00:00:01.11
Talal K
Well, I've got everything. I've got water. Okay, whenever you're ready then, sir.

00:00:07.35
alexei sayle
Hello everybody and welcome to episode 120. twenty We said it was 120 last week, but it's actually 120 this week. it's um So this is a kind of podcast equivalent of ah tomp the great Tom Cruise film, Edge of Tomorrow. From now on, every podcast will be episode 120. You will relive the same podcast over and over again until the enemies are defeated.

00:00:37.65
alexei sayle
ah So, yeah.

00:00:37.91
Talal K
Yeah, Groundhog Day in space. What a great movie.

00:00:40.20
alexei sayle
It is a great movie. It's the greatest movie.

00:00:42.77
Talal K
What a brilliant movie.

00:00:43.80
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah.

00:00:46.04
Talal K
Fucking Tom Cruise.

00:00:46.04
alexei sayle
is It gets better and better the more I watch it.

00:00:49.24
Talal K
Yeah.

00:00:51.06
alexei sayle
and And Tom Cruise is so...

00:00:51.32
Talal K
OK, then, so we'll cover all the same talking points as last week, then. Should I get the notes from last week?

00:00:54.65
alexei sayle
Yeah, exactly. It's not like, actually, like the world, you know, it's not like the world has moved on, really, has it? You know, genocide in Gaza, Israel, etc.

00:01:03.77
Talal K
You just did a recording with Michael Rosen and Miriam Margolis.

00:01:07.03
alexei sayle
yes i have so how fantastic um it was really amazing um

00:01:07.25
Talal K
How how did that go?

00:01:16.20
alexei sayle
uh richard sanders it will be out on double down news fairly soon i think um richard sanders was soliciting titles i so i suggested alter kakas which is yiddish for old shits or

00:01:30.17
Talal K
Oh, that's really funny.

00:01:31.42
alexei sayle
If you speak Yiddish, yeah, he wasn't.

00:01:31.65
Talal K
That's really interesting. i Never heard that before.

00:01:34.22
alexei sayle
yeah

00:01:35.13
Talal K
ah

00:01:35.78
alexei sayle
Or two and a half Jews talk about Israel. Well, in ah um

00:01:40.94
Talal K
Who's half Jewish? You?

00:01:41.94
alexei sayle
may well in a sense, I mean, I'm fully Jewish, you know as far as it far as the SS is concerned.

00:01:42.71
Talal K
yeah

00:01:46.54
alexei sayle
but my father My father wasn't Jewish, but I think my mother was kind of double Jewish. I was i always make i always think she was so fucking Jewish.

00:01:57.94
alexei sayle
that's It kind of makes up for it, really.

00:01:58.94
Talal K
What was your dad then? Protestant?

00:02:01.37
alexei sayle
He was, um he came from, well, Sail is a name from the Isle of you know, so it's a Manx name.

00:02:02.72
Talal K
Church of England?

00:02:08.70
alexei sayle
His mother, than I think, was French. I'm very bad on family shit, which um is some kind of weird mental block. um But I think his father was maybe from the Isle of Man, and he was some kind of sea captain or something.

00:02:20.96
alexei sayle
And in fact, somebody did some research for us, didn't he, which i've I've already forgotten.

00:02:24.54
Talal K
Yes, yes, I forgot all that as well. Yes, someone did spending.

00:02:27.06
alexei sayle
um I think his mother died quite young and then he was brought up by a stepmother, so he had a lot half-brothers. ah but And, you know, Manx's island map was basically settled by Vikings, so I'm half Viking, half Jew.

00:02:41.78
alexei sayle
Interesting combination. um Yeah, so he was, I think my father my father was born in Liverpool.

00:02:50.39
Talal K
The Isle of Man is between the Lake District and Northern Ireland.

00:02:50.87
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:02:56.41
Talal K
And in the sea, yes.

00:02:57.24
alexei sayle
Yeah, but in the sea. Yes.

00:02:59.86
Talal K
And it's a self-governing British crown dependency. I don't know anything about Isle of Man, to be fair with you.

00:03:05.85
alexei sayle
Yeah. No, it's an interesting place. it's I think it's got better, really. It was...

00:03:12.49
alexei sayle
um you know it's potentially it's got you know good job i mean ah it was it was like it was sort of was bit like new zealand it was kind of stuck like it was like britain but stuck in the 1950s for a while but i think i imagine now it's got more it's got more um i mean it could have fantastic seafood restaurants and stuff like that you know rather than Places where they just boiled cod in a pan.

00:03:35.80
alexei sayle
um i imagine now, and there's obviously a lot money there, and of course it's home to one of the greatest racing cyclists of all time, Mark Cavendish.

00:03:38.58
Talal K
and

00:03:47.74
Talal K
Yes, the TT.

00:03:49.82
alexei sayle
No, the master motorbike, yeah, but no, but the the bicycle cyclist, Mark Cavendish, the Britain's greatest cyclist, and in many ways the greatest cyclist of all time.

00:03:56.95
Talal K
Oh, right.

00:03:59.07
alexei sayle
In my opinion, Cav, he was from the Alamand.

00:04:00.68
Talal K
Whoa. Is he old school or is he still going?

00:04:04.69
alexei sayle
He's a sprinter. he's just I think he's just retired, although it's hard for him to retire. But he he retired.

00:04:09.85
Talal K
Mark Cavendish,

00:04:10.49
alexei sayle
he but He won more stages than any other any other cyclist ever. He's the greatest stage.

00:04:16.82
Talal K
Manx retired cyclist.

00:04:19.22
alexei sayle
He has retired, actually. But redid he got he got finally got the record, didn't he? actually beat Eddie Merckx, I think, and won the most stages of a Tour de France. And, I mean, sprinting, and I mean, it's just the... the the maddest, most dangerous sport there is really being a sprint a sprint cyclist and inner pat in a and the grand in the Grand Tour.

00:04:43.26
Talal K
Why? ah Because you you do a tour as a team and you take turns or what?

00:04:44.80
alexei sayle
Well, you have to ride the whole tour, so it might be... But then if the stage is appropriate, so say it's got a flat finish, basically, the last what happens is that all the teams...

00:04:59.67
alexei sayle
get their sprinters to the front more or less around or near the front and then the last 20 250 meters something all the sprinters just go flat out and try and get to the finish line first it's it's it's amazingly dangerous and i mean you

00:05:11.61
Talal K
Hmm. ah So that's when the most kind of collisions happen and stuff.

00:05:18.65
Talal K
How do you get your teammate to the front if they're...

00:05:21.08
alexei sayle
Well, the rest of the team gets them there, basically. And you you sometimes a a sprinter will have a what they call a specialist lead-out man.

00:05:23.53
Talal K
How?

00:05:28.42
alexei sayle
So we'll have one guy in the team who's dedicated to just getting him to the front of the peloton at exactly the right moment. And then from there, he will launch.

00:05:37.46
Talal K
How?

00:05:39.14
alexei sayle
It's ah just by cycling in front of them. I mean, cycling's amazing. like I mean, yeah, you can cycle. If somebody's in front of you, mean, partly you can go a lot faster than if nobody's in front of you, basically.

00:05:51.02
alexei sayle
I mean, that's the whole theory of cycle racing.

00:05:53.50
Talal K
What, like Slipstream, like a video game?

00:05:55.64
alexei sayle
Some of it's slipstream, and some of it's just a kind of, I think, a kind of psychological...

00:06:01.40
Talal K
Psychological.

00:06:02.26
alexei sayle
like psychological kind of impetus really but yeah there's some there's been some great lead out men and those those combinations between lead out man and um the sprinter are very important i think but sometimes like cav would go he'd lost his sprint i mean so i mean mean cycle racing i mean particularly the tour of france is so brutal and mean sometimes cav would have lost his lead up man would have lost his

00:06:15.32
Talal K
Right.

00:06:27.64
alexei sayle
Lost his team, so he then he would latch onto somebody else's wheel. louis I mean, you must think so fast. You latch onto the wheel of somebody else who you think is going to make a break for it and stay on their wheel, and then at the last second jump them, really.

00:06:41.34
Talal K
And when you say latch on, you're not talking literally. This is a for like going behind someone.

00:06:43.58
alexei sayle
No, but you're... I mean, no, you're millimetres apart, their back wheel.

