TRIGGERnometry - ＂What Exactly Is A British Bloke？＂ with Geoff Norcott

00:00:00.640 I guess anybody having a son around now, you kind of look at them, you go, it's not going

00:00:04.760 to be as good, mate. It's not going to be quite as good. I think men have rightly, in

00:00:09.560 some cases, looked at the language they use with women and whether or not they're making

00:00:12.680 women feel uncomfortable. I don't see any such thing happening with women. A bloke

00:00:18.080 will, you know...

00:00:19.080 He'll fix the washing machine, all that.

00:00:21.400 Steady on.

00:00:22.400 Mate, I fixed the washing machine on the back.

00:00:24.120 Did you?

00:00:25.120 That is bloke point, right there.

00:00:26.120 Did you feel your testosterone rise?

00:00:27.120 Do you see the respect that they're both looking at with you?

00:00:29.120 Yeah.

00:00:30.120 The car manufacturers now routinely no longer put spare wheels in the boot of a car.

00:00:34.360 Yeah.

00:00:35.360 And I just thought, that's just a massive slap in the face for us, because they've looked

00:00:38.360 at us and gone, nah. If you're like, so what's going on with you? That made me tense.

00:00:42.840 Yeah, it did.

00:00:43.840 It made you tense, just said.

00:00:44.840 You made me tense. I don't like it.

00:00:45.840 I mean, what it needs to be is there needs to be a long... Do it while...

00:00:49.840 I don't like it.

00:00:51.280 I don't.

00:00:52.280 It's feelings.

00:00:53.280 Yeah.

00:00:54.280 The design of the original Stormtroopers outfit, it just looks fucking great, right?

00:00:57.560 You're saying women are Stormtroopers.

00:00:59.000 I mean, women are fascist Stormtroopers, but so it is also possible...

00:01:03.000 You sound like you're ready for a divorce, mate.

00:01:05.240 So it could also be possible...

00:01:07.240 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:01:22.120 I'm Constantine Kissin.

00:01:23.240 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:01:27.240 Our brilliant guest today is one of our favourite people ever to have on the show. He returns for the 730th time. He's a comedian and his new book is called The British Bloke Decoder. Jeff Norcott, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:39.240 It's good to be back, you know. I was just thinking that last time I was with you guys,

00:01:43.240 I was talking about why Labour was screwed eternally and why we would have 10 years of conservative rules.

00:01:49.240 Well, you're known for your great predictions, Jeff, aren't you?

00:01:51.480 Yeah, well, at the time it felt right, you know, but things have changed. I definitely... The worst thing is as well over the years is that each time... Look, I've had to wear a bigger type jumper here because every time I see myself on it, I just see a man... I just see a man ageing over the years.

00:02:06.480 We have that every day, mate. We are, mate. I see pictures of me from five years ago. I was like, my hair was black. Yeah, I wasn't going to bring it up, but that is...

00:02:14.780 You have lost weight, though. Yeah, I have, mate. So you're doing better. You're doing better on some things.

00:02:18.580 This is quite sort of touchy-feely. We're all trying to reassure each other about how we look. Well, let's talk about men. Yeah, blokes. Blokes. Blokes, right. So first of all, as you know, big international audience now, not showing off or anything. What's a bloke, Jeff?

00:02:31.380 A bloke. Well, I wrote the bloke, the British bloke decoded because I sort of thought for a while, after like Me Too and stuff, you know, there's a lot of stuff that certain kind of men that needed like a reckoning, right?

00:02:42.040 The Harvey Weinsteins and, you know, people like toxic men that were doing genuinely dodgy stuff. But what happened? I think a lot of people would agree now that other things fell into that slipstream.

00:02:51.560 And there was a period for quite a while where the male brand just, well, it slumped a bit. If it was a stock market thing...

00:02:58.620 You had a butt-like moment, yeah.

00:02:59.700 But if it was like, you know, like 1950s looking good, looking good, and then it just, you know, share price.

00:03:05.840 And then I sort of felt that, you know, there are certain men who absolutely needed to be taken to task.

00:03:11.520 But I also thought that there's the bloke of which I'd probably see myself being part of that group.

00:03:15.720 And I think it is quite a British thing. You know, in fact, other cultures don't really have like an exact equivalent of this word.

00:03:21.900 It's just, I don't know, your steady guy likes the stuff he's supposed to like, like me.

00:03:26.480 You know, I'm very basic in the sense that my favourite food is curry.

00:03:30.500 You know, my favourite drink is lager.

00:03:32.560 You know, my favourite sitcom is Fools and Horses.

00:03:34.660 You know, my favourite documentary is The Making of Fools and Horses.

00:03:37.440 I'm just, there's one from the tour.

00:03:39.860 And so I kind of thought that's who I am.

00:03:42.560 And I felt like during that time we had to basically shut up and listen.

00:03:46.400 But the words, we felt like we were drawn into a very negative pejorative of what being a bloke was.

00:03:52.940 And I thought maybe it's time for a sort of, I don't know, like the book is supposed to be like a sympathetic stock take of where the British bloke is.

00:04:00.060 And do you think the fact that you're a dad and you have a son?

00:04:03.340 Yeah.

00:04:03.760 I remember actually the very first time we interviewed you.

00:04:06.480 And, you know, of all the comedians we've had on the show, you're probably the most affable out of the people who actually are willing to challenge the mainstream culture a little bit.

00:04:15.700 Massive diss to every single other comic that's been on the show.

00:04:18.260 No, no, no.

00:04:19.100 No, I'll fuck them.

00:04:19.820 I'll take it.

00:04:20.640 What I mean is, actually, I think you have a way of framing your opinions and your comedy in a way that makes it easy for people on the other side, so to speak, to hear.

00:04:30.280 Yeah.

00:04:30.560 But when we ended our last question, you actually brought up something about men and boys that I thought was like, that's quite, Jeff clearly feels strongly about that.

00:04:39.880 So did becoming a father of a boy kind of make you think about it in a slightly different way?

00:04:45.140 Yes, I think because you sort of, for most of my life, I would say that, and this might be controversial the other way, that being a bloke and male has been a bit of a touch.

00:04:54.180 You know what I mean?

00:04:54.620 It's more of a laugh, generally.

00:04:56.500 It is more of a laugh.

00:04:57.680 Yeah.

00:04:57.920 I would say it's more of a laugh, less meaningful connections, but more of a laugh.

00:05:01.860 But I guess anybody having a son around now, you kind of look at them, you go, it's not going to be as good, mate.

00:05:07.720 It's just not going to be quite as good.

00:05:10.180 And you sort of think, so what in a way, and it's interesting you mention that because that is sort of where the book starts, is baby and bathwater.

00:05:17.100 What aspects of what I deem to be bloquery do I think are worth passing down?

00:05:22.280 And the book starts with a sort of anecdote about my son being involved in a bit of banter in the playground and him not understanding why the other boys seem to be being mean to him.

00:05:32.900 But me taking great pleasure and going, no, son, what that is is banter.

00:05:36.060 They're just testing you out to see if you're weak.

00:05:38.180 And whether you're not, you'll be able to withstand the hunt, you know, and I started getting some very detailed kind of primitive stuff.

00:05:45.140 And by the time I'd finished explaining banter to him, he was like, I don't really like banter.

00:05:49.240 I was like, don't like banter.

00:05:52.280 And so it's...

00:05:53.200 He's American, mate.

00:05:53.940 He's bad.

00:05:54.760 What would it be?

00:05:56.180 Trash talking, trashing each other.

00:05:58.200 We love America so much and we go there more and more, but banter is just, they don't have it.

00:06:05.740 Trash talking, busting each other's balls.

00:06:07.860 Yeah.

00:06:08.220 Yeah.

00:06:08.660 So, yeah.

00:06:09.300 I mean, at that, he takes things very literally, so that wouldn't have helped us.

00:06:13.400 But I sort of thought, what other things are there that are quite complicated concepts?

00:06:18.980 You know, certain things that get a lot of stick in modern discourse, right?

00:06:22.680 So things like man up.

00:06:24.200 I believe in this phrase, man up.

00:06:26.260 I don't see a problem with it.

00:06:27.500 And there came a period.

00:06:29.540 I remember there was, and I talk about it in the book, but there was an advert for Lloyd's Bank.

00:06:34.060 You know these adverts, right?

00:06:35.480 They go, which way is the culture of wind blowing?

00:06:37.860 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:06:38.440 Blokes are shit.

00:06:39.640 Man up.

00:06:40.600 So this advert was a string of celebrities basically saying that they hated the phrase man up.

00:06:45.460 And I thought, that's a real shame because I think, obviously, anything can go to excess, right?

00:06:51.140 If you're manning up means that, I don't know, you don't go to chemo, that's bad.

00:06:56.340 That's too far.

00:06:57.500 But I think for the most part, a phrase like man up is sort of like a call to arms for men, isn't it?

00:07:02.600 It's basically saying take yourself less seriously, take some responsibility for the situation, fall back a bit.

00:07:08.500 You know, like if you've got like a load of families staying over and there's not enough beds, right?

00:07:13.320 And you're deciding who's going to sleep on the couch, really uncomfortable, makeshift bed.

00:07:18.280 Is it going to be granddad?

00:07:19.540 No.

00:07:19.900 Is it going to be the women, middle age?

00:07:22.100 No.

00:07:22.720 Is it going to be the kids?

00:07:23.540 No.

00:07:24.020 It's going to be the younger male, you know?

00:07:25.940 And I think that's quite a good thing, to make yourself less important.

00:07:29.400 And I also thought, it's a shame because the amount of things that bloke could lay claim to seem to be diminishing.

00:07:35.580 Whereas the amount of things that women sort of celebrate about themselves is fairly well established, you know, in terms of...

00:07:41.260 I mean, that song by I'm Every Woman, you know?

00:07:44.520 Yeah.

00:07:44.760 I mean, they're literally claiming to be like fucking oracles and it's all...

00:07:49.300 I can read your thoughts right now.

00:07:51.500 And nobody really challenges that.

00:07:53.480 So I thought, could we just keep...

00:07:54.760 Could we keep manning up?

00:07:55.860 So the book is, in a lighthearted way, I guess, trying to offer up arguments for why things like banter and man flu exist and what kind of function they have.

00:08:06.320 And it's such an important and profound point because if you look at what's going on in our society,

00:08:12.420 where you could argue, particularly certain elements of it, demonise men,

00:08:17.320 and then everyone wrings their hands when you get a figure like Andrew Tate emerge and go,

00:08:21.780 why is this?

00:08:22.740 This is terrible.

00:08:23.920 Why is this?

00:08:24.580 Well, you've been trashing men for however long.

00:08:27.160 You've been saying they're toxically masculine, they're evil, blah, blah, blah.

