The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1078

00:00:00.000 Hello beautiful people. Welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Seaters. Today is episode 1078

00:00:06.100 and it is Tuesday the 14th of January 2025. I'm joined today by Dan and Bo and we're going to

00:00:14.220 discuss Rachel from Accounts, images that define the woke era and Bo is going to take us to the

00:00:20.560 stars with an electronic supersonic segment that remembers the Cassini-Huygens mission.

00:00:26.960 Right, shall we start? Yes, let's talk about this woman here. This is Rachel from Accounts

00:00:33.220 and somehow she's ended up in charge of the UK economy, which as it turned out was a bad idea.

00:00:41.540 Didn't really want to do that. So what do we know about Rachel? Well, we know she committed CV fraud.

00:00:49.140 Her CV is not as anywhere as good as she makes out. We know she lied about there being a £22

00:00:56.060 billion black hole. It's just an arbitrary number that they picked.

00:01:01.600 It sounded good, like a number.

00:01:04.340 Yeah, they kept on changing it and eventually they decided to go with £22 billion because

00:01:08.240 I thought that would resonate. If it was a £22 billion black hole, it's a lot bigger now

00:01:13.740 as we get into. She lied about being a chess champion.

00:01:17.980 Did she?

00:01:18.900 Yeah.

00:01:19.280 That's new to me.

00:01:19.880 Which is an odd thing to lie about. She plagiarised through a book and if she runs the national

00:01:27.640 finances, anything like her personal finances, that would explain why she got her credit card

00:01:31.220 suspended.

00:01:32.340 Did she?

00:01:33.020 Yes.

00:01:33.360 Is she, though, the first Rachel to have ever occupied that position?

00:01:36.960 She's the first woman to ever be Chancellor of the UK, which they keep reminding us of.

00:01:41.380 So that's what the CV needs?

00:01:43.720 Yes.

00:01:44.240 All the others just additional, optional?

00:01:47.300 Is Chancellor, has a vagina, therefore success?

00:01:51.460 And a crypto commie, or just an out-and-out commie.

00:01:54.420 Yes.

00:01:54.560 What was the credit card thing?

00:01:56.580 Oh, I'll dig out some details for you.

00:02:00.320 Okay.

00:02:00.840 It's one of the things that came up in the thing. But yes, so let's hear, before we get

00:02:05.980 into what a hash she's made of everything, I think we ought to have at least a little bit

00:02:09.580 of her speaking. Let's listen to Rachel when she's confronted about lying on her CV.

00:02:15.960 So Samson will just play this for us.

00:02:17.720 People should judge me on the job that I do, fixing the economy, fixing the mess that we

00:02:22.500 inherited from the Conservative government.

00:02:24.040 No audio on that, Samson.

00:02:24.900 What do you say about the fact there was a change made to the profile and it now says

00:02:28.720 retail banking, it once said economist. Just explain that.

00:02:31.720 Well, I'm an economist. I studied economics. I got a Master's in Economics from the London

00:02:36.480 School of Economics and I worked as an economist at the Bank of England. I then used that experience

00:02:41.140 in the private sector, working for Halifax Bank of Scotland, where I worked in financial

00:02:45.340 services before I became an MP 14 years ago.

00:02:47.180 Why don't we wrap that up there? Because we're not hearing the sound in here, but hopefully

00:02:52.700 the audience at home heard.

00:02:53.680 But we can read lips, can we?

00:02:55.260 Yes. So she's basically saying there, look, don't worry about me lying on my CV because

00:03:02.320 I was an economist. I use those skills in the private sector and some other stuff.

00:03:08.880 Oh, and importantly, she says, judge me by my results.

00:03:14.140 You know, right then.

00:03:15.680 Trust me, bro.

00:03:16.680 Yes. Yes.

00:03:18.420 I've got a very low threshold for liars, I must say.

00:03:21.660 Yes.

00:03:22.000 There's one thing to be wrong about something, right? Everyone can be wrong about something.

00:03:27.180 I've been wrong about loads of things. But to deliberately lie, other than little white

00:03:32.820 liars, in my world, it's just not really okay, hardly ever. Certainly nothing big.

00:03:38.820 Don't go with being a chess champion when you're obviously not.

00:03:41.180 Is that?

00:03:41.700 Yes.

00:03:42.240 She just said she was a chess champion and it's just not true.

00:03:44.940 Here's a post.

00:03:45.880 Yeah, but she didn't say which championship she had in mind. Maybe it was a small neighborhood

00:03:50.880 It could have been with the local kindergarten, couldn't it?

00:03:52.320 Yeah.

00:03:53.260 Special needs school.

00:03:54.360 I don't know.

00:03:54.620 Someone at a park.

00:03:56.000 She checkmated.

00:03:57.420 This is somebody who's actually worked with Rachel from accounts. And this guy is saying,

00:04:02.460 look, that Rachel worked about three levels below him in whichever bank it was. And that

00:04:11.140 she wasn't an economist. She was a complaint support manager, which is probably going to come

00:04:17.980 in handy dealing with complaints. So to call yourself an economist is quite a claim. It's

00:04:23.180 like saying I'm a philanthropist or something. It's like saying I'm a polymath, almost. It's

00:04:27.520 like, let other people call you an economist first. Unless you've got a PhD in economics,

00:04:32.320 say.

00:04:32.760 Yeah. Well, she's got an undergraduate in economics, which is, to be fair, all the academic

00:04:39.940 qualification I have in economics. But then you kind of, it's one of those things you

00:04:44.100 then go and learn afterwards.

00:04:46.540 The street has to accept you.

00:04:49.060 Yeah. Well, you need to figure it out. And I don't actually think you get an awful lot

00:04:53.940 from universities because you just get Marxists telling you stuff. Yeah. So she was a complaint

00:05:00.220 support manager at HBOS. She almost got sacked for an expenses scandal where three senior managers

00:05:08.280 signing off each other's expenses. And she had a weirdly large amount of doctors and dentist

00:05:14.400 visits. And so they decided to put somebody on following her. Now, that's quite a big step

00:05:19.780 for a company to have one of their own employees follow to find out what's going on. And it's

00:05:24.520 turned out that she was doing Labour Council business and basically getting paid for doing

00:05:29.000 it by her employer. So she, well, resigned. If you've been...

00:05:34.400 It's cheating.

00:05:35.360 Yes.

00:05:35.800 You're called a cheat if you do that.

00:05:37.500 She should have been sacked. But I guess because it was political and she might go places,

00:05:42.700 they gave her the option of resigning instead, which is very good. So, yes, Rachel from accounts,

00:05:50.860 not the absolute best. Anyway, but she did say in all of that, she did say, look, you need

00:05:55.100 to judge me by my results, not just by what people are saying. Okay, so let's have a look

00:06:01.200 at the results. Oh, there we go. So that is the 10-year bond rates. And I'll go into the

00:06:11.500 detail in a bit. But basically, up and to the right, sharply like that, is bad.

00:06:20.260 For the British state?

00:06:22.440 Yes.

00:06:22.760 Not if you're holding the guilts, but for the state.

00:06:24.880 Oh, no. If you're holding the guilts, it's even worse.

00:06:27.400 All right. Okay.

00:06:28.080 Yes.

00:06:28.340 Because you think that there is a crisis in credibility.

00:06:31.840 Yes. So the way it works is that with bonds, the price moves inversely to the rate. So think

00:06:37.820 about it like this. If you've got, you know, a £100 bond that pays £5 a year, that's a 5%

00:06:46.800 rate. £5 for each £100 of underlying capital, right?

00:06:50.960 If the bond price were to go down, the rate would actually go up because you'd have a

00:06:58.040 £90 bond that is paying £5 a year. So the rate has gone from 5% to 5.5%. So the rates

00:07:04.900 going up basically means that the underlying has gone down, which means that if you hold

00:07:09.860 those bonds, which is if you're a pension fund or an insurance fund, the government forces

00:07:14.020 you to buy these bonds. So for those of you who are listening, who are in Britain, and

00:07:19.360 you've got a pension or insurance, basically you've had money taken off you because your

00:07:25.680 insurance premiums are going to go up or your pension is going to pay out less.

00:07:30.260 All right. So yes, not good at all. What's that? That's 10-year guilts. That's 30-year

00:07:35.480 guilts. Again, sharply moving up, quite disastrous. Now, some people, especially people in the Labour

00:07:46.140 Party and the BBC and other sort of Labour-affiliated organisations, are going to try and make the

00:07:52.940 claim that, oh, it's just a worldwide trend. This is just something that's happening and

00:07:59.480 it's nothing special about the UK. No, that's not true. So yes, it is true that Western governments

00:08:06.680 as a whole have been experiencing higher rates, but they've not moved quite as sharply and quite

00:08:15.900 as severely as the UK has. So I mean, here's a selection of other countries. So as you can

00:08:21.320 see, it is trending upwards, but there's been nothing like the violence in the move that

00:08:27.000 the UK has had. So what was she doing? Oh, in fact, let's dig a little bit deeper actually

00:08:34.380 into some of these numbers. So this is UK rates. I'm just going to put that on a five day. So you

00:08:42.120 can see the sharpness of the move there. So that was Wednesday. Now, the day before they just sold a

00:08:51.060 whole bunch of guilts, 30 year guilts. The Treasury had. Yes, the Treasury had. So they sold a whole

00:08:57.900 load of guilts. And the investors who bought, and bear in mind, the reason you buy bonds is because

00:09:04.720 you want security. It's safe. Yeah. If you want it to bounce up and down, you buy crypto or tech stocks

00:09:10.600 or something like I do. But the reason you're buying bonds is because you're an insurance company

00:09:15.740 or a bank and you need another government. Or another government. Don't governments buy each

00:09:19.180 other's bonds? They do. Or a pension fund is a big one. And it's like somebody's retired. We need

00:09:24.640 to convert the portfolio into bonds. So they've got a nice stable stream of revenue. The whole point

00:09:30.120 is it's supposed to be stable. Now, since Wednesday of last week, people who bought those 30 year

00:09:37.320 guilts that were issued last Tuesday are already down 5% in a week. Yeah. Yeah. This doesn't look good.

00:09:44.460 And I remember about 10 years ago, the German state had bonds that with a negative interest rate,

00:09:49.900 because there was the idea that the economy is so bad, and people investors would need security. So

00:09:56.000 they would buy bonds, and they would pay a bit for it, but they wouldn't lose. Yeah, Australia got

00:10:00.740 away a tranche of bonds as well at negative rates. Yeah, not so long ago. So yeah, so if you if you've

00:10:08.040 been working your whole life, let's say you've worked for 50 years, and you put away 10 grand a year.

00:10:12.280 So you've got 500,000 in your pension pot, and you retired last Tuesday. You've already had two and

00:10:19.300 a half years of your work wiped away. So it might not look massive on the chart. But but trust me,

00:10:26.320 these things are not supposed to move like this. And therefore, it is quite bad. So what was she

00:10:30.440 doing? There you go, there's a 10 year goes, what was she doing? When all of this was happening?

00:10:36.520 She was in China. Yeah. And just a sort of life tip for for the lads, try and find somebody who

00:10:44.620 looks at you the way that Rachel Reeves looks at Xi Jinping. Is that a real picture? That's not

00:10:48.660 shocked. I'm not sure. She's actually standing that close to him. I'm not sure actually. That

00:10:52.720 could be still I don't I just like I just like the image. Yeah, so she was in China while all of this

00:10:58.280 was blowing up. And she was trying to get a deal from the Chinese. And the deal that she came back

00:11:06.440 with was a deal worth 120 million a year. Right. Now, if you think that's not much, that's because

00:11:13.400 that's not much. That's basically the Chinese saying, Oh, bugger off. But he's some chicken

00:11:18.440 feed and go. Yeah, be quiet. Yeah, 120 million a year is absolutely nothing to the Chinese. And also,

00:11:24.280 it's not really anything to the British either. Because you've got to bear in mind for every

00:11:27.480 one percent that is added to bond rates, it costs us an extra 30 billion.

00:11:34.200 Yeah. That's if you reprice all the existing debt at that new rate. But it ticks over every year,

00:11:41.000 but you're looking about 3 billion extra each year. So she lost 30 billion to gain 120 million,

00:11:50.600 which is, yes, which is not good. To put that in perspective, the 30 billion that we've lost,

00:11:56.840 if the debt is repriced at this new higher level, is half of what we spend on defence.

00:12:02.760 So it's quite a big number. We could have a 50 percent bigger military.

00:12:06.520 I mean, perhaps a military so large that it could actually defend the borders.

00:12:09.400 So, yes, not especially good. The other thing I'd say is that this is very real.

00:12:21.720 This is not just a bit of a thing. This is not just people putting back a little bit from bonds.

00:12:28.920 And the reason you can tell that is because the currency is dropping as well.

00:12:31.720 Now, I'll explain what that means. Normally, if bonds drop and the yields go up on them,

00:12:41.640 that means for new buyers coming in, they can get a higher rate. So normally, when bonds drop,

00:12:48.760 lots of other people in the rest of the world think, fantastic, there's an opportunity. I'm going

00:12:53.960 to buy some of those. So they buy pounds and the price of the pound goes up?

00:12:58.360 They buy pounds and then they buy those bonds with them. But now the price of the

00:13:01.400 pound has gone down. And that's why you can tell that this is a real situation,

00:13:05.560 because not only are the bonds spiking in yield or the bond prices are going down,

00:13:10.680 but they're dumping the currency as well. So they want nothing to do with this.

00:13:16.120 People are saying like, yeah, the bond market is basically saying, I don't believe you.

00:13:22.280 And the FX market as well.

00:13:24.600 So that will probably be caused by people just saying, I just want to get out of

00:13:30.280 pound sterling assets.

00:13:32.280 So a pound is only a touch more than a euro.

00:13:35.960 Yeah.

00:13:36.280 At the moment.

00:13:37.240 It's also very much down against the dollar as well. I'll just pick that chart.