00:06:48.58
Talal K
Whoa. And then their teammate is trying to be behind them as well. So you're kind of like muscling them out of it.

00:06:54.20
alexei sayle
All that shit, yeah. All that shit.

00:06:55.61
Talal K
Wow. So when you cycle as a team, i so you're not like, you're not all just doing your own thing.

00:06:58.55
alexei sayle
Yes.

00:07:02.82
Talal K
You really are sticking together and wow.

00:07:03.61
alexei sayle
No, no, no, there's all kinds of... so yeah enough for this and I mean, so in ah in ah in ah a in a team in the classics with the Vuelta a España, the um the um Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, you have I think a team has 11, it 9 or 11 men.

00:07:07.58
Talal K
I don't know any of this.

00:07:25.21
alexei sayle
And they but they have a mixture of sprinters, you'll have mountain climbers, and then you'll also have your all-rounders like Pogaccio or who can do everything, basically. Usually they can't sprint, but apart from that, they can do mountains and they can do flats. And they can also do time trial, which is where you just race against the clock one after another. But also within that team, you have what's called domestiques. And what the domestiques do is they actually go drop back to the team car and pick up water and food gel caps and stuff and then bring them back to the rest of the team so you have so so a domestique will will you know is ah is ah it will never win the big will never win a stage but these are the kind of journeyman cyclists who you know in a way work a lot harder they

00:08:01.54
Talal K
Oh my

00:08:15.06
alexei sayle
And they also, if like a if their team leader has a mechanical, has a breakdown or an accident, they will wait and then lead him back. I mean, it is the most, and I think it's the most inspiring thing in the world is to see a team in a flying kind of, like flying like a peloton, like ah like a line, like snow geese or something, just leading their team, their leader back into a...

00:08:43.00
alexei sayle
into the back of the peloton, it's just the most staring thing I've ever seen, really. It's it's it's it's beautiful. And, you know, I mean, it's always, i mean you know, you can argue, I think, you know, people...

00:08:49.72
Talal K
Wow.

00:08:54.58
alexei sayle
You know, a football match lasts 90 minutes or, you know, the Tour de France lasts three weeks and it lasts all day, you know. I mean, the level of expenditure of energy and is immense, really.

00:09:11.29
alexei sayle
And we're very lucky at the moment for anybody who's injured. I mean, we have got the greatest, um I think in many ways, we've got the greatest cyclists of all time right now, which is Bogacá and Roglic and...

00:09:23.86
alexei sayle
and um ah and what you got have bvb but what's your What's the Danish cyclist called, Len? Jonas Winnegard.

00:09:42.85
alexei sayle
Jonas Winnegard. I'm sorry, Jonas Winnegard, Pagaccia and Roglic, I think, are a group probably you could argue the three greatest cyclists of all time. um and it was one of the greatest days of my life when i did commentary on the tour in uh whenever it was 2020 but um yeah i don't know why we started to talking

00:09:58.56
Talal K
Yeah.

00:10:04.38
Talal K
Well, Google AI overview says Eddie Merckx is widely considered the greatest cyclist of all time.

00:10:12.25
alexei sayle
yeah i mean you know he won you know but then there was a lot you know

00:10:12.38
Talal K
Belgian guy. Are

00:10:17.06
Talal K
you a fan of him?

00:10:17.30
alexei sayle
There was a lot going on one way and way. I think these modern cyclists, they're faster.

00:10:24.60
Talal K
so the

00:10:25.77
alexei sayle
In fact, they don't take drugs, by and large.

00:10:27.99
Talal K
So the Isle of Man is a self-governing British crown.

00:10:28.11
alexei sayle
and Yes.

00:10:32.49
Talal K
So is it in the UK or not?

00:10:33.21
alexei sayle
Yes.

00:10:36.00
alexei sayle
Well, yeah, kind of.

00:10:37.35
Talal K
It's got its own parliament?

00:10:38.97
alexei sayle
Yes, the Timbald.

00:10:41.66
Talal K
and its own constitutional monarchy.

00:10:43.74
alexei sayle
yeah and it was used to be they used to they had flogging and stuff in um had a man long after and i think homosexuality was banned for much longer than it was in the rest of the uk and they had demented cockney nuisance normal wisdom for quite a long time

00:11:02.71
Talal K
Demented Cockney nuisance.

00:11:05.34
alexei sayle
yeah normal wisdom

00:11:09.14
Talal K
I'll just let that slide by. um OK, known for its rugged coastline, medieval castles and rural landscape, and it's also got like Viking and Celtic heritage.

00:11:20.47
alexei sayle
and it for a long time I think they were offering tax records actually there was a period in the 90s or whenever it went when movies a lot of movies were made there and so Madonna would

00:11:25.20
Talal K
I can imagine.

00:11:31.58
alexei sayle
was I remember when I was there for a literary festival, there's a policeman, I think, and the policeman had those police helmets, but in white. And he'd got some helmet he'd got signed.

00:11:41.87
alexei sayle
and I remember it was like signed by like Madonna and Harrison Ford and we know a lot of big movie stars, is actually because it can double you know it can double for Ireland, it can double for Scotland.

00:11:53.43
Talal K
Yes.

00:11:54.97
alexei sayle
And there's yeah Victorian bits you can pretend were London.

00:11:56.30
Talal K
Some amazing landscapes out there.

00:11:58.87
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, well, i recommend it. used to fly i don't know why you fly there now. i flew from London City and one of those British Aerospace were last...

00:12:06.88
Talal K
Mm.

00:12:10.52
alexei sayle
last um

00:12:11.85
Talal K
Oh man, I've flown out London City once in my life. I think maybe to go to Edinburgh, maybe, but it was just one of the most incredible experiences to fly out.

00:12:23.03
Talal K
You spoke ah recently about landing in, ah was it Hong Kong or Singapore or something? It sounds like that.

00:12:28.31
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:12:29.15
Talal K
It's like, you know, flying out of a major city from like the heart of the city.

00:12:29.33
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:12:32.37
alexei sayle
The middle, yeah. And, of course, it's that ah it's a steeper i mean it's ah it's a it's a steeper take-off and and landing angle as well.

00:12:33.85
Talal K
It's...

00:12:40.23
alexei sayle
it's your normally three yeah It's five degrees, I think. So it really has to come up fast to clear the, you know, because of the noise mostly, to clear the building.

00:12:45.29
Talal K
Wow.

00:12:49.27
Talal K
It's a stunning sight. I recommend everyone does it at once in their life.

00:12:50.46
alexei sayle
Yeah, it's an amazing, amazing. Yeah, it's amazing to land at London City as well, which is suddenly, whoa, suddenly the plane drops, you know.

00:12:58.42
Talal K
So your book's going to come out soon.

00:13:00.44
alexei sayle
Yes, it's a big thing, yeah.

00:13:00.77
Talal K
And i imagine there'll be a book tour of sorts.

00:13:04.98
alexei sayle
Yes.

00:13:05.78
Talal K
And I thought I just had looking at the Island Man and you mentioned the book festival there. Oh, shout out to the Isle of Man's flag, which is probably one of the most interesting and and unique flags out there.

00:13:17.44
Talal K
Three three legs.

00:13:17.43
alexei sayle
Yes. And, of course, i shout out to Manx Cats. They have no tails.

00:13:23.00
Talal K
Oh, I've heard of these. Yeah, mates.

00:13:24.41
alexei sayle
Yes. It's all mature.

00:13:27.02
Talal K
No, there used to be wild cats out there. And... and um So I'm thinking of during our book, your hour, yes our book tour during your book tour, maybe I could trail behind you with your bike and we could do um bike ride videos in all the weird places you go to.

00:13:37.04
alexei sayle
Yeah, it's not your book. Yeah.

00:13:47.51
alexei sayle
Maybe, or maybe I just want to get the fucking book. We'll see. Yeah.

00:13:52.44
Talal K
Yeah.

00:13:52.66
alexei sayle
I don't know how, mean, I'm bit worried about my physical kind of, you know, stamina. It's 10 years since I've done this, really.

00:13:58.31
Talal K
Hmm.

00:13:58.70
alexei sayle
And, uh,

00:14:00.44
Talal K
Maybe we could pick like two or three locations that you...

00:14:00.55
alexei sayle
I'm not the man I was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd be fine.

00:14:04.50
Talal K
Because Isle Man would be fascinating to go around on the bikes.

