12: Raw Milk Politics

With the local elections coming up we're here to explain the UK's complicated political system, why it doesn't neatly map onto American politics and how to pronounce Plaid Cymru. 

Plus all the hot and cold takes from the King's comedy tour of Washington.

Mike recounts a bank holiday encounter with farmer hawking raw milk out in the shires and Matt runs down his list of top fictional transatlantic couples, not all of which met a tragic end. Which fav of yours didn't make the list? Tell us here:  colddarkmiserablepod@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Hello and welcome to Notes from a Small, cold, dark, miserable island. We're your favorite podcast, if you're an American in the UK, probably. I'm Mike.

SPEAKER_05 0:16

I'm Matt. I hope so. I hope somebody out there is like, oh we've got to be somebody's favorite.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

One of these days.

SPEAKER_05 0:25

We uh yeah, some uh we had our first uh Spotify comment. So it's still the early days.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

And was it a good one?

SPEAKER_05 0:33

Yeah, they were just vibing with what we were saying. They're like, oh yeah, I've experienced that too. They're just like, you know, I've got schema for that thing that you were talking about, people wearing LeBron James jerseys.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

It wasn't AI generated. Nah. That's good because somebody was sharing with me some comments about their band the other day, and like it was just so obviously I I thought he was being paranoid, but it was just like so obviously like AI writing. It was it was very weird. It didn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_05 0:59

A human was using AI to make comments about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

It's like who knows why somebody's using why or why AI is just going rogue and just commenting on an indie band. Oh how was your bank holiday?

SPEAKER_05 1:14

Uh that was yesterday. Yeah, we should say, just to timestamp this, it's uh it's May the 5th. It's 5-5, no matter which side of the pond you're on. Uh Cinco de Mayo. Cinco de Mayo now.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

Oh, it's just Cinco de Mayo uh Bank Holiday. Uh early May Cinco de Mayo.

SPEAKER_05 1:32

Because we yeah, because you know, England is very much like F Napoleon. We'll celebrate the Mexicans holding off Napoleon. Oh, this is the thing in the States is people always think that Cinco de Mayo is Mexican Independence Day, and it's like, no, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

Yeah, that's a different holiday. Right. Cinco de Mayo is something what?

SPEAKER_05 1:53

Yeah, it has to do with like yeah, the Mexicans. Uh yeah, fact check me, but it has something to do with like Mexico keeping Napoleon at bay and in tell me what year.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

I have I literally have no idea. Cinco de Maya. Cinema de Mayo was yesterday.

SPEAKER_05 2:09

And now today is May 5th, and and a big day coming up later this week uh uh here in the UK, and and we'll talk about that. Um but yeah, no, I yeah, not that much. I'm cold. I'm sick. I got I got uh I got my kids school cold, um, so I'm kind of in a liminal state over here, just uh highly caffeinated and also uh swimming in uh a head full of mucus. Have you tried raw milk? As a as a cure? Yeah, yeah. What now now Mike, something we may have mentioned on the show is that when you were uh uh uh uh in the States uh for those three years, you were there during the last election cycle, 2024 election cycle, and yeah they had you on the RFK Junior campaign beat before before he became a several encounters with RK RFK Jr. Monster. So you when you say raw milk, I'm like, is this RFK related?

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Well i it is sort of. So look, you know, my bank holiday was spent very British, classic British. One of these classic British things was visiting the relatives, right?

SPEAKER_05 3:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

Uh out in the Shires. Uh a very Shire place. There's hobbits running around and everything. And so we we frequently go up to the Shires and go out to the Shires, rather. Uh we pass a farm every time we drive out there, and they have a little shed where they sell farm goods. Okay. Sounds sounds very quaint.

SPEAKER_05 3:33

Yeah, out by my in-laws, there's a lot of these places have now popped up where they're like farm shop and artisanal coffee and get your spades and hose here.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

This one is is much more sort of rough and ready. It doesn't have any of the uh coffee bar element or whatever. It's a shed where the guy sells his stuff. Keep it real. This time around, there was a sign outside the farm that said raw milk. And my wife said, Oh yeah, let's get some raw milk. To which I said, uh, that's really funny. Uh and she was like, No, no, let's really get some raw milk. Pulled the car over.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Like, I bought raw milk.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

What are you talking about? Do you know what raw milk is? And she's like, Of course I know what raw milk is. Quit being patronizing. Patronizing, patronizing, quit being patronizing. So, okay, all right, fine. Why do you want raw milk? Well, I've I've read about it. Okay, uh, everything that I've read about it says that like you shouldn't drink it. Um, but if you want some raw milk, that's fine. So we pull over uh on our way uh back to the uh to to the big city from the Shires. And um there's a shed. Now we first started going there during the pandemic, right? Because this guy um I don't know, I guess we were driving up there rather than taking the train. I don't know. But we first noticed it, the guy started to like, you know, sell his produce. And um it's uh refrigerator with the raw milk in there. Okay, well, at least non-raw milk in there, and the yogurt and the and the at least is in a refrigerator, right? He has a proper like refrigerated setup. Uh my wife goes in, picks out you know, the raw milk, blah, blah, blah. Then the farmer pops up from seemingly nowhere. Okay. Like he was not there a second ago, and then suddenly he's there. A little bit weird. That's all from out of town. Yeah. Except with a Shire. Exactly, exactly like that. Um there was some issue with my wife being her card or something. I don't know. So she goes back to the card, you know, I don't know, do you think you alone leaving me alone with the farmer. Milkman. Leaving me alone with the farmer. Now, I didn't know uh raw milk is like essentially banned in some states, right? And um but in most of Europe, you can it's perfectly fine as long as it's labelled raw milk. Okay. It's perfectly fine. Except in Scotland. It is banned, you cannot sell it in Scotland, weirdly.

SPEAKER_05 5:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

So there must be some sort of like cross-border milk trade. Wow, I'm I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_05 6:03

This is a real the Wild West of This is the Wild West.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

I mean we're not too far. We are not too far outside of uh outside of uh of London. But then the farmer starts telling me a story um about you know, I'm just sort of like throwing out some casual comments. Oh yeah, you know, we stop here every so often, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And then he starts telling the telling me a story, and he starts by saying, Yeah, during the pandemic there were these Africans. Can you tell where this is going? I mean, I'm gritting my teeth over here. There were these Africans and they had lots of money. I was like, what? Okay. Uh they had lots of money, but they had no way to access it. And that's when I started to do the bank transfer thing. Oh, yeah. Because he has this like bank prints. Like, he has his bank details up on the wall. Like, if you can't uh pay with the card, you can just transfer him some money. Or if you didn't have cash, you can transfer him some money. And he said, Yeah, they were here. They spent thousands, he said. There was a literal call, he spent thousands. They spent thousands on like raw milk and eggs or something. Okay. Um and I and I was like, I could not understand what he was talking about. I was like, so they had lots of money, but they couldn't access any cash. And he was like, Yeah, the cat there was no cash, remember? There was no cash during the pandemic. And then I was like, this all sounds crazy. And then he said, Yeah, the pandemic was crazy. It was insanity. Whoa. And then usually I do what I usually do in these circumstances, which is like, oh, tell me more. Oh no.

