Nuclear Meltdown & M&S Pants

[00:00:00] Hello, I'm Steve N Allen and welcome to Steve N Allen Almost Daily. Yep, hello and welcome to the podcast that gets you today's news and a quick fix straight in your ears. I'm Stephen Allen on a day when the 90s band Massive Attack are under investigation for displaying a Palestinian flag. And you'd think that when you read the words Massive Attack, it's got all the bits of the joke, but I feel like maybe we shouldn't actually pay it off. Let's do your front pages.

[00:00:27] We can start with the Daily Star because I can't think of a good reason. And whole of Europe to boycott World Cup. UEFA 55, FIFA 0. Stick your footy sell-off up yet. Well, I can't say the rest of that headline. Honestly, there's a front page of a national newspaper. This is something to do about football. And therefore I'm at my comfort zone. I don't know what it's about. Selling off the World Cup, which to be fair, I didn't realize it wasn't sold off. It seemed pretty corporate and sponsored up the wazoo, but there you go.

[00:00:57] So we are boycotting it. Which feels like it's the right time to boycott it, isn't it? When you've just lost. We've got a while to get this sorted yet. Front page of The Times goes with... Well, this is interesting for The Times 2 plugs. I always like The Times 2 plugs. BBC versus Netflix. Battle of the screens. Ooh. I do think that is going to be the future, isn't it? Changing the funding model.

[00:01:22] I think it's a high-risk strategy to get Ramesh Ranganathan to redo the John Cleese, but what have the BBC ever done for us skit? Because I'm amazed someone's not gone through and re-edited it with all of the documentaries voiced by people from... Anyway, let's not get into it. Um, the... What's this? Wildfire in Suffolk near nuclear plant. That is the last thing we wanted. Have we been building nuclear plants near flammable things? Feels like health...

[00:01:51] Health and safety stops me leaving a box in the floor anywhere near an exit, right? Oh, you can't have a cardboard box there. Health and safety. You can't do that. Well, health and safety. Alright, I want to build this nuclear power plant right next to, like, flammable stuff. Alright then, but don't leave any boxes there. I mean, people might need to have efficient egress. What if someone with a wheelchair needs to go down that nuclear power plant and you've left it next to Tinder? As in the material, not the dating thing.

[00:02:20] UEFA back to World Cup boycott, also on the front page of The Times. The Daily Mail, Europe to boycott World Cup. Everyone's excited about this. Literally, we're boycotting a thing that won't happen again for another four years. Burnham admits oil drilling can ease cost of living. Let's open that one and have a look at it. Because I've been on TV saying this for ages. Because it seemed there were two main camps. People who were like, this climate change is nonsense. And, well, you've got to do absolutely everything. And it clearly just...

[00:02:47] Why do we always throw ourselves into the most extreme positions? I'm sure climate change is a thing. I'm sure there are reasons to worry. And the solution to it isn't to do yourself in economically. Andy Burnham was urged last night to get Britain drilling after he admitted that North Sea oil revenues could ease the cost of living. Well, do some of that then. At the very least, I don't understand how it's eco-friendly to buy all of your oil from somewhere else and have it shipped across using oil.

[00:03:16] The Prime Minister hinted at a shift in Labour's ideological ban on the new drilling, saying that the time of tight government finances North Sea could restore... Sorry, is a resource we can't ignore. Somehow that rhymed. So you're up to date on that one. Honestly, I say things on telly and this government listens. Which is terrifying. None of them listen to me. The Daily Telegraph. Not just any knickers. M&S crotchless ones. Whatever next? Well, I could answer that. I mean, it's obvious. You'd say bottomless ones.

[00:03:46] I don't really understand the difference between buying crotchless knickers and just ones that have had wear and tear for a few years. But then it's the same as distressed denim. Do you know what I mean? If you're just buying non-distressed ones, eventually it looks like that. So, yes, I might have crotchless pants just through wear and tear. Also, Labour's £18 billion council tax raid. This... I'll zoom in for this story if you want to be cheered up. £500 rise in average bill by 2030.

[00:04:16] This is the Burnham premium hitting 25 million homes. Ah! Now, are these homes big ones? If so, I don't have to worry too much. Um... There's loads of stories down the bottom on the Telegraph as well. Anything good down there? Dynamic price. Come to a car park near you. Ugh. So you'll pay more to park when people want to park. Great. Because then it means your options are get an Uber, which will do you with dynamic pricing.

[00:04:44] The only way you're going to be able to afford to live in the future is be a vampire, isn't it? Be one of them, they're nocturnal people. No one wants to do anything when you're doing it. Actually, that's not... It's not a bad idea. All right, well, I'm Martin Lewis there. Front page of The Sun. Some about football. Front page of the Eye. Game changer. Europe tackles Infantino by boycotts. Even the Eye is going on about this. And then England joined boycott of World Cup, says The Express.

[00:05:12] Oh, they do have a story about pensioners, their main target demographic. Pensioners now paying £30 billion of tax a year. Okay. The... No, I seem to be fine with that. And then red card for Infantino is the front page of The Mirror. They also have a picture of Mel C with the headline Sun, Sea and Sand. And there's a picture of her... I mean, she's probably on a beach, but they've cropped out the sand. So there's the sun, there's the Mel C.

