Would You Still Buy It?

Peter Kinderman it's all about imposing yourself in other people's spaces. So it came to my attention recently that that's probably the simplest and best way to describe why Europeans find American tourists really irritating, ' I don't want to give the impression that everything darling Andy does is wonderful, but I am in favor of this

Hilary Jeffs Well, he does seem to be a bit of a people pleaser, doesn't he? I mean, lots of the things that he seems to be talking about, are things that make people go, "Oh, yeah, I like that." and I'm not

Peter Kinderman Which is exactly what you want prime ministers and governments to do. You want the prime

Hilary Jeffs there's kind of

Peter Kinderman to do the things you want them to

Hilary Jeffs there that need tackling as well, which we know are not easy wins

Peter Kinderman No, I think it's lovely 'cause you're saying in a world in which basic infrastructure has collapsed, I still want music. In the world where basic infrastructure has collapsed, I want dried rice.

Hilary Jeffs Hello, and welcome to Experience, the weekly podcast where we psychoanalyse the news. Now, you may have noticed I've got my camera off, and all will be revealed in a minute. But first, let me just tell you what's coming up on the show this week. We're gonna be talking about Burnham's crackdown on antisocial behavior on the buses. We will be discussing what personalized number plates say about you. Are you a fan or a hater? We'll find out more in a little bit. And last but not least, the psychology behind prepping. Are you a prepper, a hoarder, neurotic? Frankly, I think it might be becoming the new normal. Now, last week, Peter, you and I discussed The Traitors because I was saving up all The Traitors episodes for my birthday treat, and I have to say, I have enjoyed that birthday treat, and I can't wait for the next episode. And I noted all your comments about Claudia Winkleman and her affectations, and I decided, do you know what?

Peter Kinderman Oh no

Hilary Jeffs I've become part of the fan club. What do you think?

Peter Kinderman I think it looks lovely on you. And if you were to wear that in the street, I would absolutely believe that it wasn't an affectation, but it is about three notches lower than the full, full Winkleman. So, yeah. But it's not glossy, and it's not black, and it does actually match your natural hair color, and it is kind of close to what I and others might expect of you. So I think that that's, that's a semi-Winkleman

Hilary Jeffs Do you know what? Frankly, the fact that I did not convince you means that it's coming off. I failed to hoodwink you, but you were being very nice, and I know that we do like a little bit of a white lie, don't we? The psychology behind a white lie. Does my bum look big in this? You should always say, "Yes, your bum does look big in this." Better that than going out with your bum looking big in this. I had a wedding at the start of the summer, and I'd asked everyone in my house what they thought of my outfit. They all said, "Lovely." And halfway through the ceremony, the groom actually said to me had I thought about going on Ozempic.

Peter Kinderman Oh,

Hilary Jeffs So I thought, no, it was a massive fail when it comes to having your outfit, wasn't it? So I'd rather someone was cruel to be kind. But no, so I didn't fool you at all, did I, with my Claudia

Peter Kinderman not at all. But we should come, A, we should come back to the psychology of lying and the sort of social and ethics of lying. That would be a really good topic to talk about. And yeah, I did feel a little like I was a little bit curmudgeonly last time when we were talking about traitors

Hilary Jeffs you really

Peter Kinderman But I'm now, I've now expunged myself with joy over the weekend and I'm in,

Hilary Jeffs Oh, come on then.

Peter Kinderman And positive mood

Hilary Jeffs what has been so wonderful over the weekend? What has made your heart bounce? Just

Peter Kinderman Oh, it was just, I saw my brother and catching up and various kind of like things. I did some physical exercise. I walked up 196 flights of stairs carrying boxes of books.

Hilary Jeffs Wow. How was your gluteus maximus after that?

Peter Kinderman Very happy. Thank you very much, and thank you for asking

Hilary Jeffs Oh, well that's better than me. When I went to the opera house at Sydney, after going up and down the steps so many times, I was in severe pain for several days. So you're clearly a lot fitter than me. So a brother, is it just the one brother you have, the one sibling?

Peter Kinderman I have two brothers. On this occasion it was one of the two, and we were clearing out a house, moving books. It's what he does for a living,

Hilary Jeffs And where do you

Peter Kinderman and boxes of books.

