Hi, from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE, covering Microsoft Ignite, brought to you by Cohesity, and theCUBE's ecosystem partners. Welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of Microsoft Ignite here in Orlando, Florida. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight, along with my co-host, Stu Miniman. We're joined by Andrew Liu. He is the Senior Product Manager at Azure Cosmos DB. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Andrew. Thank you for hosting.  So, talk to me a little bit. Azure Cosmos DB is a database for building blazing fast planet-scale applications. Can you tell our viewers a little bit about what you do and about the history of Azure Cosmos? Sure. So Azure Cosmos DB started with about eight years ago, where we were also outgrowing a lot of our own database needs with what we had previously built. And a lot of the challenges that we had was really around partitioning, replication, and resource governance. So I'll talk a little bit about each one. Partitioning is really about solving the problem of scale, right? I have so much data, doesn't fit on a single machine, and I have so many requests per second, also doesn't, can't be served out of a single machine. So how do I go and build a system, a database that can elastically scale over a cluster of machines, so I don't have to manually shard and as a user have to shard a database across many, many instances. This way I really want to be able to scale just seamlessly. The velocity problem is we also wanted to build something that can respond in a very fast manner, in terms of latency. So it's great and all that, we can serve lots of requests per second, but what is the response time of each one of those requests? And the resource governance was there to really actually build this as a cloud-native database, in which we wanted to exploit the properties of our cloud, we wanted to use economies of scale that we can have basically data centers built all around the world and build this as a truly multi-tenant service. And by doing so we can also for the total cost of ownership for us, as well as guarantee predictable performance for the tenants. Now we did this for initially our first party tenants at Microsoft, where we've made a bet on everything from our Microsoft Live platform to Office to Adger itself, is built on Adger Cosmos DB. And about four years ago we found that, hey, this is not really just a Microsoft problem that we're solving, but it's an everybody problem, it's become universal. And so we've launched it out to the open. Yeah, that's a great point and I want you to help unpack that for us a little bit, because we've been saying on theCUBE for many years, distributed architectures are some of the toughest challenges of our time. But if I'm a Facebook or a Google or a Microsoft, I understand some of the challenges and I understand why I need it. But when you talk about scale, well, scale means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So how does Cosmos, what does that mean to your users and users? Why do they need this? Haven't they just built some microservices architecture and they'll just leverage what's in Azure and things like that.  So I'm actually seeing this come in different types of patterns for different types of industries. So for example, in manufacturing, we're commonly seeing Cosmos DB used really for that scalability, for the right scalability and having many, many concurrent writes per second. Typically this is done in an IoT telemetry or an IoT device registry case. So let's use one of our customers, for example, Toyota. Each year they're shipping millions of vehicles on the road and they're building a big connected car platform. The connected car platform allows to do things like whenever an airbag gets deployed, they can go and make sure and call the driver, hey, I saw the airbag was deployed, are you okay? And if the user doesn't pick up their phone, immediately notify emergency services. But the challenge here is if each year I'm shipping millions of vehicles on the road and each of them has a heartbeat every second, I'm dealing with millions of writes per second and I need a database that can scale to that. In contrast in retail, I'm actually seeing very different use cases. They're using more of the replication side of our stack where they have a global user base and they're trying to expand an e-commerce shop. So for example, ASOS is a big fashion retailer. They ship to 200 different countries globally and they want to make sure that they can deliver real-time experiences like real-time personalization and based off of who the user is, recommend a set of products that is tailored to that user. Well now what I need is a data set that can expand to my shoppers across 200 countries around the globe and deliver that with very, very low latency so that my web experience is also very robust. So what they use is our global distribution and our multi-ray mastering technology where we can actually have a database presence similar to like what a CDN does for static content, we're doing for a dynamic evolving content. So in a database, your workload typically, your data set is evolving and you want to be able to run queries with consistency over that as opposed to in a CDN, you're typically serving static assets. Well here we can actually support those dynamic content and then build these low-latency experiences to users all around the globe. The other area we see a lot of usage is in ISVs for mission-critical workloads and the replication actually gives us two awesome properties, right? One is the low latency by shipping data closer to where the user is, but the other property you get is a lot of redundancy and so we actually also offer industry-leading SLAs where we guarantee five nines of availability and the way we're able to do so is with a highly redundant architecture, you don't care if, let's say, a machine were to bomb out at any given time because we have multiple redundant copies in different parts of the globe, you're guaranteed that your workload is always online. So my question for you is when you have these, you just described some really, really interesting customer use cases and manufacturing and retail, do you then create products and services for each of these industries or do you say, hey, other retail customers, we've noticed this really works for this customer over here. How do you go out to the community with what you're selling? Got it. So we actually found that this can be a challenging space for some of our customers today because we have so many products. The way we kind of view it is we want to have a portfolio so that you can always choose the right tool for the right job and I think a lot of how Microsoft has evolved as a business actually is around this. Previously we would sell a hammer and we tell you, don't worry, everything's a nail. Even if it looks like a screw, let's just pretend it's a nail and whack it down. But today we built this big, vast toolbox and you can think of Cosmos DB as just one of many tools in our vast toolbox. So if you have a screw, maybe pick up a screwdriver and screw that in. And the way Azure works is then if we have a very comprehensive toolbox, depending on what precise scenario you have, you can kind of mix and match the tools that fit your problem. So think of them as like individual Lego blocks and whether you're building like a Death Star or an X-Wing, you can go and assemble the right pieces for your application. Andrew, some news at the show around Cosmos DB. Share with us what the updates are. Oh, sure. So we're really excited to launch a few new features. The highlights are Multimaster and Cassandra API. So Multimaster really exploits the replicated nature of our database. Before Multimaster, what we would do is we would allow you to have a globally distributed database in which you can have right requests go to a single region and reads being served out of any of these other locations. With Multimaster, we've actually made it so that each of those replicas we've deployed around the globe can also accept right requests. What that translates to from a user point of view is number one, your right requests are a lot faster. They're super low latency, single digit millisecond latency in fact, no matter where the user is around the globe. And number two, you also get much higher right availability. So even if let's say we were having a natural disaster, we had a nasty hurricane, as you know, passed through on the East Coast last week. But with a globally distributed database, the nice thing is even if you have, let's say, power disruption in one region of the world, it doesn't matter because you can then just fail over and talk to another data center where you have a live replica already located. So we just came out with Multimaster. The short summary is low latency rights as well as high available rights. The other feature that we launched is Cassandra API. And as you know, this is a multi-model, multi-API database. What that means is what we're trying to do is also meet our users where they are, they are as opposed to pushing proprietary software on them. And we take the whole concept of vendor lock-in very, very seriously, which is why we make such a big bet on the open source ecosystem. If you already have, let's say a MongoDB application or a Cassandra application, but you'd really love to be able to take advantage of some of the novel properties that we've built with building a fully managed Multimaster database. Well, what we've done is we've implemented this as a wire level protocol on the server side so you can take an existing application, not change a single line of code and point it to Cosmos DB as a backend and then take advantage of Cosmos DB as your database. Yeah, one of the interesting things, if you look at the kind of changing face of database is it's how users are being able to leverage their data, you talk about everything from, I think Cassandra back and some of the big data discussions today, everything's AI, which I know is near and dear to Microsoft's heart, Satya Nadellan talking about, how do you think of the role of data in this solution set? Sorry, can you say that one more time? So how customers think about leveraging data, how things like Cosmos allow them to really extract the value out of data, not just be some database that kind of stuck in the backend somewhere. Yeah, yeah, I mean, a lot of it is the new novel experiences people are building. So for example, like the connected car platform, I'm seeing people actually build this and take advantage of new novel territories that a traditional automobile manufacturer used to not do. Not only are they