TRIGGERnometry - March 31, 2019


Fin Taylor on Offensive Comedy, Free Speech and Count Dankula

Topics
estate agents automation
Hosted by
Francis Foster Konstantin Kisin
Mentioned
Count Dankula Finn Taylor Bill Hicks George Carlin Donald Trump Jimmy Carr Comedy Unleashed Chelsea Russell Peter Hitchens Hannah Gadsby Konstantin Yuval Noah Harari Harassi Met Sally Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Bradley Manning Tom Rosenthal Francis Boyle Ricky Gervais Jim Davidson Jeff Norcott and 11 more
Sir John Curtice on What the Polls Tell Us About Brexit Geoffrey Miller on Sex Differences, Masculinity & Political Polarisation

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 1 minute

Words per minute

186.39

Word count

11,421

Sentence count

423

Harmful content

Misogyny

14

sentences flagged

Toxicity

57

sentences flagged

Hate speech

27

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of Trigonometry, Francis and Constantine are joined by one of their favourite comedians, Finn Taylor, to discuss identity politics, tribalism and the recent controversy surrounding a man who claimed to be a new comedian on the comedy circuit.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissin.
00:00:09.040 And this is a show for you if you're bored of watching people argue on the internet over
00:00:13.380 subjects they know nothing about. At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the
00:00:18.920 experts. Our brilliant guest this week is one of our favourite comedians here in the UK,
00:00:23.820 Finn Taylor. Welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you for having me. It's good to have you here. Listen,
00:00:27.380 for anyone who doesn't know you, who hasn't seen you perform, tell us a little bit about who you
00:00:31.560 are, how are you, where you are, what has been your journey through life to the point where you're
00:00:35.760 sitting in this chair? Well, I'm a stand-up comedian. I have been for 10 years. It's basically
00:00:40.660 the only job I've ever had. I suppose in the last three years, I've started talking about
00:00:47.320 identity politics, tribalism, lots of the same similar sort of things that you talk about on
00:00:52.940 this podcast and it's since doing that i've had i guess a relative level of success you've been
00:01:00.680 on live at the apollo which is the biggest comedy tv show in this country at the moment or stand up
00:01:04.740 yeah yeah um obviously it used to be on bbc one at 10 o'clock and now it's now it's on bbc two
00:01:09.920 on a thursday but no it's great great really happy to be asked that was an ambition um yeah
00:01:16.760 and uh you know get get i get i do well at the end of the festival um but i do also manage to
00:01:22.380 piss off a lot of people by doing that. Speaking of which, which is really one of the reasons we
00:01:28.700 wanted to talk to you at this particular time is you had an article about you come out, I think
00:01:33.280 it was an independent newspaper, wasn't it? Yes, which is an online blog, if you don't know.
00:01:37.920 Yeah, the independent comment section, which is open to all, as became clear when I read this,
00:01:44.260 And they released this article that it wasn't necessarily about me, but it opened with this person who claimed to be a new comedian on the circuit.
00:01:56.680 Well, the subject of the article was, as a comedian working the circuit, I am like something like horrified by...
00:02:03.680 These old jokes, regressive humor coming back into comedy.
00:02:09.560 Now, there's lots of context.
00:02:10.860 I mean, it's been since being disproved that he was actually a comedian.
00:02:15.560 Lots of people on my behalf got in touch with The Independent
00:02:18.420 that were way more angry than I was about it,
00:02:20.680 like Stuart Lee and Al Murray and Tom Rosenthal
00:02:23.980 were all emailing The Independent trying to see if he was real or not
00:02:27.060 because they thought it might be like a spiked inside job
00:02:30.080 because it did sort of read like a spiked spoof of a Guardian article.
00:02:34.440 But it turns out this guy isn't a comedian.
00:02:36.800 But at the moment, let's say he's real.
00:02:39.360 And the article opens with him at my show, my most recent show,
00:02:43.700 which is sort of about gender politics. 0.92
00:02:45.540 Which I've seen.
00:02:46.240 Yes.
00:02:47.880 No compliment there, just I've seen it.
00:02:50.180 I've seen that show.
00:02:51.980 And that's how you know Konstantin is Russian.
00:02:54.280 He was purely in fact.
00:02:56.020 I have seen it.
00:02:56.800 I have seen it.
00:02:58.020 The facts of the matter are I have witnessed the show.
00:03:01.180 So he walks out of the show halfway through,
00:03:03.500 and in the article he says this is because it's regressive Jim Davidson style.
00:03:14.220 He calls the show a thinly veiled rape apology.
00:03:18.140 Which I totally disagree with.
00:03:19.440 There was no thinness to it.
00:03:22.420 Yes, I must just stress because obviously most people watching this won't have seen the show.
00:03:25.520 It's not.
00:03:26.240 but what the show is and what i think what i think i i do is i like to take uh subjects that
00:03:34.840 people feel very tense about and are often divided into very um facile kind of infantile binaries
00:03:41.500 and i like to just explore them and investigate all areas and angles and i don't try and land on
00:03:48.140 a specific side i you know i try and um i i sort of i take all the arguments in good faith i think
00:03:55.780 there must be elements of truth on both sides. So try and investigate a way of seeing both these
00:04:02.340 things. So in this context, it was the Me Too thing, which is obviously is outpouring of rage
00:04:10.260 about how women haven't had a chance to have their crimes that can be committed against them
00:04:15.540 properly processed. How do you balance that with the possibility of a hashtag ruining a man's
00:04:22.020 livelihood when it wasn't true uh now if if you those are but those are two problems that coexist
00:04:26.940 and it's childish to pretend that one doesn't um uh and so this is often what gets you know if you
00:04:32.880 say you sort of get forced into a corner we have to say i believe every every woman i believe all
00:04:37.840 women or you would say oh it's all bollocks they're all lying and obviously those are both 1.00
00:04:41.680 ridiculous you know you have to find a way of dealing with both problems but if you you know 0.99
00:04:47.080 what's happened here is that i've sort of tried to articulate quite a nuanced position and and 0.97
00:04:52.000 And he said that just from deviating from this point of view, I'm a rape apologist.
00:04:56.980 And the irony is if he'd stayed for the rest of the show, he would have found out who the real rape apologist in the comedy industry is, as that's who I sort of name and shame. 0.54
00:05:05.980 But I probably can't go into that here as you'll get done for libel.
00:05:09.180 No, you'll get done for libel.
00:05:10.500 No, this podcast will be done.
00:05:13.340 That's libel law.
00:05:14.720 But anyway.
00:05:15.360 We should look at libel law.
00:05:17.420 I'm quite versed in it from that show.
00:05:22.000 But, yeah, it was a strange article.
00:05:26.420 It then went on to go and push this sort of thing that is quite often said nowadays that, you know, there are these two camps in comedy.
00:05:36.820 Comedy is in the grips of like a struggle for its soul.
00:05:39.700 and on one side you have let's sake of argument the left who believe that comedy needs to have a
00:05:48.680 social conscience that as a comedian you are sort of like an agent actively participating in a
00:05:55.160 culture your words are powerful and you could end up contributing to a culture of oppression
00:06:01.080 and the kind of totem pole the icon of this side is people like Hannah Gadsby who wrote this I mean
00:06:08.420 arguably the most successful Edinburgh show ever, sort of a takedown of comedy and from like a,
00:06:15.520 you know, a marginalised person's perspective. It's now on Netflix. The opposite side of the 0.82
00:06:20.420 argument is that free speech is under threat. This is just comedy. Political correctness is
00:06:26.960 killing what's just, you know, meaningless jokes. And this article was basically from this
00:06:33.900 perspective pushing me into this camp welcome well i i don't want to be here as you're about to find
00:06:41.660 out i i i don't really think this culture war exists in the way that a lot of people like to
00:06:49.940 believe it does uh i think it's one that only really exists online in this kind of endless 0.95
00:06:56.000 ping pong match of fucking blog we have to swear yeah of course right fucking blogs and 0.99
00:07:01.260 It's a free speech podcast, mate. 0.99
00:07:02.900 Yeah, of course.
00:07:03.920 Meaningless hot takes.
00:07:06.040 But as someone who works the circuit, solo shows, arts festivals,
00:07:11.080 I don't really see these battles taking place in an audience.
00:07:19.160 And so I sort of, that's why I didn't really want to,
00:07:21.600 I was asked to reply to this article in The Independent,
00:07:25.040 which obviously I was like, well, no, I'm not going to work for you for free
00:07:27.280 as a way of rescuing my reputation from you.
00:07:29.260 but I didn't really want to play this game
00:07:32.480 that they push you into a corner
