GLASTONBURIED (Sage Against The Machine) with Simon Brodkin

What's most people think? Hello and welcome to this week's episode of What Most People Think. And I don't know if you watched at the weekend. There was, well I'd say Glastonbury was a music festival. It felt like a... politics festival with musical interludes at times there was occasions where music

Broke out. And that is one of the things that we're going to be discussing on today's podcast. And I have my guest with me returning to the show, Simon Brodkin. First up, welcome back to the show. Thank you, man. I'm back. I don't know what episode I was on and what I'm on now, whether you've done the whole...

uk circuit we're back to the beginning but it's an honor to be here yeah we i think you did episode four and this is episode 400 maybe i mean we will obviously get get on to the whole uh glastonbury bob villain kneecap thing just for the intro

Have you ever been to Glastonbury? Were you there at a weekend? Is it your speed? Being to Glastonbury, I'm one of the few comedians to have played the main stage there. Wow. I wasn't meant to be there. Oh, yes, of course. So was that for a stunt? That was with Kanye West. Oh, my God. How the fuck have I forgotten that? Amazing. So, yeah, you bum-rushed the pyramid stage. You can clear...

Jeff has been on episode 400, but is yet to pay a researcher. Look, I'm more of, I'm more of a Theresa May prank man. And then a set bladder. That's more my thing. I forgot. I forgot about Kanye. Don't have anything to do with your musical stuff, mate. interest me i don't do hip-hop mate given kanye's political views maybe that's quite topical but we will feel like i've picked a few bellens over the years like i've

It's not like time has been particularly good to Kanye West or Donald Trump or Philip Green or I don't know. Well, you had an instinct for those stunts, man. And we will, of course, talk about Glastonbury and these things that were said on stage by... Bob Villain. I mean, first up, like, you know, we'll get into our views on him. Bob Villain, I thought it was quite a funny pun. Yeah. I don't know whether we can discredit him artistically if the best he came up with was, let's go.

Yeah, Bob Villain. Well, Bob Villain sort of sounds like, you know, like when we first started the circuit, there were still those guys on the jonglers circuit that would have like funny, funny, punny names. Ian Cognito was an example of that.

I would argue that was a better pun than Bob Villan. So we'll talk about all things Glastonbury. But last week, the back end of the week, politically, it really heated up. Labour watered down their welfare proposals to the point of like, you know when someone gives you some orange squash? And it no longer tastes of orange. You go...

Are we poor now? So we'll be talking about that. And also Starmer gave an interview to his biographer in which he's just been apologising for stuff. So it certainly felt like Keir Starmer was potentially his worst week as Prime Minister. And we've still got the vote tomorrow night in the Commons.

see how that goes we're recording this on monday at midday so let's see how that goes and in the patreon only section um i don't know if this is so this is the bit that's just for patreon simon is um there's the best bits obviously well this is well lots of people Put your hand in your pocket if you want to hear Jeff.

bring out his golden stuff well so this is the thing last week i was ill and i had a guest dropout i did a solo episode and then in my confusion i put the patreon only bit up on the um the main show and then there was stuff i said in that i wouldn't normally have put on a sort of everybody can listen platform. There was an anecdote in particular I told which I'd rather wasn't in the public domain. Is that a pay-per-view anecdote?

Yeah, I mean, that is my OnlyFans level content. Who is it about? Well, I didn't name names. It was more the language that was used in it. But if people are interested, they can listen back to last episode. And yeah, it's still up there.

If you think a lot of people said, oh, I got that for free. That was really enjoyable. Cheers. No uptick in the level of patrons. No one saw, oh, I feel bad about that. Maybe I'll give them a month, but feel free. That's because you're giving it all away, mate. They know you are technically clueless.

And I've probably given away the Patriot every week. Mate, it was, see, this is what happens. One week we have to do it myself and I fucked it up. Okay. Also in the Patriot only section. I mean, this is, this will turn off some people, but my son caught me having a little, a little moment of it. promotions the other day. Thank God. I thought this Patreon thing was really going somewhere. Now it can be open. My son came in.

