Triforce! - Triforce! #276: The World Tour of Complaining

Episode Date: February 3, 2024

Triforce! Episode 276! Earth Boy Lewis went to a strange cult-like meeting, barely enjoyed his time in Center Parcs and prepares for an AI, robot controlled future in this World Tour of Complaining! Support your favourite podcast on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2SMnzk6 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pickaxe Sorry, I was gonna say, we just marked and I burped while I was marking. A burpy mark. Sorry. Do you want to do a remark? No, no, it's fine. I think it should work. It just sounds like a bit of a burp. Do you want us to all burp when we do this?

I just chugged a big... I had a big gulp of tea before. Let me chug a big gulp of tea. Well, I can't... Okay, I can make myself burp, actually. Okay, I'm not sure I can. No, you've got to do... Oh, sorry. Okay. You can make myself burp, actually. Okay, I'm not sure I can. No, you've got to do it. Oh, sorry, okay.

You can't burp out. How is Tom going to sink this podcast? Sorry, Tom. We burp out of sync. Yeah, no, sorry. Okay, all right. You tell me when and I'll burp on cue. All right.

Three, two, one. I can't. I can't. I tried. Yeah. I think my stomach's too settled. That's actually my only talent, is that I can make myself burp. Party trip.

It's so stupid. Yeah. I can swallow air. There's a way I can do it, but it doesn't sound like a proper burp. Oh, that does. All right. So, welcome back. It's not a talent a proper burp. Oh, that does. All right. It's disgusting. Welcome back.

It's not a talent I want to share. It's disgusting. I'm sorry. Do you have any other party tricks? Not really. Some people have party weaknesses, I've found. I can drink too much and then throw up. Does that count?

No. I can do that really consistently. I was on holiday this week and I won't say who this was, but I was playing cards. What game were you playing? I was playing cards.

No, I was teaching them a game, basically like Rummy or Wisp. You deal seven cards to each person and they have to get three of the same. Were you with a group of people over 80? Because that's what that sounds like. I you with a group of people over 80 Because that's what that sounds like I was with a group of people my age Shall we play some gin rummy

Anyone for bridge I was at my bridge club Teaching the old ducks how to play bridge Let's make it fun And play for a farthing of a hand, shall we? I did used to go to the local church with the side hut, the Sunday school hut. And I used to play bridge with the old folks. And it was good fun. Really good fun, actually actually i did that in my

when i'm my early 20s when i was back from uni living back home what a wild man yeah i um playing bridge with the old people got a kick out that's quite sweet did you fucking own them no no no they crushed me they loved me covered because they knew i was an easy mark easy mark never play cards against the elderly like i'm not even kidding they are fucking amazing yeah they've you think this is a simple game but they've got all the oh yeah all the deep strats and they can read you like a book like old people barely move they've got no towels and they you know they can easily pass their tail off as uh it's just a little bit of as a of parkinson's alzheimer's or something yeah his hands shaking his hands always shaking

difficult uh so uh no i mean i i love cards i play i used to play cards with my parents on holiday you know anytime we were on holiday at a restaurant or and you know to keep the kids from getting bored or whatever while they were waiting for whatever food we'd ordered, they would whack the cards out and we'd play some little game. We've got tons of little games we know, like Sevens and New Market and Knockout Wist. We played

Benny quite a lot. Benny? Benny. Benny. Benny. So I was teaching these guys to play Benny, which I really like doing. And I don't know, you know, it was all those things. Anyway, this person, who I'm not going to name, was doing fine the whole game. But then about halfway through,

he turned to me and held up a card and was like, it was a jack, it had a J on it, and said to me, what number is this? And I said, what do you mean? Because I thought they were joking and they were like i don't know what number this is all the other ones have had numbers on and i was i was like i was like how did i manage to deal your hand for a start with no jacks queens kings or aces right but also how have you got this far in life never not knowing yeah not knowing what cards are. And I had to teach them cards! It was so weird!

It was such like, for me, it's such a base piece of knowledge. It is a very base piece of knowledge. I don't even know where you necessarily pick it up from, but I would- I'd say by playing cards, I mean. Yeah, but like, you pick it up from a young age, right? But having said that, I don't know if my kids would know, like the royal suite of cards, you know? I don't know if they've ever even seen cards.

Like, they've seen playing cards like top trumps and stuff like that, but I don't know if they've actually ever played normal cards, you know? Well, this is what I was thinking as well. I was thinking, somehow, they've just managed to slalom through life avoiding that knowledge cards yeah yeah they've like they've like actively dodged i guess cards is well i mean i'm not one to say but i feel like cards is kind of like you know flax i think flax kind of nailed it before asking if you were with a bunch of 80 year olds because like i feel like nowadays maybe cards is like they're they're old you know they've

been around for a long time they've been around for like a thousand fucking years but then poker is still like uh like and and obviously card games at casinos and stuff all of that is still huge so i don't know oh god well i wouldn't expect anyone to know the poker here's what i reckon it is genuinely no but like you're on a train journey right You're on a train journey, right? You're on a train journey, if somehow you can afford that. In the old days, if you wanted to do anything, you'd have to take out a pack of cards and hope you had one of the four-seat tables with all that. Well, all trains had those back then.

Yeah, but nowadays, everyone's on their phone. You don't need to have, oh, Christ, what are we going to do? Oh, God, anyone bring a pack of cards? No. Now you've got entertainment in your pocket. People are listening to things, people are watching things. People can link up with each other on their phones too, right? Right. Let's play Tetris against each other.

Exactly. It works straight away. I don't think there's a need for a deck of cards anymore. I guarantee you that there are absolutely still people out there that play cards loads and loads and loads But I think it's easier to have just merely missed it to just missed it and just grown up not doing that kind of yeah I totally it just sort of blew my mind cuz I never thought I just took it for granted I guess sometimes people say, you know, I haven't I haven't watched Star Wars or whatever and I'm like, okay Yeah, it's old exactly and it's a meme that you haven't seen Star Wars, you know. But, you know, I think sometimes people...

I'm trying to think of other things of baseline knowledge that I take for granted, but I guess I take them for granted so I don't really even consider them as things. You know, I guess it must be... It's a cooking thing too sometimes when you hear about someone who doesn't know how to make an egg. How do you make an egg? They hold up an egg.

