After a few weeks off, Callum, Negus and Prideaux catch up on their summer activities. Negus has spent the hottest months of the year indoors writing his next book, while Callum has been catching absolutely nothing from a kayak, eating slightly furry muntjac and eventually earning the title of shark hunter after landing several sizeable tope in the North Sea.
We also discuss alternative locations for nicotine pouches, becoming the fish and the wisdom of responding to a wildfire warning at sea by heading ashore and lighting a barbecue.
CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.
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Edited and Produced by Amy Green.
This transcript was generated using AI and may contain minor errors.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Have you seen, have you not seen these things? Yeah. Yours is called Pablo.
Richard Negus: Pablo. Yeah, don't have them, Callum. Honestly. I bought them by mistake. Well, I took one. Because these are basically small tea bags filled with nicotine. I haven't vaped and I haven't smoked for a long while, courtesy of them. And this is not a public health announcement, but it certainly stopped me from smoking. But these things, you put them under your lip and they sort of release nicotine into your system and you trust that this tea bag isn't actually either giving you cancer or something like that. But what was this thing that she gave you? And did you accept this dealer?
Callum McInerney-Riley: I got like 3, three pots of this stuff that smells like some kind of fantasy grape and blue grape or purple grape or something. And which basically just make your head spin like you've spun around when you were seven years old too many times.
Richard Negus: Absolutely. I bought these by mistake. Something called Pablo. 50 milligrams of nicotine per pouch in these things. That's like eating a cahiba cigar. It's crazy. I took one and I thought literally my eyes are going to fall out. I got all hot and sweaty. And no, I don't do it, kids.
Richard Prideaux: So Richard, in your military days, did you ever do the thing where you take a packet of screech and you lay it out like a line of finest Colombian marching powder and snort it up? Or you might have heard the other boys were doing this in there.
Richard Negus: No, I didn't do that. But what I did do, Richard, was that we'd on a quite a lengthy exercise, I'd got my cigarettes wet. And so therefore, somebody told me that if you used a ration pack tea bag in a Ritzler that it was basically like having a cigarette. Well, I can assure you it's not. It's like smoking tea, which is akin to smoking a compost heap and it goes woof and then takes your sort of nasal hair out and your eyelashes and eyebrows. So it's a bit like Callum lighting a pizza oven. I look a bit like him, really.
Richard Prideaux: So I am reliably informed that the ever imaginative, I was going to say men and women of the armed forces, but let's face it, this is men doing this. They've taken to the nicotine pouches quite well. I think the Americans got there first and they got the idea of it.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah, they love it. The Americans love it. And they'll put multiple in their mouth and basically get themselves to pass out.
Richard Prideaux: You say in their mouth. There are other places around the body where you can.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I think it's shelving.
Richard Prideaux: And yes, sort of men have the two lower options. One is at the rear, one is sort of tucked under the turtleneck at the front.
Richard Negus: I'm joking. What are these? I'm so glad that we gave them their independence.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Give me 5 minutes. I'll be right back.
Richard Negus: How many can you fit? I'm back. Oh dear, that is, that's just wrong, isn't it? I mean, do you know, I think it's something. that is a sad thing in a way, is if you think, who are some of the legendary individuals of the countryside, one would most definitely be Jack Hargreaves. And Jack Hargreaves, his prop on TV and everything, was he had a pipe in his mouth all the time. You know, without a pipe, not with Jack Hargreaves.
Callum McInerney-Riley: It was just... Jack Hargreave sneaking off camera to put snooze in his **** ***. No, I just. Well, there's a clip.
Richard Prideaux: That's, yeah, that was, you know, Jack Hargreave's old country wasn't old tobacco pouch shoved under your foreskin, was it? No, that is.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Hold on, I need to readjust. Anyway, it's finally kicking in. Copposite, talk to me.
Richard Prideaux: It took a bit of gold block. When the sun doesn't shine.
Richard Negus: Oh my God.
Richard Prideaux: Next time you're on stage doing one of your book talks, Richard. I think, you know, to refocus the mind, I think this is what you need to do as prep. What? Put a Nordic spirit up you.
Richard Negus: Nordic spirit under my... No, I'm not doing that. I can imagine it with a WI.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I'm just curious. The purple grape flavour with that.
Richard Prideaux: Where are your taste buds?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Cheese and grapes work well together, don't they? So that's a bad thing.
Richard Negus: I have to say, they have at least stopped me. So I stopped smoking by vaping and then, like Callum said, every single photograph he ever took of me had this little silly magic wand in my hand, didn't I?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Did you still do you still do a pipe just for the lulls?
Richard Negus: Oh, very much so. Yes, very much. And I also have a cigar, which occasionally I will go and treat myself to as a bit of a sundowner type thing.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I can see, I can see the appeal of a cigar. Yeah. And a good spirit together.
Richard Negus: A good spirit is nice. It's I like it.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Nice rum or some description?
Richard Negus: Yeah, I there's something. Gentlemen, actually there's a bit of a thing going at the moment is the government has decided that basically cigars slightly got away from not having to do all that horrible green, you know, regulation packaging. and pictures of cancerous lungs or eyes that are all terrible. They managed to get out of that. So apparently this government has decided it wants to go and also put them on cigars. And the cigar industry are absolutely up in arms about this. They're saying, look, I don't think cigar smokers are going to approve of this. So who knows?
Callum McInerney-Riley: If there's anyone from the cigar industry that would like me to photograph a nice gentlemanly man on a respirator, sort of gasping for life. I'll quite happily take the pictures for the front of your cigar packet. Perhaps also, you know, any collapsed lungs or anything, you just let me know and I'm available for commissions.
Richard Prideaux: You're also going to do the tobacco pouch up the **** *** as well.
Callum McInerney-Riley: It's sort of like, actually, I've probably got stock of that. There's plenty of men in Harlow that put their hands down their pants, uncalled for.
Richard Prideaux: You may have just got one accidentally by a misfire on the camera as you were walking along. Chances are you've got one. Yeah.
Callum McInerney-Riley: And jogging buttons.
Richard Prideaux: So what did everyone do for their summer since we've had a few weeks off?
