The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - Breakfast With Beau

00:00:00.480 Morning. You alright? How are you doing on this fine morning? It is the 7th of January

00:00:08.020 2026. It's cold morning this morning in Britain. It's really cold. That's part of the news

00:00:14.700 cycle today actually, that there's a full-blown snowstorm moving in. Blizzards and things

00:00:20.340 all over the place, but we'll get to that when we get into the news. In fact, let's

00:00:23.340 just dive straight into it. You alright Harry? How are you this morning?

00:00:25.440 Yeah, I'm moving. It's a good day. Good, good. Yeah, it was freezing actually this

00:00:31.240 morning. It was really icy. Walking in I was like slipping, nearly slipped over like three

00:00:35.100 or four times. It's really icy. So I guess the roads are a bit treacherous. Okay, let's

00:00:41.840 just dive straight in. So today the biggest headlines seem to be boots on the ground and

00:00:48.980 one for the road. One more for the road. Old blue eyes there. My impression of blue eyes.

00:00:57.580 I've got kind of greeny eyes haven't I? It'd be nice if they're a bit bluer. Anyways, boots

00:01:02.900 on the ground. That's talking about the French and the British talking about how we might put

00:01:08.760 boots on the ground in Ukraine if and when a peace deal is signed. We'll get into that

00:01:15.700 when we get to it. And one more for the road is a reference to new laws that are coming

00:01:20.000 in about drink driving in the UK. Lowering it. So you can have even less drinks before

00:01:27.320 you're, you know, before it's a problem with the police that you're a drink driver. Are

00:01:32.220 you like one pint? They're saying like one pint is too much. Because nowadays, right, you

00:01:36.140 can still have one pint. Or even is it a pint and a half? Or you know, you can have a bit

00:01:40.020 of drink basically, can't you? And still drive. And it not be illegal. But they're lowering

00:01:44.620 that so it's like almost nothing. Yeah, there's some reports saying that like one beer would

00:01:52.020 put you over the limit. But okay, let's get into it. On the BBC website, which doesn't

00:02:01.660 do the papers in the same order every morning. But one thing I'll say is we do talk about

00:02:07.840 the BBC here on this on Breakfast with Beau, the Beau show, Beau's Breakfast Club. And

00:02:13.940 thank you for joining me as well. You are the chosen few. But obviously I hate the BBC, absolutely

00:02:24.560 hate the BBC. But it is sort of as we are looking at the mainstream media essentially, aren't

00:02:29.640 we? We're looking at the corporate mainstream media and what they're saying. So do you still

00:02:35.340 use the BBC? Although I would like to see them defunded and like cease to be a thing

00:02:39.380 entirely. Let's just make that clear. Alright, so the IA paper says, boots on the ground UK

00:02:46.900 military bases in Ukraine to keep peace. So my first thoughts and feelings on that, when

00:02:51.800 I first saw this this morning, I thought, oh no, I really hate that. I don't want that.

00:02:55.680 And that's true. I do hate that. I don't want that. But when you look into the details

00:03:00.300 of it, it's not quite as big or important as it first seems. You think, boots on the

00:03:06.940 ground, are we going to put like, you know, multiple regiments over there, like Iraq, like

00:03:11.180 Basra, like we did in Afghanistan and Basra and have loads and loads of military people

00:03:15.860 there for years and years on end. It doesn't look like that's the sort of thing they're

00:03:19.480 talking about. One, it's only if and when a peace deal is done. And Putin doesn't, at

00:03:26.080 moment anyway, doesn't look like he's interested in any sort of peace deal. And two, again,

00:03:32.800 when you actually read about some of the details, it seems like it's just a general, a general

00:03:39.460 peacekeeping effort, much like something the UN would do, i.e. relatively few men or really

00:03:45.920 quite few men. And they are there to sort of, it's like a token gesture sort of a thing.

00:03:53.640 It's not like loads and loads of combat troops there firing guns all the time. You know, like

00:04:00.780 what we had in Afghanistan, in Helmand, like there was actual firefights sort of all the

00:04:06.800 time, you know, and a military hub, you know, would have like a strong point, a strong house

00:04:12.800 that we had to keep and it would always go under attack and stuff. Oh, I was told to

00:04:19.360 read super chats as we go along if we can. So the first one came in saying, in honour of

00:04:23.360 Scott Adams, Razor Coffee Brothers. That was from Justering Green 8572. Yeah, I believe

00:04:34.780 that Scott Adams meme chap is dying. So yeah, Razor Coffee Brothers. Yeah, so the Ukraine,

00:04:45.120 the Ukraine peace deal. Still, still, even though it's not as bad as it first sounds, first

00:04:50.180 seems, I still don't like it. It's not our fight. I'm not interested in Ukraine or Russia.

00:04:55.560 I don't want to fight for or against Ukraine or Russia. I don't feel like it's Britain's

00:05:01.300 fight in any way, shape or form. There's loads of other details about it as well that

00:05:04.460 we're going to keep giving them endless money, essentially. We're going to keep supplying

00:05:09.920 them, Ukraine, with hardware, like almost endlessly, sort of, basically. I don't like

00:05:16.660 any of that. I don't want any of that. I've got a fairly hard line against staying out of

00:05:24.440 it entirely, if possible. Some people view that, where I've said things like this on the

00:05:29.760 main, loads of these podcasts a whole bunch of times. Some people, for some reason, interpret

00:05:34.640 it that as though I'm pro-Putin. I'm not pro-Putin. I'm not at all. I'm very, very anti both of

00:05:41.580 them. I think both, I think Zelensky in his government is one of the most corrupt governments

00:05:45.320 in the world. I mean, it just is. That's a matter of fact. That's a matter of record,

00:05:50.440 that is. And Putin is a, he's a stone cold killer. He just murders journalists all the

00:05:57.200 time, amongst loads of other egregious and horrible things he has done, and does, all

00:06:01.980 the time. So I'm no Putin fan. I don't want anything to do with any of it. It's gross.

00:06:07.380 I've got the same position on Israel-Palestine. Just like, ugh, get away from me. Get off of

00:06:12.400 me. It's nothing to do with me. Get lost. I'm an Englishman. What the hell has this got

00:06:16.940 to do with Albion and our interests? Nothing. Ugh. Does Keir Starmer do anything that's

00:06:24.220 in our interest, or that the majority of British people want? Has he done anything? Pardon

00:06:30.860 me. Has he done anything? When he's, honestly, I can't think of one thing where it's like the

00:06:39.440 British public would really like to see, like a populist, a populist thing. Just one.

00:06:46.940 Just one thing. No. Everything he does. Pretty much everything his government has done.

00:06:54.160 The average Brit is like aghast at, more or less. Just like, oh, you've made abortions

00:07:00.100 almost up to birth legal, out of nowhere. Oh. No one was asking for that. Oh. Oh, you've

00:07:07.100 tried to reverse Brexit. No one asked for that. Oh, you ID cards. Yeah, no one was asking

00:07:12.260 for that. No one wants that. Oh, you're going to put troops on the ground in Ukraine. No

00:07:17.820 one wants, no one's asking for that. You know? You're going to sell off the Chagos Islands.

00:07:22.200 Why? Where did that come from? No one's been lobbying for that. There's no movement for

00:07:26.300 that. I mean, it's just on and on and on, isn't it?

