Middle Raged Podcast – Episode 13 Transcript

This is the transcript for episode 13 – if you’d like to listen to it, rather than read it, all episodes are available on this page.

Hello, and welcome to Episode 13, Lucky For Some, of the Middle Raged Podcast, with me, Adam Eccles, and my co-host, Keith A Pearson.
Hello.
Hello, and a very good evening to you.
Indeed, I believe, I have to apologize, because I forgot to send you my International Happy Keith Day card.
Again, do you know what?
Every year.
Not a single soul was remembered.
That’s not true, actually.
The lovely Sue sent her a message on Twitter, ex, but apart from that, not a thing.
That’s a bit tough.
There are probably Keiths, Keiths, Keiths, Keiths, around the UK now enjoying a slap up dinner and maybe some light celebrations, but no, not in the Pearson household.
That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?
Not a thing.
Not even a card from my co-host.
Well.
You just, yeah, there isn’t an Adam’s Day, is there?
Is it jealousy?
What?
I actually, yeah, I have to, I forgot.
I didn’t even know, in fact.
And what is the nature of this day and what are we celebrating?
I have absolutely no idea whatsoever.
What, why, how it came to be, what you’re supposed to do.
Yeah, it’s just, I think basically, it’s just an opportunity to tag everyone called Keith that you might know on social media.
That seems to be about it, because I’ve had quite a few this afternoon.
Fair enough.
You remember that, I suppose you probably do, don’t you?
Do you remember the spitting image song of the 80s?
Yes, oh my god, I was in…
Chicken song or something, wasn’t it?
Yes, stick a deck chair up your nose and pretend your name is Keith.
There you go.
Yeah, god, that was really great at school, I can tell you.
Yeah, I bet that was absolutely brilliant.
Oh, honestly, the amount of people that said it as though they’d said it for the first time.
But you never heard that.
Oh, I laughed.
While we’re on the subject of names, we’ve had a bit of feedback from the conversation from Episode 12.
And this was regarding my daughter and I’s Facebook Hall of Fame for people with amusing names.
Wonderful names, yes.
And I think that we have a new entry, possibly, I would say almost a leader, a straight in at number one.
Straight in at number one, right.
And that’s name is…
Okay, I’ve now got to try and say it without chuckling.
Okay, this is a genuine name, this is a real person on Facebook, so if you want to go and look them up, don’t tell them that we sent you, but go find Tess Tickle.
Oh, wow.
Is she a Little Miss character?
No, she’s…
I think, I’m going to guess going on her profile photo, she’s probably approaching retirement age.
Okay, okay.
Hang on.
Is Tickle…
Tickle’s a surname, yeah.
Spelt the traditional way, yeah, not…
T-I-C-K-L-E, yeah, Tickle.
No Ys or something weird.
What is more puzzling, though?
Isn’t Tess short for something else, like Teresa or Tessa or…
If your surname was Tickle, why would…
And your first name was Tessa, why would you change…
Why would you go by Tess?
Maybe she was already Tess, and maybe she married Mr. Tickle, you know the guy.
And now she’s a Tess Tickle.
Sorry.
Oh, God.
Oh, boy.
Okay.
I mean, that is…
I don’t know what to say.
Tess Tickle.
I don’t think it’s anything you say, but dear listeners, if you think you can beat Tess Tickle, but they have to be Anglo-Saxon names.
That’s the only rule, because Adam tried to get a wang in there.
And I will repeat some of the others that he put forward.
What was the other one, sorry?
Well, no, that’s not good.
That’s not good.
Probably best not to.
So yes, please let us know.
Indeed.
I just, I don’t know if that’s…
Anyway.
We’ve started something now, so I think we’ve got to carry it through.
What else have we had from the last episode?
So follow up.
This is about Kit Kats.
We were talking about the proliferation of ridiculousness in the world of Kit Kats and other confectionery.
Are they confectionery?
Snacks?
Biscuits?
They’re in the confectionery.
I’ll allow it.
Yeah.
So apparently, according to our man on the front there in the USA, Gabe Sasso, Command Gabe, cinnamon toast Kit Kats.
Dirty bastards.
Just like cinnamon toast.
I can get cinnamon, that’s fairly routine, isn’t it?
Chuck cinnamon, all sorts of things.
But why toast?
Why was that necessary?
Toast, yeah.
Who eats toast just with nothing on it?
That basically is just toasted bread.
I mean, it just tastes of bread.
Oh, no.
That’s only if you’re sick on the couch in the 80s with a bottle of LucasAid, right?
Well, I think, what’s that horrible virus thing that goes around every now and again?
Is it a neurovirus or something where you’re literally, you’re expelling fluids from bathrooms or something?
I think that’s something you can eat.
That’s all you can eat then, mop up the, yeah.
Oh, dearie me.
Okay.
I hope nobody’s eating while we’re doing this.
But so, we had a bigger one, didn’t we?
We opened, in fact, an international can of worms, thanks to…
This is beyond comprehension, but thanks to Heather McCallough of telling us about the world of Japanese Kit Kats.
And I mean, I’m stumped here.
Can you elaborate on…
I can give you a little bit of extra.
Firstly, they’re seen as a sort of a token of good luck.
Fuck knows why, but that’s the Japanese for you.
Yeah, Kit Kat.
But don’t they have KFC for Christmas dinner?
Apologies to any Japanese listeners, but that’s just a bit weird.
Do they even have Christmas?
Yes, they have Christmas and they have KFC.
It’s a thing.
Traditional.
Traditional thing.
Like Dickensian KFC.
I don’t know.
Now, the more I thought, I heard this, I can’t remember who told me a couple of years back, and I thought, and my initial reaction was similar to yours, that’s mad.
But then I thought, actually, do you think how much easier it would be on Christmas Day, just take the whole family of KFC, cost you six quid ahead or whatever, every chuck everything in a box, you had done in 20 minutes.
I suppose, rather than getting up at 4am and defrosting the turkey and all of that.
I mean, a few years ago, I actually made a lasagna for Christmas.
Did you?
Was it in any way, shape or form Christmasy?
Did you put brandy in it?
No, no, just a really nice, you know, hardcore lasagna with all the trimmings, as the garlic bread and, you know.
All the trimmings.
I tried to do once because I don’t like turkey.
So I tried a beef Wellington, bought a very expensive beef Wellington from the butchers.
This thing was fucking expensive and nobody liked it except me.
So I was eating beef Wellington for four days, I think.
Yeah, constipated for a week.
Nice, nice.
Oh, I just need some cinnamon toast.
Also, over there, it’s called Kitto Cato.
Are you taking the piss now?
Do you know what?
I thought immediately when I said that, I thought, I bet Adam doesn’t believe me, but that is genuinely, they call it Kitto Cato.
I was going to do the accent, and I thought, no, that’s just too much, too much.
So over there, it’s the Kitto Cato, and it brings good luck, apparently.
Good fortune, okay.
You probably have to sort of bow to them or something, to hear the wonder of Kit Kat, I don’t know.
I would imagine.
So they’re probably in an illuminated display case, lots of bright colors and a little shrine or something.
But they have, get this listeners, over 50 different flavor of Kit Kats.
What’s your favorite that was on the list?
Oh, it’s probably got to be the sweet potato.
Fucking potato in a Kit Kat.
I mean, yeah, okay, sweet potato is slightly different to just the chips.
Do you think they just ran out of ideas?
Yeah, I mean.
We just lobbed that in.
How?
A lot of these flavors seem to be variations on the theme.
They got this thing called matcha.
I’m not really sure what that is.
I’m sure normal people know what that is, right?
Well, I don’t, but I’m there again.
I’m not normal either, so.
Well, there’s the pistachio.
I mean, I try the pistachio, but like, what is all this shit?
Like, sweet potato is not a Kit Kat.
But then there’s wasabi.
Which I thought, and again, I may be wrong.
Isn’t that something salty, sour?
No, do you know what?
Do you know horseradish?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It is a hardcore version of horseradish, let’s say that.
But like, it goes on sushi, but it’s really, I don’t know what the word is, but it’s mustardy, horseradishy, really powerful shit, basically.
Can I just do a quick sidebar here?
A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a video on YouTube, and you can just go onto YouTube and search this.
It’s Americans trying Marmite for the first time.
Do yourself a favor.
Oh, the laughs.
Once you’ve listened to this episode, clearly.
Yeah, obviously, yeah.
We talked about this before.
I’m sure we have.
I like Marmite.
I like Marmite, yeah, yeah.
But Americans, well, certainly the American in this particular video, I think it was a couple, he was English and he was an American girlfriend.
But what was worrying about it is the first time that she tried it, she actually sort of licked it off a spoon.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
And of course, she immediately recoiled.
