Eddies Chat Pod #9 - Giving out Shtink

Finished is better than perfect... Thats a motto in order to get things done! 

Back from a long break, life gets in the way. Especially when you have the attention span of a banana fly at a fruit salad covention. This week I discuss Swedens hive mind - and how lutheran book keeping lead to insane levels of bureaucracy (a word I still can't spell let alone abide by) 

Is it better to live in the country where it's cheaper and you can attain self sufficiency, or live the increasingly expensive city life. Touching on digitalization of everything and questioning widespread debt and and inflation. Soon we'll be buying hash with bars of Kerry Gold. 

If you wanna throw a toucheen
 Paypal/Maloneysdigest - Patreon /Hardy bucks

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Podcast. You know, it's The Hardy Books Podcast featuring Eddie
Durkin Eddies Chatpod. It is chat pod. It's real good
La la la la La La la la podcast. What's
going on here? Well, welcome back to this The Hardy

(00:21):
Books Podcast with me your host. Now, it's been a
long time since I've done a podcast because they take
fucking ages, man like. It went from being twice monthly
to once quarterly the last time. I mean, I've attempted
to do a couple of podcasts since, but they're just

(00:42):
sitting on a phone or sitting on a hard drive
and the subject matter that I covered is now long
out of date. Did you hear about Charlie kirk Man. Yeah,
that was a while ago. I think that was the
last time before he got bumped off by Shadowy Bad Boys.
That was the last time he did a podcast. So
welcome back. It's still for a man who hasn't been

(01:04):
doing it. There are still listeners downloading episodes fair place. Ye,
it's great to know that it's still trickling in and
hopefully I can get everyone on the same page chronologically.
We'll see how that goes. I hope you're enjoying the
podcast so far, it's good to be back. It has
been a tough, tough The hardest part about getting this

(01:27):
podcast going is just taking the laptop out of the
cupboard and plugging a microphone in for me and my
fucked up ADHD brain. It's that it's too much of
a task now. In the meantime, what I have been
doing is getting the house completely rearranged so I can
actually have the corner to make this kind of stuff

(01:51):
in an undisturbed fashion. So while I was out there
trying to rinse the house of clutter and things that
torment my easily distracted brain, throughout the creative process doing
great work. Man, I was doing great work rearranging stuff,
going to ikea time and time again, get little boxes

(02:13):
so I could organize draws. I got really really into it, man,
I got super Swedish, and I realized, at this age
of your life, nearly forty three years old, you get
really into doing a bit of DIY. Man. It's like, right,
I'm gonna spend my spare time making the place look nice.
So we had to go through the anxiety, shed out

(02:35):
the back and completely just go through years of shite
that have accumulated like bits of and the worst is
bits of paper. And then what I'll do is I'll
go through a box. I'm like, oh, I remember that
man Queens of stone Age, a laminated pass from like
twelve years ago. So going through essentially fragments of your
life and realizing that you just carry a lot of

(02:57):
shite around with you and pay to put that shite
that is pretty much of fuck all value in storage.
So I had to rinse through that very busy time,
and during the rinsing process and you know, creating more storage.
I just I was on Facebook Marketplace, great old spot

(03:19):
for Facebook marketplace and get deals cars, bookshelves, you know whatever,
the guitars, basses, amps, There's lots of stuff up there
and you get a good deal. But the the thing
is that happened to me a couple of weeks ago
was I've seen an advert for a free drum kit

(03:40):
and I was like sound. The kids were like yay,
and I was like, do I really want an acoustic
drum kit in the process of trying to free up
space in the house. So yeah, I drove all the
way to the very north of Stockholm and bought a
drum kit, and then the drum kit was just in
the house for about two weeks. Then I was like,

(04:01):
I wonder could I set up the drum kit in
the house. And then I decided it was time to
clear out the shed myself and the woman. She's a
good woman, a grand woman, very very great work ethic,
great chassis, sound all. And we toiled and cleared out
the shed and now the drum kit. Spent the whole

(04:23):
day yesterday trying to fix the drum kit up, and
then today I was in playing drums like I wanted
to play drums for a long time. The reason I
didn't get into playing drums was because I just couldn't
be bothered carrying all that shite and having to set
it up. I just looked too complicated, and you were
always in the back when I when I started playing

(04:44):
guitar at a seventeen year old, I was like, I
want to be out in the front and center with
people saying cool, man, he's amazing. Wow, fuck me, man,
look at that cool ginger count. But I've actually realized
that I really do enjoy the idea of sitting there
and playing drums. There's something about just like I play guitar. Obviously,

(05:09):
you've heard me playing, like, but I'd like to be
able to to become a proficient drummer, because I think
if you're if you're doing home recording or or studio
work or producing yourself, if you can play drums, that's
the backbone of the track, and then you just hang
everything else on top of it. So the idea was,
what if I was to be able to, you know,
the little musical jingles I had to put in here

(05:31):
to podcast none, And I was like, yoh, well, if
I got myself a bass in drums and I've got
a keyboard and guitars, I could I could essentially just
make my own back in music. But the thing is,
when you think about it, it's an awful lot of
work to go through. And then on top of that,
you know, you gotta gotta make sure the levels are

(05:52):
fixed right, And I'm going off on a big tangent
about my workflow. So yeah, yeah, hopefully now the computer
will be out in the corner and I will work. Now,
I'm still using a ten year old laptop, and I
do know it is time to concede and go right
buying a new laptop that can handle all this stuff.

(06:14):
But every nowadays, man, it's like everything is external plugins
that you have to rent, so you know, everything is
now become on a subscription base, like I pay for
Adobe and Photoshop. I can't even use the latest updated
Photoshop because they stopped using anything past twenty eighteen. So

(06:37):
I really do have to. I've got to get thumbnails
with YouTube, man. You know those daft, fucking thumbnails that
let me tell you something, right, let me tell you
about heartache and the last of God, wandering wandering and
hopeless nights. Sorry, I just went into Jim Morrison mode. There,
apropos of nothing tell you what I fucking can't stand,
and it is ruined YouTube tube shorts. They're shitting off

(07:01):
as they are. But the why was Deck from the
new Predator movie better than the feral I don't care, man,
They're fictional. It's fictional trivia. All I get is like
Predator and people making AI versions. Look World War One
Belgium predators jumping into a trench and I don't fucking care, man.