SPEAKER_05 7:28

But then my wife came back and paid, and then we left your journalistic impulses were like, please unpack this, and your wife's like, let's not get murdered, or have to deal with a loony. Okay. Like, hey, maybe it's time to go.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

It didn't go as dark with the Africans as I thought it might have. Um we we didn't have to like we didn't have to go there.

SPEAKER_05 7:48

But um I thought it was gonna get racist or like Nigerian prints scam.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

Now I have these two pints of raw milk in the fridge, which I'm treating basically as biological waste. Like, if my hand brushes them to as I reach in to get the real milk, the cooked milk, the healthy milk, the stuff that won't make you sick, I'll wash my hands really really intensely.

SPEAKER_05 8:13

See what the boys can do.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

I'm watching my family members for any signs of stomach cramps. How's your tummy? Is it all right? Wow feeling a little bit flushed?

SPEAKER_05 8:23

So you you had a much more exciting uh bank holiday.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

If you wanna if you in in some respects, I suppose.

SPEAKER_05 8:30

Yes. I stayed up very late on uh not last night, but the night before. Uh just want to, you know, mention this because we're we're tracking it uh from the last couple episodes. Uh both the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team and the Buffalo Sabres hockey team uh have advanced from the first round of the playoffs into the final eight of their respective leagues, their conference semifinals. So it's who's Buffalo going up against Montreal?

SPEAKER_03 9:02

The Habs with Montreal Canadians.

SPEAKER_05 9:05

And uh and Cleveland will take on Detroit basketball, Pistons, um in and and what's your faith level here? It's okay. They had a harder time with Toronto than everyone would have liked, but um uh Toronto is a very physical defensive team, so that is uh preparing us for for the Pistons, and the Pistons are coached by uh the head coach that we fired uh previous to our current head coach, so he's gonna come out real angry, but we want to be like, no, no, no, we fired you for a reason and uh and defeat him. No hard feelings, really. He was a good coach, but uh so yeah, my faith level. I yeah, we're definitely not uh favored to win the series, but I you know, there's no re no reason we can't pull an upset.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

Yeah, yeah. That's good. I mean, you come from a city that has actually won something at some point in their sporting history.

SPEAKER_05 9:57

Well, I mean once in sixty-two years.

SPEAKER_03 9:59

Once is more than one one being larger than zero. Sorry. The uh I I I'm I'm still in the sort of um, yeah, okay, great, good job. Yeah. You know? You don't really want to like totally buy into the hope thing.

SPEAKER_05 10:13

Yeah, if they get to the final four, though, I think then you should start to, you know, you need to buy buy a hoodie.

SPEAKER_03 10:17

We we also have to mention King Charles and his um, depending on what newspaper you read, trollish or like impertinent speech. Um both at the uh the dinner, the state dinner, and the anti-Congress.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

My wife and I are most grateful to you for your generous hospitality.

SPEAKER_05 10:39

This is a definite thing for like Americans who live an an English life back and forth, or or you you know, you'll you'll have your your share of Americans back home, your your friends and family back home who like want you to uh sound off and give their opinions on the royal family. I always found it was a little bit like uh yeah, it's not a it's not a major part of uh life here. I don't really but then I I do find myself end up talking about it a lot. And this time um specifically m my wife was like, you guys need to talk about this on the show because it's you know a very clear uh American English relations uh it's true.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

We should probably pay her some producer fee. Good idea. It totally likewise, I think um, you know, look I did my research this time, I listened to his whole speech, his whole dinner speech, where he gives Trump some bell off of a ship that was named the Trump or something. Oh and um Trump. But he it's it's sort of it is sort of loaded with jokes. The one that everyone has been going with, and I think we can slip a clip in here, is the one about Americans speaking French.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Indeed, you recently commented, Mr. President, that if it were not for the United States, European countries would be speaking German. Dare I say that if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking French.

SPEAKER_03 12:03

I mean, that was not the only um joke in the in the dinner one. He he actually joked about like the war against Iran. He's like he was like, My my mom came here when there was like Middle East tensions. That wouldn't happen today, would it?

SPEAKER_05 12:17

Yuck yuck yuck.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

Yeah. He did the classic Hugh Grant, right? It's like posh English person, nobody expects to be funny, right? Is funny, is doubly funny because it's a posh English dude.

SPEAKER_05 12:28

Yeah. Threw some threw some sneak disses in there, which was you know part of the reason that people are like, oh, that's impertinent, or oh, that's so great.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

American leadership helped rebuild a shattered continent, playing a decisive role as a defender of freedom in Europe. We and I shall never forget that, nor least not least, as freedom is again under attack following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

SPEAKER_05 12:56

People are like, oh, here's an example of a statesman who can be coherent and you know, speak in a way that that ostensibly is bringing people together.

SPEAKER_03 13:09

Um yeah. And and it's funny how he has sort of like bipartisan support, like in the United States, everyone's like, yeah, the king, he's a great good guy.

SPEAKER_05 13:19

Even some people who were had like signs that said no kings, you know, so funny that but he comes out, you know, talking about we need to safeguard nature and uh we you know and he said the word ice caps.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

He's like raw milk, it's good, it's all good.

SPEAKER_05 13:38

Have you guys have you all tried raw milk? But no, he said the word ice caps, he said the word NATO. Um he said uh he s specifically said that we need to defend Ukraine, and then they cut away C-SPAN then cut away to Chuck Schumer, who looked like like a a child who had just eaten some ice cream that gave him an orgasm. So alright.

SPEAKER_03 14:02

Yeah, he got he got good reviews. Um a lot of people didn't want him to go, like there was some sort of poll here in Britain saying like no, and then like afterwards everyone was like, Yeah, no, it's fine, it's all good. Won't really won't really make much difference. Unlike the elections that are gonna happen on Thursday. Now, yes, this is very important. I'm not voting, but you are. Well, you know, this was my first question. Um my first question was Are you eligible to vote? No, I'm not. No, you're not. Good. You know that one. So okay, so uh is this But it's more complicated than this. I think this is the public service element here. Because a lot of our country people are here um not uh on visas or indefinite leave to remain, but because they have EU passports, right? Oh, okay So if you're the if you're on the Irish Italian plan, whatever it is, you know, you're you find that uh granny uh who had the Irish citizenship and you got I uh uh Italian citizenship probably a few years ago before Brexit, blah blah blah. Pre pre-Brexit. Pre-Brexit or or i Irish is probably more common these days because Irish gives you the right to live here, right? Okay. Um and if you have that if you have Irish citizenship for for instance, you are eligible to vote.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

In this election and most most elections. But garden variety non-citizens like yourself, uh not not eligible to vote. Um who what's what's at stake here is a lot of uh local offices, right? This is basically just a convenient excuse for us to like run down the political system for newbies. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 15:49

Pol politics special, government, government special. Right. Um This is where now even more so than the sports episode. This is where my ignorance is gonna be exposed. This is gonna be very embarrassing to be like, have you paid attention to anything in your years of living here?