I think I would too.
Yeah, that’s not, no, no.
No one’s eating naked Marmite.
Even a hardcore Marmite fan would balk at that idea.
Where’s the toast?
I mean, oh, God.
Yeah, so he then gave her it on toast, and she said that was slightly less vomit-inducing.
So I suppose the question is then, is do you think the Japanese will go down that particular route and come up with the Marmite-flavoured Kit Kat?
Yes.
I mean, it wouldn’t surprise me, and I know the Japanese, they did do some terrible things during the war, but wasabi and sweet potato is a new low for any nation.
The UN should step in there.
You would think so, yeah.
Do you remember there was something called Twiglets?
We have Twiglets.
Yeah, I love Twiglets.
Well, I say that.
I love them in December, but normally there’s always loads left, so you’re still eating them in March, and by that point you’re like, I could probably do with six months off.
Yeah, but they’re a Marmite, aren’t they?
Little sticks, but they’re Marmite flavor, crunchy things.
I don’t know what, they’re not crisps, but they’re not pretzels.
Yeah, they’re hard to, they are literally like a twig, I suppose, when you think about it.
So they went to the forest, they swept up, and then they put Marmite on it, and there you go.
Bob’s your uncle, yeah.
But no, they’re a Christmas staple in the Pearson house, and on that note, I haven’t even had my first mince pie of the season yet.
Well, it is November.
I know, but Guy Fawkes night has come and gone, and therefore, the first mince pie should have…
Yeah, it is open season.
Because you like to try variety as the weeks go by.
Right.
But no, not single one yet, but I intend to rectify that this weekend.
That would be a highlight for me.
There you go.
Good man.
All right, one small follow-up point as well, all right.
This is about washing machines.
And I only learnt this today, and I forgot to mention it, but I was lamenting either last time or the couple…
I can’t remember now.
Time is an illusion, right?
At some point, I was lamenting about how washing machines lie to you.
And I just wanted my washing machine to text me when it was done.
Stop pissing around with the bollock lies, right?
Just text me.
And today I learnt that such a device already exists.
Yeah, don’t…
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
So my colleague at work sent me a photo.
His washing machine texted him.
It’s just finished.
And you can go and take the washing machine.
Brilliant.
So…
That’s what we need.
I noticed something else on this same subject.
I don’t know if this is commonplace, but in America, the top loader is the washing machine of choice.
Top loader, yeah.
I don’t know if this is unconfirmed speculation of my part.
Right.
Yeah, I think you might be right there.
Yeah, that’s Dancing in the Moonlight by Top Loader.
Thank you.
Yeah, we were talking about that as well.
Yeah, sorry, we’ve gone there.
We stressed on this, that we were going to try and stick to a tight timeline, and we failed spectacularly.
All right, well, then moving swiftly on.
I’ve got a thing to play.
Shall I play the thing?
Go on, play the thing.
All right.
Hey there, listeners.
If you’re enjoying the podcast and want to help keep it going, consider supporting us with a small donation on buymeacoffee.com/middleraged.
Every donation helps us to give you more of the content you love and keeps us from venting our rage on social media.
Plus, you’ll get a light roasting on the show if you fancy it.
We couldn’t do it without you, so thanks for listening and spreading the word.
There you go.
Do you like that?
That’s good.
It saves us having to say it every episode.
Exactly, right.
And at least now people know exactly how long that section is so they can fast forward it to the future episode.
30 seconds.
Just about 30 seconds, yeah.
Oh, perfect.
Yeah.
I don’t know about your pod player, but I think mine is a 30 second fast forward.
So you did well there to make sure that that’s an option for people.
There you go.
Once you have subscribed or donated or whatever, then yeah, you can fast forward that bit in the future.
Yeah.
The rest of you, you’ve got to listen to it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we’re watching.
I guess we should probably say that somebody actually didn’t fast forward the advert that didn’t exist until this very minute.
Yes, indeed.
So…
I know you noticed how I dropped out then.
I know.
So look, we’re gonna…
We know we usually…
We do a lot of apologizing in this show.
And I think we’re going to just preemptively apologize because honestly, there is no way that we are going to be able to pronounce this name correctly.
Mate, we couldn’t even pronounce Evelyn.
Evelyn.
Oh my God.
We couldn’t even pronounce Evelyn right.
So we got no chance, right?
So sorry to person who we’re going to butcher your name.
But you know, when you hear it, you’ll probably understand, right?
So it’s a thank you to Biruk Alparslan.
I hope that that’s vaguely, approximately what your name is.
I think that sounds good.
I’m going to have a go myself.
So Biruk Alparslan.
Yeah, that sounds better.
I think if we say it with enough conviction, listeners might actually think that we do know what we’re talking about.
Yeah, unfortunately, we don’t.
But anyway, thank you to that person that we just said.
You can avoid saying Biruk’s name now.
Biruk, Biruk.
But I think the Biruk bit, I’m good with that, Alparslan.
It’s quite tough.
I mean, I’m sure that you don’t, you know, in, what do you call it?
What’s that?
Starbucks, you know, when they ask you.
They’re never spelling that correctly, are they?
No, they’re not.
Not I hope.
Anyway, right.
I thought it, actually, if you look at Biruk, how it’s spelled, it looked like a weird domain name from the late 90s, like B-U-Y-R-U-K.
You know, like these weird domains, websites have popped up, buyurk.com.
Oh, yeah..uk.alparsle.com.
anyway, .com.
Right.
I haven’t gone down that route, but so, yes, two coffees, I think, Biruk purchased for us.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, sir.
And also an avid reader of our books.
So, yeah, thank you very much, sir, for stepping up to the breach.
And accordingly, we need to discuss who we’ve, what character we have given a name that we can’t pronounce.
Can you imagine if you did this, right, and your narrator would be pissed when they got to do the audiobook, wouldn’t they?
They would be so angry.
And I do think about that.
Now, when I give characters names, I avoid giving them, particularly if it’s a character that crops up a lot.
Anything, a name with three syllables or more, change it.
It’s a mouthful, isn’t it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
You don’t want anything.
Yeah, so unfortunately, Byrock, you will not be appearing in an actual book.
No, actually, Byrock would be okay for the Christian name, but…
Yeah, I’ve just changed the second name for something.
Yeah, the narrator has quit.
So…
Jones.
Byrock Al-Parslan, in my particular novel, is the name of a human-looking cyborg.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, same from the future, to terminate a number of prominent activists who are trying to raise concerns about the development of AI.
This is in no way stolen from a 1991 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, not in the slightest.
Okay, good.
So, Biruk Alpazlan arrives in 2024, and on his very first day, he’s searching the town, not sure what town this would be, Seyslau, I don’t know, could be as good as any, driving around and he’s consulting a map on his phone, and he gets pulled over by a police officer.
Things then sort of escalate, and the police officer pulls out a taser, and shoots Biruk.
Now, clearly he’s not human, so this completely fries his CPU.
Oh.
Yeah, I don’t know if it’s Intel or AMD, and I suppose that’s not really important, but anyway.
It’s for the warranty.
This is true.
This is true.
So now obviously with his fried CPU, it corrupts all of Biruk’s core programming.
So he no longer knows why that he’s a cyborg for starters.
Oh, shit.
Right.
But he also doesn’t know what his mission is.
So he’s completely confused, and he just happens to wander into the nearest store, which happens to be a branch of Burger King.
And he approaches an official-looking guy behind the counter and asks if he can help establish his mission.
Turns out that that person is the manager of the branch, and he assumes that Biruk is after a job and offers him a part-time position.
And if we fast forward one year, Biruk Alparslan is the deputy manager of Basin Stoke Burger King.
Excellent.
And he’s enjoying a fuller meaningful relationship with an upright Dyson he calls Deborah.
Well, that went a direction I was not expecting.
Excellent.
Excellent.
Right, follow that.
Okay.
Right.
Well, I think Bayrak El-Parslan is an international…
Rolling off the tongue now, sorry.
We’re flooding the place here now.
So, yeah, he’s an international conflict photographer for magazines like National Geographic and All Time magazine.
You know, they send out photographers all over the world.
And, you know, so he’s traveled the world.
This is, you know, this was happening probably in the 80s, 90s, 2000s.
And this is his biography, right?
So that’s what the book he’s in.
And he’s traveled the world armed with nothing more than the roll of film and the Leica camera and the 200 millimeter zoom lens.
He’s the three times Pulitzer Prize winner for his work in the Falklands and Afghanistan, of all places, right?
So I mean, he’s really out there.
He’s got some great shots.
But amongst his highlights in this autobiography, he’s been in some situations, right?
So he was once bribed with a harem for 40 days and 40 nights.
