After deliberations about who could make a difference as Prime Minister in a one month stint, Callum, Negus and Prideaux reveal their specialist subjects. We’re not talking the thing they do best at work, nor what they excelled in at school (if anything at all). No, we are talking about the random things that they have more knowledge than they should about!
Also find out more about Bingo cards, T-shirts and where you can meet up with us at The Game Fair if you are going!
CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.You can contact us by email on: contact@countryslide.co.uk
Edited and Produced by Amy Green.
This transcript was generated using AI and may contain minor errors.
Richard Negus: dear. Do you know, I drove back today from Northamptonshire where I was judging, not in a sort of judgy way, but in a helpful and constructive way, my couple of farms which are up for a Shuffle Countryside Awards in the section called Nature Friendly Farming. And as I was driving back and got onto the A14 and got to the Cambridge-Suffolk borders, I started counting the number of dead muntjac that are strewn on the central reservation and one, ha ha ha, two, ha ha ha. Keep going. Keep going. It ended up, when I got to the junction that I turn off to Hawley Green, 27 I counted, just killed, bloated, rotting, eyes pecked out by magpies, just in that section, 27 alone and ridiculous. It is the killing fields of a dual carriageway of muntjac.
Richard Prideaux: Callum, take your phone off your desk, please. Whoever you're being buzzed by is interrupting the dear listeners.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It's the it's the Patreon group.
Richard Negus: OK, what are they saying?
Richard Prideaux: How are they? They're infecting our life even during the podcast.
Richard Negus: I know. Yeah, infecting. Yeah, like COVID.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I posted my chalk stream trout that I just cooked via the magic of the internet. I didn't cook it via the internet.
Richard Prideaux: I was going to say, did you microwave it using the 5G router or something?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I've gone to 6G now and it grew an extra head and multiplied. So I've worked out, I think maybe that's what Jesus did with the 5,000 fish.
Richard Prideaux: Bill Gates, I think.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah. 10G.
Richard Negus: God, it was good back then.
Richard Prideaux: That's why your Charlie's so sort of thin and waif-like, even though he's so tall, because you didn't have good internet for the first part of his life, so he couldn't cook.
Richard Negus: Well, that's very true. We didn't have internet until he was like 13. I mean, as listeners to Countryslide will know.
Richard Prideaux: Good time for him to discover the internet.
Richard Negus: Yes, exactly. He's now gone blind.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Didn't leave his room for a week.
Richard Negus: Have you noticed his biceps? Absolutely huge.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Nothing left of him but a friction burn.
Richard Prideaux: He's just been staring at a particularly curvaceous oak tree until then.
Richard Negus: Yeah, that's it. Look at the curves on that.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah. He just shouts down, father, you must turn the internet off.
Richard Negus: I've run out of zinc. I'm so dehydrated. Can you get off the phone? I'm trying. Yeah. Do you remember that? When you used to go and sort of go on the internet and then you sort of went, someone's on the bloody phone. I mean, it is quite bizarre really. I'm that old now. I can remember having a phone which was a party line. We had three digits as our phone number, 596. That was our phone number. And picking the phone up and we used to have a party line who on that was the vicar. And so you'd sort of hear the vicar talking to some recently bereaved parishioner. And I was trying to sort of go and ring up to chat up some girl or other. Can you \*\*\*\* \*\*\* Reverend Hopley? I'm trying to go and ring up Nancy Dare here. And yeah, it was, I'm sure it probably helped the poor widow through that.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Can you imagine the moment when you actually stepped your first foot into hell and the devil says, well, that was, that was, that was the first incident that we really started taking notice of all the bad things you've done.
Richard Negus: Mr. Negus would've been expecting you.
Richard Prideaux: Hello. And then just bring out the phone book and they start. start with AAA and just go work through.
Richard Negus: Yeah. I mean, that would probably be very true for actually all three of us is that, if heaven and hell exist, let's be perfectly honest, we're only heading one way. But then I often think this, so, you know, I've never been much of A1 for arguing about religion. But for most of the people I know who are utterly devout and wonderful, sort of devotees of their faith. I don't think I'd want to spend eternity with them. I want to spend eternity with all the Rongans who were heading down south. So therefore, you know, I'll be down there. I'll be saying, go on, give me the picture. You can smoke. Exactly. But you can still smoke in pubs. In hell, yeah.
Richard Prideaux: It's basically Bristol, because Bristol is permanently mid-nineties, isn't it? never moves forward.
Richard Negus: Do you know Bristol? I don't think I've ever been to Bristol.
Richard Prideaux: You haven't lived.
Richard Negus: Is it as manic as they say?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I like it.
Richard Negus: It's still full of hippies.
Richard Prideaux: Yes, crusty's. But then you've got all the sort of the sword that moved out from London as well to Bristol and they sort of They're the ones with yoga, drumming, Pilates.
Richard Negus: Circles and things like that. I'll be just Frome. Frome's like that. It was very bizarre. I went to go and do a book signing in a lovely bookshop called Hunting Raven, which is a great name anyway, in Frome. And I also.
Richard Prideaux: It sounds like I can't afford to be there.
