Andy and James. I'm really enjoying listening to your most recent podcast and have to give it to you guys for coming up with such good history and common ground segments.

Thank you very much, Matthew. Anyway, I wanted to ask if you, few questions about some rules. First of all, are you guys aware of the reaction rules? I think this is going to be us getting something pointed out again, Andy. Yep. Because I was a bit confused as to why James's armored cars were destroyed, as they could make a reaction move.

I'm trying to think of when this would have been. This is probably when I split off my cars in my last ditch effort to get down the escarpment. Oh, is it not the ones you sent ahead behind my guys? a few off. They were like south of city Barani. Yes, I broke them off from the guys that went down the escarpment, I think.

Yeah. Maybe the Libyan? Yeah. No, the 63rd, maybe. That sounds about right. That might have been of, what was the end of the world syndrome? You know, the email we got where they were talking about how if it's the last turn you play differently. Yeah, there was definitely part of that where I was more focused on guys doing the objective maybe rather than

keeping them preserved. Yeah. So I definitely didn't look at reaction stuff. I'll give you that big time, Matthew. Secondly, just confirming whether you know that Benghazi, Durner, Tobruk and Bardia garrisons have lots of guns that are immobile, and can only fire at the Royal Navy. Yes, we do know that now, absolutely.

At the time, when I first moved them, no. I did not know that. I've since learned that, and it's something that we will be employing in the full game. But at the time, no, I was under the impression that those were my to just move around and dilly dally as much as I wanted in the deserts of North Africa and do whatever the fuck I wanted with them. I've since found out that is not a, that's a foul, it's an legal move. You can't actually do that in the campaign for North Africa. So again, thank you for pointing that out, Matthew. It's the kind of thing I could have missed and have previously missed.

Moving on to the Common Ground. In your most recent episode, you guys talked about the World Cup. I can confirm there is at least one big football fan listening to your podcast. I wonder who that is. It's got to be you, Matthew. I thought you just know someone else who is. Despite the ungodly times I've watched most of the World Cup matches, I can confirm England hooligans are some of the most tame ones out there. For example, recently the Argentina fans have been shouting racial slurs

and throwing beer bottles at the outnumbered due to visa and ticket restrictions. fans of Cape Verde and Egypt when they played them, while Turkish fans hold the world record for the loudest crowd noises ever, and finally, in Egypt, the Football League was banned for a few years due to a war breaking out between the fans of different clubs. That one takes it. Yeah, a war breaking out is wild. Racial slurs and throwing beer bottles is, I mean, it's just fucked behavior,

but it is unfortunately something that I've realized is part and parcel with football. Part of it. Like a part of the subculture. Yeah, well, that's it. I think I've got a very jaded view of football because we're in a city that's so football heavy. Yeah. That's so much of the culture revolves around us.

I also used to be quite anti-football, which I think is just a thing of like, if you grow up when everyone's obsessed with football and you don't care about it at all, you get like a resentment for it where you're like, like you're like over egg how much you do. I'm like, that's calmed down and now it's just like, I don't care. But I did, you used to be like, fuck football.

I hate it. Like, it's such a waste and stuff. Yeah, for me, it's always been a case of sort of a couple of levels to it where, for example, we went to, we went to download festival a couple of years ago. Yes. And when we went, there was a whole lot of kickoff in the subreddit about the one of the matches being shown there. I can't remember what it was. It might have been the euros or something. I think just based on the timing it would have been euros. Yeah, I think so. Two years ago, and World Cup just happened. Yeah, so it was the Euros I think were showing there. And there was all sorts of,

you know, kickoff and vitriol and the subreddit about it where it was like, well, why are you showing football in a music festival? And my mindset was, well, I don't care. You should be able to do that. If people are into football and they're also getting to go to a big music festival, that's great. More power to them. They should be able to have the best of both worlds. But I dislike football on a higher level where I think, you know, more power to them. I think people should be able to do that. I just dislike football at its core. And I think

if you are spending a time watching it, I think what a waste of time. You should be able to, you're entitled to watch it. You should have a space to watch it. I think it's a waste of time. But we're doing this, so what do we know about wasting time? Exactly. That's just, yeah, that's my subtle humble and maybe prejudiced opinion. But yes, I think overall, there's a lot of bad things involved in football.

This is definitely part of it. And I think it brings out a divide. I think that's what I don't like. And the fact of war broke out, that speaks to it. That's a lot. That's too much. That's far too much. Finally, under the actual content of the Common Ground,

I really like the first idea of giving it to the winner as all the best teams of good facilities. However, I don't agree with the second idea as if a country gets knocked out early, it will probably have very poor facilities. And this won't stop all the fans from, this will stop all the fans from going. And could potentially make the host bankrupt trying to build the infrastructure to hold that many people. If a country doesn't have a stadium people will be at, they will be standing around the fields, potentially causing stampedes like the Hillsborough disaster. Good luck starting the main game. stay subtle, humble and brave, Matthew.

Yeah, I think he's completely right about that one. You've kind of rinsed my idea a bit there, Matthew, I'll give you that. It would seem on this occasion, football has really outwitted me because you've taken my short-sighted, I think, spiteful idea of, well, we'll just make things more complicated and difficult for the football community. And you've raised me a potential humanitarian disaster. So it's a... It's a hard one to argue my way out of.

I will give you that. Yeah, you've sort of had reality come in and slap this idea down. It's very hard when someone counters common ground with a realistic situation because... Or thought. Common ground ideas dissolve on contact with reality. So now that you've done that, I am stuck in a bit of a hole. You are right, Matthew. I will give you that.

You've not only pointed out mistakes in the game. You've pointed out mistakes in my... decision making and logic. Yeah. But bear in mind, those things, Matthew, you've got to bear in mind, they came out of short-sighted anger. So I'm not actually responsible for that at all. Super healthy, archie.