Hilary Jeffs In the

Peter Kinderman Where do I come? Oh, I'm by far the youngest and according to them I had a very easy

Hilary Jeffs Yeah, my siblings say the same, just #jealousyallround. Okay, on with our fir- well, before we go on with our first headline, perhaps you could share for us your concept of the week

Peter Kinderman Well, the concept of the week is related to the headlines that we're talking about, and it's conspicuous consumption. It's this-- It's actually an economics idea bleeding into psychology that some of what we do, perhaps quite a lot of what we do, and quite a lot of what we do in respect to modern economy is conspicuous consumption. So we're buying things in order to demonstrate to others that we have the money available to buy them. So things are desirable in conspicuous consumption theory, things are despi- desirable only because once you've bought them, you are showing to other people that you have means at your disposal that they do not have

Hilary Jeffs Okay. Yeah, well, I'm a, not really a very big fan of it, all the keeping up with

Peter Kinderman No, neither am I.

Hilary Jeffs What's the most conspicuous consumptionist thing that you've bought then, would you say?

Peter Kinderman Well, so this relates to the psychology of it, and we can talk about this later with respect to other things. So, I do have quite a nice watch,

Hilary Jeffs Oh.

Peter Kinderman And I, well, I can't at the moment for-- 'cause rather embarrassingly I thought, "Well, since we're gonna talk about cons- conspicuous consumption," I would first of all fess up to the possession of the nice watch. Although I suppose that does leave me open to muggers. Every time I go out the bloody gate,

Hilary Jeffs No, you can never wear them out. That's the whole point of them. I don't understand it

Peter Kinderman by this time tomorrow, there are gonna be 17 people wearing those silly little, little bucket caps on and going, "Yeah, you all right, mate?" Hanging outside my gate, and it's just gonna be irritating. I sh- I don't own the watch. I,

Hilary Jeffs wearing bucket hats are all muggers? Yeah, you see, you just tie yourself up in knots sometimes

Peter Kinderman no, I'm not. No, no, no, I'm not. What I'm saying is all muggers wear b- wear bucket hats. I'm not saying that all people wearing bucket hats are muggers. I'm saying all muggers wear bu- bucket hats. That's what I'm saying. So I'm only insulting muggers

Hilary Jeffs Okay, so #muggers, some more advice for you. We love doing this. If you want to not get caught, just wear a different hat. Maybe a baseball cap. Try

Peter Kinderman Oh, I, a few weeks ago I saw this bloke on the tram and, I was just, just looking at him and nothing happened. There wasn't the incident, but he had on, you know, sort of casual gear, but he had a cannabis emblazoned belt, cannabis socks, and a cannabis hat. And you thought, he's wandering around going, "Probable cause. Probable cause. Probable cause." It's, it's a bit like conspicuous consumption, isn't it, really? It's, he's sending a signal

Hilary Jeffs I mean, you know, but, you know, people do love the herb. It has to be said. They do like it. Right. First headline. Burnham's crackdown. Newly announced that he is wanting to ban people from playing music and videos without headphones on buses and trains. This is something that winds everyone up, especially if they are in a quiet carriage. But to me, nothing is as annoying as a hooray Henry having a conversation with some other hooray Henry on the phone. "Oh, yes. What? Oh, lovely." That's the thing that really grinds my gears

Peter Kinderman Yeah. I, well, almost exactly a year ago, I went for a nice meal with my wife to a nice restaurant. And it was all nice. I mean, not cheap, but nice, nice, nice, nice, nice. And at the time,

Hilary Jeffs better than nice if it's not cheap, frankly

Peter Kinderman so some, yeah, yeah, yeah, you, yeah, you weren't fabulous if it's not you. But anyway, it was v- all of it was good. Apart from on the next table, there was a sort of family group, and the father decided... Again, it's related to consis- consumption, because he had clearly decided that although he knew that every time he gave his loud, braying laugh, not only me, but other people in the restaurant would look over and scowl at him. He knew that because he would give his braying laugh and then check that everybody was looking at him, and he carried on doing it. And I thought it was an affectation, and I thought he was imposing himself on other people's spaces. And that's the point about the... So a few things about banning. I'm not sure that we should really be saying Andy Burnham banning headphones. I suspect strongly that what we should be saying and what journalists should be saying is, the government is proposing to permit local authorities to develop bylaws related to antisocial behavior on public

