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[00:00:19]

Welcome, everybody, to another episode of the podcast, which this week is going to be called Hang on Choom Book, too, huh?

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No, I don't even get this Hertha Berlin, Oslo. No Espanol, Espanol.

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I like that. I just just PSV Eindhoven.

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Doronina, Fiorentina, Florentin, Rushden, Dimond's right now, you know, come on, we can't listin every fucking time, could be here on Espanol and Palis moving on to the next session of the night.

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Well, I'm so glad we've got someone here in control of the situation. I have a question for you. I have a question for you.

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Yes. Do you think that you'll ever be fit again?

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Oh, I'd love to be pleased with this question time, Tiernan, but isn't it a good question like Kazami Paxman here? And will we ever fit in the first place?

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Well, I remember being Agostinho, and you were just you're just naturally tremendously fit.

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I remember one after myself and a fellow called Paul. He was English. He was a cousin of someone that had come over for the holidays.

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And we were just sitting somewhere in tritone heights, which is a housing estate on that, the nice donavon.

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And he says, we have a race crisis, OK?

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And he says, this is where we want to. And we come up with a ten mile circus out towards the racecourse, took a writer, Kalbarri, down then towards Donna Moore and from Donna Moore and the writer back in.

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No training. Yeah, no hydration. What age were 12 or 13?

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We took it for granted. You take it for granted at the time when you're faced. Yeah, like I was thinking that the other day and you're like, oh my God, it was no problem to just go to train and three times a week and just run and not think about it.

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And now it's like, OK, so do you think like the last time I was fit, I got about two years ago and I was fit for about a week and a half hectors fit anyway.

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Oh no, I'm running a bit. I'm running more than I've ever had before we could have. I was I was fucking poor. I told you before when I found that the fitter I got, the more I thought about.

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Yeah, well, now I'm on a no exercise vibe at home and I love the.

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So I saw you running in November. I was going to jump into that weightlifting gloves on the weightlifting already.

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I hear people are so my vibe at the minute is no exercise, just my body will be the shape of my lifestyle.

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During exercise I get is I do lift the odd call Scotland don't to be heavy.

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And I would, I would, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have two fireplaces in the house, one upstairs, downstairs and I wouldn't, I, I'd bring it into, I'd let one of the children do the upstairs because that's, that's hard in the days and wakes up corales with the kettle. Yes.

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And I do a good two mile walk with the dogs most days that it's no more exercise and no more sit ups, no more crunches, no more looking to be biceps in the mirror.

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Can anybody else see them. The legendary the legendary lumps. None of that. No, no. Garmin watches Tymon myself or Jaisalmer. I'm a ten seconds off the pace today.

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None of that horse shite. Some exercise is a form of self-loading. You just used it to give out to yourself.

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I go walkin in between trousers. He took the ball, rolled with the dog and that's it. Levitical, it's gotten no more exercise, but you also have a very disciplined diet.

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So you like said last week, if you as you monitor weight very closely. I weigh myself every morning.

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Yeah. You see, he's gone to the extreme. He's on the food. That's a different type of training. So the challenge static's is what you're doing there.

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Tell me you're eating properly and you're just you're using just you're shaping up to be a good name for all of our Callan's next shaunessy calories.

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You're using your body.

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You're shaping your body because you're you you watch what you eat. Yes. And you're just all the way to get it. You're just doing your normal life.

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I see. I'm eating. I have a higher input than I have output.

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So you're taking on more and you're not burning it. OK, so that's a problem. Answer the question.

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When was the last time you were fit and will you ever be physically was the fittest I've ever been? When I was doing breakfast radio, when I was on the breakfast radio on to our farm.

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What time did you get up at quarter past twenty past five manches. When I think back, I used to remember I get in for the I'd have me porridge watching the Sky Sports six 1/2 five in the morning.

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I have a question for you now you would you sleep in the NIPP. Everyone in the country knows that. Yes.

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Yes, yes. Yes I do. Yes I do. So tell me, put your hand on my hand. I do. So the question I have for you is this.

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So when you were getting on behalf of my opponent in the Gnip. Yeah, right. And you're going down for the part, when would you start putting clothes on?

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Like, would you be at the table there with no, no, no little flame, the key to breakfast radio and early morning and the early morning risers, the soldiers of the dawn that get up every morning and get the country going. And they're out there.

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Yeah, the toasts.

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Yes, the milkman and the bread man and the lorry drivers and that couriers and the reps and the magic mushroom pickers and the drug dealers, they are the people that get the country running at 6:00 in the morning.

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So I would have me jox socks, jeans, T-shirt almost. At the end, just jump straight into the I'd be afraid then as I move out of one door onto the landing, I'd be afraid of the creek. There's a Magic Creek, just a turnaround from the first toilet. And I'd skip over that. I used to love gone in and took it in, not rain, because he's a big boy. But Cheney was only about 12 and I'd go into him as Quilty billion.

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I'd see he'd be lying totally, completely diagonal from all the way. He should be lying. He'd be perpendicular, upside down with no quills just tucked in. And he'd always go in and put the quilt over at about half, five or six in the morning because Daddy's going to work.

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And then I would tiptoe down the in half in the nip because I'd have to close my hands down the stairs and I throw my clothes into the the boxes, Volkswagen down on the stairs, I get the porridge in in the boxers. And then I dressed myself up watching a bit of sky sports at a quarter to six in the morning, OK.

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And then into walk into work and then so how are we at your fittest?

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Because straight after work I started going to the gym and I went right into the gym and I went mad and to play in squash, I went to I was going to the Galway Lawn Tennis Club three or four times a week playing squash, started getting my head into it.