00:07:33.880 with you know
00:07:36.340 you were then accepting the terms of their
00:07:38.280 framing aren't you
00:07:39.560 that yeah there is these two battles
00:07:41.660 and one has to win
00:07:42.620 and one is right and one is wrong
00:07:44.740 when I sort of think that
00:07:47.360 you know
00:07:47.740 you could like different stuff
00:07:49.600 like
00:07:50.920 me and Hannah Gadsby
00:07:52.720 have the same agent
00:07:53.780 yeah
00:07:54.580 the same person
00:07:55.920 is responsible for both our careers in the UK
00:07:57.960 hey, I think if this guy found that out, 0.69
00:08:00.100 his brain would explode.
00:08:01.620 Like, it's, you know, it's,
00:08:03.860 well, I'd love to call it art,
00:08:05.140 but how is your cultural taste now
00:08:08.240 informed by your political values?
00:08:10.860 I don't see that as at all true.
00:08:12.820 But do you not think sometimes,
00:08:14.320 I mean, and I really like your comedy,
00:08:16.700 I genuinely do,
00:08:17.340 but I've seen a joke that you do on stage
00:08:20.580 and in front of a very liberal,
00:08:23.160 you know, dare I say, snowflake crowd,
00:08:25.220 and the moment you say the joke,
00:08:27.960 you lost them for a certain period of time
00:08:31.960 and you could see them tense up and shut down.
00:08:34.540 And it was a joke aimed at Mediterranean people.
00:08:36.620 My girlfriend is Greek Cypriot.
00:08:37.860 She found it hilarious.
00:08:39.040 And all the middle-class white people in the room 0.97
00:08:41.480 thought you were a hate monger. 0.89
00:08:43.380 Well, no, you know what I'm saying.
00:08:44.820 Well, yeah.
00:08:45.700 I mean, the point is I do know when I'm losing the crowd.
00:08:49.140 And that is deliberate.
00:08:51.240 Because a lot of the stuff is aimed at people like me,
00:08:57.120 precious white liberals and just teasing how much they think about it this is this is i suppose the
00:09:02.580 thing is that um if i was doing these uh these jokes in a you know if i was branded if i was
00:09:10.220 branding myself as you know this free speech warrior this truth teller um then i would get
00:09:17.780 a crowd that want that you know people that buy into that sort of side of the argument
00:09:20.620 um but it's not as fun as when it's in front of a mixed crowd and that's part of the reason i 1.00
00:09:25.140 didn't want to sort of get into this so much is that i'm really proud of the fact that when i do
00:09:31.700 solo shows and the festivals and stuff it's an insane mix of people that would never normally
00:09:37.080 be in the same room you know you have you know those old white fellas in the three-piece suit 1.00
00:09:42.260 the fedora you know proper old tories they're sitting next to women with blue hair who are 1.00
00:09:49.240 you know, polyamorous, vegan, queer community people. And they sort of project their own 0.97
00:09:55.420 things onto what I do, I think, because I don't, you know, I deliberately don't try and fit into
00:10:01.760 one of these worldviews that rubbishes the other. But yeah, I'll tell you a point. I know that I
00:10:08.640 actively do try and annoy a lot of people. But it's, you know, that Mediterranean joke, 1.00
00:10:16.360 The joke is, in the Me Too thing, it's hard for a woman to know if a man is a sex pest or he is just Mediterranean. 0.98
00:10:24.580 But that's gamed, right? 0.58
00:10:26.700 In that it's just about acceptable because it's a broad enough group.
00:10:30.160 It's not really distinguished enough.
00:10:33.080 But then surely the counter argument to someone is that you are being, as a white male of privilege,
00:10:38.340 you are being discriminatory to Mediterranean men.
00:10:43.100 You're classing them all as being particularly predatory.
00:10:46.840 That is not fair.
00:10:47.660 That is not acceptable.
00:10:48.940 Neither is that right.
00:10:49.860 And I am offended.
00:10:50.980 Okay.
00:10:51.960 Well, it's a joke.
00:10:53.240 It's obviously not true.
00:10:55.380 The untrueness of it should be enough.
00:10:58.760 But there is a point of that, I suppose, of the far left who would actually say,
00:11:02.720 well, yeah, but you have a duty and a responsibility.
00:11:06.100 Yes.
00:11:06.580 But my point is that it's a very small fringe of people that actually think that.
00:11:10.960 And I think the sort of the free speech guys on the right are similarly a sort of fringe.
00:11:19.560 On the right, yeah.
00:11:20.240 But there's also free speech people who are not on the right.
00:11:22.620 Of course.
00:11:23.520 Like me.
00:11:23.800 Yes.
00:11:24.580 But the people that push these, I'm using left and right just as indicators.
00:11:28.380 Yeah, of course, of course.
00:11:29.400 The people that push these divides, I just, I don't see, I see 90% of comedy audiences
00:11:35.720 do not politicize their enjoyment or lack of it.
00:11:38.740 if they find something funny they laugh if they don't they don't they find it edgy or close to
00:11:44.180 the bone they go oh but they enjoy making that noise yeah yeah um and if it's a bit whimsical
00:11:49.840 they go and if uh it's only a certain type of person that walks into a show with a kind of
00:11:55.260 preset i think this well there's a mutual friend of ours who i'm not going to name on the show but
00:12:00.480 he was doing a show about men last year you may know who i'm talking about uh and he was doing a
00:12:07.240 preview at a club that i know and and a woman stood up in the middle of a show and said you're 0.99
00:12:12.280 a white man you're not allowed to talk about this and wouldn't leave until the show was ended yeah
00:12:19.060 that's my point that this person would exist in that very i as i see it small minority but that
00:12:25.260 would not have happened 10 years ago is my point no maybe the minority has gotten more emboldened
00:12:30.320 on both sides and that's possibly because both sides um way over perceive the threat of the other
00:12:38.240 because they have to because they're reactive narratives you can't have the we need to clean
00:12:43.860 up comedy sort of you know you guys are all dinosaurs without the other guys saying whoa
00:12:49.300 free speech and you can't have they can't exist without them because they're both parasitic they
00:12:53.980 live off the other right um and so they've maybe got emboldened and maybe got louder and maybe they
00:13:00.220 have more spirit for a fight. But I just don't see it as something that actually exists in the
00:13:08.720 way that is made out to so much online. Well, what you've just described is exactly the thing
00:13:13.420 you're saying doesn't exist, which is the culture war. The two edges becoming emboldened and then
00:13:18.680 dragging other people in. That is the culture war. Right. There are small minorities that are 1.00
00:13:24.060 sucking you in. Yeah. Well, they're sucking everybody in because our conversations in 0.97
00:13:27.980 society about privilege about discrimination about you know something we'll go on to talk
00:13:33.780 about which is the the dankula and other people who've actually been prosecuted for saying things
00:13:38.780 which were a joke like your defense of your joke about mediterranean people and i could be offended
00:13:43.500 by that because i'm a quarter greek right yeah your defense is that's a joke and it's obviously
00:13:48.180 not true but if you have something like his case where the judge said uh the prosecutor and the
00:13:53.560 judge said context doesn't matter intent doesn't matter then you get into a point where if you say
00:13:59.580 something on stage and someone chooses to take it literally and you say a lot of stuff that can be
00:14:05.860 misinterpreted that way yes sure right then you end up in a position where you can be criminalized
00:14:11.820 so i guess what i'm saying is um if you say there's no culture war i think what you're saying
00:14:16.580 is there's no culture war in broader society right in in the in the mainstream of society
00:14:22.080 which i can kind of agree with to some extent yeah but i feel the only reason that that's true
00:14:28.160 is that this way of thinking hasn't seeped into that far into it but it will because yeah
00:14:33.940 universities these people are being indoctrinated so so yeah so so you see it as a precedent to a
00:14:40.740 kind of dystopia yeah um whenever i and sometimes i do but i'm i then i then go off twitter for a
00:14:48.740 week and i and i just do gigs you know you know friday saturday night clubs and these these hot
00:14:56.900 takes don't exist people enjoy it or they don't enjoy it and you know 16 of the uk are on twitter
00:15:05.140 i mean just just think about how small that's comedians media people politicians journalists 0.74
00:15:13.100 and fucking lunatics that is and it feels so much louder when you're there you think this is 0.98
00:15:19.960 representative yeah but i don't it's not and i know i can i know that from experience because 0.99
00:15:25.280 as someone who you know talks about these arguments that are made online when i try and
00:15:30.520 do jokes about certain things people have no idea what i'm talking about yeah like i tried to do a
00:15:34.900 bit in my last show i had a whole bit about a transgender movement and how it sort of competed
00:15:39.640 with women's rights and that kind of aspect of the argument. 1.00
00:15:44.120 Again, one that mainly takes place online.
