Is The King Sorry?

[00:00:00] Hello, I'm Steve N Allen and welcome to Steve N Allen (almost) Daily. Hello and welcome to another podcast of me, Steve N Allen, keeping you up to date with, I would say, the latest news. I wanted to start with this, not the main story today, but definitely the most recent push alert I got from the Telegraph app. Sydney Sweeney would make a good Bond girl. Alright, someone's taken the vitamins. That's what it comes across because it's the Telegraph.

[00:00:28] It comes across more like, I've still got it, you know, couldn't use it, but I've still got it. Like if the Daily Star said, well, she'd make a good, you know, but you dirty old get, whereas it's more, less of the dirty, more of the old. I think maybe there is an age at which your dirty old gitness just becomes old gitness. She'd make a good Bond girl. Yeah, alright, don't even try and get out of the chair, Telegraph. You'll do yourself a mischief. Right, let's do the front pages. Let's start with a look at the front pages. The Sunday People is the first one I see, which is a very weird place to start. There we are where we are.

[00:00:58] Charles, under pressure, ding-ding-a-ding-dong. Ding-ding, king-king-king-a-ding-dong. King faces increasing demands for slavery apology. Flies in for key speech as PM says he's open to debate. We talked about this in the old telly box last night. This might be a clever Andy Burnham win. If you say you're open to the idea of an apology, you've not given one, but you're not saying you shouldn't. It's the crafty how-do-you-appease-both-sides type technique. I like it. And I did then exactly the same thing on the telly.

[00:01:28] I was like, well, look, an apology is different. All the people are getting angry at the concept of reparations because it is more a club with which you just beat a conversation rather than answer the details. Who would pay for it? How would you work out who should pay for it? How would you work out who has benefited unfairly from a system that was unfair? How would you work out who the recipient should be? How would you work out who has suffered from this system? So because you can orchestrate an argument where someone who arrived to the UK during the wind rush time is a taxpayer.

[00:01:56] Some of their tax would be paid back to someone who could have been a slave owner. But do you know what I mean? There's a way of selling you that the details are too tricky. But people don't like details. People like good, bad. Me like this. Me don't like this. So that, yeah. And I should have realized that there are more of those people around than the people who want nuance and fine detail. And that's why my TV career is doing what it's doing. The Sunday Times, I want to tell the truth, says Liz Truss. I don't think anyone's stopping you. Is anyone stopping you?

[00:02:25] I don't think anyone's stopping you. King will follow Burnham by addressing slavery with sincere sorrow. That's an interesting line, isn't it? Is expressing sincere sorrow the same as being sorry? Because if it is, I'm raising my game in rows at home. Oh, you've not even said you're sorry. I said I had sorrow. What more do you need? Britain's future lies inside the EU, says Rachel Reeves. Inside implies joining, doesn't it? I don't think we want it.

[00:02:55] Do we want to have to go through all that? If we now have the ability to vote in a government that aligns as much as you like with the EU, we could be a line maxing, as the young people say. And I'm sure we get lots of young people listening to this. We could have all of the things. That's possible without having to go through a referendum. Because no one wants all of that. It just absolutely nixed politics for at least five years. No one gets the job of prime minister and thinks, I'll tell you who I'd like a premiership like. That there, Theresa May.

[00:03:25] I'd like one of them. Could I do that for a while? No. No. Front page of the Sunday Telegraph. He leaves £49 billion black hole in finances. But this is according to Kemi Badenock. So it's not even... Marking your own homework is bad, as the cliché that we have in politics. But the opposition marking the government's homework, you've got to expect a little bit of spin in there. So I don't know. No one knows what the size of the black hole is. It's more upsetting that there is one.

[00:03:53] Burnham slave trade pledge sparks new row reparations for King. It's the mail, but also on the front page. I want to talk about this. BBC's Laura Koonsberg. The moment I feared Minister and his partner wanted a threesome. She's not named the Minister or the partner, because that would do it as well. She turned up to interview and she thought, hang on, this couple want a threesome. And she didn't go through with it. And I just think, you wouldn't have got this back in the old days. Russell Harty would have been all in for it.

