Ep 30: Richard Holidays in a War Zone

Pat walks off covid and files his taxes, Richard saves money by vacationing in a war zone, and Cato the cat joins the podcast.

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:20

welcome to the two Unlikely Christians podcast. I'm comedian Pat McCool, coming to your lakeside in the deep piney woods of South Mississippi. And now all the way across the ocean, we find esteemed psychotherapist, an addiction specialist, an international man of mystery. Richard Turrell.

Pat 0:41

That is me. Yep.

Speaker 2 0:43

What? What's up mate? Mate.

Pat 0:45

You all right? Did you, you got over your, obviously we had a little time kind of difference thing. So you, you logged in an hour ago?

Speaker 2 0:54

We did. So I bust up out of bed in the morning and I think, we're six hours ahead and I sit down. I i's

Pat 1:02

That's your first there, you're six hours behind?

Speaker 2 1:06

Yeah. So I'm sitting here and I hustle up'cause I'm a total train wreck. I've just had a mess of a week and then I, uh, I get up early. I mean, you know, to me that's early. And I get to the thing and I'm like, I'm here 10 minutes early. Then you send back and go, it's not time yet, mate. I'm like, okay, I forgot that. We have, what we do in America is in the spring, we just turn the clocks up an hour forward and then in the fall we move them back. So I, I, I can't explain this. We've just been doing it. It's called daylight savings time. I don't know that you can possibly daylight savings time. I mean, if you're doing it for farmers or whatever, why don't they just get up when the sun comes up? But that's how we roll and that's how I ended up sitting here an hour and 15 minutes early. But now I've recovered.

Pat 2:02

We do the same thing, but I think we're, we are usually about a week behind you. So, uh, I think in a week's time it'll even back out. Um.

Speaker 2 2:10

Oh no.

Pat 2:12

Yeah, man. It's okay. You've got this though. Honestly, like between your, you know, technology, you've got your iPhone or Android or whatever it's you're doing over there in Mississippi. Um, uh, and you can look stuff up and you've got your wife as well. She'll probably help. You know what I mean? If you just ask her, just leave her in charge of it, pat, that's probably the best thing.

Speaker 2 2:32

She literally has woken me up before and said, you know, you got a pod you got a podcast with Richard. That's not the problem. The problem is I thought for six months that I had gained an hour because since we're always six, uh. Uh, you're six ahead your afternoon, and I'm morning. I'm not a morning person. I spend the first hour of my day trying to figure out a reason to live. I'm like, you know, the, you ever seen the evolution shirt with the monkeys?

Pat 3:01

Yeah. Charles Darwin.

Speaker 2 3:03

Yeah, well it's, but it's, it starts off with the monkey and then it ends up, you know, goes to crow mag or, you know, and then, then we get to homo sapien, like six beings later. That's me from the bed out of my room, across the living room floor to the little coffee. Bar that my life, my wife has set up on a British tea table. By the way, that, I got from that, that was passed down from my mother. I don't reach Homo Sapien or homo erectus. Until I get to the coffee bar and the coffee comes out, and then I run a few times and I start rolling.

Pat 3:44

So let me just, I just wanna backtrack a, a, a minute, Patrick. Uh, so did you say, did you refer to that as the, the evolution shirt, as seemed like this is an image that you saw on a, a garment of some kind?

Speaker 2 3:56

Yeah.

Pat 3:57

Yeah. So it's that, that image. It, it, it, it is, it's, it doesn't just exist on a t-shirt that you may have bought in a gas station somewhere in the Ace of Hattiesburg. Right. It, it, it, it's, it's got a quite a famous image. It's linked to the theory of evolution, but, um, but yeah. Yeah, that is like the most deep south thing you've ever said. You seen that shirt? Yeah. No, it's not just a shirt, bro. Like it, the image exists elsewhere. Like it's just, they put, they've put it on that shirt. You know what I mean? And so

Speaker 2 4:31

that's the difference between a secondary education from Bath University and three years in, the 10th grade. And as I've said before, the 10th grade was the best three years of my life, but maybe I didn't pay attention that they covered that. Yeah. To me, that was just on a t-shirt. So maybe when I described that in the future, I need, maybe you saw it in a textbook and I saw it on some fat guy's t-shirt at a bat, at a gas station. Yeah. And that's where I got it from. Yeah.

Pat 5:02

Nothing

Speaker 2 5:02

wrong. Nothing like, uh, defining the difference between the two of us, but yeah, my,

Pat 5:08

it's fine, man. I thought you'd just lost track of time. Like I know when you, on a, you know, when you're on a heavy meth session. Yeah. Like, time can, you know, time can pass very quickly, you know? So.

Speaker 2 5:19

Well, this week is not a meth session this week. I'm like walking off, some COVID.

Pat 5:26

Oh.