Richard Negus: I've been writing and that's about it. I had four days in Southwold on holiday, which was lovely. And then during the drought, I have been sat typing away on my next book. And that is literally it. Obviously, I did have spells of where I travelled around the country gaining, talking to people about the book, including your good self, Richard, and Amy, who is silent. And so I travel the country researching the book and then writing it because I always find it's a lot easier to go and try and write it whilst it's fresh in your head. And also, this summer, I have done a bizarre thing because I record everything that people say to me on my little recording app so that when I actually quote them, I can say, you actually said this. And they go, I never said a thing of the sort. Go, haha, yes, you did. Here it is and play it back to them. Not that that's ever happened, but just in case, you know. But it's quite funny. I realized just how many people I've spoken to that whatever the dictation bit, when it then tries to put it into words, they have no idea what on earth these people are saying. And particularly when I came up to Wales, that was very funny watching what AI thinks you said for these various Welsh places. And yes, so that's literally it. I've been sat indoors, you know, in this hottest of hot summers with vitamin D leaking out of my system, writing. And I say, I'm sorry, it's tedious, it's dull, but the book isn't.
Richard Prideaux: Given your orangery or whatever it's called there, where you're sat and the appearance of that and you typing away at your typewriter, is it like sort of murder she wrote and are you just going out and solving mysteries in the local village every week?
Richard Negus: Well, yes, I suppose I slightly, people do mistake me for Angela Lansbury quite frequently to be part. I think it's the beard. I think it's the beard. But I always like that idea. You see some writers still use old-fashioned typewriters, and I think on a number of levels, A, it's a load of pretentious ****. I mean, unless you are at least older than me, computers have been around for a long while, so therefore you don't need to use a click-clack typewriter. Secondly, I'm not being funny, but it must be a complete pain in the **** for your publisher, because then they get this physical manuscript, which they then have to go and type all up themselves. So I, and yeah, so but I do like that idea that when I finally finished it, that I rip the top copy out. And so it's done and then sort of wander off and have a cigar and a large Laphroaig or something. But No, it's that. It's been a very funny summer. And it's been a very funny summer because writing a book is weird anyway. But this one, it was particularly stressful compared with the previous one because the other one was easy because it all just basically came from my head and my own experiences. But then you suddenly got to write about other people and say what you observed about them and what they have said and try and get it. And you suddenly feel a slight weight of responsibility.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Interesting. You're prejudging the representation of that person before the paper even hits there.
Richard Negus: Precisely.
Callum McInerney-Riley: You've got to try and get out your own way when you're in that situation.
Richard Negus: Particularly because I'm trying to, in this particular instance, is, say if you write a review for something, if you criticise something, you can be quite nasty. I've never actually, I've done lots of book reviews, but I'm never nasty about things because I think, well, I know how bloody hard it is to write. It wasn't that shuffle jacket. Well, yes, I mean, sorry, Marcus Jansen. That's the only time I've ever been nasty about anything was that shuffle jacket?
Richard Prideaux: It has been rough getting the show full sponsorship since then.
Richard Negus: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, but I think it's if you're going to set out to write a book about other people's lives and you're trying to go and tell that story about them and say, this is their life, I want you to understand it. Imagine if I get it completely wrong or I completely misrepresent them or I focus on a point which actually is irrelevant to them, but it's not that. So it's suddenly I went, oh God, you know, I almost felt slightly cold and sweaty, a bit like I'd had far too many Pablo things shoved up my jacksy or something. it was a slightly cold, sweaty feeling.
Richard Prideaux: Callum, you've sent a long list here of all the adventures you've been on this summer. So rather than letting you choose, I'm going to start picking through. So bass fishing with Xavier, what's that about?
Callum McInerney-Riley: I was 40 I thought you were going to let me do a sort of Johnny Cash, I've been everywhere, man. And then I was just going to rattle off.
Richard Prideaux: Why don't you pretend I didn't do that and you just do that? Where have you been, Callum?
Callum McInerney-Riley: I've been everywhere, man. I've been everywhere. No, I've got the... I get the guitar out again.
Richard Prideaux: No, I promise.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I promise I'd never do that again.
Richard Prideaux: Yes.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I've been bass fishing with Xavier. I've just done quite a lot. I've just done quite a lot of fishing actually. Generally just fishing all over the gaff. The bass fishing was quite fun. We caught absolutely nothing. The sea was incredibly rough. We took Mark now was out, RSPB man, Operation Turtle Dove, All Round Good Egg. He also brought some cold muntjac to the table. We had a burger. I don't think it was roadkill. I don't know. Didn't ask. Now he bought it off Gouldy. He probably did.
Richard Prideaux: Had he cooked it before it came or did it just sort of, was it cold?
Callum McInerney-Riley: It was cooked. It was cold cuts, but it was cooked and it was perfectly sort of medium rare in the middle. Had a little bit of pink to it, bloody delicious. There was a little bit of fur on it as well, which was an interesting take, but don't hold grudges here. So we took him out and the sea was incredibly rough. after sort of summer just ended quite hard, didn't it? We had this scorcher and then suddenly it was rough and storms and not that good weather and a bit of rain. So we just ended up floating around for a couple of hours. And you were in a canoe.
Richard Negus: Or something, were you Callum?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah, we took him out in a kayak. It was very unpleasant and sort of I wouldn't say you were capsizing, but the waves, when we first tried to get out, we went slightly sideways and the kayak filled with water. So we had to go back, unload it and then go back out. So that was less than ideal. But we ended up out on this kind of like giant buoy raft thing and we fished off that for about an hour. We caught absolutely nothing and I just had a lovely time. It's quite good having an adventure with taking new people out, took my boy out, just slung some rubber around for a bit, had a little jolly feast up, ate lots of cake.
Richard Prideaux: Do you want to explain slinging rubber?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Slinging rubber.
Richard Negus: Is that is that reference to Nordic spirit again?
Callum McInerney-Riley: No, great. Just the bass Lewis, you often use like I've slightly changed my bass lure approach. I now use things that look a bit like crabs, but a lot of the time you use like sand eel imitations, really big, long silvery things, and they seem to catch the bass in most places.
