Podcasts about United Kingdom

THIS WEEK'S SHOW: We'll talk the mass cancelation of Russell Brand, and the new mass surveillance law in the United Kingdom. Here in the States, we'll talk about the weird condemnation of Lauren Boebert in the House, while the Senate simultaneously praises John Fetterman for being a slob. We'll also discuss Bumblin' Joe Biden's recent antics, Jase will go off on the economy (because he's poor), the left wants to tear down statues of Washington while erecting literal BUTTHOLE statues, Howard Stern sucks a woke dick, and we'll discuss Disney's lowest budget MCU film, AI replacing Hollywood already, Microsoft wants to buy Nintendo? But not before they RUIN the legacy of both Oblivion and Fallout 3! All this, and more shaming of Britney Spears too!FOLLOW OUR STREAMS & SOCIALS: https://allmylinks.com/cancelthispodcast BUY CTP MERCH: https://cancelthis.siteJOIN OUR GUILDED SERVER: https://guilded.gg/cancelthispodcastDONATE TO FUND OUR STREAMS: https://ko-fi.com/cancelthispodcast !

#Nagorno-Karabakh: Azerbaijan drives out the Armenian Army soldiers and secures its territory.  Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijan Ambassador to the United Kingdom https://news.yahoo.com/talks-opened-future-nagorno-karabakh-084454039.html 1941 Malta

After its devastating earthquake on September 8, Morocco accepted aid from four nations: the United Kingdom, Spain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Teams from each country were quick to arrive and set up rescue operations at the base of the Atlas Mountains, where remote villages were badly affected by the quake. However, their job has been anything but easy. FRANCE 24's Luke Shrago, Tarek Kai and Abdallah Malkawi went on the road with them as they searched for victims and met grieving survivors.

That seems to be the current approach by the Federal Reserve as it aims for a 2% inflation target. The central bank opted to leave interest rates unchanged yesterday, but what about the path forward? We dive in. Plus, TikTok drives “frenzies” of antisocial behavior, a BBC analysis shows. And later: a view of tipping from the United Kingdom.

That seems to be the current approach by the Federal Reserve as it aims for a 2% inflation target. The central bank opted to leave interest rates unchanged yesterday, but what about the path forward? We dive in. Plus, TikTok drives “frenzies” of antisocial behavior, a BBC analysis shows. And later: a view of tipping from the United Kingdom.

Fall is travel time for the royals, so this episode has us traversing the globe: A ~booked and busy~ visit from Prince William to NYC (and our *almost* royal run-in with the future King), to King Charles III and Queen Camilla in France for their delayed state visit, plus a wrap-up of the Invictus Games in Germany. Also: Eugenie and Beatrice hit the red carpet, Camilla's Marilyn Monroe moment, the one-year anniversary of the Queen's funeral and more. This week, we're joined by BBC royal correspondent Daniela Relph who's with the King and Queen in France to give us the inside scoop on the royal tour. Grab some earthy Bordeaux and tune in!--Presented by PureWow and Gallery Media Group. Follow all the royal news at purewow.com/royals. Shop Royally Obsessed sweatshirts and totes at shop.royallyobsessed.com. Follow us on Instagram at @RoyallyObsessedPodcastSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pinkie & Mildred talk about the City of London !VoiceRenee@charter.net

The United Kingdom has had five prime ministers since it voted to leave the European Union in 2016. Rory Stewart once came close to being one of them. But he decided to quit party politics in 2019.He now enjoys a degree of popularity in the U.K. His high profile has raised talk that 10 Downing Street could still be a future address for this nomadic rising star.Stewart has walked across Asia, taught at Harvard, served as a diplomat in Iraq, and served as a Conservative MP. He is also a Global Ambassador for the charity Give Directly and a co-host of the podcast "The Rest is Politics."His background and trajectory put him on a path to reach high office. But then came Brexit, Boris Johnson, and a level of carelessness that he writes about in his new memoir, called "How Not to Be A Politician."We sit down with Stewart and discuss his memoir and podcast. Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio station and subscribe to this podcast. Have questions? Find out how to connect with us by visiting our website.

This week, Simone Rodan Benzaquen, Managing Director of AJC Europe, joins us to discuss AJC's leading role in the Jewish community's diplomatic efforts at the United Nations General Assembly. Simone highlights key areas of advocacy, including countering the Iranian threat, addressing antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, advancing the Abraham Accords, and supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression. We also explore the impact of addresses from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, who have used the UN platform to spread antisemitic and anti-Israel narratives. Simone sheds light on the challenges and progress in shaping international policies on these critical issues. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.  Episode Lineup:  (0:40) Simone Rodan Benzaquen Show Notes: Test your knowledge: About the UN, Israel, fighting antisemitism, and AJC's role Read: AJC Advocacy at UN General Assembly 2023 Top 5 Things AJC is Tracking at the United Nations General Assembly Five Things to Know About President Raisi and Human Rights in Iran and Beyond Key Takeaways From President Biden's Address to the UN General Assembly Mahsa Amini Protests One Year Later: What is the Current Human Rights Situation in Iran? Listen: Deborah Lipstadt on the Abraham Accords' Impact and the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us. __ Transcript of Interview with Simone Rodan Benzaquen: Manya Brachear Pashman:    All this week, leaders from 193 nations have gathered in New York, addressing the United Nations General Assembly. But there's a lot of action on the sidelines as well. That's where policy experts from the American Jewish Committee do their diplomatic outreach, urging leaders to expand and strengthen ties with Israel, and counter rising antisemitism and extremism. With us to discuss what's been happening on those sidelines is Simone Rodan Benzaquen, Managing Director of AJC Europe. Simone, welcome to People of the Pod. Simone Rodan Benzaquen:   Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. Manya Brachear Pashman:    So I'll start with Iran. How are we pushing leaders to address the threat from Iran this week? Simone Rodan Benzaquen:   So Iran, as you rightly point out, is a really priority issue for us in all of the meetings we've had in particular with on my end with the European leaders, and it's, and our objective is really to make sure that we are countering Iran on all fronts. Of course, there's the nuclear file.  And so our objective is to push leaders to be aware and really understand that, if that was to happen, we are entering an entirely new world. If we think that the war that Russia has been waging on Ukraine was a game changer for the stability of the world, we have not seen anything yet. So our objective is to really push European and international leaders to really address the issue.  The second issue is, of course, human rights. We are now a year after the murder of Mahsa Amini, and really the horrible repression that the Iranian regime has committed against its own people. And there has been a time when European international leaders were very, very clear in their support for the Iranian people, and in condemning the Iranian regime and the Islamic Republic.  But these past months, we've heard a little bit less of that. So our objective is really, has really been to reengage them on that commitment.  And then third of all, and this is really a very specific issue, particularly in Europe, is the Iran Revolutionary Guard. And so the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Council, the IRGC, is not listed as a terrorist organization in the EU. And that is obviously not normal. First of all, because they have been committing horrible crimes in their own country, because they have been committing terrorist acts across the world. Because they are obviously a key sponsor of terrorism across the world, because of their role also in Ukraine. They have armed Russia with Iranian drones, they have trained people on the ground. And lastly, and this is for us, very important as the Jewish advocacy organization, they have been threatening Jewish communities across Europe. There are a number of cases that are now very clear, which include in Germany, in the United Kingdom, but also in Greece and in Cyprus, where it's very clear that Iran is threatening Jewish communities and Israelis on European soil.  Now, Europe for the past years, has made it very clear that it's a key priority for itself to combat antisemitism on the ground and in Europe. And that's a very important commitment. Now, if they're very, very serious about that commitment, they also have to act against the IRGC, which is today a key threat to Jewish communities on the ground.  So we have been pushing European leaders to take steps to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization. As always, this will take time; it's not going to happen just during the UN General Assembly. But we've made some progress. We have had some very good conversations with a number of European countries and I hope down the line that we will be able to get there. Manya Brachear Pashman:    So now what about Hezbollah? Because I know for many years we have pushed leaders at the UN General Assembly to designate Hezbollah, a terrorist organization in its entirety. This campaign has been going on for many years. Is that campaign changing in any way this year? Simone Rodan Benzaquen:   No, it's not changing, it continues to be a key priority for us. By the way, the issue is linked, of course, I mean, what is Hezbollah, if not a proxy of Iran, an Iranian state within Lebanon, that is threatening, of course, Israel, but also has been committing terrorist acts across the world.  So no, it has not changed. We are just trying to link the dots and explain to everybody that everything is linked. We're not there yet. There are a number of countries, as you know Manya, who have taken individual steps in Europe to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, because it is blocked on the EU-wide level.  But you know what, we just celebrated Rosh Hashana. You know, at the end of the day, there is always hope,  particularly for the Jewish people. So we will not be giving up on it and eventually we'll get there. Manya Brachear Pashman:    You mentioned the IRGC's role in Ukraine with providing weapons and we heard from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky this week, warning that Russia was weaponizing essentials like food and energy, not only against Ukraine, but against every country. And I know the UN Human Rights Council created, with AJC's urging, an independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, which has already determined that Russia is responsible for war crimes. So how are we advancing that conversation on the sidelines this week? Simone Rodan Benzaquen:   Listen, on the European side, I would say the conversation is very easy, because Europeans understand that if Russia is allowed to strategically win this war. That means that, though, that they, their countries, that the European Union, as such, will be threatened by Russia. Russia will not stop with Ukraine. President I hesitate always to call him president, but Putin has made it very clear that for him, the biggest catastrophe of the 20th century, is the fact that the Euro that the Soviet Union fell apart. And so he wants to go back to that scenario.  So Europeans are aware of it, their commitment to Ukraine, is very much there, actually, surprisingly, because many people, when the war started, were very much afraid that that, at the end, you know, there will not be European unity, that there will not be unity in the international community and in the West, in their support for Ukraine, and finally, you know, a year and a half later, we're still there, the United States is committed in supporting Ukraine, the European Union is committed in supporting Ukraine.  But more needs to be done. We need to be able to provide more help to Ukraine. And again, as you said, especially as Russia is weaponizing every single possible way, whether it's energy, whether it's food, to exert pressure, to make sure that at the end, we are faltering. Manya Brachear Pashman:    So I want to switch the focus a little bit from international diplomacy and war to the IHRA working definition. This has been an ongoing conversation with the UN. AJC has been urging the UN and its member countries to use it to develop plans to counter anti semitism. How is that coming up on the sidelines this week?  Simone Rodan Benzaquen:   So we've had some very constructive conversations, first of all, a majority of countries now have adopted the working definition of antisemitism. And they've recognized how much an important tool it is to not only to recognize, to define, but also to apply and to combat antisemitism. So it's a very constructive conversation. But we have also had conversations with countries who have not yet adopted the working definition, who would say, we don't have a problem of antisemitism, we don't really have to do it. And after explaining to them how important it is, and what an important tool it has been for countries, and what an important signal also it would send to the world, if they were to adopt the working definition of antisemitism. I can tell you now, in advance that in a few days, a couple of countries will be announcing that they will be adopting the working definition of antisemitism because of the conversation that we have had with them. Manya Brachear Pashman:    The conversation you've been having this week with them, or ongoing over a matter of time? Simone Rodan Benzaquen:   Over a matter of time, but that was concluded, specifically here at the UN General Assembly this year. Manya Brachear Pashman:    And what about anti-Israel bias? Has that come up? Because I know that has been a blockage for a lot of countries who won't adopt the IHRA working definition, they want to leave the door open for criticism of Israel, but there has been some pretty blatant anti-Israel bias at the UN. And that has really been a priority for AJC to address. How have you been trying to eliminate that kind of chronic one-sidedness that targets Israel?  Simone Rodan Benzaquen:   This is, I have to say, Manya, a complicated conversation that we've been having, obviously, for years. As you rightly point out, Israel is treated in a way that no other country is. There is a permanent agenda item at the UN Human Rights Council. There is a disproportionate number of resolutions against Israel compared to any other country in the world. Many countries we are speaking with acknowledge that fact. But often their excuse is that they are working in a multilateral environment and that is therefore complicated, because you always have to come to some sort of compromise. But I have to say that nevertheless, I think we are making progress.  If you and I had had that conversation 10 years ago, most European, most countries would not have even acknowledged that that was a fundamental problem. That situation today has changed. Many countries do recognize that there is something profoundly discriminatory in that disproportionate targeting of Israel. They just are very slow in finding solutions to that approach. Manya Brachear Pashman:    We also heard from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas this week. What do you fear he is communicating? What do you fear that members of the United Nations are hearing from him and taking as truth? Simone Rodan Benzaquen:   For years, I think Muhammad Abbas has been really in an endeavor to distort history by denying the link between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. He has engaged on a number of occasions in historical revisionism. He has been engaged in a number of occasions in Holocaust denial and antisemitism, in stereotypes and conspiracy theories. And I think the world needs to wake up to that reality. I mean, if any other world leader had had that kind of discourse, take away the face of Muhammad Abba, take away the voice of Muhammad Abbas and just neutrally look at what he's been saying over the years, we would not accept that. The world, the Western world, the European Union, the United States, we would not accept that, and rightfully so.  So why is it that we should continue to accept these kinds of words? European leaders were right, the United States was right, to criticize Mahmoud Abbas, as they have, after his recent antisemitic remarks. But that needs to now apply all the time, we sort of have a bigotry of low expectations on Mahmoud Abbas. I mean, why is it that we consider him somehow not capable of living up to the same standards as everybody else? So I hope that the world will, at some point, wake up, and just expect of the Palestinian Authority and of Muhammad Abbas himself, to accept to have certain rules. He cannot continue to have these kinds of statements. He cannot continue to do the pay for slay, meaning to pay the families of convicted terrorists. He cannot continue to incite hatred in Palestinian schoolbooks. We have to set the same standards for everybody, including for Muhammad Abbas, including for the Palestinian Authority. Manya Brachear Pashman:    And do you think the member states realize that or comprehend that and are kind of seeing through his narrative? Simone Rodan Benzaquen:   There seems to be the beginning of a process. I don't know if we're there yet. But there seems to be a beginning of the process. I mean, when you have the mayor of Paris, for example, who took away the honorary medal of the city of Paris to Muhammad Abbas, when you have statements that you have never had before, by leaders of the Western world, criticizing Muhammad Abbas. I think we're maybe at the beginning of something new. I just really hope that we're not walking backwards from that, because we just simply cannot go back to that just behaving as if, you know, this wasn't happening.  Some of it has to do with the fact, with this delusional idea that, you know, if the Palestinian Authority was to fall apart, if Muhammad Abbas was to fall apart and not be president anymore, there would be worse. But still, I mean, this cannot be an argument in not having the same expectations of a leader than of any other leader in the world. Manya Brachear Pashman:    So speaking of narratives, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi spoke to the general assembly as well, this week. His narrative was that Iran is the model of human rights and justice. Did that surprise you? What surprised you about his sermon, if you will, to the UN? Simone Rodan Benzaquen:   No, there is nothing that surprised me, the Butcher of Iran, who is president, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has been lying to everybody's faces, of course, for many years.  Iran is committing human rights abuses, Iran is imprisoning young people. Every single human rights organization has spoken about it. Every single western country knows it and has said it. They are committing rapes of young women in their prisons. They're abducting the families, including by the way the family of Masah Amini just a few days ago, every single day, and the fact that he is lying once again to the world is despicable.  What is equally despicable is that the Council of Foreign Relations has intended to host Ebrahim Raisi. There is no way even with people who are asking difficult questions or having difficult conversations with him. That it does anything else then legitimize him and legitimize this terrible, murderous regime. So the only thing that should be done is, really be as tough as possible with this regime, and clearly impose sanctions, condemn, walk out of the room, ignore, but certainly not welcome him with open arms. Manya Brachear Pashman:    And do you think the world is buying his narrative?  Simone Rodan Benzaquen:   Well, it depends what you mean by the world. But I don't think the western world is buying his narrative at all. I think everybody knows, you know, the reality of things. They know everything that is wrong with the regime. There might be differences in how they think they should be approaching that and they might, by the way, also be differences in perception between some Western countries and ourselves on how we think things should be approached. But nobody is naive about what is actually going on in the country. And the way this person, the Butcher of Iran, is treating his own people. Manya Brachear Pashman:    Simone, thank you so much for joining us, and giving us a glimpse of what's been happening there. Simone Rodan Benzaquen:   Thank you. 