00:07:29.100 Ah. Okay. The iPaper. The Times. What's the Times going with? Oh, look, we've got a Trump

00:07:37.400 dance. We've got a classic Trump dance. There we go. What does it say? UK agrees to boots

00:07:41.060 on the ground in Ukraine. Okay, same story. There you go. Trump wants to take over Greenland

00:07:45.780 in next three years. There's all talk this morning that, well, some papers, some editors

00:07:52.660 seem to be going with the more sensationalist angle that Trump is looking at and thinking

00:07:57.400 about a military incursion, a military invasion of Greenland. But a lot of them, probably a

00:08:02.760 few more than half, are saying, no, Trump wants to buy Greenland. Trump wants to buy it.

00:08:10.520 And that's, it sounds a bit odd, doesn't it? If you're not used to that idea, or if you

00:08:16.200 haven't heard that idea before. But that's totally a thing that has happened in the past.

00:08:19.760 Big, big chunks of land. I mean, the United States bought Alaska off of Russia, didn't

00:08:26.320 they? It's in the 19th century, was it? Yeah, they just bought it. One country, if you

00:08:34.680 can agree a deal, that's a possible thing. Makes a bit of a mockery of the idea that it's

00:08:40.660 sort of, like, its own national self-determination, or whatever. But, I mean, if Trump could agree

00:08:47.780 a deal with, with Denmark, to just buy Greenland, I mean, I do think that if he just did a full,

00:08:58.660 just a military invasion of Greenland, as small as that would be, I do feel like that, I couldn't,

00:09:05.520 I couldn't justify that. I couldn't really get behind that in any way. As I said yesterday, you

00:09:09.520 know, Greenland haven't done anything wrong. There's no aggression coming from them. So to,

00:09:13.680 to take it in a, in a military way, that would seem bad to me. It's simply not cricket, old

00:09:23.180 boy, you know. You know. That wouldn't be cool. So if he, but if he buys it, I mean,

00:09:29.900 what can you do? What can you say? You know, if Denmark agree, then it's sort of, that is

00:09:34.460 what it is. All right, let's go on. The Guardian. The Guardian. UK and France seal coalition deal

00:09:46.660 to send the troops to post-war Ukraine. So that does seem one of the, it is one of the

00:09:51.380 main stories in the British news this morning. Yeah, I saw the, I mean, I saw the press conference

00:09:57.480 with, uh, Sir Queer talking on that. And, um, he seemed like pretty ecstatic, pretty happy

00:10:04.860 with himself, um, that he, that he'd made this deal. Um, it's just unpopular. Pardon me,

00:10:15.180 still got a frog in my throat this morning. I do apologize. Um, it's just unpopular, right?

00:10:19.480 I can't imagine there's many Brits that will be like cheering that on. We'll be happy about

00:10:27.580 that. Oh yeah, that's what we really want. We want a deployment, however small, of British

00:10:32.820 troops in Ukraine on a, basically a permanent or semi-permanent basis. No one wants that.

00:10:41.960 Okay. European leaders rally to support Greenland. Yep. Okay. That makes sense. We can be,

00:10:47.760 we can, uh, win back voters. Number 10 tells ministers. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Okay. Uh,

00:10:58.120 the independent, that's a funny picture of Trump, isn't it? They love getting it. He looks

00:11:02.620 particularly orange there. I don't want to just dunk on Trump for no reason, because I'm

00:11:07.180 a little bit of a Trump fan. I mean, the stuff he's done on Epstein is diabolical. And one

00:11:13.040 or two other things he's done, I'm not a fan of. Like how he hasn't deported that many

00:11:18.740 people in the scheme of things. He has deported quite a few people, but in the scheme of things

00:11:22.920 compared to his promises, what someone like Steve Bannon would have liked to have seen.

00:11:26.240 He hasn't really done it. Beyond that, he's done loads of, loads of things that are really

00:11:29.760 based in a million times better than what Joe Biden would have done or Camel Toe Harris would

00:11:34.080 have done. Um, uh, so I, I, I'm kind of pro Trump, but not massively pro Trump. That's

00:11:41.520 my position. Um, he's got him looking quite orange there. I don't know if he had a very

00:11:47.760 recent top up of, of orange on that one, but it's a funny picture anyway. Apparently he

00:11:53.420 was, um, apparently he was mocking Macron. There's a, uh, uh, there's a front page later

00:12:02.000 where it says he was aping Macron. Um, I haven't actually seen the clip myself, but that would

00:12:06.740 be quite funny. Britain signed steel to deploy troops inside Ukraine. Starmer and Macron agreed

00:12:12.740 to create military hubs within Kiev's territory in the event of ceasefire with Russia, adding

00:12:17.200 to pressure on Putin to agree to four year, uh, end of four year war. Doesn't really put

00:12:22.620 much more pressure on Putin, does it really? I don't really know how that makes sense.

00:12:25.760 Oh, a couple more, a couple more super chats came in. Um, uh,

00:12:31.120 C W Y E. I don't know how that's pronounced. So if it is just C W Y E says, uh, I'm balding

00:12:38.220 at 21. If only I could have your head.

00:12:43.860 Okay. If you are going bald, you do need like an okay shaped head, like the back of your head,

00:12:49.200 if it's not too flat or too rugby ball sticking out. Um, it helps to have an okay shaped skull

00:12:56.940 if you are going bald. Uh, I was going bald super young, came to terms with it super young. Like

00:13:06.040 I remember when I was like 16 or 17, I realized that the top of my hair was thinning, like

00:13:11.600 quite badly thinning. By the time I was like 18, 20, the hairline had started to recede.

00:13:16.300 Yeah. Just, just start having really short hair. That's what I, that would be my advice. Get a

00:13:23.340 really short haircut and get used to having really short hair. And then at some point when you're

00:13:27.900 comfortable with it and the rest of the world knows you as someone that has very, very short

00:13:31.560 hair, then have a skinhead one time, like have a number two skinhead or something. And then one day

00:13:37.040 bone it off completely and, uh, get used to it. That's what I would say to anyone, uh, any

00:13:45.780 man that's struggling with baldness, just learn to come to terms with it. Don't worry about

00:13:52.200 hair transplants or wigs or any of that. Just lean into it. It's not that bad. It's not that

00:14:00.380 bad. Most women don't particularly care. Okay. If that's what your worry is. That's been

00:14:09.800 my experience. All right. The Independent. Oh, I've done that one. The Independent. All

00:14:13.760 right. The Sun. Oh no, there's another super chat. Principled uncertainty says Trump indirectly

00:14:19.140 cost the right, the elections in Canada. Yeah, sort of. Kind of felt like that, didn't

00:14:23.040 it? Um, Australia and possibly, Australia and possibly Romania. I know less about that, but

00:14:28.600 okay. Uh, now he's uniting the EU. Cheers mate. Super based. He's a twat. Hmm. Okay. I mean,

00:14:39.780 I see the angle you're saying there, but I mean, and I get it, I suppose, but he's trying

00:14:45.980 to do what's best for the United States, isn't he? I don't think he cares that much about Australia

00:14:51.100 and Romania. He's going to do what he's going to do. I'm not justifying it. I'm just saying

00:14:54.740 that is what it is. Um, yeah. Okay. Manchester Mudlock said, I can already tell this is going

00:15:03.260 to be my new favourite breakfast show. Yeah. Um, this is a breath of fresh air with serious

00:15:13.880 topics and a very relaxed delivery. Cheers. Cheers. Um, Andre T23 says, uh, good morning from

00:15:22.620 Canada. Principles of uncertainty is right. Sucks because it's involuntary, but the establishments,

00:15:27.920 uh, but the establishments in those respective countries used to TD, TDS to scare people, Trump

00:15:34.180 derangement syndrome to scare people. Yeah. That's also true, isn't it? Trump derangement

00:15:39.100 syndrome. I know people in real life that have got Trump derangement syndrome. It's weird.

