Stuck In The Middle East With You – Weekly Wrap-Up with Jonn Elledge

There's quite a lot of ads on our podcast these days. We need them to pay for our team.

But if you find them a little distracting, annoying maybe, there's a simple solution.

Backers on Patreon, that means no ads and uninterrupted listening.

Follow the link in the show notes to find out more.

America leads the world in medicine development. It matters.

We get new medicines first, nearly three years faster.

Five million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home.

And not relying on other countries keeps us safe.

But China is racing to overtake us.

Will we let them or will we choose to stay ahead?

When America leads, America cures.

Let's tell Washington to keep us in the lead.

Learn how at americacures.com.

Pay for by Farma.

Protein is now at Starbucks and it's never tasted so good.

You can add protein, cold foam to your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha.

Try it today at Starbucks.

Spring is here and the shopping list is long.

Time to make a lows run.

Buy three bags, get three free.

If stay green, one cubic foot garden soil.

Plus, right now, members can earn four times the points on an eligible purchase.

Start spring off strong with these deals and more.

Our best lineup is here at Loves.

Valet the 325, while supplies last.

Soil offer excludes a lasken whoye.

loyalty program subject to terms and conditions.

Sealows.com slash terms for details.

Subject to change.

Point booster subject to exclusions.

More terms apply one time only offer.

Hello, it's that time of the week again.

Welcome back to the weekly wrap up from the bunker.

I'm Andrew Harrison.

Every Friday, we recap the biggest stories, the weirdest tales,

and the news that went under the radar from the past seven days.

With some of your favorite bunker people,

plus some crossover guests from Oh God, what now?

And today, we're joined by the best illegal author of a history of the world

in 47 borders.

There were 47 borders last time we checked.

It may have changed since we pressed record on this.

It's John LH, how are you?

I'm all right.

I'm not, I'm definitely not having the threads dream

at all at the moment that's recurring nightmare.

You're not sort of traffic warden in front of you in tatters and rags.

Yeah, no one's picking themselves in the streets of Sheffield.

It's all fine.

Not last time we checked.

And anyway, well, let's start with the big story of the week,

which is, of course, Operation Epic Fury,

who comes up with these names,

Donald Trump's devastating surprise attack on Iran.

Beginning last Friday, 28th February,

the were attacked on Iranian military nuclear infrastructure.

The attacks killed Iran's supreme leader,

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,

and provoked Iranian retaliation with missile and drone strikes against US

and Israeli targets across the Gulf.

Washington has brushed aside considerations of international law

in an operation that claims to design to cripple Iran's nuclear missile programs

and ultimately forced regime change,

although the rationale and aims keep shifting.

As we record, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth

is claiming that Iran had plans to assassinate Trump,

so America struck first.

And White House press secretary Karanayin Levitz

said it was necessary to bomb Iran

because Trump had a, quote,

feeling that Iran would attack.

The story has changed you by the hour,

but it is colored by the worst mass casualty events

so far in which 168 children and adults

were killed in a US strike on a girl's elementary school in southern Iran.

The Pentagon has continued to deny responsibility for the strike

and Hegseth says we never target civilian targets.

John, that strike on the girl's school,

in particular, Vegas belief and its intensified criticism

of already intense criticism of the world.

Do we know whether that specifically was a case of deliberate

million targeting or just incompetence?

I mean, there are reports that they were using it out of date map?

Yeah, so the new republic that satellite images from 2013 showed

that the school was previously connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval base.

Right.

So it does feel more cock up than conspiracy

in that, I think, even this presidential administration

is probably not in the habit of deliberately bombing small girls.

It just doesn't seem very likely.

But how much comfort are we willing to take from that at this point?

It doesn't matter if it's incompetence.

They still killed 150 small children.

Yeah, that's not good.

Depraved indifference is not necessarily so much better.

No.

And it's also worth remembering that the US's main ally in this war

has just come off a war in which they were doing a lot of this kind of thing.

And again, motivation doesn't seem entirely like a justification

for the actions all the time.

Yeah, we are not geopolitics analysts.

So I'm not going to ask you how's the war going, John?

Because frankly, we're not best placed to say that.

But what we can do is we can look at the politics around it

as it relates to leaders here and in the US.