00:08:30.940 Obviously, someone who comes along and is going to subvert that is going to get a huge audience.

00:08:35.520 Yeah, I mean, I suppose the argument that progressives might make is they'll often say,

00:08:39.480 well, you've had 2,000 years, lads.

00:08:41.280 I just think, all right, I can understand that as a man of 46 that I've had certain privileges at times.

00:08:47.400 I can see that.

00:08:48.540 I just don't know if you're a 12-year-old boy whether that makes as much sense,

00:08:52.780 less so if you're a 7-year-old boy and every single animation you seem to watch seems to involve a strong female lead

00:08:58.400 and a nervous guy who gets there in the end, right?

00:09:00.980 I started to notice that all these films, all these kid films...

00:09:04.080 I mean, it's nice for me to be represented, I'm going to be honest with you.

00:09:06.680 I mean, I watched the Super Mario film and I thought, Mario's the absolute hero of that,

00:09:10.780 but of course, he can't get over the line without Princess Peach, can he?

00:09:14.200 Just explaining everything that he's doing wrong and her being heroic and him just reluctantly almost falling over the line as a hero figure.

00:09:22.240 So I guess, yes, people like Andrew Tate come into that space and I think most young males would see the issues with some of what he's saying,

00:09:30.280 but mainly they're just like, well, there's somebody, A, that is celebrating, you know, masculinity, which is, you know,

00:09:36.200 something they might not see as much, certainly in Western popular culture, but also just on a simple level, you know,

00:09:41.040 not just him, but like the sort of manosphere, as it's called, is that they're saying things that just seem true, I guess.

00:09:47.420 When they start saying women like guys with money, they're like, yeah, you know, that's reasonable, you know,

00:09:53.460 women like tall guys, women like athletic guys.

00:09:56.000 And yet, you know, there's the kind of thing that if you were on a discussion panel show on Radio 4, you'd have to caveat.

00:10:01.980 Is it right?

00:10:02.740 You'd have to go, look, it could be said, it could be said that in certain scenarios, and by no means all,

00:10:06.780 and you have to do all these weird fucking small print terms and condition things.

00:10:10.700 And you go, yeah, but in wider Britain, a lot of these things aren't contentious, you know.

00:10:16.560 So there's some stuff which is a defence of things, you know, which I think is something that maybe is timely,

00:10:22.260 but also just trying to scratch beneath the surface of some of our idiocy.

00:10:26.840 Like, why don't we wear sun... do you wear sun cream when you're in a hot country?

00:10:30.200 No, no, no, no.

00:10:30.840 I knew he wouldn't.

00:10:32.760 I'm off South American, mate.

00:10:34.340 I should be able to come out there and come back looking like a bronzed Adonis.

00:10:37.600 Well, that's not what happens, though.

00:10:38.820 You come out looking like a cram.

00:10:40.300 I mean, you're South American.

00:10:41.460 You're whiter than both of us.

00:10:42.700 Yeah.

00:10:43.760 You're the whitest guy in the room.

00:10:45.160 I am, and I take great pride in that, mate.

00:10:48.700 He's got white pride, mate.

00:10:49.960 There you go.

00:10:50.380 And what about you?

00:10:51.400 Do you wear sun cream when you're in a hot country?

00:10:53.480 Not for the first couple of days, and then I eventually...

00:10:56.260 Classic, right?

00:10:56.880 Yeah, mate, because, you know...

00:10:59.820 But...

00:11:00.460 But then my wife eventually turns out to have been right, and then I start wearing it.

00:11:04.320 Of course they are right, and we should probably have some protection

00:11:06.620 against the hottest thing in our universe.

00:11:09.120 So I looked at the question of why don't men wear sun cream, right?

00:11:13.040 And I thought you could just pass it off as bravado or ignorance, you know,

00:11:17.020 or just silliness.

00:11:17.980 A lot of times blokes are put into that kind of pigeonhole.

00:11:21.440 They also thought about the act of moisturising your body on a beach.

00:11:25.940 Now, women will generally use more creams, you know, night cream, day cream.

00:11:29.920 They'll take more care of their body.

00:11:32.060 A bloke won't often do any of that stuff, and then suddenly he's in a public space,

00:11:36.860 and he's supposed to basically engage in what he might feel looks like an act of self-love, right?

00:11:41.800 And the worst thing is, you've got to get to that bit there.

00:11:45.440 That is such a weird, you know, getting to your lower back.

00:11:49.000 It's almost like, you know when a cat has to lick their chin,

00:11:51.660 and they lose all their fucking dignity, like, straight away.

00:11:55.240 So I thought there's more going on here than just blokes being sort of trying to be alphas

00:12:00.860 or being emotionally retentive.

00:12:03.940 It's actually about match fitness.

00:12:05.900 In terms of self-preservation of our own bodies, we just don't do it that much.

00:12:10.060 So on the two times a year we're on a beach and we're expected to do it,

00:12:13.100 we have a bit of a reticence.

00:12:14.380 We feel awkward.

00:12:15.240 So it doesn't necessarily say that that's a wise behaviour,

00:12:18.320 but it's not just block-headedness.

00:12:20.340 It's not.

00:12:20.920 And you know what's really interesting about seeing the younger generation?

00:12:23.660 Like, for me and you, we came of age at that kind of post-rave generation,

00:12:29.540 the sort of post-Britpop, you know, noughties, late 90s,

00:12:34.540 where it was all about going out, you know, doing drugs, getting messed up.

00:12:39.600 And you look at this new generation now and the pressure for them to look good

00:12:44.160 and to be ripped and to be buff.

00:12:46.540 Men, we've never had that.

00:12:48.680 It was all about how much you could take on a night out.

00:12:51.200 Yes.

00:12:51.640 And I think the first time I appeared on this show,

00:12:54.260 and I did say about the objectification of men would eventually become an issue.

00:12:58.620 It hasn't fully come into view yet, but it is funny, I think,

00:13:02.020 whereby I think men have rightly in some cases looked at the language they use of women

00:13:06.580 and whether or not they're making women feel uncomfortable.

00:13:09.020 I don't see any such thing happening with women.

00:13:11.800 Have you been out for, like, dinner with a group of middle-aged women,

00:13:15.040 a bit of Prosecco, and then if the waiter's a bit good-looking?

00:13:17.880 Oh, mate.

00:13:18.380 The way that they speak to him, you're like, you're being creepy.

00:13:21.360 But often it won't occur to them that it's possible for them to be creepy

00:13:24.700 because in their minds they've presumed that all men want female attention all the time.

00:13:29.380 And there's a lot of truth in that.

00:13:31.200 But, you know, if he's 19 years old and he's a 10, you know,

00:13:35.360 there's a certain kind of attention, I guess, that he feels that he would want.

00:13:39.620 And I think that that has been, instead of, like, saying,

00:13:42.560 why don't we, you know, women have this pressure to look good and men don't,

00:13:46.440 instead of saying, why don't we take it away from both parties,

00:13:48.480 all we've done is equalised it, really.

00:13:50.120 And the way that men are objectified.

00:13:54.040 Like, look, I mean, for example, I heard a very high-profile film review show

00:13:59.720 and they were talking about Henry Cavill and there's two female presenters

00:14:04.020 and they said, well, he's very easy on the eye.

00:14:06.300 And I just thought, you know, I don't care about that personally,

00:14:09.800 but I just thought, God, if Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo were going,

00:14:13.440 yeah, she's a bit of eye candy there.

00:14:17.840 Now, I know there's a different history and stuff.

00:14:19.960 So I do think that the sexual politics is changing rapidly.

00:14:24.740 I just think what you're actually highlighting there, Geoff,

00:14:27.760 is that this idea that we've somehow got into where the relationship

00:14:32.860 between men and women is portrayed as some sort of battle of the sexist

00:14:36.360 is the most insane thing I've ever heard.

00:14:38.100 Because throughout human history and almost certainly for the rest of human history,

00:14:42.900 these two groups of people are going to have to work together to survive,

00:14:46.360 to thrive, to raise children, etc.

00:14:48.400 And so sort of playing this like who's up, who's down thing just doesn't make any sense.

00:14:53.880 What ideally we should be looking at is how do we work together?

00:14:57.020 How do we understand the differences?

00:14:59.000 But we seem to have got to a point where it's like,

00:15:01.260 let's pretend there are no differences other than men are evil.

00:15:04.420 Yeah, it seems that we're in the past, you know,

00:15:07.760 women had certain sexist presumptions about them.

00:15:10.200 Like you say, there's an overcorrection.

00:15:12.060 And society does generally overcorrect and no one really wins in that case.

00:15:16.000 All you do is slightly try and equalise the misery.

00:15:20.780 But there was a point I was just about to...

00:15:22.420 Classic bloke, you see, forgot the important things that we're supposed to...

00:15:28.600 Oh, fuck, is there an advert?

00:15:29.660 It's a really good...

00:15:30.880 We'll let it out!

00:15:31.640 What was it you were saying?

00:15:33.080 Oh, that was it, that was it.

00:15:34.380 Yeah, I mean, like, the reason that that historic Gillette advert was such a huge fuck-up

00:15:40.860 was simple, is that most women have blokes in their life.

00:15:45.540 They have a husband who they hopefully like.

00:15:47.420 They have sons who they want to be happy.

00:15:49.260 They have a father that was probably, on balance, quite nice to them and stuff.

00:15:52.460 So then, once you start demonising, you actually lose the broad audience.

00:15:55.600 Because women don't necessarily want to think all of the men that they know are potential,

00:16:00.580 you know, sex offenders, or in the case of Gillette,

00:16:03.340 some weird kind of male version of a fucking Stepford wife.

00:16:06.720 So that is what...

00:16:08.380 That is where, I suppose, in terms of a mass audience,

00:16:11.160 you'll always find pushback.

00:16:12.600 And, you know, in the book, I've sort of said that even if people,

00:16:15.340 you know, if you're not a bloke yourself,

00:16:17.220 or if a woman is married to more of a, you know, a less sort of blokey guy,

00:16:22.300 more perhaps an effeminate type guy,

00:16:24.520 or if you're, you know, you're gay,

00:16:26.640 you will know blokes, right?

00:16:29.240 Blokes will be in your life,

00:16:30.620 whether it's brothers, uncles, husbands, or anything, you know?

00:16:33.680 So it's trying to make sense of that tribe, really.

00:16:37.780 You know, it's a big part of society, blokes.

00:16:39.860 It's a big subset of the man.

00:16:41.680 It's not like a lad.

00:16:42.980 A lad is different.

00:16:44.360 A lad is usually young and does all this shit, you know?

00:16:48.080 A geezer will often, you know, walk like that.

00:16:50.760 A bloke, I suppose, is a bit more calmer, you know?