Richard Negus: They're a lovely bookshop and the lady who runs it is a top lass, but I also went to this other place, which is an absolute, as you say, moved out from London for a feeling of light and space and then started off some bookshop. I wouldn't say it because it's unfair, but he's a complete prawn. He's a mate of that shrub-soul blokes and all that. And he's just a righteous sort of, you know, I've moved to the countryside and I'm going to tell you how to live type bloke. But I never forget, Claire and I pulled up into this car park in Frome and there was this very battered old Ford Fiesta sat there and it was so battered and horrible with \*\*\* packets sort of absolutely everywhere that you noticed it and then all of a sudden the owners came out and there was this sort of couple who were arguing with one another and he just suddenly shouted across the car park at her, well you're a \*\*\*\*\*\*\*! And I thought, this is brilliant. is that an insult that sort of died out in 1982? And he's still doing it, having a full domestic in a car park in Frome. Well, you're a \*\*\*\*\*\*\*. And I thought, that's brilliant. Got into the Fiesta and drove off with his exhaust dragged along the ground.
Richard Prideaux: There's a very sort of special corner of Somerset, which is very much in the Flatlands. Yeah. And it's. You can see a hill and you can sort of see Glastonbury over there and you can see you can see the sort of the hilly bit that sort of blurs into becoming X more eventually. But you've got the flat bit. It's not quite \*\*\*\*\* but it's sort of.
Richard Negus: Bridgewater.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, that sort of bit. But then all the way over to Shepton Mallet.
Richard Negus: Okay.
Richard Prideaux: As well, famously home of Babycham.
Richard Negus: Shepton Mallet. Shepton Mallet is where the is a very famous steam railway. I believe in Shepton Mallet.
Richard Prideaux: Bluebell or something?
Richard Negus: Bluebell Line owned by David Shepherd, the wildlife artist. Yeah. Is he really? Interesting. Yes. Well, interestingly enough, the Bluebell Line, if I'm not mistaken. is owned by David Shepherd, the wildlife artist, whose daughter, Belinda, was at university with my sister, whose husband is Jeremy Hobson, the author of countless books on many countryside things. So there you go.
Richard Prideaux: He's the only person I've known who's written a book entirely about ditches.
Richard Negus: Yeah, And beagling. I've got a book, his book on beagling here. He actually is writing a book, I believe, about muntjac deer, which, you know, it almost sounds like we've organised this podcast at the moment because he said, can I quote a line from words from the hedge in my next book on muntjac? I have to say, authors like him, I am hugely in admiration of because they are able to get the get up and go to go and say, better go and churn another book out. I better go and do one. And they sell and, well done. I am.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Do you think volume is a metric to go for?
Richard Prideaux: Particularly volume of things that what I saw out of my car window on the way home.
Richard Negus: I saw a ditch, right, ditches.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Things that are gone and sore.
Richard Prideaux: What's that? The old phone boxes.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I'm going to do, I'm going to do the photo book that things that I've gone and saw.
Richard Prideaux: It's so sweet outside the A-12, the A-14.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: A-Road.
Richard Prideaux: Callum's first piece is grip, grip box with a broken handle.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Callum's favourite A-Road.
Richard Negus: Do you know there is actually probably a best-selling book in that? It's just random shots that you've taken. for your car.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Me and my cousin's, Mrs. Cousin's soon to be husband. Right.
Richard Prideaux: Close relative.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah. close relative. We always compare service stations.
Richard Prideaux: Dodge your English.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: We say the ones that we stopped in and then we give them a bit of a rating and just go for a thorough review. There's a few that are the magic services, which is South Mims, which somehow you get on and whatever your sat nav time says, you can go in, have 20 minutes in there, come back out and you will arrive at the same time. because the traffic never changes. So if you go to South Mims, you get magically you get 20 minutes back of your life.
Richard Negus: A TARDIS of a service station.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So I like that one for it being magic. You know, an example would be Peterborough would be a sort of 3 1/2 out of five stars. It's just, it's not got a bridge, it's got a bridge, a bridge is good, you know.
Richard Prideaux: I was going to say this is completely irrelevant content, but actually comparing service stations is probably quite relatable for most of the audience, given how many people listen to this in the car.
Richard Negus: Well, you think Glenn, Glenn probably knows every single service station in the land, and in actual fact, it's probably got a sort of, you know.
Richard Prideaux: Yes, the man who goes up and down the country selling probably the best thermal imaging devices, also spends a lot of the time on the phone to me swearing.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: What do you think he likes? Do you think he likes, do you think he likes a Waitrose? Like a just one where he can get something.
Richard Negus: I think he likes, I think he likes a Waitrose. That's probably the better, the better.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: M&S M&S food.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I reckon I reckon it will appeal to the north in him when you get like a Waitrose or an M&S and they do stuff at very discount prices because no one's buying a whole chicken in a service station.
Richard Prideaux: No, up there, up there you have an establishment called Booths. Booths, yeah, which is the sort of the northern Waitrose and I'm not going to spoil the rest of that because when young Richard there comes over to Wales in a couple of weeks, we're going to talk about booths and particularly the, or one of the family, because it's quite an interesting story.
Richard Negus: Oh, excellent. I do like that. You know, I have to say that there is one, it's not only properly a service station, but it is the place you have to stop if you're going up into the Highlands and that is the House of Brewer. Have you ever been to the House of Brewer?
Richard Prideaux: Yes, I'm. I'm banned from the crystal section.
Richard Negus: Well, it's a bit like that you sort of, somebody somewhere, probably in about 1984, said, right, who are we getting crossing our threshold? And they went, there's lots of Americans. And it's more Scottish than a box of Walker's shortbread biscuits. I mean, you can't move a tartan. It's got Iron Brew. Oh, but it's upmarket Scotland. Yes. So therefore it is tartan.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: That's the worst kind of Scotland.
Richard Negus: Tartan Fest.
Richard Prideaux: Oh, I don't know.
Richard Negus: Lots and lots of stag. If you want antler related. Would they deep fry it? Deep fried antler.
