This is an advert for now, TV, Sky Cinema, Press and Entertainment Pass Cinema Past lets you see the best movies, entertainment pass. Let us see the best TV I adore. No TV. It's my favorite streaming service. It's the one I use the most. Usually I'm more of an entertainment pass person watching box sets. But this month I've been I've been having a go at the cinema past and I found myself watching films more and more. One film that's on TV right now that I strongly recommend is it's called A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

Right. And fastly it's got Tom Hanks. You can't go wrong with Tom Hanks, who's got a problem with Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks just delivers the goods. Tom Hanks is like custard, custard, well-made custard. He'll talk shit about custard genuinely, you know what I mean?

It's custard. It's sweet, it's vanilla. It's viscose. You can you can eat custard when you're sick. I like watching Tom Hanks when I'm sick, actually. Yeah, so Tom Hanks is costed. No one's talking shit about cost, but it's costed. So that's Tom Hanks and he does a lovely job of being the custard in a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Beautiful day in the neighborhood as.

It's about there's an American children's TV entertainer who's a legend in America, but we don't really know about him like in Ireland or over in the UK.

This is Mr. Rogers and a very, very interesting person, someone I might do a podcast on at some point. Incredibly interesting person. Mr. Rogers wasn't just an American TV presenter, children's TV presenter. He was a children's TV presenter who pioneered children's television and not just as entertainment, but looking at using TV through educational psychology, using TV, TV as a unique way to communicate to children how they can better understand their emotions. And Mr. Rogers is a legend, but we don't know about him here.

But a beautiful day in the neighborhood is like a biography of Mr. Rogers with Mr. Rogers played by Tom Hanks, which is perfect casting.

But it's not just a straight up biography. It's I won't spoil anything, but it's one of the most creative biopics I've ever seen.

So I strongly recommend that you can get it on no TV. A beautiful day in the neighborhood. You can't go wrong. It's like me saying to. Do you want some custard? Yeah, course I want custard. You mad? Of course I want custard. Go on, go and watch some cost of Robin into your eyes. A beautiful day in the neighborhood. Get it on now TV. Get your seven day, seven day free trial to search for no TV.

All right. There that film there is the Sky Cinema Pass and then if you want class TV shows, that's the entertainment pass. Bronzy rock stars, you cross legged Townsends, welcome to The Blind Bye podcast. What's the krakatit let's if you're a brand new listener, go back to an earlier episode? That's what I would suggest if you're a brand new listener or get new listeners every fucking week, and if you're an old listener, a normal listener, what's the crack?

This week, what I'm going to do because I haven't done it in a while, I'm going to answer some of your questions. I like to do a question answering podcast every so often so that I can see what I can fucking listen to, so that I can listen to and listen to what you want me to talk about or listen to your questions and respond to them traditionally with any question answering podcast. I promise that I'm going I'm going to answer a lot of questions.

And what happens is they only answer maybe to this time I'm really going to try to answer multiple questions. If question answering podcasts or VIPR, then I would suggest looking for an earlier podcast to listen to because we're almost up to 200 podcasts now at this point. And I highly doubt you've heard every one of them, if you're one of these people, if you're a dreary teen, if you're a forever Declan and you have actually listened to every single podcast up to this point, then fair for completely, fair for completely.

But for the majority, I doubt it. I doubt it. So if listening to me answering your questions is not the vibe you're after this week, go listen to an audio podcast and get your heartaches. So before I answer questions, I've had a I've had a complex week. Is a complex week the correct terminology? So I'll tell you, the week I had. It's. Worse, I won't say it, we're not. I can't say the word celebratin, I can say the words that are written because it's not accurate.

Roughly 100 years ago. 26 counties of Ireland achieved independence, the Republic of Ireland, which is 26 counties of Ireland. It's called a country called the Republic of Ireland. We achieved independence from Britain from 800 years of British rule. The six counties in the north of Ireland have yet to achieve independence from Britain. But where I live in Limerick, we are part of the Independent Republic of Ireland. And that republic was achieved by a fucking war of independence, a war against the British.

And that's why we are a republic down south. And this is a fact. And it's 100 years ago. So this weekend, the 28th November. Was the 100 year anniversary of the Kilmichael ambush, basically 100 years ago in a place called Kilmichael in West Cork, the Irish Republican Army, the IRA ambushed two large loads of auxiliaries. Auxiliaries were the Royal Irish Constabulary. It was known as Busse. Ireland was part of Britain. They were British officers.

They were British officer soldiers. IRA ambushed them, shot 17 of them dead one hundred years ago. It was a hugely important ambush. It was considered a turning point in the Irish war of independence. It's considered probably the most the most important ambush of the Irish war of independence, definitely considered. And it was one hundred years ago at the weekend. And like I said, there were I think it was like 40 members of the IRA, three of which were my relatives, my fucking grandfather and my two grand uncles did that, so.

I chose to remember this online on Twitter and on Instagram, and what I did is I shared where the chemical ambush happened. There's a particularly there's a striking stone that's there, and the reason it's striking, it was says Command Post Westcourt Brigade flying column Iara. And on this road to date, 17 terrorist officers of the British forces on 26 November are 28 November 1920. So I shared that now for British people. Listen, and you're going to have to bear with me, all right?

Because there's a lot of stuff about Irish history that you simply were not given access to in school. So you're going to have to bear with me, because I understand when you hear the word IRA, what that brings up. And it probably is incredibly jarring for you to hate to see that there's a memorial which refers to the British forces as terrorists. Now, why am I share in that I'm sharing it because it it it needs to be remembered and commemorated like what feelings come up in me when I think of my granddad, my grand uncles being involved in the Kilmichael fuckin ambush and being in the IRA.

Is it like is it swelling me with this fuckin nationalist pride? Not necessarily. Mainly what I I'm I'm remembering I'm trying to remember. It's a sadness. It's. It's sad, it's sad, like here's the here's the thing, my granddad was 19, my grand uncle was a bit older, he was about 25. I think my older brother, uncle was even younger.

Staley was like fucking 16 and like they weren't. So here's first of all, the British soldiers that were shot, the auxiliaries that was 17 hardened World War One, Veterans Day. And there were officers that were very, very posh. These were military men. They had been to military academy, that they were part of the British army as such in Ireland as as mercenaries. But the thing is, with what my my granddad was 19. They weren't they weren't in the IRA because of necessarily ideological reasons.

They were fighting and terrorism. I literally they were fighting the fucking Nazis. That's how I look back at it. They fought the Nazis and the Nazis in West Cork in 1920 where the Black and Tans and the auxiliaries, because that's how they behaved, they behaved as if they were the SS. And my granddad, who was 19, was in that ambush as as a matter of fucking survival, because in West Cark at that time, literally the local law and you can look it up, the local law, was that any young man who had his hands in his pockets could be shot dead on site.

That's for real. And one week previously to the Kilmichael ambush, where seventeen British auxiliaries were shot dead one week previously. In Dublin, in an event known as Bloody Sunday, the first Bloody Sunday black intense over British forces, they. They went into a football match in Dublin, there was a Gaelic football match, a fucking football match, let's they went into a football match, British soldiers, about 60 of them, and they opened fire on the crowd and they shot 80 people, including children, and they killed 14.

So if you're a British person listening, this is the conduct of the British forces in Ireland at that time, terrorism, straight up folk and terrorism. Winston Churchill sent the black and tan to Ireland. To be terrorists and to wear the British army and do it all with the fucking medals and all that shit, but terrorism and you don't hear about that back in Britain, and when soldiers in uniform go into a stadium full of spectators watching a football match and just shoot it up with guns, shooting 80 people and killing 14, that's terrorism.

