00:00:02.04 alexei sayle Hi everybody, welcome to episode number 79 of the Alexis L podcast and today we have a guest, Ty Hickey, is that right? Am I saying that right?

00:00:10.70 Tadhg Beautiful. Yeah, it's beautifully pronounced.

00:00:11.78 alexei sayle Thank you.

00:00:12.61 Tadhg Yeah, thank you.

00:00:13.47 alexei sayle Thank you. And so we know, so just like jump right in here. um we I think we've come, you you've partly come to our attention because we are activism for Palestine, but I'm also interested in, I guess, how you get started, you know, your journey as a,

00:00:30.03 alexei sayle as ah As a comedian, Janie, yeah, Janie.

00:00:30.28 Talal K Jenny...

00:00:33.18 alexei sayle I wish there was another word for that, really, but there isn't.

00:00:33.36 Tadhg Jenny. Jenny.

00:00:36.48 alexei sayle Janie, unfortunately, is the word. um Whether you, you know, how you become a comedian in Ireland, really. What's the scene like there? And then also, what does Graham Linehan think?

00:00:49.19 alexei sayle He doesn't like you.

00:00:49.27 Tadhg He doesn't like me at all. Yeah, he doesn't like me at all.

00:00:50.72 alexei sayle No.

00:00:51.63 Tadhg Yeah, yeah.

00:00:51.82 alexei sayle You see, he loved you.

00:00:52.31 Tadhg Hates me, I think. He

00:00:53.05 alexei sayle Yeah. Did he love you first? He loved me first and now he hates me, I think. He just started.

00:00:58.47 Tadhg ah he probably just didn't know me first, so, like, I feel jealous of you there that I'd never had that kind of arc.

00:01:00.30 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:01:04.38 alexei sayle Yeah, it was.

00:01:05.11 Tadhg He just came in hot with the hatred for me, like, so, yeah.

00:01:06.98 alexei sayle Yeah, no, I have that. It probably happens Talal. These young men I take under my wing and it starts out, all goes well, and then at some point it goes horribly wrong, really.

00:01:14.45 Tadhg Young'uns.

00:01:20.33 alexei sayle which It has.

00:01:21.21 Tadhg Oh, I can't wait to start doing that. That's my dream.

00:01:23.47 alexei sayle ah oh it's, ah yeah. well it's When you get to an...

00:01:25.43 Talal K Oh, what's going to be my big controversy then?

00:01:26.06 alexei sayle ah

00:01:27.82 Talal K Hmm.

00:01:27.98 alexei sayle I don't know. it' We seem to have avoided it so far. But it's a it's ah it's ah it's it's an age, you know, when there's a theory, there's a kind Jungian theory that seasons of a man's life, that when a man reaches his kind of 60s, he becomes...

00:01:32.05 Talal K Hmm.

00:01:43.33 alexei sayle he becomes the teacher, you know, he stops striving to to to to do stuff, to accumulate, and instead becomes the the yeah the kind of sage of the village, you know, and takes young men under his wing and instructs them.

00:01:49.89 Tadhg Hmm.

00:01:58.36 alexei sayle And I've tried to do that several times and it's ended so badly.

00:02:01.79 Talal K Fuck.

00:02:02.07 alexei sayle can't tell you. I can't tell you how. um man, it's just, I mean, luckily, it's ah we've kept out the courts and kind of exclusion orders and so on so far, but it's it's not gone. One woman, but mostly men.

00:02:16.51 alexei sayle um it's It's, oh, it's not gone well.

00:02:19.55 Tadhg Well like if you could put your finger on why it doesn't go well like what what what is it do you think?

00:02:19.68 Talal K fuck

00:02:19.91 alexei sayle So tell us.

00:02:23.60 alexei sayle I think excessive neediness on my part, really, and

00:02:30.22 alexei sayle just, I mean, I think probably i am choosing the wrong people, really, to try to try and, you know, one of them's now, one of them's a fucking host on GB News, you know.

00:02:39.91 Talal K Okay, now I'm right here. I'm sitting right here.

00:02:43.06 Tadhg This is...

00:02:47.02 Talal K The fuck?

00:02:47.46 Tadhg Oh, wow.

00:02:48.30 alexei sayle I know, yeah. it's I mean, that's... I'm actually solely doing that, I think, as an act of kind of rebellion against me, really. to me He's gone to the trouble of me becoming a host on ah on ah on a ah right-wing TV channel.

00:02:57.09 Tadhg Jeez.

00:03:03.82 alexei sayle Just...

00:03:04.38 Tadhg Oh, my head is trying to figure out who that is now.

00:03:06.90 alexei sayle Josh Howey. He's gone.

00:03:11.53 Talal K damn

00:03:11.83 alexei sayle No, he's not really...

00:03:12.06 Tadhg Wow, he he hates me as well, actually.

00:03:14.24 alexei sayle Oh, does he? Yeah, he would do.

00:03:14.98 Tadhg Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:03:15.90 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:03:16.50 Tadhg Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:03:17.02 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:03:17.51 Tadhg Big, big time.

00:03:17.63 alexei sayle yeah yeah

00:03:18.31 Tadhg Big style. Yeah.

00:03:20.23 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:03:21.50 Talal K well there's no risk of me uh me no risk that i'm gonna go down that path alexi don't worry um

00:03:22.33 alexei sayle Well, we share that we've got a lot in common so far.

00:03:27.03 alexei sayle No, we're always going to be. Well, because you also.

00:03:28.66 Tadhg GB News, yeah.

00:03:29.19 alexei sayle He's a

00:03:29.18 Talal K Like, ah you know, I was listening to this podcast by this guy, Andrew Tate, the other day, and he had something really cool to say about this topic.

00:03:33.91 alexei sayle guy.

00:03:34.66 Tadhg Yeah, he's he's...

00:03:36.17 alexei sayle easy to go guy

00:03:37.87 Tadhg I think we should just hear him out. Let's just hear him out.

00:03:42.62 Talal K Because he's just said, you know, he put it so frankly, the problem with immigrants and this not racist is...

00:03:47.40 Tadhg Yeah.

00:03:48.32 alexei sayle and

00:03:49.23 Tadhg It's what we're all thinking.

00:03:49.46 alexei sayle Any... Yeah.

00:03:50.56 Talal K Yeah. Well, I've been... self-sabotaging myself since before i started working with you alexis though it won't be your fault when it happens anyway we have a guest today

00:03:56.88 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got better at... I've got better at...

00:04:00.67 Tadhg Yes. Yes.

00:04:01.60 alexei sayle Yes, anyway, sorry, yeah. Enough about...

00:04:03.29 Tadhg No, I'm loving this though. i'm loving, I'm loving this because I wish we'd recorded a bit about Eric Clapton, but at least we got the Graham Linn in stuff.

00:04:04.74 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:04:10.12 alexei sayle Yes. yeah

00:04:12.91 Talal K ah

00:04:14.10 alexei sayle Yes, enough about...

00:04:14.27 Tadhg No, but Graeme Linehan, he just fascinates me, though.

00:04:16.10 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:04:16.79 Tadhg like I mean, I talk about him for an hour, like, oh.

00:04:17.61 alexei sayle Graham. Yeah. He's, I mean, he's, it's, I mean, it's surprising. I mean, i you know, it's, I mean, you i don't mean you get you'll get loads of, because because he also has these insanely devoted fans, doesn't he So you get a lot of earache, really.

00:04:30.69 Talal K Yeah, and some of them do listen to this show.

00:04:31.04 Tadhg Yes.

00:04:33.17 alexei sayle I mean, and it's, well, like I mean, it's,

00:04:36.19 Tadhg What's your theory? happened? What happened?

00:04:37.49 alexei sayle Yeah, I don't really, I mean, you know, my arc with him is that I was, went after after Renick, David Renick and Andrew Marshall, we'd done three series of stuff for BBC and Renick was writing One Foot in the Grave and and so he wasn't available and then Andrew was also doing a series called 2.4 Children.

00:04:46.92 Tadhg Yes. Yes.

00:04:55.43 alexei sayle So I was looking for new writers and a friend of mine suggested Graham and Arthur, and so I took them on as writers for the all-new Lexi Sayles show.

00:05:06.36 alexei sayle We did two series of that.

00:05:07.22 Tadhg yes

00:05:08.18 alexei sayle And, they I mean, Graham was... I mean, he was very... He was young then, and... and and i do I mean, the the two of them were fine, really, then.

00:05:21.17 alexei sayle I mean, Graham, because they were young and stuff.

00:05:22.93 Tadhg Nobody wants that review.

00:05:24.20 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah.

00:05:24.69 Tadhg ah He was fa was fine.

00:05:26.20 alexei sayle He was all right. No, he was fine. But he became... I mean, he he never... I mean, I sort of jokingly, I mean, i you know, and they then went on to do... They wrote a sitcom for me, Paris, which was a disaster.

00:05:39.25 Tadhg Oh, yes.

00:05:40.46 alexei sayle Yeah, absolute disaster. and then but And I sort of say, you know, and then they went on to do... um ah Father Ted, and I always say, you know, all the people, you know, where's my fucking cameo as Father Oak Shaggle?

00:05:53.81 alexei sayle I don't know, Father Oak.

00:05:54.37 Tadhg Oh wow yeah yeah

00:05:55.38 alexei sayle Yeah, i never I never got a cameo.

00:05:55.60 Talal K That's a good point.

00:05:57.77 alexei sayle Why didn't I get a cameo as a fucking priestess or a rabbi?

00:06:00.37 Tadhg Oh my god And they crawled the streets of Ireland Like to pick up anyone attempting comedy at the time Like anybody doing comedy was on Got their cameo Oh no and I was just saying they like You know they crawled the streets of Ireland To find anybody doing comedy to give a cameo to In that show So like it was it's mental that you weren't in it

00:06:01.09 alexei sayle You know what, a funny rabbi?

00:06:05.05 alexei sayle Oh, he's gone.

00:06:08.48 Talal K Well, you disconnected there, say that. you They crawled.

00:06:13.03 alexei sayle Yeah, you're back now.

00:06:13.07 Talal K Yeah.

00:06:20.03 alexei sayle Yeah? Yeah?

00:06:23.64 alexei sayle I know. Maybe that was where Graham's, you know, it's well it's Oedipus as well, isn't it?

00:06:25.20 Talal K Hmm.

00:06:29.19 alexei sayle You know, it's so killing your father. don't know who he was.

00:06:34.12 Talal K Well, he wanted that show, obviously, to be extremely Irish.

00:06:34.70 alexei sayle Hmm.

00:06:36.57 Talal K i was There was very little, if any, England or British characters in that.

00:06:42.58 Tadhg Yeah, that's true. That's true, I suppose. so

00:06:44.55 Talal K And maybe because he's not Irish or is is he of Irish descent?

00:06:44.84 alexei sayle Hmm.

00:06:47.75 Talal K I don't know. But maybe ah Graham.

00:06:48.94 alexei sayle Hmm.

00:06:49.41 Tadhg No, he is.

