Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Hey, Ricky, hi, quick one. I've been thinking about your your dream, your joke in your dream. And as we comedians say, I think it deserves more.

Well, a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah. No, I actually make it funny.

Yeah. Is it is it is. Sometimes it's funny for the wrong reasons and on the level. Well first of all it's funny that you told me, it's funny that you that I said I had the to that and I was underwhelmed. And it's like you've been through that once because the funniest thing of course is an eminent thinker waking their partner up and going off just dreamt a great joke. But it just that's funny already.

All right, listen, you had Monica laughing at the phrase eminent thinker. Yeah, well, right.

But so. So it's so it's good. This is what I want to talk about. So it sounds like a joke. It sounds like a child's joke, even the premise. What noise does a monster make right now? That's it. That's a simple you think it's going to be a pun. Some sort of plan was what noise? The mother. But it's better than that because there's even a play on there in your in your joke because we think it means a noise.

A monster consciously makes a roar or a grrr. But no, it's the it's the involuntary sound it makes because it's big and it's heavy and it can't help that noise. It doesn't want to make that noise. So that's funny. Already we even posed this as this monster making this noise. But it's just because he's big and heavy. Right.

So that's that's funny, right? Because of course. But and you and the other thing is you've learned that noise from cartoons and theater productions because a monster doesn't make that noise. You've learned not from cartoons and theater productions. OK, and here's what's the funny bit for me is that I think you think that's funny in your subconscious sort of dreamy state, because I think you invented that. I think you think you invented that noise. A monster mix, even though you've learned it from cartoons.

And that's why I think you think it's so funny, because I think subconsciously you think, well, that's a great play. That's a great play on what sound is. Oh, it's this one. And you think you invented that? I don't know. There's some there's something there that you were excited about, the cleverness of it. I don't know.

Maybe I'm very flattered that you've done an autopsy on my psychosis, but I would describe it to just the frank psychosis of the dream state, literally. That was one of the funniest things I had ever heard, of course.

And you can't help it because you just as we said last time, use your brain, just cut to the emotion of having thought of the funniest joke in the world without the workings out. You haven't gone through that process. You just got to. And Jane reminded me of one that she had thirty years ago. She woke up laughing and she said, I just dreamt I told the funniest joke and she was already out of it and knew it wasn't funny.

But her trying to tell me the funniest joke in the world because she knew how awful it was, really made me laugh as well. And the joke and again, it nearly works like the joke was in her dream. That was the funniest joke in the world. The joke was, if there's two things in a pot of ivy that both leaves now, that that really does almost work.

Yeah, it almost worked because much better than my joke is, it's almost a diss on the Ivy. That's all it's got. If you ask me why, if he's got it, he's got two things.

It's to some more Ivy. Oh dear.

So yeah, that's what I've been that's what I've been thinking about.

What can't you joke about? Because you go you go hard. I'm surprised. You know, occasionally I recall how edgy you are in certain context. I mean, like your Golden Globes stuff is just just murder. You're murdering people in the room and. Yeah, but have you course corrected in recent years? One of the things that you did a few years ago?

I sense the things I have. I have a set of rules and and that's depending on the forum as well. I wouldn't do a kids party and talk about the things I talk about, like, you know, in fact, I feel uncomfortable, like if I'm doing something, I try and make it 16 and over so I can relax. I'm not I'm not corrupting the youth and I play by the rules of TV in the Golden Globes is a very good example.

If you think about it. That was network television, a peak time, five PM that went out across America. I didn't break any broadcast rules, so it couldn't have been that bad. How could you get away with Dame Judi Dench licking her?

I forget the right word, but there's a binge.

OK, that's a really interesting one. So what happens is I think usually I was told by the production team at the Golden Globes they'd like me doing it because I'm easy. I turn up with a scrap of paper with 20 jokes on it. And I said, usually presenters have like a team of 20 writers for like six weeks before and after that, they're worried about it and they keep changing it and things happen. And I turn up and go, I'm doing these things.

All right. But what you have to do is the day before it has to be lawyered. And what do you call it? We call it taste and decency. You call it something else. Standard and practices.