What's that? What is that? What comes out of that? What's that? How do I break that? I read the New York Times because it's a pretty good newspaper and one of the sections they have is cooking and they email you a recipe pretty much every day.

They email you a recipe. I got one every day. They email you a recipe. I got one. Let me read this to you guys, all right? You just tell me what this sounds like to you. This is called eggs kedrewel, or kedrewel. Eggs kedrewel. Right. Eggs kedrewel.

Step one, butter the bread on both sides and lightly brown in a frying pan. Sure. Smear one side with mustard and transfer to a sheet pan, mustard side up. What kind of mustard are we talking here? Just whatever mustard you want. In a medium- No, it's crucially important because American mustard, very different. Right.

But then again, if you want it super, super hot, you could just put English mustard on. You could just put- Okay. You could put Dijon if you want a bit of a mix. In a medium bowl, mix together cheese, chili, they call it cilantro, but I'm pretty sure that's coriander. And what does chili mean? And red onion. I think they just mean a chili pepper diced up. Okay. Split

evenly between the toast. Place it under the broiler, which is, I think, the grill. I'm stopping you on every sentence. Place it under the broiler. What the fuck is a broiler? A broiler is a grill. It's all American terms, because it's an American public opinion. You've just got to learn to translate. You've got to learn to translate. I've never said any of this.

Even the word eggs kedrewow has not gone in my head at all. No. So while the cheese is melting, you fry an egg and you put it on top. This is cheese on toast with an egg on top. And they've made it into eggs kedrewow. Like, all right, you've added some peppers and a bit of onion. I mean, for fuck's sake, is this what we've come to? This is cheese on toast with an egg on top.

Let's not jazz it up. It sounds better, though. I'm totally cooking that on Saturday. That sounds amazing. It sounds better when you fancy it up, though, right? It does. It's important. But it's fried bread, fried bread with cheese on top

and an egg on top of that. Like, that's essentially what it is. Easy. Can make that. Do you think, like, there are... Okay. How about baked beans en croute? Exactly. Take an organic, gluten-free, wheat germ sliced tiger loaf bread and butter on both sides with goose fat.

This would remind me, we go to a restaurant here, sorry to detract from all this, but we go to a restaurant here that makes their own sourdough bread, which is not a big deal or whatever, but it's nice, and they grill it too. They grill it, and then they put eggs on it. Like however you want eggs you get like a poached egg on there they do like really they do they do really creamy scrambled egg as well it's like creamy oh man and then and you get that crunchy nice nicely grilled sourdough bread underneath i love sourdough i love it like it's all tough on the outside, but it's like, so nice and soft in the middle.

Oh man. Oh man. And I order a full portion for the baby, knowing full well that she's not gonna finish it, and then I have the rest of it as well. Take your homegrown goose fat and butter on both sides, toast some almonds in a pan, and add the goose fat bread, lightly brown, using a fucking katana, cut the bread in half, and place between it some beans, individually picked from a baked bean tin.

Could we use betwixt? Could we get a betwixt? Betwixt. Betwixt. Yeah. baked bean tin. Yes. Could we use betwixt? Could we get a betwixt? Betwixt. Betwixt. Yeah. I feel like with a lot of this stuff, if I was like, uh, if I was David Beckham,

I would forward all of these to my chef and say, surprise me. Otherwise it's, it's a pot noodle in my bedroom every night. You know what I mean? Like I'm not doing all this stuff. There's no way I'm doing all this stuff. Hiding from your family. Yeah, pretty much. Do you not work together and cook stuff?

You do, I know you do. Very rarely. Especially now with three kids, like, never. Oh, is it all three? I guess though, okay. You know how these days, because when I was away at Centre Parcs, we didn't really cook together because everyone had their own dietary nonsense. Yeah.

Spiff and Mango brought with them their own meals that they prepped. Really? They've got this thing. Do they have dietary requirements? I didn't think that they... I didn't have them down as dietary requirements types. Types. Yeah, they just seem... They've got this magic cooking machine.

It's called a Thermomix. Have you heard of it? No. No. So, a Thermomix TM6 food processor. I found one on Amazon. It costs £1,500. Good Christ.

Okay. £1,500. Well, this one does. It's a kind of all-in-one meal thing, right? So what you do is you put the raw ingredients in, basically. And then it chops them, fries them, cooks them, mixes them, does the whole meal and pops it out at the end. And I was skeptical.

Right. Naturally. That's not unlike you. I was very skeptical. That's so unlike you. Because I thought, how can having a kitchen in a 21 in one kitchen cooker thing actually be any fucking good? Because whenever you buy any kitchen implement, right? Yeah.

Like a microwave, a blender, pressure cooker, whatever. It comes with 20 fucking different buttons on it that say stupid shit, right? Like eggs, porridge, yogurt. Do you know what I mean? It says like, and I've never ever pressed any of those buns on anything that i've owned right or whatever i have it's kind of been weird right it hasn't really worked right so i'm i'm automatically very doubtful of these of the thermomix but spiff and mango have prepared like four different meals for the four days and they wait you just said that

you were at center parks with them yeah yeah but you were saying that you weren't going to say who you were at centre parks with well neither of those two are the ones who I can say that I was at centre parks with Spiff and Mango you started off by saying that you weren't going to say who you were there with well you said it now you said it now I'm just curious

neither of them are the ones who don't know what cards are okay but the thing is... I was at Centre Parcs with about 20 people. He knows what he's doing. Until he doesn't, right? Thanks for the invite, by the way. Oh, did you want to come?

It was right next door to you as well. We were at the Woburn Forest one. I didn't even realise there was one there. Oh, what did you say? I meant to ask you in depth about your Centre Parcs experience you hurt your shoulder i have a i have a chatter i'm gonna i'm going to uh big up uh uh my my man he's uh he's a chatter in my chat called jim uh and he's been to center parks many times and actually he sent me a customized mug that had Center Parcs and a Velociraptor on it as well. One time.

But he wants to know what you thought of Center Parcs. And I want to know what you thought of Center Parcs as well, having been multiple times myself. Are you live right now? No, I'm not live right now. I just want to see. So you just remembered this question. Well, he asked you in the chat, tell me what Lewis thought of Center Parcs. He asks me like all the time.

