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00:00.
00:30Hello, ladies and gentlemen.
00:33My name is Dave Gorman, and after quite some break,
00:37it is a delight to once again say,
00:40welcome to Modern Life Is Goodish.
00:46My laptop may well be loaded up with hundreds of slides
00:48to share with you tonight, but I want to start with something
00:51from the analogue world instead.
00:54You see, we're living in an increasingly digital world,
00:57and I think sometimes it's worth pausing to ask if maybe
01:01the real world might be better.
01:04To that end, I want to share with you one of the most remarkable things
01:07I have ever seen.
01:08In my line of work, I get to do shows with all sorts of people,
01:12and I was on a bill recently with an act, an elderly Hungarian man
01:15who didn't speak a word of English.
01:18He didn't need to, he had the audience in the palm of his hands.
01:21What he did, ladies and gentlemen, was truly amazing.
01:23Let me just set the scene.
01:24He had a length of rope, ladies and gentlemen.
01:27He showed everyone that he had a length of rope,
01:30and then he flicked it into his hand to make a loop, ladies and gentlemen.
01:34He put the loop, it's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen
01:36in all my days, he really did.
01:37He put the loop in his hand, he clicked his fingers
01:39and produced a pair of scissors.
01:41Ladies and gentlemen, it was one of the most amazing things
01:43I've ever seen in all my days, it truly was.
01:45He then cut the rope in two.
01:48He then clicked his fingers again for no reason,
01:51because he then just put those in his back pocket.
01:55He made a big show of the fact that it was now
01:57two different bits of rope,
01:59and he tied the two bits of rope together into a knot like so.
02:05And then, and this was the most amazing thing of it,
02:07it really was, he then held the rope aloft and said...
02:11Ta-da!
02:17He was shit!
02:21Can you imagine someone having the balls to do that in front of an audience
02:25and then get away with it? That is amazing, isn't it?
02:27And in answer to my earlier question, there is an example
02:30where the real world was worse than the digital effects would have been.
02:33See?
02:34The weird thing is, he's not even the worst magic act I've ever seen.
02:39The worst magic act I've ever seen was a husband and wife Christian act
02:43called something like Johnny Jones and the Amazing Grace.
02:48Now, don't misunderstand me.
02:50I'm not saying they were rubbish because they were Christians.
02:52I am an atheist, but I'm not a militant one.
02:55I want my son to understand other people have different views of the world,
02:59and that's all fine.
03:00And so, in our house, we do a lot of what some people think is,
03:03and, well, according to the Bible, and so on.
03:06I'm very much a do unto others as you would have them do unto you
03:10sort of a chap.
03:11In fact, I'd probably follow a religion
03:13if it had that sort of thing in its good book.
03:17I mention that they were Christians because it is an unavoidable detail.
03:21This performance wasn't in a theatre, within a church hall,
03:24with all the cleaning equipment stacked up in one corner,
03:27a trestle table loaded up with a tea urn and jugs of weak squash in the other,
03:31and an audience made up largely of children and their attendant grown-ups.
03:36Now, the act involved Johnny telling the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000
03:42while recreating the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000.
03:47And rubbish as it was, the weird thing is that he actually did end up
03:50performing a real miracle.
03:52I think they intended to have a set-up a bit like this.
03:56Now, with a table and basket set up like so,
03:58a magician can produce a seemingly endless supply of bread and fish.
04:04Now, obviously, that is not a normal table, is it?
04:08That's a special table.
04:10That's a special table that allows an assistant to hide out of view.
04:15Now, I know how this works because I've got four friends who are magicians.
04:21Actually, technically, it's five.
04:23One of them's identical twins, but they don't want me to tell you that.
04:27I can tell you that is done with mirrors.
04:29There's a mirror there and another mirror there.
04:31Now, there was something missing.
04:33In fact, actually, technically, there were two things missing.
04:36The mirrors.
04:37Everyone in the room could see the amazing Grace hiding under the table,
04:44being not very amazing at all.
04:47She was just hiding under the table, passing bread and fish up through a hole in the table.
04:51Her husband there just stood by her, both of them pretending that it wasn't happening.
04:57It was excruciating.
04:59All of the grown-ups, conditioned by adulthood into a state of politeness,
05:03sat shuffling in their seats, not sure where to look.
05:06I might have been imagining this, but I swear, even Henry Hoover looked away.
05:10At one point, I actually made direct eye contact with Grace.
05:15She went...
05:16Lest I spoil it for the children.
05:23Of course, the children, they haven't yet been conditioned into a state of politeness,
05:27have they?
05:28So they're all there just going,
05:29What's happening, Daddy?
05:30Why is that lady under the table?
05:32And so on.
05:34On the way home, the gore boy was full of questions.
05:37Is that what really happened, Daddy?
05:39And so, obviously, I told him the story of the feeding of the 5,000,
05:43as it should be told.
05:45And it was only after he was in bed that night that I realised
05:49that because I had been correcting their incompetence,
05:52I had forgotten to add all my usual codicils of
05:56what some people believe and so on.
05:59And so my son went to bed thinking that I sincerely believed in this tale
06:03as a historical fact.