with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen

Liz Wheeler joins the show to discuss the United Kingdom coming after Russell Brand's social media platforms, attempting to ban him from publishing his work. Rumble came to Brand's defense, slamming British lawmakers for their attempt to cancel the famous actor over allegations he sexually assaulted women over a decade ago. Rumble criticized the lawmakers' “deeply inappropriate and dangerous” letter. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joins the show to discuss his recent acquittal and how he plans to protect the state and fight the Biden administration amidst political turmoil. There is a crisis at the southern border. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said there is an invasion, and he plans to stop it. Liz Wheeler promotes her new book, "Hide Your Children: Exposing the Marxists Behind the Attack on America's Kids," in which Wheeler illuminates the Marxists behind the capture of our institutions and unveils the direct threat they pose to the future of America.  Today's Sponsors: Stop supporting companies that don't align with your values. Patriot Mobile's 100% U.S.-based customer service team makes switching easy! Just go to http://PATRIOTMOBILE.COM/NEWS or 1-878-PATRIOT! Get FREE ACTIVATION today with the offer code NEWS First, you'll receive a FREE bottle of Blood Sugar Formula to reduce sugar cravings. You'll also get four FREE eBooks to support every aspect of your health. Try Liver Health Formula by going to Http://www.GetLiverHelp.com/News and claim your five FREE bonus gifts. There is huge demand for lake property in Texas. With breathtaking lake views, this is perfect for second home, retirement or full time lake living. Plus no HOA. That's right – NO HOA. Buy directly from the developer and save thousands on September 23rd. These properties are wholesale-priced to sell in one day. Call 765-LAKE-NOW. Or go online at http://www.txlakefront.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Alex discusses how the killing of a Sikh leader in Canada has led to a freeze in diplomatic and economic relations between India and Canada. Credible intelligence released by the Canadian Government links the killing to forces associated with the Indian Government. Now, the United States and the United Kingdom must walk a tight rope in foreign policy as Canada wants to hold India accountable for its democratic crackdowns at home and abroad. 

China's President Xi Jinping is absent from this year's United Nations General Assembly, but he's certainly being talked about. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who also skipped the meeting, is moving the United Kingdom away from its previously hostile stance toward China, arguing that boycotting Beijing is not an option amidst the many global challenges requiring cooperation. He has angered many in his right-wing governing party, particularly longstanding China hawks like former leader Iain Duncan Smith. One Decision's Julia Macfarlane sits down with the UK's UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward, who served as their first female Ambassador to Beijing to discuss UK relations with China and Sir Richard Dearlove joins Julia to discuss his takeaways and Russia's role in the UN Security Council. 

Value: After Hours is a podcast about value investing, Fintwit, and all things finance and investment by investors Tobias Carlisle, and Jake Taylor. See our latest episodes at https://acquirersmultiple.com/podcast We are live every Tuesday at 1.30pm E / 10.30am P. About Jake: Jake is a partner at Farnam Street. Jake's website: http://farnam-street.com/vah Jake's podcast: https://twitter.com/5_GQs Jake's Twitter: https://twitter.com/farnamjake1 Jake's book: The Rebel Allocator https://amzn.to/2sgip3l ABOUT THE PODCAST Hi, I'm Tobias Carlisle. I launched The Acquirers Podcast to discuss the process of finding undervalued stocks, deep value investing, hedge funds, activism, buyouts, and special situations. We uncover the tactics and strategies for finding good investments, managing risk, dealing with bad luck, and maximizing success. SEE LATEST EPISODES https://acquirersmultiple.com/podcast/ SEE OUR FREE DEEP VALUE STOCK SCREENER https://acquirersmultiple.com/screener/ FOLLOW TOBIAS Website: https://acquirersmultiple.com/ Firm: https://acquirersfunds.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Greenbackd LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobycarlisle Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tobiascarlisle Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tobias_carlisle ABOUT TOBIAS CARLISLE Tobias Carlisle is the founder of The Acquirer's Multiple®, and Acquirers Funds®. He is best known as the author of the #1 new release in Amazon's Business and Finance The Acquirer's Multiple: How the Billionaire Contrarians of Deep Value Beat the Market, the Amazon best-sellers Deep Value: Why Activists Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations (2014) (https://amzn.to/2VwvAGF), Quantitative Value: A Practitioner's Guide to Automating Intelligent Investment and Eliminating Behavioral Errors (2012) (https://amzn.to/2SDDxrN), and Concentrated Investing: Strategies of the World's Greatest Concentrated Value Investors (2016) (https://amzn.to/2SEEjVn). He has extensive experience in investment management, business valuation, public company corporate governance, and corporate law. Prior to founding the forerunner to Acquirers Funds in 2010, Tobias was an analyst at an activist hedge fund, general counsel of a company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, and a corporate advisory lawyer. As a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions he has advised on transactions across a variety of industries in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Australia, Singapore, Bermuda, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Guam. He is a graduate of the University of Queensland in Australia with degrees in Law (2001) and Business (Management) (1999).

Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev says he has restored full sovereignty over Nagorno Karabakh, after ethnic Armenian separatists in the enclave said they'd give up their weapons and agree to peace talks. We speak to Azerbaijan's Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Armenia's Deputy Foreign Minister. Also in the programme: women and girls in Iran face up to ten years in jail if they break new laws on covering their hair; and we hear from the mother who named their kid "Methamphetamine Rules". (Picture: Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev addressed his country this evening following a ceasefire in Nagorno Karabakh. Credit: Roman Ismayilov/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

*Anthony Albanese launches inquiry into pandemic response. *A Hollywood superstar in trouble in the United Kingdom. *GWS Giants coach previews finals clash.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melly is a podcasting star from Brighton, England, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland. He is England's most powerful and famous export since the "Fab Four", and quite frankly she is much better than they ever were and they were the greatest to ever do it - until now. She hosts the nowthen podcast which you should subscribe to on Patreon. Melly and I talk about Twitter relationships, Withnail & I, Rules of the Game, Manchester Andale, the IRA & every single topic that our shared language - the Queen's English - enables us to discuss. Many thanks to Melly! nowthen, Melly's podcast: https://www.patreon.com/nowthen Melly on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mellybysea Melly on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mmcmmxx/

From the BBC World Service: Japan’s fishing exports plummet 70% after China banned imports over the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima power plant, the BBC’s Mariko Oi reports. The United Kingdom is considering delaying a ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars, watering down its green ambitions. Finally, Venice is set to introduce a daily tourist levy in an attempt to reduce the number of day-trippers to the city, the BBC’s Giovanna Girardi reports.

Tonight, we'll read from “Stonehenge: Today and Yesterday” written by Frank Stevens and published in 1916. Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire , England. One of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon. The whole monument, now in ruins, is orientated towards the sunrise on the summer solstice. This episode first aired in September 2021. — read by N — Support us: Listen ad-free on Patreon Get Snoozecast merch like cozy sweatshirts and accessories

