TRIGGERnometry - Trans Activists Tried to Ruin My Restaurant

00:00:00.240 I'm determined. That's why I was desperate. When you sent me that message going,

00:00:04.280 serves me right for sticking my head out. I was like, no, no, this is not how this is going to

00:00:08.760 go. Appreciate that. This is not how this is. This is not how this should ever go.

00:00:18.360 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissin.

00:00:23.660 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:29.140 Our brilliant guest is a friend of the show and a restaurateur, James Cavarini. Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:33.740 Thank you very much. Thank you for having me both.

00:00:35.400 Listen, man, it's great to have you on. I wish the circumstances were different. We'll talk about that in a second.

00:00:39.520 But before we get into that, tell everybody who are you, how are you, where you are.

00:00:43.940 What has been your journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us?

00:00:47.000 Right. So both my parents came over from Italy to open restaurants in the UK.

00:00:53.620 My father was part of the sort of first wave of Italian restaurants that opened up.

00:00:57.580 remember that we've only really had restaurants in this country for like 55 60 years my dad settled

00:01:03.500 on a little place in ketherington high street called the portico which opened in 1967 i believe

00:01:08.480 and then uh started working his absolute butt off as hard as he could and then got married to my

00:01:15.800 mom my mom joined the business again and you know fast forward 55 56 years and here we are still

00:01:21.560 going strong and it's a you know it's a restaurant where we go to celebrate birthdays and occasions

00:01:26.880 and all of that you're great the food's great everything's great um but there've been some

00:01:32.600 events recently yeah haven't there yes so basically the whole point about having a neighborhood

00:01:37.900 restaurant is you have to be a central part of your neighborhood i believe and that you want to

00:01:42.900 plug yourself in as much as you can into the community you want to be if you want to be

00:01:46.540 successful you've got to be indispensable right so when in the good times and the bad times for

00:01:51.460 example so during covid we made sure that everybody was taken care of in terms of dropping around food

00:01:55.680 to elderly people and vulnerable people and obviously when things happen around the world

00:02:00.380 that your customers are interested in you want to be part of that you really want to plug yourself

00:02:04.780 into that because it's very important and it's a very emotional business and you want to you want

00:02:09.520 to be there for your customers when they when they need those kind of those kind of events right

00:02:13.260 and um jk rowling who is a woman that i admire greatly not just for her hard work but also for

00:02:21.900 our courage as well um basically with suzanne moore a ex guardian uh columnist another woman

00:02:29.100 who i admire we decided to raise money for jk rowling's charity in ukraine called lumos

00:02:33.060 uh lots of people got on board uh we decided not to publicize the event prior because of the

00:02:40.740 negative attraction that it might bring with it and then after the event um joanne jk was

00:02:46.820 kind enough to basically put out a tweet thanking me for raising money for lumos we raised almost

00:02:51.040 20 000 pounds which is for one night's dinner which is you know not bad and all that money is

00:02:56.000 going to go to help you know orphans in ukraine and help kids whereas you know who genuinely need

00:03:00.940 that money um unfortunately because she has her views which are entirely you know fair enough in

00:03:08.160 in my opinion people then jump on the bandwagon and i start getting you know one-star reviews on

00:03:13.540 google and you know don't go to this restaurant because this guy's a transphobe and this and the

00:03:18.140 other and then i'll go to work one day and find that the place has been the windows at the front

00:03:22.720 which we had sort of tempered security glass has been smashed another pane of glass been smashed

00:03:27.320 somebody's got entry into the place and uh ransacked stupid stuff you know like smashed up a

00:03:33.240 bit bottles of booze that kind of stuff and then left now it's really now what's really important

00:03:38.220 is that there is zero hard evidence connecting the physical attacks and the online stuff the

00:03:47.540 online stuff you know is coming from trans rights activists because you you know because they say

00:03:53.680 things like that i'm a homophobe i'm a transphobe and all this kind of stuff which is absolute

00:03:59.200 baloney but the fact that it happened 24 hours after the first the first online attacks happened

00:04:05.500 made me very very suspicious how many times have your restaurant been smashed up and in the in the

00:04:10.500 55 years that has been in existence i mean you're always going to get some sort of break-ins but we

00:04:15.720 haven't had any trouble for at least a decade right and then it happens 24 hours after this

00:04:20.120 okay right and and what was that like turning up at your restaurant and just seeing the the effect

00:04:27.640 that it's had the thing is that when the first thing you feel is just just like you know you

00:04:33.360 just like defcon five levels of anger you know you just think well why the hell do I have to deal

00:04:38.880 with this kind of crap yeah that's the first thing and then you realize well you know what