They're terrorists. No, they're nice. All the pomposity of medals and uniforms and ranks that bullshit. You know, fucking whatever happened over in World War Two or the Somme, once you start doing that, you've become terrorists. Now, you're not soldiers anymore. So they Kilmichael Ambush, which was a week later, would have been a response to that. It's like, OK, you're going to go in and shoot up a fucking faux pas match for the civilians.

Then we're going to we're going to attack your elite forces. And that's what the Kilmichael ambush was. And I remember it with sadness. Because it's like I said, my granddad didn't really he didn't go I want to be a fucking soldier, I want to be in the IRA normal grand uncles. They didn't like want to be military people. It wasn't a career. It was an act of defense. Do you know what I'm saying? So I remember that what a sadness, but what kind of fucking annoyed me is just I had to feel a sense of shame about remembrance Ireland, that the Irish political parties in Ireland weren't remembering the chemical ambush because it was too politically sensitive for them, because the two ruling parties in Ireland at the moment finish Gael and Fianna Fail are involved with a.

A campaign against Sinn Fein, where the main weapon that Fianna Fail and Phenergan will use is to continue to continually say to people or Sinn Fein, IRA, Sinn Fein, IRA to turn people off Sinn Fein. So now you've got Finagle and Fianna Fail who can't barely can barely acknowledge our war of independence because that means they can't smear Sinn Fein in 2020. But also as well, what made me really fucking annoyed and angry last week when I mentioned there about in 1920, British fucking soldiers, the black intense rates, shot up a crowd full of people, a crowd full of innocent people just as terrorism in the name of the British crown, funded by the taxpayer terrorism rights.

Artie Shocklee, a radical like he did an obligatory Facebook post where he's in Croke Park, what happened, remembering on, you know, 100 years previously. But any time I saw. Remembrance of Bloody Sunday, as it's known when the British forces shot those civilians. Irish people felt the necessity to mention why the British forces had opened fire on a crowd of people, the reason that happened is they were retaliating because earlier that day the IRA executed, I think it was 12.

I don't know the exact number, I think not 16, I think earlier that day, the IRA executed 16 British spies. So, again, these are British, the equivalent of MI5 military people. There's a war going on. So these are military targets. The IRA under Michael Collins executed these British spies. And then the British response is to kill civilians. We shouldn't have to say that. When, how, when? I imagine a massacre in World War Two that was committed by the SS, I imagine the SS committed a massacre.

When do you ever hear anyone say the SS committed this massacre as a response to you? Just go, no, no, no. The SS committed war crimes. You don't offer an explanation as to why the SS committed a war crime on a massacre. You just simply don't. It's absurd. So why are we doing it for British soldiers? Why why are we still a hundred years later embarrassed? Because that's what it is. Embarrassed. Of offending the British, offending the British by pointing out that your forces engaged in several acts of terrorism in Ireland under the banner of the fucking British army.

Why? Why is that controversial? Why me saying this, are me expressing it online, is this then framed as me being anti British army, the equivalent of me saying Aptera, why is that the case? Why do we have to explain why the British would shoot up a crowd of people to justify it, as if shooting up a crowd of innocent people is an appropriate response to military targets being executed? And then why? When I post that 100 years ago, my grandfather and two grand uncles shot 17 British officers and the memorial says 17 British terrorists, officers of the British forces were shot here.

Why do I then have to feel like I have to fucking apologize for what the fuck is that if we can't turn around and call? We said the actions of the Black and Tans, John Bloody Sunday, the first Bloody Sunday and the second Bloody Sunday in the 70s. If we can't call that terrorism, if we can't say to the British, to their faces, that was terrorism funded by the taxpayer done in the name of the crown, if we can't do that and we still feel ashamed to say it, then our minds are still colonized, our minds are still fucking colonized.

And that shouldn't be a controversial thing to say. And I'm able to say that will absolutely have no animosity towards English people, British people. I'm someone who's still compassionate. I'm someone who likes peaceful solutions to things. When I think back to my granddad 100 years ago, it's not pride that I feel for him being involved in an ambush. It's a sadness. I feel for him being dragged into defending himself and being in a position where him and him and his friends were taken fucking lives for him and his friends were traumatized for the rest of their lives for having to take lives to defend themselves in their communities.

I mean, that's the difference here. I mean, they're not in a culture. They're not in a military culture. The auxiliaries who are of the officer class like military with all its its ranks and morale, its training and morale, its badges and what all its law and culture that's around us, that's a culture of desensitise and that's a culture of normalising violence. That's that's a full ideology. That's not the same as a lot of lads who a year ago were working on a farm who now are in a position where they must defend themselves because the blackened hands are because they can be shot for having their hands in their fucking pockets and they're watching their neighbours getting shot.

So when I shared that online, when I'm like one hundred years ago, my granddad was involved in this, I had Irish people, Irish people commenting at me going, ah, we have to get over it all. We shouldn't mention things like this. But then over in Britain, everyone's wearing a fucking poppy, you know what I mean? It's it's just. If you're if you don't want to celebrate any war, that's absolutely fine, but what gets my goat is how one why is.

Remembering the sadness and effort and sacrifice of something like World War Two with poppies, why is that a noble thing that celebrated a normalized but Irish people remember normal Irish people fighting the terrorist occupation of the British in Ireland. Why is that still stigmatized 100 years later? And why do Irish people feel ashamed of doing it? You can it's you can remember, as I choose to remember, the sadness of it. I'm not someone who's into violence. I'm not remembering or commemorating the violence of it.

I'm recognising that the violence happened and I'm choosing to remember the sadness out of respect to my fucking poor granddad and poor gran uncles who found themselves having to be in the IRA and defend their communities. So I'm going to read, you know, a little an excerpt from one of my granddad's memoirs. I don't know what you call it in a memoir or something like my granddad would have written. And I read an excerpt for that. This would have been for the official military records after the war of independence.

Every every man who was in the IRA had to write an account of their activities while in the IRA. I say, man, because the reason they did it is that if you were in the IRA, you were entitled to a pension and women weren't entitled to this pension. So unfortunately, the only voices that got recorded were the voices of men. And a lot of the voices of women who were involved in the war of independence weren't recorded at all.

So we have this mistaken belief that women weren't involved. They were. I to grant my grant was I don't know, was she in the IRA? But she was heavily involved in smuggling weapons and smuggling dispatches. But her record, she didn't get to race in the military records because she wasn't entitled to a pension because of her gender. So anyway, I read you this and I'm reading it to contextualize what life would have been like in West Cork at the time for just a regular Irish person to contextualised the environment that my granddad was in, which meant he basically he either had to join the IRA or become a victim or see his family become victims.

So it was a week after Kilmichael ambush. And my granddad this time, he was he was 19. He would have he wouldn't have been living at home. Everyone in the flying column in Tom Barry's flying column, they had to sleep in ditches or sleep in different houses. They used to sleep. They used to go to the houses of Protestants and they'd basically go to the Protestant house with a gun and say, we're sleeping in here tonight because the Thames wouldn't search those houses.

You see, the whole area would have been surrounded by black and tans and auxiliaries, looking for IRA, looking for young men to shoot whether they were in the IRA or not. So this is a story Reiji, which is fucking harrowing. So my granddad had just. He'd he'd he'd met a neighbor of his who was a fellow by the name of Howard Zinn, who was 60, which would have been quite 60, would have been very old in 1920 in West Cork, where people were poor, 60 would have been considered quite old.

