And here we go, live on the metal voice. Excellent. You know, probably one of mine and Allen's favorite guests of all time. Aw. What are our favorite guests? He's smooth talking though. Nigel, the engine room of Saxon. Just in time, Abe, what is it? February 4th, Carpe Diem, new release. Yeah. Been listening to it. Can't stop listening to it. Oh, that's good. So glad you're here. Yeah, it's the last time we saw you.  Was, I think it was when you were touring with UFO. It was a Corona theater here. Right.  And we went in to interview Biff on the less. OK. Yeah, yeah. And Nigel's like, I've seen so many people. He's like, yeah, I can't remember, yeah. Uh-huh. Well, then that was a backpack. It was a backpack. But you did. You did though. You did. You did. It was probably just with bags sewn out of the shoulder, I think. Yeah, that's it. But you had shorts on, and you were just going to go for a walkabout. And so we had that vision of you, right, being the polite English gentleman, and then walking around.  I mean, the stuff that's coming off the drum kit is just blowing us away. And I got to say, that was three or four years ago. Am I four years ago? Three, four years? That was probably one of the best shows. That was probably one of the best shows I've seen the last five years, I would say. You guys just unbelievable. I can't even wake up in the morning. My back hurts. My legs hurt. And you guys are like machines, man. You guys are literally like it. So did mine in the morning as well. All right, your 23rd studio album, Carpe Diem, released on silver lining music. It's going to be released in two days. And I guess what was different, and we probably know this because of COVID, but what was different from this album than, let's say, the last album? What was the pros and the cons, let's say?  But I actually did the drums. I recorded the drums at the end of 2019, because we already had the tracks written. I mean, we changed a few things since then, but the basic drum tracks were the initial drum tracks were recorded. Yeah, I went to Germany and did them, where our gears stored actually in our tour manager's warehouse. And we bought recording gear in and did it. Because, I mean, I actually like recording alone. But we did that. But then, of course, then the pandemic hit. The original thing was the album was going to come out the following February, I think it was. Yeah, the same time frame is now, same month. But the pandemic hit and the record company didn't want to release it because you couldn't go on tour. So they sort of said, well, you know, we've got a free slot now. And we'd already, for years, we talked about sort of maybe doing some covers occasionally.  But between us and the record company said, why don't you do a whole covers album, just, you know, because we've got this free slot and you haven't got a tour of that. It's like an interim thing. So we did it. And so that time was used doing that album. And again, because of the pandemic, it gave gave more time to doing the guitars and the vocals and everything for Carpe Diem. Yeah, seize the day. Exactly, which is, you know, which I think is a great sort of thing to live by, you know. I agree. Grab what you can enjoy it, because as far as we know, we've only got one go at it. So that's right. Unless someone knows something different. Something you don't know. Yeah. But, you know, so that's that's that's how, you know, the album sort of came about.  Oh, yes, yes. So he was actually working on lyrics and getting ideas while he was in the hospital as well.  It's always coming back to that. It's always coming back to that. I mean, we've already talked. We've already talked now, what are you going to do?   And now, I mean, the next thing for us is festival season. So we've got we've got about two or three months off, so to speak. So we've already just we've already started, you know, started thinking about getting ideas ready for the next album, you know, rather than waste time. Let's get ahead of the crack. Crank another one out. Crank another one out. I mean, you know, not straight away, but I'm saying just get ideas ready. So we're ahead of the game. So when, when that timeframe does come around, we're in good shape.  I think I think even Biff did a solo album in there somewhere. Besides the covers. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, I mean, there's there's been all sorts of stuff going on. I mean, I sort of write library music for television. Oh, you know, documentaries and stuff like that. And, you know, so I've been doing that working with Doug doing some of that stuff and other friends. And I did some sessions last year as well for other bands. That's it. So that was good. But Alan, we should talk about the album, too, right? The songs, this. Yeah, yeah. I mean, getting back, getting back to that. So it was all, you know, I think it just gave us more time to sort of. You know, sort of hone things down.  Wow, just so powerful and so strong and so fast. I mean, it's a great way to open up this album. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's a great production. Yeah. Once again, Andy's done a great, great job on it, you know, when those drums hit and it's like, whoa, I could be wrong. But I think this is a lot heavier than the last album in terms of heaviness. I think you're right, actually, what sound wise or music wise. It just seems a lot heavier and it was a difference. I had on my headphones, listen to the album and then I listen to it in my car. And when you played in your car, it was actually a lot more. I don't know, a lot heavier. That's all I can say. The drums are heavier, the guitar heavy. In your face. I'm sorry? Yeah, more in your face.  That's exactly it. Yes, yes, yes, yes.  I'm sorry. No, I'm listening to songs like, you know, Age of Steam or Living on the on the living on the limit.  How's your drumming change, let's say, from the 80s to what you're doing now? Oh, God. Do you have an hour?  You know, I never sort of try and sit back and go, oh, yeah, I can do it all.  You know, and I think now, you know, even so now I think I'm a much better player than I was back then. Oh, there you go. OK, I think with sort of, you know, with time, you just become more honed into what you're doing. I mean, for me, the most important thing for me with any song is that is is the groove. It's not how many drum fills I can put in or how, you know, I mean, obviously, I do love doing all that. You know, but it's it's the groove.  And, you know, it's mixed up the sound. It's not always those barn burner songs. Those, you know, those the, you know, like the I would divide it into like supernova living on the limit. Black is the night. Those are the barn burning songs. And you have the real melodic singles like Remember the Fallen, which is the first, the second single. Yeah. And a Carpe Diem, which is the first single. Those are the the two hits, as you will, or perhaps when then you've got pilgrimage. I love it. My favorite song in the album. Really? Yeah. I mean, I would say definitely a holiday. Yeah, yeah. Remember the Fallen? And like you say, Carpe Diem, the groove, the catchiest riffs.  But just the pilgrimage, you know, it's the longest song in the album, the way it's built. Yeah, the epic feel. And I mean, it's the one I just have to return to keep going back to listen to it. It's kind of a little bit sort of more old school, Saxon. Yeah. Yes. It's the Red Star Falling. Crusader feel. Yeah. Crusader, Red Star Falling, you know, sort of that sort of mid-paced. Yeah. Yeah. What was one of your favorite tracks, Nigel? Well, probably that actually. There you go. There you go. I mean, that one, that one on Carpe Diem, I think. Yeah. And then you and then you and then age, age of steam as well. That there's the history lesson for everybody, because Biff's always giving us a history lesson. Right. You know, age of steam. You know, this is the steam revolution back in the 17 hundreds or whenever it was. And now it was later than that. All right. Eighteen hundreds later in the industrial revolution. You know, the end of the the late eight, the late 18th century and the 19th century. There you go. All right. You know, your history better than I do. But it is the age of steam when the age of steam changed everything. Right. Right. Yeah. Biff's teaching us lessons. Biff's teaching us lessons. History lessons. The lyrics, the stories and the lyrics. Yeah. You know, you think of other bands. Angle does a little bit of that, but, you know, it's not as she loves you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's they're tell stories. It just goes, you know, back to call to arms even. And there's a lot of it. But the lyrics are just fantastic on this album. Yeah. Yeah, they are. No, he's what he's what really hard on them. So yeah, great. But, you know, yeah, as you say, we're not a love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, tight band.  Dallas one PM. And it goes way, way back. So exactly. So why do you got the musketeers and all for one? Three musketeers, a little French history lesson there for all for one.  It was that I got the need for speed song was Dan Buster's. So this is the that's a that's like a fast paced track. But again, we're learning something about history once again. Right. This was World War Two. The secret raid against hydraulic dams in Germany. Right. And that's it. And it's like the solid ball of rock, you know, just coming at you. Right. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that song?  So I mean, they made a film about it.  