00:04:42.300 why shouldn't I have to deal with it everyone else in the world has to deal with it with crap

00:04:45.180 why should I be any different right so like you know the whole why me why not me thing yeah you

00:04:49.400 know and and then you start to realize and then I don't know man I mean it's like maybe it isn't

00:04:55.600 connected maybe it is a coincidence the truth is I you know will I ever know I don't know I got

00:05:01.380 another person you got other people now online you know somebody now from Florida has got involved

00:05:06.600 in telling that they're going to talk to the place you know so it's like I don't need this

00:05:10.760 kind of stuff and it's like apart from the fact that you know jk rally's views are jk rally's

00:05:16.600 views my views are your view my views are my views and everybody has their own personal views it's

00:05:20.320 like it wasn't a gender critical event we weren't going around saying to people we support you know

00:05:29.020 the we support you know the exclusion of trans people from from women's only space we weren't

00:05:33.620 saying any of the sort we were there exclusively to raise money and uh and to help you know a

00:05:39.300 desperate situation in ukraine and that was it i just can't believe that we're having this

00:05:44.840 conversation really when did you start noticing that something was up was it the moment that the

00:05:51.780 tweet came out and you started to then start to see responses or did it take a little bit of a while

00:05:58.100 it took a little bit of a while because i'm very careful about what i put out on social media i

00:06:01.920 mean most people you know i think i think you have to be guarded especially when you've got

00:06:04.580 a public facing restaurant and also i don't like to get involved in politics with my customers

00:06:08.240 and you shouldn't be

00:06:10.340 I honestly believe that

00:06:11.680 if you've got a public business

00:06:13.720 you should be there for the public

00:06:16.360 and it doesn't matter if people are left-wing, right-wing

00:06:18.480 trans rights activists or gender critical

00:06:20.180 as far as I'm concerned, everybody's welcome in the restaurant

00:06:22.420 because they're there to have their time

00:06:23.960 and by the way, that's always been my experience

00:06:25.900 like we get on but I don't know what your political views are

00:06:28.420 because that's not what we talk about

00:06:29.500 but why would you bring that up over dinner

00:06:31.560 you don't want to go and ruin somebody's decent dinner

00:06:33.800 and go and talk about religion or politics

00:06:35.720 it's just like, just leave them alone

00:06:37.140 yeah you know they're there on a date night or they're there for whatever and you know and

00:06:41.260 they're there to have a good time and you're there to facilitate that process unless you don't want

00:06:44.860 the date to go well and so that's that's actually it so the idea that we kind of like you know put

00:06:52.540 out this take this political stance is absolute baloney right but obviously you can't help have

00:06:57.980 a bias by liking certain tweets and i've liked certain tweets by julie bindle and suzanne more

00:07:02.420 of things that I think are eminently sensible personally and so people then link two and two

00:07:07.400 together and come up with the wrong number and therefore start calling me a transphobe and a

00:07:11.600 homophobe and all this kind of other stuff. Did you ever think that you'd be in that position

00:07:16.060 where you put on an event yeah which is not connected in any shape or form to this to this

00:07:22.960 particular issue yeah and then you just get sucked into this vortex where you become another talking

00:07:28.060 point in the culture war i think that at the end of the day it's almost like it's like spin the

00:07:33.540 bottle some days on twitter you know who the outrage is going to get directed at you know and

00:07:37.900 you guys have probably had a lot more than i have i mean it's quite i mean i but this is the yeah but

00:07:41.720 james see sorry to interrupt there's a there's a difference man like what we do is political by

00:07:47.100 design yeah right if when we get shit on social media we're like well that's fair enough it's

00:07:52.660 what we do i mean this show is called trigonometry like that's fine because we discuss controversial

00:07:58.300 issues and some people aren't going to like that yeah but you didn't do that this is this is kind

00:08:02.520 of why i really wanted to to speak with you about this because i just i am so angry about this on

00:08:08.600 your behalf because look i don't think it's legitimate for people to go and destroy your

00:08:13.740 place whether that's online by writing fake reviews or physically yeah even if you did a

00:08:18.580 gender critical event. But you didn't even do that. It's just this person who happens to have

00:08:24.640 written some really, really popular books, who happens to have taken, by the way, a very nuanced

00:08:29.060 and carefully worded position on the gender issue. And you did a fundraiser for something

00:08:35.040 completely unrelated with her. And now you're coming to your restaurant, which is a family

00:08:39.480 restaurant. You've got kids there. You've got people there, right? You've got staff there.

00:08:43.580 And it's getting attacked

00:08:45.160 because you stood next to a person

00:08:48.580 who said some things that some people don't like.

00:08:50.960 Yeah, that's basically where we're at.

