00:00.89
Talal K
Whenever you're ready.

00:02.79
alexei sayle
Hello everybody, episode 131 of the Alexis L podcast, going to be a quick one today, I'm not feeling fantastic, so let's sir but let's do that, I don't like to leave you hanging, I know how ah many of you like to build your week around our podcast, you know, it's your week seems empty and devoid of meaning if you don't hear this podcast, so know.

00:31.19
Talal K
Yeah, it's like the structural foundation of the Salovian populations.

00:34.07
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah, it's like like going to church on a Sunday.

00:36.11
Talal K
um Yeah, exactly, yeah.

00:40.12
alexei sayle
or mosque. Or synagogue.

00:43.16
Talal K
Oh, Satanists meeting.

00:45.67
alexei sayle
Yeah, indeed.

00:48.06
Talal K
You know about Satanism, it's not really, they're like the nicest people.

00:53.01
alexei sayle
Are they?

00:53.69
Talal K
Yeah, Satanism not really about like, you know, killing goats and, you know, doing evil and stuff. They're about, the whole ethos is about being really nice.

00:59.45
alexei sayle
Right. Right. Right.

01:03.10
Talal K
And it's kind of an ironic church. They don't believe in any of it.

01:05.66
alexei sayle
Right.

01:06.74
Talal K
They just, they're doing it as a political statement. and

01:09.66
alexei sayle
Okay. right.

01:11.03
Talal K
Anyway, yeah. So hail Satan.

01:14.68
alexei sayle
All right.

01:16.50
Talal K
So you had something to, you had an interesting observation about the whole Burnham, ah oncoming Burnham ah regime.

01:19.38
alexei sayle
Yeah, so this is, yeah.

01:25.94
alexei sayle
Yes. i um ahll but I'll do this from memory, really. Okay.

01:32.79
alexei sayle
trying to recall what i've read and then you know uh yeah so the um andy bernham is in fact not the first mayor who has um become leader with an ism attached to him to them um ah He's actually the second because in 1932, I ah yeah thirty two nothing think it was 1933, Labour had catastrophic um showing in the polls. And um

02:13.30
alexei sayle
so they elected as their leader a guy called George Lansbury. George Lansbury had been the mayor of Poplar, I think, since the 20s. And he'd invented this phrase called Poplarism.

02:27.26
alexei sayle
um which was, ah you know, which is kind of, you you can kind of understand where it comes from. It was very much about, you you know, directing resources ah to the poor of Poplar.

02:43.80
alexei sayle
And he was intensely popular.

02:44.26
Talal K
Mm-hmm.

02:48.11
alexei sayle
He... he um

02:54.01
alexei sayle
And actually, I think in the sometime in the 20s, there was a law braw in that that councils were going to be forced to set a rate and cut various welfare programs and stuff. And I think three councils refused.

03:12.02
alexei sayle
three councils refused um and were sent to prison for their refusal to set a a punitive raid. And um the phrase that i think Lansbury invented then, which is later used by militants in Liverpool, was better to break the law than break the poor.

03:34.46
alexei sayle
So Lansbury was a very, was an interesting guy. He spent some time in Australia, but his the the core of his morality was his religion, really, that I think he was... Was he a Quaker?

03:52.12
alexei sayle
um It was certainly very religious and Christian, but in a kind of ah you know ah you know for Actually, he was a Christian in that in that he followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, which is actually pretty rare.

04:07.61
Talal K
Yeah, he's not a Quaker, Christian pacifist, though socialist Christian.

04:09.14
alexei sayle
No. Christian pacifist, yeah. So he was elected in thirty three And immediately, of course, the right wing of the Labour Party started and the trade union started conspiring against him.

04:24.06
alexei sayle
And he lost his... er but He was voted out of office in 1935. Now, I mean, the question arises... now mean the question arises um because he was a pacifist and he campaigned all his life and even when he was leader of the labour Party for pacifism and and um rejected the urge towards rearmament. In 1935 that now looks like a pretty bad bet really.

04:55.67
alexei sayle
And so... i mean I mean, there certainly was a time when, you know, there's plenty of times, plenty of points, when Hitler, Nazi Germany, could have been stopped without the Second World War, because nobody ever took those opportunities. But nevertheless, by 19... I mean, it's um i mean it's just an interesting moral question whether, you know, that in a sense...