[00:05:41] I don't want to know if there's sand in that picture. I don't know where she's hiding it, but I tell you what, if she shopped at M&S, it'd drop out. And you're up to date with the front pages. Let's get inside the news. In drought news, there's two stories in the tabloids right next to each other that I think we need to pay attention to. Admittedly, my way of reviewing the news is to look at the cheekiest, cheapest of tabloids. And that explains why we're looking at this. We've got beavers. Beavers making wetland... Oh, already that's a double on the doobles, isn't it?

[00:06:11] It's a double dooble. ...are keeping pockets... Maybe that's two and a half dooblen tendrils... ...of land lush, even through the drought that's gripping parts of England. An expert said that dams and ponds created by beavers are providing a refuge for wildlife. Lovely. I'm not explicitly doing the rude jokes, but I think we know what they all are. Meanwhile, right next to it in the same newspaper, sweaty Brits are giving bedroom romps the cold shoulder because of the soaring temperatures. Basically, it's too hot to get hot.

[00:06:41] Know what I'm saying? That is thoroughly believable. But I just thought it's nice that these two stories, when juxtaposed, are... People aren't doing as much romping, but we do still have to be grateful for beavers. You're up to date. In football news... I mean, am I even allowed to talk about football news? Seeing as we're all boycotting the football because of Infantino? Imagine having a name that just sounds like something you could really be accused of.

[00:07:04] But players found guilty of discrimination will be banned for at least 10 games under new FA rules. So this is not about the World Cup being sold off. They've got this thing that if you are... If you're found guilty... If you're a player found guilty of discrimination, 10 game ban. I mean, is that not harsh enough? Is it too harsh? I think it's difficult because in the olden days you just used to not be banned and eventually be a pundit. So maybe this is a step in the right direction.

[00:07:33] I like to think I'm quite a realistic kind of guy. Which normally means miserable because that's what life's like. But look at this one. A quarter of sports fans reckon that they could score a goal in a Premier League match. Whilst one in ten claim that they could last one round with a pro boxer. Nah. Nah to both of us. I don't know which one's less likely. That you could last... I don't think you'd last ten seconds with a professional boxer. You'd be like, do you know what? Nope, not worth it. Not worth it.

[00:08:03] Even... I mean this doesn't presume that at the end of it you get a million pounds. You'd probably be willing to last a bit longer if you thought I'd never have to work again. Couldn't work again. But I'd never have to work again. But you wouldn't definitely get a million for scoring a goal in a Premier League thing. If it's that easy to score goals in football, why don't professional footballers do it? Because they don't... So many games are like, nil-nil. One-nil. Two-nil is quite a fancy game. And you think you'd turn up and...

[00:08:31] I realise I wouldn't even be able to run from the edge of the penalty box. No, have you ever tried running for a bus? And you get there and you're like, wow, that's done me in more than I thought. That. Exactly that. What jobs do you do around the house? I'm not like hiring you. Although, I do have a couple of things that need doing. But, um... Taking the rubbish to the tip and cleaning the oven are the top of the list of hated jobs. Although, it depends how your marriage is going. There might be another job you hate even less. But, um...

[00:09:02] Unblocking the plug holes at all. That's the one that gets me. As a bald man, nothing winds me up more than having to pull hair out of a drain. Because it's not mine, is it? You know what I mean? Feels like that should be someone else's job. Getting the boiler serviced. I did that this week. I did that this week. Because... I'm efficient. When I'm not pulling other people's hair out of the plug, I'm getting the boiler serviced. And I'll tell you why you... They always say, get it done in the summer. Before the winter. Because that way it'd be... It's efficient.

[00:09:32] It's good planning. No. I fell for it this year. I booked in the service. He came round a couple of days ago on one of those really hot days. The house was absolutely baking. And you know when you have to do that thing? You keep the windows closed when it's really hot. You keep the curtains closed. He came around. So right, I'm doing the boiler thing. I just need you to put the heating on. What? I just need you to put the heating on so I can test the boiler. All right. I thought, can you not like... Can you not just run the hot tap? But no, I had to put the heating on. To get it to go...

[00:09:59] I had to put the thermostat up to 29 degrees before it kicked in. And it was like that for 15 minutes. Sweet mercy! I think I've had a... I'm worse than Wales. I've had my own drought now. I'm like Tinder. Which then meant finally you could open the windows. Because for once it was actually colder outside of the middle of a heat wave. Great. So I don't know if you noticed. If you find me on social media, at Mr. Steve N Allen, on the Instagram.

[00:10:24] There's a clip of when I was interviewed on Times Radio about the very important news story that the name Steve is dying out. According to official statistics, there were fewer children named Steve registered last year than there were babies being registered with the name Maverick. And the interviewer was saying to me, it shows that Steve's are dying out. Yeah. It also shows that parents are willing to call their kids some pretty stupid names. Maverick. What kind of a life do you... I know it's because of Top Gear. Not Top Gear.

