0:00

Hello, I'm Ken Bruce. I appeared as a

0:02

guest on my time capsule, and

0:04

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0:06

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0:09

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at burrow.com/Acast. Thanks

1:51

for watching! Hello

2:01

and welcome to my... My

2:09

name's Mick Vincent Stevens and my

2:11

TV is a podcast where people tell me five

2:13

things in their life that they wish they had

2:15

in a dirt capsule. They

2:18

make four things that they cherish and one thing

2:20

that they like to bury and forget. My

2:23

guest in this episode is the

2:25

political and environmental activist George Monbiot.

2:28

George writes a regular column for the

2:30

garden and has written a large number

2:32

of books on such subjects as human

2:35

rights, climate change, the corporate takeover of

2:37

Britain, global justice and plenty

2:39

of other key issues. His

2:41

best-selling books include Feral, Rewilding

2:43

the Land, Sea and Human

2:45

Life, Heat, How to Stop

2:48

the Planet Burning and Out of the

2:50

Wreckage, A New Politics for an Age

2:52

of Crisis. His latest book,

2:54

Regenesis, Feeding the World Without Devouring the

2:56

Planet, argues very convincingly in my opinion

2:58

that we are farming the planet to

3:01

death. He warns that we risk pushing

3:03

not just our global food system too

3:05

far but collapsing the growth of Earth's

3:08

system we all rely on. George

3:10

was recently a guest on BBC Question

3:13

Time where clips of him fundamentally eviscerating

3:15

the cabinet minister, Johnny Mercer, who was

3:17

arguing in favour of the government's Rwanda

3:19

policy, went viral the next day. Not

3:23

surprisingly. In 1995

3:25

Nelson Mandela presented George with

3:28

the United Nations Global 500

3:30

Award for Outstanding Environmental Achievement.

3:33

He won the Sir Peter Kent Award

3:35

for his book Amazon Watershed and he

3:38

is a recipient of the Seal Environmental

3:40

Journalism Award for his work at the Guardian.

3:43

In 2022 George Monbiot was awarded the

3:45

All World Prize for Journalism. I

3:48

think George is a remarkable and fascinating

3:50

man. I think you will too.

3:53

After you've heard the five things he'd like to

3:55

have in a time-slinging moment. I

4:00

mean, I have to say that your voice sounds

4:02

a lot better than when I last heard you.

4:05

It's been a bit rubbish. We were going to

4:07

do a recording, weren't we? We were going to

4:09

record you and then and then suddenly question time

4:11

came along. I have to

4:13

congratulate you on because it's so rare

4:15

to see somebody with

4:18

a left wing bent as

4:20

actually being allowed to finish what they were

4:22

saying and win an argument. Yeah, they won't

4:24

let me back on again, that's for sure.

4:28

Yeah, no, that's not supposed to happen.

4:31

I know exactly. Exactly. That's not allowed.

4:34

He made a good argument. Everybody applauded what's

4:36

going on. Made

4:38

our lovely Tory man look like an

4:40

idiot. Yeah, we can't have that. It's

4:42

weird, isn't it? People always

4:44

say, oh, no, that's just your bias. But

4:47

the more I watch it, the more I'm convinced that's

4:49

true. Well, you can see someone

4:52

has compiled the figures. I called

4:54

Russ Jackson. And I think

4:57

the only person who's not

4:59

on the right and could be broadly described

5:01

as left, who's had more than 10 appearances

5:03

this century is Bonnie Greer. And all the

5:05

others have had more than 10 appearances that

5:07

all on the right or even the far

5:09

right. It's really it's very

5:11

striking. This is a non MP. We're talking

5:13

about. Yeah, but it's extraordinary. Some

5:16

of the far right people they have on the

5:18

number of times that that dreadful man has been

5:20

on. I'm loathe to

5:22

say his name. No, no, they can't mention

5:25

it all. Isabel Oakeshott or any of these

5:27

people. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And

5:30

I'm not sure if it's a deliberate bias or

5:32

in fact, if it's just a habit that has

5:34

been picked up by being a newsreader. But I

5:36

just think that thing of saying to people, please

5:38

let them finish their point. Only

5:41

really seems to happen when somebody's saying

5:43

something quite absurd on the right. And

5:45

somebody on the left says, no, just a

5:47

minute. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I know. I

5:49

know. It's I

5:52

mean, BBC has been so novel for

5:54

so long and all

5:56

the sort of middle and senior management now are people

5:58

who've been. brought in

6:00

by, you know, Director General

6:02

and BBC board, which is completely

6:05

stuffed with Tory placeholders. That's quite

6:08

how extraordinary that they constantly, the

6:10

social media constantly accuses them of

6:12

being woke and left wing. It's

6:16

a way of attacking them. It's a

6:18

very effective tactic. You just

6:21

redirect all the accusations of bias,

6:23

which would reasonably apply to

6:25

you onto the other side. Yeah, that's

6:27

what Trump does all the time. Yeah.

6:30

Yeah. Well, so

6:32

I'm fascinated to find out the things that

6:34

you've chosen to put into a time capsule

6:36

because from the myriad of things

6:39

that you've been involved in, George, it's

6:41

extraordinary your career. It seems, I

6:44

have friends who whenever I mentioned something that they think

6:46

is a good idea, the next day they ring me

6:48

up and say, Oh, I had to look at the

6:50

company name for that. And it's free. We could start

6:52

that. And I say,

6:54

no, it's just a conversation at lunch.

6:56

Yeah. And I have a feeling you're

6:59

slightly like that. If

7:01

you catch on to something, you don't let it

7:03

go. Yeah. No, there's been, which

7:05

has led me into some crazy places. Yes.

7:07

Yes. As I've read over the years. Well, okay. Well, let's

7:15

find out what your things are. Let's start with number

7:17

one. So it

7:20

sounds like a weird one to

7:22

want to keep and not to bury

7:24

forever. You want to recrieve, but

7:27

it's a memory, which has sort of in a

7:29

weird way, become quite precious to me. And

7:31

this is the time I got very nearly

7:34

stung to death by hornets. Well,

7:38

we all love that happening. It's very

7:40

straight because I really love hornets. And

7:42

in fact, my respect for them has

7:44

only increased since this

7:47

unfortunate episode. Anyway, I

7:49

was in West Papua, which is this occupied

7:52

territory, which no one ever talks about, is

7:55

occupied by Indonesia in extremely

7:57

brutal means and that occupation.

8:00

was kind of endorsed by the UN

8:02

and the US and

8:04

other powerful people. And

8:06

ever since then, the West Papuan people

8:08

have been under this military regime and

8:10

are gradually being pushed out of their

8:12

own land and their forests have been

8:15

destroyed and all sorts of horrible things

8:17

are happening. That's been going on a long

8:19

time, hasn't it? It has been going on a long time since, well,

8:22

since 1963, officially. Amazing.

8:24

And I went over in 1987

8:27

to investigate what was happening there. And

8:30

I spent six months altogether trekking

8:33

across West Papuan, avoiding

8:35

some very scary soldiers

8:37

and fleas because you weren't supposed

8:40

to be there at all. It

8:42

was completely forbidden territory to outsiders

8:45

and trying to work out what the hell was

8:47

going on there because there hadn't been any reporting

8:49

from West Papuan at all. And one

8:52

of the things I wanted to do was to link

8:54

up with the rebel movement, which it

8:56

has a rather desperate sort of Polish

8:59

World War II style. We're trying to

9:01

take on this very

9:03

large military machine with bows

9:05

and arrows effectively. And

9:07

I'd made contact with one of the

9:10

military commanders in the rebel movement and

9:13

me and my friend Adrian Arbid,

9:15

the photographer I was working with out there,

9:17

were waiting and waiting in this little

9:20

fly blown town as it was then

9:22

called Jayapura on the North Coast of

9:24

West Papua to make contact

9:26

with the people who were going to take us into

9:28

the forest and show us what they were doing. And

9:32

we waited for a fortnight and were

9:34

getting really frustrated and bored and slightly

9:37

scared because the military kept checking

9:39

us out every so often some

9:41

bloke with an army haircut and

9:43

army boots, but civilian clothes would

9:45

come round and very unsubtly. So

9:49

are you still enjoying

9:51

your tour of Jayapura? Clearly

9:55

very suspicious of us because

9:57

there were the occasional European business

9:59

person. come into this town Jaipurra but

10:01

you weren't allowed to go anywhere else. Right.

10:03

Yeah and so our cover story was getting

10:06

thinner and thinner. And what was

10:08

your cover story? Were you saying we were

10:10

looking at the nature or something? Bird watching,

10:12

yeah. And it was pretty safe for me

10:15

because I could name all the birds and

10:17

describe their have-hits and be

10:20

a nature nerd. But every

10:22

day we went off either

10:24

together or by ourselves to try to just find something

10:26

to relieve the boredom. I mean there was nothing to

10:28

do in the town but we were

10:30

close to the forest, close to the beaches. So there

10:33

were some nice things to do except we weren't

10:35

really in a state to enjoy them. It was

10:37

a state of great anxiety. And there were several

10:40

occasions we nearly got killed by

10:42

humans or otherwise out there. I mean it

10:44

was a really mad mission. Anyway

10:47

on one of these days I took a mini

10:49

bus down to the very end of the road.

10:51

There was only one road going out of Jaipurra

10:54

and it went past the rubbish

10:56

dumps and down to a couple of settlements.

10:58

And then the road just stopped and you

11:00

could walk into the forest. And the forest

11:02

there is amazing. I mean it's full of these

11:05

great big hornbills and cockatoos.

11:09

If you're very lucky you would see a cuscus

11:11

which isn't actually a Moroccan dish but a very

11:14

furry teddy bear like marsupial which lives

11:16

in the trees. Elsewhere

11:19

there are tree kangaroos, birds of paradise,

11:22

birdwing butterflies. I mean it's an

11:24

amazing, amazing wildlife. Quite unique as

11:27

well isn't it? Yeah exactly. Lots

11:29

of endemic species, lots of endemic languages

11:31

for that matter. I mean the

11:33

horror of what's been done there justifies

11:36

imagination. So much has been lost.

