The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1539

00:00:00.000 hello everyone welcome to the podcast of the lotus eaters i'm your host brother stelios and

00:00:04.960 i'm pleased to be joined today by brother marcus and brother luca yes hello i'm being great

00:00:10.640 replaced by the meds but uh it's all right don't worry we have it coming luca we come we come in

00:00:16.000 peace i'm sure you do right we have common adversaries don't you worry thank you brother

00:00:21.600 luke thank you brother we are all brothers here with good food exactly great okay so today is

00:00:30.800 friday the 30th of october of 2026 and this is podcast number 1539 we are going to discuss

00:00:41.040 german leftists getting what they want we're gonna talk about some sad events about 104 years ago

00:00:47.840 in Anatolia, and we're going to talk about the sad passing of Patrick Stewart.

00:00:54.340 Yeah, absolute legend.

00:00:56.020 Yes, but before we start, today is the last Friday of the month, so this means something.

00:01:03.880 Those of you who have a Gold Tier subscription can join us for the Gold Tier Zoom.

00:01:10.040 This is a magical opportunity and an opportunity that you shouldn't miss.

00:01:14.600 check it out 3 p.m uk time today yeah it's gonna be great it'll be a good crack right

00:01:23.100 so i want to talk about pure leftist aura in germany there's no such place that generates

00:01:33.700 there's no place that generates such unprecedented levels of leftist aura as um this country i just

00:01:42.780 I just want you to look at this. This is from a conference.

00:01:46.780 Just look.

00:01:49.780 Hello, I'm Alexandra Herrmann. 1.00

00:01:52.780 Fuck Nazis. It's a far-fetched attitude within this society. 1.00

00:01:57.780 Fortunately, it's not a famous conference.

00:02:02.780 And we have this, it looks like a syndrome from the...

00:02:06.780 From the Incredibles.

00:02:08.780 the incredibles but instead of orange hair this person has something like is a reddish i think

00:02:18.060 or dark pinkish this is up there isn't it with your favorite clips you love this clip yeah i do

00:02:24.540 love this clip and we will come back to this clip in a bit but we are talking about leftist aura

00:02:30.940 in the link now the link is a party that is plagued by a scandal these days but i want to give you

00:02:37.500 you some context these are some of the people in delinque is the scandal the hairdresser stelios

00:02:42.880 by the way because that is some horrible hair that's going on there um yeah but maybe i i'm

00:02:47.800 sure that the people they want to team up with can give them a good hair all the turkish barbers

00:02:52.800 cutting of their hair indeed at a good price here yes indeed right okay so we have here they are

00:02:59.460 you can get an idea that was their conference so before i explain to you what happened with

00:03:06.700 the scandal, which consists in leftists getting precisely what they voted for, I want to show

00:03:13.400 you a bit about De Linke. Now, this is De Linke's page. They say, visitors, friends,

00:03:20.260 un comrades, welcome to the official, blah, blah, blah. And they're saying that they're

00:03:24.880 a socialist party, a democratic socialist left. They're trying to play the Mamdani card

00:03:29.780 now. And they say that they have a concrete goal. They want to fight for a society in

00:03:35.340 which no child grows up poor in which everyone can live a self-determined life in peace dignity

00:03:41.560 and welfare they're fighting for a society where social relations are shaped democratically

00:03:46.480 to achieve this they need a different economic and social system they need they say they do

00:03:53.420 democratic socialism does this sound particularly progressive or how does it sound so far well i'd

00:04:01.640 to hear what they have to say about the democratic consent or the lack thereof you know as regards

00:04:07.400 to demographic replacement of germans in germany well they're very much against the exploitation

00:04:13.080 of millions of men and women war and imperialism they say that they is depriving uh they are

00:04:19.800 depriving entire countries of a hope for a better future yada yada yada they believe in global

00:04:25.480 cooperation but rather than the rather than the concept that might makes right right okay so what

00:04:32.120 are they saying here how does that work when someone mightier does come along and they're

00:04:37.640 powerless to do anything about it um well what do you mean well i understand what you mean yes

00:04:45.080 that that's exactly what they would say well i guess they'll just have to find out actually

00:04:50.280 there's the other bit the naive would say that well no we have to we have to constantly make

00:04:58.120 the ethical plea that we're constantly making the other ones would say well the other the far-right

00:05:04.900 extremist racists are gonna rise so they need to do a preemptive strike that's their but if they

00:05:10.260 are the millions in the million dialogue where they're just about to get crushed you are

00:05:17.760 anticipating some elements of my second brother luca if i if you may tell us could just scroll

00:05:22.800 back up just ever so slightly something i picked up at the very beginning yeah so here we go this

00:05:26.160 is sort of the the trope of leftism that is i find highly repugnant right is that um where are we the

00:05:32.160 uh no actually further up if you can yeah so like here we go um uh so everyone can live a

00:05:38.640 self-determined life in peace dignity and welfare unless of course you are a small businessman a

00:05:42.320 kulak christian or any kind of person who happens to be right to vladimir lenin correct yeah i mean

00:05:49.040 self-determining so far as it has their collective that what you might say the consent of the

00:05:53.040 proletariat the dictate of the proletariat right exactly and this is what we are talking about

00:05:57.200 because in a way both leftists and us are talking about the same thing is just we're talking about

00:06:05.280 it in different we're using different language and by identifying sort of different threats

00:06:12.000 because fundamentally it is about multiculturalism right it doesn't work and leftists agree but they

00:06:18.960 say that the culture that we can't coexist with we as in we leftists no i don't include myself

00:06:25.680 there the saying is the sort of european people who want to remain european it's the westerners

00:06:32.560 right um and there's also this concealed abstract way of putting it it's like everyone has a right

00:06:39.520 to a self-determined life. Or as Sanchez said in Spain, everyone wants a better life. The

00:06:45.360 question is, how do they understand a better life? And frequently, there are people who

00:06:49.180 think that the best life for them involves massive subjection of others. This is something

00:06:56.780 apparently De Linke doesn't understand, or actually it did understand. De Linke found

00:07:01.640 out, as I'm going to show you in the segment. They want to return passive resentment into

00:07:06.460 active resistance democracy freedom equality justice internationalism and solidarity are

00:07:12.300 their fundamental values so who are their natural allies based on their stated preferences and their

00:07:20.460 value who are their natural allies well anyone who wishes to destabilize traditional german culture

00:07:27.180 yes because it accelerates the revolution and people who sit high up on the so-called sort of

00:07:31.500 you might say grievance hierarchy yes we are gonna talk to you about it and we are gonna

00:07:37.660 show you who they conceive of as being their allies but let's take a small detour before because

00:07:45.820 the stakes are even higher they won the berlin regional elections roughly two months ago so

00:07:52.460 So they more than doubled their percentage.

00:07:57.840 They had something like 12.2%.

00:08:00.880 They got 25.7%, right?

00:08:05.160 What happened there in Berlin two months ago?

00:08:09.020 The CDE and the SPD coalition has angered some Germans, and these Germans naturally

00:08:18.660 are going to vote against the ruling coalition but we had also more stuff we had greens losing

00:08:26.980 four percent of their percentage from eighteen point four percent they went to fourteen point

00:08:34.500 three the spd that is the social democrats sort of center or left they had eighteen point four

00:08:41.860 they went to to 12.1 so there you have it at least 10.5 percent 10.4 percent that went to

00:08:50.660 the link it right the afd rose 7.2 cdu mergers party lost 9.4 so now they're trying to put up

00:09:02.660 a mayor and the mayor that they want to um elect is the not particularly german sounding elif at

00:09:11.220 Alp. This is a Turkish name. And Elif Eralp here, I will say this, she is going to come

00:09:18.000 out as a bit more sensible than you would expect. Right? I have to say this.

00:09:22.800 Okay.

00:09:23.040 Because you would expect me to say the opposite. But she is actually really honest. It's her

00:09:29.980 sincerity that has caused the scandal. Right. So according to Eva von Redeker here, the

00:09:38.720 De Linke's surge was propelled by a compelling promise

00:09:41.640 for voters to have the freedom to stay in their city.

00:09:44.880 This is how to fight back against the far right.

00:09:47.780 So again, they're making it all about the far right.

00:09:50.740 And they're saying that people who expressed worries about the leftist De Linke

00:09:56.040 were sort of engaged in a moral panic.

00:09:58.920 Stelis, if I'll just make quickly the interesting choice of words there by the journalists too.

00:10:02.520 Not citizens, not Germans, voters.

00:10:05.040 Yes, exactly, correct.

00:10:06.880 There was no problem, I imagine, because I can only imagine, I'm obviously projecting here, but I would expect Berlin took a similar path as London did over here, where you ended up with, as more and more migrant communities came in, you found a lot of the traditional Londoners, those who were nine generations in, you know, of their families living there, moving out of the area to quieter parts.

00:10:31.780 Yes, Luca, but have you read this Guardian article?

00:10:34.400 Because this Guardian article addresses directly your point of criticism.

00:10:38.880 Oh, all right then.

00:10:39.840 According to the author of this article, you are engaging in a moral panic that is sustained and false.

00:10:45.600 Yes, I am.

00:10:46.180 Let's see what they're doing.

00:10:47.180 On the basis of one leaked chat, according to this Guardian author and one rapper's performance,

00:10:53.180 the party was described as schmoozing with criminal clans and endangering the lives of Berlin Jews.

00:10:59.960 Accusations of anti-Semitism prompted the Greens and the SPD potential coalition partners

00:11:04.640 to question any potential cooperation, while alt-right opinion makers suggested that Hamas

00:11:11.520 and Hezbollah had won the elections, or that the German Democratic Republic was about to come back.

00:11:19.440 But this is moral panic, according to The Guardian, and they're saying that this is part

00:11:25.820 of the liberal capitalist order that is afraid and that it has to react and sort of create this

00:11:33.120 panic out of nowhere because according to them it is the liberal capital order that generates the

00:11:40.200 far right and the far right wants to take to divert people's attention away from economic

00:11:47.780 inequality and talk about you know multiculturalism crumbling. They love this deflection so much but

00:11:54.520 But the fact of the matter is, it's not really a question of democracy.

00:11:58.480 You could live in an undemocratic state and still see the demographics changing, and without

00:12:04.580 any representation whatsoever or any funding into a political party, you could take umbrage

00:12:09.260 with it.

00:12:11.640 It's a part of human nature to resist change just as much as it is to advocate for it.

00:12:18.040 Right.

00:12:19.300 So do you know what happened with the news outlet called Der Spiegel?

00:12:24.120 Well, I only know really about Der Spiegel in the sense that it's very left-wing and

00:12:30.040 it had a catastrophic interview with Morrissey one time, but beyond that, no.

00:12:35.000 Right.

00:12:36.000 So for some reason, Elif et alp and her followers are accusing Der Spiegel of their speakable

00:12:41.400 behavior.

00:12:42.400 Why?

00:12:43.400 Elie Faralp reveals fear of terrorist sympathizers.

00:12:48.120 I wonder why.

00:12:49.660 Could the Guardian article author, Guardian article's author, be wrong about the moral panic?

00:12:56.480 It turns out that she was wrong about describing what happens as moral panic.

00:13:02.180 And we have Die Linke's mayoral hopeful for Berlin saying that she's afraid.

00:13:08.480 Of who? Of people who are suspectedly, allegedly, who allegedly have ties with Hamas and Hezbollah.

00:13:18.500 Elif Eralp wants to become governing mayor of Berlin.

00:13:22.020 However, in an internal memo, the left-wing politician shows that she fears terrorists sympathizers with contacts to Hamas.