Way to take accountability, but. No, no, no, no. Andy, I don't need to take accountability because it's not my fault. Fine work. I said it in the moment on the fly. It's improv. You know, it's. It's the podcast, it's kind of like jazz.

It's boring. It's boring. It's out of tune and you can do any fucking thing on it and say it's arse. Yeah, it's all those things. But I think all and all, you've got me on that one. And I can't really argue with it. Maybe I'll just, maybe I'll lay off the football common grounds until the next World Cup. Yeah.

I mean, that's the only time we're going to do them. By then, I'll have regrouped and I'll have better ideas, or at least the same idea, just a little bit more refined. I think almost certainly what happens is you'll forget and have the same grievance. That's probably true. I think after four years, I will have lost this moment of clarity, and I'll just be back to being quite frustrated. But all in all, thank you, Matthew. It's great to hear from you, a long-time emailer and always pointing out the spaces in between. And that's important for us, because we don't often look in between.

And there's a lot of those spaces. The spaces are many and the distance is vast. Andy, we have another one. This is simply titled Fan Mail. Yeah, from Jay. Hi, guys. I'm one of the lucky people who attended your UK Games Expo Live show. Oh, one of the elite view.

Thank you for coming. And it got me listening to the whole thing. I called up at the end of June. I'm sorry if this email strays into incoherom. I'm typing it on a coach back from My Chemical Romance. Oh, I guess, Jay, you could say that you're not okay. I saw the blank expression there, Andy. That was a My Chemical Romance song.

I did assume, but thanks for clarifying because I didn't know. Thanks. Well, thank you for the venom. Here's that, bye. Yeah, okay. I could do this for a while. I'm a big My Chemical Romance fan. So I'm still a bit of emo, I think.

A bit. I get sad sometimes. My comic and romance, fuck. They're so good. Okay. Maybe I'll give them a lesson. You should. You should.

Welcome to the Black Parade. You must have heard Welcome to the Black Parade. Yeah. Do you use in D&D? No, no, not Welcome to the Black Parade. That's not really a song I could use in D&D because of the cadence of it. Oh, I think I know that then. Yeah.

When I was a young boy. Oh, yeah, that's a good song. Yeah, you know it. Oh, turns out I'm also a massive. My God. A romance fun. Yeah, it's a great song. But yeah, awesome that you were there at the live show, Jay.

By the sounds of this as well, the way the email reads, you were someone who weren't listening to the podcast beforehand. Yeah. Got into it from the live show, which is awesome. Yeah, it's very good. So thank you. Hopefully you've stuck around. Otherwise, I guess, you're not here to hear it.

So if we can say whatever we want, we can make up the rest of Jay's email. they are hopefully they're still around so let's not okay fair enough let's read it let's read it my best mate shout out sidney is also listening uh she's getting closer and closer to actually getting people together to play it oh a fret that was uh the reason we came to the live show oh heavens i hope that's when i said you're not here i hope that's not what you're doing you better not be playing the game we keep on telling people don't play the game don't play the game and they keep on saying no James Ananda, we want to play the game. Don't play the game, guys.

I'm not good at board games or good at remembering any rules, so it can't be a good idea to have me involved. If only we'd have that much foresight about ourselves, we'd have that self-awareness. We bought this game knowing it's never been finished before, and we have the goal to think we can finish it because we decided to. What kind of fucking hubris is that? That's insane. that is that's the workings of a madman so if if you've at least went in with this self-awareness then i think you'll be all right jay but unfortunately if i won't want her to give me a lift and help me run a monthly board game meet up i'll be play it'll be playing the game it's not worth it it's not worth it walk do not take the lift just get the bus and don't play the campaign for

north africa get a bike get a bike you know i get the bus and i play the campaign for in North Africa. How's that fair? Double loser. I have to buy a monthly bus pass, and I don't have a social life. Who's that for? Who wins there, Andy? I mean, that's a lose-lose situation. Or more importantly, a loser-luser situation.

The double-l loser. I do not have a game question. I am curious how you two met, listening to you both for such a delight. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life listening to both play this game. You got me through many a day at work. Thank you very much, Jay. Yeah, we've not said have we met, have we? I don't think we've, I think we might have touched on it before.

I don't think we've gotten to the in-depth part of it. But, yeah, we, so we met at a house party. Yes. This was quite a while ago. I was like 18, you were 19. or 20, you would have been 20, you're like two years older than me. No, it would have been younger than that.

I would have been like 16, you would have been 18. No, I think I was 19. Oh, so 17, 19. Yeah, oh, yeah, because I started that job, like, where I met a mutual friend. Yeah, so... I started that, like, a week before my...

Yeah, so I guess, yeah, a bit of context. We, um, so I... So, JAPF, Jurassic Park Friend, is in the story, because I went to school with JPM and he went on to work at an apprenticeship where you also happen to work, Andy. Yes, and now defunct company. Yeah, because every company you work at crashes and burns after you leave. Yep. You go to a bunch of tech startups and they just mysteriously fall apart when you leave, which makes me think you're embezzling or something.

Wouldn't they do better once I leave? Surely that makes you think I'm such a good employee. Not if you've taken all their capital. Not if you've absorbed their cash like a hungry, hungry hippo. But yeah, you went there to work, and Jurassic Park friend, and a few of the people I knew from school also were working there with you. Yeah, there was like four or five people from your school ended up at that job. I think it was like one of the things where, like, people catch on word or mouth and they all start going at the same place. You can go there and do no way if you're that way inclined.

I'm seeing why the place fell apart now. They had a bunch of 18-year-olds not doing their job. They hired, I think they hired something like 15 apprentices, and I think I'm the only one still in tech. Oh, really? I think so. Wow. One other is, one over is a tester, and then, yeah, I was a programmer. And you're testing.

Yeah. Testing personality. So, uh, so yeah, anyway. After ragging on Andy. So I met them there and then got invited to a house party. We had a friend who would host these house parties, and he worked with you. I went to school with them.