So my granddad had met this Howard fella by a field and was talking to him and then left. So as he left him, I'd pick it up from there. Now, Howard, and it's worth mentioning, Howard, and he wasn't in the IRA. He was just a goat farmer. He had a big family, just an old man, an innocent old man. So my granddad says, then what's the crack? How are you getting on?

Talk to you later. So I that the bit from my my granddad's report of what happened. And I left him and crossed the boundary friends into our own land. And I was moving along. I came out of a valley into an open field carrying the revolver from which I had no ammunition in my hand. So my granddad had a revolver that he'd taken from the chemical ambush he'd taken off. And Auxillary I'd not gone far into the open field when I saw and Auxillary with a rifle in his hand on top of a rock at the back of my house about 30 yards away, I was now in the position that I felt I had been seen.

So I immediately dropped the gun and continued to walk toward the auxillary. As I moved along, I lost sight of him and when I came close to an intervening rock in the field, I then ate the despatch which I had in my pocket, and I sat down beside an old forest bush on the side of the rock. So my granddad had a note in his pocket, too, which was obviously from Tom Barry or someone in the état, so that if the Brits caught him, they wouldn't find a note on him.

So he's now hiding behind a rock and directly above him on the rock are two auxillary British soldiers and they don't know he's there hiding. OK, a few minutes later, I saw the shadow of the auxillary, which came right over me at about the same time I saw Paul Howard on the outlet he'd just been talking to whom I had been speaking to coming towards me, and I beckoned him away. So now my grandad's hiding. Behind this rock are beside the rock.

The auxillary is above the rock. Holahan is after seeing my granddad again and decides on, I go over and chat to him. Howen hasn't seen the bit. The British soldier. So my granddad is using his arms as best he can. Go and go the fuck away. Go away. There's British soldiers. Go away. How her hand turned, but had only gone five or six yards when the auxillary approached and searched him, how Ryan was then released and he crossed off our land and over the boundary fence in the lands of Mr.

Harry Wood as he was walking close to the boundary friends, I heard a rifle shot rang out and I saw him fall to the ground. I could clearly see him from the position I occupied after he'd been shot. I saw him trying to get on his feet, but he failed to do so a few minutes later to auxiliaries past quite close to me, not more than 30 yards. So. That's the story that my granddad wrote for the the military history bureau after Kilmichael ambush, he'd been talking to his innocent fuckin neighbor, a man in his 60s.

He hid behind behind a rock so the auxiliary auxiliaries wouldn't see him and they didn't and the two auxiliaries just shot, they went over and started holahan and then they shot him for no fucking reason. They said they saw a farmer and decided to murder him for crack. Terrorism, OK, this is an old goat farmer, they shot him in front of my granddad. Now, the version that I know because I've been told is true. My dad and I suppose my granddad didn't write it down into the official version of things because the official version had to be it couldn't be hearsay.

It had to be like the exact facts as it happened in a procedural fashion. My granddad heard the two British soldiers taking a bet. All right. He heard them. They searched hourihan and he had to fuckin British soldiers going. I bet you this, that I can get him. As he walked away, the two fucking British soldiers decided, I bet you a pound or a shilling or whatever the fuck it was, that I can hit him.

And they had the bet and they fired a shot and killed him stone dead. So that's what life meant for an Irish person in 1920s and fuck in West Cork that two British soldiers could take a fucking bat and pick you off and kill you stone dead, an innocent person. And this is a man with a family. And the saddest thing about that story from the version that was said to me is because I remember my dad was either asking my granddad, my grand uncle.

Like, were you scared? And the biggest fear we had is that his heart was when he was hiding behind that rock and the auxiliaries hadn't seen him, his heart was thumping so hard that he was afraid they would hear his heart. And when my dad asked him. We were afraid they'd kill you. He said he said, as far as we were all concerned, all of us in the flying column, we were already dead, that they considered themselves dead already.

Death was a certainty. You're going to die. What they were afraid of was the practice of torture. The auxiliaries in the black and tans. If they caught a young man who they suspected of being in the IRA, if they didn't shoot him on sight, what they would do was torture. And their favorite method of torture is they had Laris called crossly tender's. They would get a young man and they would tie him between Tuileries and then they would pull his body apart.

And that was the fear. It was torture, it wasn't death, I'm afraid they're going to rip my body in half with Laris because it happened to my friends. That's what the fucking British were up to. That was the normalized and encouraged conduct. Of these 17 auxiliaries that were shot dead at the chemical ambush. That we can't that we can't even mention we can't even mention it happened today, their conduct wouldn't be able to place in focus Schindler's List, US in speaking of films, get a look at the film.

If this stuff is sounding familiar, get a look at the film The Wind That Shakes the Barley by the brilliant British filmmaker Ken Loach. The Wind That Shakes the Barley with Kilian Murphy is. It's loosely based on the events of Tom Barry's Flying Kaleem in West Cork, of which my grandpa and grandma, because we're involved and it's loosely based on them around that time with stories from that era as a kind of a fictionalized version, but heavily based on what actually happened to and it portrays the chemical ambush also.

So that's what that's the world my granddad was living in when he decided to fucking be in the IRA and shoot 17 fuckin auxiliaries. All right. And that's why I feel sad over it. That's why I don't I don't I don't. Well, OP, it's not like I'm wearing a red poppy or I well, up with the bravery. It's like, no, no, no, no. That's the fuckin environment. And the law clearly stated to you can look it up the law in West Cork at the time, if if it if a man was seen to put his hands into his pockets, that was enough to suggest that he was a terrorist and he could be shot.

And to add insult to injury. I went looking up that I use a website called the Irish Newspaper Archives, fantastic fucking website where you can look up Irish newspaper archives going back 300 years. So I went digging and searching for a report of what my granddad said in his report of that man's death. Mr Howard and I found it, and it was just a small little piece in the paper on that date. And it just said at local local labor, I can't remember his first name, Mr Howard.

And it was described in the paper as a tragedy. And it's stated that the man was mistakenly shot by auxiliaries while running away, so my grandma saw him being shot dead hard. The British soldiers taking a fucking bet over who could kill him for crack. And then when the reporters came to the police station or whatever and said, what happened to Mr Howard and why? Why was an innocent man in his 60s with a large family shot dead? They just said he tried to run away.

He tried to run away and in far because of that, there's a war going on. We had to show them. So that's what my granddad was living under. That's what my granddad was living under when. He found himself involved in the fucking Kilmichael ambush. What else are you going to do? What the fuck else are you going to do? That's terrorism. That's the shit that the SS were getting up to. And I don't give a fuck who does it, anyone who deliberately targets a civilian population, anybody.

I don't give a fuck what is right, a British army IRA, you've whoever if you deliberately targeted civilian population, that's an act of terrorism. And I don't like being made to feel as if I'm anti fuckin British. By investigating my family history like that, I shouldn't I shouldn't have to feel anti British by saying my fucking grandfather and two grand uncles when they were in the IRA and they shot 17 auxiliaries. And if you if you are feeling that that that that's anti British and you are British, then why are you identifying your Britishness with tyranny?

You know what I mean? Even if you have relatives that are in the fucking British army and I get e-mails from people in the British army who listen to this podcast who say to me, no, no, I'm off doing humanitarian work. I'm doing this. I'm the one that's like. If it's me recounting a history of that type of terror and tyranny is anti British, then don't, then that means you're identifying that as British when you should be chastising it, distancing yourself from it in the way that I am, in the same way that I'm IMAP hard and distance myself from it.