Richard Prideaux: No, you're at the wrong end of the scale here, Callum. This is, there's a takeaway lobster place in the car park.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: No, I don't want any part of it.
Richard Negus: They have special parking. for people like you there. And it's called Keep on Draven, Keep on Draven, Keep going, Keep going. You'll be in Aberdeen before you know it. And it is the most remarkable place. And I once decided, because I was sent the House of Brewer catalogue as to what you could buy. And basically is nothing but sort of back of the Daily Telegraph, colour supplement section clothing, but in tartan. And I took lots of photographs of these and sort of started to do a humorous thing on Twitter about saying, all this various sort of clothing and taking the \*\*\*\* out. My God. I might as well have gone and bared my \*\*\*\* at the Pope in St. Michael's Square. It was utterly, and it was like I had absolutely desecrated the Saltire by insulting the House of Brough. It's an amazing place. I suggest, Callum, you have to go there and just envelop yourself. Let it wash. Let the tartan wash over you.
Richard Prideaux: You'd like the food haul, actually, Callum. There's all sort of, there's all, that's not tartan, that's plaid. He's just, he's hanging up a, he's holding up a checked shirt, everyone.
Richard Negus: It's a Ben Sherman, I think, isn't it?
Richard Prideaux: Not understanding how an audio podcast works, he's now showing things to the audience.
Richard Negus: Oh, he's got two shirts that are identical. Isabella Rain Man, isn't he?
Richard Prideaux: In every way.
Richard Negus: Yeah. Was it the fly where he's got sort of, he's has a clean clothes every day, but they're just exactly the same as the last day?
Richard Prideaux: And now we knocked the microphone over.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I think you're talking about Mark Zuckerberg.
Richard Negus: Am I? Who's he?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah. The man that owns the internet and his nice job. Is he?
Richard Negus: I thought that was Tim Berners-Lee. I thought he owned the internet.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: You're thinking of Tim Burton.
Richard Prideaux: Is he the one with \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* Helena Bonham Carter?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, that is actually the one.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah. Okay.
Richard Negus: Anyway, what are we going to talk about today?
Richard Prideaux: Well, we're a bit late recording this week, although listeners won't know that because you're listening to this on a Friday or a Thursday or in 47 weeks time because you've just discovered the show. But I was late back as I've been the furthest afield I've been since my little tree dodging incident and that was to Liverpool. Liverpool.
Richard Negus: Yes. Cross the mears. Did they welcome you and tell you a few jokes and sing you a song?
Richard Prideaux: Liverpool's a weird thing when you approach from Wales or from the south because you go, you drive up the Wirral and then you go into, there's two tunnels that go under the Mersey and it brings you out right in the centre of the city. So it's like if you went through the Blackwall tunnel and it brought you out on Oxford Street, it's like that. So you just suddenly in Liverpool, you've got no preamble. And we were going to something called the Outdoor Trade Show, which has been going for about 20 years. But it's as the real people say, it's a B2B event as a business to business thing. But it's where all the either manufacturers or the agencies and importers that bring in stuff from America and wherever come to meet the people who buy stuff for the shops. So it's a good place to go and see all the latest new equipment and things, which I do actually need to be vaguely aware of for one of my bits of work.
Richard Negus: Did you see anything you went, wow, that's innovative and clever.
Richard Prideaux: No, because everything's pretty much been invented by now. What you saw was either new stuff or just stuff that was like, this is better than that bit over there.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Same again, but with Bluetooth.
Richard Prideaux: There's actually more natural cottons and fibres and things. That seems to be the thing now. So we went to see our friends over at Brandecos, who are also the people that bring in Swan Dry, which are the New Zealand woolens. which I'm quite a big fan. I'll wear them all the way through the winter. So let's see them.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I like the one that you were wearing. So then I definitely couldn't have bought that one. So you basically, the one I liked, you ruined, is what I'm saying.
Richard Prideaux: They're doing new colours in that one.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Good. I need a tartan.
Richard Negus: He ruined it because he wore it. So you're saying he's a bad brand ambassador?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: If we turned up wearing this same thing. Richard's one version is like a it's like a I could probably use as a tent should like the weather kick up in.
Richard Prideaux: Could use it as a fire blanket for a large commercial fire.
Richard Negus: Well, yes. I mean, this is the problem. You know, back in the day when I was doing lots of kit reviews and they all seemed to want me to keep hold of it, so I'd then wear it in future shoots that you would take photographs of. I could never hand on my kit that I was sent to you because otherwise it would look like you'd sort of raided your dad's wardrobe, wouldn't it?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, you got gangly arms, so you're like 2 sizes up from me, I think.
Richard Negus: Yeah, it's not it's not a good look.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: But I did, I did peel for some waders, if I remember rightly.
Richard Negus: You did, and you've still got them, haven't you?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I still got, yeah, a pair of Snowby ones, and they're pretty good, actually.
Richard Negus: Yeah, I mean, so for the price. Well, do you know what it was?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I don't think they were that much money, really.