And I only kind of, like, knew the guy through those parties at that point. We had a few classes together in school. Yeah. But he would, like, host these parties, and I'd always go there. We had, like, so many mutual friends that would go. So you'd always show up for the parties. And he would host them, and you were there for this one. I think you must have...

I think it was the first one we were both at together. Probably, yeah. and I had a bit of drink. I remember being in the guy's bedroom and I put some music on his computer while everyone else was in the rest of the house in the party. And I was like, I'm going to stick some music on

because they've got their music on. I want mine on. So I stuck on Wise Men by James Blunt and I was singing my heart out to it. And you'd been to the bathroom and wandered past and caught me singing. And you also burst into song

with this complete stranger. And we just sang the entirety of Wise Men by James Blunt. I think we jumped on his, like, bed and we're, like, standing on it, acting like it was a stage. Yeah. And we just wrapped up the entirety of the song,

and then I think we were like, oh, what should we put on next? I think it was, like, how high I'm Andy, by the way. And then we, yeah, we sat in there for a while. I know we played a few more James Blunt songs. Yeah. And then later on that night.

And then we found out we both, like, Jake and Amir. Yeah. And that basically sealed it. Later on that night, yeah, we put on Jake and Amir, the web series, the college humor web series, which is definitely the formation of our friendship. And also Jurassic Park friend, introduce me to it. So that's kind of where the trifectar of us, I think, as friends, really came from,

is that shared sense of humor from definitely that. And yeah, we met there. We became pals afterwards, started going on. a few nights out. We were drinking buddies for a bit, and then we both needed a place to live, and we're like, hey, do you want to go from only meeting each other one at Hammond to living together?

Yeah, we'd started playing D&D together. Yes. Because we'd hang out for nights out, and then we all got together one night, me, you Jurassic Park friend, and another guy we knew, and we all thought, well, to make sure we see each other regularly, because we're hanging out so sporadically.

Let's pick something to do, and we do it all the time. And the other guy had said, well, why don't we play Dungeon the Dragons? Yeah, and I think I just... I think we'd all been interested in it beforehand. I'd played it once before JPM was there, and it was a nightmare. It did not go very well. I didn't have fun. I didn't really get it.

And I thought this is kind of a bad game. But I think, looking back, it was the people I was playing with, and the guy running it. Oh, yeah. Well, D&D has a huge variance and, like, it's as good as the table is. Yeah, if you've got people that you're not going to enjoy playing it with,

you probably shouldn't play it at all. Yeah. So I'd add that, and I thought, yeah, we'll give it a go. I at the time was, I was between places, I was living with my grandad at the time, the one who was in the North Africa campaign. I lived with him for a bit.

And during that time, I drafted up a setting for D&D, put it all together, and we started playing week and week out and we have still to this day pretty much every weekend schedule's shifted yeah these days over the last year or so

it's changed a bit things are you know everyone's got life going on but we still play regularly we used to play three times a week every week and yeah it dwindles a bit now but we still play very regularly definitely come back to other groups yeah I think we're like fortnightly now

For like a sort of eight-hour session. Round about, yeah. It definitely still runs long. And when we were playing on those first six months, I got my own place for a six-month contract. And towards the end of it, you were looking to move out from your parents. Yep.

And we were like, well, we'll just move in together. So we got a place. We lived together for three years. The last year of which was during COVID. Yes. And my girlfriend moved in. in with us at the time in that last year because COVID was like, oh, we'll kind of stay where you are.

And we're like, oh, we've just got together, want to be around each other, just live here. And then I left you in the lurch because I then moved in with her. And, you know, we went off and gallivanded. And then you were left on your lonesome. You moved into your own place. I got this place. Right now in the War of the Midd Studio, you moved in there.

So really, I pushed you on, I spurred you on. And then, yeah. Yeah, we're here now. I'm getting my own place now. I, too, am moving. Yes. I'm also going to be getting my Bachelor pad. So I guess we'll just have to pick which one's going to be the Wall with the Mait Studio.

I don't think mine still. I think you're still as well. Yeah. Even though I'm going to get a place where I can have a dedicated separate room. You've got a one-bed place. I'm going to get a 10-bed place. Probably not. Maybe a two-bed place.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's probably more realistic. No, ideally three-bed. Ideally three-bed. Because that spare room I can use for setting up the campaign for North Africa. That would be perfect. But it would have to be nearby.

Otherwise, you can't get there reliably. And yeah, that's our story from start to finish with a lot of gaps in the middle. But that's the summary of me and Andy, meeting each other being pals. Somewhere along the way, we decided to do this. What a fucking stupid idea. Yeah, that's the story. That's it. The highs and lows.

And that's the origin. So, yeah, thank you for getting in touch, Jay. Thank you for getting in touch Matthew. And anyone else who wants to get in touch, please fire over an email. It's info at warwithamate.com. At UK, anything you want to fire over, let us know we will read it out if you want us to. If you just want to fire us an email about, I don't know, questions for us to address directly or anything you want to comment on, that you don't want us to read out,

then let us know. And anything else you want to share? It's game related, not game related. We made a promise a long time ago, we're going to read it all. And we're still working our way through that backlog, but we will read everything. Yeah, we might have lost some web forms.

We haven't lost any emails as far as I know. We just have a lot to get through. If you send an email, it is still in the inbox. If you send a web form, then that, that, That could be somewhere in the ether. So if you have anything you want to share with us and that's been webformed previously,

fire it over. The website, warwithamate.com.com. at UK, will be getting overhauled as part of the hiatus. And our Instagram is just War with a Mate. If you've got Instagram, please follow us because I pop on updates on there for any of the announcements, weekly posts for the episodes,

Q&A's, some fun bits and pieces. And YouTube as well is a a big one for now because we put up the promo video for the live stream and other video things. We had our chat with the Echoes of War Guys, which is on there, our live shows on there.

