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None. 
OK, so everything's holding. 

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Simon Rush. 
Thank you for joining me in the 

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trenches. 
Oh, it's, it's our pleasure. 

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I speak on behalf of Saitlanders
who pay my salary and enable me 

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to do this. 
It's a pleasure to be here, 

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Jeremy. 
The pleasure's all mine, Simon, 

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because I love chatting to you 
and I'm very glad that we're 

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going to do this on a regular 
basis, so thank you for that. 

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Again, a pleasure. 
It's very conversational, it's 

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thoroughly enjoyable. 
I always look forward to it and 

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that's that's why I occasionally
send you a slightly nasty 

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message every time you miss a 
you don't keep a promise. 

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The reason the reason why you do
that though, is because I 

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haven't yet joined you for a 
hunt and I I really want to 

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change that soon, I promise. 
Yeah, you must, man. 

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The hunting is good here. 
I've got just above my house. 

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I counted recently. 
One herd of two. 

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I think I stopped counting at 
211 up. 

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Forget but well over 200 
Springbok that are just, you 

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know, taking the cattle's 
grazing. 

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They they have to be haunted. 
They need to be haunted and who 

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who better to come and hunt? 
Actually, let's let's stay on 

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that for a second because just 
recently I recorded a 

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conversation with my friend 
Farmer Angus and and his 

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regenerative farming style. 
And naturally, what comes up in 

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some of the comments is people 
don't like the idea of of 

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killing animals, right? 
And that leads to the 

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conversation around hunting and 
conservation. 

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And the knee jerk response is 
always, how can you conserve 

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animals if you're shooting them?
Simon, please, for the love of 

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sanity, explain why hunting is 
integral. 

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To conservation, because if the 
animals are not kept in check, 

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they will outgrow the space and 
they will starve one another to 

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death. 
They'll all fight over the last 

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blade of grass as the herds get 
bigger and bigger and bigger. 

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And then you watch them starve 
to death. 

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And watching animals starve to 
death is I've I've been very up 

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close and personal with it. 
I once spent, I think it was 

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close to 12 weeks, call it 10 
weeks for the sake of a number 

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on a farm during a drought when 
the farmer couldn't, he just 

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couldn't bear it anymore. 
He fell into a depression and he

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more or less didn't come out of 
the house. 

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And I was camping among the the 
flocks of of mohair. 

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I'm trying to think of the right
name, the goats that produce 

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mohair. 
Why can't I think of the blasted

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name? 
Anyway, yes, Angora goats, 6000 

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of them, and watching him starve
to death is one of the most 

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traumatic things that I've ever 
seen in my life. 

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00:03:36,600 --> 00:03:39,520
Besides, you've got to be 
mentally retarded to go down 

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00:03:39,520 --> 00:03:41,160
this road. 
I mean, it takes a special kind 

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00:03:41,160 --> 00:03:47,400
of stupid to approve to approve 
of vivi section. 

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Implicitly approve of Vivi 
section by wearing makeup in 

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which they don't they, they had 
the nature of Vivi section is to

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test at what point the animal 
experiences what degree of 

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suffering. 
So it's not like they, you know,

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put makeup in the little mouse's
eye and say, well, he didn't 

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00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:11,840
seem to feel a thing or, yeah, 
it was slightly uncomfortable. 

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00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:18,760
They leave it there for as long 
as it takes for the, the, the, 

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the, the animal to get 
mixomatosis and cancers. 

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00:04:22,440 --> 00:04:23,920
And they do it on dogs and what 
have you. 

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So honestly, I, I just want to 
punch in the face that that kind

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00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:38,520
of that, that that very peculiar
breed of hypocrite that approves

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of vivi section but not hunting 
for a good purpose. 

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And I've never met a vegan who 
didn't wear makeup. 

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Not one. 
I'm talking about women. 

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Now you would think there would 
be 1 tyranny. 

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You would think they could find 
one. 

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Just a little bit of blush. 
I I just found the bass evens 

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out the ACP marks. 
The thing Simon though, is that 

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is that people who say these 
things are responding 

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emotionally and they don't. 
They clearly don't live in an 

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environment like we do. 
Yeah. 

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00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:16,880
You know, the other thing to 
bear in mind, Jeremy, is that 

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hunting can be botched. 
It, it can be botched and it can

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be traumatic, but if it's done 
well, it's not at all traumatic.

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00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:32,280
The animal doesn't know that 
it's died whereas and I can 

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00:05:32,280 --> 00:05:33,920
prove this. 
I've had people challenge me on 

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00:05:33,920 --> 00:05:36,760
this and I've said I will 
arrange a visit to the abattoir 

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00:05:36,760 --> 00:05:39,160
now because I have the contacts 
I. 

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00:05:39,280 --> 00:05:41,920
Did that, I did that. 
More people should do it. 

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00:05:42,520 --> 00:05:49,720
Yes, and in in South Africa and 
countries with halal meat, it's 

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00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:54,320
particularly bad, but it's not 
great anywhere in the world. 

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Those animals are absolutely 
traumatised because they can 

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00:05:57,840 --> 00:06:04,240
smell that blood in the air for 
an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, four 

85
00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:07,800
hours while they stand waiting 
to be slaughtered in the, you 

86
00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:12,560
know, as they move from the what
we would call a crawl through 

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00:06:12,560 --> 00:06:17,240
the press gang to be slaughtered
so that they know what's 

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00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:20,320
happening and you can see the 
trauma in their eyes and they 

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00:06:20,320 --> 00:06:24,160
flare their nostrils. 
It's absolutely terrifying. 

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00:06:24,440 --> 00:06:29,920
And of course when it's halal 
it's much worse because halal 

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00:06:30,440 --> 00:06:34,920
law doesn't permit you to. 
The animal has to be conscious 

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00:06:34,960 --> 00:06:39,920
that it is being slaughtered. 
So when they stun it and then 

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cut its throat, they they stun 
it in such a way that it is only

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00:06:45,320 --> 00:06:47,400
stunned that it's not blacked 
out. 

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00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:53,120
When animals are slaughtered 
halal, so they perfectly aware 

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00:06:53,520 --> 00:06:57,600
that a knife and and they have 
to be slaughtered by knife, that

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00:06:57,600 --> 00:07:00,480
a knife is cutting its throat. 
As opposed to the other way 

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00:07:00,480 --> 00:07:04,440
around where you you use an 
instrument like in that country,

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00:07:05,280 --> 00:07:09,080
that movie No Country for old 
Men or whatever, we're the guy 

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moving. 
Yeah, that instrument usually 

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00:07:13,240 --> 00:07:16,920
would kill the animal, then its 
throat would be cut for it to be

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bled. 
But in South Africa, it's the 

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other way around because the 
although our country only has a 

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Muslim population of about 2%, 
the the abattoirs and the 

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00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:34,640
retailers particularly are so 
terrified of being branded 

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racists or Islamophobia is 
Islamophobia is that they pander

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to that market. 
So all of our animals are 

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slaughtered halal with very few 
exceptions. 

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Very, very, very few exceptions.
So those animals are, are well 

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aware that their throat is being
cut open for them to die that 

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way. 
And when an animal is 

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slaughtered that way, it's not 
like the movies, it's not like 

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the throat is cut and you 
immediately keel over stone 

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dead. 
The animal is. 

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It takes two or three seconds 
for adequate blood. 

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00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:17,680
Sorry. 
For adequate blood to drain out 

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of the brain for it to enter 
unconsciousness and die. 

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So, yeah, hunting, by 
comparison, is nothing besides 

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the fact that it's good for the 
environment and for the herds so

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that they don't suffer lingering
deaths over months. 

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00:08:37,480 --> 00:08:39,600
Terrible to to watch animals 
starve to death. 

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00:08:39,640 --> 00:08:41,679
Oh, Jeremy, it's the worst thing
you've ever seen. 

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00:08:42,720 --> 00:08:45,520
And. 
All you have to do is is observe

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the Kruger National Park. 
If if people understand what's 

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going on there, maybe they might
consider why hunting matters. 

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For example, there are too many 
elephants in Kruger, way too 

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many thousands and thousands too
many. 

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The hunting programme, well the 
cutting programme stopped in the

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00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:07,080
early 90s and what's happened 
now? 

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The elephants are destroying the
landscape faster than the than 

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what the landscape can recover. 
So which means that trees are 

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00:09:15,640 --> 00:09:18,920
starting to get lower and lower.
And of course, that affects all 

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00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:24,120
animal life in the park. 
Yeah, Jeremy, it's a product of 

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00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:32,000
neoliberal self hating 
Westerners who are, you know, 

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00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:36,600
really genetic detritus. 
And it is the case, you know, 

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00:09:36,600 --> 00:09:39,960
Doctor, what is his name? 
He's a, he's a descent. 

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00:09:39,960 --> 00:09:44,280
He, there's some universities in
Europe that still retain the old

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descent qualification, which is 
between PhD and Professor. 