(07:26):
And then you got these The most annoying thing is
these AI voices AI eleven labs. Those fuckers should be
sued and then they should be They should be putting
stocks and just to have people throw whatever they like
at them and say, if you ever make any more
of these stupid, ever, these annoying voices. Yes, this man

(07:48):
is a genius. Look how he has just made an armlet.
He's not a genius, some fucking random Chinese lad who's
just thrown the most weirdest fucking ingredients together and made
an omelet with chicken that he just cut up with
a cheese grater. I mean, do you understand where I'm
coming from, dear listener, please please YouTube man. It's just

(08:13):
it's gone to fuck. It's gone to fuck, right, So
three months round up what has been happening. I was
doing some shows back in Ireland with the hairy controversial
lad Stephen the cowboy Kelly and better the fucking vegetas
or Done and we had good crack man. We were
down in Killarney the first time was down in Killarney.

(08:34):
When I was back, I rented out a Volvo XC
sixty T six recharge have the same man if you're looking,
if you're in the market for a new car Volvo.
I was always about the Audis if I could, and
when I get the wedge, an Audi RS six would
be great. It would be great to have an IRS six,

(08:55):
But at the same time, I think the tax on
an RS six over here is about three thousand europe
per year, and I mean it would be a lot
of hassle. Let mean, look at it. The concept is nice,
but maybe just stick to a nice two point five
TDI A six, you know what I mean? That looks
like an r an S line kind of job. But

(09:16):
the x C sixty T six recharge. I mean, it's
just I thought to himself, all right, Volvo, they're born enough,
but they're actually a very luxurious car. Great handling, lovely
bit of power. You put the foot down and woo.
Truly the turbo but it's got a hybrid engine. Great

(09:37):
for the luxury there. So I was driving that around Ireland,
felt like the big Man going around the towns. And
then when you have to give the car back to
the to the boys. Actually gotta say fair play the
lads there killing and Mark and the boys at Enterprise
down a Dublin air. But I don't know if you
can hear me, lads, I don't know if you listen
to this, but thanks for sortings out there. He gave

(10:00):
you a good touch there on Google reviews. But he
looked after me and it was a great car and
fair players you. So he had did some gigs, had
the Crack, went to Big Mix aka Eugene's retirement party
and seventieth. It's hard to believe that man is seventy
years old. I mean, he's such a hunk and an

(10:22):
Adonis at this age. Man, he's still rocking it out.
He's still playing handball. He's still got hands that would
wrap around your neck and lift you up like Predator
did to Ernie. Ah. Remember that scene where Arnold Schwartzenegger
was like, no, fuck off, man, I mean you know what.
That's one thing about what they've done. Now back to
the YouTube stuff. They're using opus clips, right, So what

(10:46):
they'll do is they're going to chat Gibt and they'll say,
give me ten facts about the predators in the fictional Predator,
and then they'll put that up on YouTube and they'll
go to opus clips get some footage or else get
Ai to knock some shit up. Then they'll go into
eleven Labs. You've got third voice. I know you've heard
me talking about it before. It just fucking does me

(11:07):
head in, man, please please fucking well, someone just agree.
Put your comments in the spot afast section so you
can agree forward slash disagree with Mass Saints and mens
babe by. I seen the Green Goblin man. He did
a tour of Dublin. The Green Goblin For those of

(11:29):
you are unfamiliar, I'm referring to sodomere Zelinski, the comedian
who played piano with his bollocks and then became the
poster boy for panhandling. He I call him the Green
Goblin because he's small and dogs like a goblin and

(11:50):
goes round beguiling people out of taxpayers money. So he
came to Ireland and the doll all of the fucking
useless gobshites up there gave him a standing ovation and more,
you know what, More so than being the Green Goblin,
I would refer to him as being the green Leprecawn

(12:12):
because he came over, did some little fucking party pieces,
you know, the guard Evonna there Dublin Castle, and signed
a few books, shook some hands, had a look around.
God azarshole completely licked by the likes of mehl Merton
and Helene mcintee and these other fucking useless, treacherous assholes.

(12:36):
That are running the country, and they gave him. This
is why I call him the Leprechawn, because he's like EWW,
just fox off with one hundred and twenty five million
of our money. So I did a bit of a
where's me fucking schnooze? One second, I did a bit
of a I went on to Grock and I asked
how many, on average, how many new homes would one

(12:58):
hundred and twenty five million euro build in Ireland. The
bearing in mind Ireland is a total fucking ripoff, but
that if you could combine inside Dublin, outside Dublin, across
the board, apartments and houses on average, you could have
got five hundred and twenty seven new homes. Right, No,

(13:18):
we'll take that and give it to him. And I
guarantee you one day what he's gonna do is shit's
gonna come on top in Ukraine because everyone's getting fucking
sick of this bullshit. The only people who like this
are Black Rock and Vanguard and all these other fucking whankers,
weapons contractors and these little lobbyist twats in the EU

(13:38):
and in Washington that are going making money out of this,
and they're made up with it. But the rest of
the people on the ground. They're fucking sick of it.
They're being rounded up and sent to the front into
a fucking meat grinder to keep the cash flow. And
it's a big slush fund, it's a big money making operation.
I don't give a fuck what you think. The fuck

(14:01):
off man, I don't want to hear it. It's gonna
come apparent. It's gonna come very apparent when he foks
off to Israel and lives happily ever after with about
one point five billion dollars under his belt and a
couple of his nearest henchman, the cohorts. They'll go with him,

(14:22):
and there'll be a couple of fall guys will take
the rap.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
Meanwhile, he'll be sitting on the beach, living it up,
not giving it for living life. In the first line,
thank you, thank you Ireland for your dex's money.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Fuck off the whole thing, man, what a what an
unnecessary waste of time, money and lives. And one thing
that I did across the board, man across the board
on Facebook, on Twitter or x. It's been very comforting
to see that people have finally can walk up to

(15:00):
the con job and you know, for me, it's very validating.
You might be like, will you fucking nob I'm like
a reth And to be fair, most people listening to
this podcasts probably do share the same opinion. I'm only
anticipating the naysayers, the fucking know what, all the well
actually merchants. But yeah, it's it's like we're being so

(15:24):
fucking ripped off, Like it's just one roll and sigh
up after another man, And like, I really do hope
that one day enough of us will reach critical mass
and go enough of this. All of these fuckers who
have been making ridiculous amounts of money from just scamming

(15:45):
the working class. Once they're locked up, and put them
in put them in the kind of a zoo, you know,
like almost like put them in a big enclosure so
everyone gets you know, everyone across Europe and the States.
They can put them in in a in a have
a big almost like a gorilla enclosure where they get
to like live like they live how they do. You know.

