Okay, great. All right, well, can everyone hear me okay? Great. Well, welcome. Thanks so much for sticking it out. I know post-lunch and post-archivist of the United States is a hard act to follow. My name is Sophia Bacerralicha. I am the lead archivist at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. And this afternoon, I am going to chat a little bit about what we've been up to, both in establishing the archives at the Kennedy Center as well as a new permanent exhibit that opened last September. Just out of curiosity, before you knew about the program, how many of you knew that there was an archives at the Kennedy Center? Okay, that's pretty good, you're my people. How many of you have been to the exhibit, if any? Excellent, awesome. All right, so I always like to start with a little bit of context. I'll talk about some of the unique setting of the archives at the Kennedy Center, what we've been up to, and I'll walk through some of the thought process of the exhibit itself. So first, oh, sorry, give me one second. Great. So as you may know, the Kennedy Center holds a dual role as both the Nation's Performing Arts Center as well as a living memorial to President Kennedy. As such, we are an incubator for the arts. We both present art on our stages, but we also commission, provide educational opportunities and do so much more than just serve as the Nation's stage. More historical context that I always like to give for the archives in particular is this timeline and basically three takeaways. One, which is that from the start, the Kennedy Center was up by partisan effort. You may know that we opened in 1971, we're named for President Kennedy, but the planning for the Kennedy Center actually dates back to the Eisenhower administration in the late 50s, and it finally opened under President Nixon and President Johnson actually broke ground and signed the Renaming Act. So that's point one I like to make here. The other is that if you look at 1971 to 2019, when the archives started, that's nearly 50 years of history to catch up on. And if you do the math, that's 2019, 50th anniversary in 2021. We all know what happened between 2019 and 2021, so you can get a sense of some of what we were up against and an anniversary deadline that doesn't change even for world events. The third point that I make here as well is that our Kennedy Center history also includes the history of our affiliates, the Washington National Opera, and the National Symphony Orchestra, both of which predate the center. So it's a bit of a truck question, it's actually more than 50 years of history, and we have had our work cut out for us. So our mission in a nutshell as an archives is to create order out of chaos. I didn't pick the most chaotic photo on the left just because I figured you could use your imaginations, but we essentially take the piles on the left and make it look like the tidier piles on shelving instead of on the floor on the right. That is our overall goal in an actual. The archives was established in 2019 as part of a larger strategic initiative to rethink the role of the memorial and to do a better job of institutional storytelling. A lot of people think of the Kennedy Center as a place to come and see a performance, but they may not be entirely sure why it's named for President Kennedy, why there's that connection, and why we have the role that we do. In terms of what we collect, and I do have a poster downstairs that has all of the highlights, so you don't necessarily have to take notes, you're welcome to take a photo, but we essentially collect at the center's administrative and performance history. So programs, photos, some ephemera, some AV, lots and lots of playbills, the good news is a lot of people collected playbills, the bad news is a lot of people collected playbills, and so we actually have a pretty good run and it is something we're not actively collecting at this point, we were just trying to figure out what we have. So against that backdrop, a little bit about us, I'm here representing as a lead archivist, at this point we have grown to a team of three full-time staff members, and a part-time staff member, a processing archivist, an archives coordinator, and a part-time processing assistant who was primarily tasked with aforementioned playbills, which kept her very busy. In terms of our context and challenges, we inherited about 6,000 cubic feet of content and growing, we started off with I think materials in about 17 different locations across campus, we're down to I think around a dozen, which is an accomplishment, and we've also consolidated, so AV is with AV, photos are with photos, and we're thinking big and trying to consolidate even further. As is often the case, we didn't inherit very many inventories, and our office, if you know anything about the Kennedy Center, it is very tight on space, so our office is actually located off-site across the street in one of the Watergate buildings. So there's actually a staff walking challenge, my team won it, and most of those steps, they won by just fulfilling a reference request, doing processing, building, shelving, moving things around. We definitely get our exercise in. And then at the bottom of this slide, I've just picked out a range of the things that we have. Again, primarily photos and paper materials, but we also have, that's actually my hand, with the blue glove, some of the red carpet, if you've ever been to any of the main spaces, you'll recognize that particular shade of crimson. One of our more unique, tiny items is a little viewfinder, you click through slides, it's a virtual tour, but the analog version of it, you click through slides, and it's shaped like a TV. Since President Kennedy was known as the TV president, we're assuming it was sold at the gift shop, but we haven't really found a lot more context on it. It's just a really fun, tiny, great item to take on the road. The middle image is the playbills, just a very small number of them. When we started, there had actually been a project where they had volunteers cataloging, literal card catalog on a typewriter. So we've been working on converting that to online. We have a sample of AV in the commemorative record for the opening night program, and then on the right is a sample of the many, many binders of photos, negatives, contact sheets, and compact discs, though since that photo was taken, we've actually processed that collection, and I'll talk a little bit more about that later. So in terms of starting an archives, or building a program, or inheriting something from someone else, I often get asked, you know, where do you start? In some ways, we had our work cut out for us because we knew the 50th anniversary was coming, but in other ways, we still had to really get down to the basics, so we really prioritized getting intellectual control. As you can see from the post, it might be a little bit faint, but it says save for archivist use, which is essentially a lot of the quality of the metadata that we inherited, so not super helpful. We had to amplify that a little bit. Thinking about systems and procedures, everything from how we got materials back and forth to how people would access them to defining our collecting scope and figuring out how to staff and balance priorities. Processing and then, of course, the 50th anniversary. There were actually two exhibits around the 50th anniversary, and I'll get into them in a little bit more detail. One was a temporary campus takeover, if you went to the Kennedy Center and walked into either the grand four year, sorry, the hollow states or the hollow nations and saw the hanging 50 made out of window cards. Those were actually all deaccession duplicates of window cards from the various decades, and that was up from 2021 to 2022. And then the new JFK gallery that opened as well. So two tall orders, a large backlog, multiple storage locations, but from the start, we really tried to prioritize storytelling and access and thinking incrementally and building a community. In my last job, I also established an archives and something that I thought a lot about there, even though the constraints were different was there's no use in building a technically perfect repository if there even is such a thing if you haven't brought people along with you. So you'll see a lot of sort of starts and stops and experiments, but ultimately what we were trying to do was get people excited and aware that we existed, especially on campus. So we prioritized for the 50th anniversary since we obviously couldn't process everything early records. So I've just included a couple of scans from what we've called your National Cultural Center Collection. If you're familiar with Kennedy Center history, DC history, you may recognize this image. This was actually the original design for the Kennedy Center, which if you know now it's rectangular, very angular, but this was designed by the same architect. Some people have described it as a spaceship. Some people have pointed out it looks very similar to the Watergate buildings that are right across the street. It was still a white marble building. It still included multiple performing spaces and multi-use spaces. Ultimately it just wasn't financially and logistically feasible. So that's one of the kinds of things that we have. We also have good coverage of the opening of the center. This is one of my favorite shots of the opening night standing ovation. We also have rehearsals, preview performances. The program, I actually have a copy of the commemorative bound record program with me if you'd like to see it. And we were also really lucky to inherit one of the theater managers' personal archives and that included an autographed copy of the opening night program and a ticket as well. And these are also featured in the JFK gallery as well. So you're getting a bit of a sneak peek. So once we had the 50th anniversary behind us, like I said, we took a multi-pronged approach and even as we were focusing on the 50th anniversary, on getting intellectual control over materials, something else that was really important was tracking how materials were getting used even from the very start, even if we weren't at first seeing a huge volume. And what we quickly realized was that performance history and photos were our top two areas of requests. So for this particular fiscal year, which we recently wrapped up, so I was still wrapping my brain around our stats and numbers and where we are. We focused on photos. We focused on the program collection. We focused on board of trustees, which actually get used a lot for institutional purposes. Kennedy Center Honors, public relations records that help tell the story of that award and that event, and the American College Theater Festival records, which actually predate the center. You can see the photo on the left is actually a group of students touring the building while it's still under construction. You