06:05And that's what I mean when I say Johnny Jones and the Amazing Grace
06:08had performed an actual bleeding miracle, Eddie.
06:11A week later, we went back and we saw the same ass ill-fated attempt
06:14at Houdini's water tank escape.
06:16Johnny was hospitalised and I ended up explaining how Moses parted the Red Sea.
06:21Now, I'll tell you this, I love making this show, I really do.
06:26But making it doesn't half mess with my internet search history.
06:30I'll give you an example, right?
06:32The other day, I was SearchWise-ing for something and I...
06:36What?
06:38Are you not SearchWise people?
06:40It's more of a Google crowd.
06:43Oh, you want to get on SearchWise?
06:45SearchWise is brilliant.
06:46I've been using SearchWise ever since I saw little Bobby Brazier
06:50using it on EastEnders.
06:51There he is, little Bobby Brazier, tip-tapping away.
06:55He was trying to look up a car called Graham that I think he thought
07:00might have been related to him.
07:02It was something like that.
07:03The important thing is that his search engine of choice was,
07:06ladies and gentlemen, SearchWise.
07:08And yeah, I was right, it was a car called Graham.
07:11He wasn't sure if it was a real car, he thought it might have been
07:13his foster car, it was something like that.
07:16Typical EastEnders.
07:17By the way, did you notice how bony his fingers were?
07:21For a young man, they were surprisingly bony, weren't they?
07:24Look at me!
07:25Look at that!
07:29I'm kidding, of course.
07:30That is obviously dot-cotton, isn't it?
07:33And when she wants to find something on the internet,
07:35what search engine does Dorothy dot-co dot-tum use?
07:39SearchWise, then.
07:41And don't go thinking that this only exists in the cosy confines
07:44of the BBC or EastEnders,
07:46that Bill was an ITV, wasn't it?
07:48Their chosen search engine.
07:50SearchWise.
07:52As you can see, that was in the days before they used
07:55the magnifying glass logo, that was back when they had
07:58Hootie the SearchWise owl.
08:00Of course, before that, they had the all-seeing eye of the Illuminati.
08:06I remember.
08:07That was the version of SearchWise that Billy Piper used to use,
08:10isn't it, yeah?
08:11There she is.
08:12Oh, Billy.
08:13Billy, you need to get an office chair, love.
08:15Your posture's terrible.
08:17You're going to put yourself in traction if you sit there like that.
08:19You're going to need to seek medical help if you're not careful.
08:22I don't wonder what she was looking for.
08:24Yep, knew it.
08:25Knew it.
08:26Knew it.
08:27Knew it.
08:28Ladies and gentlemen, I will explain what's really going on here
08:30after the break.
08:31CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
08:43Welcome back to Modern Life is Goodish, ladies and gentlemen,
08:46where, before the break, we were discussing the use of the search
08:49engine SearchWise in various TV shows.
08:52If you haven't guessed already, SearchWise is a fake search engine
08:57made for TV shows to use when they don't want to use Google.
09:01It's not the only one.
09:02There are loads of them out there.
09:03You've got Find a Spider in Breaking Bad.
09:06You've got Bing-ing.
09:09LAUGHTER
09:15It's not, is it?
09:19Oh, apparently that one's real.
09:21Anyway, the thing about all of these is that even in the most
09:24compelling drama, the moment one of these crops up,
09:27it suddenly feels unrealistic to me.
09:30And I don't know why they don't just use Google.
09:33So I tried to find out.
09:35Do you know how I tried to find out?
09:40I Googled it.
09:42Google themselves have got a brand resource centre,
09:45and this seems to be the relevant section, as far as I can see.
09:48With so many people using Google products in their daily lives,
09:52we know that filmmakers, television producers and creatives
09:56of all types want to incorporate a bit of Google into their projects
10:01to make them more realistic and relatable.
10:05Which suggests to me that they agree with me when I say that
10:08seeing someone using search berserk in the American drama
10:13switched at birth makes it feel a bit unrealistic.
10:16When you get into their guidelines, it's basically just that they
10:19want you to be positive about Google.
10:22They have a list of do's and don'ts.
10:24Don't show our products in a negative light.
10:27For example, don't show bank robbers using Google Maps
10:32to find the location of their next target.
10:36You mustn't do that because that would never happen.
10:39They make it very clear that they won't approve any submission requests
10:44that involve drugs, adult or explicit content, violence, illegal activities,
10:49armed weapons or hate speech.
10:51And in many ways, I think that's completely reasonable, isn't it?
10:54I mean, I used Google recently.
10:56I used it to search for best place to buy cocaine.
11:02And when you do that, as I'm sure you all know,
11:04what happens is a big red alert pops up saying that this search is forbidden
11:08and they have alerted local law enforcement authorities as a result, doesn't it?
11:12That's what happens, isn't it?
11:13No!
11:17In less than a second, their algorithm returned this not unhelpful response.
11:24And the same thing was true when I searched for how to buy
11:27semi-automatic rifle and best free porn site.
11:32Now, I should point out that Safe Search was off at this point.
11:36I genuinely didn't really know what Safe Search was until I looked into all this.