SPEAKER_03 16:07

You you you know a lot about sports though. You you also know a lot about politics, but but maybe British politics is where we're sort of reaching the the sort of I don't know, we'll we'll we'll see, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 16:18

So you as a as a person who's lived here longer and you know who professionally is required to know things about things, I'm gonna let you shirt.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

I have I have um uh I was thinking about this uh on the way over, and uh with the exception of the last general election, which happened in 2024, I was involved in some way, shape, or form of of covering um every big election in this country since 2005. Great for like so nearly 20 years. And at uh over the time I I was um at some points I was like at the counts, at the vote counts. Um I did that a couple of times, then I was in the sort of the National Broadcasters Election Center for a couple of times, including for the Brexit vote. Wow. Um What was that scene? At the Brexit vote, I remember I was sort of um w we sort of split shifted. So I came in at like three in the morning, and um to be honest, it was um very interesting and um the sort of millennial crew that I was working with at the time was like apoplectic and um and not and I always contrast it with later that year I was also in the Washington office of this national broadcaster where there was uh British people but also many Americans also um for the for Trump's election. Yeah, for Trump's election. And the the mood was very different, it was much more professional in Washington. I think it just had to do with the people who was I was surrounded by in Brexit, you know. I was just like I basically had to sort of deliver some sort of like speech that was like people let's just like focus on the task and yeah, you have to talk the kids off the ledge. There's no crying in journalism. I don't know. Um you know, these are dramatic things. Anyway, that's yeah, you know, so um I've sort of absorbed all this. I'm I was n I'm I'm although I say like I'm not a political journalist in that I don't work for like a politics unit and never have like worked in like the Washington Press Corps or anything like this. You just sort of pick it up and politics is a large large part of news. Okay, so we've we've determined uh who you who can vote. You can't vote. I cannot. I can vote, but then I was worried that I maybe after moving back I didn't register. I hope I I'm on the the list, otherwise I I can't have my my my vote. I brought in all these election things that have been look at all these colorful yeah man. We got red, we got the blue, we got a green one in the case.

SPEAKER_05 18:53

Leaflets are coming coming through my door.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

Uh it's your choice. People are knocking on my door. It's uh it's all uh it's local elections in in Scotland and Wales, they they elect the assembly of those countries, um, which are more like a state. You know what I mean? Okay. More like a state government. These local elections, even though they're seen as sort of referendum on the government, the national government, local uh you know, they they have about as much power as your low town council, right?

SPEAKER_05 19:27

Okay. Is it is it different from the the town councils though? I mean, we're not uh no.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

I mean they these are like either well here in London, right? There there's borough councils, so you probably have had like your local Hackney borough councillor.

SPEAKER_05 19:42

Oh I know Hackney Council very well. Um but are they are they elected? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

They're elected. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, they're they're they're elected. And you know, I don't know about the competition, but because as we'll go through, like there's so many parties, that like often a l a lot of these things are highly contested. Okay. Even in places that are seem to be sort of safe labor. Um usually a lot of London is safe labor. Okay, right.

SPEAKER_05 20:07

But for like council jobs, which so much of that is just perfunctory, just like t fielding phone calls, helping people with issues of you know traffic in their flats and stuff. I just don't see like the the party dogma really getting involved much with with uh how th those council folks operate.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Yeah, yeah. I suppose there's I mean like they have uh like influence over budgets and certain amount of over education and things like this, right? So they can decide how to spend, you know, money to pick up the garbage. Okay. Um you know, the same as a town council, city council in the USA. Right.

SPEAKER_05 20:49

Um of course th you know in the USA they could get involved in some like book banning and shut I don't know, shutting down, right recycling.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

I don't know what sort of pernicious shit they could but burn burn old tires next to the kindergarten.

SPEAKER_05 21:06

My plan to burn tires next to the kindergarten will definitely make a brighter future for them.

SPEAKER_03 21:15

I think I think the um so like it's easy to sort of think that these are sort of like British midterms, but they're not really. They're just local elections. They they sort of show uh uh people often use it as an ex as a way to sort of express their um their their anger at the at the current government, right? Yeah. Which is uh uh run by the Labour Party. Um uh but you know, other than but in terms of pu pure power, it's not as like um a congressional midterm election where you can actually you know swing a a Senate or reshape actual power. Yeah. Um

unknown 22:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

So you want to tell me about that's what's at stake, but let's sort of break down all the different parties. All these leaflets over here. Yeah. At least in the Ealine area. Um and all the and and all the parties what they stand for. Now, I think that's a little bit sort of um too you can make too much of a comparison between British politics and American politics, right? Not not not so one-to-one. It's not. And I'll give you some examples, but um to begin with, I pasted the list of parties and groups in Parliament currently. And there's 18 different groups on this list, right? In Parliament, right? In Parliament right now. Oh wow. Not just like two and then like Bernie Sanders. Yeah. Right? Which is what we get in the U.S. Right. It's a phenomenal amount of choice.

SPEAKER_05 22:56

Whatever Fetterman wants to call himself.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

What is Feder Fetterman's like sell out of it? Fetterman will be his own party in the in the this will be the hoodie party. Schlub party. The guy is a schlub. Um I still think of like the vegetable tray when I think of John Fetterman. Um because of his stroke? No, because that's terrible. That's terrible.

SPEAKER_05 23:19

But hey, edgelord. Okay, so there's 18 different parties, some maybe micro parties represented in Parliament right now. Alright.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

I'll why why don't we just go through these and you can tell me what you know about them. All right. This is gonna be like the biggest one by far. Do you know this indie band? 650 um seats, 403 of those are held by the Labour Party. Okay, right. Because of the because of the big Where would you put them on the on the s on the scale, the spectrum?

SPEAKER_05 23:47

Oh, uh yeah, center uh center left, but creeping creeping creeping center and right.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

See, you know, you know way more than you think. You know way more than you think. Usually, usually the um usually labor is compared to the Democratic Party, right? In in in the US. Now, um that's a pretty it's been a pretty sort of uh fair comparison. You know what I mean? Like um for for for many years, and usually sort of the the the Democratic president gets along with the Labor Prime Minister. Um That's that's fair enough. Okay. And then the next on the list is the Conservative Party. The other b big party has 116, and they are Are you telling me to spectrum them? Yeah. Yeah, right, but not right.

