This is the transcript for episode 4 – if you’d like to listen to it, rather than read it, all episodes are available on this page.
Hello, and welcome to this episode four of the Middle Raged Podcast with me, Keith A Pearson, and my co-host, Adam Eccles.
Good morning, good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Are you having a…
That was sprightly.
That’s a bit…
By surprise.
That’s a bit weird for me, yeah.
Yeah, calm down, calm down.
Yeah, bloody hell.
Oof.
Have you peaked?
Maybe I had too much coffee.
Yeah, possibly.
Are you having…
We should say, go on, sorry.
I was just gonna say, are you having a simply wonderful Christmas time?
Yeah, I suppose I am in a really sort of enraged fashion.
I mean, there’s a lot to be enraged about at the run up to Christmas, isn’t there?
Oh yeah, it’s quite horrific, actually, yes.
I’m sorry if you’re listening to this in July.
We’re recording this on the 23rd of December.
When you listen to it, actually, we don’t know whether this is gonna land pre-Christmas or post-Christmas, and we weren’t sure whether to do this in a sort of past tense, sort of time-travelly style, but that would get very confusing very quickly, wouldn’t it?
It would, yeah.
If I start asking you how your Christmas lunch was.
It was lovely.
Was it?
Oh, yeah.
Did you burn anything?
God, no.
I used to be a chef.
I know what I’m doing.
Of course.
Now, I could ask you what Christmas presents you got, man.
That would fucking be neat.
Well, I know what that’s gonna be, and it’s gonna be sweet.
Sweet FA.
Oh, no.
Do you not get an orange in a sock?
Around the head, baby, yeah.
No, I don’t do that.
It’s just for the kids.
I don’t do anything myself, no, no.
So you’re more of a giver than a receiver?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I actually don’t like getting a gift from somebody.
It feels weird, you know?
Does it?
You must have had a very dark childhood.
Well, as an adult, I mean.
Oh, okay.
You know, as a kid, yeah, it’s fine.
But yeah, just, I don’t know, it makes me feel uncomfortable, especially if they want you to open it straight away.
You know what I mean?
Just like that.
It’s having to feign.
I have to say, there was a lot of feigning involved.
Feign.
Oh, a Lynx Africa gift set.
How original.
Yeah.
Do people still do that, Christ?
Yeah, they do.
If you wander around any supermarket, you will see the aisles stacked with these gift sets.
And what annoys me about it is the constituent parts of these gift sets, which is normally a can of deodorant and a shower gel.
Right.
Yeah, they’re normally twice the prices than if you were to walk around to the actual toiletry aisle and buy them individually.
Exactly, same thing.
It’s just a fancy box that you’re paying for me, right?
Yeah, you are paying four quid for a box.
Which will be immediately thrown in the bin.
Excellent, yeah.
And disappointment, obviously.
You’re paying extra for that.
Right, yeah, well, yeah.
Anyway, we shouldn’t linger too much on the woes of Christmas.
We’re supposed to be being positive about Christmas.
And talking of positivity, we’ve had some shout outs, some people sharing the pod on social media.
And there’s three.
So Scott Davis, I’m afraid you’re relegated to the next episode, because we don’t want to spend the best part of an hour roasting people.
But for this particular episode, we have to thank firstly, Simon Norfolk.
Indeed.
Thank you, Simon, for your share.
And as promised, we’ve given a little bit of thought to what type of character in one of our novels, Simon Norfolk might be.
So did you have any thoughts on this, Matt?
So in the spirit of the time of the year, so Simon Norfolk is the guy at the work Christmas party who’s utterly oblivious to any societal hints.
He talks much too loud about actual work stuff, you know, at the party.
And everyone’s like, no, we’re at the party now.
You don’t want to…
But he’s like, oh, yeah, but just if you could get that spreadsheet, you know, to me before you leave, that’d be great.
So yeah, he’s either really thick skinned or he just generally doesn’t notice that people are desperately trying to get away from him.
But it’s not all bad.
Simon has a superpower, which is knowing the exact time to microwave any meal for perfect results every time.
Without even looking on the box.
Yeah, he just knows it instinctively.
You know, any microwave, doesn’t matter the power rating.
He just, he’s able to make you a nice bowl of soup.
You know, no worries.
I mean, as superpowers go, I mean, that’s pretty disappointing, isn’t it?
Oh yeah.
I can’t imagine that he gets to show that one off very often.
At parties, you know, everyone’s like, oh God, how long do we microwave these little Indian bite things?
And he’s like, one minute, 37 seconds.
Gotcha.
Oh, Simon, you’ve saved the day.
Oh, so he moved.
I’ve come at this at a slightly different angle.
Fair enough.
I do like yours, actually.
The name Simon North, for me, he sounds like a bit of a cad.
Yeah, so I thought he’s probably the Minister for Rural Affairs, something like that.
Some sort of low key politician.
Right, okay.
And I think he had an affair with a female aide, and I think he probably gave her an STI.