Speaker 2 5:28

That's quite all right. I've, I, well, I've probably had it four or five times. I was probably one of the first people in America that got it because I had been traveling and I started feeling really bad and I had all these bad symptoms. I couldn't get outta bed, and I walked it all few days, you know, I finally got better and then two weeks later, the whole world shut down and I realized when they started talking about the symptoms, I'm like, well, that's was the symptoms that I had and I didn't realize as I was coming out of that. COVID or whatever I had that I had a disease that literally as a comedian in 30 days was gonna make me the most non-essential person on the planet. You know?'cause everything was like on, on how essential you were. Well, a guy cracking jokes, Richard is not, I mean, like the. The, the subway, you know, the Jersey Mike's sub delivery guy was a hero and I was the most useless person on the planet for about one or two years. Oh,

Pat 6:26

you know what our beg to differ page, and you said that to me. Once or twice before. Um, but I actually, I think that probably laughter was much more important during that time period. So I, I would beg to differ, but I hear you. Your employment, like, you know, obviously it's very difficult to work as a, a median when there's no theaters open and stuff like that. But like, I mean, the thankful thing is that that obviously led to you driving an Uber. And that is where we've met, was in a, an Uber. Do you know what I've done that? Spoke on here. I dunno if you'd remember right, but like when we, so the circumstances of that meeting were actually, I mean, obviously there's a huge chance, coincidence'cause I happen to be in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which is not, doesn't have a huge kind of tourist presence. You know, it doesn't, there's not many guys from England that end up there. Right. Did you

Speaker 2 7:19

grow up in the West end thinking one of these days, I'm gonna go visit. Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Pat 7:23

Yeah. It's not a thing really. So I happened to be there anyway. Right. But we, the, the funny thing was we'd actually, we'd ordered an Uber, because obviously there was a storm and everything was closing down and we couldn't get the, the plane from Hattiesburg. So we, we were trying to get to, you know, we got to New Orleans to try and pick up a flight, which. You know, to be honest with you, by the time we got to New Orleans, everything had kind of gone sideways there anyway with the flights. But, um, we ordered the Uber, another guy took the job, he even messaged and said, look, I just need to stop and get some fuel. It's a long ride. And then all of a sudden he just disappeared. Right? It just canceled. And then we got another. Um, you know, another driver took the job and it came up with a picture of your smiling face and, um, and your Uber star rating, which is, you know, a very respectable 2.7 and, um.

Speaker 2 8:14

I think it's the duct tape and the ski mask, that people see on the, on the back floor that saw on the back floor of my car. They kind of made them a little bit nervous. In the, and the camera? Yeah. And the camera mounted, yeah. The, the small camera I had mounted behind the passeng, behind the passenger seat. Pointing, pointing at, you know, at people's knees. They, they got a little nervous about that, but it was, it was all good fun.

Pat 8:42

Yeah. I mean, only a couple of bad reviews. Right.

Speaker 2 8:45

That's it. And I don't know if the guy that took that originally took the ride has ever made it out of his trunk where I left him, but it's,

Pat 8:55

yeah. Well, I'm glad it works out the way it did, man. I'm glad it works out the way it did.

Speaker 2 8:59

It turned out to be one of the best things because, um. You meet people. Well, first off meeting you. I mean, we literally started a conversation that we're still having and it all started with how you doing? I hear the voice, where are you from? And then boom, we were covering a lot of ground. We were had really. Two hours and 15 minutes later, we had just begun the conversation when you stepped out of the car. So it, that was a great blessing. And I don't think anything happens by accident. There's a chapter in my book called What a Coincidence, which is sarcasm, because I don't think anything's a coincidence and that's what brought us together. But I've learned you learn so much about so many people just sitting there talking to'em, going about their day-to-day business. So, so being forced into doing that was actually, uh. Was actually quite a blessing in disguise. Yeah. But, uh, but yeah, I did the COVID kind of came back. My wife had first part of the week and you'll, you know, this being married. That the way illnesses happening in the married family, the woman gets it for, gets sick and you don't really notice that she does because she, well, if you got kids and pets and things like I do,'cause the woman just gets up and keeps going. They're far there are far more, whether we realize it or not emotionally. Or mentally strong than we are. My wife is to me, by any stretch of the imagination, gets up, does everything, takes care of business. You see her checking her temperature a little bit. You've taken some ibuprofen, but she goes on about her business, so she can't be that sick, right? Because she couldn't be functioning. And then she gets over it, and then I get it. Well, you might as well put ash on the front door because I'm in the robe. I'm in the bed. I got the medicine. Well, I got the soup. I, you know, I'm, I'm whining like a baby goat. I'm just, so, I had the chills. And so I went through that and, uh, started feeling a little better yesterday. But then I had to do. Uh, this is what I wanted to ask you about. I had to do my taxes. So in America we do our taxes and, and we have the most ridiculous tax system that you could ever. Possibly a match. And I'm not complaining about paying taxes. I don't mind paying taxes. I mean, I love the, you know, infrastructure, everything we have right up to being able to place a guided missile through a Ito's bathroom while he is checking Facebook at two o'clock in the morning, not complaining about any of that. It's just the way we pay it. We have this big, huge, convoluted system where I think you're like me. You know, half the country are wage employees. You go to work, they give you a paycheck

Pat 11:52

taken care of for you.