(16:07):
You can see them knocking around and they have desks
and you know, but it's like an enclosure where you
can go and visit. The politicians and the businessmen and
the media pundits and the fools who NGOs and all
the clowns that went along with it, and you can
put them all in a enclosure like a zoo, and

(16:28):
you can all just go and fucking laugh at them
and point at them, and they'll have to shit outside,
you know, So anytime they go for shit, you can
see them having a dumb that kind of thing. I
think that would be an appropriate form of retribution and
never ever allow them near any organ of power again.
And I do believe that somebody. I believe that the

(16:52):
most reluctant candidates for leadership should be elected, but equally
as willing to step up and just do what needs
to be done in order to make the to lead.
So you know, you want someone who effectively is like
a hero at the beginning of a character arc in

(17:14):
a film. You know, the catalyst for change is upon them.
We elect you because of your potential. I know you
don't want to do the job. You don't want to
be a finance minister, or a Minister for Children, or
a Minister Transport or the president prime minister, but we
believe that you will be. And they're like, leave me alone, man,

(17:34):
I don't want that Job's only for fucking numpties and
cycles and people who never got enough attention growing up. Man. No, no,
I don't want that job. Just let me be man.
I just want to sit in the farm and make cheese.
And they're like, no, man, you gotta be the prime minister.
You gotta do it, Man, you gotta do it. And
it's like, I don't want to do it, man, But
then they do it, and then they do a really

(17:56):
good job. And then everyone walks out of the presidential
Congress or Parliament throwing confeschi everywhere, and the country has
been lifted up to great heights of prosperity. Kick the
banks out, not you know all these fuckers, man, they
all go down and they're all living in the zoo now,

(18:16):
and we all we make money off the zoo. And
when we're all walking down cheering the new candidate, the
theme tune to Officer or a Gentleman players, and there's
lots of Confeti being thrown around in love if is
up where we blow the mantains sad with the eagles flower,

(18:41):
And that is what I suggest we do, ladies and gentlemen. Right, Okay,
so a little bit about ike I was there about
three times in one week, and I was so confident
about my abilities of going into IKE that I was like,
I don't need to go into the front of us
and walk down the big spiral of familiar environments that

(19:03):
you would see around Schweden over the years. I know
I'm going straight into the back in and out half
an hour job and only to forget about certain things
and have to go all the very way back to
the beginning with the kids who were bored, hungry and
sick of me going oh, please, please, just please, one

(19:23):
moment please. And I was looking for a cable to
plug into the joist so then I could hang a
lamp over the dining table. And I was talking to
this very helpful, nice lady and she was working on
a lamp section. This was after like an hour and
a half at this stage, and I was asking, excuse me,
do you know if there's any plugs that I could

(19:46):
hang a lamp off? And then during the middle of it,
I I'm sorry, I can't fucking do this anymore. Man,
I can't do this. And I said to her, my
head went numb, and she laughed because obviously she's seen
this happen to many people. But before when I said
to the kids, as I please just bear with me.
I'll get you an ice cream, I promise you. And
when we finally got out after paying, the terminals were

(20:09):
closed and I walked up to the people who were
working behind the kitchen serving the food and I said,
please don't tell me you're closed. Yes, we're closed. And
I had to fucking out a yeah, that was That
was a tough one. But it's a great spot if
you know what you're getting, man, it's a great spot.
There's a lot of handy little knickknacks in Ikea, but
it's it's an exercise in patience and it's like towards

(20:33):
the end, it's like fucking never ending maths class on
a Monday afternoon in summertime. Let me see what else.
The drumming was good, crack. I did a bit of
drummer today, but it was all self conscious and I
put the headphones in and I was playing a bit
of Pixie. It's just simple stuff, man, simple stuff. But
I really would like a digital drum kit. Just sit

(20:53):
there and play for like two hours. That'll be good.
Crack a day. Just fucking I feel like the older
I get, the more bored. I'm getting with fucking Stockholm, man,
it's just the wintertime. I'm like, of all the places
to be. I know that I'm using the character's moniker,
but I live here, so I'm kind of combining. You'll

(21:15):
have to suspend your disbelief, do you know what I mean?
Just just go with it, man. There's a lot of
Swedes in Yevla, now, man, Yevla. I was up there
doing a corporate gig there on Saturday night. Was great. Crack.
Yevla is an absolutely mental place. So if you're if
you're unfamiliar with Yevla, it's about two and a half
hour drive north of Stockholm, and that's where Bill Gates

(21:39):
and the boys are building a shitload of data centers.
So there's a lot of Irish contractors and subcontractors and
workers that have gone to Yevla. So what you've got
is a combination of Irish mad lads and Swedish dolls,
all kind of bottlenecked into the same place. And it's

(22:00):
fucking mental. Man. I was up there the weekend before
playing and the scenes are crazy like that. It's fucking mad.
It's a mad spot. But saying that it's good crack.
It's very good crack. It's like Galway, but full of
workmen and Swedish dolls. Now let's see we're talking about

(22:24):
Yeah so Sweden. Yeah, the prices over here have gone insane, right,
so you can thank the fucking COVID bollocks and the
Ukraine War for a lot of that because of inflation
and borrowing. And now Sweden. You know, there was no
referendum in joining Nature, but they were like, yeah, oh we.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Must join metal because big bad flood is coming to
take away all Latin machines.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
And oh so without a vote. Because most people I
speak to they weren't very happy that they threw away
two hundred years of new talgy and I reckon fucking
me Hall Martins, I'd say, he's like, want and want
to slice of that as well, because they know that
they'll bring a lot of money into the country. If
all of a sudden, our young books are being fucking conscripted.

