00:00:00.02
alexei sayle
Yeah. well they Yeah.

00:00:01.11
Talal K
Big puddle.

00:00:01.24
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:00:05.37
alexei sayle
they do

00:00:06.40
Talal K
Yep. um

00:00:10.84
Talal K
Okay. Ep 114. We've had two great comedians on in a row. Back to basics.

00:00:18.23
alexei sayle
yeah

00:00:19.35
Talal K
Back to Lex and T.

00:00:21.21
alexei sayle
yeah

00:00:23.32
Talal K
And whenever you're ready, good man.

00:00:28.76
alexei sayle
Hi everybody, welcome to episode 114, 114 of the Alexis L podcast.

00:00:32.28
Talal K
Mm-hmm.

00:00:36.59
alexei sayle
The last two episodes we've had two great comedians, Robin Ince and then Stuart Lee. Now we're back to just me and Talal, which I'm sure you're hardcore listeners.

00:00:50.07
alexei sayle
of the podcast, the small fanatical core, fanatical CADA of the Alexis L podcast. We prefer, really.

00:01:00.29
alexei sayle
Just me and Talal.

00:01:00.76
Talal K
Did you say fanatical Kader?

00:01:03.38
alexei sayle
Fanatical, two words, fanatical and then CADA. CADA means a kind of tight, highly motivated group of people.

00:01:08.40
Talal K
Oh.

00:01:11.21
alexei sayle
That's my understanding of what CADA means.

00:01:12.86
Talal K
Okay.

00:01:13.23
alexei sayle
CADA means.

00:01:14.62
Talal K
Wasn't an Al-Qaeda pun.

00:01:16.18
alexei sayle
No, no.

00:01:16.76
Talal K
Okay. Never heard Kader.

00:01:18.07
alexei sayle
Just the purists. This is for the purists.

00:01:18.98
Talal K
Mm-hmm.

00:01:21.75
alexei sayle
just ah Just an hour of me humming. um Fuck those people who we want interesting conversation with other people. It's just you and me.

00:01:34.87
alexei sayle
As ah was it Gabriel Oaken, Far From The Madding Crowd, says... But you wrote when I look up, there will you be, and when you look up, there will I be.

00:01:47.35
alexei sayle
Just me and you staring at each other forever, talking.

00:01:53.97
alexei sayle
Anywho,

00:01:55.64
Talal K
if they're both looking up...

00:01:57.66
alexei sayle
no, you look up from their knitting or their, you know, no they're sitting by the fire and they...

00:02:01.59
Talal K
Okay, so they were the they were originally looking down and they just looked up to the middle to the middle region.

00:02:07.61
alexei sayle
Yes, yes.

00:02:08.12
Talal K
Okay, and there they are across from each other.

00:02:09.47
alexei sayle
It's very poetic. Interestingly, of near near here, there is Thomas Hardy was actually um was an architect before he became a full-time author and was part of the building of the railway line outside um ah coming out of St Pancras and or the enlarging.

00:02:32.24
Talal K
Oh.

00:02:33.35
alexei sayle
And there was a There was a a church St. Pancras Church, which was a very ancient church. it It sort of chopped off some of the graveyard, and Hardy was left with the um the the job of finding out what to do with all the tombstones. And what he did was, very interestingly, he piled them in concentric circles around an oak tree.

00:02:56.92
alexei sayle
in what remained of the graveyard. And it came to be known as Hardy's Oak. And it's the most spooky thing. And I think the tree fell over a few years ago, possibly because it had hundreds of tombstones wrapped around it.

00:03:13.40
alexei sayle
um So I haven't been to see what happened to it recently. But it's ah if you're looking for something to do in the St Pancras area. Occasionally you find staff from the Eurostar In the church.

00:03:28.05
alexei sayle
Has he got nothing better to do? The Hardy tree, yeah.

00:03:30.12
Talal K
It's called the Hardy hay tree. Yeah, and it fell in 2022. It became a powerful symbol of life among death.

00:03:36.92
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:03:43.32
Talal K
Oh, wow, yeah.

00:03:45.00
alexei sayle
It's very striking. I don't know whether, know, to what extent it hints at his later fiction, really, but it's it's quite a thing to do as a young architect.

00:03:48.12
Talal K
It looks...

00:03:59.19
Talal K
It looks like um like razors surrounding this tree. it looks like the tree's sprouting out of like a Brillo pad or something.

00:04:02.52
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah.

00:04:08.18
Talal K
and But yeah, it's fallen now.

00:04:12.95
Talal K
Wow.

00:04:13.56
alexei sayle
Yeah, so there you go. um I was actually just before we started, I was...

00:04:18.97
Talal K
The tree wasn't so hardy after all.

00:04:19.78
alexei sayle
See, this is what people...

00:04:21.21
Talal K
It took me too long to come up with that.

00:04:26.65
alexei sayle
is what people tune in for. Fuck Stuart Lee, fuck Robin Inns. This is what they're after.

00:04:33.05
Talal K
My friend is a writer and he's very good. I love him. He wrote on Veep and stuff and and he did Rosie Jones's new sitcom. think was called Pushers.

00:04:43.42
alexei sayle
Mm hmm.

00:04:44.34
Talal K
um He made that and he sent me a voice note after last week's episode about the Compo Bursts puppy story.

00:04:52.89
alexei sayle
Now, right.

00:04:55.03
Talal K
And he said among the writers, it was a known story and and he he knows that who which writer it was that did it. And ah this story is no good on unless I can actually tell you who it was.

00:05:05.27
alexei sayle
Right.

00:05:10.24
Talal K
One second. So his circle of writers, it's known it was Andy Riley who put up.

00:05:11.33
alexei sayle
I thought somebody said on the comments it was Amanda Yannucci.

00:05:21.82
Talal K
so amongst his circle of of writers it's known that it was andy riley who um

00:05:22.16
alexei sayle
Oh, I know. Yeah.

00:05:28.38
alexei sayle
Right.

00:05:28.98
Talal K
who put that note up

00:05:29.40
alexei sayle
Andy Riley wrote on my last TV series ever.

00:05:33.39
Talal K
Oh.

00:05:33.39
alexei sayle
Made it go around.

00:05:35.24
Talal K
Oh, so it's all connected.

00:05:36.37
alexei sayle
i've just seen Have you seen the footage of Graham Linehan testifying before the US Congress?

00:05:43.76
Talal K
Oh.

00:05:44.28
alexei sayle
Yeah, that's a weird ex-writers of the Lexi Sales Show. What are they doing now? Graham Linehan is testifying before the US Congress about free speech and him not being allowed to defend women in his mind.

00:06:04.74
Talal K
in his mind, in his way.

00:06:06.33
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:06:06.81
Talal K
Oh, shit. But what what brings him out there?

00:06:12.26
alexei sayle
I don't know. He seems to be getting, I don't know. Well, it's obviously, I mean, obviously what he's saying fits in with the MAGA, Trump people, their their contention that free speech is curtailed in Europe, you know, which what they mean by free speech is their kind of free speech and reactionary positions are.

00:06:39.83
alexei sayle
Which maybe they are. I don't know. i i I tended to agree with Noam Chomsky that I was a free speech kind of free speech libertarian.

00:06:50.12
alexei sayle
But no oh Noam Chomsky's not looking too good these days, is he really? at The footage of him on eir Epstein's jet.

00:06:54.18
Talal K
Oh.

00:06:59.78
alexei sayle
What's that all about? He's really let the side down. I can't pretend he didn't, you know. I don't, I don't i mean, I only know, I only know his writing and his, you know, which always seemed phenomenally good, really. Incredible clarity.

00:07:16.44
alexei sayle
But ah i I, although he's not, no he's been nominated for Nobel Prize for linguistics, but never actually won it, so. Yeah.

