War With A Mate - Episode 95: He’s Obsessed With Wheat, Right?

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

The guys reflect on an out-of-the-ordinary week for their hijinx, and recap their play of Pandemic; a game they swore to god is easy. The Mailbag exhibits some unexpected record keeping, Andy’s History Corner reminisces on some strange agricultural choices and Common Ground sees the guys try to let go of the past. I DON’T LIKE THE BEETLES.

Good people of the Imperial City Welcome to War with a mate With me James Tiberius septum And me, Andy Tiberceptum And also know it's a uriel septum In that game, Elder Scrolls for Oblivion

The second best Elder Scrolls The first one is Morrowand Hipster No, that's just true Also for the longest time That was just the case Everyone said that. And then the fourth one came out

and people thought this is all right. So they thought the third one was the best until the fourth one came out. But now people are looking back and they realize, oh, actually, it's actually quite good. It's a bit like people now looking back at the Star Wars prequels

or very contemporary, the Resident Evil films with Milojovich and Paul W.S. Anderson. Are they going through? People are now saying they're good. I've always loved those films. But this isn't the Resident Evil Paul W.S. Anderson

film franchise podcast. Thank God, what are we doing? This is War with a Mate, where we are playing the entirety of the campaign for North Africa, a board game that has, from as far as we can tell, never been finished in a competitive sense. Certainly not documented that we found. Not documented. So we are playing that in its entirety. We've just finished a six-turn practice run a month or so ago.

That took us 18 months. And on the 30th of October, we're starting the full 111-11-term game. and it's going to be live on YouTube. It's going to be live. You can see it all happening, the very beginning. Yeah, episode 100, not necessarily every. Yeah, you can't see the whole thing. We're not going to sit down and then play the whole game.

We don't have the time for that. We have lives, we have jobs, we need to eat, sleep, have fun. That's the most important part. And that would eradicate any sense of that. Yeah. But on the lead up to that, we're getting ready for it. filling out all of the spreadsheets that we need, getting everything up and running operationally,

so that we can share the experience with you in the best way possible, showing our spreadsheets off, updating you with pictures, anything that we can. This week has been a bit of a different week. It's been a wild one, yeah. Yeah, this has been... Not expected.

I would say it's probably been the strangest week of my life in recent memory. So for those who have... haven't caught it. Wartherme got a weird pickup. It sort of started with an article. So on the back of our final session of the practice run, we put up a post on Reddit detailing everything that happened. And Wargamer.com put out an article on us, which was awesome, detailing the Reddit post, detailing our story so far. And not long afterwards, we got contacted by the New York Times, which was really unexpected. I mean, I didn't think it was real for...

I think until the article came out before it was a prank. It seemed like a scam, but lo and behold, it was actually the real New York Times, the paper of record. They got in touch. They did a story on us. We had a call with one of their journalists, which was really cool.

And they spread the good word. And the good word continued to spread because on the back of that, we then had several interviews with the BBC on some of them live radio, which is crazy to talk about. A couple of days ago, we were on BBC Radio 4 live. I then did BBC Newcastle solo live because Andy couldn't make it because he was at work, because that's how much we have to cram these things in. And we were on Global Service Newsroom, and we've still got more lined up as well.

and we'll let you know when they show because we've got more things coming. So this has been really crazy. Anyone who's listening on the back of all that, welcome. Yes. We didn't think you'd be here, but thanks for coming. And everyone who's followed us up to here, yeah, we know. Thank you very much for helping facilitate this nonsense. Yeah, we're as shocked as you.

I know you're listening to this thinking it's probably a gag or a bit. This actually happened and we are still in shot. It's crazy. this wacky tale of us to subtle, humble and brave gentlemen playing the campaign for North Africa has caught the public and journalist a guy and that is very much down to the mythos of the game.

We are just agents of the game's mysterious nature and unconquerable state. Mystique? Mystique. Yeah, we're just here to try and do the game and we're very grateful for everyone who's followed with this whole thing and this crazy week.

So yeah, we've not done a whole lot of game prep this week because we've been doing press, I guess, which is crazy. Yeah, we didn't think that the hiatus for War with the Mate would have a press tour. But, yeah, apparently it does. So thanks for everyone involved in all that. everyone who's been spreading the word of us through Reddit all the way up till now,

all the outlets that have been in touch, thanks for that, all the journalists who spent time with us. And everyone who's, the people who followed from the start, that's crazy, guys. You've seen us from talking absolute nonsense about Huell, episode one, up to, up to now. Talking absolute nonsense with segments. Yeah, did not think that. Because I was thinking when we were sat there with the guy from New York Times, just every Fruit Zone and Commonwealth we've ever done just played over in my head. And I was like, these guys don't know what they're actually talking about.

These guys don't know who they're talking to. I don't imagine they've all sat down and listened to everything. That's just for you guys. The big picture stuff they can all look at. But this, the nitty gritty, that's what you're here for today. And that's what we're going to get into. So that's been our week. But our day more specifically today, we've done the usual, we've sat down, we've played a game, a different game, while we're in hiatus, and it's one we've been promising to play it for a little while.

Yeah, it's one we've mentioned quite a few times. Pandemic. Finally, we've got back around a pandemic, and we've had a bit of a bug bear with it for a while because loads of people have emailed us before and said, play pandemic, it's great, or when we've made snarky remarks about it, saying that, it's too easy, people have rebuked and said, no, it's not too easy. And we thought we must have done something wrong. I still do. Yeah, because the people that email us, they're actually gamers. They're people who play board games with a greater affinity for the game than us. We just kind of played Dungeons and Dragons and the occasional Carcassano Arkham Horror,

but we don't play games in their broader scale or sense. So we sat down a day and we played it. We gave it another go to see where we went wrong. And I'm sorry to say, we can't find where we went wrong because we had another very easy game. Yeah, we did, yeah, we won. It was still fun. It was a lot of fun.

It's still a really good game. It's just, I think, there must be an element we're missing that's making it easier, I think. I just don't get it because we set it up, we looked up the rules, we made sure we got everything right, as far as we can tell. Yeah, we were like going through them while we played to double track stuff.

And we still won. It took just under an hour. We finished the game, we won. We had no outbreaks. Yeah. Well, we got insanely lucky at the start where you were the researcher needs less cards to cure a disease. And you just had the cards, basically, except one. So we cured one of the diseases on, like, turn two.

Yeah. So I think that part was maybe an aspect of luck. But the fact that we've done this, like, five or six times now, and every time we've played the game, we've had no real issue. There's never really been a moment where we've thought, oh, God, this is it. Yeah, we've never got like to the end of the tracker and being like, oh, if we don't get it now where we've lost. It's never felt like close. Yes, I don't know. Maybe there is something we're missing. We are going to, we've recorded the whole play, um, video and

audio and that'll go up as part of the, the Patreon that we announced last week. Um, come episode 100, we'll put out a bunch of stuff. All the games we've been playing will, we'll go on there. So if that comes around and anyone gives that a watch, let us know if you can find where we went wrong because we think we did everything correctly. But having said that, our brains are addled with war with a mate, campaign for North Africa content. I mean, I can...