And then she sold her story to the Daily Mirror.
So Simon Norfolk fell from grace.
I mean, it’s sort of expected for politicians these days, isn’t it?
Yeah.
And if you’re not having it off with somebody, what are you doing, you know?
And I think his raison d’etre is that he’s probably a bit like your Simon, a bit, you know, at parties, he’s a bit of a bore.
And he’s got this standing joke that he absolutely loathes the county of Norfolk.
Ah, yes.
I don’t think I’ve ever been there.
To Norfolk?
Don’t think so.
I don’t think I have either.
I should do a Middle Raged outing to Norfolk.
To Norfolk.
I’ve heard it’s all flat and sort of bleak.
Is that?
Bleak.
So if anyone’s listening in from Norfolk.
Yeah, let us know.
Can you tell us if it really is bleak and flat?
Just imagine it’s all sort of grey and, you know.
Mind you, you could say the same about Holland.
You can, except that there’s lots of, there’s no square inch of Holland that isn’t, doesn’t have a purpose, you know.
That’s supposed to have to, because it’s under water, isn’t it?
Yeah, you know, that’s why Dutch people are very tall, because they have to weigh.
I know they are tall.
Are you saying it’s so they don’t drown?
Yes, exactly.
It needs to keep their heads above the incoming tide.
Wouldn’t it have been more, I mean, in an evolutionary sense, wouldn’t it be more practical if they had gills?
Now we’re talking.
Then they could…
Never mind, I was going to say something about the Red Light District, but no, we won’t go there.
Let’s move on to the next very kind individual who gave us a shout out on social media, and that was Adrian Letchford.
Now, if ever a name was made for roasting, I’m sorry, Adrian, but you’ve got it.
Yeah, well, I’ll go first.
Mine is probably less on the name.
But anyway, Adrian is a piano shop owner in Sirencester.
The shop was doing very well in the early 2000s, but business has tailed off in recent years.
I guess people aren’t buying pianos, real big grand pianos, the big lumps of heavy wood.
That’s why it’s in Sirencester, it’s very posh around there.
But still, most people are just buying a digital one.
So now his income is teaching spoiled kids who don’t want to learn the piano, but at least they pay in cash.
So his big secret, though, is that he can’t actually read music, and he just makes it all up as it goes along.
I smell a scandal.
Yeah, well, so he was in the scandal actually, but it was unrelated.
So he was in the papers in 2011, after he had a nervous breakdown in Sainsbury’s, and he was convinced that the zombie apocalypse had started, right, and he was climbing up on the shelves, throwing cans of beans down at elderly ladies.
He’s fine now after many therapy sessions, but you can’t see a can of Heinz without getting the shittery.
He doesn’t drive, he lives above the piano shop, and his favourite film is Amelie.
Is he a virgin?
He could be, although there could have been an affair with a piano student, but not one of the children, just a lady who came in.
Did you say he teaches children?
I did, but he also teaches anybody who wants to come in.
I mean, we’re straying into the realms of…
No, nothing like that happened.
A lady who was well above the age of consent came into his shop and asked for piano lessons.
I could hear Adrian Lechford dialing his solicitor as we speak.
Moving on.
Well, I’ve done something slightly less inflammatory.
Adrian Lechford, he was a star DJ on local radio in the 80s.
But he fell out of favour in the early 90s.
You know, fashions changed.
He wasn’t sort of, you know, hip enough.
And he was moved to the graveyard slot from midnight till 4am.
And it was during one of these lonely sort of shows, he went to the toilet and he found a time portal in a loo.
In the toilet.
Yeah, obvious place, really, isn’t it?
And the only weird thing about it really, I mean, it was no, he couldn’t travel back in time, but he could actually hear music from the year 2022.
So every time he went to the loo, he would hear a song from 2022.
Right, that’s not bad, except that all the music now is crap.
Well, this is the thing, he realised that the future of music was so bleak that he completely gave up DJing.
I mean, yeah.
Yeah, and he moved to the wilds of Cumbria and opened an alpaca farm.
And that was the end of Adrian Letchford.
Nice.
I mean, I think there’s an alpaca farm near me somewhere.
There are big things in there.
I don’t know, it’s like a fad almost.
Is it?
Yeah, they’re everywhere.
Alpacas.
It’s a bit of a racket really, because my daughter went to…
She paid like…
Well, she didn’t.
Her boyfriend paid…
I think it was like 25 quid to go and have an alpaca experience.
And what that essentially means is you turn up and you do the work of the people who should be working on it.
Yeah, so you’re basically walking them, feeding them, petting them.
Interesting.
I wonder if I could have a working IT experience.
Come on, pay me 100 quid, right?
And you can sit at my desk and listen to stupid team calls for eight hours a day.
That sounds like a winner.
Imagine you could gift that to someone as well.
I’ll set up a website, see if…
Yeah.
You won’t believe how many times we have to discuss the weather on 11 different team calls.
Yeah.
With all different people.
I mean, you get to talk to people around the world, right?