Speaker 2 11:53

Yeah. It's not only is it not taken care of, but at the end of the year when you file your taxes, they send you money back. So they actually. So, I don't know, I don't if that goes on in Britain, but if you're someone like myself and I'm thinking maybe you, because you're in business, you get paid by different sources and all this money comes in, and then you gotta go in and put all that together and then you gotta put all your expenses together. And here it's like if you, if you claim this much expenses, you, you owe this much. But if you claim a little bit more, you start owing more, but then you start dropping it. It's just the weirdest thing. How do they do it in Great Britain?

Pat 12:33

Similar man. Like, I mean look, I used to, there's different ways, but like, yes I do. It's been some years since I was employed by someone that took care of it for me. And then there might be a balancing payment at the end of the year. And that can go either way, right? You, they, they can write you and say, actually you employed didn't give us enough for your money. You need to give us some more. Or they can write back to you and say, your employer gave us too much and here's some back, which is obviously a very pleasant surprise. But, um. I, so I do it myself. I used to be quite, uh, what would you say? Like a kind of, you know, like bury my head in the sand and then like I'd get to that, I'd do it like maybe a couple of weeks before it was due and like I'd kind of put the numbers into the computer and then I'd almost like brace, like, because I had no idea what was going on. Right. And like brace. Like, push the button to submit it, look away, take a few deep breaths, look back and then see what the number on the screen was. You know? And like, you're like, oh my God, look, you know, it was just so, but now I, like, I, I kind of have a rough idea and I've got an accountant and stuff, you know, so I have a rough idea what's going, going on all, all the way along. Um, and yeah, and I have my, I have the money put aside and stuff like that. So it's better, it's better. It's much, it's less anxious for me. And, um. At the minute I'm in a kind of weird scenario where I'm actually trying to pay more tax.'cause I wanna buy a house. And if you wanna buy a house, then you have to borrow money. And then a bank wants to see that you've got an income. And most of my income comes into my business and I'm an employee of my own business. I, I, you know, like, I think you call them LLCs, we call them LTDs Limited companies. And so on and so forth. So yeah, I'm at a minute. I'm actually trying to pay more tax, which is kind of an odd turnaround. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 14:18

Okay. We we're all the same then because first off, you saying your thing on pressing the button. That's exactly what I felt like yesterday. I'm like, I feel like I'm at a casino. I feel like I, I'm just like, I'm just sweating. My wife comes out, I'm not talking, you know, she's like, I, I always can tell I'm getting tense. I'm like, where? How's come on. Come on. And uh, that's exactly what, uh, that's exactly what happened. And then when you do go in America, when you go to buy a house, you want your tax return to show the most taxes you possibly can.

Pat 14:50

Quite healthy. Yeah. You need it healthy. Right. And um, yeah. Yeah. Did you know over here, I don't know if it's the same as over there right? But the tax people, we call them the HMRC, you call them the IRS, right? Right. They have more power than the police. I mean, like, they have more power than anyone else, right? They can come in, they don't need a warrant, they can come in and they have absolutely, you know, complete access to your records, your home, your business, your, you know, whatever it might be. Complete access, no warrant required. Like if they come for you, like you are, like you are in trouble. I mean, obviously they, they come for people who they suspect are, have been avoiding their taxes or evading their taxes, right? But, um. But yeah, man, like if they, if they get a knock on the door, like, you know, you are better off, you're better off having the, you know what we call our armed response. You'd call them the SWAT team. You've got a better chance if the SWAT team comes to your door, you know, like the H-M-R-C-I-R-S, they, they're like, they're serious dudes, man. They don't mess up, you know, they're, they'll, they'll turn you upside down, like shake you, grab your, got legs and shake you and see what comes outta your pockets, you know?

Speaker 2 15:58

It just dawned on me, it just dawned on me. We basically just rearranged the images of the colors on the flag because that's exactly what happens here. The IS can go that nobody else can go, and anybody else wants money from you. They can sue, they can do whatever. IS just go in there and take it.

Pat 16:14

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But you know why that is. Patrick, do you know why your system so closely mirrors the English system?

Speaker 2 16:21

Is that?

Pat 16:22

Well, because it's our system. You guys just, you like you are us, aren't you? Do you know what I mean? We've kind of built your country. Yeah. And you decided, I

Speaker 2 16:29

said that.

Pat 16:29

But yeah. Well, I know. Don't get defensive.