Yes, exactly. And what that usually means is that you can't do gross things that people might find offensive language libel. I don't want to libel anyone anyway. I think I think I can work around the language then if you can't. And there's probably something missing, although we talk about that as well. I want to I want to address the people, the site. Anyone can get a laugh, swearing. I want to go. All right. OK, if sell the tickets, go out.

Go out on when we and just where it's funny is my and usually it's I've done it when there's one person, one lawyer just looks down.

Yeah that's right. That's right. That's right. This time I don't know why, I don't know whether it was a reflection of the time had they had a dream team of lawyers.

Oh there was 17 people, 17 people in the room. But it was it was exact. Some of the writers want to come down just to see what I'd done will be, you know, you would scared the shit out of them from previous years.

Right. This is your third year running or something.

Yeah, for fifth year, it was the fifth year running over a ten year period. So I think some of them were so excited at the prospect because it usually always gets quite a reaction. And there were the people who write the other stuff, because there's a part for me, there's people who write all the other intros, if you know what I mean. So there was those guys there. That was the exact producers, producers and lots of lots of lawyers.

And I mean, there's about 15 people in the room and it's so tough crowd. So I did my monologue. I did exactly as it went out.

So you actually you perform for that room full of lawyers? Yeah.

I mean, I'm not I'm I'm not given everything, but yeah, I do it. I read the jokes as well as I can. So they get them that there's there's a there's a there's a mild performance. But that's the other thing about the Golden Globes. Unlike my standup and obviously the narrative stuff I do, it's much more about the guy and they have to work. I haven't got time to work in over six weeks that I can't it's it's more like a piece of poetry.

It's more like, you know, a formula. It's got to be fast and I'll be set up punchline laugh. Otherwise, it's it's too it's too nebulous. It won't get the laughs that you do when, when you've got a workout routine. So you want 20 zingers. And even then I still try and do a little bit of it. Now if I still try and you know how I get my jokes for that. Oh I've done two about him.

That's not fair. Or that looks like I've got something against that person because I have three jokes about someone. You go, what's the best one? So you try and keep it fair. I try and make it about the people in the room and that's when I try and make it like it couldn't be in any other place, any other time in any other room. I try and do the classic court jester of of punching up. I have a go against the broadcast of the Hollywood Foreign Press and the richest, most powerful people in in the room.

I mean, the place where you really just eviscerated the whole room. And one person in particular was the the the when you went after Tim Cook and Apple for running sweatshops and, you know, they obviously cut the Tim Cook just sitting there at a banquet table. And then you pivoted to telling everyone in the room that they had known they were in no way entitled to be sanctimonious, because if ISIS created a streaming service, well, they would call their agent immediately.

I did that on purpose because that was the sort of theme of the year. I thought it was quite Zygi state that it felt right that people had had enough of Hollywood and, you know, and and being lectured to and I even think I think we've talked about this before, that I even think Trump getting in was was almost a protest vote against that authoritarian liberalism for the last ten years. So I sort of addressed that without again, without taking a side.

I don't think I took a side.

But for instance, your your slamming Tim Cook, there was was that actually a lawyered line? They knew you were going to do that.

Yeah, but don't forget, I, I, I don't think I mentioned his name. I don't think I knew he was going to be there and I certainly didn't know I was going to cut to him. So they made it. Oh, I don't know who they're going to cut to. I don't know. I don't I don't plan that. But no, the joke was real. Yeah. So the I thought the funny joke was, this is a lovely program.

And you know what? I don't even know that that's true. I don't know that it is up itself or pretentious or anything. I've heard great things about it. The joke being that I decided to try and put in a list to make my case, to make the joke funnier. And of course, I went off to the biggest corporations. I've got nothing against those corporations. I did check the facts and the lawyer said, yeah, that's fine.

They they quickly they quickly Google it and say if we got a case, it but there's no malice. I haven't I haven't really got anything against anyone in the room, you know. I mean, it's all for the joke. If the joke was better the other way round, I would have done it the other way round.

You know, this this, this, this myth that every joke is a window to the comedians. True. So I'll change that. I'll flip it. I'll pretend to be left wing. Right wing. No. When I'll pretend to be anything to make that joke, I'll just I'll decide. I'll I through I should take the other side.