11:40I'd always thought that Safe Search was a feature that Google provided
11:44so that bank robbers could search for their next Safe to crash.
11:47Apparently not.
11:49Now, look, Google didn't create any of the content it's showing you there.
11:53If you don't like the fact that someone's opened a strip club on your street,
11:56don't take it out on a sat-nav for knowing where it is.
11:59That's all Google is.
12:01I should also point out that I understand and completely accept
12:04that Google do not want you to find these things
12:07and, for what it's worth, neither do I.
12:09I don't want you to take cocaine or get a semi or get a semi.
12:13That is not what either of us want.
12:17But I do think it's a bit rich of Google to tell people who make up stories for a living
12:22that they aren't allowed to have their pretend bad people use Google
12:26in ways that we all know real-life bad people can.
12:30And probably do.
12:32For all I know, there might be something in the terms and conditions.
12:35Maybe when we all first used Google, we clicked on something to say
12:38that we wouldn't use it to find these things.
12:40But that doesn't really change my point of view because,
12:43do you know what bank robbers don't really give a shit about?
12:46Rules.
12:50Here's a weird thing.
12:52Do you remember earlier when I said,
12:54I Googled it?
12:56Oh, Google don't want you to say that.
12:59It's in their rules.
13:00Look, can you Google that for me?
13:02Very much in the don't do this list.
13:04Instead, you have to say,
13:06Can you look that up on Google for me?
13:08Essentially what this comes down to is them saying
13:11their product names should never be used as verbs.
13:15Luckily, there is no specific guidance on adverbs.
13:19So I think I'm OK when I say,
13:22He searched Googlishly.
13:25As I understand it, the reason for this
13:28is they don't want to happen to Google what happened to Hoover.
13:32Earlier on, I mentioned Henry Hoover,
13:35and you were all instantly picturing this.
13:37Everyone in Britain knows that that's a Henry Hoover.
13:41But that isn't made by Hoover.
13:43That is made by a company called Newmatic,
13:46who are not now and never have been owned by Hoover.
13:49They haven't called it a Henry Hoover.
13:51We have.
13:52And I can see that that must be a bit galling
13:55for the people at Hoover.
13:56When Hoover spend money to advertise Hoovers,
13:59all they're really doing is advertising
14:01the concept of Hoovering.
14:03You can say,
14:04I've got a new Hoover.
14:05Really?
14:06Which one?
14:07Dyson.
14:08Because we're all so used to that
14:11when it comes to the word Hoover,
14:12it doesn't even sound that weird to us.
14:14But if you apply it to other brands,
14:16it sounds utterly bizarre.
14:18Oh, I see our Keith's got a new Rolls-Royce.
14:20Really?
14:21What sort?
14:22Ford Fiesta.
14:23Really excited.
14:24I've got the new Taylor Swift album.
14:28Which one?
14:29Best of the Cheeky Girls.
14:30I can see that Google don't want the same fate
14:35to befall the word Google.
14:37But no matter how much they want it,
14:39they're not actually in charge of how language is used.
14:42Dictionaries aren't rule books telling you how words should be used.
14:46Dictionaries are really just showing you how the language is spoken.
14:51And if you look Google up in Chambers Dictionary,
14:54for example,
14:55it says quite clearly that Google means to attempt to find out
14:59about someone or something by entering their name
15:02into an internet search engine.
15:04Not into the search engine Google,
15:06into an internet search engine.
15:09People are literally Googling on Bing.
15:15And no matter what they put on their website,
15:17I'm not sure Google can put that genie back in the bottle.
15:20And I genuinely can't see any reason why Google should be afforded
15:24more protection than any other brand.
15:27And yet I think they are.
15:29I'll show you what I mean, right?
15:30Let's go back to EastEnders, OK?
15:31In this scene, there's been a car crash.
15:34Mel is dazed and confused
15:36and wandering back into the ramp.
15:38But what's this, ladies and gentlemen?
15:40Emerging through the smoke.
15:42If you're of a nervous disposition,
15:44please do look away now,
15:46especially if you're the sort of person
15:48who's upset by low-level CGI effects.
15:51That...
15:52It's very upsetting, isn't it?
15:54Well, let's rewind to the moment of impact.
16:00What's that emerging through the smoke, ladies and gentlemen?
16:03That Mercedes logo could not be any clearer.
16:06How have EastEnders got away with this?
16:09I think I know how they've done it.
16:10Very clever lot over at EastEnders.
16:12I think what they've done with that logo
16:14is they've rotated it 120 degrees.
16:17They know what they're doing.
16:19No.
16:20I think one of two things must have happened here.
16:23Number one, the people from EastEnders
16:25have contacted Mercedes-Benz and said,
16:27Are you all right if we show your lorry?
16:29And Mercedes have gone,
16:30What? Killing someone?
16:31Yeah.
16:32Sure.
16:33Go for it.
16:34No trouble. Absolutely fine.
16:35Or, two, they haven't asked Mercedes
16:38and nobody gives a damn because we live in a world full of grown-ups
16:41who understand that lorries do sometimes kill people
16:43and not everyone follows the rules of the road
16:45and it doesn't matter what lorry they're driving
16:46and if we all think that's absolutely fair enough
16:48and that a company like Mercedes should be all right with it,
16:51then why on earth don't we all think the same thing
16:53should be true for bloody Google?
