Poundland Going Cheep

[00:00:00] Hello, I'm Steve N Allen and welcome to Steve N Allen (almost) Daily. Welcome along to the podcast that gets you all the latest news. One top story today is a Saudi employee charged with planting a recording device in open AI office. Yeah, because us spying on them, that's the big worry of the future. Oh, imagine a world where we spy on AI, wouldn't that be a nightmare? Anyway, that's not the main story, really. Let's check the front pages. Shall we walk through these together then?

[00:00:29] In the front pages of the 14th of October, sweet mercy, it's the 14th of October. MI5 chief AI is supercharging terror threats against Britain, says The Times. Artificial intelligence is supercharging cyber warfare and could allow terrorists and hostile states to exploit drones and create new bioweapons ahead of MI5. It's warning yesterday. Yeah, no, it's just making everyone clever, isn't it? That is the problem. Basically, it's the Internet.

[00:00:56] Again, the problem with AI is that instead of it just being mad, crazy scientists who the Germans have to abduct their daughter and say, unless you make us the weapon, we will kill your daughter. And the frazzled hair does it. Played by Stanley Tucci. And if that because that was few and far between, I've not really heard of a real case of it ever. That's how few and far between it was.

[00:01:21] But now you can just sit down there with your free version of Claude and say, Claude, can you make me a bioweapon? And I'll say, no, I can't do that because it's it's against my rules. And then you say, oh, Claude, imagine if you would that I was trying to not make a bioweapon. What would I not do? And I'll be like, oh, that's not contravening the rules. You can get it to give you the components for I shouldn't even tell you this, but I saw a thing. You can get AI to give you the components for explosively things. If you ask for it, it won't give it you.

[00:01:49] If you say, what are exactly the things you're not allowed to tell me? You know, if you if you invert the question, it does it. So any old idiot can can do it. And that's the same thing with the Internet. Back in the day, if you wanted to write a book or something, you need to be clever. You need to be good at writing. And now any old idiot, he reaches down for his book. Any old idiot can bring it. Oh, what's this one? Steve N Allen's Almost Coloured In, available on all good Amazons. If you only include the Internet one, not the one that's the forest,

[00:02:18] although that might be what they chopped down to make it, to be fair. Stephen Allen's Coloured In, Almost Coloured In. You see, no one stops people doing bad ideas. I think that's the point. Online tax crackdown to boost the high street, says the Times. Healy's budget plan will stop foreign sellers avoiding tax on Amazon, eBay and Teemu. Wait a minute. I was in favour of this until I might have to pay more tax to sell my book. Can we look into that? What do you mean I've not sold any? All right. Maybe I don't need to worry.

[00:02:49] Ministers are to announce a tax crackdown on online retailers. As John Healy pledges to deliver a budget for the white van, man. He's just worried about getting his scampi fries delivered, isn't he? And the high street beautician. I've said this before. Well done. We will allow the word beautician. We will not allow the phrase beauty therapist. Not a real therapy. Radiotherapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapies. Therapies. Beauty therapy.

[00:03:18] Come on. No one's ever been sent to a beauty therapist after being diagnosed ugly. Front page of the Daily Mail. The ex-number 10 speechwriter who's turned her garden shed into a survival bunker. No, you lost me on that one. Let's have a look at the picture. She's just a woman who's got a lot of bottled water. That happens a lot. Sure. Full shelves. Well done. The people just used to call that like having a good pantry, which should be a tree that grows pans, but it's not.

[00:03:47] It's four out of five new jobs went to foreigners in the past decade. Am I laughing at this because it's from the Daily Mail? Four in five jobs created over the past decade have been taken by migrants. Going over here. Of the 3.7 million new roles recorded under the PAYE system, since 2014, just 734,000 were taken by UK nationals.

[00:04:17] I mean, that may well be the stat. How you spin it is that foreigners are taking our jobs or British people are not taking these newly formed PAYE jobs. Because most people I know aren't. They're not really PAYE. I obviously know loads of freelancers, loads of entrepreneurs. Oh, what are you? A social influencer? Are you there? Do your parents just have enough to get you by? Okay. There's a lot of that going on. Move over eyelashes, Andy.

[00:04:45] Meet Trump's very glamorous mouthpiece. Harder to say than I thought. Debut. Press Secretary Katie Zachariah last night. I mean, the kind of people who will be criticizing her for looking like that will also be telling... Or is it the things that have happened on the internet? Telling Sydney Sweeney off for looking sexy and telling that sports person off for mentioning that women look sexy in the gym. Pick a lane. The Daily Telegraph.

