The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1391

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for the 7th of April 2026. I am joined

00:00:06.940 by Bo and Firas. And today Firas is telling us about the importance of some festive persecution.

00:00:15.320 We're going to just talk about different Easter celebrations, some persecutions,

00:00:19.080 some not so many persecutions. On an unrelated note, I'm going to talk about

00:00:23.040 the boomers versus everyone. And then Bo is going to be telling us a heroic story of the 0.81

00:00:28.840 American pilot who escaped everything, which I actually don't know anything about, so I'm

00:00:32.720 actually really looking forward to hearing. Okay, cool. But before I get started as well,

00:00:38.120 Lotus Eaters Live, let's be honest, if you're not going at this point, you know, what are you doing

00:00:43.680 with your life? Rearrange everything, you've got to be there, it's so important. No, obviously if

00:00:49.860 you came along it'd be very good, it's going to be a lot of fun. I think there's still a few tickets

00:00:54.380 left um and so come along if you'd like to see us all in person and meet some of the audience

00:01:00.120 um also the beau show um breakfast with beau breakfast with beau yeah

00:01:06.560 beau's breakfast club the real bbc

00:01:09.420 make sure to check that out every day at eight every work day at eight eight a.m yeah

00:01:19.720 right and right and bush it out something i never am but admirable that you do it um but anyway

00:01:28.240 with all of that out of the way i suppose we need to hear who should be persecuted this easter

00:01:33.420 well ideally no one but we're just going to talk about a bunch of different easter celebrations

00:01:39.980 that happened throughout the world um there were services in tahran at saint sarces cathedral

00:01:47.840 These, I believe, were Palm Sunday services rather than Easter services, because this is an Armenian Orthodox church named after General Sergius, who was a Roman general who fled to Persia, was persecuted by Shapur II, among 16,000 other Christians who were killed, and became a Christian martyr.

00:02:13.860 And so the church is named after him.

00:02:17.060 And they were celebrating in Tehran.

00:02:21.220 In Gaza, there were Christian celebrations going on, Catholic and Orthodox.

00:02:27.440 There were Easter celebrations, Orthodox obviously still following the Julian calendar.

00:02:34.700 In the Holy Family Church in Gaza, they had a nice and pretty festive Easter.

00:02:40.900 um you could see some of the children in gaza there it's quite a dissonant image isn't it

00:02:47.220 yes thinking that i mean it is quite a striking image uh destroyed homes wrecked everything

00:02:54.840 nearby but you know children are happily going to celebrate easter um where else were there

00:03:02.940 celebrations uh in jerusalem the orthodox were able to celebrate palm sunday and this was

00:03:11.380 actually quite nice because the catholic celebrations didn't go as smoothly as we

00:03:17.120 will discuss in a second um they were going at it with bagpipes

00:03:25.200 i respect that so like in a skull bagpipes in jerusalem bagpipes in jerusalem they haven't

00:03:33.760 heard those since we took it from the ottomans i don't think they they still celebrate with them

00:03:41.240 and um it's it's a regular feature of christian celebrations in jerusalem actually

00:03:47.840 um so is that like the church of the holy sepulchre or something no that is uh

00:03:54.560 I'm not sure which church that is, actually, but, you know.

00:04:00.760 Just waiting for them to transition into Scotland the Brave.

00:04:04.120 That's the only tune everyone really knows on bagpipes.

00:04:08.960 For the Easter celebrations themselves in Catholic churches in Jerusalem,

00:04:15.580 these weren't allowed because pews, like,

00:04:20.200 no religious assemblies were allowed and things like that.

00:04:22.760 There was a Jewish Passover celebration, but it happened underground under the Temple Mount, whereas Muslim prayers and most Christian prayers aren't being allowed in churches.

00:04:35.600 So people are celebrating in the street in some cases.

00:04:38.900 And obviously, on the 29th of March, the Catholics of Palestine were quite critical of how the Israeli police stopped four people from going to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to celebrate.

00:04:54.640 The cardinal and three other church officials, they said this was too big of an assembly and they weren't allowed.

00:05:00.080 Even though they were going without a crowd, alone, they said for safety reasons this wouldn't be permitted.

00:05:06.620 So is this under the justification of we're at war?

00:05:10.500 Yes.

00:05:10.940 And therefore it's not safe to have large groups of people because there's bombs falling from the sky?

00:05:16.320 Essentially.

00:05:18.280 Now there's a 65% increase in attacks on Christians in the Holy Land.

00:05:24.060 And this is the village of Taibe.

00:05:26.000 The Israelis recently tried to burn its church and things like that. 0.74

00:05:29.740 but they went ahead and celebrated Palm Sunday with proper bagpipes and spats bagpipes and spats

00:05:39.780 and capes yep and they've sort of adapted the bagpipe tunes to the local taste which is just

00:05:52.420 a very strange mix I was just thinking that actually because it's very hard to find people

00:05:58.300 who are, you know, bagpipe enthusiasts outside of the British Isles.

00:06:03.220 Yes.

00:06:03.680 And so to hear them play very well, actually, is quite surprising.

00:06:08.300 That must date from the early 20th century.

00:06:12.880 Yes, yes.

00:06:13.360 So we took it in, what, like 1917?

00:06:15.820 Something like that.

00:06:16.620 It's Allenby and Lawrence of Arabia, isn't it?

00:06:18.660 That's right, yeah, of course.

00:06:20.180 So that must have been the point when bagpipes were introduced

00:06:22.520 to the Holy Land, surely.

00:06:24.540 I would guess that.

00:06:26.480 I haven't properly looked into it.

00:06:28.300 If somebody in the audience wants to research this and update us,

00:06:31.800 please go ahead and do that. 1.00

00:06:34.580 But, you know, for some reason, like Lebanese Christians don't do that. 0.99

00:06:40.020 I don't think Egyptian Christians do that. 1.00

00:06:42.180 It's just the Palestinian Christians who've taken to bagpipes for some reason. 1.00

00:06:47.460 I've looked it up and apparently it's the British Mandate era. 1.00

00:06:50.380 So it is, yeah.

00:06:51.580 So yeah, I've learned something today.

00:06:53.480 I didn't know that. 0.94

00:06:54.620 If you'd asked me 10 minutes ago, do Christians in Palestine play bagpipes, I'd say, no, don't be crazy. 0.95

00:07:00.100 Of course not. What a weird thing. But there you go. 1.00

00:07:03.440 And they play well, apparently. Not that I'm a bagpipe connoisseur or anything like that, but I take your word.

00:07:08.640 It's in my DNA.

00:07:12.600 So there was that.

00:07:14.560 In Lebanon, they have a nice tradition in a village not far from mine, actually,

00:07:19.260 where what they do is that they agree each year

00:07:23.600 to celebrate either on the Orthodox Easter date

00:07:27.920 or on the Catholic Easter date.

00:07:30.320 And they all get together and celebrate at the same time

00:07:33.440 so that there wouldn't be a Catholic Orthodox division.

00:07:36.560 I think some of the higher-ups in both churches

00:07:38.740 don't really like it, but they can't say anything about it.

00:07:41.520 I mean, it makes sense if you're in Lebanon and a Christian.

00:07:44.360 You don't want more division, do you?

00:07:45.820 Exactly, exactly.

00:07:46.820 I do find it interesting when the Eastern Orthodox patriarch and the Pope,

00:07:52.740 once in a blue moon, they'll actually meet.

00:07:54.680 Once in a blue moon, they're together in the same place at the same time,

00:07:57.460 may even hug or shake hands or something.

00:07:59.220 And there's always a special seat for the Orthodox patriarchs

00:08:02.640 to sort of recognize them as special in the Vatican

00:08:05.460 and in all kinds of Catholic events where they attend.

00:08:10.140 They are given a sort of more important seat than others to recognize them.

00:08:16.820 um what else in lebanon they also the the vatican tried to send supplies to a um to a christian

00:08:27.460 village which has been cut off because of the war it's sort of surrounded by everyone and there's a

00:08:32.920 big fight over is hezbollah using the village is it not using the village but two christians who

00:08:38.080 were trying to bring supplies were killed and then uh christian charities tried to resupply

00:08:44.560 that village but they were turned back by the israelis or they they didn't even proceed because

00:08:49.540 they didn't get permission um in pakistan a group of christians were rammed by a truck unfortunately

00:08:57.680 which is the kind of thing that happens somewhat regularly i mean being a religious minority in

00:09:06.280 pakistan has got to be one of the most difficult places to be a religious minority i've seen them

00:09:10.880 seen videos of buddhists even who you know you would imagine don't cause any real problems given

00:09:17.200 their actual religion uh being persecuted and having their houses burnt down and the like and

00:09:21.840 things like that so yeah it must be rough for them i think pakistan's record of tolerance leaves

00:09:27.600 something to be desired shall we say i think that's putting it lightly yes it's not it's not

00:09:31.260 it's not terribly inclusive no no no there are no dei programs in in um in pakistan

00:09:39.760 uh where else nigeria uh there's a pretty nasty attack kidnapping

00:09:47.880 killing a bunch of random people as usual the police of nigeria is completely ineffective 1.00

00:09:56.320 completely useless um this has become a bit of a standard thing where the sort of islamists that 0.99

00:10:03.620 base themselves yeah for the kind of tree the kind of program yeah group which

00:10:08.380 have now become affiliated with Islamic State and I think they refer to

00:10:13.160 themselves as Islamic State in West Africa that's right yeah and they do

00:10:19.560 their best to regularly attack Christians on important holidays you 0.99

00:10:23.960 hear about it quite regularly from Nigeria and this yeah don't you yeah 0.99

00:10:27.940 and they kidnap people kill them torture them etc

00:10:33.620 uh but let's get to some of the more entertaining stuff in poland there is a tradition where on

00:10:42.960 easter monday everybody splashes everyone else with water and they just go around the streets

00:10:50.080 filling up anything that they can in water dumping each other in in water that's quite brave that

00:10:56.980 time of year in poland i was gonna say that's quite courageous and they look a bit merciless

00:11:02.720 in what they do to each other.

00:11:06.140 They go around dressed festively

00:11:08.400 and you see the firefighters are in on it

00:11:10.620 and are going around...

00:11:12.960 I feel like that.

00:11:13.720 Like, not full-on hosing people down

00:11:15.300 because that would be...

00:11:16.040 This is the worst form of tax rebate

00:11:17.920 they're possibly ever going to get.

00:11:20.560 So they'll go around spraying people

00:11:23.620 with water randomly.

00:11:25.640 I'm sure this is what Jesus would have wanted.

00:11:27.120 somebody compiled a bunch of celebrations from Spain

00:11:34.600 I'm betting they're not mucking about one way or another

00:11:39.080 it would be full bore

00:11:40.180 okay

00:11:40.700 okay there we go

00:11:42.400 epic processions

00:11:46.200 and 1.00

00:11:48.540 it goes on and they do all kinds of things

00:11:52.900 celebrating Easter

00:11:55.260 celebrating Christ's sacrifice for us.

00:11:58.660 It's genuinely beautiful what they do.

00:12:01.880 And pretty much every single town

00:12:04.420 has its own little funny traditions

00:12:06.240 and its own rituals for how to celebrate.

00:12:12.260 They just go around these massive processions

00:12:15.740 and you can't help being quite impressed

00:12:19.240 because these aren't centrally organized.