00:06:50.81 alexei sayle Graham, yeah.

00:06:51.09 Tadhg Yeah.

00:06:51.46 Talal K He is Irish. OK, because I've always wondered, but because he doesn't sound Irish.

00:06:52.42 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:06:52.60 Tadhg Yeah.

00:06:53.15 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:06:56.11 Talal K um

00:06:56.23 alexei sayle and oh yeah

00:06:57.75 Talal K He did write good jokes for you, to be fair.

00:07:00.44 alexei sayle Oh, he did. He was great, you know.

00:07:00.68 Talal K The lad.

00:07:01.81 alexei sayle And ah they did admire me at first, really. But, it you know, said, well, as I say, I'm a um um ah um'm a great sort of initial friend. I remember telling this to a... I was being interviewed by a woman from the Scotsman once, and I was saying this.

00:07:15.45 alexei sayle I said, I'm a great friend. We would become great friends first, I said, you know. But then, know, when the weeping midnight phone calls start, you will... You know, it will...

00:07:28.78 alexei sayle And she was like, I've never...

00:07:30.05 Tadhg and

00:07:30.82 alexei sayle That phrase, their jaw dropped.

00:07:34.53 Tadhg Yes.

00:07:35.13 alexei sayle You know, so she stared at me.

00:07:35.23 Talal K Mm-hmm.

00:07:36.59 alexei sayle I'm not saying it's just a joke, you know. But ah based on truth. And um she... ah i You know, Linda, you it's like when you Linda used to give me a talk, like you yeah you're doing these interviews, you're trying to impress these journalists, you're not trying to unsettle them and make them uncomfortable.

00:07:56.98 alexei sayle But I never really learned that lesson. And to go back to Graham, well, Graham, I mean, I think his head got turned bit because he was mixing with, you know, I mean, quite a powerful crowd, really, all those people from Talkback and Edgar Wright and...

00:08:12.17 alexei sayle another of my protégés and who's never given me a fucking cameo and um I think he just got very I think it can it comes from arrogance really his is upfall and then his downfall really is about thinking that you know the answer to everything I suspect

00:08:23.85 Tadhg Yeah.

00:08:31.35 Talal K Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:08:31.66 Tadhg Yes, yes.

00:08:31.81 Talal K Mm-hmm.

00:08:34.20 Tadhg I always think this trans thing is like, it's something like and somebody who's sharted. Like, it's almost like he's gone away from the family, with the family for the weekend, and he sharted, right? and and And the wife is like, you need to clean yourself up. And he's like, no, hold on a second. this this This might be all my fault, like, you know?

00:08:56.41 Tadhg And the kids the kids the kids are like, Dad, look, this has gone on long enough. Like,

00:09:01.60 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:09:03.21 Tadhg And now he's at the window, like, and the police are like, Graham, you need to fucking come down. This is, this is over. Like, you know, and he's like, you don't know what I ate last night.

00:09:10.62 alexei sayle but

00:09:13.12 Tadhg Like, and it could be you, like, it could be your, like, it just seems like there was so many opportunities to deescalate this. Like, and instead he's just burned his fucking life down.

00:09:23.28 alexei sayle yeah

00:09:23.93 Tadhg Like, you know, it's just, it's mental.

00:09:24.63 alexei sayle that

00:09:26.43 Tadhg It's mental.

00:09:29.79 alexei sayle yeah

00:09:31.39 Tadhg I just began that and I was like, do they know what a shart is? A shart in Irish thing?

00:09:34.51 alexei sayle I don't I kind of I think I think it's it's on a matter of paper

00:09:34.67 Tadhg Like, cause we're just,

00:09:37.97 Talal K I'm very familiar. Extremely.

00:09:39.51 Tadhg we're, ah we're big sharters over here, guys.

00:09:40.56 Talal K Extremely.

00:09:41.43 Tadhg Big sharters.

00:09:43.87 alexei sayle we still haven't we've been going for how long have been going for nine minutes and haven't even started on your career so so tell us how you got started first of all I suppose what's the scene like over there

00:09:56.45 Tadhg Yeah, so, yeah ah yeah, I started off probably in music, really, and like I was a singer in a band, the band is kind of still vaguely going, electronic music, 80s kind of stuff, all that kind of jazz, and that's, I suppose I did acting, I did like regular acting, but I was just kind of like trying to get into comedy, but I didn't have the balls to do it until I was probably in my, maybe early, late late twenty s maybe.

00:09:57.13 Talal K Yeah.

00:10:19.55 Tadhg And then very quickly, i am ah like i mean I grew up watching surreal comedy, like you're not blowing smoke, but like i mean yourself and you know the young ones and bottom and all that kind stuff.

00:10:30.57 Tadhg That's the staple stuff for me when I was a kid.

00:10:31.15 alexei sayle Yeah. All

00:10:32.68 Tadhg I was always attracted to that kind of mad stuff as opposed to regular situation comedy kind of stuff. I formed my own sketch group, and we had good bit of success here in Ireland. We had our own sitcom and...

00:10:44.88 alexei sayle right.

00:10:44.79 Tadhg and whatnot, and, but I didn't, the group is called Cahoots, with three C's, for for, I can't remember why exactly, but all our stuff is on YouTube, and it's some good kind of offbeat, I think it's good, it's it's actually, yeah, i'm I'm really happy with it, like, you know, I'm proud of it and stuff, but I was very political very early on, and I never found a way to kind of marry the politics and the comedy, so Ireland is like weirdly quite,

00:10:46.89 Talal K What was the group called?

00:11:14.49 Tadhg you know, conservative. We've never had like a left-leaning government here. you'd You'd have to kind of leave your leftism at the door, like particularly leftism that would be associated with Irish republicanism and stuff, because that would be seen as kind of a bit dirty.

00:11:21.86 alexei sayle Right.

00:11:25.43 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:11:28.02 Tadhg So I always had to kind of park my politics, really, if I was to get work with the national broadcaster. And then somewhere along that, like before COVID kind of area, I think I just decided to just smash...

00:11:39.52 Tadhg the whole thing to the ground really and see what happens because I was just sick of not being fully kind of me in the comedy I think and so then I started doing more political comedy and to my great great surprise there was like a massive appetite for it online I couldn't believe it like I did a sketch about the British Empire just in my house at the start of COVID just like wearing wigs and playing different characters like taking on and off my jumper and it had like millions of hits on

00:11:47.34 alexei sayle Right.

00:11:54.62 alexei sayle Right.

00:12:04.76 Tadhg on Twitter and stuff. And then I suddenly realized, oh, there's all these people around the world that are interested in anti-imperialist comedy.

00:12:05.95 alexei sayle Right.

00:12:11.32 alexei sayle Right.

00:12:11.26 Tadhg and And that was, that was kind of like a bit of the comedy journey. I'd done lots of standup as well, but I, I'm not really, I'm not, I wouldn't be a standup guy. I don't think really, I, am I don't get that rush.

00:12:24.68 Tadhg Like, and i as I, actually, this is one of the questions I wanted to ask from you. Like, was the live thing, is the live thing the complete bedrock? For you, Alexi, like, is that, do you need to do that? Or did you need to do that?

00:12:38.12 alexei sayle um Well, it's I think that it was obviously the they it was the basis of what I did that started.

00:12:49.43 alexei sayle Obviously, you start out doing it you don't get directly onto the TV or whatever.

00:12:53.45 Tadhg Yeah.

00:12:55.08 alexei sayle I started out doing live stuff, and then I was the emcee of the comedy store. like you know i was the m of the comedy store

00:13:03.61 Tadhg Yes.

00:13:04.47 alexei sayle the original MC, and that's what yeah that's what started the comedy revolution in Britain. And I was sort central to that. And so, I mean, we we all met each other, the young ones and the comic strip crew all met each other working live.

00:13:18.55 alexei sayle And then, yeah, i would i will i never I wish I loved the life more, really. I mean, it was it was definitely the bedrock of what I was doing, working live. And it is... is um It is really nice to be with an audience, really.

00:13:35.85 alexei sayle I didn't, I mean, Stuart Lee is obviously kind of provides a template, that he he a kind of template in that he works every night. You know, he does he does more gigs than there are days in the year kind of thing.

00:13:44.60 Tadhg Yeah.

00:13:48.26 alexei sayle And so he, and and, you know, you can see it in his work that there's a polish, really, that and there's a,

00:13:48.83 Tadhg Yes.

00:13:54.98 alexei sayle you know, there's a there's a confidence with an audience that, you know, that that is sublime to watch, really. And i don't have that. I'm always sort of when I do the occasional live gig, I'm always on the edge of, because I'm not, I've not done it enough, really.

00:14:11.93 Tadhg Yes, yes, exactly.

00:14:12.11 alexei sayle um

00:14:12.16 Talal K And you were just saying last week, you were just saying last week how much you hated touring.

00:14:16.98 alexei sayle ah Yeah, I agree with the head touring, yeah.

00:14:17.37 Tadhg Yeah.

00:14:19.22 alexei sayle I mean, it's, you know, the travelling and, well, you know, yeah. um ah But, yeah, it it certainly was. And I think it's, you know, when I do my my award-winning radio show, I always work the material live. Just slip that in.

00:14:36.62 alexei sayle You're listening. You're listening, all my failed sons. um

00:14:41.55 Tadhg Yeah. Take that, Graham.

00:14:42.38 alexei sayle i Yeah, yeah. My dewey's got fucking in hundreds of bloody awards. But ah ah yeah, um you know, I always work the material live first and it is nice. It's nice now. And and so, arthurs like you know, my face, I mean, somebody, was looking at reading the comments somewhere and just saying they'd come to one of those tryouts and just say now how I lit up, how my face lit up when I was in front of an audience, really, you know, and it is a it is a wonderful thing to do. I just wish I loved it more. Yeah.

00:15:13.88 Talal K a good opportunity to say that we've got ah three live Alexis L podcasts coming up.

00:15:14.16 Tadhg So... and

00:15:19.14 alexei sayle Yes, the Museum of Comedy.

00:15:19.75 Talal K Listeners, go to Google, the museum of comedy, go to their website, see what's on. You'll find the Alexis L podcast live. We've got tickets left to sell.

00:15:31.58 Talal K Grab them before they're gone. Thank you. Um, Thank you very much. Taig, it sounds like you had a lot of practice then doing solo video sketches before ah the genocide on the Palestinian people, because you're the quality of your sketches on that topic.

00:15:49.23 Talal K And I think I've seen some other topics that you've covered as well, but really high quality sketches and like you're playing all the characters and editing is really clean and everything.

00:15:57.85 Tadhg Yeah.

00:15:59.34 Talal K is and is that Do you prefer that to playing with your sketch group and being with other people or was it just out of necessity because of the politics issue?

00:16:08.40 Tadhg Yeah, like the sketch group just naturally came to an end around COVID time. And as I say, like, i mean, this is just on me. There's nobody who was specifically telling me not to do but it was very hard to get the politics into the type of comedy that we were doing.

