The Week Trending: EP Waste, Decolonising World Maps & The Traitors Geoblocking

0:00The last word. With life pharmacy. Over 100 local pharmacies nationwide that are always here to help. Life pharmacy. Live better together. Okay, let's get to the wee trending. Emma Nolan is with us, prevent your spin breakfast and lorkin' nine is head of training at the Q-Inni-Cations clinic. You're both very welcome. Emma, tell us about what happens at electric picnic after electric picnic with abandoned tents. A lot of things because the word has it that this is the worst year ever for post event littering. Yeah, and you know, every single year there's a problem with this. And you know, you always see the kind of shameful photos and the papers on the Monday morning after electric picnic every year of like just, you know, slew of tents spewed across the landscape in Stroudly. They're saying that this year is worse than ever. And as someone who I actually missed this year, sadly, I was a way to wedding, but every other year it does depress you. And it does happen. However, this year the weather was so bismillah times that for those who we've been maybe

1:02on the fence about, you know, even if you have a good EP, when you're picking up on a Monday morning, it's tough. You're a bit exhausted. You're a bit wrecked. You know, the litter book rhymes in your head and you say, I need to pick this up and sort myself out and clean up and leave no trace. You're starting to make excuses for yourself from prior behavior. Are you going to tell me you have left your tent behind previously? I can very, very honestly, with my hands on my heart say, I have never, ever left a thing behind me. I create a rubbish bag over the weekend. There's not a tissue left behind. Everything comes home with me. But my point is it was such a dreary wash out this weekend that for those who would be more likely, would be more likely to do it, you know, with everything destroyed, everything supping wet, not that I think it's okay, but I can understand why people were like, what's the point? That's destroyed. Sorry, as in can't be used again because it does strike me a little bit, you know, people go on about, you know, with justification, a cost to live in crisis and then they abandon so much stuff, which, you know, cost them a bit of money to buy in the first place.

2:03And that's the thing, a few years back. So when I started camping at festivals a long, long time ago, I was always borrowing a friend's tent or staying with a friend so you'd always be conscious this is my property, obviously, bring it back that too. But then I actually went out and bought a really good quality one. And I think it's the people who go in and get the really cheap stuff that they are even less likely. Well, one test tent is less likely to survive your belongings or less likely to survive, but also you're less likely to care about it in the same way. Whereas if you spend a few moments on something on quality, you're more likely to go every single pin I put in the ground to go back in this bag, you know, and bring it back. So it gets treated a bit like a penny's t-shirt, isn't it? Maybe. Just replace it. Maybe, yeah, and the sleeping bags. Lorcan, I'm one of those yourself. Do you pick up your tent after you've used it when you fold it? I've been doing this show for quite some time, which I'm adding. You find different ways to reveal to the nations that are very own cool and never go to anything like electrofacinac or anything like that. So it's novel the way you find new ways to expose me. Look, it's quite obvious what happens in these situations where there's almost clearly a social permission in that if everybody else is leaving their tent, well, then you can

3:04leave it as well. And look, that's been shown, study after study, where if you're in an environment where somebody else's litter is and it's not a clean environment, you're 60, 70% more likely to litter yourself. So that's what happens. But it does speak to that wider issue, which is that everything in many ways is too disposable and too cheap. There's a book I'm called, I'm less, which is about how we basically both fast fashioned, but also kind of everything now is so, is built so badly and becomes kind of disposable that we don't am using enough. And he makes the argument in that book that particularly for men, if you're not going to wear something a hundred times, you shouldn't buy it. Yes. So it's not going to be wearable over a hundred times. You shouldn't be buying that piece and actually you're much better off waiting and investing in doing it. And it seems like tents is probably the same thing. If you're only going to spend a hundred quid on the tent, but just still a lot of money, but people seem to be more willing to just leave that behind them. And they obviously know going in, they're going to leave behind them. So I understand it was raining, but general it's Ireland, it's September, it's EP, it's all was raining, going people know going, just tent is far, three days and we leave it behind. Interesting.