00:16:53.960 He wants to be a dependable presence for the people that he loves.

00:16:58.600 He'll do lots of lifts for people.

00:17:00.840 He'll pick people up from airports and stuff like that.

00:17:02.740 So it's all very blokey stuff.

00:17:04.320 A bloke will, you know, enjoy...

00:17:06.220 He'll fix the washing machine, all that.

00:17:07.980 Steady on.

00:17:08.540 I mean, like...

00:17:09.120 Mate, I fixed the washing machine.

00:17:10.480 Did you?

00:17:10.940 Yeah.

00:17:11.080 That is bloke points right there.

00:17:12.400 How did you do that?

00:17:13.520 I looked up on YouTube, obviously.

00:17:15.440 Yeah.

00:17:15.560 But I looked up the parts, ordered it in, took the thing apart in front of my son, put the

00:17:21.840 new part in.

00:17:22.620 Yeah.

00:17:22.860 Mate.

00:17:23.340 Yeah.

00:17:23.780 Did you feel your testosterone rise?

00:17:24.740 Do you see the respect that they're both looking at with you?

00:17:27.200 Yeah.

00:17:27.300 That's such...

00:17:28.080 He just talks.

00:17:29.040 No, no, no, no, no.

00:17:30.080 I think to build and fix is a big part of what we feel compelled to do.

00:17:35.340 Now, look, are our generation ever going to be up with our granddads who would, you know,

00:17:39.980 like, changing a spare tyre by the side of the road, we're not doing that, let's be

00:17:45.300 honest.

00:17:46.140 That's very unlikely to happen.

00:17:47.320 I've done it.

00:17:47.920 But, well, you know what was interesting, though, Constantine, was I found out, you know, in

00:17:51.360 the process of writing this book, that the car manufacturers now routinely no longer

00:17:56.780 put spare wheels in the boot of a car.

00:17:58.340 Yeah.

00:17:59.080 And I just thought, that's just a massive slap in the face for us, because they've looked

00:18:02.420 at us and gone, nah.

00:18:04.760 You lot, you're not about that life.

00:18:06.260 You go and sit and wait for the nice AA man.

00:18:09.240 Read your family a poem, you know, because this is, and I thought that's actually a

00:18:14.420 shame, because the trust that your son will have had in you from seeing that moment, and

00:18:20.120 again, and this is what you find in the modern age is the short, the terms and conditions

00:18:24.700 and the caveats.

00:18:25.760 It's not to say women can't fix washing machines.

00:18:28.160 It's not to say that women can't never, it's just that I think that, you know, when

00:18:31.800 it comes to...

00:18:31.880 How many women, Jeff, statistically speaking, do you think have ever fixed a washing machine?

00:18:35.800 Um, well, based on pornography, I'm not sure the washing machine ever gets fixed by anybody.

00:18:42.800 But it's good to see you've done your research, mate.

00:18:44.120 Exactly.

00:18:44.840 Well, porn's another area, isn't it?

00:18:46.380 But look, let's come back to the Gillette thing, because I think it's really interesting,

00:18:49.440 because to me, in the 90s, the Gillette adverts were actually basically telling men exactly

00:18:56.860 how to be healthy men.

00:18:58.000 Yeah.

00:18:58.440 If you remember those 90s Gillette adverts, it was all guys or fathers, you know, hugging

00:19:04.340 their son on his wedding day, a guy going out to work, his wife does, helps him with

00:19:10.420 the type, he looks after his baby.

00:19:13.040 Yeah.

00:19:13.280 It was all about what you're actually supposed to be.

00:19:16.940 You'd look at that and you'd go, oh, you know, one day when I grow up, I'm going to

00:19:20.140 have a wife and I'm going to have a son and I'm going to have a job and I'm going to do

00:19:23.360 all these things and I'm going to compete and I'm going to do well, bring home the bacon

00:19:27.020 and eventually my son will get married and I'll be there.

00:19:30.280 And that's kind of what you're supposed to do as a bloke, as a guy, as a man.

00:19:34.620 And now we're in a position where it's like, instead of telling men how to be healthy, it's

00:19:39.080 like, no, no, no, this is what's wrong with you.

00:19:40.920 Yeah.

00:19:41.080 It's incredible transformation, really.

00:19:42.680 And I don't think it's beneficial to men or women.

00:19:45.220 Well, yeah, that's the problem, isn't it?

00:19:47.140 There's always a, it's like in a relationship between a man and a woman.

00:19:49.900 There is, of course, advice, criticism, rebuke, instruction, but it's got to

00:19:53.340 be part of a pie chart, isn't it?

00:19:54.880 Where a certain amount of it is that.

00:19:56.600 There's praise, celebration.

00:19:58.760 It did seem like the pie chart kind of circled around.

00:20:01.800 And a lot of the advice, you know, when it comes down to, you know, how men should be

00:20:05.400 with their friends, you know, you've got to talk more, you've got to share more.

00:20:08.900 And I think, I do think that men do need to do that more.

00:20:12.340 But I also think that men and women both have an issue around that.

00:20:15.140 I think men need to share a bit more of their friends.

00:20:17.020 Maybe women need to share a bit less.

00:20:18.380 Can we have that conversation?

00:20:19.760 You don't have to tell your friend every single, like, intimate detail of what's going on

00:20:24.220 in your relationship with a man.

00:20:25.880 Because it's a real dividing line, that, I think.

00:20:28.640 I, in my whole life, I don't think I've, and there is a stereotype that men use to

00:20:33.420 criticise their wives.

00:20:34.520 I would not sit with you boys at a night out and just start trashing my wife.

00:20:38.420 I would think that you would think less of me as a man if I did that.

00:20:41.700 You would think that he's treacherous, he's disloyal, you know.

00:20:44.200 Whereas it literally is the other way around, broadly speaking, for women.

00:20:48.400 It's a bonding exercise.

00:20:49.960 If two of them are trashing their husband, the third one might just make something up

00:20:53.120 just to be part of the game.

00:20:54.080 Just say, oh, he kicked me in the shins the other.

00:20:55.560 Did he?

00:20:55.880 No.

00:20:56.280 I just wanted to have something to add to the chat.

00:20:59.560 I didn't want to seem, you know, I didn't want to seem outside of the group.

00:21:03.340 And I think that that is, there's always this idea that men need to, like, emotionally

00:21:07.880 correct to where women are.

00:21:09.500 Whereas I think there's actually somewhere in the middle and it needs to go on on both sides.

00:21:13.620 There is a point with blokes where I love going away as a group of blokes and talking

00:21:17.840 absolute bollocks, you know.

00:21:19.520 It's so, it's so, that's what rejuvenates me is to just not think of anything serious

00:21:25.180 for a while.

00:21:26.080 But there are points in my life where, you know, a mate of mine will be talking about

00:21:30.180 his third kid and I'll be thinking, third?

00:21:33.160 I didn't, I don't remember the second, you know.

00:21:35.700 And that's, that's not cool.

00:21:37.140 I think we could do, and that's not like for any great empathic reason.

00:21:40.100 It's just, it's not unreasonable to just be, broadly speaking, up to date with the main

00:21:44.680 features of your pals' lives.

00:21:46.680 Because if the shit hits the fan for them, you want to at least know the name of the

00:21:50.840 woman that left them.

00:21:56.140 It's true.

00:21:56.960 And I think what people don't acknowledge as well is that there is a fundamental difference,

00:22:01.240 like you said, between men and women.

00:22:02.560 And we need different things from our friendships.

00:22:05.700 I want to be able to talk to my mates about, you know, things that are not going well in

00:22:09.200 my life.

00:22:09.940 But when I see my mates, like you said, I see it as a break from reality.

00:22:14.280 I want to go, I want to have a laugh, I want to, you know, just talk about, you know, life,

00:22:19.460 whatever it is.

00:22:20.440 I don't particularly want to talk about me, if I'm honest.

00:22:23.580 You know, there'll be banter, there'll be fun.

00:22:25.360 Why is that, Francis?

00:22:28.680 See, if you did that on a night out, if you're like, so what's going on with you?

00:22:32.400 That would make me tense.

00:22:33.500 Yeah, it did.

00:22:34.080 It made you tense, you said.

00:22:34.780 You made me tense, I don't like it.

00:22:36.300 I mean, what it needs to be is there needs to be a long, do it while, mainly do it.

00:22:41.040 I don't like it.

00:22:41.980 I don't.

00:22:42.840 There's feelings.

00:22:44.100 Yeah.

00:22:44.520 Well, yeah, I think that there's definitely, but there's obviously merit in both approaches.

00:22:48.460 Yeah.

00:22:48.700 And that's maybe the argument I'm making is that we've got to a point where we're acting

00:22:52.160 like there's no merit in one approach and total merit in the other approach.

00:22:55.600 Because, you know, I think you can analyse problems into the ground.

00:22:59.520 I also think that there are potential benefits of, you know, blokes have nicknames for each

00:23:03.560 other, blokes, when you're mean to another bloke, when he's a mate, it's because there's

00:23:08.560 trust, right?

00:23:09.100 You can withstand it.

00:23:10.380 And I think that, you know, I don't know many women that have nicknames for each other.

00:23:14.820 Probably more working class women have nicknames for each other.

00:23:17.480 Yeah.

00:23:18.140 But, or if they're on a WhatsApp group for a hen do, like if there was people who were

00:23:23.420 a bit late paying would go, come on you fucking moron.

00:23:25.920 You know, use the kind of language that blokes would say to sort of chivvy people up and

00:23:30.660 put a rocket under someone.

00:23:32.000 I think that there is a tendency to be more agreeable, you know, has been discussed quite

00:23:37.280 a bit.

00:23:37.880 I just think that neither are correct.

00:23:40.560 They're just different approaches.

00:23:41.560 I don't understand where one became bad, unhealthy, toxic, and the other one just escaped scrutiny.

00:23:47.900 And it's also as well that women don't want this kind of new man that is being presented

00:23:53.780 to them.

00:23:54.340 They may say they do, but they don't really.

00:23:57.720 Well, the thing is, I think a lot of women don't even say that they do.

00:24:00.880 But what's happened is a small group of people who are more influential in terms of media

00:24:05.640 and sort of society, they're imposing their values on everybody else.

00:24:10.120 And by the way, you know, if you remember our Rob Henderson interview in terms of like

00:24:13.460 luxury beliefs, quite a lot of them will still have a manly bloke at home, but they'll

00:24:18.060 fucking bang on in The Guardian about how all the men need to, you know, cut their dicks

00:24:21.800 off or whatever.

00:24:22.500 Yeah.

00:24:22.580 You know, it's kind of...

00:24:23.780 There was an article that all men needed to cut their dicks off The Guardian.

00:24:25.980 Probably, yeah.