[00:04:23] He'd have been in like a rat down a tunnel, whatever the rats go down. That must be weird, go around to interview. Basically, she went to interview and the bloke was lying on the bed without his shirt on and the other half was there. And then I guess an interview carried on. Yeah, it's a bit of a key. I don't even like walking around with my shirt off when I'm just the only one in the house, in case somehow, magically, there's an absolute pervert of a neighbour who's got like a really good line of sight that I've not spotted. So look.

[00:04:51] Laura, you're fine if you pop around here. The mirror appalling. Experts warning as our probe reveals cosmetic surgery firm upselling risky operations abroad. I feel this one because I've had a risky operation abroad recently. It's the second operation I've had on me. I've had my eyes lasered like 10 years ago and then some hair put in this year. The next stop is the butt lift, isn't it? I've got to go get me one of those. I don't need turkey teeth. I've had them whitened. Oh my God. How am I not an absolute success on Instagram?

[00:05:21] I should look better than... For the money I've spent having stuff done to me, I should look better than this. PM, let's down the king over slavery apology. Same story on the Sunday Express. And support for return to EU grows after Burnham shift. But that's the Independent. It's not really a newspaper. It's just online. It's a blog. We've all got one of those. Them's your front pages. Let's get inside the news. Listen, I hate to start with the bad news. But Wes Streeting is in the news.

[00:05:50] Defence Secretary saying he's been stockpiling for weeks. And there's been a lot of talk about stockpiling. Are they doing it to keep us scared? Should we actually... I thought you should always have a bit of food in, Jim. I can't have too much food in there because I know what I'm like. If it's tasty, I will eat it. There's no way I could prepare for the oncoming apocalypse by having lots of chocolate bars in. They're gone. You know, when the alarm goes off, I was going to restock on those. But I suppose I'd have stored them as fat and they'd see me through the winter.

[00:06:20] Do you not think it is worrying, though, when the Defence Secretary has been stockpiling? If ever there's someone who knows whether we should or not, I hope some newspaper does an undercover investigation and finds out that Wes Streeting is invested in tinned food companies or something like that. Anyway, he just put all of his pension, he's moved it across to shares in a wind-up radio company. Anyway, I'd rather have that scam than the reality. Do you know what I mean? Do you remember when wind-up radio just used to be Noel Edmonds calling people up to get on their nerves?

[00:06:49] I miss those days. A quick hit on this politics news story. They've invented a computer game where you can play Kemi Badenock and go along and help shops and stuff. And it's... I guess they vibe-coded it on Claude. If you look at it, it's exactly how those games look. You kind of Atari ST era computer graphics and you can go along and do it. And they're not the first ones because Reform did one about boats or something. Can I just say, they have thoroughly nicked my idea. Obviously, they wouldn't have heard of my idea, but there you go.

[00:07:19] Because I vibe-coded a computer game... What was it called? Basically, it was trying to make... Oh, someone said this isn't the climate crisis, this is Climate Crisis 2.0. Which I said sounded like it was brought out on the Amiga in the 90s. And so I made one, Climate Crisis 2.0. So if you go on my app, MrStevenAllenX... I think that's the only place I posted it. I might have put it on threads as well. I think you can go and find it and play it.

[00:07:45] I will say, be careful when you go onto one of the lower platforms on one of the levels. It crashes. It's not my fault. I vibe-coded it. Maybe I had the wrong vibes. People have said that about me before. Britain. Britain. Britain. Is going into space. Space. Britain's to launch the first space litter-picking mission. How British is that? British scientists will launch a spacecraft with robotic claws that can capture dead satellites. Because there's too much rubbish up there, apparently.