Speaker 2 16:33

No, no. I've, I've said that all along. I mean, I lived in New York, New Jersey knew everything. The town I lived in was Na, the county that I lived in was named after England. The, uh, I mean was, it was a county in England. The, the city was Bridgewater. That was from, that's from England. We just put new on a whole bunch of things and changed a few things around. And speaking of that was the whole. That was the whole reason, uh, because we just didn't wanna give the taxes. We didn't wanna send the tax. Now that you mentioned it, it is just like, you know what? We appreciate the infrastructure. We appreciate the roads. We really appreciate you kicking the French,, and the Native Americans off this land that we're wanting here. Uh, that was a really, um, that was a really chappy thing for y'all to do, but we got this now. Yeah,

Pat 17:23

I would just like to say before we go any further that I do distance myself and Patrick McCall's comments about the Native Americans. That wasn't cool, you know, I mean, that wasn't cool. Um, definitely. And that I say that all seriousness, but, well, it

Speaker 2 17:35

really, the Native Americans, it was the French we were fighting and in the French we're using, were, were French, we're using the Native Americans

Pat 17:42

Bridgewater. So I had a friend that lived in Bridgewater when I was still a very, uh, enthusiastic drug addict. Right. Very keen. A keen, a keen drug addict. Right. And, um, I went down to visit my friend in Bridgewater and um, I took with me some very strong opiate based pain medication, right? And, uh, which was for, um, uh, to be used for recreational purposes. And, um, there was this. Quite nice French restaurant down there. Right. And like my, my friend, he's, he was kind of quite, quite a classy kind of dude. I I, at this, I, at this particular juncture in my life was definitely not right. But, um, yeah, he, uh, he, he's like, oh, let's go and get some food. And I was like, where we gonna go? And he said, oh, there's this great French restaurant. Right. But before we went, we've taken. Some of these me, this medication, right. Quite a lot of these medications. Anyway, by the time

Speaker 2 18:40

been there and done that,

Pat 18:42

by the time the main course comes, we've both like nodded out. Yeah. At, at the dinner table. Right. And um,

Speaker 2 18:50

y'all were just out.

Pat 18:53

Yeah, man, we just, we were just like passed out at the table, like, and I was in slightly, in slightly better shape than my friend. Um, so I kept kicking his leg, like, Jamie, like, we've got, like, we, we've got, we've gotta do something, we gotta move, man. You know what I mean? And we both just sat there like completely chaotic man, at this dinner table, like, yeah. It was. Yeah, those were, those were the days. Those weren't the days, but yeah. Fun, funny times in your own way, man.

Speaker 2 19:24

I had similar experiences, but again, I would always take it to a, I would always take it to a higher level of stupidity. I remember going to a football game two hours up the road, um, and our team won. Me and my friend drank like a half a, you know, we, we were drinking like a hundred proof bourbon. We drank that all through the game, and then we got in the car. And decided to drive home. So we're gonna, we're gonna make this, this weave home. And we decided, we had a great idea. We had something called a Quaalude. Now you're a little too young to remember a Quaalude.

Pat 19:59

Yeah, I've heard a lot about them though. Heard a lot about them. But yeah, please, I am all ears.

Speaker 2 20:04

That drug was my downfall. When those things came, I mean, when those things came to town, the tow truck drivers made a lot of money. Uh, matter of fact, if you remember in my book, we totaled several cars on, on, uh,'cause it was this pill. You would take the pill and then you would drink a few. Bed alcoholic beverages and you would just all of a sudden think, Hey man, why don't we go for a drive? I mean, you wouldn't even be out of the driveway. And you'd be like, man, when did they four lane this thing? I mean, it was, boom, you know, what a stupid place for a mailbox. I mean, you couldn't even make it out of the neighborhood, but off we went because, uh, I, you know, you feel because it made you feel like you wanted to go meet some. Members of the opposite sex, if you get my drift.

Pat 20:55

I'm with you, Patrick, I'm following you. I'm picking up what you're putting down.

Speaker 2 20:58

But, but, but when you got there, we were gonna be like you and your friend at the restaurant just totally, totally nodding off. I mean, when you look back up on some of the stupidest things that, uh, that people did. But, but speaking up and, and I'm not gonna say this is a stupid thing, but. Uh, for our audience, I want to hear the story. So, so the people that don't know Richard, to save a few bucks. Now that, since we're talking about, since we're talking about money. Richard decides to go on. I don't know where Richard is for, for three or four days.'cause the way we operate, like I, Richard texts me, I text him like you know, back, I text Richard five days later I get, I get a video of Richard going down a road with palm trees. Uh, and what looks like an Arabian or Mediterranean Sea and Shireen sticking her tongue out at me, uh, and it turns out he's on vacation. So here's what he did, folks, to save a few dollars, Richard decides to go on vacation. In a war zone.

Pat 22:11

Oh man.

Speaker 2 22:11

I mean, so, so, so listen, I'm wonder how did, how did you sell this to Shireen Shireen? Listen, there's this massive fireworks celebration going on in the Middle East. I've got like, uh, I've got the sweetest deal on an Airbnb and, and I got some dirt cheap plane tickets. As a matter of fact, we're gonna have the whole plane to ourselves.'cause we're the only ones gonna be flying in the direction of where, of where we're going. So the moral of the story is, well, when the bombs all started dropping rich decides it's a great time to go to the Middle East. And I the only Go ahead.