(23:14):
That means great contracts. It also means that Islander would
have to relinquish five percent of its GDP in order
to buy weapons and munitions and kit So Sweden it
currently pays two percent of its GDP. It's gross to
metastick produce in in natal now, so two percent of

(23:37):
that goes to natal and they want to up that
to twenty five to twenty thirty. So you know, they
talk about who people fiddling the systems getting the doll
it's not in compared to that, man, it's not in
compared to what the financial boys are getting. So so
Sweden has gone very expensive. I think products as in

(24:00):
just butter has gone up thirty five percent. Meat and poultry. Like,
I was out yesterday in Ikea, which basically just like
an Irish kind or a Swedish tesco, and I walked
past the reduced to clear isle and it seemed like
a big kind of tomahawk steak and I was like, oh,
and that was going in the reduced to clear isle

(24:20):
for two one hundred and seventeen euro And I was like,
why the fuck on, You've just sold him and no
one's gonna buy that, and it's gonna end up in
the bin. It's a fucking ripoff, man, Like I now get.
I just get pissed off, Like it's like it's it's
not like I can't afford it, but it's just it's
just out of principle. I'm like, why the fuck the
price is so high, Like, I don't know what the fuck,

(24:43):
because the thing is the wages aren't going up, but
it's not being offset by wages, just inflation, and it's
like everyone's under the cash and it's not right. It's
not right. But yeah, Sweden, man, it's I think it's
designed by the the most boring lizard people android like

(25:04):
high chart writing autist numbers bods ever to walk the
face of the planet. You know, ever since I've been
in this country, it's been it just it's designed to
go against the man monthly salary when you hit So
you start a job in Sweden, right, you have to
wait two months till they get paid. So for those

(25:27):
two months you're fucking beg stealing and borrowing to get anything.
And then when you are your taxed on fucking everything,
and you know, like it's totally this whole the whole
country was designed by Lutheran busy bodies back in the

(25:47):
seventeen hundreds who were just they had nothing better to do,
do you know what I mean? They were essentially Protestants
in the dark, and to keep themselves, they just made
this new culture of fucking logging, batching and capturing every
single piece of fucking information, like the the whole concept

(26:10):
of eugenics and head measurements came from Uppsala University. Like this,
that'll give you an idea of the mindset, like Swedes.
Some of the nicest people have ever met me life,
but some of the most unsympathetic. Fucking imagine the borg
from Star Trek, that kind of personality, like a hive mind,

(26:30):
and it I think the whole, the whole premise of
how this country is built is designed to fuck over
free spirits, independent thinkers, dopamine chasers, creative people, artists, slow
wizard and ADHD diagnosed forward slash undiagnosed, and people with

(26:51):
dyscalcia and dyslexia. You know, if you're if you're any
way averse to rules and arbitrary law, this place isn't
for you. It's a great place to come on a holiday,
lovely in the summertime, but day to day life here
it's just paperwork and digitalization. It's I believe it's the

(27:14):
Petrie dish for it's the It's the Canarian the coal
mine where they they test out a lot of fucking
shite they run the pilot here in Sweden and then
they see how the results go. I do I do
believe it's like a Petrie dish here. You know it's
it's full of it. There's a lot of people who
work in civil service. Let me tell you civil servants.

(27:36):
It's in the top ten jobs for psychopaths. So you
have civil servants and politicians, law, media chefing. What else
is there? Police or military clergy, surgery. There's a couple more,

(27:58):
but like it's it's nestled nicely in the psychopath job.
And a lot of those people they have the mindset of, oh,
you should have thought of that, it's your own fault.
I have no sympathy because I don't have any empathy
because I live my life by a set of arbitrary

(28:18):
standards and rules. Some fucked up administrators without the semblance
of fun. Wrote in a Protestant ledger in the late
sixteen hundreds, I swear to God Man the rules in
this country define logic. But yet if you challenge people,
like if you challenge the average Swedes about these daft, depressive,

(28:40):
puritanical set of beliefs, they look at you as if
you bumb their sister in front of the family at
Midsummer's at the dinner table, like if you talk about tax,
I was doing a bit of stand up there recently.
I was talking about like the concept of tax being
essentially legalized theft to a known as the government that

(29:01):
have a monopoly on violence. So therefore it's you know,
we have no fucking clue where your money goes collectively,
and when you think about it, like there's no transparency.
But if you don't pay, you're in the fucking ship house,
like you're in you're in bother and you know, people,
what are you saying about tax? It's like I'm saying,

(29:24):
look at fucking look at Ireland one hundred and twenty
five million, and yet they're trying to do some sort
of a fundraiser for children's hospice outside of Dublin. It's
fucking disgraceful.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Man.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
It's like like like in the States as well, you
have people living on the fucking streets addicted to fentonl
And meanwhile, yeah, more money for Israel, more money for Ukraine,
more more bank bailouts and and generous corporate welfare to
big companies. You might be like, oh, jeezus, came here
for the comedy, but man, it is what it is,

(29:58):
and this is three months worth of shit that I
I'm shipping out of my brain and dumping into this podcast.
And I'm and I would like to think that the
majority of you would agree or if I'm wrong on anything,
they'd be like, all right, he means, well, you know,
I certainly don't think like I'm right about a lot
of things, but I feel like in my my like, Okay,

(30:19):
I'm nearly forty three years old. I spent a lot
of my time in trouble in school for speaking out.
And you know, I've fucking hung out with all sorts
of people. I've met a lot of people, and I
kind of am good at pattern recognition. I can I
know when something's you can smell shite. You cannot in

(30:40):
other words, you cannot bullshit a bullshit, you know what
I mean. And it astounds me how easily fools a
big commands to quote fill in the there at the
roching dove boodle it dude't do dude, But it's amazing
how he people just fucking believe what they reading the

(31:02):
papers without discernment. But I won't well on that look,
and I'm not shipping on on the Sweden man. You
know what I mean, Like there's a lot of good
Swedes out there, and I mean that there's like they're
they're good. There are some people buying large, but they've
just been bred to be very obedient and they'll form ques,

(31:23):
just stand up quing at any any excuses. So let's
form a queue. Have we got the ticket system here?
And you know, they're they're they're they're they're nice people.
But I'd say there's a lot of Swedes that just
find their their native country to be oppressive and stuffy
and lacks spontaneity. And a lot of these people you'd

(31:43):
find them out in Thailand, Greece, USA, London, Australia, you know,
South America, you know, And I think a lot of them,
especially like Stockholm, when when they're away, like the Swedes,
they they finally kind of let their hair down and
and really live their life. But then a lot of
them when they come back to Stockholm, they they're forced