00:15:48.000 And I tried to do a thing about the term cisgender and say,
00:15:51.760 you know, this is a word for if you're born a man
00:15:55.720 and you're still a man, which is good because I never knew
00:15:58.400 what the word for that was.
00:16:00.320 But people don't know what that term is.
00:16:03.380 Like the people that come and, so it's, you know,
00:16:06.640 and I really thought it was a funny joke
00:16:08.040 so I really kept trying to do it.
00:16:09.640 But it just wouldn't fly because people didn't know what the premise is.
00:16:13.020 And so I do see these as sort of fringe, mad discussions rather than something that is seeping in.
00:16:21.820 Okay, so here's the point.
00:16:23.380 Five years from now, you're going to be fine doing that joke.
00:16:27.280 Maybe.
00:16:28.260 You are.
00:16:28.700 Maybe even this year.
00:16:29.620 If you'd gone to Edinburgh this year, you'd be fine doing that joke.
00:16:31.660 Because we're talking about, you know, Piers Morgan has people talking about trans on national TV like every second day or whatever.
00:16:38.500 Possibly.
00:16:38.740 becoming a much bigger part of the conversation. So this obsession with identity is spreading.
00:16:44.520 It's not just static. It's not just there's that 3% of people who care about it on one side,
00:16:49.160 3% on the other side, and it's staying there. In my opinion, it's spreading. We're talking
00:16:54.420 about more and more. And it's not right now, maybe that's the 16% of people on Twitter,
00:16:59.860 but it's spreading into mainstream society. Maybe it is. I guess we won't know until the
00:17:06.360 future what was telling was that all the responses to this article that was basically framing this
00:17:11.260 debate were like shut up mate it's just comedy like people didn't really have the a lot of the
00:17:17.580 responses to the article the guy at the port i mean i feel sorry for him because he had to like
00:17:20.700 remove his photo and get off to it because he was getting so much hate which i don't condone by the
00:17:25.440 way um and um he like most people don't have the the sort of vocabulary to to meet these that was
00:17:34.740 what was noticeable and that they're not participating in the cultural because they
00:17:37.440 don't really know it existed just like it's just jokes shut up you know this is most people's
00:17:41.440 response i find um it does feel like a very insular naval gazing comedy media class thing
00:17:48.620 and you could be right i'm you know i don't know maybe it will spread out to the broader
00:17:52.980 but that's why i mean that's why i'm concerned about it it's not because i think that right
00:17:57.980 now we live in an oppressive society where no one can say what they think but there is a direction
00:18:02.940 of travel well right and yeah i would i i guess i disagree that that that's inevitable or or it's
00:18:09.920 moving it's i always find it funny when people say this is a this is a set of precedent because
00:18:15.240 there's often a huge caveat to that precedent like um recently there was you know the shamima
00:18:20.660 bagum case yes where she was stripped of her citizenship the isis bride and um it's a fair 1.00
00:18:26.440 point a lot of um people from uh sort of second generation immigrants were on news night saying
00:18:31.180 this sets a dangerous precedent
00:18:32.340 because could I just have
00:18:33.400 my citizenship revoked?
00:18:34.900 And the caveat is,
00:18:36.020 well, do you want to join ISIS
00:18:37.320 without any consequences?
00:18:39.620 Like that's a massive part
00:18:40.820 of the context of that.
00:18:42.580 But, you know,
00:18:43.160 so I sort of think
00:18:43.960 when people say
00:18:44.600 it sets a precedent,
00:18:45.560 I'm, I don't know,
00:18:47.040 it never, it never seems to get,
00:18:49.080 I don't know,
00:18:49.320 I'm very unsure
00:18:50.680 as to whether it actually,
00:18:51.760 signals are coming dystopia
00:18:53.440 or whether it's just
00:18:54.160 a loud fringe, I don't know.
00:18:55.800 A couple of points
00:18:56.420 I want to make.
00:18:56.900 Number one,
00:18:57.300 I think your Mediterranean joke 1.00
00:18:58.460 is an undeniable truth,
00:18:59.640 but it's fixed.
00:19:01.180 well it's the kind of racism we allow on this show um as a uh as somebody who is in a long-term
00:19:08.120 relationship with a mediterranean woman and her family nailed it uh number one and number two i
00:19:13.060 take your point about you saying the the the common person isn't interested in it and the
00:19:19.000 reason is is because you know being a former teacher most people are so wrapped up in their
00:19:24.180 own lives and you know whether they've you know they've got family they've got kids they've got
00:19:27.700 a job they've got to hold down they've got to do the school and everything else that these sort of
00:19:32.060 wars that go on online they just don't appear in the public consciousness simply because people
00:19:36.180 don't have the time however i think the real danger is is the people who dictate what it is
00:19:41.980 that we consume in mainstream media are very much part of that particular ideology and war and that's
00:19:47.980 where i think it might seep in so what you're going to get is comedy becoming more and more
00:19:53.120 sanitized as it were and certain points of view uh not being represented like if you think about it
00:19:59.800 the majority of people in this country in the referendum voted brexit whether you agree whether
00:20:04.120 you disagree but jeff norcott is really the only pro-brexit comedian that is on mainstream media
00:20:09.600 yeah um i mean i suppose that's true well firstly when you said that you think comedy is going to
00:20:16.900 get more sanitized yeah it's going to get more sanitized perhaps on the bbc but on netflix
00:20:21.860 it's the opposite, right?
00:20:24.320 And the BBC, I already know, are trying to catch up.
00:20:27.440 So I'm not sure it will be sanitised,
00:20:30.560 but maybe you're correct in that,
00:20:33.460 and maybe this is where you might have a point,
00:20:35.620 is that people are increasingly,
00:20:37.640 comics are increasingly branding themselves.
00:20:40.460 They're taking a side on these binary debates.
00:20:44.540 And they can sell a lot of tickets that way, I suppose.
00:20:47.920 It's something I'm reluctant to do.
00:20:49.420 I don't disrespect anyone for doing it,
00:20:51.340 But it's something I'm reluctant to do in that I I really like that my audience is mixed and I like that they come because I sort of take the piss out of every side of a of a debate. 1.00
00:21:03.020 I would be I would be kind of reticent to brand myself as one or the other, because then you'd get people coming that they're coming because they they think that you think the same as them.
00:21:16.220 And I don't think that's that's for me, that's not as fun.
00:21:18.900 I like having a bit of spice in the gig and trying to, you know, toss ideas around in the knowledge that they might all be wrong, they might all be right.
00:21:27.520 You don't know.
00:21:28.220 And it's also more authentic as well because nobody's wholly on the right, nobody's wholly on the left.
00:21:32.220 Like we were talking to Peter Hitchens, I think Peter would describe himself as being more towards the right of the political state.
00:21:38.080 Well, he's a social conservative, but I guess economically he's more of a social democrat.
00:21:42.560 Yes, and absolutely. And he's in favour of the nationalisation of the railways, which is actually a left-wing policy.
00:21:47.220 Well, I think most most people are evidence based. Well, no, no, no, no, like I'm a I'm a huge I was so excited when the independent group broke away from Labour and the Tories. So excited. And I don't think it's any any coincidence that they're all a lot of them are former barristers because they they want an evidence based approach to policy, which is something that we've just sort of been abandoned by the two
00:22:17.140 major parties right um both are sticking to fanatical dogma um and and i think i think most
00:22:24.740 people agree with an evidence-based uh look at the world uh i don't know if they do most people
00:22:32.980 should it feels like maybe there was a time when people did maybe after the cold war when we sort
00:22:38.420 of everyone cooled down a bit and said yeah these these dogmatic ways of of looking at the world
00:22:44.280 don't work but then that was a very brief window wasn't it feels like we're back there
00:22:49.420 sorry carry on i was going to say coming back to to comedy one of the things that francis and i
00:22:55.140 often talk about is because we're gigging comedians like you are is like francis might
00:23:00.520 write a great bit and then which i know is funny you know as a comedian you kind of know sometimes
00:23:05.240 what's funny and what isn't and there are certain clubs where he can't do that bit you know well i
00:23:10.180 have routines that two years ago were hilarious and now everyone just goes so have you seen a
00:23:16.300 change in the 10 years that you've been a comedian in terms of what people find edgy what what the
00:23:21.660 definition of edgy has changed i don't know because i wasn't really it's only been about
00:23:25.600 the last three or four years i suppose i've i've been reviewed as provocative is what i was called
