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[00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:06.000] Ford was built on the belief that the world doesn't get to decide what you're capable of.
[00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:06.960] You do.
[00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:10.480] So, ask yourself: can you or can't you?
[00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:15.280] Can you load up a Ford F-150 and build your dream with sweat and steel?
[00:00:15.280 --> 00:00:18.960] Can you chase thrills and conquer curves in a Mustang?
[00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:23.440] Can you take a Bronco to where the map ends and adventure begins?
[00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:27.520] Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right.
[00:00:27.520 --> 00:00:28.400] Ready?
[00:00:28.400 --> 00:00:29.200] Set.
[00:00:29.200 --> 00:00:30.480] Ford.
[00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:45.440] It is Thursday, the 11th of September, 2025, and you are listening to Skeptics with a K, the podcast for science, reason, and critical thinking.
[00:00:45.440 --> 00:00:57.040] Skeptics with a K is produced by Skeptic Media in association with the Merseyside Skeptic Society, a non-profit organization for the promotion of scientific skepticism on Merseyside around the UK and internationally.
[00:00:57.040 --> 00:00:58.400] I am your host, Mike Hall.
[00:00:58.400 --> 00:00:59.680] With me today is Marsh.
[00:00:59.680 --> 00:01:01.040] Hello, and Alice.
[00:01:01.040 --> 00:01:02.000] Hello.
[00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:06.400] I'm a sucker for marketing dressed up as a magazine.
[00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:06.960] Okay.
[00:01:06.960 --> 00:01:11.920] You know, when you go into like the supermarket and you get one of the little free magazines or boots, boots do them as well.
[00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:14.000] You look like a Tesco food magazine.
[00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:20.640] I get so excited every month for the new release of a Tesco food magazine.
[00:01:20.800 --> 00:01:21.520] It's ridiculous.
[00:01:21.520 --> 00:01:22.160] It's ridiculous.
[00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:23.360] It's just an advert for Tesco.
[00:01:23.360 --> 00:01:24.560] It's just an advert for Tesco.
[00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:28.400] I know absolutely what the purpose of it is, but I still get excited for it every year.
[00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:34.960] I suppose I used to get excited about the new Argos catalogue, which is nothing except a big book of marketing.
[00:01:34.960 --> 00:01:35.600] So that's true.
[00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:39.360] Do you think there's anybody like, were you old enough for Argus catalogs?
[00:01:39.360 --> 00:01:39.840] Yeah.
[00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:41.760] Okay, where's the cutoff point for that?
[00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:44.720] Because I think Argos catalogues as an exciting thing.
[00:01:44.720 --> 00:01:57.320] They died before they stopped coming out because the internet made them kind of obsolete in the sense that it used to be when I was growing up, if you wanted to see what toys are available, you had to look at an Argos catalog catalogs.
[00:01:57.400 --> 00:01:58.480] Or watch TV adverts.
[00:01:58.480 --> 00:01:59.520] Or watch TV adverts.
[00:01:59.520 --> 00:02:00.200] Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:00.200 --> 00:02:00.600] Yeah.
[00:02:00.600 --> 00:02:03.320] Whereas then it came along, you could just Google stuff.
[00:02:03.320 --> 00:02:06.360] I don't think television Bishop Awkward either thinks that was.
[00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:06.840] No, it doesn't.
[00:02:07.160 --> 00:02:11.080] I am older than Google being quite so common in every home.
[00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:11.480] Yeah.
[00:02:11.640 --> 00:02:12.600] Certainly for children.
[00:02:12.760 --> 00:02:13.720] You grew up with the internet in the house.
[00:02:13.800 --> 00:02:14.680] I grew up with the internet in the house.
[00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:16.600] So like you were around the cusp.
[00:02:17.160 --> 00:02:19.400] You might have not been an Argos kid.
[00:02:19.400 --> 00:02:20.600] It's possible.
[00:02:20.600 --> 00:02:23.160] You probably never saw an index catalogue, though, did you?
[00:02:23.160 --> 00:02:23.880] No, I don't think so.
[00:02:24.040 --> 00:02:25.240] Or a Little Woods.
[00:02:25.560 --> 00:02:31.640] No, well, but the reason I wouldn't have seen closed catalogues is because I grew up in a middle-class family, not because of my age.
[00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:37.160] We wouldn't have had catalogs like that delivered to our house because it's just not that the kind of thing.
[00:02:37.160 --> 00:02:47.560] We did establish the other day that you're too young to remember the Kiora advert and too young to remember the reference in the sitcom Space to how old the Kiora advert was.
[00:02:47.560 --> 00:02:49.240] Not too young to remember Space.
[00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:50.680] I just haven't watched Space.
[00:02:50.840 --> 00:02:52.360] Well, I've watched three episodes of Space.
[00:02:52.440 --> 00:02:54.520] I think it came out in about 2002.
[00:02:54.520 --> 00:02:55.240] You were 12.
[00:02:55.480 --> 00:02:56.040] 11, 12.
[00:02:57.240 --> 00:02:58.440] It's too orangey for crows.
[00:02:58.520 --> 00:02:59.400] Too orangey for crows.
[00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:01.320] It's far too orangey for crows.
[00:03:02.280 --> 00:03:04.680] I think I was a horribly racist advert as well.
[00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:05.480] I'm sure it would have been.
[00:03:05.640 --> 00:03:07.560] I think it was dreadfully racist.
[00:03:07.560 --> 00:03:09.080] It was a play with Mbongo.
[00:03:09.080 --> 00:03:12.840] Yes, which I'm given to understand they never actually drink in the Congo.
[00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:13.320] Never do.
[00:03:13.320 --> 00:03:13.800] They never do.
[00:03:14.440 --> 00:03:18.920] It's just a scurrilous rumour put about by whoever the fuck made Umbongo.
[00:03:18.920 --> 00:03:20.760] I had their name in my head for a second, then it's gone.
[00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:22.520] Libby's.
[00:03:22.520 --> 00:03:24.200] Libby's Umbongo is what it was.
[00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:24.760] Libby's.
[00:03:24.840 --> 00:03:25.880] Good lord.
[00:03:26.200 --> 00:03:26.760] Good.
[00:03:27.800 --> 00:03:29.320] So every month I get excited.
[00:03:29.320 --> 00:03:31.960] I didn't even get one sentence into my piece that time.
[00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:37.160] Do you remember when people used to write to us and say you were being sexist when you interrupted me in an article?
[00:03:37.160 --> 00:03:37.960] Yes, I do remember that.
[00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:40.040] These happen on this quite a lot.
[00:03:40.040 --> 00:03:43.800] But also, you interrupted yourself three times before we even did.
[00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:49.920] You got half a sentence in and then interrupt yourself about the catalogue, about the Tesco stuff and loving them so much.
[00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:58.400] So every month I get excited for the new release of the food magazine released by my local supermarket, even though I know its entire purpose is to sell supermarket products at me.
[00:03:58.720 --> 00:04:02.720] But I enjoy flipping through and tearing out the recipes to use another time.
[00:04:02.720 --> 00:04:04.640] I don't use every recipe I tear out.
[00:04:04.640 --> 00:04:06.480] Although, to be fair, I do use some of them.
[00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:07.920] Like, I am, I do actually use.
[00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:09.280] You do a lot of like cooking.
[00:04:09.440 --> 00:04:14.320] I do a lot of cooking and I enjoy flipping through magazines like that just to get ideas of things to cook.
[00:04:14.320 --> 00:04:17.520] And then sometimes we'll use the recipes as a starting point for something I want to cook.
[00:04:17.520 --> 00:04:19.120] So I do use them.
[00:04:19.440 --> 00:04:21.600] And I do end up with some quite nice food out of them.
[00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:37.600] But this month, as I was flipping through the magazine, I reached a health and well-being segment which included a feature called the Big Well-being Reset, which offered a description of seasonal affective disorder and said that September can mark the onset of symptoms for many people.
[00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:38.160] Okay.
[00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:42.960] As an aside, can I grumble about how much of a splash the start of autumn made this year?
[00:04:42.960 --> 00:04:44.000] Like, did it?
[00:04:44.000 --> 00:05:17.160] Fucking hell, the first of September, every fucker on social media was just posting about how they were how excited they were that it was autumn already and that cozy season is here and they get to wear like burgundy and drink pumpkin spice lattes and whatever fucking else people like about autumn i've seen none of this it was everywhere but it's not just that it was everywhere because it's everywhere every year people get really excited about autumn fine not gonna begrudge people enjoying autumn fashion whatever but it was that it was specifically everywhere explicitly on the first of september which i don't even think is autumn.
[00:05:17.160 --> 00:05:17.640] No.
[00:05:17.640 --> 00:05:20.760] Nicola doesn't accept autumn until i think october or even november.
[00:05:20.760 --> 00:05:23.400] No, she has winter starting in December.
[00:05:23.400 --> 00:05:25.400] Okay, so i guess she would have autumn in September then.
[00:05:25.880 --> 00:05:32.680] And I think autumn, October, then it is autumn, but also we often get a bit of a late last bitch of sun, which is September.
[00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:33.800] But of course, I think it's possible.
[00:05:33.880 --> 00:05:38.280] Because Nicola insists that the months are very evenly spaced out exactly three months.
[00:05:38.280 --> 00:05:42.600] And I don't think that's true, because I would say September is still late summer.
[00:05:42.600 --> 00:05:46.280] And I would say end of November, you're in winter territory already.
[00:05:46.280 --> 00:05:47.240] That's not still autumn.
[00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:47.800] November.
[00:05:47.800 --> 00:05:49.240] That's madness.
[00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:54.760] But this year it felt like 1st of September, everybody just uniformly decided it's autumn.
[00:05:54.760 --> 00:06:03.400] And not only uniformly decided it's autumn, but uniformly decided we're going to pump content about it being autumn.
[00:06:03.400 --> 00:06:05.560] And I think this is partly TikTok's fault, isn't it?
[00:06:05.560 --> 00:06:12.360] Because people just pick up their phone and record a really quick snippet and they've got to do something constantly three or four times a day.
[00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:18.920] So you've got to put something in 1st of September, everybody's talking about autumn, I can put on a burgundy coat and Christ, it's great.
[00:06:19.080 --> 00:06:21.560] I think it's great, but I don't use any of that stuff as anything.
[00:06:21.720 --> 00:06:25.400] I know content creators who are already making their Christmas content.
[00:06:25.400 --> 00:06:29.960] They're already getting the Santa hats out because they need to have it in the bank ready for it to rise.
[00:06:30.440 --> 00:06:31.880] We haven't even started talking about a Christmas party.
[00:06:31.960 --> 00:06:35.240] We had our first conversation about a Christmas party at our last board meeting.
[00:06:35.240 --> 00:06:35.640] We did.
[00:06:35.640 --> 00:06:36.200] We did.
[00:06:36.200 --> 00:06:42.520] I've seen multiple influencers already posting one of the big advent calendars.
[00:06:42.840 --> 00:06:43.080] Right.
[00:06:44.120 --> 00:06:45.720] Is there a big advent calendar?
[00:06:45.720 --> 00:06:46.200] Yeah, there's.
[00:06:46.520 --> 00:06:48.840] Have you not seen beauty advent calendars?
[00:06:48.840 --> 00:06:50.120] You get beauty advent calendar.
[00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:50.680] This is just now.
[00:06:50.680 --> 00:06:51.640] We're now just chatting about.
[00:06:51.800 --> 00:06:52.600] We're just having a chat.
[00:06:53.080 --> 00:06:56.760] We've moved the chat segment back to the start of the show again is what we've done.
[00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:00.280] Beauty Advent calendars that cost hundreds of pounds.
[00:07:00.280 --> 00:07:01.640] Ah, God, I hate it.
[00:07:02.040 --> 00:07:03.640] They's not a massive deal every year.
[00:07:03.640 --> 00:07:06.760] You get like high-quality, luxury or something.
[00:07:06.760 --> 00:07:07.640] Expensive adventures.
[00:07:07.880 --> 00:07:15.200] I know that they exist as a concept, but I would have thought those were a product of the big beauty rather than the big advent calendar going, what can we put in another of ours?
[00:07:15.280 --> 00:07:17.040] Oh, no, yeah, it's a product of big beauty.
[00:07:17.040 --> 00:07:18.080] Yes, absolutely.
[00:07:18.080 --> 00:07:22.560] But I think it's Liberty's is the one that's already doing the rounds and they're already doing big events about it.
[00:07:22.880 --> 00:07:31.200] But it's, I think they always would have done, they always would have marketed to the influencers at this time of year so that they've got it ready for when it's launched.
[00:07:31.200 --> 00:07:39.280] But now they're posting about it, being excited about it, and putting it on their feeds already rather than waiting until the fuss is ready.
[00:07:39.280 --> 00:07:40.880] It's all just sliding earlier, isn't it?
[00:07:40.880 --> 00:07:42.320] Yeah, it's yes.
[00:07:42.640 --> 00:07:44.640] Yeah, I'm not going to get into marketing.
[00:07:45.680 --> 00:07:46.880] Not again.
[00:07:46.880 --> 00:07:51.680] So that's all I saw on the 1st of September: people excitedly proclaiming the start of cozy season.
[00:07:51.680 --> 00:08:06.640] And as somebody who genuinely dreads the darker months because of the impact it has on my mental health, especially on a year where I've had an exceptionally challenging summer health-wise, to the dread that we're now slipping into the depths of the worst months for me, it's been like genuinely quite challenging to see so much of that content.
[00:08:06.640 --> 00:08:07.280] Yeah.
[00:08:07.280 --> 00:08:12.240] So this particular feature about SAD laid out, well, it wasn't, and this is the other annoying thing.
[00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:13.840] So you just keep interrupting yourself.
[00:08:13.840 --> 00:08:15.680] You've had a mood today.
[00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:18.000] So it's not about SAD.
[00:08:18.320 --> 00:08:19.360] It's got a paragraph.
[00:08:19.440 --> 00:08:21.200] I nearly brought the pages over and I forgot.
[00:08:21.200 --> 00:08:22.800] I was bringing other pages over.
[00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:28.560] It's just got a paragraph at the beginning talking about SAD and then it's talking about tips for like managing your mental health during the winter months.
[00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:30.720] And what you can buy from Tesco, I imagine.
[00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:34.240] It's just grabbing, actually, not that bit of the feature.
[00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:37.920] It's just grabbing using that medicalized condition.
[00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:39.760] It's a content hook, that's all.
[00:08:39.760 --> 00:08:40.000] Exactly.
[00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:42.720] Because it's a free magazine from a supermarket.
[00:08:43.440 --> 00:08:46.720] It's not like they've got writers going, oh, I've got a really good idea for a feature.
[00:08:46.720 --> 00:08:48.160] Where am I going to pitch it to?
[00:08:48.160 --> 00:08:53.520] I know the in-house Tesco magazine, because I got turned down by Ryanair's magazine.
[00:08:55.120 --> 00:09:08.600] So, this particular feature laid out some mental health suggestions, including going analog, a recommendation to avoid too much screen time, genuinely impossible for most of us, even though I do agree it's helpful to minimize doom scrolling in our downtime.
[00:09:08.600 --> 00:09:13.960] There was also a recommendation to socialize in the sauna, which is apparently a trend that's picking up at the moment.
[00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:17.880] I suggest useful everyday lifestyle tips that we can all follow.
[00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:18.440] Yeah.
[00:09:19.080 --> 00:09:22.760] Find a community group that does sauna social activities.
[00:09:22.760 --> 00:09:23.320] Okay.
[00:09:23.320 --> 00:09:28.280] The fact that it says sauna social activities sounds like you're going to a sauna and there's like a board game or something like that.
[00:09:28.520 --> 00:09:32.040] It's just like finding a community of people who hang out in the sauna.
[00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:34.200] You can only do it for 50 minutes at a time.
[00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:36.120] And you're not meant to talk in a sauna, are you?
[00:09:36.200 --> 00:09:36.680] Don't know.
[00:09:36.680 --> 00:09:43.960] I assume you just sort of sit there going, you would normally, but if it was a specific sauna social, I imagine they would expect people to.
[00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:45.960] We could organize skeptics in the sauna.
[00:09:45.960 --> 00:09:47.800] We don't want to organise skeptics in the sauna.
[00:09:48.440 --> 00:09:50.200] I don't need to sit in a sauna with you guys.
[00:09:50.600 --> 00:09:52.120] We could hire the backroom of Dr.
[00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:54.840] Duncan's and have them pop a sauna in there.
[00:09:54.840 --> 00:09:56.040] It's a simple sauna.
[00:09:56.040 --> 00:09:58.520] We can't even reliably hire the back room of Dr.
[00:09:58.520 --> 00:09:59.960] Duncan's.
[00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:01.720] We fail at that step.
[00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:02.280] Anyway, it's all right.
[00:10:02.280 --> 00:10:03.320] We're getting into Causey season.
[00:10:03.320 --> 00:10:04.280] They'll have the fire running there.
[00:10:04.280 --> 00:10:05.720] That's basically a sauna at that point.
[00:10:05.720 --> 00:10:06.600] It is a common sauna.
[00:10:06.600 --> 00:10:10.200] It's a lovely fire, but they will put it on too early and it will be too hot.
[00:10:10.200 --> 00:10:13.480] They also suggest monotasking.
[00:10:14.120 --> 00:10:15.800] That's just doing something.
[00:10:17.160 --> 00:10:23.880] Which I think some of the framing they put around it is basically just dressing up mindfulness as a new fad to try.
[00:10:23.880 --> 00:10:28.440] And they suggest to try other small tweaks to your day-to-day, such as taking a whole lunch break.
[00:10:28.440 --> 00:10:28.920] Wow.
[00:10:28.920 --> 00:10:32.040] Okay, I mean, I haven't really done that since about 2014.
[00:10:32.520 --> 00:10:33.400] And you're part of the problem.
[00:10:33.800 --> 00:10:34.520] Understand that.
[00:10:34.520 --> 00:10:40.520] My favourite bit of kind of new speak along those lines is micro-retirements.
[00:10:40.760 --> 00:10:42.040] You take your micro-retirements.
[00:10:42.280 --> 00:10:42.680] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:44.400] By which they mean a holiday.
[00:10:44.400 --> 00:10:45.040] Yeah.
[00:10:44.200 --> 00:10:47.520] Take a week off work.
[00:10:44.440 --> 00:10:49.280] Yeah, they call that a micro-retirement.
[00:10:49.280 --> 00:10:49.680] No.
[00:10:49.680 --> 00:10:50.400] That's just a holiday.
[00:10:44.520 --> 00:10:51.200] That's just a holiday.
[00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:58.400] I could understand you maybe calling it a micro-retirement if you did like a sabbatical year where you took a year off work and weren't working in that time.
[00:10:58.560 --> 00:10:59.600] But we've already got an ape for that.
[00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:00.960] It's a sabbatical.
[00:11:00.960 --> 00:11:01.200] Yeah.
[00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:03.280] Well, holidays are micro-sabbatical.
[00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:05.040] Or just call it a gap year.
[00:11:05.040 --> 00:11:07.440] You just have a gap here at any time if you're grit.
[00:11:07.680 --> 00:11:11.920] It's a mini sabbatical, but a micro-retirement, just in terms of like skill size.
[00:11:12.160 --> 00:11:13.600] Right, a nano death.
[00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:28.800] Then there's the assertion that together is better when it comes to exercise, which is a reasonable suggestion that social exercise can help with motivation, but completely neglects the idea that any exercise is better than no exercise.
[00:11:28.800 --> 00:11:38.720] And most people don't need another barrier to working out by needing to find a friend who enjoys the same fitness routine as you and is free at the same time as you in order to make it better together.
[00:11:39.040 --> 00:11:44.560] So finally, in this big well-being reset, they have a suggestion that you do colour walking.
[00:11:44.560 --> 00:11:44.960] Okay.
[00:11:44.960 --> 00:11:51.920] Which is apparently a social media trend that suggests you pick a colour to focus on when out for a daily walk, which again just seems like mindfulness dressed up as a vad.
[00:11:51.920 --> 00:11:52.480] Yeah.
[00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:56.160] And like, yeah, give people tips on how to incorporate mindfulness into their day-to-day.
[00:11:56.160 --> 00:11:57.840] Fine, and encourage people to go out for a walk.
[00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:04.240] That also sounds really boring, just focusing on a colour, especially if you pick a bad colour, then you're just not going to see it.
[00:12:04.240 --> 00:12:07.760] Well, no, yeah, you need to pick a colour that you're likely to see on that walk.
[00:12:07.760 --> 00:12:10.400] Yeah, because if you don't, then it's just going to be like, nope, still nothing.
[00:12:10.880 --> 00:12:12.720] But you don't want to go too far the other way either.
[00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:17.200] Like, you don't want to walk around Sefton Park in the summer and pick green because it's going to get quite boring.
[00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:19.120] It's like, well, every fucking thing's green.
[00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:21.840] Yeah, that just sounds like an incredibly boring exercise.
[00:12:21.840 --> 00:12:34.120] In the same issue, there's a get ready for winter listicle, which suggests making sure your comfort food is nutritious and packed with veggies, that exercise is good for health, and that it's a good time to take vitamin D and prioritize your sleep right now and hit your flu jab.
[00:12:34.280 --> 00:12:41.000] So that is very much the pharmacy's ad page to suggest that you get the flu jab at the in-store pharmacy.
[00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:46.120] Okay, that makes sense, but it still seems weird that they're saying it's autumn, get ready for winter.
[00:12:46.840 --> 00:12:50.280] They've skipped the entire season that apparently everyone's very excited about these days.
[00:12:50.280 --> 00:12:55.320] And Tesco are just, is it because the magazine is an autumn winter magazine and it's got to be monthly?
[00:12:55.320 --> 00:12:56.360] It's monthly.
[00:12:56.680 --> 00:12:58.120] They could have done that in October.
[00:12:58.120 --> 00:12:58.680] Yeah.
[00:12:59.320 --> 00:13:01.480] October's going to be their Halloween issue, though.
[00:13:01.480 --> 00:13:01.960] That's true.
[00:13:01.960 --> 00:13:08.920] But you know, there's going to be lots of hats and make snacks with things you can buy in our store to make like little spider snacks for your kids.
[00:13:09.720 --> 00:13:11.160] Here's some grapes to peel.
[00:13:11.160 --> 00:13:11.720] Yeah.
[00:13:12.040 --> 00:13:23.880] Then we come to the section on health trends in the world of well-being, which includes a suggestion to try jump training known as plyometrics exercise that includes jumping with the apparent benefit of increasing bone density.
[00:13:23.880 --> 00:13:25.240] So you're just jumping?
[00:13:25.240 --> 00:13:27.640] Well, just any exercise that incorporates jumping.
[00:13:27.640 --> 00:13:32.840] So that might be jumping squats or box squats or various other skipping role.
[00:13:32.840 --> 00:13:33.240] Yep.
[00:13:33.240 --> 00:13:34.120] Hopscotch.
[00:13:34.120 --> 00:13:34.440] Yep.
[00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:35.400] Hopscotch on the other side.
[00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:37.640] Anything that includes jumping.
[00:13:37.640 --> 00:13:40.760] Rescuing princesses from worlds within pipes.
[00:13:41.240 --> 00:13:44.040] A lot of jumping then, jumping on turtles, jumping under boxes.
[00:13:44.040 --> 00:13:45.720] What about a pogo stick?
[00:13:45.720 --> 00:13:46.600] Would that count?
[00:13:46.600 --> 00:13:49.880] My feet don't leave the floor, but the pogo stick very much does.
[00:13:49.880 --> 00:13:51.480] I still feel the impact force.
[00:13:51.480 --> 00:13:53.400] Yeah, the impact force is the important bit.
[00:13:53.720 --> 00:13:55.880] So, yeah, I think a pogo stick probably counts.
[00:13:55.880 --> 00:13:57.560] Yeah, yeah, I think you're right with that.
[00:13:57.560 --> 00:14:09.880] See, this is a better way to do that segment because you can just then talk about, like, you can do these kinds of exercises and find a thing that you find fun rather than just, like, oh, and now you need to do this type of exercise and you need to do that type of exercise.
[00:14:09.880 --> 00:14:11.960] And it's really important you do resistance and aerobic.
[00:14:11.960 --> 00:14:16.880] And, like, it becomes really overwhelming when, in fact, you could just say, go and get a pogo and have some fun.
[00:14:16.880 --> 00:14:22.960] Get your heart rate will be elevated and you're getting some benefit of not a lot of adults do a lot of pogoing, though.
[00:14:23.200 --> 00:14:25.600] Like, when was the last time you saw an adult on a pogo stick?
[00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:27.840] Most of us bring back anyone on a pogo stick.
[00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:28.480] It's been a while.
[00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:28.960] It has been a while.
[00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:32.320] I can't stay vertical on a pogo stick.
[00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:34.160] Even when I was a kid, I couldn't stay vertical.
[00:14:34.160 --> 00:14:36.880] I get two or three jumps and just timber.
[00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:39.120] Which direction are you falling?
[00:14:39.120 --> 00:14:40.160] Over?
[00:14:41.760 --> 00:14:42.480] I don't know.