00:14:07.00
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're putting, i mean, the launch is um September the 9th at the Royal Geographical Society, so as I don't urge people to come along to that.

00:14:17.03
Talal K
Huh.

00:14:19.77
alexei sayle
um And, on a yes, and I...

00:14:20.21
Talal K
That's in Kensington. That's where they launched the Siege book. about the Iranian embassy siege that my dad was a hostage in.

00:14:27.50
alexei sayle
Oh, right, so it's him, right.

00:14:31.58
Talal K
And it's just a few doors down from the Iranian embassy.

00:14:34.01
alexei sayle
From the Iranian embassy, yeah.

00:14:35.13
Talal K
And during the time of the Iranian embassy, it was where the kind of police would deliver their press conferences, their daily updates to the press.

00:14:44.76
alexei sayle
I'm sure the Iranian ambassador will be at my event. Yeah.

00:14:49.43
Talal K
And yeah, when there's a bit in the book when the SAS finally storm in and the and all the press were in there at that time and they all came out, ran to the to the embassy to go get.

00:15:04.57
alexei sayle
I remember, have I said this before? Because we lived in the 12th floor of this tower block in Fulham and I said to Linda, I saw a plume of smoke. It was the weirdest thing it was very clear. It was a very still day.

00:15:16.66
alexei sayle
I just saw this long black plume of smoke coming from Kensington. i I said to Linda, they've gone in.

00:15:24.58
Talal K
Wild.

00:15:24.89
alexei sayle
I said, and indeed they had. Yeah, so the book and How I Tried to Change the World by Walking Down the Middle of the Street Shouting is now available for pre-order, and I beg you to to pre-order it.

00:15:38.04
alexei sayle
i never ask anything of you, but I beg you to buy this book because I want it to be a big success.

00:15:38.81
Talal K
Oh yeah.

00:15:45.47
Talal K
I'll tell you what, I will put in the podcast description, whether you're listening to this on an app watching it on Patreon or watch listening to it on YouTube, there will be in the description a link where you can go and pre-order the motherfucker.

00:16:04.18
Talal K
Go pre-order this book. This is how nowadays books get in the charts, books make a name for themselves and books, the best way to help them succeed is to pre-order it.

00:16:06.24
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:16:16.34
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:16:16.70
Talal K
And it would mean a great deal to our good man and and supreme leader, Alexei Sayle.

00:16:19.33
alexei sayle
I would. I would.

00:16:23.45
Talal K
if you were to visit that link. If you just want to hear it hourly, it's geni.us, geni.us, geni.us, forward slash, Alexis Sale, H, B, Harriet Bravo, what's the dot u s g e n i dot u s forward slash alexis sale h b ah h harriet bravo what's the h

00:16:45.21
alexei sayle
Yeah, hotel.

00:16:45.98
Talal K
yeah Hotel Bravo, fuck me. um And you can get signed copies. People are were asking in the Instagram, can I get a signed copy? Can I get a signed copy?

00:16:56.57
Talal K
So now I have an answer.

00:16:56.73
alexei sayle
Yes, you can.

00:16:58.39
Talal K
If you buy it from the Gay Pride shop, you get a signed copy.

00:16:58.47
alexei sayle
Yep, you can.

00:17:02.19
Talal K
If you pre-order it from Waterstones, the book house Browty Ferry, golden hair book.

00:17:02.81
alexei sayle
Do you?

00:17:09.77
alexei sayle
All the Indies, yeah. Well, what I'm going to... I mean, the way that works is I go to a ah go to a giant warehouse in a town in Suffolk called Bungay. And I'm going to sign like 1,500 copies, and then which means that they're then sold.

00:17:24.74
Talal K
Bloody hell.

00:17:26.14
alexei sayle
And those those will be the signed copies. Those signed copies will then be distributed from the giant warehouse in Bungay to, um you know, all those bookshops.

00:17:38.42
alexei sayle
That's how it works. But yeah, so you can get signed copies.

00:17:39.27
Talal K
That's not how the...

00:17:40.95
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:17:41.54
Talal K
You're going to do that in one sitting?

00:17:43.57
alexei sayle
I'm going to go to Bungay, I think, on August 10th. And yes, get there in a car. Or no, get there the train to Clay's, apparently, wherever the hell that is. The car will take me to Bungay.

00:17:58.07
alexei sayle
And yeah, I'll sign all day and have lunch and then train home. Quite near, ah quite near um you know, Warbleswick and Southworld and all that, all those Richard Curtis type people who all live down there.

00:18:04.34
Talal K
but

00:18:14.38
Talal K
That's not how the Americans do it. um the

00:18:22.10
Talal K
Through, I don't know, podcasts I've heard, they they get the slip, the book slip, and they deliver boxes and boxes of them to the author.

00:18:30.95
alexei sayle
Oh, right, okay.

00:18:32.28
Talal K
And so they're not delivering thousands of books, just the fucking the slip of the hardback.

00:18:35.26
alexei sayle
Yeah, and then you sign that, right.

00:18:37.61
Talal K
In your own time, they go, you've got a month or you've got two weeks. And they just, whenever they have a spare minute, they'll sign 10 copies, 100 copies, whatever.

00:18:40.28
alexei sayle
Right.

00:18:44.84
Talal K
And then they'll send them all back. But you're going to do 1,500, did you Damn, son.

00:18:50.46
alexei sayle
Yes.

00:18:51.35
Talal K
damn son right, Alexey's putting his graft in. The least you can do is go to the description of this podcast, click the link and pre-order the book.

00:18:54.84
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:19:01.06
Talal K
Let me click the, let me see how much they'll have to pay to pre-order.

00:19:01.38
alexei sayle
The

00:19:04.43
Talal K
20 quid for a signed copy.

00:19:06.95
alexei sayle
bargain.

00:19:08.38
Talal K
Come on.

00:19:10.30
alexei sayle
Come on.

00:19:11.00
Talal K
Come on.

00:19:11.19
alexei sayle
I've been working on this for years.

00:19:11.59
Talal K
Go support the Gay Pride Bookshop, order it from there.

00:19:14.68
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:19:15.15
Talal K
That's my recommendation.

00:19:15.51
alexei sayle
It's near my house.

00:19:17.56
Talal K
Yeah, I've been in there a couple of times actually. um

00:19:23.06
alexei sayle
They moved it now. They moved back to the original premises.

00:19:27.83
Talal K
Well, there you go.

00:19:28.22
alexei sayle
Yeah, it's very near my house.

00:19:28.86
Talal K
It'd

00:19:29.98
alexei sayle
It be even nearer.

00:19:32.12
Talal K
be easier to go there than go to Bungay.

00:19:35.32
alexei sayle
Nobody needs to go to Bungay. Apart from David Morrissey, this guy's actor who lives there sometimes.

00:19:43.29
Talal K
um Right.

00:19:44.54
alexei sayle
So, yeah.

00:19:44.73
Talal K
Yeah.

00:19:45.30
alexei sayle
So other things, yeah.

00:19:45.59
Talal K
yeah

00:19:46.86
alexei sayle
So the Sunday before last, i me and Miriam and Michael Rosen finally got together to do this film.

00:19:57.14
Talal K
Oh yeah, back to last week's topics. Oh, something I failed to bring up last week that I should have.

00:20:03.15
alexei sayle
All right.

00:20:04.28
Talal K
Did you watch this SNL UK?

00:20:07.50
alexei sayle
I did, yeah.

00:20:09.82
Talal K
I was pleasantly surprised.

00:20:11.06
alexei sayle
yeah oh Yeah, I mean, know I know George Fouracres, who I've used. I used, um I think, Absence of Normal. I know George anyway, because he's a mate of Joe Nunnery, the producer of Salmage Bar. I know Emma Siddy, because...

00:20:28.85
alexei sayle
ah We did Richard Doesman's House of Games together, and then I've seen her since Radio 4 Party, and she's very nice.

00:20:36.07
Talal K
Mm-hmm.

00:20:36.77
alexei sayle
And, yeah, it was, I mean, it's it's ah it's a tough it's a tough job doing sketch. I think sketch comedy is hard in a way, really. um And, obviously, George has had, a there's been a there was an article by Brian Logan about George Fore, because he was always likely to be the first breakout star of um of uh of saturday night live but um yeah it's okay i mean haven't watched a huge amount of it um but it was yeah it was yeah it wasn't yeah i was pleasantly surprised yeah yeah it was all right yeah yeah

00:21:12.46
Talal K
I yeah. Well, George Forex was a highlight of the show. He's he's very, very, very strong.