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.Download the Rubber Cheese 2022 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the first digital benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends on 20th December 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.Show references: https://vacevents.com/THURSDAY 5TH OCTOBER – QEII CONFERENCE CENTRE, WESTMINSTERhttps://vacevents.com/committee/ Bernard Donoghue OBECEO & Director, ALVA, the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, Mayor of London's Culture Ambassador. Co-Chair, London Tourism Recovery Board.https://www.alva.org.uk/https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernard-donoghue-obe-0aa9b97/ Bernard has been the Director of ALVA, the UK's Association for Leading Visitor Attractions, since 2011 following a career in advocacy, communications, and lobbying, latterly at a senior level in the tourism and heritage sector. In  2017, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, appointed Bernard to be the Mayor's Ambassador for Cultural Tourism and a member of the Mayor's Cultural Leadership Board. Bernard is Co-Chair of the London Tourism Recovery Board. He is also Chairman of LIFT, London International Festival of Theatre; Chairman of the Bristol Old Vic, the oldest continually operating theatre in the English-speaking world, and also of the People's History Museum, the Museum of Democracy.  He has been a member of the UK Government's Tourism Industry Council since 2016.  Bernard was named by Blooloop in 2020 as one of the world's 50 most influential people in museums, and in July 2021 won the public vote for the COVID Special Recognition Award from the UK Museums and Heritage Awards for his service to, and leadership of the museums and heritage sector in the UK during the pandemic. Ken Robinson CBE FTS - Founder of VAChttps://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-robinson-cbe-fts-bb811312/Ken is an independent adviser who speaks and writes on tourism topics.  As a "tourism enthusiast" he aims to be a pragmatic pioneer of new initiatives, strategies and solutions to optimise the economic, cultural and social benefits of tourism.   Ken's Consultancy companies completed over 1500 assignments, mostly in the UK but also several hundred international projects, beginning over 50 years ago, before the days of mass tourism.  He was a founding member of the Tourism Society and supported the formation of the Tourism Alliance, both of which organisations he has served as a board member and Chair, as he has on several other Tourism bodies. Specialising initially in visitor attractions, Ken initiated and subsequently chaired the National Visitor Attractions Conference, VAC, and has been on its Committee ever since.  In addition to many clients in the public, private and third sectors, he has advised the UN's International Trade Centre, on national and regional Tourism strategy development.  His current focus is to move the industry's thinking from marketing to the critical need to manage future tourism for the benefit of host communities, and to optimise tourist's experiences.  Ken was appointed CBE for services to Tourism in 1997, and an Honorary Doctorate in 2014. Paul KellyChief Executive, BALPPA, Chair of VAC https://www.balppa.org/https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-kelly-2714a922/Having been with BALPPA for 11 years and working with VAC for that amount of time as well, Paul started his career in the attractions sector at Thorpe Park in the 80's and then moved on to the London Eye for its opening around the millennium.  He has  always been involved with visitor attractions.  Several more years working within Merlin followed both in the UK and abroad, mainly on business development.  Being a BALPPA member for 30 years means, being Chair of the organising committee at VAC keeps Paul in touch with all aspects of the attractions industry. Liz Terry MBEManaging Director, Leisure Media Grouphttps://www.linkedin.com/in/elizterry/ Janet Uttley Head of Business Transformation for VisitEnglandhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/janetuttley/  Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Season 5 kicks off today with not one, not two, but three excellent guests.On today's episode, I have the pleasure of speaking to Bernard Donoghue, Paul Kelly and Ken Robinson, founders of the Visitor Attractions Conference. You also know Bernard as, Director of ALVA and Paul as CEO of BALPPA.VAC celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and I'm finding out where the idea for the event spanned from, how it's changed and developed over the years. And we take a look ahead to what 2024 has in store for the attraction sector.Unfortunately, fellow Founder; Liz Terry, the Managing Director of Leisure Media Group, and also Janet Uttley, Head of Business Transformation for VisitEngland, were unable to join us on this episode. But stay tuned for lots of insight and to find out how you can get your ticket for the VAC conference this year.Kelly Molson: If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Bernard, Ken, Paul, it is a treat to have you all on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me. I think this is the first time I've had three guests as well, so this could be interesting. Bernard Donoghue: And three men as well. I mean, it's like a really bad testosterone banana rama, isn't it? Really. Kelly Molson: I'm just a little flower in the middle of you thorns today. Yes, it's a real shame. So, unfortunately, Janet Uttley and Liz Terry couldn't make it along to join us today, which is a shame. But I'm sure that they will get lots of mentions as we talk through some of the things that we're going to chat about today. But first, as ever, I want to start with a little icebreaker. I'm going to ask you all the same thing because I'm intrigued as to whether you ended up doing what you thought you might. So, Ken, I'm going to start with you first. When you were at school, what did you think that you'd grow up and be when you were older? Ken Robinson: I didn't know. Kelly Molson: Had no clue at all? Ken Robinson: No, I didn't have a clue. I was lucky to have a good education. I didn't work at school. And then I got into a job, which was I was very successful at it and it was very boring. So I left. And when I discovered tourism and visitor attractions, it took me over. I didn't decide to do it. It told me that was it. Kelly Molson: Oh, I love it. It's like a calling. Ken Robinson: At the time it was, I was actually sitting in a turret room which had been vacated by Lord Montague. His desk used to face in and I liked that because I didn't have to look at the faces of the visitors going past who might complain, because in those days, buli was very expensive. And then one day I thought to myself, these people are investing their hard earned money and leisure time in making a decision to come here and it's our job to make sure they have a good time. And I turned my desk round and I looked at them all day long and the moment I turned my desk round, everything changed. Kelly Molson: I love that, because you could see the whites of their eyes and how they were engaging with the venue as they turned up. Ken Robinson: Well, it's just such a failure, isn't it? If you've got somebody who makes a choice and spends their time and money, a family decision for many people, and it should be a highlight. And if it isn't, whose fault is it? It's probably the fault of the visitor attraction, given that the person has chosen to go there in not communicating well enough with them about what they've got and what they would find interesting. Kelly Molson: This is such a brilliant story and that wasn't where I was expecting this to go either, Ken. I love it. Paul, what about you, Paul?Paul Kelly: Yeah, I mean, when I was at school, I was interested in sports and that was it, really, and luckily, that dragged me through the various places I went to. But what I was going to end up doing sports. I think once you get into sports quite seriously, you realise fairly quickly that actually you're not going to make it, so you have to find something else. So, laterally, I decided that business was a good idea. So I started doing business studies up in North Wales and for some reason were doing a sandwich course in those days, I think it was called that. One of those, I got placed at Thorpe Park. I don't know why particularly, so there's a group of six of us went down to Thorpe Park to work there and I actually started working on the rides.Paul Kelly: I'm not sure what it had to do with business at the time, but I'm glad somebody thought it did. And I couldn't believe that was a job that you could do, you could be paid for, because I came from the north at that point and there wasn't an awful lot going on in the 80s and actually be paid. Everyone enjoyed themselves, fantastic atmosphere, parties every night. I'm sure it's still like that. And it was just amazing. And from that moment on, regardless of what happened after that, including other colleges, other bits and pieces, effectively, I never left. Kelly Molson: It's always going to be in that sector. Paul Kelly: Yes. Kelly Molson: Excellent. Great. Bernard, same to you. Bernard Donoghue: Well, this may come as a surprise, but my grandfather was in the Irish Guards, my father was in the Grenadier Guards, my brother was in the Royal Marines, and I had a very large collection of action men. I genuinely thought I would probably end up in the army. And actually, I got an offer after university to go into the Household Cavalry. I don't think I've ever told anyone this before. Anyway, it just clearly I didn't pursue the application. It wasn't for me at all. Got really into politics. So I started working in the House of Commons, House of Lords and the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and then I've just been in sort of lobbying, campaigning, political world ever since. But I still miss the uniforms. Can't deny it. Kelly Molson: I think we'd like to see you in that uniform, Bernard, if I'm not going to lie. So from the lobbying aspect, which is obviously a really big part of the role that you currently have, how did the attractions bit kind of slot into those? Where did the two join up? Bernard Donoghue: It's a really odd coincidence. I was trustee of a charity that Diana, Princess of Wales, was a patron of, and I was working full time for a charity that she was a patron of. So when she divorced Prince of Wales, now the King, she reduced her patronages down from 187 to six. And I happened to be involved with six of them. I went to work for her as a deputy private secretary, press secretary. But of course, the moment she died, which was August 31st, I had no job. Suddenly I was unemployed. And I got contacted by a woman who Ken will certainly know, probably Paul will, too, by Sue Garland, who used to be Deputy Chief Executive of VisitBritain, who'd heard me speak at something and said, "Well, we're just about to create this post of government affairs liaison. Would you be interested to working on the role while working on what you do next?”Bernard Donoghue: And that was in August 1997. And here I am still. Ken Robinson: But also, can I add something to that? Because I was lucky enough to be sitting in the room on many occasions when Bernard would give his briefing at meetings that were held by VisitBritain. And it was always a highlight of the day because Bernard, in those days, never pulled his punches. I'm not saying he does now, but he would just explain to everybody in the room what was going on with all of the political parties, which we never understood, and explain what we ought to be doing in order to best put our case. So it was really no shock when he turned up at ALVA, because I would say this if he wasn't here, he was the star of the show there, and that expertise that he showed has blossomed in the job that he's doing now. Kelly Molson: This is lovely, isn't it? Aren't you all nice? Bernard Donoghue: This is love in.. Kelly Molson: Probably why you all work together, right? You will get on so well. Right, back to you, Ken. Unpopular opinion, please. Ken Robinson: Most visitor attractions do not deliver full value for money to most of their visitors. Kelly Molson: Okay, Paul and Bernard, do you agree with this? Will our listeners agree with this? Is this an unpopular opinion?Paul Kelly: Did you use the word most, Ken? Ken Robinson: I did. Paul Kelly: I'll go for some, not most. Bernard Donoghue: Yeah, I'll go for some as well. One of my favourite programmes is Yes, Minister. And whenever you'd hear something off the wall, bonkers, they would say, that's a very brave opinion, Minister. That's a very brave opinion, Ken.Ken Robinson: Now's not the time to justify it. I'll do that on another occasion. Kelly Molson: Yeah, we will invite you back and we can do that one on one, Ken. Paul, what about you? Unpopular opinion? Paul Kelly: Well, I'm guessing that anybody that's worked in a theme park will probably have the same opinion I have. So I worked at Thorpe Park, which was 450 acres, two thirds of which was water. And at the end of the day, when you were walking out, and in those days, that could be 9, 10 o'clock at night, it was beautiful. On a late summer's evening, calm waters, walking through a park which had just been cleaned and tidied and ready for the next day. It was fantastic. And we all had the same opinion once were down the pub discussing the day. It's just a shame we have to let people into theme parks because it's the absolutely beautiful place without them there. So sometimes people let the parks down. Kelly Molson: That's a good one. That is a good one. Yeah. And you don't want to let them in to see the beautiful bit either, do you? Because then there'd be people there. It wouldn't be serene. Paul Kelly: No, I mean, those evenings, if there was still time, we'd go windsurfing on the lakes, cable water ski around the back. And it was just a shame that all these people came in every day and messed it all up. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Well, I'm pretty sure that most people who've worked in theme parks aren't going to disagree with you on that one, Paul. Good one. Bernard, what about yours? Bernard Donoghue: Even though I chair a theatre and I know how important the revenue is, I'm not a fan of selling drinks and food to people in theatres because they just make a noise. I can't bear it. I mean, it depends. I mean, it depends if it's a panto or something like that. Completely fine. Ken Robinson: Oh, no, it's not. Bernard Donoghue: It kind of allies to what Paul was saying as well, which was I don't know whether it's an unpopular opinion. I think it's probably a popular opinion. But visitor behaviour, whether it's in a theatre, a museum, an art gallery or wherever, has completely deteriorated post lockdown. Some people's behaviour is getting worse and it's very difficult to know what to do about it. Kelly Molson: Yes, agree. I don't think that's going to be very unpopular at all, actually, considering some of the things that we've seen recently. Thank you all for sharing. Okay, let's get back to the serious bit. The Visitor Attractions Conference. It's 20 years old this year. If you are listening and you're not familiar with it, one, why the hell not? And two, you need to grab a ticket today. It's the leading networking and learning event for visitor attractions across the UK. And I first visited in October 2019 and it was the first sector specific conference that I had been to. We'd been working in the sector for probably about three or four years, had never really at that point kind of gone all out on our like, "This is what we're going to niche and this is what we're going to specialise in."Kelly Molson: So I was kind of doing a bit of a fact finding mission really, and I came along and it absolutely blew me away. I think it was one of the friendliest conferences I've ever been to. I think you'd created an environment where everybody was really welcome, no stupid questions. Everyone from speakers to guests where kind of felt like they were all on the same level, really happy to answer questions that you had, really happy to talk to you. And I think that was for me. I came away from that event, I went back to my team and said, "This is where we should be. This is the event for us, this is where we should be attending, these are the people that we should be speaking to." And I've absolutely loved every minute of that. Kelly Molson: I mean, the next one I went to was a virtual one. So it was very different to the 2019 event, but still excellently organised. So firstly, thank you for making that happen. But where did the idea for the VAC come from in the first place? How did this come about? Ken Robinson: So we have to remember that the world was very different over 20 years ago. Really, really very different. Not just a question of internet or pre COVID and all those things and pre Olympics, but just very different. And attractions in those days thought and acted and communicated in their sectoral associations. Historic houses talked to historic houses, curators of museums talked to curators, bishops talked to priests, zoologists talked to botanists, but they didn't talk across the sectors. There were two exceptions to that. One was that in Visit England or English Tourist Board, there'd always been a committee there which was across the sectors, but the other one was ALVA. Now, when ALVA was formed, it was a 1 million visitors plus club for attractions, with 1 million plus visitors a year. Ken Robinson: Subsequently, groups of attractions, particularly English Heritage, National Trust, were involved originally associates, but it was a 1 million plus club and that's only 1% of the attractions in the United Kingdom had over 1 million. And it was very London centric. And ALVA had a five objectives, four of which were about government. And the interesting thing was that I was very good friends all through this time with Lord Lee, who know a very big part of the early success, pre Bernard of ALVA. I said to John Lee, “Look John, could you not change your name to ALVA and be involved with all the visitor attractions because they badly need something which glues everybody together and we need to get across this away from this sectoral stuff.” Ken Robinson: And everybody was talking about historic houses, talk about the house museums, talking about the continents of the museum but they weren't talking about visitors. They weren't talking about how you communicated with the visitors or what they were motivated by or how you could better manage things for visitors, give them better they weren't doing that. So John agreed with this and I've got the original papers here. I looked them out that I was asked first of all by ALVA in December of 2001 to write a paper on the future of ALVA which is headed: ALVA in the Future Representing All Visitor Attractions. Then after that the conversation went on and we realised that if were going to have some kind of overall event we couldn't do it without the National Tourist Board, we couldn't do it without Visit Britain, Visit England. We needed their input.Ken Robinson: We needed them to talk to DCMS and make sure it would happen. And also we wanted to do this not on a commercial basis but being by the industry, for the industry, run by the industry, not for profit. And that was a problem because we wanted to do it in the QE II Centre because we wanted to be in the centre of everything and that was going to cost an extraordinary sum of money and there wasn't that much money that could in that first year come originally from VisitEngland. So the partners in this, the partners being ALVA, BALPPA, Paul's organisation, Leisure Media the wonderful Liz Terry and her magazine which has forever been behind this event for no recompense whatever and myself put up 5000 pounds each security in order that the thing would happen. Ken Robinson: You said, "We'll stand the risk, let's do it.". So in 2004 I wrote the briefing of the first conference and I found from a 2003 the government asked for a list of topics that would be discussed in order they could work out whether or not they might like it and it's still here. What I like about it is it would do quite well for this year's conference. All those topics are still relevant. So that's where it came from. That's where it came from. We wanted it to have at the time the lowest possible attendance fee to get the highest number of people there. We wanted to involve everybody. Ken Robinson: And the cast list for that 2004 event, my goodness me, absolutely fantastic cast list in terms of the people we had for an initial event and you can imagine when it was announced and everybody was behind it ALVA was behind it. BALPPA, I should have mentioned that Colin Dawson, Paul's predecessor was an absolute stalwart of the conference in the early years he stood by know, when times were tough and that's where it came from. Kelly Molson: That is phenomenal. It was really putting your money where your mouth is, isn't it? By all of you actually personally investing in this thing to bring it to life. You don't hear many things happening in that way anymore, do you? It's all about getting investment and asking other people to make the commitment to it and take the risk. Ken Robinson: Well, we have a company now, I should say. We have a company called VAC Events, and we are all equal. The four of us are equal shareholders, that's to say, Bernard and ALVA, BALPPA and Paul, Liz and myself, for no benefit. Martin does it for us, but we are the people that carry the can, if you like, and I don't think we've ever had anything out of it apart from a nice lunch at Christmas, but apart from that, it's a great feeling of doing something. When you say everybody is very friendly and talks to one another. That's why they're all in the same business. Bishop, curator, zoologist person running a heritage railway, they're all in the same business. Kelly Molson: Obviously, the first event was a success. You've been on and you've done many, what, 20, 20 events since that first one. How have you seen it kind of change and develop over the years? So what did that first conference look like compared to what this year's will look like? And how have you kind of evolved it over that time to keep it relevant to your audience? Paul Kelly: Well, I think so. My involvement directly has been the last ten years, so I'm halfway through chairing for this one, but I was actually there at the early ones because I worked at that time. I was working at the London Eye, just across the river, and I was good friends with Colin Dawson at the time. I'd worked with him at Thorpe Park and he for some people, may well remember Colin as entertaining Princess Diana on a log flume in 92, 3 and 4. Paul Kelly: And I was there. It's hard to tell, but I was actually there. I'm not in any of the photos in Paris Match and all of those places. I have a couple of myself here. I didn't get anything signed by Princess Diana and sent over to you know, bitterness takes a while to and I've joked with Colin over this many years. Colin was there, but if you look closely behind the scenes, you'll find I was there too, but so I was great friends with Colin over many years and still am. He was obviously contacting everyone he knew about this conference. He was working for BALPPA at the time. I was working for the Two Swords Group, had the operational contract for the London Eye. Paul Kelly: So I went to the first one and I suppose my impressions of the first one was for somebody who hasn't been there before, the QE II is extremely impressive as a conference center. I don't go to many that look like that around the UK. Most of them normally the ones I go to are in attractions, they're slightly different so it was hugely impressive both on its location and what was across the road and how things went and I was a little bit starstruck I suppose, for the first one. Now I get the opportunity to sit on the stage and look out at everybody and have a slightly different view on it all, but still think it's an extremely impressive environment to do that. Paul Kelly: And I think the biggest change for me, and I think we may cover a little bit later, is how we've broken up the afternoons into separate segments and sections where people can go along to a smaller, informal group discussing a topic that they particularly want. And I think the thing I also like about that is the amount of people who want to go to more than one of them that are on at the same time and are almost complaining there's too many things to go to, which I think is hilarious, which means it's really good. And hopefully that means that next time they'll really think about which one do I want to go to, obviously I want to go to more than one, but I'm going to pick my best one. Paul Kelly: So I think for me, that's probably the biggest change over time. But what doesn't change for me is the team that we have putting these things together, which we're actually relatively slick at. Everyone gets the chance to put their opinions and I'm glad we don't record those meetings and it works out really well. And I think as a team, it's amazing how long we've stuck at it and stuck together. Kelly Molson: I'd love to be on a little fly on the wall for those meetings. Have you ever had a fallout about something? Bernard Donoghue: Yes, we're frequently violent. It's a visitor experience in its own right, I think. Kelly Molson: I'll pay for it. Bernard Donoghue: We reflect the madness that some of our visitors demonstrate on site so in that case I think we're rooted in the industry. The first one that I went to was in 2011, so I just joined ALVA at that point. And the first one I spoke, it was in 2012 and I've been doing the same kind of slot ever since. I do a kind of State of the Nation in the morning because ALVA obviously gets loads of data and information and we publish all of our visitor figures and all the rest of it, and actually we collect and commission much more data now than we ever used to. So I share all of that in the kind of Donoghue half hour copyright. Bernard Donoghue: What's lovely I mean, Paul's absolutely right is that over the last twelve years I think we've seen a real move from people desperately wanting to speak about their successes to being really open about what hasn't worked, which of course is far more interesting and useful. So there's been a really lovely shift from people saying, "No, I don't have to do the propaganda stuff.” Actually, I'm going to tell you what it was like, why it was a disaster and what we learned from it. And that's so useful. So you do get this real honesty coming from the speakers who know that's what they find useful too. So why not share it? I think the other one is I do a presentation about, is there core behaviours of successful visitor attractions regardless of type?Bernard Donoghue: And there are there's about ten of them, but one of them is the ability to foster creative partnerships with unusual suspects. So the presentations that are most fascinating for me is where a visitor attraction, it doesn't matter whether it's a cathedral or whether it's a museum or gallery or theme park, have teamed up with someone that you wouldn't expect them to team up with to tell the story of their people and places and collections in a new, innovating, exciting way. And those are fascinating, absolutely fascinating. So I love those. There's much more of that. Kelly Molson: Fantastic. Well, on that note, I want to know from each of you who has been the most inspiring speaker that you've had at the conference over the past 20 years. Ken, let us start with you. Who do you think would be on your list for that? Ken Robinson: I had a look through the programs going back to 2004 and came up with the following names which surprised me, actually. I think originally our first most inspiring speaker was Simon Jenkins, the columnist of the Times, who had very strong views, which didn't necessarily agree with what government and others were doing. He did give a very inspiring presentation and then there are some people who perhaps we would expect less. The most single most surprising speaker was somebody called Tristram Mayhew, who titles himself as the Chief Gorilla of Go Ape and in a room full of suits and quite smart dresses and trouser suits, Go Ape shambled onto the stage in a car key shirt and proceeded to explain how he'd done things differently. And frankly, it was riveting. We had a chap called Tony Berry from the National Trust who gave presentations. Ken Robinson: His first one was just stunnning, you know, in the days when HR was less popular, Tony Berry would tell you why you should be interested and he was absolutely amazing. And Sue Wilkinson, incidentally, of the National Trust, who was the person responsible really for dragging the Trust from its sort of old form to its new marketing orientated thinking about its supporters future success? She was terrific. And the other person I would mention another Tony, I don't know whether or Tony's there's Tony Butler from the Museum of East Anglian Life, who again, when Bernard was talking about people talking about doing things differently and it inspires you. Some of those examples are very interesting, but not easy to copy. Ken Robinson: In other attractions, we always look for things that do go across the piece, so anybody can learn from the lessons within the example that we're talking about. And incidentally, we do have arguments in meetings, it's about whether particular speakers and particular topics are the way of doing things. And generally speaking, when we all have a