Grief, Purpose and Public Life with Dave Atkinson

Cool.

So you and I, right, today I've got potholes and death.

Yeah.

As things to talk about.

They're not really related.

No.

But at least.

Well, they might be, but.

Yeah.

So which one do you want to tackle first?

Do you want to go for.

Do you want.

Do you want me to rant about potholes or do we want to talk about death?

I think maybe if.

If you.

If you just rant about things, anything.

And I'll just see if I've got any answers.

Should we do that?

Yeah, sure.

Cool.

So whatever you want to do.

I'm your wherever you want to human sounding board now, I think.

Well, let's start with the death topic and then we'll get that out of the way and then we'll move on to potholes, which, look, if anybody's listening, hopefully this isn't going to be a really boring chat about potholes.

I do have a bee in my bonnet about potholes and why councils can't seem to ever fix a pothole permanently.

And in the same spots where we know that they always happen.

And for his sins, Dave has worked on transport teams in councils before.

So this isn't a personal attack on Dave because we know it's not his fault and we know councils don't have enough money.

So that's the answer always.

But I think there's some other stuff to it.

And Dave and I have talked about this off and on for probably, what, five years I've been banging on about this, so I figured it might be interesting for some people.

I mean, most people drive, so it should be interesting for people.

But let's get to that in a minute.

That's coming.

So you can look forward to that.

That'll be a little bit lighter than.

And maybe talking about the mortality subject, but I'm assuming that you had some feedback.

My last podcast, I was feeling pretty, yeah, pretty raw after having found out that, you know, one of my friends nearly died and.

And kind of like in typical male fashion, didn't even really mention it.

Like, he didn't mention it to any of us that it had happened.

And we were in this group chat and we were talking around some subject, like, bullshit subject about AI or something, and then he just casually threw into the conversation, oh, I've been busy not dying.

And we just kind of like.

It's a very British, British thing that, isn't it?

It's very understated.

Oh, yeah.

What have you been up to?

Well, a bit of not dying.

Well, you know, pick the kids up from school.

Not died.

And then.

Yeah, yeah, and then we just kind of didn't really, you know, we just thought he was taking the piss of it, to be honest.

And it wasn't until a few days later.

And again, I've talked about this in the show, but we'll recap it for people who haven't listened.

But no, he, like, literally, he was in the gym and his heart stopped and he said he was sitting there, you know, in his pants, and all he could think was, at least I have my pants on because they're not going to find me naked alone on the floor in the gym.

And I was just like, fuck, man.

Yeah, that's like hardcore.

And it turned out.

It turned out, actually, after I'd recorded the.

The podcast and he listened to it, he came back and said, actually, that was the third time that's happened.

The first time he was 37 and nearly died.

And then it happened again a few years later and now it's happened a third time.

And he said, most people who have this condition don't make it past the third time if they get to a third time.

Yeah.

So he's like, I'm absolutely living on borrowed time.

And.

And he said it was.

It was pretty crazy, man.

He said, you know, I was literally sitting there, think, thinking about, you know, thankfully I'm in my pants.

He's like that tunnel light that people talk about.

He's like, I could see the tunnel of light.

Do you know?

Do you know, I'm just going to divert you just for a second back onto the kind of British, kind of gallows humor type thing about underpants.

And it is probably Prince, the principal piece of advice that my mom always used to give me.

And it was the reason for me wearing clean underpants.

And it was just in case I was in an accident that.

That you would have.

That's right.

Clean underpants on.

Funnily enough, when I had appendicitis when I was 30, when I was nearly 30, I was 29, I'd got a really bad pain in my stomach, so I deliberately put bad pants on because, you know, I thought the floor was gonna fall out of everything.

And.

And basically when I went to be operated on at Hull Royal Infirmary, they obviously took your pants off and everything like that.

And they said to me, when you get back from theatre, your pants will be just on the edge of the trolley.

And they weren't there.

So my pants were so bad that they threw them away that the whole Royal Infirmary considered my pants too bad for me to Keep.

So there is, there is merit in having, in being conscious that you're in wearing clean underpants.

But I mean, I know that extremely trivializes a big issue that your friend has, but my point is about, again, the, that thing that you get ingrained into you when you're younger is when you're British.

It was exactly the same for my grandmother.

My mom, not so much, but my grandmother was always the same.

Yeah.

So I don't know what used to happen a long time ago, but maybe it was maybe that.

Well, I guess maybe if you think about it logically, they probably, maybe they didn't wash as often.

So it was.

Maybe your pants got dirtier before you.

I don't know.

But anyway.

Yeah, but I, Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

I think that's always a good parental advice is to make sure you have clean pants on.

But yeah, it was, I mean that, that was pretty hardcore and, and that just, you know, for me being a man and not ever going to the doctor either, even when I suspect there's something wrong, I just won't go.

And I don't, I don't know why, I don't know why we refuse to go even if we think there's something wrong.

I don't know if there's some weird deep seated thing about us not wanting to look weak or, you know, to be the injured person in the herd or, or is it tied into, you know, we've.

For so long we've been sort of told that, you know, we're the head of the family and we have to be the breadwinner and we have to be the protector and we have to, you know, take care of everybody.

And if we're injured or we're weak or we're ill, we can't do that.

And so we, we just decide to ignore it until we just die and fall over and then it's not our problem anymore.

I don't know.

Do you have any.

I do.

I was thinking about what you said and I think there's, I'd heard somewhere that apparently.

And I'll, I'll speak for Britain.

I think it's because it was in Britain, every male, every man is living with some condition that they hope will get better over time.

And, and yeah, there'll be something whether, you know, you'll feel a rib that doesn't quite feel right.

It'll be, oh, well.

And, and I, I'm not sure I.

So I think what you've said is probably right.

I think that there is a, there is something deep set about the fact that you don't want to show vulnerability.

But equally I, I think it's because most people can't be bothered to deal with it that, you know, it's, it's not, not a, not necessarily being negligent, but it's almost like, well, last time this happened, it.

Somewhat like this.

It's not.

Nothing really happens.

So this time, if I give it, you know, give it a couple of weeks, see what happens, and then it's like, well, you know, I can, I can live with it.

I think, you know, you've got you.

I know I can't use my right arm anymore, but, you know, I've got a left arm and I can probably compensate over time.

So I think there is a bit about just not wanting to cause a fuss, not wanting to.

And, and I think it becomes easier to sort of hand yourself over to medical professionals if, if you used to doing it.

So, so if you've, you know, if you regularly at the doctors for whatever reason or, you know, if you accustomed to that, but there's nothing, you know, everybody will have an experience gps where they've said, you've said, all right, I've been told I should really do that.

And they'll go, what are you talking about?

You should be doing this instead?

Or that's nonsense or what do you mean?

You don't do that.

You should be doing this.

And I think, I think it's over time because the only expert in yourself is yourself, really, even though you're not obviously not a medical expert.

And over time you kind of, I guess you respond to the feedback that you're getting from medical professionals and then you, you know, if I, if recently I, I cut my hand sawing a.

Some wood.

So I went to minor injuries in Beverly and you know, I ended up getting it wrapped up, everything like that.

Not too much of an issue.

I had a thorn in my finger a lot more recently, ended up going to similar arrangement.

But where in the south where I work.

And you know, on both occasions it had got to a level or it was at a level where I thought, you think there is something such that it needs an intervention that I don't think I can get away with with a plaster and some Savlon.

Yeah.

So, yeah, and that's, and that's, that's, that's probably it.

And, and I think, you know, people want to, you know, you kind of want to have your destiny in your own hands.

It's the bit of control, isn't it?

And if you feel that you're not in control, and I think, to be honest with you, this is actually a, this is actually an issue for older people.

This is a real issue for older people.

And you see it in having worked in the public sector for best part of 30 years, although in sort of place.

Place based stuff rather than sort of people based stuff.

So not in social care.

But, but I get exposed to the type, these types of things that you end up in a, in like a pathway.

So you end up, you know, you, you get an injury.

Yeah.

And then you get used to it being treated and then it just becomes, and the older you get, the worse that gets, the more you can get into a cycle.

And you know, once you kind of concede that you've, that you, you need that assistance, it's actually then very difficult to get back.

Back to where you were.

Yeah.

Which is, you know, you talked about independence on, or assisted independence through things like technology before on your podcast with your guests and things like that.

And it's a, it's a really important thing.

But, but when you, when you, when you, when you sort of make the concession that you do need physical assistance or you're going to be on medication or that you need some support, walking, for example, or something like that, particularly when you're older, that, that can spiral and deteriorate really fast.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, you're right.

And I wonder if that's part of it is as we get older.

I mean, I'm, you know, I've been pretty open.