05:22.36
alexei sayle
I mean, I've never really completely been a pacifist. I think that, you know, that given the way the world is, I think you need some kind of military force. But he was, you know, he travelled the world speaking against war.

05:37.88
alexei sayle
And, you know, there's certainly a lot wrong with it. There's a lot wrong with war. And... So... ah

05:49.14
alexei sayle
so

05:49.21
Talal K
I guess it's a matter of who's doing it to who and why and how.

05:53.50
alexei sayle
Yeah, well, and yeah.

05:55.45
Talal K
You know, if you're...

05:55.58
alexei sayle
Well, there's not the old concept of war is, you know, it's grotesque in a sense, but, you know, it's the kind of the world we live in.

06:02.39
Talal K
Of course, but...

06:02.62
alexei sayle
You know, and if Britain hadn't started rearming in 1985, hadn't started building fighter planes and jet tanks, don't know. plane, ah you know, and ships and, you know, we would have been in an even even worse state to fight the Nazis. ah But, you know, he held on to his positions and certainly the people I always get that it was, there's a good Bevan and there's a bad Bevan in the Labour Party in the nineteen thirty s There's one who

06:34.49
alexei sayle
who brought kind of invented health service. And then there's another one, obviously like Bevins, who's a complete right-wing shitbag. And it was him who did for George Lansbury as well. So, and was just an interesting, um, side note. And of course the other thing just as a, and um you know, a kind of a palate cleanser or, uh, um,

06:58.23
alexei sayle
you know, a little present for you. George Lansbury's son, I think, went to the United States and gave birth to a daughter, and his daughter was called Angela, and she became Angela Lansbury.

07:15.19
alexei sayle
ah Hollywood, I mean, Broadway star, and then more, yeah, more a star on TV than than films, I think, but...

07:18.45
Talal K
Madashiro Madashiro Wow murder she ro a she

07:28.68
alexei sayle
It's quite an interesting, Linda quite an interesting story about Angela Lansbury that her daughter, when they were living in Hollywood, her daughter started hanging out with this crowd of really bad people.

07:40.18
alexei sayle
And so Angela Lansbury moved the entire family to Ireland to get away, get her away from the, yeah these crowd of people. And you can guess who those crowd of people were.

07:52.24
alexei sayle
Manson family.

07:54.32
Talal K
Oh shit.

07:55.93
alexei sayle
Yeah, so that's another. Anyway, so I just think it's interesting. Nobody seems to have picked up on it. I didn't mention it to a friend of mine just off for Radio 4, but I just think it's interesting, really.

08:05.27
Talal K
angela's Angela's father, George's son is Edgar Lansbury, who was a wealthy English timber merchant, politician and communist, former mayor of...

08:15.96
alexei sayle
Yeah.

08:18.10
Talal K
He was also mayor of Poplar.

08:20.78
alexei sayle
That's not a grand... Really?

08:22.42
Talal K
Yeah.

08:23.34
alexei sayle
That's weird.

08:24.73
Talal K
The labor. Yeah. And he died of stomach cancer when Angela was nine. Let me. ah I can verify that, but that would be.

08:38.10
Talal K
a bit kind of Middle Eastern and to inherit a mayor, may a ship.

08:46.23
Talal K
um So, but just to.

08:54.39
Talal K
Mayor of Poplar.

08:55.64
alexei sayle
Yeah. Okay.

08:57.78
Talal K
Weirdly.

08:58.62
alexei sayle
Yeah.

08:59.35
Talal K
Unless this is a cross-wired Google result. But just to bring it round though, because ah you started by saying both George Lansbury and Andy Burnham both have isms. What's Burnham's ism?

09:13.46
alexei sayle
Manchesterism is what people...

09:16.50
Talal K
Really?

09:17.14
alexei sayle
But, yeah, yeah.

09:17.98
Talal K
So what's that?

09:18.30
alexei sayle
and You know, Manchesterism, well, it's not, yeah.

09:19.22
Talal K
Excuse my ignorance.

09:21.88
alexei sayle
Well, it's a kind of fairly feeble thing, really. It's not as radical as ah Lansbury's popularism, obviously.

09:28.70
Talal K
Mm-hmm.

09:29.16
alexei sayle
it's I mean, it's about taking over control, though not necessari necessarily ownership of, like, important infrastructure like trains and trams and buses.