00:15:44.180 It's mad. It's like if Trump does something you don't like, you genuinely don't like, you

00:15:49.080 know, like the Epstein, how he handles the Epstein thing, say so. If he does something that's

00:15:53.700 sort of obviously good, say so. But you don't have to be like this, you know, both ways.

00:16:00.480 You don't have to be like this mad, mindless, pro-mega trope, pro-Trump guy. And you don't

00:16:05.940 have to be a TDS victim. Just be honest with yourself. And if he does something you like,

00:16:11.680 say so, you get it. You get it. Okay. All right. The sun. The venerable sun. Uh, oh,

00:16:20.640 they're going with the, the, the drink driving thing. One for the road. That's their headline.

00:16:25.380 Uh, drink drive limit could be cut to a pint. New blow for struggling pub industry. Um, yeah,

00:16:32.760 some have said, I think Nigel said, um, but some, some people are saying that this, uh, it like

00:16:38.760 will really, really hurt particularly rural pubs where people will go drive to a rural

00:16:44.380 pub, have a drink or two drinks and then drive home again legally that this will put an end

00:16:51.120 to that and it will screw with rural pubs. Uh, may well be right. I don't know exactly,

00:16:57.940 but that may well be the case. Yeah. Um, they definitely, the powers that be definitely want

00:17:05.340 to, we touched on this yesterday, didn't we? Definitely want to screw with pubs. Definitely

00:17:10.160 want to, definitely want to try and prevent people from drinking as much as possible. Um,

00:17:16.540 or congregating in groups and talking openly, getting a bit tipsy and talking openly. They

00:17:21.660 seem like they really, really hate that as a concept. Um, so yeah, the sun goes with, uh,

00:17:29.500 the, the drink driving, the Toreograph, the Day of the Telegraph. It's a funny picture

00:17:34.440 of Trump again, isn't it? Uh, drink drive changes to kill off rural pubs. That's what,

00:17:38.580 that's the angle they're going with. Badenoch, the, the leader of His Majesty's Royal Opposition

00:17:44.400 and Nigerian lady, Kemi Badenoch, says, police chief, police chief must resign over Maccabee

00:17:50.440 Tel Aviv fan ban. And so this is a little bit in the news today. I believe the police chief

00:17:55.800 appeared before a select committee yesterday, was it? Uh, where if anyone remembers what

00:18:00.540 happened, there was an Israeli team came to Birmingham to play football in the, one of

00:18:05.820 the European, uh, championships. It wasn't, it wasn't going to be in Champions League, would

00:18:10.120 it? It'd be one of the lesser European UEFA Cup or something. Uh, they, they came to Birmingham

00:18:16.180 to play a game and, um, Birmingham is, is a Muslim city basically, isn't it? Big chunks

00:18:24.140 of it. I mean, demographically, it's Muslim. And then lots of their council, uh, are Muslim

00:18:28.360 councillors and stuff. And, uh, somehow they put enough pressure on the police to sort of

00:18:34.060 just prevent the Maccabee Tel Aviv fans, who, as I understand, are very poorly behaved fans.

00:18:41.600 Um, but nonetheless, lots of teams have very poorly behaved fans. Um, the point is that it

00:18:49.180 suggested that, you know, what Muslims want, the Muslim values, i.e. hate, really, really

00:18:56.880 hate Jews and anyone from Israel, that, that got to, uh, that, that just dictated what the

00:19:02.860 police did. And that's not great, is it? I mean, that's like a, that's a very, very slippery

00:19:08.420 slope. That's, that's sort of terrible. And, um, um, we, at Lotus Seaters, we covered it

00:19:12.800 at the time. I'm pretty sure we did. And, um, on State of Politics, we did. State of Politics.

00:19:19.080 Um, uh, and so it's just, um, Kenny Badenock now saying that the police chief himself, who isn't

00:19:25.180 a Muslim, I believe, if I remember, I saw him. He's a white dude. Um, calling for him

00:19:30.320 to, to be, to be removed or resign. There you go. That's that story. The Daily Mirror.

00:19:37.000 The Mirror. Revolution on our roads. Oh, God, look, there's a picture of Heidi Alexander,

00:19:42.540 MP. Disgusting woman. She's also the MP for right here, South Swindon. She's our MP. I met

00:19:52.180 her in person once. She's really, really gross. Really gross human being on every level.

00:19:58.960 Politically, physically, morally. She's, she's everything. She's like the, the rainbow flag,

00:20:05.620 the endless migration. Never, ever talk about any crimes that migrants do. Like ever, never,

00:20:11.620 ever mention it. She's the pit. She's the absolute worst. She's an ex, uh, an ex, um,

00:20:18.080 oh, you just look, if you don't, I was going to say, look back at her career if you're interested.

00:20:21.180 You shouldn't be interested. No one's interested. It's crazy. She's even in government

00:20:24.380 at all. Um, complete car crash of a woman. Um, but she's the, uh, she's the transport secretary.

00:20:33.320 So she's in charge of essentially all like, um, all the railways, but also like roads and

00:20:39.160 things. And also so like if there's change to drink driving rules, it will, that will be

00:20:44.400 under her purview. Um, so yeah, they're saying, uh, they, they're basically making the argument

00:20:49.740 that, um, it's, it will be safer, which isn't mad, is it? I mean, I'm not saying that's

00:20:56.440 wrong. Uh, be safer if you basically can't drink at all, more or less and drive. And

00:21:03.780 also remember yesterday, I tests for the over seventies and, uh, I think there's, there's

00:21:09.200 more as well. There's like a seatbelt, new, new laws about seatbelts have to be even safer

00:21:13.000 in some senses. Oh yeah. Yeah. Radical overhaul of car laws in bid to cut crashes and save

00:21:18.500 lives. I mean, again, it's reasonable. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one level,

00:21:25.940 on one level, I'm like, good. If it saves innocent people or kids or whatever from dying in car

00:21:31.700 crashes, good. What's wrong with that? What possible argument is there for that? And then

00:21:35.880 there's the other sort of more libertarian sort of idea thinking of, no, why should the

00:21:42.760 state tell me to what I can or can't do? You know, the idea of, I guess it gets the idea

00:21:48.740 of, should the, should the, should the state, should the government tell you to wear a seat

00:21:53.300 belt at all? You know, it's an interesting debate. Is it, should it be up to you if you

00:21:59.680 really don't want to wear a seat belt? Should, should the government force you to, if you, and

00:22:04.800 then you die in a car crash. That's on you then, isn't it? I don't know. It's an interesting,

00:22:09.140 it's an interesting question, interesting topic. Or then you go to crash helmets. What

00:22:12.940 if someone says, I don't want, they ride a motorbike. I don't want to wear a crash helmet.