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It's a yellow spot.

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And then when you get a drink, that's what I about when you start playing squash, it's the longe and it's the lunge into the front of those little when you're trying to get back to the middle of the court, I started getting better and then I got to Uesugi and play lads there and then I go back to the tennis club, then I start to get invited. Then I played a tournament. I played a register for a tournament. After about two years, I spent about 300 quid on a racket, a Dunlop racket from Ahmed al-Bashir, who is the Egyptian number one player.

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At the time I started going on world number 900 with the Egyptian number one of the best players. And this is an interesting fact. The best squash players in the world, pound for pound, are Egyptian. It is the national sport of Egypt.

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When they play, they put these blinkers on glass, twenty all sided courts, and they dropped them into amazing museums and shopping centres and places. And they play airport terminals and they play with the whole of Egypt watching in Saudi Arabia.

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They love it in the handball of Egypt. Yes. And one of the tournaments, the U.S. Open, they drop it into that amazing train station in New York. What's it called? Station Penn Station. They they create that right in the middle of it. And you could be walking around heading for your train to Connecticut. And there's the boys playing squash. And it's incredible. The best players in the world. You want to see their rallies?

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I got really, really into it. So and you're lifting weights in the gym. But the fitness I got from lunging at squash playing were double yellow spot, which doesn't bounce my I was never as toned and never as fit. And I remember we went to the back country on holidays, one of them Summers and one of the boys to.

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But I just played soccer over there with a team and one of the lads said to me all year together I wear voice this out all a year. Do you play this Saturday morning? I said, I will.

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And I went down and I dominated. You were like Messi. And one of the lads said to me in Spanish that I've known for years. He said, Well, yeah, in the end he said, if you're looking good, I was like a gazelle, never spit with squash and gym.

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And my fitness sort of dwindled a little bit then. But then I started running. So I'm in I'm in a and I did tank on Sunday. I'm in a decent enough people took you four hours.

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So will you ever be finished on Sunday. Will you ever be fit again. What should we were never professional athletes. Will you ever be fit again. But when will we fit.

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Told me you were there when you do in the squash in the way will never get back to that because I've wouldn't better squash. My racquet is in the hot press and all the media. I bought these specials.

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Pacific Pacific squash shows shoes that would white plimsolls and I was made into a 300 pound racquet which was a ruckus.

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And it's a ball with the hot press and I'll be lovely white Adidas gear. I was going around quite because you have to wear white. You can't you can't go in and you have to be properly dressed for squash. I'll never go back to it.

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Maybe I'll go back no more than myself. You'd be the same colours that Dolphus.

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So so, you know, you were tremendously fat when you were playing ladies football. Oh, yes. But I took it completely for granted. I think maybe nowadays people are more conscious of being fit.

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You know, it's like if you're fit now, you have to share it on social media and you're like, oh my God, just look at this like ten, 12, 15 years ago, you just got fit and you just got on with us. Yes. But like now, I wish I could be sharing it on social media.

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Every Tom, Dick and Harry is doing something in the system room. It's impressive the base of and extensions.

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And I think it's just it's just it's a plethora of fools.

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I have absolutely zero willpower. I start something Fergy.

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I'll download dinner or I'll watch and I'll be all about the exercise and I will be able to walk the next day and I won't have to walk. Worst two days later and then I got the thing that drives me is when I see, OK, if you're at home, OK, let's do the car, let's do the catch, let's get the ball in the water and do the fucking Egypt. Yes. Come on, everyone, let's get happy.

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You're like soccer.

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What if I can't moja the odds I lie on the ground then to do a set job and I kind of get back up off the ground.

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I'm like rolling myself around like a sheep and try to like on its back, try to get back up. So it's a bad idea for a sheep, a David and will never come back. Yes.

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Now what's what has gone wrong with evolution?

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That sheep have been here for 45, 50000 years and they haven't developed 45000 for five, five, five, four to five foot for 70000 years.

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There's been sheep and they haven't evolved to a place where at the most basic things they fall over the up again.

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I wonder, could they not attach some sort of a waste to the bottom half of them? No.

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The only way a sheep can get back on his feet is if the HOGGETT nips it with his nose to the ankles. Sheep ankles, no Dabney's. Yeah, but they do have knees. Yeah. All right. OK, do you think that decent and little house. All right, OK. But a lot of fingers. Not that I know Novins.

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They haven't evolved with fingers. Are you able to genuinely are you able to genuinely and lovingly accept your unfitness?

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I am.

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I am I I'm not at that. You're my life. You're still at war, which I am. Torture myself. Dustoff off country. Larita it is.

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Would you follow me and Hektor into the land of relaxed muscles?

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How would I get there? What do I need.

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It's not an easy journey, but there's got to trust us to say it. It's all good. If you'd like the road map to find the field of everlasting, what would you call its cultural everlasting?

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What you need, what you need are role models.

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And I keep saying this, but the clue to Ireland's future is in Asia and it's India Delhi crime.

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And it's all about people over there. They accept their body sizes. They wear sheets.

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It's not about tight trousers with the book and the muffin top.

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No, it's just about so I can go to where she's from now. Sari sheets, beautiful colours. On your Laurieton, we get a pair, we get a diamond drilled into your forehead and they just they do belly dancing.

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All you the type of belly dance they do.

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You don't even have to move on your belly dancing. All you have to wonder, can you get us outfits like that the next time you go somewhere to park?

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Last night I did.

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I was thinking there was something about you this morning. Our lives are very short.

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We're out of that. There's a really big mirror across. So when I get up out of the bath, I sort of extend myself up and I rise up like an Adonis. And then there's a mirror straight across me and I'd be looking at me.

