Why are maternity services failing?

Three minutes after ten is the time you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC where the um Well, I d I don't know, how interested are you in the in the below the bonnet? ruminations that I sometimes inflict upon you in the morning. The the the the whys and the wherefores of what we find interesting and indeed why we find it interesting. It occurred to me this morning, two things occurred to me this morning.

one of which I explained to you a moment ago in characteristically clumsy fashion. But but the other of which probably merits a mention,'cause I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that you're here all day every day. You know, and that you've been here for two decades. So I think well, you know exactly what I'm talking about when I reference some

obscure memory from the dim and distant past, uh uh uh from one of the mornings that we've spent together. Of course you don't. Even if you are listening to this programme every day, you're not paying rapt attention, are you? It's not as if you're sitting there with a notebook jotting down um

Well, unless you're one of the people trying to get me into trouble constantly, of course. But I d if you're normal, you're not sitting there with a notebook jotting down little little insights and apatsu uh in order to to I don't know, re record them for posterity.

So it's sometimes worth me mentioning to you why interest in stories ebbs and flows. This one is probably the most obvious one of all. But it only struck me this morning that the f that the older my children get The less engaged I am immediately, the less sort of emotionally and immediately engaged I am with stories about maternity wars. And maternity services.

It's a failure of mine, because it doesn't become more or less interesting as a story of national import according to how recently you were in one, does it? But we're only human. And when I first started talking to you about maternity services in England, I probably shouldn't have said the United Kingdom a moment ago in my trail. But when I first started talking to you about maternity services I had never availed myself of them.

I was in my first or second year in this job when my oldest was born. Information that was relayed to the relative well, the uh pitifully small number of people that were listening to LBC at the time. The information of the birth of my first child was relayed to the listeners to this program. by a minicab driver who picked me up outside Hammersmith Hospital. Um, and dropped me off without letting on I think that he knew who I was, and then phoned my holiday cover

on L B C to reveal the successful details of my eldest child's birth. Like a kind of foreign cor like a war correspond like an undercut like a cross between River Cartwright or or or George Smiley and oh I don't know, John Simpson or Jeremy Bowen. I mean he was he was phoning in a world exclusive. yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw Less interested.

with each passing year in what is going on in maternity wards. And I have to change that today because how dare I base the importance of a story upon my own personal proximity to it?

Maternity services in England are failing too many families with problems at every stage of the maternity journey. It's an interim report by Baroness Amos, who is leading a government commissioned review. Racism Staffing and accountability issues are among the six factors already identified by the Baroness, with more than eight thousand people submitting evidence, and the Baroness herself meeting with four hundred families.

We get the final recommendations in April. Um it's important to remember that she has reported seeing bad, poor, good, and excellent care coexisting side by side. This is always something of a tightrope to walk.

Because you are listening to this as somebody who works in the sector and you are feeling maligned and attacked and unfairly judged when you know, or at least you're pretty sure, that you do a cracking job in often very difficult circumstances. So let's r let's read that in reverse order. She has encountered care that is excellent, good, bad, and poor.

All of those things exist. But of course, reports like this are designed to ensure that you minimise the amount of bad and poor and maximise the amount of good and excellence. So inevitably you come into a story like this from From the other end of the funnel or the other end of the telescope, you come at it from the negative end, with, I hope, and you will remind me, a constant, constant caveat. that there this is not about everybody. This is not about everybody.

But it might well be about you, um, particularly as a mum, particularly as a parent who has gone through the system. Um I I mean i even if I start off by saying why is it so bad, then I fall headlong into the trap that I've just described, isn't it? Isn't it? I mean don't I?

I say, why is it so bad? And you go, Well, hang on a minute, you just told us to remember that it's not always that bad, and there are plenty of people who have very positive experiences. But we're going to come at it more or less from that angle. I I what's your relationship with your own temper like?

How how good are you at being a squeaky wheel? You know, well I I I think I fell into this last year and I apologize for it'cause I think it's quite misogynistic calling people Karen if they complain about things. I mean some of the footage that has been recorded by people who use the word Karen as a pejorative is shameful. And the people being termed Karens are behaving appallingly. But i you can't just pick a woman's name and turn it into an insult, says a man who routinely uses Herbert.

as a as a as a description of all various ghouls and and vampires working in the so called think tank sector. But you can't do that. Um but how how good are you at being a squeaky wheel? It's a really odd thing because I and there's the reason why I mentioned temper. Squeaky wheels stay calm. Squeaky wheels demand better service or point out problems.

I I I used to have quite a short temper. I I'm getting better all the time, thankfully, and it's it's it's an important thing to try to do. But I still have an understanding of road rage, for example. Um, I don't drive enough really to suffer from it myself. But I I used to get second hand road rage if I felt someone was disrespecting my wife in the car. And the speed, if you forgive the pun,

the the the speed with which you go from naught to sixty when you're suffering from road rage is extraordinary. So I that capacity insiders to to to lose the plot Does have ha no bearing whatsoever on your ability to be a squeaky wheel. So for example, I'm terrified of complaining or drawing attention to myself. I d well terrified's a bit strong, but I'm very uncomfortable. Even in the maternity war.

of venturing into the corridor to to try to get help. And here's the reason why I think this is relevant. It's because I work on the presumption that you're all doing your best and you're all being brilliant. And that's quite naive and almost certainly wrong. So when Mrs O'Brien was in Labour the first time. Um we didn't have a uh a perfect experience and I'm afraid to tell you that I at the time didn't fully appreciate that.

i th there were uh uh uh large and unconscionable gaps between visits. There were um there was a failure to notice how quickly things had progressed. um I I won't use the word dilation on uh uh an inappropriate amount of times on the programme, but there was a failure to recognise how quickly things had progressed, which meant that My wife was in unnecessary discomfort and unnecessary pain and she was scared. of the absence of of care and concern. And my job, I didn't have many jobs.

Snacks, I always remember, from the antenatal classes. Don't forget to take snacks. Turns out they weren't meant to be for me. Pork pie, not a very welcome product in a in a in a maternity well, not at least in the one that we were in. Delicious though. Um I my job uh was to go into the corridor and and find someone to come back to the ward and and I found it almost unbearably terrible.

I I I found it almost unbearably embarrassing. Oh no, I can't do that. I do you so I suppose what I'm asking is whether or not you recognise what I'm describing.'Cause if you're a squeaky wheel you find it really easy. It's a probably a bit like haggling. Is it a bit like haggling? If you find haggling really easy. So things that make you uncomfortable. So you walk out into the corridor, you're looking for a nurse.

So o automatically you're presuming that they're not that busy anyway and they are just choosing not to come and look after you, which seems to me or used to seem to me to be very unfair. The second thing you're presuming is that they're capable of dropping everything if they are busy to come and look after you, which is probably not the case.

The third thing that you're presuming is that you automatically become a higher priority than all the other people on the ward, which of course if you're talking about your own wife, you kind of should be but shouldn't be at the same time. And and the other problem you've got is not actually knowing what it is that you want. You just know that you want some your wife wants somebody to come.

So I can go from naught to sixty if I feel that you're disrespecting my children or my wife, but I can't go into a hospital corridor and find a nurse to come and look after my wife when she feels a bit frightened and alone in a maternity ward. And the reason for that and this is the important point The reason for that is the presumption that these are

That these people are doing the work of the angels. The reason for that, in my case, I but can't speak for you, is the presumption that they are the best of us. with that people working on maternity wards have a vocation and levels of compassion and care on concern that are well above average. Now I still believe that to be true in the first instance, right? In the first instance. But everybody, when they've done a job for a while

has to fight very, very hard not to slip away from their A game. The harder something is it is. as a daily grind, the harder it is to retain the same levels of dedication and commitment in the face of you might have employer lethargy or employer incompetence. Uh you can't do the job you want to do if you haven't got enough colleagues, if you haven't got enough support.

And of course you might become calcified. You might become a little bit crueler. You might become inured to the human condition the more you are exposed to it. You see it with journalists, um particularly journalists who have to cover hideous events. They have to build a sort of I never know quite how to pronounce this word, but I always say carapace. It can't be carapace, can it? And th you have to build a sort of carapace.

um a a an armour to protect yourself from the trauma. It's i I mean, it doesn't always work. That's how you end up with PTSD, even though you seemed fine at the time. But if you're exposed to hideousness, if you're exposed to

traumatic events, you you build a kind of defence mechanism that that mentally minimizes the impact of what you're witnessing. And I suspect that maternity wards probably do that to people as well. Um The racism also is something that I am unlikely to experience, or or I mean guaranteed not to experience.

The idea that a black woman in a maternity ward is going to receive worse treatment than a white woman is built on a bunch of presumptions um about, for example, the the the physical strength Yn ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud that hideous story a couple of years ago about strip searching. But there's also an idea that is built in, it's complicit and it's racist.

um that you th that the black woman is somehow more physically robust than a white woman and has a higher pain threshold. That's something I discovered from you. But I don't always know how you would know that was going on in a hospital setting. How you would know that was the reason that you were not receiving the help that you deserved or or that you would have demanded if you didn't suffer from the sort of heebie jeebies that I've described about having a squeaky wheel.

Um they're a stereotype. Asian women stereotyped as princesses. With the implication that they are overly demanding or unable to cope with pain. Black women describing the opposite experience as being deemed to have tough skin and being able to tolerate pain. Muslim families describe feeling discriminated against the same.

On the basis of their religion and feeling unable to raise concerns due to fear that those discriminatory attitudes may result in poor treatment for their baby. Um, what's going on?

What's going on? And I really want to handle this sensitively, if I can, but but how much I mean how unhelpful is it? to have this image in my head of everybody in a maternity ward being on the side of the angels. So you've got let me just hit the six things that Baroness Amos has already identified. You've got poor relationships between team members.

Obstetricians and midwives, perhaps. Racist and bullying behavior of senior clinicians not being dealt with by management. You've got a depletion of services. because of capacity pressures, stretched anti Natal wars, delivery units, meaning that they can't do what they want to do.

because there are delays in admissions and the use of community midwives in delivery units can impact safety. You have structural racism and persistent inequalities, which is not an opinion, I I I'm I'm very sad to tell you, it's counting. It's a notably higher risk of adverse outcomes for women from black and Asian backgrounds and for women from more deprived areas.

Discrimination against disabled women, Muslim families, refugee and asylum women, LGBT families was also reported. You can hardly be surprised by that given that discrimination against those groups of people is practically open season in much of our media and political class at the moment.

Hideously for me, a lack of compassion and transparency when baby loss or baby harm occurs. So mothers wrongly blame themselves, which will obviously compound their trauma and impede opportunities to learn from mistakes. Um most obviously there's not enough personnel to provide safe care and the buildings this is item six. are often outdated and dilapidated, in some cases so badly that criminal care is compromised.

ac yn ôl i'r rhaid i'r rhaid i'r rhaid i'r rhaid i'r rhaid i'r rhaid i'r rhaid i'r rhaid i'r rhaid i'r rhaid i'r rhaid i'r rhaid. I hate one element of the question I'm about to ask you. But I think it is actually important that I ask it. With the constant caveat that that huge numbers of people working in this sector are brilliant. But how much of these problems are caused by

The people working on the wards. O three four five six zero zero zero zero zero six oh nine seven three. And and and also what happened to you? That makes you look at this story with a very different feeling from the one that I have. You you read this headline with a with a grim sense of familiarity. You hear a headline that says Racism and staffing issues are factors in failing maternity care. Why is maternity care failing and how much

of the responsibility lies with maternity carers. So you tell me what you think it is. Is it the buildings? Is it the people? Is it the funding? And and and how if you have experienced racism in a maternity ward, how do you how do you know it was racism? And please let me qualify that briefly. It it it it it's not something many of us do very often.

Okay. So how do you know that the white woman next door in the next ward wasn't being treated exactly the same as or in the next bed wasn't being treated how d how do we know that these two stereotypes, the Asian woman being stereotyped as as as a princess

being overly demanding are unable to cope with pain, and the black woman being stereotyped as being able to tolerate more pain than a than a white woman or an Asian woman and having tough skin. Both groups ending up more likely to have bad experiences. How do we know? How d sorry, how do you know that that's what's going on?

I hope that's not an inappropriate question, but it's a it's a it's a sincere one. The number you need is O three four four four four four five six zero six zero nine seven three. W and and this isn't one of those conversations that's largely about women that I'm gonna confine to women because this is when often very often dads are a a are more exposed to what's going on beyond the bed.

the mums are or or partners. It doesn't have to be dad, but uh that I don't this isn't one of the conversations about women's health that I'm going to ban men from mansplaining or contributing to because we go through uh as much emotional or i m possibly more emotional trauma than our partners do. So but why are why is mat why are maternity services in this country failing? Just your thoughts.

Twenty three minutes after ten is the time you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. I I'm not for a moment doubting it. The numbers support the act the stereotyping, but how do you know when you're on the maternity ward that that the reason why you're receiving suboptical treatment is is racism.

But I mean, obviously it goes without saying that plenty of white women will have had suboptimal experiences as well, because the entire system is described as failing. And that's the second part of my question. Why? What what what do you point at first as reasons for?

this failure. Uh Rovina is in Forest Hill. Rovina, what what can you tell us? Hi James. Um, I I've got a five year old now. Um, I live in London. I I chose we're quite lucky in London. We've got we can choose which hospital we want to have our children at. Well, it's not a it's not really a location lottery as it is in some other parts of the UK. Um and I Sorry, go on. No, I you how did you know I was going to interrupt you? Did I make a noise?

I was literally saying to myself, don't interrupt her, don't interrupt her. But I do I I just wondered'cause it's a while for me. It's it's it's nineteen it's like it's eighteen years in April since I was in a maternity ward. Did do you do you use like trip advice? I mean do do you rank No, I work in hospitals. I have done for almost 20 years now.