00:23:30.320 provocative edgy um i don't know i mean when you say there are some clubs you can't do certain
00:23:38.360 jokes at i never found that oh really i yeah i which is why i think the um you know i i know you
00:23:48.200 so you had a thing where you were told you couldn't you had this contract to agree with it was it
00:23:51.880 goldsmiths or so yeah right it's one of those two things goldsmiths are basically the two and that's
00:23:58.520 obviously just i see that as just you know silly students righteous indignation that is a phase 0.63
00:24:06.000 that won't last. 0.80
00:24:08.280 Every generation will think that for a bit.
00:24:10.420 I used to think like that,
00:24:11.400 but I got older and would have read more.
00:24:14.460 Similarly, there's a free speech gig, isn't there?
00:24:17.800 I know that you guys have done.
00:24:19.720 Comedy Unleashed, yeah.
00:24:21.900 There's nothing that I would do at that gig
00:24:23.640 that I wouldn't do at any other show.
00:24:26.960 Now, I don't know whether that's
00:24:28.240 because I have a broken radar,
00:24:31.800 but I've always just done whatever I wanted to do.
00:24:36.000 and so I don't really see the the comics being censored thing or the but do you not think there
00:24:43.960 are certain times and maybe there are certain routines that I like I used to talk about my
00:24:49.640 mum being a Trump supporter yeah which she is she's a disabled Latin American 73 year old woman
00:24:55.040 who supports Donald Trump right and I which is funny yeah and I've done it on stage at gigs and
00:25:01.300 people just shut down just like that they hear the word Donald Trump I've actually been booed
00:25:04.860 I mean, I was booed up the creek, which everyone has been booed up.
00:25:07.960 Yeah, I mean, is there a punchline in it?
00:25:12.940 I'm sure there is.
00:25:14.220 I'm just like, wow, that's a sick burn.
00:25:17.320 Is there a punchline to your routine, Francis?
00:25:19.780 I'm not trying to...
00:25:20.520 No, no, no, no.
00:25:21.280 I'm just saying, I'm joking.
00:25:23.420 So the punchline is like, but then I understand why people vote for Donald Trump,
00:25:27.580 because it's very difficult nowadays to be a nice, kind, tolerant person.
00:25:31.560 We live in a world where estate agents exist.
00:25:33.280 Right.
00:25:33.640 Right, okay, because every time I see a group of estate agents in my area,
00:25:36.840 I behave a little bit like a racist.
00:25:38.440 I'll see them, I'll think, yeah, there's too many of them around here. 1.00
00:25:41.120 They all look the fucking same to me. 0.98
00:25:43.000 I'll go, look, guys, chill out. 0.99
00:25:44.300 I'm not prejudiced.
00:25:46.040 Some of my best friends are estate agents.
00:25:48.020 I just want one-one marrying my daughter. 0.97
00:25:50.100 Because what happens if they had a kid?
00:25:51.240 It would come out half normal, half estate agent.
00:25:53.500 And we know what we call one of them, don't we?
00:25:54.940 A recruitment consultant.
00:25:56.460 Bang, joke at the end.
00:25:57.980 But I've just lost them.
00:25:59.280 And before that, it used to, two years ago,
00:26:01.300 or a year, even a year and a half ago,
00:26:02.640 that used to be one of the biggest bits in the set
00:26:04.520 and the recruitment consultant, bam,
00:26:06.980 because it's something silly to bookend
00:26:08.820 what is a sort of serious political point.
00:26:12.380 But at the moment I found that I do that trumpet,
00:26:15.180 they just go, ooh, ew, and then, yeah.
00:26:19.060 Or maybe I just don't have the skill yet
00:26:21.000 to be able to take that and just get people to go with it.
00:26:23.920 Well, I don't know.
00:26:24.580 I've not found, I don't find.
00:26:29.300 Maybe people, there are some gigs where people are more,
00:26:32.140 yeah clenchy yeah but then um i always try and perform it in a way where i know that they're
00:26:37.860 uncomfortable and that i'm in control of that yeah um you know a lot of my eye contact is like
00:26:42.520 this is going go on beat heads there's a joke coming um which i guess is sort of signaling
00:26:47.640 your intent maybe as a performance trick because um that's one of the things about irony is that
00:26:53.340 i think quite often people mistake irony for saying something horrible and then someone calls
00:26:59.540 you out and then you go oh no i was um when really you know you have to you have to perform you have
00:27:05.720 to um uh show people that you don't mean what you say yeah via other means yeah so um there is some
00:27:12.440 responsibility to how you say these things yeah i think but look i'm not denying that you've had
00:27:18.320 that experience but i i don't i don't see that you accept your lived experience yeah i accept
00:27:22.640 your lived experience but yeah so i i don't feel um you know the only times any of my friends have
00:27:28.440 had stuff like this
00:27:30.180 it's been when Nish
00:27:31.220 has caused a riot
00:27:32.760 because he's just
00:27:33.340 so anti-Brexit
00:27:34.140 at the 99 Club
00:27:34.940 on a Saturday
00:27:35.440 people have unplugged
00:27:36.460 his microphone
00:27:37.080 oh really
00:27:38.680 yeah yeah
00:27:39.300 but then you know
00:27:40.300 he's going for
00:27:42.240 he's deliberately
00:27:43.780 stoking
00:27:44.360 well not deliberately
00:27:46.080 stoking but you know
00:27:46.640 he's on one side
00:27:47.760 yeah
00:27:48.120 he's doing stuff
00:27:48.740 that's belittling
00:27:50.140 the other side
00:27:50.680 and you know
00:27:51.340 on a Saturday night
00:27:51.900 they're going to be
00:27:52.280 it's amazing
00:27:53.420 that people don't
00:27:53.820 realise that Brexit
00:27:54.580 will divide a room
00:27:55.360 literally 52-48
00:27:57.720 Well, it's divided a country.
00:28:00.340 Yeah, exactly.
00:28:01.020 But maybe that's because, you know,
00:28:05.180 my stuff is about these subjects but doesn't take a side.
00:28:07.960 People feel like they can laugh at it
00:28:09.200 because they don't feel they're under attack.
00:28:12.680 Some people, obviously, some people just hear
00:28:15.840 that you're not parroting their point of view
00:28:18.880 and write articles in The Independent.
00:28:23.000 So, yeah, so...
00:28:24.420 Sorry, I've forgotten what you were.
00:28:25.740 No, no, it's an interesting point that you make.
00:28:29.640 Yeah, I don't see it.
00:28:33.160 I don't feel censored.
00:28:35.640 I don't feel like comics are under threat.
00:28:40.100 When I did Live at the Apollo, I went into the bar afterwards
00:28:44.800 and the head of BBC Two told me, you know,
00:28:48.040 whatever happens, we always have to have a space
00:28:51.000 for this type of comedy on the channel.
00:28:53.080 that's the head of the BBC
00:28:55.040 it's the head of the channel saying that
00:28:57.600 let's move on
00:28:59.940 I was just going to make sure
00:29:00.780 why have Frankie Boyle
00:29:04.360 and Jimmy Carr not been cancelled
00:29:05.980 it's because
00:29:07.820 they don't wade into
00:29:10.120 these debates in the way
00:29:12.100 that Ricky Gervais does
00:29:13.100 and I think that's quite sage actually
00:29:16.020 I think that's because they realise that they're
00:29:17.980 trying to play to loads of
00:29:20.080 people and even though they might be
00:29:22.060 talking about these sort of topics and doing quite brutal jokes they're not taking a side
00:29:27.800 they're not dismissing one side or the other yeah that's how i see it anyway well uh the thing that
00:29:33.800 strikes me whenever you and i've talked about this is like your angle sometimes seems to be like well
00:29:38.620 i don't feel censored and the you know free speech isn't about you no it's about a principle and it's
00:29:46.340 about other people like it's like the benefit system you don't stand up for the benefit system
00:29:50.840 because you want benefits
00:29:51.900 you know
00:29:52.740 you stand up for it
00:29:53.640 because
00:29:54.260 there's Scottish people
00:29:55.460 yeah
00:29:55.820 speaking of Scottish people
00:29:58.100 let's talk about Dankula
00:29:59.020 yes
00:29:59.940 that was irony
00:30:01.660 by the way
00:30:02.060 far Scottish
00:30:02.660 I'm half Scottish
00:30:03.540 are you
00:30:04.140 yes
00:30:04.500 my name is Finlay
00:30:05.800 so
00:30:07.960 that was one of the
00:30:09.500 you said you watched
00:30:10.280 our interview with him
00:30:11.160 yeah
00:30:11.720 which has
00:30:12.920 you know
00:30:13.600 loads of people have commented
00:30:14.680 they've watched it
00:30:15.400 it was an interesting case
00:30:16.680 you said on the phone
00:30:18.340 when we talked
00:30:18.820 there were certain things
00:30:19.520 you didn't agree with us about
00:30:20.600 Well, it wasn't so much that.
00:30:23.620 I didn't really have an opinion on it when you asked me about it.
00:30:25.980 And then I watched, because I hadn't really paid attention to the case.
00:30:29.600 I watched the interview.
00:30:30.520 I then watched the video in question.
00:30:33.960 And I sort of see why he got into trouble.
00:30:38.000 And that's not me saying that he should have gone to jail.
00:30:40.400 I mean, I think it's quite telling that he hasn't.
00:30:44.760 I'm not sure he will.
00:30:46.680 But, I mean, this is one of the weakest hot takes of all time.
00:30:50.000 but the internet has changed everything right you heard it here first people on the internet