00:13:30.680 Can someone like that be responsible for security in the capital?

00:13:34.320 all. Here she is. Let's see what happened. An email arrived at the Spiegel Capitol office

00:13:44.400 on Wednesday morning at 9.46 a.m., which Alifa Raup certainly did no one send. The email

00:13:51.520 contains a document in which the Berlin left front woman reveals that she is afraid for

00:13:56.840 themselves and her family. The document reveals that the true state of internal security,

00:14:02.560 The document reveals the true state of internal security in Germany's capital.

00:14:06.660 Now, isn't this particularly normal for a European capital?

00:14:14.300 Yes, sadly in the modern day.

00:14:15.800 Sadly now, but it shouldn't be.

00:14:18.300 She and her husband, Aralp, writes, are afraid of these people.

00:14:21.800 This refers to pro-Palestinian terrorist sympathizers with contacts to Hamas.

00:14:26.780 The woman who wants to become governing mayor is obviously so afraid of him

00:14:30.300 that she doesn't even want to mention their names or speak publicly about them.

00:14:35.740 Well, she doesn't sound like a particularly strong candidate,

00:14:39.660 especially when we're talking about security issues.

00:14:42.300 The document in question is the authorized version of an in-depth interview

00:14:46.080 that two Spiegel employees conducted with Eralp on Monday morning,

00:14:50.240 two days before the email.

00:14:51.540 After that, the usual procedure began following such discussions.

00:14:56.360 The Spiegel people turned it into a written version and sent it to Eralp's press spokesman.

00:15:02.260 The interviewee was then able to edit this version and adjust her own answers.

00:15:06.820 So far so normal, but on Eralp's side, an oversight occurred.

00:15:11.680 The word document contains comments, deletions and remarks made by Eralp,

00:15:16.200 her spokesperson and at least one other person during editing.

00:15:20.100 This clearly captures how the woman who wants to govern Berlin really feels in the city,

00:15:24.560 no longer safe and she said i cannot put myself and my family in danger for spiegel

00:15:30.800 well this sounds particularly um bad for germany and the question is why did it turn this way why

00:15:38.620 why did this happen reality yes why are we in such a position where in germany for instance people

00:15:47.560 are afraid of what Muslims in Germany and Islamists in Germany are going to say. Why? Because these

00:15:55.020 people are making everything about Gaza. And they don't particularly like to be told that they're

00:16:03.620 wrong about anything. Now, this is precisely something that the leftist mindset leads towards.

00:16:09.820 I'm going to mention the Russo, right? The Russoian mindset is very simple. Unless everyone is free,

00:16:16.540 free, no one is free. And they have a particular way of understanding freedom. And upon this

00:16:21.540 slogan, the leftists have built their entire internationally minded and internationally

00:16:27.540 organized modus operandi and their sort of organization. This is how they act. And right

00:16:36.540 now, they are making it everything about Gaza. So they themselves have paved the way for

00:16:43.540 for this situation. And this situation is something that is very frequently described in history, in philosophy.

00:16:51.820 You can just read, let's say, Plato's Republic. You can see how in several spaces where

00:16:59.100 order and moral constraints come to be seen as tyranny, we have tyrannical characters who are grooming the so-called naive

00:17:07.180 people. And we have this woman, for instance, in France whose shop was being looted and she was screaming,

00:17:13.080 claiming, this isn't the cause, this isn't the cause, go rob the other stores, shouldn't

00:17:18.220 actually say this.

00:17:19.680 This is precisely what happened.

00:17:20.960 So here we have Farad Cossack left and Ibrahim Ibrahim to the right.

00:17:26.460 And we have this article by Jfeed that says, no actually that was on here.

00:17:32.760 She said on Der Spiegel that when she won in Berlin, when she won a well-known local

00:17:41.140 clan chief and a publicly known Hamas sympathizer appeared at a left party election, left party

00:17:47.700 election party in Neukölln on election night, and they sort of started grooming the people

00:17:53.760 there, and they started, let's say, being trying to fish votes and political support

00:17:58.760 for them.

00:17:59.760 They are engaged in the sort of entryism that we also see leftists as engaging into.

00:18:05.660 A long march through the institutions isn't just something that leftists are doing.

00:18:11.040 Right, and let's move on.

00:18:15.140 This has caused a scandal.

00:18:17.120 In Germany there are several people who are casting doubt over her ability to care for

00:18:24.800 Berlin and particularly to solve the security issues of the capital of Germany.

00:18:30.940 she doesn't seem like someone who is a strong candidate to deal with crime there what do you

00:18:36.540 think well she's in the wrong party for one or in the right party she didn't she want this

00:18:43.740 well yes you'd think so but i mean it's interesting as well of course because i would only imagine

00:18:49.460 that she owes her victory to the migrant communities as well and so you find yourself

00:18:54.700 okay fine you've rigged the demographics in such a way that you're always going to find your party

00:19:00.900 now in charge of Berlin, the downside of that is your party are now always going to be in

00:19:06.480 charge of Berlin as it becomes more and more destabilizing.

00:19:10.220 And they'll always be on the hook of the whims of their constituency.

00:19:14.560 Who will be able to continually advocate for more and more radical things and take more

00:19:19.560 and more, I suppose we say, non-democratic means to hint to you that they want these

00:19:26.980 things.

00:19:27.480 Correct.

00:19:27.720 and yeah is this woman really cut out for that is that something that she ever thought she would

00:19:33.880 have to contend with we have here someone saying that would mean that the governing mayor is open

00:19:39.120 to blackmail michael mueller former governing mayor spd of berlin said regarding the spiegel

00:19:45.500 report on elif eralp she might not be able to act freely in her duties if she could not clearly

00:19:51.420 distance herself now i want to say one thing as far as mayors are concerned mayors don't have the

00:19:58.060 power that other more senior officials have they don't have for instance the power of the chancellor

00:20:04.700 of germany but they do have some power at least on the local level but this is fundamentally

00:20:10.220 something that is an issue of the government right it is the government of germany and consecutive

00:20:17.980 governments of germany that are putting people in harm's way including this mayor and i will say

00:20:24.300 well based on her profile i'm willing to say that she also had a she also had a thing to do about it

00:20:30.940 because she also has allied with people like the the author of the guardian article i showed you

00:20:38.060 before who said that everyone who's talking about the negative influence of islamists in europe

00:20:45.020 is sort of engaging in a moral panic and all this is far-right propaganda she confirmed with her

00:20:51.660 actions that this is true it is not far-right propaganda and that there are more sinister

00:20:58.780 actors at play more sinister uh more sinister people in the left who deliberately want this

00:21:07.340 alliance to uh to take even stronger hold than it does and i want to say one thing now because we're

00:21:13.980 talking about eu territory a few months ago i believe it was a month ago maybe two the eu

00:21:21.500 parliament voted for a strategy against islamist entryism and they wanted a tougher stance on the

00:21:31.740 muslim brotherhood you know who voted against it the link obviously the left yeah overwhelmingly

00:21:39.740 the leftist parties in the eu parliament voted against this and there is a reason why we constantly

00:21:46.860 hear about the far right because the sort of the sort of coalition that the left is trying to lead

00:21:53.580 is completely incom inconsistent right you can't have trans people and islamists together it's it's

00:22:02.060 just not a match made in heaven let's let's put it this way and here she is talking about an attack

00:22:07.740 she was actually back in august two weeks ago condemning an islamist terrorist attack against

00:22:14.220 the queer community and the question is what does she intend to do about it she has a plan

00:22:20.460 a five-point plan to protect queer people the berlin left wants to better protect the queer

00:22:26.300 community uh and this is alifa up here um and she says essentially queer rights should be a topic

00:22:33.660 in schools and people should find out about the sort of toxic masculinity, social and familiar

00:22:41.580 influences, religious fundamentalism, right-wing extremism or folkish racist worldviews

00:22:48.060 contributing to queerphobia. The thing is what you will end up with eventually is just a rebellion

00:22:54.940 from the reactionary Muslim communities where they'll just say okay if that's what you're

00:22:58.700 teaching in the classrooms I just won't send my kid there. Yes and there is a reason why

00:23:03.420 While we constantly hear about the far right, it is precisely because the left is presiding

00:23:08.560 over a very inconsistent coalition that can only momentarily hold it together by inventing

00:23:14.660 a common enemy.

00:23:15.720 That is why they're constantly talking about the far right.

00:23:19.060 Now, extremists on the right do exist, but they're far less numerous than the media suggests

00:23:26.700 and the leftists suggest.

00:23:27.800 In fact, I'd say we should do the exact opposite.

00:23:31.280 It would be good if we heard about the far left, the extremist left, and their allies.

00:23:37.320 I don't think that this strategy is going to be particularly helpful when it comes to protecting the queer community.

00:23:46.380 But one thing to say is that she's talking here about the queer community and the protection of their rights on the guise of an Islamist terror attack.

00:23:59.000 and obviously I want the rights of that community as well to be respected

00:24:05.120 I don't know how she would react when people had the same rhetoric

00:24:11.540 when Germans were let's say killed by Islamist terrorists

00:24:16.620 would she sort of say diversity is a strength 1.00

00:24:20.720 and knives with mental illness are responsible 0.91

00:24:23.920 and cars with mental illness are responsible

00:24:26.720 and we shouldn't give too much hold on the far-right narrative, I don't know.

00:24:31.360 At least she's calling this out, which I respect.

00:24:34.920 And finally, I want to say that this is De Linke's final hope against Islamist entryism.

00:24:41.800 Alexandra Herrmann.

00:24:44.320 I don't know.

00:24:45.000 This is the final bastion of defense that the De Linke party has against the people

00:24:53.480 that Elif Raup is a bit worried about.

00:24:59.000 To say that Berlin used to have such a leftist as Lenin

00:25:03.320 walking its streets,

00:25:04.800 it's certainly, they've taken a downgrade.

00:25:06.440 Well, leftists as Lenin had a precedent of allying with,

00:25:10.940 let's say, people from the Middle East.

00:25:15.600 Oh, I know.

00:25:16.680 One tall order.

00:25:18.240 Segment on Monday, perhaps,

00:25:19.620 about North Koreans stealing Brazilians of dollars of Bitcoin.

00:25:22.620 Black October on the internet continues

00:25:25.100 The engaged few

00:25:26.800 You can vote your way to socialism

00:25:29.180 But you'll have to

00:25:30.300 Well

00:25:31.420 It's difficult to vote your way out of it

00:25:35.660 Thanks for the

00:25:37.640 Way

00:25:39.600 That's a random name

00:25:40.940 Who is this man

00:25:42.500 And when will he find a way to defeat

00:25:44.640 The world's strongest illegal alien

00:25:46.380 Superman

00:25:46.900 Welcome

00:25:47.820 The greatest criminal mind of our time

00:25:51.580 So they say

00:25:52.460 I was going to say, that footage is shocking.

00:25:55.900 The only words that come to my mind is,

00:25:57.220 mine got him, himo.

00:25:58.560 Right.

00:25:59.520 So now we're going to segment it.

00:26:01.700 You have some historical hooks, events to talk about.

00:26:06.440 Indeed.

00:26:07.220 Had this happened last week,

00:26:08.640 we would have hit onto the 104th, correct?

00:26:12.180 A sort of anniversary, if you want to call it that,

00:26:14.500 not a happy one, of the Great Fire of Smyrna.

00:26:17.840 And people might wonder what the relevance of this is.