00:21:19.03
alexei sayle
And that that, what kind of Irish is your granddad? I mean, weirdly done that he had to mime to it. But I mean, very badly, I thought, just opening and closing his mouth, finally. I mean, so... But, I mean, you know, when you're doing a show live like that, um it's I guess but that was probably the best way. Obviously, if you filmed it, you would do it differently.

00:21:43.36
alexei sayle
Recorded it. But anyway, but yeah, it's a funny, it's a very funny song. Nicola Cobble and... And, yeah. yeah Yeah, it's okay. It's all right.

00:21:54.20
Talal K
was all right.

00:21:54.42
alexei sayle
I mean, yeah.

00:21:56.73
Talal K
ah i um I had the forms to audition for it and everything, and I just fucking forgot to audition for it.

00:22:02.81
alexei sayle
All right.

00:22:05.47
Talal K
um And it would have been a fun experience to do that. ah But yeah, I know a couple of the people involved. um And Annabelle Marlowe.

00:22:16.98
Talal K
whose brother wrote Six, the musical, and she was in the first cast of that.

00:22:20.18
alexei sayle
All right.

00:22:21.66
Talal K
I was in the musical comedy awards with her. and one of the writers, Omar Baddowee, glad they got an Arab in there, an Iraqi British comedian.

00:22:29.82
alexei sayle
Yep.

00:22:33.91
Talal K
I toured with him with Basim Yusuf, we were Basim's support, me and Omar together, um which makes it all the more painful that I forgot to audition because it was just this feels like it was could have been within my grasp.

00:22:40.98
alexei sayle
Right.

00:22:44.22
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:22:47.60
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:22:48.38
Talal K
It was a half kind of self-conscious lack of confidence and just also half just, oh, was that it was that yesterday?

00:22:48.60
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:22:55.45
Talal K
oh fuck, I didn't do it. All i had to do was fill in a form. um

00:22:59.51
alexei sayle
ah

00:23:00.73
Talal K
But I was pleasantly surprised. I think, a you know, Stuart Lee's right. It could have been more hard cuttings instead of just very light character-based satire.

00:23:10.55
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah.

00:23:11.48
Talal K
It could have been much more dark and cutting edge fucking criticism and takedown of government. and how we've been lied to and misrepresented over the last three years and how angry we all feel our government and our powerful billionaire class.

00:23:18.71
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, it's it was pretty, yeah.

00:23:28.66
Talal K
It would have been great to have some ah catharsis, some not catharsis, some, what's the word?

00:23:34.83
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:23:36.63
Talal K
Just the satisfaction of...

00:23:37.93
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah.

00:23:39.51
Talal K
Oh, Catharsis is right. Yeah, of of seeing them being really taken down on this mainstream ah show.

00:23:41.05
alexei sayle
yeah

00:23:44.55
alexei sayle
Mm.

00:23:44.94
Talal K
But what are you to expect from, ah you know, NBC-funded Sky thy production?

00:23:47.77
alexei sayle
Sky. Yep.

00:23:53.53
Talal K
that was about as hard-hitting as it was going to be, wasn't it?

00:23:56.18
alexei sayle
Yep.

00:23:56.98
Talal K
You weren't going to get anything more than that.

00:23:57.08
alexei sayle
yeah

00:23:58.80
Talal K
That's what podcasts and YouTube are for.

00:24:01.42
alexei sayle
Yep, but actually talking about Sky, somebody posted a link, the last comment I think on YouTube is a link to a piece on Sky News Australia.

00:24:14.64
alexei sayle
Sky News Australia is ah much more is much closer to Fox or GB News, as it were, very right-wing.

00:24:21.74
Talal K
Oh, this was on our last episode on YouTube.

00:24:24.63
alexei sayle
Yeah, it's the last.

00:24:25.34
Talal K
the the like The latest comment on there. Yeah, I saw that. I didn't click on it. Go on.

00:24:28.66
alexei sayle
I was really, I thought, it look, you know. Yeah, it's it's a piece I did. I'd forgotten about it, but it's obviously been in the ether because Linda was looking at it a couple of days ago.

00:24:39.05
Talal K
A piece you did.

00:24:39.36
alexei sayle
was something, it was a...

00:24:40.92
Talal K
a piece you did.

00:24:42.14
alexei sayle
Yeah, it was something I did. I think when Israel invented, I think Operation Cast Lead, was that 2014? Although I look a bit older than that. It's some, you know, Israeli massacre in Gaza that I'm somebody, can't remember who, they came around to the house and interviewed me, but it's a great line and I really must use it again. What I say is, this is what Sky News Australia was moaning about, I say that Israel is the Jimmy Savile of nation states.

00:25:10.87
Talal K
Huh.

00:25:11.35
alexei sayle
I'd forgotten saying that, but it is it's i mean it is it's a really good line. And it it does, as a lot of the comments under the Sky News, so you know it it nails it. it Because it is it's a place that, as a nation state, it's a place that is obviously...

00:25:26.62
alexei sayle
um It's a place that, in enacting its own base desires... Don't fight the escape.

00:25:37.85
alexei sayle
Yes, I was going to say that. Yeah, it was, um it it it it destroys the lives of children. I mean, literally destroys, but, you know, psychologically and physically it destroys the lives of children.

00:25:46.71
Talal K
Yes.

00:25:50.86
alexei sayle
And also it's it's endlessly indulged by the establishment, you know, which again, Jimmy Savile was, and it's, it's a demented ugly vile place and so i think i'm gonna use ill thank you sky news australia for reminding me of that like i'm gonna use that you use that all the time it's a good i think it is a good line and it it's a joke but it

00:26:12.76
Talal K
Yeah, that's fucking extremely act. And know du i don't know if you just said this, I should be paying attention, but i was I was watching the video that you're talking about. um

00:26:22.46
alexei sayle
yeah

00:26:24.18
Talal K
Not just the actions of Israel, it's that the everyone around Jimmy covered up for him and ignored its his crimes.

00:26:29.88
alexei sayle
Yes, the Enablement. Yeah. Yeah.

00:26:32.15
Talal K
Did you say that already? ah

00:26:34.17
alexei sayle
Yeah, I so i was saying that just now.

00:26:36.34
Talal K
Sorry.

00:26:36.75
alexei sayle
That's all right. Linda said she thought Graham Lennon had been slagging off because he's gone all fucking pro-Israel now. But also the guy doing the commentary on News...

00:26:50.81
alexei sayle
in um

00:26:52.95
Talal K
Just to clarify for our listeners, this is a very recent Sky News just from a couple of days ago.

00:26:53.62
alexei sayle
unscan news

00:26:59.35
alexei sayle
Yeah. Vile

00:27:00.12
Talal K
they They dug up this clip of you saying that about 10 years ago.

00:27:03.21
alexei sayle
comment. Yeah.

00:27:05.78
Talal K
And he's calling you an anti-Semite and he's like digging into this guy, Rowan Dean from Sky News Australia is just...

00:27:06.17
alexei sayle
Yes.

00:27:10.68
alexei sayle
Yeah. He's got a head that looks like a boiled ham.

00:27:14.81
Talal K
Does look a lot like a boiled ham, you're right.

00:27:16.44
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:27:16.69
Talal K
Oh my God, it's like half melting as well. His eyes are like barely managing to peer through these flaps of skin on his face.

00:27:19.42
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:27:24.50
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:27:25.53
Talal K
He looks like a miserable bastard. Fucking hell.

00:27:29.22
alexei sayle
Yeah, but thank you.

00:27:29.53
Talal K
It looks like he hasn't smiled in years

00:27:30.30
alexei sayle
with Yeah, no thank you for bringing that to my attention. I will be using that more and more often. Let's keep this scandal going.

00:27:40.15
Talal K
And the headline is, I'm a celebrity, stupid. And he's talking about all the celebrities who speak out for Palestine calling them all wankers.

00:27:47.35
alexei sayle
Yeah, that's very stupid.

00:27:48.87
Talal K
Well, you are the wanker, Rowan Dean.

00:27:51.26
alexei sayle
Yeah, it's not becausery because we object to genocide. So anyway, yeah, so there's me and Miriam and um Michael Rosen talking about being, you know, Jews and Israel, and I think it'll make an interesting film, you know, hopefully.