Did he accept this bribe?
Of course he did, yeah.
And he came out of it three stone lighter.
Mainly lost from the testicle region, I’d imagine.
There you go.
He’s been a prisoner in Afghanistan, and he only survived that by trading naughty photos with the guards, right?
Because he’s a photographer.
Wow.
Oh, of course, yeah, yeah.
He was undercover in North Korea and disguised as a street food vendor.
He had some wonderful experiences there.
And in Baghdad one time, he was made to do the dance of the seven veils in a secret underground bar.
Wow.
What, wearing the full sort of…
Oh, yeah, the full get up and the…
Taking it off, you know, all that stuff.
But the highlight of his career, I think, was…
And he was escaping in Kuwait during whenever that crisis was.
And him and two others escaped by dressing up as a pantomime camel.
And he got the hump.
He was the humps.
Oh, God.
And so this is his autobiography.
And I thought it would be called The Dark Room Out Of Focus.
There you go.
You did go very in depth with that.
Yes.
Well, you know, to get the…
I think it was certainly less offensive than mine.
I think out of the two, I think Byron would choose your character over mine.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, especially the highlights there, you know, who wouldn’t want to be bribed in a harem?
Yeah.
I mean, it’s certainly a way to go, isn’t it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Keep you busy for a while.
How long was he in there for, did you say?
Forty days and forty nights.
I feel like that’s the traditional length of time that things happen in those places.
Did we get as far as establishing how many women were in this?
We’re assuming it’s women.
I mean, imagine if it wasn’t.
Do you want to come to a harem for forty days and forty nights?
Yes, and then it’s just like forty builders or something.
I assumed, maybe incorrectly, that the nature of a harem meant that it was women.
But yeah, well, you know, it’s 2024, mate, assume nothing.
Yes, yes, you never know.
But yeah, I mean, you’ve got to think there’s at least a dozen women in there.
Okay, so you get to go around.
Yeah, around the house.
And probably you could say, you could go around three times and have a day off.
There you go.
Day or two off.
I bet you possibly need that.
You might need it, yes, yes.
And that’s assuming you’re going once a day, really.
I mean, what did you do with the other?
24 hours and 58 minutes, 24 hours, 23 hours and 58 minutes.
Well, he’s probably watching the telly.
Yeah.
You know, why not?
Or developing the pictures.
Excellent.
Anyway, right.
One other thing I’ll just mention quickly.
We made a promo video, which is more of an audio video, whatever.
If you happen to see it on your socials, give it a share, because we’re trying to build up the, oh, it’s not readership, listenership.
There you go.
Build up the listenership, and we feel that, you know, if you’re into this sort of fun stuff, you should tell your friends.
So if you happen to see that video, give it a share.
Cheers.
So, on to the main reason we’re here.
What’s your rage point, Keith?
This, so if I had an original rage point in mind, but then I actually did get properly enraged about something.
And I thought, well, you know, we’ve got to stick to our true principles.
And this one does skirt, and we’ve always said, right, from the very offset, that we don’t want to get into the sort of political or social weeds of any subject.
But this one probably just sort of skirts the periphery of that type of stuff.
But I will try and stay the right side.
And it’s primarily because my rage point is frugality, or the dying art of frugality.
Right.
And this was triggered by an announcement I saw, or by a government announcement that landed on Twitter or X or something, that they are setting up a new department.
This is the new government here in the UK, the Office for Value for Money.
I mean, it doesn’t, it sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?
It does sound like something from a sketch show in the 90s, the Office for Value for Money.
Are you serious?
I absolutely, I know, it just seems comical, doesn’t it?
It does sound like something from Monty Python.
But no, it is a real thing and they’ve got some guy on board, I can’t remember his name, but they’re paying him a quarter of a million quid a year to front this office.
The irony, I mean, honestly, the absolute irony of it is breathtaking.
And that, wow.
I mean, yes, you’re skirting into the ineptitude of governments, it’s definitely, right?
But, wow.
Now, here’s the thing, right?
Firstly, I kind of assumed that the first remit of every single government department from the cabinet office all the way down to sort of local government and parish councils, I would have thought the first remit would be to get maximum value for money when it’s tax payers’ money you’re spending.
I would have thought that’s the very, very top of the list that you put at the prism through, you make every decision.
Yeah, yeah.
Clearly, it’s not, though, clearly, it can’t be, otherwise, you would not need a separate office for value for money.
So, it does beg the question, what the fuck is going on then if you actually have to have an entire department head, God knows what else this new office will need, stationery, I’m guessing.
Yeah.
And a salary of a quarter of a million quid.
Don’t they?
So, okay.
Now, why this particularly pisses me off is, and this is not party political, because you can go back for probably a good two, three, four decades, and there has been a growing trend amongst the state to just spend more and more and more and more money without anything actually ever seeming to get any better, which suggests that a vast amount of the money is being wasted.
Because if it wasn’t being wasted, you would definitely see an improvement, and say something about the National Health is a great example, isn’t it?
You throw more and more and more and more and more and more money into that thing, and yet the current situation with the NHS is just buggered, it’s hard to get a doctor’s appointment and waiting lists and everything else.
So it’s not money, so you’ve got a question, okay, what’s happening when the money goes in and then it gets to the end user?
Clearly something’s not right.
And what frustrates me, apart from this frog in my throat, is that we were the nation who coined the phrase make to amend.
Right, yes.
So post-war, obviously during the war, we, the British, were renowned for just, for firstly, when we made something, right, when something was manufactured, it was built to last.
That’s right, yeah, yeah.
Triggers broom, for example.
So, you bought a radio, that radio would sit on a shelf for decades, wouldn’t it?
Just go on and on and on.
Now you buy something, a bit of electronics for 20 quid, and you lob that was made in China, and you lob it in a bin if it slightly discoloured or something.
Clothes, again, you would buy a suit, and that suit, unless you put on or lost vast amounts of weight, that suit would probably be the one that you were married in, would probably be the one you were buried in.
Assuming there is some period of time between those two events.
Hopefully, yeah.
On the subject of electronics, right, so here, I’m not sure if this is the case in the UK, but here when you buy something, there is already a tax on it that’s the recycling fee.
So it’s like they already know that you’re going to be throwing this in the bin, and you literally haven’t even bought it yet.
Well, we have, I mean, we have VAT and…
Well, it’s on top of that.
On top of, okay, so just another tax.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, it’s always like the five euro is included or something for the recycling.
But when you do take your broken fridge to the tip, then it’s free to recycle because you already paid for that, right?
But yeah, it’s always sort of struck me that I’m just buying this fucking thing and you’re telling me that it’s going to fall apart.
Like, come on.
This is the problem though, isn’t it?
And this extends to beyond government departments wasting money.
It’s just this whole sort of ecosystem we have now of throw away consumerism.
Yes.
And individually, we are perhaps all guilty of…
Let me just give you a bit of backstory here.
So growing up, I mean, my family, I know you’ve heard this many times, so you can put your violin away.
So we were fairly poor, right?
We didn’t own a car, and there were six of us, myself, three brothers, parents living in this sort of boxy little council house, no garden.
And yet, and my dad was like a furniture porter, and mum worked in a cafe part-time, so we did not have much money.
And to this day, I have never, ever understood how the hell my mum managed to feed and clothe six people on the amount of money that was coming into that house.
Because it wasn’t very much money.
So she must have actually, in fact, just a quick anecdote here.
So this was in 1980, and I remember this so distinctly.
I was nine years of age, and it was the first week of the school summer holidays.
And a friend of mine, Gary Hockley, was going to the local swimming baths.
And it was 20p.
So it’s a good way of wasting a whole day, right?
And I said to my mum, can I have 20p?
And she sort of looked at me apologetically, and said, well, no, I can’t give you that today, but if you want to go, I can give it to you on Friday.
Right.
I didn’t really think much of it.
Okay, Friday it is.
And to put it into context, that 20p is worth about one pound 15 today.
Now, if you were to ask 100 people, if they got on a train with one pound 15 in loose change in their pocket, got off that train, walking to their destination, and they realized they had lost it, how many would give a shit?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, indeed.
No one.
And yet that 20p was clearly…
Important, yeah…
.of significance to my mum, that I couldn’t have it till, I don’t know what was happening on Friday.
Payday or something, yeah.
Could have been payday, she could have been on the game.
Who knows?
I’m going to guess not the latter.
Probably not.
A 20p, that would be very poor, wouldn’t it?
I don’t know what you’d get for that.
Oh, God, this has taken a twist.
Oh, God.
So, but now we don’t seem to value money at all, or small, or we don’t seem to care enough about money, and particularly spending, when it comes to it being someone else’s money.
Right.
