00:00.70
Talal K
Good one. um You should have. they They look fine. but Consult me next time.

00:07.19
alexei sayle
Okay.

00:09.75
Talal K
If they're for professional use. Whenever you're ready.

00:11.64
alexei sayle
That's, well, you know. What number is this?

00:14.42
Talal K
One, two, one.

00:17.27
alexei sayle
hello bria i log lo sorry yeahp blabble Hello, everybody.

00:19.34
Talal K
phone. what

00:22.20
alexei sayle
hello after that again Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode of the Alexi Sale podcast. And,

00:30.34
Talal K
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:32.92
alexei sayle
been quite a week we teetered on the edge of um nuclear obliteration Tuesday night, I suppose.

00:43.58
alexei sayle
um And then the ceasefire um on whenever it was, Wednesday, which of course Israel immediately broke as they break all ceasefires. Truly, as you know people often quote Gramsci, the old world is dying, the new world is waiting to be born.

01:02.94
alexei sayle
We are living in a time of monsters and those monsters are Israel, the majority of its population and its armed forces are addicted or dedicated to genocidal racist ideology.

01:20.09
alexei sayle
ah So that's a problem. I mean, it, um I don't, i i don't You know, I mean, you you see you see many people um struggling to interpret Trump. And, you know, i have it's funny. and I think if, you know, I mean, I think I know Starmer. I know who he is. I know where he lives. I mean, literally, I know what kind of person he is.

01:48.28
alexei sayle
Trump, I don't, I can't say I really comprehend. I mean, presumably he's a malignant narcissist. I mean, one person I like to... watches michael wolf who seems like the kind of truman capote of this era in a way you know he's written both books with trump and so understands him and just you know i mean he says he's a he's a malignant narcissist and um yeah he makes people you can and you can see the fear and he makes the people around him suffer really and you can see and you know he used used the analogy of i was watching the podcast yesterday i think about the analogy of styling you know that

02:22.78
alexei sayle
you know everybody's frightened to stop clapping first, really. Trump is similar, that he he yeah you know he he employs a similar kind of regime, really, of fear.

02:34.86
alexei sayle
and You see all these creeps around him who are all terrified of him.

02:39.52
Talal K
But.

02:40.85
alexei sayle
I mean, that's what a weak person does, in a sense, is surrounds themselves with. people who won't contradict him but i I guess he is a malignant narcissist and um you know people ah i mean i as I say I can't predict his actions particularly although but I think I mean i try and what I try and do I suppose is draw abroad a broader lesson from His existence and what his existence does seems to me is it

03:13.14
alexei sayle
it it it highlights that the floor in you know what we call bourgeois democracy, this system where you have where the the mass of people have no power except to vote for two identical parties.

03:29.62
alexei sayle
every four years and that you know that and they are locked out of the systems of power and so that allows um you know psychopaths narcissists i mean like netanyahu or well i mean it or trump mean first of all it allows a media that tells lies to people because they believe it and then they vote for people like trump or

03:56.62
alexei sayle
Netanyahu, I guess. um And so, you know, it's it's it's a critique, really, not just of these individuals. I mean, Biden, in his own way, was just as bad and just as evil as Trump. But it's ah it's a it just emphasizes to me, if you're going to draw a broader lesson from this, is that we need a different way of distributing power, just a different way of governing ourselves, really.

04:20.92
alexei sayle
And the answer to that lies somewhere within, you know, anarchism, uh, or socialism. So, you know, I mean, Trump is a particularly, that earphone delivery.

04:34.77
Talal K
It's my doorbell. Just pause on you there.

04:42.80
Talal K
hello, George.

04:46.30
Talal K
Oh, OK. Come on up.

04:53.20
Talal K
Oh, God. It's George from the Green Party delivering some leaflets for my girlfriend. Give me one second.

05:22.05
Talal K
Hi, sorry.

05:25.82
Talal K
to take will be east children

05:32.79
Talal K
these

06:04.92
Talal K
will she's something to do if you will you good to see you tonight

06:13.11
Talal K
oh my godsh oh my god

06:17.28
alexei sayle
No, you wanted to be a...

06:23.14
Talal K
I'm so sorry that interrupted the flow.

06:25.28
alexei sayle
Well, that's all right.

06:25.78
Talal K
beat Be volunteers for the Green Party and

06:29.34
alexei sayle
Yeah, the struggle the struggle is more important.

06:32.85
Talal K
delivers their leaflets. They've got a stack of them.

06:34.44
alexei sayle
Good old George. Well done, George.

06:36.72
Talal K
he's ah He's running to be the ah local MP, councillor, something.

06:47.04
alexei sayle
Okay.

06:47.13
Talal K
Yep.

06:48.25
alexei sayle
Anyway, i need to think a bit more about, you know, it's um says it's it's pointless just moaning about Trump, but what Trump represents, which is the end stage of this kind of charade of democracy that we have, which is no democracy at all.

06:48.38
Talal K
Play.

07:04.61
alexei sayle
So that's my two cents worth. That's what grinds my gears this week.

07:11.19
Talal K
They say the phrase late stage capitalism a lot.

07:13.98
alexei sayle
Yes, who does?

07:14.33
Talal K
Is that part of it too, do you think?

07:15.32
alexei sayle
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, well, I mean, late day i don't know what comes next, but um it seems like, um I don't know, I need to think more about this race, busyzzie so I've got a book out and we'll have to talk much more articulately about these things when I'm plugging it in the in September.

07:20.63
Talal K
Hmm.

07:31.18
Talal K
Hmm.

07:33.19
alexei sayle
But, um yeah, I mean, it's... it would appear that capitalism is kind of going faster and faster and kind of consuming itself really. And this is what comes next is, I don't know what really.

07:52.60
Talal K
Yeah, it could be good or bad.

07:55.42
alexei sayle
Yeah. I'm definitely gonna have to work on this. This is highlighted my,

07:59.99
Talal K
You mentioned the Stalin comparison.

08:01.88
alexei sayle
o

08:02.31
Talal K
It's it's funny because Stalin, the the fear was that they'd get taken out back and shot if they didn't clap hard enough.

08:07.54
alexei sayle
yeah. Yeah.

08:09.94
Talal K
Whereas with Trump, it's a much more kind of ah in time the intangible no unintangible kind of threat.

08:15.16
alexei sayle
Yeah.

08:18.18
alexei sayle
Well, you lose your job. You lose power and the the access to the to wealth. But yeah, you're not actually going to get shot.

08:27.22
Talal K
But the fear there, you know, the fear isn't losing your life, which seems which makes these men and women even weaker. You know, that they're, oh, they're just going to lose a job.

08:38.10
alexei sayle
Yeah. yeah

08:38.71
Talal K
They could fucking go get a better job that doesn't threaten their entire integrity and character.