Richard Prideaux: We do well on sand eels and shads, the sort of things with the replaceable, so that the head bit is the weight. with the hook on that and then everything behind it is replaceable. So you can put different things on.
Callum McInerney-Riley: The tails are interesting. Sometimes we use paddle tails. For most pike fishing, you'd always use like a paddle tail or something like that. But with the, obviously a sand eel doesn't have a great big paddle tail. So he used like long worm type things and they seem to have quite long, ones too.
Richard Prideaux: I always wonder how much of this stuff they're actually seeing as well. it's just if the fish are there, they'll go for something. If they're not there, then it doesn't really matter what you're using.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah, I don't know if it matters. I think your size matters quite a lot and your vibration levels matter more than anything else. And contrast, like things, if they're looking up on it, they're looking against the sky. So sometimes you're using things that are white But why does that look, how does that look against the sky?
Richard Prideaux: Are you going to look at it from the eye of a fish?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah, you've got to think like a fish, become the fish to catch the fish.
Richard Negus: Right. So that, is that when you release your inner caveman.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I caught nothing. So.
Richard Negus: Okay, so your caveman stayed within you. It's an interesting thing you see, Mike Warner, he was telling me, I went down to see him because we're doing a talking gig in a couple of weeks time during the Alborough Food Festival. And I went down to Felixstowe Ferry, beautiful little fishing hamlet down on the mouth of the River Deben.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I was not far from there today, actually.
Richard Negus: Okay. And he was saying at the moment, he said, bass are just everywhere. And he said, and he looked at me and goes, even you would catch some. Which one? thanks.
Callum McInerney-Riley: It's like one of those backhanded compliments, isn't it?
Richard Negus: Yeah, exactly. But he said, you know, they're just as a run at the moment of bass through that bit there and the debon. And he said, you know, they're there, but out at sea, they're in these spots. And there's a reason why professional fishermen are professional fishermen because they know where they are.
Callum McInerney-Riley: And that's the key to it. You can chuck the best lures out ever. If you're not on top of the fish, then you're not going to catch them.
Richard Negus: No. Sea's a big old place, isn't it?
Richard Prideaux: Thank you, landscape interpreter.
Richard Negus: Thank you.
Richard Prideaux: Richard.
Richard Negus: That's the final bit of my book is the sea's a big old place. The end.
Richard Prideaux: So. You've got this other fit in your, just going through the evidence of where you've been is mostly on your Instagram Callum. What's this of you holding a shark?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Oh yeah, shark fishing. So this is probably good evidence for the sea is a big old place too. My friend Andy Lobel, we fish together. So like how you sometimes you have exchanges in sporting days and moments. he owed me a favour because I took him to a sewage filled urban canal. I think it was like Ponders End near Enfield to go perch fishing where we caught absolutely nothing. It was chocolate brown. The only thing we saw all day was not a fish, but like a condom floating down the river. And obviously he was forever in my debt for that. So to repay the closed season canal trip that I took him on, he took me on a inflatable rib boat on the East Coast out to sea for two days, because perfectly fair trade if you ask me. I probably owe him I did our own mistake, so I did make sure to sort him out. But we went up on the sort of Yorkshire East Coast, kind of Scarborough type way, where they've recently been having runs of big tuna and other such fish, but you're not allowed to fish for them, technically.
Richard Prideaux: There's a few licensed people, aren't there, aren't the commercial boats and things.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah, I think there's a few. It's interesting because that's where they used to be. If you look at the history of that area and the Tunny Club and 1930s, I think it is.
Richard Negus: Anyway, how did you catch the sharks?
Callum McInerney-Riley: So you head out in a rib and this is an inflatable boat. You have to put all the bottom in and stuff and then blow the thing up. It takes an absolute age to get sorted. I've spoke about the barrier to entry of like deer stalking and how lardering and all the stuff that you have to do if it's like quite a big thing if you're going to properly deer stalk. Well, the barrier to entry to go sea fishing is absolutely huge. You've got to get motors out. You've got like all this tech. You've got like fish finders, depth finders. You're looking for rough ground out in the place. You've got these echo locations. meters that are showing you where fish shoals are and you're going over them. You've got to set these boats up. It is an absolute mammoth task and I'm trying to help, but I know basically nothing. I'm like, do I push this one? No. Okay, how do I attach this? Just pull it round. Andy, it's not working. Push it harder. I think I've broken it. Push that one. Oh no, not that one. Not that one. I'll have you. Screw this one tight. No, you've screwed that in two times. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm so sorry. Please let me help. So I did that, went out. We'd done two days. We went in search of mackerel. And then surprisingly, if you just chuck little feathers and lures out. You don't just catch mackerel. You've got to cover a lot of ground and really find them. You can be out for like 2 hours travelling and covering lots and lots of ground and not actually find any mackerel and all of a sudden there's like a pocket of like a few 100 metres where there's a bunch of them and you can catch them. You'd think they'd be sort of dispersed everywhere and you'd have a half decent chance of catching them, but surprisingly not. So we do that, we catch a load of mackerel, then we right towards as the tide's dropping or as it's coming in and out, we find some rough ground at a certain depth. And we were trying different depths of how many feet and stuff, find rough ground, then we put out mackerel. You set these rigs up with this great big hook, massive circle hook things, and then you get wire traces, giant leads, and you get a mackerel, what they call a mackerel flapper. So they like cut the back open and then the tails like flapping about and the idea is the blood scent goes down into the water and the taupe, which is a form of shark, they're largely based on scent, so they will come down to the scent of a mackerel and hopefully pick it up. And you have to wait for them to find it, pick it up, and then you clutch, you put an anchor out and then you let the, you anchor up so you're down the tide and then you just drop it off the side of the boat really. And right last knockings, I was reeling up to see, so we got a take like within the first 5 minutes, but didn't actually connect with the fish when we lifted into it. And then right last minute, just as it's getting dark, I reel it up and I look over my friend Andy's shoulder and I'm just checking to see if the bait is still on in case something, you know, crab has taken it off or something's taken it. And as I look to see if it's taken it off, a massive taupe just comes off the bottom obviously and just smashes the mackerel directly off the surface and I've never seen anything like it. Like it hits the mackerel and then just like rolls and you see this whole tail and they're enormous. They're like 5 foot long these fish. So seeing it take off the surface is one of those moments in fishing that I will quite literally never forget.