Hilary Jeffs stickler. Yes

Peter Kinderman And that's a good thing. And it's a good thing because it's about, it's all about imposing yourself in other people's spaces. So it came to my attention recently that that's probably the simplest and best way to describe why Europeans find American tourists really irritating, 'cause they often say in their American accent... What's wrong with an American accent? Apparently, the American accent is more or less what the English accent was in around 1780 or something. But they say in their American accent things that we also are thinking. So it's all perfectly straightforward. There's, there's a nice conversation with a perfectly nice family about nice things that generally fit in with the way that we're thinking, and they're wearing nice clothes, and they're drinking nice water, and why do we find them so irritating? And we find them so irritating because the social norms in America permit the imposition of you into other people's spaces more than they do in Europe. So they're imposing themselves into your spaces. The manspreading on the... I'm now demonstrating manspreading under the camera, where you, where you splay your legs wide on the tube and in- intrude into other people's spaces. Obviously, there's lots of implications to it, but it includes into other people's spaces. The hooray Henrys doing the loud and irritating thing, the guy next to me in the restaurant laughing, and the headphones are all imposing yourself into other people's spaces. So I'm in favor of it. I don't want to give the impression that everything darling Andy does is wonderful, but I am in favor of this

Hilary Jeffs Well, he does seem to be a bit of a people pleaser, doesn't he? I mean, lots of the things that he seems to be talking about, are things that make people go, "Oh, yeah, I like that." and I'm not

Peter Kinderman Which is exactly what you want prime ministers and governments to do. You want the prime

Hilary Jeffs there's kind of

Peter Kinderman to do the things you want them to

Hilary Jeffs there that need tackling as well, which we know are not easy wins

Peter Kinderman Oh, come on. He's not gonna be spending anything other than minutes saying, "Yeah, right. Fine. Add it to the list," and then moving on to, you know, negotiations with Iran or whatever it is. It's fine. And it's the local authorities because in any rational world, and especially in the world where the Prime Minister has already said he's in favor of dele- of devolution and delegating down to the authorities that which is proper for the authorities, it's gonna be enabling legislation to allow Transport for Greater Manchester to impose bylaws on the trams that means that both the Hooray Henrys and the people with headphones and the people, who are spreading their knees into a space or without headphones, or the people who decide that they're gonna bring on the dog that just bites children's faces, they're gonna say, "We just need some support in our society to stop those people who want to do this thing from imposing themselves into our spaces." And good, I'd quite like the government to allow me my own little bubble, thank you very much

Hilary Jeffs Yeah, I do like a bubble, but maybe that means that public transport is not for us. I can't relax on public transport. I'm not one of those people who possess the magic property of being able to sleep on a plane. And I really do like to have my hermetically sealed box, preferably with all the windows up and air conditioning on in the car. I am literally killing the planet one car journey at a time. It is very difficult, but maybe this will help me. Who knows? But there is a serious point about-

Peter Kinderman yeah, I mean, they're just making it... They're trying to make it slightly less unpleasant. That's a good thing

Hilary Jeffs It is a good thing, but there is an actual serious implication about noise in general. Did you know that something like 40% of the UK population live in an area where they are adversely affected by road noise, and that road noise can contribute to early death, diabetes, heart attack, depression? It's not a small thing, actually. It's really important to have some wellbeing. When my child went back to university this September, initially they were a bit annoyed that their room was right at the back of the halls that they'd chosen to live in this year, and it was so far to get to reception. And indeed, when they locked themselves out and had to spend two hours barefoot in the middle of the night waiting to get someone's attention in reception, I think they were still slightly doubting their choices. But the first thing they said was, "It's amazing. I've got no road noise." 'Cause of course, in the country we don't really have that. The odd sheep, yeah, that can be annoying. Dog barking, things like that, but no road noise

Peter Kinderman yeah. And I, and I think this idea of at a very simple neurological level that both what we hear but also what we see, and I'll come onto this in a second. You know, the things that are impacting on our ears are external stimuli that perturb us from our just right state. So, and what they do when they perturb us from our just right state is they draw our attention. So the people with the earphones, you know, objectively the decibels coming from somebody else's loud music on the tram is probably quite low, and actually the chunkety, chunkety chunk of the tram is probably in decibel terms louder, but it's intruding into our personal space at, on one level. The same phenomenon is it's, it's an extra aversive stimulus coming in, and it draws our attention towards that aversive stimulus, and all of that is quite stressful. It's notable when I, way back in my past when I was doing research using functional magnetic resonance imaging, what you can see on the brain scans, is that b- you know, eye processing of information to do with our

Hilary Jeffs and I. Hmm

Peter Kinderman MRI. When you, when you processing visual information in the brain takes up a lot of your occipital lobes, and you notice that when you're in the scanner or when you're watching other people in the scanner, the amount of brain activity drops like a stone when people just simply shut their eyes. So it's this idea of limiting environment. It's very Buddhist in a sense. It's very yoga. It's very meditation. Y- you can reduce the amount of literal stress, as in external perturbations to your system if you just close your eyes. And yeah, if you put on some noise-canceling headphones your, your sort of neurological stress levels will come down. Absolutely.