Yes.
Indeed.
Well, it’s more fun to spend somebody else’s money, but when you’re saying it’s the money of everybody, not just particularly somebody like, for example, like if it’s work paying, then I get the big stake.
Would you say you’re frugal?
I can be, but I also spend a huge amount of money on technology.
But is that when you…
Okay, so but I bet when you buy something, you don’t do it off the cuff.
I bet you research if you’re looking for a thanks, something that’s a broader product, that you would do the time, do the research.
Absolutely, yeah.
And you would buy something that you particularly need?
Would that be fair?
Yeah, usually, yeah.
My father always used to say, I’m not a rich man, so I can only afford the best.
And there’s an anecdote in, oh, it’s not an anecdote, but it’s a sort of storyline in Terry Pratchett’s books that I can’t remember the name of at the moment, but there’s a thing about, a rich man will buy a 50 pound pair of boots, right?
And they’ll last him for 10 years, and they’ll be wonderful, soft, whatever, good, reliable boots, right?
But the poor man can’t afford those 50 pound boots, so he has to buy a 10 pound pair of boots, right?
But those are so crap that they wear out every year.
So over the 10 years, he’s spent double the amount as the rich man had.
Probably put it on Klarna, buy the 50 pound ones.
Problem solved.
Were they Timberland boots?
Probably.
Just as a sidebar on that, what the fuck has happened to Timberland?
I know you don’t really buy DMs, don’t you?
Not anymore because of feet pain.
But hang on, is that the singer just in Timberland?
No, no, no, it’s a brand of boots.
I think they’re American.
I bought a pair 15 years ago, and I think they lasted me 10 years.
They weren’t cheap.
I mean, they were probably a hundred quid or so.
But I happened to be in a Timberland store back in the summer, and the absolute shite that was on those shelves, the quality, there was no quality.
It’s like, well, we’ve got a name now that people like and know and, you know, now we’re just gonna stick that name on any old tat.
And it’s no longer a quality product.
It’s just an expensive product.
So there was no longer any correlation between the amount of money you’re paying and the quality of the thing you’re buying.
You’re paying literally for the Timberland logo on the side of your boot.
Oh, I don’t mind, and there are certain brands where you know, particularly clothing wise, that if you buy that, it’s gonna be, and it’s a bit more expensive, but it’s gonna last.
It’s a better quality cotton, whatever it may be.
Yeah, exactly.
And it’s stitched to the buttons are nicer, that everything just fits, it’s got a bit of heft to it.
You know what I mean?
It just feels like it’s gonna last more than three washes.
But there’s an awful lot of stuff that’s just, I don’t know, a t-shirt, you just, a bog standard 50 cent Chinese t-shirt, a Bangladeshi t-shirt, they whack a logo on, 30 quid.
Yeah, that really pisses me off, yeah.
Robbing bastards.
Yes.
So, sorry, back to my original rage about the spending of money.
So, another quick anecdote, if I may.
So in 2001, I was running my own estate agency, and I apologize, I’m not sure if that’s a shock to anyone, or we’ve now lost listeners.
Well, yeah, yeah.
I was young, it was a long time ago.
I knew I needed the money.
Yeah, I did need the money.
Two young children, mouths to feed and all that.
And as it happened, there was a guy I knew on the local property scene, who, much to everyone’s surprise, was actually elected then the sort of borough mayor.
But now they just do that, don’t they?
A mayor, you don’t need any qualification.
Just some random person they seem to pick and go, oh, you seem like a nice lady fella.
We’re going to just put this stupid hat and coat on and…
Yeah, just wander around the borough, having your picture taken.
A bit weird.
Fair enough.
I don’t know what authority do they have as mayor.
Is that just like…
I don’t…
They probably do.
I mean, the ones in cities seem to have some authority, or at least they’d like to think they have some authority.
To get free pasties or something, like if you…
Yeah, I don’t know.
I think it’s…
What was the word that I’m looking for?
Ceremonial.
It’s a ceremonial position more than anything else.
Like a king.
Anyway, so this mayor, as he was then, we’ll call him John, just for the sake of simplicity.
He asked me to join his…
Every new mayor comes in, they have to set up a fundraising committee made up of local people’s, business owners and that.
And he asked me if I would join it, and I thought, okay, this seems like a good thing.
He sold it to me on the back of it being good PR for my business.
Right.
Anyway, so went along to the first meeting, it was 11 a.m. Now, do I need to start you off on meetings?
Oh, I’ve lost count of how many I have, but yeah.
Okay, so I, like yourself, do not enjoy a meeting.
And the meetings I had at work, because I had complete control over it, it was like 15, 20 minutes every morning, and that was it.
And we got shit done in that meeting.
It was like, what are we doing?
How are we doing it?
Blah, blah, blah, what happened yesterday?
And that was it, done.
So that was my experience of meetings.
So I turned up at this one at 11 o’clock, and I presumed we would be done by noon.
So got there, 11 other members of this committee, right?
Some people I vaguely knew, others I didn’t, plus the mayor.
And then there was two other members of council staff.
There was somebody from some other department, I don’t know, finance or something, and like a secretary or PA person who was taking notes.
So those two were there.
45 minutes, we were just sat around talking about each, introductions, literally was introductions.
Okay, and then we got to the end of that, and it was like, we’re gonna do an agenda overview.
And then, so this was getting on for 45, 50 minutes at this point, and the meeting hadn’t actually started.
When there was a knock on the door, and a man and a woman came in, dressed in these sort of purpley blue polo shirts, and then they proceeded to transfer a trays of sandwiches and cakes and pastries to a table at the side of the room.
Nice, okay.
Yeah, and they had flasks of tea and coffee.
I mean, they were in and out maybe a dozen times.
I mean, it was a fucking banquet.
I mean, there was 15 people in that room.
Yeah.
It was ridiculous.
So we then had another break.
We had a 45-minute break for lunch, and which probably about a quarter of this food was consumed.
And then we cracked on.
I think I got back to the office about three o’clock.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Anyway.
So, yeah, this is what happens with meetings.
They’re not meetings.
They’re excuses to do nothing.
Yeah, and pretend that you’re doing something useful.
Completely.
So when I got back at some point before the end of the day, I received an email through from, I’m assuming, the poor woman who was stuck in the room with us taking notes, outlining the 16 other meetings that have been scheduled for the coming year.
No.
Okay, 16.
Oh, no.
And at that point, it struck me, right?
How much is this fucking costing?
Oh, yeah.
Wouldn’t it be better?
Cut out the middle man, have no meetings, just give the fucking money you saved to charity.
Sandwiches, yeah.
I would have paid 500 quid not to go to another meeting.
Yeah, yeah.
What the fuck?
Yeah.
It’s just insane.
And you think, why was, is this guy, right, just basically making all of his meetings?
Because I thought 11 o’clock’s a weird time for a meeting anyway.
I don’t know, you know, I’d like to get them out end of the day, beginning of the day.
And I thought, maybe he’s just doing this.
He gets his lunch paid for every day, courtesy of the local taxpayer.
Sounds like a plan, yes.
That could be it.
But it kind of set me off really, because I started actually calculating how much all of this would cost.
And I just thought there is no, why?
Would you spend your own money on this?
If it was your money you were spending, would you get caterers, outside caterers in?
No, I mean, everyone would be made to bring your own sandwich, or your own cup of tea, or whatever.
Or alternate it between one person this week and the next, whatever.
But no, you wouldn’t, I mean, it does make no…
It’s a fundraiser, and it’s costing money to run it, and it’s all irrelevant bollocks anyway.
Two members of staff, plus the mayor, I don’t know if he was on a salary, but those two members of staff were certainly there, and I don’t know what they earned an hour, but 16 meetings, three hours, basically a couple of weeks’ worth of man hours were there, isn’t it?
And that’s before all of the admin and God knows what else was going on.
But I reckon quite comfortably, we could have made a really big donation to charity if they’d have just said, but we’re not going to do any of this stuff, we’re just going to take the money we would have spunked on sandwiches and staff, given it to the charity and said to all these poor bastards, I don’t know, I never went to another one, I bowed out and said, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was going to be so time intensive.
I mean, the sandwiches were nice and all, but because I thought, okay, maybe the sandwiches were just a nicety because they were taking up our time and they felt that it was an obligation, a nice thing to do.
But I was thinking, well, no, it wasn’t because the meeting didn’t need to be so long that you had to have a fucking lunch break.
Yeah, no, that’s…
Yeah, it’s self-serving, isn’t it?
So, yeah, exactly.
I wasn’t willing to be charitable, ironically.
And then it’s kind of dawned on me that actually this had nothing to do with actually making money for charity.
