Ladies and gentlemen in the Brady the UK. God, do the barrel down there a battle, come down, sun, God, he's back in the brady. Good morning, Good.
Morning, Tiamack. How I've missed you? How are you doing well?
Not only have you missed me, I've missed you. Ev have the listener. I get so many texts just in the last week or tender. Not the first week. Nobody kid in the first week, but the second week. They said where's eb And I said, well, he's doing his Walk of a lifetime. How did it go?
It was very, very difficult, Tony, if I'm honest. So I was in the Amazon in Peru and it was five stages self sufficiency. You're carrying a rucksack with your food, a hammock, a rain fly cover to keep the rain off the hammock, and a medical kit. Now my bag weighed about nine point four kilos at the start. So I did three stages. I got to be close to the on the stage three and it was getting dark. I found the terrain extremely difficult to navigate and I
had a good look around me. I've come to a river crossing in the Amazon, and I thought, you know what, I've kind of had enough of what they call ultra running. I'm a road runner. I prefer flat surfaces in Europe without insects trying to eat you alive. So I took Maruksack off. I sat down by this river in the Amazon. It was absolutely gorgeous. I took out a bar of chocolate and I drank some water, and I thought, I'm completely at peace with this. I don't want to go
any further. So made my way back to the base camp where everyone was camping for that night, and about twelve other guys pulled out as well, and there was a bunch of South African fellas with a couple of Irish guys that they knew, and they'd organized a minibus from this settlement in the middle of nowhere. They've somehow conjured up a minibus and it took seven hours to get from this tiny village called Santa Rosa de Huakaria
in the Amazon. It took seven hours back to the town of Cusco, and I was kind of in two minds is to stay on and kind of wait around to the end of the race. Two days later, and then this South African bloke very bluntly said to me. He said, big rugby guy. He said, mate, we're going where they have hot showers and cold beer. Are you in? And as soon as he said that, I said, yes, I am in. So we helped on the minibus and off we went. Peru. I have to say, Tony, stunning country.
If you ever get the chance. Matchew Peachu blew my mind. Rainbow Mountain, the hike we went up on that, The scenery it was like Switzerland on steroids, and the food was incredible and the people were so friendly.
Those events presumably well produced.
Oh yeah. So it's a company called Beyond the Ultimate, very value, very well organized. They have medics and doctors and paramedics at every checkpoint every ten kilometers. They give you water, They check out the athletes. They do races. They've won in the Arctic, which I've done. They've won in Kenya, which I've done. The race in Peru. They have another in the Nibia in the desert, and a new one in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Believe it or not.
So athletes from all over the world. But it was great. You know, there was French people there. There was four French, twelve South Africans. There was me at two other Irish blokes, load of Brits everyone, a couple of Canadians. It was won by a Canadian guy. A female South African runner
was the first woman home. A couple of Americans and a really nice kind of international mix and a great leveler because everyone has to pitch their hammock together in the evening, and you know you're just having a chat and around with a young American guy who is a wind farm engineer from Texas. There was a guy who does not blood transplants but bomb marrow transplants in Canada. You know, really interesting people and everyone just kind of
plodding along. The jungle was utterly impenetrable. It was so humid and sticky, insects coming for you every single inch of the way. I saw some beautiful butterflies. If you look up online, Tony, this is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen firsthand. People talk about rhino and elephants, a blue morphom o r p ho. Google that, and this creature fluttered down in front of me with the most iridescent blue I have ever seen. And I was just like, if you whoever got whichever god you pray
to or none. You just think, Wow, how beautiful is this universe?
If phoe, watch what comes up?
I've never seen anything like this, butterfly.
A look at it in just a moment when you when you sit down and you have that moment. Is that pretty much the mind, body body talking to each other saying that's enough for now.
Yeah. I genuinely couldn't go on, Tony. I mean, there was loads of super fit athletes who were capable of doing the five stages. I could have tried, and I think it would have ended badly because the terrain. You know, you were climbing up waterfalls at one stage they knotted ropes and you were going up a waterfall at one stage. It took me forty five minutes to cover a kilometer. So the vegetation, the growth, it was so thick, and the jungle is just sapping every last ounce of energy
out of you, and body and mind were gone. And I just thought, you know what, I can have a really miserable day and try to do Stage four, possibly get injured or get sick. And then when I got talking to those South African boys, and the phrase the guy used was warm showers cold beer. Yeah, and you know me, Tony, I was just like, yeah, you sold it.
To me, twist and shat if you don't mind, well, congratulations. So you're doing your make said really attractive. But you know it's very different to the things that you've you've previously done. And do you hope you're not going to be disappointed and beat yourself up around this because it is quite you know, to put yourself out there in the front end. It's just, you know, exquisitely exciting.