Content. Oh, God. You idiot. Don't use the word we've disparaged. That was intentional. That was a bit. I don't think so. It was.

That's why I said, look, Andy. I think you aspire to go to the content minds. I don't want to go to the content mines I'd like to go to the actual mines Like in Beamish Love a bit of Beamish Beamish is pretty cool Don't like the mine bit

I like the mine bit Don't like being underground really I like in theory I hate it Like I think about like you know Nutty Putty Especially actually Yeah I mean that's

Yeah It's the worst way to die maybe Yeah I think about stuff like that And I'm like this is terrifying But then when I go down into the mines In Beamish I'm like this is kind of cool Those ones are a bit too cramped You know the Hight which has really good mines

Tell me, where are the good mines? There's an awesome mine in Krakow. There's an awesome salt mine where they've like dug out like huge chambers into like there's like a full church like almost cathedral fully carved.

It's insane how big they are. I was talking to someone there's a woman from Bulgaria that I work with. Apparently they've got salt mines as well and comparable in size by the looks of it. It's just and saying how scaled up they are. Oh, yeah.

Like, no one needs that tall of a ceiling. No, I guess it's probably that there was salt there. I mean, yeah. I don't know if they're like necessarily being let's build a big room. They're just like, oh, we made a big room by getting rid of the salt. But the fact the ground is level at the bottom means they must have started there and obviously. So they started really low down.

Or they started near the top and then they got down and then smoothed out the floor. I thought this is where the tourist attraction will be. Yeah. You've got to keep the two. tourist attractions and mine when you're building a mine, considering the only mines that have been to have been tourist attractions. That's a good point. The Beamish one wasn't designed as such.

I guess neither with the salt mines. No. You know what? You can't actually design a mine as a tourist attraction. No, because then it's not a mine. It's just an underground space. It's just a tunnel. Yeah.

You can't make a tunnel and call it a mine. I remember we went to Beamish ones, which I guess anyone listening is not incredibly regional. Yeah. Come to think of it, yeah, Beamish, we're talking about this, like, everyone knows it. Beamish is up in the northeast of England. It's a... It's like a preserved mining village.

So you've got the mine and all the shops from like the early 19th, 20th century, probably? Yeah, like really early 1900s, late 1800s. Yeah. They've got it all kind of preserved in the state it was, like, a little bit of upkeep. But they've got like a tram. They've got actors who, like, portray roles from that time. An old-fashioned sweet shop. It's always the highlight.

which is great, they sell Black Bullets, which I love. Yeah, it's very old-timey. It's kind of like a lop of late 1800s life. Yeah. You don't have to dress up when you go. Everyone's just doing it around you. It's like Westworld. If it was like...

Instead of doing all of the stuff in Westworld, you could go to an old schoolhouse and play hoop and stick. Just like in Westworld. James Marston's there, I hear. That series would have been not as engaging if instead of robots it was hoop and stick. North East World. I don't know. I think they should make that show.

North East World. Yeah, you'd be surprised on how much stuff like that takes off. It'd swill. Absolute crap. But anyway, back to more contemporary things. Pandemic. When we've been playing these games, we've been rating them, Andy. What would you rate pandemic out of 10?

Oh, it's a tough one because I do enjoy playing it, but I just, the lack of, like, risk, I guess. Yeah. Drops it. I'm going to give it an 8-1. 8.1. No, 7-6. Oh, wow, that's a big... I think I'm taking a half off...

You take a 0.5 off this whole thing. I'm going to go... I'm going to call it a 7.5. I'm going to clean cut it. Cool. Nice three quarters of the way. I've also forgot what we've... rate a lot of the other ones, so this is not a consistent rating system.

This is, I think, the lowest so far. Yeah, which feels... I can't. Like the Viking game. Oh, I really like the Viking game. I think this... The thing is with pandemic, it's a fun time. I think you get your pals around, you play some pandemic, you have a bit of a discussion about what your plan is, and it's kind of easy going, the rules aren't crazy complex. No.

Somewhere within those non-complex rules, you get a very easy game. and I think the lack of stakes, especially when it's cooperative, because a board game, for the most part, bold games are cooperative. I'd wager the majority of board games are cooperative,

not cooperative, competitive. Yeah. But another cooperative one we really like is Arkhamara. Well, that's one that gets it right. And that's awesome. You very rarely win. I think that's what you've got to do

when it's a cooperative game. You need to make it so a lot of the time you'll lose or could lose. I think if you've got a cooperative of game and you're always stomping the game, it doesn't really feel like you've done anything. But if most of the time you're losing,

it really feels like you've had to come together to pull off something when you win it. I guess the thing with pandemic as well is it... It's like the step beyond like monopoly, risk, chess type games where it's like, if you've got pandemic, you're probably into board games. So you probably play it like on a rotation

with other games rather than, I mean, I might be wrong, but I doubt there's like a pandemic board game group that only play Pandemic. It's like part of it. No, by the nature of it, it can't be, because it's too easy. If you met up every week to play Pandemic, you may as well just meet up every week and move cubes around on a table with no discernible reason. It's the same thing. There's no real, I don't know, there's no real challenge in my eyes. It's fun, but you know what the end point is.

It's just a case of how you get there. And the journey is the important part, is what they say. But when the journey is kind of meandering, it's not great. I can see where it becomes a real... Like, you can see the point where it could become, like, get out of control, where, like, we had a couple of times where there were two places with their, like, limit before an outbreak which spreads to everything around. And if that had gone off, that would have chain reactioned.

And we might actually have lost. because we would have run out of yellow cubes. But I think we've managed to react, I guess, quickly enough. But I can see where the spin out of control and lose the game bit is. It just feels too preventable. Yeah, I think that's a very good way to put it. It's very preventable before it gets to that stage. If it does get to that stage, that's your fault.

You should be playing pandemic. You should be playing something else. And if it spirals out of control, I wager the game is at that point kind of unwinnable. I don't know. I think if it spirals, you kind of. done. Yeah. Because at that point when you've got three cubes everywhere and that gives a knock-on effect

of another three cubes somewhere else. Like, imagine having a bunch of three cubers next to each other. Then you get hit with another epidemic card. Yeah, and they just spread each other. Yeah, that would be a nightmare. Yeah. So that would be bad, but all in all, I don't know, man. It was good.

I had a fun time playing it, but I think part of it was because it felt like being Louis Theroux and double-checking to see if something was actually what we thought it was. If I take away the journalistic aspect, it's actually just an all right fun game. That's my thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. 7.5, 7.9 you gave it in the end?

7.6? Yep. Yeah. Cool. There we go. That's pandemic for you, folks. If you ever get around and watching the video when it comes out, let us know what you think. Did we get something wrong?

Possibly. Likely. Yep. But yeah, we'll be back to prep properly next. week. Yes. So looking to finish going through the rules and I've got about halfway, I think, through the unit template.