SPEAKER_05 24:39

Right, you know, they're they're traditional rights.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

And usually they get compared to the Republican Party in the US, but I don't know, I don't know, seems a bit funny these days. Okay. Um I think the the key thing to think of to remember about all these is that in some on some issues there's like they're just not debatable, right? In British politics. So um abortion, right? There's no party that is like an anti-abortion party, that is a mainstream party. There's some tiny parties that are against abortion that are further down on this list. Okay. But they have no clout and no sort of like abortion is not something they campaign on frequently. Okay, right. It's just not as b hot button an issue. And it's huge in the US, as is uh healthcare, right? Now, all these parties uh vr m nearly all of them that we that we mention are 100% behind uh socialized medicine, the National Health Service.

SPEAKER_05 25:43

Right. They may have different feelings about how they want to downsize it or reshape it or exactly.

SPEAKER_03 25:50

Um but they're all basically pay lip service to the fact that like there should be a national health service that provides health for everybody. I mean, which is crazy when you think of the the United States. I mean, part of the reason you, dear listener, are here is because you think that's a more humane system, right? And not like the barbarism that we have in the United States. It's crazy. Um right. So continuing down the list, there's the a party called the Liberal Democrats, which has as this even astonished me when I looked at this, 72 members of parliament.

SPEAKER_05 26:24

Um Okay, and they are so they're they're left of center, but not way left.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

They're sort of yeah, now they're left. Now they have been they have sort of floated, right?

SPEAKER_05 26:37

But they are crucially like forever tainted by their deal with the devil when they made a coalition with the conservatives. Exactly. When Cameron was elected?

SPEAKER_03 26:47

Exactly. See, you know, you know way yeah, there you go. Well, yeah. You totally underestimated your knowledge here. 2010, they enter a coalition government, because they have 72 MPs, they had, I can't remember how many they had, similar amount, maybe it was about 50 back then. But there was not uh the between the two big parties, there was a balance of power situation, so they had to team up with this third party, the Liberal Democrats. Uh and you're right, forever tainted, particularly because before the election they said we were not going to impose tuition fees for college students, university students, and then they did. And it was just a turnaround, U-turn, lie, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. And um then they then they tanked. But now they're back because traditionally they've been a little bit of a if you don't like the big two parties and you live in an area, it's a bit of a protest vote. Yeah. They're um not as conservative as the Conservative Party, but they also believe in civil liberties. So if you're like a a free speech kind of person, you know, uh you might be drawn to them.

SPEAKER_05 27:53

So a progressive party, but uh uh healing up from having shot themselves in the foot last decade. Um but n not as but not as left as the next one on the list? No, three more down on the list.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

Well, yeah. No, the the next one's pretty left. The Scottish National Party.

SPEAKER_05 28:16

Okay, but that's just for Scottish, right? Just for Scottish. I can't be like Scottish people. I'm here in London and I support the s the SNP. They'd be like, no, shut up.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

Well, there there was because we have a lot of Scottish invaders, I mean immigrants.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

That's not cool, man. It's alright. It's all right. Scottish people are the best.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

Listen, I love it when I can say that. I'm I'm I'm one of them. I got some sort of grandma. You know what I mean? Uh. I guess some sort of Scottish grandma. I can I can make that joke. Um generally they're pretty left-wing, but they but their main thing is like Scot independent Scotland. Right. And they have gone up and down.

SPEAKER_05 28:52

So we don't even want to have this party because we want to be independent. Yeah. Just like abolish it. The goal of this party is for this party not to be a party anymore.

SPEAKER_03 29:00

Yeah. Except the except when we rule and we become the Scottish Maoist party.

SPEAKER_05 29:06

Let's have Scotland take over, England. Let's go. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

So they they have what what is it, nine out of the They they it at some points they have had the majority of seats in Scotland. They they got wrecked in the last election. I to be honest, uh I tot don't know totally why that happened.

SPEAKER_05 29:27

For everybody who has to take the Life in Britain test, this is always a big thing. Yeah. Uh a co-worker from uh originally from Turkey just passed her uh Life in Britain test, and I was like, Oh, did you learn how many Scottish MPs there were? Joke joke, and like 15 years on from when I took the Life in Britain test, and she was like, Yes, I learned it.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

Um is there still the one about the population of Scotland on there? Possibly. And it it's like it's not like oh one million or like a hundred million, it's like four point eight million. You need to know per se. Five point one million, five point two five million. It's like whoa. Um okay, the the next um Scottish one. The next one that we have that we have um is Reform UK. Okay. And you know these guys. Cool. Yeah. These the these are the the maybe the closest thing we have to the Trumpist Party. But um but but but I think also differs from the Republicans in in some way. They're like the anti-immigrant party. They used to be the Brexit party, but now they just don't like, you know, not just the Europeans, but just like foreigners in general. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:32

The blatant corruption party.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

There's all sorts of, you know, stuff out that's there about five yeah, like five million pounds from some foreigner, even though he doesn't like foreigners, Nigel Farage got. I think we can be we we can be sort of slanted against this, uh particularly on this podcast, because these are the people who are like preventing you from getting a visa to your American. They they um unless you're rich, uh, in which case.

SPEAKER_05 30:56

But the key thing, I I feel like the key thing uh as in 2016 is not just to laugh them off, especially because a lot of um refugees from the Tories are are joining them and making them like the hot party for disillusioned old whiteies. That's true. Of of which there's you know, of which there's always gonna be a lot. People get old and grumpy, but they still are allowed to vote.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

Even though they are fifth on this list, there a lot of people think that they could get uh enough um uh uh votes um in po and polls sort of sort of indicate this. It's really difficult to sort of um extrapolate now. Um but they think that they could be the biggest party in the next gov in the next government, which would be um i which would be pretty crazy. Can I just say pretty crazy?

SPEAKER_05 31:50

Um are we sort of tracking them in these locals this week to see wha how powerful their influence is? Absolutely. I saw a this morning I saw uh a Daily Mirror, which is a conservative paper, right?

SPEAKER_03 32:01

Daily Mirror is more of a left-wing tabloid.

SPEAKER_05 32:04

Oh, is it? Okay. Yeah. I always figured that all the tabloids were right wing.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

No, it's this is a the the mirror is more of a left-wing tabloid. All right.

SPEAKER_05 32:10

You should do one about papers. Yeah. What what is papers? Um well anyway, well, the Daily Mirror had a had a big headline with Farage's picture and a massive, you know, 99 font uh point font saying stop him. So um right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

Um I'm trying to find the reform. I I know that there was a reform. I can't find it here. There was a reform leaflet. So don't get caught with it. Because of the system because most of these although in some um areas there are like um different voting systems, usually it's like a winner takes all. So you can win with all these parties, if they all th are running in your area, you can win with a small minority of the vote, you know, twenty, thirty percent or whatever. Oh, okay. So even if um and and this is like it's a very important it's important when you come to like any election, but when you go to an a member of parliament, um loads of people w win with uh less than fifty percent of the vote.