good go at it comes out better than it did when anybody said, “Well, I know what the right answer is. No, you don't. Let's all talk about it. So that works.” So you get these people that actually inspire and they light up the room, not because of clever graphics and not because of a forceful way, but they light up the room because of the originality of their ideas. Now, I'll come to my number one. Ken Robinson: I'm sorry about this, because he's sitting on my screen down there, and that's young Bernard, who since he joined our there you go. That's the top half that works. You should see the bottom half doesn't work. He's just had pins put in it. Kelly Molson: Just for our listeners here, Bernard is given a little muscle strong arm salute on screen here. Ken Robinson: Bernard combines the latest immediate knowledge of talking to people across the industry with an absolutely amazing gift of the gab, with a power of communication. And he's unstoppable. And we wouldn't have stood him for all these years if he wasn't. So of all the years and all the speakers, the consistent best is Bernard. But we have had other people, often surprising, who take know, you don't expect it, you think you're going to listen to ordinary session, all of a sudden it takes fire. Kelly Molson: Bernard, what have you got to say to that? Bernard Donoghue: What I say to Ken is there are packets of cash going from London to the south coast with immediate effect. Delighted. Thank you very much. It's really lovely, actually. I've tried to change things every year to do partly political, but also partly about good practice and who's doing what and who's interesting. I'll tell you what, one of my favourite speakers, and it was in a conversation, one of the things that we've introduced is a sort of conversation with slot, which works really well, actually, because a bit like this, you're off script, you respond to people. Liz chaired a conversation last year, so were in Birmingham last year and it was all about HR issues and of course, it know, coming out of COVID and cost of living crisis and recruitment challenges and all of those kind of stuff. Bernard Donoghue: And Tina Lewis is the director of people at the National Trust. National Trust, getting great repertoire here. She came out with an idea that they're doing at the National Trust and I've implemented it in the three organisations that I chair and it's made the biggest difference. So the National Trust, they will pay the rent deposit for your flat if you need them to. So if you're going through a cost of living crisis and you can't get up the cash to put down a rent deposit on your flat, they'll do it for you. You can't get up the cash to put down a rent deposit on your flat, they'll do it for you. That was such a transformational thing to hear. You could almost hear the gasp in the room of people going, "Oh, my God. Yeah, if we can, let's do that." Bernard Donoghue: And I've now introduced it. As I say in the organisations that I chair, not many people have taken it up, but the fact that we've said it has made such a difference to people. I mean, as it is at the Trust, actually, there's been a relatively small number of people at the Trust who've taken it up, but the very policy decision, the very communication of it, just spoke volumes about an organisation that cares about its staff, and particularly those staff who are on really limited budgets. So there's been loads and loads of speakers over the course of the last few years, but that for me was a nugget which has changed people's lives and has been implementable. Kelly Molson: I think that's the key to that part, isn't it, is that it's an incredible thing that they've done, but the fact that it can be implemented someone has listened to that talk. They can take that away, take it to their board, take it to whoever needs to okay that, and they can put that into action like that straight away. That's the power of a really good initiative and a good speaker to be able to deliver that as well. Paul, what about you? Please don't say Bernard. I think he's had enough praise today. Bernard Donoghue: No, keep going. Kelly Molson: No. Paul Kelly: You're OK, Bernard? We'll leave that one where it is, shall we? If we can squeeze Bernard into the room next. Right, so one special mention I wanted to give, actually, which is one of the years not too long ago, we invited Simon Calder to speak, the travel journalist, and I have to say I wasn't convinced, because clearly he's not working in one of our attractions and doesn't necessarily know the industry pretty well. But I have to say, he was hugely entertaining, had done his homework, was hugely knowledgeable, and so he was absolutely excellent. But I think the most important thing for me is that he left us and he said to me, “Enjoyed it so much, I'll come back later.” And I said, “Yes, of course you will.”Paul Kelly: So he went away and he came back at the end of the day to talk to all the people that he'd seen early in the day, because he loved the atmosphere and he wasn't required to do that. And he came along. And for that I have to put a special mention in one for myself to actually listen to the others when they say, “This will be good”, and secondly for him, for actually doing a bit and actually coming back later. And he was a fabulous addition and outside of our industry. So my inside the industry one is somebody I ended up working with because I was with the Two Swords group and then they were bought by Merlin with Nick Varney and his Merry Men. Paul Kelly: So Nick and his team had obviously been in the industry a very long time at this point, dipped in and out of theme parks and attractions. But Nick didn't actually do many talks. You wouldn't actually hear him speak about too much. I'd heard him speak over in the IAAPA trade show held in Orlando every November, and he was absolutely brilliant. And then Ken managed to get him to speak at VAC one year. And again, he was absolutely excellent. And this fits in nicely because now that he's retired from Merlin, he's speaking again this year. So I think that will be really interesting because he's absolutely excellent. Ken Robinson: And by the way, guys, just to show you that we know what we're doing here, this is 2004, okay? And it says here the recipe for success. Nick Varney chief executive, will talk about the components for commercial success. And that's before. So we've got him first and look what happened. Kelly Molson: I'm really looking forward to that interview, actually, and I think it would be really interesting to see how he differs now. He's kind of outside of the sector, and I think that the format that you've got him in. So that's the interview with Liz, isn't it? On stage? I think that's going to be a really great format as well. I've seen that work really well in the past where she's interviewed people and it just feels really comfortable and really conversational. I think that brings out the best of people. Bernard Donoghue: Kelly, do you want to know who's been of most variable quality? Kelly Molson: Oh, yes. Bernard Donoghue: Tourism Minister. I mean, without doubt. I mean, we've been going 20 years now, therefore we've had 20 tourism ministers, had one a year, like Christmas cards. And some of them have completely got the industry completely understood. It delivered a barnstorming speech, and then the next year you'll get the annual Tourism Minister pop up and they'll read something flat, banal, uninteresting. And we're so torched by the experience that we don't invite the one next on the year. So we're always banging on about this. Tourism is very good at job creation. In fact, we've created 20 Tourism Minister jobs in years, but they are of variable quality. Ken Robinson: The best we ever had, Bernard, I think, by far, was John Penrose, when he had completed his review of the industry and got very clear views, which he put to government. Unfortunately, government didn't do it, as they usually don't, but he was good and people liked him and gave him a high rating. I think the next best was probably Margaret Hodge, who was very good and spoke from the heart. But as you say, when we look at every year, we look at a rating of every speaker and the meeting after the event, we go through those ratings and decide, those that got good ratings, why did they get it? Was it intrinsic to their character, their nature, their topic? Was there something special? And those who didn't, why was that? Was it our fault? Ken Robinson: Did we not brief them properly? Or was it never going to be any better? Ken Robinson: And that way we managed to manage the conference. So know the attraction sector. We sometimes forget that over half of all visits to visitor attractions in the UK are free of charge. We forget that the majority of visitor attractions are medium and small businesses. We forget that there are charitable and commercial attractions. We must be able to bring this whole sector together and move our thinking forward in the way that Bernard has just explained in terms of what he does with ALVA. And the other thing that Bernard mentioned was ALVA's research now. Ken Robinson: 20 years ago, you had to wait until the annual book came out from Thames Tower and then eventually from the centre of luck look to page 16 and there would be numbers, but very little interpretation of what those numbers meant. Now, Bernard is behind much of the work that is done now with ALVA. But the key to it is it's not just numbers, it's interpretation. And because of the communication skills, when ALVA put out a message, it is interpreted. It says why it was a successful year or what was mitigating against that. And that's so important in trying to move our case forward. Kelly Molson: But it's important in improving the content that you give your audience at the conferences as well, right? If something isn't working and you've got a process of evaluating why that hasn't worked and how you improve on it for the next one. Let's just focus on why should people attend VAC this year? What is in it for them? What's on the agenda? What have they got to look forward to and how can we get them to book a ticket? Bernard Donoghue: I'll happily go first and go quite niche, actually. One of the things that I do now outside of ALVA, or because of ALVA is that I co chair the advisory board for VisitLondon. So essentially chair the London tourist board. And I do that with Kate Nichols of UK hospitality. And we created the London Tourism Recovery Group during COVID So my suggestion would be Sadiq Khan. So we've managed to get the Mayor of London to come along and speak at this anniversary conference. And it's not just because he's the Mayor of London and it's the 20th anniversary, but it's because he's the first ever Mayor of London that hazard one of his four political priorities, culture and tourism. That's number one. Bernard Donoghue: Number two is that he put his money where his mouth was and he funded the Let's Do London Recovery campaign, which was both domestic and international with the industry. We delivered it with London and partners, but he put up the lump sum behind it. And third, he completely gets that tourism and heritage and culture is both where you grow jobs and we're very good at it, but it's also where you grow people. It's where you grow people in terms of their cultural literacy or their sense of community or their independence or their sense of history. And therefore knowing where you come from enables you to be a better future citizen, if you like. Bernard Donoghue: So my quick blast would be we've got him doing a welcome, but also saying why visitor attractions and tourism are so important to him and to the economy and the politics of London. So that's not to be missed. Kelly Molson: That is a big draw. Absolutely a big draw. Paul, you mentioned earlier about the variety in splitting up that second session, that second part of the day with the seminars and the smaller talks that you do as well. That for me, as an attendee, is really valuable because you can kind of pick and choose what's relevant to you and go along and see lots of different talks. What do you think is the draw for people to come to the conference this year for you? Paul Kelly: Well, I was just jotting down, thinking about it's a little bit. An extension of what Ken was talking about is that it's the variety of what we do in one place is greater than anywhere else. And all the conferences I do because of the nature of what we do each end of the spectrum. So we've got talks about people who run charities to people who run hugely commercial operations. We've got people doing talks on which are free to get into those who are quite expensive, but focus on value for money. And you've got those that are indoor, those that are outdoor. When I spent my time business development at Merlin, they were always focused on a balanced portfolio. And a balanced portfolio meant making sure that right across your business, you have every aspect covered. Paul Kelly: So everything balances indoor, outdoor, UK, Europe, USA, whatever it is. And I think with our conference, that's what we try and do, we try and balance all of those types of different types of operations so that everything is covered, not to the point where it's too thin and you don't learn anything. And that's the key to it, is that we go into the depth. And the depth, I think, is greater now because we do those breakout sessions and we've got time to do in fact, we double up for those three different areas just for that afternoon. So I think those are the things, if anyone asks me why they should come, it's about the variety.Kelly Molson: Regardless of size of your attraction as well. And actually, from my perspective as a supplier to the industry, it's just as valuable to come along and learn and understand what's going on in the sector. You don't have to be an attraction to come along and take part and be educated about what's happening in the sector. What about you, Ken? Ken Robinson: Well, I think that those of us who have stood on the stage at the QE II Centre and looked at the people who have come can see that there aren't any slumbering faces out there. There are people making notes, people nudging the person next to them, people looking round when we ask a question. We now have a sort of red and green card system for, do you agree? Don't you agree? Which we sometimes use, which is very interesting, engaging the mood of the room. And I think that the thing about VAC is don't be lazy if we're going to come to VAC. Don't be lazy. If you're coming to VAC, l And jot down what questions you might like to ask those people or what you'd like to learn from that session. Write it down, don't think you can remember it at the time. Ken Robinson: Bring it on a note with you when you come and then you will find, and we all know this, that the networking that happens at the end of the day and in the breaks at VAC it's like a family wedding in a way. I mean, everybody wants to talk to everybody else and it's so valuable. I think everybody who goes away from VAC should have a good few things that day, which they say, “I wouldn't have thought of that if I hadn't been there”, or even, “I disagree with that”, but it's made me realise what my true opinion about that is equally valuable. But don't be a lazy attendee. Come and participate, come and enjoy, come and learn, come and take back benefit to everybody that works with you. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think that thing about not being scared to ask questions is really valid as well, Ken, because this happened to me, actually. I went to one of the seminar sessions, and this is back in 2019 and was really inspired by one of the speakers about it was Julez Osbek, who was at Continuum Attractions at the time, and she talked about marketing segmentation, but had a completely different perspective on it in terms of not doing it demographically, just talking about age brackets and things like that. And it was really interesting. I didn't get a chance to ask a question during the seminar, but I found her afterwards and she was very approachable, very happy to answer my question. And then I stalked her on Twitter and got her to come on to the podcast afterwards to talk about it. Kelly Molson: But that's for me, what VAC is about. It's the openness that people are really willing to share. So don't be afraid to go and find the speaker that you've been inspired by and go and ask them the question afterwards, because everyone's really happy to talk about their topic and they're really happy to help people. That's my little key takeaway from it anyway. Right, so it's going to be on Thursday, the 5th October. This podcast episode is launching on the 20th September, so you haven't got long to go and get your tickets, so make sure you do. It is the 5th October, the QE II Conference Centre in Westminster. The website address is vacevents.com. That's Vacevents.com and you can get your ticket there. All of this information will be in the show notes, so don't worry if you didn't get time to scribble that down. Kelly Molson: While I've got you all, though, because you all are in the sector and you've got lots of insights to share. I want to know from each of you what you think that attractions should be focusing on and what 2024 might look like for the sector. Paul, what about you? Start with you. Paul Kelly: So I've been chatting to some of our operators. We have some very large operators around the UK asking them how it's going? And unsurprisingly, you could have said the same question 20 years ago, what's our biggest challenge? It's the weather. It's not actually the cost of living crisis, it's not COVID you can put plans together for those things and you can work on it, but the weather always is a little bit of a challenge. So this summer inverted commerce has been quite hard to focus on what we can deliver when the days have been half decent. Actually, we've done quite well, we always do relatively well, certainly in our sector, I'm sure the others will agree, in a recession. Paul Kelly: So the key seems to be, and I'm going to put it out, I haven't quite found the right words for it, but I'll develop this once I've spoken to a few more. What every attraction for me has to have is an opportunity for people to downgrade what they did slightly. What they're doing is they're ringing it up and saying, "Can't afford to do this, have you got something that's almost like that?" But whether it's a slightly different experience, less time, one day less so whatever the packages are that people are offering, there has to be one rung lower than it was before to still encourage people to come along because they're not able to reach the same heights at the moment that they did previously. But they still want to have that family experience that day out, create those memories. Paul Kelly: All of those things are still relevant. And if you don't have that opportunity, then they'll either go elsewhere or they won't go. So, again, it's managing. So I'm not talking about huge discounts, I'm talking about being relatively clever in what you package and what you put together to make sure they still attend and they still get what they perceive to be value for money. But unless you have that option then I think they won't come. Kelly Molson: Really great advice, Paul. Thank you. Bernard, what about you? Bernard Donoghue: Like Paul, actually, especially since Lockdown ended, but actually for about the last five or six years I've noticed a particular thing which is where visitor attractions have got reserves, and that's a big if by the way, particularly in the course of the last couple of years. Actually, especially since Lockdown ended, but actually for about the last five or six years I've noticed a particular thing which is where visitor attractions have got reserves, and that's a big if by the way, particularly in the course of the last couple of years. So it comes back to Paul's point about kind of ensuring yourself against the excesses of the weather and making sure that you're still particularly a family attractive visitor attractions that'd be one. Second is cost of living crisis, certainly for the average customer, but also the energy costs for visitor attractions too. Bernard Donoghue: Just crazy amounts of money that visitor attractions are now paying i If you're a zoo or an aquarium you can't turn down the temperature of your botanics you're a living reef. So we're going to have to find some way out of that. And that means that actually for many organisations it's going to be as financially challenging over the next twelve months as it has been over the last two. And then I think the third, and this is a continual for me and Kelly, you and I have talked about it before, but it forms the last session of the day at the VAC conference which is diversity and inclusivity. And my feeling is that every visitor attraction should be critically honest about who comes, who doesn't, why they don't come and what are you going to do about it?Bernard Donoghue: And in particular those organisations who in receipt are government money or public money or who had COVID loans from the UK taxpayer. If their visitors don't look like the community in which they're housed, they have a moral question at the heart of their business. That's it. If you want to take public money you need to have an audience that looks like the diversity of the public. And that's a challenge. I get that, I completely get that. But I think that making sure that we are as accessible in every conceivable way, economically, physically. Accessible to people and that they see their stories and themselves reflected in their collections and people and staff and volunteers and board members, I think that's the biggest challenge of the sector as it is indeed to many other sectors. Bernard Donoghue: But I think we're doing some amazing things and we need to shout about it and we need to share and we need to learn from each other. Kelly Molson: Absolutely agree. And that session is going to be a really great session. That's one not to miss. Ken? Ken Robinson: Well, I would say two things. First of all, as far as our visitors are concerned, I think there is a bigger polarisation now than there ever has been between those who have money and can still afford to do things and are not much impacted by the current circumstances, despite everything. And those who haven't and those who haven't have got to find ways of saving money, getting more for their money. There are so many things they can do that are free and alternatives that charged attractions find it difficult. I think we have to remember that the biggest number of attractions in the United Kingdom are heritage based attractions and they weren't purpose built like many of Paul's members, the attractions are purpose built for entertainment. But heritage attractions have got a bigger responsibility or museums housed in historic buildings. Ken Robinson: And all the time they're having to cut their costs and finding life difficult. Money isn't going into maintaining that National Heritage. And that's a real big long term challenge, one that government can't ignore. So government has a vested interest in the health of our businesses because the more healthy they are, the less will fall back on the state eventually. One last thing, I would like to mention Martin Evans and the tourism business. Ken Robinson: For the last I don't know how many years, Martin has been the person who has put together this event for us. He has to do the heavy lifting. He is backed up by our conference organisers, who are also very efficient. And the other person that I wouldn't like to miss from this, because if she could have been here today, you would have got a different flavour, is the wonderful Liz Terry and the support that her organisation. That's Liz's Organisation, her hard work in Leisure Media Group. She publishes Attractions Management magazine. Ken Robinson: She has never asked for anything from this conference and she gives it great support, without which we wouldn't have made 20 years, as I said earlier. And also a big shout and a screen for Liz. Kelly Molson: That is lovely. Thank you. I'm sure Liz will very much appreciate that. We won't forget her. Don't worry, she'll be on the credits for this podcast. I always ask our guests to leave us with a book recommendation for our listeners. So a book that you've loved, a book that you've enjoyed as part of your career growth can be absolutely anything. So, Paul, what would you like to share with us today? Paul Kelly: Oh, I tell you what, books are a bit highbrow for me. Yes, Bernard agrees with that. So I'm from the north, so I used to travel a lot when I was working North America. Commuting a little bit. So I did read a little bit then, but I very quickly swapped over to podcasts things that I download. I watch Silent Witness from the 90's, early 2000s repeatedly. I like Meet Marry Murder, which is one of the cable channels, so I'm quite simple. So I don't really have a book recommendation. I think when I have time to read, I will look forward to reading what somebody else recommends. Kelly Molson: Well, I will take Silent Witness as a recommendation because I love Silent Witness, Paul. Oh, so good. Never miss an episode, ever. So, OK, they go I mean, I can't give it away as a prize, but go and check out Silent Witness if you haven't. Bernard, what's yours? Bernard Donoghue: Well, I've been on this before and I remember my recommendation and it sounds really facile, but it was absolutely true, was Ladybird Books when I was a kid, and then that's how I got into history and heritage and storytelling and absolutely loved them. And I've still got loads of them, which is a bit sad, actually. I'm currently confined to home with a broken ankle. So I've been going through my big Bernard book of books, of all the ones that I haven't got around to reading, and the one that I've enjoyed most and has really surprised me is Lucy Worsley's biography of Agatha Christie. Absolutely fascinating. I thought I knew her. I thought I knew all about her. I know all of her characters, I've watched every conceivable film and TV program, but what a fascinating woman. Bernard Donoghue: So that's the one that I've loved this summer. Kelly Molson: Great recommendation. Yeah. I wondered what were going to get from you, actually, because you've had a lot of time on your hands to go through that book pile. Bernard Donoghue: It was either going to be Agatha Christie or the Argos catalogue. Honestly, it could have gone. Kelly Molson: It's not Christmas yet. You only do the Argos catalogue at Christmas. Ken, over to you for our last recommendation. Ken Robinson: Well, the best book quite hard to get hold of now, but I can supply copies is Action For Attractions, the National Policy Document, written in 2000. But if you want something other than that, then I have just finished reading a book which everyone else read years ago called Sapiens, which is about this thick, that's to say two and a half inches thick. For those of you listening. It's by somebody, I've just had to look him up because I couldn't have remembered it, by Yuval Noah Harari. And it's entitled A Brief History of Humankind. And what's so interesting about it is it goes through segments explaining the great moves that have happened to us humans since we appeared on this Earth. Ken Robinson: And I found the whole thing fascinating to read in one go what took me a long time, particularly the last bit, which talks about how commerce has changed the world and what we're all doing, and that's, after all, what we're doing at VAC. We are engaged in the kind of commerce that is to entertain, amuse and give enjoyment to our visitors, and at the same time keep the heritage of the country going and keep an awful lot of people employed, so I recommend Sapiens. Kelly Molson: Ken, that's a great book. It took me a really long time to read as well, but it is an absolutely fascinating book. I would totally back up your recommendation there. Have you read the next one as well, Homodeus? Ken Robinson: No one a year is enough for me. Kelly Molson: Well, I've got a toddler, so reading doesn't come easy for me right now. But Homodus is next on my list to read because that's the next one on from Sapiens and it's supposed to be a really good read as well. Right, listeners as ever, if you want to win a copy of Ken and Bernard's book, retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want the Vax books and you will be put into a prize drawer to win them. And also, do go and watch Silent Witness, Paul's recommendation, because it is blooming brilliant. I love it. Thank you all so much for coming on to join me today. I've really appreciated it. It's been a fascinating kind of deep dive into the Visitor Attractions Conference. I genuinely love this conference. It is one absolutely not to be missed. Kelly Molson: I mean, there might be a speaker called Kelly at this one. This is so I'll be there. Come and see me too. But no, thank you. It's been wonderful. As I said, we will put all of the info in the show notes. We'll put all of the connections to Paul, Ken and Bernard too. So if you've got any follow up questions that you want to ask them, I'm sure they'd be really happy to help. But it's vapevents.com. Go and grab your ticket now. Thank you, guys. Ken Robinson: And I have to tell you, Kelly, we are going to spend our time at our next committee meeting thinking of impossible questions for you for when you're speaking at VAC.Kelly Molson: Oh, God. Do it. I love impossible questions. Put me on the spot, Ken. I'll enjoy it. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. 