[00:08:14] It's bad for you. It's okay down here because it'll all burn up before it comes in. But if you try and launch a satellite, it'll get smacked by some of the litter that's been left. And Britain are going to go and tidy it up. They're going to send up Kim and Maggie. I've not read the full details. Maybe they're not sending up Kim and Maggie. Are they both with us? If anything, they're making it worse. They're putting more. But anyway. No, you just think... Yeah, good. I know. But it is just sometimes just... We're so unsexy. Everyone else gets to launch... Oh, we're off to the dark side of the moon. What are you doing, Britain?

[00:08:44] We're going to go up there and tidy this up. Looks a bit of a mess. We'll take a litter... We'll take a bin bag of a weekend. Make it all look better. In space, no one can hear you say, Oh, look at the state of this place. And that's Britain. I must admit, I have no idea what happened in Traitors because I didn't watch the whole thing. And you can get away with not watching it. It's amazing. It feels like people think you can't, but you can. But I didn't realise that... We've got here. Losing traitor Maya Jammer turns herself into a winner

[00:09:13] as she's transformed into Olympic hero pal Samoa Farrah. Because she dressed... You know, celebrities always do a lot of dressing up for Halloween. When we went at trickle treating, I dressed up as a zombie. Because I had a mask. Well, because I was tired. Because I'm a parent of young children. But I just had a mask of a zombie. I've worn it on telly before. And I put it on the back of my head because I couldn't even be bothered to put it on the front. So people say, What are you dressed as? I just turn around. And we were waiting for the kids to get some sweets in one thing. So mum comes up and says,

[00:09:43] Excuse me. Excuse me. Your mask. Is that Bob from Beetlejuice? Beetlejuice. And I said, I don't know. I can't see it. What a stupid question. Is that the dumbest question I've ever been asked? So yeah. Halloween weekend. Over and done with. There's a thing in the news saying, Don't leave your pumpkins to rot outside. It will attract rats. Which is true. And good it's in the newspaper. Also sounds like the kind of thing your mum would say. Oh, don't do it. Oh, don't leave your pumpkins out. Oh, no. You'll attract rats.

[00:10:13] So, take them in. There you go. That's that news story, don't we? There's another one on the same page saying, A mum says that she was forced to tear down her Halloween decorations because of complaints. She has what she called a bin bag decoration. And I thought, How do you decorate things in bin bags? What, you look like you're moving house? I mean, it is stressful, but it's hardly the kind of terror they talk about at Halloween. No, no, no. She'd filled them so they looked like body bags.

[00:10:44] Now, I saw one of these. This is not from this story. I don't know where she is, actually. Oh, she was in Greater Manchester. No, no, where I live. There's a, on one of the shopping bits, there's a dentist place, but not like a normal dentist, like a fancy, you know, get yourself turkey teeth dentist place. And what they'd done is, they'd done a decoration. All the shops on the high street have decorations, basically. The funeral parlor doesn't even have to try. But the rest of them, they've all got it. And then this tooth place had body bags. Everyone else was just, here's a pumpkin,

[00:11:14] here's a little pretend ghostie. And they've gone for, here's what looks like we're getting rid of a body. If you do dental procedures on people, don't imply that they could go so badly that you need to get the bin bags out. You fool. Everyone's a fool today. You know, we talked about stockpiling earlier. There's a story that prison chiefs are worried about overcrowding of their cupboards because prisons were told to stockpile tin food and now they think they might be bursting with tin goods. Which makes sense, I suppose. If suddenly food supplies are cut off,

[00:11:43] they need food too. So they'll store them. And I suppose they've already got overcrowding, so it's not like you could say, turn one of your cells into a larder. You can't do that. They're full. They're trying to turn their larder into a cell. But, not the car. That would be a cruel and unusual punishment. But, it's good to know, isn't it? Like, if things do go wrong in society, you know where there's loads of food. But it's on the other side of all of those prisoners. This is turning into a plot of an actual good film. You know,

[00:12:12] they say the curse of living in interesting times. The modern day curse could be, may you live in times where that plot would make quite a good thing that goes straight into Netflix. Sorry, just coming back with another hit on that story. Prisoners, no, I can't believe I didn't think of it. They're overcrowded and they've got lots of tinned foods crammed in there. Oh, the light sardines. I hope they do anyway because they've got loads. Shut your face. Batman. I'm Batman. Is in the news. A Batmobile, well,

