It is time once again for the programme many equate to a D
ticket ride at Disney World. It contains no frills, none of the
thrills, no commercials and no music and to know talents, from
the manner in Guilford, England. I'm Adam curry.
And I'm John C. Dvorak. And what is now Canada have a dreary
Northern California.
Well, join the club, my friend. We've got horrible weather here.
It's been bad all week, and I just got back from Antwerp
flying through rain and gusting up to 40 knots of wind. So
it's bad. It sounds dreadful.
Yeah, but they have this thing, which is actually really good.
Where every aircraft has to have an annual inspection. And
there's a whole bunch of each aircraft, you know, has to go
through this whole checklist and things have to be opened and
replace. And if you don't do it in time, mine expires on the
31st of March, then your insurance is no no longer valid.
So I had to get it to the shop before the first of April. And
well, he just got to go where and whether or no whether
this shop was in Antwerp. Yeah, that's,
you know, I'll tell you the big thing about it. Here's the
secret about aviation, if you want to stay alive, maintenance
is everything. So you find the guy who you really trust, who a
lot of people trust, and you stick with him. You don't go
from mechanic to mechanic, you really want only one pair of
hands working on your aircraft.
There's a bunch of jokes, I'm not going to go into them. Now
you
could do it. I've heard them all, believe me. I've heard them
all.
And now I'm going to read just too much flack because there's
too many. There's too much political correctness out there.
You know, can I just say, John, you're absolutely right. About
them in general, but about political correctness, you know,
did you if
you can't say anything, I mean, like, you say anything about
anyone as you're either hurting somebody's feelings, or you're a
racist pig or whatever?
Well, racist pig is the big one. Because, you know, the feared
builders, the Dutch politician, he released his movie there on
Thursday evening. The end, you know, as movies go really bad.
Because it was, it's one of the you know, it's one of the it's
one of those typical, like all the 911, truth type, you know,
movies, so not the same topic, obviously. But footage taken
from all over the place and edited together. So it
absolutely had no impact whatsoever. But the message was
exactly that about political correctness, basically saying,
hey, look, we now have a third generation of Muslims who have
been born in, in in the Netherlands, and half of them
think the Netherlands should not be a democracy, it should live
by Sharia law. And the shoot has got to stop. That's basically
what he's saying is stopped the Islamization of Western Europe.
And I believe, John, that this is what a lot of people in
Europe want to say. But it's politically incorrect to say it
because we're all supposed to be living in the multicultural
society, which I just don't think really works.
Well, I don't think there's anything wrong with
understanding different cultures, so you can deal with
them for business purposes. But there was something I read, I
wanted to find this book, I have a book that was making an
interesting comment that the writer made this just a side by
three sentences that are so well done. I can't even get close to
it without quoting him exactly. But he says, you know, there's a
lot of cultures out there that you can respect to a point, but
many of them really should,
are bad, really suck.
They're just bad. And we shouldn't, you know, maybe we do
our respect for them should be reconsidered. Because they're
just bad. I mean, there's no reason that there's there are
bad cultures out there. And if you know, some of these things
are bad. And I have a question some of the things that have
been floating around in terms of whether they're good cultures or
not.
So that's, that's, I'm sorry, go ahead.
But since we're on the topic of cultures, I wanted to bring up
something that came up in a couple of emails and I sent you
one I believe, yeah,
I got it. But I'll pretend I didn't get it to stick with it.
No agenda like we didn't prepare anything. Okay, well,
no, but we get mail. That's true. You know, it's not like an
agenda like I didn't say what I want to talk about I just sent
you read I just said read this and what it is is from a guy who
had been corresponding with who was talking about the big
British grocery chain and this Yeah, Tesco is and this is
related to to cultural issues, although it's not extreme
cultural issues where you know, you're beating women or
anything. I mean, I don't think they want that. But what's
happened for people out there one have fallen This is an
interesting story. This is starts in Southern California. I
did some follow up by going to the websites Have the have of
Tesco. And it looks like they're going to open up a bunch of
these stores are called Fresh and easy's and they're small
grocery stores that have a lot of fresh, supposedly fresh
products in them, although there's so many of them, and
they're going to open like 30 of them or something like that. But
but the whole basic, the whole basic formula is fresh and easy.
So it's it's really fresh food and easy to get. That's their
formula. Right?
Yeah, and you right. And they believe that the Americans have
got it all wrong. And you know, they can show us show us the way
even though you know, I've been to grocery stores all over the
world. And the fact of the matter is, we have some of the
worst in the United States and some of the best, including a
chain that's now evolving out of the Seattle area.
Get Freshfields? I'm sorry, what's that? What's coming on to
see? Well, we'll get to that in a second, I guess about
Yeah, let's talk about fashion easy. Here's what they did. And
this is what makes the story interesting. They came in with
supposedly a lot of research and they're gonna come in and blow
the American market away. They're actually on the they're
on, they're on the wrong trends in almost every way they're
gonna lose. If anyone's an investor out there in Tesco.
They're gonna lose their ass. And I don't and I normally don't
cuss. And, and here and here's one of the reasons for one thing
they did. Their research indicated that people wanted
fresh food. And I think there's probably generally true, but so
what they've done is they've changed the way they do, the way
they do expiration dating. And that's was the biggest mistake
they made. Because in the United States, we expect the date to be
pushed away out to the point where the date should reflect
should reflect the date when the food milk or eggs whatever,
literally rotten. Yeah,
in fact, it is called American culture to reach behind the
products in the front of the of the shelf and get a even, even
fresher stuff from the back. I do that I do that all the time.
You're kidding.
Especially with buttermilk. By the way for anybody out there
who doesn't like buttermilk, they should get into it. But if
you live in Florida and Georgia, this is where the best
buttermilk in the country exists. I mean, you can
I'm not a butter. I'm a I'm a soy milk guy. I don't drink
buttermilk.
Yes. So it shrinks your brain by the way. No, it
does not. That's horseshit. It's really good for you shriek.
Yeah, it's if you'd like to have a mock. oestrogen, I use soy is
good. So if you're if you're into that, that's fine. But
anyway, so you know, which causes all kinds of issues.
We're not big soy eaters, and
wait a minute. Excuse me, John. Am I killing myself by drinking
soy milk now? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, we're
seriously. Yeah.
Natural Products. Stop drinking a drink milk.
Well, no, stop. No, no, no, stop it. Stop the fucking show.
Excuse me. I, I've been drinking soy milk exclusively for the
past two years, because it's supposed to be good for me. And
now you're saying
yes, yes. The soy console and the public relations operations
out of the US. By the way, we did a lot of research on soy.
And of course, I get a lot of flack for for every time I bring
this up. You know, a lot of people think that, you know,
male breasts are due to too much ingestion of soy products. But
anyway, but the thing that's interesting is that the soy bean
lobby in the United States has got a public relations agency
that is so strong that every time you read about soy, if you
start looking at enough material, go on the website
looking at you know what people say, well, soy is bad for you,
then you'll see these responses. These responses are almost word
for word identical, because they're all pushed out by the
soybean, PR people who are just you know, keeping the soybean
industry alive and just for mostly for the oil. Alright,
don't use all right. All right.
We'll get into the soy thing right after you finish the
fresh, sneezy, because we just got to stick on that. But then I
really want to hear about the soy stuff.
And Canola is another one. Anyway. I'm surprised don't
drink canola milk. All right, let's go, Oh,
my breasts are a little tender. I wonder what's wrong?
Well, that's probably from some males. But anyway. So fresh and
easy comes in with this idea. So they put they to get people they
think that by changing the date, instead of like, for example,
say it's April 1, and you go back and you want to get some
some product that it says April 14, and if someone says April,
Tam, it makes you feel good that makes you feel like it's fresh.