[00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:43.760] I was just down.
[00:14:44.560 --> 00:14:45.920] Down is, I guess, a direction.
[00:14:45.920 --> 00:14:54.080] But like, if you were always going over to the left or always going backwards, that would indicate a regular failure of your pogoing technique.
[00:14:54.080 --> 00:14:57.040] Whereas if it was in any given direction, that's just general inadequacy.
[00:14:57.280 --> 00:14:59.840] I've just got a generally poor sense of balance.
[00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:01.520] Couldn't stay on a skateboard either.
[00:15:01.680 --> 00:15:02.720] Or roller skates.
[00:15:02.880 --> 00:15:03.760] Making useless.
[00:15:05.040 --> 00:15:07.280] I had stilts, couldn't stay upright on stilts.
[00:15:07.280 --> 00:15:11.600] Why are all of the things you tried to do balance-related when you're shit at balance?
[00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:13.600] You're just a try.
[00:15:13.680 --> 00:15:14.480] I was going to try.
[00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:16.320] I was going to get out there and fucking.
[00:15:16.400 --> 00:15:18.240] I'm just going to find the one thing that you can balance on.
[00:15:18.400 --> 00:15:18.960] Can you ride a bike?
[00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:20.160] I can ride a bike.
[00:15:20.160 --> 00:15:20.800] You can ride a bike.
[00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:22.800] But not with no hands on the handlebars.
[00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:24.320] I go straight over.
[00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:31.520] I used to be able to make it from my house to my friend's house, which is about a seven-minute bike ride away, including crossing a main road.
[00:15:31.520 --> 00:15:32.560] No-handed the entire way.
[00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:33.200] No-handed.
[00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:34.000] Fucking L.
[00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:34.720] Unicycle.
[00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:35.760] I will never fucking hope.
[00:15:35.760 --> 00:15:36.800] No, I tried that for a little bit.
[00:15:36.800 --> 00:15:37.600] I wasn't good at it.
[00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:39.120] You're not a unicycle person.
[00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:39.680] No.
[00:15:39.680 --> 00:15:40.720] Alice, you have a unicycling?
[00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:43.120] I've never done unicycling.
[00:15:43.120 --> 00:15:44.560] I used to rollerblade quite a lot.
[00:15:44.560 --> 00:15:46.960] I was a good rollerblader, but I've never unicycled.
[00:15:48.160 --> 00:15:49.520] It's just unicycled, yeah.
[00:15:49.920 --> 00:15:52.400] You're trying to conjugate it in a different way because Mike tried.
[00:15:52.400 --> 00:15:53.720] There's no, like, it's just cycled.
[00:15:53.800 --> 00:15:54.640] It just doesn't feel right.
[00:15:54.880 --> 00:15:56.240] Uh cycled, but one, yeah.
[00:15:56.880 --> 00:16:03.320] And then there has a little note titled, The Truth About C Moss, which reads, A type of seaweed.
[00:16:03.400 --> 00:16:07.800] This trending sea vegetable comes in everything from supplements to gel you can use in cooking.
[00:16:07.800 --> 00:16:12.600] It contains iodine, which is linked to health benefits like supporting gut health and normal thyroid function.
[00:16:12.600 --> 00:16:16.760] But too much can be harmful and bad for your thyroid, so speak to your GP first.
[00:16:16.760 --> 00:16:25.000] Which I do worry about, like just casually suggesting a new supplement for health benefits, but then adding the potential risk and pointing people to the GP first and foremost.
[00:16:25.160 --> 00:16:25.400] Yes.
[00:16:25.560 --> 00:16:32.200] GPs do not have time to field all of these questions about new supplements that people have been recommended in a random marketing magazine.
[00:16:32.200 --> 00:16:32.840] Yeah, exactly.
[00:16:32.840 --> 00:16:40.200] Somebody with absolutely no authority has suggested to you to go and try a thing, but then said, oh, but by the way, talk to a medical professional first.
[00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:50.120] And now you're packing yourself off to a very busy medical professional because Nobed from Tesco reckoned just because they wanted to sell you a magazine with some other products in it.
[00:16:50.120 --> 00:16:59.880] And I know, like, my GP is redirecting everything that can possibly be redirected to pharmacists to pharmacists to better manage their workload and be able to see patients.
[00:16:59.880 --> 00:17:03.960] So having patients coming in asking about the latest supplement craze probably isn't the most helpful advice.
[00:17:03.960 --> 00:17:05.400] Especially sent in by a pharma.
[00:17:05.560 --> 00:17:06.840] Tesco has a pharmacy.
[00:17:07.960 --> 00:17:12.280] They don't say come and talk to our pharmacists about it, and then the pharmacists can say, no, that's bollocks.
[00:17:12.440 --> 00:17:17.080] Because in a lot of those places, the pharmacists aren't allowed to say no, that's bollocks if it's a thing that a place sells.
[00:17:17.160 --> 00:17:21.480] To be fair, I don't know if Tesco's is selling CMOS supplements at all.
[00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:23.160] They don't mention it in those pages.
[00:17:23.480 --> 00:17:26.200] This wasn't an advert for that specifically.
[00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:28.120] They were trying to list some other health.
[00:17:28.440 --> 00:17:29.880] They try and bail the marketing.
[00:17:29.880 --> 00:17:34.200] So there will be lots of things in there that are not related to things that they sell.
[00:17:34.200 --> 00:17:36.200] CMOS is becoming quite trendy.
[00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:42.920] An article in vogue from late last year titled Sea Moss is a superfood beloved by LA's Wellness Warriors.
[00:17:42.920 --> 00:17:44.040] Here's why.
[00:17:44.280 --> 00:17:51.120] They explained all the girlies are taking CMOS, or so says TikTok, where there are 1.3 billion views on the term.
[00:17:51.440 --> 00:18:05.280] Meanwhile, Glamour magazine speaks to global skin and wellness expert Mary Reynolds, who tells us CMOS is a natural chelator, which means it attracts heavy metals from the bloodstream and is naturally abundant in minerals, proteins, and iodine that the body needs to survive and thrive.
[00:18:05.280 --> 00:18:14.000] She also says CMOS is a super antioxidant and is rich in omega-3, so it has numerous health benefits, including helping to reduce inflammation, increasing energy, and boosting the immune system.
[00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:17.600] And so, to be clear, you can buy CMOS capsules at Tesco.
[00:18:17.600 --> 00:18:19.840] You can buy them in gummy format, you can buy them in other format.
[00:18:19.840 --> 00:18:21.920] They've been doing it for a couple of years by the looks of things.
[00:18:22.080 --> 00:18:22.560] Okay, good to know.
[00:18:22.720 --> 00:18:26.560] So, Tesco are very much saying, you know, this amazing thing that we sell.
[00:18:27.520 --> 00:18:38.080] According to Mary Reynolds' website, Mary has studied skin health, homeopathy, acupuncture counseling, aromatherapy, oriental diagnosis, bowen technique, colonic hydrotherapy, and quantum energy medicine.
[00:18:38.080 --> 00:18:43.200] So, maybe not the best source of insight into whether a dietary supplement actually has any benefits.
[00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:56.400] The Glamour magazine article speaks exclusively to Reynolds, who also says CMOS is abundant in essential vitamins and minerals that the body needs, including zinc, potassium, magnesium, sulfur, and phosphorus, all of which have multiple health benefits.
[00:18:56.400 --> 00:18:59.360] So, it's a great ingredient for overall health and well-being.
[00:18:59.360 --> 00:19:07.360] And she also says that CMOS is perfect for this as it's an antiviral and antibacterial agent, so it may help protect the body from everyday infections like colds and flu.
[00:19:07.360 --> 00:19:12.720] It's probably not surprising then that the article has an affiliate link disclaimer at the top of the page.
[00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:13.760] Right, yeah.
[00:19:13.760 --> 00:19:26.240] The Vogue article speaks to Kylie Bogdan, a board-certified registered dietitian who specializes in sports nutrition at Forward Fuel, and says, CMOS is said to improve energy, support thyroid function, digestion, and skin health.
[00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:31.160] But the article cautions that she also says there isn't enough scientific evidence to back these claims up.
[00:19:29.760 --> 00:19:32.120] But we're going to make them anyway.
[00:19:32.440 --> 00:19:45.160] But then in the next sentence, the article proclaims, however, many other types of seaweed have been clinically tested and suggest great health benefits, including preventing cancer, viral and fungal infections, and they're closely related to CMOS.
[00:19:45.160 --> 00:19:48.280] Completely deflating Bogdan's like reasonable caution there.
[00:19:48.360 --> 00:19:48.920] Oh, Jesus.
[00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:53.400] So, like, look, there's no scientific evidence, but like a lot of people think it works for cancer.
[00:19:53.400 --> 00:19:54.680] So, you know, why not?
[00:19:54.680 --> 00:19:57.080] And you can buy them from Tesco, remember?
[00:19:57.080 --> 00:19:58.200] This isn't in the Tesco article.
[00:19:58.200 --> 00:19:58.840] This is in the Vogue article.
[00:19:58.920 --> 00:19:59.560] Oh, this is the Vogue one.
[00:19:59.560 --> 00:20:00.200] Sorry, yes, yeah, yeah.
[00:20:00.440 --> 00:20:16.200] The Marine Drugs article they link to back up this claim from a journal called Marine Drugs does mention anti-cancer properties, but only in relation to cell lines and not in relation to prevention, except with one of the active ingredients extracted from one type of seaweed.
[00:20:17.160 --> 00:20:19.080] So they can't even make that claim.
[00:20:19.080 --> 00:20:29.080] Most of the claims around CMOS, so there's a bunch of claims that I've mentioned so far, and most of them are, well, it's got this mineral and this mineral we say causes this.
[00:20:29.080 --> 00:20:32.840] It's got this antioxidant in it and this antioxidant, and all things we've talked about before.
[00:20:32.840 --> 00:20:34.200] So I'm not going to go into most of them, but most of them.
[00:20:34.280 --> 00:20:35.640] It's the same way that they do with red wine.
[00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:37.240] It's like red wine can cure cancer.
[00:20:37.240 --> 00:20:40.120] And it's like, actually, it was this specific part of red wine in this particular.
[00:20:40.200 --> 00:20:43.080] No, you look at the dorsage and you don't get it from red wine, etc.
[00:20:43.320 --> 00:20:45.960] But most of the biggest claims around CMOS come from two things.
[00:20:45.960 --> 00:20:53.000] One is that it's high in vitamins and minerals, which is true, but if you're eating a varied diet rich in fruit and vegetables, then this shouldn't matter too much.
[00:20:53.320 --> 00:20:57.800] The other is that it's specifically high in iodine, which is good for the thyroid.
[00:20:57.800 --> 00:21:05.400] And this is true, both that CMOS is a good source of iodine, and that iodine is an essential mineral which keeps our thyroid healthy.
[00:21:05.400 --> 00:21:17.680] I grew up in an area that's reasonably well known for having low iodine levels in the soil, which means way back when we ate foods derived from our local soils, those foods weren't getting enough iodine in them.
[00:21:17.680 --> 00:21:20.560] We have to derive iodine from our foods as we can't make it ourselves.
[00:21:20.560 --> 00:21:28.000] So, there's a quirk in the history of the East Midlands in that people would get a condition called goiter, known colloquially as Derby Chaneck.
[00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:37.360] Ah, so this is where you get a swelling in your throat, which is because your thyroid has grown bigger to try and capture as much iodine as it can from what you are eating.
[00:21:37.360 --> 00:21:38.720] Right, blinding.
[00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:42.320] And it usually happens, not always, but usually happens when you're deficient in iodine.
[00:21:42.320 --> 00:21:44.400] I think it can also happen if you're deficient in selenium.
[00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:47.680] So, you also get it in areas with selenium-deficient soil.
[00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:55.920] But these days, we typically get plenty of iodine from our diet, and in some parts of the world, table salt is supplemented with iodine to reduce deficiency.
[00:21:55.920 --> 00:21:57.840] I was going to say, I thought it was supplemented in salt, yeah.
[00:21:57.840 --> 00:22:03.760] Not in the UK, so we don't really use fortified salt in the UK, but in lots of other countries, they use fortified salt.
[00:22:03.760 --> 00:22:06.240] Yeah, we sort of fortified breakfast cereals is what we do.
[00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:10.160] Yes, we have riboflavin, whatever the fuck they are.
[00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:16.000] Mostly, you get more than enough from your diet, particularly from eggs and dairy, seafood, and fish.
[00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:20.800] But if you're vegan, CMOS and other seaweeds can be a good source of iodine.
[00:22:20.800 --> 00:22:27.440] The issue, though, is that iodine is something that needs a bit of cautious regulation, as too much can also be bad for the thyroid.
[00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:33.040] The Vegan Society recommends that the following options are reliable ways of adding iodine to the vegan diet.
[00:22:33.040 --> 00:22:43.760] Ensure a daily intake of around 500 mil of a fortified milk alternative that contains iodine, or use a daily supplement containing potassium iodide or potassium iodate.
[00:22:43.760 --> 00:22:52.240] They don't recommend CMOS or seaweed as your primary source of iodine because the levels can vary significantly, and some seaweeds like kelp can have too much iodine.
[00:22:52.240 --> 00:22:53.200] Ah, okay.
[00:22:53.520 --> 00:22:56.000] So, this is the issue where taking CMOS supplements can lie.
[00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:04.520] If you're taking them to supplement iodine specifically, you often have no way of knowing how much iodine is in the pill that you're taking.
[00:23:04.520 --> 00:23:09.320] Because any kind of plant matter is going to be very varied in its constitution at any given point.
[00:23:09.640 --> 00:23:09.880] Exactly.
[00:23:10.040 --> 00:23:13.720] If you just start chomping down on plants, you're not going to know exactly how much you're taking.
[00:23:13.720 --> 00:23:14.040] Yeah.
[00:23:14.360 --> 00:23:20.600] I've checked the ingredients list of a few such supplements, and most of them say they're a good source of iodine, but don't actually list the amount.
[00:23:20.600 --> 00:23:28.760] And they probably can't list the amount because they'd have to measure every dose because it's going to vary based on the sea moss that they're using at any given moment.
[00:23:28.760 --> 00:23:32.520] Yeah, so here's a question that you may be coming to answer on.
[00:23:32.520 --> 00:23:51.720] When I hear people talk about the importance of various supplements and things like that, the other thing they will say is that rather than taking these stuff in supplements, it's better to get it from the plant matter initially because of bioavailability or because there's something about it being the naturally occurring version of it that your body's more capable of breaking down than if it's in a supplement.
[00:23:51.720 --> 00:23:55.320] How much of that is marketing bluster and misinformation?
[00:23:55.480 --> 00:23:57.560] How much of that is legitimate?
[00:23:57.560 --> 00:24:05.000] I think broadly speaking, and this is relying heavily on memory, so this may be wrong.
[00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:14.360] Broadly speaking, I think it's better for most, for many vitamins and minerals, it's better to get it from foods because it's more our body knows how to digest it, we get things from it.
[00:24:14.360 --> 00:24:18.280] It's digested in different ways and broken down in different ways, and it can be more bioavailable.
[00:24:18.360 --> 00:24:23.160] Depends on the vitamin, depends on the mineral, depends on loads of different things, depends on the individual person.
[00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:28.680] If you're not very good at breaking down and pulling something out of the food source, then you might need it from a different source.
[00:24:28.680 --> 00:24:31.960] But in those cases, I don't think tablet supplementation helps either.
[00:24:31.960 --> 00:24:38.360] I think that they're the kind of things that you would need, like transfusions, if you're not capable of breaking a thing down, right?
[00:24:38.680 --> 00:24:44.640] But I think it's a fairly reasonable rule of thumb to say from a food source is generally better.
[00:24:44.520 --> 00:24:50.160] The reason it's not being recommended in this case is because sea, moss, and sea.
[00:24:50.560 --> 00:25:01.600] So, in our general diet, in eggs, dairy, fish things, and seafood, we know the quantities are not going to give us a too high a dose of iodine.
[00:25:01.600 --> 00:25:05.120] Sea, moss, and seaweed can be really quite high in iodine.
[00:25:05.120 --> 00:25:05.440] Yeah.
[00:25:05.440 --> 00:25:16.000] And so, relying on that solely as your source of iodine is probably not the most helpful thing for people eating an exclusively vegan diet and not getting iodine from other sources.
[00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:20.240] We do also get it from foods growing in iodine-rich soils.
[00:25:20.240 --> 00:25:27.440] So, you can get it from plants, but again, it's just a bit less reliable because we don't know how much is going to be in the foods.
[00:25:27.440 --> 00:25:33.120] So, if you're not, if there's a chance that you're not getting enough, you want to supplement.
[00:25:33.120 --> 00:25:42.560] But in the case of iodine, which can be harmful in too high a dose, you want to make sure you know how much you're supplementing, and you can't know that with sea moss and seaweed.
[00:25:42.560 --> 00:25:50.320] But also, there's a higher risk of it being too much, which we don't have the same risk to the same extent with some of the other sources.
[00:25:50.560 --> 00:25:51.760] Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:25:51.760 --> 00:26:06.320] And I think the other thing you see quite a lot is in those spaces where they will be encouraging this is a great source of X, they will overlook all the other decent sources of X that are already in your diet because the new thing, the new shiny thing, new CMOS thing is the thing they want to push.
[00:26:06.320 --> 00:26:10.800] I'm hearing a lot of supplement and similar kind of chat on Joe Rogan shows at the moment.
[00:26:10.800 --> 00:26:13.440] I'm about to cover one where it's just nothing but that.
[00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:15.840] So, it's interesting to know what the actual biology of that is.
[00:26:15.880 --> 00:26:16.760] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:26:16.760 --> 00:26:21.760] And there are some things that we know certain types of supplementation just don't work very well.
[00:26:21.760 --> 00:26:30.440] And you know, one of those examples in the iron supplementation that your wife's taking, Nicola's taking, isn't very bioavailable.
[00:26:30.440 --> 00:26:33.320] So, actually, she's been recommended to eat more meat.
[00:26:29.840 --> 00:26:34.920] Yes, yeah, even though she doesn't eat meat generally.
[00:26:36.120 --> 00:26:39.640] Because our body doesn't quite take it from supplementation very well.
[00:26:39.640 --> 00:26:44.360] And I think that's one of the ones that actually transfusion works fine, but they just don't.
[00:26:44.360 --> 00:26:57.320] Or you can, yeah, you can have if you have really low levels of iron, I think you can take blood transfusions from somebody who's got really high levels of iron because it gets into the blood better than through supplementation.
[00:26:57.320 --> 00:26:59.640] But we get it reasonably well through food.
[00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:03.400] I knew a guy who had too much iron in his blood, and he had to go off and do bloodletting.
[00:27:03.960 --> 00:27:05.720] My auntie does like once a month or something.
[00:27:05.800 --> 00:27:06.840] You had to go and bloodlet him.
[00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:07.640] My auntie does.
[00:27:07.640 --> 00:27:13.000] My auntie's recently been established that she's got too much iron in her blood, and so she goes and she gets her blood drained.
[00:27:13.160 --> 00:27:15.640] Does it make it hard for her to donate blood?
[00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:19.320] Because obviously they do an iron test to see if you've got to make sure you've got enough iron in your blood.
[00:27:19.320 --> 00:27:21.640] They put a little pinprick and then see whether it sinks and stuff.
[00:27:21.640 --> 00:27:24.200] But I don't know if you've got too much iron where they'd be like, no, thank you.
[00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:26.440] Or whether they just take your blood and they're just like water.
[00:27:26.520 --> 00:27:28.120] Just give it to anemic people.
[00:27:28.120 --> 00:27:29.000] Yeah, just don't look at that.
[00:27:30.120 --> 00:27:30.920] Just pair people up.
[00:27:30.920 --> 00:27:32.440] Find somebody who's got too much iron.
[00:27:32.680 --> 00:27:34.840] Pair them up with somebody who's got too little iron.
[00:27:35.160 --> 00:27:36.520] Okay, you can have some of mine then.
[00:27:37.160 --> 00:27:38.280] Jack sprat that shit.
[00:27:38.280 --> 00:27:39.080] That's what we're going to do.
[00:27:39.160 --> 00:27:39.400] Exactly.
[00:27:39.640 --> 00:27:40.600] There we go.
[00:27:43.160 --> 00:27:47.320] So it's far healthier to have a varied diet.
[00:27:47.320 --> 00:27:57.640] And if your diet is low or absent of fish, seafood, milk, and dairy, to supplement either through fortified milk or through an iodine supplement with a stated amount of iodine in it because it can be risky.
[00:27:57.640 --> 00:28:00.760] CMOS is something I'm seeing recommended more and more.
[00:28:00.760 --> 00:28:05.560] So, I think this is another example of why we see health claims not considered as important enough to fact check.
[00:28:05.560 --> 00:28:22.320] So, you will see chefs throwing out health claims when they're using an ingredient on a cooking show, or it'll be included in a food magazine where nutritional value of food is described, or we're seeing it in these marketing magazines without any kind of acknowledgement that there might be something additional other than speak to a GP about it.
[00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:32.720] Yeah, it's not treated like a science story, it's not treated as a health story because it isn't a health story, but they feel they can just include details of health as part of the just colour, essentially, colour for the feature.
[00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:36.400] Yeah, and they'll just go, oh, and this is very good high in antioxidants.
[00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:38.960] This, yeah, just a throwaway comment.
[00:28:38.960 --> 00:28:39.680] Yeah, yeah.
[00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:58.240] In the same issue of the magazine, where there's an acknowledgement of seasonal affective disorder and a suggestion that mindfulness, slowing things down, and focusing on one thing at a time can help manage mental health concerns, it seems then so counterproductive to have lists of health fads to try and specific health concerns to focus on.
[00:28:58.480 --> 00:29:11.840] Autumn isn't just a season where the weather turns cooler and the plants start to lose their leaves, it's the slide into winter, and you must do all of these things to prepare yourself, boost your health, change your diet, add more exercise, try this, fad, or the other.
[00:29:11.840 --> 00:29:15.040] Remember that you might be prone to this health condition or the other.
[00:29:15.040 --> 00:29:23.440] I'm usually cautious to complain about over-medicalization because I live with conditions that are sometimes under-medicalized and dismissed.
[00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:35.600] I don't think we can talk about over-medicalization, which I agree can be a real problem that we currently encounter, without the nuance of understanding how people's real medical concerns are dismissed as just a part of life as a way to deny them treatment.
[00:29:35.600 --> 00:29:51.840] But I also think we need to be careful to not medicalize an entire season, to not prey on the fear that people have of becoming unwell and try to sell them this supplement or the other, especially when the casual way we often do this can also smuggle in the marketing of health anxiety.
[00:29:51.840 --> 00:29:56.640] The ease with which we throw out health advice is not harmless, even if the individual examples might be.
[00:29:56.640 --> 00:30:05.000] It might be in this instance not a massive harm or consequence to say CMOS boosts your immune system or whatever else they're saying.
[00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:12.440] But actually, when we're bombarded with this stuff constantly, it becomes a weight of things to think about managing our own health.
[00:30:12.440 --> 00:30:18.280] And also to blame yourself if therefore your health isn't doing great because you've been given the list of everything you need to be doing.
[00:30:18.280 --> 00:30:22.120] And if you happen to have done not done some of the things on the list, well, that's why you're not feeling good.
[00:30:22.120 --> 00:30:23.240] It's nothing external to you.
[00:30:23.560 --> 00:30:25.800] It's all personal responsibility.
[00:30:25.800 --> 00:30:26.520] Exactly.
[00:30:26.520 --> 00:30:29.720] In 2025, this seems especially important to recognize.
[00:30:29.880 --> 00:30:32.520] This year has been a slog for so many people.
[00:30:32.520 --> 00:30:40.760] After a rough five years learning to live with the aftermath of a global pandemic that still affects entire groups of people, we now see the world sliding towards fascism.
[00:30:40.760 --> 00:30:50.840] The political and literal physical violent attacks on basic human rights and human beings across large parts of the world is burning people out emotionally and mentally, physically and financially.
[00:30:50.840 --> 00:30:54.280] I don't know a single person who is having an easy time of it right now.
[00:30:54.280 --> 00:30:59.560] And as a person living with multiple disabilities for multiple years, I have something that a lot of people don't have.
[00:30:59.560 --> 00:31:03.480] I have an awareness of how that exhaustion can affect us physically.
[00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:10.120] I know that part of the reason my health has been so poor in 2025 is because the world is fucked and my body is reacting to that.
[00:31:10.120 --> 00:31:12.920] And that isn't me saying anything about psychosomatic illness.
[00:31:12.920 --> 00:31:15.640] This is the real truth that our bodies exist in the world.
[00:31:15.640 --> 00:31:17.240] Our health exists in the world.
[00:31:17.240 --> 00:31:19.800] The world is part of the environment that affects our health.