So that'll be the next couple of weeks that gets sword. It's not long now, Andy. It's five weeks. Yeah. We're now further through the, we're past the halfway point of the hiatus. We're now closer to starting the game than we were finishing the practice run. That's scary stuff. We're also closer to starting the game than Cleopatra was to the construction of the pyramids.

That's of course three Five weeks Do you think she was there Do you think she was a foreman I think she was the gaffer That's how she got the job of Pharaoh She did really well In overseeing the pyramids

That she got Pharaoh Yeah God I'd love to see her one to one for that one Because that's what that is Andy That's one month Yeah, that's, yeah, we're just a paycheck away from the full game. And I'm trying to think of other ways we can measure them. We're just a single lunar cycle.

And we will be sitting down live on air and starting up the full game. We've got some spreadsheets to finalize. We've got the work on the website to be tidied up, although a lot of it's been done. I think, yeah, website has been updated. We've templated everything. and we did some updates. Thank God we got the webform work when we did. Yes.

I think we mentioned last week, web form was up and running. A lot of the people who got in touch media-wise and a lot of the folks who've been in touch that have found us from all of that have been in touch through the webform. So yeah, thank God. We didn't snub in New York Times.

Yeah, that would have been a real war-weather-made faux par on a real big scale. So it's good that that's up and running. So websites kind of ticked off, to be fair. You just need to figure out where stuff goes. Spreadsheets are going to be updated. And after that, it's just kind of the scary thing of tactical work of actually figuring out what we're going to do personally in the game. Yes, where all our place anyways and trucks are getting spread.

Which will likely be in the last couple weeks in the lead-up. So we'll share plenty of pictures and very in-depth thoughts on that, I imagine when we get to that point, let you know where everything's went. So that's going to be crazy. Yeah. It's not long, man. Yeah, that's five weeks, I guess. Yeah, apparently, only if we go off dates. But that's where we are now.

We've got nothing else to say about prep, so we'll not meander any further. We're not pandemic. We'll instead go to... Shots fired. I don't know, the game's fun. It's just not complicated. It's not hard.

It's not the campaign for North Africa, is what I'm saying. That is a hard game. That is a game like. goes on for a while, although the difficulty is determined by the competitor. So, in order to get an idea of what's going on on the wider scale of things, the only place we can look to is going to be and will be the mailbag. So we're going to pry that open now and see just what is inside. We have had a bit of an influx of mail. We're still working through in day at order, so we're going

through all the older ones. Roughly. We will sometimes pick based and length and stuff, so it's not exactly the order it came in. Yeah, general order. And with that big surge that we've got at the moment, we're getting quite a few per day. We're sticking with the vow. Everything gets read that people want us to read. And we'll be working through them. We might, I mean, we've talked about maybe doing a sort of bumper extra episode where we

just cover some mail possibly, depending on how much comes in. Because just so we're not ending up months and months behind on the mailbag. But yeah, keep sending stuff in. We'll get through it all. Just bear in mind, it might take a little while. If anything is time sensitive, I'm not really sure what that would look like, but if we do get a time sensitive email,

we'll look at maybe prioritizing that. Yeah. But otherwise, we're going to go through the ones we've got, and we have one here from Lane, which is staying subtle, humble, and brave, but with food. And it reads, Hello, hello, my good war boys. I like that, actually.

We should stick with that. The war boys. Yeah, the good. I literally just finished episode 39, gastronauts, and had to fire this off before I went any further. When I was dating a girl from Finland, she sent me a care package of sweets, including some unique to Finland. The reason I bring this up is there's a Finnish suite called Tuver Lejona, L-E-I-J-O-N-A, correct me if I'm wrong, that she included in there and asked me to guess the flavour. Boys, their tar flavour. I only managed to guess the flavour because she was

because there were roadworks happening on my street at the same time and the roadworks smelled the same as the sweets tasted. And like, they're actually not bad. That doesn't... You just said they tasted like tar. I don't know, man. You smoke cigarettes, Andy. That's true.

So, tar for you. That's like a little treat that you give yourself several times a day. That is, yeah. So you can't actually say anything about this. And like, they're actually not bad. See if you can pick some up. I'm fully willing to send you some if you can't. We need to set up a P-O box, Andy.

Yeah. We need to get some sweets sent to us. Yeah. We'll open it up. We'll just have sweets and huell. It'll be great. I'll be fed for a week. Every week.

I'm going to live off tar-flavored sweets. And fuel. From Lane and Lane's ex-partners. Stay subtle, humble and brave. All loud, arrogant, and cowardly, if you want. I'm not your mother. Lane. I like it.

I like it a lot. like hearing that there are actually some new flavors out there because I remember that episode. I remember talking about that I think it was the common ground on my part of we need new flavors and we've just got one there tar flavor. Yeah. Also, we've got listeners all over. If anyone has a sweet that tastes like petrol smells, let us know. I see what you're doing here. You want to taste petrol. Have you seen that weird addictions TV show? I've heard of it. Is there one one of them who's addicted to petrol? There's a, I think it was a woman in America who drinks petrol.

Just like drink gasoline for those in the states. Yeah, just drinks it out of like a jerry can. Now the positive, Andy, is because it's in a jerry can, it will evaporate less than if it's just stored in barrels. Yeah, she's not wasting that. No, well, you wouldn't, would you? Do you build a tolerance to it? You must do, to an extent, surely. I don't know enough about how the body works.

Because I feel like if I just took a big chug of petrol, I'd just immediately death. die. Or at least be sick. Yeah. Like at the very least, you'd be sick. I guess what you have to do, it's an old trick I've seen to do with alcohol as well, where if you inhale before you drink, drink, and then exhale, you don't breathe in the alcohol fumes, and it makes you less likely to be sick.

Oh, okay. So if you're taking a shot, you inhale, drink, and then exhale immediately. And you don't take in the fumes. So maybe she's got that trick down to a tea when it comes to drinking casual. And then that way you'll be fine. So if those sweets exist, that'll be the trick. If anyone else knows of any weird

tastes, let us know. Car-related sweet flavors. It doesn't have to be mechanical. It can be bizarre in other ways. Just don't send us any Robert California-esque stuff, I guess. I know what his flavors are. I've seen the US office.

Next up, Andy. Kids are smoking the campaign for North Africa. Okay, so we're keeping... So this is a very smoking-themed episode. I guess so, yeah. Great. Hello, y'all.

My name is James, but for the purposes of the James expanded universe, you can call me James. Doesn't help, buddy. Doesn't... I have been an avid listener since around episode 11, I think. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Ogee. Finding your podcast from a Reddit comment I can no longer find. I finally got around to writing you guys. I meant to do it earlier, I swear. I'm about to start episode 86 after the live show. Oh, yes, yeah.

Wow, you're about to come up to the end. I guess by now it's the end. Hope you enjoyed that. Virtual. One of the best parts about listening to you guys is that I have something that harassed my friends with and I update them weekly. I've done everything that harassed them

and anyone who will listen into giving it a go. Thank you. See, James, this is what we were talking about earlier. We love that you guys have stuck around since the start and you pest to your friends and probably destroy relationships and burn bridges, all for the cause of war with a mate.