Richard Negus: They were very sensible because in the end, I did say to Patrick Galbraith, when he was the editor of Shooting Times, I said, you know, there's no point, just keep sending me coats. that are 460 quid or a pair of boots that are 10 gazillion pounds, because most people do not have that budget. So let's go for stuff which has got a price point where your average Johnny who reads the shooting times could possibly go and think, well, I'll do that. And you realise that on the whole, there were the rare occasions where you go, like Brandacost boots or Dodito, you go, actually, I would spend this much if I wanted to keep my feet warm, dry and comfortable because they generally are that good. But then you drop down to a price point 150, 200 quid cheaper than them and they're all the same. And then you realise they've all been made in the same factory anyway by the same poor little Bangladeshi sweatshop worker. But I have to say today I was actually doing sort of I was in the company, Marcus Jansen, he of main man of Shoffel, and we were judging our two farms today with Ali Henton, your mate Callum. My pal. Two lovely people to spend time with and very useful as well to get different views and opinions on what we were looking at. But because Marcus was there, I went to my, because we've actually got rain for once. We've actually got some rain. It's raining again now, which is like a miracle. But it was peeing it down this morning. And as I left the house, I went to go and pull off the peg, a shuffle coat went, oh, no, I'm seeing Marcus. So I went and picked up a Sasta one, just to be contrary. Just to be contrary. So I can pull that on and go, oh, I'm nice and dry here in my Sasta Meto Pro. Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Well, this is, there's a weird thing I picked up today. And this is sort of an insight into how this world works. So the reason we go, I go to the shows is because when I do the stuff with I would say that I've got this strange job. It's just I train police military search and rescue every now and again. Yeah. And one of the things we do with that is I don't sell them any kits, but I make recommendations sometimes for clothing because in those environments, clothing is effectively PPE. And there's bits of equipment, weird stuff like water filters and things that you wouldn't think of. They're a bit boring, but when you need them, you need them.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: I went to see a couple of people who haven't been to this trade show before because they're relatively new to the UK. And one was Carhartt. So they do all of their posh American, well, expensive American work wear. Yeah. And that's become sort of hipster work wear now.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, it's a huge. It's like North Face. North Face used to be.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah. And Canada Goose used to be just polar expeditions. And now it's.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: And now it's high street fashion sort of thing.
Richard Prideaux: It's the lad who's nicked your phone is wearing a Canada goose. Yeah. So I went to speak to them and there was a few actual, there's a really nice bits in their lineup that I know a couple of our clients would be interested in buying. So I said, okay, can I take your card? Because these people, they just want to go and buy 20 or 30 units at a time, direct buy, straight to base, straight to units, whatever. And they said, oh no, we don't do that. What do you mean? We only sell via retailers. Yeah, but this is like the military. They'll probably buy quite a bit if they like it. You know, it's quite a nice regular thing that we're buying. Oh no, we can only do it via retailers. Okay, so, right, fine. There's no way around that. No, we own you by retailers, but you're the third military person that said that to us today. All right, okay, well that's mad. So I went down to Pinewood Clothing. further down the row who sponsor the National Gamekeepers Organization and do some very nice Swedish hunting gear. And I spoke to them and they went, sure, fine. Yeah, we'll send it straight to them. Yeah. It's very interesting watching places that are effectively fashioned trying to break into the outdoors practical use market, because they only really want to deal with a nice store in a city. They don't actually want to send it out to anyone. But I just thought that was it's an interesting contrast there.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It's sort of when you get high street retailers, if you start offering outside of trade accounts, they get the right because the prices become different and sort of you get resellers and stuff as well for things that get they get out there.
Richard Prideaux: Not from Hereford. Well, actually, yeah, that's the point. They would put it on eBay.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It could be a good cover, yeah. There's quite a few, there's quite a few retailers that you, they will only sell free retailers who never sell anything direct because people just undercut and the retailers get the amp, basically.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah. It's a, yeah. There are, I don't think there's a show for military division yet, is there, apart from sort of guards regiments.
Richard Negus: Yes, you say that. I mean, literally every single officer in the British Army has a shuffle gelay. It's something that, I mean, there became a point when I was in where it was almost accepted that waterproofs were that \*\*\*\* that they issued you. It was perfectly acceptable to wear a barber. So barbers bought out a camouflaged waxed barber. And it was, although not officially issued kit ever, but it was accepted that the military wore that because the stuff they issued you just was about as waterproof as a tea bag. So they bought out, not for stalkers, they bought it out for the army so you could buy it. You bought all your kit that actually worked from Silverman's who was a military kit retailer and the stuff that you were issued you just put away in a locker and you had to account for when you left the unit and sort of handed it all back in because Basically, other than the woolly pulley and a pair of lightweights, everything else was just crap.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So when people say that to advise you to shop at an Army surplus store because it's really good kit, they're massive liars. Is that what you're saying?
Richard Negus: Yes, these days there's a lot of kit that's better. I mean, let's be honest, wars tend to influence how kit works. You know, we binned the Land Rover when we realised that they weren't very good with IEDs and the original... Yes, quite. And the boots that we had in the Falklands were just literally sponges for your feet that encouraged, it actually encouraged trench foot, you know. However, there was never enough talcum powder ever made to dry your feet from ammo boots. So they thought, let's go and get some new ones. So let's make them out of cardboard. But it was just crap. But I suppose now, I mean, am I correct in saying that with the sort of kit that you're looking at there, still a lot of it is probably honed in the military sector and then it's civified and then sold to outward bounds-y type people afterwards? Or is it the other way round? Other way round.
Richard Prideaux: So yeah, so a lot of the military kit is downstream now of civilian and environment specific developments. But then it always, if it's general issue, it always has to go through the things of how much can you make? Can you regularly supply it? Can you supply it the same size in the same coding for the next 20 years? And is it the right price point? But When you get to specialist units, say like Mountain Warfare or one of the new Ranger units, so they get to go and hide in all sorts of places and do weird and wonderful things. They buy small amounts of stuff from Civi Kit. There's also, there's companies like Brigantes, which are ex-Royal Marines set this up and what they do is they go to units and say, right, what's missing from your kit? What would you really like? Oh, you'd like a really lightweight mountain waterproof. And then they go to a company like Montaigne who make civilian high performance mountain waterproof and say, we want that jacket and those trousers, but I want them in this camouflage pattern instead of bright yellow. buy 10,000 units and they sell them on that way. So there is a kind of a crossover and you can buy this stuff, but it depends, yeah, where you're going and what you're doing. But the kit is pretty good these days. Although surplus, you don't get good stuff in surplus now because it tends to get shredded. Well, there was a period where ISIS were running around wearing army surplus kit because they were buying it here, shipping it over there. You probably had my arm on the numbers. Yeah, that's the thing when you. coming up against an enemy and you look in the back of the jacket and it's got Baz was here.