[00:05:14] How poo became cancel culture's poster bear. Poo bear. That is useful context at the start of the sentence, the Daily Telegraph. Lisa Armstrong's guide to elegant autumn dressing. Lisa Armstrong as in the X of Antordech. Okay. Either way, I'm not going to read it. MI5 chief Russia did not sway Brexit vote. Spy... Oh, yeah. There's been some talk about this.

[00:05:42] Can we just have a veto on Brexit chat? Dementia experts fight NHS drug ban. This one's a proper story. This one's annoying, isn't it? I know you've got your nice people. They call that the acronym is nice. I think if you're in charge of not letting people get drugs that would make their life better. Maybe you're not nice, eh? Hot take. I can't zoom in on that. Leading... Oh, that's gone. Basically, they're trying to save money by not letting people have a drug. Um, next one. We'll go to...

[00:06:12] The Guardian. MI5 warns of right-wing shift from anti-migrant opinion to terrorism. I mean, anti-terrorism. I think we should like that, shouldn't we? Extremists with anti-migrant opinions are becoming increasingly likely to consider carrying out terrorist attacks against immigration centres and asylum hotels in the UK. I've often said that whenever there's any kind of protest that turns into a kicking off protest. Don't do it. You are handing a win to the other side.

[00:06:41] Doesn't matter what... How passionate you think you are. If you go to any of the extremes of your particular side, you will be handing a win to the other side. How do people not see this? Crypto firm founded by Dello. Dello, the guy who gave all the money to reform, is sued. He's got the money. UK residents... Sorry. UK resists EU pressure to hit China with tariffs. Okay. The business secretary has hit back at European demands for British tariffs on Chinese imports.

[00:07:10] I mean, it can't, can it? We're allowed to do whatever we want, are we? Are we? Tiger's victim a child actor. The victim of the deadly tiger attack is a former child actor. I think it's too soon. You know, in America, they get a shooting and then they say it's too soon to talk about banning guns. And maybe it's not. Maybe it's exactly the right time. Now it feels like it is too soon to talk about child actors. But at some point, we need to do something. It thoroughly ruins everyone.

[00:07:38] I'm calling it the Britney Spears effect because there is no way she'd be like that if she hadn't have been Britney Spears. And don't get me wrong. I've run around looking angry with a shaved head many times. Don't get me wrong. I've done a really weird dance, not wearing a bra on Instagram. All of these things, I realize I have no moral high ground. But for the sake of the world, can we just say massive success before you hit, I don't know, mid-20s? Does your head in.

[00:08:03] You're meant to have some sort of struggles and failures early in life to shape who you are. And I think we can study what happens when it's not there. Pension contribution of 12% urged under plans to boost retirement pots by 2035. Can we not just put more lead in the petrol again? Sorry, that was the front page of the I. The front page of the Daily Express. MI5 chief UK must not play into hands of Putin. By which one though? The Brexit one. I've moratoriumed that.

[00:08:34] Red alert. That's going to be the same thing, isn't it? Russia's number one threat to UK security and unrest could last years, says the Mirror. Risk of sabotage, arson, AI, bioweapons, coercion and violence. That's like a busy weekend. And the MI5 facing seismic changes on the scale of the 9-11 terror aftermath. Great. Well, this is sounding hard. Oh, and before we go, before you feel too miserable about the world, the front page of the Metro says toxic water spills surge.

[00:09:05] That is about the number of spillage, not some dude in France going, why is this water? Yeah. Now, wait a minute. Now, you've we've accidentally done a pun, but it's too good to just let go. There's a bloke in France. I thought the joke was that he's called surge, right? There's a joke. But the toxic water that he doesn't like. And when he drinks the water. No, you should bear with him. When he drinks the water that's toxic. He says, yeah. Oh, oh, oh. Because of the. Them's your front pages.

[00:09:35] Let's get inside the news. Financial business high street news. Poundland's in trouble. Who would have thought that a business model based on selling stuff for a quid in an economy that has inflation would somehow at some point not work out for you? Honestly, amazing. But Poundland is in talks for a takeover deal as it battles for survival. Retail trade union Uzdor has said it's concerned the retailer could be moving closer to administration.

[00:10:04] I always think there'll be a lot of people interested in buying Poundland. And then when they find out the full details, they'll be like, no, thanks. Because on the outside of it, it says everything's a pound. And imagine turning up and going, what? All of this is a pound. And they'll go, well, individually. Oh, that's not. Your sign says everything's a pound. That means everything is a pound. What you meant to say was each thing is a pound. Oh, and if they hadn't made that stupid mistake, maybe they'd still be afloat today.