00:16:20.47 Tadhg And certainly if you were to do overtly left-leaning comedy, you have no opportunity to get work and with the national broadcaster in Ireland. Like, no way whatsoever. They're unbelievably safe. They don't want any... We don't didn't don't really have much even surreal comedy on TV here and much. It's still a very conservative kind of society and whatnot.

00:16:43.23 Tadhg So the sketches that have me playing all the characters actually kind of came out of a bit of COVID as well, that I was just in a house and it was my mate was with me and, you know, it was kind of a necessity more than anything else.

00:16:43.55 Talal K All right. Ah.

00:16:54.59 Tadhg But interestingly, at the start of... The genocide, I had already made sketches about Palestine because that was the kind of shtick that I was doing anyway. So like the first couple of sketches that I put out were just resharing stuff that I had already done.

00:17:06.40 Tadhg But it seemed like the world just just woke up.

00:17:07.03 Talal K oh

00:17:08.74 Tadhg Yeah, like I think like the first two ones I put out were were just reshares. and And also I've got Palestinian friends in Cork, so I wasn't even sure about doing comedy, to be honest with you. I was like, well what what on earth would comedy have to do in this space right now?

00:17:22.76 Tadhg and But it was my Palestinian friends here were just like, no, definitely get in here, like because this is going to be a kind of a media battle as well. It's going to be a narrative battle and we kind of need need satire. like So look, i'm I mean, I'm not an idiot. I know the the strength that satire can have, but...

00:17:38.81 Tadhg it was an unusual situation, as I'm sure you get, to try and say something vaguely humorous or satirical in the middle of ongoing mass murder, as opposed reflecting on something that had happened.

00:17:51.06 Tadhg You know, like, for instance, if you if you did a sketch about the famine right now in Ireland, it would be pretty, pretty saucy stuff.

00:17:51.75 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:17:57.48 Tadhg Like, you know, you'd be a bit like, whoa, I'm not sure. Like, it could be too soon, let alone doing...

00:18:02.63 alexei sayle Potato famine.

00:18:03.81 Tadhg Yeah, exactly.

00:18:06.04 alexei sayle How long ago was that exactly?

00:18:06.22 Talal K That famine.

00:18:06.64 Tadhg mitten

00:18:07.27 alexei sayle Still too soon.

00:18:08.32 Tadhg Like, you know i mean? As in, like, it's... Genocide is, you know, it's it's not very fucking...

00:18:11.87 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:18:12.87 Tadhg You've got to be careful with it, especially when it's ongoing.

00:18:14.10 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:18:15.13 Tadhg You know what I mean?

00:18:15.78 alexei sayle yeah

00:18:15.69 Tadhg so and So, was again, Palestinians, because, as you know, they've just got outrageously dark senses of humor anyway.

00:18:21.46 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah.

00:18:22.11 Tadhg And they were like, you're not going to be mocking us. Like, get in there and mock the Hasbro and stuff. So, yeah.

00:18:26.87 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:18:27.71 Tadhg Yeah.

00:18:30.75 alexei sayle I mean, so so, I mean, and that's brought, I mean, that's, I mean, how has that changed your life, really, I suppose? well and um one got Well, yeah, so we'll go, ah two things, really. How does it changed life and also go into the reasons why you think genocide's a bad idea?

00:18:49.07 Talal K ah Why is that?

00:18:49.43 Tadhg um not I've never been a fan.

00:18:50.27 alexei sayle We have to refer to two sides it.

00:18:50.84 Tadhg I've never been a fan of it.

00:18:52.27 alexei sayle Yeah, we have to show of broadcasterly, unbiased.

00:18:53.07 Tadhg Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah,

00:18:59.06 alexei sayle Pro-genocide, argue, why can't genocide go there? Why? have to have somebody on. Go on, anyway. Sorry, go on.

00:19:03.66 Tadhg yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, like, I mean, it's changed my life insofar as I've accidentally...

00:19:12.65 alexei sayle hit

00:19:12.61 Talal K What a question.

00:19:14.77 Tadhg Yeah, yeah.

00:19:14.80 Talal K It just, went and you you literally, you do put it, if you put it like that, it's outrageous that anyone out there is still fighting for the Israeli cause, you know?

00:19:15.27 Tadhg Yeah.

00:19:22.64 alexei sayle Yeah, defending it, yeah.

00:19:22.82 Tadhg yeah

00:19:24.47 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:19:24.77 Tadhg It's true, it's true. It's actually, it's it's a perfectly satirical question because it's ah it's absolutely true. Like I was saying to a mate of mine the other day, i would be shitting myself if I were a Zionist and I had to do something like this or I had to do media anywhere.

00:19:36.25 alexei sayle Right.

00:19:37.87 Tadhg Because you're now you're in a position where you have to defend the mass murder of mostly women and children.

00:19:38.37 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:19:38.86 Talal K yeah

00:19:42.59 Tadhg Like you're going to have to find a reason to legitimize it.

00:19:43.33 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:19:45.17 Tadhg It seems like an impossible position to me.

00:19:45.53 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:19:46.60 Tadhg I wouldn't like to take it on at all. like But yeah. Yeah.

00:19:49.17 alexei sayle They manage it. ah

00:19:51.10 Tadhg Yeah.

00:19:51.45 alexei sayle Yeah, unconvincingly. But yeah, so... Yeah.

00:19:54.94 Tadhg So yeah, look, it changed my life insofar as I've accidentally become a kind of an activist, you know, and because i I suppose like I saw the activism as something that I was doing on the side whilst trying to pursue a comedy career for for most of my adult life.

00:20:02.10 alexei sayle yeah

00:20:13.10 Tadhg And now it's almost gone the other way because... i Like, for instance, my Instagram is like just an open book, like anybody who wants to use it, anyone who wants to collaborate, particularly Palestinians, I just like always say yes.

00:20:26.03 Tadhg So I'm definitely doing more like the media asks that I have these days are more to do with activism than they are to do with comedy. But like, I'm absolutely at peace with that. Like, I feel privileged to be in the position that I'm in that, you know, I've got a big enough social media presence that I can push the message out there.

00:20:43.88 Tadhg But I mean, my main thing in terms of how it's changed my life is like my my even vague fleeting faith in any kind of system, any international law, any rules, any fairness is just completely gone.

00:20:58.78 Tadhg As I say, like I spend ah a lot of my friends in Cork are Palestinian. And like you're just watching people oscillate from rage to deep sadness, like on a minute by minute basis.

00:21:10.33 Tadhg You know, and what do you say to them?

00:21:10.58 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:21:11.33 Tadhg Like, I've literally run out of like, I'm i'm going to see them later today. And I've completely run out of things to say.

00:21:15.44 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:21:16.64 Tadhg They still send me the videos of like children being burned in their tents last night. They still send me all the stuff because I suppose I'm in a small list of people that they can continue to send things to us so that they feel like they're, I don't know, honoring the people who've who've died.

00:21:31.88 Tadhg But what do I say?

00:21:32.12 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:21:33.08 Tadhg I say, oh, just hold tight. Like, I'm going to do another protest. on the streets of Cork next weekend.

00:21:37.08 alexei sayle yeah

00:21:38.09 Tadhg You know what mean?

00:21:38.98 alexei sayle yeah

00:21:38.89 Tadhg Like it's, it's obviously not working. We're trying our best, but it's not working. So I don't know what you say to these people anymore.

00:21:43.10 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:21:44.39 Tadhg So, yeah.

00:21:45.19 alexei sayle No. That is, i mean, that is something that, I mean, it is, I think, so something that all of us on the left and... just any human being has the um but this the, that this situation has shown us that we we were living kind of in a fool's paradise, really, where we thought there were laws, where we thought there was humanity in our governments, in our politicians.

00:22:05.78 Tadhg Yeah.

00:22:11.72 alexei sayle We thought there was restraint. you We thought there was kindness and justice and none and none of that is the case. And so to wake up every morning, yeah, to the realization that,

00:22:22.00 Talal K Mm-hmm.

00:22:23.57 alexei sayle you know, that there is no law, that there is no kindness, there is no justice is a... It's a horrible... mean, most people can't look at that, can they?

00:22:36.10 alexei sayle And it's a difficult thing to look in the face.

00:22:36.29 Tadhg Yeah.

00:22:38.38 alexei sayle And I guess one of the only ways that you can at least partially learn to live with it is to actively do, you know, do your best to campaign against it, even though, you know, are coming from a position of...

00:22:51.96 alexei sayle relative powerlessness i think it's a yeah

00:22:54.47 Tadhg Yeah, but I don't want to, and you know, like a friend said to me recently, you know, you can when you look back at this, you can hold your head up high and you did your bit or whatever. Like, I'm not interested in that stuff at all.

00:23:04.81 alexei sayle yeah yeah

00:23:05.61 Tadhg Like, who gives a shit about that? Like, so when I'm dying, I can go, oh, Jesus, I i've shared a few videos about the genocide.

00:23:07.50 alexei sayle yeah

00:23:11.45 Tadhg Fuck off.

00:23:12.02 alexei sayle yeah

00:23:11.93 Tadhg Like, you know, like, I want to try and whatever...

00:23:12.75 alexei sayle yeah

00:23:15.05 Tadhg like bit of popularity that I have I want to use that page or pages to try and organize people into like fucking hitting the streets like and and you know I just cannot believe that there's not mass I can't believe we are not in the middle of an active revolution right now like if we're witnessing this level of horror you know it just blows my mind

00:23:24.16 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:23:31.11 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:23:31.44 Talal K Yeah.

00:23:33.06 alexei sayle yeah Yeah, but it is one of the sort of consoling lies, I think, to people on the left. And you can understand it, but they tell themselves, at least we did our best. And like you say, fuck that.

00:23:43.99 alexei sayle That's not enough.

00:23:44.11 Tadhg yeah

00:23:45.01 alexei sayle That's not fucking, you know, a tiny bit of enough, really, you know. least we At least we submitted a ah composite motion to the Labour Party annual conference that didn't get through, you know.

00:23:58.34 alexei sayle At least we did that. Fuck off. Do more.

00:24:01.74 Tadhg It's heartbreaking.

00:24:03.15 alexei sayle Realise, yeah, but realise that that is no consolation.

00:24:03.25 Tadhg it's heartbreak and

00:24:06.22 alexei sayle The system is against you. Yeah, and why aren't... I mean, that... Yeah, I mean, it it's but it's so it's like being in a... I mean, it's a click i it's like being in a fucking sci-fi movie, isn't it, in some ways?

00:24:19.03 alexei sayle This as well.

00:24:19.60 Tadhg Yeah. And I do think people, i think you're right, people are very eager to kind of say, like, we've done this.

00:24:22.07 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:24:26.63 Tadhg You know, like, we've we've done this, like, we've we've marched X amount and and, like, we've clocked up that much kind of, like, activism miles and now we can kind of, but no there's no material difference.

00:24:26.81 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:24:32.76 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:24:36.72 Tadhg Like, if you still got mates who are saying, oh, like, you're like one of my mates, the the family next to his in Gaza were all exterminated, like, about a week ago.