Richard Negus: Yes, exactly. Yes, Trooper Snooks.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Magaluf O7.
Richard Negus: Most of the most of the army now seems to be some sort of special forces or airborne, but Callum, you were airborne. Am I correct in saying?
Richard Prideaux: That's quite a good segue for you.
Richard Negus: Thank you. Thank you. Tell me about how you joined the Mile High Club the other day.
Richard Prideaux: Did that man touch you in special places like France?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: No one, no one touched my joystick. No one looked at...
Richard Negus: Did he raise your flat?
Richard Prideaux: Did you do air to air refuelling?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: There's so many that can really double this.
Richard Negus: Did you do docking in the air?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: No, docking.
Richard Prideaux: Did he fill your luggage compartments?
Richard Negus: Right, now come on, look, I was, I just felt, you know, just slightly inadequate when you're suddenly said to me, oh, here I am flying to, was it Eponay you went to? How did this come about and what did you do?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Basically, I just did a booze cruise in the sky.
Richard Negus: Well, he wasn't drinking and flying, was he?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: No.
Richard Prideaux: Is this the episode where Callum admits customs fraud?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So you're allowed, I don't know what you're allowed. You're allowed a certain amount, but I think anything more you end up having to declare whatever it is. But basically, in the next Wait, what's the solstice day? 23rd.
Richard Prideaux: 21st ish.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: 21st. There you go. Sunday the 21st. So on Sunday the 21st, the people at North Weald Flying School are going to fly over to Epene and then pick up champagne, fly back to North Weald and have a champagne festival at the Cart Shed restaurant. So we're all just going to drink champagne. So you had to do a recce. We had to do a recce to work out, we wanted proper champagne, like not, there's so much, a lot of champagne is just marketing \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* in a fizzy bottle. That's what you're paying for. You're paying expensive money for marketing hype. Yeah. But some champagne, well, quite a lot of champagne is delicious and there is local growers and there's good people. So we went to Epenay and we tried lots of different champagnes and we picked some of our faves and there's going to be like loads of seafood. There's going to be oysters and all sorts of fancy stuff. This is a ticket event. You can buy tickets if you do wish. We'll put that in the show notes.
Richard Prideaux: This sounds like a poor person event.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Is it or is it? No, it's very good. So you get 3 glasses of champagne, tickets are 35 quid. You get 3, 35 pounds exactly. You get 3 glasses of champagne with your ticket. So that's a 50 mil thing and.
Richard Prideaux: Do they just hand you 3 glasses immediately to say, deal with those?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: You get to try whatever you have, wherever you fancy, I think. And then you also get included in that ticket price, you get a 10 pound food voucher. So it's.
Richard Prideaux: Minimum food spend 20.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It's basically free. So that's quick maths.
Richard Prideaux: That's quite a good deal in this day and age. How do you, know, how does that sort of thing come about?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Well, I know how much the champagne costs, so it is a very good deal. because there is barely any money being made on that because the champagne was quite expensive.
Richard Prideaux: Well, they have aviation fuel costs as.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Well. they all love it, don't they? So that's sort of their investment. They'll pay for the jolly anyway. So it's not really on the extra. So yeah, that's the plan. And I went for a recce, tried some champagnes out and Some were delicious, some not so good. At one point, I'm sitting in a fancy place and be like, I think this one tastes like \*\*\*\*. And she's like, wee, wee, yes, wee, wee.
Richard Negus: Yes, you see, she agreed.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It tastes like \*\*\*\*. Yeah. Some of them, some taste like cider. They've got like a real cidery taste. Depends on grape varieties. sugar content added post, how sweet the grapes are and there's lots of different ones. So we tried that, but light aircraft. So most people, their response when I posted my Instagram story was essentially, what are you doing?
Richard Negus: Yeah. It does seem very, very, very swanky, Callum, I'll be honest.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: No, not that. They were scared for me.
Richard Prideaux: It looks like he's stolen it. That's the thing.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I mean, that is Kurt Bosswell.
Richard Negus: He's taken a drive-by.
Richard Prideaux: Asking ChatGPT, how do I land a Cessna 182 Skyline?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I was taking notes in the cockpit. I reckon I reckon I'd have a go, you know. I reckon I'd.
Richard Prideaux: It's all in the flaps and the approach speed.
Richard Negus: James May is an amateur sort of pilot, isn't he? He's got a little aeroplane that he buzzes around in. And it does seem to be the sort of preferred mode of transport for slightly eccentric. Your friend who owns this plane, is he a James May type character?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It's William from the Cart Shed who will, I want to get him on as a guest, but I just, we did suggest doing a podcast, but then we ended up drinking champagne and it's quite loud in a cockpit, so that sort of didn't really work out.
Richard Prideaux: Dear listeners, when it comes to organising a podcast guest, Callum is very good on the ideas thing, but then he just goes to see if he gets \*\*\*\*\*\* and forgot to forget to actually do the podcast. This is about 3 in now he's done this on.