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And sometimes when you get out of the bath, there's a glistening around the signatories at the midriff and down towards the general area.

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And I just stand there looking at me shoulders and I go, well, your shoulders, a lot of work to do, a lot more.

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And then the Epsom salts are caked into my skin and I just step out of the bath and then I fucking slip and break me. It's important to remember now to the bath.

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No, that's another thing. Yes, it's a difficult, difficult, dangerous thing. I tried to get out of the bath again.

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Another thing obviously I must have at some stage. All right. I'm talking to you about when's the last time I have to ask me, have I ever gotten out of a bottle?

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I said, obviously, I'm here talking to you always. Have you ever tried to get a bath where, you know, older? I mean I mean, people have the Back Bay does now. No, I'm just saying, how about when the bathroom door and my old person baths that you let the water latch on the door and you open the door?

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Yeah, but it's awful hard to get out of a last night when you get it was all dangerous. It's really it's just what you do is you get up on all fours in the bath. I wanted to jump out first, throw the leg in the other arm over.

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And just literally I do let the water at first. Just give me that sense of it's over.

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I wonder because. Yeah, that's a good idea, isn't it?

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Let the water out, because then we go, we must accept the shape of ourselves and our own fitness and not be conned into this fucking this orthodoxy of exercise and body shape. Let us stand now.

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You know, you are what you are and always remember this, that the person who loves you, the person who's in bed writing you one, three, five times a week, doesn't really care what shape are.

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Oftentimes, the more of you there is, the better.

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You know, we're all in this together and we're all in this.

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And every day for me is when you, the minister for fucking health reasons, we're all in this together, but not me. I'm I said, look, you know what?

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They don't write their own speeches until some fuckin officious toolbag is in some office. Should come up with cliches to try and keep the people and keep the people in tall anyway, so I decided I decided to check light at the end of the tunnel.

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I decided to efficacy, but we've no idea what efficacy.

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I decided to change it up last Saturday and a completely them my wife and my kids, because I said to the missus at about three o'clock, I said, I know what we're having for dinner on a Saturday.

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And she said, Oh yeah, oh, are we going to love it when you take control on a Saturday?

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Are we going to have that stir-fry you do the ginger chopped garlic and the most to that lovely little soy. So your wife was English as well?

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Well, there's no clear language because this is the one you want to say you cook them dinner.

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So we went to an awful phase. They're having a staff.

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I just wanted to talk about Stir-Fry with a sexy English voice chop, vinegar, bread.

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We had a short chopped it. Got it. We had to start cooking vinegar. OK, we had a staff writer for the last six years, but I didn't know you.

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Six weeks after Christmas, we had these you every to you may be trying to pour a scallion as if I could chop vinegar.

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We had spare ribs and pineapple and rice for about six weeks after Christmas cottages.

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Skullion just up and I, we were fed up with the spare ribs and the lovely barbecue sauce.

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And why did they call them spareribs? Like, because they're leftover from from the rest of the meats. Oh, I think I don't know that it was like a cold or I'm not using these.

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I've about six ribs here. You could have a shop on that one.

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Sorry, we had six weeks to spare ribs since Christmas. What a lovely barbecue sauce. And I said, right, we'll try something different. Don't even try to phase of five weeks of stir-fry.

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Beautiful stuff I did with soy sauce was lovely fresh chicken.

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And then I completely changed it up because I knew everyone was waiting for the ribs or for the staff. Right. And I turned round to them and I went, well, the two boys were down in the village, a few friends playing Astroturf soccer. And I said, Mrs I said, but on that I completely bombed bamboozlement.

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She walked into the kitchen and I went, I think we'll go to the Jebba. And she went, what a fucking great idea. Oh, yeah. Let's go to the Italian Chippenham or call Giovanna's. Well, I sent a text to the two lads.

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I said, I'm going to Giovanna's. What do you want? That the energy that popped off the text.

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Oh, Jesus Christ. What are the was Halman about 14 minutes on the mountain bike when he flung it at the back door and he bent straight in.

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What what what's happening is that you go to Geovani. I said, yeah, you come for this. And he said, Yes, I am right. I said, you take down the order whatever you want. I don't give a fuck whatever you want. It's Saturday.

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The other night the other lad get through bing, bing, bing, snack box, garlic sauce, curry sauce, vanilla milkshake. Make sure snack box has got breast of chicken, no salt and vinegar. I said get that down. All of it depends what you want. You I have a fresh cut chips.

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I said I know and I said a fresh cod and chips. I said Jesus. Shane went, I think I'll have Tubagus. He doesn't like any sauce, no onions, nor not. And he says, I'm going to two burgers, dad, two cheaper style burgers with no sauce, no onions and a large chips and a strawberry milkshake.

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I said write it down. Well, we got into the car. We were both. And he said to me, you said you read somewhere that I put on a bit of Pantera.

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I said, What music is this? Is that I always said, What did you order?

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I said, I said, I'm gonna have a fresh cod. We had Pantera. And I said, What type of music is this? He says is heavy metal. I said, Who? And he said, It's Pantera because I'm trying to get my kids into music that I liked reggae metal. So by the time you got two or more, I'd say Giovanni's, there was a fucking coup I was sitting across.

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Hello. Hello there. Wouldn't answer the phone, so I got into the queue.

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We have never feasted so much on a Saturday evening when I come home with the price and I just dropped them on the team rising out of the bags.

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All you need to go at the salt, pepper, the vinegar from exile's and navan, which I take from every time I go up, I take five liters of it. Well, we attacked the fucking fish and chips five neith is a very tough for five meters buy by.