00:26:21.320 And on one hand, it's, I suppose I can only talk about history so much in a podcast segment like this, but it does, it's important in our time because obviously here, especially with, you know, you guys here in Britain, there is much talk about the idea of, you know, demographic security and having, and people belonging to a homeland.

00:26:41.080 and the idea of a it is right and just to have a native sentiment and as uh well on the panel here

00:26:48.900 we have a greek man of course and um and of well a man of greek heritage and um and in my case

00:26:54.700 someone who has often spoken about history and uh i'm myself i'm something of a gregophile as well

00:26:59.840 as an anglophile and um and i'm fond of of history as a subject and sadly the thing with history is

00:27:05.240 as much as there are sort of glorious and great aspects of history like for instance you know

00:27:09.120 being in britain here we can you know talk about nelson and trafalgar and you know waterloo and

00:27:14.080 uh you know arthur wellesley etc and so on so forth and cressy asian core but there's always

00:27:18.640 a horror there's always wellington's tears outside batherhoff there's always the darkness

00:27:23.760 that's right yeah there's always suffering there's always there's always boney's army drilling on the

00:27:28.000 other side of the channel sort of you know intimidating the aisles etc and and you're

00:27:31.680 right there is a a sad a sad sort of other sides of the coin you know for for as much as a person

00:27:37.280 and may celebrate 1066 and the victory at Hastings,

00:27:39.780 there is a battlefield full of Anglo-Saxon huskulls and earls

00:27:43.540 who have fallen in battle,

00:27:44.860 which has sort of preceded the transition of the country

00:27:46.900 from something it was to something it has become.

00:27:49.780 And so I am going to discuss the Anatolian catastrophe,

00:27:54.380 and this is the Greco-Turkish War of 1919 to 1922.

00:27:58.660 Now, I'm just trying to think if I can get to my...

00:28:01.160 Oh, no, hang on.

00:28:03.000 That'll have to do for now.

00:28:04.700 Is it your notes that you're after?

00:28:06.100 Yeah, my notes, yeah.

00:28:06.620 oh just scroll scroll down oh right okay so yes thank you very much i um i'm going to basically

00:28:14.120 discuss um the greco-turkish war and the fact that there's a lot behind it in terms of the

00:28:20.820 civilizational relevance of it or rather the civilization framing of the discussion and that

00:28:24.760 is the idea that and one thing that i do love about the about british culture is your reverence

00:28:30.760 for history broadly speaking not only your own but also for history real large i mean the greatest

00:28:34.420 documentaries come out of britain by and large right right and the and especially if you look

00:28:39.020 at the context of the greek war of independence against the ottoman empire a great many of its

00:28:42.920 champions in fact came from the anglosphere there was also french people who supported but a great

00:28:47.080 to the british press and and for instance lord byron advocate of the war he was yeah and personally

00:28:51.820 involved himself and it claimed his life i say he died the siege of mussolunghi yeah and his death

00:28:56.660 um contributed to a lot of popular fervor amongst the british people correct correct

00:29:01.900 intervention indeed so if i go back up here um the just so for people to know because in the end

00:29:09.180 it was sort of a bit difficult to grab some diagrams but in essence if you compare it to the

00:29:13.500 the country of greece today i'm able to click that yes um this is sort of essentially what the greek

00:29:18.300 aims were following world war one against the old one empire you can see there's more or less what

00:29:23.100 we understand greece to be today um plus a slab of bulgaria there but what is most important for

00:29:29.260 for this discussion is this stuff over here which is the Ionian coast in the western portion of

00:29:33.780 Anatolia there's also a little bit over here of Constantinople Black Sea and access to the Black

00:29:39.480 Sea and most notably Constantinople access to the Black Sea via the sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles

00:29:44.240 and uh if we sort of go here I do apologize to the viewers I'm sort of new to this system

00:29:49.380 um we go here to the the Megali idea so in essence what that there was um referencing was this uh

00:29:56.960 These essentially being the, well, this is the great sort of propaganda map up here, pardon my pronunciation, Eleftherios Venizelos.

00:30:05.580 Venizelos, yes.

00:30:06.580 Yeah, who was the prime minister at the time who actually involved Greece in World War I.

00:30:10.260 This is essentially the claims that the Greek, or rather the kingdom of Greece, had against the empire.

00:30:15.000 Right, so you mentioned before the grand idea.

00:30:18.040 That was a form of Greek redentism.

00:30:20.120 It was the largest narrative before the destruction of Smyrna.

00:30:25.600 We had two narratives.

00:30:28.940 We had the grand idea, and we also had the small yet noble Greece

00:30:34.080 that was more of the royalist side that resisted the expansion.

00:30:37.940 Now you mentioned Venizelos.

00:30:39.580 During the 1910 and 1920, Greece nearly doubled its size,

00:30:44.740 thanks to, by and large, to Venizelos.

00:30:47.100 So we had also the great rupture within the nation there.

00:30:52.780 people who were pro-Venezuelos and pro-

00:30:55.440 the royalists. The Great Schism, correct? Or the

00:30:57.640 Eternal Schism. Yes, yes. But that was

00:31:00.600 essentially based on the idea of

00:31:03.240 Greek irredentism. The idea of saying

00:31:05.860 we need security for all Greeks and

00:31:10.180 they need a state to live in. This is

00:31:12.680 what you're talking about here, the growth

00:31:13.740 here. You can actually see the

00:31:15.000 incorporation of northern Epirus, or

00:31:16.600 central Epirus, I suppose, and Macedonia

00:31:18.880 along the Aegean coast and a lot of the

00:31:22.280 islands uh including crete essentially doubled the size of the country in what year was that uh 19 19

00:31:28.280 13 so the was that the first or second war that was a bit before so uh he they were also fighting

00:31:34.040 on the bulgarian greek bulgarian war that was a massive war that was happening all the time and

00:31:38.680 um during world war one because that's incredibly private uh important for for the segment the um

00:31:45.720 constantine the first was king of greece didn't want greece to enter the entente didn't want to

00:31:51.640 he wanted to remain neutral and venicellos because he wanted he was deriving inspiration

00:31:58.200 from the grand idea he won't he he fought um in world one with the entendre to achieve these

00:32:05.880 goals necessitate involvement in the war yes because obviously at that point the ottomans

00:32:08.760 were allied to the central powers austria-hungary and germany because if you've contributed to the

00:32:12.520 war you'll obviously have much better bargaining that was what he was going after yeah yeah which

00:32:18.600 is what the both the greeks and the italians sought after right um and uh let me see if i can

00:32:23.160 i might have to go to the next uh next thing here so if i go to the next article what i was um uh

00:32:29.560 so let me just harken back to what is the origin of of greece in this context well uh can i pull

00:32:35.160 this up does that pop up when i did that oh no it's the next it's let's see um there we go yeah

00:32:40.520 is that it this doesn't work ah is it here yes thank you okay that's one yeah okay sorry thank

00:32:46.920 you um yeah so i mean obviously this is not what anyone is trying to insist is the claim of the

00:32:52.040 greeks but this here is essentially the the greek world done it once well done it once i mean

00:32:58.520 maybe not now no it's but but you don't want to advance that close to india trust me

00:33:04.600 that's not it and well i was gonna say and and if and if the americans can't get through the

00:33:08.680 zagros mountains i don't think anyone can um but this is essentially a map of what was left after

00:33:13.320 alexander's death in uh at the time of his uh untimely passing and the kingdoms of his successor

00:33:19.320 generals what we call the pardon the butch of the greek the daddiki yeah yeah successors yeah

00:33:25.160 so this is essentially the greek civilization at its apogee um you see ptolemaic egypt there

00:33:30.520 the seleucids here in the east um militarily exactly yeah well military and sort of i suppose

00:33:36.360 culturally had it held together because in the end i mean we as we know alexander alexander founded

00:33:41.080 several cities in his name all through the empire and there were great many greek garrisons and

00:33:45.240 settlements all the way from bactria here to basically syria and alexandria northern egypt

00:33:50.840 to the point where there's still a slither of a greek um egyptian population even today

00:33:56.040 um nonetheless i mean i'm obviously not using this as a basis point but this is just

00:34:00.000 for the sake of context um and when i was talking with you still this earlier we're going to

00:34:05.020 reference Xenophon's Anabasis which is when Xenophon as a mercenary led the so-called 10,000

00:34:11.900 and was hired by Cyrus the Younger in the aftermath of Cyrus the Great's death and the

00:34:17.660 civil war that occurred in the Achaemen in Persia. Can you imagine what a bummer that was?

00:34:23.580 Yeah. They teamed up with Cyrus he wanted to become king of Persia they won the battle

00:34:27.500 and last minute Cyrus dies. Exactly. And then you're in a hostile country you've got to find

00:34:33.400 your way home again and and great great aspects of anabasis because you and i have read it stelios

00:34:37.880 have you read anabasis i haven't yet it's on my shelf ready to go fair enough good maybe next time

00:34:42.120 we'll get there together um but uh but it's uh basically this uh this force of 10 000 was forced

00:34:48.100 to march from what is essentially modern day northern iraq all the way across what we sort

00:34:53.720 of understand as assyria and uh the sort of eastern provinces of modern day turkey eastern

00:34:58.860 anatolia and when they eventually arrive at the sea they arrive at a place called what we call it

00:35:02.900 trebizond in in english but trapezunta in greek and the and the and the greeks proclaim

00:35:09.220 thalassa thalassa they see the sea and they encounter a city which is populated with greeks

00:35:14.020 now as you can see here this battle occurs in 401 bc and i mean we can even go back a little

00:35:20.060 bit further because the um the uh this is also sort of in the context of the peloponnesian war

00:35:25.740 between the delian league athens and sparta and the peloponnesian allies and all through the uh

00:35:33.820 aegean and um are you any coastlines you see there are greek cities littered everywhere yeah that was

00:35:39.500 one of our major differences because i'm talking to a to a roman is that correct so our our geography

00:35:47.260 was a bit different from yours because it was very rocky yes so we couldn't sustain a big population

00:35:53.340 and that led to um greeks establishing colonies all across mary nostrum exactly yeah yeah well

00:36:00.700 certainly the east much the eastern mediterranean was a greek mary nostrum and let's also not

00:36:06.300 forget as well you were in a great contest for seafaring with the phoenicians yeah so it wasn't

00:36:10.460 just the greeks were just going helpful they had competition in the mediterranean as well

00:36:14.220 and um and so if i may go the next thing okay here we go um so obviously we're going to skip

00:36:20.620 here in time we're sort of entering the uh actually i did want to go i'm sorry hang on a

00:36:26.400 second i go we'll get there don't worry oh no it's all right um i'm just trying to think of

00:36:30.240 where i can find because there's a great image somewhere here that um you have the basic

00:36:35.500 linguistic breakdown um between actually i can't i'm going to skip it don't never mind of um if

00:36:41.580 you look online you search uh the greek roman world and there's a sort of a line that splits

00:36:46.360 through basically the modern day balkans and through southern italy where there are latin

00:36:50.160 speakers in the northwest and greek speakers in the southeast and more or less this ends up being

00:36:54.740 sort of the nexus of what we could call greek civilization that survives all through the roman

00:36:58.400 period and in great indeed even though the the roman republic later the empire does conquer

00:37:03.560 the greek east and incorporates it in rome it's the the roman civilization greek civilization

00:37:09.660 are quite symbiotic in fact a great many roman senators and aristocrats send their children to

00:37:13.300 places like athens and roads to be educated you know in rhetoric and history wasn't it spartans

00:37:18.180 who basically just said, well, you will like, you just take Sparta.