And I was having a little cry and I just wanted to discuss whether or not you hide that, even in this progressive age, you hide that from your kids or you tell them what's going on. Speaking of the patrons, new patrons, if you are a patron, you get the podcast early, ad-free and with bonus content. And on one week only, everybody got it. But that is it. That's a once-only thing. And what we do, Simon, is we take the names of the new patrons and we give them a good roasting.

Just based on their names. One of them is a VIP. So well played, mate. Doing well for yourself in this economy. His name is Jono. It's spelled like Bono, but with a J. Jono. Is that another like Bob Villain thing? Yeah, yeah. By Jono, the lead singer of You Fuck Off. rather than you too. Welcome, Jono. And maybe Jono, unlike Bono, he used to preach about world peace and stuff. Maybe Jono is a bit more local now. He just preaches about like a new bypass. Jono does local. He's pretty angry.

about local bin collection day. Exactly. He does stunts for that. Charity single to raise money for New Park Bench. And we also have Ian Stanley. Ian Stanley. That's a good, that's a solid.

Man's name, Ian Stanley. Stanley. Do you reckon his mates on the stage, they would call him Knife? And then, like, Stanley, Stanley knife. They would use it as an icebreaker with a group of birds when they were in Magaluf back in the early noughties. Hey, Blade, get over here. Yeah, Blade. You've got to meet Blade. Why do we call it and Blade? Can't even remember. Can't even remember.

And then it would get confused because, you know, like nicknames start to roll on and then they call him Pen, Pen, Stanley, Stanley, Knife, Pen, Knife. I think it's all getting a bit tenuous, lads. But, yeah, remember if you get the podcast, you get it early, ad-free and with bonus content. go to Patreon, the website to join up. You get a free mocking. You get a free mocking. Come on here. You get a free roasting. Like cameo combined. You're basically doing a cameo. All those people.

That is true. People are going to start calling themselves, it's my mum's birthday next week. Welcome, it's your mum, anyway. No, you're right, I didn't realise. I need to start charging. I'm just talking as much as I can, because last time we were on the Times radio, it was much more, you were in control then.

It was like I knew I'd get kicked out of the building if I interrupted you enough times, but now... Sorry, man. I do talk a lot. No, no, no, you did talk a lot. It was very professional, mate. I mean, what's that little running the radio show? Is that...

That looks like a job, to be honest with you. Well, it is literally a desk job. I enjoy it. When I finish the show, after three hours, if I haven't monumentally fucked up something, it's that kind of thing of thinking like... job done like you put out a lot it's not like the euphoria stand up but there is a satisfaction of not fucking up however reminds me of the end of my medical shift back in the day yes yeah i mean i forget that you were a doctor how many years were you a doctor for one

One long year. It was like being behind the Times radio mic for 365 days of just, come on, just don't screw this up more. Go on, Si. Yeah, it's funny to think now, isn't it? You look back at a job and just go, that was silly. What were you doing as a doctor, your silly sausage? Well, I mean, I guess people would talk about the balls that you had to do those stunts. But when...

When work going wrong could mean someone dying, I guess those things don't, like, throwing money at Set Blatter isn't that scary, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, if you're wondering where your tax bill goes... to the NHS large amounts as to cover insurance claims of junior doctors. I've still got probably a trail behind me. Like, yeah, just chucking the...

That felt more important, throwing money over September. This is why I was not cut out to be a doctor. It felt more important than finding a new kidney for someone.

We have a super patron called David Domain. We have a section called Domain Talking Point where he keeps an eye on previous shows and sort of adds facts and details to it. So he said, I was talking about employment and the economic indicator. is under Labour starting to look bad. David slightly corrects me and says, employment in the UK was calculated to be 6.15 million people in March 2025, an increase of 7,000, 0.1% compared with December.

I suppose, yeah, like it might go up. I suppose what you're really looking at is percentage-wise because there could be 7,000 people more in employment. But when the size of the population is going up by like 900,000, 700,000, perhaps that's the real thing. But, you know, hey, look.