Richard Negus: Did you say we're going to need a bigger boat?
Callum McInerney-Riley: I didn't. I don't.
Richard Prideaux: It was a missed opportunity.
Callum McInerney-Riley: But yeah, just I was at its first run. I had the clutch quite tight and it was it was properly hot. That's how much this fish run. It had made the line and the spool hot. And I gave I gave it. I gave it the big and trying to get it in and I still was quite undergunned. The power of the fish is.
Richard Negus: Did it try and bite you when you landed it?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Well they do try and bite you. They've got big rows of teeth and you don't really hold them either. You sort of just put your hand underneath them but their fins and their teeth are actually quite far apart but I kind of didn't know. I'm used to holding fish where their pectoral fins are. But with Taupe, you have to be, you have to wear gloves because they'll give you a rush because their skin is like, it's like being hit with a 120 grit on an orbital sander if you put your hand or wrist anywhere near it. So you have to hold it with like these thick gloves. And then you put your, you sort of rest them on your hand really close to their razor sharp teeth. So that's quite interesting. And they can turn around and Even you're holding, so they're like 5 foot long, and even you holding their tail, they can actually turn around and bite your hand at their tail. So that's quite interesting and not nerve-wracking at all.
Richard Prideaux: In the dark as well, this.
Richard Negus: Honestly, thus far today you've told me to put my Nordic spirit in places where I honestly would not put them and now you're trying to encourage me to catch things that are covered in sandpaper and then will attack you and you can't even eat them. I'd have just stuck to the mackerel, gone back home, eat the mackerel and then put a Nordic spirit under the lip of my mouth.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I'll tell you one of the... One of the funniest bits of the trip is, so we ended up catching like 4 fish. Had a couple of that were 32 pound. We had a 35 and my friend Andy had a 42 pound fish. So fair old size. Sharks. Sharks, yeah. And at one point I landed, I think, a 35 pound fish and he landed a 42 and we had two of them at the same time. While we had two fish at the same time, we also got an alarm signal on our mobile phones. The end of the world has gone. The wildfire alarm.
Richard Negus: Oh, that's all right.
Callum McInerney-Riley: And we'd already seen like RNLI racing out there at a certain point. So We're both sitting there looking at each other with two fish, sort of thinking, what has happened? Because also you've got like radio, you've got safety equipment that might make this sound. So we're sitting there, didn't have any clue what's going on. And suddenly the boat starts going, burp, burp, burp, burp. We're like, Shark, what have we done? What have we done? And then we, scramble, hands all wet, to try and find a phone in a waterproof thing. And it's like, oh, you might get a wildfire hub, unlikely, on the sea. Thanks for that. Really **** myself.
Richard Prideaux: So it looks like from your Instagram that you just went immediately ashore then and lit a BBQ as well. Yeah, that's good. As a result of the wildfire warning at sea, you went, I know I'll go to the only bit of land and light a fire.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yes, correct. But the grass patch was quite small and we lit a BBQ and I did get looked at very judgingly. But I BBQ responsibly. So, and I'm surrounded by sea, mostly.
Richard Negus: Oh, they all say that. They all say that.
Richard Prideaux: We were out for a meal when that warning came in. And because we're in Wales, you get it twice. Because you get it once in Welsh and then they do it in English, which actually It worked out that if there is a nuclear attack, the Welsh have a head start to get to the bunker. It's about a three-minute warning between the two. Yeah.
Richard Negus: Well, that's that sounds unfair to me, because, well, I would have saved myself, but all these Welshmen were in there.
Richard Prideaux: There's Callum there with his BBQ.
Richard Negus: Yeah, I do. Do you know what? I received that thing and. I looked at it and bizarrely when it went off, it was Dunwich Heath was still a light. And I thought, yeah, no **** Sherlock.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I mean, there might be a person that needs a warning for a disposable BBQ and not throwing it directly into some grass or a bush or something. But I mean, if you're doing things sensibly, if you're not throwing cigarettes into long grass or really stupid stuff, then you're.
Richard Negus: Yeah, you see, you're speaking like somebody who's sensible because I think that is the problem is that the incidences of people who are not sensible is actually they are now outweighing the number of sensible people because, I mean, we had a neighbour of ours. It was utterly bizarre. The farm watch WhatsApp group was going on. Everyone could see that it's the hottest summer we have known. And guys in tractors and grain hauling, well, they're harvesting, and then they're sort of taking photographs out of the window of their tractor at some moron who is having a little burn up because he can't think of anything else to do. So he set his brazier alight and they're going, could somebody please go around and punch this bloke? He's on X address because, you know, he's just slit a bonfire. And these are probably people who think that they're, oh, well, I'm being sensible. I've got a lid for my brazier, not realizing it's now going, and chucking 10 gazillion sparks. Yeah, it's just.
Callum McInerney-Riley: So if things are flying off of it and coming off into the air, it's obviously a risk.
Richard Negus: Yeah, people see Callum and they go, isn't that Callum? Isn't he the shark hunter? And they go, yeah, well, he's having a BBQ, so I'm going to have a BBQ. You know, you're just, you basically go, no, there's going to be people going, is that Callum the shark hunter? Yeah, right. I'm just off to go and shove a Nordic spirit on the end of my penis. And then after. After I've finished doing that, I'm going to have a quick BBQ.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Can you finish by saying shark hunter but quicker?
Richard Negus: Shark hunter.
Richard Prideaux: Three times please.
Richard Negus: Shark hunter. Shark hunter. Shark. I can't see any rude connotations in that.
Richard Prideaux: No.
Richard Negus: Callum the shark hunter.
Richard Prideaux: Anyway, I think that's probably a good time to bring this one into harbour. We're going to go and record the after show. Actually, the first time I've said bring it into harbour and it's actually been relevant to the bloody.
Richard Negus: Relevant to the sea.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Come on, let's bring this ship into a close.
Richard Prideaux: Yes, let's bring this ship into the buffers or whatever.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Let's make like a banana and get this thing over with.