00:12:22.880 These are just local brotherhoods,

00:12:24.480 local communities they just each one of them has its own tradition and then they go celebrating

00:12:30.480 my protestant mind is made anxious by the fact they're swaying that cross back and forwards

00:12:36.360 it's like you're going to knock it over in a minute be careful to be fair after several hundred

00:12:42.200 years of experience they've gotten the hang of it it seems like it i think i think odds are they've

00:12:50.100 gotten the hang of it and you see the uh parts of the spanish military participating as well

00:12:55.460 so which is which is nice even though the spanish government is insanely woke and seems to

00:13:03.160 desperately hate christianity um spain remains quite catholic and and proudly so that's always

00:13:11.080 an interesting thing to me where like so for example at the moment it's a site called sanchez

00:13:15.620 isn't it pedro sanchez and he's extremely left-wing yes he's even going to give amnesty

00:13:19.880 to something like 840 000 foreign people up to a million i think it is right yeah they

00:13:25.900 massively underestimated the number they thought it was yeah there's that to be three times that

00:13:29.640 it was big and yet in loads of senses spain is very very catholic and conservative with a small

00:13:36.180 c very much so it's just odd to me that they then voted in such a traitorous left-wing government

00:13:44.040 It's incongruous, isn't it?

00:13:45.460 It is very incongruous, and there are parties trying to challenge it,

00:13:50.880 but as usual, the centre-right acts as a spoiler for actual conservatives.

00:13:56.700 Have I seen that playbook before?

00:13:58.300 Yeah, exactly.

00:13:59.020 It seems to be the job of the centre-right to just hamper actual conservative causes.

00:14:07.440 Spain's also quite a divided country, isn't it?

00:14:09.500 not only from historic kingdoms, but also just regionally.

00:14:14.320 Absolutely, absolutely.

00:14:16.220 So you see these kinds of celebrations.

00:14:19.780 But at the same time, record numbers of people being baptized,

00:14:25.420 and you see that pretty much across record numbers of people

00:14:29.800 either being baptized or being confirmed or being brought into the church.

00:14:34.980 And I won't belabor the point because you all know what I think,

00:14:38.080 but I'll leave it there.

00:14:39.500 Here's a funny one from Florence.

00:14:53.340 They fire a missile through the church

00:14:55.760 and it sets something else on fire

00:15:00.580 and that it's sort of...

00:15:03.720 And that's how they light Easter candles, it seems.

00:15:07.920 pretty cool i have to turn the audio off just in case of copyright there oh it's already over

00:15:13.000 never mind so that that's a florentine uh tradition that was very impressive it's quite

00:15:20.020 italian to have like let's venerate jesus with fireworks shall we yeah why not why not it's

00:15:26.320 nice to see each individual country's flavor the spanish take it very seriously the italians have

00:15:31.300 a bit of flair yes yes in britain we indulge in chocolate have a sunday roast well in in britain

00:15:39.820 things aren't going that well you had a school earlier cancelling easter celebrations to

00:15:45.980 celebrate refugee week oh yeah which is um the easter holidays were a staple of the school

00:15:56.720 calendar when i was growing up that's the thing and from a christian perspective you do owe the 0.60

00:16:05.020 genuinely vulnerable something we all owe the vulnerable something that does not in any way

00:16:11.720 support replacement level migration and there is this extremism that transforms christianity into

00:16:19.200 mere sentimentalism and discards christian virtues like prudence and justice and you know order

00:16:27.200 and you see that kind of woke nonsense instead because i remember when i was in primary school

00:16:35.100 for example the week leading up to the easter weekend um would usually be spent either learning

00:16:40.860 about the actual biblical story yep or you know painting easter eggs or there'd be lots of things

00:16:47.780 that get you invested in the holiday

00:16:49.600 that make it feel culturally significant.

00:16:52.580 And by removing these sorts of things...

00:16:54.320 It's very toned down.

00:16:55.760 Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised.

00:16:57.420 It used to be in the pre-modern era.

00:16:59.860 I said this on the Breakfast Show the other day,

00:17:01.300 but I'll say it again here.

00:17:02.740 For anyone who didn't see that.

00:17:04.080 In the pre-modern era, in the medieval period or late antiquity,

00:17:06.800 Easter was by far the most important period of the year.

00:17:11.760 By far.

00:17:12.340 Way, way more than Christmas.

00:17:15.060 Way more.

00:17:15.680 Yeah, yeah.

00:17:15.960 Because this is when the actual sacrifice and our reconciliation of God was made.

00:17:20.920 It's the most important miracle, isn't it?

00:17:22.980 Yes.

00:17:23.380 Jesus coming back to life.

00:17:24.240 The resurrection of Christ is literally the source of Christian hope. 0.81

00:17:28.300 You can't have Christianity without it.

00:17:31.160 It's much more important than Christianity. 0.87

00:17:32.260 You know those fabische eggs that the Tsar and the Tsarina would give each other? 0.83

00:17:36.840 They were Easter gifts.

00:17:38.020 Yes.

00:17:39.320 A fabulously ornate, extremely expensive thing as an Easter gift.

00:17:42.980 Yes.

00:17:43.300 it puts in some perspective that how important it was yes far more than christmas absolutely

00:17:48.840 okay because things have changed again it is it is joy through sacrifice that is the fundamental

00:17:57.420 christian message it is the celebration of sacrifice it is love because of sacrifice

00:18:03.340 without the sacrifice it makes no sense otherwise it's just sort of you know a holy man was born

00:18:09.140 It's the sacrifice that gives Christianity its unique flavor.

00:18:14.160 The king decided not to give an Easter message, unfortunately, this year.

00:18:22.620 And you see, you know, as Nick points out, all kinds of supposed leaders struggling to celebrate Easter and to say Easter is Christian.

00:18:36.180 Someone to mix it with Judeo-Christians, someone to mix it with all kinds of nonsense. 0.85

00:18:44.340 Judeo-Christian at that time in particular is particularly tasteless.

00:18:50.000 It is a bit of an issue. 0.91

00:18:54.380 You did see big celebrations in Trafalgar Square where there is a reenactment of the Passion of the Christ.

00:19:01.300 But it seems that the, and you saw Sadiq Khan actually issue a statement for Easter,

00:19:07.900 unlike His Majesty, which is a bit of a shame, shall we say.

00:19:13.140 But it seems that the passion in Trafalgar won't be happening again next year

00:19:18.860 because of a lack of funding, apparently.

00:19:22.440 So if you have the financial resources to ameliorate this sad state of affairs,

00:19:27.860 please make sure that you do something.

00:19:33.140 And you can see why King Charles opted not to issue an Easter message

00:19:39.980 because last year he for some reason insisted in including Islam

00:19:45.100 in his Easter message, which is something that I can't quite understand

00:19:50.700 given that Muslims don't believe that Christ was actually crucified.

00:19:56.080 So there is a little bit of confusion.

00:19:59.760 So, yeah, I just wanted to show you some of the Easter celebrations

00:20:03.020 and remind you that a lot of Christians are genuinely suffering 1.00

00:20:07.660 and that the way forward is more Christianity, I'd hope. 1.00

00:20:13.140 Meanwhile, Anglicans do very, very little.

00:20:16.460 Yeah, have an Easter egg and a roast.

00:20:20.140 That's about it.

00:20:22.040 It is what it is.

00:20:23.280 But that is my segment for today.

00:20:27.640 Do you know, I found out recently that I was baptised a Methodist.

00:20:32.400 It's still a valid baptism.

00:20:34.280 Yeah, well, the reason was because it was a nice church, according to my mum.

00:20:40.480 Which is the most Church of England thing you could possibly do.

00:20:43.820 Well, because I'm a convert and I don't know enough,

00:20:46.900 I've baptised my children

00:20:50.240 into three different Catholic denominations

00:20:53.660 so one is 0.96

00:20:55.140 they not mind

00:20:55.800 is that cool with them

00:20:57.920 that's fine

00:20:58.600 okay

00:20:59.100 that's fine

00:20:59.640 so one's baptised Greek Catholic

00:21:02.740 one is baptised Maronite Catholic

00:21:05.640 and one is baptised Latin Catholic

00:21:07.860 so

00:21:09.040 your favourite one

00:21:09.920 hedging you

00:21:10.540 the best one

00:21:13.940 they're all Catholic

00:21:16.040 they're all catholic it doesn't really matter but one of them was because it was a really

00:21:20.640 nice church uh that in my um mum's family's village there were two churches and you know

00:21:28.640 my my grandmother and grandfather went to the one in which most people they got along with went to

00:21:35.180 which was the methodist church so that was the reason for it so it's village politics in in

00:21:41.300 rural devon that i'm unbaptized does that mean i can't go to heaven yep sorry you're baptized

00:21:47.380 we can fix that i want the full body submersion the adult full body swimming pool one i guess

00:21:56.060 my glass of water is not going to cut it then oh well oh well okay so i'm going to be talking about

00:22:03.640 the boomers versus everyone we have a second let's just read a couple sorry yeah i got carried 0.90

00:22:09.000 away. That's a random name, says the lack of funding for Easter celebrations in the

00:22:13.020 Trafalgar Square refers to the money they spend spicy. The sigil stone says

00:22:20.240 bagpipes were invented in 1469 by the Welsh blowing into a sheep's lower

00:22:25.260 intestine. The Scottish would later refine the design by removing the

00:22:32.620 intestine from the sheep's chest. I take it you don't read this before reading.

00:22:38.400 I should start.

00:22:39.440 I should start.

00:22:40.120 I've got no idea whether part of that is historically accurate and true

00:22:42.960 or the whole thing is just a joke. 1.00

00:22:44.380 It's just a Welsh joke.

00:22:45.720 I don't know. 1.00

00:22:47.460 I'm imagining it is. 0.97

00:22:48.420 I'm assuming it's a Welsh joke. 1.00

00:22:49.280 Yeah.

00:22:49.600 I can't throw stones given my heritage. 1.00

00:22:52.020 Yeah, I'm assuming it's a Welsh joke. 0.95

00:22:54.300 And apparently Modi released a positive message for Easter. 0.60

00:22:57.820 Limey, okay. 1.00

00:23:00.220 I suppose there are Christians in India, aren't there? 1.00

00:23:03.140 You get them in Goa.

00:23:04.260 There are millions of Christians in India, yeah.

00:23:05.860 But they are quite heavily persecuted.