00:22:18.120 Well, you know, if they die, it's on them then, isn't it? But isn't it, it's in their

00:22:22.180 best interest to, I suppose deep, deep down, my gut says the, the, the government shouldn't

00:22:31.640 tell people these things. But there you go. Because it's a slippery slope, because you

00:22:39.480 end up with more and more and more and more, you end up with some Heidi Alexander, a nanny

00:22:44.020 state, like pearl clutching mum of a, of a minister, saying you can't do this, you can't

00:22:51.460 do this, this you can't do, this you can't do, this you can't do, this you can't do, this

00:22:53.740 you can't do, and on and on and on and on. Isn't it? That's the worry, is it's a slippery

00:22:58.060 slope. Anyway, alright. Oh, more superchats have come in. What have we got? Oh, there's

00:23:04.980 so many, they're, we've got to scroll up, there's so many. How about this? There are

00:23:11.740 actually loads. Do you think I should read them all, Harry? Am I supposed to, yeah, am

00:23:16.820 I supposed to read them all? Okay. Um, alright. Um, 70 MMMM, or 70 MMMM,

00:23:28.040 says, morning all, hope we're having a boatiful morning. Thank you. Thank you, Bo's Breakfast

00:23:37.820 Club. The boat show. Okay. Uh, Andre T23 says, it's zero alcohol in Romania and it's the most

00:23:48.320 alcoholic country in Europe. People are totally fine with it. Oh, well, fair enough, if that's

00:23:52.260 true, if that's how it, if that's how it plays out, fair enough, then, um, people get

00:23:59.260 used to the idea that it's, you can't drink basically at all, so you just have to make

00:24:04.460 other plans. Well, then, maybe it's fine. Although, are there many, like, car crashes

00:24:09.660 where someone's had one beer, though? Or two beers? That are, like, the majority of

00:24:15.120 fatal alcohol-induced car crashes from people that are just below the limit? Because the

00:24:21.680 limit's already quite low. But anyway, it's an interesting point in Romania, if that's the

00:24:25.720 case, um, and, um, I didn't know Romania, I don't know if that's true, if it, if it is

00:24:31.880 true, that Romania is the most alcoholic country in Europe. I'm not sure if that's true. I'm

00:24:38.220 betting the Irish have got a shout for that one.

00:24:40.080 No, I don't know. I don't know about that. The Irish revel in the fact that they're big

00:24:49.780 drinkers. All the Irishmen I've ever met love, love the, the caricature that they're, they

00:24:55.300 drink massively. Okay. Skibbity G says, uh, prevent people from talking in pubs. Yeah,

00:25:01.940 that's, yeah, that's sort of what it is, it feels like, doesn't it? Just like, they don't

00:25:07.540 like it. They don't like people congregating together and, um, and like loose tongues

00:25:12.920 talking about things, their discontents in the pub. They hate it. They hate it. Well,

00:25:21.340 Ed Dutton did an interesting thing recent, uh, read an interesting thing from Professor

00:25:25.460 Ed Dutton, friend of the show, uh, recently talking about just a much more general sort

00:25:30.160 of meta point, how all leftists and socialists, um, like really broadly speaking, uh, hate

00:25:37.540 it. Uh, hate, hate, hate drinking, um, for all sorts of different reasons. Um, but it

00:25:45.020 boils down to, on a couple of different levels, that, that they, they don't want people to

00:25:50.280 have fun. They don't like fun. You're supposed to be, well, anyway, Ed Dutton put it really

00:25:57.680 well. I can't remember all the arguments, but it was, it was sort of that. Um, uh, Zachary,

00:26:04.540 MISC6220 says, uh, what is the British position on Alberta's independence movement? Oh, I don't

00:26:13.200 know. We don't, we never talk about Alberta's independence movement. It's not really a thing

00:26:17.940 in our discourse particularly. Um, if you're asking me right now, Alberta in Canada, I'll

00:26:24.200 take it. Um, like, doesn't Quebec always want to break away as well? Um, I don't know. I'd

00:26:33.440 have to look at the details of it. With that sort of thing, it's probably not a great idea

00:26:36.940 to just have an off the cuff, uh, I think this about it when you don't really know much

00:26:40.600 about it. Um, like for, what I'm thinking is, I'm thinking this, when you look at like,

00:26:46.680 um, Basque separatism in Spain, um, you really, really should, I think, really should drill

00:26:54.580 down into the, the history, the deep history, centuries worth of history in that before you

00:27:00.400 form an opinion. Same with like Northern Ireland, say, the Northern Ireland story. Um, if you

00:27:08.020 just have an, an off the cuff, knee jerk gut reaction to that, it could well be a terrible

00:27:15.540 take and you find out more about it and change your mind. So I'm going to do that. I'm going

00:27:20.960 to, I'm going to Tim pull this one and sit right on the middle of the fence. I don't know

00:27:25.160 enough about Alberta's independence movement, Zachary. Sorry to say, but that's the real

00:27:29.640 answer. That really is my real feeling. Okay. Mr. Gently Benevolently. Oh, Mr. Gently

00:27:36.340 Benevolent says, Bo is the best Spice Carl. Yeah. King of the Spice Carl's. When someone

00:27:47.960 first called the Lotus Eaters Spice Carl's, I thought that was hilarious. So much so that

00:27:54.700 I've, I've called, described myself on Twitter once or twice as King of the Spice Carl's

00:27:59.160 or whatever. I don't know why. I just think that's, I just think it's funny. Uh, CWE

00:28:03.800 again says, uh, pubs are central to cultural revival and fixing society. Yeah. The state

00:28:10.200 attacks them at all opportunities. It is a secular church for the Englishman today. Um,

00:28:15.780 yeah, I mean, yeah, it does, it does feel like that, doesn't it? It really does feel

00:28:22.500 like that. Um, Aristotle Leetolion, um, says, are West Ham going down, Bo? Oh, they got smashed

00:28:33.140 the other day, didn't they? By, oh, the worst team in the, in the league. Yeah. Well, I hope

00:28:40.800 West Ham don't go down. Uh, God, my whole life, it seems pretty much, well, my whole,

00:28:47.780 the whole, whole of my life that I can remember West Ham have a bit of a yo-yo team. They've

00:28:53.380 been good the last few years, like the last 10, 15 years haven't been too bad, but a lot

00:28:56.920 of my life West Ham have gone up and down, got relegated and promoted. And, uh, thing is

00:29:02.640 to be perfectly honest, I don't care about football anywhere near as much as I used to, anywhere

00:29:08.480 near as much. Something died in me in my late twenties, I guess, maybe early thirties,

00:29:14.360 something changed. I was like, it wasn't even an exact moment. It wasn't like an epiphany

00:29:19.680 or anything, but just at some point I was like, do I care about football really? Like

00:29:25.920 West Ham, do I, like really? Like I'll get all upset and actually be in a bad mood if they

00:29:29.720 lose. Really? Do I really care? I think it was some big English tournaments. Well, there's

00:29:37.300 one big English tournament. It's the one where Michael Owen, Michael Owen's last big England

00:29:43.160 tournament where he, he busted his knee and I was like, so gung ho for it. So ready and

00:29:48.040 happy. And Michael Owen just buckled his knee and it sort of ruined our, uh, our, uh, goal

00:29:56.300 scoring ability. And we got dumped out of that tournament and I was, and I was really gutted

00:30:01.100 and I was like, oh no, oh no, I had such high hopes for this one. And I think around that

00:30:06.980 point I had some sort of in like, uh, introspection and I was like, why do I care so much? Why do

00:30:14.840 I actually let it really affect, genuinely affect my emotional wellbeing? And at some point

00:30:20.360 around then I just sort of let it go. I just let football go a bit. Um, anyway, I hope

00:30:27.000 I said, don't go down. Okay. FM Dawn Browning, which is that a field marshal Dawn Browning?

00:30:35.960 Field marshal. Um, just, just gives $10, 10 Aussie dollars. Um, thank you. Thank you. Dawn Browning.

00:30:46.620 Um, Jeremy McDude says, uh, uh, I would feel safer on the motorway driving a race car with all the gear

00:30:54.960 in the event of a crash than I do in a regular car. Is it all the gear in the event? Um, okay.