00:30:56.180 so if when you do comedy um for a channel uh there is a team of lawyers that are attached
00:31:03.820 to that channel they kept their year-round on retainer and uh their job is to make sure that
00:31:08.580 every joke every premise every sketch whatever the show is is defensible because we have these
00:31:14.000 laws around broadcasting in society that we all sign up to that some things are shouldn't be
00:31:20.100 broadcast before a certain time because of children some things are you know the bad taste
00:31:23.780 or whatever um and so we have these standards when it's a publicly owned channel like the BBC
00:31:29.300 and other another you know freeview channels um that that's that's the you know that's the lay
00:31:35.040 of the land now one of the great things about the internet is that there's no gatekeepers anymore
00:31:40.600 You don't have to wait for someone to put you on a channel.
00:31:43.120 You can just upload stuff straight to the internet.
00:31:46.040 And if it gets shared enough, more people will see it than will ever see you doing something late night on BBC Two.
00:31:52.220 However, there is no machinery there to uphold the same principles of maintaining the social fabric.
00:32:04.440 It's just unfiltered.
00:32:05.760 It's straight.
00:32:06.200 It's direct.
00:32:08.160 Many times that's a good thing.
00:32:10.360 But how do you stop someone from just pumping hate speech into the ether?
00:32:16.640 But hold on.
00:32:17.380 Can I just carry on hate speech?
00:32:19.020 No, let me just carry on.
00:32:20.000 Okay.
00:32:21.260 Because when free speech is defended, it's always the argument, well, there's a context.
00:32:27.340 Context is everything.
00:32:28.940 But I always find that the context is always just short of further context.
00:32:34.960 It's always a convenient amount of context.
00:32:36.440 because i think you both agree that we have there's a huge problem with uh hate abuse online
00:32:43.880 yeah at the moment yeah um it's you know young young teenage girls are killing themselves because 0.84
00:32:49.300 of things they're seeing today um as we record this there's been a there's been a mass shooting
00:32:55.060 in new zealand and people it was being broadcast live on on youtube and all it said was this might
00:33:00.840 be an appropriate click to proceed right that's the only so it is totally unregulated the um the
00:33:07.460 big tech companies they're all you know whacking off to Ayn Rand books they're not going to regulate
00:33:11.000 anything right there's kind of these ultra libertarian ideologues um and so there is going
00:33:16.700 to be this conflict over the next 10 years between state and uh internet how do you protect people
00:33:23.720 from the darker sides of the internet I think that's a contest that's going to happen and that
00:33:27.820 should that's my opinion uh what i see the countdown thing as is a sort of growing pain
00:33:34.160 in that initial thing in that it's ridiculous that it's it's clearly he says it's a joke it's
00:33:41.240 context to a joke but at the same time he says the phrase gas the jews have him any 40 times 0.55
00:33:46.360 and for a lot of that the pug isn't really doing anything and i'm not saying he should go to jail
00:33:53.280 But I sort of see this as maybe a misstep, maybe a heavy handedness, but I see it as an initial foray in trying to deal with this conflict between state responsibility and an unregulated online space.
00:34:08.360 And I can't help but feel if Count Dankula was a Muslim comic and that pug was watching videos of jihadis beheading journalists and 9-11 footage and clapping and stuff, which might be funny. 0.99
00:34:23.280 I can't help but feel
00:34:24.660 that the same people defending him
00:34:25.700 would be crowing for him
00:34:26.600 to be banged up.
00:34:28.000 Why?
00:34:29.180 Because there is a context
00:34:30.580 of Muslim men
00:34:31.380 getting radicalised online
00:34:32.480 and that has to be dealt with, right?
00:34:34.760 So this is what I see.
00:34:37.300 There is definitely
00:34:38.120 going to be a conflict,
00:34:39.060 but I see it as something
00:34:40.020 that sort of needs to happen.
00:34:42.240 I think what,
00:34:43.100 this is my opinion,
00:34:43.720 I know this won't make him
00:34:44.340 feel any better.
00:34:45.680 And also a large part of this
00:34:46.440 comes from the fact
00:34:46.780 he's a YouTube comedian
00:34:47.600 and will get way more viewers
00:34:49.780 than I ever will
00:34:50.420 doing a proper comedian.
00:34:51.660 um but uh i think what the state seems to have done is gone right you're fined 800 pounds we're
00:34:57.540 not gonna take you to jail which is ridiculous to go to jail for but justice sort of needs to
00:35:00.560 be seen they sent him a letter saying they will take him to jail after that interview okay well
00:35:04.140 maybe he will go to jail i i feel like there's several there's several cases of people being
00:35:08.760 like you're convicted do it we're not gonna go to jail they try and make the whole thing disappear
00:35:12.640 quietly because they sort of realize it's a bit ridiculous so that's how i see it which i know is a
00:35:17.920 nuanced point um but it's it's really vital that we have these discussions and i think because
00:35:25.140 going back to the polarization of the internet the internet is where these conversations appear
00:35:30.160 to take place in a public forum and a lot of the time it just seems to be two sides screaming each
00:35:35.000 other with nobody really listening or sharing a point you've just made a point and it's enabled
00:35:39.720 me to reflect and i'll go away ruminate and change my point my maybe my point will develop
00:35:44.100 the one thing that i'll leave take your opinion that's my opinion yeah but um the one thing that
00:35:49.560 i found worrying was was it was the judge saying that context isn't important and i found that
00:35:54.640 particularly dangerous as comedians for everyone because we can anybody's set you can take something
00:36:01.300 out out of context yeah sure that that's probably the most worrying bit is not the actual conviction
00:36:06.700 it's the judge saying context doesn't matter um but at the same time name name me a comedian that's
00:36:13.620 in jail in this country. Name me someone that has had their free speech, seriously threatened,
00:36:20.560 removed. I don't see it. This is, I think, where the difference is, is you're talking about the
00:36:26.580 present. Your focus is, in all of these instances, on the present. And I think what, I don't know
00:36:32.940 whether Francis is, but what I'm talking about is the direction of travel. Right. Because Dankler
00:36:37.560 is not the only person. There are lots of other people. There's Chelsea Russell. Yes, who have
00:36:42.180 been called by the police to check their intentions no no chelsea russell was arrested prosecuted
00:36:46.560 tagged uh and she only recently won an appeal right right so she she had a life ruined for 1.00
00:36:52.640 two years because she shared some lyrics from a rap song online as a tribute to a friend of hers
00:36:56.960 who died who loved those lyrics right and they contained the n-word right and she's white and 0.62
00:37:01.500 she's white right right so she was prosecuted for this tagged her life was ruined by this yeah right 1.00
00:37:06.720 police are calling as you say uh you know people who retweeted some kind of supposedly transphobic
00:37:11.940 limerick and telling them that they need to check their thinking yeah right which yeah you're you
00:37:17.600 you're right and i guess as someone who grew up in the sober union you're more sensitive to this
00:37:21.120 sort of stuff yeah rightly so that you say this stuff and it sounds it sounds scary but again i
00:37:27.460 see it as a sort of necessary struggle in between the state regulating the online space which i
00:37:33.880 think you have to agree something has to be of course there needs to be regular you know basically
00:37:38.260 every woman in public life is constantly every day 1.00
00:37:40.360 being told they're going to be raped or 0.97
00:37:42.240 killed. Well, I get tons of hate 1.00
00:37:44.200 online as well. Yes, we all do.
00:37:45.800 But you deserve it.
00:37:47.060 We all do.
00:37:49.720 But when it does, you know,
00:37:51.820 when people are broadcasting mass shootings,
00:37:54.460 surely there has to be
00:37:56.280 something to, you know...
00:37:58.640 No, but I just don't see the connection between
00:38:00.260 Dankill and mass shootings. These are separate issues to me.
00:38:03.440 Right.
00:38:04.160 Well, because he was
00:38:06.320 prosecuted for
00:38:07.440 being grossly offensive
00:38:09.340 public indecency essentially
00:38:11.080 grossly offensive online
00:38:12.500 that is the state trying to
00:38:15.480 clean up the online space
00:38:17.120 which it needs to do because at the moment it's so unregulated
00:38:19.900 that mass shootings are broadcast
00:38:20.840 that's the context of the online
00:38:23.580 sphere, that's how I see it
00:38:25.620 and the thing about
00:38:27.760 free speech, is it an absolute
00:38:31.500 is it not, is it
00:38:32.940 I think free speech
00:38:35.340 yes for all but also the responsibility
00:38:37.100 should be taken by everyone with it you know like the boris johnson thing when he was um