00:07:26.01
Talal K
who's always seemed on the side of the people, you know, and, uh,

00:07:29.40
alexei sayle
Yeah. very articulate um you know and you know what he said always seemed to make sense but uh he's not looking good which brings us to the whole which brings us neatly to the whole that i thought i'd you know for once deal with the topical press story which is the um mandelston epstein epstein uh day whatever it is this is thursday um And I would just like to say about Mandelson, that um he's obviously a profoundly dishonest character, but he is just a part of that cabal of right-wing Labour MPs grouped around

00:08:13.98
alexei sayle
Labour together and there that was the dishonesty. I saw Steve Reid, another those fuckers, on the TV this morning pretending to be outraged about Mandelson but dishonesty was there was how they seized control of Labour Party.

00:08:30.10
alexei sayle
Dishonest stories like, you know, you remember Angela Rayner's brick or homophobia in in in Brighton Labour Party. ah fault You know, obviously theyre their main weapon, false allegations of anti-Semitism. And so they're all, you know, Morgan McSweeney, Shabana Mahmood, they're all tainted with the, you know, he was their, Mandelson was their,

00:08:57.21
alexei sayle
you know, was their leading ideologue until recently. And so this for them to pretend that his dishonesty is... And Starmer himself, if you think about Starmer, when he wanted to be elected member leader of the Labour Party,

00:09:12.31
alexei sayle
um he made these 10 pledges, all of which he immediately dropped when he didn't need the left-wing Labour

00:09:18.97
Talal K
Mm-hmm.

00:09:20.98
alexei sayle
members of the Labour Party anymore and also of course the Starmer's campaign was financed by dark money from um betting industry and of course the Israel lobby something he didn't reveal until after he was elected delayed and so for them to pretend that this dishonesty of Mandelson the corruption of Mandelson is unique it's not it's ah Central to their entire being, I think. That is what the right wing of the Labour Party is.

00:09:51.17
alexei sayle
Dishonest.

00:09:52.63
Talal K
But what is it that actually connects them to Mandelson's wrongdoings or his his his activities with Epstein?

00:10:00.73
alexei sayle
Well, he was there was a group called Labour Together, which was the where the kind of the with the core of the you know the group who determined to get...

00:10:11.67
alexei sayle
to defeat Jeremy Corbyn. And the thing they feared most, of course, was Jeremy Corbyn was a win for the Labour Party. And, you know, you have Mandelson in 2017 at an event organized by the Archionist Jewish Chronicle saying, you I plot every day to fight Jeremy Corbyn.

00:10:29.66
alexei sayle
And this is the leader of the party.

00:10:29.72
Talal K
Yes.

00:10:31.46
alexei sayle
He's a member of um and so he was he was the um um and morgan mcsweeney starmer's chief of staff was his as kemi badenock said yesterday was mandelson's protégé he was he inspired and motivated him and they talked every day and from morgan mcsweeney the orders went out to steve reed and shabana mahoud and i mean i think paul hope Paul, know, when we had Paul Holden on the show, he talked a lot about this. That is the that is the core of his book, The Fraud, about Starmer's phenomenally dishonest rise to power.

00:11:12.12
alexei sayle
So that's what connects him, really, that Mandelson was one of the parts of this group and was one of their you know, he provided the kind of ideological and practical template for them with their, their false allegations of antisemitism and their stories about non-existent bricks through windows and stuff like that. Um,

00:11:36.92
alexei sayle
And so they're all in it to together, really, in facilitating the rise of Starmer and also the defenestration, the ejecting of so many left-wing Labour MPs from the party. Mandelson himself.

00:11:54.26
alexei sayle
Yeah, I mean, a strange... i I've never met him, really. that's strange A strange creature, I think. But, you know, I'd say they're trying to kind of absolve themselves of responsibility, but...

00:12:07.21
alexei sayle
Mandelson represents who they are ideologically. Of course, the other thing, the other thread from the last couple of days has been that is a vague half-assed attempt to say that Jeffrey Epstein was in league with Russian intelligence.

00:12:25.24
alexei sayle
Well, that's bullshit, obviously. But there is another country that Epstein was much more, almost certainly, an agent of the security services of And that, of course, is Israel.

00:12:36.41
Talal K
lots of evidence yeah

00:12:38.46
alexei sayle
You know, Epstein was a fanatical supporter of Israel. Peter Mandelson was not a member of Labour Friends of Russia, but he was member of Labour Friends of Israel. um And, um you know, Ghislaine Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell's father, Robert Maxwell, as I said in the last series, the sandwich bar was almost certainly a Mossad agent.

00:13:01.91
alexei sayle
And... who also mysteriously died, as did Epstein. So that that when when one of their agents becomes ah an embarrassment, they are also adept at terminating them.

00:13:16.31
alexei sayle
um And so it's much more likely that everybody's terrified to say it, but I think it's much more likely that Epstein was collecting compromat for, not for Russian security services, but for the Israeli security services. It does go some way to explain in how our political class is so insanely pro-Israel.

00:13:39.58
alexei sayle
Is, um you know, that Mossad is holding... evidence of them doing god knows what to god knows who and that's why they they are so blind in their adherence to it so but this kind of like this kind of feeble attempt like people like idiots like andrew mar to um say that you know that there's a connection with russian intelligence there's far more evidence i mean if the listeners would like to email in or whatever you know with their evidence of um

00:14:09.24
Talal K
Hmph.

00:14:12.89
alexei sayle
of Epstein's involvement with the Israeli services what proof there is but I'm sure there is certainly there's a lot more proof that he was involved in Israeli um security services than he was involved with Russian security services

00:14:35.41
Talal K
And we've barely seen, apparently there's lots more that's, when they say, oh, three million files have been released, you think, oh, that's surely everything.

00:14:35.58
alexei sayle
um

00:14:40.25
alexei sayle
lots more

00:14:45.05
Talal K
It's probably, it's probably barely any of it.

00:14:45.69
alexei sayle
yeah yeah

00:14:49.81
Talal K
We've debt certainly not, yeah, there's pictures and they are horrible and creepy as fuck, but there are pictures of Clintons and Trumps and Mandelsons in all like, and and Andrew Windsor,

00:14:58.68
alexei sayle
yeah

00:15:04.60
alexei sayle
yeah

00:15:05.20
Talal K
Mountbatten, Windsor, that's it. In all these like dodgy-ish, but you know, like barely incriminating photographs.

00:15:16.10
Talal K
You can imagine. So there must be holding back. There must be stuff there that is truly horrifying. If this is what they're releasing to the public, like what else is there going to be in there?

00:15:25.88
alexei sayle
yeah

00:15:27.59
Talal K
But I'm still, and I'm not taking his side, but I'm struggling. if If Mandelson, is in trouble for his relationship with Epstein.

00:15:41.68
Talal K
I'm still struggling to understand why that is Keir Starmer's responsibility.

00:15:49.63
alexei sayle
Well, it's Keir Starmer's responsibility because Keir Starmer appointed him as ambassador British ambassador to to the United States, even though he was specifically warned not to.

00:16:00.82
Talal K
Aha.

00:16:00.93
alexei sayle
So... So that's, I mean, apart from that, he was a, so you know, Mandelson was a, you know, an amanuensis, was ah an inspiration to him behind the scenes, but he would have got away with it if he hadn't, being the absolute fucking dickhead that he is.

00:16:17.82
alexei sayle
At the behest of Morgan McSweeney, we are told, he appointed this friend of a paedophile sex trafficker to be hey?

00:16:23.67
Talal K
Uh-huh.

00:16:27.04
Talal K
Knowingly?

00:16:28.50
alexei sayle
a

00:16:29.37
Talal K
Knowingly?

00:16:30.90
alexei sayle
Yeah, he said in Parliament yesterday he knew that Mandelson had continued his relationship with Epstein after he'd been convicted in was it 2013?

00:16:39.37
Talal K
There you go.

00:16:42.07
Talal K
There it is.

00:16:43.49
alexei sayle
So that's, I mean, that's why Starmer is in so much trouble. I think Mandelson was also Trevor Phillips is a right-wing shill, I think, on the Sky News on Sunday mornings.