Acts of terrorism committed on civilian and foreign civilians, supposedly on behalf of Ireland. And there's so much about British, so many elements of British history that you can be fucking proud of. And in the same way that Irish people are, that British people don't learn about Irish history. There's elements of British history that Irish people could benefit from learning from two in particular, things like Fokin and I'll do a podcast on this eventually. It's shit I need to learn about more.

But like working class revolutions in Britain, the fight for for workers rights, the history of strikes, fighting against against big capitalist, fuckin industrial revolutionary owners of of factories and fighting for the rights of workers so that you can have a certain hours in a day or decent pay or decent conditions. There's so much of this history in Britain, the fucking battle of cable streets, you know, in London fighting off the fascists, saying, fuck you to Oswald Mosley, identify with that shit, that shit to be proud of.

But you can be proud of that. Fuck the black intense. Fuck the SS. So, yeah, regarding the 100 years since the chemical ambush, I shouldn't have to feel anti British for that, you know what I mean? I view it in the context of defending yourself against terrorism, because that's the situation you've been put in. And I want to reflect on the deep sadness of all of that, the deep sadness of it. That's what I want to hold onto my heart.

Not necessarily a pride. Not necessarily. I mean, there is a. It's a very hard to hold down anger, it's hard to hold down anger, too, when you think about that, when when you think about what was done to people like you. But I think a more constructive, healthy emotion for me to meditate on there, is that just the sadness of it? That's really, really sad that a 19 year old had to see his neighbor getting shot dead, had to hear hardened soldiers do it for a bet, had to be put in the position where he's taking people's fucking lives, when all he wants to do really is milking cows, you know what I mean?

And I know there's a lot of British people to the Irish people. Listen, and most Irish people listen. And you're familiar with this shit. You know you know the story with this. And to people in the north of Ireland, this is not an I'm talking about my fucking grandfather, people in the north of Ireland, your parents have stories like this. There's people listening to this podcast in the north of Ireland who might be in their 40s, who have seen this stuff in their own communities.

And it's embarrassing for me, you know, speaking about Irish independence for the 26 counties and the privilege that I had to to grow up safely without British soldiers on my streets. That's embarrassing, knowing that those people from the north of Ireland listen. And, you know, you had fucking bloody Sunday was in the 70s. It's not I mean, this shit is is recent memory for people in the north of Ireland. I don't want to be seen to undermine the complexity and the sadness of that situation.

But to the British people listening to I don't even like saying the word fuckin British men because it's excluding Welsh people, Scottish people to turn to English, Scottish and Welsh people listening who feel uncomfortable that the person who is responsible for which they bring in those brutal troops to Ireland in the 1920s, in specifically the black and hence Winston Churchill ordered that Winston Winston Churchill and a radical Hamar Greenwood, who is the great great grandfather of Cara Delevingne, but like they designed this, this the black intends as mercenaries and their goal was specifically to go to Ireland and target civilians.

Go to Ireland. What uniforms as ground forces and murder, maim and kill civilians so that the Irish will turn against any idea of independence, make them afraid Winston Churchill did that. OK, you know what Winston Churchill did? Winston Churchill. Turned the British army on striking miners in Glasgow, in Liverpool and in Manchester. So. It's not an Irish English thing, it's it's a power structure thing, it's a class thing. The rich elites over in England didn't give too much of a fuck about poor people in Britain either.

And the wonderful trick that the British fucking empire has managed to play on the people of England is to convince the poor people of England that poor people in other countries that are colonized are their enemies and to send them over to be fucking cannon fodder. And you want to see the roots that look up the history of council housing in the UK. Council housing was introduced and accepted in I believe the year was 1916, not 1919, I think the first council houses were built in Britain by Neville Chamberlain.

The reason the council houses were decided to be a good thing was because the British military had done a big report on its performance in World War One. And a huge amount of British soldiers in World War One were what poor people, poor people from the slums of cities like Manchester or London. And the report had come to the conclusion that British soldiers in World War One were at a disadvantage because they came from slums that didn't have sanitation and they were malnourished.

So council houses were introduced in Britain so that better working class cannon fodder could be created for future fucking wars. Neville Chamberlain did that, so. Take that shit on board, and if what I'm speaking about this stuff, if it makes you feel deeply uncomfortable, I'm not speaking about Irish versus fuckin English. It's a power structure thing. It's a power structure thing. And Irish people, we shouldn't feel uncomfortable speaking about our fuckin history. I shouldn't feel uncomfortable speaking about my family history.

I shouldn't have to feel ashamed and embarrassed to tell these stories. And it's as simple as that. And all this has gone on. You know, I'm talking about something that happened 100 years ago this week and right now this week, if you've been looking at news. You know, British investigations, inquiries into the murder of a human rights lawyer called Pat Finucan, who was murdered in 1989. He was murdered by the the UDA, I think it was the loyalist paramilitaries.

And he was a human rights lawyer. Right. So he was he wasn't he wasn't involved in an organisation. He was a human rights lawyer who happened to defend he would defend IRA members. He also defended loyalist paramilitaries, but he was shot dead. And there's overwhelming evidence that his death was aided by British forces. And there's also evidence to suggest that it was overseen by Margaret Thatcher. And this week alone, they're trying to open a door, trying to look into an inquiry about it.

And it's been shut down. It's been silenced over in England. So that's what's happening now. And I'm talking about something 100 years ago at the same time. So it's very complex and it's very complex. But I don't think anyone should feel fucking ashamed speaking about history and just to kind of to round it up and take it back to the theme that this is supposed to be a question answering podcast. And I'm fucking 30 minutes in and I I've been answering my own questions, a question.

Any time I ask for questions for me, I always get blamed by what's your thoughts on a united Ireland? What's your thoughts on the United Ireland? Always. And to tie it in with this discussion. What I like to see a united Ireland, absolutely, I love the romantic idea of a united Ireland. I love the thought of that. I really do. Realistically, what would I like to see? What I'd like to see Rice, what's more important to me than a united Ireland, more important, I want whatever scenario.

Which guarantees and provides the safety for everybody in the north of Ireland, regardless, Fox sectarianism, every human being in the north of Ireland, whatever scenario, guarantees peace and safety. That's the better option for me, that's the one that I want peace and safety of human beings to live happy, meaningful fucking lives. That's the most important thing for me, regardless of United Ireland or whatever, to fuck peace and safety of every human being in the north of Ireland is the most important thing for me.

That's my opinion as a compassionate person who loves people. All right. So questions Padraig wants to know. Excelsior are Galahad. All right. That's a tough one. So Excelsior and Galahad, Excelsior is Lyall's cheap lager and Galahad is all these cheap lager. I'm going to go with Galahad.

If I had a choice between the two, I'm going with Galahad, but only if I don't have any option, I don't really like Galahad like seven years ago, seven, eight years ago, when when I was living on maybe between 30 and 50 euros a week, then I was going to I was going to Aldi and I was drinking Galahad cans because there were so fucking cheap. But even Galahad isn't that nice as a beer like it's what don't I like about Galahad?

It's quite sugary now. It's not a sugary as when you're renaldi of two choices. I'm not interested in Leidel beer. I'll be honest, Aldi is better. You've got a choice between Galahad or this other one called St Etienne, which I've heard is just Stella Artois in a different packaging. But both Galahad and St Etienne, they're both very unnecessarily sweet. So I wouldn't like either of them if I was on a budget and Aldy, I'd probably go for that.