00:24:26.580 I mean, I bet you if we look it up...

00:24:28.100 I'm surprised it took The Guardian that long to get to that.

00:24:29.640 That feels like the apex of...

00:24:31.140 You know what I mean.

00:24:32.060 You know what I mean.

00:24:33.000 Like, it's a kind of mismatch between, I think, what most women actually want and

00:24:37.460 what elite culture is telling them they're supposed to want, is my sense of it.

00:24:41.460 You know what's interesting?

00:24:42.280 Just then, I suddenly thought, like, are we sound like moaning blokes here?

00:24:46.980 You know, like, just sitting there.

00:24:48.500 This is the actual only time the blokes do talks when they're on podcasts or shows like

00:24:52.780 this with each other.

00:24:54.520 But that does bring me to another aspect of being a bloke, is that you're not expected

00:24:58.280 to moan, you know?

00:24:59.420 You're not...

00:24:59.900 And that's where something, I guess, like the concept of man flu comes from, which is,

00:25:03.580 you know, there's obvious scientific research as to why when viruses strike men, it can feel

00:25:08.300 more virulent to them.

00:25:09.360 But even as I'm saying that, I guarantee there's some women watching this game.

00:25:13.080 You know, especially if they've given birth.

00:25:15.540 Fair enough, right?

00:25:16.100 If you've given birth, you're out of this equation.

00:25:19.000 But it's kind of strange because you're supposed to, you're encouraged to talk more about your

00:25:22.400 feelings, right?

00:25:23.180 And then, like, you feel really ill.

00:25:25.320 Shut the fuck up about that.

00:25:27.120 You know, so it's obviously selective.

00:25:28.960 And I get that because, you know, if you're in a family situation, and this in a way is

00:25:32.780 where the small C conservative mindset comes from.

00:25:35.560 It's born of pragmatism.

00:25:36.660 If you're in a family situation where there is a woman who's likely to be doing more caregiving

00:25:40.860 for the children, you know, running of the house, that stuff, an ill man is really inconvenient

00:25:45.960 in the first place, right?

00:25:47.160 Secondly, him moaning about it, really, you just don't have time for it.

00:25:50.580 So I can see why this has evolved.

00:25:52.640 But also, the idea of acting like man flu isn't a thing.

00:25:57.120 It sails very close to the idea of gaslighting, isn't it?

00:25:59.700 You feel something's happening.

00:26:00.880 You report that it's happening.

00:26:01.920 Somebody tells you it's all in your mind.

00:26:04.800 You know...

00:26:05.340 Well, sorry, France.

00:26:06.140 Just to finish that thing, I think, I know what you mean about sounding like we're moaning.

00:26:12.340 I really do.

00:26:13.360 And I think man flu is actually a very good example of where understanding of the differences

00:26:18.240 between the sex is very helpful.

00:26:19.660 Like, my wife understands that if I'm ill, I don't feel well, right?

00:26:24.440 And we work around that.

00:26:25.380 Likewise, with her, there's certain things that she finds more difficult than I do.

00:26:29.180 And I know that about her.

00:26:30.560 And I'm there to support her with that in the same way.

00:26:33.280 Do you know what I mean?

00:26:33.740 Like, what, just going out for a couple of days until she feels bad?

00:26:36.740 Exactly.

00:26:37.280 Just go out, have a few drinks with my mates.

00:26:39.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:26:39.780 Wait for the weather to pass.

00:26:41.520 Yeah.

00:26:41.780 I think...

00:26:42.580 I mean, yeah, there are just simple, like you say, I guess, there is biology there.

00:26:47.860 I mean, women can see a broader range of colours.

00:26:50.180 So this will manifest in conversation.

00:26:52.740 Like, I don't believe that I've ever met a woman that would describe a colour as black.

00:26:56.460 You say, oh, that's black.

00:26:57.380 Midnight blue.

00:26:58.100 Navy blue.

00:26:58.760 Anything other than black.

00:27:00.240 You know, they just see a wider spectrum of colour.

00:27:02.400 So they sometimes might think a bloke's being ignorant when he says something's green when

00:27:05.600 it's turquoise.

00:27:06.560 It's just we're not seeing things on the same level.

00:27:08.800 And there's even differences in the way that men kind of see, you know?

00:27:12.880 Or certainly, I realise now in the comments section, this might be contestable, but there's

00:27:18.020 certainly educated people that believe that men are better with literally with tunnel vision,

00:27:22.280 whereas women are better with peripheral vision.

00:27:24.800 That would make a lot of sense.

00:27:25.980 All of this is basically explaining why I can never see anything in the cupboard, right?

00:27:29.540 This is a complex way of me trying to...

00:27:31.680 This whole book is me trying to justify to my wife as to, I just can't see shit.

00:27:36.120 When she's going to look for something, I don't get it.

00:27:38.200 But, you know, if I can look to the horizon a lot easier, and maybe there's some sort

00:27:41.820 of genetic legacy for that.

00:27:43.780 And what we don't talk about with men as well, and look, it's important for women, but I

00:27:48.220 think sometimes it's just more important for men is exercise.

00:27:52.460 You know, like, you see so many men now who talk about, you know, depression and all of

00:27:57.620 these things.

00:27:58.100 And of course...

00:27:58.860 They need to man up, according to Jeff Norco.

00:28:00.640 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:28:01.060 They need to fucking deal with it, mate.

00:28:03.060 Sweat it out.

00:28:04.220 Sweat it out.

00:28:05.100 Sweat depression out.

00:28:06.340 Yeah, just go...

00:28:07.280 But...

00:28:08.200 If you go to the gym and you have a good session, I mean, you feel so much better and more in

00:28:13.960 control of your life.

00:28:15.080 I think that there are a lot of women who are mothers that would probably say, well, it'd

00:28:18.420 be nice to have the time to go to the gym and stuff like that.

00:28:20.580 I think broadly what you're saying is true.

00:28:22.180 If you look generally at how much space in people's lives they make for exercise, men would

00:28:27.740 make more.

00:28:28.460 I think, you know, if you look around any gym, competitive sports...

00:28:31.200 Now, you could argue that that is a construct, but then also, you know...

00:28:34.800 It's not a fucking construct, man.

00:28:35.860 No, no, no, no.

00:28:36.460 But that's what I mean is, like, if things are a reality for long enough, it's like male

00:28:40.500 and female beauty, right?

00:28:41.920 People just say, well, female beauty is venerated because that's the kind of stock that we put

00:28:46.760 on it.

00:28:47.340 You go, it's also been around a while, that idea.

00:28:49.880 Right from the earliest painting and stuff.

00:28:51.960 Right from the way that women look at each other.

00:28:53.540 There is something about women that I think, you know, and this is from my prism of heteronormativity,

00:29:01.080 cis, I don't know, does cis come into it?

00:29:02.760 Possibly.

00:29:03.560 But is the...

00:29:04.680 I just think there's something nicer.

00:29:06.960 You can have such thing...

00:29:07.940 Oh, God, I realise I'm going to get rid of this.

00:29:09.780 But it's a design classic, right?

00:29:11.780 Some things are...

00:29:12.640 Yeah.

00:29:13.380 Where am I going with this?

00:29:14.500 The design of the original Stormtroopers outfit, it just looks fucking great, right?

00:29:18.300 You're saying women are Stormtroopers.

00:29:19.540 I'm saying women are fascist Stormtroopers, but so it is also possible...

00:29:23.700 You sound like you're ready for a divorce, mate.

00:29:26.260 So it could also be possible...

00:29:28.760 This is fucking great.

00:29:30.740 It could also be possible that maybe just one of the bodies, broadly speaking, looks a

00:29:34.740 lot nicer on average than the other.

00:29:36.320 Guys, Geoff is on his last ever tour, starting in September.

00:29:39.740 Or I'll be on tour forever, you know.

00:29:41.260 Or he'll be on tour forever.

00:29:42.580 But, I mean, you know, in terms of the marriage thing, it's just this riddle, isn't

00:29:46.900 it?

00:29:47.020 You've got these two human beings, same species.

00:29:49.720 You go, you're different.

00:29:51.400 And sometimes it will result in a row.

00:29:53.800 But because of that difference, sometimes you don't understand it.

00:29:56.740 But then sometimes the difference is the source of attraction, isn't it?

00:29:59.660 If you look at, like, what a lot of women...

00:30:01.180 They like big arms, you know, because that's the thing that they, generally speaking, don't

00:30:04.040 have.

00:30:04.340 Men will like curves because we don't...

00:30:07.120 Well, the ones we do, no one likes the look of over time.

00:30:09.720 And I, you know, I also think that curves are, if you look at atoms, planets, suns,

00:30:16.020 orbits, we sort of know that curves really are what makes life go around, right?

00:30:20.220 Yeah.

00:30:20.720 It's an interesting theory, Geoff.

00:30:22.460 Eggs, all the good...

00:30:23.280 I don't know if it's been peer-reviewed.

00:30:24.360 All the good stuff is curves.

00:30:26.060 But the point that I'm making is the difference is the basis of attraction.

00:30:30.820 100%.

00:30:31.340 For a hell of a...

00:30:32.520 You know, for heterosexuals, more generally, right?

00:30:35.280 So if you try and chip away at that difference, what happens to attraction?

00:30:39.020 Well, completely.

00:30:39.700 And the thing, my wife and I, we've been married over 20 years now, that we found the

00:30:43.760 most useful is reading stuff and understanding what the differences are and how to navigate

00:30:49.680 them.

00:30:49.960 So John Gray, who we've had on our show, he wrote that very famous book, Men Are From Mars,

00:30:55.460 Women Are From Venus, and he's updated it since and whatever.

00:30:58.020 And that's really all it is, is understanding the psychological and physical differences

00:31:02.740 between men and women.

00:31:04.340 And we're talking about depression earlier.

00:31:06.640 There's quite a lot of evidence now that one of the reasons that men are not really getting

00:31:13.140 treated for depression nearly as well is that the help men need is completely different

00:31:19.220 to the help women need when they are depressed.

00:31:21.860 Yes.

00:31:22.380 So they need a different solution.

00:31:23.800 But quite often, it's a solution that's geared towards women that is then sort of mapped

00:31:28.640 onto men.

00:31:29.280 And it just doesn't work very well because men need a different thing.

00:31:32.020 Men need to feel competent and powerful as a result of whatever therapy they do, whereas

00:31:36.540 for women, it's more about being heard and unpacking certain issues and whatever.

00:31:40.280 Do you know what I mean?

00:31:41.020 I do.

00:31:41.460 I mean, I remember, yeah, I'm a big believer in counseling and talking therapies.

00:31:45.640 You know, it took things for me to get quite bad with me, where it was just the last sort

00:31:49.380 of throw of the dice.

