BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 306 - This is America

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

This week Phil & Pierre breakdown their hot takes on Jim from The Office, Phil finishes reviews his most recent read, Yellowface and of course correspondence! Enjoy and KOJI xPierre's Melbourne Comedy Festival 15% off discount code is: KOJIMELBPatreons your PRE-SALE and DISCOUNTED tickets to BUDPOD LIVE are up now on your Patreon feed!Catch Pierre's show 'Must We?' at the Soho Theatre in March 2025! Tickets available now hereWatch Phil's brand new Netflix special 'Wang In There Baby' now!We have brand new BudPod MERCH!!Patreons get 20% discount on all merch!https://visualanticsapparel.com/collections/budpod-podcast Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today, starting at $19 per month

at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. It's Bud Pod 306. 306, three old dicks. There are three old dicks in this room right now. And, but I wouldn't trade these dicks for the world. Three old dicks.

That should be the podcast. That would be the, a funnier way of like, you know, in a, in a, in a movie where, uh, often it's a British film where like a bunch of pensioners do a heist or something. Oh, yuck. Yeah. And it's like, would it be called one last job or retirement fund? Grave robbers. Grave robbers. Grave robbers, yep.

Because they nearly died. Grave. I did a recording of them. Pension pals. Yeah, and that's what they'd say. What are three old dicks like us thinking about robbing a bank for? Something like that.

Yeah, exactly, yeah. Three old dicks. But first, a copper. Oh yes, please. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Three old dicks. But first a cuppa. Oh yes, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Distract the guard with a big plate of biscuits. This is what makes me sick is how viable this idea is. Oh man, yeah.

You make millions. People are writing hurried notes. Yeah. Yes, more? You say horrid hurried. I said hurried, but I did say it in a weird way. Yeah, I think your mind was also thought horrid. Hurried, horrid notes.

I'm just an old dick. You're just an old dick trying your best. We were just discussing how attractive everyone on US media is. Yeah, we're talking about comedy in the UK and comedy on America. You have to either be Midwest fat, John Goodman and Rosie O'Donnell or LA hot. Yeah, but here you stay a fucking troll your whole life and you can live a good life as a fucking bridge troll and that's actually why I love the UK in a way. There's an honesty to us. You can be a fucking... you can just be a lump. Yeah. You can be a lump with hairs on the on the top. Yeah.

That's how we know that's the head, but otherwise we don't know. But if you're funny, you can still live a good life. You do some after-dinner speaking. Or they just say, look, this is the guy that's best at painting. Yeah, right. This is the lady who's the best choreographer of ballet. This is the poet laureate. This is just what people's brains are like. And the shell is of no interest to us.

Whereas in America, it seems to be, who is the most talented, hot person? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have the pool of applicants for singer. And they're all hot. We haven't even heard them sing. No, no, no. These are the applicants.

Of everyone who applied, here are the hot ones. Let us now commence assessing how good anyone is. At music. At music. Yeah. Or whatever it is we're doing today. Yeah. Whereas we're like.

Here at Find Hot People Academy. Whereas we're like- Here at Find Hot People Academy. Whereas the UK will go, hey Ed Sheeran, here's a trillion pounds. Forever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ricky Gervais. Yeah. He's come up with a TV show idea.

Obviously we'll let him be the main character. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Steve Carell is an astonishingly handsome man. I didn't notice until recently. He's fucking stacked, Steve Carell. You think, oh, it's Michael Scott. He's like a dweeb, right? And I saw him standing, you know,

footage of him next to normal people. He's gorgeous. Yeah. You just forget. Who's the office? Actually, the US office. Maybe some of the Britishness rubbed off because they do have some odd people.

Like I mean, Dwight Trute is an odd looking man. Sure. Yeah. Rainn Wilson. Rainn Wilson. He's got an unusual head on him. Yeah. But that's only for the character who everyone is supposed to sort of abhor.

Yeah. And they even have to have the handsome, what's his face? Prokowski on it. That's his name, not Prokowski. John Krasinski. Krasinski. Yeah, one of those US cop names. Yeah.

Kropowski, get in here. And he's sort of handsome in that Pixar kind of way. He was a jock at school. Awful. He was at the same high school as BJ Novak. Oh, yes. The intern guy. Ah, yeah.

BJ Novak was saying, like, he was like the star of the basketball team. He's like... Horrible. And they're having to go, uh, who's this shredded six foot four handsome loser who works here in the office? And you go, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was sort of awkward and... Oh, I think, I think a lot of gym from the American offices sort of charm and we accepted it as charm at the time. At the time, yeah.