00:08:52.360 That's exactly where we're at.

00:08:53.960 And you messaged me afterwards going like,

00:08:56.060 it's sort of something along the lines of

00:08:57.620 serves me right for sticking my neck out.

00:08:59.580 You didn't even stick your neck out.

00:09:01.880 You didn't do anything.

00:09:03.380 Yeah, there is that.

00:09:05.080 You didn't do anything.

00:09:06.400 I know, I know.

00:09:07.120 But the thing is that at the end of the day,

00:09:08.660 people will say, well, it's guilt by association.

00:09:11.080 Yeah.

00:09:11.540 And this is just to play devil's advocate.

00:09:13.140 people say well you shouldn't have you shouldn't have had an event the jk rowling because you know

00:09:16.660 she's not fucking hitler mate she's not i mean she's to some people but you know what i'm saying

00:09:21.100 like of course yeah yeah i totally get it connor i totally get it i know i know it's bonkers and

00:09:27.180 the thing is that i don't really care about the breaking i know because and that's partly because

00:09:30.800 i don't care about it for two reasons one because it's a pane of glass if it was my house i would

00:09:34.360 have cared where my wife and my children sleep yeah that would be different but i've also got

00:09:37.720 a big 55 kilo mastiff at home so she would have dealt with that so i don't really care about the

00:09:42.520 pane of glass i don't really care about the answer because at the end of the day it's only stuff yeah

00:09:46.160 okay i do care about the one-star reviews because that because as you know having a digital business

00:09:52.000 it stays on there forever you know and somebody calling me a transphobe and i can report that to

00:09:57.560 google and i can say to google look this is bs you can see that this is bs please can you take it down

00:10:02.340 and then they see that that gets taken down so then start getting clever about it and then they're

00:10:05.940 like the owner's really mean and the food's crap it's like it's like come on man it's like fair

00:10:10.560 enough i'm you know i'm not always mr way of sunshine but like you know like leave the poor

00:10:14.320 chef alone he's been there 35 years and he knows how to cook a bowl of spaghetti yeah the fact that

00:10:18.780 you've got these reviews what kind of impact does it have on your business it's huge especially now

00:10:24.400 coming out to tourist season like you've had three years of the most torrid possible time for

00:10:29.700 hospitality right you've had lockdown then unlock down then masking and social distancing then you

00:10:36.240 can only serve outside and it's pissing down with rain and you know what i mean as you've got all

00:10:40.120 that crap to deal with you're just coming out of that we're now coming into a massive economic

00:10:44.920 recession food costs are through the roof staff costs are through the roof your customers feeling

00:10:48.700 the pinch as well so the absolute last thing you need now is you know a shit a shit cloud of

00:10:55.760 basically problems so it's just bringing more stuff to the fore which you just don't need

00:11:00.780 and at the end of the day um you know like i said your digital it's like your digital shop fund

00:11:06.340 most people will check out a restaurant on google before they decide to walk through the door

00:11:10.100 most people will read an amazon review before trying to buy a product now so whether you like

00:11:14.500 it or not you have that digital shop front and it's literally the equivalent of somebody like

00:11:19.180 you know painting on your shop sign do not bother eating here this place will give you listeria

00:11:24.280 or something you know that's what the that's what the equivalent is so you will lose and you will

00:11:28.660 never be able to measure how much business you'll lose because of it because you don't know how many

00:11:32.380 people will look on that and see those one-star reviews and think well you know they're not going

00:11:36.620 to know the new ones yeah a lot of them won't even realize what's happened they'll just see

00:11:41.100 one lots of one stars and go oh this restaurant's gone downhill yeah yeah exactly and the way that

00:11:46.100 the way that we're set up as well you know from an evolutionary perspective as well the fact that

00:11:50.920 you know a once you need about 25 or 35 star reviews to counter back to counteract every

00:11:56.960 bad one-star review because a negative comment holds so much more sway than a positive comment

00:12:01.960 you always remember the things you did badly you never remember the things you did well

00:12:05.700 that's just human nature that's with all of us you know so a one-star review is like there's

00:12:10.040 i'll just stick a five-star review above it it's like it's not that simple it's not like for like

00:12:14.780 you know i think andre agassi said that when he you know he said you know the thrill you feel when

00:12:20.740 you win a tournament is nothing compared to the dejection you feel when you lose you know and

00:12:26.500 and that thrill goes like that but the dejection stays with you forever and it's the same with

00:12:30.120 online reviews you know that that one star thing is really massively massively damaging

00:12:34.160 and people don't realize because they just think oh it's just a bit of fun i'll just take one

00:12:37.880 one star apart from the idiot who said he was going to burn down my restaurant