(32:04):
to join the hive mind of conduct. Like an ex
girlfriend of mine, she was mad crack when she was
in Ireland and when she came back to Sweden and
it was like I'm not doing that here. I'm not
doing that. I'm like, whoa, oh, you changed your fucking tune.
But they don't want to be. They don't want to be.
They don't want to stand out, you know, with family

(32:25):
and friends and society. So they go back to conform
and the like im Like I said, not shipping on Sweden.
There's a lot of great things about this place. But
like if people said about Galway it's the graveyard of ambition, well,
I think Stockholm is the graveyard of spontaneity, like I

(32:46):
want to, I want to. It's it's because the thing
is difficult to get to know people here, you know,
and because the city itself is spread across fourteen islands.
It's it's a it's a big metropolitan area. And if
you drive somewhere, you can't have a drink, and then
you worrying about parking, and then you got to pay
to go in and out of the fucking city. That'll
cost you about twelve quid at the peak time. And

(33:07):
if you're taking public transport, then you've got to take
about five or six different sometimes five or six different
modes of transport that could take you like up to
two hours to get somewhere and then two hours back,
and it's just a lot of people think it's just
not worth it. Man. You know, yeah, where are we now? Yeah? Nothing?
Not Sweden? What kind of am but I you know Sweden.

(33:30):
When I first came here right as a as a
twenty year old, I was like, Wow, this place is unreal, man,
Like the infrastructure, the bridges, the buildings, how clean it was,
how everything works on time, Like twenty two years ago,
you could look at a bus stop and the bus
told you that the bus would be here in three minutes,

(33:50):
and to be fair, the bus was there in three minutes.
They've had this technology for years. I remember when I
first went to New York in two thousand and six
after being in Sweden, thinking, Wow, New York, that's the
song you hear all the fucking time while walking around
the streets in New York. By the way, those fucking

(34:10):
assholes selling pictures of three sixty videos of you just
stood there while it goes mag mag oh hoo. Bored.
I went to New York after being in Sweden, and
I have to say it was somewhat disappointed. It's fucking

(34:30):
trash all over the place. Didn't know it literally didn't
know when the next train was coming, and you know
it was. It was cool. It's New York. It's it's
from the films and the Crackers. Good in New York.
But I remember thinking it certainly wasn't as technologically advanced
or organized as Sweden was. But that organization comes at

(34:53):
a price though, you know, it's you're you know, look
at Ireland, it's vastly own, disorganized and then repair and disarray,
like infrastructure and like I mean, if you're trying to
get a bus or or a train somewhere, forget about it.
Like if you're if you're trying to if you're trying
to level up laterally, if you're going from let's say

(35:14):
kill Dare and you need to get up to you know,
at Loan, up onto the corridor that leads to Mayo,
you know, like we would. We were at the Gary's Glue,
Glad Gary's Glue at six for you. We were at
the Plowing Championship a couple of months ago and sweet
Garald dropped us off there at at Loan and miss

(35:39):
having the girlfriend be like all right, yeah, sure, we'll
just get to get a train to bally Horness and
get sledge gather ago benchman to pick us up from
bally Horness and we landed there about ten in the
morning and the next train to bally Horness was half
past two. Like what the fuck is that about? Man?
I mean, like, think about it. How many new trains

(36:03):
could one hundred and twenty five million euro or how
many new buses for bus are and how many extra routes.
Think about that? Like, think about that for a minute.
That these fucking dickheads up in the doll just gave
away money that could have been spent school cafeterias for
your kids, you know what I mean? Like, there's there's

(36:26):
so much more that money could have been spent on.
And I won't go into it again. Now where was
I Yeah? Okay, yeah, sweets what okay? Like I'm not
shotting on Sweden. I've established that, and there is very impressive.

(36:47):
There are things that could you could learn from Sweden
that could be emulated in Ireland. But I've often said
the best bits of Sweden and Ireland combined would be
heaven on Earth. The worst bits of both countries would
be hell on Earth. So the bureaucracy mixed with the
terrible administration and infrastructure. But the great infrastructure and engineering

(37:12):
and ingenuity combined with the social side of things and
the crack and the creativity, it'd be great. And the
views of the wild landing way right where we know, okay,
I've got to talk about there's at least Ireland has
wiggle room. And there's you know, there's there's hospitality, the

(37:35):
charm and in a weird way, we all we enjoy
giving out about stuff. Stuff doesn't work. It unites us
in us talking shit about it. So there is that.
And also a man can live his life the way
he wants to under the majesty of the Celtic sky
up the ram ladies. Yeah, so where I'm living in Stockholm,

(38:02):
there seems to be a lot of a lot of
very rich people around here, a lot of footballers, lawyers
and bankers, doctors, what have you, and they're all they're
all they all seem to be doing well in this area.
So so I'm quite an affluent area. And there's you know,
the neighbors like I feel like fucking Walter Grizold's cousin

(38:25):
played by fucking Dennis Quaid's brother, Randy Quaid, that's the one.
But Randy quaid Man apparently himself and the wife broke
into their own gaff and they were talking about star
whackersh a bunch of lads, bad bastards who apparently killed
Chris Penn and David Carrodene and Michael Jackson. Look it

(38:49):
up man. But she'd sent some unsolicited nudes of herself
Quaid's wife a couple of years ago. They talked about
the star Whackers. But I'd have follow him there on
X men and is mad count? And now what the
fuck is that going to do with rich Swedes? Yeah,
so rich people, rich Swedes, plenty of. They have these
big cubic houses, right, we call them funkies. So they've

(39:12):
got massive windows, they're made of wood panel and and
they've they've you know, they've integrated into the rocky environment,
the granite rock here in Stockholm and the you know,
the the pine trees, the forests and that kind of thing.
And they look nice, you know, they're they're all lit
up and they're driving the latest fucking electronic hybrids or

(39:35):
you know, Tesla's, bmw Iphour's and oh there's a lot
of wedge out here. But it makes me wonder are
they are they feeling the pinch, you know, or did
they just did they buy at the right time, because
property here in Stockholm has gone up five in the
last ten years. Like the area I used to live

(39:56):
in called Orston. It's a nice, lovely, lovely little kind
of it's a bit like Randola in Dublin. But here
in Stockholm and got a nice community. It's all centered
around like a little little kind of village where I
knew everyone. It was good crack. I was ashamed to
leave Bording. There's a like an area nearby that they