00:37:21.580 Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

00:37:24.440 So if we sort of fast forward, and I'm not one to sort of completely brush over the Byzantine period,

00:37:30.880 because people who know what I do know that I love Byzantium as a subject.

00:37:34.200 However, we get to the Sultanate of Rum here.

00:37:36.880 So this is basically the invasion of the Selju Turks, or the Turks,

00:37:41.080 in the aftermath of, if we just quickly click on this because I can, Battle of Manzikr.

00:37:45.320 so this occurs in uh 1071 and manzikert is if there's a map somewhere here i don't know if

00:37:51.800 it might show up on oh so here we go this is anatolia this is a peninsula that sort of protrudes

00:37:57.320 out of the near east into the eastern mediterranean and you can see just north of

00:38:01.800 a place called lake van and this is essentially even today the the borderland between what is now

00:38:07.480 armenia and turkey but was back then a sort of a borderland between armenia and the greek east

00:38:13.160 East Roman Empire. And even though the army itself wasn't destroyed, and historians have

00:38:20.180 re-evaluated the effects of Manzikert that in fact wasn't as decisive as they once thought,

00:38:24.400 what it did lead to was a complete implosion of East Roman authority and a mini civil war.

00:38:29.560 People could see the fragility of the empire.

00:38:32.040 Correct. Also, the 11th century was a very bad century for Byzantium, especially in the middle.

00:38:39.400 correct and after the bulgars basil the second they had the um then they devaluate the coin

00:38:46.860 byzantine coin a lot yeah they debased the um the hippie on which i think was the currency yeah

00:38:52.060 exactly to the point where once alexios kumnenos you know establishes his dynasty and sort of

00:38:57.000 initiates what we call the kumnenian restoration they basically end up completely transforming

00:39:01.700 they i think they moved oh no i think they had the the solidus and then moved to the hyperion

00:39:05.840 hyperion and so it creates a massive transition period oh and the point of this is this initiates

00:39:17.200 the beginning you see here the word turkification there's a massive inflow of turkish tribesmen who

00:39:22.640 make their way into anatolia through the mountain passes and for the turks who had previously lived

00:39:27.880 a nomadic lifestyle on the sort of pontic eurasian step the anatolian plateau provided a very similar

00:39:34.000 biome and climate that they were used to where they could sort of hunt run their run their herds

00:39:38.380 they could migrate their horses and so ended up in you know succeeding you know years and centuries

00:39:44.940 establishing a demographic majority in in the initially the central part of anatoly and

00:39:50.960 eventually of anatoly writ large and with greater land comes greater population with greater and

00:39:55.620 also and with that greater population um the greater idea of social organization and eventually

00:40:01.680 military advancement correct and also it's worth mentioning too that you know if if you look at

00:40:07.420 the i mean it is some of these figures are hard they're a bit ambiguous it's hard to sort of

00:40:11.040 quantify but in essence as sort of the apogee of east rome essentially by and large a about a third

00:40:17.380 of their population is in the in europe in the east in the balkan provinces and two-thirds is

00:40:22.660 in anatolia in the east so them losing anatolia had you know profound demographic economic uh

00:40:30.200 the financial and geostrategic ramifications.

00:40:33.820 Well, so much so that they obviously helped

00:40:36.420 the plead to Urban II about launching the First Crusade.

00:40:41.180 Correct.

00:40:41.460 It was that point.

00:40:42.740 It's like, okay, we're going to need the help

00:40:44.680 of Western Europe now.

00:40:45.800 Correct.

00:40:47.080 Swallowed pride.

00:40:48.040 I was going to say, a fact often overlooked

00:40:50.300 by the left and the West,

00:40:52.200 that this is actually really the,

00:40:54.480 I mean, not that this topic's about this,

00:40:55.860 but this is what triggers the First Crusade

00:40:58.360 and the necessity of it.

00:41:00.200 the fact that the Emperor Alexios goes to the west and says,

00:41:04.400 I need help.

00:41:05.540 Anyway, that's not the point of this discussion.

00:41:08.600 However, we get to the sad point that eventually,

00:41:11.160 and not to get into details, after a multi-century struggle,

00:41:15.540 the Byzantine Empire weakened by the Fourth Crusade

00:41:18.560 and by perpetual warfare with the Turks.

00:41:21.060 Eventually, what you saw before was the Sultan of Rum,

00:41:24.640 which was based in a place called Konya,

00:41:26.520 as was historically known Iconium or Iconion.

00:41:29.040 But they eventually, that dynasty crumbles

00:41:31.960 I think the last rule is Mesut II

00:41:33.940 In the latter part of the 1200s

00:41:36.420 And eventually the

00:41:37.920 Sultanate entity sort of breaks up

00:41:40.040 Into a series of what they call Beyliks

00:41:41.620 Sort of little Turkish dominions

00:41:43.440 Of which one of them is the Osmanli

00:41:45.520 Which we colloquially know as the Ottomans

00:41:47.840 And they end up sort of

00:41:49.760 Being this highly energetic, highly martial

00:41:51.820 Sort of small

00:41:53.020 Domain that expands very rapidly

00:41:56.100 Under particularly Orhan

00:41:57.780 and his successors, and they eventually sort of cross into Europe

00:42:01.020 and they conquer most of this sort of decaying East Roman Empire,

00:42:05.380 which is sort of fatally weakened by a number of different things,

00:42:07.640 which I shan't go into today.

00:42:09.040 But nonetheless, this is the fate that befalls Byzantium,

00:42:12.840 the East Roman Empire in 1453,

00:42:16.040 and its last emperor, Constantine, the 11th Palaiologos,

00:42:19.280 is, as he says famously, my city's fallen, I'm still alive.

00:42:24.280 Throws off his regalia and...

00:42:26.220 Yeah, it's a remarkable last stand.

00:42:27.640 And you know what, as well, there's something in there as well about, there's a genuinely inspiring example in that of Constantine XI, because even when it seems that evil has won, and it has won, and even now, obviously, Constantinople being in Turkish hands, it's how you choose to end the story.

00:42:49.220 You still have the power to decide how history will remember you in those final moments, and he chose admirably.

00:42:56.580 Yeah, exactly.

00:42:57.980 Unlike, to just say in contrast, unlike during the Fourth Crusade, where several members of the Alexioses fled the city, abandoned their people in that hour of need, Constantine stood firm, and we applaud one and we damn the others.

00:43:15.980 correct and it's also true exemplified by other monarchies that have you know existed before and

00:43:20.700 since and other leaders never mind monarchs where they have um you might say reneged on their duties

00:43:26.140 and responsibilities as monarchs as leaders constantine does not however again we fast

00:43:30.860 forward uh four centuries and we sort of get to the early 1800s this is quite literally in the

00:43:35.900 almost immediate aftermath of the napoleonic era the greek war of independence and at this point

00:43:41.180 um and actually we even discussed this before we went live about the sick man of europe which

00:43:44.620 which is what the Ottoman Empire became known as,

00:43:46.420 certainly in the aftermath of the two sieges of Vienna,

00:43:48.660 where, I mean, and let's not forget,

00:43:50.380 because in the end, I am considering

00:43:51.900 that there are segments of the audience

00:43:53.080 who don't know this history.

00:43:54.260 And if you are interested,

00:43:55.260 there is content in our circles to be found on it.

00:43:57.060 I'm just trying to speed run through it.

00:43:59.040 Is that the Ottomans are initially very successful

00:44:01.460 in a very short space of time,

00:44:02.780 within, I don't know, two or three generations,

00:44:05.180 call it a century and a half,

00:44:06.280 they overrun the Zardom of Bulgaria.

00:44:08.960 They overrun the sort of remnant European holdings

00:44:12.000 of Byzantium.

00:44:12.640 they well they they they meet some resistance from vlad the lad well vlad the lad yes indeed

00:44:18.760 and that is after in the end there um the battle of kosovo where they you know the the the serbians

00:44:24.000 and the turks beat each other white but eventually the serbs do conquer um serbia a serbia exists as

00:44:29.080 a vassal state for a while but ultimately it's absorbed in the ottoman domain skander big blood

00:44:33.480 is their nose several times but eventually after grinding down albania the albanians capitulate

00:44:38.080 Bosnia is conquered and at this point you know the Ottoman Empire is a very

00:44:42.260 large burgeoning powerful force and they attack Vienna twice and twice they

00:44:45.800 repelled and sort of the Ottomans go through this phase of decline and we

00:44:49.700 have to mention here the 30 years war because of course Europeans had a very

00:44:54.320 you know had a split mind about it and the destruction of the 30 years war was

00:45:01.960 basically something that was very much was bread on the butter as I would say

00:45:07.120 of the ottomans right absolutely there are were there were europeans before who allied successfully

00:45:14.000 and waged words successfully against the against the ottomans let's say the battle of lepanto yes

00:45:20.340 and venice provided i think two-thirds of this the holy league yeah sheep yeah so the genoa venice

00:45:26.280 the papal states yes king of naples etc yeah yeah and then the the 30 years war was incredibly

00:45:33.540 destructive for europe uh many call it the first true world war yeah and it's probably arguably

00:45:39.220 could be said to be so yeah exactly and that was it ended in 1648 roughly with the treaty of versailles

00:45:46.500 no okay and uh then uh that instantly you know there were more wars and stuff but this the

00:45:54.900 destruction brought there from it was something that uh ottomans definitely took advantage of

00:46:01.060 indeed indeed i mean from their side it would be rational and it probably delayed a european

00:46:05.940 response uh to the sort of the crumbling of the ottoman empire and then of course we have

00:46:10.340 that is very soon followed by the napoleonic period where europeans spent you know what 30

00:46:14.500 odd years fighting each other on the continent to uh suppress the french revolution and then there

00:46:18.820 is also the um the british and french teaming up with the turks against the russians in the crimea

00:46:24.260 because we wanted to keep the ottoman empire there as a weak room alive yes just as a safeguard

00:46:30.820 against the Russians. In its vegetative state, yes, exactly. I mean, that does come after this

00:46:35.800 period, and in fact, after the Greek War of Independence. But I mean, this is the state

00:46:39.120 that the Ottomans are in. And despite the fact they attempt internal evolution and internal

00:46:44.420 reform, for instance, with the Tanzimat reforms, these don't really work so well. Although the

00:46:51.780 Ottomans do actually count themselves well in a couple of wars. And in fact, they end up doing so

00:46:56.180 quite strongly in World War I. But the point I'm trying to get at is that there was sufficient

00:46:59.940 feeling and a proliferation of sentiment in the Balkans that in a very quick series of succession,

00:47:08.940 Montenegro, Serbia, Greece, and then maybe a generation or so later, the Bulgarians and

00:47:14.060 others in the Balkans do attain independence from the Ottoman Empire. And Ottoman holdover

00:47:18.260 Europe becomes very, very tenuous. By the time of, say, the Balkan Wars, which we were talking

00:47:22.180 about, the Ottomans essentially ejected from Europe with the exception of Eastern Thrace.

00:47:26.840 Yes. And that as well leads them to try and hold on even more tightly, obviously, to those aspects of the empire that are east of Constantinople in the Arab world.

00:47:38.980 And so the suppression of the Arabs helps to agitate for the Arab revolt, which obviously the British were only too happy to nudge.

00:47:47.480 Indeed.

00:47:48.120 So the Greeks attain independence from the Ottomans.

00:47:53.460 The war was fought between 1821 and 1829,

00:47:55.580 and in that sort of time, the Greek state becomes independent.

00:47:58.660 As you can see here, it was an eight-and-a-half-year war.