00:31:50.080 But I remember the first counseling session I went for, the woman who was the therapist

00:31:54.720 sort of said, you know, it's okay to feel weak.

00:31:56.540 I was like, weak?

00:31:58.020 What did you mention the weak word for?

00:31:59.340 Why did you mention that?

00:31:59.960 I don't want to feel weak.

00:32:00.740 And I was gone, you know, within not too long at all.

00:32:04.020 I wanted a more, you know, like the head tilt in empathy doesn't really work for me.

00:32:08.300 No.

00:32:08.380 So if I'm talking about sad things that happened and someone says, that must have been very

00:32:11.900 tough for you.

00:32:12.920 And maybe this is what's wrong with me.

00:32:14.120 I don't know.

00:32:14.640 Maybe I need to acknowledge it was tough.

00:32:16.640 But I just need to almost verbalize what happened because maybe I don't reflect on it as much.

00:32:22.880 So a lot of the early counseling that I did was just sort of narrativizing things, telling

00:32:26.380 the story of what happened.

00:32:27.860 And then go, oh yeah, that was what I hated about that.

00:32:31.360 Or that was what made me angry.

00:32:33.400 And eventually I found the right therapies.

00:32:34.980 And it's interesting, you know, like there are a lot of blokes that are still resistant

00:32:38.940 to talking therapies.

00:32:40.240 I think they're a great thing to get you off the floor.

00:32:42.520 I also think having done them for a lot of years, there is a point where, and this is

00:32:47.280 maybe a more blokey take, that your past is just your past and you've just got to suck

00:32:50.700 it up a little bit.

00:32:51.280 Well, you've got to go through the process first.

00:32:53.100 And that's why I'm a big fan of that stuff as well.

00:32:55.080 Yeah.

00:32:55.620 You've got to process whatever happened.

00:32:57.600 But then you've got to just accept, you know, your life was your life.

00:33:01.280 You're moving on.

00:33:02.300 And what is it that you're going to do in the future?

00:33:03.940 I think that's the path for really...

00:33:05.940 Yeah, you might have to go over like dates and stuff that make you reflect.

00:33:09.940 But yeah, you go, all right, that was who my parents were.

00:33:12.380 These were their good things.

00:33:13.180 These were their bad things.

00:33:14.320 The idea that you constantly retell that story.

00:33:17.120 The concept, I think, for a bloke of self-pity is an important one.

00:33:21.840 The idea, the tiny violin is always there in our minds.

00:33:24.520 Am I, you know, like, because we've had blokes around us that will call it out often enough.

00:33:28.760 And in the book, the very last chapter is I'm talking about, you know, is it okay for men to cry in public?

00:33:34.720 And my view is very much that it's better if we do in private, which sounds really toxic.

00:33:39.680 But, you know, I have a good cry regularly.

00:33:41.940 But I just think that that's where I can do it properly.

00:33:45.640 The problem is the process of there being witnesses to my tears changes the function of it.

00:33:50.180 Right.

00:33:50.880 And also, I just think men don't cry as often statistically.

00:33:55.360 So that when we do do it, we're not match fit.

00:33:57.900 So we look horrific.

00:33:59.880 Like, have you seen that?

00:34:00.800 Like, it just looks awful.

00:34:02.300 It's like this fucking Hulk-like metamorphosis.

00:34:05.220 Whereas, you know, I think, you know, the women I've known in my life,

00:34:09.020 like, my mum could cry and, like, still fold clothes, you know.

00:34:12.300 So there's definitely a different ability there.

00:34:15.300 And I think that male tears hold a different status in society.

00:34:18.680 So Novak Djokovic cried after his Wimbledon final defeat, right?

00:34:23.720 It's nice to see my son still there, still smiling, you know.

00:34:27.700 LAUGHTER

00:34:28.700 APPLAUSE

00:34:30.700 APPLAUSE

00:34:31.700 I love you.

00:34:56.940 Thank you for supporting me and I'll give you a big hug and we can all love each other.

00:35:04.000 Thank you.

00:35:05.400 Novak Djokovic, ladies and gentlemen.

00:35:07.440 Something within him broke and we're like, that's wonderful.

00:35:11.020 You know, this strong guy, this athlete that's got all the way, he's earned this.

00:35:14.400 But if he cried like that after the quarterfinal, we'd be like, OK, mate.

00:35:17.760 You know, it's a bit much.

00:35:19.000 Just get back to the locker room.

00:35:21.340 Somebody put a towel over his head.

00:35:22.960 And you could say that that is toxic or anything, but it's always, that's really, you know,

00:35:28.840 I don't think you can completely ignore the base reasons why that emotional impulse exists in the first place.

00:35:34.860 So again, it's like you said, counselling, it's working with what is there in blokes, really.

00:35:39.240 And what is there in blokes is different and the language of therapy can sometimes seem a bit alien.

00:35:43.500 Yeah, it's so important to find a good therapist because part of what I think in the process of moving on

00:35:49.460 is to acknowledge what's happened, accept it, and then accept what's happened

00:35:55.920 and then put things in place in order to help you move on.

00:36:00.780 Constantly revisiting the same trauma, all you're doing after a while is just picking at a scab

00:36:05.560 and you're not letting yourself heal.

00:36:07.540 Yeah, I think that people find that over time.

00:36:10.440 I mean, I suppose that there are, that's where our friendship groups could come into it a bit more.

00:36:16.460 Maybe if it was like, you know, a pit stop as such, not a full like kind of like new engine,

00:36:22.920 but just the tyre change with each other, like when we go out for a beer.

00:36:26.720 I mean, one of the things I spoke about in the book as well is about beer and the process of going for a pint

00:36:31.500 and why that appeals to blokes.

00:36:33.220 So again, it's this really surface level thing.

00:36:35.440 You know, it's a good question.

00:36:36.360 Why do men like beer?

00:36:37.860 They do, you know.

00:36:38.840 Here's an interesting one, right, for the liberal elite, right,

00:36:41.620 and that you can play along at home if this is like a tea time quiz.

00:36:44.500 What do you think is the top selling lager in the UK?

00:36:47.560 It's going to be something shit like Foster's.

00:36:51.200 Constantine?

00:36:53.080 He's trying to suppress his...

00:36:54.180 Carling?

00:36:54.760 Carling.

00:36:55.460 He's got it.

00:36:56.200 Carling.

00:36:56.860 After all these years, you know.

00:36:58.360 And it's really interesting.

00:36:59.440 There's almost a metaphor for blokiness, right?

00:37:01.840 I think that's been the way since more or less the 90s.

00:37:04.280 So that just shows you how stable the state of blokiness is.

00:37:07.000 I like what I like.

00:37:08.120 I don't like change.

00:37:09.180 Yeah.

00:37:09.560 I like what I like.

00:37:10.320 I don't really even like it.

00:37:11.520 That's how much of a blok I am.

00:37:13.200 But I'd imagine that maybe you're more metropolitan, elite-type viewers might have gone,

00:37:17.880 oh, Nercoy or toffee-flavoured IPA and stuff.

00:37:20.720 But if you look outside of London, Manchester, Newcastle, you get out there, think of all these pubs,

00:37:25.880 all these backwater pubs that have just been serving Carling all these years.

00:37:29.680 And, you know, just drinking a lager and sitting in a pub,

00:37:33.200 it's one of the few times men can sit opposite each other without a game or a distraction.

00:37:39.240 You know, because you've got a pint, you can get away, you know.

00:37:42.700 I'd never go for a meal with just another blok.

00:37:45.300 Just way too fucking tense, right?

00:37:47.000 Yeah.

00:37:47.380 Just sitting there.

00:37:48.120 Whereas, you know, a pub will have distractions.

00:37:50.040 We've been for a meal together.

00:37:51.040 Yeah, and I felt tense.

00:37:52.300 I felt really tense.

00:37:53.260 I'll tell you exactly where it was.

00:37:54.460 It was in Shrewsbury.

00:37:56.280 And you, and I deliberately picked, you know, like the one where you're against the wall?

00:37:59.860 Yeah.

00:38:00.280 Because I knew it would make me feel tense.

00:38:01.540 So I had better sight lines.

00:38:02.680 Yeah.

00:38:04.200 It's mad what goes on in our head.

00:38:05.960 But a pub is good because it has distractions, you know.

00:38:08.480 So you can really, you know, there might be sport and there might be a snooker table.

00:38:12.360 For whatever reason, those, you know, blokes tend to tend to.

00:38:15.240 Well, one theory I heard about that is that men, you know,

00:38:18.100 used to spend most of the time that they would spend together hunting.

00:38:21.100 And so they naturally sort of feel more comfortable facing in the same direction next to each other.

00:38:27.220 Right.

00:38:27.620 Whereas women will tend to be sort of in a huddle type of thing because that's what they'd be doing.

00:38:31.820 Do you know what I mean?

00:38:32.380 Yeah.

00:38:32.480 That's just too much scrutiny, man.

00:38:34.140 Yeah.

00:38:34.760 Just people, they might see the truth, you know, if they're looking at me like that.

00:38:38.500 Yeah.

00:38:39.000 And it's, you know, you see it as well with, you know, with, and I know football fans can sometimes be obnoxious,

00:38:44.740 but I do think it plays a vital role in society.

00:38:47.740 Yes.

00:38:48.100 For men to be able to go together, to watch a game, you know, to bond, to say horrible stuff

00:38:53.740 that they would never say within the confines of their own home.

00:38:56.980 And it's a pressure valve, isn't it?

00:38:58.660 It's a purge.

00:38:59.640 I mean, it is a purge of a form of like primal scream therapy.

00:39:03.920 Yeah.

00:39:04.060 But what's interesting, and I mentioned this, you know, in the book is about football clubs.

00:39:07.780 Like, people often miss out the element of a club, right?

00:39:11.540 That was how they originally formed.

00:39:13.060 Like, Aston Villa and Birmingham City were formed in that area around that time because there

00:39:17.100 was a lot of kind of, you know, sort of feckless young men that were getting involved in nefarious

00:39:21.900 activities, you know, trying to keep them out of gangs like the Peaky Blinders, essentially.

00:39:26.840 Let's have a place for these young fellas to go.

00:39:29.160 So there's a community element.

00:39:31.540 And I think blokes do invest a lot into that.

00:39:33.780 So when you see the stadium, you know, when the clubs get a new stadium and you see these

00:39:39.320 absolute silverbacks outside, they're crying.

00:39:43.420 It does look a bit odd to some people, but like there's so much invested in that.

00:39:48.940 You know, it might be where their father took them.

00:39:51.620 And, you know, I do speak a lot about sport in the book.

00:39:55.300 Of course, you know, female participation in sport is going up dramatically.