No, because it was a joke but I do think you were landing a deadly earnest blow against at least Apple there. I mean that you because we were aware that they, you know, they're they're outsourcing the production of iPhones to Foxconn. And you've got you literally have people jumping to their deaths from the rooftops of those factories because their lives are so intolerable. I mean, that that story had been in the news. And I mean, you could read a more recent vein, make the point that Apple is evading taxes by basically running its.

Trillion dollar business through a post office box in Ireland, right? It's just it's incredible, right? But I'm sort of saying to people, I'm not your man. If you think that I'm if I'm if you think I'm shy. Guevarra of the of the capitalist modern world, you're wrong. They would they were jokes and my private life might happen to align with the jokes. And of course, you want to be on the right side unless unless you're saying the wrong thing for a funny reason.

You know, as I say, a lot of my standup, I play the right wing bigot for comic effect. You know, irony is a lovely is a lovely tool to deliver the right message. That sounds like the wrong message. So you have to really look at look at the joke and look deep. And but in general, I'm not I'm not this social justice warrior for either side is how good is that joke? And of course, the more truth there is to it, the more awkward it is.

Or, you know, it wouldn't be fair if it wasn't true. If if none of that was true, it would just wouldn't be fair. I mean, I put jokes out. I've looked into it. Oh, it's not true. It's an urban myth. He didn't do that or that. So I don't do it because I don't I don't want to I don't want to add to the to to the myth and legend when it's bad or give someone a bad day.

And even if it's a joke that there's there's a certain power, particularly on that stage, and people make their own minds up sometimes. And what you're trying to do. But I read the jokes out and everyone was laughing. Great, great. And the head lawyer went after just one thing you said when you say so, this is the joke they they picked up on. I start off with we got to see James Corden as a fat pussy.

It was also in the movie Cats, but no one saw them. And the reviews I saw one that said this is the worst thing to happen to cats and dogs. Dame Judi Dench defended the movie, saying it was the role she was born to play because she likes nothing better than plunging herself down on the carpet, lifting her leg and licking her own mange. So first thing he says is that when you say pussy there, you mean because he was in cats yet?

But I thought this is easy.

This is OK. Right. This is more of a big question. Right.

And then I said to. Is Minggao OK? Oh, yeah, it's a it's a funny euphemism, it's an English word. I said they won't even know what it means. I don't think Americans even use it. And then someone looked up and said, oh, it says vulgar term for vagina. I went, well, of course, it's a vulgar term for vagina.

If you're not if you're not a doctor and you're it because it's a vulgar term, if you want to die, it's going to be about everything that vulgar term for.

Yeah.

And they were worried just because they looked up and it was like, you know, the definition vulgar. Right. Like I said, well, what can I say for vagina and the lawyer when you could say vagina, I went, I'm not going to sign the there's so much worse that I'm actually now, you know, it's got to be some sort of funny twist to it.

And sending this is just a funny word, too. Yeah. I mean, just a funny word. It's a it's a it is a euphemism is like saying I didn't say know, I thought it would be safe because Americans would guess what I meant, but they wouldn't be offended by it because they just learned that word. If I make up a word for vagina, it's not offensive if I suddenly go to a club. Right. And you know, that means you're not offended by it because you don't use it.

So I went, oh, what can I can I use? And it was ten bucks. I was going to look in the same box.

The lawyers are pitching you.

Everyone was chipping in. I'm not going to say that. And so I said, what about Flange? We say that as well. And I like that word minge and flange. I like those angry words because they're nice and funny and soft. And I've used them in my flammables for kids. I say plunging, you know, munged Fadela is the funny thing is a funny syllable. So I went, yeah, that's fine. And then someone looked it up, one of the six went, oh, it means it's a slang term for something in a sink hair so that a confusion went right.

OK, and so we went through it. Right. And we're going through all the things.

So I'm not going to say that that's worse. I'm not going to say that that's where all this stuff I was once said quem I went, I'm not saying quem that's really horrible. I don't actually even know that word.

I've never heard quim. Yeah, I think it's old. I think it's an old Anglo-Saxon word maybe. But anyway, it's a no, it's our worst connotations, it's like a real bro word, you know, it's horrible. So I wanted a playful, silly word for it. The important thing was I was talking about being a cop and what cats do. It's you know, we will get inside track.

Right.