11:39

Anyway and so got off the

11:41

bus, walked for a bit trying

11:44

to find the least disturbed forest I could

11:46

but obviously being close to the road there

11:48

was a fair bit of settlement in the

11:50

forest and quite a lot of what's called

11:52

sweden agriculture where you do some slash and

11:54

burn. You cut some forest,

11:57

burn the remaining trees, farm for the first

11:59

time. for a few years and then

12:01

move on to the next patch and

12:03

let the forest regenerate. Regenerates, yes. And

12:05

I was walking through a patch which

12:07

had quite recently been burnt and

12:10

it was a hot day as it usually

12:12

was and I had my T-shirt off and

12:14

just wearing shorts and walking boots. And

12:17

I must have brushed against this burnt

12:19

stump. And

12:21

I sort of scarcely noticed that

12:23

I'd done so but I walked

12:25

on about five yards and suddenly

12:27

I was covered in these

12:30

enormous black hornets. And

12:32

these black jungle hornets,

12:35

we'd heard that three stings would kill you. They're

12:38

really, really scary things. They're

12:40

like those things in the

12:42

un-gugging machine. They're really terrifying

12:44

creatures. And huge, even

12:46

bigger than the hornets we get

12:48

here and shiny black iridescent things.

12:50

Quite beautiful, I mean stunning, but

12:53

best seen from a distance. Anyway,

12:56

and they'd obviously all

12:58

buzzed out of this stump when I

13:00

brushed against it to see who was

13:02

attacking them. And I knew exactly

13:05

what you have to do which is to stand

13:07

stock still, not move a muscle.

13:10

So they think you're just a tree or something

13:12

and then they gradually disperse. So they swarm all

13:14

over you? They swarm all over you. You just

13:16

feel, they're just covered in them and you have

13:18

to be, you really have

13:20

to keep your cool. You have to stand stock

13:22

still. And so I did, and I was doing

13:24

really well. And most of them had dispersed. And

13:27

I was like, I can do this. I can

13:29

do this. And I was, you just

13:31

hold your breath and you lock in and you say, lock

13:33

and I move. And then,

13:35

because I was wearing shorts, there's

13:37

one coming up my inside leg. And it

13:39

went in under my shorts. And I

13:42

was just like, ah, ah,

13:44

finally I went, no! I

13:48

started thrashing at them with my t-shirt and

13:50

jumping up and down and stamping. And then

13:53

the sting started coming and each one

13:55

was like a hammer blow. It's a

13:57

bang, bang, bang. And I got,

14:00

stung eight times and I was

14:02

sprinting through this torn

14:05

down forest and shouting

14:07

and waving my shirt and I thought

14:09

I'm going to die. I'm going to

14:11

die being stung. And you could straight

14:14

away, I could feel the poison coursing

14:16

through my body, you know, very, very

14:18

powerful toxin. Oh, God. And

14:20

I ran and ran until I saw the house

14:23

of the people who must have cut that bit

14:25

of forest and it was like

14:27

all the houses there to keep out of the way of

14:29

mosquitoes. It was on stilts. So it was about 12 feet

14:32

off the ground, beautifully constructed. I

14:34

mean, it really is very simple, but

14:36

very beautifully made these houses with a

14:38

lawn ladder going up to the platform,

14:40

which the house was built on. Right.

14:43

I didn't know that. Mosquitoes only fly

14:45

at a certain height. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing.

14:47

Yeah. It's really... Like

14:49

carrot flies. Yes, that's right. Like

14:51

carrot flies. Yes. Yes.

14:54

Wow. Yeah. So I

14:56

stood at the bottom of the ladder and said,

14:58

help, help. I've been stung. I said, I've

15:00

been bitten by insects because I didn't know all the

15:02

words. I've been bitten by insects and now

15:05

I'm going to die. You've got to help me. No,

15:07

no one came up. No one came along. And, and

15:10

I started, you know, people are normally very helpful

15:12

and hospitable and restful. And I saw what's going

15:14

on. So I swarmed

15:16

up the ladder and got onto the

15:19

platform and I could see inside the

15:21

building. There was a whole family there, wide

15:23

eyed and trembling, sitting

15:26

in the dark of this little house. And I

15:29

stood in the doorway and said,

15:31

there's a man standing there shouting,

15:33

bite, die, bite. Exactly. Exactly. It's

15:36

a crazy head, white

15:38

guy with eyes out on stalks

15:40

saying, I've been bitten. I've been bitten by insects.

15:42

You've got to help me. And they were just

15:45

sitting there, like in the face of terror.

15:48

And then I stepped forward and hit my

15:50

head on the lintel because the doorways are

15:53

very low there. And I fell straight into

15:55

the middle of this. I put in a

15:57

little let back and it's like, oh God.

15:59

Yeah. And then the father

16:01

in the family, he's

16:04

talking to me, but I'm not taking it

16:06

in. And he's trying to calm me down

16:08

and trying to get me to explain what

16:10

the matter is. And I said, look, it's

16:12

very simple, very simple. I

16:15

was walking through the forest. I got

16:17

attacked by insects. Eight of them bit

16:19

me and now I'm gonna die. And

16:22

he's just like shaking his head and his mouth

16:24

hanging open. He's like, no. I

16:27

say, yes, yes, yes. Eight

16:29

insects bit me and now I'm gonna die.

16:31

And then he goes, ah, serenge.

16:35

And I say, yes, serenge. And

16:37

then it dawned on me. Then instead of

16:39

serenge, which means insect, I've

16:41

been saying samanka, which

16:44

means watermelon. Oh, that's terrifying.

16:50

Eight watermelon. Yeah, eight watermelons attacked

16:52

by watermelons. Oh

16:55

my word. And so then he said, right, right,

16:57

right. Come in, come in, come in. As soon

16:59

as it was explained, suddenly, it's all action, right,

17:01

we're gonna help you. And so- And

17:03

they knew what to do. Well, yes. So

17:06

I imagined, so he said, right, lie down, lie down

17:09

here. And he made me

17:11

lie down on my front. And I

17:13

mean, I can't explain how delightful and

17:15

hospitable and kind almost everyone in West

17:17

Papua is. It's really an amazing thing.

17:20

He's just, lie down, calm down, you're

17:22

gonna be all right. And

17:24

so lie down. And he starts rubbing

17:26

something into my back and it's got

17:28

a really lovely, for a warming, soothing

17:30

feeling this stuff. And I said, this

17:32

is some ancient jungle remedy, which

17:35

is known to the people here, which cures

17:37

you of these hornet stinks. And

17:39

I was going, oh God, it's a

17:41

good feeling. And then I spelt

17:43

this familiar smell. Oh, I

17:45

know that, I know that. And

17:48

I looked around and he was holding this

17:50

tub of Vicks Vapo-Rob. And

17:52

I said, no, no, I'm

17:54

gonna die. And I just

17:56

run out of the house. The gator gets 12

17:58

foot. And I

18:01

just go, oh, it's like in a cartoon,

18:03

you know, legs are still moving. And

18:06

I hit the ground, I literally hit the

18:08

ground running and just go thundering off through

18:11

the forest. And I turn around and he's

18:13

like standing at the doorway with this jar

18:15

of mixed paper over one hand and my

18:17

shirt in the other, like shaking his head.

18:20

He's English-crazy. Like

18:23

an asterisk or something, you know, these Romans are

18:25

crazy. But anyway, so I run and run and

18:28

I get to the road and quite

18:30

soon one of these minibus taxis come

18:32

along, which is constantly plying the road

18:34

throughout Indonesia and its territories. And

18:37

so I stop the taxi and I get in and

18:39

here I am, I'm shirtless, I'm just wearing my shorts

18:42

and I know that I look crazy. And

18:45

so I'm saying, it's all right, it's all right, it's all right. I sit

18:47

down and try to sit down quietly. You

18:49

see these people moving away from me. And

18:52

then I start convulsing. And I

18:55

start having these massive convulsions and foaming.

18:58

And so there's a terrifying

19:00

sight for these poor sods

19:02

sitting in the minibus with

19:04

me. But luckily, it's just a

19:06

short journey, you know, for 20 minutes. And

19:08

I get back into Jaipurra and

19:10

I'm fully convulsing at this stage. And

19:12

I got hardly any control over my

19:15

limbs. And I literally

19:17

crawl across the town square to

19:19

the hotel where me and Adrian

19:21

were staying. And I managed

19:23

to crawl up the stairs and push the

19:25

door open. And thank goodness Adrian was in

19:27

the room at the time. And

19:30

he looks at me and said, what the hell, exactly

19:32

what he said. And I

19:34

tried to talk, I can't talk. My

19:39

mouth just isn't making the right shapes.

19:42

But I point to the, you know, by then these

19:44

welts are enormous. They're like golf balls, you know. And

19:47

he instantly twigs. I mean, he's a

19:49

very cool guy, Adrian. He instantly twigs

19:52

and said, right, sit there. And

19:54

he just stuffed me with antihistamines, you know, which

19:56

is exactly the right thing to do. And

19:58

then I pass out. out cold 16

20:01

hours and I come round and

20:03

I'm fine. I'm not a god. But

20:07

it was really

20:09

terrifying. Why

20:11

do you want to keep that memory? Because

20:13

it's part of me. You know, it's one

20:15

of those things. You know, we were 24

20:17

at the time and crazy.

20:19

You know, this is why wars get fought.

20:21

Probably luckily 24. That's probably why

20:24

you survived. Well, yeah, 24 fit

20:26

and slightly mad and a sort

20:28

of belief in your own invincibility,

20:30

which helps. You know, and

20:32

you really think you're a mortal at that age. And,

20:34

you know, this is why wars get fought. This is

20:36

why so many stupid things happen because young men think

20:39

that no harm will come to them. And

20:42

I've done a whole series of really

20:44

mad trips. Spent six or seven years

20:46

working in Indonesia, West

20:48

Papua, in Brazil, in East Africa,

20:51

investigating stuff which people really didn't want

20:53

you to find out in really

20:56

insane circumstances. You know, we should

20:58

not have come back from that. The

21:01

chances were very slight, but somehow we

21:03

did. And so it's part of

21:06

the warp and weft of me

21:08

now. And it's also quite a good story.