[00:12:42] the Batmobile that was driven, I suppose it is a Batmobile. I bet they made more than one. For the 1992 movie, Batman Returns. So, it's not like the amazing Michael Keaton one. But, Batman Returns, it was alright, wasn't it? It was alright. That's the Danny DeVito one, isn't it? That's the, um, the, uh, Michelle Pfeiffer, Catwoman. It was alright, wasn't it? They kind of went downhill, didn't they? The Valkyma one, and by the time you get to George Clooney, you keep your car, keep your stupid car. But it's going on sale, you could drive the Batmobile

[00:13:12] for five million pounds. And it's the first thing where I actually thought, you know what, if I were ridiculously rich, I probably would. Normally I'm not into all of this memorabilia tat, but I did love those films. If I could get the original, you know, the original Tim Burton one with Jack Nicholson as the Joker, oof, I wouldn't drive it. Not because it's five million pounds and I'd be worried about scratching it. Just imagine how stupid I'd look doing several attempts at that reverse park in the Batmobile.

[00:13:41] I'd never show my face in public again, which is good because I wouldn't be showing my face. I'd have the cowl on. Ah, actually that's a good plan. Workers are saying bar humbug to the office Christmas party. According to this newspaper, they would rather the bosses give them shopping vouchers instead. The basic thrust is they'd rather get additional money or stuff they could spend than have any extra time spent with the people they work. You know, when you frame it like that, it's good. Office parties are a weird thing. I know there's that whole story which I've debated on when I was on talk radio the other day.

[00:14:09] We're talking about the banter ban, which then means any office party, the employer is responsible to make sure that people don't get a bit flirty with each other. And obviously, the unwritten caveat in there is, I mean, if it's reciprocated, you get on in that stationary cupboard, which feels like, it should be, no, it should be a ban for all. It shouldn't just be a ban for us ugly people. The attractive hunks should also not be allowed to stare. That wasn't where I was going to take this story. This story was going to be about

[00:14:39] how I don't even like Secret Santas. I've not worked with a lot of people. I don't interact well with other humans. But back when I did, there was a radio station where they were like, should we do Secret Santa this year? And I was new, I was in my 20s or whatever. I was like, yeah, sure. Spending budget of, I don't know what it was, five, ten quid. So I went out and bought like, quite a nice gift, a gift that I thought someone would use, like for their office. I knew they had an office. And then on big reveal day, that got opened, it was like, oh, okay, why is no one, thank heavens this is Secret

[00:15:08] because that's a, that's an emotional slap in the face. And then it transpired that everyone else had bought basically sex toys. That, has that stopped? Because I don't work in offices now. But that struck me as weird. It's like, Secret Santa, what you got for Jillian accounts? This thing, oh, you little cheeky monkey, where am I going to put that? Don't ask Jill. What? How is that? How have we gone from, and hopefully we have gone from it, a time when Secret Santa is just straight down Ann Summers? What can you,

[00:15:37] what would be the most embarrassing thing you could get for Sandra? This thing with a fist on the, that, right? Two, you better not look suggestively at a Christmas party, otherwise the employer is going to call you in. I think there was a happy medium and I think I thoroughly missed it. Boffins have, you can tell I'm reading this from the star, boffins have created the world's first touchscreen built directly into clothing. Don't do that. Allowing wearers to watch videos and use apps on the go, but on clothing,

[00:16:07] you idiots. Despite containing thousands of tiny electronic components, the material remains flexible, breathable, oh, well, it's got to be breathable. Oh, I'm up on the malls quite often. And washable. They say, the researcher, lead researcher in Singapore said it could ultimately enable entire new applications that do not yet exist. Yeah, it could also mean you're going to get in trouble. I thought we were living in a time where you were trying to get people not to stare at other people's backsides on the tube, sitting on the central line. What are you looking at? No, I was just watching,