can see behind the roof isn't quite complete. So as I mentioned, we tried to do a lot of things at once. We're still doing a lot of things at once. The archives is located within the public relations department. And so from the start, we tried to think strategically of ways to start incorporating content once we had a sense of what we had. So the top set of images are from the 50th anniversary exhibit that I mentioned. This was a campus takeover that we had to think very creatively about because we were planning essentially in August of 2020 when we didn't really know what September of 2021 was going to look like. This was a great example of working with our sort of local experts, our international programming department, regularly puts on large scale festivals and does really creative exhibits. And so we were able to partner with them to essentially have a campus takeover. We featured photos for the three main halls on the grand foyer level and just blew up photos of highlights from each of the 50 years. We recorded a series of oral histories which are up online and we even commissioned a portrait contest and all of this is still up digitally on the website. It's called If These Halls Could Talk. And keep in mind that all of this happened with the archives being shut down for four months from April until August. So it's two exhibits in two years even though not necessarily all of the work was on the archives end. The other is Art and Ideals which I'll talk about because it's a really interesting project that involved a lot of external partners and really thinking through who needed to be at the table to make sure that we were telling a story that was historically accurate but one that was also challenging because if you think about what I said at the beginning the Kennedy Center Archives focuses on the history of the center. The JFK gallery as I'll go into a little bit more detail is more the history of President Kennedy so that is something that we had to look externally to to sort of fill in some gaps.  So we started small. Archives is part of public relations. Public relations sends out weekly or bi-weekly emails of clips of Kennedy Center coverage and so we thought what if we pick one of those days Archives Wednesday and we feature some archives content. Hopefully it also means that more people open that email because we do get a lot of emails but from that we have gotten project requests. We actually heard from HR who said oh we actually have a newsletter too. Could you help us curate some content more focused on staff history as well. And actually one thing that's not on there yet is our friends volunteer program recently restarted their newsletter and we've been partnering with them as well. So again, thinking big, thinking small, thinking about what existing communications or structures or partnerships might make for a productive venture. And then of course social media. We were very lucky to have a small but very dedicated social media team our hashtag is Kenson Archives and we most recently actually did a archives takeover on Instagram for Ask an Archivist day if you had a chance to check that out. And so we've done everything from on this day something interesting that we found to around the holidays last year recreating a holiday recipe from one of the fundraiser cookbooks. So it's just a way to show what we're up to, what the archives can do and again it's something that's generated a lot of goodwill on campus even while we're still sorting and trying to consolidate and trying to get a handle on what we have. So next I am going to talk a little bit about the JFK exhibit. This was a multi-year project. If you've been up to the exhibit you know that the archives content is featured in one of the entrances in the section that focuses on how the Kennedy Center came to be. There were because it is immersive has a lot of multimedia and has a strong historical component. We made sure to bring in a panel of historians who could really make sure that there was a there there that if we were saying there is a connection between President Kennedy and the arts. You know we had someone who could speak to diplomacy, civil rights, arts and culture, the Kennedy Center, sorry, the Kennedy White House and then various designers to make sure that all of the technology would work. And so I'm just gonna go over and play it's like a two minute video. I know when we did the test there was a bit of an issue with the sound. Don't worry about it. I think if you're on Zoom you won't be able to hear it. It's just some light instrumental music. The words on the screen are really all that you need. And then I'm gonna walk through each of the components.  But next I wanna talk a little bit about the thought process behind it. So we wanted to be able to answer the question why is the Kennedy Center named for JFK? We wanted to really connect visitors to how the current legacy and the activities of the Kennedy Center connect to his work. We know that the Kennedy Center attracts audiences and visitors from all over of all ages. We know that increasingly there are fewer people who knew of President Kennedy or were alive during his presidency. And we also wanted something that made good use of technology since obviously President Kennedy made use of the technology of his time but that wouldn't feel dated. And that would accommodate both a user that had 15 minutes was coming for the first time. Someone who has subscription tickets and it's their 15th time. So it had to fulfill a lot of different uses. It's also an exhibit that is primarily, it consists of either duplicates or loans and really just a lot of creative storytelling. It's also if you've been up there kind of a thoroughfare and a long space. So the way that it's designed, you can enter from either way and the two entrances are more or less parallel. If you entered through one side, you start with the history of President Kennedy and particularly his love of literature and books that influenced him, his writings. If you enter from the other side and there's no right or wrong, I'm partial to the archive side but there's no right or wrong. You have a timeline of how the Kennedy Center came to be and you have duplicates from the archival collections. And then in the center, the heart, there are essentially four quadrants that focus on art and democracy, art and social change, art and culture, art and the White House. And then within those, it was also really important that those historical moments were connected to what the Kennedy Center is doing now. So there are also pillars, what we call the Kennedy Center today, where each of those themes is connected to a current Kennedy Center program as well and that content will also get refreshed a little bit more regularly. So for instance, if there's content on Kennedy Center honors, we wanna make sure that that's not too far out of date. So these are the pillars, uplifting the artist, exporting the arts, et cetera, et cetera. Each of these sections also includes a couple of interactive, so I'm just gonna flip through to make sure that we're not taking too much time. So one of the interactives is what's called Dinner at the White House. It's part of the art and culture section. And here, they took lists of guests who had attended Kennedy's White House dinners. So artists, scientists, big thinkers of the day. And then they tried to think who might be some contemporaries today. And the idea is that you can have multiple people. It's set up like a dining table. There are quotes around different themes, and so you can either explore on your own or if there are multiple people at the table, there are opportunities for spontaneous connections if multiple people from different disciplines hone in on different connections. So it's just a fun, reflective space that tries to tie again, sort of history to the present day and to really think about a lot of what the Kennedy White House did in terms of arts diplomacy. Another and probably the more popular interactive is the opportunity, and of course, with a social media component as well because you can get a selfie, to have to take a photo and essentially choose a color palette, make some brush strokes and have your portrait done in the style of Elaine DeCunning who obviously did a really famous portrait of JFK for a while, quite a few staff members actually had that as their Microsoft icon for email as well because it's a fun one. President Kennedy was known for his oratorical skills, so the power of words is a reflective wall where words from quotes of his are reflected and it works based on proximity. If you approach a word, the rest of the quote comes together and you hear his words and you also literally are reflected in his words and have an opportunity to see yourself in him, see yourself in the words and again, another selfie moment because we are in the social media age. So this again is the sort of big view. You can see at the top there are a lot of screens but surrounding the center part at the very top is what we've called the multimedia freeze and this functions in different ways. Sometimes it acts as the headers for the four quadrants. Sometimes the lights go down and we have what are called takeover moments. So there are three or four Kennedy speeches. It's very important that you could hear his words and sort of feel like you are in the audience. So the lights will dim and he'll show up on the screens on either way and there will be crowd shots and it's kind of like you're immersed in listening to him speak and there are also some environmental shots. So on the top you have the center lit up for honors. You also have in the middle of the iconic chandeliers from the opera house. So there's a lot that happens there. So that's kind of a whirlwind of what we've been up to. Some of the challenges, this new exhibit. I am with my people among archivists and so I also would like to take a moment to think through lessons learned, where we go from here at what comes next. Not because I think that these are particularly unique but as was said in the previous session, sometimes the power of events like these is, oh, I'm not the only one thinking that particular thing or if you're somewhere small, sometimes there's also power in saying, hey, I went to a conference and another person said the exact same thing that I've been saying, you may be listened if I can say that two other people have said it, that's not just me. So when I think about things that have worked for us, things that I focus on are having a plan but being flexible, obviously, no one knew how 2020 was going to turn out even under the best of circumstances. This is my second time starting up in archives. In both cases, I've had a plan. In both cases, that plan is not on according to plan for different reasons but really just having a sense of what is your institutional context, what is going to be most important and