There's an unboxing video. Yeah, we unboxed the game in a video. The very first time we opened the game, that's on YouTube. So we'll keep all video stuff to there for the time being as well. But yeah, get in touch. We love hearing from you guys. You keep us right. You keep us going. Keep us accountable.

but keeping us going isn't good enough. We need to keep you going. We need to keep you fulfilled because we haven't talked much about the game. We aren't playing the game at the moment. We may have read your mail, but we need to do more. We need to educate you.

And Andy, that's not my job. No, it's mine, I guess. So it's time to go back, back in time, back to history. Let's do it. The men of the long-range desert patrols were quite a sight on their return to Cairo from a most trip to the The contrast between the east and west of the Nile is very marked. In the east, the country, at this point I gave little thoughts of my future, but had always been interested in the sea. I am more or less in a position of a campus of a surprise where I had a telegram which is on the point of sinking because errors are present.

We are absolutely not qualified to share views on history. where and when are we? World War I. Still? No, actually. It's just finished. I was going to say, we did this. It's over. Yes. We reached D-Dave. Well, we reached armistice.

Yes. Now we're going to do Britain after World War I, see what kind of state they're getting into going into World War II. So make your minds perfectly clear that if you ever let loose upon us a general strike, we will loose upon you another British Gazette. Winston Churchill. Okay. That's some threatening words there from Churchill.

Yes, they were. For something, we'll get to it. Okay, I like the little teaser trailer you drop. So Britain's just come through World War I and being profoundly affected by it. If you look at a map, you would think Britain was at its peak, having expanded from 11.5 million square miles to 13.7 million square miles.

This is from them carving up the Ottoman and German empires with France. Ah, yes, of course. Yeah. Through secret treaties. Correct. One of my least favorite features of the First World War. Yeah. However, you sort of peel things back of it, they are not going well.

I'd imagine they're in a pretty shit state because of everything that happened during the war. Yeah. So in the financial realm, Britain went. from 65 million approximately 25 to 30% of GDP in debt to 7.8 billion. Right. Which is 140% of GDP at the time. I'm just running the numbers there, Andy. That's not very good.

Britain goes from being like one of the major world creditors to being deeply indebted. I think they've over-leverage their country. They've had to borrow a lot. What of money. So as well as the national debt expanding massively, the British electorate also has, though, despite the losses from the war. So before the war, only property, only owning men were able to vote.

But due to the deaths of a million young, mostly working class British men and injuries to 1.5 million more, they could no longer deny them the vote. So the representation of People's Acts of 1918 expands voting massively, allowing all men over 21. They also allow women over 30 who owned property to vote. So, and this is something I was aware, so this is, so the allowance of women to vote

was through necessity. Yeah. More so than activism. I'll say this, no, necessity and activism. You sort of need both. Yeah, well, that's the word. of course massive pushes, suffragettes and the movement around this time.

But yeah, it feels very underhanded that around this time as well. It's like, what, so they just kind of they're like, oh, okay, we'll do it. And it's like, well, because you needed to. Yeah, you could have done this earlier. Well, it's an unfortunate thing

I've been noticing again and again doing the history section. Like, with the interdepartmental health investigation, where they decided to start giving, people, food and education, wasn't because of some, like, grand moral thing. It was, we need to be ready to fight a war. Yeah, it's just more of that. It's just more, it's more of the history segment making me angry at the past, I guess. Yeah. So, yeah, women over 30 who on property are able to vote. However, due to various restrictions on women owning property,

such as male relatives having automatic precedent over a wife when a man died, unless there was a specific will. So a woman wouldn't automatically inherit her husband's property and it wasn't considered her property. So the only women who could do this were ones who'd like

inherited money basically is the only way they could like. And since they don't automatically inherit it, it would be people sort of at the end of the branch. Yeah. Where there's no sort of like other, I'm guessing,

it would usually go to a male air in that case. Yeah. Well, until, I didn't put the date, they changed it around. But, yeah, that was the law until, like, the mid-20s, I think, where, yeah, it was just automatically went to the men and the women didn't get anything. So also, banks refuse to let married women get independent bank accounts without their husbands also being on the joint account. This one I knew. I worked in a few banks previously

and this came up twice in different training sessions. I can't remember the context, but trainers from two different companies mentioned this fact. Yeah, so you like, they also, a woman, even if she was independently wealthy, like, had managed to, like,

get a bank account and get paid well enough for a job to buy a house. Yeah. Couldn't get a mortgage without a male guarantor. it only became illegal to discriminate this way after the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 I was dreading when you said 19 I was like what's this number going to be afterwards please be oh god that's so late my parents were alive that's the same decade my parents were born yeah the 70s

Yeah. That, what's going on there? That's far too recent. Yeah, it's... That makes you realise how close of an accordion time really is when it stretches out for your own life. The rest of it was actually real, real recent. Oh, yeah. So these cumulative changes meant the electorate grew from 7.7 million citizens to 21.4 million citizens.

the liberal party also completely collapsed during this time, leading to the creation of the Labour Party by the trade unions. I wonder if they're still going. Well, they're not linked to the trade unions anymore. That's true. Different, you know, weapons can change their spots and all that. Yeah. So the trade unions are doubled in size throughout the war from four to eight million members as working people sort of realize, hey, you needed us to do this war.

Maybe we should like have rights and rights and free time and stuff. When we deem it necessary, yes, you will. And then we will spend as much time as we can afterwards trying to take them back. So there's also a shifting attitude about the role of government because to win the war, they have to create a command economy taking control of things like railways, coal mines, shipping and shipyards in order to win. government spending had risen from 8% of GDP to 62% of GDP. Wow, that's a big increase. Oh, yeah.

That's not any 10 times, buddy. While post-war governments wanted to lower spending, it never returned to the state of minimum intervention that had existed before. Instead, the foundations for the welfare state were starting to be laid as people realized maybe governments should do things for people. David Lloyd-George. So, as the government had taken control of most industries and reduced exports, this allowed foreign competitors, particularly the US, to seize those markets.