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00:09:52,560 --> 00:09:56,800
Edward Dutton. 
The Jolly Heretic is his channel

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00:09:56,800 --> 00:10:02,520
on YouTube and he has spoken 
very eloquently as a scientist 

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00:10:02,920 --> 00:10:07,480
about how this is it's genetics.
It's very bad genetics that have

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00:10:07,480 --> 00:10:11,920
crept into the West because we 
don't have to have good genetics

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to survive. 
We, we have by and large, not 

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00:10:15,160 --> 00:10:19,160
here in South Africa, but you 
know, nanny states that take 

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00:10:19,160 --> 00:10:22,320
care of us. 
And so children, I'm sorry to 

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00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:27,560
say this, children who 
genetically shouldn't breed do 

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00:10:27,560 --> 00:10:32,000
breed because they don't die 
shortly after birth. 

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00:10:32,680 --> 00:10:35,720
It's a terrible, terrible 
subject, but that's the way it 

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00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:37,440
is. 
These you have these people with

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00:10:37,440 --> 00:10:41,440
these monstrously bad ideas 
calling the shots. 

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00:10:41,440 --> 00:10:45,240
We had the most successful 
elephant management programme in

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00:10:45,240 --> 00:10:49,240
the whole wide world up until 
the early 90s and then in the 

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00:10:49,240 --> 00:10:52,800
rush to become part of the 
global community in again the 

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00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:59,120
early 90s over that sort of grey
period between apartheid and at 

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00:10:59,120 --> 00:11:05,640
1994 when the African National 
Congress won the 1st multiracial

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00:11:05,640 --> 00:11:10,480
democratic election, we were 
falling over ourselves to say 

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yes Sir, no Sir, 3 bags full 
Sir, to everything that that the

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00:11:14,920 --> 00:11:17,640
world asked of us. 
So the people who knew the least

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00:11:18,200 --> 00:11:23,040
about elephant conservation got 
to call the shots over the 

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00:11:23,040 --> 00:11:25,960
people who knew the most in the 
whole world about elephant 

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00:11:25,960 --> 00:11:28,600
conversation. 
And it was to do with the the 

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00:11:28,600 --> 00:11:35,360
sale of ivory and our sales of 
ivory, legitimate sales of ivory

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00:11:35,520 --> 00:11:40,880
to China from cold animals that 
had to be called, called for the

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00:11:40,880 --> 00:11:42,360
reasons that you've just 
described. 

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00:11:42,600 --> 00:11:47,000
The terrible destruction of the 
Kruger National Park, which is 

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00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:50,760
just about the size of the state
of Israel and was one of the the

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00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:53,720
finest national parks in the 
world. 

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00:11:55,320 --> 00:12:01,320
Yeah, that ivory funded tensions
of millions of dollars. 

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00:12:02,160 --> 00:12:05,880
Just by the way, the Kruger 
National Park at least has a 

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00:12:05,880 --> 00:12:13,560
legitimate reason to exist. 
Yeah, I hear you. 

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00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:21,560
I love looking for Segways and I
absolutely cannot find one here.

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00:12:21,560 --> 00:12:24,360
But you, you were recently in 
Russia and I just, I cannot find

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00:12:24,360 --> 00:12:26,120
the link. 
So let's just jump straight into

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00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:29,160
into your trip. 
You were in Russia for a very 

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00:12:29,160 --> 00:12:32,080
long time. 
Simon, tell me a bit more about 

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00:12:32,080 --> 00:12:36,080
that. 
OK, for some years on World 

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00:12:36,080 --> 00:12:38,720
Broadcasting Network and many 
other interviews, but but 

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00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:43,880
regularly they I tried to expose
the lies of the whole Russia 

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00:12:43,880 --> 00:12:49,840
narrative and eventually it was 
three people contacted me, a 

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00:12:49,840 --> 00:12:55,520
member of parliament in Russia 
and two guys who are just do 

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00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:57,400
gooders. 
You know, they they've got the 

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00:12:57,760 --> 00:13:03,080
opportunity, the financial 
opportunity to devote lots of 

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00:13:03,080 --> 00:13:06,840
time to encouraging Christian 
conservative Caucasians to come 

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00:13:06,840 --> 00:13:09,560
to Russia. 
So they propose that I go 

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00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:15,160
eventually found the money and I
went to Moscow and I met a 

186
00:13:16,120 --> 00:13:20,480
absolutely unbelievable group of
people called the Brotherhood of

187
00:13:20,480 --> 00:13:24,040
Academists and then a 
brotherhood of the the top 

188
00:13:24,040 --> 00:13:26,040
university students in, in 
Russia. 

189
00:13:26,960 --> 00:13:29,600
And I said to them, you know, 
I'd love to go to Donbass. 

190
00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:32,320
I mean, that would be my 
ultimate. 

191
00:13:32,880 --> 00:13:34,680
So they said, well, we might 
have a contact. 

192
00:13:34,680 --> 00:13:37,680
So in the meantime, I knocked 
around Moscow for a bit. 

193
00:13:37,680 --> 00:13:41,400
Then I went up to Arkham Gelsk 
to experience the far North, 

194
00:13:42,120 --> 00:13:45,840
which was lovely. 
And I got back to Moscow and 

195
00:13:45,840 --> 00:13:50,960
they said we, you know, we've 
arranged that you can go to 

196
00:13:50,960 --> 00:13:54,800
Donbas. 
So I went down to Donbas and 

197
00:13:55,680 --> 00:13:58,360
journalists, they are so rare 
foreign journalists. 

198
00:13:58,360 --> 00:14:00,120
There's a French guy and I 
believe there's a British 

199
00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:04,640
journalist living in Donetsk. 
But to give you a, for instance,

200
00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:09,440
and I'm not a journalist, but it
just kind of, you know, things 

201
00:14:09,920 --> 00:14:15,560
evolved. 
I went to the site of a famous 

202
00:14:15,560 --> 00:14:19,240
battle that, you know, nothing. 
All the mine fields were still 

203
00:14:19,240 --> 00:14:22,520
intact at Nicole Skye, a 
monastery. 

204
00:14:23,480 --> 00:14:26,280
So it had only been liberated a 
short, short while before. 

205
00:14:26,280 --> 00:14:29,760
We were just a few kilometres 
from on the front lines. 

206
00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:35,640
And one of the monks said that 
he'd had a premonition that I 

207
00:14:35,640 --> 00:14:37,880
would arrive. 
He said he'd had it for a few 

208
00:14:37,880 --> 00:14:40,080
days. 
So that was quite, you know, 

209
00:14:40,080 --> 00:14:41,880
that was lovely to hear. 
And he said, you know, we've 

210
00:14:41,880 --> 00:14:45,920
only ever had three journalists,
one from Brazil, presumably Pepe

211
00:14:45,920 --> 00:14:48,720
Escobar, because I know he's 
been there all very near to 

212
00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:52,720
thee, one from India and one 
from China, 3 foreign 

213
00:14:52,760 --> 00:14:57,440
journalists. 
And so it was a great privilege 

214
00:14:57,440 --> 00:15:01,200
for me in synopsis to be able to
go there and to see what's 

215
00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:02,840
cooking with my own eyes. 
Jeremy. 

216
00:15:04,960 --> 00:15:09,200
And. 
And every single word in the 

217
00:15:09,200 --> 00:15:11,680
West is a lie. 
Every, every word about 

218
00:15:11,680 --> 00:15:13,800
everything. 
Nothing is true at all. 

219
00:15:14,160 --> 00:15:18,920
The slightly snide tone in which
Western journalists write as 

220
00:15:18,920 --> 00:15:24,280
snide or patronising or 
condescending, but more often 

221
00:15:24,280 --> 00:15:28,680
than not patronising or snide is
just completely unjustified. 

222
00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:32,320
Russian people are the loveliest
people you could ever wish to 

223
00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:34,760
meet in your life. 
All of them, all of the time. 

224
00:15:34,760 --> 00:15:39,840
You'll get the odd, you know, 
punk, but as a broad 

225
00:15:39,840 --> 00:15:45,200
generalisation they reserve 
people so they appear to be 

226
00:15:45,560 --> 00:15:52,720
sombre or even surly, but once 
you break the ice they're 

227
00:15:52,720 --> 00:15:56,040
terrific. 
One of the guys who hosted me 

228
00:15:56,600 --> 00:15:59,720
said to me you will reap the 
benefit of being a foreigner, 

229
00:15:59,720 --> 00:16:02,240
you will. 
But if you stay here long 

230
00:16:02,240 --> 00:16:06,600
enough, you will also start to 
see through it that it's not 

231
00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:10,320
just a foreigner thing. 
We, we know ourselves as kind. 

232
00:16:10,800 --> 00:16:15,960
Those of us who travel can't 
believe how unkind Westerners 

233
00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:16,920
are. 
We. 

234
00:16:16,920 --> 00:16:19,640
We are conscious of the fact 
that we are kind, generous, 

235
00:16:19,640 --> 00:16:22,720
helpful people and we've always 
been like that. 

236
00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:24,520
It's a kind of an inbuilt 
Russian thing. 

237
00:16:25,400 --> 00:16:28,240
And that's certainly true. 
I've got help from sure. 