00:23:08.400 i mean there are thousands of going christians in swindon weirdly enough

00:23:12.800 the going christians i believe they received saint thomas the apostle

00:23:17.740 so you know there's a real deal pretty old christian community it's the portuguese wasn't

00:23:25.600 it originally introduced them no and then the portuguese came oh okay okay they found them

00:23:30.660 already christian i believe that would be a weird thing wouldn't it turn up to a place you've never

00:23:34.980 bins that like, yeah, we, we share the same God. There we go. Learning lots of things today. But

00:23:41.800 anyway, before my false start, let's get going. So I'm going to be talking about the boomers versus 0.99

00:23:48.660 everyone. And I take a little bit more of a sympathetic view. It all started with a debate 0.74

00:23:55.820 about the triple lock pension, which basically is three, three different measures in which the

00:24:02.020 pension can track and you pick the highest one so that the pension isn't necessarily losing its

00:24:11.060 buying power, purchasing power is a better way of putting it. So it's either the wage increase

00:24:16.620 or inflation or 2.5%, whichever one is highest. Yes. Meaning that pensioners are literally better

00:24:26.420 off every year than the rest of the population. Yes, they're insulated from the consequences of

00:24:32.200 a declining economy, basically. And there's been discussion about scrapping the triple

00:24:38.340 lock pension and just pensioners more generally. And I wanted to look at the competing sides of

00:24:46.180 this because I have a more conciliatory view. I don't think that people should be infighting

00:24:51.480 between generations of people over you know what ultimately amounts to a policy failure

00:24:59.400 by blaming the boomers for having it easy relative to young people nowadays you're directing your

00:25:07.540 anger at the people who benefited from policies created by a government you should be holding 0.52

00:25:12.800 accountable or people you should or ideas you should be holding accountable you know it's a

00:25:17.840 policy that has created this, you know, the fact that they benefited from it in the same way that

00:25:22.800 anyone would have otherwise, I think is a little bit unfair. But we're going to look through the

00:25:28.120 arguments. There's a lot of nuance here. So don't, you know, get your torches and pitchforks outside

00:25:33.040 my house yet saying he's a boomer sympathiser. Because I think that actually, once we go through

00:25:39.800 it all, you'll see where I'm coming from, that there is a little bit of complexity. And you

00:25:44.360 shouldn't hate your own elders because your current government is evil. That's not directing

00:25:51.120 your anger appropriately, in my opinion. Although there are things that the boomers could perhaps 1.00

00:25:56.260 learn from the contemporary situation that many people face, and certainly they could do with

00:26:02.340 respecting their youngers a little bit more, depending on the individual. But, you know,

00:26:07.840 I know plenty of boomers that are perfectly selfless and good people, so I'm not going to

00:26:13.800 throw the whole group under the bus for the sake of a few selfish people um so you're worried about

00:26:19.000 an anti-boomer mob i thought you'd be more worried about a boomer mob that you're throwing shade at 0.56

00:26:25.600 boomers and they'll come around and well i'm worried the other side i'm going to be sympathetic

00:26:30.580 to both sides so the overall point you're making is perfectly valid it's not the individual boomer

00:26:35.500 who gets to draw a pension that's at fault is it he had nothing to do with policy or government at

00:26:40.200 any point it's not necessarily their fault well certainly not their fault you can even argue that

00:26:45.560 the British public has always voted against immigration so the pressing issue of our time

00:26:50.180 and part of the reason everything has declined and things are in the state they're in isn't their

00:26:54.600 fault because it was imposed upon the British public against our will consistently since its

00:26:59.260 inception right so um one thing I do have to quickly mention though is that we have a live

00:27:06.720 event going on on the 11th of april and it is going on from seven o'clock until 10 o'clock so

00:27:13.240 you get three hours of us having a live podcast we're doing a lads hour i think and also there's

00:27:20.480 a debate about the star wars prequels and a long q a and a q a so probably go on longer than 10 i

00:27:27.420 would have thought i would say so but if you want to be a part of that if that sounds like fun it'd

00:27:31.440 be good to have you along and meet you all um and so please do consider getting a ticket they're

00:27:36.460 modestly priced. And the only cost is that you have to come to Swindon, which I'm sorry about,

00:27:41.540 but you can't have it all, can you? So another thing that became part of this discourse was

00:27:51.960 people talking about the price of houses in this day and age. There's someone drawing attention to

00:27:57.440 this house here um which is i believe in tooting in london um so it's an 850k house or 1.12 million

00:28:07.840 us dollars for what is essentially a house that if i were to lie down in front of it i would be as

00:28:13.760 wide as it um and you know it's two of me at all so it's not a very big house and uh yes it says

00:28:22.780 Just a terraced, three-bedroomed house in London.

00:28:26.520 Tooting isn't great.

00:28:28.380 No.

00:28:29.120 And that would be £3,400 a month on a 40-year mortgage,

00:28:34.800 which is considerably more than the average after-tax salary.

00:28:39.020 Total repayment, £1.6 million, and 885k of that is pure interest.

00:28:45.660 If you want to see the destruction of the financialisation of our economy,

00:28:50.160 there it is.

00:28:50.840 half of the cost of the house is interest I don't know how anyone can justify that 0.96

00:28:56.360 so you need to earn 170k to be able to buy what was essentially viewed as granny's house as they

00:29:03.680 put it and pay almost double for it which is already quite an inflated house price because

00:29:10.400 as I read the situation all of the signs are pointing to a housing bubble burst sometime

00:29:17.600 in the next year or so

00:29:19.920 because markets are already collapsing.

00:29:23.320 Think how much faster the housing bubble would burst 1.00

00:29:25.020 if there was a re-migration. 1.00

00:29:26.480 I know, it'd be wonderful. 1.00

00:29:27.480 Everyone would be able to buy a house.

00:29:28.860 Everybody would be able to buy a house.

00:29:30.240 It'd be nice.

00:29:30.880 And then also we can invest in things that aren't houses

00:29:34.580 so it'd help the economy in other ways

00:29:36.240 because they wouldn't be the safest investment.

00:29:38.420 Because you'd have so much more disposable income.

00:29:39.560 Yeah.

00:29:40.380 It's a bit more than you have to earn 170 grand.

00:29:42.820 You have to consistently earn 170 grand

00:29:45.280 at least for 40 years straight.

00:29:47.020 don't get ill or get fired

00:29:49.580 you'll get your house

00:29:51.480 represented

00:29:52.180 you're going to have to be one of the most

00:29:55.360 productive people in the country to live in a shoebox

00:29:57.560 house

00:29:58.740 and that productivity will be mainly

00:30:01.460 in financial services which is not real

00:30:03.580 productivity because no

00:30:05.400 actual goods are produced

00:30:07.320 I don't know if the housing market

00:30:09.420 will collapse just simply because

00:30:11.680 of supply and demand

00:30:13.020 there's just giant, giant demand

00:30:15.100 in same demand so that's true someone who's desperate who can just about afford it will

00:30:20.980 pay that that's true that's not that dynamic isn't going anywhere well maybe i should reframe

00:30:26.620 it to to mean if the economy were not propped up by the government you know it's dead corpse with

00:30:32.880 a stick in it you know up its spine um if that wasn't happening then the bubble would be bursting

00:30:38.500 but there are many things they can do to keep it you know the lumbering corpse shambling on

00:30:43.480 of the economy. Bit of a morbid analogy there. I'm sorry. But this tweet in particular and

00:30:51.700 sentiments like it, even though it didn't get much engagement, started a storm of conversations. No,

00:30:58.560 I don't think pensioners should have to sell their houses to retire because people were talking about

00:31:02.820 the pensions, the triple lock, as well as house prices and the difficulty of living. And, you

00:31:09.100 I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment here that if you've bought a house, the cost of

00:31:15.880 living shouldn't have to push pensioners to sell their house just to be able to live. I think that's

00:31:20.700 a fair thing to say. But then on the other side, you see people say, I don't think young people

00:31:28.200 should miss out on owning a home to pay for someone's retirement, which is also fair. So both

00:31:34.600 of these things, in my opinion, are reasonable things to say. This is why I think when both

00:31:40.720 sides are reasonable, you're blaming the wrong people.

00:31:45.260 That's exactly right. What this points to is a complete policy failure, rather than

00:31:51.940 evil boomers, evil young people.

00:31:54.920 Yeah, I don't think it's either that young people don't work hard. I think that from 0.88

00:32:00.320 my experience of once being a young person, which wasn't that long ago, I came into contact with

00:32:06.820 people who were incredibly hardworking. Like my parents said to me that I worked so much more

00:32:13.480 than they did when they were my age to better my own future. And they did very well for themselves.

00:32:19.240 And I think that this is a theme that keeps on going on. People are aware that you've got to

00:32:23.480 work really hard. And so it's not necessarily the young people that are at fault, although some might

00:32:29.120 be but as a group and it's not necessarily the boomers either because they are right that they

00:32:34.240 have worked for a living and they might have lived in more prosperous times but I think they have a

00:32:38.520 right to keep the home that they bought with their own money and live a comfortable life as well and

00:32:44.800 so these two things shouldn't be at odds with one another in fact they're both signs of a healthy

00:32:49.300 society and then you see people like this saying what makes a pensioner more deserving of protection

00:32:55.760 from market forces than, say, a young family, which was actually quite a clever way of framing

00:33:02.680 it because this is what is known in the business as boomer bait. Because then you get boomers 0.81

00:33:08.760 saying, listen, actually, I deserve my house more than a baby. You can see him here saying

00:33:16.360 children's futures are more important than those of pensioners. This should be very basic to even

00:33:21.440 unintelligent life forms. I think that's again fair that, you know, old people should be building 1.00

00:33:27.560 societies for the young, for the next generation, for their children and grandchildren, not the

00:33:32.860 other way around. That is an inversion of the natural order and therefore a great perversion

00:33:39.000 of human nature in my view. And Callum, you know, old Lotus Eaters presenter Callum was able to pick

00:33:47.280 up on this boomer bait um and he basically made them claim that they're more deserving than babies 0.81

00:33:53.580 uh for resources from the state which is an interesting position and not one that i think

00:33:59.880 i agree with i must admit i have noticed that um some boomers i've said a number of times for

00:34:05.980 for all the boomers come out and have a go at me have said a number of times that based boomers

00:34:11.480 are some of the most based yeah so some boomers are great of course but i have noticed that some

00:34:17.300 of them are a little bit fragile any criticism of boomers and they take it very personally i have

00:34:22.220 i have noticed that that is that is the case you only need to scratch the surface and they start

00:34:26.940 talking about avocado toast and netflix and and how you should you know just tighten your belt

00:34:32.580 over the very minor expenditures in your life and just that class that classic one that's always

00:34:38.360 quite insulting because it ignores the the actual state of the economy and how much worse it is i

00:34:43.960 remember having a conversation with my father um just showing him how the economy has changed since

00:34:48.700 he was younger thankfully my parents are quite sympathetic to me um and we have a good relationship

00:34:53.460 but i was explaining to him that listen the economy is not how it used to be and he's like

00:34:57.320 oh wow okay and he actually took it on board and was like okay you know when they get you with

00:35:03.460 student debt this is just life destroying this is just a catastrophe well it's a nine percent tax

00:35:11.360 yeah because uh in in my life i've only been paying off the um additional costs incurred by

00:35:18.580 having the student debt in the first place i've not actually paid off the the student yeah exactly

00:35:23.600 um that argument that you've bought any tiny luxury yes and therefore that's why you haven't

00:35:31.220 saved 50 grand for a deposit like no that's not really what's going on also worked all the way

00:35:36.760 through university as well to pay my way through so i've actually got much lower student debt than

00:35:41.140 most and even i in my situation i'm only paying off the interest so it's a very difficult situation

00:35:48.100 then of course you get the house prices being the highest proportion of of income yes um they've

00:35:55.360 been, really. And then you get things like this, you get a boomer coming out

00:36:00.940 saying, guess, one can work, one can't. And he's arguing that children can't work.

00:36:07.780 That's insane. So yes, that's arguing against a young family saying that, well,

00:36:13.220 we're a pensioner, we can't work. That's mad.

00:36:18.860 Yes, the... go ahead. This is where people get very critical of boomers,

00:36:23.980 because you must live your life for your children.

00:36:29.720 The whole point is that you give up your life

00:36:32.260 for your future continuity as a people, as a nation.

00:36:36.620 Your life is not worth much if you're just an individual.

00:36:40.800 There is actually a generational pact.

00:36:43.580 There is a communal pact.