Yeah, he makes it. So they've got but they got their numbers
really tight. So if you go on April 1, the probably the
furthest out, it'll say is April 4. And so people would go in
there and they wouldn't find what they considered fresh by
American standards because of the way we do our dating. So
these guys immediately come into the country. And the first thing
they do is they assume that their style of dating is somehow
acceptable, and it's nice to do, which is a cultural thing again,
which makes me wonder, because they suppose they did a bunch of
research before they opened He's Fresh and Easy stores. The other
thing that seems to be a problem with them is that they're there.
If anybody's been to London, if you go to Marks and Spencers
they have a grocery store in many of these places and those
places are, they have a lot of nice stuff in there but the fact
of the matter is it's a very sterile environment
but it's very upscale. I mean, it's it's the most upscale
supermarket food you can purchase here apparently, chain
chain supermarket.
Well, I'm not sure that it was head of the place Sheffield's
chef, the other one is overdose
Marks and Spencers. Well. Yeah, I mean, you have you have like
Fortnum and masons, you know, but that's that's not a chain
that's
that's not no that's not a right for a chain Okay, well, maybe
whatever the case is, is not a comfortable it's not a
comforting it's not American new style store, like a Whole Foods,
for example, which would have a funkier quality and a more you
know, more wood and you know, kind
of, you know, what their ad campaign is for Marks and
Spencer over here for their food, but they've really
beautifully styled really, I mean, it's very hard to shoot
food for for television to make it look good. So it really looks
good. And the paid the tag is always this is an ordinary food.
This is m&s food.
Yeah, right. Well, nice dry. So they're bangers are quite good.
By the way. It's people like British banger a good one. But
there's only they're very hard to get into in the United States
because it's almost, there's a lot people don't realise it's
against the law to put as much bread crumbs or what they call
Rusk into the sausage as they do in England it's actually
illegal. Really? Yeah, there's a law because years and years ago
when during the 20s I guess you know, people would making crappy
sausages and they were just loading them up with bread and
meat. And so the you know, the legal guys came he said, This is
ridiculous. Not a sausage dammit. But so meanwhile a
sausage has really that's about a half bread which is a British
banger. A good one is really most of these you got a lot of
bread in it. It because for the texture you need that bread in
there the soup for it to be exactly right. If you liked that
sausage I
liked I liked it to mash baby.
The only big bang are good bangers I've had there's some in
Canada you can get in in fact, I've I took a Canadian Air
flight once from Toronto to London and they had for
breakfast they had a really outstanding banger for on the
Canadian flight. Anyway, so I will say back to the disc, which
was now becoming a shaggy dog story about fresh and easy.
Yeah. So they so they immediately tells me that their
researchers rather had their you know, they were they were full
of shit. Or they come in so but the other thing that's
interesting that people complain about, which I wanted to discuss
a little bit, is the is the fact that they also have this
European style that is rather alien to Americans in general,
except maybe in Berkeley, where they work people do it
voluntarily where you bag your own food. Yes, in the United in
the United States. You know, it's like, if you're in the
union, maybe I'll bag my own food and getting you know,
getting Union Pay. But for the most part, we don't bag your own
food. And I can hear I can already hear one of the
listeners of this show moaning about the kind of dilettante
nature of American shoppers. But the fact of the matter is, it's
a tradition here and it's our culture. Yeah, not to bag your
own groceries. In fact, most people can't bag and right
anyway, they break bags. And I think over time, they discovered
that it was a disaster to let people bag they're
also they also it's it's an efficiency thing. Because, you
know, if you're bagging your own groceries, it just takes longer
unless you know, because you got a bag and you got to go back and
you got to move it forward and pay it and you got to put them
in the cart. And meanwhile, people are waiting behind you.
It's a much more I mean, and by the way, I think that there are
many, many retirees and young kids who would really benefit
from having that gig. I mean, it's a great gig just to be
doing something and making some money.
Ya know, yeah, it keeps employment up. But that but
anyway, the point is, is that we don't bag your own groceries
although if you go to Berkeley, you run into people that
voluntarily go over and start bagging their own groceries
because they think they're in Europe or they want to pretend
they're in Europe or they feel like they shouldn't be in Europe
or whatever
saving the Earth. John, we have to save the earth.
Now these are the same people that put bicycle lanes all over
the place and there's no bicycles in them, but they all
wish they the
bicycle lane building soy milk. Rincon, losers.
If you want to ride a bike moved to Amsterdam, that's where you
can ride bikes all the time. It just doesn't make any sense.
We shop at Sainsbury's as you know that's we do most of our
shopping. And they do ask you so they don't have baggers. But
they'll the cashier will say would you like me to help you
bag?
Oh, that's new. No, no, no, I've never seen
it well I live here dude and I've heard it
varies numerous times and when I when I go
maybe they looked at you and when like fuck that Yank man you
know Let's teach him a lesson it's possible bag yourself
but the point is is that generally speaking in Europe you
bag your own groceries and in some places and I think in Asia
in some places you actually have to buy the bags
oh no that's that's common in the Netherlands you have to buy
the bag you have to pay for it it's an extra you know like 50
cents now used to be a member used to be a dime but now it's
50 euro cents per bag well i
i can advise most Americans that you can just take the bags and
not pay for them and they figure you're just an idiot. So
typical American American attitude John come over here
visit our fantastic supermarkets Yeah, the ones you love to shop
and you know so much about and then act like an asshole don't
do that man this is this this is what gives us a bad rap you got
to stop that and you know it's like drinking soy.
It's anyway back to the cultural things right now another thing
you run into in Berkeley besides people voluntarily bagging their
own groceries because they wish they're in Europe is they buy
they bring in all these these crappy bags that are made out of
cloth that they either bought or whatever it is you know because
you say they actually give you like a nickel or a dime or
something back on your bill if you if you don't use their bags
which is fine because you know golly you know the same people
though that are walking around with these with these with these
cloth bags that they stuffed the groceries in instead of using
and wasting the one paper bag are the same ones who subscribed
to The New York Times and relish the Sunday edition which
probably accounts for about 1000 paper bags of her issue but that
doesn't bother them
you know they have plastic bags here only plastic they don't
have paper bag
you have plastic we have the common either plastic or paper
generally they ask you in most stores in some parts of the of
the state and in San Francisco in particular they have gone out
of their way to ban the plastic bag and I think the plastic bag
which is used throughout Europe and the Middle East I might add
is a disaster I remember the first time I was visiting Israel
I thought you drive around into the outer reaches of the country
and there's all these trees with plastic bag country bags hanging
from the trees as though it was fruit to me can't get these
things down it's a disaster you
oh by the way when you drive over them and they stick to your
exhaust how much does that suck your car smells the garage
smells but the remember we talked about those was it to
those swirling the swirling centres in the ocean where all
the plastic was one of the first shows we did so that's now
happening near midway I saw a documentary The other night all
this plastic is all winding up midway is right in the middle of
that was it with the word started with a G What was it
called John
Boyd one of those lotto canal
no no they didn't middle of the ocean where all the plastic is
the word for them for the for this phenomenon.
Yeah, what was that? It was what the Chi remember was a type of
Asian remember somebody I'll bring them they will get anyway
so Midway is that which of course is what the island you're
talking yes and Midway Island, it's right in the middle of one
of these and they show that it's unbelievable the shit that shows
up there. And And remember when I was I was going up, which was
you were already growing up that you said you know plus plastic
lasts for a million years and it never it's not biodegradable.