238
00:16:28,280 --> 00:16:31,920
You can't believe how many 
people just want to do something

239
00:16:31,920 --> 00:16:35,480
small for you, and they do it 
for one another all the time. 

240
00:16:35,480 --> 00:16:39,520
And the food is fantastic and 
it's dirt cheap and I've never 

241
00:16:39,520 --> 00:16:44,280
seen so much variety in my life.
I went into Pet Georgeka, which 

242
00:16:44,280 --> 00:16:51,480
is a chain of corner shops, so 
you get them every couple of 100

243
00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:54,480
yards. 
I don't know how many there are 

244
00:16:54,480 --> 00:16:57,960
in Russia, but the millions, so 
to speak. 

245
00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:05,280
And in this tiny little corner 
shop, I counted 108 different 

246
00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:11,560
varieties of bread. 
Not 108 loaves, 108 varieties. 

247
00:17:12,920 --> 00:17:15,480
The way they stack their shelves
is completely different to the 

248
00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:18,119
waist. 
You wouldn't have, for instance,

249
00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:23,079
4 bottles of Bovril 8 deep next 
to one another. 

250
00:17:23,079 --> 00:17:28,840
You know, 4 rows. 
You would have one row of Bovril

251
00:17:28,840 --> 00:17:31,480
and then all of the different 
things alongside it. 

252
00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:36,560
So it's just this bewildering 
array of variety. 1 of I've got 

253
00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:44,240
a Mercedes S500 that was South 
Africa's richest man's last car 

254
00:17:46,680 --> 00:17:49,640
before he died. 
Richest man in in the past. 

255
00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:55,320
So it's a lovely car and one of 
my sons was using it and he's 

256
00:17:55,440 --> 00:17:59,800
mad about Mercedes. 
And after 24 hours I've been 

257
00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:02,800
there, exactly 24 hours. 
I rang him and I said I hadn't 

258
00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:06,840
yet been to central Moscow. 
I've been outside the Three 

259
00:18:06,840 --> 00:18:11,120
Rings, quite far outside the The
Three Rings in a place called 

260
00:18:11,120 --> 00:18:16,040
Yuzhny Tushner. 
So I hadn't seen opulence yet. 

261
00:18:17,120 --> 00:18:22,520
I've rang him and I said in the 
past 24 hours I've seen more 

262
00:18:22,520 --> 00:18:29,240
Gilander Waggon S series, my 
Bach and AMG Mercedes that I've 

263
00:18:29,240 --> 00:18:34,000
seen in the rest of my life put 
together in Frankfurt, Berlin, 

264
00:18:34,240 --> 00:18:38,520
Washington, New York, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera, put 

265
00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:42,160
together. 
So it's a very, very wealthy 

266
00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:45,240
society. 
Everybody's doing well. 

267
00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:49,280
The employment opportunities 
just never end. 

268
00:18:49,280 --> 00:18:51,480
The business opportunities are 
endless. 

269
00:18:51,480 --> 00:18:55,280
I ended up putting together an 
enormous deal with a few 10s of 

270
00:18:55,280 --> 00:18:58,000
millions of dollars while I was 
there, but I won't go into the 

271
00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:01,280
details of it. 
But I happened to know the right

272
00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:04,960
person just by absolute 
unbelievable coincidence. 

273
00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:09,320
So this deal will be worth over 
$100 million over time. 

274
00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:14,160
But that kind of opportunity is 
just it's, it's low hanging 

275
00:19:14,160 --> 00:19:17,280
fruit. 
The people, they like 

276
00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:20,200
foreigners, they treat you well.
There's. 

277
00:19:20,520 --> 00:19:22,240
Yeah, it's, it's all going on 
there. 

278
00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:25,680
Jeremy, if I was 25 years 
younger, I would move there in a

279
00:19:25,680 --> 00:19:28,240
heartbeat. 
If I didn't have sons in South 

280
00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:33,280
Africa, my very next move would 
be to apply for Russian 

281
00:19:33,320 --> 00:19:37,560
citizenship and and do whatever.
I was quite a world famous 

282
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,800
projects manager, you know, did 
a tonne of international work at

283
00:19:41,800 --> 00:19:44,800
the very highest level. 
So I wouldn't, I don't think I 

284
00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:49,640
battled to get a job. 
But obviously the knee jerk, the

285
00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:54,200
knee jerk reaction would be, but
Russia's being sanctioned by the

286
00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:56,760
West, so surely the people must 
be struggling. 

287
00:19:57,800 --> 00:20:03,480
No man, no Jeremy, you know I'm 
not telling your audience or 

288
00:20:03,480 --> 00:20:05,680
you. 
I'm recounting what I told my 

289
00:20:05,680 --> 00:20:08,480
beloved son. 
I could have said to him. 

290
00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:10,560
It's half as much, twice as 
much, whatever. 

291
00:20:10,560 --> 00:20:14,160
My whole life put together 6 
cities put together, I said to 

292
00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:17,040
my whole life in every place 
that I've visited, all put 

293
00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:21,240
together not as many S class my 
Bach. 

294
00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:26,120
AMG and Gilanderwagen Mercedes, 
as I've seen in my whole life 

295
00:20:26,120 --> 00:20:29,280
altogether, there's money there.
There's a hell of a lot of money

296
00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:31,680
there and there's a hell of a 
lot of work. 

297
00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:37,160
Jeremy, you cannot believe the 
the employment is unbelievable 

298
00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:42,480
that you go to hotels and 
they're crying for people to to 

299
00:20:42,480 --> 00:20:47,840
come and do you know get jobs. 
Pleading 1 receptionist while I 

300
00:20:47,840 --> 00:20:50,520
was there worked. 
Gee, I don't want to exaggerate.

301
00:20:50,520 --> 00:20:55,680
I think 3 days straight because 
so she would take naps, you 

302
00:20:55,680 --> 00:20:59,240
know, kind of 10:00 at night 
until 5:00 in the morning. 

303
00:20:59,240 --> 00:21:01,240
She'd hope and pray that she 
wasn't disturbed. 

304
00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:07,840
But there's just that there's a 
shortage of, of workers. 

305
00:21:07,880 --> 00:21:12,200
The the economy is cooking. 
Like you can't believe the 

306
00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:14,800
sanctions are meaningless, 
Jeremy, Absolutely meaningless. 

307
00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:19,960
There's the, you know, Jeremy, 
the the three best hamburgers 

308
00:21:19,960 --> 00:21:23,000
I've had in my life, I had one 
that was awful, absolutely 

309
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:26,280
awful. 
But the three best hamburgers I 

310
00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:29,400
had I've had in my life are in 
Russia. 

311
00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:34,360
Just to illustrate the concept 
of quality as opposed to, you 

312
00:21:34,360 --> 00:21:40,920
know, there's there's good 
quality work being done and 

313
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:45,360
there's enough money to fund it 
and not enough people even to do

314
00:21:45,360 --> 00:21:47,520
it. 
And it's so, so much the case 

315
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:51,920
that recently a gang of 
businessmen, top guys managed to

316
00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:56,160
secure a meeting with Vladimir 
Putin, which ended up being 

317
00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:59,680
recorded in which they said, 
look, Sir, sorry to trouble you,

318
00:22:00,240 --> 00:22:03,360
sorry to take up your time. 
But we are desperately worried. 

319
00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:07,880
And he said, what about? 
And they said, we're afraid that

320
00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:11,440
you're going to relent and 
you're going to allow the 

321
00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:14,600
businesses that abandoned this 
country, that sanctioned this 

322
00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:16,840
country to come back, that 
you're going to have pity on 

323
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:20,960
them. 
And we've poured a lot into 

324
00:22:22,040 --> 00:22:25,400
filling those niches. 
And he had to reassure them, no,

325
00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:27,720
don't worry. 
We we're not going to do that. 

326
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:30,160
They want the sanctions to 
continue. 

327
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:33,080
They're desperate for the 
sanctions to continue because it

328
00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:39,120
allows them to insulate or it's,
it's a forced insulation of 

329
00:22:39,120 --> 00:22:42,040
their economy and they're OK, 
Jack. 

330
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:48,080
With that and they're trading 
with all the countries that are 

331
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:51,160
not sanctioning them, which by 
the way is majority of the 

332
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:54,000
world. 
People seem to forget how small 

333
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:58,200
the Western, what's the, what's 
the word I'm looking for? 

334
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:00,320
The Western collective is it's 
extremely small. 

335
00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:04,560
Yes, yes. 
It has hitherto been, you know, 

336
00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:07,880
influential over centuries, you 
could even say millennia, 

337
00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:10,120
stretching back to the time of 
ancient Greece. 

338
00:23:10,760 --> 00:23:14,360
The West has been a, if not the 
dominant force, a dominant 

339
00:23:14,360 --> 00:23:21,200
force, But the, the, the global 
S, particularly the East, have 

340
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:24,360
cottoned on to the recipe 
because they have a super 

341
00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:27,480
abundance of people to carry out
that recipe. 