Hilary Jeffs I have one child that continually wears headphones all the time, no matter what. So I'm not sure what external stimuli will get through those, that's for sure. Right, moving on to the next one. I think conspicuous consumption is definitely gonna come into play here. We're talking about personalized number plates. The former royal known as a prince not everyone's favorite former prince, that's for sure. It came about that their car sold not so very long ago, a couple of weeks ago, and that they've had to give up their personalized number plate, or they chose to give it up, which was DOO A03 DOY. Duke of York, I'm sure. Andrew, number three child. Duke of York probably thought that was brilliant and lovely. And it's not just former royals who like a personalized number plate. They have exploded in popularity. Double the amount are now bought compared to, say, 10 years ago. So you get 1.2 million, I think, was sold in 2024, which seems quite a lot. Apparently, one seven of us, although that might be skewed by some people having lots of them, have a personalized number plate. Really popular with the over 50s, but increasingly becoming popular for those aged between 18 and 21, and they're becoming milestone birthday presents. So Pete, are you a fan?

Peter Kinderman Well, no is the, is the top level. And

Hilary Jeffs are

Peter Kinderman I suppose I could ful- I could fulminate about how blah, blah, blah and ridiculous and the... But actually it's a bit more nuanced than that. Genuinely for me, it's, it's not quite an absolute. It's... I c- I can see quite, you know, kind of morally and I suppose psychologically and intellectually appealing reasons why they might be quite good and, yeah, a bit of fun. So I'm not absolute, but on balance I say no. So one of the things about it

Hilary Jeffs an absolute hater for years and years and years. And then my neighbor moved in and they had them, and I really liked the neighbor, and so I actually started liking them. Well, not liking them, but just not hating on them

Peter Kinderman I'm s- I'm, I'm probably... I've probably always been somebody who's going, "No, not really, but n- but no." So there's a bit of vacillation in me. So, and I think lots of things about the personalized number plates. One thing I think about them is, it is related to the sort of economic aspect of conspicuous consumption, which is what a brilliant idea. So I once was talking to a colleague about Formula 1 racing, and then I was talking about the money involved in Formula 1 racing, and she goes, "Oh, it's brilliant." So she goes, "See that seagull over there? If you give me £100, that seagull can be yours." She goes, "That's how it works." And it's like, it's like owning an acre on the moon, or having a star named after you, or all of this stuff. And you think, the- these ideas are absolute genius because they are making real money. So, you know, you... Somebody pays you money, and then you go to Morrison's and you buy a loaf of bread with that money. It's real money for literally nothing. And what a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant idea. You've got an economy where a baker is being rewarded for her efforts in making bread that fuels the biology of your children, and

Hilary Jeffs us alive

Peter Kinderman lit- le- literally keeps us alive out of nothing. So what you've got is, you know, like naming stars and like, like sponsoring your own seagull. You've got a personalized number plate where, you know, the sequencing of the letters and numbers on the plastic thing attached to your car is obviously of no value at all, and yet it's obviously of quite... So I think it's genius. I think the second thing is that there's also as well as conspicuous consumption, there is something related to this which is very interesting, which is about the sort of idea of the wish to personalize and establish an a sense of identity with a mass-produced object. So you've got a customized car, and you've got a car that's been set up to your specification. So one of the joys of buying a new car is you can have it exactly like you want it, and then you can boast to your friends about how you've had it set up exactly as you want it. And the c- the personalized number plate is part of that. So you haven't just got a BMW 3 Series, you've got a BMW 3 Series, but it does have a personalized number plate on it. So the personalization. And I get that. I don't wanna be part of the identikit mold of BMW drivers. I wanna be me, and I want to have my personal sense, and I want all my objects to be a little bit bespoke and a little bit unique. And that's okay too, because I don't like corporate identity, and I don't like branding, so therefore, I must like individuality. So I'm

Hilary Jeffs No, that does actually make sense. It really does. But there is also something quite, once you've made it your own and you've created that number plate, people get actually quite wedded to them, and there's lots of nostalgia associated with it, and we come to really like those objects, and they start meaning a lot to us. And that's why people keep a number plate for years, isn't it?