As such, Britain experienced some similar issues to Italy post-war, remember the massive industrialisation and then, oh, we don't need all these factories and workers to be making stuff anymore. Yes, yes, that was a big one. Yeah. Things were held together all right after the war ended, So May 1920, unemployment rate was less than 1%. Wow.

Within a year later, within that year, the economy crashed, and by May 1921, unemployment was at 23.4%. Fuck me. That's insane. Yeah. So that's one about millions. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So I don't know the exact population of Britain at the time, but it will be. potentially tens of millions like 10 million plus well we're only we're what 60 million now yeah so we probably probably maybe on tens of millions yeah

I think yeah climbs into millions yeah in the space of a few years crazy yeah from my from less than one yeah

yeah that's insane this dip does eventually stabilise but around 10% for the rest of the 1920s that's still high yeah There's another huge financial problem rumbling towards Britain in the 1920s, which is Britain had come off the gold standard in World War I

in order to be able to print unbacked money to fund the war effort. Yeah, yeah. So spearheaded by Winston Churchill, the at-time Chancellor of the Exchequer, they decided they were going to go back on the gold standard, hoping to restore London's pre-war glory as the financial capital of the world. They thought that a backed currency would prevent excessive government spending through printing money, stop inflation, and restore global confidence in Britain. There was a chance this could have worked, but Churchill decided they would use the same ratio

as they had before the war. However, Britain's economy is much weaker, so they overvalue the currency by 10%. Hmm. He's warned about this ahead of time by economist John Maynard Keyes. Very famous Keyesian economy economics. He's like one of the most famous economist ever. Well, it doesn't sound like he was on to anything. Yeah, he wrote a pamphlet called The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill. Oh, you don't want to be called out by name and leaflet. Where he was warned that this would force to wages weaken the British economy and create social chaos. Despite these warnings, the Gold Standard Act of 1925 officially passed and came into force on the 13th of May 1925 with disastrous consequences. Because the currency was overvalued, it meant British goods were 10% more expensive

for foreign buyers than they should be. And also, it made imported goods 10% 10% cheaper than they should be, which basically means no one's buying your expensive exports and they're exporting stuff into your country that's undercutting what you can produce locally and like destroying those local businesses. Oh no. Yeah. Because of this, the owners and industries like coal mining tried to compensate for the 10% by exploiting their workers more, decreasing wages and increasing hours.

The miners pushed back leading to a national general. strike where 1.7 million workers across various industries put down tools between the 3rd and 12th of May 1926. The government pushed back using middle class volunteers and the army to keep supplies moving. Winston Churchill also attempted to take over the BBC, but the Prime Minister blocked him. So Churchill sets up a government-run paper called the British Gazette, which he users to smear the strikers while also lying about how effective the strike was and claiming people were returning to work and abandon the strike even though they weren't. And of course, this stopped all future mining strikes and the BBC is thriving.

So I'm glad all of that worked. Well done. This is crazy. This newspaper existed for nine days. That's not okay. It was purely to fuck with the strike. Imagine not putting out like a smear campaign in a newspaper, but putting out a smear newspaper.

By the last day of the strike, they were printing two million daily coffees. That's so much for a limited run newspaper. Yeah. So when he was heavily criticized by MPs for his lack of neutrality, he delivered one of his famous retorts I utterly declined to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire

which is an ironic thing for the fire to be saying Oh dear The general strike eventually breaks after nine days Although the miners hold on for seven months Before being forced to return to work under harser conditions Under harsher conditions Yeah, well they went on strike Because they were like, we're going to increase your hours

Oh sorry, so that hadn't quite kicked in That was them being like, we're not doing that Oh, we're going on strike Loads of other unions were like We're going on strike with you of like a sympathy strike Oh, I thought they were like boiling the frog And it was like, hang on a minute, what's going on right now Isn't okay

But they went on strike before it kicked in Yeah And then have to finally return to work because they had no income no income for seven months Christ yeah and again it's just Churchill being like

you caused this by fucking up the goals standard thing like this is your fault if only a leaflet had warned him otherwise yeah if only one of the greatest economists of all time I told him it might be a bad idea so later in July he's also facing criticism in Parliament

for his heavy-handed and biased management of the British Gazette, and that's when he used that quote from the start about out-unleashing of a British Gazette. See, at the time, I thought it was like a, some sort of like euphemism or analogy. Yeah. But he's just kind of went, I'll do another fake newspaper, I swear to God.

I'll do it. So, yeah, oh yeah, he made that threat to the Labour Party in the trade unions directly. So in response to, this general strike, the government also passes the trade disputes and trade unions act of 1927, making sympathetic strikes and mass picketing illegal. So they just sort of go, striking seems pretty effective. Stop that. Stop that. British, Britain had to shamefully come off the gold standard in 1936 after just six years. I mean, it lasts longer than the Gazette,

While dealing with this domestic dump-up dumpster fire, the empire is also falling apart, but we'll get to that next time. An ineffective time for the old leader. Churchill has like four good years, and even them, pretty doubtful. He's one of these figures where I definitely don't know the ins and outs of, of Churchill's politics. All I know is his renowned space as wartime leader extraordinaire. Yeah.

And also the massive swing from that of being a controversial figure. But I don't know a lot of the controversy. I know that it exists. Yeah. But I haven't actually looked into what that looks like in material sense. We're definitely going to do a series on him at some point. It's probably going to be a big or huge. I've got no doubt

Churchill's will be, by its nature, huge. But from some of the things we've already seen, the Gallipoli fucker, putting a shitty guy in charge of the Navy and the Mediterranean that arguably led to the Gobin, the ship escaping, which it wouldn't have under competent leadership

and the Ottoman Empire coming into the war. That might be a bit of a stretch for having you can believe. He plays a role in it. He's got influence in it, yeah. Yeah, he plays a role in it. The Gazette thing.