21:10

It is a very good story. Do you

21:13

know what's amazing about it? And it's slightly

21:15

ironic, isn't it, that in

21:17

the poorest of countries, that's

21:19

where people are the most hospitable. So

21:21

true. So true. It's absolutely

21:23

right. Yeah. It's ridiculous. So is it?

21:25

They're the first people to give you

21:28

things and they have nothing. And

21:30

the richer people get the mean of it. In fact,

21:32

there's a whole lot of science on this. There's

21:35

quite a few papers recently

21:37

published about how it

21:39

changes your mind, getting a huge amount of

21:41

money. And it's basically like getting

21:43

a serious blow to the head or

21:45

suffering some major mental illness or something.

21:47

You know, it really, really damages you.

21:50

And You lose your empathy, you lose

21:52

your understanding of other people, your connection

21:54

with the world. You Become paranoid. You

21:56

Think that everyone's out for your money.

22:00

Believe in your friendships anymore because

22:02

they want something from me. I

22:04

read it ruins your life forever.

22:06

The very interesting but recently by

22:08

Michael Mechanical Jackpot. And. It's

22:11

talking about the lives that are very rich

22:13

and the I find this very interesting because

22:15

you know the fairy tale. the fairytale ending

22:18

for everyone is you become rich but when

22:20

I read it as actually what happens when

22:22

you do you get your act is basically

22:24

risk in and and he talks about how

22:26

how you'd completely owned by by your money

22:29

because he's interviewing all these very rich people

22:31

and any makes the point that the only

22:33

two groups of people who have to think

22:35

about money every hour of every day of

22:38

the very poor and the very rich suffer.

22:40

And if is very rich you you just

22:43

managing that money is a full time job.

22:45

I comes to own you. We

22:48

really need to have reorganize the world and

22:50

way says it's madness. he does medicine long

22:52

time. As said, I just can't see why

22:55

we can't old agree that nobody should have

22:57

more than I mean I'm quite generous. I

22:59

would allow as image of a hundred million

23:01

pounds as well as a feminist or isn't

23:04

not. I don't deserve some in you know

23:06

that's an untold fortunes. You can do anything

23:08

you'd like in your life with that amount

23:10

of money. And you say, well, if you've

23:13

invented something that everybody in the world uses,

23:15

okay, I'm happy for you to be zap

23:17

rich. but. Billions and crazy. I see that's

23:20

too much because you can still by politicians

23:22

with that money out of icon lot of

23:24

politicians with under his you can buy political

23:26

outcomes and they can't resist it can They

23:29

de cassis aren't as is an hour and

23:31

at it's amazing how little money people have

23:33

to spend the by politics in a nice

23:35

quiet couple of million pounds and you get

23:37

it either in that you're in the House

23:40

of Lords. well you in the House of

23:42

Lords all your oil company to and then

23:44

extract two billion pounds worth of oil because

23:46

you can get a. new licensing race he

23:49

be no it isn't just just amazing

23:51

how little permission to make vast profits

23:53

actually costs fear is that sits at

23:55

the had any standards these politicians that

23:57

up selling for real money. They'd say,

23:59

hang on a minute, you're going to

24:01

make two billion dollars. I want to

24:03

be properly bribed. God.

24:06

Yes, it's terrible. But what an

24:08

extraordinary experience. I have a friend

24:10

who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro as a

24:12

young man. And while he was

24:15

on the way there in the dense forest, just

24:17

at the foothills, one evening he

24:19

lemmed back on a log and put his hand

24:21

down and got stung. And

24:23

he saw a scorpion scurry away. And

24:26

the man said to him, was it a big

24:28

black one or a little red one? And he

24:30

said, I just I don't know. I've never seen

24:32

a scorpion before. And he went, right.

24:34

He said, if it was a big one, you will get

24:36

rather ill. He said, but you'll be okay. If it was

24:38

a small one, you're going to

24:40

die. And he lay

24:42

in the back of a truck shaking with the

24:45

poison and survived. And it was a

24:47

big one. Yeah, yeah. No, it's just,

24:50

it's a scary world. Yeah.

24:52

Well, you'd know me. The

25:00

thing is that bizarrely and

25:02

perhaps forversely, there's no species

25:05

of no wild animal, no wild

25:08

plant or anything that I'm scared of. But,

25:10

you know, there's a lot of human beings I'm scared of.

25:14

Human beings are a lot scarier. Yeah.

25:16

Because they're illogical, aren't they? Well,

25:19

and because they can suddenly amplify

25:22

the terror, you know, you

25:24

can be a pathetic little wimp, but you

25:27

have an AR 15 in your hands and

25:29

suddenly you're the boss. Yeah, yeah.

25:32

I mean, like an animal, there's no arguing

25:34

with people either. There's no reasoning. You can't

25:37

say no, hang on a second. This is

25:39

pointless, because I'm no threat to you. And

25:42

I've got a family. So I'm just I'll just go, shall

25:44

I? I want to kill you. Yeah.

25:47

If people have a dominance mindset, if

25:49

the mindset is saying, I should

25:52

be number one, there should be

25:54

no competition. I have a God given

25:56

right to dominate everyone else. There

25:59

really is. You can't reason someone

26:01

out of the position they didn't reasons

26:03

reason themselves into. Yeah, I'm that is

26:05

the ultimate unreasonable position but unfortunately it's

26:07

a position of Donald Trump. It sees

26:10

position as many of those who come

26:12

to dominate us because they have not

26:14

nominate sponsor. Didn't. In absolutely

26:16

I think true, it's absolute power,

26:18

corrupts absolutely in such situations and

26:20

and bizarrely I think we would.

26:22

Basically people are good. I think

26:24

the majority of people are driven

26:26

by good values, bioterrorism, by empathy,

26:28

by community buses, but only by

26:30

family, by wanting to do well

26:32

by other people as well as

26:34

well. My them sound is even

26:36

if that's motivated fundamentally by selfishness.

26:38

Well, you know something. selfishness and

26:40

greed is part of the equipment.

26:42

In A was part of the

26:44

values. But. He is that and

26:46

again this good research on this in

26:48

a good psychological research and says our

26:50

values of us but then are dominant

26:53

valleys in the great majority of people.

26:55

but there's but one percent of people

26:57

who because psychopaths were selfishness, agreed on

26:59

the dominant studies. And.

27:01

We are. Broadly. Speaking a

27:03

society about Chris. Evans psychopaths.

27:05

Yes, yes, astonishing. Isn't Gazette the

27:07

only people who are interested in?

27:09

it's the I was at any

27:11

other years ago. I'm sure this

27:13

is argument other people have made,

27:15

but I member reading an article

27:17

in the paper by Stephen Fry.

27:19

same that anybody wanted to be

27:21

a politician should be banned from

27:24

becoming is at instant be disqualified

27:26

Instantly disqualified. Air Those albums. Okay

27:28

so that's your first thing that

27:30

being stung by a great big

27:32

black audience and stuff. but that's

27:34

extraordinary. That's. Just about the most

27:36

extraordinary thing that anybody's put into a third

27:38

gets. oh that's nice to hear heard. Okay

27:40

well let's see where we go. Was number

27:43

two, same number two of his exhibit where

27:45

because it's something that came out the ground

27:47

and I want to put it back in

27:49

the ground because I is again something was

27:52

lodged in my mind at my formative time

27:54

for me and I think went on to

27:56

some work it's way through my mind and

27:58

create a so. Quip from events which

28:01

led to some of the things that I

28:03

later did and fighters or before and I

28:05

went to West Bat for and went on

28:07

those crazy adventures. I work for the B

28:09

B C I'm in fact I got the

28:12

job and in Nineteen Eighty Five or battery

28:14

down their doors of as hot as told

28:16

by the head indeed his exact words if

28:18

you'll excuse me is so fucking persistent you've

28:20

got tough for us as A as A

28:23

because all I wanted to be was an

28:25

investigative environmental journalist and and they didn't really

28:27

exist in those days and was no such

28:29

job and. Certainly not the B B

28:31

C And and I thought you know,

28:33

this is a huge opportunity waiting to

28:35

be filled and it's urgently needed. and

28:37

the is so many bad things going

28:39

on, but there's no one is dedicated

28:41

to it's exposing them or very few

28:44

people have said. He noticed the baby

28:46

seats net and so eventually I managed

28:48

to persuade them that this is what

28:50

they need. It's find out. It was

28:52

this of last of the glory days

28:54

of the Bbc really because it it

28:56

was the last two years nineteen Eighty

28:58

Five to Nineteen Eighty Seven before. Sacha

29:00

came down with her to I'm

29:02

Drc.really angry with them because they

29:04

had made a program called Maggots

29:06

militant Tendency about the cabinet ministers

29:08

had been actual fascist synergies and

29:11

dumb and another series called secret

29:13

Society about the unauthorized spending for

29:15

spyware and and defense equipment suffers

29:17

hadn't gone through parliament running. This

29:19

is hard to imagine now that

29:21

this was A B B C,

29:23

but at a real go get

29:25

a mentality of the season. Brilliant.

29:28

These things funny as it was.

29:30

Their remit. Idea. Is that

29:32

in bed? She swept in in Nineteen

29:34

eighty Seven for some resignation about assuming

29:36

the or it's General Jeff and just

29:39

crossed. the organization is never recovered. anyway.