That’s, you know…
About weather?
Yes.
What’s the weather like in Austin, Texas or Shanghai, you know, or Holland?
Wet.
But it doesn’t matter because we’re tall.
That’s right.
Good.
Well, that’s that week’s…
So, Scott, hold on for the next episode and you’ll receive your roast thing.
Gentlemen, I hope that was not too offensive.
But I think now probably a good time to move on to this week’s Rage Points.
So, my rage point.
How you doing, Keith?
Are you rocking and rolling?
Sorry?
Are you high behind?
Are you happy?
Well, I mean, essentially, are you inquiring after my wellbeing or are you just making…
No, I just want you to pretend that you’re really, really excited about everything in your workplace, which is probably where you’re sitting right now.
But you know, so this is something that I feel has come about in recent times, and by recent times, I’m probably going to aim for after the World Wars.
So if you go back to Victorian times, I feel like the way that people got work done was through misery and hardship.
You know, it’s all about the Kenzian sort of, please sir, can I have some more work houses sending little kids down chimneys or up chimneys or down mines or whatever and whipping everybody and you know, just being an absolute bastard.
That was how you got work done, right?
But then, I guess at some point, somebody decided that what if we make everybody happy?
Would that make, you know, production better?
So you know, sort of after the war in the 50s, it was all sort of, you know, everybody go to holiday camp.
I know you still go to those holiday camps, don’t you?
You love those concentration death camps.
Me personally?
Yeah, yeah.
I have been to a butlin twice in the last five years, but not for a holiday, I would stress it, because one of these sort of 80s weekend things, and we stayed in a hotel rather than the Nissan Hut, concentration camp style accommodation that they have available.
Remember that TV show, Heidi High?
That’s what I imagine in these places.
It’s everybody in little uniforms, and then the 6am Ravalli.
Is it Ravalli?
Yeah.
You know, the pipe music and everyone’s…
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
If you had been to one of these Butlins Weekender things, very different experience, you’ll find a load of sort of 30, 40-something, you know, Hendoo drink out of their minds on Prosecco, urinating in a bush at 6am.
Nice.
Okay.
Well, that’s progress then.
So, what I mean is the old style, where it was sort of, I feel like that might have been the start of this.
And what I’m getting at is the forced fake positivity in the workplace.
That’s my rage point, right?
So, being told that I have to have fun, or have to be excited, or just generally happy about doing the shit job that I’m doing, right?
So, that gets my, what’s it called, heckles up.
I don’t like being told when I should, you know, be happy.
Do you think we should start with a base here, a baseline, which is, if you asked 100 people, if you could earn the money and not actually do the job, how many people would actually say, I’ll just take the money and not do the job?
I would say every single one.
Every single one.
So I think it’s fair to say then that most people don’t go to work for any other reason than just to pay the bills.
Exactly.
Yes.
Nobody.
Even those of us who are fortunate enough to be, you know, to work for ourselves and not have an actual boss per se and be able to sort of, you know, choose what we do to a degree, it’s still a job.
Yeah.
And given the choice of earning the money without doing the work, we would much rather be doing something more, you know, something we want to do with our time, rather than…
The forced.
So it doesn’t matter how good or how much you love your job, it’s still a job.
Yeah, absolutely.
And to be, to have things like team building days, you know, forced upon you, or team calls where you have to participate and they want everyone on video being happy or wearing a stupid hat or, you know, something that they’ve come up with at the last minute to just try and try and get, I don’t know, participation, I think that just just pisses me off so much.
It’s so fake.
It’s also virtue signaling, right?
It’s all people like on the team calls where they’re talking about perhaps the, you know, quarterly income, and everyone’s posting in the little chat window, go team, woo, yeah, go us.
And I’m like, fuck off.
You’re not getting that money, you know, it’s just you’re getting a tiny little.
Now that would, there would be some actual enthusiasm, genuine enthusiasm if you were getting even a slice of those profits.
Exactly.
You know, when you hear about deals that won, you know, $15 million worth of kit, or whatever.
Yeah, how much of that am I getting?
Oh, fuck all.
Yeah, thank you.
Right, right.
So why not going to be excited about somebody else getting rich?
Sorry.
Oh, yeah.
That is weird, isn’t it?
When you think about it, at some point, someone essentially is making some money.
And they’re basically saying, I want you to cheerlead down, even though you’re not getting anything, this is good for me.
Exactly, yes.
Exactly.
It’s a bit like, do you ever get emails from companies that say, and the subject is always amazing news or fantastic news, and you open up and you think they’ve won some award or something or they’ve been named, you know, best fucking whatever it is of the year or anything, no, right?
You’re enthusiastic, no one else gives a shit.
Yeah, zero fucks are given here.
Yeah.
Why would I care about somebody else’s, well, not even somebody else’s, it’s a company.
Some company, yes.
Some company is making a lot of money or doing some wonderful thing and you’re supposed to give a shit.
Well, I mean, here’s the thing is, if the thing was worthy of fucks donated to its cause, then I’m happy to do that, right?