I'm in mid-50s now and you know, if I walk around and I like, I have this weird heartbeat thing that happens every once in a while.

And you know, the first time it happened to me, I was like, shit, I'm having a heart attack.

Yeah.

Like, I didn't have the, you know, the sharp pain in my arm and stuff.

So I was kind of like, I don't, I don't know.

But it's like, it was just really weird and it was not normal.

And I was like, right, you know, I think I need to go to the hospital.

My wife's like, okay, well, if you're saying that it's from, from those of us who never go, you know, when we say something like that, people go, oh shit, this is like really serious.

And, and you know, I went in, they, I was there for nearly 24 hours.

I guess they monitored me for a long time.

Everything was fine.

I came home, I did the, the 24 hour monitoring that like they couldn't Find anything wrong?

They did the blood test.

They're like, well, it wasn't actually a heart attack, you know, don't know what it was, but it, it was really scary.

Yeah.

And it's happened a few times since then, but now I go, well, it's happened before.

It's like no big deal.

Like it could be a minor heart attack, I don't know.

And I'm just going, yeah, yeah, all right.

It's happened before.

You know, it'll be one of those things where, you know, I'll, I'll have a heart attack at some point.

They'll go, why didn't he come in?

I just don't understand why he didn't come in.

And it's like, like you said, you kind of went in once and they were like, well, we don't know what it is and maybe it just happens and you just go.

You are the very, very conscious of your own condition though, aren't you?

You, you, you do exercise, you diet.

I'm not saying like we're both, I mean, I'll speak for both of us here, you know, we're not on the floor doing 100 press ups every 15 minutes and things like that, but we're conscious of keeping ourselves in shape and because that's one of the two, one of the two issues as you get older, isn't it?

Is the first one is your physical condition.

So it's so you need, your muscles deteriorate faster, you need to maintain your muscle mass basically.

So you need to pick, you need to pick exercise.

You know, I still play football, I'm in my very late 40s and I still play football.

But my bone structural gets to a point where it's not robust enough to support that type of exercise.

So I'll have to pick something else to enhance the, or enhance, maintain that muscle mass.

The second bit is about purpose, isn't it?

Because, because that again, when you reach sort of later old age, so when you're in your 80s, 90s, you start to lose purpose.

But you very clearly through your reaction feel you have, without wanting to get too spiritual about it, you feel that you have purpose.

So, and even though you, you, you very much and it obviously shows that you want to control, you know, you want to be in control of, of, of your physical fitness, but you, you cognizant enough and you have enough purpose to know that you have to keep going.

So you aren't kind of saying, oh, well, I had a bit of a murmur, but yeah, if it happens again, you Know, I'll.

I'll concede.

I'll roll into.

Into the ground, so.

And that's.

That's.

That's a positive thing.

That's a positive thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think you're right.

And I think, you know, it's something I've seen.

And in.

We used to have a.

A doctor in the family who was an oncologist, so he, you know, dealt, obviously, with cancer and had a chat with.

A long chat with him one evening over some drinks, and I said to him that, you know, in my life, the people that I've known that have cancer in particular, tend to survive as long as they're willing to fight it.

Yeah.

And if they just absolutely have in their head that they are not gonna.

They're not gonna succumb to it.

It's not gonna get them, you know, they are gonna get better, and they're gonna soldier on no matter what treatment they go through and whatever.

It's like, that's just not even an option.

And it doesn't matter.

Almost doesn't matter.

I mean, okay, yes, there are limits, but, you know, if it's something that's treatable and what then usually they just continue on.

And it's not until.

And when they give up, when they just.

They just can't fight it anymore.

Yeah.

And they're like, I just.

I can't.

I don't have the will to do it anymore.

And then it's like a week.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And.

And then they go.

And he went, yeah, pretty much.

Yeah.

And he's like, thought, you know, doctors can't really explain it because we'll get somebody who, you know, according to their condition, you would think that they would only have, you know, maybe four or six weeks and 18 months later, they're still there.

And he's like, we have no explanation for that other than they just absolutely refuse to go away.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I think there's a.

There is a certain amount of that, and I think that gets back to what you were saying is maybe those people still feel that they have a purpose, and when you.

Maybe when you lose that sense of purpose, that's when it all kind of unravels.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

And it's.

It's also different in the US And I think I talked about this a little bit in the show, and it was interesting because I got some feedback from some people who live in the US but no men, only women.

And women were like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The insurance thing, it's not a Big deal and blah, blah.

And I'm like, no, it absolutely, it absolutely is.

Particularly for men because again, men, traditionally, not so much now, but traditionally were the ones who kind of were the breadwinners and they made the majority of the money.

Maybe the wives stayed at home or worked a part time job or something like that.

And the family's insurance usually was provided through the man's job.

And if you got a condition like if you got cancer or you got diagnosed with, I don't know anything really, that that would be treated under your current insurance because that's a new disease.

So everything would be covered.

But as soon as you go to change jobs, that's no longer covered because they won't cover an existing condition.

In most cases, yes, there will be some, but in most cases they won't cover it anymore.

So you're basically now stuck in the job that you have that insurance for.

And that's also, I think, a major consideration that you might know that something's wrong but you don't want it actually diagnosed because as soon as they write it down on paper, then if a prospective employer says, do you have any health conditions?

You have to, you know, you have to tell them because at some point later if they find out, they can fire you for, you know, not being truthful on your not dictating the application process and all just factors in.

And it's really, you know, I think there's a lot of that, but I think there's also a lot of the social pressure that comes with it as well.

And it was great, it was great that he, you know, he did mention it eventually, to be fair, in the chat, even though it was kind of thrown out there as a bit of a, you know, a bit of a light comment to begin with.

Excuse me.

And then, and then I, you know, did, did my recording and then he listened to that and then we had a really open and honest conversation one evening just.

And you know, he was telling me a lot about.

It was, was very open and that was amazing.

Yeah, you know, it was a, you know, it was a fantastic conversation on, on a level that we'd never had, you know, before.

And it was great.

And it turned out, and you know, we're even better friends now than, than we were before.

And you know, I'm gonna miss him even more when this happens again.

And the next time maybe he doesn't make it, which is ironic in a weird kind of way.

Yeah, but, yeah, but I do, I do.

It's pretty crazy, you know, between friends you don't often get round to those types of subjects, particularly men.

You know, you don't often, you know, there was, I think it's Mickey Flanagan, the comedian, who, his wife says, you know, did you ask Bob how Sue was?

And he said, I didn't ask how Bob was.

And, and I didn't ask Bob how he was.

And, and, you know, I, I think it, it takes a bit.

I mean, I, I, I experienced a lot of grief and relatives passing away in the sort of late 2000s into the kind of late 2010s.

So pretty much all the relatives I have at the generation above my mum and dad passed away, the remaining ones in the space of about five years and then the closest, obviously sort of within the close family.

And then my mum and dad passed away in 2017 and 2019.

And, you know, I'd got no real experience of, you know, there'd been bereavements in my family.

My dad's brother died when I was quite young, but I didn't really understand, you know, the impact it could have on other people when I was, so I think I was like seven at the time.

My mum and dad passing away.

It kind of, it makes you, it opens things up in you.

You kind of, you know, you kind of, the kind of dialogue you have with other people changes and particularly where, where you meet people who've been through a similar thing and, and I have, I know that I'm.

Because you can empathy, you can't until it's happened, but when you've kind of experienced it, you can, you can empathize and you can help other people then.

And I'm not.

Obviously we're talking about two different things here.

We're talking about mortality and, you know, on both sides of it, but bereavement, I think it, it makes you more sensitive, it makes you more sensitive to what other people are going through.

But, you know, when it happened with me, I, I didn't, my friends were great, but there wasn't an open dialogue that existed before that.

You know, I'd had a couple of my mates, parents had passed away prior to mine doing.

So I, I tried to do my best in those circumstances, but, but I'd like to think I've become better at it, better at getting engaging in those types of dialogues since I've experienced it myself.

And then you, you know, going back to the, the point about your own mortality is you, you start to look at how long you've got left or how long you think you have maybe mad my dad Passed away, I think he was 73.

His dad passed away in his early 70s.

My mum's dad passed away in their early 70s.

My dad's brother passed away in his 30s.

And you start to look at, you know that you start to look at what, you know, what, realistically, what you've got left.

Even though, like, my dad was incredibly fit and active, you know, I mean, he never used to share if he had any health con.

Health issues.

But I do know that varicose veins had run in the family.

I knew my dad suffered from varicose veins and he, and he passed away.

He had deep vein thrombosis, as it happened, and he had a pulmonary embolism.

So there is, there is a relationship sort of there, but the notion that you can exercise and eat, you eat well out of any ailment just isn't, isn't necessarily.