Like, it's an ongoing discussion, Centre Parcs. Why does he love Centre Parcs so much? I think because he went a lot as a kid. And I think that's the magic of Centre Parcs. You know, you take- I think it is the magic. You take your kids there and they always remember it as a fun holiday. And then they'll take their kids one day to try to recreate that magic.

I'd never been either. We started a tradition though, because my kids love it. I bet they do. They want to go every year. Like, we're like, where are we going to go this year? We could go- Middle Pass, Butlins. Yay!

Yeah, we could go to, like, Japan or whatever. Center Parks. Okay. I guess we're going to Center Parks again. But, you know, they like it, so. So, basically, Center Parks is kind of very manufactured, right? It's like they've taken a wood or some sort of forest that was pre-existing, put a fence around it, and you can't really leave that area.

Oh shit. So if you want to like... You can walk around it. There's quite a lot of cabins in it. It's quite nice. And there are trees. It is like a wood or a forest, but it's kind the kind of enclosed right and it's got everything you need there you know it says it says you know this when you rent i rented this bike and it was like if you'd like a nice cycle

just take this route around center parks twice and i was like so what it's a 20 minute cycle just a 10 minute 10 minutes to cycle around the entire park and they recommend you do it twice. It's like, oh, great. That's not really the outdoors, is it? Wait, what is the difference between a forest and a wood? Well, I think a wood is just like a shit forest or a small forest. I'm going to look it up.

I don't know. Center parks call all of their places forests because that's their branding. But the place that Woburn was built on was actually a wood. and i don't think it's even that big i think it was like green belt land that wasn't really allowed to be developed but center parks managed to get permission because it's out sufficiently outdoorsy or all green do they promise not to knock all the trees down which is fair enough do we trust the woodland trust and their opinion on the difference between a forest and a wood i think think we do. Sure, go on then.

Forests are large enough to support species such as wolves and deer for game hunting. Oh, wow. And they encompass other habitats such as heaths, open grassland, and farmland. The term woodland is also considered to be land covered with trees and vegetation. But in the UK, woods tend not to be as large as forests. For example, Loch Arkaig Pine Forest in the Highlands of Scotland is 2,500 acres, while St John's Woods in Devon is just 3 acres. That's not a wood at all!

3 acres, I would say, is a wood. Whereas 2,500 acres is a forest. 3 acres?! Yeah. So here's another version. Uh, ecologically speaking, both forests and woods have trees higher than 5 meters, so 16 feet, and can span the same amount of land. A forest, however, has a canopy cover of over 60%, meaning it may be denser than a wood,

while still maintaining the same land size. So there seems to be some differences. I would say, if someone said forest, you're generally thinking big. Like, the New Forest, for example. Hmm. Well- Whereas the Morning Wood is, you know, it depends how big that is. It's huge. It's multiple.

How many square feet in an acre? Who knows what an acre is? Okay, so an acre is about- What's a hectare? Fuck knows. Something to do with horses. So the biggest Tesco- The biggest Tesco... The biggest Tesco?

Put it in terms of Tescos. Now I understand. The biggest Tesco in the UK is 160,000 square feet, which is four acres, according to Google. Okay, so I'm imagining a huge Tesco. So there's a shop. You could go to a Tesco, right? That's bigger than a small wood.

That's bigger than a wood. Yeah, yeah. Now, I don't think that wood should be allowed to be called a wood in that case. I think they should cut it down. Just cut it all down. Put a task over there. It's just some trees. Yeah.

Just some... It's generous, is what I'm saying. Give it the name wood. Agreed. Anyway, I thought... So you were in a forest, probably. So I went to Santa Pops at the cheapest time of year, the coldest time of year. It was actually that...

It was minus three one day when we woke up. Did they still have all the Christmas decorations up? No, they had like this winter wonderland. Yes, that's the one, yeah. Which was crap. Did they have those big reindeer that sing together? The barbershop ones? No, they didn't.

I think that's the Longleat one or whatever, the one near Bristol. Oh, right. But apparently this is one of the smaller ones. And it was, look, the whole thing is fantastic, I think, if you have the nostalgia for it or you have kids. Yeah. It's a nice getaway in the UK. Everyone brings the kitchen sink because they think,

oh, God, what do I need this? You see people unpacking their cars. I saw a guy unpack his car and he had, like, it had to have been 524 packs of iron brew in a can i guess this guy just guzzles that's a week in a log cabin he was he was just slamming these iron brews back he must have been or his whole family is just a huge fan of them but yeah i know like uh when when people are unpacking their cars it's wild like i thought we bad. We took our car because we had a lot of baby stuff to bring because the baby was quite small at the time.

And I felt like we were like the Beverly Hillbillies with every belonging we had on the roof rack and everything. But when we got there and we saw that everybody else was about 10 times worse than us, we didn't feel so bad anymore. I think there's this big

activity hole where you can climb and do badminton and do pottery painting and stuff like this. Did you do anything? I did a little bit, yeah. Did you do some badminton? Yeah, I did some badminton. Did you do some of that crazy banana ball or whatever it's called? It's got like the scoops and the uh, and-

Highline? The cheese ball, I think? There's like some falcons and eagles, there's a ball you can wear. Yeah, yeah, we went to that. When we went in the winter, we went to see one. And they had one called... What the fuck was his name? Terry? They hyped him up the whole time.

And his name was like something crazy. Like they called him like Starscream or something. And everybody thought, fucking hell, this thing is going to be insane. They're like really saying like, all right, get ready because you know, he's really something else. And they brought him out and he's like the size of a budgie. He was like a little baby owl. He was really cute.

And they put him on everybody's shoulder and you could go up close to him. He's on a little peg on the wall that they trained him to go to and stuff. It was pretty good. So, I mean, despite the fact that like we went at the time of year when it's the most empty and the sort of average, you know, the one of the other guys was saying to me how their lodge, they shared like a small lodge between eight of them. Jesus. Ended up paying about 60 quid each for the whole week. Yeah. Super cheap getaway.