building experiences around how do they provide value to their own users like the airbag scenario, but they're also using this as a way of building value for their business and how to make sure that, hey, when next time you're up for an oil change, that they can send a helpful reminder and say, hey, I noticed your different oil change in terms of mileage. Why don't I just go set up an appointment just up for you, as well as other experiences for things like when they want to do fleet management and do partnerships with either ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft or rental car companies like Avis, Hertz, et cetera. I've also seen people take advantage of taking kind of new novel experiences through databases, through AI and machine learning. So for example, the product recommendations. This was something that historically, when I wanted to do recommendations a decade ago, maybe I have some big beefy data lake running somewhere in the back end. Might take a week to munch through that data, but that's okay, a week later. Once I'm ready, I'll send out some mail, maybe some email to you. But today, when I want to actually show live right when the user is browsing my website, my website has to load fast, right? If my goal is to increase conversions on sales, having a slow running website is the fastest way for my user to click the back button. But if I want to build real-time personalization and want to generate, let's say, a recommendation within 200 millisecond latency, well, now that I have databases that can guarantee me single-digit millisecond latency, it gives me ample time to actually improve the business logic for those recommendations. I want to ask you a question about culture, because you are based at the mothership in Redmond, Washington. So we heard Satya Nadella on the main stage today talk about tech-intensiveness and this idea, tech-intensity, sorry, this idea that we need to not only be adopting technology, but also building the latest and greatest. I'm curious about how that translates at Microsoft's campus and sort of how this idea infuses how you work with your colleagues and then also how you work with your customers and partners. I think some of the biggest positive changes I've seen over the last decade has been how much more of a customer focus we have today than ever. And I think a lot of things have led to that. One is just the ability to ship much faster. As we move to cloud services, we're no longer in these big box product release cycles of building a product and waiting like one or two years to ship it to our users. But now we can actually get some real-time feedback. So as we go and ship and deploy software, we actually deploy even on a weekly cadence over here. What that allows us to do is actually experiment a lot more and get real-time feedback. So if we have an idea, and rather than having to go through a long, lengthy vetting process, spending years building and hoping that it really pays off, what we can do is we can just go talk to our users and say, hey, you know, we have an idea for a future. We'd love to get your feedback. Or a lot of times, honestly, our customers actually come to us. We're so tightly engaged these days that when users even come to us and say, like, hey, what do you think about this idea? It would really add a lot of value to my scenario. We go and try to root cause that, really get an idea of what exactly that they need. But then we can turn that around and blazing fast time. And I think a lot of the shift to cloud services and being able to avoid the overhead of, well, we got to wait for this ship train and then wait for the right operation personnel to go and deploy the updates now that we can control our own destiny and just ship on a very, very fast cadence. We're closer to our users and we experiment a lot more. And I think it's a beautiful thing. Great, well, Andrew, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. It was fun talking to you. Well, yeah, thank you for hosting. I'm Rebecca Knight. For Stu Miniman, we will have more from theCUBE's live coverage of Microsoft Ignite coming up just after this.


I think that in less than a year's time, the digital distribution system in India is going to completely radicalise how content, including film content, is going to be created, distributed and consumed. And that's going to be a very, very big game changer for India. In one year we are going to move from a internet coverage, a proper internet coverage, that's 4G and above, of under 15% to over 70%. Which means that rural India, smaller city India, all of them are going to come within the purview of high-speed content. And that will completely change the way content is consumed and their demands will be reflected in what we produce.


nights we are welcoming the very singular Nick Rebel, a storyteller woes weeol, yeh there is some fans in her already. For those of you who don't know his work a recent episode on radio 4 was entitled this just to give you a flavour, Euurasia's most eligible psychopaths and they are lovely homes! Sounds like a must listen to me! I feel he will of course be in conversation with Tom Walker AKA your favourite irritant yng Nghymru. Felly, rydyn ni'n gweithio'r cyfnod ymlaen i'w Jonathan Pye i'r Nic Revel. Well, this is nice. This is the British Library, man. I didn't expect anyone to turn up. I really didn't. And I'm concerned that everyone thinks they're coming to a Jonathan Pye gig. Yes. It's probably worth giving. Oh yes. A bit of a spoiler alert that Jonathan Pye doesn't actually exist. I don't know if you're always aware of that. Tom Walker invented him and played him. And he's now... How did you... But also I'm nowhere near as funny, erudite or intelligent. So you can leave now if you're expecting real entertainment. Okay. I'll be off. How did you put it to me in the email when you said we were doing this event?    It does feel like... I mean, we're not in the British Library, but it's a British Library event. I write at the British Library. That's where I go to work. So that's how I sort of know the British Library. Because when you're a writer, it's very difficult to sort of go to work. Yes. Because you work at home and so you don't really get started till three in the afternoon and then watch the point because rip off Britain's on and you may as well watch that. So coming to the British Library, it's a day's work.  Yeah. You feel virtuous about it. Well, also it makes you work because everyone around you in the reading rooms is doing their PhD.  Well, you know, you could debate what is of more value to human culture, really, isn't it? So what do you reckon the purpose is to see if we're going to entertain, hopefully? Entertain in form. That's the BBC, isn't it? Well, originally we were supposed to be doing an event and it was for the British Library fake news. They had a series of events, but that was six months ago. We were supposed to be doing it in the theatre at the British Library and that had a fire. And now we're here and we're going to be discussing my fake news tool that had just come out sort of online. But that's sort of six months ago now and it doesn't feel very relevant. So I think we're just going to sort of have a chat. General chat with the purpose of promoting free speech, addressing the state of the world with a satirical edge, perhaps, with the idea of promoting a world full of peace, love, happiness and understanding and an absence of hate. And we've got 90 minutes. Yeah, so... The pubs are open. Yes. You've got to get cracking. It's live-in. OK, I'll start with questions I know you've been asked before, but it'll get us going. What's the genesis of Jonathan Pye? Well, I suppose if ever you've listened to me interviewed you'll know this, because this is the one everyone asked, but so I was an artwork actor for about 20 years and I didn't get any work and couldn't get an audition full of no money. And that's kind of fine being an artwork actor when you're in your 20s and being poor and being out of work and struggling and getting knocked down and finding your feet again. But 40 was coming over the hill and I still had no money and no auditions and no career. So I decided to give it up. And in doing so, I thought I'll give myself six months and then that's it.  No offence to anybody. But... They won't hear you. And I'd had this character in my head about this newsreader for years and years and years and then I thought, well, why don't I do something with it? I've never done anything with it. It's not good enough. What's the point? It's embarrassing if no one watches it.  Do you know what I mean?  No one's going to watch it anyway. It doesn't matter. And I did this video and it got viewed like 100, 200 times. And that to me was incredible because it meant that people I didn't know had watched it. And that was like, wow, that's a real success. So I did one the next week and that got viewed to 3,000 times. And I was like, all right, well, I might do this for a little bit, you know. And then I think it was the third or fourth one. I got a phone call one day going, it's been viewed a million times. And I just, it was in a moment. I knew that my life, if I played my cards right, that this was an opportunity. And I think I wouldn't have necessarily noticed that opportunity had this happened to me, say, 10 years before. But because I struggled for so long, I recognised the opportunity for what it was. And I decided to go for it with sort of both barrels, really. And seven, eight years later, you know, I can't believe it's still going and the audience is getting bigger for it. It's still continuing to grow. And there are opportunities coming my way with Pi that I wouldn't have if, you know, if I hadn't done that. So that's the genesis of him, I suppose. But very quickly I realised, and I'm sure we'll come on to this, that the politics was sort of by the sideway for me, do you know?  I mean, that's the comedic conceit, and that's what interested me. I thought it was funny, but the first couple I did happened to be political. The first one I did was about Jeremy Corbyn, and it did, you know. And then the second week, I thought, well, I might be a weatherman this week or he might be a sports reporter this week. It doesn't really matter. But that week, David Cameron had been accused of getting flated by a pig, right? And I just thought, well, I mean, I'm not going to ignore that, right? So the second week happened to be political as well. And then, so I just thought, well, I'll stick with the politics for a bit. But very quickly I realised people were tuning in for the politics. So it was a baptism of fire for that first couple of years because I realised people saw me as a satirist, a politico, a political commentator, whereas actually all I was was an actor who was trying to write some comedy for this comedic conceit. But I knew that the politics was the thing that was going to get the people hooked into it. You must have had an interest in politics to some degree. Well, absolutely to some degree. I mean, I was certainly a lefty. I was a guardian reader and that was sort of 10 years ago when the guardian was sort of good.  