Well guess what? It's it's degrading in the ocean. And and
it's and it's being consumed? Yeah, it's by by the smallest
microbes. And everyone and all these fish are getting sick,
they're all going to die. We're going to
most of the current plastic that's being manufactured has is
designed to biodegrade. I mean, they're they're, they've
reformulated it. So it has so it's really really falls apart.
Yeah,
it falls apart in the ocean. And then those those particles are
eaten up by by microbes or whatever call it so that's not
good isn't? No, no, no, it may say drink, drink, and I got a
cultural one for you.
Let's finish this story about fresh and easy.
All right, but then we got to do some more cultural stuff. Fresh
and Easy. Okay, so let me just let me summarise. So these
arrogant Brits come in thinking that they're going to take over
the supermarket world they say, You know what we'll do. We've
done all the research, apparently. And they're going to
change if they change the way that they date the food but in
such a way that it is exactly opposite to what Americans like
because we like to see a date that is at least 14 days in the
future but we'll settle for a week. That's it right okay.
That's that's part of Their problem is just shows that they
don't, they're incompetent. Also, they're also, they're
distorted layouts are not Americanized and their stores
are too small they think they're going to do you know, this has
already been proven not to work, the mom and pop family
neighbourhood store doesn't work anymore in the United States,
people get in their car and they go to a bigger place. Now, the
best example of this is that because Fresh and Easy, wants to
sell, like, you know, prepackaged meals, and all this
kind of stuff that Boston Market, so we always associate
that kind of thing with a fast food chain. And Boston Mark has
already got that. They already figured out how to do that. But
anyway, in the late 90s, I think, when I was still working
at Tech TV, I would check my route coming back from San
Francisco would take me past one of the yuppie markets chains in
the Bay Area's called Andronikos. And they were test
marketing, I think called the Andronikos marketplace was,
which, as I read about freshman easy is exactly the same concept
and it was sitting right in the middle of a million condos. And
if anything could have survived, it would have known without
mentality it would have been this place which went out of
business within two years. It was a test it didn't work out.
Obviously, Tesco never heard of Andronikos they don't know
anything about this, this test that was done in the Bay Area,
which failed miserably and the store was fantastic. I might add
it was a really good little place to stop. They had
everything was amazing, in some ways. But everything. People
just don't walk to a little store anymore that that went out
of business with the with the milk trucks in the United
States. And what people want now are these big stores. And the
best example of what is really a hot store is up and see the
Seattle area this is I'm going to end the story after this.
Which is and this isn't related to the Texas Chain of the same
name, by the way. But there's a there's a market up there called
Central Market. There's one in Seattle, there's one in Paul's
bow and is run into started by a couple of Japanese guys. It's
huge. It has everything it has everything Whole Foods has but
it also gives in to the regular commercial products. And it also
even has like a hotdog stand that sells up I perfected
Chicago style hot dog with vienna sausage, as a matter of
fact, with the sport peppers and everything else it's
unbelievable facility that these guys should go check out and
then rethink their strategy because it's fresh and easy
thing is that loser
Well I'll tell you a friend of a very dear friend of mine worked
for McKinsey that consultancy and she was in the food
department and these they call it format so the format of the
store which is the layout is what you see first what that you
know, every aisle This is really well thought out this is they
they even would go on espionage missions. And take because you
know try taking your camera into into your local supermarket and
start taking some pictures and see how quick your asses kicked
out. Because yeah, so much
have you done I have done that. But I do it knowing that I could
get kicked out so I do really quick.
Yeah, I mean it's they are so protective of this. So it really
it boggles my mind that they would know that they think
they've done the research this sounds like literally like a
first year McKinsey consultant who said let's try something
new, you know, doesn't sound like it's really been researched
that well.
No, I fit sounds like they botched the job of research. And
then these little kinds of stores are not what right now
Americans are going for the I mean, if you go to Whole Foods
is aren't small, little isn't huge, as a huge. They're huge.
But the central market, if anyone's up into the Seattle
area, they go to checkout Central Market, or Paulsboro. Or
this there's actually three of them up Jonathan, there's gonna
be a few more. Although I've heard that the Central Market
done out of Austin, which is done by the H E. But company, a
huge retailer, they heb stores all over Texas and they do a
thing called Central Market which competes with Whole Foods
down there. And it's supposed to be spectacularly nice too. But I
haven't been to one.
So speaking of cultural differences last night on on the
BBC here on the show, I always watched Friday night Jonathan
Ross, Donald Sutherland Sutherland was on and and you
know, he's from Canada. And oh, yeah, everybody know, he
reminds everybody right. But
he you know, so he still says that, you know, Americans
usually think he's British. British think he's American. But
everyone kind of neglects the fact that he's Canadian. So he
said, You know, there's a joke that he that he said, he said he
would tell. I said the Canadians love the joke. The Americans
hate the joke and he wanted to try it out on the on the
British.
Okay, no, thank
you. I was waiting for that. So you want to hear the joke? Of
course. All right. Let's, let's see. Let's see if you like it.
He did some little is your thing here, but I don't think it's
important for the joke to
be put before you do the joke not to interrupt. But the fact
that the Canadians love the joke means it's somehow it's some
it's one of those Canadian jokes that you know, that's
that's what I was waiting for, but it isn't at least I didn't
think it was but then again, I'm not. I'm certainly not Canadian.
I'm only half American, half European. I'm a lover, not a
fighter. So here's the joke. Two sperm are swimming along.
swimming alone swimming along and the one sperm says to the
other sperm, dude. How long until we get to the womb? And
the other sperm says, I don't know man, we haven't even left
the oesophagus yet. Hmm. Now, I thought it was pretty funny.
Well, it is it is straight. It is funny. I mean, technically.
Did I not tell it? Well, did you not like it that much? No, no, I
mean, I think you can't tell him much better than that. Because I
mean, it's you know, it's it's it's shallow. Very typical
Canadian. I think what it is I give that the Canadians do do
fellatio in Canada. No,
maybe they have more hookers up there. Oh, basically.
Here comes the email.
And you know, I think that I think the joke is juvenile.
I thought it was kind of funny. You know, what, if anything, I
thought
it's like the it's like the punchline to the joke on I don't
do that's not that's not a rash dash lipstick? To be honest,
John, I thought that maybe a lot of Americans, if he would tell
that on television or in you know, in some public forum that
maybe a lot of Americans, it takes them too long to figure
out what an oesophagus is.
I'll download that tonight then seriously?
Well, it's I mean it unfortunately.
Yeah, you know what, I hate to admit it, but you might be right
yeah. Not that you know, the I don't
want to generalise or anything,
by the way. oesophagus? I don't know this is good. No agenda
where we're just obviously going to just roam all over the place.
Fergus is one of the one of the definitive dishes in Taiwan
of the beef variety.
I believe so yeah. I've had it I went to was a Taiwanese take me
to Taiwanese restaurant did give me all the traditional national
dishes as it were from Formosa and oesophagus is apparently the
you know, right at the top of the list. And it's that's
actually quite good.
Can you imagine oesophagus stuffed with banger? dripped in
in m&s soy milk? Oh, man, how wonderful would that be?
So another thing about self service, which we know is the
debt in the United States, we used to it people used to pump
our gas.
Oh, mad. Sure. Absolutely. My wife, you still want to pump
your own gas? Because she wants that here.
And we used to get free maps. Oh, that's
right. Oh, that's right. It was the biggest thing on a road
trip. It's like, Dad, no. Can I run into that? Can I get a free
map? Can I get a map
and the guy would check your oil. He would wash your
windshield, pump your gas and look at your wife's tits
and give you a free map and gasoline was like 50 cents. The
good old days. Know what happened with the $4 gasoline
and they don't do anything. You have to do it all yourself and
they won't check your oil and nobody cares. I just I just
don't get the economics of this. By the way in Oregon. It's
illegal to pump your own gas they by law it's required that
somebody else pump it
someone who's qualified
gas pumper.