00:48:01.160 But its territory wasn't the territory it has now.

00:48:04.360 Oh, correct.

00:48:05.000 It was much smaller.

00:48:06.180 Indeed.

00:48:06.380 If you go back to that first image we were looking at,

00:48:07.980 it's that first little map of Attica and the Peloponnese

00:48:11.040 and a slither of...

00:48:12.620 Oh, hang on.

00:48:13.980 I think it was here somewhere I'll show you roughly how it was it was just about here

00:48:22.380 exactly yeah just on the Thessaly yeah just north of Bayoucia actually but that actually

00:48:27.100 that being said that can we go back to that image where were we uh yeah yeah so this is actually an

00:48:31.080 ethnographic ethnographic map which I actually did want to use this is essentially at the time

00:48:35.680 of say the link I just had up was treaty of the Severs but this here is essentially an ethnographic

00:48:41.400 graphic map of the Aegean and the Balkans around this time in 1919 1919 right I mean this might be

00:48:47.180 a tad early but it's around this time actually no it says 1919 down the bottom there we go

00:48:50.240 because there's some from like 1914 1907 there's a there's a spate of them and the French did some

00:48:55.260 the British did some you know yeah but anyway you can see here that um you know there's a

00:49:00.100 there are Turkish populations through this sort of borderline between Bulgaria and Greece but the

00:49:04.100 Greeks have a strong presence in the Aegean here in eastern Thrace here indeed in and around

00:49:11.880 Constantinople and particularly through the Sea of Marmar and along the Ionian coast and it is

00:49:16.700 disputed whether you know there's this number or that number you know there'll always be varying

00:49:21.500 degrees of contention as to all that but if we go back to Treaty of Severus you can see here that

00:49:27.300 after the ottomans capitulate alongside the central powers that the greeks themselves um

00:49:33.860 uh i mean this is this is a strict uh display of what actually happened but more or less there's

00:49:40.260 a concession here where smirna is and you know there's a zone of straits which was declared

00:49:44.500 basically international area much like the way danzig was yeah and some other places around the

00:49:48.740 world and um and so you can see here that uh this was meant to go to armenia on the auspices of the

00:49:54.420 russians and uh and there were other aspects to the treaty however the the the ottoman government

00:50:01.140 basically collapsed and there's a patriotic movement of what was it the the national assembly

00:50:06.020 i think it was in in ankara led by it was the neo-turks yeah they're the yeah the new turkish

00:50:12.020 movement exactly and so i mean this is a more exaggerated map but this includes the sphere of

00:50:16.020 influence of of the of the victorious powers in anatoly so really they did carve up anatoly pretty

00:50:21.620 hard and some would say there was an exceedingly hard harsh treaty uh when you even consider what

00:50:26.340 happened to germany and to into austro-hungary um however um oh here we go that's the point

00:50:31.140 you're saying that blue is the initial uprising territory more or less right yeah um and so

00:50:38.980 if we um move along so actually this is the wall so in essence uh what the greeks do is they land

00:50:45.300 in simona in 1919 and they more or less deploy the army to occupy these areas which were part

00:50:52.100 of the concession and the national assembly in turkey led by one kamal ataturk says no

00:50:57.780 and this leads leads to a state of war between the king of greece and the sort of new turkish

00:51:02.820 republic if you can call it that and the greeks i mean i'm not going to get to the campaign in the

00:51:07.700 end that apostolic majesty and i have content on that i'm not going to bore you guys with details

00:51:12.500 um i mean we could definitely do something about this there's a lot to say there is it

00:51:17.620 just starts with a monkey um well probably not now or the monkey that's important actually yeah

00:51:25.620 go ahead no i mean we had we had basically in the in that decade between 1910 and 1920

00:51:32.500 the great um you know the as you call before before uh what people were the pro venicello

00:51:40.500 side in the pro oh the national schism national schism okay that's the the english description

00:51:46.020 of it right okay what do you think greg just had a curiosity the ethnic cause they has most okay

00:51:50.100 right um so basically what what happened there we had um venizelos and the king constantine the first

00:51:56.340 and constantine the first was uh wanted to remain neutral venizelos said no we are gonna team up

00:52:02.660 with and tant because he wanted the uh the grand idea and they exiled the king i think june 1917

00:52:10.180 and that's where they had alexander the first i think another king who had the dog and a monkey

00:52:15.860 attacked the dog in his estate he tried to rescue his dog and another monkey teamed up with the

00:52:22.100 other monkey and and bit him and he got infected and he died of sepsis that's right sepsis and

00:52:28.340 that led to people asking for the previous king to come back and the previous king and the royalists

00:52:34.260 were saying essentially we should end the campaign they won the elections in november 1920

00:52:40.980 the king come comes back in 19 in december 1920 and lo and behold where they said we should end

00:52:49.060 the campaign communists agreed by the way they they constantly told people to throw down the

00:52:54.740 guns and go back they suddenly said well now it's too late for us to to do anything about it he

00:53:01.060 changes the generals puts people who weren't particularly good there and just in from which

00:53:07.780 we will end the war they started saying we will escalate by attacking ankara yeah and losing the

00:53:12.500 bat losing the losing the support of the of the entente so it's it's just a colossal cluster f

00:53:20.580 i'll just say as i say in england a cock up yeah yeah um and the thing is is that you know that

00:53:25.060 you mentioned the the the approach like ankara they were actually within like the people in

00:53:29.860 and Ankara could hear the artillery being fired

00:53:31.820 at the Battle of Saqqara, I think it was,

00:53:34.480 the Saqqara River,

00:53:35.580 and they pushed that far inland,

00:53:37.020 which is not a time when you want to have discord

00:53:38.540 in your own country

00:53:39.260 and be changing generals and officers,

00:53:41.200 which is exactly what happened.

00:53:42.260 And the officer that was putting command of the campaign

00:53:43.880 believed him, like he was basically going insane

00:53:46.100 and believed himself,

00:53:46.860 that his feet were made of glass

00:53:48.320 and was bedridden.

00:53:49.680 You know, a very dynamic general

00:53:51.580 to win a campaign in which

00:53:52.900 might determine the destiny of your country, right?

00:53:56.440 So there's...

00:53:57.320 Not just the destiny of your country,

00:53:58.840 but in a way the conclusion of a story that began over a thousand years ago or about 900 years ago

00:54:08.200 but also one thing to extract from this is the um the danger of volunteerism because at the time

00:54:15.200 the royalists just something bit them they had a complete change of mind and they were

00:54:22.240 undersupplied they didn't have enough and they just said okay right let's just completely escalate

00:54:27.720 yeah exactly against all sanity for instance it's quite interesting listening to um or rather

00:54:34.360 looking at the the writings of metaxas who would later become the leader of greece in the and the

00:54:38.200 eve of world war ii and actually into world war ii way and and he was actually one of the generals

00:54:42.600 who was i believe a royalist but was for the campaign and if you've had that correct i can't

00:54:47.320 remember but he basically said along the lines of we were if we had actually just attacked initially

00:54:52.040 when you know venicellis wanted us to we would have actually had a fighting chance but with the

00:54:55.880 delay and with the poor supplies and then the complete transformation the army and the chaos

00:55:00.260 within and then electing to march on angra was basically suicide mission and there we have it

00:55:05.120 the campaign fails um there are a number of successive battles along the frontier and again

00:55:09.640 i'm not going to get into it there are details elsewhere um and the greek army in anatoly

00:55:14.120 essentially starts to crumble which leads us to this cataclysmic event the burning of smyrna

00:55:19.860 and it's worth mentioning here

00:55:22.500 here we go, we've got around the figures

00:55:24.160 approximately 80,000 to 400,000 Greek and Armenian refugees

00:55:27.360 crammed the waterfront to escape the fire

00:55:28.920 and at this point in time

00:55:32.300 we didn't really talk about the demographics

00:55:33.540 but in what the Ottomans called the Vilayet

00:55:35.820 it wasn't, I think it was the Vilayet of Adjim

00:55:39.620 was the name of the province

00:55:40.360 of which there were essentially

00:55:42.480 give or take about half a million Greeks

00:55:44.680 that lived in the province

00:55:45.800 which is what gave the Greeks

00:55:47.680 sort of the sense of um you know a rightful claim to the area right and um and so basically the

00:55:53.840 Greeks that weren't killed and it's worth saying that there are Greek units which committed

00:55:57.700 atrocities against Turks and obviously a lot happened in the opposite direction to the point

00:56:01.920 where one of the things that motivated the Greek army to in fact land in Smyrna in 1919 which is

00:56:06.500 this event right here the Greek landing in May 15th was that during World War I towards the

00:56:12.240 of world war one there were already a number of um accounts of um measures against the greek and

00:56:19.160 armenian and even assyrian christian populations in anatolia by ottoman forces and by uh shall we

00:56:25.360 say ill-disciplined irregulars which motivates this move to begin with and so um the campaign

00:56:31.620 fails the the the victorious army of atatok arrives in in smona and commits this essentially

00:56:37.760 war crime um it even says here was a few parallels in human war crime and one of the great um it's

00:56:43.240 worth reading toinby because toinby was actually an eyewitness to a lot of this stuff he was present

00:56:47.320 at the time if memory says me correct and uh and so you have um uh you know an event that can only

00:56:55.140 be in the greek context and pardon me if i'm wrong stelios but a cataclysmic um episode in greek

00:57:01.480 history that would probably measure up alongside the actual fall of constantinople and the fourth

00:57:06.420 Crusade. It's almost that big. Yeah, it's one of the great disasters. Indeed. And so you have here

00:57:12.700 the Amistus of Mudania, which, and ironically Mudania was one of these cities on the Marmara

00:57:18.960 coast that had a Greek majority, which many of these towns did. And this is actually signed on

00:57:24.000 11th of October, which is kind of what prompted me to do it for this month, because this is the

00:57:27.020 month where this occurs historically. And then later you have the, in fact, the Treaty of Lausanne,

00:57:32.220 which is this which is the basically the re-establishment of well the old treaty of

00:57:37.480 Cervés is torn up and Lausanne is the new treaty signed between the victorious parties and the Turks

00:57:41.500 and in essence what we have here is a a population a forcible population exchange of about 1.2 1.3

00:57:49.820 million orthodox greeks from asia minor and eastern thrace um uh and the pontic alps i actually

00:57:56.420 hardly mentioned pontic alps but the reason the pontic alps are important is that's where trebizond

00:57:59.800 is going back to the story of Xenophon and Anabasis.

00:58:04.140 Pontus is where the Greek men arrive at sea.

00:58:07.240 And in return, anywhere from 350,000 to 400,000 Muslims

00:58:10.680 go from continental Greece into Turkey.

00:58:13.700 And I guess this is important on two fronts,

00:58:17.340 and that is, you know, a civilization that can achieve that

00:58:22.420 can suffer that.

00:58:26.880 Yeah.

00:58:27.640 And also, too, when we go back to this,

00:58:29.800 If I can find the demographic map.

00:58:35.100 Oh, hang on, was it?

00:58:35.680 It was towards the beginning.

00:58:36.900 Yeah, it was on this article.

00:58:38.040 It was on this page, I'm pretty sure, if I'm not mistaken.