29:41

during my kind of apprenticeship I was

29:43

doing during radio and ended up missing

29:45

some what I saw some really great

29:47

investigative programs but my apprenticeship was making

29:50

wildlife programs and and and sort of

29:52

just getting to understand the medium a

29:54

little bit and it was fun and

29:56

I've really enjoyed absurd something the bit

29:59

fighting to get on with the thing

30:01

I was therefore and food within a

30:03

few months I was able to do

30:05

that. but in the meantime I was

30:08

learning, learning the trade and it wasn't

30:10

my straight to learn and I knew

30:12

some archaeologists in in Bristol where the

30:14

natural history and it was space to

30:17

the Bbc for that matter or is

30:19

or is living and one of them

30:21

tell me that one of their colleagues

30:23

had just discovered this new a bronze

30:25

age dump basically as a rubbish dump

30:28

and amended pills quite close to Bristol.

30:30

And would I like to come along

30:32

and might make a program about it?

30:34

So it's like whoa yeah yeah it's

30:36

and who would ever. What a great

30:38

opportunity. And so we went up to

30:40

them and it's and and there was.

30:42

This is this little swallow the see

30:44

it from outside. It was just a

30:46

tiny little fisher covered in brambles and

30:48

things and spirit. It wasn't hard to

30:50

see. why is it taken so long

30:52

for anyone to find a nice? Was

30:54

obviously just the whole were bronze age

30:56

people three thousand years ago with chucking

30:58

stuff anything they didn't. Want just went

31:01

down the whole said not exactly.

31:03

It's just so happens that same

31:05

people refer to as a coach

31:07

at us are high because it

31:09

helps when depopulation the world is

31:11

about a million people. well exactly

31:13

and none of it's prostate orgasms

31:15

a don't just goes back in

31:17

into the air. So although in

31:19

this case because of the reservation

31:21

conditions in this limestone how it

31:23

actually gets protected very well my

31:25

dad found human remains in there

31:27

that found that pots of all

31:29

kinds of. also for bits and pieces

31:31

so anyway i'm is slip through this

31:33

little fisher and down this little while

31:36

ago it of turn down and at

31:38

the bottom it opened out into this

31:40

chamber you to stand up in and

31:42

it was caught magical it was like

31:44

an oled in case because all the

31:47

walls and everything in it and it's

31:49

great mound of treasure which was spilling

31:51

down into this a dark abyss see

31:53

if so if sloping down into some

31:56

sort of dot know where was all

31:58

covered in calcite crystals which were glittering

32:00

in your head torches and it just

32:02

looked like you were in a chamber

32:05

of jewels. It was magic. And

32:07

most of what you could see around you

32:09

were bones of different kinds, you know, bones

32:12

and bits of pots sticking out of them.

32:14

So the archaeologists I was with, they

32:17

were picking up these bones and explaining what they

32:19

were and all the rest of them. And then

32:21

this guy who had first

32:23

characterised this dump, who was quite a

32:25

severe type, he passes me this very

32:30

distinctive looking bone. It's got a hole in

32:32

the middle and a wing on either side and

32:34

it's about the size of my

32:36

palm. It's more or less covered my palm, a

32:38

bit wider perhaps. And he says,

32:40

what's that? I said, well, it's Atlas vertebrae. He

32:42

says, yes, correct. But what species? And I

32:45

said, well, I don't know, red deer. He

32:48

said, no, actually, this is a Bronze Age

32:50

cow. This is one of their domesticated cattle

32:53

and they were a bit smaller than the cows

32:55

are today because they

32:57

were easier to handle, small

32:59

ones, you know, because they weren't as tame as

33:01

cows are today. And I thought, oh, that's

33:03

very nice. Yeah, lovely. And then

33:05

he picks up this other bone with both hands. And

33:08

it's about eight inches across. So he hands it

33:10

to me and it weighs a couple of pounds.

33:13

And he says, what's that? I

33:15

said, oh, Atlas vertebrae. It's exactly

33:17

the same bone, but massive. I

33:19

mean, this huge, huge bone. And

33:22

it's, you know, it's just the same shape

33:24

and all the rest of it. He said,

33:26

yeah, but of what? He said, uh,

33:29

uh, mammoth? He said, what, in the

33:31

Bronze Age? And I

33:34

don't know. I don't know. Tell me. He said,

33:36

same species. This is the

33:38

wild one. What you were looking at

33:40

was the domestic one. This is the

33:43

wild aurochs from which the domestic cattle

33:45

were bred. So the

33:47

wild aurochs, the cows, the females

33:50

are about the same size as cows

33:52

are today. But the

33:54

bulls were absolutely gigantic, monstrous

33:56

creatures. Ten foot at the.

34:00

shoulder with like a 10 foot band,

34:02

proper beasts. And

34:05

holding this thing, it was like an

34:07

electric shock went through me. It was the

34:09

most extraordinary feeling that this

34:11

was, it seems so

34:13

near, so fresh, so close, you know, 3000 years ago,

34:16

but it felt like it was

34:20

yesterday, it felt like it had just

34:22

come from the carcass. And, you know,

34:24

the aurochs didn't go extinct until the

34:26

17th century. The last one was killed

34:29

in Poland, I think, in

34:31

1627, or good Lord. And

34:33

these monsters were roaming among

34:36

us. And then when you

34:38

start looking at what other monsters there were, you know,

34:40

if you go back, not that

34:42

far, I mean, if you go back to

34:44

the Eemian, the previous interglacial in Britain, when

34:46

there were no humans, the humans had been

34:48

driven out by the previous glaciation. And

34:51

so for a while, you just had this sort of Eden

34:53

like island. Well, actually, it

34:55

wasn't quite an island. It was connected by

34:57

Doggerland. I think, I think at the time,

35:00

it was still connected to the continent. But

35:02

we had all the familiar fauna,

35:04

which you and I know and love.

35:06

We had red foxes, we had hedgehogs,

35:08

we had badgers, we had blackbirds, we

35:11

had magpies, we had hippopotamuses, we had

35:13

two species of rhino, we had sprigs,

35:15

tarsillophants, we had lions, oh,

35:17

yes, sorry, yes, we had a megafauna as

35:19

well as all the other stuff

35:21

we were familiar with, you know, we, and

35:24

we now talk about our top predators

35:26

like badgers, you know, we have symmetric cats. Similar

35:30

to cats. Yeah, these are

35:32

basically saberties, you know, they're

35:34

not directly related to saberties, but they're exactly

35:36

the same niche with these enormous state pranks,

35:39

which they would make ambush attacks. How far

35:41

back is that? Is that about? That's roughly

35:43

100,000 years ago. Right,

35:48

not that long, really. No, no, really,

35:50

really, blink of an eye in geological

35:52

times. It's extraordinary that those cattle should,

35:54

I mean, until 1700, that's amazing. But

35:56

the fact that

35:58

actually the parent... of, as

36:00

it were, the ancestor of our domesticated

36:03

cattle. And that within that time, they

36:05

had these tiny ones that they'd be

36:07

obviously already bred down. They bred them

36:10

down so quickly. Which

36:12

gives you an idea of just how quickly evolution

36:14

can happen. Well, exactly. And you can see why

36:16

they would have wanted to do it. He wouldn't

36:18

want to be heard in John Dorrocks or whatever.

36:21

No. But it sort of triggered this

36:23

whole line of thought of, oh yeah,

36:26

you know, it's not just

36:28

that certain places in the tropics that have

36:30

a megafauna. Megafauna is the default

36:32

state of all ecosystems, on land

36:34

and at sea. And

36:36

the reason we think of a megafauna as

36:39

being exotic and of lions and elephants as

36:41

being tropical, you know, whether it's confined to

36:43

a few places in Africa, is because we've

36:45

wiped them out everywhere else. And

36:48

everywhere has a megafauna until humans

36:50

arrive. I went to a very

36:53

interesting presentation from a paleontologist

36:56

called Todd Surivell. And

36:59

his argument was, look, you archaeologists can

37:01

just give up and go home, because

37:04

if you want to find out when humans

37:06

first came to an island or a continent

37:08

where they'd never been before, if

37:11

you start looking for archaeological evidence, you're wasting

37:13

your time because it's so scarce. You know,

37:15

the first humans would have maybe left one

37:18

or two flints, the old little fire site,

37:20

you would hardly know they were there from

37:22

the archaeology. But if you

37:24

look at the paleontology, in other words,

37:26

the remains of non-human species, you'll

37:29

see it instantly because all the big

37:31

animals just disappear. They fall off a

37:34

cliff. You'll have these big populations of

37:36

your elephants, your rhinos, your hippos, your lions,

37:38

etc. And then they're gone. And

37:40

the fauna would have been what's called naive, which

37:43

means it wasn't afraid of humans. Yes, of course.

37:45

They just stand there and look at you. And

37:47

you just walk up and kill them. And

37:50

you walk up and kill them. That's right.

37:52

And megafauna is very susceptible to extinction. It's

37:54

very easy to tip it over the edge.

37:56

Well, because they feel no fear because they

37:58

think, well, I'm enormous. Well, it's anti-humanism. Exactly.

38:00

What does it mean? And

38:03

interestingly, the only populations which

38:05

have survived are in

38:07

places where they evolved with humans. And

38:11

before Homo sapiens come along, the sort of

38:13

hominins are there and they're a little bit

38:15

dangerous, but you can keep away from them.

38:17

And you know, you learn, they're not going

38:19

to wipe you out, but you learn that

38:21

they're scarier than they look. And

38:24

so over the millennia, those species

38:26

learned to avoid human beings and

38:28

that's why they're still there. And

38:31

so there were monsters everywhere. We lived

38:33

in a world of monsters and they

38:35

shaped our minds. I think, you know,

38:37

a lot of the frustrations of being

38:39

a human being in the 21st century is

38:41

that we live in a very tame world. And

38:44

yet we've got the hearts of lions. You

38:46

know, we want to be out there doing

38:48

battle with monsters. Where

38:51

are the monsters? Oh, we're the monsters. Yeah,

38:54

I got to take that badger on. That's

38:56

right. Well,

38:58

of course, as we look at

39:00

that timeline of those things, you say,

39:03

well, they've survived because they've learned to live with us

39:05

or they've learned to avoid us, in fact. But

39:07

in fact, now they're finding it hard to do

39:09

that. Well, that's true. There are so many

39:11

of us and you wonder how long any of

39:14

those monsters survive. I

39:16

know. And it's the same at sea. You know,

39:18

we are in the whales have come back because

39:20

we stopped wailing. But now they're all getting tangled

39:22

up in nets and stuff. All the bluefin tuna

39:24

being hunted to extinction, the large sharks, everything. I

39:27

mean, it's, you know, it's

39:29

devastating. It's really hard to see.