The standout of the week was on Tuesday, Trump criticised Keir Starmer

and the UK's initial response saying,

this is not Winston Churchill we're dealing with here.

And Trump's ability to insult and belittle people

are trying to be as allies never ceases to amaze.

What do you think of this?

I mean, the thing I found so shocking was he was basically nudged

into that stance by Harry Cole of the Sun.

Yeah, who genuinely asked him, do you think Starmer's been weak

because of the Muslims?

Is that what's going on?

And which is like, who side are you on here?

Are you on the side of a foreign government?

Or is this your patriotic approach to British journalism?

But yeah, Donald Trump himself.

It's just like, I find it difficult to kind of worry too much

about what he's going to say about anyone.

Because he's essentially like a random number generator at this point.

He's probably going to say some completely different tomorrow.

It's, I mean, being insulted by Trump is the best thing

that's happened to Starmer in about, you know, since Christmas.

It's the first time he's been on the side of the mainstream British voter in some time, isn't it?

Yeah, and I guess the one way that you can always rile up

the mainstream British voter is by insulting even by proxy.

Winston Churchill using Winston Churchill is just a stick to being a Prime Minister.

You don't like from a man who, in comparison, I mean, Donald Trump is such a hateful

slob on the idea that the immediate regime is wrong.

You'll know Roosevelt.

In fact, you'll know anybody.

And the idea that he can just whip this out

and make a difference to what's happening is astonishing.

I mean, I also think it's probably worth remembering

that Winston Churchill was probably the one former British Prime Minister

that Donald Trump can actually name.

So he was obviously going to go, he's not Lord Palmerston, is he?

So.

This is no Andrew Butler law we're dealing with here.

One of the major repercussions of this week's terrible events

have been changes in the energy markets.

Oil and gas prices have risen sharply.

Does this look like a short-term shock?

Or are we in for another 1970 style oil shock, do you think?

Well, I'm very glad you asked.

I am famously a huge, huge expert in not only the energy markets,

but in what's going to happen next week?

If you're not applying area of expertise.

You write as Brent Crude, don't you see?

Yeah, yeah.

So the issue we have is that a last chunk of the world's energy

goes through the straight-of-all moves, which separates the Persian Gulf from the Indian Ocean,

and it's got a run on one side and the UAE in those.

That'd be everywhere else on the inside, yeah.

And if the Iranians are going to bomb that,

we're going to try and take out shipping through there,

then people are not going to try and push shipping through there.

Now, the oil can, to some extent, be diverted through pipelines.

Not all of it, but enough to kind of keep things moving.

Liquid natural gas cannot.

So we are certainly seeing prices rise on the expectation of instability.

As to whether it's going to keep going.

Literally nobody knows.

Because nobody knows if this is going to be one of those things that Donald Trump

has of next week and just moves on to something else, which he does do.

Or whether like this will be a more sustained effort from the US,

or probably more frightening than that.

If this kind of sparks a regional conflict,

which could close the straight-of-all moves for an extended period,

in which case there will be many bad consequences of that.

But one of them is that your household energy bill is fucked.

Yeah, well, I mean, people who do know what the FTA,

and they've pointed out that the market reaction has been muted.

Now, the level nor the change is striking by the standards of historic shocks to oil prices.

Oil is 6% above its average in 1972.

Far below levels, we're just showing the bigger oil price shocks.

So maybe we're not actually going to be queuing outside the garages

and fistfights on the floor.

Malice of four quarters, I remember with the headline.

Those were the days.

Those were the days.

I said I wouldn't ask you how's the war going.

But we can at least talk about how the Americans think the war is going.

If you are market, if you are Trump and Hexath,

is it going successfully so far?

I mean, like Hexath has been putting out these laughable top gun-style videos

with music, indicating how Rithlas is successfully United States is.

So I actually looked on the White House website

to find out what the hell they think is going on.

And I found a page that's headlight operation, epic fury,

on much power, unrelenting force of America's warriors.

And then you get two pop-ups with that.

One of them says, join the Golden Age.

And it's about subscribing to their newsletter.

And the other is download the White House app.

We don't know how they think the war is going

because we don't know why they wanted the war.

The line keeps changing.

So in the past week, they have said it was to take out Iran's nuclear facilities.

It's to kind of cripple its ballistic missile facilities.

It's to support the pro-democracy protests.