SPEAKER_05 33:07

Tell me about the difference then between like just educate me b the difference between like you can win with thirty-four percent versus I have to do a coalition with a uh with a third place um you know party in order to to take control.

SPEAKER_03 33:24

Is it just the difference? Yeah, go ahead. Uh in each individual seat you can win with, say, 34%, right? And uh I can't remember the exact uh number off the top of my head, but the Labour Party only got about a third of the votes last time, but they have two-thirds of the seats. How the hell did that happen? Well, it's the their strength is spread fairly evenly across the country. Lots of people were voting against the Tories, and so they managed to win enough seats with those lower vote totals, right? Okay. Um now if you don't have a majority, so Labour has a majority, uh a very big majority, having you know having nearly two-thirds of the seats. If you don't have a majority, then you gotta team up with another party Oh to run the government. To run the government, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 34:14

Whereas you're talking about in an individual in an individual seat where there might be eight people on the ballot, you can win that seat. Yes. It's a single seat. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:24

And that leads neatly to the next party on the list, the Green Party of England and Wales, with five seats. But another party that has been polling very high. Yep. It's their time. You know, obviously uh left-wing environmental party, very uh pro-Gaza, um very sort of, you know, well, just very sort of progressive and left-wing. They have they are peeling away support from Labour. If they get, they could have, you know, maybe uh who knows? They have five MPs now, a dozen, two dozen maybe. And then if they have the balance of power, there could be a broad sort of coalition you could imagine, um, depending on how it all shakes out between them and say Labor, the Liberal Democrats, something like this. Yeah. Alternatively, it could be uh uh a reform uh teaming up with uh something like the Conservative Party. But anyway, that's um we're we're miles we're miles away from that, which is another quiz question I had for you. When is the next general election?

SPEAKER_05 35:28

Well, this is a thing, and this is uh uh uh a learning curve for the American who's not you know an election, a national election is not like just the Olympics, like it's always gonna hit every X years. So every five years at a minimum, right? Yes, okay. You got it, you got it. But if if the the ruling party is feeling spicy, they can be like, hey, we're doing one, and they can just call one early to sort of I don't know, just double down on their gains. Right. Say we're in we're in a position of strength, let's let's sign a new five-year lease. That's it. Um and and this was and the conservatives did this, right? Didn't they do? And and is that called a snap election or yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:14

Yeah, if you do it before time, yeah, it's a snap election. Um if you do it before I I suppose technically if you do it without like telegraphing your intentions, you know, you just suddenly just go out there and say, I'm calling an election. Yeah. Wow, surprise. And people are supposed to be like, hooray, what bold move. Yeah, what a visionary Let's get behind. I didn't realize somebody was sh somebody was telling me the other day about the 2024 election about how uh the Prime Minister, who was conservative at the time, Rishi Sunak, yeah, um, did it his his snap election announcement in the pouring rain and refused to have an umbrella. Like it was absolutely torrential in I suppose it was about this time in 2024 before the July 2024 election. Okay. And he just looked like a miserable old wet dog out in front of Downing Street, and it was just a bad look. Gosh. And then he lost big time.

SPEAKER_05 37:08

That was that was a that was a really rough period for like pub quizzes. You know, 20 years from now, when they ask at a pub quiz, name uh the prime ministers in order, that succession of of failed conservative. Post-cambered conservatives is gonna be.

SPEAKER_03 37:25

So many of them, so many of them.

SPEAKER_05 37:27

Um 2029 at last.

SPEAKER_03 37:31

2029 at the latest, yeah, that's right. That's right. Um, it could be could be earlier. There was always this long-standing thing where it would always be in May or the spring, broken in 2019 when there was a December election. Um because um uh because of Brexit, actually. Because Boris Johnson wanted to like, you know, uh it was a very close parliament and he wanted to get some more MPs. Consolidate. And he actually sort of was successful at doing that. Not because they saw that there was like a a coronavirus and they knew that everything was gonna No, it didn't. It's just conspiracy. Um Do you want to here?

SPEAKER_05 38:09

Just read just read down this list.

SPEAKER_03 38:10

Just list okay. Just read it on the rest of the list. Yeah, yeah. So we have we have okay, so there's a whole bunch that Democratic Unionist Party, Social Democratic Labour Party, Alliance Party, Ulster Unionist Party, traditional unionists, those are all Northern Irish parties. Northern Ireland has a completely different political system where none of those parties really uh none of the big parties really um function, but all those parties they have sort of loose alliances with uh parties in the mainland and they just do a the the whole thing a little bit differently there.

SPEAKER_05 38:40

Okay, and they don't have like one big SNP one that's that's popular.

SPEAKER_03 38:43

They don't have one big SNP one. No, but in Wales you'll see Plaid Cumri uh there with four. That is the Welsh Nationalist Party.

SPEAKER_05 38:51

That is not how I would have pronounced that spelling.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

Uh no. Um and then you have a bunch of um weirdo uh well we have eight independents. Oh well Shinn Fein obviously belongs to the Northern Island one too. Uh we have one from your party, that's Jeremy Corbin, former Labour Party uh uh leader who has broken uh your party. Your party. Your party. It's just your party. Um was going to be a left-wing challenge to Labour, but um is the rollout. It's it's it's pretty much dead. Uh things like Restore Britain. Restore Britain is a far right, yeah, far right um guy uh who broke from the um the reform party. So it's like, hey, these guys didn't hate immigrants enough.

SPEAKER_05 39:36

But his neighbors really like him. He's a lovely neighbor because he got enough votes locally to grab that seat.

SPEAKER_03 39:43

Yeah. Independent alliance, that's an interesting one. That's a bunch of pro-Gaza M MPs. Um but who don't like any of the other parties, somehow they just didn't find a home. Um, so you know, who knows where that where that goes really. Um and then just like random independence, and then finally the the speaker who's has a weird um role. Okay. Is it elected as an MP, but then doesn't sort of participate in any of the votes. He's just the speaker or she's just the speaker.

SPEAKER_05 40:13

Oh, and it has to be neutral?

SPEAKER_03 40:15

And it has to be neutral, yeah. So weirdly you vote for somebody, and they can usually uh uh hold the speaker office for a long time, but they can't vote on your behalf in parliament, even though they represent a geographical area.

SPEAKER_05 40:28

Oh, so your area is just shit out of luck?

SPEAKER_03 40:31

Kind of, yeah. It's very it's a very weird system. It's a very weird system. Um I'm I'm struggling to remember who the actual speaker is now, speaker of the house.

SPEAKER_05 40:42

Not um not as famous as your dude, Mike.

SPEAKER_03 40:46

It's a totally different job than the speaker, yeah, then than Mike Johnson, right? He was a very powerful person. Um Lindsay Lindsey Hoyle. Now Lindsay is a man, right?

SPEAKER_05 40:58

It's okay, it's all right.

SPEAKER_03 40:59

Um I'm trying to find out where is he? Chorley in Lancashire, having held that seat for for since 1997. Right, okay. So sorry, sorry, people of Chorley.