08:41.40
alexei sayle
Some terrible thing. Yeah.

08:44.41
Talal K
Just go fucking get, and you're with with your experience in the White House, you can go and get any job in any bank and make millions and millions, but they're just so desperate to be...

08:54.17
alexei sayle
Yeah.

08:54.49
Talal K
In the Oval Office, sat on those stupid golden sofas next to to Trump, clapping along.

08:58.87
alexei sayle
Yeah. I think that kind of power presumably is kind of intoxicating if you're the sort of person that wants to do it. I mean, it is. It is dizzying, that level of, you know, to kill people, really, and to to shape the world. You know, it's ah it's a it's a tremendous struggle, think that's one of the reasons why we should make sure that nobody has the power to do that, really. I mean, in a sense, I suppose, we're in the one thing that that this illusion of capitalism

09:35.10
alexei sayle
um lets us do is abrogate our responsibilities you know we you know you know the british state can i don't know you know can kill people can be complicit in a genocide but we you know we can kind of say well that you know i didn't vote for them or i voted for them and they then they changed their minds you know i think we have to have a i mean one of the one of the um I think one of the ways, the only way in which we can have a fairer, better world is by us all actively taking part in our own governance.

10:13.11
Talal K
Yes.

10:14.30
alexei sayle
And that, you know, that requires a degree of effort, really, I think, you know.

10:15.37
Talal K
That's anarchy in a way.

10:18.91
alexei sayle
But, um yeah, and just,

10:19.77
Talal K
Yeah, effort and caring and not being, you know, addicted to commerce and your telephones and actually caring about the world around you and your neighbours and your husband.

10:26.39
alexei sayle
yeah. Yeah, and yeah making you having to make moral decisions, really.

10:32.94
Talal K
Uh-huh.

10:33.62
alexei sayle
I mean, the other, ah but i mean, thinking about, um we we did Alexi Reacts yesterday, and I thought of all kinds of things that wanted to talk about today, and then I've forgotten them. But one of the things one of the things that thought was interesting, the other kind of mishegast, the other madness that we had was the whole e Kanye West, Farago,

10:51.86
Talal K
o

10:52.76
alexei sayle
And one, of course, it was it was support it was sickening to see border Jewish deputies and the campaign against anti-Semitism being allowed to speak as if they had moral authority because these are groups who primarily act as lobby groups for Israel. And so therefore, if they they are lobby groups for a country which is a racist apartheid country, which is committing a genocide. And so I will take no lessons in morality from Israel.

11:21.40
alexei sayle
Those fucking people. But that was funny. i Sometimes I watch GB News because at least GB News doesn't have stuff at so much stuff about the fucking Artemis space.

11:33.10
alexei sayle
I'm an anti-astronautist.

11:33.18
Talal K
Oh, were you getting sick of that?

11:40.46
Talal K
That's like my partner B, she hates it too.

11:42.55
alexei sayle
Yeah, astronauts, terrible.

11:43.26
Talal K
Waste of money. it

11:44.83
alexei sayle
I did a thing on Sandwich Bar. Yeah, but are yeah astronauts, fucking terrible people. Arrogant. Commander Tim Peake, fuck off.

11:56.65
alexei sayle
Yeah, I'm an anti-astronautist.

11:58.87
Talal K
What are your reasons for that?

12:00.47
alexei sayle
Oh, I don't know, just get some. Well, I think it's part, I mean, it is a waste of money and it's a distraction, you know, no planet B and all that. I mean, and it's just, I don't know. I just don't like it

12:11.64
Talal K
You weren't excited to see the moon's bum?

12:14.14
alexei sayle
No, I don't give a fuck about any of that shit. I mean, it was partly, I think, you know, mean, it's that great ah Gil Scott Heron um poem, Wait on the Moon, yeah.

12:21.37
Talal K
Why are you on the moon? big I was having massive why are you on the moon vibes this week. I was singing that song to myself all week.

12:25.66
alexei sayle
Yeah.

12:27.67
Talal K
It was actually ah the timing was kind of distasteful to be honest.

12:29.11
alexei sayle
Yeah. Wait, yeah.

12:32.80
Talal K
They should have just held them up there for a week.

12:35.71
alexei sayle
There's, which is that, deer there's a, yeah, there's a film about... um the uh the uh the apollo program i think which uses that poem and in fact it didn't whitey on the moon i think came out later but um you know yeah i mean great gil scott heron is a you know and prodigious talent really but that's one that's one of the greatest kind of political poems of all time i think whitey on the moon So yeah, that's kind of what I go along with. So anyway, was watching GB News and they were having a thing about Kanye West. And they had some right wing guys, surname was Miller, and they had Michael Walker from Novara.

13:17.82
alexei sayle
And um the right wing guy just articulated my views absolutely and completely. He said that, you know, there's always this. dissonance about you know with Wagner or you know if if we didn't listen to the or watch or look at the arts of people who had obnoxious views we wouldn't you know we wouldn't enjoy Caravaggio we wouldn't enjoy Shakespeare um you know we wouldn't you know he said he was a fan of Wagner and you know all that crap about Wagner and stuff And so he said, you know, you can't, you have to distinguish between the views of the artist and the the work the artist makes. And, you know, he was a ah kind of absolutist about free speech, something that I completely agreed with and that, you know, kind and and also he said that is when the government gets involved in saying who we can listen to, whose art we can enjoy as they did because they intervened, that was, that's, you know, that's fascism really.

14:21.11
alexei sayle
And then Michael Walker from Navarro was kind of putting the other side, really. I was saying, you know, the things that Kanye said were worse and, you know, his his apology doesn't count for anything.

14:31.15
alexei sayle
and It was just, I know a lot, I know people on the left really are suspicious about Navarro. And so um i was just shocked that he was taking that point of view rather than, don't know whether he didn't want to agree with a right-wing guy and wanted to make some other points or, i mean, I thought it was very disappointing.

14:47.86
Talal K
This is interesting.

14:49.40
alexei sayle
And then I stopped watching.

14:50.42
Talal K
There might be a generational issue here. Because i think young folk who are who consider themselves leftist are forgiving in terms of um

15:02.14
alexei sayle
They can be, yeah.

15:06.39
alexei sayle
a Less forgiving.

15:07.62
Talal K
Less forgiving, like, because of Nazi, there you go Kanye did say some fucking horrible shit.

15:08.63
alexei sayle
Yeah.

15:12.70
alexei sayle
Yeah, but he...

15:14.23
Talal K
For God's sake. i yeah Completely violent.

15:16.38
alexei sayle
Yeah.

15:17.70
Talal K
He, and, ah you know, I've, i I know people who've had mental breakdowns and it didn't involve them ah going full Nazi or anything like that.