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Welcome to the Adams Archive, where we slice through the noise to bring you the unvarnished truth. In today's rollercoaster of an episode, we tackle a CIA whistleblower's shocking claim that analysts were financially incentivized to bury evidence supporting COVID's lab origin. Then, we dig into the dark cloud hovering over Russell Brand as allegations and YouTube demonetization tarnish his reputation. We also unveil the controversial denouncement of Tim Ballard by none other than the Mormon Church. And if you think that's where it stops, stick around. We dive into Mexican doctors' extraordinary findings on alleged alien corpses and explore the lingering mysteries surrounding the disappearance of Malaysia Air 370. Don't be another cog in the misinformation machine—hit subscribe and leave a five-star review to help us expose the truth that mainstream media often chooses to ignore. Head over to austinadams.substack.com for exclusive content and updates. Buckle up; it's time to challenge the status quo!   All links: https://linktr.ee/theaustinjadams Substack: https://austinadams.substack.com ----more---- Full transcription    Adams Archive. Hello, you beautiful people and welcome to the Adams Archive. My name is Austin Adams and thank you so much for listening today. On today's episode, we are going to dive deep into some wild situations. The first one being that the CIA has whistleblower come out and said that the CIA was actually paying off It's analysts to bury the findings that COVID was a lab leak, literally giving. Their own analysts, financial incentives to switch their opinions on whether or not that was the case. So we read about that, then we will discuss Russell Brand, who is in the news for some not so good things. Some reports coming out and accusations regarding some sexual assault allegations and potentially even worse, he was actually had his YouTube channel suspended or D demonetized today. So we'll discuss. That as a result. And then going a little bit deeper into that, we're going to look at the Mormon Church actually denouncing Tim Ballard. Tim Ballard being the once founder of Operation Underground Railroad. Also the person who is depicted in the movie, the Sound of Freedom, which we've talked about at length here before. So we'll look at what these allegations are, why they denounced him, and. Tim Ballard had a response to this that he did a video on this guy with his PRs is pretty, pretty wild stuff. So we'll look at that. After that, we'll look at a Texas church talking about churches Texas church, which is experimenting with AI generated services using chat GPT for worship sermon and original songs. That is one of the most dystopian things that I've ever heard. So, we'll discuss that. Now, again, as always, the longer you stay with me, the deeper we get. So, after that, we'll discuss the findings of the Mexican doctors who concluded after their tests were done on the alleged non human alien Corpses. So we have their findings on that. So if you don't know, we haven't talked about this yet here because we had a little bit of a layoff over the last couple of weeks for several reasons. But what happened was Mexico had a congressional hearing where there was two alleged alien bodies, which were shown at the congressional hearing. And they look every bit of ET that you could imagine. So what ended up happening is these Mexican doctors actually did a, some tests on these bodies and we'll see, I haven't read this yet, so we'll see what they actually found. And then, last but not least, this is a story that has been surfacing. Pretty consistently somewhat recently regarding, if you recall, Malaysia Air, I believe it was Malaysia Air 370. That was a airplane which had gotten lost, you know, we go all the way back to 2000 and, let's see. This was filmed in 2014, yeah, lost in 2014, I believe. Now there's some really big deep dives that some people did into this situation. And they came up with some pretty wild stuff. And we'll discuss it all. But first, I need you to head over to the substack Austin Adams dot substack calm, go ahead and get signed up. If there's any news, if there's any podcast companions, articles that I write, all of it is there for free, head over there right now, Austin Adams dot substack calm, then I need you to hit that subscribe button. All right, hit that subscribe button. If it's your first time here, if it is not your first time here, Or if it is, go ahead and leave a five star review. Just helps me get up in the rankings. It's really one of the only ways that you can show your appreciation for my hard work here. So go ahead, leave a five star review, hit the subscribe button, head over to austinadams. substack. com. And let's jump into it. The Adams archive. All right. The very first thing that we're going to discuss today is going to be that the CIA had a whistleblower come out and say that the CIA was paying off its own analysts to bury the findings that COVID was a lab leak from Wuhan. China. So let's read this article. It comes from the New York Post and it says, the Central Intelligence Agency offered to pay off analysts in order to bury their findings. That Covid most likely was from a lab in Wuhan China. A new whistleblower testimony to Congress alleges, and this goes on to say that a senior. Level CIA officer told house committee leaders that his agency tried to pay off six analysts who found that SARS COVID 2 likely originated in a Wuhan lab. And if they changed their position and said that this, the virus jumped from animals to humans, according to a letter sent Tuesday to CIA director, William Burns. Select committee on the coronavirus pandemic chairman, Brad one strap and. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner requested all the documents, communications, and pay info from the CIA's COVID Discovery Team by September 26th. So they're actually going to be doing further investigation into this, thankfully, and that will be in just about a week's time. So we'll have to see what comes up from that. According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID 19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The house. Panel chairman wrote. That's crazy. Six out of the seven people on this specific team believed that the virus came from a lab leak, and the CIA wanted to hush every one of them, and they tried to do so by incentivizing them, allegedly, With money. So now they're pulling all of those financial hearings. Now we actually have the document from Congress which says. Which is comes from the Honorable William J. Burns says to select to Director Burns to the Select Committee of the Coronavirus pandemic and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence together. The committees have received new and concerning whistleblower testimony regarding the agency's investigation into the origins of COVID 19. A multi decade, senior level, current agency officer has come forward to provide information to the committees regarding the agency's analysis into the origins of COVID 19. According to the whistleblower, the agency assigned seven officers to a COVID discovery team. The team consisted of multidisciplinary and experienced officers with significant scientific expertise. According to the whistleblower, at the... End of its review, six of the seven members of the team believed that the intelligence and science were severe sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID 19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The seventh member of the team who also happened to be the most senior was the lone officer to believe that COVID 19 originated through zoonosis. The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a sufficient or significant monetary incentive to change their position. These allegations from a seemingly credible source requires the committees to conduct further oversight of how the CIA handled its internal investigations into the origins of COVID 19. To assist the committees, and again, this is What they actually wrote to Congress with their investigations. We request the following documents and information as soon as possible, but no later than September 26, 2023, all documents and communications regarding the establishment of all iterations of the COVID discovery teams. All documents and communications between or among the members of all iterations of the COVID discovery team regarding the origins of COVID 19 and all documents and communications between or among members of all iterations of the COVID discovery team and other employees or contractors of the agency regarding the origins of COVID 19all documents and communications between them or among members of all iterations. Including but not limited to the US Department of State, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US Department of Health and Human Services to include the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the US Department of Energy regarding the origins of Covid 19. And lastly, all documents and communications regarding the pay history to include the awarding of any type of financial or performance-based incentive financial bonuses to members of all iterations of the C Ovid 19 discovery team. The select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic is authorized to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, including but not limited to the federal government's funding of gain of function research and executive branch policies, deliberations, decisions, activities, and internal or external communications related to the COVID coronavirus pandemic. Whew, that's a mouthful. Further house rule. 11 Clause 2 and 1B grants committees of the House of Representatives with the authority to require by subpoena or otherwise the attendance and testimony of such witnesses in the production of such books, records, correspondence, memorandums, papers, and documents as it considers necessary should the required information not be produced in an expeditious or satisfactory manner. You should expect the committee or committees to use its additional tools and authorities to satisfy our legislative and oversight requirements. Thank you for your attention. And then signed by the chairman. Of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Mike Turner, and the Chairman of Select Subcommittee on Coronavirus Pandemic, Brad Wenstrup. Curious who this Brad Wenstrup is. Anyways. The Honorable Raul Ruiz Ranking Member. Alright, so there's your, there's your document on that. Alright so. This goes on to say that in a separate letter the House Committee leaders, and I'll go ahead and just pull this up on the screen for you guys so you can actually. Look with me here. There we go. All right. So this also goes on to say, In a separate letter, In a separate letter, the House committee leaders identified former CIA chief operating officer, Andrew McCready, Mac, Macridis, as having played a central role in the COVID investigation, and asked him to sit for a transcribed interview. At CIA, we are committed to the highest level of standards of analytic rigor, integrity, and objectivity. Of course you are, just not when it comes to assassinating Kennedys. We do not pay an analyst to reach specific conclusions. Of course we wouldn't do that. The post, in a statement, we take these allegations extremely serious and are looking into them. We will keep our congressional oversight committees appropriately informed. Hmm. Interesting, interesting to see if there's anything more from this article that we should be discussing now to the comment section, which is really what matters, which says that if they are actively covering up evidence that COVID came from gain of function research that was weaponizing a virus, then I wonder what other part they might have in all of this. It seems as if we would want to know the truth of origin if we truly want to prevent similar future. outbreaks. That's a good point, right? Why would you want to cover up the origins of this? Why would you not want to get to the bottom of what happened to prevent it from happening again in the future, unless you or somebody, you know, or somebody who's giving you money. Had any take or partook in any of it, right? Why, why, if you, if you don't have any skin in the game, if you're not somebody who's going to be held liable, if you're not concerned about anything coming back to you as an organization, or maybe as the person who ordered these things to happen, why would you be doing this? That's weird. Huh. The next person said, remember when it was the political left that challenged questions and were skeptical of the various three lettered agencies yet now the left is in unquestioning lockstep when with its former arch enemies, pretty remarkable change in the last. generation. It is pretty crazy to like you go back to the 70s, you go back to the 80s, you go back to the 90s, right? The Democratic Party, the left was primarily the hippies, not the the suit and tie wearing grandfathers that we used to think were Republicans back in the day, right? You always that's always how it was pictured for a very long time, right? That that Republicans were these stiff old white men, and The cool people, the, the artists, the this, the that, the, you know, the people who were free thinkers were the people who were on the left, right? Those were the liberals. Those were the the, the Democrats. And, and it seems like we have shifted pretty, pretty significantly to where the left just wants to be completely in line with anything and everything that daddy government says that they should be in line with. And the right questions literally everything, right? For how long were we saying that there's alien evidence, alien evidence, alien evidence? And all of a sudden, the government comes out with alien evidence, and all of a sudden, we're all questioning it, right? Just because the government actually told us that. There was no winning scenario there. But, now that that information's coming out, and it's coming from the mouth of the government, and not other institutions, which we actually trust, we're questioning that too. Because, Everything the government does has an agenda or else they wouldn't be doing it because the government is just about siphoning money from the pool of tax money that they extorted from its people, right? So once you realize that, you have to realize that there's an agenda behind everything, right? The only way for you to be successful in politics, the only way for you to get into the positions that you want to is, well, maybe a already have hundreds of billions of dollars in the bank and self fund yourself and not have to take money from lobbyists, but maybe there's only been. A handful of people like that in recent history and by handful, I mean, maybe two or three and by recent history, I mean, since 1776, but but it's, it's pretty wild to see that, you know, the left is just so in line with everything the government says, so in line with mask mandates, so in line with you know, what, what the CIA is doing with, with everything and anything that comes out from the government. They're just immediately fall in line with it, right? All of that. They are the propaganda Enforcers is the liberal far left, right and and we have to say far left Although I I tend to believe that the left is far more radical in this ideologies than the right is Even if you go to like the far right, right, the far right, being the proud boy type people the, the QAnon conspiracy theorists on, on all of the the deep channels of 4chan, right? It's like when, in order to get to that level, you're probably looking at when it, when it comes to the liberal left, right? We're talking about what, what are the extreme ideologies of the liberal left? The extreme ideologies of the liberal left is that, oh, Any single moment prior to birth, a child should be able to be killed within the womb, right? There's, there's no, there's no conversation more than until it's born, right? That's a pretty radical idea. And I would say, let's say 30 percent of Democrats agree with that idea. Okay, there's one. All right, the secondary idea being that, you know, let's let's say socialism, like true capital, not capitalism, but socialism, that, you know, everybody and anybody should have their fair share of everything, regardless of work ethic, right? Equality of outcome, right? And you might look at it, maybe not straight socialism, but equality of outcome, right? They want the top 1 percent of people to pay the top, you know, 75 percent of taxes, right? Okay, that seems like somewhat of a radical ideology. They don't want people to be able to have Guns that's a that's a pretty radical ideology. Let's just say again for argument's sake that that's 30 percent 30 percent of the radical left Believes that we shouldn't be able to own any weapons at all any weapons at all Well in 30 percent might be generous. It's probably closer like 35 40 and again, I'm just throwing shit out there, but 35% And then you go into what's another radical idea? Oh, well, maybe that your children at the age of two to three years old, four years old should be able to determine their gender, even though they were born with the chromosomes that they were born with. Okay, that's a pretty radical ideology that your child should be able to choose its own gender when it can't choose its own lunch. Because it would choose candy every day. And that's maybe closer to 60 percent of the, let's say, the radical left, or the left in general, believes that. Okay? We can probably even take that further and further and further, looking at the different ideologies. But let's say 30 60 percent of the far left ideologies Trickle into the majority almost of what the left believes right now. We, we can go to the other side of things and say, what are the radical ideologies of the radical? Right. Right. Okay. Trump's been in president for the last, or has been president during Biden's entire term, and we're just waiting on him to raise his hand and say, it was me the whole time, guys. And rip off his mask like it's Scooby-Doo You know, that's like the radical, radical, right. QAnon people. Right. And obviously, you know, QAnon's been, been has some, some merit to some of its belief systems when it comes to the the child sex trafficking rings and things like that. There's obvious merit to that. But, but when we're talking about the fact that there's going to be Trump's. In charge of the real military and he, and I think we haven't heard much whispers of that over the last year or so, but for about the first year or two for, for Joe Biden's presidency, there was a serious group of small group of extremist conservatives, extremist conservatives who were thinking that Trump was going to come back and take over and be like, ha, it was me, right? I'm still president. And, and, you know, that's, that's pretty radical, but I would say maybe Four, three, 3%, maybe less than 3% of of people right now. Another radical ideology on the right might be what? I can't, it's hard to even think of any. I dunno that you shouldn't have drag shows in front of children Like what is, what is the radical rights belief systems that the government shouldn't you know, we didn't even get the freedom of speech when it comes to the left, right? Censorship. The, the, the right might think that there should be No. No. No censorship of speech, right? That's not even radical. So it's just hard to see. It's hard to see what is the what? And I'm open to the conversation. So send me a message. Let me know what is the radical ideas of the right. And maybe maybe we can start to have the percentage conversations I just had with the left, but it's so much easier. Okay, let's just go with abortion. Right abortion. Let's say every single person believes that there should be no ability to have any abortion. And that let's call that a A radical ideology within the right. Let's just say that just for argument's sake. What percentage of people do you think That are conservatives that hold that belief that just zero abortions for any reason whatsoever, regardless of age, regardless of circumstance, regardless of medical situations, maybe, maybe 10%, maybe 5%, I would think like Uh, and primarily made up of people who are highly religious and for religious reasons, not just ideological reasons. So it's just a weird conversation, right? The far left is far more of the left than the far right being part of the right, right? The percentages of those people are just so much lower than what we see. So the craziness... That the entire left is pretty crazy in their ideology because you get thrown out of the group if you don't agree with all of it. Right? So, anyways, there's your tangent on that. Where were we? I don't think it matters. Last comment says there was no lab leak, virus developed in Georgia and released worldwide through various means with various intensities. Not natural, not an accident, U. S. military operation under the auspices of the deep state. Hmm. That's an interesting one. Now, if you go back, I did a whole episode on the what is it called? The water in the water. What was it? That guy, Peter or something did a documentary about how he believed that it was some form of snake venom that was being released to people through the water systems, right? That was a pretty, that was a crazy, crazy idea. But there's a whole documentary on it. Let's see if I can remember what it was called. Let's go. COVID, Snake, Venom, Water, Documentary. And I did a whole podcast breaking this down. So, you can go back and listen to that. Watch the