I think it sends you a long way, by the way, and it helps you maintain health and fitness.

But I think, you know, and then, and then you look at sort of how long, you know, obviously I'm, I'm just about to turn 50, so it's that, it's that threshold, isn't it, from.

Yeah.

Clinging onto your youth in your 40s and then conceding that, yeah, you're actually not young anymore when, when you turn 50.

So I'm kind of knocking on that door at the moment.

But after that it's kind of, well, how much longer do I want to work if typically the males in my family, you know, don't live past their early 70s and that would potentially affect decisions I would make career wise in the next, in the next 10 years.

So, but, but going back to the point, you know, it's very.

I always find it striking up a relationship with health professionals makes it far easier to, to reach out and, you know, if you've got a slight ailment.

Oh, yeah.

By the way, I've had this.

I can't.

I don't know who my GP is.

I don't know the name.

I have one, I'm assigned one.

Yeah.

And I've been.

I've had a broken collarbone in the last.

Probably getting on for 10 years ago now.

I've had my appendix out, so I've had relatively sort of serious issues, you know, but, but it's not.

When I was younger, I knew exactly where the family doctor was.

Yeah.

And that's maybe a bit of it as well.

That's kind of.

You don't have the trust.

You don't.

Maybe if you're in a situation where you do, then it's easier for you.

Yeah, maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's complicated, I think, is the answer.

Yeah, everything's complicated.

And, you know, but there.

There is something with men because women just tend to be better at doing it.

It's why men.

Men tend to live longer.

Well, they don't tend to.

The data supports that men live longer if they're married, then if they're single.

And that's because our wives force us to go to the doctor when they notice something's wrong with us.

I'm convinced of it.

And.

But then we don't even tell them sometimes.

Yeah.

Like, I've had stuff going and I'm just like.

I'm just.

I can't.

I'm just not even gonna.

Maybe I don't wanna face it.

And maybe that's part of it, you know, You.

Yeah, maybe you feel something inside and you go, there's definitely something not right with my lungs and I don't even wanna know.

Yeah.

So I'm just gonna wait.

I don't wanna tell anybody.

I don't want anybody to worry about me.

I don't wanna just.

I.

I don't want to worry about me.

I'm just gonna.

I'll.

I'll deal with it.

Maybe if I go to the gym.

Some more, get on the Internet and then YouTube.

I'll get on the Internet.

YouTube.

Okay.

I've got lung cancer.

I'm dying.

Lung health.

Yeah.

You know, I'll just start smoking.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

Understood.

Understood completely.

And it's.

It's.

It's a difficult one.

I mean, I guess.

I guess if you're in.

If you're in a more routine loop of kind of medical appointments or care, then it is probably easier, isn't it, if you.

To drop it in as part of a routine thing?

And men.

Men don't get into that.

Don't get into routine.

You know, they send me, like, blood pressure.

Go get your blood pressure checked.

I'm like, well, the last time that they sent me a bowel cancer test, which was pretty terrible.

I don't know if you have one of those.

That'll be fun.

When you get that one, you've got to, like, scrape your poo.

It's lovely.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

So it's a great thing.

And then you sort of mail it in and then they'll put you in some random lottery to say, oh, you may have to get a colonoscopy.

We'll let you know.

Oh, great.

Thanks.

That'll be Fun.

I mean, even doing a urine sample is bad enough, isn't it?

Where.

Yeah, if.

If.

If I was a student when I was.

I was just having, like a health check and the doctor said, have you need a urine sample?

So.

Oh, fair enough.

He said, can you.

Can you do one now?

So the.

The toilets, obviously, in the waiting room.

Yeah.

So there's no kind of hiding what's just gone on.

And then I've effectively come back through the waiting room with a pot of piss in my hand that I'm then handing back to the doctor, who didn't seem that happy about it.

And I thought, well, it was kind of.

I thought, well, you did ask me to do it.

Yeah.

Like, what do you want?

Do you want, like.

Sorry, I could have done it in a crystal jug, but I'm afraid that's best I could do at short notice.

It's not in a.

Like a water bottle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I did it earlier.

I've got a bag in my pocket that I had a plastic bag, so I thought I'd just on the off chance, but.

Yeah, I've not.

Stool samples.

I've not.

I've done.

When my lads were little, I've.

I've got involved in trying to provide soul stamps.

Stool samples before from theirs.

That's.

But I think you.

When you're into nappy changing and stuff like that, it's routine then, anyways.

And it's like.

Yeah, you.

You.

As you get older, if you've had kids, it's not.

Yeah, it's still not pleasant.

You know what I mean?

You still don't want to do it.

Absolutely.

And it sat on my side table for about two weeks.

Sat on your side table for two weeks?

Yeah, yeah.

The big steaming pot was just sitting there.

And then finally I stuck with.

Oh, right.

I thought I.

I thought it was.

I thought you were hoping it would.

I thought you were hoping it'd mature, that you'd.

I was hoping it would test itself.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it just never seemed to happen, so I had to actually pick it up and go, all right, I'm gonna.

You're gonna do it?

Yeah, that's.

That.

That's what it's like.

That's probably enough of that conversation.

I'll just finish it with this.

A good place to break.

To break it in half.

That.

That reminds me, when I have to do my tax farm, it's exactly the same.

It sits on the side for weeks.

That's it.

Just trying desperately not to look at it.

Yeah, exact.

Exactly.

You know, that still sample like potholes.

Potholes.

You've seg.

Brilliantly brilliant segue.

Let's stop talking about negative and death and.

And whatnot.

Unless we do.

We don't have to.

We don't have to finish the mortality one on.

You know, I think the.

The positive things are our purpose and hope, aren't they?

You know, purpose and.

And hope and I don't think there's enough hurt sort of around.

I don't think people.

It's too much doom and gloom, you know.

Yeah.

But we can maybe do that after potholes if you want.

I can see you want to drag us back into the.

Back into the gutter.

Sorry, I'm just adjusting my.

My audio.

Excuse me.

Yeah, potholes, roads.

So all of the drivers in the world are trying to understand why it's so difficult to fix potholes.

And in particular, like, okay, there's two different parts to this.

There's like general roadworks and I like around Tunbridge Wells at the minute.

I'll just talk about what's going on here because the context is the same in every city, everywhere in the world, which is we have like, roadworks going on in four different locations at the minute that are essentially blocking all of the arteries that come into town.

And one of them is scheduled, and all of the rest of them are emergency works because some water mains burst or something like that.

So I totally get that.

You can't, you know, if a water main burst, you've got to go and fix it, or if the gas is leaking or whatever, you've got to go and fix it.

So that's.

That's kind of one thing.

But on.

On the road that I live on, there's a single access, we would say a manhole cover in the US But I think you call them access.

Just call it.

We can call it a manhole cover for the purposes of this.

For the.

For the purposes of the podcast.

And.

And every six months, they have to come and fix it again.

Because what happens is it's the edge.

It's the far edge for the direction of traffic.

It's not the front edge, but the back edge just starts to fall in.

And within six months of it being repaired, it's fallen in again, and there's a massive hole that's.

I mean, it's like this sort of all the way across.

And I just can't understand why they can't fix it properly.

Do you know what it's covering?

Like, did you know, if it's that bad, then move it off to the side of the road.

Do you know what the access is covering?

Do you know what's underneath it?

I have no idea what the access.

So I would say a significant amount of cost related to road repairs is to do with what's under the surface.

So I now, I don't live in caveat this.

I don't live in Tunbridge Wells.

And I don't know the particular example, which is problematic because your opening gambit is it's bad everywhere and everyone hates it, but in actual fact, it is.

Every circumstance is different.

And, you know, I've worked on projects in the past where you scrape off the surface of the road and it's just crazy.

Underneath you've got, yeah, utilities, you've got water, you've got gas, you've got electric, you've got two or three different, you know, broadband providers, fiber going through the.

But why do they put that under the road here?

Because in the US that stuff runs parallel.

So under the sidewalk.

Yeah.

So you don't have generally manhole covers in the road surface, you have them off to the side.

It's broadly historical.

It just depends when it's built.

It depends whether the constructor was fortunate to be able to build the drainage first and then the surface over the top, which isn't necessarily the case in a lot of areas.

Some of these things have to be retrofitted and retro built.

It costs an absolute fortune in the UK to divert utilities.

It costs a lot of money in terms of design, planning, things like that.

And there are some circumstances, and it may well be in the example that you've given, where there's actually not a really easy fix to it, other than just to keep patching it in the way that you've just described, just because whatever else is going on underneath the.

The road is.

Is such that you can't really do anything else.

And you get those types of circumstances.

When I worked in, in York, for example, when you get into the foot streets in York, some of the sellers that are, that are under the footway, there's, there's barely, barely any, any thickness of material between, between the roofs of the cellars and the paving slabs.