But everything. Did you have your own lodge your own we actually went to so when we went to the swimming pool thing it was just rammed and when we did the activities it was rammed it was the quietest time i dread to think what it's like in the busy season it's insane it's it's busy but i mean you're you're everybody's in the same boat you know like the nice thing about it is you don't feel like you're the only person whose kids are screaming and crying and stuff, because everybody's kids are screaming. Everyone's kids are screaming.

Well, that's the thing. Everybody is in the same boat. Everybody turns up there with loads of kids, loads of extended family, and everybody is just about having a good time, kind of. That's it. I loved it because I was with all these cool people and we got to see loads of my friends, we played loads of games, we had lots of fun, it was great. But I think if I was with a family, I think I would have been like kind of overwhelmed with just how many people were there. It's like

everything is built for throughput and capacity, right? The whole place is built for like massive amounts of people coming through it. Did you manage to spot some of the wildlife? Did you wake up early in the morning and spot some deer in the woods or like those sneaky vaping dads that just have to get away so i tell you what i did see we we got there on like the first day in the afternoon and what happened was a squirrel the fattest squirrel you've ever seen came up and like tapped on the window you know well yeah people feed them all the time well exactly but you can buy food for them and everything it obviously is so tame and so well fed it was just this bloated monster of a squirrel and so yeah you open the door and someone threw out some bird seed or whatever and it just like starts chowing down on all that i was just like damn this this this monster of a squirrel but But then a rival came along, even fatter of all things,

came along and started trying to wrestle the squirrel for the food. Oh, it was quite something. The nature was really in full force there. I think I saw some other woodland crap, but not really. Woodland crap? Well, I saw some birds. There's mostly just pigeons. There's some ducks.

But the lake was frozen. Oh, of course. And there was this little pool of unfrozen area where a swan is like ice breaking it, you know, for the other ducks. Oh, Jesus. It's like a big submarine, you know, surfacing. Yeah. It's like trying to carve out a little area of empty ocean.

No, at Center Parcs, I wouldn't go again, obviously. Why? I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't have kids. Oh, really? Yeah. And quite honestly, like- It is the kind of place you'd want to go with family and kids, for sure. So, another thing I did, before I went away, was I went to this earth ritual.

I was telling you about it. Okay, hold on. Oh, yeah, yeah. Slow down. What do you mean? thing i did before i went away was i went to this earth ritual i'm telling you okay hold on yeah slow down what do you mean so basically imagine like a the industrial estate just outside bristol ironically for the earth ritual and there's like a warehouse space that they've rented out which is like a performance space that's got a film's warehouse right we were talking about with like an acrobatic um like pole Not pole, but a hanging triangle thing that you can do trapeze stuff on,

that kind of stuff. And in the middle of this warehouse is a plastic sheet with a huge pile of dirt on it. Earth. Sorry, earth on it. You eating that? Earth? Is that it? Earth. That's the earth.

And so it's huge. It takes up the whole space. And about 100 people sit in sort of a couple of circles around this earth. So it's indoors? It's indoors, but we went on a freezing cold day. But they had had the heating on, so it was actually quite pleasant in there. What on earth? No pun intended, but how is it an earth day if you're bringing the earth indoors

and heating the fucking space? I want you out in the fucking woods. Get out there. I think it's because they wanted to have this sort of... So they know all these circus performers. And so they had these people doing these high wire acts and stuff, like spinning around in the air. They had a series of circus people.

So I think it was like five or six women and a guy, all of them professional acrobats. You can tell they've got the big thighs and the big, they're chucking each other around type thing and spinning around and doing it on this dirt and sort of getting very covered in dirt, rubbing the dirt into themselves sensuously. Meanwhile, there's this other lady who's doing like throat singing which is really impressive actually she was really good like just this one woman um just doing the whole soundtrack to the whole thing and it felt like it filled the

room it was really cool and she kept it going for ages um and then we all did like a series of things to bless the earth good god right i just want to ask um what why did you why did you go on this trip i got invited by a friend okay i got you and i thought it would be fun okay was it was it spiffing mango no can you imagine they brought the magi mix with them as well to make us all lunch um just put in all the raw carrots and some dirt, you know, it turned out it makes a eggs-kejun-able wow. Did you bless the earth the most natural way you could think of, and did you just spray jizz all over it?

Yeah, jizz on the earth. Wow. No, I didn't, but- Or piss, or poop on it. So, we were encouraged to bring our own, like own water from a local stream and stuff like this and things to bless. So there was like an earth blessing, an air blessing, a water blessing, all this stuff. And then we all did some chanting and some singing. Hell, you got to do the chanting. And then we all, we did this thing where this lady took us through this sort of process where she was like,

okay, I want everyone, because there were a few kids there as well. okay i want everyone because there are a few kids there as well we want everyone to close their eyes and stand up and focus their like um focus their attention focus their consciousness on their feet to start with and start making a noise that you think your feet would make okay exactly so so the person to the left of me is doing that right there's a kid in front of me going like they're stepping in mud or stepping on earth there's a girl to the right of me who is just who is just going like like like at the top of her lungs and then you work your way up to your knees okay so what noise would your knees make? And everyone starts making noises again,

different noises. But the same woman's just going, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's the same noise for every body part. She was just like having a spiritual experience next to me. Like just, because everyone in the room is making noise. And so you could just kind of yell into this noise.

Oh man. So she was loving it uh the kids were loving it um so that was a thing and then we at the end when the earth was blessed they were like come on everyone come on to the earth so everyone took their shoes and socks off and started getting on the earth and people are like rubbing dirt on themselves rubbing like stuff like put I was looking around, as everyone lost their mind. I saw one girl eating some dirt. Hell yeah. Eating dirt. You can get worms from that. Well, I was like, held my head, I was like,

don't eat the dirt. Oh, man. Did you speak to her? Did she turn around and just smile at you, and she had all dirt stuck in between her teeth and stuff? It was honestly like, you know, it was really good. I really enjoyed it. You know, it was a couple of hours on a Sunday or Saturday that I thought I've never done anything like it before.