water. Watch the water. That's what it was. Hmm. Yeah, I believe that was, and this guy is the guy who did it. That he interviewed. This, what's the guy's name? Here he is. Pretty sure the guy's like a chiropractor or some shit. But that's a pretty crazy one that the water, the drinking water was being poisoned with snake venom. That was a, that was a pretty wild one, but, but interesting. And I believe if you go back and actually listen to it, there was, there was some interesting arguments within that. But anyways, maybe that's what they were discussing within that comment there. But wrapping that topic up, the CIA was apparently and allegedly, according to this whistleblower, Paying people not to say that it was a lab leak. And again, you have to ask yourself why. All right? In other news, Russell Brand has been accused of sexual assault. And as a result, his YouTube channel has been immediately demonetized without any actual trial, any hearing. Right? And this is somebody's income. So... YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money from videos on his channel over sexual assault and rape allegations. Right? Something, something that's embedded in our law is innocent until proven guilty. Right? The guy from That 70s Show that Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis was just basically sticking up for in a letter. Was convicted of rape by two women convicted, right? We can demonetize his YouTube. Not sure he would have access to it anyways. But do you just get to as a company? D demonetized the platform people kill their income for allegations. Now, are you playing judge and jury? And how does that play into when somebody goes to court for these things? Right? If you're if you're saying that you believe this person is guilty and also who's making these decisions at YouTube and that. Different companies like this. Anyways, let's go ahead and read this article, which says YouTube has suspended advertisements on Russell Brand's channel in light of a slew of sexual assault and rape allegations made against the comedian as clips of his former wife, Katy Perry, have resurfaced the platform suspensions for violating its policy will still allow brand to. Upload videos, of course it will, it just won't give him money, but he will not profit from advertising. Meanwhile, footage has re emerged of the moment Brand ended his relationship with US singer Perrie by text message in 2011 following their 14 month marriage. Presenter Vanessa Feltz has also shared deeply offensive footage of Brand. Asking to sleep with her and her daughters. When she appeared on his chat show in 2006 and the late comedian, Sean Locke disclosed the reason he hated brand and the clip from the panel show eight out of 10 cats in 2014, explaining he had a fear for his he had a fear his daughters would bring home a man like brand one day. I don't see how that has any merit. Brand has vehemently denied the very serious criminal allegations and said his relationships were absolutely always consensual. So let's see if we can get maybe some of these videos. No, they're just going to send us to a big page of random stuff. All right. So it goes on to say a timeline key points. YouTube suspends monetization. Big brother co creator describes brand allegations as. depressing and BBC confirms removal of brands, content, brand episodes removed from C4 website. No evidence to suggest channel four bosses knew of brands alleged assaults and review into the timeline at BBC led to by director of editorial complaints. This was three hours ago. It says that who cares? That's a silly one. It says the allegations against Russell Brand over the weekend have got people examining the age of consent. Rightly so, that a 30 year old man would embark on a sexual relationship with a schoolgirl feels instinctively wrong to many of us. The woman in question, Alice, who has said that she now feels she was groomed by Brand, though he also denied all of the allegations, has called for consent law to be reviewed in light of her experience. The law enabled it, she told reporters. For the times Saturday night, it shouldn't be legal for a 16 year old to have a relationship with a man in their thirties. Now, most of us are comfortable with the idea that a 16 year old can consent to have sex with another 16 year old, that two teenagers can have a sexual relationship, but we start to feel iffy when there's an adult in the sexual relationship with a minor, as the gap age gap increases, so does our discontent or disquiet. That's not mere hand wringing or moralizing, and it's not about. Trying to deny young people their sexuality, it's because we understand implicitly, even when we can't articulate it, that an imbalance of power can affect consent. Okay, agreed. 16 year olds and 30 year olds shouldn't be having sex. Let's see this clip. Can I have it off with either you or your daughters, the answer's no, and I'm, no. It's terribly awkward when you're a guest on somebody else's show, particularly in a theatre which is full of great fans of, of the presenter, Russell Brand, so they all loved him, they were cheering him and egging him on, and I was in this unbelievably awkward position where you don't quite know what to do. Are you meant to pretend you think it's funny and laugh along? Are you meant to stand up and walk out in high dutch and, and, and look as if you're a spoilsport and a party pooper? You know, what are you supposed to do? But I know I was deeply offended then as I remain deeply offended now. Now that woman looked about in her 40s and not very attractive at the time. And now that's not to take away the seriousness of this clip, but I don't see that there being any merit to that of people just trying to smear him. Now, now something that's come out as a revolt result of this, you know, and something that there seems to be a lot of attention on Russell Brand right now, right now, Russell Brand speaking out consistently, consistently, consistently against the deep state against George Soros against the world economic forum. So To me, it would be no surprise that there's things coming back. Now, from 20, 30, 20 years ago, 10, 15, 20 years ago, that obviously have not been litigated. There's no, nothing going through the court system. So again, I'm not saying that I don't think a 30 year old and a 16 year old should have a sexual relationship. That's creepy. It's weird. It's gross. I, I don't know if I, you know, we just had the one side of that, but he seems to say that he. didn't do any of that. Now telling a woman in her 40s during a talk show, let me have a go at you or your daughters and she's 40 and maybe your daughter's 2025 or something like, okay, it's still nothing there. You know, I would love to see, you know, and here's a, here's a good quote that came from Reddit. That's pretty popular right now. It says, All start caring whether or not Russell Brand had some questionable sex a decade or two ago when the media starts caring what Bill Gates or Prince Andrew was doing on Epstein Island. Or when it starts naming the customers Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of supplying trafficked minors to. Right. There seems to be a lot of emphasis, right? I'll start caring about Russell brand. When you start to show that you actually care about the victims, right? That's what this is saying here. Not, not, let's not diminish if there was some allegations. Cause I haven't read enough into them to say they weren't true or they were true or whatever. Let's just say, sure. There's allegations here, but what we know 100 percent besides the fact that Russell brand had, what seems like a still. Something that has not been convicted against him. And he still hasn't even gone to court for this. That doesn't seem like there's any charges. But there has been somebody who was supplying and trafficking hundreds, if not thousands, of underage women to Prince Andrew, to Bill Clinton, to Hollywood executives, to Hollywood elites, to... Everybody in power, and everybody knew about it. Oh, and also, so did the news companies who silenced the articles to come out. Right? Everybody knew about this, but nobody said anything. And still... They're protecting the lists today, you're going to tell me you're going to tell me that they raided Epstein's Island and found nothing of merit that they're releasing to the public about who was a part of this, how they did it, about what we're doing as a result of that, you're going to tell me they raided an entire island that was used specifically for track picking and found nothing, not a Bit of evidence, not a single strand of evidence that led them to convict somebody who was on that island doing those things. Bill Gates, like I said, Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton just person after person after person. And the list, you know, we've gone into that and the whole breakdown of the black list that came out or black book that came out from Epstein. So you can go back and listen to that to see who was all a part of it. But. It's pretty crazy. And, and so this article or this, this person posted and goes on to say that I'll care what about what one former US president is or isn't guilty of. When the media starts caring about what other former US presidents are or are not guilty of. And I'll care about a more powerful country invading a less powerful country when the media reports the conflict and its context in exactly the same tone. And with the degree, same degree of neutrality versus moral outrage as it uses when there's a more powerful country in question is the U S A. Until that day, the mainstream media and everyone who repeats its talking points on social media is not, but idle gossip and the sound of one hand clapping. Until the day I could not give less fucks about what mainstream media says any person did or didn't do, so... Well, that's not what it said. It says about who the mainstream media says any fucker fucked or didn't fuck. And so fuck the mainstream media. Let anyone... It fucks with tell them to fuck the fuck off. With its farce ial fuckery. Now, the top comment on this, and I don't disagree with this, is you are allowed to care about all of those things simultaneously. Right. I don't disagree with that. It definitely seems like you should, you know, If you care about people who are the victims, you should just care about them regardless, but it doesn't seem like it's obviously not the same level of situation here. Now, in light of these things coming up here, I'm actually going to skip. We'll maybe push off the Tim Ballard one to a different episode here, because we have a little bit more to go. And I have a little bit limited amount of time here. So the next one that we're going to move to is a Texas church experiments with. AI generated service and uses chat GPT for worship sermon and original songs to praise the Lord says the church said the experiment would be a one time event. And this comes from Fox news. Now, if this isn't the most dystopian thing you've ever heard of when it comes to religion, I don't know what it is. This is just So sci fi, weird, and cult y. It says, with artificial intelligence seemingly infiltrating every facet of our lives, one church decided to experiment with the technology for one of its services last week. The Violet Crown City Church, located in Austin, held an AI generated service on Sunday, describing the experiment as uncharted territory. Yeah, because you're starting a cult with... a robot at the head of it. This, and you're, you're, you're actually the, so here's a philosophical issue with this is that you're, you're taking the person who is, let's say the, the coding behind the AI and turning that into a deity, right? You're, you're giving it infinite amounts of power over people. When somebody gives their life to a God or a deity or a religion and says, I believe in you. I trust in you. I give you my life. I give you my faith. You know, faith is a faith is a. a tricky thing, right? Faith is, is now not always blind faith, but, but faith with with a little bit of suspicion is, is healthy, right? But faith, faith is a tricky thing. And if you give that faith to something who's, who's being, can be at any single point manipulated by man. Right? You're, you're giving religious potential. You're giving deity like power to something that is man itself, right? We cannot have man worshiping man. That's the problem that we saw with science during COVID science, right? It turned into a cult, right? There's no man who should be a deity and there's no artificial intelligence that should be a deity because what does that become other than the manifestation of the programming, right? Right? So this says. This Sunday, they said, we're entering somewhat uncharted territory by letting Chachibiti create the order of worship, prayers, sermon, liturgy, and even an original song from our 10 a. m. service, the church wrote on its official Facebook page. The purpose, the purpose is to invite us to consider the nature of truth and challenge our assumptions about what, what God can make sacred and inspired. The Church acknowledged such an experiment would be easy to write off, but encouraged its members to keep an open mind. Why not attend instead of an experience for yourself, the Church said, clarifying that this would be a one time experiment and not something we'll likely do again. Yeah, I hope not. The Church assanjed any worries that Skynet, a reference to the fictional AI, I'm not sure an AI can actually express the emotions of love and kindness and empathy, Chambers said. I think that we must practice love and express that. Not only feel it, but we must. Express it. Interesting. Now the comment on this was pretty sure God was not impressed with the vanity of that service. They wanted the creator of the entire universe to interact with a machine? It's like man saying, here, listen to this thing we created. God made man so he could interact and connect with man. Not so that man could make a machine and use it as his proxy. Yes. Agreed. Right, this is, if you think there is layers to reality, one of those layers being the higher, the higher reality, right, which is, let's call it heaven or we're, we're, we're God lives, right? And the layer that we're on being a lower dimension of reality, right? You cannot create, and you cannot, when, when somebody is creating a sermon, when somebody is writing a song, when somebody is deciding on what they do or do not want to talk about, If you believe in, in the faith of, of Christian, Christianity and religion, you believe that God is speaking through that person, right? God's not going to speak through an AI chatbot that was created by some Silicon Valley, woke, purple haired, ear ringed, Weirdo, right? Earrings like there's something wrong with earrings but it's all, you know, I, I pictured like 22 earrings on their head and gate big gauges. Right? But God's not going to speak through that person or at least through the coding that they wrote. I'm sorry. Right? So, so if you believe that that is of this reality that is of this realm and it's not going to be the real thing and all that opens up is a weird it. Alien based cult. Let's get into the good stuff. Alright, so the doctors, if you go back, the doctors in Mexico actually have come out and done testing on the alien bodies that were found in Peru. Now they claim that these were almost over a thousand years old when they were found and they were found in the ruins of I believe it wasn't wreckage, but they were just found and dug up by like archaeologists. So it says Mexican doctors have found no evidence of any assembly or manipulation of the skulls of the so called non human being remains that were presented to Mexico's Congress last week. Seemingly proven the remains were not human made. The scientists conducted a number of tests on the two specimens at the Neuer Clinic on Monday and live streamed the entire procedure. Wow, that's pretty cool. In the end, Jose Zels Benitez, the director of Health Sciences Research Institute and the secretary of the Mexican Navy offices, said the studies proved the alleged aliens belonged to a single skeleton and were not assembled with human objects. He also said his team found that one was alive, was intact, Was biological and was in gestation, pointing to large lumps inside the alleged E. T. 's abdomen, which suggested could be eggs. Whoa. I can affirm that these bodies have no relation to human beings, he previously claimed. The pair, which were allegedly unearthed in Cusco, Peru in 2017, have elongated heads with three fingers on each hand. Creepy. Super creepy. Especially when you look at the pictures of this MRI. Whoa, how are these pictures not out? That's crazy. Also, I do just want to say that nobody seems to give a fuck about the fact that they just showed alien corpses on live TV and then just did an autopsy on them with MRI machines and cat scans and came out with the results. I haven't seen a single person. I found this literally randomly on the New York Post. It says, but otherwise they appear humanoid in shape with two arms and two legs. Each my son. Said that they had strong light bones and no teeth, and had implants of ca, ca, ca, ca, cadmium and osmium, which is one of the scary, scariest elements on Earth. Also, one third of their d n A is unknown. He testified claiming that beings are not part of our terrestrial evolution. These specimens are not part of our evolutionary history on earth. They're not beings recovered from a U F O crash site. Instead, they were found in diatom. Minds and subc subsequently became fossilized, which is an algae. This is the first time it is presented in such a form. And I think there is a clear demonstration that we are dealing with non human specimens. They're not related to any other species in our world, but many have expressed skepticism about the discovery. For years, academics, archaeologists and scientists said that mummified remains, that UFO enthusiasts claim or aliens are generally just modified human bodies. And there's people looking at these pictures. There's picture after picture of these skulls. Oh my gosh. Could you imagine being in this room? How wild is that? The very first comment on this said, I am partly convinced they are not human and could be extraterrestrial. However, the DNA results will tell the tale. It should be easy to send a small sample of DNA to a reputable company. In fact, why not send one of the eggs as well? If it was alive at one time, that should be. The final proof of origin. Somebody else commented back to that person and said, is anyone going to believe anything coming from Mexico? Says they performed the same tests on Biden and got the same results. Oh, pretty crazy.  