00:39:58.600 But overwhelmingly, you know, it's something that men seem to feel that they need in their lives.

00:40:05.240 Maybe it's like a coded conversation, isn't it?

00:40:07.860 You know, and one of the aspects of being a bloke, a really key aspect of being a bloke

00:40:12.940 is that you think the game's changed.

00:40:15.000 Yeah.

00:40:15.680 It's not what it was.

00:40:16.980 No, it's not what it was.

00:40:17.740 It's not what it was.

00:40:18.160 I'll tell you what, next year it will be worse.

00:40:20.420 You know, to some point, I guess, when you're about 13, where you thought sport was perfect.

00:40:26.120 Yeah.

00:40:26.340 Because you just found it.

00:40:27.980 And ever since then, it's been getting progressively worse.

00:40:30.760 Every bloke thinks that.

00:40:32.240 There's almost no, you know, maybe one or two exceptions.

00:40:36.140 But, you know, I suppose once you get Saudi regimes running football clubs, maybe it really has got worse.

00:40:41.080 But it's also as well, what's really interesting, and we're talking about sport getting worse,

00:40:44.740 which is something that I think is...

00:40:46.480 I knew you'd think that.

00:40:47.400 No suntan cream.

00:40:49.140 Sport's getting worse.

00:40:50.920 Yeah.

00:40:51.160 You know.

00:40:51.980 I just tick every box.

00:40:53.320 But it's the lack of physicality in sport.

00:40:56.900 You do...

00:40:57.500 There's a part of me that goes, yeah, feminisation of society.

00:41:00.420 Look at them.

00:41:01.080 One little tap.

00:41:01.920 They're rolling over.

00:41:02.780 I remember.

00:41:03.780 Two-footed.

00:41:04.660 Not even a yellow card, mate.

00:41:06.400 Well, I mean, but interestingly, you look at some of the things of sport.

00:41:09.880 Oh, contact.

00:41:10.800 Hugging.

00:41:11.520 Hugging strangers.

00:41:12.760 Singing.

00:41:14.200 It's fair.

00:41:14.660 You know, having a sing-song.

00:41:16.260 It's not the most overtly masculine thing that you could think of.

00:41:19.760 And if you think of football clubs, their most notable songs are quite emotional.

00:41:24.980 Like Liverpool, You'll Never Walk Alone.

00:41:26.880 Man City sing Blue Moon.

00:41:29.740 Yeah.

00:41:30.340 West Ham.

00:41:31.500 I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles.

00:41:33.200 I love that song.

00:41:34.280 It's so incongruous.

00:41:35.660 But yet, there must be a reason for that.

00:41:37.220 Because in sport, like you say, there's all these men that go in there.

00:41:40.420 They're this balloon that's just waiting to burst.

00:41:42.820 Yeah, it is.

00:41:43.300 You know, I love that song because for our American viewers and people, you know, who watch sports, particularly Americans, it's about celebrating success.

00:41:52.480 West Ham's song is called I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles.

00:41:55.240 And one of the lyrics in it is, the bubbles they fly so high, but like my dreams they fade and die.

00:42:00.900 Fortune's always right.

00:42:01.860 I mean, it's so enigmatic.

00:42:03.100 Yeah.

00:42:03.780 It is really odd.

00:42:04.860 And also, it should be said for the American audience that West Ham would be perceived to be, to have quite a blokey, sort of manly fan base as well.

00:42:12.800 So, you know, a lot of the book is about that.

00:42:14.860 You know, why do we like curry?

00:42:16.200 Why do we like pints?

00:42:18.460 Why do we like sport?

00:42:19.420 But try not to just do it in a too basic a way, to genuinely scratch beneath the surface.

00:42:23.680 So why do we like curry?

00:42:24.760 Well, curry because it involves jeopardy, I think.

00:42:27.360 Partly, again, it's a routine as well.

00:42:30.020 It's a roll of the dice.

00:42:31.220 It can be a roll of the dice.

00:42:32.920 I mean, I think that, one, you don't have to organise it.

00:42:35.440 I don't know if anybody's ever pre-booked a curry.

00:42:37.800 And if it is, it's probably one of your more middle class mates that starts it.

00:42:40.680 Oh, yeah, you know, the chef trained in Goa.

00:42:43.000 You're like, all right, Tim.

00:42:44.360 But generally, you just rock up.

00:42:46.160 And like, you know, the great, the blokes that work at curry houses are just the most, like, sort of practical-minded people.

00:42:52.100 Have you booked?

00:42:53.200 Have you ever been asked that?

00:42:54.480 No.

00:42:55.200 At curry house.

00:42:55.640 And they often don't even say, like, do you want a beer?

00:42:58.820 They go, how many Cobras?

00:43:00.400 Yeah.

00:43:00.680 How many Pappadums, right?

00:43:01.740 Because they know exactly what you're going for.

00:43:03.240 You're going for the same fucking thing you had the last 20 years.

00:43:05.980 And then there's just this element of self-expression.

00:43:10.340 One, in how you deal with the Pappadums in the first place.

00:43:13.500 You know, how you, whether you smash them or whether you try and get a lot of different things on, like a pizza,

00:43:18.080 whether it's just one thing.

00:43:19.540 And then what curry you choose, you know?

00:43:21.200 And a lot of young people, you know, that bravado element of going for a, well, at first it was like Vindaloo.

00:43:27.740 But then do you remember there was a phile?

00:43:29.260 Yes.

00:43:29.920 There was this murmurings of this spicy alternative called a phile.

00:43:33.760 And I had a phile.

00:43:35.180 And I don't think I've ever been the same since.

00:43:37.840 I just think I've messed up something in my intestines.

00:43:40.840 Jeff Norcott, broken by a phile.

00:43:42.720 Yeah.

00:43:43.100 Broken by a phile.

00:43:43.920 But, you know, I used to do like, I used to eat lime pickles straight from the thing, just as like a show of bravado to the troupe.

00:43:51.420 I mean, I did often think that they should just like do some sort of Rennie type shot in a curry house.

00:43:59.160 You know, like a liqueur.

00:44:00.500 But like they're saying, you know, you can order it secretly under the bar.

00:44:03.420 Because I'm sure I did my intestines damage.

00:44:05.560 But there is something like boisterous about a curry that obviously appeals.

00:44:10.480 So it's another one of those surface things where you go, it's really easy to just say, oh, well, blokes are basic because they like curry.

00:44:16.100 But why?

00:44:16.600 Why do they like curry?

00:44:18.180 And because, yeah, you can sort of prove your mettle.

00:44:20.980 There's an element of risk involved.

00:44:22.820 Yeah.

00:44:23.480 Well, Jeff, it's great to have you on to talk about this stuff.

00:44:27.080 And I hope everybody reads the book, The British Bloke Decoder.

00:44:31.180 But let's take a few minutes before we move on to locals to talk about politics.

00:44:35.240 Because it's obviously you as a comedian, you comment on stuff and make jokes about it.

00:44:39.000 But we've had a bunch of lefties on the show in recent weeks and months as we build up to what will be almost certainly a Labour government at this point coming down the pipe.

00:44:49.800 What do you think about that?

00:44:50.700 Well, they'll be the biggest party, I would have thought.

00:44:52.860 Yeah.

00:44:53.200 I don't think, I don't know what could happen.

00:44:55.100 I mean, like governments generally get voted out when the economy's bad.

00:44:57.580 And the economy's bad.

00:44:58.560 And it will continue to be bad.

00:45:00.700 I mean, all the pointers are 13 years.

00:45:03.000 You know, there have been scandals, which, you know, some have been overblown.

00:45:06.240 Some have been valid.

00:45:07.920 But I think the main thing is that people feel skint.

00:45:10.440 And historically, people tend to get voted out.

00:45:12.220 And also Labour have sort of, it's this weird thing that's happened in British politics, whereby all the grown-ups are in the room, right?

00:45:18.020 Which I always think is a really tragic way to refer to yourself, with the grown-ups in the room.

00:45:22.000 Makes you think of Will from the in-betweeners.

00:45:24.200 That's sort of like the kind of thing that he would say.

00:45:26.460 But they talk about the last, you know, the Brexit type era of politics as the least edifying in British political history.

00:45:32.460 And there's some truth in that.

00:45:33.380 Johnson hiding in the fridge, Corbyn and, you know, his issues.

00:45:36.820 I do think there's also something unedifying about a Prime Minister who's currently just looking for a grift.

00:45:43.320 You know, literally Rishi is going down the list of diminishing returns to motorists.

00:45:48.400 I'll be the motorist guy.

00:45:49.480 I'll be the guy with cars.

00:45:51.420 So he's been, the boats.

00:45:53.280 I'll be about the boats, you know, because there's so little left after 13 years in power for him to attach himself to.

00:45:59.180 But equally on the other side, you've got the leader of the opposition, who's just gleefully auctioning off every last principle and policy he's ever had.

00:46:06.500 And yet you get people like, you know, Alistair Campbell and Roy Stewart.

00:46:10.300 Well, thank God the grown-ups are back in the room because this is, it's just a better quality period of politics.

00:46:16.180 You go, well, the optics might be better.

00:46:18.340 I'd agree with that.

00:46:19.640 But the underlying principles of what's happening as we come up on the next election are arguably, maybe not just as bad, but they're not great, are they?

00:46:27.320 And there is something, I mean, I wasn't going to talk about politics as much on the next tour, basic bloke.

00:46:33.780 You see, British bloke decoded, basic bloke.

00:46:35.940 I'm trying to start a Marvel cinematic style, the bloke-a-sphere.

00:46:40.260 But I do think politics has become funny again.

00:46:42.580 I think it's a lot funnier than it was under Corbyn and Johnson because you've got Starmer who's this, just, he obviously has got the voice which is a bit ridiculous.

00:46:49.980 But also him and Sunak, they just look like, they just, Sunak just looks like he just won Junior Apprentice.

00:46:56.380 Yeah.

00:46:56.900 You know, just sitting there grinning.

00:46:58.300 Just as, he seems, I don't think it should be a problem to be small and be Prime Minister or to be young.

00:47:03.340 But I think being young and small, you know, does look like a child.

00:47:07.800 And he wears ankle swingers as well.

00:47:10.080 He wears ankle swingers.

00:47:11.060 If you can't take a man seriously with ankle swingers.

00:47:12.940 And he's so keen, you know, it's a bit, the keenness is a bit much.

00:47:16.080 And then Starmer who just looks like a sort of life insurance salesman that decided he wanted to be king.

00:47:21.480 And this, you know, two, it just feels like two bald men fighting over an ideological comb.

00:47:27.960 You know, like there's so little between them.

00:47:30.300 Now, the truth of the matter is, is that they both represent politics.

00:47:34.340 I'm centre-right.