You look back and go, he's that character responsible for a lot of toxic beta masculinity. He's a bad man. He's a terrible, horrible man. You rewatch it, you just, he's so unlikable. He bullies a clearly autistic co-worker every day. I'm trying to write an article about this, about not just Dwight, but like how many people in media are like definitely autistic, but they just don't say it because it would ruin the spell. The spell. It would be like, oh, well now I feel bad about all those pranks. And it's like,

yeah, but it was the same. You just can't say anything. Yeah. Yeah. And he's, he's a serial womanizer who plays it off as sort of a cutesy romance. There's one scene where he's like emailing, he's like emailing, he can't find, he plucks up the courage, the six foot handsome courage to ask out a normal lady. A normal lady. Who works at an office as well. He's known for years. He figures it out.

And he's like, uh, yeah, so, uh, that's, you know, he leaves a voice message and yeah. So, uh, just wondering if you wanted to get a drink and well, wow, I guess, I guess that's it. So yeah, you just let me know and I am talking too much now. Okay, this is starting to get a little awkward. Okay, well, bye bye. And you're watching it now like, you have created so much ugliness in this. The men who've aped to this since then, who have bothered women like with this, with this shtick since then and have thought they were on the good side because Jim was the good guy.

Because he's created, yeah, you're watching it with a meta awareness of its place in history. Yeah. Like you're watching this terrible egg hatch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Or so you're looking at Pompeii and you're trying to go, run away from the volcano, run! And they're going, the volcano's good, we worship the volcano. So many people watched that and thought, I'll do this. Yeah.

It's okay to be like that actually. I won't figure out a better way of communicating, because this wave's charming. That's right. You're going to know it's charming from John Krasinski, as is almost anything. I will say actually, I'll be on the record as saying John Krasinski in the American office has done more damage to the world, has resulted in more toxic masculinity than all action movies and all violent video games. Ever. Right? I like this.

Yeah. Yeah, I like this. Because it's created what a wave of sort of snarky. Snarky beta male toxicity, which is the most dangerous toxicity because it kind of goes under the radar, right? It slips under the radar. That's like carbon monoxide. Silent killer. Yeah, that's right. That's true because at least- The big alpha toxicity you see coming from a mile away.

Yeah. Because someone bursts into your office dressed like Pitbull and what? Pulls a gun. Like it doesn't happen, it doesn't work. It doesn't exist in that sense. Because if you watch Top Gun, you don't ever really think, oh, I'm going to fly my jet to work tomorrow. Yeah, right. Now that I've seen this example, I'm going to wear

aviators all day indoors and people will keep asking me why I'm doing it and I'll have to go, oh, nothing. Yeah. The worst is going to happen. Yeah. You're going to start wearing sunglasses, call your male coworkers nicknames they don't understand and grow a mustache. That's about it. Maybe take up volleyball. Yeah. And that will only, like you'll learn after about a day. Yeah. That's not a way to live your life. Whereas you're right. The example of Jim in the office is much more emulatable.

You can copy that. You can be like that for the rest of your life. And it won't be extreme enough for people will just go, I guess that's what that guy's like. Whereas you can't be like Maverick. It doesn't exist. There's no outlet. And those guys are always the real psychos. Yeah. The people who, uh, the people who are, are desperate to, I've known a few real life

Jim from American offices and they are psychopaths, psychopaths, without a doubt psychopath. I think I know at least one of the ones. I think we know, we have a common one we know. We have a common one we know. Yeah, at least one common one. It's people who are desperate to be seen to be shy. Yes. It's whatever the male version of, don't look at me. It started with fucking sign man in love actually.

Oh yuck. That was the birth. And we look quite pretty actually. Don't tell them it's, tell them it's a choir. Lie to your husband. Lie to your husband. Tell them it's a choir. I love you 16 year old girl.

I've brought a recording of a choir just to back up this creepy fucking mad lie. Which you'll have to keep for the rest of your married life. Yes. You're 16 and you're married to a man you hope forever and you have to keep this lie from him forever. Here's a horrifying secret from me an equally old man. Yeah, holding up signs with a sad face on.

And then he walks off and he says to himself, enough, enough now. As if that's heroic. He should have said that before the fucking sign thing. You should have said enough now halfway through making that video. You should have said enough now. Halfway through just zooming in constantly on like her face and bum and things in that mad video. He should have gone, okay, enough.

I need to actually, I'm a videographer. I need to actually make this video. This is insane. She's so young. I don't even want people to find this footage on my hard drive. And it looks like I'm filming a child, a child bride, okay? This footage should be on Liveleak. Illegal child wedding uncovered.