The Bengal famine is... Yeah, not great. He's got a lot of points already that are stacking up to kind of be like, what are you doing here, buddy? Yeah. Yeah, that's it for the history segment. Yeah, I mean, as always, a very insightful look into what was going on, especially at such an interesting time,

because we've wrapped up all of the... the mishaps of the war, and now we're looking at the mishaps post-war, where you've got so much opportunity to do things a little bit better and avoid the same mistakes. And yes, there's no secret treaties mentioned this time, but if anything, it's just overt shittiness. Yeah. Abuse of workers. Also, I can't say I'm a fan of that. This is domestic policy, so we'll probably get to some secret treaties next week.

I'll tell you what, I don't look forward to it, buddy. I don't want to hear what secret treaties went on afterwards, but I know they existed. Yeah, they kind of will dry up when Woodrow Wilson finally finds the League of Nations, because one of his big things is not doing secret trees. A man after my own heart. On the note of history, a bit of a tangent, well, not really tangent, but this week, and I put something up on the Instagram about this and a few people got in touch with us about this,

emailed and sent messages in. There was a notable event history related this week in real life that happened, which was the last surviving member of the Long Range Desert group, Jack Mann, died this week. Yeah. The final guy. There was a quote shared in his obituary

don't talk to me about sand I've had it in my eyes my mouth up my nose in my food everywhere he was I think 100 years old oh wow died

so yeah a bookend on the the history of the North African campaign between what we've covered what happened the whole thing starting and now we've reached another

conclusive point the last long-range desert group guy is dead, passed away. Yeah, that's a real shame. Veteran of the SAS and Special Boat Service. Oh, so we did the full long-range desert group to SAS

pipeline. Yeah. It looks like he went through the whole thing. There's an article online. I'm sure you can find if you Google that. I don't have it to hand the whereabouts of it. But Jack Mann, man spelt with two ends. there's a big article I'm sure some crazy

stories in there but yeah what a what a shame to see another part of history come to an end yeah crazy crazy stuff

knowing that it started when it did and at least it's still being talked about now and I think it's an important thing to talk about and touch upon and we touch light on it

it is a lighthearted podcast and it's nature but yeah serious stuff serious stuff. It is kind of a worrying thing that, like, as the world's getting to the state, it is, all the people who live

through World War II are are dying. So they're, like, I don't know visceral's the right word, but, you know, like, it's becoming a less connected history that people will, like, learn. Yeah, there's no first-hand accounts

that could be spoken to you. you instead now you're learning through people who heard it from those people and you don't have the people that were there to tell you about what went wrong and how instead you're relying on the stories and stories lose their impact they become diluted through the layers that they go through and also any like historian or anyone who's really telling it would just inherently have bias like everyone has bias so whatever you're getting is through the lens of whoever decides to tell you about it. Yeah, I mean, even, you know, you take the history segment, we're talking about the

stuff, but it's all through the lens of, you know, we're playing the board game and it's, it's all lighthearted. It's important stuff, but even then, when it's been talked about, it loses its punch by the nature of how we communicate us. Yeah. So when it comes to really learning from it, I mean, God, we've got no hope. Yes. Maybe we can find some agreement, though.

You know what? I think you're right. I think when it comes to that side of things, there's definitely people out there doing a more potent job of warning. We're recapping. We're going back over. We're pulling back the curtain and having a little look under the hood. But unfortunately, we don't have the skill set to fix the car.

What we do have, though, is a little tricycle that we've been riding for the last two years. And the little bell on the tricycle's broken. We couldn't try and fix that. We might be able to figure that out. We can give it a damn good go, Andy, and I reckon Common Ground is the way to do that. Well, I've got it here. You ready? That's Delvin.

And now for something nicer. A little oasis in the war. It's time for some Common Ground. I'm trying to intro from Common Ground. I'm recording it. Maybe. Common Ground is, of course, the segment in which we come together as pals during our conflict in the war in the desert. to find a place of agreement on a topic that will alternate picking each week.

And Andy, it's your choice. What do you have for me? I've got something that's been bugging me for a while. Okay, perfect. The word content. Yes. I just want it removed from the lexicon of the world. Hard agree.

Okay. Hard, hard, hard agree. Okay. Okay. Andy, I've had this thought independent to you. Okay. Okay. Let's just talk about it.

Have we ever done? Is this, are we in agreement as quickly because we did a common ground about this and forgot? No, I don't think so. I'm confident we haven't because I feel like I would have had the cathartic experience of talking about it. And the fact I'm so elated makes me feel like I've not spoke about this before. Yeah, okay. I guess that's fanboy a little bit. What makes you dislike it? I've got a few things. Yeah. It strips away like meaning. Yes. It like reduces are into like something less than that. Yeah, to harken back to a point

I made a while ago about corporate speak, I talked about the word peace being used. Yes. In sort of workplaces and corporate speak where it's like, well, people will use the word piece. And the context, by the way, it's like, you know, let's talk about this,

this compliance piece. Oh, I'm working on the telephony piece. They've just shortened piece of work, but... Yeah, and it's like, but what do you mean by piece of work? Yeah. Because that's vague.

Yeah. And if you said piece of work, someone would go, what the fuck are you talking about? But instead they'll say peace and it makes it sound like it's a term you should understand, but it actually just means thing.

Yeah. It's just saying the word thing in a different content. Which is kind of what content is. It is. It's the same thing. Because it's just a thing filling something up. In this case, like people's time and I guess

tech... platforms. Yeah. Content in this case is just something. You've made something. And content, I feel, I don't know where it, where it began, but I feel like it's in the sort of, I think when YouTube became a sort of. I actually looked this up. Oh, perfect. Please tell me. Apparently Bill Gates published something called content is king in like the 1990s. Oh, really is as early as that. And then it sort of became mainstream. with social media. Oh, so I reckon, and again, you might actually have the full context of this here, but I feel like it might have spilled out from that then went into workplaces

and then into PR, and then it finally filtered down into people, the every man using that as a catch-all term. Yeah, I think it would probably that, yeah. Because the use of content, if someone, what gripes me a little bit is,

it's when people who are, it tends to be the stuff like on TikTok and like shorts and people making making, you know, things that are just kind of short form and quite, I don't know,

broad and basic. And I've definitely used the word before because it's... It's just like there. Yeah, it's become entrapped in my mind. So people will be making something and will just kind of go, oh, I'm making this content.