Peter Kinderman They do. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with it. I quite like the jokes as well. I quite like the fact that, I mean, I'm making this up, but I'm pretty sure it's true, the d- the DVLA won't allow you to buy Ken, KN0B just because they say

Hilary Jeffs Oh, no, no, no. This is an actual thing. We've got a link, and I will put it in the show notes, which is to the numbers that were banned in 2026, which is just hilarious. Twice a year, the DVLA meet, and they have a discussion around

Peter Kinderman I wanna

Hilary Jeffs nu- I know. This is like my best job ever. It would be so much fun. And I get the slurs, and I get the insults, and I get the ones that incite violence, you know, "Go to hell." I kind of understand that there's enough heat on the roads already. But they actually stopped one that was AF24ART, a fart, because it was a fart. And they also stopped U FART. I mean, come on, fart's pretty harmless in today's world, isn't

Peter Kinderman Yeah, I mean, if it's in Chaucer, it should be allowed, I think generally.

Hilary Jeffs Yeah. Let, let's make that as a, as a rule. Although

Peter Kinderman But I really want to be at that meeting.

Hilary Jeffs Yes.

Peter Kinderman To be at that meeting, and what I, what I really, really want... You know, I'm, I'm generally in favor of DVLA. Non-executive director to the DVLA. Right, I'm gonna make the job application because, I mean, I'm, I'm absolutely in favor of taxpayers' money being spent wisely, and I really don't want to give anybody on the political right cause for objection. But it would be objectively funny to put in an expenses claim to go down to London, buy some, Marks & Spencer sandwiches on the way, and a bottle of fizzy water on the way back claim for the taxi fare in order to attend a meeting when you talk about knob jokes. Brilliant

Hilary Jeffs It's just the perfect world, isn't it? So in a perfect world, what would be your personalized number plate? Ooh, you see you

Peter Kinderman I think on balance, I think on balance I would say no.

Hilary Jeffs Hasn't it?

Peter Kinderman You see, that would, that would appeal to me. If somebody bought it, don't, don't... Yeah, you see all of that. No, but the, because I'm mainly living in a world of enormous social threat, I think that anything I do... I'm drawn towards affectation and flamboyance and dandyism, but then

Hilary Jeffs I'm gonna get you. -I'm gonna get you to wear that T-shirt. You pull me up every time when I talk about the world going to hell in a handcart or, you know, just how we're living in a dangerous world, and you have just said those words about you living in enormous social threat. T-shirt next

Peter Kinderman So I think I... Teacher next week. I think I'd be... Yeah. If I had practically perfect Pete, yeah. The PP Pete on a, on a, on a, on a personalized number plate would attract people bullying me, and I don't want that. So I think it probably I'd pull away. If I did have a personalized number plate, I'd prefer a joke. So I fart would, would probably be more appealing than

Hilary Jeffs When you get on that committee, we can have FART back on the number plates. That is a national campaign now

Peter Kinderman yeah, I mean, it would be quite good to like do like a classical like Caesar substitution cipher and then, then have a GCHQ code on the number plate. When s- when people say, "What's your number plate mean?" And you go, "If you knock all the numbers all the letters forward by one letter, then what it says is move out of my way," or something. That'd be

Hilary Jeffs Nice. Yeah, cryptic crossword clues. Yeah, we could get you being the next spy. Absolutely. Moving on then, we're actually gonna be talking a bit about spies, 'cause we're talking about the psychology of prepping. We had last week the head of MI5 talking about the global security threats facing Britain about how they can come against our infrastructure, our waterways, our electricity, how we need to take action, and there's also all the climate change threats. We've had generals from the army on the radio telling us how to prep. And last week, as if MI5 were manifesting it, did you see what happened in France to all the fridge-freezers? So it was something like, was it 700 shops were affected, where hackers made their fridges and their freezers rise in temperature, so food slowly defrosted, then slowly cooked. Fires broke out. Sprinklers came on. Waves of heat came out of supermarkets. Really, that's quite disturbing. So they're

Peter Kinderman very disturbing.

Hilary Jeffs Are you a prepper?