Panorama investigates. That's why he's focusing on her so much. He needs to be identifiable to the fucking FBI. And then if you didn't say at that point enough, enough, I would say three Manila cards into his purchase of paper chase. I would have gone, no, enough actually. Half an hour into writing all the letters with a ruler in pencil first so that you don't run out of space as you just write them freehand with a permanent marker.

Yeah. I said enough. This is fucking mad what I'm doing. I guess cost, some cost fallacy must have come into effect at some point for him. Yes. He must have thought. Writing the signs of Keira Knightley. If I don't...

I've got the cards now. If I don't do this now, I don't know where to put whatever this energy is. It's too, it's too insane and creepy to just turn it to model making. I can't take this energy and make a series of perfectly painted Spitfires out of it. I, I all become very interested in shot put. I have to do this psychotic thing. Maybe it seemed normal because he is good friends with a guy who did just marry a kid. Right. Yeah.

So he's something that is normalized in his circle. In his circle, you know, you can go try and steal the eerily young bride of your creepo friend, because it's just, you know, these are the kind of people you're friends with. Well anyway, Jim from the office took that energy and ran with it, I would say. The sensitive guy energy. Yeah, and it created a generation of terrifying men. Was Top Gun the most recent, was Top Gun the recent one?

Which one, Maverick or the first? The recent one. Oh one, Maverick? Maverick. Was that such a hit because it was people were going, oh yeah, you can have like a leading man who is just like, yep, I'm pretty great, but I don't make a big thing out of it, but I am pretty clear on it. Oh yeah, out and out masculinity. Just out and out, yes. And the gal he gets with is his age and not a 16 year old. Well, his age in the movie at least. Oh, obviously not in real life. How old is Jennifer Connolly? Isn't it?

Isn't she like 20 years younger than him? Something like that. Cause Tom Cruise is what? 65? Oh shit. Okay. Maybe I'm right. Jennifer Connolly is 54. Jennifer Connolly is 54 Jennifer Connolly. Oh good for her. God damn. And Tom Cruise is yeah he must be 60 in it. 62. 62. That's close. Wow that's closer than I thought. They both look horrifyingly good. And she did it without sort of secret Scientology technology. That's it. Yeah. That's it. Even more impressive. Tom Cruise at 62 should just be going out with like the fucking Air Force cafeteria's dinner lady. Yeah. All right, Tom.

Just like a big old grandma. Serving up all the lasagna to all the fight pilots. Evening, ma'am. Yeah. But that maybe that's why it made such a splash because people just remembered that not every male hero has to be either Dwayne The Rock Johnson doing more of his acting or, oh, if it's okay, I, Josh Weed and fucking lame. So that just happened. Oh! Yuck! Ah! I'm so glad that shit's over, man.

Mean what you say. I mean, this is the autist in me talking. Okay, that went well. Ah! Death for a thousand years. Ah! He's behind me, isn't he? Ah!

Ah! And I have to admit, you know, when I first saw Avengers Assemble, I was like, this is hilarious. What? They've put some ironic humor in the mouths of these otherwise quite cardboard comic book characters? Great. And they say someone managed to maintain

the jeopardy of the drama without losing the lightness or the humor. Wow. What a master we have. And now, oh my God, now it's like, yeah, so that was weird. And you just want to pull your dick off, your old dick, and put it off and put it in the safe. Was it weird? You fought aliens that come out of a portal about 10 times now. So many times. Aren't you bored? Is nothing weird to you? Surely nothing can be weird to you. Yeah.

Who else is responsible for this kind of wetness? Krasinski is quite a good scapegoat, but there's much more recent ones, isn't it? For being a sort of soaking wet oddball. But like, but the thing isn't our problem with this ultimately that it's because it's a lie. What do you mean? If Dwight was shy, you'd say, well, yeah, you're an absolute weirdo. And everyone in your office thinks you're bizarre because of your obsessions. You wear the same thing every day. And the same thing you wear every day is a brown and yellow suit. You look like vomit and poo and wee. So yeah, you should be quite shy, I imagine. Whereas isn't the problem that it's a lie where it's someone who is actually just fine. Oh, I see. Yeah. And they're sort of creating this like, it's almost like, like a

geisha. Like, like giggling from behind your fan, you know. It's like, you're a prostitute. You're a sex worker. You're not shy. That's the Jim character. Yeah. Yeah, right. Isn't that what makes it slightly unsettling?