Richard Prideaux: Anyway, after show. Thank you everyone.
Richard Negus: Goodbye.
Richard Prideaux: Bye.
Richard Negus: Goodbye.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Bye driver.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Have you seen, have you not seen these things? Yeah. Yours is called Pablo.
Richard Negus: Pablo. Yeah, don't have them, Callum. Honestly. I bought them by mistake. Well, I took one. Because these are basically small tea bags filled with nicotine. I haven't vaped and I haven't smoked for a long while, courtesy of them. And this is not a public health announcement, but it certainly stopped me from smoking. But these things, you put them under your lip and they sort of release nicotine into your system and you trust that this tea bag isn't actually either giving you cancer or something like that. But what was this thing that she gave you? And did you accept this dealer?
Callum McInerney-Riley: I got like 3, three pots of this stuff that smells like some kind of fantasy grape and blue grape or purple grape or something. And which basically just make your head spin like you've spun around when you were seven years old too many times.
Richard Negus: Absolutely. I bought these by mistake. Something called Pablo. 50 milligrams of nicotine per pouch in these things. That's like eating a cahiba cigar. It's crazy. I took one and I thought literally my eyes are going to fall out. I got all hot and sweaty. And no, I don't do it, kids.
Richard Prideaux: So Richard, in your military days, did you ever do the thing where you take a packet of screech and you lay it out like a line of finest Colombian marching powder and snort it up? Or you might have heard the other boys were doing this in there.
Richard Negus: No, I didn't do that. But what I did do, Richard, was that we'd on a quite a lengthy exercise, I'd got my cigarettes wet. And so therefore, somebody told me that if you used a ration pack tea bag in a Ritzler that it was basically like having a cigarette. Well, I can assure you it's not. It's like smoking tea, which is akin to smoking a compost heap and it goes woof and then takes your sort of nasal hair out and your eyelashes and eyebrows. So it's a bit like Callum lighting a pizza oven. I look a bit like him, really.
Richard Prideaux: So I am reliably informed that the ever imaginative, I was going to say men and women of the armed forces, but let's face it, this is men doing this. They've taken to the nicotine pouches quite well. I think the Americans got there first and they got the idea of it.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah, they love it. The Americans love it. And they'll put multiple in their mouth and basically get themselves to pass out.
Richard Prideaux: You say in their mouth. There are other places around the body where you can.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I think it's shelving.
Richard Prideaux: And yes, sort of men have the two lower options. One is at the rear, one is sort of tucked under the turtleneck at the front.
Richard Negus: I'm joking. What are these? I'm so glad that we gave them their independence.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Give me 5 minutes. I'll be right back.
Richard Negus: How many can you fit? I'm back. Oh dear, that is, that's just wrong, isn't it? I mean, do you know, I think it's something. that is a sad thing in a way, is if you think, who are some of the legendary individuals of the countryside, one would most definitely be Jack Hargreaves. And Jack Hargreaves, his prop on TV and everything, was he had a pipe in his mouth all the time. You know, without a pipe, not with Jack Hargreaves.
Callum McInerney-Riley: It was just... Jack Hargreave sneaking off camera to put snooze in his **** ***. No, I just. Well, there's a clip.
Richard Prideaux: That's, yeah, that was, you know, Jack Hargreave's old country wasn't old tobacco pouch shoved under your foreskin, was it? No, that is.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Hold on, I need to readjust. Anyway, it's finally kicking in. Copposite, talk to me.
Richard Prideaux: It took a bit of gold block. When the sun doesn't shine.
Richard Negus: Oh my God.
Richard Prideaux: Next time you're on stage doing one of your book talks, Richard. I think, you know, to refocus the mind, I think this is what you need to do as prep. What? Put a Nordic spirit up you.
Richard Negus: Nordic spirit under my... No, I'm not doing that. I can imagine it with a WI.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I'm just curious. The purple grape flavour with that.
Richard Prideaux: Where are your taste buds?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Cheese and grapes work well together, don't they? So that's a bad thing.
Richard Negus: I have to say, they have at least stopped me. So I stopped smoking by vaping and then, like Callum said, every single photograph he ever took of me had this little silly magic wand in my hand, didn't I?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Did you still do you still do a pipe just for the lulls?
Richard Negus: Oh, very much so. Yes, very much. And I also have a cigar, which occasionally I will go and treat myself to as a bit of a sundowner type thing.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I can see, I can see the appeal of a cigar. Yeah. And a good spirit together.
Richard Negus: A good spirit is nice. It's I like it.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Nice rum or some description?
Richard Negus: Yeah, I there's something. Gentlemen, actually there's a bit of a thing going at the moment is the government has decided that basically cigars slightly got away from not having to do all that horrible green, you know, regulation packaging. and pictures of cancerous lungs or eyes that are all terrible. They managed to get out of that. So apparently this government has decided it wants to go and also put them on cigars. And the cigar industry are absolutely up in arms about this. They're saying, look, I don't think cigar smokers are going to approve of this. So who knows?
Callum McInerney-Riley: If there's anyone from the cigar industry that would like me to photograph a nice gentlemanly man on a respirator, sort of gasping for life. I'll quite happily take the pictures for the front of your cigar packet. Perhaps also, you know, any collapsed lungs or anything, you just let me know and I'm available for commissions.
Richard Prideaux: You're also going to do the tobacco pouch up the **** *** as well.
Callum McInerney-Riley: It's sort of like, actually, I've probably got stock of that. There's plenty of men in Harlow that put their hands down their pants, uncalled for.
Richard Prideaux: You may have just got one accidentally by a misfire on the camera as you were walking along. Chances are you've got one. Yeah.
Callum McInerney-Riley: And jogging buttons.
Richard Prideaux: So what did everyone do for their summer since we've had a few weeks off?