00:24:48.56 Tadhg I mean, it's very hard to turn around to him then and say like, well, like I've, I've actually done my bit, like I'm all marched out, you know, so best of luck with the rest of the genocide.

00:24:53.49 alexei sayle Yeah. yeah yeah

00:24:56.55 Tadhg You know, it's just, it's, it's, well, I suppose the whole world is insane.

00:24:57.34 alexei sayle yeah

00:25:00.15 Tadhg That's the thing. I definitely feel a bit insane. and you know what I mean?

00:25:03.22 alexei sayle Yes.

00:25:04.55 Tadhg I think we're all mad. People who've like stayed with it have collectively gone insane.

00:25:06.39 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:25:09.04 Tadhg I'm noticing that like, you know, amongst our, our community here in Cork, I'm sure it's the same. I mean, well, I'm talking to a lot of people in Britain anyway, but it's the same over there, is it?

00:25:16.22 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah. We have been driven mad by the cruelty of, of, uh, yeah, I've definitely suffered. Yeah. Yeah.

00:25:24.14 Talal K Yeah.

00:25:25.25 alexei sayle It's, um, uh, yeah. I mean, it's a good description really. I mean, I suppose they, they probably, they're, They revel in it. And I mean, the Zionists probably, you know, they're pleased with that as well.

00:25:36.66 alexei sayle that They've driven us mad.

00:25:37.34 Tadhg Yeah.

00:25:37.70 alexei sayle But, you know, our humanity has sent us crazy, really, to witness this cruelty day in death.

00:25:44.24 Talal K I was at my mum's birthday dinner last night and I was just kind of staring blankly at the wall with a really grim look on my face.

00:25:51.52 Tadhg Yeah.

00:25:53.72 Talal K And then my brother-in-law said, are you okay, Tal? What's wrong? Has someone upset you? And I just like, I was about to start talking. I just thought, yeah I have to, am either gonna like talk and not stop and ruin everyone's day and ruin my mom's birthday or I just fucking say, oh no, I'm all right, don't worry, I was just thinking about something.

00:26:07.65 Tadhg Yes, yes, yes.

00:26:08.66 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:26:13.71 Talal K um

00:26:14.44 Tadhg Yeah, it's just that pesky genocide is kind of annoying me again, like.

00:26:14.73 Talal K But you just kind of turn off every now and then and think about the reality of the situation and the gravity of it all and it's maddening, yeah, you're right.

00:26:19.15 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:26:26.96 Tadhg That's so true, man. i'm I'm in that loop at the moment, like where I can even there's there's people in my life that are definitely finding me really tedious. i can I'm with people and all I want to talk about is the fact that we need a global intifada.

00:26:38.92 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:26:38.97 Talal K Yeah.

00:26:39.24 Tadhg And like somebody's telling me about like some offer that they're after getting an Aldi, like, and I'm finding them boring, but I know they're finding me boring because they just want to get on with their lives. So we're in this mutual bore fest, like, and you know, it's, but yeah, I don't know.

00:26:48.46 alexei sayle yeah Yeah.

00:26:52.94 alexei sayle What, what, what is the offer? What is it? What is, what is the offer? was Were they doing it?

00:26:57.31 Tadhg i I can actually tell you exactly, right?

00:26:58.43 alexei sayle Aldi? Yeah.

00:27:00.72 Tadhg Because...

00:27:00.92 alexei sayle Cause we, I, I think I prefer a little to Aldi, but they no, really.

00:27:04.62 Tadhg What? Oh, you're a madman. yeah

00:27:07.77 alexei sayle but

00:27:08.70 Tadhg yeah

00:27:09.49 Talal K i the though I think it's true. The produce in Lidl is a bit better quality than Aldi.

00:27:16.07 Tadhg Are you serious, guys? No, I'm an Aldi fundamentalist. like

00:27:19.77 alexei sayle Really?

00:27:19.80 Talal K um Sell it to us. give us What's the offer?

00:27:20.71 Tadhg i'll die I'll die for that franchise. Yeah, no, I love it.

00:27:25.46 alexei sayle i can't tell the difference.

00:27:25.41 Tadhg it's It's just down the road for me.

00:27:25.94 Talal K They're not.

00:27:27.34 Tadhg I'll be honest, it's just

00:27:27.47 alexei sayle All right.

00:27:30.85 Talal K But therere are do they still stock the Israeli flushable toilet wipes in case you're sharted?

00:27:39.34 Tadhg What do you mean in case? all we've sharted.

00:27:43.34 Talal K For all the times that we've sharted, yes.

00:27:47.18 Tadhg Graham Linehan's special, like, you know. Um...

00:27:49.90 Talal K For him and her, and that's it. It.

00:27:54.18 Tadhg No, but I'll tell you, I'm going to plug a...

00:27:54.64 Talal K for him and her and that it

00:28:01.03 Tadhg Very good, very good. Final point on him, actually. he You know that he doesn't give a shit, like... You know what i mean He doesn't actually care about women. All the posts like, I'm just defending women.

00:28:11.00 alexei sayle No.

00:28:12.30 Tadhg Like, he doesn't give a...

00:28:13.26 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:28:13.80 Tadhg He's just defending his...

00:28:14.39 Talal K It seems that way.

00:28:14.60 Tadhg Like, somebody criticized a joke that he did 20 years ago. That's what it is, like.

00:28:17.68 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:28:18.80 Talal K Well, if he cared about women, he would have changed before his wife left him.

00:28:18.95 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:28:19.07 Tadhg It's so obvious.

00:28:19.63 alexei sayle No.

00:28:22.42 Talal K And, you know, that's the main woman in his life.

00:28:23.65 Tadhg Yeah.

00:28:25.67 Talal K Like, do something about her before you start ranting and railing.

00:28:26.09 Tadhg Yes, exactly.

00:28:29.04 alexei sayle No.

00:28:29.20 Tadhg Exactly.

00:28:31.67 alexei sayle um

00:28:32.17 Tadhg on, sorry.

00:28:33.44 Talal K Aldi, Aldi. what's ah

00:28:34.87 alexei sayle no

00:28:35.28 Talal K two

00:28:36.72 Tadhg Oh, yeah, actually, Aldi, let me let me plug a group.

00:28:38.08 Talal K The wipes, they said made in Israel on the packet.

00:28:38.80 Tadhg So...

00:28:40.48 Talal K maybe that was just Lidl.

00:28:43.28 Tadhg There's a group in Ireland, if you don't know them, check them out, BDS Belfast. They're the absolute pride of the country.

00:28:48.46 alexei sayle Right.

00:28:49.82 Tadhg Every single day they go to various shops in the north and they stage sit-ins and they do public announcements.

00:28:55.58 alexei sayle Right.

00:28:58.60 Tadhg They let people know exactly which products in the shop, wherever they are, that are in in any way connected to the Zionist regime. There's a small little group of them.

00:29:07.23 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:29:07.26 Tadhg And they're just doing it every day, you know.

00:29:09.95 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:29:09.96 Tadhg and they're even at the point now with some people within the community are probably like oh man I'm just trying to do my shopping like could he just leave me alone they're kind of relentless and they're facing that that kind of sting and activism where you know fatigue is coming in and like even within your own ranks are probably giving you shit but they keep going they're just yeah they're they're big inspiration so I said when we were talking about Aldi and Little there I'd throw him in

00:29:17.29 alexei sayle No.

00:29:23.01 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:29:32.02 Talal K Oh, this keeps happening.

00:29:33.72 alexei sayle You're back.

00:29:34.57 Tadhg oh no

00:29:35.50 Talal K Yeah, but it records locally, so we won't lose the recording, but we have we did lose the very end of what you said there.

00:29:41.74 alexei sayle And we should we should promote...

00:29:42.28 Tadhg Oh, poop.

00:29:43.74 alexei sayle Because boycotts work. i mean, it's one of the reasons why they try and make it illegal and stuff. You know, if you're speech therapist in Texas, you can't get hired unless you say you... you won't boycott israel you know mean it's israel because it really does that is something that does that is a non-violent protest that uh that really does work and i would encourage everybody and it has i mean it has having some effects isn't it kfc is closed down in turkey starbucks is obviously taking a hit all over the world mcdonald's and so on but also israeli products yeah

00:29:54.81 Tadhg That's right.

00:30:10.22 Tadhg yeah

00:30:11.07 Talal K Mm-hmm.

00:30:16.94 alexei sayle Boycott them really, really. mean, I would urge anybody in listening to really take a look at where stuff is produced and not buy it if it's going to do with Israel.

00:30:29.06 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah. yeah

00:30:30.36 Tadhg But you must get ah you must get and an incredible amount of personal abuse, Alexei, do you because of your stance?

00:30:37.52 alexei sayle I, know well, no, because I think because I'm not on, I'm not on social media, really.

00:30:42.22 Tadhg Okay.

00:30:43.65 alexei sayle So they can't really, there's nowhere to find me to give me that abuse, you know, I, you know, which is, um,

00:30:47.01 Tadhg Yes.

00:30:51.53 alexei sayle It's not, you know, I think I've talked about this before, but it's not it's not and it's not like being deported or attacked in the street. That um in when when I did Desert Island Discs in 2020, I think it was, the campaign against that, well one of their fronts, um a conservative MP called Matthew Offord, you know, obviously working, I think for them, tried to get that show banned, really.

00:31:13.12 Tadhg Oh, yeah.

00:31:18.06 Talal K Mm-hmm.

00:31:18.24 alexei sayle And, ah you know, with and it's it's actually... you know I stand with Alexi Sale, hashtag you know trended for days. on you Everybody came out and supported me, really.

00:31:28.07 Tadhg Oh, yes.

00:31:29.84 alexei sayle So I think I have probably, I mean, I'm not saying that this will last forever, but I particularly, because I've been involved in you know, kind of, um you know you you know what you're getting with me, and also that I've been doing anti-racist comedy for 40-odd years, over 40 years.

00:31:39.19 Tadhg Yeah.

00:31:44.99 Tadhg Yes.

00:31:45.95 alexei sayle That I, i mean, and and so that, you know, I mean, that my last radio series, my last world winning radio series that went out, you know, was full of all, you know, I think they've just kind of given up with me, really.

00:31:57.63 alexei sayle It's easier to ignore me than and to attack me, really, which is not to say that it won't happen in the future.

00:31:57.89 Tadhg Yes.

00:32:04.38 alexei sayle But I think I kind of, I am the one person who sort of gets away with it, really, you know.

00:32:10.89 Tadhg Yes.

00:32:11.75 alexei sayle And it's still possible. i mean, that ma in Starmer's Fascist Britain, that may not go on forever. um

00:32:21.35 alexei sayle But for for the moment, I think I'm um kind of allowed, really.

00:32:21.65 Talal K yeah

00:32:24.91 alexei sayle So I don't... don't get even Even this podcast doesn't really get much abuse, does it, really?

00:32:29.90 Talal K No, we don't because no one listens to it.