[00:31:19.800 --> 00:31:25.480] Feeling worn down by overworking or overworrying so often causes ill health that we have a term for it.
[00:31:25.480 --> 00:31:26.760] We call it burnout.
[00:31:26.760 --> 00:31:39.320] Yeah, so like you're stressed because of how everything is, you're anxiously obsessing, reading the news, you're not sleeping as well, and all of that has a cumulative effect that will bring you towards an ill-health kind of position.
[00:31:39.320 --> 00:31:39.960] Exactly.
[00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:49.760] Burnout, whether we call it a health condition or simply a series of symptoms, does have recognizable, reproducible physical symptoms that are similar in most people who are experiencing burnout.
[00:31:50.080 --> 00:31:59.280] When you suddenly start experiencing new symptoms like those of burnout, you go searching for answers, of course, you do, as well you should, and you should be able to see a doctor and get the support you need.
[00:31:59.280 --> 00:32:07.280] But instead, people are being sold responsibility, dressed up as autonomy, told we can avoid the worst of SAD by going for a walk.
[00:32:07.280 --> 00:32:15.360] The consequence of which is that when it doesn't work, when we feel too depressed to even put shoes on to get out for that walk, we might feel that we just didn't try hard enough.
[00:32:15.360 --> 00:32:18.800] We're told that we should try skipping and take CMOS and eat vegetables.
[00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:32.560] I'm not saying that adding more exercise and eating more vegetables aren't important for health, but I am saying that this constant turnover of fads is unhelpfully delivered straight into our thoughts, which we already know we struggle to shut off.
[00:32:32.560 --> 00:32:39.600] We're told we should, in one breath, we're told we should monotask and reduce screen time so that we can calm our busy brains.
[00:32:39.600 --> 00:32:50.480] But sold right alongside that is the promise that if you just try XYZ fad and do research on this supplement or see a doctor about that supplement or that special exercise, then maybe you'll be healthy and you'll feel better.
[00:32:50.480 --> 00:32:55.440] But you'll also avoid bone injury and avoid colds and avoid the worst symptoms of seasonal depression.
[00:32:55.440 --> 00:32:59.120] Honestly, this has now become a rant, largely because I'm tired.
[00:32:59.120 --> 00:33:10.480] This is my personal experience of all the wellness noise while living with a disability in a difficult capitalist world where my productivity is linked to my worth, where there are attacks to democracy and equality all around us.
[00:33:10.480 --> 00:33:23.360] I'm tired of trivialized health advice dressed up as supporting us to feel better and stay well when it's poorly researched and doesn't think about the context of who might read that advice and how it might be received.
[00:33:23.360 --> 00:33:31.480] I'm tired of the implication over and over being that when people are unwell, it's because they did something wrong or they didn't try something that they should have tried.
[00:33:31.800 --> 00:33:36.280] I'm tired of having a flare-up, and the first question anyone asks is, What do you think caused it?
[00:33:36.280 --> 00:33:38.120] Because I wish I knew.
[00:33:38.120 --> 00:33:39.080] I just feel unwell.
[00:33:39.080 --> 00:33:46.680] Like, let me feel unwell for a bit before I pick myself up and figure out what I need to add to my toolkit to prevent that particular version of a flare-up from happening again.
[00:33:46.680 --> 00:33:51.400] This is constant and it's continual, and it's we're all already burnt out.
[00:33:51.560 --> 00:34:07.080] I don't, I think all of this constant argument around trying to buy this supplement to solve this problem, solve your exhaustion, solve all of the issues is just unhealthy and making us all more sick.
[00:34:11.880 --> 00:34:18.760] So, in terms of we like to talk about what we've been up to recently, what I got to on the weekend, I moved a piano, right?
[00:34:18.760 --> 00:34:23.960] I moved a piano, you and Oliver Hardy, presumably from Blackpool to Liverpool.
[00:34:23.960 --> 00:34:25.800] We moved an upright piano.
[00:34:25.800 --> 00:34:28.840] You got most of the way there, and it rolled all the way back to Blackpool.
[00:34:28.840 --> 00:34:29.800] All the way back to Blackpool.
[00:34:29.960 --> 00:34:31.640] It was such a weird experience.
[00:34:31.640 --> 00:34:39.800] So, long and short of this, I remember back in December, listeners may remember me talking about having to go to Blackpool to empty out Nicolas Mum's house and move Nicola's mum to Liverpool.
[00:34:39.800 --> 00:34:48.040] I've not talked about it much since then, but we've still had that house in Blackpool still filled with a load of possessions, some of them Nicolas Mums, some of them Nicolas.
[00:34:48.040 --> 00:34:53.800] I've just been sat there for the entirety of this year because we've had some other stuff to deal with around Nicola's mum's health and various things like that.
[00:34:53.800 --> 00:35:08.520] And so, periodically, it feels like almost every other weekend for the last like five months or something, I've had to go back to Blackpool, occasionally taking Alice, occasionally taking Adj and other people to start trying to get that house in a position where we can finally get it on the market.
[00:35:08.520 --> 00:35:11.160] And it's been an enormously difficult and stressful thing.
[00:35:11.160 --> 00:35:15.440] And one of the things that has been difficult and stressful is there's a piano in that house.
[00:35:14.920 --> 00:35:15.600] Right.
[00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:23.600] It is a piano that was bought for Nicola by her grandma when Nicola was very young with the view that Nicola would become musical by learning to play the piano.
[00:35:23.600 --> 00:35:25.200] A thing that didn't happen.
[00:35:25.200 --> 00:35:28.080] What did happen is Nicola learned the cello, which is not a piano.
[00:35:28.080 --> 00:35:28.880] The cello was sat next to her.
[00:35:29.120 --> 00:35:30.640] She only likes big instruments.
[00:35:30.800 --> 00:35:34.800] Only likes big, cumbersome instruments that can't be easily moved, yes.
[00:35:34.800 --> 00:35:42.720] I was bought a well, there was an intention when I was a kid that I might want to learn to play the piano because my dad thought it was a useful instrument to learn to play.
[00:35:42.720 --> 00:35:44.880] I was getting to that age of wanting to learn to play an instrument.
[00:35:45.120 --> 00:35:45.840] I love playing.
[00:35:46.080 --> 00:35:47.200] He bought me a keyboard.
[00:35:47.200 --> 00:35:47.600] Yeah.
[00:35:47.600 --> 00:35:48.000] I've got...
[00:35:48.160 --> 00:35:49.440] Like a portable piano.
[00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:50.480] A portable piano.
[00:35:50.640 --> 00:35:53.760] Very, very casio job, that sort of thing.
[00:35:54.880 --> 00:35:58.640] Lovely, I think it's a Kawasaki, lovely, big, fancy keyboard.
[00:35:58.640 --> 00:35:59.520] Yeah, you learn on that.
[00:35:59.520 --> 00:36:00.400] I did.
[00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:02.720] I did not know how to play either.
[00:36:02.720 --> 00:36:06.240] But then I went on to learn to play the flute, which is much more portable than a cello.
[00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:08.800] Yeah, I didn't have an option of a piano growing up.
[00:36:08.800 --> 00:36:14.800] I learned the violin through school, and then I moved from my primary school to my secondary school, and no one from my primary school talked to my secondary school.
[00:36:14.800 --> 00:36:18.880] And so I stopped learning the violin because I didn't realize that I was the one who was meant to do it.
[00:36:18.880 --> 00:36:23.920] I was sure you don't put it on an 11-year-old to be like, by the way, can I continue learning?
[00:36:24.400 --> 00:36:25.280] I'd like to do that.
[00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:26.320] So I just stopped doing that.
[00:36:26.320 --> 00:36:27.760] But then I learned, I taught myself the guitar.
[00:36:27.760 --> 00:36:30.160] But no, Nicola had a piano, never really touched it.
[00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:37.200] Nicola has moved house four or five times, and the piano has moved with her and then been not played.
[00:36:37.200 --> 00:36:38.080] Well, then not played as well.
[00:36:38.720 --> 00:36:39.680] So we had to get it rather.
[00:36:39.760 --> 00:36:46.400] So Bob from the Mosai Skeptics board, he came to Blackpool and sought out the back garden when Alice was doing the front garden.
[00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:47.600] Bob just did the back garden.
[00:36:47.600 --> 00:36:48.160] We went out there.
[00:36:48.160 --> 00:36:51.680] Suddenly, the back garden is in a really nice position because Bob just cracked on with it.
[00:36:51.680 --> 00:36:53.440] He was like, what are you doing with that piano?
[00:36:53.440 --> 00:36:54.400] I'm like, Nothing.
[00:36:54.400 --> 00:36:55.120] We need to get rid of it.
[00:36:55.120 --> 00:36:56.480] He's like, Can I have it?
[00:36:56.480 --> 00:36:59.440] Like, if you want to take a piano from Blackpool to Liverpool, do that.
[00:36:59.440 --> 00:37:01.080] So he hired a van.
[00:37:01.080 --> 00:37:05.800] And then it was a case of how do you move a piano into a transit van?
[00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:07.160] Because they are heavy.
[00:37:07.480 --> 00:37:08.040] They're very heavy.
[00:37:08.200 --> 00:37:09.320] You'd need a tail lift one.
[00:37:09.320 --> 00:37:10.040] That's what you should.
[00:37:10.040 --> 00:37:11.720] Don't get a transit van, get a tail lift.
[00:37:11.800 --> 00:37:12.440] Okay, so we didn't get.
[00:37:12.440 --> 00:37:13.480] So Bob didn't get a tail lift one.
[00:37:13.720 --> 00:37:14.040] Okay.
[00:37:14.040 --> 00:37:14.520] Nicola.
[00:37:14.600 --> 00:37:15.880] That's the first mistake.
[00:37:15.880 --> 00:37:19.400] Yeah, Nicola's idea to understand how this is meant to happen.
[00:37:19.400 --> 00:37:23.720] That idea of like, now I need to check the details happened the night before we were going to do it.
[00:37:23.720 --> 00:37:25.880] He'd be like, I'll just check in with Bob as to what he's got in mind.
[00:37:25.880 --> 00:37:30.040] And what Bob had in mind was, I think we just lift a piano into a van.
[00:37:30.360 --> 00:37:35.320] It's very much a kind of a say-what you see kind of endeavour of just like hook and in.
[00:37:35.320 --> 00:37:37.640] Because they're famously quite top-heavy piano.
[00:37:37.640 --> 00:37:39.480] It's quite difficult to keep them.
[00:37:39.480 --> 00:37:42.360] If once they're lifted off the floor, it's quite difficult to stop them toppling.
[00:37:42.360 --> 00:37:43.320] So it wasn't actually too bad.
[00:37:43.320 --> 00:37:44.840] And we did manage to time to get it out.
[00:37:44.840 --> 00:37:46.200] So you were coming to help as well, Alice.
[00:37:46.360 --> 00:37:48.680] Well, my intention was, I had planned to come.
[00:37:48.680 --> 00:37:56.040] And my intention was, because I properly crippled myself the last time I did stuff at your house, my intention was to not help lift the piano.
[00:37:56.040 --> 00:37:59.160] Although I am physically quite strong and good at things like that, I was like, I don't know.
[00:37:59.240 --> 00:38:00.440] I don't know where you were lifting it.
[00:38:00.440 --> 00:38:06.920] But I was going to come and help Potter with other bits that needed doing and help clean and make teas and whatever else I could do.
[00:38:06.920 --> 00:38:14.360] But I got up that morning earlier than I would have liked, but I got up nice and early, got myself ready.
[00:38:14.680 --> 00:38:15.880] You're not a morning person or anything.
[00:38:16.280 --> 00:38:17.080] I really struggle with that.
[00:38:17.160 --> 00:38:20.120] We've touched on this on the show before, but you're just not a morning person.
[00:38:20.360 --> 00:38:22.600] You're less of a morning person than I am, and I'm not a morning person.
[00:38:22.760 --> 00:38:23.480] Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:38:23.480 --> 00:38:26.600] And I like pathologically bad with mornings.
[00:38:26.600 --> 00:38:29.480] But I had, and I can do it as like a one-off.
[00:38:29.480 --> 00:38:32.360] If I have to do it regularly, then it really starts to have knock-on effects.
[00:38:32.360 --> 00:38:36.200] So I got up nice and early, by which I mean half eight.
[00:38:36.200 --> 00:38:36.840] Eight o'clock.
[00:38:36.840 --> 00:38:37.080] Yeah.
[00:38:37.080 --> 00:38:38.120] We were leaving at half eight.
[00:38:38.120 --> 00:38:39.000] No, we were leaving at night.
[00:38:39.080 --> 00:38:39.800] I got up at half eight.
[00:38:39.880 --> 00:38:40.200] There we go.
[00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:43.640] So not that early by most people's standards.
[00:38:43.640 --> 00:38:48.000] And I was like, feeling a bit achy, but I was like, just, just, that's how I am in the morning.
[00:38:48.160 --> 00:38:55.200] Got dressed, got ready to go, packed myself a little bag with things that we might need, a little, my little toolkit, bits and pieces.
[00:38:55.520 --> 00:39:05.760] Went into the kitchen to get myself a glass of water before we left, pulled my water bottle out of the fridge, and my back/slash shoulder just went ping.
[00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:07.120] Well, it didn't go ping.
[00:39:07.120 --> 00:39:14.240] This is the weird thing: it kind of I don't even know how to describe it because it was sudden, but it wasn't like a ping sudden.
[00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:18.080] So I was like, oh, that really is quite painful.
[00:39:18.080 --> 00:39:21.520] And I was like, okay, maybe I shouldn't come to Blackpool.
[00:39:21.520 --> 00:39:23.200] And it still hadn't got too bad at that point.
[00:39:23.200 --> 00:39:24.480] So I was like, well, I'll just put my jacket on.
[00:39:24.560 --> 00:39:26.720] I'll just go around and I'll tell them because you only live around the corner.
[00:39:26.720 --> 00:39:30.080] I'll just tell them in person that I'm not going to come and explain what's happened.
[00:39:30.080 --> 00:39:31.920] Where I was like, no, you're being ridiculous.
[00:39:31.920 --> 00:39:33.360] I can see you're in a lot of pain.
[00:39:33.360 --> 00:39:34.640] Take your coat off.
[00:39:34.640 --> 00:39:36.240] Go and sit on the sofa.
[00:39:36.240 --> 00:39:41.440] Like, but we were literally about to walk out the door.
[00:39:41.440 --> 00:39:43.360] And now I'm like, literally cancelling that.
[00:39:43.600 --> 00:39:51.520] Anyway, it was so bad that I don't normally involuntarily vocalize from pain pretty much ever.
[00:39:51.520 --> 00:39:55.280] I'm very like, because I have quite a high pain threshold and I'm in pain a lot of the time.
[00:39:55.280 --> 00:39:57.760] That's not usually part of how I deal with pain.
[00:39:57.760 --> 00:39:59.840] And that's quite normal for autistic people as well.
[00:39:59.840 --> 00:40:04.800] Autistic people don't present pain and perform pain in the same way as a normal person.
[00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:13.120] But I was like, every time it spasmed, was like fully vocalizing in pain, having like real significant spasming pain in my back and ribs.
[00:40:13.120 --> 00:40:14.320] I couldn't breathe at first.
[00:40:14.320 --> 00:40:17.960] I couldn't like fully inflate my lungs because my ribs were so fucked.
[00:40:17.840 --> 00:40:18.680] Yeah, nothing.
[00:40:18.880 --> 00:40:25.280] Thankfully, the spasming went down after the first day and is now ish, okay.
[00:40:25.600 --> 00:40:27.120] But that first day was fucking hell.
[00:40:27.120 --> 00:40:29.720] And I was supposed to be coming and helping you over the piano.
[00:40:29.720 --> 00:40:33.240] Yeah, so in the end, we had to kind of between me and Bob and Warren, we had to move it.
[00:40:33.240 --> 00:40:34.840] But then as we it was, it was fine in the end.
[00:40:34.840 --> 00:40:35.320] It was fine there.
[00:40:29.360 --> 00:40:36.200] We had a transit van there.
[00:40:36.280 --> 00:40:37.560] We moved all stuff around.
[00:40:37.560 --> 00:40:39.160] We got it to the van.
[00:40:39.160 --> 00:40:43.400] And then Nicola's next-door neighbor, lovely guy called John, who we'd never talked before.
[00:40:43.480 --> 00:40:44.760] We love the guy, was like, what are we doing?
[00:40:44.760 --> 00:40:45.960] Are we moving a piano?
[00:40:46.120 --> 00:40:47.320] And so he just walks over.
[00:40:47.320 --> 00:40:49.800] And then his next door neighbor was like, sorry, what's happening?
[00:40:49.880 --> 00:40:51.240] John's like, oh, we're moving a piano.
[00:40:51.240 --> 00:40:52.120] Come in in the dark.
[00:40:52.440 --> 00:40:53.320] We all did that, which was great.
[00:40:53.640 --> 00:40:54.520] It takes a village, doesn't it?
[00:40:54.520 --> 00:40:55.400] It does very much take a village.
[00:40:55.480 --> 00:40:59.240] We got back to Liverpool, and then Bob was knocking on his neighbour's door and got his neighbour out.
[00:40:59.240 --> 00:41:00.760] Bob has moved a piano before.
[00:41:00.760 --> 00:41:06.360] Bob's neighbour, who I would say was maybe 24, something like that, has moved a piano before.
[00:41:06.680 --> 00:41:08.600] So we managed to get the piano into Bob's house.
[00:41:08.680 --> 00:41:09.080] That's fine.
[00:41:09.080 --> 00:41:10.360] The piano's all sorted.
[00:41:10.520 --> 00:41:12.760] We adjusted the house, will go on the market.
[00:41:12.760 --> 00:41:14.600] I don't have to go back there again.
[00:41:14.600 --> 00:41:18.840] We do still have a house full of Nicola's possessions and her mum's possessions still.
[00:41:19.320 --> 00:41:24.680] The downside of which is there's a lot of dust going on, which means my weird allergies have been going off all week.
[00:41:24.680 --> 00:41:28.040] So I spent the entire weekend sneezing and being like shit.
[00:41:28.040 --> 00:41:35.320] And then afterwards, I have this thing where once I've had a few days of bad allergies, I'll then have all these other kinds of symptoms that kind of follow on from that.
[00:41:35.320 --> 00:41:38.520] But at least I don't have to go back to Blackville again.
[00:41:39.160 --> 00:41:41.320] I went away for work.
[00:41:41.320 --> 00:41:41.640] Oh, right.
[00:41:41.960 --> 00:41:43.000] Unexpectedly.
[00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:48.520] So my boss has gone on paternity and he said, Mike, can you act up while I'm away?
[00:41:48.680 --> 00:41:49.240] Oh, that's nice.
[00:41:49.320 --> 00:41:49.640] That's fine.
[00:41:49.640 --> 00:41:49.960] That's good.
[00:41:50.760 --> 00:41:51.960] It's going to cause a load of trouble.
[00:41:51.960 --> 00:41:53.720] Yeah, cause some hassle.
[00:41:53.720 --> 00:41:57.880] Which meant I suddenly, unexpectedly, had to go to Manchester for two days.
[00:41:57.960 --> 00:41:59.320] To take some clients out for dinner.
[00:41:59.320 --> 00:42:01.640] For work, to go and have dinner with clients.
[00:42:01.640 --> 00:42:02.040] Yeah.
[00:42:02.040 --> 00:42:02.840] So I had to do that.
[00:42:02.840 --> 00:42:05.560] So unexpectedly, I had to, you know, escape and go to.
[00:42:05.720 --> 00:42:07.800] And I stayed in the Mercure where I was.
[00:42:08.120 --> 00:42:09.160] Of course, you did.
[00:42:09.160 --> 00:42:11.080] How far away was the Mercure from your music?
[00:42:11.240 --> 00:42:11.880] It wasn't too bad.
[00:42:11.880 --> 00:42:13.320] It was like a 15-minute walk.
[00:42:14.360 --> 00:42:16.560] But if it had been a 40-minute walk, you still would have done it.
[00:42:14.840 --> 00:42:19.120] I still would have done Stonewall's stayed at the Mercure.
[00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:22.000] Every time I'd said to people, you know, they said, Where are you staying?
[00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:24.240] I said, I'm in the Mercure at Piccadilly Gardens.
[00:42:24.240 --> 00:42:25.760] And they said, All right, you've got a long walk.
[00:42:25.760 --> 00:42:28.080] And I go, 15 minutes.
[00:42:28.720 --> 00:42:29.440] That's no problem.
[00:42:29.440 --> 00:42:29.920] It's fine.
[00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:30.320] It's fine.
[00:42:30.320 --> 00:42:32.560] Because I was like, well, this is my hotel.
[00:42:32.560 --> 00:42:33.040] Yeah.
[00:42:33.040 --> 00:42:36.320] And I know someone else owns and operates it, but it's my hotel.
[00:42:36.320 --> 00:42:39.360] So that's where I'm going to stay because I know what I'm doing there.
[00:42:39.360 --> 00:42:45.600] I mean, I'm teasing you about it, but I think there's plenty of QD attendees who also deliberately pick the Mercure if they have to stay in Manchester.
[00:42:45.600 --> 00:42:46.160] Of course you do.
[00:42:46.160 --> 00:42:47.120] Of course you do.
[00:42:47.120 --> 00:42:50.080] So I was there for work for a couple of days.
[00:42:50.080 --> 00:42:54.240] And then I came back from work and I came back to Liverpool and I went back to the flat.
[00:42:54.240 --> 00:42:57.280] And then Katie said, I'm feeling really rough.
[00:42:57.280 --> 00:42:59.360] I've got some horrible cold symptoms.
[00:42:59.360 --> 00:43:00.480] I'm feeling bad.
[00:43:00.480 --> 00:43:02.720] And I said, you should do a COVID test.
[00:43:02.720 --> 00:43:03.840] Do you want to do a COVID test?
[00:43:03.840 --> 00:43:05.440] So I went and got a COVID test.
[00:43:05.440 --> 00:43:06.480] And she did a COVID test.
[00:43:06.480 --> 00:43:07.840] And of course, it was positive.
[00:43:07.840 --> 00:43:08.320] Yeah.
[00:43:08.320 --> 00:43:09.840] So I was like, oh, fucking hell.
[00:43:10.480 --> 00:43:13.120] Fortunately, I had not been anywhere near.
[00:43:13.200 --> 00:43:17.040] I'd been in her proximity for two minutes when I'd come in from work.
[00:43:17.040 --> 00:43:18.720] And she said, I'm feeling rough.
[00:43:18.720 --> 00:43:20.160] So I was like, all right, I'll keep my distance.
[00:43:20.160 --> 00:43:21.680] Get your COVID test is positive.
[00:43:21.680 --> 00:43:25.040] So I thought, I need to decamp.
[00:43:25.040 --> 00:43:30.800] So I went to stay in the Premier Inn that is across the street from the flat where I live.
[00:43:30.960 --> 00:43:38.000] I went to stay in the so I booked two nights in that Premier Inn to give Katie some time to recover from the Codes.
[00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:40.640] Happily, she had been, this is where she'd got the COVID.
[00:43:40.640 --> 00:43:47.680] She'd been to London for some fucking wrestling thing because she likes watching sweaty men pretend to throw each other across the room for some reason.
[00:43:47.680 --> 00:43:48.000] I don't know.
[00:43:48.240 --> 00:43:49.440] It's entertainment.
[00:43:49.440 --> 00:43:51.720] So she'd been there, and then I'd been away so.
[00:43:51.920 --> 00:43:53.840] She likes watching men with better balance than you.
[00:43:55.120 --> 00:43:55.920] Apparently, yeah.
[00:43:56.240 --> 00:44:02.040] But so we just managed to coincidentally fully miss each other in the time that she'd been sick.
[00:43:59.680 --> 00:44:04.280] So I went and escaped off to the Premier Inn.
[00:44:04.520 --> 00:44:10.360] And I was meant to be seeing Emma at the time, but I was in Manchester for work, so I didn't get to see Emma.
[00:44:10.360 --> 00:44:12.680] So I text Emma and said, Well, I'm staying in the Premier Inn.
[00:44:12.680 --> 00:44:14.920] Do you want to come over and stay in the Premier Inn?
[00:44:15.240 --> 00:44:22.600] So I got to the Premier Inn, and I basically booked it online and then just went straight there.
[00:44:22.600 --> 00:44:26.280] So I booked it, and then within five minutes, I was at the Premier Inn.
[00:44:26.280 --> 00:44:28.920] And so the gadget wouldn't let me check in.
[00:44:29.160 --> 00:44:34.760] So they got big check-in screens where they print your key out for you and things like that, but they wouldn't let me do that.
[00:44:34.760 --> 00:44:39.000] So I had to press the button and call the member staff, and they came where, well, did you use your booking reference?
[00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:39.560] Or did you use it?
[00:44:39.800 --> 00:44:41.000] Well, I tried both of them.
[00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:42.680] It's probably because I only just booked it a few minutes.
[00:44:42.760 --> 00:44:45.080] Yeah, yeah, it means it probably hasn't allocated your room yet.
[00:44:45.320 --> 00:44:46.760] Let me just check you in.
[00:44:47.080 --> 00:44:49.400] And she said, they said, can you confirm your address for me?
[00:44:49.400 --> 00:44:51.240] I said, yep, it's, and I told her my address.
[00:44:51.240 --> 00:44:53.640] And she went, oh, isn't that just there?
[00:44:54.600 --> 00:44:55.640] And I said, yes, it is.
[00:44:55.640 --> 00:44:57.240] It's because my wife has got COVID.
[00:44:57.240 --> 00:45:00.120] And so I'm kind of, I've come here to escape.
[00:45:00.120 --> 00:45:04.840] And she went, you booked a double room with two breakfasts.
[00:45:05.160 --> 00:45:08.040] Do you want me to cancel one of those breakfasts for you?
[00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:10.520] Is it just going to be you in the room?
[00:45:10.520 --> 00:45:14.760] And I said, no, no, it's not just going to be me in the room.
[00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:16.600] And she went, I see.
[00:45:16.600 --> 00:45:17.320] Okay.
[00:45:18.280 --> 00:45:20.040] And said no further words to me.
[00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:23.080] So, oh, I look like such a twat.
[00:45:23.400 --> 00:45:26.760] I look like such the most awful person in the fucking room.
[00:45:26.920 --> 00:45:29.720] Having an affair on your wife in the hotel opposite your flat.
[00:45:30.200 --> 00:45:31.160] While she's got COVID.
[00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:36.680] I assume the person would assume she doesn't really have COVID.
[00:45:36.680 --> 00:45:37.800] This is just your cover story.
[00:45:38.120 --> 00:45:39.000] Oh, fucking hell.
[00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:41.880] So I look like such a fucking bell cat.
[00:45:46.480 --> 00:45:55.440] So for Liverpool Skeptics and the Pub, we have, in desperation, booked some absolute fucking bell end to come and give a talk for us this month.
[00:45:55.440 --> 00:45:56.880] And so that's going to be me.
[00:45:56.880 --> 00:45:57.840] You're going to be doing a talk.
[00:45:57.840 --> 00:45:59.120] What talk are you going to be doing, Mike?
[00:45:59.120 --> 00:46:05.440] So I'm going to be talking about the new evidence that suggests we have solved the Jack the Ripper case.
[00:46:05.440 --> 00:46:08.400] I talked about this on the show, like, I mean, before or five years ago.
[00:46:08.400 --> 00:46:08.800] Yeah.
[00:46:08.800 --> 00:46:10.000] No, it would have been longer than that.
[00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:11.840] 2014, I think we talked about it on the show.
[00:46:12.400 --> 00:46:13.840] We've got some new evidence.
[00:46:14.160 --> 00:46:19.680] And, well, but so is every press article about it, which is part of the ridiculousness of it.
[00:46:19.680 --> 00:46:22.800] And I talked about it again on the show earlier this year.
[00:46:22.800 --> 00:46:27.440] So we're looking at kind of a synthesis of those two bits that I've done for the show.
[00:46:27.440 --> 00:46:29.920] But I'm going to be doing that for Liverpool Skeptic at the Pub.
[00:46:29.920 --> 00:46:33.520] So that's going to be at the CASA on Hope Street from 7.30 p.m.
[00:46:33.600 --> 00:46:36.240] And if you're in the Liverpool area, you should definitely come along to that.
[00:46:36.480 --> 00:46:37.280] That's a good talk.
[00:46:37.280 --> 00:46:38.560] I'm looking forward to it.
[00:46:38.560 --> 00:46:41.200] I'm not because 