Richard Negus: This is if you do notice. What is this, dear listener, is that you'll notice that actually most of our guests come from Suffolk. So there is a reason for that. Local boys doing local things. Exactly. And none of them can fly a plane.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So, yeah.
Richard Prideaux: But they do point to them as they fly past.
Richard Negus: Yeah, what's that?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Try and throw, some copies Hazel \*\*\*\* at them.
Richard Negus: God, bloody ravens, I hate them.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, That's faster than the steam engine.
Richard Negus: That'll never catch up.
Richard Prideaux: Trying to put a light aircraft in a trap, in a Larsen trap, trying to attract another one in.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So light aircraft. a remarkable way to travel. It doesn't feel like you should be allowed to do it. Like it does feel illegal. So you get in this sort of tiny little plane, which so the plane belongs to the flight school and you can basically just rent the plane. So you pay X amount per hour and the flight school maintain the plane. So it's very safe because they, I think it's like every 50 hours it has to have a service and stuff. So it's a very safe way to travel. And then, well, actually I checked the risk profile because, two kids at that. Also checked my life insurance just to make sure. I'm not sure it was covered, but details. The risk profile is the same essentially as riding a motorcycle. So. Really? Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Well, it depends where you're riding it. Paris Dakar is very different to a riding Tavium 6.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, true. The TT is probably a bit harder and faster than most. But the main thing that can happen is engine failure. And you've got quite a good glide.
Richard Prideaux: More than halfway across the channel before it happens.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So when you basically you get slightly, you get higher altitude. And I was like, how come you go slightly higher when you go across the channel? And he looks, he says, oh, well, what happens is, see this line here, this is where we'll land if the engine cuts out. Yeah. So this is about where we are. So we're about halfway. This is where we'll land. And he said, see those oil tankers down there? Like, yeah, their stopping distance is like 4 1/2 miles or something ridiculous. So if you land anywhere near them, they're not going to pick you up. But if you can aim for the fishing boats over there, we should be all right. Because once you send out the signal, the Coast Guard will say to all the fishing boats to come and pick you up. And you know, should we land in the sea? put that life jacket on, they'll come and get you.
Richard Negus: And you said you did.
Richard Prideaux: Check out the naive positivity of this.
Richard Negus: I know, isn't it? It's just.
Richard Prideaux: I've done dunk tank training. It doesn't happen like that.
Richard Negus: No, I've done that. It's crap. Do you know, I can remember doing the dunk tank training module. Basically, Karen, what they do is they make you sit in a simulation of a Puma helicopter. And you have to Not a cougar. Not the wildcat. No, You're sitting inside a puma and they throw you in that, so.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Fire.
Richard Negus: Fire. The stomach between the ribs. Yes, you know, the initiation ceremonies in my regiment were ridiculous. And then you sit in a Puma helicopter simulator, which basically looks like a gigantic oil drum, and you're sat in seats that you would sit in a Puma helicopter, and you clip yourself in, and then it lowers you into this very cold very deep swimming pool and then you're supposed to wait and so you exit this thing underwater in order. So you don't just sort of all go at once. You need to follow one after the other. And then it goes in and then it turns you upside down with the lights on. And then the final time they dunk you in again so you now know exactly what you're getting. And it feels like you're a million fathoms under the water. You're not. You're only sort of, I've got to know how many foot, it's not that far. But then they turn the lights out so it's pitch black. turn you upside down and it's the closest I ever got to say I ain't doing this. is stupid. But it is stupid. But then you get out and you get given a certificate and then they say, and by the way, if this happens for real life, none of this will happen because you'll die. And if you don't die immediately in the crash, you won't get out because you're going to have to go all the way to the bottom of Loch Nay, which is ex fathoms deep. So therefore your ears will go pop and you'll die. And if you do get out, probably the swirling rotor will still chop your head off anyway. And you're thinking, I don't think I want to be in a helicopter crash. Thank you very much. You know, so let's not do that. So, you know, I do go on airplanes, but I don't think I'd like it.
Richard Prideaux: This is reassuring Callum for next time. So if you do look like you're going to crash in the channel, just try and suffocate yourself. on a bag of peanuts or something before you get into the water.
Richard Negus: Quite. Take A Webley pistol with you and just say, what's that for? It's just in case we crash because I'm not going to be chopped in bits because Negus told me that we're going to die. Because it's all right. We're just coasting. We're going to land on Beneday Beach.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Thankfully, there's lots of coast guards knocking around in the channel at the moment, especially on the French side.
Richard Negus: Wouldn't that be funny if you actually got rescued by a bunch of illegals coming over and they went to put you on?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I was thinking if I did go down, so I'll get back to it, but I saw two... I saw two migrant boats.
Richard Negus: Did you?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah. And the French. The French Coast Guard were, I was like, oh, they're chasing them down. And then the pilot said, no, they're not chasing them down. They're escorting them to the border. They just scoot them over the line. Once they get over the line, they say, they say, that's Narnia.
Richard Negus: Bon chance.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: None of your business. And then that's it, done. But I thought to myself, if I did go down, all I'd have to do, just ditch the passport and I'd get put up for like, I don't know, maybe I'd do like 7 nights at the Bell Hotel in Epping up the road. That's where they all go. That sounds quite nice. No kids.
Richard Negus: Can you imagine Callie's face, where have you been?
Richard Prideaux: I've made an illegal migrant getting back three meals A day. I'm now Eritrean.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I'm kind of the kingpin of a gang. And...
Richard Negus: Don't ruin this for me. I'm now really big in Eritrea.
Richard Prideaux: I'm also addicted to cats.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I can get you lots of things and I know a really good hummus recipe. Like, if you get me some chickpeas, you're going to have the hummus of your life.