00:47:35.220 So in terms of what they actually broadly will represent, it's not a million miles away from me.

00:47:39.840 But in terms of politics to get excited about, politics to motivate, politics to have a discussion about, it's absolutely bereft.

00:47:48.640 I mean, the idea that, you know, the way that the same group of people who were saying that you should never lie to win elections, you know, now seem to have forgotten that principle.

00:47:57.580 And they're just, every time Starmer junks another idea, it's like, well, it's just what you've got to say to win an election.

00:48:03.420 You go, oh, right, because before you were saying that that was basically fascism.

00:48:07.680 But the thing that I find really interesting about Labour is that you ask me a single Labour policy, and I'm someone who follows politics and is a politics nerd.

00:48:19.680 I don't think I'd be able to tell you one.

00:48:21.720 All that Labour have really done is just stood back and let the Conservatives make an arse of it.

00:48:27.020 That's really all they've done.

00:48:29.280 Yeah, and I think that you could understand that strategically up to a point.

00:48:33.340 It's almost been like Labour, because people forget that Tories were still ahead going into October 2021, and then the Owen Paterson thing happened.

00:48:41.520 Then party gate happened.

00:48:42.680 Each thing dropped and then Liz Truss happened.

00:48:45.220 So what Labour have in terms of a poll lead is effectively like a surprise inheritance from a mad uncle.

00:48:52.060 Their life was just going along.

00:48:53.800 It wasn't really that good.

00:48:54.700 And then there was suddenly a letter from a lawyer arrived.

00:48:57.120 You've won a 15 point lead in the polls for nothing you've done.

00:49:01.260 And that worries me, actually, because to get a poll lead, it means that then they've got this issue, which is we best just not fuck it up.

00:49:09.060 Let's not do anything and let's not say anything.

00:49:11.580 And that was fair for a time.

00:49:13.600 I do think a year out with the polls as they are, it's not unreasonable to ask, to say to Labour, what would you do?

00:49:20.880 And the answer increasingly seems to be roughly the same, but with less scandals.

00:49:24.900 Yeah, and also as well, there's that mental side of the, and I voted Labour, there's that mental side of the left.

00:49:32.620 And Starmer has done a pretty good job, actually, of kind of marginalising them.

00:49:38.200 But they're always there ready to come roaring back with their demented ideas and policies, which when you see things, you know, like the Tavistock, etc., etc., it really worries me.

00:49:48.960 Well, that's the question, I suppose, is like Labour have got these big institutions and you go, to what extent can one person at the centre, who doesn't yet have a mandate, isn't that popular, really, doesn't infuse or inspire anybody, to what extent can he be bigger than the NEC, you know, or the unions or the Labour Parliamentary Party?

00:50:08.440 All of those three things are still well to the, maybe not economically left of the country these days, but maybe culturally to the left.

00:50:14.720 So that is, I guess, if they're wanting a vote of somebody like me, you think, could you lend Labour your vote?

00:50:21.580 You go, who wouldn't be in power once?

00:50:24.220 I could absolutely see the situation where Labour win a landslide and then junk Starmer after 18 months, because they would think, right, it's enough time to get a new person in, enact the policies that we really want to do, and then win the next election based on, well, they wouldn't, but that's what they think would happen.

00:50:39.440 You know, I don't think that the, weirdly, the sort of main pledges of the Corbyn Manifesto are still a big guiding force for a lot of the left, and I think the British public probably agree with a lot of them, but not all at the same time.

00:50:54.300 The problem with the people on the hard left is like, let's fucking do it all, and you go, all right, maybe nationalise the trains, maybe no profit on water, let's do those now and see how it goes.

00:51:03.300 They're like, let's fucking do all of them. Let's take it all back into state control, and I think that, you know, Starmer's shrewd enough to see that the public weren't ready for that.

00:51:10.300 They still aren't ready for that, but that's my wonder is that, you know, obviously if you won a big election, there would be a mandate just for having been voted in.

00:51:18.340 I could just, if there's a way of putting a bet on that, that Labour would win an election and then junk Starmer, I'd put that bet on.

00:51:25.020 That's interesting, and one of the things as well is, I remember the first time we had you on, we talked about a working class Tory voter,

00:51:32.320 and I was sort of saying it's a bit unheard of, and you were like, actually, no, you know, Mundeo, man, and whatever.

00:51:37.780 And I think one of the things that has often attracted people from that background to voting for a Thatcher, let's say,

00:51:45.620 it's the idea of aspiration, it's the idea that we're going to build an economy in which if you put your shoulder to the wheel, you're going to do well.

00:51:54.360 Do you see that from either party on the table at the moment?

00:51:57.600 Well, if you look at what the Tories have done, right, going right back to 2010, you could make a sort of a conservative party promo or an election sort of leaflet based on a very left-wing agenda, right?

00:52:09.880 They could say that they've reduced the amount dramatically that you can get in terms of dividends, you know.

00:52:15.060 They actually, the first time I really heard about tax avoidance was in the early years of the coalition in 2010.

00:52:21.280 Remember the boycott Starbucks?

00:52:22.520 A lot of that came from Cameron and Osborne's rhetoric, you know, they weren't saying boycott, but it came from stuff that they were saying.

00:52:29.380 If you look at the way that they've changed the rules around the expenses that you can claim as second landlords, they've literally given people money through COVID, you know.

00:52:37.540 They've put up taxes.

00:52:39.080 You could honestly make, like, this really great, banging left-wing poster for the Conservative Party, but they're slightly embarrassed about that, you know.

00:52:47.400 In the same way that Labour would be slightly uneasy with some of the more right-wing things they've done.

00:52:53.360 So it's a really interesting thing where people talk about how right-wing, you know, it's always the worst right-wing government in history, according to the left.

00:53:01.160 And, you know, culturally, I guess, you know, with some of the stances on immigration, culturally...

00:53:06.040 But the thing is, stances, but they're not actually doing anything.

00:53:09.560 No, no, absolutely not.

00:53:10.080 Rhetoric.

00:53:10.580 Some of the rhetoric, you could argue.

00:53:12.280 What they've actually achieved on immigration, not really.

00:53:15.160 But if you talk about actual economics, nothing could be further from the truth.

00:53:19.300 Right.

00:53:19.560 And it just seems to me like we're in this place where whatever the problem is, there's only one answer, which is more government interference and everything.

00:53:27.620 Do you know what I mean?

00:53:28.360 And I know you're someone who sort of talks about the nanny state, and I don't even mean, like, the government's deciding how much tax to put in your Weetabix or whatever.

00:53:35.400 I mean, you know, when COVID comes along, let's do it.

00:53:39.060 When gas prices go up, the government...

00:53:40.760 It's sort of like every big problem.

00:53:42.900 You're never, ever...

00:53:43.880 No one is ever responsible for their own lives, really, because when you fall, the government's always there to, like, pick you up.

00:53:50.240 You're like a little child.

00:53:51.320 Do you know what I mean?

00:53:51.500 I've definitely noticed that since COVID, like, the answer is always more government spending.

00:53:56.600 You know, the idea that...

00:53:57.820 Even with pay rise settlements, really, you go, well, sometimes we just...

00:54:00.820 We get a bit poorer because of what's happening.

00:54:03.340 Right.

00:54:03.440 You know, sometimes we might get richer because of how the economy has been performing.

00:54:07.720 But the problem with COVID is it drew this sort of, like, year zero.

00:54:10.580 If anything bad happens, the government need to sort it out.

00:54:14.440 And, you know, the effects of that are obvious with inflation.

00:54:18.500 Everything that...

00:54:19.180 I mean, it's just so...

00:54:20.160 Everything that people said would cause inflation has caused inflation, right?

00:54:24.100 And then people say, well, let's have more of those things.

00:54:26.480 It's insane.

00:54:27.260 And it has made me lose quite a lot of respect for the Conservative Party that I feel like there were certain key principles during COVID that they had a real gut instinct on.

00:54:34.300 One of which was not shutting the schools, right?

00:54:36.720 I really think that they knew that was fucking terrible for the academic development of those children.

00:54:43.020 God knows how many families got divorced.

00:54:44.620 And they were told at the time.

00:54:46.020 They were told.

00:54:46.700 And then we find out latterly through some of these WhatsApps that part of it was because they wanted to avoid a fight with Nicola Sturgeon.

00:54:52.200 So, you know, I don't know.

00:54:53.440 I don't think I'm in a place to vote Labour.

00:54:55.120 It's very hard for me to consider that.

00:54:56.960 But when you talk about voting Conservatives, your party cat is one thing, cake, you know, hypocrisy.

00:55:02.600 That policy alone and the amount of people that it had an impact on, I find it very hard to get past that with the Conservatives.

00:55:08.340 They knew what the right thing to do was, but they shut the schools.

00:55:10.680 They're all right.

00:55:11.040 They shut the schools the first time.

00:55:13.080 Extraordinary circumstances.

00:55:14.040 But when it happened the second time, I was genuinely stunned and let down.

00:55:17.020 And look, also as well, and I can't believe I'm going to say these words, but I'm going to say them as a Remainer.

00:55:23.080 I don't think I can forgive Labour for Brexit for just the way that they ignored their heartland, their community, the people that they purported to represent.

00:55:34.220 And then you've got someone like Mick Lynch come along and they all, you know, they all start worshipping Mick Lynch and go, isn't he brilliant?

00:55:40.660 Hang on, mate.

00:55:41.160 He's a dyed-in-the-wool gammon Brexiteer.

00:55:43.560 So at what point did he stop being a racist and he become a face for the left that you all love?

00:55:49.140 Well, yeah.

00:55:49.700 I mean, yeah.

00:55:51.320 Is he gammon?

00:55:52.720 What is gammon?

00:55:53.540 Gammon is...

00:55:54.320 Well, white, working class, you know.

00:55:55.960 And a bit older.

00:55:56.760 Yeah, a bit older, shaved head, you know.

00:55:58.920 Pinkish skin.

00:55:59.840 Yeah, I'm part of gammon.

00:56:01.000 No, you've got hair, mate.

00:56:02.220 Yeah.

00:56:02.460 I've got hair, mate.

00:56:04.020 Dinosaur is one thing that I'm increasingly called.

00:56:07.280 But, I mean, going back to your point, I get, yeah, those were a bunch of criticism that were latterly applied to some people.

00:56:13.220 I think the thing with Mick Lynch, it was interesting for me because I liked the way the guy communicated.

00:56:18.000 Yeah, so do I.

00:56:18.840 He was a very effective union man.

00:56:20.760 My dad was a union man, reminded me of guys that I knew growing up.

00:56:24.320 But it was suddenly funny.

00:56:25.340 Like, oh, guys like Mick Lynch are back in fashion, but if you think this.