Good news is good news, and I'll take that. He also comes back on some stuff that I was saying about... weather in the uk so as we say this is the hottest day of the year and he says uh he's got some actual factual reasons why it feels hotter in the uk than other countries so here we go number one the uk

typically gets uncomfortable dew points. I really pronounced the D there, given the current political climate, with those temperatures. For instance, overnight, 20 to 21st of June, the dew point reached 19 degrees centigrade. in many places, which is deemed uncomfortable for most by meteorologists. Whereas in other warmer countries, you often get lower dew points. So the heat feels less oppressive. Okay. Does that square with your feeling about sleeping in other hot countries?

As a Jew, I was just on edge with every sentence there, mate. I just couldn't relax. At what point does the Jew get uncomfortable? If you just add it to the list of things. Do you know who's to blame for the weather? At what point did you get uncomfortable? Well, halfway through Bob Villan's set, to be honest. Number two, UK buildings are designed to retain heat, breeze blocks, bricks, and double glazing, which means indoor spaces get warmer than hours.

outside temperatures and obviously it's three uh air con is not common in the uk there's a pervasive myth in the uk that air con is only for really hot days it isn't oh really beyond a portable ac makes an excellent fan in fan only mode which will get rid of humidity in dry mode okay so i mean the problem is with aircon at a time when we're all supposed to be

reducing our energy use. I mean, I'm looking at you in your house now. How do you stay cool? Are you all the windows open or do you go with that strategy of shutting them in the morning? I used to laugh at that. My mother-in-law, she thinks she's right about everything. Turns out, I mean, she's not. She's pretty much wrong about everything. And thrown into that a while ago was close your windows during the very, very hot day, which, you know, I...

Did my normal response. I said, fuck off, love. That's brave. I said, you know, you do what you do when you think someone's talking absolute rubbish. You need to keep in. You go, okay, that's interesting. Mocked her. Turns out a couple of years later, looked it up. It's true, isn't it? Because the heat outside, hotter than the inside, keep the windows closed. So fair dues, mother-in-law. Sorry about that one.

That was quite a journey there. I thought it was going to be a mother-in-law gag and it actually turned out to be a celebration of the wisdom of mother-in-laws. Yeah, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Okay, a quick thank you and a fuck you. I went out yesterday and had a few beers with my wife. It was Sunday and going out locally. I don't know. Where do you live, Simon? Do you live in London? I'm northwest London. Okay, so wherever you go for a drink is expensive, I'm guessing.

Oh my God. Yeah, well, where I live is out in kind of... I say Cambridge here, everyone thinks it's fancy, but it's sort of halfway between Cambridge and Bedford. That's so British, isn't it? But just in case people thought I was living in a nice area, I promise I'm not. I'm living... It is a nice area, but I'm living... in my car well i mean it is worth saying that when i was on the bbc diversity panel for class i just moved to a townhouse in cambridgeshire

And so, you know, those are my ironies to deal with. But we went out and where I lived, there are pubs where you can go and things are cheaper. Like I went and got like a large glass of wine from my wife and I got a pint and some roasted. Dry roasted peanuts. Flooring back your credibility. I've got a wine for my wife. Yeah, the missus. The Fuhrer. Do you remember back in the day when blokes would...

When their wife is calling them on their mobile phone, they go, oh, I've got to go. The Fuhrer's calling. You can't say that now. Again, as a Jew, just less, less. That bouncer. Yeah, I know. This is what's happening. It's infecting the public discourse. It's brilliant, isn't it?

Pulling the Jew card left, right and centre. Watch Jeff's face go whiter and whiter every time. Sorry, what are you saying about white people? So what do you say about me going, come on, man. That is what it's... Do you remember when we were... Like back in the day, the whole thing was, we're all the same.

All the same, right? Now it's, I am so different. I'm way more different than you. I'm more different. It's like... Well, this is the thing with identity politics is you have to meet it with your identity. But I would say...

Fantastic if anybody was getting any happier. But the problem with it... Great point, mate. Just a great point. But when we talk about depression as well, the more we talk about depression, everyone seems to be getting more depressed. When we talk about identity, people seem to be getting angrier. Here's an idea.