Richard Negus: I've been writing and that's about it. I had four days in Southwold on holiday, which was lovely. And then during the drought, I have been sat typing away on my next book. And that is literally it. Obviously, I did have spells of where I travelled around the country gaining, talking to people about the book, including your good self, Richard, and Amy, who is silent. And so I travel the country researching the book and then writing it because I always find it's a lot easier to go and try and write it whilst it's fresh in your head. And also, this summer, I have done a bizarre thing because I record everything that people say to me on my little recording app so that when I actually quote them, I can say, you actually said this. And they go, I never said a thing of the sort. Go, haha, yes, you did. Here it is and play it back to them. Not that that's ever happened, but just in case, you know. But it's quite funny. I realized just how many people I've spoken to that whatever the dictation bit, when it then tries to put it into words, they have no idea what on earth these people are saying. And particularly when I came up to Wales, that was very funny watching what AI thinks you said for these various Welsh places. And yes, so that's literally it. I've been sat indoors, you know, in this hottest of hot summers with vitamin D leaking out of my system, writing. And I say, I'm sorry, it's tedious, it's dull, but the book isn't.
Richard Prideaux: Given your orangery or whatever it's called there, where you're sat and the appearance of that and you typing away at your typewriter, is it like sort of murder she wrote and are you just going out and solving mysteries in the local village every week?
Richard Negus: Well, yes, I suppose I slightly, people do mistake me for Angela Lansbury quite frequently to be part. I think it's the beard. I think it's the beard. But I always like that idea. You see some writers still use old-fashioned typewriters, and I think on a number of levels, A, it's a load of pretentious ****. I mean, unless you are at least older than me, computers have been around for a long while, so therefore you don't need to use a click-clack typewriter. Secondly, I'm not being funny, but it must be a complete pain in the **** for your publisher, because then they get this physical manuscript, which they then have to go and type all up themselves. So I, and yeah, so but I do like that idea that when I finally finished it, that I rip the top copy out. And so it's done and then sort of wander off and have a cigar and a large Laphroaig or something. But No, it's that. It's been a very funny summer. And it's been a very funny summer because writing a book is weird anyway. But this one, it was particularly stressful compared with the previous one because the other one was easy because it all just basically came from my head and my own experiences. But then you suddenly got to write about other people and say what you observed about them and what they have said and try and get it. And you suddenly feel a slight weight of responsibility.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Interesting. You're prejudging the representation of that person before the paper even hits there.
Richard Negus: Precisely.
Callum McInerney-Riley: You've got to try and get out your own way when you're in that situation.
Richard Negus: Particularly because I'm trying to, in this particular instance, is, say if you write a review for something, if you criticise something, you can be quite nasty. I've never actually, I've done lots of book reviews, but I'm never nasty about things because I think, well, I know how bloody hard it is to write. It wasn't that shuffle jacket. Well, yes, I mean, sorry, Marcus Jansen. That's the only time I've ever been nasty about anything was that shuffle jacket?
Richard Prideaux: It has been rough getting the show full sponsorship since then.
Richard Negus: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, but I think it's if you're going to set out to write a book about other people's lives and you're trying to go and tell that story about them and say, this is their life, I want you to understand it. Imagine if I get it completely wrong or I completely misrepresent them or I focus on a point which actually is irrelevant to them, but it's not that. So it's suddenly I went, oh God, you know, I almost felt slightly cold and sweaty, a bit like I'd had far too many Pablo things shoved up my jacksy or something. it was a slightly cold, sweaty feeling.
Richard Prideaux: Callum, you've sent a long list here of all the adventures you've been on this summer. So rather than letting you choose, I'm going to start picking through. So bass fishing with Xavier, what's that about?
Callum McInerney-Riley: I was 40 I thought you were going to let me do a sort of Johnny Cash, I've been everywhere, man. And then I was just going to rattle off.
Richard Prideaux: Why don't you pretend I didn't do that and you just do that? Where have you been, Callum?
Callum McInerney-Riley: I've been everywhere, man. I've been everywhere. No, I've got the... I get the guitar out again.
Richard Prideaux: No, I promise.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I promise I'd never do that again.
Richard Prideaux: Yes.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I've been bass fishing with Xavier. I've just done quite a lot. I've just done quite a lot of fishing actually. Generally just fishing all over the gaff. The bass fishing was quite fun. We caught absolutely nothing. The sea was incredibly rough. We took Mark now was out, RSPB man, Operation Turtle Dove, All Round Good Egg. He also brought some cold muntjac to the table. We had a burger. I don't think it was roadkill. I don't know. Didn't ask. Now he bought it off Gouldy. He probably did.
Richard Prideaux: Had he cooked it before it came or did it just sort of, was it cold?
Callum McInerney-Riley: It was cooked. It was cold cuts, but it was cooked and it was perfectly sort of medium rare in the middle. Had a little bit of pink to it, bloody delicious. There was a little bit of fur on it as well, which was an interesting take, but don't hold grudges here. So we took him out and the sea was incredibly rough. after sort of summer just ended quite hard, didn't it? We had this scorcher and then suddenly it was rough and storms and not that good weather and a bit of rain. So we just ended up floating around for a couple of hours. And you were in a canoe.
Richard Negus: Or something, were you Callum?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah, we took him out in a kayak. It was very unpleasant and sort of I wouldn't say you were capsizing, but the waves, when we first tried to get out, we went slightly sideways and the kayak filled with water. So we had to go back, unload it and then go back out. So that was less than ideal. But we ended up out on this kind of like giant buoy raft thing and we fished off that for about an hour. We caught absolutely nothing and I just had a lovely time. It's quite good having an adventure with taking new people out, took my boy out, just slung some rubber around for a bit, had a little jolly feast up, ate lots of cake.
Richard Prideaux: Do you want to explain slinging rubber?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Slinging rubber.
Richard Negus: Is that is that reference to Nordic spirit again?
Callum McInerney-Riley: No, great. Just the bass Lewis, you often use like I've slightly changed my bass lure approach. I now use things that look a bit like crabs, but a lot of the time you use like sand eel imitations, really big, long silvery things, and they seem to catch the bass in most places.
Richard Prideaux: We do well on sand eels and shads, the sort of things with the replaceable, so that the head bit is the weight. with the hook on that and then everything behind it is replaceable. So you can put different things on.
Callum McInerney-Riley: The tails are interesting. Sometimes we use paddle tails. For most pike fishing, you'd always use like a paddle tail or something like that. But with the, obviously a sand eel doesn't have a great big paddle tail. So he used like long worm type things and they seem to have quite long, ones too.