00:12:41.200 who i'd quite like to meet in person with the master fit right there but but we're joking about

00:12:48.140 it but as somebody who has received death threats we both have even there's a logical side of your

00:12:57.120 brain which is going look this person is x y and z but there's still a little bit of you that goes

00:13:04.240 well hang on a second yeah i don't know this person yeah i don't know what they're capable of

00:13:09.180 i agree yeah i agree i agree it's the it's like the theory of the drunken driver always has the

00:13:14.420 right of way yeah like if a guy's couriering down the road on the opposite side of the road going

00:13:18.520 straight for you you're not going to sit well i'm in the right so i'm just going to stay where i am

00:13:21.860 it's like just get the hell out of the way yeah hey francis have you decided what to get your

00:13:28.520 dad for father's day same thing as always a couple of pints down the dog and duck plus a new brexit

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00:13:58.940 Great idea.

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00:14:53.900 This is why I'm so angry, James, because, you know, you are a fighter and you always have been and your restaurant's gone up and down and you've always worked extremely hard.

00:15:04.000 And that's actually what we usually talk about, the importance of working hard and being courageous in the face of difficulty.

00:15:09.100 And I really admire that about you.

00:15:10.880 in this situation too

00:15:12.840 but I'm angry about it

00:15:14.940 on your behalf

00:15:15.820 because what this is

00:15:17.300 is intimidation and bullying

00:15:18.680 yeah 100%

00:15:19.360 and it's trying to stop people

00:15:20.940 from even going near a person

00:15:22.820 who happens to have an opinion

00:15:24.580 that some people don't like

00:15:25.780 yeah

00:15:25.960 but they don't even know my opinion

00:15:28.100 that's what I'm saying

00:15:29.380 I'm like one step removed

00:15:30.900 from the opinion

00:15:31.480 I just happen to own

00:15:32.640 a bricks and mortar site

00:15:33.720 where somebody with an opinion

00:15:36.300 raised money for charity

00:15:37.420 well actually I raised money for charity

00:15:38.840 with her and with Suzanne Moore

00:15:40.120 you know and it's like it's like the whole guilt by association thing is just absolute lunacy it

00:15:45.460 just doesn't make any sense whatsoever and i think it's interesting because you you know you look at

00:15:49.580 the profiles for people who do criticize you on twitter you know and you look at the profiles of

00:15:55.540 people who are you know writing these one-star reviews and there is you know sort of correlation

00:15:59.680 of you know the more deranged the comments are the number of flags and the number of little emojis

00:16:04.440 after their name right so you think okay fair enough maybe make these people maybe that's just

00:16:08.660 maybe they're just having a tough time with life whatever maybe they're angry maybe they're

00:16:13.000 incredibly resentful i don't know what's going on with their lives so who am i to judge but leave me

00:16:18.160 the hell alone man it's like it's like take out your anger on some on something that's worth

00:16:22.620 fighting for yeah this is not worth fighting for me having uh we you know helping to raise money

00:16:28.040 for orphan kids in ukraine is not the right target here you know and i think a lot of people i think

00:16:33.440 they're just confused they don't even know where they are now they don't even know what the target

00:16:36.920 is because i think that things change so quickly now on social media that it just seems to be this

00:16:42.320 kind of endless you know barrage of abuse like i said it's almost like a game of spin the bottle

00:16:46.960 it's like well the bottle's spinning over there so let's all just direct our bile and our hate

00:16:50.380 over this direction and i think a lot of it is just misguided nonsense they just don't understand

00:16:55.840 almost in one sense you know and i think it's kind of you know it's kind of a bit like veganism

00:17:02.060 me in one sense you know he wants he wants more people to hate him no but i mean in the sense that

00:17:08.040 i have i have vegan friends and you know but that is the worst excuse i'm not racist i've got a

00:17:14.760 black friend he said like the girls don't count but i mean it's true that i've got vegan customers

00:17:21.300 i do generally have vegan friends but it's interesting that with when it comes to their

00:17:26.000 specific reasons for being vegan a lot of it they don't see a lot of it has come from a very

00:17:31.100 almost myopic view of the food chain a myopic view of how they want to how that how they want

00:17:37.060 to interact with the food chain and i think it's sort of similar with people who view of their role

00:17:42.120 in society how do you mean to talk to us more about the vegan thing well it's like you know

00:17:45.620 so it's like most people who live in the countryside most people who see how you know

00:17:52.320 how the natural world operates you know aren't vegan it seems to be an extremely urban thing

00:18:00.120 seems to be a very young urban thing like 93 or 91 percent of vegans are aged between 20 and 30