00:13:42.440 But yes, people are basically trying to get out of the UK assets. Now, why are the bond market saying,

00:13:50.360 I don't believe you and running away? And why are other investors selling British assets to sort of

00:13:55.320 get out of it? It's because we are a complete mess. So she did her budget, as you remember,

00:14:02.040 end of last year. And in that budget, she basically went after employment. So she wanted to raise taxes,

00:14:09.320 but taxes were already so high across the board, she didn't have that many options. So what she decided

00:14:14.680 to go after was a tax on employment. But she'd already said before the election, in order to

00:14:20.520 win the election, she wasn't going to put taxes on employment up. So instead, what she did is she put

00:14:24.840 employers' national insurance up. So the tax on employees that companies pay. Now there is a tax

00:14:31.640 on the employees, but it's paid first by the company. So basically what it means is that you

00:14:38.520 don't get your next pay rise. Because the cost of employing people has shot up. And it also means

00:14:44.680 that companies, especially larger companies, are desperate to get rid of people now.

00:14:49.000 So I was reading a whole bunch of numbers that came out from British retailers last week, well,

00:14:55.000 over the last few weeks. And they're all saying in their financial announcements that basically they

00:15:00.600 want to go as heavy into automation as they can. Great. Yeah. Great. Yep.

00:15:08.120 So but it looks like it's it looks like she tries to fill the gap by selling bonds.

00:15:15.960 And this is by leftists always leftists always say we shouldn't be beholden to the bond markets.

00:15:21.240 Why do the bond markets get to boss us around? It's because your sums don't add up and you have

00:15:25.560 to borrow billions from them. So stop borrowing from the bond markets if you don't want the bond markets

00:15:30.120 telling you what to do. Simple as that. So like lots of companies want to move towards automation,

00:15:36.360 but also we're flooding the labor market with cheap labor as well. Yeah. Foreign people coming in.

00:15:41.000 Yeah, that's the but that's the so we're creating a set of conditions where, you know, AI and robotics

00:15:47.320 cannot come fast enough. And companies are going to leap to those as soon as they get them. At the same

00:15:53.320 time, we're bringing in people to put them on welfare. Who basically the only jobs that they could

00:15:59.480 actually do anyway are these most basic entry-level jobs. I can imagine in her mind being a commie,

00:16:07.800 essentially, that yeah, all you filthy capitalists who are trying to make filthy lucre,

00:16:15.560 you don't deserve any sort of pay rise, right? Who don't care if you're poor.

00:16:20.280 Or it's the shop level people who aren't getting the pay rises.

00:16:22.280 Yeah. Well, it's always the poorest people, the peasant class or whatever you want to call it,

00:16:27.640 that suffer the most under socialism. Yes.

00:16:30.040 That never changes. Yeah.

00:16:33.080 No, she's made a bit of it. And there has been a tremendous flight of investors, hasn't there?

00:16:39.160 Yeah. Well, that's kind of what this chart is telling you here.

00:16:42.280 But that's the chart of last week, whereas what I'm talking about is definitely a trend.

00:16:51.000 So this trend has been going on for a while. I mean, it's why I don't hold any UK assets, because

00:16:56.520 the UK is just such a... I was catching up with an old venture capital contact a while ago,

00:17:02.440 and I was asking him about deal flow, how many deals he's been doing in the UK and stuff. And he's

00:17:05.560 like, we don't do any deals in the UK anymore. And the reason being is because they always die.

00:17:10.040 And the reason they die is because of government action.

00:17:11.960 Yeah. But I think whatever they say about the bond market, this is where they're naturally drawn

00:17:17.240 to. Because on the one hand, they want to... They're statists. They want to increase the state.

00:17:21.960 Yes.

00:17:22.440 And an increased state requires increased funding. So they also want to pressure the internal market

00:17:30.680 and the people domestically by raising taxes. But you can only raise taxes so far until there's

00:17:36.760 a massive... Yeah, that's a good point.

00:17:37.880 So prices, that's why they're going to selling bonds.

00:17:40.760 Yeah. So basically, you can track what percentage of national income goes in taxes. And the UK has

00:17:47.320 up a threshold in the sort of mid-30s, basically a level that it can never get beyond. And if you

00:17:53.720 try and increase taxes beyond that point, all that happens is people just stop working and they work

00:17:58.520 less. And so you never really get over 30, 30, mid-30 percent of national income going in taxes.

00:18:04.440 And we've already reached that level. But she wanted to put up taxes on employment.

00:18:08.200 And what happened, of course, is it killed growth. I think The Telegraph had a story out recently about

00:18:13.240 how hiring has plummeted. So she killed growth, which meant that the future tax projections,

00:18:20.920 you know, all these extra taxes she put on, well, there's nobody there to tax.

00:18:25.480 There can be a silver lining on this because when, you know, leftists constantly talk,

00:18:30.920 talk and talk and talk, and they say about how they're going to be great for the economy. And

00:18:35.800 Beau, what you said is absolutely correct. It's always under socialism that poor people suffer

00:18:40.600 the most. And it's good when people see that it's the leftists who are crashing the economy,

00:18:48.680 because afterwards reality kicks in and they say, OK, it's time for us to be to get.

00:18:53.480 Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to give any praise to the former Tories.

00:18:56.920 No, no, no, no.

00:18:58.040 They did, but they weren't doing it quite as badly as this, I will say.

00:19:03.640 This is this is where her mind is at at the moment. So it's been reported in the Times that

00:19:08.200 Rachel Reeves is said to be feeling very depressed as she claims she can't see a way out of the

00:19:13.160 bleak economic conditions. One source close to the Treasury said she's got choices to make

00:19:19.160 and she knows that they're all shit, which is...

00:19:22.920 So because the Labour government, one of their biggest pledges was to grow the economy sort of

00:19:27.720 at all costs.

00:19:28.440 Oh, she's done the opposite. Right.

00:19:30.040 Yeah. So we get GDP numbers out next week, and it's probably going to show that there's no growth.

00:19:35.320 Easier said than done.

00:19:36.280 Yes.

00:19:36.840 All right. Yeah. I've always found it odd, though. I've always found it odd that particularly

00:19:41.640 the Chancellor of the Exchequer isn't a tried and tested proven actual economist.

00:19:46.440 Yes. It says that she is on a CV.

00:19:49.240 Right. But...

00:19:51.240 Yes.

00:19:51.560 You know, she's just a glorified accountant.

00:19:54.120 She was a complaints manager.

00:19:55.000 A complaints manager.

00:19:56.040 Who got fired for not turning up.

00:19:58.200 Because I can sort of, at an absolute push, you know, by that someone who's in charge of

00:20:04.280 education or health or something hasn't necessarily spent their entire career in that field.

00:20:10.280 But I feel like one of the, perhaps the one where you really, really do need a true expert

00:20:15.400 in that seat is at the Treasury, at the Exchequer.

00:20:18.840 It would probably help, yeah, to have some grasp of this. And all she needs to do is watch for

00:20:23.080 economics. It's like literally that. That's all she needs to do, and she'd understand this stuff.

00:20:28.600 She can spare a fiver per month.

00:20:30.360 Yes. Yes.

00:20:31.240 What about the Treasury in the civil service? They will have lots of extremely clever people

00:20:35.400 that know their business.

00:20:36.840 Well, actually, she must be just ignoring them.

00:20:38.840 So this is the worst case scenario, because if you know what you're doing, you could probably be a

00:20:43.240 good chancellor. If you don't know what you're doing, and you know that you don't know what you're doing,

00:20:47.800 that's probably also okay, because you can just let the civil servants run it. But if you don't know what

00:20:51.960 you're doing, and you think you know what you're doing, that's the most dangerous situation to

00:20:57.160 possibly be in. So John McDonnell just said that, you know, she can't cut spending. It'd be political

00:21:01.640 suicide, the former Labour.

00:21:03.480 John McDonnell?

00:21:04.040 Yeah. Former Labour, Treasury spokesman.

00:21:08.120 He's a true, true Marxist.

00:21:09.720 Yes.

00:21:10.120 In the Corbyn period, when people said, do you want to do away with capitalism? He said, yes.

00:21:15.160 Yes.

00:21:16.680 Well, he's not alone, though, is he, in the Labour Party?

00:21:19.480 But she's going to have a tough time cutting, and lots of Labour MPs have sort of behind the

00:21:25.640 scenes said, no, you can't cut any spending. You can't possibly do that. So how did she react?

00:21:29.800 Now, over the weekend, Sunday is a good day to see, because a lot of this, I mean, it blew up,

00:21:35.880 well, it blew up mainly at the end of last week. And the Sundays are good, because the Sunday papers

00:21:41.320 is where they trial their ideas of how they're going to fix the problem. So what is her solution

00:21:45.080 to fix the problem? It's to put a tax on British hotels. So she's noticed that people can't afford

00:21:51.240 to go on holiday anymore overseas. So the idea is that we put extra tax on British hotels, so that

00:21:58.520 when people have a holiday in the UK, that gets taxed instead.

00:22:02.760 It's just squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, isn't it?

00:22:05.720 I mean, this would probably raise quite a lot of money if they applied it to all the immigrant

00:22:10.040 hotels. But of course, they won't. So that's just going to be, you know, you can't afford to have

00:22:15.480 a holiday abroad anymore. So we're going to tax your holiday in the UK.

00:22:18.440 Thanks.

00:22:20.760 Thanks.

00:22:21.480 Yes. Now, I've...

00:22:23.240 I mean, holidays are a luxury for leftists. They don't like it. I mean, if you have time

00:22:29.640 to spend to your leisure, it's bad.

00:22:31.640 Yeah. Well, unless you're going to...

00:22:32.600 You should do it something else.

00:22:33.640 To visit the Soviet Union or North Korea or something.

00:22:35.720 Anyway.

00:22:36.120 If you can afford any holiday, you're a kulak, and therefore must be...

00:22:41.080 The people in the Bank of England, and economists generally, they love building models, economic models.

00:22:45.400 And that's what I've done. I have made an economic model that you two can use to determine what's

00:22:52.440 going to happen next. So here is my economic model. And I want you two to run the model.

00:23:00.040 And from that, work out what's going to happen next. So we'll need two of you. So if you can just...

00:23:05.240 I can't buy...

00:23:06.440 What on earth is this?

00:23:07.960 Have you not done that thing where it's...

00:23:09.960 Basically, you're going to say something about boomers.

00:23:11.880 Do you...

00:23:12.920 No.

00:23:13.400 You're going to say something about the Kanye West and Bianca Sensori.

00:23:16.760 Do you not get these in Greece?

00:23:19.240 Yeah, but...

00:23:20.280 Right. Run the model.

00:23:22.360 What do you want to say? Speak English, man.

00:23:24.760 You just got to run the model and open it up. Give it to Bo. Bo knows.

00:23:30.120 So what? US v GDP?

00:23:32.600 Yeah, so...

00:23:33.240 Like that?

00:23:33.560 Yeah, right. Now pick one.

00:23:35.560 Three. One, two, three.

00:23:37.000 Right, now open it up and it will tell you...

00:23:39.240 Number two says...

00:23:41.160 Oh, they're all the same result.

00:23:43.720 It all needs the same way.

00:23:45.560 They will print money.

00:23:46.680 Yes.

00:23:47.000 Yes.

00:23:47.480 Quantitative easing. Whatever happens...

00:23:49.080 Yes.

00:23:49.720 Whatever happens...

00:23:50.280 So that is the actual outcome.

00:23:51.640 It's quantitative easing.

00:23:53.080 I've put a whole bunch of scenarios...

00:23:54.360 But basically, what's going to happen is they're going to do...

00:23:57.400 They're basically going to print money.

00:23:59.400 That's how they're going to get around it.

00:24:00.760 So the UK is in this situation where inflation is sticky because they printed too much money.

00:24:07.160 Growth has been killed because they put up taxes too high.

00:24:11.400 And the only way out...

00:24:12.480 Well, I mean, there is an obvious way out.

00:24:13.700 Stop spending so much.

00:24:15.800 But they don't want to do that.

00:24:17.080 So they're just going to have to print more money, which will make the inflation worth,

00:24:19.380 which will kill the growth more and put us into more of a spiral.

00:24:24.400 So yes, not particularly rosy.

00:24:26.560 So how did the markets open on Monday after hearing her brilliant hotel tax idea?

00:24:35.360 With volatility, it looks like.

00:24:37.360 Well, volatility up and to the right, which is bad, as we established earlier.

00:24:43.580 So the markets were not convinced that an extra tax on Butlins was going to solve the UK's economic woes.

00:24:51.280 But in order to broaden the context here, this is a chart I put together myself.

00:24:57.980 This basically tracks UK debt levels over time in real terms.

00:25:03.720 So as you can see, you go back to, say, the 1970s, debt was about $50 billion.

00:25:12.640 By 2008, it climbed quite a bit to $550 billion.

00:25:16.780 So it was a 10x, but over, you know, whatever that is.

00:25:20.000 Wasn't it around the 2008 times, roughly anyway, where David Cameron was talking about,

00:25:24.560 we need austerity in order to get the national debt down?

00:25:27.880 Yeah, so at that 2008 point, that's when they were saying the debt was too high

00:25:32.240 and we need to get this under control at that 2008 mark.

00:25:34.740 If you're listening, that's a very low step compared to the two on the right.

00:25:39.920 So then you get to the next milestone, which I decided to use, was by the beginning of COVID.

00:25:50.300 Now, this was my kind of political journey, because up until COVID, I was one of those,

00:25:55.280 because I wasn't podcasting, I think, back then.

00:25:58.280 I was just this chap looking at this stuff, thinking they cannot possibly let this run any longer,

00:26:04.920 like before 2020, they have to get this under control.

00:26:09.740 Surely at some point, they're going to get this under control.

00:26:12.060 Nope, double it.

00:26:13.120 Right, and then we did COVID, and we did the most mental shit ever,

00:26:17.580 and printed more money than you can, and then we went from 2020 to 2025.

00:26:22.080 That's what we did.