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You're not going to happen once every five years like that.

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When I go to Axios outside partisanships that much of nothing because I wanted for my plastic bottles and I fill them up then of course.

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And what I give them out to people. Yes.

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If you come to me and tell me did you come to my house for Friday afternoon, if we have chips, I'll be gone and there's axios vinegar from Narva and what we get to bring it home is magnificent.

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I'll give you a little bottle that night if you want of yours cheaper. So it came.

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My fresh cod came and the bottle was lovely and the chips were magnificent. Italian chips. It was in a box. We just didn't speak for about seventeen and a half minutes. Well, I had my chips swimming in black pepper salt and I swear to God I turned around to dip into the boys were after the Xbox and I went, life is fucking good, life is good.

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What a treat I find I try to do.

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I would say at the same time, I wouldn't cook dinner that often night, but I would like to cook more. I do I do Gullberg. I do a good Jamie Oliver. Bogota's to be me.

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Right. But I, but I also do a sweet potato and sausage bake or whatnot. Yes.

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So I hadn't done it for a while because the kids asked me to stop cooking a month ago.

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Yeah. It sounds a bit dry I have to say. No, it's not right. Because what you do is you have you have sweet potato, you have red on, you have loads of stuff in it and that fucking the sausages and it's just a gorgeous dish.

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But I spent a bit I would spend a lot of time fretting over it and rereading the instructions because I don't know, I have no confidence in the kitchen. So and it takes me a few days to cook and get ready to go cooking just to get the confidence up. You know, I went out, I went for Kanakas and I'm always asking people I'd be very critical of my own food and I'd be asking I'd lay it out for everybody. Why do you think that?

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And I did take a bite. Why do you think what you think what do you think? What do you think? The world in it?

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Well, let's just say that I was the only one that finished me dinner that everybody else was eating cereal by half is, oh, Jesus, there's not there's nothing in the world like if you're if if if Giovanni's if Axios and Navin Morelli's in Barnardo, the Valley Cafe and you know, and rather that, you know, in a lawn or cheese or you know, they do darce and chips, real chips from real potato chips.

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There's nothing like a Kefalas. Yeah.

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They have to be Italian I'd say to the God be good to the decent chocolate chip makers at this country. What's your experience of Northern Ireland? Well, now, I mean, I had I noticed this week, which I which I couldn't believe was actually happening. Right.

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Saw Rangers won. Yes. A Scottish championship. Yes.

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And did Rangers win or did Celtic fucking collapse? That's the question. You see what Roy Keane said? They said to him, did you have anything to say about Rangers? No.

[00:23:19]

But I noticed and I just could not believe it in 2020, whatever year we're in one that on the news on the BBC News that night, right.

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There were thousands and thousands of people on the streets in the Protestant areas of the north, like Sandy Row and whatever other areas, I don't know. And they were letting off flares. And there are small thousands of people on the streets.

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Yeah. And the news story in the middle of Colvert was just of positivity. Wow. Rangers won. It's brilliant. People were out celebrating on the streets. Yeah. I just could not believe that in this day and age that that's all right.

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The cops weren't there. They weren't trying to control the environment. The atmosphere were not supposed to be gathering like, am I missing something?

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And did the same thing happen in Glasgow when the Glaswegian Rangers supporters celebrated? Were they broken up?

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I didn't see that because it was just videos of the north which blew me away. And I saw that the DUP were trying to get it mentioned in parliament. And this was just amazing. If if if Celtic won and the all the Celtic supporters were out to be there before the cops would be like, it's awful, unfair.

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And we don't realise this living here in the south of Ireland. Yeah, we don't appreciate that.

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Well, we don't appreciate what the Northern Ireland is a sectarian state. Yeah. It's so suppressive. Well, for Catholics up there, I think it's tit for tat now. And I mean, there's a lot of areas that probably isn't and there's a lot of areas you wouldn't know any different in. And there's a lot of communities and and like rural areas that wouldn't be that way. But I'm saying in the city, like, we're like, well, I tell you now.

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Well, why did you notice that? Did you know I saw the celebrations? I know what you're talking about.

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I would do a fair amount of work up there gegen and with the Derry girls thing as well as my there is every now and again an almost stays stately blind.

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I turned to the expression of a certain type of loyalist aggression.

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OK, I remember being up there on the 12th and my hotel was right beside Sandy Row and they had built this fuckin Twin Tower Palace made at.

[00:25:51]

Skyscraper and a bit of derelict land, and they'd hung a effigy of the president and they'd hung an effigy of somebody in a south jersey and they burned it. And I just thought that it was fuckin ignorant. I thought there was an ignorance, but that's not.

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But I would work with a lot of Protestant people and their fuck and I love them. Oh, yes.

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And I would also, you know, there's a great I would say traveled all around the north and I can say the only time they've ever felt a bit of vibe at a gig was maybe I think I did a gig in Craigavon, maybe 12 or 15 years ago, and there was just a little bit of tightness in the room that I that's what I put it down to.

[00:26:34]

But gigging in places like Balley Castle, in Listner, Ski, Jigen in Enniskillen, Jigen and Tyronne and Cookstown and Orma, you know where you'd be thinking, OK, because of your name and your association with the South, that mainly people, mainly Catholic people, maybe, you know, but I even just drive around driving around Fermanagh, driving around Tyronne and if be going into shops and meeting people and chatting and I would work with lots of security people up there.

[00:27:00]

Nothing but fuckin goodness. Yeah, not unreal. Ordinary Irish goodness.