00:32:32.18 alexei sayle LAUGHTER

00:32:33.83 Tadhg So clever.

00:32:34.60 alexei sayle I'm allowed to make that self, do that self.

00:32:34.72 Tadhg That is so clever. did our bit.

00:32:36.79 alexei sayle Yes, it's a really clever, it's really clever strategy. It's a strategy that the left has pursued for many years to have no effect. And to do nothing means that you, it's a brilliant way to avoid repression, really. It's an incredibly brilliant strategy.

00:32:54.21 Tadhg we did our bit

00:32:54.60 alexei sayle to To do nothing, yeah. To do nothing and to challenge nothing means that the state can't. clamp down on you it's a fantastic strategy

00:33:03.40 Tadhg We'll call it a draw, exactly. Call it a draw.

00:33:09.37 Talal K ah No, I don't get any messages of hate towards you or calling you anti-Semitic or anything like that.

00:33:12.59 alexei sayle no no yeah it's also that they're all on board yeah yeah yeah

00:33:16.03 Talal K I think that's the concentration of our listenership is pure and they're all on board. Yeah, it's nice.

00:33:26.50 Tadhg But what about the, ah when you did the address, the Stephen Fry spoof? I'm shocked that you didn't get, like, lots of abuse for that.

00:33:35.09 alexei sayle Again, I don't...

00:33:35.72 Talal K Oh, well that had too many comments to sit and read all of them, but yeah, that that had lots of views and I'm sure.

00:33:35.96 alexei sayle We probably did, but...

00:33:39.70 alexei sayle Yeah, I tried.

00:33:40.57 Tadhg Yeah. That

00:33:41.05 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah i there was there was some, but...

00:33:45.53 Tadhg was so beautiful.

00:33:47.31 alexei sayle Yeah, no, it's um it was. Well, it came out of just a, you know, just a, I mean, the best comedy in a sense. Sometimes it comes, out you know, I just heard what he was about to do, saw the text of it and felt, just felt, and we threw that piece together in a couple of days, really.

00:34:02.59 alexei sayle I felt so, yeah.

00:34:02.59 Talal K Yeah. There is when it's of the moment and and that's when it's really driven by passion.

00:34:06.09 alexei sayle Yeah,

00:34:06.64 Tadhg Yeah.

00:34:09.27 alexei sayle yeah yeah, and it worked so well, really, you know, as a,

00:34:09.77 Talal K um

00:34:10.27 Tadhg Yes, yes.

00:34:12.12 Talal K The longer you think about doing something, the less you want to do it, really. Hmm.

00:34:16.47 Tadhg That's very true.

00:34:16.74 alexei sayle Yeah, I'm sure it did get.

00:34:18.42 Tadhg You got to trust your instinct.

00:34:20.81 alexei sayle I haven't bumped, you know, it is, I mean, it's a weird kind of parallel world that I live in, where it you know, which I, you know, which I'm, you know, doing that sort of stuff and speaking at Trafalgar Square.

00:34:31.69 alexei sayle But also there is a chance that I would be at a party where Stephen Fry would be.

00:34:35.42 Tadhg Of course.

00:34:36.20 alexei sayle It's not beyond the bounds of possibility. I don't know how this happened yet, but it would be socially so awkward. ah I mean, again, that's look how I suffer. I would have to, I would have to have an uncomfortable moment with Stephen Fry in, in, in the Delaney restaurant.

00:34:56.60 Talal K That's the most hate you get.

00:34:56.98 alexei sayle That's,

00:34:58.78 Talal K on our comments and Tyg, we will come back to you. ah The most hate you get on your comments

00:35:03.52 Tadhg I'm fine guys I'm having a great time

00:35:05.41 alexei sayle but

00:35:06.81 Talal K is that awkward photo of you on the train with Baddiel. And do we still get we still get comments about that as if you're now best friends after you've like railed against him so much and then you bump into on a train and you were polite.

00:35:10.86 alexei sayle Oh, yeah, yeah

00:35:13.22 Tadhg oh

00:35:15.06 alexei sayle yeah.

00:35:18.04 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:35:21.01 Talal K You didn't like cause a scene on a public train.

00:35:21.92 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:35:24.50 Talal K um people fucking give you a hard time for that and act like your besties and but not that many it's like one or two people but that's the only thing so it's actually lefties who give us a hard time or people who are on board

00:35:29.54 alexei sayle well well no yeah

00:35:29.92 Tadhg Yes.

00:35:33.11 alexei sayle Well, yeah, it is. It is. It's a comp. Yeah.

00:35:37.33 Tadhg Right, right, yeah. That doesn't surprise me, actually. ah so the left The left is still masterful at tearing itself apart.

00:35:40.61 alexei sayle No, yeah.

00:35:43.47 Tadhg You can even see that the pro-Palestine movement.

00:35:46.25 alexei sayle Yes, we do an amazing job of subverting ourselves, I think.

00:35:46.88 Talal K mm-hmm

00:35:52.28 alexei sayle um so oh Yeah, to come back, too so you live in Cork, is that correct?

00:35:55.66 Tadhg Yeah, yeah, I live in Cork in Ireland, yeah.

00:35:58.56 alexei sayle What's that like?

00:35:59.02 Tadhg But I'm spending more and more time in Middle Eastern countries. Like I've been been there a few times now. And ah one one thing that's actually really interesting for me and in the last year and a half, to just go back to comedy briefly, is that there's a whole world out there for comedy.

00:36:16.80 Tadhg So it's it's another kind of pseudo imperialist thing that we have over here, I think, which is that, you know, when you hear comedians going on world tours, generally speaking, it's the US, Britain and Australia, maybe like that's the kind of world tour.

00:36:30.72 Tadhg and And as it turns out, there's all these people like in the global South that like to have a laugh as well, you know?

00:36:30.92 alexei sayle Yeah, goodbye. Yeah.

00:36:35.21 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:36:37.16 Tadhg so So, so I'm the,

00:36:38.21 Talal K Yeah.

00:36:39.23 alexei sayle so yeah So tell us about that. So what would how would that, so what would um would that work? What would...

00:36:43.06 Tadhg So like I was in, and know again, most of the time the invitations are for ah the fact that I'm partly doing activism as well. So it's not necessarily doing comedy yet, but like I was just in Lebanon and I had like an amazing experience.

00:36:53.63 alexei sayle Right.

00:36:59.56 Tadhg I was over and as part of a delegation for the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah.

00:37:07.08 alexei sayle Right.

00:37:07.17 Tadhg And yeah, so it was, it was, it was mental and I was like hanging out with Houthis. I did like a couple of comedy sketches with a couple of Houthis. Actually, I'll send them on to you. Brilliant. Like there's one particular Houthi is going to be like the next big thing in comedy.

00:37:16.15 alexei sayle Yes.

00:37:19.12 Tadhg Like I'm trying to launch a kind of ah at home with the Houthis, which I'm sure Netflix are going to be all over.

00:37:19.24 Talal K Yeah.

00:37:23.94 alexei sayle ah

00:37:24.91 Tadhg Like, you know. and But the point I'm making is that there's a lot of people in Beirut, for reasons best known to themselves, are aware of all these kind of anti-imperialist comics.

00:37:37.88 Tadhg So I'm hoping to go back to Beirut. Maybe my partner's having a baby soon, so it won't be for a couple of months, but maybe in August to do a gig in Beirut. And in in a dream world... I do like, if I go back touring, I tour that part of the world almost like first.

00:37:53.08 alexei sayle Right. Yeah.

00:37:53.81 Tadhg And I think that would be an interesting way for a comedian to express true anti-imperialism as well, rather than just like, I'm doing my little anti-imperialist shtick in a gig and in London, you know?

00:37:56.60 Talal K Oh, wow.

00:38:01.56 alexei sayle yeah

00:38:03.33 Tadhg Like, it's not like I've done massive amount of touring, but I have done Britain and it's been brilliant but like yeah I'm just trying to broaden my own mind I suppose and and and whatnot because like there's these these countries are hungry for material it's just like in the case of Lebanon they just don't really believe that anybody in the west is a interested enough about Lebanon and b would would come over there because it's such a dangerous place to go and it's so dangerous because the west just destroys it like cyclically every kind of 15 years you know what i mean so um so yeah

00:38:25.56 alexei sayle yeah

00:38:31.05 alexei sayle yeah yeah let me do it in english presumably you would uh yeah

00:38:36.40 Tadhg Yeah, or like I did one or two little bits of TV and in Lebanon as well, which is mental. And now you'd have like an Arabic translator in your in your ear.

00:38:45.55 alexei sayle right

00:38:46.34 Tadhg like And when that when that cuts out, I tell you, that's quite a moment when the Arabic translation isn't working and you're doing live television in Lebanon like and you're just this fucking comedian from Ireland has wandered in to the studio.

00:38:53.34 Talal K He he he.

00:38:58.42 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:38:58.93 Tadhg Like, you know, interesting. But yeah, I love it though.

00:39:00.88 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:39:01.29 Tadhg I love it. There's definitely upsides, you know, which obviously sounds bizarre and crass to say like there's an upside during a genocide. But my own mind has been blown open from kind of anti-imperialism as an abstraction, as something that I'm reading about, to now something that I'm experiencing and making friends, I suppose, who have been victims of this kind of way of thinking in the West, which is that we're...

00:39:26.32 Tadhg We might make mistakes, but we're vaguely the good guys. And all those brown countries are just perennially up to no good.

00:39:33.69 alexei sayle Yeah. ah Yeah.

00:39:36.17 Talal K yeah

00:39:36.53 alexei sayle I was there was a one thing you could do is I can't really talk about the details of it. But there was a time when I was in the Middle East, and something really terrifying happened.

00:39:50.10 alexei sayle Really life threatening. And suddenly, i became a million Linda both became fluent in Arabic. The degree of terror that we were experiencing in this moment, um ah can't but I can't really talk about it.

00:40:02.65 Talal K What the fuck happened?

00:40:04.71 Tadhg ah You have to tell us You have to oh wow

00:40:06.41 alexei sayle but it Well, we probably can't broadcast. it was Well, it was there' to do with King Hussein's brother-in-law as well. was to do with the king's brother-in-law who had been a friend of mine.

00:40:20.10 alexei sayle And they they just...

00:40:20.21 Talal K Huh. huh

00:40:22.09 alexei sayle ah my My Palestinian friend, what's here? It's just in Amman, we can't read, but broadcast. ah his There'd actually been... a um there'd been a riot in a university up in the north because it was when the United States had bombed Libya.

00:40:42.13 alexei sayle And what had really happened was that the Bedouin police had gone into and killed a lot of the students, so you know, certain number of students.

00:40:42.03 Tadhg Yes.

00:40:49.99 alexei sayle But the, the, the, the story that the royal family spread was that it was a, that there'd been a stampede in a, in a, in a, in a, and ah the fire alarm had gone off of there being a stampede so anyway so my friend Abdullah who's the king's brother-in-law ah was spouting this line and one of Wasim's Wasim's older brother who was married to a Swiss woman and therefore thought he was

00:41:18.57 alexei sayle above the you know could say things said oh well we don't see it we don't quite see it like that

00:41:20.38 Tadhg Yeah, yeah.