Prompt 2: Key Takeaways

Now please extract the key takeaways from the transcript content I provided.

Extract the most important key takeaways from this part of the conversation. Use a single sentence statement (the key takeaway) rather than milquetoast descriptions like "the hosts discuss...". 

Limit the key takeaways to a maximum of 3. The key takeaways should be insightful and knowledge-additive. 

IMPORTANT: Return ONLY valid JSON, no explanations or markdown. Ensure:
- All strings are properly quoted and escaped
- No trailing commas
- All braces and brackets are balanced
Format: {"key_takeaways": ["takeaway 1", "takeaway 2"]}

Prompt 3: Segments

Now identify 2-4 distinct topical segments from this part of the conversation.

For each segment, identify:
- Descriptive title (3-6 words)  
- START timestamp when this topic begins (HH:MM:SS format)
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Most important Key takeaway from that segment. Key takeaway must be specific and knowledge-additive.
- Brief summary of the discussion

IMPORTANT: The timestamp should mark when the topic/segment STARTS, not a range. Look for topic transitions and conversation shifts.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted, no trailing commas:
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "segment_title": "Topic Discussion", 
      "timestamp": "01:15:30",
      "key_takeaway": "main point from this segment",
      "segment_summary": "brief description of what was discussed"
    }
  ]
}

Timestamp format: HH:MM:SS (e.g., 00:05:30, 01:22:45) marking the START of each segment.

Prompt 4: Media Mentions

Now scan the transcript content I provided for ACTUAL mentions of specific media titles:

Find explicit mentions of:
- Books (with specific titles)
- Movies (with specific titles)  
- TV Shows (with specific titles)
- Music/Songs (with specific titles)

DO NOT include:
- Websites, URLs, or web services
- Other podcasts or podcast names

IMPORTANT: 
- Only include items explicitly mentioned by name. Do not invent titles.
- Valid categories are: "Book", "Movie", "TV Show", "Music"
- Include the exact phrase where each item was mentioned
- Find the nearest proximate timestamp where it appears in the conversation
- THE TIMESTAMP OF THE MEDIA MENTION IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT INVENT TIMESTAMPS AND DO NOT MISATTRIBUTE TIMESTAMPS
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Timestamps are given as ranges, e.g. 01:13:42.520 --> 01:13:46.720. Use the EARLIER of the 2 timestamps in the range.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted and escaped, no trailing commas:
{
  "media_mentions": [
    {
      "title": "Exact Title as Mentioned",
      "category": "Book",
      "author_artist": "N/A",
      "context": "Brief context of why it was mentioned",
      "context_phrase": "The exact sentence or phrase where it was mentioned",
      "timestamp": "estimated time like 01:15:30"
    }
  ]
}

If no media is mentioned, return: {"media_mentions": []}

Prompt 5: Context Setup

You are an expert data extractor tasked with analyzing a podcast transcript. 
I will provide you with part 2 of 2 from a podcast transcript. 
I will then ask you to extract different types of information from this content in subsequent messages. Please confirm you have received and understood the transcript content.

Transcript section:
:30.200 --> 00:45:31.160] While she's got COVID.
[00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:36.680] I assume the person would assume she doesn't really have COVID.
[00:45:36.680 --> 00:45:37.800] This is just your cover story.
[00:45:38.120 --> 00:45:39.000] Oh, fucking hell.
[00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:41.880] So I look like such a fucking bell cat.
[00:45:46.480 --> 00:45:55.440] So for Liverpool Skeptics and the Pub, we have, in desperation, booked some absolute fucking bell end to come and give a talk for us this month.
[00:45:55.440 --> 00:45:56.880] And so that's going to be me.
[00:45:56.880 --> 00:45:57.840] You're going to be doing a talk.
[00:45:57.840 --> 00:45:59.120] What talk are you going to be doing, Mike?
[00:45:59.120 --> 00:46:05.440] So I'm going to be talking about the new evidence that suggests we have solved the Jack the Ripper case.
[00:46:05.440 --> 00:46:08.400] I talked about this on the show, like, I mean, before or five years ago.
[00:46:08.400 --> 00:46:08.800] Yeah.
[00:46:08.800 --> 00:46:10.000] No, it would have been longer than that.
[00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:11.840] 2014, I think we talked about it on the show.
[00:46:12.400 --> 00:46:13.840] We've got some new evidence.
[00:46:14.160 --> 00:46:19.680] And, well, but so is every press article about it, which is part of the ridiculousness of it.
[00:46:19.680 --> 00:46:22.800] And I talked about it again on the show earlier this year.
[00:46:22.800 --> 00:46:27.440] So we're looking at kind of a synthesis of those two bits that I've done for the show.
[00:46:27.440 --> 00:46:29.920] But I'm going to be doing that for Liverpool Skeptic at the Pub.
[00:46:29.920 --> 00:46:33.520] So that's going to be at the CASA on Hope Street from 7.30 p.m.
[00:46:33.600 --> 00:46:36.240] And if you're in the Liverpool area, you should definitely come along to that.
[00:46:36.480 --> 00:46:37.280] That's a good talk.
[00:46:37.280 --> 00:46:38.560] I'm looking forward to it.
[00:46:38.560 --> 00:46:41.200] I'm not because I haven't learned my words.
[00:46:42.320 --> 00:46:44.240] I've got like a week to sort them out.
[00:46:44.240 --> 00:46:45.120] Ah, that's fine.
[00:46:45.280 --> 00:46:46.240] That'll be fine.
[00:46:46.240 --> 00:46:47.760] So yeah, that's going to be fantastic.
[00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:50.640] The CASA on Hope Street from 7.30.
[00:46:50.960 --> 00:46:53.680] We should also just briefly mention QED as well.
[00:46:53.680 --> 00:46:54.480] So QED.
[00:46:54.800 --> 00:46:56.320] We have got loads of new things.
[00:46:56.320 --> 00:46:58.160] Oh, we talked about them on the last show.
[00:46:58.160 --> 00:47:02.240] We talked about our new announcements on the last show, but streaming tickets for QED are still available.
[00:47:02.240 --> 00:47:03.680] It is going to be the final QED.
[00:47:03.680 --> 00:47:07.040] So this is your last and only opportunity to take part.
[00:47:07.040 --> 00:47:09.440] And you can find out more about QED at QDCon.org.
[00:47:09.440 --> 00:47:13.440] Streaming tickets are £49, and that gets you access to most of the content that we've got.
[00:47:13.440 --> 00:47:17.120] So it's all the main stage, all the panels, and all of the podcasts.
[00:47:17.120 --> 00:47:20.640] The only thing we don't include in that is the workshops because that kind of doesn't make sense.
[00:47:20.960 --> 00:47:23.760] But yeah, you should definitely get your QED tickets if you have not already.
[00:47:23.760 --> 00:47:26.400] We've been selling quite a few of the online tickets recently.
[00:47:26.400 --> 00:47:29.160] I think it's since we announced that Noah was going to do a panel with us.
[00:47:28.880 --> 00:47:34.680] Well, it's since Noah announced and said you can't buy in-person tickets, but you can buy streaming tickets, which is very lovely.
[00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:37.240] Aside from that, then I think that's all we have time for.
[00:47:37.240 --> 00:47:37.800] I think it is.
[00:47:37.800 --> 00:47:40.200] All that remains then is thank Marsh for coming along today.
[00:47:40.200 --> 00:47:40.680] Cheers.
[00:47:40.680 --> 00:47:41.560] Thank you to Alice.
[00:47:41.560 --> 00:47:42.040] Thank you.
[00:47:42.040 --> 00:47:44.520] We have been Skeptics with a K, and we will see you next time.
[00:47:44.520 --> 00:47:45.160] Bye now.
[00:47:45.160 --> 00:47:46.120] Bye.
[00:47:50.920 --> 00:47:55.960] Skeptics with a K is produced by Skeptic Media in association with the Merseyside Skeptic Society.
[00:47:55.960 --> 00:48:05.320] For questions or comments, email podcast at skepticswithakay.org and you can find out more about Merseyside Skeptics at merseyside skeptics.org.uk.