I think it was done in the late fifties. I think. Great. Great. You know, I watched that as a kid. So that means a lot to me. We just we just interviewed the tailor who did the documentary on Lee Kerslake yesterday. And I just wanted to get you want to get your feedback on Lee Kerslake and any of your other drumming heroes are growing up. Yeah. I mean, Lee was a good friend of mine, actually. He was that when he passed, that was so sad. You know, it really was. But funnily enough, I mean, I was speaking to him. Mick, you know, from Yeraheep and the other guys. And actually, Yeraheep was was the third proper gig I ever went to. On the I think it was on the I think it was the Demons and Wizards tour, I think. And that was a and I sort of remember Lee, I was saying this to Mick. And we had a good laugh about it. I mean, Lee was hammering away at his. He had like a sort of mirror finish. I think it was a Ludwig or a sling land kid. I think he was hammering away at it and his high hat fell over. You know, and I just remember his high hat leg just flailing up in the air. But there wasn't anything there. And we had a good laugh about that. No, we were good buddies, Lee. He was a great player, great player, Nigel. Great singer, too. Yeah, did you were you in were you on the Ozzy Osbourne tour? Were Lee played, I guess, that only leg? Were you were where Saxon was opening up for Ozzy? Were you on that tour? I guess that was right before Power and the Glory. That was that tour was that was in that was in Europe. He was opening for us. Oh, he was opening for you. Oh, there you go. So but I mean, that was your first connection. That's what I'm getting at. Yeah, that was not with Lee. He wasn't. No, he wasn't playing. He wasn't Lee. It's Tommy Aldrich. Oh, OK. No, that's that's so that's a second half of the tour. Because I think they recorded Blizzard and we get it. Because what happened was they came on, they came on the tour and it was Rudy Sarzo playing bass. When when did you join Saxon the exact moment? Was it between October or November 81? Did you ever open for Ozzy in in in the UK in 82? In the UK. No, no, no, my knowledge. No, no, no, no. Lee, I mean. The only time again, I got sort of became good mates with Lee when when he was with Yorah, he later on and we were doing shows with them like festivals and stuff in Germany, for instance. So we sort of became buddies. OK, all right, all right. What about Aron Maiden with Bruce? In the early days? Yeah, we did tour with them in. I think that was on the Pan the Glory tour over in the US. OK, that was 83. All right. Did you did you?  You know, there was Fastway, Pass and then Maiden. Yeah.  And that's the bill you want to see, right? Yeah, it was. Yeah, that was that was a great time. What about, you know, I'm just going through little bits and pieces of history. And I remember this and I don't know if you remember this. I don't know if you were in the band when you guys are supposed to play the Dubai Music Festival. Oh, do you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Were you were you in the back? You were in the band then, right? Yes. And they sort of said, wait a second, guys, we don't like the word crusader. We don't like the lyrics here, crusader lyrics. Yeah, yeah, what do you remember from that? All I remember is that I think some politician got involved, actually, and said, you know, we think it's safe that you don't come over. Funnily enough, actually, I mean, it was due to the verse that I'd written lyrically.  I was a bit like, oops. And but no, they didn't like the sort of, you know, calling them Saracen heathen or whatever it was. They just didn't like that. You know, I think actually, I think what I think some of it was that some guy had retranslated it or something. And I think the thing was I don't think the lyrics were actually as they were, if you know what I mean. They sort of changed or something. But I know there was a big thing and this political guy or something came up and said, I think it's safe that you don't do it, you know, because it might cause a bit of a riot or something, which was unfortunate because there are a lot of fans there that wanted, you know, that we heard from them afterwards. I said, oh, we would have loved that song. And I find it a bit bizarre that I think it was a few years before. You know, Christopher, he went there and played a song called Crusader. It was more of a metal thing than a crusader. Yeah, probably. Who knows? I don't know. I think actually, I think actually the band got banned in in Turkey as well for a little while, although they've since they since played it when I wasn't in the band. I think, yeah, there was a time when that, no. It's amazing, isn't it? But today it's just not the same. That was in the 2000s around there, I guess, right? Yeah, I mean, the Turkey thing was before that, I think, actually. Oh, really? OK. Yeah, I think Dubai actually was. I think that was in the 90s. OK, I think I'm going to be wrong. I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. So, you know, we got the chance to interview Beth and you guys see you live when you came back to North America, recall the arms, I can come back, but really more focused, maybe, on the North American market and built ever since. You know, what do you think this COVID delay is going to cause your everything that you built up to in North America? How is it going to affect that? In a way, I sort of think that. You know, I'm hoping fingers crossed that people are thinking, oh, great, at last, we can see him again. We've got to go. I don't know. I don't think. I'm hoping and I really don't think it'll do damage to our popularity. I think, actually, if anything, it might go, geez, at last, they can come over, we've got to go and see him. Bigger venues, maybe, maybe bigger venues. We don't know. So that would be that would be brilliant. You know, that would be great. But, you know, I was sort of sneaking suspicion that could be it. You know, I mean, as I say, these last two gigs we did.  Wow. Wow. Yeah. We're both last year, you know, we did Bluntstock in August and an indoor German festival for Metal Hammer. I think it was in November. And those are the only gigs we played, you know. So suddenly these other two gigs, you know, have been postponed three times and they sold out. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so I'm hoping fingers crossed that once we can get across the pond to you guys, people will go, yeah, got to go and see it. You know, because I think everyone's hankering back to want to play live gigs, you know, for sure. I think the audience want them. The bands want them. Yeah. Fingers crossed. Definitely need them. Yeah. The package. So everybody's, you know, and we spoke about this right before starting girl's school, your eye heap. You guys and Diamond Hand, right? Yeah. Yeah, sort of new wave of British heavy metal package. Do you ever foresee something like that happening in North America? I mean, I'd love it. I think it would do really well. But again, it's down to the promoters. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's not down to us. I mean, I'd love it. It'd be great. Yeah. Anything that'd be special. I think so, too. So, you know, there are any promoters listening. Give us a call. No, I think it would do really well, you know, in a good size venue. I think it'd do great. But you guys, particularly after this long break, everyone said. Yeah.  The albums are very consistent. And, you know, it seems that each one gets better. Yeah. And is it something you purposely target like theaters and the smaller venues rather than being an opening band for a larger, for a larger area? And for another band, let's say I made it for a Metallica kind of thing. Why wouldn't they bring Saxon on his opening band? Because they're frightened of us. Yeah, I think so. I think so. And you know what? But UFO followed you guys here in Montreal. And you can't follow Saxon. That's what I learned that night. The Marshall Stacks and just the Les Pauls, it makes such a difference.  I'm not taking anything away from UFO, but their sound sounded thin compared to the wall of Sound of Saxon. I mean, a lot of that maybe to do with the sound, you know, our sound different sound engineers, you know. But again, I think a lot of it's to do with the attitude of the band.  Great guys. I mean, Phil Malt lives about three miles from me. We keep swearing we're going to meet up somewhere for a pint or whatever. It's OK, Alan lives 10 minutes for me. It's been two years.  No, I think we'd rather, I think we'd rather I mean, I say this, I'm just I hope I'm not talking out with the other guys. But I think we'd rather sort of headline, do our own gigs in, you know, theaters and stuff, because then at least we can sort of play for a decent amount of time and present a lot of material. That's that's fair enough. That's fair enough. And I'm just going to throw out Lady in Gray, a song we didn't talk about in the new album. OK. Here's the haunting. The it's a fantastic track. This is like one of my favorite tracks right off the album. It's it's sort of about that haunting feeling, that mid-paced, haunting feeling. Yeah, I'm trying to think of what song I could compare it to in your past past catalog, but maybe you want to speak to it. I don't know. I don't know what I compare it to, you know, when Doomsday comes. Yeah, it could be. Yeah, it could be. No, that's not a bad comparison.   And for me, they're reminding me a little bit of the painkiller, especially the chorus, the ways that the vocals are layered in the chorus.  