00:31:02.960 Not on slick tires, I hope. Uh, okay. Um, well, interesting, interesting point. And then Jacob

00:31:10.640 Wolf 6288, um, doesn't say anything and just gives $10. So thank you very much. Thank you very

00:31:15.480 much for that. All right. Back to the papers. Let us know in the comments if you're not, uh,

00:31:20.640 what you thought about that interlude, whether that was interesting, uh, interaction or annoying

00:31:25.780 to you or what, whether reading super chats in the middle of things is anyway, um, more

00:31:31.880 is coming. Uh, Jacob Wolf 6288 again says, love the show. Good morning, Britain. Every nation

00:31:36.560 should look out for their own interests. If America can garnered, can garner a complete dominance

00:31:42.580 of our hemisphere. I recommend Britain join, uh, Anglosphere. Like go Anglosphere. I mean,

00:31:50.560 yeah, broadly. I agree with that broadly. I mean, I'm half American myself, right? My daddy

00:31:55.780 is American. He was born and raised in Oregon and only came over to Britain in the seventies.

00:32:03.360 Um, I've got loads of family in, in the United States. So I'm so half American. So I'm sort

00:32:07.280 of, um, um, I'm, I'm sort of inclined towards being, uh, friends and allies with the United

00:32:14.920 States more than some Brits, I think. Um, so, um, so yeah, if there was sort of the, the,

00:32:22.380 the greater Anglosphere, like all the Aussies and stuff. Yeah. If we can all pull together

00:32:28.620 in one giant thing, that'd be, that'd be great. I'd love that. Um, Reverend Norse says,

00:32:36.600 uh, from your old history bro vids with Carl about the ancient Greeks to now, such a journey

00:32:42.240 as a viewer and even more, uh, so far for you, I imagine fight on bow. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

00:32:47.820 I mean, for anyone who doesn't know, I've got my own channel called history, bro. And my big break

00:32:52.320 on all of this was teaming up with Carl's. I've been riding on his coattails ever since.

00:33:00.120 Um, no, uh, well, yeah, bit. Uh, so I had my own tiny little channel history, bro, tiny little,

00:33:06.180 I had like 200 subs or something. And, um, I met Carl in London. Literally, he was doing a,

00:33:14.060 um, he was doing a speech in Whitehall and, um, I was working in Victoria right by Whitehall

00:33:21.320 and I'd somehow seen on the internet that it was going to happen. I was like, oh, I'll go down,

00:33:25.300 because I was a fan of Sargon, right? I'll go down there and see Sargon speak. I didn't even

00:33:30.580 have any intention to try and speak to him personally or anything. I was just like,

00:33:33.580 oh, Sargon's going to be speaking, uh, like 200 yards away. I'll go down there. So I went

00:33:40.000 down there and then, and then he did his, like, it was only like a five minute speech

00:33:43.720 reading off his phone. Um, and then he was standing in like a little VIP area behind the

00:33:47.940 thing, but there was only like a little guardrail. And I just went, oh, Carl. And he was like,

00:33:53.700 oh, all right. And he walked over and I was like, hi, Carl. Pleased to meet you. This

00:33:56.880 sort of thing. This is ages ago. This is like six years ago or something. Is it something

00:34:00.680 like more, maybe six, seven years ago. And then at that point I was like, he probably

00:34:05.500 gets this from everyone. He probably gets this from absolutely everyone. Um, I said,

00:34:09.980 I've got a little channel, history themed channel. Would you mind? Would you ever consider coming

00:34:17.940 on stream yards or whatever stream labs or whatever it is stream yard. And like talking

00:34:22.620 to me, having a conversation about history. And I could sort of see on his face. He was

00:34:26.060 like, uh, yeah, you know, maybe sort of thing. And then I said, I'd like to have a conversation

00:34:33.160 about Thucydides. Now, anyone who doesn't know, Thucydides is one of the greatest ancient

00:34:38.400 Greek historians. Talk about the Peloponnesian war, that fantastic war between Sparta and Athens

00:34:44.000 with Alcibiades and all that sort of thing. And when I said the word Thucydides, Carl, his

00:34:49.760 face lit up. He was suddenly like, yeah, yeah, I'll do that. I've been wanting to speak to

00:34:53.360 something about Thucydides for ages. I just somehow hit a nerve. I didn't even realize

00:34:57.200 I was going to, I didn't know. I really didn't know I was going to, but it was exactly what

00:35:00.320 it seemed. Carl wanted to hear. And the rest is history. We did that. That's still on my

00:35:05.740 channel now to this day, like two hour plus long conversation with Carl about the Peloponnesian

00:35:11.100 war and Thucydides. And, uh, and then we made a few more videos. There's like a long form

00:35:15.320 Alexander thing, like five hours about Alexander, five hours about Pyrrhus and Vipyrus, a few

00:35:19.580 other things. Um, the Xenophon's Anabasis. Um, and then Carl started Lotus Eaters and I

00:35:27.560 said, do you want, cause I hated my job. I was working in the city. Um, I've done it

00:35:34.560 for many, many years. Hated it. And I said, do you need, do you want like a history buff

00:35:39.800 dude? Do you want like a resident history nerd? And he was like, yes, done. You're

00:35:45.520 in. I was like, oh, all right. Oh, I'll quit my job. I'll move to Swindon then. And now

00:35:51.160 we're here. Okay. That was a long aside. Oh God. Okay. If I read all the super chats

00:35:57.080 though, there's just a whole thing will be that. My producer Harry's just nodding, just

00:36:02.520 saying, yeah, do that then. Um, okay. I'll have to get back to the headlines at some

00:36:07.600 point though. Um, uh, where were we? The hemispheres. Okay. Uh, Reverend Norse says,

00:36:18.460 um, oh no, sorry. We've done that one. Jeremy McDude says, speaking of the history channel,

00:36:23.320 I really loved the freemium on Operation Nimrod. Those kinds of military operation history things

00:36:29.040 are always cool to listen to. Yeah. Thank you very much. The last, uh, epochs that is my history

00:36:33.680 show on lotusseaters.com behind the paywall though. Um, do sign up as little as five pound

00:36:39.480 a month, bronze team membership. We're trying to sort out the camera things. We'll get used

00:36:53.720 to it. It's TV problems. We'll get used to that. We've got to work together. Um, yeah,

00:36:59.080 last Sunday's one was, uh, nearly two hours of me talking all about Operation Nimrod.

00:37:03.780 Um, anyone who doesn't know is that's when the SAS broke the Iranian embassy siege in the middle of

00:37:08.140 London in 1980, 1980. Brilliant story. Brilliant story. Have you ever seen that, that clip on the

00:37:13.740 balcony where the SAS put a shaped charge on the wall? Mac, John McAleese blows up and then the SAS go

00:37:21.220 in. Cool story. Yes. Cool story. So thanks Jeremy McDude. Yeah. I thought it was actually among one of my

00:37:26.720 better ones ever. And we've got a rumble rant here, uh, from, uh, bone apple tea party says,

00:37:33.240 uh, not spice coals, but who's coals. It's a reference to obviously like the, the Anglo-Saxon

00:37:41.040 house coals, who's coals, however you pronounce that, you know, the men that protected, um, um,

00:37:49.440 Harold King Harold. Yeah. That is cooler. That's actually, that is a lot cooler than spice coals.