00:18:05.660 or between 20 and 35 because they die after that most of them don't have kids right most of them

00:18:11.660 live alone and most of them live in urban areas right so they have this very kind of like filtered

00:18:16.300 view right and it's a bit like what you know our mutual friend rob hednison would say about

00:18:23.220 luxury beliefs they have this belief that they think enables them to consider themselves a

00:18:28.940 better person because of because of animal welfare and all that kind of stuff but what they don't

00:18:34.000 realize is the knock-on effect that has later on down you know further on down the social chain

00:18:38.960 towards maybe those in a kind of more service economy or those in a more rural economy and

00:18:44.280 that kind of stuff right so for example they don't think about the effect of maybe the woman who has

00:18:51.340 to harvest their quinoa in Bolivia who can no longer afford the staple crop because the price

00:18:55.620 shot through the roof because somebody in Islington is prepared to pay 10 times the value for it

00:19:00.020 or they don't think about maybe the uh the deforestation for soy to make their you know

00:19:06.060 their soy milk or they don't maybe think about the fact that there are whole villages in Central

00:19:10.220 America now that don't have any clean portable water because it's all been diverted off avocado

00:19:14.420 plantations because everybody wants avocados and toast and they don't make that connection

00:19:18.680 for them it's just like plant-based equals good meat equals bad and that's the world that I'm

00:19:24.900 going to want to live in right and it's very similar i think with you know i think there are

00:19:32.040 a lot of these beliefs i think there are a lot of these things that they don't they just don't

00:19:35.060 see how it can hurt other people and that's not to say that they're bad people for having their

00:19:39.360 beliefs you know i don't believe that vegans are terrible people for you know christ for the love

00:19:43.980 of god i just think that they have their view but i think if they actually went out and actually

00:19:50.080 had a look at the reality of the food chain and the reality of what it takes to actually bring

00:19:54.120 food from a field into your plate maybe they would look at things a little bit differently

00:19:57.980 you see what i mean and i think that's the same with a lot of trans rights activists i think it's

00:20:03.260 the same with a lot of people who have a lot of these you know these beliefs you know and you

00:20:08.460 know they just they just you know we all live in a bubble really but i think in an urban environment

00:20:15.440 i think that tends to be a lot more to you know it's also about certainty isn't it because if

00:20:20.740 your narrative is incredibly simple then you can be very certain about it yeah this is but it's a

00:20:26.200 black and white issue yeah this is completely wrong i am outraged yeah something needs to be

00:20:31.480 done yeah but if if the issue is complicated and requires thought and it's got nuance and

00:20:38.100 actually you kind of see both sides of the particular issue it's very difficult to be

00:20:44.280 outraged about it yeah and to generate traction because you have to put yourself in the other

00:20:48.440 person's position yeah you have to get out of your comfort zone you have to put yourself in

00:20:51.920 the position of the person that you're arguing against in order to see it from their side and

00:20:55.900 most people don't want to do that because it gives them a sense because then in a way it takes away

00:20:58.960 your immediate righteousness and it takes away the immediate the the feeling that you must be

00:21:03.620 it's the right side of history claim and then you takes away your crutch of saying well i can do

00:21:08.900 whatever i want because i know that fundamentally i'm going to be vindicated in the end because

00:21:13.340 people will look back on this and see that i was right and you think are you sure about that

00:21:18.100 Yeah, the thing that I find so discomforting

00:21:23.540 about the idea of the right side of history

00:21:25.380 is it comes down to certainty.

00:21:27.960 How do you know that you are on, inverted commas,

00:21:30.840 the right side of history?

00:21:32.500 You must either be incredibly intelligent

00:21:34.480 and have powers where you can look into the future,

00:21:38.580 or you're actually very arrogant.

00:21:41.700 Yeah, yeah.

00:21:43.840 And, you know, these people who claim to be

00:21:45.340 on the right side of history,

00:21:46.420 what you go and smash a local family-owned business's windows

00:21:50.440 and you were on the right side of history by doing that.

00:21:54.920 Well, yeah.

00:21:56.500 Yeah, I mean, I just would caveat that by saying that there is still...

00:22:00.400 We don't know for sure.

00:22:02.140 We don't know for sure.

00:22:03.240 We don't know for sure, yeah.

00:22:04.360 You smash it virtually with one-star reviews,

00:22:06.380 which I'm more damaging.

00:22:07.040 Yeah, that definitely.

00:22:09.020 Or you spend three days basically on Twitter saying that I did it myself

00:22:12.960 by saying that the glass broke the wrong way.

00:22:14.860 Yeah.