16:55If I get a bit worked up about this,
16:57it's because we're often bumping into things on this show
17:00where lawyers are telling me what I can or cannot show you, OK?
17:04I'll give you an example.
17:05I bought a poster recently, an unframed poster.
17:09Now, when the poster arrived,
17:11I thought the way in which it had been packaged
17:13and sent to me was a bit odd
17:16and I thought maybe it would be a good source of material for the show,
17:19but our lawyers say,
17:20I'm not allowed to show you the poster because an artist designed it
17:23and they own the copyright on the artwork.
17:26Now, I'm fully on board with the idea of artists
17:28making a living from their art,
17:30but I also think the way in which this particular artist
17:32has monetised their art
17:34is by allowing a poster company to reproduce it.
17:37And now that I've bought one,
17:39I think I also have bought the right to tell a true story
17:42about my lived experience involving it.
17:45Now, here's the thing.
17:46Most of us, if we were sending a poster through the post,
17:49I think would use something like that, wouldn't we?
17:52We'd use one of these, a tube,
17:54because that makes for the most convenient parcel
17:56when you're sending something like a poster.
17:58This poster was sent to me in a very different way.
18:02I'll remind you, it was an unframed poster,
18:05and it was sent like this.
18:09My first thought was that maybe it was coming from one of those people
18:12who writes out the big charity checks.
18:14What they've actually done is they've created their own improvised envelope.
18:20Now, we've recreated it for you tonight,
18:22because we're not allowed to show you the actual poster.
18:24So, inside the brown paper, they have got...
18:30..two enormous sheets of plastic.
18:33There's no markings on it to tell me if it's recyclable or not.
18:36And, look, this is particularly galling for me.
18:38I've genuinely been trying to cut down on single-use plastic.
18:41In the last 18 months, I haven't bought a single cleaning product
18:45that comes in a single-use plastic container.
18:48Now, I'm not saying that to virtue signal,
18:49and I'm aware that some of you might think
18:51that's an utterly futile gesture on my part,
18:53but I hope we can all appreciate it's a bit infuriating
18:56to make that effort and then, in one simple purchase,
18:59unsuspectingly buy more plastic
19:01than you'll find in a divorced dad's cutlery drawer.
19:06Now, I'm not allowed to show you the poster.
19:07The lawyer said,
19:08I could show it to the live audience,
19:10but then we'd have to pixelate it on TV.
19:12And then the producer said,
19:13No, you bloody can't.
19:15Pixelating in the edit costs thousands of pounds
19:18and we haven't got that in our budget.
19:19So, we've reached a compromise...
19:21..for that.
19:26Pretty good, isn't it?
19:27Pretty good.
19:30Not bad.
19:33I've just realised I've made a fool of myself.
19:35It's that way round.
19:37Not that it matters.
19:38We ended up replacing most of the material
19:40with stuff about Google helping you buy guns and drugs.
19:45Whoa.
19:47Google are more powerful than I thought.
19:51Let's gooblishly see if we can fix this during the break.
19:55I'll see you later, Mo.
20:06Welcome back to Modern Life Is Goodish.
20:09Now, I don't know about you,
20:10but I find as I'm getting older,
20:12I'm increasingly struggling with change.
20:15Who else sees a story like this with this headline
20:18and has the first thought that that is a story about three women?
20:23My brain sees that and the first thought
20:25is that it's a story about that woman
20:27having a very real friendship with that woman
20:29while that woman fishes around for backstage Strictly Goss.
20:33Now, I'm not making a political point.
20:35I'm not being all not my queen.
20:37This is really more about words than anything else for me.
20:40For more than 50 years,
20:42I knew that the word queen defined that person.
20:4650 years is a long time for something to be true in your brain
20:49and it's hard to rewire the brain
20:51to know that it means something else now.
20:55I can see that for some people,
20:56these people inspire emotional thoughts
20:59and that is muddying the waters of the point I'm trying to make.
21:02So let's take the royal family out of this and put it another way.
21:05It's sort of like when they recast the lead part in a TV show
21:09and everyone just carries on as normal.
21:12And I hate it when that happens.
21:14APPLAUSE
21:16Now, look, I'll give you another example of change.
21:37Sometimes I think it creeps up on you.
21:39It feels like I woke up one day and everything was different
21:41and I just hadn't seen it coming.
21:43Who here remembers when they first realised
21:46that Sainsbury's and Argos are now friends with benefits?
21:50LAUGHTER
21:52I didn't notice it happening.
21:54It always used to feel like there was an Argos on every high street
21:57and now all of the Argos' aren't...
22:00Argos?
22:02Ar-guy?
22:04All of them, they seem to be inside Sainsbury's.
22:07And it's not just those two,
22:08there are loads of other shopping shops now.
22:10You also get Toys R Us inside WH Smiths.
22:14Here they are announcing 30 new UK shopping shops.
22:18Shopping shops!
22:19They just say it like we all know what a shopping shop is.
22:21LAUGHTER
22:22Someone has clearly seen a gap in the market there, haven't they?