Or there was like a line from Rubio,

which I think implied that they've been dragged into it

because the Israelis were going to do it.

And they didn't want the Israelis to be doing it alone,

which then walked back.

It's quite literally a big boy who was going to do it.

So we did this.

No, it's a little boy that's going to do it.

And we decided to support him.

But the problem is, like, given we do not know what the war aims are,

yeah, it is difficult to know whether they are being met.

That page on the White House website suggests to me

that actually the main war aim here is to kind of look really hard and tough.

It suggests the main war aim is to sell it for $20 pay per view on HBO.

It is the $20 payment.

I think there is an argument that actually everything Trump ever does

is about the clicks.

Then it's a content administration,

run by a trollotition.

Yeah, his entire governing strategy is what I've come to think of

a ship host totalitarianism.

Yeah, it's just that he kind of occupies our brains all the time

through internet content.

Well, related to that,

more than one person has been referring to

the attacks of Operation Epstein Fury,

the idea that the whole thing is a huge wag the dog

distraction from the Epstein buzz.

Seeing that holds water.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah, I do.

I mean, I don't think that's the only thing going on.

I think it's like, as ever,

you know, wars don't happen for one reason very often,

as often, especially in the administration's fracture,

there's this one.

But I can absolutely believe that Donald Trump is kind of worried about

not just like the possibility of his allegations

reaching him, but also like his poll ratings have not been looking great recently.

So maybe he is just trying to generate a rally around the flag effect,

but I can absolutely believe that the Epstein stuff is in the mix somewhere.

I don't think that's the only thing,

but it doesn't ring untrue.

Well, it's not all war this week.

There have been other stories,

and many of them, because of the war,

have gone under the radar.

John, what do you think is the most important story

that has gone perhaps on that notice this week?

So the chief executive of the Police Federation of England and Wales

has been arrested, right?

Which is a great headline, isn't it?

So the Police Federation of England and Wales

is a membership body.

It's like they're equivalent of a trade union.

They can't unionise, but it represents individual members of the force.

Mukhand Krishna, since he took over, he's been kind of campaigning

on the basis that it should be easier for junior officers to blow the whistle

on dodgy things happening in the police force.

So that's kind of been his big thing.

Unfortunately now, however, he has been nicked.

The police say they're investigating allegations of fraud relating to governance

and financial decision making.

Nonetheless, this feels like not a great look for anyone concerned, does it?

Yeah, I mean, obviously, no charges as yet.

Not even allegations as yet.

There were two other arrests, a 51-year-old man from Wales,

and a 55-year-old man from Bristol,

arrested on suspicion of fraud by abuse of position,

which is what Krishna was arrested for as well.

I mean, obviously, we can't say too much about it,

because there are no charges as yet,

but it does have a strange smell of line of duty about this.

It does, specifically the season in which

Ted Hastings is arrested under suspicion of possibly being H,

the spider at the middle of the web of corruption.

Either the guy trying to make it easier for whistle blowers

and the police force has done something terrible,

or he hasn't, and he's been arrested.

And neither of those is a good outcome.

Moving on, domestically, the big story of the week

was a new harsher regime on immigration from Labour.

Oh, thank God, I've so been waiting for one of those.

Yes.

New asylum applicants will get only 31 sleeve to remain,

not five-year refugee status.

The qualifying period for indefinitely to remain

is going to increase from five to 10 years.

If asylum applicants break the law or work easily,

they will lose government housing and financial support.

And the government's going to stop issuing study visas

to people from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar, and Sudan.

John, what does this tell us about where the government is now

on immigration and specifically,

where homosexuality Shabbana Mahmoud is?

I mean, I think the line is the lady's not for turning,

isn't it? She's trying to

show that she's not going to be shaken from the path

by any by-election results that suggest that nobody

who previously voted Labour likes the party anymore

and is going to keep doing that,

she's absolutely going to kind of stick to the hardline approach

that has characterized that wing of the party

since it came to office two and a half years ago.

Yeah, I mean, put it, it's, you know, in terms of the one moral

that you seem to be able to draw from Gorten and Denton

is that you can beat reform without having to imitate reform

that perhaps that isn't an absolutely bottomless appetite

for reforms anti-immigrant xenophobic point of view

and the conclusion that Labour seems to draw as well

is the exact opposite of that.