I was at peace with a Tony, to be honest, because I wanted the experience. And look, I'll be very honest, Tony. I'm forty nine, as you know, I turned fifty coming up Christmas, and I wanted something big to train for. I wanted an experience. I've never been to South America before, and in all honesty, I needed a break. I just I've worked pretty you know our industry. You know, it's relentless.
You're always on the go, you're always reading and interviewing people, and I just wanted a couple of weeks to just switch off. And it was great. And I'll tell you one little thing, Tony, without getting all to philosophical, it made me appreciate what I have, and it made me think I need to slow down and appreciate what I have because I'm constantly on the go and it's like
what am I doing next? Bam bam bam, even with marathons, Like I mean, one day this year, I was filming in Switzerland in January and the next day around a marathon in Morocco, and that is not normal. And I'm only starting to realize that now that you know, just slow down and just kind of take it all in. And I know, Tony, you're a big wine man. Peruvian malbek You ever see it in a shop? You ever
see it in a restaurant? Oh my god. So the Argentinians and Chile have the market share dominated in Europe. As far as I can see about red wine. Peruvian malbec is off the scale good and it's twenty two dollars a bottle. It is outrageously good.
All right, I'll check that out when we come back. We'll talk more about that, and we'll talk to you as well. The new nuclear plant which is coming on the Cans for the UK, and a couple of tributes as well. We'll do that next into Brady he's back. He's safe as well. He's part of a straighter everynight and de Brady is back with us. We usually talk to you about on Tuesday and Thursday. This week it's
Wednesday and Thursday. If it goes to play for tomorrow, if this works, if this audition works out really well, we'll get to tomorrow as well, because there's a lot happening in the world. A textepropet to absolutely nothing. Could you just ask in attorney mech do you still pay TV and or radio license in England?
Yes, we do. That's a very good text question. We absolutely do. So get this. Whether you watch the BBC or not. So you can have your satellite TV with all the services, you can just watch Sport, Netflix, Premier League. You may never turn on the BBC and you still have to pay the license fee. And I think we are paying somewhere in the region. I reckon it's about two hundred and sixty dollars a year we pay for
the license fee. Now, the argument is that that money goes into the BBC coffers and they can create amazing programs and you watch Wimbledon and David Attenborough and all the Crown Jewels of sport that the BBC have. But I would say I watched the BBC on maybe how many shows do I watch on the BBC? I watched the Wimbledon tennis and I really like a family program called Race Across the World. That's pretty much it that I watch on the BBC, and I'm giving them two
hundred and fifty bucks a year for that. Vira, No, don't watch us. I've found that too bleakly. Yeah, I rarely watch the BBC. I mean, if don't get me wrong, they're news. They've got some great journalists, but I get my news from other sources. I watch an awful lot of VPL on Sky Sports, which I pay extra for. Yeah, that's a very good question. Your listener is absolutely right. Yeah, we pay a lot of money here for that license fee.
That's a question here too, which is often bet LABC is to the cost of it and what venue we as Australions get from it these days.
Yeah. Look, I think the argument here is that the BBC is a cultural institution and you could land in the middle of anywhere Africa, Asia and say BBC and people will know what you're talking about, and it does spread British culture. But then a lot of people feel it's time to get some adverts in and advertising and raise revenue from other ways.
Nuclear plants on the cads for which part of the UK if I go ahead.
So a county called Suffolk, which is in the east of England, they are going to put in a new nuclear power plant at the cost of twenty eight billion Australian dollars. Now there's not a great deal of money left in the UK coffers. We know that Starmer has come out today and defended it and said that every penny will be accounted for and this will herald the golden age of clean Britain energy, which will ultimately power about ten million homes. It's probably going to take the
best part of a decade to build it. But today the money has been signed off. He has miraculously found twenty eight billion dollars.
Twenty eight billion dollars Kitchen kachin Kitching. Would people be familiar with the name of Frederick a Fourth Side, great journalist and some wonderful books their novelist.
Yes, so look, people may not have heard of him, or might not remember the name, but you will know the name the day of the Jackal, of course, very famous novel which in recent years Sky have taken on and they've remade it with as a TV series with Eddie Redmain. They actually kind of changed everything in it to the point that he said in his last interview,
So he passed away this week. Frederick Forsyth. He said in his last interview that even with the name The Day of the Jackal, he said the TV show Sky recently made with Eddie Redmain was so different. He said he couldn't have done them for plagiarism because they changed absolutely everything he had come up with, and I got the impression he didn't really like it. So great journalist, an extraordinary, towering literary figure, sold about seventy million books
all up. And I loved one quote he gave, and I'm paraphrasing here. I read it in his obituary today. He said, some people, he said, there are several reasons people write books. He said, some people write books because they have a burning passion to get a story down on paper. He said, some people write books because they absolutely love writing. He said, Others write them because they're politically, are actively driven towards a topic. And he said, and then there's me. He said, I just love the.