If something is genuinely good, then yeah, I like it, I get excited, I’m happy about that.
But what they’re trying to make me happy about is things that I don’t care about.
And that’s what’s, that’s the nub of it, right?
So, yeah, everyone’s supposed to be optimistic and positive and all this, and fuck off.
I’m not.
I’m not that.
So I’m, I’m not an optimist, as you might have gathered, right?
But I’m not a pessimist either.
So I think there’s a middle ground, right?
It’s called a realist.
So when you say, you know, the glass is half empty or half full, well, I would say no, it’s just at 50% capacity.
Not the same thing.
So you don’t have to have an opinion of whether it’s positive or negative.
It’s just a thing.
So anyway, Do you think this is, do you think we have our American cousins to thank for this?
Cheerleaders is a weird thing, isn’t it?
As a concept.
You know, the guys, maybe that’s not, we shouldn’t get into that.
I will tell you, actually, so some of you may be aware that I follow a rather unfashionable football team.
Back in the, I think it was the late 90s, they decided to have cheerleaders, and they were called the Hotshots.
Now these were not these sort of Californian, six foot tall, bronzed, you know, sort of supermodel-y type women that you have in American football.
These were what I would describe as just normal looking girls, you know, just the sort of girls you would see at a comprehensive school, blah, blah, blah, you know, different shapes and sizes.
But you can imagine how well this went in front of a crowd of football fans who had had seven pints of Carling.
Did not go well.
Yeah, poor girls.
That’s not fair.
Yeah, it was.
I think they appeared three times and every single time I just felt so sorry for them.
Because men are dicks.
Massive dicks.
Particularly young men who’ve had alcohol are insufferable dicks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
So yeah, cheerleading doesn’t work in the UK.
No, and it doesn’t work in my head at all.
And yeah, that’s a good thing, right?
So I think cheerleading is what’s happening here, right?
They want all this fake…
That’s what cheerleading is, isn’t it?
All dancing around and being happy about what?
A bunch of blugs kicking the ball around.
Well, that’s a different topic.
I don’t really give a fuck about that.
But anyway, so yeah, I did toy with the idea of a philosophy at one point, right?
As pessimism is a way to a happier life.
And the idea of this is that if you expect everything to be shit in life, right?
You’ll either be proven right or pleasantly surprised.
And both of those are positive outcomes.
Yeah, there is a flaw with that though.
Yeah.
I suppose, if you’re, let’s say that you put something in your diary, okay?
That’s something which, I don’t know, a gig, you want to go and see a band you’ve wanted to see for years.
Part and parcel of that is the expectation, isn’t it?
It’s the build up.
And if you’re expecting it to be shit, then you miss out on that sort of weeks of-
Anticipation.
So I don’t think pessimism is necessarily the way forward.
No, well, I ditched that idea anyway, but yeah, maybe I’ll write that book one day.
Look out for that.
Self-help from Adam Eccles.
Yeah, damn right.
So, okay, so yeah, basically, it’s the forced fake positivity that bugs me.
The virtue signaling of everyone saying, yay, go us, and aren’t we great, and look at me and all this.
It’s just horrible, right?
You ever go on LinkedIn?
That is the worst social network, I reckon.
It’s worky Facebook, basically, but every single post on there is like, oh, I’m thrilled and excited and proud to be a part of whatever shit thing I’m peddling here, right?
You can’t be thrilled and excited about every work topic.
You just can’t be.
Actually, I think they probably are, right?
So if you’ve got a promotion and a pay rise, you’d be excited, yeah?
Well, not excited, I wouldn’t go that far.
You’d be mildly pleased, should we say?
I would, I suppose.
But here’s the thing, why should anyone else give a shit?
Exactly.
I mean, you’re entitled to feel pleased because it benefits you, but I think this going to the core of your rage point, why would anyone else care?
In fact, nobody else does care.
I don’t care, really.
I mean, I’m sure you don’t care.
So shouting about it and expecting, and I think this may be touching on the core tenet of this, is the expectation that other people should be just as enthusiastic about something that is absolutely inconsequential to them.
Absolutely, that is the nub of it, yeah.
It’s none of anybody else’s business.
Feel free to be happy about your own things, but you don’t need, you don’t need justification from anybody.
So this is a self-help thing, right?
Is it validation?
Yeah, validation, yes, yes.
Or is it an ego thing?
Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way.
Oh, look at me, I’ve done well.
In which case then that is even worse.
That’s it, yeah.
I mean, that’s the whole thing of fucking Instagram, isn’t it?
Everyone posts on there this stylized, polished view of their world, but they don’t live like that.
My daughter, I don’t use Instagram, but I think it was a year or 18 months ago, one of her friends got a really nice car.
I got it one of these PCP deals and there are loads of pictures of her with this Carleton Aldi brand new.
And she was like 20 years of age, 21, something like that.
And of course, my daughter was mildly jealous.