00:36:45.360 Without these, nothing can be built.

00:36:47.340 There can't be any civilization.

00:36:48.920 There can't be any old buildings.

00:36:50.760 There can't be any traditions.

00:36:52.100 There can't be anything good.

00:36:53.980 And not seeing that because, ah, I can work.

00:36:57.600 Like, okay, even if you're 70, you could work at a Tesco checkout if you want.

00:37:02.720 I mean, you can work from home these days. 0.94

00:37:04.220 It's never been easier for a pensioner to work. 0.99

00:37:06.420 Not saying that they should necessarily, but if the option is there. 0.99

00:37:11.220 Exactly.

00:37:12.000 This is an insane take from Mr. Ramsey.

00:37:16.200 And then here's another one here from Helen.

00:37:19.940 While you're tossing around this negativity about pensioners,

00:37:22.560 maybe it might be worth considering how many pensioners do unpaid child care for their

00:37:29.280 families dropping off picking up from school caring for sick grandchildren holiday babysitting

00:37:34.680 etc and then he responds quite rightfully the use of the word unpaid is telling I could not care less

00:37:41.020 if you're not paid for helping to raise the next generation of your bloodline thousands of your

00:37:45.180 ancestors overcame horrors beyond their comprehension to get you here the school run is literally the

00:37:51.460 least you could do i couldn't have put it better myself yes unpaid that is just selfish isn't it

00:37:58.860 talking about raising your grandchildren is unpaid i mean you know my parents don't get to spend

00:38:05.820 enough time with their grandkids because i'm here and that's a source of misery to them frankly

00:38:11.980 and so if you're around your grandchildren or your children you should be grateful for it

00:38:18.160 I also think bringing in money to your family is a weird dynamic.

00:38:22.580 Exactly.

00:38:23.100 Like if someone in my family asked me to look after their kids,

00:38:25.660 I wouldn't even think of asking for any money for it.

00:38:28.080 Hourly rates.

00:38:29.140 Yeah, it would be absurd.

00:38:30.440 It would be like, no, of course.

00:38:31.600 Yeah, you don't have to ask.

00:38:33.960 I never really understand why people take personal umbrage

00:38:36.500 when someone criticises a whole generation or something like that.

00:38:41.520 Like when people sometimes get shade thrown at Gen Xers,

00:38:44.800 like i'm a gen xer like their their cynicism or something i don't take that person i'm like oh

00:38:51.340 oh that's me i must go on twitter endlessly now and i'm not like that and therefore general

00:38:56.920 patterns aren't true it is a bit silly you know that's like a woman saying i know a tall asian

00:39:02.980 person therefore not all asians are short it's like well on the whole compared to europeans yes 0.96

00:39:09.800 they are. It's just missing a trend. But no, I get your point, Beau, that when people insult 0.87

00:39:14.740 millennials, I don't go, oh, you know, I'm so offended. I'm just like, well, a lot of the

00:39:19.480 criticisms there I can recognize, and actually, you know, I don't embody many of those, so I don't

00:39:23.840 mind. It's fine, in fact. And here's another one. It's obvious a pensioner doesn't have the years

00:39:30.700 left to make up for any losses, therefore cannot take any chances. A young person, on the other 0.97

00:39:35.500 hand does. And he replies, so the children should suffer. And I think that this is the implicit

00:39:41.520 argument of many that haven't quite come to terms with the economic realities of the country at the

00:39:46.080 minute. And this one was quite revealing. Two things. I'm not going to read that. Pensioners

00:39:53.520 have literally contributed all their lives. They bought into the social contract. Questionable.

00:40:00.100 how exactly is an 80 year old supposed to cope with sudden financial shocks avocado toast for

00:40:06.200 you yeah uh get a second job you're clearly just jumping on the bandwagon here and he rightfully

00:40:12.460 points out that um what you pay in versus what you get back is not equivalent and here the average

00:40:20.460 um person receives 1.9 times what they personally paid in in national insurance

00:40:26.580 Is that not anything to do with inflation?

00:40:29.340 I guess it is.

00:40:30.140 I guess it is.

00:40:30.880 But nonetheless.

00:40:32.140 Yeah.

00:40:32.820 I don't know if the inflation adjusted figures, but yeah, that's a good question.

00:40:36.760 No, it's a fair point.

00:40:37.480 Although we will see later that the pension relative to inflation and the cost of living is basically diverged.

00:40:45.500 So we will be able to answer that in a second.

00:40:47.320 Just sort of to your point.

00:40:50.920 I forgot what I was going to say.

00:40:52.380 Never mind.

00:40:53.260 We can come back to it.

00:40:53.940 I suspect by the time I reach state pension age,

00:40:59.780 whatever it will be at that point,

00:41:02.100 like I'm in my mid-40s nearly, that way I am.

00:41:05.440 You're in your late 20s, right?

00:41:07.140 I wish. I'm 30 now, yeah.

00:41:08.660 Oh, you said 30 the other day.

00:41:09.860 We're about the same age.

00:41:11.580 But it'll probably be like 80 plus by the time I reach that age.

00:41:15.720 I would have thought by that point there will be no more state pension.

00:41:18.620 No.

00:41:18.860 In those coming decades, at some point there will be a government

00:41:21.440 which will have to say the whole state pension thing is broken.

00:41:25.900 We simply cannot afford it anymore.

00:41:28.220 There's no upper limit.

00:41:28.980 We're not going to make it 85.

00:41:30.420 We're going to make it, it doesn't essentially exist anymore.

00:41:33.680 I'm expecting that to happen.

00:41:36.260 Because the pension itself breaks the generational contract.

00:41:39.700 The existence of a pension breaks it.

00:41:42.340 Well, all welfare breaks up the family, doesn't it?

00:41:44.660 Exactly, exactly.

00:41:46.760 Nobody in sort of pre-World War II expected a pension.

00:41:51.000 I mean, yeah, it was introduced at the time of Napoleon for people over 65 when life expectancy was 63, but it wasn't universal.

00:41:59.740 It became sort of universal after Second World War on the assumption that you only got it when you'd exceeded life expectation and were going to die in the next couple of years,

00:42:11.500 as opposed to receive it at 65 and live to 95,

00:42:16.180 which was unheard of,

00:42:18.680 that you would, you know,

00:42:20.120 half of your adult life would be spent

00:42:22.320 on the charity of others.

00:42:24.980 It would always have been,

00:42:27.840 yeah, children take care of their elderly parents

00:42:29.840 and that's it.

00:42:31.160 And if that wasn't possible,

00:42:32.720 where there were kind of local arrangements

00:42:35.140 for people who were genuinely in need

00:42:36.840 and genuinely capacitated,

00:42:39.200 as opposed to a centralised, enforced charity by the state.

00:42:43.700 No, I very much agree, and I disagree with welfare as a matter of principle, just full stop.

00:42:50.020 Obviously, the most excusable being disability benefits and things,

00:42:53.320 but there are other ways of dealing with that that I think are actually better for them.

00:42:56.580 But that is not the focus today.

00:42:58.980 And here's another one.

00:43:01.380 Oh, no, I skipped past that one, actually.

00:43:03.860 55 years of hard work and paying taxes and not whining,

00:43:06.880 which sounds an awful lot like whining to me but yeah this is quite a cut and dry response of just

00:43:14.240 I worked hard therefore I deserve a pension which is sort of the cookie cutter one you see all the

00:43:20.880 time although it doesn't necessarily acknowledge the dynamics of the economy anymore that the young 0.53

00:43:26.840 are paying for this paying for something that they're not necessarily going to benefit from

00:43:31.740 themselves and then here's another one as part of the pensions argument some people keep referring

00:43:36.680 to old people being wealthy due to the value of their home. It's irrelevant. I don't care what

00:43:40.940 my house is worth. 500,000 or 50 quid. I live here. I'm staying here. I'll probably die here.

00:43:46.840 So the money means nothing. I thought that this was relatively fair because, you know, it's their

00:43:51.720 house. They did pay for it with their own taxed income and they should be able to keep it in an

00:43:59.620 ideal situation. And also assets are not the same as disposable income as well. And people treat

00:44:04.660 assets as the same and you do need somewhere to live although if you had a half a million house

00:44:10.480 you could probably afford to downsize as a pensioner to be honest and in fact many do

00:44:15.760 willingly anyway because they don't want a large house to have to manage in their old age.

00:44:22.000 I'm going to skip over this one because it's quite long but the gist of it is that not all

00:44:27.340 pensioners are wealthy and going on cruises which is a fair point. Some do actually rely on the state

00:44:32.580 pension for their income I know my Scottish grandparents did they lived in a council house 0.97

00:44:37.400 and were reliant on the state to pay their income despite working their entire lives and so 0.90

00:44:43.940 that is a fair point and we shouldn't tart all boomers with the same brush just because

00:44:48.980 many of them are wealthy doesn't necessarily mean all of them are not by a long shot I mean I think

00:44:54.980 that was one of the things that's been missed here quite often doesn't it all depend on whether

00:45:00.320 you're actually wealthy or not it does yeah because the state pension is not a great amount

00:45:05.500 of money no right it's barely enough to actually eat and and and heat the thing so if you for

00:45:12.440 whatever reason you've got to the end of your life and haven't got a nest egg haven't finished

00:45:16.500 paying off a mortgage then it's the difference between starving or freezing to death or not

00:45:21.760 but if you're wealthy you don't even know you probably wouldn't even notice it hitting your

00:45:25.540 bank account well so it should be means tested in an ideal situation we could save a lot of money

00:45:30.840 like um the example was given um in a recent debate saying that lord uh alan sugar still

00:45:37.960 qualifies for a pension even though he's a billionaire yeah um and so there should be

00:45:43.740 some accommodation here for um people who can't actually afford to live perhaps we could give

00:45:51.920 them a little bit more and then not give any money to people who are very well off that'd be a good

00:45:57.860 start well one anecdote i know of is uh you know well there's some people that really need it just

00:46:03.420 to buy a tins of beans and keep the heating on so they don't freeze to death then there's uh there

00:46:07.880 was a friend of the family who when she retired she called it handbag money she'll just save it

00:46:14.720 up for a few months until there was enough to buy a new handbag and buy a new habit because they were

00:46:19.040 they were very middle class wealthy didn't need the money whatsoever didn't need a penny of it

00:46:24.340 not even close but still got it so there's someone that can can barely live and someone

00:46:31.780 that doesn't notice it and eventually was like oh yeah it's a bit of money i'll buy a new new

00:46:35.620 handbag so there is clearly an injustice here isn't there yeah yeah and it's really a quite

00:46:41.680 it's partly a question of broken social solidarity do you feel for the others around you and therefore

00:46:48.140 Or do you feel that I don't need this, I'd rather it goes to someone who needs it?

00:46:53.460 And if you don't have that sentiment, you will encourage people younger than you

00:46:58.360 not to have that sentiment towards you because of how human nature actually works.

00:47:04.000 And so that just seems very unwise and selfish.

00:47:07.980 I think it's just very, very low resolution to say all pensioners are rich.

00:47:12.840 No, they're not. Of course they're not.

00:47:14.480 No, there's a lot of variety.

00:47:16.340 They're being really, really selfish.

00:47:17.980 Well, no, some need it in order to not actually starve.

00:47:22.880 So spare that in mind.

00:47:24.840 That is something that does get missed

00:47:26.200 and I think actually is one of the strongest points

00:47:29.220 in favour of the boomers, although only some of them.