39:32

And then we have no idea what the effect of all

39:34

the plastic in the sea is going to have. No, no,

39:36

plastic. But even more so the

39:38

fishing industry, which is, you know, it's

39:40

now developed technologies where you can

39:42

sweep up everything. You

39:46

know, when a super trawler, a super pelagic

39:48

trawler, one of these gigantic ships has

39:50

been down the English Channel because the beaches are

39:52

covered in dead dolphins. They

39:55

scoop up the entire shell of small

39:57

fish and all the things which are

39:59

hunting those small fish. as well and

40:01

then they just discard them over their

40:04

sight dead. Yeah and just yesterday as

40:06

we're speaking, Norway granted the deep sea

40:08

mineral exploration license. It's

40:11

like you know it's just endlessly

40:13

expanding frontier, we can't leave anything

40:16

be, we just constantly find

40:18

something new to exploit and you know eventually

40:20

we say oh well we're done with this

40:22

planet let's go find a new one. That's

40:24

the way they're talking, that's what yeah and

40:26

in a way the people who are doing

40:28

it are the billionaires. Yeah yeah exactly

40:31

and they have this

40:33

hunger, this insatiable hunger.

40:36

Again it's like Trump, even when he was

40:38

president he was just furious all the time.

40:40

You know you think I'm number one in

40:42

the world now right I've made it, I've

40:45

got there, no no no it doesn't do

40:47

anything, you're still furious. In fact I therefore

40:49

should run the world. Exactly and

40:51

then other planets and then I

40:54

need to be king of the universe and he

40:56

still wouldn't be happy. There'd still be a gigantic

40:58

hole in him which

41:00

nothing can fill, no prize can

41:02

fill. And we are constantly bombarded with the

41:05

view that we can't do anything else. Unfortunately

41:07

in order to survive we need to live

41:09

this way, it's a lie isn't it? It

41:11

is, it is a lie you know we're

41:13

constantly told this is the natural order of

41:16

things, this is inevitable, there

41:18

is no alternative. You know Margaret Thatcher constantly

41:20

while preaching her doctrine of freedom would also

41:22

say there is no alternative. Well how can

41:24

it be freedom if there's no alternative? Yes

41:29

that idea that you have to consume, we all

41:31

have to consume at an enormous rate in

41:34

order to carry on and what do you

41:36

want to do? Lose your way of life?

41:38

But in fact what we're doing is we're

41:40

imposing a way of life on people that

41:42

they don't really enjoy. No no

41:45

exactly I mean it's you know consumption,

41:47

we consume ourselves you know. What was

41:49

that quote from Richard II about the

41:51

cormorant which consuming means soon

41:53

preys upon itself? That's

41:55

what we're doing Shakespeare can see that, all

41:58

that way back and now it's just got worse and

42:00

worse. We are dying of consumption. Yes.

42:03

And licenses are granted to search for

42:05

more oil when we know we have

42:08

as much oil as we'll ever need.

42:10

Exactly. Oil can afford to burn. We've

42:12

already come to afford to burn the

42:14

oil that's already been identified and is

42:17

ready for extraction, let alone expanding that

42:19

amount. You've written about

42:22

how the alternative world would look. And

42:24

it's not the world that people are

42:26

constantly fed in the lies that we're

42:28

given about and what the world will

42:30

become. It's not this living in a

42:32

mud heart world. We can

42:34

live absolutely perfectly fine and have

42:36

wonderful lives. And the

42:38

truth of that is that we can all have that.

42:41

Exactly. Exactly. Whereas at the

42:43

moment we've got this incredibly

42:45

dysfunctional system where some people

42:48

can have private islands,

42:50

five looped homes, a private

42:52

jet, massive yachts, supercars,

42:54

all the rest of it, eat bluefin, tuna,

42:56

sushi and other people are living in mud

42:58

huts or not even in mud huts on

43:00

the streets. And is

43:02

that the paradise we were promised? Yes.

43:05

It's terrible, isn't it? I spoke to

43:08

Deliso Chaponda, who's a standup comedian the other

43:10

day. And he said that when he goes

43:12

back to Malawi, where he comes from, he

43:15

tells people that some people are

43:17

homeless in the United Kingdom and

43:20

people say to him, sorry, there are

43:22

people that haven't got homes, they live on the streets. And he

43:24

said, no, no, no, that can't be

43:26

true. Yeah, yeah. It is unbelievable, isn't

43:28

it? It is unbelievable. Yes. The fact

43:30

that we're not all so ashamed of

43:32

it that we just fix it now

43:34

is incredible really. And who's persuaded us

43:37

that that's something we can put up

43:39

with? I know. Or that it's inevitable.

43:42

Even though in the early stages of the pandemic,

43:44

the government said, right, homeless people are now at

43:46

risk to our health. So we've got to sort

43:49

this out, not for the sake of the homeless

43:51

people, but because we might be infected by them,

43:53

so they're all going to go indoors. And suddenly

43:55

all the homeless people were housed. The

43:57

moment they weren't a threat. out

44:00

you get. It's terrible. But

44:03

what a fantastic thing though to hold and

44:06

just suddenly see in two items to

44:08

see the change in the world, the

44:10

evolution of the world. It's a fabulous

44:12

thing. Well I envy you. How

44:14

fantastic. Well let's put those in then. Would you want

44:17

to put both bones in? Yeah

44:19

well yeah why not. Yeah why not. That's

44:21

a comparison simply that people with an instantly

44:24

if anybody else finds it they would realize

44:26

what you were at. Yeah exactly. I

44:28

like that. That's nice. Yeah. Okay

44:30

great. Alright let's move on to the third thing

44:32

George. Right. Time for

44:34

some minutes. See you in a minute. Welcome

44:40

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your first purchase. Welcome

46:14

back. There you are, you see, that wasn't

46:16

bad. Let's go straight back to George Mombio

46:18

who has, let's face it, far more interesting

46:20

things to say than I ever have. So

46:24

the third thing is already under the

46:26

ground. So

46:29

I don't know whether we need to put it in

46:31

a box or just keep it where it is. Anyway,

46:34

it's a bit of

46:36

a weird one, but it's also

46:38

a wonderful one. And it's the

46:40

rhizosphere. Right. And obviously, everyone listening

46:42

is going to say, sorry, the

46:44

what. But your life depends

46:46

on it. My life depends on it.

46:48

Every aspect of our lives, our society,

46:51

our civilization depends on it. And of

46:53

course, most people have never heard of it. And

46:56

we're doing things which severely

46:58

compromise its survival. And the

47:00

rhizosphere is the

47:03

thin zone of soil immediately

47:05

surrounding the root hair of a

47:07

plant. And it's

47:09

sort of built by the plant, by

47:11

the root as it moves into the

47:13

soil. So obviously, plants move by growing

47:16

and they send out these little root

47:18

hairs. And as they send them

47:20

out, the root hair creates its

47:23

own environment. And the rhizosphere

47:25

is this zone that

47:27

immediately surrounds it. And the way

47:29

into this, the way of understanding

47:31

it, I think, is recognizing that

47:34

plants can talk. And

47:38

as soon as you understand that,

47:40

suddenly, it just opens up this

47:42

extraordinary world beneath the ground. They

47:46

talk in chemical languages, and

47:48

they do so by releasing very

47:51

specific and often very complex chemicals,

47:54

which can only be heard by

47:56

particular species of microbes living

47:59

in the soil. particular species of bacteria.

48:01

In fact, some of these chemicals are

48:03

so specific that they can

48:05

call out to a genetic

48:08

variant of one species of bacterium

48:10

without alerting the other genetic variants

48:12

of that same species. It's mind-blowingly

48:16

precise. Almost certainly within

48:18

the next few years, people are going to

48:20

discover that plants use grammar. In

48:22

other words, that they use one complex chemical

48:24

to modify the signal from another complex chemical

48:27

in order to refine that message. I

48:29

mean, there is more to heaven and earth,

48:32

honestly. The stuff we are only just beginning

48:34

to discover. Anyway, what

48:37

the plant does is it sends

48:39

its root out into a new sort of crumb

48:41

of soil. We're talking about very,

48:44

very small scales here, but amazing

48:46

enormous things happening on these small

48:49

scales. When it penetrates that new

48:51

lump of soil, it

48:53

sends out these very specific chemical signals saying,

48:55

you wake up. The rest of you can

48:58

stay asleep, but you, you're

49:00

the one I'm looking at, wake up.

49:02

This particular bacterium or other microbe goes,

49:04

what, me? Hello? Because most

49:07

of them live in a state of dormancy in

49:09

the soil. There are millions and millions of species,

49:12

but they're quiescent for almost all

49:14

the time until someone comes

49:16

along and points them out and says, you.

49:18

It's the particular species of

49:20

microbes which are of most use to

49:22

the plant because basically plants

49:25

can't survive by themselves. These microbes can't

49:27

survive by themselves. The soil is like

49:29

a coral reef. It's a biological structure.

49:31

It's created by the organisms that live

49:33

in it. If it weren't for those

49:35

organisms, there would be no soil. It's

49:37

a biological structure, but it's also saturated

49:40

with symbiotic relationships with

49:43

these relationships between species, which are utterly

49:45

dependent on each other. Having

49:48

woken up that particular

49:50

microbe species or one or two

49:52

species that it's interested in, the

49:54

plant then floods them with sugar.