Yeah, it ain't easy, you know? Well, the economics I think are
you know, that came with the self serve. I think it makes
sense. It's just less bodies there and and people don't care
anymore. You know, we're conditioned to it. I think that
went away such a long time ago. The and then you know, self
service seems to be really everywhere now. Do you is there
still in where you can get your gas pumped?
The internet, the internet makes it makes it even worse. Now you
have to, you know, you can't even go to the gym, everything
self service. I didn't notice it when it began when when you used
to go to Macy's, you need to do in the olden days used to go to
a store and they would have people actually could that could
help you and actually had taste and they could lead you to
buying a certain thing or whatever. Nowadays, you know,
they just have these clerks that get whatever the minimum wage
is. And then they require them either through the bar coding
system or through a punching it in by hand to essentially do all
the people don't realise why it takes so long to get away from a
counter in a big retailer. It's because you're punching in all
the accounting information. Instead of a bean counter doing
it they're doing it at
they're doing the work. They're doing the work for it, obviously
literally doing all the work, bang,
bang, bang. So you sit there as the things all this data is
going in. And then then of course, it takes off something
in some computer database. So they can reorder more white
shirts, because no buddy can notice that there aren't any
left.
Oh, dude, I remember I worked in retail when I was 16, selling
electronic parts. So literally diodes, transistors, capacitors,
you know, Transformers solder wire, you name it, and it was
you know, we had a cash register, where you would
interview you'd write down every item by hand on, on, basically,
like a receipt. And then you slide that receipt into this
cash register, it had a handle that you would spin but it
actually modernise it, and you hit the, you put the type the
amount in, you hit the big black button, and it printed the total
and it had an internal total, right. And then at the end the
end of every single day, you'd have to compare all three
pieces. So how much money you have left in the to you how much
money you have in the till, excluding the 30 guilders at the
time that went in just for change at the beginning of the
day, and you had to match all of these different pieces of paper
and that matched back to
stock. Well, that's the way it worked. When I worked well, but
you know what, I wonder where the word till comes from? The
money in the till I've heard that all my life and never
thought much about it. But it's not. It's not until it's a cash
register the money in the cash, but it's always at the money in
the till. Maybe one of our listeners knows the etymology of
that particular screwball term. I'm, of course
looking it up as we speak. But it's kind of a hard word for
Google.
Yeah, ta l would be impossible. I think it's T IL. Maybe it's ti
ll
I think it's double L Yeah, ti ll let me see. I'll do
entomology till that always help.
Cat you maybe put cash register until I come up with something
associative, which is the way I do a lot of searches.
That's something that I that I only learned maybe 10 years ago
that NCR stands for National cash register company,
right. And the reason that Watson name his company he used
to work at NCR Of course, he got all his his ideas from NCR and
when he started IBM, and he decided that he was going to
name it like National cash register, but he's going to up
the ante on each and every word. So instead of national, he made
it International. Instead of cash register, he made it
business
machines. Yeah, exactly.
A little A little known a little she's not dealt
with and Tom Watson's Tom Watson still lives on in Dr. Watson
Disney. Does he? It's not that Dr. Watson like on on N T. And I
thought it still did it on that 1000 Dr. Watson would pop up and
he would like monitor shit they crashed was not him.
I don't think so. That's too weird if true.
That's what I that's what I always thought I thought that
that's that's him
well, if he had a baseball bat, maybe what does that have to do
with it? Gather stories of him and you know, coming in to
collect, you know, by breaking somebody's kneecaps against the
road. So all these stories about the about the early days of IBM
being the kind of a brutish, B R u T, I sh type of company?
Well, they were one of our clients that when we had think
new ideas, and there were probably like a I think they
spent 15 to $20 million a year with us and it was for the as
400 division boil boil boy, and man, there's still huge I mean,
really big. Yeah, a
lot of people are really fans of those machines. By the way back
to the one more thing I just came to Microsoft was looking at
my list of complaints, which goes on for days, but the Fresh
and Easy people had this excuse about the dating saying that
well people are you know, they they're going to come in and
shop daily, which is another assumption they made about two
all right, yeah. Which is not the way American
Oh, shop. Weekly.
Yeah, yeah, I go. I don't I mean, I loved it. I like I said,
I like to shop. But I don't like to go to the grocery store each
and every day just to buy today's food. I mean, I have a
freezer. So here
it is. Here it is. Okay. So it's a combination of there's also a
cultural shift happening in Europe, which is, I think, gone
very, very rapidly having grown up in Europe. Absolutely. Now
you have your long term items, like your potatoes, okay. And
you have stuff that you can just keep laying around. Do you get
that into big bulky in fact, that potato guy would bring that
to you and he'd also take away the potato peelings. There's
another guy for that back in the day. And you know, every single
day, you know mom goes out and And she goes by the butcher
around the corner and whatever. And then yeah, she gets her meat
and she'll go to the to the vegetable, vegetable guy. And
that could even be a stand on the little market. And what has
happened is they've tried to keep that cultural process
going, but now that they've, you know, all those smaller stores
are gone, and it's become big box supermarkets, but they've
kept that idea of going every single day.
Yeah, well, the Americans have never, except maybe in large
cities like New York, generally speaking, don't shop every day,
especially in the suburbs, which is where most people live in
total numbers. And is it you know, it's also impractical? I
mean, there's, I mean, I wouldn't mind living in Paris,
you know, you know, it's a block away from a meat market and a
cheese shop and a bread store and, uh, whatever. And yeah, and
go every day, say hello to the butcher, and, you know, get a
cut of a horse or whatever I wanted to eat.
If that's because we live in a country where you got to work
your ass off. We work 1214 hours a day in the United States. We
don't have any time for that shit. That's what's driven us.
That's why we're such a tremendously huge nation and not
like all those socialists in Europe who work eight hour days
and take eight weeks vacation a year.
Yeah, yeah, no, it's a shame. Dude.
Dude, speaking of the French Sarkozy had a huge states visit
to the UK to visit the queen. And this is a really, this is
really big. I mean, they've rolled out
the cards we have new we know nothing about this. So you might
as well Oh, okay. So Oh,
no, this is a big public display. They know, they rolled
out the golden coach and all the although it was really
beautiful. It was a real throwback to like, you know,
18th 19th century, just fantastic. Grand Jury, if you
will. And, you know, Sarkozy addressed the the entire
parliament, and he says it's time for, you know, for our two
countries to bond together, talking about deploying more
forces together around the world, but really saying, yes,
we know, in fact, he literally said Sarkozy said, you know, you
have your special relationship with America. That's great. But
we want a real brotherhood between our two countries. And,
but of course, the real news was, this was the first time
that his wife Carla Bruni, former model and singer came
along with him. And dude, man, she's awesome, John, she is she
I mean, she is she's like Lady die of France. I'm telling you.
I mean, that just from the appearances right, and she
hasn't I don't know if she's done all the type of work that
Diana did. It makes so much sense. I mean, it was like
finally someone good looking in the royal family. Really? I
mean, yeah, we got Camilla, for Christ's sakes. Yeah, a cab
driver told me a joke about Camilla. He said Charles Charles
was driving around Windsor Castle and he accidentally drove
over one of the Queen's corgis you know one of those dogs that
she has, and and in the quarry is dead, and all sudden the
fairy godmother appears. And so I don't know why you so glum,
and Charles says, Well, you know, I've killed one of mums
corgis? Well, you know what? I'll give you one wish. And
maybe that'll make you feel better for today. He says, Oh,
could you please bring the Corgi back to life? And Fairy
Godmother looks and says no, no, that's that's a goner. I can't
do anything that you No, no. Can't do that. And then Charles
says, Well, maybe you could do something about Camilla's
appearance. And the fairy godmother says let's have
another look at that Corgi for a second
that's a good joke. Yeah, I
mean, you have to hear it and kind of that you know that
London cabbie accent.