Prompt 6: Key Takeaways

Now please extract the key takeaways from the transcript content I provided.

Extract the most important key takeaways from this part of the conversation. Use a single sentence statement (the key takeaway) rather than milquetoast descriptions like "the hosts discuss...". 

Limit the key takeaways to a maximum of 3. The key takeaways should be insightful and knowledge-additive. 

IMPORTANT: Return ONLY valid JSON, no explanations or markdown. Ensure:
- All strings are properly quoted and escaped
- No trailing commas
- All braces and brackets are balanced
Format: {"key_takeaways": ["takeaway 1", "takeaway 2"]}

Prompt 7: Segments

Now identify 2-4 distinct topical segments from this part of the conversation.

For each segment, identify:
- Descriptive title (3-6 words)  
- START timestamp when this topic begins (HH:MM:SS format)
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Most important Key takeaway from that segment. Key takeaway must be specific and knowledge-additive.
- Brief summary of the discussion

IMPORTANT: The timestamp should mark when the topic/segment STARTS, not a range. Look for topic transitions and conversation shifts.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted, no trailing commas:
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "segment_title": "Topic Discussion", 
      "timestamp": "01:15:30",
      "key_takeaway": "main point from this segment",
      "segment_summary": "brief description of what was discussed"
    }
  ]
}

Timestamp format: HH:MM:SS (e.g., 00:05:30, 01:22:45) marking the START of each segment.

Prompt 8: Media Mentions

Now scan the transcript content I provided for ACTUAL mentions of specific media titles:

Find explicit mentions of:
- Books (with specific titles)
- Movies (with specific titles)  
- TV Shows (with specific titles)
- Music/Songs (with specific titles)

DO NOT include:
- Websites, URLs, or web services
- Other podcasts or podcast names

IMPORTANT: 
- Only include items explicitly mentioned by name. Do not invent titles.
- Valid categories are: "Book", "Movie", "TV Show", "Music"
- Include the exact phrase where each item was mentioned
- Find the nearest proximate timestamp where it appears in the conversation
- THE TIMESTAMP OF THE MEDIA MENTION IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT INVENT TIMESTAMPS AND DO NOT MISATTRIBUTE TIMESTAMPS
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Timestamps are given as ranges, e.g. 01:13:42.520 --> 01:13:46.720. Use the EARLIER of the 2 timestamps in the range.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted and escaped, no trailing commas:
{
  "media_mentions": [
    {
      "title": "Exact Title as Mentioned",
      "category": "Book",
      "author_artist": "N/A",
      "context": "Brief context of why it was mentioned",
      "context_phrase": "The exact sentence or phrase where it was mentioned",
      "timestamp": "estimated time like 01:15:30"
    }
  ]
}