49:57

And the extraordinary thing is that between 10 and 40% of

49:59

the species, of all the sugars

50:01

that plants make through photosynthesis, they pour

50:03

into the soil. And it

50:05

looks like pouring money down the drain, you know,

50:08

it looks incredibly wasteful. What

50:10

they're doing is feeding those

50:12

particular species, especially bacterial species, which are

50:14

massively proliferate. They gobble up the sugar

50:17

and they multiply and they multiply and

50:19

they multiply and they form this

50:21

incredibly dense zone of bacterial

50:24

colonies around the root. That's

50:26

the rhizosphere. And

50:29

there can be more bacteria in

50:31

the rhizosphere, a higher concentration per

50:33

gram than in any other system

50:36

anywhere on Earth. I mean, it's

50:38

incredibly rich. And what

50:40

the bacteria do in return for the sugar is

50:43

several things. First of all, they release

50:45

nutrients from the soil. Because

50:47

the plant can't get to them by itself. It

50:50

doesn't have the enzymes, it doesn't have the acids,

50:52

it doesn't have the small scale

50:54

to be able to get into the little

50:56

crevices and break the mineral bonds and release

50:58

those minerals so that it can absorb them.

51:01

Nor, unless it's got nodules on

51:03

its roots, can it turn atmospheric

51:05

nitrogen into nitrates, which it needs.

51:08

But the bacteria can do all of those things.

51:10

And so in return for sugar, they deliver nutrients.

51:13

And not just that, they also

51:15

form a defensive ring around the

51:17

root hair. So they'll fight off

51:20

pathogens, they'll fight off damaging bacteria,

51:22

they'll fight off damaging fungi. Moreover,

51:26

if the plant is being attacked from

51:28

above even, you know, if it's got

51:30

caterpillars or aphids eating its leaves, it'll

51:32

send a signal down to the root,

51:35

release a particular distress call.

51:38

And the bacteria in the rhizosphere

51:40

will then take that distress call,

51:43

turn it round using another

51:45

chemical and fire it back at the plant,

51:48

firing up the plant's immune system, which

51:50

then allows it to fight off the

51:52

caterpillars or the aphids or whatever that's

51:55

attacking it. And it seems

51:57

like a really clunky way of firing up your

51:59

immune system. the way it's evolved because

52:01

the plants can't survive without them. Now

52:04

you think of those functions and several others besides

52:06

and you think, hang on a minute, haven't

52:08

I heard something like this before

52:11

about microbes delivering nutrients, protecting you

52:14

from pathogens, firing up your immune

52:16

system, there's something something that rings

52:18

a bell and then the

52:20

human gut. And basically

52:23

it's exactly the same function. The

52:25

rhizosphere is the plant's external gut.

52:27

It's outside of the plant's organs

52:29

but it has exactly the same

52:31

function as a gut and its

52:33

microbes do. And to

52:35

make this even more eerily similar,

52:38

there are around a thousand phyla or

52:40

major groups of bacteria in the world.

52:43

And there are four phyla out of those 1000 which

52:46

dominate in the human gut. And

52:48

there are four phyla which dominate in

52:51

the rhizosphere and they're the same

52:53

four phyla. Oh my word. Yeah, yeah.

52:56

It's magical and we all depend on

52:58

it. So life totally is dependent on

53:00

those four. Yeah, extraordinary.

53:03

And it's just amazing. And what are we

53:05

doing to it? Well we are ripping through

53:07

the soil like there is no tomorrow and

53:09

there will be no tomorrow. I mean we

53:11

treat it like dirt. We

53:13

treat the soil like dirt. It's beneath

53:15

us, literally and metaphorically. It's like we don't think

53:17

about it. We don't even know what it is.

53:19

I mean we literally don't know what it is.

53:22

Yeah, we know it's a biological structure. We

53:24

know it's an ecosystem but it's got characteristics

53:26

which no other ecosystem anywhere

53:29

on earth has. For instance,

53:31

there's a sort of coordination among the

53:33

microbes in the soil. When you know

53:36

soil carbon levels drop, the

53:38

DNA length shrinks across all microbes.

53:40

But at the same time, the

53:42

number of RNA operons rises suggesting

53:44

a collective metabolic response. There's something

53:46

really weird going on. I mean

53:48

you could think of it almost

53:50

as a superorganism. I mean as

53:52

if it is one organism. Yeah,

53:54

it's got really, really bizarre characteristics

53:56

and we don't understand it and

53:58

we're totally dependent. on it.

54:00

99% of our calories come from the soil

54:03

and yet we're just trashing it by the

54:05

way we plough it, by the amount of

54:07

fertiliser we put on it which is very

54:09

damaging to soil structures. The chemicals

54:11

we put on to kill things, yes. Exactly,

54:13

the pesticides they go down through the soil

54:15

ecosystem devastating it, tearing massive great holes in

54:17

it. And so it's one of

54:19

those things that no one talks about or very

54:22

few people talk about but will probably turn out

54:24

to be massively more important than all the things

54:26

we obsess over. Absolutely, we obsess

54:28

about bees don't we? Yeah, exactly. Which

54:30

of course is really important. Fantasticly

54:32

important. But along with all

54:35

the other insects. That's right and in

54:37

fact bees are being killed off by

54:39

this class of pesticides called neonicotinoids and

54:41

that's horrendous and devastating. But those same

54:43

pesticides are absolutely devastating to soil organisms

54:46

too and that's probably an even more

54:48

urgent threat than a threat to the

54:50

bees but because we don't see them

54:52

and they're much smaller we're

54:54

not nearly so exercised. Wow, I

54:57

thought I was knowledgeable to know about

54:59

the fungi that goes through woods and

55:02

things and the fact that they use that

55:04

almost it seems as a communication system between

55:06

trees that actually whole woods can

55:08

be warned if damage is being done to another

55:11

part of the wood through these

55:13

messages but I had no idea. Yeah, I mean

55:15

if you think the fungi are amazing you wait

55:17

till you get into the bacteria. I haven't

55:20

scraped the surface of it yet. They

55:23

are so weird and so amazing the

55:25

stuff they can do is mind blowing.

55:29

Oh, it's fantastic. These are all

55:31

brilliant titles for a book. I have scraped

55:33

the surface. We're

55:36

treating the earth like dirt and

55:38

in fact going back to our

55:40

first item I think jumping into

55:42

the hornet's nest. Yeah.

55:46

Oh George, that's absolutely amazing. Thank

55:48

you for telling me about that.

55:51

It's an extraordinary thing and clearly something that

55:53

we need to take very, very seriously. We

55:55

know nothing about this world. Do we really?

55:57

No, we really don't. We really don't. a

56:00

paper written about four years ago and in some

56:02

of the publicity around the paper the author said

56:04

we think we might know what soil is now

56:07

and I caught up with those same scientists a couple

56:09

of years later and said oh how's the research going

56:12

you know if you've got any better idea of

56:14

what soil is and one of them

56:16

said in the light of further research we haven't

56:18

a fucking clue. Yes

56:22

the joy of research I think the

56:25

joy of research is to show us

56:27

our ignorance. Yeah it's magic. It's just

56:29

magical yeah fantastic. Okay that's

56:31

number three Jordan. Yeah so we have two

56:33

more things to go we have a good

56:35

thing and a bad thing you can choose

56:37

whichever all do you want. I

56:39

think I'll leave the bad thing till last.

56:42

Okay so number four is something so ordinary

56:45

and so commonplace but utter

56:47

magic it's it's a seashell.

56:50

I've chosen a very simple seashell which is

56:52

a little round snail shell called

56:54

the necklace shell. I mean it's quite it's very

56:56

beautiful when you look at it it's only a

56:59

couple of centimeters high very

57:01

smooth a sort of compressed

57:03

spiral little purple dots going

57:05

around the spiral and

57:08

nothing very much to look at you wouldn't you

57:10

know no one would put it on their shelf

57:12

and get other people to admire it it's not

57:14

some gigantic conch or one of those things with

57:16

all the amazing frills and stuff which you

57:19

give them some seashells but every

57:21

one of them is a miracle because this

57:24

seashell was made at atmospheric

57:27

pressure with ambient concentrations of

57:29

chemicals and yet it

57:31

is more delicate more robust and more

57:34

precise than anything a human engineer can

57:36

make with as much temperature as you

57:38

like with as much chemical concentration as

57:41

you like and all the rest of

57:43

it it is a a

57:45

miracle of biological engineering even

57:47

the simplest one is like

57:49

utterly mind-blowing how the hell

57:51

do you do that yeah

57:54

yeah no chemical engineer can do that we

57:56

just haven't worked out how to do it

57:58

and yet it's done done every day.

58:00

Every day there are these little necklace

58:03

shells just adding a little bit more

58:05

calcium phosphate, the next layer, the next

58:07

layer, the next layer in this perfect

58:09

spiral while at the same time going

58:12

about their business doing their thing, which

58:15

actually is quite an interesting thing because

58:17

you'll often find if you find little

58:19

bivalve shells on the seashore, a lot

58:21

of them will have a perfectly circular

58:23

hole drilled into them. And

58:25

it's the necklace shell which drills that circular

58:27

hole, it sort of crawls along, finds a

58:30

bivalve and then there's this little rasping tongue

58:32

which goes round and round like a drill

58:34

and just goes... Oh, that's

58:36

what it is. Yeah, and then

58:38

they suck out the body contents.

58:43

It's extraordinary, isn't it? We walk across a

58:45

crunchy beach of millions

58:47

and millions and millions of

58:49

shells and then you have whole

58:51

buildings made up of the remnants of them

58:53

going back. That's right.

58:56

Billions of years. Yeah. It's

58:58

extraordinary, isn't it? It's amazing. It

59:00

all goes on and will go on before

59:03

and well after we're gone. Yeah, yeah. And

59:05

these are millions of miracles. I mean, every

59:07

one of them. If you were to spend

59:09

your life saying, right, how can I make

59:11

one of these? You wouldn't get

59:13

that. You'd never get that. However great your

59:15

expertise, you just couldn't do it. No.