She was driving a Peugeot 20, but she had bought and paid for, worked hard for.
But this girl obviously had this very expensive Aldi, brand new, loads of pictures of her.
And then a year later, she found out that the thing had been repossessed.
But of course, there aren’t pictures of that on Instagram.
There’s not pictures of her having a bailiff’s turn up.
I mean, it’s probably a mistake when you’re 20 to go for a PCP deal.
I would, if we’re talking about financial advice.
Oh, of course it is.
When you’re paying 300 quid, 400 quid, whatever it may be, for a car.
But it’s that thing, isn’t it?
It’s that they show off all the positives.
Oh, look at this, look at this.
And they don’t show, no, nobody’s going on there to say, well, this is a cautionary tale.
I wanted to be seen as being, you know, successful and having stuff.
And now a year on down the line, that stuff has been taken away.
And my credit history is trashed forever.
I can’t even get a mobile phone contract now to go to.
If people put that on social media, maybe there would be a bit more balance and it wouldn’t be such a toxic place.
This is the thing, right?
Yeah, let’s be real, not fake.
Right.
So that actually, now you’ve said that, I think you’ve absolutely nailed it.
It’s just genuinely, why can people not be more genuine?
Yes, exactly.
Exactly.
So tell it as it is.
Fucking right.
I always try to present a genuine representation of myself, right?
So, you know, I am a miserable fuck when you meet me in real life, right?
You can attest to that.
I can vouch for that, definitely.
So there is, there’s no point in being fake, is there?
That’s a thing I never understand about, you know, people who have, I don’t know, a dating profile picture that isn’t them.
How do you think that’s going to work out when you meet somebody?
No, they can see you.
Well, they’ll win them over with their charming personality, and they’ll start telling them about the pay rise they got at work and how they were employed in the month, and they won that big contract.
Yeah.
And that’s what they’re, I assume that’s what they’re relying on, is their wit and their charm, which of course they have neither of.
Yeah.
Go team.
Fucking hell.
All right.
Well, you feeling better for that?
Yeah.
Just get it out there, man.
Get it out there.
Right.
By the time this hits the airwaves, Adam will be probably in a meeting with HR.
We think it’s about time, Adam, that you moved on.
Yeah.
But thanks for all your hard work.
You know, the reward for hard work is more work.
So just keep that in mind.
Christ.
All right.
That’s me.
So I’d like to say that I’m going to bring things up again, but I don’t think I am.
Backstory on my rage point.
The first single I bought in very early 80s was Grade A by Madness.
We mentioned that before.
The first album that I owned was Complete Madness by Madness.
No surprise there.
Yeah.
So I’ve been a fan for a very, very long time.
It’s one of these bands.
I’ve never got to see them live.
So when they released tickets for a gig at the O2, I obviously bought some.
Is that in London?
The O2 in London.
Sorry, I should…
I think they’re everywhere now, aren’t they?
They’re sticking their branding on everything.
This one in Dublin, yeah.
Oh, okay.
So this is the O2 in London.
And my rage point, really, is the way that gigging, what should be a very positive experience, has been completely destroyed by…
I’m not going to say capitalism, but I’m going to say the way that companies exploit people’s desire to see their favourite acts.
So something which should be so inherently positive is absolutely tarnished by corporate greed.
Yes.
So let me start at the beginning, right at the very beginning of the process.
So you decide you want to go and see somebody you’ve wanted to see for a long time, okay?
So big names.
And I’m talking about these big arenas here, rather than sort of small gigs, sort of arts festivals and these sorts of places.
Which I would always recommend going to.
Those are the kinds of places where you rock up, you pay 15 quid for a ticket, four quid for a pint.
It’s just generally a better experience.
We’re talking about these big arena places.
This is the target of my angst.
So right from the very beginning, you go and buy your tickets, okay?
And in this particular instance, the tickets were £49.50 each.
Not bad?
Okay, I mean, yeah, you can see that.
Yeah, fair enough.
I mean, they weren’t great seats.
I mean, you…
Oh, seats, okay.
Yes, you have to pay for a seat.
£49.50, so not too bad.
So £99 for two tickets.
Right, okay.
Now on top of that, we have a facility fee.
Right, fuck knows what that is.
What?
It was £5.50.
Yeah, so, and then you have a booking fee.
£14.20.
Fuck off.
No, seriously.
So £14.20, a booking fee.
Then a transaction fee of £2.50.
I think that’s probably per ticket.
Transaction, okay.
Transaction fee.
I mean, that’s made up surely.
I mean, what the fuck is a transaction fee?
Well, I thought that would be the same as the other two fees, but okay.
Yeah.
It’s literally just shoehorning this shit in now.
Yeah, picking the piece.
There used to be a booking fee, and that riled me, but it was normally a couple of quid.
And you think, okay, maybe that covers the cost of somebody putting some tickets in an envelope and posting them out or whatever.
But they don’t even do that.
Bear in mind that there is no actual physical ticket here.
You have to download an app.
Yes, right.
A QR code or something.