00:41:25.27 alexei sayle And so, you know, I mean, Jordan, it just... A chill just settled over. mean, I don't know if I'm giving enough context this, but he was taking a tremendous risk then, you know, arguing with the king's brother-in-law that, you know, their version of events was false.

00:41:35.80 Tadhg No, I think you are. Yeah.

00:41:48.53 alexei sayle And we just suddenly... just suddenly understood what everybody was saying, even though they were switching from English to Arabic.

00:41:50.62 Talal K I will.

00:41:52.25 Tadhg Yeah,

00:41:55.31 alexei sayle We suddenly felt that we were fluent in Arabic because we were so frightened.

00:41:59.24 Tadhg yeah.

00:41:59.78 alexei sayle so we see We understood what everybody was saying just in that moment.

00:42:03.35 Tadhg yeah yeah

00:42:04.56 alexei sayle We were so terrified. And it was it sort slightly diffused, but then... Sami, I think his older brother, went to the went to the airport a few days later and the...

00:42:17.11 alexei sayle the The ah immigration, the passport people just ripped his passport up and he wasn't allowed to leave the country for couple of years because of that incident, because of that conversation.

00:42:23.92 Talal K Fuck.

00:42:31.67 Tadhg Oh my Lord.

00:42:32.92 alexei sayle I don't know if I've had enough context there, but that yes, but it was...

00:42:35.53 Talal K No, you did all right.

00:42:36.86 alexei sayle yeah and Yeah, so that's... If you want to become fluent in Arabic, rather than taking lessons on the internet or whatever, just get terrified.

00:42:42.53 Tadhg get scared. Whoa.

00:42:45.66 alexei sayle Just let... He'd already... but he picked it He picked us up from the airport, Abdullah, and he'd already opened a glove box of his Mercedes and showed us the pistol that was in there.

00:42:56.53 alexei sayle and

00:42:57.82 Tadhg whoa

00:42:57.94 alexei sayle So, yeah. Yeah, that's the Middle East way.

00:43:00.66 Talal K yeah we've we've got our ah you know we do tyranny pretty well over in the Middle East but that's only the ah implants that's the ah fucking you know the the implanted leadership that have been you know that is that is the result of you know these false borders being drawn across the region and

00:43:06.74 alexei sayle You do. I mean, and, and you know... they

00:43:08.27 Tadhg Fair play.

00:43:16.61 Tadhg Well, exactly.

00:43:20.65 alexei sayle Yeah, although Abdullah himself was Palestinian.

00:43:24.87 Talal K Yeah, um

00:43:26.52 alexei sayle But he'd been yeah he'd been subsumed into the...

00:43:28.38 Talal K but the people are ah beautiful and the people are so nice.

00:43:28.97 alexei sayle Yeah,

00:43:29.52 Tadhg Yeah.

00:43:31.98 Talal K And like, you know, I remember growing growing up telling people about my trips to to Syria and they'd always be like surprised when I say, oh yeah, everyone's really nice.

00:43:32.42 Tadhg Yes.

00:43:40.89 Talal K You know, don't, but we're actually, you're you're looked after, you're fed, you know there's nice bars, you know, people are like, what, bars?

00:43:41.60 alexei sayle yeah I mean, that is one of the things, yeah, yeah.

00:43:42.55 Tadhg Yeah, I see.

00:43:47.61 Tadhg Yes. Yes.

00:43:48.82 alexei sayle That kind of demented hospitality of the Arabs is, it is, and it just sounds imperialist and kind of patronizing, but people are so nice to you, really.

00:43:53.03 Tadhg Yeah.

00:43:57.69 Talal K It's weird.

00:43:58.01 alexei sayle It's, yeah.

00:43:57.93 Tadhg I agree. Demented is a good word for it. Yeah, totally.

00:44:01.65 Talal K It's not just we're happy to share. It's like you must have our stuff.

00:44:05.25 Tadhg Yes, yes.

00:44:06.40 Talal K no

00:44:06.52 alexei sayle Yes.

00:44:07.39 Tadhg ah

00:44:08.09 Talal K Or else I will perform Harakuri, you know.

00:44:10.32 Tadhg Yes, yes.

00:44:10.92 alexei sayle Yes, let me give you my shoes.

00:44:11.48 Talal K ah

00:44:14.13 Talal K you like my You like my shoes?

00:44:14.30 Tadhg Like I was a bit...

00:44:15.57 Talal K Take my shoes, you know.

00:44:16.61 alexei sayle Take my hat.

00:44:16.89 Talal K and It's crazy.

00:44:19.87 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:44:19.84 Talal K But that's also, I think, that's just a non-Western thing.

00:44:20.20 Tadhg yeah

00:44:23.74 Talal K Because that's the same in in Japan, you know. um

00:44:27.54 Tadhg Guys, it's actually the same in Ireland. That's the thing.

00:44:30.33 Talal K Oh, well, there you go.

00:44:30.57 Tadhg that That's why I think the Irish have a unique perspective on this whole thing, because we've probably got more in common with, you know, colonized Arab nations than we do with Britain.

00:44:39.86 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:44:41.27 Tadhg You know what i mean? Like, so I agree.

00:44:42.60 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:44:43.92 Tadhg It's very Western because it's it's very consumerist and it's very individualist to have the kind of thinking that we have over here. That's why I think when we go over there, we're like, whoa these people want to share a meal with us and invite them invite us to their homes that's kind of the norm like we're abnormal like

00:44:58.15 alexei sayle Yeah. i mean, yeah. Yeah. yeah i mean, it's funny, isn't it? Because Ireland is, as you say, it so conservative, but then you do also have that experience of being a colonialised people that must be very profound, really. Yeah.

00:45:12.41 Tadhg Yeah, and it I think our conservatism is more like it comes out of, you know, starting a new country and it was like Catholic dominated and it's socially conservative.

00:45:23.92 Tadhg But it doesn't mean that we're conservative in terms of we would still, i mean, obviously it's it's not as much as it would have been.

00:45:24.15 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:45:30.43 Tadhg But if you go to rural Ireland, even right now today, you'd still, we would make a big deal of you. Like if you didn't know your way around and you know, we,

00:45:38.00 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:45:38.44 Tadhg welcome you in we still definitely have that spirit and i definitely found when i was like in these countries like because i was in qatar as well and i was in iran uh which again is a total eye opener because obviously like i'm not you know a massive fan of the government or anything like that like but this the stereotypes that you get in the west a bit like what you're saying there talal is like that basically iranians are are like horrid evil people as opposed to regime they get they get thrown into the same milieu I think in the kind of vague western sense of these places so to go there and be like these people are unbelievably friendly they're so fun you know fun loving they reminded me a lot of the i of the Irish mentality a little bit and but yeah i just too I do think the west has and like the BBC's of the world and CNN's of the world or whatever they've done a masterful job

00:46:13.61 Talal K Yeah. Yeah.

00:46:27.94 Talal K yeah

00:46:33.41 Tadhg of kind of dehumanizing an entire great great swathe of the planet, I think.

00:46:38.44 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:46:38.46 Tadhg 100%.

00:46:40.73 alexei sayle Yeah. um I mean, you can't murder somebody. You can't patronise them if you know their humanity. but but admit so

00:46:47.21 Tadhg yes

00:46:47.57 alexei sayle You can't murder somebody. You can't, you know, destroy them. if you You have to other them, you know. It's a basic human instinct that... And that's what that's what that, ah you know, that's what, um ah just you know, that refusal to humanize Arabs or Iranians is about, really, I think, yeah.

00:46:54.32 Talal K And yeah.

00:46:58.42 Tadhg hundred percent

00:47:01.12 Talal K That's a hundred years of

00:47:05.80 Tadhg Yeah.

00:47:06.49 alexei sayle I mean, isn't Ireland, though, i mean, at least, I mean, the israeli um um the Israelis have withdrawn their ambassador from Ireland and stuff like, I mean, isn't doesn't that isn't that indicative of a certain level of,

00:47:14.98 Tadhg Yeah. Like,

00:47:20.84 alexei sayle resistance to hasbro you know israeli you know israel power the higher levels

00:47:26.66 Tadhg Definitely, but it's it's popular, you know, it's because there's so many people are so active, you know, on the streets that the government has had to pander a little bit to the kind of popular support for for Palestinian liberation and justice.

00:47:40.81 alexei sayle right

00:47:41.99 Tadhg it hasn't come from a government level. like where Because the Irish government, as I say, we've never had a left-leaning government. We've always had this kind of slightly centre-right Fianna Fáil Fine Gael, two dominant parties in the south of Ireland.

00:47:56.47 Tadhg They've always been in power, and they're for a long time now beholden to US multinationals.

00:47:57.22 alexei sayle yeah

00:48:02.34 Tadhg So it's not so much that we're cowering to Zionism, we're cowering to kind of the dollar, like, you know,

00:48:02.52 alexei sayle right right

00:48:08.19 Tadhg and so like our leader went to the White House recently and just basically made a holy show of himself like in kind of sucking up to Donald Trump who you you kind of wonder, did he even know who he was? And then he invited, then Trump invited like Conor McGregor, like next day to hang out with him.

00:48:23.58 Tadhg Like as a satirist, like it's over, like game over.

00:48:25.60 alexei sayle but that

00:48:26.98 Tadhg There's nothing left to satirize.

00:48:27.99 alexei sayle Coming.

00:48:28.34 Tadhg Like, you know, it's done.

00:48:28.70 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:48:30.37 Tadhg But, i but, but basically if those, if those us multinationals, big pharma and big tech, if they leave Ireland, which they easily could, we're decimated.

00:48:39.32 alexei sayle yeah

00:48:40.12 Tadhg Like our economy falls apart. on the spots and we are kind of propped up economically by the us.

00:48:43.07 alexei sayle Right.

00:48:46.28 Tadhg you know, you could argue that the government is in a tricky position if you're a conservative and your whole life is, you know, the American interests whatever, but yeah.

00:48:49.99 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:48:55.99 alexei sayle um actually just going back to the oldie question but is is how's what's happening what's up with done stores is that still going yeah well they've got a branch in malaga so i was sort of fascinated by uh and also so yeah there it says what the fuck is this as a first my first done store i went to is in malaga yeah

00:49:02.89 Tadhg Yeah. Yeah. Don't say you don't store his guy. Yeah. whoa

00:49:22.12 Tadhg I would say this podcast is is just going to be impossible for somebody to listen to. Because there's no... There's no thread. There's no...

00:49:30.79 alexei sayle but

00:49:30.88 Tadhg i mean... That's right.

00:49:31.06 Talal K Yeah.

00:49:31.85 alexei sayle No, you think that's different?

00:49:33.18 Talal K Well, you still haven't answered the fucking question.

00:49:33.86 Tadhg Hmm.