15:27.17
alexei sayle
Yeah.

15:28.95
Talal K
My other, my other, The misgivings with him are that um he's a billionaire and I don't like billionaires. and I don't think they should exist. He was married to a Kardashian and that's a very ugly lot to throw your in with.

15:43.67
alexei sayle
Yes.

15:45.30
Talal K
hi um The stuff he said publicly with the platform he has, fully aware of the impact it would have, isn't acceptable and isn't really forgivable as easy as possible.

15:59.26
Talal K
yeah the the main the The other thing is his fans, it's not just that they're appreciating the art. This is my my opinion. they don't They're not just appreciating the art and separating it from the artist.

16:10.04
Talal K
his His true fans, the ones who are gutted that he's not playing wireless, um would have made excuses for him, for his behaviour, for his words. They would have been also not even making excuses. They would have been fully supporting and taking what he says as gospel or as a joke, as a hilarious joke and stuff.

16:31.48
alexei sayle
Right.

16:32.22
Talal K
um But I agree that the government shouldn't shouldn't have a say.

16:37.56
alexei sayle
No.

16:38.14
Talal K
Art is allowed. I think that should be up to audiences and then then let that make the statement it makes about our society.

16:45.50
alexei sayle
Yeah.

16:46.17
Talal K
Why have the same person headline three days of a festival?

16:46.33
alexei sayle
Yeah.

16:48.73
Talal K
I don't know. um

16:50.90
alexei sayle
I don't.

16:52.31
Talal K
it

16:53.27
alexei sayle
I mean, I'm really suspicious of zero tolerance, you know, because zero tolerance always, you know, I mean, they use that so often Labour Party. It was only zero tolerance to left-wing people. course, people like Neil Coyle, the MP for Bermondsey, who was, you know, suspended from Parliament for making racist remarks. So a Chinese journalist, he was allowed back into the party lickety split of people who are opposed the genocide were expelled. So zero tolerance, I think, is...

17:23.52
Talal K
Oh, it's a joke that the government, you to they they ban a a mentally disturbed artist, but they enable a genocide with the other hand.

17:24.06
alexei sayle
dangerous, dangerous weapon.

17:31.70
alexei sayle
Yeah, and then, yes, yeah.

17:34.34
Talal K
it's it's yeah it's It's absolutely atrocious, but I'm not a fan or a supporter of Kanye West.

17:36.60
alexei sayle
there

17:39.50
Talal K
And,

17:40.18
alexei sayle
No, I don't know anything about the gentleman. No,

17:43.16
Talal K
you know, he he was he has like 40 million followers or something, and he just tweets, um Hitler was great guy, you know, stuff like that.

17:51.31
alexei sayle
it does sound like he was going a bit mad.

17:54.40
Talal K
Hmm.

17:54.49
alexei sayle
But, yeah, and we're telling you know it's a debate, really, but I um i say i tend to um you know, I think everybody, you know, we we should, let that people should be allowed to say stuff as long it's within the bounds of the law. And then, you know, we can make up our own minds, really. I'm not a cancellationist, I think.

18:14.66
alexei sayle
Interestingly enough, then also, staying on the kind of Novara media theme, i was ze I was on a bus going to up the to the Angel. I saw Owen Jones on a line by going through a red light.

18:29.94
Talal K
Nice.

18:30.61
alexei sayle
And ah I thought, and it sort of made me think about, I mean, I'm not immune to going through a red light, and but I try I try, eh?

18:35.51
Talal K
Don't dob him in. Don't dob him in, you snitch.

18:39.32
alexei sayle
No, I'm not, do you think I should not say?

18:42.20
Talal K
No, go on, it's fine.

18:43.70
alexei sayle
now it just made me think about... um ah the idea One of the ideas, which I thought was interesting, because my dad was a communist and was ah also a trade unionist, there wast they had they had the communists had this idea, which they didn't always live up to, but that their representatives should be exemplars, that you should live a better life, you should live a kind of... a a morally clean kind of life really you couldn't be you had to live a life that was you know you you couldn't drink or couldn't drink to excess you couldn't um be promiscuous you had to you had to follow the mores of the the working class really and you had to be a kind of a an epitome of of of the best yeah ah morality and um

19:14.39
Talal K
Yes.

19:35.77
Talal K
Do you think running a red light is a moral issue?

19:38.54
alexei sayle
it's ah It's an interesting question, isn't it? I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I mean, and I have to say Owen Jones has been fantastic about the genocide. And so, you know, I think that probably out, out he balances out.

19:50.47
Talal K
Balances it out. ah

19:52.31
alexei sayle
read But I just, it's just the idea of the, ex it just started me thinking about the idea of the exemplar and um whether that's a kind of barrier in a way to um ah kind of sensible discourse you know to what extent those of us on the left should ah yeah live lives of of of kind of moral um purity or how much that matters really it's not a question I particularly haven't answered but ah it's just something I'd like to raise with there o the listenership I think there's kind of something in it in a way

20:26.84
Talal K
Well, as a...

20:33.59
Talal K
Well, certainly, yes. You don't want to end up, you know, having a Chomsky moment where everyone realizes that maybe you weren't the moral compass that we were all hoping you were.

20:45.27
alexei sayle
Yes, he really let the side down, didn't he?

20:47.32
Talal K
But I think running a red light, my opinion, and I'll, you know, I'll be saying this until I get hit by a car, but you know I trust my eyes more than I trust a red light.

20:57.66
alexei sayle
Yeah, just there was something a bit flamboyant. He seemed to be smiling and holding a but mobile phone in one hand.

21:03.09
Talal K
Okay, that's a bit much. cause I'm quite vigilant when I cycle, but following the rule of law to the letter isn't my priority because the rule of law isn't necessarily the moral moral guidance.

21:10.20
alexei sayle
No.

21:14.90
alexei sayle
Well, but should it be?

21:15.03
Talal K
Look how many, 2,800 people arrested for holding a sign.

21:16.89
alexei sayle
Should it be?

21:19.93
Talal K
um you know but

21:20.09
alexei sayle
Yeah.

21:22.01
Talal K
my eyes, I'm very vigilant. I've got my head on a swivel. And in if ah I see that it's safe, I give myself a green light. you know There are exceptions.

21:30.24
alexei sayle
Hmm.

21:31.65
Talal K
There are exceptions.

21:31.86
alexei sayle
I've started them doing that less, really. I've started just waiting. It's usually me and one other, usually one guy on a racing bike, a fancy high-end, and then people on line bikes or, you know, human forest bikes or whatever, just zipping past us.

21:37.94
Talal K
was

21:48.30
alexei sayle
And they often, like, they seem to like to cycle with one hand, holding their phone in the other hand.