Money, which he is brutally honest that I love.
Yeah, perspect that you have visions of these kind of you know, creative artists who fall out of bed in the morning. I must write six thousand words this new plot twist as I've just dreamt overnight. No, he just loved making money.
Yeah, this isn't that wonderful? I think that's great. Tell us about the I've been watching this in the last forty eight It is intriguing because I think you and I have talked about it. How important it is for the payments to for people during the depths of your winter to have support for a range of riss been well documented. Where's that going now?
So big U turn Starmer initially took this money away so pensioners in the UK every winter, regardless of whether you're on your basic state pension, which is not very much, or you could be a multimillionaire in your seventies, everyone was given approximately six hundred dollars, regardless of their income or the size of their house or their savings, six hundred dollars towards fuel payments. So it gets cold. December
January February it's grim in the UK. You've got the gas on, you've got the heating on, and for as long as anyone can remember, every single pensioner couple in the UK or single pensioner got six hundred books from the government. Starmer came in and looked at it and he thought, well, hang on, we can't afford to pay that anymore. I'm going to stop it, and he did. The end result was local council elections, but he didn't really. You know, it makes me wonder how smart he is.
Sometimes pensioners vote young people don't. Pensioners watch the news, they read the papers, they have opinions, and they would majority of them vote well. Starmer felled out to his cost in the recent council elections. Reform hammered labor in many places, and the big issue on the doorsteps was we're really annoyed that you've taken away our winter fuel payments,
so lo and behold three sixty U turn yesterday. He's suddenly got to find two and a half billion dollars to fund it, but he's put in a little caveat If your household income as a pensioner is under seventy thousand Australian dollars. You will still get the payment. If you've got more than seventy thousand a year coming in between the two of you, you won't be getting it. So the majority of pensioners in the UK will now be getting their six hundred books come winter.
I see Hugh Laurie having a birthday today. I think he's sixty six. But I was going through some of the things that he's done over the years. You're very famous in America for doing House, which was a great series from our four through to twelve. But then you look at other programs of which he was very involved. Black DDA would be one that jumps to mind, which you would only just remember the great Black Head a Hu Laurie birthday boy.
Yes, and he used to be a TV show called A Bit of Fry and Lurry. Of course it was very funny, so Leaves and Muster. I think he was in as well, you know, the old kind of traditional English establishment Butler comedy. Yeah, funny guy. And I mean you're right, he is absolutely huge in America. And I would wager Tony because his accent is so good as an American, I would bet there are a lot of Americans who don't actually realize he is an English actor's super Yeah.
I've seen him interviewed a couple of times, and he can cross between those interviews if he's doing so the COOLBA program, he can do it in a beauty in his hometown accent from off Oxfordshire, or he can do just an American accident. If you didn't know, you wouldn't know.
Yeah, talent, talented guy. Very happy birthday to him. Were blessed to have him.
Well, we're blessed to have you back on, Dick.
Do you recaver now?
You go straight back into work mode?
I was. I was in work today, made two TV shows today and it was fun at the Dutch government has collapsed. The Dutch government has collapsed, and Bulgaria is joining the Euro currency as of next year. So it's a bit busy. But I'll tell you what, Tomy, it was just lovely to walk back into work today and people are happy to see me. I was just like, I almost tears in my eyes. It has only been gone a fortnite. How lovely is this?
It's a nice it's a lovely feeling on a Saturday night. You and I have been watching very carefully as many of the listeners, this dreadful story coming out of Austria, where ten to eleven losing their lives, a lot more people injured. It's just dreadful. Young kid only twenty one with two weapons.
Yeah, shocking. So he's an ex pupil of the school and the whisper or certainly what's going around online is that he claims he was bullied at the school years ago. He legally held these two firearms and he's gone back in and slaughtered people. Absolutely shocking. I mean Austria, I've always thought it was a very very safe country. Never makes the news nowadays for this kind of thing, and there you go, out of nowhere, a school shooting in a small town in Austria.
Aging well like we much said tomorrow. Thank you Winder Brady in the UK keeps us up to date with all things to do with the news of that part of the world at the cereals on the way your calls coming up the other side of stranger overnight