00:27:59.32
Talal K
in fact

00:28:09.75
Talal K
um We haven't done Film Club in a while. When should we do that? Should we...

00:28:13.34
alexei sayle
can we do it next week.

00:28:13.49
Talal K
yeah

00:28:14.45
alexei sayle
I plan to watch Touch of Evil. Maybe I'll watch it in the end.

00:28:16.58
Talal K
Oh, that's a good idea. Should we watch Touch of Evil?

00:28:18.59
alexei sayle
Yeah, said that last week. Have you stopped?

00:28:20.10
Talal K
I know, this is last week. Remember, we're redoing.

00:28:22.50
alexei sayle
Oh, right. ha

00:28:24.24
Talal K
That's what I thought you were doing, Mike.

00:28:25.24
alexei sayle
Are you doing this?

00:28:26.39
Talal K
Keep bringing up Miriam Margo, listen. Yeah, Touch of Evil. We're going to watch that before next week's episode.

00:28:32.66
alexei sayle
Yes.

00:28:33.34
Talal K
a Touch of Evil 1958. Now, I've had some messages encouraging us to watch the director's cut of it. They are saying, please get the DVD or the Blu-ray and watch it that way.

00:28:40.89
alexei sayle
Right.

00:28:45.86
alexei sayle
Right.

00:28:45.94
Talal K
That's not extremely feasible, not just for us, but for the thousands of listeners at home as well to all go out and get this Blu-ray.

00:28:51.80
alexei sayle
No, you can't, I mean, so if you get it a bite of a stream and it'll just be the the the but the brutalized studio cut that they did of...

00:29:00.25
Talal K
Yeah, apparently there was loads left on the cutting room floor that George Orwell was not happy about. And um years, George Orwell, Orson Welles.

00:29:06.68
alexei sayle
Not George Orwell. Orwell, Orson Welles. Orson Welles.

00:29:12.50
Talal K
But years, years later, even after his death, I think some people found his notes and tried to recreate as much as best as they can his version of it.

00:29:21.08
alexei sayle
Right. Well, I mean, if you can watch the director's cut, yes, obviously do. But I think, you know, it's pretty, I mean, the even the brutalized version that they released is pretty amazing.

00:29:34.71
Talal K
So how? Yes, I'm trying to see now if it's viable to watch the 1998 Orson Welles cut.

00:29:45.93
Talal K
Criterion Collection. Director's Cut. Yeah, it looks like that's only on Blu-ray. I'm I don't think it's fair to ask everyone to do that.

00:29:58.31
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:29:58.33
Talal K
we're going to stick with whatever the commercial version is.

00:30:01.27
alexei sayle
yeah Exactly.

00:30:01.97
Talal K
That's the version you grew up watching. That's the version you remembered last week.

00:30:05.94
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:30:07.26
Talal K
So yes, let's let's sorry to to let you down. Devout movie fans who messaged me very nicely on Patreon and email. But yes, Touch of Evil, 1958. Watch it for next week.

00:30:21.35
Talal K
We're going talk about it. We're going to talk about it. um

00:30:26.29
alexei sayle
Well, we're going to talk all about it.

00:30:27.06
Talal K
What was the... What was the big news story that we wanted I wanted to bring up with you? What do you think it was?

00:30:35.74
alexei sayle
it Iran?

00:30:36.31
Talal K
As you know, while we're on the topic, Patreon legend Mark, who is an incredible film reviewer himself.

00:30:36.86
alexei sayle
Iran.

00:30:42.62
Talal K
Great write ups on films he does. um I'll drop a link to his website in the description. Fuck it, I'll give you a plug, Mark. um Great to hear that film club is back, he says.

00:30:54.35
Talal K
Apart from that incredible opening one shot, my favorite thing about Touch of Evil is the line, this isn't the real Mexico, which is spoken by Charlton Heston.

00:31:05.27
Talal K
This isn't the real Mexico.

00:31:05.40
alexei sayle
The life is on.

00:31:07.40
Talal K
Terrible. Who is not a real Mexican? I saw a reel on Instagram only last week with Wells being asked about Ella Kazan and not holding back at all.

00:31:16.07
alexei sayle
lieon

00:31:17.00
Talal K
Elias Kazan, not holding a back at all about how much he hates him for informing on his friend informing on his friends to McCarthy before going on to make On the Waterfront, a film which he claims is a tribute to the informer.

00:31:33.56
Talal K
um okay um thanks mark for your insight join in the patreon conversation the chat rooms send questions for alexi at patreon.com forward slash alexisell podcast chuck us three quid five quid ten quid a month and you can join the club and watch alexi reacts every week we're about to film one after this recording we're gonna have you react to sorry about last week

00:32:02.10
alexei sayle
Last night.

00:32:03.99
Talal K
I am not on the ball today.

00:32:05.68
alexei sayle
It's good job you didn't do that SNL audition.

00:32:05.83
Talal K
its Sorry about last night.

00:32:10.88
alexei sayle
You would never.

00:32:15.64
Talal K
Fuck you. um What was the big news story I wanted to talk you about? What do you think it was?

00:32:26.37
alexei sayle
Iraq, Iran,

00:32:30.49
alexei sayle
the

00:32:30.70
Talal K
Well, certainly. Oh, the fucking

00:32:35.38
Talal K
Israel has just voted to legalize the death penalty for Palestinians only if a military court finds them guilty of terrorism, which is what they most often do.

00:32:37.75
alexei sayle
Oh, I know.

00:32:43.50
alexei sayle
And they were toast. Yeah.

00:32:50.84
Talal K
Very often with less than one minute before the judge, ah Palestinians get charged with terrorism.

00:33:01.91
Talal K
Sometimes the judge doesn't even make eye contact with the suspect. And now they're going to them.

00:33:12.34
alexei sayle
and

00:33:13.34
Talal K
hang them

00:33:14.49
alexei sayle
Yes, the the deputy speaker, I think, of Knesset had tears tears of joy in their eyes. and Smotrich and Ben-Gavir were toasting in champagne. the this yeah Well, you know, it just, I mean, it's it's terrible, but it just, you know, it just shows you how much, you know, that Israel is Nazi Germany.

00:33:44.02
alexei sayle
really that um it's just the the the underpopulation support you know the unfortunately the whole population most of the majority population has been brought on board with this terrible terrible ideology it's just the worst country in the world it's the Jimmy Savile of nation states

00:34:12.21
Talal K
The horrendous evil malevolence never ceases to escalate.

00:34:15.34
alexei sayle
Yes.

00:34:18.24
alexei sayle
Now they find new ways and obviously they're stealing more of South Lebanon and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. All that, it's a terrible, it's a real, I mean, it was ah always a really bad idea and it it gets worse, right?

00:34:33.81
Talal K
What's the latest in Lebanon?

00:34:36.44
alexei sayle
m

00:34:37.10
Talal K
What's the latest in Lebanon? Have they taken land?

00:34:39.04
alexei sayle
I don't know. Taking season, yeah, season, the buffer zone and all that.

00:34:40.36
Talal K
They've annexed land, essentially.

00:34:44.72
alexei sayle
They're carrying on the yeah the techniques they pioneered in Gaza of murdering medical staff and murdering journalists. And then issuing some vague reason, you know claim that they never back up with evidence.

00:35:01.94
alexei sayle
um Yes, it's the... It shames us all. It's a but just stain on humanity in Israel. We need to do everything we can to... um

00:35:16.28
alexei sayle
see it cease took for it to be a state in which only Jews have human rights for it to make it into a state where everybody has human rights there was also yesterday and carrying on Keir Starmer's path towards and Germany in 1930 whenever Ben Jamal and um Chris Nynum were convicted yeah

00:35:42.10
Talal K
Fuck, found guilty of, yes, of breaking.

00:35:46.04
alexei sayle
Because I was there. I was right there.

00:35:47.73
Talal K
We were both there.

00:35:47.73
alexei sayle
Have I talked about this before? Were you there at the front? Yeah, but I was there in the front line. I was carrying the banner. don't know if I've talked about this before.

00:35:55.96
Talal K
Yes, and i so i was I witnessed you walking with ah with everyone else, carrying the banner,

00:36:01.85
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:36:03.13
Talal K
and you were walking up to lay flowers down

00:36:06.26
alexei sayle
Yeah, in front of the police.