00:37:57.080 I'd rather be a house coal than a, than a spice coal. But, um, all right. Okay. So before any more

00:38:02.440 come in, let's get back to the papers. Um, the mirror, are we, did we, did we, yeah,

00:38:07.580 these are gonna, the radical overchange of driving stuff. The Daily Mail. Police blunder to defy a

00:38:12.880 belief. Oh, their blunder defies belief. It's funny how headlines often are not grammatically

00:38:18.840 correct, are they? So this is a story where it says, family spent three weeks grieving after being

00:38:23.460 wrongly told teenage son had died in car crash, while second family were told their son survived

00:38:29.060 when he was actually dead. So yeah, this is a story in the, in the British news today. It's a

00:38:33.900 crazy one. Earlier in December, in like mid-December, all right, December the 13th or something

00:38:38.620 rather, there was this car crash, really bad, sad car crash. Three young people in the car, two boys and a

00:38:44.720 girl, and they're all like 17, 18 years old sort of thing. And two of them died in the,

00:38:50.940 in that car crash and one lived. The girl died. One of the boys died and one of them lived. And

00:38:55.360 the police, like, wrongly identified which one had died and which one lived and told the

00:39:00.700 wrong family. And it's only, it only came to, like, the police only realised their mistake

00:39:05.700 like a couple of days ago. And they've only just, and they, and like on the 4th of January

00:39:12.980 or something, they, they found out that they'd got it wrong. And they told the families. And

00:39:18.400 now it's in the news. Okay. But a few questions for me. Obviously, how can the police make such

00:39:24.960 an error? But the other thing is, how did neither of the families, because the other kid that

00:39:31.960 didn't die, he's still in hospital, like terribly injured. And I think even like under sedation

00:39:38.480 or was in a coma or something or other, how did neither family realise? Well, didn't they

00:39:44.660 identify the body of the dead one? Did the family of the kid that didn't die go and visit

00:39:49.940 him in hospital yet? How is that? Anyway, that's a story. That's one of the stories in the news

00:39:57.600 cycle in Britain today. The financial time. Venezuela's oil output faces collapse as US

00:40:02.680 naval blockade chokes exports. Hmm. Interesting. I wouldn't have thought there'd be a giant amount

00:40:08.500 of exports at this juncture anyway. Um, because of what's happened. But if, uh, if the US Navy

00:40:16.260 is fully blockading it, fully blockading the coast, um, yeah, I wonder what that will do

00:40:24.420 to oil prices. Because your gut reaction is that, oh, that will make the oil price go down.

00:40:29.640 Not necessarily. Not necessarily. Traders and market makers are a bit more savvy than that.

00:40:35.060 They might calculate something else that there will then be a surge later or it will make

00:40:41.220 demand go up in some way. Okay. But that's what the Financial Times is saying, that the,

00:40:48.700 uh, the collapse of US naval blockade chokes exports. Uh, there's a picture there of a, of a,

00:40:53.640 of a gunman on the streets of Caracas. Um, yeah, that's another one of the stories in the news at

00:41:00.460 the moment is that, and I don't know really, cause I'm not there, obviously. I don't know really to

00:41:05.440 what extent this is true, but some of the stories out of Caracas are saying that far left gunmen are

00:41:12.120 taking control of the streets of, of Caracas and that the actual military posts are being, um, are being

00:41:20.880 abandoned by actual military personnel. Um, you know, and so that new leader, that Delce or Rodriguez

00:41:29.340 and, or Hegseth might have to take things into their own hands if that, you know, gets out of control

00:41:36.220 because nobody wants a bloodbath, do we? The Metro. Perhaps the worst of the worst, the Metro.

00:41:45.360 I think it's worse than The Guardian. Anyway, what have they gone with today? What slop have they gone with

00:41:52.160 today? Uh, Grocky Horror Show. It's obviously a pun on Rocky Horror Show, isn't it? Grocky Horror Show.

00:41:59.600 And the story is that, uh, evil Mr. Musk's evil AI, Grock, has, uh, has done AI deep fake images of

00:42:09.060 people in bikinis and things. It's happened. I've already had, had it done to me. Dan Tubbs had it

00:42:15.300 done to him. I think Carl must have had it done to him. That's the nature of having your real face out

00:42:19.600 there. People are going to shop you in things. I get quite a lot of shops made of me. Most of them

00:42:25.120 are cool, but some of them are really not cool. Some of them are like, I, I personally think even

00:42:31.420 the embarrassing ones are funny. Um, but anyway, uh, people have done it to a couple of government

00:42:37.800 ministers and they've got no sense of humour. They've got no sense of humour. And so it's evil.

00:42:44.140 Musk himself is to blame. Come on. And the Metro thinks that's front page news and that

00:42:52.620 Grocky Horror Show is a funny headline. Absolutely not. I hate the Metro. Screw the Metro. I'd love

00:42:59.220 to see the Metro collapse and die and no longer be a thing in the world. Love to see that.

00:43:04.780 Okay. Daily Star. What have they gone with? Classic Daily Star. Jezza's pal on Snow Patrol.

00:43:11.000 Caleb's true grit. So that's the guy. What's his name? Caleb, Caleb Cooper. Who's on Jeremy

00:43:18.700 Clarkson's farm, that show. I haven't actually watched much of that. I watched a little bit

00:43:22.560 of it and liked it, but I haven't watched tons of it. I should do. I just haven't really got

00:43:26.860 the time. But, um, anyway, like the Caleb dude on that, um, he's got his tractor out and

00:43:31.720 he's gritting the roads. Cause I said there's like loads of snow and ice at the moment and

00:43:35.320 there's going to be loads more. So Caleb's, Caleb's on the scene sorting it out. And that's

00:43:42.760 front page news according to the Daily Star. The Express. Britain to be hit by a major snowstorm

00:43:50.040 blast. Right. So it looks like a big thing. In Britain, we've got a reputation for not

00:43:54.440 handling severe weather very well. Um, but there's a certain point when it is really bad

00:43:59.720 though. Right. We've got this reputation. We joke amongst ourselves, don't we? That there's

00:44:03.980 some leaves on the line. There's like a few, it's autumn and a few leaves have fallen on

00:44:08.640 the train track and therefore all the trains come to a halt. Or there's a tiny bit of rain

00:44:13.820 and half the country's flooded and everyone panics. Um, but you know, but the thing is,

00:44:20.480 sometimes we do have really bad flooding, genuinely bad flooding. Or there's a little bit of snow,

00:44:24.480 there's a tiny sprinkling, a tiny bit of caster powder, less than one mil of,

00:44:29.720 caster powder of snow and everyone panics and all the schools close and we can't deal

00:44:33.480 with it. Well, but the thing is, sometimes there are actual really bad snowstorms. Like

00:44:37.860 really bad ones, especially in Scotland. Right. It's probably bad. Like whole communities are

00:44:42.760 cut off from the rest of the world sort of thing. That, that does happen though. So, so

00:44:48.720 and it looks like, what they're saying, if you believe it, is that this storm that's about

00:44:52.540 to hit today or tonight or something, um, could be a genuinely bad one. I mean, I talk about

00:44:59.680 that. I was just, I'm sure there's people here, well, there definitely are people here,

00:45:02.940 aren't there, uh, listening from places like Canada where even like a foot of snow or two

00:45:11.060 foot of snow is no biggie. That's like par for the course. It's, that's normal. And to them,

00:45:18.480 we would seem like, just like whinging poms. Need to sort ourselves out and grow a pair.

00:45:25.840 But nonetheless, um, it looks like there is going to be, well, it was freezing outside.

00:45:30.000 It really was this morning. And like really icy. I really nearly slipped over a few times.

00:45:35.320 And so, all right. All right. That's, that's, that's the, that's the front pages. Let's quickly

00:45:39.240 have a quick look at some of the, some of the actual, uh, websites. Um, oh, a couple more,

00:45:44.880 one more super, a couple more super chats. Um, um, what gives a whole new meaning to,

00:45:51.760 oh yeah. Andre T23 says, well, that gives a whole new meaning to Thucydides's trap.