Let's shut the fuck up about identity and depression. Controversial, just for a month and see how we all feel. Pull your socks up, you depressed idiots. You depressed white Jewish idiot. I'm just thinking how people could pull that out of context. But let's have a go. I could do with control. I could do with a bit of that Bob Villain PR, you know, with the tour coming up.

Unbelievable. How good would kneecap? I know we're going to get to this. Kneecap, we're like, it's all about us today. We're going to go out there. We hate the Jews more than this. This guy's just come on the scene like, we've been hating Jews for years. i got this round in and it was a uh it was a pint and it was uh peanuts and a large glass of wine and they went 11.35 and i was like yeah and i just thought that was the wine it was all of it

It was all of it, bruv. Where was this? Where is this mythical place, Jeff? My wife doesn't like me to mention where we live. It was an awful license. It was an awful license, but a couple of deck chairs. It was. Pull up, love. It was Lidl. So, yeah, let's just...

thank you to places that still you can still get absolutely hammered on about 50 quid you know i'm interested about the ethnic you was really an ethnic a class diversity thing at the bbc So the BBC had a diversity panel for many years, and then after many years, they sort of occurred to them that maybe class might be a form of disadvantage too. So they invited me to be the representative for class. Brilliant. Who's got an accent that doesn't sound like us? Anyone? Anyone?

Wasn't that right, Jeffrey? It's funny because that was during the first year I did this podcast. I don't know if I spoke about it for a while, but I remember on the day, like, so what happened was all the newspapers basically twisted it to their end. So the Guardian were like, white tori on diversity panel that wasn't why i was there uh that the telegraph was like finally

Finally, the voice. You know, they all basically twisted it in a way that suited their agenda. But I was there for class. But what happened was on the day I arrived, you know, the BBC new broadcasting house. um reception uh it's you know a lot of the uh people that work there are people of color right so i went up there was a black guy who's giving me my security pass and he said what are you here for today and i said i'm on the diversity panel he looked at me and went like fuck off mate

I was like, I hear where you're coming from, bruv. I really do. But that is genuinely the reason that I'm here. Just to let you know, it's not a nice place in Cambridgeshire, all right? And the wine was for my wife. Thank you. Take my bag. £11.35.

All right, let's get on. We'll talk about politics first and get on to Glastonbury later, but we'll start with a pretty rough week for Starmer and the Labour Party. Okay, so since I did the episode last week with the free content, the Labour rebellion on the welfare bill was brewing all last week. And it was funny because they... They kept trying to placate the backbenchers with these plans to reduce, you know, access to pip. And every single time Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall.

had a meeting with the backbenchers. The rebellion got worse. I mean, if anything suggests your number 10 operation is shit, it's that every time you try to make it better, it gets worse. I just can't imagine... I don't know if you're a Rachel Reeves fan. I don't know if she's good at placating. That doesn't seem to be her skill set. I am just so out of my depth at the moment. I can nod and I can pretend, but I have not been followed. I'm just going to come clean. I'm just going to...

come clean. The level of research I did on Rachel Riley is, I just, I don't know, I just tapped out a little bit. Rachel, well, it's good. You said Rachel Riley, by the way, which was, if she's been promoted to Chancellor. It's all the Jew stuff, mate. They're taking over every department. Rachel Reeves is the Chancellor, right? So what's happened is, but I think it's interesting if you are... I trust Riley Morta, but I mean... She's better with numbers.

I think this is an interesting way to come at it. So here's the thing. The Labour government are taking this on because the rate of people claiming PIP is currently being approved at 1,000 a day. 1,000 people. 1,000 a day. But this is what I mean. Coming in from the angle you've just said is interesting because I've got sympathy for the Labour government. The plans that they were laying out, by the way, weren't going to reduce...

bending on benefits, they were only going to slightly slow the rate of increase. And even that is too much for Labour MPs. So we're in a situation now where there was two reasonable things that the government wanted to do, which was one was look at the scale of wealthy...

pensioner benefits right they fuck that then you know looking at the scale of the growth of welfare payments and they fuck that and you sort of think jesus christ like it it's going to be very hard for them to do anything radical at all because it does seem that maybe The MPs are still a little bit more, oh, Jeremy Corbyn, than we thought. They didn't stop thinking that stuff. All that happened was they realised that Corbyn wasn't popular. Give me a bottom line. Talk to me like a five-year-old.