00:47:33.880 And here's another one that I thought was interesting. 1.00

00:47:35.620 Dear boomers, can you afford to buy the house you live in currently 0.82

00:47:38.340 with the wage you used to earn before you retired? 0.94

00:47:41.460 If you can't, that's the whole housing problem in a nutshell.

00:47:44.400 it really is that simple to understand you could also argue there's you know immigration pushing

00:47:51.140 up as well as the difference between wages and house prices but you can't expect all of that

00:47:57.380 nuance to be in a tweet to be honest here's another one as well why should young people

00:48:02.840 have to pay for someone else's retirement if you live in a million pound house and you can't afford

00:48:07.880 to retire sell the house or don't I don't care you just can't expect young people to pay for you

00:48:12.440 you could expect your children to pay for you yeah i'd be happy to support my own parents but

00:48:17.720 i don't want to support you know someone's parents who i don't know but that's the problem with the 0.97

00:48:21.560 current welfare state is that i'm probably giving money in my taxes to people in a council house in

00:48:27.480 liverpool who i'll never meet and if i did i probably dislike them charity at the point of

00:48:32.160 a bayonet it is yeah sense well it ceases to be charity then as well isn't it and here's another

00:48:38.580 one, can I ask why if a pensioner has worked all their life, they only have the state pension to

00:48:42.820 rely on, didn't decide to save, put away for a rainy day, sounds like poor planning to me,

00:48:47.440 they're turning around the discourse that's directed at young people on older people,

00:48:52.820 although sometimes it can be unfair, for example, like an elderly lady relied on her husband's

00:49:00.000 large income to live, and lived as a housewife and raising kids, and now he's died, and you know,

00:49:07.040 she's on her own that's a very different situation and not necessarily one that you

00:49:11.040 could fault her for and so again there is nuance here and and you shouldn't be blanketly accusing

00:49:16.800 people about people that what about people that did work hard their whole life but for again for

00:49:23.560 whatever reason were unable to save they they did struggle to make a good wage for their whole

00:49:31.220 working life and haven't got a nest egg didn't do a mortgage and complete a mortgage but they're

00:49:36.560 supposed to just curl up and die yeah they're just supposed to freeze to death now are they

00:49:41.400 exactly my dad worked ridiculously hard but pretty much spent all of his money on our education and

00:49:47.060 so that's the pact that he made and therefore we owe him something uh doesn't mean that you

00:49:53.780 owe him something sure it means i owe him something that's and and here in the problem

00:49:58.540 that's the problem it's the transfer of responsibility so there's there's one final

00:50:04.600 one I wanted to look at before I run out of time here. When I was married in 1981, we both worked

00:50:09.380 and most of our salary went on paying the mortgage as the interest rate was 15% at the time. Blimey.

00:50:16.620 Everything we owned was secondhand and we never went out for meals as we couldn't afford to. We

00:50:21.140 rented our TV. We went to the launderer every weekend as we had no washing machine, only had

00:50:27.160 new clothes at Xmas and birthdays as presents. We went without until we could save enough to pay

00:50:33.160 for something it's always been hard whether you're young or old so those out there that think we had 0.95

00:50:39.320 it easy we didn't our governments are to blame not the old which you know is reasonable and many

00:50:44.240 people are doing similar things or comparable things in this day and age although I think 0.64

00:50:49.020 actually it's not that expensive to have your own washing machine now and going to a lingerie

00:50:53.360 is a bit antiquated but nevertheless it's still I think comparable and even though the situation

00:51:02.020 is different and also they probably saddled themselves with far too much debt here i mean

00:51:07.920 there were people reacting to the fact that they had a 15 interest rate on their house

00:51:13.800 um with this this gif of michael well it's not a gif it's a picture of michael burry

00:51:18.740 portrayed by christian bale in um what's that film called the one about the housing market crash

00:51:24.640 it's a good film as well it's a very good one um well you're gonna have to tell us in the comments

00:51:29.460 now. It's escaping me. I haven't seen you. It's going to torture me until the end of this segment

00:51:35.740 now. There's also people pointing out that actually there's people far more deserving

00:51:40.020 of the retired taxpayers. It is the people claiming welfare from abroad. The Americans 0.91

00:51:45.680 even got in on this as well. They started getting involved in the discourse because it spread.

00:51:53.380 The big short, that's right. Big short. Thank you, Samson. That is correct.

00:51:57.140 oh misery is dissipating um and then there are also people capitalizing on it by just trolling

00:52:04.080 and doing a bit of satire um the other day we were on a cruise and our grandson rang asking

00:52:08.900 us for a bit of money he just started at the nhs full-time and 28 000 a year that's what we paid

00:52:14.660 for our house i said love if you're earning a whole house a year and still struggling that's

00:52:18.800 not a money problem that's a discipline problem i'd help but i'm afraid of spoiling the boy

00:52:23.640 our neighbor david was a doctor for 35 years never complained once five rental properties now

00:52:29.400 lovely man i just hope the boy sorts his finances out if we keep bailing them out they'll never

00:52:34.060 learn which is some some very good satire here um because it hits all the right notes as well

00:52:40.580 as reminding me of my own parents a little bit although they're actually happy to help me out

00:52:44.020 although they haven't yet so we'll see no um but that's hitting all the right notes isn't it in

00:52:53.220 that they haven't accounted for inflation. They've also acknowledged the fact that the

00:52:59.360 sort of persistence of the rental market and how widespread it has become makes buying a property

00:53:06.940 yourself all the more difficult because that is part of what is pushing up demand as well as

00:53:12.160 immigration and other things. And just to end with a little bit of data, so it's not all anecdote,

00:53:16.760 this is in the US because they got involved as I said here's the median sale price of houses sold

00:53:25.060 in the United States and as you can see it is just a great big line up although it's sort of

00:53:32.080 went a bit funny around COVID times but I imagine it's probably continued to go up

00:53:36.540 since then and then here is the estimated percentage of 30 year olds who are both

00:53:43.320 married and homeowners and it starts in the 1950s at about you know 51 52 something like that

00:53:50.740 and plummets to what looks like about 10 or so so that is a catastrophic thing for society that

00:54:00.040 people can't form their households until their fertility is already in decline no wonder you

00:54:06.360 know many modern western societies are struggling with birth rates when you can't actually get the

00:54:11.860 conditions to have children and raise them in an optimal way unless you're 10 percent of the

00:54:17.580 population seems kind of a bit unrealistic and then you go to britain here and you see the state

00:54:25.260 pension triple lock versus average real wages and you can see them from about 2010 massively deviate

00:54:33.860 from one another so now actually you're probably better off being on a pension over time than you

00:54:41.040 are earning a wage. And in fact, since about 2018 here, you can see it dip and only really

00:54:46.260 recover from about 2022, 2023 in Britain. And so this hasn't really been acknowledged, this

00:54:55.620 massive difference between average salary and the actual value of the pension. And this is only

00:55:01.240 going to continue to get worse as things carry on. And yes, so my sort of concluding thoughts are

00:55:08.180 that the situation is a lot more complicated

00:55:10.180 than people on the internet are making it out.

00:55:13.080 But you shouldn't go around pointing fingers at the young or old

00:55:16.980 for ultimately things that are policy failures of the government.

00:55:21.020 Direct your anger there.

00:55:24.620 Okay, sorry that went on a little bit long.

00:55:27.660 Let's have a quick look.

00:55:28.660 That segment needn't necessarily be all that long, so it's fine.

00:55:32.660 For the sake of time, these are all $1 cheapskates.

00:55:36.300 I'm afraid I'm going to employ Carl's rules here and not read the $1 ones.

00:55:40.820 I'm not a cheap stripper, all right?

00:55:42.460 At least $2.

00:55:44.960 Sigil Stone 17, boomers got one-shotted by the idea of sending away their children

00:55:49.940 and breaking up their families and were so obsessed with things

00:55:54.140 that they didn't notice the rich telling them to do that didn't do the same.

00:56:00.000 That's very true.

00:56:01.120 you know that we're a long way from multiple generations existing in the same household

00:56:07.640 and sharing their wealth that's for certain i don't want to read any of the others no no it's

00:56:14.400 fine we'll perhaps do it at the end if we have the time all right okay i want to talk to you

00:56:21.120 a little bit about a little bit of a daring do deep behind enemy lions story i like that sort

00:56:27.900 of thing i've actually done a bit of content on uh my own show epochs of lotus eaters behind the

00:56:34.640 paywall consider joining lotus eaters.com for as little as five pound around the bronze team

00:56:39.860 membership um it down there well-oiled machine talked about various special forces raids and

00:56:48.200 operations over time well one happened over the easter weekend which i thought was quite interesting

00:56:53.560 and it's the story of a downed F-15 pilot.

00:56:59.500 Well, he wasn't the pilot, actually.

00:57:00.700 He's the weapons of the Wizzo, the weapons specialist dude in the F-15.

00:57:07.140 So I thought we could just talk all about that.

00:57:08.820 Oh, I have to mention that there's a Lotus Eaters Live this Saturday the 11th in Swindon.

00:57:13.500 Be there or be square.

00:57:14.880 I believe all the VIP tickets are sold out, but the normal tickets aren't yet.

00:57:18.800 Very nearly, though.

00:57:19.560 So if you do want to do that, consider it.

00:57:22.380 All right.

00:57:22.620 So, how rescue of US airmen in remote part of Iran unfolded.

00:57:28.380 Okay, so just a little bit of the story,

00:57:30.120 the facts that we know so far,

00:57:31.320 and then just talk about it a little bit, I thought.

00:57:33.900 I find it interesting what happened.

00:57:37.280 So, there were two F-15s flying over the Zagros Mountains,

00:57:41.700 flying over southern Iran.

00:57:43.540 Some say they were hitting a nuclear site.

00:57:47.920 It was just south of Isfahan where they went down.