342
00:23:27,840 --> 00:23:31,520
They're going about it hammer 
and tongs, with the result that 

343
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:35,240
the the relative importance of 
the West is declining year by 

344
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:37,360
year. 
And now we're hearing Scott 

345
00:23:37,360 --> 00:23:44,400
Basent shrieking about Japan and
China having to buy bonds 

346
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:47,400
because the the USA simply can't
offload them. 

347
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:54,040
The world is turning away from 
the Western breast, as it were, 

348
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:56,120
Breast in the sense of breast 
milk. 

349
00:23:57,040 --> 00:24:02,040
The world has has had to suckle 
on the Western breast like like 

350
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:06,360
an infant, because from the West
came all of the brilliance, the 

351
00:24:06,360 --> 00:24:12,840
creativity, the progress, the 
the great leaps forward of. 

352
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:17,800
Mankind, not all of it. 
I mean, gunpowder came out of 

353
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:19,280
China for example. 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

354
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:22,280
Not not all of it, but 
overwhelmingly, you know, they 

355
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:25,480
are. 
It's that stereotype of the 

356
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:28,520
exception proving the rule. 
You know, we can all think of 

357
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:32,480
gunpowder and ink, and then we 
pause a little bit and we try to

358
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:34,960
pretend that we didn't pause 
before. 

359
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:37,880
We give a third example that 
say, I think the the wheel came 

360
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:39,680
from Sumeria, but I'm not too 
sure. 

361
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:45,680
Generally speaking, the West has
been a a a force for the the 

362
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:47,960
progression of mankind. 
What's that? 

363
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:50,920
What's that Monty Python sketch?
But what did the Romans ever do 

364
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,480
for us? 
Yeah, Yeah. 

365
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:57,840
Did you know Jeremy that they 
just discovered recently It, 

366
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:00,800
it's it, I want to say in the 
past five years, perhaps it's 

367
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:04,040
10, perhaps it's 15, but it's 
relatively very, very recently. 

368
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:10,840
Why it is that Roman cement is 
is still all of it, obviously, 

369
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:14,880
But that which is intact is 
still absolutely solid. 

370
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:19,000
Whereas you might cement the 
wall of a house. 

371
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:24,880
And if a poor job is done, 
whatever, you know, it starts 

372
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,520
falling off after a few years. 
Do you know what the reason is? 

373
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:31,960
No. 
The Romans used salt water. 

374
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:34,880
Salt water? 
What? 

375
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:36,400
Scientists just figured it out 
recently. 

376
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:39,320
Yeah. 
Salt water has this kind of 

377
00:25:40,120 --> 00:25:45,360
exponential effect on on cement 
concrete. 

378
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:49,400
That actually kind of makes 
sense if you think about it, 

379
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:54,040
because of what Seoul does over 
time, Yeah, it calcifies. 

380
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:04,200
And often when we talk about 
Russia versus the West and the 

381
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:06,360
sanctions, etcetera, it's always
geopolitical. 

382
00:26:06,360 --> 00:26:09,920
But on a human level, how did 
you find Russia? 

383
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:16,400
On a human level, there are some
things that are are difficult. 

384
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:23,560
One of them is the language, and
that is made exponentially more 

385
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:30,640
difficult by the alphabet 
because when you obviously it's 

386
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:33,080
the same with Chinese, Japanese 
and Korean. 

387
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:37,680
I'm not saying this is, you 
know, completely unique, but 

388
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:42,080
there is a kind of a, I don't 
want to say old wives tale. 

389
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:46,400
What's the urban legend? 
I suppose that Russian is one of

390
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,320
the five most difficult 
languages to learn. 

391
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:53,680
And when you can't decipher any 
of it, it's very bewildering. 

392
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:56,880
I know people who moved to 
Russia from South Africa. 

393
00:26:57,040 --> 00:27:03,000
They're doing very, very well, 
by the way, working as English 

394
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,920
teachers in a kindergarten, but 
living in a really posh part of 

395
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,320
Moscow. 
They say we we do beautifully. 

396
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:13,040
Anyway, they were too afraid 
because of the language, as I 

397
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:18,240
say, multiplied by the alphabet 
to take a a bus for something 

398
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:22,320
like 3 months and they didn't 
catch the metro for something 

399
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:24,320
like 2 years. 
If I remember correctly. 

400
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,880
I was catching the bus by the 
second day that I was there 

401
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:31,280
because I was able to fathom 
something really simple as far 

402
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:37,760
as the bus route from my hotel 
to the the urban centre nearby 

403
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:44,040
centre was concerned. 
But even I was I was very 

404
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:45,120
intimidated. 
This that. 

405
00:27:45,120 --> 00:27:49,400
And you do get a sort of a 
village mentality and people 

406
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:53,000
warn you about it, though they 
will say to you, look, people 

407
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:58,040
from the village are rough. 
And I did experience that once 

408
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:01,240
or twice. 
Some real, I'm sorry to use the 

409
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:05,120
word, but real assholes just 
doing absolutely stupid things. 

410
00:28:05,120 --> 00:28:09,520
For instance, I went to an 
enormous amount of trouble to 

411
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:13,160
book a bus ticket across the 
Kerch Bridge, the one that NATO 

412
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:18,080
keeps on trying to destroy, and 
to get a window seat on the 

413
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:21,880
correct side, on the right hand 
side so I'd be able to film. 

414
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:26,680
And a guy got on the bus before 
me and an old man from the 

415
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:29,960
village, and he simply refused 
to relinquish my seat. 

416
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:33,720
And it became like a little bit 
of a scene and I had to back 

417
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:34,720
down. 
You know, I didn't want to be 

418
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:38,560
the foreigner causing trouble. 
And I had one very scary 

419
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:41,800
incident. 
I caught a train from Moscow to 

420
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:48,320
Alhangelsk. 
And I, when I got on, I said to 

421
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:53,600
the conductress, I'm with Google
Translate on my phone. 

422
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:59,880
Look, I make videos for YouTube.
I invited here by a member of 

423
00:28:59,880 --> 00:29:04,600
Parliament and I want to tell 
the truth about Russia. 

424
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:08,440
Can I work in? 
Can I go to the eating the 

425
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,760
dining car? 
You know, what are the rules 

426
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:11,840
around here? 
Can I just go there? 

427
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:13,480
Do I have to ask permission? 
Do I need a stamp? 

428
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,040
Do I have to pay money? 
She helped me. 

429
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:18,280
She rushed me down to the dining
car. 

430
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:21,680
She gave the manager of the 
dining car strict instructions 

431
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:25,440
to take the best care of me and 
so I worked there until about 

432
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:29,120
midnight time to close. 
The dining car happened to get 

433
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,600
to a station. 
I hopped off and I walked, 

434
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:38,040
getting fresh air up the the 
watching the platform to my back

435
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:41,160
to my berth. 
As I was walking up this woman 

436
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,800
scowled at me. 
I thought, heavens above, what 

437
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:45,440
have I done? 
Have to be I've. 

438
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:52,680
Anyway, the mood was icy and 
people were looking at me one 

439
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:56,040
thing and another. 
Eventually by the next morning, 

440
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:59,720
the train manager, as it late 
turned out, and one of the 

441
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:01,880
conductress has come past. 
In the meantime, the other 

442
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,040
conductress has disappeared, who
knows where she's gone. 

443
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,840
And another conductress has 
yelled at me for filming out of 

444
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:13,120
the the window. 
And the train manager eventually

445
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:15,880
gets me and he says, Mr Simon 
John. 

446
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:18,920
I said, yeah. 
He said, show me your document. 

447
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,480
And he said, look, you've been 
filming. 

448
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:26,560
There's big trouble. 
The police are waiting for you 

449
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:29,720
in our hungos. 
Now, what that means is either 

450
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:34,720
the SVR, one of the successes to
the KGB, or the FSB. 

451
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:38,600
Because if you missed a plot and
you get a ring from a train 

452
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:42,840
saying we think we've got an 
Americansky speon, the first 

453
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:47,480
thing you do is pick up the 
phone to the correct people, the

454
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:49,680
people who deal with foreign 
spies. 

455
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:51,400
You don't handle the matter 
yourself. 

456
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:57,560
So I sat there quiking my boots 
off to be arrested. 

457
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:00,720
But in the meantime, I said to 
him, look, if I was an 

458
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:05,040
Americansky spion, Ciai wouldn't
have asked for permission. 

459
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:07,360
I wouldn't have been boldly 
filming out of the window. 

460
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:11,280
And I said, your conductors gave
me permission after I asked 

461
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:14,360
politely. 
And I told her who invited me to

462
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:17,200
Russia and I showed, you know, 
everything. 

463
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:20,440
Now all of a sudden, I've been 
just kind of covert or 

464
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,560
clandestine. 
Eventually, after some time, I 

465
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:28,440
calmed him down, but he didn't 
say to me, all right, I won't 

466
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,240
call the police. 
So that was a dreadfully 

467
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:33,560
terrifying experience. 
So I've got to the the 

468
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:35,840
destination. 
And I thought, there's no way 

469
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:37,680
I'm going to do a runner and 
make it worse. 

470
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:41,240
I'll just stand here quivering 
until they come and put the 

471
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:43,680
manacles on me, which I did for 
half an hour. 