Do you know the small little French business about this, those small little ones? That would be my choice if I had to. But now I have a little bit more money. I don't need Galahad, so I'd probably go for one of the craft beers are sometimes they have power or something like that. You know, boss, listen, I'm serious about fucking cans. I love freezing cold, Ken. I don't necessarily pine for IPAs a particularly fancy beer.

I like a humble, decent fucking lager. Anyone who knows their shit will tell you Polish cans, anyone who knows their shit. So if I want bodged cheap cans, no bullshit, very refreshing fizzy cold drink that delivers a certain amount of alcohol. I'm going into the polar supermarket. I'm going into the polar supermarket. My favorite is is Wasiq. It's called it's six percent. That's by far my favorite. But to be honest, I pick up whatever Polish canned is gone.

Whatever the Polish Czechoslovakia, they know how to do lagger. They know how to do it. So if you're on a budget heading to a Polish supermarket, go round the back. Very cheap, high quality alcohol, alian ladle. It's full of sugar. And and once you notice that you start tasting it, you won't be able to taste it again. Also really good cheap beer, which I found myself getting recently. And this one, the way I found this talk about strange advertising, I was walking past some bins, you know, like endorsed the big industrial bins.

And I was walking past these bins near dones. And I saw on the ground like these cans that obviously someone had drank and left behind the bins and it was a yellow can. And something about it being on the ground beside the bins made me go, Hmm. I wonder what that's like. Like a fucking big billboard. Except someone has left it on the ground beside the bins. And I looked at the can and I said, right, Hackenburg, I'm going to check that out.

I went into Donz. Lo and behold, Hackenburg was there for cans for a fiver. Five percent looked at the ingredients only only barley, malt, yeast, hops. What more do you want? I got myself for cancer. Hackenburg Garden is clean, beautiful, decent quality beer that you can't complain about at a really cheap bodger price. Way better than fucking Galahad. Hackenburg is is no one choice if you're on an extreme budget and want to get yourself some cans up there.

All right. Time for the ocarina now. What are we are we half an hour? Are we half an hour into this? Let me double check here. No. Forty three minutes. Forty three minutes. All right. Ocarina pause. Um, this is the part in the podcast where you might hear an advertisement. Adverts are digitally inserted by a cast, a character who hosts his podcast or a cast host podcast, and because they cast HOSTIS, they put digital adverts in here.

I don't know what the advert is going to be. It's based on your algorithm. So everyone gets a different advert. So I'm going to put in a little musical interlude so that you're not surprised by a big advert. You may notice this week to. That you're no longer hearing the squeak of a chair. This issue has been solved. Tell you how it's been solved after the Macarena passed. Hey, you know, it's not all about Kim, it's over 300 reality TV shows are now on.

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This is an advertisement for Tres. I'm shearling big, OK, seriously, this is an advertisement for trees for an initiative known as Wolfgang Reforest. Find out more at Wolfgang Referrers Dorahy. Right. And I'm very happy to be doing this ad because this this initiative is partly inspired by a podcast that I put out last year called Shocking Arlon. And in this podcast, I it was one of my climate podcasts. I was trying to get people to care about biodiversity and climate change, specifically in Ireland.

And I told the history of how Ireland had been deforested over the years as a result of British colonial rule like Oliver Cromwell cleared a lot of forests. Go back and listen to Chalky Garlan if you want to hear more about that. But anyway, Wolfgang ah, an Irish company, and they're one of the first people to ever sponsor this podcast at the start. And they decided to start this new initiative, this social enterprise, to begin planting native broadly forests in Ireland.

Right. And any profits made go back into planting more trees. It's a social enterprise with ethics and compassion at its core. In Ireland, planting trees is a radical act of decolonization because our forests were removed because of colonisation. So with Wolfgang Reforest, you can gift a planted native Irish tree this Christmas, its 20 year old palm tree planted and they're planted in land in Wicklow acquired by Wolfgang, which was once the great orchids of Shillelagh. And your gift will get a start and a season of video update on how the forest is growing.

What makes me most excited about this is that they're planting native Irish broadleaf trees. OK, last year the Irish government announced they were planting a big load of trees and then and everyone was happy. And then when you looked into it, it turns out that the tree that they were planting were Sitka spruce, which are not native pine trees, and they're harmful to biodiversity. But Wolfgang Rainforest is planting native Irish trees, which benefit biodiversity and its reforestation.

It's reforesting a region which improves rivers, it improves soils, it improves insects, it improves pollinators. I'm very excited about this project. They're using a method known as the Milwaukee Method of Forestry, which it's a Japanese method, right. And it promises rapidly growing woods. Last year, Wolfgang Reforest Rice planted Ireland's first Milwaukie Method Forest. And one year after planting trees, which were expected to grow to a maximum of three feet in a year, grow up to eight feet tall.

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So all the profits go back into planting more trees and. Go listen to my podcast called Chuckie Garlan, if you want to hear about biodiversity, how our woods were removed through colonization over the years, and why we should be replanting trees as an act of decolonization. All right. Very frantic anchorena pause there sounded like it was wailing, sound like the ocarina was crying for help. It's not. It's absolutely fine. I got a new chair.

I got a new fucking chair. Finally, let's after two years of this podcast, are three years or whatever the fuck we're on. The squeaky chair is no more. I got myself a lovely game or chair because up and down I can slouch in it and I can move back and forth as much as that one. I'm thinking what I'm thinking of heartaches and I'm rocking back and forth. I used to be in the old chair, not racking, rocking back and forth as much as I want because I'm terrified that it make this loud noise.

Now, you wouldn't even know I'm moving. No lovely fucking chair. So I'm really happy this chair was funded by, you know, but it was this chair was funded by you, the listener.

All right. I bought this chair for the podcast because I have patrons. There's a patrie on page LED's and the Patriae on page right. Patreon dot com forward slash the blind by podcast that allows me to earn a living for doing this podcast. And it allows me to do things by myself. There's no chair. And very shortly I'm going to buy myself a brand new computer because at this computer I have it's just filling up. It's filling up with all these fucking podcasts.

So I need to get a new computer pretty soon. There's about three months left in it. But I don't want to be put in a situation where the computer gets so full that when I'm recording, it starts crashing. I can't have that happen. That would be heartbreaking. So I'm going to get a new computer soon. And all this stuff is funded by you, the listener. And this podcast is my full time job, I I'm a full time artist, I fucking love doing this podcast, right?

I love doing it. And if you love listening to it, just consider paying me for the work that I'm doing for podcasts. Amont all I'm asking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month. That's it. You get four podcasts. I write and I get the time and the space to put all the work that needs to go into making these fucking podcasts. Also by this podcast being listener funded, I've got full editorial control.

No one tells me what to do. I don't worry about what I want to fuck and talk about. Everything comes from the heart and I'm making something I genuinely want to make and share with. I am like, no, I like I just spoke there for fucking half an hour. About the Kilmichael ambush, about the IRA, about British terrorism. I had some difficult chats there that you're just you're not going to hear this on Irish radio. You're just not going to hear it.

It's not it's it wouldn't be allowed. It wouldn't be allowed. It just simply wouldn't. I'm at this podcast. I have the space to do it. If an advertiser comes along to me and says, we didn't like that bit where you referred to the British army as terrorists, I say, go fuck yourself, fuck off and sponsor someone else's podcast so your pricks, you know what I mean? Whereas a listener from the podcast, we can do that.

We can have that conversation. We can work through it. Do you remember when the fucking British army was trained mind about two years ago, the British army were they were in certain adverts in my podcast from my British listeners.