00:26:23.500 Just insane.

00:26:24.700 So Boris thinks, hmm, let's best put everyone in the country under a form of house arrest.

00:26:31.480 Yeah, shut down the economy.

00:26:32.660 And in order, completely shut the economy.

00:26:34.920 And in order to not completely implode, almost immediately,

00:26:38.180 we'll just print loads of money and go into loads, loads more debt.

00:26:41.280 We'll just borrow our way out of an immediate implosion.

00:26:44.840 Yes.

00:26:45.380 Thanks, Boris.

00:26:46.160 COVID was the maddest shit I'd ever seen.

00:26:49.820 Completely unprecedented.

00:26:50.800 Yes.

00:26:51.620 They didn't do that during the Black Death.

00:26:53.300 Yeah, and that was the point where I thought, okay, right, time to torpedo my financial career.

00:26:58.200 I'm just going to start speaking out about this, because it's mental.

00:27:02.600 This cannot possibly go on.

00:27:04.220 So, website that, you know, gives you a breakdown on, you know, spending, so we can dig into it a bit, but we've waffled.

00:27:14.100 So, but, you know, oh, that's a good chart.

00:27:15.440 There we go.

00:27:16.560 So, the budget deficit.

00:27:17.760 So, as you can see, the effect that COVID had there.

00:27:20.440 It's just crazy.

00:27:21.340 So, and then our response afterwards was just to keep it really high.

00:27:26.380 So, oh, here we go.

00:27:28.180 Deficit since World War II.

00:27:30.260 So, there was a large deficit for World War II, but that's fair enough, because we're fighting a world war.

00:27:35.720 And, but now we're just running them because, you know, why the hell not?

00:27:42.040 Well, somebody's got a flu.

00:27:45.120 So, yes, mental stuff.

00:27:46.780 Things are ungood.

00:27:48.340 I would point out that we are actually paying for Rachel Reeves' financial education.

00:27:54.820 So, this is from her MP's expenses.

00:27:57.240 She's got a subscription to The Economist and the Financial Times that we're paying for.

00:28:01.180 You notice from that list that she has not got Brokonomics on there.

00:28:05.120 If she had, all of this could have been avoided.

00:28:08.880 It is only £5 a month.

00:28:11.080 And I'll give you everything that you need in order to not make horrendous mistakes like this.

00:28:18.560 It's so annoying.

00:28:19.360 It's only a small point now compared to what we've been talking about.

00:28:21.440 But when they charge for small things, like they'll take a cab somewhere, like a couple of miles across London,

00:28:27.080 and it costs like £12 or something, and they put that on their expenses.

00:28:30.700 It annoys me so much.

00:28:32.180 Yes, we can't do that.

00:28:33.160 Yeah, we can't do that.

00:28:35.520 It's so annoying.

00:28:37.360 Because they make an okay wage.

00:28:38.980 I mean, it's not a giant, giant wage, but it's okay.

00:28:41.980 What is it?

00:28:42.480 Well, she's...

00:28:43.060 An average MP makes over £100,000, don't they?

00:28:45.000 So, if you're a Secretary of State, you're going to make a few hundred grand a year, right?

00:28:49.300 But you're still charging for £70 subscription to things.

00:28:53.160 Normal MP will be £90-something, and then plus expenses will take them well over £100.

00:28:57.400 Somebody like her, Secretary of State, will be, yeah, like you say, about £160 with expenses,

00:29:03.760 you know, not that up to £180, something like that, plus all the speaking that they can do afterwards as well.

00:29:08.060 So, let's listen to, hopefully we're sound this time, Keir Starmer assuring us that Rachel is the right person for the job.

00:29:18.820 Can we do that, Samson?

00:29:19.780 Rachel Reeves is doing a fantastic job.

00:29:22.860 She has my full confidence.

00:29:24.580 She has the full confidence of the entire party.

00:29:29.280 She was given an incredibly challenging task at the budget because not only was the economy broken,

00:29:37.000 but we had a £20 billion black hole.

00:29:40.980 Right.

00:29:41.460 You didn't really, but okay.

00:29:42.420 So, full confidence of Keir Starmer.

00:29:47.080 Now, why is Keir Starmer so keen to back Rachel Reeves when she clearly is incompetent?

00:29:52.680 She's lied on her CV.

00:29:53.740 She doesn't have a clue what she's talking about.

00:29:55.940 Well, I mean, there could be several contingencies,

00:30:00.100 but I think the most likely scenario is that they want her to get the blame for something they think may be inevitable.

00:30:07.660 Yes.

00:30:07.960 Well, also, I don't know if this is what you're going to say, but it is true anyway,

00:30:12.020 that the Chancellor is arguably probably the second most important office after the Prime Minister.

00:30:20.540 So, if ever, whenever you have to replace your Chancellor, it's a body blow to your government.

00:30:26.320 So, you want to stand by them for as long as you possibly can, really.

00:30:31.140 Yes.

00:30:32.400 That is one reason, but I don't think that's what you're going to say.

00:30:34.500 What I'm going to say is, if you're going to replace her, you probably want to replace her with somebody who isn't even worse.

00:30:41.420 And these are the rumours circulating.

00:30:45.060 Again, leaks from the inside.

00:30:47.060 I'm told Starmer would like to sack Reeves, but he can't because he only has Miliband and Cooper to replace her.

00:30:53.460 I think this is also one of the reasons why the Democrats selected Kamala Harris.

00:30:58.020 Yeah, because they had such rubbish options.

00:31:01.460 Or because a lot of the A-listers within democratic circles wouldn't want such a fate.

00:31:11.660 Yes.

00:31:12.340 Because they didn't have too much time to develop the campaign.

00:31:15.360 I would say there is a lesson for Nigel Farage in all of this,

00:31:19.080 in that basically what Starmer did is he surrounded himself with nobodies,

00:31:23.280 so that he would shine brighter.

00:31:27.460 And unfortunately, that's what Farage is doing as well.

00:31:29.800 He just keeps purging good people out.

00:31:33.940 And what if he actually gets into government?

00:31:36.080 Because he's going to need a chancellor.

00:31:37.980 Okay, Rupert Lowe could do that, but you've got like 100 jobs to fill.

00:31:41.420 You can't put Rupert Lowe in every single one of them.

00:31:43.860 You're going to need good people.

00:31:46.400 Something for Farage to think about.

00:31:47.580 It's something our system used to have almost, you might say, hard-baked into it.

00:31:52.940 That it used to draw true experts.

00:31:58.260 People that were older, that had already lived a life and had a career

00:32:00.780 and were successful in their careers, whatever it might be.

00:32:04.060 And then they became an MP.

00:32:05.640 And so you were surrounded by a cadre of experts.

00:32:08.280 But now that's not what we're doing.

00:32:09.720 You look at some of the parliaments after the war.

00:32:12.580 You know, just the average MPs.

00:32:14.440 It would be common to have like a military cross there.

00:32:16.980 And you were somebody who had led this here.

00:32:19.340 You would have excellent people throughout.

00:32:21.300 So it wasn't a hard time finding a good government.

00:32:23.660 But these days, they're all people who have bunked off work pretending to go to the dentists

00:32:27.820 so they could do Labour Party business.

00:32:29.400 Or become MPs in their 20s or early 30s or whatever.

00:32:32.340 After being a researcher.

00:32:33.940 Yeah.

00:32:34.180 So a bit of a mess.

00:32:36.680 That's why I don't hold any UK assets.

00:32:39.820 Apologies if you live in the UK.

00:32:42.280 Right.

00:32:42.820 Let's go to the Rumble chat.

00:32:44.760 So that's a random name.

00:32:46.640 Dan explaining how before 2020, he truly was basic based.

00:32:51.500 Then had his third eye open and is now proper based.

00:32:55.980 Exhaling.

00:32:56.460 Okay.

00:32:56.720 It could be worse.

00:32:57.160 That's right.

00:32:57.640 Okay.

00:32:59.240 Sigistol 17.

00:33:01.840 Why does the UK government have a department that sounds like a bar in Moscow?

00:33:06.560 Come comrade after a long day of stealing copper wire.

00:33:09.720 Let us get a drink at Ars Cheska.

00:33:13.180 Okay.

00:33:13.440 Not just a string.

00:33:17.240 Rachel and Labour.

00:33:18.980 If I keep squeezing blood out of the stone, maybe it'll come back to life.

00:33:24.140 Yeah, basically.

00:33:24.660 Come to life.

00:33:25.660 Lothar Truther.

00:33:26.640 How many days on the down count until Rachel Reeves off blasts?

00:33:31.800 Or rather than a specific number, is it more likely that she lasts until a Black Swan event triggers a large exit?

00:33:37.780 Love from Mulvania.

00:33:39.000 Yeah.

00:33:39.440 Okay.

00:33:39.700 Well, the quick answer to that is the problem with the current situation is that it's bad, but it's not quite acute enough to knock over the system tomorrow.

00:33:49.080 It's just bad enough to make us work while it gets worse.

00:33:51.520 Right.

00:33:51.740 And that's a random name question for Dan.

00:33:53.960 I'm 28 years old and I've been asking for years whether I can get any of my pension money out right now instead of waiting.

00:34:00.280 Can't seem to find the answer anywhere.

00:34:02.460 No, I don't think you can.

00:34:03.580 You can get a state pension.

00:34:04.600 Right.

00:34:05.220 You've got a private pension.

00:34:06.340 There's certain things.

00:34:07.480 You can't really get it out of the tax wrapper, but you can do something better.

00:34:11.420 I mean, you can move it out of UK assets, for example.

00:34:13.760 And the last one before we move on to the next segment.

00:34:16.560 Matt G. Hammond.

00:34:17.780 Why do governments that print money to cover debt pay interest on their debt since inflation has already covered it?

00:34:24.720 Yeah.

00:34:25.060 So basically that's one of their options now is to stop paying people who have borrowed from the government.

00:34:31.860 That is a version of that.

00:34:33.680 Yield-Curve control is what they'll probably end up doing.

00:34:36.320 Right.

00:34:36.720 Okay, so we are going to have a fun, relaxed segment talking about pictures that define the woke era.

00:34:42.960 Woke, wokeness is a concept that several people have disagreements about what it means.

00:34:47.580 But I think it's very, it's very optical.

00:34:50.800 It's very visible.

00:34:51.980 You kind of see woke people from a mile away.

00:34:55.960 It's all just a focus on appearance.

00:34:59.600 So we are going to have a very fun segment watching just some fun pictures of wokeness.

00:35:04.160 And I think that no one disagrees with this.

00:35:09.920 No one disagrees with segments of this sort.

00:35:12.360 Who shot that?

00:35:15.840 I want to shake their hand.

00:35:16.820 We did a meme yesterday.

00:35:18.500 That was Samson.

00:35:19.860 Yes.

00:35:20.280 Cheers.

00:35:20.660 Cheers, Samson, for this.

00:35:22.100 Yes.

00:35:22.600 Okay.

00:35:22.960 We have Josh here with his anti-slop jihad.

00:35:26.380 But, you know, we...

00:35:28.360 I mean, is he working at the right place?

00:35:29.860 If he doesn't like...

00:35:31.280 I mean...

00:35:31.960 Yeah.

00:35:33.180 It comes out.

00:35:33.820 A leader has to make tough decisions.

00:35:35.780 Yes.

00:35:36.260 No one disagrees with it, with this.

00:35:39.080 Right.

00:35:39.640 So there's a lot of debate as to whether wokeness is going to be eradicated or not.

00:35:44.460 Personally, I don't think it will.

00:35:46.020 But I hear several voices saying that it is going to be...

00:35:48.720 It is going to go away.

00:35:50.360 Dan, I'm sure you know some of these people who argue for this point.

00:35:54.940 Maybe you could tell us stuff.

00:35:56.560 But I think we should definitely focus on some of those pictures.

00:36:01.340 Because they're really, really interesting.

00:36:03.600 So we have here by Oilfield Rando a post where he says...

00:36:08.480 Trying to collect all the photos that best define the grotesque lunacy of the woke era.

00:36:12.640 Feel free to post the ones I'm missing in the replies.

00:36:15.260 And he has four here.

00:36:16.800 Let us just...

00:36:17.320 What's the first one?

00:36:17.420 Is that a scene from India or something?

00:36:20.440 Sustainable Development Goals.

00:36:22.340 Oh, it's the 2030 stuff.

00:36:25.340 The 2030 Agenda.

00:36:28.180 Yeah, that's sustainable.

00:36:29.880 We have here lots of...

00:36:32.260 Is that the pedo flag?

00:36:33.840 That looks like debris.

00:36:36.940 And we have the...

00:36:37.820 The first one is from Afghanistan.

00:36:39.220 Yeah, the first one is from Afghanistan.

00:36:42.040 And here we have the...

00:36:44.080 Oh, I remember that one.

00:36:45.080 Yeah, that's really funny.

00:36:46.620 This is going to be a tough segment for people listening.

00:36:49.320 But this image is that large mass black woman who gave that lecture on how all white people are racist and stood up in front of them and basically screamed at them for an hour and then told them to PayPal her.

00:37:03.440 But if you abstract a bit, she kind of looks like Pepper or the...

00:37:08.980 But Pepper the frog.

00:37:10.160 Yes.

00:37:10.620 Here are the eyes of Pepper, the mouth.

00:37:15.160 I was just going with the face, but actually, yeah, you're on multiple levels.

00:37:18.800 Yes, and she has here the oppression calculus where she's saying all white people are racist.

00:37:26.720 And on the other hand, the good chart says, she says, diversity, intersectionality, minorities, equality, equity, people of color, safe space, white privilege, capitalism, racism.

00:37:36.080 So as we go through this, with all these examples of woke weirdos, I just wonder how future historians are going to get their head around this.

00:37:45.000 Yeah.

00:37:45.440 Right?

00:37:45.760 Because they're going to be looking at Western civilisation, you know, future Islamic or Chinese scholars, whatever the next civilisation is.