SPEAKER_05 41:10

Um Lindsay just has to like say to one of his you know neighbors, hey, could you vote? My my my people want this thing passed. Could you vote their way? No, I'll buy you coffee.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

That's basically what he has. I'll give you I'll give you ten minutes to talk. All right. Um okay, so we're not here to tell you how to vote. Just vote for whoever you want to, right? Um, but all right.

SPEAKER_05 41:35

This is you gotta tell me about the House of Lords. Are we still doing this?

SPEAKER_03 41:38

The House of Lords, yeah. Okay, so now obviously our system of government, the Senate and the and the House, is based on this system of government, right? But uh the House of Lords Bicameral. The bi the House of Lords um has very over the years their power has been taken away in sort of a democratic leaning. Rightfully so. These people are like sometimes very weird. Most of them are hereditary, but or not most of them are hereditary, most of them are not hereditary anymore, but most of them used to be hereditary, like they passed down their seat to their sons. Okay, yeah, yeah. Uh there's bishops, there's a lot of bishops who are still in the House of Lords, right? So if you're a bishop, you can just like be in the government.

SPEAKER_05 42:20

All right. What's their function now?

SPEAKER_03 42:22

Their function is to basically uh rubber stamp uh legislation. They what they can do is they can hold it up, right? Now, usually this is not a problem at all. However, there was a big debate about assisted dyeing, right? So um uh euthanasia, right? Um it was gonna be legalized in this country. The House of Commons um voted uh a majority voted to approve it, but the House of Lords held it up. And so it's not becoming law because of these these guys, but that's like a rare exception most of the most of the time. The House of Lords.

SPEAKER_05 42:57

It seems like they would be the the the beneficiaries of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

They were really scared. There's like all their grandchildren.

SPEAKER_05 43:06

They're gonna come for me.

SPEAKER_03 43:09

They want the manna.

SPEAKER_05 43:10

They want the force papers. They want the scene in the House of Lords.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

Euthanasia.

SPEAKER_03 43:16

Sounds like a uh something out of Dickens there. Um so uh that that law is being it probably will become law at some point in the next few years, but not now, because of the House of Lords. Usually they just do reports and hearings and advisories, sort of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very much it's very much um like the royal family, but except with all the without like any tourist value whatsoever. Okay. Uh here's here's another quiz question for you. Okay. Where um where i where do they p use um voting machines? Where? In in gr Great Britain. Yeah, where do they use Do you mean like electronic voting machines?

SPEAKER_05 43:56

School cafeteria or like the the Like precisely where do I go to vote for it?

SPEAKER_03 44:03

No, no, where where can where do you use it where do you use a machine rather than like writing on a piece of paper?

SPEAKER_05 44:10

Oh. Uh so yeah, um church hall. Uh no. Uh I bet you this trick question. Is it nowhere?

SPEAKER_03 44:19

It is you you got it. You got it. Nowhere. It is always done with a pencil on paper.

SPEAKER_05 44:25

Yeah. We're not going to get involved with any hanging chads.

SPEAKER_03 44:28

No, there's no hanging chads, there's no um smartmatic uh uh dominion uh no losses. I the most I could find, actually, I I I see that in some places they use machines to count the votes, to count ballots. I'm not quite sure how they how they do that, but it's all it's all on pieces of paper. Usually, and you'll see this in a general election if you watch the coverage, people it's individuals counting, right? Volunteers and like workers at the council just individually counting people's Xs on pieces of paper. It's refreshingly low tech. Um the most that I have seen is uh around the time of the Brexit vote, there was sort of like um uh conspiracy theories that like you had to use a that you should bring a pen into the voting uh booth so that because pencil can be erased. Oh man. Right? Um and I think a lot of people probably got told off for bringing pens because you're just supposed to use the pencil, it's there. Um and uh you know, are we electing a mayor in London?

SPEAKER_05 45:34

No, because I would have seen lots of uh exactly, yes. But I think the mayor of Hackney, uh, where we're gonna be able to do that. The mayor of Hackney, yes.

SPEAKER_03 45:42

Several London boroughs are electing their mayors. Um they're they're less powerful than the actual mayor. They're actually a lot less powerful than the mayor, and the mayor of London is a lot less powerful because of what he controls and doesn't than the mayor of a big city like New York or Chicago. But he's a big figure, but he still is he still is pretty powerful and he's a big figure. Yeah, yeah. Is is old Sadiq. And uh, you know, I think uh regardless of party politics, Sadiq Khan does love the Americans, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_05 46:12

This is we keep saying. I mean, we really need to get him on the show. Sadiq, if you're listening, hit us up. Colddarkmiserablepod at gmail.com. Yeah, if you're name checking you every other episode.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

If you really want to attract those Americans, he loves he loves using us as his uh what um what what do you call it? Like token. It's like tokenism in his war against Donald Trump, isn't it? It's like look at all my Americans, Donald. Yours hate you. Uh right. Okay, I think I've come to the end of the list. That is our whirlwind. You've done you you you had a perfect score on the quiz. You you had so little faith in your knowledge in this subject, and you completely aced it.

SPEAKER_05 46:54

Well, there was a crib sheet, so that's great, Mike. Well, we'll see. We'll come back. I guess we'll come back next time and we'll say like these these things occurred and it mattered or it didn't matter. Yeah, we'll check in to see that the reform wave is is still coming.

SPEAKER_03 47:09

Saber's lost and the and the labor labor lost. Um Yeah. All right. We'll see.

SPEAKER_05 47:18

Thanks so much. That's very, very useful. Now uh when my wife goes to the polls later this week, I'll you know have a little frame of reference to chat with her.

SPEAKER_03 47:27

Yeah, yeah. Don't vote yourself though. You'll get arrested. Right. Um, all right. Let's let's let's lighten the mood here.

SPEAKER_05 47:34

Shift gears.

SPEAKER_03 47:35

I want to hear because you have some recommendations.

SPEAKER_05 47:37

I have some relevant recos. We're wrecking it up. Hey, I don't have a theme song for that one yet. Um right, so we're gonna go into more my my you know sphere of expertise, and that is pop culture. So uh recently I've caught a couple things that featured transatlantic couples on screen. Not an actor doing a fake accent, just being like, hey, I'm actually English, but I'm playing an American, but uh the depiction of a US, UK couple on screen with actors playing their actual national nationalities. Um so I saw the the the hit uh sort of rom-coms. I I saw somebody call it a DoomCom with the very generic title The Drama, uh, an A24 film from writer-director Christopher Borgli, probably pronounced very badly, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. Uh, and this is about a uh English man and an American woman who on the uh eve of their wedding, a a dark secret about one of them is discovered and it throws the whole thing up into the air. Fantastic performances from from both of those uh uh younger.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

I didn't see this movie. I saw the I I I I listened to or read a bunch of reviews of it. Okay. Um and was and was intrigued. Let's just set it out. Robin Robert Pattinson, yeah, he's he's he's British. He is he is British, but he's sort of a hot actor at the moment.