00:36:08.69
Talal K
at the boundary of where you were allowed to go.

00:36:11.22
alexei sayle
Yes. Well, that's the... Yeah. Yeah.

00:36:13.34
Talal K
You had accepted that you they'd put these strict boundaries on you.

00:36:15.83
alexei sayle
yeah We weren't calling anywhere else. Yeah.

00:36:18.87
Talal K
Because yes, the plan was to take those flowers to... I can't remember what the intent was, but the police had said, no, you're not allowed to go there.

00:36:26.99
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:36:28.73
Talal K
This is where we're drawing the line. So all fucking marched up with your banner up to where they drew the line and you laid the flowers down there.

00:36:38.10
alexei sayle
Yeah, and then they arrested, well, they threw Chris Nynum on the ground and then they arrested Ben and, you know, it's all part this, you know.

00:36:49.54
alexei sayle
know, and then this was obviously all done not in front of a jury, which would have definitely not convicted them, but was done in front of a judge. There was a really, mean, it's really pretty bad. Lewis Goodall, though I don't always mind LBC and...

00:37:05.37
alexei sayle
you know, former Newsnight presenter and hounded out the BBC by Robbie Gibb, um did a thing, oh, you know, Starmer, where's it all gone wrong? And then nope it was pretty feeble shit, really. At no point did he talk about Starmer's authoritarianism, his repression of free speech, which is a major, ah major I think, thing that people see about him and see that...

00:37:31.64
alexei sayle
see that that's profoundly wrong. that that Obviously, the repression of protest, deliberate repression and silencing and punishing of protest in favour of anybody who speaks out against for Palestine, against genocide.

00:37:48.12
alexei sayle
um You know, and the the way that the Labour government is so completely in the pocket of the Israel lobby. um You know, Louis Godot never really touched on that, either because he doesn't. see it because he's a kind of Westminster insider or he didn't want to go there but it was I mean it was all right but it was pretty feeble shit I can't remember there's a shit head called Will Hutton who writes for I think the Observer and Economist and somebody was saying they'd heard him talking to somebody

00:38:21.27
alexei sayle
You can see what Starmer, I think one of the Labour Party's plans is that they think they can get they've gone up but they want to make closer ties with Europe. avin Starmer having sabotaged Jeremy Corbyn's perfectly reasonable plan to have a close ties with Europe but not go back into the EU. Starmer is going to try and use that to rekindle, make people forget about the innate evil of the labor party Oh, and all the BBC also allowed Josh Simmons, the bastard behind Labour Together probe, and them using private investigators to investigate.

00:39:02.90
alexei sayle
Friends of the show, Paul Holden and Andrew Feinstein, um they allowed him to just kind of ah exculpate himself with untruth for 40 minutes.

00:39:07.22
Talal K
Ooh.

00:39:14.94
alexei sayle
And Paul Holden's complained mightily about that, we'll see if the BBC... um, does anything about it. Um, so yeah, and the war, I don't know what, I don't know what, don't know what Trump said in his statement from the Oval Office last night about the war in Iran.

00:39:36.79
alexei sayle
Um, I, you know, it's a pity, it's a pity the government of Iran isn't a bit nicer, but, you know, at least they are giving the, or a lot nicer, but they are giving the, both Israel and, uh,

00:39:51.58
alexei sayle
United States, they're giving right fucking pounding. And they've never met somebody who stood up to them before. I think they're also, the Israelis are losing a lot of troops in southern Lebanon. I've seen what looks like verified, you know, looks like um You know true footage of attacks on Merkava tanks using Russian and Iranian.

00:40:16.75
alexei sayle
Anti-tank weapons, I think they've lost, I mean, I know Hezbollah claims they've lost like 25 Macavers. I think maybe they are.

00:40:25.75
alexei sayle
So, yeah, it's all still...

00:40:30.49
alexei sayle
Yeah, it's I mean, it's all still going on. a doubt I offer no prognostication of what's gonna I don't know what's gonna you can't predict.

00:40:38.49
Talal K
I just, i my fear, my ongoing fear, is all these complaints about Iran's nuclear capabilities is is that Israel is the one that has fucking tons of nukes.

00:40:48.54
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:40:49.05
Talal K
And then there it ah now they're in a losing war or they're in a frustratingly difficult war that they weren't, that they're not used to, because they're just used to pummeling powerless victims or people who have you know very measly comparative powers.

00:40:54.12
alexei sayle
Hmm. Hmm.

00:41:02.55
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, it's very asymmetrical, yeah.

00:41:05.91
Talal K
and so they're so used to an easy kind of fight that and they're so childish and immature and innately evil that i'm just terrified that they're just going to lash out in the most awful unspeakable way in frustration and

00:41:09.17
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:41:22.71
alexei sayle
I'll use one of their nuclear weapons. Yeah, well, we'll certainly be in a different world then, yeah.

00:41:28.06
Talal K
if they want to create their

00:41:32.54
Talal K
It's already a different world than it was three years ago, but yes, by a long shot, it will be a lot more different.

00:41:32.63
alexei sayle
I don't disagree. Yeah.

00:41:36.12
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah.

00:41:38.78
Talal K
But you know if they want to create their greater Israel a vision, why not just nuke the whole map that they want to mark out, wait a few years for the radiation to calm down and then start building?

00:41:50.74
alexei sayle
yeah

00:41:54.84
Talal K
Just do it, put us out of our misery. Put us out of our fucking misery. Why are you dragging it out?

00:42:02.71
alexei sayle
Well, yes, they fear the consequences, I suppose.

00:42:06.81
Talal K
should, and they should already fear. They've just been getting away with it. It's like the child of a of a you know of a gangster can just bully everyone in this school because no one will dare fight back.

00:42:17.08
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah.

00:42:20.82
Talal K
So...

00:42:21.69
alexei sayle
It's like the Jimmy Savile in Nation States, I think.

00:42:24.52
Talal K
Yeah, someone could say.

00:42:26.23
alexei sayle
so I think you could say that.

00:42:29.02
Talal K
Yeah, someone really interesting said that once, actually, a really clever clever genius of a comedian.

00:42:31.51
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah. But it's also, I don't, yeah.

00:42:37.30
Talal K
Oh my God. And yeah, obviously, you know, it's affecting us here.

00:42:39.10
alexei sayle
There is.

00:42:43.45
Talal K
You know, look at, um you know, the petrol prices fills me with fear as well. I don't know whether to fill my car up now or wait a couple days, see if there's a dip in the prices.

00:42:53.60
alexei sayle
Oh, my God, yeah, we filled our car up, luckily, a few weeks ago in that Asda we both like in the old Kent Road.

00:42:59.26
Talal K
Yeah. look and rohodas yeah

00:43:01.53
alexei sayle
And it was like 1.30, I think it was what?

00:43:02.58
Talal K
We should do a book signing there. Go on.

00:43:04.31
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:43:04.58
Talal K
Sorry.

00:43:05.81
alexei sayle
Well, it is the happiest place. I mean, some people go there and then it's all it's all the happy nations and then often then there are national dress. If it's a Sunday, buying cheap shit.

00:43:21.41
alexei sayle
It's a place, you know, and you go there one, you know, yeah you go in there on Friday, it's different very different to a Sunday and But we've got a very cheap diesel.

00:43:23.86
Talal K
It is

00:43:29.52
alexei sayle
We filled up there before. Trump's assault on Iran. It was like 134, and it's now like 185 or something. So that's 50.

00:43:39.48
Talal K
No, that, oh, for diesel possibly.

00:43:41.08
alexei sayle
Yeah, for diesel, it's 50p a litre dearer.

00:43:41.20
Talal K
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:43:43.48
alexei sayle
And my car, theoretically, would take like 70 litres. That's 35 quid. That's a lot.

00:43:52.39
Talal K
35 quid.

00:43:53.37
alexei sayle
More to fill up my car.

00:43:54.28
Talal K
More expensive. Yeah. So I'm just watching my petrol level go down and down because I'm too scared to fill up.

00:44:01.40
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:44:01.45
Talal K
But it's only going to get worse, isn't it? So I should just fucking fill it up.

00:44:04.70
alexei sayle
I think so, yeah.

00:44:06.81
Talal K
Fucking hell. Come on, guys. Sign up to the Patreon, please. Help me.

00:44:10.62
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:44:11.99
Talal K
Yeah. Yeah. Trump's been ah he keeps giving these double messages, basically. It's like.