[00:27:06]

And on the set of dairy girls, you know where most of the crew would be from a church of art and background, honest to God, consulted the art and decent fucking people. And what struck me about it was.

[00:27:18]

If I'm working with somebody from East Belfast or you know, or if I'm working from just say, any Church of Ireland or background of the North, I compare that then to working with somebody from Newcastle or Manchester or Liverpool, you know.

[00:27:36]

I have more in common.

[00:27:39]

With the Protestant from Northern Ireland than I do with anybody from England, there is a shared sense of something that is that, OK, the huge amount of people in Northern Ireland would say we are citizens of the United Kingdom in the same way that people in Newcastle don't have to because it's natural. Yes, but this would be a declaration of certain Church of Ireland people. We are citizens of the United Kingdom. And I would say, yes, you might be.

[00:28:06]

You are. But I have more in common with you than I do with people across the water, and I fuckin I feel it. I feel it in the interaction and it's fantastic.

[00:28:17]

It's like, well, we're not that big an island. And I think there's an awful ignorance down here. Sometimes when we think of the North, we think it could be a million miles away. We grew up an hour from the border, Navan. I mean, there are more there's more people down here that no Meyerbeer and Málaga and Torremolinos and Barcelona better than they do. Bedfast. I don't think we've given it enough TLC and off work. I don't think we visited enough.

[00:28:40]

I don't think we get a Mawn Mountain enough to go up there.

[00:28:43]

So Forkan Gorgeous is a drive from Newcastle, Newcastle in Northern Ireland, down as far as Nury and Fucking Coast Road. It will blow your fuckin mind up driving up towards Bali Castle.

[00:28:59]

Yeah. Up there, North Antrim, Jesus, where Brendan Rodgers comes from, the, you know, spectacular and it's stunning and you can see Scotland a couple of miles, about 12 miles an hour across.

[00:29:13]

Yeah. So you can understand how people from Northern Ireland have more in common with people from Scotland, people from Cork.

[00:29:19]

Yeah. You know, because the county cork. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:29:22]

Some of them even asking Scots to stop the Scots Gaelic enclave right up around Bushnell's and all. There would be only a very small pockets of people that have this kind of real sectarian feeling in them. And of course, the majority of people up there are integrated and they're all mixed.

[00:29:38]

But like it is sad to think with in today's world. I suppose when you think about it, they've moved on so much from the Troubles wasn't that long ago, and they've been able to practically live in harmony now.

[00:29:50]

But it's not gone that that's not this this obsession with flags kills me. Like the minute you cross the border, it's either you're either seeing blue, white and red or like they are the trigger.

[00:30:04]

Yeah. It's just like nowhere else. I think. I think like, if you go to England, like, there's no flags everywhere.

[00:30:10]

Like I walked in and an orange order, a large doing a bit of philomene years ago where you man what's his name, the guy who comes on like on that primetime show every night gives out larger than life.

[00:30:21]

Kind of the north.

[00:30:22]

Nolan, you know, Norlane, Stephen or Stephen old Nolan Nolan swapped with me on radio for a week.

[00:30:28]

And I went to BBC radio, did a breakfast show for a week, and he came down and did the breakfast show down here.

[00:30:34]

So I went on a whistlestop stop tour of Belfast and did all that. But I walked in. It was there was a band getting ready for the marches. So I walked into the were in the community centre, the local lodge, and there was a march on that night and they were all inside getting dressed up.

[00:30:49]

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it was like I was like preparing for a gig. There was hundreds of kids all over the place.

[00:30:58]

But what was not, it wasn't really music playing, but it was like being high pitched in whistles and the lads in the corner put putting on there like that was like the village band and boom, boom, boom. There was one or two then the lads. All right, lads, we don't hear anybody.

[00:31:15]

And I could feel I was walking up the steps with a camera crew and I could hear all this. And there's all this stuff going on in my head going, oh my God, this is mine. I've seen it on telly so many times and here I am in the middle of it and they're going marching. And it's about four or five, five different bands. And I go to you're very welcome to to the Lodge and all this. And I said, God.

[00:31:33]

And so I say hello to all the people and then hello to the boys.

[00:31:36]

And then I put the strap up and the massive Yokine one.

[00:31:41]

So out we went. And he said to me as we walked, I said, can you tell me about the tunes you play? Tell me about these them. Yes, with the camera. So we're walking out. I said before, what are you playing?

[00:31:56]

What is the whole essence of this? And is there actor? This is the call to action. This is a call to match. This is a call of the army. The more feverish we play and the more it goes on five and six and 10 minutes into the tune and the more the boys can whip it up.

[00:32:14]

Boom, boom, boom. The man at the back. It's a whole tribal thing.

[00:32:19]

And I was trying to get control there with their big fucking beer bellies and bowler hats from my army. But your money goes, Hector. You don't just beat that drum. He says your man. He's the lad that's calling the tribe.

[00:32:34]

And he says the way you hit that room sends a message to the rest of the instruments and the rest of the march. And it was very interesting. And then I'll never forget what he said.

[00:32:43]

After about three hours later, all the marriages were done. We'd gone to a few estates and there were decamping. And then he goes, Hector, what do you think of that?

[00:32:51]

And I said, well, it was different.

[00:32:52]

It was if I was fuckin fed up at a point in it before it went on and on and on and on and on and on for about three hours, the same fucking tunes. And aCatholic was rising up me and I was going, oh, Jesus, give me. And then at the end of it, he was thrown back in New York and a few of the boys were there. What do you think of that? And the camera was rolling.

[00:33:14]

And I said, well, you know what, lads? I understand an awful lot more about it now. I do. And he goes, Hector, put it like this. You boys have your fucking gear down there, don't you?