There is zero cost in any of this, apart from the merchant’s fee if you’re paying by debit card, which is what, one percent?
Two or three percent, yeah, sometimes.
So at most, a couple of quid on 99 pound tickets, if you pay 2 pound 50, it’s one transaction.
So if you pay 2.5 quid transaction fee, you could argue, yeah, fair enough.
Okay, they’ve got to pay a merchant, get that.
But it’s this, what the fuck is a facility fee?
Don’t like that.
Facility.
I haven’t been to a gig for about 10, 11 years, 12 years maybe at this point.
But for maybe a period of five, 10 years, I went to hundreds of gigs, metal gigs mostly, right?
But yeah, Ticketmaster.
So this was, yeah, 2006, 7, 8, 9, all of that kind of era.
And yeah, you start to see some of this like extra little fees, but they were nothing like that, you know, one or two quid here and there.
And yes, some of them were, they would post you out physical tickets.
But this now equates to a 22% increase over the cost of the actual ticket, 22%.
Wow.
It’s outrageous.
That’s disgusting.
I mean, so it’s a website, obviously, you just go into some, you know, there’s servers and things behind that, but they’re there anyway, right?
They must be raking it in, just for literally just for shifting the tickets.
And what annoys me is that there is, you cannot, there’s nowhere around this.
If you want to see the group that you’ve waited 40 years to see, right, what are you going to do?
Well, I have bought tickets off a block outside before.
The tickets out?
Yeah.
Was you wearing a Trillby?
I can’t remember.
But I remember going to see…
Shaking Stevens?
I think it was Radiohead, actually.
But not as good as Shaking Stevens.
This was like 97, so it was the OK Computer Tour, right?
Actually, that is Peak Radiohead, so I’m well chuffed about it.
And that was in the Wembley Arena.
I don’t know if that’s the same place as what you’re describing.
No, the O2 is the former Millennium Dome on the Greenwich Peninsula.
Okay, I don’t know where that is.
But yeah, so this was Wembley Arena, and yeah, I met a bloke outside, and I said, look, I’ve got 40 quid.
That’s it.
I literally have no more money, and I want to see Peak Radiohead, so he’s like, yeah, fuck it, go on.
And he gave me a ticket, so…
You can negotiate with touts.
Did he charge a facility fee?
No, he didn’t, no.
Weird that, isn’t it?
So, already, right from the off, my experience is slightly tarred.
Yeah, I mean, you’ve been raped already.
But, you know, they were booked a couple of months in advance, so I’d calmed down a bit.
And, as I say, the frustration is nothing you can do about it.
Then you actually get to the O2 Arena, and the minute you walk through the door of this place, it is just, honestly, it is like Disneyland, and it’s every opportunity to eke out additional money, to squeeze you dry.
It’s there.
I’m amazed they don’t charge for the toilets.
I’m absolutely stunned that they don’t.
I’ve been to gigs where they do, yes.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest, but maybe that’s what the facility fee covers.
It’s £5.50, go for it 53 times, you know.
£1.75 a go.
Fair enough.
Now, okay, I actually took pictures, because this is the one thing.
Now, what’s the one thing you want to do at a gig?
Have a drink.
Have a drink, okay.
I actually took pictures, which I will stick on social media.
Let’s start with a soft drink, shall we?
So a Pepsi, just a regular Pepsi, is £4.95.
So a fiver, that’s just for a regular Pepsi.
A can, is it a 330ml can?
16oz, so that’s about 400ml, I think.
Okay, roughly a can then.
Jesus!
Yeah.
So presumably you’re not allowed to bring your own beverages.
Oh, no, no, no, because they have bag checks.
Oh, yes, yeah, okay.
So, yeah, you can’t…
There’s no getting around.
And of course, I mean, I wasn’t interested in drinking Pepsi.
So a pint.
Actually a can of Budweiser, a can of Budweiser, 8 pound 50.
And a pint is 8.95.
Do you know what I thought?
This is interesting, because on the thing, so it’s got Budweiser and you’ve got can, pint, and then two pints, right?
Two pints.
And two pints is 17.90.
Jesus.
So, but when you look at it, you think, why would you do that?
Because essentially 8.95, 8 pounds 35, the price of a pint, times two is 17.90.
Yes.
There’s no saving there.
So why have you highlighted the cost for two pints?
Two pints.
Do they give you two physical glasses?
I don’t understand why.
Is this for people who can’t add up?
That’s what the till’s for.
I thought it might be, you know, two pints in one glass.
So to save people going back.
Oh, like a massive glass, yeah.
Oh, I hadn’t thought of that, but that would be weird.
I mean, it would be like a bucket.
Yeah, a bucket of beer.
What do you do with your bucket of lager?
It’s not going to fit in the cup holder, is it?
Well, you’re supposed to down it before you get up there, aren’t you?
The thing is, you’d never see anything because you’d be back and forth to the toilet, wouldn’t you?
That’s the problem.
You’re drinking two pints of lager in a go, in a hurry.