21:54.17
Talal K
Yes, I don't appreciate that. If you're going to take the responsibility of cycling down a ah a public road, that's a serious responsibility.

21:56.07
alexei sayle
like,

22:01.14
alexei sayle
Yeah.

22:02.60
Talal K
So I'm not trying to project that I'm not taking it seriously.

22:03.10
alexei sayle
Yeah.

22:05.72
alexei sayle
Yeah.

22:06.41
Talal K
I'm wearing my cycling gloves. You know, I've got my light. My bell is always tested before I set off. I check my brakes.

22:12.75
alexei sayle
Mm, ding. Yeah.

22:14.68
Talal K
I mean, give them a Titan if they need it. I don't just willy-nilly skip red lights and such. you know I'm happy to wait at red light as well.

22:21.50
alexei sayle
No.

22:22.81
Talal K
I'm not like doing it as a point of protest either.

22:26.39
alexei sayle
No.

22:26.62
Talal K
um But, you know, i you just you can't trust anyone else on the roads.

22:28.06
alexei sayle
ah It is, yeah.

22:32.63
Talal K
So you have to trust yourself and look around you as much as possible. But I know you had a scare recently with that old lady shouting at you.

22:35.75
alexei sayle
Well, it's about, I suppose it's...

22:39.79
Talal K
So you're taking it easy, I suppose.

22:40.68
alexei sayle
You're an old man, you should know better. Yeah, because I wasn't even doing anything wrong. That was the injustice about that one.

22:46.46
Talal K
You were waiting at a red light when she yelled Tuesday was quite surreal.

22:48.31
alexei sayle
I was waiting, yeah. It was a zebra crossing, but yeah. You're an old man, you should know better.

22:58.32
Talal K
there was There's few times where I'm hooked to the news all evening, like election night, you know? And there was a surreal feeling of, could the world end? And I knew in the back of my head the world wasn't going to end, but...

23:10.10
alexei sayle
Yeah.

23:11.19
Talal K
um And they kept talking about taco, taco, taco. You know, Trump always chickens out. And no one said Taco Tuesday at any point, which was a, ah but um the the taco thing, I don't think it was him chickening out, if anyone cares.

23:28.08
alexei sayle
No, and I wonder whether that's something that was invented by the right wing to try and make him, you know, you know act more and more egregiously, really.

23:38.10
Talal K
i think this was a long-term plan. I think he knew he was gonna back out of the war, so he needed to set himself up. to look like a hero. So he set this ridiculous deadline, knowing he would back out of it, but say, our Iran have agreed to a ceasefire, so therefore I will gracefully back down.

23:47.80
alexei sayle
Yeah.

23:54.26
alexei sayle
yeah Really?

23:56.86
Talal K
ah Because the he this 10 point ah negotiation terms that Iran presented him with, apparently he got it like ah two weeks ago. He didn't get it on Tuesday. And...

24:11.03
Talal K
and

24:14.33
Talal K
he I think it's the most outrageous thing is just the the kind of language he was using publicly.

24:24.47
alexei sayle
Yeah.

24:25.29
Talal K
It's just so unprofessional. so

24:28.50
alexei sayle
ah Yeah, I like that.

24:29.30
Talal K
But it's so extreme. It's like the worst thing he's done really is how using the whole world's emotions like that, putting us all on the brink of of of doom.

24:38.55
alexei sayle
I suppose that's what yeah.

24:42.73
alexei sayle
I suppose he loves that level of attention, really.

24:44.02
Talal K
with a fucking tweet.

24:46.30
alexei sayle
Yeah. suppose i mean, he won't be happy.

24:47.82
Talal K
Malignant narcissist, you said.

24:48.76
alexei sayle
He can't be happy because he's trying to fulfill some dark hole he can never fulfill, you know, with all this behavior. i don't know whether he was, you know, the Israelis lied to him or I don't know. I don't know what it is. don't really, I can't say I understand his motivation.

25:10.14
alexei sayle
Whether he's doing it of his own, but he agrees, know, he wants to do all this shit or whether the Israelis lied to him and told him it's going to be an easy win. I mean, that's certainly a believable

25:21.53
Talal K
And now it's weird.

25:22.07
alexei sayle
scenario

25:24.41
Talal K
And currently the Strait of Hormuz has been shut down again and they are waiting for Israel to cut out their nonsense.

25:27.45
alexei sayle
Mm, well, good, yeah. Yeah.

25:32.95
Talal K
um I will send my my love to friends and family in Lebanon.

25:33.02
alexei sayle
Yeah.

25:36.99
Talal K
It is actually just, I thought my heart would be calloused over the last three years, but it's breaking again seeing what's happening in lovely Lebanon.

25:44.06
alexei sayle
Yeah.

25:46.87
alexei sayle
Yeah, poor country. That's months. It's fucking Israelis.

25:51.57
Talal K
Israel's a poison.

25:51.88
alexei sayle
Ugh, that's so awful.

25:53.16
Talal K
It's the fucking worst country ever to exist. in

25:55.67
alexei sayle
Yes, I agree.

25:56.37
Talal K
Fuck them.

25:58.33
alexei sayle
Yeah. I agree. Yeah.

26:03.61
Talal K
Listeners at home, please support the show by joining our Patreon. Go to patreon.com forward slash AlexiSale podcast.

26:07.19
alexei sayle
yeah

26:10.36
Talal K
You get to watch full video episodes every week of the show, apart from the weeks that we take off. And ah we also do an Alexi Reacts every week as well, where Alexi will watch something he did in the past and react to it.

26:24.20
Talal K
And we'll have a conversation about it. Talk about the history, of the context. and behind the scenes of whatever it is we're watching. This week we did an interview he gave to the BBC on the 25th anniversary of Dr. Martin's Boots, where he played the kind of fashionista character, ironically ah ah ironically ah

26:38.66
alexei sayle
Mmm.

26:42.01
alexei sayle
Yeah.

26:43.83
Talal K
ah it waxing lyrical about the history of Doc Martens. And it was actually a lovely conversation we had and we live streamed it.

26:49.01
alexei sayle
Mmm.

26:52.19
Talal K
for the first time.

26:52.50
alexei sayle
Yes, that was fun.

26:53.63
Talal K
It was fun actually.

26:53.82
alexei sayle
Yeah.

26:54.67
Talal K
and there was loads of people in the chat ah trying to get Alexi's attention and I wasn't showing him any of the chat. If you want to talk to Alexi face-to-face or via text form, ah once we get to 500 patrons, we will start doing strangers on a podcast.

27:09.02
Talal K
We might even do it monthly where you can ah jump on the stream and talk to Alexi or he will read your questions in the chat. But we need to get up to 500 patrons before we do that.