[00:33:26]

Well, we've got our margin. That's all he said. Now think about that, you've got your gear. It's the biggest outpouring on this island of who we really are and they're fighting up in that little enclave for anything they can hold onto to give them some sort of an identity because the gear is so strong even in rural parts of Alaska.

[00:33:47]

But what a statement. You've got your gear down there. It's the same thing with Scots Gaelic, Scots Gaelic as millions and millions of pounds invested in it.

[00:33:56]

There's about I don't know how many people speak it, Scots, Gaelic. But you've got your Irish language, don't you? We've got a Scots Gaelic, there's an awful lot of tit for tat and that side gets one. And we need. I don't know if you've got the grant. We need the grant for this. Yeah, but in in the GTA, your enemy is ultimately your friend.

[00:34:18]

Yeah. I just left the statement.

[00:34:20]

I didn't argue to perhaps in the margin thing, your enemy is your and we have maybe I didn't I didn't engage with him, but you just said it.

[00:34:28]

It's an interesting thought process. Another thing that I always say that strikes me, you know, people in the north know if you're from such and such a town that you're definitely either a Catholic or a Protestant.

[00:34:38]

They know from your surname, they know from your first. It's just bizarre. Like we we're completely removed from that on here. Your next door neighbor could be whatever surname and you wouldn't even know.

[00:34:48]

And it doesn't matter in this part of your community and they play football or they play whatever. And it's just so different.

[00:34:54]

I stood in the middle of Crossmaglen, Oshi McConville, a few of the boys at the Crossmaglen Petro's doing a bit of Filemon and a when you could see the towers.

[00:35:02]

He said the towers are all dismantled now around Crossmaglen, he said. But when we take the pitch maybe 20 years ago, yeah, there'll be helicopters taken off halfway through the game. So the opposing team would always be looking up the helicopters.

[00:35:14]

The boys was going to point. I mean, but we don't understand it. I that's not saying it could be a million miles away to a lot of people in this country. We haven't given enough interest or Graw to that part.

[00:35:26]

And it's beautiful. I mean, you ever just even an ordinary drive to ordinary country up there. You know, they weren't Ege.

[00:35:35]

It's like the land is good in Belfast. It's a beautiful, I think the spirit in Belfast, the fun cracka, waves of Paddy Barnes and Michael Condon up there in Akallo.

[00:35:42]

Each of these boys, there's sharp sense of humor cut you down. Absolutely. And you know the wall and never come down between the Catholics. And because it's the Berlin Wall, the walls in Belfast make more for the tourists. They're making millions take down the walls for what the boys are having a field day, you know, I mean, tourism, tourism.

[00:36:00]

There's a whole industry set up up there from it.

[00:36:02]

But it's a great part of the world. A great part of the world.

[00:36:09]

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[00:36:41]

Thanks. Oh, yeah, what's your favorite time of day? Oh, I know exactly what does it. I don't really 24/7, 24/7, even now.

[00:36:57]

What happens? Fires on overloaded logs and it a few briquettes because I don't want to burn logs all the time because of a log shed. Now I don't off 24/7. Quokka that caputi dark chocolate one by on the Xbox. Not lot working on the Xbox and I'm stretched on the couch and the dinner at over at the dinner. Langan's she's tidied up and I've lit a candle in the kitchen to get the smell over that one window open. The dog is in the back is after being fed and I'm just sprawled on the couch.

[00:37:37]

The head me watching the telly you look at what does that the wintertime are like 20 percent of summer and fill in the dishwasher, getting the dinner or getting the fire, get into the deli and said, what have we got for the night and what is it about that?

[00:37:53]

What is it about when you think of all the other different people and energies in the House, what is it about what they're at that makes you happy that time of the day?

[00:38:01]

Because I let a shout out, there's only one other tea drinker in the house. That's me eldest boy.

[00:38:05]

And I really want a cup of tea as we of the tea, the tea at about half seven in the evening to strong tea bags in two cups and a tiny bit of sugar. And what I'll do is I'll split a cream cake from as well. Despoiler I'll get a Cadbury's cream and split it with a knife. Beautiful sliver cut. And then I went home and I'll say Here's a little treat and if I've been doing a bit of physical work out, the back was Labour Nonconstructive, a mix of some men putting in a bit of a row for a couple of times into the helicopter.

[00:38:35]

Tony Chippings arrived. I was carrying on. I was doing some of building so you'd realize you fall asleep on the couch and you tell me, what do I mean?

[00:38:42]

I've be walked on at that stage of the physical, walked on the boots at the back of me that sopping wet again and the dinner beyond the dinner is over and I'd help clean up a little cleaning up and getting into the sitting room and the fire on.

[00:38:57]

I love it at seven. And even if I'm a simple man.

[00:39:00]

What's your favourite time in Zulueta? Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know. Like I do like the evening time too.

[00:39:06]

When you don't have any commitments or anywhere to go to paganism in Ireland, what's on offer me the whole and then that about the last show or something like that. But like yeah I'm not really sure. I told you before Friday evening at seven o'clock was my favorite time of the week. Why is that now. Because I can it's, it's, it's the weekend and it's the one time of freedom that you have nothing on on Saturday generally can be hung over.

[00:39:35]

Go out on a Friday. Nice. Brilliant. Well, you know, previously, Bob, my favorite my favorite time of the day.

[00:39:43]

I have to actually two favorite times.

[00:39:45]

Yes and no. That's there extremes. But I have to mention both of them. OK, first favorite time of the day is when we have the family sits around the dinner table, we have a round table in the kitchen and we all sit around.