So I I do have a good insight, not necessarily about maternity units, but but in in terms of general care in hospital. And and like everything else, some are gonna be better than others. Alright, on with the story, I'll carry on. So I so I I chose a hostel that I work in. Um because I'm I'm very I was very happy at the hospital when I knew that they they they train their staff to a

to a good standard. Um and I I I also I've had fibroids um since my since twenties. That's when I realised it, my early twenties. Um and it did throw up a few complications during my pregnancy. I had to have more scans than usual. Um and there came a week, I think I was about seven months pregnant. and there came a week when I was just in absolutely debilitating pain. I have never known anything like it. Nothing relieved the pain

Um, nothing made it easier. There was no let up from it either, so I couldn't I couldn't sleep. It wasn't it wasn't um like contractual pain that comes in waves, it was just it was just a constant almost tip of a hot knife. in my in the side of my yeah, it was absolutely awful. Okay. Um I tried to deal with it as best as I could myself at home. Right. Um, but eventually had to go into the hospital and was

I was taken to the maternity assessment unit. Right, and you're not only in great pain, you're presumably quite terrified. I'm terrified, yeah, exactly. So obviously the first thing I do is make sure the baby was okay and she was absolutely fine. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â'r pethau'n ymwneud â'r pethau'n ymwneud â'r pethau'n ymwneud â'r pethau'n ymwneud â'r pethau'n ymwneud. I just very quickly hear the words that I'm a black woman.

um and I'm I'm aware of of stories across the world. I mean it it this isn't this isn't just just us locals and and and novel people. I mean Serena Williams and Beyoncé have also have also been been uh gone down to say that they they've they've had issues in in um in maternity care and

And I I heard the words that I I've I dunno, I think we all dread to hear is that oh, you'll you'll be fine. Like you're a strong woman. Wow. You can handle this. You're a strong woman. How do they I mean uh and what can that be based on, if not upon your Skin colour. Or would they I mean well this is the heart of my question. How do I know they wouldn't say that to my wife? I don't think they would. I don't think they would either. And I and and and I I I I have no grounds I have no

I have no other I I don't know. Th there's no way of knowing that they wouldn't say that. No, you can know. But you can't prove it. You can't really prove it. I mean y you know, I'd probably get some messages now from perfectly good people, well meaning people saying, No, no, no, I'm white and they said that to me as well. But it is a it's a well documented trope, isn't it? It's a well known

stereotype that black women are deemed as having tough skin and being able to tolerate pain. What do we know I hope this isn't a stupid question. Do we know where that comes from? Do we know what I I think it's probably from slavery. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I think it's I think it's probably from slavery and the things that were put through. It's all it's also why it's um it's kind of historical that that young girls, young black girls are seen to to be older than they are

Yeah. Um again because of slavery, it kind of excuse them for from all the atrocities that they did to young black girls. And if you're old enough to to do that kind of work, then you're old enough to be treated in certain ways by the authorities or by society. What what happened? Did you well I mean what did you do? I mean y you you clearly everything went okay, but

in that moment, what can you do? When when you're feeling anything but strong, of course. That that's a thing. And I and I think um I think an an another trope that is that is put against black women is that we are angry. Um so I I think in those in those instances I I I always I have to try and stay calm because I've if I do if I do allow myself to to feel that anger and show it then then that's another You're proving the stereotype. Then I'm proving the stereotype.

Yeah. Um th this is all during COVID, so I didn't have my husband by my side to advocate for me. Um, so I had to advocate for myself. um and just try and stay calm and say and say, You're right, I am a strong woman but I do still feel pain and this this is this is intolerable and I cannot cope. Um and I haven't been able to sleep so I I need you to help me. to relieve this pain. I need you to be my health care. yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n

of advocating for yourself, which is exhausting. It's another layer on top of it when you're Yeah, I mean I wasn't expecting anyone to get their violins out, Ravina, when I was describing how tough it is for the dad to advocate in those scenarios, but it's the right word to use and and it would have taken a huge burden from

your shoulders, had your had your husband been with you. Can I ask you a tricky question, would you mind? No, tricky. Given uh your qualifications to answer it, given what what what you do for a living and what you experienced on the maternity ward. But these stereotypes are No I mean they are quite likely also to be subconsciously indulged by black nurses about other black women. Do you think Yes. Yeah. Yes, I do. I do think that. Yeah. Yeah. Which is um

I and it's it's it's hard, there are so many layers to it. I think I think the only way around it or to to to um to try and navigate it is training. I think I think we have to be really open and honest about our own unconscious bias um and and and call it out and and train people to to to to to look differently, to change our perspective and to to look at themselves and how they how they Judge people.

unconscious bias training. I all all of those um all of the people that need it most are the people most adamant that they don't, either because they're quite comfortable with their innate prejudices or because they are too ignorant to see the problems that they cause. But like you say, it's absolutely not not just restricted to one race. All races are are are are uh are able to to be uncon be unconsciously biased about any anybody else, even even people that look like themselves.

Yes, you're you're absolutely right. And it's an impo I'm glad that you you uh uh well, thank you for answering my question so so so sincerely, because it is a problem that everybody should want to have fixed and and sometimes we need to be reminded of that.

Roena, thank you. 10.32 o'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r Do you account for it? Why do you think it happened to you, your poor experiences in maternity services? And and why are things in such an almighty mess? gyda'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol.

It is ten thirty-six and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. Um some very uh moving stories coming in via texts and and of course Felly mae'n ymwneud â'r pethau'n ymwneud â'r pethau'n ymwneud â'r pethau'n ymwneud â'r pethau'n ymwneud â'r pethau. maternity staff just suffer with compassion fatigue. Until they deal with that, the NHS will continue to perpetuate the environment where those poor

families suffer. Um and I have uh I have a I need I need a little bit of help with something. I've I've received oh I haven't put it in the correct spot yet. I'll find it in a minute. I've received a very rude message. from somebody who is going to head into Idiot's Corner. But I need a little bit of help from you on how I should deal with it because I can't I can't deal with half of it without proving the other half of it, if you if you see what I mean. Um I I'll I'll I'll share more shortly.

Um oh no, hang on, we have got it. It's here. So I've received a message that says, James, and there's a word here that I can't use. James, you are a precocious, condescending bleep. Um and there's no history here, so we can't click on it and find out what other little gems this character has shared with us in the past. But the problem I've got is that they obviously mean pretentious, not precocious.

And yet if I point out that you don't know what the words that you're using mean, then you could realistically describe me as condescending. I hope you would never consider me to be a bleed But this person is too stupid to understand the insults that they're throwing at me and when I point out that they're too stupid to understand the insul so they've accidentally complimented me.

being precocious is generally considered to be a good thing. It means that you're um ahead of your time in terms of talent. It's an odd thing to call a fifty four year old, but um

But nevertheless, here we are, apparently I display all of the brilliance and genius that you would ordinarily only associate with a fifty five year old or a fifty six year old, such as my precociousness. But if I now point out how stupid this person is, because they've mixed up the word precocious for the word pretentious

I sound a bit condescending, don't I? I just thought I'd share that with you so you get an insight into the burdens that I carry on your behalf every day on the programme. ten thirty eight is the time. Back to the phone in. David is in Nottingham. David, what made you pick up the phone?

Good morning, James. Um I'm picking up the phone as uh and I'm not gonna use the term harmed. Um I'm I'm a dad. uh from Nottingham who was part or is part of the Nottingham maternity inquiry. Right. Um

of a particular family group uh where we've had to significantly recurrently tell our stories about the individual harms that we've suffered. Um I've sat in front of Baroness Amos and presented um arguments and data and facts as to where the maternity inquiry that she's been heading up um with support of some amazing families but a new team. Yeah. We we've been to Parliament.

um to again kind of give the ground rules and the evidence of what this inquiry means and actually shout from the hills as to why the PI is the only way to answer your question, James. you know, how does this get solved? What does this report really mean? Um

use a term, we've got facts and distractions. So we've got facts of the racism side of the agenda in terms of where black mothers are perceived as being overly strong or aggressive. We've got facts of negligence, which is in public domain of what certain professionals have done in terms of um harming mothers um on And then the harm to children afterwards, which isn't manifested, but

Um, two things I really want to shout about is that uh and I'm not saying that anybody is forgetting dads, but we are really forgotten sometimes. So if I just give you a snapshot of my journey'cause I know everybody wants to talk. My partner at the time of pregnancy uh had recurring miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and other risks associated with pregnancy, um, prior to actually um giving birth,'cause that is why we'll call it.

Uh we phoned the hospital, explained the situation, high risk and the response you get at the time which I'm aware thousands of mothers to be have been given, Oh, you're stressing too much, don't worry about it, it's normal, you don't need to come in. Um so when you're about to hit that joyous moment because you think you um your son, your daughter is gonna arrive and you're told that it's still born

Brickly we're kinda we've been conditioned that you know what, it's really sad, but it's something that happens. Right. But through the inquiry over the years This is the Ochenden, you're talking about the Ochenden review. Yeah, you okay. Just to be clear. Um, you learn that actually there's significant negligence that has occurred. Um, I can't mention the name.

at the time due to what is occurring. No, of course. But but the issue is systemic and the issue. How did you process the n how did you process that discovery? And and also if you don't mind me asking. What gave you the energy to pursue this and not just to sign up for the traditional, oh what a terrible thing has happened, it couldn't possibly have been avoided. So w wh why did you not let it lie?

I'm so sorry f I'm so sorry for your loss. And and how did you process the discovery that it was something that was done to you your family rather than something that just happened? and anger because when you look at where your family is at the point of that discovery, which is completely broken particular issue where you have another child that has to deal with that trauma, you're not just dealing with the trauma of your partner, you're not just dealing with the trauma of your family.

that thread of pain it affects everybody differently but it extends right through that family. Um and then you hear the other stories, you know, you know, um um there's a mother in our group that has a stoma because somebody made a mistake. You know, birth is supposed to be the most joyous thing and the thing that actually keeps us going and nobody's held accountable.

Um and one of the things which which our theme is and I'm sorry if I offend anybody is is the term of dangerous people. So if you take Nottingham as a prime example of the NHS trust of the last fifteen to twenty years and I call this academic genocide proceeded over and and reports which have recurringly said this place is unsafe. safe what is going on. There have been deaths that could have been avoided. So the government of not having a PI is protecting people

still not be sitting on a lot of the inquiries that are happening. Um and obviously remind us what r remind people listening what a PI is. A public inquiry is ultimately what basically says forcing you to give evidence and you need to be accountable for what happened. Um there was a recent um in Parliament talking about what needs to change in terms of infrastructure in the NHS to avoid these issues.

If you don't take evidence from people that got it wrong, how can you change anything? And also the data we're looking at now is old data. We've moved on. So what we need to do and why and the only way to stop it is to actually make people realise you could be prosecuted.

go to jail for the level of negligence you have proceeded over and that's why the the revolving door will go round and round and round because the people in certain high places who need to avoid being held to account is going to continue. Absolutely disgusting what's happened for decades. And so there needs to be more a a a kind of consequence really. And the p a private inquiry p a public inquiry would deliver a much higher threshold for consequences than

Than a than than a mere investigation or or a mere report. What what what what did you learn, if if anything, about the systemic problems that you described? Because I presume that people don't start off bad or incompetent or but but that's why we use the word systemic, that something happens systemically.

that reduces the level of care and concern that we would turning up at a place like a hospital and especially perhaps a maternity ward that we would just expect. What do you what what have you have you learned anything in that space about how this has transpired. Dangerous people protect dangerous people. So dangerous people end up in in positions and then other people become dangerous by dint of protecting them because of a fear of institutional reputational harm.

Because you can be a consultant that gets bounced around the UK after causing harm. Yeah, because because of reputation or harp rep reputation protection being prioritized over patient protection. Rydyn ni'n ymwneudol. Mae'n ymwneudol. Mae'n ymwneudol. Mae'n ymwneudol. Rydyn ni'n ymwneudol. Mae'n ymwneudol. You don't sound and I hope I'm wrong, but you don't sound very optimistic about what Baron Amos is Baroness Amos is currently undertaking.

I don't need to sound optimistic because as I mentioned the team in Nottingham, we do data analysis, we've got midwives, we've got consultants, we've got people from the depth of S E. N we've got an i an enormous team which actually part of co production and I have to say and apologies for saying this, Wes Streeting promised us face to face that families would be a part of the review.

would be at the heart of review, co production would be used extensively because in the same way on the front line of social care I have to listen to children. They should be listening to families who have been harmed. You don't need to bring a bring in a consultant. I mean but Baroness Amos says she's met with more than four hundred families. Presumably have experiences akin akin to yours.

Many of them. Yes. Yes, but but when you're not listening and when you're giving tokenistic gestures of support And when we're in meetings where people are breaking down and you haven't put the right mental health support in the team and people are recurringly making mistakes and when people are turning up to family meetings in twenty ten twenty f twenty twenty five and saying Actually we now need to take a trauma informed approach to the work.

It beggars belief that you would dare even use that terminology for people that have suffered significant harm for decades. Of course it does. I I d I mean we didn't dig into or we didn't reflect much on on your personal experience, more on the consequences than what actually happened, but but you discovered that your child would have lived if you hadn't been told that there was no need to come into the hospital? Is it is that right? Sank train.

Yeah, hundred percent. Let's deal with the dangerous people and then things can change. Well I I I mean I don't know what to say to you. You're you're I hope I mean you're v you're you're very inspi inspirational. And I wish you hadn't been put in a position where you had to learn those skills and those arts. I really do, but you you do sound like you're an extraordinary advocate for people who may find themselves facing similar tragedies to what you and your family have been through.

It's ten forty seven.

It's ten fifty-one. You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC, where um as you will may be aware, I haven't reminded you. Yet today, but the fact that there is a by election unfolding somewhere in this country means that we are all absolutely terrified of talking about anything overtly political. probably more terrified than we need to be, but I ain't gonna risk it. So I our topic selection, our story selection is informed partly by Ofcom regulations that forbid broadcasters from

doing anything. Well obviously they don't forbid broadcasts from doing anything, but that's the premise on which I operate. It's why we invented mystery app. Uh and it's why Mr. Hour always happens on Thursdays, because elections always happen on Thursdays. And that means that at least one hour of the programme is um insulated, almost entirely insulated, from fears of accidental politician.