Ya know, it'd be funny with with or without that. Yeah, but it
would be even probably funnier with a guy that could do the
voice really
do it. Yeah, I can do the voice but that's it sounds
pretentious? Unfortunately. Not quite. Right.
So I had grits today.
I have I'm not a big fan of the grits. Boy I don't know it's
just it's not I'm very particular about breakfast.
I was I was saying you know, I'd never get like I never had good
sex until I started travelling into the South the deep south in
particular. They words really get to grips Yep, was common at
a breakfast and even all the hotels. And and it's an
interesting dish because it did for build on a grid. Sorry,
they're actually a kind of a corn Marsh cornmeal mush that is
made from a specific type of corn hominy that seems to soak
up so much water and expand to such an extreme that you can see
why poor people eat it because it makes you feel full in like
oatmeal. where you might need like half a cup of oats two cup
of or maybe three quarters of a cup of oats to like a cup or a
cup and a quarter of water and milk. It's like a couple of
tablespoons of grits and like a cup makes a huge pile and but
they're they're bland so I've been thinking about I like them
because they're interesting as a side thing.
What do you eat and where the where I mean, did you go
ham with bacon in a row ever? I mean just on a plate with red
rice, would you consider brown potatoes you'd be to have those
right. You don't consider any like some people will put syrup
on it. Some people do other things
right? Yeah, some people put syrup on them and some people
put butter on them and you can cook them if you cook them in
broth It tastes a lot better but I was experimenting with we have
at the deli. We have a bunch of salts a big thing right now it's
a big trendy item everyone's buying all kinds of salts
because a weird sells in a very expensive salts a huge it I was
at the Fancy Food Show for the last two or three years some of
the biggest vendors making the most money are selling assault
when what can what kind of salts are there? I mean, that's like
Hawaiian salt, which is red because it's in these brick
kilns. And essentially it's pieces of brick that are in the
salt. As far as I'm concerned. There's mined salt there's
Florida sell from France. What are what
are the main differences between the salts? I mean, is it I mean,
it's like, what are the differences? I mean, you know,
like those places can be sharper or less sharp.
There's there's flavours that are slightly different. They
have a lot of different mineral contents, not all salts are just
sodium chloride. They have a lot of magnesium. Some of them have.
I have some salt from Switzerland that has its half
potassium chloride naturally, supposedly, anyway, but the one
thing that you know, this is just a number of assaults is
expanding and exist salts from the Himalayas. There's Tibetan
salt, and a lot of these restaurants are starting to use
these salts.
It amazes me, John, you don't know shit about Tibet. But you
do know about Tibetan salt mats. Yeah, it's a travesty.
It's a travesty of justice. And anyway, there's also a black
assault. But the thing is, is that because they can't seem to
make enough weird assaults, there's all these smoked salts.
And now you can get from the United States you can get
hickory smoke, salt, Mesquite, smoke silence and these are just
basically tastes like smoke. But now that's the lead up to what I
have to say, which is the French have made a smoke salt called
few may sell for a long time. It's a tradition. And unlike the
American smoke salts, this stuff is actually fantastic as a
product and when you use it on grids when you make the grid and
use this few may sell it did make cigarettes tastes really
outstanding and it improves things a lot. But it's a French
smoked salts extremely expensive, but it's just
astonishing product.
I didn't know there was such a such a variety of salts. I mean,
you think like sea salt, and,
ya know, the salt thing is huge. And the and the other thing that
we've noticed that we can't figure this one out, because we
sell out of it constantly. We're you know, so a lot of spices
mostly. And, and I ran into the Andronikos that I mentioned
earlier, I was in the store and they had it there too, and it
keeps selling out and my wife can't figure it out. I can't
figure it out. We haven't found any research indicate where this
demand is coming from I figures the Food Channel or somebody
smoked Caprica is the hottest thing right now in the spice,
oily, red or green or does it go red? It's red smoke, it's red
paprika looks just like, you know, regular paprika, which was
there's no such thing as regular that now there's varietals and
all the rest of it, but the smoked paprika is going out the
door. And we can't. And if anybody out there knows why I'd
like to know myself because we can't figure it out. I don't
even have a recipe.
It must be a new secret ingredient in crystal meth or
something like that.
Yeah, well, that's possible. So front page
of the Financial Times Weekend Edition over here in the UK, of
course the controversial tax law new new tax code goes into
effect April 6 here in the United Kingdom. And there's been
a lot of talk about that even on this show about non domiciled
taxes, etc. So the first big, big loss for Britain because,
you know, I also predicted a lot of companies will leave and a
lot of cool shit. It's just not going to take place here because
of this. So you'll love this. Britain, Britain's bid for the
2010 Champions League finals, which is the huge football
competition at Wembley Arena. They're out of the race, because
UEFA which is the governing body of the Football Association,
said you know what, since you guys aren't going to waive our
players being taxed when they play in the UK, you're off So
like, this is the country that is supposed to be the new sports
minded country, we have the Olympics coming up. They're now
losing UEFA championship football because of the tax
code,
which has got to be worth millions and millions of dollars
to the local businesses
pounds even. Sorry. We don't we don't talk about dollars
anymore, John, it's just not worth it. But oh, by the way,
have you seen this documentary? The money masters?
No. Okay.
I'm only one hour into it, it was brought to my attention by
one of my listeners that daily source code at Delhi source
code.com. And it's a three and a half hour documentary, I think
it's from it must, it looks like it's from the early 80s. And it
does look like it was a real television documentary, in its
professionalism. But just from the just looking at the at the
footage, it pretty much looks like it was 80s or maybe even a
little over maybe late 70s. But it's about how banks came to
rule the world. So they focus specifically on the Bank of
England which surprise, surprise, is owned by private
individuals and and families and has nothing to do with the
government or the Queen of England, and the Federal
Reserve, which of course, also has nothing to do with the
government of the United States. And how how the system works.
And of course, you and I think we we understand kind of what's
going on, but they're able to simplify the process of how it
works and how, you know, how basically, doesn't matter who's
running what country where these guys are running the whole show,
it's a fantastic piece of work, I'll send you you can Google it.
Video video.google.com It's like the top hit the money masters
three and a half hours. And it's just completely engaging. Even
if you know the story. They did it so well. And it's and I hope
that lots of people watch it, because it just shows you how
everything is running and that the even the elections are a
joke. These are the these two entities the Federal Reserve and
Bank of England and of course, other central banks. They
control us because they literally control how much your
house payment will be how much your car payment will be, you
know what your salary is going to be they they determine that
random and not well random to us, but for their own benefit
whenever they need to do it. So now that's pretty much I think,
when the the lending hand is always above the borrowing hand,
right?
Well, all I know is that it's fishy.
When you see this, you'll you'll just your jaw will drop. Your
jaw will drop you like of course now is
it now I guess it fit? Does it fit in with the Confessions of
an economic hitman?