Peter Kinderman Intellectually, yes, prac- practically no is my answer. So, well, no, no, it makes sense. You're scoffing, but it makes sense. So on the way down to Sussex on Friday, I was listening to the Rest Is History podcast. Very, very good. And it was about Elizabeth I's spymaster, and I kind of know about Francis Walsingham, and I kind of know about the St. Barth- Bartholomew's Day massacre. I- in fact, I told our daughter that she should listen to it because they're doing it at... I know about it, but it was a very good podcast and going into some of the details, and I was thinking about it. And I was thinking about all of that, where they were preparing the country in 1580 against the possibility that there might be basically sectarian riots involving thousands of people being literally hacked to death. I mean, literally blood running into people's cellars. And I was thinking about that. Then I was thinking about things like pogroms in Russia, and then I was thinking about the Black Death, and then I was thinking about

Hilary Jeffs Happy journey there

Peter Kinderman Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking... Oh, no, it's all good. Light and shade, you know, it's, it's all part of life's ta- tapestry. And I was think-- And I have thought about this a lot, which is about the, Nazi attack on Jewish people prior to and during the Second World War. And I'm thinking about there are so many people, who died in Europe because it-- they were either unable to, but in some cases unaware of the need to make preparations. So by the time that many people thought, "I'm definitely gonna have to leave Germany," or, you know, "I need to leave the Netherlands even because there's a threat to me," by the time that happened, the Nazis had already shut down the means for them to actually exercise any agency in leaving. And I'm thinking, you know, if that's happening, so, you know, if there were some terrible thing in Britain that threatened me and my family, I would want to be able to respond at the earlier of opportunities. I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist and start doing it too early, but, I want to be on the rising wave of the intelligent response to a tragedy. Yeah, I want to move out of Paris before the Duke of Guise sends his letters to his supporters. I want to move out of Berlin before

Hilary Jeffs you done? How are you preparing

Peter Kinderman Nothing. And that's the thing. So I'm-- I find it quite disturbing that MI5 are saying do these practical things because, A, there's a multitude of threats. So, you know, if they go, "Look, you know, y-you've got cyber hackers attacking your software. What you need is proper security on your emails and stuff." Well, I think, well, yes, but I'm not gonna go building Faraday cages in my front room or putting extra tech in. I'm just gonna make sure I'm up to date on pass-passwords

Hilary Jeffs the government have launched a prepare campaign to help us to get prepared. And so it's simple things that you probably think are quite intuitive. Candles, I'm not very good at keeping candles in, so note to self, I need to buy some. Batteries, you need to make sure that you know a rendezvous point for you and your family to meet up if you can't get to your house apparently. To organize your contacts in your phone under the name of ICE, in case of emergency, rather than by name so that anyone can contact

Peter Kinderman so I did look at, I did look at those. And tho- those I've all done, and I think that... Because they... Well, they're kind of everyday things. Yeah, so, yeah, so I know where there are candles. I generally keep batteries charged. I keep the car reasonably fu- but that's not for Spetsnaz dropping on Manchester Airport or a drone attack on the city center. That's because the people mending the road out there might dig through the power cables, and it would just be mildly irritating not to have power. So I think that level of preparation is always there. I'm more interested in making sure that I'm not an idiot when the time comes. And the other f- flip side to

Hilary Jeffs saying the time is now, Peter.

Peter Kinderman Yeah, and then I'm, then I'm terribl- I'm terribly conflicted 'cause part of me thinks, "Yeah, great, you know, I know there are threats out there. I know that North Korea and Russia are, are targeting our defenses. I know I live in a nation state in a world where nation states have political opposition to each other. I pay my taxes so that there could be a massive subvention to MI5, so you guys can do the prepping for me." And they're going, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Over to you then." And I'm thinking, "No, I pay your salaries for you to sit there in MI5, and there's, there's a building just over

Hilary Jeffs over

Peter Kinderman they're doing it. I want them to do it for me."

Hilary Jeffs Over the last couple of years in my extensive news listening, I've had army generals and majors that have left who have come on and said, "These are the things you need to do." so far, should I tell you what I've bought? I have bought tape to go around windows in the case of nuclear fallout. We all know that tape is gonna be absolutely useless now already, but I've still got it in my cupboard. I bought water purifying tablets. I bought a wind-up radio to make sure that I've got that. I was told to do that. We have generators anyway because we live in the country and kind of there's two a penny is a, is a, an electricity cutout. Full cupboards, yeah, that's just because we're hoarders, I think, frankly. But it has made me do things like I'm not giving away CDs and records, which I wanted to get rid of because I pretty much only listen to things digitally now. But I'm thinking about this post, you know, connected world, post Wi-Fi. I'm thinking, "No, I'd better keep my books. I better keep my re- records so I've got something to do when there's nothing else there."