00:37:51.800 They're going to be looking at this stuff, trying to figure out what...

00:37:53.620 And for me, it's like a bit like, you know, with Rome, that they had all their weird shit and their orgies and all that kind of stuff.

00:38:00.340 Yeah.

00:38:00.740 And then I'm looking back and I don't quite know how to delineate it.

00:38:04.280 It all gets a bit modelled up.

00:38:05.100 I mean, I don't think that Romulus and Cato and Marcus Aurelius were going to orgies, but it all gets a bit muddled up, doesn't it?

00:38:15.940 Whereas with this, I mean, presumably future historians are going to be thinking like, what the hell were people in Western civilisation all about?

00:38:22.680 Definitely reminds me of, you know, decadence of the Roman stuff.

00:38:26.420 And I think, Bo, was it Nero who had a boy slave called Sporus who wanted to make him a woman?

00:38:33.680 Sporus, yeah.

00:38:35.100 That was a nickname as well.

00:38:36.640 Yeah.

00:38:37.400 Sporus is a sort of spunk, basically.

00:38:40.060 That was his nickname.

00:38:41.540 Yeah, and he married him.

00:38:42.920 Yeah, Nero, yeah.

00:38:43.860 I thought he married his horse.

00:38:45.080 No, no.

00:38:45.720 Or did he get divorced?

00:38:46.760 Caligula made his horse or threatened to make his horse a senator.

00:38:50.080 Oh, I see.

00:38:50.900 Right.

00:38:51.060 But no, Nero married, in inverted commas, Sporus.

00:38:54.600 Right.

00:38:54.860 And then tried to make him a woman.

00:38:58.320 Right.

00:38:58.600 So he was ahead of his time, basically.

00:39:01.200 He predicted what he is, the grandfather of wokeness, isn't it?

00:39:05.940 Well, there are other examples of sort of insane decadent.

00:39:09.160 Like Richard MacRom.

00:39:09.700 Decadent, or like Elabagilus is the example, par excellence, isn't it, of a completely insanely decadent ruler.

00:39:18.720 But if you go into like the Byzantine period, I was reading the other day just about the decline of the kingdoms of the successors of Alexander.

00:39:27.740 Yeah.

00:39:28.520 The later Ptolemies became just sort of really obese and sexually depraved.

00:39:35.220 A bit like that last image then.

00:39:38.260 I mean, they had nothing to live for.

00:39:42.340 Seems like as civilizations in decline kind of all do the same stuff.

00:39:46.500 Yeah, there certainly is a cyclical element to it often.

00:39:50.520 We have here woke AI.

00:39:52.560 Is that a version, an African-American version of George Washington?

00:39:59.620 Yeah.

00:40:00.040 Supposed to be, yeah.

00:40:01.180 Yeah.

00:40:01.780 That was the, what a craze that was.

00:40:05.120 Remember, we had AI programs saying deliberately, it was programmed into them that they aren't going to show anyone as a white person.

00:40:14.640 Yeah.

00:40:15.440 Well, there's so much of this.

00:40:16.460 Who's responsible for that programming exactly?

00:40:21.100 Yeah.

00:40:21.580 I don't think we should play this.

00:40:25.040 I don't want to see it.

00:40:26.800 I don't know what it is, but I don't.

00:40:28.360 Yeah.

00:40:28.680 Okay.

00:40:29.800 Everyone says no.

00:40:31.080 Everyone says no here.

00:40:32.540 Right.

00:40:33.120 We have here the discrepancy between expectation and reality.

00:40:39.760 We have a really beautiful post here.

00:40:42.300 Democrats expect us to believe they can clean up the earth and environment.

00:40:46.100 They can't even clean up their own district and streets.

00:40:48.580 I think that's from California.

00:40:50.220 Yeah.

00:40:50.960 I remember that California, we covered it.

00:40:53.040 They had an app where you could report human feces on the street.

00:40:57.240 Yeah.

00:40:57.600 And basically the map was unusable because it just had poo emojis across the entire California.

00:41:02.980 I think that was for San Francisco.

00:41:04.600 San Francisco.

00:41:05.060 San Francisco.

00:41:05.240 Yeah.

00:41:05.560 Yeah.

00:41:05.960 The thing is, they can clean it up if they want to.

00:41:08.960 Do you remember somebody during the Biden administration, there was a Chinese visit.

00:41:13.700 It was Xi Jinping.

00:41:14.200 And they cleaned up the streets for a few days while he was there.

00:41:17.200 Yeah.

00:41:17.360 And then let it go back to pot again.

00:41:19.720 So they can if they want to.

00:41:21.440 Yeah.

00:41:21.680 Yeah.

00:41:21.980 But they don't want to.

00:41:22.880 That's the essence of the DEI thing because it's about getting the job.

00:41:26.980 It's not about doing the job.

00:41:29.340 And breaking the will of those that would push back against all of this.

00:41:33.180 Exactly.

00:41:33.960 So this exactly encapsulates wokeness because the job isn't done.

00:41:38.380 And we just hear constant promises.

00:41:40.240 And everyone who says that this is going to, this is reality is being denounced as a forest.

00:41:45.540 The other one would be the LA fires, of course.

00:41:48.440 Yeah.

00:41:48.780 And all the money they spend on fire prevention.

00:41:50.400 And they had a big fire in whatever it was, 2012 or something.

00:41:54.600 And it seems they've just been having meetings on diversity ever since then.

00:41:58.280 The complete denial of it.

00:41:59.380 I remember having a little bit of an argument with someone on Twitter about how Whitechapel was a complete mess.

00:42:04.420 It looks like that.

00:42:05.880 And they'll just say, no, it isn't.

00:42:06.920 And you'd post pictures of it.

00:42:07.960 And they say, no.

00:42:09.140 It's like, you've just posted a picture of it.

00:42:10.600 They say, that's a market.

00:42:11.700 That's what all markets look like.

00:42:12.720 No, but they don't know.

00:42:14.340 And that wasn't a market day or whatever it is.

00:42:16.520 It's just complete denial.

00:42:17.640 Just it isn't happening.

00:42:19.180 The market in Petersfield does not look like that.

00:42:21.760 Just look at this.

00:42:23.440 The account of the BMW with a pride flag under the background.

00:42:27.620 Are they still doing this?

00:42:28.520 Also, Mercedes-Benz.

00:42:30.140 They did it at once.

00:42:31.860 I think now lots of businesses are rolling back their DI initiatives.

00:42:39.200 But I think it's going to kick back with a vengeance.

00:42:41.380 Do you think that if...

00:42:43.580 Okay, people are saying that Woke is going away.

00:42:46.180 Hang on the logo thing.

00:42:48.080 People say Woke is going away.

00:42:49.600 But basically, Woke got corporate sponsorship for a period of about 15 years.

00:42:54.280 Is it possible that in the future, our thing makes more and more progress?

00:43:00.060 And all of these big companies are going to have to have a department of based.

00:43:03.000 They're going to, like, hire us as brand representatives and we're going to have to redo their logo with a little Pepe or something.

00:43:10.900 Is it possible?

00:43:11.980 Right.

00:43:12.540 Adam Johnston, friend of the show, shows us here a picture from the LA on fire.

00:43:19.440 Again, the discrepancy between expectation and reality.

00:43:24.840 Everyone who was saying this is going to happen was being demonized by people who are taking the knee here.

00:43:30.980 I remember this one.

00:43:32.440 I remember this one because somebody who actually knows about the African colors and stuff, the garb, was saying, yeah, that tribe is, like, one of the big famous slaving tribes.

00:43:43.340 That is an iconic image, isn't it?

00:43:45.260 I mean, it's exonious.

00:43:46.240 Do you remember Nancy couldn't get up off her knee?

00:43:48.880 She had to be helped back onto her feet.

00:43:51.980 And how did they do that?

00:43:52.800 By holding a chin just out of arm's length.

00:43:57.140 Yeah, we...

00:43:58.260 I can't.

00:43:59.240 I think that's a trolling thing, but, yeah.

00:44:02.180 We can say that for people who listen, can't we?

00:44:04.280 Yeah.

00:44:04.940 I don't know.

00:44:05.740 Maybe it's...

00:44:06.540 Whores for Palestine.

00:44:09.020 With the anarchy for the A as well.

00:44:10.820 Yeah, that's more like Islamo-feminist trope.

00:44:15.160 That's one of the weirdest movements, and I think that this is actually signaling why a lot of it is going to go back in its current form.

00:44:24.200 Right here, Colbert has lots of submission-worthy cringe moments.

00:44:28.400 Well, that's...

00:44:29.340 The VAC science stuff.

00:44:30.860 Oh, the VAC stuff.

00:44:32.080 Yeah, don't get me started on the VAC stuff.

00:44:33.180 Yeah.

00:44:34.220 We have here military personnel with pronouns.

00:44:38.040 Clear...

00:44:38.400 Actually, I can't say it.

00:44:39.320 I'm not allowed to say it.

00:44:39.740 Yeah, yeah, let's...

00:44:41.380 Right, so the thread, I expected it to be a bit better.

00:44:45.240 That's why I have that backup.

00:44:46.760 But here, let's look at this.

00:44:48.900 NFL with pride.

00:44:51.200 Yeah.

00:44:52.240 That doesn't look...

00:44:53.600 It's funny, because football, or American football, as we call it, it is sort of hyper-masculine.

00:45:00.680 It's supposed to be.

00:45:01.100 Like, you know, when you watch, like, compilations of, like, the hardest hits from the NFL, it's like it's the least gay thing in the world, right?

00:45:08.680 Yeah.

00:45:09.040 But I suppose that's why they go for it.

00:45:11.680 It's why they go for football, what we call football, what Americans call soccer.

00:45:14.560 There's another reason why that, there's always a hard push to kick racism out of football or whatever.

00:45:18.960 I don't know, maybe...

00:45:20.600 This is a good example, right?

00:45:22.080 Sorry, but, Bo, I interrupted.

00:45:24.120 Sorry.

00:45:25.320 It's about football.

00:45:26.460 But maybe there are several connotations, and, you know, men wanting some bodily friction with other men.

00:45:33.760 I suppose there is also that homoerotic thing where American football players slapping each other's butt after...

00:45:38.840 After a great play.

00:45:40.500 But no, no, but in all honesty, you need to be, like, quite a hard individual.

00:45:46.160 It's like, in America, it's like, oh, he played football.

00:45:48.600 He's a shorthand for, don't mess with him.

00:45:51.260 He'll smash you up with ease.

00:45:53.140 Yeah, so, oh, so we need to make that as gay as possible, as quickly as possible.

00:45:56.720 Well, as gay as possible brings us nicely onto this image.

00:46:01.740 Because I do think that the left basically are just dysgenic mutants.

00:46:05.540 We have an individual with, is that pink hair or red hair and pink glasses and several earrings dressed in a very effeminate way with a placard saying,

00:46:21.100 refugees, welcome here.

00:46:22.680 And the obvious question is, refugees from where, from which countries, and how would they treat him in return?

00:46:29.820 Just to harp on my point about them being dysgenic mutant freaks, I mean, can you imagine how long that guy would last if it was, you know, the 6th century?

00:46:39.840 Last in what sense?

00:46:41.840 Stay alive.

00:46:42.920 Okay.

00:46:43.140 If it was the 6th century and the Danes were coming over on their longship and he was the one who met them at the shore.

00:46:50.120 I mean, we used to have a mechanism for keeping the human race, like, not that.

00:46:56.560 But that mechanism has gone away now.

00:46:58.660 If Tacitus is to be believed, the punishment for being that is to be drowned.

00:47:06.400 Fair enough.

00:47:06.720 And here, I think, we have one of the worst images of that show, the woke craze.

00:47:13.720 We have someone dressed like a demon in a drag queen story hour, who is, you know, just, how do you get someone dressed in a more evil way,

00:47:24.460 imposing a more evil way, narrating stories to young children?

00:47:29.240 And you have really naive, let's put it in the most subtle way, parents who take their kids to these events.

00:47:39.360 I wouldn't take my kids.

00:47:40.880 They're obviously pedos, because it's not like they're trying to go into the old folks' homes and spend time with the old folks.

00:47:46.340 No, they specifically want to spend time with little kids.

00:47:50.700 The perversity of it is so obvious.

00:47:54.120 Here we have the, you know, I think this is one of the undisputed best ones here.

00:48:01.660 We have the activist who is screeching when Trump is inaugurated in 2017.

00:48:09.180 The iconic image.

00:48:10.140 Yeah, this is just, I can't deal with reality.

00:48:14.320 I lost the elections.

00:48:15.460 I can't deal with it.

00:48:16.560 That was 2017, was it?

00:48:17.940 So that is, that's what, eight years ago.

00:48:21.020 So what I've spent that entire time wondering, is that male or female?

00:48:25.040 Um, I don't know.

00:48:26.220 Dan, it's 2025.

00:48:27.800 I don't think we can know these things.

00:48:29.760 Because I'm not sure, to be honest.

00:48:32.020 What's, yeah.

00:48:32.760 So another thing that happened this weird time, we have another movement, movement called Fatties for Free Palestine.

00:48:42.000 They call themselves this way.

00:48:45.860 The above image didn't turn into that, did it?

00:48:49.260 No, no, no, no, no.

00:48:50.480 That's something else.

00:48:51.320 I hope it didn't.

00:48:52.520 Right.

00:48:52.700 Okay, that would be.

00:48:54.040 Yes.

00:48:54.460 So we have the Fatties for Free Palestine and also Fatties Against Fascism.

00:48:59.560 It's just pure weakness, isn't it?

00:49:02.380 Weakness in terms of, like, your own self-control, your own ability to stop stuffing your face.

00:49:08.360 And then intellectual or ideological weakness.

00:49:12.540 Yeah.

00:49:14.040 Weakness all the way down.

00:49:15.420 Yes.

00:49:16.140 And you will get diabetes and you will die.

00:49:18.500 Oh, yeah.

00:49:18.800 These, yeah.