And who can afford to drink a huge amount at those prices?
You wouldn’t want to get roasted at a gig, would you?
Well, it gets worse.
I mean, if you don’t like lager, your only option is cider, which is the same price.
So that’s £8.95 a pint.
Or you can have pale ale at £9.25.
Pale ale.
But here’s the thing, right?
It gets worse because if you don’t like, if you’re a spirit person…
A bog standard, this is a single.
Have a guess, actually.
How much do you reckon a single is?
So, let me see.
Just a single shot.
It doesn’t specify whether these include a mixer, but I’m guessing probably not.
£5?
£11?
No.
Oh, come on.
£13.50.
Now, that must include a mixer, surely.
It could include a bloody mixer.
This is £4.95 for a Pepsi Mac or Pepsi.
So, no one’s paying £18.
£18 for rum and coke.
Yeah, surely not.
Wow.
Who are they?
Maybe.
If anyone knows, if anyone’s been to the O2 in London, and if, say, a gin and lemonade, is that really £13.50 plus a fiver, so £18.50?
It wouldn’t surprise me.
That’s disgusting.
It is disgusting.
And here’s the thing, okay, so getting back to the point of it, is that people must sit around in meetings and go, we know that this stuff is, you know, we need to make a margin on this.
But how far can we push people before it’s actually offensive?
Yeah, it’s taking the piss.
Yeah, where you literally just, and I know that the O2 is not alone in it, so not to single them out.
There are plenty of other venues that, you know, I’ve been to Wembley Stadium and all sorts of places.
But it is this thing where they know that people, people have paid, already paid a lot of money to do something that they really want.
This is not like a regular thing, it’s not wandering into the pub on a Friday night.
These are experiences that are sometimes once in a lifetime, things that people have looked forward to for many, many years.
These are really treats for people, aren’t they?
Yes, so you can actually ride them all the way to bankrupt.
And that’s it.
It’s like, how can we exploit these people who are just fulfilling their dreams, okay, of seeing the band that they’ve always wanted to see, the football match or whatever it may be, the comedian, blah, blah, blah.
How can we rinse them?
And I was chatting to my barber about this.
Now, John, we’ll call him John, because it’s his name.
And his daughter and his wife are massive, massive fans of Girls Aloud.
Are you aware of Girls Aloud?
Not really.
Okay, they won one of these, I think it was X Factor, basically it’s a girl group.
Spice Girls, is it?
Yes, similar thing was formed around the sort of early, not the, yeah, some time in the noughties.
Anyway, they just released tickets for their tour in 2024.
And there’s already been a lot of sort of noise online about the cost of these tickets, but John’s wife and daughter paid 195 pounds per ticket.
Jesus Christ.
195 pounds, and we’re not talking, you know, these are not VIP seats right at the front.
These are just bog standard, and this is at Birmingham as well.
That’s a chunk.
It’s outrageous.
Yeah, that’s ridiculous.
So I’ve seen some big bands, right, like Radiohead, Iron Maiden, Omega Death, lots of stuff like that, right?
And the most I’ve ever paid for a ticket, I reckon.
Now, this is 10 years ago, maybe, but probably, yeah, 50, 60 quid.
I saw Björk in Iceland, actually.
At a gig or just wandering around?
At a gig, yeah.
There was a new theatre built in Reykjavik, and I can’t remember the name of it, but it’s really cool.
And she was one of the first acts in there, so I saw that.
That took a lot of money to get there and everything else, but the actual gig ticket was only 40, 50 quid, and worth it, right?
But yeah, being ridden for…
It seems like it’s just taken it too far.
It is, and this is what I guess is the core of my rage point.
It’s exploitation of people’s emotional attachment to particular artists or a team or whatever it may be.
And I know this is a much broader subject.
You can go on and have football fans ripped off, blah, blah, blah.
But I just thought…
And actually, what annoyed me more than anything, more than the extortionate cost of the drinks and the ticket additions and everything else, actually was the gig itself.
It was crap.
Oh, really?
So disappointing.
I mean, these guys are in, I think there’s seven of them, and they’re all in their 60s, and they just sort of basically came on stage, went through the motions and then fucked off at the end of the night.
Oh, really?
There was nothing to it.
I’ve seen loads of gigs at the O2, and it’s a big venue, and you’ve got to really put on a performance to fill it.
Oh, well, so that’s a shame.
This is the thing.
See bands in their prime, not when they’re coming back.
Yeah, I would say that’s very, very good advice, because it’s, oh, never meet your heroes, I guess.
Not that we got to meet them.
We squinted at them from a distance.
This is the thing about big gigs, right?
I try and make a point to never go to those huge gigs anymore, right?
Because especially in Ireland, right?
If you go to an outdoor summer gig in Ireland, right, you’re five miles away from the stage, and you’re walking around drinking a ten quid pint of rain, right?
And somebody’s selling bin bags with a hole for your face.
For a fiver.
And you’re knee deep in mud, of course.