09:40.05
alexei sayle
And... um just the, the council being more proactive, I think, although i think he's also, ah suspect, you know, made, you know, given a lot of concessions to developers to build giants, um looking at Manchester now, the giant kind of apartment blocks, you know, glittering apartment blocks. So, but I think it's a kind of a, It's an ah it's a fairly dilute thing, I think, but it's ah it's you know it's obviously ah it's ah it's in contrast to you know the complete capitulation to

10:23.83
alexei sayle
um you know right-wing forces, you developers and you know everything.

10:31.45
Talal K
Yeah.

10:32.25
alexei sayle
That's Darmerism, if there ever was stuff.

10:33.75
Talal K
But he would argue that he's trying to draw money to the north and you know not make London the centre of everything, isn't it?

10:40.09
alexei sayle
Well, that's also, that was separate. i mean, but when he was mayor of Manchester, there was this Manchester. I think there was probably some economic economic stuff as well that I can't remember. But, you know, but borrowing but on the bond market's cheap or some shit like that.

10:55.70
alexei sayle
shit I don't ah quite understand.

10:56.02
Talal K
Yeah.

10:59.69
alexei sayle
Yeah,

11:00.31
Talal K
And now he's been talking about ah number 10 North, you know, he wants to create a government center up there.

11:04.54
alexei sayle
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:06.97
Talal K
But more prevalent is his kind of yesterday, he did an Ask Me Anything on on Twitter. And he made, he clarified his point of view on Gaza.

11:21.32
Talal K
Did you see this?

11:22.65
alexei sayle
Yeah, I've read about it, yeah.

11:25.96
Talal K
Um, which yeah is it lip service at this point or what?

11:26.98
alexei sayle
Well, I mean, yeah I suspect it will. I mean, I suspect. I don't know. We'll see, really. I mean, there was ah there was ah one of his MPs on this morning on Sky, woman called Melanie Ward. Now, I've got a a beef with Melanie Ward because she was the director of medical aid for Palestinians, but she ah she dropped out to stand as a Labour MP in the Starmer.

11:52.16
Talal K
Oh no, come on.

11:52.92
alexei sayle
And I just thought, well, it's funny because it's one of them things where remember me and Linda, we went to like an event in 2018, a map event. and we And she gave a speech and we both thought, ooh, don't like you.

12:07.67
alexei sayle
and then pretty quickly she became, anyway, she was on this morning. And she is, obviously she's got direct experience for Palestine and Palestinians. And she was saying that Burnham is, you know, I mean, it's going to be, there will be, i don't think he will,

12:22.71
Talal K
She was saying what? did she say?

12:24.63
alexei sayle
well i don't Well, I mean, she was saying that he will look at sanctioning other right-wing individuals apart from Ben Gavir and Smotrich, and he will look at um you know not banning the import of settlement products, and he'll just, I suspect, issue more empty words.

12:43.85
Talal K
Yes.

12:47.61
alexei sayle
I mean, the the ah we one barometer of how much he would he may change and this was hinted at in the Guardian, what we see if anything happens with it is his, his attitude to the prescription of Palestine action as a terrorist organization.

13:01.27
Talal K
yes

13:03.17
alexei sayle
That if he commutes that in some way, if he actually takes it away or something, and then you would think that to a degree he is at least serious about Palestine and about free speech.

13:03.32
Talal K
yes

13:15.73
alexei sayle
And if he also commuted the savage sentences of, um, the Filton Six, um extraordinary punitive.

13:23.59
Talal K
Yep.

13:27.31
alexei sayle
sentences if he did that then i might start to believe that he might do something but i think he won't do anything i mean and i mean the the big thing is also export of f35 fighter parts which are made in in britain which go to israel well if he stops you know because if if they admit that it's a genocide then they're not allowed to export two people who are committing a genocide so um

13:52.71
Talal K
That's true, he hasn't said the word genocide.

13:54.76
alexei sayle
No, he very deliberately hasn't. and I mean, obviously I see how he's...

13:56.92
Talal K
And he specifically said he doesn't want British bombs or bullets in ah ah to reach Israel, but he didn't mention anything about fighter jet parts.

14:04.12
alexei sayle
Yeah.