4:04Very quickly, interestingly on that point about fashion and stuff, yes, I was very guilty growing up in the intelligence stuff in younger and like fast fashion, fast fashion. I'm really impressed by my boyfriend actually. We were going to a wedding last weekend and he said, I'm bringing my white t-shirt down for dry cleaning. Sure, what you're not like that could end up penny, it's got yourself a couple of fresh white t-shirts for the thing. And I realized he's one of these people that he buys the good quality stuff. Like you said, like, you know, buy cheap by twice or whatever and he's like, no, and I remember shot to my friend and she was like, oh my God, what a, what a, um, and will you be reformed by him now in that regard? I've definitely copped on because, you know, you can't be smuggling in the packages through the back door all the time. But yeah, I think the big thing is if you spend money on a tent, you're much more protective of it. Then listen to comments. The waist left behind at EP is an absolute disgrace. No excuse at all. It is shocking behavior. Kids with no clue or consideration, dropping waist is not acceptable in any form. Okay, we have another one here that says to the organizers not charge the people with tens of feet that preempts this type of thing. Not sure they do.

5:05Another one says, I taught the younger generation was more concerned about the environment, but they're clearly not based on the state that they left the site at EP. No, I do agree. I think everything leaves no trace and don't play with nature like that. It reflects badly on the festival as well, especially when the role trying so hard to be more eco-friendly with that. One thing I will say is I wasn't that electrified this year, so I can't comment on that one, but sometimes if you do have a damaged tent, if it did fall apart in a storm or whatever, a lot of the time on the Monday morning, there might not be any room left in those bins for you to, and you know, people do leave their bits beside and all the rest, but yeah, that can be another problem. That in Wicklow says cheap tents are the disposable toothbrushes of outdoor adventure. Yeah, true. And yet, Lorcan, electric picnic tickets for next year went on sale today and they're already sold out. This always strikes me as absolutely extraordinary. It doesn't seem to matter who is going to be on the card as to who's going to be paying the five nights, hour tonight or Sunday night. But people buy, and I was actually talking to a young fella in my local coffee shop there

6:06the other day, Connor, he's only 23 and he had been down and he was showing me photographs of crowdsurfing and all the rest of it as you do at EP. Then he sat himself in the lads, had already decided they were going back next year and they were going to get their tickets this morning. But again, goes the young people can get the money together when they have to because electric picnic tickets are not cheap. Well, on that, when we look at young people and the cars living in Christ, one of the own disgusting within that is because people can't get on the property ladder because people don't have more of this because they're at home, they don't have rents. They actually do have more disposal income, but it doesn't mean that there isn't a problem, there isn't a car still living crisis. It's just people have given up hope of saving because they don't feel that there's a path in front of them. I think the Archbishop of Dublin was making a similar point to the actually saying we shouldn't get you to the fact that young people have just given up on the idea of owning home. That's that element of it. I think it's a good thing, isn't it, that there's something that people enjoy to the point of they know themselves. It's part of their diary, it's part of their calendar. It is a season for them. It is a festival for them. They want to go, I have no interest in it myself in being there in the last year, right?

7:09Put fair play to the people who do. You got it, mate. You got it, mate. And the kind of squad feeling of being together with your friend for that whole weekend and that setting is really special. One thing it does make me quite sad that for those, I remember the first ever picnic I went to was back in 2012, but really struck me that there were so many families there, and this was their big holiday of the year, you know? And I think it was quite hard. I always thought for those people who've spent a fortune on, say, four or five tickets for the family, it's quite harsh to put the tickets on sale so quickly after the big event in my opinion. Why don't they charge a 50 euro deposit to camp? You get your money back when you're seeing leaving with your tent. I don't think that would work to be honest. I've never left tents. I felt super rough, but I just thought it was a weakness to leave them showing that I couldn't hack it. So I took it. There are listeners, as apparently there's an installment option for buying tickets for EPs, so maybe that's all it is. And listeners says, we already camp Ireland, new company that have started renting. Top quality tents to people going to festivals to try and stop this waste from own. And I suppose if you have rented it, you lose your deposit if you don't actually send