[00:16:36] you got an advert on the back there. I was trying to watch a YouTube video. Get off me bottom. Sorry, I was just trying to press skip. Why would you have touch screen? You know what I mean? This is a groper's charter. Tell me more. No, don't tell me more. I think it's a bad idea. Sad story. In fact, I think it's front page. It's not any of the ones I've got, actually, about, I think it's front page of the mirror. I didn't get that one today. People going to being sold,

[00:17:05] we talked about it earlier, people being sold cosmetic procedures. Inside a newspaper, there's one here about a bum lift, which every time they talk about that, I always think, it does sound a little bit like you've had. Like a car lift is installed in your house so you can move the cars around in your private garage. A bum lift seems like, I'm not using peristalsis to get this poo out. No. What am I, a caveman? I've had a bum lift installed. A woman was left with a lopsided bum after a botched Brazilian butt lift.

[00:17:35] Jessica Leon, she, lean, do you know what I mean? The one letter away from that being a good surname for this story. 30, found herself with one buttock bigger than the other. I feel sorry for her. There's a picture of her, but just a picture of her face. I'm not really sure what this newspaper thought it was doing. No one cares about that. There is a picture of her lopsided bottom, but it doesn't say if it's hers. Do you know what? Look, that is kind of, just stand side on. This is one of those where,

[00:18:03] if you suggestively just stand side on, hip like that, I don't know why I'm doing it, you can't see me. That would balance it out, wouldn't it? I have the bigger one in the background, of course. You're not trying to scare people. Just, hi, how are you doing? It's all right. Just follow people around the room like that. I think I've solved it. I love this story. The secret to selling your house. What is it? Baking, putting coffee on, or having baking bread, or the smell of vanilla. People say a scent will make a difference. Paint everything white, so it looks like you, one of them there, racist. No, paint everything white, so, I don't know,

[00:18:32] so it looks like your house is a blank canvas onto which people can project their own ideas of a house. All of this nonsense. Don't get Phil and Kirsty around. They'll wreck the place, right? The key to selling your house, parking a flash motor on the driveway, or I guess just outside. And you can rent flash motors. It's kind of not a bad idea, is it? I don't know how much it costs to get a really expensive, to rent a really expensive thing, or just to pretend you're buying one and return it. I'm not sure what the policy is. Have one of those out front, and you can make a fortune. In fact,

[00:19:00] if there's not a service that rents out fancy cars to people trying to sell houses, we could set one up. You'd have to go to ko-fi.com forward slash Mr. Stephen Allen and give me money, but if you give me enough, I'll buy a flash car, probably that Batmobile. Imagine that. Trying to sell your house, you go around, oh, nice car out the front, what is it? It's the 1989 Batmobile. Oh, the one from, from Batman, the Tim Burton film with Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Nah. Sod your house.

[00:19:30] Oh, I've got the George Clooney one packed, so I'll never shift this thing. Well, that's just about all we've got time for. Thank you to listening to today's special rare Sunday podcast. I'm glad we did one though. We'll try and plot one out tomorrow. I can't because the family situation means I am face deep in parenthood. So, Tuesday, definitely, I've got some time to try and knock one of these bad boys out. Get subscribed. Click like if that is a thing that's available near you. Even if it's not for me, just do it.

[00:19:58] Even if you're not liking this podcast, the next time you see a like button, just press the darn thing. What does it cost you? Let's make the world a better place. Pay it forwards. Obviously, I'm not doing it. I don't want to be shut up. I don't want people to find out the kind of stuff I'm into. Meanwhile, subscribe. Did I say that one? I think I did. Track me down on social media at Mr. Stephen Allen for stuff on Twitter. I'll have a substack coming out tonight. No idea what story I'll write up, but hopefully that'll be fun as well. Substack.com forward slash at Mr. Stephen Allen. And until next time,

[00:20:28] thank you for listening to Stephen Allen almost daily. This podcast is part of Podomity, the UK's podcast comedy network. Why not laugh at what else we've got? Visit Podomity.com