The criteria for qualifying for PIP, they were going to change it quite dramatically, and there were some MPs, and they had legitimate concerns that people who couldn't wash or dress themselves would lose support. So this is kind of funny, what the government has done.

has gone look we hear what you're saying so that people are currently on pip still get the old assessment but new people get a different one which is literally given that he's been called two-tier care is literally a two-tier benefit system

I mean, it's almost like he kind of digs the nickname. You know when someone gives you a nickname, like old Ian Stanley Knife? Stanley, like Knifey. It's like wedding cake. Oh, wedding cake. He's got, you know what, I've never had a nickname. My whole life. It's actually...

Two-tier kid is quite cool. I sound like somebody from the Mafia. That's good, man. That's good. You better hope he gets a few more years because that's good. Was it just the time, the age, the feeling? But I remember when Blair came in, right?

And this surge, this feeling, this like he was cutting through everywhere. Everyone felt like there was something happening. There was something. Whereas Starmer came in, nothing. Am I just... Well, so it's really interesting you say that because then what happened later in the week is so he has this rebellion. It's a humiliating climb down. It's the second U-turn.

You know, we've been in a very short space of time on a big issue. So then he gives this interview to his mate, Tom Baldwin, who wrote his biography, a little puff piece. But in it, he starts talking about all his regrets. And one of them was that he says, you know, I regret that when I gave my speech in the Rose Garden, I said that, you know, things are going to get worse before they get better. Perhaps I could have given the public some hope. You think?

Do you reckon, Keir? We just had like a really shambolic end to the Tory government. People are skint. We'd had the pandemic. We had a new government. All you needed to do was just say something optimistic, bruv. That's the problem when people come in and go, right, I'm going to change the system. I'm going to... tell the truth.

Don't do that. No, you tell everyone everything's going to be great. That's how it works. No, you're right. It's true. He made the fatal mistake of telling us the truth. But the problem was that his sentiment did feed into consumer and business confidence.

The one thing any new government has is a little bit of goodwill, right? It didn't feel like that at the beginning. It didn't feel like there was a Starmer wave. No, a Starmer wave. I was just thinking of, I know what a Mexican wave looks like. Like it's people standing up. with their arms in the air in the form of joy. I think the Starmer wave is one, you know one of those little waves that you do to tell somebody not to approach you? I've got a gag.

in a routine I'm doing where I talk about the different reaction of when Trump, when someone tried to assassinate Trump and the crowd stood up and found pride in that moment. Americans stood up, USA, USA. And I talk about, the joke is meant to be about the difference if someone took a shot at Starmer, right? And then I go on to sort of mock the reaction, right?

And when I say if someone took a shot at Starmer, the number of people will go, yay! They'll get booked for Glastonbury next year, we'll talk like that. Yeah, but this is all over. I don't know what he did. What was the moment?

Was it the pensions thing? Was it the... Yeah, they managed that really badly. And then he was also apologising for other things. So Sue Gray was the chief of staff. Right. And she was a bit of a disaster, or she got blamed for things depending on who... you believe and then he also apologised for I don't know if you saw this he did this speech on immigration where he said we need more social cohesion because if we don't Britain risk becoming an island of strangers right

And then it was pointed out that that was also a language that Enoch Powell used and stuff. And there was a big hoo-ha over that. He's now said that he regrets using that because, get this, Simon, he had issues going on in his personal life with the arson on his house and stuff like that. Understandable.

He said, but my speechwriters wrote that and I didn't look at it as closely as I should. I'm like, you're still the fucking Prime Minister. Amazing. That is lame. It wasn't my fault. It was because ChatGPT hadn't paid for the premium service. And it does often repeat things in other speeches.