(40:20):
used to nickname Little Ukraine because I had a whole
load of brutalistic tower blocks that have now been refurbished.
But you could have got yourself a flat there, one
hundred meters sized flat for about one hundred thousand euro
about ten years ago. Now the same one you're looking
about five or six million. Like you have to ask yourself,

(40:43):
dear listeners, what the fuck are we paying for? Like, seriously,
ask yourself, a place to a place to so here
here in Stockholm, most people are there working to live.
Obviously that's the concept of work, but they're they're basically

(41:04):
working way too much just to have a place to
throw their head down, have a couple of hours, kip,
and you can leave your stuff there and you have
a day or two off to enjoy the house. And
it's just fucking like, it's ridiculous. Like if you live
in the countryside, I think that's the only way, really realistically,
if you can form a community of like minded people,

(41:27):
buy somewhere that's cheap, form your own township and homestead.
But then you know, if I don't know, man, I
wonder about these things. I was watching bear grills the island.
I was enjoying that, and you know, the most of

(41:48):
us have never experienced survival where where we are stuck
with the elements, trying to light a fire, trying to
make accommodation to sleep in order to stay warm, trying
to find fresh water and kill and hunt to survive.
And when I watched that, I put a lot of

(42:12):
things into perspective, especially at the end of the experiment
when you know they're like, can't wait to get off
this fucking island. I'll just come. I'm so sick and
tired at his place. I mean, the whole the whole
island is that to kill you, you have to respect it.
And at the end of it, they're all look, they
all look lean and healthy. And I was watching it

(42:37):
there last night and there's one fella he was he's
a camera man. He was just talking about like when
he's when he goes back to civilization, the first thing
he has to do is turn on his emails and
a lot of the the a lot of the things.
Here in Sweden, it's all automated, you know, and everything's digital.

(42:57):
You need your your digital ID to log into anything,
and without that you fucked. You can't make payments, you
can't check your medical records, you can't go into check
your your kids' school records, everything, paying bills, getting a subscription,
everything revolves around. So in England they're like, oh, which,

(43:18):
fair enough. I'm against that ship man. I am against
the digitalization and so much so right that that court
case I was telling you about for the parking ticket
fair of March last year, that's gonna come to a
head on Friday. So I have to go to court
on Friday and prepare my case and represent myself for

(43:40):
a ninety euro fine. And it was never about the
amount of money. It was the fact that that was,
in my opinion, a disputable fine, but the way it is,
it's all digitized. They say, oh you can, you can
dispute your claim here, and I doubt that there's actually

(44:04):
a fucking case work. The fact that you cannot ring
up somebody and state your case and go come on, look,
it was a fifty to fifty no. So I'm gonna
go and say, look, it's not about the money. I
am prepared to donate that money to hunt and utan hem,
which means dogs without homes, and I'm willing to do

(44:27):
that just to because I've missed out and work. I
suppose to be doing a couple of gigs in London
that's not gonna happen now. So this fucking parking ticket
that if I just paid would have went away. But
the principle of it, it's like, fuck this, and I'm
probably not gonna win, but I'll tell you one thing.
I'm gonna I'm gonna go up and give it a
good shot. And I mean, it's a fucking weird hill

(44:52):
to die on, and it's caused me a lot of
hassle over the last few well last year and a half,
last eighteen months, but I I feel like it's it's
worth going up against these fucking monolithic corporations, you know,
And and that's that's what we're we're dealing with. And
and when you look at the likes of bear grills

(45:12):
survival or the Island and the idea of homesteadying and
having like having a community around you of like minded
people and you know, you grow crops and someone else
rares animals and chickens. I mean, let's look at the
communist takeover of Russia. It was seized the means of production. Now,

(45:39):
you know, a loot. Bitcoin. You know, bitcoin is fucking done, man,
you know, it's it was only a matter of time
until until Wall Street and and these big fucking billionaires
started investing in it. Like the whole point of crypto
and bitcoin was to try and transfer wealth away from
centralized monetary control and into the hands of the ordinary people,

(46:04):
to level the playing field and take out the middleman.
Now it's it's done. But the fact of the matter
that the true value in this world is the individual,
their relationship to a higher power, to God, to the

(46:25):
community that you belong to, and the community of people
that look out for each other and share the same
values and help to inspire and spur each other on
approval and security. You know, that's that's another thing that
cannot be bought and sold. The other thing is land.

(46:50):
To be able to to live off the land makes
you independent in a true sense. If you have a
community that contribute to a cooperative then between the community,
you don't need any outside external factors. You don't need
legislators who exist in a capital city who have feathered

(47:16):
their own nest through their application of bureaucracy. You know,
when when when you're out there in the elements, you know,
on the frontier, the rules of mankind don't apply unless
you're like the island, and you have to obviously if
you're if you're if you have a group of people,

(47:36):
you're going to have to appoint the leader, which even
in a situation like that, which is quite interesting the
first series and the second series, at the end of
the experiment, they had to appoint someone to lead, to delicate,
to delicate the tasks, you know. And but I think

(47:58):
that the way I think cities man like like Stockholm
is very similar to to San Francisco is in it
it's an IT service based economy and there's a lot
of these you know, international companies that exist here much
like they do in Dublin. So you know a lot

(48:19):
of these companies they pay for their staff to live
in accommodation, and therefore the prices go up, and your
your local people cannot afford to live in the cities
that they've grown up in, and you have to ask yourself,
why is it, Going back to my original point, why
is it so expensive to live in a structure, many

(48:42):
of which have been built eighty years ago? How have
you know? I think a lot of it has to
do with with the invention of the credit card. You know,
that's where things that's when the wheels started coming off,
was credit and instant credit and then these fucking payday

(49:04):
loans and you know how you're purchasing that just lock
people into into their subscriptions, Like how many subscriptions do
you have? Speaking of subscriptions, if you want to, uh,
if you want if you do want to add my
subscription of Hardy Books on Patreon or a one time

(49:28):
donation to PayPal, Hey, I'll take it gladly, but I'm
not gonna say, oh, please do. If you like it
and you want to support it, that's it. That's all
all I say on it. But I thought, you know,
at that point and I will finish, right, So you
know I have an iPhone, so that you've got I
pay what like fifteen euro a month for cloud storage.