Yeah. Because it's not true. Because if someone really was shy and giggling behind their fan, you'd go, oh, well, that's just how they are. And I can have my opinion on it, but at least it's real. Okay, yeah. Whereas, are we saying that when we rewatch the office, we go, anyone confident enough to bully their own boss and about half their colleagues

and just constantly lied to them. His, his has to be confident enough to go out with anyone. We certainly asked them. Yeah. He's setting up like home alone level fucking pranks. Some of which are quite dangerous. You can't ask out someone who is obviously obsessed with it. It's very strange. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think of other culprits in this cultural crime. Um, hmm. No, that's, hmm.

Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at ZenS podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. If the New Year's resolution you made to read more books

is not quite panning out, don't sweat it. I've got you covered. I'm Matea Roach, and my new podcast, Bookends, is all about discovering great books and getting to know the writers behind them. Like Brian Leo Malley, whose personal connection to Toronto helped him create the icon, Scott Pilgrim. Bookends with Matea Roach is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. I guess love online culture. Kinda kept it going. Yeah. Phone naivety. Online kind of... Well, there's a great, you know, the Instagram account,

beameappsoftboy, that has a lot of this kind of thing. Like, sorry, I can't go out with you, I've got to write my poems, whatever the fuck. That kind of message. I mean, I've made that up, but you know, you get the idea. It does all seem to be over though, it does feel like this real cultural turning point. Well now it's gonna, like, it seems like we're unable to choose between, you have to either be Jim from the office or like a Rogan lunatic.

We can't seem to find a kind of... I disagree. I think we are all actually settling on a middle ground. Do you think? I think so. I feel like... Or are we just at a reasonable circle of people? I think the mood shift has really happened. And I mean, so.

But are we not in the middle? Because we're on our way back to like a kind of mad 1980s thing where it's like, everyone needs to be an enormous bodybuilder. You know? Right, maybe. And we're just on the journey. And like we're just happened to be in the midpoint away from that towards the muscle future

Future of muscles, I mean already exist there already are the there are you subcultures never disappear It's just that they switch from the focus and the power and their power cultures can be so yeah the last ten years the subculture of the underdog and Yeah, was powerful and now the opposite is the case and Trump's reelection has clarified that. Well, as we learned from, we learn over and over again from Adam Curtis, Phil. It wasn't about money. It was about power.

I just finished, yesterday finished RF Kwong's book, Yellow Face. Yes. Oh yeah. Came out two years ago. And you said that you were reading it and unsure whether it was hero or anti-hero or what. Yeah. So the protagonist June, she's there when her beautiful, successful Chinese American author friend Athena dies, chokes on some pancake. And she steals her manuscript for an unpublished work. So it's like when Alan Partridge, the guy dies of the heart attack and Alan Partridge fakes his signature on the commissioning form for his series.

Yeah, yeah. It's similar to that. So she steals his manuscript that's about Chinese laborers in World War One, the untold story of Chinese laborers in World War One. And June finishes it and it's a huge hit, but she keeps a secret that she stole the original idea from a dead kind of friend, friend of me. And she's portrayed as quite racially insensitive about East Asians June and she's very hard to people who try and rebuff her. There's a scene where a publisher has a younger member of staff who's quite insistent on a sensitivity reader for this book before it comes out and she says no. And they, because the book is so successful,

has so many pre-sales, they just pushed this junior staff member away. And the whole time I was just going, fucking yeah, June, get it. Do it, June, fuck these complaining little dweebs. Get your bag. And she's like, she's ripping off a Chinese American. I'm like, get it, June, fuck her, she's dead.

Get your bag. And the whole way through, I wasn't sure if June is meant to be the bad guy. Cause I was like, I was so inside, it's like, come on, do it, do it, do it, do it. Even though June is, you said that she's insensitive to Asians. She's very nice. She doesn't, I don't know, say anything racist, but she's very soft, or very often patronizing and right. Okay. And like there's a quite a neat little bit but she's very often patronising. And like there's quite a neat little bit where she's talking about people that could be in the movie of a book and she says, you know, it could be Scarlett Johansson or that girl from Crazy Rich Asians. You know, she knows Scarlett Johansson name, she just hasn't bothered to learn. I mean, I'm kind of proving a point

here. But the Johansson thing must be a reference to Scarlett Johansson... Woo. I mean, I'm kind of proving a point here. But the Johansson thing must be a reference to Scarlett Johansson playing that. Oh, no, that's a reference. In that point, it is a different actor that she's talking about. Constance Wu. Constance Wu. Okay. So she doesn't remember Constance Wu's name, but she remembers this white actor's name, which I can't recall it this way. Okay. So things like that. Things like that. And these like little indications that she just saw.