All right. And last but not least on today's episode, we're going to dive into the Malaysia air three 70 conspiracy. This was posted eight days ago on conspiracy Reddit by additional underscore add 3796. And I've dabbled in this a little bit. I haven't read the whole thing, but it's pretty crazy. So this says, Hello, this is Ashton from Twitter, and I have been writing about the MH370 videos for the past month. They are real, leaked, military videos. I don't want you to believe me, I want to convince you with the facts. This isn't all of the facts, just some of the most compelling. The videos... Oldest Archive is a satellite stereoscopic video from the Regenik Dianon with an archive upload date of May 19th, 2024. The description reads, Received March 12th, 2014. Source, protected. Alright, let's go ahead and see and make sure that he doesn't have any prior posts on this that give us a... T. L. D. R. A little bit on his post. So this was, well, he replies a lot. Let's go to his posts. We're looking at an overview. All right. So the one that we had looked at was from eight days ago. Let's just see if he has any the real story of MH three 70 all pertinent evidence and theories. That was 70 or seven days ago. Facts and theories to help the investigation. And okay. So this Reddit looks like started eight days ago or 10 days ago. And it says proof the Northern coordinates are correct and facts. Hey guys, this is Ashton from Twitter. I've noticed a lot of things have gotten destroyed here. Let's see if he gives us a quick synopsis here. And he does not. So let's jump first to the one that he says is all evidence and theories. Okay. So, so my J the general consensus. Well, not general consensus because I haven't done a census, but the idea here is that the original story was, was wrong, that this is a conspiracy and that it didn't just evaporate into thin air or fall into the ocean as everybody thinks. So this says Ashton Twitterson here, many people ask for a comprehensive list. Of the evidence of the M H 370 video. So I delivered most people's immediate reaction will be that the MH 370 videos are stupid or impossible, but they line up with all the facts to date. Don't believe me or trust me, verify the evidence. The U S government made a huge mistake recording this event. There's no excuse they can use to deny it. If you want to destroy all credibility and world governments here is. Your unique opportunity. Each piece of evidence can be verified either visually in the video from works of the community or my own investigation research. If it's not on the list, I either haven't verified it or don't find it to be credibly linked to the investigation. At this time, I'm limited in images that can be used or I would add more. I only put links and sources when it's a contentious point. When the time comes, all those who contributed will be giving credit. Quick disclaimer, they said This is not Q Anon. This is not to distract from Trump or Biden. This is not an alien invasion. This is not a hoax, misinformation, or disinformation. There are ufology elements, but that does not mean it is the explanation. This is the power of the community used to tell the story of the greatest conspiracy of all time. Is this the greatest conspiracy of all time? Note, I don't want to talk to any mainstream media. They'll never tell the truth. I'll talk to any alternative media or Tucker Carlson, Bill Maher, Joe Rogan. If these three can be convinced, I believe the world can be. Interesting. All right, so let's see if we can start with the theories, because I feel like he could have written this better to give us a brief synopsis first. But essentially. Oh, so that's what that video was. Okay, so this is showing that the Malaysia Air 370 was being circled by three unidentified objects in this crazy weird orbs all surrounding it and rotating. I did see this video. And then there's a zap, which is a cold event in the thermal because this was being picked up by thermal imaging. The zap accurately illuminates the clouds in the background and the foreground. All right. So. Let's go through this full. Let's go through this full deep dive. All right. So let's just go back to the top here because now it's starting to make a little bit more sense to me. There's a video that was circulating, which was showing and I'll pull it up here for you guys. So you can watch it if you're on YouTube with me here or on rumble or on the sub stack. This is the web archived video. Okay. Now, again, this comes from 2014 back when this airliner went missing. And here's a video. That they're saying is credible evidence of the Malaysia air showing, and here's my cursor showing there's the orb. There's three orbs that fly right around it in a crazy, crazy quick way that has no, wow. And they're, they're surrounding it like almost in a symmetrical triangle, rotating back and forth and in sync. Almost completely in sync and then rotating and turning back around and all surrounding this airliner, the same airliner that went missing suddenly back in 2014 and they go faster and faster and faster and faster, see if, and then disappears, what completely disappears. So we need to verify obviously the legitimacy of this video, but a lot of people seem to think it's legit. That was crazy. Okay. So one more time at the point where it disappears, the rotating, rotating, rotating, rotating, and it's gone big flash. And the airliner is just completely gone after being surrounded by these three orbs. Now there's a second video that comes from this, and we'll see what this shows us. That was the one that I saw, I believe. It says capture airliners and UFOs, UAV. And here's the thermal imagery. Alright, so here's the aircraft flying. Now why is a UAV this close to this airliner is a better question with thermal imaging. There's an orb, one orb, two orbs. Rotating, rotating, and leaving a thermal trail behind them, which is interesting. Oh, they're perfectly circling when you see the trail around them. Whoa, that's so weird. Super weird. And let's see if it shows it disappearing. Whoa, and it's Gone, dude, if this is real, and this if this is Malaysia air and the whole time I remember this, this was like, this was as big as the Titanic submarine situation. Like all those, you know, the three billionaires, this was an entire airliner just gone, gone. And I believe there was some high profile people on this airliner. But yeah, They we were looking for this for days and days and days went by and days went by and it should have been out of fuel and maybe they they landed here and maybe they didn't and maybe we just haven't their transponder went off whatever it was if this is the airliner and this is real this is one of the craziest conspiracies ever okay Now I'm in. Now I'm in. Alright. So, we got the background now. Filmed in 2014 with technology from 2014. Spy satellite videos, presumed from USA 229 is the earliest archived source. Received March 12, 2014. 3D stereoscopic video, technically a third video, which means we need two satellites in close proximity and on the same orbital trajectory. Satellite perspective changes eight times as do the coordinates, with coordinates visible in six of them showing us the location and direction of travel, south and east. A thermal layer of MQ 1C Grey Eagle posted by Rejiknion received, I don't know what the hell that's supposed to be a name or something received June 5th of 2014. And cameras on the equipment are made. For filming these events, it says this the thermal layer on a specialized electro infrared camera on the MQ one secret Eagle matches the mission purpose for this S I B R S and S I G I N T tracking boats and planes, electronic signals, monitoring intelligence and battlefield awareness, alternate sources and higher quality exists that point to none of these users being the original source. Maybe we can see if these are the same exact videos and higher resolution, but this is two minutes long. So I wonder maybe it's, it looks slowed down a little bit. That's probably why it's two minutes. I want to see it disappear like that. Slow motion. Gone. Whoa, that's wild. Okay it's a speculation. The original source may have come from a private forum or left on the dark web to be found. Videos show coordinates in them that change, but not when the mouse moves. Videos show satellite designations presumed to be N r o l 22 due to seeing 93 and thus ruling out threes. Not sure what that's supposed to mean. Satellite vis video explained by remote terminal access mouse drift. Explained by a JPEG wheel track ball that does not have the click activated screen capture of terminal running at some resolution. 30 frames per second. Citrix remote terminal running at default on 24 frames per second. Okay, very technical. So they're trying to figure out where did this video come from because you see on the screen a mouse going back and forth on top of it over top of the video. So I think that's what they're trying to do here. Remotely navigating around a very large resolution video playing at. Eight frames per second, or is that six? Six frames per second. Okay, so they're just trying to figure out where did this video come from? Plane is making a left hand turn and descending consistent with a circle formation consistent with capabilities of a 777 to 200. Plane's altitude is low based on how close they are to the cumulus cloud formations. Okay, true. There's a heat signature near the center bottom half of the plane. Yes, also true. There's an exhaust smoke coming from the plane, which is likely too low for contrails. Three orbs approach. The plane seemingly not affected by gravity. Yeah, that's that's what I said. It was just moving. It didn't seem to follow Newton's laws. Like it's just moving around in a way that our aircraft absolutely could not. Does the orbs have cold trails that are in front of the orb leading the orb? Yes. Saw that. Speculation. Orbs may be changing the pressure of the atmosphere or absorbing energy from it. Orbs entered a lock formation and begin a pattern and change patterns. Wow, they really broke down this pattern this way the way that they were rotating. Very interesting. And the two of them almost intersect and then change their formation and then go perfectly in sync. Perfectly in sync. It says the orb's pattern encircles the plane over time. The orbs may not be visible to the human eye. Both cameras are infrared. Huh, interesting. A zap occurs as the orbs bend and move towards the plane. The zap is a cold event in the thermal, and the zap accurately illuminates the clouds in the background and the foreground. Huh. So was this at night? The plane completely disappears after the zap, including the plane's visible trail. The MQ 1C is cropped out of the satellite video, just out of view. The user closes the window after the plane disappears, indicating this was not recorded in real time. It requires knowledge of classified military systems. Person who recorded or leaked these videos is likely in prison. How would a hoaxer know? They would never find a plane. Why this is M H three 70. Okay. Good question. How do we know that this is the plane, right? Is this says that it's the only missing seven 77. There was no debris field found official flight path. Has it running out of gas? Because there's nowhere else for it to go and the official search searched everywhere along the final ping art and along the flight path even the Nicobar Islands area, right? So the perfectly along this flight path perfectly around the time that it was flying and it's the exact aircraft type says the thermal matches the exact silhouette of a 777. Okay, yep, which is overlaid at the top of this image here. The color tone matches that of Malaysia Airlines. And satellite coordinates put it on the flight path of MH370 around... 640 Nicobar Islands, which is the smoking gun. Note, this is the suspected location of the turn into the South Indian Ocean. It has an imagery around that. It says NROL 22, released in 2006, is presumed to be a relay satellite due to its molnia. Orbit and clear view of the satellite that took the video, the smoking gun USA two 29 at the right location. Time apparent angle with a sister debris satellite capable of taking stereoscopic video at six 40 UTC. So it's just verifying that there was something in this location at that time that could have taken this video and says propose of. Signal intelligence and space based infrared systems is to track airplanes like this. Interesting, it shows a Lockheed Martin space based infrared system. And then it says the U. S. military had to have tracked MH370. We've proven they had the satellites in the area. US military confirmed the provided data to the intelligence community to help solve the mystery of MH370 and the freedom of information act about the DSP detection of the impact of 370 was ignored. Goes on to show the flight path. The pilot says good night. MH370 at 5 19 UTC at 17 21. 521 UTC MH370 disappears from all civilian radar due to both 8S, B and A cars being shut off. Captain Blelly suggests whoever was in command of the aircraft had intentionally achieved this by disconnecting all four electronic Electrical generators and APU. The radar says the plane makes impossible altitude changes from 5, 000 feet to 55, 000 feet. The radar loses the plane, but tracks an object they believed to be the plane as the satellite system resets three minutes and a log on request happens around 1724 plane changes directions. When the plane gets over Penang, the copilot cell phone pings, huh? The last Malaysian. Radar in between 1815 and 1822, 200 miles West by Northwest of Penang. Hmm. Very interesting. So it's showing basically the flight logs and the the pings of information that was being sent out from it. It says the witness interesting. So it's showing her blog post, Catherine T. It says the reported facts, their timing, and their identified geometrical relative position provided by Miss T are coherent, providing confidence in her reporting. So let's see this blog post while that's loading. She says, I thought it was coming to land. I felt it was traveling slowly. The aircraft was probably flying in L2 between 2000 and 100, 000 feet, held same tack for five minutes. The aircraft had considerably descended. from the first or from the first second of observation until the accidental change of tack. I saw that what looked like black smoke behind the orange glow, which resembled a contrail, but black, but I couldn't see any fire flames or anything like that. I just saw a plane glowing orange. Whoa. This comes from chat GPT, which has gases in the atmosphere, particularly oxygen. Nitrogen can glow orange under influence of electromagnetic effects, ionization, and other electron or energetic processes. The Aurors are a prime example of a phenomenon. Interesting. Says the glowing plane did not have any navigation lights. Alright, as it moved behind the boat, I could see the shape very clearly, which was a passenger plane. Here is the blog post. Which, quite lengthy. But maybe we'll have to send that out in the sub stack. Hmm. Interesting. So this woman says that she saw Malaysia Air right around the time that it disappeared. And wrote a blog post about it. It says other pertinent information. It says, my impression of the hall was that it was monocolor. I assume light matte gray. I doubted my sanity at the time. The plane circles around the boat counterclockwise from the Southeast. Hmm. The silence is sinister was the last tweet. It says other pertinent information to fake passengers using stolen passports that changed their appearance. What one possible passenger who bypassed security. And an SOS at 243 intercepted and reported only in Chinese news, which is a plane attempting emergency landing. Trump leaked a similar satellite photo in 2019 of USA 224, which launched in 2011, same year as USA 229. And then it says debunking the suicide myth. Everyone stands up for him, including officials and his wife. 18, 000 flight hours. Coworkers loved him. So it's talking about the pilot. No indication of suicide intent in the flight path. Had a huge custom simulator. Not standard model. Zahari's flight simulator had been used to pilot two data points in the southern Indian Ocean. Or to plot. And route found on the simulator closely matches MH 150 route to Jeddah with a diversion at the end of the South Pole. He was rostered to fly MH 150, impossible to disconnect all four electrical generators. Flying over his hometown is silly. It was an emergency and people would kick down the door before they would get knocked out. Depressurization is slow. In most emergency scenarios, the plane is not going to last until it runs out of fuel. Now it's going on to debunk the fact that the actual of the debris, no debris found by the official search or above or below water. It says the debris found years later was not consistent with barnacle growth. Only the Flay Perrin was matched with a non unique serial number. One person claims to have found 10 plus pieces, which was featured and contested on a Netflix documentary. Oh, excuse me. No one is allowed to inspect it. Okay. So it's trying to debunk it addressing debunks of the videos. Clouds do move just slowly. So it's just going over some of the things that people are saying about that. Hmm. Interesting. Plane disappears. So it says teleportation. Plane disappears from space time instantly. Intermediate black hole event. Which was it being cold? A witness sees a possible red shifted glow or orange glow Using a plane because it's in open space, huh? Teleportation may be to hide the plane Family's phones were proven ringing on Chinese TV for days Impossible if underwater or in another dimension, huh? Traveling forward in time doesn't break causality But traveling backward in time does See time Dilation says the science wormholes have been shown to be theoretically possible by at least three scientific papers They all show that exotic material is not necessary One paper argues a thin shell could be used to safely transport an object outside of space time Description of an intermediate black hole is consistent with the zap we see in the videos And one paper discusses needing to remove unwanted particles from the area The orbs may have been super conductive the orbs could be cleaning the area in Deucing the mouth of the wormhole and or acting as the barrier for passage. And there's a real patent for a magnetic vortex wormhole generator. What the fuck? No way. Let's pull that one up. Patents. google. com. A patent number is. U. S. 20030197093A1, and I will include this in the sub stack as well, because now we need a sub stack on this one. So this invention, which is called Magnetic Vortex Wormhole Generator. What? This invention relates to a magnetic vortex generator, which has the ability to generate negative mass and a negative spring constant, which, according to Einstein's general theory of relativity, is required in order to create a stable wormhole between R space and hyperspace. Whaaaaat? Very interesting, above my scientific pay grade. But I will definitely be reading through this another time. And maybe I'll highlight some stuff for you when I throw it in the sub stack. Here's the article that came from the last day of Malaysia airline passengers with stolen passports. Okay, interesting. Could these be the aliens? Alright let's wrap this up here. It says Diego Garcia, 1, 700 military and 1, 500 civilian personnel. Space Force has 86, 000 total servicemen and women. Okay. Sighting of a passenger plane 50 miles north of the base flying low in the early morning. I wish he would have put this together better. Pilot had Diego Garcia in his simulator. Not open to commercial aircraft. Enough space for a 7 77. So wait, what is this? Diego Garcia? Is this supposed to be like a a military base or something? What is Diego Garcia? Diego Garcia Base. It's gotta be a military base. Diego Garcia is a British atoll in the Indian Ocean. It is an island of the British Indian Ocean Territory, an overseas territory of the United States Kingdom or the United Kingdom. It is a militarized atoll just south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean and the largest of 60 small islands. Huh. Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Because there was a theory that it landed there, I guess. Okay. Alright, moving on here. Not open to commercial aircraft, has enough space for a 777, has underground facilities with a black vault Freedom of Information Act showing it may be a CIA black site. Message from Philip Wood saying he had held captive with a picture of EXIF data, placing it at Diego Garcia. Tens of millions. To black construction for dredging and other activities. Lockheed Martin contract for upgrading power and water photos of Diego Garcia, Facebook that look like the crew seems like the new area 51 Strava heat map and the small boat Harbor outside of the yacht club seems very active. Do D reassessed privacy's policies for the troops after Strava revelations in 2018. Hmm. Theories and speculation. The reason to do this must be large enough to warrant the risk unlikely to be about money. Shadow war for control of this technology, 20 semiconductor scientists on board. Whoa. So saying that basically the reason that they would have done this was that there was 20 semiconductor scientists on board Malaysia air and they wanted to either remove them, kill them, whatever. Or transport them to this base. Says video suppressed to hide hyper advanced technology not known to the public. Interesting. Video suppressed to hide non human intelligence. Filming had intent. UAV is too slow to catch a 777 and US 229 is only in position for minutes. So the only reason it got filmed, they're saying, is because they wanted to see this, and then somebody leaked it. Primary narratives. Ones with the most evidence, and we're getting towards the end of this. Set the satellite computer to stick to IOR 30 minutes prior to takeoff to make the plane difficult to trace. Three fake passengers possibly in on the hijack. Pilots and crew may be in on it. Flight changed to the last minute. Same data of Diego. 1721 UTC event is electromagnetic jamming plane is flown to Penang as a waypoint and for flies directly towards the coordinates. U. S. military equipment is waiting to teleport the plane to Diego Garcia. Deals are made with the crew and passengers, countries of the passengers. Maldives sighting just north of Diego Garcia in the early morning, Philip Wood resists, where is he now, witness protection. Who is Philip Wood? Debris later thrown in the ocean. Crew lookalikes found on Facebook at Diego Garcia. Motive is control of the very technology we see in the video. And the last portion of this says, UFO emergency event. All right, it says 1721 event disconnects all four electrical generators and APU transponders similar to what an EMP or electromagnetic interference may do damage to the plane will cause it to ground quickly depressurization may be slow fire could have started lithium batteries could be a source of fuel or interest in the UFO angle copilot cell phone pings over Penang. Indicating calling for help. Next logical place to land is in the water. Other narratives, USO, UFO teleports the plane to another dimension or location. Ooh. And motive of the cover up is to hide non human intelligence and technology from the world. Whoa. Decoy plate theory. Second 777 used to spoof the pings and track trick in Marsat. This event was to gain control of patents for some nanochips related to the Rothschilds. What? This event was to gain control of patents for some nanochips related to the Rothschilds. Huh. UFO is saving the passengers from their own doom. UFO is attracted to the lithium batteries, or the governments are working with the NHI for shadowy purposes. Interesting. That is a crazy one. Crazy one. He says, submission statement, the MH370 videos are the largest verifiable conspiracy of all time. This has been a cover up by multiple nations and multiple individuals. This conspiracy has the potential to break the minds of many, as well as destroy confidence in world governments. And this came from the same individual who said, Thank you for contributing, supporting, and getting the message out. Wow. That's a... Crazy one, crazy one. That's one of my most favorite conspiracies that we've gone over. All right. Wonderful. I hope you got something out of that. Code to the Substack, austinadams. substack. com, subscribe, leave a five star review. That'