00:49:19.460 These people will pay the ultimate price for it.

00:49:21.580 Will you, or is this a body positivity denial stance of you?

00:49:28.140 Dan, you should check your...

00:49:29.520 Their body positively going to get diabetes and die.

00:49:34.100 The human heart isn't supposed to deal with that sort of strain.

00:49:38.380 It just isn't.

00:49:39.180 We have here other pictures of Fatties Against Fascism.

00:49:43.600 For some reason, I made a mistake and I wrote Fatties for fascism.

00:49:47.940 But all of them are...

00:49:49.440 Freudian slip there.

00:49:50.520 Again, you know, you're going to get disciplined.

00:49:57.280 It's anything other than stop eating, isn't it?

00:50:01.000 Yeah, anything other than that.

00:50:02.800 Do or say anything rather than actually introduce some moderation.

00:50:08.020 You can eat quite a lot if you just cut out processed sugar.

00:50:10.820 I don't know how really fat people do it.

00:50:12.460 I don't know how there's time in the day.

00:50:14.800 Even that, I don't...

00:50:15.940 It's those sugary sodas.

00:50:18.040 Mine is zero calories.

00:50:22.080 It's sugary sodas.

00:50:23.420 It's lots of carbs.

00:50:24.460 It's lots of processed sugar.

00:50:26.080 Samson, could we type quiz for Palestine?

00:50:29.280 Because I can't believe how I missed it.

00:50:31.660 I've also done a segment about it.

00:50:34.180 This is...

00:50:35.100 Yeah.

00:50:41.020 Quiz for Palestine.

00:50:42.440 Let's go to media.

00:50:43.340 This is very brave of you, doing an untested media.

00:50:50.220 Yeah, it's not like exactly we're visiting the profile of Evo Kaplan.

00:50:54.680 Yeah.

00:50:55.060 The Labour MP.

00:50:56.180 Which, by the way, don't do this.

00:50:58.820 Yeah, we have here...

00:51:01.380 ...several interesting stuff.

00:51:03.460 I mean, quiz for Palestine is one of the most, I would say, brain-dead movements.

00:51:09.360 Because you have people who support a country, let's say, or a geographic region.

00:51:16.340 I'm not getting into the stuff that happens into that territory.

00:51:20.240 Just don't go saying, oh, Stellar, you use this word or that.

00:51:23.600 Just...

00:51:24.200 Look at the state of it.

00:51:25.000 Yeah.

00:51:25.800 They get the roof treatment there.

00:51:28.160 Why on earth would they argue for it?

00:51:30.780 It is like turkeys for Christmas.

00:51:33.320 Yeah.

00:51:33.640 I feel like it's beyond the point where it's a contradiction or it obviously doesn't make sense.

00:51:39.260 It's...

00:51:39.700 But that's almost...

00:51:41.700 I don't know if these individuals are even aware, but it's almost like that's deliberately part of it.

00:51:45.120 Like in 1984, like the dictates of Big Brother, they're not trying to pretend that it makes sense.

00:51:52.720 Yeah.

00:51:52.880 They're not trying to pretend that you don't remember that we were at war with Eurasia yesterday.

00:51:58.280 It's just you accept the line, the party line, regardless of the insanity and the wrong-headedness of it.

00:52:06.960 If anything, it's a shit test.

00:52:08.300 If anything, it's to test whether you would accept the nonsense and the insanity.

00:52:14.360 That's what Queers for...

00:52:15.140 Something like Queers for Palestine is for me.

00:52:17.540 I think Machiavelli and the Prince has a really good answer that explains why they're doing it.

00:52:22.940 And I think at the end of the day, the answer is they are much more focused on the kind of oppression they think they deal with on a daily basis, rather than a theoretical oppression, you know, far away.

00:52:38.400 What Queers for Palestine says at some point, it's people focus much more on the person that gives them trouble on a daily basis, rather than a boss above them.

00:52:50.220 That's why in a lot of businesses, you have middle managers.

00:52:53.720 They get all the heat and people on top positions.

00:52:57.040 Everyone says it has a jolly relationship.

00:52:59.680 Almost everyone.

00:53:00.660 More people have a jolly relationship.

00:53:02.140 But I really come back to my point that these people are just dysgenic freaks.

00:53:06.700 And for millennia, the human race had a way of getting rid of these people so they didn't infect the gene pool.

00:53:12.660 But when you look at these people, right, it looks like their faces were made of wax and they've been held too close to the fire.

00:53:19.840 They've all got like melted faces.

00:53:21.380 You can tell a leftist just by looking at them like 90% of the time.

00:53:25.840 They're dysgenic freaks who should have been out of the gene pool by now.

00:53:29.860 The point is, if you're going to run a biological argument, it leads to the position that, you know, if they were like that, you can't see how much they would procreate.

00:53:40.380 But the real problem is that the left goes after schools because a lot of leftists are openly antinatalists.

00:53:49.700 That's why they go after school to contaminate people.

00:53:52.680 So you have a lot of people who don't seem biologically unfit, let's say, that fall into wokeness.

00:53:58.400 Oh, they need to recruit new kids because they're sterilizing themselves and having abortions.

00:54:04.360 Right.

00:54:05.080 Now, I want to show you some stuff from something that happened this summer that is really funny in a way,

00:54:12.500 but also indicative that the pendulum is actively swinging, but not because of something that the right wing is doing,

00:54:20.260 not because of any kind of right wing onslaught against woke,

00:54:24.480 but because of the internal contradictions of the woke camp.

00:54:28.120 Right here we have the pride's lady, Liberty.

00:54:32.360 You see her here in a bikini with a pride thing.

00:54:36.320 She also had an engraving,

00:54:38.980 give me your tired, your poor, your haddle asses yearning to breathe free.

00:54:43.240 It is perverse, though, isn't it?

00:54:51.740 That is the nature of it.

00:54:52.960 And I use that word very deliberately.

00:54:55.520 Yeah.

00:54:55.780 It's the inverse of what's true and right and good and reasonable.

00:55:01.400 Exactly.

00:55:02.060 Yeah.

00:55:02.220 We did this segment with Carl and Connor this July, late June, I think, six months ago,

00:55:10.880 Pride Gone Fuba, and we spoke about the inner clash between the pro-Palestine people

00:55:17.200 and the more LGBTQ plus people and how they basically clashed at each other in New York

00:55:25.080 and how Trudeau cancelled some of the remaining events of the Pride Parade

00:55:31.740 in order to not communicate the image that we can get along.

00:55:37.320 Right.

00:55:37.720 Because essentially what goes on is that the left has tried to present itself

00:55:42.680 as the protector of a lot of groups that are incredibly inconsistent

00:55:47.900 and incompatible with each other.

00:55:49.600 And every time that these incompatibilities become visible, they are blaming the far right.

00:55:57.000 They're blaming the people and their opponents.

00:56:01.940 But what happened there was essentially that they come across their incompatible ways

00:56:08.620 to view the world because fundamentally, I think on a temperamental level,

00:56:12.380 a lot of people on the LGBTQ thing, at least the LGB,

00:56:17.060 some of them, they want to have fun in whatever way they,

00:56:21.580 whatever we may think of how they are having fun.

00:56:24.720 Yeah, it's not my idea of fun, but they want to have fun.

00:56:27.620 And on the other hand, it's a lot of leftists who are incredibly miserable

00:56:31.220 and they say you aren't allowed to have fun.

00:56:33.900 You constantly have to find a place on earth that is something terrible is going to happen.

00:56:39.040 Focus on that.

00:56:39.880 And you're a bad person.

00:56:41.440 So all of these contradictions are going to be visible.

00:56:45.960 And the main reason why the left is taking the LGBTQ angle behind of the woke

00:56:54.960 is because they're approaching now the pro-Palestine crowd more,

00:56:59.240 the Islamist crowd more, and the Islamist crowd isn't happy with this.

00:57:02.340 It is interesting, isn't it, the, how do you say it, it's not the right term,

00:57:06.180 but like the stack of victimhood.

00:57:08.320 Yeah.

00:57:09.260 When push comes to shove, at least in that example,

00:57:12.300 Trudeau went with the Islamists over the homosexuals.

00:57:16.140 Yeah.

00:57:16.500 They always seem to win, don't they?

00:57:17.740 Yeah.

00:57:19.240 Well, I remember one time when the, I can't remember if it was Batley,

00:57:21.660 there was some school, wasn't there,

00:57:23.220 I think it might have even been in Jess Phillips's constituency

00:57:26.080 where there was Islamists complaining that gay things were being taught

00:57:30.420 in their schools and they kept protesting outside this one particular school.

00:57:33.820 Do you remember that a year or two ago?

00:57:36.160 And I think it might even have been Jess Phillips, I can't remember,

00:57:39.520 but I think whoever it was in the Labour Party actually sided with the school,

00:57:43.120 i.e. the pro-gay lobby, at least for a while.

00:57:46.740 But usually it's the other way around.

00:57:47.940 Usually it's exactly, they'll just capitulate to the pro-Palestine types.

00:57:51.440 The whole victimhood hierarchy thing.

00:57:53.920 And just throw the pride people under the bus, yeah.

00:57:56.080 Or if it comes to feminism versus black supremacy or something,

00:58:00.880 they'll just throw the feminism under the bus or whatever it is.

00:58:05.660 Yeah.

00:58:06.040 I wonder if and when it comes to a showdown between Islamism

00:58:09.180 and black supremacy, what the white liberal guilt brigade...

00:58:15.020 I think it has to go with Islam.

00:58:16.660 I don't know.

00:58:17.180 I suppose it has to, yeah.

00:58:18.540 Because they're terrified of any sort of retribution.

00:58:20.880 Yes.

00:58:21.160 And the retribution will be more forthcoming, I would have thought, from them.

00:58:24.200 So, I mean...

00:58:26.200 Samson, could we type gender-neutral prayer room?

00:58:29.960 Because that's also very relevant.

00:58:32.480 That was from the Democratic National Convention of 2024.

00:58:36.780 Yes, gender-neutral prayer room.

00:58:39.880 That was just madness.

00:58:40.880 Yes.

00:58:44.700 Yep.

00:58:45.980 They had...

00:58:47.260 Y-E-R.

00:58:48.760 Yeah, Y-E-R.

00:58:54.340 Yeah, that's amazing.

00:58:56.520 This shows a lot of, you know, what you want to...

00:58:59.260 Let's see that there's no issue with sound.

00:59:00.980 They had gender-neutral prayer room.

00:59:07.380 I don't know.

00:59:08.240 I just think that in the other...

00:59:10.980 In that religion, men and women don't pray together.

00:59:14.080 Oh, yeah, no.

00:59:14.420 It's very explicit.

00:59:15.320 Yeah, so what are they doing there?

00:59:18.240 Hang on.

00:59:19.080 Because this is because the mosques, you get divided into halves, don't you?

00:59:23.260 One for men and one for women.

00:59:24.440 So if you're neither man nor woman, you need a special little room.

00:59:28.300 Yes.

00:59:28.620 I see.

00:59:29.840 Okay, got it.

00:59:30.520 Right.

00:59:30.820 If you ask the actual thought leaders or religious leaders in Saudi Arabia, in Mecca,

00:59:37.080 what they think about a gender-neutral prayer room,

00:59:39.140 I think they've probably got some quite specific ideas about that.

00:59:42.780 So we come down to the question of whether the woke will be eradicated or not.

00:59:47.780 I think ultimately it doesn't rest upon the right wing, my personal opinion.

00:59:54.640 Trump may try to do some things.

00:59:56.560 A lot of businesses are rolling back their DEI programs, but there are several things

01:00:02.960 to bear in mind that wokeness is an incredibly powerful tool for contemporary mass politics

01:00:12.480 because it's one of the best ways of artificially carving out the population, creating groups

01:00:19.220 where there aren't, and trying to appeal to them, try to tell them they're victimized,

01:00:23.820 try to pose as the liberators, and I think that this is cut out for mass politics.

01:00:28.680 It's a bit more complex than that, but I also want to remember people something that is incredibly terrifying.

01:00:34.740 We constantly talk about how wokeness has been eradicated or not, and I don't think it will.

01:00:40.040 So let's just bear in mind that Trump had one of the most iconic campaigns in history.

01:00:46.140 I think some of the images are incredibly iconic, especially when he survived the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.

01:00:54.780 And Kamala Harris had literally the worst campaign, one of the worst campaign,

01:00:59.740 and she didn't lose by a landslide, and also the votes and popular votes is just 2.3 million votes.

01:01:09.780 So just imagine what kind of world we would be living in if she had a better campaign manager.

01:01:16.600 Imagine if they let 10 million people in over the southern border over the last few years,

01:01:22.060 and then those people find their way onto the electoral register.

01:01:24.760 Yes, that's why I think that it isn't going to go away.

01:01:27.840 We're going to see it back with a vengeance.

01:01:29.380 I don't want Woke to go anywhere.

01:01:31.140 I want the next election to be AOC versus J.D. Vance or whatever.

01:01:35.520 But the main question is whether they are going to be stepped aside by the pro-Islamist crowd.

01:01:43.620 That doesn't want them. That's another...

01:01:45.300 It's actually a really good point you make, because everyone was talking about how the full-spectrum dominance of Trump,

01:01:50.340 which is obviously true to some degree, winning the presidency, the Congress and the Senate,

01:01:55.760 and all that sort of thing, and the popular vote and all that sort of thing.

01:01:57.640 But as you say, it wasn't really a true landslide, was it?

01:02:00.780 I mean, only two and a bit, three-odd million votes.

01:02:05.760 I wouldn't call that a landslide.

01:02:07.240 It's a good victory, a nice solid victory.

01:02:09.280 Yeah, yeah.

01:02:09.760 But still, 75 million people voted for Kamala.

01:02:12.460 I mean, if you say, it's lucky Kamala didn't have a good campaign manager,

01:02:16.160 what if it was the other way around?