And I would encourage everybody to do that. Burn your bridges. Yeah, and get them to build the bridge to us. Yeah, take the bridge to your friends and make it a bridge between them and us, and don't talk to your friends anymore. Unless it's about this. Yeah, walk along the bridge to us with your friends.

Be as parasycial as possible. Don't have friends. We're your friends. You don't need the real ones. Talk about us. What a horrible message. I think it's a pretty kind message. It's all about community.

This culminated in a Twitter post I made, half asleep after testing some new machine monster cards. A previous email mentioned that they are, picking up the game and while I think it would be fun I already have enough torture from Yu-Gi-o and it's a turn-on nightmare I think I can live with witnessing the horror as intended through y'all yeah we used to play yu-yo a bit we did and I'm watching the the video right now on on Twitter as we speak X I guess it is now and wow you you really were sleepy when you did this buddy this is like a fever dream wait hang on

We're in there. We're actually in there, Andy. Oh, okay. I'm going to show you just this little few second clip here. There's just a montage of different Yu-Gi-o bits. And then after a little bit, it just pops up with War with a Mate. And then Source. Yeah, it's War with the Made haven't uploaded the live show yet.

That's very funny. Oh, I'm glad you included us in this absolute sensory nightmare. That's very funny. that a lot. If you guys ever revisit the Maori, I recommend the story of Tira pronunciation

not correct for certain. Almost definitely not. The mobile canteen donated to the 28th Maori by children's donations to the YMCA. It's a really moving account of such a small part and then so much to so many. Thank you for your

contribution to humanity and stay subtle, humble, and James, James. Yeah, well, okay. I'm always subtle, humble and James. Dare I say, sometimes I'm brave. Yeah. So thank you for that, James, from one James to another, James. And when it comes to the Maori, I mean, I love those guys. That was, I think, maybe even still my favorite history segment. Yeah, those guys are awesome.

We'll definitely be doing more 28th Maori stuff just because that's so cool. And again, the moving account, that was also for me one of the most moving history segments that you've done. It was just the real tenacity of them on the battlefield and the, just the grim scenario of coming back and not being acknowledged for your accomplishments. Yeah, not getting saved. Yeah, the things you did at war and then you come back and you just faced with, in essence, the thing you were fighting is just so sad. So yeah, we'll definitely have a read of that. That very much feels like it's in Andy's wheelhouse, but I'm sure I'll hear about it. Yep.

And we can stick in another one here. We've got one here from Aethon. And the email reads, this is various musings, is the subject line. So I'm sure this one will be nice and broad. Hello, Andy and James. The Admiralty had demanded six ships. The economists offered four, economists offered four. and we finally comprised

fucking hell, compromised. Maybe I'm half asleep. We finally compromised on eight. This is a slightly belated comment on the Anglo-German arms race, the subject of a previous history segment. This name is erroneous though, as the British were able to build

eight ships in a single year for itself. In addition to building four ships for two sides of the simultaneous South American naval arms race, which were taken into British, service in World War I and then served into World War II, mainly as converted aircraft carriers, against Germany's three to four per year. I've also attached a combination of two of our great interests, the Fruit Zone spreadsheet. I'm filling it in backwards. Oh, of course, I guess it's

topical. The Fruit Zone. or chilies. What? Chiris? I like a bit of spice. Same. The Fruit Zone. Sorry, back to Evans.

Plums. Who would go for plums? The idea of some minimum of public service before going into politics is a good one. But it should be more expansive than what you propose.

Oh, someone's doubling down here. Also, very funny that this, like, serious thing about how society's structure It was just immediately after the fruit sound. The most important time for it to be. They should always be whimsy in politics, Andy. We should reduce the amount of unqualified, but for private schooling MPs we have.

Of the 58 Prime Ministers, 21 went to Eden, 16 were otherwise public schoolers, 45 went to Oxbridge, of whom two went to both. I'm deeply glad we have this instead of drowning in oil. I think the first person to drop out should host the second round of the game. I am and she'll endeavour to remain your most subtle, humble and brave of servants, Aethon.

Well, Athen, first of all, when it comes to having this podcast rather than our potential former Would You Rather Drown in Oil or podcast? I don't know, I think that thing had legs. Yeah, I think the New York Times would have asked us about that. Yeah, they would have.

They would have said, what are you doing? How dare you? Who do you think you are? Podcast is damaging to society. I didn't realize how high. I knew they were high, but I did not realize how high those numbers were. Yeah. Like the percentages. That's scary.

Yeah, 45 in Oxbridge, 21 to Eden. That's one school. And that was 58 prime ministers. And this email was sent a couple months ago, so we've had six prime ministers since. Which is crazy. So I wonder how many of them went to which. All of them went to Eaton or Uxbridge. Yeah. Well, I'm going to have a look through the Fruit Zone spreadsheet, definitely,

because I want to see how that pans out. And whether or not it's the case of, oh, I need access. I have to request access. Ethan, if you're listening, I'm going to pop you through an access request. I'll just do it from a different email address rather than my personal one. Oh, I could get him. Well, you could just get in. Yeah, I'm looking at it now.

Oh, what the hell? I also like the Apple. has appealed three times. Oh, really? We've run out fruit so quickly. But does this include apple bottom jeans? Was that...

There's a note saying episode 92 is not included as it was not a legitimate fruit zone. I think that might be the Apple Magnus jeans one. Oh dear. In that case, Ethan, you're going to have a bad time because it would seem we're straying off

the original plan very, very quickly. But thank you for passing that spreadsheet on as well as some actual fact about real-life politics and history when it comes to the Anglo-German arms race. The emails are always

much appreciated. Thank you, Aeth and thank you James, thank you, Lane. Yep. And everyone else who sent something over, we're getting to them all. We've had some really interesting stuff sent over recently based on the fact that some people who hadn't heard of us have now been interested and we've got some comments on people

who have experience with the game. That'll be really fun when we get to it. Yeah. We have some of the areas of intrigue when it comes to stuff around the campaign for North Africa and our little project. So for those who are new, and I imagine probably listening to recent things, we will get around to you. We swear it, we promise. And anyone else who wants to get in touch, the email address is info at warwithamate.com. You can reach us on the website through the webform, warwithamate.coma.coma.

The web form works and we will now reliably get those. Use that as much as you want. You can. Send 10 if you want. If you sent one to the web form before... Last week? Yeah. We might be able to recover them, but you might be better served. Just dropping it in again. Sorry, guys, that fuck up was on me.

Yeah, we did warn you. We told you not to go down that dreaded path, but we should probably double-check, just see if anything else fell into there and that little space between. Yeah, I'll have a look. But now it's up and running And the Instagram as well Is just War with a Mate

We put up some polls A weekly post for the episode I put one up This week Andy I think I mentioned to you Just people talking about merch We've had some emails about merch We've done merch in the past

A limited run And people have been asking about it So I got some ideas Oh yeah For some merch So thank you for everyone Who sent some stuff over Some standouts

Were a blend which is Fruit Zone themed. Might be difficult, but I like it. I like it a lot. For us to break into the appliance game. I think we should get new electronics. I think we could pull that off. Just skip past T-shirts and hats to electronics.