Microaggressions? Yeah, exactly. Okay, so things like that. Things like that and these like little indications that she just saw. Micrographs? Yeah, exactly. But the rest of the publishing world she depicts are so fucking annoying and wet and morally corrupt in my view. I'm just like cheering Jun on to win the whole way. I'm like, she's my favorite bastard in this. Everyone's a bastard.

Jun's my bastard. There's like, she's my favorite bastard in this. Everyone's a bastard. June's my bastard. There's like succession. You just pick a villain. Exactly. Yeah. And I was behind June the whole way. But what's interesting about it is so much of it is set on Twitter, which is now, which is actually very annoying to read. For us who've lived professionally on Twitter, it is quite thrilling because you totally understand the dynamic that she's talking about. But what's interesting is this book came out two years ago and it being completely about

Twitter now dates it so, so much. It feels like a different world. A big Bebo based novel. Yeah, exactly. It honestly feels like that. Yeah, it's like my misadventures on my space. What are you talking about? I'm not reading this.

The idea that any of this would happen now is completely for the birds. And to the point that I wonder if, I'm sure they got a movie deal, but I wonder if no movie is happening anymore because the whole premise doesn't work. Unless they come up with a fictional social media platform. Now that you've finished it, do you have any better idea of whether or not you're supposed to like her or not? I think she... Thing is, if you read this in 2021, you'd be like, June is obviously the worst person

ever conceived of in literature. And now you're like, ah, June is quite an interesting flawed character. She's, you know, she's made mistakes, but the people around her haven't been great. They've got their own agendas. And I think I have to give RFKwang some credit here. I'm sure ambiguity is intended, but I'm also sure that is a lot more ambiguous now than when it was originally written and published. It's so interesting.

Yeah. All that stuff's going to be so dated. It's not how much media is going to be completely fucking intolerable to go through in 20 years. Yeah. I mean, thankfully there hasn't been a lot about. Because something like succession will survive because there's little bits of social media in it, but you don't have to sit through it. It's people in rooms talking. It's still action like a play. but you don't have to sit through it. It's people in rooms talking. It's still action, like a play.

Although I would say the idea that Kendall Roy would have to prostrate himself in front of the public is dated now. The idea of him performing allyship. Although it might make him seem even weaker because now you could still do that, but it will be more obvious to a viewer that he doesn't need to, but it shows that in this character he wants to. Right. Because there's a version in which he's just doing it to be strategic and doesn't mean it. But the thing is, he does really want them to think he's cool.

Yeah. And that is his floor. You know, he does really want the people with little mustaches and nose rings to like him, even though they call him Hitler. Right. That day where the lady goes, what did I let you invest and I'm what Mrs. Hitler? Right. And he's just like crushed because he brought his nice new shoes to the meeting. You know? Yeah. Yeah. But I actually read it reading his book. I was like, I was relieved that this shit isn't happening anymore because like it was so fucking annoying. Wasn't it? That period of Twitter's power. It was really powerful. And I think it's now powerful in a different way. Well, it was, it used to be the weapon of the far left and now it's the weapon of the far right.

Well, people are always going like Elon Musk has actually lost loads of money on Twitter. And you go, yeah, he's such an idiot. He just bought a perfect radicalizing propaganda machine that can massively influence the president of the world. How stupid. They go, yeah, his company technically lost a shmush million dollars on the shmush. And you go, yeah, he can just wind up the company. He will never not be a billionaire. Yeah, right, this man. He can, he can just wind up the company.

He will never not be a billionaire. Yeah, right, right, right. Just he can't. That's the thing is that we there's a system in which he just can't really lose. He can do better or worse, but you couldn't delete him. No, it's too big. No, you can never totally delete Twitter. Unfortunately, you'll just keep limping on. I should also say thank you and Koji to all the PodBuds who came to my recordings last night as we record this. Last night I was recording in Bristol at the Wardrobe Theatre, two shows, one special. It was Why Are You Laughing, the 2023 friend show. It's hard to remember which. And thank you as well too. Oh God,

I need to get the name right. My memory is a pile of cheese. Judith, who was driving from Cardiff to see the 5pm recording in Bristol and there was a big accident and there was fucking it down with rain and they still made it for the 7pm one. Wow. That's dedication. Gosh. Thank you very much guys and yeah, Koji, some of you guys Koji'd me on the way out which is very nice and yes, I have no idea when that will come out but probably in months

and months. So, thank you very much for coming. I know. What will it be out on? I don't know. Oh, I just recorded it. Yeah, sure. Right. Just, you know, to have it to lock it in just to have it just to have then you have it. And then you have it and then you have it arrested development. Yeah. Yeah. And then we have it. Yes. And also remember my paperback is available for

preorder. It's coming out in about a month. The 20-something of March, whatever. Just if you want to pre-order it, it's paperback so you can bend it and flop it around and things. You will have just missed a 25% offer from Waterstones. Oh, fuck! I'm afraid. And that's what you get for not following me on Instagram and looking at my little videos. Okay, because I did quite a fun run with this all. I thought it was funny. Thank you. And I wanted to say just for those who haven't seen it,