Well, we know that in comedy, people use writers. You know, we collaborate with people and stuff. But that'll be like somebody on Mock the Week doing a gag that bombs and then literally just going up, Norcott wrote that. Wasn't me. Wasn't me.

Yeah, that's what you want from your leader's responsibility. You know, I just think with Starmer, there is this kind of weird world where he has now backtracked on so many things that he said he believed. I just thought, how far does it go? Like, is he going to say... I'm not proud of my parents. I'm not an Arsenal fan. The Pebble Dash semi I said I lived in was actually mid-terrace. Is he just going to keep going? Like, I'm not even called Keir. Now, on to my dad. Turns out...

He never made a single tool in his life. He was called a tool once by one of his workmates. The tool maker was his nickname on a stag do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know that geezer over there? Toolmaker. Do you know why we call him Toolmaker?

Because once, right, he tripped over a toolbox. Oh, is that it? Yeah, it's kind of tedious. That was funny. That was funny. Oh, mate. Broke his toe. Actually, actually crashed his head. Actually, he suffered memory loss. Actually, he was quite serious. That's why he's in a wheelchair.

Okay, I'm just going to hype my tour. I'm aware that in the middle of a heat wave, people probably aren't going to be looking at mid-September. But here's the thing, right, Simon? It's a good time to advertise a tour. Yes, get air conditioning and get tickets for my tour. I'm never going to bitch out another comedian by name on this podcast, but I saw a fairly well-known comic and I saw the tickets, the price for their tickets at an event. And I think...

Look, put it this way. The way I've priced my tickets for this tour, this might be, they're competitively priced. I would put it that way. There's a few ticket prices I've seen knocking about, and I don't know what your pricing strategy is.

But I'm going to say the cheapest tickets for this were 55 quid. I thought that's strong. That is a strong look, 55 quid. So the face value of mine is around the 20 quid. Face value. That sounds like there's a black market. You want to get it off a tout outside. but the face, cash value. You know they put their commissions in some venues doing the old venue restoration fucking levy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I would say that I don't know whether people...

I think people are probably thinking about price more than ever because going into a city centre or a town centre, having a meal, all this sort of stuff. So, yeah, they're around the 20 quid mark. And the idea of that is I just want... I'd just rather have more people there. It's your main sales point of your tour. It is the cheapest out there. No, but you see, I'm using marketing because cheap.

If I heard that, I'd think, well, maybe it's because he's shit. Competitively priced is how I'm framing this. The encore? Yeah. Why not do the Patreon model? Ten quid for the encore. I'll do cameos in the encore. Why is there no one doing this? You get... Split pricing, first half, 15 quid. First half and second half, 25 quid. Get the encore, 30 quid.

Yeah, you know, like you get those half Wimbledon tennis, like if you turn up and you get one of the resale tickets like that. People aren't fancying it. There could be a resale market in the first half. They're going, I've heard he does a Q&A in the second half. Not really into that. Okay. 50 quid that is you would if you could surely you're not you're gonna look if he sells out then I'd believe in the market I just think

It's for an art form that is literally a bloke and a microphone. Oh, give it away. Oh, yeah, sorry, sorry. There's a lot of tech. We have big teams of support teams. I think your tour is just coming to an end. is is that right but yeah just finished big tour cheaper stick at 70 quid um i was competitively priced as well mate So what's the deal? Have you got a special coming out? That tour, which was the screwed up tour, which was the biggest tour I'd done and ended in three Apollos.

which are pretty proud of that. That was recorded at a special night in East London in Stratford, up online, up on YouTube. Talk about competitively priced. It's free! That is the most competitively priced. That is the most competitively priced. But I think it's got about 350,000 people watching for free. Leave a comment. I'm not sure the business model, Jeff.

Look, 300,000 people, that is, you're going to literally be making tens of pounds of future. Well, it's £12.50. I just looked before we came on. Nice, nice. I've got to halfway. I can get to the interval in your new tour show. with my money so far. Nice. So, yeah, if you want to watch that, Simon's a fantastic stand-up. Like, I always see his clips coming up. It's proper stand-up. So go to YouTube. Simon Brodkin, Screwed Up.