00:38:43.020 you know he made that comment about muslim women looking like letterboxes and everyone pilloried
00:38:47.960 him and then everyone defended him by saying why it's a free country he's a free speech he's a
00:38:52.440 colorful character and my reading of it is that well look i'm a comedian i can say muslim women
00:39:00.680 look like letterboxes because i'm a comedian and the privilege is you can say anything however
00:39:04.660 there's a curse you cannot really ever be taken seriously because you're a comedian boris johnson
00:39:11.600 is a politician he is privileged in that he can he gets taken seriously because he represents
00:39:16.240 people i mean maybe that's where your idea falls down mate no one takes him seriously
00:39:21.640 politicians should be taken seriously on a contextual level yeah um conceptual level rather
00:39:26.480 boris johnson has a privilege in that people you know he can be taken seriously he represents
00:39:30.240 people the curse is he can't say whatever he wants like you just said you don't have mps on
00:39:34.840 this show because they can't actually say what they that is the kind of the gift and the curse
00:39:38.900 of being in uh you know democratic politician in the same way that a comedian has the sort of vice
00:39:43.500 versa you know and maybe this distinction has been muddied by the proliferation of um comedians
00:39:50.260 you know being taken seriously as news hosts and sort of satirical and appearing on question time
00:39:56.660 yeah i would never i had a conversation with the question time producers and i just was like i just
00:40:01.820 don't think i should do it because unless i just took the whole thing down yeah because i don't
00:40:07.320 again you're then branding yourself as you know i think this come and see me because you think this
00:40:12.500 and that's just not something i want to i want to i want to do um but yeah there is there is this
00:40:19.420 people have started getting their news more from comedians and i think it strokes comedians ego
00:40:23.280 to be taken seriously but then it then maybe it muddies the distinction in that some people who
00:40:28.300 who go to comedians and uh you know listen to their routines as if they're you know the political
00:40:36.220 activism they then would look at what i do and go well you so this is like yeah but i'm off i'm not
00:40:41.900 trying i'm not attempting to be taken anywhere near as seriously as this guy yeah so maybe that's
00:40:46.180 why well i mean in terms of the news i think the daily show particularly after john stewart left
00:40:51.960 it's become an ideological kind of this is what we think um in a way that i don't think it was
00:40:58.700 before uh well look at the mash report i've right someone who's been on it i'll uh yeah i'll defend
00:41:05.300 it but yeah well no i'm not i'm not saying that there's anything wrong with it i'm saying it's a
00:41:09.440 it's something that reflects a particular way of thinking right and it's comedy which presents
00:41:14.020 that way of thinking through comedy that more people probably will watch than watch more most
00:41:19.620 with the news the same with the daily show so i know loads of people now like um when this whole
00:41:24.220 free speech thing happened with me or this whole contract thing happened with me uh i i did a show
00:41:29.040 in america called uh the tucker carlson show which is on fox news you see the guy that's recently
00:41:33.380 yeah yeah i didn't watch the video i just saw he was being cancelled online but yeah yeah exactly
00:41:38.360 well exactly right so anyway i was talking to a comedian and he said what was it like being on
00:41:43.660 that show because i must have been like really weird and i was like how do you mean and he was
00:41:47.320 like well he's like really right-wing isn't he and i was like well have you seen his show do you
00:41:51.740 watch your show because i'm not saying he's not right-wing i'm just saying have you seen the show
00:41:55.580 because i'm curious where you're coming from and goes oh no i haven't seen the show but i've just
00:41:59.340 seen what the daily the daily show says about him right so people get their opinions now through
00:42:05.240 these comedy shows is the point which i guess feeds very much into what you're saying well it
00:42:11.000 It might be part of the reason why that bloke wrote that article about me
00:42:16.800 is because he's watched comedians and seen them as political pundits
00:42:19.580 because some comedians, it's just struck your ego to be taken seriously
00:42:22.800 because the reason we're comedians is that no one ever takes us seriously.
00:42:26.440 And someone asks you for your opinion, you go, oh, yeah.
00:42:29.520 I was sort of ready about doing this because for this hour,
00:42:32.320 I'm not who I am on stage.
00:42:33.700 I'm just, you know.
00:42:35.220 So, yeah, it kind of muddies the waters.
00:42:37.760 Suddenly people are like, oh, it really makes a really good point. 0.83
00:42:39.540 So when you see a comedian that's talking about this stuff, but is, you know, is just being stupid and, you know, not taking a side, is just presenting these arguments, then maybe you take it as seriously as you do, you know, the left wing satirist or whatever. 0.88
00:42:56.480 And maybe that's why the waters get muddy. 0.96
00:43:01.480 But certain comedians do have a lot of power.
00:43:05.140 If you think about someone like Bill Hicks, I mean, there's George Carlin, George Carlin.
00:43:09.540 And, you know, they mobilized a lot of people who ended up espousing their views.
00:43:15.260 And maybe you're right, they do grow out of it and all the rest of it.
00:43:17.980 Well, Bill Hicks has a whole range of...
00:43:22.140 Bill Hicks has quite intelligent people wondering about the power of the state
00:43:25.620 and people who think the Jews did 9-11 who like Bill Hicks.
00:43:29.740 You can't say that they all, you know, people have different views
00:43:35.360 and they like people because they project what they think onto them,
00:43:38.140 I think, to a certain amount.
00:43:39.540 George Carlin is a free thinker, right? Some things are very socialist, some things he says nowadays would be seen as quite reactionary anti-PC, I suppose.
00:43:55.040 Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners.
00:43:58.760 Yes, but then also, was he a massive?
00:44:03.360 I can't remember if he was socialist, economic.
00:44:05.500 Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter, but I've lost my thought.
00:44:12.620 We're just going to let it pause there.
00:44:16.400 You see, this is why 1970s chat shows were great,
00:44:20.020 because when people did, they were always smoking.
00:44:22.620 So you just did it, and it just looked really atmospheric.
00:44:25.480 You take your time, have a draw, put it back.
00:44:28.000 there's drinking on camera
00:44:29.320 drinking on camera
00:44:30.360 you got the smoke effect
00:44:31.560 in front of the lens
00:44:32.200 and now health and safety
00:44:33.280 has ruined it all 0.98
00:44:33.940 fucking political correctness 1.00
00:44:35.100 it's gone mad 1.00
00:44:35.680 and this is what we're 0.99
00:44:36.440 fucking talking about 0.98
00:44:37.280 what I was going to say 0.99
00:44:38.260 is that
00:44:38.720 yeah
00:44:40.540 I got reviewed
00:44:41.840 as being free thinking
00:44:43.240 and I like that
00:44:44.400 yeah
00:44:44.700 because
00:44:45.320 that reflects the audience
00:44:47.480 that I get
00:44:48.000 it's people from
00:44:49.000 you know
00:44:49.880 you look out
00:44:50.460 I did Soho Theatre
00:44:51.820 last month
00:44:52.300 you look out
00:44:52.880 at one of the nights
00:44:53.800 and it feels like
00:44:54.920 it feels like the venues
00:44:56.860 for a live event
00:44:57.720 from The Spectator and Vice have got
00:44:59.600 mixed up. It's just all kinds
00:45:01.660 of crazy people and I really 0.92
00:45:02.960 like that but I suppose that does run 0.53
00:45:05.640 the risk of very
00:45:07.600 dogmatic people on either side not enjoying
00:45:09.800 it and
00:45:10.740 one of the few TV things I've done, I've had
00:45:13.560 I've pissed off the extremes
00:45:15.880 of both these sides
00:45:17.020 which I think is the right way to do it
00:45:19.540 piss everyone off at the same time
00:45:20.960 and I suppose
00:45:23.720 what I do, what I have found actually
00:45:25.320 which maybe plays into
00:45:26.760 the narrative that i know you guys like um there is a there is a there is something of of people
00:45:33.280 getting offended on behalf of people uh loathe to call it virtue signaling because it's such a
00:45:38.640 cliche now but uh i did a i on apollo i did stuff about my routine about trans rights and uh got a
00:45:46.940 couple of really nice emails and tweets from transgender charities that said oh normally we
00:45:51.480 complain whenever anyone makes a joke about trans rights but i just want to say we found it really
00:45:55.700 funny, include on your research.
00:45:57.860 I was like, great. Yeah, I thought I had.
00:45:59.700 I made sure I read loads of books about
00:46:01.580 the arguments and books by trans women
00:46:03.720 and stuff.
00:46:05.360 But on Twitter, there's loads of
00:46:07.760 people who weren't transgender
00:46:10.000 standing up for transgender
00:46:11.640 attacking me as sort of a transphobic
00:46:13.960 Bernard Manning.
00:46:16.660 And it's fascinating because