If no media is mentioned, return: {"media_mentions": []}

Full Transcript

[00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:06.000] Ford was built on the belief that the world doesn't get to decide what you're capable of.
[00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:06.960] You do.
[00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:10.480] So, ask yourself: can you or can't you?
[00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:15.280] Can you load up a Ford F-150 and build your dream with sweat and steel?
[00:00:15.280 --> 00:00:18.960] Can you chase thrills and conquer curves in a Mustang?
[00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:23.440] Can you take a Bronco to where the map ends and adventure begins?
[00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:27.520] Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right.
[00:00:27.520 --> 00:00:28.400] Ready?
[00:00:28.400 --> 00:00:29.200] Set.
[00:00:29.200 --> 00:00:30.480] Ford.
[00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:45.440] It is Thursday, the 11th of September, 2025, and you are listening to Skeptics with a K, the podcast for science, reason, and critical thinking.
[00:00:45.440 --> 00:00:57.040] Skeptics with a K is produced by Skeptic Media in association with the Merseyside Skeptic Society, a non-profit organization for the promotion of scientific skepticism on Merseyside around the UK and internationally.
[00:00:57.040 --> 00:00:58.400] I am your host, Mike Hall.
[00:00:58.400 --> 00:00:59.680] With me today is Marsh.
[00:00:59.680 --> 00:01:01.040] Hello, and Alice.
[00:01:01.040 --> 00:01:02.000] Hello.
[00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:06.400] I'm a sucker for marketing dressed up as a magazine.
[00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:06.960] Okay.
[00:01:06.960 --> 00:01:11.920] You know, when you go into like the supermarket and you get one of the little free magazines or boots, boots do them as well.
[00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:14.000] You look like a Tesco food magazine.
[00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:20.640] I get so excited every month for the new release of a Tesco food magazine.
[00:01:20.800 --> 00:01:21.520] It's ridiculous.
[00:01:21.520 --> 00:01:22.160] It's ridiculous.
[00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:23.360] It's just an advert for Tesco.
[00:01:23.360 --> 00:01:24.560] It's just an advert for Tesco.
[00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:28.400] I know absolutely what the purpose of it is, but I still get excited for it every year.
[00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:34.960] I suppose I used to get excited about the new Argos catalogue, which is nothing except a big book of marketing.
[00:01:34.960 --> 00:01:35.600] So that's true.
[00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:39.360] Do you think there's anybody like, were you old enough for Argus catalogs?
[00:01:39.360 --> 00:01:39.840] Yeah.
[00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:41.760] Okay, where's the cutoff point for that?
[00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:44.720] Because I think Argos catalogues as an exciting thing.
[00:01:44.720 --> 00:01:57.320] They died before they stopped coming out because the internet made them kind of obsolete in the sense that it used to be when I was growing up, if you wanted to see what toys are available, you had to look at an Argos catalog catalogs.
[00:01:57.400 --> 00:01:58.480] Or watch TV adverts.
[00:01:58.480 --> 00:01:59.520] Or watch TV adverts.
[00:01:59.520 --> 00:02:00.200] Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:00.200 --> 00:02:00.600] Yeah.
[00:02:00.600 --> 00:02:03.320] Whereas then it came along, you could just Google stuff.
[00:02:03.320 --> 00:02:06.360] I don't think television Bishop Awkward either thinks that was.
[00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:06.840] No, it doesn't.
[00:02:07.160 --> 00:02:11.080] I am older than Google being quite so common in every home.
[00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:11.480] Yeah.
[00:02:11.640 --> 00:02:12.600] Certainly for children.
[00:02:12.760 --> 00:02:13.720] You grew up with the internet in the house.
[00:02:13.800 --> 00:02:14.680] I grew up with the internet in the house.
[00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:16.600] So like you were around the cusp.
[00:02:17.160 --> 00:02:19.400] You might have not been an Argos kid.
[00:02:19.400 --> 00:02:20.600] It's possible.
[00:02:20.600 --> 00:02:23.160] You probably never saw an index catalogue, though, did you?
[00:02:23.160 --> 00:02:23.880] No, I don't think so.
[00:02:24.040 --> 00:02:25.240] Or a Little Woods.
[00:02:25.560 --> 00:02:31.640] No, well, but the reason I wouldn't have seen closed catalogues is because I grew up in a middle-class family, not because of my age.
[00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:37.160] We wouldn't have had catalogs like that delivered to our house because it's just not that the kind of thing.
[00:02:37.160 --> 00:02:47.560] We did establish the other day that you're too young to remember the Kiora advert and too young to remember the reference in the sitcom Space to how old the Kiora advert was.
[00:02:47.560 --> 00:02:49.240] Not too young to remember Space.
[00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:50.680] I just haven't watched Space.
[00:02:50.840 --> 00:02:52.360] Well, I've watched three episodes of Space.
[00:02:52.440 --> 00:02:54.520] I think it came out in about 2002.
[00:02:54.520 --> 00:02:55.240] You were 12.
[00:02:55.480 --> 00:02:56.040] 11, 12.
[00:02:57.240 --> 00:02:58.440] It's too orangey for crows.
[00:02:58.520 --> 00:02:59.400] Too orangey for crows.
[00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:01.320] It's far too orangey for crows.
[00:03:02.280 --> 00:03:04.680] I think I was a horribly racist advert as well.
[00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:05.480] I'm sure it would have been.
[00:03:05.640 --> 00:03:07.560] I think it was dreadfully racist.
[00:03:07.560 --> 00:03:09.080] It was a play with Mbongo.
[00:03:09.080 --> 00:03:12.840] Yes, which I'm given to understand they never actually drink in the Congo.
[00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:13.320] Never do.
[00:03:13.320 --> 00:03:13.800] They never do.
[00:03:14.440 --> 00:03:18.920] It's just a scurrilous rumour put about by whoever the fuck made Umbongo.
[00:03:18.920 --> 00:03:20.760] I had their name in my head for a second, then it's gone.
[00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:22.520] Libby's.
[00:03:22.520 --> 00:03:24.200] Libby's Umbongo is what it was.
[00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:24.760] Libby's.
[00:03:24.840 --> 00:03:25.880] Good lord.
[00:03:26.200 --> 00:03:26.760] Good.
[00:03:27.800 --> 00:03:29.320] So every month I get excited.
[00:03:29.320 --> 00:03:31.960] I didn't even get one sentence into my piece that time.
[00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:37.160] Do you remember when people used to write to us and say you were being sexist when you interrupted me in an article?
[00:03:37.160 --> 00:03:37.960] Yes, I do remember that.
[00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:40.040] These happen on this quite a lot.
[00:03:40.040 --> 00:03:43.800] But also, you interrupted yourself three times before we even did.
[00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:49.920] You got half a sentence in and then interrupt yourself about the catalogue, about the Tesco stuff and loving them so much.
[00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:58.400] So every month I get excited for the new release of the food magazine released by my local supermarket, even though I know its entire purpose is to sell supermarket products at me.
[00:03:58.720 --> 00:04:02.720] But I enjoy flipping through and tearing out the recipes to use another time.
[00:04:02.720 --> 00:04:04.640] I don't use every recipe I tear out.
[00:04:04.640 --> 00:04:06.480] Although, to be fair, I do use some of them.
[00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:07.920] Like, I am, I do actually use.
[00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:09.280] You do a lot of like cooking.
[00:04:09.440 --> 00:04:14.320] I do a lot of cooking and I enjoy flipping through magazines like that just to get ideas of things to cook.
[00:04:14.320 --> 00:04:17.520] And then sometimes we'll use the recipes as a starting point for something I want to cook.
[00:04:17.520 --> 00:04:19.120] So I do use them.
[00:04:19.440 --> 00:04:21.600] And I do end up with some quite nice food out of them.
[00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:37.600] But this month, as I was flipping through the magazine, I reached a health and well-being segment which included a feature called the Big Well-being Reset, which offered a description of seasonal affective disorder and said that September can mark the onset of symptoms for many people.
[00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:38.160] Okay.
[00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:42.960] As an aside, can I grumble about how much of a splash the start of autumn made this year?
[00:04:42.960 --> 00:04:44.000] Like, did it?
[00:04:44.000 --> 00:05:17.160] Fucking hell, the first of September, every fucker on social media was just posting about how they were how excited they were that it was autumn already and that cozy season is here and they get to wear like burgundy and drink pumpkin spice lattes and whatever fucking else people like about autumn i've seen none of this it was everywhere but it's not just that it was everywhere because it's everywhere every year people get really excited about autumn fine not gonna begrudge people enjoying autumn fashion whatever but it was that it was specifically everywhere explicitly on the first of september which i don't even think is autumn.
[00:05:17.160 --> 00:05:17.640] No.
[00:05:17.640 --> 00:05:20.760] Nicola doesn't accept autumn until i think october or even november.
[00:05:20.760 --> 00:05:23.400] No, she has winter starting in December.
[00:05:23.400 --> 00:05:25.400] Okay, so i guess she would have autumn in September then.
[00:05:25.880 --> 00:05:32.680] And I think autumn, October, then it is autumn, but also we often get a bit of a late last bitch of sun, which is September.
[00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:33.800] But of course, I think it's possible.
[00:05:33.880 --> 00:05:38.280] Because Nicola insists that the months are very evenly spaced out exactly three months.
[00:05:38.280 --> 00:05:42.600] And I don't think that's true, because I would say September is still late summer.
[00:05:42.600 --> 00:05:46.280] And I would say end of November, you're in winter territory already.
[00:05:46.280 --> 00:05:47.240] That's not still autumn.
[00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:47.800] November.
[00:05:47.800 --> 00:05:49.240] That's madness.
[00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:54.760] But this year it felt like 1st of September, everybody just uniformly decided it's autumn.
[00:05:54.760 --> 00:06:03.400] And not only uniformly decided it's autumn, but uniformly decided we're going to pump content about it being autumn.
[00:06:03.400 --> 00:06:05.560] And I think this is partly TikTok's fault, isn't it?
[00:06:05.560 --> 00:06:12.360] Because people just pick up their phone and record a really quick snippet and they've got to do something constantly three or four times a day.
[00:06:12.360 --> 00:06:18.920] So you've got to put something in 1st of September, everybody's talking about autumn, I can put on a burgundy coat and Christ, it's great.
[00:06:19.080 --> 00:06:21.560] I think it's great, but I don't use any of that stuff as anything.
[00:06:21.720 --> 00:06:25.400] I know content creators who are already making their Christmas content.
[00:06:25.400 --> 00:06:29.960] They're already getting the Santa hats out because they need to have it in the bank ready for it to rise.
[00:06:30.440 --> 00:06:31.880] We haven't even started talking about a Christmas party.
[00:06:31.960 --> 00:06:35.240] We had our first conversation about a Christmas party at our last board meeting.
[00:06:35.240 --> 00:06:35.640] We did.
[00:06:35.640 --> 00:06:36.200] We did.
[00:06:36.200 --> 00:06:42.520] I've seen multiple influencers already posting one of the big advent calendars.
[00:06:42.840 --> 00:06:43.080] Right.
[00:06:44.120 --> 00:06:45.720] Is there a big advent calendar?
[00:06:45.720 --> 00:06:46.200] Yeah, there's.
[00:06:46.520 --> 00:06:48.840] Have you not seen beauty advent calendars?
[00:06:48.840 --> 00:06:50.120] You get beauty advent calendar.
[00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:50.680] This is just now.
[00:06:50.680 --> 00:06:51.640] We're now just chatting about.
[00:06:51.800 --> 00:06:52.600] We're just having a chat.
[00:06:53.080 --> 00:06:56.760] We've moved the chat segment back to the start of the show again is what we've done.
[00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:00.280] Beauty Advent calendars that cost hundreds of pounds.
[00:07:00.280 --> 00:07:01.640] Ah, God, I hate it.
[00:07:02.040 --> 00:07:03.640] They's not a massive deal every year.
[00:07:03.640 --> 00:07:06.760] You get like high-quality, luxury or something.
[00:07:06.760 --> 00:07:07.640] Expensive adventures.
[00:07:07.880 --> 00:07:15.200] I know that they exist as a concept, but I would have thought those were a product of the big beauty rather than the big advent calendar going, what can we put in another of ours?
[00:07:15.280 --> 00:07:17.040] Oh, no, yeah, it's a product of big beauty.
[00:07:17.040 --> 00:07:18.080] Yes, absolutely.
[00:07:18.080 --> 00:07:22.560] But I think it's Liberty's is the one that's already doing the rounds and they're already doing big events about it.
[00:07:22.880 --> 00:07:31.200] But it's, I think they always would have done, they always would have marketed to the influencers at this time of year so that they've got it ready for when it's launched.
[00:07:31.200 --> 00:07:39.280] But now they're posting about it, being excited about it, and putting it on their feeds already rather than waiting until the fuss is ready.
[00:07:39.280 --> 00:07:40.880] It's all just sliding earlier, isn't it?
[00:07:40.880 --> 00:07:42.320] Yeah, it's yes.
[00:07:42.640 --> 00:07:44.640] Yeah, I'm not going to get into marketing.
[00:07:45.680 --> 00:07:46.880] Not again.
[00:07:46.880 --> 00:07:51.680] So that's all I saw on the 1st of September: people excitedly proclaiming the start of cozy season.
[00:07:51.680 --> 00:08:06.640] And as somebody who genuinely dreads the darker months because of the impact it has on my mental health, especially on a year where I've had an exceptionally challenging summer health-wise, to the dread that we're now slipping into the depths of the worst months for me, it's been like genuinely quite challenging to see so much of that content.
[00:08:06.640 --> 00:08:07.280] Yeah.
[00:08:07.280 --> 00:08:12.240] So this particular feature about SAD laid out, well, it wasn't, and this is the other annoying thing.
[00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:13.840] So you just keep interrupting yourself.
[00:08:13.840 --> 00:08:15.680] You've had a mood today.
[00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:18.000] So it's not about SAD.
[00:08:18.320 --> 00:08:19.360] It's got a paragraph.
[00:08:19.440 --> 00:08:21.200] I nearly brought the pages over and I forgot.
[00:08:21.200 --> 00:08:22.800] I was bringing other pages over.
[00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:28.560] It's just got a paragraph at the beginning talking about SAD and then it's talking about tips for like managing your mental health during the winter months.
[00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:30.720] And what you can buy from Tesco, I imagine.
[00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:34.240] It's just grabbing, actually, not that bit of the feature.
[00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:37.920] It's just grabbing using that medicalized condition.
[00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:39.760] It's a content hook, that's all.
[00:08:39.760 --> 00:08:40.000] Exactly.
[00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:42.720] Because it's a free magazine from a supermarket.
[00:08:43.440 --> 00:08:46.720] It's not like they've got writers going, oh, I've got a really good idea for a feature.
[00:08:46.720 --> 00:08:48.160] Where am I going to pitch it to?
[00:08:48.160 --> 00:08:53.520] I know the in-house Tesco magazine, because I got turned down by Ryanair's magazine.
[00:08:55.120 --> 00:09:08.600] So, this particular feature laid out some mental health suggestions, including going analog, a recommendation to avoid too much screen time, genuinely impossible for most of us, even though I do agree it's helpful to minimize doom scrolling in our downtime.
[00:09:08.600 --> 00:09:13.960] There was also a recommendation to socialize in the sauna, which is apparently a trend that's picking up at the moment.
[00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:17.880] I suggest useful everyday lifestyle tips that we can all follow.
[00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:18.440] Yeah.
[00:09:19.080 --> 00:09:22.760] Find a community group that does sauna social activities.
[00:09:22.760 --> 00:09:23.320] Okay.
[00:09:23.320 --> 00:09:28.280] The fact that it says sauna social activities sounds like you're going to a sauna and there's like a board game or something like that.
[00:09:28.520 --> 00:09:32.040] It's just like finding a community of people who hang out in the sauna.
[00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:34.200] You can only do it for 50 minutes at a time.
[00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:36.120] And you're not meant to talk in a sauna, are you?
[00:09:36.200 --> 00:09:36.680] Don't know.
[00:09:36.680 --> 00:09:43.960] I assume you just sort of sit there going, you would normally, but if it was a specific sauna social, I imagine they would expect people to.
[00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:45.960] We could organize skeptics in the sauna.
[00:09:45.960 --> 00:09:47.800] We don't want to organise skeptics in the sauna.
[00:09:48.440 --> 00:09:50.200] I don't need to sit in a sauna with you guys.
[00:09:50.600 --> 00:09:52.120] We could hire the backroom of Dr.
[00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:54.840] Duncan's and have them pop a sauna in there.
[00:09:54.840 --> 00:09:56.040] It's a simple sauna.
[00:09:56.040 --> 00:09:58.520] We can't even reliably hire the back room of Dr.
[00:09:58.520 --> 00:09:59.960] Duncan's.
[00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:01.720] We fail at that step.
[00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:02.280] Anyway, it's all right.
[00:10:02.280 --> 00:10:03.320] We're getting into Causey season.
[00:10:03.320 --> 00:10:04.280] They'll have the fire running there.
[00:10:04.280 --> 00:10:05.720] That's basically a sauna at that point.
[00:10:05.720 --> 00:10:06.600] It is a common sauna.
[00:10:06.600 --> 00:10:10.200] It's a lovely fire, but they will put it on too early and it will be too hot.
[00:10:10.200 --> 00:10:13.480] They also suggest monotasking.
[00:10:14.120 --> 00:10:15.800] That's just doing something.
[00:10:17.160 --> 00:10:23.880] Which I think some of the framing they put around it is basically just dressing up mindfulness as a new fad to try.
[00:10:23.880 --> 00:10:28.440] And they suggest to try other small tweaks to your day-to-day, such as taking a whole lunch break.
[00:10:28.440 --> 00:10:28.920] Wow.
[00:10:28.920 --> 00:10:32.040] Okay, I mean, I haven't really done that since about 2014.
[00:10:32.520 --> 00:10:33.400] And you're part of the problem.
[00:10:33.800 --> 00:10:34.520] Understand that.
[00:10:34.520 --> 00:10:40.520] My favourite bit of kind of new speak along those lines is micro-retirements.
[00:10:40.760 --> 00:10:42.040] You take your micro-retirements.
[00:10:42.280 --> 00:10:42.680] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:44.400] By which they mean a holiday.
[00:10:44.400 --> 00:10:45.040] Yeah.
[00:10:44.200 --> 00:10:47.520] Take a week off work.
[00:10:44.440 --> 00:10:49.280] Yeah, they call that a micro-retirement.
[00:10:49.280 --> 00:10:49.680] No.
[00:10:49.680 --> 00:10:50.400] That's just a holiday.
[00:10:44.520 --> 00:10:51.200] That's just a holiday.
[00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:58.400] I could understand you maybe calling it a micro-retirement if you did like a sabbatical year where you took a year off work and weren't working in that time.
[00:10:58.560 --> 00:10:59.600] But we've already got an ape for that.
[00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:00.960] It's a sabbatical.
[00:11:00.960 --> 00:11:01.200] Yeah.
[00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:03.280] Well, holidays are micro-sabbatical.
[00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:05.040] Or just call it a gap year.
[00:11:05.040 --> 00:11:07.440] You just have a gap here at any time if you're grit.
[00:11:07.680 --> 00:11:11.920] It's a mini sabbatical, but a micro-retirement, just in terms of like skill size.
[00:11:12.160 --> 00:11:13.600] Right, a nano death.
[00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:28.800] Then there's the assertion that together is better when it comes to exercise, which is a reasonable suggestion that social exercise can help with motivation, but completely neglects the idea that any exercise is better than no exercise.
[00:11:28.800 --> 00:11:38.720] And most people don't need another barrier to working out by needing to find a friend who enjoys the same fitness routine as you and is free at the same time as you in order to make it better together.
[00:11:39.040 --> 00:11:44.560] So finally, in this big well-being reset, they have a suggestion that you do colour walking.
[00:11:44.560 --> 00:11:44.960] Okay.
[00:11:44.960 --> 00:11:51.920] Which is apparently a social media trend that suggests you pick a colour to focus on when out for a daily walk, which again just seems like mindfulness dressed up as a vad.
[00:11:51.920 --> 00:11:52.480] Yeah.
[00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:56.160] And like, yeah, give people tips on how to incorporate mindfulness into their day-to-day.
[00:11:56.160 --> 00:11:57.840] Fine, and encourage people to go out for a walk.
[00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:04.240] That also sounds really boring, just focusing on a colour, especially if you pick a bad colour, then you're just not going to see it.
[00:12:04.240 --> 00:12:07.760] Well, no, yeah, you need to pick a colour that you're likely to see on that walk.
[00:12:07.760 --> 00:12:10.400] Yeah, because if you don't, then it's just going to be like, nope, still nothing.
[00:12:10.880 --> 00:12:12.720] But you don't want to go too far the other way either.
[00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:17.200] Like, you don't want to walk around Sefton Park in the summer and pick green because it's going to get quite boring.
[00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:19.120] It's like, well, every fucking thing's green.
[00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:21.840] Yeah, that just sounds like an incredibly boring exercise.
[00:12:21.840 --> 00:12:34.120] In the same issue, there's a get ready for winter listicle, which suggests making sure your comfort food is nutritious and packed with veggies, that exercise is good for health, and that it's a good time to take vitamin D and prioritize your sleep right now and hit your flu jab.
[00:12:34.280 --> 00:12:41.000] So that is very much the pharmacy's ad page to suggest that you get the flu jab at the in-store pharmacy.
[00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:46.120] Okay, that makes sense, but it still seems weird that they're saying it's autumn, get ready for winter.
[00:12:46.840 --> 00:12:50.280] They've skipped the entire season that apparently everyone's very excited about these days.
[00:12:50.280 --> 00:12:55.320] And Tesco are just, is it because the magazine is an autumn winter magazine and it's got to be monthly?
[00:12:55.320 --> 00:12:56.360] It's monthly.
[00:12:56.680 --> 00:12:58.120] They could have done that in October.
[00:12:58.120 --> 00:12:58.680] Yeah.
[00:12:59.320 --> 00:13:01.480] October's going to be their Halloween issue, though.
[00:13:01.480 --> 00:13:01.960] That's true.
[00:13:01.960 --> 00:13:08.920] But you know, there's going to be lots of hats and make snacks with things you can buy in our store to make like little spider snacks for your kids.
[00:13:09.720 --> 00:13:11.160] Here's some grapes to peel.
[00:13:11.160 --> 00:13:11.720] Yeah.
[00:13:12.040 --> 00:13:23.880] Then we come to the section on health trends in the world of well-being, which includes a suggestion to try jump training known as plyometrics exercise that includes jumping with the apparent benefit of increasing bone density.
[00:13:23.880 --> 00:13:25.240] So you're just jumping?
[00:13:25.240 --> 00:13:27.640] Well, just any exercise that incorporates jumping.
[00:13:27.640 --> 00:13:32.840] So that might be jumping squats or box squats or various other skipping role.
[00:13:32.840 --> 00:13:33.240] Yep.
[00:13:33.240 --> 00:13:34.120] Hopscotch.
[00:13:34.120 --> 00:13:34.440] Yep.
[00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:35.400] Hopscotch on the other side.
[00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:37.640] Anything that includes jumping.
[00:13:37.640 --> 00:13:40.760] Rescuing princesses from worlds within pipes.
[00:13:41.240 --> 00:13:44.040] A lot of jumping then, jumping on turtles, jumping under boxes.
[00:13:44.040 --> 00:13:45.720] What about a pogo stick?
[00:13:45.720 --> 00:13:46.600] Would that count?
[00:13:46.600 --> 00:13:49.880] My feet don't leave the floor, but the pogo stick very much does.
[00:13:49.880 --> 00:13:51.480] I still feel the impact force.
[00:13:51.480 --> 00:13:53.400] Yeah, the impact force is the important bit.
[00:13:53.720 --> 00:13:55.880] So, yeah, I think a pogo stick probably counts.
[00:13:55.880 --> 00:13:57.560] Yeah, yeah, I think you're right with that.
[00:13:57.560 --> 00:14:09.880] See, this is a better way to do that segment because you can just then talk about, like, you can do these kinds of exercises and find a thing that you find fun rather than just, like, oh, and now you need to do this type of exercise and you need to do that type of exercise.
[00:14:09.880 --> 00:14:11.960] And it's really important you do resistance and aerobic.
[00:14:11.960 --> 00:14:16.880] And, like, it becomes really overwhelming when, in fact, you could just say, go and get a pogo and have some fun.
[00:14:16.880 --> 00:14:22.960] Get your heart rate will be elevated and you're getting some benefit of not a lot of adults do a lot of pogoing, though.
[00:14:23.200 --> 00:14:25.600] Like, when was the last time you saw an adult on a pogo stick?
[00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:27.840] Most of us bring back anyone on a pogo stick.
[00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:28.480] It's been a while.
[00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:28.960] It has been a while.
[00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:32.320] I can't stay vertical on a pogo stick.
[00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:34.160] Even when I was a kid, I couldn't stay vertical.
[00:14:34.160 --> 00:14:36.880] I get two or three jumps and just timber.
[00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:39.120] Which direction are you falling?
[00:14:39.120 --> 00:14:40.160] Over?
[00:14:41.760 --> 00:14:42.480] I don't know.
[00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:43.760] I was just down.
[00:14:44.560 --> 00:14:45.920] Down is, I guess, a direction.
[00:14:45.920 --> 00:14:54.080] But like, if you were always going over to the left or always going backwards, that would indicate a regular failure of your pogoing technique.
[00:14:54.080 --> 00:14:57.040] Whereas if it was in any given direction, that's just general inadequacy.
[00:14:57.280 --> 00:14:59.840] I've just got a generally poor sense of balance.
[00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:01.520] Couldn't stay on a skateboard either.
[00:15:01.680 --> 00:15:02.720] Or roller skates.
[00:15:02.880 --> 00:15:03.760] Making useless.
[00:15:05.040 --> 00:15:07.280] I had stilts, couldn't stay upright on stilts.
[00:15:07.280 --> 00:15:11.600] Why are all of the things you tried to do balance-related when you're shit at balance?