Okay, so Glastonbury, a lot of you would have seen there was controversy there with things said on stage by Bob Villan and Kneecap. kneecap were already in hot water because they were alleged to have had a Hezbollah flag and they also were alleged to have said the only good Tory is a dead Tory kill your MP so we knew the kneecap thing I love that you said that the only good Tory is a good Tory

Ted Torrey, kill your local MP. Yeah, I mean, you know, one was actually murdered in 2021, but hey, it's odd, right? It's odd. Back to you in the studio. I'm just thinking of their names. We probably should have been warned. Something was awry with villain and kneecap.

It'll be all right. They come out live. There were hints. Yeah. But don't they wear a balaclava? I promise you, it will be fine. The thing that offended me most about their performance was wearing a balaclava in 29 degrees. I was fucking... lads. I'm sweating on your behalf. That, by the way... You're going to make some dodgy decisions, aren't you, when you're overheating like that? He's probably a lovely, reasonable chap.

Well, you know, we already just kind of knew the kneecap thing, which is best government, you colonias, best government, you know, they sort of got a vibe to them and we've become aware of them and there was this ongoing court case, but I think the charges have been dropped.

Now, so they were supposed to be the most controversial ones, and apparently there was something in their set that would encourage people to riot at their court case or something. But what would surprise people was there was a performance which was streamed live by an artist who's violent... punk rap or whatever uh bob villain and in in that performance uh he said a lot of stuff at pro-palestinian uh

Free Palestine, from the river to the sea thing, which obviously a lot of people find deeply offensive to begin with. But then went a bit further, said, oh, you heard this one and said... Def, def to the IDF. And then some people chanted it back. The first point I thought was right. When he said free, free Palestine, a lot of people chanted back with a fair amount of vigor. When he did the def, def to the IDF, you could hear the sort of timidity where people sort of go, fucking hell, mate.

We're up at a level here. Let's go. I'm up for it. Are you up for it? It was quite a staggering moment. What did you make of it? Well, I had negative feelings towards him, but then I saw on Insta afterwards he posted...

saying, while the Zionists are crying, I am eating an ice cream in brackets vegan. And once I found out he's a vegan, I knew that he doesn't have it in him to feel anything bad towards anyone. He's nice. He's a nice bloke. He doesn't eat meat. What can you say? Are you a vegan as well? No, no, I'm not. Thank God, because I would have had to end it here. But some people were doxing him.

sort of saying, look, maybe he's not what he seems. He's got quite a middle-class sounding name, Pascal, and it's double-barreled. But of course, you know, double-barrels could be for a lot of reasons. Yeah, I think we can tell. I've got people having to dig around. But look at his name. After he's just chanted death, death of the idea. Yeah, it's probably not the most of them. But I did post, I did call him Sage Against the Machine, which I was quite pleased with.

I saw that. Very nice. And then I've got people saying that, of course, I love the genocide because I made a joke for some reason about it. It's nothing like a bit of social media. for a balanced debate i've lost a couple of thousand followers on my insta since i posted the backlash to bob villain set is disgusting and i worry that glastonbury will no longer be a safe space for people who want to kill jews

You, like, that's obviously, like, there's a joke at the end of that, right? You don't obviously think that those people want to kill Jews. Well, they don't want to kill Jews. They are chanting death, death. To the army. So, right, but let's get into, like I say, I think chanting death to any army is such a massive shout, but they would say...

They're not just saying kill Jews. A military force are involved in things that they find negative. But the problem is with all of this stuff, similar with Zionism, is that there's this Venn diagram where the lines have been getting quite blurred a bit. I just don't know, man. I've got to be careful to make sure I'm still funnier. But, you know, when the guy, before he says it, is taught that like the vehement hate towards Zionists and Zio and...

And they think they've created this sort of fictional vision of this what Zionism and Zionist and in their heads, in their lovely, probably not so clever heads, they're thinking. No, no, we don't mean the Jews. We don't mean the Jews. Dude, it is literally replacing the word Jew. Do you know what Zionist means? Zionist just means someone who believes the Jews should have a homeland. That's probably like 98%.