472
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:47,200
And then I thought, stuff this, 
if the the putting KGB doesn't 

473
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:50,280
even have the courtesy to be on 
time, well then I'm buggering 

474
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:52,760
off. 
So I went to the hotel and by 

475
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,720
the next morning I realised that
they'd obviously seen sense. 

476
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:59,000
But somewhere in between me 
being taken to the dining car 

477
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:03,080
and as I say, the next morning, 
well, midnight, you know, 3 

478
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:07,320
hours later, somebody had said 
to that conductors, how dare you

479
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:12,280
allow this man to film our Birch
forests, our state secret Birch 

480
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:14,560
forest. 
So there are some things about 

481
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,440
Russia that it can be a bit 
tricky, but I promise you it's 

482
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:20,680
99%. 
What's wrong with What was wrong

483
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:22,880
with filming outside out the 
window? 

484
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:27,000
It's a it's a country in a time 
of war. 

485
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:31,440
They've been assassination plots
on Vladimir Putin. 

486
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:33,640
We're learning this now. 
The leaks are coming out. 

487
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:38,000
And those are people working for
a state entity, you know, 

488
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:40,760
Russian railways. 
You'll probably find that 

489
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:43,760
somebody just got a fright 
because there are so few 

490
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,960
foreigners there. 
Jeremy, I, I was given a tour of

491
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,440
a the most magnificent museum 
I've seen in my life in Crimea. 

492
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,600
We do the tour. 
I make buddies with the, with 

493
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:59,920
the tour guide. 
And he, he speaks the most 

494
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:02,840
terrific English. 
So I said to him, how many 

495
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:06,360
people do you get a year? 
You know that you speak so well.

496
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:09,360
He said no, I learned at school,
so how many people do you get a 

497
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:10,600
year? 
He said, I haven't, you're the 

498
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:19,240
first since sanctions in 2014. 
So there is a level of I was, I 

499
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:23,800
was at a border post as well, 
interrogated hugely at the 

500
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:27,320
border post between southern 
Russia and Crimea. 

501
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:31,760
There was a woman from the the 
Russian Ministry of Foreign 

502
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:33,880
Affairs had come to to pick me 
up, to show me around. 

503
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,760
A friend had asked a friend a 
favour, blah, blah, blah, So big

504
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,080
thing haven't had tourists for 
years. 

505
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,080
And I said to her, jeez, this is
taking. 

506
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:44,320
She said, what are you worried 
about? 

507
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:47,400
She said this is all a charade. 
And she said, Simon, it's a 

508
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:49,760
pantomime. 
She said they haven't had any 

509
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:52,240
foreigners pass through here for
years and years and years. 

510
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:56,960
So they need to be able to tell 
their bosses that damn good job 

511
00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:58,760
of interrogating you. 
That's all it is. 

512
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:04,280
So there's this neurosis almost.
And And so yeah, they just took 

513
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:06,920
it a bit far. 
They thought that I was doing 

514
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:10,800
research for the CIA by filming 
100 billion Birch trees, and I'm

515
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:13,960
not exaggerating. 
Over 1000 kilometres you will 

516
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:19,120
see 100 billion Birch trees. 
What's funny also is that in 

517
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:23,760
Hollywood, Russians are always 
portrayed as spies and KGB 

518
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:26,920
etcetera, etcetera, and S 
Africans are always portrayed as

519
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:32,400
mercenaries. 
So, so you could have been, you 

520
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:34,239
could have been portrayed as 
that. 

521
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:38,639
Could have been, Yeah. 
I think it was just, you know, 

522
00:34:38,639 --> 00:34:43,000
provincial people working for a 
state entity, you know, level of

523
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,080
hysteria. 
Look, make no mistake, the first

524
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:49,639
meeting I held in Crimea, I had 
two translators. 

525
00:34:49,639 --> 00:34:53,159
So I had translators when I was 
in Donbass and Crimea. 

526
00:34:53,159 --> 00:34:53,960
I beg your pardon? 
Sorry. 

527
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:58,000
The first meeting I held in 
Donbass, it's with this bigwig 

528
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:04,520
politician, Mr Andrew Kramer, 
hanging over a nice guy, and I 

529
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:07,880
had two translators with me and 
it was him and two other people.

530
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:12,480
So he introduces himself and the
other two people, and the third 

531
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:18,200
guy he introduces, as you know, 
for the party or whatever, head 

532
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:20,800
of PR. 
OK, fine, jolly good. 

533
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,360
We hold the meeting, buzz off. 
A couple of days later, I'm 

534
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:27,720
having dinner with the 
translator and the one of the 

535
00:35:27,720 --> 00:35:33,040
two translators, lovely lady 
called Lilia, and she'd taken 

536
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:36,800
time off work to help me. 
She, she's the head of foreign 

537
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:40,360
affairs for the Donetsk People's
Republic in the president's 

538
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:42,680
office. 
Really nice girl. 

539
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,720
I said, yeah, that the PR guy. 
She said, what PR guy? 

540
00:35:46,720 --> 00:35:48,360
I said the PR. 
Come on, man. 

541
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:52,000
Lilia, you were at the meeting. 
We panted quite a lot. 

542
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:54,560
You know, I would give her a bit
of a hard time and she'd give it

543
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:56,040
back. 
I said, come on, Lilia, you were

544
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,440
at the blooming meeting. 
PR guy, the guy with the ginger 

545
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:01,440
hair, You looked like an 
Irishman. 

546
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:07,040
She said PR and she kind of 
patted me, patronising me. 

547
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:10,760
She said that wasn't PR, that 
was the FSB, that was just 

548
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:12,600
Simon. 
Honestly, grow up. 

549
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,840
So they do keep a damn close eye
on you. 

550
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:19,800
Make no mistake, they are taking
no chances whatsoever. 

551
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:21,360
But who cares? 
I don't care. 

552
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:23,000
They can watch me 24 hours a 
day. 

553
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:26,640
I've got no intention of doing 
them any harm. 

554
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:29,880
On the contrary, I'm now working
on them out of the corner of my 

555
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:37,000
eye, staring at it, a 
documentary called Layman's 

556
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:42,800
Guide to the Russia Ukraine War,
and it spells out that this is a

557
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:47,240
NATO artefact. 
It's a confection of NATO and 

558
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:49,640
all of the evidence is there to 
be seen. 

559
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:54,160
It's there's no such thing as 
the Russians just invaded 

560
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:56,800
Ukraine. 
It was a whole series of events 

561
00:36:57,240 --> 00:37:02,520
that were instigated and 
agitated by NATO to provoke this

562
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:07,120
war and I'm sad to say for 
eschatological reasons. 

563
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:09,280
And when people hear that, they 
just sort of glaze over, oh, 

564
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:14,680
heavens above here, Simon now 
telling us that this is, you 

565
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:18,680
know, that it's satanic. 
But I will make the arguments in

566
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:20,680
the documentary. 
And it's a very compelling 

567
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:22,960
argument. 
This is a deliberate 

568
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:30,840
paedophiliac satanic death cult 
cabal attempt to instigate World

569
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:33,160
War Three. 
But leave aside the reason for a

570
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:36,080
second. 
Let's say we don't know what is 

571
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:39,200
the reason. 
What we do know for sure is that

572
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:44,040
this thing was started by NATO. 
End of story. 

573
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:48,280
But sadly, in the West, that 
message hasn't permeated yet, in

574
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,480
spite of all of the evidence. 
And I think it's because the 

575
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:56,960
Westerners are damn cowards. 
Cowards that that not one single

576
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:01,640
Westerner has visited the whole 
of Crimea, as attested by the 

577
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:05,480
the woman at the border gate, 
that this la di da top lady of 

578
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:09,040
the Department of Foreign 
Affairs and by the translator at

579
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:14,080
this spectacular museum and by 
the monks at the monastery and, 

580
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:18,040
and, and, and the list goes on. 
I was interviewed on television 

581
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:23,560
in Donbass and they said they've
never had one interview of a 

582
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:28,800
foreigner, a single one. 
So how, how is it possible that 

583
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:31,560
any journalist in the West could
possibly know what they're 

584
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:33,600
talking about? 
And to which the answer may be 

585
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:36,760
somebody may, the response may 
be, yeah, but then you should go

586
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:41,520
to Ukraine. 
I'd love to accept Gonzalo Lira 

587
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:45,840
was tortured to death and then 
murdered by the Ukrainian 

588
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:49,280
authorities because he wouldn't 
write what they wanted him to 

589
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:51,560
write. 
And I don't want to be put on 

590
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:55,680
the mirror of its website, among
the cast of characters that the 

591
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:59,760
Ukrainian government is 
encouraging freelance assassins 

592
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:08,840
all around the world to murder. 
I remember you sent me a voice 

593
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:15,600
note from Donetsk and you were 
telling me how hairy it was 

594
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:18,400
because you could hear the 
sounds of of war. 

595
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:22,320
The first night I was there. 
Do you want me to tell you the 

596
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:23,760
story? 
Please. 

597
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:27,080
I arrived there and it was a 
long day. 