8:12back your good. And another one says, a lot of videos from me, this year, people wedge together in places. Did they oversell crummy people into smaller spaces to see access? Probably not a good idea. I think it is fairly well run, but the word definitely issues, I think, of people leaving the main stage arena, particularly heading for the smaller stages. The ground had become very, and I would be anxious after I met, I've seen it in better years where the ground does start to get caught up. And I know from having looked at the videos, you got very caught up this year in the war issues, I think that should not be downplayed. And I think the words and people guilty of trying to downplay them. Okay, let's look at other things. This is an interesting one, Lorcan, and I have to admit, I'm embarrassed by my ignorance about this. Until today, I didn't realize that maps of the world and globes had deliberately misrepresented the size of Africa. Yeah, so the map that we have is not representative. It's a mark out of map and it's for navigation.

9:13So the basis way to describe it to people is that if you look at the map, we have it looks generally like Greenland and the whole of Africa are about the same size when actually Africa is obviously significantly bigger than Greenland. It's 360 islands would fit in Africa and only 26 islands would fit in Greenland. And yet in the map, they're there the same size. The reason though, it's not quite purposeful, Matt, that the map was designed for navigation and it actually works really, really well for navigation. So it's not to under represent the real true size of Africa. That being the impact of it would be because I don't understand this fully now, but because the curvature and because of compasses to draw a straight line on the flat map, you have to change it and it's actually a really, really novel solution to it that came in the 16th century. But it became the map that everybody used and the byproduct of that is that Europe in particular looks much bigger than it actually is in Africa and particularly looks significantly smaller than it is. And so therefore people would say that that kind of subtly undermines Africa's place in the world and subtly enhances the Europe's place in the world and is seen as kind of a

10:14colonial map rather than a true reflective map. But again, it's not actually the map's fault, the map was designed in the right way. It just became used for this and there's now a vote in the UN to see if we can move on from using this map and use a more representative map instead. It's not how much it kind of flows your perception though. When I saw this map today, which is the one that they're voting on, it's incredible to see just how vast and large it is. You know, because these are the maps that you were up with your whole life. Yeah, and it does change your perception. So again, Europe looks very small. It does. Europe is tiny. Yeah, as a land mass compared to all the other continents, Europe is incredibly small. And you can see how that would have over a period of time had that kind of subtle but compounding effect on people's perceptions. I mean, I always look at the map and you always think, geez, Ireland looks very small. Ireland is actually tree and half time smaller again comparatively than it looks on the map that we would all know from a globe or from the map that was on our primary school walls. So the vote is there. I imagine, you know, I don't imagine the current US administration is going to accept

11:15the change. Okay, let's move on to other things. And Emma, tell us about the people who are living with a home coming from a data center. Yes. Because they seem to be causing extreme annoyance. Yeah, it is. You kind of think again about those who live up by the Air Force and you know, they've got complaints a lot of the time about noise. Well, a new problem here in Klondalken. Twelve noise complaints linked to Ecolon data centers facility. It's in Klondalken, as they said. They've described hearing a constant buzzing or humming. It's particularly happening at night and they themselves, Ecolon, have hired acoustic consultants and installed 24, 7 noise monitors all around the site to see what the story is. They have removed a generator. I mean, it made changes to roof mounted chillers. And it says the probable cause has been identified and action has been taken. But we will see how people who live nearby feel on the back of all that as well. But yeah, there's endless, obviously, issues coming out with the vast amount of data centers in Ireland at the moment. This is a new one though. Because I think everyone would have just assumed that they were silent. I never would have thought there was a sound off them whatsoever.