I mean, one of the problems the Labour party does have is like,

it's different seats have electros

that arguably want completely different things

from immigration policy, especially,

but a whole range of policy.

And like, yeah, I think it is,

it is possibly true that there are many seats

that Labour holds where like they probably will appreciate

some tightening of immigration policy,

but the cost of that is they're going to lose a whole load

of the inner cities that have previously been their base.

Like, there are multiple London Councils

that are going to lose for the first time this May

that is nailed on at this point.

And also I just thought something, the specific changes make no sense.

Like the idea that some people are coming over here

from dangerous countries as students

and then claiming asylum once they're already here,

those asylum claims are only going through

because they have come from dangerous countries

because they have come from dangerous countries.

The countries do not get less dangerous

because we are no longer letting them study.

It is just that we will no longer be letting them study

at British universities.

And it doesn't make sense to me.

The only way I can see this, any logic to this at all,

is if they want to sort of use it as leverage to kind of like,

get returns policies in with some of those countries,

as they have done with bits of Southern Africa,

then maybe it's kind of like,

okay, we'll give you your study visas back.

But does that even make sense when like the point is

that these are dangerous countries where people are being persecuted?

It's just, it just stinks.

Yeah, I'm going to be talking a bit more

and do sell them out this on them.

Monday's edition of, I've got a lot now, which you are up.

There's something for us to look forward to.

Absolutely. This week also marks

the fifth anniversary of the murder of Sarah Everard

by a serving Metropolitan Police Officer Wayne Cousins,

one of the most infamous disturbing and horrific cases

involving the police of recent decades.

In the aftermath, the Metropolitan Police

promised to make women feel safer.

In the commission, the case review,

five years on critics are saying progress has been very slow.

Now, I'm aware they already have having

two men comment on this.

But Baroness Casey's report described the forces

institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic

and institutionally homophobic.

Has much actually changed, John?

Again, I'm just going to reiterate,

I am aware of quite how badly placed.

I am to talk about this.

It doesn't feel like it.

There was a lengthy statement from

the violence against women and girls charity solace

about actually how little has been done

and how the fight has to continue.

Because it is quite difficult to point

to specific changes.

One of the things about the Everard case that was so shocking

was not just the crime in or of itself,

but the way the line from the met afterwards

was like, oh, well, you know, just for the record

we did not see him as a police officer.

It's like, that doesn't matter.

The point is he was a police officer.

Yeah.

He was using his role as a police officer

to push a woman to get into his car

so that he could assault and then murder her.

Like, you don't just kind of get to disown him at this point.

And there is just this kind of

tinny approach to the whole thing.

I mean, my then partner went to the, um,

the vigil on club in common.

Yes.

And left quite quickly because she said it was scary

how many police fans were kind of like scattered around the place,

clearly waiting for trouble,

which they then went on to create.

Such a completely

unthought-through response that like to show,

but in response to a protest against police violence

against a woman,

they sent out a bunch of riot officers to commit more violence against women.

There just isn't the, I mean,

the risk of kind of tying it to an earlier story in the show.

It just doesn't feel like the police

are necessarily great at self-criticism.

Another standout story of the week

is the fall of the House of Brew Dog.

The self-designated punk brewery,

home of Elvis juice,

once valued at two billion pounds

was sold for a mere 33 million pounds.

220,000 so-called equity punks

who had invested their own money

of our crowdfunding

were left empty handed,

nearly 500 people lost their jobs.

But it's okay because James Watts,

the company's deeply unpleasant co-founder,

apologized to those tens of thousands investors

or left out of pocket.

What personally reportedly made around 50 million pounds

when he sold his stake in Brew Dog in 2017?

The equity punks look said to get absolutely nothing.

John, this is a fantastic advert

for small investor capitalism, isn't it?

Yes, no, I want to be clear that

it's not quite true that the equity punks are getting nothing.

Sources familiar with the matter

did say that it was hoped,

hoped equity punks

would retain the discounts and other benefits,

including a free beer on their birthdays.

Great, so that's what they get for their investment.

You can have a pint of wingman to cheese all of up.

I mean, also, the hope,

it's not guaranteed at this point.

It is just a horrible brand, isn't it?

It's just like everything.

I don't know that it's a horrible brand.

I think he's a horrible man and may take the horrible.