Pierre says this is this used to be the only way to get 25% off my book and you're sawing a quarter of a book and I'm pretty sure you got it bang on a quarter of the book. Thank you. Someone in the comments was like that looks like a third and I was like don't... No it wasn't a third. It was not. Thank you. It looked like a quarter. Thank you. a quarter to me. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Did you eyeball it or did you get a ruler out? I eyeballed it. Pretty good. Yes. Yes.

Thank you. Enough of this cancel culture. Thank you. Speaking of eyeballs, let's do some correspondence. Ah. eyeballs let's do some correspondence correspondence we have heard from Michael Michael do I spikle a little correspondence? Michael. More as a development. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael, Michael, Michael. It's entitled Rest Stop Tat. Ooh, rest stop. That's an American thing, isn't it? I guess, I guess services would be our equivalent. Service stations, yeah. Service station. Dear Philip the Tank and Pierre out the windshield. Oh, we're on a road trip. Yeah.

A little road trip correspondent. Driving across Route 66. Is that a thing? That's right, yeah. There you go. I think it's actually not that fun anymore. No, I imagine it's covered in tat from being a thing. Everything is ruined by its own success.

Thought you characters might like to see what kind of nonsense is available for sale alongside the bagged hard boiled eggs. And gigantic mountain dews. This is America. Have you seen those big bags of hard boiled eggs? I need to look this up. Google it. It doesn't look nice. Bagged hard boiled eggs. There is a lot of, I had some friends in the army who would tell me that if you're going

on like a long exercise in the military, they would deliberately eat like that so that they didn't shit the whole time. It's like not shit. You know what I mean? Hard boiled eggs keep you from shitting. Eggs are a known constipator. Are they? Yeah.

Gosh, they ain't even gonna do. Yeah, this is horrible. It looks like a sack. It looks like an alien sack of eggs. It looks like something you should find hanging from the ceiling of the airlock. Because of some sort of space bug. That's right, yeah, it's horrible.

Are they in like brine? A clutch. A clutch. Can I see? Are they like floating in in gloop like mozzarella? Well, they come in different. The most tasteful are sort of have a cover, have, you know, are opaque. Yes. It's design on the pack.

They hide the visual egg shame. But some less so. So it's got like a tart and half top and then the bottom a little tease of the eggs. Oh God. They must be in liquid. Oh here's like the Amazon basics looking no label just clear plastic bag. Jesus Christ. Very upsetting.

Really upsetting. Really upsetting. I imagine that whatever liquid they're in, it has its own thickness. Oh yeah. It's not just water. No, no, no. It's gone a little cloudy. It's the kind of liquid that astronauts climb out of in interstellar, in those pods. Yeah, that kind of space smegma. Which is gloop that kind of keeps the body alive. It's got things in it,

nutrients. Anyway, bagged hard boiled eggs and gigantic mountain dews at a joint gas station slash IHOP. International house of pancakes. Yes. I don't know if they have branches outside the US. This is ironic, isn't it? The sounds of American house of pancakes, but we won't go down that road. A hop. A hop. Maga a hop. I guess it is, as long as they serve an international selection of pancakes, they can keep the name. Yes. Okay. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What nationality of pancakes are they? American, Belgian waffles. Scotch. Scotch pancakes, those little ones.

Okay, is there French pancakes? Crabs. Crabs? Oh, we're on four already. Japanese have those thick fluffy pancakes, that's five. Yes, those ones that looks like they're from a sort of anime. That's right, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ghibli ass, Studio Ghibli ass pancakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then like the Ethiopian food has got this kind of- Oh, the savory, the big- Those big tearing ones. You put the curries on, yeah. That's nice. That's gotta count.

She had a six already. Somehow I feel like IHOP isn't serving the massive Ethiopian pancake- Ethiopian community. With the curries on it. But that's five otherwise. That's pretty good. That's not bad. Fair enough.