59:18

No. Is it the building up? Now,

59:20

this goes through nature again and again. I think

59:23

I may have mentioned this a couple of weeks

59:25

ago when I was talking to someone and I

59:27

called it the Fenabachi sequence, but it's the Fibonacci

59:30

sequence. Fibonacci sequence, yeah. That whole thing that all

59:32

those things are based on that piece of maths.

59:35

In fact, the universe and the solar system, they

59:37

make sense, don't they? Yes.

59:41

There are these recurring principles.

59:43

It's just come back again

59:45

and again at all these different scales.

59:47

I'm very interested in fractal scaling to

59:50

go back. A fractally scaled system is

59:52

one which has the same

59:54

structure at any level of magnification. And

59:57

it gives a system a great deal

59:59

of robustness of its fractal. So the

1:00:01

soil going back is factually

1:00:03

scaled. It has the same structure

1:00:05

at the microscopic level and at

1:00:07

the macroscopic level. And that means

1:00:10

that it has this extraordinary structural resilience. If

1:00:13

it weren't for that and other characteristics, it

1:00:15

would just be swept off the land. You

1:00:17

know, first rainstorm, first wind which comes along,

1:00:19

there'd be a dust bowl. And the only

1:00:22

reason there isn't a dust bowl is that

1:00:24

it's been structured by the organisms which live

1:00:26

there. But structure built

1:00:28

by the bacteria is fundamentally

1:00:30

the same structure which is built by

1:00:32

the giants of the soil like ants

1:00:34

and worms. And just built

1:00:37

and built and built. And then, you

1:00:39

know, the necklace shell is factually scaled.

1:00:41

So the tiniest spiral has

1:00:43

got the same structure as the largest

1:00:45

outer spiral. So as it grows, it

1:00:47

grows on exactly the same structural paradigm

1:00:49

as it starts with. Incredible.

1:00:51

And as you say, it's extraordinary that those things

1:00:53

are so fragile and yet so robust. Yeah, I

1:00:55

mean, it's so light and thin. You

1:00:58

know, when the animals died and you've just got

1:01:00

the shell in your hand, it's like it can

1:01:03

be blown away by the wind. And yet, you

1:01:05

know, you try to crush it with your bare

1:01:07

hand, you can't do it. We

1:01:11

should just sit and contemplate for a moment. I think

1:01:14

it's extraordinary. What a fantastic

1:01:16

world. And how

1:01:19

easily in such a short period of

1:01:21

time, almost devastated it, almost destroyed

1:01:23

it. I know. I

1:01:25

know. And we don't know what we're doing.

1:01:27

You know, we're like kids going around with

1:01:30

a hammer just smashing mingbases. Yeah, yeah. Well,

1:01:33

I mean, we could be regarded as the

1:01:35

greatest pest the world has ever had, almost

1:01:37

like an infection. Yeah, I mean, I

1:01:39

don't want to see us that way because I see

1:01:41

a lot of wonder and magnificence among human beings as

1:01:43

well. You know, we are

1:01:45

incredible. I mean, we're mind blowing creatures.

1:01:47

Well, the fact that we're the first,

1:01:50

I would imagine, and there's me doing it,

1:01:52

imagining that we're able to do that. Yeah. Maybe

1:01:55

in the whole history of everything, we're the

1:01:57

first to understand it to some extent. Yeah,

1:01:59

yeah. Let this so much more to

1:02:01

understand and we can continue to learn that.

1:02:04

It's an amazing thing. Yes. And we can

1:02:06

pass that learning on and we can build

1:02:08

that learning, build pyramids of learning. I mean,

1:02:10

that is astonishing, you know, and our ability

1:02:13

to communicate with people we've never met, with

1:02:16

people of different generations. You

1:02:18

know, we can pick up Shakespeare play and

1:02:20

read it and enjoy it

1:02:22

and laugh at the jokes. Yeah.

1:02:24

Yeah. Incredible. I mean, we are

1:02:26

ourselves a great miracle. And yes,

1:02:29

create miracles every day. You

1:02:31

know, there is an utter wonder to

1:02:33

humanity, which feels very much

1:02:35

like the wonder I feel in nature as

1:02:38

well. So I don't want to write us

1:02:40

off, but at the same time, stuff

1:02:42

we do. It's just just

1:02:45

horrendous. Yeah. But we are

1:02:47

completely capable of turning that round. We

1:02:49

are. I'm convinced we are. So I

1:02:51

would say I'm pessimistic about what we

1:02:54

do and optimistic about what we are.

1:02:56

Huh. Lovely. OK,

1:02:59

well, let's put that necklace shell in

1:03:01

as your whole item. OK. To represent

1:03:03

that the amazing nature of the world.

1:03:06

Yeah. Lovely. OK. So finally,

1:03:08

just something you want to get rid

1:03:10

of. Yeah. So it's going to sound

1:03:12

really weird and really unfair. This is

1:03:14

something I want to bury and never

1:03:16

see in this country again. Is it

1:03:18

Margaret Thatcher? Well, I

1:03:20

bet that's been done before. Do

1:03:24

you know when I when she was buried? I

1:03:26

mean, I'm sorry if any of her family are listening

1:03:28

and this might upset them. But this is the way the

1:03:30

world is. I was staying in a guesthouse in concert. So

1:03:33

as you can imagine, not in a great area

1:03:35

in the world. And the man I

1:03:37

was dating with came in when I was having breakfast

1:03:40

and turn the television on and it was a funeral

1:03:42

going on. And I said to him, didn't expect you

1:03:44

to want to watch this. And he said, I'm just

1:03:46

making sure the bitch is dead. Not

1:03:49

coming out. Yeah.

1:03:52

Yeah. Yeah. No, I

1:03:54

did. I mean, I did have various

1:03:56

politicians in mind, but I thought I bet you've had

1:03:59

that hundred times. So

1:04:01

it's just, you know, people would think that,

1:04:03

you know, you'll think, what, sorry, what the

1:04:05

hell? It's the pheasant. And

1:04:10

now pheasants are magnificent creatures. You know,

1:04:12

when you see a male

1:04:14

pheasant strutting in his pomp with

1:04:17

all his bronze feathers and his

1:04:19

wonderful colors. You know,

1:04:21

they're just amazing creatures. But yeah, they're

1:04:23

from China, though, aren't they? They are

1:04:26

and they're an absolute plague in this

1:04:28

country. And they're only here because

1:04:31

these idiots in wax

1:04:33

jackets with double

1:04:35

barreled names and double barreled shotguns want

1:04:37

to blast them out of the air.

1:04:40

Yes, who own all the land. They

1:04:42

own all the land and they release

1:04:44

about 50 million of them every year.

1:04:46

Now these are large omnivorous birds. They

1:04:48

eat everything. They just

1:04:51

rip through our ecosystem. They eat

1:04:53

the caterpillars, they eat the spiders,

1:04:56

they eat the baby lizards and

1:04:58

the baby snakes, they eat the

1:05:00

worms, they eat the frogs, they

1:05:03

eat the seeds of the plants.

1:05:05

They're absolutely devastating to wildlife. And

1:05:07

then in order to protect them,

1:05:09

the gamekeepers kill everything that

1:05:12

the pheasants aren't killing. They kill

1:05:14

the hawks, they kill the owls, they kill the

1:05:16

the stoats and the weasels and industrial quantities and

1:05:18

stoats and weasels are both amazing creatures.

1:05:21

Really interesting, complex social lives.

1:05:23

They kill the foxes, they

1:05:26

kill the crows. Some

1:05:28

of it they kill legally, some of it

1:05:30

they kill illegally. But you know if there's

1:05:32

gamekeepers around you don't see gothawks, you don't

1:05:34

see hen harriers. They just

1:05:37

take out so much of

1:05:39

our wonderful wildlife. No, absolutely. I mean

1:05:41

hen harriers ought to be as common

1:05:44

as sparrow hawks. Exactly. It should be

1:05:46

everywhere. Same with gothawks. Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

1:05:49

yeah. It's really horrible and

1:05:52

incredibly cruel also. You know the way they

1:05:54

trap some of these animals but

1:05:56

also the way the pheasants are shot. You know

1:05:58

a huge proportion of them. are

1:06:01

wounded and not recovered and die

1:06:03

slowly of their gunshot wounds. And

1:06:06

these are basically, it's actually a

1:06:08

very interesting question. Are these

1:06:10

domestic animals or are they wild

1:06:12

animals? Because the law just twists

1:06:14

and turns in order to allow

1:06:16

this to happen. So when you

1:06:19

are breeding them in pens, they're

1:06:21

classified as livestock and

1:06:24

you can get various tax breaks and

1:06:26

other concessions from the government because of

1:06:28

your farming livestock. But you're

1:06:30

not allowed to shoot livestock. That's

1:06:32

illegal. So the moment they're released, they

1:06:35

become wild animals so that you're allowed

1:06:37

to shoot them. But

1:06:40

at the end of the season,

1:06:42

they round up the surviving pheasants

1:06:44

and trap them back in enclosures

1:06:47

in order to breed from them

1:06:49

later. But you're not allowed to do that

1:06:51

to wild animals. So as soon as you

1:06:54

start rounding them up, they become livestock again.

1:06:56

However, if during the round

1:06:58

up one of them flies into the road

1:07:01

and causes a car accident, you're

1:07:04

not liable for it because at that

1:07:06

moment it becomes a wild animal again.

1:07:10

It looks slightly as if the law

1:07:12

is biased in favor of people who

1:07:15

want to keep pheasants. Seriously, Ovid's metamorphosis

1:07:17

had nothing on this

1:07:19

law. This is a magical creature

1:07:21

which can just transform from one

1:07:24

shape into another whenever it wants.

1:07:26

It's a shape shifter. But

1:07:28

every other invasive species that we have in

1:07:30

this country is treated as such. And we

1:07:33

have desperately tried to reduce the numbers, don't

1:07:35

we, or keep them down. So

1:07:37

people are talking about, can we wipe out

1:07:39

grey squirrels? People are saying

1:07:42

let's kill them as soon as we see them. Pheasants?