00:58:43.080 Anyway, if you guys rewind to where I had the demographic map,

00:58:45.760 you can see these are populations of ethnic and religious Greeks

00:58:49.780 and also other Christians, including Armenians, et cetera,

00:58:51.980 that had survived in self-sustaining, in fact, in many instances,

00:58:56.760 prosperous populations within the sort of ottoman civil arrangement sure up until the modern period

00:59:03.400 and then due to this event those people who are the descendants of these of greeks who had lived

00:59:09.340 in this part of the world for the better part of two and a half three thousand years and that's

00:59:13.380 just going back to anabasis and xenophon and the peloponnesian war it could be said they go back

00:59:17.940 longer because let's not let's not remember if you look at the history of these places

00:59:21.040 places such as Byzantium, the original city,

00:59:23.420 Calcadon across the water, Miletus, Smyrna,

00:59:27.000 Harlequinassus, et cetera.

00:59:28.720 These places are settled in the 9th, 8th, 7th, 6th century BC.

00:59:32.680 They're being settled in the same time the Greeks are settling

00:59:34.660 in Eastern Sicily, places like Messina and Catania, et cetera,

00:59:38.680 Syracuse.

00:59:39.840 Marseille.

00:59:40.720 Exactly, Marseille, which was old Masala.

00:59:43.860 You know, one could even draw that even longer

00:59:46.220 to being three and a half thousand years.

00:59:47.780 and all through the the roman period and and byzantine medieval period these are people

00:59:52.520 that have created a large self-sustaining and prosperous and glorious civilization that comes

00:59:57.260 to an end in the advent of 1919 and you know into 22 23 and if we think about the the the

01:00:04.320 discussion points around belonging people belonging to a place and a time and that place belonging to

01:00:10.620 them and you know talks of nativism and what it is to be sort of english or what it is to be british

01:00:15.740 you know scottish etc welsh you know what you think might be yours forever might not be and

01:00:23.020 a calamity a a catastrophic sort of civilizationally cataclysmic event i'm not i'm certainly

01:00:29.600 hoping that doesn't happen but i'm sort of alluding to is that what you believe is safe

01:00:33.040 and secure in yours might not always be in history and if you look at the story the very

01:00:37.540 tragic story of the greeks this is like um ozymandias isn't it by percy shelley the very

01:00:42.840 very famous poem about rameses just having this entire empire and thinking the evidence of it will

01:00:48.120 survive for all time but so if you look at the entire story of of the fate of the greeks and

01:00:53.940 the armenians especially in anatolia uh and i mean there is actually a residual population in what

01:00:59.860 is nowadays pontus in in on the black sea coast but all those greeks that remained have basically

01:01:04.540 converted to islam and have become essentially you know turkified greeks and muslim greeks

01:01:09.940 But everyone else, the Cappadocians, the Ionians, the Constantinople Greeks,

01:01:15.240 the East Asian Greeks, et cetera, and the Pathogonian Greeks have all been expelled to Greece.

01:01:19.680 And when they arrived in Greece, and Stelius will probably attest to this,

01:01:22.260 often the Greeks that lived in Greece found them indecipherable.

01:01:26.420 They had sort of, after the fall of Constantinople, because they'd lived in different parts of the empire,

01:01:31.500 they had evolved their language differently, even different customs.

01:01:34.600 And smashing them together wasn't actually particularly helpful to Greece itself.

01:01:38.800 and also this idea that oh well there's a country called greece if you put greeks there it's fine

01:01:43.000 but again the pontic greeks the cappadocian greeks were you know were people of their place and

01:01:49.120 of their environment no i mean i'm not saying that obviously like all of anatology have been

01:01:53.040 returned to greece i'm not implying that but just that you know people in a place is a very special

01:01:56.880 bond you know and i mean i don't want this to be misunderstood as like a blood and soil thing i

01:02:01.320 don't mean it that way but you know in the context of history and civilizations you know these things

01:02:05.800 are not inseparable it can happen to anyone exactly there is no and there's divine protection correct

01:02:11.520 and if you as i've been very fortunate to do and i mean i actually i have enjoyed my time in turkey

01:02:15.900 i actually can't wait to go back again sometime but you know it's it's kind of it's jarring in

01:02:20.620 so far that you see so many of monuments and statues and plinths and whatever and it's written

01:02:25.500 in ancient greek or medieval greek or latin and yet it's a turkish nation and you know that should

01:02:30.980 give people pause for thought as to what can happen at a civilizational level if you lose

01:02:35.940 or you don't succeed or you suffer a calamity, you know, it's worth pondering, let me just say that.

01:02:41.800 Well, sir, thank you. All right, I'll just quickly go through the comments from your section.

01:02:48.580 Rigid Sok for Baggia says, it's a damn shame the Gallipoli campaign didn't work.

01:02:53.380 Surely this would have enabled or helped Greece's post-World War I plan and potentially avoided

01:02:58.780 smyrna yeah possibly i mean well i can't see my mouse for the there we go um we'll never know of

01:03:05.560 course but yeah the gullipoli campaign was a disaster and and as well was the gambit to kind

01:03:11.240 of just knock the ottomans out of the war very quickly and then just turn the attention to

01:03:15.820 to germany and the rest but if i if i could quickly just on on two points is that one

01:03:20.220 they could have landed the allied forces almost anywhere in thrace and it would have been a more

01:03:25.560 effective a campaign than Gallipoli itself because if you've ever if you've ever traveled

01:03:29.780 to Gallipoli it's a horribly hostile place at the best of times they've been trying to amphibiously

01:03:34.340 invade it right like it's just nonsense it was the worst idea um that Churchill ever cooked up

01:03:39.960 right and the second thing is in terms of Greek support and post-world war one is that the fact

01:03:45.220 that Italy felt so wounded by its so-called Vittoria Mutilata that it actually the the again

01:03:51.100 and I was talking about this before the podcast,

01:03:53.760 was that the two nations that supported the Ottoman cause,

01:03:56.640 or the Turkish, the Ataturk's cause of the most

01:03:59.780 was Lenin's Russia and the Kingdom of Italy.

01:04:02.420 And it sort of pains us to say this

01:04:04.140 because Italians and Greeks do have a sense of bond with each other

01:04:07.320 despite what's happened between our peoples over the centuries.

01:04:09.500 But the fact that sort of Italy felt wounded

01:04:11.440 and despite having occupied the Dodecanese and Rhodes,

01:04:14.600 supported and equipped Ataturk's army

01:04:17.320 because they basically were squabbling over parts of Ionia and Caria.

01:04:21.100 I think that, in essence, two things have to happen.

01:04:24.320 One, that you cannot have the Italian competition

01:04:25.960 and Italian cooperation would be necessary.

01:04:28.040 And two, avoiding a catastrophe like with the monkey bite

01:04:31.620 and that whole transition of the government

01:04:33.740 and with the army and the officer corps,

01:04:36.180 those things need to go right.

01:04:37.820 Speaking hypothetically, of course.

01:04:39.920 Sure.

01:04:41.500 Engaged Few says it's a match made in heaven and lit in hell.

01:04:44.820 And 141 Paladin says not a jolly swag man is he.

01:04:47.880 Not sure what that's about.

01:04:49.740 Oh, no, it's waltzing Matilda.

01:04:50.660 because I'm Aussie, one's a jolly swag

01:04:53.400 it's not a jolly billy one today

01:04:56.180 well then ladies and gentlemen

01:04:59.900 I would like to pay tribute

01:05:01.780 during this segment to

01:05:03.820 a remarkable career and a remarkable

01:05:06.000 life, that of Sir Patrick Stewart

01:05:08.060 one of the most recognisable

01:05:09.800 and celebrated actors

01:05:11.280 of his generation, I'm sure that

01:05:13.820 just by saying his name

01:05:15.120 basically everyone who watches this can summon

01:05:17.820 to their mind some sort of wonderful

01:05:19.760 television show or film that they remember from their childhood and one of the great things about

01:05:25.460 Sir Patrick Stewart and I think one of the things that is most aspirational for any actor is that

01:05:30.860 because his career was so long and it was so remarkable he became beloved by many generations

01:05:37.320 he wasn't just someone of your mum and dad's generation or your grandfather's generation he was

01:05:42.240 everyone now had some sort of touchstone with his career and the work that he did now I will just

01:05:48.320 say that this uh when i got home yesterday and just read this i i didn't believe it you know

01:05:55.100 which might sound strange for like we were talking about yesterday afternoon before you went home

01:06:00.000 yes we were um ironically and so he was an absolutely remarkable man and i just wanted

01:06:05.060 to dedicate this segment to some of uh i think some of his best performances and some other

01:06:10.920 aspects to his life so um it was reported um from the statement that his family said

01:06:16.700 We announced with great sorrow that the passing of Sir Patrick Stewart yesterday at his home in Los Angeles in the loving care of his beloved wife, Sonny, following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's disease and body dementia.

01:06:32.600 His sonorous voice and singular talent will forever be synonymous with indelible performances in every genre.

01:06:39.040 He explored the human condition in all its poetic complexity and brought hope not only to the far reaches of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but into science fiction's most iconic final frontier aboard the Starship Enterprise.

01:06:53.560 He will be remembered for the dignity, compassion and humanity he brought to every role in his art and his life.

01:07:01.540 And I think those are really wonderfully chosen words, to be honest with you. Very, very wonderful indeed.

01:07:08.520 and so we can see him here obviously in his two most iconic roles that of Jean-Luc Picard

01:07:15.360 from Star Trek The Next Generation and also of course as Professor Charles Xavier Professor X

01:07:21.700 in the X-Men films but it was a really remarkable beginning because he was born in 1940 in Mirfield

01:07:29.940 in a what even now is a town of less than 20,000 people right so not the sort of place that you

01:07:36.340 would expect grand opportunities and you know global icons like Sir Patrick Stewart came from

01:07:42.500 but you know what it's wonderful when things just seem to work out where someone is plucked from

01:07:49.420 what was a very disadvantaged background a household of domestic abuse his um his father

01:07:55.940 was a regimental sergeant major for the power of parachute regiment during world war ii and i

01:08:03.040 believe if i have it right the dunkirk evacuation left his father with a great deal of ptsd and he's

01:08:10.340 one of the last evacuees apparently according to the article right right and so yeah as a result

01:08:15.020 of that obviously a lot of difficulties moving on with family life as so many of our servicemen

01:08:21.640 had to endure as a result of the two world wars but nonetheless in his junior school his english

01:08:28.240 teacher gave him a copy of Shakespeare and suggested acting as a career to him and I again

01:08:34.140 it's just one of those things to just say how many people think before the age of 10 that they know

01:08:40.820 what they want to do with their life for me it was paleontology I wanted to go around the world and

01:08:45.040 dig up dinosaurs that's what I thought I wanted to do but then you move on you grow up a little bit

01:08:49.780 and then you say well what about this what about that so to have that from such a young age to to

01:08:55.600 have that copy of Shakespeare and to dedicate yourself to acting in such a way and to really

01:09:00.780 just simply be born for it and I think that really is the thing here Sir Patrick Stewart was born to

01:09:06.260 be an actor you couldn't imagine him doing anything else he had aura he did he did yeah

01:09:12.260 and you can see here I'll just play a brief clip from as you can see here Sir Patrick Stewart's

01:09:17.820 first ever tv appearance as a fireman in coronation street

01:09:22.400 I'm outside to see to them. They're safe enough now, but you wouldn't want them back in here in the condition they're in.

01:09:27.360 It'll take more than a week to get this place straightened out.

01:09:29.700 Oh, it could have been a lot worse, you know.

01:09:31.360 Worse?

01:09:32.100 Good, that. You should see some of the things I have to see in my job.

01:09:36.260 Look, I just want a couple of particulars from a report. Your name's son.

01:09:40.560 Dennis Tanner.

01:09:42.120 Dennis?

01:09:42.780 Tanner.