It's international. So it's the joint gas station slash IHARP, just off the I-96 between Grand Rapids and Lansing, Michigan. Beautiful words I barely understand. It's so evocative. You have no idea what he's talking about. Do they have similar sundries at, say, Scotch Corner or Watford Gap? Perhaps you could rip off John Robbins' shtick

and rate the service areas on a US tour. Ah. John Robbins is the sage of services. Yes, yes, yes. I love British service stations, but I've not really committed them to memory. To me, they're all the same liminal dream space. There will be a wire basket the height of an 11 year old filled with soft toys. Yes.

Outside of W. Yes. Yeah. Outside of WH Smith. Yeah. There will be erotica in the form of sexy books. There will be a little gambling den. There will be a gambling den with images outside of young, good looking people having a great time on the slots, but they're not like that. No. And the gambling den will be the size it needs to be to accommodate five slot machines and have kind of cowboy saloon doors with 18 plus written on, made of metal. There'll be a KFC, a Burger King. And the baffling one. Yes. Chopsticks.

Chopsticks or Chozen noodles. Chozen noodles. Maybe the worst noodles in the world. Chozen noodle, the worst noodles in the world. We've chosen the worst ones to give you. We've traveled the world to find the worst noodles and serve them to you. Chozen noodle, choose bad.

There'll be bathrooms obviously, some busy, a coffee place, a Costa Starbucks, something like that. Nothing, but nothing too haunting. What makes the service stations haunting are the people. Yes. Oh, there will be a West Cornwall pasty company that has for some reason been exiled. Yeah, they're not allowed in. You're in the car park. You got a pirate on your logo. You must be outside. We don't let criminals in here. Okay, sir. So if you want to keep selling pasties that have

been paid for with blood doubloons, you're going to do it in the fucking car park. Yeah, they have to be outside for some reason. Cornish Passy has to be in a little truck outside. The truck outside. The scum they are. They'll sometimes be a weird... They can move on to the next port. That'd be a weird green square for dogs to shit on.

Oh, what's that? Sometimes the bigger services in the countryside will have a sort of green bit. Like a little playground area, kind of like green soft. No, no, it'll just be like a square of lawn. Oh, I see. I'm sorry. Like it'd be an actual green area and it'll just be covered in like, horrible, like desperate dogs that must be just busting for a shit after some long drive. Connected will be a low, low budget hotel. Yes.

If you love, if you, if you love the ambiance of the Cornwall, Cornwall, Cornwall Pasty shop enough, you can stay overnight. One of them. Yeah. A low two story brick building that claims to be a Premier Inn or similar. Yeah. You just think it can't be. But it looks like a prison or a school. Yeah. It looks like a prison or a school, but what's happening in there is that unhappy people in their middle age are fucking. Don't tell me that deep down. I knew that, but I didn't, I just suppressed it. Now I'm now I'll think of that every time. The most depressing affairs on earth are being conducted there opposite the pasty truck. Stop it.

All the happiest days of their lives. Who knows? Um, vile, but it'd be hard to do a tour of American rest stops because you don't drive. You don't drive in America when you tour there because it's so fucking big. It's just too big. And also I think American rest stops, they must be more uniform than our, I don't know, well maybe not. They must change state to state. I'd love to see the different state to state.

Yeah, that's true. They must be mental in different places like Texas versus Wyoming versus New Hampshire. It must be very different. I would like to see it. I like that kind of thing. I love it. That rustic kind of Cohen brothers ass Americana sort of. So here's some of the stuff you can buy. Yeah. Okay. At the So here's some of the stuff you can buy. Yeah. Okay. At the joint gas station I hop just off the i96. Beautiful.

Yeah. What a phrase. Big sort of black leather bound looking notepad. Yeah. Okay. So not real leather. No. Leather style notebook.

I think so, yeah. If a British supermarket had to legally sell it, It would be a leather inspired notebook. So this is a, and it looks like a kind of leather bound black notebook that would have some of Sherlock Holmes' notes in, but in the middle written, I would say very much in a font a bit more like this t-shirt I'm wearing. And to describe your t-shirt, it's sort of like- A motorbike, I like metal music kind of t-shirt. But also a kind of most wanted western-, Western. This is like Cowboyish. And it's very much like white text on black, which is, so is this.

And it's not like fancy old school font. It's modern. Font. Yeah. See if you can guess this man's chief end is to blank who, but man's chief end, man's chief end. What's who. But man's chief end? Man's chief end. What's this on a t-shirt? This is on the notebook cover. Oh fuck, on the notebook, okay, yeah. Man's chief end is to blank who and to blank them forever.

I'm keeping the gender ambiguous. Just to make it harder. Oh, okay. Man's chief end. The them is a her or the them is just a... I said I'm saying them to make it ambiguous. It is a specific... Gender? Yes. Man's chief end is to blank...