And I actually find it harder to play that. Then I do like a hundred miles an hour track.  I find that easier to play it rather than because, again, you're trying to get this groove right, but your legs are sort of tuned to like playing fast.  It's like, oh, you know, I might play, I might try and play it with one foot, actually. I think that would be easier. Let's see if there's some questions, OK, from everybody's watching. And I think there are and I've been ignoring everybody like I usually do. OK, are there K-man and he's got a lot of questions. Are there any metal bands around now that Nigel is really impressed by? So the latest, you know, bands today. I've said this before and I've said it a few times, they probably think something's going on like they've slipped me a few bucks to keep saying, but I mean, at the moment, I'm listening a lot to ever Gray. I love them. I love ever great, brilliant, huge fan, huge fan myself. Right, man. I mean, that guy's voice is phenomenal. They are not bigger, I don't know. I don't get it, you know, I don't get it at all. They're just the lyrical concept, you know, the lyricals kind of the melody, the guitars are just brilliant, no, great band, you know. And their new album is fantastic. I mean, that's another one I can't stop listening to. Yeah, yeah. Let me see what other questions you have. Other things, like the Rammstein, you know, and all the usual stuff. Talk about history less than Sabaton's got a new album out, too, that's all about World War One. It's it's unbelievable as well. So, yeah, I have to give that a listen. Here's another question. How do you feel about having Andy Sneep as your producer when he's also working with Accept and Judas Priest, as well as other bands? He's great.  He understands what Saxon's all about. He's a big fan, but he sort of gets sometimes in the past, we've had producers that haven't been able to sort of. Put down on album what we like live, power wise. Yeah, and Andy does, I feel Andy does, you know, he really does get us. You know, he understands what the band's all about. And I mean, for me personally, I love working with him. And if you need an extra guitarist, he's always there, right? Exactly. If you need a sub, he's there, you know. Very true. That is very true. But now he always gets me a great drum sound. We sort of work on it together. He'll say, you know, once recordings, my parts are done and other things are going on, he'll send me sort of snippets. What do you think of this? But, you know, it might be changing the EQ of the drums a bit. No, it's great. I'd work with him all the time. Well, here's Matt. Always been curious about what he feels about his contributions to Toya's anthem album. Well, I feel it. I'm very pleased with it. Very, you know, I sort of co-wrote some stuff on there and everything. So it's great. You know, that was a good that was a good time. It was great, you know, and it was very interesting. Sort of we did a lot of experimenting in the studio and stuff like speeding tracks up and me hitting like a sort of I remember with me, Adrian and Adrian, the keyboard player and Nick Talber, the producer, we were in the studio about two o'clock one morning, trying this track out and we sped the tape up and I was sitting on the floor in the studio with a big bass drum. So we sped the thing up and then slowed it down. So it was like almost like a big boom, this thing.  But no, it was great. It was brilliant. I was very proud to have been in that band. All right. All right. What we did, Jimmy and I wanted to do all sax and all the time metal voice here. We ran out of time, so we're going to just focus on our top ten sax and songs and we just like your comments when you go to play them live or anything you have about these songs if you got the time. You're ready for this, Nigel? You're ready for this? I don't want to give you a heads up. I don't want to give you a heads up. It wouldn't be more. Have I got to go and have a quick whiskey first? Number ten off of Innocence is No Excuses, which is my first time I saw you guys live. OK. Be back on the streets. Yeah. I love that track. Me too. I love it. You know, we had great fun writing it. It was I've always loved playing it live. You know, it's a more commercial side of Saxon. But whenever we have played it, I mean, we haven't played it for quite a while now. But when when we had played it, sort of brought it out of the vault, you know, people have gone nuts for it. It was a big hit at the time for sure. Yeah, yeah, it's great. Number nine would be Wheels of Steel.   And you must have been getting a bit fed up with it now. But I'm sort of again, I'm really concentrating what I was saying earlier, I'm really concentrating on the groove of it rather than try bits or flash bits through it. I'm trying to just make it sit properly and hammer it, you know, and groove back in. So now, you know, and that is a groove song. That's all about groove. You know, that we played it last weekend, both times. And I just sort of hopefully I got it right in the pocket, you know. Number eight, we got Call to Art. I think that whole album is one of my favorites from the sector. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Again, that was, you know, whenever we played that is funny. Whenever we play sort of slow songs like that, it's we always get a bit nervous about doing it because we want to keep the energy up. Yeah. But again, when we play, it's the same thing with Red Star, Red Star falling.  Outcome the lighters, you know. Or the phones. Yeah. Number seven, it was Jim Spick and the Battalions of Steel. Number seven, Battalions of Steel, what a song. And anybody who's never heard that track, please do yourself a favor. It's I would call it the epic Saxon tunes. Right? That's. Yeah, yeah. I'd agree with you there. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Again, another one I enjoy playing, you know. Are there any songs you don't enjoy playing? And which ones are they? Nigel's top 10 songs he doesn't want to play anymore at Saxon shows. I mean, they're awesome. That's another show. You know, I wish we play. I mean, I like that. Yeah. You know, I used to love playing Red Star falling because the lights would come out. And particularly if we played it in the Eastern Europe, they'd all start singing it. You know, that was we were going to do another list called the 10 most underrated Saxon songs. And that was my contribution to that list. I was scratching my head. I go, geez, like, do I put this one here or that one here? And it all got confusing. I go, should we do top 50? Like, how long do we have to talk to Nigel for? I mean, could we do 50 or 60? I don't know. We kept it to 10. Number six, we got off of Power and Glory. That version of Susie Hold On. Yeah, that was that was that wasn't on the English version. That was only on the US and Canada. Oh, OK, so that's where, you know, why I don't know. I think the record company maybe thought, you know, you know, maybe it got missed off wheels of steel or something and put it on it slightly faster than the original. I know. Yeah. Yeah. But funnily enough, actually, when we when we have played it live, we played it at that speed. I remember when you joined the band and you you could see you could notice right away, the drumming was just at another level. Right. There was groove right before you were in the band. There was a lot of groove, but the drumming precision when you joined the band, that was just off the charts.  You know what I mean? Kind of feeling right. Not saying you're Neil Pert. I'm just saying we got somebody special here. So I think that, you know, I mean, I've said before, I mean, that was a very important album for me, because a lot of people love Pete Gill, you know, and he was a great player. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I played on the Eagle's Land of the Live album. Yeah. But this was my first sort of studio album, having a hand in the writing as well and the creation of the whole thing. So it was an important stepping stone for me, shall we say? So I'm glad I'm glad I passed the audition. There you go. You're good. You're going to stick around for a bit more. Number five, we have, of course, Crusader. Crusader, yeah. Well, yeah. Here you are. Well, I know I can see that. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's a staple in our set. We have to play it. You know, we just have to play it. And wherever we do, it just goes down great.  Except for Dubai, that there doesn't go down. Or Turkey, you know, like we're. Yeah, everywhere else. Right. And again, number four, my pick. And I'm so glad you played on the last tour that I saw you broken heroes. You pulled that one out on the last tour here. Yeah. Yeah. I love that song, just the way it builds. And it kind of like the prology, the prology. Yeah. No, that's a good one.  