Yeah, no, they've done a couple of things

where they've hit the headlines over the years.

There was one year for International Women's Day, I think.

They released some beer in pink bottles,

which went down very well.

And another year, they were giving away

free beer to anyone who's willing to go in

and say they supported Donald Trump.

Right.

And every time this stuff happened,

they would go viral for completely the wrong reasons.

And he's just like, he is just a posh chance, isn't he?

Well, I mean, the whole source of

we just set up a brewery on spec in our garage or whatever.

The guy's father is very, very wealthy,

more than that.

And they did used to make good beer.

And I'll perfectly have to drink their beer.

But it's become so associated with everybody

knows the allegations of toxic workplace,

everybody knows the bullying accusations,

everybody knows the BBC documentary

about the people who worked for Brudog

and how aggressively James wants to be

or push back on that.

They just ended up running naff bars

full of like archbishops of Bantabury

and not really being something you want to be associated with.

No, I mean, like a lot of the vibes around it.

There is one quite near me that be quite a nice place to work.

They kind of do the thing well,

they'll let you use their Wi-Fi during the day

in exchange for like a nominal fee.

And that's quite useful as a freelancer.

And I sort of refused to set foot in the place

because just the associations they have for the brand

are so horrible.

And that was before a bunch of people,

including some actual mates of mine,

lost their shirts, so.

One more story for the United States.

The Epstein scandal continued to roll on this week.

Hillary and Bill Clinton were questioned for nine hours

by the House Oversight Committee.

And I'd any knowledge of Epstein's sex trafficking operation.

But the deposition quickly turned into a bit of a circus

where clashes with Republican lawmakers,

conspiracy theories revived

and a brief near walk out by Hillary Clinton

after a photo from the closed hearing was leaked online.

What are the main sort of takeaways from this show?

I found remarkably little content in there.

I have to say,

Bill Clinton, who actually knew Epstein,

kind of managed to quite convincingly make the argument.

Yeah, I knew the guy,

just like giving me his plane for my humanitarian work.

And in exchange for my talking to him about politics

and finance for an hour.

And when I realized he wasn't actually interested

in the humanitarian work, I backed off.

Now, whether or not that's the whole story,

I don't know, but it's kind of like, you know,

it's coherent. He seemed relaxed.

Hillary Clinton seemed much more brittle,

just frustrated, unable to cope with it.

And it just like just presented herself less well.

But on the other hand, she did not know the man,

she says.

And she knows she is in there to be set up.

It is baffling there, kind of like asking her hours

and hours of questions about a man.

She says she has never even met.

Obviously, after a while, her temper is going to fray.

Well, it's to get her fray when the idiotic Republican

Lauren Bobut starts trying to resurrect pizza gates,

which is, you know, just because it happens to be a conspiracy theory

involving pedophiles does not mean that this fiction

is only in any way related to the actual real conspiracy

involving pedophiles, which was, which was Epstein.

It's just like Bobut, who is a very trivial individual,

you know, a classic member of the kind of noise-making

new Republican intake just wants to throw a lot of shit in the air.

I don't blame Hillary Clinton for losing air, right?

No, I absolutely don't. But like, you can see where like,

nonetheless, that is not necessarily a great attribute

if you kind of want to make it as a presidential candidate.

I did, can I tell you my favorite thing

about the pizza gate conspiracy theory?

The guy who tried to actually walk into the pizza restaurant

was meant to be happening in the basement of with a gun,

which is obviously horrible.

What he didn't realize was this pizza restaurant

did not in fact have a basement.

Ah, they got rid of the basement, you see?

Yeah, they filled it. They moved it.

This goes deep. It goes very deep.

It doesn't go deep at all.

In life, growth doesn't happen alone.

Family keeps you secure.

Coaches maximize your performance.

But in business, who is there to help you grow?

When Lumen Field wants to power game day experiences for 69,000 fans

who make sure every snap and tap,

leave the home crowd cheering.

Lumen, that's who.

Helping leaders like you grow without growing pains.

Welcome to the trusted network for AI.

Learn more at Lumen.com.

The all new 2026 Toyota RAV4 is here,

building on everything drivers know and love about Toyota.

With a redesigned look and modern tech

that makes life behind the wheel easier than ever,

the new RAV4 comes standard as a hybrid,

providing smooth, efficient performance

for both city streets and longer journeys.