00:57:50.760 apparently all destroyed according to trump oh oh right what midnight yeah well we don't know that

00:57:57.060 was that was pure conjecture that that's what they were doing we don't know what their actual

00:58:00.880 what their actual original bombing raid was exactly in fact that makes sense in fact loads

00:58:06.440 of the details about this are only really coming out now in the last two days and you get slightly

00:58:10.840 different contradictory uh details coming out here or there so it's still sort of early days

00:58:17.000 probably won't be probably the way these things work probably won't be for years until we find

00:58:22.220 out truly someone's actually really really involved in the planning of it or the pilot

00:58:26.240 himself or some of the special operators themselves are retired and they write a book or

00:58:30.340 there's three or four different books and historians find kind of figure out exactly what really really

00:58:35.460 happened so a lot of the details we're going to talk about here may turn out to be not actually

00:58:41.080 accurate ultimately but i'll just tell you what we know so far okay so two f-15 strike two f-15e

00:58:48.840 strike eagles were flying over southern iran and they got hit they got hit by some iranian missiles

00:58:53.680 surface-to-air missiles it seems like they were relatively sophisticated ones that's what they're

00:58:57.660 saying because usually an f-15 very flying very low um shouldn't necessarily have been hit and

00:59:04.360 anyway one of them was well they were both hit one of them was able to just just about get out

00:59:09.940 of the airspace just about and um it actually went down but they were rescued the other one

00:59:15.320 that we're going to talk about um was taken out entirely and both the pilot and the weapons

00:59:20.740 systems officer was had to eject okay and they were going fast they're going like 400 odd knots

00:59:27.080 or something you know quite fast and um it's very very dangerous to actually um eject at that sort

00:59:34.600 of speed but anyway the pilot himself was picked up within minutes so first of all one of the things

00:59:40.980 to say is that the americans have watched quite a few uh videos about this and uh there was one

00:59:46.380 very very good one somebody emailed me and it was a guy that used to do this stuff and apparently

00:59:51.620 whenever there's american fast jet sorties going on wherever it is in the whole world they will

00:59:57.140 have whole backup teams just ready to go should something like this happen should an airplane go

01:00:03.640 down they've got teams all sorts of teams ready to rock and roll that instant should it happen

01:00:09.300 so they did and they managed to get the pilot straight away within just a few minutes but the

01:00:15.300 weapons officer was a colonel we don't know his actual name yet his call sign was dude 44

01:00:20.020 that was his call sign he's a colonel he's a colonel i mean and um and they they didn't they

01:00:27.440 couldn't get him right away um and so he's now in a an ene an escape and evasion pattern now he's

01:00:36.560 got to all he can do is try and escape and evade he's only armed with a pistol that's all he's got

01:00:41.060 wouldn't want to be captured by the iranians after what the americans have done to them

01:00:44.440 no no it's it's the worst case scenario for um for a pilot or any air crew to be captured behind

01:00:54.540 enemy lines of course it is yeah there's one sort of question that pops up which is the americans

01:01:00.020 haven't declared war on iran right this is a special military operation uh apparently meaning

01:01:08.400 would he be a prisoner of war under the geneva conventions or would it be something entirely

01:01:14.480 different but you know just think the iranians would probably go with the latter to be honest

01:01:19.140 and also you know i don't think people actually pay attention to international law when

01:01:24.320 the international community are not looking like are they really going to be able to find out

01:01:29.380 until he's you know if he were caught and then released if he was ever released what would

01:01:34.720 happen yeah i mean either way if the iranians had captured him alive and they put a bounty on his

01:01:40.680 head right away 50 000 pounds 66 odd thousand dollars if you could capture him that's what

01:01:45.640 you'd get as a reward so they wanted him bad obviously for political reasons they would then

01:01:50.400 they would then put him on their state tv yes and it's a propaganda coup for them isn't it i mean i

01:01:56.940 remember a fair few years ago i think it was a tony blair year still so it would have been the

01:02:00.680 early 2000s there was some it was either sas or sbs maybe royal marines some dudes were caught

01:02:06.340 right down in the south of iran in the uh these were uh the 16 americans on some kind of coast

01:02:16.600 guard ship that were captured during the obama years i think all right okay there's a completely

01:02:21.340 separate thing that was just british guys oh okay okay and it was in the tony blair era and um

01:02:26.920 and yeah they were they were in the iranian waters they were doing some sort of special up

01:02:31.020 some sort of covert thing and they were captured and armadinejad paraded them on tv and it was a

01:02:36.920 little bit of a diplomatic thing and in the end we we got them back but okay they would the iranians

01:02:42.540 would of course uh parade this this uh this colonel on their tv if they caught him yes so

01:02:49.740 anyway just to let you know where it is um obviously that's where it is in iran and uh

01:02:55.040 it happened there and um okay so this guy's on the right apparently he got uh dude 44 had wounded

01:03:03.020 his leg in some way we don't know the details of how wounded he was but apparently he was bleeding

01:03:08.140 but he wasn't immobile he was able to get out of the immediate area whether it was a couple of

01:03:16.980 miles or whether it was much more than that either way he's he's in his escape and evasion mode

01:03:22.380 and um managed to climb up a ridge because that's a very mountainous area which is good for hiding

01:03:28.960 but not so good for getting an escape plan together and getting you out very bad it's very

01:03:34.800 very very mountainous ridgeline after ridgeline after ridgeline of very hard terrain so it's not

01:03:40.580 good if you've got a leg injury as well no like uneven terrain is the worst thing uh you could

01:03:45.960 have if you've got an injured leg i've been hiking before with a leg injury and it was awful yeah and

01:03:51.480 i imagine his is probably much worse given the nature of it he was able to scramble up this this

01:03:56.980 hillside this mountainside 7 000 feet and hide himself in a nook i mean this is just a few

01:04:01.600 headlines just to show you how us commandos carried out 36 hour mission to rescue airmen

01:04:07.740 from deep beside iran um so when the american they realize that this guy is in trouble he's

01:04:14.460 trapped behind enemy lines they send quite a lot of recences to try and get him because they've

01:04:20.760 got the ethos haven't they no man left behind and again listening to people that have that were in

01:04:27.120 the air force uh the u.s air force and and other arms of the of the services they say sort of

01:04:33.820 everything everything sort of halts in some senses and everything goes towards trying to get this guy

01:04:38.720 back at that point and he's really suspended their airstrikes yeah they did that apparently

01:04:44.260 well the cia were involved with trying to do some um some espionage or not espionage some uh

01:04:50.000 disinformation things trying to let trying to think make the iranians think he's not where he

01:04:55.620 is, apparently even Space Force, the US Space Force were involved in various ways, air

01:05:00.120 assets, of course, the Navy SEAL Team 6 were involved, hundreds and hundreds of special

01:05:08.000 operators, loads and loads and loads of air assets.

01:05:11.780 I mean, one little, one line says that the rescue mission involved 155 aircraft, including

01:05:20.040 four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft and more.

01:05:26.240 It's amazing, really, that many branches of the American state,

01:05:30.160 the most powerful in the world, were focused on finding just one man.

01:05:34.440 It's a testament to the value of life, isn't it, as they see it?

01:05:38.720 And, you know, so do I. 0.95

01:05:40.200 Because they're committed to the ethos of not letting any man,

01:05:45.420 not leaving any man behind.

01:05:46.840 Well, it's a good ethos if you're the most powerful military in the world

01:05:50.000 and you've got the equipment to do it.

01:05:51.200 Well, and the political nightmare it would be for Trump to see a guy. 0.94

01:05:55.000 Because the worst case scenario, I'm not sure if the Iranians would have done this, 0.98

01:05:57.900 but if you remember in Gulf War 1, sorry, Gulf War 2 in 2003, George W. Bush's adventure. 0.62

01:06:04.580 At one point, an Iraqi mob got two CIA guys.

01:06:11.420 And they lynched them to bits and hung their bodies up on a bridge.

01:06:17.800 And it was just like a blackened, charred corpse thing.

01:06:22.560 That's the worst case scenario.

01:06:23.240 Oh, ISIS got a Jordanian pilot, didn't they? 0.99

01:06:26.200 Put him in a cage and burnt him alive. 0.96

01:06:27.580 Filmed it, put it on the internet. 0.99

01:06:29.320 It's a great way to have your enemies give you no mercy,

01:06:33.160 is what that is.

01:06:34.660 So that would be terrible for Trump.

01:06:36.560 So it's politically very, very sensitive.

01:06:38.980 And obviously the military,

01:06:39.800 apparently as soon as this goes out,

01:06:41.880 that there's a downed pilot behind enemy lives,

01:06:43.480 we're going to try and rescue him.

01:06:45.460 Apparently.

01:06:47.820 Everyone in the forces at that point is just like,

01:06:50.900 anything I can do to try and help,

01:06:52.680 anything i can do so yeah they scrambled hundreds of aircraft hundreds and hundreds of aircraft

01:06:57.280 um okay so he was um behind anyone's for something like 36 hours 48 hours all of saturday

01:07:07.520 apparently he climbed up this ridge this cliff 7 000 feet higher even with a wounded leg and just

01:07:14.360 sort of gets in some sort of crevice they keep saying it's some crevice and he had some sort of

01:07:19.260 electronic beacon, some sort of device to let satellites, the CIA,

01:07:24.120 the military, know where he was, almost in real time, almost.

01:07:29.200 So they sort of knew where he was, basically.

01:07:33.040 And they couldn't get, for whatever reason,

01:07:34.880 they couldn't get him right away on the first night.

01:07:37.860 But they got him on the second, they got him basically on the second night.

01:07:41.960 I mean, here's some, okay, so what they did, they sent in,

01:07:46.460 they made like a kill box you might call around him they knew where he was on this top of this ridge

01:07:52.060 and it seems like the iranians knew at least roughly where he was well you could sort of

01:07:58.100 figure it out based on american activity couldn't you yeah even though they tried to do deception

01:08:02.280 things they could still sort of figure it out at least roughly because i don't think it was

01:08:07.420 all that far from when the from where the airplane itself went down um and so the americans create

01:08:13.600 sort of this kind of, yeah, this area of sort of a kill box around him

01:08:19.060 and using everything they could, like Blackhawks, Little Birds,

01:08:25.300 A-10s, higher altitude bombers, all sorts of things, 0.98

01:08:30.100 to just kill anyone that went anywhere near that area, 0.99

01:08:34.100 just blow up roads that were leading to it, anything and everything. 0.99

01:08:37.420 If you tried to get in that area at that time,

01:08:39.500 sort of the full force of the american military was was uh focused on you at that point and yet

01:08:47.140 still when they did finally send in the special operators like seal team six or whoever it was

01:08:52.500 it was all sorts of different special forces were sent to the area um there was still it seems now

01:08:58.700 it's emerging now there was some sort of big firefight went down some sort of relatively

01:09:03.080 badass firefight uh played out um in fact can i can i put turn this i'll let you do it samson can

01:09:10.860 you turn the sound off on that and play this video we'll just let you play in the background

01:09:14.460 it's just some sort of um turn the audio off on it please okay yeah and so the whole the rescue

01:09:24.000 mission itself becomes you get bogged down in that because the more men you send in the more

01:09:29.740 likely they're going to get killed or captured or something and it can be like a it could easily

01:09:34.220 turn into sort of a self-perpetuating cycle of fail. I've heard this from Iraq and Afghanistan

01:09:41.820 where soldiers have said that one person gets wounded and then more and more people as like a

01:09:47.240 snowball effect get wounded in return trying to retrieve them and bring them to safety and it is

01:09:54.660 quite a common thing that you need to be careful of. Of course yeah you try and save one person

01:09:59.720 and many more people get killed in that attempt, yeah.

01:10:03.740 Classic thing, there's someone drowning in a lake

01:10:07.580 and people go out to try and save them and they all drown.

01:10:10.520 Yes.

01:10:11.200 You know, classic, terrible thing.

01:10:13.380 So, okay, they send in these special operators

01:10:15.460 and there's some sort of big firefight on this ridge where he was.

01:10:22.120 And the Americans lost some asset, like one helicopter,

01:10:25.540 at least one Black Hawk at that point gets so heavily damaged

01:10:31.040 that it can't take off, and they all have to pile in one other one.

01:10:35.580 They fly out to sort of a makeshift airstrip,

01:10:39.980 or an abandoned Iranian old airfield, and the Americans land,

01:10:46.480 you know, like those big C-130 gunships?

01:10:48.840 They're like really quite big, aren't they?