Just go straight to things that we aren't able to pack test, and that will definitely cause us legal issues in the long run, because we're going to get into a world of bother. We also had a suggestion that we create custom game pieces, akin to Rommel, but with our faces on. Okay. Not entirely sure how that would go,

but it would be funny. A fuck the truck shirt. We've got to do a fuck the trucks. I mentioned in the post that we can't find any ponchos and someone replied, wasn't it a cape originally? It's poncho day, isn't it? Poncho day, but I think we did talk about capes originally.

We've touched on men's, archaic men's fashion quite a lot. Pins or patches? to put on a bag or lanyard. Yeah. War weather-themed themed campaign for North Africa. I don't know how we clear that.

I don't know how that would go. Trenchcoats? No. Dice trays, that would be cool. Yeah. Dice in general. Penzo pencils, stuff with iconic quotes,

or just a few. So we'll bear that all in mind. We'll go through those. See if we can put any of that together. A war with them a trench coat would be, I guess. Alarming. It would just look kind of weird. Yeah.

But I'd probably buy one. I would wear one. If we ever get a war with a trench coat, I'll wear one to every live show we do in future. Should we get a leather jacket with our logo? Bedazzled on the back. I like that a lot, actually. No, to take a moment I like.

I'm going to get that. I'm going to get that. This is how the poncho thing started, man. That is, yeah. Live show-wise, watch the space. We plan on going to the UK Games Expo next year. We'll let you know when we've got anything locked in. And any other live shows, we've got big plans.

We got big plans, folks. And the live stream, 30th of October, 7.30, UK time, which will be British summertime still at that point. I think. Don't hold me to that. 30th of October, you guys can check that, I guess. I can't remember off the top of my head. But it'll be great. We'll have a fun time.

And that is it for the mailbag and announcements, etc. Which means we now get to get into the nitty gritty, Andy. We get to move away from the here and now. We got to go to the there and then, the way back times. We get to go to history. So let's take it away 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.

The contrast between the east and west of the Nile is very very. marked in the east. At this point, I gave little forts with patrists, but had always been interesting about boats in the sea. I am more or less in the position of a campus in command of the shit telegram which is all the point of

sinking because errors are present. We are absolutely not qualified to share views on history. So, Andy, where and when are we? Post-World War I? Ealy. Okay, now this is an area I'm interested in, because they have

lot of answering to do, just the why things ended up so bad in North Africa. I think I have some reasons. Okay, let's hear it. Okay. We shall never afflict upon our wonderful Italian people, which for four years has been working with ascetic discipline and is ready for even greater sacrifices. The moral shame and economic catastrophe of failure of the lira. It's Mussolini. Bullshit. It's a liar. Yeah, yeah. That man's telling lies.

That's sort of his thing. But 100 years later, it's just, it's still as apparent as ever. So 19 to 1920 in Italy would be known as the Biennorozo or the two red years. Oh, that's not good. You don't describe something as the red year if it went well. It's not blurred. Okay. It's common.

Okay. Okay, which historically hasn't went well in any situation, really. There's no body count, so if it. No, no, there is. I think one of the larger body counts when it comes to a political situation. Except that. Yeah. Anyway.

We're saying the same thing. So the two red years was a left-wing uprising caused by massive levels of unemployment, inflation, and poverty after World War, causing widespread anger at the elites and the status quo. The cost of living had gone up by four times since before the war. So, crazy. Like, we're in a cost of living crisis, and it's not twice, I don't think. I don't know, sometimes it feels like it. Yeah, it could be getting there, but... You try to buy a Fredor recently? But it's not up to Forex.

I think Fredos might be. Yeah, that's a bad indicator. I think Fredo's a lot of X. The Italian government had also, as part of its recruitment and to build morale during World War I, had promised land redistribution for peasant soldiers. When the war ended, this was ignored, and land was kept by powerful landlords, of course. While in the industrial cities to the north, workers faced similar problems that they did in Britain, with employers decreasing wages, and extending hours. Another contributing factor to all this is the successful Russian Revolution of 1917,

which inspires, like, socialists all around the globe and communists to be like, maybe we can get our own revolution off the ground. And so with this membership ballooned in both the socialist parties and the labor unions, they start to strike from factories while also seizing land from landholders in the south. So in 1990, the Italian socialists, Party, the PSI, have 200,000 members and is the largest party in Parliament, whereas Mussolini's fascists at this point only have 4,000 members. Okay, okay.

And workers start to go on strike and seize things. For example, at the Fiat factory. So we know Fiat expanded massively during World War I. Yes, big time, big time. And then started to pull back. Do you want to guess what caused the strike at the Fiat factory? I'm going to say poor working conditions or pay. That's right.

It's daylight savings time. Oh, my God. Can't believe you managed to put in some daylight savings time into the Italian industrial revolution here. The strikes post-World War I. So in April 1920, management changed the factory club. to daylight savings time without asking or telling the workers Democratic councils,

which the workers see as a violation. This incident... And there's other things going on, but the daylight saving is the trigger. Yeah, I presume there's other stuff going on. This isn't the reason you strike, surely. But this incident leads to a massive strike in northern Italy with 200,000 people are going on general strike.

I didn't realize how much turmoil daylight savings time caused early on. I don't realize how much outcry there was from like early days. Yeah. This would continue to build until late August, early September 1920, where workers built up to occupying factories. They would break in and then barricade themselves in the factories as a form of sit-in,

forming militias called the Red Guards to patrol these seized factories and going as far as to mount machine guns on the roofs. That's not the strike that I envisioned. I was thinking like, you know, miners strike Billy Elliott kind of style. A lot of miners actually this episode. Mines and smoking. It's bad for the lungs this episode.

Yeah. Instead of destroying things in the factory, they form factory councils and just start running the factories, handling like logistics and manufacturing, trying to prove the point that they don't need owners or managers, the workers can just do it. And it is relatively successful at this. I mean, that goes to show,

do you really need middle management in any job? Just stick some machine guns on top of the office. Certainly affects morale. I think that was one of the first common grounds. Yeah, it was. So unlike the 1926 general strike in Britain, the Italian government doesn't use the military to intervene or set up specific newspapers to break the strike. So this leads to the owner of Fiat agreeing to concessions and acknowledging workers' councils as representatives in order to get that to get his factories back. He briefly even resigns and makes Fiat a co-op.

Oh. I was at the co-op the other day. They've got a deal at the moment, two pound for sausage and mash. That's pretty good. Yeah, you got a pack of eight sausages and you get a little microwave pouch of mashed of mashed potato, which is pretty good value for money. Well, there you go, guys. It's got a lot of good deals going on, so I see why Italy did this.