This had just been…
It’s opportunities to come up with these ideas for events that the mayor could then be seen at and photographed and the council could sort of…
You know, every week there will be something that they could put in the local rag to…
I suppose it was early virtue signaling, if you like.
There you go.
Yes.
Lovely.
No, that’s…
Yeah.
So I don’t understand what’s going on.
Why do councils spunk our money like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Day?
I mean, who’s accountable for that?
And why is there a fucking head of department of value for wank or whatever this individual is called?
I don’t know what that…
Depart…
The value for money for other government services or just like stuff in testers?
I’m assuming this is a thing that will go into another department.
Right.
And let’s call this guy Bob.
I don’t know his name.
And he’ll go in and he’ll clap his hands and call around everyone and go, Right, everyone.
So can we save any money?
And somebody will say, We could probably downgrade from PG Tips to Tetley.
That might save us a couple of quid.
Bob claps his hands.
My work here is done.
Fucks off to the next department.
And he can then say, Yes, we have saved money.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I know.
So I thought that each department would have a budget anyway, and the chap or whatever who does that anyway.
So why do we need another department to police that?
Well, I would say that governmental budgets will always expand to, and this is the thing, isn’t it?
All government departments want more and more money.
None of them actually ever turn around and say, do you know what, what we want to be is the leanest, most efficient, most well-oiled department in government.
Where are the badges for that?
Where are the, and this is another topsy-turvy thing about government, is that they just want more and more money, but there’s no motivation to save money.
If you said to the head of every department, you get a big fuck-off bonus, right?
So you don’t need this guy being paid quarter of a million quid, you just say to the head of each department, if you save this amount of money, you and your team will get a chunk of cash.
Yes, yes, that would be a better incentive, wouldn’t it?
Yeah.
Because that’s what happens in the real world, in the private sector, doesn’t it?
You know, if you’re efficient, if you save the company money, make the company money, you get rewarded with a bonus of some sort.
And I don’t see why that can’t be applied to the public sector.
I suppose the optics of it don’t look, you could be able to go, well, they’re being paid bonuses just for doing their jobs.
And you know, human nature is what it is.
I guess you do need some incentive to stop people wasting money.
Yeah, but there’s the thing that, you know, every sort of workplace has got this thing.
Like if at the end of the year, when there’s, if there’s a spare budget left, they’re running around trying to figure out what to spend it on.
Yes, yes.
Because if you don’t, then your next year’s budget will be cut.
But then you’re thinking like, well, if you didn’t need that shit, does it matter if you’re budget-
That’s a good point, actually, isn’t it?
And I’m sure it’s the same.
There’s this, it’s an urban myth maybe, that you see more road works done in, like, you know, February and March, because councils have got to spend their budget.
Otherwise, as you say, it’s a similar thing.
They don’t get it.
There’s just no joined up thinking with any of this.
And I just don’t understand why.
If my mum was running the local council, I mean, she’s dead, so that’s not very likely, but if she had been running the council, she would have made every single employee account for every single penny.
And if anyone had wasted it, one thing that when you grow up and you’re not very well off, you do not waste food.
That is rule number one.
If you sit at a table and you do not leave until every crumb has gone, and you can understand why, because every crumb of food has been eeked out from a very, very modest budget.
Yeah, absolutely.
So my mum wouldn’t have put up with that shit, and she’d have actually made the fucking mayor stand there and eat every single sandwich that was left on that platter at the end of the meeting.
Damn right.
I mean, at least give them to fucking homeless people, right?
Take the sandwiches.
I don’t know.
Well, maybe they got given, they got put in the staff room or something, maybe.
They’re in the fridge for a week.
No one saw them.
Then they went curly, and then they threw them out.
All the egg and creche just left there to fester because no fuckers touching them.
But I think genuinely, there should be, frugality should be taught in schools.
Because I think it’s a life skill that would transform, not just the kids, but the generally society.
It would, yeah.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
You’re right that it used to be a much bigger thing, and now it feels like everything is designed to fail and break, and you can’t fix it.
Or there’s no skills.
People don’t have the skills to fix, like if your washing machine breaks, well, that’s it, game over.
You either have to call a fella, and the fella won’t come for weeks.
It’s just easier to buy a new one, and that’s absolutely ridiculous.
I’m going to coin this wastage nation, because I think that nicely encompasses everything.
The whole throwaway mentality, the fact that public services, and that just wastes money.
And indeed, this goes into the corporate sector as well, because the bigger the company, the more the waste.
So they’re all guilty.
But it’s just because the individuals within those companies don’t have frugality ingrained in them.
I’ve always said, and I’m a political atheist, but I’ve always said that nobody should be allowed to serve in any government or even as an MP, unless they’ve worked a thousand hours in, I think I’ve mentioned this before, right?
Because they need to understand that, you know, the people that they’ll be working with won’t have much money, and they will be working for minimum wage, and they will, they might appreciate how every penny actually and every pound matters to some people.
Because I think that’s the sort of mentality you need.
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
You can’t be disconnected from the real world.
We’ve gone very serious, haven’t we?
Yeah, well.
God, I’m sorry, everyone.
Life, save money, fix your stuff.
Save money.
And if you have kids, this will be the very last thing I say on this.
And this, again, this is something my mum told me not long after my son was born.
She said, if you say no to him more times than you say yes, you’ll both be glad that you did that.
And I thought that was profound at the time, and it’s a vice I’ve stuck to.
So yeah, I would like to think that my kids have picked up on my frugality.
I say frugality, other people call it tightness.
Yeah.
Yeah, fuck them.
Fair enough.
I agree.
And yeah, that’s well-raised.
Thank you.
All right.
So I’m going to, I’ve made a little…
What you got?
What you got?
I made a silly thing, so I’m going to play a silly thing for you real quick.
This is the final call for passengers on flight MR101 to fuck Stantonople.
Please proceed immediately to gate 398.
This is the final boarding call for flight MR101.
Thank you.
Oh, dude, someone’s got too much free time on their hands.
That was very funny, actually.
I made that at lunchtime just for the crack.
But yeah, so if you hadn’t guessed, my rage this episode is about airports.
And not the actual flying, because we’ve already covered that in the last time, I think.
But the actual airport.
This is going to be rich pickings, isn’t it?
So here’s my hot take.
I think that’s what the kids are saying these days, the hot take.
Airports are just bus stations with attitude.
Not good attitude either.
No, no, bad attitude.
So they think they’re so fucking important with all the security and the closed off areas and there’s special laws and passport control and all this crap.
But it’s all, it’s just a bus station.
Their buses happen to fly at 35,000 feet, but it doesn’t matter.
They’re just buses.
And yes, they’re all so jumped up and, oh, we’re so important, because this is an airport.
Wow, okay.
And I’m not complaining about the security.
That’s…
I was gonna say, I’d rather that they didn’t.
That’s one area where they didn’t…
No, no skimp.
But there don’t have to be assholes about it.
But no, it’s not that you have to go through an x-ray.
I don’t mind all of that, right?
And this year, it’s poignant, because I’m flying again next week.
This year, I’ve done a lot of traveling, much too much, and it’s pissed me off a lot, right?
So this was bound to happen, but here we are, right?
So I’ve just listed a few things.
This isn’t like everything.
I could probably go on all day, right?
But these are a few things that just pissed me off.
Buckle up, listeners.
This is going to be a long one.
If you’re going on a three-hour drive, don’t worry about having to find another podcast, because I’ve got a feeling we’ll still be with you by the time you reach your destination.
You know, we’re already at an hour or so.
All right, I’ll try and be quick.
So first thing that freaks me out, right, is some people probably think I’m the weird one here, right?
But you ever get on a flight or you don’t do that much, do you?
Not a huge amount.
No.
Well, if you’ve ever been to an airport, if anyone has, like, five in the morning, you know, it’s fucking, it’s horrible, right?
You’ve got up at arse o’clock, you know, and your body isn’t used to it, and it’s all weird.
But then you get through all of the dross and the security and the lines and, you know, all of the crap.
You have to walk six miles.
But you get to where the gate is and where there’s pubs inside the airport.
Yeah, where the spoons usually.
Yeah, yeah.
And it’s five in the morning, bear in mind.
There’s people sat there drinking pints.
And I’m just like, how can your stomach accept it?
Like Guinness.
One would assume they haven’t been to bed.
I mean, maybe there’s that.
Hopefully, then I can understand it.
But if you just got up and you’re fucking downing pints of lager and Guinness, that is just brutal.
I have been in an airport at 5 a.m., but I was there because I’d been there, I think, since midnight or something, and I’d come straight from a…
Yeah.
It was the arse end of a holiday.
Yeah, so I was still on it.
But these are in the departure land, right?