27:19.57
Talal K
So go to patreon.com forward slash AlexiSellPodcast and support the show. While we're doing promotional stuff, Alexi, you told me you wanted me to promote on on social media your upcoming show at the Barbican on May the 6th with Slavoj Zizek.

27:35.06
alexei sayle
Yes. Yeah.

27:38.17
Talal K
But um rather than me just like doing... a photo on on Instagram or something. Why don't you tell us about it now and I'll clip it up and put it on Instagram.

27:50.17
alexei sayle
yeah

27:50.84
Talal K
So ah what's happening on May the 6th at the Barbican Center, Alexi?

27:53.50
alexei sayle
may At the Barbican, I'm interviewing Slavoj Žižek, the world's leading populariser, I think, of Marxist thought, a leading philosopher.

28:05.30
alexei sayle
That's kind of guy I am these days. That's the kind of thing I do.

28:07.42
Talal K
Hmm.

28:08.78
alexei sayle
um I've been boning up on my... I've got Slavoj Žižek. Am I a mirror there? Slavoj Žižek... a graphic guide but I've also got his new book which is called Liberal Fascism which I'm going to be interviewing him about so interesting character let's say somebody who who draws their references from far and wide really is something that I also try and do in my new book how I try to change the world by walking down the middle of the street shouting but I know at one point he talks about

28:36.79
Talal K
Mm-hmm.

28:47.42
alexei sayle
um he talks about the use of irony and um ah kind of in jokes and the e he compares um the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics in 2024 and the and the the film um Wolverine and Deadpool which is really because he and he's right I mean the film Wolverine and Deadpool is a terrible terrible film I was quite a big fan of

29:08.23
Talal K
Okay.

29:17.08
alexei sayle
the first Deadpool and the second one, but this third one, I mean, it's just full of in-jokes, you know, about the kind of comic book metaverse or whatever.

29:27.32
Talal K
you Yeah, yeah.

29:28.34
alexei sayle
And it's so tiresome. It's so annoying.

29:33.26
Talal K
It was all fan service.

29:33.50
alexei sayle
um

29:34.34
Talal K
The whole film was, it was, it might as well have been called fan service the movie.

29:38.01
alexei sayle
Yeah, it's terrible, but yes. I don't know whether it was a success or not, but it was awful. And, you know, it's a really interesting interesting illustration, year rather than using, you know, a quote, you know, to make a point. I mean, he does that as well, obviously.

29:52.50
alexei sayle
He draws from, you know, Descartes or Immanuel Kant, or, you know, he he draws those sources as well, and much more obscure philosophers I've never heard of.

30:06.55
alexei sayle
But he also, that you know I think it's an interesting idea to draw comparisons from elements of ah popular culture. you know So, yeah, so that's just an interesting aspect. I've started reading the book. um

30:21.56
Talal K
And this show he'll be talking about liberal fascism.

30:21.56
alexei sayle
Yeah.

30:24.67
alexei sayle
It's his book. yeah i mean they sent I've got to did another copy, but they also they sent me few weeks ago. I saw some giant...

30:32.31
Talal K
Ooh, like a manuscript.

30:33.85
alexei sayle
Yeah, well, it's, I mean, yeah. I mean, it's, yeah. ah full so They did subsequently send me the book. i don't know what I've done with it, but this is, a I know what, yeah, anyway, so I've got that version of it. And yes, I need to go back and, you know, kind of figure out what he's talking about.

30:53.91
alexei sayle
And so I can ask him intelligent questions. Although Robin Inns, of course, interviews, everybody said, you can just ask him one question and then he'll talk for an hour and a half and then you you can go home kind thing.

31:04.15
Talal K
ah

31:04.82
alexei sayle
But um i'll try and I'll try and do more than that. um Yeah, and that's...

31:09.43
Talal K
Are you looking forward to it?

31:09.73
alexei sayle
ah ah Yeah, yeah, I'm excited.

31:10.58
Talal K
they look Have you met him before?

31:12.02
alexei sayle
No, no, no, no.

31:13.59
Talal K
Why do you think they picked you or how did this come about?

31:16.69
alexei sayle
Well, it's How To Academy, who are also doing my book launch on a book of tickets now, September 9th at the Royal Geographical Society for the launch of how I've tried to change the world by walking down the middle the street shouting.

31:32.50
alexei sayle
So they're part of this organization called FANE who have really kind of professionalized the book launch business. You know, it used to be when you had a book launch that you just, you if you were lucky, you publish it through a party and a in a bookshop with, you know, cheese cubes and white wine, warm white wine. But now what FANE do is they, FANE on How To Academy, which is part, they do like, ah I think you can buy the book as part the ticket price.

31:59.74
alexei sayle
And um so that that that that's kind of handy for you know book sales and also for the chart position.

32:00.15
Talal K
Yes.

32:05.64
alexei sayle
And the the events I did with Emily Margois last year were part of also done by Fane, I think. So they're keen, you know, and they rightly see me as a, you know, I have my own live following.

32:21.39
alexei sayle
on i think I think I have people who could come see me and also because I am, in a sense, also a you know Marxist and a a popularizer, you know, in the in the way that Zizek is.

32:35.25
alexei sayle
And so they they just thought it would be a lively, it may be, you know, maybe be that yeah we don't get on at all.

32:43.00
Talal K
I think it's a good pairing.

32:44.28
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, hopefully.

32:44.34
Talal K
It's a good pairing.

32:45.56
alexei sayle
it's it's a nices you know yeah so I'm very grateful to them for um asking me to do it, really. and

32:52.54
Talal K
Do you know who's ah who's a interviewing him in the Bristol show?

32:58.49
alexei sayle
No, who is it? You know.

33:00.51
Talal K
Oh, should I not tell you? They got Frankie Boyle doing it in Bristol.

33:04.31
alexei sayle
All right, okay.

33:06.52
Talal K
um I wonder what I think you'll bring.

33:12.91
Talal K
you'll do a better better job than him at it.

33:12.98
alexei sayle
Yeah.

33:14.77
Talal K
You've got a much more wiser, experienced mind.

33:16.98
alexei sayle
guess I guess. Yeah, I mean, he's he's one of those sort of auto-diodex, Frankie, so he's's he's very well read, I think.

33:19.22
Talal K
But Frankie...

33:24.34
alexei sayle
He just doesn't know how sometimes, I think, how to analyse what he's read. Yeah.

33:31.11
Talal K
He'll get there.

33:31.93
alexei sayle
Yeah.

33:33.97
Talal K
All right, so that's at the Barbican on the 6th of May. If you're in London, ah come along. It's Wednesday, the 6th of May.

33:44.76
Talal K
Go to howtoacademy.com. To buy your tickets, I'll put a link in the description of the podcast. Click it, lick it, buy your ticket.