Peter Kinderman I mean that's touching. I love it. I mean, it says very various positive things about you. But I think

Hilary Jeffs Yeah, or that I'm paranoid

Peter Kinderman No, I think it's lovely 'cause you're saying in a world in which basic infrastructure has collapsed, I still want music. In the world where basic infrastructure has collapsed, I want dried rice. That's what I want. And vast stocks of

Hilary Jeffs Yeah. No, well we have vast stocks of that. That is utterly ridiculous. But we've got-

Peter Kinderman do f... I find it quite difficult because quite a lot of the things that you start to think of, I mean, even the generator. So because I live in an urban environment, I don't have a generator. Some of my friends have got generators for various reasons, either 'cause they've done construction work or because they're big camping people, and I'm thinking, "Yeah, a generator." So basically what you've got is it generates electricity, so it uses petrol or diesel or some sort of fuel

Hilary Jeffs At some point you'll need that more

Peter Kinderman that, so we're talking about a world in which the fuel dis- supplies are disrupted, and we know from COVID and so forth that the fuel supplies are disrupted pretty quickly. So I'm now thinking the various... The very thing that, s- set of circumstances that I prepare for is a set of circumstances where my generator would keep me happier than my neighbors for an extra two days. No, I think I wanna keep the car charged so that I will drive as far as possible from a

Hilary Jeffs do not have three teenagers that potentially would be in the house who would literally kill themselves on us, and us if they didn't have access to a mobile phone. We'll keep that going as long as

Peter Kinderman I won't be there. I'll be 200 miles in that direction in a

Hilary Jeffs You can come... You'll... There, well, you might as well come to ours. We'll all go in the field. But it has got to the point now where, and I know this is when I have to reign myself in, there is a house on the market at the moment that has got miles of tunnels underneath it, and I'm really interested in it. It's also got a swimming pool, and next to the swimming pool the entrance to get down to these cellars is a... I don't think it's miles, clearly, but a lot of underground storage. It's actually got, like, a Thunderbirds rocket ship so that you can go into a rocket to go downstairs.

Peter Kinderman So this is where my

Hilary Jeffs than moving to New Zealand

Peter Kinderman yeah, my intellectual preparation comes in, which is the practical steps that I could take, the ones that are about maintaining my happiness in the face of something like the Black Death, I've already done 'em, you know? I mean, I've... I could pack a bag in five minutes. I know where the key stuff is. I know how... I, yeah, I know where the tools

Hilary Jeffs Don't forget the watch.

Peter Kinderman The watch, well, I'd take the watch.

Hilary Jeffs You might need that more

Peter Kinderman but there's no point.

Hilary Jeffs When there's

Peter Kinderman wouldn't be able to barter it. What I need is cigarettes 'cause it... We all know that it's cigarettes that form the bartering currency, or probably now weed, that form the bartering currency. Nobody's gonna want a

Hilary Jeffs I think I might need to do that. One of the things I never have is cash, and it has made me think, looking at the UK government prepping websites, I need to get some cash. But, I'm

Peter Kinderman Quite a few of those little gold ingots you can... Yeah. So anyway, so I've got the everyday practical, if there was COVID or if there was an attack on the Straits of Hormuz and there was a disruption to the power supply, would I be able to kind of maintain my household for a week? Yeah. I, yeah, I know where all that stuff is. I've got access to tools. I've got the requisites. When you start to think of, you know, what would you do in the case of a single nuclear strike on the geography of Britain, but, you know, there's a terrible incident and then a response. I think, well, yeah, but that's a different response than if there was a physical invasion of the shores of Britain by Russian amphibious troops. And that's different from reform takeover and in... No, no, but

Hilary Jeffs all cyber

Peter Kinderman reform could take over and reform could take over and do their own form of Kristallnacht. It has happened many times. I- it happened with the Bartholomew's Day...

Hilary Jeffs I hope.

Peter Kinderman It happened, it happened with the Bartholomew's Day massacre. It

Hilary Jeffs saddest thing for me is if there is a nuclear strike and there's some fallout, is that I'll have to go and get the sheep and kill them really quickly, won't I? And put

Peter Kinderman you're very lucky to have sheep that,

Hilary Jeffs there's two sheep, and they're really old now, and they eat all the weeds in the woods to try and keep paths down. But it is going to be quite a sad day, and they're not gonna be very tasty. But anyway, because you can't let them carry on, can you? 'Cause then they just die a slow death, and you won't be able to eat them anyway.