598
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:28,560
We went to the wrong border 
post. 

599
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:34,160
The guy who was chaperoning me 
made a mistake in an innocent 

600
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:37,480
mistake, so we had to drive a 
hang of a long way around by the

601
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:39,440
end. 
By the time I got to the hotel, 

602
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:41,640
it was warm. 
I was absolutely cupboard, 

603
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:45,440
couldn't get enough fresh air 
into my room, so I went and sat 

604
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:48,720
on the steps of the hotel. 
This is how the hand of the Lord

605
00:39:48,720 --> 00:39:52,720
works if you're a believer. 
So I'm sitting on the steps of 

606
00:39:52,720 --> 00:39:55,520
the hotel with as little 
clothing on as possible, so a 

607
00:39:55,520 --> 00:40:00,080
pair of of flip flops, pair of 
shorts and a thin T-shirt, 

608
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:03,960
trying to just cool down after 
the terrible day. 

609
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:08,440
And the next thing I see, out of
the corner of my eye, at about 

610
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:19,560
45°, at about maybe 150 metres 
from ME3 streaks comes streaking

611
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:24,280
past. 
And I was, I was direction 

612
00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:31,400
bewildered, so I thought that 
they're air defences. 

613
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:38,480
The next thing, 3 almighty 
explosions a couple of blocks 

614
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:44,800
down from where I was facing. 
It turned out the next day that 

615
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:48,080
they were Storm Shadow missiles.
There were sixteen of these 

616
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:52,920
fantastic explosions, that there
were Storm Shadow missiles and 

617
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:56,960
that I had, that I had my 
directions wrong and they were 

618
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:03,120
coming from the West. 
I was facing east and I was 

619
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:06,160
perfectly calm. 
For whatever reason, if I'm not 

620
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:10,800
claiming to be a hero, I would 
still be playing rugby if I was 

621
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:17,760
that brave, perfectly calm. 
The next morning at 5:30 I'd 

622
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:21,840
just woken up and I was lying in
bed contemplating whether to get

623
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:27,040
up and brush my teeth or to lie 
in a bit longer and three drones

624
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:31,880
came past the hotel. 
Jeremy are nearly I was I was 

625
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:36,360
literally in in the sense of 
fright and not in the sense of 

626
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:39,280
of 100,000 year old pieces of 
wood. 

627
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:44,960
I was literally petrified. 
I was so afraid that I was too 

628
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:51,600
afraid to jump out of bed and 
and take cover in the corner or 

629
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:56,720
in the toilet, you know, so that
the two walls between me and the

630
00:41:56,720 --> 00:42:00,040
the threat or a wall between me 
and the window. 

631
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:04,080
Anyway, that was the Tuesday 
morning. 

632
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:07,280
So Monday night, Tuesday 
morning, over the Wednesday and 

633
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:11,720
the Thursday, I heard about 
another, I don't know, forty of 

634
00:42:11,720 --> 00:42:16,680
these drones and I somehow got 
used to it. 

635
00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:19,040
So I was quite, you know, 
feeling quite comfortable. 

636
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:25,560
On the Thursday night we had 
supper at a pub, a British style

637
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:32,000
pub called the Golden Lion I 
believe, and I was, a group of 

638
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:34,960
four of us was sitting on the 
veranda was two journalists, 

639
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:40,680
myself and my host. 
And the next thing a swarm of 

640
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,600
drones came in. 
They were some way off, if I was

641
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:46,520
to estimate, like 800 metres 
maybe. 

642
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:51,520
We started hearing these things 
and at about 6:00, between 600 

643
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,720
and 400 metres away, coming 
directly towards, I don't say 

644
00:42:55,120 --> 00:43:00,400
directly to me, although I was 
told by Russia's top war 

645
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:04,480
journalist that this was all for
my benefit. 

646
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:06,760
We needn't get into that now. 
But he said, I promise you I 

647
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:08,440
know what I'm talking about. 
This was about you. 

648
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:15,720
Nevertheless, here come these 
these drones towards the Golden 

649
00:43:15,720 --> 00:43:17,200
Lion. 
It could have been actually a 

650
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:19,560
building in front a building 
behind whatever, but there was a

651
00:43:19,560 --> 00:43:24,680
huge open space to to my right 
the direction of the the drones 

652
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:32,320
and you could fathom quite 
nicely where they where they 

653
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:33,840
were. 
And the next thing they start 

654
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:38,360
getting hit by the air defences.
I counted something like 30 five

655
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:41,680
hits in this process. 
I was eating, by the way, 

656
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:44,880
Jeremy, the best meat you'll eat
in your life is in Russia. 

657
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:46,440
Believe me. 
Don't believe me? 

658
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:49,920
I only eat meat. 
I eat meat five times a day. 

659
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:53,520
It serves me very well. 
I know a piece of meat. 

660
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:57,880
I was eating one of the best 
steaks I've ever tasted. 

661
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:01,280
And so I just carried on. 
For some reason, I was perfectly

662
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:03,240
calm. 
I felt like the hand of the Lord

663
00:44:03,240 --> 00:44:05,840
was over me and I had nothing to
fear. 

664
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:10,960
And my host and these other two 
journalists absolutely did their

665
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:18,240
nuts because I refused to run 
and take cover with the rest of 

666
00:44:18,240 --> 00:44:22,360
the restaurant page patrons. 
You know, everybody was running 

667
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:25,840
for dear life because it was 
very clear that the drones were 

668
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:29,640
coming very much into towards 
us. 

669
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:32,800
Maybe not us precisely, maybe be
a building behind in front bed, 

670
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:38,360
but it was apparent that this is
a potential threat and a huge 

671
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:40,480
one of that many, many, many 
drones. 

672
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:44,080
But I felt like the like I was 
safe and I carried on eating. 

673
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:47,680
Eventually they they really gave
me a bit of a tongue lashing and

674
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:51,680
I was forced to go in and hide 
in the corner with with 

675
00:44:51,680 --> 00:44:53,840
everybody else. 
And you won't believe it when I 

676
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:56,720
came back that bloody cleared my
stake away because we'd taken 

677
00:44:56,720 --> 00:44:58,880
too long to get back. 
I was furious. 

678
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:03,280
Do you think there's a future 
for Donbass? 

679
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:06,960
Yeah. 
Jeremy, the Russians are 

680
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:11,560
building something marvellous. 
the IT, it has to be seen to be 

681
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:15,960
believed. 
A little birdie told me that you

682
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:23,360
and some very, very high level 
journalists may visit Russia. 

683
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:27,480
I tell you what, I had a grin on
my face when I heard that news. 

684
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:31,320
I thought, this is it, boy, he's
going to see something 

685
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:33,960
absolutely marvellous. 
Jeremy it is so heartening to 

686
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:39,280
see, to see how well they're 
doing, how they're rebuilding. 

687
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:42,600
I went to the Azov stall battle,
one of those most traumatic 

688
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:45,560
things of my life. 
You know, the Azov stall plant 

689
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:50,120
battle of March, April of 2022. 
But it's been left exactly 

690
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:53,240
intact. 
And it's scary beyond scary. 

691
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:57,640
But the the rest of Murray Upal 
looks like a new pin. 

692
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:03,000
It's absolutely splendid. 
Just to to illustrate the point.

693
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:04,960
Yes, there's a future as great 
future. 

694
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:07,200
They're growing, they're 
rebuilding everything. 

695
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:11,040
The roads are as flat as a 
pancake, as a. 

696
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:14,520
Russian as a as a Russian 
region, not as a Ukrainian 

697
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:16,720
region though. 
No, nobody wants to be 

698
00:46:16,720 --> 00:46:19,600
Ukrainian, Jeremy. 
You know, they, they say that 

699
00:46:19,720 --> 00:46:22,520
the elections are rigged, but 
when you speak to people, they 

700
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:24,400
tell everybody says the same 
thing. 

701
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:28,880
The reason those election 
results were in the 90% is 

702
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:32,400
because of this war. 
We were here, we saw who started

703
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:35,280
it. 
If it wasn't for the war, it 

704
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:40,760
would be about 70 to 80% pro 
Russia. 

705
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:48,840
But an extra kind of 25% or 
whatever it is has been sympathy

706
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:52,720
has been garnered by the fact 
that that we were here and now 

707
00:46:52,720 --> 00:46:56,160
we see what Russia's doing and 
we want nothing, nothing to do 

708
00:46:56,160 --> 00:46:59,320
with Ukraine. 
Yeah. 

709
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:02,120
Oh, Jeremy. 
And the the war crimes are 

710
00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:05,640
unbelievable. 
So they've, they've lost all 

711
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:07,000
interest. 
They want to be part of Russia. 

712
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:11,000
They're Russians speaking. 
That part of Russia is called 

713
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:17,440
Novormalorosia. 
And it was, it was if you take 

714
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:22,080
Crimea and the South, Mikolaev 
and Odessa, that's called 

715
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:29,040
Novorossia. 
That area was constituted by 

716
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:33,200
Catherine the Great beginning in
1764. 