95% of all Jews, for them just going, oh, hey, it's not the Jews. We love it. It's the Zionists. Zionists. I had a manager. It was a Zionist. Kill the Zionists. Like, dude, that's basically every Jew. But the funny thing is then they'll lecture you about, no, no, no, no, that's not all the Jews. Dude, I... The best is getting lecture. Everyone telling the Jews what to think about anti-Semitism is my favourite. It's been a weird time where the moral opposition to...

The political situation there and the conflict over there has undoubtedly bled out into like just wider hostility and often from the people that are supposed to be against pejoratives, right? Against presuming. that people all think the same or that people are all accountable for, like a British Jew is accountable for the actions of the Israeli.

is the Israeli state. I mean, the point is that I believe in freedom of speech for ISIS. But there is still the law. And it was people on the left who a while ago were saying, you know, free speech with consequences. Well, you can't incite.

You cannot incite any... Say, for example, right, and I'm not saying that the Israeli Defence Force, Israel is a democracy, Hamas, I'm not saying they're the same thing. But if you'd have had a right-wing act going, death to Hamas, people would have been like, fuck, I mean, that would have been shocking. So even given what...

mass are and what they do that's still quite a strong flavor for what is supposed to be a music festival it's it's it's walked it's gone absolutely deranged with hatred you should see my the comments

I think Netanyahu is an absolute, are we allowed to say cunt? Or does that go straight onto the Patreon? No, no, you go for it, go for it. You know, and what's going on out there, he's lost the plot. But do you think any other country... would receive that level of venom to call for its destruction and death to all its soldiers.

Of which, by the way, everyone gets conscripted. There's not many people out in Israel. There's only a few million. So I don't know how many million. Less than 10. It's become just... warped mate absolutely warped this is gone legit and the righteousness with which these the venom comes is also just again a little bit ironic considering it's coming from the lovely

you know, peace-loving left. I will say this. There was one song by Bob Villain called I Heard You Want Your Country Back, which is basically taking the piss out of racist reform types and people moaning. That was a catchy tune. I didn't like the content. At least it was a good song. I heard you want your country back. Shut the fuck up. I was like, yeah, at least this isn't okay. I was actually humming it to myself, even though I suspect that I'm the kind of person that he would hate.

Well, I'd say it again to give him credit. Death, death, the IDF. It works. You can't do that. But the Russian army, you can't do that for most. And he's on to something there. He's clearly good with this stuff because of the Bob Dylan villain stuff. Def, def to the RAF. I mean, that just sounds mean, doesn't it? You're in trouble, actually, mate. Death to my mate, Jeff. Death to my mate, Jeff. I would like to dissociate myself from the comments that I just made.

Okay, the patron-only section. I know it doesn't sound that appealing as a conversation, the fact that I had a little cry and my son walked in, but I think there's some interesting themes there to discuss. Okay, that, if you want to hear me sort of tie myself in knots over various stereotypes about men and women in the Patreon only, then you can. It's fun to be part of that instead of...

Normally I'm the one in knots. I was just setting back. This is great. Jeff's got himself here. I'm not going to help him out. Well, yeah, that's not going out for free this week. So if you want to go and join the patron, you can listen to it. Simon, it was great to have you back, man. Just remind us about your special where people can find.

total pleasure so you go to youtube put in simon brodkin special or just simon brodkin uh not just special mine won't be top and um get an hour long free watch of my screwed up special which was the tour that just finished at the end of last year.

Okay, so do jump on that. And obviously, you know, we spoke about some contentious things. Leave a nice comment. Leave a nice comment from Simon's YouTube. And, you know, we spoke about Glastonbury. People have different views on everything we've said here. So remember, if you want to clap back, as they say, what most people think UK... at gmail.

And I will be back later this week with a special episode because we've had a year of a Labour government. So I'm going to do an episode to mark that. Just celebrate, really. It's been fantastic. Sounds like it could be a party episode. Oh, it's been so much fun. All right. See you later in the week.