1:07:45

No. Ringneck pheasants though. But

1:07:47

reed pheasant, silver pheasant, lady amherst pheasant, gold pheasant, gold

1:07:49

pheasant, of which there's some

1:07:51

tiny little populations in this country which have

1:07:54

escaped from zoos and stuff. Those

1:07:56

are classified as invasive exotic species

1:07:58

which should be wiped out. There's

1:08:01

probably a few dozen of each of

1:08:03

those at large in the English countryside,

1:08:05

British countryside, there's 50 million of the

1:08:07

ring net pheasants, so released every year,

1:08:09

but the rules are completely different for

1:08:11

them. Now, if this were a working

1:08:14

class pursuit, can you

1:08:16

imagine it surviving one minute? Can

1:08:18

you imagine it not being legislated

1:08:20

out of existence immediately? Yes.

1:08:23

But... Yeah. There

1:08:25

were racing pigeons everywhere. Yeah,

1:08:27

exactly. Yeah, or greyhounds running

1:08:29

wild, or greyhounds running wild, or whatever

1:08:31

the countryside. Yeah, with it. With it,

1:08:33

you know, people are going, they've got

1:08:35

to be shot. Yeah, that's right. That's

1:08:37

poison them all. Yeah, of course. And

1:08:40

not only that, recently, a lot of the pheasants

1:08:42

that we get are imported from France, although they're

1:08:44

bred there and they bring them over. And they

1:08:47

recently couldn't do it because a bird flew. So

1:08:49

in fact, poor people had very little to shoot

1:08:52

in the house. And they're awful, yeah. They're awful.

1:08:54

Yes, really, Tom. And they had to go back

1:08:56

to shooting clay. They had to shoot each other. We just

1:08:58

had to go and shoot each other. Oh,

1:09:01

but hopefully. You never know. It's weird, isn't

1:09:03

it? Because we celebrate these people, and we

1:09:05

celebrate their homes and their wealth and

1:09:08

their way of life as if they

1:09:10

are Englishness, as if they, in a

1:09:12

way, encapsulate it. But they are such

1:09:14

a tiny percentage of the population and

1:09:16

live such an extraordinary life in comparison

1:09:19

to everybody else that they're really not,

1:09:21

are they? They are what I'd like to think

1:09:23

of as Norman invaders. Yes. Well,

1:09:25

in fact, when you go around the stately home

1:09:28

and stand back a little bit, you say, what

1:09:30

am I seeing here? You realize the aristocracy in

1:09:32

this country is a death cult. Everything on the

1:09:34

walls is to do with death and killing. There's

1:09:37

suits of armors, all

1:09:39

the weapons, all the paintings

1:09:42

of battles. And then there's the paintings

1:09:44

of hunting. And then there's the stuffed

1:09:46

animal heads. And there's the hideous little

1:09:48

dioramas they have. What are they called?

1:09:50

Where you've got stuffed squirrels

1:09:53

playing badminton and stuff like that. I

1:09:55

can't remember what they're called, but oh, Tablo Vivant.

1:10:00

history. Exactly. And now,

1:10:02

interestingly, the driven pheasant

1:10:04

shooting where these psychopaths

1:10:06

stand in a line with shotguns waiting for

1:10:09

other people to drive the birds over their

1:10:11

heads, that began to

1:10:13

develop right at the height

1:10:15

of colonial massacres. During

1:10:17

the Afghan War, the Indian War, so

1:10:20

many other things that we were

1:10:22

doing around the world, we developed

1:10:25

new weapons for killing colonial subjects

1:10:27

in vast numbers, and we developed

1:10:29

breech-loading shotguns for killing pheasants in

1:10:31

vast numbers. And those two

1:10:34

things can't be unconnected. You know, there's

1:10:36

that idea that if you stand

1:10:38

at the top of the social tree, you

1:10:40

have a right to inflict mass death, whether

1:10:43

it's on people or whether it's on other

1:10:45

species. And in fact, it's not just a

1:10:47

right that establishes your position at the top

1:10:49

of the social tree. That

1:10:51

shows you who you are. And

1:10:53

I think that ethos of mass

1:10:56

killing is fundamentally the same, whether

1:10:58

it's aimed at people or whether it's aimed at other

1:11:00

species. The fact

1:11:02

that children are blooded. Yes, yes,

1:11:05

the hunt. Yeah, it's abominable. And

1:11:08

it is a death cult. It's a death cult. And we

1:11:10

look up to these people and say, Oh, isn't this wonderful?

1:11:13

It's tradition. So it's as traditional

1:11:15

as pouring shit into a river.

1:11:20

If you asked how many people in the

1:11:22

country take a survey, how many people have

1:11:24

actually ever held a shotgun and shot at

1:11:26

a bird? It would be a tiny, tiny

1:11:29

percentage of people. And it's an extraordinary expensive

1:11:31

thing. So what they do is they suck

1:11:33

in people who say, well, if you become

1:11:36

rich, you can almost become us. You can

1:11:38

come and join the gang. Exactly. Exactly. You

1:11:40

can hire these woods in these areas. And

1:11:42

we'll let peasants push the birds towards you.

1:11:45

And very importantly, you exempt yourself from the

1:11:47

normal laws of the land. I mean,

1:11:49

just like that sort of ever mutating pheasant,

1:11:51

which which skirts around the laws. So

1:11:54

another example, you know, that nearly all

1:11:56

shotgun users are still using lead shots.

1:11:58

So they're spraying this. toxic metal

1:12:00

across the countryside. Now, lead shot in

1:12:03

angling, which is mostly a working class

1:12:05

pursuit, course fishing, was banned

1:12:07

years ago because you're poisoning

1:12:09

the ecosystem. But the far greater quantities

1:12:11

of lead shot being released

1:12:13

every time a cartridge is fired, that

1:12:16

can continue to be done because it's

1:12:18

an upper class pursuit. In

1:12:21

a way, it's like the old forest laws.

1:12:23

You know the word forest doesn't mean a

1:12:25

place with trees. It originally meant a royal

1:12:27

hunting estate. It comes from the Latin forest,

1:12:30

which means outside, or forest, which

1:12:32

means outside. So it's outside

1:12:35

the laws of the land. The

1:12:37

royal hunting estate creates its own

1:12:39

law, its forest law, where the

1:12:41

rights of ordinary people are terminated.

1:12:43

You can't pursue your rights of

1:12:45

panage and turberry and estivers and

1:12:47

grazing and pescary and all the

1:12:49

other things which you would normally do

1:12:51

because this is a sphere, a domain which

1:12:53

has been ring fenced and is outside the

1:12:55

normal laws of the land. That's what a

1:12:57

forest means, the original meaning of forest. And

1:13:00

what we see throughout history is that there's one

1:13:02

law for the rich and one law for the

1:13:04

poor and that the rich live in a forest.

1:13:07

They live in a place which is forest, which

1:13:09

is outside the usual laws of the land. And

1:13:12

that is part of what having

1:13:14

that level of privilege means. And

1:13:16

we see exactly this with pheasant

1:13:18

shooting. Yes, absolutely. Well,

1:13:20

let's take all pheasant and put

1:13:22

them in there. Although I am

1:13:24

inspired by what you've said almost

1:13:26

throughout the whole thing, George, go

1:13:29

out and buy my own gun. I

1:13:32

don't think that's going to solve it somehow. No,

1:13:35

unfortunately, I don't live in a forest. It's a

1:13:37

little bit Hollywood, isn't it? Yeah,

1:13:39

no. It's not the way. Vomits will

1:13:41

solve it. But actually talking about it

1:13:43

like this, and hopefully, because

1:13:45

listening to you, I think

1:13:48

that I'm a worldly man. I think I know

1:13:50

many things. But you've told me a number of

1:13:52

things today that I was not really aware of.

1:13:55

And we need to know these things. We need to

1:13:57

be aware of how the world really is, I think.

1:14:00

Yeah, and unfortunately, you know, because of

1:14:02

this two cultures thing, at

1:14:04

a very early age we have to decide whether we're

1:14:06

going to study science or humanities. Loads

1:14:09

of people are shut off from it.

1:14:11

I mean, science is scary to people

1:14:13

because they have so little contact with

1:14:15

it. And yet it's a

1:14:17

world of wonders. It's a portal

1:14:19

through which you step into

1:14:21

a magical domain. Fantastic.

1:14:24

George, it's been wonderful to talk to you. Thank you

1:14:27

so much for doing this. I know how busy you

1:14:29

are, and I look forward to reading

1:14:31

many more of your wonderful books. Thank

1:14:34

you. It's been a pleasure, Michael. Thank you so

1:14:36

much. Thank you

1:14:38

for hosting me.

1:14:41

You have been listening to My

1:14:43

Time Capsule, with me, Mike

1:14:45

Fenton-Stevens, and my guest, George

1:14:47

Bombio. If you'd like

1:14:49

to hear more from George, then there are links

1:14:51

in the description of this episode to his writing

1:14:54

and the TED Talks that he's given on various

1:14:56

subjects. They're well worth your time, I promise. And

1:14:59

I also hope that more episodes of this podcast

1:15:01

will be worth your time. And

1:15:03

if you think they are, then why not

1:15:05

subscribe? And then you'll get all new episodes

1:15:07

as they're released, and all past episodes are,

1:15:09

of course, still available. Do

1:15:12

rate the show and do get

1:15:14

in touch with me on My

1:15:16

Time Capsule on social media or

1:15:19

via email, [email protected]. The theme

1:15:21

tune by Past The Peas Music is on Spotify, if you

1:15:23

want to listen to it on its own. This

1:15:26

was a cast-off production for A-Cast.

1:15:28

It was produced, of course, by

1:15:30

John Fenton-Stevens. Right, hopefully I'll

1:15:33

still be here next week. See,

1:15:35

unfortunately, I'm up before the magistrate later this week

1:15:37

for assorting a man at Beech is Broadmoor. I've

1:15:40

asked for 14 other fences to be taken into

1:15:42

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