717
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:37,240
That's 12 years before the 
United States of America was a 

718
00:47:37,240 --> 00:47:39,560
Republic. 
This is an ancient, ancient, 

719
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:42,720
ancient Russian place. 
It's overwhelmingly Russian. 

720
00:47:42,720 --> 00:47:45,280
It's Russian culture. 
It's by an era of history that 

721
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:50,560
that idiot Khrushchev decided to
make up for the the the 

722
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:55,800
barbarity of his crimes as a 
political commissar during World

723
00:47:55,800 --> 00:47:58,480
War Two against his fellow 
Ukrainians. 

724
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:00,480
He was born on the border and 
his wife was Ukrainian. 

725
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:05,440
That he gave Crimea to Ukraine 
as a kind of a I'm sorry. 

726
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:08,920
I know you can see right through
me hundreds of thousands of you 

727
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:14,120
saw me butcher with my own 
hands, you know, 10s of 

728
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:16,960
thousands of your countrymen. 
He has a little Peace Prize and 

729
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:19,400
nobody in the West talks about 
it, where it's a well known 

730
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:21,240
thing, not just to me but to the
history books. 

731
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:27,960
I'm reading a book at the moment
by a Jewish professor at 

732
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:32,920
University College London or 
Oxford, maybe Oxford University,

733
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:38,800
who is of Portuguese heritage. 
And you know, this is any 

734
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:43,320
serious person knows that the, 
the story of of that we get fed 

735
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:47,680
in the West is rubbish. 
The people of Odessa, not that I

736
00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:49,240
went there, you obviously can't 
go there. 

737
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:57,480
And Mikolaev are desperate, 
desperate for the peace talks to

738
00:48:57,480 --> 00:49:02,240
fail so that Russia will retake 
those areas so that they can be 

739
00:49:02,240 --> 00:49:07,160
incorporated into Russia. 
About 10 of the regions, on 

740
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:09,760
balance, I think the regions 
altogether, the oblast are about

741
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:15,160
28, something like that. 
About ten of them are crying 

742
00:49:15,560 --> 00:49:20,200
like motherless children for 
Russia not to stop until, you 

743
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:23,040
know, my house is behind the 
front line. 

744
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:25,720
And that's overwhelming 
sentiment, Jeremy. 

745
00:49:25,720 --> 00:49:30,960
There are no two ways about it. 
What have you learnt about 

746
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:35,600
yourself from this trip? 
Jeez, I tell you what, Jeremy, 

747
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:40,040
you know, in the USA there's a, 
there's a, something in the air.

748
00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:43,760
I don't care what anybody says. 
I'm not a particularly spiritual

749
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:46,120
person. 
I don't feel it in my waters. 

750
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:50,800
And you know, I don't have 
feminine intuition, but it's 

751
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:54,360
about as thick as butter. 
There's something in the in the 

752
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:57,240
air in the USA of you can do 
anything. 

753
00:49:59,880 --> 00:50:01,800
There's a similar, not a 
similar. 

754
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:06,560
There's a something in the air 
in Russia of serenity. 

755
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:11,480
I'm a very highly strung person 
and I have been since I was 

756
00:50:11,560 --> 00:50:14,960
young. 
You know, I'm probably the best 

757
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:19,040
person I know it putting on a 
certain kind of, you know, 

758
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:24,360
thing. 
But there are psychologists who 

759
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:27,960
have told me they would spend 
the rest of their lives treating

760
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:33,920
me for free if I wanted. 
I'm a bit of a nut case. 

761
00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:38,120
And I've never felt so serene in
my life as in Russia. 

762
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:43,640
I cannot explain it to you. 
It it's calming and peaceful 

763
00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:47,200
that there's something, there's 
a serenity in it. 

764
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:50,880
And I know this is going to 
sound heretical to some people, 

765
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:55,400
but those churches, I know it's 
a sensitive thing. 

766
00:50:55,960 --> 00:50:59,760
The second commandment, graven 
images, worshipping icons, blah,

767
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:02,000
blah, blah, blah, blah. 
I get it. 

768
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:08,440
But you feel that same thing on 
steroids in and around those 

769
00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:11,120
churches. 
I cannot explain it to you. 

770
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:14,360
If you're 150 yards away from 
the front of one of those 

771
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:20,240
Russian Orthodox churches, you 
feel a kind of a calm, a sanity,

772
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:24,920
a the serenity that's and you 
feel it throughout the country. 

773
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:27,240
So I've, I've learned a lot 
about myself because having that

774
00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:31,880
almost that mirror the 
counterpoint to my usual kind of

775
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:36,400
frantic intensity for the first 
time in my whole life was 

776
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:40,480
really, you know, you only know,
know the size of an elephant by 

777
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:43,280
the, the size of a mouse next to
it and vice versa. 

778
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:47,360
So that taught me that and it 
taught me that that I come from 

779
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:54,040
from a long history of Western, 
a long tradition itself of 

780
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:57,120
Western lies. 
The everything is alive. 

781
00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:01,840
Just been listening to that 
academic, the professor at 

782
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:05,720
Cornell University who was 
interviewed by Tucker Carlson a 

783
00:52:05,720 --> 00:52:10,000
week or two ago and which at 
some point he rattles off a 

784
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:15,160
whole series of Western lies 
with a little justification. 

785
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:20,680
You know, it's a bit like the 
the Spanish American War. 

786
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:25,960
To hell with Spain. 
Remember the main false, the 

787
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:28,800
World War One, the Lusitania, 
false. 

788
00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:32,080
World War 2, Pearl Harbour 
false. 

789
00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:35,520
Vietnam War, the Gulf of Tonkin 
incident false. 

790
00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:37,880
He didn't mention any of these. 
He was mentioning other things. 

791
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:41,840
Just waste and last weapons of 
mass destruction. 

792
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:45,520
False Afghanistan. 
To this day I don't know what 

793
00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:48,520
was the reason for going into 
Afghanistan actually, because it

794
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:52,840
was just mealy mouthed lies. 
They weren't even coherent lies.

795
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:58,520
And what's being done to Russia 
now is based upon a lie of the 

796
00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:02,480
lie of the lie of the lie of the
lie of the lie of the lie. 

797
00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:10,160
So I've learned about my about 
the West, that we are the most 

798
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:15,200
unforgivable liars and about 
myself that there is a 

799
00:53:15,400 --> 00:53:19,960
peacefulness that I would love 
to experience for the rest of my

800
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:21,640
life. 
And I've been fantasising about 

801
00:53:21,640 --> 00:53:25,520
going back. 
I might seek funding for it. 

802
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:30,360
And even if I can't get funding 
to do a documentary there, this 

803
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:33,320
one I don't have to do there. 
It's a different nature. 

804
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:38,040
I would like to on on very 
limited budget. 

805
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:45,880
I mean, it's as cheap as chips. 
Spend a, a, a year in a cabin in

806
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:50,840
the woods in Siberia or near 
somewhere near the Volga, maybe 

807
00:53:50,840 --> 00:53:55,880
about four hours east of Moscow,
just isolated, experiencing that

808
00:53:56,200 --> 00:53:59,000
unbelievable winter and the 
peacefulness and the quiet and 

809
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:02,360
the what have you. 
It's beyond tremendous, Jeremy. 

810
00:54:03,640 --> 00:54:08,280
A conversation like this runs 
the risk of all the usual labels

811
00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:13,560
being stamped onto you like you 
sound like a Russian shell. 

812
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:17,680
You're being paid by Russian 
interests because it's just all 

813
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:20,640
Russia, Russia, Russia and it's 
amazing and it's utopia and now 

814
00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:23,960
suddenly you hate the West. 
It's important also to point out

815
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:27,800
that I don't think we're Western
Africa is Africa. 

816
00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:30,680
So we kind of schizophrenic in 
the sense that we are. 

817
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:35,400
We have a history of Western and
other influence. 

818
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:39,120
So we kind of sit on the fence 
with regards to that. 

819
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:42,800
Yeah, do you? 
You're not wrong. 

820
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:49,640
But when communism fell, when 
those butchers of the Tsar, you 

821
00:54:49,640 --> 00:54:52,560
know, when it all gave and we, 
we were the Bolsheviks. 

822
00:54:53,160 --> 00:54:55,480
Yeah, we were, we were happy 
about that. 

823
00:54:55,480 --> 00:54:57,160
I mean, we kind of sided with 
with. 

824
00:54:57,320 --> 00:54:58,160
But. 
But you're not wrong. 

825
00:54:58,160 --> 00:54:59,600
I'm not. 
I'm not being argumentative. 

826
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:01,640
No, I'm not. 
I don't think I'm a Russia 

827
00:55:01,640 --> 00:55:05,120
shill, Jeremy. 
I've just had, I had a 

828
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:11,120
psychologist once. 
She got to know me very well and

829
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:15,360
I spent two years seeing her 
like very, very intensely to the

830
00:55:15,360 --> 00:55:17,920
point of breaking the 
regulations of the Health 

831
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:20,680
Professions Council in South 
Africa. 