00:49:34.96 Talal K Why is genocide a bad idea?

00:49:36.45 alexei sayle Well, there was also, wasn't it, that the the ah the the patriarch of Dunn's Stores was also... I read a book by, is it Fincernot Toolabout called We Don't Know Who We Are?

00:49:44.47 Tadhg that's right

00:49:45.93 alexei sayle And it was it was a lot there was a lot about Dunn's Stores in that and the the the patriarch of the family and then the subsequent...

00:49:53.27 Tadhg And of course, Dunstores is...

00:49:53.50 alexei sayle Are they still going? No. yeah

00:49:55.91 Tadhg is

00:49:57.97 alexei sayle yeah but what's like What's a good bargain? What are they doing? What's a good... Yeah. Yeah.

00:50:02.40 Tadhg It's still a big thing, man.

00:50:02.80 alexei sayle but's a good

00:50:02.81 Talal K Tell us, Teig.

00:50:04.31 Tadhg It's still a big thing. um Yeah, Dunstores is kind of like, you' you'd want you'd want to be doing okay to go to Dunstores. Like, you know, the riffraff are all shopping in and in Aldi and Lidl now.

00:50:14.63 Tadhg Like, I'm a big Aldi guy.

00:50:14.94 alexei sayle yeah

00:50:15.87 Tadhg I would go to Dunstores on my birthday. You know, like that's a big treat. And then obviously Marcus Spencer's is just Anglo-Irish nonsense. Like, you know, so you wouldn't be, you wouldn't be found dead there.

00:50:27.87 Tadhg but ah But obviously Dunn's then has a great lineage as well. Cause you know, like the Dunn Storrs strikers were a big part of the anti-apartheid movement. in ireland to go back to an actual genuine point um yeah because like we we had some well i didn't have them but some brave young women um refused to handle south african goods and they were they were in done stores and they they they're really kind of feted in south africa these days yeah because they kind of kick-started a little drive towards anti-anti-apartheid policies uh in europe yeah

00:50:38.85 alexei sayle Right.

00:50:52.36 Talal K Oh.

00:51:02.77 alexei sayle Right. Oh, well, and not you know, that's something that worked, isn't it?

00:51:03.99 Talal K wow

00:51:06.70 alexei sayle Yeah, I mean, you know, i mean, again, that's an example of boycott working.

00:51:10.12 Tadhg That's... I mean, that's where I thought you were going...

00:51:10.71 Talal K yeah

00:51:12.43 Tadhg When you brought up Dunstores... But actually you were just... It was just the oddity of seeing it in Malaga...

00:51:15.14 alexei sayle No, just interested in...

00:51:16.42 Tadhg Like... Yeah, yeah...

00:51:17.88 alexei sayle was just interested in...

00:51:18.93 Tadhg Which is also fine, you know...

00:51:21.02 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah. No, just interested.

00:51:22.65 Talal K So, Taig, tell us about ah Tuesday, Taig.

00:51:24.17 alexei sayle but

00:51:28.02 Tadhg I'm talking to an anti-imperialist...

00:51:28.48 Talal K Because...

00:51:29.83 Tadhg Comedy hero of mine... Like, you know... And I just thought he was going to go there... Like, you know... With the whole Dunstores thing... But anyway... and So... So basically...

00:51:38.23 alexei sayle You've been through that arc. You see, you've been through that arc with me of like, you're one of my protégés.

00:51:43.60 Tadhg Yeah.

00:51:44.26 alexei sayle You started out this interview in awe and now you're already disillusioned.

00:51:48.43 Talal K Yeah, yeah, you've got a lot to learn about, Alexei.

00:51:49.49 alexei sayle it's ah It's a rapid, it's a kind of a rapid aversion of what usually happens with me and Graham Linahan.

00:51:49.57 Tadhg yeah

00:51:52.33 Tadhg I just... Exactly, yeah, we just don't have the time to do the full circuit, like, and so neither of us have that time, you know, so and yeah, so Tuesday, i e i think I was saying to you there, Talal, that I have a bit of a following on Instagram, and I can feel the pressure of the kind of Zionist lobby, they've just taken on

00:52:02.00 alexei sayle look

00:52:15.73 Tadhg Met have now taken on more as I and a staff. So I feel like I'm on the verge of losing the page. That's very possible. I've lost my TikTok and I'm starting to get higher up the naughty list, I think. So they're going to try and take me out because that they're just experts at kind of isolating people. And there's people with way bigger profiles than I'll ever have who have lost their pages and there's just no coming back.

00:52:35.55 Tadhg With that in mind, I was feeling frustrated because the whole genocide thing, which again, I'm like just to put on record totally against. I can't think of anything positive about it.

00:52:44.92 alexei sayle Good, good. Yeah, yeah.

00:52:46.07 Tadhg um yeah just to clarify and uh so i said let's do something with that so i just picked a date in the calendar and there's a few activists who are with me who are doing brilliant work and we said you know this is just a dream i suppose but even if it falls flat in its arse this time maybe somebody else will take up the ball and it could snowball if we pick a date in the calendar and we try and get everyone who's willing to do the bare minimum of not buying shit like just don't buy any stuff at all just don't give to the corporate machine at all particularly not

00:52:46.85 alexei sayle Okay. but

00:53:14.60 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:53:14.88 Tadhg kind zionist associated goods in an ideal world don't go to work and then organize your own acts of civil disobedience whether they're kind of potentially occupying buildings um whatever ah won't go into too many details for obvious reasons but whatever you choose to do and if we did our thing in ireland and then if people did their thing in berlin and london and whatnot um

00:53:29.91 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:53:39.38 Tadhg Wouldn't that be great? So that's what we're trying to get off the ground.

00:53:40.80 alexei sayle yeah

00:53:41.58 Tadhg And I've had actually a very big response to what I would say. I'm definitely encouraged by like, we've had hundreds of emails from people saying, oh, I'll take the lead in my town in Germany or I'll take my lead take the lead in Sweden or whatever.

00:53:53.00 Tadhg and And so, yeah, so there's been a good push from it. There's a few celebs have come in on it. Susan Sarandon shared it on Instagram, which was a beautiful moment for my pathetic little life. I love her.

00:54:01.61 Talal K Wow. Yeah.

00:54:02.58 Tadhg i'm

00:54:02.94 Talal K yeah

00:54:03.14 alexei sayle My girlfriend.

00:54:03.38 Tadhg And yeah, yeah, no way.

00:54:07.04 alexei sayle No, i well there's i think there's a thread in Imaginary Sandwich Bar where Susan Sarandon's my girlfriend. And then she she's a yeah she's and then she stolen off me by Liam Dutton, the weatherman for Channel 4.

00:54:15.68 Tadhg Oh, that's right. That's right.

00:54:23.52 alexei sayle if Still's my girlfriend.

00:54:25.20 Tadhg Oh, that's right.

00:54:25.79 alexei sayle But I still think there's still a spark between me and Susan anyway.

00:54:25.95 Tadhg Yeah.

00:54:29.78 Tadhg Oh, I'd love to see that.

00:54:30.17 alexei sayle um

00:54:31.26 Tadhg I'd love to see that. Yeah.

00:54:33.29 alexei sayle Yeah. Sorry, keep bringing it back to me. I'm sorry. So tell us the date of this. it's a really it's a really um It's a really interesting idea. And it's a so obviously, it's nonviolent. But I think it's a really it could be a really something really profound.

00:54:46.31 alexei sayle I think this is the first.

00:54:46.38 Tadhg Yes. what what So it's April 22nd.

00:54:49.99 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:54:50.10 Tadhg It's Tuesday coming, but like that's just going to be the start. So the next like the next definite date, I'm sure will be the 15th of May because it's not by day.

00:54:54.39 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:55:00.00 Tadhg and And we'll have plenty more. But the idea is that like if you like one of the hashtags we're using is like one step more. So if you've been doing this amount of activism, like just to take the next step, maybe if you've done nothing whatsoever, then the one step more might be just to do something.

00:55:16.48 Tadhg a

00:55:16.72 alexei sayle Right.

00:55:16.82 Talal K Mm-hmm.

00:55:17.24 Tadhg And we're hoping to make people feel as comfortable as they as they, you know, that they can just do as much as they can or they want and that's fine.

00:55:18.17 alexei sayle Right.

00:55:24.24 Tadhg And then other people might take a lead to do a little bit more. I suppose it's one last desperate attempt for me to use the clout that I have online to just try and get, know,

00:55:27.62 alexei sayle right

00:55:33.15 Tadhg as many people activated as possible. Because definitely one other encouraging thing is because I've done like, you know, I've done gigs in in England. I've done gigs in Ireland when, you know, they're Gaza fundraisers or they're just like, you know, of ah meetings, public meetings on this issue.

00:55:49.59 Tadhg And everybody is ready to do more. Everybody just wants to be emboldened to say, will it be okay? Like, am I going to get arrested? Am I going to get a criminal record? Or can we do this together? So if we can just get the collective going, the aim of the game is that nobody gets arrested.

00:56:02.78 Tadhg I don't want to say like, oh, go and do this thing.

00:56:04.06 alexei sayle Right.

00:56:04.82 Tadhg And then some young fella goes out and gets a criminal record because of me.

00:56:08.89 alexei sayle Right.

00:56:08.81 Tadhg Like the idea is that none of us get arrested. But for that to happen, there needs to be buy-in from the public. um So we just need more people.

00:56:16.72 Talal K Yeah.

00:56:17.35 alexei sayle Yeah, no, I think it's... ah so just I mean, just say again what it what it is. It's 22nd of April and you are encouraging people to essentially do nothing.

00:56:24.54 Tadhg Yeah, so it's a global day of civil disobedience.

00:56:27.44 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:56:27.51 Tadhg don't go to Don't go to work if you can. Don't buy anything and engage with your local groups. Pretty much everywhere that I have seen has got amazing local groups that are willing to take the lead on...

00:56:40.06 Tadhg particular acts of civil disobedience and if we're all acting out at the same time there is no chance that we're going to be criminalized because we would just be ungovernable like it'll just be too much of a headache for police so nobody has to break the law nobody has to kill anybody nobody has to smash anyone's face in um we can do so much with civil disobedience as people have academics approve i think if there's 3.5 percent of the population buy in to a particular issue then it's enough for the government to take action and

00:56:40.51 Talal K yeah

00:57:06.89 alexei sayle Really?

00:57:07.12 Tadhg it's ambitious i'm a dreamer but we've got a dream at the moment because otherwise we're all going to lose our minds and kick the shit out of each other

00:57:07.58 alexei sayle Okay. Yeah.

00:57:12.69 alexei sayle Yeah, absolutely, i agree.

00:57:14.87 Talal K And I'll just say, ah honor I just looked at a very popular online shopping website, and you can buy a 12-pack of stink bombs for only £12, in case that's of any interest to our listeners.

00:57:27.60 Tadhg that's of huge interest to our listeners i'm sure

00:57:28.31 Talal K You know, everyone everyone's got a McDonald's nearby, a Starbucks, ah but so you know.