00:45:57.480 Badoomts. Ha ha. He actually typed. Badoomts. Um, Basher Gang says, would you ever have Graham

00:46:05.080 Moore from the English Constitution Party Society on your collab with him and spread the word

00:46:10.420 about the English Constitution and our history? No, I wouldn't. No. I'll tell you why. Because

00:46:16.580 I had a conversation with Graham Moore once and liked it, liked the guy, really liked the

00:46:21.680 guy. That's why I agreed to go on there and talk to him. In fact, that was a conversation

00:46:24.260 I had with him where I joked about the Scots. I was talking about, I was talking about, uh,

00:46:30.520 Edward the First Longshanks and how he, Edward the First Longshanks said, uh, about the Scots

00:46:37.900 that he'd beaten the, I can't remember exactly what bit of it was, but he'd beaten the Scots

00:46:42.540 in something, or he'd, or he'd got a treaty that was really advantageous for England and

00:46:46.740 really bad for Scotland, something like that. Or one of his rivals in Scotland had died

00:46:50.680 or something or other. And he said something along the lines of, and I'll paraphrase, a man

00:46:54.920 does a good job, uh, has done a good job that day when he flushes a turd, something like

00:46:59.560 that. I can't remember the exact quote.

00:47:02.280 And I said something along the lines of, um, I, I, I'm, yeah, like, like the, the Scottish

00:47:09.200 National Party are like a turd that won't flush or something. And Hope Not Hate decided

00:47:15.780 that I was talking about all of Scotland, all Scottish people. Deliberately, completely

00:47:22.760 took it out of context. And some people still do to this day, thinking that I was like, wanted

00:47:27.640 to flush away all Scottish people. Mmm, that's not what I was saying. Obviously not. Anyway,

00:47:33.360 the Daily Record put me on the front page. If you remember the first, the first bow show,

00:47:37.280 I had that newspaper, did the eyebrow thing with the newspaper. The Daily Record, Scottish

00:47:41.640 newspaper, put me on the, a socialist rag, a socialist slop rag, um, put me on the front

00:47:49.280 page of their paper, gloating that I'd been deselected from reform because of it, because of Hope Not Hate.

00:47:55.360 But, um, so anyway, yeah, Graham Moore. So I said that on the Graham Moore show. And I was

00:48:02.680 friends with Graham Moore, liked Graham Moore, liked the guy. What'd they call him? Daddy

00:48:06.400 Dragon or something. Big Papa Dragon or something or other they call him. I can't remember now.

00:48:10.160 And then this one day on Twitter, he just completely attacks me out of nowhere, basically, calling

00:48:14.260 me a moron and an idiot and something. I had some take on something or other. I can't

00:48:17.200 even remember what it was. And he went full blown berserk at me, going, oh, I thought better

00:48:22.180 of you. I can't, I can't remember what the actual thing was, but, oh, that was, it was

00:48:25.660 the Manchester airport thing where the cop boots that guy in the face. And I was just

00:48:30.780 like, yeah, I was like fanboying that. Yeah, boot him in the face. I don't care. It's good.

00:48:36.500 And Graham Moore went mad at me a bit, like going, you're an idiot. You're like, I don't

00:48:40.900 know if he called me a Nazi, but I think he might've done. He went, he went right off the

00:48:44.660 rails at me. So I just blocked him and that's it. And I'm not going to speak to him again.

00:48:47.680 So that's Graham Moore. But, but I will say, I will say that what he fights for is noble

00:48:56.640 and good. I won't deny that. I won't deny that. On that level, well done, Graham. In

00:49:03.040 fact, let's have a rapprochement, Graham. Let's have a rapprochement. I'll unblock you. I'll

00:49:07.340 unblock you this morning and we'll, we'll DM. Why not? Why not? If you're prepared to

00:49:13.100 talk to me, but I did block him first, I think, but it was cause he was going mad at

00:49:18.020 me. I don't know. Anyway, anyway, anyway, move on. We'll move on from that. Uh, Caesar

00:49:23.100 and someone else said, what is it? Jacob Wolf 6288 says, Caesar or Napoleon? Who's the more

00:49:28.740 impressive despite the ultimate downfall? Oh, well, well, Caesar. It's, it's pretty clear

00:49:36.060 to me. Um, Napoleon, Napoleon's mid and later career is not that impressive. Well, well,

00:49:46.420 it is actually, sorry, it is. The, sorry, the, the campaigns of 1814 are really impressive.

00:49:52.020 The point is, Napoleon lost a fair bit. Napoleon did lose battles a fair bit. He made some massive

00:49:59.140 strategic errors. The whole Peninsular War is like a Vietnam strategic error. Going in like

00:50:05.520 the 1812 campaign, going into Russia, strategic error. Caesar didn't really make any, really.

00:50:11.760 Like the odd little hiccup here or there, but Caesar was a greater strategist and tactician,

00:50:17.160 I would say. A greater commander in the field. Yeah, Napoleon was, well, Wellington called

00:50:26.360 him a mere pounder, didn't he? At, um, at Wellington, at Waterloo. So I go for, with, for Caesar

00:50:31.760 over Napoleon. Anyway, Holden six, five, uh, four, five, six, seven says, I don't know if

00:50:38.160 it's a typo. I guess it's a typo, but I think they're trying to say, would you get MMA guru

00:50:43.840 on his based? I don't know who MMA guru is, but I'm a big fan of MMA. I love MMA. I've been

00:50:51.140 watching MMA since UFC one, since Chris Gracie. So yeah, since Oleg Tagtarov. Anyone remember

00:50:58.620 these names? Blast from the past? Nobody? Anybody? Ken Shamrock? No? Okay. Oh, uh, okay.

00:51:06.160 That's all the super chats we like. Let's quickly do some more of this before more super chats

00:51:09.880 come in. Um, US discussing, uh, options to acquire Greenland, including use of military

00:51:14.920 force, White House says. So the White House is saying we could use force or we could buy it. I

00:51:22.420 think, uh, uh, this might age badly. This take might age terribly badly, but I think it's much

00:51:28.960 more likely, isn't it, that they're gonna buy it. Okay. Time is running so out that I'm going to move

00:51:35.960 straight on to, um, uh, American things instead. So the Washington Post goes with Maduro raid killed

00:51:43.460 about 75 in Venezuela, US officials assess. Yesterday, yesterday, they were saying it was

00:51:51.140 more like, I saw one report said 32. Now they're saying it's more like 75. One interesting note

00:51:59.740 that came out is that a lot of them were Cubans, like the, the security guys directly around

00:52:04.580 Maduro protecting his person in the last instance were, um, Cubans, which is interesting, like the

00:52:12.120 Cuban connection. Um, okay. Uh, the New York Times says, Stephen Miller offers a strong man's

00:52:20.240 view of the world. Okay. Okay. The New York Slimes. Uh, the Los Angeles Slimes says, uh, US begins its

00:52:29.000 battle in court with Maduro. Okay. Trump threatens to launch attacks on five nations. Um, okay.