And I'm, I'm a con. Content creator, by the way, is that's where my anger comes in. Thing maker. Yeah. Content creator. What do you mean? And this is another part I'm going to add to this common ground.

We're getting rid of the word content. When not replacing it, you can say, I'm making a video, I'm making an article, I'm doing art, whatever it is. Yes, keep making your thing. And for anyone who's like, I don't have something to describe what I do now that I don't have the word content, you weren't doing. you weren't doing anything of value. Stop doing it. If the only thing that... If all you can say is I make content,

not even I do a podcast or I make videos, stop what you're doing. Yes, because you are... And for the most part, these people that use this term, I find, could be put into a category of I make videos. Yeah, but they don't want to say that. And I think it's...

And this comes into another common ground I did way back. This is a real early one. where I'd said that, I've just immediately lost my train of thought. I've immediately lost my train of thought. Whatever it was, I've just become quite frustrated with the idea of content creation as a concept. I've lost what I was saying. It's all right. It's not.

It's not. Because we are currently making a podcast. Oh, my God. What am I done? I had such a salient point to make and it's gone. Old common ground. Yeah, there was an old common ground There was a really early one

Fuck me, this is annoying And this is live radio for you folks Except it's a podcast But that's it When you're making something And you can't describe it Then you won't actually Making anything

And if you're making a video Then that's fine But call it a video Yeah Call a spade of spays But if you're If you're making a video And you want to describe it as content

Then why? What are you hiding from? ashamed of. Yeah. Why can't you just call it a video? Because content and slop are kind of synonyms. They're just stuff you into something. Yeah.

You just want to put something out there. Yeah. You don't want to... It's like the fear of a label. And it's like it's fine if you want to make YouTube videos, if you want to make a blog, if you want to make a vlog, if you want to do food reviews, or you want to do film reviews, or you want to just post about something you're interested in. That's fine.

You are completely valid in doing that. You should be able to put anything out into the world and try and get those 15 minutes of fame. I'm all for that. I think those people are fine because I'm doing a kooking video or I'm doing a comedy video. It's when you're like, oh, I do videos. What are they?

It's like I kind of like look hot while someone films vertical content. Yeah, that's another thing. When it comes to, I guess, current social media, I think social media is a massive part of it. If you're making something for people to consume on social media, I feel like that's a very different environment because it's no longer something I personally understand.

Yeah. So many people do. Otherwise, it wouldn't be viable as a source of income. And there are so many people who digest that kind of information, digest that kind of media, but I don't personally vibe with it. If it's just like a video of someone kind of just stood there, like aura farming, I believe the term is. Oh, yeah. I don't get that. Like, it might look cool, but I can't put my finger on it.

I couldn't describe that. Maybe that would be content. Maybe that's what that is. Yeah, but also there's the thing of like, oh. You ask someone what they do, and they're like, oh, I take clips from TV shows and add the Sigma music and just create like endless supplies. You know what? In that case, I guess I will push back a little bit. Maybe we do use the word content for something.

But I would be discerning about it. Maybe it's a pejorative. Yeah. Yes, let's make content. Yeah, let's make content in slot when someone says they make content. Just. Yeah. Or we could swap out the word content.

Maybe we found the definition of the word content. Yeah. Maybe we now, that we've determined what it is, we swap out the word content with internet swill. So if you're just posting clips from suits. Yeah. And you're putting like loud rock music over it with like bass boosted effects. Yeah.

And posting that online. I'll be honest on TikTok, if a suits clip comes up, that's like 10 minutes long, I'll watch it. But it's like an edit of Harvey Spector walking through corridors over and over. Oh, yeah. With like, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. Stop.

Or call it what it is. Hashtag internet swill. Yeah. So we keep the word content, but it is a pejorative now. And if you want to say you're doing something, say what you actually... Yeah, you can't just... What you're actually doing? You can't just fall back on I'm a content creator.

Yeah. What does that mean? Stop hiding behind... vague terminology. Yeah. Or at least define it. I think that's my issue. I think maybe it's me being very detail-oriented in some ways,

not in all ways, by any stretch. Oh, was the one you were trying to think of getting rid of slang every three years? Fuck, it was. Thank you so much. Yes. Yes. Oh, my God. Thank you. Yes, it's exactly that.

Fucking hell, thank you, man. This is why we work together. Yes, it was. It was that because I think it's maybe that. is part of the me not understanding it, I think content has a definition, but maybe it's fallen out of sync with my lexicon. Yes. And I think maybe content now means something else. The issue for me is when it's used as a catch-all. Well, if they haven't updated like the dictionary, it's basically just the inside of, the stuff inside a box, basically. Yeah, it's like,

it's kind of like the word media. That, for me, content is being used. where the word media would be used? Yeah. Although I think media is a descriptive term because it's not used the way content is. Yes. It never fell into that trap. Yeah.

It kind of got away before it was misappropriated by people abusing the word. Yeah. And I think Common Ground has really boiled down something for me, which I think I've started to come to terms with as myself using Common Ground as a sort of personal therapist, is that I think I have real issues with language being used in ways that I don't use it.

Yeah. Which is probably intolerant and selfish. Well, I actually used to have this point, because I'm terrible at spelling. And I used to make this... Which is wild, by the way, because you're one of the most well-read people, I know, if not the most. Yeah, I'm still dyslexing. Yeah, but you churn through books. Yeah.