33:55.74
Talal K
and And then also, obviously, pre-order Alexi Sales book. I'll put a link in the description of the podcast as well.

34:06.89
Talal K
They're signed.

34:06.97
alexei sayle
So what other the live events have we got? We've got the the Diggers Festival. at the they are they being in into Do we know what we're doing there? We're doing a live podcast, obviously, in Wellingborough.

34:15.35
Talal K
Yes. Wellingborough Diggers Festival on.

34:21.22
alexei sayle
I think I'm also, and I'm just doing the Rick Mayo Festival in Droit, which I can't remember when I'm doing that.

34:23.26
Talal K
Go on.

34:28.14
alexei sayle
i think it's in July. And then we've got, can we, have they in done any announcement about the big gig that we're doing in summer or we, we not yet.

34:32.37
Talal K
You are.

34:37.05
Talal K
Not yet.

34:38.45
alexei sayle
We'll sit on that one then.

34:41.27
Talal K
If you look up Wellingborough Diggers Festival, you will find that me and Alexi Sale are doing a live podcast on Saturday, 2nd of May.

34:54.04
Talal K
And we're also live with... We're delighted to welcome Alexi Sale live with his podcast team, they say. And we're also going to be playing the rope tackle back in Shoreham again soon.

35:02.61
alexei sayle
That's you.

35:09.24
Talal K
Rope tackle, Alexi Sale. i need to bloody...

35:16.55
Talal K
Oh my God, I need to have these links pre-prepared, but i can edit around all this. Oh my God.

35:28.52
Talal K
me a sec. I think it's fucking... Yeah. We're also going to be playing the rope tackle down in Shoreham on the 30th of July.

35:36.54
alexei sayle
Thursday July, i need to put that in my...

35:39.51
Talal K
And it looks like a couple days after that, we're going to be playing in London with a very special guest. And all exciting, all fun, all great.

35:44.22
alexei sayle
Mmm.

35:48.27
Talal K
Let's have fun together. Come and ask Alexi and myself questions. um All right. What else do you want to talk about, Alexi?

35:56.38
alexei sayle
Mmm. I'm out now. I've emptied myself.

35:58.87
Talal K
You know what? We've actually messed up majorly. We were meant to do our film club this week.

36:04.42
alexei sayle
Oh, shite. So we were...

36:05.21
Talal K
But the world nearly ended. I think that might have just thrown us

36:07.35
alexei sayle
That distracted us.

36:09.66
Talal K
thrown us off track.

36:10.26
alexei sayle
Should we do it next week then? oh I mean, all right.

36:11.80
Talal K
Let's do it next week, people. ah Touch of...

36:16.47
alexei sayle
I have watched it.

36:18.07
Talal K
You watched it recently.

36:20.01
alexei sayle
Well, yeah, I watched it last week because the film club. I mean, I mean, Touch of Evil.

36:25.62
Talal K
Touch of Evil. Oh, I normally watch it the night before.

36:29.05
alexei sayle
All right. I've seen it so many times I can, you know.

36:32.07
Talal K
Oh, you're such a good... Such a good pupil. make me look bad. um Well, I'm sorry then, I guess it's my fault, but we're going to do Touch of Evil 1958.

36:44.02
Talal K
line fifty eight

36:45.51
alexei sayle
Mm-hmm. Yep.

36:46.24
Talal K
Orson Welles next week. Forgive us. All

36:51.38
Talal K
right.

36:52.09
alexei sayle
yeah

36:56.07
Talal K
1985, the year you did the ah doctor's Dr. Martin's interview. I can't find the Dr. Martin's thing on your IMDb.

37:09.05
Talal K
You did an episode of Arena that year though. What did you do for Arena?

37:15.57
alexei sayle
Was that the Hidden History of the Four Cortina?

37:19.43
Talal K
Yes, that's right.

37:21.21
alexei sayle
I did two.

37:21.36
Talal K
Let's go over, go on.

37:21.71
alexei sayle
Here you go.

37:23.19
Talal K
No, no, go on.

37:23.32
alexei sayle
I know.

37:25.39
Talal K
Let's go over to the Patreon and see if there's any questions for you over there. What do you think?

37:30.94
alexei sayle
Yeah.

37:41.88
Talal K
Following up on, we got Liam in the chat on the Patreon chat room. Liam says, following up on MLK's comment on the last episode.

37:55.10
Talal K
MLK?

37:56.34
alexei sayle
Martin Luther King.

37:57.56
Talal K
We didn't have him on the show.

37:59.86
alexei sayle
a Maybe he's in the Patreon. From Beyond the Grave.

38:05.72
Talal K
Oh. Yeah, maybe he is. um Anyway, following up on his comment on episode 120 and given Alexei's uncomfortable relationship with comedy in the 90s, I'm wondering what he made of Vic and Bob.

38:22.65
Talal K
They seem to share the same working class art school dadaist background as Alexei, but lacked the political edge of Alexei and the pioneers.

38:26.68
alexei sayle
o

38:36.18
alexei sayle
as I loved that.

38:36.37
Talal K
Um...

38:37.06
alexei sayle
The first show that they did, which was, I think, based on the stuff they'd been doing down in Deptford, the Vic and Bob's Big Night Out. um i I really loved that. And then i'd sort of everything they did after that, ah I thought was kind of going back to the same...

38:57.41
alexei sayle
going back to the same well, really. too much And I think I wrote a really, which I feel guilty about now, I wrote a short story about two very thinly disguised versions of Vic and Bob, which was which is um which I regret now.

39:14.80
alexei sayle
It's just random nastiness. you know I can be, hate to disillusion people, but I could be in the past.

39:17.14
Talal K
Oh, no.

39:22.42
alexei sayle
just unpleasant for no reason. Probably part partly just jealousy at them being so successful, you know, me, my career fading at that time.

39:33.11
alexei sayle
Uh, so was probably, it was probably just nastiness really. Um, it's called Nick and Tob.

39:37.14
Talal K
Which short story was that? I do want to give that a read.

39:43.00
alexei sayle
Oh no, terrible. Um, uh, but, um,

39:50.14
Talal K
So you thought they kind of just kept drawing from the same well?

39:52.28
alexei sayle
I said the story, actually, I think, I thought a bit after that, the kind of deliberate. ah Yeah, deliberate. i mean, I also, um who's who's the other two? um

40:07.50
alexei sayle
Who's the other two are even more like that, really? Who I never liked?

40:13.20
Talal K
Anton Beck.

40:13.77
alexei sayle
Julian Barrett and Noel Fielding.

40:16.15
Talal K
Oh, Noel Fielding. The mighty Boosh.

40:18.45
alexei sayle
Mighty Boosh.