And it was brought to my attention and I said, no, no British Army adverts on my podcast and they kept fucking doing it. And I had to start listing out British war crimes. I had to I had to engage in digital resistance. I had to create a hostile environment on this podcast so that the British army wouldn't advertise on it. And it worked. They never come back. Look, Patreon dot com forward, slash the blame by podcast, become a patron of the podcast if you can afford to.

Please consider doing this right. This is how I earn a living. If you can't afford it, you don't have to. This is a model based on kindness and soundness. So how it works. If you can afford to be a patron in this podcast, you're paying for somebody who can't afford. All right. Everyone gets a podcast and I earn a living. Everyone's happy and I wouldn't change it for the world. Also, come join me on Twitch.

All right, I like the podcast, subscribe to it if you're in if you're outside of Ireland, recommend it to a friend. I write this podcast has gone really global because of people going, I heard this podcast. You got to listen to it. So you people are really valuable to those people not in Ireland who are suggesting that people join me on Twitch three nights a week, twitch that TV forward slash to blame by podcast Wednesday, Thursday, Friday at about eight thirty pm.

I go live on Twitch and you can chat with me life and we have unbelievable phone. I.e., I make music life to the events of a video game. It's an art project that I'm doing, an ongoing art project where I'm trying to create a new genre called Hyper Real Songwriting, where I write songs to the to a digital environment as a response to quarantine. And it's a lot of fun. So join me on Twitter for that. Back to the questions.

Let's try and answer some questions. Let's Makassar asks race. Is there a name or a habit for atheists saying God bless? That's an interesting one, you'll notice from listening to this podcast, I said God bless quite a bit and I say God, I'd say God bless Alaska and I'm not religious.

I would be I'd be agnostic.

I the only reason I'd never call myself an atheist is that atheism. There's a certainty to us. There's a certainty to atheist music. And at that type of certainty to me is religious. So I would never call myself an atheist instead of, say, agnostic in that. I don't know. I don't fucking know. Like, I had a theory a few weeks back that the universe might be a simulation that's currently infected by. An Internet mushroom that changes the nature of reality to benefit the Internet algorithm, but I can't say that I'm an atheist when I think of something like time, like time, it time, time being cyclical, that shit fucks up my head.

So I'm going to go. But agnostic, I listen to people who have ayahuasca trips and shit like that. I meditate. And when I meditate or when I, when I, when I meditate, I've achieved spiritual type feelings.

You know what I mean? When I create art and I enter flow, I enter a plane of consciousness that isn't. Of my everyday life, I don't know these things, supernatural, I don't know, but I'm going to go what I agnostic, I don't know if there is or is not a higher power or whatever the fuck, but I still say God bless. So when I say God bless, for me, it's more of an Irish cultural thing.

God bless his Irish, I hear God blesses an Irish thing. It's what Irish people say to each other. It's a lovely, compassionate Irish way to say goodbye. There's an irony to it as well. So when I say God bless, I'm preserving something Irish I grew up with. And I'm able to say God bless without it necessarily meaning God or having any religious affiliations, it's just it's it's a cultural thing. That's why I say God bless and I.

I don't want to give it up. I like doing it. It makes me it. You know what I mean? It gives me it gives me a it connects me with my fuckin ancestors. It connects me what it was. I hate when I hear God bless. I hear all the people talking to each other when I'm younger. So it's it's like connecting with my ancestors through language. So that's where I say God bless hardly asks why do you sometimes refer to everyone on the podcast as Ladds?

So sometimes I'll say, well, lads and Hardy Hardy Hardy says, what do you call it?

Why do you sometimes call one in the podcast? Lads, I don't know how I feel about it. I'm. Well, lads in Ireland is actually gender neutral. It's a lovely thing in Ireland, we all grew up in Ireland, you grow up in in in school. And I went to a school when when I was a little kid anyway, primary school, where it was girls and boys in the class together and the teacher calls the let's sit down, let's be quiet.

Let's solve within Irish culture the collective term. Ladds is has no gender whatsoever. Gardel's will call each other, Ladd's bodies will call each other Just Laddies is simply a group. It's a friendly way of saying a group of people, there's no gender to Ladds in Irish. My friend used to call as my lads. I know someone else who call their dog lads. If lad singular, that's gendered. That's a gendered term. But lads isn't. Landslides just means everybody and.

I've seen people embrace it a bit online as well and celebrate that celebrate that we say lads in Ireland as a gender neutral term because gender neutral terms are just nice. They're just a good way to conduct yourself. You know, it's it's inclusive, you don't know what are you don't you never know what someone identifies as personally. So when you're using gender neutral language in your everyday life as much as you can, and it's effortless and we have this thing called Ladds that's already in our culture, that's gender neutral, that's a good thing.

Pakse asks. Blind by, it's coming up to 10 years since Hahs outside, how do you feel about it? So. For people listening to this podcast. I. I used to be I used to make music. Under the name Rubberband, it's myself and a fellow Mr. Crom, and we had a really big song 10 years ago next week, I think it was called Hasso Site, which went really viral and. How do I feel about it?

I mean, it's a thing with the rubber band, it's tough. I view the rubber band, it's tough. As I just said to myself, that's what I was doing in my 20s. That's what I was doing in my 20s. The rubber band. It was my creative output in my 20s. Now I'm in my 30s. I'm older. I'm a different person to who I was in my 20s. So now I'm doing different stuff which is more congruent with where I am right now, what my beliefs, what my aesthetics.

So that's how I look back on rubberband stuff. I how do I feel about her? That's right, I mean, it was fucking life changing. It was in my early 20s. It was fucking life changing. It's hard outside was the moment when I went in my head, I went right, I'm a professional artist now. Like, I've been doing this shit since I was fucking 16, but Harborside outside was the moment, even though, like, I don't bits on TV and I've been writing TV scripts and we've been releasing songs and have even a gigged electric picnic and stuff before hours outside.

But I never thought before he outside. That's like I'd be I'd be a professional artist. That would be my fucking job and that my career. It was never going to be I thought it was going to be a psychotherapist or an art college lecturer, but when Haas outside came around, I was like, fuck, this is big. I can keep this momentum going. And I think it's dated a bit. It has dated a bit, especially the lyrical lyrics of day to day basis.

It's I mean, look, it's a fun song. Father, I'm very proud of it as a pop song, as a piece of pop music. It's really, really catchy and it takes the boxes that I want to take with a a real catchy folk and pop song earworm, you know, even though some of the lyrics are absolutely fine for lads in their 20s. Mason But sing if I was singing Hearts Outside now in my 30s, along with a lot of rubber bands, stuff feel fucking strange, just doesn't suit feel weird, you know what I mean.

Open up on stage in my 30s talking about fingering. No thanks. I'm trying, I'm trying to gracefully transition into becoming into being a dad. I don't mean ties in father of a child, but just, just slowly, gracefully transitioning into into middle age, you know, and trying to do that while not being reactionary or hateful. You know, you see you see lads in their Internet, on the Internet, in their thirties, and they just fucking hate anything the people in their 20s are doing and they hate anything that's new or frightening.

And I'm trying to not be that. I want to just gradually become older, uncool. And my focus is just being nice, being a nice person who's open to ideas and whatever people in their 20s are doing doesn't scare me. It's just trying to become that. That's what I'm trying to do, not fight the fact that I'm going into my 30s. I don't fight it, never fight. It's just this is where I'm at. All right.