14:06.84
alexei sayle
Yeah. And then once the, you know, the board of deputies and the campaign against anti-Semitism start squawking, we'll see if he has any backbone to stand up to them, really.

14:14.17
Talal K
get their claws in him. e

14:20.07
alexei sayle
Yeah.

14:20.54
Talal K
But for now, he's apologized for Labour's initial response to the treatment of Gaza.

14:25.34
alexei sayle
Yeah. I mean, Starmer was, I mean, his, his Starmer Zionism was kind of demented, really, I guess.

14:29.32
Talal K
Hmm.

14:32.22
alexei sayle
I mean, it was, that it seemed to be the one thing he really believed in. I think it's maybe something to do with his wife and his wife's family. um but, um, I mean, it was just ridiculous. of course, you know, he kept that bloody quiet when he was in Corbyn's, um,

14:51.28
alexei sayle
In fact, he'd spoken out about Palestine, he'd spoken out about Gaza until he got elected as leader the Labour Party and then Prime Minister. mean, he's a man of absolute dishonesty.

15:02.32
alexei sayle
I mean, on the same level, he lies as comprehensively as Boris Johnson did, I think, with even more malign motives in a way.

15:04.50
Talal K
Thank you.

15:13.18
alexei sayle
um So, yeah, I don't know whether this is just words to try and lure back um you know, Labour voters who've gone to the Greens, because it very clearly was a, you know, it did put Labour voters, you know, their stance on Gaza.

15:32.54
alexei sayle
But you've still got, you know, you've still got 40, 50% of whatever Labour and Pisa and Labour Friends of Israel. You've... You've still got all that. I think all nine out of ten members of the cabinet received money from is there the Israel lobby.

15:51.29
alexei sayle
um So, you know, we' let will that change? you see i mean, it's... I mean, the... they i i mean that the the the tide seems to be i mean i don't know what it means really but the tide seems to be turning in a sense in the united states you know the public opinion is massively i think pro-palestinian rather than you know the first time it hates israel now it's turned on israel um that obviously is not translated into political power in that

16:12.30
Talal K
Yeah.

16:21.21
alexei sayle
you know, still most Democrats are bought and paid for by AIPAC, but there are is there is a slew of Democratic candidates who are, you know, saying they won't take AIPAC money, American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.

16:35.54
alexei sayle
um

16:36.53
Talal K
as Molly was, Molly, our lovely guest last week, Molly Crabapple pointed out.

16:36.63
alexei sayle
um Yeah.

16:40.42
Talal K
But I think that's it at the moment. That's all we can count on is that the language is changing because behind closed doors, ah deals are still being made and support for Israel doesn't waver.

16:47.13
alexei sayle
Yeah, same deals. Yeah. Yeah.

16:52.47
Talal K
And now Trump is ramping up attacks on Iran again.

16:56.49
alexei sayle
I don't know what he thinks he's going to achieve with that. There was a woman on, the ex advisor a security advisor to Trump, and on right on to the five o'clock with Evan Davies. And, um I mean, he didn't... She was completely delusional, really. She said, you know, America holds... The United States holds all the cards.

17:16.07
alexei sayle
The Iranians are bad faith actors. I mean, he didn't push her on any of this. Well, if you talk about bad faith actors, the United States bombed and murdered Iranians when they were in the middle of negotiations twice. So who's the bad faith actor here anyway? And she said, you know, well, you know, petrol prices have gone up like a little bit, but, you know.

17:38.74
alexei sayle
So, I mean, she seemed... and He didn't. I don't know whether he was expecting it to be a bit more rational, but he didn't push it, really, which was a failing, I think, on the part of Evan Davies.

17:57.98
alexei sayle
a

17:58.52
Talal K
And it's helpful to the oil industry as well, isn't it? They're making more money.

18:03.74
alexei sayle
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're making vast amounts of money. Oh, so I haven't seen... um

18:12.09
Talal K
So there's a baby crying right outside my windows. ah

18:17.56
alexei sayle
well

18:17.98
Talal K
Apologies if you can hear that, listeners.

18:20.76
alexei sayle
there was a somebody we admire there's ah there was a documentary wasn't on Wednesday by Gary Stevens called something like how to get filthy rich which actually got up I mean I haven't seen it yet I've seen the trailers and I've seen i've seen um

18:32.10
Talal K
Stevenson.