40:20.18
Talal K
Oh, really?

40:20.43
alexei sayle
I could never see the sense in that, yeah. remember Robert Newman who i was friendly with for a while. he He loved Mighty Bruce. always thought it was like just kind of archly comic for the sake of it, really.

40:34.26
Talal K
Wow.

40:36.60
alexei sayle
I think Julian Bout is fantastic actor, actually.

40:40.21
Talal K
I agree wholeheartedly. This is fascinating because, you know, these are the guys who were a big part of my the molding of my sensibilities, comedically speaking.

40:52.50
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah.

40:53.14
Talal K
you know i was ah I was a kid staying up to watch shooting stars was my fucking favorite show as a kid. And it was the same jokes every week.

41:04.34
Talal K
And it was kind of like comfort food. you know You were just waiting for them to chant Eureka or ah you know bring out George Dawes and all that. I fucking loved that show.

41:12.37
alexei sayle
Hmm.

41:14.07
Talal K
um And it felt, i also loved the feeling that it felt so chaotic and unpredictable, even though they did the same jokes every week.

41:24.50
alexei sayle
Yeah. yeah

41:24.90
Talal K
It felt like it was going wrong all the time and, you know.

41:28.41
alexei sayle
Yeah.

41:29.53
Talal K
ah

41:30.00
alexei sayle
I don't know. Well, you can't, I'd say you can't, you can't distinguish with me, particularly in that period between what is a genuine kind of aesthetic artistic critique and what is just poisonous jealousy.

41:45.24
alexei sayle
So why isn't that me? Why can't I get my series? Why don't you forgive give me?

41:52.27
Talal K
you had three peak primetime fucking groundbreaking series that you your name was in the show oh my god fame is such a weird thing

41:52.73
alexei sayle
and So, you know, so.

42:00.73
alexei sayle
Oh, yes, up until the... Yes, it's true, up until the late 90s, yeah. I suppose I just wanted... just wanted just me, really, you know. just wanted it just me to be nothing else.

42:16.21
alexei sayle
Just me on the telly all the time. Nobody else.

42:18.69
Talal K
That's so funny. That's so funny.

42:21.21
alexei sayle
So I say some of it's a genuine critique, I think, and some of it is just... it's just... poisonous, um jealousy, envy.

42:33.78
Talal K
um Well, there you have it. um Bitter, envious, needlessly so. You know, you could have just enjoyed yourself.

42:42.33
alexei sayle
Yeah, I know it's stupid. I've ruined my life. I know I've ruined my entire life with this. And yeah, I've, I've, I've largely, um, yeah, shed myself off it really because I realized it was ruining my life.

42:54.74
Talal K
Oh, yeah.

42:56.06
alexei sayle
But, um, Obviously you Bob Mortimer. Did I say about, you know, obviously ah Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer have got that fishing program, you know.

43:06.90
alexei sayle
And I thought when me and Nigel Planer did, um yeah, Antiques, whatever it was called, Antiques antiques Road Trip, Celebrity Antiques, that maybe we could get a bit of that, you because we are friends in real life, that we could get a bit of that vibe going and somebody would...

43:09.98
Talal K
Antiques.

43:13.37
Talal K
Road trip.

43:24.54
alexei sayle
hire us to do something. And there's no chemistry there. at all so oh so you know Nobody said, oh yeah, those, these could be the next pair of old cunts who, you know, doing stuff, saying banal things.

43:36.38
Talal K
ah ah

43:41.24
alexei sayle
We could pretend that we were inest interested in something, you know, me and Nigel, if it gets back on the telly, but nobody was interested really in,

43:50.46
Talal K
ah

43:50.62
alexei sayle
You know, so they're a pair of old twats. We can get them to fucking, yeah.

43:55.67
Talal K
I'm sorry that didn't work out for you. That would have been a sweet deal.

43:59.84
alexei sayle
It would, yeah. I was, you know, as I thought.

44:02.97
Talal K
Everyone seems to have one. Paul Merton's got one with his wife and they just like go caravanning.

44:07.61
alexei sayle
Caravanning, yeah. yeah.

44:10.65
Talal K
Obviously, Romesh and Matey Boy go... just... i'm just

44:14.85
alexei sayle
Robin Romes versus decent television.

44:18.01
Talal K
Yes. But to be honest, my my dream gig, like it's so fucking painful and heart, whole, holy soul destroying, just trying to make it in this acting gig. Yeah.

44:34.04
alexei sayle
Yes.

44:34.52
Talal K
I fucking hate it. Like it drives me crazy. And it's just you just keep going because there's just this slim chance that something amazing will come along, you know. the more My dream gig is just to be one of those traveling food TV people.

44:51.96
Talal K
You get to travel the world and eat food and talk about it and just improvise.

44:54.94
alexei sayle
Right.

44:55.44
Talal K
and thats That's my dream job. So if anyone out there is hiring, I promise I'd be amazing at it and I'd be really funny and charming and I'm good at making connections with strangers and you'd get some good telly.

44:58.58
alexei sayle
Is it?

45:06.90
Talal K
So someone just give me that gig. I'll do it for Channel 5.

45:08.63
alexei sayle
Yeah.

45:09.62
Talal K
I don't give fuck.

45:10.99
alexei sayle
Go and give him that gig.

45:11.13
Talal K
Fly me around the world. you know, help me make like just enough money to pay a mortgage or something. And I'll ah i'll sit back happy. I'll stop trying. Sorry, God, that was a philosopher, psychologist psychologist moment.

45:21.72
alexei sayle
Yeah.

45:24.82
alexei sayle
Yeah, that's, ah that's made, but yeah. People uncomfortable.

45:30.87
Talal K
What do they call it? Food travel television, right?

45:33.18
alexei sayle
I don't know. I don't watch that shit. So I don't really know.

45:37.09
Talal K
That's the dream. um I had a weird question about the bund. I don't know. I'm not sure what the bund is. Do you know what that is

45:45.11
alexei sayle
Yes, I do. Mm hmm.

45:45.91
Talal K
Okay. Hello, lads. We love the podcast. An oasis of relief from the onslaught of awfulness ah happening in the world. This is from Pablo, west of Ireland. Is that America then?

45:59.43
Talal K
I've attached a link from Zateo discussing the bund. It would be great if Alexi could talk about this in the next podcast. Pablo, West of Ireland. I'm not going But yeah, Jewish troublemakers who Zionists hated. The radical unknown history of the Bund.

46:19.22
Talal K
um Rather than me just reading this article, do you want to just tell me about the Bund?