Richard Prideaux: The Green Party has now just made you the mayor of Epping.
Richard Negus: Yeah, exactly.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Live like a local.
Richard Prideaux: He's examined the cost benefit analysis of this. It looks like it's a better option than I have.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I just thought a free hotel stay sounds quite nice.
Richard Negus: You went on a champagne booze cruise in a private aircraft and you came back an Eritrean refugee. I mean, if that isn't the plot for a BBC One drama, I do not know what is.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I thought, like, it would make a good novel for a person that sort of hit their head, didn't realise where they came from, and then slowly pieced back together their former life when they, when they, when they heard gunshots, they realised that all the other refugees were scared of them. And you just wanted to get in a beating line and shout, oh, yeah, And you're like, oh, maybe I was from another life.
Richard Negus: I'd say, don't worry, don't worry.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I'm getting Claude to write the book about it right now. I'm going for volume rather than anything else.
Richard Prideaux: Like Jason, so like Jason Bourne, except he's a gamekeeper.
Richard Negus: Yeah, he's a gamekeeper.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, like Jason Bourne, the gamekeeper, sort of wakes up, doesn't know where he is. A bit like Taken or something like that, you know, wakes up, doesn't know where he is. He's got a very special set of skills that slowly...
Richard Prideaux: He can carry 4 bags of wheat at the same time.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, exactly. He knows. He knows how to protect protect ground nesting birds and he's got a compulsion to do it. He's not like the other refugees.
Richard Negus: Exactly. Yes, rather than just because of catching carp randomly on riverbanks, you're trying to conserve them. It's not like us.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I mean, I could start littering, but this isn't good for the environment.
Richard Prideaux: On the way home today, I saw something and it made me immediately think of Callum. It was outside a pub somewhere in Queensferry, sort of on the edge of where Wirral becomes North Wales.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Was it shouting at pigeons? Because I don't do that anymore.
Richard Prideaux: No, it was several quite nice looking vans and minibuses, all with monster carp tours all the way down the side. What's this? Is this like... Mini bussing over to the continent for carp fishing.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, you get loads of that. I might even know. Let me search monster monster carp tours.
Richard Prideaux: Is that a think?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, so basically you play. I am not that big of a fan of. So I don't mind going carp fishing, but I would not like to go to a giant lake and sit there for like a week on the same place.
Richard Prideaux: No.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Drinking. Yeah, drinking stubbies and getting melted by the sun. Like that's how you catch 70, 80, 90 pound carp if that's what you want to do. But I like the adventure personally. Yeah, monster carp tours, yeah, white and green, great big vans.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, it was just, there was a huge fleet of them. I was looking at it going, How much money is in this carping?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So they, so Monster Carp Tours are actually hiring the vans so you can go abroad.
Richard Prideaux: So is this self-drive carp holidays?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, well, so it says here.
Richard Prideaux: You could just do that with any minibus, surely?
Richard Negus: No, but they, a lot of minibus driver operators are very, very dubious about lots of people in camouflage kit covered in slime using their kit.
Richard Prideaux: I'm going over to France for the champagne.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: If you want a fan that already stinks like boilies, you go to that guy and you could only get it smelling better. Talking about fishing.
Richard Negus: Talking about fishing, I did a talk with Mike Warner sometimes of this parish about fishing and the land of the Suffolk Show. And.
Richard Prideaux: A passion for seafood.
Richard Negus: He did a brilliant thing. What he did was he went there with my cousin Gary and a few other people and quite rightly they went to the Suffolk show and bearing in mind we are a very much a coastal county as well as an agricultural county. He went there and he showcased the fishing fleet, what's left of it in Suffolk and what we catch off our coast. And he got Gary to go and sort of make nets and talk to people about what it's like being a professional fisherman. And it went down an absolute storm. And Mike and I did a quick talk in the CLA stand on the second day of the show in the afternoon. And it was really reassuring to see just how engaged people were because I think it's a funny old thing. We think about the countryside and you always think about leafy, don't you? But then the countryside is we've got a massive coastline. I don't know how many miles of coastline we've got. But that is still a rural community trying to go and earn living from its harvest, which is from the sea. And I think it's really good, what he did, and he went down a storm. Yes, that was a good thing.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah. This is the thing I've often said about the ruralness of coastlines, so it gets forgotten.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah. How many miles of coastline have we got?
Richard Negus: Do you know? I don't know.
Richard Prideaux: Don't do this. I know what you're about to do.
Richard Negus: What is he Googling it?
Richard Prideaux: No, it's worse. He's going to do some sort of chaos theory fractaling thing.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It's basically impossible to work out how much coastline Britain has got because it's so jaggedy and obviously the tide happens and it makes it more jaggedy. The chances of getting anywhere close to accurate figure for the coastline is basically impossible because you sort of draw quite straight lines and don't make up how it is and it works out at like X number of miles and then when you go slightly finer detail and you draw instead of like 1 mile lines you go down to like 100 metre lines that go in straight you get like a massive amount more coastline. and then it forever changes and you can't work out where tides go or anything like that. So working out how long the British coastline is, basically an impossible task. You could just go insane trying to figure it out.
Richard Negus: I wouldn't bother. Do you think the flat earthers don't believe in tide?
Richard Prideaux: Here we go.
Richard Negus: Because I mean, I've never actually.
Richard Prideaux: I'm not sure I believe in time.
Richard Negus: Tides. Tide.
Richard Prideaux: Oh, tides. Oh, yes. Tides, yes. Tides, no.
Richard Negus: Because let's be perfectly honest, the old flat earth people, I've never met a flat earther, I'll be honest. And I only believe...