00:44:17.46
alexei sayle
Yeah, I don't know whether that's just... I mean, I know... I mean, I was thinking...

00:44:20.32
Talal K
Mixed.

00:44:20.34
alexei sayle
I mean, I know I can give no real insight into Trump. She's Starmer. I know who Starmer is, i know who he knows, I know what social class he's from, I understand him, know where he lives.

00:44:34.97
alexei sayle
and yeah His dad was two makers, one of the work for the NHS.

00:44:35.61
Talal K
His dad was a toolmaker.

00:44:40.25
alexei sayle
And i just I know the influences that are at play within him. I mean, Israel Lobby, the betting lobby, the arms industry, I understand and can sometimes predict and can certainly accurately hu comment on his moves trump i don't i can't read at all really but i don't know enough about him i don't know whether he is just whether he's he's is he's really cunning or he's just insane really mean you can say this a doubt mean clearly a very damaged individual but um

00:45:02.14
Talal K
yeah

00:45:20.22
alexei sayle
just dont Just whether this is part of some great plan or not, I'm not really sure. If anybody else knows, let me know in the in the comments.

00:45:27.13
Talal K
get ready for something Get ready for some third hand insight.

00:45:30.49
alexei sayle
come

00:45:32.86
Talal K
My friend was telling me about a video, a Hassan Piker video he was watching. are you Do you watch his stuff? I know you you like him.

00:45:39.58
alexei sayle
Yeah, I mean, watch him on YouTube. i hes He's very attractive. you I he yeah you mean, he he streams on Twitch, doesn't he, every day, live.

00:45:48.92
Talal K
Right.

00:45:49.62
alexei sayle
on he And he's a you know he's he's outright Marx, socialist. don't know whether he's exactly a Marxist, but very left-wing. He's Cenk Uyghur's nephew, isn't he? Cenk of the new Young Turks channel.

00:46:00.74
Talal K
Oh, is he?

00:46:01.58
alexei sayle
Yeah, Cenk is his uncle.

00:46:02.42
Talal K
okay.

00:46:04.70
alexei sayle
You often seen Cenk shouting on Piers Morgan on Sensor, don't know what it's called. Yeah, anyway, but Hasan Paikar, yes, go on.

00:46:16.54
Talal K
Well, he was talking about who some predictions who he thinks will be the next a president or where the Republicans will go post-Trump.

00:46:28.82
alexei sayle
Right.

00:46:29.91
Talal K
and i'll be brief because i didn't watch the video myself but essentially he thinks that the republicans are gonna gonna pivot hard against israel and the next republican leader will be someone who's christian anti-israel someone ah ah someone along the lines if not tucker carlson um

00:46:53.18
alexei sayle
right

00:46:53.98
Talal K
big and this will be deeply rooted in anti-semitism real antisemitism, not not anti-Israel antisemitism, actual antisemitism, ah because you know they're going to get sick, they're going sick of this Iran war and war in the Middle East in general and American money going to Israel and not to its own people, to the working class.

00:46:58.30
alexei sayle
Right. Right.

00:47:15.72
alexei sayle
Mm-hmm.

00:47:16.18
Talal K
um They're only going to see that their demographic you know losing more and more. So they're eventually going to reach breaking point, go against the whole Trump ethos and elect someone, like I said, anti-Israel, anti-Israel, anti-APAC, pro-church,

00:47:30.29
alexei sayle
He's not taking AIPAC money, presumably.

00:47:35.45
alexei sayle
Well...

00:47:37.91
Talal K
anti real anti-Jew. And things will get scary in a new way. But at least they won't throw money at Israel anymore.

00:47:45.11
alexei sayle
Okay, right, well, yeah, Hasan Phaikar knows, you know, knows his country much better than I do.

00:47:47.58
Talal K
and

00:47:51.90
Talal K
So you didn't see that video.

00:47:52.63
alexei sayle
And, of course, it's also true that all those... All those Christian fundamentalist evangelicals like Peter Hanks, what they believe is fundamentally, even though they support Israel, it's fundamentally anti-Semitic because their belief is that all the Jews in the world need to come to Israel.

00:48:13.62
alexei sayle
When they get to Israel, they then convert to Christianity. The ones that don't convert to Christianity will be slaughtered by God. And then Jesus... will appear on earth, and it be the it will be the rapture.

00:48:28.06
alexei sayle
i mean, that's what they believe. So that's really... So it's the... it's that All Jews are getting in the way of the of our Lord Jesus coming back on earth. So they've got to get them to Israel, get them all to convert, and ones that don't convert, they'll kill them.

00:48:44.34
alexei sayle
So, yeah, it's pretty anti-Semitic anyway, really. Yeah.

00:48:48.09
Talal K
Yes, that's where their support of Israel comes from. Man, I'd love Jesus to come back.

00:48:51.42
alexei sayle
Yeah. Jesus is a great guy. i would love him to come back and people to listen to is listen to his, ah listen and go along with his actual preachings.

00:48:55.82
Talal K
Yeah. He'd bloody tell them.

00:49:02.49
Talal K
Yeah. They'd all fucking, their minds would be blown. be like, oh we don't, you don't support us at all.

00:49:10.36
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:49:10.55
Talal K
We got it all wrong.

00:49:11.99
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:49:13.27
Talal K
Oh, we're supposed to love each other.

00:49:13.95
alexei sayle
I'll turn the other cheek and yeah.

00:49:15.05
Talal K
Wait second, Jesus, you're brown.

00:49:17.64
alexei sayle
Yeah. If a man has two coats and you have two coats and a man has none, Give him one your goats, fuckface.

00:49:27.06
Talal K
Yeah, fuckface.

00:49:28.25
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:49:31.03
alexei sayle
ah Jesus was all right.

00:49:31.28
Talal K
GB creepy.

00:49:33.07
alexei sayle
It's just the people who believe in him pervert his teachings so completely.

00:49:40.76
alexei sayle
ah that's a bad thing. should we um Are there any questions or should we...

00:49:45.56
Talal K
Jesus was all right.

00:49:47.32
alexei sayle
she He was. He was.

00:49:47.90
Talal K
Yeah.

00:49:48.48
alexei sayle
I'm not, you know... one I don't know if you, you know, yeah, I'm going out on the limit. I'd say Jesus was all right. He it was really, he was a good guy, Jesus.

00:49:55.86
Talal K
ah

00:50:02.84
Talal K
um I'm looking for questions from listeners, but ah yo, people at home, 2nd of August. Actually, shall we bring that up now? No, no, no. no We'll talk about it a few today.

00:50:13.34
Talal K
Keep an eye out. We've got some fun live gigs coming up. In fact,

00:50:17.83
alexei sayle
Oh yeah, we announced, are they roundhouse when they announce in our live? oh so Are we doing the Diggers Festival in Wellingborough as well?

00:50:24.41
Talal K
let's save that for a few. Let's announce that. But yeah, we're going to be doing the roundhouse with probably Diane Morgan live in August. ah Yes, that's the one I'm looking up now.

00:50:38.65
Talal K
God,

00:50:39.19
alexei sayle
Has anybody done anything about that? When did we say we do Shoreham in the autumn?

00:50:48.49
Talal K
you're asking me questions that I need to look up the answers to for each one. But yes, May Day. oh my God, that's next month. I think it's 2nd of May. Diggers Festival.

00:51:01.27
Talal K
Give me a second so I can say it in a in a concise way. Where

00:51:13.73
Talal K
the fuck is it? I'll just look up the... Okay.

00:51:44.72
Talal K
Okay, cool. Got the Rope Tucker one and the Diggers.

00:51:48.66
alexei sayle
Men's road tackle.

00:51:50.52
Talal K
I'll tell you in a sec. Diggers Festival.

00:51:53.66
alexei sayle
ah by

00:51:58.55
Talal K
Wellingborough Diggers Festival, Saturday, 2nd May. Yes, so we, a couple of live dates, a couple of live dates I can confirm right now, Saturday, 2nd of May at the Wellingborough, Northance May Day and Wellingborough Diggers Festival.

00:52:17.89
alexei sayle
Master, master, master, master.

00:52:21.08
Talal K
I think we're headlining that, I think it's at 8

00:52:24.15
alexei sayle
Well, it's bit late.

00:52:24.82
Talal K
We need to be able to get a train home afterwards. So I think 8pm is our show, maybe 9 or 8.30, something like that.