01:09:43.300 Tanner. And it's your house, is it?

01:09:46.000 No.

01:09:47.620 Oh, I see.

01:09:48.120 i mean and it's wonderful thing as well because it's so long ago and he just looks kind of the

01:09:54.880 same yeah in a way and it's quite wonderful because that just gives him a such a part of

01:10:00.020 the furniture vibe to him in everything that he does where you see him and you instantly recognize

01:10:06.000 him and you can tell he's got that already that just classic fantastic strength in his voice

01:10:11.280 something that you know one of those actors where you just hear him say a few words and you're like

01:10:16.640 that's a Patrick Stewart especially that helmets is easy to envision him in his most popular roles

01:10:21.560 as well like he always looks bald as well right and white you know well that that's another thing

01:10:25.580 as well that that signature bald head of his as well because he remarks in this interview with

01:10:30.460 uh with Parkinson how he was losing his hair at the age of 19 and he thought that would just be

01:10:36.600 over for him now obviously on the one hand actors have the privilege of using many many wigs and

01:10:42.240 they use them more and more today but I can understand how that would knock your confidence

01:10:45.940 at the age of 19 and the thing is as well though but it's one of those things that rather than let

01:10:52.120 it become something that created this grand insecurity it actually just became a staple

01:10:57.900 staple of his charm of his visual appeal and you know it was something that as he goes on to say

01:11:03.640 it it could have held him back in star trek when it came to casting him because some of them were

01:11:09.660 saying well by the time we get to the 24th century wouldn't they have created a you know some sort of

01:11:15.360 medical formula a boldness cure yeah and um and someone else intervened and said no by the 24th

01:11:21.500 century no one would care right it is the route that they went down and again wasn't that the

01:11:26.460 right decision could you imagine anybody else playing that role now of jean-luc picard it's

01:11:32.240 gonna say you can't really envision like roger moore as picard can you it's not gonna work it

01:11:36.220 not necessarily or arnold schwarzenegger's just like no no no yes um and one of my personal

01:11:43.040 favorites as well was his role as um leon de grance uh the father of guinevere in excalibur

01:11:49.360 and again it's not one of the largest roles in the film but it's certainly memorable and he is

01:11:55.380 the one who first swears his allegiance to to arthur and to his court against uh yorians and

01:12:02.020 you know beginning the civil war and eventually obviously giving the hand of his daughter guinevere

01:12:06.400 to arthur and again just such a a memorable part where he just brings such gravitas to a role that

01:12:12.380 in the hands of a less capable actor might have been forgettable indeed um and so uh beau is what

01:12:19.300 i was gonna say it's a hallmark of a very talented actor to perhaps not have the the major role the

01:12:25.500 titular role and still bring something to it like for instance i know you know an example that comes

01:12:30.520 to mind is for example rubbish the the kevin costner robin hood for instance but the fact

01:12:34.320 that like the last like couple of minutes is when sean connery arrives as the king as king richard

01:12:37.980 but he's so memorable in that role he has so much aura and gravitas that you just you can't imagine

01:12:42.280 anyone else doing it and you kind of feel that whatever role someone like stuart was in he would

01:12:48.220 bring that same energy and aura and no matter whether his role was the titular main role or a

01:12:52.480 lesser role he still brought that same energy and and vibe and aura and authority to the role which

01:12:57.480 is why i think so many people like us for instance liked him irrespective but also i think he has

01:13:03.160 some um he had some humorous uh thing about him yeah like uh there is an air of mischief in his

01:13:11.020 expressions oh there absolutely is and it's like you know he had an inner troll somewhere there

01:13:15.900 oh he did yeah yes um i mean i didn't include it on here you might say cheekiness he's um when he

01:13:21.440 was on a star trek and he's uh sang happy birthday for star trek's inventor and it was again you just

01:13:29.040 tell the playfulness in there and that's obviously so important it's so core to being an actor and

01:13:34.240 an adaptive actor being able to find the play in everything um but beau points out here as well and

01:13:40.240 it's one of mine too. One of my favorite roles of Sir Patrick Stewart was as Sejanus in I,

01:13:45.540 Claudius, back when the BBC just used to create extraordinary television.

01:13:50.700 Banger after banger.

01:13:51.460 If you've not seen I, Claudius, honestly, it's worth watching just for Sir Patrick Stewart

01:13:56.880 as Sejanus, but also as well, you've got John Hurt as Caligula, you've got Brian Blessed

01:14:02.280 as Augustus.

01:14:04.180 I was going to say, and also Derek Jacoby.

01:14:05.940 Derek Jacoby as Claudius himself.

01:14:08.400 I mean, that's as stellar cast as it is, you know.

01:14:10.580 Yes.

01:14:10.800 And it goes to show as well, it's remarkable because it's one of those ones where, look, it's an obviously very limited budget.

01:14:16.940 They reuse a lot of the sets over and over again.

01:14:19.760 But this is the thing, as opposed to television today just having to look as visually stunning as cinema.

01:14:26.800 It's like, no, it's just carried by these magnificent Shakespearean performances by people with classical training

01:14:35.340 and who just went on to leave, like I say,

01:14:38.120 just such a distinguished career.

01:14:40.460 I mean, speaking of the budge, I mean, look,

01:14:41.940 they even reused his old hair.

01:14:45.960 Bo pointed out as well his performance as Lenin in Fall of Eagles.

01:14:50.500 Now, I must confess, I've not seen Fall of Eagles,

01:14:53.180 but I have heard that his performances stand out

01:14:56.120 in amongst many standout performances.

01:14:58.300 I would almost say electrifying.

01:14:59.780 Right.

01:15:00.520 Insofar as considering it is an ensemble cast

01:15:02.520 and there are many great actors.

01:15:03.740 I mean, for instance, like, you know, Kurt Yogan's as Bismarck, for instance, is one of my favorite roles.

01:15:06.680 I have seen that episode, actually.

01:15:08.080 Yeah, exactly.

01:15:08.600 Phenomenal.

01:15:09.020 But he is just so, like, if you didn't know that was Patrick Stewart, right, you would literally think that was a newsreel of Lennon.

01:15:16.420 The way he embodies the character and gets into it and sort of, and also, too, like, you know, spoke about, like, his methodology as an actor, delivery.

01:15:24.240 It just, it is peerless, the way he conveys Lennon.

01:15:27.900 It's absolutely, yeah, well, I must, I must get round to watch him.

01:15:30.880 You must, you absolutely must.

01:15:31.880 Maybe this weekend.

01:15:32.840 But then again, stuff that I was just forgetting about as well, the fact that he was providing lines for Uriel Septim in Oblivion, back when the Elder Scrolls were making Oblivion.

01:15:44.900 And again, it's just a small role.

01:15:46.780 He's got like 10 minutes of dialogue in the entirety of the game, but that didn't stop him reading the 90-page lore booklet about his character.

01:15:56.340 and again it's just one of the things about it's an act of just doing the due due diligence not

01:16:01.320 taking shortcuts respect approaching every role you have with that layer of reverence and

01:16:06.180 professionalism um that is just the gold standard and like say he was only in it for 10 minutes but

01:16:12.900 he was just he was so impressed by the detailed character work that had gone into the foundations

01:16:18.740 of the character for instance look at um a mod example would be like henry cavill with witcher

01:16:24.280 He did all the back work to have the law straight for that.

01:16:27.600 And if you go back in time, obviously not a minor role, it's a major role,

01:16:30.240 but you consider the only James Bond actor to have read Fleming's novels

01:16:34.260 was Timothy Dalton, and he conveyed the closest sort of replica

01:16:37.780 of what Fleming was writing about in his books.

01:16:40.060 And the fact that Stuart, Patrick Stewart, goes to the effort

01:16:43.320 to read all this law background on a character for 10 minutes

01:16:47.900 goes to show how seriously he considered his craft,

01:16:50.960 even for a minor role.

01:16:51.860 That is actually something very noteworthy.

01:16:53.280 Because not a lot of people don't have the diligence.

01:16:55.000 I think, though, that's what good actors tend to do.

01:16:57.720 Like, just one example,

01:17:00.780 Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lamb

01:17:02.800 appears just for 16 minutes, but it's electrifying.

01:17:06.020 Yes, absolutely.

01:17:07.540 Correct, correct.

01:17:08.000 And then, of course, I would be remiss

01:17:09.980 not to just bring up his incredible contributions

01:17:13.680 and performances of Shakespeare.

01:17:16.860 And obviously, many of these were on the stage

01:17:19.300 in the early years, and I'm not able to see it.

01:17:21.380 I imagine I could go back into the archives

01:17:23.140 and find some old footage and i probably will do but i i just wanted to play in homage to him his

01:17:29.940 performance of the sceptered isle soliloquy from richard ii where he plays john of gaunt because

01:17:36.100 you are really looking at a true master his rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last for

01:17:46.020 For violent fires soon burn out themselves.

01:17:51.780 This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

01:18:11.780 This other Eden, Temi-Paradise, this fortress built by nature for herself against infection

01:18:29.380 and the hand of war,

01:18:33.120 this happy breed of men,

01:18:38.360 this little world,

01:18:43.200 this precious stone set in the Silver Sea,

01:18:47.140 which serves it in the office of a wall,

01:18:50.960 or as a moat defensive to a house

01:18:55.800 against the envy of less happier lands.

01:19:01.300 This blessed plot.

01:19:04.620 This earth.

01:19:06.840 This realm.

01:19:09.600 This England.

01:19:12.800 This land of such dear souls.

01:19:21.180 This dear, dear land.

01:19:25.800 is now leased out.

01:19:30.060 I die pronouncing it

01:19:31.940 like to a tenement on a pelting farm.

01:19:38.280 England, bound in with the triumphant sea,

01:19:41.820 is now bound in with shame.

01:19:46.720 It's just one for the ages.

01:19:49.520 Like, you just believe every single word that he says.

01:19:53.200 It's magic.