[00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:13.600] You're just a try.
[00:15:13.680 --> 00:15:14.480] I was going to try.
[00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:16.320] I was going to get out there and fucking.
[00:15:16.400 --> 00:15:18.240] I'm just going to find the one thing that you can balance on.
[00:15:18.400 --> 00:15:18.960] Can you ride a bike?
[00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:20.160] I can ride a bike.
[00:15:20.160 --> 00:15:20.800] You can ride a bike.
[00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:22.800] But not with no hands on the handlebars.
[00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:24.320] I go straight over.
[00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:31.520] I used to be able to make it from my house to my friend's house, which is about a seven-minute bike ride away, including crossing a main road.
[00:15:31.520 --> 00:15:32.560] No-handed the entire way.
[00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:33.200] No-handed.
[00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:34.000] Fucking L.
[00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:34.720] Unicycle.
[00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:35.760] I will never fucking hope.
[00:15:35.760 --> 00:15:36.800] No, I tried that for a little bit.
[00:15:36.800 --> 00:15:37.600] I wasn't good at it.
[00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:39.120] You're not a unicycle person.
[00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:39.680] No.
[00:15:39.680 --> 00:15:40.720] Alice, you have a unicycling?
[00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:43.120] I've never done unicycling.
[00:15:43.120 --> 00:15:44.560] I used to rollerblade quite a lot.
[00:15:44.560 --> 00:15:46.960] I was a good rollerblader, but I've never unicycled.
[00:15:48.160 --> 00:15:49.520] It's just unicycled, yeah.
[00:15:49.920 --> 00:15:52.400] You're trying to conjugate it in a different way because Mike tried.
[00:15:52.400 --> 00:15:53.720] There's no, like, it's just cycled.
[00:15:53.800 --> 00:15:54.640] It just doesn't feel right.
[00:15:54.880 --> 00:15:56.240] Uh cycled, but one, yeah.
[00:15:56.880 --> 00:16:03.320] And then there has a little note titled, The Truth About C Moss, which reads, A type of seaweed.
[00:16:03.400 --> 00:16:07.800] This trending sea vegetable comes in everything from supplements to gel you can use in cooking.
[00:16:07.800 --> 00:16:12.600] It contains iodine, which is linked to health benefits like supporting gut health and normal thyroid function.
[00:16:12.600 --> 00:16:16.760] But too much can be harmful and bad for your thyroid, so speak to your GP first.
[00:16:16.760 --> 00:16:25.000] Which I do worry about, like just casually suggesting a new supplement for health benefits, but then adding the potential risk and pointing people to the GP first and foremost.
[00:16:25.160 --> 00:16:25.400] Yes.
[00:16:25.560 --> 00:16:32.200] GPs do not have time to field all of these questions about new supplements that people have been recommended in a random marketing magazine.
[00:16:32.200 --> 00:16:32.840] Yeah, exactly.
[00:16:32.840 --> 00:16:40.200] Somebody with absolutely no authority has suggested to you to go and try a thing, but then said, oh, but by the way, talk to a medical professional first.
[00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:50.120] And now you're packing yourself off to a very busy medical professional because Nobed from Tesco reckoned just because they wanted to sell you a magazine with some other products in it.
[00:16:50.120 --> 00:16:59.880] And I know, like, my GP is redirecting everything that can possibly be redirected to pharmacists to pharmacists to better manage their workload and be able to see patients.
[00:16:59.880 --> 00:17:03.960] So having patients coming in asking about the latest supplement craze probably isn't the most helpful advice.
[00:17:03.960 --> 00:17:05.400] Especially sent in by a pharma.
[00:17:05.560 --> 00:17:06.840] Tesco has a pharmacy.
[00:17:07.960 --> 00:17:12.280] They don't say come and talk to our pharmacists about it, and then the pharmacists can say, no, that's bollocks.
[00:17:12.440 --> 00:17:17.080] Because in a lot of those places, the pharmacists aren't allowed to say no, that's bollocks if it's a thing that a place sells.
[00:17:17.160 --> 00:17:21.480] To be fair, I don't know if Tesco's is selling CMOS supplements at all.
[00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:23.160] They don't mention it in those pages.
[00:17:23.480 --> 00:17:26.200] This wasn't an advert for that specifically.
[00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:28.120] They were trying to list some other health.
[00:17:28.440 --> 00:17:29.880] They try and bail the marketing.
[00:17:29.880 --> 00:17:34.200] So there will be lots of things in there that are not related to things that they sell.
[00:17:34.200 --> 00:17:36.200] CMOS is becoming quite trendy.
[00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:42.920] An article in vogue from late last year titled Sea Moss is a superfood beloved by LA's Wellness Warriors.
[00:17:42.920 --> 00:17:44.040] Here's why.
[00:17:44.280 --> 00:17:51.120] They explained all the girlies are taking CMOS, or so says TikTok, where there are 1.3 billion views on the term.
[00:17:51.440 --> 00:18:05.280] Meanwhile, Glamour magazine speaks to global skin and wellness expert Mary Reynolds, who tells us CMOS is a natural chelator, which means it attracts heavy metals from the bloodstream and is naturally abundant in minerals, proteins, and iodine that the body needs to survive and thrive.
[00:18:05.280 --> 00:18:14.000] She also says CMOS is a super antioxidant and is rich in omega-3, so it has numerous health benefits, including helping to reduce inflammation, increasing energy, and boosting the immune system.
[00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:17.600] And so, to be clear, you can buy CMOS capsules at Tesco.
[00:18:17.600 --> 00:18:19.840] You can buy them in gummy format, you can buy them in other format.
[00:18:19.840 --> 00:18:21.920] They've been doing it for a couple of years by the looks of things.
[00:18:22.080 --> 00:18:22.560] Okay, good to know.
[00:18:22.720 --> 00:18:26.560] So, Tesco are very much saying, you know, this amazing thing that we sell.
[00:18:27.520 --> 00:18:38.080] According to Mary Reynolds' website, Mary has studied skin health, homeopathy, acupuncture counseling, aromatherapy, oriental diagnosis, bowen technique, colonic hydrotherapy, and quantum energy medicine.
[00:18:38.080 --> 00:18:43.200] So, maybe not the best source of insight into whether a dietary supplement actually has any benefits.
[00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:56.400] The Glamour magazine article speaks exclusively to Reynolds, who also says CMOS is abundant in essential vitamins and minerals that the body needs, including zinc, potassium, magnesium, sulfur, and phosphorus, all of which have multiple health benefits.
[00:18:56.400 --> 00:18:59.360] So, it's a great ingredient for overall health and well-being.
[00:18:59.360 --> 00:19:07.360] And she also says that CMOS is perfect for this as it's an antiviral and antibacterial agent, so it may help protect the body from everyday infections like colds and flu.
[00:19:07.360 --> 00:19:12.720] It's probably not surprising then that the article has an affiliate link disclaimer at the top of the page.
[00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:13.760] Right, yeah.
[00:19:13.760 --> 00:19:26.240] The Vogue article speaks to Kylie Bogdan, a board-certified registered dietitian who specializes in sports nutrition at Forward Fuel, and says, CMOS is said to improve energy, support thyroid function, digestion, and skin health.
[00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:31.160] But the article cautions that she also says there isn't enough scientific evidence to back these claims up.
[00:19:29.760 --> 00:19:32.120] But we're going to make them anyway.
[00:19:32.440 --> 00:19:45.160] But then in the next sentence, the article proclaims, however, many other types of seaweed have been clinically tested and suggest great health benefits, including preventing cancer, viral and fungal infections, and they're closely related to CMOS.
[00:19:45.160 --> 00:19:48.280] Completely deflating Bogdan's like reasonable caution there.
[00:19:48.360 --> 00:19:48.920] Oh, Jesus.
[00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:53.400] So, like, look, there's no scientific evidence, but like a lot of people think it works for cancer.
[00:19:53.400 --> 00:19:54.680] So, you know, why not?
[00:19:54.680 --> 00:19:57.080] And you can buy them from Tesco, remember?
[00:19:57.080 --> 00:19:58.200] This isn't in the Tesco article.
[00:19:58.200 --> 00:19:58.840] This is in the Vogue article.
[00:19:58.920 --> 00:19:59.560] Oh, this is the Vogue one.
[00:19:59.560 --> 00:20:00.200] Sorry, yes, yeah, yeah.
[00:20:00.440 --> 00:20:16.200] The Marine Drugs article they link to back up this claim from a journal called Marine Drugs does mention anti-cancer properties, but only in relation to cell lines and not in relation to prevention, except with one of the active ingredients extracted from one type of seaweed.
[00:20:17.160 --> 00:20:19.080] So they can't even make that claim.
[00:20:19.080 --> 00:20:29.080] Most of the claims around CMOS, so there's a bunch of claims that I've mentioned so far, and most of them are, well, it's got this mineral and this mineral we say causes this.
[00:20:29.080 --> 00:20:32.840] It's got this antioxidant in it and this antioxidant, and all things we've talked about before.
[00:20:32.840 --> 00:20:34.200] So I'm not going to go into most of them, but most of them.
[00:20:34.280 --> 00:20:35.640] It's the same way that they do with red wine.
[00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:37.240] It's like red wine can cure cancer.
[00:20:37.240 --> 00:20:40.120] And it's like, actually, it was this specific part of red wine in this particular.
[00:20:40.200 --> 00:20:43.080] No, you look at the dorsage and you don't get it from red wine, etc.
[00:20:43.320 --> 00:20:45.960] But most of the biggest claims around CMOS come from two things.
[00:20:45.960 --> 00:20:53.000] One is that it's high in vitamins and minerals, which is true, but if you're eating a varied diet rich in fruit and vegetables, then this shouldn't matter too much.
[00:20:53.320 --> 00:20:57.800] The other is that it's specifically high in iodine, which is good for the thyroid.
[00:20:57.800 --> 00:21:05.400] And this is true, both that CMOS is a good source of iodine, and that iodine is an essential mineral which keeps our thyroid healthy.
[00:21:05.400 --> 00:21:17.680] I grew up in an area that's reasonably well known for having low iodine levels in the soil, which means way back when we ate foods derived from our local soils, those foods weren't getting enough iodine in them.
[00:21:17.680 --> 00:21:20.560] We have to derive iodine from our foods as we can't make it ourselves.
[00:21:20.560 --> 00:21:28.000] So, there's a quirk in the history of the East Midlands in that people would get a condition called goiter, known colloquially as Derby Chaneck.
[00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:37.360] Ah, so this is where you get a swelling in your throat, which is because your thyroid has grown bigger to try and capture as much iodine as it can from what you are eating.
[00:21:37.360 --> 00:21:38.720] Right, blinding.
[00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:42.320] And it usually happens, not always, but usually happens when you're deficient in iodine.
[00:21:42.320 --> 00:21:44.400] I think it can also happen if you're deficient in selenium.
[00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:47.680] So, you also get it in areas with selenium-deficient soil.
[00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:55.920] But these days, we typically get plenty of iodine from our diet, and in some parts of the world, table salt is supplemented with iodine to reduce deficiency.
[00:21:55.920 --> 00:21:57.840] I was going to say, I thought it was supplemented in salt, yeah.
[00:21:57.840 --> 00:22:03.760] Not in the UK, so we don't really use fortified salt in the UK, but in lots of other countries, they use fortified salt.
[00:22:03.760 --> 00:22:06.240] Yeah, we sort of fortified breakfast cereals is what we do.
[00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:10.160] Yes, we have riboflavin, whatever the fuck they are.
[00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:16.000] Mostly, you get more than enough from your diet, particularly from eggs and dairy, seafood, and fish.
[00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:20.800] But if you're vegan, CMOS and other seaweeds can be a good source of iodine.
[00:22:20.800 --> 00:22:27.440] The issue, though, is that iodine is something that needs a bit of cautious regulation, as too much can also be bad for the thyroid.
[00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:33.040] The Vegan Society recommends that the following options are reliable ways of adding iodine to the vegan diet.
[00:22:33.040 --> 00:22:43.760] Ensure a daily intake of around 500 mil of a fortified milk alternative that contains iodine, or use a daily supplement containing potassium iodide or potassium iodate.
[00:22:43.760 --> 00:22:52.240] They don't recommend CMOS or seaweed as your primary source of iodine because the levels can vary significantly, and some seaweeds like kelp can have too much iodine.
[00:22:52.240 --> 00:22:53.200] Ah, okay.
[00:22:53.520 --> 00:22:56.000] So, this is the issue where taking CMOS supplements can lie.
[00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:04.520] If you're taking them to supplement iodine specifically, you often have no way of knowing how much iodine is in the pill that you're taking.
[00:23:04.520 --> 00:23:09.320] Because any kind of plant matter is going to be very varied in its constitution at any given point.
[00:23:09.640 --> 00:23:09.880] Exactly.
[00:23:10.040 --> 00:23:13.720] If you just start chomping down on plants, you're not going to know exactly how much you're taking.
[00:23:13.720 --> 00:23:14.040] Yeah.
[00:23:14.360 --> 00:23:20.600] I've checked the ingredients list of a few such supplements, and most of them say they're a good source of iodine, but don't actually list the amount.
[00:23:20.600 --> 00:23:28.760] And they probably can't list the amount because they'd have to measure every dose because it's going to vary based on the sea moss that they're using at any given moment.
[00:23:28.760 --> 00:23:32.520] Yeah, so here's a question that you may be coming to answer on.
[00:23:32.520 --> 00:23:51.720] When I hear people talk about the importance of various supplements and things like that, the other thing they will say is that rather than taking these stuff in supplements, it's better to get it from the plant matter initially because of bioavailability or because there's something about it being the naturally occurring version of it that your body's more capable of breaking down than if it's in a supplement.
[00:23:51.720 --> 00:23:55.320] How much of that is marketing bluster and misinformation?
[00:23:55.480 --> 00:23:57.560] How much of that is legitimate?
[00:23:57.560 --> 00:24:05.000] I think broadly speaking, and this is relying heavily on memory, so this may be wrong.
[00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:14.360] Broadly speaking, I think it's better for most, for many vitamins and minerals, it's better to get it from foods because it's more our body knows how to digest it, we get things from it.
[00:24:14.360 --> 00:24:18.280] It's digested in different ways and broken down in different ways, and it can be more bioavailable.
[00:24:18.360 --> 00:24:23.160] Depends on the vitamin, depends on the mineral, depends on loads of different things, depends on the individual person.
[00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:28.680] If you're not very good at breaking down and pulling something out of the food source, then you might need it from a different source.
[00:24:28.680 --> 00:24:31.960] But in those cases, I don't think tablet supplementation helps either.
[00:24:31.960 --> 00:24:38.360] I think that they're the kind of things that you would need, like transfusions, if you're not capable of breaking a thing down, right?
[00:24:38.680 --> 00:24:44.640] But I think it's a fairly reasonable rule of thumb to say from a food source is generally better.
[00:24:44.520 --> 00:24:50.160] The reason it's not being recommended in this case is because sea, moss, and sea.
[00:24:50.560 --> 00:25:01.600] So, in our general diet, in eggs, dairy, fish things, and seafood, we know the quantities are not going to give us a too high a dose of iodine.
[00:25:01.600 --> 00:25:05.120] Sea, moss, and seaweed can be really quite high in iodine.
[00:25:05.120 --> 00:25:05.440] Yeah.
[00:25:05.440 --> 00:25:16.000] And so, relying on that solely as your source of iodine is probably not the most helpful thing for people eating an exclusively vegan diet and not getting iodine from other sources.
[00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:20.240] We do also get it from foods growing in iodine-rich soils.
[00:25:20.240 --> 00:25:27.440] So, you can get it from plants, but again, it's just a bit less reliable because we don't know how much is going to be in the foods.
[00:25:27.440 --> 00:25:33.120] So, if you're not, if there's a chance that you're not getting enough, you want to supplement.
[00:25:33.120 --> 00:25:42.560] But in the case of iodine, which can be harmful in too high a dose, you want to make sure you know how much you're supplementing, and you can't know that with sea moss and seaweed.
[00:25:42.560 --> 00:25:50.320] But also, there's a higher risk of it being too much, which we don't have the same risk to the same extent with some of the other sources.
[00:25:50.560 --> 00:25:51.760] Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:25:51.760 --> 00:26:06.320] And I think the other thing you see quite a lot is in those spaces where they will be encouraging this is a great source of X, they will overlook all the other decent sources of X that are already in your diet because the new thing, the new shiny thing, new CMOS thing is the thing they want to push.
[00:26:06.320 --> 00:26:10.800] I'm hearing a lot of supplement and similar kind of chat on Joe Rogan shows at the moment.
[00:26:10.800 --> 00:26:13.440] I'm about to cover one where it's just nothing but that.
[00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:15.840] So, it's interesting to know what the actual biology of that is.
[00:26:15.880 --> 00:26:16.760] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:26:16.760 --> 00:26:21.760] And there are some things that we know certain types of supplementation just don't work very well.
[00:26:21.760 --> 00:26:30.440] And you know, one of those examples in the iron supplementation that your wife's taking, Nicola's taking, isn't very bioavailable.
[00:26:30.440 --> 00:26:33.320] So, actually, she's been recommended to eat more meat.
[00:26:29.840 --> 00:26:34.920] Yes, yeah, even though she doesn't eat meat generally.
[00:26:36.120 --> 00:26:39.640] Because our body doesn't quite take it from supplementation very well.
[00:26:39.640 --> 00:26:44.360] And I think that's one of the ones that actually transfusion works fine, but they just don't.
[00:26:44.360 --> 00:26:57.320] Or you can, yeah, you can have if you have really low levels of iron, I think you can take blood transfusions from somebody who's got really high levels of iron because it gets into the blood better than through supplementation.
[00:26:57.320 --> 00:26:59.640] But we get it reasonably well through food.
[00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:03.400] I knew a guy who had too much iron in his blood, and he had to go off and do bloodletting.
[00:27:03.960 --> 00:27:05.720] My auntie does like once a month or something.
[00:27:05.800 --> 00:27:06.840] You had to go and bloodlet him.
[00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:07.640] My auntie does.
[00:27:07.640 --> 00:27:13.000] My auntie's recently been established that she's got too much iron in her blood, and so she goes and she gets her blood drained.
[00:27:13.160 --> 00:27:15.640] Does it make it hard for her to donate blood?
[00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:19.320] Because obviously they do an iron test to see if you've got to make sure you've got enough iron in your blood.
[00:27:19.320 --> 00:27:21.640] They put a little pinprick and then see whether it sinks and stuff.
[00:27:21.640 --> 00:27:24.200] But I don't know if you've got too much iron where they'd be like, no, thank you.
[00:27:24.200 --> 00:27:26.440] Or whether they just take your blood and they're just like water.
[00:27:26.520 --> 00:27:28.120] Just give it to anemic people.
[00:27:28.120 --> 00:27:29.000] Yeah, just don't look at that.
[00:27:30.120 --> 00:27:30.920] Just pair people up.
[00:27:30.920 --> 00:27:32.440] Find somebody who's got too much iron.
[00:27:32.680 --> 00:27:34.840] Pair them up with somebody who's got too little iron.
[00:27:35.160 --> 00:27:36.520] Okay, you can have some of mine then.
[00:27:37.160 --> 00:27:38.280] Jack sprat that shit.
[00:27:38.280 --> 00:27:39.080] That's what we're going to do.
[00:27:39.160 --> 00:27:39.400] Exactly.
[00:27:39.640 --> 00:27:40.600] There we go.
[00:27:43.160 --> 00:27:47.320] So it's far healthier to have a varied diet.
[00:27:47.320 --> 00:27:57.640] And if your diet is low or absent of fish, seafood, milk, and dairy, to supplement either through fortified milk or through an iodine supplement with a stated amount of iodine in it because it can be risky.
[00:27:57.640 --> 00:28:00.760] CMOS is something I'm seeing recommended more and more.
[00:28:00.760 --> 00:28:05.560] So, I think this is another example of why we see health claims not considered as important enough to fact check.
[00:28:05.560 --> 00:28:22.320] So, you will see chefs throwing out health claims when they're using an ingredient on a cooking show, or it'll be included in a food magazine where nutritional value of food is described, or we're seeing it in these marketing magazines without any kind of acknowledgement that there might be something additional other than speak to a GP about it.
[00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:32.720] Yeah, it's not treated like a science story, it's not treated as a health story because it isn't a health story, but they feel they can just include details of health as part of the just colour, essentially, colour for the feature.
[00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:36.400] Yeah, and they'll just go, oh, and this is very good high in antioxidants.
[00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:38.960] This, yeah, just a throwaway comment.
[00:28:38.960 --> 00:28:39.680] Yeah, yeah.
[00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:58.240] In the same issue of the magazine, where there's an acknowledgement of seasonal affective disorder and a suggestion that mindfulness, slowing things down, and focusing on one thing at a time can help manage mental health concerns, it seems then so counterproductive to have lists of health fads to try and specific health concerns to focus on.
[00:28:58.480 --> 00:29:11.840] Autumn isn't just a season where the weather turns cooler and the plants start to lose their leaves, it's the slide into winter, and you must do all of these things to prepare yourself, boost your health, change your diet, add more exercise, try this, fad, or the other.
[00:29:11.840 --> 00:29:15.040] Remember that you might be prone to this health condition or the other.
[00:29:15.040 --> 00:29:23.440] I'm usually cautious to complain about over-medicalization because I live with conditions that are sometimes under-medicalized and dismissed.
[00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:35.600] I don't think we can talk about over-medicalization, which I agree can be a real problem that we currently encounter, without the nuance of understanding how people's real medical concerns are dismissed as just a part of life as a way to deny them treatment.
[00:29:35.600 --> 00:29:51.840] But I also think we need to be careful to not medicalize an entire season, to not prey on the fear that people have of becoming unwell and try to sell them this supplement or the other, especially when the casual way we often do this can also smuggle in the marketing of health anxiety.
[00:29:51.840 --> 00:29:56.640] The ease with which we throw out health advice is not harmless, even if the individual examples might be.
[00:29:56.640 --> 00:30:05.000] It might be in this instance not a massive harm or consequence to say CMOS boosts your immune system or whatever else they're saying.
[00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:12.440] But actually, when we're bombarded with this stuff constantly, it becomes a weight of things to think about managing our own health.
[00:30:12.440 --> 00:30:18.280] And also to blame yourself if therefore your health isn't doing great because you've been given the list of everything you need to be doing.
[00:30:18.280 --> 00:30:22.120] And if you happen to have done not done some of the things on the list, well, that's why you're not feeling good.
[00:30:22.120 --> 00:30:23.240] It's nothing external to you.
[00:30:23.560 --> 00:30:25.800] It's all personal responsibility.
[00:30:25.800 --> 00:30:26.520] Exactly.
[00:30:26.520 --> 00:30:29.720] In 2025, this seems especially important to recognize.
[00:30:29.880 --> 00:30:32.520] This year has been a slog for so many people.
[00:30:32.520 --> 00:30:40.760] After a rough five years learning to live with the aftermath of a global pandemic that still affects entire groups of people, we now see the world sliding towards fascism.
[00:30:40.760 --> 00:30:50.840] The political and literal physical violent attacks on basic human rights and human beings across large parts of the world is burning people out emotionally and mentally, physically and financially.
[00:30:50.840 --> 00:30:54.280] I don't know a single person who is having an easy time of it right now.
[00:30:54.280 --> 00:30:59.560] And as a person living with multiple disabilities for multiple years, I have something that a lot of people don't have.
[00:30:59.560 --> 00:31:03.480] I have an awareness of how that exhaustion can affect us physically.
[00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:10.120] I know that part of the reason my health has been so poor in 2025 is because the world is fucked and my body is reacting to that.
[00:31:10.120 --> 00:31:12.920] And that isn't me saying anything about psychosomatic illness.
[00:31:12.920 --> 00:31:15.640] This is the real truth that our bodies exist in the world.
[00:31:15.640 --> 00:31:17.240] Our health exists in the world.
[00:31:17.240 --> 00:31:19.800] The world is part of the environment that affects our health.
[00:31:19.800 --> 00:31:25.480] Feeling worn down by overworking or overworrying so often causes ill health that we have a term for it.
[00:31:25.480 --> 00:31:26.760] We call it burnout.
[00:31:26.760 --> 00:31:39.320] Yeah, so like you're stressed because of how everything is, you're anxiously obsessing, reading the news, you're not sleeping as well, and all of that has a cumulative effect that will bring you towards an ill-health kind of position.
[00:31:39.320 --> 00:31:39.960] Exactly.
[00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:49.760] Burnout, whether we call it a health condition or simply a series of symptoms, does have recognizable, reproducible physical symptoms that are similar in most people who are experiencing burnout.
[00:31:50.080 --> 00:31:59.280] When you suddenly start experiencing new symptoms like those of burnout, you go searching for answers, of course, you do, as well you should, and you should be able to see a doctor and get the support you need.
[00:31:59.280 --> 00:32:07.280] But instead, people are being sold responsibility, dressed up as autonomy, told we can avoid the worst of SAD by going for a walk.
[00:32:07.280 --> 00:32:15.360] The consequence of which is that when it doesn't work, when we feel too depressed to even put shoes on to get out for that walk, we might feel that we just didn't try hard enough.
[00:32:15.360 --> 00:32:18.800] We're told that we should try skipping and take CMOS and eat vegetables.
[00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:32.560] I'm not saying that adding more exercise and eating more vegetables aren't important for health, but I am saying that this constant turnover of fads is unhelpfully delivered straight into our thoughts, which we already know we struggle to shut off.