SPEAKER_05 49:09

Frequently not British, frequently paying playing Americans. I mean he was he was Bruce Wayne, um, I think he's in like Mickey 17 from last year, which is doing like a weird Brooklyn accent or something.

SPEAKER_03 49:21

Yeah, he yeah, it's a weird, but then it's a weird sort of space sci-fi thing. So it's like it doesn't you don't need to have like a takes place in the Netherworld. That's what sort of threw me.

SPEAKER_05 49:29

And he was American in the Twilight series, I'm assuming, because that's on Pacific Northwest, right? Okay, he's just brooding and mumbling, I assume. I've never I haven't seen any of those movies. My kid's only seven. Um yeah, Pattinson. And then Zendaya, of course, uh, you know, Euphoria and Challengers and uh Spider-Man.

SPEAKER_03 49:46

Great actors, and and good in this one.

SPEAKER_05 49:48

Totally good. I think like I I watched this one and I was like Zendaya, you're gonna get your Oscar someday. Um but you're you're you you still look like you're you know 18 years old. So but now she's playing adults. So quite enjoyed that. Um one of the one of those comedies where like a lot of the humor is uh is you know a bit edgy, and so I found myself in it was a small theater, and so it was like the third week that the movie was out, and it was the opening weekend of Michael, so it was a real small room, and I'm like laughing at everything that's pretty borderline inappropriate, and I'm like, oh, is this is this okay? Am I a sociopath with um so I recommend the drama? And then uh there's a new series, uh a new season of uh what is now an anthology series uh on Netflix. This is the second time I have pick up a Netflix show on this pod, and the name of the show is Beef, BW E F, um by uh r uh director uh Lee Songjin. Uh the first season was about a road rage incident and how uh things uh spiraled after that. This one has uh I've only seen the first episode, and the stars are England's Carrie Mulligan and America's Oscar Isaac as a transatlantic couple who are working at a country club.

SPEAKER_03 51:06

Um it's a totally different storyline from the first beef, is that it?

SPEAKER_05 51:10

Yeah, so the so like The White Lotus or you know uh other shows, it's gonna be an an anthology series with a new cast and new ideas every every season. So you know, I watched the first episode of that a couple days after I'd seen the drama, and I was like, oh, we're I'm I'm seeing I'm seeing all these, you know, US, UK, American English, transatlantic couples.

SPEAKER_03 51:33

The transatlanticism is actually like a plot point in the drama. I remember you telling me about this. Yeah, yeah. It is. Yeah, yeah. It's like because it it it affects the people's reaction to it. This movie's been out a while. Yeah, yeah. I don't think we're ruining anyone. Everyone's gonna see it, yeah. Um they have a different reaction to guns. And then beef, is it the same thing? Is it is it a lot of people?

SPEAKER_05 51:56

I'm only one episode deep, but I think, but uh but I think like, yeah, it seems as if Carrie Mulligan's uh like worldview or her taste, uh yeah, as a as an interior designer uh is is gonna have some effects.

SPEAKER_03 52:12

It's very British.

SPEAKER_05 52:12

I gotta yeah, I gotta I gotta keep going on that one.

SPEAKER_03 52:15

And then he's like, he's like, why do you got all this old shit?

SPEAKER_05 52:19

It's quirky. So this made me think to myself, well, what are the greatest all-time? And and you know, me and Mike are both uh husbands in transatlantic US-UK marriages, and it made me think, what are the all the the top five all-time American English couples in film and TV history? So here we go. I'm gonna break down my top five. I've got a top five, man. I'm a list, I'm a list making pop culture nerd. Um, so now just some caveats. These are all fictional. Um there are tons of IRL examples. Right, right. You know, you got your uh Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Martin, you've got your Katy Perry, Russell friend, uh misbegotten. Holy hell. I think they crack the top five. No, no. So these are these are fictional from movies and TV. Fictional. Okay. Um and the actors need to be playing their own their own nationality. Um and that and this is US-UK, so not transatlantic. So, you know, the before sunrise trilogy uh with Ethan Hawk and Julie Delpy, or like Casablanca. We're talking we're talking America England. I'm not not letting any other countries get involved, strictly America and England. Um this is mostly research from memory. I barely Googled it, and this is gonna be Gen X slanted. I did a I did a quick Google and I got an affair to remember from like 1957. So with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, but then I was like, does Cary Grant really count as an American? It talks like this in the mid-Atlantic, I say. Um I was like, eh. I mean, I love Cary Grant, but he doesn't count. Um so here we go. I'm gonna count him down, top five. I'm gonna I'm gonna like see if I can get you to do some some guessing, and we'll see if we can do this in just a few minutes. All right, number five. This is the sitcom division. Okay. So I had a runner-up for this one in the sitcom division.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

You had you had like brackets.

SPEAKER_05 54:12

Yeah. Well, it just happens to be I thought of a couple sitcoms. So, runner up was Niles Crane and Daphne.

SPEAKER_03 54:19

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:21

Uh, from from Fraser Okay. Which is a better show than the one I actually chose for the number five spot. Um so can you name the uh the sitcom, the 90s sitcom, uh that features an American actor who went on to become the president of the Screen Actors Guild?

SPEAKER_03 54:42

Whoa, that's No, I can't. Wait, let me let me let me think about it.

SPEAKER_05 54:46

Because all right, so an American actor with a British with a coupled with a British person from the 90s on the show, and then and then she goes on to become president of the Screen Actors Guild and led them during the recent strike. Oh, right, okay. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, that wasn't your beat at the time. So we're talking about the nanny, Fran Dresher, playing Fran Fine, and then uh an actor named Charles Shaughnessy, who Google tells me is actually Baron Charles Shaughnessy. How British can you guys as he plays Maxwell Sheffield, who is is her employer who goes on to become her husband. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:30

You want to do you I don't know. That doesn't sound that doesn't sound like like equitable, you know. That sounds a little bit dodgy. Yeah, no, definitely the power dynamics. I don't know. I I I to be honest, I'm not so I don't feel so bad because Yeah, it's fine. I I I I've never seen that. Do you remember the nanny ever seen episode of the name? No, I don't think I've never done it. She knows I know who I mean. That's like her voice. She's from like Jersey. I'm from Jersey, yeah. Right, right, right. I didn't really I didn't have no idea that the guy was a British guy.

SPEAKER_05 56:03

Uh you know, I was I don't know if it was.

SPEAKER_03 56:04

We're thinking like Mr. Belvedere or some shit.