22:25Do you know what I've spotted?
22:26A gap in the next.
22:27LAUGHTER
22:29Because that is where you'll find gap these days.
22:32In 2022, we opened our first shopping shop within Next on London's Oxford Street.
22:38Now, our flagship gap UK store.
22:41Can I point out that if your shop is inside somebody else's shop...
22:45LAUGHTER
22:46..the word flagship is a bit strong.
22:48LAUGHTER
22:49That is a flag lifeboat at best.
22:51LAUGHTER
22:53Surely the offering from Gap and Next is quite similar, isn't it?
22:59Putting a gap inside a Next is like putting a Cafe Nero inside a Costa...
23:03LAUGHTER
23:04..for people who like their cardboard cups a bit bluer.
23:07LAUGHTER
23:08It's like buying an Anton Deck and getting a free Stephen Mulhern as well.
23:11LAUGHTER
23:12It's just weird, isn't it?
23:14This is another change that seems to have snuck up on us.
23:17Have you noticed these things springing up around?
23:20These are little pods you can rent by the hour to have meetings in.
23:24I've been touring and these were in motorway service stations
23:27up and down the land, ladies and gentlemen,
23:29and I cannot understand quite how the world has come to this.
23:32Actually, I sort of can,
23:34cos I think this is one of those things where the reality
23:36is much worse than the idea.
23:39When I first heard about these things, they seemed quite cool.
23:42I first heard about them on a TV show called Click.
23:46Hey, welcome to Click. Welcome to my new office.
23:49It's a bit small, but it does have one advantage,
23:52and that's that it could be absolutely anywhere.
23:55Oh, Doctor Who's not what it used to be, is it?
23:58LAUGHTER
24:00But the thing about the phrase, it could be absolutely anywhere,
24:03is that it conjures up all manner of places in the mind's eye
24:07and none of those places are next to the bins.
24:10LAUGHTER
24:12You see what I mean?
24:13When it's described with that kind of peppy, perky enthusiasm,
24:16it sounds like quite a good idea.
24:18It could be placed in the middle of an open plan office.
24:21Yeah, it could be, couldn't it?
24:22Open plan office.
24:23A little breakout space for you.
24:24Yeah, it could be, couldn't it?
24:25Or a public place like a coffee shop.
24:27Yeah, or a coffee shop.
24:28Yeah, that would make sense, wouldn't it?
24:30And in many ways, a motorway service station
24:32is a bit like a coffee shop, isn't it?
24:35Especially the bit of the service station that is a coffee shop.
24:38LAUGHTER
24:39But it is nobody's chosen coffee shop, is it?
24:42Nobody has ever said,
24:43Oh, we must meet for a coffee sometime.
24:45Oh, whereabouts?
24:46I know a lovely little place just off Junction 12 of the M1.
24:49LAUGHTER
24:50I sometimes walk to a local coffee place with my laptop
24:53and do a little work for a change of scene.
24:55Nobody walks to these coffee shops, do they?
24:58You need a car to get to them.
25:00Is it just me or are the people least likely to rent
25:03a private glass and metal box for an hour in order to make a phone call
25:06the people who've just turned up in their own pigging glass and metal box?
25:10LAUGHTER
25:11I'm here for meetings, catch-ups, video calls, phone calls,
25:14learning, studying, reading, or just some peace and quiet.
25:18Lovely idea.
25:19But you know what?
25:20I have on occasion sat in the corner of a motorway service station
25:23and read a book.
25:25Nobody paid me a blind bit of notice.
25:28I'm not sure I would feel quite so anonymous
25:31sitting inside one of those.
25:34That is essentially a human display case.
25:37LAUGHTER
25:39I think they've misread the British psyche here.
25:42Anyone sitting in one of these is going to look like that boy
25:45who got stuck in the arcade claw machine that time.
25:48You know the one I'm eating, yeah?
25:50That boy, yeah?
25:51LAUGHTER
25:52I don't know much about this lad, but I'll tell you what,
25:54I like his fashion sense.
25:55He's a...
25:56He's got his story, don't he?
25:57Incidentally, it was me who blurred his face, by the way.
26:00He's a kid.
26:01He hasn't chosen to be on telly, so I blurred it.
26:04Although, and this is quite fun, you know those apps you get
26:07where you can put a photo in and you can age someone
26:09or change their gender or whatever?
26:11I've aged him.
26:12That way, I'm not showing him as a child, I'm showing him as a grown-up.
26:16And I think he's a good-looking lad.
26:18LAUGHTER
26:19Good-looking lad.
26:20Incidentally, I say that boy,
26:22but this has actually happened loads of times.
26:25I mean, loads of times!
26:27Doesn't it make you think?
26:28How powerful is the arcade claw machine lobby?
26:32If seven children had got trapped in pretty much anything else,
26:35it would have been shut down by now, wouldn't it?
26:38When people talk about the powerful groups that control the world,
26:41it's normally the Illuminati.
26:43LAUGHTER
26:44Or the fossil fuel lobby or Big Pharma.
26:47My theory is, the people who can make bad news go away
26:50must be the most powerful people.
26:52In which case, I think the real power rests
26:55with the big arcade claw machine lobby.