18:40.47
alexei sayle
ah saw an and i ah saw an interview I saw a review in The Guardian which was actually very negative about it. And I wonder about Gary Steele. I mean, you know, his his his economic um proposal, you know, 2%, which is minuscule, 2% tax on wealth rather than earnings, income, is you know more is, you know, the baseline, really.

19:07.70
alexei sayle
But he lacks political analysis. There's no... I've never really seen him show any understanding of actually how politics work and who...

19:18.87
alexei sayle
Maybe I'm being unfair there.

19:19.13
Talal K
but He's very open about that though. He always like front loads that in his videos.

19:23.67
alexei sayle
Yeah.

19:23.73
Talal K
He's like, I'm not a politician. I don't know politics. What I know is money, you know?

19:27.67
alexei sayle
Yeah, but...

19:27.93
Talal K
i got I got really rich very young by doing this. And so he's he's that very straightforward with all that.

19:33.18
alexei sayle
Yeah.

19:35.09
Talal K
um But maybe he could read up a bit now that you've got some influence.

19:35.09
alexei sayle
Well, he needs to come and... he needs to Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe you should come on the show and we could we could, you know, explain the basic tenets of Marxism to him, you know, of class war.

19:51.22
Talal K
Hmm.

19:51.90
alexei sayle
Might help him out. Anyway, maybe maybe maybe the Guardian was being snotty, I don't know, but

19:59.74
alexei sayle
yeah, watch it, I suppose, is

20:04.82
Talal K
Oh yeah, they criticize his screen presence, his ah ability to be a presenter.

20:11.29
alexei sayle
Yeah, it is. I mean, I saw him doing a podcast with the guy

20:12.23
Talal K
It's

20:18.84
alexei sayle
the guy who presents Channel 4 News, Christian Gurumet. And he was actually talking. I mean, it's understandable, I suppose. He didn't, he'd never made a documentary before and he didn't understand well what one was, I think. And I think that kind of rocked him back a bit. in it And it is, you know, it's he said you stand around for hours in the cold and then you talk to somebody for four hours and you get five minutes well yeah that is how documentaries are made unfortunately but suppose you if you don't know that if you're not come from that world then that in itself is going to be a shock and i wonder if that um you know through him really

20:58.85
Talal K
Hey, recently on Sky, there was a documentary called Rick Mayle, Magnificent Bastard.

21:05.20
alexei sayle
mm-hmm

21:05.37
Talal K
Did you get asked to be on it?

21:07.65
alexei sayle
I can't remember, to be honest. i i ah I think probably... ah I don't know if I was asked to be on it.

21:15.32
Talal K
I was shocked to see you weren't on it.

21:15.70
alexei sayle
i might have just said no.

21:17.62
Talal K
Right.

21:17.85
alexei sayle
Eh?

21:18.36
Talal K
I was shocked to see you weren't on it.

21:20.57
alexei sayle
I guess, yeah. I mean, i don't I'm sort of reluctant. I mean, I do... I'm sort reluctant to talk about Rick, really. as You know, only knew him for those kind of five intense years.

21:32.85
alexei sayle
And, I mean, that... I mean, by their nature, documentaries like that are hagiography. Hagiography means they're kind of a stories of the saints, hagiographs.

21:49.14
alexei sayle
And so they really just talk about that he was brilliant all the time.

21:49.38
Talal K
Yep. Yep.

21:57.05
alexei sayle
And he was brilliant a lot of the time, but he wasn't brilliant all the time. And I think that it would be more honest. You know, mean, would say this story years ago. I was asked to do like very early on ah a documentary about one those constant clips documentaries about um Tommy Cooper. So I said, yeah, I'll go along.

22:19.82
alexei sayle
I went along and told him, I told him I didn't like Tommy Cooper. thought he was crap. And I genuinely thought they'd kind of like the balance, you know, of course that's not what was required at all.

22:30.98
Talal K
I couldn't imagine all their jaws dropping on set.

22:31.06
alexei sayle
any Yeah. Yeah.

22:34.55
Talal K
ah

22:35.96
alexei sayle
So, there's

22:37.42
Talal K
So they wrapped up in five minutes and said, thank you, Alex.

22:40.09
alexei sayle
something like that, yeah, yeah.

22:43.70
Talal K
Fuck me.

22:45.27
alexei sayle
Yeah, um so.