Oh, completely? Well, in that system, okay, so this, this is
going back to in fact, the, the American Revolution was because
of central banking. They wanted to get away from that. It's It's
fascinating, you know, so, you know, we were taught in school,
it was about taxes. Yeah, it was partially about taxes, but it
was about America having the colonial scrip, which was their
own form of money. And they just issued enough for trade to take
place and everything worked. And there was no there was no
inflation, there was no national debt, you know, it was just
there was money in circulation, and everyone used it and you
know, you could get more of it by selling more or or spending
less and but there was just so much in circulation, it wasn't
brought in, you know, through through printing it through a
third party who would then basically lend it to the to the
to the government. Fascinating. It's really an eye opener.
Will definitely watch it. Yes,
I in fact, I don't think you should go anywhere today. I
think you should stay home, in your slippers. Have a nice cup
of tea there.
And watch this and then just get mad.
You know what you won't get I'm not mad. I'm looking at I'm
going like, oh my gosh, of course. I mean, it's really
Rothschild. The Rothschilds run the world, dude.
Well, you know, they make good wine to
not just wine, they got all kinds of stuff. So we'd like him
I got nothing against the Rothschilds. But you'll also
understand how bank runs really work, you know, when everyone
has a run on the bank and everyone wants to get their
money out and, and of course, then you immediately understand
why you get why there's attractive interest rates for
locking up your money, which means you can't take it out for
a certain period of time. Why? Because they're using that 10
fold to they basically lend it 10 times over It's just
phenomenal.
Well, on this subject of coverless bankers, I met a
number of the Rothschilds over the over time and they reminded
me of the character of a lot of them. The British part of the
family. The character did you ever see the movie The Good
Shepherd? with Matt Damon playing a CIA guy? Yes, I did.
You know how he was basically and, and oh, personality? Yeah.
Yeah, that's kind of the way a lot of these looks the way they
are.
personality of a dish rag essentially.
actually enjoyed that movie? Yeah, it was. It wasn't highly
rated, you know, at first spy movies, but it brings up a lot
of interesting points, including the skull and bones. They think
about it, and we have no candidate running for president
currently, that's a member of that organisation. Well, it's
been, which is new in the history. I mean, we might have
to time there's always one of
these guys running like it's always there's always someone
running right.
But this guy, last guy, you know, Bush has done such a
crappy job at the whole they should kick him out of the skull
and bones. I
think I think McCain although technically not a member, I
think he He's, uh, does janitorial services for
Scotland.
At least he's not a you know, it's these Yalies? I mean, you
know, William Buckley, and the rest of them. They're all
characters.
He passed away, didn't he? Yeah. You know, my, my, my cousin is
married to Christopher Buckley son. Has that right. Christopher
is also a writer, obviously.
Yeah, I think he's the editor. Now the New Republic or the
writer, the winner? With National Review? Yeah,
he's a nice guy. You know, I've hung out with him a couple of
times, you know, big family gatherings. And these all right,
you know, arrogant fuck, but he's okay.
You know, that was kind of bread. He's probably I think
he's a Yalie to be surprised if he wasn't. So they all have
that. That person now my cousin divorced them. So, so you won't
see him anymore? No. No, they're going to do a podcast. Oh,
you know, I remember when you everyone had AOL, and that was
your email. And that was kind of your information source. And,
you know, it was before in the history of AOL at a certain
point, they actually opened up like pieces of the internet. And
that could that could come in through little gateways. And it
still would be within the AOL user interface. And, and, and
within this universe, and it was, you know, protected view of
sanitised for your protection. So I remember having a
conversation with him. And he was like, you know, the
internet, who cares? The internet is stupid. That's
nothing. It's like CB radio is dumb. You know, AOL. I remember
having quite a conversation with him. And I think it was at least
six years, seven years later, and several, several million
dollars in my pocket, and he had to concede.
No, it's about time. Yeah. But anyway, no, I'm reminded of you
know, there's a bunch of these guys that are at a certain level
of society, that they don't have the either the wherewithal the
time or the desire to really learn anything at all about
computing computers, the internet, I mean, they're, they
can get by
maybe, because their secretary does or email, the Secretary
does all the work. And the thing is, is they make these, these
ridiculous comments, everyone. So I want to, I remember when I
was writing for Forbes, I read an editorial bias, Steve Forbes,
who went on and on this was like, you know, in the late 90s,
or whenever, and it was about how things are going to change
in the next couple of years, because computers are finally
going to become appliances. And you can just see was just a
wishful thinking. Computers have never and never will become
appliances don't have a smart refrigerator. You know, they're
not appliances. There's like a car becoming an appliance, you
have to learn how to drive one. Yeah. I mean, it'd be nice if
you could just jump in a vehicle punch in where you want to go
and boom, you're there. But that's not the case. So what
bugs me is that there's never any real encouragement, or they
never really got to the right tools to enable people to
actually programme their computers, you know, and there's
been a lot of efforts. And if you if you have half a brain,
you can learn to programme something like Apple script or
some other I think scripting languages, mainly, but you know,
for your computer to do more, you know, to automate stuff that
is redundant for you on the computer that I've never felt
this. enough has been done that way. It's always I agree
with that. 1,000%. And in the early days of the computers, the
desktop computers from 1976 to about 1986. That was encouraged
a lot more. There was basic and All these lands were easy to
use, and then the professionals came in, you know, they kind of
swept it away when See, which is nothing you can casually learn,
and some of these other languages became dominating. And
then the next thing you know, they just kind of gave up on it.
And even with the macro languages and some of these
other things, they're, they're either too complicated or
stupid. And after the modem era was over, when, you know, you
had to learn some macro languages to make those things
work properly. That was it, it just died off. And now you don't
do it, you now just punch a key, you know, click on something,
you know, run a programme, click on something else, get your
email, do a search,
have you? Have you ever tried Automator? On the Mac? I think
it's called Automator? Isn't that what it's called? It comes
standard.
I saw it sitting there. It's got a robot icon and it's on the Mac
I have at the office. Yeah. And I've not, I've been meaning to
click on it. Well, I actually
got into Apple script a while back, and I've always kind of
kept up with it. You know, so you have scriptable applications
and, you know, passing data from one process to the other. And,
well, you saw, like, some of the stuff that I've done with, with
my setup with, you know, understanding MIDI commands, and
it's really powerful, you know, if you if you have some type of
control over what your computer is doing, you know, which can
involve multiple applications or, or processes that you're
probably doing by hand, you know, yeah, no, you
you did as a phenomenon. Phenomenal. But you took four
years to do it?
Well, yeah. Because the not that I didn't understand what I
wanted to do, or that I would you know, or that I could put
the effort into learning how to do it. But literally, the tools
were not available. So the buses and you know, the audio
interfaces and API's, I guess you would call them or system
hooks or whatever, and there was just no tools to get to it. You
know, I mean, yeah, if you're, if you're a programmer, you
couldn't you could delve in and do something at a lower level
type language like C. But for just a guy who would, who
couldn't understand the concept of scripting and just want some
stuff to happen or connect, you know, thing a to widget B, I
just there was just no way to do it. And so now there was a way
to do it and the particular application I wanted to make
which involves a lot of heavy audio processing. The machine
actually is strong enough to do it now.
So my stepson says he'll help you get the patent. Really if
you if you tell him what you did?
Sure. Well, I thought we should be a full full on family effort,
man. You got to be a part of this.
Yeah, no, I mean, I'll show I mean I've done it I've gotten
I've done patents Yeah, what I would patent Do you own I did
it. I don't own any patents but I tell people do patents and
went through a real process with the patent office with the years
ago with a guy came up with a a weird, recycle recycling
separators guy used to work at a scrap yard and invented this
crazy device, which sucks paper out of it just you throw all
this stuff on this big spinning thing with a vacuum behind it
it's suck salt, different different things with different
densities onto it and then shoots it off someplace on a
conveyor belt. You have to look at some of these places these
huge scrap yards and how they operate to see what you'll see
this kind of device anyway helped me get patent
funny it's it's never really interested me to go to a scrap
yard
Oh, it was in its air pollution inspector and I had to go to
scrap yards to see what it because it'd be smoke come I
was an air pollution inspector. Oh, it wasn't an important
inspector gonna clean up all your air gonna clean up. Like
that.