And so I convinced them that I said, you will not get one complaint for the word change. Why would you get it? But they'd have to. They know what I mean, like in their own Menge. But they won't know exactly. They won't complain. And they went, OK, OK, sign Minge. And I went, but you won't bleep it, will you? Because I thought if you bleep it, that's over the joke. People go, what was that?

I went, no, we won't believe it, so we went with Menge, they did bleep anyway, they did and they did put it online and it was unbleached, right? No, they bleeped it right. But I knew they would. So I pointed. So I thought I still won.

Wow. This is quite a game of chess. I didn't realize that you had that going on just to A.M..

I often have to talk people down. All my career, I've talked people down to when they're worried about someone, they go over. And what they're worried about is writing a letter and one, two. And very often. Would you explain to them what the joke is? Because, again, everyone's human and you know exactly how different they they sometimes mistake the subject of a joke with the actual target. And they're nervous because their jobs on the line, they don't want to compliance.

They don't want to get I've never had a complaint upheld in my whole career.

What about what about personally, with respect to the people you went, do you know?

I don't want to I don't want to know. But I I'm pretty sure I give her the benefit of the doubt that she'd have a sense of humor. What, what, what, what, what if I said that's so horrible. The joke is she acted like a cat.

If you know and and cats make their own bits, it's as simple as that. That's what's funny, that you leave those bits out of art. You know, it's it's quite a funny trope. I'm sure every cartoon, every adult cartoon is showing a cat or a dog, a show doing something that cats and dogs do, unlike, you know, children's cartoons. So it was no big deal for me. But, yeah, I've often to talk people down and explain to them why it's OK.

I've said I've offered I've offered to write the letter and sometimes I just want someone to take charge and tell them why it's OK if memory serves.

I think they they cut to Tom Hanks looking shocked on your punch line there.

Yeah, that became a big mean the that people thought that he was disgusted enough himself. I'm not sure. I just thought he thought cool, didn't expect that. And it did a nice face when the camera came to him. Oh, that was a bit that was a bit warm for these nice. Well I don't think he was being particularly damning of me or. I don't know. I've no idea. And you see the light. I can't remember what he actually did it too.

I think. I can't remember what you did it.

I think it was it was on it was on your delivery of minge.

Go go right. Go right ahead.

And somebody in the control I get Hanks has got something in his mouth is a good work.

When I got I remember after I got home and James said, oh you should've said klunk. I thought I should have said Clun just perfect grunge because that system is English. Again, that probably looked it up and it would have said vulgar term to bits and pieces. But I think it's non-specific language as well. I think it's men and women. It's just stuff you shove into your pants, whether you're a master.

Yeah, these are these are esoteric terms. I don't know how philes you you have your deep in the euphemism game over there. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm pretty good euphemisms because they are a fine tool to get round things and but the best thing is make them up, make a word out. Yeah. It's just, it's just as good if you, if you really don't want to get a complaint that the English are great euphemisms because and innuendo. I mean we've got a whole strand of British comedy based on innuendo and that can be anything from bad puns to that. We there's a spate of films in the sort of sixties and seventies called carry on films where it was all that, it was all matron and someone would come in and see the building.

What's the unsightly erection? You know, it's that sort of that sort of body. And then there would be things like a doll wood shop and beauty, which was the. Yeah. So we and we have a thing called pantomime, which I don't think you have, which is an old Cinderella or something, but done with modern jokes, with modern sort of stars and actors. And it's all it's all in jokes and puns for the parents that the kids don't get.

So a vaudeville sort of on two levels, naughty, naughty innuendos that on the face of it. So.

Yeah, yeah. Right. So back to the question which you've neatly evaded. Is there anything that you won't do now? It's for instance you you went after. Caitlyn Jenner hard few years ago, what did I, though, did after did they know that's the thing? Because obviously the the thing that was picked up out of that was the possible transphobia. But again, I addressed that in humanity. Now, my point is that I don't go out there and say I'm allowed to be transphobia.

I deny I am transphobia because I'm not trans phobic, just like I'm not racist when I joke about race. It's like I'm not I'm not pro cancer when I joke about cancer. See, this is the thing. People get that they see people in the audience. They see a joke like always joking about famine is joking about cancer is joke about, oh, that's my thing.