22:46.65
Talal K
Yeah. It does seem very hyperbolic. Just people going up there and ah just ah praising, praising and and yeah, sanctifying them.

22:57.34
Talal K
Yeah, you're right.

22:57.75
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was, kind I mean, you know, people loved him, and music but he was a complicated,

22:58.14
Talal K
Yeah. Interesting.

23:04.25
Talal K
But this is...

23:04.54
alexei sayle
individual and i don't think that kind of show really can communicate that i think it's always dishonest and the people on people on it are people who are not always completely um i think are inclined to you know to to to to um sanitize the truth and stephen fry and ben elton and people like that you know they don't

23:30.20
Talal K
Well, they also know what the show is like. It's it's made for the masses, the people who who love Rick Mel because of what they've meant to him, because they've only seen the best of him, what what he has on screen and things they grew up with.

23:35.03
alexei sayle
Yeah.

23:45.31
Talal K
It means so much to them that this this incredibly funny figure they grew up with, and they don't want to hear someone talking about his private life and

23:56.15
alexei sayle
Oh, no, it wasn't just his private life, but he could, you know, there was the odd misstep there. And it was, yeah, was just, yeah.

24:03.13
Talal K
sure rose tinted isn't it yeah yeah um

24:06.30
alexei sayle
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I should probably decline to dip go on it because of that, really.

24:13.69
Talal K
well the guardian reviewer which gave gary stevenson's show two stars gave the rick male show four stars yeah

24:21.58
alexei sayle
I mean, she is it Lucy Mangan? I mean, she is a fucking idiot.

24:28.76
alexei sayle
I shouldn't say that. The Guardian's reviewing my book.

24:33.77
Talal K
Hopefully not her.

24:34.90
alexei sayle
No, not her.

24:35.83
Talal K
One of her rivals, hopefully. Make sure she doesn't get sent it.

24:42.55
Talal K
um ah Right. um Have you got it in you to do an Alexi Reacts after this or not?

24:50.12
alexei sayle
I think we'll leave it for this week.

24:51.22
Talal K
we'll We'll skip that this week. Sorry, folks. Have you got it in you to quickly rank a few more of your IMDB listings?

25:00.06
alexei sayle
First of all, shouldn't we mention our live podcast recording at the Roundhouse on August 2nd?

25:04.60
Talal K
Yes, we certainly should. um 2nd of August, it's a matinee at 2.30pm. You'll be home in time for tea.

25:13.07
alexei sayle
around us in Camden. you can buy a tie-dye t-shirt or whatever they sell in Camden Market these days.

25:17.48
Talal K
It's not that anymore, mate. It's just Taylor Swift and Harry Styles t-shirts now.

25:21.08
alexei sayle
I think it also is owned by an Israeli guy who funds money to the IDF, so don't don't buy anything there.

25:24.02
Talal K
Yeah, yeah. Don't go to Camden Market and buy anything.

25:28.70
alexei sayle
Don't go to Camden Market.

25:30.55
Talal K
but do come to the Roundhouse Theatre in Camden on the 2nd of August, where me and Alexi will be chatting with Diane Morgan live on stage. It's sure to be a rollicking romp of a experience. um Get your tickets.

25:48.34
Talal K
Just Google or Bing or DuckDuckGo or Ask Jeeves about the Roundhouse Comedy Festival and buy tickets for the Lexus Hell Podcast live. And there's loads of other great shows happening there.

26:03.34
Talal K
We're gonna mention that on every show until it happens. We want to fill that room up. It's the biggest room we've ever done live together as a pair. I think individually, we've both played bigger rooms than that.

26:13.91
alexei sayle
So... so

26:14.58
Talal K
um and our rope tackle show is sold out we're going in shoreham a few days before that but that's sold out so don't worry about that folks uh support the show patreon go to patreon.com forward slash alexisl podcast for exclusive contact for content for exclusive content and full video podcasts and chat rooms where you can ask questions directly to Alexei.

26:42.55
Talal K
um Things like, does Alexei endorse Count Binface? Asks Kate.

26:49.53
alexei sayle
ah I turned down cause it's on, it's on August the 2nd, Mitch Benzer doing the benefit for camp in face and Clacton. It's not exactly Garza, is it? I, yeah, I guess. I mean, any, anybody rather than for ours, suppose he's such a creepy geezer.