He does eventually end up back at the helm of Fiat, though, after they are like, we do need someone in charge to, like, handle. international trade and stuff. They caved so quickly. Yeah. This experience shakes up the runner of fiat and many other wealthy people who decide to use their money

to support fascism in order to prevent strikes and stopping things like this happening as well as trying to cut the knees out of a potential revolution. So, yeah. I mean, yeah, you've got to make some sort of stand. You can't let this keep on going on.

Can't pay people fairly. No, no, no. You can't change the clocks. Well, I guess that's exactly what they did. No, you can't change the clocks. You're allowed to change the clocks. Father time means nothing in the Fiat factory. So by 1921, the Italian Socialist Party splits due to general leftist infighting

over how to carry out a revolution. And also whether they should join the communist international. which would require meeting conditions imposed by Lenin. One issue in particular is Lenin's demand that any reformists be expelled from the party. So that's more of the like will work within the system, but not overfrow it. Just the more reformist end. And then they got sort of centurists from that spectrum, not actual centurists, but who are sort of like, we want a socialist uprising,

but we realize we should work with the reformists, and then you've got the communists on the far left. So it's more of a seize the means of production than burn the means of production to the ground and start afresh. Yeah. So this leads to a split where the reformists, centurists break off from the communists, well, the communists leave,

taking about a third of the party with them. That's a big chunk. Yeah. As the left was failing to produce a revolution and cannibalizing itself, the fascists grew from strength to strength backed by wealthy industrialists, and the fascist party grew to a quarter of a million members in 1921. I'm really getting some critical mass here. Yeah.

A year later, the socialist movement had been completely suppressed, often violently by fascists, leading to the march on Rome in October 1922. Once the fascists take power, they set up a period of privatisation. Mussolini appointed a sort of more traditional economist at the time called Alberto de Stefani as Minister of Finance, and for the first few years, they pursue a program of privatisation while reducing taxes on businesses and inheritance to keep the wealthy back as they had onside and happy. A cowardly move, if you ask me.

Well, Alberto gets fired in July 1925, and the fire. Ashes government moves to a model with more state control and nationalization. Mussolini also frames anything they need to do like an economic plan as an economic battle. Stop trying to make it sound cool. Yeah. Just be like we want to do X. We must fight. Yeah, it's like saying peace in a corporate setting.

Yeah. Oh, this piece. Oh, the overthrowing piece. Yeah. So the first of these battles is the Battle of Grain. Oh, come on, man. A campaign to free Italy from the slavery of foreign bread. What the fuck is he talking about?

He wants Italy to become self-sufficient on wheat production. This just, the smacks of that time that Liz Truss was talking about, Liz Truss, by the way, for the uninitiated, was Prime Minister of Great Britain for, I think, 40-something days. It was like 43 or something. And she had this big spiel that she gave out a while. one point about how we import too much cheese and how it's so wrong. And it was the most impassioned I've ever seen that particular politician. If only that went into all of her work.

That's what this feels like. Overthrow the bread import. The slavery of foreign bread. I'm being enslaved by foreign bread. I think you've used too much a mode of language in this campaign here. Well, Mussolini wants Italy to be self-sufficient for weeks. production, so he puts heavy imports on import taxes and tariffs on foreign wheat, while distributing free seeds and guarantees of higher prices to Italian farmers. This does, in fact, work to increase wheat production by 50%, but to do so, it permanently damages Italy's agriculture. Oh, so slapping massive imports, imports with huge tariffs is bad.

Yeah, because this again is so stupid. He's obsessed with wheat, right? What a fantastic rhetorical question to drop in a history segment about post-World War I, Italy. He's obsessed with wheat, right? So, yeah, they do manage to increase wheat production by 50%, as I said. But to do so, they have to rip up things. like vineyards, olive and fruit groves.

So they're destroying incredibly valuable agricultural resources to grow wheat. That's not very good. They could have exported the wine from the vineyards and covered the wheat probably.

But they didn't do that. No. They destroyed them. Yeah. Up next, we've got the Battle of the Lira. Mussolini thinks it's humiliating to have a weak currency.

I get that. So he decides that the lira should be worth 90 lira to one pound? He decides? Yep. Right. I'm immediately spotting an issue here because you don't just,

you don't get a pick. No. He does this because that was the rate when he took office, so he wants to project that Italy's economy is stronger, not weaker. The problem with this is when he tries to set this up,

the current exchange rate is 150 lira. to a pound. That's an early double. Yeah. So they decide to artificially inflate the currency. They reduce money printing and lending, take American loans to prop up the lira,

and also mandate that working class wages be cut from between 10 to 20%. To make it look like the currency's stronger, they're cutting wages. Cutting wages, not printing money, and using foreign loans to prop up the value of their currency. That's ridiculous. Yeah.

So by 1927, they reached their goal with almost, with the lira being worth 92 and a half to a pound. I mean, I'm amazed that he got it there, but I can only imagine the strife incurred to do so. Well, we know of another time a currency was incorrectly overvalued. So this misvaluation of the currency has a similar effect that it did when Britain did the same with the pound and gold, which is also, that happens in 1926. So Mussolini is artificially tying his currency to the pound, which is artificially tied to gold. So gold is just sat here like, wow, I'm taking a big right now. the export market was essentially completely destroyed because their goods are artificially expensive.

Companies like Fiat go into a recession, small businesses can't borrow credit because they're not printing or lending any money, so they go bust. And then obviously the working class suffer massively because while the currency deflates and lower the price of goods, the wage decreases, outstrip the deflation, increasing, lowering their purchasing power. So to get the lira to where Mussolini thinks will make the economy look strong, he has gutted large businesses, small businesses, and workers, which is the economy. I was going to say, you've kicked off all of it there. He's left nothing behind. He's eight and left no crumbs, and no one has any crumbs to eat.

Yeah, but the KPI looks good. It is literally like doing everything at the expense of a single like KPI. Well, Andy, thank God, this is the only time that Italy during the next 20 years in this period of time will do something solely for PR and not worry about the logistical consequences of their actions. Yeah. Oh, also you've probably seen them. You know all those pictures of like shirtless Mussolini and like fields and stuff? Yeah. I weirdly have. I hate that I have. Yeah, that's all part of the battle on wheat and him, like, using it for propaganda. Is that where they got the gladiator scene from when he's walking through the field and spreading his hands through the wheat? It's a Mussolini reference. They also have a battle of land.

Okay, see, this one sounds like a really, this sounds like it would be a phase in the campaign for North Africa. This one of the four that I'm going to talk about is relatively successful. They drain a bunch of marshland around Rome to create more like livable land. And it also gets rid of a lot of malaria. The problem is the amount of land they get for the amount of they spend. Not a good trade. But this is by far the best like PR propaganda one for them. And his final one is the Battle of Birth, where he...

Whoa. Where's this one going to go? He wants to increase the, like, birth rate so they'll have more people, basically, so they'll have more soldiers down the line. Right, hang on. So he's called this the Battle of Birth, and immediately the incentive is to have people to have more kids. Yeah. So, what's this plan here? What does this battle entail that involves people doing it more? They do a bunch of, like, propaganda being like, it's your duty to have kids for Italy. and they also try and do like some various tax cuts and incentive schemes.