Peter Kinderman But intellectually, what I want to do is I actually genuinely think because my circumstances are okay and because I'm a reasonably clear-thinking and proactive sort of a person, what I notice is that there are people who say, "Oh, I've just got an invitation to a wedding. Hey, that'll be good. Finally, we've put those decades of animosity behind us. I'll turn up at the wedding," and then he gets a knife in his throat. Well, he didn't make the right choice. You get people going, "Oh, I'm sure Mr..." there's the murder of the innoc- innocents, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1590, where there was a Catholic pogrom against the Hu- Huguenot Protestants, and they didn't see it coming, and thousands were murdered. There's the pogroms in Russia. You know, you ne- you live with your neighbors for decades, you get the inklings that there's trouble, and then they lynch you. And same in the Deep South of America after the Second World War. That was another one I was listening to, and you think, listen to the warning signs and act because if you wait and think it's gonna be okay, throughout history, lots of people have suffered. So I want to be somebody who... I don't necessarily have all the kit lined up with, you know, Dymo markers on saying, "In the case of, you know, when the BBC issue the code word Tower Bridge, grab this plastic case and leg it for Ilkley." No, I want to say, I want to listen to the signals, and if people are saying, "I think it's really dangerous. I think we should act now," then act now because throughout history, y- people have suffered from waiting too long. So I want to be intellectually prepared for the realization that this gilded life that we have right now could fall apart at the drop of a hat.

Hilary Jeffs And on that cheery note, we will leave you all the details you need to become a prepper just like us. #hoarding. It's my new normal in my house, that's for sure. Before we go, and on that cheery note, could we have a tip to try please, Peter?

Peter Kinderman Right. This is not gonna be about surviving a nu- not, not survi- about surviving a nuclear holocaust, it's about conspicuous consumption. And, this is based on extensive professional research and ChatGPT, but it's a very good advice actually related to it, which is this. No, no, this... I mean, it's a puppy dog, right? So it gives you answers, and then you say, "No, those are all rubbish." And it goes, "Ooh, sorry, yeah, you're right. Actually, they are rubbish. How about these?" And you go, "No, that one fits," and this one does fit. So the thing to do is to say, if you've got something that you really, really wanna buy, but it falls into the comp- conspicuous consumption category, which is, am I buying this in order to be a peacock, or am I buying this because it's a good thing? And even the social thing is, it's a good thing, and my friends will go, "Oh, that's a good thing." And you go, "Yes, it is a good thing. I'm glad I invested in it." And that's different from boasting. The test is, if I were to buy this thing, and then for the rest of human history, nobody would ever know that I owned it, would I still buy it?

Hilary Jeffs That is pretty much where I am most days. What I love, I think I'm into a humblebrag though, because like I buy most of my clothes secondhand, and I just love it 'cause you can get like the nicest brands. You can get really nice materials, cashmere jumpers. For next to nothing. I am a cashmere killer, so I have to wear secondhand. But I have a really old car. But I think there's part of me that I wear that as a badge of honor

Peter Kinderman Yeah. And

Hilary Jeffs the brand. So I think I'm still doing some kind of signaling going on, just not with a brand

Peter Kinderman Maybe, and maybe I am too. And well, I'm not really 'cause I tend to be really impulsive and buy stupid things and then get told off by people and I waste my money. But what I would like to do

Hilary Jeffs You getting told off is definitely a repeating theme on this podcast

Peter Kinderman That, well, it's not being told off actually. I'm, I'm, I'm introducing the people close to me in my life. What happens is that my friends, mainly my friends rather than the more intimate members of my family, but what they do is they draw to my attention the fact that I've acted in violation of my own principles. And then I go, "Ah, damn. Yeah, you're right." So it's not really telling off, it's more drawing to my attention something that I need to... And the point is that what I often do is, yeah, I s- I see the little jeweled thing and I think, "I've got to have it now," and then I buy it. And if I push to myself the question of, "If you were to buy it and nobody would ever see it, would you like it?" And then I tend to think, "Eh, the attraction would pale after a couple of days. I think I'll give it a miss."

Hilary Jeffs Oh, really? Oh, good. Well, then that's good advice for lots of people. Don't worry, when that child gets a little bit older, the one that is living with you, they'll soon point out all your flaws. I get it in abundance every time I'm a hypocrite. It is writ large across the walls of my house. "Mom, you are an idiot, and you are a hypocrite." There we go. It's wonderful living with teenagers. I adore it. Okay thank you very much for the tip to try.

Peter Kinderman See, that's a white lie. We need to talk about the psychology of lying

Hilary Jeffs yeah, well, we're gonna do that. Definitely gonna be coming up, the psychology of lying, if you dare. It might be a bit of a white-knuckle ride. Join us each week. I'm Hilary Jeffs, he's Professor Peter Kinderman, practically perfect, and this is the Experience Podcast. Thank you for listening