00:52:37.300 Um, okay. Who's this? Earlier 9-1-1 calls, and he said 9-11 there. Earlier 9-1-1 calls to Rob

00:52:45.900 Reiner's home could be key in legal battle over son's mental condition. Oh yeah. So Rob

00:52:51.560 Reiner and his wife were murdered by their own son, wasn't it? You remember that? Crazy,

00:52:56.700 crazy story that. I mean, I kind of hated Rob Reiner the man, but loved loads of his work

00:53:03.280 and his films. Loads of them. The Princess Bride, you know, Spinal Tap, wasn't it? And, uh,

00:53:10.820 a few good men. Loads of other things. His performance in Wolf of Wall Street was pretty

00:53:15.820 damn good, wasn't it? Um, yeah, and his men, it seems like his mentally ill son murdered his

00:53:21.920 own mum and dad. Terrible. Who knows what really happened that, that evening in the Reiner

00:53:27.160 home. Uh, Japan. Japan to check if China's latest dual-use export ban covers rare earths.

00:53:35.200 This is a thing that's going to dominate, uh, dominate the future in some ways, isn't

00:53:41.460 it? Rare earths. Who controls, uh, the rare earth minerals of the world? As the name suggests,

00:53:49.320 they're quite rare. You know, it's not just like copper or iron ore. There's only a few

00:53:54.300 spots on the world, in the world. A lot of it, a lot of it's in Central Asia. I remember

00:53:58.200 seeing a map not too long ago. A lot of it's in like the Stans, you know, Uzbekistan,

00:54:03.860 Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, all those Central Asia sort of places, if I recall. I think there's

00:54:11.020 quite a lot in Ukraine and Russia and, but anyway, whoever controls them, there might,

00:54:16.180 there may be future wars over, really entirely over access to that. All right. The Xinhua

00:54:22.800 network goes with, uh, Chinese ROK leaders hold talks on bilateral tires on international

00:54:32.680 affairs. Okay. Um, I was on, uh, Hainan, that's a province in China. China's first commercial

00:54:40.080 spaceport, spaceport completes 10 successful launches. See, the Chinese always, their website

00:54:46.480 is always just, um, digging up the Chinese in every possible way. So it's interesting

00:54:52.700 to see the difference, the way the BBC try and dunk on Britain and the British government

00:54:56.880 at every possible opportunity, it seems. Right. The, uh, the, the New York Times or the

00:55:02.700 Washington Post dunk on America, well, dunk on the American government all the time. It's

00:55:08.540 like, it's their raison d'etre, it's their reason for being. They'll, they'll, they'll manufacture

00:55:12.740 things in order to dunk on their own government or whatever. The Chinese, no, the Chinese, they're

00:55:18.600 like every, nearly every story is how brilliant they are. A new brilliant thing China has achieved

00:55:23.760 or going to achieve. Um, there you go. Um, what's this one? Uh, what, what news website

00:55:35.220 is this? I can't see. Oh, it's the Indian one. Um, not accessible. I don't care. I'm going

00:55:40.440 to stop. I'm going to stop using the Indian one. Nobody cares about Indian things unless

00:55:44.600 you're in India or Indian, an Indian expat. Like, I don't know about any of their things.

00:55:50.080 I don't care about it. Right. Okay. TASS or TASS, I still don't know how people pronounce

00:55:55.300 that. The, the Russian, the main Russian, one of the main Russian news agencies says

00:55:59.140 Macron voices his plans to hold conversation with Putin as soon as possible. Macron's not

00:56:05.240 going to be in government for much longer. Like, what is it? A year, couple of years at

00:56:09.860 best, if he can cling on that long. Macron's not going to be the leader of France for a great

00:56:14.220 deal longer. I, I guarantee you that. Uh, Bild, the German outlet. They go with dead whale

00:56:23.700 lies on the bow of a ship. And then there's a picture of it. Sad. That's horrible. I like

00:56:34.400 whales. Unless it's an orca whale. I don't like orca whales. Killer whales. I'm fascinated

00:56:40.300 by the story of, um, Antarctic exploration. Both Scott, Captain Scott, Captain Oates, all

00:56:46.020 that. And, uh, Shackleton. All that. And, uh, orca whales are absolutely insane killers.

00:56:52.780 The way they, uh, kill penguins and then flip the, the body around for fun. The way a cat

00:56:57.160 plays with a dead mouse or something. Um, yeah, orcas are like stone cold killers. Like, they

00:57:02.780 look cute and they seem cute, I suppose, but they're actually like sadistic murderers.

00:57:08.500 They're like psychopaths. It's like a chimp. You might be a fan of chimps. You think they're

00:57:12.440 cool. I'd be cool to play around with a chimp. No, it'll rip both your arms out and gouge

00:57:17.600 your eyes out. They're psychos. Anyway, anyway. Anyway, it was, uh, Trump Apes Macron. There

00:57:24.840 you go. I knew I saw it somewhere. Trump Apes Macron. Uh, we won't, we won't play the video.

00:57:29.500 You can check that out in your own time. All right then. And finally then, it will be

00:57:34.580 finally for today. We're very nearly at the top of our Le Monde, uh, Le Frogs. What were

00:57:39.680 the French saying about today? They are going with, after the Kranz, uh, Montana tragedy,

00:57:46.980 that's a Swiss ski result where those people, uh, burnt to death, uh, residents express anger

00:57:52.860 and shame. Uh, yeah, I do see one report that the owner of the, of that bar may have been,

00:57:58.000 um, may not have done his due diligence or he had a slightly shady background or something.

00:58:02.000 I don't know if any of that's true, but I did see a headline somewhere saying that,

00:58:05.480 that deep freeze grips Europe, killing six and disrupt, disrupting travel. Uh, there you

00:58:11.200 go. So it's not just England. We're in the middle of a deep freeze. Um, uh, yeah. And

00:58:16.040 it does seem like a relatively bad one. It's not just like, um, moaning about a tiny bit

00:58:20.520 of snow. It is actually, you know, fairly severe weather conditions. All right. Let's see

00:58:26.120 if we've got any, just to finish out any more, uh, there are one more, one or two more super

00:58:29.860 chats. Let's see. Um, Basher Gang says, Graham has a real hatred of police British state brutality

00:58:37.360 dating back to the Peterloo massacre. We'll talk about Graham more again. Um, does he? Does

00:58:43.320 he? All right. Um, Asher Lee 97 says, uh, release the bow bikini pics or unsubscribe. As long

00:58:56.120 as it's a tasteful bikini. Uh, pixel Rick, pixel Rick 9978 says, fancy getting a season ticket

00:59:09.000 next season in the championship. And then two hammers talking about West Ham. I haven't

00:59:12.720 got time. If I had endless money and time, I'd get a season ticket at West Ham. Oh, and

00:59:19.140 still lived in London. If I still lived in London, had endless time and money, I would,

00:59:23.160 I would get a season ticket, I think. And go to a few away games, go to half a dozen away

00:59:27.580 games a year. Maybe. But I haven't got any of those things. I haven't got endless time

00:59:32.440 money and I don't live in London. So I'm afraid I won't be getting a season ticket. All right.

00:59:35.680 It is just gone 9am. Um, a little bit different today. We're still working out. Is it still

00:59:41.220 TV problems? Harry, we're still, uh, working stuff out. Um, we'll try and get our camera

00:59:46.000 game down. And, uh, and, uh, see whether there was too many super chats there, but I'm supposed

00:59:55.480 to read them out. We'll have to talk about, we'll have to talk about that. All right.

00:59:58.560 Well, until tomorrow, remember today is the first day of the rest of your life. Do try and

01:00:03.460 make it count. You know, carpe diem, seize the day if you can. I know it's not possible

01:00:07.480 every single day, but, um, you haven't got an endless amount. There are finite amount of

01:00:13.140 days in your life. So do try and make it count if you can. Um, so until tomorrow morning, take

01:00:20.220 care.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - January 07, 2026

Breakfast With Beau ｜ Wednesday 7th January 2026

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