You know, again, humanity. I did a I did a thing on Jimmy Fallon, a joke as I was on a flight and the announcement came over. Someone is fatally allergic to nuts. So we're not handing out any nuts on this flight. And I go about me being selfish and I go, I never wanted nuts more out that they are infringing on my human right to eat nuts. And I wish I bought my own nuts on the joke being that I'm so selfish that if I bought my own nuts on, I would eat them and this person would die.

And I go so and I spend the whole a whole day on that plane just because someone would die if I had nuts to avoid the. And again, what I do now before I fly is I rub myself down in nuts. Right. So the joke being the that mental attitude is that I can't have nuts, but I can still kill this person. So clearly a joke and it never happened. Obviously, none of that ever happened. And I did it on Jimmy Fallon.

And the next day on Twitter, I woke up to about 10 tweets, which will look at how dare you joke about food allergies. And I've got a note. And that is no laughing matter. It's disgusting. You know, many people and author ignore it. And then she starts acting in Jimmy Fallon on NBC. I ignore it. And then she said, you should never joke about food allergies.

So that that was really. Yeah.

So I said that I joke about cancer, AIDS, famine and the Holocaust. And you're telling me I shouldn't joke about food allergies. And she sent back. Yes, but the Holocaust didn't kill children.

So she's so concerned with how important her thing is, which is human. We're all like it. She can see the jokes. She can see the jokes about the Holocaust famine. I think she gets it. She gets the joke. She gets the irony.

But she can't see the wood for the trees because it means something to her. So her emotions overwhelm the critical aspect of this. Why, you know, if she had her own way, all those other jokes are OK, but not that one. And everyone's a bit like that. I've had it before. I had to I did a routine on early thing about Anne Frank. When I joke about as I've been watching a lot of Discovery Channel and the History Channel ask me anything about sharks and Nazis, and I say about how amazing are sharks or amazing Nazis, horrible sharks are amazing that I can they can sense blood one part in a million.

I do I do this thing much about a shark would have found and frank like that. But the Nazis so stupid, like every time they go, what's that noise? It's that topic. And I mine the typewriter. I wrote nothing. Rats move on. And and anyway, I do this routine that the Nazis can't find and find up, they're just typing away. And I got a letter from a Jewish society in America saying we enjoyed the show, we enjoyed the standard, we enjoyed everything.

So we were very disappointed about your jokes, about Anne Frank with the accent. But, you know, I was joking about famine and consonantal. Yeah. I went, well, I'm joking about that. I've got nothing on it. I think it's a terrible thing. And I explained to them, you know, I joke about the terrible things. It doesn't mean I condone them. I, I, you know, I'm the same person as you, I think.

And I went, oh, thank you for your explanation. And then, like, never worked out.

Yeah. It's amazing that that would actually have been information to them.

Exactly. But I get it. I get it. It's hard. It's hard to divorce yourself. And what people I've done on Twitter before, I I've I've said what should never be joked about, what should never be joked about, and people in nice, normal people sincerely answer. And of course, every answer is funny because they've imposed this, like one person said. Losing two children. Right, that's what you said in the bar at two rather than one.

Yes, I my friend was as he lost to it. This is very specific. Like you could deal with it. You know, it's mind blowing with the confidence that they cite.

Losing three children is funnier. I know. But also but I listed that between them, they listed every disease. And any specific disease is funny because they didn't list all the others. Why didn't they list all the right things?

So, no, there is no joke about there's a real irony here.

I guess irony captures the shape of it. Some of the same people say, like when I think about, let's say, hiring someone and having to worry about their history of tweets. Right. Is there something in this person's history that is going to blow back on on me or them and become a problem? Arguably? You know, I shouldn't think much about that. I don't tend to think much about that. But that is something that many people think about now.

Whereas you could hire someone who has been convicted of murder. Right. Served their time and you are now part of their redemption story. And the same people who would try to destroy you for having hired someone who's trailing some bad tweets would celebrate you for hiring someone who killed the family and has been brought back into some sphere of redemption and forgiven.

Well, that well, that's the thing, isn't it? That I think same as you. I'm I'm an atheist. But there's a couple of things I quite like in the Bible. And one is that he was without sin cast the first stone. I think people have forgotten that in a particular social media. I've never seen such vindictive people want any blood and wanting to destroy people because they're they're on the wrong side. And again, it's tit for tat.