Pat 22:56

Well, which we'd, we'd already booked it, right? So we went to Egypt. Yeah. But um, like, and it's true, right? So like when, when the war. You would've already booked in my wife's half Egyptian, right? Like we booked a really nice resort and stuff like that. I really need a holiday. So before I was married, like I'd quite often like go off and, you know, spend a couple of weeks in the US or down in South Africa where I've got friend, you know, I've got friends in these places and. You know, I kind of potter about doing my own thing sometimes. Do a bit of work while I was away.'cause I can work remotely and stuff like that. And then you become married and that's like much less of an option to do that thing. So I haven't, I haven't had a trip overseas for a lot, for a while, other than a couple of work thing here and there. But, um, I, so we had this trip booked and then, and it's in Egypt, right? Which is not far, you know, it's a few hundred miles, but it's not far from the um, uh, from the, the conflict in the Middle East. Right. And so what we decided, well, we were like, are we gonna go, is it dangerous? They were looking at stuff online. We're looking at our like foreign office, you know, their travel advice. Some bozo at your end, like put out on Twitter that Egypt wasn't a safe place to go. It's not traditional route for that information to be disseminated. It must be said by Twitter, but

Speaker 2 24:10

it was on what?

Pat 24:12

Some X. So some guy. Some guy at your end. Up on, on X that like Egypt was like somewhere, everyone should leave Egypt immediately. Egypt was fine, man. Like there was like no travel disruption, no bonds, nothing. It's business as usual. It's heaving, it's diving plane, no plane disruption, nothing at all. Do you know what I mean? But what we decided, Patrick, was after we had some debate, are we gonna go if we cancel the holiday because the. They're still flying and we lose some money and you know, you know, do we, do we cancel, swallow that rebook, go somewhere else, whatever. And what we decided, Patrick was like, do you know what? Worst case scenario, we get shot outta the air and we know where we're going. Yeah, we're gonna meet Jake, we're gonna meet Jesus. Right? So we're all right with. And that was what, that was the, that was the basis on which we decided to go, ma'am. You know what I mean? Like if it all does go, if it all does all go wrong, then we know where we're going anyways, so we're all right. True story.

Speaker 2 25:16

That's, uh, that's beautiful. You know what, why should we wait? Why should we risk losing our money when the, when the worst thing that can happen is we are going to end up in the presence of our Lord Jesus.

Pat 25:32

Hey, man. That's true.

Speaker 2 25:33

I'm just, and I believe you, I believe that that's actually the conversation you had. You really had that. Yeah,

Pat 25:40

yeah, yeah. That really happened, man. Uh, we saw, we were just watching my wife and, oh, this is, I mean, this is kind of like a bit of an alternative event. So we do at 11:00 AM Eastern, which is four o'clock our time. There is, um, or is it, is that why we didn't get it in? The time difference.

Speaker 2 25:59

1111 Eastern Here. Five o'clock to you.

Pat 26:04

Oh,

Speaker 2 26:05

no, no, no. Wait.

Pat 26:08

But it was five, but I wonder if it's different. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that makes life easier and a bit less frightening. So,

Speaker 2 26:15

hold on, I'm a little confused.

Pat 26:17

Well, basically we went to join, we do this like marriage group online, but it comes outta Staten Island, right? It's a Christian marriage group. And we tried to join a couple of times earlier and they, they blocked, they kicked us outta the waiting room on Zoom. So we didn't know if we'd been like blackballed or what, so, um, I can't remember where I was going with that, but, um. That happened. Is it the time difference? I know this may be. This May.

Speaker 2 26:42

No, no, no. The time's right? Because this is 12. I was thinking 1115 we're five behind you.

Pat 26:47

What's

Speaker 2 26:47

five o'clock? 11 o'clock eastern would be four o'clock. And you were telling

Pat 26:51

me about something. What's the time in MIC right now? One to, I said there're four hours behind. At a moment.

Speaker 2 27:02

We're five hours behind

Pat 27:05

five. One. Five minus one. Five minus one is four. Okay, that makes sense. I thought we'd literally been shunned from this marriage group we've been doing for the last couple of months, but yeah, that's why time difference. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, man. So I look back, trick we will both fell prey to the um, the time difference. Our clocks go back in. Let's have a look. When do the clocks go Back in the uk. Probably changed twice a year. Yeah, I know that last Sunday in March. Uh, so I'll change tomorrow. That's why there's That's right. There's a week's difference between the changes in the US and the uk. So, yeah, man, it's not just you Pat, if that helps. I mean, often the power of identification is, it's just a helpful thing, you know, we know that you're not alone. You know, if you make mistakes full short, you're not the only one. So, as much as I was teasing you at the beginning of this for your, your time in related era, I was right in the middle of my own one when I was messaging you back, rolling my eyes. Uh, this guy, man, this guy.

Speaker 2 28:19

I, I love the way you're a master of Brev brevity. You send the link, I click on it, and I'm thinking, since you sent the link early, you're ready to roll because we were gonna meet an hour earlier. So I go ahead and say, rich, I'm ready. I'm, you know, I'm good. I'm good, man. I'm up here and, uh. I just get, you know, just quick. A little three line, 4:00 PM It's 4:00 PM UK mate. No. What do you mean? Are you a little early? Do you know? You know, there's, there was nothing to that. Four 4:00 PM UK mate.