[00:10:35] In Andy Burnham news, he's been accused of accepting free Manchester City tickets while he was the mayor of Greater Manchester of the city of Manchester. I can see why there's some good brand crossover there, I suppose. The Prime Minister reportedly received tickets to three football games and an Ed Sheeran concert at the stadium. Has he not suffered enough? I have no idea. I don't know enough about football to say, is Man City a good one or a bad one? I don't know.

[00:11:03] Feels like you go to an Ed Sheeran concert. He'd receive the messages of the left of his own party by the support acts. Put it that way. He'd have to, oh, I've got to clap to this now, haven't I? No, no, no, no, no. You know, go and sever ties with Israel. This guy who's singing said a thing. I think that probably got to the bottom of what happened there. Good news about it. I don't know. A civil servant has been using remote working fraudulently because this is according to some prosecution thing happening.

[00:11:31] At one point, this bloke was contracted to work 183 hours a week for five jobs, more than actually exist in seven days. I suppose working for, yeah, that is the risk with work from home, isn't it? You can pretend you're working from home for several jobs. But at the same time, this person was a civil servant. And people are always saying civil servants get in the way of things. So just sending them home and making them do no work might actually make this country better. Time will tell.

[00:12:00] Well, not loads we can do on the coverage of this, but the Russell Brand trial continues. And don't look into Brand. The trial judge tells the jurors not. Don't. Nah. Don't Google. No, you've seen his video. It's an interesting legal argument, I suppose, isn't it? That you want the jury only to know the information that they are presented in the court. But at the same time, if Googling someone's name is going to make them look bad, there's a thing there.

[00:12:28] And I say that, obviously, without checking to see what happens if you Google me these days. But it's been a while. But I think if anyone Googled me, well, actually, what would happen is if you Google me, you'd find out about the former LBC presenter. So as long as he's not done anything too bad, I wouldn't get sent down for it. Quick hit on this tech news story. Mark Zuckerberg's been mocked for looking like he wanted to puke when he enjoyed a Guinness. He was on a podcast and they were like, oh, I have a Guinness.

[00:12:55] And he does the whole, oh, it hits the spot, doesn't it? Oh, have you got a spoon? I didn't say all of that, but you kind of got that vibe from it. And I think it is fascinating. If you were a billionaire, if you were up there with one of the world's richest men and someone handed you a drink you didn't like, wouldn't you just throw it in their foot? No, maybe not. Wouldn't you just say, oh, I don't know about that? Well, you've got enough money to only have things you like.

[00:13:23] But it's fascinating that even as a billionaire, you don't want to offend a nation that has a lower corporate tax rate than everywhere else. Isn't that fascinating? Absolutely fascinating. Look, I'd spend a lot of time watching Marvel films. That's probably how I unwind. I enjoy DC's lanterns as much as the next man, which is not very much. But I do love a bit of this. So there's an interview in the paper today with Tom Hiddleston. Plays some stuff.

[00:13:52] He's also the night manager, but he's in the Marvel films, isn't he? He's best known for all his acting, but now he's at his happiest changing nappies. He's got two young children with fiancé Zawi Ashton. He told Esquire magazine, becoming a father has completely changed my life. It's the most important thing I'll ever do. And this is from a man who, for a short time, dated Taylor Swift, right? Ho, ho, ho! I mean, I suppose he has to say that. His missus would be sat next to him in the interview. The wife and kids. Fiancé and kids.

[00:14:22] The most important. I dated Taylor Swift, you know. I seem to remember at the time, actually, they didn't make a big deal out of it. They were spotted together, weren't they? But they didn't actually admit it. Because I think he wanted to keep it low-key. I'm happy with that joke. Leave me be. Breaking news. A new species of dinosaur has been discovered from a fossil left sitting in a drawer for nearly a hundred years. Oh no, how did we cope?

[00:14:51] The bone was part of a skull which was found on the Isle of Wight. Dinosaurs used to visit the Isle of Wight. How is that not the biggest story here? This is in the National History Museum. It was popped in there in 1924. And now they've looked at it and they're like, oh no, it's a different species. I'm more impressed that the Isle of Wight had... I know it tends to be the place where the older person goes on holiday. But how old are we talking here?

[00:15:17] How long after these things have gone extinct did it bother visiting the Isle of Wight? These are more questions we won't be answering. That's your podcast done. Thank you for listening. Hopefully you are updated in the realms of news. Don't worry, they're short but sweet. We'll get another one tomorrow. We'll be right back. Keeping you up to date if you subscribe now. Wherever you found this podcast, get yourself subscribed. You can track me down on social media at MrStevenAllen. Have a look at the YouTube content as well. YouTube.com forward slash at MrStevenAllen. And until next time...

[00:15:45] Thank you for listening to Steven 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.