00:16:49.81
Talal K
So...

00:16:58.41
alexei sayle
I think

00:17:01.08
alexei sayle
Peter Mandelson was his best man at his wedding as well. Somewhat calls into question is objectivity his his neutrality, I would have thought. I mean, very much a kind of very aggressive during the, again, during the false anti-Semitism years Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party. But this is this is the quality of individual who ousted Jeremy Corbyn from.

00:17:30.68
alexei sayle
The Labour Party, the leadership Labour Party, is somebody like Peter Manson, the best friend of a paedophile sex trafficker.

00:17:40.49
Talal K
It's all so fucking...

00:17:40.55
alexei sayle
It shows who what their moral...

00:17:45.18
alexei sayle
compassposition And Jeremy made a good speech yesterday in the House of Commons.

00:17:49.62
Talal K
Yes, I saw that.

00:17:52.85
alexei sayle
um But, you know, it goes much deeper than, you know, the wrath of Mandelson goes much deeper than just Mandelson or Epstein, in fact.

00:18:05.92
Talal K
It's all so fucking creepy as well, isn't

00:18:09.40
alexei sayle
Yeah, it's, yeah.

00:18:11.34
Talal K
it?

00:18:11.44
alexei sayle
Of course, it's also, because one of Epstein's closest associates was Ehud Barak, ex-surveyed prime minister, and also parent, I've seen testimony from...

00:18:11.60
Talal K
There's photos.

00:18:17.91
Talal K
Yes, ex-Israeli Prime Minister.

00:18:25.13
alexei sayle
you know women and when they were young girls that he was that he was very violent uh violent kind of rapist not just a particularly um particularly vile character so again this is one of uh Epstein's closest associates again it doesn't hint at Russian involvement but it does hint at involvement the Israelis and you know Israel know it's another kind of example of how Israel corrupts our politics and our well you know the world really you know

00:18:59.58
Talal K
We need, we need all those people out there who claim to be fighting for the protection of women and girls. And with their misplaced anger and violence, they, this is the place for them to, to direct their ire.

00:19:16.18
alexei sayle
yeah yeah okay yeah yeah

00:19:18.32
Talal K
You know, if that's really what you, what you care about. Um, but they'll always have Trump's back. They'll always have Faraj's back. and

00:19:28.34
alexei sayle
yeah

00:19:29.33
Talal K
um Yeah, it's all it's even the the style of the photos is so creepy. There's something about that. old fashioned camera scanned into a computer.

00:19:41.78
alexei sayle
sending them to snappy snaps yeah

00:19:43.15
Talal K
And they're like that that picture of Mandelson fucking when I close my eyes. it's the it yeah the

00:19:48.53
alexei sayle
His underpants.

00:19:49.62
Talal K
Yeah, you should you should be able to stand in your pants with your friend and look at your emails.

00:19:51.53
alexei sayle
Tighty whiteys.

00:19:53.62
Talal K
That's nothing, you know, on paper, there's nothing wrong with that.

00:19:54.68
alexei sayle
Mm-hmm.

00:19:55.66
Talal K
But they're just the way that photo seems to be taken from inside a cupboard across the room. And even even Noam Chomsky, they don't actually, and and Epstein's emails back and forth, they never talk about anything Insidious, but it's just, there's a creepy tint to anything, anything on there.

00:20:10.22
alexei sayle
No.

00:20:13.08
alexei sayle
Yeah, yes. It's kind ofs justs flattering each other and stuff.

00:20:15.68
Talal K
It's gross.

00:20:17.32
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:20:18.17
Talal K
And you can't be friends with Epstein and not know what he's involved in.

00:20:22.10
alexei sayle
No, no.

00:20:22.46
Talal K
and So I think just having any sort of regular correspondence with the guy just incriminates a criminal criminalmin Incriminates you

00:20:31.00
alexei sayle
Yeah, I was pleased to see that i was pleased to see that um yeah somebody was a disciple, as it were, of Chomsky's Norman Finkelstein, somebody who I respect greatly, ah ah that I think some associate of of Epstein's reached out to him and he rejected them completely, that Norman Finkelstein's would have nothing to do with Epstein.

00:20:34.00
Talal K
criminates

00:20:54.49
alexei sayle
But we also did we did have a... So, I mean, it a good day yesterday. I think Starmer's in terrible trouble. I hope that this... that this debacle means that the Greens win the Gorton and Denton by election, by, you know, all those who were going to vote Labour will now vote Green, know, and could solidify the left vote around the Greens, I think that that is.

00:21:19.82
alexei sayle
But also we had a a momentous event with the trial of Filton Six yesterday, that they were basically, and you can see a jury,

00:21:25.68
Talal K
Yes.

00:21:30.66
alexei sayle
Although I think at one point the judge had directed the jury to find them guilty. The jury refused and found them not guilty. And that shows you why people like David Lammy, another recipient of...

00:21:46.78
alexei sayle
money from the Israel lobby, um you know, wants to do away with jury trials because juries don't do what the... You know, if that judge had been sitting in the trial solely, he would have found those people guilty and the jury refused to find them guilty, to I presume, because they...

00:22:02.56
alexei sayle
perceive their actions as being motivated by ah morality so i mean i think they five of them being freed and one of them is still being held on bail and of course it's they are political prisoners those who those are being held on bail two or three times longer than they're allowed to be o' held on remand um it's just you know scandal i don't know what the difference is between us and uh

00:22:24.67
Talal K
It's an immoral outrage, the fact that you can hold someone in prison that long.

00:22:25.91
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah. But anyway, we've we have always been, we are, we have been supporters of the Filton, of those who attacked, I'm not going to get arrested for saying this. um ah We are pleased with the outcome of the trial.

00:22:43.18
alexei sayle
I think it's it's a great day for direct action and a great day for British.

00:22:48.17
Talal K
Yes.

00:22:50.46
Talal K
Yes. And it's very, very emotional, very emotional watching watching the videos of them getting released.

00:22:51.06
alexei sayle
The system works. Yeah. Yeah.

00:22:55.78
Talal K
But it's, it's just so sad that so much time and energy has to be wasted on on this nonsense.

00:23:02.10
alexei sayle
Yeah, well, it's like this.

00:23:02.34
Talal K
And, you know, the think of their families and how much suffering their families have been through for what, you know, just for them to be freed and be told, obviously they're innocent, you know,

00:23:06.20
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah, well, it's it's, you know, the urgency of the UK political establishments, in this case the Labour government, to defend the rights of Israeli arms manufacturers.

00:23:21.43
alexei sayle
They're much more concerned about defending Israeli arms manufacturers than they are about defending um British people who've got a moral conscience, just as our entire bloody political establishment was mostly including particularly steve reed and shibana you know was outraged and uh you know at a chief constable essentially lost his job over the fact that some racist uh football hooligans from a foreign country weren't allowed to come see a football match which again sees it's uh so i don't know what jeffrey epstein's passed on to mossad about what shibana mahoud's been up to but uh

00:23:24.92
Talal K
Oh yeah.

00:23:29.02
Talal K
Oh yeah, yeah.

00:23:32.38
Talal K
Oh.

00:23:47.89
Talal K
Oh.

00:23:59.13
Talal K
um when When British citizens, white British citizens are bombed, are working for the World Kitchen charity, and they're bombed to smithereens in Palestine by Israeli airships, which are partly constructed here in the UK.

00:24:06.04
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kill them, yeah. Yeah. Not a...

00:24:15.30
Talal K
Not a word of condemnation against...

00:24:15.51
alexei sayle
Yeah. Not a fucking dicky bird, no.

00:24:18.87
Talal K
against the Israeli army, the Israeli government, not a single word against that.

00:24:20.15
alexei sayle
So true.

00:24:22.55
Talal K
Oh, maybe we shouldn't be building these bombs that have actually ended up killing a Brit, a white British man, the most precious of all minerals, um fucking bombed in in in Gaza and not a single fucking dicky bird, as he's saying.