Like, it's nobody's business. Oh, I'm good on the input. It's the output. Yeah, fair enough. I also have a thing I don't, this might start dumb, but I just see, like when I read a word,

I'm not thinking, I don't read the letters, if that makes sense. You know it because of the context. Like, I know the shape of the word, like, rather than thinking about it as individual letters. Yeah, you see the letters,

like jumbled together in a clump. And you've seen the rest of the letters jumbled together and the clumps in the sentence. And as you read through it, it gives you the context where it's like, well, I get what this whole thing is. I know what the words are because I can get the gist of it. There's a quote from a...

I think it might be Newgill, but one of the characters says, I'm not sure I know how to read. I just think I've memorized a lot of words. And I do sometimes think that is the case. I could see that being the case with you. Yeah. it's like Kevin in the office

where he can't do maths unless they're under pies oh yeah pie maybe it's that for you it's like I don't know how to spell the words but if you put them in the context of a full book I will understand them completely yeah

I'm with you man I think content is a poor choice of word yeah oh yeah also sorry with the spelling thing I used to also get really annoyed because I'd be like well the word looks close enough, can that just be fine because you know what I meant. And then it did get

pointed out to me, well, yeah, but if everyone did what you're doing, the word would immediately like shatter it, basically, the speed of sound and become unusable. And I think it is a bit of that, like, no, you do all need to use language on the same

way. Yeah, it needs to be a defined aspect. Yeah, I, I, Because I agree with that. I feel sometimes like I take it to the endth degree where I just go silly with it and I become really frustrated about it when I really shouldn't. I make my day more difficult for myself.

Not that I'd choose to do it. I don't think I can control it, but I feel like if I just relaxed a little bit about it, I wouldn't be as bothers. You'd be more fine. But I think that like this now, like the use of the word content, it doesn't need to bother me.

No. Inherently, if someone is describing what they're doing is a vocation or hobby as content creation. And I never interact with this person. And it just pops up on a doom scroll. Yeah. And I'm sat there like, I'm angry now. Why?

Yeah. So if I was to put the blame on me a little bit, then I have a huge portion of it to take. Well, I've also think that's part of the problem of why there is all this, like, complete rubbish out there, is it's lowered. It's sort of gone from, art to media, to content, and the bar for what is, what like breaches each of those is lower than the previous one?

Well, you take Scorsese's talk on Marvel films, not being film. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, you've now got these categories where each medium is starting to break off into its own segments where it's more digestible. Yeah. And also, I think that's a huge problem with. like Marvel's Phase 4, I would guess, is the executives went in and they were like,

we want this many hours of, this many films, and we want this many hours of content for Disney Plus, rather than being like, does anyone have a story to tell? Yes, it's like, fill the noise. Yeah, we need a certain amount of runtime added each month to Disney Plus,

or we start to lose subscribers. because like an algorithm's told us. Well, now it's just, it's more, more, more. Yeah. You need to fill the void. You need to fill the blanks. And I'll do that. I will, I'll wrap up the recording here, and I'll head off for the train, and I'll be on my phone.

Oh, yeah. I'll be watching stuff the whole way, or mostly listen to the music. But the moment I sit down on the train, I'm like, well, I need to get my phone. I need to watch something. Yeah. And then I'll get home, and I'll brush my teeth with a video on, like a TikTok and scroll through. And I'll wait until I find the right tick. TikTok to be able to brush my teeth.

And I'll spend more time finding the right TikTok to watch. Just gone and brushed your teeth. Yeah. I could have easily done that, but I need the engagement to be able to do that. And there's the thing, I think there's a trap there where you go, oh, because content now means everything. You're not like, why don't I go and watch some, like, a film or something with, like, some more intention to it. Yeah. Because it's all content.

Yeah. instead I'll when I'm sitting down to watch a film I need to brace myself for it. I'm like, no, I'm going to watch a film. That's, yeah, that's something that I've been trying to do recently because it's genuinely concerning where it's like, I can I not sit through a two-hour film anymore? Am I just incapable of doing that and not like reaching for a phone or trying to open a tab or something?

Yeah, like I find a struggle with that. And I think maybe that is a bigger problem with content. Yeah. In that I think there's just an attention deficit that exists now. Combined with like a flattening. Yeah. Everything is content. There's no...

We're part of that problem, man. Oh, yeah, fully. We're doing that now. We're putting something out there that... I mean, what does give me some hope, some glimmer of hope? Is that when people get in touch with us, they're sending an emails where it's very clear that these people have listened to the whole thing.

They're mentioning things that when they mention I go, oh, yeah, that happened. We talked about that. So people are listening to it in its entirety. They're listening to it all. And we're putting something out there that is intentionally long.

And I think I really, with this whole thing, I was excited about the concept of putting something out that doesn't end. Because I've followed so many things where it's like, I want the consistency of that one thing I like to go on forever. I would love to always have this. We've had people get in touch and say,

I've now caught up, now I have to wait every week. I hate that. My dream for War I'm 8 is someone to find this in 30 years and to not run out. Yeah, that'll be 6,000 episodes. Yeah. Wait, is that? 30 years, 52.

Oh, so not. 15,000. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, 1,500. 1,500. Would it be 1,500? It would be 1,500, surely. Wait, sorry, you said 30 years, right?

Yeah, 30 years. So 30 times 52 is 1,500. Yeah. That feels like there should be more. We'll record twice a week. How about that? We'll always be putting out what we can. We are, we're not putting out content.

Put in our podcast. We're a podcast, and also content means it has to have something inside. No, that's the problem. The content is the thing that goes inside the platform. That's true. That's the rejuction happening. And what we have is not something that goes inside a platform. It's something that goes inside you, and specifically, it sits inside the deserts of your mind.

Stay fruit zone? Oh, for fuck. The fruit zone. Avocado or cucumber. A piece of shit. Cucumber, I don't like avocado. Same. The fruit zone.

So, stay sole, humble and brave. You've been listening to some internet swill. And join us next time when we do it all over again for the rest of our lives. Thanks for listening. Good night.