01:02:17.040 What if it wasn't Trump and the Republicans put up somebody like a Bob Dole-type figure

01:02:21.960 that no one liked or could get enthusiastic about, and she nipped it?

01:02:26.400 Yeah.

01:02:26.680 It could have happened.

01:02:27.580 We could be on that timeline quite easily.

01:02:29.580 Yeah.

01:02:29.800 That's why I think vigilance is required, and voices that say that wokeness is dead are premature.

01:02:36.160 Right.

01:02:36.380 Let's go to the comments here.

01:02:38.960 That's a random name.

01:02:40.100 Dan's comment about leftoids being unfit for spreading their genes is gigabased.

01:02:47.800 Sigil Stone says, I'm disappointed.

01:02:49.880 The wokeness collage didn't include Anita Sarkeesian's everything is racist,

01:02:54.260 everything is sexist, everything is homophobic, and you have to point it all out.

01:02:58.060 I mean, literally, there is endless material to pull out.

01:03:02.440 Obviously, most of what is iconic, we haven't included in the segment.

01:03:06.880 Ryan Hinnigan, quiz for Palestine, are based.

01:03:11.560 Let me check this before I say this.

01:03:15.560 Yeah, Muslims believe they're losing and that they are being ignored because they're being...

01:03:22.200 Anyway, I won't risk it.

01:03:24.900 Bolly Saka, one of the most iconic images of the woke era,

01:03:29.120 is of the BLM crowd surrounding Dinah Lauren Victor at a restaurant

01:03:33.340 and trying to force her to raise her fist in solidarity, cultural revolution vibes.

01:03:38.200 Beard, BRO, content suggestion for Dan.

01:03:41.720 The film, The Big Short, and the book, The Bitcoin, standard.

01:03:45.960 Right.

01:03:47.200 I think we should go to do the third segment and then maybe go back to them.

01:03:52.680 Just quickly before we start.

01:03:53.900 Dan, didn't you do a bit of content about The Big Short?

01:03:56.780 I did one on Margin Call, which I think is a better film, but I might do The Big Short as well.

01:04:02.520 Before we start, Samson, would we have two, three more, a few extra minutes?

01:04:07.400 Yeah?

01:04:07.800 Excellent.

01:04:08.200 Okay, we have time.

01:04:09.360 All right.

01:04:10.540 Well, I think we need to talk a little bit about Saturn.

01:04:14.120 Can we talk a little bit about Saturn, guys?

01:04:16.000 Yeah, I like Saturn.

01:04:17.460 I like Saturn.

01:04:18.380 I like space stuff.

01:04:19.420 Well, today is the 20th anniversary since the Huygens lander landed on Titan, which is

01:04:26.820 a moon of Saturn.

01:04:28.080 Yes.

01:04:28.340 It's 20 years ago today.

01:04:29.940 So I thought we could spend a moment or two just remembering that.

01:04:33.060 And they've got another one coming up in a few years as well.

01:04:34.740 Yeah, yeah.

01:04:35.800 Because I think it is, I consider it, among the most remarkable achievements, engineering

01:04:42.680 achievements, mankind has ever done.

01:04:45.320 I think it's one of, if not the most remarkable NASA mission there ever was.

01:04:49.340 I find it more remarkable in all sorts of ways than the Apollo program.

01:04:53.640 Well, this one actually happened.

01:04:55.600 So that is a big plus straight away.

01:04:57.620 Yeah, right.

01:04:58.820 You believe in this one?

01:05:00.260 Yes.

01:05:00.900 Okay.

01:05:02.040 Because I remember it happening at the time.

01:05:03.420 I was already in my early 20s, mid-20s at the time.

01:05:06.960 And I was just sort of blown away by it.

01:05:08.880 And seeing as it was 20 years ago today.

01:05:10.600 And, you know, I'm on a one-man mission here at Lotus Eaters to rescue us from full slop

01:05:16.160 status.

01:05:16.960 So with my history and space-themed content, hopefully I'll draw us back from the very brink

01:05:24.180 of...

01:05:24.620 And Titan is a really interesting place as well.

01:05:26.940 Because we get sucked into talking about planets.

01:05:30.040 It's really if we talk about worlds, because moons are just as viable.

01:05:33.380 And after Earth, Titan is easily the most interesting world in our solar system.

01:05:37.540 Titan is unique in all sorts of ways.

01:05:39.520 For a start, it's massive.

01:05:40.580 It's a giant moon.

01:05:41.580 It's bigger than Mercury, for example.

01:05:44.320 Yeah.

01:05:44.660 It's the only other place other than the Earth in the solar system with a permanent, thick

01:05:48.880 atmosphere.

01:05:49.780 There are other places with tiny, tiny, gossamer-thin atmospheres.

01:05:52.840 But Titan's atmosphere is even thicker than Earth's atmosphere.

01:05:55.200 It's about five times the thickness of Earth's atmosphere.

01:05:57.980 It's completely covered in an atmosphere.

01:05:59.940 One of the reasons why it was so mysterious is because a lot of the moons, we can just

01:06:04.000 like our moon, we can just see the surface of it.

01:06:07.540 But you can't see the surface of Titan, so it was always a complete mystery to us.

01:06:11.540 So NASA sent up the Cassini-Huygens mission.

01:06:17.440 So Cassini was the overall probe, and it had a lander on it called Huygens.

01:06:23.440 These are named after 18th century astronomers, mathematicians, polymaths, whatever you want

01:06:30.280 to call them, Giovanni Cassini and Christian Huygens, who both studied Saturn.

01:06:40.680 I mean, I think it was, I'm pretty sure it was Huygens that discovered Titan.

01:06:44.160 So the Huygens lander is aptly named.

01:06:47.280 So, okay, can we play, oh, I can play it, play the first little thing if we have the

01:06:53.320 audio off.

01:06:54.500 Elliptical orbit over the planet's poles and daringly through gaps in the...

01:06:59.560 We'll just let this play while we're talking.

01:07:02.520 Yeah, again, heads up to people, this segment is going to be a lot better if you're actually

01:07:06.600 watching it rather than listening to it, because I've got all sorts of images and things.

01:07:09.520 So Saturn is probably my favourite planet.

01:07:13.120 I'm absolutely fascinated by, well, all of it, but I'm fascinated by the Sun, by Mars

01:07:18.420 and by Saturn and the Saturnian system, and for obviously all sorts of different reasons.

01:07:23.200 But Saturn, a lot of people say, a lot of people like Saturn.

01:07:25.820 It's like considered the jewel of, that's Enceladus, the jewel of the solar system.

01:07:31.080 If Jupiter is sort of the king, Saturn is in all sorts of ways the jewel, because it's

01:07:36.980 very, very beautiful in all sorts of ways.

01:07:39.520 At least of all, it's ring system.

01:07:43.220 But it's got many, many moons, as Jupiter has.

01:07:45.880 I mean, so many that we just keep adding to the number of them all the time.

01:07:50.540 Depends what you really classify as a moon, even.

01:07:53.860 Some say that Saturn's got as many as 80 moons plus.

01:07:57.540 Others say it's more like 140-odd.

01:07:59.440 The reality is...

01:08:01.420 A few big ones, though, really no doubt.

01:08:03.080 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:08:04.360 Eight or so very big ones.

01:08:06.040 Again, it depends how you measure it, how you count it.

01:08:07.760 What ones do you count as big ones?

01:08:10.940 That's Enceladus as well.

01:08:13.300 So I thought we could just take a look at it.

01:08:16.600 I think that that was the orbit of when Cassini finally...

01:08:21.880 Because it orbited Saturn for like 13-odd years, and at the very end of those 13 years, plunged

01:08:28.400 into Saturn itself.

01:08:32.780 So there you go.

01:08:34.120 These are all real images as well.

01:08:35.240 The thing about that probe is while they're going round and around, you can probably see

01:08:38.900 from the graphic before, they basically went through the ring.

01:08:41.800 Between Saturn and the rings, eventually, yeah.

01:08:44.340 Actually, in...

01:08:45.140 Well, no, a number of times, they just went through the ring.

01:08:48.300 Well...

01:08:48.860 And you'd think that that would be impossible because it looks like a solid disc, but actually,

01:08:54.000 up close, there's massive distances between anything actually in that ring.

01:08:58.360 Yeah.

01:08:58.680 And the probability of hitting anything as you go through is virtually non-existent.

01:09:03.420 I don't think it actually went through any of the rings because it would be travelling

01:09:07.840 too fast.

01:09:08.220 Even sort of a micro-collision would be enough to...

01:09:10.980 Oh, but those rings are a lot less dense than you think.

01:09:13.060 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:09:16.200 Yeah, I just...

01:09:17.560 I'm always blown away by the images, especially the very good ones by Hubble or even JWST

01:09:23.460 or the images that Cassini sent back.

01:09:27.080 Just absolutely, absolutely fascinated by it.

01:09:30.320 So let's go to the next link.

01:09:31.860 I'll let Samson do this.

01:09:32.620 Can you go to the next link?

01:09:34.760 Just some pictures of Saturn.

01:09:37.340 And now the ring system is temporary.

01:09:43.880 Yeah.

01:09:43.960 It may be there for hundreds of thousands of years or even a million year or two, something

01:09:47.820 like that.

01:09:48.220 But we're actually lucky to be alive at the time when Saturn has rings, at least rings

01:09:54.260 as pronounced as that.

01:09:55.720 The two big features of the solar system, one is the eye on Jupiter, that's temporary,

01:10:00.860 that will probably be gone in 50 to 70 years, it's just a storm, and the rings as well, that

01:10:06.340 will just collapse down into a series of moons.

01:10:08.240 Eventually, yeah.

01:10:09.260 Eventually.

01:10:09.820 Although Uranus has a bit of a ring.

01:10:12.520 Yeah, Jupiter's got a ring.

01:10:13.680 Yeah.

01:10:14.000 But the Uranus one keeps on solidifying and then breaking up again.

01:10:18.840 You smirking at Uranus.

01:10:19.340 It's just the word ring, it's just funny.

01:10:21.180 Yeah, yeah.

01:10:25.800 Okay, yeah, so I mean, those, if you go to the next link, or next few links, just images,

01:10:32.040 I mean, what an incredible thing.

01:10:35.580 So at the North Pole there, that hexagon-shaped sort of permanent storm, when we first got decent

01:10:42.640 images of it, people thought that was sort of, you know, crazy types think it's some sort

01:10:47.560 of portal to another world or whatever, but it turns out that it is just a matter of physics.

01:10:53.480 If you have a round container, and the viscosity of the thing, the thickness of the medium is

01:11:02.840 particularly right, and you spin the centre at a particular speed, and the outside of it

01:11:07.520 isn't spinning anywhere near as fast, then you will end up with that hexagon-shaped thing.

01:11:12.860 They've done that in the lab, so it's not sort of crazy or unexplainable, that is just

01:11:19.340 physics.

01:11:20.260 There you go, that's the auroras, you do have aurora on Saturn, so that's sort of the solar

01:11:25.900 wind skipping off the top of Saturn there, and the bottom.

01:11:34.000 That's it in the infrared.

01:11:36.440 That's where the spaceship opens up.

01:11:39.560 Is that the pride version of Saturn?

01:11:41.940 Saturn in June.

01:11:47.300 It's beautiful really, isn't it?

01:11:48.460 That's the James Webb image.

01:11:52.580 Now, the winds are particularly fast, not as fast as Neptune, but the winds, it looks

01:11:57.680 like, you know, sort of it's a gas giant, and you think it looks quite sedate, but actually

01:12:03.840 the winds there are sort of 1,500, 1,800, 1,900 miles per hour, or is it kilometers an hour?

01:12:09.200 Winds whipping through Saturn.

01:12:12.360 I mean, that also has sometimes giant storms, like on Jupiter.

01:12:15.640 That sounds worse than Poseidon, than Neptune, I think.

01:12:19.780 I read somewhere there that we had 400 kilometers per hour winds, and that it's one of the worst

01:12:26.640 in the solar system.

01:12:27.560 Is that what?

01:12:28.320 Let me...

01:12:28.640 It's much worse than Earth.

01:12:29.920 Okay.

01:12:30.700 Neptune is the worst.

01:12:32.200 Neptune is sort of a true hellscape.

01:12:34.280 The winds on Neptune are ridiculous.

01:12:37.600 Saturn's not quite as bad.

01:12:39.640 Saturn could be a future superpower of the solar system, because Jupiter's got a lot of

01:12:45.480 moons around it, but it's just a shed tonne of radiation, which doesn't make it fun.

01:12:49.800 Whereas Saturn is actually quite stable, so you could set up in the moons around it like

01:12:53.940 Titan.

01:12:54.640 But also, the upper atmosphere of Saturn is really rich and helium-free, which you want

01:12:59.020 for nuclear fusion.

01:12:59.860 So it's a very viable place.

01:13:02.160 In fact, I say more when we come onto Titan, but you've got loads of hydrocarbons and other

01:13:06.660 stuff that you need for colony building as well.

01:13:08.900 It says about 500 miles per hour near its equator, its winds, in Saturn.

01:13:15.580 That's fast.

01:13:16.500 That's a fast wind.

01:13:17.520 I thought it was much faster than that.

01:13:19.100 I thought it was two or three times faster than that.

01:13:20.840 Maybe that's you.

01:13:21.500 Just provisional.

01:13:22.780 Maybe.

01:13:23.000 They say 1,100 meters per second.

01:13:27.460 Maybe that...

01:13:27.860 So either way, if there were a surface, if you stood on it, it would be hellacious compared

01:13:36.180 to Earth conditions.

01:13:37.660 But yeah, so there's the rings.

01:13:38.800 You can see the sort of shadows in it.

01:13:40.160 It's sort of...

01:13:40.620 The ring system is sort of almost impossibly delicate and intricate, isn't it?

01:13:48.560 And you have various moons sort of within it.

01:13:51.320 Some of the swept out areas, because moons, or even shepherd moons, they sometimes call

01:13:57.260 them, are sort of inside the ring system.

01:14:01.720 Do you know how many Earths...