And these things that have just developed, evolved over time and they get fixed in, in the course of time, but particularly where you've got old infrastructure, you know, the, you know, roads could be laid on tram lines, they could have voids, there could be all sorts of things that you don't know about.

And it's just not cost effective to tear everything right back to scratch and rebuild because it's just not affordable.

And millions like hundreds of millions of pounds are spent on highway treatment.

Whether that's winter maintenance, whether it's road repairs, structural maintenance, structures in terms of bridges, bridges, footwear, hundreds of millions.

But unfortunately it has to be on a risk, you know, prioritized on a risk based kind of approach because there isn't enough funding.

So your actual repairs, the one end.

The other point you make is about sequencing of roadworks.

So I would say without, it's probably not unexpected.

There's a.

There's probably three things that circulate around this that members of the public sort of make representations about.

One of them's road conditions, so potholes and things like one of them's the amount of roadworks and then the third one is traffic.

So it's the consequent effect of either one or a combination of the two.

And that affects bus time too, timings and everything like that as well.

So if, if you fortunate to live somewhere like London or somewhere a big sort of city where there's, where there's sort of plentiful public transport options around the underground, overground, etc.

Etc.

Then you've probably got more options and you can withdraw or you can close roads probably a little bit more easily.

But where, particularly where you get to sort of.

And the.

Are you talking about Tunbridge?

Well, so market town type things.

There's just not, you know, there's not an awful lot you can be.

There's not a lot of funding, there's not a lot of flexibility.

So you know, all you need is some planned works.

Once you take, what if you doing some structural repairs, you take taking the surface off, that's all exposed, you can't then leave it for a couple of weeks because you've had some emergency work, gas works or you've had some, you know, waterworks or something like that.

So you, you do quite often get into those quandaries and you know, the teams at the local authorities, the street works teams, do a really, really good job making sure that things are sequenced properly in a context where a lot of things can come through as emergency work.

So that planning piece is really critical, but early engagement with what you call the statutory undertakers, so the utilities and people like that is absolutely critical so that you know what their forward program is so that all that preventative maintenance can get done in a way that isn't quite as disruptive.

And then probably the last layer of it is, you know, through climate change we get this Increased volume of or more intense rainfall and you know, where you've got intense rainfall, cold conditions, there's nothing worse than water for deteriorating in any structure, if you've got a bit of ingress, it freezes, expands, you know, starts to deteriorate, etc.

Etc.

So I don't have an answer really.

Other than is that partly down to the, to the binding material that they use for the tarmac?

Because it's, I know it's in, it can be engineered for different environments.

Like the tarmac that they use in Texas.

Yeah.

And in Dubai is different than the mix of the, the tarmac that they use here because we're not dealing with 50 degree temperatures where they are.

If, if you took the roads that they have here and you put it in 50 degree temperatures, it would just melt.

Whereas, you know, the roads there aren't, they're designed for that sort of temperature.

So is part of it the fact that the roads are.

A lot of the infrastructure in the UK is very old.

Yeah.

And one, so it's, it's getting worn down.

Two, it was never designed for the weight and the size of the vehicles that are driving on it today.

So that's.

And, and evs are going to be even worse because they're even heavier.

So they weren't designed for that.

So you've got age.

Yeah, you've got, you've got different types of traffic driving over them and you've also now got, you know, the environment is, is, I mean, the environment now every year in the UK is even very different than when I moved here 25 years ago.

I mean, I noticed the difference and you know, my wife and I talk about it a lot and so it's, it's becoming more extreme and I think, you know, that's probably partly climate change and whatever, or some people can argue about that, but whatever, it is becoming more extreme.

So it's like a deadly kind of combination of all of that stuff mixed together that just makes it really difficult to stay on top of it.

And the fact that we just have no money.

And I know we are going to talk about money a lot, but it is a point.

And I don't think there's enough money in all of the government.

If you didn't pay for anything else other than roads, there's still not enough money to go and redo all the roads, even if we wanted to.

I mean, what I would say is, in terms of the ambitions of local authorities, I think, you know, highways departments in local authorities are endeavoring to Create the best environment for the safest and best environment for road users as they can.

And that's all the way through from pedestrians, walking, people with mobility issues in wheelchairs, cyclists, you know, cars, buses.

Local authorities are endeavoring to.

Things have to be prioritised and some fixes are just really, really expensive.

Bridges structures tend to be.

But the problem you have bridges and structures is they tend to create bottlenecks.

So you've got like, there's only a few different ways you can cross a river, for example.

It's not, not particularly straightforward.

You have to have a bridge really or a tunnel.

So that can be quite expensive and, and that can have knock on effect.

So if you have a structure that can't take weight, it then might divert traffic onto, onto sort of more minor roads or unclassified roads which then, which then deteriorates their conditions.

So there is a merit in making sure that in terms of the hierarchy and obviously the strategic route network isn't controlled either by local authorities.

So that's another aspect of it.

Central government through national highways are responsible for the kind of, the most important part of you, you traffic sort of network.

So is that all motorways?

No, no, it's.

Did the motorways fall under there?

And, and a.

Roads broadly depends on their significance.

It depends on, you know, their significance in terms of national journeys.

Because, because if it, the more local the journey gets, the more it makes sense for it to be prioritized on a, on a local basis, whether that's through a regional thing with a combined authority or through a, through a local authority.

Because like the bit I'm talking about is on the A21, which is the main road that connects hastings to the M25.

And it's, it's been, over the years it's been dual carriageway, you know, it's been widened down just until it gets to this section of road which is where it narrows to a single carriageway, one lane each way.

And that's where the, that's where, that's where this manhole cover is.

This problem that I'm talking about is, is about a hundred yards after the road narrows and there's several along that stretch that, that happen, but this one in, in particular is really bad.

So.

And I've always thought that that was Kent County Council as opposed to national highways, because I don't, it could easily.

Be, it could be.

I don't care.

And this is the other thing.

Like, you know, and again, you and I sort of know this and we've talked about this over, you know, a lot.

I'm just trying to pick this out for other people who may not really understand how all this works and trying to understand all of this and who's actually, and who's actually in charge.

And then to make it even more complicated, sometimes an external company owns what's called the concession for the road and they actually take care of the road and are responsible for doing the maintenance and stuff like that, which makes it even more difficult and more complicated because then when you want to do something to it, then you have to get them to work on it and it's not under the direct.

Like a lot of people don't realize that in some counts, some councils don't even control the street lights.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, and, and, or they, or what's even worse is they'll control some of them but not other ones.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like, and, and people just don't, you know, it's so complex and it's got that way over time with different governments working special deals or trying to cut costs or trying to make money or trying to do this and that, that it's now just turned into this like, it's like a bowl of pasta, you know, it's just all the spaghetti noodles just tied in together.

I, I do, I mean, what you're talking about there is, is PFI contracts for sort of street lighting and.

You.

Know, without some of these, if we forget what they are and just talk about is an arrangement between a third party and a local authority.

Some of these, you know, I think the problem is at the time of signing it'll be the best value option because there's not really.

Local authorities won't do something for the sake of doing it.

If there's a market there that can provide better value than let's say an in house provision, for example, and it secures and safeguards the cost for a period of time, then, you know, it would, it's, it would be sensible at that moment in time to engage in that type of thing.

I mean, a different but similar examples, the energy from waste plants that we have as local authorities, that they're big, you know, it safeguards waste disposal, they create energy.

We can put sort of green factors into them and we can kind of safeguard the kind of cost of it by financing it over time.

And then we get.

Because there's energy value that comes out of it, we can get and then material value as well, there's value in it for the private sector partner and it's a similar thing with streetlights, the local authorities, where it's not strategic route network do still maintain the duty though, although that is then commuted to somebody else to, to, to actually do the work.

But, but, but it, it only becomes a problem when something new comes up that's better than, than what existed before.

So, and I'm not saying, you know, think things do tend to be a bit circular as well.

So you know, you, you get value out something, then you realize you need a bit more control over it.

So you might bring aspects of something that you've outsourced in house and then over time you then think, well actually a blended approach is probably best, but have we quite got the blend right?

You know, the control tends to be, you know, local authorities of political organizations with priority, with local priorities.

And you know, you can get value out of generalizing something and then oh well, but actually do.

Is there enough local control?

Because that's what it's all about.

That's what you exercise your duties for.

So these types of things flex.

And then through some of our endeavors around transport technology in the past, you then realize, you think, oh well, I can enable this 5G network because I've got control of all these street lights.

Then it's, hang on a minute, actually we have got control of them in seven years time when the, when the contract runs out.

Yeah.

And, and there are other issues by the way, with that type of thing.