(49:49):
Then there's iTunes another twelve quid maybe maybe more. YouTube premium.
That's one that I recommend. If you're watching YouTube and
you watch it a lot, just get the fucking premium man,
instead of watching the same annoying, shitty adverts. That that's
one of the best. Like X, I'm like, why would
I start paying for something that was free? But this

(50:10):
is how everything is. There was an episode of South
Park recently where there were one Lad was talking about
I think it was it was kind of like they
had like a Charlie Kirk thing obviously before he was killed,
where he's like, I think it was like a Nick
Fuentez character where he was talking about his nut and

(50:31):
they were making really edgy topical talking points in order
to get as much as much audience analytics in so
they could make money off MAK and create controversial content.
And he talks about his nut. So, like I was
saying earlier on at the beginning, where like you know, Adobe, Apple,

(50:53):
there's a there's a whole other ship that I'm just
fucking paying each each month. I'm not doing the podcast.
I'm like, I'm just fucking I'm not even pissing that
against the wall. That's just money that I've forgotten about
and off off of goals. And then it's only when
you like I got sucked. A couple of years ago,
I bought I bought a PlayStation four game days gone.
I got it on PS plus on a temporary basis,

(51:17):
and just before I got to complete it, they just
pulled it off and I was like, I need to
finish this game. So I found one for like fifteen euro.
Was like sound didn't read the terms and conditions. And
then like a year and a half later, I'm just
looking at like, what is this centaurro shit? They were
taking like a tenor a month. Couldn't get that back,

(51:38):
but as you know, another one of them con jobs.
But I was thinking it was suspiciously cheap, alright, fifteen quid.
But I remember thinking to himself, if I put in
like one hundred, and if I put like a tenor
away for a year and a half, you know, you
might buy tickets to go somewhere, or buy a suit
or whatever the fuck, you know what I mean, it's

(51:59):
got a nice big fucking pack of luxury shopping. But
this is the thing, like we're all being juiced, and
you know, like the banks are juiceless, governments are juicing us,
the corporations are juiceless. And then inflation, man, it's the
biggest one of the lot. Man, Like they're where they

(52:21):
keep printing money, so the money that you have loses
its value, and that's why the people who are making
these products have to put a higher price on it.
And you feel bad because the people who are rareing
livestock or growing vegetables or dairy farmers and you know,

(52:41):
like butter here and that was gone fucking so expensive
you may as well carry a few fucking blocks of
it round and go here. Man, I'll buy that hash
off you for two nodges of fucking butter. It's it's
just the way it is that, you know. It's so
the inflation has passed on to the consumer and passed
on to the manufacturer. And meanwhile these financial institutions that

(53:04):
are international corporations, they're the fucking worst, man, because it's usury.
They're making money off money itself and they're so powerful
that no one fucking stands up to them, and they're
really taking the fucking piss. And the thing is most

(53:25):
people don't understand how it works, so so like they're
they don't. It's a bit like it's a bit like,
you know, oh, i'd like to be I'd like to
be on TV, but then you're like, how the fuck
do I even get there? Man? It's the same thing
with with politics. It so I don't know how to
get there, you know, And it's and in this world

(53:45):
it's all who you know. But the like these these
lads and financial institutions, they're fucking taking the piss man
like they're at this stage of the game. And this
isn't me sounding like utopian, but with the technology and
the the resources we have, there's no fucking reason why

(54:06):
people should be homeless or going hungry other than the
fact that it's pure greed. And any advance in technology
in the workplace, let's say like look at look at
a teleporter machine on a building site. Previously, you would
have had to have used hard carriers to carry up
a whole load of fucking bricks up on top of
a roof. Nowadays, crane teleporter. And that's just one example

(54:32):
in technology communications. Another one like one hundred fifty years ago,
you know, you'd have to send a letter and then
you'd have to wait for that letter to come through.
Now it's an email. Now it's just a phone call,
a FaceTime and all that progress. You know, nobody has said,

(54:54):
let's just have a four day week and enjoy another
day for the weekend. That's never gonna happen. It's like, oh,
we found this new piece of work, this this new
piece of this new equipment has been invented. It's going
to make your work day like an hour and a half.
Sound you get, You get just as much, if not
more work done. They're not exactly They're not gonna say, well,

(55:15):
well that's sound man. I'll give you the same money
and you just do that job for me and go home. No,
they'll expect you to do five times that for the
same money. And this is what I'm saying. It's like.
And then on top of that, then your fucking bankers
who just sit there making money off the lending of money,
which is usury, which is outlawed in Christianity and Islam.

(55:37):
That's why Christ kicked the money lenders out of the
out of the temple, and we're all we're all stuck
in this fucking beast system and wondering why people are
fucking depressed and their nerves are shot because you know,
living in a city nowadays, like what's the what's the upside?

(55:58):
So you can enjoy some ty green couri or sushi,
you know, like and yeah, there's more, there's more opportunities
if you're if you're looking for if you're in the
world of like the arts or TV and film and
that kind of thing. But if you're happy enough with
with the quiet life, I recommend just start the community
or or or or go back to the land, live

(56:20):
off the land, sell what you sell what you rare like,
and I think bartering is the is the way out
of this ship. Maybe, but what do I know? Maybe
you might listen to fucking talking shite man, what does
this lad know? I'm like, I don't fucking know. And
these are the things that go through my brain. Geno

(56:40):
of mine. Fucking credit cards. But my advice is get
out of if you're in debt, get out of debt,
or at least try and fucking streamline it. And in
this day and age man, just get out of being
under the hammer of like fuck credit cards man. Like
I've always been the kind of guy like if if

(57:04):
I if, I can't say for that, like why do
you think I've got a twenty fifteen laptop. I mean
I could have invested in gear and got a loan
and got the stuff and then you know, would have
would have paid it back in no time. But at
the same time, I've never been one to to get
loans for shit. You know what I mean. It's a

(57:26):
slippery slope, man, slippery slope bat him. Okay, that was
that was my that was my podcast. I'm glad I
got all that ship out of the way. Like I said,
it's been three months of of stuff happening. I'm heading
back on the eleventh, back to Ireland with a couple
of gigs, with a gig and swords with the gig

(57:46):
in cases and Cark and Eileen's in Aha More. We
played there about a month and a half ago. Was
go Crack. I've been working on new material and yeah,
it's quite been enjoying the crack Like yeah, what else?

(58:07):
What else? Yeah, I've I've been I've been watching rewatching
a lot of old comedy shows that I that I
would have watched Armando Minucci shows, which is is fucking hilarious.
It also had Steve Brody who was in it in
the Hardy Box as well. He was like, how long
you're gonna be Luca? Oh, you're a cockney and't you?