Richard Prideaux: I always wonder how much of this stuff they're actually seeing as well. it's just if the fish are there, they'll go for something. If they're not there, then it doesn't really matter what you're using.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah, I don't know if it matters. I think your size matters quite a lot and your vibration levels matter more than anything else. And contrast, like things, if they're looking up on it, they're looking against the sky. So sometimes you're using things that are white But why does that look, how does that look against the sky?
Richard Prideaux: Are you going to look at it from the eye of a fish?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah, you've got to think like a fish, become the fish to catch the fish.
Richard Negus: Right. So that, is that when you release your inner caveman.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I caught nothing. So.
Richard Negus: Okay, so your caveman stayed within you. It's an interesting thing you see, Mike Warner, he was telling me, I went down to see him because we're doing a talking gig in a couple of weeks time during the Alborough Food Festival. And I went down to Felixstowe Ferry, beautiful little fishing hamlet down on the mouth of the River Deben.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I was not far from there today, actually.
Richard Negus: Okay. And he was saying at the moment, he said, bass are just everywhere. And he said, and he looked at me and goes, even you would catch some. Which one? thanks.
Callum McInerney-Riley: It's like one of those backhanded compliments, isn't it?
Richard Negus: Yeah, exactly. But he said, you know, they're just as a run at the moment of bass through that bit there and the debon. And he said, you know, they're there, but out at sea, they're in these spots. And there's a reason why professional fishermen are professional fishermen because they know where they are.
Callum McInerney-Riley: And that's the key to it. You can chuck the best lures out ever. If you're not on top of the fish, then you're not going to catch them.
Richard Negus: No. Sea's a big old place, isn't it?
Richard Prideaux: Thank you, landscape interpreter.
Richard Negus: Thank you.
Richard Prideaux: Richard.
Richard Negus: That's the final bit of my book is the sea's a big old place. The end.
Richard Prideaux: So. You've got this other fit in your, just going through the evidence of where you've been is mostly on your Instagram Callum. What's this of you holding a shark?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Oh yeah, shark fishing. So this is probably good evidence for the sea is a big old place too. My friend Andy Lobel, we fish together. So like how you sometimes you have exchanges in sporting days and moments. he owed me a favour because I took him to a sewage filled urban canal. I think it was like Ponders End near Enfield to go perch fishing where we caught absolutely nothing. It was chocolate brown. The only thing we saw all day was not a fish, but like a condom floating down the river. And obviously he was forever in my debt for that. So to repay the closed season canal trip that I took him on, he took me on a inflatable rib boat on the East Coast out to sea for two days, because perfectly fair trade if you ask me. I probably owe him I did our own mistake, so I did make sure to sort him out. But we went up on the sort of Yorkshire East Coast, kind of Scarborough type way, where they've recently been having runs of big tuna and other such fish, but you're not allowed to fish for them, technically.
Richard Prideaux: There's a few licensed people, aren't there, aren't the commercial boats and things.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yeah, I think there's a few. It's interesting because that's where they used to be. If you look at the history of that area and the Tunny Club and 1930s, I think it is.
Richard Negus: Anyway, how did you catch the sharks?
Callum McInerney-Riley: So you head out in a rib and this is an inflatable boat. You have to put all the bottom in and stuff and then blow the thing up. It takes an absolute age to get sorted. I've spoke about the barrier to entry of like deer stalking and how lardering and all the stuff that you have to do if it's like quite a big thing if you're going to properly deer stalk. Well, the barrier to entry to go sea fishing is absolutely huge. You've got to get motors out. You've got like all this tech. You've got like fish finders, depth finders. You're looking for rough ground out in the place. You've got these echo locations. meters that are showing you where fish shoals are and you're going over them. You've got to set these boats up. It is an absolute mammoth task and I'm trying to help, but I know basically nothing. I'm like, do I push this one? No. Okay, how do I attach this? Just pull it round. Andy, it's not working. Push it harder. I think I've broken it. Push that one. Oh no, not that one. Not that one. I'll have you. Screw this one tight. No, you've screwed that in two times. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm so sorry. Please let me help. So I did that, went out. We'd done two days. We went in search of mackerel. And then surprisingly, if you just chuck little feathers and lures out. You don't just catch mackerel. You've got to cover a lot of ground and really find them. You can be out for like 2 hours travelling and covering lots and lots of ground and not actually find any mackerel and all of a sudden there's like a pocket of like a few 100 metres where there's a bunch of them and you can catch them. You'd think they'd be sort of dispersed everywhere and you'd have a half decent chance of catching them, but surprisingly not. So we do that, we catch a load of mackerel, then we right towards as the tide's dropping or as it's coming in and out, we find some rough ground at a certain depth. And we were trying different depths of how many feet and stuff, find rough ground, then we put out mackerel. You set these rigs up with this great big hook, massive circle hook things, and then you get wire traces, giant leads, and you get a mackerel, what they call a mackerel flapper. So they like cut the back open and then the tails like flapping about and the idea is the blood scent goes down into the water and the taupe, which is a form of shark, they're largely based on scent, so they will come down to the scent of a mackerel and hopefully pick it up. And you have to wait for them to find it, pick it up, and then you clutch, you put an anchor out and then you let the, you anchor up so you're down the tide and then you just drop it off the side of the boat really. And right last knockings, I was reeling up to see, so we got a take like within the first 5 minutes, but didn't actually connect with the fish when we lifted into it. And then right last minute, just as it's getting dark, I reel it up and I look over my friend Andy's shoulder and I'm just checking to see if the bait is still on in case something, you know, crab has taken it off or something's taken it. And as I look to see if it's taken it off, a massive taupe just comes off the bottom obviously and just smashes the mackerel directly off the surface and I've never seen anything like it. Like it hits the mackerel and then just like rolls and you see this whole tail and they're enormous. They're like 5 foot long these fish. So seeing it take off the surface is one of those moments in fishing that I will quite literally never forget.
Richard Negus: Did you say we're going to need a bigger boat?
Callum McInerney-Riley: I didn't. I don't.