27:08.56
Talal K
Yeah, that's on the same day as our roundhouse show.

27:11.42
alexei sayle
Yeah.

27:12.12
Talal K
Okay. um

27:18.39
Talal K
Could we stand to rank a couple more things from your IMDB before we go?

27:20.73
alexei sayle
Go on then. I said that I filmed Last Word, i which it wasn't because you got it, sent me the link. It was actually Lost for Words was something I'd done.

27:27.74
Talal K
Lost for words.

27:32.01
alexei sayle
in 1980, it was this girl I was at Chelsea with, I think a student a couple of years below me. Anna Thieu, and she's quite an avant-garde filmmaker.

27:42.58
alexei sayle
haven't watched it yet, but it wasn't what I thought it was anyway. Hmm.

27:47.67
Talal K
No? Yeah, you're just like eating some cake by the road or something, ah reading a a poem or something like that. Very avant-garde, extremely avant-garde. Okay, look, we are, we have, what we just to remind you, we've been going through Alexei's IMDB from the oldest to the newest. We've done five films and TV shows and shorts that he's done um and listed them in order of Alexei's preference. And we're gonna keep going through until we have a, um what's the word?

28:20.63
Talal K
The comprehensive list of Alexei's favorite stuff he's done basically. So far at number five, we've got Walcott from 1981, your episode of Walcott. Number four, we've got Lost for Words, that avant-garde film. Do you wanna move that down the list now that you've seen it?

28:36.38
alexei sayle
Oh, I haven't seen it, so I can stay with it.

28:37.56
Talal K
Oh, okay. Number three, we've got Repeater from 1979. Number two, Transmogrification. Transre-smogrification, I call it, from 1980. And number one was Boom Boom, Out Go Out the Lights, two specials, we're combining them.

28:51.67
Talal K
But now we're moving into 1981, further into 1981, and stuff gets good. um We've got the comic strip movie from 1981.

29:02.39
alexei sayle
Yeah. I mean, I've talked about that before, and it was Julian Temple, who was the father of Juno Temple, who was a bit of a... did the I mean, the only good film he ever really did was Great Rock and Roll, Swindle was a bit of a... a bit of a complicated ah person.

29:23.54
alexei sayle
um And he came and did... he and shot there was some story of a kind Brechtian story of of Dawn coming down to London.

29:36.66
alexei sayle
she'd been a She'd been in the Salvation Army. She comes down to London. She's corrupted by alternative comedy or something.

29:44.78
Talal K
Oh.

29:44.87
alexei sayle
I can't remember. So it's it is actually the only...

29:50.17
alexei sayle
film, I think that exists of our accent that in 1980, 1981 at the comic strip club, but but because he filled the audience with extras, he, you know, just didn't react in normal way that all the performances are slightly off.

30:06.65
alexei sayle
I think mine certainly is.

30:07.77
Talal K
Yeah. Interesting.

30:09.53
alexei sayle
Um, so

30:10.62
Talal K
If that was done today, they would have cameras in the real club and then film all the narrative stuff separately, isn't it?

30:13.88
alexei sayle
exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

30:16.87
Talal K
Yeah.

30:18.04
alexei sayle
Yeah, so it doesn't it doesn't work.

30:18.67
Talal K
Interesting.

30:20.55
alexei sayle
I think after that, Peter also decided he wanted to take control of things, really, because Julian Temple didn't really get it.

30:30.68
Talal K
Right. So where would you put that on our list? It sounds like you're...

30:36.12
alexei sayle
Probably last at the moment. Well, I don't know, put it in the middle.

30:37.59
Talal K
like Worse than Walcott?

30:39.99
alexei sayle
rather I don't care.

30:42.14
Talal K
Well, better or worse than...

30:43.26
alexei sayle
Well, it's good, isn't it? It's a historical... document it's you know it's it's worth

30:47.35
Talal K
Yeah.

30:51.02
Talal K
Surely it's better than transmogrification.

30:54.15
alexei sayle
don't know I haven't watched that either I've got yeah but that's i you know I love the director and we smoke the director of transmogravation I loved so probably I mean I don't know I'm fond of Chris Munger as well really yeah put it yeah

31:01.15
Talal K
Okay. All right. Better than repeater?

31:10.26
Talal K
Okay, better than loss for words. Okay, it's coming in at number four.