SPEAKER_05 56:06

Right, that sort of thing. Or like Mrs. Doubtfire Code. So that's number five. Put the sitcoms at number five. All right. Number four. Okay. Number four is a du a double dip. This is a film that includes not one, but two US-UK couples. Um 2006. It is a Nancy Myers film, which, you know You know, I think you're gonna put Jude Law in here somewhere. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Can you remember? I I just watched this one at Christmas and can verify uh that it is bad. I I had seen it in the past, and then you know, we're sitting around the in-laws at Christmas and we're like, let's put this on. I was like, this is still bad. Just because it's now a holiday classic.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

Oh, well, it's um he's in love actually. No. He's not in love actually.

SPEAKER_05 57:00

No, you were right with Jude Law. So it's called The Holiday.

SPEAKER_03 57:05

The Holiday.

SPEAKER_05 57:06

Generically titled The Holiday. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 57:07

And the couple No, I've not seen this one. No.

SPEAKER_05 57:10

I mean it it'll be on it'll be on Christmas time. Um so Cameron Diaz and Jude Law are the you know, are the more foxy couple, and then the normie couple is Kate Winslet and Jack Black. What? Yeah. Romantic lead Jack Black, though they they do give him a chance to go dim-di-dibba di, you know, a couple times because he plays a composer.

SPEAKER_03 57:33

Oh my gosh, that's crazy. So yeah. I mean, I guess like Kate Winslet is like like funny. She does like funny stuff. She can do it. Dame Kate, she can do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So that's number four. So that makes sense on some some weird level. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:46

Double they do a they do a house swap. So the uh Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet do a house swap. Uh and they do like a husband swap trip. Transatlantic. No, they just happen to, you know, there was somebody's one of the boys is a neighbor, and the other one is a brother, and yeah. Convoluted plot mechanics. Don't worry about it. Don't think too much about it. Moving on to number three in the old school division. This is the old school division. Now, this is from 1981. A very famous theme song. Don't let that throw you. Uh the male lead is a famous British uh comedian slash musician, and the female lead. Comedian slash musician. Uh-huh. And the female lead is uh is a legendary um star of stage and screen musicals and and Hollywood royalty as well. Very famous mom. 1981. Big comedy. If you had like Cinemax HBO when you were a kid, this was just kind of always on. Sir John Gilgood co-stars. Alright, you're 0 for three. It's Arthur, Dudley Moore, okay, and Liza Minnelli. And I will does it hold up? I bet it still holds up. I just remember that movie being very funny and and and quite a bit over. How many times did you watch it? It was just one of those like cable TV movies that was always on. It's true. It's true.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

If you get caught between the moon and New York.

SPEAKER_05 59:18

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Christopher Cross. Arthur's theme. Okay, great. You're doing great, Mike. Oh god. Number two. Number two, this is the Richard Curtis division. Are you ready? I'm going with a 1994 classic starring Hugh Grant. Uh Nottinghill. That would be a 1999 not classic. Oh, what? Written by Richard Curtis.

SPEAKER_03 59:51

I went with 94. Hugh Grant. Who else is Hugh Grant? Opposite. Oh, yeah, no, no. It is Four Weddings and a Funeral. Four Weddings and a Funeral.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:00

Yeah. Andy McDowell. Andy McDowell, yeah. He chooses Andy McDowell over Kristen Scott Thomas. Yes, yes. Debatable.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:07

Every the my wife says to me all the time, is it raining? I hadn't noticed. Of course I noticed, like in this weird ironic way. Yeah, she's quoting that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:16

I don't think I've actually seen the film. David Cassidy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:20

I haven't seen that film like all the way through. I just watched, I just watched the clips on TikTok.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:25

Yeah. It's another one that will just come up like it's on in the background at Christmas, and you you get, you know, you get sucked in, you end up watching a half hour.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:34

I'm glad I got one. Crying out loud. I think you'll get the last one. This is the top one. All right. I think you'll get number one.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:40

Number one is one of the top three or five highest grossing movies of all time. From 1997. We had we had the lead actress was already featured. Yeah. Yep. You got it. Yeah, yeah. Say that. Titanic. Titanic, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So yeah. My wife was like, wasn't he Irish in that? I was like, I don't think so. Um, but no, he's from Wisconsin. His character is from Wisconsin. Okay. Uh he's king of the world. He paints her like her French ladies, and then he dies. And then he dies. Spoilers. Tragic. Necklace at the bottom of the ocean. Absolutely, absolutely tragic. She never says, hey, maybe there's a little space on this plank of wood. Do you want to just try for a minute? We'll just try and see if we both can fit for a minute.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:29

We can fit like three men on these lifeboats.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:32

Maybe we can take turns on this plank of wood and both of us can live. No, no, okay, you die. And I will be a sad old lady many years from now. Titanic! Number one. There you go. Top five American English couples in the world.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:46

That was great on TV. That was history. That was very good. That was very good. I feel like it's ominous that the number one, like, like basically they died.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:55

Yeah, no, doomed. Um but I had I mean it had to be Titanic number one. So did did I miss any? Are there some obvious ones I I missed? Hit us up, millennials and and gen alphas. Uh Cold Dark Miserable Pod at gmail.com. If there's more to farm there, maybe we can do a whole episode about it. I don't think so, but let us know. Oh, we we must.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:16

We must. We must. Cold Dark Miserable Pod. All one word at gmail.com. That's and that's it for this week. But Mike.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:31

Except I I feel like you haven't really heard me out yet about we need uh a big bangin' theme song. Okay. So I started to work on one this week, and uh how far did you get I got I got quite a few lines into it, and then I was like, this is kind of a basic bitch idea again. Uh let me just do a quick YouTube search and see if anyone else has done this, and yes, someone else had come up with the idea to do uh David Bowie's young Americans as dumb Americans. So all I can say is, oh shite, we're done in by dumb Americans. So that's that's the spoil. This is what that's what you would have had. And I was gonna be like, Do you remember Anthony Scaramucci? But that's all gone now because somebody else beat me to it. Um so I pivoted last minute uh to a song that I'm less familiar with. Uh and once again I'll be cramming too many words uh into uh too few bars. But I'm gonna do my best for you, Mike. Here we go. I don't know if you I don't even know if you're gonna know this one. Alright, alright.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:52

Here we go. Well, I mean, you know, you go for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:55

Boom, dick it, boom, dick, boom, dick it, dick it, boom, dick it, dick, boom, dik, boom, put.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:05

I hopped off the plane at Heath the Roe with my cardiac, my broken American dream. Welcome to the land of the Magna Carta and the Sex Pistols. God save the Queen. Black cab driver takes me past parliament, asks, what's your democracy like? I talk about citizens united. Cab driver says yikes. UK party system's got me feelin' jealous, corporate influence, slightly less overzealous. You don't have to hold your nose and choose, baby. You could vote for greens, or you could vote Lib Dems, or be an asshole and vote reform. At home I threw my hands up, the system just sucks. So bad I had to move away. Red is for billionaires, blue is for billionaires, but here there's a plan for more ballast government, and maybe it'll work someday. Yeah, there's more than two parties in the UK. There's multiple parties in the UK, Miley Cyrus.