Enjoy the legendary reliability Toyota is known for

in the all new 2026 RAV4.

Learn and shop more at toyota.com.

Toyota, let's go places.

This episode is brought to you by Collegard.

Do you know what's really scary?

Not screening for colon cancer when you turn 45.

The Collegard test is non-invasive,

requires no special prep or time off work,

and shifts right to your door.

In just three simple steps,

Collegard takes the scare out of colon cancer screening.

If you're 45 or older and at average risk,

ask your healthcare provider about the Collegard test.

Collegard is available by prescription only.

Learn more or request a prescription today

at callagard.com slash screen.

Finally, John, we're going to wrap up with

winner and loser of the week.

Who is the winner of the week?

So there's a guy called James Telerico

who is one of those sort of character types

you only get in the US.

You don't get them here.

He's an educator and a preacher of some sort.

He's like 36, 37.

He's very young and handsome.

He has just won the Democratic primary

to be the candidate for the Texan Senate race.

Right.

Later this year.

Beating Jasmine Crockett.

Speeding Jasmine Crockett.

It was a very close contest.

He got 53%, she got 46.

Very high turnout.

But from the quote she'll hearing

from people who vote in that election,

it does sound like a lot of people

are quite happy with either candidate.

I don't think his policies are conservative,

but his vibes are more conservative.

And that might be useful

if the Democrats are really hoping to

take Texas.

If the Democrats can take Texas at some point,

if they can make it competitive

in a presidential race,

then that does kind of make it much, much harder

for the Republicans, certainly for the murder of Republicans.

Yeah.

The mega Republicans to hold on to the presidency

and future races because Texas is a large

and growing state within the norm

with its 34 electoral college votes

or something like that.

That is a huge share of the kind of

of the Republican votes that will be switching sides.

It has been talked about for as long as I can remember

the possibility of Texas going blue

because some of the demographics

do point in that direction,

but it's not happened so far.

It is just about possible

that maybe Donald Trump will be enough

to push it over the line this year.

And I mean, Talleriko is a fantastically charismatic guy.

As you say, he's a progressive

who presents well to conservatives.

And it's not out of the compass

that he might potentially be a presidential candidate.

No, they are referring to America

and West Street, actually.

Amazing.

Who was the...

They're not nobody's doing that.

Actually, nobody's doing that.

Who is the loser of the week, John?

So I'm going to go with someone

who, to whom my heart goes out,

a daily mail writer named Shona Sibbari

who wrote a piece on Monday under the headline,

I'm trapped and under attacking to buy

or back home in Chichester.

My daughter's a furious.

The Labra Doodle is a sick.

And worst of all,

I left my Mount Jaro pen in the fridge.

Right.

Okay, what has happened here?

I realize you've kind of some of the help

that I've got there.

I mean, I don't know what more information you need there.

Really, she's got...

You know, I'm just saying,

like, as someone whose nightmare is like

a sick, poodle crossbreed

and lack of access to a Mount Jaro pen,

I really feel for this woman, actually.

And like, never mind the war.

It's just like those things in and of themselves

are just horrific.

And there's been a lack of sympathy

for a lot of the people trapped in to buy it at the moment.

Let's be honest.

But I think Shona,

I think our Shona really deserves our hearts to go out to her.

Well, I mean, they kind of do buy Shardon Freuda

is kind of one of the emerging themes.

It's something that you can't really get your head around

the military developments.

And they're so horrific and so frightening

and so unpredictable.

But what you can get your head around is

somebody who decided it would be great idea to go to Dubai

so you don't pay any tax.

How hard loses.

Look what I am.

And then suddenly it turns out that,

oh, you know what?

You're actually still part of the world.

And you live in quite a dangerous

and quite volatile part of the world.

So I'm not entirely about sympathy.

A very old friend of mine did move to Dubai

because of a breakup rather than because of the tax regime.

She's got fled the country.

Fell in love and got married out there.

But what's she on Instagram saying?

Ha, ha, losers.

I don't pay any tax.

No.

Those people, I was going to say,

I was going to divide between the people

who just happened to live in Dubai

and the people who've gone there specifically for that reason

and to kind of like,

I just think we could do a more public education

about why the fuck we pay tax and what it is for.

And the fact that it is the contribution

you have to make to living in a civilized society.