The problem is everyone is fucking broke and cannot afford children. So it just doesn't work. Yeah. What is it like a, like one of the old, like, we need you to nut. Yeah. What are they going for here? What does that propaganda look like? Yeah.

I've seen Italian propaganda from around this time, Andy. It's pretty sketchy. It's sketchy stuff, so whatever this looks like. Yeah. I don't want to see it. No. So that's Italy's economy through the 20s. It's kind of safe to say that Britain and Italy do not experience the roaring 20s.

That's a sort of a uniquely regional American phenomenon. Roaring in the sense of like a Minotles roar in a distant corridor. Or the British Empire, a dying. creature. But despite not experiencing the roaring 20s, everyone's going to be experiencing the Great Depression. And we'll get to that next time. Oh, I can't wait. Can't wait for these economies to go further down.

These economies have already crashed. There's just a delay. Well, the Great Depression will hit everyone. It does particularly fuck up America. But that's because America's quite high up. It's like, it will, damn it, we'll go into it next time. It damages Britain and Italy, but just because they were already starting so low, the damage is almost limited because they're so close to the bottom. Well, yeah, if you're hanging off a ladder and you're only three rungs from the ground, if you jump off and fall under the ground, it's not going to hurt as much.

Or I guess more someone shoves the ladder over. Oh, poor America. I'm interested to see how this pans out for them. And I guess the rest of the world, consequences of action. Yeah, it's a pretty big one for why World War II happens. The mine has collapsed, Andy. That seems to be what's happened here. God damn it. You know what?

At least it's not a secret treaty. I was very glad to hear that. There was no mention of secret treaties in that entirety of the history segment. So that's a refreshing take. I think you're going to be good on secret treaties for a while. Yeah, at the moment, everyone's just doing their own stupid thing. Oh, actually, maybe not. Oh, you found one out you?

I think it's less a treaty more an agreement, but yeah, it's a secret agreement. What's the same thing? We'll get to it. I don't care about the terminology. If you're making deals and secret that aren't actually deals, it's just you promising something and lying and then doing something else. Which, to be fair, I guess, is what they did with the economy. Yeah.

It's like a secret treaty on the stock market. Oh, God. I'm sick of it, Andy. I'm sick of it all. I've got something that... can come together. Some positivity. You think? Yeah. Well, in that case, Andy, I guess the only way for us to go forward is going to be for us to

leave the past in the past, step into the present, and try and hash out a bit of common ground. And now for something nicer, a little oasis in the war. It's time for some common ground. I'm trying to the intro of the common ground. I'm recording. Maybe. So, common ground is the... segment in which Andy and I come together on a topic of debate to remain friends at the end of each round of combat in the North African desert. This time, I guess the stakes aren't too high because we've had a fairly nice week together. We spent a lot of time together and it's all been

very positive. So no pressure, Andy, but this time it's your topic of debate. What have you got for us? Okay, so pretty simple. Nostalgia has killed nostalgia. Okay, now we've got an interesting one here, because if you spoke to me about five years ago, I would have defended nostalgia to my dying breath. I am a big nostalgia guy. Yeah. I love a bit of a throwback. I love a callback.

I love a reference. And any time a TV show was bringing some. someone back. Like, Doctor Who, bringing back David Tennant, loved it. Reboot series, legacy characters and films, couldn't get enough of it. Now, while I was the most die-hard nostalgia addict, even I think I might be building up a tolerance to this drug. I've got some examples, but just when you mentioned that, Doctor Who, is a big one, definitely. So here's my thing. We, as a generation, have not left any room for younger generations to attack. hatch to anything that's their own.

Yes, I agree. So, for instance, Doctor Who, someone who's what, like nine is probably the, sort of nine, 10, 11 is sort of the peak when it like sort of hits you, I guess. That's when you first really get into it, I think. That's when you're like starting to like understand the show as to what it's trying to do and it's not just kind of like fun, flashy monster story. It's like, oh, I'm getting a bit of the emotional beats as well. I'm getting the whole picture.

And you'll notice, when did tenants, run to start, like 2002, maybe? I think 2005 or 2004 was the start of the reboot, so would it be like six or seven, 2006, seven? Yeah, so like 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah. So there'll be parents who introduce their,

want to introduce their kids to Doctor Who. Yeah. And it's the same doctor. And no one thinks the shit their parents think is cool, is cool, especially at that age. That's a very good point. I've got some more examples. Yes, let's hear them.

Doomsday is a symptom of this. Oh, yeah. And I've done a bit of maths. Okay, let's hear the math. I'll hit you with this. So X-Men is the oldest film that will be referenced in Doomsday, right? Yes, yeah, it will be. Came out in 2000.

Yeah, it's a P313. Let's go as low as nine for someone seeing it, like, in the cinema or on DVD when it came out. Yeah. That person is 35 years old. Okay, yeah, yeah. How the fuck is like a 15-year-old supposed to attach to their parents' idols? Yeah, like, yeah, there's like no... Same with Star Wars in a lot of ways.

Yeah, because even then you've got the sequel trilogy leans quite dependently on legacy characters. Yeah. You know what, I think maybe you've pointed out here why I've started to grow tired of it myself. Because I grew up with these characters and thought, this is all cool, this is all stuff that's either been around before I was born or stuff I've seen firsthand. But now it's a second time round. Do I want a third bite at the apple?

Well, here's Iron Man 2008. Same rules that person's 27. And I think this is part of like Marvel fatigue, but also the problem Star Wars has is their films. that are in theory targeted at kids and teenagers, but their core audience is in their late 30s. And often have kids. So it's like, who's that, how is that film going to... Yeah, who's it for?

Like, yeah, who is Doomsday 4? Because it's a, it's a kids film for 30-year-olds in a state of arrest development. Like, how is... How is anyone supposed to, like, latch on to that? Like, especially if they're 15 and your parents are all, like, Doomsday's the biggest thing ever. And it's like, cool, this thing came out when I was 20 years before I was born. Why would I give a shit about, like, Magneto and Charles Xavier and that?

Yeah, I guess it's kind of like if you take Doctor Who as an example. Yeah. It's sort of like if you take, like, David Tennant's era, first time round of Doctor Who and maybe at the end of his run you all of a sudden bring in Sylvester McCoy or

Colin Baker yeah you bring in I'm trying to like yeah not not any of the dead ones because of that point I think quite a few But like if after Eccleston they were like we want to capture it and we they cast someone

I guess not even cast just for like a like the specials that they did for 10 leaving. They get in, you know, pertwee somehow. I don't know if he was alive back then. Well, they were doing that a bit when they were like introduced Capaldi in that special and they had all 13 doctors coming on the TARDIS and the museum keeper guy. But it was like a full feature, like several specials, several episodes where they're bringing them all in. And if I was that age, I'd be like, oh, these are old doctors. there'd definitely be part of me, even back then, where I'd be like, this is cool.