So these people are just going on their trip, and they’re sitting there down in pints.
I’m like, fucking hell.
So then you get to the actual gate, and there’s a whole load of things happening at the gate, right?
Well, in the airport terminal as well, there’s these people…
Do you know the neck pillow people?
You know what I mean?
There’s these fucking…
They always sell these neck pillows at the airport, right?
And then, I mean, they’re usually in all the stupid shops.
I don’t really understand the need for these, right?
These are inflatable ones?
They’re either inflatable or they’re just spongy or whatever.
But yeah, the people…
You buy your fucking neck pillow, and then, I don’t know, maybe they just want to get the maximum use out of it, but they’re wandering around in the terminal, flight nowhere near the flight, but they’re fucking wearing these neck pillows.
And it just looks so stupid.
Well, you’re assuming they don’t wear them all the time.
That is a possibility.
They’re literally all the time.
That is a possibility, yeah.
Maybe they’ve got neck problems, and they have to wear them.
They all just…
Maybe every time you fly out, you happen to coincide with a convention of weak neck, weak people, or something.
And they’re doing their annual convention in wherever you happen to be flying to, or somewhere near.
And that just could be it.
That would just be exceptionally coincidental.
It would, yes, granted.
But, yes, possibility.
But, yes, I think the neck pillow people are just fucking…
The neck pillow people.
You can wear it on the plane, if you must, I suppose.
But you don’t wear it while you’re walking around, right?
Imagine if they were carrying around pile cushions.
Yeah.
Do you think they’d be so overt about it?
Big, like, toilets.
Stuck on your ass.
They would be comfortable, I suppose, but…
Ah, just, yeah.
I mean, maybe they all have narcolepsy and they’re just prone to fall asleep at the click of a finger.
Yeah, I don’t know.
Sorry, right, yes.
So then you got the refugee camps.
Right, I mean, I don’t know how early they got to their flight, right?
But I’ve never had, I mean, I’ve had to, I’ve been on delayed flights and stuff, right?
But I’ve never been on one that’s so delayed that I’ve had to basically build a camp, and, you know, a tent and pillows and gone, and, you know, and not just have a nap, but be completely asleep.
And, you know, you’ve got your little barbecue set up and all of this stuff.
Well, I would say I had not, I was not aware of this concept until I, this was quite recent as well, as luck would have it.
A family I know, I won’t mention their names because they’re fucking morons.
They were going out on a flight at, I think, 7.30 in the morning, and they decided the best thing to do to make sure they weren’t late or caught in traffic was to get to the airport at 7 p.m. The night before.
So essentially, they were 12.5 hours in the airport.
Oh, that is stupid.
They are, I did say they’re morons.
I mean, I wasn’t exaggerating.
They are actual morons.
Yeah, yeah.
If they’re listening to this, I’m sorry.
Well, yeah, you’re a moron.
I don’t know what to say.
Yeah, you don’t, you know, plan ahead.
12 hours, though.
So, yeah, you see all these, you see all these refugees camping around the gate and just like, how long have you been there?
You know, did you miss your flight last week and you’re still waiting for the next one?
Or somebody waiting for a TWA flight or something?
Yeah, I just, it’s weird to me that there’s always, always much too many people just lying on the floor and just, you know, there’s a sort of staging of that, right?
If you’re sat for a while, maybe you go and walk around for a bit or maybe you sort of sit down a bit more comfy somewhere.
But to be at the stage where you’re absolutely fast asleep, crawled, you know, and you’ve got coats thrown over you and stuff, like that’s, you know, you’re going for the hardcore.
I think that at that point, you should just get a hotel.
I am slightly envious of those people, though, because I cannot sleep anywhere but my own actual bed.
I really, really struggle.
Even in a hotel bed, I’ll have to imbibe a lot of alcohol or something to eventually pass out.
But people who can sleep on the flight itself, I’m always deeply envious of those people.
I find it hard to.
I mean, I haven’t got a neck pillow, so maybe that’s why, right?
But, yeah, no, I couldn’t.
Yeah, there’s no way I would…
They do say masturbation does help.
Yeah, they don’t tend to want you to do that, though, in the middle of the flight.
Well, I meant in the toilet.
I mean, I didn’t actually mean in your seat.
That’s where I’ve been going wrong.
That’s why you’re now banned from nine different airlines.
I call him Wanky Adam.
He’s on a watch list.
Sorry.
Yes, I can’t.
No, I can’t.
I can’t sleep on a flight with or without a wank.
All right.
Okay.
So then you got the…
These are all different types of people, right?
But then you got the ones who you’re sitting at the gate waiting patiently.
You’re sitting there.
You’ve found…
Maybe you got there a bit early and you’ve found a nice empty spot of chairs.
They’re not comfortable in any kind of way, but you found some empty chairs and you’re just sitting there chilling out, maybe listening to this podcast or similar.
And then some bunch of fuckers come and sit right next to you.
And they don’t just sit there, right?
I mean, if they just sat there, like there’s other empty space, but they choose to fucking sit next to you.
What is that about, number one?
Are these normally lads going on a holiday?
No, well, no, not necessarily.
I find it’s more like mums who’ve got millions of children or a group of women who are going on something, some sort of convention or whatever, but they don’t just sit, they sit, then they establish their sort of realm with bags and coats and whatever and pillows.
And then they start getting things out of bags and crinkling the bags, and then they get up and they go off to the toilet and they come back and then somebody else will go and they’re just constantly walking.
But I’ve got my legs stretched out and they’re passing me, like every fucking time I have to pull my legs in and they just can’t sit still.
That’s what the problem is.
They can’t fucking sit still and they’re making noise and they’re talking and like, why did you fucking sit next to me?
And then you’re going to be noisy and crinkly and getting up every two seconds.
Just fucking wait and sit and shut up.
Oh, we’ve really gone, I think we’ve really gone close to the bone on our subjects this episode.
They seem to be really drawing some eye.
Indeed, indeed.
I do wonder though, whether you’ve just got not necessarily a problem with something specific, just a people problem.
Well, yeah, maybe.
But we’re all right.
Well, then to bring it back to more airporty things, right?
Well, these people don’t tend to exist outside of the airport.
That’s the other thing.
Actually, one other thing that I just thought of is, I’ve often noticed that if you’re wandering around an airport waiting for your stupid flight, it’s always odd that there’s an awful high number of people who seem like, I don’t know, fancy or dressed up or overtly weird in some way.
And that proportion seems to always be higher at the airport than it is in the city that you’re coming from or going to.
So like, it’s like all the weirdos are flying.
They’ve got a really weird hat on, or they’re dressed strange, they’re wearing a cape or weird shoes, or just something outlandish and, you know, weird about them.
Could be French.
They could be that, yeah.
Could be all these French people.
Anyway, so, priority boarding, right?
This is absolutely the biggest fucking ripoff.
I don’t understand how anybody, you know, it’s like, what is it?
You pay 10 quid extra, and now at the gate, you can stand in a different queue.
And surely the point is then you don’t have to sit on the plane for longer.
I mean, it’s supposed to be to get you on first or something, but most of the time, I look at that line, and that queue is longer than the normal queue.
How can it be?
If you’re last in the line of priority boarding, and first in the line of normal boarding, there’s literally you’re stood next to each other, more or less.
Exactly.
And they’ve paid 10 quid to stand four feet to the left.
But what benefit is there to being on the plane quicker?
It’s no benefit whatsoever.
You’re all going to be spending a lot of time on that plane, so why the fuck would you want to be sat there a minute longer than absolutely necessary?
I’d be the last one on, first one on, the other end.
If you could pay for that.
Yes.
Nobody’s allowed to leave their seat.
You could do it in some sort of lottery.
Everyone gives some money in, or like an auction.
Who’s going to be 50 quid to get off this fucking plane first?
Exactly.
I’ll give you 60.
It’s a bloodbath, isn’t it, getting off the plane.
But there’s only one plane.
You’re not going to get to the city quicker by paying 10 quid.
I just thought, actually, Ryan Eyre, I’m surprised that they would go for that, wouldn’t they?
The getting off auction.
Yeah, they would.
Or Michael O’Leary.
He’d love that.
They would love that, yeah.
We jest about it, but you know.
That’s coming soon too.
That could go before the Ministry of Value for Money, or whatever they’re called.
And yeah, I can see that happening.
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, I would contemplate pining for that, right?
Because yeah, when you land, yeah, getting off that fucking plane is the most important thing in the world.
Even if it’s just a short flight, right?
I’ve been on long flights where I’m just, I’ve only survived by chewing my own leg off or something, right?
But yeah, you just cannot wait to get the hell off that plane.
And even then, you know you’re going to be standing in another queue to go to the passport.