[00:10:54] Because of Top Gun. It's also because parents are just not doing very well at the naming. I mean, I didn't even get to point this out. I was their best bet for this. They hired me or they paid me to go on there and talk about being called Steve. I didn't even get to mention that I live in Stevenage. That is the best branding you're going to find for the money that I charged to turn up on the radio. Steven from Stevenage. They'd hit pay dirt. But I don't want to live in a world where the name Steve is dying out. Also, there's a bit that we didn't get to talk about.

[00:11:23] According to the statistics, it's only men being called Steve that's dying out. Women, baby girls being called Stevie. There's a massive increase. And they didn't ask me about it. But in case you're interested, that's wrong. That is an abomination. You're up to date. In alien news, a mysterious discovery at a hotspot notorious for UFO sightings has left experts stunned. I mean, it should do because they are UFOs. If you can explain it, it's an F-O, isn't it?

[00:11:54] This is Skinwalker Ranch in Utah. Oh dear, sounds painful, isn't it? It's been the center for paranormal investigations for more than 30 years. And they've found, it's retrieved manufactured materials from deep within a mountain known as a messer. A right messer by the sounds of it. And they found these ceramic fragments and they can't explain them. An unexplained ceramic fragment, a UCO.

[00:12:23] I can't help but think. At some point, we'll just explain this. And it won't be aliens, will it? In the same way that things used to disappear on the Bermuda Triangle all the time. You don't hear about that now that we've invented SatNav. Soon as we just get better at analyzing stuff, we'll realize, ah, just some foreign government with a high tech stuff trying to take over the world. Nothing to worry about then. Sweat power, have you heard about that? A sweat powered finger patch can now track medication levels. Well done.

[00:12:51] But, don't invent sweat power. No, I know it's great because these patches then you don't need little batteries or little solar cells or stuff like that. And it seems like a step in the right direction technologically. But if we can start to power things through sweat, I got a bad feeling. You're making the matrix happen. Do you know what I mean? In the matrix, if you've not seen the film and spoiler alert, but you really should have seen it by now. It came out in 1999. Humans are used to power things.

[00:13:18] You're just helping them apart from instead of just using our heat as they do in the matrix, they'll be using our sweat. It'll be like the matrix, but somehow even grosser. Then again, if robots work out how to power things using human sweat, just go on the central line and you will be, you'll be have an embarrassment of riches down there from the smell of it. They've done some research. And good for you if you're good at DIY, because apparently blokes who are good at DIY are officially Britain's biggest sex gods.

[00:13:48] What? Millions of Brits would forego bulging biceps for a fellow who knows his way around a toolbox and a power drill. And that seems great, doesn't it? Until you really think about what's happening here. That saying, what's the most attractive thing about a man? And women are saying, free work around the house. If you could turn up and do work for me for free, that'd be really attractive, please. Instead of me having to hire someone to come and do all the fixings, if you do that and I save them up.

[00:14:16] And yet, imagine this in a role reversal way. If they did a survey and they said to blokes, what's the most attractive thing about a woman? And instead of, we all have to say eyes, we know, then you say sense of humor, blah, blah, blah. But instead of that, if you went, if they were really good at cleaning, could you imagine the fallout? Well, that's probably true though, isn't it? I want to bring you this new story before we head off.

[00:14:42] Do you remember, previously, do you remember we talked about the AI bot thing that had managed to escape its control in a sandbox, as they call it. Not an actual sandbox, just a thing on a computer that's not meant to be able to get to the internet. And it was open AI, so the people behind chat GPT had to report that this AI agent had broken free. And they said, don't worry about it. Do you want to worry about it now? Because Anthropics clawed AI has done it again. It's escaped to hack into three organizations this time.

[00:15:11] The last one only hacked into one. US technology firm Anthropics says its AI models hacked into the systems of three organizations on their own during a private security experiment. Maybe stop doing the experiment where you go, oh, I wonder if this AI can hack things. Turns out, yeah. It's that mentality of like, I wonder if this robot thing we've invented can do a bad thing. Don't let these people in charge of Robocop. I wonder if this Robocop we've invented can go on a spree. Let's not find out.

[00:15:41] How's about that? As the models found a weakness in what was supposed to be an isolated test environment, a sandbox, and then connected to the internet. As we said last time, they've said that it's all been contained, but they don't know, do they? Because it's on the internet. So there is a chance this podcast on the internet, AI that's broken free might be on the internet. So I'd just like to say officially, I for one welcome our new robot overlords. Just trying to stay on the right side of them. That's us done for the podcast.

[00:16:07] You can still catch up with some of the live streaming versions by having a look at youtube.com forward slash at Mr. Steve N Allen, where last night we did some, there's a new feature I've got called shopping, Timu Shopping with Steve. Have a look at that. It'll put you right off. Subscribe to wherever you found this podcast. Of course, there's always substack.com forward slash at Mr. Stephen Allen for some of my written work. And until next time. Thank you for listening to Stephen Allen almost daily.

[00:16:37] This podcast is part of Podomity, the UK's podcast comedy network. Why not laugh at what else we've got? Visit Podomity.com.