00:56:29.000 And then it's like, but what about what Mick thinks about Brexit?

00:56:32.180 They're like, you know, we all have our blind spots.

00:56:34.160 Yeah.

00:56:34.280 They didn't want to talk about that.

00:56:37.200 But a lot of what he said about Brexit was, you know, incredibly valid.

00:56:41.360 I think when it comes to Labour's stance on Brexit, they've latterly realised, you know, that they, I mean, Starmer was the architect of it.

00:56:49.400 That's the irony.

00:56:50.220 And a lot of people on the hard left know this, right?

00:56:52.000 I'm not telling them anything they don't know.

00:56:53.860 He came up with these sort of semantic straitjacket, which was like, we've got the six tests of Brexit.

00:56:58.960 But if it delivers all this, then we'll support it.

00:57:00.700 And one of them was like the reintroductions of unicorns into the world.

00:57:04.280 There was a whole bunch of things that weren't like sort of possible.

00:57:07.740 So it's hard to take with Starmer when you go, you've literally just done like a complete flip.

00:57:13.260 And it's strange because I now have a bit of empathy for the Corbynista supporters because it's just so, it's so rich coming from him who literally led the party towards a position of a second referendum where Remain was an option, which was effectively, you know, to subvert.

00:57:26.740 You could absolutely argue that Brexit was the wrong thing.

00:57:29.080 But I just think that that weird period where people thought that people could vote for a thing and that the thing might not happen without even being tried.

00:57:38.360 That seems like a strange time now.

00:57:40.420 But Starmer was a part of that.

00:57:42.760 But the other side of it is that the Tories ever since, you know, Brexit just seems to become more European.

00:57:48.320 That's the, you know, in terms of regulation and stuff, it was, they were sort of sold Singapore on sea and it's now, what, Brussels on the Thames?

00:57:57.660 It's what, you know, so, yeah.

00:57:59.740 I mean, I think politically, if you come to the next tour, it's very much a plague on both their houses.

00:58:04.420 Yeah.

00:58:04.580 Well, that is very apt for the moment that we're in, Geoff.

00:58:07.980 And the final thing before we ask you our last question and move on to locals where we're continuing the conversation.

00:58:15.420 What do you want to happen in the next election?

00:58:17.400 Because some people would say, well, look, the Conservative Party is not doing what it's supposed to be doing.

00:58:22.300 They need a kicking so that they actually go away and rethink things.

00:58:26.600 Yeah, possibly.

00:58:27.800 I mean, I think the five years of Labour, if it's the kind of Labour that Starmer is suggesting, it might not be too bad.

00:58:34.860 If it kind of flips early in the life of the government, there's a lot of damage that could be done in a short space of time.

00:58:42.460 I think that, you know, I am sort of, I'm not tribally Conservative, but I have voted Conservative since 2010.

00:58:50.120 But like a lot of people, I've drifted away from that.

00:58:52.880 You know, the honest answer, and this is not, you know, for somebody that's invested in politics, is that I honestly don't care that much who gets in because I don't think it'll be, you know, that different.

00:59:02.140 And I do wonder as well, if actually, just from a social media point of view, it would be good to have five years of Labour.

00:59:08.460 So just for those people that have operated with complete hypothetical moral certainty for the last 13 years, that everything they voted for, if that had happened, everything would have been fine.

00:59:16.340 They get to sort of experience the sort of the burden of success, which is that you get held accountable for what you voted for.

00:59:24.260 Because it's really interesting at the moment where, you know, it's particularly at the time where the centre is to sort of back in charge is that, and there's a sort of veneration of the John Major types in the new Labour years.

00:59:34.260 People sort of forget the stuff that happened under new Labour.

00:59:36.440 Very early into the life of the government, there was interviews about cash for questions.

00:59:40.700 You know, there were people quitting, there was Mandelson, there was Iraq, you know, there was all this stuff that's way fucking bigger in some respects than anything that's happened in the last few years.

00:59:50.320 So I think that Labour will find it hard once they get in, because you've never had more time of politicians in front, more news outlets, more people.

00:59:58.380 Every time you put a minister in front of a camera, that's a fuck up waiting to happen, right?

01:00:02.240 So when we were kids, it was news at 10 and news at 6.

01:00:04.780 Now it's all day long, you've always got people out there just ready with that big size knife to put your foot into it.

01:00:11.200 In terms of leaks now, you've got more cameras, you've got more WhatsApp groups, more leaks.

01:00:15.940 So I think the idea is that Labour will, well, they'll just do it roughly the same, but their conduct will be better.

01:00:21.260 I think they might run a tight ship initially, but it's very hard to run a stable government, you know, in this kind of media age.

01:00:27.360 So I would think that, you know, sort of like mischievously, there's a part of me that one wants to see that happen to remind people that bad conduct in government can be non-binary.

01:00:38.660 And also, just on a basic level, I'd love to see, you know, all these accounts that all they do all day is go, grr, the Tories, grr, the Tories.

01:00:45.520 I hate this fucking government.

01:00:47.320 What are you going to tweet about now?

01:00:49.340 Because I'm sure that they would say, oh, we'll hold Labour's feet to the flames.

01:00:53.880 I reckon they'll do that for about a month, and then it'll be back to photos of their lunch.

01:00:57.620 Yeah, I'm sure.

01:00:58.640 And lovely to hear you talk about your colleagues in the comedy industry.

01:01:02.500 You know, actually, in that instance, I was thinking of those celebrities that have suddenly, yeah, yeah, late in life gone, fuck, no one's listening to me anymore.

01:01:10.520 Oh, you know who is shit?

01:01:11.720 The Tories.

01:01:12.860 5,000 likes.

01:01:13.820 Good luck, Femi.

01:01:16.440 Jeff, it's great to have you back on the show.

01:01:18.320 We're going to continue the conversation on Locals, where our audience have already submitted a bunch of questions for you.

01:01:24.320 But we always aren't in the same last question.

01:01:26.200 Which is, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?

01:01:29.920 I suppose, all right.

01:01:34.540 Right, we always talk about how bad social media is and what a polluting effect that it's had on our discourse.

01:01:40.420 I think that in years to come, we'll reflect on how rolling news was actually a bigger thing.

01:01:45.480 Because at that point, there was a time when the news was a thing that happened maybe three times a day.

01:01:49.680 Once in the morning, once at lunchtime, early evening, late at night.

01:01:53.200 The feel that there always has to be a story is really polluting.

01:01:58.220 And actually, the news discussion on social media is just an extension of that principle.

01:02:02.540 There's always a story.

01:02:03.500 There's always a trend.

01:02:05.020 You know, you never get like, nothing's trending today.

01:02:07.420 Nothing's big.

01:02:07.980 And so I think that rolling news has seeded that idea.

01:02:13.140 And, you know, so then you have to almost drag things into the slipstream of big news that wouldn't have otherwise been worthy.

01:02:19.380 I mean, the stuff that gets called breaking news now.

01:02:22.460 When I was a kid, it was like literally there had to be a coup.

01:02:25.620 You know what I mean?

01:02:26.460 There had to be a coup.

01:02:27.580 And even if it was a bloodless coup, they go, well, maybe not today, you know?

01:02:31.040 And depending on the geography, mate.

01:02:32.860 Like south of Sudan, no one gives a shit.

01:02:34.840 Yeah, yeah.

01:02:35.280 I mean, there's obviously a proximity.

01:02:36.920 Yeah, exactly.

01:02:37.500 And then for some reason, America.

01:02:39.820 But, yeah, I think that, you know, in history books, when they look forward, they'll probably think that rolling news was really a bigger deal in some respects.

01:02:50.280 And also, just finally, more of a frivolous note, is the true crime genre.

01:02:54.760 I think the amount of money that's being made about murders.

01:02:57.620 I mean, birds love all that.

01:02:58.840 Birds love that.

01:02:59.420 Oh, they fucking do.

01:03:01.740 I just find it genuinely weird, the amount of money that's made out of murder.

01:03:05.680 Out of all the crimes, right, it's the worst.

01:03:07.580 If you ask me, would I rather be sexually assaulted or killed, I'd probably take my chances with the sexual assault.

01:03:12.560 And, yeah, Murder on the Orient Express, A Time to Kill.

01:03:15.880 Look at all the titles.

01:03:16.860 If you just Google film with the word murder or kill in, I don't understand why.

01:03:21.400 Women love it, mate.

01:03:22.420 They do.

01:03:22.840 Our CEO here, Laura.

01:03:24.200 Do they?

01:03:24.560 Yeah, oh, absolutely.

01:03:25.580 Yeah, they love it.

01:03:25.600 She's got a channel called Unfathomable Crimes.

01:03:27.900 She just bangs on about unsolved murders.

01:03:30.300 And women love it.

01:03:31.280 They do.

01:03:31.560 They absolutely love a psychopath.

01:03:33.320 Okay, so maybe that's my next book.

01:03:35.260 They fucking love a psychopath.

01:03:36.460 Women absolutely love a psychopath.

01:03:38.080 They do.

01:03:38.540 Yeah, they do, mate.

01:03:39.140 They do.

01:03:39.460 They genuinely do.

01:03:41.080 I think it's a thing of, like, women want to find a bloke who is a psychopath, but not with them.

01:03:46.740 Yeah.

01:03:47.080 I can change him.

01:03:48.120 Yeah.

01:03:48.500 Yeah.

01:03:49.000 Ted Bundy.

01:03:49.720 If he'd been with me.

01:03:51.100 Exactly.

01:03:52.120 They love it.

01:03:53.080 They love it.

01:03:53.680 There we go.

01:03:54.100 I could change him, but about, that'll be, if there's any women that want to watch it,

01:03:59.180 that's a great, a great podcast idea.

01:04:01.000 I could change him, where you take the worst serial killers in history, and three women

01:04:04.540 put forward views of how they could have made him a different person in the 40s.

01:04:08.420 I could have tamed Fred West.

01:04:09.920 I could have tamed Fred West.

01:04:11.460 Wasn't that Rose West's biography?

01:04:13.140 Yeah.

01:04:13.720 Ended dark.

01:04:14.540 Anyway.

01:04:15.440 Perfect.

01:04:15.960 Well, come over onto Locals, but before you do, make sure you buy the book, The British Bloke

01:04:20.680 Decoded, and, of course, Basic Bloke is the tour.

01:04:23.540 Geoff will be in Edinburgh during the month of August and going on tour around the rest of

01:04:27.880 the country from September onwards.

01:04:29.320 Make sure you do that.

01:04:30.040 Follow us over to Locals, where we continue the conversation.

01:04:34.000 What's the biggest animal you think you can kill with your bare hands if you had to?

TRIGGERnometry - August 16, 2023

＂What Exactly Is A British Bloke？＂ with Geoff Norcott

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