00:24:27.16
alexei sayle
Three, I think. Yeah.

00:24:36.14
Talal K
it So, of course, they're going to put someone in prison for over a year.

00:24:36.71
alexei sayle
No.

00:24:39.42
Talal K
Of course, they're not

00:24:39.86
alexei sayle
but But some racist football thugs aren't allowed to come to...

00:24:42.90
Talal K
Of course they're going to welcome them, yeah or want to welcome them, or make the policeman retire because he didn't welcome them.

00:24:44.87
alexei sayle
Yeah, that's the biggest... Yeah. Yeah. that's the biggest yeah That's the biggest outrage.

00:24:52.21
Talal K
They're killing Brits, willingly, so what the fuck else?

00:24:53.60
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:24:55.78
Talal K
Why is your wiser expectation so high, if that's what they'll allow?

00:24:57.85
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, we'll see. hope these people...

00:25:05.51
Talal K
We'll see what.

00:25:05.91
alexei sayle
The day's unnumbered.

00:25:06.15
Talal K
So what is it? is it So people are saying ah they want Keir to step down. um And now that is bringing about speculation of a possible snap election.

00:25:19.16
Talal K
What do you think of the legitimacy of that? Because we saw conservatives go through prime minister after prime minister after prime minister without a single election. So what is the chances of that happening to Labour? Just bringing in a new face...

00:25:30.04
alexei sayle
um i i I don't really know. I mean, I think... um I mean, if they... Well, certainly, I mean, obviously, a lot... I mean, the whole party is tainted by Mandelson and tainted by the Labour together, and they have a very firm grip on the machinery of the Labour... I mean, I was completely ignorant of this shit, like, before Jeremy. Now I know all kinds of nonsense about the Labour Party and its fucking structures, which I...

00:25:56.34
alexei sayle
i I'm sorry that it pushes out other stuff. you know I used to know things about mountains or flowers or rabbits.

00:26:06.81
Talal K
You used to know about.

00:26:07.34
alexei sayle
And now all that all that shit has been pushed out and replaced with like knowledge of the fucking Labour Party, NEC.

00:26:15.16
Talal K
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You got the name of a tank wrong the other day, wasn't you?

00:26:18.66
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:26:19.95
Talal K
Unbelievable. Or was it a plane?

00:26:21.40
alexei sayle
So um I think that...

00:26:24.06
Talal K
I don't know.

00:26:24.54
alexei sayle
labor The right-wing Labour Party, Labour Together factions to have a very tight grip on the like the andnie's the the the machinery of the Labour Party. The bureaucratical machinery is very much controlled still by it.

00:26:40.97
alexei sayle
that faction, that right-wing faction, which is, know, their only policy ever was that they hated the left. You know, they had no other. That's why they're so, partly why they're so useless in government, because they have no other. They haven't thought about anything apart from excluding the left and, you know, benefiting bankers and the arms industry. So...

00:27:02.01
alexei sayle
we're so would um so us if starmer goes means west west street in is tainted mandelson as uh as any of the others really so if he replaces him it's just the same with a slightly you know um

00:27:23.26
Talal K
But there's no lefties left in the Labour Party. They've been all been kicked out, haven't they?

00:27:25.80
alexei sayle
Well, there's a few, but not the not that would be getting to positions. But mean, I suppose the other, you're there i mean, obviously somebody who is manoeuvring to take over Labour Party is Angela Rayner, who is, again, I think profoundly untrustworthy and profoundly dishonest.

00:27:29.62
Talal K
No.

00:27:40.86
alexei sayle
But, um you know, she might be able to present a more emollient. But I think, I mean mean, I hope that the Labour Party is finished, really, and that the Those who believe in the left or the center even the center-left migrate to the Greens, really. I assume that the...

00:28:04.12
Talal K
But the that's the scary thing is if something drastic happens now, the left parties aren't ready. They thought they had all this time to prepare for an election. I don't know if they have all the people in place and in the candidates in place.

00:28:14.41
alexei sayle
True,

00:28:19.06
Talal K
to They need to get ready now. If there was an election tomorrow, they need to have someone standing in in every constituency, you know?

00:28:25.34
alexei sayle
Yeah, I get, I, yeah. I think that'd be very difficult, obviously, but, uh, I don't think there will be, I don't know.

00:28:29.72
Talal K
Yeah. So what are the chances?

00:28:32.67
alexei sayle
My guess is that there won't be there won't be an election. I mean, Labor would certainly lose it, really. Uh, my guess is that there won't be, but, uh, yeah, I'm no, I'm no particular, I have no particular inside information on any of this, really.

00:28:53.78
alexei sayle
um Yeah, so that say that's what's grinding my gears this week.

00:29:02.51
Talal K
Let's see what's that.

00:29:02.74
alexei sayle
That's my two cents. Labour Party is run by a cabal of dishonest, corrupt, mendacious individuals who are in league with the arms industry and genocidal apartheid, ethnic cleansing, ethno-fascist, Jewish supremacist state of Israel.

00:29:24.28
alexei sayle
That's the shocking message of this week's. I'm doing oh a a couple of dates for your diary, just showing how i am ah now a leading theoretician, despite this unconnected babble that I'm doing at the moment. I'm ah now a a a leading figure on the left. i On May the 6th at the Barbican, I am interviewing, I think i think you could call a Marxist, theoretician, and a popular philosopher, Slavoj Zizek,

00:29:53.43
Talal K
No way.

00:29:54.58
alexei sayle
Fuck yes way.

00:29:56.33
Talal K
Oh my God.

00:29:57.32
alexei sayle
and Slavoj. Yeah.

00:29:59.45
Talal K
Bring a poncho.

00:30:01.27
alexei sayle
ah Yeah. He can't help it.

00:30:02.30
Talal K
Sorry.

00:30:04.09
alexei sayle
Um, so, uh, yeah, he's launching a new book and I am, um, I am the one who's, uh, uh, headlining his London, the London launch at the Barbican of that, um,

00:30:04.44
Talal K
That's crazy.

00:30:20.15
alexei sayle
that book, which I can't remember the name of at the moment. But yes, i was I was very excited about that, to be offered that. um Also, um there's some I'm doing some comic strip events up and down the country where you know they show comic strip movie that I've been in, and then we me and Peter Richardson talk about it afterwards, often with Robin Innes.

00:30:41.08
Talal K
Yeah.

00:30:44.54
Talal K
Where's that?

00:30:45.75
alexei sayle
Different towns, I can't remember. One begins with a B, and it's in Dorset. In April.

00:30:54.30
Talal K
Comic strip.

00:30:55.10
alexei sayle
And one's in Walthamstow.

00:30:59.70
Talal K
Okay, you're doing a London one.

00:30:59.98
alexei sayle
One, coupless. Walthamstow.

00:31:06.03
Talal K
Trying to look up the dates for you here.

00:31:07.26
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:31:08.95
Talal K
But the thing is, I've just stroked my cat and he's elderly and enough looks like I've got some poo on my finger. So I need to go wash my hand real quick.

00:31:15.93
alexei sayle
Okay, yeah.

00:31:18.11
Talal K
Give me 20 seconds.

00:31:19.64
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah.

00:31:27.31
alexei sayle
There is freedom within. There is freedom without. That's the dad you've done a paper cup.

00:31:38.75
alexei sayle
Hey now, hey now, don't think it's over.

00:31:43.82
Talal K
Oh, poor guy.

00:31:45.77
alexei sayle
Hey hey now.

00:31:46.17
Talal K
You know, it's like umm I'm going through what you and Linda, um I'm starting, it's beginning.

00:31:50.21
alexei sayle
it's, yeah, it's awful.

00:31:52.82
Talal K
What you and Linda went through for the last few years with Will.

00:31:52.82
alexei sayle
yeah it's yeah it's awful

00:31:57.50
Talal K
And it's just, you can't trust any service in your house anymore.

00:31:59.74
alexei sayle
No, no.