(58:28):
Oh You're like this joke. There was this dyslexic cockney
and what he said was a trouble and strive desks.
He oh, I done. N it's a joke. It could
be Johnny Frank. Johnny Frank's who is he? Well, no,
what he's doing is the The joke is about a

(58:52):
dyslexic cockney. I should be doing that. Where does he live?
Don't know? It could be bow john Frank's a flexing bow.
I know, Johnny Frank's in a flexing bow, and I'm
gonna go around there this syntactic fuck big cripple once
in for all see what happens when he tried to

(59:14):
make friends with strangers. But I can recommend that is
it's one of the one of the funniest comedy shows
of all time in my opinion. I was rewatching Louis
and Uh and Louis c K he's back on the
road Fair Plays Room after he was canceled for the
string of wanking allegations. To be fair though, he does

(59:35):
talk quite fondly of wankin and he's back on the
role Fair Players Room. If you rewatch the Louis c.
K comedy series, It's a fucking hilarious man. Peep Show
is another one. Alan Partridge Aha showed a game last night,
which one. Yeah, So it's been nice to nice to

(01:00:01):
rewatch some of the old comedic inspirations. If you have
any suggestions for comedy, old and new, leave your comments
in this battle. Yeah, I'm trying to think I was
talking about Yeah. Earlier on, I was talking about loaded
lads that live in the area where I'm living, and

(01:00:23):
I was taking my old fucking banger of a car,
but look at I own it this. But I met
this guy who was driving a brand new an old
lad was driving the brand new Porsche Career at four
s and I was asking him how do I get
the tokens in and how do I start it up?
And he kindly showed me how you do it, and

(01:00:44):
I wouldn't mind. Like the I had the spare wheel
on the front right of the car, so it looked
like shit, and I said, do you want to swap cars? Man?
Dear ahha, No, it's okay. I said, what is it for?
Five hundred horsepower? Four ninety and I was like, what's
it like to drive? It's like driving cloud of air?

(01:01:06):
Fin we mas me nevel bye by right. I can't
really think of anything off the top of my head.
I've I've complained about a lot of stuff. I look
at the end of the day, right at the end.
Oh yeah, there's a couple of other things. So a

(01:01:27):
couple of months ago, there's a great band from a
post punk band called Shame But coming out of London,
and they were they're fans of the Hardy Books and
they invited me to the show. Last time they were here,
I think it was like a year a year half ago,
and they were on tour with the DC Fountains down
in Australia, and I was trying to meet up with

(01:01:48):
them in Australia but the dates didn't sync up, so
I introduced them on stage here a couple of a
couple of months, a month or two ago, and that
was Crack went out on stage after a few looseners
and I said, oh, we fucking stockhold man, and he

(01:02:09):
dushed and you could hear the I could hear a
pin drop. But afterwards, yeah, I managed to create a
good rowdy atmosphere. I had good crack with the lads
and met your man Stefan from viagraa Boys who invited
us to the show there last Wednesday night. I have
to say, after being in Stockholm for a long time,

(01:02:32):
i'd given up on Swedes being able to get really
fucking rowdy, And you know it was in going to
see I remember I remember going to Guns and Roses at
Slaying in twenty seventeen and I think that was probably
the best gig I've ever gone to. And then a
week and a half later going to see Radiohead at

(01:02:55):
the Globe Arena which is now called the Avichy Arena,
and it was so fucking bored.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
They didn't play any stuff off the off the first
three albums. It was just all that weird ambient fucking
and I remember looking across I was sitting at the
stage left, I was just looking across at the sea
of Swedes, just standing there like motionlessly. And then when

(01:03:25):
there was a bit of a quiet part in the
middle of it, I shouted play Wonderwall. You could hear
a couple of people going sh I was like, no
fucking crack out of these boys. I was with my
mate Hurdle Man, here's my brother Donio from Sheila's Santiago,
and he'd kindly bought the ticket for me. But I

(01:03:46):
remember thinking the gig was so fucking boring that I
wanted to temporarily leave my body and my soul, just
float around the arena and go for a bit of
a fly around and then come back to my body
once the gig had finish. That's how fucking dull that was.
And so I was sitting in the same seats during
the Viagara Boys gig, and man, they really did that

(01:04:10):
was a fucking showman like the whole dance floor opened up,
or the whole like mosh pit, and then the whole
crowds ran at each other again, and it was it was.
It was great gig, great gig. So fair player to them,
and fair play to to Stephan for and inviting us.
That very kind of him. But that's about it now,

(01:04:32):
ladies and gentlemen, I think I will leave it there
and I'll let you know how we get on in
the halls of justice, civil cleans court versus the parking baddies.
I mean, when you think about it, like what a
fucking useless I mean you think about like, I have
to go to court, A lot of other people are there,

(01:04:52):
and I need a translator who'll also be in attendance.
And so the parking company it outsourced the collection of
the debt to a company, a collection agency that was
sending the fuckings the fines to my old dress. So

(01:05:13):
basically I had no idea that this was still going on.
And I did speak to the woman in the parking place,
who said, oh you can, you can appeel it every
six weeks. So I just kept putting off and writing
absolute waffle and yeah. So the summons came in. I
didn't understand what the fuck was going on, missed it.

(01:05:34):
It ruled in my absence, and then I had to
pay like fucking two hundred quid. So I was like, no, no,
I'll go on next time, man. And this was I
think fucking August. So I've been waiting since August for
this court day. So like, win, lose or draw, I'll
be fucking glad when it's done. But I will let
you know how it goes. But I'm hoping that I

(01:05:55):
win and that my case is compelling. And even if
I if I can donate the money to the to
the dog's charity, that I'll be happy. Everyone just walks
away takes that hit, I'll be happy because it'll be
it will be a win for the little guy versus

(01:06:16):
the little guy with the big hands versus fucking bureaucratic
automated bollocks. And so wish me well with the verdict.
All right, I'll love you and leave you, and thanks
very much for listening. And if you know of anyone
who enjoys this podcast or who would enjoy this, please

(01:06:40):
do pass it on and spread the word. Let's close
a little podcast, me talking waffle with a couple of
musical interludes. Can he fucking bait it? Man? Go? Look?
And good blessed, see you around the palm.