832
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:25,200
And she said to me towards the 
end, she said, well, I think our

833
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:27,160
time is up. 
You know, after two years we've,

834
00:55:27,720 --> 00:55:30,400
we've gone through it all. 
I just want to tell you the 

835
00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:32,560
thing that I'm going to take 
away from this. 

836
00:55:33,760 --> 00:55:37,520
What I've learned is about a 
fanatical obsession with the 

837
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:42,400
truth, and I'm fanatically 
obsessed by the truth. 

838
00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:47,000
And I also like the fact that 
the rates of rape are very low. 

839
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:49,400
Call me a shill if you like 
that. 

840
00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:53,000
Murder is uncommon. 
Call me a shill if you like 

841
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:55,920
that. 
I saw practically nil graffiti. 

842
00:55:55,920 --> 00:55:58,320
Call me a shill if you like 
that. 

843
00:55:58,320 --> 00:56:05,320
I could walk around the suburb 
where my hotel was very late at 

844
00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:09,400
night and feel perfectly safe, 
which I cannot do anywhere, 

845
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:11,240
anywhere, anywhere in South 
Africa. 

846
00:56:11,240 --> 00:56:14,160
Nowhere at all. 
Call me a shill if you like, 

847
00:56:14,160 --> 00:56:18,520
Jeremy, I don't care. 
But all I say is actually, I 

848
00:56:18,520 --> 00:56:20,440
want to use strong language. 
Now you've made me it's. 

849
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:25,160
I know it's not your fault. 
Not for one minute do I bear you

850
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:27,120
a grudge. 
I know that you're representing 

851
00:56:27,120 --> 00:56:30,240
people out there who exist. 
But I am right now, livid with 

852
00:56:30,240 --> 00:56:35,760
rage. 
My blood is I'm seething because

853
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:37,120
I know that they are such 
people. 

854
00:56:37,440 --> 00:56:41,880
And you know what, What makes me
the most angry about them. 

855
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:46,160
And this was the point that I 
was implying, but I perhaps 

856
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:51,440
didn't express it very well when
I alluded to journalists not 

857
00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:57,840
going to see for themselves. 
They won't go and take a look 

858
00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:02,040
for themselves. 
They won't have a holiday in 

859
00:57:02,040 --> 00:57:08,840
Crimea, which is arguably the 
most beautiful part of all of 

860
00:57:08,840 --> 00:57:10,400
that region. 
So I'm talking about the 

861
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:12,920
entirety of the Black Sea, the 
northern Mediterranean. 

862
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:20,160
And yet they'll say that I, who 
was willing to eat black bread 

863
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:25,760
and herring twice a day, every 
day, apart from when I was taken

864
00:57:25,760 --> 00:57:29,240
out to dinner as a guest, for 
which I never paid 1 cent once, 

865
00:57:30,200 --> 00:57:34,920
I was willing to eat black bread
and herring to stretch my 

866
00:57:35,280 --> 00:57:40,360
pitiful little budget, to stay 
there for long enough to really 

867
00:57:40,360 --> 00:57:43,080
see what is the genuine truth of
the matter. 

868
00:57:43,440 --> 00:57:49,400
They can all take a flying. 
Leap Yeah, I mean, I get those 

869
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:52,480
labels too. 
I mean, as you know, I'm heading

870
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:57,480
off to China in the near future 
and, and I suddenly, suddenly 

871
00:57:57,640 --> 00:58:01,840
I'm a I'm ACCP employee or 
whatever. 

872
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:04,240
You know, it's ridiculous, 
Simon, that that that people 

873
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:10,880
cannot think critically and even
people on supposedly our side. 

874
00:58:12,000 --> 00:58:17,080
Oh, Jeremy, it's it all goes 
back to the one thing that we 

875
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:24,920
all have in common. 
Your sister and I don't have. 

876
00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:29,640
We're not both mean, so we're 
always split from one another. 

877
00:58:30,000 --> 00:58:33,080
There's always something 
slightly different in our 

878
00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:37,080
experience. 
But all of us, you, your sister,

879
00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:40,320
whatever gender, whatever faith,
whatever country, whatever, 

880
00:58:40,320 --> 00:58:42,080
whatever, whatever, whatever, 
whatever, whatever. 

881
00:58:42,680 --> 00:58:47,200
We all have one thing in common 
and that's COVID. 

882
00:58:48,520 --> 00:58:54,840
And we fall into two camps. 
Those who were told as I was, 

883
00:58:55,360 --> 00:59:04,480
and who initially believed it, 
that everybody's dying and who 

884
00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:11,760
walked into the shop and thought
to themselves either why do I 

885
00:59:11,760 --> 00:59:17,880
never see anybody die or hear of
anybody dying except outlier 

886
00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:21,040
examples. 
We fall into two camps. 

887
00:59:21,040 --> 00:59:31,040
Those who thought, Gee, it must 
just be me, I'm refusing to see,

888
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:36,240
so I'll comply. 
I'll be a good person because 

889
00:59:36,240 --> 00:59:39,800
actually I'm a bad person. 
And those people who, as you use

890
00:59:39,800 --> 00:59:44,160
the correct term, thought 
critically and thought hang on, 

891
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:49,520
the basis on which this was sold
to me is the social media videos

892
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:54,360
that saturated the entire 
Internet of Chinese dropping 

893
00:59:54,360 --> 00:59:58,440
like flies everywhere. 
At the train station, at the bus

894
00:59:58,440 --> 01:00:01,320
station, while driving their 
car, while operating crane, 

895
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:04,360
while operating a forklift high 
star, while driving a truck, 

896
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:06,960
plying into people while sitting
at work, while in the hair 

897
01:00:06,960 --> 01:00:09,480
salon. 
Everybody dropping like flies. 

898
01:00:09,480 --> 01:00:14,640
How come is it that I see nobody
drop dead behind me in the 

899
01:00:14,640 --> 01:00:16,640
queue? 
As simple as that. 

900
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:22,080
We live in a world of the 
overwhelming majority of being 

901
01:00:22,080 --> 01:00:25,160
mentally retarded people. 
And you just have to take it on 

902
01:00:25,160 --> 01:00:28,320
the the chin, Jeremy. 
That's why I listen to nobody. 

903
01:00:28,320 --> 01:00:32,640
I never read any comments. 
As one great cricketer, cricket 

904
01:00:32,640 --> 01:00:37,080
player of South African once 
said, if I read the newspaper, 

905
01:00:37,080 --> 01:00:40,000
he was asked a question, what do
you think of the chap, the 

906
01:00:40,040 --> 01:00:43,160
editorial about your performance
of last week, the editorial that

907
01:00:43,160 --> 01:00:45,920
came out yesterday. 
He said if I read the newspaper,

908
01:00:46,520 --> 01:00:49,080
I would give up. 
I would be completely defeated 

909
01:00:49,080 --> 01:00:51,760
by the endless criticism of 
people who've got no idea what 

910
01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:54,800
they're talking about. 
So I don't, I don't even, I've 

911
01:00:54,800 --> 01:00:59,000
never read one comment of one 
video that I've given and I've 

912
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:04,480
done now over 800 interviews 
over the past eight years. 

913
01:01:06,080 --> 01:01:08,640
Nah, Nah, they're idiots. 
Ignore them, Jeremy mentally. 

914
01:01:08,640 --> 01:01:10,760
Retarded. 
Yeah, I've started doing that 

915
01:01:10,760 --> 01:01:12,680
too. 
I've started reading less and 

916
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:14,560
fewer and fewer and fewer 
comments. 

917
01:01:14,560 --> 01:01:19,200
I'm engaging less with those 
people because they just, it's 

918
01:01:19,200 --> 01:01:23,120
just as Jordan Peterson, I think
correctly said, sociopathic 

919
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:31,240
because they have this weird, 
what's the word sense of power 

920
01:01:31,760 --> 01:01:34,160
because, you know, they can 
remain anonymous or whatever. 

921
01:01:34,160 --> 01:01:37,440
So they can say whatever they 
like and it enough is enough. 

922
01:01:38,080 --> 01:01:44,000
Yeah, yeah. 
OK Simon, we are, but over time 

923
01:01:44,000 --> 01:01:46,520
I have thoroughly enjoyed 
chatting to you and I look 

924
01:01:46,520 --> 01:01:50,400
forward to our next chat. 
For now, how can I follow you? 

925
01:01:53,120 --> 01:01:57,120
We have a channel on YouTube 
site, London's Media. 

926
01:01:58,320 --> 01:02:01,320
That's that's, that's the best 
place to to follow. 

927
01:02:01,840 --> 01:02:04,440
Thank you very much for the 
opportunity Jeremy. 

928
01:02:04,440 --> 01:02:08,560
I hope I didn't get too carried 
away and worked up or overstay 

929
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:11,840
the welcome. 
No, in fact, I was hoping you'd 

930
01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:14,600
be more worked up. 
It's it's more, it's more fun 

931
01:02:14,840 --> 01:02:18,640
when we get passionate. 
All right, Simon, thank you for 

932
01:02:18,640 --> 01:02:21,520
joining me in the trenches. 
It's my pleasure, Saitlanders. 

933
01:02:21,520 --> 01:02:22,360
Pleasure, Jeremy.