26:58LAUGHTER
26:59Them and the industrial astrology complex.
27:02Those astrologers are powerful, aren't they?
27:04I'll prove it, right?
27:06Do you remember when NASA invented a new star sign?
27:10That's how powerful the astrology lobby is.
27:13I'm not making this up.
27:14This did happen.
27:15And you've all forgotten about it.
27:17Here it is in the Daily Express.
27:18Look at that.
27:19What star sign am I?
27:20NASA creates new sign.
27:22What does that mean?
27:23I'll tell you what it means.
27:24It means the good people at this morning are asking the question,
27:27has your star sign changed?
27:29And not just the good people at this morning.
27:30Oh, no.
27:31Eamon and Ruth were asking it as well.
27:33LAUGHTER
27:34And this is for people born between November the 29th
27:37and December the 17th.
27:39So that's you.
27:40Ooh, that's Eamon.
27:42So you were Sagittarius.
27:43Do you want to know what you are now?
27:45Oh, I think we all know what Eamon is now, don't we?
27:47LAUGHTER
27:49Oh, fuckers.
27:51At least I think that's how you pronounce it.
27:53It's something like that.
27:54Ophiuchus.
27:55Something like that.
27:56Something like that.
27:57I'm not quite sure.
27:58This was all over the press at the time, ladies and gentlemen,
28:01but look how quickly the astrologers leapt into action.
28:04Look at this.
28:05Story one.
28:06What does the new zodiac sign, Ophiuchus, mean?
28:08And what date does it cover?
28:10Published July 15th, ladies and gentlemen.
28:12Story two.
28:13No, your star sign hasn't changed.
28:15Here's why.
28:16July 16th.
28:17One day it took them to wipe that story away.
28:22Now, with all these stories, both reporting it and retracting it,
28:26I'm sure you can imagine that the bottom half of the internet
28:29was wiped.
28:30I'll tell you what, ladies and gentlemen,
28:32I've read every single one of these stories,
28:34and not just the stories, I've read every single comment
28:37I could find beneath these stories as well.
28:39And I've taken my favourite of those comments
28:42and turned them into something that I like to call
28:44a found poem.
28:49That I would like to perform for you now.
28:55Everyone knows astrology is rubbish.
28:58Maybe it made sense in olden times,
29:01when science did not exist.
29:04But this isn't the 1960s anymore.
29:06Having 13 star signs would be ridiculous.
29:1212 is the right number,
29:15because 12 is the number we do things in.
29:18It's not a coincidence that there are 12 months in a year
29:22and 12 hours on a clock.
29:25There are 12 inches in a foot,
29:27and we each have 12 fingers.
29:36To those who wish to poo-poo astrology
29:38and claim that only astronomy is a science,
29:41I say this.
29:43All ologies are science.
29:46Onomies never are.
29:48Ology honour me.
29:50Makes you think.
29:53What about apology?
29:57Apology accepted.
30:00Before marrying my wife,
30:01I checked to see that our star signs were compatible.
30:05They were.
30:06And we have been happily married ever since.
30:09If this new revelation means that one or both of us
30:12must change signs,
30:14and as a result we are no longer deemed compatible,
30:17to whom should I send the bill?
30:20I don't think you need to worry about that.
30:23If you've been married a long time,
30:24you have more than proven your compatibility.
30:27We have not been married a long time.
30:30It has been just eight weeks.
30:32And yesterday, she said I was annoying her.
30:36And she said I was annoying her.
30:39And she said I was annoying her.
30:42And she said I was annoying her.
30:45If you ask me,
30:49NASA are just trying to be controversial.
30:51Anything to get themselves back in the papers.
30:54Think about it.
30:56It's been more than 50 years
30:58since NASA put a man on the moon.
31:00And what have they done since?
31:02Absolutely nothing.
31:05We are all literally made of dead stars.
31:10So why wouldn't stars guide us?
31:12Magnetics isn't real.
31:14Magnetics isn't really something that science looks into.
31:20But we are all affected by it,
31:22as we have iron in our blood.
31:27I don't.
31:30I'm a vegetarian.
31:32I don't think so.
31:33I knew someone would pick me up on that.
31:44Obviously, when I said 12 fingers, I was including...
31:48LAUGHTER
31:54The Bill Roth Spring Quartet, ladies and gentlemen.
31:57I'll see you after the break.
31:58I'll see you after the break.
31:59CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
32:08Welcome back to Modern Life Is Goodish.
32:12Now, do you ever find that you get yourself trapped in a game that you can't get out of?
32:18Not like that.
32:19No.
32:20That's not the sort of thing I mean.
32:21You know those pods I was talking about before?
32:23When I first saw them, I went on a bit of a rant about them to a mate of mine called James.
32:27But James wasn't buying it.
32:29I told him how awful they seem to me and he just went, oh, they sound quite good.
32:33I said, to be fair, I thought that when I first heard about them, but the reality is a lot worse than that.
32:37They're sat there in car parts and service stations and nobody's using them.
32:41At which point James was like, oh, Dave, you're being silly here.
32:44People must be using them.
32:45I said, I swear they're not.