[00:32:32.560 --> 00:32:39.600] We're told we should, in one breath, we're told we should monotask and reduce screen time so that we can calm our busy brains.
[00:32:39.600 --> 00:32:50.480] But sold right alongside that is the promise that if you just try XYZ fad and do research on this supplement or see a doctor about that supplement or that special exercise, then maybe you'll be healthy and you'll feel better.
[00:32:50.480 --> 00:32:55.440] But you'll also avoid bone injury and avoid colds and avoid the worst symptoms of seasonal depression.
[00:32:55.440 --> 00:32:59.120] Honestly, this has now become a rant, largely because I'm tired.
[00:32:59.120 --> 00:33:10.480] This is my personal experience of all the wellness noise while living with a disability in a difficult capitalist world where my productivity is linked to my worth, where there are attacks to democracy and equality all around us.
[00:33:10.480 --> 00:33:23.360] I'm tired of trivialized health advice dressed up as supporting us to feel better and stay well when it's poorly researched and doesn't think about the context of who might read that advice and how it might be received.
[00:33:23.360 --> 00:33:31.480] I'm tired of the implication over and over being that when people are unwell, it's because they did something wrong or they didn't try something that they should have tried.
[00:33:31.800 --> 00:33:36.280] I'm tired of having a flare-up, and the first question anyone asks is, What do you think caused it?
[00:33:36.280 --> 00:33:38.120] Because I wish I knew.
[00:33:38.120 --> 00:33:39.080] I just feel unwell.
[00:33:39.080 --> 00:33:46.680] Like, let me feel unwell for a bit before I pick myself up and figure out what I need to add to my toolkit to prevent that particular version of a flare-up from happening again.
[00:33:46.680 --> 00:33:51.400] This is constant and it's continual, and it's we're all already burnt out.
[00:33:51.560 --> 00:34:07.080] I don't, I think all of this constant argument around trying to buy this supplement to solve this problem, solve your exhaustion, solve all of the issues is just unhealthy and making us all more sick.
[00:34:11.880 --> 00:34:18.760] So, in terms of we like to talk about what we've been up to recently, what I got to on the weekend, I moved a piano, right?
[00:34:18.760 --> 00:34:23.960] I moved a piano, you and Oliver Hardy, presumably from Blackpool to Liverpool.
[00:34:23.960 --> 00:34:25.800] We moved an upright piano.
[00:34:25.800 --> 00:34:28.840] You got most of the way there, and it rolled all the way back to Blackpool.
[00:34:28.840 --> 00:34:29.800] All the way back to Blackpool.
[00:34:29.960 --> 00:34:31.640] It was such a weird experience.
[00:34:31.640 --> 00:34:39.800] So, long and short of this, I remember back in December, listeners may remember me talking about having to go to Blackpool to empty out Nicolas Mum's house and move Nicola's mum to Liverpool.
[00:34:39.800 --> 00:34:48.040] I've not talked about it much since then, but we've still had that house in Blackpool still filled with a load of possessions, some of them Nicolas Mums, some of them Nicolas.
[00:34:48.040 --> 00:34:53.800] I've just been sat there for the entirety of this year because we've had some other stuff to deal with around Nicola's mum's health and various things like that.
[00:34:53.800 --> 00:35:08.520] And so, periodically, it feels like almost every other weekend for the last like five months or something, I've had to go back to Blackpool, occasionally taking Alice, occasionally taking Adj and other people to start trying to get that house in a position where we can finally get it on the market.
[00:35:08.520 --> 00:35:11.160] And it's been an enormously difficult and stressful thing.
[00:35:11.160 --> 00:35:15.440] And one of the things that has been difficult and stressful is there's a piano in that house.
[00:35:14.920 --> 00:35:15.600] Right.
[00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:23.600] It is a piano that was bought for Nicola by her grandma when Nicola was very young with the view that Nicola would become musical by learning to play the piano.
[00:35:23.600 --> 00:35:25.200] A thing that didn't happen.
[00:35:25.200 --> 00:35:28.080] What did happen is Nicola learned the cello, which is not a piano.
[00:35:28.080 --> 00:35:28.880] The cello was sat next to her.
[00:35:29.120 --> 00:35:30.640] She only likes big instruments.
[00:35:30.800 --> 00:35:34.800] Only likes big, cumbersome instruments that can't be easily moved, yes.
[00:35:34.800 --> 00:35:42.720] I was bought a well, there was an intention when I was a kid that I might want to learn to play the piano because my dad thought it was a useful instrument to learn to play.
[00:35:42.720 --> 00:35:44.880] I was getting to that age of wanting to learn to play an instrument.
[00:35:45.120 --> 00:35:45.840] I love playing.
[00:35:46.080 --> 00:35:47.200] He bought me a keyboard.
[00:35:47.200 --> 00:35:47.600] Yeah.
[00:35:47.600 --> 00:35:48.000] I've got...
[00:35:48.160 --> 00:35:49.440] Like a portable piano.
[00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:50.480] A portable piano.
[00:35:50.640 --> 00:35:53.760] Very, very casio job, that sort of thing.
[00:35:54.880 --> 00:35:58.640] Lovely, I think it's a Kawasaki, lovely, big, fancy keyboard.
[00:35:58.640 --> 00:35:59.520] Yeah, you learn on that.
[00:35:59.520 --> 00:36:00.400] I did.
[00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:02.720] I did not know how to play either.
[00:36:02.720 --> 00:36:06.240] But then I went on to learn to play the flute, which is much more portable than a cello.
[00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:08.800] Yeah, I didn't have an option of a piano growing up.
[00:36:08.800 --> 00:36:14.800] I learned the violin through school, and then I moved from my primary school to my secondary school, and no one from my primary school talked to my secondary school.
[00:36:14.800 --> 00:36:18.880] And so I stopped learning the violin because I didn't realize that I was the one who was meant to do it.
[00:36:18.880 --> 00:36:23.920] I was sure you don't put it on an 11-year-old to be like, by the way, can I continue learning?
[00:36:24.400 --> 00:36:25.280] I'd like to do that.
[00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:26.320] So I just stopped doing that.
[00:36:26.320 --> 00:36:27.760] But then I learned, I taught myself the guitar.
[00:36:27.760 --> 00:36:30.160] But no, Nicola had a piano, never really touched it.
[00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:37.200] Nicola has moved house four or five times, and the piano has moved with her and then been not played.
[00:36:37.200 --> 00:36:38.080] Well, then not played as well.
[00:36:38.720 --> 00:36:39.680] So we had to get it rather.
[00:36:39.760 --> 00:36:46.400] So Bob from the Mosai Skeptics board, he came to Blackpool and sought out the back garden when Alice was doing the front garden.
[00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:47.600] Bob just did the back garden.
[00:36:47.600 --> 00:36:48.160] We went out there.
[00:36:48.160 --> 00:36:51.680] Suddenly, the back garden is in a really nice position because Bob just cracked on with it.
[00:36:51.680 --> 00:36:53.440] He was like, what are you doing with that piano?
[00:36:53.440 --> 00:36:54.400] I'm like, Nothing.
[00:36:54.400 --> 00:36:55.120] We need to get rid of it.
[00:36:55.120 --> 00:36:56.480] He's like, Can I have it?
[00:36:56.480 --> 00:36:59.440] Like, if you want to take a piano from Blackpool to Liverpool, do that.
[00:36:59.440 --> 00:37:01.080] So he hired a van.
[00:37:01.080 --> 00:37:05.800] And then it was a case of how do you move a piano into a transit van?
[00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:07.160] Because they are heavy.
[00:37:07.480 --> 00:37:08.040] They're very heavy.
[00:37:08.200 --> 00:37:09.320] You'd need a tail lift one.
[00:37:09.320 --> 00:37:10.040] That's what you should.
[00:37:10.040 --> 00:37:11.720] Don't get a transit van, get a tail lift.
[00:37:11.800 --> 00:37:12.440] Okay, so we didn't get.
[00:37:12.440 --> 00:37:13.480] So Bob didn't get a tail lift one.
[00:37:13.720 --> 00:37:14.040] Okay.
[00:37:14.040 --> 00:37:14.520] Nicola.
[00:37:14.600 --> 00:37:15.880] That's the first mistake.
[00:37:15.880 --> 00:37:19.400] Yeah, Nicola's idea to understand how this is meant to happen.
[00:37:19.400 --> 00:37:23.720] That idea of like, now I need to check the details happened the night before we were going to do it.
[00:37:23.720 --> 00:37:25.880] He'd be like, I'll just check in with Bob as to what he's got in mind.
[00:37:25.880 --> 00:37:30.040] And what Bob had in mind was, I think we just lift a piano into a van.
[00:37:30.360 --> 00:37:35.320] It's very much a kind of a say-what you see kind of endeavour of just like hook and in.
[00:37:35.320 --> 00:37:37.640] Because they're famously quite top-heavy piano.
[00:37:37.640 --> 00:37:39.480] It's quite difficult to keep them.
[00:37:39.480 --> 00:37:42.360] If once they're lifted off the floor, it's quite difficult to stop them toppling.
[00:37:42.360 --> 00:37:43.320] So it wasn't actually too bad.
[00:37:43.320 --> 00:37:44.840] And we did manage to time to get it out.
[00:37:44.840 --> 00:37:46.200] So you were coming to help as well, Alice.
[00:37:46.360 --> 00:37:48.680] Well, my intention was, I had planned to come.
[00:37:48.680 --> 00:37:56.040] And my intention was, because I properly crippled myself the last time I did stuff at your house, my intention was to not help lift the piano.
[00:37:56.040 --> 00:37:59.160] Although I am physically quite strong and good at things like that, I was like, I don't know.
[00:37:59.240 --> 00:38:00.440] I don't know where you were lifting it.
[00:38:00.440 --> 00:38:06.920] But I was going to come and help Potter with other bits that needed doing and help clean and make teas and whatever else I could do.
[00:38:06.920 --> 00:38:14.360] But I got up that morning earlier than I would have liked, but I got up nice and early, got myself ready.
[00:38:14.680 --> 00:38:15.880] You're not a morning person or anything.
[00:38:16.280 --> 00:38:17.080] I really struggle with that.
[00:38:17.160 --> 00:38:20.120] We've touched on this on the show before, but you're just not a morning person.
[00:38:20.360 --> 00:38:22.600] You're less of a morning person than I am, and I'm not a morning person.
[00:38:22.760 --> 00:38:23.480] Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:38:23.480 --> 00:38:26.600] And I like pathologically bad with mornings.
[00:38:26.600 --> 00:38:29.480] But I had, and I can do it as like a one-off.
[00:38:29.480 --> 00:38:32.360] If I have to do it regularly, then it really starts to have knock-on effects.
[00:38:32.360 --> 00:38:36.200] So I got up nice and early, by which I mean half eight.
[00:38:36.200 --> 00:38:36.840] Eight o'clock.
[00:38:36.840 --> 00:38:37.080] Yeah.
[00:38:37.080 --> 00:38:38.120] We were leaving at half eight.
[00:38:38.120 --> 00:38:39.000] No, we were leaving at night.
[00:38:39.080 --> 00:38:39.800] I got up at half eight.
[00:38:39.880 --> 00:38:40.200] There we go.
[00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:43.640] So not that early by most people's standards.
[00:38:43.640 --> 00:38:48.000] And I was like, feeling a bit achy, but I was like, just, just, that's how I am in the morning.
[00:38:48.160 --> 00:38:55.200] Got dressed, got ready to go, packed myself a little bag with things that we might need, a little, my little toolkit, bits and pieces.
[00:38:55.520 --> 00:39:05.760] Went into the kitchen to get myself a glass of water before we left, pulled my water bottle out of the fridge, and my back/slash shoulder just went ping.
[00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:07.120] Well, it didn't go ping.
[00:39:07.120 --> 00:39:14.240] This is the weird thing: it kind of I don't even know how to describe it because it was sudden, but it wasn't like a ping sudden.
[00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:18.080] So I was like, oh, that really is quite painful.
[00:39:18.080 --> 00:39:21.520] And I was like, okay, maybe I shouldn't come to Blackpool.
[00:39:21.520 --> 00:39:23.200] And it still hadn't got too bad at that point.
[00:39:23.200 --> 00:39:24.480] So I was like, well, I'll just put my jacket on.
[00:39:24.560 --> 00:39:26.720] I'll just go around and I'll tell them because you only live around the corner.
[00:39:26.720 --> 00:39:30.080] I'll just tell them in person that I'm not going to come and explain what's happened.
[00:39:30.080 --> 00:39:31.920] Where I was like, no, you're being ridiculous.
[00:39:31.920 --> 00:39:33.360] I can see you're in a lot of pain.
[00:39:33.360 --> 00:39:34.640] Take your coat off.
[00:39:34.640 --> 00:39:36.240] Go and sit on the sofa.
[00:39:36.240 --> 00:39:41.440] Like, but we were literally about to walk out the door.
[00:39:41.440 --> 00:39:43.360] And now I'm like, literally cancelling that.
[00:39:43.600 --> 00:39:51.520] Anyway, it was so bad that I don't normally involuntarily vocalize from pain pretty much ever.
[00:39:51.520 --> 00:39:55.280] I'm very like, because I have quite a high pain threshold and I'm in pain a lot of the time.
[00:39:55.280 --> 00:39:57.760] That's not usually part of how I deal with pain.
[00:39:57.760 --> 00:39:59.840] And that's quite normal for autistic people as well.
[00:39:59.840 --> 00:40:04.800] Autistic people don't present pain and perform pain in the same way as a normal person.
[00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:13.120] But I was like, every time it spasmed, was like fully vocalizing in pain, having like real significant spasming pain in my back and ribs.
[00:40:13.120 --> 00:40:14.320] I couldn't breathe at first.
[00:40:14.320 --> 00:40:17.960] I couldn't like fully inflate my lungs because my ribs were so fucked.
[00:40:17.840 --> 00:40:18.680] Yeah, nothing.
[00:40:18.880 --> 00:40:25.280] Thankfully, the spasming went down after the first day and is now ish, okay.
[00:40:25.600 --> 00:40:27.120] But that first day was fucking hell.
[00:40:27.120 --> 00:40:29.720] And I was supposed to be coming and helping you over the piano.
[00:40:29.720 --> 00:40:33.240] Yeah, so in the end, we had to kind of between me and Bob and Warren, we had to move it.
[00:40:33.240 --> 00:40:34.840] But then as we it was, it was fine in the end.
[00:40:34.840 --> 00:40:35.320] It was fine there.
[00:40:29.360 --> 00:40:36.200] We had a transit van there.
[00:40:36.280 --> 00:40:37.560] We moved all stuff around.
[00:40:37.560 --> 00:40:39.160] We got it to the van.
[00:40:39.160 --> 00:40:43.400] And then Nicola's next-door neighbor, lovely guy called John, who we'd never talked before.
[00:40:43.480 --> 00:40:44.760] We love the guy, was like, what are we doing?
[00:40:44.760 --> 00:40:45.960] Are we moving a piano?
[00:40:46.120 --> 00:40:47.320] And so he just walks over.
[00:40:47.320 --> 00:40:49.800] And then his next door neighbor was like, sorry, what's happening?
[00:40:49.880 --> 00:40:51.240] John's like, oh, we're moving a piano.
[00:40:51.240 --> 00:40:52.120] Come in in the dark.
[00:40:52.440 --> 00:40:53.320] We all did that, which was great.
[00:40:53.640 --> 00:40:54.520] It takes a village, doesn't it?
[00:40:54.520 --> 00:40:55.400] It does very much take a village.
[00:40:55.480 --> 00:40:59.240] We got back to Liverpool, and then Bob was knocking on his neighbour's door and got his neighbour out.
[00:40:59.240 --> 00:41:00.760] Bob has moved a piano before.
[00:41:00.760 --> 00:41:06.360] Bob's neighbour, who I would say was maybe 24, something like that, has moved a piano before.
[00:41:06.680 --> 00:41:08.600] So we managed to get the piano into Bob's house.
[00:41:08.680 --> 00:41:09.080] That's fine.
[00:41:09.080 --> 00:41:10.360] The piano's all sorted.
[00:41:10.520 --> 00:41:12.760] We adjusted the house, will go on the market.
[00:41:12.760 --> 00:41:14.600] I don't have to go back there again.
[00:41:14.600 --> 00:41:18.840] We do still have a house full of Nicola's possessions and her mum's possessions still.
[00:41:19.320 --> 00:41:24.680] The downside of which is there's a lot of dust going on, which means my weird allergies have been going off all week.
[00:41:24.680 --> 00:41:28.040] So I spent the entire weekend sneezing and being like shit.
[00:41:28.040 --> 00:41:35.320] And then afterwards, I have this thing where once I've had a few days of bad allergies, I'll then have all these other kinds of symptoms that kind of follow on from that.
[00:41:35.320 --> 00:41:38.520] But at least I don't have to go back to Blackville again.
[00:41:39.160 --> 00:41:41.320] I went away for work.
[00:41:41.320 --> 00:41:41.640] Oh, right.
[00:41:41.960 --> 00:41:43.000] Unexpectedly.
[00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:48.520] So my boss has gone on paternity and he said, Mike, can you act up while I'm away?
[00:41:48.680 --> 00:41:49.240] Oh, that's nice.
[00:41:49.320 --> 00:41:49.640] That's fine.
[00:41:49.640 --> 00:41:49.960] That's good.
[00:41:50.760 --> 00:41:51.960] It's going to cause a load of trouble.
[00:41:51.960 --> 00:41:53.720] Yeah, cause some hassle.
[00:41:53.720 --> 00:41:57.880] Which meant I suddenly, unexpectedly, had to go to Manchester for two days.
[00:41:57.960 --> 00:41:59.320] To take some clients out for dinner.
[00:41:59.320 --> 00:42:01.640] For work, to go and have dinner with clients.
[00:42:01.640 --> 00:42:02.040] Yeah.
[00:42:02.040 --> 00:42:02.840] So I had to do that.
[00:42:02.840 --> 00:42:05.560] So unexpectedly, I had to, you know, escape and go to.
[00:42:05.720 --> 00:42:07.800] And I stayed in the Mercure where I was.
[00:42:08.120 --> 00:42:09.160] Of course, you did.
[00:42:09.160 --> 00:42:11.080] How far away was the Mercure from your music?
[00:42:11.240 --> 00:42:11.880] It wasn't too bad.
[00:42:11.880 --> 00:42:13.320] It was like a 15-minute walk.
[00:42:14.360 --> 00:42:16.560] But if it had been a 40-minute walk, you still would have done it.
[00:42:14.840 --> 00:42:19.120] I still would have done Stonewall's stayed at the Mercure.
[00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:22.000] Every time I'd said to people, you know, they said, Where are you staying?
[00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:24.240] I said, I'm in the Mercure at Piccadilly Gardens.
[00:42:24.240 --> 00:42:25.760] And they said, All right, you've got a long walk.
[00:42:25.760 --> 00:42:28.080] And I go, 15 minutes.
[00:42:28.720 --> 00:42:29.440] That's no problem.
[00:42:29.440 --> 00:42:29.920] It's fine.
[00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:30.320] It's fine.
[00:42:30.320 --> 00:42:32.560] Because I was like, well, this is my hotel.
[00:42:32.560 --> 00:42:33.040] Yeah.
[00:42:33.040 --> 00:42:36.320] And I know someone else owns and operates it, but it's my hotel.
[00:42:36.320 --> 00:42:39.360] So that's where I'm going to stay because I know what I'm doing there.
[00:42:39.360 --> 00:42:45.600] I mean, I'm teasing you about it, but I think there's plenty of QD attendees who also deliberately pick the Mercure if they have to stay in Manchester.
[00:42:45.600 --> 00:42:46.160] Of course you do.
[00:42:46.160 --> 00:42:47.120] Of course you do.
[00:42:47.120 --> 00:42:50.080] So I was there for work for a couple of days.
[00:42:50.080 --> 00:42:54.240] And then I came back from work and I came back to Liverpool and I went back to the flat.
[00:42:54.240 --> 00:42:57.280] And then Katie said, I'm feeling really rough.
[00:42:57.280 --> 00:42:59.360] I've got some horrible cold symptoms.
[00:42:59.360 --> 00:43:00.480] I'm feeling bad.
[00:43:00.480 --> 00:43:02.720] And I said, you should do a COVID test.
[00:43:02.720 --> 00:43:03.840] Do you want to do a COVID test?
[00:43:03.840 --> 00:43:05.440] So I went and got a COVID test.
[00:43:05.440 --> 00:43:06.480] And she did a COVID test.
[00:43:06.480 --> 00:43:07.840] And of course, it was positive.
[00:43:07.840 --> 00:43:08.320] Yeah.
[00:43:08.320 --> 00:43:09.840] So I was like, oh, fucking hell.
[00:43:10.480 --> 00:43:13.120] Fortunately, I had not been anywhere near.
[00:43:13.200 --> 00:43:17.040] I'd been in her proximity for two minutes when I'd come in from work.
[00:43:17.040 --> 00:43:18.720] And she said, I'm feeling rough.
[00:43:18.720 --> 00:43:20.160] So I was like, all right, I'll keep my distance.
[00:43:20.160 --> 00:43:21.680] Get your COVID test is positive.
[00:43:21.680 --> 00:43:25.040] So I thought, I need to decamp.
[00:43:25.040 --> 00:43:30.800] So I went to stay in the Premier Inn that is across the street from the flat where I live.
[00:43:30.960 --> 00:43:38.000] I went to stay in the so I booked two nights in that Premier Inn to give Katie some time to recover from the Codes.
[00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:40.640] Happily, she had been, this is where she'd got the COVID.
[00:43:40.640 --> 00:43:47.680] She'd been to London for some fucking wrestling thing because she likes watching sweaty men pretend to throw each other across the room for some reason.
[00:43:47.680 --> 00:43:48.000] I don't know.
[00:43:48.240 --> 00:43:49.440] It's entertainment.
[00:43:49.440 --> 00:43:51.720] So she'd been there, and then I'd been away so.
[00:43:51.920 --> 00:43:53.840] She likes watching men with better balance than you.
[00:43:55.120 --> 00:43:55.920] Apparently, yeah.
[00:43:56.240 --> 00:44:02.040] But so we just managed to coincidentally fully miss each other in the time that she'd been sick.
[00:43:59.680 --> 00:44:04.280] So I went and escaped off to the Premier Inn.
[00:44:04.520 --> 00:44:10.360] And I was meant to be seeing Emma at the time, but I was in Manchester for work, so I didn't get to see Emma.
[00:44:10.360 --> 00:44:12.680] So I text Emma and said, Well, I'm staying in the Premier Inn.
[00:44:12.680 --> 00:44:14.920] Do you want to come over and stay in the Premier Inn?
[00:44:15.240 --> 00:44:22.600] So I got to the Premier Inn, and I basically booked it online and then just went straight there.
[00:44:22.600 --> 00:44:26.280] So I booked it, and then within five minutes, I was at the Premier Inn.
[00:44:26.280 --> 00:44:28.920] And so the gadget wouldn't let me check in.
[00:44:29.160 --> 00:44:34.760] So they got big check-in screens where they print your key out for you and things like that, but they wouldn't let me do that.
[00:44:34.760 --> 00:44:39.000] So I had to press the button and call the member staff, and they came where, well, did you use your booking reference?
[00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:39.560] Or did you use it?
[00:44:39.800 --> 00:44:41.000] Well, I tried both of them.
[00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:42.680] It's probably because I only just booked it a few minutes.
[00:44:42.760 --> 00:44:45.080] Yeah, yeah, it means it probably hasn't allocated your room yet.
[00:44:45.320 --> 00:44:46.760] Let me just check you in.
[00:44:47.080 --> 00:44:49.400] And she said, they said, can you confirm your address for me?
[00:44:49.400 --> 00:44:51.240] I said, yep, it's, and I told her my address.
[00:44:51.240 --> 00:44:53.640] And she went, oh, isn't that just there?
[00:44:54.600 --> 00:44:55.640] And I said, yes, it is.
[00:44:55.640 --> 00:44:57.240] It's because my wife has got COVID.
[00:44:57.240 --> 00:45:00.120] And so I'm kind of, I've come here to escape.
[00:45:00.120 --> 00:45:04.840] And she went, you booked a double room with two breakfasts.
[00:45:05.160 --> 00:45:08.040] Do you want me to cancel one of those breakfasts for you?
[00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:10.520] Is it just going to be you in the room?
[00:45:10.520 --> 00:45:14.760] And I said, no, no, it's not just going to be me in the room.
[00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:16.600] And she went, I see.
[00:45:16.600 --> 00:45:17.320] Okay.
[00:45:18.280 --> 00:45:20.040] And said no further words to me.
[00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:23.080] So, oh, I look like such a twat.
[00:45:23.400 --> 00:45:26.760] I look like such the most awful person in the fucking room.
[00:45:26.920 --> 00:45:29.720] Having an affair on your wife in the hotel opposite your flat.
[00:45:30.200 --> 00:45:31.160] While she's got COVID.
[00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:36.680] I assume the person would assume she doesn't really have COVID.
[00:45:36.680 --> 00:45:37.800] This is just your cover story.
[00:45:38.120 --> 00:45:39.000] Oh, fucking hell.
[00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:41.880] So I look like such a fucking bell cat.
[00:45:46.480 --> 00:45:55.440] So for Liverpool Skeptics and the Pub, we have, in desperation, booked some absolute fucking bell end to come and give a talk for us this month.
[00:45:55.440 --> 00:45:56.880] And so that's going to be me.
[00:45:56.880 --> 00:45:57.840] You're going to be doing a talk.
[00:45:57.840 --> 00:45:59.120] What talk are you going to be doing, Mike?
[00:45:59.120 --> 00:46:05.440] So I'm going to be talking about the new evidence that suggests we have solved the Jack the Ripper case.
[00:46:05.440 --> 00:46:08.400] I talked about this on the show, like, I mean, before or five years ago.
[00:46:08.400 --> 00:46:08.800] Yeah.
[00:46:08.800 --> 00:46:10.000] No, it would have been longer than that.
[00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:11.840] 2014, I think we talked about it on the show.
[00:46:12.400 --> 00:46:13.840] We've got some new evidence.
[00:46:14.160 --> 00:46:19.680] And, well, but so is every press article about it, which is part of the ridiculousness of it.
[00:46:19.680 --> 00:46:22.800] And I talked about it again on the show earlier this year.
[00:46:22.800 --> 00:46:27.440] So we're looking at kind of a synthesis of those two bits that I've done for the show.
[00:46:27.440 --> 00:46:29.920] But I'm going to be doing that for Liverpool Skeptic at the Pub.
[00:46:29.920 --> 00:46:33.520] So that's going to be at the CASA on Hope Street from 7.30 p.m.
[00:46:33.600 --> 00:46:36.240] And if you're in the Liverpool area, you should definitely come along to that.
[00:46:36.480 --> 00:46:37.280] That's a good talk.
[00:46:37.280 --> 00:46:38.560] I'm looking forward to it.
[00:46:38.560 --> 00:46:41.200] I'm not because I haven't learned my words.
[00:46:42.320 --> 00:46:44.240] I've got like a week to sort them out.
[00:46:44.240 --> 00:46:45.120] Ah, that's fine.
[00:46:45.280 --> 00:46:46.240] That'll be fine.
[00:46:46.240 --> 00:46:47.760] So yeah, that's going to be fantastic.
[00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:50.640] The CASA on Hope Street from 7.30.
[00:46:50.960 --> 00:46:53.680] We should also just briefly mention QED as well.
[00:46:53.680 --> 00:46:54.480] So QED.
[00:46:54.800 --> 00:46:56.320] We have got loads of new things.
[00:46:56.320 --> 00:46:58.160] Oh, we talked about them on the last show.
[00:46:58.160 --> 00:47:02.240] We talked about our new announcements on the last show, but streaming tickets for QED are still available.
[00:47:02.240 --> 00:47:03.680] It is going to be the final QED.
[00:47:03.680 --> 00:47:07.040] So this is your last and only opportunity to take part.
[00:47:07.040 --> 00:47:09.440] And you can find out more about QED at QDCon.org.
[00:47:09.440 --> 00:47:13.440] Streaming tickets are £49, and that gets you access to most of the content that we've got.
[00:47:13.440 --> 00:47:17.120] So it's all the main stage, all the panels, and all of the podcasts.
[00:47:17.120 --> 00:47:20.640] The only thing we don't include in that is the workshops because that kind of doesn't make sense.
[00:47:20.960 --> 00:47:23.760] But yeah, you should definitely get your QED tickets if you have not already.
[00:47:23.760 --> 00:47:26.400] We've been selling quite a few of the online tickets recently.
[00:47:26.400 --> 00:47:29.160] I think it's since we announced that Noah was going to do a panel with us.
[00:47:28.880 --> 00:47:34.680] Well, it's since Noah announced and said you can't buy in-person tickets, but you can buy streaming tickets, which is very lovely.
[00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:37.240] Aside from that, then I think that's all we have time for.
[00:47:37.240 --> 00:47:37.800] I think it is.
[00:47:37.800 --> 00:47:40.200] All that remains then is thank Marsh for coming along today.
[00:47:40.200 --> 00:47:40.680] Cheers.
[00:47:40.680 --> 00:47:41.560] Thank you to Alice.
[00:47:41.560 --> 00:47:42.040] Thank you.
[00:47:42.040 --> 00:47:44.520] We have been Skeptics with a K, and we will see you next time.
[00:47:44.520 --> 00:47:45.160] Bye now.
[00:47:45.160 --> 00:47:46.120] Bye.
[00:47:50.920 --> 00:47:55.960] Skeptics with a K is produced by Skeptic Media in association with the Merseyside Skeptic Society.
[00:47:55.960 --> 00:48:05.320] For questions or comments, email podcast at skepticswithakay.org and you can find out more about Merseyside Skeptics at merseyside skeptics.org.uk.