00:46:17.800 it's almost like if you
00:46:18.920 assume that
00:46:21.680 if you're talking about these things
00:46:23.360 it must be derogatory or it must be belittling.
00:46:25.380 Exactly. 0.99
00:46:26.200 So the routine is, I think you should let trans women piss what they want. 1.00
00:46:32.680 Ultimately, and I sort of debunked the idea that maybe it's going to allow sex pests into 0.99
00:46:36.960 the bathrooms, but ultimately, because you think about it, these fellas are taking a 1.00
00:46:41.220 pay cut.
00:46:42.540 Now, that is a progressive joke on several levels, because what I'm saying is, you should
00:46:48.760 let these trans women into women's spaces because, you know, in good faith, because when you 0.91
00:46:56.600 transition, you lose a certain amount of male privilege. Yeah. And then you're acknowledging
00:47:01.040 the existence of a wage gap. Yeah. Now, what's the funniest way of saying that these fellows
00:47:05.240 are taking a pay cut? Yeah. Because otherwise you're just parroting things. So it's a very
00:47:08.560 progressive joke. Yeah. But because, you know, you're handling this subject, people seem to
00:47:15.120 well this is the point this is exactly the point like i have a bit about me being called a packy 0.79
00:47:19.780 which is absolutely true yeah right i've apologized mate for fuck's sake right and it's always asian 0.95
00:47:27.960 people that laugh at that joke and it's always white middle class people that turns up about 0.94
00:47:34.900 that right right like you and i both have you have a routine about uh you know always cheering
00:47:39.900 for the white guy in the 100 meter final yeah i have a routine about how we need a special olympics
00:47:44.420 for white people right it's always the ethnic minorities who laugh at that bit it's always the 1.00
00:47:49.080 white middle class liberal people who turns up about that but what yeah but what's your point
00:47:54.620 about how this leads into speech so so my point no it's not about free speech my point is that
00:48:00.860 when people get offended on behalf of other people which is what you're saying right yeah right if
00:48:05.700 this idea that we should all be super sensitive and super offended on behalf of other people
00:48:10.160 spreads right and it's spreading from universities this is where it's happening it's not just that
00:48:14.660 young people go through this phase it's not by accident can i just i i hear that argument a lot 0.93
00:48:20.020 and i think what never gets said is that everyone is a dick at university and grows out of it and
00:48:26.260 not everyone no not everyone but it's often said these ideas are indoctrinating students and 0.85
00:48:31.140 spreading out but what it what it implies is that students stay the same age and have no life
00:48:35.660 experience but this well it sort of does in that it's saying that everyone no i'm agreeing with i'm
00:48:40.440 saying no they don't stay the same yeah so um yeah it's it's implying that students stay the
00:48:45.020 same age and and carry that with them and don't live a life and move away from the kind of
00:48:49.460 dogmatic views they held as a student which is what i think will happen in the majority which
00:48:54.220 is part of the reason majority yeah who's the most influential democratic politician in america right
00:48:58.960 now? Beta O'Rourke? No, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Oh yeah, her. Right. Yeah. That's her. That's her
00:49:07.540 in a nutshell. She is someone who's from that mindset, who's 29 years old, straight into being
00:49:14.140 a congresswoman. Yeah. Right. So what's going to happen over time is that the people who come out
00:49:20.720 of university, if they're not challenged, this is the point about you talking about online and
00:49:25.280 hate speech and how do i agree with you that's a really good point i thought and i thought the way
00:49:29.220 you laid that out which one the the fact that we have to deal with dankler is a struggle yeah over
00:49:34.420 control yeah i think that's a very good point and i think we sometimes get into a partisanship
00:49:39.840 about that that's not helpful um but i think that um what what what's happening with universities is
00:49:47.800 the reason that we have to push back against things like dankler this is my opinion right
00:49:53.240 and tell me what you think is that if that is a struggle then people who are like us on the side
00:49:59.380 of expression right have to put up our end of the fight we have to say this is where the line is
00:50:06.420 right dankler was too far right because you say you understand why he got into trouble but you
00:50:11.840 don't approve of him being convicted yes but i suppose what these culture what these what these
00:50:17.480 binaries make you do is they make you um turn someone into like a a martyr or um a kind of
00:50:27.780 icon yeah i personally think count dankler should be buried like bin laden
00:50:34.220 um just dump him in the sea no but like it's why it's why i'm loathe to kind of
00:50:39.560 defend him because um as i'm sure you'll agree the free speech argument can get hijacked
00:50:47.460 by people who just want to be racist.
00:50:50.640 Absolutely, yeah.
00:50:51.340 And that's not him, though.
00:50:52.540 No, no, sure.
00:50:54.360 But that's why I think you have to be more measured
00:50:58.600 in how you see these things.
00:51:01.060 And I do think whether it's the safe space,
00:51:04.500 you know, control speech thing or the free speech thing,
00:51:10.560 I do think you sort of have to choose to think that way.
00:51:14.020 Yeah.
00:51:15.260 Sorry, I don't understand.
00:51:16.600 I don't follow the logic of what you're saying. We have to be careful about defending free speech
00:51:20.600 because some people will hijack it who are racist. Agreed. But how is that relevant to Dankula?
00:51:26.760 The reason that I don't feel like struggling for Count Dankula is because
00:51:34.840 I feel like this is someone who, what he's doing, I don't feel particularly strongly about
00:51:46.600 whether he didn't
00:51:47.560 I'm not sure
00:51:48.340 whether he made an error or not
00:51:49.420 maybe it's the point
00:51:50.560 is that I'm not
00:51:51.140 I used to watch the video
00:51:52.020 and I don't
00:51:52.940 I don't know if it's
00:51:54.640 if it's intent is clear enough
00:51:56.520 do you think he was doing
00:51:59.080 some kind of
00:51:59.520 I'm just saying
00:52:00.420 okay 0.99
00:52:01.620 he says gas the Jews 0.95
00:52:02.520 50 times 0.98
00:52:03.180 whatever
00:52:03.380 context is
00:52:04.980 I'm joking it's a dog
00:52:05.940 yes
00:52:06.280 I'm a Chelsea fan
00:52:08.380 right
00:52:09.060 have been for years
00:52:09.980 dad's always taken me as a kid
00:52:11.140 this season
00:52:13.300 as we record this
00:52:14.400 there's been a lot of
00:52:16.440 attempts by the club
00:52:17.900 to clean up
00:52:18.520 anti-Semitic chanting
00:52:19.880 away game
00:52:21.460 lots of Chelsea fans
00:52:22.140 have banners
00:52:22.640 SS desk
00:52:23.780 Chambers 1.00
00:52:24.840 all this shit 1.00
00:52:25.240 because there's a rivalry 1.00
00:52:25.980 with Tottenham
00:52:26.460 living in the Jewish
00:52:28.100 area of London
00:52:28.580 now
00:52:30.120 I've stood in the stands
00:52:32.080 while people
00:52:32.840 shout songs
00:52:34.500 that have the word
00:52:35.280 Yid in them 0.99
00:52:35.780 and you know
00:52:36.440 just horrible
00:52:38.280 just needless
00:52:39.240 anti-Semitic chanting
00:52:40.260 and you know
00:52:41.560 thankfully the stand
00:52:42.260 people are shouting
00:52:43.040 them down in the stands
00:52:44.000 but the argument
00:52:45.800 they say
00:52:46.200 it's always the same
00:52:46.660 it's just banter
00:52:47.700 it's a bit of football banter
00:52:48.920 but
00:52:50.380 you know
00:52:51.060 Raheem Sterling was abused
00:52:52.360 racially
00:52:53.180 by a Chelsea fan
00:52:54.400 in the grounds
00:52:54.980 yeah
00:52:55.440 so what
00:52:57.280 where is the
00:52:58.520 where is the line
00:52:59.240 where is the line
00:52:59.860 in like
00:53:00.160 the context of it being
00:53:01.500 just banter
00:53:02.160 at a football game
00:53:02.820 but the thing
00:53:03.700 so
00:53:03.980 the thing that
00:53:05.160 to me with Chelsea
00:53:06.380 is obvious
00:53:06.880 the intent is to hurt
00:53:08.240 people
00:53:08.900 but
00:53:09.360 but they would say
00:53:10.440 they would say
00:53:11.100 oh but no
00:53:11.600 it's just
00:53:11.900 we're just rivalry
00:53:12.560 it's a club rivalry
00:53:13.320 yeah
00:53:13.740 and this is my point
00:53:14.640 is that it's
00:53:15.280 At some point, the line is going to get so fuzzy that I genuinely just, I don't know.
00:53:23.200 And I understand the argument that we have to defend him, even if we don't like him,
00:53:26.280 because that's what free speech is.
00:53:27.800 But at the same time, I'm someone who believes that, you know, the public space has to be
00:53:32.020 a bit cleaner online.
00:53:33.860 And so there's going to be things that are right to the edge.
00:53:37.000 And I sort of, I'm interested, I'm more interested to see how it plays out.
00:53:40.920 And maybe there'll be a point that someone crosses that line.
00:53:43.020 and I'm like 1.00
00:53:43.500 fuck this 1.00
00:53:44.400 this is my limit 1.00
00:53:46.260 for free speech