And it didn't feel a million miles away from some of the stuff I've done in yoga and meditation and other stuff anyway. It was familiar enough. In a way, it felt a little bit like going to church as well because we were all singing together. And I don't know, it was quite a communal thing. And the circle is nice with all of us looking in. Everyone feels kind of more equal. I don't know, it's quite a new age. A lot of new age people with a lot of different

new age ideas i think there's no real shared there wasn't really a cult leader and also the age group was tended to be it was kind of like i think the average age of people there was basically either kids under seven or eight and then adults between like i'd say 28 and 40 i might i was i felt like i was one of the oldest people there but i would not take my young kids to something like that personally like none of the women all the women look like they're in their 30s you know everyone looked like they were in their 30s it's kind of it's kind of a weird were they all like uh were they all kind of did they all have like a like a like a musty smell to them? Now they did! I will say this, it's not bad, but it's almost like...

You know how nerds smell bad? I've got a bit of a musty smell to myself as well. Because they don't wash, right? Yeah. But nerds smell bad because they don't wash, and they don't use deodorant, right? But these people sort of smell like they don't wash, but they cover it with, you know, um, cinnamon. Essential oils or some some weird some weird smell it's kind of i tell you what it smells a bit like it sort of smells a bit like

damp outside some like a tent that's been in the garage or something like it smells like the outdoors and sort of not not damp not unpleasant like floral damp is what it smells like. It's not bad, but each person smells their own different blend of it because I think they have their own. Maybe it is just deodorant or some perfume. Maybe it's perfume. In fact, maybe it's on purpose. I just don't know. But I did notice it, actually.

But it wasn't unpleasant. Gosh, this sounds terrible. It was so interesting. I'm trying to be sort of optimistic and supportive of this, but it does not sound great. It sounds horrendous. You went to a warehouse with a bunch of dirt on the ground, everybody stank, and everyone was like, You didn't even offer to tidy it up or like organize the pallets or anything while you were there it wouldn't be no i just left off there wasn't pallets it was just a big tell me at

least everyone like went to the pub afterwards and i'd laugh about it like no no no not at all right like what everyone takes it very seriously actually did it i think did it did it help them like did it did it somehow make everyone happy i suppose um i don't think it hurt them? Did it somehow make everyone happy, I suppose? I don't think it hurt. I think it was nice. Everyone's very nice. No, I mean, there's not much else to say, really. I get that people like doing that, but I don't think I would ever do that. Flax, I don't think you'd ever do that. Lewis, I guess you tried it. I don't feel like you would ever do that. Flax, I don't think you'd ever do that. Lewis, I guess you tried it. I don't feel like you would ever do it again, maybe.

No, but you've got to admire his ability to just get out there and fucking give things a go. Like, I do admire that. No, I admire it too. I wish I was more like that. I feel- I just feel like I can't do anything like that now. I think I've just had too many kids. I'm too cynical at this point as well. I'm too old and cynical and I don't want to do anything.

I felt a little bit- on these things, I don't feel like Louis Theroux or whatever, but I do feel like a little bit of that. Like the- You're an outsider looking in, and you'll remain an outsider looking in. And they know I'm a cynical journalist or whatever, who's coming in and... Oh, I see. Louis puts himself into these situations and he's always very nice to everyone and very kind of he looks at them and listens to them

almost like like trying to like analyze this yeah he tries to he wants to understand them and everyone's always a bit surprised that he's actually listened to what they say i think that's just what louis does he is yeah he's actually quite interested. He's not just there for himself. He's kind of actually sort of weirdly fascinated by why this is like this. Yeah, he wants to get stuck in a bit. He wants to try to experience what they experience. Yeah. So the woman sort of next to me, one of the women next to me when this thing was going on, she sort of leaned over to me and was like, this is all a bit weird, isn't it? And I was like- I mean, see, that's fine though.

I feel like I would welcome somebody being like that if I was at something like that. I'm glad that woman exists. Well, exactly. Yeah. I sort of like- I think as she looked at me, she wasn't sure whether I was offended by that, but I sort of nodded. I was like, yeah. It would have been weird if she grabbed your honker first and then said that i think it's possible that because i maintain my eye dressed in the same way i think a lot of other people

were dressed in the sort of i don't know oranges and browns and you know the kind of slugs robit like not robes like ponchos did they have a lot of ponchos? I think that, yeah, they did. They brought a lot of blankets with themselves, they prepared for this. And so, I guess you could sort of tell, the people with ruffled hair and twigs and flowers in it, you know, were the more hippie types. And maybe I just looked a bit like a square with my moustache and my, you know, jacket. I'm not saying don't do something i like if you want to do something go for it i think that's great but like at the same time i know for me i would not enjoy that like i'm just not into that uh

sort of i don't mind going outside and getting a bit mucky you know if i if i got to do gardening or whatever but like, I don't need to like really make- I'll be honest with you- I don't need to make a ceremony about it either. I'm desperate for these new experiences. I don't know what it is, but I'm not looking to find God or whatever, or some spiritual awakening. I'm just- Yeah, but you don't know what's out there,

brother. Like, you might find something. Yeah. I wanna have a look around, because I'm kind of... Center Parcs was... Center Parcs was the epitome for me. It was really a spiritual moment. Do you know what I mean?

Like, Center Parcs was drinking and puzzles and bowling and swimming and doing all the shit I've done, and I'm like... I found God on those rapids. I don't need... I got so bru God on those rapids. I don't need- I got so bruised on those rapids, Sips. They're brutal, eh? I got so fucked up. Yeah.

Oh my God. We're not young men anymore, lads. No, but I mean, you got- When you've got- Especially when you've got kids, their limbs are flailing around everywhere. I got kicked in the face, in the junk. You name it.

I was the same. Bruised and battered., you name it. I was the same. Bruised and battered. It was great fun. It was great fun. I used to want to do stuff like that. I remember, I used to love going paintballing, right? Oh yeah. And I would love it, and I'd be tearing around and getting shot and having a laugh.

Last time I went, it must have been about five years ago, I got shot once, and that was me done for the rest of the day. I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. So I was just the guy at the back and we i didn't guard the objective i just you were you were unenthusiastically just launching paintballs into the wall and stuff one over the thing just to use some i hardly used any paint like i was like i don't want to get hit this sucks i don't want to run around and have some fucking child shoot me in the face, so I just- I was like a conscientious objector to the war. I hate how people are around those things, like paintball, go-karts, anything like that,

where it's a big group activity and there's some element of competitiveness to it. Oh my god. It brings out the worst in people. I hate the fucking play-by-play powwows, like, in the breaks. You know what I mean? They come off and they're like, oh yeah, and then I went under, and then I went over, and it's like, I don't fucking care, you're not fucking Bruce Willis in a movie. I don't give a shit.