00:22:15.120 somebody with a forensic signal you know what really bothers me about all of this as well

00:22:20.660 because before you came in i was saying to the boys here at the studio i was going do you think

00:22:23.900 we talk about trans so much now and the thing that gets lost in the conversation for me

00:22:31.120 is we've had a bunch of trans people on the show yeah who identify or dress as or behave as or

00:22:39.280 whatever words you want to put to it as the opposite sex to the one that they were born

00:22:42.640 and we're perfectly happy to treat them as they present.

00:22:46.300 But why wouldn't you be?

00:22:46.960 To respect them for what they are.

00:22:48.900 And my problem with all of this is,

00:22:51.640 how is this helping trans people?

00:22:54.280 How is any of this helping trans people?

00:22:57.160 This isn't about trans people.

00:22:58.680 This is about some people wanting to have some kind of righteousness

00:23:01.940 and I went and I did and I...

00:23:04.380 You haven't helped trans people.

00:23:05.900 What's happening now, man, is the research is showing

00:23:08.340 now acceptance of LGBT people is going down.

00:23:12.640 it's going down yeah because of shit like this yeah you're not helping trans people these people

00:23:18.140 yeah i mean there was my very good friend hadley freeman said this really really brilliantly she

00:23:23.260 was like look i get the whole fact that each generation wants to have their cause you know

00:23:29.600 our parents had their cause you know for gay rights or before that was civil liberties and

00:23:34.300 gay rights and everything and you get to a point and you know and even douglas murray argues this

00:23:38.180 you get to a point where it's like well for an organization like stonewall for example

00:23:42.200 you know set up by my friend simon fanshaw who was at the event as well you get to a point where

00:23:46.940 you're like okay great so we're now on equal powering in terms of the law so you know gay

00:23:51.960 couples can then get married they can adopt children just the same way that that heterosexual

00:23:55.580 couple go so it's like so what else are we going to fight for now you know and and hadley would

00:24:01.080 argue and i think she's right in the sense that you know it's it's also a great way of telling

00:24:04.820 off your parents if you're a kid if you're a 16 year old kid what's the thing you really want to

00:24:08.820 do you want to tell if your dad and you want to call him bigger because you've got that whole

00:24:12.960 testosterone surging for your system and you want to you want to break out this old dad you don't

00:24:17.560 know what it's like this is the 2022 blah blah blah you know we've all done that we've all been

00:24:22.940 there so it's like so what's what's the cause right what's the cause it's like yeah okay fair

00:24:26.340 enough fight for the planet great you know uh fight for i guess animal rights i guess if you're

00:24:32.620 ties in with the vegan thing and then you know you know you can't really fight for gay rights

00:24:36.380 anymore you can't really fight for civil rights anymore because legally in the uk at least thank

00:24:39.840 god we're at the point now where we don't have to worry about that anymore for the most part

00:24:43.880 so then you're like well how else can we do it you know and i think i think it is i think a lot

00:24:51.480 of it is that and i think that's why a lot of people i think they get to a certain point in

00:24:55.420 their life especially maybe when they hit middle age and they kind of start to understand more the

00:25:01.220 sort of nuance of history and then they maybe they come out of it maybe they don't i mean we'll

00:25:05.740 have to wait and see what happens now but it is worrying that something happens online and it's

00:25:11.240 now filtering into the real world because before we would have said like look maybe three or four

00:25:16.940 years ago we would have said oh these are just a few idiots on twitter but then it's having real

00:25:22.720 world impact on your business with the google review yeah absolutely 100 and again going back

00:25:26.920 to the luxury beliefs things you don't realize that i employ 27 people so we've got 27 people

00:25:31.880 if my business goes down like any small business like any labor dependent business when your income

00:25:37.600 starts coming through the door it starts to ending the first thing you're going to have to do is make

00:25:40.800 layoffs because like 45 to 50 percent of all your income gets spent on staff absolutely right so they

00:25:47.000 don't think about the poor guy who has to get laid off because of the one-star reviews they don't

00:25:52.700 think about that kind of stuff they just don't make that connection they just think you know

00:25:56.920 this guy's right here with jk rowling he deserves you know a one-star review in google for it

00:26:02.280 that's the end of the story and it's like really come into the restaurant let me introduce you to

00:26:07.900 the guys who work here let me show you what they're doing let me show you the way that

00:26:11.180 they're turning their lives around let me show you how they're looking after their family and

00:26:14.740 how they're putting food on the table for their kids you know and the thing is about the restaurant

00:26:18.740 business as a general rule is that anyone who's read down and out in paris in london or kitchen

00:26:24.480 confidential or has worked in restaurants understands that it's a bit of a pirate ship

00:26:31.360 you're working with guys who don't fit the mold of quote-unquote polite society it's like comedy

00:26:37.380 it's like comedy right you're dealing with guys that aren't quote-unquote employable in an office

00:26:44.460 and a nine-to-five Monday to Friday.