Are there doing what now? OK, grand. I would have been doing that when I was that age where it doesn't threaten me. Absolutely fine. This is where I'm at all trousers. Yes, please. You know what I mean. But I tell you what I will say what I tell you what I am happy about what fucking hearts outside for a while there. I thought harsh outside would have been like the biggest thing I'd ever done in my career because it's it's got 20 million YouTube views in 10 years, which is quite a lot.

And I was like, fuck it. Is that is that the peak now? Is that the biggest thing I've ever done? I'm. And I'm really, really glad that, like, it's not it's just a thing I did and I've done soft stuff since, like my box or my my TV series and and even that this fucking podcast, like a CAT scan on to me last week. And they said that next week this podcast is going to hit 25 million listeners.

So this podcast in three years has gotten 25 million listeners and hearts outside, has gotten 20 million views in 10. So I'm able to go fucking class. I'm not a one trick pony. That's what I did in my 20s. And it was good then. And now this is what I'm doing now. And that is also good. So that feels nice. That feels good to know that I'm not defined by that one thing. And, you know, right now I want to write I'm getting ready to write more books.

I fucking love writing books. That's the main thing for me in my 30s is the books because I adore it and it's congruent with where I am emotionally. And I probably keep that going for another while. And then I envision myself I've the shit I'm doing on Twitch obviously as well, doing music on Twitch hyperreal songwriting.

That's that's far more exciting to me than making songs and releasing them as videos, making songs on the fucking fly. I am really excited about that. And then as like when I'm older than what? I mean like my fucking 40s and 50s and beyond, that's when I want to start painting. I, I love painting, but I've been so busy with fucking writing the music that I just never got to write. I haven't really painted properly since I was about 18 and I fucking love painting and I'm handy and oftenest so when I'm older.

That's what I want to be, I'm going to be a painter, that's what I'm going to fucking crack out the oil paints again and that's what I'm doing. Then, you know, that would be my retirement. A fucking painter, you know, as as the as the final phase of blind boy. I think because, you know, as what, I'm too much of a fucking hipster. I'm too much of a hipster to be defined by fucking hearts outside.

And if I wasn't me, I'd probably head out outside, to be honest, you know, but. I am I'm very proud of it as a pop song. I'm very proud of it as a pop song. It's a bangin pop song and when you hear it, it's stuck in your head. What more do you want? All grey whistle test. If you hear it, it's stuck in your fucking head. You don't want anything more than a pop song and.

You know what, men can take an X Factor to its knees. It was Christmas number two in 2010, but X Factor really mattered back then, X Factor was the biggest thing going and it truly threatened the X Factor at the number one. And to do that on a computer with something that was made in a fucking bedroom and mixed on a pair of shitty speakers, that makes me feel really proud because of my love of pop music, you know.

So I am happy with that. Of course, fucking. We've got this program in Ireland called Reading in the years where they do like to do a roundup of the year 10 years ago on this thing called reading in the years. And I think Hahs outside is going to be on the one for 2010. But I heard through the grapevine that that's RTG have lost the original HD footage of her outside. So the only footage that exists is the really shitty 2010 YouTube quality.

That's what I heard. I hope it's not fucking true. I hope they started it and they haven't actually lost our satellite. But it's hard say they're capable of it.

Sasha asks, any tips on how to stop worrying about what other people think about your. I'm. That's a tough one, right, first of all. Accept, accept your humanity, accept your humanity. OK, here's a couple of things that that we should accept about being human. We are all in secure, OK, we are all insecure, there is no such thing as a person who is not insecure, it's OK to be insecure. It would be strange to have complete and utter security and confidence in yourself at all times.

OK, so we're always going to be a little bit insecure when insecurity is crippling and it prevents you from living a normal, happy life and have a normal happy relationships, then that's an issue. But insecurity is healthy. So as a repeat, because we're all insecure and you know what? Say that to yourself. Every day I say to myself, I am insecure. I say that to myself, OK? And there's a great liberation from it, because we tend to we tend to think that insecurities is a weakness or a flower and it's an insult and it's ridiculous.

We're all insecure. Let's every one of us are insecure. And a kind of condition of this insecurity is we want other people's approval. We're human beings. We're social animals. I want other people to approve of me, and it hurts when people don't approve of me, OK? That's that's a fact, that's how I am, and it's it's it's a normal part of the human condition. So these are helpful things to say to ourselves. I'm insecure.

I want people to approve of me. It hurts when other people don't approve of me, OK? When you become obsessed with other people's approval, when people when you feel the people must approve of you and when you feel that if people don't approve of you, you start to sell, flagellate and withdraw and feel a great deal of shame. Now you have an issue. Now your relationship with other people's approval and disapproval is unhealthy. OK, so I have a healthy I require a healthy amount of approval from people and.

You know, I don't like it when people disapprove, but I always try and take it back a try. I was trying ground myself and I remind myself if I'm if I'm being respectful to other people, if I'm being kind and compassionate and respectful to people. Right. And they still don't approve of me, then I have to pack it then and I can go their disapproval. That's for nothing to do with me because I've reached the basic level here of showing this person respect and kindness and compassion and being nice to him.

If that hasn't if I can't get their approval beyond that, that's none of my fucking business. And I won't chase that person for approval, because when you feel insecure, like excessively insecure, you start being overly nice to people, overly nice to people who don't approve of you or who are who are being rude to you. And you try and be extra nice. And sometimes that person then will interpret that as weakness. And that's how you end up in a situation, kind of a toxic situation where you may even be bullied.

So how do we how do I get over, how do I stop excessively worrying what other people think of me? It's a double edged blade. So the trick is. Yeah. When someone does give you a compliment or when someone thinks you're good or someone gives you a lot of approval, you can tell I don't allow myself to focus too much on that. So it is a fact that it feels good when other people approve of me. That's a fact that feels good.

But if when someone approves of me, I place too much weight and happiness on their approval, then that means when someone disapproves of me, it's going to hurt twice as much. So yet the way to get to a healthy level of seeking approval. Is Tannous. Don't make too much of a force of it when people think you're good, don't make too much of a force of it, you you have to have your own approval.

You have to have I mentioned it all the time.

A fucking inner locus of evaluation, an internal locus of evaluation, if you don't want to be excessively worrying about other people's approval. Try and get the the most amount of approval to come internally from yourself about yourself and the classic mantra that I use all the time. I am better. Nobody else and nobody else is better than me because humans are too complex to evaluate against each other. And that's a fact. We all have intrinsic worth and our intrinsic worth is equal to all of the human beings and aspects of our behavior.

Good or bad, don't add or take away from our intrinsic value. So focus on your intrinsic value. And similarly, if if you like, training yourself to not, you know, don't don't let it make your day. If you meet some new people and they think you're really funny or they think your sound don't allow that to make your day because they approved of you instead, what you can take the bed that night and feel good about is not the fact that they thought you are funny or that you are nice.

Focus on the fact that. You were compassionate and friendly to another person that you put in that work, you put in that effort, you showed them respect, and then a consequence of that is they gave you approval. But for their approval, what you should be proud of is that you put in the effort to show this person respect and to listen to them and give them compassion and empathy, because if you do that properly, approval is going to obviously come.

But focus on the work that you put in to just show another person compassion and respect. Focus on that, because that's real internal locus of evaluation shit. And then don't worry about the approval that comes from it. Yeah, it's nice. It's better than someone calling you a prick. Similarly. Don't don't, uh, don't allow yourself to feel contempt for other people, so if you're consistently worrying and seeking the approval of other people right. And hurting deeply when they disapprove, chances are right.