So I'm always listening to what he's playing when we get to the solo. And it's like, you know, sometimes I'm not thinking, oh, that was a good note there. You know, it's great. That's his that's one of his feature things, you know. And yeah, it's great. Real cool. That Jimmy has in a number three. The eagle has landed. Oh, my Lord. The eagle has landed. Well, this is Mr. Quinn's feature. So again, you know, I sort of listened to what he's doing. And they go, oh, yeah, he's on form tonight. You know, I mean, the eagle, we play eagle probably more than broken heroes, actually. I think, you know, I think eagle's become a bit of a staple, one track you've got to do, you know, like Crusader, really. Yeah. But again, as I said, it sort of features Paul. And he just, you know, I always know when he's on it. You know, it's it's great. And I love playing it because, you know, it's got light and shade in it. Yes. So it gives me, you know, it gives me a lot of sort of different parts to play. Rather than just a special track. It's just it just stands on its own. Just like, you know, it's interesting about Crusader. That's only the there's not too many great songs. I love all of Saxon, but I find it's a weak album. But that song is one of the strongest songs, which is this sort of dichotomy in a sense, right? You got one of the most. You find that a bit of a weak album. I find the album a bit weak, but that song is probably one of the best songs in the catalog. So that's where the sort of.   And I think I wish Jeff Klicksman had produced that the one that did Pound the Glory. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I think maybe it's a production. It was the production that was a lot. I think a lot of it was the production. There were a lot of, you know, backing vocals on there, which we weren't actually sort of used to doing, but that was a direction we were being pushed into. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, there's still some great stuff on that. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm not trying to say, you know, I'm just trying to say it's amazing how that song is one of the greatest. Yeah. Yeah. I'm totally agreeing. He agrees with me. It's good. Number two. You're going. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, go on. Go on. Number two, what we had, and I've always liked this song, but on the Call to Arms tour, you played it live and it just took this song to a double level for me. It's the 747 Strangers of the Night. Yeah. Well, that's another staple we've got to play. Yeah, it really is.  And again, for me, it's got to, you know, it's got a lot of different sections for it so I can sort of experiment a bit, you know, in the sort of choruses and stuff. And so now it's another one keeps me on my toes. It's got to be, it's got to sit in the pocket again. And of course the last one. And number one choice we just talked about. Take a guess. Take a guess. Take a guess. Take a guess. Not Pound of Glory, is it? Could have been. It could have been, but it's not. Or is it this Town Rocks or something? Or could have been. What albums are they all? Denim and Leather. Princess. No, it's Denim and Leather. It's just sort of like- And number one, on our top 10 list, Denim and Leather. We were talking about this last day with the passing of John Zazzula. We all, even though we're placed around different parts of the world, that song, those lyrics, summed up that whole movement that we all lived through. 79, 80, 81, 82, 83. Yeah, it just, I listened to it the other day and it's like, that's my life. That's my life being sung on that song. Yeah, plus great music that goes along. Interesting that you've made it number one. That's very interesting. It's kind of like the run to the hills. That was a unanimous choice for us. It's kind of like the made and run to the hills. It's just the call to metal, you know? But I told Ian Allen, we had like a top 60 list. I like that quote. Yeah, we had a top 60 list, just so you know, we have to whittle it down to 10. I mean, it's just, so, yeah, Denim and Leather. You know, it's the ballads. We should do a ballads one because Saxon's ballads, nobody, they talk about Scorpions and maybe Striper and, but Saxon, you guys, I mean, why do it all for you is not a bigger hit. You can give that to Sir Lindsay on it and we'd go to number one, you know? Oh, well, hey, hey. Well, that's our list. Now, tell us one song or one or two songs that you, I think you already did, you would like to play more at the shows, you know? Okay, you mentioned, yeah. I mean, Red Star, I think, you know. Oh, God, that's just so many of them. Yeah, all right.  I mean, sometimes, maybe I'd like to go back and listen to all of them again and maybe pull something out of the vault that we haven't done for a year. Devil rides out. That would be one of mine for me. I'd like to see that one pulled out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, let's just bring it back to the new album. You're thinking about writing a new album after the new album. You're collecting the songs, right? Yeah, we're gonna start. I mean, we haven't yet, but we're gonna start. You're gonna start, you know, thinking about that. How much of the new album do you foresee playing live, you know? Not easy, is it? We'll probably play about six tracks, or Fero and imagine that's what we usually do. Play about six off a new album. Yeah. You know, but again, it depends how long we play for, you know, because you can't just ignore the other stuff. That sometimes, like you said, we must, they're staples.  If you like pummeling people, I sometimes think that two hours is too long. Yeah. Because I've been, I mean, this is just my personal thing. I mean, I've been to gigs and I think, you know, I love in the band, I'm watching, I think, geez, and it finished yet. You know what I mean though, it is, it's just, I mean, it's like that, but I think I mean it. I'm like that, Alan can go to shows and I go, you know what Alan, I think I had enough, I'm good. Yeah, you've been pummeled by two support bands as well. Yeah. You know, and then, although you love the headline band, it's still like. It's past my bedtime. I've got to negotiate with you. Just one more song, just one more song. This is like the truth. Jimmy, one more, one more, one more. Oh, Alan, you know, I got to wake up early tomorrow. Oh, I'm dead, I'm taking my eyes open. That's what I loved about Saxon and UFO. You guys were on first, so there's no issues. When UFO came on, I go, Alan, look, I got to run. And I love UFO too, don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong. No, no, no, no, that's right, right, right. We should talk about Biff's singing on this album, which we did in it. The guy, he's 71. Yeah. Incredible, like his voice is just as clear. The range is there. The, there's no degradation. He's getting more range, actually, as he gets older. I went back to listen to Steels and Wheels. Yeah, cool. And this album, compared to Steels and Wheels, his voice, exactly, exactly. It's much more rounder. He's got, seemed to have more depth through it. Yeah, the other thing I found, he seems to have, you know, the older he's got, he seems to have got a bit of a grasp to it, which I like. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I know, he's singing great. I think you've, yeah, really good, really good. You know, it doesn't seem he's, hell, scared, doesn't, I mean, from a vocal point of view, doesn't seem to have affected him at all. And sometimes, you know, when you have a little more extra time, you can work on stuff and discover stuff about yourself or your instrument or whatever that gives me. Exactly, precisely. Whereas normally we're in this sort of write-record-tour mode and you get a little bit of time off and then you've got to start writing again. Yeah, yeah. Whereas we've had a, you know, we've been very lucky, everyone's been able to spend a lot of time at home, which, you know, we're thankful for from that point of view because we don't get to do that much. And so in that way, it's been okay, but you know, we've sort of, as you say, we've been able to sort of hone down the album and writing and stuff like that. So it's been pretty good. Did you know Johnny Zazzoula, he just passed away yesterday or the day before? Did you know Johnny Zazzoula from Megaforce? No, I never knew. He was more of a U.S. He was more on the U.S. side of things. Yeah, okay, just curious. I just, he passed and was sad and, yeah. That's pretty much it. Is there anything you want to... Brutal is the people passing, isn't it? I mean, musicians and stuff like Meej Loaf and stuff. Yeah, and Lee Kerslake, you know, it's at least there's a documentary of him and it'll be coming out hopefully sooner than later. Yeah, that was really annoying because I'd only spoken to him about a month before he passed. Wow, yeah. Maybe six weeks, something like that. I rang him at home and I sort of said, as soon as we're allowed to, I'll come up and see you. And he said, oh, that'd be absolutely brilliant because I knew he wasn't that well anyway. But he said that'd be absolutely brilliant. And then the next thing I know, he's gone. You know, he's a bit heart breaking that whole stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Is there anything else you want to talk about, about the new album, just to tell everybody as a last note? Well, I'll just say, you know, if you love the last album, you're going to love this one, you know? And what can I say? Pre-order now. Pre-order now, together. Just go and get it and turn it up. That's it. And then hopefully, you know, we can get over there this year, you know, or early next year. Once this pandemic sort of calmed down a bit, maybe hopefully. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're dying to get over there and play to you guys. How long has it been? It's been, now we're talking... Well, since priest, isn't it? What was priest four years ago? Five years ago? You know, we aged two years in this pandemic. Yeah, we do. I know. It's really weird. So how was it before that? Was priest, it's gotta be a couple of years before that, surely. Was it UFO the last tour? No, no. Maybe in Canada it was, maybe in Canada. Oh, maybe in Canada, yeah. Alan, do you remember priest in Saxon? Like a few years ago? I don't remember. Yeah, we did. On that far power album. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they play in, I think they played in Ottawa. That's right. That's what it was. They didn't come to Montreal, they played in Ottawa. That's what it was. Yes, yes, yes, yes. You're right. I was just gonna say, I remember going through the Canadian border. Yes. They're very mean at the border. They're very, very... Those Mounties, they're just... Oh! No, so that means, yeah, that was the last time. Yeah. And that was a brilliant tour, that was brilliant. Are you like, I guess, are you so, I don't know, pleasantly surprised that the older you guys get, the better everything seems to be going. You know, in terms of sound, in terms of working as a team, in terms of songs, in terms of performance. Yeah, I am. Yeah, I am. I'm very pleased. Again, I think all of us are improving, still. I mean, and I think, you know, we want to do it. I mean, the main thing I would say about something is, if you get whatever sort of job you do, but specifically in music, you've got to be fun, you've got to enjoy it. Otherwise, what's the point? You just say, yeah, okay.  And we have this... My show is... We don't actually sort of hang out together that much when we're sort of off the road, because we're living all over the place. You know, I mean, Doug lives around the corners from me at the moment, so we're at the moment, you know? We're sort of... We hang out and write together and stuff, but I don't see the other guys hardly at all. You know, and so I think, in a way, that could be good, because then when we do come together, it's like, oh, here we go. Fresh. Yeah, exactly. And they miss each other, and it's not... Yeah. Catch up. Yeah. Yeah, I have a few pints and a curry, you know? And bond again, you know? And that's it, and then off we go. Just like in the ballad of a working man. You know, I was reading about this with Biff, you know, how Saxon and Maiden, they're always writing new music. They're not depending on their greatest hits as sort of... Do you think it's the most important thing for an artist or musician to keep writing, regardless if it sells 2 million copies or 2,000 copies? I mean, you can't force it. I mean, you can't force the writing, if it's not happening, it's not happening, you know? You have to sort of do it. Well, would you rather go and see your favorite band and they play all the hits but they haven't written any new music or not at all? I think that's what you have to sort of think about, but with us, again, we just enjoy writing. That's what we're in it for, you know, and doing new albums and creating something and come up with new stuff. Yeah, a working band. That's part and parcel of what we are. Other bands like Go On The Road and, you know, and they're extremely popular and maybe not get so many albums out as we do, but this is the way we do it. So, yeah, all right. But it's a winning formula. Seems to be working okay. So, absolutely. Can't complain, I guess. The Carpe Diem sees the day. Get your copy, it's out in two days from now. And again, whenever Saxon hits North America, make sure you got your ticket. Make sure you go and see these guys because you will not be disappointed and bring some earplugs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Last time I had earplugs, I was good. I was good. And it still gets through. It still gets through. So it's good. Nigel, it's been a pleasure. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for all. Congratulations. Thank you.


And that span where you guys had six, seven, and they go on in 23-5. Was it anything that they did, or did you guys kind of just move the game a little bit faster? I think they just got a lot of easy looks, and they got into a good rhythm. You talking about the third quarter? Yes. Yeah, specifically the third quarter. Bang got it going. Great young player in our league, and he just kept his foot on the gas puddle, which he should have done when Jal was on the bench. And then when both those guys came in, they were just playing off each other really well. I felt like they got into our paint pretty often. Bane challenged our bigs at the rim. So did Jal. I felt like we did a great job. Most times just forcing Jal into some tough ones, but he got it going early. I think he almost had with 20 in the first quarter or in the first half. So there was a lot that they were feeling good about, I felt, in the first quarter on. And we did our best to fight back, but that third quarter is just horrendous. I could sit up here and say we can watch film. We can communicate more. We can trust more. I think those things are obvious. But for us as a team, consistency when we're out there in terms of focusing on our game plan is really what we have to collectively focus on as a team. It's an effort thing, of course, but it's now a psychological aspect that we have to develop as a team. What's going to make us tick? What's going to be our pulse, especially on defensive end? When we give 39 points in the first quarter, 45 points in the third quarter, that's just not a trait of a great team on a defensive end. Especially when you think about just how much length we have and how much talent we have in terms of our intangibles of being able to make up for one another on the defensive end of the floor because we have guys that can play multiple positions. So I think we just got to utilize our strengths well and just make the game easy for each other on the defensive end instead of just having it just be a one-on-one challenge. We play great team defense when we're communicating and when the right spots body position wise on the end. What have you seen him continuously be able to do, especially when it comes to like labeling himself and improving that he offers a label? He's kind of, in every category, he's kind of taken to the end of their stuff. He's an incredible student of the game and he takes his craft, his profession very serious. It's, you know, a trait of a great player when they come in and have no fear and Ja doesn't have fear and he shows it night in and night out and you can tell that he's watched guys before him and he adds a lot of nuances in the game and I think coming into this year he definitely wanted to make it a point individually to get better in every category. You know, we, when I say we, you know, a lot of us as professionals year to year, we want to work on some specific things and I feel like this year he's making an emphasis not to just score but to make it look easy and then also make his teammates better and they go off his mentality so it's good to see we'll be seeing him lead this team for a long time hopefully and, you know, I'm looking forward to the challenge of being, you know, the OG or why OG and his league. You know, I know that he's just going to keep getting better so just appreciative that I get a chance to compete against him. We're going to move along with the solidation of Ben early in this. Do you feel like you mean the same thing towards how he struggled to keep going early and has had these felt wrongs and hasn't had that impact that he's liked so far? Most of what I have to say to that is just trusting that he's a professional and that his skills are going to catch up to our game plan eventually, you know. And when I say that just he's there but I think just body-wise I'm not going to give him any excuses. You know, of course I don't think he wants any excuses from me but the relationship that we've developed is really centered around just holding each other to that high standard and knowing that, you know, we're capable of doing some special things night to night but a lot of it is mental, you know, a lot of it is pushing through just what you feel like you're capable of doing especially when you're coming off an injury.  So though we have guys that have been here for a few years together but it's still a new synergy we have to figure out new DNA and once we find that heartbeat, that rhythm, that pulse within our team I feel like things will start clicking but until then, I think you guys can quote me too I said this immediately, it's going to look ugly sometimes it's going to look beautiful, it's going to look ugly and game to game we're going to have to figure it out and we had a chance to win this game, we did. We should win when there's great players on the floor I feel like I have a great chance to win every game I'm playing but in terms of how I individually feel it doesn't matter it's all about the team and Ben's a big part of that and we need him to lock in just like as much as us.


From Soldiers Radio and Television, this is the Army Now. Thirty-seven years after the war, Vietnam vets receive a long-awaited welcome home in North Carolina. I think it's just great. I mean, it's just something, when I came over to Vietnam, a lot of people didn't even want to step inside the airplane, to be honest with you, and if they did step inside every year, they wouldn't talk to you. I mean, you didn't get any kind of recognition for what you've been through, so I think this is all the Vietnam veterans a chance to feel honored, and so forth. You know, you got the brins on the wall that didn't make you back, and it's really emotional. I didn't like it. I just appreciate everything everybody's done. Over 62,000 people attended the event. It was hosted by the USO of North Carolina, the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters, and the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The Army Now.


I will start with a short introduction about the place where I've been working in the last three years, MIT's sensible city lab. MIT's sensible city lab physically is located in the School of Architecture in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. And this is just a random snapshot of the people working at the lab, or less any time there are between 30 to 40 lab members. The point is that the diversity of backgrounds of these people is really impressive, at least to me. I mean, it's the first time that I am in a lab, or less the number of people in this room, with as diverse best ground as computer science like me, all types of engineering, physics, mathematics, design, architecture, social sciences. And this is really a rich environment. Why is that? Because the focus of the lab are cities, and cities are very complex environments. And to really understand and make an impact on cities, you do need to understand all these dimensions. And that's why we put together Carlo Ratti, the founder of the lab more or less 10 years ago, had this idea of bringing together the design and architecture space with the science dimension, which is something that I think is kind of unique of Sensible City Lab. And just to set a little bit of the stage for what we're talking today, these are numbers. What are these sort of random numbers? Two is the fraction of the Earth that is occupied by cities. It's only 2% of the surface. But these tiny amount of land hosts already today more than half of the world's population. And even more impressing is that there are many predicted trends that says that this fraction is going to increase to up to 3% of the world's population. We'll be living in cities in 20 years from now. And this is mostly due to the contribution of developing countries, of course, where the urbanization trends is much stronger than in the developed countries. 75% is the total amount of energy, speaking of energy, that is currently being used in cities. So if you want to reduce the use of energy, cities is where you have to work. And even more if you talk about emissions, 80 is the fraction. 80% of global emissions are originated in cities. So all these numbers are kind of a good justification of why you are interested in cities. Because working and trying to impact cities is where we can really do a lot of changes. And another focus of the lab is in the so-called big data. This is just a funny definition. It's everything that cannot fit in Excel spreadsheet. More seriously, this sort of random number, it's even difficult to say what it is. I think it's five exabytes of data of gigabytes. It's a huge number. It's more or less corresponding to the entire knowledge of humanity that has been produced since we turned from age to humans till 2003. And all this huge amount of information now is being produced in one and a half day. And of course, the trend is going to be even faster than that. And this means that more and more, the way we will be living in cities will be something like what this image represents. So you have a physical space where we move the city of Dublin, in this case, for instance. But more and more, you will also have a digital layer produced by all the information that all the device that we carry with us or that are embedded in the environment will generate. And we, as people, we will be living in between these two layers, in a sense. And the mission of the lab is trying to understand how the interaction between the physical and the digital layer can be exploited, can be used for the benefits of the citizens and the society in general. And now, before getting into two specific projects I want to mention you today, a little bit of motivation. Of course, I thought that, in general, sensible city lab is concerned with this interaction between digital and physical space. And one of the big focuses on the lab, of which I am the sort of supervising person in the lab, is on mobility. Why mobility? Mobility is a prominent factor. And actually, it's one of the reasons why cities were created, in a sense. So the fact that we meet each other, there is the power of the city. The fact that today, now, we are sitting all in this room to meet is important. But it's the consequence of mobility. So we do not want to take mobility out of the picture, because that would be the easy way of solving of the mobility-related problems. No mobility just connected in the homes to the internet. And that's fine. We never leave our homes except for exceptional cases, and that's done. This is not what we want to do, because we do think that mobility is important. On the other hand, at the current stage, mobility resources are used in a very bad way. We are talking over the lunch about the fact that private vehicles are used for less than 10% of the lifetime. For 90% of the lifetime, they are parked. So they are not only useless, but they also use public or private space that is wasted. Think about the value of public space that is just used for parked vehicles. This is totally useless. Even worse than that, when you have mobility in private vehicles and taxis for instance, just to give you an example, there is a number, which is incredible to see how constant this number is across different parts of the world. The average number of people in a car is 1.3, 1.2, 1.4. This number is constant also in the developing world. And this is another huge problem. So how could we try to change this? Why is that? Because of course, with more people living in cities and with the situation of mobility that is already dramatic in terms, for instance, of emissions, 23% of global emissions are related to mobility, as you were mentioning before. So we need to do something. And that's why, for instance, we start focusing our eyes on one important type of mobility, which is taxi related. Of course, the advantage of taxis is that they have been equipped with GPS since a long time. So there are data sets that we can use to understand how they move. And that's why we started analyzing this huge data set form of 150 million trips performing the city of New York in year 2011. The amazing thing about this picture is that this is not a map. It seems like a map, but it is not the map. If you zoom in, you would see just dots. Each of that dot is the GPS coordinate of a pickup or a drop-off point. When you put together all these dots, you see the map of New York, OK? And this is just to let you understand how pervasive taxi trips are in New York. No big surprise. More than that, we ask ourselves the question, how similar are those trips? How many of those trips could be put together and served by a single taxi instead of two? And that's why, for instance, we put together this website, which is called Hubcap, where you can go. You can select two specific points in the city of New York and see how many trips can be where actually performed between these two specific points during the year. This is interesting. That was a tool that we use also to engage people with the problem of sharing. Yet, it doesn't really tell you whether, if you are now in this point and you want to go to the other point, whether you will be able to find somebody else to share your ride with. So what we did, the idea is that if you have trips like this with similar starting points, similar ending points, and similar times that you cannot see in this drawing here, but of course, the trips should start at similar times. You could possibly put them together. And in principle, you can scale up the idea. Of course, in this case, you might also have to change the design of your taxi, maybe a limo. But in principle, you can scale up this idea. To solve this apparently very difficult problem, we came up with a mathematical model that is just a way of expressing the sharing opportunities. The point is that if you think about it, we have to understand which is the best way of combining 150 million trips. Think about how many combinations. But likely, thanks to this idea of shareability network, we were able to actually solve the problem optimally. And so we came up with curves like this. What do you see in this curve? On this part, you see a quantity that we call delay. What is this delay? The fact is that if you want to share a trip, you have to accept that your taxi might make a little bit of the tour because you have to pick up somebody else and drop off somebody else. So you would arrive at destination a little bit later. This is this parameter delay. And it's in seconds. So if you see 300 here, it's just five minutes. I think most of us can live with five more minutes, except if you are going to take a flight in a hurry or something like that. And as you can see, in New York, with something like around two minutes, you already can share almost 100% of the trips. Even more interesting, what we did, because one might say no big surprise. In New York, 40% of the traffic in Manhattan is made of taxi. So no big surprise. Manhattan is a very compact layout, high density of people. So what we start doing, we started randomly deleting trips, simulating the situation in which there is less demand for taxing. And that's what we got. We got a curve. The important point here is the following. This is the average number of trips in a day in New York, more or less, slightly less than half a million. If you divide this number by two, you still have 100% of the trips that can be shared. If you can divide further by two, still, you can share almost 100% of the trips, meaning that there is a huge potential for sharing trips. And even more interesting is this curve here. So what we did, we asked ourselves the question, OK, this is New York, again, is like the heaven of taxi in a sense for sharing, if you think about sharing. So what happened in different cities? So we get our hands on different data sets from Singapore, from Vienna, from San Francisco. And what we discovered was, to be honest, something we didn't expect. The fact that, basically, we discovered is very similar behavior of sharing. And the sharing opportunities were more or less the same across different cities. And so basically, we came up with this idea of trying to model shareability using a mathematical model that takes very simple parameters, like the average speed of traffic in the city, the area of the city, the delay, the delay that I mentioned before, how many people want to wait, and how many trips that they are generated in the city. And the output of this model is how many of these trips, the fraction of these trips that can be shared. And I don't want to, of course, get into the details. But the point is that the model that we developed really can be used to predict shareability. Why is this important? Because this model allow you to predict shareability also for cities for which you don't have taxi data. Because just to give you an idea, to produce those four plots, this one with the solid lines, we needed to do a lot of data crunching. So a pretty long process. With the model, you can actually predict sharing for any city, virtually any city. And this is, we think, a very important point. And also what is amazing when you see this curve here, this tells us something about the way we live. Why? Because if you think about the layout, the architecture of the cities, the road network of the cities, that's dramatically different. Think about Vienna and Singapore. Very different cities. Yet in terms of sharing, if you have the same density of trips, the amount of trips that you can share is more or less the same. This means that when you think about sharing trips, what is not relevant is the layout of the city. What is relevant probably is the way our lives are organized. So the fact that every morning, more or less at the same time, we're more or less to go to the central business district or in other places where a lot of people work. And in the evening, we made our way back home. On one hand, that's the reason why there is traffic congestion. On the other hand, it's also a huge opportunity for sharing. The other big change that you're going to occur is related to the advent of autonomous vehicles. There are predictions. I don't want to use too much of your time, but there are plenty of predictions says that most of the vehicles on roads will be self-driving in 20 years, more or less. Of course, you can find many of these predictions, and you might have different timelines. But that's the point. Self-driving vehicles are arriving. And another point, if you think about an important piece of infrastructure, which are roads, the average lifetime of roads is in the order of 40 years. This means that whatever we build now is going to be used by self-driving vehicles. So that's why important start asking now the questions about what is the impact of self-driving vehicles on the city traffic. We need to understand it now because whatever decision we take about road network now is going to last for 40 years. So one of the first questions that we ask, of course, I mean, this is a very general question and kind of scary. What is the impact of self-driving vehicles on road traffic? My first answer would be who knows. The second answer is, OK, let's try to start from the simplest point, the simplest block of any road network, which is a single intersection. The intersection is an important part of the road network because it's the place, the physical place, where two flows of vehicles with conflicting trajectories have to negotiate the access to a common piece of real estate if you want, which is the road, OK? And so far, that's the state-of-the-art technology that is used in the busiest intersection in cities, which are traffic lights. I discovered that traffic lights have been invented more than 150 years ago, not even for cars, but for horses in London, in the city of London. And as you can see, that's the traffic light. It was originally a man with just a sign that was turned at time to be shown to different directions. Of course, now they are fancier. They are nicer to watch and see. But the operating principle is exactly the same. You have flow of vehicles coming from different directions, and you give the stop and go to different flows at different times. So of course, now there is going to be this big transition, this big evolution of self-driving vehicles, plus the same evolution in terms of the so-called connected vehicles. So vehicles will be more and more able, and already today they are, able to communicate with each other, to communicate with the roadside infrastructure. So the question is, what will happen with driverless vehicles? We will just optimize the operation of traffic lights, so treating autonomous vehicles as modern horses, or can we do something which is dramatically better, which would imply the death of traffic light? So to answer this question, again, we want to be quantitative.  And in particular, we are not the first that we study autonomous intersection. There were other studies. But they were mostly based just on simulations, without any specific comparison, for instance, in terms of safety. So what we did, we put together a framework in which the same safety conditions are satisfied, both for traffic lights and for our system, which we call slot-based intersection, because it's more or less modeled after the operation in airports, when you have to assign the landing slots to airplanes. So the idea, basically, is that when you enter the road, you send the software entity which manages the intersection a request declaring which is your current position, which is your current speed, and where, which is your trajectory, where you want to go at the intersection. And this piece of software collects all these requests and assign individual personalized slots to cross the intersection to each specific vehicle. That's the key. Instead of dealing with flows, we break down the flows into single vehicles. And each vehicle gets a personalized slot to cross the intersection. And also, it gets the time, of course, because in terms of slot, we are talking about a time slot. So you need to be able to control your speed so that you arrive at the intersection exactly when you are supposed to. And in this way, of course, since you know the trajectory of all vehicles, you can orchestrate all these in order to manage the intersection in a much more efficient way. And now you're going to see a video. Before starting the video, OK, what I can tell you is that the number of vehicles approaching the intersection is exactly the same for traffic light and for slot-based systems. So now you will see a side-by-side comparison. And you will have the impression on one hand to have no traffic, and on the other hand to have a lot of traffic. But all what you see, the difference is just in the way you manage the intersection. The fact that the queues, basically, vanish is due to the fact that the slot-based intersection system is much more efficient than traffic light. Why is that? Reason one is the one that I already mentioned. The fact that you deal with single vehicles and not with clothes. Reason two is that if you think about how traffic lights are operated today, they are operated very badly again. Why is that? Because when there is a lot of traffic, vehicles stop. And it means that when they cross the intersection, they cross the intersection with a very slow speed because they start from speed zero. So basically, in terms of making the system more efficient, you would like that the intersection area should be used by vehicles for the shorter time possible because after that, you can give that area to other vehicles. And now, with current managing of traffic lights, this is not the case because basically, the average speed at which vehicles cross the intersection is very low, probably five to 10 kilometers per hour. With this system, you can slow down vehicles before arriving at the intersection and let them cross the intersection at the perfectly safe speed, like 30 kilometers per hour, yet much faster and so that you can serve more vehicles. And now, just to finish my talk, challenge is related to transition to self-driving. I mean, these are kind of the collection of the typical questions when we make our presentation. One is what happens to pedestrian bikes. Of course, one of the reasons of that is because in our video on purpose, we just show vehicles. But what I can tell you is that the system is very flexible and allow you, for instance, to reserve for pedestrian, to be integrated very easily. You can think about having an app. You can just press a button to request a personalized slot to cross the intersection. And you would have on your smartphone a countdown to let you reach the intersection at the right point, the same for bikes, just to give you an example. Of course, there is, again, a matter of opportunity. Do you want to do that or not? The reason is, since pedestrian and bikes are much slower than vehicles, you would slow down the operation of the system. This is perfectly fine. This is just an engineering. If you want a more political decision, we as computer scientists and engineers just give the tool to manage the intersection, which is the best way, in a sense, is a choice of the city authorities or regulators, traffic authorities, and so on and so forth. Another big is user acceptance, something that you talk about during the lunch. In this image, you see people that basically, as you can see, that's the direction of travel. And they're just basically sitting backward watching TV. I don't know how quickly this scenario is going to turn into reality. But of course, there is a lot of work to be done. I think, as we were discussing over the lunch, that is going to be an incremental process.  When you get used to that, you will have more and more confidence in your vehicle. And maybe you can eventually get into one of these conditions. Of course, other big challenge is the ownership model. Would it make sense at all to own a vehicle when it's self-driving? It can come pick you up any time when you want it. Probably a different vehicle every day, because sometimes I do this exercise with myself asking, which is my ideal vehicle? Because if you think about it, and other problems that currently we tend to buy our vehicle based on the highest, largest possible use. So if occasionally you need for a long trip a vehicle with a lot of trunk, then you buy a vehicle with a lot of trunk. And 90% of the time you use it only you. So again, it's kind of a waste if you think about it. So ideally, if you can say the evening before for the following morning, tomorrow I would need at 8 o'clock a three-seat vehicle, fine. Why should I own a specific vehicle? But again, this is also a societal change because there is a lot of more than just mobility associated with car ownership today. And finally, the other big issue is liability. Who is going to be liable for the hopefully less likely accidents? So my guess is that my belief is that there are going to be much less accidents, but there will be accidents. And those accidents would be much heavier than the infinite number of accidents that occur today with human drivers. It's more or less the situation with airplanes, right? The airplane is by far one of the safest transportation modes, yet when there is a single air crash, it's a big news. Millions of people dying on the road, nobody cares. So that's another big challenge. So to summarize in a single slide what I think, what we think would be a possible future of mobility, we think is going to be something much more flexible. So the current situation is that the mobility landscape is very well divided into well-known categories like the private vehicle, the taxi, the bus, the train, right? But in the future, there will be a continuous probably of transportation modes thanks to this conversion between the so-called sharing economy, so the fact that people want to share more and more resources, including mobility resources, and also autonomous vehicles can play a big role, right? Also in sharing vehicles, because one of the problems, for instance, of sharing a car is that you need to rebalance at some point, because it's something that, for instance, for bike sharing companies, it's a cost that at some point there should be a van that takes bikes from one station and bring the bikes to another station, OK? If you would have self-driving, probably you could solve that problem. And in the meanwhile, the vehicle could do something useful in between.


Hi and welcome to the session. I am Deepika here. Let's discuss the question which says show that the given differential equation is homogeneous and solid. x cos y over x plus y sin y over x into y dx is equal to y sin y over x minus x cos y over x into x dy. Let's start the solution. Now the given differential equation is x cos y over x plus y sin y over x into y dx is equal to y sin y over x minus x cos y over x into x dy. This can be written as x dy over y dx is equal to x cos y over x plus y sin y over x over y sin y over x minus x cos y over x or this can be written as dy by dx is equal to y into x cos y over x plus y sin y over x over into y sin y over x minus x cos y over x. Now we will try to make the right hand side of this equation as a function of y over x. So for this, divide the numerator as well as the denominator by x. We can divide where dx is equal to y over x into cos y over x plus y over x into sin y over x over y over x into sin y over x minus cos y over x. Now let us give this equation as number 2. Now the right hand side of the above equation that is equation 2 is of the form g of y over x and which is a homogeneous function of degree 0. Therefore, the given differential equation is a homogeneous differential equation. Now we will solve this homogeneous differential equation by putting v is equal to y over x or put y is equal to vx. Therefore dy by dx is equal to v plus x into dv over dx.    Now the integral on the left hand side can be written as integral of v sin v over v cos v dv that is 10 v dv minus integral of cos v over v cos v dv that is 1 over v dv and this is equal to twice integral of dx over x. Now we know that integral of 10 v dv is equal to minus log mod of cos v and integral of 1 over v dv is minus log mod v and this is equal to 2 log of mod x minus log c where log c represents the constant of integration. Now on the left hand side if we take the negative sign common we have log of mod cos v plus log of mod v which is log of mod v cos v and this is equal to log of x square minus log c or this can be written as log c is equal to log x square into v cos v or c is equal to x square into v cos v. Now on replacing v by y over x we have c square into v cos v and this is equal to x square into v cos v. Now on replacing v by y over x we have c is equal to x square into y over x into cos y over x or c is equal to x y cos y over x hence the general solution of the given differential equation that is of differential equation 1 is x y cos y over x is equal to c. So this is the answer for the above question. I hope the solution is clear to you and you have enjoyed the session. Bye and take care.


Welcome back to the breakfast here on plus TV Africa now Let's go back in history to the year the year 2013 if you remember the black lives matter hashtag and that Quote started on this day in 2013 a lot of people may remember it from George Floyd's death But actually started way before then You know not long before now. There was the killing of A little boy. Oh, what's his name now? Can't remember his name now, but George Zimmerman basically was in the picture after the killer the murder of Oh, I'm gonna find his name anyway So it was after this case and George Zimmerman was acquitted for you know the murder of that little boy That's when the black lives matter Hashtag started It was from outrage and of course people that were saddened after the acquittal of George Zimmerman who killed a black teenager in 2012 in Oakland It started, you know a former lady called Alicia Gaza who posted a message on Facebook on this day July 13th Saying black lives matter and of course that soon became a rallying crime movement throughout the United States and Around the world. It was also a time to look at some of the people and some of the black Americans who had Been killed and you know had not been given justice or a fair trial after being murdered and being being racially profiled the likes of Anton Stirling and Eric Garner and Philando Castile and a couple of other people They basically were the ones who the light was shining on at a time and of course fast forward a couple of years later We got to see the George Floyd case eventually take place, but it was on this day You know that that's hashtag started by a lady called Alicia Gaza who posted it on Facebook. It became a National hashtag and of course moved even beyond the United States across the world Where people then of course started to carry that same hashtag and say that black lives truly do matter I don't remember. I don't know why I forgotten this guy's name But anyway, that's the story. Okay, so talking about Alicia Gaza who started this black lives matter movement. I remember watching Trayvon Martin I remember watching interviews of her and about, you know, how she was motivated to start this black lives matter movement and yes, it was the George Floyd case that you know, basically Snowboard the whole movement and you made it as big as we know it today But she explained how she had been motivated to start this black lives matter movement as far back as 2013 And she continued to push the course for, you know racial justice equity fairness because she discovered that black people Were being killed in the US and it was just so sad just for wearing a black hoodie Just for being just for walking with your hands in your pockets. Just For being at the wrong place at the wrong time And what do you know to be the wrong place at the wrong time?  So she had started this and I think, you know, what lessons I would take from this Whatever it is, whatever cause you want to you want to begin as long as you believe in it. Just keep on keep on, you know Doing that.  So yes Good thing that that that movement actually kicked off today. Just to go to mention I think the the George Floyd one, you know, is the most recent and maybe the biggest, you know Because that went beyond the United States, you know across the world, but the black lives matter, you know, as it As a you know, as a court and of course as a hashtag was big, you know in in Trevor Martin's case. It was big in Anton Stelling's case in in Philando Castile's case. They were riots, you know as early as 2013 And 2014 2017 also when some of these people were killed in the you know, very very very yet, you know frustrating ways by the United by, you know, United States police Or state police in the United States. So I think it had always been, you know popular But George Floyd's case was the one that put it on a global scale and of course that has even, you know Moved to beyond the United States to even spots and activities now You realize that in the last long while before every game is played in football They take a knee, you know, just to show some level of allegiance with the black community, but Shamefully that really hasn't also changed much with regards racism Because after taking the knee You know in England and Italy game, they still got racially abused after the match The next story today in history occurred just last year in 2020 And it was a very sad situation because for most people who follow TV shows the glee, you know Very popular. She's an American actress Naya Rivera Her body was found on this day in 2020 was after a five-day search. So Naya Rivera and her son had you know, you know gone on a They had rented a boat and they were just you know on the river just trying to have a good time a quiet time and She had done face time with her family members. It was a video call. She had spoke with them and then after a while, you know When you rent those boats you rent them for a particular amount of time or particular period of time after which is about to return them So the the owner of the boat never got his boat back So he you know went looking when looking for the person who had rented the boat and he found only the son the four-year-old son of Naya Rivera and What's happened a couple of hours later was that you know, this case was reported You know people began to look for her family members say always spoke to her just a while ago after a five-day search they found her body floating on the surface of the water and You know police investigation found that you know She had to use her last strength to get her son back on the boat to safety to rescue her son While she sadly, you know Couldn't make it and she she basically passed. It was a very very sad moment in time You know, so even a few days ago July 11th. There's been you know, lots of Messages, you know in the US her fans, you know putting messages out on social media saying oh, it's one year When Naya Rivera passed and just putting out condolence messages, you know to her That's what happened today in history Hot woman hot woman Captions out there. Yeah, sad story Big Sean of course was one of the people who was mentioned because you know, they had Relationship I think probably we've admired I'm not sure now, but they had you know, they had dated for a while before He went back to His current girlfriend anyway, I was just gonna mention 2020 took a lot of 2020 cost a lot of pain Besides the COVID-19 pandemic, you know, it was also the year that you know, the world lost a lot of these very very very very Famous celebrities that were very close to our hearts, you know, it was in 2020 that Naya Rivera passed Kobe Bryant passed Chadwick Boseman passed Dan Foster passed Maradona passed The hero of Ghanaian democracy Yeah, that that guy I'm doing very very bad. You would name the remembering names this morning anyway So it was it was in 2020 that a lot of these names passed, you know And it was you know, even if you're a lot to celebrate and say oh But it wasn't sad here. Sorry Jay Rollins. Yes Jay Rom Jay Jay Rollins Passed also in 2020 so it generally was a very very sad year. It took a lot of lives Some of them, you know to go with 19 others, you know to very, you know sad tragic accidents Of course including George Floyd, which you just mentioned And so it's a long list of names that we will, you know, never forget that passed in that very very weird year But 2021 of course has taken sounds all time. So really really sad Well, we'll take a break here now and we'll return to talk about our first big story about the emya of Kajora Regine and his freedom. I will be right back