I was there, I saw it, it was not spectacular. Like, it's not even worth mentioning. Just shut up and have a little rest before the next round. There's something about competition. I feel like, you know when we play games, we play a lot of the time, like, yes, when I play, I want to win and all the rest of it. Yeah. But when I used to play Five Aside, I will never forget this. This was when I worked at British Aerospace. There's a bunch of nerd programmers that work there. And we had a Five

Aside league at lunch times. There was this one guy, he was like five foot nothing, he was tiny. Classic aggressive little man, right? No offense to five foot men, but you guys have a bit of a problem I think sometimes. He's on the pitch, it's five-a-side, and it's like mixed sex, mixed age five-a-side league. This is not Hackney Marshes on a Sunday and you're hoping to get scouted. This is literally the most soft five-a-side league you could imagine. So this guy's got the ball. He goes flying in on this guy, takes him out, like flips him up in the air. And this lad has to go off injured. And he's like, it's a man's game.

That was his defense. Quote, it's a man's game. And also then if my colleagues are on a pitch, I am now going to kick them up in the air because that is how I relieve stress is to kick them up in the air because that is how I relieve stress, is kicking other people up in the air. Paintball, five-a-side, anything where there's competition, a decent percentage of people are not looking to have fun and play the game. They're looking to get involved in trouble because for some people, that's the only way that they can validate themselves and quote, relieve some stress.

That's why I stopped doing all this kind of fucking five-a-side leagues. Too many lads come out of the office and they think, I'm tense because I hate my job. What I'll do is I'll kick some other people up in the air, ruin their week, and maybe send them to hospital with a fucking fractured ankle, but I'll feel

better about myself and release some stress. Fuck off. Get them out of the league. There's those rooms where you can go and smash a load of pots, right? And smash a load of plates. Oh man, I would love that. To let your anger out. But apparently, that just makes people more angry.

Yes! Like, it doesn't actually- it makes people more angry generally, and physically angry and physically aggressive. You probably feel- I think that because the feelings of anger are probably like a disappointment within yourself to begin with and i think if you go to a room and you smash up a bunch of stuff you're even more upset with yourself that you've broken you've broken a bunch of stuff that's not yours it's just right the dumbest thing it just adds to the it adds to the shame i think it's like a shame might be answer

me this if i told you that the best way to calm down was to do something that really gets your blood pumping in an angry way, do you think that's going to make you more calm? I don't think it is. I personally don't think it is. I think that they just need to cut people's balls off. Cut them off. Right. Because that's what they do.

That's how they keep animals under control. They just cut their balls off. So let's just start cutting some people's balls off and calming them down. Not my balls. We let some people do the ball cutting off as a form of stress relief. It might be more like stress relieving to cut some dickheads' balls off. We're going to put you in a room and we're going to allow you to cut as many people's balls off as you want. You can keep them.

You get to keep them. To decompress. You can eat them if you want just eat them yeah i i don't know but there there is that is a definitely a type right it's kind of it's kind of funny when a five foot tall man says it's a man's game it's like yeah for normal size men it is short stack you know come on eh geez it's just the worst though aren't they just i i always hated people they're just as bad as those people who are super shitty passive aggressive and then you look up their social media profile and all they've got is uh images of uh inspirational quotes and

stuff and you're like this isn't you you are an asshole you're. And you're like, this isn't you. You are an asshole. You're not inspirational. You're not reading any of these quotes and taking them on board. You're a prick. You're a fucking prick. Or you're twisting the quotes to suit your own agenda, you know, and justify your behavior. It's all very LinkedIn, isn't it? It's all very LinkedIn. It's like, you know, words have implications, so choose them wisely, because you never know who you're going to upset. Take your own fucking advice, maybe. Because I've just seen what you posted on somebody's page and you're a fucking prick

and you've upset them. So like, well, how do you how do you fucking justify having, you know, reams of fucking inspirational quotes? And then you're just you're an asshole. Yeah, it doesn't make sense it's not working but yeah so do you want to hear some news crazy news let's go oh gaming news is this about power world that's about the only news there is i think but yeah power world everybody is playing power world everybody wants me to play power world i don't want to play power world i don't

know what it is i'm told that it's pokemon and uh lost arc combined two games that i have no interest in whatsoever well okay so pow world is made by a company called pocket pair they're like a little japanese studio they made a game called over dungeon which was simon's favorite game of about eight years ago they made enough money for them to make a second game which came out on early access which was basically basically PC Zelda with crafting. It's still early access, fairly mediocre, but looks great. And this is their new one. It's Valheim meets Pokemon. You go into a Valheim-style world multiplayer with friends.

You kill and collect and harvest Pokemon, cut them up, shoot them, whatever, eat them. It's a whole mess. harvest pokemon cut them up shoot them whatever eat them it's a whole mess okay and the pokemon company said today that they're gonna look into it and see if it's infringed their copyright but they're not i doubt it you know because they look a bit pokemon-y but you know kind of pokemon is just animal items and animal fruits and you know the pokemon are so fucking random anyway that i don't think you know I don't think there's a Pikachu in, or obviously a Pikachu in this one. And I think there's a lot of drama

about whether it's been used to make AI art or something or the dev, but it's not a dev, it's a team of people in Japan. And I think they've previously said they like AI art. And there's just been this huge backlash as if you know there's somehow air is the devil um which i think a lot of people are very upset about air at the moment and fair enough like but i'm not sure what the threat entirely is i i realize one it's

stealing people's assets okay and stealing people's work to make other work out of but that's literally what this game is you know no one's complaining i mean a lot of games are that well this game is again it's it's pokemon valheim right we've just said there it's stealing two other people's thing now okay can i i'll play devil's advocate for the artist just for a moment if i may um the the complaint is as i understand it if you design a computer that that is just going to come up with art, it needs to be trained. And the problem is people are training it on other people's artwork.