00:32:02.20
Talal K
And the suspicious stains on the walls and carpets and everything.

00:32:03.42
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:32:06.49
Talal K
It's, oh, poor guy, you know.

00:32:06.87
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah.

00:32:09.39
Talal K
Yeah.

00:32:11.35
alexei sayle
Where were we?

00:32:12.95
Talal K
So the comic strip presents is the name of the event, isn't it? And 2024.

00:32:18.14
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:32:19.90
Talal K
twenty twenty four

00:32:20.22
alexei sayle
doing four of those through the summer. I'm also doing in Morecambe, a young ones in my other my other life. and Me and Lisa and Paul Jackson are doing a young ones event in Morecambe in Lancashire, I think in July.

00:32:36.77
alexei sayle
i'm this uh saturday i'm doing that uh talking to robin ince at the slapdick festival about uh you the my underrated my um uh stuff but that i know that's sold out so um

00:32:44.19
Talal K
Slapstick.

00:32:59.05
alexei sayle
i'll see you there you've got tickets for that um and So, yeah, there's a few few live events in the spring and summer.

00:33:11.35
Talal K
It doesn't look like.

00:33:11.37
alexei sayle
I'm going to be around them, or we'll be putting in, obviously, in the autumn when my mobile book comes out.

00:33:18.14
Talal K
but The Comic Strip Presents hasn't released tickets yet, I don't think, for the upcoming stuff.

00:33:22.11
alexei sayle
Okay.

00:33:23.75
Talal K
But

00:33:24.60
alexei sayle
I think after somebody told me last night it was selling well.

00:33:25.56
Talal K
ah yeah, please check back for dates. Go to thecomicstrip.tv. That's the official website of the Comic Strip Presents tour.

00:33:36.35
alexei sayle
There's some theatre and in the town in Dorset begins with a B.

00:33:40.02
Talal K
Well, if you know it, that means the release of tickets will be imminent. So keep an eye out for that.

00:33:44.01
alexei sayle
Mm.

00:33:44.47
Talal K
Thecomicstrip.tv. dot tv um Okay, exciting. And your fucking book.

00:33:51.23
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:33:52.23
Talal K
I need to try and swear less.

00:33:52.63
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:33:54.06
Talal K
I got told off about my swearing.

00:33:54.05
alexei sayle
I know people were complaining about your swearing. Yeah.

00:33:57.94
Talal K
I'm a potty mouth little shit bag, you know. This world i'm we live in makes me swear a lot. I'm so sorry. um But I will try to do better, even though, you know.

00:34:10.35
alexei sayle
Burr, burr, burr.

00:34:13.17
Talal K
Why? I am who I am. And this is our show and here I am. So, you know take it or lump it.

00:34:18.74
alexei sayle
Yeah, take it or leave it.

00:34:22.01
Talal K
um But what was I saying?

00:34:24.38
alexei sayle
I was also, so I was also just before we came on air, as it were, I was singing, ah hey now, hey now, don't think it's over. You've got better singing voice than me. but The war between us. And that song is, it's Crowded House.

00:34:40.15
Talal K
Mm-hmm.

00:34:40.45
alexei sayle
And I realized that song had been in my head because I watched a film on, I think, Netflix the other day called Anniversary. And it got a kind of snotty review in The Guardian, I think, yesterday. But i think it's better than the...

00:34:53.46
alexei sayle
the review from the snotty reviewer. It's a film about, it was buried, it was made in 2025 stars, Diane Lane, and it's about an authoritarian takeover of the United States.

00:35:09.11
alexei sayle
um

00:35:10.10
Talal K
What's the film called again?

00:35:11.42
alexei sayle
Anniversary. i liked it. I thought it was deeply unsettling.

00:35:21.96
Talal K
Tensions rise and loyalties are tested when a couple meet their son's new girlfriend.

00:35:27.22
alexei sayle
Yeah, i think it's I think it's much better. I thought it was really good, I recommend. Another film that I watched that was on film floor, which I filmed I'm completely unaware of, written by Jesse Armstrong and directed, I think, by Chris Morris in 2019 called I Think The Day Will Come, or Our Day Will Come, which again has a tremendous...

00:35:49.14
alexei sayle
but Again, I think I'm not aware of it, um but it was buried because it's saying some profound things about the day shall come.

00:35:58.30
Talal K
Oh, the day shall come.

00:36:00.45
alexei sayle
be saying something I mean, it's kind of weirdly structured, but it's...

00:36:04.21
Talal K
Is that the one where the where the FBI framed this like lower class guy, forced him to do some terrorist thing?

00:36:06.94
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very, yeah.

00:36:12.15
alexei sayle
But it's got, um you know, big Anna Kendrick, of course, who I love from um Pitch Perfect movies and Up in the Air. And it's really interesting.

00:36:21.97
Talal K
Hmm. Hmm.

00:36:25.34
alexei sayle
I was completely unaware of it, really, and i assume because of its message, it was buried on release, really. But, you know, Jesse Armstrong, course, writer of Succession.

00:36:37.34
alexei sayle
And Chris Morris.

00:36:37.46
Talal K
You liked that film.

00:36:38.14
alexei sayle
Maybe we should get Chris Morris. You know, I talked about that. We started talking you about Meta moment when I was cycling up Oxford Street and saw Adam Curtis talking to Chris Morris.

00:36:47.63
Talal K
Yep.

00:36:49.78
alexei sayle
Look, I forced war from going saying hello to them because it would have just looked too Meta, really. ah But, um yeah.

00:37:00.44
Talal K
Yeah, you needed me there to to record it.

00:37:03.00
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:37:03.16
Talal K
We'd love to have Chris Morris on, of course.

00:37:04.82
alexei sayle
Maybe we should.

00:37:05.24
Talal K
He's such such a rich history um career.

00:37:07.00
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah.

00:37:09.02
Talal K
You enjoyed The Day Shall Come then?

00:37:11.68
alexei sayle
I did, and it's it was it's very upsetting and unsettling, actually, I think.

00:37:15.72
Talal K
I remember when that came out, there was a big... there was a big push in the press about it. Like they really tried to promote it hard.

00:37:22.17
alexei sayle
Was I?

00:37:23.77
Talal K
You know, he he was on all the podcasts and all the YouTube channels, but um it didn't do well and the ratings weren't great.

00:37:24.54
alexei sayle
Right.

00:37:30.07
alexei sayle
No. No. I was completely unaware of it. I'd never...

00:37:34.00
Talal K
Hmm.

00:37:35.06
alexei sayle
But again, that's especially I suppose it is good. I mean, the snotty reviewer in the Guardian did. She said how she'd not liked Alex Garland's Civil War when it came out. But now, you know, it it seems more like a documentary than fiction, really.

00:37:51.96
Talal K
You made me think of that film a moment ago, yeah.

00:37:52.41
alexei sayle
Which, yeah.

00:37:54.16
Talal K
That that film is is chilling.

00:37:57.05
alexei sayle
I find it, again, it I found it at the time, I think, very um really powerful. You know, not without its flaws, but, um you know, really powerful.

00:38:02.01
Talal K
Yeah.

00:38:06.90
alexei sayle
And obviously it is a, you know, it's getting to to appear more and more like reality, really.

00:38:12.89
Talal K
Yeah. Especially though with the ice age agents.

00:38:14.07
alexei sayle
Particularly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:38:17.57
Talal K
and

00:38:19.93
alexei sayle
um So anyway, I would i would reckon and recommend Anniversary.

00:38:25.55
Talal K
It's weird, there's yeah, other there must be some, makes you think there's a conspiracy that shuts these films down, but that also,

00:38:34.14
alexei sayle
and I think it definitely was about anniversary, yeah, because it's it's an implied critique of Trump.