00:53:47.220 and art
00:53:47.920 if you can call it that
00:53:48.820 but you know
00:53:51.600 somebody goes to
00:53:52.240 Chelsea games
00:53:52.780 and sees
00:53:53.200 sort of front line
00:53:54.440 of this kind of stuff
00:53:55.200 and it's wrapped up
00:53:56.200 in this
00:53:56.520 oh it's harmless
00:53:57.260 club banter
00:53:58.500 we're supporting
00:53:59.340 the same team
00:54:00.260 so I guess my point
00:54:04.360 is that it's very nuanced
00:54:05.500 and I would like
00:54:06.460 to emphasise
00:54:07.780 that it's nuanced
00:54:08.780 and in order to do that
00:54:10.640 I don't feel like
00:54:12.200 Because people will just take your support as you're that side of it.
00:54:17.260 And I guess that's part of the reason I didn't want to reply to the independent ones coming here.
00:54:22.460 I want to try and articulate this huge middle ground that is so often unreported that most people think in this middle ground.
00:54:32.920 And all these debates that happen online, it's either you believe in free speech or free speech equals racism.
00:54:39.600 And my point is, I'm not going to say the buzzwords on either side
00:54:45.860 because I believe this is a struggle that is playing out.
00:54:51.120 That's sort of my point.
00:54:52.640 You made that point very well.
00:54:54.020 Yeah, and it's great.
00:54:55.160 And it's really, really lovely to hear a different point of view as well.
00:54:58.340 Well, thank you for allowing me to articulate it.
00:55:00.260 No, it's really good.
00:55:01.500 It's a very useful conversation, I think.
00:55:02.980 And I think it's having these conversations that allows us to find where that line is.
00:55:07.600 yeah um I get yeah so it's interesting with Dankula in that uh we will wrap up shortly
00:55:13.580 and that part of it I feel that people came down on him because comedically it wasn't skillful
00:55:20.400 if he'd actually edited it and done it a little bit more differently and you know framed it a
00:55:26.860 little bit differently and look dare I say a little less working class maybe yeah it wouldn't
00:55:33.540 Because it's fine for Jimmy Carr to go on stage
00:55:35.680 and make jokes about gypsies smelling badly
00:55:38.560 whilst dressed in a suit with a posh accent.
00:55:40.640 But this is all part of being a comedian.
00:55:43.880 You're in front of a live audience
00:55:45.220 and your manner, your context
00:55:49.560 is pleased by that social interaction.
00:55:52.340 Like when you're reading a book,
00:55:54.260 you ever read a book that's like American Psycho
00:55:56.160 or something like Lolita and you're on the tube
00:55:57.940 and you're like, Jesus Christ,
00:55:59.560 do they know what I'm reading?
00:56:01.140 It's just filth, ban this filth.
00:56:02.560 But it's a book, right?
00:56:03.860 It's just you in your head.
00:56:05.240 When you're in a comedy audience, it's kind of policed by everyone else laughing.
00:56:10.280 There's a context.
00:56:11.100 It's all sort of safe, really.
00:56:13.720 And I suppose that's maybe one of the reasons why Dankula had, you know, it was straight to the internet, which is a place of genuine anti-Semitic hate excitement.
00:56:25.040 And so maybe that's where these things fall down.
00:56:29.100 maybe if he was someone
00:56:30.560 that did more live comedy
00:56:32.360 he would understand
00:56:33.180 the kind of
00:56:33.840 or maybe he would
00:56:34.680 be more intuitive
00:56:35.740 his sort of sense of
00:56:36.800 absolutely
00:56:37.480 that's yeah
00:56:39.120 and it's also as well
00:56:40.500 I do think that
00:56:41.640 class plays a part to it
00:56:42.740 because when you see
00:56:43.360 Jimmy Carr
00:56:43.880 there are certain jokes
00:56:44.960 that he's done
00:56:45.620 gypsies being a primary 1.00
00:56:46.920 where you go
00:56:48.340 would you have got away
00:56:50.080 with that
00:56:50.500 if you looked
00:56:51.600 and sounded like Marcus
00:56:52.620 I'm not sure
00:56:53.400 absolutely not
00:56:54.100 but there we go
00:56:55.100 I think that might be
00:56:56.020 a good place to end if
00:56:57.100 listen man
00:56:57.620 thanks for coming in
00:56:58.500 thank you for having me
00:56:59.080 As I said, I think it's very useful that you've articulated that center ground.
00:57:04.260 It made me think quite a bit, actually, in terms of what I think.
00:57:07.280 I do think that within the context of what you're saying, if there is that struggle to define the appropriate level of unsafeness, let's say, that we have, then there've got to be people like us who go, okay, well, we hear what you're saying, but there are certain lines we don't cross.
00:57:26.780 And maybe that's true, but what's also true is that that position is now tainted in the binary, isn't it?
00:57:35.960 Yeah, both sides are tainted.
00:57:37.700 Well, exactly.
00:57:38.260 The position of saying, well, we have to defend this guy is now tainted.
00:57:42.840 So you can't, you know, saying that doesn't help.
00:57:46.340 Yeah.
00:57:46.620 So that's why I'm loathe to defend him in the way you do,
00:57:50.460 because I actually want people to move past these just endless, you know.
00:57:56.600 Yeah, so do we.
00:57:57.920 Headbanging.
00:57:58.520 So do we.
00:57:59.440 It's good to have you.
00:58:01.000 Listen, last question we always ask is,
00:58:02.560 what's the one thing no one's talking about that we ought to be talking about?
00:58:05.260 Please don't make it about Mediterranean people.
00:58:07.140 Oh, no, you wrote a joke.
00:58:08.880 I was going to say Greeks.
00:58:11.480 Somewhere my girlfriend is clapping her hands.
00:58:13.940 What's the one thing people are talking about they shouldn't be talking about?
00:58:17.000 The dialogue.
00:58:17.700 Your thesaurus instinct has come out there.
00:58:19.680 You've gone, what's the one thing people are talking about
00:58:22.400 they shouldn't be talking about?
00:58:25.000 Let's say automation.
00:58:29.800 And I guess that feeds into that idea of regulating,
00:58:32.860 whether you regulate the internet or not.
00:58:35.080 Our relationship with machines, whether it be, you know,
00:58:39.320 how is it going to change capitalism?
00:58:40.800 How is it going to change work life?
00:58:43.320 How are we going to make algorithms ethical?
00:58:45.720 All this stuff.
00:58:46.220 being completely ignored by both major parties,
00:58:50.220 most online commentators.
00:58:53.680 How do you make communities feel vital
00:58:57.380 when everything is done remotely?
00:59:01.820 All that stuff is no way.
00:59:03.240 It's probably tied into Brexit as an underlying cause of it,
00:59:05.560 but it's been lost in this endless headbanging
00:59:08.100 over whether we should be in the EU or not.
00:59:10.920 So, yeah, I'm going to say that, automation.
00:59:13.000 It's a fascinating point, that automation thing,
00:59:15.180 and the algorithms especially
00:59:16.420 because I remember
00:59:17.040 there's an Israeli historian
00:59:18.580 called Yuval Noah Harari
00:59:19.660 he talks about this
00:59:20.980 and he was saying
00:59:22.100 that like
00:59:22.580 the automated cars
00:59:24.100 of the future
00:59:24.720 someone somewhere
00:59:26.420 is going to have to
00:59:27.140 make a decision 1.00
00:59:27.740 if you can kill 1.00
00:59:28.600 a pedestrian 0.99
00:59:29.160 or crash into another car
00:59:31.480 yeah
00:59:31.720 you know someone's
00:59:32.740 going to have to sit down
00:59:33.520 and go
00:59:33.860 I think we should 1.00
00:59:34.980 kill the pedestrian 1.00
00:59:35.560 and then who's that person 1.00
00:59:36.400 right
00:59:36.780 you see the ethical
00:59:37.420 yeah
00:59:37.920 absolutely
00:59:39.160 incredible
00:59:39.600 anyway thanks for coming on
00:59:41.020 your twitter is
00:59:41.980 at finntaylor comedy
00:59:43.340 at finntaylor
00:59:43.840 you're off to Melbourne
00:59:44.980 very shortly
00:59:45.660 yes
00:59:46.280 they're all of April
00:59:47.540 and then I've got
00:59:48.120 one last show
00:59:49.020 of the infamous
00:59:50.660 Rape Apologism 1.00
00:59:52.360 which is on
00:59:54.060 at the
00:59:54.420 I think it's the 3rd of May
00:59:55.540 at the South Bank
00:59:56.220 in London
00:59:56.660 and the show is called
00:59:57.620 When Harassi Met Sally
00:59:58.800 so follow Finn
01:00:00.740 on Twitter
01:00:01.160 check him out
01:00:01.760 he's one of my
01:00:02.580 absolutely favourite comedians
01:00:03.700 even though he's
01:00:04.200 completely wrong
01:00:04.760 I've always been
01:00:07.980 a big fan of yours
01:00:08.700 as you know
01:00:09.140 Finn is really really good
01:00:10.940 we might even put
01:00:11.760 a little clip
01:00:12.360 of Finn's comedy
01:00:13.620 into this thing
01:00:14.440 Yeah, absolutely.
01:00:15.160 And then we'll cut the bit of me saying that.
01:00:17.520 Yeah, and we've also got quite a few Aussie followers and viewers.
01:00:21.020 So go and see Finn.
01:00:22.360 He's brilliant.
01:00:23.360 And my girlfriend genuinely really likes that Mediterranean joke. 0.98
01:00:26.420 And in fact, she's insisted that we go and watch your show.
01:00:29.120 Oh, brilliant.
01:00:29.500 So she can be exposed to more hate speech. 1.00
01:00:31.740 Right.
01:00:32.380 And on that note, thank you very much, guys.
01:00:34.700 Konstantin, do you want to do the outro?
01:00:36.040 Absolutely.
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01:01:14.440 You