And it turns out,

if you're not willing to make that,

then you are potentially prone to these kind of breakdowns.

I particularly liked the French,

whoever it was,

some French person on Blue Sky

had a picture of two French immigration officials

holding what's saying,

saying in French,

France welcomes back all Dubai influences

as soon as you pay your tax on arrival.

I've seen that.

I suspect that might be AI generation.

I think it almost certainly is,

but the sentiment is a couple.

Yeah.

Finally, John, what's the stranger story you've seen this week?

So Iceland,

the shop has abandoned its trademark dispute

with Iceland,

the country,

right,

which has been going on for a decade.

The country was a bit miffed about the idea of like,

because Iceland,

the supermarket has been trying to expand

into the rest of Europe.

And Iceland,

the country was like,

we're not very happy about this actually.

And it did lose a couple of,

the supermarket chain did lose a couple of cases

and it's kind of given up the battle.

I think actually,

this is sort of weirdly a story about globalization

because the chain was founded

in 1970,

it's kind of like a British chain in Shropshire.

In Oswastry in 1970,

you were probably not going to need to think about

what it would be like to be trading

potentially in Iceland, the country.

Yeah.

So it was a relatively safe name to use.

But as business has become more international,

it started opening a shop salesware

that has become more of a problem.

The chain to be fair to it has kind of been quite,

it's surprisingly gracious about it,

I think it's abandoned its disputes

and it has a promised a reproachement discount

for Icelandic shoppers

who attend any Iceland supermarkets in Britain.

Do you need a passport

or can you just turn up sounding like Buick

and get you 20% off?

We don't know.

We'll give it a go.

Are you off the mistake of the Buick?

I can wrap a swan around myself

and hope for the best.

But start making facts machine noises.

That's just an average Friday in this office.

It is absolutely. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I don't,

you'd look at it and you go,

thank you for having a chance to name it an icy land.

If they'd won,

would Iceland the country need to change its name?

Who even knows?

You do get these weird things though.

Do you remember there was for a long time

it was the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia?

Fire on.

Because, yeah,

because like Greece didn't want them

to have the name Macedonia.

Eventually they settled on North Macedonia.

Yeah.

But that took about 20 years.

It's like the artist formerly known as Prince.

But also, you often see these disputes where

you get a discount at Iceland too.

Probably, yes.

You often see these disputes

like the BBC has sued somebody

for selling knit your own Dalek patterns,

horrible of the BBC to do this.

And it's not because the BBC

wants to crush little individuals

because if you allow your copyright

to be eroded even in the smallest way,

a bigger individual can pop up later and say,

well, I clearly don't care about this copyright.

I've decided that I will launch my own,

my own competing brand here.

Oh, yeah.

No, I once got a very angry letter

from a man at the company Porter cabin

complaining that our headline in the magazine

there was an entertaining Porter cabin fever.

Yeah.

Which was about the school building shortage.

He complained that the headline Porter cabin fever

was both in breach of trademark and misspelled.

Try that with teleprompter.

They get very, very furious.

John L. Edge.

Thank you for joining me for the weekly wrap-up.

Thank you.

Thanks you all for listening.

Remember, if you enjoy what we do,

you can back us on Patreon

where you get all of the episodes

at free and early,

and you also get the warm blow satisfaction

from a supporting independent podcasting.

There's only one thing you can do

when you're supporting independent podcasting.

There's only a link in the show notes

and it starts with a little as three pounds a month.

And no danger of inequity punk situation?

No danger of that whatsoever.

And if you can't back us financially,

that's absolutely fine.

But please do subscribe.

Oh, maybe tell a friend about the show,

it really helps.

We will leave you this week

with the thought that this was the week

that soprano star

and fan of the Smith's Michael Imperio Li

made a pilgrimage to Solthead Lads Club

while on his tour in Manchester,

and he put up an Instagram.

Instagram. Is it too much of that mozzarella or this charming made man? What are you going to do?

I'm Andrew Harrison, we'll see you next time on The Bunker.

The Bunker was written and presented by podmasters group editor Andrew Harrison with John

It was produced by Liam Tate with audio production by Tom Taylor, music by Kenny Dickinson

and artwork by Jim Parrott. The managing editor is Jacob Jarvis and The Bunker is a podmasters production.