00:52:30.30
alexei sayle
I can't go. I'm not staying up. I'm not working at nine. I'd have to go in the car.

00:52:35.19
Talal K
But we're headlining. You're not working at 9. What do you mean?

00:52:41.43
alexei sayle
What time's our show?

00:52:43.10
Talal K
i think 8 o'clock.

00:52:45.15
alexei sayle
Oh, right.

00:52:45.40
Talal K
We finish by 9 or 9.30 and they're going to get us in a car to the station for the train home afterwards.

00:52:51.90
alexei sayle
Okay, all right.

00:52:53.10
Talal K
That's the plan. And the train will take us to King's Cross right down your road. Yeah.

00:52:58.26
alexei sayle
play All right, all right.

00:52:59.13
Talal K
ah But yeah, 2nd of May, Wellingborough Diggers Festival. Look it up online, folks. Buy your tickets. Also, we're playing the Rope Tackle 30th of July.

00:53:10.30
alexei sayle
Oh, well I didn't know that.

00:53:10.39
Talal K
um That's down in Shoreham. We're returning to the Rope Tackle. So that's much excite about that task.

00:53:20.77
alexei sayle
show oh

00:53:22.20
Talal K
Live Diggers. Yeah, that's right. I'm just making sure these are in my bloody diary. Yeah, great. And yeah, we in August we'll be playing Camden.

00:53:35.54
Talal K
um Listener questions. let me have a Let me find one to throw at you. Something about OTT. don't know if you want to talk about that, but someone on Patreon, Shachmo, asks, do you have any regrets, Alexei, about recommending that Lenny Henry use the Katanga catchphrase on OTT?

00:53:45.59
alexei sayle
so

00:53:59.25
Talal K
Might it be misrepresented as caricaturing African languages? Alexei, I know nothing about this. Please explain the context before you answer the question.

00:54:08.57
alexei sayle
So, um

00:54:12.34
alexei sayle
Lenny had... He invented this character for ITT called Joshua Yarlog, which is a a play on joshua on Mike Yarlwood, as I remember. And so it was a sort of... he did it like an African accent, and he was like... so hes I mean, I think the gag was...

00:54:35.32
alexei sayle
that he was a stand-up comic but he was african he said he was looking for he says he was looking for a catchphrase and i said why don't you say katanga now katanga apart from it's not the cultural appropriation so much as the fact that katanga was the scene of a a massacre during the the civil war in the congo and the the the wars waged by the CIA in Britain and Belgium against Patrice Lumumba, of course, underground the one of the many great potential African leaders, black leaders who were murdered by, you know, the forces of the right, you know, which you could...

00:55:24.34
alexei sayle
You could add, you know, Salvatore Allende, Patrice Lumumba, Fred Hampton, and many more. um So he says, I said, Katanga. So which is, you know, so i I don't know what, it's not, I mean, so let say he would he would do like, you go Katanga, um which as I say is the, is ah you know, I can't think of an example really that,

00:55:54.71
alexei sayle
like the massacre of the Polish officers in the Katyn forest, perhaps. Use that as your catchphrase. or um I'm trying to stay clear of Holocaust imagery. um

00:56:10.62
alexei sayle
You know, so um my lie, the US massacre in Vietnam. so But i so I don't remember...

00:56:18.01
Talal K
Right. I see.

00:56:20.60
alexei sayle
telling him to do it, really. He says, I said, i know yeah, maybe I did, but ah i I maintain that I it i can't remember telling him to do it, really.

00:56:32.02
alexei sayle
It was was all very unfortunate, but and a different it was a different time, really, so he kind of got away with it.

00:56:35.26
Talal K
So, so you think it was a bad idea whether you recommended it or not, or was it funny?

00:56:43.26
alexei sayle
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, it was, yeah, yeah.

00:56:43.79
Talal K
Was it funny at the time?

00:56:48.82
alexei sayle
um It's not a good idea, is it? I mean, to shout out the name of a massacre as your catchphrase.

00:56:57.56
Talal K
suppose

00:56:59.64
alexei sayle
I would recommend if if young comedians are looking for advice, I know people tune in for tips, in as I invented, essentially. Modern comedy, people are looking for tips.

00:57:12.02
alexei sayle
I would say probably don't use as your catchphrase the site of a A massacre. i think it might even have been a massacre of nuns. I'm not sure that might be something something else.

00:57:22.14
Talal K
Well, yes, not quite how you're diddling, is it? But um it's...

00:57:25.20
alexei sayle
No, no. So the kids, stay clear of that. That would be one more piece of advice.

00:57:29.21
Talal K
If it's some form of, you know, ironic commentary, you know, so... It depends how deep the character is.

00:57:36.15
alexei sayle
ah No, I don't know. I don't... i

00:57:38.24
Talal K
Is he doing the character as a commentary of of English perception of Africans and what an African comedian would look like via the lens of a British audience and therefore maybe there's some sort of...

00:57:51.74
Talal K
deeper meaning to him saying that. I'm trying to give it a yeah generous read.

00:57:55.64
alexei sayle
You would have to ask Len about that. I'm not i'm not prepared to be drawn on making value judgments on the quality of the work or the meaning. um i would just say, it well I believe it wasn't me who told him to say Katanga.

00:58:12.60
alexei sayle
But maybe it was.

00:58:12.92
Talal K
is Yeah, it seems distasteful. like a Palestinian comic going, Gaza, at the end of every joke.

00:58:16.89
alexei sayle
yeah exactly, yeah. yeah what your good Dear Yassin.

00:58:21.80
Talal K
Yeah.

00:58:22.51
alexei sayle
Any number of places.

00:58:25.22
Talal K
Fairs, fair do, do's. I had a neighbor once, he's moved out now and he used to say fares instead of like fair enough or something. He'd go, yeah, fares, fares, fares.

00:58:33.66
alexei sayle
Oh, I hate that.

00:58:34.91
Talal K
And me and B used to make fun of him, take the piss. And ah between ourselves, we go, yeah, fares, fares, as kind of an inside joke.

00:58:38.55
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:58:42.53
Talal K
Like, wasn't it funny that he said that?

00:58:43.38
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:58:44.61
Talal K
And now I find myself saying it.

00:58:47.54
alexei sayle
Yes, that's the trouble, isn't You start saying something ironical and then...

00:58:49.46
Talal K
yes as a reflex, you know?

00:58:51.77
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:58:52.80
Talal K
I'm like, no, I mean it as a joke, but not everyone who hears me say it knows I'm joking.

00:58:53.98
alexei sayle
No, you do it, right? Yeah. Yeah.

00:58:56.29
Talal K
And now it's just become the normal way to say it. so how do you have to deprogram myself?

00:59:00.54
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:59:01.38
Talal K
But, you know, there are bigger problems in the world. So what have we learned today? of Man ah is the birthplace of one of the greatest cyclists of all time. Go to the description of the podcast for a link to Alexei's new book, Pre-Buy That Shit.

00:59:15.35
alexei sayle
Please, por favor. Yeah.

00:59:18.55
Talal K
SNL was fine. Could have gone harder, but we shouldn't expect it to because of where it is. It's, you know, it's a mainstream show. um Jimmy Savile is Israel.

00:59:31.38
alexei sayle
Yeah, I was showing this Jimmy Savile.

00:59:31.96
Talal K
ah And don't shout out.

00:59:36.03
alexei sayle
Is the Jimmy Savile of nation states?

00:59:39.22
Talal K
okay And Jimmy Savile is the Israel of dead comedians. And don't shout out.

00:59:44.68
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:59:46.58
Talal K
ah Massacre locations as your comedy catchphrase.

00:59:48.99
alexei sayle
I was a catchphrase. Yeah. Little tip.

00:59:51.69
Talal K
It's been an education, Alexei. I will see you in 10 minutes to record Alexei Reacts, which is only going to be available on Patreon in full video.

00:59:53.88
alexei sayle
Thank you.

01:00:00.81
Talal K
And if you're not a patron, I guess we'll see you next week when we will be talking about The movie Touch of Evil, Orson Welles, 1958.

01:00:12.06
Talal K
Seek it out. Watch it. Take notes. We'll be doing the same. See you next week, Alexis L's Film Club. That's all I have to say. All righty.

01:00:21.21
alexei sayle
All I have to say is bye-bye.