00:26:46.220 And there are more people like that in society

00:26:48.240 than most folks realize.

00:26:49.560 They just don't see them.

00:26:51.200 They don't see them

00:26:52.180 because they're delivering their delivery

00:26:53.480 on a Friday night.

00:26:54.980 They're cooking their dinner.

00:26:55.900 They're washing their dishes

00:26:56.680 on a Saturday night in the local restaurants.

00:26:58.700 And they're doing all this stuff,

00:27:00.200 this kind of whole hidden economy of workforce.

00:27:03.640 And the thing is that

00:27:04.720 we've always had a really amazing agreement

00:27:07.860 in this country

00:27:08.640 since the days of the empire,

00:27:10.560 which was,

00:27:11.440 you come and do the jobs that we don't want to do.

00:27:13.540 basically, and we'll leave you in peace.

00:27:18.040 And, you know, all of us come from immigrant families

00:27:21.100 in this room, right?

00:27:21.800 And we all benefited from that.

00:27:23.880 Hell, I know what my family did.

00:27:25.880 You know, my dad came here as a 17-year-old

00:27:29.020 or 18-year-old, death, illiterate immigrant,

00:27:31.620 and worked down the mines in Cumbria, in Whitehaven,

00:27:36.640 six miles down, digging out iron ore

00:27:39.160 underneath the North Sea,

00:27:40.620 and then eventually set himself up in business.

00:27:43.540 There was, like, he could not have done that

00:27:45.800 if Britain hadn't have been welcoming towards that.

00:27:48.720 But the agreement was that he had to do the jobs

00:27:50.400 that they didn't want to do.

00:27:51.700 And it works.

00:27:52.620 And as long as that's open and that's fair,

00:27:54.220 then everybody realizes that.

00:27:55.960 The thing is that when those businesses

00:27:57.620 that rely on the service economy, like restaurants,

00:27:59.960 when they start to falter, you know,

00:28:03.420 and one-star reviews will make them falter,

00:28:05.800 what happens to those people?

00:28:08.060 Where are they going to go?

00:28:09.520 Because if they don't have stable jobs,

00:28:11.160 and if they're not working 55 60 hours a week put food on the table and sending money back home and

00:28:16.280 raising the standard of living everywhere that their money goes what's going to happen do they

00:28:20.900 go on benefits because that's pretty much you know because if you know or they just get a job

00:28:25.840 somewhere else or do you know i mean it's like you've got to think about this kind of stuff and

00:28:28.760 we employ guys who are ex-prisoners one of our best guys spent seven years in brixton

00:28:34.420 he's come out he's you know he's got a steady girlfriend he's got one kid he's got another

00:28:39.440 kid on the way and he's really doing well but he needs work he needs discipline he needs to be

00:28:46.440 steady work because otherwise he can't do it i've got guys who come over from you know from every

00:28:52.500 country imaginable to send money back home mostly at the moment romania and they send money back

00:28:57.880 home and they raise the standard of living in romania and the best way to do that is just to

00:29:01.540 allow immigration because they can earn five six seven eight ten times more what they can in romania

00:29:06.740 that they can do in London just by doing the jobs

00:29:09.080 that no one else wants to do.

00:29:11.420 Potwash, salad wash, food prep, all that kind of stuff.

00:29:14.000 And it's easy to sneer at these people

00:29:15.900 and it's easy to say, well, that kind of stuff doesn't matter

00:29:18.020 until you get to a point that we're at now

00:29:20.700 where that labour force gets turned off

00:29:24.100 because if you're a Remainer, you blame Brexit

00:29:27.400 and if you're a Brexiteer, you blame COVID and furlough.

00:29:30.660 The reality is we're never going to know.

00:29:32.760 We don't have a pipeline in place to replace that labour force, right?