And then generating art that you can call original, but it's essentially a conglomerate of, if that's the right word, conglomeration? Coagulation of artwork. It's not creating anything original. It's just recycling things. Right. Now, I'm absolutely happy to concede the argument that essentially people, I mean, anime,

a lot of anime looks the same. You wouldn't say that the way that you drew this anime character was wildly different from the way you drew that anime character. There's a style there. So you've got a computer that's nicking this style from other people, and they're saying that's not cool, and those artists weren't paid for the training of that AI. Oh, fuck.

But even if those artists were paid, and the AI then takes over, it's still gonna... If it works, companies will just use it and put all these artists out of work. And then what does the AI get trained on? That's the question. You're training it on people's hard work and you're using that training to then take away their jobs, essentially. This is definitely a minefield, right?

The AI art thing. But it feels like there was this active Twitter takedown of Palworld because of this AI art thing. And everyone was like, sort of semi up in arms about it for a moment. It was almost like it had been cancelled. I definitely feel that's the sentiment on the internet that AAR is, and I've talked about this on stream a bit yesterday.

Are they using AAR in the game? No. Oh, right, okay. No, they're not in this one. Correct me if I'm wrong, because maybe I haven't interpreted this correctly, but companies copying systems and improving them or combining systems together to make games or whatever, that is the gaming. It's always been the gaming industry, right?

You take an old idea, you fuse it with a new idea, and it's a new game. Like the actual like IP side of it, like the characters and stuff like that, obviously you wouldn't want to copy because you'd get in trouble, but actual systems and stuff, it's always been like that. Well, they copyrighted the Nemesis system, didn't they? They copyrighted that Nemesis system from the Shadow of Mordor games, they were able to somehow copyright that. I don't know how, but they did.

Yeah. This is, I know, it's really odd what is actually allowed to be copyrighted. Most Blizzard games are just improved old games that they've taken the idea for, added some more stuff onto it, polished it up. Well I mean, oh my god, Warcraft is Warhammer, but they couldn't get the IP! But even World of Warcraft is just EverQuest. It's just better EverQuest. They just did it better.

You know what I mean? It is more or less a copy. Most of the people that were on the original dev team for World of Warcraft were people that played a ton of EverQuest, took all of their inspiration for it. Oh my God. Well, I mean, okay, this is part of evolution and humanity and everything in science. Isaac Newton famously said that he was standing on the shoulders of giants. Yeah, but that was a dig.

To get his discoveries. No, no, no. He didn't mean that like that. He was having a pop at a colleague who was short. I'm not even kidding. You can look it up. Classic Newton. Well, anyway, every single thing is copied.

And I know it's tough for artists to be confronted by this idea because a lot of them are creatives who are struggling to make money anyway. And it feels bad to hear that your original work is being taken and manipulated to replace you, which is frightening. But unless the government or someone comes in and bans this stuff or stops it, it's like the fucking, I was saying this today, it's like people who are doing horse-drawn carts are like, oh no, the car's coming. Let's ban the car. Because otherwise all of our horse-drawn carts are going to go out of business. Oh no.

Unfortunately, the march of technology goes on and this is here. We can't put the genie back in the bottle. I feel like people trying to shut down AIR. It's not going to work like unless, and it's not your, your campaign on Twitter. It's not going to stop it. Or maybe it is.

I don't know. Maybe, maybe, maybe it will get banned. Who knows? I do think one difference is that as technology advances, we need fewer and fewer people to do things. What are we going to do?

But we've already heard things like Square saying that they're aggressively using AI art in their upcoming games. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, so now that's another sector where we don't need people. So as everything moves towards AI, I mean, essentially, everybody talks about universal basic income.

I don't want to get political on this. Yeah. Because this is just a funny podcast where we talk bollocks. But essentially, the more we lean into ways to replace human beings, the further we get from people being able to fucking pay their bills. So AIR is just one more tick. I don't think we're already there for the most part.

Fucking hell. Yeah, but now imagine if nobody has a job because computers can do them all. Which could be within the next 50 years to 100 years, for sure. You won't need pilots, you won't need drivers, you won't need anything to do with a factory, deliveries, even creative shit. Writing, art, actors, you can just use CGI and AI generated. Where the fuck do we fit in? We're putting ourselves out of not just work, but everything. Imagine an AI ran for president and won, but had a very typical robot voice as well. I am your commander in chief.

No new taxes. Launch the missiles. I mean, essentially, universal basic income is it. We would need to say, oh, if you're using these computers to do everything, that's cool, but we're now going to tax you and you have to pay robot tax. You've gone on Gerald again. Perrion's gone a bit robot. Sorry, guys.

It's my shit internet. We're not laughing at you, Perrion. No, no, no. It's my shit internet. You can't hear this, Perrion. It's every once in a while. It's so annoying. On Discord.

You've probably heard your friend on Discord go robot-y sometimes because of a bad connection. That's what's annoying. On Discord. You've probably heard your friend on Discord go robot-y sometimes, like, because of a bad connection. That's what's happening to Flats. Because of the virgin fucking media, who are the biggest cunts in the universe. I didn't want to get onto this again today. Yeah, I know. But I feel like there's some really simple things that you probably haven't tried.

Look, the AI, the idea of this future utopia where no, I think you have to say, what if no one had a job? Okay. Well, in that case, you would have to make sure that the companies that are making money and the way that all this stuff is owned you know a lot of it is taxed you still need people to have money for sure because if if if all of a sudden nobody had jobs and nobody had money like all the the companies would they would then fall too right like there would just be nobody to buy you'd still need money because of the way society works, right?

People will spend their money on what they want, and then that drives progress, right? If we move away from a system where you can work and do better at your job and maybe make more money, maybe have a job that is kind of niche and you've gone into it to try and you've gone through the training and you can earn some money and all the rest of it. If we move to a system of universal basic income where everybody makes a set amount of money,

someone, the government, has to decide how much that is. And the concern that I have is, are they going to be particularly fair? And how much input will the vastly wealthy people who own the businesses that now control absolutely everything and have all the jobs, how much they're going to give you? And essentially nobody could then ever rise to a level of competing with them because we're all just making the peanuts that they allow us to have. That is my concern. I think, yeah.