Pat 28:54

It's four o'clock, right? Yeah,

Speaker 2 28:58

it was, I mean, it was, it was like three, you know, three words that uh, that took the place of a whole paragraph of what the freak are you hitting me up an hour early for what's going on? Four. Yeah. 4:00 PM UK mate.

Pat 29:13

Yeah, just try to help Pat. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 29:15

Yeah.

Pat 29:15

Just trying to help.

Speaker 2 29:16

Well, it worked,

29:17

it,

Speaker 2 29:17

it, it, it worked. It gave me a chance to take a shower.'cause I had been feeling kind of rugged this week. But, so the, the thing in the, in, in Egypt, y'all had, I mean, I sent, the next thing Richard sends, uh, for those that are listening is he sends a picture looking like Lawrence of Arabia sitting on a beach somewhere wearing the, what is, what is it called?

Pat 29:36

I think it's called a Shema. It's S-E-H-E-M-A-G-H-I believe. But yeah, like one of the kind of Arabic,

Speaker 2 29:43

you rocked it, man.

Pat 29:45

Head clo.

Speaker 2 29:46

No, you look good. You had the swoop, you had the whole Peter O'Toole.

Pat 29:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 29:49

And the shades.

Pat 29:50

Well, so that was the first time I put it on'cause my wife put it on me. Right. And, and, and it was, you know, it was good enough. Right. But, uh. Sh then we went, we did this quad biking experience. Right? And this was really cool. So we did this quad bike experience through the desert, right? Really recommend it. If you ever happen to be that way. You, you know, north of Hagada, it's, uh, it was a company called Alex Tours. Big up to them. It was a great, you know, it was really, really good. And I've done quad biking trips, couple of different places in the world, and, and this was by far the best one. So you like, so we're doing this quad bike. We've got this quad bike experience booked. Yeah. And, um, and the, and we had the cloths,'cause they said if you need to bring one of those head scarfs Yeah. To protect you from the sand and the dust and that. Right. Obviously as you're burning through the desert on a quad bike, you're kicking up a lot of sand and a lot of dust. Yeah. So, um, so we've got this booked. It's the sunset trip. Yeah. So you're gonna kind of zoom through the desert. You gotta meet some better winds. Right. And then you, where what.

Speaker 2 30:52

What are you riding? A a what bike?

Pat 30:54

A quad bike. A four wheeler? I think you guys would call it.

Speaker 2 30:57

Uh, well, yeah. No, we don't call it a quad bike, but yeah, it'd be a four wheeler.

Pat 31:01

Yeah, a four wheeler. Right. So I mean, it's at

Speaker 2 31:02

a TV.

Pat 31:06

Yeah,

Speaker 2 31:07

I guess

Pat 31:07

we call it a four wheeler because it's got

Speaker 2 31:11

four wheel, let's got four wheels.

Pat 31:12

Yeah, man.

Speaker 2 31:14

Yeah. You're gonna throw the, the british's gonna be, no, it's quad. We're not gonna say four. We're gonna

Pat 31:19

give it really simple. Yeah. Four wheels. Right. So, um.

Speaker 2 31:24

He come man. He come rolling over the hill on that four wheeler. Man.

Pat 31:28

I think the reason we differentiated Pat is'cause quite a lot of vehicles have four wheels. Like I'm driving my four wheeler,

Speaker 2 31:37

I'll give you that. Yeah.

Pat 31:38

Not like your car truck, like. What, like, but um, so look, we're doing this thing. We've got this thing booked, right? Put

Speaker 2 31:48

a smiley, we'll put a smiley on the, on the board for Richard, because I guess you win that when you're right.

Pat 31:53

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, I'm, I'm, I'm ahead on points today, man. But, um,

Speaker 2 31:58

there are other vehicles there with four wheels.

Pat 32:00

Yes. We just tried to differentiate a little bit. Yeah. But, um, and then we wake up in the morning and the, the weather app's telling us it's gonna be a, like a beautiful, sunny day. Right. And, uh. It's just, it's a sandstorm. There's all this sand in the air, right? And you can't see the sun. It's like a proper sandstorm. I've never experienced anything like that. Anyway, it turns out the weather app doesn't count. Doesn't report sandstorms, right? But it's showing a sunny because behind the sandstorm, the sun is out. Right now my argument on that is behind cloud cover, the sun is out. Somewhere behind the nighttime, the sun is out. Right? The sun's always out somewhere. Right? Anyway, so we there we're like, are we gonna go? Are we gonna go like. My wife's like, we should cancel it. I take that, you know, having paid out for this trip with my usual good, you know, my usual good grace, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 32:56

You're wasting money because if your final decision is, do we risk wasting the money if we get shot out of the sky, if that's in a conversation over saving money, well then by golly, you are going on that quad bike to you paid for it. I can see.