32:47He said, if those pods didn't have a single user, they wouldn't be there, Dave.
32:51If they're in all those service stations, they must have some customers.
32:54I honestly don't think they have.
32:56And he just rolled his eyes and went, oh, Dave, this is like your bounty argument all over again.
33:01Allow me to explain.
33:03For many years, I used to confidently expound a theory that the bounty bar only existed as part of an elaborate money laundering scheme.
33:11Based on the idea they are clearly so repulsive that no one would actually willingly buy one.
33:17I have since accepted that this was blind prejudice on my part.
33:21Partly as a result of witnessing my mother-in-law hoovering up all the bounties, or should I say pneumatic-ing up all of the bounties,
33:29in a box of celebrations at Christmas time.
33:32I accept there are people in the world who like bounties.
33:36But I wasn't so willing to accept that these pods had customers.
33:40I insisted nobody was using them.
33:42James refused to accept that, and long story short, I ended up saying, look,
33:46if you can provide evidence of someone using a Booker pod, I will give you £5.
33:51He said, well, you're obviously not that confident, are you?
33:54You're only offering £5.
33:55I said, oh, no, I'm confident.
33:56It's just I know you too well.
33:58They are available for £5.99.
34:00LAUGHTER
34:02If I'd offered you a tenner, you'd have booked one in order to make yourself £4 and 1p.
34:06I'm not falling for your gains.
34:09So we took a look at their website, and then we both got the app on our phones,
34:13and we had a look at it, and I swear, every single pod we looked at for the upcoming 24 hours showed up as available.
34:21I did not owe James a fiver.
34:23But he didn't accept that.
34:25He didn't think it was that simple.
34:26He was like, well, it's probably more of an impulse buy, isn't it?
34:29He says, oh, people probably turn up and then book it when they get there,
34:32rather than book it in advance.
34:33I said, fine.
34:34You check it as often as you like.
34:36If you find one that's been booked, that fiver is yours.
34:39This is what trapped me in a game with no end.
34:43Because the game didn't end that day.
34:46Every day that week, James checked them, and no matter how often he looked,
34:49they were always all available.
34:52I'll be honest, it stopped being fun about two weeks in.
34:57I started to feel a bit guilty about the effect we might be having on this company.
35:01I don't know what else their business might entail,
35:03but I started to get the sense that, for this product at least,
35:06things probably weren't going as well as they had hoped.
35:09If you look on their website, for example,
35:11you can see the sort of places they were imagining their pods would be.
35:15They didn't have a single pod in any of those locations.
35:18Maybe they had them in the past, and maybe they will in the future,
35:21but when we were looking in May, there were none.
35:24It was motorway service stations, multi-storey car parks,
35:27and a couple of oddities.
35:29I started to feel a bit guilty, like we were hovering over the carcass
35:32of a business idea in its last throes.
35:35And worse than that, we were actively prick-teasing them, weren't we?
35:39When we both downloaded the app, I imagine the BookerPod head office
35:44got some kind of alert.
35:46And somewhere around a boardroom, they're all going excited,
35:48it's happening, guys!
35:50We've got lift-off! Here he goes!
35:52And the only way we could see of checking on a pod's availability
35:56was to behave as if you were going to book it,
35:58and then just at the last minute, not booking it.
36:03So every day we were giving them false hope over and over and over again.
36:08I just kind of wanted to stop because it had stopped being fun so long ago,
36:12but neither of us knew how to stop.
36:15It had just become a habit. It was sort of like Wordle.
36:18And I couldn't really win, could I?
36:21I was trying to prove a negative, that something hadn't happened,
36:24and all I could really prove was that something hadn't happened yet.
36:28I could only see two ways for this to end.
36:30One, they had a booking, which means I've lost.
36:34Or two, the pods finally take their terminal breath
36:38and disappear from the landscape, which means that I've won,
36:42but in a way that I couldn't possibly celebrate.
36:45It got worse, ladies and gentlemen.
36:47James got all excited one day and told me that he thought they had a booking.
36:50Then he went away and looked into it and came back,
36:53looking a bit crestfall, and he had discovered
36:55that the motorway services company, Moto, had asked them to leave.
37:00And all of the service station pods were gone.
37:04Now they just had three pods in multi-storey car parks.
37:08That's not quite true. They had five pods in total.
37:11Three of them were in multi-storey car parks.
37:13One of them was actually in the Go Pod HQ.
37:16LAUGHTER
37:19That's their headquarters, which is on an industrial estate in Kent.
37:23I don't know about you, but it just doesn't feel like a place
37:25with high footfall from members of the public.
37:28Now that you've seen this, you can probably guess where the fifth one is,
37:31actually. There's a pattern here, if you think about it.
37:33That's the HQ in Kent, OK?
37:36Then they've got them in car parks in Carmarthen, in Sheffield and in Manchester.
37:40It's sort of obvious now, isn't it, when you think about it,
37:42where the fifth one's going to be, yeah?
37:44Do you see the pattern developing? It's obvious, isn't it, yeah?
37:46New York.
37:48LAUGHTER
37:50I'm not making that up!
37:51Genuinely, in the middle of Manhattan, just off Broadway,
37:55is it just me or is anyone else thinking,
37:57that must have been a mistake?