00:38:39.89
Talal K
there's a lot of talk at the moment about giving conspiracy theorists their flowers, like apologizing them because we've spent so long laughing and ridiculing conspiracy theorists and and every day that moves forward, it feels like,

00:38:46.78
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:38:49.75
alexei sayle
yeah

00:38:55.26
Talal K
Maybe they had a point and now I'm beginning, now even I'm beginning to question the moon landing and stuff. because

00:39:00.79
alexei sayle
Yeah, well, it is it's true, isn't it? I mean, with ah you know, the paedophile ring in the pizza shop, in you know, that that wasn't true. But, um you know, Jeffrey Epstein is, you know, pretty close to that and the Clintons were involved.

00:39:14.07
Talal K
Yes, I've been saying that it's just, they got the the dates and and locations wrong.

00:39:15.77
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point.

00:39:20.77
Talal K
It's...

00:39:21.42
alexei sayle
Yeah. Sorry, conspiracy theorists. Yeah. You were right all along. You know, we who poo-pooed you, we should, you know, we should eat our M16.

00:39:30.17
Talal K
Yeah.

00:39:33.34
alexei sayle
Yeah, true.

00:39:35.10
Talal K
They are, yeah, the Nostradamus, Nostradami of our time. But on the other hand, a lot of them are absolute dickheads.

00:39:45.11
alexei sayle
yeah

00:39:45.53
Talal K
I was on the tube the other day. i sat on the tube, minding my own business, wearing my kufir, and this fellow comes on, sits opposite me. think it was on the Victoria line.

00:39:58.26
Talal K
And he was wearing a T-shirt.

00:40:02.14
Talal K
And it had a picture of the flat earth on it. And it had the text, once you go flat, you never go back, written on his T-shirt.

00:40:09.00
alexei sayle
Right. Okay.

00:40:12.18
Talal K
And he's one of those guys who didn't take his backpack off when he sits down. So you could tell he's a moron. Like, you know, wouldn't he just sit with your backpack on a chair, hunched forward?

00:40:22.04
alexei sayle
Right.

00:40:23.76
Talal K
And he had a um yellow ribbon badge on.

00:40:27.03
alexei sayle
Oh, really? Yeah.

00:40:27.54
Talal K
on top of his flat earth t-shirt.

00:40:29.47
alexei sayle
Yeah,

00:40:30.36
Talal K
So there are some conspiracy theorists out there who is still, let's not fully buy into there.

00:40:34.49
alexei sayle
yeah that's just weird intersection. Yeah.

00:40:38.18
Talal K
Let's not fully buy into it yet.

00:40:40.85
alexei sayle
Oh, another date for your diary as I'm reviewing the papers on Broadcast House on Radio 4 on the morning of April the 15th.

00:40:48.36
Talal K
Oh, really? oh

00:40:52.00
alexei sayle
Yeah,

00:40:52.89
Talal K
or they book you in that far in advance?

00:40:55.38
alexei sayle
yeah, yeah. See if they let me on.

00:40:58.55
Talal K
April 15. I'm not putting that in the diary. um And you've got your book coming out. When? you is Is that this year or next year?

00:41:07.24
alexei sayle
I think September this year.

00:41:08.94
Talal K
September. Yeah.

00:41:09.65
alexei sayle
We're we're aiming for... it's still look I mean, it's because it you know deal it's it's partly about politics, and so you know you keep hoping to rewrite the fucking thing because things change every day, really.

00:41:19.58
Talal K
Yeah.

00:41:21.93
alexei sayle
so It's a bit problematic. We're hoping to get it out. I think still we're aiming for September and I will...

00:41:28.03
Talal K
Are you gonna be touring like crazy when that comes out?

00:41:30.14
alexei sayle
I assume so, yeah. I assume so. And that'll be weird. It's years since I've left the house, really. So it be um it'll be a weird experience. I have to get up early and do things.

00:41:44.86
alexei sayle
At the age of 73. 74, actually.

00:41:50.50
Talal K
You got this.

00:41:52.06
alexei sayle
I'll be when the book comes out. um But, um yeah.

00:41:55.13
Talal K
You don't do the voice anymore.

00:41:57.30
alexei sayle
but vo but I know I think Linda told me off. She found it unsettling. I'm 74. Yeah. Yeah. Sweat. Yeah, well.

00:42:06.14
Talal K
Oh, breaking news.

00:42:06.14
alexei sayle
i'm fix im sure too far yeah

00:42:09.84
Talal K
Keir Starmer's apologised.

00:42:11.73
alexei sayle
and

00:42:12.71
Talal K
Everything's fine.

00:42:13.56
alexei sayle
yeah

00:42:13.76
Talal K
I'm sorry for having believed Mandelson's lies and appointing him.

00:42:20.31
alexei sayle
yeah

00:42:21.27
Talal K
And he apologises to the victims of Epstein. Oh, well, then that's everything's fine then.

00:42:26.46
alexei sayle
Yeah, that's fine.

00:42:28.47
Talal K
um Alexei, have you heard of something called Patreon?

00:42:30.58
alexei sayle
Yes.

00:42:34.20
alexei sayle
i I have a vague notion, but do explain it to me, Talal.

00:42:37.62
Talal K
Oh, well, patreon.com is a website where you can go and support, you know, little shows that you enjoy and things that bring you...

00:42:44.60
alexei sayle
Podcast, for example.

00:42:45.72
Talal K
po For example, yeah, really good example, that one, actually.

00:42:47.32
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:42:49.56
Talal K
And say, like, you get something for free every week and, like, you enjoy listening to it and it brings you some comfort and it makes you maybe smile or giggle. when you listen to it or it makes you go hmm fascinating and it gives you a bit of light in in kind of darker times you know there's a way that you can show appreciation to those things because you know things we're happy to do it for free we love you know ah you know we love creating this show and having a meeting up weekly and having a chat but um

00:43:02.10
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:43:15.35
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:43:17.87
alexei sayle
Shouldn't cost us money, though.

00:43:19.42
Talal K
It costs, I have a lot of bills to pay for the show. You know, there's there's subscription fees for all the different hosting and recording, production. ah nothing Nothing is really free. It all costs money. And then I have bills myself to pay in rent. And this takes time. And I sit and edit. And then if, like, you know, someone...

00:43:42.77
Talal K
isn't wearing headphones and so their audio comes out really bad. Then it takes me twice as long to edit the show and try my best to make the sound quality better. i don't, we don't have a team behind us. We don't have any advertisers giving us money. So if you want to show appreciation to something like that, for example, you know, you could go to the website, patreon.com forward slash Alexi sale podcast, let's say.

00:44:09.34
Talal K
And you can sign up for like three quid a month, five, 10, 20, whatever you can afford. Even sign up for a few months and then quit, you know, just to like, you know, we we come to you cap in hand, throw a few coins in the cap.

00:44:23.10
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:44:25.37
Talal K
And it keeps helps keep the show going. It shows us your support. And you get a little something.

00:44:30.36
alexei sayle
Yeah, it makes this yeah makes us feel good about ourselves.

00:44:31.30
Talal K
Oh, yeah. What what does it make? Yes, definitely. um Pleases, yeah. And it's very pleasing. um And and um basically you help keep the show running and it and it the show can't really go as long as it has, can't go as often as it does without your support because it takes a lot of time and effort.

00:44:52.49
alexei sayle
No.

00:44:54.71
Talal K
um to create and if you if you do become a member of patreon.com forward slash alexisl podcast no matter what tier no matter which price bracket yes um you get some benefits you get to watch the video

00:45:03.00
alexei sayle
Silver, gold, platinum, bronze. alllthough

00:45:10.04
alexei sayle
We did promise she'd get nothing at all, didn't we? But we were to resolve from that a little.

00:45:14.52
Talal K
yeah we don't give you much but it's a lot more than the nothing that we did promised

00:45:15.64
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:45:18.68
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:45:19.67
Talal K
Yeah, but you get full video episodes. So you get to watch our faces as we speak and put a face to the voice.

00:45:23.68
alexei sayle
Yeah. yeah

00:45:28.95
Talal K
ah When we have guests on, you can see what their kitchens or living rooms look like. um And there's every now and then tidbits that we put up there. wanna work on some more.