01:10:50.340 um two of those out of more than two that were sent in and landed um at least two of those

01:10:59.020 either got damaged on the way in or got stuck in the soil or the sand of this makeshift airstrip

01:11:06.100 and couldn't take off again as well as more helicopters i mean there's they couldn't all

01:11:11.660 take off so they sent in more aircraft to pick up everyone and get everyone out alive long story

01:11:17.100 sure everyone all the americans did get out alive a lot of them fair few of them did get wounded

01:11:22.280 though like some of those special operators on one of the one of the uh helicopters that first

01:11:26.840 went in that actually rescued dude 44 i think a lot of them got shrapnel wounds for example so

01:11:32.660 some lead was flying around one way or another um but they all got out alive but they lost quite a

01:11:40.340 few assets like they lost at least two of the c-130 ships and they're like apparently they're

01:11:45.980 like a hundred million dollars a piece or something two of those and at least two little

01:11:51.580 birds helicopters and as they were bugging out they the americans themselves blow those up

01:11:58.140 so they don't fall into iranians and in fact that's what a lot of this footage is is the

01:12:03.560 the remnants of that so that's what you're seeing here that they also picked up the crew in these

01:12:09.940 ships they didn't just leave them all behind right so everyone got out but they did have they did

01:12:15.440 lose well a couple of f-15s in the first place and then an a10 and an a10 and and a number of

01:12:23.420 other things i think a fair amount of material hardware was lost in all of this but but no lives

01:12:31.300 and dude 44 himself uh survived i imagine that the the sort of information they can get from

01:12:39.020 that equipment coming into contact with this kind of warfare is interesting to them because

01:12:43.380 It's not like the insurgency war in Iraq and Afghanistan

01:12:47.020 really saw that much in the way of, you know,

01:12:50.560 air fighters and the like coming down.

01:12:53.320 Right, yeah, well, like Afghanistan in 2001,

01:12:56.820 they probably didn't have all very much

01:12:58.920 or very sophisticated surface-to-air missile systems.

01:13:01.920 Basically just RPGs, wasn't it?

01:13:03.800 Yeah, or those old Soviet-style stingers.

01:13:09.040 I think they had some American stingers,

01:13:10.720 and I think that they would have had some of the... 0.96

01:13:12.720 Sorry, American Stinger, sorry, Soviet-era Mujahideen.

01:13:17.120 Sorry, they're American-made, of course. 0.98

01:13:19.040 There's just a few pictures there of an F-15.

01:13:21.080 I mean, it's quite an old jet now.

01:13:22.540 I think they were originally designed in the 70s.

01:13:26.300 They've definitely been in service since the 80s,

01:13:29.480 but they still can and do a job.

01:13:32.620 Look, you can see it's a two-man.

01:13:33.740 It's a two-man-er there.

01:13:35.680 They're relatively big as well.

01:13:37.440 This is, you know, like an F-35.

01:13:39.840 It's much smaller, much more sleek, for example.

01:13:42.720 um but yeah i think they're sort of a i think they're like sort of a quite a beautiful fast

01:13:47.840 jet they're iconic aren't they yeah yeah yeah um and so ultimately at least as far as the americans

01:13:54.340 are concerned as far as like the the annals of military history the annals of um uh special

01:14:00.940 operations rescues go sort of a complete success hesketh said it was some sort of um easter miracle

01:14:08.800 that they managed to get him out um so there you go i thought um i i think that sort of thing's

01:14:15.680 interesting it's been all over the news for the last well all weekend at least a weekend really

01:14:21.160 and we didn't cover it yesterday so i thought well i'll talk about it a bit i'll find it

01:14:25.980 interesting last thing to mention is that if anyone's interested in that sort of thing

01:14:30.060 there's lots of examples of it in history lots and lots of examples one of the most

01:14:34.740 famous ones

01:14:35.520 was John Peters

01:14:36.800 squadron leader

01:14:37.480 John Peters

01:14:38.220 this is a Brit story

01:14:39.780 in the first Gulf War

01:14:41.360 in 1991

01:14:41.860 he was in a tornado

01:14:43.140 a GR1

01:14:43.940 I believe Tim Davies

01:14:45.260 knows him

01:14:46.300 at least to some extent

01:14:47.160 has met him

01:14:47.560 and he was down

01:14:49.480 over Iraq

01:14:50.000 and they paraded him

01:14:51.320 on TV

01:14:51.860 and he was eventually

01:14:54.820 released

01:14:55.400 but that's sort of

01:14:57.080 quite a famous story

01:14:58.300 there's a story

01:15:00.520 Back to 21

01:15:01.440 they made a film

01:15:02.560 with Gene Hackman

01:15:03.260 and Danny Glover

01:15:03.960 about it

01:15:04.560 as a vietnam era guy like 1972 or something was it i've got a note yeah 1972 he was downed over

01:15:11.600 south vietnam and he spent 11 days in the jungle before they rescued him but again the americans

01:15:16.800 launched a giant rescue effort and they eventually did but that's like not just escape and evasion

01:15:21.980 but also a true survival situation 11 days in the jungle is no small thing yeah oh it's a

01:15:28.840 particularly dangerous jungle as well the vietnamese one the foreign legion the french foreign

01:15:33.160 legion send their guys for a three-week hike in guiana in french guiana in the jungle and if you

01:15:43.060 manage to do that you are qualified as a sort of special forces super soldier i've seen 11 days

01:15:49.660 from that it's sort of close yeah oh hell well that's nothing in 1943 fred hergshimer was shot

01:15:58.160 down in his p38 lightning in papua new guinea eight months eight months in papua new guinea

01:16:03.500 that's insane cannibals there many especially at that time yeah just sort of as a side note 0.51

01:16:09.840 yeah he had to escape not just a jungle but the cannibals eight months there's lots and lots of

01:16:15.280 examples from history of things like that of extreme stories of survival and escape and evasion 0.72

01:16:21.720 there's lots of them and now this is just the latest chapter in that yeah and it turns out

01:16:27.020 at least from the American point of view,

01:16:28.580 a complete success.

01:16:30.540 So I find that sort of thing interesting.

01:16:33.780 I thought we had to talk about it

01:16:34.720 as it's been in the news so much over the weekend.

01:16:37.520 Definitely worth it.

01:16:38.520 Oh, I very much enjoyed that.

01:16:40.800 Should we read some of the rumble rants

01:16:42.060 while Samson's getting up the thingamabobs?

01:16:44.620 I'll even read the cheapskate ones

01:16:46.080 if I'm being quick.

01:16:48.740 That's a random name.

01:16:49.640 In a normal world, 0.99

01:16:50.560 older generations make sacrifices

01:16:51.880 for the prosperity of the younger generations.

01:16:54.020 In a clown world, however, 0.95

01:16:55.320 we need to sacrifice the young

01:16:56.620 so the old don't catch a cold yes the covid era was the perfect illustration of this sort of 0.98

01:17:01.580 philosophy of let's ruin the young's lives so people over 80 can live a year longer scan lines

01:17:09.200 i saw someone describe gen z as the second coming of the boomer i can't understand can't understand

01:17:14.680 tech weird sexual tastes and habits focused on getting that back i don't even know what that

01:17:20.000 means maybe nan shouldn't do the school run after all i don't know about that i think that

01:17:27.280 there's so much complexity in each generation that any attempt to blanketly say these people

01:17:34.660 have these behaviors is so fraught with exceptions that it's almost worthless saying it in the first

01:17:40.920 place i've got no idea what getting that bag means is that about just making money i've really

01:17:46.440 don't know if it's i've no maybe um i hope it's not um the part of the male anatomy yeah it might

01:17:54.060 be something to do like that the at uk boomers twitter account is the best account on x at the

01:17:59.220 moment yes it's not all boomers but it's enough um the habsification um all these ills happen 0.69

01:18:06.080 because mass migration lack of energy production and actively not expanding and de-industrialization

01:18:12.020 that is also true it is a multi-faceted issue my issue with the pension system is that i i was

01:18:19.220 forced to participate in this system that i never consented to i need my money more than strangers

01:18:24.540 who look down on me just because i'm younger fair point yeah sigil stone pov your dude 44

01:18:30.980 seeing dude 69 and dude 420 coming to rescue you very mature um sigil stone is dude 44 um

01:18:41.400 i'm gonna read that yeah they didn't mention there were some initial reports about him from

01:18:48.520 the from people that you describe um speculatively so yes the engaged few dude 44 sounds like

01:18:59.260 the name of a cheap men's cologne that comes in a green bottle shape like an antique car

01:19:04.140 amazing and finally yes bo getting that bag means male anatomy

01:19:09.940 i see okay i was joking when i suggested that but apparently that's what it'd be apparently

01:19:17.420 i've learned two things today yeah one more wholesome than the other that's a tick in the

01:19:22.520 my column of the i don't know anything about that whole subculture of it i've never heard that before

01:19:28.960 And I'm proud of that.

01:19:30.160 Yes.

01:19:30.760 I'm okay with that.

01:19:32.080 Now I've reached 30, I'm okay with not understanding youth slang.

01:19:35.800 In fact, I'm sort of enjoying it.

01:19:37.540 So you're saying that loads of Gen Xers are gay, basically.

01:19:40.920 I don't think that's...

01:19:42.300 Doesn't Carl and other people say that loads of Gen Zers are...

01:19:47.300 Let's watch that video.

01:19:49.320 Oh, is this the same one we saw yesterday, Samson?

01:19:53.940 It looks very familiar.

01:19:57.280 Yeah, those theses.

01:19:58.260 And that one.

01:20:00.080 And that one.

01:20:00.820 Have you opened yesterday's folder?

01:20:04.220 In the meantime, I'll read a comment.

01:20:07.780 You did? That was exactly what you did.

01:20:10.240 Oh, calling out poor Samson.

01:20:12.020 Sorry, Samson.

01:20:12.720 He doesn't deserve this.

01:20:13.880 Carl's evil twin, Vorsch, says,

01:20:16.260 I got baptised this Easter Sunday.

01:20:17.980 What an amazing experience and the start of a new beginning.

01:20:20.800 So I shall try not to be such an...

01:20:23.320 I can't read that.

01:20:26.180 That's wonderful news.

01:20:28.260 it was going so well until you made me fed post almost okay here we go

01:20:36.500 now we can't hear it uh oh here we are

01:20:46.020 i wonder where that is in the world it's like it's a geoguess it looks like yeah i don't know

01:20:52.740 more northern than the southwest that's my frame of reference

01:20:58.260 It's not a Brummie accent I heard. It's certainly more northern than I'm used to.

01:21:08.820 Yeah, it's got to be.

01:21:10.380 Nice day out nonetheless.

01:21:11.700 It does. I like a good steam engine.

01:21:14.840 Hey, hello, seaters. I'm here in Stratford-upon-Avon, currently on Shakespeare Street.

01:21:22.000 This is the place where William Shakespeare was born.

01:21:24.840 This is where his family home existed for 19 years, 1597, 1616.

01:21:30.980 Just some garden now.

01:21:32.740 Here's his statue.

01:21:36.140 I remember that very well when I went there.

01:21:39.020 And this is where William Shakespeare is buried, his stone being just there.

01:21:45.780 I remember there being lots and lots of swans in Stratford-upon-Avon, in the canals, everywhere.

01:21:51.820 It's very pretty.

01:21:52.420 If anyone's interested, on Epochs of the Lotus Eaters.

01:21:58.260 I knew this was coming.

01:21:59.460 On LotusEaters.com, consider signing up for £5 a month,

01:22:04.000 Bronze Team membership.

01:22:04.760 I've got a long-form bit of content all about the life of Shakespeare.

01:22:08.820 Okay.

01:22:09.120 And it's not even that old.

01:22:10.100 It's only about a month or two old.

01:22:12.560 So, yeah, it's like an hour, an hour and a half or something.