Pat 33:13

We went on this trip, man, and actually it was great because the sand in the air, like the sun was just this like kind of mystical. Like disc set in the sky. Right? Right. And then the sand and stuff. And it was biblical man. Do you know what I mean? Like you, you know, like, you know, kind of cross desert crossings and, and time in the desert and the wilderness and stuff. Obviously know, like, like Jesus, Mary and Joseph escaped to Egypt. You know, like the Jews wanted in the, you know, God's chosen people wandered in the desert for 40 years. Like Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert, right? So desert's, you know, particularly an idiot for a pretty biblical kind of places like bro, going through this desert in the sandstorm, it was spec tech. You know, I send you some pictures, man. It was spectacular. It was eerie. You know, it was great. It was great, man. It was really, really great. But anyway, the point being about those head cloth things. So the bedwin,

Speaker 2 34:08

well you said, where were you actually? You never told me. You just told me you were in Egypt.

Pat 34:13

Yeah, so we were like,

Speaker 2 34:14

Cairo, what?

Pat 34:15

No, Cairo's. A little bit inland, right up towards, in the north of the country. Right. And then you've got the Red Sea. So there were uh, two, I believe two, I could be wrong, but there were, I'm aware of two Big Red Sea Resort kind of. Towns cities, right? Like, so you've got Charmel Sheik, which is right up the top, not far from the border of Israel. Now Charmel Shake is still open, right? But possibly going there would be a little bit more like questionable. We, we were in her guard. We were north of a place called Herda. So Herda is, um. Much further down the coast on the, um, so it's on the coast of the Red Sea. Um, and then we were about 20 miles then north of Hagada. Hagada is like big. You've got like huge, um, almost like city-like, um, the Red

Speaker 2 35:11

Sea in

Pat 35:11

the back road. Yeah, the Red Sea man. So her.

Speaker 2 35:15

Yeah, sorry. You go ahead.

Pat 35:17

That's right. Her garden's got loads of huge, big, all inclusive hotel resort places, and we, and we were a bit, you know, we're both sober, right? So we don't drink, so all inclusives, not really our vibe, like most people's entertainment in all inclusive is, is getting drunk, right? So we, but we, we were further up the coast and a place called Eluna, which is a, a, a sort of smaller resort. Compound, these kind of manmade lagoons. It's on the coast. Um, but you know, it was beautiful, man. So we, we stayed up there. Um, but yeah, look like, I mean, it's a bit for us it's like fight or five hour flight. Um, obviously for you guys it's, it's a huge distance, right?

Speaker 2 35:56

When Heath throw straight into Egypt.

Pat 35:59

We flew out of a little, there's a little airport called London Luten Airport, which is, um, so we've got Heathrow. Heathrow tends to be, not exclusively, but it tends to be long haul, tends to be big planes, big airlines, right? But then you've got, like, you've got London Luten, um. Stan London, Stanstead, London South End. There's these smaller airports where the low cost carriers tend to fly out. If you are like, you couldn't have liked your guys like American Eagle. No. Like that stuff.

Speaker 2 36:29

They're kind of.

Pat 36:32

Yeah, like so, but you have regional, obviously we don't, you know like, but they're like kind of in like European flights, so like shorter.

Speaker 2 36:38

If you're going international outta New York, you're gonna go outta JFK. If you're going America, you're usually gonna go LaGuardia. Although some of those can go maybe international dc same thing. One's Reagan one's.

Pat 36:50

Exactly. So we, we flew out of, um, we flew out of the LaGuardia, London's LaGuardia. Do you know what I mean? So, but yeah, man, it was, it was great. It was a great holiday. We're planning, like my wife, we met, I met my wife's family, which was wonderful. Um, and we, you know, we planned to go back later this year. Right? Oh,

Speaker 2 37:06

so you met them, well you were finishing a story on the thing, the, thing You were rocking.

Pat 37:12

Oh, yes. Well done Pat. So like. The, the guy who's running the expedition, the quad, four wheeler, whatever you wanna call it, expedition, right. Comes round to put the head cloth on, you know, properly like Arabic, bedwin, Lawrence Arabia star. Right? He did mine up so tight. Yeah, like so tight. Which I guess it has to be, but it was like, I felt like he would, it was cutting off the blood supply to my brain, you know? Um, but I got some pictures of that as well. Um, yeah, it was cool, man. It was a cool trip. Cool people, such friendly people, like such friendly people. The Egyptians, like I had the service in the restaurants. Just the demeanor of like the hotel staff, like they couldn't do enough for you. Very friendly. Very genuine. Warm on of people. I went to a dinner last night, a works dinner at a very. Fancy kind of posh, uh, restaurant bar in Chelsea, which is you obviously you have a Chelsea in New York where I think it's the same sort of vibe. It's kind of happening and here and

Speaker 2 38:24

Chelsea area. But, but yeah, I know where, I mean, I've heard Chelsea in.

Pat 38:28

Of

Speaker 2 38:29

course we have Chelsea area. That was what we were talking about in the beginning. We have everything you had because y'all came over here and set it up.