37:59Surely that delivery was meant to go to York?
38:01LAUGHTER
38:03Now it felt even worse.
38:05I think, really, secretly, we both wanted it to end.
38:09And then one day, it looked like it finally might be over.
38:13They had a booking, ladies and gentlemen, in Manchester.
38:17At 12 noon, James was bouncing.
38:21I said, is this you just trying to make it end?
38:24He said, of course not.
38:25Look, it's a £9.99 booking.
38:27If it was me, I'd have booked one of the cheap ones, wouldn't I?
38:30I said, that's what you would say if you were trying to convince me
38:32that it wasn't you, isn't it?
38:34Yeah, I'm on to you.
38:35He said, you're being ridiculous now.
38:37Ladies and gentlemen, I said something I am very much not proud of.
38:41I used a phrase that a man of my years should never use.
38:44I said...
38:46..picks or it didn't happen.
38:47LAUGHTER
38:49I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
38:51APPLAUSE
38:52I know, I'm sorry.
38:53APPLAUSE
38:56I happen to know James well, ladies and gentlemen.
38:59Long story short, the next day,
39:01he sends me this picture.
39:03And the message,
39:04I am on site.
39:05LAUGHTER
39:07I repeat, I am on site.
39:10Reconnaissance begins.
39:12LAUGHTER
39:13Pod empty.
39:14LAUGHTER
39:15He's there, as you can see,
39:16about 15 minutes before the booking is supposed to start.
39:19I sent him a message back saying, what's it like?
39:22And he replied, it's a multi-storey car park.
39:24LAUGHTER
39:25Which sort of does tell you everything, doesn't it?
39:27Then he sent me this picture, with the words,
39:31but there's a seating area.
39:33LAUGHTER
39:34And also this, adding, and a vending machine.
39:37LAUGHTER
39:38What are these people thinking?
39:40Just outside this car park lies the city of Manchester,
39:44and yet these people think you might want to hang out in the car park,
39:48breathing in the fumes of the bus station below.
39:52James adds, I guess now we wait.
39:57Ten minutes later, he adds, I'm secretly filming.
40:01LAUGHTER
40:03To capture their arrival.
40:05LAUGHTER
40:07But at one minute past 12, he didn't send me anything.
40:10And at five minutes past, there was still nothing.
40:13So eventually, at ten past 12, I message him to ask,
40:18what are you doing now?
40:20LAUGHTER
40:22Waiting.
40:24LAUGHTER
40:27I'm reading a book to blend in.
40:29LAUGHTER
40:32Who are you blending in with?
40:34LAUGHTER
40:36No one.
40:38LAUGHTER
40:39There's nobody here.
40:40Of course they aren't!
40:42It's a multi-storey car park!
40:44LAUGHTER
40:45It gets to 20 past 12.
40:47What's happening now?
40:49Nothing.
40:51LAUGHTER
40:53Are you sure somebody's booked in?
40:55You can admit it if it was you.
40:58He wasn't giving in, ladies and gentlemen.
41:00They'll turn up.
41:02LAUGHTER
41:0312.25, and I sense that James is starting to lose hope.
41:09This is bloody ridiculous.
41:11LAUGHTER
41:12These benches are really uncomfortable.
41:14LAUGHTER
41:15He wasn't alone.
41:16I was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable
41:18about the fact that he'd travelled from London to Manchester
41:21in order to sit in a car park,
41:23all because he shares my sense of stubbornness.
41:25So I replied,
41:27You think you're uncomfortable?
41:29What about me?
41:30Huh?
41:31What about you?
41:34So I told him,
41:36I'm hiding under a table.
41:39LAUGHTER
41:40In a bloody Booker pod.
41:41LAUGHTER
41:42APPLAUSE
41:44Now...
41:54In this first one of James's videos,
41:57I have got into slow-mo at one point,
41:59because I want you to appreciate the detail.
42:01Take a look at the door handle.
42:02When you see those lights flashing on the door handle,
42:04that is the person who booked the pod unlocking the door.
42:08Just so you know.
42:09Who?
42:19You...
42:24LAUGHTER
42:26APPLAUSE
42:28You absolute...
42:38LAUGHTER
42:41From all the way to Manchester.
42:43LAUGHTER
42:44All the way to Manchester.
42:45And that, ladies and gentlemen,
42:47is the faith of a man who's thinking...
42:49should have booked New York.
42:51LAUGHTER
42:52LAUGHTER
42:53But I'll tell you what, ladies and gentlemen,
42:56a lot of good has come out of this.
42:58Not least,
43:00it means that this
43:02is no longer single-use plastic.
43:04LAUGHTER
43:05Oh, no.
43:06Oh, no.
43:07APPLAUSE
43:08Sorry for the use.
43:09APPLAUSE
43:10And one more thing.
43:13Grace, if you're watching,
43:15that's how you hide under a table.
43:17All right?
43:18LAUGHTER
43:19Thanks for watching.
43:20Good night.
43:21CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:23Hey!
43:37Hey!
43:43Hey!
43:45Hey!
43:48Hey!
43:49Transcription by CastingWords
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