Sounds like a song. Oh, terminal five. Ready to happen. John, I
got some more some more cool shit for you, man. You love
this. The Heathrow's terminal five took 19 years of planning
and building costs $8 billion to build opened up a fucking
disaster they've cancelled hundreds of flights the
something went wrong with the baggage system and it always is
with the baggage system right? It's
always the baggage system whatever
test these things are not telling us exactly what went
wrong but it's not the airport because be a British Airways who
has exclusive use of this terminal. It has said you know
It's our mistake. It's our fuckup it's not BA and in saying
at the same time they're very critical of BA who own all the
airports it's so that's British Airport Authority. It's not
their fault. It has something to do with their baggage handlers
or I mean it's a staffing issue clearly because everything else
is apparently working. But they've had people you know
sleeping overnight, you know people waiting for hours for
their bags. To get off of the plane, not being able to check
in with any baggage at all except for hand luggage. It's
just been absolutely this is
disaster reason never to check bags.
Yeah no, but then you've got all that liquid restricted to
restriction shit and I got product baby. I got product from
my hair I got product from my face I got a product for all
kinds of stuff and it's not only 100 millilitre bottles,
put it in 100 millilitre bottles. How much of this stuff
do you need? ever travelled? Somebody takes big giant bottles
of shampoo. I mean, it was like what? Oh, but I have a lot of
around all this stuff.
I have a lot of small bottles. I got product. I'm like, I'm like
a woman.
No comment. So x change your ways.
You are right, though. You are absolutely right. It's a but
sometimes you got to clothing. The dog is pissed off. He's
saying it's time to wrap it up.
We actually got about eight minutes left. Before we get to
the 70 minute mark. We are this shows have been going on a long
time.
But it's I'm not getting it like well, the only people who
complain about it are those two, Jabra Ionis. But I know Hey,
anyone else complaining about the length?
Well, it just seems to me that should fit on a one CD. But
yeah, no, I mean, I don't care. Seems like it. Okay, I got a
couple more complaints. If anybody wants to hear him.
Let me see. Yeah, well, yeah, we'll take another complaint.
So Jose Canseco is the guy's baseball player is the guy who
was responsible for the steroid thing in baseball being blown
wide open with this book that he did, I think as a couple years
ago, called juiced. And he named all the people that he had
helped get in. He's a big stellar promoter
juice, which of course is the exact same name as the video.
Video, a programme juiced you spell it differently, but juice
j o s t,
it is the same pronunciation juiced. But anyway, he named all
these names. And he actually when it comes on, he's like a
big steroid user, he probably has a prescription I don't know
what but he's, he stays pumped up on the side. He's huge. And
he thinks is the greatest thing ever. And then he talked in, I
guess a lot of baseball players found it was very useful because
it was a it was a myth that well, you know, people always I
remember during the era when it was really being discussed a lot
was well, you know, you can take all the steroids you want but
that doesn't mean you're gonna hit a 90 mile an hour fastball,
you know, that takes other skills. It turned out that a lot
of steroid use doesn't, it actually increases all kinds of
things other than just pure strength. It also makes you more
likely to hit a 90 mile an hour fastball if you were whipping at
it. But anyway, so it was like So Joe became a scandal. And so
now he's got another book coming out where he's naming more names
and which helps keep this controversy going for a while so
I'm watching the TV version of the Jim Rome, Rome is burning
Shan Jamel Hill was on and she brings up this topic and she
said something interesting to me that just kind of kind of
triggered a thought or two which was that she says that the
problem with all this that these accusations that can Seiko makes
in the book he says he gave somebody the needle in the but
and then he can get he told us that he hooked up some other guy
with a with a drug dealer and all the rest of the promises no
second source there's no second source for this information. Oh,
second sources became a big thing in journalism. Oh, there's
no second source, no second source, you have to triangulate.
So I had to start thinking about the second source concept. And I
realised that damning way when he's reporting about World War
Two was just reporting what he saw George sells a famous
correspondent he was he would write about what the what the
what they're doing and it would go into the newspapers, there
was no second source for correspondence, they would go
someplace take a look at something and report on it. They
didn't have to say well, they'll die see that big oak tree over
there? Is is dying. Let me get a second source in here to confirm
what I'm seeing. I mean doesn't
always so your beef is that all of a sudden there seems to be
some unwritten new journalistic rule which is not official.
Well, yeah, that's one of my beats but but what it boils down
to in fact in straight reporting, where you're
essentially staying in the office and phoning people you're
supposed to get not only a quote from one person with a counter
quote from somebody else in a natural Cody suppose get the
three quotes and you supposed to have a second source for
anything that but if you actually are witnessing the
situation or you're a participant, why would you need
a second source? You're just saying what you saw Ah, okay, I
don't need a second source to say that.
No, no, no, I got it. I gotta live here. Let me tax up mon for
you. This is more of the don't edit your own Wikipedia page
bullshit. Which is another that's that's where I've fucked
up. I didn't know that you mean, certainly not. Three years ago,
I didn't know that you weren't supposed to edit your own
Wikipedia page. Wasn't I fucking there though? Am I not some kind
of authority? That's that's what this is. It's it's a cultural
shift. There's
a lot of mistakes in the Wikipedia that could be easily
corrected by the person that this that the post is about.
Yeah. So it's actually idiotic, not to edit your own Wikipedia
page. So you can maintain accuracy. The reason of course,
they know what you're doing is because you're going to take out
into all the negative stuff about what's what's negative
stuff about people, unless they're criminals, even in there
for I mean, the Wikipedia thing is sketchy in a lot of ways. But
the second source thing, you know, because we got to, I've
got a new correspondent I'm gonna be working with it was a
Chinese guy goes to China a lot. And who's, I think he's calling
himself Hong Mao Tang, I think something like that.
Like, it's an alias, like, he doesn't have a real morning. He
was just in he was just in Tibet. And he's and he's
essentially just goes and he's, and he's gonna be replaying, I'm
not gonna get any second source, I think, what do I need a second
source? You don't need a second source when somebody's there
reporting. And so I find it weird that she would say this
woman on the show was say that can say God needed a second
source. And I realised that that's, that's a bunch of
malarkey. You don't need a second source, when you're just
90% of the time. If you're there, you don't need a second
source. You're looking you're reporting. What do you need a
second source foreign? Why is this come up in the
conversation?
Okay, well, I've given you my input, I can't help you anymore
with that one.
No, no, I appreciate that, too. But I just think it's a it's an
interesting phenomenon. We're all you know, well, you can say
all that all you want. But I'd like to see a second source and
a second opinion. It's like you go into another
diet or a second source. Oh, well, I guess no one to know and
trust anyone anymore. And you know, and even if you have
second, third and fourth source, yeah, the truth is, is wherever
your perception was at that time, I think there's always
three or four sides to the truth. It's just the way it is.
Yeah, maybe the women have any complaints this week. I'm just
sitting here, griping all the time. No, no, I got a big gripe.
You know what I'm actually pretty happy. Because Patricia
is has been in Holland all week doing the Holland Got Talent.