00:29:35.600 so that gets shut down that gets turned off and then all of a sudden people start getting their

00:29:39.540 holidays cancelled and they go well i can't i can't go on holiday to to tuscany in half term

00:29:45.240 because easy jets cancel my flights and it's only then that they realize it's like dude who do you

00:29:50.360 think's been humping your baggage around the airports for the last you know for the last seven

00:29:54.260 years and it's only now that they're starting to make that connection do you know what i mean

00:29:58.620 so anything i can do to raise that awareness to say look guys any opinion that you have about

00:30:04.060 all this stuff and anything that any kind of um uh what i was going to say any kind of um

00:30:11.400 footprint that you leave online especially for businesses matters because you know at the end

00:30:17.360 of the day it all boils down to employment and it all boils down to people putting foods on

00:30:20.840 their tables for their kids but it's like you said they didn't think about that they clicked

00:30:24.740 the one star yeah they left it you know you know a crappy comment they don't they don't care

00:30:30.120 they're on the right side of history and they go about their day and they've probably forgotten

00:30:33.700 about it yeah and then they and they probably and if they do it to me they'll put and they probably

00:30:37.120 spend all day in front of that computer sat there in their underpants going one star one star one

00:30:42.220 star one star and it's like what can you do with these people at the end of the day it's like how

00:30:47.080 can you convince them to become stand-up members of society and go out there and stop being somebody

00:30:52.680 who just breaks stuff yeah all day that's the thing james because destroying things is always

00:30:57.380 easier than building them you know you've built a business that's what we're doing here and that's

00:31:02.340 why you know i've always admired you as a person because of your attitude but also people should

00:31:07.020 know il portico is a great restaurant the food is incredible like my wife is always banging on when

00:31:12.200 are we going back when are we going back when are we going back uh it's the place we go to celebrate

00:31:16.480 the birthdays the big events the the good months that we have here uh and you're a great host the

00:31:22.760 people are wonderful the food's amazing so i know that our audience will really resonate with what

00:31:28.540 you've said here and i know that you'll see a lot of them coming through the door supporting the

00:31:32.600 business and it's not supporting the business it's enjoying great food in a great place so

00:31:36.220 i'll encourage all of them to to go out and check it out and we'll be coming back very very soon

00:31:42.380 james very very soon um you know what we've always got one more question and i have a feeling you're

00:31:48.400 going to have a very interesting answer to the one that we always ask at the end which is what's the

00:31:52.320 one thing we're not talking about but we really should be i would honestly say

00:32:00.060 what's the biggest knock-on effect of your opinion

00:32:05.080 anybody's opinion what's that knock-on effect look like you know what's the knock-on effect of your

00:32:13.080 your whole life philosophy that everybody wants to pin their lives around now that's what i would

00:32:17.940 said. James, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you very much. All the best to you. Look,

00:32:22.360 I always believe that, you know, when we started the show, we were just two idiot comedians who

00:32:27.160 wanted to, you know, find out why the world seemingly was going mental around us. But now

00:32:31.680 I feel that so much of this, this cancel stuff and destroying people's lives over things they've

00:32:37.260 said or who they stood next to, who they raised money with or whatever. The only way that ends

00:32:42.360 is if people who are victims of that

00:32:44.880 are rewarded for making a stand.

00:32:47.780 Yeah.

00:32:48.540 And I know that that's going to happen here with you.

00:32:51.420 Yeah, yeah.

00:32:52.060 And the outpouring of love has been amazing.

00:32:54.420 And I want more of that to happen.

00:32:56.120 There are a lot of people who are going to watch this

00:32:57.960 and I know that all of them,

00:32:59.480 there will be people among that

00:33:00.600 who will contribute to that.

00:33:01.820 So I'm determined.

00:33:03.420 That's why I was desperate.

00:33:04.560 When you sent me that message going,

00:33:06.420 serves me right for sticking my head out.

00:33:07.900 I was like, no, no.

00:33:09.400 This is not how this is going to go.

00:33:11.420 Appreciate that.

00:33:11.900 This is not how this should ever go.

00:33:14.760 And you're not the sort of person

00:33:16.040 that's seeking out attention

00:33:17.600 or trying to put yourself in a position to be cancelled

00:33:20.040 so you can profit from it.

00:33:21.400 You're just a good guy who happened to raise some money

00:33:23.740 and this has happened.

00:33:24.660 And I'm determined that you benefit.

00:33:27.200 You do better out of this.

00:33:28.660 And I'm sure that you will.

00:33:29.940 So thanks for coming on, man.

00:33:31.200 I'm sure our audience will be supportive of you.

00:33:33.560 Thank you for having me.

00:33:34.440 And thanks for your time.

00:33:35.320 And actually some very interesting thoughts.

00:33:36.720 We'd love to have you back sometime

00:33:37.700 to talk about the restaurant business.

00:33:39.200 Anytime.

00:33:40.440 Thank you so much, guys.

00:33:41.900 If you've enjoyed this show, episodes always go out Wednesdays and Sundays, 7pm UK time.

00:33:49.280 Raw shows are always 7pm UK time, same time.

00:33:53.140 And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it's also available as a podcast.

00:33:58.220 Take care and see you soon.

00:34:11.900 Thank you.

TRIGGERnometry - June 09, 2022

Trans Activists Tried to Ruin My Restaurant

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