People are doing it. Well, if you're doing that, I'm doing this. And I did a tweet a couple of years ago. It was a tweet about freedom of speech and it was a quote from Churchill.

And someone said, you know, he's a white supremacist. And I tweeted back, not in that tweet is not. Not to do with it has nothing to do, and it's not enough now that you can't if someone doesn't like you liking someone for some reason, then find it completely different reason why you shouldn't like them, because they're not on the right side. No one looks at an argument anymore. They look at who's saying it. And if they're on the wrong side, they're discredited.

There's no nuance. You know, like I did a tweet, I'm a typical old fashioned lefty socialist, you know, anti racist and sexist and homophobic kind of guy. But if I tweet about freedom of speech, I'm suddenly all right. And it's true because it's odd that that's become a right wing thing, because some people think the because free speech could allow you to say awful things, that the concept of speech is the wrong thing. That's what's weird.

And you need the only way you fight a horrible, hateful speech is nice speech proving that hateful speech wrong that if you curb free speech, it's a fun it's an absolute fundamental right that all other rights rely on.

And it seems odd to me that people are willing to make exceptions and they come up with strange, nebulous terms like, yeah, not hate speech. I want to know what what, what, what speech. Well, it turns out that hate speech is something that anyone doesn't like that doesn't want to be they don't want to hear it. Right. Except there are people. So, for instance and I have gotten some pushback for my position here, but I don't know how closely you followed the the platform of certain people.

Like, obviously, Donald Trump is the big one. But before him, Alex Jones, you know, I was certainly in favor of kicking Alex Jones off Twitter and everywhere else he got kicked off of because of what he was doing. I mean, the fact that I mean, to be manufacturing lies about parents who have just had their kids murdered are.

Hold on. Wait a minute, though. Now now we're getting into it now because there were loads of caveats to free speech already. There were loads. And I agree with them. All right. I think I agree with every single one of them, as I said, from libel to slander to to food additives, even to watershed and private places, because I agree with them all. But one the one I don't agree with is someone's right to not hear something they don't like.

That's what we can't do. I say that joke is unpleasant. Well, it might be, but, you know, it's nothing you shouldn't pay in the jungle. You should put on their boots. You know, you can walk away. You can turn out the best form of censorship is your right not to listen. And people get confused what freedom of speech is. They think it's freedom of speech is their right to be heard and understood and taken seriously is none of that.

You know, it's it's a very delicate thing, but it is written. There are rules. And all you have to do is look them up.

And then, you know, we have different rules, too. I mean, you are governed by things are far more restrictive in the UK. And whenever I hear about these specific cases of people being brought to the attention of the police for having said something that was offensive to public morals or whatever, however it gets raised over there, it sounds frankly insane to me.

Well, I mean, that's the problem with the Internet, isn't it, that it's global, but rules are local. But, you know, it's been going people muddy the water. You know, there's there's one side that thinks some people want free speech so they can go round saying awful things all the time. Well, that's not true. And even if it was, let's look at that. And then the other side, they do want to say awful things all the time to annoy the other side.

So is this horrible, you know, vicious circle? And but that's why we're not in charge. That's why that's why we can't decide whether someone has the death penalty or not. It goes to a court of law. Otherwise, we do things. You know, if one of our friends is murdered and they ask us on the street, what should we do with them, kill him. But that law takes that out of it, takes out this this seeing through anger and all those things.

But the de platforming taking Donald Trump, I'm still torn about that because I'm the same as you. I'm no fan of Donald Trump. Never have been. And but Twitter saying he's breaking our rules is one thing. But then I think the delicate thing about that is, is don't they become a publisher as opposed? Platform. So aren't they then responsible for everyone? Can I can I now sue people for saying something horrible to me on Twitter? Can I sue Twitter?

It's very complicated. I think it's their edge cases, certainly, where it's first of all, Twitter has for this whole time been de platforming people for ridiculous things. So by that standard, Donald Trump should have been de platformed years ago. I mean, he really threatened nuclear war on Twitter.