Um I have exaggerated slightly what the regulations are. Feel free to explore and research them for yourself. But I am comfortable, for once, being in the realms of, if not fake, then certainly exaggerated news, because you know what they say better safe than sorry. Uh hands up if you've ever had an Ofcom ruling against you on account of getting it wrong on an election day. Oh, it's just me then.

My colleagues probably weren't even born when that happened. So so so so sprightly and youthful is the current team. Um and it is also why we can probably find a little bit of room to have a little bit of fun with things like this. This is a doozy. Children do not belong in pubs or restaurants, so stop bringing them. Right, someone called Shauna Brown in perhaps inevitably

Either in the Daily Telegraph or on the Daily Telegraph website. So there you go. Children do not but if you see a child in a pub, uh y pick it up, take it outside and uh phone the authorities. Ditto restaurant. God forbid that families should go to restaurants for, for example, Sunday lunch.

Um because that is I can't be bothered to read the articles that qualify for inclusion in in unhinged headlines because that's the whole point of the unhinged headlines. They're designed to make you read the article. And I say no, I will not read the article because I will not fall into the cult

King's headline. It is ten fifty three. Back to the altogether more serious business of crisis in maternity care. Failure in maternity care and um indubitably racism in maternity care. Kate's in Westminster. Kate, what would you like to say? Hi Jane. I just um hello. I just wanted to before I tell you my story, I just wanted to say to you that you

An impartial individual, just a great, great man. And you always speak for the underdog. Thank you. So thank you. I don't know that I always get it right, but that's very kind of you. I appreciate You're welcome. So I wanted to share with your listeners my story and that happened to me just over a year ago. So um I have a little boy Um and he's now a year and a half. And my maternity care I'm mixed race and my partner is white. Thank you.

And leading up to baby being born, my maternity care as an outpatient was excellent. I really couldn't fault it. Um, I'm in my f early forties. So I'm an old mummy. Um, and I would like to say that you know Um, having been a police officer, I know all too well about being accused of racism, etcetera. And I've experienced it myself, you know, as uh you know, as a police officer. So

You know, I'm I would like to say that, you know, I am quite a fair open minded person. But my maternity care leading up to baby being induced was brilliant. I got admitted into hospital at thirty eight weeks. having um because baby was on the smaller side and obviously as an older mum your class is high risk. Of course. So when I got taken into hospital they um they got me started off and then about three or four hours in

um dad, my partner, was sent home because they said it was going to be quite a long process. Right. Um, then there w happened to be a change of shift after they had given me the my pessary. Um, so now I was left on my own. The pain then started coming quite thick and fast and it got to the point where I uh I had n now been in the hospital a good number of hours and I hadn't been examined.

I then as the pain do you know they h they hooked you up to the monitor so you can actually see that, you know, your contractions are coming and at one point it got to like ninety eight percent and the pain was so like so excruciating. And I remember at that point there was a lady opposite my my bay who also had got admitted, but she'd come in after me, several hours after me. Right. And was behind curtains too. So at one point we were both screaming behind our curtains. Good lord.

But all the s and she was a white young lady and but all the staff just kept running to her but not coming to see me even though I had pressed my buzzer. And at one point I actually came behind my cur I I shuffled off my bed and came behind the curtains to wait outside her curtains to try and collar the staff. for after they had dealt with her to see if they could maybe come and s um um come and examine me and s make sure that baby wasn't was okay.

And as I the staff came behind the curtains, I would I said to them So I mean really a a lot of pain. No one's come to see me for the best part of four hours. Can you please come and have a look now? And they were like we'll send someone shortly. No one ever came. So I got went back behind my curtains. And obviously I couldn't repress my buzzer because my my buzzer hadn't been cancelled at the nurse's day. Yeah. Yeah.

Um I then went to the U.S. chalked you up as she's fine, she's making a fuss, but she's fine. Yeah, that's exactly it. And they kept saying they were gonna come and no one would come. And they never reset your buzzer, whereas the lady in the next bed, obviously every time they visited her, whatever they were doing, they were resetting her buzzer so she could press it again.

Right. And so what happened was an hour had passed, I then got off the bed again and by this time I'm in excruciating pain and I had to hold my belly up. just to relieve the pressure. I then shuffled out to the nurse's bay and there was uh two nurses, one was messing about with the other one's hair, her pony towel and I could see my buzzer behind them flash it. And I said to them, Look, I'm in so much pain. Can you please, please calm? Like I'm now really, really worried.

And they said, Who's your midwife? and I told them and they said, Okay, well she's now gone off duty. I we will send someone shortly. Again no one came so I went back to my You're still traumatised, aren't you? I'm Tru I was honestly the level of treatment that I could compare c compared to the lady next door was far different. And that shocked you?

It really shocked me because you hear all these stories on LBC and you do read a lot and you think, Okay, like well I've never experienced that But when you're in that vulnerable position where you think that your you know your baby is is in distress and you're in excruciating pain and no one's come in you can compare the level of treatment. Eventually it took m um it took me to have to call my partner and say, You need to get your butt to hospital now because no one's helping me.

And he drove from his home in Surrey and he parked up, paid for the meter, got five hundred pounds. Got to the ward and he opened the curtains and by this time I was bent over the bed screaming, Please just get someone. And he then went straight to the nurses w went straight to the nurse's bay and I could hear him shouting, You lot in here now'cause he was just like he's a typical big burly

builder. Yeah. And they came running. And I don't know if and I and my heart and my heart tells me they came running and thinking they were going to be dealing with a white patient. And it was me?'Cause it was the same women who were messing about with e each other's hair at the nursing station that came. Good lord. And then Um, obviously by this time I could feel a lot of pressure. So I got they tried to stick me in a wheelchair but I couldn't sit down because I could feel babies' heads.

Yeah. And by the time I got wheeled off to the d to the actual deliverance suite, w I I don't know what happened because it was like I had an out of body experience and After that it was just yeah, baby was born but h um he was born with like the cordy raptor on his neck. So had I not called my partner when I did, things would have been far different. And how terrifying. Yeah. You I mean you when when women say that they

get treated far different when you happen to be brown and black. It is very, very true. And you were you were you were you had a healthy scepticism about that previously. I, yeah, because I... Yeah. I you know, I'm a level headed woman. I you know I'm a pleasure. And also we don't want to believe the bad stuff sometimes, do we? No. And and I don't think people come into that um, that career with bad intentions. But when they are there they do become institutionalised and

naturally they do see black and brown women as being stronger than the average white woman. It's quite a generous way of putting it, but it's probably the fairest as well. And it will be subconscious often as well, or or or always. Yeah. Has it changed you, this experience? Has it changed the way you

Interact with the world. I hope not. No, it doesn't. Um you know, I've got mixed race children and I d I d no, I no, not at all. But if I got if I had another baby, I would definitely opt to have my baby at home.

I would not put myself in that position again with having to put my baby and my life And and how is baby? Oh, he's brilliant. He's a typical he's a typical little toddler who is just they have too much I'm not cut out for this energy. I think you're doing great. Yes, but he's brilliant. Yes. Can I can I ask you a word question? It's not that weird. Have you got a cousin called Ted?

No. All right. So I just sor'cause I somebody listening is convinced that they're related to you and that you're um because of your background in the police service using a Oh No, not me. I told you it was a weird question.

No doubt about that. Thank you, Kate. That's um that's that's uh well it's a happy ending, but goodness me it was a horrible journey to with a happy ending, wasn't it? A really horrible one. And and I don't think it gives for the record, I don't think it gives Kate more credibility. But it is interesting, isn't it, that you can have a healthy scepticism about some of the things you hear from other people on this radio station, as she d d explicitly referenced, until it happens to you.

It's eleven oh two. It's six minutes after eleven and um I have to tell you, if you are you I opened the show today if you were listening an hour ago if I reflecting on the fact that you're probably not listening as closely. Some people can remember more about this show than I can. I I I uh I've got, you know, m messages, frequent correspondence that will

Routinely remind me of things that I've actually forgotten, even though it was me that said them and not them. My friend Gary's particularly good at this. But I I I I acknowledge that not everybody will know what I'm talking about, but there was a mystery hour answer last year, late last year, December I think. And it turned out that the reason why the woman who provided the answer to the question, which I have inevitably forgotten.

was so well qualified to provide the answer was that she was literally writing a book about the life and times of a medieval knight. And I've got some very exciting news. She received her very own Ray Leota. I've got some very exciting news Um on that uh on that front. um uh coming up in today's mystery hour, which all being well will go ahead at twelve o'clock and I say all being well. Is it two weeks running that we've dropped it? Was it was Andrew Windsor's fault last week. Um

Uh and and the wick I I can't remember what w who what who anyway, we haven't done it for it feels like we haven't done it for ages. I haven't been away, have I? in recent weeks. So that I think we've only done two out of the last four weeks. This w this or one. One w w one out of the last four weeks. I don't know why I just turned into Boris Johnson there. We've only done one out of the last four weeks, I believe, but we are intending

Um uh to do it today. If you don't know what Mystery Hour is, you are in for a treat, dare I suggest. Okay, here is an election day special. By which I mean a phone in that I may not do on a normal day, but on the days where Ofcom prevents us from talking about most political issues or anything that might influence events wherever it is that a by election is currently being held, a full list of candidates is available.

the I I R uh LBC.co.uk. Um but I am going to do it today and I'm going to do it if you'll allow me. In in a very, very personal way. I I'm going to ask you why I get so angry about something. And obviously when you answer the question, you're not just gonna be talking about me. You know, me, the um the precocious and condescending bleep you are also going to be talking about you. So I'm merely the conduit or the vessel through which you can articulate your own incoherent rage.

Of all the things that that happen and I take the Mickey out of topics like this when other people do them, very affectionately, obviously, but getting a parking ticket. can inspire epic levels of rage in people and a and a sense of absolute injustice and incoherent fury. And yet for me, listening to you talk about your rage at getting a parking ticket

is even more boring than sitting in the dentist's waiting room. I mean it is the most boring radio I think I've ever heard. And for reasons that I will leave you to speculate upon, I have heard a lot of boring radio over the years. Um I I've probably been responsible for most of it. But it it is it it it is perilously close to similar territory, with one crucial difference. I feel this rage. I feel this incoherent fury. I I feel a visceral horror.

uh what I'm about to describe to you that seems to me to be completely at odds with the actual gravity and seriousness of the situation. Okay? So I am the vessel. The question is, why do I get so disgustingly angry? about this thing. Have you worked out what it is have I said what it is yet? I don't think I have. Have you worked out what it let me have a look at my inbox and see if anybody has uh has actually second guessed it. Um

Ten minutes after eleven is the time. I I I don't suppose I've invited you. Do I mean in in in c no, I don't I mean incoherent. It's like literally I can't get the words in order to to to to express myself. So what do you think it is? Should we do that first? Should we do do you wanna have a guess at it? And then when I ask you why it has such an emotional impact on me

Well, I suppose it might be a little bit weird if you answer the question, imagining what it's like to be me and you don't get any emotion you don't you don't get angry about it at all. I don't get angry about it at all, James.

But the reason why you get so angry is dot dot dot that would be a little bit weird. That would be a little bit close to psychoanalysis, wouldn't it? So I presume that we are gonna be doing it more through the uh m m m method of me telling you how angry it makes me and you going, Yeah, me too, I think it's because Shall we have a little look at what it is? At what people are suggesting. It's not littering.

Thank you, Chris. It's not dog poo not being picked up. That that that gets me, don't get me wrong, that gets my goat, but it doesn't get the full elephant. or whatever it is that's got by the thing that we are about to discuss. It's not kids in pubs and restaurants, although that I like that. That's comedic recall. That's a nice little knockback to an earlier moment in the programme.

It's not the big fat cars. It's not potholes, as Mo suggests. It's not even Nigel Farage, as uh as as James suggests. Potholes coming up quite a lot. Um Joe suggests hemorrhoids. It's definitely not hemorrhoids, Joe, thank you very much. Uh nobody has got it right yet.

Bollards. I presume that that's a suggestion of what the subject matter might be rather than a response to what you're hearing on the programme. Um I I that it's not that. I don't think has anybody got it's not parking tickets, stop being hilarious. Uh it's not Jeremy Corbyn. Stop it. I thought we'd I thought those days were behind us. Uh it's not people listening to music on um public transport without headphones. Don't worry about that, Julie.

in Dublin. I think they're gonna get deported soon. Uh it's not long it's not Kidemista it's not Council Ta it's not no, it's none of these things. It's not Thames Water, although people keep recommending to me the um The channel four drama about the water scandal, the name of it which currently eludes me, but everybody's saying it's at least as good as the Mr Bates versus the post office. So we should probably talk a little bit more about that. It's not slow walkers.

Um it's not Brexit, don't be ridiculous. I'm very relaxed about that. It's all gone so well. It's not shoplifting. Has anyone got it right? And the producer says someone has got it right. One person. I can't find the person who's got it right. Oh, we've put it in the on air queue. Hang on. Dig. No, not shoplifting, not joggers who spit, not lit oh well done, Tricia. Oh well.

You sport it now. So Trisha got it right, but she added, Come on, James, aren't you about forty five years old to describe yourself as precocious? I can think of a few alternatives though. Everyone's a meany today, or maybe that was not mean. So Trisha's the only one that got it right. And it's fly tipping.

Okay. Um one in twenty incidents of fly tipping were of tipper lorry load size or greater. So so I mean I don't need to tell you what that means. That means some somebody who is commercially um rewarded for removing rubbish and detritus from a space. is then dumping it somewhere that they are not allowed to dump it. But the number of incidents overall has reached the highest level since records began, and the massive majority involves household weight.

One point two six million incidents recorded and that doesn't include another hundred incidents, well ninety-eight to be precise. of really large scale illegal dumping that the Environment Agency has to deal with or which private landla landowners have to clear. An extraordinary story. um in the news earlier this year, involving two hundred tons of rubbish being strewn across a farmer's field. Um fly tip.

Last year, months after the farmer who tends the land had turned eight eighty years old, and shortly after his wife had died of cancer, he was told that he had to redu move it himself and was due to pay forty thousand pounds out of his own pocket before f a crowdfunding uh operation raised the money for him. Um

And and I I don't and listen, I mean I know why I hate it, but I don't know why my response to it is so visceral and so extreme. For the avoidance of doubt, two things. I'm not remotely embarrassed. by how visceral my reaction to this is. I d I d I I I will respond more strongly to a story like the one about the farmer than I will to a much worse crime in the newspapers. It's it is an irrational response, but I'm not embarrassed by it.

Um I don't feel ashamed or embarrassed about the fact that I could read a story about some a human being being hurt. And not feel I'd be disgusted and and and uh compassionate and all of the things that we all try to be, but it just would not hit me in the same visceral way as these stories do. And that's the bit I don't understand. I just don't know why. Why does I mean it can't just be me, can it?

Can it? Oh lordy, this is gonna be the world's worst phonin' if it's just me. But fly tipping I I was walking through Norfolk once and and do you know, I'd gone up a footpath A wide footpath, like a bridle way maybe, but a and and it was off the road. It wasn't um tarmaced, metalled. There's a question for Mistro. Why do we say that roads have been metled? It wasn't a metal

Path. It didn't have tarmac on it. It was just a very ancient, well trodden, rural pathway, wide enough to accommodate a transit van. And I literally came around the corner to a little it would almost be a copse. That's a lovely word, isn't it? Copse. Almost a cops. And about one transit van load of rubbish, couple of mattresses, bedroom furniture, had just been done so someone had driven quite carefully to a spot where they wouldn't be seen unloading the van.

And they had unloaded the van in the middle of some of the most beautiful countryside in the United Kingdom. And if it's the most beautiful countryside in the United Kingdom, then I think we can all agree, apart from all the racists and weirdos on social media pretending that London is a hellhole. I think we can all agree that it is among the most beautiful countryside in the world.

And somebody had driven their van full of c crud that was close. Can I say the other word on the right? Yeah, of course I do. I would talk about the four donkeys of the cropopyps. So Someone had driven their van and dumped it in a place that was going to pollute the experience of people literally seeking to commune with nature, literally seeking pleasantness.

And of course you've got other examples as well. You get it in an urban context as well. I I it doesn't anger me quite as much. My neck of the woods is pretty good for this, but I've got friends who live in areas where you are likely to find a uh a a mattress on the street. Um, because it hasn't been cleared up by the council. This is going to be a bit of a postcode lottery. But I don't understand why the visceral emotional reaction to this particular crime, which in a sense is victimless.

Now I know it's not in another sense victimless, otherwise I wouldn't I'm a flipping victim of it clearly, but it is in a sense it's victimless. You don't come away from an encounter with fly tipping bruised or bleeding. You don't come away traumatized, really, unless it is an extraordinary example that you're going to bring to the table by dialing 03456060973. I don't have the same response to graffiti, even if it's really bad graffiti, I quite like nice graffiti.

But if it's just rubbish if someone's scrawled their handle on a previously pristine piece of public furniture, it really gets my goat, but it d I just have there's something about this particular behaviour that speaks to something inside me that I can't properly articulate and I want to know what you think it is. Um does it say something profound about society, about the direction that society is taking?

I I'm I mean, oddly, you were joking when you suggested it's people listening to music on the bus or people listening to music on the tube. I wonder if they're part of a similar phenomenon. In that the thing that baffles me most When I sit on the bus, it happened to me yesterday I I sit on the bus and the person behind me is watching something on a screen and very loudly and not wearing headphones and I I I sit there and I find myself thinking w what ap what absolute absence of

It's not even concern. I don't expect you to be concerned about other people on the bus. It's an absence of acknowledgement of their existence. It is as if you conceive of another human being or another group of human beings, whether they're bus passengers or or walkers or neighbors, you conceive of another group of human beings.

and you care so little about their existence, not their sensibilities or their opinions or their emotions, their very existence that you will behave in a way that is utterly contemptuous. of their equality to you, their their shared agency. So you're sitting on a bus inflicting your noise on people that don't want to listen to it. That to me is like a four out of ten on the scale of whatever it is that I'm trying to describe. But fly tipping is a tense. And I want to work out why.

Because you don't get hurt by it, you don't get bruised by it, you don't get injured by it, you don't get traumatized by it. It's not something that is gonna blight your life unless it's on your doorstep, but for most of us it isn't. For most of us it's something you encounter. You've never been anywhere near this farmer's field. I'm not even quite sure where it is, to be honest with you, but you've never been anywhere near this farmer's field, and yet the disgust you feel at some sh-

Shoddy person dumping tons, two hundred tons, fridges, mattresses, children's toys, two hundred tons, just strewn across a field in the middle of our countryside, in the middle of Hertfordshire, no less. Thank you. It it it reaches parts that other anti social behaviors cannot reach.

And I want you to tell me why. Why is it that this particular behaviour is so utterly and uniquely obnoxious? O three four five six zero six zero nine seven three. Uh some of the stories that are obviously much more important and much more serious than the one that we're discussing this hour, and which we could have discussed without falling foul of OFCOM regulations regarding

Um election days. Uh this is probably the biggest. Uh one hundred and twenty nine journalists and media workers killed in the course of their work in twenty twenty five. This is the latest report for the committee to protect journalists, which also found that two thirds of them were killed by Israeli forces, in circumstances that almost always justify the use of the word murder. Israel culpable for two thirds

of the killing of journalists. Eighty six journalists, the majority of them Palestinians reporting from Gaza. Um I I mean yeah. A heartbreaking, horrifying, hideous, and of course Netanyahu's regime joins hands with Donald Trump to pretend that we have freedom of speech. issues, um while they are routinely killing journalists on a scale that has never been seen before. Alignment with the EU is where the magic happens, says the Trade Minister Peter Kyle. Finally a recognition

of the necessity of beginning to undo the madness inflicted upon us. Here's a story that you won't be seeing in all the places that are encouraging you to hate foreigners. No migration would blow a thirty billion pound hole in our budget, warns the Institute of Fiscal Studies. If, as it is currently set to do immigration hits zero soon and is sustained for a number of years, then we would have a thirty billion black hole in our public finances.

Which is something that nobody will be putting to Nigel Farage any time soon because they don't even ask him why he's turning up on a broadcaster that he claims to boycott when he turns up on the broadcaster that he claims. Um Tommy Ten names has been invited to the United States of America by the Trump administration. It's hard to know which crime makes him less suitable.

for that visit? Would it be the mortgage fraud? Would it be the immigration offences, trying to get into the country using a fake passport? Would it be the conviction for assault? Or would it be the contempt of court that he was convicted of when he almost

jeopardized the trial of members of a grooming gang. I don't know, but he gets involved so there's loads of stories that you should have a much greater emotional reaction to. But today, on a scale of one to ten, it's the fly tipping that gets a ten from me.

Some of the others get a ten as well, actually, but that's not irrational. This is irrational. I want to know why. Bill's in Maidenhead. Bill, what would you like to say? Hi. Hi, can you hear me? I can, Bill. What's going on? Good. Uh well for me it's an eleven. Whoa. All right, for me it's a twelve. Yeah. I am really angry on this. And because one

violation of that which I view to be the most precious commodity amongst where I live, which is the land on which I live. That violation is then somehow being looked uh ignored by authorities phone line's gone south. I don't know I hope you haven't fallen down a hole. Abby's in Calderdale. Abby, what's going on here? Hi Dane. Hello, Abby. Um I'm I'm gonna be very careful, but I'm actually a local councillor. Stop, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. Stop.

Sorry, carry on. I've said I can say that. Okay. Um and this is like the biggest thing for the people where we live. Is it? Because they it's awful. Beautiful, isn't it? It's beautiful, yeah. Um A it's awful. It's so such a visceral reaction to people dumping their rubbish where we live. I'd bring back the stock.

In a heartbeat. Bring back the stock, stick people in the spoon and we can throw fruit and vegetables at them. Oh then you're fly tipping, so no. Oh yeah, good point. Oh you're candler. No wonder you're a counsellor. But um it's also not victimless. really is in the way you're saying. But we all pay for it with our council tax, don't we? So we don't we want it to be cleaned up. That money comes from somewhere that isn't going somewhere else. So in a very real sense

You know, it's not a victimless crime. Wha wh why do you I mean, uh Bill used the word violation, which is a good word, but why do we react to it in such a visceral way, when I uh you know, everything costs money. Uh uh you're obviously right to tell us that we we have to pay for it to be cleared up and that's an injustice, but it's not.

It shouldn't really be ringing the bells at the volume that they ring whenever this subject rears its ugly head. It's doing something primal, isn't it, to us? Something almost primeval. I think it's because it's so unfair. There's lots of things that we have to, like policing. Ideally, we wouldn't need any police, but we understand that as a society, we need policing. But there's no dumping a mattress.

in a field is not a product of living in a society or a community. It's an entirely selfish act by an individual. Um and it does. It's like most of us wouldn't do it. I can't imagine a situation that I would tip a fridge out the back of my car. No. You know. Nor can I. And that no, that you're you're getting really close to it, aren't you? It's that it'cause you imagine what you need to be to do it.

if someone were to do it in the environment, for example, of the Bronte Waterfall or one of the other beautiful jewels in the crown of Cauderdale, th they would be they would be personally insulting you, it feels. It's it feels like a personal insult because they have They have, we think, consciously accommodated your existence and your concerns, and then literally Poo'd on them. Yeah. We don't care that you might be out walking your dog and don't want to see it. We don't care about

anything else. And people are making a lot of money of it. Don't let's forget that. Some of this is quite a big industry. H how likely is it that somebody doesn't realise that the person they're paying to take away their rubbish is dumping it in a beauty spot or dumping it in the middle of the countryside? I think that's highly likely, actually. Yeah, I think that there's um there are ways of checking, but how much do we check?

yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw. Right. So in a way that we're bit we're Finding the wrong people, although hopefully they'll still have the phone number of the person responsible, but they're not gonna have a name and address, are they, or anything like that? Is you mean could uh I mean counc your council status aside, could could the authorities do a lot more in that'cause I can't help thinking

You know, you j y I'd appoint a czar. They've got czars for everything else at the moment. A point a fly tipping czar and and j just just nail it. Work it out. As soon as it appears, you ring a number, someone turns up, rifles through it, find some evidence. Hit the local C C T V. Get on the AP

What's it called? The APNRs. Just find the people'cause the vehicles are going to be used again and again. They're not going to be dumped on the spot. Find the people responsible, stick'em all over the news, put'em on local social media and then obviously you can't put them in the stocks'cause that would involve more fly tipping. Um uh and and and and just do more or am I sounding a bit like uh uh the kind of people that make your life a misery by writing you letters in green ink?

Um, no, no, this is the nicest kind of thing that I've had in a long time. Um well no people they are doing more. Um there is new legislation where we can charge people, find people more and that's working its way through so that's having an effect. Um our local communities are fantastic at um like you know, grassing on people for want of a better word and they will, you know, take pictures of number plates and things and that helps.

So I think in a funny way the angrier people are, the easier it is to enforce. Because if we are getting lots and lots of um phone calls and emails and letters and green ink, then then we have a case to say we need to sort this out. So the anger really helps and it galvanizes communities to do things.'Cause it is communities this is happening in, you know.

So you'll know more about this than I do, but there is now new guidance for local authorities, including the seizing and crushing of vehicles used. To do it. And indeed I didn't realise it's the naming and shaming of of culprits by counsels on social media. I do know I'd never ever ever do this.

But there is a little bit of me of wondering whether we can help, whether we can galvanize the massive army of listeners to this programme and just do something about it because of all the things in all the world. You had to walk into this one. Oh sorry, wrong film. Of all the things in all the world that that you sort of feel that as as Abby's just beautifully portrayed, that that community is the answer to the problem.

Feels like one of the biggest, doesn't it? It's eleven thirty two. Dominic Ellis has your headline. It's uh twenty five to twelve from Calderdoyle to Calderdoyle from Calderdale to Croydon, so from the um a beautiful, beauteous English countryside to to, you know, the built up South London. Croydon's the worst in the country, apparently. A hundred and forty five incidents a day of fly tipping.

Costing a council that's already skint about a million pounds a year to clear up. I never know how they work these figures out because you know, some members of staff are on a salary that they would be paid regardless of what they were actually doing that day. But a million pound a year to clear up fifty three thousand two hundred and sixty eight incidents sounds like a bargain. But as Abbey reminders, I'm the councillor from Cauderdale.

Sounds like a character in an Alan Bennett play, doesn't it? The counsellor from Calderdale. The counsellor from Goldadil. Uh as she reminded us is this costs money. This is this is our money that will go on this. Why does it get I'm glad we got Bill in Maidenhead back on the line because you were beginning to sound quite lyrical, Bill, in your um horror at what what we w why on a human level do we find it so

so uh extraordinarily upsetting and angering. Well I d I think uh For anybody who uh's paying attention to these uh awful news reports, I think it's simply because we all together, regardless of all of our persuasions, value the beauty of the countryside in which we live.

And it really is quite extraordinary this island on which we live. Yes, you're right. And I have been really banging on about that for forty five years since I've been here. And and and to these monster monster dunks that have suddenly appeared like they would have been overnight.

There's just no way they were done overnight. They were done over days, if not weeks. They must scope places out. This poor bloke in Hartford Show. They must have scoped out the fact that no one was really walking through Those fields or or the bloke who owned them was busy. Poor bloke was eighty and he was he just buried his wife. They must have just clocked that they could do it and uh there was nothing in place to stop them. I mean I'm reluctant to blame. The the first one, the big monster.

It was mixed up with the fact that it was on royal land of some sort. Okay. En and so Uh listening to your solution and I think you're on the right track with solutions, that is an army of people. And there's lots of armies out there cleaning up.

What the council doesn't clean up along motorway. Imagine imagine if people had been doing this instead of putting up tatty flags made out of polyester on all the bloody lampposts in some poor benighted towns. This would have been a wonderful act of public service, duty, patriotism. I think the depressing thing is it it makes uh it makes us think that perhaps people are blasé about the beauty of the land with which we're blessed with.

Yes and a and it really is special. And and so uh the violation I mean we all pick stuff up when we're walkers, I'm a walker. We pick stuff up. But these monster dogs It's it's what the hell is going on with the so called enforcement agencies who get one hundred and forty five a month or whatever they're getting. What the heck is going on?

James. A hundred and forty two a day, according to to the Liberal Democrat spokesman on this. So so it's become it's obviously big business. It's obviously become a very profitable way for criminals to to raise funds, to make money. And what is the complication for dealing with it? Is it because of uh I know there's money enticing. Is it because ch councils are charging too much? Is it

It ma it may be a a quite intractable problem which is quite depressing. Yeah, it is. And and well I mean the simplest thing to address as we've both acknowledged is that that they're not frightened enough of being caught. They're not frightened enough of what will happen when they onc where they are caught.

cost and the risk of doing business is not currently high enough for them. So, you know, it it needs to be exorbitant. And that's why I'm interested in the rational angle of this conversation, which you've made a brilliant contribution to because what you're essentially saying is that the punishment for doing something like this should be higher than the punishment for doing something which costs the same to the to the victim or costs the same to society. There there is something

Uh y uh it's where the law is not a robot. It it reflects humanity. The law should punish these people more then it punishes people who are making illegal profits in in a different area that doesn't offend the sensibilities of so many so profoundly. And I don't know whether you can justify that in in in law. I d I j I genuinely don't. I suppose it's a political question. Bill, great stuff, thank you. Uh Steve is in Abadawa. Steve, what would you like to say? Altyazı M.K.

I I suffer from O C D and and it's been diagnosed through anxiety. Yes. And and fly tipping it puts me right over the top like you know. Oh, does it? I'm sorry to hear that. It just you know My wife says to me she can calm me down but it really does. I don't know why people do it. I've it's got to a stage where and the O C D I think is one of the things that kicks it off because

I like order in my life. I mean, if I see a cigarette packet or something rubbish on the floor out on the street, I'll pick it up. And it's like people with McDonald's bags, they put all the rubbish in a bag and then chuck it out the window.

And that dri that drives you even more um Well it just it just puts me right over the top of the side of the for people who don't understand O C D just a quick word if you would on on on can you describe what would happen or what you would feel if you didn't pick it up? I I I would feel guilty. I've been in Tesco's car park and people with scratch cars thrown'em out the window. Yeah.'Cause they're no they're losers and I went up and picked'em up and says

Yeah. Well I'm glad but this is what your wife is worried about, isn't she? Is it you get your temper getting you into a bit of bother, I imagine. When I go on holiday, I've got to have a lot. That's, you know, now. She's sort of I've controlled her. I went and spoke to a beautiful young lady who's three hours at uh one afternoon explaining everything.

O C D or anyway, I immediately refer back to that. And I know that you suffered you suffered, you went and got help, I went and got help, you know. Yeah. Another thing strange thing is we're both like bridges. And we both like cranes. There's nothing strange about that at all. Everyone else is everyone else is strange, Steve. Every everyone who thinks who doesn't like bridges and cranes and and recognise the benefit of

uh professional support. It's uh God blindy And it does, it just speaks to something so vile. on the part of the people doing it. And and at the entry level would be tossing something out of your car window. And it leads on the graph to people emptying bluming great tipper trucks in the middle of the countryside.

I'm a big strapping ladder. I was, you know, I'm I'm old now. But I was a blacksmith to trade and Good Lord, really? You don't meet many blacksmiths these days. No, no, no, you do not. That's literally that's the definition of who you wouldn't want to mess with. Yeah. People people used to say to me, Oh, do you go to the gym every day? I said, I've never been in a gym in my life.

What was the bulk of your work then? W'cause it wouldn't be shooing horses, would it? Well no, I w I worked in a s a local smiddy for a time and basically the horses, the hunters used to come in on a Saturday morning and get them cleaned and shooed and We used to put uh ti steel tires on carriage wheels because they're right on the A seventy one between Edinburgh and East Calder where I stayed.

And you know, kids used to come in with a roller skates or skateboards, you know, and get them oiled and tighten up. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Well the opposite, if you like, of the kind of people that we're talking about. Somebody supporting community and recognising the the the uh you know, the togetherness of a of a population instead of this thing that they do which is The subconscious contempt in s I think that's part of it. Nobody wants to be held in contempt.

E well, except by hideous people, in which case it can become a badge of honour, but some complete stranger is treating you like a mug. They're treating you like a like a sucker. They're tre treating you like they're they're tossing their stuff out of their car or they're dumping stuff in the middle of the countryside. It's like I'm not gonna do it'cause it'll get clipped up if I do it on YouTube, but it's like they're flicking the bag. Finger at you, isn't it?

And and that bridles. But that's only part of it, because that's the personal. It's it it's also the public. There's also the insult that's been inflicted upon all of us. You know, Ste Steve and I have never met in person, despite our shared love of bridges and cranes. But th th there's a sense of fellowship here. It's it's us versus them. It's people that give a monkey's about each other and people who clearly and categorically don't.

Uh it is eleven forty eight. Um that don't s similar. I don't know whether or not it's a consequence of Unhinged Headline. Or whether or not people have arrived at these conclusions independently. But the creative director of the New World newspaper, which I I used to be the New European, and I've recommended it to you on several occasions. It's such such a good read. It's a really Great blend.

of um s nourishment and entertainment. You know, you'll chuckle reading it and there'll be there'll be bits that you really, really enjoy. on on quite a light level, levity level, and then there'll be bits that you really have to get your teeth into and and which convey really important stuff. Brilliant team over at the New World. But Martin Nichols is the creative director and he's invented

The Alistair Heath headline generator. I've only just seen it on Blue Sky. Um and I've I've shared it if you follow me on there, uh m Mr James O. B. In honor of the Sunday Telegraph's editor and official Maddist columnist. He is also the patron saint of Unhinged Headlines.

Um you can now just enter in a subject matter and the generator will give you your very own um headline. Which here's an example if you if you would so the civil service blo the problem with things like this is that the line between parody and reality becomes tissue thin. So if I said to you, Alistair Heath has written an article for the Daily Telegraph, um in fact let's do it properly, Nate, shall we? Shall we do this properly? So if if I if I said to you, Oh, now time for another episode of

Unhinged headline And it's Alistair Heath writing in the Daily Telegraph again and here's the latest one. The civil service blob is using Blue Sky to stage a Marxist coup. And I said to you, Real or generated by the parody? Headline generator. Hand on heart, what would you say?

If you didn't know that this was a little introduction by me to you of the parody headline generator, that would go as real, right? You say would Alistair Heath write an article under the headline, The Civil Service Blob is using Blue Sky to stage a Marxist coup Yes, James.

Yes he would. He I mean he quite possibly has, although this is one that has been generated by the um by the generator. Here's another one from from the architect of the technology himself. Um let's do it properly again though. Hinged headline. The awful truth about the Alistair Heath headline generator is now too monstrous to hide. Now you know that one's a parrot.

Or is it? Yes, you you would know that that one was a parody, but go on, go and do your own and uh and feel free to share the results. It's eleven fifty one. Steve is in Croydon, which um is reportedly the worst borough in the in the country for this particular blight. So why why does it boil our blood so completely do we think, Steve? What would you like to say? Yeah. Oh, you're right, James. Um i it has been reported that Cordon is the the worst place in the country.

And just for this, before I get any letters, just for fly tipping, all right? No one is like just for flying sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh Just for fly tipping, not nothing killed. I know we've had some bad video hits um recently but but um but fly tipping. In terms of the Grammys by the way, Cordon did very well'cause three artists from Cordon came from uh Uh who artists at one, the Grammys, came from Croydon by the way. So we are doing things right. There we go.

But with the we've got a slight difference, we all hate it'cause it's like rubbish that should not be there. Yes. But what I what I've proposed and the and this is a work in progress is is what I call the A B C approach. Oh yes. Now the A is all of us. We all have a responsibility for our weight.

During the spring summer, that's when it rises'cause people do refurbs and and such like and all this rubbish. Now One of the things I propose to um my my council is that we identif show what um licenses look like. Now a lot of people know that you need a reference li uh um a a le license to remove your waste, weight you know, license. But what does it actually look like? So by seeing it uh uh or someone comes to your house to say they're removing their rubbish

They sh they need to show you their license, right? So you would have an idea what the license looked like, you can take a photograph of that license. So that's but that's the first thing. The residents taking power because it's These people can't activate or can't operate without our rubbish. You're absolutely right. There's no business model. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So the B space

Right? And I can't go into too much detail because this works with the police, right? So Are you are you just the punter who's just having a punter. But I mean have you had any contact with anybody or are you just dropping this from from space into the middle of the place? No, no, no. What what it is, right? I tell I tell you where it kinda came from, right?

Um just down the road from me, just uh there was a a a a pub, one of many that I've like uh you know, gone under and it had a big car park. Right. And and I I got called by a neighbour'cause I like to be proactive in my community, try to do the right things and help people where I can. Good for you. And

And um I went down there'cause they called me'cause somebody was dumping rubbish. I went got I went down there and um there was a a c a community, let's put call it like, you know, uh there. Yeah. And a lorry came in or a truck came in And he was about to enter the rubbish. And I said to him, You can't you can't enter the rubbish there He goes, Why not? Why not? And I said to him, Look, it's not right and and he said, Oh, everyone's against us, we can't get work, we can't do this

And that's the point yeah, but it still doesn't make it right. Anyway, he then got angry'cause you get the first um instance you get is anger and they want to come at you with venom. Right. So I managed to try and calm that down. He came with a a with a with a with a an item and I don't advocate anyone doing what I did. Oh but like Liam Neils Nielsen, I've got special skills. Okay. Okay. Is it uh do you have a unique set do you have a unique set? I've got a unique set of skills.

So he came with his venom and he Have we have we have we cleared this with the producer? Is the producer aware of what you're about? Okay, no we haven't no no never mind, carry on. I'm not gonna go through my Eugene skills but they are there. Um but then we we started talking.

And in the end he got very emo he got emotional because he realised what he'd do was wrong and he did not rub dump the dump the rubbish. He said, Okay, I'm not gonna do it and th then then they all left and literally they all packed up their trailers and left. So there was a queue was there of people? Well th there was there was a group of people there that sort were on site and some were bringing stuff in there. So there was two trucks that actually came to dump the rocks in the car park. Yeah.

Um and they didn't he didn't fully appreciate how obnoxious his planned behaviour was until you clearly very persuasively told him. It was it was clearly something that they were doing and that's where where he was saying that's that's the way he was getting funds, his income, you know, so I could I could see, you know, that he said if I don't do this. Can't feed my children. Can't feed my children.

Yeah. And has it have you successfully I mean has has that car park remained uncovered? No. So what happened was it once it was done and um it was cleared up by the owners because it was disused because obviously it's shut down. Right, but this is what is happening is it's like a sort of I I I don't know, th th they're identifying a spot and then they'll fill it till there's nothing left to fill. So I love the A.

Um, all of us. And the idea very simply, I don't you shouldn't even have to look it up online, but y you you turn up with something that you can see and then you can check online that it's that it's the real deal, the real McCoy. So you will not pay anyone to take your rubbish away.

unless they've proved to you that they have a l the legal right to take your rubbish away. Um B what was B again? B B B's the space where where the police can occupy because to move it from A to C where they dump it, you've got to go through B, right? So that's the that's the road. Right So the police are looking for the lorry? Right, but also what happens with the lorries, um, a lot of them go under false n uh license plate. So when

This is fantastic. Carry on. Come on. Do you have a uniform? Do you wear a special unit? Do you have a cape? Do you have a cape? No, no, no, no. You clearly do. What they do, they velcro um the false plates on top of the original one. Seriously? Yeah, that's what that's how they get round it. So so you it's no good having catching them on a camera or anything like that. There's no this is a planned operation. Yeah, because it's all planned. Yeah. It it's it's organized in in that extent. So

What I'm attempted and I say attempted quite to do to to occupy that B space a lot more during especially during the summer, spring and summer, as I said. That's when people are doing their work. Yeah, clearing out the house and spring cleaning and and all of that sort of stuff.

And then the C space is is is is down to the council to provide that information to the residents, you know, uh to say this is what we're doing, this is what you should look out for and this is what we're doing to clear up. This is all feasible, isn't it? And and then I mean as uh on the road, spot check.

You just regularly get people being pulled over to prove that they're allowed to be in the car that they're in. How I don't know how hard it would be, particularly on routes that are known to be frequented by these scumbags, you just pull over every lorry that you see for a just for a couple of minutes.

Yeah, yeah, and'cause the thing is once it gets to that C space the police can't do anything because it normally goes on private land or like they said the park the pup car park which the owner then had to clean up. Oh because it's if it's not municipal land then it's not a matter for the police. It's not a matter for the police.

So the pol the police are have to operate intensively in that V space, whether it's the uh you know, lorries with uh false uh number plates on, whether it's checking that they've got the re the valid licenses. That kind of thing.'Cause they can operate in that space. Uh very easily done. Well not easily easily, but certainly um uh uh uh uh e but feasibly done, if not easily done.

And are you in contact with the authorities in Corinthians? I I am because I'm I'm trying to do um a lot of community um engagement projects, mainly with young people, but you know, basically for the community because that's who we are. We all we're all Together aren't we? I mean I can't say I can't say anything political, but this is what community sounds like to me. This is actually what patriotism sounds like to me, caring for your fellow humans and and caring for the spaces that you share.

And and everyone, if everyone had a neighbour like you, Steve, the country would be a much, much happier place. Well I think so James as well. No, but I no. I mean as I said, everyone does their live thank you, thank you, thank you. But if everyone does a it's it's you know, we can we shout a lot, you know, as I said w we could complain a lot.

But do we do a lot? Do we kind of link up with our uh uh fellow you know community members and say, What can we do about this? or how can we approach it? Come up with some ideas. Not all gonna work, they're not all gonna be brilliant, but come up with something rather than just complaining.

Rydyn ni'n gwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud. Lovely work. Best call of the week. Fantastic. What a guy. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, mate. Uh for everything you do. Clearly. I the you know he's almost the estate agents at Croydon should get him on posters. He's a reason to move to the area.

I think we might have a winner on the Alastair Heath headline generator. This has come in from Graham. How James O'Brien became the ultimate symbol of Britain's humiliating global irrelevance. I think they've run that story. It was the Telegraph or the Spectator, one of them did that last year, didn't they? How James O'Brien became the ultimate symbol of Britain's humiliating global irrelevance? Maybe I dreamt it. I didn't dream this.

Yes, it's the first Mystery Area in what feels like a while, although we've had a bit of a chat and the producer insists that you're all wrong when you say we've missed loads lately and that she's right, which is usually the case. So anyway, the first dinner fortnight. We didn't do it last week. We are doing it this week. If you don't know what it is, you're in for a treat. Find out what that treat looks like or sounds like after.

This is LBC from Global Leading Britain's conversation Mystery Hour with James O'Brien. Is it that time of year already? Good lord, or even of the week. Um your weekly opportunity under normal circumstances, if the um police aren't arresting for members of the royal family or the prime minister isn't Then this is your weekly opportunity to achieve the sort of satisfaction not ordinarily available anywhere else on your radio dial. The way it works.

is very very straightforward but but what happens somehow in between in the margins Can be on occasion quite magical. And what happens in the margins is that you hear somebody else ask a question and you ring in and answer it. So you can ring in with a question, O three four four four four four four six oh six oh nine seven three. James, why do we do that? James, what is the reason for this? What's the origin of that? Who you know when you did it then

Ye who, why, what, when, whether, whither, wherefore, whence? Any other interrogative pronouns? W No. Uh and then you can ring in with the answer. Guess what? It's the same number 0345 6060 973. Now how my brain works. I now want to make a list of interrogative pronouns and see if I've missed any out. All the all the was, all the was, the whys, the what's, the wherefores, the withers, the wenses, the where's. Come on, send me yours. I have to begin with W, otherwise I'm not interested. Um

If you submit my favorite contribution of the week and it can be either a question or an answer, it has to be on the phones. We don't generally take questions via text. including the thirty thousand people who are getting ready to ask me why elections happen on Thursdays. Uh we take questions only via phones. Um but if you make my favorite submission of the week, then you will win a mystery hour game.

And I need to double check actually with the excellent people over at Big Sky Games, but uh as things stand, you can have either. the original board game or the bang up to date Travel edition, which comes in a tin. And last week, or the week before actually,'cause we didn't do it last week, I remembered to bring one in with me so that I could shake it at this point.

And say to you, it's in a tin, but I've forgot it, so I'm going to improvise. With an empty pot of ginger shot and a and a biro. So it's in a tin. Did that sound like d that didn't so. Okay. Sorry. Anyway, my favorite contributor of the week will win a mystery game. And you can choose for yourself whether you want the sort of family edition or the travel edition. The travel edition is probably funnier, as in what you get in the box, but the family edition

possibly lends itself to you being funnier. So the so the Travel Edition makes the joke. And the Family Edition leaves you an opportunity to make the jokes. Do you think it's worth a producer wants to know, do you want us to get a clip of the sound of you shaking the tin? I'm just gonna have a little chat with my team. Is it worth it, do you think? What do you reckon?

I d no I d I think this sounds ridiculous. I can't do this again. And I know it doesn't even sound like it it sounds like a weird bloke hitting a little empty plastic bottle with a Biro. There's no call for that, is there? No one's ever gonna clip this up and use it again as a sound effect, are they? So I don't know. I mean maybe if you

If it's not too difficult. But the phones are about to go bonkers, so you're only making a rod for your own back, Adanor. It's seven minutes after twelve. You're listening to Mystery Hour with James O'Brien on LBC. You have no um Uh uh.

Uh uh uh rules really. The only rules were used to be that no repetition, so don't ask a question that we've dealt with relatively recently, but I gave up on that rule years ago'cause I can't remember what I had for breakfast, let alone what we did on the programme six months ago. And the other rule is no motoring questions. And I still quite like that rule, because motoring topics on the radio are by definition incredibly boring. Thank you.

Almost always. And that almost just gets me, man. That almost always. Cause you know and I know that somewhere, somehow, someplace. There's a motoring topic or a motoring question that is actually quite interesting. But don't ring in with motoring questions.

O three four five six oh six oh nine seven three is the number you mustn't use if you've got a motor in question. But it's the number that you need if you have a question that you think someone will know an answer to, but you're dashed if you know what it is.

Or indeed if you hear somebody else ask a question in the course of the next fifty or so minutes and you do know the answer to it, okay? O three four four four four four five six zero six oh nine seven three. Um Uh Alistair has been in touch rather unhelpfully to say I sell games in tins, and that definitely did not sound like a tin being shaken.

All right, I mean Crikey, it's this if I hadn't told you you wouldn't have known, would you? It's only'cause I give too much away. And do not let me go home without sharing the magnificent news about Sandy from Reddit. who got in touch towards the end of last year to answer a question and she won a Ray Leota. And do you know what that means? No, you may not. If you're new to the programme, a Ray Leota, as in the late great Hollywood actor.

is what we award people If they provide an answer that demands qualifications almost unbelievably relevant to the question that they're answering. So, you know, if there was a question about toasters and you invented the toaster, then you would get a Ray Leota.

Um in in Sandy's case it was a question about medieval nights. I don't know whether or not you remember it, but I've got an exciting update for you from the world of Sandy and Redditch and Medieval Knights coming up later this hour. Do not let me forget, all right? Shall we get on with it? God yes, yes, please. Gregor is in uh Kill Bernie. Gregor, question or answer? Hello, James. I have a I have an interrogative of three W's for you. Go on.

Which are W W W dots. Right. I would like to know where all the W's are are disappearing to. It used to be the case that you had to have a www dot in front of every website, but one by one they're all disappearing. And I checked my own website the other day and it's gone as well. And I would like to know why. So you you have your own website.

and at some point the www has disappeared because we all used to stop we all used to say it didn't we if i'd be doing it on the radio guy the full terms and conditions are available at www.wc.co.uk and i haven't done that for years Yeah. Oh do you know, don't take offence, but I thought when I saw the bare bones of what your question was gonna be on the screen in front of me, I my heart sank.

I thought, Oh, this is a boring one to start with but it's actually really interesting. So my apologies to you for the offence I caused you without you knowing that I'd have been offensive. Sorry, James. I'm used to it. No, that would be me too. W W W W Why and when? When and why did it become unnecessary? Why why and I mean y I mean asking where they've gone is a bit daft, isn't it, really?

They're not a pile of cellar somewhere full of full of redundant Ws. But why why did it used to be De Riga and now it's Utterly obsolete. I like that. Great question. Great work. Thanks, Gregor. O three four four four four four five six oh six oh nine seven three if you know the answer to that one. Uh eleven minutes after twelve is the time. Andy's in Brighton. Andy, question or answer?

I uh James, uh it's a question, please. Very on, mate. Good man. Right right. Uh, you may know this. I know you were in menswear once. Uh so uh right. I've watched some old just for people who are new to the programme, i it means I used to sell suits. I was never in the band. Carry on.

I know uh from some old war films. Yes. That I think it might just be the Nazis, but I'm not sure of that. I never I never I just for the re I never kitted out any Nazis when I was working at Aqua Scootin' on Regent Street in the nineteen nineties. Carry on. Well, not knowingly anyway. I think it might just be the Nazis, but it could be the Allies as well. In the men's uniforms, the trousers. Have these weird

kind of I can't describe them in any other way than like wings in the size. Yes. Right? Yes. What are they? What are they called? Why are they there? What function do they I know I'm only allowed one question, but they're all they're all linked. What what what the h what's that about? So so it I mean for people who haven't got a mental image of what you're describing, it probably has as much to do with what is below the knee as what is above the knee. So below the knee would be quite tight.

Yeah. And above the knee would be billowing effectively. It would be quite billowing. Yeah. Like a knicker bocker. If you yes, if you like. Sort of. And and and we see it well I don't think it's confined to Nazis. I I got an image of airmen British airmen may be wearing something similar as well, but I could be imagining it. But it's a it's a trouser that is is is very blousant.

Well it's yes, it's got a protuberance. It's a protuberance. It's a blue zone at the top and and then it it and it and it stops at roughly the knee. The blue zone. Yes, exactly. I love that. But they always seem they seem quite rigid. Do they that's what they've looked like on on screen. So I don't know if it's an insert.

Or what? What you mean like a kind of cage inside the thighs, yeah. I mean what on earth wh why on earth would they do that? Surely that's gonna inhibit the the movement and what the country type. scenario.

But I don't know. I can picture what you've what you're what if anyone's got a pic well, that's the radio. I'm about to say, if anyone's got a picture of it, send it to me and I'll tell everyone about it. But it's a blooming picture. We can describe it what we're describing without actually describing a picture because we're using the mental images.

That we have, but what is going on with the baggy thighs? They're called. The baggy thighs. And it stops. That's the crucially the thighs. It's not baggy trousers. That's madness. It's baggy thighs. I like that question. I'll try and get you an answer. Thank you, Andy. Twelve thirteen. Steve's in Barnsley. Steve, question or answer?

It's a question please, James. How are you? Very well, Steve. What's what what's it gonna be? Good, good. Um I've got a question and I've got an amusing story about WWW dot. No Can I do both? No. It's a very short story, I promise. No.

Okay, just the question then. No, I'm sorry, but you can't come on this show without having gone through the gatekeeper. Oh no, I've gone through the gatekeeper for the question, but I'm not sure. Yeah, but you didn't clear the you didn't clear the amusing anecdote. I'm also very wary of people who describe their own anecdotes as amusing.

I know it was someone else's, I can't tell the credit. I can't let it happen. If you'd asked Eleanor and she'd said yes, then you could have done it, but you didn't, so you can't. Sorry. No, no, I'm not. That's the point. I'm not the boss. I can't make autonomous decisions like this. I has to have been cleared with Elena or other otherwise who knows what what hellish

consequences you may bring down upon my lily white pate. Carry on, Steve. It's nothing to do with elections. Carry on. Ah, you say that, don't you, now? It's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go on. Back to what was the question? Um, why when you kick a ball through someone's legs it's called a nutmeg? Oh, I knew this. Didn't I know this? I think I've looked this up quite recently.

I was watching the watching the Newcastle game b uh beginning of the week with my sixteen year old and he asked and I was like I don't know but I w I'll I'll ask James. That's the only acceptable response to that quite to that. Um I I I could write the complete flyer. Okay, and no way I'm taking a round of applause for it. But Spices, right? Very expensive. Back in the day, go back to the nineteenth century.

And it was quite d no, between you and me, Steve, and no one else is listening, did you ever, for example, buy a lump of licorice outside a nightclub in Barnsley in the nineteen eighties and then got home to discover it wasn't what you thought that you were actually buying? Well, I only moved up here about four years ago. I should've I should have been able to crop that from I should have been able to clock that from your accent. All right, but uh no, I'm I'm not a fan of licorice, so no.

So substances are often sold under false pretences, never more so than spices during the heyday of the spice trade. So I wonder whether people would sell fake nutmegs. in the nineteenth century and therefore being not Meg became a byword for being swindled or bamboozled and then it becomes the phrase that is used for knocking a football through the legs of an opposing player'cause you're bamboozling them. I'm I'm not taking a round of applause that I'm just sowing the seed, Steve.

of possibility in your bulbous brain. And I'm I'm happy to accept that seed. Um but I'd uh um said the actress to the bishop. Goodness gracious. But you're not gonna take it as an answer. No, because I don't think it really relates to football. No, but it wouldn't have to. It would just have to be a football related thing or or or who knows. It would just have to be a synonym for for for conning or conning or swindling. But we will find out. It's on the board. So we've got www. dot we've got

Trousers or perhaps more accurately, Jodpas. Do they say I don't know. I d I think a jodpa these days is quite tight all the way down from thigh to knee. And then we've got Steve's nutmegs. It is 1216. Mystery hour with James O'Brien. This is LBC. I should never have started this, but you are having an enormous amount of fun with the um Alistair Heath headline generator and and happily

You're communicating much of that fun from me. There's one that someone's put through the system and it's come out with The Left's unhinged hatred of Michael Fabricant's wig is driving us towards a terrifying abyss. I don't know how they do this, but it's brilliant. Um if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can rewind live radio on Global Player or the LBC app. Colin is in Liverpool. Colin, question or answer? It's an answer, James. Carry on, Colin. Uh the WWW question. So

Pretty simple one and it goes back to kinda the history of the internet when the internet was was still a was still a ch a child. Um what you used to do you used to have is you used to have different servers for different purposes and different things. So let's say L B C dot C O dot UK. You might have an email server um a web server, um a file server, um a couple of these different servers. And because they all had a distinct address, an IP address, they they had different identities.

Um You would put a prefix on the front of it to designate which one you were trying to reach. Right. So in other words, to get your mail you would go to mail dot lbc.co.uk. If you wanted your website you would go to www.lbc.co.uk. Right. Now as things have evolved

Um it there's been a a shorthand that's been introduced to just mean to uh just mean that if you if you don't put the prefix in, it effectively routes you to where the WWW goes because that's typically what people want. They want the website. So people have just started introducing the shortcut. So it never it was never um in introduced, it just happened.

It would always have worked, would it, back in the day if I just typed LBC dot co dot UK? No, not necessarily. Okay. Because uh yeah, so you it used to be explicit that you had to you know, go to what you were trying to access. But because people got to realise that well people were forgetting the WWW, um, they they made it also re uh it's called a redirect. So if you don't specify an explicit server, it'll send you to the www one.

You do occasionally find the website where the redirect is broken and it doesn't actually take you to the website. So it's just uh it's just uh shorthand, that's uh That's a perfect answer that. Um qualifications, Colin? Uh I've been doing software and and IT security stuff for thirty something years. Well I don't think you're in any danger of being out of a job soon, are you? No, and I'm now becoming an AI expert as well. Are you really? Yeah. Gosh. Round of applause for Colin. Lovely answer.

Thanks very much. No, thank you very much. Um bad news for Dan, as he's asked me to call him, but it's not between you and me his real name. He writes James, we have a sweep on today when the first caller with an answer comes on. If you can make it either caller seven or caller eight, then I'm not going to be getting the coffees in this lunchtime, and for this I will be eternally grateful.

And then he writes his real name and in brackets, but for the purposes of today, can you make it Dan? That would be delicious. Why don't you want anyway? You lost, didn't you? Dan Definitely not. the name that's actually on your WhatsApp account.

So who won? Who came in with the f that was the fourth call of the day and that was the first answer. So I that's quite a fun game actually. A sweep on what w w because normally it can be quite late. Can come in at nine or ten. Sometimes we don't really start on the answers until twelve forty five. But this will be gone surprisingly early with a twelve twenty two. Uh twelve twenty two at platform three. Julia is in door knock. Uh question or answer, Julia. Uh question, James. Carry on, Julia.

Um, it just occurred to me, I wonder why there are no green mammals. It seems like a reasonably useful thing to be evolutionary wise. They just uh Wonder why no green mammals have green mammals, I beg your pardon, have evolved ever. I don't think they have anyway. We had quite a big thing on the programme yesterday. Um When we opened the show by pointing out that it's not easy being I can't do it'cause of by elections. But Keith made a lit'cause I was saying, What are green? Green things?

And Keith made a list of loads and loads of green things and and then we ran out of time because I mean I I mean off the top of my head, Shrek, the Incredible Hulk and the Jolly Green Giant are all green mammals, but unfortunately they're all fictional creations. Um the lady out of uh uh Wicked Wicked again a fictional creation. So there are a lot of green mammals in fiction.

Mm. But I haven't got Keith's list in front of me anymore. So I don't know whether he actually accidentally stumbled across any green mammals that exist in reality. Kermit the Frog fiction fictional. Kermit the Frog fictional. El Fa El Faba, that's her name. Fictional. All four of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, fictional. They're not mammals though, are they? No. Oh no, even if they were. Mike from Monsters Inc., mammal or monster? Can a monster be a mamm? I don't know. Is Shrek a mammal?

Why are any green mammals? Why are there no green mammals? Oh to which are there? Well uh exactly to which an acceptable answer will be actually there is a green mammal, for example. Indeed. That would be good. Right, you're on, yeah, green mammals. I love that question. Thank you, Julia. It is twelve twenty-four. Phil is in staying in Scotland in in Vanessa. Phil, question or answer? Hi James, stayed in the Highlands even. Um answer to the uh German in uniform trousers question. Oh excellent.

Uh like most of these things to do with the military in the uniform, it goes back to history and this is from the sort of Prussian martial tradition. So these were the these were the un the the ty style of trousers worn by the Prussians. But the reason they're shaped the way they are is they're not actually trousers, they're what we would call a jot purse, like a riding trouser. Yes. Um I do remember there was a German hosen style word for it, but I can't remember what the first part of it was.

And essentially they're that shape because they're tight at the bottom so they can be tucked into boots but they're baggy round the knees so that when you sit on a saddle or move around your boot your trousers doesn't pull out the top of the boot. And and they so but the cavalry became the tank regiments, they carried on wearing the same trousers?

Correct. And um yeah, and I guess they just sort of s either it was a historical link or they just thought they were quite stylish. But yeah, they stuck with them in the same way that a lot of our uniforms today have linkages back to Calvary traditions. Yeah. One of my favourites actually from my days in Menswear, which uh earlier caller alluded to, is the the strange epaulette that you get on a trench coat. And there's a clue in the title as to why it's called a trench coat. But

On one shoulder there'll be a flap that you can unbutton and and button up again. And that was for your rifle button. And I and I mean I was selling trench coats in nineteen in the nineteen nineties on Regent Street and I'm fairly confident that most of the people I sold trench coats to were not routinely shouldering rifles to to to shoot their enemies or indeed anything or anyone else. But the thing had had persisted.

um had survived. They still built trench coats with one shoulder having a having a flap on it for exactly the same reason that you just alluded to with or or that you just described with the baggy trousers or the baggy jobputs to be more precise. Yeah, absolutely. Things like duffel coats and Macintoshes, et cetera, all almost all of them are traditions in some form of uniform. Um qualifications?

When I was in the army I used to train NCOs up to be instructors and as part of it they had to give both a theoretical and a practical lesson example. And I had a cavalry NCO who did a lesson, a theoretical lesson on the history of cavalry uniforms. Sensational. Perfect answer. Round of applause for Phil.

I love that one. It is twelve twenty six. Couple of phone lines free as they are vacated by Phil and Colin. O three four four four four four five six oh six oh nine seven three is the number you need to get your question on the board or To answer Steve's question about nutmeg or Julia's question about green mammals. First question, of course, involving why we use that phrase to describe a sort of through the leg.

um uh b bamboozula in football, and why there aren't any of the latter. Why there aren't apparently, t to the best of our knowledge, there aren't any green Um, mammals. Uh twelve twenty seven is the time. Luke is in Bromley. Luke, question or answer? Here's the question, James. James my daughter had a hamster. Everyone loves a hamster. And my question is why is it that it spends its whole entire life trying to escape?

You get the time, so you give it all you can, happiness and joy. Yeah. You cuddle it and stroke it, good food. And it and and it's constantly you put it down in the lounge and it goes round about trying to find a way out. Yeah. Uh well I mean

It was hungry probably, looking for well You mean why didn't the hamster just sit still just sit still and let you stroke it or something? We had a huge cage with the cage within the cage. It was like it's a massive thing. Okay, fantastic. Like a palace, a hamster palace. It was it was an amazing thing. Right. Um it was privileged to the hill. Okay, it was like for Eton or something. And yet you'll hear constant rattling downstairs. You'd go downstairs because it's dark. Yeah.

And you suddenly see the thing c suddenly biting away at the corner of the cage and thinking, How can you be so selfish? you know, what's it's like Why do you want to get out? Look what we've done for you. Why are you trying to escape? And and you put it on the stairs and it goes run up the stairs, step foot of step, and then it goes round around the landing Never stood still never stood still this hamster.

But no hamster does, and you look at other hamsters and they're all trying to escape. Escape to where I mean escape from we can do, but escape where to? Why why are hamsters always trying to escape? What happened to it? Is it still with us? It's gone to hamster heaven. It did move on, shuffled off this mortal clock. It lasted three years though, which I'm told means it was a happy hamster because it did. Well not that happy mate, he was constantly trying to escape.

Exactly. So why? You're putting your hands, it's constantly trying to jump off, jump off the setting, onto the floor, on its way. Did it never have made it? Was it it got someone's got the great escaping things, it's like that constantly. Did he did he did he only have the one hamster?

I had a hamster when I was younger, but No no no, this hamster that we're talking about. What was its name? Oh. Uh it's called Oreo. Did Oreo black and white. Was Oreo always trying to escape d I beg your pardon, was Oreo a a a lone hamster? It was. There it is. Do you think it was after mate? I think he was looking for some.

Mm, perhaps. Well, I mean what would you do in those circumstances? But we'll find out. But we'll f but if you'd had two hamsters, I wonder if you would have had the same experience.

So why do you have to try and escape? It's my question. I know, it's on the board I think I've answered it, but I'm not gonna go definitive with that any more than I'm gonna go definitive with my nutmeg answer to Steve. But I would but I mean I wonder if people who have two hamsters, a baby a lady hamster and a gentleman hamster

Uh, we shall probably never know. But we may find out. It wasn't green, was it, your hamster by any chance? It was black and white, but James you know you you creep downstairs and he's rattling the wine and then as soon as he sees you he pleezes as if you're Did you shout at it sometimes about its ingratitude? Did you say, Are you not entertained?

What are you doing? Yeah, you're pushing nuts through the through the catering to a teeth. What more do you want from me, Oreo? What more do you I tell you what, that hamster really tastes the biscuit, Luke. It did. So why? Why, indeed? It's half past twelve. Amelia Cox has your headlines. Mystery hour.

four five seven. six zero nine seven three. Twelve thirty three is the time. Uh questions that still need answers are largely about hamsters, green mammals, and nutmeg. Uh Liz is in Castle Point. Liz, question or answer? I've got a question. Yes. Um, I'd like to apologise but it's a little bit disgusting in growth. But it's about yeah, sorry. Uh it's about parasites. So there are these little things. We're not allowed uh uh it's a by election on today, we're not allowed to talk about

six. Okay, be careful please. Okay, I'll be really careful. Um so threadworms are really tiny, basic little annoying organisms. And they come out or the females come out to later. Well this is disgusting though. This is Oh no. Who took this call? I just need to talk to the producer. So because someone has written on my screen bedworms, which sound quite cute.

Someone's written on m so they wrote that you my son's got bedworms and they thought, Oh that sounds cute, I'll put it through to James but your son's got thread worms and now we're gonna talk about now we're gonna talk about when and where they come out. No. Oh good, carry on. So the the the females come out at night time. Yeah. But I don't know how they know that it's night.

Because they're so simple and they're okay, they are in a place that's dark. Um Yeah. How do they know it's night? Well how how do you know they're not w not there all the time? They come out at night. That's part of what they do. I know that much. Isn't it just'cause the the the host is very still. I I don't know. If you were moving around.

Yeah, I suppose that it really only affects children, you can't make them sit still during the day. Yeah. Yeah, well exactly. So it is a really disgusting question this and we've managed to for people who don't know exactly what it is that we're discussing, I'm glad. And a bit envious. But but we don't need to be any more graphic about this. But a thread worm only emerges from its La. Host. Host. at night, but it m may be a coincidence because were said host lying prone and supine

In the middle of the day, then the worms may put in an appearance then as well. So Oh they must be. Do you d I think they probably would for the reasons that you've kind of nailed, in that it can't really be conscious enough. It doesn't have a clock, does it? Doesn't it have a a little tiny threadworm watch? To know what time. So and is he all right now? Did you get the right medication and everything? Oh yeah, it's just one tablet and it's done. Yeah, but the whole family has to take them.

Yeah. Don't say it like that. You didn't take d you didn't do the whole family, did you? No, I did. You d m really? Pink little tablet. Yeah, all right. But did you get one one'cause you're supposed to do two, aren't you? Supposed to do one and then take another one a month later.

No, just one. I wonder what we had. Uh okay. A recurring case? Why no it wasn't that. Maybe it wasn't a thread room. I'm going back a long time'cause it is usually the little ones that uh br bring this into the home, but given that they are more likely to be

um uh knocking about with lots and lots of people when they're at school. Okay. Uh there we go. Th th that that's the one. Uh g w why? Why do they why do we think they only come out or why d when do they come out? It if it's at night, why is it at night? Or is it simply the case that they Come out when they are Still, very, very still. Uh twelve thirty seven is the time. If you want a little indication of what my life is like.

Okay. My inbox is a source, as you know, of never ending wonder to me. It contains some of the sweetest, kindest messages that any human has ever received, and it contains some of the it contains some contributions that make Alistair Heath the patron saint of the unhinged headline, look like the venerable bee. Um it contains many applicants or idiots corner, uh both witting and unwitting, and it sometimes contains evidence of how hard it is to plot a course on this program between two poles.

So in response to Luke's question about a hamster, and my suggestion that it may have had something to do with the fact that a hamster was lonely, I've received two messages. The first one says hamsters are solitary creatures, they prefer to live alone. And the second one says, uh this is from Claire in Rugby, in Switzerland it is illegal to keep a solitary hamster. I'd suppose technically that both of those statements could be true, but it seems unlikely, doesn't it?

Who knows? Uh Edwin's in Swanley. Edwin, question or answer? Question. Carry on. Hi James. Thanks for a great show by the way. Oh cheers, mate. That's all right. So um what is the purpose of a bobble on a bobble hat? I like that. When they were knitted, decided to do a knitting technique. I mean it could just be a a uh it could just be a

you know, a a a a style thing where they look better with a bubble on top. Couldn't they? If anything, they're a nuisance'cause they get caught in things and kids run up behind other kids and put them off because of the bubble. Yeah. Did you uh do you remember did you ever make a bobble as a kid? Do you remember with the cardboard and you you No, you obviously don't. You cut a bit out of a cereal box. You cut two circles.

With a hole through the middle out of a cereal box and then you would wrap the wool around inside and outside and then you'd snip it at the end and you had your own bubble. Never done it. I thought everyone did that. I didn't imagine this, did I? I didn't dream it. It wasn't just confined to Kidderminster, it was a nationwide enthusiasm. What is the point of a bubble? 03456060973. When and why and where? Ah hang on a minute. What if you were doing a job with low ceilings?

And it would cushion the blow. Mm. No? Why not? Well I mean it'd be a great thing to do if you were like down a mine or something. It'd be funny if that was the answer. Crawling through a tunnel and you bang your head a lot and if someone thinks, Oh, do you know what I'm gonna do, Edwin? I'm gonna put a bobble on my hat. That w I can't see what else works unless it's just stylistic. Anyway, it's on the board. Now you very much. James is in Brockworth. James, question or answer?

Hi James. It's a monster. Felly mae'n ymwneud yn ymwneud â'r amser yn ymwneud â'r amser yn ymwneud â'r amser yn ymwneud â'r amser. uh of travelling great distances at night time to search for food. Um and because they have uh this need to store food because they never know where they're next going to get it, uh even if they've got a full bowl in their case.

they're still they've still got that active instinct to search for food and their cage is only a tiny portion of what their habitat would be in the wild.

Wow. So they will just be off for the look on the look for food, regardless of whether or not they've just had dinner and regardless of whether or not they've got loads of food back in their cage, they will just be genetically programmed to whenever they find themselves in in in in uh w wherever they find themselves, they're they're genetically programmed to go and look for more food.

Indeed. I mean it also the fact that they have pouches to carry food at great distances shows that they take much more than they need in order for future stories.'Cause you never know, James. Yeah, exactly. And they could uh oh qualifications? Rydyn ni'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw. Do you mean your only qualification is that you read a book about the subject? I mean that's the ultimate qualification.

I suppose it's not an official word Professor of Religious Studies qualification, I read the Bible. I mean, how much more do you need to know to be a hamster expert? Yes, pr uh professor from the University of Life. A round of applause for Professor James. Thank you. He did his PhD in hamsterology. David's in Oslo. David, question or answer?

Hi James, how are you doing? Very well. What what what have you got? Good, good. I made bottles just like you, but that's not why I'm calling in. Yeah, they wasn't just me, wasn't it? They were actually quite fun to me. Yeah, it might be an eighties thing. It might be age thing. Yeah. I'm calling in to make sure you get the round of applause you deserve for the nutmeg answer you give. Uh quite right. Really? Really the nutmeg one? Oh, happy days.

I've got a twelve year old son who wants to be a pro footballer and his favorite thing is to not meg me and about a year ago after doing it a thousand times he asked me why'cause I'm English and I was like I can't answer. So I uh researched a bit and the reason is as you said it's a spices but specifically nutmeg'cause they sold small pieces of wood which were fashioned into nutmeg shapes, dark wood.

So you could stick it in a in a s probably not selling one nutmeg to one person, but you could sell A sack of nutmeg, you could put a few wooden nuggets in there. And you you'd you'd be able to charge a lot you'd you'd be making a lot of money for old rope, literally. Yeah. Qualifications you looked it up. Until until the wooden part I was like, Yeah, all right, well not make wood would be the one that you'd replace with

that so and uh bonus fact in Norway they call it doing a window Luca so that makes more sense for me actually. Because you can see straight through it? Well, an open window, I'd assume. Oh, of course, yeah, sorry. No, yeah, yeah, being a bit daft. An open window. Um, I like that. I'll share the round of applause with you. Did you have you when's the last time you used a nut, Meg?

Um actually I tried to make uh an egg custard'cause you can't buy them over here and it it tasted horrible. Um, did you put too much nutmeg in it, do you think? Uh no it was just uh the combination of the eggs and the the pastry that you just can't get quite right like the famous bakers in uh England England so uh but that was good I used it in cups I put it in a ragu a afterwards actually. Did you really? That was bold. Yeah. Um did it did it rattle?

don't think so'cause I I didn't shake it. I had a very strange experience recently. I got sent a bunch of spices by a lovely lady called Wren, who runs a a a a a a bespoke Indian cookery school, but also yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw a bunch of spices. And I was making something the other day and the nutmeg, and I don't know whether it's just'cause it's higher, higher quality of nutmeg.

There's there's two bits. There's a sh there's a shell and then there's the bit inside as well with Notmeg. And then you can rattle it and hear it rattling. I should have brought my tin, shouldn't I? Um'cause I and I'd never come across that before. So I don't know whether the normal bog standard supermarket nutmeg is

Is is already cracked open. I promise you it rattled when I shook the nutmeg off. I never believed you. I live in Norway so it cost me an arm and a leg to actually find the stuff over here. But I will give it a shake next time I I invest. Well y yeah, let me know. Well maybe not. That'd be weird. But anyway, I'll share the round of applause with you if you want.

Lovely stuff. I like that. Uh thank you, David. There is another theory of nutmegs that quite a few people have t te texted me, which would refer to the part of the anatomy under which the ball passes when it is nudge between a fella's legs, but I prefer our answer for a whole variety of reasons. It's 12.45.

six zero nine seven three. Well you live and learn, don't you? Especially during mystery hour. So mace, you you're familiar with the spice mace. Mace is the outer layer. With the seed, the nutmeg seed inside. And they are both harvested for for spices. Somewhat unexpectedly. The mace is harder to harvest. than the nutmeg. So once you've smashed it open, the nutmeg is a self contained little seed. But the mace can splinter and go all over the place. So uh there it is. That's that's um

Something I didn't know. I wasn't going mad. You can rattle it, but it wasn't a nutmeg I was rattling, it was the nutmeg that was rattling when I rattled the mace,'cause the nutmeg was the innards of the of the mace ball. Um I hope somebody somewhere finds that at least vaguely interesting,'cause I find it absolutely fascinating. Andrew is in Korf Castle in Dorset. Andrew, question or answer? I have an answer, James. Carry on.

So it's uh an answer to the lady's question around green mammals. Oh yes, green. Yeah. Um so th the the short scientific answer really is that as mammals we don't produce the necessary pigment um to produce green hair or anything like that. And do we know why that would be? Just as it's demonstrated no.'Cause you'd a thought back in the day, if you were if you and I were like hiding from predators in a in a grassy savannah. Then having green hair would be really helpful.

Well yeah. I mean I guess there there would be other grass around us, so you could cover yourself in that. But uh there's definitely an evolutionary kind of answer to it. But however, the the more the more interesting um piece for Julia here uh it would be that It really depends on who you are as to whether mammals are green or not. If you are, for example, a small little antelope or deer um going about your daily life in the jungles of India, then to you, unfortunately, tigers are green.

Because they that the the those deer or the antelope don't go re they register that frequency of light as green. Yeah,'cause I remember as a kid watching kind of programmes and looking at orange orange tigers in green backgrounds and jungles and thinking, Well, that doesn't make a lot of sense, surely. So it's about perspective. So it's a slightly more philosophical... Answer to the question. Yeah, so when is a mammal green? And and the answer is when depends what mammal you are.

If you're human, then true. But if you are not human you're a prey of something and I'm sure it applies to other animals as well. But orange tigers don't make a lot of sense from our perspective. That's brilliant. I love that. Qualifications?

Oh, just a science geek. Just um uh and someone with a mind where these little bits of trivia come in and they tend to stick for some reason. That's helpful. Uh yeah, I've got the opposite problem. Nothing ever sticks. But that's a lovely answer, and especially the little additional bit about the fact that actually

Actually you may well see a green mammal if you are not a human, you're a different you're a different mammal, different spectrums. And of course it makes sense. What's a tiger gonna hide from with orange bluming great orange stripes in the middle of the jungle? I was still confused as to why we haven't developed evolutionarily green hair be very helpful in all sorts of uh well not that many environments, but if you wanted to hide in a field well then I suppose winter had come along.

Uh I don't know. Well played, Andrew. I what time is it? Eleven twelve fifty one. I've probably got time to squeeze in another well hang on, which ones still need answers? What's cut so there we got Edwin's bobble hat? We've got Lizzie's bedworms, which we will probably call them instead of threadworms, which is a much grimmer prospect. We've done Gregor's WWW dot, we've done Andy's military trousers, we've done Steve's nutmeg, we've done Julia's Green Mammals, and we've done Luke's hamster.

So it's only just the threadworms and the bobble hat that remains. Um I'd tell you what, I get get another question on if you want, and I'll have a crack at answering it myself. We're becoming victims of our own success on Mystery Hour now, but I still have to pick a winner, of course. I still have to pick my favourite

contributor um to receive the mystery hour game. Diane is in Rossoncy. Uh question or answer, Diane? Uh answer please for the bobble hat. Carry on. Um The Bob you were almost right. Story am I like. Yes. Yes, of course it was. Yes. It wasn't miners, it was sailors. When they were going below decks their likelihood of bumping their head on the beams was very, very Likely in the world. Well, of course it was.

So the bobble hat would go not only would it keep your ears warm, but it would keep your bones safe as well. Yes, and it would warn you beforehand not to raise your head too soon because you'd feel it brush as you were passing under a beam. Qualifications? I make re-enactment clothing historically accurate for re-enactment clothing

Yes, for reenactment purposes. I w also wanted to answer the mid three thousand because I know where they came from too. Well I do know this is quite uncanny actually because I don't know if you remember this call from last December. It's a couple of minutes long so do bear with me. Basically, a knight means a soldier. Yeah. They were a soldier, they come across, they fight for William the Conqueror, they are nobles and they start like that.

but it changes and by the about the twelve hundreds they start to become less noble. a a commoner or somebody of not of noble birth or Norman birth can be a a knight. Okay. And eventually that moves and changes again. Uh you have like um yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n About the thirteen fifties, thirteen forties, thirteen fifties, um, under King Edward the Third. King Edward the Third makes it a professional army. What are your qualifications?

I have written a book called The Life and Times of Medieval Night, which comes out in January and I was gonna send you a copy. I don't know where to send it to you. I can't I mean I can't but I'm so glad I shut up when I did. Literally about to start lecturing the person who wrote The Life and Times of a Medieval Knight on the incorrect usage of the word night in the context of the medieval period.

Th there is an Anglo Saxon word that sounds like knight and they also say that it comes from that. There's different kinds of knights, but a knighthood itself is an award of land. and responsibility to the Lord and you get given a night's fee, so you might have half a night Rydyn ni'n ymwneud yn ymwneud yn ymwneud yn ymwneud. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud yn ymwneud yn ymwneud. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud yn ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud.

So you would look after the land and the people for the Lord and you'd pass the money off. This is wonderful stuff. And how long was the book in the writing? To be honest, I've phoned you quite a lot when I should have been writ writing it. I'm the one who's got the f I'm the one who home schools the feral kids. Um Well, you've got your work cut out, haven't you, glutton for punishment?

And I have now in my hands a copy of The Life and Times of a Medieval Knight, Sir Geoffrey de Langley and Family, by Sandy and Redditch to you, but now to the world of publications and publishing, Sandy Wainwright. Who, to go back to Diane in Rossoncy, who also does the in inac the enactment.

It's a small world, isn't it? So that she's got one coming up in May at the Evesham Medieval Market, but the big one, as you probably know, is at the beginning of August when they recreate the Battle of Evesham Medieval Festival. Oh You're probably kitting people out for these events and and didn't even know that you and Sandy were on the same thing?

I mostly do for our local air l our local groups but yeah. She does it as well. She does vintage stitches historical knitwear on Facebook. So you're in the same sort of ballpark. I wonder what it is about this programme that attracts Women like you and Sandy, Diane.

Well, you know, we're sitting around it we're sitting around the house listening to you'cause we can listen to you and do and do all the book is magnificent. I've started reading it. The Life and Times of a Medieval Knight by um uh by Sandy Wainwright is published now by Pen and Sword Publishers or www dot pen and hyphensword dot co dot uk. Um do you want to mention your business, your commercial enterprise, or are you already inundated with you're already inundated with requests?

You're on. Round of applause to Diane. I know, lovely. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Um I'm a big fan of that whole business and d especially as a kid, but it's one of those things that now my kids are growing up I can get back into again. Um, I love that and congratulations to Sandy. That's it it feels like um feels like one of the families got a book out, doesn't it? That was such a lovely call to the programme and um

And it was all real and it is a it's a really good book, uh with proper indexes for the grown up historians and just a rip roaring read for those of us who are not that academic. Um Mitch is in South End. Mitch Oh hang on a minute. Diane, come back. Diane. Oh she's gone.

We've got a challenge to Diane's theory as to why bobble hats have bubbles on top. Mitch w Diane, are you b are you there? I am, I am. Well we were all getting on so well. Unfortunately Mitch is here to stick a right old spike in your spokes. Mitch, what have you got? Um bobbles were also used I'm not I'm not disputing the land. Bobbles were originally used as a signal um from Scandinavian countries with big old snow drifts.

Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud. Submerged in snow, but the little bobble would be poking out on top, and that would help Mountain Rescue to to locate you. Apparently so. I'm not having it, mate.

Well well don't just say okay, I was gearing up for a bit of a banter based fight then. I I I've been told this by friends from friends from Finland. Oh what was his name? Uh her name was I used to work with I can't remember. Helga. No, Helga will do, yeah. Susan Ann actually. Yeah. And it was it came up in conversation one day. She said it was a proper Did You Know? Ah. And uh it was yeah

Fallen a big snow drift after too many vodkas. Did you return this nugget of information by telling her about who how how the Earl of Dartmouth invented Dart? I might have told her about sandwiches, though. Well that one would be true. Um I'm gonna give you half a round of applause for for being a good sport.

Oh you got a whole one there. I don't think Nate Nate's new in the job. I don't think he's worked out how to cut it off halfway through yet. So can we have can you just give me half of that back, please, Mitt?

Yeah, I got Thank you very much. Uh that is it for another week. Thank you very much. Oh, the winner. Who is the well let's give Mitch a game for being such a good egg at the end there. Is that a reasonable that's reasonable, isn't it? I think. Yeah, give him a game. Why are you looking at me like that?

D no I'm giving it to Mitch. Uh if you missed any of the show you can listen back. Uh you know how. Uh download the app anyway, it's free. Coming up at four on LBC, it's Tom Swalbright, but now it's time for Sheeta Fogate. Children only. Well, I I see this is you you l the law of Fogerty, under Fogerty's glorious rule, children only. Children only. Mm. I think I probably agree. I did have one once.

And I did probably look like an idiot. Well I say this as somebody who looks like an idiot in a beanie as well as a bobble hat, so quite like a beanie. Keep your ears warm. But yeah, bobble hats. Sounds like an Alistair Heath headline that.