46:24.86
alexei sayle
Yeah, I mean, there's ah there's a woman called Molly Crabapple who's got a book out, which I i i do have on order. um So I will know more about this once I've read it. But yeah, The Bunda, essentially. So there was, I guess there was two the two great splits in, I mean, i'm i I'm drawing on my own knowledge now, which may,

46:47.43
alexei sayle
which may not be entirely accurate, but my understanding is that there were two splits, really, in Jewish thought in the, I guess, in the period between the two world wars, primarily, which is one was the Zionism, obviously, where you go to Palestine, you found a homeland for Jewish people there, and you ethnically cleanse the indigenous population. The other...

47:11.90
alexei sayle
The other thought was the bond, which was essentially a socialist Jews who said, no, where we live is where we are. This is where our fight is.

47:23.94
alexei sayle
It's in Poland or it's in Germany or it's in France or it's in Hungary or that we are part of the international socialist movement and it's we stand here. This is our country and this is where we make our fight. And Jews...

47:40.95
alexei sayle
should you know that we have no connection with this kind of you know country you know this the middle east that we are european and our fight is to bring about socialists now in a sense they made the wrong you know so i mean not entirely but a lot of the racists and the cowards fled to israel but fled to palestine where they could took on take on a much we you know and the the the bondists were um

48:08.91
Talal K
They had a harder fight. They had a bigger fight too.

48:10.81
alexei sayle
yeah, the Bundists were made the wrong bet in a sense that they were eliminated by the Nazis, you know, in all of of all of Europe, Eastern Europe and Western Europe.

48:22.59
Talal K
Right.

48:22.62
alexei sayle
And so that that that that strain was physically, I think, destroyed by the fact that those people were murdered. And so that's why you got us the predominant thought. You got Zionism, really, this racist apartheid. Yeah.

48:40.16
alexei sayle
ideology i mean the way i mean it the web I mean, the way Zionists who also fall fought in you know fought in the Allied Armed Forces and fought in the resistance, it is true. so it's it's partly ah but those ones who you know But nevertheless, that that racist, you know i mean it's you know as the the Green Party motion, which was sabotaged, you know Zionism is racism.

49:03.03
Talal K
Hmm.

49:03.77
alexei sayle
and and those are the ones that triumphed really. So, um yeah, there was, you know, it was, a I mean, it's a it's a triumph of fascism in the sense that the Bund were clearly the better people.

49:15.09
alexei sayle
They were the, they were socialists and they were, you know, it's a victory for fascism that they were eliminated. You know, they were central, I think, to the the Warsaw Uprising, which of course was also sabotaged by Stalin.

49:29.86
alexei sayle
Yeah. And um I mean, I'll know more, that that is my understanding of Bundism. But yeah, i think it'd be interesting too to do a deeper dive. And once I've read that book, I will, you can talk more about it.

49:44.50
alexei sayle
But yes, that, you know, that is a forgot, I mean, and obviously nobody in a sense in our media has got a it's got any interest in emphasizing in that, you know, to say that there was an alternative thought, you know strain of Jewish thought, which was,

49:45.23
Talal K
Oh.

50:01.24
alexei sayle
opposed to anti-Zionism. And the Zionists, of course, hate hated the Bondists, you know. and i you know We're at the very least glad to see them eliminated.

50:12.19
alexei sayle
Yeah.

50:14.38
Talal K
my.

50:16.73
Talal K
Sorry, it just started playing really loud in my ears. It gave me a fright. So these are... The book's called Here Where We Live Is Our Country by Molly Crabapple.

50:25.69
alexei sayle
oh Yeah.

50:28.57
Talal K
So these Zionists claim to be victims of the Holocaust and that's why they need a homeland. But you're...

50:39.07
Talal K
I don't know if it was mostly Bundists who were murdered by Nazis, but most Bundists...

50:42.04
alexei sayle
Yes, it was, of course it was. Because they stayed in four.

50:49.08
Talal K
Most Bundists were murdered in Nazi gas chambers, it says here, and Soviet gulags. But like, didn't the...

50:54.81
alexei sayle
Yes, and Soviet gulags, ironically.

50:55.36
Talal K
Didn't the Zionists... Why is that ironic? Excuse my ignorance.

51:03.19
alexei sayle
Well, just because you'd think, because they were a socialists, why would in the Soviet Union want to see them eliminated?

51:06.90
Talal K
Um...

51:08.30
alexei sayle
But of course they didn't. I mean, there is that terrible, which I think is true. I'm not buying... mean, again, people people may have a different point of view can argue with me, but my understanding is that because the Soviet Red Army was on the edge of Warsaw, that the Bundists rose up in the Warsaw Ghetto,

51:31.19
alexei sayle
and seized, you know, kind you know and and and and drove the Nazis out of the ghetto. And what Stalin did, which is the most unforgivable thing of of, I think, of his many crimes, was that he he deliberately paused the...

51:46.39
alexei sayle
Red Army, and they didn't attack, they didn't go into Warsaw until all the socialists had been killed or taken prisoner, really. And I think that that is a, I mean, you know, um maybe I'm accepting Western history there, but that that is, I think that is probably, seems to me that that's what happened. And so you have to say that that is says that is as bad a thing as anything, really, that you got this extraordinarily

52:14.55
alexei sayle
brave uprising. And, you know, Stalin just made the force, that you know, ordered the Red Army to stay out of Warsaw to not aid them until they were all killed.

52:27.83
alexei sayle
And it's it's a despicable. Again, maybe somebody knows better than me and says that didn't happen. But that's my understanding, really. But it it is a condemnation.

52:39.29
Talal K
Maybe I'll reach out to Molly herself.

52:41.40
alexei sayle
Yes, that's a good idea. Oh, yeah, that's a really good idea, yeah.

52:44.98
Talal K
But it says here, one lastly, I guess ah she says here, um it is impossible not to see the liquidation of Gaza in the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto.

52:56.25
alexei sayle
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

52:59.16
Talal K
um All right. Well, Pablo from West of Ireland, thanks for your question. I will be sure to ask Alexei again to expand once he's read the book.

53:10.01
Talal K
And I might even reach out to this Molly Crabapple character.

53:11.54
alexei sayle
Yes. Let's do that. Yeah.

53:14.33
Talal K
um Free Palestine, everyone. Free Lebanon. ah i think we need to wrap up, but if you don't mind.

53:21.46
alexei sayle
Yes.

53:21.98
Talal K
Support the show. Go to patreon.com forward slash. Alexi Cell podcast. Links in the description of the podcast to the Slavoj Žižek interview at the Barbican, our upcoming live shows which have been announced, and a link to pre-order Alexi's signed book coming out in September.

53:43.93
Talal K
Anything else, Lex, you want to leave us with?

53:45.43
alexei sayle
No, i think that'll do for now. right. Okay, everybody. Bye-bye. We'll do Film Club next week. Bye-bye, bye-bye.