00:57:32.91 alexei sayle All right. This is him saying this, not me. Not me.

00:57:37.16 Talal K I'm not saying anything.

00:57:38.17 alexei sayle Security services listening in.

00:57:38.28 Talal K I'm not saying what to do.

00:57:38.51 Tadhg Yeah.

00:57:39.64 Talal K I'm not i'm saying that those are facts I've just said, you know.

00:57:41.41 alexei sayle It's the Arab. It's the Arab who's doing saying this.

00:57:42.99 Tadhg Yeah.

00:57:43.93 Talal K Those are two separate facts I've just said that have nothing nothing to do with each other and not encouraging anything.

00:57:49.43 Tadhg They're certainly interesting when you put them together, though, aren't they? Yeah, very interesting.

00:57:55.21 Talal K um ah that's That's amazing. of we i will We have a very popular local um Palestine activist group.

00:58:05.97 Talal K I'm definitely gonna find out what they're planning on that day. And and if they're not, I'll float the idea.

00:58:09.56 Tadhg Thanks, bro. Yes.

00:58:12.30 Talal K um I think it's quite easy if you look online for PSC, you know, Palestine, ah PCS, Palestine, PSC, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, plus your your local area.

00:58:21.05 Tadhg yes

00:58:23.10 Talal K You will have a contingency in your area also with the Palestine boycott, plus the name of your area. Search for terms like this and you will find your local groups quite easily, dear listeners.

00:58:35.14 Talal K Yeah.

00:58:36.40 Tadhg Exactly and what we're saying to people as well is that you know it's not this is not a leftist issue like this is not some sort of hobby horse for fucking commies like if you're against the mass murder of women and children and executing medical personnel and journalists and men of course then you know this is your cause so yeah.

00:58:49.67 Talal K And men.

00:58:56.35 alexei sayle I agree.

00:58:56.66 Tadhg yeah

00:58:57.19 alexei sayle Well, did I wholeheartedly, this podcast wholeheartedly supports this message.

00:59:04.76 Talal K Try that again with a bit more enthusiasm, Alexi.

00:59:05.61 alexei sayle Thank you. so this This podcast, it's I'm 72. This podcast has only got... This podcast wholeheartedly supports this message.

00:59:19.72 alexei sayle Do nothing on April the 22nd. That's easy enough for me.

00:59:24.60 Talal K ah

00:59:24.90 Tadhg Love it.

00:59:25.24 alexei sayle two

00:59:26.03 Talal K and while you're listening to advice listeners please check out our patreon patreon.com forward slash alexisailpodcast that's sorry take tyke you have to listen to this ah please patreon.com forward slash alexisailpodcast support the show support the movement be part of the community we've got chat rooms there we post full video episodes of our podcast you get to see tyke's

00:59:27.00 Tadhg my God, love it.

00:59:36.98 Tadhg love it.

00:59:50.01 Talal K face while he giggles away at all the jokes and like look at that. And you could see him, Alexei, roaring with laughter at the idea of a shot. um

01:00:01.26 alexei sayle please

01:00:01.42 Talal K And once we get to 500 paid members of the Patreon, we're gonna do um Strangers on a Podcast where we're gonna invite you listeners onto the podcast to talk to Alexei for a few minutes or moments or seconds, however long he can tolerate you before we get the next one on.

01:00:02.39 alexei sayle Sure.

01:00:02.40 Tadhg Classic.

01:00:18.88 Talal K ah Email us, alexisellpodcast.gmail.com.

01:00:20.72 Tadhg 22nd, April twenty second april twenty second

01:00:21.28 Talal K Follow us online, alexisellpod on the socials. I think that's all the plugs I have to make. Would you like to do any plugs, Ty? Anything you want to draw people's attention to? And if if your Instagram gets taken down, where will people then find you?

01:00:32.52 alexei sayle Yeah, what's that?

01:00:33.78 Talal K Are you going to start like a, have you got a forum online or anything like that?

01:00:37.64 Tadhg Yeah, like I have a website. I have a website. Yeah. So it's just my name.com if people are looking for me. But ah but yeah, but April 22nd, April 22nd, April 22nd. Thank you.

01:00:47.25 alexei sayle Yeah, no, it's really, that's great. Thank you, Tag Higgy. Thank you.

01:00:52.73 Tadhg Thanks, guys. Pleasure.

01:00:54.73 alexei sayle Give us a shout when you're in London. It'd be lovely to meet up.

01:00:58.11 Tadhg Absolutely. I'd love to be one of your. Could I be?

01:01:01.79 alexei sayle you're bit old i think for i think i've tried to stop doing that with it yeah mentoring yeah yeah yeah doing this yeah

01:01:03.74 Tadhg The Socrates thing.

01:01:07.03 Talal K Let's go for a drink though, for sure, when you're in London.

01:01:09.57 Tadhg 100% definitely

01:01:09.91 Talal K And next time you want to go Middle East, hit me up. Because I could be your translator.

01:01:13.10 Tadhg yeah oh my god love love it loveva yeah yeah well as I say I'm hoping to uh to try and speak to somebody over in that part of the world to try and get a tour together like that would be a fucking dream do Beirut do

01:01:15.43 Talal K That sounds like fun, man. I'd love to go out and do a gig out there in Beirut.

01:01:28.01 alexei sayle yeah

01:01:29.38 Tadhg A man do Cairo.

01:01:29.65 Talal K Cairo would be fun.

01:01:31.52 Tadhg Yeah, yeah. I've got a couple of...

01:01:33.08 Talal K Fun place.

01:01:33.20 Tadhg There's actually There's a brilliant satirist in Cairo at the moment who I'm in touch with.

01:01:34.30 alexei sayle a bit more complicated.

01:01:38.49 Tadhg and I was going to say something else. Oh, yeah. I think they're... Do you know Jen Brister? You know Jen Brister? Comedian.

01:01:44.32 alexei sayle that Yeah, I've forgotten.

01:01:44.90 Tadhg Jen?

01:01:46.33 alexei sayle I know the name.

01:01:47.47 Tadhg She's...

01:01:47.56 Talal K Rings a bell.

01:01:47.63 Tadhg um

01:01:48.28 Talal K We're both very out of touch, Ty.

01:01:49.08 alexei sayle home Stand up, yeah.

01:01:51.93 Tadhg She's... ah Yeah, she's big in the pro-Palestine scene. But I think she's trying to put together a big comedy... kind of gala in London or whatever, which I might come over for in a couple of months time.

01:02:00.45 alexei sayle Oh, yeah, it'd be great, yeah,

01:02:00.91 Tadhg So will I try and get you guys on the bill?

01:02:01.98 alexei sayle yeah Absolutely, yeah.

01:02:04.60 Talal K Oh, yeah, she hosted the ah map event that you that we did that you did in the roundhouse, Alexei.

01:02:08.08 Tadhg Yes.

01:02:09.24 alexei sayle All right.

01:02:10.49 Tadhg That's right.

01:02:10.88 Talal K Yes, she is great, and she is very outspoken.

01:02:12.16 alexei sayle I should say that Radio 4, amazingly, I mean, of just ah the Radio 4 charity appeal is 4MAP.

01:02:13.71 Tadhg Yeah.

01:02:19.26 alexei sayle I've just recorded it yesterday. I can't remember when it's going to go out, but it's yeah it's sort of brave.

01:02:20.76 Tadhg Wow.

01:02:24.27 alexei sayle I mean, shouldn't be, but it's kind of brave of the BBC to even... go that far, really. And there was this...

01:02:28.93 Tadhg course it is.

01:02:32.54 alexei sayle It's about... you know So I tell the story of ah you know a woman in in Gaza giving birth prematurely, and yeah through that there's then an appeal for funds from Matt.

01:02:43.95 alexei sayle I mean, the situation is probably even bleaker than it was, and the situation I described.

01:02:44.45 Tadhg Whoa.

01:02:49.48 alexei sayle But, ah you know, it's a fair place to Radio 4 for letting...

01:02:52.69 Tadhg I'm astonished.

01:02:53.16 alexei sayle I mean, something like that, which should be...

01:02:55.69 Talal K Yeah.

01:02:56.34 alexei sayle which should be just, you know, there should be no controversy about it. To do a Radio 4 to allow their charity appeal to be for map, I think, is ah it quite a big thing, really.

01:03:03.01 Talal K Yeah.

01:03:06.21 alexei sayle And I was very honoured to be the voice of it, really. So I'll just say that, put that out to our readers and stuff.

01:03:10.42 Tadhg Yeah.

01:03:13.57 alexei sayle Our listeners, as it be.

01:03:14.79 Talal K No readers.

01:03:15.04 Tadhg I'm encouraged by that. Yeah, didn't think the BBC would go in here or something like that. Like that's, that's, that's actually kind of comforting in a weird way.

01:03:19.95 alexei sayle They're a mix. People yeah sometimes think of the BBC as being a homogenous, but it's its it's not really.

01:03:25.76 Tadhg Yeah.

01:03:27.01 alexei sayle It's an organisation. And obviously the forces of darkness are very strong within the BBC, but it's not it's not a voice it's not an organisation that speaks with one voice.

01:03:31.45 Tadhg Yes.

01:03:35.51 alexei sayle There are... There are good people in there and they try their best to do their best, really, and they face tremendous opposition. But there are, you know, it's BBC is not a single entity, really.

01:03:49.86 alexei sayle You know, for for at least for the time being.

01:03:49.97 Talal K Yeah.

01:03:52.19 Talal K Just like Arabs.

01:03:52.60 Tadhg yeah

01:03:53.99 alexei sayle Yes, just like always bringing it back to Arabs. aren't yes so You start talking about homeless in a minute and then and we know we're fucking we're done.

01:04:01.84 Talal K I've got got a song about hummus. Do you want to hear it?

01:04:04.39 alexei sayle No. No!

01:04:05.13 Talal K Okay, we'll say goodbye then.

01:04:06.47 alexei sayle No!

01:04:09.44 Tadhg Just like Arabs.

01:04:09.67 alexei sayle you understood what

01:04:11.37 Talal K kiimba yasharutha and

01:04:11.48 Tadhg yeah

01:04:13.19 Talal K ah yeah ra but

01:04:17.05 Tadhg Now I suddenly feel scared. Yeah.

01:04:19.09 alexei sayle there is say yeah and you understood what we were saying.

01:04:22.70 Talal K and then

01:04:22.78 Tadhg Perfectly. I'm terrified.

01:04:25.34 Talal K Because say goodbye before I start breaking stuff, Alexei.

01:04:32.51 alexei sayle the la Bye-bye. Masalama.

01:04:37.11 Talal K Free Palestine.

01:04:37.55 alexei sayle Masalama, Free Palestine.

01:04:38.42 Tadhg Thank you, guys.

01:04:39.01 alexei sayle Thank you. Thank you, Ty.

01:04:40.49 Talal K Oh, thank you, Tiger.

01:04:41.60 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:04:42.98 Tadhg So is the podcast over now or are we over?