00:45:37.53
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:45:39.70
Talal K
Me and Alexia were chatting earlier today about what more we can do for the Patreon.

00:45:44.42
alexei sayle
Which would be more of this, but only you'd get to see it, really. I don't know whether that's an attraction or not.

00:45:49.05
Talal K
Yeah, we might do a little after show conversations.

00:45:51.45
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:45:52.95
Talal K
You know, there are some stingy people out there. Say they have an hour long show.

00:45:58.62
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:45:59.41
Talal K
They'll just make the show 45 minutes. And then to get the last 15 minutes, you have to join their Patreon.

00:46:04.59
alexei sayle
No.

00:46:05.46
Talal K
That's kind of mean.

00:46:07.90
alexei sayle
That is mean.

00:46:08.15
Talal K
we would do the full hour and then do an extra 15, if anything. Or, you know, when the weather's better, we'll do some more outdoor filming. ah Me and Alexi, but you know, who knows?

00:46:19.85
Talal K
I'm i'm rambling now. Please support the show.

00:46:21.14
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:46:21.93
Talal K
That's the main thing. This is ah a grassroots endeavor. It's just me and Lex and a couple of laptops.

00:46:28.50
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:46:29.11
Talal K
And we all have bills to pay. So please go to patreon.com forward slash Alexa Cell Podcast. I really appreciate that. Oh, and there's the chat, the group chat there, which is popping off. And I love everyone on there.

00:46:39.58
alexei sayle
Yes, um I feel tremendous affection for everybody. So i maybe we've got 15 minutes. We try and make it an hour, don't we? what there Should we do some of the listeners' queries? Yes.

00:46:52.49
Talal K
Well, speaking of our lovely ah patrons, I did have a message from someone called Paddy. Alexi and he has a question for you.

00:47:00.79
alexei sayle
Yes.

00:47:01.56
Talal K
Hi, my name's Patrick. I thought it was Paddy. ah My dad, Warwick, told me when I was a teenager, he bought a tandem bike off of you. Is this true?

00:47:12.54
alexei sayle
ah Yes, probably probably. Was it a Claude Butler?

00:47:17.43
Talal K
That's all I know. Well, I don't know how many tandem bikes you've owned in your...

00:47:21.75
alexei sayle
I've owned two.

00:47:23.06
Talal K
ah you

00:47:24.09
alexei sayle
Yeah, one was a Claude Butler and one were racing tandem and then the other one was ah a Pashley. um And it was the happiest day of my life when i got rid of our tandem.

00:47:37.21
alexei sayle
It was like... It made me feel ridiculous and upset. um and it was, I just thought, well, if I can learn to drive. um But yeah, we used to, for instance, we used to,

00:47:53.91
alexei sayle
Our friend Chris lived outside Bambury and we used to stay in it. in that where we we We put a caravan in her garden and we used to stay and I used to, Linda was still working at the time. I used to drop, cycle into Bambury with Linda on the back of the tandem and then drop her off at the station to catch the train into London then and I'd cycle back by myself and I...

00:48:19.29
alexei sayle
You know, it every every second of every minute I was on that tandem, I felt terrible.

00:48:21.45
Talal K
Oh.

00:48:28.07
alexei sayle
Yeah,

00:48:29.58
Talal K
That's the first time I've considered that there's an actual practical use to a tandem. It's so that you didn't have two bikes and then you're stuck with two bikes and what do we do with this extra bike?

00:48:39.98
Talal K
You can drop someone off.

00:48:40.40
alexei sayle
well, Linda's not very good riding the bike of pants, is it? So it was also... But it was, um yeah, it was just it was just awful.

00:48:47.86
Talal K
Oh.

00:48:53.91
alexei sayle
But yeah, i had that we if his dad was the one who bought the Claude Butler off me, I also sorry kept it we in the council. It was when we lived in london in this council block in Fulham.

00:49:06.65
alexei sayle
And I somehow managed to keep nine bikes in a council flat. I don't know. Including that tandem, which I kept upright in a cupboard.

00:49:13.75
Talal K
Jesus Christ.

00:49:16.54
alexei sayle
um But yeah, so I did, i did know and it was just awful. I mean, it was just just the worst experience my life riding that tunnel.

00:49:31.00
Talal K
Well, there you go, Patrick. He also goes on. I have a memory of being very young. in a curry house next to a bus station in London with a friend of my dad's called Harry. He was a bus driver.

00:49:45.08
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:49:45.91
Talal K
I think you may have been there as well.

00:49:47.93
alexei sayle
Yeah, was my best friend, Harry Jackson.

00:49:52.34
Talal K
And he he said, don't worry, i don't want anything.

00:49:54.97
alexei sayle
no

00:49:55.38
Talal K
I just want to know if this is true because me bird thinks I'm making it all up. So...

00:50:01.37
alexei sayle
Well, it's funny because we went we were we were in Fulham um last week and there was an Indian restaurant by the bus station by Olympia.

00:50:12.31
alexei sayle
So it may have been that Indian restaurant. or We used to drink in this. I mean, there's ah in my when my book comes out in September, there's a sort of large section dedicated to Harry, my best friend, because, um well, yeah, it's bittersweet, really.

00:50:26.40
Talal K
Oh.

00:50:29.56
alexei sayle
mean, he's dead now, but also...

00:50:34.10
alexei sayle
Well, you have to read. I mean, and he lived near us in Fulham and we used to we used to drink in this flat roof. I mean, there was a pub called the Britannia, which was built into... um Hammersmith bus garage so the crews could get drunk before they took the buses out um but it's um yeah' it's yeah there's ah there's quite a lot about Harry really and some of it's kind of sad but yeah so that was Harry Jackson named Jakobovich

00:51:07.80
alexei sayle
ah and he was my dearest best friend for a long time

00:51:13.55
Talal K
Oh, that's sweet.

00:51:14.60
alexei sayle
There's a bus driver on there, on the number nines.

00:51:21.02
Talal K
I think I've got another date for the diaries.

00:51:23.68
alexei sayle
Hmm.

00:51:25.37
Talal K
um Yeah, man. Well, we've been talking about this and I've literally just got a message confirming our

00:51:35.14
Talal K
our terms. The Wellingborough Mayday and Diggers Festival.

00:51:39.63
alexei sayle
All right.

00:51:40.18
Talal K
How do you think about, how do you feel about this Should we commit to this Lex? It's on May the 2nd.

00:51:43.03
alexei sayle
Is it actually on May Day?

00:51:44.95
Talal K
May the 2nd is the event.

00:51:47.29
alexei sayle
um Yeah, because i the Slavo Zizek is on the 6th. So, yeah, I think the 2nd, that's fine, yeah.

00:51:53.15
Talal K
TASP live at Diggers.

00:51:55.54
alexei sayle
They've... I'll admit...

00:51:56.02
Talal K
I'm putting in my diary. You guys at home do the same. Diggers Festival. ah Mark Thomas normally headlines it and this year they want you and I to do a live podcast there.

00:52:08.22
alexei sayle
Hmm...

00:52:08.25
Talal K
um It's the Wellingborough Afro-Caribbean Association Mayday and Diggers Festival. um And we'll be there

00:52:17.05
alexei sayle
The Diggers, of course, were the Diggers were, I think, was there was a group, I mean, it was at the time of the English Civil War, wasn't it?

00:52:27.06
alexei sayle
they were The Diggers were part of Cromwell's movement, but were um anarchists, very early adopters of kind of of rural anarchism, and I think were part of those who were actually suppressed by Cromwell, and you know, when the

00:52:32.93
Talal K
I have no idea what the diggers are.

00:52:44.70
Talal K
Oh.

00:52:45.24
alexei sayle
when the revolution turns on itself as it generally does, I should...

00:52:50.44
Talal K
Oh, they believed in utopian socialism. 49. 49.

00:52:52.79
alexei sayle
Yeah. mean, if you think this is, what, 16...