[00:39:57]

And more often than not, my beautiful wife of mine who are not very much, she cooks the dinner and we, the five of us sit down.

[00:40:05]

And it is just to that habit, the habit of it's the only time of the day with the five of us are together.

[00:40:12]

And I know I love that. I love the moment when my nineteen year old daughter picks up the phone to me.

[00:40:20]

I love I love the sound of her voice. And she said, I love that. I love getting a text from a 27 year old. You know, I love having her for a walk around Galway with me. Twenty one year old things I fuckin adore but my favorite all the time of the day, apart from the dinner, it's about half six in the morning. No, I'm not allowed get up anymore.

[00:40:43]

I'm not allowed. Get up. Why?

[00:40:45]

Because I work too many other people. Makes me too tired in the evening. But when you're like a child.

[00:40:52]

No, no.

[00:40:53]

You see if I get up at half six then I'm fuckin I'm wanting to be fall asleep around half nine at evening 97 and nor crack.

[00:40:59]

So the family asked me, they asked me to stay in bed and not be good enough to have sex, but each week up anyway, I don't usually wake up but I used to love it.

[00:41:08]

It's the fact the sap is rising.

[00:41:10]

Yeah, I'm not mad for the sap and I go for a little walk from the kitchen down to the shop.

[00:41:15]

Are you wearing a. Yeah, but I would be wearing my pajamas and pajamas. No they're cotton. Pure cotton and I have a cardigan, a cashmere cardigan.

[00:41:24]

Mahoney is fairness and I have a pair of Whelton and a big pair only socks. And I walk out and you can feel the fuckin energy rising up of the grass at half six in the morning.

[00:41:34]

The sun is not long risen and there's fuken there's ju there's energy, there's a book and the world is at its best.

[00:41:43]

The world gets tired around and it gets used, the word is second hand by the time you reach the fuckin afternoon, everyone's had over. Whatever air you're breathing has been breathed before.

[00:41:55]

There's no crack in the afternoon, but the morning time, fuck me, it's like virginal.

[00:42:02]

It's like every atom that you can lay your hand are iron is singing the fuckin hallelujah chorus. Oh, hallelujah, hallelujah.

[00:42:12]

It's fuckin birds took optimistic. The grass is in a good mood.

[00:42:17]

Everything is just fuckin love. You love them all.

[00:42:21]

Yeah I like that too. I don't get off that often at that time of the morning. But when you do it feels like the world hasn't decided what it's going to be like for the day.

[00:42:30]

That's that's the perfect tonight. That's is the shape shifter consciousness. Yeah. That means it could be awarded. It could be African. Could be a dream house. Yeah. It's pregnant with possibility. Yeah.

[00:42:41]

It's beautiful. And you don't the weather hasn't decided if it's going to be night or no. Sort of round fight between five and six. It's between five and it's still that might be a wet day or it might be a sunny day or might just feel, you know, and that's and as you said, there's nobody, nobody else has taken advantage. That's a there is a vulnerability with the worst and the gee, and I do like that. And you get into the car and there's not much people on the road like and you're you can decide then what sort of a deal you're getting the first Corvette.

[00:43:13]

Yeah, that's very true.

[00:43:15]

Actually there is a nice Zhongxun and say on late February when then Starling's and we've seen them starling's those murmurings late February, early March about halfway and I saw two weeks going to have a forum with form to verify this.

[00:43:31]

Bahar five on the end of February, there was that lovely dry spell we had in the evening as the evening looked over the hair shed, over the stone walls in the field, as I looked towards Barona, I can see the turbines that are in the back of Baranov, my house. The sun was setting.

[00:43:45]

It was a beautiful February sky, late February sky. But the turbines were spinning in the sunset over Barona. And I'm about 20 miles across the lake and I could see it the distance.

[00:43:57]

I ran out and I ran down the garden and ran into the field.

[00:44:00]

I took a photo and said, You'd like to go, come on.

[00:44:10]

But the phone couldn't zoom in on us, but it was magnificent. I can see the turbines on the mountains behind Barona.

[00:44:16]

There are the turbines are of course, I stopped there. Great. I'm giving you a power. They're not that electricity has been sold on to England. That's a fucking shame of it. You. I'm trying to paint a great picture. You are sky high five. I tell you one thing.

[00:44:30]

It's not a great picture of those fucking turbines that I was going to show you. The four are fine if they're far away. Can you see that? Can you see it out there? Look at local news. I can see the moon.

[00:44:42]

Yeah, look, that's the sun as the sun, as I say. No, it's either one or the other. So just look at that. And I just said, does a turbine their electricity wires?

[00:44:52]

I just said to myself, Mother Nature is good. I want to fuck Mother Nature, have to do with turbines.

[00:44:57]

No killing all the birds on set was beautiful. That's why the starlings arrive. It's that start to spring. There's some great times of the day.

[00:45:05]

I tell you, if I had a full and robust enough hatchet and a few strong lads, I'd fuckin cut turbine. That's what I do of a night.

[00:45:12]

I'd head out in my fuckin infrared jeep, combat gear, lights the chamber and no one can see that you're driving and fuckin I cut the fucking turbines down. I hate them. They're a blight on the landscape. They're been they need to be embraced.

[00:45:29]

They've been constructed for individual profit, not for community wellbeing, not to fucking factor. But now I just saw that.

[00:45:37]

Well, it's beyond my capacity to get involved in the conversation because I don't really understand what you're talking about.

[00:45:43]

What what they look like a fucking idiot.

