A cold has Toby feeling less than stellar this week, so he and James have an age old discussion about men – and old age. Vitamin regimens, detoxification and general bouts of hypochondria lead off the show before we really get down, as Texans would say, to brass tacks. Namely, are the protests happening across Communist China just a blip on the radar or is this real trouble for Xi? And do we have a right to still feel superior about it?

Then we tackle the distasteful Balenciaga “BDSM Teddy Bear” ads and the reactions that has provoked, former Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s performance on I’m a Celebrity… and Jonathan Van-Tam’s forthcoming role in Call The Midwife.

This week  James and Toby compare notes about meeting fans of the podcast and discuss all the things that have happened in the past week that suggest James just may be correct in his assessment about who’s really running the world (the Autumn Statement, the signing of a climate reparations agreement at COP27 and Rishi Sunak’s betrayal of Brexit.)

We congratulate Elon Musk on reinstating Donald Trump and revel in the meltdown it has caused among Twitter’s blue tick population, particularly Sadiq Khan, which somehow leads us down the Elizabeth Line on the London Metro System.

Lou Pearlman… Bernie Madoff… and now, Sam Bankman-Fried. “SBF” joins a long list of Ponzi scheme artists in modern times and Toby and James open the show with the collapse of FTX and the fall from grace of its 30 year-old founder.

Toby’s just back from Hungary, a nation that he says provides a glimpse of what Britain might look like if our side had won the culture war, why the British Government has no right to ask the taxpayer for even more money (given it’s profligacy in the past two-and-a-half years) and, in Culture Corner, we put a bow on SAS: Rogue Heroes, The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself, Sharpe’s Enemy and Dostoevsky’s The Devils (also known as Demons or The Possessed).