But with some of this, it sounds like, you know, like with AI art, like sure, okay, you can generate a ton of it and you could generate a ton of it for a video game or whatever, but you'd still need a lot of people to assemble it into something... For now. For now. Yeah, we're talking about really gradual change here that's happened across every industry ever. And I think that what's happened though over the last 50 years of gradual change is that

a lot of wealth has ended up in the hands of relatively few people, and yet the majority of people are being paid the same or living in the same way they have done for 50 years. A lot of the wealth, because of industry changing, like the internet, a company like Palworld can make $200 million overnight, right? And then that's going to be, you know, they're suddenly multi, multimillionaires. That didn't used to happen with businesses. Right. And so the models that we have back in the day, if you were running an oil company, you could make massive profits.

But at least there would be thousands and thousands of people employed in that. Not just that, but like, I mean, I feel like even in the 80s and stuff, if you wanted to make big money overnight, you had to have you had to have been established. And you have to have you you would have to have some money to make it happen as well. Whereas nowadays, it feels like more so, you can probably make money from nothing. In this day and age, you can make millions overnight just from your personality on social media or something, right? Whereas that could not have happened 20, 30 years ago. Valve made a

billion dollars 30 years ago i've made a billion dollars on counter-strike loot boxes last yes mr beast do you see he made a twitter video that made like 250 grand yeah in ad revenue these kinds of things this is this is the world we live in right where yeah it's it's silly silly setups right where it's it's yeah you can make that from your bedroom. And countries are... The bedroom of your mum's house. Countries are rushing to, you know, encourage people to set up their businesses in Ireland

because they'll pay less tax. You know, Apple and everyone will rush to Ireland. The island's economy will boom until, of course, they lift there. And Jersey as well. There was a thing in the paper the other day where Asda was under a bit of scrutiny, because like three quarters of all of their accounting and stuff is done through Jersey,

and they don't even have a store here. It's a global race to exacerbate the problem of the rich getting richer. And it's frustrating, but the only answer is a universal basic income. You know, if people are going to be replaced, we have to give them something else, or else, you know, who knows? I don't know what the answers are. God, I'm glad I'm not the one who has to make

the fucking choices and decisions. I don't envy the people who are. Have you seen the Disney hollow tile? It's like a treadmill, moving treadmill floor that you can walk on. It looks hilarious. What's it called? Disney? The Disney hollow tile.

It's like a VR. It looks like a little mat that you stand on, but you can walk on it, and it sort of lets you walk in VR. It looks mental. Oh, that's cool. Oh, it's like roller balls. so the balls move in all directions. Oh, okay, that's very clever. It's like, unlike the clunky omnidirectional treadmills.

Some of their animatronic stuff is really impressive. The new animatronic stuff, they're gonna do all their stunt shows at some point with animatronics, which I guess is another industry that will see people replaced by machines or whatever but it must just be so uh it's well i mean it's probably pretty dangerous and they probably have to spend a lot of money for people that get injured and and stuff as well so they probably figure let's just get a whole bunch of really high-tech animatronics in to do it but their movements are insane like so uh so real and And they can do, like, just these, like, bionic things, you know? Like, they could just be standing in a spot and then do, like, a triple backflip and stuff.

It's insane. Yeah. Look it up. I like that this has come from Disney instead of someone like Nintendo. Yeah. Because it feels like a kind of something that Nintendo would have put together, you know? A floor with, like, rollers that you can dance on or something. And it's designed by this guy called Lanny Smoot.

Lanny Smoot. What a name. Smoot. Lanny Smoot. Lanny Smoot. Lanny Smoot. If someone was applied to work for me and their name was Lanny Smoot,

I would just be like, yes. I don't care. Yeah, get him. That's just too good. Smoot in the house. Here comes Smoot. Yeah, everybody loves him. Smoot, S. That's just too good. Smoot in the house! And he becomes Smoot. Yeah, everybody loves him. Smoot, Smoot, Smoot, Smoot. I reckon he just sounds like a fun guy.

Like, I'd hire him in a second. So yeah, the holodeck, we're getting there. Holy crap. One step closer. Dicks. Get my dick in something. Shove it in there. Let's go.

Yeah, I can perv on people that I have no business perving on really. The hollow dick. Just like Geordi LaForge did with Deanna Troi. Deanna Troi. He was such a fucking Not only did he do it with Deanna Troi one time,

he also did it with that person who was visiting the Enterprise one time as well. Yeah, she came for a fucking visit and he was boning a virtual version of her.

What the fuck? And she caught him as well. Yeah. There's no way he would have been stripped of his he would have been He would have as well. Yeah. There's no way he would have been stripped of his... He would have been... He would have been

chucked out of Starfleet. He would have been deranked and chucked out of Starfleet in a heartbeat. Easy. I think Riker vouched for him, though, because Riker probably...

They probably never devoted an episode to it, but Riker was up to it as well, for sure. Come on, Captain. Where have you been, number one? We've all done it.

For the past five hours. Oh, Captain. Five hours? Been in number one? We've all done it. For the past five hours. Oh, Captain. Five hours? Laying virtual pipe. Laying some virtual pipe. Been jacking off in the holodeck. You know me. I just need 20 minutes.

So other news. In an Italian province, they have ordered DNA tests for all dogs in order to trace and find the owners of dogs who were pooping in the wrong places. Hell yeah. I'm on board with this. Yeah? Yeah. I fucking hate it when people let their dogs shit everywhere. Apparently there's a scourge of dog mess on the streets of Bolzano

City and surrounding towns. Yeah. It's lazy. I know Paris had some lads that went around on scooters and would quick freeze. They had like a spray freeze that would freeze the dog poo to make picking it up less disgusting. You got broke, Bob? I didn't get that. Sorry, P-Flex.

We got that whole... I was trying to pretend that I knew what you were saying, but I couldn't make a word out of that sentence. Stop. This is unbearable. Fucking virgin. Fucking media. That is enough podcasting. Oh, man. We went everywhere today have to stop. This is unbearable. Fucking virgin fucking media. That is enough podcasting. Oh, man. We went everywhere today.

We did. It was a world tour of complaining. Holy shit. All right. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. We will see you all next week. Until then, goodbye. Keep watching the skies. Goodbye.