I'm sure we'll get on to that. What was I saying? You were saying about the drive to... What was the drive behind writing? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, politically I was interested. I was... Obama's ascent to the White House really hooked me into American politics. And so I've been... American politics is far more sort of fun and interesting. And I wonder if I'd say that if I was an American. Because, of course, then it affects you. Of course, Trump being president affected us all, but you could sort of look at it from an outsider's point of view. Whereas Liz Truss, you go, oh my gosh, she's my prime minister. So that's sort of different. But American politics is more sort of fun and interesting because you've got that sort of distance from it, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. Well, the distance is always important, isn't it, in writing comedy? You have to find an angle that you have to step away from the reality of it in order to amplify some aspect of the reality. Yeah. I mean, for a while, Pi, I think after a year or two, I mean, I would always do them every week, and I don't do that anymore because I thought it was sort of a law of diminishing returns in a way. And actually now I'll do one every couple of months and it's like, oh, bang, it sort of goes bang. But for a while I think the comedy really sort of took a backseat for the satirical, not the satirical, the political commentary. And I think Pi became a bit dry for a while. Did you find yourself getting more and more, as you embraced the political aspect, did you find yourself getting more and more angry? Well, angry and I was surprised by a couple of things because I wasn't a politico, I was a left winger, I was a sort of a natural Labour voter, but not, you know, stalwart, hated the Tories, but not really sort of stalwart. Do you know what I mean? You go, yeah, there are cells, I'd rather have them. But when I first started, what was interesting is every now and then you'd have a pop at the left. You'd make a joke about the Guardian or you'd talk about free speech or you'd talk about the sensorious kind of nature of the left. And it really amazed me very quickly how awful left-wing people are towards their own, you know? There's this real fundamentalist thing in left-wing politics.  Do you know what I mean?  So I think that was a bit of a baptism of fire of kind of going, oh Christ, yeah, left-wingers, I think right-wingers have a bit more thicker skin because they're kind of used to it. Do you know what I mean? Everyone that votes Tory goes, yeah, I vote Tory. They're expecting it at you, do you know what I mean? So I think that was a surprise and made me angry because I was being attacked for things that I thought were obviously obvious, but obviously they're not. Yeah, it is interesting, isn't it, that irony of the party of brotherhood and sisterhood and comradeship fall out into tiny sectarian groups. A friend of mine, another comic was telling me because he was quite involved in SWP and so on, and he knew people in various sort of different Marxist groups, and two of them were merging, probably about 23 people in all. Yeah, yeah. It was Mark Steel who told me this, and he said about eight of them, and they decided that they were going to merge, you know, and one of them, he'd voted against it and he didn't want it to happen, and this is in the days of Romeo printing presses that people would run their pamphlets and stuff. So this guy, he said, I'm not letting it get into the hands of the people's front for the liberation of Judea.  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't... Mark Steel said something to me once, and it sums up the state of sort of present left-wing politics. He said, back in my day, when he was probably the 80s or whatever, if you were a left-winger and you met another left-winger, the first thing you try and find is where do we have the common ground, right?  Do you know what I mean? I mean, we've moved on a bit, right? But they kind of, instead, you have these, you know, the gay rights people propping up the minor strike and vice versa, right? So the point being that Mark was making is you go, back in the day, you'd find the common ground and start from there. These days, the left-wing politics seems to be, where do we disagree? Because if there is a fundamental thing that I go, I disagree with it, then we cannot have a discussion about anything. I found that quite, quite, quite... I mean, obviously Pride is the film Pride, of course, covers all that in such a beautiful way. But I wonder where that comes from? Do you think it's the kind of, the zeal of the idealism at the end of it, that I suppose if you've got, if you've got the more zealous you are about your vision, then you can't brook any objection or questioning of it, because if you're looking, if you're believing in some perfect system, can be achieved, then any questioning of that... Yeah, and I think there is, and there's a lot of good coming from this, but I think that it's true to say that maybe left-wing politics used to be about bringing everyone together and groups and finding that common ground, whereas we sort of in our society today are obsessed with the individual, right? We're obsessed with that individual, is separate from that individual. So actually what it purports to be bringing everyone together, whereas actually you're labelling that person, that person slightly different to that person, and please don't tell me this the wrong way, but you're going to go, you'll notice that this is LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQ+, and it's like, I've got no objection to that, but it's an interesting one of going, we're trying to hone everyone down to this individual, rather than actually if you collectively talk about what we have in common, rather than what we individually have different, whilst celebrating those differences, that perhaps more would be achieved, but that speaks to why left-wing discourse is so, can be so fractious, because everyone's coming from their individual point of view and my truth, I can't bear that phrase, see the truer is fucking not. So I think that's, well, an observation I've made, should we say. You say you get criticism and slagging off from that regard. Do you ever find that you're getting feedback where something that Pyre's done has actually made people change their perspectives? You get any sense on that, ever? Well, I think so, but I mean, that's the thing, the minute I say something you disagree with, you'll switch off and you'll never watch it again. I mean, that's the problem. I've watched you for years, but I disagree with you on that point. I'm never watching you again. Just disagree with that point. And let's be honest, Pyre is a character. He's allowed to be wrong. He's clearly hyperbolic. Do you know what I mean? He's clearly a bigger-than-life character. On that point, what's the connection or the continuum between him and you? Do you find yourself watching him as a character that you're obviously connected to but to him as a different character? I've got good at watching me back. And I've got, you know, and like if I'm rehearsing my live show, I can appreciate when a joke is funny in it. And I'll say things like, I love it when he says that. It's always him. Do you know what I mean? And I'm always going, oh, when he walks on, he's walking on. But I definitely have that. It's him and it's me. But I really do understand. It never annoys me when people refer to me as Jonathan. That's totally fine. Why would people know my real name? And also, people expect me to be him. But I get it. I look like him. I talk like him. Do you know what I mean? And he is different to me. But it's not like, you know, if Steve Coogan was sat here and kept referring to him as Alan, that would be weird, because they're demonstrably different from each other. I'm not, in meeting, I'm clearly obviously not that different from him, but we are very different. Does the feedback when you're doing the live gigs differ, obviously it differs in the fact that it's laughter or not, rather than, you know, online messages? Do you find there's a difference in the response? One of the things that I enjoyed, I always enjoy when I'm in your audience is, and I find this quite, actually, quite reassuring in the face of that horrible kind of antagonism to any disagreement in the light on the YouTube stuff, is that I really enjoy it when you'll be tanking into some particular section and all the audience is laughing. And then you'll go down one line where I'll see people stopping laughing. And then a few minutes later, that proportion will be different. Do you consciously put stuff in? There's a difference between putting stuff in, expressing your opinion as pie and knowing you'll be contentious. And one of the things I love is thinking, okay, doing a gag, doing a gag, doing a gag, and thinking, oh, if you didn't like that one, then you're going to find this one. There's a kind of joy in that, isn't there? There are a couple of things with that, which took me some time to work out. Certainly with the stuff that I do online, there are gags in it, but it's funny and amusing and there's probably some laugh out loud moments, but you don't have to structure that gag. There isn't a laugh, so you don't need a response, so it can be much more quick fire. So you have to be conscious, and I'm much more conscious of it now than perhaps I was at the start, that people can happen upon my online stuff. They're not necessarily looking for it. It might just appear in their Facebook feed and you have to sort of be a bit respectful of that, in a way, right? And the other thing about that stuff that I put on, it's disposable. It's disposable content. In a week's time, the chances are it's not relevant. It's fairly evergreen, but generally that thing I did about Liz Truss leaving a month ago, well, it's not relevant anymore. It's never going to be seen again, right? Whereas I'd like to make the live shows a little bit more of a piece of work so that they have a bit of longevity to them, but also you can challenge an audience much more because there is a contract that I have with a paying punter that I don't with someone who just happens upon me on YouTube. So you can challenge the audience more. The general structure of a live show that you'll do, it's a game of two halves, right? The first half is what I would call the low hanging fruit.  