really just planning flexibly and incrementally but also planning time for reflection. The second one is really thinking about the relational part of it. I think as archivists, we know that oftentimes archives and personal papers in particular can be really fraught with emotion, like often you're getting them at a time of transition, a retirement, someone passing away, in this case an anniversary, but the reality is so much of what you're doing when you're building a new program is building trust and faith that what you bring to it as an archivist is going to be different than whatever has been hoarded for however many years and however many decades. When I first started, there would be weeks where I would say I haven't inventoried anything but I've talked to a lot of people. I've tried to make sure that I have a good sense of what's important to them, how we might partner and most importantly that I follow up. I think a lot about the role of trust and things coming in and being sure that people are clear on what that means, particularly for rules that might not be intuitive, like why things don't circulate. The third is me just being pragmatic because I've mostly worked in fairly small repositories which is not reinventing the wheel, really trying to think incrementally and within existing structures. I give the example of the public relations email clips and how that led to presentations and other opportunities but was particular to our institutional context. And while I said there are a lot of things that I would change, the one battle I am glad that I stuck to was really prioritizing intellectual control over everything else. If you look at the Kennedy Center archives timeline of when our content started exploding on social media and in general it's when we finished the comprehensive collection survey because I knew from experience I wanted to make sure that if we were scanning things on demand or for requests I was going to be able to find the original, that I was going to be able to find the thing again that we weren't going to lose the context. So that is where I had to use some of that goodwill of, no, no, no, I know what I'm doing. This is going to pay off, I promise. And it was true, it did actually pay off. So with that being said, I hope that this has piqued your interest either in coming to the exhibit and making use of the archives. The next slide that I'm going to show is I have my email, I have my business card. We also, among the many things we've been doing in the background have developed a service desk where you can contact us to request an appointment, to request information, even with a relatively soft launch. I'm really happy to see that people are finding us. Our users include everything, everyone from K through 12 students and teachers, folks from higher ed, folks working in the media, on documentaries, academic research, independent research, as well as patrons. Some of my favorite requests are, I was a child several decades ago. I think I went to this performance. Can you help me confirm some of the details? Or on a more touching level, we've actually had several folks with ties who said, I met my partner at the Kennedy Center or preparing eulogies or other things. And so we are here for use. It's what makes being in windowless, a dozen different windowless closets, making sense of things that were left behind at the end of the day. It's really all about use. And yes, this photo is from our survey. We did actually find a folder that said questions and answers, it was empty. So now I just use it as my ending slide. And I also have our hashtag on there, as I said. We partner with social media, so if you look up the Kennedy Center channel, it's particularly Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and even Medium, we've written quite a few blog posts and things and posts really regularly. And yeah, if you have any questions for me, thoughts for me, I see this as the start of a conversation, a collaboration, and I see you all as partners in helping us get out the word. Oh, and you already have a question, that's great. Does anybody have a question? Yeah, we actually have one. Yeah, yeah, no, he has one. Well, but I think we need it for Zoom. Yeah, we need it for Zoom, okay. Do you wanna just come up and use my mic? Do you wanna come in? Then I'll bring it right back. Okay, so first kind of the big professional activist question, does the Kennedy Center have a, any sort of institutional records management guidance? And if not, or if so, what relationship does your organization have with the records management? And the second really quick question, I'm just curious, do y'all get discounts for their shows? I'll take the second one first. We do, they tend to be last minute and a little bit unpredictable. So if there's something I know I wanna go to, I will just buy the ticket. For records management, it's an interesting question. We do have draft schedules, but it's also an area where there hasn't been a full time trained records manager. So we have worked closely with the role that's traditionally been assigned to that, but it's essentially been a quarter to half of another person's job. So we focused on the part of the schedules that indicate things coming to archives rather than the sort of compliance destruction part. But that figuring out records management, figuring out electronic records management and digitization, I would say are some of the things coming up next. That's a very good question. Thank you. So in regards to the loans and the donations that you receive for the exhibitions, as an archivist, loaning something out is like makes my skin crawl. Without getting in the names of individuals as such, who loaned the objects or any institutions or was it JFK library or any other collection off in the family? What repository was willing to loan? Sure, in terms of loans, it's primarily one, I'm trying to think, there's one object. Most of what's in the exhibit, honestly, is reproductions and media. And they came from, I mean, it's a huge spreadsheet of repositories, Library of Congress, the National Archives, Alvin Ailey, the JFK Library, obviously. I mean, it's quite a lot of breadth. We do have a camera on loan that was used to video President Kennedy for like a documentary. And that was worked out directly with the estate and with legal and just making sure that it is all very, very clear. As an archivist, I also want to be super, super, super clear about that. And so we made sure that we had something that everyone would be happy with. But yeah, I probably should have clarified. The vast majority are reproductions, which still brings its challenges in terms of rights and reproductions and promotional use. Anybody else? I have a question for you. So I'm wondering about with the performances that you have this under there, in terms of props or other ephemera or other design things that you have for shows and performances, are you able to preserve any of those? I'm just curious, you know, set design and so forth. What is art, is that a part of your collection? Priority, yeah. It's a great question. It's largely out of scope for us. I know that the opera has a warehouse with costumes and there are other odds and ends. But on our end, we have our hands full just with the administrative and performance history, photos, programs, and a few things have, a few random props have survived, but we're not actively collecting in part because we still haven't figured out the space and consolidating and making sure that if we take something, we can responsibly preserve it, house it, and provide access to it. And I've got a follow-up question for you too, if I could. In terms of care of the props, they're out in the warehouse, sort of someone else has taken care of that at the opera house, is that correct? Yeah, they have an extensive setup. I haven't actually been out there, but I've seen video and it is very well cared for and very extensive. Anybody else? I do have one.  The broadcasts that are done, like the Kennedy Awards Honors, I should say, the Kennedy Center Honors that happen every year, are those productions on video, do you guys have the rights? Do you have those? Or is that the networks that have that and have it in their own archive? I forget the exact details. I do believe we have access to the recordings, but we can't necessarily release them independently. There's a whole process where if we get the request it automatically goes to legal and they sort it out because they get it fairly regularly. That's a good question. Anybody else? Going once? John? No. I was just giving it back to over to you.  All right, well, thank you very much. Thank you Sophia, this was great and that concludes our first of the afternoon sessions.


Yes, people, welcome back to another stream. We're back. Obviously, internationals is usually a quiet one. On the channel, there's not really much news going on especially for City over the past couple of weeks. So we've been chilling over on City Extra enjoying this time. There is a heavy fixture period coming after this, playing in every three or four days. So best get you resting now before we get to that madness. If you haven't already do as a favorite hit the like button, subscribe channel if you are new and big up to today's.  I can't really call you guests. So big up more from noise. What are you doing? We're all right, mate. Good man. How are you? Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. I'm enjoying the rest. And big up to Martin for the Mancunian way. You had a successful 12 hour stream. You know what I mean? He's putting the shifts in. I didn't mind. Yeah, call me wherever you want, by the way. Oh, really? I'll save that for the texts. Yeah. Can I just, I just want to say, well, I've got a moment, Jordy, if you don't mind. A massive thank you to everyone who contributed, shared, helped. Everything. It was amazing. So I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone for that. It was never about the money. It was about getting the message out, but the money does go a long way. Yeah. Even though I've got a little bit of a dispute with YouTube right now. Oh, really? Oh, no. Yeah, that's one of the things that they always do. Yeah, YouTube being YouTube, that I've had to copyright strike stock on it. I've, yeah, is it strikes or claims? Well, claims that could say claims. I don't know. It's a five second tune that was on the back of one of the one of the videos. Yeah, see, that's that's a nightmare. That's a nightmare, especially with the context of what it's for as well. So I'm having a massive dispute with YouTube at the moment, but I'll explain more on my show tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. A bigger tip when you contribute, by the way, it was a great show and obviously it's good to see that it did well and it's good how it rang through the city community as well. I didn't see a single light. Most of the people on my Instagram were sharing it, you know what I mean? It just went everywhere, which was sick to see. So good to see. Even got daps out of retirement. I know daps came out of retirement fear. But yeah, honestly, very, very good. So I appreciate everyone. I appreciate everyone in the chat as well. I see Si in the chat, mate. Four days, four days until we do the, to the, I'm doing, I'm eating hot wings with Si in Manchester at Buddy Jackson's. And so I don't know why. He just, apparently this is now a thing. Don't know why. Right then, let's go into the, into the actual news then or just like city talk in general. It's a national break. I've put a poll in the chat where the people like them or hate them. I've made my feelings an international break. It's very clear of, over forever. I'm not, I'm never the biggest fan. I think it breaks at the Premier League season. And I think usually when we're like, you think, oh, our players might be rested. They never really are rested, especially if you play as like Kevin DeBorn, usually it'd be tanked out. And it's just another time where players can get injuries, which we can go on to a little bit later on. But firstly, Malth, how do you feel about international breaks? I mean, you're on the other side of the pond. So that's your thoughts. Yeah. And in general, not a fan mate. Just, I wish they could figure out a way to just have them completely separate. You know, I'm a bit of a dreamer. Yeah. But yeah, just if they could, I don't have a solution mate, but I much prefer that. Yeah. Specifically, like when they occur, it's mixed for me. It depends on how city you're playing, depends on injuries that we're having. There'll be breaks that I look forward to because I think the team needs it. There's others that we might get on a bit of a roll, a bit of a street going. And I think, oh, it's a bad time because we could really keep the rhythm going. So it just depends. Everything's a city. Whatever's best for Manchester City, that's what I want. And there's times when it's good, times when it's bad. Ultimately, if I had my way, I would find a way to separate club football from international completely on the calendar. Yeah. It's difficult because obviously we want to play in these competitions and you kind of get stuck in the fact that the teams need to train with the international managers. So it does break up the season, which is annoying. What's your thoughts? Sorry, one last thing. It'll be nice to see some continuity in the international game, in that if you give them a longer stretch to play together, I think the football would be better. I mean, I think they play every couple months and the quality of the match is usually quite rubbish. Did you get a short amount of times with the money? Obviously, like you say, you'll get like a two weeks here and there. They never really get like a full time. Obviously, you have your camp before like the Euros or the World Cup or whatever. They have like the camp before then, but it's never really like a dedicated period to the international setup where you're going to get like better football from it. But I don't see it changing. I'm an England fan. Obviously, I always have been. I tried at one point since I moved to America and I became an American citizen. I thought, oh, well, I should really be a USA fan. Every time like the World Cup would roll around, my body wouldn't allow it. I couldn't process it. Like I would hear like Vindaloo or Three Lions on a shirt or all that and it just all the feelings come back from when you get gasped. Yeah, you can't shake it. So I've been that off. Like I was still like, they're like my second team, I suppose the USA. Yeah. But I can't shake the England national team. And I just wish they had longer to play together is before before tournaments to get to get a system down and you know, so yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. What's your thoughts, Martin? How do you feel about international breaks? Sorry, I'm just getting over the shot that Moe's just like ditched his like country off, put him in the bin. He's from Manchester, isn't it? So I guess. Well, that's just confirmed is you say you get charged with the 115, Moe's going back to Chelsea. Wait, is that the memo? Are we not? We are not doing that. No. I've got my Chelsea shirt ready. I'm not going to choose. No offense, but USA. Come on now. I could have gone Brazil or Argentina. I'm not a citizen of any of those, man. I was trying to be loyal to the country I'm a citizen of and I'm meant to go better. You know, I'm meant to go for your team. Body wouldn't allow it. I'm about to get bothered by everyone for mistakes now that I'm in July when I step off that play. It keeps to get me back out the door and I'm getting rejected at customs. In and out straight away. Yeah, straight away. Back out. Forget the retina scam. You're failing. Are you going to one of the pre-seasons, Martin? Yeah, I think so, but it's just me now. I wasn't disputing spending under $250 for three people. Yeah. So it's just me. It's just me and Pat going over it. Well, my Mrs is going to have a pool day. Which one are you thinking about? Orlando weather. Nice. I mean, Orlando. It's just easier. That sounds good. So in friendly wise in mind, what are your thoughts friendly wise?  Do you think they get anything from these like friendlies too much? Because this they're so far in between you play two games in these two weeks and you don't play again till June. So yeah, yeah, then you never get a full shrimp squad because I said two weeks ago when you watch everyone will start getting mysterious injuries. Everyone will start coming off after 20 minutes of mysterious hamstrings and all of us. So it's like the cowboy thing. He walks off the pitch, winked at Folder. Both of them went to went like that and started whispering to each other. Yeah, he's pulled his hamstring. Yeah, I think when he thanked the Belgium manager, how did he think to thank a Belgian manager when he hadn't gone when he hadn't gone to Belgium at that point? Yeah, yeah, it's like, it's a loaded test. It's like, you know, Portugal today, Nunes. Well, not banana. We stayed over in Portugal. But that's another story.  And they did try and try to reinforce that and get something going with the nation's league to try and make something happen with these friendlies to make it feel like they're more up for it. And at the start, the first one was like, Oh, yeah, feel that. But then it kind of it fell off so fast, the nation's league that it almost just instantly became Oh, yeah, these are just friendlies.  You can title it all you want.  And remember those preseason friendlies, like over in the States or in Germany, when you have the Audi Cup. Yeah, when we used to have the Thomas Cook trophy back in the neck. Yeah, you just you just get it. It's like you get an excited book. Yeah, it was one of them. It was it's like the other night. I'm sat the night because I was doing the stream. I thought I'll watch it 12 hours that, you know, 90 minutes. I watched Perquette more than I watched anyone else.  You're scouting out the city players rather than watching actual kind of advantage. I got anything out of that. I got nothing out of that. I don't watch while that clown is in charge of my country. I will not watch it. I'm no interest. I watch the Euros, but I know what's going to happen. We'll get to the quarters on the semis on a final and we'll just bottle job it. Something that's happened to me out here in the States, like when England playing the big tournaments, all the expats, all the England fans that live in the States all go to like the same pub, typically like an English pub or an Irish pub or something like that. They all go and they watch together. And I went a couple of times, but you know what it was? And then they pack these places out. It's a good atmosphere in there until England start losing. Because what ultimately happens is the fans of the different club teams start picking on the rival fans and players, right? So like, I was so excited that City started having players in the England team until I realized that they just became targets. It was Sterling was the main one, right? Like one of the World Cups, something like that.  And I just stopped going. It's great to have this fantastic team for world-class players, but I almost preferred the days and we didn't we didn't have any body in the England team because, you know, we didn't take a lot of a lot of guff the players anyway. So yeah, it's a weird phenomenon that's happened since it, you know, had really good players as they get piled on. Yeah, that is the case. That is the case. And I'd say the whole the whole friendly side, it breaks up the Premier League season as well. I always feel like it feels like the Premier League is just getting going. Then international break, you start again, then you feel like, well, we're just getting going. Start international break. And I feel like now I know that they're not going to do anything with the time is that it is what it is. This is just the way that we have to deal with it. But it is annoying when it breaks up your season so much. And especially like going into this next period. And this, this links back to what Martin was saying before about how unserious it basically is because players just drop out left, right at the centre anyway. And it's because all these players, I don't think the players even want to be playing these international friendlies. They're dialed in to, they're not playing the Euros yet. They're not even thinking about that yet. They've still got the Premier League season ahead of them or whatever country they're in ahead of them, their season.  Not a chance. He's still thinking about the Premier League season. He needs to be fit. I think most players just pray that they come off that pitch injury free. And that's why you see all these players. They'll just look out. We try and spin it positively for just a minute. All right. So if you're a massive football fan, but like some important things are coming up, maybe you're getting married. You know, things you have to schedule, holidays, stuff like that. It is nice to know when the international breaks are. Yeah, you can plan those things. Right. Like for instance, it's past weekend. And this is why I wasn't able to get on Martin's stream. It's past weekend because it was an international break. And the everybody knows that nobody's going. No, none of the local football fans in Dallas are going to the pubs to watch matches. They have a tournament. All the supporters clubs play each other. Like it's like six or side six or seven aside. Is this what I see in the picture? Yeah, you've seen all the pictures of Joey. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we were doing. And we actually got further than I thought we were going to. So I told Martin I would come on the stream late, but the team kept kept advancing and run out of time. So yeah. So stuff like that. If you can, if you can plan your time right around international breaks, like you can maybe go out and play some football or get married or it's like Katie, Katie be by the way, mysteriously has been declared fit for Sunday. Oh, shock horror. Breaking news. Really? But you all actually thought he was out for this game on Sunday. Come on. I think I think another thing in the international breaks as well is if you do have players that are injured, for example, Jack Grealish, it gives them a bit more time to get back. So I always think they can fall nicely for you. They can fall nice. Like I say, if you can plan a personal thing around it as well, that's the best way to do it. Like I say, especially when you have a heavy season, if the season was just playing football every three days all the way through to the end, that would be a graft for the people like that. Big up to Ben Lynn with the 15 months, big up mate.  We are in the business end of the season. It's the season. The shouts come back. Come on lads. Hang on. What does it mean by for real? I don't look like a goat, do I? No, I don't know why he's had it for real. You've been telling me to my other half. Don't have to point me to 21 months, big up to 40 mates. He says, Martin, we're done out here, 115 got us in a show called Wrexham next season. I've seen the script, Joel Royals save our souls, run it back, I'm finished. We're going to save our souls. Everyone will get a shock. Our world will go in, melt down. We will go out. I've said it, loads of said it. As Concentrators, we're all going to banging that out and we're going to film it and you're all just going to sit there and enjoy it. 100%. Yeah, we'll all get city tops of 115 on the back. Charging 115. I can't wait. I can't wait. I know confirmation when that ad went public. Yeah, Etihad going public. Etihad went public on the stop market. Is it this week that they did that? And basically that opens up all their accounts for everyone to see. So you have to be completely transparent when you go public because it allows other people to look at all your accounts. They're not going to do that if we're inflating sponsorships because it allows all these other people. You know what I mean? All these Twitter lies and that. You can go have a look now. Go have a look for yourself because it ain't there. They wouldn't have done that if they would not have done that if there was any doubt in their mind. You won't do that. Means you've got to do research. Yeah. Yeah. If it's not presented out then. I know. I know. I've given them too much credit. Just go and go fish and get the headline or tall sport and get a quick headline and away we go. Yeah. Facts. Facts. And give me a sec. Big up to BlueTone, mate. Yes, yes, BlueTone. But it's two. I see BlueTone about all over the place, mate. Because ClassPanel, great show. Latest noisy pod is ClassMul. Thank you, BlueTone. Yes, yes, BlueTone, mate. Just came out this morning for you in the UK. So, yeah, enjoy. It's an Arsenal preview, essentially. Yeah. Obviously, we do have the small matter of Arsenal at the weekend. Feels weird to have actual football back. I'm excited for it. Before we get into the actual football side of things, there is news. I think Grealish has been rumours going around around international break because the worst thing is when people have nothing to do, they start to make things up. They start to entertain themselves. So, Grealish, there was a lot of rumours of the day about him potentially not being happy. However, Simon Baryskowski has come out and basically said there is no indication pretty much of Grealish showing any signs of being unhappy. Yes, his game time isn't what he would have wanted it to be. And we can kind of see that anyway. We can see that's why he was getting so upset when he was getting injured because he knows that he's getting his time and then it's getting stunted again because of his injuries. I think we're all happy with the fact that Grealish is on the men on the way back. Do you both rate Grealish? I know there's a lot of city fans who don't, but I rate Grealish quite highly. I think he's in our strongest level. See, I'm rating him. I think he's one of our best players. But I don't know what's going to happen summer wise. So, there is a chance that Grealish calls it in summer, looks at his game time this year and says, you know what? Not really getting the game time on. Maybe not even getting the freedom that I want or the player that I want to be. The news I got the other day is tread. Then someone has to leave. Cool. Oh boy. All I'll say is that stuff about the Benfica stuff and Sarnay, there is interest all over the shop. What's the Benfica thing? The Joe Nevers. Stay behind. Whether the others came on, but I don't stay behind because that's the only way he gets to Benfica is Joe Nevers comes in and he goes the other way in par X. Now, Joe Nevers is a player that city I've been looking at for quite a while as well. He's young, but he's cash. Quite a lot of money that Benfica could want for him. So, I can kind of see why city want to do that. I mean, the Sarnay one really confuses me. I don't know what I'm told. I'm not going to name the guy I get it from, but they've never let me down yet. The thing for me with Greelish is he offers us controlling games where Docu lacks that. So, I really feel like something like that, Anfield. We always kind of, I think everyone wanted him back from Anfield. There's situations where Greelish is perfect for this city side. Now, if we went, say hypothetically speaking, we went and got rid of Jack Greelish and brought in a Leroy Sarnay. I think you lose that control again and then you're stuck with two of the same. But then I go back to what Pep, if that happened, that would tell me Pep is full you turning on what his ideas of the city side were. Because a few years ago, he came out and he was saying that basically the Raheem Stirling Winger side for city like that pace. I think it was after Stirling left. He was like, we're veering away from that. Then we went and signed Docu. So, everyone's like, oh, he's opening up that kind of avenue again. Fast Pacey Wingers. Now, to get signing as well, and I just think it's a risk. Sarnay's evolved a bit, though. I wouldn't be surprised if Pep's thinking about him feeling the Mahrez void. Right? He's been played off the rails. Yeah. Sarnay, though. I don't think I've heard it's not Pep really pushing this one. It's more of a love. Okay. I mean, it's a PR masterclass to get Sarnay back. I have one of the little ways. The Padley's girlfriend's very unhappy over in Germany. Oh, she loves Manchester. That's why he comes in all the way to Manchester every year. He wants to come back. She's absolutely desperate to come back. Yeah, I mean, if they're trying to make it up, and then City might want to fix this, they'll take that. He's got a lot of those misses. Yeah. He needs a wife swap. If you just wife swap, it'll be sound. He's in a ball, eh? Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's all we need. Then Bernardo stays. We all stay happy. Well, yeah, it's a difficult one. I think it's a buy-in. Buying a could have a massive shake-up. I know they're trying to throw the kitchen sink or something, but he may not. It's so weird at buying at the minute. Yeah, I mean, at buying this, there's an area of confusion about what's going on anyway, because I don't think they really know what they want to do with Thomas Hukliva. I feel like he's gone. I feel like he's just there now to the end of the season, but I don't know who they're going to go get in. I know there's rumours of Javier Lonzo in there. And then I don't know really who else they'd go for. Well, they had a look at Douglas Louise, but got quoted 95 points from Macmillian, and they kind of walked from that. Bye. That price came out. Yeah. I mean, to be honest, the city should have activated that buy-back clause on Douglas Louise for £40 million. I think they're regretting that. Even if it was just to then sell him on after we've activated that buy-back clause, it was just a no-brainer. It was a no-brainer to go, yeah, pay £40 million for him, because he was already getting highly rated at that point. But then to see him go on and smash it after we've just missed that, we just missed that window of buying him £40 million. And then seeing Villa pushing the £100 million mark on him. But you can understand, we've said this before, that that's what he's worth to that club. He's worth £100 million to that club. So anyone who wants him is going to have to pay that, but I think I say he missed the trick there. Well, no going back to that. I'd keep Grealish all that long. Yeah, yeah, same. I think there's loads more to come from Jack Grealish. I think particularly because he, I think Pep values his versatility. Pep's getting a little bit creative and experimental with the Wingers, especially this season. Have you noticed on occasion, twice now, maybe against Newcastle, the Wingers coming inside and receiving the ball inside, like Jack Grealish would be perfect for that. You know what I mean? I've seen him. What was our last Premier League game? Was it Newcastle? Well, they did it in the FA Cup. Yeah, yeah, in the FA Cup. Docu came in. Docu was, yeah, coming, driving in the midfield. And the whole game, all I could think was, I wish Jack Grealish weren't injured. This would be perfect for him. I think he was on the bench. Yeah, he was on the bench. Yeah, I think it was like his first back. Yeah, but it weren't going to risk him for it. But yeah, that's a perfect role for Jack Grealish, that. I was surprised to see Docu saw central. Yeah, Jack Grealish in that role would do bits. He's weird with Pep because we never play the same system two seasons on the bounce.  We tweak things every season. I'm so curious to see what he does the rest of this. I am. Well, I'm intrigued of what I mean, Mike. It's like the amount of people we've been linked with and possibly going to get.  That's the thing. Like you can't have everyone. But you need a bigger squad because you have got more games next year. Yeah. And when more games come as potentially more injures, plus maybe perhaps just like, you know what, you're going to fight for your place. So I'm just waiting for it. Yeah. Well, I mean, you look at our bench, you've got regulars like Sergio Gomes. We always have two keepers on the bench. Sergio Gomez is always on the bench. He isn't really a player that we utilise. I haven't been told that he could go out alone next year. That's not a possible way. Yeah. I mean, that doesn't surprise me that we recall. He's not got the game time this year that I think even City would have thought he would have got either. Obviously, Kyle Walker has been playing a lot, even when he's not been informed, Kyle Walker has been always nailed down for that right back spot. I just think the really, I think City will open space up four plays to come in. And so I agree with you, man. I think we'll have a busy summer this year. I think we'll have a bigger squad. Yeah. Because because look at the way that we started this season, everyone was looking at going, our squad is weak this season. And when you get these injuries in, that's what that's when it highlights it. You don't just want the first 11, you need to have that squad depth. And now we've been saying, I think as city fans, we've been saying for the past, say year, year and a half, it's say two years, maybe saying that the squad depth that City is a myth. And I think City will probably want to put an end to that myth and make it make sure people know that it's a real thing. Yes, we have that squad depth because we, I think City will still get once again, want to challenge in all fronts. I've got this feeling. People never have a squad big enough where a marquee player doesn't make the matchday squad. I think it keeps it to that perfect number where you might have it. You might have like a Rico, maybe not make it. But even that, I think it keeps it just at that size. Because he values the camaraderie and the happiness of the squad as a collective. And I think you start to get those bad faces and those sad faces when you're not making matchday squads. I just always think you'll keep it at that, right on that edge. Yeah, I mean, it's smart from Pep to do that. It works. I might have said that the competition for places needs to be healthy and you need it in all areas. That's what's going to get you the best out of every single player that plays for you. So when you say like, I think the squad's going to be bigger, I don't, I struggle with that because I don't think you'll ever go beyond that threshold where there's players, you know, good players who don't make matchday squads when they're all fit. That's fair. I just said as well, obviously that might have said before about injuries. Let's quickly go over injuries. I know England kick off in a couple of minutes. I won't stay too long, but the injury situation is absolutely fine, I think. Like we mentioned before, players just say they're going off. Kyle Walker, it's come out already that these hamstring isn't a concern. So obviously we do play Arsenal this weekend, so not really worried about that. And would you have been worried if Kyle, if Kyle Walker was injured for Arsenal, say it was just the Arsenal game because Real Madrid's a different story for me, but the Arsenal game, if Kyle Walker was injured, would you be concerned with it, with the kanji starting at the back, like a back four of centre backs? I don't think I would be. I think I was absolutely happy with a centre back line going into that. I picked an 11 for my podcast and Walker wasn't in it, regardless of his injury. I had a kaki, a kanji, a kanji right back. Kanji right back, a k left back with Diaz and stones in the middle was my back four. Yeah, I don't think a kanji is injured. Yeah, so there are rumours about a kanji now, coming out saying he's injured, but whether or not he is or not is a different matter. I don't know about Edison actually. I don't know. I could see Edison returning for the Villa game. Is that our next game after that? With Edison, does he ever really miss a proper game? Yeah, I know that's the thing. I just don't know how serious that injury is. He had a 14-inch bullet wound in his thigh after Newcastle and I went, it'll be back the next game.  I am back. The guys made out of iron or something. The guy just doesn't feel pain. If it is a proper dead leg, that's four weeks to recover from. If it's a proper lie, if it is what it is. If it was a proper dead leg, yeah, that's four weeks. But even so, Walker isn't a concern for me because I'm happy with the four centre backs. And also Edison isn't a concern for me because I'm happy that we've got Stephen Ortega. Same. Like, I mean, Ortega is that. Just happily sleep over it, do you? Yeah. He's amazing. Yeah. So if Edison is out, I'm fine for it. Like I said, Jack Greely showed the memory, which is good. Kyle Walker don't think, don't think Kyle Walker is an actual injury. I think he'll be back for the weekend. Harland, people were sweating a little bit about Harland today, but he's just done 60 minutes with Oscar Bob. So Harland is absolutely sound. We've not even talked about when you're talking about in doubts, my friends. Where do you part of Oscar Bob? Yeah, yeah. How do you fit him in? If you're going to bolster up the wings. Don't let him go anywhere. No, I would not be letting Oscar Bob go anywhere, but I think that would be a regret from Sid. I'm hoping Ricoh doesn't end us thing. It does. When I got told it was like, kind of makes sense because his game time just massively dropped. I think last season, you look at it going, this is a really big step for Ricoh Lewis here. He's done bits. And then this season, it's proper full shot of where we wanted to see his game time. So I could understand if he was maybe thinking that he needs to go on loan to get more game time because he definitely doesn't want another season like this. But it's one of the weird things we've, we've these kind of players that Ricoh Lewis, do you want to keep, does he, does he want to go on loan to get the game time? Or does he want to be training in around these players that we've got in this football team? Like, and sponging all that in. It's a hard decision to make as a player that. I think that's one of the most difficult ones. If you're any other team in the world, genuinely, I'd just be saying, yeah, put me on loan. But Manchester City, where you're fighting for all competitions, you're getting not just the experience of the players, you're getting into the latter stages of competitions, in and around that dressing room, knowing what it's like. So I just think it's, if I was Ricoh I'd stay, but I can understand why. Now you've got the whole Cole Palmer effect out there, right? Where you can leave six and be like the best player on another Premier League side. Yeah. He's basically, Cole Palmer's going to make a blueprint for what can happen if you leave. Yeah, that's, that's not good for us. No. You kind of didn't need that. Now, you might get more money for Ricoh Lewis. Because, you know, now city products are values have gone well up because of Cole Palmer, but it's, it's a double-edged sword, isn't it? That's it. That's it. Quick, then, before we leave it, the Arsenal game of the weekend, any concerns? Yeah. Are you worried? It's a massive, massive, massive game. I'm already nervous for it. I've been nervous for the last two weeks. Apparently, we're going to get a Smash 5 now, 4 now, 3 now, walking the park, Arsenal coming over to destroy us. It's all over that week. Yeah. I'm just afraid we, I mean, I'm a little bit worried we won't turn up. No, we're, we're turning up. I'm honest, like, and people, people think I am a picklapper, and I'm really not, I'm really not this happy clappy person off camera. You want to, you want to see me in games? No, honestly, I think we'll beat them about 3-1. That is. I wouldn't surprise me. I haven't seen more than ever, and by the way, there is, I was chatting, the guy was chatting with, there is talk, there are ideas being looked upon to get the, yeah, yeah, up and going. Yeah, there was talks of a display, wasn't there? There's a guy, I won't say, but the guy from, we got from Leicester. I can't remember his name. He had a chat with Calderon and there was a lot of toon and throwing about ideas. And there was even a chat about going back. So you remember the Blue Moon we did for the Daba? Yeah, yeah, they did that once, didn't they? And then, yeah, I remember being there after that. That's a great live show. Yeah. It's not really a live show. It's just putting Blue Moon on the pitch, putting it on the screens. There was talk to, like, putting the lyrics on the board and getting everyone going. So they are trying, they are going to try and do stuff to get the place bouncing, because there is an acknowledgement it's been a bit quiet. Yeah. Well, it's a huge game. So, I mean, I hope fans get up for it, because it's one of the defining games of this season so far. I think it is the defining game. It's the anniversary of the fixture I was at last season. Great 2-1 win, went out with the City Extra lads afterwards and one of Hugh's mates gave me COVID. So... That was not the end again. Yeah, let's try it, let's try it. Let's try and save that. I mean, it's a question to both. I know England played. Does anyone else do any of you two think whoever loses is out? Am I the only one that's not fair to you, man? That's how it feels to me. It feels... I feel like if we beat Arsenal, I feel like... I think Arsenal are out. I think Arsenal are out. There's a massive feeling if Arsenal beat us, then we're done in the title race. We're not out to allow. Yeah, but that's my thing. I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it, so it's massive, like. It's possible. No, I totally agree with you, and I would think, I'm just thinking, I expect one team to drop points. I'm not sure I can expect both Liverpool and Arsenal to drop the points for us to get back. Yeah, no, I see that. It's not just one team you then get it over. Relying on two teams to drop points. Whoever does it, whoever doesn't drop points. Credit to him, man, because... No, I think all three of us, I do think, I think all three will drop points. I think all three of us will drop points. I think, but then it's more and more just about capitalising when the others drop points. They don't like us right behind them, though. You don't know what's going to happen to them. If they do get two points ahead of us, something like that, are they going to bottle it again? They've got previous. So... What did... Was it Roderick who said we're in the perfect position? When it Roderick last week who said we're in the perfect position. We are where we want to be. This is one point behind. In the shadow, everyone's written is off. It's like I get told we're not in form. 22 games of beatings, not in form. My word. I don't know what form is. What is form? It's the standards that we set, innit? Yeah. I just... I mean, saying that, you know, being treated, it's really weird because I don't... I don't know why. I've got a funny feeling in that, right? Liverpool go... Are you bright and out of posh or... I only showed you some... I like Brighton. I say Brighton can get rewards. Because technically Brighton draw and Mills and Arsenal both draw.  So then nobody's out. Yeah, I mean... Yeah, my only concern about us is we've still got to go and play. Obviously, Arsenal now, and we've still got to play Spurs. I think out of our run-ins, I think we've got the most difficult one. Liverpool with the favourable running. But then does that... Does that, like... Do you know what I mean? With the favourable running, would... There's good place that's creeping with that. Right, yeah. Has that been confirmed? I've not seen anything about it. There's probably going to be ones that'll push to second-last game of the season, won't it? As we stand now, we're playing every three or four days, and we've got to fit a Brighton game in. And the Tottenham. And the Tottenham game. And we've got a crystal ball of three days after Vila at Vila at home. Yeah, so... There's a lot of football. I'll go fourth. Well, I'm a fourth place, I'm in the Champions League. I still see us winning two trophies more, and then we won four trophies this year. That's your thing, by the way. So, I'll save hands, because I don't think enough city-vans are crying about this. We've won two trophies already this season. We're not for the Quad. Well, in fact, we're on for a What's Five. Quint. Yeah, Quint, yeah. Quintuple, yeah, Quintuple. One off a Sextuple, yeah. You can stick your Quad where you were. The Sun don't shine. We're on for a Quintumple. A Quint, Quintumple. Not that. Not that. That's how Quint comes injured when he does his hamstring. When do you ever... You don't hear an up-same with already won two? It's true. Just before... We have some news. Just before we get into that news. Sennetham, with a 15-months. Says evening, lads. Sanay Hap train all the way. Left too soon. Says Pep is always evolving. That's what makes him the goal. Yeah, Pep evolves every season, like I was saying before. Does change it up. Big up Sennetham, mate. Big up for the 15 months. Bad news, guys. John Stones is injured. And he's just gone off for England after what? 13 minutes. Like properly injured. So people in the chat are saying Stones injured. What's he done? Yeah, chat. Have you seen what he's done? Well, G says Stones made of biscuits. I think people are just saying... Stones injured. And this feeds back in to my ankle injury, apparently. Says G. He's feeling his groins, his buddy. Looked muscular, says DGM1. I mean, could he... Don't trust any of this. I was just saying, could he not? I just started the match and then gone, oh. Yeah, I'm feeling it. That's what he's saying. Need to get off. Because Walker went off after what was it? 20 minutes, yeah. And the city lads having a thing of, you can get off earlier. I mean, he's got a ball to just say, nah, get off earlier. Then John Stones gone, you know what? I'll do it. 10 minutes, give me that. I just... Oh, that's... Whoa, wait. DGM1 says his thigh's already been strapped up. It was all strapped up already. Why is he strapped? Why did he play then? Why is he playing then? Why is South Cape playing? Oh, and they've scored. And Belgium have scored. I love it. I love international breaks, me. Oh, man. Oh, man. I don't want that gate to get sacked, yeah. No, he can't get sacked. We've got to do euros with him. No, because he won't go into United if he gets sacked now. Yeah, no, we need to... There's high, high rumours of that as well. So we need United to get South Cape. That would be perfect. Oh, do you think it's an angle? Everyone's saying groin. I don't. I'm not trusting anything until Sunday. Yeah, but we'll see the state of play, won't we? We'll see the state of play come Sunday. I mean, Pepp will have his press conference on Friday as well. So we'll probably learn a bit more then as well on who's actually come back fit and who's not. Who's that in the game? Is any Arsenal players tired? I've not actually seen anything to do with it, to be honest. Odegard played for Norway about 72 minutes. Trostard's playing for Belgium right now. Rice. Declan Rice is captain. Rice is out there. So Declan Rice might disappear in about... Declan Rice will suddenly pull up with a stump term. Metatarsal. Yeah, I hope the stone thing isn't an actual proper injury because if he's already strapped up, then it's clear that signs are that he wasn't fully ready. So why put him out there anyway? Maybe I'm just playing conspiracy, but you could have put that strapping on before you went on. Yeah. I'm here for conspiracies, I'm not realised. I hope they are. Who puts friendlies before the 10 most important games of the season? That's it.  I'm staying in Pepeve very friendly. Very friendly. Yeah, yeah. Ring each other a lot. So yeah. Cuddy-Bear is a favour. Yeah. Phil Fulton goes down with a little bit of summit in a minute. Yeah. I hope it's Harkus Bruces anyway. But we'll leave it there so people can go and watch the rest of the England game. Like people are wanting you to stay home. I know. People prefer to set it off now. I appreciate everyone in the chat. I appreciate all the member chats and super chats and stuff like that. It helps us out massively. Big up to the boys. Yes, yes. Mulv, mate. Obviously Mulv's new episode out today, isn't it, bro? New episode day. Yes, mate. Noisy Neighbours podcast and all your podcast apps. Arsenal previews out today. Yes, yes. And Martin, what's going on? He's got me. No, we bottled it, mate. He asked me and I said, no, I'm not doing that. What have you got going on, Martin? Oh, my word this week. Big quiz tomorrow. Yeah, we're doing the big quiz that we were due to do on the 12-hour, but we're doing it tomorrow at 8 o'clock. We've got £50 first prize, £50 store voucher, second prize, £25 store voucher, and we're giving away one of the trouble medals as well. And then I'm on about 15 Arsenal previews again for the rest of the week. That's it, innit? That's all it is then from tomorrow. Can you come on? Can you come on? But yeah, go check out NoisyPod and all your podcasting platforms. And they've also got YouTube channels as well. Go check out Martin at the Mancunium way. If you're regular, isn't it? You know where they are. I appreciate you, boys, as always. Thanks, Jordy. Yeah, we'll be back tomorrow with some more content. Yeah, we're on the way to 100K. We're on the way. And obviously we've got strapping for the rest of this season now. Time to ramp up content and dial in, because I'm not ready for this end of the season. I'm nervous already for it. But I appreciate it, lads, and we'll see you in a bit.


So, Adam, today we're going to be reviewing The Grey Rhino by Michelle Wilker. Now this book is about highly obvious but ignored threats. Forgive the comical example, but you can think of this as you're on safari, you're looking for a grey rhino, you find one, you're creeping closer and closer, and just as you're about to get that perfect shot for Instagram, the rhino charges, and now you're in danger. What a disaster. Now Vesta Nalchi is a little bit strange, but you kind of have to roll of it when you're reading this book. It's also helpful to think of the grey rhino as sort of a complement to an assimilator like the black swan. Now in the black swan, black swans are these massive outlines, these things on the edge of the bell curves, but no one saw coming.  But Michelle Wilker's point is that these big threats don't have to be hidden, and in fact they can be pretty much obvious or pretty much self-evident for anyone looking. So an example is something like climate change, where everyone is well aware of the research, governments certainly know about it, but there isn't necessarily a lot of action going on to even do anything. At a smaller level you have things like accidents in hospitals, whereby small changes and procedures can lead to greatly reduced mortality rates, but for whatever reason we don't see these changes taking place, and then finally you have things like crumbling government infrastructure.  We'll get back to this at the end, but first we should say why we decided to review this book. Simply, it's very popular in China. This book was featured in The People's Daily, and is really singing high praise of the Chinese government. It talks about how the five-year plans have enabled China to, you know, avoid some gray rhinos and use this long-term planning effectively. Yes, Wilker really praises the Chinese government for tackling obvious threats head on and making great progress against them. Now, when you think of five-year plans and government planning and centralized planning, you might not necessarily have a great impression of it, but Wilker actually tackles this in the book where she compares the Chinese plans to those that are implemented by the Soviets. And she says that the Soviets were very process-oriented. They wanted to do X, Y, and Z, make sure that everything was done in a very particular fashion, whereas the Chinese, by counter-example, sort of plan more towards an overall goal and leave the actual minutiae to sort of a local level, which makes their plans much more flexible than the Soviets ever were. One thing that's clear in this book is that, you know, Michelle Wilker is just not a big fan of the United States, the style of disaggregated government. She really sees this as, you know, creating some of these gray rhino events. And two events that are called out is the Chicago Public School System, which is basically insolvent because it's made these sweetheart deals with Chicago teachers. And the second is the I-35 Bridge Collapse in Minnesota, whereby we knew for a decade that this bridge was in disrepair and we did absolutely nothing. Yes. So between Wilker's praise of Chinese plans and her critiques of sort of the flaws of US government decision-making, you sort of get the sense, reading this book, that she doesn't feel like Western democracies are really capable of tackling gray rhinos. Now, I think a lot of this comes down to the short-term incentives at play in these political systems. So looking at the US House of Representatives, for example, reps are on two-year election terms. Now this basically means that they're always worrying about re-election. There's always another election coming down the pike. You know, they're checking approval ratings. They're trying to do things to benefit their constituents right now. And they're not really thinking about broader societal outcomes or even the long-term well-being of their districts. Yeah. But even in cases where the US does think long-term, like a Supreme Court appointment, for example, there's lots of cases where you don't exactly get what you thought you were buying, where somebody starts out with one political opinion and changes over time. So even within the US system, there's a little bit of awkwardness there. Yes. The other thing I would say, given all the praise of the Chinese government's five-year plans and the US government's failures, I'm not sure you would find many citizens who are willing to trade. Now, I think some of this probably speaks to, perhaps, Wukro is kind of looking at the wrong metrics of success, where she's not really focusing on the negative aspects of five-year plans, the lack of individual rights. And instead, she's focusing on who has the ability to build the most highways in a given period of time. That's not really the best success metric that individual citizens are looking for in that government. Yeah. I think a lot of this comes down to culture. A lot of the praise she has for five-year plans, I really just see is praise of Asian culture. Because the other side to it is Japan. Japan has also talked about this book as having great planning. It doesn't have a communist government or a five-year plan, but it still solves a lot of these great rhino problems in a very succinct way. So really, I think if you think back to a book we reviewed before, The Innovator Solution by Clayton Christensen, this is kind of a comparison of modularization versus integration, where the US government is very modular and the Chinese government is very integrated. Another critique, I agree with you completely by the way, but another critique Worker has about the US government is she talks about Rita's muddling, where she basically says that Rita will kind of know something could happen. Maybe there's a threat of a natural disaster, a landslide to make it concrete. But they muddle, they don't do anything. They just kind of want to pass it off to someone else or pass it off to their successor. Now, I think this is a little bit flawed in the way that it views the way the US government is working. Because I would argue that the US government is actually extremely effective. It's just extremely effective for particular participants within the system, namely interest groups. To go back to the Chicago example you mentioned, Worker talks about how Chicago is basically insolvent, had no money, teachers salaries and pensions are too high. And she basically views this as a failure of Chicago's government leadership. I would argue that it's actually a tremendous success for public unions who have been able to negotiate for this amazing compensation relative to perhaps what they ought to have been able to get to from an all-time societal outcome type of view. Well, there's no doubt public unions are the absolute worst. But regardless, I think what you should think about is private companies in the US who are actually quite good at this long-term planning. So yes, the US government can be influenced by different interest groups, but you know, companies in the oil industry, in the airline industry, even in the tobacco industry are really good at long-term planning because they have these fixed costs they can think about far into the future. And so I really think it all comes down to incentives. Can you get the right incentive in the right situation to get people to behave how you want? So one namesake example that comes up is of the Gray Rhino. So we allow hunting of the Gray Rhino now in some of these protected wildlife areas because we've actually found out that that's good for conservation. We can use the money towards helping other rhinos and it removes some of the older rhinos from the population. And so, you know, in the end, it's the right incentive to create more rhinos. You have a hunting license idea that's kind of really counterintuitive, but by placing this very high value on a rhino, you basically incentivize, you know, the parks and the park ranges to protect them with everything they have to, you know, prevent poachers getting at these rhinos. There are other examples of kind of bigger problems like climate change, whereby programs like carbon credits have been implemented to try and align the incentives of private companies with those of sort of a broader societal outcome. Now, you know, the results have been somewhat mixed, but I think the general idea is solid of trying to make sure everyone's incentives basically pointed in the right direction. Having said that, there is still an issue which Walker really dives into in this book, which is human biases. There's all kinds of ways we can make mistakes. She lists things like groupthink or confirmation bias or priming bias, or even something called backfire effects, whereby if you receive information that is contrary to your own opinion, it doesn't change your mind. It just makes you dig in even more. Well, Adam, I've never had that one. I'm 100% sure. But there are some great examples of these biases. So the first would be groupthink in something like the Challenger Disaster, where, you know, we had a lot of engineers on the sidelines who said, oh, this thing might not actually work, the temperatures are too cold, and yet no one stepped in to stop the disaster. However, when we compare this to, you know, the reality of something like global warming, I'm not sure the comparison holds, because, you know, obviously in something like the Challenger, it happened very quickly, you didn't have much time to react, and everybody was very nervous about shutting down this very expensive space shuttle launch. But in the case of global warming, it's kind of slow when it's brewing. And I'm not sure it's fair to call both of those great rhino. Yes, given the amount to which biases are now taught in like every single business class, you would really hope that people would be coming more aware of these biases. And especially with like a longer time horizon, where you're not having to make sort of a quick decision within a day or two, you would hope that people would be able to recognize and kind of control for these biases. So I don't really see human biases as explaining why we have failed to deal with these massive great rhinos. Now I have a couple pet theories as to, you know, why people don't respond to these things properly. The first is a human's discount time much more than we're willing to admit. Something like climate change is going to affect us 50, say 100 years in the future. But I don't think a lot of people are that concerned about what the world is going to look like and say 2150. Instead, I think people are very focused on how things are now, and they're unwilling to accept kind of these short term sacrifices in exchange for a potentially better future a long time down the road. Now the other thing I would say is that we are all Bayseians at heart's map. You know, we all have priors when we take in information, we're going to try and kind of regress it to the mean a little bit. And so when we see an outlier data point, even if this is maybe a huge threat coming along the way, we kind of say, you know, the truth is probably not so extreme. You know, we go return to our strong priors, and we don't take it as seriously as we should. Now there's an interesting example in the book with climate change, where Walker talks about a climate change scientist who has a much more aggressive prediction for how quickly the Arctic ice is going to melt than any of kind of his compatriots.  But Walker's point is that, you know, we shouldn't dismiss outliers so lightly, we should listen to them, and we should kind of take the information into account more than just, you know, dismissing it because it doesn't fit with our price. Yeah, you know, there's a bit of an odd point here, though, if she believes that we should always look at outliers, well then we should look at the outliers on the other side, which would be the climate change deniers. And I'm not really sure that was the point she was going for. You know, the problem when you consider these outliers is there's always a balance, and one side is right and the other side may be wrong. But who's to say which one is right or wrong in the time? Changing gears a little bit, let's talk about the mechanics of this book, how it's written, the story style, etc. You know, I thought this book was a little bit odd, and then it's basically oriented like, I met this person at Davos, and here's a story about them. So it is a name drop after name drop of people she met at Davos, and there's a large sort of rehashing of other books in this genre. So books like, you know, Think Fast and Slow, All of the Den Ariely books, all these things come up throughout this, and you know, for me personally, having read all those other books, I didn't see a large need or, you know, what this was really adding to the things I already knew. It's sort of like a Gladwellian theme, almost, of lots of kind of pop psychology and anecdotes, you know, crammed into a book. But while Gladwell does this with kind of the extreme enthusiasm of like, this is the most interesting thing I've ever seen, you know, work is writing style, I don't think, is, you know, quite on the same level. And so sometimes it can fall a little bit flat. So unfortunately, we did not like this book as much as, you know, Xi Jinping perhaps did. But we're going to try again with his book recommendations. For our next book, we're going to be reading The Master Algorithm. Now, this is also a favorite of Bill Gates, so I'm very excited to get to it. But this has been Random Talkers. Thank you very much for watching. Make sure to subscribe on YouTube, and we'll see you next time.


After finishing 12 and 6 in the regular season and 1 and 2 in the section tournament last year, the Brainerd Warriors baseball team returns a very young team to take the reins this year. Clayton Castle shows us Brainerd will look to improve people wrong behind its legendary head coach. Warrior baseball is back in Brainerd as the team gears up for the 2017 grind. The team won its opening day game yesterday against Alexandria. A game that would notch Coach Lowell Searcy his 700th win in a warrior uniform and 738th overall, placing him second in all-time wins in Minnesota. You try to teach the kids what you can in practice and then during a game I just kind of stand and watch and try to stay out of the way. So I haven't won any games. The kids have won a lot of games here. Coach Searcy has been the head coach at Brainerd since 1973 and says there's really no secret to a long illustrious career. His 2017 team are led by a group of seniors, six of whom signed National Letters of Intent today. Bryce Flanagan pitched yesterday and threw six innings of five hit baseball. He says that before yesterday no one knew what to expect from the young team. Well at first we didn't expect much but then after our first game yesterday we showed a lot of potential and when underrated our team beating a high quality team I think in my opinion that was a good win. Flanagan also says that he has high expectations for himself as the team captain. Well hopefully I get off to a better start than last year and then just stay hot the whole season and just help our teammates. While others in the conference may look down on this team, Coach Searcy believes that this team could show people wrong if they just follow his lead and high expectations. So consequently the teams in our conference rate us fairly low because we don't have many returning guys and I always have high expectations for our team and hopefully we'll come closer to my expectations than everybody else's. Reporting in Brainerd Clayton Castle, Lakeland News. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.