I'm trivializing it to, to make a point really.

But.

No, but it's a great, it's absolutely a great point.

The other one is obviously charging points for EVs.

Yeah.

I went to a meeting with a council that I shall not name and we were riding around in the car.

I don't remember, I don't think it was you that was with me, but there was someone from a council with us as well.

And you know, we were talking about putting out charging points and I was like, well surely you can look at the registrations for EVs, you can see where those people live.

And then you can look and see where they work as well.

And you can start to work out because all this data is notionally available if you could get access to it, so you could plant.

So this is what I'm saying, like I'm coming to it from a private company data perspective, right?

And going, you've got the data, you can just look at the data, you can see where you need to put the chargers and then you can just put them there.

And the guy just started laughing, he's like, yeah, we could, except we can't because we don't own any of the land and if we wanted to put something there, he's like, people, you know, are going to try and charge us land rent for that and it's going to be more expensive than it's going to be to, you know, to actually put the charging thing there.

And he.

And they said, you know, so the reason that you see them pop up in random spots is because that's the only land that we have access to.

And he said, so we're just going to put them where we can and not where they're particularly convenient for people.

And it was just.

That was sort of in my early time of working with public sector customers and I hadn't really even thought about that.

And then over time come into things like, again, like 5G on.

On street lamps and.

Or even 4G or charging points.

And it's like, you know, the government will.

Will give councils money to buy new street lights that you can.

That have the capacity to install a 5G small cell on so that you could do that, but you can't get them a.

No one makes them, so you can't just buy them off the shelf.

So if you want to go and buy one.

We were getting quotes for £20,000 for one light pole that was just set up and didn't even have to sell on it.

It was just built so that you could have maybe a charging point and an LED light.

And, you know, so there's.

There's no economy of scale there.

So it's super expensive, you know, to get them done.

And then even when we could try and get them done, we couldn't, because they didn't even have, you know, they basically didn't have the rights to put them there.

And if the vendor didn't want to put them in, then they kind of either had to convince them to do it or they would pay, you know, have to pay again.

And it was just.

You could just see, you know, how.

I mean, the mind boggles sometimes and people in the general public just have no idea how complicated this stuff is and just how difficult it is to do anything, you know, in the public sector.

And I have massive respect for anybody who has the patient.

I have no idea, Dave, how you've been in public sector for so long.

I would have absolutely pulled all my hair out by now.

And, like, I just.

I just.

Personally, I don't have the patience for it and I know you've got the patience of a saint to have stuck with it.

This long.

I think just there's a couple of things I was going to try and unpick there, but you kind of moved on.

But on the EV charging, for example, generally speaking, the, there's a, the big issue with EV charging is that is the disparity really that if you've got a drive, you massively, massively an advantage to somebody who's not got a drive.

And that that might not have been, you know, if you bought your house five, 10 years ago, that, that might not have been anywhere near what your consideration was for, for maybe five years, let's say 10, 10, 15 years ago.

And, and the cost of moving house is just getting more expensive.

So people tend to be where they are with not, not, not awful lot of option.

There's not a high percentage of people who live in Terrace streets without off street parking.

It's, I say high, it's probably about, let's say 25% in most built up areas, sort of, sort of 20 to 30% usually.

But the problem is the answer to the issue isn't from a public charging perspective isn't to give someone connection at their house onto the public highway because there's not enough public highway to go around.

And probably crucially, you know, there's a lot to do with the technology as well that makes it quite dangerous to have, you know, and I've seen these sort of gully charging which, which have their merits.

I'm not criticizing any one particular technology.

But so there is, there is, but there are issues with parking, there are issues with the vehicle adjacency, traffic hazards and the government, to be fair to them, are trying to loosen that up.

So they're trying to create an environment where you say yes as a local authority, but part of it is in really what you need is infrastructure.

It's like petrol stations, public accessible infrastructure that everybody can use at a point.

The problem with electric charge, vehicle charging is it takes too long to charge.

So you don't want to leave your car.

You wouldn't leave your car at a petrol station for four hours or eight hours or overnight while it filled up with petrol.

And that's culturally what people, I'm not saying they have to get used to, but, and, but one of the biggest issues with the on street stuff is power.

So you can go through all of those exercises that you've described.

And ultimately generally speaking, you see EV charging points spring up very fast in supermarket car parks because when the supermarkets were built there was a, there was plenty of capacity in the substation so ultimately, you know, there was a, enough capacity to put rapid charges down, for example.

Whereas, whereas, you know, it just in your normal residential street, it's just, it's just not there.

And even charging from your domestic property, by the way, you know, your charging is really slow so you can, you can have that enhanced, but then that takes balance off everybody else on the street.

So.

But when 40 people are trying to do it at the same time just doesn't work.

It, it doesn't, it, the, the, the, the, the physics doesn't work.

And that's the other thing.

I think a whole discussion about EV charging, we, we probably could do a whole show on EV charging which might actually bore people to sleep.

But, but you're absolutely right.

I mean my, I've said this a few times and I have sat in meetings and I've seen slide decks where I know that the government's position is, is that ultimately they want to reduce the number of personal vehicles on the road.

Yeah.

And that's the only way that they see being able to meet emissions targets and climate targets and particulate targets and all the different things that go in with that.

And it's also the only way that we're going to be able to maintain some sort of an EV kind of a network because we just can't physically charge all the vehicles that we would need to charge.

And my, my personal bugaber and I'm going to throw it out there and people can rage at me in the comments if they want, But I absolutely 100% agree that we should go to a Japanese model where there's no on street parking at all.

If you don't have a driveway or somewhere that you can buy or rent to park a vehicle off the road, you can't have a vehicle.

It's just that simple.

So that would also solve most of the traffic problems that we have.

Because I think about in every area I've lived in in the uk, the problem in the morning in the school run are the cars parked on the side of the road.

And I don't mean dropping off, I mean parked there overnight.

And the people park, you know, on, they're on the sidewalk or on the, you know, on the path.

The, the cars are sitting there.

So you can't, you know, when you have young kids, you can't get by in push chairs.

You can't, you know, you can't go around them because you've got to walk in the street.

The streets are really narrow.

There's one bit where I take my Son, I do the school run every day in Tunbridge Wells and there's this one whole neighborhood where there's cars parked on both sides of the road.

Now when school's not in and that you can get down the middle of that road, it's totally fine.

But every single day when school's in, you've got two lanes of traffic that are fighting to try and weasel in and out of this.

If all those cars were gone, you literally would just have the cars going each way and you wouldn't have to do any of that.

And I think a lot of the complaints about traffic would be alleviated if you got rid of all on street parking everywhere because then the roads could run to their full capacity.

Yeah, but it's not a palatable.

I mean, it's not a palatable.

A lot of these things you've just talked about have been widely debated.

Things like pavement parking, verge parking, more, more kind of strict policy around, just around parking in residential areas, things like that.

Residential parking, very contentious.

It can be residential parking because it, it creates different problems.

And, and really what I think what there's no right side of the argument to fall.

All I would say is some of the most vulnerable, poorest in society are likely to be the ones who don't have off street parking and are likely to be the people who do need access to a vehicle.

You know, I mean I, you know, my, my lads were young.

I don't know how I would have got around.

I mean that I did have off street parking as it happened, but I don't know how I would have managed.

I couldn't have managed without a car.

Yeah.

Particularly living in a rural area where my lads were, were really young and the car would be absolutely full with push chairs and all sorts of things and, and they wouldn't sort of, you know, compliantly singing leap into the car like the Von Trapp family.

They'd be, you know, really not wanting to get in the car and then you multiply that out and you know, and, and really again, you know, I'm an advocate of moving to sustainable travel but, but I'm making this point really because there are some families who don't have options, who don't have options, who their circumstances mean that they, they, it's not easy for them to get an e cargo bike for, to plant all their kids in and everything like that.

Or you know, they need to get to, to a job so they need to drop the kids off and then they need to be at what might be quite a low paid job somewhere else in whatever town or city.

So I, I think there's a route to managing pavement parking better or on street parking better.

But I think if you removed it all together it would just, it would affect most the poorest in society.

And I think from a put from a local authorities or from, from working in the public sector.

I'm, I mean I'm in it because of the most vulnerable in society.

I'm.

I'm not in it to, to.

To sort of create to test to, to solve theory.

Although sometimes you just you have to but and you have to make tough decisions and, and you have to respect counselors who put themselves forward and have to make those tough decisions.

But but there's, there's, you know and you know, clearing clearing parking a lot of streets.

Encourage encourage cycling it you know, Although yeah parked cars are do naturally manage traffic speed as well.

So you do get slower speeds where you get parked cars.

But but again just, just in my like I'm debating something back in my own head, you can see that there's no, there's no answer.