Richard Prideaux: You've gone to Norfolk.
Richard Negus: I only believe the chemtrail people exist on the internet. I think they're just silent.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: No, I met them. My local pub was spray painted with the words, look up in the sky. They're spraying us like bugs.
Richard Negus: Really.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah. probably sniff the rest.
Richard Negus: Utterly bizarre.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Utterly bizarre. Do you know what the best thing is? Anyone I've met that's like a big conspiracy theory and believes that like people are poisoning us and stuff, I know that they've spent quite a lot of their time using drugs. So they've put so many narcotics, a dangerous thing in their body, they're like, no, I won't have a vaccine. Not a chance. I don't know what's in it. And I think Mate, I've seen you take a pill that you don't even know what it is. You found it on the floor. It was sold to you by some random bloke in a nightclub.
Richard Negus: Jimmy the Greek.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I've seen you take something out of a Pez dispenser that you didn't know what it was. What is wrong with you? And you won't have a vaccine? What in case Bill Gates is tracking your thoughts? You ain't had an independent thought in your life. You only think about football and \*\*\*\*.
Richard Negus: Can't believe you've alienated all the forestry boys now because, you know, aren't they into flat earth and no tides and chemtrails?
Richard Prideaux: I was with a load of forestry people this weekend. Oh, that's a bit blue, Peter, isn't it? Well, Richard, I was with some forestry people. Went to the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society felling competition. So this is, we've got the Royal Welsh Show, which is in a few weeks. It's normally like the week before the game fair, but there aren't any trees at the camp around at Built Wells because they've already cut them all down. So you have to have the felling competition a few weeks beforehand. And it's this year is up in North Wales. It's not far from here. We had one of our patrons competing and he'd come all the way on his own. So we went along to sort of heckle, I mean, support him from the lions.
Richard Negus: What did you call it? Wood sports or something? Is it?
Richard Prideaux: Timber sports. Timber sports.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Not wood sports. Don't Google that.
Richard Prideaux: I think you'd both really enjoy it. I said so much. Well, Richard, you're eligible to enter. We can enter next year with your chainsaw tickets.
Richard Negus: Shall we do that? Shall we do that? Yeah.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Can I be like motivational rather than I haven't got any chainsaw tickets?
Richard Prideaux: I want you to do commentary on a loudspeaker.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: You can do it.
Richard Negus: I think it'd be brilliant. Calendar in the commentary. Yes.
Richard Prideaux: Calendar without any briefing, just having to work out what's going on.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Oh yeah, He's swinging at the tree. It looks like he's going to cut it. Let's go tree.
Richard Prideaux: Oh my God. I think that's a chainsaw.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: So you've got to drop a tree.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: This chainsaw is smaller than the other guy's chainsaw. What's that going to mean?
Richard Prideaux: It's back to the pills, isn't it? You've got to drop a tree. bang on exactly or millimeter perfect and get it the right height and the accuracy of your cut is marked. And then you've got to do some cross cutting where you've got to do 2 cuts into a log and they've got to meet up in the middle. And then there's another one where you've got to cross cut something on the floor and cut through almost all the way through, but leaving the minimum amount and then not hitting the floor with your chain. And there's my favorite competition, which is changing a chainsaw chain on time, which I think is quite a cool little thing because you just go to a tabletop and write and go and take off all the take off all the braking things, take the bar off, flip it over the other way around, put a new chain on, put a reattach it and then done. It's like.
Richard Negus: Do you know what I would do? I would for a laugh go there with a battery powered chainsaw and a chain that's really blunt. So when everyone else is there going and they're having an argument whether husky or steel is best, I would go with a Makisa electric saw and a chain that literally you could lick and it wouldn't draw blood and just go there and start sort of vigorously soaring back and forth. What are you doing? What? What's the matter? What are you sneering at me for? What? Stop throwing helmets at me. Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Come over from England.
Richard Negus: You tree monkey.
Richard Prideaux: Stop it. Two of the some more competitive lads, they were from Norfolk. They were Garnham trees.
Richard Negus: Oh, yeah.
Richard Prideaux: And we've got some Garnhams, I think, in our audience. Yes. Some of that lot. But there's a question has arisen for you, Richard, from this show, which is, I've been told to ask you, do you drink your port with your foot up on a chair?
Richard Negus: Well, because of the gout.
Richard Prideaux: And if you don't, why not?
Richard Negus: It's a guards thing, apparently. No, I don't do that. That's utterly ridiculous. What I do have, obviously, is dry toast with every meal, because that's a regiment position. But no, and I sit down for the French national anthem. Because you beat them. Yes, exactly.
Richard Prideaux: Is it something to do with that you were going to ride into battle and then you realise they hadn't finished toasting the toasting, so they had to, they were drinking the pause whilst with their foot up in a stirrup.
Richard Negus: That is certainly something I have never come across and not one we do. We have many, many question answered. So no is the short answer. But you know, in the nathy anything goes. So yeah, it might be all right. So any road. After show? After show I think is essential because poor Amy has got to edit all this nonsensical nonsense into some relevant sort of form of understandable gibberish. And yes, so let's do that. So what are we going to make Callum do a noise for? I know what we ought to do. Make him do a noise like the glide on a light aircraft, that the calculations were completely out and he's now plummeting straight down into the path of an oncoming illegal immigrants boat.
Richard Prideaux: Callum does that and will you and I do the black box recording. Oh my God, we're going to die. I didn't get too young to die like this. Oh God, oh God, is that a seagull? Oh that like seagulls. Oh God, that's the Exxon Valdez that's going to run us over.