Richard Prideaux: It was a missed opportunity.
Callum McInerney-Riley: But yeah, just I was at its first run. I had the clutch quite tight and it was it was properly hot. That's how much this fish run. It had made the line and the spool hot. And I gave I gave it. I gave it the big and trying to get it in and I still was quite undergunned. The power of the fish is.
Richard Negus: Did it try and bite you when you landed it?
Callum McInerney-Riley: Well they do try and bite you. They've got big rows of teeth and you don't really hold them either. You sort of just put your hand underneath them but their fins and their teeth are actually quite far apart but I kind of didn't know. I'm used to holding fish where their pectoral fins are. But with Taupe, you have to be, you have to wear gloves because they'll give you a rush because their skin is like, it's like being hit with a 120 grit on an orbital sander if you put your hand or wrist anywhere near it. So you have to hold it with like these thick gloves. And then you put your, you sort of rest them on your hand really close to their razor sharp teeth. So that's quite interesting. And they can turn around and Even you're holding, so they're like 5 foot long, and even you holding their tail, they can actually turn around and bite your hand at their tail. So that's quite interesting and not nerve-wracking at all.
Richard Prideaux: In the dark as well, this.
Richard Negus: Honestly, thus far today you've told me to put my Nordic spirit in places where I honestly would not put them and now you're trying to encourage me to catch things that are covered in sandpaper and then will attack you and you can't even eat them. I'd have just stuck to the mackerel, gone back home, eat the mackerel and then put a Nordic spirit under the lip of my mouth.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I'll tell you one of the... One of the funniest bits of the trip is, so we ended up catching like 4 fish. Had a couple of that were 32 pound. We had a 35 and my friend Andy had a 42 pound fish. So fair old size. Sharks. Sharks, yeah. And at one point I landed, I think, a 35 pound fish and he landed a 42 and we had two of them at the same time. While we had two fish at the same time, we also got an alarm signal on our mobile phones. The end of the world has gone. The wildfire alarm.
Richard Negus: Oh, that's all right.
Callum McInerney-Riley: And we'd already seen like RNLI racing out there at a certain point. So We're both sitting there looking at each other with two fish, sort of thinking, what has happened? Because also you've got like radio, you've got safety equipment that might make this sound. So we're sitting there, didn't have any clue what's going on. And suddenly the boat starts going, burp, burp, burp, burp. We're like, Shark, what have we done? What have we done? And then we, scramble, hands all wet, to try and find a phone in a waterproof thing. And it's like, oh, you might get a wildfire hub, unlikely, on the sea. Thanks for that. Really **** myself.
Richard Prideaux: So it looks like from your Instagram that you just went immediately ashore then and lit a BBQ as well. Yeah, that's good. As a result of the wildfire warning at sea, you went, I know I'll go to the only bit of land and light a fire.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Yes, correct. But the grass patch was quite small and we lit a BBQ and I did get looked at very judgingly. But I BBQ responsibly. So, and I'm surrounded by sea, mostly.
Richard Negus: Oh, they all say that. They all say that.
Richard Prideaux: We were out for a meal when that warning came in. And because we're in Wales, you get it twice. Because you get it once in Welsh and then they do it in English, which actually It worked out that if there is a nuclear attack, the Welsh have a head start to get to the bunker. It's about a three-minute warning between the two. Yeah.
Richard Negus: Well, that's that sounds unfair to me, because, well, I would have saved myself, but all these Welshmen were in there.
Richard Prideaux: There's Callum there with his BBQ.
Richard Negus: Yeah, I do. Do you know what? I received that thing and. I looked at it and bizarrely when it went off, it was Dunwich Heath was still a light. And I thought, yeah, no **** Sherlock.
Callum McInerney-Riley: I mean, there might be a person that needs a warning for a disposable BBQ and not throwing it directly into some grass or a bush or something. But I mean, if you're doing things sensibly, if you're not throwing cigarettes into long grass or really stupid stuff, then you're.
Richard Negus: Yeah, you see, you're speaking like somebody who's sensible because I think that is the problem is that the incidences of people who are not sensible is actually they are now outweighing the number of sensible people because, I mean, we had a neighbour of ours. It was utterly bizarre. The farm watch WhatsApp group was going on. Everyone could see that it's the hottest summer we have known. And guys in tractors and grain hauling, well, they're harvesting, and then they're sort of taking photographs out of the window of their tractor at some moron who is having a little burn up because he can't think of anything else to do. So he set his brazier alight and they're going, could somebody please go around and punch this bloke? He's on X address because, you know, he's just slit a bonfire. And these are probably people who think that they're, oh, well, I'm being sensible. I've got a lid for my brazier, not realizing it's now going, and chucking 10 gazillion sparks. Yeah, it's just.
Callum McInerney-Riley: So if things are flying off of it and coming off into the air, it's obviously a risk.
Richard Negus: Yeah, people see Callum and they go, isn't that Callum? Isn't he the shark hunter? And they go, yeah, well, he's having a BBQ, so I'm going to have a BBQ. You know, you're just, you basically go, no, there's going to be people going, is that Callum the shark hunter? Yeah, right. I'm just off to go and shove a Nordic spirit on the end of my penis. And then after. After I've finished doing that, I'm going to have a quick BBQ.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Can you finish by saying shark hunter but quicker?
Richard Negus: Shark hunter.
Richard Prideaux: Three times please.
Richard Negus: Shark hunter. Shark hunter. Shark. I can't see any rude connotations in that.
Richard Prideaux: No.
Richard Negus: Callum the shark hunter.
Richard Prideaux: Anyway, I think that's probably a good time to bring this one into harbour. We're going to go and record the after show. Actually, the first time I've said bring it into harbour and it's actually been relevant to the bloody.
Richard Negus: Relevant to the sea.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Come on, let's bring this ship into a close.
Richard Prideaux: Yes, let's bring this ship into the buffers or whatever.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Let's make like a banana and get this thing over with.
Richard Prideaux: Anyway, after show. Thank you everyone.
Richard Negus: Goodbye.
Richard Prideaux: Bye.
Richard Negus: Goodbye.
Callum McInerney-Riley: Bye driver.