01:19:55.020 it's just magic to watch him perform it as someone not even English that sends a shiver down my spine

01:20:00.880 yeah it's remarkable magnificent actually yes it's really something special to behold and of

01:20:07.540 course as well you know so many of those colleagues and you know actors that he worked with such as

01:20:11.900 Hugh Jackman who he obviously worked for for decades with you know making the X-Men uh franchise

01:20:18.040 and you know obviously Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine and you know what as well I think

01:20:22.480 that's just something that's really commendable as well about Sir Patrick Stewart because there

01:20:27.500 are so many actors out there and Alec Guinness is a very famous one and to be honest with you I

01:20:32.360 don't even begrudge him for it so I don't mean to single him out and take a dig but there are many

01:20:37.180 actors who become very successful in one or two roles and then become bitter that the rest of

01:20:43.520 their work is overlooked or overshadowed and I think it's a real testament to Stewart's character

01:20:48.300 actually that he was able to just celebrate and enjoy the success that came with the more

01:20:53.940 mainstream characters those of Charles Xavier those of Jean-Luc Picard you know and just enjoy

01:21:00.260 those generations and the people who felt the magic that those performances brought because

01:21:05.000 like everything he did did they're also excellent they're absolutely excellent and he is the

01:21:11.720 definitive in both of them. Like I say, just all of this work from 1965 in the life of Galileo

01:21:19.820 and the Merchant of Venice, all the way, decades upon decades of work until he was eventually in

01:21:26.520 No Man's Land, Harold Pinter played back in 2016. And also as well, I would just talk about the fact

01:21:32.880 that he was, even though he obviously went and did the Hollywood circuit and found himself mingling

01:21:39.060 with the biggest names on the planet and where all of the great Hollywood productions were being

01:21:44.240 made, he always found his way back to his Yorkshire roots. In fact, I had the great privilege

01:21:50.700 to have met him personally about 10 years ago, only briefly, 30 seconds or something like that

01:21:57.100 in total, because I'd got to go and watch him directing some third-year students at Huddersfield

01:22:02.500 University, because he was a chancellor of Huddersfield University and he wanted to give

01:22:06.860 back to his town and the reason that it was so short and I just very quickly said look thank you

01:22:11.720 for all of your work I'm such a huge fan of your Macbeth and all of this and I shook his hand and

01:22:16.800 it was a wonderful experience and he said I'm sorry he says I can't stay longer he says I've

01:22:21.680 got to go and watch my own team at the football and I don't want to be late and there he was with

01:22:27.200 his Huddersfield scarf on just ready to go and watch the game and it was very special and I shall

01:22:34.000 remember that quite touching i shall remember that forever uh ian mckellen i don't have to time

01:22:39.080 time to read it now but ian mckellen gave a really remarkable um eulogy for his friend because of

01:22:45.720 course they were ever so close to one another and were two of i mean ian mckellen is another of the

01:22:50.960 absolute greats and god knows how i'll react when the mckellen passes away one day but again just

01:22:57.040 very very touching. Marvel of course put out a statement about his passing as well because of

01:23:05.420 course of all of his work as Sir Charles Xavier over the years and yes Avengers Doomsday is coming

01:23:11.540 out at the end of this year and this will be his last ever role and I've seen some disparaging

01:23:18.240 stuff online about this and I don't really want to get into the dirt of it. One thing that I would

01:23:22.900 just say that i find very poignant about it is that i think it's actually very fitting that he

01:23:28.440 gets for his last film he gets to spend it on the screen with serene mckellen as magneto again

01:23:35.300 with his greatest friend i think that's very fitting for for the two of them and i call it

01:23:41.440 a poetic justice yes exactly um and the last thing that i would say is just that look i this probably

01:23:48.820 isn't going to come across well but I actually was never a Star Trek fan and I was just so

01:23:54.680 intimidated by how much Star Trek content there was that I just never knew where to begin with

01:24:01.680 it but after the news last night that he'd passed I decided well if there was ever a time go and

01:24:09.380 watch some Star Trek in the next generation now and so I just had a look online like what is one

01:24:13.900 of the best episodes and I ended up watching the episode that this screenshot is from the

01:24:18.700 in the light and my goodness man like I was shaken by the end of it it was a genuinely powerful

01:24:25.120 episode and all about just the transience of life moving through those different aspects of it just

01:24:30.900 cherishing every moment of it and this was a quote from it where it said seize the time

01:24:35.780 live now make now always the most precious time now will never come again and you know yeah and

01:24:45.620 i would just say thank you sir patrick stewart for your indelible mark on film on television

01:24:52.340 and for your career and obviously my heart goes out to his family and all those who personally

01:24:58.940 knew him and i will just say that he will be sorely loved for all time to come valet patrick

01:25:06.860 stewart yes all right uh that's a random name says as someone who was born with norwood too

01:25:13.740 and also started balding at 18.

01:25:16.680 I just don't get the fear of balding eggheads for the win.

01:25:20.040 Well, I mean, yeah, solidarity, I suppose.

01:25:23.000 It'll happen eventually.

01:25:24.280 We have a few friends here, don't we?

01:25:25.580 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:25:26.420 Xeno King says,

01:25:27.600 I remember watching the Centerville Ghost TV movie

01:25:30.400 where Stuart plays the ghost.

01:25:32.980 The way he gave maximum effort for a goofy Hallmark kids movie

01:25:36.240 shows his character.

01:25:37.520 Yes, absolutely.

01:25:38.660 In the same way that Sir Christopher Lee

01:25:40.500 just gave his all to anything,

01:25:42.140 no matter how silly it might have

01:25:44.020 seemed. Yeah, that's how you know the

01:25:45.980 greats. Let's go

01:25:47.940 to the video comments.

01:25:52.260 Gattito.

01:25:54.180 As you can clearly tell,

01:25:56.080 this Gattito is a sleepy little boy.

01:25:59.380 So,

01:26:00.060 after all that whole week of

01:26:01.660 craziness, you know, Eon purging

01:26:03.760 everyone in Skydance, I mean,

01:26:05.820 what news? And apparently he's

01:26:07.740 paid more than

01:26:09.760 paid a lot of

01:26:11.940 money through these electors and you're saying he hasn't done anything for us yet i beg to differ

01:26:17.140 i love that count let's go to the next one

01:26:22.260 craig hey gents yeah in response to some of the comments that i got about my commonwealth

01:26:31.040 chronicles videos a lot of the world building a lot of the names that i've come up with for things

01:26:35.960 You're actually looking at world building that predates Woke, predates Meghan Markle.

01:26:42.200 Some of my world building predates the Star Wars prequels.

01:26:46.400 This is a project that's been going for a very long time, and it'd be great to get some support.

01:26:52.920 Awesome.

01:26:53.620 Excellent. Go check it out, friends.

01:26:55.440 Absolutely.

01:26:56.140 While watching the self-destruction of many video game companies,

01:26:59.420 I am, of course, struck by the fact that I still own pen and paper role-playing games.

01:27:06.900 And you know what makes that awesome?

01:27:08.780 No matter how much they try to woke-ify it,

01:27:12.280 you can alter and change the rules however you like when you're doing tabletop.

01:27:18.460 So here's the DC Universe.

01:27:21.640 The real DC Universe.

01:27:23.740 Owner Jon Stewart and Hal Jordan are actually heroes.

01:27:29.420 That sounds like great fun. Really great fun.

01:27:31.700 I know that if I were to dip my toe in, that it would just...

01:27:34.720 I would find myself never stopping.

01:27:37.080 This one's by Zesty King.

01:27:39.720 Halo Seaters, happy Halloween. I'm in Whitby.

01:27:44.040 No.

01:27:45.740 Tell.

01:27:46.260 Lovely place.

01:27:47.040 Oof.

01:27:49.780 Been there three times, I think. It's just awesome.

01:27:54.140 One of the best places in all of England.

01:27:57.300 Very jolly.

01:27:58.680 Yes.

01:27:59.420 very breezy by the sea

01:28:01.680 but beautiful

01:28:03.300 awesome

01:28:04.080 so let's go read

01:28:05.900 some of the comments now

01:28:07.380 Omar Awad says

01:28:09.560 syndrome in Incredibles

01:28:10.880 when everyone is super

01:28:12.280 no one is

01:28:13.160 syndrome in De Linke

01:28:14.900 when everyone is poor

01:28:16.540 Lloyd Inquisitor Hector X

01:28:20.080 says De Linke's

01:28:20.880 only accomplishment

01:28:21.780 is showing the mental health

01:28:23.480 issues on the left

01:28:24.680 X, Y and Z

01:28:26.600 the term voters

01:28:27.880 has been used

01:28:28.740 for years by both the media and politicians though until just now i hadn't realized the

01:28:33.720 nefarious character of this bait and switch thanks for pointing it out um the comments i see here

01:28:40.300 have nothing to do with the segment so i'll just ask one uh question that repeatedly comes

01:28:45.760 up lloyd and crystal hector x and derek power are asking you what is your stand on women in formula

01:28:53.440 one i don't know how this question could have come oh my goodness i'm going to get clipped so badly

01:29:01.180 um well in the end it's a case of it's extremely difficult from a standpoint of um strength

01:29:08.500 actually because if i you know the the the long and short of it is that for instance at present

01:29:13.520 uh in the third category which is f3 uh there is a female driver by the name of sophia fleurs who's

01:29:19.220 a german and she competes on her own merits and i actually congratulate her for going up against

01:29:22.640 the boys in equal machinery but even she has even commented on podcasts and in the end take her word

01:29:27.400 for not mine that she struggles at that point to to turn under aerodynamic load and you know to

01:29:32.240 sort of enter corners at the same speed that the men do she's competitive but she basically says

01:29:36.680 that's the limit of her physical capability and a part of it is um part of it's muscle mass a part

01:29:42.340 of it is uh you know stamina part of it is even depth perception because in the end men and brains

01:29:46.540 men and women do have differentiation in brains and perception you know to a point and also um

01:29:51.880 You know, there are women who historically have been victorious or have competed.

01:29:55.900 I mean, for instance, there were female F1 drivers in the 70s, for instance.

01:29:58.760 I think there was two or three of them.

01:30:00.180 And a female driver even won stages of, I think it was back in the era of Group B Rally in the 80s,

01:30:07.060 who in fact won a couple of stages.

01:30:08.520 But it is just few and far between.

01:30:10.120 It is hard enough.

01:30:10.900 If you look at like a bell curve, right?

01:30:13.200 Men who achieve elite level sport of any kind, never mind motor racing, are in that sort of 95th percentile plus.

01:30:19.700 and that's like the men who have some advantages physically you know physically whereas you know

01:30:25.620 for women they have some you know they don't have the same advantages and it's even harder for them

01:30:29.880 great so we need we need to take uh two extra minutes for some comments if you want oh sure

01:30:35.520 uh well um sophia says honor patrick stewart by seeing his professor x character die a final time

01:30:41.820 on the big screen in doomsday this december it'll actually be the fifth time uh stewart's xavier

01:30:46.960 character dies on screen making him the first actor to have his character die as many times in

01:30:51.440 the movies as he did in the comic books uh until they get an ai well hopefully they won't do that

01:30:56.960 but yeah indeed rip as you say sophie uh lancelot says quote picard it is impossible sorry it is

01:31:03.680 possible to commit no mistake and still lose that is not weakness that is life yeah again true

01:31:10.640 good quote and colin p says luca watch measure of the man next all right colin i will thank you

01:31:16.080 so come and join us at 3 p.m uk time gold here zoom that is in 28 minutes or 27 27 minutes and

01:31:26.080 some seconds i'll get the cap on again okay so have a great weekend bye thank you thank you

`witch hunt`	Both words, anywhere in the episode.
`"witch hunt"`	The exact phrase.
`witch OR hunt`	Either word.
`"alpha male" -"high value"`	The first phrase, but not the second.
`(feminist OR feminism) AND (marriage OR divorce)`	Parentheses group alternatives.
`"decline civilization"~5`	Both words within 5 words of each other.

`misogyn*`	Any word starting with "misogyn": misogyny, misogynist, misogynistic…
`feminizm~1`	Words one letter off: catches typos and transcription errors.

`person:"Andrew Tate"`	Episodes where they host, guest, or are mentioned.
`host:"Glenn Beck"`	Episodes they host.
`guest:"Jordan Peterson"`	Episodes they appear on as a guest.
`mentioned:"Andrew Tate" -host:"Andrew Tate"`	Talked about on other people's shows.
`show:"Bannon's War Room"`	Episodes from one show.

`topics:abortion`	Episodes tagged with a topic (see the Topics page).
`summary:"Andrew Tate"`	Words in the episode summary. Summaries are machine-written and can be wrong.

`"great replacement" AND episode_date:[NOW-1YEAR TO NOW]`	From the past 12 months.
`lockdown AND episode_date:[2020-01-01T00:00:00Z TO 2020-12-31T23:59:59Z]`	From one year. Dates need the full time, as shown.
`"high value" AND misogyny_count:[100 TO *]`	Episodes with 100 or more sentences flagged as misogynistic. Also: hate_speech_count, toxicity_count, word_count.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - October 30, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1539

Episode Stats

Transcript