01:22:15.280 All about, you know, all about, if he was real, he almost certainly is.

01:22:19.880 well he is, whether his plays were penned by one person or not

01:22:24.440 and yeah, all sorts of details about his life

01:22:27.080 what we really know and what we don't exactly

01:22:29.200 what sort of myth and what sort of historical fact

01:22:32.040 all that sort of thing

01:22:33.080 so if you're interested in that, consider watching that

01:22:36.040 I presume if he's buried in a specific place

01:22:40.260 he's probably real and one person

01:22:42.380 you know there's a whole spectrum of thought on these things

01:22:45.520 some people say he's an entirely fictional character

01:22:48.220 It's just not real.

01:22:50.280 Other people say...

01:22:51.000 You're sure he's not a black woman then?

01:22:53.620 And other people say everything that is attributed to Shakespeare

01:22:58.240 is just this one guy, this one historical figure

01:23:00.520 who lived in Stratford-upon-Avon,

01:23:01.880 and it's well documented enough that you can say that.

01:23:04.200 Then there's many, many shades of grey in between,

01:23:06.780 saying surely everything that is attributed to him

01:23:10.000 couldn't have been by one person for all sorts of different reasons.

01:23:13.260 If you drill down into the textual analysis of things,

01:23:16.960 it's unlikely to have been one person but so there you go there's there's a debate i'm told

01:23:22.200 what i'm trying to say extra analysis tests that english lit majors used to have to take

01:23:26.460 before it became completely crap they'd be given a text and sort of be told to analyze who the

01:23:31.880 author was and they would be forbidden from saying it was shakespeare because you could 0.92

01:23:37.980 actually claim anything was shakespeare for some reason which i don't know enough to say

01:23:44.060 uh but it clearly the man was a genius and i don't have any much reason to say he didn't exist

01:23:52.380 i'm a believer it's definitely documented that there was a man called william shakespeare who

01:23:57.520 was born in stratford upon avon and came to london and wrote plays yeah that's just anyone

01:24:04.720 that denies that is sort of way out there for me yeah shakespeare denialism is the worst form of

01:24:10.300 conspiracy because there's enough evidence to say that firmly really basically it's whether all of

01:24:16.360 his plays and sonnets are this one person or not for example loads of people argue that some of

01:24:22.060 his historical knowledge is unlikely to have been a single person from the the 17th century late

01:24:29.980 15th century early 16th century early 17th century um so make of that what you will like

01:24:36.020 He seems to have been too well-read, too well-travelled

01:24:39.760 for one person to have written all of that.

01:24:42.820 But then others say... 0.94

01:24:44.480 Modern retardation bias. 0.93

01:24:45.960 Maybe, yeah, maybe, quite possibly, quite possibly. 1.00

01:24:48.560 Anyway, rodents.

01:24:50.180 Sorry, rodents.

01:24:51.600 For posting animal videos, I would like to put forward

01:24:54.380 our little ash mouse. 0.72

01:24:56.140 He's the patriarch of our little mouse colony

01:24:59.880 and he really loves himself some cookies.

01:25:03.280 Look at him try and grab it.

01:25:04.420 oh you want that cookie don't you if only there was something about not giving mice cookies that

01:25:11.300 would be said in like some sort of nursery rhyme is there a reference to that no it's quite cute

01:25:18.400 though i remember when my cat would catch live field mice she would never kill them and she'd

01:25:22.680 just bring them into the house and i'd find one running around in the kitchen yes i'm a country

01:25:26.860 bumpkin what of it um they would find mice in the kitchen but they were absolutely adorable they're

01:25:32.340 like mice are already quite cute,

01:25:34.320 but then you get a field mouse and they're even cuter again.

01:25:37.520 And I'm thinking that once, you know, I decide to get some pets,

01:25:42.500 I might just get some field mice.

01:25:43.960 Although, you know, once they breed, it is going to go crazy.

01:25:48.060 Going to have a horde of mice.

01:25:50.820 That was quite cute.

01:25:52.160 I find, I even had a pet rat when I was a kid.

01:25:56.320 A rat.

01:25:57.220 Really?

01:25:57.760 Yeah.

01:25:58.120 They're good pets?

01:25:59.040 They're good pets.

01:25:59.580 It was really good, yeah.

01:26:00.660 It was really cute.

01:26:01.400 I like mice, rats, gerbils, hamsters

01:26:05.080 even if they nip you a bit

01:26:06.740 I find them cute

01:26:07.420 I like all mammals to be honest

01:26:08.840 I even had a pet giant African land snail

01:26:11.900 at one point

01:26:12.600 we called him Michael Schumacher

01:26:15.420 this is pre-injury by the way

01:26:19.140 this wasn't a joke about his cognitive abilities

01:26:21.280 it's about speed

01:26:23.300 thanks for that clarification

01:26:26.140 would you like to read some of your points

01:26:28.420 let's see

01:26:30.520 uh michael brooks says my wife is slovak being in eastern europe at easter is quite

01:26:36.520 quite magical as as it's so good to experience cultures across churches coming together

01:26:41.100 so sure of themselves and their community uh so sure of themselves their community

01:26:47.260 it puts a uh massive highlighter mark on what we are missing a soul yeah fair enough uh corax

01:26:58.000 80 says both there are loopholes for entry to heaven although baptism is the best way to

01:27:02.560 salvation the penitent thief uh saint dismas was not baptized but his faith in jesus preserve

01:27:09.820 reserved his place with the lord i think that was a baptism by intent which is yes exists in the

01:27:18.560 church so if at the point of death you wanted baptism that is counted as you having received

01:27:25.560 baptism and then there's baptism of blood

01:27:27.400 which is you

01:27:29.480 see somebody getting martyred and you decide

01:27:31.400 well I'm going to get martyred with them because I actually

01:27:33.440 believe now and that gets you

01:27:35.380 into heaven. I would

01:27:37.440 recommend baptism by water and the spirit

01:27:39.600 as slightly better.

01:27:42.140 I'm good.

01:27:44.260 Just to say.

01:27:46.020 Pass.

01:27:49.580 Lars Peter Simonson

01:27:51.780 says as an unchristianed 1.00

01:27:53.580 heathen I still appreciate for that show

01:27:55.480 showcasing easter celebrations i spent the easter of 2006 in southern spain cordoba seville and

01:28:01.240 granada and it was a fantastic experience that too can be fixed uh geopolitics of a large church

01:28:08.440 i've been meaning to do a real real politic about the geopolitics of the church but at some point

01:28:14.140 i'll get to it because i want to give it the treatment that it deserves the syrian child 0.65

01:28:19.000 carl beat up on itv says heresy we must sacrifice 10 000 zoomers a day to keep the boomers alive

01:28:24.840 on a on the golden pension um michael says bo the key for gen x is we don't care what people say 0.93

01:28:33.920 we grew up being bullied teased hazed and were cynical for it we had to put up with the boomers

01:28:38.940 the the greatest and our own kids boomers are the most entitled generation to be fair 0.97

01:28:44.040 i must say i think a good thing about my generation um is that we grew up before the

01:28:51.180 internet and mobile phones and even before there were loads and loads of channels on the tv yes

01:28:57.340 and so i think we're sort of the last generation that just sort of went out and lived a relatively

01:29:04.520 normal childhood in retrospect a very very wholesome childhood in retrospect i remember

01:29:11.500 us being loose in summer yeah yeah you just go out you just go out and play all day long

01:29:16.700 Yeah, exactly.

01:29:17.360 In real life, with real kids, no screens, none.

01:29:20.100 Yes.

01:29:20.500 You're expected to come back home for lunch and dinner

01:29:22.460 and then search parties will come again.

01:29:25.240 And I think it's difficult to have a childhood like that now, probably.

01:29:28.860 Almost certainly is.

01:29:30.000 Impossible even.

01:29:30.700 Because everything is a play date and you have to organise everything

01:29:33.020 and it just sort of means that they don't have any spontaneity.

01:29:36.200 Just kick them out on the street and say, make your own fun.

01:29:39.240 Sigilstone17, lowering the tone here, says,

01:29:41.020 Firas, ever watch Nacho Libre?

01:29:42.980 Get Bo, like how Jack Black in that movie

01:29:45.560 baptizes his wrestling partner.

01:29:48.300 I haven't actually seen the film,

01:29:49.560 but I'm sure that's a vulgar, vulgar reference.

01:29:53.840 Samson's giving it a thumbs up.

01:29:55.380 I've seen that film, but I don't remember that in it.

01:29:58.860 Would you like to read some comments?

01:29:59.560 Whatever that is, I'm not going to do that to you.

01:30:01.480 Just sort of keeping the office peace.

01:30:04.520 It's going to bring in a water pistol with holy water

01:30:06.760 and just get you not looking.

01:30:08.300 That's an idea.

01:30:10.820 One of those cannons, you know?

01:30:12.560 baptism by coercion baptism by by bullying i'm gonna gonna save your soul whether you like it

01:30:20.140 or not um okay what have we got here michael brooks says this is on my segment uh this is

01:30:28.580 very dangerous while agree on the no man left behind they have just told iran just how valuable

01:30:33.800 a pilot pilot is and next time the pilot not might not be so lucky yeah i said in the breakfast show

01:30:40.460 and I'll say it again, I'm surprised something like this

01:30:42.820 hasn't already happened already more than once.

01:30:46.000 It's surprising to me that no one from American Special Forces

01:30:50.740 or air crew have been caught and paraded on Iranian TV yet.

01:30:55.800 It probably may well happen.

01:30:57.560 But a bunch of times during the first Iraq war, I think. 0.99

01:31:00.640 Yeah.

01:31:01.140 And if I remember correctly, some of them were placed

01:31:06.000 in government buildings to be used as human shields.

01:31:09.140 so it it gets quite nasty it gets quite nasty uh well let's see ben gale says

01:31:18.660 quote all got out alive i guess quoting me well that is what the u.s propaganda claims

01:31:24.380 but they also claim the planes that their planes at that saudi air base were only lightly damaged

01:31:32.420 when the photos come out they were completely burnt out yeah i mean i can only report i can

01:31:37.840 only tell you what we've reported i wasn't there in in iran and i haven't got the inside skinny

01:31:44.460 at the pentagon so i can only tell you what we're being told if there were bodies that the iranians

01:31:49.980 had they would parade the body you would have thought so presumably they also tried to take

01:31:53.940 the bodies like the the americans would like to take the bodies their own dad so there is going

01:31:58.400 to be a fog of war four years after this war and there's nothing we can do about that yeah i'm gonna

01:32:03.680 read a couple of rumble rants because we got two in uh uh wes angle says i think the bag reference

01:32:10.420 goes back to beat and late 60s hippie jargon like getting into the height asbury bag the harry

01:32:18.560 krishna bag yeah like that's not my bag baby that thing i just think of austin powers yeah 0.70

01:32:24.300 um sigil stone no jack black sneaks up on him with a bowl of water and slams his face into it

01:32:30.200 while yelling, praise the Lord. 0.81

01:32:31.540 That can be a ring.

01:32:32.580 I think you've just described

01:32:35.000 Firas's entire political philosophy there, haven't you?

01:32:38.480 Yes.

01:32:39.440 And on that note,

01:32:40.940 thank you very much for watching.

01:32:42.960 Enjoy the rest of your day.

01:32:44.500 And goodbye.

01:32:45.620 See you tomorrow.

01:32:46.260 See you tomorrow.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - April 07, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1391

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript