Podcast appearances and mentions of David Bernstein

Joe Piscopo's guest host this morning is Joe Borelli, Former New York City Councilman and Managing Director of Chartwell Strategy Group 37:07- Col. Jack Jacobs, a retired colonel in the United States Army and a Medal of Honor recipient for his actions during the Vietnam War. Jacobs joins Guest Host Joe Borelli to discuss the values of Memorial Day and what it should mean to others, especially the younger generation. Topic: Memorial Day 51:36- David Bernstein, Founder and CEO of the North American Values Institute and the author of "Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews," Guest host Joe Borelli and Bernstein discuss how “Woke Antisemitism” has gradually expanded both in New York and in Washington, D.C. over the last few years. Topic: "My peaceful hand was met with murder in woke terror attack on Jewish Museum" (New York Post op ed) 1:03:19- Kyle Bailey, Aviation analyst, pilot, and former FAA Safety Team representative, joins the show with Guest Host Joe Borelli to discuss the potential scenarios of the cause of the plane crash that occurred overnight on Thursday from Teterboro, NJ, into San Diego, CA. Topic: Plane that took off from Teterboro crashes in San Diego 1:13:50- Andrew Garbarino, U.S. representative for New York's 2nd congressional district Topic: Sleeping through the "big, beautiful bill" vote 1:27:53- Dr. Scott Atlas, Robert Wesson Senior Fellow in health policy at the Hoover Institution, Advisor on the White House Coronavirus Task Force under Donald Trump, and the author of "A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop COVID from Destroying America" Topic: RFK Jr.'s MAHA report 2:04:18- Robert Sinclair, Senior Manager of Public Affairs at AAA Northeast, joins Guest Host Joe Borelli comparing Memorial Day Traffic in past years, more people are driving this year because of record breaking Memorial Day Weekend gas prices. Topic: Memorial Day travelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode I'm following up on a tip from a listener who suggested that I should speak with David Bernstein. David was on Michael Shermer's podcast discussing civil liberty, free speech, and constitutional law issues. In the current situation of highly polarized public debate it is critical that we listen to both sides of the argument and don't fall victim to bias. This is a job for The Rational View! David E. Bernstein holds a University Professor Chair at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School. He is the author or co-author of seven books including, most recently, Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America. Find my on Facebook, LInkedIn, and Instagram

Political polling is often a hot topic of conversation when siblings Ruth, David and Jonathan Bernstein get together. All three have unique perspectives and professional experience in this space. In this episode of POP, they delve into misperceptions about polling within the general public and media, the challenges in media coverage of polls - especially during close elections - and provide recommendations on how pollsters and journalists can better communicate polling data.   Host: Ruth Bernstein, lead pollster and CEO of EMC Research Guests: Jonathan Bernstein, former Bloomberg opinion columnist covering politics and policy, co-editor of Making of the Presidential Candidates, and former professor of political science. David Bernstein, prize-winning journalist who covered New England politics for decades at the Boston Phoenix, Boston Magazine, and WGBH.  Jonathan and David write the Good Politics, Bad Politics newsletter about government and elections on Substack.

This content has been developed for healthcare professionals only. Patients who seek health information should consult with their physician or relevant patient advocacy groups.For the full presentation, downloadable Practice Aids, slides, and complete CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE information, and to apply for credit, please visit us at PeerView.com/FEE865. CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE credit will be available until March 9, 2026.Innovative Approaches to Manage Primary Biliary Cholangitis: Charting New Courses of Care In support of improving patient care, PVI, PeerView Institute for Medical Education, is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.SupportThis educational activity is supported by independent medical education grants from GSK and Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.Disclosure information is available at the beginning of the video presentation.

This content has been developed for healthcare professionals only. Patients who seek health information should consult with their physician or relevant patient advocacy groups.For the full presentation, downloadable Practice Aids, slides, and complete CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE information, and to apply for credit, please visit us at PeerView.com/FEE865. CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE credit will be available until March 9, 2026.Innovative Approaches to Manage Primary Biliary Cholangitis: Charting New Courses of Care In support of improving patient care, PVI, PeerView Institute for Medical Education, is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.SupportThis educational activity is supported by independent medical education grants from GSK and Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.Disclosure information is available at the beginning of the video presentation.

This content has been developed for healthcare professionals only. Patients who seek health information should consult with their physician or relevant patient advocacy groups.For the full presentation, downloadable Practice Aids, slides, and complete CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE information, and to apply for credit, please visit us at PeerView.com/FEE865. CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE credit will be available until March 9, 2026.Innovative Approaches to Manage Primary Biliary Cholangitis: Charting New Courses of Care In support of improving patient care, PVI, PeerView Institute for Medical Education, is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.SupportThis educational activity is supported by independent medical education grants from GSK and Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.Disclosure information is available at the beginning of the video presentation.

This content has been developed for healthcare professionals only. Patients who seek health information should consult with their physician or relevant patient advocacy groups.For the full presentation, downloadable Practice Aids, slides, and complete CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE information, and to apply for credit, please visit us at PeerView.com/FEE865. CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE credit will be available until March 9, 2026.Innovative Approaches to Manage Primary Biliary Cholangitis: Charting New Courses of Care In support of improving patient care, PVI, PeerView Institute for Medical Education, is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.SupportThis educational activity is supported by independent medical education grants from GSK and Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.Disclosure information is available at the beginning of the video presentation.

This content has been developed for healthcare professionals only. Patients who seek health information should consult with their physician or relevant patient advocacy groups.For the full presentation, downloadable Practice Aids, slides, and complete CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE information, and to apply for credit, please visit us at PeerView.com/FEE865. CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE credit will be available until March 9, 2026.Innovative Approaches to Manage Primary Biliary Cholangitis: Charting New Courses of Care In support of improving patient care, PVI, PeerView Institute for Medical Education, is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.SupportThis educational activity is supported by independent medical education grants from GSK and Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.Disclosure information is available at the beginning of the video presentation.

This content has been developed for healthcare professionals only. Patients who seek health information should consult with their physician or relevant patient advocacy groups.For the full presentation, downloadable Practice Aids, slides, and complete CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE information, and to apply for credit, please visit us at PeerView.com/FEE865. CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE credit will be available until March 9, 2026.Innovative Approaches to Manage Primary Biliary Cholangitis: Charting New Courses of Care In support of improving patient care, PVI, PeerView Institute for Medical Education, is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.SupportThis educational activity is supported by independent medical education grants from GSK and Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.Disclosure information is available at the beginning of the video presentation.

This content has been developed for healthcare professionals only. Patients who seek health information should consult with their physician or relevant patient advocacy groups.For the full presentation, downloadable Practice Aids, slides, and complete CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE information, and to apply for credit, please visit us at PeerView.com/FEE865. CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE credit will be available until March 9, 2026.Innovative Approaches to Manage Primary Biliary Cholangitis: Charting New Courses of Care In support of improving patient care, PVI, PeerView Institute for Medical Education, is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.SupportThis educational activity is supported by independent medical education grants from GSK and Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.Disclosure information is available at the beginning of the video presentation.

This content has been developed for healthcare professionals only. Patients who seek health information should consult with their physician or relevant patient advocacy groups.For the full presentation, downloadable Practice Aids, slides, and complete CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE information, and to apply for credit, please visit us at PeerView.com/FEE865. CME/NCPD/AAPA/IPCE credit will be available until March 9, 2026.Innovative Approaches to Manage Primary Biliary Cholangitis: Charting New Courses of Care In support of improving patient care, PVI, PeerView Institute for Medical Education, is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.SupportThis educational activity is supported by independent medical education grants from GSK and Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.Disclosure information is available at the beginning of the video presentation.

David Bernstein, CEO of The North American Values Institute (NAVI), calls in to the show to discuss his book "Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews" and NAVI's recent rebrand and mission. Sadanand Dhume, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, on his opinion piece today in The Wall Street Journal, "If Indians and Pakistanis Can Relocate, Why Can’t Gazans?"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In introducing this podcast, I first want to acknowledge how darn pleased I am to have advisors in our organization who think differently than me and who aren't afraid to say as much. This podcast originated when one of our advisors, Pam Hayes-Bohanan, pushed back after an ILV panel discussion on Ethnic Studies. We have had many previous podcasts, labs and panels that question the trends in Ethnic Studies, so when I received this critique, I wanted to know more. Unsurprisingly, although we found many areas where we our perspectives differed, namely around Paulo Freire's book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, through the conversation we also found unexpected convergence. In exploring our different viewpoints, we came to agree that one of the biggest problems is the flattening of education. We discuss the myriad of ways this is being done, including devaluing subject matter experts, a closing of ranks within some colleges of education, the rise of “pre-packaged” curricula, a growing number of administrators who micromanage education, often stripping it of its richness including critical thinking, the mechanical teaching for a test versus to instill the love of learning, and the downgrading of curiosity. While each of these problems may require distinct solutions, one thing we can all agree on is the need to, as Pam says, “not be afraid of ideas” and “just read more books”. More specifically, read books you tend to criticize (e.g. Freire in my case) to develop your own critical thinking skills and thereby learn HOW to think instead of WHAT to think. Podcast Resources Precious Knowledge documentary Going Varsity in Mariachi  On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence and Justice, by Adam Kirsch A Third Way on the Place of Critical Race Theory in the Classroom, Real Clear Education, by Amna Khalid, David Bernstein and Jennifer Richmond The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros ILV Ethnic Studies Recordings: Depoliticizing the Classroom: The Role of the Teacher September Liberal Values Lab: Ethnic Studies in Your School Ethnic Studies: From Radical Roots to Government Mandate

David Bernstein, M.D. is a highly respected physician who is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Geriatrics. His 40 years of experience have provided him with opportunities to observe, empathize and guide thousands of adults and generations of families as they mature.His compassion and ability to see the souls of his patients have compelled him to share his stories in his book: I've Got Some Good News and Some Bad News You're OLD: Tales of a Geriatrician What to Expect in Your 60's, 70's, 80's and Beyond.Dr. Bernstein's observation and extensive research prompted him to write his book, The Power of 5: The Ultimate Formula For Longevity & Remaining Youthful which explores a formula to diminish the kinds of diseases many of today's adults face. Divided into five categories – the Power of 5 details the ways individuals can take control of their own lasting youthfulness and vigor. https://www.powerof5life.com/

Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard was the most important decision on affirmative action in generations, banning preferential treatment based on race in higher education admissions. How are colleges and universities complying with SFFA? What else will be necessary in order to ensure compliance? What does the next generation of cases look like? Outside of higher education, what will be the effect of SFFA? Does it apply to employment and contracting? Does it apply to gender as well as race? What does it say about disparate impact?Featuring:Prof. Peter Arcidiacono, William Henry Glasson Professor of Economics, Duke UniversityProf. David Bernstein, University Professor of Law; Executive Director, Liberty & Law Center, George Mason University Prof. Kyle Rozema, Professor of Law, Co-Director of the JD/PhD Program and Academic Placement, Northwestern Pritzker School of LawProf. Sonja Starr, Julius Kreeger Professor of Law & Criminology, University of Chicago Law SchoolModerator: Hon. Lisa Branch, Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit

Welcome to another episode in which co-hosts and co-founders of 1776 Forward, Joia & Chris, speak with one of the Board Members of the Institute of Liberal Values, David Bernstein. David shares his experiences growing up in a politically liberal environment and how his belief in free speech was shaped by personal and historical events. He also emphasizes the importance of free speech in society, the challenges posed by cancel culture, the need for a cultural shift to support open dialogue, and the critical role of education in shaping future generations' understanding of liberal values.   Get your copy of David's book “Woke Antisemitism” at https://jilv.org/book/

The guest on the latest episode of the Official Man City Podcast is hugely significant figure in the Club's history… David Bernstein joined the City board in 1994 and became chairman with eight matches remaining of the 1997/98 season as we fell towards the third tier of English football. Back-to-back promotions saw us return to the Premier League followed by relegation and another promotion before he left the Club in 2003. He helped to put City back on a sound footing off the pitch and facilitated our move from Maine Road to what is now the Etihad Stadium. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With David Bernstein, ex-Man City Chairman. In 2002, Manchester City left their beloved Maine Road for a glamorous new stadium which was the centrepiece for that year's Commonwealth Games.The move was hailed as the start of a new era for a club trying to establish itself as a Premier League team. How much of a role has the stadium played in City's rise to the top of football? And what role did it play in attracting Sheikh Mansoor to the club? David Bernstein was the chairman of City during this time and explains how the move came about. This episode is part of a series of podcasts, called: The Fall and Rise of Man City.HOSTS: How To Buy A Football Club is hosted by BBC Breakfast host Sally Nugent, BBC economics editor Faisal Islam and BBC Sport football reporter Simon Stone.PRODUCTION TEAM: This episode was made by Josh Jenkins. The commissioning executive is Stevie Middleton. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.JOIN THE CLUB: Send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to 0330 123 9480, email howtobuyafootballclub@bbc.co.uk, or use the hashtag #HowToBuyAFootballClub.

David Bernstein is a prominent law professor with expertise in constitutional law, civil rights, and legal history. He has authored influential books and articles on topics such as free speech, government regulation, and the protection of civil liberties. Known for his ability to bridge legal theory and practical application, Professor Bernstein is a vocal advocate for individual rights and the fair application of the law. In addition to his academic contributions, he frequently provides expert commentary on legal issues in the media and serves as a consultant on significant cases. Committed to education, Professor Bernstein mentors and inspires future lawyers, fostering critical thinking and a deep understanding of the law. His work continues to shape important legal discussions and advance justice.

I speak with law professor and author David Bernstein about the problems with our heightened centrality of racial identity.

In this episode of the Z3 Project Podcast, join host Rabbi Amitai Fraiman in discussion with David Bernstein, founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values and author of "Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms the Jews." Together they discuss the perceived challenges posed by progressive ideologies to Jewish values and community discourse. David reflects on the necessity of reviving nuanced, centrist dialogue and addressing the fears within the Jewish community. The conversation underscores the importance of open debate, the dangers of social media polarization, and the need for coalition-building to preserve diverse perspectives and robust public discourse. Tune in to hear Bernstein's perspective on the future of Jewish communal identity, as well as practical steps for fostering inclusive and meaningful dialogue. About our guest: David Bernstein A passionate advocate of the free expression of ideas, Bernstein is past President and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and former executive director of the David Project. He is the author of “Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews.” Follow Z3 here: Instagram - instagram.com/z3project/ TikTok - tiktok.com/@z3project LinkedIn- linkedin.com/company/z3-project Facebook - facebook.com/Z3Project/ Twitter - twitter.com/Z3_Project Website - z3project.org/

Why is antisemitism dismissed in a way that other forms of racism are not? What makes hatred of the Jewish people so palatable? This week, David Bernstein, founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, speaks about the growth of global antisemitism. His analysis of the role of politics in antisemitism from college campuses to city streets will help you ... Read More The post Antisemitism Knows No Party: Interview w/ David Bernstein | June 29, 2024 appeared first on The Friends of Israel Today Radio.

Welcome to the Jew and Gentile Podcast.   Text the Jew and Gentile your comments, questions, concerns (OY!), and news at: 424-444-1948   MUG-ON-A-MUG With your gift of $10 or more to FOI Equip, you to can have your very own Mug-on-a-Mug. Your generous donation helps to expand the important work of teaching the Bible from a Jewish perspective while raising up new FOI volunteers and representatives serving Jewish communities all around the world. Visit gofoi.org/mug to make your gift today and receive your own Jew and Gentile Podcast Mug-on-a-Mug.   Oy, look at Steve's punim! FROM THE SCRIPTURES The Common Thread: Genesis 12:3 https://www.foi.org/the-common-thread/   FOI Equip Classes: Antisemitism Knows No Party TAMARA BERENS DAVID BERNSTEIN JUNE 13, 20   Within the political landscape, individuals on both the right and left are quick to assign blame and point fingers when it comes to antisemitism. Tamara Berens and David Bernstein, however, shed light on the fact that antisemitism is a genuine concern present on both sides. Join this class to explore examples of this complex issue, understand the reasons behind its occurrence, and learn strategies to combat it. Don't miss this insightful discussion led by two experts in their respective fields.   Register: foiequip.org   Will the Real Messiah Please Stand Up? WILL VARNER JULY 18, 25   For thousands of years, Israel has been eagerly awaiting the Messiah. Throughout this period of anticipation, numerous individuals have emerged, falsely claiming the mantle of the Christ—the Messiah. As a result, some of the Jewish community has been led astray, causing significant harm to both their lives and faith. Join us for two informative classes as we unravel the history of Israel's false Messiahs. In these sessions, we will highlight the distinctions between these deceptive figures and the one true Messiah, Jesus Christ.   Register: foiequip.org FOI Resources  Get a free one-year trial subscription to Israel My Glory https://israelmyglory.org/subscribe/ Get Involved with Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry https://www.foi.org/outreach   Chris Katulka's book: Israel Always foi.org/israelalways   Steve Herzig's book: Jewish Culture & Customs foi.org/jcc From the news surrounding Israel and the Jewish People:   Israeli peace activist, 75, who was seized from her home by gun-toting terrorists and held in Gaza for 53 days declares she has given up on peace because 'Hamas don't want it' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13546353/Israeli-peace-activist-75-seized-home-gun-toting-terrorists-held-Gaza-53-days-declares-given-peace-Hamas-dont-want-it.html   A tale of three Jewish-American politicians and their mistakes regarding Israel - opinion https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-806776?utm_source=jpost.app.apple&utm_medium=share   What Jewish life looks like for teens from Iceland to Beijing, where the Jewish communities are small and antisemitism is high https://www.jta.org/2024/06/13/global/what-jewish-life-looks-like-for-teens-from-iceland-to-beijing-where-the-jewish-communities-are-small-and-antisemitism-is-high   Earliest summer solstice in 228 years happens Thursday https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/earliest-summer-solstice-228-years-june-20-2024 Yiddish Word(s) of the Day Emes - word for truth https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/5036762/jewish/22-Yiddish-Expressions-About-Telling-the-Truth.htm

This week on the Burn Fat and Feast podcast, we welcome guest David Bernstein. David is a highly-respected, award winning physician who is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Geriatrics practicing in Clearwater, Florida    Remaining true to the practice of medicine that he learned long ago, Dr. Bernstein has evolved over the years adopting new and exciting medical technologies of the 21st century. He remains committed to maintaining his expertise in geriatric medicine and educating and sharing his knowledge. He strongly believes in the Power of 5 as we all work to Age GRACEfully.   Tune in this week to learn how these 5 components can help reduce the risk of the most chronic health conditions.   Website: PowerOf5Life.com Or Via Social Media - Website/Blog: www.powerof5life.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbernstein2200/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Powerof5Life Instagram: @DrDavidBernstein Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/bernstein2481/   Check out our website at https://burnfatandfeast.com to find out more about how you can ignite your life and live fully.  GRAB ONE OF OUR FREEBIES: Week of Meals (with grocery list and recipes) Ultimate Guide to Intermittent Fasting For Women 5 Days to Burning Fat and Increasing Energy Training Fat Burning Guide Metabolism and Hormone Checklist Fast Food Guide Free LIVE workout Alcohol & Macros Guide Protein & Portions Guide Connect with us on your favorite social media platform: Instagram: www.instagram.com/burnfatandfeast Facebook: www.facebook.com/burnfatandfeast TikTok: @burnfatandfeast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/burn-fat-and-feast/ Join our FREE Facebook community to be surrounded by other women on a mission to live their best lives.  Rate, Review and Follow on Apple Podcasts If you love this show, please consider rating and reviewing the show! This helps us support more people just like you, move toward the life they desire and deserve. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars and select “Write a Review”. Then be sure to let us know what you loved most about the episode.  Also, if you haven't done so, follow the podcast. We add episodes every week to the feed and if you're not following, there's a good chance you'll miss out. Follow now!

In this episode of the Fourth Branch Explainer podcast, Prof. Eugene Volokh, from UCLA Law School, and Prof. David Bernstein, from the Antonin Scalia Law School, discuss the features, implications, and possibilities of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act.

Welcome to the Jew and Gentile Podcast.   Text the Jew and Gentile your comments, questions, concerns (OY!), and news at: 424-444-1948   MUG-ON-A-MUG With your gift of $10 or more to FOI Equip, you to can have your very own Mug-on-a-Mug. Your generous donation helps to expand the important work of teaching the Bible from a Jewish perspective while raising up new FOI volunteers and representatives serving Jewish communities all around the world. Visit gofoi.org/mug to make your gift today and receive your own Jew and Gentile Podcast Mug-on-a-Mug.   Oy, look at Steve's punim! FROM THE SCRIPTURES Pentacost/Shavout - Lev 23 and Acts 2   FOI Equip Classes: Antisemitism Knows No Party TAMARA BERENS DAVID BERNSTEIN JUNE 13, 20   Within the political landscape, individuals on both the right and left are quick to assign blame and point fingers when it comes to antisemitism. Tamara Berens and David Bernstein, however, shed light on the fact that antisemitism is a genuine concern present on both sides. Join this class to explore examples of this complex issue, understand the reasons behind its occurrence, and learn strategies to combat it. Don't miss this insightful discussion led by two experts in their respective fields.   Register: foiequip.org   Will the Real Messiah Please Stand Up? WILL VARNER JULY 18, 25   For thousands of years, Israel has been eagerly awaiting the Messiah. Throughout this period of anticipation, numerous individuals have emerged, falsely claiming the mantle of the Christ—the Messiah. As a result, some of the Jewish community has been led astray, causing significant harm to both their lives and faith. Join us for two informative classes as we unravel the history of Israel's false Messiahs. In these sessions, we will highlight the distinctions between these deceptive figures and the one true Messiah, Jesus Christ.   Register: foiequip.org FOI Resources  Get a free one-year trial subscription to Israel My Glory https://israelmyglory.org/subscribe/ Get Involved with Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry https://www.foi.org/outreach   Chris Katulka's book: Israel Always foi.org/israelalways   Steve Herzig's book: Jewish Culture & Customs foi.org/jcc From the news surrounding Israel and the Jewish People:   Brooklyn Museum director, Jewish board members' homes vandalized with antisemitic graffiti: ‘Blood on your hands' https://nypost.com/2024/06/12/us-news/brooklyn-museum-director-jewish-board-members-homes-vandalized/?utm_campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=message_app   'Operation Arnon': All the details about the heroic operation that freed 4 Israeli hostages from the heart of Gaza https://allisrael.com/operation-arnon-all-the-details-about-the-heroic-operation-that-freed-4-israeli-hostages-from-the-heart-of-gaza   Benny Gantz resigns from Israel's government over Gaza https://www.ft.com/content/78bc5111-1851-4a71-a5dd-ca9c9dff0241   Right-wing populists notch huge gains across EU in European Parliament elections — throwing governments into chaos https://nypost.com/2024/06/09/world-news/right-wing-populists-make-huge-gains-in-european-parliament-elections/?utm_campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=message_app Yiddish Word(s) of the Day   Milchig - Milk

Welcome to the Jew and Gentile Podcast. Text the Jew and Gentile your comments, questions, concerns (OY!), and news at: 424-444-1948 MUG-ON-A-MUG With your gift of $10 or more to FOI Equip, you to can have your very own Mug-on-a-Mug. Your generous donation helps to expand the important work of teaching the Bible from a Jewish perspective while raising up new FOI volunteers and representatives serving Jewish communities all around the world. Visit gofoi.org/mug to make your gift today and receive your own Jew and Gentile Podcast Mug-on-a-Mug. Oy, look at Steve's punim! FROM THE SCRIPTURES Joshua 6 FOI Equip Classes: Facts and Flaws of Covenant Theology TEACHER: DR. MIKE STALLARD MAY 23, 30 Have you ever heard of Covenant Theology? It's a prevalent perspective in today's church, but did you know it teaches that God has replaced Israel with the church? Join us in this illuminating two-part FOI Equip class, where Dr. Mike Stallard, vice president of International Ministries, will unpack the intricacies of Covenant Theology and present a more insightful approach to comprehending Scripture. Register: foiequip.org Antisemitism Knows No Party TAMARA BERENS DAVID BERNSTEIN JUNE 13, 20 Within the political landscape, individuals on both the right and left are quick to assign blame and point fingers when it comes to antisemitism. Tamara Berens and David Bernstein, however, shed light on the fact that antisemitism is a genuine concern present on both sides. Join this class to explore examples of this complex issue, understand the reasons behind its occurrence, and learn strategies to combat it. Don't miss this insightful discussion led by two experts in their respective fields. Register: foiequip.org FOI Resources  Get a free one-year trial subscription to Israel My Glory https://israelmyglory.org/subscribe/ Get Involved with Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry https://www.foi.org/outreach Chris Katulka's book: Israel Always foi.org/israelalways Steve Herzig's book: Jewish Culture & Customs foi.org/jcc From the news surrounding Israel and the Jewish People: Americans bombed his town. 80 years later, he's commemorating D-Day by flying an American flag. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/allied-bombing-france-d-day-memories-destruction-liberation-rcna154463 Yiddish Word(s) of the Day Kindelah - Children

Welcome to the Jew and Gentile Podcast.   Text the Jew and Gentile your comments, questions, concerns (OY!), and news at: 424-444-1948   MUG-ON-A-MUG With your gift of $10 or more to FOI Equip, you to can have your very own Mug-on-a-Mug. Your generous donation helps to expand the important work of teaching the Bible from a Jewish perspective while raising up new FOI volunteers and representatives serving Jewish communities all around the world. Visit gofoi.org/mug to make your gift today and receive your own Jew and Gentile Podcast Mug-on-a-Mug.   Oy, look at Steve's punim! FROM THE SCRIPTURES Balaam - Genesis 12:3 and Numbers 22-24   Video Links: Religious Israelis: Does it bother you that I am an atheist? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRizJZIJsv0   Resurfaced Video of 28 Year-Old Benjamin Netanyahu's Eerie Prediction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9bdP6LeM6Y   FOI Equip Classes:   Facts and Flaws of Covenant Theology TEACHER: DR. MIKE STALLARD MAY 23, 30   Have you ever heard of Covenant Theology? It's a prevalent perspective in today's church, but did you know it teaches that God has replaced Israel with the church? Join us in this illuminating two-part FOI Equip class, where Dr. Mike Stallard, vice president of International Ministries, will unpack the intricacies of Covenant Theology and present a more insightful approach to comprehending Scripture.   Register: foiequip.org   Antisemitism Knows No Party TAMARA BERENS DAVID BERNSTEIN JUNE 13, 20   Within the political landscape, individuals on both the right and left are quick to assign blame and point fingers when it comes to antisemitism. Tamara Berens and David Bernstein, however, shed light on the fact that antisemitism is a genuine concern present on both sides. Join this class to explore examples of this complex issue, understand the reasons behind its occurrence, and learn strategies to combat it. Don't miss this insightful discussion led by two experts in their respective fields.   Register: foiequip.org   FOI Resources  Get a free one-year trial subscription to Israel My Glory https://israelmyglory.org/subscribe/ Get Involved with Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry https://www.foi.org/outreach   Chris Katulka's book: Israel Always foi.org/israelalways   Steve Herzig's book: Jewish Culture & Customs foi.org/jcc From the news surrounding Israel and the Jewish People:   Who is more suitable as Israel's PM: Netanyahu or Gantz? - poll https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-804315   Americans are running away from church. But they don't have to run from each other. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2024/05/28/church-attendance-social-isolation-community-engagement/73704566007/ Yiddish Word(s) of the Day   Shtunk - Stinks  

16th May 2024 The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast EPISODE 353: Bike Town is 10 — Inspiring Speeches From 10 Years of Enjoy Waltham Forest Reception SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles HOST: Carlton Reid GUESTS: Cllr Grace Williams, Leader of Waltham Forest Council and Labour Councillor for William Morris; Cllr Clyde Loakes, Deputy Leader of the Council; Will Norman, London's cycling and walking commissioner. Speeches recorded at the evening reception for Celebrating 10 Years of Enjoy Waltham Forest event, William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, 14th May 2024. LINKS: https://www.the-spokesmen.com/ https://www.ternbicycles.com https://twitter.com/CarltonReid TRANSCRIPT Carlton Reid 0:12 Welcome to Episode 353 of the spokesmen podcast. This show was engineered on Thursday 16th of May 2024. David Bernstein 0:28 The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e-bikes for every type of rider. Whether you're commuting, taking your kids to school or even carrying another adult, visit www.ternbicycles.com. That's t e r n bicycles.com to learn more. Carlton Reid 1:03 There are now more people walking and cycling in Waltham Forest, and earlier this week I visited this now most vibrant of London boroughs to join events celebratating 10 years since the start of the Enjoy Waltham Forest programme. I'm Carlton Reid and I was in Walthamstow in 2015 a year after the first fruits of the so-called Mini Holland programme were beginning to ripen and yet where 100 or so protestors gathered to shout at the Labour councillor leading the borough's transformation. They carried a coffin — in safety, beause of no cars — along Orford Road and warned that Clyde Loakes and his fellow Labour councillors were being held responsoible for the predicted death of Walthamstow. Free access for cars, they said, was necessary for economic vitality and they didn't want what teir posters called a Berlin Wall. Orford road is now a poster child for how to effect change for the better. It's buzzing with business, with peaople ambling around and enjoying the pavement cafes. This previously traffic-clogged street is a honeypot destnation for VIPs and traffic planners from around the UK and the world, visiting to see how it is possible to make neighborhoods less car dependent and more people friendly. On today's show I've got three inspiring speeches delivered at an evening reception held in Walthamstow's William Morris Gallery on Tuesday 14th May 2024. The speeches are from Cllr Grace Williams, Leader of Waltham Forest Council , Deputy Leader Cllr Clyde Loakes and Will Norman, London's cycling and walking commissioner. On the next two episodes, I'll share audio recorded at the Landor Links event staged after the evening reception, an event for town planners and other professionals seeking guidance on best practice for cycling and walking schemes. But first, here's Grace Williams at the evening reception, Grace Williams 3:37 I think sounds in his night. It is a kind of reunion because we have the whole team. And we of course are climbing. We've got Martin, who's hiding on a balcony. We've got Lindsey, we've got untold officers who worked on this scheme and given hours of their life. And I know it's not because community groups here we've got plenty out to them. We've got families and everyone I know in this room has been putting the effort into what Min-Holland has been over the last 10 years. A massive amounts that we have all learned together actually scanning as it is required to scale which require that's political wiil. And that sense of keeping on going and doing the right thing, I think is really important. And I should really add that, on top of that because we have built relationships regionally, nationally, internationally and it's brilliant to have Will Norman here. And it's really also a testament to the work that's been done to involve other in Waltham Forest which I am sure Clyde will be talking about, I have been a councillor for ten years so Mini-Holland has been my reality as a councillor, and one of my earliest memories of being councillor was Clyde spoke to me and say, Yeah, the thing he wants you to talk about MiniHolland tonight. I remember that it was a protest outside that's become an occupational hazard now, but it was quite nerve wracking as a new councillor going in and doing first big speech on mini-Holland. I do remember saying something along the line of so cyclists and motorist should just go to the pub sit down and have a nice chat about. No, I did seize up. So now we'll be thinking about, you know, the culture wars that we had. You know, the fact that we have several elections since then, it really really is a different climate when it comes to talk to you about what actually travelling can do and what Mini-Holland means. I know that Clyde will tell you a bit more about his reflections on that journey. So I do want to thank the whole team. But before I end, I want to pay tribute fine, because we just would not all be standing here celebrating 10 years of mini Holland as if it wasn't view everyone in this room, probably you know quite a lot from you about how you stuck with the product. And when you go in decide, I know it was a very personal effect it has cost you and the impact on your on your life has basically become doing Mini-Holland, I don't know if it's somewhere. But it has the effort who said the political will stand up. And that sheer bloody mindedness. More in the sense of knowing that has to do the right thing. He didn't have to keep moving forward. Because if you're not moving forward on this agenda, you're moving backwards. And we have seen others move backwards in fence. So I really want to from bottom of my heart thank you Clyde for doing this. You've transformed all of our lives, you've made children's lives better. You've made our borough what it is today and I want to say a personal thank you to what you taught me.y I hand over to Clyde. Clyde Loakes 7:25 Today evening, what an honour it is to be in a room of champions, pioneers. congratulate yourselves, everyone. You're all amazing language people. And we wouldn't normally be in this evening. If it wasn't for all of you here this evening. You are the stars. were woken up not just in the forest, but across London over the past 10 years. So I'm so so grateful. Whether you are officers, you know, I will single out a couple of people, you know, Vala, Keith, over, we're going to need to do that presentation. Wow. Who knew where we were be 10 years on the answers coming back with a 30 odd million quid. Thank you so much. All the officers who then assembled Chris Proctor, Chris Harrison, Jon little, you know, all that cast, and then in a wonderful job. Wow. Wow. And it started off just as a highway project, a cycling project. And yet, we've looked at the difference we've made now, you public health terms, and offensive terms and congestion terms. We look at the difference we're making to the clients. You know, we knew 10 years ago, that this would be one of the fundamental projects in a local authority that was acting on the climate emergency, look at how building rain gardens and total resilience into those. All coming from this nugget of an idea the idea that we could make it is that we could actually help support people to walk and cycle more often have a tremendous achievement, and she would take it upon us. And everywhere I go and I speak about all we've done I always say, you know, it was that politicians, Chris Robbins that stood by me through some pretty challenging times. He was no keen cyclist Like he knew this was the right thing to do for the right reasons. Those officers with this technical skill who was so so bored with just painting double yellow lines that we are aligned and responding to the lowest common denominator consultation return that says, We don't want any change. You know, we unleash their talents now ideas so that we can deliver something so dramatically different things that they went to college and learn their skills that they wanted to do. We were able to do that here. The community activists just talking to Paul we're just now living that way now. Right. You know, Susan, you know, never gave up on your time. You never know Lee when he sat down assignment. Look for when you're worthy now you are shaping and influencing London and more because of what you did here and never gave up. And you've made it. Look at the behaviour change it received Jane, Emma. Look at what we're seeing, Joy Riders, Cycle sisters, breaking down boundaries. All the cargo bikes! you seen that on most schools, you know school districts, normal families going to school. That's why sharing some way because we've created the infrastructure, we created the environment and feel comfortable and safe, transport and cherish them loved ones to school and back again. By bike, by cargo bike.Thank you for that you didn't absolutely amazing. But it wasn't always easy. It was It wasn't the coffin. We mentioned Dutch ambassador on the second day. He literally chased out. We mentioned those things we come along mentioned the judicial review, Vala you remember the emails every day. We're gonna miss out on some Yeah, nailbiting stuff because he told us of why we wouldn't not be here today. What else? Hey, man. Yeah, the protests. Yeah. And, you know, some pretty hairy, you know, interviews with the police and my answers and stuff that was coming my way. But times, but I've always said I was doing the right things for the workplaces always knew, I have that physical support, either community support around the doubles. And that's what made me continue to do the things that we wanted to do. And that's why it's interesting members in many organisations that we just had, I counted six of the candidates have openly declared that they were against low traffic neighbourhoods, in their little pieces in that one photo that we will look at. Where are they now? Where are they now? They are nowhere. And you know, once I have the microphone, and you know, Will's in the room, newly appointed, fortunately, cycling commissioner, and again well done Will, you know, please take it back to to your boss, Sadiq Khan's leadership on him less, you know, what to think is some this someone's readership on those louder voices that said it was wrong, and you wouldn't lose. But actually, vast majority people don't clean vocalise their views on these things. But they like it. Or even nobody makes sense. And they know, politicians are doing these things for the voice reasons, not just for the hearing now, not just for the election, and the next ballot box opportunity, but for the future and future generations that please talk back out thanks to Steve for his leadership that he's provided us. And we will continue to stand here and will advise supporting those quick, safe transport policies that had brought us all together this evening to sell by 10 years on, we will continue to do all of that will be carrying out those kind of policies that really really do make a difference. So please put your hands together, and celebrate you're all amazing. Thank you I Carlton Reid 15:02 We will leave Clyde Loakes in Walthamstow there and head across to the States to get our ad break from David. David Bernstein 15:09 This podcast is brought to you by Tern Bicycles. Like you, the folks at Tern are always up for a good outdoor adventure by bike—whether that's fishing, camping, or taking a quick detour to hit the trails before picking up the kids from school. And if you're looking to explore new ground by taking your adventures further into the wild, they've got you covered. The brand new Orox by Tern is an all-season, all-terrain adventure cargo bike that's built around the Bosch Smart System to help you cross even the most ambitious itinerary off your bucket list. It combines the fun of off-road riding in any season with some serious cargo capacity, so you can bring everything you need—wherever you go, whenever you go. Plus, it's certified tough and tested for safety so your adventures are worry-free. With two frame sizes to choose from and a cockpit that's tested to support riders of different sizes, finding an adventure bike that fits you and your everyday needs has never been easier with the Orox. Visit www.ternbicycles.com/orox (that's O-R-O-X) to learn more. Carlton Reid 16:27 Thanks, David. And we are back in Walthamstow at the evening reception celebrating 10 years of enjoying Waltham Forest. Here's the final speech of the night from London cycling and walking Commissioner Will Norman Will Norman 16:41 Absolutely phenomenal to be here today. I cycled through the borough on the way and it is it's a groundbreaking transformation. I knew this but this morning I was sitting around the breakfast table at home and I thought normal domestic things should work well you can relate to the background this or where you go and move the ball forward. And my daughter who's 13 Who is normally monosyllabic takes no interest in my work whatsoever, eating a bowl of cereal, then looks up, Waltham Forest? Good bike lanes Under your leadership for the change that needs to happen in cities around the world, the scariest thing that happened to me in the last two weeks was around the time of the election when text messages that are coming in from around the world to you felt really busy. And they were coming in from Australia from USA from India, from somebody someone in Egypt. If he loses, then I'm gonna zero commitments, that the stuff that we're doing our cities, the tours that we had an open for the changes that we're doing fall under threat. It goes back to the point that changes have happened in this borough are being felt integrated internationally and it's been ascend the leadership that need is required to tackle the climate crisis to tackle what is tmos existential threat. So the human species, everybody has a role to play in that. And if you see the kid cycling through the filters at the moment playing football against the bridge,, they're on their way to school, that is the change that needs to happen in every city and every community in every town in every country around the world. And you guys have been the focal point of that. It's amazing. I haven't said anything it was actually my speech. Last Sunday man this thing you guys be the changes that have happened that obvious you actually listed this is I'm standing in a way when the most important things here just have a look of everything that's happened in this borough over the last 10 years game changing transformation. This resulted in more cycling it's resulted in more walking through resulted in fewer collisions saving lives, is resulting in greater footfall in the shops, were to spend in the shop greater economic regeneration, clean air, closer communities, tackling social social isolation, you name it, it is it is changing. And as I said it's synonymous for how cities are going to get up it should be and how they're changing. And I use those two there's there's a before and after photo offer great band summed up the change that basically the strategic change that's happening in London, the strategic change that's happening in Paris, it is blasting around the world as this is the change that needs to happen. We no longer need to design our cities for cars. We need to design them for people a new modes of encapsulated that you digitalize you show what's possible. And inspiration goes way beyond lessness. The impact you've had on neighbouring powers is astonishing by working with teams across borders and raising the bar. As I said, it's bringing this change lives in the country. It raised the bar has raised the bar of ambition around the country. You got Mini-Holland's written into national policy. Now we can argue where that national policy is just fine for motorists. Yeah, I'm not so sure that's going to last but it's absolutely amazing and you get We have to follow Clyde on social media to see this endless procession of dignitaries, officers, MPs and councillors who come around in his characteristic shirts with all his energy and passion showing every filter every story about the coffin and the Dutch ambassador. But it works. And every time people go away inspired, and every one of those inspiration just changing something in a city retirement city around around the world. It's not easy, it's quite said creating meaningful change. Yeah, the amount of abuse the amount of hate the amount of protests that are weird conspiracy theories. And what I experienced over the last seven years is similar to Clyde. I think there were four ingredients which drive change with any within any city. And Waltham Forest has those in spades. The first is has been mentioned is political leadership, that political leadership coming from Grace, but I'm also Clyde again, I want to play particularly for credit, give particular credit to Clyde and just be cheering and he has led the way. It has been a hard journey you you've taken the strength you have stood strong, you've showed leaders including myself around the city around the world book resilience means more than doing the right thing. It's the right thing to do and the impact that it has and how that plays into election. election victories in the most people bump this, the enthusiasm, the pride you have is absolutely infectious. And I don't think that in other changes in this bar wouldn't have happened to quite the same scale, but certainly not the way that it's spread around the world. The second ingredients, which have been what we've heard has been really good at is collecting data and telling us stories of success. Without that data, you can't push back the ages, you can't push back without it, you can't celebrate the changes that are happening. I think that's been really inspiring. The third ingredient is that technical expertise, the brilliant officers that have worked on this across the board over the years, successive generations. Again, I want to give tribute to Bala we were talking about the first time we met in the basement of the House of Commons or something seven years ago, and the changes have happened since then. But again, those opposite has happened just the impact is obviously haven't just stopped at the border to this borough. It is again flowed into cities, other boroughs, other cities and around the world. But finally, and I think living is often overlooked in terms of those magic ingredients that drive change are campaigning communities, the role of community members play, it actually broken this providing all of us who need the backbone of the local information, the reassurance, every consultation that you fill in every petition that you sign, every event you go to with a positive piece, every suggestion you make a change in an improvement in that it matters. It is such a vital ingredient. And the change is often overlooked. You need the political leadership, you need the data, you need the technical expertise and you need the strong communities. Waltham Forest has all of those and showed the world how to do it. So I think everybody should be massively grateful that everyone would welcome everyone in this room on behalf of Sadiq who I think is seeing the Pope that this I'm not saying I'm not going into what's a better event, it's a bit of a mystery. He knows what a difference you guys made. He knows how hard it's been. He's massively grateful you kind of pioneering delivering his transport strategy. Thank you. There is an awful lot more to do. So let's keep going. Carlton Reid 23:34 Thanks for listening to episode 353 of the Spokesmen podcast, brought to you in association with Tern Bicycles. Show notes and more can be found at the-spokesmen.com. The next episode — featuring speakers at Landor Links' Celebrating 10 Years of Enjoy Waltham Forest two-day conference — will be out soon with another hot on its heels but meanwhile get out there and ride ...

There was a lot of listener and reader interest in our too brief comments on the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act in our last episode, and we realized this issue deserved keeping the whisky bar open after the usual 2 am closing time to extend our treatment of the issue, yielding this short special episode.To recap: Lucretia thinks it is a stupid idea (hence, "Don't murder a man who is committing suicide"), while John thought it was also unsound on basic free speech principles. Steve was, naturally, in the middle, ending up as road kill for his analysis of why Republicans thought there were some political mischief to be made.So we decided to order another round of drinks (or, in Lucretia's case, four margaritas to honor Cinco de Mayo) and try to go through the issue more thoroughly, especially taking account of David Bernstein's observations at National Review Online that there's a lot of disinformation about what the bill does and doesn't do.We also wanted to take up the argument Harry Jaffa argued more than 60 years ago that a free society could, under certain circumstances, curtail the speech of Nazis, Communists, and . . . anti-Semites? . . . in defense of a free society. Jaffa argued:“Does a free society prove false to itself if it denies civil liberties to Communists, Nazis, or anyone else who would use these liberties, if he could, as a means of destroying the free society? The answer, I believe, is now plain that it does not. Is saying this I do not counsel, or even justify, any particular measure for dealing with persons of such description. What is right in any case depends on the facts of that case, and I am here dealing only with principles, not their application. However, those who think every denial of civil liberties is equally derogatory of the character of a free society, without reference to the character of the persons being denied, make this fundamental error: they confuse ends with means. . .  [But] it is seldom either expedient or wise to suppress advocacy of even inhuman doctrines in a community like ours, it is not for that reason unjust.”Does the current campus scene arise to this standard? What does prudence counsel? The normally quarrelsome threesome at the whisky bar arrive at surprising agreement on the matter. Hint: We rather like Jaffa's conclusion to his classic essay: “The more we can accomplish by opinion, the less we will have to do by law.”

On today's program: Tom Cotton, U.S. Senator from Arkansas, discusses the latest developments from Israel's war against Hamas and reacts to the Biden administration putting a hold on a munition shipment to Israel. Andrew Murrell, Spokesperson for

Tune in here to this Thursday edition of the Brett Winterble Show!   Brett kicks off the program by talking about New York shifting from a socialist safe space to potentially a red state after seeing how these leftist policies effect daily life for New Yorkers. The once great city has turned into an open air drug market where drug addicts and filth line the streets under the leadership of the left.  We're joined by the founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, David Bernstein, to talk about the rise of antisemitism at American universities and how these universities became a bastion for radical ideologies.  Beth Troutman from Good Morning BT is also here for this Thursday's episode of Crossing the Streams. Brett and Beth talk about the SCOTUS hearing and presidential immunity. Beth also shares what she and Bo have coming up tomorrow on Good Morning BT!  Listen here for all of this and more on The Brett Winterble Show!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

21st April 2024 The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast EPISODE 352: Laura Laker SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles HOST: Carlton Reid GUEST: Laura Laker LINKS: https://www.the-spokesmen.com/ https://www.ternbicycles.com https://twitter.com/CarltonReid https://twitter.com/laura_laker https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/potholes-and-pavements-9781399406468/ Carlton Reid 0:11 Welcome to Episode 352 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Sunday, April 21 2024. David Bernstein 0:28 The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e-bikes for every type of rider. Whether you're commuting, taking your kids to school or even carrying another adult, visit www.ternbicycles.com. That's t e r n bicycles.com to learn more. Carlton Reid 1:04 I'm Carlton Reid and today's show is a chat with like journalist Laura Laker, author of an excellent new book, Potholes and Pavements. This is a travelogue featuring Laura's travels around the UK, writing on some of the best and worst bits of Britain's National Cycle network. From jaw droppingly gorgeous looking ancient military roads in the Highlands of Scotland to dark and dingy urban back streets blocked with barriers. As the books subhead warns, it's a bumpy ride. Um, so you've written a book. Is this your first? Laura Laker 1:46 Yeah, my first my first book, believe it or not, Carlton Reid 1:49 well done. Congratulations. It's a brilliant first book. One of many. I'm sure it'll be one of many. I noticed you've got a an agent. Yeah, you say in the back and thank him. So I'm guessing you're going to be doing more books? Laura Laker 2:00 Yeah, I guess so. I'm not trying to think about it too much. This one was very long in the gestation. I had an idea back in 2017 to do a basically ring around talking to people. I'd listened to the audiobook of John Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie, in which he travels across the US with his big poodle, and talking to people and he says he's most wonderful conversations, which were later question for their veracity, but it's just, it's just a wonderful format. And I love I'd kind of in that trip to America, I rediscovered my love of talking to strangers, which I had as a kid, and I'm kind of lost over the years, I guess, being British, but spending time in the US where everyone is just willing to talk to you and tell you their life story. I rediscovered this just love of cycling, is brilliant for that, you know, just talking to people you're travelling around, you might stop at some lights, or you might pass someone on a path and just get chatting to them. And it's wonderful people have the most amazing stories, I think Carlton Reid 2:59 Well, there's two teachers that you met, hopefully they will read the book. You weren't avoiding them. Laura Laker 3:07 I know Greg and Norton, they were so brilliant. And the most unexpected encounters and I was up in the Cairngorms and travelling alone and feeling a bit like oh, you know, such a beautiful, it's ridiculously beautiful up there. I'm always just astounded by Scotland, and how how it's possible for somewhere to be so beautiful. And the NCN [National Cycle Network] across the Cairngorms is something else, it's really quite remarkable. A lot of its off road, it's this dedicated path. It was an old military road. And the rest is on fairly quiet country roads. And I was pootling along on my big pink ebike, which I did some of my adventures on and I saw these roadies coming up behind me and I thought well that they're going to overtake me in a bit. And sure enough, they did. We said hello. And then I saw them stopped at this bridge and they were looking over and they just had this wonderful kind of whimsy about them this they weren't they were going a long way actually they're going from kind of Aviemore back to Preston where they were at least one of them lived and doing it over a couple of days in sort of training one of them's an Ironman enthusiastic participants, but on the way they were stopping looking over bridges, that sort of waterfalls over rocks and like looking across the landscape and just enjoying the scenery. And that for me is what cycling is about. It's about appreciating the world around us and the people around us and so they said we'll ride with us for a while and as you know ebike your Aberdeen bought a bike mine included, maxes out at 15 and a half miles an hour which these guys were obviously capable of exceeding quite easily. So but they they rode with me for quite some time and we chatted and they were just fantastic. And then yeah, they they stopped for a week and I had to run inside for a week. And then I came out and they'd gone Carlton Reid 4:51 but it's quite a nice way to say goodbye. Are you are you are you taking notes as you're going along? So you wrote their names and what they did. And or you coding stuff. How are you physically? Laura Laker 5:02 Yeah, so I get back at the end of a ride and write stuff down. And I do think it's best that way, especially with travel writing, because you forget so much so quickly. And the big three Cornwall, I think is, you know, in the early parts of the book, when I first started the exploration, further afield, you know, writing stuff down as you experience it, or very soon after is really important because you lose a lot of the detail and the texture of what you're experiencing. And I think it just makes for much richer story that way, but also difficult to do because you're having to memorise and maybe that's why Steinbeck was getting criticised because he wasn't writing No, no. As he was going along, he's remembering it. Well, memories can do. Memory is really interesting, actually. Because we we probably most of us think that our memories are fairly good, or the way that remember things is correct. But actually, it's very, very subjective. And the longer time goes on, the more we forget, or the memory gets warped, or things get introduced that didn't exist, maybe and it's really very, very subjective. I've got I don't know for some things, I've got quite a good short term memory so I can remember to a certain extent, but obviously, as Homer Simpson once said, you know, one thing comes into your brain another thing has to leave it so. Carlton Reid 6:23 That's 100% me though. So this book Potholes and Pavements, a bumpy ride on Britain's National Cycle network, it comes out May the ninth published by Bloomsbur. £16.99. Excellent, excellent book. I read it yesterday and got up early this morning to make sure I finished it before I spoke with you. Now normally when when I talk to people for this podcast, I always get them to send me a photograph so I can do the you know, the socials and the thing that goes on the show notes. What have you with you, oh, an hour and a half to do that. Because I have ridden with you ridden with you on bits of the ride that you are right that you mentioned in your book. So when you mentioned that, you know the cycle superhighway. You make an item was like, I've got that photograph because I was holding my camera photographing you behind me? Laura Laker 7:20 Yeah, with Brian Deegan. Carlton Reid 7:21 There's knowing smiles when I'm reading your books like I was on that ride. Like I know, Laura. Oh, my word. It's also like me on that ride. And when you describe windmills, yes. But the windmills and it's a cute book for me. Also cute because I know lots of these people who you're describing. And I know in the book, it says he didn't want to be described as a hero. But he is a hero. And because it's about the National Cycle network, then clearly that's got to be the guy who not single handedly founded it, but certainly pushed it through with those with those early innovators. So that's John Grimshaw. So he comes in, he's, he's in at least three or four parts of the book, you've clearly gone to speak to him a number of times wonderful. And it's fantastic that he's in there, because he really doesn't get the recognition he deserves. Laura Laker 8:16 Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, he I obviously have to speak to John Grimshaw. Because a lot of people as he points out, and as I tried to convey in the book, a lot of people and probably, you know, uncountable numbers of people were involved in the foundation of and development of the National Cycle network. And then it's maintenance ever since many of whom are working for very little, in fact, nothing, because they loved it. But John really seemed like, talking to people and talking to him, was the driving this real driving force behind it and his kind of self belief and single minded determination, I think was a major driver and he is such a character. I mean, a bit of a Marmite character, I think, but, you know, it seems like you need people to kind of drive things forward. Carlton Reid 9:05 Cos you need somebody like that. He's a visionary. Yeah, you know. I love Malcolm Shepherd. I love Zavier Brice, the people who are in charge now and Malcolm was the guy who came in after after John. But Malcolm wasn't a visionary. Malcolm was an accountant. And when when the organisation any organisation any business gets big, then you very often need somebody else to take over. And there's lots of faction there at the time. You don't go into it in a great detail. That was enormous friction there and there's still enormous amount of bad blood between people. Laura Laker 9:46 Yeah, and it's interesting because Caroline Lovatt. Here's another key figure from fairly early on and still works with John today. On there, they're still building cycle routes under a different organisation, cycle routes and greenways and Um, she says that, you know, for for years, according to her, John kept disappearing from the kind of record of that of the history of the NCN on Wikipedia, she kept putting him back in. And um, yeah, I mean, the story was, and that was a difficult part of it to tell. But it was one that had to be mentioned, I didn't want to go too into it. But obviously, you know, John, leaving Sustrans under fairly strange circumstances, and really against his will, was was part of the story that needed to be told. And it was a different and I spoke to a number of people and nobody really, I think, you know, there were potentially nondisclosure agreements. And so nobody really talks about what exactly happened, which is why I call I mentioned the omerta. Because it really seems like everyone has a slightly different story, or, and I and again, I, you know, it's memory and it was a painful time. And it was a long time ago. And it's quite common, as you say, with new organisations, you've got this big driving force, but then sometimes they're not the person to carry on leading an organisation once the first major thing is done, and, you know, they might not be great with people is, you know, having a skill to start and drive something is not the same as being a sort of manager of people and diplomats. And it's, yeah, it's quite often it's a painful process, certainly not unique, I think. Carlton Reid 11:16 No, it's very common for that kind of thing to happen. However, saying that it's very important to recognise who was that visionary? And I think he lost an awful lot of that. So, so wonderful to see John. central to that. So that's really nice part of the book because I, you know, John, John is a wonderful, wonderful guy, and absolutely, this would not have happened without him. I know, there's lots of other people you know, David Sproxton, all these kind of people were there at the same time, George Ferguson. So So Sproxton was Aardman Animation. So people who know admire animation, George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol, at one point, all these individuals were there at the time, but it needed that guiding force that needed that. Just somebody who woulda just said no, and just went ahead and did it. That was that was the ethos of Sustrans in the early days. So that Laura Laker 12:12 Yeah, yeah, because the status quo then as it is, today, is very much stacked against cycling routes happening. And so you kind of need a rebel who's not willing, who's you know, not willing to take no for an answer? Who's going to be able to make things happen? And I think in a way that kind of, I guess, you know, being from a fairly well off upper middle class background, you have the confidence really the education that kind of gives you that confidence and and then the character and self belief to just to drive that forward. Carlton Reid 12:47 Mmm. That you didn't mention not even once Cycling, Touring Club CTC cycling UK. Because the book isn't in all cycling, you are you are laser focused on the National Cycle network. But there was also friction between those two organisations, you know, stranden effect was an upstart organisation, then it got for £42.5 million with Meatloaf handing that over on TV or that kind of stuff. And there was there was an awful lot of friction between still is between strands and and what is today cycling UK. So you haven't got into that at all. What Why didn't you go into that? Is that just because you wanted to just stay laser focused on the cycle network? Laura Laker 13:36 I mean, I mentioned that not everyone felt that Sustrans was being helpful because they felt that cycle route should be delivered by government and charities stepping in. And taking that role almost allows the government to say, well, you know, someone's doing it. Now. We don't need to get involved. But I mentioned the kind of tension between certain types of cyclists. I think I might quote to you, I think I've got you in the references on that. But I mean, I don't know if I just don't know how. I don't know. It's yeah, it's a tricky one. It's how much to include, and you always have to make these decisions, what to include and what not to include, and I guess I just didn't feel like that was a key part of the story at all. There was some thinking at the time around that but and I'm aware that there was tension and I know that Mark Strong for one who gets quite a mention in the book, talked about Sustrans being too successful and not successful enough in that, you know, they were doing this job notionally? No, they were doing a great job for with what they had and who they were and ie not the government and with not very much money but they were doing enough just to allow the government to just say, You know what, well Sustrans is delivering the National Cycle network, tick, job done. Let's get back to the serious business of roads. Carlton Reid 15:01 because there is there is you meant we will get on to the very positive points, you've got like a bunch of what what do you call it in the book where you've got a whole bunch of asks basically? Oh, yeah, the manifesto, the manifesto. There you go. Number one, we'll go through these points. 10 point manifesto. So there's some positive stuff to talk about that. But you don't really mention that there's this that, you know, you're talking about, you know, this should be funded nationally, and there is that struggle, bear with you know, this is a charity, etc, etc. But then you've also got the weakness of you have actually got to at least have British Cycling as well, three competing organisations, going to government and asking for money for various things. And wouldn't it be nicer and more practical and may even get more stuff? If there's only one organisation so there is that there is the absolute fault line running through cycling? That is one of the reasons why it's very easy for the government to not do stuff because they're getting told different things by different organisations and one organisation saying don't back them back us. So there's that kind of friction there. Laura Laker 16:22 I don't know if that's if I see it that way. I mean, Sustrans cycling UK, and British Cycling, and things like livable streets are all part of the walking and cycling Alliance. And I think what that what that's trying to do is to unify the voice, because ultimately they want the same thing. I mean, British cycling's coming at it from a sports point of view. But recognising that its members also need safe roads to cycle on. And that means a whole host of other things, safe protected routes in cities. And that's popular with members. And then cycling UK, originally a touring group, now a charity that lobbies for Safe Routes, safe conditions, and also delivers stuff for government, such as what to fix your ride, and a bunch of other things. And then Sustrans is a National Cycle network and behaviour change programmes. So there are overlaps, but I do think they are distinct. And I don't see I don't see it as I mean, they probably have internal, you know, perspectives on things and perhaps don't always agree with what the other one was doing. But I think I think they tend to present a fairly unified front these days. Carlton Reid 17:30 They're not as bad nowadays. I mean, it's when you get rid of it certainly did not get rid. That's the That's the wrong phrase. When individuals leave organisations, it can change because a new people come in, and you know, those alliances are, that's what you're just used to. But you know, before that alliance was put in place, they were cats and dogs, they were really hating on each other and slagging each other off to government as well. So that's why government was able to go up. This cycling is just mad look, these these, you know, what they, these three cats in a sack just fighting each other. Laura Laker 18:03 And then you saw, I mean, I think I talked about, you know, Malcolm Shepherd, who was the CEO after John Grimshaw. He went to ministers, and he was saying, why aren't we getting the funding we asked for? Or why are we getting taken seriously, I think was the question. And he was told, Well, you don't ask for enough money, basically. So they were thinking and perhaps this kind of historic infighting is also a function of the fact that these were kind of fledgling organisations to an extent for some time, not very much funding. They were run by enthusiasts probably, who all had their own ideas. And of course, let's not forget that there were also the vehicular ISTS who didn't even believe that we needed cycling's of which I think cycling UK early on was one and that might explain why they disagree with Sustrans who were trying to yes, no, there was a whole cohort who stands for that reason, absolutely. 100%. So maybe that, you know, it perhaps is a function of just the whole movement being in its infancy. I mean, it's been going for a good 40 or so years, but I don't know, maybe it was maybe it was just run by enthusiasts for a very long time. And that's why it's taken a while to kind of mature but also I think it was going I mean, our cycling lobby, organisations were kind of leading the way for much longer than a lot of European countries in a nice talk about this in the book in countries like France and in the Netherlands and in Denmark, they all started their calls for National Cycle networks or at least safe routes, thanks to charities and voluntary organisations. And then fairly quickly, were all taken on by the government who saw this as a piece of infrastructure firstly, quite often for leisure, but then they realised people were using these routes for commuting trips, and it was it needed to be part of the infrastructure and was taken up with great enthusiasm and in Sweden as well. By the various local departments and regional governments and delivered quite quickly and at quite a kind of scale. And that hasn't really happened here. And so perhaps those kinds of just the longevity of those cycling groups being so crucial to anything that happens for cycling, has kind of made this whole, I don't know, split more important than it would have otherwise been. Carlton Reid 20:24 Yeah. And like in the Netherlands, the the organization's tried to fight against this, but the government tax cyclists, and cyclists actually paid for the roads. Laura Laker 20:34 They did, that's right. Carlton Reid 20:37 But it's the very fact and this was a cyclist at the time were fighting against, they didn't want to be taxed. In the UK, and the Netherlands, they were taxed. And then cyclists became national infrastructure. And that became critical, as you say, and the fact that you know, there wasn't, there was some national infrastructure, obviously, I've done this the 1930 cycleways project. But the CTC is the British Cycling as of the time fought against all of this, they fought against taxation, they fought against cycle routes. And so there is there is some argument to be made that cyclists have been their own worst enemy. So I know in the book, you're saying, you know, it's just such a no brainer. And it is to back, you know, for want of a better word or phrase active travel. Now, in the book, you've got various people are saying we should call it something different. Laura Laker 21:27 Yeah, Lee Craigie. Carlton Reid 21:27 yeah. Yeah. But, you know, cycling has been difficult, at the same time. And it's like, what's happening in Wales, and in Scotland, is inspiring, possibly, because it's actually coming from above. A lot of it, you know, there's obviously enthusiastic people working on the ground, etc. But a lot of this is coming from government ministers. So that helps. Yeah. And, Laura Laker 21:54 I mean, we have this idea, and I'm sure we're not alone. And this point you just made and the example of the taxing of the cyclists in the Netherlands, which is something I learned during doing the research for the book, I didn't actually know about this, but I, you know, the reason we lost the railways that then became a lot of these greenways was because, you know, we see transport as needing to wash its own face needing to fund itself. And the railways at the time, were losing money for most of the routes. And so that was the reasoning. And, you know, with roads, obviously, drivers are taxed it's not sort of ring fence funding. It's not a road tax, it's, but you know, it is making the Treasury money and cycling has never really done that. And I, I think fundamentally, the way that way of thinking about transport is wrong, because of the benefits, the much wider benefits that transport gives us in terms of, you know, being able to access education and health and social opportunities and for our physical and mental health. And it's, its benefits span far beyond its own kind of silo. But we don't really see it that way. And I'm not really sure actually, if anywhere managers to think of it this way, but I think post pandemic, things like free bus services and in different countries has maybe illustrated that people are starting to think about it differently. But ultimately, I think it's it's a very tricky one. Because like you say, we in a way we weren't, we were own worst enemy in terms of our predecessors in the cycling world. But we were working within philosophy that's that dictated that actually, if you're going to build something, you know, who's making money from it, or, you know, how is the Treasury getting that investment back and not really seeing it as this makes people healthier? Or this gives them opportunities or promotes businesses, local tourism? And all of this? So yeah, I mean, if we'd done it differently, who who knows of cyclists in the UK? So fine, we'll pay a tax. Who knows? We might have an NCN now, but, and even today, it's a little bit of an uncomfortable conversation, isn't it? Because, you know, nobody wants to be taxed. Carlton Reid 24:02 So the book is, it's a polemic in many ways, not not all the way through. But there are definitely bits in there that are strident. And I cannot argue with at all I'm reading it nodding along. And certainly the bits about like the national infrastructure, right, and it's all being spent on roads. And it's it's the so many reasons why that is crazy. Yeah, and why spending even just a fraction of the roads budget on on a national cycle network, you know, genuinely joined up one high quality would bring many more, many more benefits. And then you've got and the irony is, and I did a new story on this is, you have a government minister, who has written the foreword to your book, and he said This is not government minister, a former government minister, a former Transport Minister, Jesse Norman, and then it's like, why don't you do this when you're in power? It's great. You've said it. It's wonderful that you're saying all these things. But you could have done this, you could have pushed for this. And he was also the Financial Secretary of the Treasury. Yeah, he could have released money. Yeah, let me see what he says. But Laura Laker 25:26 it's so difficult, isn't it? And it's, again, it's kind of facing it's the status quo. I mean, it's, I think, maybe important to remember, and I'm not making excuses for anyone. But, you know, he was a junior minister, certainly in his first round is cycling minister. And so he would have had to tow the party line. So I don't know how easy it is for. I mean, he's a very intelligent guy. He cares about cycling. But then he's part of a system, which ultimately, I guess, maintains the status quo doesn't want to upset the applecart. And that's why, in the manifesto, I, you know, I think it's so important that people speak up for these things, because I think until there's an outcry for it, it's very difficult for any one minister, unless we have a cycling Prime Minister, to change all of this. There's a lot of vested interests in maintaining, you know, roads for cars, keeping car manufacturing, going and, you know, taxation on cars is going to be very problematic, because obviously EVs electric vehicles don't pay, you know, drivers with EVs don't pay cortex. So what's gonna happen there? But yeah, I mean, it's difficult, but I think people need to speak up for this kind of thing. We get a lot of kickback pushback from people when there's cycle routes coming. But those are the minority. And one thing I tried to highlight in the book is that most people want this once cycling routes, they they want other options and to drive. And, you know, between two thirds and four fifths of people in representative polls say that they'd support this and many of them, even if it meant taking road space away from motor vehicles. But that's not what politicians listen to. And I think increasingly, politicians are listening to angry people on Twitter. And you know, if Mark Harper's comments about LTNs and 15 minute neighbourhoods is anything to go by, which was straight out of the kind of conspiracy theorists, Twitter playbook, you know, they're listening to the loudest voices. And I think until people say, you know, we actually want choice. We don't want to have to breathe polluted air, we don't want to have our neighbourhoods dominated by motor vehicles. We want our kids to be able to go to school safely. I think it's gonna be difficult for things to change. Carlton Reid 27:45 Hmm. So you have mentioned a variety of routes that are actually pretty good. So yeah, Keswick one is one of them. Laura Laker 27:55 Threlkeld, yes. Carlton Reid 27:58 And that's why I know, I know the route well, as good as now, you know, a cycleway there because that was that was long in gestation. But basically, it's it's it's, it's popular. You know, people say, oh, like, but that's a popular route now, isn't it? Laura Laker 28:15 Yeah, yeah, people drive there. And I mean, that was that was interesting for a number of reasons. I mean, incredibly beautiful. It sort of weaves through Greta gorge, which is just this kind of just this amazing landscape, this sort of rocky river which meanders through this very deep wooded valley. And it's on a former rail line. And it was, which storm was it was it 2015, there was a big storm, which basically crumbled a couple of the bridges with the sheer volume of water that ended up going through this narrow gorge. And then it was out of action for a couple of years. And that was an important, crucial route and a tourist attraction for local businesses. One pub owner apparently offered the local council, I think it was the national parks something like 30 grand out of his own pocket, reopened the route, but it was actually a sort of 2 million pound job. So that wasn't going to go all the way. But you know, this was a really important tourist attraction for people and people drive there because there aren't safe routes to get to and from the ends, so people drive and park and then cycle along it and cycle back. But yeah, it's popular, it's really popular. And they when they put the bridges, the new bridges in Sustrans with various parts of funding, they resurfaced it and there was a big hoo ha about putting tarmac on instead of the gravel that had been there before. But that actually opened up it up to far more people, including people who use wheelchairs and mobility scooters, because any sort of rough surface or uneven ground can tip someone in a wheelchair and it effectively makes these routes unusable. And this is something that I really learned in the book and feel very strongly about now. And there was a big outcry nationally about tarmacking this path because it's in the Lake District and everyone's He has an opinion about the Lake District even if they've just been there once and we all feel like we own it because it's such a beautiful place and I guess rightly so. We all care about it. Carlton Reid 30:07 The Lakers. Laura Laker 30:09 Lakers, my people. Yeah. The people who holidayed in the lakes were known as the Lakers. Yeah, which is brilliant. So yeah, they, you know, they held their ground and they tarmac it and you know, the numbers increased drastically. And this story plays out all over the country, wherever there's a improve surface on a path. Suddenly, it's open to everyone. And this is what this is what cycle rich should be in, in my opinion, it should be open to everyone. Carlton Reid 30:37 Yeah, it's like the cinder path. That's the Sustrans route national cycling group from from Whitby to Scarborough. That was the one that had a load of of people complaining because Cinder path you know, they were going to be tarmacking just parts of it. And lots of people are saying you know but this this this will you know, destroy it or whenever lots of yobs in and it just never got done. And then it's it's impossible for a lot of the year because it's just it gets just too rutted into mud into too horrible. And this is, you know, we discard it would just be so easy. You know, between these two conurbations and small conurbations, if you could ride there on an all year round an all weather path? Laura Laker 31:21 So yeah, I do. I do worry about this, because it's, you know, they say it's an effect gentrification. And you're you're bringing, you know, urban into the countryside yet. There's roads everywhere, and they got tarmac on, and nobody seems to be kicking up a fuss there. What's What's your problem? Yeah, I know. And I think it's just we have this idea about what the cycle routes should be or could be, and we see them as leisure routes quite a lot of the time, we have this kind of set idea about cycling, that it's not, you know, it's not a commuter option, or, but you know, it is, but it goes beyond that. And it is about who can access these parts. And quite often, having an uneven surface will lock a lot of people out. And you know, we're an ageing population in this country. And as we get older, we will all have disabilities, and mobility issues. And it shouldn't be that you know, these paths are any open to a few people. But yeah, it's a difficult one. And we would like to say we've never think twice about it for roads, we've never think about having a road as a dirt path. And I can you know, visually tarmac is not a beautiful thing, but I think if people understood that actually, it's it's not just about the visuals. This is about people and this is what these parts are for they're for people. Carlton Reid 32:34 Well you can make if you want it to be just that colour, you can make the the asphalt you can you can you can dye the asphalt. So it's it's more expensive. But you can you can do all sorts of treatments you can do to make it all weather doesn't have to look, you know, black. Yeah. So anyway, so let's go to another assessment. That's some negative ones. Where they tried to be certain, but then you point out the Polgate one, between Polgate and Glynde, which is almost happened to you by by mistake. Not mistake, but it's certainly a by accident. Yeah. And you're talking about it being just brilliant. So describe that one. Laura Laker 33:11 That's amazing. Yeah. So I was told about this. And then I know someone who lives in Lewis, which is at one end of it. And so we we we met at the station and cycled along this path. And so it's beside the A27, which is a national highways road. And it's right by the sales downs, which is hugely popular with cyclists. And basically, there were so many people cycling on this incredibly terrifying road. It's one of those narrow and winding A roads with huge volumes of traffic. I mean, I went on a walking trip near Louis the other day, and I had to cross it with no crossing and it was it was genuinely terrifying. I can't imagine people cycling on it, because it's, you know, six months. So yeah, anyway, people were being held up in their cars because of people cycling. And so national highways decided it was going to build a path alongside and it's this this was a real eye opener for me because they had done what needs to happen around the country. They had built a path behind the hedge row, which is wide and tarmac and smooze with lots of planting and culverts and bridges over rivers and and they just laid it you know, very little problem. I don't know if they owned the land or perhaps compulsory purchase probably a mixture of I think it was a mixture of both. And so they built this amazing kind of 10 kilometre joyful route, which is just you know, it's just like a road. It's like no stress. You just carry on. There was someone on the mobility scooter the day I was there, a couple of people on bikes, but it was basically hadn't opened yet. And yeah, it was just there. But it's quite funny because at either end, it just stopped because then that's the local councils job to kind of deliver it beyond. But you know, it shows what's possible if you have a national body with the power and the funding, and they have, you know, multi year funding pots which helps plan and deliver this stuff and they just did it, they just sort of swept aside all of the normal problems that I talked about in the book that usually dog these cycle routes. And yeah, it's quite, it was quite marvellous, quite Carlton Reid 35:11 I found it fascinating because one of the things you say is, as we just mentioned there, it, it was an effective bill to get the cyclists off the road. We made enough nuisance of ourselves, that is 1930s to a tee, you know, the transport, you know, built those 500 miles of cycle tracks in the 1930s to Dutch standards laced around the country. Some of them weren't brilliant, but some of them were amazing, you know, 12 foot wide Dutch Dutch level, concrete curbs, you know, perfectly brilliant bits of cycling infrastructure that are now just some of them are white elephants, because they didn't link up to anywhere. But, you know, the government at the time said, Oh, we're doing this for the safety. No, they weren't they were doing it to you know, get cyclists on the road because we're slowing down motorists, but you kind of almost don't care if if if you get a really superlative route behind the hedgerows. Yeah. Okay. It's such a difference. Yeah. That's the difference. It's got to be good. You can't just fob you off with shared route pavement, which is what yeah, the criticism of Sustrans has been is like there's so many shared route pavement. And that's why Sustrans got a bad rap, even though it wasn't their fault. And they were just trying to fill in the gaps. Laura Laker 36:28 That yeah, yeah. And yeah, they just have to use whatever was there, which was quite often a pavement along what would have been a not too busy road in the 70s or 80s. But it's now a sort of thundering highway and being on a pavement with no barrier between you and or no, no sort of space between you and the 60 mile an hour traffic is far from pleasant, and no, no, no parent is going to choose to cycle on that. If they have any other choice, you know, they're going to avoid that like the plague because you know, one little wobble or mistake and then you know, it's horrific there, you know, possible outcomes. But yeah, it's you know, it's, it's fantastic. Because you don't even barely know the roads there. It's just cool. It's just gorgeous. I'd like to go back actually, because it's been a good year, I think since I saw it. At least actually. Maybe Yeah, I think it's at least a year and yeah, let's see how the trees are bedding in and because it was brand new at the time it just been done. But yeah, it is. Ultimately it is possible. And regardless of the motivations it just goes to show what's possible. I liked recently because Andy Streets and his Walking and Cycling Commissioner Adam Tranter he's on my podcast. They announced they're going to deliver the HS2 cycleway alongside in and around HS2 between Coventry and Birmingham. And when they get to Kenilworth, they're basically connecting up to one of their 1930 cycleways into Coventry. So I quite like that, you know, it's sort of linking something that's already there. And Carlton Reid 38:01 yeah, and that's also a John Grimshaw project, wasn't it? That was that was a John Grimshaw. Laura Laker 38:05 Yeah. He cycled the whole thing. Yes. Yes, he's been he's been trying to get that one, you know, for a lot for a long time. And yeah, it does stand alone. No, you need really, you need the HS2, of course, just stand alone without it. Carlton Reid 38:21 It does. Yeah, saying that, it would have absolutely been put in at the same time, that would not have been the difference. So that is point three. So in your 10 Point manifesto, that's basically work together a behind the hedgeroq Act, compulsory purchase orders, all these kinds of things that only government can do. Yeah. needs to be brought in into play. Yeah. And then you you've said and it's very ambitious. But when you think about it's like, yeah, you could do this easily. And that is you know, if if this was done and if money was provided, and compulsory purchase orders were put in like you would do for roads, you can have an unbelievably fantastic truly superlative national cycling in four years. Laura Laker 39:02 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Brian Deegan active travel England reckoned reckoned on this, because, you know, they have such a huge amount of power and to take go to build a cycle, which basically takes three years generally you do you have a year to kind of plan it a year to consult and tweak and then a year to build it. And for that you need multi year funding, because without that, you can't plan anything, basically. And that's why we've ended up bits and bobs of improvements, because it's like, you get the money, you have to spend it pretty much immediately. But yeah, I mean, the amount of funding a body like national highways has would be enough to you know, link these existing routes. Sometimes there are quiet roads, you know, I guess, in the Netherlands, you have through roads and access roads, things like low traffic neighbourhoods, in the countryside. That is a that is a kind of measure that you can do. And some of it it doesn't all have to be Are these sort of high quality pieces of massive engineering cycle routes, either behind the hedge row or on main roads? Some of it can just be tweaking kind of existing infrastructure so that it's not not every road as a through road. But yes, it's some it's amazing. And I kind of did a double take when I heard this. But when we put our mind to something, it's amazing what's possible. Carlton Reid 40:24 And potentially, we will see the fruits of this in Scotland, and Wales, Scotland, Wales are putting in some really ambitious stuff. And Mark Drakeford going, you know, will they backtrack on the 20 mile limit? And will they, you know, reverse a lot of stuff that Lee Waters that all this kind of stuff is potentially up in the air? We don't know yet. Yeah. But Scotland does seem to be, you know, putting their money where their mouth is, you know, that the amount of money that's going in there, per head, dwarfs what we see here in England. So the potentially you've got, you've got like, in five years, you could have something incredible. In Scottish cities in Glasgow. Yeah. You're talking about Glasgow? Laura Laker 41:09 Yeah. And yeah, Glasgow was amazing. I mean, that was the first time I'd been to Glasgow, on that trip. And I was blown away, actually. So they're developing a city wide network of routes, they're lowering in bridges across, they've got this very kind of, I guess, I guess they had this, at the time, they were building roads, they had a very ambitious programme of building like highways. And maybe that's about the culture of the city that when something comes along, when an idea comes along, they kind of embrace it. Whereas Edinburgh has historically been much more conservative. And so when, when highways when sort of urban highways came along the bond level load of those, and now cycling is seen as this big sort of saviour of health and climates and all of these important things, they're going all out on cycle routes, which is fantastic. And yeah, I was really blown away by what they're doing really high quality protected routes with planting alongside, you know, for extreme weather, it's really important to have permeable and green planting on tarmac. And, yeah, and these beautiful bridges and this massive bridge that I saw, and you know, they're really, really ambitious, I think, I've got a piece coming out about Edinburgh in the next week or so. And it talks about the difficulties that Edinburgh has faced very, very different than the city very conservative. But similarly, it's had a huge amount of funding. And I think they're finally getting to the tipping point there where they're starting to deliver real change, you know, hopefully. But yeah, it's, you know, the money's there, I think there's still difficulties with politics. So they've got these active freeways, which would be a kind of National Cycle network for Scotland, these rural routes, you know, the plan is there, or at least the idea is there, but it's not being rolled out yet. So who knows what's going to happen with that, but definitely, the funding and having that long term funding does make it much easier. I'd really love to see Scotland, you know, doing big things. And I think Scotland and Wales have been very, very forward thinking and a lot of things got maybe Scotland particularly, and more consistently than Wales, because as you say, there's a bit of a question mark. Now over Wales, they've, you know, they had the active travel act, they arguably took term coined the phrase active travel with the active travel act about a decade ago. And yeah, but stuff, you know, they have the policy, they had the money, but again, it's very, very slow to change. And I don't know, maybe they maybe if Westminster were a bit more proactive and supportive, it will be easier, who knows, but you're always going to come up against these kinds of difficulties, local politics and stuff, but I think money talks, you know, the money's there for it local investment, which Council isn't going to want public realm improvements, and you know, health. Carlton Reid 43:49 Money is number one, in your manifesto, so it's funded, and okay, we get the money from it. Here's what you say, stop expanding road capacity, and we have delivered a comprehensive network of cycling and walking routes. Hallelujah. Yeah, exactly. It's just like, you know, we've got so many roads, why can't we have more and more and more and more, as we know, it just fills up with traffic if we're gonna have build it and they will come Okay, let's do it for bikes. Now. You know, roads have had eighty years of this, let's have 10 years for for bikes, but walking and . It's just, it's a no brainer. And the LTNs thing kind of like it's so frustrating. Because we're only talking like a few streets. We're not we're not talking. That's when you hear you know, the the shock jocks you'd think is every single road in the country is going to be catered and you're going to hand it to cyclists. That's, that's how it's portrayed. And we're actually you know, maybe maybe a fraction of 1% of roads. really, genuinely is all too Talking about is currently got anyway. Yeah, having safe cycle routes, you know, don't get it get blown up by us people like us journalists, Laura, we're to blame for misrepresenting this. That's that's, that doesn't say good things about our profession, does it? Laura Laker 45:22 No. And I think I think I mean, it speaks to the kind of economics of journalism that, you know, people want eyeballs on stories nowadays because it's that's what makes advertising revenue funding for journalism is fallen off a cliff. And I think this is sort of desperation about the industry at the moment. But, you know, I think it's important to remember that the people shouting against this stuff are a minority, and most people want this stuff or are willing to try it and see, and most of us want quiet, safe streets, we want our kids to be able to play out in safety, we want clean air, we want, you know, peace and quiet. And I think because we haven't seen it, a lot of cases, it's difficult to imagine. But you know, ultimately, these things happen. There's, there's a pushback from a handful of people who are noisy, but I think if we have conversations about, you know, what we could, what we could get from these improvements from these schemes, then it's much positive way of talking about it. Of course, that's not how news works. And I think that's why we need leaders who are willing to sort of look beyond that short period in which a lot of journalists are shouting, and a few people, some of whom have genuine concerns and need to be listened to a shouting and listen to them. But you know, this is something that people want actually, and, you know, the benefits so enormous. Once it's happened, I don't think people would want to go back. Carlton Reid 46:46 Yeah, this is the thing. It's like, a good example is Northumberland Street and Newcastle, which is a pedestrianised street used to be the A1, you know, really the central state through the centre of Newcastle. It's I think, outside of central London, Mayfair on Oxford Street. It's the highest grossing per square foot retail zone in the country, because it was pedestrianised. And it just made it easier. And nobody in their right mind would say, we need to make that the a one again, guys, you know, let's get the cars and buses soaring and you just wouldn't do it. But Newcastle spent the best part of 20 years doing this, it wasn't an overnight thing. We had to spend a long time, a lot of angst getting it done, but nobody would wish it away now. And that's what when we're not getting with all these LTNs and all these cycles, if only if we put them in, nobody would complain about them. Not really not once they see it, it's just if people don't like change. Laura Laker 47:47 yeah, none of us like change just a thing. And it's hard to picture. And I think it's easy to dismiss people's concerns. Because you know, it's normal for us not to want change, it's normal to be concerned about something if you can't picture it. And you're, you know, many of these are genuine worries about businesses, and how will I get from A to B and, and all of this, but yeah, I think what's been lacking in this conversation is just some sort of grown up honesty about, you know, this is going to be a change. But ultimately, it's going to be one that's positive for these reasons. We, you know, we are going to listen, but ultimately, this is a an agenda that most of us support. And we know it's beneficial for these reasons. And I think we've I don't know, I think there's too much government in this country, and in many English speaking countries, kind of almost government by fear of what the Daily Mail might say, in response to this policy. And even the the recent announcement by governments about you know, stopping anti motorist measures was all caps. You know, it was like almost a Daily Mail headline. Carlton Reid 48:52 Yeah, it's quite scary and sad. Yeah. But then, you know, like you say, if you know, for the ones that hold their ground, you know, stuff dies down, people say actually, that actually is much better. So you know, where I'm coming from, I know where you're coming from. And you're saying people want this, but I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and say, Well, no, they don't people want to drive around. And if you're a woman at night, and you describe a lot of the routes, the Sustrans routes, the Nationals, you wouldn't want to go there at night, and probably no matter how much lighting security whatever you put in, you probably would still feel that way. In. Yeah, yeah. On a bicycle, you're not protected. Whereas a car, a woman, a single woman can get into a car can lock the door, can maybe have, you know, dark windscreen even so nobody knows who's in there. You then become this powerful individual who can get around in safety at the end of the day. But bicycles aren't like that, Laura. So you're you're basically making it more insecure for women to go about as independent beings. Laura Laker 50:11 Well, so as a as a woman who cycles on her own at nights that that route from Arnhem to Nijmergen in the in the Netherlands, so I ended up leaving that event and it was dark and cycling home on my own however far it was, it's a good hours ride along these routes, but because you don't have to stop, you actually feel safe. It's only when you have to stop that you start to feel unsafe in my experience. I mean, there's certain routes like along the canal, I live in East London, along the Li River that I have cycled at night, but wouldn't do now. Because you know, that is very isolated. And people have been known to jump out with bushes. But I think for the large part, if they're well designed, and other people are using them, then cycling at night for me isn't a problem. You know, you're moving you're Yeah, I don't Yeah, I very rarely felt in danger of cycling through London at night, for example. I mean, it's been the odd park where I felt a bit sketchy, but I think if you design them, well, not every path is going to feel that way safe at night. But I think in urban places where a lot of people will be cycling to and from at night, it will probably be fine. I mean, you probably feel quite safe. It's about kind of eyes on the streets in a way having people they're with you. Yeah, and I think if a route were well used enough, and don't forget, you know, if you're, if you're, you know, you're not going to necessarily, you're not going to drive home after a night out if you've had a drink. And so you will have to sort of walk a section of your journey. Most likely, if you're in a place like London, you hate taking public transport, maybe you take a taxi, but I feel I don't feel like if I'm on a busy road, walking alone at night that I am safe with those other people around me because I don't feel like people who are driving through again to necessarily stop and help me if something did happen. So I think kind of busy streets can feel unsafe, even though they're very highly populated. And, you know, theoretically, and this kind of, there's been research on this, you know, people who live on quiet streets, no more of their neighbours, this sort of social safety element, and people start looking out for each other. Whereas if you have a traffic dominated environment, it's people tend to turn away from the street. Carlton Reid 52:28 Yeah, I don't disagree. But if it is looking at the motivation of many, many people, I mean, humans are generally lazy. Yeah. They generally want comfort. They want their own things, and they want security, all of those things you have in spades in cars. The downside is, because everybody wants that. And everybody's in a car, it means you don't get anywhere. Unknown Speaker 52:57 Yeah, I don't think that's a whole story. I mean, I think a lot of the time people drive because the alternative is either aren't there don't feel possible, or they don't feel safe. So cycling on the road wouldn't feel safe, you wouldn't even most people wouldn't even consider it. But we've seen I grew up in rural West Somerset, and you had to learn to drive as soon as you turn 17, you would take your test, you buy a car, and you drive everywhere, because the buses mean the buses are even worse. Now. They were okay at the time, but not great. But they just took longer, and you couldn't get everywhere you needed to go my friends as a teenager lived in variable kind of communities. And so you had to drive there was just no other option I would have loved to cycle. And you've seen in London, where we've got a growing network of roots, suddenly, all these people from all walks of life, all kinds of demographics. Laura Laker 53:48 genders, you see a much better one gender split, but also all types of people cycling. And that kind of speaks to the fact that actually, people do want to do this and they may want to convenience but they also want to enjoy their journey. They also want to save money. Cycling can be incredibly convenient, no parking worries, it's so much cheaper you know you don't have to stress of finding a parking space or you know, paying vast amounts of money. I think something like I forget the number who in transport poverty in this country because of cars basically. They spend something like 19% of their income on their car with finance lorry, using facts to convince me that's Carlton Reid 54:36 Anybody can convince with facts, come on. At that juncture, I'd like to go across to my colleague David in America. Take it away, David. David Bernstein 54:45 This podcast is brought to you by Tern Bicycles. Like you, the folks at Tern are always up for a good outdoor adventure by bike—whether that's fishing, camping, or taking a quick detour to hit the trails before picking Unknown Speaker 55:00 up the kids from school. And if you're looking to explore new ground by taking your adventures further into the wild, they've got you covered. The brand new Orox by Tern is an all-season, all-terrain adventure cargo bike that's built around the Bosch Smart System to help you cross even the most ambitious itinerary off your bucket list. It combines the fun of off-road riding in any season with some serious cargo capacity, so you can bring everything you need—wherever you go, whenever you go. Plus, it's certified tough and tested for safety so your adventures are worry-free. With two frame sizes to choose from and a cockpit that's tested to support riders of different sizes, finding an adventure bike that fits you and your everyday needs has never been easier with the Orox. Visit www.ternbicycles.com/orox (that's O-R-O-X) to learn more. Carlton Reid 56:04 Thanks, David. And we are back with Laura Laker the Laker people. And she's the author of potholes and pavements a bumpy ride on Britain's National Cycle network. It's not actually out yet, isn't Laura. It's actually middle middle of the next month, middle of night. Hmm. Yeah. So you having a launch day what you're doing? Laura Laker 56:28 Yeah, I've got some. You've got like, You got speaker a bank and tell us tell us what you're doing? Yeah, so I've got I'm having like a bit of a party for some friends and family. And then I've got a talk in Stanford's in Covent Garden. I'm speaking in Parliament. But I think that's more of a parliamentary event. And I have got an event at Stanfords in Bristol with Xavier Bryce, we're going to discuss the future of the NCN. I've got one I'm speaking in Oxford, at a bookshop. I'm going to be interviewed by Emily Kerr, who's a green Councillor there. I have got a there's a literary festival in Wantage in November. And we're looking at other events as we speak. Carlton Reid 57:16 Excellent. And this is two hundred and .... All right, I'm going to deliver the end of the book. We're talking 264 pages, and then you've got references back. I mean, one of them. Thank you very much. Laura Laker 57:32 Yeah. Carlton Reid 57:34 Thanks. as well. Yes, at the back there, but there's, there's lots in this. So who's gonna be? Who's your audience? Who's gonna be reading this? Who do you think will be reading this? And what might actually could it start something big with with in politics? Can we could we get this like your manifesto? Can it get out there? What do you hope to happen with your book? Laura Laker 58:00 Yeah, well, obviously, I want everyone to read it. I mean, my editor at Bloomsbury was saying, you know, it's probably going to be cycling enthusiasts, people who I guess already, maybe listen to your podcast, my podcast, read our articles about cycling. But I would like to think that you know, these people, these two thirds to four fifths of people who want more cycling people who think, you know, why do I have to drive everywhere? Why aren't there safe cycle routes? Why can't my kids cycle to school, and see that might see this book and think, Oh, this is going to tell that story, this is going to explain it to me. And so I hope that it's going to give people a sense of kind of why we are where we're at, with the history of the NCN and the stories, but also, you know, how wonderful it could be if we had this thing, this network of connected routes, if it were possible for all of these people who say they want to cycle and more who maybe don't even know they want to cycle could do so. And I hope that, you know, my perhaps naive hope is that people will read it and think, you know, this could be such a wonderful thing, why aren't we doing it? And how can we get it to happen and I hope policymakers you know, we've got an election coming up I think this speaks to you know, forget the culture wars. I think this speaks to all sides, you know, of politics, I think, you know, individual freedom and choice is a conservative value, right? Cycling, cycling delivers on that. Carlton Reid 59:26 Cycling is so libertarian is a form of transport I've had many conversations This is freedom. Why is this left wing? Why do people always assume it's just this thing? Laura Laker 59:42 Yeah, it's become a cultural thing. And it's only for I think, you know, certain factions of the right perhaps see this as a wedge issue. And a way of you know, rallying people around them on based on kind of outrage like false outrage really, untruthes. and you You know, in terms of the left, this is, you know, great value for money, the Labour Party is very, very keen on showing they're working and proving to people that they can be trusted with the economy. It delivers on the green agenda, it's so beneficial in terms of cutting carbon emissions, it delivers on health, pretty much every department that we can think of this offers people access to work, you know, so many people who are out of work, especially in rural communities can't even afford to go and find work or stay in a job because the transport is too expensive, or it's too patchy doesn't go in and they needed to go. So there's like barely a thing that this doesn't touch. And I really hope that you know, along with kind of griping, which is, I hope not too much of the book, and the polemic side that this shows actually, you know, this is great for tourism, this is great for our mental health. This can bring us together, you know, it's about in Scotland, I saw that a cycle route can be a linear park, it can be about artwork and community. It can bring people together from different walks of life around a space. And, you know, cycling delivers on these things. And, you know, if we kind of dropped the culture was narrative, which is nonsense. You know, we could see all of these benefits fairly quickly and for very little money, and have a far better country for it. Carlton Reid 1:01:18 Many people would baulk at having Boris Johnson back. And you do mention this in the book of what he and Andrew Gilligan were able to do. Hopefully, it doesn't seem like I want him back. But will it that that is what you need. I mean, you do talk about having a cycling Prime Minister, we had a cycling Prime Minister, we had a Prime Minister who said it was me a golden age for cycling. So we need we need him back. Laura, that we just we need we need Boris back. No, we don't like that back there. Are there other other politicians are available? We just need people to believe in it. And you know, I hope that people read the book and think, actually, this is something we can believe in, but don't need one of the good things about Boris Johnson. Not only did he you know, talk, the talk, walk the talk, all that kind of stuff. But he was right wing. So he could he just instantly takes away that that part of this oversight is a left wing things like well, here's this right wing politician who's pushing for this Andrew Gilligan, Telegraph writer. These are not left wing people in any way, shape, or form. So is that what we need we actually need and then we'd like all politicians to do this, but by the same thing, you need somebody almost on the opposite side to be doing this, they've got more chance of pushing this through. So that's why Boris Johnson did so well, because he was right wing and the Mail isn't gonna, you know, rail against what Boris Johnson was doing. They never did. Laura Laker 1:02:46 They did though. They did. They totally did. I don't think they discriminated against him because he was towards their political leanings. I mean, it's unlikely we're going to have another conservative government, right, when we've got the election coming up, it's going to be Labour by all likelihood. And so they're going to be the ones in power delivering. So I don't know, Carlton Reid 1:03:09 But they backtracked over their green policies. I mean, what hope do we have? Laura Laker 1:03:12 I know I know. I know it's incredibly disappointing. And the thing is this this stuff like the green agenda, more broadly investment in insulating homes, for example, is such great return on investment and if they're thinking about finances and showing they're working insulating homes is just a total no brainer. You know, we all pay far too much for our energy bills. We live in draughty leaky homes. So many houses are mouldy because of the cold walls are damp Yeah, I just think you know, and green technology, huge growth industry. Solar and wind where you know, we're windy little island, but a lot of coastline. Offshore wind is fantastic. Carlton Reid 1:03:55 But in your in the book, you show how national highways basically is an organisation set up to build roads. And once you've done something like that, and that's their raison d'etre. Guess what they're going to build roads. Yeah. So yeah, it's that oil tanker you know having to put the brakes on and change a whole culture so we're not talking about you know, Cuz your manifesto is saying you know, stop funding this and yeah. Laura Laker 1:04:28 Wales did this basically with their no more roads or no more roads and less they increased active travel and public transport policy. They basically have kind of repurpose their national highways body around this agenda, you know, fill in the potholes. We've got a road in a dreadful state and, you know, develop use all their skills and power and funding for active travel. You know, public transport in this country is drastically underfunded. Buses are so important, especially in rural areas, especially people on low incomes, especially for women and Do you know buses are so important? We're really, really not kind of reaping the power the massive power of the bus.? Carlton Reid 1:05:08 Yeah, that's in your book as well, because you're talking about how buses, you know, need to be able to carry bikes. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's a small part of what they could do but the broader transport perspective that's that's so impor

15th April 2024 The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast EPISODE 351: Andy McGrath — God is Dead SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles HOST: Carlton Reid GUEST: Andy McGrath LINKS: https://www.the-spokesmen.com/ https://www.ternbicycles.com https://twitter.com/CarltonReid https://twitter.com/Andymcgra https://andydoesart.substack.com https://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Dead-Vandenbroucke-Cyclings-Wasted/dp/0552176044/ TRANSCRIPT Carlton Reid 0:12 Welcome to Episode 351 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was engineered on Monday, April 15 2024. David Bernstein 0:28 The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e-bikes for every type of rider. Whether you're commuting, taking your kids to school or even carrying another adult, visit www.ternbicycles.com. That's t e r n bicycles.com to learn more. Carlton Reid 1:04 I'm Carlton Reid. And today's show is the first of two episodes with bike book authors. Later this week, I'll share the chat I had with potholes and pavement author Laura Laker a book so fresh, it's not even out yet. But today, I talk with William Hill award winning author Andy McGrath about his 2022 book, God is dead biography of Frank Vandenbrouke the wunderkind who died a mysterious death in a grungy African hotel room. Liège–Bastogne–Liège has been staged since 1892, the oldest of cycling's five monument races, and this year's race will be staged at the end of the month, Sunday the 21st to be exact. Now, Andy, it's 25 years since a certain famous victory of that particular race. So tell us about that. Andy McGrath 2:10 This was the edition of Liège–Bastogne–Liège where the great Belgian cycling hope Frank Vandenbrouke seemed to be fulfilling his immense potential. And he did it in his own unique way. He told anyone that would listen in the days for the race, you know, teammates, DS's, rivals and other races and media, where he was going to attack to win the race to make it stick, a bit like Muhammad Ali used to do before his heavyweight fight. And he'd went out for a 20 minute puto, a few days before the age best on the age. And it's covered his teammate saw him come back to the hotel, you know, barely a blink of an eye later. And he told him, that's all all I need, I feel good. I'm going to win lift some of the age. And he was in a state of grace that day, he attacked on by ODU, which sounds different course back then. It finished in an industrial suburb over the age. And the Cordilla. Redo was about oh, at 90k from the finish. And he, he he wrote up in the big room, he tacked up in the big green, which is I could barely walk up it when I was researching the book, which is a astonishing and slightly sinister thing when you really get into that era of cycling. And he was already clearly the best, you know, he he accelerated pass the defending champion makayley Bartley like it was nothing and then he just let the rest catch him up, basically. And he did attack, you know, if we're going to split hairs slightly later than he said he would you know, or maybe earlier actually, I think it was early. And he said he would you know, a few 100 metres earlier. Because Carlton Reid 3:55 Because that's in your book, isn't it? Yeah. It's a very detailed book and you you're knocking on doors, and you give the exact door that he actually did attack on and not the one that you said he's going to attack on? Andy McGrath 4:06 Yeah, the thing is, I actually knocked on the door of the house number he said he would attack which was 256. You know, hoping for some kind of journalistic intrigue and it was a little bit disappointing that I think people that answered the door were very nice, but it was someone looking after their elderly parent and they said they didn't like cycling, they didn't know about it. So so so I was like yeah, that's there's that avenue gone in the book. But no abandoned Brook road away from the last remaining rival Michael Burgard on the court to send Nicola outside the edge and road to victory just like he said he would and you know, a country that was already in thrall to him was an even more rapturous, you know, Eddie Merckx was extremely impressed. You know, the Eddie marks the greatest and that was really, I think it was 24 Back then van of work, and it wasn't so normal for providers to break through in their early 20s, which is what he had done. He was the exception. And it seemed like that, you know, the cycling world was gonna fall to him. You know. During the book research, I kind of ascertained that he could probably have won almost anything apart from a grantor, you know, he was a strong climber, but didn't have the consistency or the or the mentality to do it over three weeks, but everything else was, was fair game. But that was a very brief high point, you know, that was that was paradise. And he was soon into purgatory. And then how, you know, within a year, which kind of summed up his his life and his career trajectory. Carlton Reid 5:41 And, and spoiler alert, the kind of the title of your book tells us that Frank is no longer with us. But you did refer a few moments ago, almost to the fact that this is an EPO era. So he's going up in the big ring, that's kind of Superman stuff that, you know, Nietzsche, God is dead stuff. So clearly he was he was deeping, he kind of admitted he was doping. This is the EPO era. But then what everybody was saying at that time was, well, everybody was doping. So we're all equal. Do you buy into that? Are you if everybody's taken EPO at the time, and he's such a wonderful rider? Let's give him those victories, because everybody was on this stuff. person. Andy McGrath 6:27 I mean, they're all saying at the time, and I was partly what bothered him, you know, 5, 10 years later that he felt that he was being scapegoated. What we know now, is that essentially, you know, let's be the what's the word diplomatic here? Legally, most of the bunch, we're, we're doing it, there's been lots of admissions. Do I think that makes it okay, in a level playing field? No, no, I don't think so. That's too simplistic, you know, that comes down to you know, things like science and natural amount of creates and how much room you have to dope, you know, or to get up to the rudimentary UCI testing limit of 50, which it was back then, you know, which was, like a broken speed Camry on a motorway. It barely stopped cheating. If you are caught over the 50, like, image credit limit you are. I think you were given a small fine, and you couldn't race for two weeks? What kind of, you know, what kind of punishment? Is that really what kind of thing to stop? Anyone from having huge gains, really, that can change, change everything? So no, no, it wasn't fair. Like it's not fair. And there are a fair few riders who were probably in, in the minority who chose to be clean, you know, to ride on bread and water, as they say, who didn't make it who had to take other jobs who. And that was the kind of that's always a sad thing about doping in a way, you know, that. I don't think anyone who's has a positive for doping, who's cheated. When they get into cycling, they don't want to put a needle in their arm or have their blood transfused or whatever kind of ghoulish thing hopefully went on, doesn't go on now. But along the line they get, they get sucked into certain culture and you know, you invest so much time and energy and sacrifice into something you love, and you have to love it. That you realise, well, this is the kind of Faustian deal that many of them thought I had to make that they thought that they didn't do this, they would finish in the last group or second class group and they wouldn't, they wouldn't get the contract renewed. They wouldn't even be close to winning, you know, to fulfilling their childhood dreams. And you have an abrupt turn turn pro in 1994, which was really probably the worst the worst possible year to turn pro maybe in cycling, because EPO was, that was the year that it was about to get ramped, and if it wasn't already ramping. Carlton Reid 9:00 And then Cofidis wasn't exactly the cleanest of teams. Andy McGrath 9:04 No. I mean, this is Vandenbrouke. He was on Mapei who were the Italian super team. You may see their products in your local homeware stores you know, they still make I think it's grouting Yeah, ground tiles, tile, yes. tiles. things are still popular. I still smile when I see them and and b&q and all other good stores, but they were the best number one, and they really complimented in hindsight, complimented Vandenbrouke perfectly because often, you know, in in the classics of old classics, he won and he won a fair few, you know, scale the price hit Volk, obviously Liège–Bastogne–Liège. He could be the attacking foil or tactically to say Tom Steels, a sprinter or Johan Museuw, who was a permanent cobbles rider. But anyway, after three, four years, which were the most stable, far and away the most stable years, results wise and maybe mentality wise over his whole career. He has acted in he he wanted to be a contract. He wasn't ever patient with very much ever. And he he chose good to French Team Cofidis for double the money basically. And they gave him he could pick, you know, his friends, his his teammates, so, pick several of those. And it started off well, but yeah, it transpired that they had they had a kind of sleeping pill and drinking culture. And that's not a good combination. You know, even one thing. One of those dumb two accesses is bad, but they'd be on training camps, you know, in winter, this is how Vandenberg got hooked in the winter of 98. You know, they'd be it'd be bored you know, you do your training in the sun somewhere in Spain and then a radical Philip go mom, who I think one gateway will give himself. This strong, strapping Frenchman, you know, said why don't you take this and we'll have some drinks and what happens is you kind of you have a euphoric high. That's beyond you know, extreme drunkenness. You know, often you don't remember what you do when you're on under the influence of still not an alcohol, you know? And they go out partying or they're still the team campervan. And it's kind of thing you wouldn't believe it happened then, let alone now. Carlton Reid 11:28 So what is Stilnoct? It's in your book loads. So just tell us what Stilnoct is. Andy McGrath 11:34 It's a sleeping pill with various different brand names. I actually think Anglophone listeners might know it better as Ambien. I think that's alright. Okay. Yes. Australian kind of version of it. Yes, it's a sleeping pill. And you know, normally, I think it's used for insomniacs. And if you, you take one you wait 20 minutes, and it should pretty much knock you out. But they will take festivals, you know, handfuls at the very least. And if you resist if you fight the urge to sleep with alcohol, then you you push through to this strange blankness and euphoric high. And David Miller also has some stories, I think in his, his autobiography of strange things, and I'm the influence, you know. And, you know, it's kind of a reminder also, that professional cyclists, young freshmen, cyclists are very suggestible. They're, maybe not quite all of them fully formed as adults, you know, when they turn someone like Vandenbroucke turn pro, at 19. He was more brought up in the sporting culture than really, as a human being, as an app was an adult human being it and kind of influenced by that. So they're very fragile. And that's the other thing, you know, we've covered it. So there was a lacking duty of care, you know, in terms of the management and, you know, they seem to know what was going on, but they didn't do much about it really like they, they hired a psychologist to do a to have a talk with with the riders who basically laughed him out of the room. So you know, hindsight is 2020, but it was not a good team for Benbrook to band with a good culture. Carlton Reid 13:21 Andy, let's let's dig into you, because you've written this book. And we will we'll we'll talk about it, tonnes coming up. But this is before your time in effect, certainly before your time as a journalist you've started working from what I can see from your LinkedIn profile. You started working for Cycling Weekly. And then you became the head of Rouleur, which many people wouldn't want men will know both both titles of course. But this is in effect before your time. Was this before your were You were you like a big cycling fan? From a you know, a youth? Andy McGrath 14:00 Yeah, I mean, whenever its heyday was before my time in terms of cycling fandom, I really got into it, you know, the Lance Armstrong years 2002 was the year that I you know, discovered this fantastic and strange and exotic sport. And I you know, I did come across Vanderbrouke but by then he was really really on the down slide you know the downfall. I do remember his 2003 Tour of Flanders at the time you know, I remember it. It being this remarkable comeback story where you know this guy who was ranked outside the top 500 in in the UCI standings came second in the tour Flanders out of nowhere. But you know, he was kind of the figure of fun the kind of the fallen hero then. But yeah, he was kind of trying to see I didn't think much about him when I was at cycling weekly as a staff writer and then you know, joining ruler like, later on I to my first book was about Tom Simpson. I I published back in 2017 lovely kind of mix of contemporary photographs and stories from those who know Thompson best with Rapha, you know, one of their first books. And I was very fortunate that won the sports book of the year prize that year, which was a huge boon. Yes. Carlton Reid 15:22 What did you do with 30 grand Andy? Andy McGrath 15:25 I bought a Colnago Carlton, which possibly wasn't seeing us, I don't like to ride it in, you know, winter, or spring, sometimes autumn. So, you know, in the UK, I don't ride a bike to get too messy. And then that really leaves you two or three good months of cycling. So that was, that was my dream bike, you know, when I was a teenager that that was a bike. But funnily enough, that was a brand that I saw in all the cycling magazines, and I obviously, cycling journalists are not the best paid people in the world, sorry to disappoint their any young listeners. But that was, I mean, that was a life changing amount of money for me. So I did go ahead and bought a Kona Argo. You know, that was the that was the main thing and the rest went boringly in the savings. Carlton Reid 16:11 Now, I kind of threw that in there a to be rude, and see what you say. And so you know, is it wind, wind? And so on? No, it's a bike. Okay, great. But also, that was a big deal to win that, that, yeah, that's a big cash amount. And that's a big deal to win the William Hill sports book of the year well done on on that. You're basically your your, your, your, you've been writing about people who were from a different era, in effect. So these these are these are almost not united to me, Tom Simpson is isn't a contemporary, obviously. But Frank Vandenbroucke is certainly somebody I would be very, very well well aware of when I was, you know, in into, in writing about cycle sport I was, he was around at that point. So you're writing about people in effect from from from history. So you're almost a historian, not just, you know, not just a biographer, you're digging into past history, Andy McGrath 17:13 I never really thought about it like that, that's an interesting way of putting it maybe I should put historian on my LinkedIn profile. It feels like quite recent history, though. Carlton Reid 17:22 It really isn't, you know, when you look at this, this is 25 years, that's a good time away, you know, for for somebody to still be talked about, and for books to be written, etc. That's, that's, that's a federal what it is history. Andy McGrath 17:36 That's also what I like, because, you know, in a way, you know, Vandenbrouke, and Simpson both have, have had books written about them already. But I had the kind of maybe the naive hunch, which I would have told my publishers that I can get new stories, you know, there's more things to be said, by different people, which I which, which I believed in, you know, turned out to be true. You know, there's, there's deeper perspective says revisionism to be done, there's new things to be discovered. And, to be honest, I think I've found with, with slightly older people, you know, when you're talking about the people around Simpson and Vandenberg, and in general, and in cycling there, they've lived long lives, you know, so they have more more stories, more life, experience, more more regrets, you know, more successes. But they also, yeah, that somehow they're just that appeals to me, you know, they, they're certainly more open, generally speaking. You know, compared to, for example, let's say, if I was trying to write the, the biography of Matthew Vanderpool who, who won the Tour, Flanders, you know, very recently, there will be a whole circle of people around him that comparatively, it will be very close, very hard to get close to him. And very hard to get intriguing things now, you know, in 10 years time, maybe it'd be a different story. So I think that plays as a kind of advantage in a way to be going back rather than rather than always working with, you know, present champions, Carlton Reid 19:14 the people you've written about in their books are clearly flawed heroes. So both both legendary, both died, that that kind of helps if you're going to be a biographer, when somebody is no longer here in many respects, but they're both flawed. So So is that something that naturally attracts a biographer because if you if you're floored by de facto you're kind of more interesting. You know, you're you're you're there's there's chinks in that armour. There's the stuff that a journalist stroke historian can get their teeth into. And most sports people tend to be kind of flawed anyway, you know, there's many psychological studies which show that you know that the absolute top achievers have had some sort of formative bad experience in in their earlier life, which is then forced them to become these, these super men in terms of you know, male sport. So is that something that attracts you the fact that these are flawed heroes you can you can really talk about a flawed here and more than somebody who's squeaky clean. Andy McGrath 20:34 Well, firstly, I think we're all flawed. You're no one's perfect. But the Yes, I completely see what you're saying that these these are top athletes are people who push things to the extremes who, you know, can be quite flawed or extremely flawed, you know. And that's more the thing, but it, there was no middle for Vandenbroucke things were either going fantastic or his confidence was 100%. Or it was the opposite, you know, there seem to be, you know, they will see a sixth gear or a neutral with him. And I think we're all drawn to, to people who push limits that regular human beings wouldn't normally you know, push. Who wouldn't, you know, we we wouldn't want to take you know, 10 sleeping pills, and then down some glasses of wine on a night out, but so there's a kind of, I think there's a slightly vicarious fascination sometimes. But Vanderburgh was also I wouldn't say he was escaping from something, you know, a kind of traumatic incident in his childhood, but it's definitely worth noting that his father was his uncle. He was part of a second dynasty. So his uncle was dubbed the John Louis mercs as Frank would be. Sean Luke, that's right. Race for Persia had some great results. Never quite lived up to that moniker, who Ken and his father who was older than John Luke. So John's brother, John Jack. He was on the cusp of being a pro site because he just signed his his contract. When hit, their father died and he became guardian to John Luke, and John Paul. His brothers, his younger brothers, so his history was snatched away from him before he could do anything about it, and he had to he had to sell off his his father's Frank's grandfather's his basins and toilets and sinks because he was a kind of plumber handyman to shut down the business. So there was a kind of element of his Frank's Father John Jack being being a real driving force for positive and for negative through his formative years, you know, he pushed him so hard, you know, he would, he would follow training with a stopwatch praise was kind of few and far between shows of shows of kind of love work, not not regular at all. And, you know, Frank felt that sometimes you've treated too much as a cyclist and not enough as a son you know, as a as a person. And they had, you know, they had fallings out throughout Frank's life. And, you know, there was also a depression that John Jack had. Or John Paul, maybe it was actually his younger brother. And Frank had that too. So there's a kind of there's a, there's a kind of site genetic, I think, vulnerability to two of, you know, mental health problems that was on show here. So there's that extreme too. And this is what I kind of also find fascinating about not just pro cyclists, but people in general, athletes in general, that when we see them, just seeing when we see them in the Tour de France or tour Flanders, whatever, we're seeing 1% of their life, you know. And for Frank, you know, when he was on the bike, that was a kind of safe place, really, when things are going well. That was his refuge. And it was really like when he wasn't on the bike when he was by himself. And you know, he couldn't be by himself, really, he loved being around people need to be around people to be supervised sometimes. But when he was alone, that was when the problem started, when he had time to think or to do certain misdemeanours or wrong things. That was a problem. And people don't think about that, you know that. Everything really needs to be going well, and in the 99% of your life outside of the bike pace for the bike race to go well. Carlton Reid 24:46 So you mentioned father, son relationship stuff there, which can reminded me that when I was looking at the emails of when we've interacted before, and when you were editor of Rouleur, you actually published I'm getting more into you about, you actually published a ride of my son of coming back from China, in Rouleur, and this is now four or five years back when he did that ride and you, you, you published an account of that ride. But you were with Rouleur for about five years, four years editor? Andy McGrath 25:23 yeah, yeah, every year for nine years and I was here to for five years, you know, which was that was a dream. That was a dream, you know, I was in my mid 20s When I became editor, and I just loved hearing their stories where I'd actually been at cycle sport, which is part of cycling weekly part a part of that IPC Media Group, you know, 15 years ago, that was where I was kind of under under the wing of Ed Pickering, who, who's now the Rouleur editor, you know, I was around all these great writers like Lionel Birnie, and, you know, just learning from them, you know, either by by osmosis or by asking stupid questions, which is a kind of great way to learn. But I've really found I was drawn to longer form storytelling, you know, articles, over 2000 words, long interviews, you know, two, three hours sometimes or, you know, spending a whole day or, or, you know, to with a pro cyclist to really, truly get under their skin, you know, because that's also the media landscape in increasingly at the moment, sometimes, you're given 20 minutes, 25 minutes in a hotel lobby, to write a long feature that's supposed to you know, be chapter and verse about the cyclist. And that's not you know, that's not sufficient. I really was kinda like an entry kind of opened the doors you know, ruler when you said you with ruler that kind of had a special effect, they knew you were gonna do a very thorough, well researched, well written job, which I think really helped. And this is also the last landscape we're in that was, you know, I joined over 10 years ago, and slightly magazines, were more plentiful, were more more profitable. And I still read paper, by the way, I'd never read a Kindle course. And I'm, I'm kind of 35 going on 65 I just like, you know, I'm looking at a bookcase with about 200 books right now. And the same goes for magazines, I just, I'm a magazine guy. And I don't see that changing. And I'm kind of proud of that, because I'm slightly scared that in even in 10 years, Time Magazine might go the way of a vine on and be a collector's item when it really shouldn't be Carlton Reid 27:42 well, Cycling Weekly is older than Liège–Bastogne–Liège. So that was that was 1891. So that presumably, has has a place in the market, almost guaranteed a lot of the other magazines, maybe not so much, and ruler has a place in that is long form. It is something that, you know, the pro riders as well as cycle sport fans will love and look up to because it does go into immense detail and great care, and the quality of the paper, all that kind of stuff. So it's I guess, it's the magazines, in the middle, that that fall between those two kind of different models that are going to suffer. Andy McGrath 28:28 Perhaps, you know, the Rouleur owner told me a few years ago that there was there was going to be survival of the fittest and you know, he's turned out to be right. I think it's also the care you know, the photography and in rural areas, you know, top top notch I think people like that baby surprise, you know, sometimes have little feedback I got as editor, you know, that I could just see the, you know, often the subscription numbers rising and you see the sales figures and I like to think there's a very happy silent majority. And maybe the numbers pull that out that, you know, some people on social media will either go on there to say how fantastic something is, or how appalling it is or that their magazine never arrived, you know, and that's fine, you know, but that's, that's the world we live in. But I'm not even sure about cycling weekly, I've got a huge attachment to that magazine sentimentally. But it could be that that ends up being being an online only presence in 10 years time or you know five years time and I really hope that isn't the case. But that more and more people are reading things on their phones or their tablets. So you know, papers printed so as a find its its place you know, but realised yet definitely one for the connoisseur. Um, and we do crazy thing crazy fun things. You know, I remember taking a crew of photographers and writers to Paris-Roubaix, which is my favourite race. Because Because I said next year we're going to do a whole edition of Rouleur just around Paris-Roubaix. And we designed it with a kind of cobblestone font. And we kind of you know, each story was a sector basically and we did it you know, we were there for a week. We worked bloomin hard. And I think we saw six sectors on the day, which for goes from south to north, took some driving that pushed the limits of the highway code. But it was you know, we, we just had carte blanche to do pretty wild things like you know, we had a Gonzo writer called Mort not bow, who was Danish, who, who who divided opinion, you know, but I've never seen anyone write like that in cycling media, let alone sports media like and he always got the interview, he always ingratiated himself with the biggest names in cycling, you know, and that's what I loved was like different styles make make a magazine, for example, you know, Morton was meant to Morton and Jakob, who we call the crazy Danes is right of geography in a combo for several years, so we're meant to spend two hours with Lance Armstrong in the height of his, you know, scandalous air, I think was 2013 2014. And they ended up spending two or three days I played golf with him, you know, and it was just, yeah, like, the one thing about Rouleur that we wanted to change was that to make it not seem so stuffy or serious, because because we were having a lot of fun making it and we all love cycling, and there's a lot of, you know, humour to be had with it. You know, you might look at the black and white photographs. And you know, think it's been ernest but you know, we tried to change that every now and then. It's Carlton Reid 32:01 clearly it was it was founded in a party in a Guy Andrews but partly with Simon Mottram of a Rapha, so it's like, A, in some ways, like a Rapha, journal it had that certain had that, you know, in the early days, certainly had that Rapha you know, aesthetic. And, and power to its elbow for having that aesthetic, because Simon, you know, absolutely went in it, I can say this into the veins of cycling at that time with with with, you know, a very beautiful magazine. Andy McGrath 32:40 Yeah, he was, you know, he was pivotal to its founding like, along with Guy who, who was the founder, you know, they they saw they saw something different. And they, you know, they put in the money in the effort fearing that no one would buy that first issue which now goes for hundreds on eBay. And, you know, in many ways, it was similar to I think Jacque Waterlase courir magazine in the 50s and 60s, you know, that style and that aesthetic and you know, Guy didn't want any reviews. He wanted to show the cycling that you know, that he loved that also a child with the Rapha aesthetic and their values. And basically, the Rouleur blueprint that he laid out in those first issues is still what Rouleur is, you know, it's you know, in depth interviews, it's photography with a difference. And you ever heard is actually coming up for nearly 20 years. I think it'll be in a couple of years time. And Carlton Reid 33:42 Rapha is 20 years old this year. So that makes me feel old. Because now, I was the first person to report on Rapha's founding on in would have been, it would have been online, I would I probably did a story on bikebiz.com on this, you know, strange aesthetics based, cycled clothing manufacturer, you know, coming in from the advertising world. So I broke the story of Rapha coming in into cycling, and then now it's that 20 years or so their current PR you know, emails me and says, Oh, would you like to do a story on on Rapha being 20 It's like, oh my god, they're 20 and I did a story on them, you know, and it doesn't feel 20 years away. So it's history, as well. So we're kind of coming full circle on on history there. Now on on LinkedIn, you actually say you're one of your career highlights is actually writing for Bicycling. So what why was that a career highlight highlight? Andy McGrath 34:50 Did I say that? Oh, that's good. I just I just wanted to write for you know, one of the tops like a magazine. I've been seeing it all my life. You know, when I went freelance two years ago, that was basically my chance to write for whoever I wanted. And yeah, I'm a fellow fellow news. Now fellow went online. So I just saw this kind of this prestige of writing for for an American publication who, who I always thought, you know, did some really good journalism. And they do. I mean, it's most rigorous fact checking process I've ever had, and they did some beautiful photography, it was a long profile of Peter Sagan in his retirement. Yeah, and I went to Slovakia to see, you know, his family with old friends. And I went to Spain to interview him. And it kind of felt like old school journalism, you know, also that they back you to do that, you know, both in terms of time, word count, and paying expenses. Carlton Reid 35:56 And paying, because that's why I like writing for American magazines is they pay five times more than any British magazine. Andy McGrath 36:06 Yeah, I'm not sure if we should be advertising that this is true. Yeah, saying the Americans taking out lucrative stores. But no, absolutely. Like, that's the thing that I'm not sure why it's five times more. So I understand, you know, the, the kind of living costs, generally speaking, in the US in cycling friendly pockets is probably higher. So, so they were charging more, but five times more. You know, word rates for journalists, and in cycling identity have changed for 20 years, you know, since Rapha's inception, which is kind of sad. It's more of a labour of love than it ever was, and it was still a labour of love 20 years ago. But yeah, like the bicycling and you know, writing for cycling class I've written for basically every Anglophone cycling title in my not so young career now I'm 35. And it's just a pleasure, you know, that something that you know, the teenage me will be super proud of, and you know, that, don't me, it's, it's still proud of, you know, it's something really nice to go in my bookshelf. And it's always new stories and new angles, and well, not new sci fi magazines, really. But I kind of live in hope that I can keep doing that mainly around cycling, but I am you know, one slightly sad thing is that I'm trying to diversify slightly and you know, write about different sports, as well as cycling. Carlton Reid 37:39 I see you on art substack. So that's really diversifying. Andy McGrath 37:45 That's not That's not for profit. That's just for me. I just wanted to ride this is, this is something that I started this year, just going to local galleries and doing short, short reviews, you know, with just to learn about art, and to see what I like what I don't like, you know, I always, you know, I've kind of thought that modern art is a bit pretentious, but I've never really been to see that much. So I thought it could be fun. And it's proven to be fun. But the irony is that my my work deadlines are kind of impinging on my art reviews to the point that I haven't posted anything in about two months, but I will soon for my 20 substack followers. No, it's just fine. You know, you can live in deadlines. And with a bit of stress for so long that it's a nice kind of thing to try to do to, you know, flex some different writing muscles, but also learn about something totally away from sport, which is really the thing that I love. Carlton Reid 38:49 So I want to dig further into that level of cycling and into God is dead, your book. But right now I'd like to go across to my colleague David, who will give us a short ad break. David Bernstein 39:06 This podcast is brought to you by Tern Bicycles. Like you, the folks at Tern are always up for a good outdoor adventure by bike— whether that's fishing, camping, or taking a quick detour to hit the trails before picking up the kids from school. 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Carlton Reid 40:24 So we are back with Andy McGrath and Andy is the well as he's been telling us in the the before the ad break that he's been telling us about his career trajectory through cycling into into now doing an art substack even for the for the fun of it and the hell of it and the learning of it. Which Which sounds fantastic, because I should do that too. I should learn new stuff. But the thing we started this podcast with was with the the anniversary coming up to 25 years since since Frank Vandenbroucke and we can we call him VDB Do you think we can we can really Yeah. Yeah. Or should we say Frank goes to Frank because really it is it's like it's a it is actually an unknown nickname for other people in Belgium isn't is not not just something that's pertinent to him. Andy McGrath 41:23 That's right. There's lots of bands you know something? Yeah, Vanda Carlton Reid 41:27 something. Okay. So VDB we can we can go with that, as we kind of use a shorthand gumming up. So your book 2002. This came out, and he and it's the rise and fall of Frank Vandenbroucke cycling's great wasted talent is the subhead to God is dead. Now God is dead is clearly a Nietzsche reference. Also a reference to when he was coming up when when Frank was coming up through the sport, lots of people treated him as a god. And then in his autobiography, he talks about not being a god, but the very fact that he's saying he's not a God means kind of other people were saying he was a god. So that's, that's a hell of a provocative title for a book. Andy Yeah, absolutely. Andy McGrath 42:25 I just correct you there. It came out in 2022. If it came out in 2002, I would have been 14 and Carlton Reid 42:33 I'm sorry, sorry. 20222. Sorry. Yeah. No, that would have been deep military. Yes. Yes. Yes. Sorry, kind of literal, you Andy McGrath 42:39 know, the spoiler alert as you pointed out earlier as sports which makes it a kind of backwards who done it or you know, what happened to his life when you know, beside nd and also, you know, his friend contemporary or when I went on to wrote a song called Cody is dead. So I just thought it was too there are too many, you know, perfect similarities to not have that title. It does, I suppose it you know, catches the eye, as well, as you know, telling you what happened. And it intrigues and it should stop people in their tracks, you know, make them think, you know, who was this? Cyclists because most people most passing people in bookshops, for example, wouldn't have heard of Frank Vandenbrouke, some people at the time, you know, very briefly, he he was on the cover of pro cycling in the UK, for example, he was in the top three of the world rankings, he was going to be the biggest things since sliced bread on 11 speed. And then and this is the thing that half the book is really the rise of a sporting talent, exceptional sporting promise, despite all his problems, you know, that he had the human for example, he was involved in a in a crash with a rally car when he was four years old. Of all things, you know, in the country lanes where he grew up, and that meant that after a long, long recovery, his left leg was always two centimetres shorter and thinner, and the right leg which you would think will be problematic for for a pro cyclist and it proved to be problematic. You know, often during his career, he was always fighting these knee injuries. But anyway, he he rose up at a time when the stars were older, you know, they were 30 Plus, and they were quite bland in comparison to him. You know, we had Indurain, Rominger, Museuw, and Frank Vandenbrouke was this 20 year old counterpoint who said good things to all the Belgian media and was handsome, you know, he was good looking kid. But he raised with such panache. And he won unusually early unusually often. And for someone that yeah, when he was a junior, he won half his races which is ridiculous for someone who who wasn't a great sprinter either, you know, he he had to attack really to win most of the time. Carlton Reid 45:14 So it's an awful lot of is not just legacy but at the time was he just looked so beautiful on a bike I mean there's there's a little bit of you know, homo-eroticism going on there but he's just he just looked wonderful with you know those those as you're saying those those the legs being shorter and thinner. I hadn't actually noticed that but it just it looks so beautiful on a bicycle. He's just like the dream rider. Andy McGrath 45:42 Yeah, and that's the way that we the most of us wish we could you know, pedal that's like pedalling and in a dream. It's that the French word souplesse. It kind of describes the way that he pedalled you know, with, with no, either body barely moved, didn't move when the back was still when he kind of cycled it was like ballerina esque if that is the right word for a male ballerina probably is. And it was so incongreous, too, because his legs was so thin. You know, they were like pipe cleaners. Really. They weren't particularly muscular. But they were tanned and yeah, like it. It is funny about cycling isn't all Pro Cycling that sometimes it we don't just admire the best riders. With my style, we My grace. For example, I still remember this Russian writer called Mikhail Ignatieff who won a few Olympic goals on the track. And he didn't win any anything of any note, you know, in Tour de France, all the all the big leagues of road racing, but his pedal stroke was just gorgeous, just like you know. I imagine there was no human around years of you know, Russian training in the Velodrome but Carlton Reid 46:55 so that you're definitely getting back to that kind of Rapha aesthetic which, which Simon Mottram tapped into, you know that it's not about always winning. It's sometimes about just looking good and being stylish and having panache. You know, that Tom Simpson also taps into that with his suits and his writing style. Andy McGrath 47:17 Yeah, absolutely. Like, it's not about winning always. It's about how you make people feel. It's about how you bring the fans along with you all, all the media. And there's some riders in their 30s. Now, their favourite cyclists was Frank Vandenbrouke. That 999 the age pastorally. Age is the race of their dreams. I think I'll have an arson who's a former Belgian champion, said he watched it 200 times on replay I feel it was your bet. The great Belgian bike racer, idolise Vandenbrouke, that and there's something it wasn't just results like we can all have, well, not all of us, pro cyclists can have a page on Pro Cycling stats or whatever results. Software, you use that, that shows you what you've won, but it doesn't say anything for how you want it, you know, like with, with daring, long range attacks, like Vandenberg sometimes did, or what you said to the media afterwards, you know, giving them great quotes. And that's part of his charm. And you know, why people wrote books about him in Belgium, although that said, you know, if, if he hadn't been a kind of fatal hero, if he hadn't died so young, it would, it would be a happy a different story. Because Carlton Reid 48:37 there is that Amy Winehouse, you kind of mentioned that, you know, that Marilyn Monroe that kind of that here, who's a die young they stay heroes. So there's there's that element of and Africa somewhere else in your book where you talk about how people couldn't have imagined him getting older anyway. You know, there was that that there was almost a fatalism there. That this is somebody who is, you know, the Icarus figure, you know, burning bright climbing high, that will probably come a cropper like almost wasn't a surprise to many people, the way his his life ended. Unknown Speaker 49:15 Absolutely. I think sometimes that's it's not easy to say that, you know, 10 years after he's died when, you know, after the fact. And the problem was that he had all these issues, he had depression briefly and he became addicted to, you know, cocaine and amphetamines. But he will always find a way out of it that I think a lot of people thought that he would eventually find a way out of his problems, you know, the 10 years from the age when the end of his life in 2009 We were just roller coaster teaser kind of cliche like, but he would always drag himself out. So that's the sadness and and they were under a lot of pain. April, he said to me, there was some regret, you know, in the quotes that his agent pulled the gator that said, when it came to his drug addiction that they were, he compared it to a kind of sinking ship and said that, you know, when they were bailing the water out, they should really be plugged in trying to plug the hole which was quite a kind of poignant quote like I thought so and so one more thing, too We, of course it gets into sad tragic territory, but you know, it's not the kind of misery misery fest biography No, and I found them bro was loved by so many people and charmed and joked around with so many people like, he was a great impressionist, he, he was like a bouncy teenager, really, at the age of 35, still, you know, like, messing around with his roommate, and putting toothpaste on the bathroom mirror. And he had this kind of universal boyishness that people found it very hard to be mad at him, even when he did, you know, quite bad things or selfish things or acted vainly, which he could do. So there's, you know, at the core of it, it goes much beyond the cyclists into this human being who could be lovable, but can also be very frustrating and, you know, do some bad things. Carlton Reid 51:26 So the book is, yes, it's not, you're right. It's not all doom and gloom. But there's an awful lot in there. You can't get away from this about addiction, doping clearly. And then mental health care or lack thereof, in in, in not just in cycling, but in probably in society as a whole. Yeah, like, I Unknown Speaker 51:46 kind of think that. If we look back, even 10 years alone, 20 years, the duty of, of care for professional athletes was really lacking. You know, I think it's really sad that there were top level riders not just Vandenberg, who were going to psychologist or psychiatrist, but we're keeping it strong, you know, because it was seen as so shameful, you know. And to me that shy, that taps into the old school soccer mentality of, you know, the way they used to be the way they used to train, you know, do 300k Drink very little, eat very little. Ride harder, don't complain. And that could work for some people. But that is not a caring way to look up to most people. You know, that's, and that can come back to by many athletes, you know, and I think that's what happened. Vandenbrouke's psychologist probably helped to help him to live longer. You know, that's what he said in his his autobiography. Actually, Vandenbrouke Carlton Reid 52:52 That's Jeff Browers? Unknown Speaker 52:54 Yeah, exactly. And, in fact, he was probably an early kind of adopter of this help that he needed, you know, not just for, you know, the cycling was one thing, but they were trying to cure his kind of addiction problems and is show him that he he was loved, you know, even though he felt abandoned often. And that's the crux of it, that, you know, this need to be loved that I kind of thing most of, well, pretty much all all of us have, whether it's conscious or subconscious. And he always felt unloved or abandoned, despite, you know, the obvious legion of fans that he had and everything else. And that was a tragedy, there are human tragedy. Carlton Reid 53:37 So in your in your book, there's a kind of murder mystery, and to the book, murder, mystery, suicide, whatever. So Jeff, Browers was the psychologist about it, he basically told you that he thinks it was it was it was suicide, because he was, as you've just said that he needs people around and he was quite alone in that grubby hotel room in Senegal. But then other people, family obviously blame the people he was with and don't want to have that association. With with suicide, you don't really come you don't come to a conclusion because you can't really come to a conclusion, especially as it happened in Senegal, where it's kind of difficult to come to any conclusion anyway. But there's, there's various people give their their opinions weighing all that up. What's your opinion? Unknown Speaker 54:40 I don't have to give one you know, like, if it isn't clear, factually, and I can't be certain, but I've laid out you know, that's the job of the biography is to talk to everyone that was close to Vandenbrouke around him at the time. He was actually you know, basically there and include what they said Um, but no. I think that there could be something very well and what you have for hours says, you know, the psychologists who, you know, he was a man who spent hours with him and in that in that room I can see why he would say that. But one of the great, one of the great, strange things about this is, is that mystery like that, you know, Vandenbrouke had never even been to Africa, and he decided to go to Senegal, ye. And this filmic ending, you know, where, whereas you say, a prostitute was the last person to see him alive. So maybe he wanted it to be, you know, clouded in some kind of doubt that it could never be be definitive. But either way, you know what, like, whichever way that he died, it was pretty tragic that that he died, you know, and he's not the only one from that era, either. He had Pantani, you had Jose Maria Jimenez, you know, and I think it's, it's partly a kind of symptom of the doping culture that what they were taking to perform in bike races made it much easier to get into recreational drugs. And both of those things, mess with your mind and your body. And probably your, your, your soul, you know, the core of who you really feel you are and what you're doing, you know, whether you think it's cheating or not that moral maze, it, it can't be easy. I'm there must have been a hot a horrible time to be a pro cyclist. Carlton Reid 56:41 People think of these things doping is a black and white issue. Yet, there's a spectrum here, you know, is I mean, the UCI classifies too many coffees, too many espressos as doping. But, you know, four or five, okay. You know, marginal gains, you know, all these things, which which you can legally do, and yet you somehow trip over a line, if you take this other thing. And the other thing is, is meant to be this evil thing. And that's clearly you know, the wrong thing to do. But vitamin supplements and you know, creatine, all of these things are performance enhancing, why did they not get the stigma that EPO get? So it's a spectrum and addicted, it's very difficult to say this as a black and white thing, when there are many things that can make you better on a bike, including EPO, but then you know, just your energy gel makes you better on a bike, should we be adding energy gels, it's there's very little nuance gets into it talking about doping, it's just black and it's white. Yeah, Unknown Speaker 57:57 when really if you're saying is that it's basically shades shades of grey, you know that the modern game does you're in the peloton is ketones, which are not banned, but they seem to be ethically questionable. And my rudimentary understanding of the science around it is also that no one knows how, how it can affect the career in a few years time or five years time that we might be seeing some writers already suffering from not using them in the right way or overusing them. Well, Carlton Reid 58:35 my wife is a is a diabetes doctor. So she knows about ketones, and she knows about insulin, as well. And insulin was, was clearly one of the things that Frank used to basically say he was going to kill himself and he's going to use insulin to do so. So potentially that was, it's very hard to trace insulin as if you're going to kill yourself with insulin. So potentially, that's, that's, yeah, you're gonna kill yourself insulin is a pretty good way of doing it. Andy McGrath 59:11 Yeah. And you know, why would you why would you take that to Senegal? Or how would you source it? You know, what? He wasn't a diabetic, you know, so. Yeah, I won't give away you know, the ending or, you know, what everyone said about the ending, but, you know, several people were pointing towards suicide, certainly in the book, but yeah, like, I just going back to the grey area of crime doping. I just hope it's a bit more nuanced. Now. The way that people regard dope is like I even think that you know, 10 years ago. It it's really hard. It's very hard, isn't it? Because they have cheated. They have done something wrong, and they've done it knowingly, you know, in probably 99% of cases. Despite the numerous They can excuse. Carlton Reid 1:00:02 Yes, there have been quite a few good ones. False twin Unknown Speaker 1:00:10 Yeah, false twin, pigeon pie, weeks from a Colombian grandmother. It's got Carlton Reid 1:00:17 I bought it for my dog. Okay. Unknown Speaker 1:00:20 Yeah, well, that was bingo. So on the one hand, they are not above appropriate, you know, the rider. They are number one, you know, anything that turns up in their body knowingly or unknowingly, if they're positive, that's that's on them, you know, that's how it is. And I totally get that. But on the other hand, it still seems to me that the culture around doping IE, you know, the people that help them or, or facilitate, you know, people like team doctors, team managers, people in the know, people who are still in the sport, you know, nowadays seem to get away with it, pretty much, often quite, quite scot free. And that's not okay. And I've had, you know, cyclists who were pros in the 80s through to, you know, the last decade, you know, saying a similar thing, but that's a thing that needs to be changed that needs to be snuffed out like the right is kind of like the symptom of a wider problem. And of course, if we knew the answer if the UCI or Wilder knew the answer, you know, anti doping foundations famously have much smaller smaller budgets and maybe even the biggest cycling team in the world they're always fighting kind of a chasing battle they're always you know, one step behind maybe against the latest wonder drug or the kind of latest cheats but I think I can save some some confidence Pro Cycling is is cleaner now than it was in Vandenbrouke's heyday. But I also fear that it'll never be totally clean partly because of human nature partly because of the money was going up and up and partly because of this bizarre kind of will to win this drive is addiction Carlton Reid 1:02:13 Yeah, can even amateur races you know, people have been caught doping that will to win Andy McGrath 1:02:22 Yeah, I mean, that's that's sad in my opinion, you know, if you're, if you're doping to win a category three cap for race. What's the point? You know, Carlton Reid 1:02:32 do you race have you written Have you raced Unknown Speaker 1:02:38 I did a few time trials when I was up at university in York. Beautiful place to ride around there Oh, and I did someone's teenager with the Addiscombe in Croydon that's where I'm from. no great shakes, Carlton. I've never meant to be the next Frank Vandenbroucke much better at writing than riding my bike has put it that way. But Carlton Reid 1:03:08 yeah, you're a rider. Not a racer. So that that that that Colnago that you bought is something that you would ride on a nice day with no mud around so what you're writing normally what's what's if you're not running the Colnago what you're writing Andy McGrath 1:03:33 it's a time XRS I'll steel a nice bike from now not a pub bike. Unknown Speaker 1:03:38 It's a decent bike it was just it just keeps going and it gets me around town if I want to ride in the autumn or winter on the road so I'll use Quickstep used to ride it back in the day me 20 years ago you know Palpatine and all that Carlton Reid 1:03:57 which did you pick that up in your in your magazine days then is that was you kind of like you somehow acquired it back then. Andy McGrath 1:04:07 Well, the thing about me is I'm I'm not I'm no techie I'm really good people that would have seen me trying to fix a puncture back in the cycling weekly office 15 years ago would have realised that immediately now I'm there because I like riding my bike. I just to be completely honest, like I don't know much about bike tech and isn't the most interesting thing about cycling for me, you know, I'm the people that ride the bikes, you know, the pros and all their you know, differences and their opinions and personalities. That's much more interesting to me than say this bike weighs eight kilos or this carbon one weigh 7.5 But that's that's just me, you know, each have their own. Yeah, I'd much rather you know ride a bike then. do the legwork for it, you know, which is but actually need to get better at you know mechanics and changing chains and that kind of thing and maybe on a warm summer's day, I'll just practice doing Carlton Reid 1:05:13 that. That's what bike shops are for. That's my opinion. Now I'm with you. I'm with you on the I'm not fussed about technical stuff I've never really been happy writing about the technical stuff doesn't excite me writing about technical stuff or weighing things and yeah, it's the people that is all the stories that are around it that that are from me, personally. A more interesting. Andy McGrath 1:05:40 Yeah, absolutely. Like, I find it hard to rhapsodise about tech, you know, whereas I can. Yeah, like I kind of wish I was more intrigued by it, but I'm just not, that's just my personality. And the funny thing is, as a former tech magazine, Ed editor, you really you do have to slightly balance the editorial side with not keeping advertisers happy, but keeping them onside. And there was a slight tech element with Rila. But we we did it in our own way with basically treating the bike or the other kit, like a like a model, you know, hanging on trees or oversea wall, or all kinds of crazy sheets. Carlton Reid 1:06:29 So if people want to and we're now wrapping up here, Andy, if people want to get your book and be maybe getting in touch with you or find out what you're doing, where do they find you on websites on on social media? Unknown Speaker 1:06:44 They can find me on X formerly known as Twitter before Elon Musk made it even worse. Yeah, at Andy McGrath, that's a n d, why. MC Gra? So, take off the th basically for my surname. Yeah, they want to buy the book, just any online bookseller, really from from Amazon to Waterstones to Blackwell's to whoever, whoever you like, it's on there. And I'll put Carlton Reid 1:07:19 your art stack substack link in in the show notes. So people can also you know, if they're not interested in cycling, they could they could follow you for your, you know, your your opinions on Anthony Conway says Andy McGrath 1:07:31 the next step comes from me being an expert, what's your, what do you think? Carlton Reid 1:07:39 Well, I guess if you're not into the techie side, you know, and you're just looking at maybe just the people behind these things, rather than the art itself? I don't know. Is that do they? Are you looking at the art itself? What's going to interest you? Andy McGrath 1:07:51 I am mainly looking at the art itself being and that ties into their lives and the era they were in. It's a bit of everything really, you know, if it's modern art that I'm likely to question, you know, how did this make me feel? You know, what do I feel? What does this elicit in me kind of understand how much work is took or, you know, the literal art artistry behind it? That's one element. But, you know, I just went to see Frank Howell back. He's at the Courtauld in London. He's basically the last surviving artist from that Lucien Freud. Francis Bacon set in the 1950s. And I thought it was fantastic and but it's only black and white because he didn't have the money for pain in 1950s, which I've become a pain which is also an insight into a different world, you know, that I'm very fortunate to not be in you know, post World War reconstruction. But anyway, we we digress. Any followers are welcome. Carlton Reid 1:09:02 Yes, no, I'll put that link in. For sure. And to your other things. So Andy, thank you so much for for talking to us on me, us. Andy McGrath 1:09:11 Thank you. Absolute pleasure. Carlton Reid 1:09:15 And that's it for today's show. Thanks for listening to Episode 351 of the spokesmen podcast brought to you in association with Tern bicycles, show notes and more can be found at the-spokesmen.com As I mentioned earlier, the next episode, dropping real soon, will be a chat with cycling writer, Laura Laker. But meanwhile, get out there and ride ...

Originally Published November 03, 2022 Today Dr. Allen Lycka is joined by Dr. David Bernstein, a highly respected physician specializing in internal medicine and geriatric medicine. Dr. Bernstein is fascinated with longevity and talks about his research on factors contributing to a healthy and fulfilling life, highlighting the "Power of Five" formula: Grace (goals, roots, attitude, companionship, environment). If you want to live a long and fantastic life tune into this show!  Dr. Bernstein emphasizes the importance of lifestyle choices like avoiding sweets, managing stress, getting sufficient sleep, exercising regularly, and fostering social connections. He also touches on the detrimental effects of chronic inflammation and the significance of addressing sleep apnea.    About Dr. David Bernstein: David Bernstein, M.D. is a highly respected physician who is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Geriatrics. His 40 years of experience have provided him with opportunities to observe, empathize and guide thousands of adults and generations of families as they mature. His compassion and ability to see…   Social Media: Website: https://www.powerof5life.com/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Powerof5Life  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/powerof5life/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powerof5testkitchen/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdavidbernstein/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/Powerof5Life  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_WtRBJNw7LkM1040M0CqIw  LinkedIn 2: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbernstein2200/    Thanks for listening to the show! It means so much to us that you listened to our podcast! If you would like to continue the conversation, please email me at allen@drallenlycka.com or visit our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/drallenlycka. We would love to have you join us there, and welcome your messages. We check our Messenger often.   This show is built on “The Secrets to Living A Fantastic Life.” Get your copy by visiting: https://secretsbook.now.site/home   We are building a community of like-minded people in the personal development/self-help/professional development industries, and are always looking for wonderful guests for our show. If you have any recommendations, please email us!   Dr. Allen Lycka's Social Media Links Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/drallenlycka Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr_allen_lycka/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/drallenlycka LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenlycka YouTube: https://www.YouTube.com/c/drallenlycka   Subscribe to the show We would be honored to have you subscribe to the show - you can subscribe on the podcast app on your mobile device.

David Bernstein, law professor at George Mason University where he is executive director of the Liberty & Law Center there at the Antonin Scalia Law School, joins Mark Reardon to discuss his new piece in Reason Magazine headlined, "Is Opposition to Critical Race Theory Correlated with Ignorance of Critical Race Theory? A New Study says Yes -- but it has some serious problems."

Hour 3: David Bernstein, a law professor at George Mason University where he is executive director of the Liberty & Law Center there at the Antonin Scalia Law School, joins Mark Reardon to discuss his new piece in Reason Magazine headlined, "Is Opposition to Critical Race Theory Correlated with Ignorance of Critical Race Theory? A New Study says Yes -- but it has some serious problems." Then, Chris Clem, retired Chief Border Patrol Agent, joins Mark Reardon to share on migrant crime, the southern border crisis, and how it is affecting everyone in the country. Later, Mark brings you the Audio Cut of the Day.

Last week, Howard caught up with David Bernstein ahead of his book launch, a story of saving City from oblivion. Joe, Kevin, Maine Road and the journey of change. *This is the first 15 minutes of the show. For the full episode, and all our other content on the 93:20 player, you can join below - for less than the price of a pint of beer each month.* ninetythreetwenty.com/9320-player/about-9320-player/

Ahsan, Stefan and Lloyd look back at the week, chat injuries, form, and title rivals before previewing the derby. Plus a preview snippet of Howard chatting to David Bernstein. Times 1:00 - Stefan v Nick Harris 5:45 - Luton and Bournemouth 17:10 - Nunes and Grealish 27:15 - Newcastle and title rivals 48:50 - David Bernstein chats to Howard 55:10 - Derby preview

Tyrone Marshall sat down with Former Manchester City chairman David Bernstein to talk about his time at the club, his new book and how he helped pave the way for the club's unprecedented success. Competition: If you would like to enter our competition in collaboration with Manchester City, please subscribe to the podcast, leave a review and screenshot it. Send the screenshot along with your name, age, location and contact details to TalkingCityPod@Gmail.com. We will announce the winner in due course. Contact information will be used purely to contact the winner and once the competition closes, all information will be deleted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State and the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy recently hosted a series of webinars ahead of a forthcoming symposium on Equity and the Administrative State. This episode of Gray Matters is a panel discussion about the use of racial classifications to make public policy and how race has affected the character of American institutions featuring David Bernstein, Jonathan Berry, and Joy Milligan, moderated by Renée Landers. Notes:Watch a video of the discussion

It's been a tricky week... David Mooney is joined by City fan Macca and, from the Daily Mail, Jack Gaughan to work out why is been a tricky week. They look at the shape of the team and the issues City have had controlling games this season, plus there's a focus on Erling Haaland, after his goals have been crucial in the last few matches (and his chances crucial against Chelsea). Jon Mackenzie from Tifo explains why City haven't been as solid out of possession this season, while our EDS expert Sean Blinkhorn discusses the changes that have been going on at youth level this season. We also look ahead to the games with Bournemouth and Luton, while former City chairman David Bernstein gives his thoughts on Financial Fair Play Regulations and the Premier League charges. ========== To get more podcasts or to listen without the ads, join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BlueMoonPodcast

Kevin and Kieran speak to David Bernstein, the former chairman of both Manchester City and the FA, about his new book, 'We Were Really There: The Rebirth of Manchester City'. Follow Kevin on X - @kevinhunterday Follow Kieran on X - @KieranMaguire Follow Producer Guy on X - @guykilty Follow The Price of Football on X - @pof_pod Support The Price of Football on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/priceoffootball Check out the Price of Football merchandise store: https://the-price-of-football.backstreetmerch.com/ Visit the website: https://priceoffootball.com/ The Price of Football is a Dap Dip production: https://dapdip.co.uk/ contact@dapdip.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet David Bernstein, the founder and CEO of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (JILV). JILV helps Jewish organizations and individuals hold constructive conversations about critical social justice. David is the past President and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and former executive director of the David Project. David is also the author of the book “Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews.”As many listeners know, since 2014 I have been concerned about progressive thought and the negative impact it is having on our sense making institutions. Pointing out flaws of this school of thought pre 10/7 was difficult. Criticism of social justice theory, diversity equity and inclusion and indigenous land recognition was oftentimes met with accusations of racism and hate. However, since 10/7 it has become easier. The reaction progressives had to the horrors Hamas unleashed on the Jewish people have awoken American liberals. As a result, many liberals are starting to understand the negative implications of progressive ideology.As you will soon hear, David is a liberal who has been thinking about this ideology for way longer than I have...and he has the scars to prove it. I respect David for the decades he has spent attempting to educate the liberal world of the harms progressive ideology presents. When I look at David's career, I think of the quote from John Ruskin: “The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one.”In this episode we cover...The difference between liberals and progressivesThe reasons why liberals went along with progressive thought for so longWhy the current social justice movement isn't an extension of Martin Luther King's civil rights movementWhat is the best path forward with regards to DEIWhy the Jewish people returning to their ancestral homeland doesn't meet the criteria of progressives who promote indigenous groups reclaiming their land.David's views on Israel's war against Hamas and the concept just war theoryThe difference between antisemitism on the left and right and which form David believes is the greatest threatAnd finally, how best to speak to liberals about why progressive thought is a threat to the American Jewish community

3 Takeaways brings you conversations with people who are changing the world.  The world's foremost thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, scientists and other newsmakers share three key insights to help you understand the world in new ways that can benefit your life and career. In this special year-end episode, we present the most powerful and compelling takeaways of 2023. Can you guess which takeaway is from each guest before I tell you who it is? The guests include former Director of the CIA, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CEO of Chevron, former Foreign Minister of Israel and other amazing guests.Top Takeaways of 2023 include: Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar on Previously Unknown Reasons For The Stunning Success of Operation Warp Speed (#174)Former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami on the Hamas Israel War (#171)Yale Professor Zoe Chance Reveals Smart, Simple Ways To Influence People To Get What You Want (#156)Chevron CEO Mike Wirth On The Race To Meet The World's Energy Needs With Lower Carbon Solutions (#170)Innocence Project Head Christina Swarns on The Horrors Of Our Criminal Justice System And How To Improve It (#176)Former Ford and Boeing CEO Alan Mulally On Love By Design, The Secret Behind Two Remarkable Turnarounds (#152)A Chilling, Mind-Blowing Talk about War In The Age of AI With Pentagon Defense Expert Paul Scharre (#151)Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked With NYU's Adam Alter (#150)Karl Rove Takes A Riveting No-Holds Barred Look At The Frightening State Of American Politics (#168)Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Bill Owens on Our Critical Need To See “The Other Side of The Story” (#157)Former CIA Director David Petraeus on The Russia Ukraine war (#128)The Complex and Bizarre World of Government-Imposed Racial Classification With Law Professor David Bernstein (#130)President and CEO Dan Weiss of NY's Metropolitan Museum On Its Critical Role In Modern Life (#148)The Good Life Unpacked: Discovering What Makes Us Thrive with the Head of Harvard's 80-Year Study Robert Waldinger (#127)

What do Critical Race Theory and antisemitism have in common? A lot, actually, from the roots of each movement, to the ideology, to the way they are weaponized by the left today. The overarching philosophy linking these movements together is a Manichean ordering of peoples into groups of oppressed or oppressor – usually, but not always, based on the color of one's skin. Indeed, it is no mistake that in the aftermath of WWII, Jews sought to categorize themselves as white, a move that has now fed the bizarre oppressor/colonizer trope so popular on the left. First Jews weren't white enough for the white supremacists, but now are too white for the CRT crowd. Not to mention the shifting ideological assaults on Jewish groups, once accused of being communists now accused of being capitalists. Yes, donors are pulling out of universities that harbor pro-terrorist groups; yes, the support of Hamas the past few weeks has been a PR disaster for wokeism. But it will take a lot more than that to root out the antisemitic and real race-based discrimination that has gripped America.David E. Bernstein holds a University Professorship chair at the Antonin Scalia Law School, where he has been teaching since 1995. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Georgetown University, William & Mary, Brooklyn Law School, the University of Turin, and Hebrew University. Professor Bernstein teaches Constitutional Law, Evidence, and Products Liability. His most recent book is Classified, The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America.Download the transcript here.

Joe Selvaggi discusses the implications of the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case for race and ethnicity-based programs with David Bernstein, a Distinguished Law Professor at George Mason University and an Adjunct Fellow at the CATO Institute. Guest: David E. Bernstein holds a University Professorship chair at the Antonin Scalia Law School, where he […]