You can rush, run like the wind and just, you know that there’s going to be a succession of other queues.
Oh yeah, there’s always another queue, but it doesn’t matter.
You just got to get off that fucking plane.
And there’s the people who won’t stop farting or the annoying kids who screamed the whole fucking way or whatever.
But oh dear.
Or you get sat, you sit next to somebody who’s a bit talky.
Oh, that is the absolute fit.
Yeah.
See, I think women have a resting, something called a resting bitch face.
Are you aware of this phenomena?
Yes, I am, yeah, yeah.
And I think that works, but I don’t think such a thing exists for a bloke.
I used to have my, people used to tell me I used to have a fuck-off zone.
Which is a sort of…
I suppose you could go for a resting sex offender face.
That would have the same effect, wouldn’t it?
Right.
It definitely would, yeah.
It might also get you dick-chopped off or something.
You would definitely get caught in security on every fucking trip.
We’re very Effy Jeffy today, aren’t we?
I’ve noticed that.
I think A is because it’s the end of the day and we’re feeling a bit heady.
But these are particularly, these are subjects that are close to our hearts.
Very rage-inducing, yeah.
I apologize on behalf of Adam and I if we are being excessively sweary.
Yeah, it’s in the description, right?
If you’ve got a problem, please do write in to…
The Ministry of Bollocks down the street.
Adjacent to the Ministry for Money for Value for a quarter of a million quid a year.
Thank you very much.
Yes, anyway.
Yes, sorry.
Oh dear.
So, I mean, skipped over a couple of things here, right?
But just to…
No, no, carry on.
Keep going here.
There’s all these people who it seems like they’ve never been through security before, don’t know what to do despite there being huge signs everywhere.
And I really, I feel for the guys who work at the security in an airport, right?
Because although they’re standing there all day, saying the same thing over, take off your belt, put your keys, everything in the bag, put it on the thing.
And yet everybody is like, oh, what do I do?
I don’t know what to do.
And then you’ve got these people who don’t, can’t take off their belt, or don’t know how to tie shoelaces, can’t understand that a laptop has to go on the thing instead of in the bag, or does it, or does it not?
I don’t know.
But yeah, I think those, the airport people probably see the absolute worst side of everybody.
You can understand why they’re a bit churlish, really, can’t you?
You have to put up with that shit every hour, every day.
I mean, and there’s just this never-ending torrent of fuckwits who don’t know how to do it.
How many times have you been in a queue for, and it’s not necessarily limited to airports, where you’re going towards the check-in, and then the person behind the counter will go, can I see your passport?
And whatever it is.
And then somebody will open their bag, right?
And then they’ll start running.
And you think, you’ve been in a queue for at least five minutes.
Why are you only doing this now?
Yeah, you absolute…
Well curtailed there.
But it’s the same.
I mean, back in the day, when I used to use the normal checkouts in the supermarket, people would do that.
And then they would just…
Then they would start route…
Rather that they would be waiting for their turn on the conveyor belt.
And then the person behind the thing would just start scanning.
And at no point did they cross their mind to open their bag and get their card out or look for their club card.
They’ve got to wait until the cashier said, can I have it?
It’s X.
And they go, oh, just let me find the club card.
Bollocks to the fact that I’ve spent 10 minutes stood there and doing nothing, twiddling my thumbs.
I could have got it out then, but why?
Well, I can keep all these people behind me waiting.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, why be prepared?
Speaking of that, there’s always also the people who don’t know how to scan a boarding pass, whether it’s on their phone or a printout, they just can’t seem to, you know, do you hold it?
Do you put it here?
Fucking idiot.
You know what I said about a ministry of, not a ministry, like a lessons in school for frugality?
We could couple that up with common sense, maybe?
I’ve always said common sense isn’t actually very common.
No.
Right, look, we’re going very long, right?
So a couple of quick things.
Yes.
I also think there’s this weird phenomenon in the airports where they, especially Heathrow, where they have all these shops that are selling, like, extremely expensive handbags or watches, Rolex watches or gold stuff or…
I mean, like, I’ve just bought a 30 quid flight or whatever.
Why am I now buying a 700 pound bag?
And there’s these shops, they’re so brightly lit, and there’s like this painted lady serving, but they’ve got like six things on these shelves, and each thing is, you know, a thousand quid or whatever.
And there’s never anybody in there.
I’m just like, who, what?
Can you imagine working in one of those shops?
Because there must be, you must have no concept of time.
Because you’re in this brightly lit box.
There’s no daylight or anything, is there?
You’ve got no real concept of time, and they’re open all the time, aren’t they?
Yeah, yeah, more or less.
So you’d be doing like the 2 a.m. to the 8 a.m. shift or something, I don’t know, but.
Selling 500 quid bags, and nobody’s surely, nobody’s buying that.
Like, you’re not, if you’re that rich that you buy that stuff, I don’t think you’re just impulse buying it at the airport.
Are you?
No, no.
Surely.
But then why are they there?
Yeah.
Somebody must be buying it, is it duty free?
Is it tax exempt or something like that?
So it’s probably a bit cheaper than the high street.
Possibly, possibly.
Could be like that.
I do remember, there’s always shops that sell big bars of Toblerone and…
Oh yeah, Toblerone, Airport Chocolate.
Yeah.
How did Toblerone become Airport Chocolate?
It’s weird as well.
I don’t mind the taste of Toblerone, but the shape of it is just every kind of wrong for me.
It’s just you’re going to be losing teeth by biting into that.
Yeah, definitely.
I don’t want chocolate that I’ve got to use an actual piece of DIY tool to break.
I don’t want to be opening my toolbox to consume chocolate.
Chisel and hammer, yeah.
A pair of pliers.
Yeah, yeah.
Sorry, I’ve interjected again.
I think this is the last thing I’m going to moan about, right?
But oh no, no, let’s do more things.
I told you this at the time.
I was in Chicago airport not long ago, and I think this probably qualifies for the most expensive pint ever in history.
Now, if you can beat this, then fair enough.
But I paid, drum roll, $14.53 for a pint in Chicago airport.
That works out to roughly £11.
And it wasn’t a good pint.
I mean, I’ve heard that three times now, and the shock is still not dampened to any degree.
Just unbelievable, ridiculous.
And of course, I didn’t know that at the time of purchasing it, and it was only afterwards that they told me how much it was.
I was like, the fuck?
But yeah, it’s too late then.
You’re not getting plastered there, are you?
You’re not going on a bender.
No, you’re not.
I mean, it wasn’t good.
It was just, oh, anyway.
So the last thing then is I find this weird, right?
More than any, well, it’s not weird.
I suppose it’s what they’re trying to force you into, is that there is this sort of stark contrast.
But it’s like when you’re queuing for the security and everything and they’re going through all the huge long 300-mile tracks to get to your gates and things.
Those are like desolate war zones.
And like just bare concrete and it’s nasty and it might even be cold or it’s just horrible, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then you get to the duty free, which is just, you know, you just keep walking and you’ll get there and it transforms into this glitzy, gaudy decadent of 800-pound fucking bags and the Rolex watches and like what is happening?
Oh, and the huge perfume stands and the booze, fags and everything.
Just so-
I get it.
Do you know what it is, right?
I reckon if you wanted to use a parallel, it’s like the difference between communism and consumerism.
It’s like this is what communism is like, this is what consumerism is like.
Experience it all in your local airport.
But it’s, yeah, you’re sort of guided to this out of the desolate communist era, into the gaudy, gaudy decadence.
And, you know, now I’m free, now I can buy fags and booze.
Oh, it’s weird.
All of the world’s vices.
Indeed.
So, look, airports, get your shit together.
I think there’s a lot of things here that could be better, don’t need to be so awful.
Yeah.
Well, teleportation, that would be better.
There you go.
We wouldn’t have to worry about any of this shit.
Yeah.
So, next week, I have to get up at four in the morning to get my flight to London, and I’m not looking forward to that, but oh well.
Well, that’s certainly fodder for the next episode.
Indeed.
Right.
Let’s have a palate cleanse.
A happy ending.
Yeah.
Do you have a happy ending?
I do.
Well, it’s a sort of bittersweet ending, really.
So, this week, I’ve had a real problem writing over the last week or two.
So, I keep coming up against roadblocks in my current book.
I’m about two-thirds the way through.
Anyway, it became increasingly apparent I wasn’t going to hit the deadline that I was hoping to, but either with my editor or my readers, because I said that this book should be available for Christmas.
And I absolutely hate, I did everything, the longer I left it, and it just puts pressure on, and it becomes more and more frustrating, because the more pressure you put yourself under, the harder it is to get the creative block unplugged.
So, you get in this sort of vicious spiral.