00:52:56.82
Talal K
forty nine

00:52:58.44
alexei sayle
1649, yeah. And, they yeah, you know, this this shit goes back.

00:53:01.98
Talal K
proto-communist

00:53:03.38
alexei sayle
Yeah. And this very powerful force and, you know, such a threat to Cromwell in the end, I think they were violently suppressed.

00:53:13.81
Talal K
I've got some reading to do before our show there because this is news to me.

00:53:15.64
alexei sayle
Yeah, the diggers and the levellers, and these are, you know, these are all part of our history. Our history that we're not taught, really, you know. that These ideas of socialism, of communism, you know were you know, had a great deal of traction in Britain, even in the 17th century.

00:53:28.12
Talal K
Absolutely.

00:53:34.97
Talal K
Oh, it's always been suppressed, even in the middle in the Middle East, which is a term I'm trying to remove from my vocabulary because it is a...

00:53:35.11
alexei sayle
We're not taught that, we're just taught fucking Kingsley.

00:53:40.00
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:53:43.64
alexei sayle
there

00:53:45.62
Talal K
colonialist language to say Middle East, but and so is the word Arabs. And so it's like, it's like, I don't know what fucking word to use, um but we've got a rich history of of of socialism and resistance and, and it's never taught, you know, and it's, it's never in the mainstream.

00:53:51.86
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:54:02.53
Talal K
It's always this underground, you know, secret rooms in the back room of a cafe.

00:54:05.37
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:54:06.37
Talal K
And, but it goes back hundreds of years, people in across the whole world have always fought against the ruling class of always, ah gathered and planned and plotted and aspired and they've always just been shut down pushed back and and erased from the history books but you can't because people still know about the diggers people still know about the uh the marxists and trotsky trotskites from

00:54:37.08
Talal K
from Syria and Lebanon from the 70s and 60s, people still know about these movements.

00:54:38.78
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah.

00:54:42.58
Talal K
You can't kill the the dream. um

00:54:45.56
alexei sayle
So I'm very excited, yeah. I'm very excited to be doing the Diggers Festival on May 2nd. They've agreed to our outrageous terms. White fair-lined rooms for both of us.

00:54:52.51
Talal K
Yes.

00:54:56.12
alexei sayle
and ah travel to and from Wellingborough in a a leather-made helicopter in the NHCP.

00:55:00.95
Talal K
Digger.

00:55:06.17
Talal K
In a big digger.

00:55:07.32
alexei sayle
yeah um So they've they've capitulated into our outrageous demands, and we will be there, so it's exciting.

00:55:12.95
Talal K
Yep.

00:55:18.45
Talal K
It is. um That's cool. Yeah, it's exciting. And what else? Yeah, I think it's just been quite, ah it' it's it's funny when we've had guests on for two weeks and just so much is going on in the news that we just, we're like just ignoring because we've got this interesting person to talk to.

00:55:36.63
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah. cause it's Yeah.

00:55:41.37
Talal K
but we have had ah an interesting news week this week and...

00:55:45.02
alexei sayle
Yeah, no, and I mean, kind of, you know, both in the, you know, it may not last, but, you know, in the acquittal of the Fulton Six and also in there the, you know, the continuing catastrophe that's before in the Labour Party, I think we can look on these as...

00:55:54.07
Talal K
Oh yes.

00:56:00.82
alexei sayle
I do feel better, I think, you know, because every most weeks are so grim for us on the left. that And, you know, Israel continues to murder children in Gaza and, you know, that's all still going on.

00:56:11.06
Talal K
Yeah.

00:56:15.14
alexei sayle
But at least we've had a couple of little victories.

00:56:16.76
Talal K
Hey, man. And even Zahra Sultanas is endorsing the Green Party ah member in the by-election because she thinks that's the one that's the best chance we have.

00:56:22.58
alexei sayle
Yeah, that's quite an interesting... i mean, yeah. Yeah.

00:56:28.63
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:56:29.75
Talal K
She said it's all about being in a unified left. so But that is highlighting the...

00:56:32.22
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:56:35.16
Talal K
ah The war within your party, though, um was...

00:56:40.63
alexei sayle
Absolutely. Well, that's what we're saying. Yiddish, that Mishigas.

00:56:44.90
Talal K
It's...

00:56:45.14
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah, there's a quite interesting article, I thought, on Novara by two women who are standing for the CEC, the Central Executive Committee of your party, on the grassroots left slate, where they make the point that, you know, obviously we we we all wish the um the Greens well, and Jaco Palance is a very compelling performer, but they these two women make the point that...

00:57:12.62
alexei sayle
um

00:57:13.19
Talal K
Candy Williams and Anahita Zardošti.

00:57:15.35
alexei sayle
Yeah, that makes a very interesting point that the the other Green Party is focused, it is an electoral movement. It's interested in standing and being part of the system and standing for the, you know, taking part in bourgeois democracy.

00:57:24.95
Talal K
Being part of the system.

00:57:31.51
alexei sayle
And, you know, what I think, you know, the distinction should be that if your party can turn out the way we want it, that it is much more, that it is...

00:57:42.65
alexei sayle
I know that's what Andrew Feinstein wants in Camden, is, you know, a a group that is both a community, or you know, it works on the ground in in in various, offers is you know, um interacts with the community and campaigns on that level in local campaigns for justice, you know, saving libraries and

00:58:00.89
Talal K
Yes.

00:58:07.25
Talal K
Practical solutions.

00:58:07.29
alexei sayle
Food banks and what have you. Yeah, but also stand but ah as a dual track and also stands for local elections. And that, I think, is a more, is ultimately perhaps a more interesting, or is another option, really, and should certainly that is part it.

00:58:22.54
alexei sayle
It should be part of a left offer, and that's what hopefully your party your party branches. They talk about proto-branches, like in Camden, the Camden People's Alliance, that that or hackckney Hackney Socialists.

00:58:37.00
alexei sayle
after You know, that that...

00:58:38.41
Talal K
It's true, yeah. We need a movement that is ah changing things on the ground, doing practical, impact impactful things, but also also educating the masses on why it's important and why um socialism is important.

00:58:39.81
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:58:43.90
alexei sayle
yeah yeah

00:58:52.02
alexei sayle
Yeah, and following that model of obviously the Black Panthers, Muslim Brotherhood, you know.

00:58:56.02
Talal K
Yes.

00:58:56.26
alexei sayle
um you know

00:58:57.08
Talal K
and

00:58:58.01
alexei sayle
yeah

00:58:58.20
Talal K
And maybe there's room for both in our in our future.

00:59:00.15
alexei sayle
Yes, yes.

00:59:01.12
Talal K
you know the Yeah, the article is called The Green Party is Great, but it's not enough.

00:59:01.50
alexei sayle
It doesn't have to be one or the other. Yeah.

00:59:05.98
Talal K
I think I'll drop a link to that in the description of the podcast below.

00:59:07.67
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:59:11.06
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:59:11.74
Talal K
That does look very interesting. Thanks for sharing that, Alexi.

00:59:15.58
alexei sayle
Yeah, well, Kim, I think we've...

00:59:17.02
Talal K
and

00:59:19.26
alexei sayle
We're just coming up on an hour now. We've done our community service for this week.

00:59:23.58
Talal K
ah we don't have a strict time code please do do leave a nicer comment uh if you're listening on a podcasting app please give us a five star review um it really helps the algo you know thumbs up give the video a like if you're watching on youtube do what you can if you can't go and support us on the patreon do what you can for the algorithm folks uh help us spread this show we we

00:59:23.70
alexei sayle
yeah No, I feel like.

00:59:32.41
alexei sayle
Yeah, please, por favor.

00:59:49.94
Talal K
You have no budget for marketing. We don't want to bring on advertisers. So help us spread the word. Tell your friends to give it a listen. Send them your favorite episode um to get them started on it.

01:00:00.76
Talal K
And yeah, much love to all y'all.

01:00:05.40
alexei sayle
Bye-bye. Bye-bye.