Who? So that's also blank for me. Yeah. Is to blank blank and blank for me. Yeah. It's a blank blank and blank blank forever. Yeah. Is it man's chief end is to find God. You've got God. Hey, you are found God.

Man's chief end is to meet God. No, I like that. Man's chief end is to meet God. No, I like that. Man's chief end is to defeat God. There's, I like these, but it's much more American than that. Praise God. Glorify. Yeah. I'll give you that. Okay. Man's chief end is to glorify God and blank him forever. And love him forever. Enjoy him forever. God. I wouldn't, I would never say, you know what, I really enjoy God. I don't, I praise him and I believe in him

and I worship him, et cetera. But you know what, I also really enjoy him. Enjoy him. Fortunately, that's all very easy because I enjoy him. Yeah, like, look, it's easy for me to be- You might think, well, that sounds like a real chore, that praising and worshiping. But for me, it's-

I enjoy him. I enjoy him. I enjoy him. Like it's a slightly odd friend you have. Look, I enjoy him. Very strange. Brain games. Okay. This is a brain games book, Bible word search. And then underneath Bible word search, it clarifies the words of Jesus. And also then further clarified at the bottom, large print brackets, you're fucking old. If you're getting this, you're fucking old son. Bible word search. Bible word search. I've zoomed in too much.

What's next? Oh yes. And the Rose Handbook of Bible charts, maps and timelines. All available at the services. Bible charts, maps. It's like maps of the biblical of the Holy Land. So you can, you can finally imagine where Nebuchadnezzar was when he blah, blah, blah. Gosh. And timelines. That sounds pretty good actually. So you're getting all your

Bible stuff really sorted out in your own brain. I could really do with that actually. That's quite handy to have a sort of map timeline thing to put everyone's. It would simplify some of the more niche bits. Put a face to a place. And then the Assyrians and you go, yeah, okay. They're in a blob there somewhere, I suppose. There's always the problem. The Phoenicians. You always forget how big like Iraq and Syria, for example, are. Because they go,

the Assyrians or the whoever's and then you go brackets modern day Iraq and you go, that's actually not that helpful. It's such a big place. That's actually not that helpful. It's like saying modern day Europe. You go, well, you've aware though. Yeah. Yeah. Everything is in modern day Iraq. Like Babylon is in modern day Iraq. Yeah. A lot of it is. Yeah. The first whole Crescent is in modern day Iraq. It's all fucking there. They need to simplify it. Oh, from Casey on Instagram as well. So thank you for that, Michael.

Casey. Casey on Instagram. Spotted in the Sainsbury's local in Kent, a sort of iron helmet for a six pack of Red Bull. Oh, fuck. The security things. Yeah. For six pack of Red Bull. Oh, fuck. It's the security things. Yeah. For six pack of Red Bull.

They've all got little hats on to stop you from having them. Well, I'll tell you what industry is doing well in this impoverished country. The fucking security lock industry. How soon before we lock the locks. Who locks the locks? Who locks the locks? People have been stealing all our security tags. What now?

Hmm? What now? It seemed in your hurry to secure the Red Bull. You forgot to secure theronic. Oh man. Thank you, Casey. I've been, um, people have been talking to me a lot about my image of the locked up olive oil. Really?

Yeah. It really is called the imagination of a nation. And I've seen fish locked up now. Yeah. Meat locked up. I've seen a lot of meat locked up sent to me as well. But Red Bull locked up is. Red Bull. Meat locked up. It's a lot of meat locked up sent to me as well. But Red Bull locked up is. Red Bull. That's devastating. I guess a six pack is what, how much is the tin of Red Bull?

Four pounds? Three pounds? I guess the problem is that if they steal the Red Bull and have it, they'll have the energy to steal so much more. Right. You're trying to nip it in the bud. It's a force multiplier. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good bud. It's a force multiplier. Yeah, that's a good point. Well, thank you for sending that stuff in guys. Pre-order my book coming out on paperback next month. Or don't, but ideally do. That's my request. Yeah, right on.

And the Soho Theatre Run is starting on the 10th of March. It is the last chance you have if you live in or near London to see the show. Must we? Fringe 2024. Absolutely. It is the last chance you have if you live in or near London to see the show. Must we? Fringe 2024. Absolutely. I recommend Yellowface by RF Kwan. It's a fun read.

If a bit dated now that Twitter is dead. Oh, also I saw Conclave. Very good. You like it? Yeah. Yeah. Very good. We'll talk about it in the bonus. Yeah. All right then.

Bye. Bye. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters.

Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen.