144: Leftie Lawyers and Rightwing Roughnecks

Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast

Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94. My name is Andrew Hunter Murray, and I'm here in the Private Eye office with Helen Lewis and Adam McQueen. Later on we're gonna be speaking to Ian Hislop and Nick Newman for a special tribute, to Barry Fantoni; long one of the key creative voices at the magazine who very sadly died not so long ago. And we're gonna be talking about his life and his contribution to the eye over the years. It's a really interesting chat.

Okay. So the. Who, is the literal opposite of Robert Jenrick Is a

Exactly.

That will hover over the listener's ear for some time.

So Robert Jenrick is the Shadow Justice Secretary and- it's Batman. It seems that you get quite a lot of time on your hands when you're the Shadow Justice secretary because he's been spending his copious free time going down the tube. And, filming, free video content for all of us. Very grateful for that of him. Accosting fair dodgers. People who've shoved their way through the barriers and he then catches up with 'em and says, excuse me, mate, and says, are you sure you should be doing that?

he is bolstering the media presence of Robert Jenrick. I that's one he's advertising himself as an should. What's that phrase from Boris Johnson? Should the ball come free from the back of the scrum for Tory leader? that he could also, obviously he, last time around he, he lost Kemi Badenoch.

have a go hero.

He is a have a go hero, but he is also doing something that you can see. Stan we're trying to do. on my other podcast, sorry to reference my other relationship, I talked about Stan's increasingly butch tweets. So Keir Starmer has started doing these tweets that are like, you think you are above the law, you are not. We're coming for you. I'm k starer. And I think there is a general feeling that, particularly with the public realm in a bit of a shabby state.

I remember, I suppose I was thinking back even further than that. I was thinking Jack Straw and the squeegee merchants of death. Do you remember that? them? No, This is very, early on new labor. They decided they were gonna crack down exactly on that, on anti antisocial behavior at a very sort of low level. So people used to come up to your, your windscreen when you were stopped at the traffic lights and wash your windscreen, whether you liked it or not, and then demand money from you.

To be fair to Jack Straw, you don't actually see a lot of squeegee merchants from death these days. So that's one that worked.

They were big on this thing, particularly when Jack Straw, who was his first home secretary, but it was very much cracking down on that kind of. Low level sort of street, anti-socialist things that didn't quite verge onto crime, but made people feel a bit, both scared and outraged. that's the thing with generic, isn't it? It's one of these cases of like, why are these people getting away with it when the rest of us are all law abiding and paying for our tickets?

It's got a lot of interesting overtones to it. 'cause the other thing it reminds me of is, broken windows, which is Rudy Giuliani in nineties New York saying essentially if you just, if things look crap at the low level, then it just spreads upwards and people do law breaking. Funny since Rudy Giuliani in my last. Member of him was him being served with a writ somewhere for some dodgy thing that he had been involved with.

cost us 40 million quid, which is twice what TFL had to spend fighting fair evasion last year. Just to put the numbers on it,

possibly TFL could stand to spend a bit more fighting. Fair. evasion? On the evidence of Robert Gricks video, to be fair, because the staff seem to have had the dictat -which lots of staff in shops, had in San Francisco, notoriously- don't interfere. don't put your lives in danger. Leave this to the police to deal

with. Yeah, don't get stabbed. You're not combat trained. It is not, it's not an insane thing to

say. say. it's not an insane thing to say, but it's the same, it's the same impulse that annoys people. This is why I, mentioned San Francisco 'cause this has been a repeated drumbeat of American political conversations that liberal cities are horrible... no one wants to use public transport, their shops. And when I went to San Francisco in March, sure enough, all the stuff in the pharmacy is locked behind glass, right? You have to come and someone unlocks it for you.

It is definitely significant that he picked London for this, isn't it? he's not going after people speeding in, leafy rural lanes.

it's about that kind of

metropolitan view of London and particularly

London

being this lawless terrible

That is true. Although he is going through the crimes quite quickly at the moment, he may find himself reporting on fly tipping in Bedfordshire before the year is out. Just you gotta keep the content fresh

I welcome that.

that.

There was a video, was it the Torries or Reform that put out the video, before the last election saying, this, crime on the London undergrad. And actually it was very obvious from the pictures, it was actually the New York subway.

Yeah. Clues were like really big trains that you could stand up properly

Yeah. But there is, that's very much a sort of narrative that will appeal to the sort of people who might potentially be voting for Robin Jenrick in a leadership contest soon, I would

Mm-hmm.

I feel the familiar irritation of, if I see someone fair dodging, I get really annoyed about it. Gem Rick's previous videos, letter dropping. I get really annoyed about that. Theft of trade tools from Vans. I haven't experienced that myself, but I can imagine it's absolutely infuriating it. To what extent is this? Real or perceived?

Robert Jenrick has had a, a quite a butch makeover, right? And he was, no, but he has, he's gotten now, the way that George Osborne's hair moved forwards instead of having swept back School Prefe. Look, he had the sweat for the Caesar. Heck, I just, I believe they called it at the time. Robert Jenrick has had something similar. He's also, we know used, wavy. He's also in a check shape. In fact, actually Adam, you've come to this podcast recording dressed as Robert Jenrick.

Can I just say I had this look First, Jenrick

me,

anything. I am the butch icon, the Robert Jenrick is modeling himself on.

So if Osborne is, Caesar is generally one of the kind of like degraded, angrier, later emperors, like a Tiberius or,

sort. Yeah. you want for libel reasons, which is clarify, probably not Tiberius or maybe just to

Just

near Yeah. Midrange, emperor. But think you're exactly right to pick it up about, it's there, it taps into a fear of. Urban spaces as being places that have a lot of minorities in them, a lot of poor people in them where people are thrown together. And I think people who don't live in them, I talk to people who live in other bits of the country and they, think London's a bit loud and overwhelming and

well, I'm thinking also of Nigel Farra many years ago saying about, he'd been on the London Underground and he'd near a single person speaking English and that, that, had that sort of same cut through on it, didn't it? with people who fear

certain And London demographics are very different to some other bits of the country. They just looks very, different. And it's, it is also not a coincidence, I think. So he filmed that in Stratford, which is a very heavily Asian part of London. so he, he wasn't filming it in Muswell Hill, where I imagine you probably also could find one or two people shoving through the gates.

is there a synthesis between these two positions? can we agree that crime is bad?

Yes. Okay. I'm against it broadly and I would happily, as I've said before in this podcast, people listening to stuff without headphones in on public transport should be

I was gonna say, is this yet another case where Ed Davian is, lib Dems are not getting the, the credit they deserve for this? 'cause a, couple of months ago, they came out with that as, a lib dem policy. That, that, it turned out it was the law anyway, that you're not allowed to listen to music without

headphones or it was a sort of nuisance law or something.

But it was one of those things where lots of sort of newspaper columnists and said, this is terribly illiberal for the lib dems, and lots of, lots of readers and voters went, yes, brilliant. Please, can we take these people's phones away and possibly give them the death

as well? Is Robert Emmerich just angry Ed Davey? Is that what

we've Oh, he, you, are right. He is like the dark side David. His mal, his malevolent aspect. Yes. Like a sort of Hindu God

he'll bungee jump, but at the bottom of the axis he'll cut some benefits just with a pair of scissors he is got in them.

very notoriously he did answer, if you remember, for a mural and a children's refugee center. To be punted over in case any of the children experienced joy

That's very anti

Vy, which is like the exactly mirror world Ed Davy, but you are right. He's onto something. In the same way that the small boats is such an evocative issue, even when at the upper bounds we're talking about 50,000 people versus, the legal migration to this country or other roots over the years has, really knocked up. But it's a visible symbol and it annoys people 'cause they can visibly see people breaking the rules.

It reminds me as well, actually, of going even further back to the sort of, late Thatcher years when single mothers who were, having babies just so they could get a council house, became a, and it's got that same nature of it. it's unjust,

There have been two suggestions posed, in response to this latest wave of stuff about fair dodging. the non-ST stupid one is a little bit from the Swiss model where you get increasing fines. if you'll find the first time, if you do it again, you get fined more. And the fines, are not really very lenient. they're, quite strictly observed. And also if they go unpaid, they become a major headache for you.

think? No, I'm just thinking if we're going for the Swiss Swiss approach on law and order, this is a country where famously certain cantons you are banned as a male from urinating standing up after about eight o'clock at night. 'cause it makes too much noise for the

sensible policies

I bet.

Switzerland.

I bet that would poll really. remember when they're in the COVID pandemic, when they poll people about whether or not they wanted a permanent curfew at 9:00 PM and about a fifth of

Yes,

Yes.

So quite a controlling, potentially reasonable solution there. The other, I read in the Spectator, why can't we have two police officers stationed by the barriers at every major tube station in the Capitol?

because there's that would involve an enormous amount of policing manpower. They could be,

I think 'cause numbers. Yeah, because numbers of total police officers,

that is very, that is a new evolution of why can't we just have more bobbies on the beat though? So

credit came up with that. Okay, let's come on to the, antigen. Richard Hermer. Lord Richard Hermer?

As of last July.

in the House of Lords. Yeah.

Hermer.

Oh, there we go.

from patents

Because-

This is Ms Debretts has popped in. So Richard Hermer is the Attorney General. He's the government chief lawyer. he's... Keir, big lawyers. Chief lawyer, so he's like this sort of Uber lawyer.

can I just correct you on 1.0? Yeah. Because it wasn't various people in Germany in 1930s. It was one specific person. This is a speech to the Royal United Services Institute last week. the claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by realist juries in Germany, most notably Carl Schmidt, whose central thesis was in essence the aim that state power is all that counts, not law.

disagrees with him is a Nazi. I'm just gonna go out there and say that you probably could have picked other examples. I bet there are other people who, without going, do you know what happened in Germany in 1933? I feel like he probably knows what he was doing with that

one. he probably does, but

I

you heard of Carl Smith?

No, looked

him up since Charming fellow German academic in the 1920s and thirties. most famously he justified the night of the long knives when Hitler purged all of his, all, lots of, his political rivals. Just had them murdered as the highest form of administrative justice. yeah, yes, it's quite, even that in itself is quite an

an, where was he on, tube ADEs?

Oh, I don't think

he was keen. He really wasn't.

wasn't.

Okay.

so this gets to a bit of a debate that's been going on about international law and in fact domestic law. Just the extent to which government should be keeping to the letter of the law. as well as being against crime, Kier is ProLaw.

Yes.

are not controversial things, but for some reason, they've, for some reason, being in favor of governments, of preserving law has become a bit of a wooly woke leftish thing to say,

in this country it's specifically about the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg. And the entire Human Rights Act that, overseas, and that's become the bug bell. we've left the eu and since then it's taken the place of those unelected, eurocrats in Brussels. the E-H-E-H-C-R is the next thing in everyone's targets, including. whispering Bob Jenrick, Kenny She's a bit vague on it. She hasn't actually said we would definitely leave yet, has she? Kenny

Kami Ock, sorry. Just couldn't keep it in any longer. I

Big but it's certainly something that's being pushed by. a lot of the Tory press, the telegraph and the male are very, big on this. They are also the ones who are most outraged, at Herma and being compared in themselves to Nazis. interestingly, they're, not. opposed to using the EHCR in Strasburg when it suits them. So the Telegraph, as recently as last, a couple of months ago, was celebrating victory over a Philip Green, XBHS boss on this very specific point in Strasburg where the court said.

but when it's expedient rather than the typical use cases that the public imagined the EHCR being for, because I think of it as being much more about whether it's migration or sort of international cases with big ramifications for. British politics in terms of who gets to be here, which seems to be the main focus for a lot of

people. That's their main thing that it's become supposedly a barrier to, us being able to boot out people that we don't want in the country. And it's part of that whole big fervent immigration. I would have to say actually though, the other thing with the Mail and the Telegraph is they're not terribly keen on British court when they go against 'em either. you're not talking about disinterested observers here. If you remember from a few years ago that Mail headline, enemies of the people.

No one's ever keen on courts when they go against them. Are they, that is one of the like truths of life, like death and taxes. I was just thinking about the, Supreme Court ruling on gender. You had a load of people who said how wonderful it was that the Supreme Court ruled, on. Prorogation on Brexit and you how we should never question them, how illiberal it was to question them. Suddenly update regarding Supreme Court think they've got this one terribly wrong.

is this part of the reason why there, there's an attempt to depersonalize judges, the wigs, the, kind of costume, this is not the person you're dealing with. It's, the law as embodied by

the judge. there's more even than that. Adam, you'll know this better than me, but there's been a couple of cases recently where they've applied to not reveal the judge who was presiding over them. Because they're so worried about judges getting, on things like terror cases or high profile cases that attract conspiracy theories. it's, I think there, there are real concerns about judges, which have been. Fought off so far, I have to say.

people. and they have been for years and years. I've, I remember speaking to, families of, of judges in the family court, who were being targeted by fathers for justice, turning up in their front gardens and things. it's not a. It's not a, non-existent threat, but also you have absolutely got to have the principle of open justice. And for the most part, the judicial system are very good at, holding onto this and saying that courts do need to be open in that way.

Adam, can I say one more thing from Herman's speech and then we'll get into the kind of The principles and why it matters, as we've already started doing, I just found this line very interesting from what he said. He, was talking about what happens if the framework of international law fails, and he said it's very obvious that Russia and other maligned state actors see the undermining of the legal based framework as a core objective. Putin does not simply apply a Schmidt.

Yeah, it is. and he said, I do not for one moment question. The good faith, let alone patriotism of the, pseudo realists is what he calls these people, but their arguments are ever adapted to provide sucker to Putin.

I know he is. He can't stop making friends, can he? and, we should say who he is as well. before anything else. he's, he was the first attorney general in a century who wasn't an MP first. That's really unusual. He comes from the same chambers that Kier established. Was it Dowty Street?

Yeah. he arrived in the job in a, slightly dodgy political way because, right up until the election, the Shadow Attorney General had been, Emily Thornbury, who well known figure for Islington. South, I think, isn't it? yeah, But knocking around in, labor politics for ages, a qualified lawyer as you have to be in order to take one of these jobs in the government.

it,

They don't

mean

a sort of mind read way,

I

don't think Not the Darren Brown. so. they're referring to Herma there,

They're referring to Herma.

So, his he's represented all sorts of people. the mother of one of the Isis Beatles,

Yep.

Was he

Shaima,

he, represented her, but he weighed in with an opinion on it, didn't he? Yeah.

as in the, woman who tried to go to Syria to join up.

Yes, exactly. You not

in something related to Jerry

He was not the latest case where Jerry Adams has just had a, libel victory over the BBC, and had his reputation restored as the fine, upstanding, lovely man that he is. but a past one of that one, this is always a bit of an easy one. It's shooting fish in a barrel, isn't it? I shouldn't say that. in conjunction with Jerry Adams. I shouldn't say shooting, should I?

they don't have any knees, no.

This is always something you can do with lawyers, isn't it? Because they take cases on the taxi rank principles. So you can go through and find, a something ti or even not just make it up. given, those online rumors that were, that were going around about, ki Star's personal involvement somewhere in the, axle Ru Kabana case of the representing him or representing his dad, which turned out to be complete nonsense south. the South Port Kelly.

Yeah. Yes. And that rumor really went. nuts on various social media

because people like to believe bad things about lawyers. a way it, comes into the stuff we were talking about with Jenrick, and that's specifically London. specifically North London. The case is one of the shorthands that gets used it's sort of general purpose, term of abuse that can be, put in lots of directions. I always like Islington. that's my favorite one. 'cause famous, past residents is course include Boris Johnson and Paul Daker. Those, those well known lefties.

I Still do. Sorry, just give just gimme a moment. I think this is comes back to why Stan is doing all the like aggressively, sort it out you slag tweets because he knows that this is an attack line that has got a huge potential to work against him. 'cause I, it's not just lawyers, is it Adam? It's, specifically if you're a human rights lawyer.

be. Yeah. And if you look at Hermann's history is not, I'm sure he's very capable of doing the job in a completely disinterested fashion, but if he's, for example, said Donald Trump was the most brazen liar ever in 2020. He's argued there's a moral argument for reparations to Caribbean Nations over slavery. It's not impossible to divine. Broadly where he comes from in political terms. He's

gonna be a friend of the Daily Mail, is he?

So does this matter at all?

politically obviously, it's got some significance. I think. I think the really interesting thing about this is, the Nazi comparison. it was looking into Godwin's Law, which everyone knows

can you say what it is? Just for any listeners who

Goldman's law is, specific to internet arguments,

It's, the longer the internet argument goes on, the chance the probability of someone being compared to a Nazi reaches, a hundred percent

and the bit that got appended to it afterwards, was that the first person to say Nazi has lost the argument, isn't it? But there does have to be a point, I'm looking, not particularly at this country, but I'm looking across the ponds to where, we've got an American president who is ruling largely by executive order, who is really in terms of personal vendettas, going after the legal system, specific lawyers, universities, and the free press.

to clarify it.

laughter,

I, don't think it's helpful actually, because I think everybody ends up having an argument matter how offended they are, whereas if you just say he's an authoritarian, this is Trump that's completely logical and defensible. It's just, I, one of those things where every people end up arguing about the word and not the actions and, I just think, I find it completely derailing actions.

would say that because you're a Nazi.

Ah, yes, of course. I'd forgotten.

Do the actions in question include various straight arm salutes, made from stages at rallies? Is are those inappropriate for Nazi

Do you know what though? Senator Cory Booker, who is a Democrat, did something similar where he did one of those stretching out to the, crowd salutes. And of course, all the online writer are going, oh, you're not calling him a Nazi, are you? You're not calling him a Nazi. And you say, of course, the thing is Elon Musk, there was a bit of a background, wasn't there to you doing this? Like saying lots of things, like I think I should have many babies and repopulate the world, Anyway. you saying

context matters?

am

saying it's very

to say that on the

internet,

but I'm nonetheless insisting on it.

I, and I'll clarify my view. Obviously it's not helpful to just go around calling everyone Nazis, but if we're at a point where we can't learn from specific actions and things that happened in history without it becoming a frankly confected nonsensical thing about, oh, he thinks everyone's a Nazi and now he's got to resign, then

I think this is great. I think an update to the law changing the law, if only there was someone who was qualified to

all that.

Oh,

but I think that's really interesting that you are talking about the fact there's one set of people arguing about the law at the kind of top end, right? In its most abstract international form, versus how people feel about the law at the bottom end, which is people committing minor petty misdemeanors that they can see in their everyday life. They're almost, they just, even though they're species of the same thing, they feel so completely different.

Are we saying that maybe Richard Hermer should get down to Stratford two barriers and start filming

And Robert Jenrick should take his case to the ICJ.

Yeah,

I want some sort of job swap. Could be

what, This is a Channel four format. It is. This is wife swap, but for the next generation.

Yeah. Big justice, small justice. Oh,

Oh, that's it. Get him on the phone. Good cop. Bad cop.

Okay, great. I'll take two.

Now what do EJ thp the eyes resident poet Glenda Slag, needs an FC all have in common. They were all the brainchild of one man, Barry Fantoni, who very sadly passed away a couple of weeks ago. You may have seen in the latest edition of the magazine, EJ Thp himself writing a tribute. which began so farewell then to the man who came up with the words so farewell. Then Barry Fantoni, was a key part of private eye for 47 years from 1963 all the way up until 2010.

I think Barry was quite keen, , to give the impression that there was this group of public school boys sitting in Soho without a clue about what was going on in the real world. And Barry came through the door and started off painting the door practically, and then, designing the mag and then doing the cartoons and then writing it all, and eventually just taking it over completely. which, it's not, entirely untune. But that was his myth.

Okay. think,

I, my understanding was that he was brought to the attention of the eye by this painting. He did. Which, was it exhibited at the Royal Academy? the one of, Prince Philip in his underpants. Okay. which was a wonderful piece of pop art. he was straight outta Campbell School of Art and, Painting was, like a sort of thing that you'd find comic of how you dress up Prince Philip in different outfits and naval uniform. a sort of, Duke's uniform.

Yeah. Colonel of the Bombardier Guard.

ba basically it's him in his underpants, which is just very funny.

and the Daily Express just went nuts.

Yeah. Quite controversial, I would've thought. even these days. Yeah. I know we've seen Prince Harry playing strip billiards in Las Vegas, but

I think the Express put it on the front page and said, Britain is

finished.

and this is proof. And I think, the then, fledgling editors of private, I thought. We better get a bit of this.

Cause in the early days, Willie rushed and drew all the cartoons and Barry came in, about the same time as Gerald Scarf and, Ralph Steadman. And he drew not really satirical cartoons at all. they were just gag cartoons. And really about the sixties. it was hippies, they were very unusual style because, he was a consummate artist and his portrait show and stuff was just amazing. but the cartoons themselves were like, they were drawn by a child, which was a part of their charm.

Yes. And Barry, who, was not a public school boy and hadn't, been to Oxford with, the other founders, or Cambridge, occasionally those be, brought something completely different. I think Richard and Christopher Booker were rather appalled by the sixties, even though

they were

very much part of the counterculture and Barry loved it all, and men in flares with ridiculous hair going, this book's too much

man.

cartoons of, little maps saying you are nowhere. He was the sixties

didn't, he have a, TV show which later became the title of his memoir, which is the most sixties title of anything ever anywhere, which is a whole scene going. Yeah. it's, and he, it's a parity. He was the voice of youth.

The Whole Scene Going the BBC's attempt to, have a pop program, to appeal to young people, and it was an answer to ready, steady Go. And Barry appeared in the pilot, which wasn't very good. and he appeared as a guest to talk about pop art and Ned Shean saw it and said. Barry fan is the face of the 1960s. That's, that was his quote

Ned Shean was the producer of, that was the week that was, okay. So it was a small group of people saying, what is the

sixties?

oh, it must be him,

was, see him,

And Barry had Long hair and a time when you look at the, early photographs of people at Private Eye and there's Richard wearing a tie. Ian into wearing a tie as

well.

Things haven't changed much, but Barry was, he was an outsider and he came in with a very different perspective and he was doing jokes about football popular culture. the whole world of Spooky Toes, who was a sort of parody of, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, was Barry and Spooky Toes was, had this band called The Turds and they were the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, but it summed up sixties pop culture.

but. when you got to know him, you realized he actually was there and he, was a friend of Paul McCartney's the Kinks. And you just thought, this is very bizarre. Yes.

He advised Paul McCartney on buying a harmonium, and they drove up to somewhere in North London where, 'cause Barry had a harmonium and Paul McCartney liked his harmonium. And then Paul McCartney rings him up and says, Barry, I've been playing my harmonium all night. Come and listen to it. And so Barry trailed up to, St. John's Wood, where Macca had a, his house behind Lords. And, McCartney plays him.

going on.

You've both brought props along. You've got a lot of stuff here.

we're basically trying to put together a, a little, tribute to Barry tribute a tribute. he was also the voice of EJ Thib, which is, much remarked on. And in the last issue we tried to capture a bit of, so Farwell and Barry, because it was but that's about as meta as I've ever been here thinking, normally you'd have been writing this. and now it's you.

You shouldn't underestimate. How much he did for the magazine. I edited the, 50 year, retrospective of privat eye cartoons, privat eye, cartoon history. Barry's there on page one, And he's there on page 293 outta 294. With the scenes, you seldom see so.

Which was one of the last things he did before he retired, which was just, and I think the one, one of the, one of the books was a plumber coming around and saying, yeah, no, the guy before did a really good job. very little, for me to do here. And that was, the level of it. he just came up with fully

formed There's, and there's a, there is one of two dads with their, one with their son between them and saying, yeah, Ben's not very clever.

They're such good. That was one of the first things I liked in the mag when I was reading it when I was much younger, was just, there's just pure observational comedy observation. But he was also part of the kind of initial core joke writing trio, which was Ingram's Booker

Yeah. they were a trio for a very long time, and they were all great classical music lovers, so they were always talking about a trio. collaboration was something, that I think worked particularly well, for the eye and still does. nearly everything is done. with sort of lots of people trying to do things together, because everyone brings something different to the party.

no, he was incredibly welcoming. which we would probably, we would be very suspicious of anybody trying

yeah. Andy,

yeah,

their way in.

16 years. I'll get there one day. Yeah.

but I think Barry took his cue from Peter Cook really? 'cause he recounts in his book about how when he, was first working at the eye and, Peter just arrived and nobody else was there, but Peter was just very friendly to him and just said, oh, and Barry said, oh, I'm doing some jokes. And he's, Peter said, oh, great. let's do some jokes together. And Barry was like that with, certainly with me. it, it took a long, quite a few years to get into the writing process.

No. Richard would have ideas, would have specific jokes. Booker always wanted to make a point. I'm a bit more like him. he wanted it to make sense. He wanted it to be logical. Barry was like a voice. You said, what does a very left wing person sound like Barry? Go? basically it's absolutely sickening, the attitude of everybody. And you'd think, oh, that's Dave Spa. that's Dave Spa. Or, We said, royal coverage is really terrible. it's like bad romantic novels.

The Sylvie Kriner, 'cause he was Yeah. Heavily involved in Sylvie Krinn, wasn't he? the, for, anyone listening to this, Sylvie Cris, the Eyes, Barbara Koland, which for younger listeners, just ask your parents. but, those are mad. They just go off into mad tangents of jokes and they go round and round, the, sort of fractal puns

Another of the voices he did was Glenda Slag, which was, based on Gene Rook. It was very, opinionated. sixties tabloid journalists who basically wrote two. Versions of the same thing. And it was an attack on journalists having no particular views. So paragraph one was, aren't you sick of him? and paragraph two was, don't you love him?

And

was an incredibly funny template about nearly all journalism about public life. And nowadays you read, the Mirror or the Sun or the Daily Mail or any of those papers, and day to day it's, yeah. Aren't you sick of him? Day two? Yeah. Don't you love him? and it was a very good observation. Collaborating with him, you would try and say, can we get the idea in here? And then maybe we can do this at the end.

you, we, would all be discussing, the sort of issues we should be writing about. And it was something like conspiracy theories and Barry would just come out with. A headline Moon is fake claims nutter, and it just a piece would write itself

straight right to the

of his head.

Yes. There was me thinking, how do we counter the fact that there's so many conspiracies about the moon landing and

Barry the

decides that the moon is fake, there is no moon. and that's what real conspiracy theories think, which is just

funny. my my favorite bit of collaboration with Barry was when I think back in about 2006 or oh seven, smoking was banned in pubs and we were just talking about it and we, decided we'd write an eye witness piece It was Phil Ashtray or somebody like that, or, Ken Fags. it was a, I was there. As the last cigarette was smoked, and Barry just came out with this line, he said, I was there with tears in my eye because of the smoke and a

in my throat ' Nick: cause I got cancer and it was so black and I thought it was one of the funniest things I'd ever heard. I was crying with laughter and he just pulled. But he does it all in his voice, 'cause it's just, he adopted the character you just knew the journalist that he was. channeling

Yes. Both pompous and very bad. Like a lot of these eyewitness accounts,

a tradition that continues. Ian, you've got a book of, is it Nomar here?

Yes. that was another thing Barry absolutely loved, which is fake adverts. Yeah. For products at Christmas. And then we've started doing them in the summer. but he had a, a gift for, items, that were, entirely, ridiculous. but some of them later. Which was quite odd. Turned out to, to be real, right? So he would invent something like, a pair of Wellingtons that had, lights in the end. so you would never get lost going out to put your bins out.

did you invent sat nav? I think an early version of Sat Nav is, I'm sure that was in No Marta at some point. I think we might have mentioned it. Sat Nav. Yeah.

It's something you know Barry, but

Yeah. He was very keen on items for your

dog for Fido. Why should, your man's best friend miss out on,

the video? Boom.

It's

dogs.

he did something called the dicta brawl. This was for businessmen, and it was an umbrella that in the handle there was a dictaphone so that you could make important speeches while you were in the rain. And that was his world where, people always needed special gadgets because

but we help. we, but yeah, even after he'd, technically retired, every Christmas we'd get in contact and say, Barry, have you got any sheaths of, ideas would come through. And it was always, the singing ping pong tree of from Thailand,

Yep.

warning, it may not

sing

or, they

the Charles and Diana tap tops were, I

think,

a terrific idea. pair of taps that on your bath. one was Charles and was one was Diana. And you they were the right royal taps. Charles is hot and dies cold. and you would just combine the perfect level of warmth.

And we should say, and if sort of Barry survives in the magazine, if you look in the, back pages, you'll see the, in the city. That logo?

Yes.

Is Barry any mention of th thib? That's, Barry Originally

he was brilliant at formats, like Coleman Balls, now

commentator

Barry. Compile the original Coleman balls any reference to Nessun is generally Barry,

I still sometimes chuck in if I'm writing a joke of reference to Nessun, and I wasn't aware that was Barry's innovation. There you go. Yeah.

he brought football to the table of the joke. Nobody was interested. Booker still on, but, Booker was interested in cricket and he would do jokes about cricket. But, Barry created Den and, eey Adio and Sid and Doris Bonkers and that, that sort of world of, dismal

North Circuit football

and the, the idea that, really big streamer hits now are about failing English football clubs. Barry did have the idea of Nice and FC, the most useless football club ever he was owned by a bloke who ran Laund DRTs. he was the Launder Armor magnate. and you just think, These jokes are quite familiar. Yeah. so no, I mean he did fill in a lot of those areas. the great thing, is when I started, was being allowed to go in and do the voice and join in the joke.

so farewell and Barry, and thanks to Ian and Nick for talking all about him. Thanks to Helen and Adam, and to you for listening. If you would like the edition of the Eye with the special enormous poni tribute that's coming up, that'll be out in a few days time. The existing edition of the magazine is still on newsstand and is also terrific. You can subscribe at Private hyphen. Dot co.uk. We will be back again in a fortnight with another episode of this podcast.