Yeah, I would never do an outdoorsy gig.
I get friends who go to Rewind, which is the biggest 80s thing.
Every summer they go.
And I say summer, this is summer in the UK.
And I say to A, the thought of camping, no, absolutely not.
But just going and then it raining.
And this again goes back to your point about this faux happiness, right?
And you see pictures of people splashing around in the puddles, you know, and covered in mud.
And they’re all looking very happy.
No, you’re not.
We know that’s fake.
You must be miserable.
You’re cold, you’re wet, you’re miserable.
Don’t pretend otherwise.
And I’ve been to gigs in Europe where it’s a camping thing, metal festivals.
And camping does not sit well with me.
Camping at a metal festival must have a very distinctive odor.
Yeah, yeah.
That’s a whole different topic, right?
But then it’s too hot.
It’s like absolutely roasting.
You’ve got the Goldilocks problem, haven’t you?
It’s like too hot, too wet, too cold.
Yeah.
And there’s no shade.
Because it’s just in huge open fields.
Yeah.
You know, in Belgium or somewhere.
And everyone’s wearing black, I’m guessing.
Well, yeah, yeah.
Or not much.
Nobody needs to know about your gigging.
The girl’s not wearing much.
If you’re wearing PVC, black PVC, then you’ve got nobody to blame but yourself.
It doesn’t breathe, as you probably know.
I don’t know that.
I don’t know that at all.
Or maybe what your codpiece needs to be leather.
That’s the name of my next album.
Excellent.
I know that horrific thought.
I know I’ve riled myself up, and I’m still post madness.
Not literally post madness, but post gig blues.
It’s a shame.
I think this time we move on to a happy ending, don’t you?
Happy endings, yes.
Let’s do happy ending.
So my happy ending is simply that it’s Christmas holidays, and I’ve got about 10 days off work.
So I don’t have to do, you know, 11…
No faux positivity for Adam?
No faux…
Well, apart from the Christmas one, but you know.
But no work crap, no meetings, no getting up early and logging on to an email inbox full of pain and stress and stuff.
So yeah, I’m going to…
Thank you, baby Jesus.
Yes, thanks, Jesus.
Sorted.
Oh, okay.
Well, that’s…
Yeah, I think if you can’t be happy at Christmas, I was going to say, well…
But then again, it’s quite miserable for a lot of people, isn’t it?
Do I tell you that one time where…
This is supposed to be the happy ending.
Let’s not start going…
I think I told you that before about my one Christmas where I had a pot noodle of my own.
Pot noodle and a wank.
Happy Christmas, Adam.
Actually, do you know what?
I could think of worse ways to spend Christmas.
Yeah, could be in prison.
Yeah, exactly.
Right, my happy ending is we just tipped over 400 downloads for the Middle Raged Podcast.
And that’s actually made me very happy, indeed.
Or made us very happy.
I hope it’s made you…
I didn’t check in.
I’m guessing…
Oh, you were ambivalent?
Me?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
No, that’s cool.
Listeners, though, I hope, are also happy.
Presumably are.
If you’re still listening after all this, then you must like this for some reason.
It’s 50-odd minutes on the clock.
Either people are masochists or…
Maybe they just like the sound of your voice.
Or maybe they fell asleep.
Fell asleep at minute 13 and then woke up.
Essentially 400-odd downloads and nine people have listened to the whole thing.
But to each and every one of you, thank you very much.
This is from Small Acorns and all that.
We are hoping to grow this.
No, don’t.
I was going to tie something in there with a happy ending, but it probably best not to.
I’ve spoiled the moment now.
Never mind.
Thank you, everyone who’s stuck with us, and thank you to everyone who’s done the shouty out bits.
We may well park that particular feature going forward, or revise it just for what we’re going to call VIPs, people who have chucked a few quid our way via buymeacoffee.com forward slash Middle Raged.
If you’d like a roasting, I think that would be the way forward.
Do you reckon?
Yeah, you’ve got to earn that roasting, right?
Yeah, I think that’s got to be deserving of a couple of quid, isn’t it?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, 15 minutes of our genuine genius, our literary genius, got to be worth a few quid.
Definitely.
I mean, how much is a coffee at the O2?
Do you know what?
I didn’t actually check that.
£7.88, I’d say.
They did sell food, though, and I would never eat at one of those places, but I would imagine a burger and fries got to be £15.20, surely.
And the hot dog from the 80s is going to be…
Literally.
I mean, we have talked about on another podcast about Savalois and what goes into them.
You’re not getting quality meat there, are you?
Not from Suggs.
Yeah.
Anyway, so this is the…
I think we can wrap up our pre-Christmas, post-Christmas, depending on when you listen.
But I think if you haven’t had yours yet or you’re going to have yours, we hope or hope you had or will…
This is getting confusing now.
Yeah, just getting there.
Merry Christmas.
Should we just go with that?
Merry New Year as well, yes.
Happy Christmas, New Year, and we’ll see you in the next one.
Easy.