But but what what, what what what what needs to.

What we need to make sure of when we're developments.

So and, and you know this, this new, the obviously new government, this current labor government have got really ambitious targets around house building that when new new estates or new housing and infrastructure is built that's your opportunity to get all of that stuff right to make sure there's enough roads to make it safe safe to.

They totally won't though.

You know, they won't.

But but no but I in defense of government, I think the ambitions there and as you say from a yeah.

Carbon redu reduction perspective, you know, it's, it's the you know trips have got a massively reduced not necessarily car ownership but it would probably lead to that.

But trips have to reduce or have to be made through more sustainable means.

But and again and I I think a knock on of but you have to do the plan together, right?

It has to be everything at once.

So you start to say okay, well if we're going to, if we remove all on street parking then that's going to reduce the number of cars physically that people can have because they're, they're not going to have anywhere to put them.

So how are they going to get around?

We're going to have to have more public transport to be able to support those trips.

And one of the biggest complaints about public transport at the minute is that it's never on time and it's always late and it's not reliable and blah, blah, blah.

Well, half of that's because of traffic that's caused by the cars that are parked on the road.

So if you get rid of the cars, you've improved the transport, so the public transport is more on time.

Plus you've created a demand for the public transport because.

I know, look, I have a friend who owns a bus company and he runs, he runs public routes, he runs school bus routes.

They do, they do private, you know, they do private coaches, they do international trips and all sorts of stuff.

And I've had many chats with him in the pub about this and he's like, we'd love to run more buses but no one rides them.

And so it's not know.

He's like, the council's paying for some reason, no one ever goes on.

I mean, he's like, they can't just continue to pay for buses that don't have any passengers.

He's like, it doesn't make any sense.

So it's a chicken and egg and somebody's going to have to like, force an egg out of a chicken.

Yeah, and make something.

Force an egg out.

They can then start.

I don't know where that came from, but.

But something's got to happen and somebody's going to have to be bold.

You know, we need a Donald Trump.

We need a Donald Trump.

We need a Donald Trump in a way.

Not to go crazy on terrorists, but basically we need somebody to come in and go, I don't actually care.

Like I'm looking at some stuff needs to get done.

Somebody's got to do it.

I don't care if I'm unpopular for doing it.

It's got to get, it's got to happen and just get it done.

And once it's done, everybody will look back and they'll go, actually, that was really good.

It was a bit at the time.

And it's the same as roadworks.

You know, everybody complains about the roadworks while they're going on until it's finished.

You know, if you build a bypass, everybody complains like, God, social media and everything.

And, you know, everybody's complaining and, ah, the traffic and.

And then as soon as the new bypass opens, everybody's like, oh, my God, this is amazing.

It's so good.

I'm so glad they did that.

And you know, three days later, nobody cares anymore.

And it's just like, you can, you know, they've already forgot what it used to be like and we just, we need somebody with some sort of a vision and a, a longer term vision, but also not so much of a, this will sound terrible, but it's almost like they don't need us.

That politician self preservation gene.

Right.

Because they all just get paralyzed with, oh my God, I might not get some votes next time.

And it's like we need somebody to take those hard decisions and to say to everybody, look, this has to happen.

You're not going to like it, but we have to do it and then just get something going.

That's, that's what I mean by having a Trump like him or not.

He said he was going to come in and he was, you know, he's going to reduce the deficit and you know, he was going to come in and look at some programs and I'll tell you what, they're finding billions of dollars that are just being wasted and spent on ridiculous stuff.

And yeah, maybe some, you know, some foreign programs are going to fall through the cracks, but a lot of Americans don't care.

A lot of Americans don't think that, you know, us should be.

So what he's, what, what he's doing, like he, he is playing to his own audience, isn't he?

Trump?

Yeah, but that's his responsibility.

But the point, what you're saying is somebody's got to come out and make a difficult decision.

But where Trump falls, Trump's not making decisions that detrimentally, massively affect Americans.

It's everybody else.

So, but his responsibility is not to everyone else, his responsibility 100%.

But what you've just described as the difficult decision at a local level would be contrary to what most people want.

That's the difficult, It'd be like Trump saying, right, we're going to completely globalize, so I'm going to, it's going to put more money in your pockets long term.

But everything's going to be built by China.

Everything's going to, you know, be built in India, in China.

And, and so that, that, that would be contrary.

That would be a difficult decision.

It'd be, and it'd be contrary to what his perception of why he's voted in.

So actually, in defense of a lot of local leaders, they make difficult decisions.

But you're talking about the bypass that took 10 years.

Your administration length at a local authority is four years.

And you have to in some way safeguard that to give yourself any chance of a strategic long term.

And some local authority administrations get four years.

So they achieve what they can in four years.

And then, and then it's, it's over to the.

To the next people.

But you know, I've been looking at an article off to the side and what I was looking at when I was distracted a few minutes ago is I pulled up a link because I saw a story.

I think it was.

It's from the 4th of April.

So it was last week.

Benwell in North Somerset.

Yeah.

They just approved and contractors have been finally been given the green light to start building a bypass.

It was proposed in 1927.

98 years later they finally been.

The contractors have been given permission to do it.

This is how long people have been wanting a bypass and calling for a bypass in this one spot.

But there are, but even, even then there are.

There are differing views to building new roads.

So, you know, a bypass takes you outside a village, potentially away from a town.

But.

But better.

I'm gonna drop the picture of the bypass in so people can see it.

But they do attract.

Yeah.

So people can see what it looks like it's moved the road like 100 meters over.

Yeah.

So it's not, it's not even that far.

It's like.

I can see why people wouldn't kind of wouldn't do it because it's like it's not even.

All they've done is built a massive roundabout about 100 meters away that just goes around a school or something.

But it's just like.

And it probably.

It will cost an extortionate amount of money.

I don't think it says in here how much it costs, but I'll put the pictures.

66 million.

66 million it's going to cost to build one roundabout 100 meters away from where it is now.

I imagine in their defense, I imagine there will be some significant benefit.

It'll assist with growth, I assume in terms of urban growth etc, it'll take.

It'll make local streets more safe.

So I'm assuming.

I'm assuming there's.

Hold on.

There's a case for it gone.

Look at this.

I found this fun functionality.

Check this out.

I can share screen.

Oh yeah.

How cool is that?

So this, this is the road that they're going around apparently.

Yeah.

And they're going to put in this bypass over here.

But this is the traffic that it's.

Exactly.

That's what you want to try and avoid, isn't it?

You know, I've driven around north.

Some parts of North Somerset and yeah, you know, you.

That's.

That's where it's.

You know, if they want to boost the tourism industry, that's the type of infrastructure they put in place because, you know, you're making villages and towns unsafe.

Right, so that's, that's.

But 100 years.

That's exactly.

That's pretty, that's exceptional.

It's.

I mean, but it might just take that long for, for the, for the, for the case to balance.

To do it rather than not do it.

And the other thing is, you know, you, you touched on it earlier about land ownership and you know, local authorities have, have powers to compulsory purchase, but you're always going to be sympathetic to the land owner, you know, and it's, in fact, it's probably, you know, being controversial.

It probably is.

Is.

It's probably the one thing, particularly when you're talking about major infrastructure, the one thing that does prolong schemes and it does increase cost is that negotiation with, with, with landowners.

Yeah, for sure.

And I know, I know the rules are different around that in every country, but it's.

I know in the US it's much easier and they, and they use it much more often.

There's more space as well in the us there's, there's more options.

I mean, there's.

But even in cities, you know, you look at stuff like the, the Boston freeway that they, that used to run on bridges and, and, you know, on the ground through, right through the middle of downtown, and they just decided that they were gonna, they were going to go underground and they just, you know, somebody decided and said, look, we're just going to do it and we're going to have to rebuild tons of stuff.

And like, it was a nightmare.

And it took 10 years, it was way over budget, but now it's turned into a massive park and it's this, just this massive green strip that runs right through the middle of Boston and everyone loves it.

And like, again, you know, this is the most amazing thing once it's done, but it took the vision of a mayor, you know, to, and I think a mayor who got, you know, elected on successive terms to, to get it pushed through.

But yeah, like, I get it.

I totally get it.

It's the same down here.

You know, they've talked about the 8, that narrow bit of the A21.

They did a whole bypass or a whole widening scheme of that road about 10, maybe 10 years ago, and it took about five years for them to do it.

And now there's, there's this one narrow section that's about two miles long and they should have done that at the same time, but they didn't.

And so it's it's now just stuck and it's probably going to be another, you know, 20 years before that ever happens.

And it's super dangerous.

You know, we've on just the stretch in front of our house, we've had eight, we had eight accidents in one year literally in a 200 meter stretch of road.

I mean it was crazy.

But they had gone through the point, to the point of actually acquiring some of the land where they were actually, you know, where they were planning on doing the road widening and then they decided not to do it and so then they just sold all the land off again.

So now next time they go to do it, they're going to have to buy when they already owned it.

They could have just kept it, you know, for some point in the future, but they were like, now we'll just sell it because some administration needed the money and wanted to put the money back on the books to make it look good.

Right.

With again with this short term vision, not with the long term vision of hey, at some point we're going to need to do this.

We should just keep it now that we've got it anyway.

Yeah, we need a Trump over here.

No, I don't think we do.

I think we need to get stuff done.

No, let's get some done.

No, no, no, no.

Make Britain great again.

Britain great again.

Is that what your red hat was?

Yeah, my red hat.

And on that since we're like, this is dangerous, we're on politics.

But ironically, and I don't know how you, I don't remember how you voted and it doesn't matter.

What is interesting though with the Trump tariffs is that we'll never hear the end of it from the Brexiteers because at the minute the tariffs on the UK are lower than the tariffs on the EU and that is a direct positive result from as a result of Brexit and not being part of the EU and it could over if they stay in long enough it could encourage European businesses to come back to the UK because the tariffs are 10% less.

So there could be a knock on advantage for the UK because it isn't part of Europe at the minute.

And that's something that everybody talked about.

You know there was that benefit just never existed until that to have been.

Such a thing during the Brexit campaign where it was right.

So we need to leave the European Union because you know America are going to vote in a president who's just going to start throwing hand grenades and will will be quite as badly affected as the rest of the European Union because he likes to play golf here.

So I, I mean, I'm not sure how that's going to balance out.

I'm not sure how.

I mean, my, my own personal view of Trump's tactics.

When you look at, when you look at how he, how, how he conducted himself in business, it was all about through, through your cards out there.

That's what I'm going to do.

And, and then you settle back to a, a compromise in a negotiated position.

So, and it's, you know, you can see by the market reaction that it's, it's, everything's sort of crashed and then it's starting to, it's starting to sort of build back up today.

So it's more, a lot more positive today than yesterday because it's reactive, isn't it?

But that's how we used to work in business.

And, and that's not where you want to, like, ultimately, you know, you know, talk.

But I think, like him or not, he's, I suspect he's a, he's a very harsh and effective negotiator.

And I think, you know, we all know that, you know, when you take negotiation 101, you know, you, you have to have a couple of things.

One, but the main thing is people need to know that you're serious and that you're willing to walk away.

And I think he absolutely brings that to the table because he will say something and everybody knows he will do it.

No matter how outrageous it seems to a politician like Trump will just do it because he doesn't have any, I think he doesn't, he doesn't have any political loyalty, so he has no loyalty to any party.

So he doesn't care what the people in the party think.

He just does what he wants, which in a negotiation is hugely powerful.

And so I think that a lot of this is posturing, and I think he will, like you said, in the fullness of time, I think what we will see is we will see more advantageous trade tariffs for the US eventually coming out of the end of it, which is what he wants to begin with.

So it's just, I think a lot of it is a, it is a negotiating tactic, and people have to believe that he will do it, and that's why he's done it.

So now everybody's like, holy.

Actually, he's not kidding.

Like, he's actually going to do this, and it makes them come back to the table, so.

Scares a lot of people.

And in the short term, it's going to Be painful.

But again, maybe in the long term it will probably work out in a more advantageous way for the U.S.

and if it doesn't, then he, he will eventually recognize that and he will step back from it.

But I, I think it will probably be effective in most circumstances.

Yeah.

Still don't like the guy.

I mean, it's, you know, you know, it's kind of.

But it is a way to work.

You know, just creates chaos really.

And, you know, you know, my, you know, we've, we've spoken in the, my, my.

I think the, the thing that I principally object to the most is individuals amassing huge wealth.

Because I just don't think it's, I don't see the point.

It's pointless.

It's pointless.

It just, it happens.

And then, and then wealth is just drawn to individuals.

And when you get chaos in markets, you get bad decisions.

And the people who always make the best decisions are the people with all the money.

And I saw something which said something like it singled out Musk, Bezos, a couple of other people, and it was saying, oh, these are all down 60 billion.

I'm thinking it makes no difference to them if you've got more than a billion.

The notion of you winning and losing 60 billion is meaningless because with a billion you ought.

You're only ever gonna go upwards.

So it's almost, it's almost like if you think you're gonna be worth a trillion, but then some happens in the market and then you're worth 800 million, you're not losing 200 billion.

So.

Sorry.

Yeah, 200 billion, exactly.

And I think that the biggest problem with it all is the chaos benefits the people who can afford the gamble.

And it just makes, yeah.

People who are like, very, very wealthy, even more wealthy and.

Yeah.

Extends the gap between them and everybody else.

And it does.

Yeah.

And I, I think the, the thing that a lot of people maybe don't realize is that if you can get to the point that you have enough money to be able to have a stockbroker manage your money for you, you will make money no matter which way the market goes.

If the market starts to tank, they're going to start shorting shares, which means you make money when they go down.

Absolutely.

So you make money on the down and then you make money when it goes back up.

So actually what they want is.

They want it going down and then back up.

Absolutely.

You're making money on both, on trades, both directions.

And it's a, it's a complicated way and I know it's it's really hard to explain.

I mean, I understand it, but I don't know how to explain it to make it where people.

Yeah, but, yeah, but you can make money when it seems like you're losing money.

I mean, that's, that's, that's entirely my point.

And the people who, who can't afford to get, who gamble, who give their.

Effectively give their money away because they panic when it's coming down.

They just end up losing over and over again.

And yeah, that's the bit that's, that's wrong.

So I've no, I have no, in a lot of ways I have no kind of.

I mean, I, I've always got an element of respect for anybody who's in public office who actually gets a political mandate through it.

You know, so there is a.

But, you know, I mean we've on, in the AI type stuff, we've talked about you kind of post reality type, you know, or moving into sort of a post reality.

But, but the kind of the, the, the, the, the difficulty around it is nobody, nobody's.

It's not, they're not.

It's like a comp.

All completely abstract, isn't it?

All the, the stuff that, you know, the, the kind of tariff stuff with Trump, the negotiation stuff, you know, the, the as you say, the, the kind of.

Kind of playing with the markets.

It's all, all that's going to happen at the end of it is wealthy people are going to be more wealthy and everybody else is going to be less wealthy.

And that's the bit I don't like about it.

And I don't know.

You changed that.

I know there's certain, certain people who were, who were kind of saying the right things are sort of entering into sort of political circles and.

Yeah.

You know, and you kind of, you kind of look at them and you think what they're saying is right and it's, and it's logical.

But I don't know how we get there to where to there from where we are.

You know, it's kind of how, how do you.

Yeah, in, in pretty much every aspect now.

You know, money controls or probably has controlled everything for, for a long time.

But how, you know, how do you actually change that?

And it's, and it just makes you sense, you know, when these things happen because you think, well, it's not, it's not achieving really anything.

No, no.

And I think I, and you and I both have other podcasts where we talk about AI all the time.

And I, I do think this is an appropriate time to bring AI into the conversation because I think that is going to have, over the next few years is also going to have a massive impact on job.

It is already having a very large impact on jobs and people who, you know, particularly young people coming in to work now have much less opportunity, I think, than.

Than before because a lot of companies just aren't hiring because the current staff that they have using AI can get so much more done that they don't actually need to hire physical bodies to do the work anymore.

And then you get something like a government who adds additional taxes and cost to business.

And those businesses are going, well, I can't afford to hire.

I don't have the cash flow to actually pay the higher rates.

So I'm either going to get rid of people and I'm going to have the current, you know, the people that I keep are going to use AI to make them more efficient and more effective, or I'm just going to set up AI and I'm not even going to.

I'm just going to get rid of the people that I've got.

And we are seeing that happening now.

It hasn't happened at scale yet, but that's coming.

And when that comes, that's going to have a huge, huge impact on all of it.

I mean, we're going to have to rethink from the ground up what we do and how we work, how we tax that.

Because at the minute there's no tax on any other AI tools.

It's just going to push it or anything, people, further to the margins though, isn't it?

It's, it won't, it won't be addressed.

It'll be, it'll be something that you just have to lump it.

That's just how it is for a while.

And then there'll be civil unrest around it.

We just have to look at where this is.

You know, we do, we know, you know, the destruction of the mining industry, for example, in the 70s and 80s.

There's no, there's no profession for those mining towns in the north of England to fall back onto.

There's no alternative.

There's nowhere, you know, I know that the rhetoric at the time was all about retraining and things like that, but there was nothing, you know, you go to Brampton in South Yorkshire now, it's, as you know, it's almost.