Pat 38:36

Yeah, literally. So I've gone into this place and last night for this dinner, it was a nice dinner, nice people. It was a works thing, but it was cool. Like all good, all good people. And, um, uh, but yeah, the staff man, like the, the bar staff were like. It is just so cold, like, and like, kind of unwelcoming, you know what I mean? It's like, and, but yeah, like the Egyptians man, they're just so warm, friendly, lovely people.

Speaker 2 39:03

What, what do you mean it's so cold?

Pat 39:05

Oh, like, just like the, the, the, the manner, the mannerisms, you know, the, the, the way of, it's like walking into a place like that in England, right? In London. Particularly in that part of London. It's almost like. The bar, it felt like the bar staff was sizing you up to see are you cool enough to be there? You know what I mean? Are you cool enough to be in this establishment? And now the answer with me, Patrick, to be honest with you, is no. Like I'm pretty tall, but I'm not like those, I'm not like the kind of people that go there. Right. And like for the most part, every time I've gone,

Speaker 2 39:31

yeah, every time I've gone to nicer. Yeah. I swear I was thinking about that all the other day. All through my life, I, when I've gone into a nice restaurant or a nice bar, they look. People, I was like, is it people that don't like me? I mean, uh, when I go out and, and meet people in life, I mean, I can make friends, you know, between the first floor and the 10th floor on an elevator ride, but I walk into a bar. I've even had waiters that have a reason to be nice to me. Just look at me. You know, like, and I'm dressed nice. My wife has dressed me. There's no reason for him to think I'm just some, maybe I'm some hay seed from Mississippi. That's not gonna tip well, and I do tip well. But I've always had that snippy. Smarmy just, you know what I mean? The guy just look at me. I crack a joke. Not the dude has a personality of fence post.

Pat 40:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2 40:23

And I didn't know, I didn't know you had that experience.

Pat 40:26

Definitely. And I can go right into that kind of cell fly. Oh, hello. Had an appearance.

Speaker 2 40:33

Lemme tell you what's happening. This cat that just climbed up on the back of the chair here is an Arabian Mao.

Pat 40:41

Oh really?

Speaker 2 40:42

Yeah, it's an Arabian mile that, uh, that ancestors came from Arabia. And that's a cat. Cat is the one that I told you I was walking my dogs, you know, my wife had rescued a, had rescue, okay. Had rescued a cat. Cato had rescued a cat. Had rescued a cat that, uh, that was pregnant. So we ended up with like five cats, you know, we got a regular petting zoo and they were, now I'm literally doing MMA fight with this cat, Cato, get off of here. And, and we were walking down the street, you know, going, walking through the, the, the. Blake and, and out of the woods just, and this little kitten comes walking up like six weeks old, little skinny kitten, and most of'em would run from you and I, Gwen says, I think there's a cat over there. So I walk over there and then the dude walks up and wraps himself, Cato, and then wraps Quin. I get a little help and then wraps himself. Around my leg and now he rules the roost, rules the house. And it is Cato. And I've explained the name of Cato. It's Cato. Got the name from Peter Sellers. Uh, the Pink Panther because the, his assistant that he had had told to attack him at any time and at all places to, to help brush up on his MMA, uh, you know, on his, uh, his defense skills was named Cato. And even when Peter Sellers. Tried to tell him to stop. He never stopped. Every time he turned around Cato was trying to attack him. And this cat at two o'clock in the morning when I'm making the stroll to the bathroom, will jump up and cleave a, you know, two inch cut on me. So, uh, so anyway, yeah, we're wrapping up while I'm in the fight with my Arabian mouth. I think he, he heard us talking about the homeland. And he showed up.

Pat 42:31

Yeah.

Speaker 2 42:31

So were you, were you finishing something? I didn't mean to interrupt you himself.

Pat 42:34

Yeah, no, no. I think that's about us really. Um, we don't wanna keep the listeners hostage, but, um, yeah, I, yeah, I think that's us, man. It's been a pleasure talking to you, Patrick, as always. Um,

Speaker 2 42:45

it was a pleasure. I think the lesson that we have learned today that, uh, Richard is very, uh, pound wise, dollar wise, very smart with his money. And he is willing, he's willing to risk getting blown out in the sky to save, to save the deposit he put on his, on his vacation. And the moral of the story, is beautiful. It almost brings tears to my eyes that you and Shireen got on that plane thinking if by chance this random dude on X that said that we're going into a very dangerous place is right, and we do get blown out of the sky. We're gonna end up with Jesus, and I think everybody should take that with them for the rest of the week. That's the spirit. No matter what happens to you in life, it's all going to end up. If you follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you're gonna end up in paradise. A pace far more beautiful than where you were making sure you didn't lose money to go to. So beautiful, heartwarming. So thank you. Uh, well, thank y'all for listening. God bless everybody out there. Rich, you got any final thoughts?

Pat 43:57

That's it, man. That's it, Patrick. Patrick, been a real pleasure and God bless to everyone out there.

Speaker 2 44:02

All right, next time. Take care.

Pat 44:04

See you later my man. Bye.