And in the end, I just had to concede defeat.
So, I put a post on my blog and just said, sorry everyone, but my brain’s a bit knackered.
I’ve written 18 novels back to back in eight years.
I’m just a bit frazzled really.
So, I’m going to need to sort of step back for a little bit before I can sort of push on and hopefully get the book out early in the new year.
So, I presumed that there would be a bit of disappointment, and this is my happy ending genuinely, is the amount of goodwill and positive thoughts and overall loveliness was just…
I don’t want to sound too gushy, but it genuinely was something remarkable.
I’m not Stephen King, not even Dave King, don’t even know if he’s an author, but I have a relatively modest readership.
But I tell you something, it was…
I think I could probably name most of the people that follow me on Facebook and Twitter.
And every single person who sent me a message, an email, posted a comment, I’m going to say this is my opportunity to say thank you, because honestly, that was such a boon, and it really did…
I don’t want this to sound too wanky, but it genuinely did give me a boost.
So I felt a lot better.
A, for getting it off my chest.
That in itself was, you can breathe for a second.
You’ve removed that target.
You’re not suddenly running towards a brick wall.
So I keep using these wall metaphors.
So that was one bit.
But then the actual, the flood of good natured support was just, it was the icing on the icing on the cake.
It was just amazing.
And so I’m going to clip this bit up and just post it on my page, just so I can say formally thank you to everyone for their wonderful support.
And that genuinely was a happy ending to that particular tale.
And yeah, now I’ve had a day or two of just doing a bit of reading and just sort of letting my brain relax.
Yeah, it’s feeling a lot better.
Excellent.
That’s nice to hear.
It’s, you know, it’s heartwarming to be, to know that people care.
Yeah, 100%.
This is the, you know, whether it’s you working, if you work from home, you know, it’s even if you’re communicating with other people, you’re still on your own really, aren’t you?
I mean, I don’t speak to them, to anyone for large chunks of the day, apart from the voices in my head.
They won’t shut the fuck up.
Oh, no.
It’s when they do shut up, that’s the problem.
So it is nice to know that actually there are proper human beings out there who not only will absorb what you do, but seem to appreciate it and enjoy it.
So yeah, it’s a good reminder that money is one thing, but there are other reasons you’re doing this, and it’s because people do look forward to what you do.
So yeah, very happy with that indeed.
Excellent, lovely.
Good, so well…
And what’s got you grinning?
Well, I’m kind of the opposite of that.
Well, not the opposite of that, but the opposite of the cause.
So this year has been a bit of an arse for me for many reasons.
I won’t go into the details, but it’s been a lot of crap this year.
A lot of winding road.
Yes, there you go.
So, but yeah, anyway, I mean, I’m not really at the end of it, but long story short is that after literally eight months where I couldn’t write a single word, you know, and having, I’m not as prolific as you, I’ve put out seven books.
Well, you probably are at the moment.
Well, but I’ve been writing just a little bit less six years, I think, and I’ve managed seven books, right?
And there’s a couple of fails in there as well, but didn’t get released.
But anyway, I’m working on book eight, and I have been for over a year.
But as I say, eight months of that, I literally wrote zero words.
And, you know, you know yourself, you just get more and more frustrated, and you open the thing and you just look at it, and you think, oh God, and it’s just horrible.
It’s not good.
And so, yeah, so I just deliberately then didn’t look at it for ages and try and, you know, trigger something.
But anyway, about a week and a bit ago, I think, I don’t know exactly what happened, but I managed, I suddenly got the urge to go writing again.
And since then, I’ve written every day, and seems to be going okay.
And now I’m back on some sort of track, and I think that I’ll also have a release early in the new year, so.
You’ve got your mojo back.
Maybe.
Or mojo is rekindled.
Flowing or something, yeah.
Yeah.
You probably should stress that the eight months of shittiness you have have not been medical related.
No, no, no.
Just in case you get people, always, people of our age, once they get past 50, if somebody says, oh, it’s been a bad year, and I’m not quite through it, yeah, and they think, oh, fucking hell.
Immediately leap to something awful happening.
There was no, yeah, no, it wasn’t that.
It was just personal stuff that happened.
Shit, shit.
Lower shit, yeah.
But yeah, so this is the sequel to my previous book, 22, 22, 23.
This one is called 23, 23, 23.
Oh, that’s clever.
Yeah, and the suffix is power shift.
So it’s book two in the Toby Steele series, and I read it back before I started, and I was really, I liked it.
It’s going well.
So sometimes you look at things and you think, oh, God, this is…
It’s a nice feeling, that, isn’t it?
Where you actually think, oh, do you know what?
There’s actually something approaching a decent book here.
You surprised yourself.
Yeah, like, did I write that?
Fuck.
And then whatever you write subsequently is a turd.
That’s the one thing, isn’t it, that it does take a little while to get back up to speed.
It’s why people may not notice this, that…
Actually, I would hope they don’t notice this, but when you read back the first draft of a book that you’ve written yourself, or anyone’s first draft, the first three or four chapters are generally dogshit, because they’re the ones where you haven’t really got into your stride.
You don’t know what’s happening.
Yeah, so nowadays I probably spend 80% of my editing time on the first three chapters and the last three chapters, because that’s where all the…
That’s where you hook readers in, and this is how you hook them into the next book.
So that’s…
But it is hard to get back into that same momentum, isn’t it?
Picking up the story and the characters and just sort of going into, I wouldn’t say autopilot, but…
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And hopefully it continues, and yeah, I get this done.
I want to release it in January, but we’ll see how it goes.
I won’t make any promises, right?
But yeah, that would be nice.
No, don’t.
Trust me, that’s a bad tactic.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
But yeah, you know, it’s been a long time since I put out a book, and it’s not for want of trying, it’s just life anyway.
Yeah, there we go.
Back on the trail.
And I very much enjoyed the part.
I can’t remember what happened in it now, because it was so long ago, but I do remember enjoying 22, 22, 22.
So if you haven’t read it, actually, now would probably be a good time.
And if you’re a slow reader, by the time you finish it, Adam will have the next instalment lined up.
Absolutely.
And there’s an audiobook as well, if you want to read that.
Oh, even better.
There you go.
Good stuff.
All right.
So I think that’s us, isn’t it?
If we go on long again.
We have gone a little bit long, yeah, but you know.
People are getting a lot of podcasts for their money, aren’t they?
We do deliver, I think, in terms of…
For their nothing, yeah.
So listen.
Byrook, see, I remembered that.
I didn’t even reference my cheat sheet there.
It’s got 45, 46 minutes now for each of his five pound coffees.
So I hope, Byrook, that you’ve found this…
Yeah, do you feel that you’ve had your money’s worth?
I reckon, I reckon, yeah.
So if you would like…
I think, actually, I’m not sure if we’ve mentioned this, but I thought that some people might wish to donate and not have the roast.
Oh, yes.
And, you know, maybe you don’t want to be embarrassed or…
Maybe you want to be anonymous.
Maybe you don’t want anyone to know that you listen to this shit.
Yeah, exactly.
Or waste money on this rubbish.
But so I believe, like, I don’t know if there’s an option.
No, there is.
Yes, there’s no option.
But if you don’t want to roasting, when you make a donation, you can just say, please don’t…
You can either be anonymous, which in case we can’t roast you anyway, because that won’t be much fun, or just put in there, happy to donate, no roasting required.
That’s it.
Yeah.
So you can choose to donate just because you want us to keep doing this.
I mean, not that we, you know, this isn’t really a part of our income, is it?
But it does cost a lot of money to actually…
God, would be deep shit.
You were talking about that 20p earlier.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
If this was our income, that 20p would be tomorrow’s dinner.
Yeah.
Scratching around for…
We might even eat a Wasabi Kit Kat, be that hungry.
Absolutely not.
All right, the end of the barrel.
Okay.
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I think it’s quite funny.
It’s very good.
I like it a lot.
Yeah.
So I am biased, I suppose.
I suppose, yeah.
But let us know if you think it’s funny or not.
And equally, if you do discover any people with amusing names.
Oh yeah.
Testicle.
Testicle.
If you’re listening to Testicle, I don’t know what we can say really.
Sorry, I guess.
But you must have this on a nearly daily basis.
You must ring up people and they say, what’s your name?
And you say Testicle.
They must be peonies.
You must have a situation where people either don’t believe you or suddenly have to stand back from the phone because they’ve got something in their throat.
Definitely.
I don’t understand how you find these people, but that’s probably a trade secret, right?
Yes, we can’t.
I passed it down from father to daughter.
Well, she learned that lesson well, so very good.
Indeed.
I’m very proud of her.
Excellent.
Right.
Until the next time, keep raging.
Indeed.