[00:45:47]

I tell me, like, what do you want? The big pylons gone through a field, big monster pylons. We've got to realize that this country has great wind. We don't care. That's not what. Let's stick with the fossil fuels and the oil and the petrol and the diesel. No, the wind. The wind of change is common. There's 25 turbine factories, thousands of them ready to go off to arseholes off Dublin Bay.

[00:46:08]

It's when you go to Sweden or Copenhagen, you fly into Copenhagen airport, thousands of wind turbines. So the Danes have all free electricity. I tell you an interesting thing about turbines. Yes. A rule in this country. And I'm I'm I'm the ruler of this. Great. Oh, you're in any other country in Europe, you can put in a domestic turbine at the back of your house, which is not a monstrosity. It's almost like ten small windmills.

[00:46:29]

You'd have your homestead in America, in the Midwest. You could have a lovely windmill down the bottom. It would produce enough electricity for you and your neighbors and you can sell it back to the grid. In France, you get fifty something cent when you sell it back to the grid. So they're paying you for your electricity. Yes. You're promoting this in Ireland.

[00:46:46]

They give you a 19 cent if you produce anything for if I'm a private producer, five wind turbine in the back of my house, there's no incentive to do nothing here. And I agree with you, Tommy. The rich are getting richer with turbines when us are paying in hand over fist for our fucking electricity.

[00:47:03]

Sure, it's the wind turbines look like an ad from a future that I want no hand are fuckin in.

[00:47:11]

I'm on about the small little windmill, the packinghouse.

[00:47:14]

You won't need to worry about it anyway because you won't be out mixing with others. You never made me stand in your own house and the wind turbines will not have any effect on you. What?

[00:47:23]

Their heart, my eyes when you vote because they offend my sense of Irishness like from your time, what with this hideous, hideous war of the world, like these fucking demon electrical monsters come into fucking your soul.

[00:47:37]

I them I fucking hate you.

[00:47:39]

Drive out of Newcastle West and you go over the hill. You know what I'm talking about? The underworld. Takalani, go down to Abbey feel and you come up over Newcastle West and to the part of the road where two cars can overtake for about a mile up a hill and then. Oh yes, over the road ahead. That's right. There's about 700 from turbines in the distance.

[00:47:57]

I do agree with you.

[00:47:58]

There were eyesores, but for fuck's sake, massively that's harnessed the wind. They were bringing them back to Bellmore, flat out to put them out in the water, you know, and where they were taking them from, where they had to come through Ballina and they had to do it in the middle of the night. And they, you know, the all the cars are to be moved.

[00:48:13]

Yes.

[00:48:14]

So anyway, I went out, me and Audrey went out all night and I couldn't get somebody to drop me into town.

[00:48:19]

So I said I'd drive and leave the car there for the night through, parked across the door from the pub, went into the pope, had a great night, went in the next day to pick up the car.

[00:48:28]

The car was gone. In Ballina, you caught my car, so I drove around twice, drove around it a third time, and I said I rang Ottery. We didn't drive home last night. Did we know we weren't that drunk? No. She surprised car that we parked at X, Y, Z yet.

[00:48:45]

No, I was not there for your second grade M.S., but we didn't drive home last night. And the response, no, we weren't that drunk.

[00:48:57]

So I rang the guards and I said hello. I said Clarice was here. I said, I don't want to alarm you. But I said, it appears that my car has been stolen in Ballina. And he was like he started laughing about me.

[00:49:09]

And he says, where was it stolen from? And I said it was stolen from Garden Street. And he said, Right. And what kind of car was nice that it was for at Volkswagen, Tiguan, blah, blah, blah.

[00:49:21]

And he was like and he says to us, why don't you think it got stolen? I says, I don't know. I said, I went out last night being very responsible.

[00:49:31]

I left the car and down and and anyway, it turns out the wind turbines were been transported through the town. They told my car away.

[00:49:39]

That's the power that there was a bridge in Galway that wasn't tall enough for the wind turbines to be driven through on their way out to Connemara.

[00:49:46]

Yeah, so they spent six months and making the road deeper, went down by the docks.

[00:49:53]

They spent hours.

[00:49:54]

They did that for the bridge was there. Yeah, right. And they couldn't tighten the bridge because it was on top of was train tracks so they tried to deepen the road. I tell you I had one of the things I'm grateful for living in Galway is I have a view of the burden from from the road and I love it.

[00:50:10]

The beautiful, unspoilt, protected Borin. But I do feel sorry for the folks living over there and finau who are looking over this way.

[00:50:17]

And all this is a fucking apostle, loads of turbines up on the hill.

[00:50:22]

Their view is fucking spoilt. Yeah. I'd have no truck with them. No money now because then the conversation.

[00:50:33]

That's all from us this week, everybody, we really hope you've enjoyed the show and mind yourselves down the road. And don't forget, of course, our single is still at large and can be downloaded for 99 cent MC Konstantine, brilliant song, great crack faultlessly.

[00:50:48]

People are enjoying it to the mail if you haven't if you haven't heard it yet.

[00:50:52]

And one final word of wisdom just to. And what's new in podcasting?

[00:51:23]

Here's what we love, courtesy of Akehurst recommends. This is US Quintupling and welcome to The Daily Beast's Fevered Dreams. I'm Will Summer a politics reporter at The Daily Beast, where I dig into all the darkest recesses of American extremism. On this podcast, we're going to take you on deeply reported plunges into the sometimes hilarious, sometimes frightening movement that's turning our political landscape into a dysfunctional madhouse. We'll take you inside the right's push to retake power, not the Trump era was insane.

[00:51:53]

Wait until you hear what they have planned next. Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and tune in every Wednesday for a new episode of Fever Dreams.

[00:52:02]

A Cash Recap recommends.