You're probably also quite judgmental privately of other people because that's just kind of how it works. It's. Sometimes how hard you are on other people is a reflection of how hard you are in yourself, you know. So if. If you see someone if you're in a social situation and someone new comes in and they are talking a bit too much because they want your approval and inside your head, you're going, Jesus, does this person ever shut up?

God, this person's really insecure. Fucking hell, man. God, they talk so much shit trying to avoid trying to avoid this type of thinking inside yourself where you have contempt inside you. And now this person who's looking for your approval and they're putting in a bit too much work and now you feel contempt because they're looking for your approval and your your going in your head. What a fucking idiot. Do they ever shut up? What a stupid thing to say.

Like your judge in that person as harshly as you judge yourself when you are at home worrying about how people approve of you. So what instead of saying to yourself, this person's in Egypt, this person's talking too much, this person is cringing. Oh, my God, I can't believe they said that.

Instead of going there, bring it to a place of compassion and empathy and say, wow, this person doesn't seem to secure in themselves. And because they're nervous around this, they're now saying things that are cringing. They're not working too hard and and try and have empathy for their sense of insecurity that then drives their behavior in that direction. And when you do that, no, you have compassion. So when you can extend that compassion for another person for being insecure, you won't be as hard on yourself.

You'll be more forgiving of yourself. When you go and meet a new group of people, you meet a new group of people, you feel insecure, you want their approval. Now all of a sudden you're talking out your ass. That's how it works. You're talking out your ears. Why did I say that? Why am I trying to be funny? Why am I keep talking? Why can't I sit back and listen and you're beating yourself up.

So you need to be able to have the self compassion to go? Yeah, I felt insecure today. And as a result of that, I went into a new friends group and I spoke too much. I looked for too much approval. That's OK. I'm a human. I'm insecure. I'll try and work on it the next time. So you have to have compassion for other people and not be judgmental of them if you then want to have that self compassion for yourself where you can get to the internal locus of evaluation, if that makes sense.

Jamie asks, How come my books aren't available as audio books? The company, the commission might my first two books get books. Fantastic fucking book company, they gave me my first break in writing, they were the ones who believed in me, who approached me and said bye bye, will you write a book for us? And I'm eternally grateful to him and especially to Conor Nager, the commissioner. But Gail just don't seem to have an audio book department.

They don't have the audio books are recorded. They're done. But I can't put them out if the book company doesn't have the infrastructure to put out audio books. So it's as simple as that, which is a shame. It's a fucking shame. But audio books will come out eventually. I don't know how it's going to happen, but it will happen all it asks, what is the one thing that you think teenagers and college students are missing out on?

I'm. The the fact that literally the fact that so much of a teenagers and a person, their early 20s life is now lived out online. Like when I was a fuckin teenager, I was a fuckin silly ajith. You know what, if I said something mortifying or embarrassing or if I was if I was really insecure and because I was so insecure, I was saying dumb shit to get attention. Right. It just disappeared into the ether. It just disappeared.

You know, whatever dumb shit I said when I was 19 in a smoking area are showing off to people because I'm insecure, reactionary opinions, trying to get attention, looking for attention. That shit just disappeared. They're just they were just words that happened. Then they disappeared into the air. I can't remember them and no one around me can remember them. And I got to mature and grow as a human put like teenagers. Now they write these things down on fucking Instagram or on Twitter, and if they don't delete them, that they're there forever.

So that's that's one thing I think I think, uh, young people miss out on. I I'm I'm old enough to remember being a teenager and. I didn't have the Internet wasn't fucking important, the Internet was a thing you had in your living room on a computer, didn't write all your thoughts down, so dumb teenage shit just got to disappear, disappear, gone forever wired, spoken into the air. Vibrations existed for a second. Also, I would have been I was I was bullied quite a bit as well in my early teens.

I was bullied quite a bit because I was. Because I'm a creative person, I would have as a teenager, your peers then see you as being weird or mad. So when I was in my early teens, I would have been seen by my peers as fucking mad, really, really strange and odd and mad. Because I was creative. I had a different way of looking at things, a different way of looking at the world, a different sense of humor.

And when you're young, your peers just got that person is is mad. And I used to get used to get picked on quite a bit. I'm speaking of rubber banded songs as a rubber band, a song called Spastic Hawk. And that, like, that's that's like I suppose it's kind of like about me in my early teens getting picked on, I was called a spastic quite a bit spastic in Limerick.

It was just it's a term that was used in Limerick for someone who was fucking different or someone who was weird or strange. And what the thing was, even though people will be mean to me in school and that would be heartful, I got to go home and disappear into this private world of books and music and all the things I absolutely loved. And if someone was being a prick to me in school, I didn't have to worry about until the next day I disappeared into my lovely.

Lovely world of of music and books and art and all the things I adored, that's, you know, if people were picking on me in school and calling me names because I'm weird, ah, the music I like is different are the jokes I make are strange, are the observations I make are different. And then you get picked on for that. I would go home in the evening and my books and my art and my music and all this stuff.

Whatever wounds happened during the day where I would worry as a teen about fuck am I weird? Am I a spastic? You know, and apologies for using that word there, because I'm aware that's. That's an ableist word, I didn't know that at the fucking time in Limerick, it wasn't it wasn't used in that context, but in the Limerick context, that's the word that was used against me. And I'd I'd worry about that. And then I'd turn on my music and enjoy my art.

And it would fill me with the confidence to go, no, I'm not these things that people say about me. I'd just like different stuff and have a different way of looking at things and it would feel wonderful. But children today they and go home and they whip out their phones and the name calling and bullying continues in social media. And that's fucking heartbreaking. And I'm so glad I didn't have to deal with that. And my my heart breaks for young people who.

If that the bullying is 24 fuckin hours a day, if they're getting picked on, are being called weird, are getting they're now getting excluded from WhatsApp groups, are people are making memes about them. Fuck me. At least I had at least I didn't have that shit. You know, I could avoid it. I could fucking avoided. It was just a shitty comment in the schoolyard. It wasn't relentless all day long, you know, so.

I suppose that's the difference, that's the main that's what fucking young people are missing out on that freedom. So one last question. How do you think religions would react if we found alien life? I used to think that if we found alien life, it would change fucking everything. It's like there's a fucking alien. Oh, my God. My entire perception of reality and what it means to be human has been changed since the coronaviruses pandemic. I no longer feel this way.

There is no doubt that coronavirus is real, OK, that there is not that that is straight up evidence. There is a disease called coronavirus and it's killing people and this is real. But yet there's still tons of people who think that it's fake. Even though the hospitals are full of sick people. There are people who will say they are actors. This is a conspiracy. So I think if aliens landed tomorrow and personally called around to people's houses and said, what's the crack?

I'm an alien, you'd still have a sizable amount of people who try and figure out who try and say that it's a hoax, that it's bullshit, that it's not real. So I think if alien lands land, you're still going to have people saying it's fake, it's a hoax, and they'll come up with all sorts of reasons to justify why it isn't real and it might change everything. So there you go. I don't know what I'm going to be back, what, next week?

I hope you enjoyed that. No, I like this. This was a slight change of tone because I got to speak about things that I don't normally speak about, and it was nice. I hope you enjoyed it anyway. And you had a nice sense of companionship for that journey there. And I'll be back next week. What a heartache or something. All right. God bless you, glorious. Hey, yeah, it's not all about Kim, it's over 300 reality TV shows are now and hey you.

I like that.

That's a good number. I love you. Love it. With complete seasons of your face stream loads of episodes, same day as the US has.

It should be. I'm just saying staying in is the need going at it, whether you like it or not. I should have stayed home. Hey you. The obsession is real and it starts right here.