I now need to look at this a little bit. But there's a lot to catch up on. I guess the benefit with X-Men and stuff, it's not too much to catch up on. It's like four or five films that you could watch and realistically understand what's going on. Yeah. But then you've also got all of the MCU already and everything else. The MCU, it's kind of a tough one because that's so vast. I think that one might be a bit of an outlier because of how big it is.

Well, think about what's been your favorite Marvel thing in recent years? Probably Daredevil Born Again. Which is tonally. Quite dark. Cinematically. Yeah, I guess. It's a very different style. So my figure, like...

Or Loki. Loki also very good. But again, quite... I'm not going to say super cerebral, but it's not guys in Spandex punching each other. Yeah. It is a... slightly more. It's like a time travel thriller kind of on.

Yeah. So I think essentially the Avengers are now the expendables. And can you imagine if like your dad or like an older person was like, you need to check this out. It's got Arnie and stay firm and Salone in it.

And you're like, well, I guess they were like big in the 80s and there's some good films from there, Terminator stuff. a classic T2 as well but ultimately like think about

how little of a fuck you give about the expendables when you called it the expendables I was like that that is you've hit the nail in the head a little bit

I think what we are abstracting here though is story because that's an important part the expendables it's the actors it's the star power and I think with these things

it's only as good as the story when it comes to Doctor Who for example brought back Tenant fairly recently in the last few years. And when Shudy Gatwood became the doctor, with that, they brought the doctor in. It was David Tenet again. And all of a sudden, he's back.

The explanation, it's kind of loose. And it's like, oh, he's just here. Yeah. He's here. And the story is, or he's here for another story. Yeah. And it's not really anything beyond that. like it doesn't really tie in super heavy

and scream the horror franchise my favorite horror films some of my favorite films they are they're given a bit of leeway because they're horror films and it's kind of hand-waved a little bit

like oh well you know this happens all the time on the like arch side yeah you're gonna have eight times where Sydney Prescott is attacked by someone in a ghost face mask I know it's seven films yeah and with that it's sort of tongue and cheek

but also after a while, what is the story here? Yeah. What are you going to say about this character that hasn't already been said without spoiling their journey? That's a decent one, because horror as a genre might be somewhere

they have broken out of this in a lot of ways because, think of like, obsession backrooms. Their new, like, fresh. Content, oh, God, I just said it. Yeah, but people will connect and have nostalgia for them in like a while in the way they won't for any of the stuff we've got.

Like, Star Wars came out using my same nine-year-old rule. The first one, that guy's 56. So like, our generation have even re-contextualized the prequels so we have something to like latch on to. Well, I mentioned this earlier. Star Wars prequels now are going through a renaissance. Yeah. And part of me is like, are they

that good? Or are we just wanting something that's like hours for Star Wars? And it was writing wise... It's hard to say. The sequels, no one's going to attach to them because they rely... It's like a remake of the first one with the big planet and the new hero on a desert planet.

And it's like, so someone's meant to connect to a 50-year-old story. It is hard when you've got a legacy character playing a role because the legacy character, it's kind of like your dad's in the film. Yeah. And it's like, well, that's my dad's character, but I like this new guy. And I think that cycle of sort of creativity being trapped in a bubble in a circle is a weird state to be. Ghostbusters.

God, is anything actually new kind of think of it? Yeah. And the few new things have had huge receptions and done insanely well. So I think there's a thing of we need to like draw a line and be like, okay, these are going to age with the people who are actually watching them. Well, this is a bit like your fallow year idea a while ago for franchises in a common ground where franchises just have to have a break every five years. Yeah. And I think this is a good example of why, but this needs to be on a broader scale. Eventually you need to let go.

Well, I think if they aged up the target audience with the start, with, so the Avengers were. now actually targeted at those 30-year-olds. There'd be like a space underneath for whatever the next franchise would be instead of artificially extending. It's money though. Yeah, but... It's a bank. It makes bank.

I know, but they could make more money by giving like us what we want in terms of those things and then also having the new thing for... But would they? Because this way they can just have their cake and eat it. They can just put everything in one film. and just kind of go, here you are, it's everything. And it doesn't need to have substance, because now everyone's attention span is so shot

that you can just throw everyone in there and go, oh, look, it's this character, they've said a funny line, they've spoke to this guy, throw it all in. And this is from someone who, five years ago, that would be my dream,

just to see all of that happen. And now I think I'm starting to turn on cognitively a bit more as I'm approaching 30 and starting to realize, hang on a minute, you've not actually said anything with this. Nothing's happened. You're just putting people on the screen.

You're just hitting dopamine in your brain because you recognize something. Yeah, and I'm starting to feel that now a little bit where I'm like, I feel like I've been tricked. Yeah. And it's starting to reflect on stuff I've looked at previously, films I've enjoyed where I'm like, hang on a minute. They've just pulled the wool over my eyes. They've just dangled keys in front of me and went, this is shiny. And I've bought it and I've went with it. And now I'm like, I can't keep on falling for this.

Yeah. You need to do something. It needs to be. fulfilled, it needs to be something with substance. And I'm worried that we're not really getting that anymore. I think to use a kind of, I don't know if this analogy fully holds, but you know how the boomers have held on Earth's socio-economic power for way too long? I've heard, yes.

Like, the generations that have come after them haven't had access to that socio-year, so they've monopolized culture. Yes. And we need to do what the boomers did in. and let it go. That's a good point. We don't need to continue the cycle. Yeah.

We don't need another one. Yeah. That's it. Maybe we just let go of the past, Andy. I think just age it up, burn out the bottom, like a forest fire clearing out all the shit so new stuff can grow. And let's see what actually grows. That's it.

We need new fertile land. Yeah. Which means we need to get rid of the huge canopy trees. Or we're just salting the earth. Yeah. I agree, man. I think this is a very good point. I think nostalgia is becoming more and more of a problem with each iteration of nostalgia. And stopping the next group get nostalgia. Yeah, I think maybe we just need to shut it down.

Yeah. I think people are aged talking about the MCU are like 70-year-olds trying to tell you the Beatles are cool. It's like, yeah, some of their songs are alright, but I'm not... Yeah, I agree, the Beatles are the most overrated band. of all time. Whoa, what did he say? Two common grounds we agree on. We'll end that on a double header. Yeah, I guess that's it. That's where we'll wrap that one up. Just a quick shout-out at the end here for everyone who's been in touch over the last week or so. It'll be two weeks, I guess, when this comes out, who've been long-term followers of what we're doing, of what were the made, of a silly play-through of a long board game, just congratulating us on everything going

on, all the hype. Thank you for that. It really means the world that you've stuck with us from start to now. And everyone who's new and has decided to check us out on the back of this, thank you so much. We're really appreciative of it. We're excited to see where this goes. And I guess for now, from me James. Me and he, stay subtle, humble and brave. In those current and not nostalgia filled, brand new and always fresh, but constantly releasing, deserts of your minds. Good night.