Show No, no, this is great night. I love the name. What
comes from America got talent and Britain got talent. Now,
this is a huge formula. This is like Dancing with the Stars type
of audience like Pop Idol, American Idol. I mean, this is a
worldwide successful format. So you know that it's almost no
risk when you walk into when someone says, Do you want to do
this show? Because it's, you know, these shows don't fail
anywhere, the formula is tweaked, it's perfect. But of
course, you know, if you are a good judge, you know, that can,
that's, that's really important for the show. So really, the
casting and it is casting of the judges in these reality shows,
it makes all the difference. And it's not just how, how
knowledgeable you are about either singing or in this case,
it's a wide variety of performance. Art, I'd say. But
it's also your reactions. And you know, and it's really about
how you approach it. And you know, they always want to have
the Simon Cowell type person, maybe the softer person. And
really what works and what is always this the core of the of
the success of this formula is one person who was just honest,
not a dick, it may come across that way, but the person is just
honest. And that is my wife to the tee. And but she can
actually say things so honestly, that is, you know, just cut your
legs off at the knee, but you still feel good about it. So the
first episode aired last night, huge ratings like a 20 Share
just off the charts. And so that's been exciting. He or she
has worked really, really hard on it. And and you literally you
work all for a couple of weeks, and then you know, they
broadcast the next morning. That's your that's your number
right. That's your report card. That's what it's all about in
that arena
after after the show airs. I mean, do they? Do they put them
all in the can quickly? I mean, they don't do this. You have to
go back every week. No,
well, yeah. So here's the here's the way it works. So they've
done this completed now two weeks of the of taping in the
theatre with a with an audience, but it's kind of like the
audition round if you will. So until 90% is going to go away.
And then they have the next round which will be for live
shows in May. And that's really counting down you know, to the
final person so those will be done live, but I think they've
probably done shit. I don't know they must have done eight, maybe
eight episodes that will be the the audition rounds which of
course are a lot of what the fun is about and then by the time
you've finally become endeared to Ya know, the
audition rounds, as far as I'm concerned is the only
entertainment on these shows. Yeah, the because
then you get hooked, you get hooked on, on, you know, someone
that you just really turn on to. And then that pulls you into the
watching the live shows and voting and all that excitement,
it's fabulous. It's if you're
lucky to get hooked. But anyway, the So you're telling me so the
show the formula, the way they do this, they shoot like, like,
what eight to 10 shows and they get those in the cancer, they
just work real hard to get those done, and then they have to go
back then they have to actually go live because someone's fallen
into the rest of it. Yeah, week after week after week. And
that's kind of the that must be the grind.
Well know that those four live shows are great, because you
know, the show was only going to last, you know, an hour and a
half or whatever it is, that's live television is great,
because you start and it's just going to end at some point,
whatever you do, and it's over, you know, there's no going back
and fixing it. So, you know, these shows every day from like,
one in the afternoon until 10 At night, you know, one after
another. I mean, it's an it's an it's not front to back shows.
They do openings and closes etc. But it's really just all
performances, they're sitting there watching one after
another. And it seems like grandma's on rollerblades, it's
you know, all kinds of crazy shit. And a lot of it is just,
you know, I was there the last time when Patricia was doing the
first week of shows, and the judges are just so so tired
after you know, one of these days of taping and just
emotionally drained from looking at, you know, some really bad
performances.
So do they have dude and they do a wardrobe change? I would
assume we can shoot for an hour and then you change and you go
back and
yeah, I mean, this is all post production in it's believed me.
Yeah, I think the person who deserves to win always wins. But
man this thing is it's all postproduction it's they really
put this together well, it's art. I mean, what an art form
and it just makes for a fun fun entertaining show and laugh
about some people and get emotionally involved with others
and has no other redeeming quality or value.
Yep, no value whatsoever. In fact, I was watching the fact I
can't even watch much television networks are always wondering
what's what's going on. You watch shows like what's that one
with Howie Mandel? Well, you guessed it.
Oh, yeah, I like that. It's well, you have dealer no deal.
And then Dennis Miller is doing a show now I think amnesia is
it's worse. The like, dealer no deal. That's a great show.
It's an idiotic show. There's no questions. There's no skills.
It's just like you guess in any watch people go off the deep end
because they think they're going to make more money because they
can't do simple math. And look up on this screen and say yeah,
no, I think $250,000 is enough. I doubt that I picked a million
dollars in his in this suitcase I'm sitting next to besides even
if it is why should I go through all the anguish? And it's
probably not it's probably five bucks. But no, I'm not going to
take the $250,000 quarter of a million even though I'm not
making any money and I'm poor.
So listen to so often they walk
off with five bucks
then you wait, you need to see a different show. You need to
watch the show that Jerry Springer hosts and it's it's
called nothing but the truth.
Okay, I've watched that show once it's unwatchable. I love
that show. I love that shows. This is the this is my favourite
question. Okay, so it's always around the $5,000 mark. And of
course, it's all based on lie detector stuff, which is all
totally sketchy. But let's just say that, you know, this is I
mean, it really comes down to people saying things in front of
their friends and family who are sitting there. So the question I
love the most is, have you ever fantasise about gay sex? I love
that question. It's so funny. And you see these guys just
going like Oh, fuck, man, you know, if I lie, then I'm going
to lose the $5,000 But if I say yes, it's like I'm never gonna
live this down. You know my homies are gonna be laughing
Yeah,
that shows is rigged. Weird. Anyway, basically, the questions
and answers are all pre prepared. Yeah. I don't like
that. Yeah. And you know,
that it doesn't matter.
But that part is so entertaining makes you itch. It makes you
scratch it makes you it makes you cringe the watch that show
that show is an example of what's wrong with television. It
shouldn't be to watch it. They should shoot the people who
produce it.
I love that show. John.
You have the worst taste in television.
Oh please vote oh look just because I'm on the cutting edge
on the work and tip of what's going on in media today. Doesn't
mean I have horrible
media goes off the cliff. But look, the
these shows are not going off the cliff. These are the only
shows that will be left because they're inexpensive to produce
highly entertaining, no other not offensive or or useful in
any way. Other way whatsoever. It is chewing gum for the brain.
It is fantastic. I love it. It's good for us. Everything else
should be done online. It's
not good for us. It's probably the most detrimental programming
in the world. It's turning the public into a bunch of jackasses
that don't know anything about anything. A good show and
current events is what we need. People are so stupid. It's
because of these shows. They're just stupefied by it. It is
worse than the worst kind of drug. Well,
I don't know what to say now. You've hurt my feelings. Well,
let me just think. I don't know if I you know, 75 minutes forget
about it. I'm gonna think let me think about this. And I'll get
back to you next. That's my new signal. The time is up, John.
You so you're gonna let me you're gonna let it end with my
rant about your tastes and television. Yep,
I'm just going to have to end it there.
Well, okay.
You got that you got me? You got me. What can I say?
You'll have to come back with something next week then.
Yes. Now that we have an agenda or anything you really got me
you got me going there for a moment
but I but I think I'm afraid if we get into it that the show
will be two hours. You know what I mean? Yeah, you we should do
save that topics and on a high we're ending on a high so that
people can they're already yelling the fact that a lot of
people are going to help me formulate my my rebuttal next
week. Good luck with that. All right. So you're doing twit
today? Not tomorrow?
No. I think the Leo took off. He's travelling somewhere in
Mongolia are
so good. Because then we get a lot more listeners. I think that
could be Yeah. And also a lot of people who are like Dvorak,
DeVore I grew, groupies are showing up. It's about time.
Yeah. All right, my friend. And that was entertaining. I think.
Yeah. And we'll be back again next week with more good stuff
for sure.
From the curry manner in a wet Britain. My name is Adam curry.
And I'm John C. Dvorak in a das slightly wet Northern
California.
We'll talk to you again next week right here on no agenda.