01:14:02.860 You can see sort of one of the moons there sort of sweeping out Earth.

01:14:05.740 Sorry, go ahead.

01:14:06.480 How many Earths would fit there?

01:14:10.540 I think isn't...

01:14:11.520 Just that we're really tiny in comparison to Saturn.

01:14:14.720 I know the Earth would fit easily inside that hexagon-shaped storm on the North Pole, easily.

01:14:19.820 Oh, you get several in there.

01:14:20.720 Yeah.

01:14:21.500 Although, interesting.

01:14:22.440 Okay, so Earth is the densest planet in the solar system, and Saturn is the least dense

01:14:27.560 planet in the solar system, down to the point where as if you had a bath big enough, Saturn

01:14:31.800 would actually float in it.

01:14:32.900 It's very undense.

01:14:34.420 But the reason that's interesting is if you were...

01:14:36.120 And this would be a long way in the future.

01:14:37.340 If you were to build a shell around the outside of Saturn, even though it is heavier than

01:14:41.720 Earth, because it's greater volume, on the outside of that shell, you'd have the same

01:14:46.080 gravity as you have on Earth.

01:14:48.500 That's very interesting.

01:14:49.440 Yeah.

01:14:50.000 So actually, in the far future, we could build a shell around it and have like a massive

01:14:55.520 Earth with like normal gravity.

01:14:57.180 That would be good.

01:15:00.200 Like, the thing...

01:15:01.520 Just pause on that one for a moment.

01:15:02.760 The thing that blows my mind is that...

01:15:04.380 I mean, these are real images.

01:15:05.420 These aren't sort of artists' impressions.

01:15:08.220 And I know it's really obvious to say it, but when you sort of ponder for a moment

01:15:12.540 or dwell or muse on the fact that that's really there, like now, as we speak, that's

01:15:17.840 there now, and that's real, it's sort of easy to forget, or it's sort of abstract.

01:15:25.640 You think, oh yeah, that's just something that is so distant and so remote that it may

01:15:30.640 as well be a fiction, but it's really there.

01:15:34.880 I don't know.

01:15:35.280 I think men have always been fascinated by the rings of Saturn.

01:15:38.880 Wisdom begins in wonder.

01:15:41.440 Yeah.

01:15:42.160 Who said that?

01:15:43.180 I think Aristotle.

01:15:44.160 Is it?

01:15:44.600 Yeah.

01:15:44.880 That's a good one.

01:15:46.400 That's a good one.

01:15:47.040 Yeah, so the moons.

01:15:51.680 The moons, if we move on to sort of the moons, well, there's a close-up of it.

01:15:56.320 You can see, oh, there you can see a shepherd moon.

01:15:59.420 I don't know whether it's, there's one called Prometheus, there's one called Pan.

01:16:03.040 Well, there's a few dozen of them.

01:16:04.700 You can see it sort of causes a ripple.

01:16:06.960 Can you go back to that image, actually, Samson?

01:16:08.760 You can see that it sort of, not only has sort of swept out a clean bit in the rings, where

01:16:14.440 it's gone round and round billions of times, but it's also, it's gravitational effect on

01:16:18.420 the ring itself, right near it, sort of causing a type of ripple as it goes along.

01:16:23.540 So, yeah, we've already said that those, the rings of Saturn will eventually be gone or

01:16:28.840 disappear, but they're also a dynamic thing.

01:16:31.360 They're not sort of static at all.

01:16:35.720 And in fact, they affect those smaller moons.

01:16:40.840 And, of course, those moons affect the rings themselves, but there you go.

01:16:45.660 There's so much to say.

01:16:46.360 God, I've only got a few minutes, a few minutes left.

01:16:48.580 Got so much.

01:16:49.240 Go to the next one.

01:16:51.520 Does they play that at a particular point?

01:16:54.520 I think I asked that one to be teed up at a particular point.

01:16:57.300 We ought to cover Titan as well, because Titan's...

01:16:59.200 Yeah, yeah, we'll get to Huygens itself.

01:17:04.940 Well, anyway, there was a clip in, I love Astrum.

01:17:07.980 This is one of my favourite space channels, Astrum.

01:17:12.600 There was a bit in that where it showed a little bit of footage of one of the shepherd moons,

01:17:17.960 sort of where it's orbit is slightly elliptical, coming closer and further away, slightly from

01:17:22.860 one of the rings and showing the sort of ripple effect it has on the ring.

01:17:26.480 But anyway, if anyone's interested, you can go and sort of find that for yourself.

01:17:32.640 Okay, so Enceladus.

01:17:36.320 Enceladus is absolutely fascinating to me.

01:17:39.080 Along with Europa, it might be one of the places in the solar system where there's...

01:17:42.760 Well, not might be.

01:17:44.440 There is a subsurface water ocean underneath there.

01:17:48.740 And there might be aliens in that ocean, possibly.

01:17:54.220 In fact, I think a lot of scientists suspect that Enceladus is going to be more likely,

01:17:59.700 a better place to find life than even Europa.

01:18:02.520 But Enceladus is so much further away, so much more remote.

01:18:06.440 Well, actually, there could well be life on Titan as well.

01:18:09.840 Not very...

01:18:10.520 It could be microbial, maybe, maybe.

01:18:12.820 Yeah, it's...

01:18:13.360 Microbial.

01:18:13.860 Because they've got these lakes of methane.

01:18:15.860 Yeah.

01:18:16.600 And they...

01:18:17.160 I was leaving Titan.

01:18:18.260 Okay, all right.

01:18:18.860 So here are some of the...

01:18:20.160 Well, that's Prometheus as well.

01:18:21.500 A pan.

01:18:22.100 Earlier, there was one called pan, where it's a very, very odd shape.

01:18:25.500 Where it's going through the ring system and sort of getting all around its equator, effectively,

01:18:35.300 like a giant build-up.

01:18:37.980 But, okay, go to the next link entirely, if you would.

01:18:42.740 So there it is.

01:18:44.080 There's Cassini and Huygens there, whilst it was...

01:18:46.500 So it gives you an idea of the scale.

01:18:52.020 There it is again.

01:18:55.500 It's just quite a remarkable thing.

01:18:57.380 I mean, people give NASA a bunch of crap, but they've done a few things that have been

01:19:02.140 absolutely remarkable, in my opinion.

01:19:06.040 Yeah.

01:19:06.780 Yeah, is that pan again?

01:19:09.540 Anyway, some extremely odd-shaped bodies in the Saturnian system.

01:19:17.340 Keep going forward.

01:19:20.440 What's that one called?

01:19:21.640 I can't remember what that one's called, but that is obviously...

01:19:24.520 It looks like some sort of pumice stone, doesn't it?

01:19:28.400 It looks like a sponge.

01:19:30.440 Yeah.

01:19:31.240 Or maybe not.

01:19:32.620 Yeah.

01:19:33.920 Oh, Hyperion.

01:19:34.740 That one's called Hyperion.

01:19:36.320 That's Rhea.

01:19:41.120 Obviously heavily cratered.

01:19:42.280 That's Ancelis.

01:19:43.060 The thing about Ancelis I was starting to talk about was the idea that underneath the crust

01:19:48.020 is an ocean of water.

01:19:50.580 And we know that because there's sort of outpluming sort of, not cryovocanus, but just, we can see

01:19:57.680 that it blasts out giant plumes.

01:20:01.460 And I think Cassini even passed through those plumes and was able to, quote unquote, taste

01:20:06.760 them to tell that it is in fact water.

01:20:09.640 So if and when we get to Europa and find out that the ocean is completely dead, not all

01:20:16.720 is lost.

01:20:17.600 We've still got Enceladus.

01:20:20.100 There you go.

01:20:20.440 There's an incredible image of the water spouts, mainly around the South Pole of Enceladus.

01:20:27.600 I mean, again, that's a real image.

01:20:29.380 That's real.

01:20:30.160 That's happening now.

01:20:32.920 It's out there now.

01:20:33.640 Blows my mind.

01:20:36.760 And that's sort of an idea that it might be hydrothermal vents.

01:20:38.900 Exactly like on Europa.

01:20:45.400 Okay, that's Iapetus.

01:20:47.580 Iapetus, arguably one of the strangest objects in the whole solar system, Iapetus.

01:20:51.440 Look how the color difference between, well, in the 2001 A Space Odyssey, in the film, they

01:20:58.120 make it that they're going to Jupiter.

01:20:59.420 But in the book, the original Arthur C. Clarke book, they go to Saturn.

01:21:05.080 And the big monolith thing is on Iapetus.

01:21:12.020 For some reason, well, there are reasons, but they decided for the film, they'll just

01:21:16.600 make it about Jupiter instead.

01:21:18.720 And you can see that around its equator, that ridge, that strange sort of enigmatic ridge.

01:21:25.380 There's a few different ideas of why that is, why it looks like that, but we don't know

01:21:30.640 completely there's a better view of it, really.

01:21:32.720 And it is massive.

01:21:33.380 I think that's like 10, 12 miles higher, that mountain range, that ridge, running sort of

01:21:39.600 perfectly nearly all the way around the equator.

01:21:43.900 There you go.

01:21:44.600 What an odd thing.

01:21:45.580 Those are mountains that are bigger than Everest.

01:21:48.880 Because on smaller worlds, you can have bigger mountains, can't you?

01:21:53.040 Well, less gravity, so there's not so much force pulling it down.

01:21:57.000 Exactly.

01:21:57.400 You can only have a finite height of mountains, depending on how big or how strong your gravity

01:22:02.260 is on whatever body it is.

01:22:03.900 Play this.

01:22:04.400 We don't need the sound, but play this.

01:22:07.220 And this is the Huygens probe that they landed on Titan.

01:22:15.380 So Titan's the biggest moon by a long way of Saturn.

01:22:19.560 It's a particularly large moon.

01:22:20.560 Well, as you say, it's probably better to call it a world, right?

01:22:23.880 It's not a planet, but it's a world in its own right, with a hard, rocky surface.

01:22:29.240 And as you said, lots and lots of hydrocarbons.

01:22:31.860 Well, giant lakes, seas even, of liquid methane on the surface.

01:22:36.180 It's the only other place in the solar system you can have a barbecue.

01:22:39.540 The difference is on Earth you need to supply the fuel, whereas on Titan you've got lumps

01:22:43.940 of methane set around all over the place.

01:22:45.500 On Titan you supply the oxygen.

01:22:47.060 But it's still the only other place on the Earth, on the solar system, you can do that.

01:22:50.600 I should say, you want to be quite careful lighting a Zippo standing next to an ocean of methane.

01:22:56.940 Actually, without oxygen, yeah, anyway.

01:22:58.920 So again, these are real images of another world.

01:23:04.780 That is the surface of Titan.

01:23:07.580 20 years ago today.

01:23:08.780 That's why I'm talking about all this today, because it is the anniversary.

01:23:10.940 A remarkable, and you can see that over there's been geological processes going on.

01:23:20.420 Obviously, not sort of the water cycle that we have on Earth, but it'll be sort of a methane cycle.

01:23:24.060 It rains methane, clouds of methane.

01:23:26.880 And over the eons, it's carved out valleys and canyons and estuaries.

01:23:33.560 And mind-blowing.

01:23:34.820 There is still a lot of water ice locked in the crust as well.

01:23:39.820 So this makes it a really good candidate for colonisation.

01:23:43.180 Because, I mean, for a start, even now, you can go outside on Titan with a very warm winter jacket.

01:23:49.340 You need an oxygen mask and a very warm winter jacket, but it is doable.

01:23:53.600 No, you can.

01:23:54.560 I think it's like 180 degrees Celsius below.

01:23:56.860 It's minus 180.

01:23:58.640 Yeah.

01:23:59.040 But it depends on the wind speed, really, as to how, but, I mean, with a really good Arctic jacket and an oxygen mask, you can do it.

01:24:06.480 You'd probably be better off for something a little bit more.

01:24:09.860 Minus 390 Fahrenheit.

01:24:11.240 I'd want more than a warm winter jacket.

01:24:14.700 A good scarf.

01:24:15.720 Yeah, but you're not Scottish.

01:24:16.680 You could get around.

01:24:18.780 Well, the other really fascinating thing I found about Titan is that you can fly on it.

01:24:23.800 Because, you know, I mentioned that the atmosphere is five times stronger, but the gravity is about seven times less.

01:24:30.720 So the average human can jump from a standing star about 1.5 feet in the air.

01:24:36.840 So the average human, we're going to jump 11 and a half feet in the air on Titan.

01:24:41.480 So the atmosphere is stronger and the gravity is lower.

01:24:44.340 So what that means is if you've got a proper, you know, a pair of, like, wings or something.

01:24:48.500 Icarus wings.

01:24:49.180 Yeah.

01:24:49.300 You could actually fly on Titan.

01:24:51.660 And even without the Icarus wings, just with your arms, a human would probably better fly about as well as a chicken can fly on Earth.

01:24:58.940 That's not bad.

01:24:59.540 I'd take that.

01:24:59.980 A bit of a leap and a flap.

01:25:01.920 I'd take that.

01:25:02.880 Yeah.

01:25:03.380 And there you go.

01:25:04.140 That's the surface.

01:25:06.020 That is the surface of Titan.

01:25:08.120 A real image.

01:25:10.020 It needs to be in HD, though, doesn't it?

01:25:11.460 Yeah.

01:25:12.020 I mean, it was 2005.

01:25:13.000 You see a shadow flitter across the ground in a moment, I believe.

01:25:17.780 And that is the shadow of the giant parachute as it was sort of abandoned and flew away.

01:25:27.380 But there you go.

01:25:29.060 I would love to talk a lot more about this.

01:25:31.300 There's loads more I could say.

01:25:32.060 There's loads more I've had to say, but I've run out of time.

01:25:34.260 There can be a follow-up segment at some point.

01:25:37.640 I just think it's worth remembering the Cassini-Huygens mission 20 years ago today when Huygens landed on Titan.

01:25:46.020 Right.