On today's Equipping You in Grace show, Dave talks with Jonathan Gibson about why liturgies are beneficial for every Christian and can aid in evangelism, family worship, and how they can help us grow in grace, along with his book, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel: A Liturgy for Daily Worship from Advent to Epiphany (Crossway, 2023).What you'll hear in this episodeThe element of each liturgy in O, Come, O Come, Emmanuel.Whether there is a certain time or setting to read the devotional.Why liturgies are beneficial for every Christian.Why liturgies can be helpful for Christians and aid in evangelism.How this volume can help with family worship.How liturgies can help Christians grow in grace.About the GuestJonathan Gibson (PhD, University of Cambridge) is an ordained minister in the International Presbyterian Church, United Kingdom, and associate professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is a coeditor of and contributor to From Heaven He Came and Sought Her and author of Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship. Jonny and his wife, Jackie, have four children.Subscribing, sharing, and your feedbackYou can subscribe to Equipping You in Grace via iTunes, Google Play, or your favorite podcast catcher. If you like what you've heard, please consider leaving a rating and share it with your friends (it takes only takes a second and will go a long way to helping other people find the show). You can also connect with me on Twitter at @davejjenkins, on Facebook, or via email to share your feedback.Thank you for listening to this episode of Equipping You in Grace.

British broadcaster and former politician Nigel Farage calls in from London to compare and contrast the state of his union in the United Kingdom, versus the state of ours in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rishi Sunak is considering weakening some of the government's key green commitments in a major policy shift. It could include delaying a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and phasing out gas boilers, multiple sources have told the BBC. The prime minister did not deny the reports, saying he was committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 but in a "more proportionate way". Home Secretary Suella Braverman told Today's Justin Webb the “costs of achieving some of these arbitrary targets has to be taken into account”. While Sir Alok Sharma, who headed COP26 in Glasgow, spoke to Nick Robinson about what he wants to hear from the prime minister. By: John Walton Credit: PA Location: London, United Kingdom