Every single case you could go down a rabbit hole and argue about it forever. And that's what that's what why we have to have principle. And I think people are confused by principle, I think is a genuinely confusing thing. I know. I get it. I always get it. I get it. When someone backs down because they lose their livelihood or their friends or their career or their family, you know, its integrity can cost. That's why it's a valuable sort of asset, because integrity can cost people everything.

And, you know, I get it. I get it. Why people are scared to say the wrong thing because they can lose a job. And it's easy to say, well, they shouldn't. But then then someone to say, what about this guy? And you go, wow, that's different. That's a different principle. People, as I say, people are confused with principle because they have a million examples and all those examples are wrong.

But on the face of it, they look the same. Someone got fired. Why? Well, people don't accept there's a sliding scale of morality. I think that's the problem. There's this weird sort of binary so that if anyone has done something wrong and you don't like them, they're Hitler. It's it's as simple as that. You know what it was that got in trouble? Someone got in trouble for that. The actress who got fired from Disney for saying conservatives like Gina Carano, sensible praise from the Mandalorian.

She said something like, conservatives are now like the Jews under Hitler or something like that to the Jews during in the run up to the Holocaust. I actually don't like obviously, I don't support that comparison, but this idea that you can never make a comparison to Nazis or Hitler or the Holocaust.

No, this was weird because the people on the other side were saying Trump is like Hitler.

So surely that, you know, and this is a fucking stupid thing to say also about embarrassing, ridiculous exaggeration.

But that's what metaphore is. That's what analogy is. That's what in poetry people say, you know, I would die for you. And, you know, they do. If you start taking everything literally, there is no poetry anymore or metaphor or exaggeration.

Exaggeration. Comedy is exaggeration. Comedy is exaggeration. So it's very difficult. And sometimes it comes down. The people aren't smart, you know, but I think sometimes there's malice. I think people sometimes get it, but they don't care. They won't defend someone they don't like on principle because they just want to see them go down.

Yeah, this is all too common. Yet the primary season I've been seeing now for four years is that the people who don't like you have added a rule to the rule book that they deem ethical. And it's obviously unethical if they can figure out the worst possible construal of the thing you said, even when it's obviously not the intended meaning, they will seek to hold you to that and defame you on the basis of that. So, for instance, you know, in this case, Gina Carano is being reacted to like she's completely disregarding the horror of the Holocaust and thinks that what's happening to conservatives in Hollywood right now is exactly as bad as, yeah.

Rounding people up and putting them in the gas chambers. Now, obviously, I mean, in our defense, it was just lazy and idiotic, but no one actually believes she believes that. Right. I know.

But if stupid was a crime, we'd all be in jail. Yeah, but yeah. And I understand there's degrees of damage and sometimes all people want to you know, it's different with an individual shout out of a window. And when people think that they're given a platform, if she was a present and she was saying that on the BBC News, I think there'd be much more of a case saying why, why? Why is that? Of course.

Yeah, yeah. This is something I really do think I'm uncomfortable talking about these issues.

I'm uncomfortable talking about freedom of speech now. I'm uncomfortable because it seems so unjust that if you defend it, you're labelled right wing. And I can say just point. Whether someone's left or right wing doesn't win the argument, but you know what it does to them somewhat, someone who thinks it is fundamentally wrong and let's not forget the people on all sides think they're right. They actually think they're right. They've convinced themselves that everything on this side is right and everything on that side is wrong or they've gone and done.

Everything on this side is right. But if we can take down one of their generals, we win the war. You know, some of it is tactical. It is tactical. And I don't want to be caught up in it. I don't want to, you know, be fired or hired or for something I said that I didn't mean. But as you say, it doesn't matter how clear you are, they take it out of context and they decide your motives.

But the most frightening one is easily in 10 years time, this conversation could get us both fired.

Well, I hope to have a good laugh when that happens. I'll see you in two weeks now. I mean, dinner. Tea means dinner. Wow. I think it's a working class thing.

I used to say breakfast, lunch and t t was like six o'clock. But I think people say breakfast, lunch and dinner. I it's funny. It's as I get older, so I'll be in bed often we watch some like European dramas and I saying things like we'll see you at dinner tonight. Yes. I'll pick you up at ten. I want to fuck off for you.

I'll be in bed then pick you up pretty late. Oh then. But I'll see you later.