01:25:47.700 Let's go to the comments.

01:25:51.980 Right.

01:25:52.280 We have Dragon Lady Chris.

01:25:53.820 Don't listen to Windy.

01:25:55.320 You look just fine, Bo.

01:25:57.340 What?

01:25:58.520 Someone?

01:25:58.860 Oh.

01:25:59.360 Sigil Stone.

01:26:00.100 Pop.

01:26:00.480 17.

01:26:02.200 We could sell Uranus if we could do about the wind.

01:26:07.420 We just need a way for Uranus to break wind.

01:26:11.640 A Uranus joke.

01:26:13.200 Yep.

01:26:14.680 Windy Hill House.

01:26:15.800 On behalf of the ladies, Bo, you're doing a disservice to that Chad jawline by covering it with that much beard.

01:26:22.360 Oh, right.

01:26:23.320 Oh, there you go.

01:26:23.800 That was the pop you were looking for.

01:26:25.040 Oh, right.

01:26:25.520 Which wasn't at all.

01:26:27.000 Right.

01:26:27.520 So, manly beard or Chad jawline.

01:26:30.880 Either way.

01:26:31.680 Yeah.

01:26:32.020 Ryan Hinnigan, other fun space news for Dan last week in Japanese satellite Akatsuki just released the clearest picture of Venus so far.

01:26:41.180 And Bolli Saka, I'm surprised there hasn't been a serious effort by the race communists to decolonize the solar system by changing the Eurocentric Greco-Roman planetary nomenclature.

01:26:54.400 I believe they've done something like this.

01:26:56.520 If you check astrophysics is racist, you will find some people who say that the astrophysical departments are just full of racism.

01:27:05.300 And before we play the, sorry.

01:27:08.340 I was just going to say one other thing on that is that new things, new bodies that get found these days, quite often they're given like names from sort of Polynesian mythology or something.

01:27:19.100 Yeah.

01:27:19.620 Or from sort of African mythology type names rather than purely Greco-Roman these days, you know.

01:27:27.200 So they're already doing it.

01:27:28.980 This is to recognize the Africans' contribution to the space project, I'd imagine.

01:27:32.480 And also, just before we play the videos really quickly, I want to apologize to the audience if they had the impression that we are going to talk about images that are the most representative of all the woke era and the most historic.

01:27:46.080 That wasn't the thing.

01:27:49.760 If it was a miscommunication, I see a lot of you are complaining about the several historical ones not being included.

01:27:58.160 Apologies for this.

01:27:59.020 This is my fault.

01:28:00.480 No apologies necessary.

01:28:01.580 It's okay.

01:28:02.740 I want to be upfront with it.

01:28:04.900 C.G. Cooper.

01:28:07.080 Hey guys, I recently re-watched the movie Hook with Robin Williams and I think it needs a data analysis.

01:28:15.100 So maybe you could do that for your next lad's hour.

01:28:19.700 By the way, Bo, how are your books coming?

01:28:22.880 I'm still waiting, dude.

01:28:25.600 Well, to answer that, you will be waiting quite a lot longer, I'm afraid.

01:28:30.080 But I did do a fair bit of work over Christmas and New Year on it.

01:28:33.980 I'm trying to do two at the same time.

01:28:35.800 I should just abandon one and concentrate on the other.

01:28:38.200 But it is still a work in progress.

01:28:40.340 I am still working on it and I think about it all the time and have done quite a few thousand words over the Christmas and New Year period.

01:28:46.480 But before I send it to you or anything like that, I want it to be sort of more or less completely polished, finished, well not finished product because the people that edit it will have lots to say, I'm sure.

01:29:00.380 But I want it to be as polished as it can possibly be before I sort of release it to the world.

01:29:04.520 So I would expect realistically still months and months to go, maybe a year or so.

01:29:09.240 I was thinking about this just the other day.

01:29:11.020 I was thinking about Coop just the other day.

01:29:14.400 How long?

01:29:14.920 It's going to be months yet.

01:29:16.260 Months.

01:29:17.640 But I haven't abandoned the project or the idea whatsoever.

01:29:21.560 George R. R. Martin has taken 18 years to write his final book.

01:29:25.880 So don't feel under any pressure.

01:29:27.160 To write a novel length piece of fiction, which isn't complete crap, is really, really hard and time consuming.

01:29:34.780 It is, or it is for me.

01:29:35.760 You have to start with the ending, I think.

01:29:39.100 Well, you at least have to know what the ending would be.

01:29:41.160 Yeah, absolutely.

01:29:41.960 Because a lot of them just find it in the beginning.

01:29:44.140 Right, let's go to the next video comment.

01:29:46.880 The Bons or Bomber.

01:29:48.860 You hardened criminals, now they were hung, drawn and quartered.

01:29:53.620 That is to say, sir, they used to hang them up, cut them down while they were still kicking,

01:29:58.760 draw the entrails out of them with hooks, cut the body into four pieces,

01:30:04.700 and then stick their head on a pole as a deterrent.

01:30:07.640 You can't make an omelette without breaking necks.

01:30:14.520 That's Wallace and Gromit, isn't it?

01:30:15.980 Yeah, yeah.

01:30:16.440 I absolutely love it.

01:30:18.160 Some people say they really hate it.

01:30:20.480 Do they?

01:30:20.940 I absolutely love it.

01:30:22.520 No, it's brilliant.

01:30:23.060 I didn't remember it was this bass, though.

01:30:25.520 Yeah.

01:30:26.200 Or is that an AI-generated voice, I take it?

01:30:28.500 I don't know.

01:30:29.180 But no, you're not allowed to not like Wallace and Gromit.

01:30:32.580 It's brilliant.

01:30:33.140 Yeah.

01:30:34.600 Although, actually, I did see one fairly...

01:30:37.600 Because there was one just this Christmas gone, wasn't there?

01:30:39.780 And it is a little bit woke.

01:30:41.020 Like, they crowbarred brown characters into it a bit.

01:30:43.820 Right.

01:30:44.240 So that is one small criticism.

01:30:45.440 But by and large, it's great.

01:30:47.740 Yeah.

01:30:48.160 Let's go to the next comment.

01:30:49.120 So around mid-December, I tried to send the Lotus Eaters a Christmas gift care package

01:30:54.120 sort of thing to the P.O. Box.

01:30:55.560 And the USPS did say that they were able to deliver to international P.O. Boxes.

01:30:59.780 However, they did not tell me that they were going to give the package to a UK carrier

01:31:03.660 who does not deliver to P.O. Boxes.

01:31:05.600 So my package to you guys is currently just sitting in the UK.

01:31:10.020 Not quite sure what to do at this point.

01:31:11.820 I did try calling ParcelForce to see if they could still deliver it, but they weren't much

01:31:15.360 help.

01:31:15.640 So if there's anything I can do to still get this package to you guys, let me know.

01:31:19.440 So on that, first of all, thank you very much.

01:31:23.200 Secondly, we did get word from one of our back office chaps saying that we should be

01:31:29.020 receiving it tomorrow.

01:31:31.120 So we will, hopefully we are going to get it and receive it.

01:31:35.840 So just once again, thank you for sending anything in.

01:31:38.580 The Samson confirms.

01:31:40.540 The disembodied voice of the Samson says we should get it tomorrow.

01:31:44.800 Right.

01:31:45.420 Do we have any more video comments?

01:31:48.540 Okay.

01:31:48.940 So Samson, I guess we have more time for the comments.

01:31:53.140 Yes.

01:31:55.500 Great.

01:31:56.220 Okay.

01:31:57.240 Yep.

01:31:57.640 Annie Moss says, thanks for breaking down all the fallacies.

01:32:01.300 And Rachel from Accounts, Dan, enjoyed the CV fail as well as a bit about economics.

01:32:04.780 Will you be diving into the bond market in greater detail on show?

01:32:07.100 Yes.

01:32:08.040 After this, I'm going to go and film a Brokernomics, which is basically the same as a segment,

01:32:11.740 but, you know, proper detail and stuff.

01:32:15.760 Dan, is there any way to invest in inflation in the UK other than taking on debts?

01:32:21.980 Yeah.

01:32:22.420 So taking on debts and then moving it into something which isn't in the sterling is a way of doing

01:32:26.900 it.

01:32:27.160 If you've already got capital and you want to profit from it, you want to put it in something

01:32:32.460 that responds with a high alpha to inflation, which, you know, crypto and high-performing

01:32:38.340 tech stocks tend to be the best of those in the US.

01:32:41.560 So that's the way to do it.

01:32:42.380 Let me just do a couple more to be quick.

01:32:49.460 Somebody online says, your economic policies, basically, I use a stolen credit card to pay

01:32:53.840 off my credit card.

01:32:54.960 Yes, that is entirely what she's doing.

01:32:57.020 One criticism I did want to say of her, which we didn't get to in the thing, and it's a

01:33:00.140 bet I've all drawn anyone out there that has got credit card debts.

01:33:02.280 But if you've got crazy credit card debts, you're a bit of a moron.

01:33:07.540 It's crazy.

01:33:08.600 Right?

01:33:09.040 It's crazy.

01:33:09.580 Just don't...

01:33:10.980 Just stop spending money if you...

01:33:13.040 Yes.

01:33:13.480 Just don't...

01:33:13.940 Yes.

01:33:15.000 Oh, that's what the government should do as well.

01:33:16.580 They should stop spending money.

01:33:18.500 But of course they can't because it's all lefty sacred cows at this point.

01:33:21.520 Basically, never get a credit card.

01:33:23.120 But you might have to.

01:33:24.020 Okay.

01:33:24.340 But then don't max it out.

01:33:25.760 But then don't fail to pay them back.

01:33:27.980 Like, it's failure upon failure upon failure if you get into deep trouble with credit cards.

01:33:32.120 You shouldn't...

01:33:32.480 You're not good with money if you end up there.

01:33:35.660 Yeah, but for some reason, governments are allowed to operate that way, which is...

01:33:38.260 Thomas Howe says, has no one given Dan the memo to price government decisions in NHS

01:33:42.920 hours?

01:33:43.480 Yes, I've seen that Twitter site too, and I'm definitely going to be doing something on

01:33:47.360 that at some future point.

01:33:48.760 And AZDazitRat says, is she going to tax holiday trips into the UK until people can afford

01:33:53.240 those anymore?

01:33:54.000 Yes.

01:33:54.260 And then she taxed staying at home.

01:33:55.920 Yeah, right.

01:33:56.460 Right.

01:33:56.860 Dan is super duper ultra mega based.

01:33:59.220 I'm very much enjoying the podcast of the beard owners today.

01:34:03.560 We're sailors.

01:34:04.400 We need to save water.

01:34:07.040 Jordy Swordsman.

01:34:09.100 So should Slop Commander the Stelios be better named the Slopios or the Steliop?

01:34:14.020 I think I prefer the first one.

01:34:16.040 Oh, Steliop.

01:34:16.240 I like that.

01:34:17.160 That's good.

01:34:18.960 Federal Agent.

01:34:19.940 Question for the Stelios.

01:34:21.200 When are we getting Onion of Deception merch?

01:34:23.440 I've heard that some things are happening on that front.

01:34:27.940 So maybe we will.

01:34:29.440 Also, planets are like onions of deception.

01:34:32.180 The Greek word for a planet is also deceiver.

01:34:35.660 Yeah.

01:34:35.880 I forgot to ask you about that.

01:34:36.740 They're just like giant onions deceiving us.

01:34:39.960 Right.

01:34:40.080 And someone online, the current progressive stack is Muslims, trans, gays, blacks, disabled, women, men.

01:34:50.240 Whites.

01:34:51.060 Okay.

01:34:51.540 Yeah.

01:34:51.820 Whites.

01:34:52.260 Yeah.

01:34:52.520 Okay.

01:34:53.540 Right.

01:34:53.940 And do you want to get some comments?

01:34:56.880 I can read for you.

01:34:58.180 Yeah, go ahead.

01:34:58.660 Yeah.

01:34:58.780 North FC Zuma.

01:34:59.820 Here we go again.

01:35:00.620 Dan's going to try and Jupiter peel us now.

01:35:03.200 Bo is talking about Saturn.

01:35:06.160 Alpha of the Betas.

01:35:07.320 In April 2017, Cassini began a series of 22 dives between Saturn and its rings, providing unprecedented close-up views and new insights into the planet's ring system as part of the mission's grand finale,

01:35:19.300 which took place at the end of the spacecraft's operations.

01:35:22.720 It went between the rings and Saturn.

01:35:25.040 I don't think it passed through the rings themselves.

01:35:28.900 Kevin Fox.

01:35:30.500 Dan, this one actually happened.

01:35:32.780 Really, Dan?

01:35:33.620 Looked remarkably like it was filmed on the Ascension Island to me.

01:35:38.180 And last one, Arizona, there's a rat.

01:35:40.360 Here's my question.

01:35:41.140 Will Pluto forever stay a planetoid till the death of a solar system, or will it eventually grow into a planet?

01:35:48.260 I don't think there's any mass for it to accrete to it, so I don't know where the additional mass would come to it.

01:35:54.280 Well, if enough material from the Kuiper Belt landed on it, it might grow big enough.

01:35:59.480 But yeah, that's a reference to, we used to call it a planet, and now they call it a dwarf planet, don't they?

01:36:05.520 I mean, it'd be a lot easier.

01:36:06.540 Emoted from full planet status.

01:36:08.660 It would be a lot easier just to redefine what a planet is back to what it was before.

01:36:12.260 That would be, that will happen sooner than enough material comes from the Kuiper Belt, yes.

01:36:19.220 Right, and on that note, we have to end our podcast.

01:36:22.100 It was a lovely conversation today.

01:36:24.020 Thank you very much.

01:36:25.960 Thank you very much for your segments, and I hope you enjoyed it.

01:36:29.920 See you tomorrow.

01:36:31.060 Goodbye.

01:36:31.300 Good video, people.

01:36:31.900 Good video, people.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - January 14, 2025

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1078

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