31:17.37
alexei sayle
I think this text on the me is pretty pointless, but yeah.

31:20.09
Talal K
No, no, it's not pointless. It's meaningful. And also it's a great ah tool to just hear your memories of these things. We'll do one more.

31:31.73
Talal K
Whoops Apocalypse comes in. 1982. Four episodes. It's the TV series of Whoops Apocalypse.

31:40.16
alexei sayle
I should tell this story very quickly that, you know, Robin Williams used to turn up and do like an hour at the comic strip.

31:47.35
Talal K
Yeah.

31:48.63
alexei sayle
And actually, choose what does that?

31:49.26
Talal K
Wasn't that in the comedy store?

31:51.20
alexei sayle
No, the comic store.

31:51.83
Talal K
Okay.

31:52.16
alexei sayle
The comedy store and then the comic store.

31:53.78
Talal K
Right.

31:54.32
alexei sayle
Actually, couldn't have been the Julian Temple film because there was a proper audience in.

32:01.18
alexei sayle
um actually forget that story. I'll tell it another time.

32:05.40
Talal K
ah Okay, vague reference to Robin Williams. That'll get some listeners in. um Whoops Apocalypse, the TV series.

32:12.98
alexei sayle
Yeah, I mean, there were two writers who are still very dear friends of mine, David Rennick and Andrew Marshall. um It was a sitcom, went out on LWT, which at the weekends, you know, it was there was regional broadcasters in those days, in the 80s.

32:33.53
alexei sayle
So, you know, London, say the Northwest was Granada, the you know, Yorkshire TV, Tineties.

32:33.56
Talal K
Yes, London West...

32:41.72
alexei sayle
um And

32:41.79
Talal K
What LWT stand for? London of Television.

32:44.18
alexei sayle
London Weekend Television. So at the weekend, the the um or everything was provided by a completely different company, which was London Weekend Television.

32:52.13
Talal K
Wow.

32:52.64
alexei sayle
And they, I mean, they had a very, they had a very interesting, you know, artistic policy. So this is Whoops Apocalypse, which I think it went out about 10 on a Sunday night.

33:08.08
alexei sayle
It's a sitcom about, it's it's quite surreal, quite broad, but it's about,

33:14.03
alexei sayle
essentially a nuclear war um now we get to that point really so yeah and um david and andrew have been down to the comedy store we you know they'd liked what they saw with me and then we you know we'd become friends and um they asked me to be in um which was happy to do

33:36.08
Talal K
Commissar Solzhenitsyn.

33:38.42
alexei sayle
No relation, yeah. And then years later, we went on, eight years later, we went on to write, actually sell stuff together.

33:49.44
Talal K
Wow, the seedlings of greatness. 7.3 out of 10 on IMDb. Where do you rank it, Lex?

33:59.63
alexei sayle
I don't know. I don't know.

34:04.57
Talal K
Surely you sounds like you prefer it to the comic strip.

34:08.12
alexei sayle
Dumpstreet movie?

34:09.98
Talal K
Yeah.

34:10.01
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah.

34:11.43
Talal K
What about boom, boom out goes the lights.

34:14.00
alexei sayle
You're not really comparing like with like, you know what mean?

34:18.46
Talal K
But where does it sit in your heart?

34:19.12
alexei sayle
They're different things.

34:20.38
Talal K
You know, you're not, not, not, don't be a critic here. Just your fondness for it.

34:24.54
alexei sayle
ah Well, ah a above but a above Boom Boom, I've got the lights.

34:29.19
Talal K
We really need to figure out the, uh, the science behind this so that you can just more easily rank these things out. We'll have a meeting. We're going to call a meeting about it, but for now, we're going to call it there. Okay.

34:42.71
alexei sayle
Mm-hmm.

34:43.26
Talal K
I'm putting Boom Boom Go, Whoops Apocalypse, 1982 TV series at the top of this chart. um And second place, boom, boom, out go the lights. Third place, transmogrification, repeater, comic strip, lost for words, and Walcott at the bottom. I wonder if anything will ever take over Walcott as bottom place.

35:05.37
Talal K
Save file, Alexi Sale and listeners at home, I wish you a very pleasant week. I wish you good health, Alexi. Hope you feel better.

35:13.17
alexei sayle
Thank you. all right. Bye-bye, everybody. Bye-bye.