I mean, I'm not, I don't disrespect our family.

A quarter of my family come from Brampton.

Yeah.

But certainly if you Went.

And I've not been very recently, but certainly, you know, when you go visit relatively recently, it's no different.

It's not moved on since the 80s.

And, and is that not.

That's what's just gonna, People are just going to be further and further pushed to the margins.

But yeah, but at a scale we've never seen and you know, and we.

Get the demonization of people on benefits and we've got this thing looping round about welfare at the moment.

And I've always thought universal basic income is, it's not a kind of, I don't think it's a.

Something that we experiment around the margins.

I think that's where we'll be.

I think, I think we'll, we'll be.

Because you'll effectively, you'll effectively be unimployed or one could effectively be unemployable.

So, yeah, you know, and then it's, and then you're looking at what's your basic level of human rights.

And we've got into the utopia distance at the moment.

There needs to be a lot of work to drive everybody up to utopia.

But given the amount of technology, the fact that it's the 21st century, it should, it shouldn't be outraged.

I don't know how we get from where we are.

We're careering around a little bit and I don't know how we get from where we are to there.

But you know, if you look at how productive robotic technology will be and, and then I think, I actually think, ironically, I think the globalization piece is.

Starts to kind of breaking down borders and things like that starts to matter more because you can't replicate that type of that, that mass production in robot tech.

You're not going to be able to replicate that in every different country.

So you're going to have to have big countries, whether that's China, India, Brazil, usa, that are going to have to be the centers of those things.

But everybody else has got to take a more realistic view of how, excuse me, of how the, the interface with that.

And then, you know, and then as you, you know, and then basically where does it leave what you would term at the moment your average person?

I mean, my view is universal basic income, but with, with, with a pathway.

And you've got to stay in some kind of education.

You've got to have a creative endeavor.

So you have to, you have to subscribe to something.

So you can't just sit on universal basic income.

You've got to do, you've got to Continue your education and yeah, you know, and I don't know, you know, and I always think if you give people time, people start to become creative.

So, you know, I don't think it's going to be, I hope it's not us all sat looking at reels on our phones all day getting universal basic income that give get brings us a cup of I don't even know what, I don't know if tea will be available this far into the future, but let's say a nice drink, something healthy, keep us prolong our health to a point where, you know, hopefully we're not in Logan's Run territory where, you know, we expire when we're in our 40s or 30s or whatever.

Yeah, but I, but yeah, it's, it's difficult, it really is, because there's like, there's a lot of factors at play.

So, you know, on one hand I can be, you know, kind of negative about AI and saying, yeah, all these jobs are going to go, but then you've got collapsing birth rates at the same time, so you're not going to, there aren't going to be as many people that need employing either.

So ultimately it may not feel like it's such a thing.

Whereas if you had like a, you know, the echo boom, as they call it.

So the, you know, sort of the millennials, which are as big as the baby boom generation, they're not, they're not having kids, they're, they're not having families, you know, and so we're going to end up in a situation where that generation is really going to suffer a little or towards the end.

But yeah, coming along, the kids that are coming along are still going to have a hard time, but there's not going to be nearly as many of them.

And so, I mean, I, I, it's.

It'S going to kind of, I think it's going to fizzle out.

It will never get to like zero naturally, but I think it will, I think it's going to fizzle out a little bit even around the world.

You know, maybe we won't have as many people that we need to worry about, but, you know, it is going to go back to, I think, those physical labor type jobs for the next 30 years until robots become reliable enough to do the jobs.

And I know people who build robots for a living and what they've said is we're 20 to 30 years away from having a robot that, not technically that can do a job like helping you around the house.

The problem is that they're so fragile that you can do a demo of them doing something, but they can only do that, like 10 times, and then they break down and it's, there's, there's no reliability built into them.

And so, you know, they're, they're, they're super complicated.

You know, the, the parts are very fidgety.

Some of them are, you know, are very specialized, very fidgety.

It's hugely expensive.

There's, you know, and trying to sort of square that circle is going to take them a lot longer.

So we've got kind of 20, 30 years where we can still have electricians and plumbers and, and heating people and hairdressers and, you know, waiters and waitresses and all that stuff.

But, you know, I still think there's going to be.

I think it would be nearly impossible for a robot to go into an existing building and try and work out what the hell's going on with the wiring that was installed in the 1800s.

Yeah.

Like, I just don't think maybe I'm wrong, but I, you know, I think we're a good 30, 40 years away from a robot being able to do that.

So if you want to be an electrician, like, this is what I'm telling my son, and I've said this hundreds of times, and I know I've said it to you before, you know, I'm telling my son, go into a trade, be an electrician, be a plumber, you know, get, get a career like that.

Go to, you know, get an apprenticeship, get a trade.

You'll have work for probably your entire working career, most of your working career.

You can make a good living.

You know, you, you work during the day and then you just put everything down and you come home at night.

Yeah, it's physically challenging and all the stuff that goes with that, but it's what you're going to be able to do.

Yeah, I mean, you've got sons as.

Well.

You know, what do you think their prospects are, like?

Yeah, good, good.

Because they're a bit younger than mine.

Yeah.

So my eldest, same age as your son, isn't.

My youngest is three years.

That my lads are nearly 18 and nearly, nearly 15.

So.

But, but yeah, and they, they sort of do okay, but they're both extremely tied into things like video games and, and, you know, things like that.

And that's what they both want to do.

And I'll, I'll kind of support that.

You know, I'm kind of encouraging, particularly my youngest son, you know, to do, you Know he labored for me when I was doing some of this stuff in this room.

So I've got him labouring, get him using some tools in the next couple of years and see how we.

So let's see how he gets on really.

And I don't know he's the answer better.

I don't know.

It kind of in some ways, you know, because they've both got their educational paths.

In some ways, you know, I just, I just want to see him get to the next stage and then get to the next stage and, and have trusting the education system that some of the stuff that they're picking up through that will be useful because I'm having a.

You know, I've kind of.

When I was probably 13, 14, I probably didn't think I was going to be a.

In my 20s, a train cartographer and then when I was a trained cartographer in my mid, sort of early mid 20s, I didn't think by yeah my early 30s I wouldn't have looked at the map for five years and then get to my mid 40s.

You know, I.

If you'd asked me what I wanted to be when I was 13, it was a professional footballer.

He wasn't a senior manager at local authority.

I didn't even know what that was exactly.

So I think there's a, there's a scope to be organic.

You know what I said stands about my fears about the, the gap and the ability to make money, get money, get enough money to get assets, houses etc or a house to be able to secure you.

You can feel I've worries about that and I'll help them as best I can and I think some more sort of.

It's kind of direct stuff so not necessarily, you know, something like because.

Because my lads granddad was a plumber and you know, work building sites so this should have, you know they could inherit that instead of, instead of the cowboyness off me so they might have a chance of making a career of it.

Whereas I tend to find myself having unscrewed the taps without any ability to screw them back on again.

Not within, within reach anyway.

So.

Yeah, yeah maybe one for another time about how we craft careers for our kids.

In.

In a world that's totally different than the world that we grew up in.

Yeah and I guess every generation says that.

I mean if I think about you know, the world that my mom grew up in and, and you know, she's still kicking around and you know, all the stuff that she's seen in, in her time.

Yeah.

You know, because when she was born, that basically didn't.

Most people didn't even have tv, you know, so she went from you know, tv, black and white TV to, you know, everything since then.

And I remember when I was born in the 60s, you know, it was.

We had TV, but they were black and white and it was, you know.

But she remembers that bit just before me when, you know, kind of TVs weren't even really fully popular yet.

And, you know, she.

I'm sure she looked at it at some point, was just like, I don't.

You know, I don't even understand this world.

Like, what are people going to do?

And what's.

What's life going to be like?

Although.

And maybe every generation says this, you know, that they feel like it's all just on fast forward and it's, you know, ridiculously fast paced, but, yeah, it's pretty crazy.

So I don't.

Yeah, I don't know what to do.

Maybe we should leave it there.

We've been nearly two hours now.

No worries.

Which for me is a record.

So congratulations.

This is our.

My longest podcast so far on any of.

There's at least 15 minutes that's usable.

Yeah, well, we could go for another hour.

We could do like a pull of proper Joe Rogan and just keep going, but I think people would probably take.

I think we need to practice doing that a couple of times, and then we.

I think we can do three to four hours.

Yeah, well, if we do it once I get the studio set up, you can come down and we can just sit and have drinks and we can do it while we have drinks and then we can just.

We'll just turn the cameras on and just let them roll and see what happens.

Yeah, we could both get canceled.

Yeah.

Yeah, Good.

Thanks, Dave.

Always.

Take care, mate.

I'll catch you soon.

All right.