Do you know what I mean? The stuff that the punter has paid their money for, but then halfway through you just pick up a mirror and you go, right, you fuckers. Do you know what I mean? Everyone gets really uncomfortable with it and you go, it's great because I've got you in the palm of my hand.  Do you know what I mean? But in an audience you'll go, I disagree with what he said, but I'll probably continue to watch. The connection is entirely different, isn't it? Going back to what you were saying, when you first started conceiving of him and doing the video clips, at that point had you thought about doing him live, or did that come out of the 60s? No, no, so it was kicking off and sort of regularly a viral thing, and then I was approached by a promoter to do it live, and I was like, I have no idea. Surely he's just a three-minute thing, right? It wouldn't sustain an hour. But I said, well, I'll do it. I'm up for a challenge, so I think they booked the Leicester Square, Leicester Square used to have a little studio. He said, bar now, I think. About 50, 60 people, and I had no idea what it was going to be, but actually as it turned out, I remember a friend giving me advice, just make it better than it needs to be. Do you know what I mean? It's slightly better than people expect it to be, and let's be honest, I'm a YouTube guy who swears at the Tories. Imagine expectations weren't that high. You know what I mean? I'm sure there are a lot of YouTube stars out there who... I remember one promoter going, I can book you the O2. I can fill it out for you.  You'll never work again, but you've won your million pounds. I just thought, well, I won't be going with you, but I suppose if I had a different sensibility, I would. And then it went to Edinburgh, and it did really well, and I've done four national tours now. But for a couple of years, I felt like I definitely had imposter syndrome. You know, I was an actor. I wasn't a stand-up. I wasn't a comedian.  And also, you're playing a character that wouldn't be terrified by that. Do you know what I mean? So you've got to hide those nerves, and you've got to go out. But the last tour that you just saw, and helped me with in that sort of the second iteration of it, because it got split in half because of COVID, and then had to go back after COVID, finish the tour off, and suddenly this half-an-hour section about Brexit didn't seem to fucking matter anymore, so you just had to dump half the show and write about COVID. But that was the first time I was walking out to some beautiful theatres, big theatres, going, I think I know what I'm doing. I think I've got this. I think I deserve to be here. But for about the first five years of pie, I was going, I am making this up as I go along. Did you ever do clubs? I mean, 15 years or so ago, I'd always loved the art of stand-up because I thought I could never do that. I could never do it. So I loved stand-up, and I'd love a bad stand-up, just as good as a good one. I remember watching a stand-up once as well, and sort of a revelation in this guy came on, and he was very good, very funny, real good, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I started listening to it, and I was like, your material's shit, but you're really good, and I'm laughing along.   Just little things like that. But I did try stand-up once for about 10 minutes, about 15 years ago, and it was the most terrifying experience in my life, but I did love the experience. But I'd love to go and do a club for 15 minutes, as me, not as pie, to see if I... I think I'd know how to do it now, because I've put in enough hours, I imagine. A club comic. I was saying too early. The amount of comics I've been, for one reason or another, and they're about to go on, and you've got to go, what are you doing tonight? And the comic goes off. I hadn't thought about it. How can you walk on stage and not know what you're going to do? But a lot of comics kind of work that way. They're just kind of riff. If you're doing it all the time, then it's all there to be pulled down. The idea of, apart from tonight, the idea of walking on stage is absolutely terrible. One of the interesting things which I really liked, you conceive of it, you don't conceive of it as a stand-up performance at all, really, do you? How do you put it together? I don't, but you're aware that it's... that the audience is there for stand-up, stroke, comedy, character comedy, stroke. There definitely has to be a diatribe about the Tories. You've got to hit those, but I think of it as a character piece. I write it as a play. My rule is he's got to leave the stage in a different state to how he walked on. He's got to have been through some sort of journey by the time he leaves the stage. There's got to be a story, a plot of some sort. I can't work out if I'm cheating or if that's what most stand-ups do. They pretend to be a stand-up, because I'm just... I mean, word for word, the start of the tour and the end of the tour will be pretty much exactly the same. There's no room for riffing. It amazes me when people go, see, do you just make it up? For four minutes down the barrel of a camera, it's like, are you kidding? I can't make that up. I mean, I know a lot of people would just go, were you just swearing. Yeah, but it takes time to write those swear words. It's fun, isn't it, to make swear words more than just swear words? You can make poetry. It can be Shakespearean. It's like Malcolm Tucker. He's a Shakespearean. I mean it. I'm not being... It's language. Py's language is a height. No one talks like that. No one talks that fast, that well and that sweary and manages to position an argument in three minutes. No one can do it, but you believe it because...  No, no, no. You cheat it. You write it that way. It sounds real. No one talks like Malcolm Tucker. No one talks like... Yeah. So when you're talking about Shakespearean swearing it, Phil Jupiter's once described Stephen Burke of a Shakespeare with Tourette's. It's a lovely, lovely image.  It depends. In an audience, if it's in front of an audience, in front of a full theatre, it's a performance and it's a technical exercise. Do you know what I mean? In a really fun, performative way. But it is all smoke and mirrors. I mean, it's... You know, you do get... At this point he shouts. Do you know what I mean? I think it's slightly different with the online stuff because that's a pretty quick turnaround.  There's a news article one day. I'll make some notes. The next day I'll write it and the next day I'll shoot it. Well, actually, in that moment, if I'm writing about something that I genuinely do care about, I mean, writing about Brexit for three years. God, that was interminable. How to get passionate about that? I mean, I know it's annoying and it makes those of us that wanted to stay in the EU angry. But after three years of it, you're like, how do... But if I'm talking about, I don't know, or free-speeching comedy, or something, you know, and you're suddenly there in the moment, in the middle of the street performing it, and then you can go, right, come on, let's... Let's punch this with a bit of... Truth, you know. And those are cute bits of topical stuff. Will you select them? I mean, I know that, you know, when I'm reading the papers, you suddenly see something and think, I really want to get you. I really want to find some of them that might hang around your neck and just feel a real... focus to the anger sometimes. Yeah, I mean, I think, like I say, for years I... and I'm glad I did it, but I was really disciplined and it was one a week, if I miss a week, because also I was... because I'd been out of work for so long, you're terrified that this modicum of success would just go. And so I was terrified, if I don't put something out this week, if I put something out the next week, they'll all have gone. I mean, it was silly, it was kind of coming from. Now, like, I imagine by the end of this year you'll go, well, I only put five videos out, but it's because something's captured my imagination. Now, when trust's left, I've got to do something about that. I have no right to call myself a UK political satirist if I'm not going to lay into it. So there are certain beats you have to... Boris is leaving, right, we've got to do that. But, you know, there at the moment, I haven't written anything for the online content for a month or so, and then this week I suddenly went, oh, there's a nurses' strike coming up in a couple of weeks.  So you go, okay, so already the cogs are ticking, but you go, I haven't done anything for a couple of months, so people will be interested to see what I've got to say, and you go, well, everyone's striking. This is really easy for me to know which side of the fence I'm on.  Do you know what I mean? So that's sort of... Now, I think the quality of the stuff I put online is better because you go, this is interested me. You know what I mean?  It's still going on, it will go on forever. But for three years there, that was the headline every night, right? Brexit is fucked. Now the weather... Yeah, and it is. When you're writing on topical shows and you're doing your fourth year of writing, oh, it's party conference season. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  Or I did something about the Queens Beach last year. Why didn't the joke work? Why didn't the joke stop this problem? That's another thing, actually. So the motivation is partly just to have some work and partly to vent and target the kind of things that you talk about. But do you ever think about... Is it realistic to think about it changing anything? I suppose it's a question we all either ask ourselves or recall. No, it's not realistic. And I don't... That's not a motivation for me because I think it's unrealistic to go me, let's be honest, generally preaching to the converted, right? If you subscribe to Jonathan Pye, you probably agree. I'm not really persuading many...  So there's that. Presumably a lot of you have seen him either live or on YouTube. They've got no idea who I am. Exactly, yeah. Well, they had to tell me in the dressing room. When you've seen him working, do you feel a sense of, I don't know, comfort or anything when you've seen him raging? I think there's a difference between changing the world and providing catharsis for people. Sure. Because that's what Pye really is. Is you go, he's... You go, there's a real joy in knowing you're not alone in the world at hating Matt Hancock, alright, right?  And that's what you think.   And you go, oh, God, this is what I think, right? And that's why he's shareable. Because also, particularly on, say, Facebook or Twitter or whatever, we present ourselves as we would like to be seen, right? No one's Facebook feed is actually true, right? You know, you present... What time you go on?  So what you're doing is you're presenting yourself, right? And therefore, if Pye says something that you agree with, you're going, this is what I think.  So there's a catharsis there. But I think changing the world or changing... I mean, there's one thing that there's one of these videos that is rather evergreen and it was trying to persuade kids to... There was an upcoming election and the date to register to vote was coming up. The last moment you could register to vote. And it was all about whatever... It doesn't matter what you think, just register to vote. At least have the option to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it did really, really well. But I do meet a lot of people that kind of go it seems to be this particular video. You go, I'm studying politics at Oxford. That video was the thing that switched me on to politics. And you go, well, I suppose I've changed the world in a little bit there. But I certainly don't have a heightened sense... It's a comedy act. Yeah, of course. I know that. I mean, although... Well, first I was going to say, you know that person who told you they're studying politics at Oxford at the moment, in 25 years you'll be doing a ranting video celebrating their resignation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I mean, you know, I think it... I think maybe the main point, isn't it, is letting people know they're not alone really. If there's any kind of serious intention to it. You know. I don't know if that's no. I mean, we are all alone. All alone. Look, the reality is it's like... I made a YouTube video. It became successful. It became successful. And I'm still here. I mean, so I don't... I'm sure there are noble reasons for me to do this, but I've yet to discover it. I mean... Where are we going? Oh, yeah, so you did Edinburgh, didn't you? You did a run in Edinburgh in what, 2016? 15? 16? Yeah. That was a baptism of fire as well. I mean, because Edinburgh, if you do Edinburgh, you get one night off for the month. Which is insane. It was a real baptism of fire because that was right at the start of my sort of live comedy career. So I didn't really know what I was doing. And also I encountered the rest of the UK comedy community.  They really are. I kind of got it. I was this guy who'd done a YouTube video who was selling out the presents at Edinburgh and these guys had spent 20 years doing the circuit. So I can...  And I find that's another thing that surprised me.  To your face. It's very interesting. The people who were having a go at you were resenting it. Was it the nature of the act or was it simply professional jealousy that you've been obsessed with? I don't know. And also when I did start to do the occasional thing that would say be anti-left, that's when they really oh my god, this guy is a alt-right stooge. You know what I mean? It's not for the right or whatever these terms are. And did you get that to your face though? Or was that online stuff? What kind of stuff would people say to your face if they ran into you drunkenly?  You'd walk into a green room in Edinburgh and everyone's eyes would turn and then you could just feel it.  So I'm just... I find that tiresome really. But it's certainly not a very welcoming world. I think in my experience. When it first started off there were maybe fewer of us and there was much more of a sense of everybody. But it's also that sense of you're either with me 100% or there is that vibe. You do anything wrong. You...  But in the seven or eight years I've been doing this, that's become a real issue, I think. Would you... I went to see Jerry Sadowitz a couple of weeks ago at the Hammersmith Apollo. I'd never seen him before. I had an offer to go and see him about a year ago and it was a free ticket and I was like, I'll take it. And then they said yeah, yeah, front row seats.  I'm going to Jerry Sadowitz on the front row. I'm not doing that. When I went to see him at the Hammersmith Apollo it was an incredible tour de force. It was incredible. And he used language that I've never heard a comic say before. Real nasty stuff.  But at no point were you going this is clearly a left wing liberal comedian.  Do you know what I mean? I think that's the problem. Like with comedy particularly context and intent is everything. And if you start to take context and intent away then anything is offensive. Anything is potentially awful. I think with Jerry what I admire about him is that I admire any comedian who can be offensive and particularly if I disagree with a lot of what they say but they still make me laugh. That's a real but the thing with Jerry is obviously he always goes out on a limb offensively. But he always there's always an extra element. It's never just an offensive line. And normally it comes back at him. At him. You know. It really is. This was a formative moment pre pie but I went to see Frankie Boyle and like anything it's a matter of taste I suppose I think he's a decent comic and a very good comic. I was sat and he was coming out with awful things. It's Frankie Boyle's stick and I remember at one point howling with laughter at one thing and then leaning back and my friend sat next to me was like that. Oh God.  Can you I suppose this is my first foray into having a sort of a look at free speech and comedy but for those of you who don't know this was about four or five years ago there was a YouTube guy called Marcus Meachon I think his name is a sort of a YouTube comedian you'd say but I think they call them shit posters you know just someone who kind of just you know does stuff on YouTube whatever one of those really but he taught his dog his girlfriend thought that this dog was the cutest thing in the world and he wanted to prove that this dog wasn't by teaching it the worst thing you could teach a dog to do and I apologise if you're offended by this but this is what he did he taught his dog to do a Nazi salute to the phrase gas the Jews off but you'll notice there's some titters of laughter out there right there's a couple of it's a question of taste right some of you get the joke some of you get the joke and still think it's fucking appalling right he was arrested he was convicted of a hate crime he was convicted essentially of enticing Nazis whatever you know whatever I don't think anyone who was even perhaps seriously considering joining the Nazi party saw that video and went where do I sign it was clearly a joke it was clearly a very fucking distasteful joke but the guy is a convicted criminal and I don't believe that he should be context the context and intent of that video that's the key thing for me because when I heard about it and there was quite a lot of action and division in the comedy community about whether it was acceptable whether it should be defended or not my gut feeling was firstly well actually it was a Trojan horse to use that particularly absolutely pernicious phrase and my thought was well if he did want to offend his girlfriend by teaching the dog to do a Nazi salute he could have chosen a slightly a slightly nicer anti-Semitic phrase for the dog to laze it which I'm aware of the ironies and paradox of that but I thought that's a Trojan horse to use that particular phrase and that's why I didn't that's what makes the act so horrendous is the use of that phrase and I also had a gut feeling because I thought my gut feeling is this is Trojan horse rather than a very dist just a very distasteful joke and then I thought well you've got to actually overcome your gut feeling if you do believe in freedom of speech until it's clearly definable as a hate crime or incitement but what really what really shook me was the nature of what the judge said in making the judgment which was that context and intent isn't important which of course is absolutely especially in a court of fucking law context and intent did you mean to kill this person did you intend to kill this person do you know what I mean so that was I think the problem is in that video I went where are the comedians here where are they you should be up in arms and in retrospect I maybe shouldn't have done that because I was definitely throwing down a gauntlet to the comedy community and therefore open myself up for attack but I was called a Nazi a Nazi sympathiser a you know by comedians which made me realise I know I'm right about that one well you know what I mean we've disagreed and argued about this a lot but also it's that assumption of bigotry that we have you assume that someone has bad motives I thought Jimmy Carr did a really tasteless joke got into trouble earlier in the year which was essentially people don't talk about all the Roma community that died in the holocaust because no one wants to talk about the positives awful terrible joke he had set it up to be fair as this is the worst possible thing you can say what I found really interesting about this furor in January February I don't know if you remember it if you look at the headlines in most of the newspapers when they were referring to this story Jimmy Carr tells tasteless in inverted commas joke and they kept doing this they kept putting joke in inverted commas and I was like are you trying to imply that it wasn't a joke because that is what you're doing you're implying it wasn't a joke and what you're therefore doing is you're actually implying that Jimmy Carr genuinely thinks it's a good thing to mass slaughter the Roma community which is clearly not the... so that's what I found really interesting about that that is disingenuous we can discuss till the cows come home whether it was a tasteful joke whether he should have said the joke whether Netflix should have censored that joke and cut it out we can talk about that absolutely but let's grow up and all agree it was definitely a joke or would you disagree I suppose in its technical construction it was a joke but again it's strange how if I see if it's a Frankie Ball I'll object to some of them but not in the way that I agree with you Jimmy Carr's joke had a nastiness to it but I think the thing with free speech and it's a trope because it's real if you genuinely defend free speech you are genuinely defending someone's right to say something that you fundamentally disagree with or tell a joke that you fundamentally hate free speech isn't just for the people you agree with exactly or for the comedians that it's not just for comedians that write the jokes that are to your taste of course I agree we've had this conversation many times I think the other weird thing though is somehow it's when it's calculated purely in a really cold way to create that kind of fury rather than having some kind of sense of integrity behind it even if it's exactly the same joke I can feel the difference but that's not enough to ban one and accept the other but if you deconstruct Jimmy Carr's joke what he's essentially doing there which is a comedic trope he sets the joke up by saying no one ever talks about however million and it sounds like a middle class statement that you'd have around any dinner table right there's sort of a discussion about and then it's it's counterbalanced by the granddad at the end of the table saying something absolutely horrendous it's sort of quite a classic joke I defended this joke on I think it was LBC or something and the next day the metro and the headline was Jonathan Pie says Jimmy Carr's joke was technically a very good joke he just said oh god I didn't mean for that to make the papers well with 10 to 8 now has anybody got are you ready with that just throw it out to Q&A a little earlier than normal so it doesn't feel like we're just charging through a list of your questions before we get to the end and we might come back to just us talking but let's go for a question this gentleman here with a stand up yes coming down first of all thank you very much for the discussion I hope it's going to continue also Nick can I say thank you for showing your solidarity and support for Ukraine so blatantly because I think we need not to forget about that my question is for Tom or for Jonathan speaking as a former BBC journalist do you have BBC journalists come up to you and say I wish I could speak like that because that's what I really think I've had when you walk around if I'm filming a pie around the house of the parliament like college green it's like full of politicians and it's full of journalists journalists are much nicer to me than comedians are they're really interesting and even right wing journalists love it the left wing ones love it and what I like is which I find a real compliment from the actor in me a lot of journalists go were you a journalist did you used to work in telly and you go oh well I'm doing something right because clearly he's believable so yeah I've met a sort of a few journalist John Sople lovely the nicest man in television we've had a point do you know what I mean so yeah the journalists are lovely and I think they appreciate it whether they agree with it or not because they like the conceit so they're a bit more on it from my end of it not so much the politics but the conceits I particularly like the bit that you did at the cop in Glasgow where you took the earpiece out so you couldn't hear your yes yeah yeah yeah do you get that kind of desire yourself or did you to kind of just go off script or off yeah yeah yeah yeah but I mean that is where pie comes from is I've seen newsreaders on the news say something that's just idiotic or just crap and I just think they're just because they are just reading it you know a newsreader is I mean a lot of them write their own script but they are just sort of reading it and you go they must on occasion go that is bullshit absolute fucking bullshit and now the weather you know so yeah that's where he is born from you know where's the next one I'll leave you to choose I can't really see them whilst the microphone is finding the person in the audience we've got several questions that have come from our online audience so I'll just give you a couple wrapped into one if that's alright somebody writing from Italy says do you pay a personal price psychologically by being immersed in a tiny space between UK politics and the horror of what's actually happening in society and then to add to that there's a sort of on a slightly lighter note I'll just next question next question and there's a view on this I've got an additional answer to that we I think we found solace in that gap last night with a by consuming a very noble Italian product didn't we we had my handwriting on my notes got progressively less legible as we got to the fourth martini last night we had a just a very basically I've turned into a middle-class wanker I love a Volca martini and we had between one and four yesterday Italian culture gets us through the other questions are related to being a middle-class wanker I suppose tangentially because they're a I'm your guy they're about getting out the vote and one of them says very concisely how to get a socialist into power question mark a corbyn didn't work out it's interesting I mean I really liked the idea of Jeremy Corbyn and you know the idea of a socialist in charge of a left-wing party I mean imagine that you know but clearly later but clearly labor isn't isn't electable unless it's in the center and that's understandable but yeah I mean socialism has become it's become a dirty word isn't it and and and it really isn't because also we think of like if you get if you go to America and you say the word socialist they go comey bastard you know and it's like no it's not communism it really isn't socialism is a is I think the way I would sort of think of it it is a reaction to the excesses of capitalism like without capitalism socialism doesn't really exist capitalism works in a capitalist society right and it and all it to me is spreading the wealth out a little bit and I think we can all get on board with that and yet we all seem so scared by the idea of socialism how you get one into number 10 I don't know what is interesting is that the unions I mean you know we have if you're working class you have been shat on for well over a decade now you have been shat on you know you had austerity which was on the back of a banking crash you know the banking crash happened then we got austerity it's like why are we paying for this it's exactly what's happening right now Liz Truss lost us 40 billion pounds overnight and we're suddenly getting fucking our taxes raised and our public services being cut because she fucked it how dare you and yet if you look at most of the press think of socialism it would kill this planet take back control you know what I mean it's insane to me it's insane to me thank you one person that's what they came for a bit the old pyrants wasn't it but I don't think we should be afraid of socialism and I think Keir Starmer is missing a trick we are ripe for this next few months these round of strikes these unions who from somewhere found some balls because the workers have finally had enough because I mean inflation is at 11% but food inflation is going to hit 20% do you know what I mean you can't afford to feed your fucking kids I think Keir would I've been really impressed with Keir over the last couple of weeks if I may say so him bringing up private schools masterstroke do you know what I mean I'm not that keen one way or the other of reform of the lords but him bringing that up now's the fucking time maybe not a massively full throated support but he should support this I can't see why he's not I can't see why he's not I know that Labour used to be owned by the unions and they only became electable when they managed to sever that a little bit but I think the general feeling in the country annoying as it is is that these nurses don't go on strike because they're lazy greedy fuckers do you know what I mean you might think that about train drivers but not nurses and the fact that nurses teaches lecturers baristers this isn't like cold fucking coal miners it's baristers going this government has fucked the legal system to the point it doesn't work anymore we're going on strike and I think with the right type of support you could get the country behind that and I don't know why Keir is so sort of I get it but I don't think it's a right tactic pouring shit into all our beaches down the rivers to pay the massive dividends to the largely foreign shareholders you'd think that Labour would at least point out to the land owning trout fishing community that it's you know system is destroying their sport that might lead to some kind of critical critical attack on the establishment I'm just devising a policy trout fishing trout fishing at the top of the labour manifesto sorry yes hi hello could you talk about the New York Times gig it has how you put that together and sure so the New York Times approached me I've done three things for the New York Times we'll do it every now and then I think but the New York Times approached me to do a piece for them about I think the first one was about Boris it's odd I think four or five or six years ago I'd have found it really difficult because of course it's the New York Times they have an agenda and so I'll present them with a piece and there is a lot of negotiation with it in a way that I wouldn't normally do for anyone but actually I'm at the stage where I've done it long enough you go actually this is a challenge this is interesting this is the New York Times is marking my homework that's not bad right they fact check it to shit you know if I'm a number out then it's got to go and you go well that surely makes it better you can't just call Boris a cunt so you go okay well I've got to find something better to call him and therefore it's sort of did you manage that ever yeah once or twice in my last show there was about a three minute set piece of just insults at Boris they were great I can't remember a single fucking one of them though but some of them are great but so yeah so that's came about and I've done two or three with them the second one I did was about Russian money kind of infiltrating London I mean it's everywhere we are basically I mean that's our industry now is a property market that's overinflated by billionaires I mean that's what we do now I've got a friend who works for one of these kind of future predictions company you know experts from various different fields of journalism and institutions and so on and he rather sardonically is saying that the only way we're going to survive as a country the United Kingdom of England in England which it will be in about ten years is to join the axis of evil officially you know and you know that's the only way we're really going to survive London grab they call it you got into trouble you got attacked in the right wing press for that didn't you actually it wasn't that one but I think the Russian one set me up for a fall which I'm sure will go into so you want to go back to talking about let's do that if you like but what was interesting with the third New York Times one I did was about trust and she just got in and I wanted to go to town on her because I could see how dangerous she was even compared to Boris you're going to know she's a fundamentalist and she's also a fundamentalist who doesn't have any real beliefs she's a fundamentalist as long as it gets her where she's fucking going right and the New York Times really rained me in they're like you cannot attack a Prime Minister on day one and call her a liar and I had a really big argument with the New York Times going she is a fucking liar and I can demonstrate it to you in two minutes anyway they made me cut it down quite a bit blah blah blah or just pull it back and I suppose to a certain extent they're right it's not a good look to do a hatch it job on a Prime Minister 24 hours in right but the right wing press went for me on that but they were primed because of this Russia thing which we'll go into what was interesting was of course all the right wing press and it was the Times the Mail the telegraph they all and it was things like Kremlin linked actor because there's this connection with Russia today which we'll go into what was interesting is a few weeks later she left office because she was so fucking awful and all the right wing press was suddenly going yes she's the worst but it's sort of annoyed me that you go the New York Times really could have let me go for it do you know what I mean because four weeks later it would have come full circle and you go I fucking told you just incidentally on this trust that it's the one little bit of of I mean Russia soon acts fucking awful right but if you have one or the other you take Russia right because presumably he's not fucking insane but but the fact that she only lasted four weeks gives me some hope that even the Tory party just went weak no fuck come on come on I'd have taken Boris back over that I would have but it does give me some hope that there is there was a recognition that she was if she wasn't insane then she's fucking insane do you know what I mean she was awful that's the end of that right Russia come on when you first started very early on wasn't it after this one viral one that was the fourth thing that I did this thing went viral and this news TV news channel that I'd never heard of called RT Russia Today came and they said would you could we show your material on our YouTube channel and we'll pay you yes yes yes and it was like four five hundred quid a week to write a three minute thing and put it on I bearing mind I had no experience I'd never written really anything in my life and blah blah blah and it's like suddenly I had a deadline every Friday I had to be in I had to write it I had to do it and those initial six months that's how I learned how to do pie and it meant that I was earning a bit of money from it so I didn't have to do all the shit jobs that I've been used to doing it was a huge opportunity for me and at the time no one gave a fuck I mean I wouldn't do it now because you know Russia is where we're at but when I was doing it and was still coming to tea with the queen I mean it wasn't really but I get into a lot of shit for it and it's really understandable most people that give me shit for it are middle class guardian reading privately educated wankers who have no idea what it's like to not have choices in your life it was a no brainer someone was offering me what at the time was a considerable amount of money to learn a skill to have my work put on telly on a channel that nobody watched but it just doesn't matter so you know can I that's my defence of that decision one that yes there's a bit of naivety in it but two I wouldn't be here defending the decision if I hadn't been given that opportunity and the New York Times would be employing you out yeah yeah you know but that particular New York Times piece it was 300 400 quid a week it wasn't millions of pounds being paid to the fucking Tory party or whatever do you know what I mean but the accusation of hypocrisy is one that is valid and one that I will take on the chin and go yeah me having to go at people taking Russian money there is an inherent hypocrisy there but fuck it I think the numbers do affect the moral condition don't they yeah I mean I wouldn't do it in our present climate and rightly so but it's very difficult to regret taking that choice first comes the belly then comes morality thank you he said it in German sounds better but anyway have we got another one somebody over here Mike's coming down because the people in Italy won't be able to hear you otherwise just in relation to Russia today yes here we go but did they put rules on what your videos could be or did you have complete freedom complete freedom they never saw a script before I filmed it and then I would present them what I had filmed the completed version and you can have it or you don't they always had it the only time they ever censored me was you remember the Panama papers thing when it turns out everyone's a fucking tax dodging bastard headline news as if we didn't already know it and I called David Cameron a tax dodging bastard or something and they said we're gonna have to cut that line that is 100% libelous and that's under libel law because Russia today bastards that they were it was an offcom channel it was allowed to be here and I made a point of every now and then I would do something that was for example on gay rights and I would deliberately make a point of going if you look at fucking Russia and their version of gay rights while they don't exist and Russia today would air that so from that point of view I had no qualms about taking the Russian regime to task or anything they only ever censored me if I said something that could have landed me in court so I thank them for that really hello I'd like to know what your thoughts are on Nicola Sturgeon and the whole situation with the union and independence because obviously they lost that court battle it's interesting the SMP because we think of in England we think of the SMP as being sort of quite lefty and quite progressive because they're not Tories right they are the Scottish nationalists not national party they are a fairly right of centre party really would you not say so? No I would say that their core now is left of centre definitely but I would argue only because of the independence thing I think the left would progression of it has been going for some time I was up there in election night one of the the one where Corbyn did quite well of course in Scotland the SMP and my mates were saying we haven't left the Labour party position they've abandoned us so there's a very much a sense of it being fundamentally I've never quite I feel that they've just sort of scooped up a load of voters but going and because they've got such a massive majority there are some incompetent and not very good MPs who are probably of all kinds of political all places on the political spectrum but I would say they're fundamentally but sorry the question was more about with regards to independence it's I don't know enough about it but I know what my instinct is and you go I want the union to remain a union I like the United Kingdom because I like things the way that I know them right what's interesting is is I think really that that real wave of I think generally now if they had a referendum I think they'd be off right but I think that is a reaction to Westminster and the reason it's more of a reaction to Westminster is because the Tories are in power see I don't but what I would say is what's interesting is is the Tories are the Conservative and Unionist party that's their name they are about the union and when they leave power there's a very good chance there won't be a union left and the reason there won't be a union left I think us leaving the EU is a big Scotland would be better off in the EU than it would be in the United Kingdom how fucking mental is that that's insane but you could demonstrate that's the truth I think that's my my feeling is that that has changed everything the fact that since we left the EU Scotland having voted massively to remain in it their situation has changed so much I think personally I just wonder it I think I suppose my point is I think if a Labour government got in and a Labour government that had an actual fucking Brexit plan which is let's be on it a softer Brexit should we say that maybe Scotland wouldn't want to wouldn't be that imputous well perhaps but you know I don't see much evidence of that in what the Labour party is saying at the moment they're terrified of even committing they're terrified of work making of saying the word to me it seems Brexit has worked in the sense that we've left the EU the amount of people that I have spoken to that voted leave and the problem is is every one of them has a slightly different reason for wanting to vote leave they've all got a slightly different reason so it's not a coherent project but everyone that voted to leave the EU did get one thing that they wanted which was to leave the EU we are not in it anymore it's done it's fucking happened so I found it really interesting Michael Gove talking about we must continue the Brexit project it's like Brexit now can be anything we want it to be and it seems absurd to me that now that we've left the EU surely we now go and sit back around the table with them and go right how can we work together you're a dreamer aren't you but it seems absurd to me that of course you go this bit of Brexit doesn't work that bit's a bit fuck how can we make it make it easier but I would I would caution against anyone trying to win an election on a platform of let's have another referendum to get back into the EU it won't work I wasn't arguing for that I was just I mean you know there are different ways of negotiating our relation outside the EU sorry this is not my gig please please no no no no no no no because I no seriously because I don't want to I don't want to start talking too much I'm keeping the ball in the air for you to nod into the well I was winging it with that Scottish answer I've got to be honest who is anybody else Scotland couple down the phone thanks the video that you did with COP26 was a great project it really hit home a lot of points you spoke to a lot of people George Monbiot and Caroline Lucas what did you learn about the COP process the climate crisis and the solutions to that when you were in that atmosphere you I mean it's like a big trade show it's a real weird sort of vibe it's like a trade show and it's all happening behind closed doors it's all these deals are happening and it's kind of just a bit weird but I it does sort of most of the people there really want something to good to come out of it so there's a lot of good will there Ed Miliband met him he was lovely a really nice guy and I did ask him it's like why do politicians when they suddenly move out of possibly running the country you suddenly become a human do you know what I mean it was just such a really nice guy but he was sort of pragmatic and positive about it it's a real difficult one because it's something I'm really passionate about it but there is an element of sort of hopelessness about the whole thing but if countries aren't once a year sitting round a table going can we make some sort of progress generally they kind of do but like George says in the thing the only thing that really matters is leaving fossil fuels in the ground and that's never once been discussed at a cop so there is progress there isn't I mean I think what is interesting is if you look on like BBC news it's you know they have sub genres of news the environment is number three you know and it's like suddenly a thing that generally is accepted is fucking happening and could kill us all in decades so there is progress in that respect but did you feel did you feel less optimistic or more optimistic after you've been there you've obviously done a lot of research anyway and the film crew that you were working with were clearly very good in the way that you put the script together with the woman who was the producer but I mean did you find yourself shocked or disappointed at the despairing at the end of it or did you well it was because I'd sort of followed it and I'd left by the time it finished but Alok Sharma who is a Tory but actually he did really really well as the chairperson and when he kind of genuinely started crying and saying we haven't managed it but we're going to try next year that was sort of oddly nothing had been achieved but I went oh god these people do actually care it's so rare that you actually see politicians because most politicians do actually give a shit they're not all you know careerist assholes so the fact that some of these politicians were upset that they didn't get somewhere suggested that they thought they might and whilst there is still that hope then that's a good thing it feels like we haven't quite got the world's head isn't in the sound anymore which is progress but we've we haven't got that long left to make some fundamental changes you know and it's again when George in it and it was a genuine question I said you know am I going is this going to kill me is climate change going to kill me and he goes probably and he's sort of I think George is 56 or something like that he says I'm 58 59 I will see it in my lifetime and he knows what he's fucking talking about and he goes okay so this is scary it's no longer your children's children it's you you will see the beginning of planetary sort of shut down that's fucking terrifying it's a good punchline that yeah and with that note we're all going to die there's a gent on this on the front row just to be Mike's Mr Guru Murphy was that life imitating art or do you think he's trying to steal your act ah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I felt a bit he didn't lose his job did he he just got suspended right this is he called he called a politician a cunt didn't he I think that was it but it was off Mike right it wasn't on air the MP had walked away it wasn't libelous it wasn't libelous it's demonstrably true um and he apologised immediately and I think the MP went yeah all is forgiven don't worry about it so I couldn't quite work out why he'd been suspended if I'm honest he didn't call anyone a cunt on air and let's be honest when we're all behind closed doors we you know but it was a lovely moment and it is one of those kind of moments if you remember I mean it's kind of it's kind of quite normal now to sort of have behind the scenes footage and like bloopers kind of thing but when I was growing up I think you had one episode of this a year maybe two it was called alright on the night it'll be alright on the night Dennis Nordman and it was amazing because you didn't normally get to see it so you'd get to see you know someone fucking up on EastEnders or someone blah blah blah blah but I do remember as a kid it was always the newsreader ones that stayed with me because and I suppose that's where Pi is born because a newsreader is such there's so much more of a formality to the way you present the news so there was one that I remember really well and it was a guy he was behind the news desk and he'd go and they gave him 30 seconds or 10 seconds and he spilled his tea fucking everywhere and he's going fuck fuck and they count down 5 4, shit 3, 2, 1 good evening and you go that's Pi in a nutshell so I love that you know that Guru Murphy thing if Pi hadn't been around you'd go that would have been one of those sort of moments that you go that could be it and the other inspiration one which I bring up all the time but it's always worth it for anyone who's never seen this clip Peter Sissons Stalwart BBC Peter fucking Sissons man and it's a great clip on YouTube and they're clearly gone to the sport or the weather and he's sat behind the desk and he's watching, you can hear he's watching the weakest link and he's just sat watching it and he just goes Ann Robinson's clearly had some work done and he goes is that Ann Robinson? she's even got new tits and that's it and it's Peter Sissons and I do believe that clip is where Pi was born that is pure Pi she's even got new tits we got any others from her? yes you had one on a serious matter on a serious matter reason why everybody's going on strike do you believe that they want to get rid of this government because how they treat in the British public? well I believe most people on strike I don't believe people are going on strike to change the government I don't believe it's not it is a political act striking but it's not necessarily party political it's to try and get change I think I think if you ask most people going on strike if the conservative government was serious about offering them a deal they'd sit round and chat to them so I don't think them being on strike is just to screw you no matter what I don't know if that answers your question really I don't see these strikes there will be banners going fuck the Tories they are generally I suppose that anti the government of the time I don't know what do you well I think the primary cause of it is because people have no recourse other recourse to not even improving their living standards achieving living standards but also whether this government is capable of doing that at all for a variety of dogmatic heartless reasons I seriously doubt but I don't think it's their primary intention their primary intention is to change the conditions so that they have an acceptable standard of living but also more and more it's becoming obvious that when your gas prices have just trebled and then British Gas announces that their profits have just trebled I mean it's in plain sight that hypocrisy it's in plain sight what is wrong it's in plain sight when then Liz Truss comes out and goes I'm going to cut corporation tax I'm going to cut the higher rate of tax trickle down economics bollocks it's like it didn't work in the 80s it's never trickle it's a myth it's a fucking myth and we all know it's a myth so it's in plain sight now I don't think people mind struggling or putting some hours in or they know that some years are harder than others and all of that shit but when you see your gas bills rising and your wages staying there and BP's profits go through the roof and the government then giving them a tax break because it encourages investment or whatever the fuck it is and when you've got a government we're obsessed with talking about we're obsessed with talking about growth you've got to grow the economy and growth do you really think someone who's struggling to feed their kids gives a shit about these concepts that I'm sure they of course they do affect this person but actually talk about growth talk to me about how you help me feed my children and also ultimately you can't have infinite growth on a planet of finite resources so you know so it's all bullshit I think we're now 28 minutes past 8 oh wait that was quite quick I hope so one last question yeah go on make it corker oh god it was an easy one on production thank you so much for tonight it's been absolutely fascinating I hope it's been interesting watching the rapid the popularity of the youtube channel take off from video one where everything was a little bit shaky and then it just got better and better I think I even messaged and said I'll give you a microphone please was there anybody behind the camera do you self tape and do you use an auto cue so when I worked with RT I had a camera man it was the whole proper get up and then when that I would always be with a person it makes life so much easier if there is a person because it is pretty terrifying when I put on a suit it's obvious who I am if you know me you know but generally I do it it's a lone wolf it's me and I press record and I just do it wherever I am you talk about shit quality though the Liz trust one that I did it was a day it was pissing down it was the last one I did pissing it down and I found a 5 minute window when it wasn't pissing it down I was just like just do it and it is shaking I'm getting pissed on so sometimes but actually I quite like it because sometimes you go oh back to my roots and even I imagine the people watching it go aww I remember when it used to be this shit with regards to the auto cue I couldn't possibly comment for about a year maybe two years it didn't occur to me that it didn't occur to me and I'd spend a day writing it a day learning it and then you know we all had to be done through memory so you'd get right near the end of the rant and then someone had walked past and do that or you'd forget where you are so sometimes I'd spend hours doing it now yes I use an auto cue but what's interesting is I still try and learn it I still try and know it I always like stare behind the words and I'm still looking down the barrel but they're just there as a reminder and actually what it does is it just makes my shoulders drop going I can get through this I can get to the end don't worry about it and just having that crutch there really helps with the performance of it but I still spend several hours rehearsing it as if I didn't have that prompt but it's yeah it's saved my ass and it's saved my sanity because learning a 600 word monologue and having to perform it word perfect in the middle of the street was horrendous well you haven't had an auto cue tonight well no done alright though can we just thank you Nick you've been marvellous you've taken control of this so thank you very much it's been lovely Nick and I are working together as well actually so that's it very good Tom Walker ladies and gentlemen thank you second barrel