12:17It sent me down a rabbit hole. So a quarantine. I know. Yeah. I, according to the DEPA. So it's a, it's a low sound, but apparently low sounds are actually significantly worse for people than ones that go over the decibel level that you would want for a couple of reasons. Number one is because you sometimes you can hear it and other people can't, which makes you feel like am I losing it here because I'm not, I can hear it and nobody else can. When you close the windows, it makes it worse, not better because you have less other noise to distract you from and it comes through and it's just significantly more annoying for people. So it's like, generally, if you realize you can hear your fridge and then you can hear nothing both the fact you can hear your fridge. So that's coming from the data center. And there was a town in New Mexico in the 90s where it had something similar and where there was a low homing sound that about half the people could hear and half the people couldn't hear and it ended up with like an investigation from Congress because they could not find source for. Let me tell you one that I came across recently. I was reading this in the Wall Street Journal. There is a theme park in California. I think I might even be one of the universal parks where they devised a new ride, one of

13:18these ultra-scaltered things that people go around and because of planning restrictions and complaints from people who live beside the theme park, they actually managed to design it to be absolutely silent. Wow. And it's been a disaster. Do you know why? Because now the people can all they can hear is the people screaming and shrieking as they're going around. Yeah, it does. And it pretty is way worse than noise than it would have been if you actually heard the mechanical stuff going off. Of course. Because you're probably better able to filter out it than allowed or mechanical noise than you are to scream and it's also it's not constantly changes. So you said there that said it's worse than night. It's not actually worse than night. It's just that during the day you can't hear the noise as clearly as a stop. It's not the bus traffic and there's birds out and there's nothing. I wasn't there a thing a number of years ago in shops around Dublin as well where they were using special humming sounds to drive away young people from congregating and loitering at the shops. It always made me really sad. I grew up loitering and I had a great time. Teenage loitering didn't know in any home.

14:19Okay. Let's move on. Tell us about the traitor has been geoblocked for Northern Ireland. Yeah, there's a lot of talk about this at the moment and it's quite confusing actually, isn't it? We all remember every Christmas or to eat player talks on what you're about. No matter where you are in the world, you can watch the toy show. You can log in and this is our viewers from Australia and they list out all the places all around the world. Why this is a problem in Northern Ireland? I'm not sure. So you can watch it live in Northern Ireland but it's geoblocked for from the player. So Joanna Bernadish and Fainty D has been raising this. It's because I think of licensing. So the people who are making the show and when it comes to streaming, they have a license on it that says you or T can have it but you can only have it for this jurisdiction. So I imagine that the look traitor is pretty popular and it's pretty popular worldwide. So I imagine that there is licensing money to be made and that's where I'm going. I think it also happens to sporting events, doesn't it? You might have Ireland, rugby or soccer international stuff because you can write your soul.

15:19That's packages and it's UK, Pakistan, Irish, Pakistan, everyone's true. So that's why it's happening. Fainty D would argue that the government if they wanted to bring in legislation that stops geoblocking, offered the player for certain things. So they're arguing that there is a political solution to the problem of the licensing. And look in some ways it does matter. I mean, every single Irish political party says when moving towards the United Ireland, moving towards a border pole whether Andy Burnham wants it or not. And if that is the case, well then we should be planning ahead and cultural or shared cultural moments are relatively important. And if the traders is one of the very, very few things that's actually a shared cultural for non-oom at the moment, so it does kind of matter that people in the North can watch it as well. Okay, Emma, let's talk about something from France. And famously, the French First Lady Brigitte Macron is 24 years older than the president. She met him when he was 15. She's a bit dodgy, okay? Right. But this age gap has always been a subject of some discussion. She has a daughter from a previous relationship who is 42, who has now taken up with a 22-year-old

16:25young fellow. No, 22 is adult. But the 20-year-age gap is getting. And what do you make of this? Because if there was a man and a woman 20-year-age gap, would there be any discussion about this? Yeah, I know what you mean. If it was the other way around, it probably wouldn't be such a talking point. But I think what's particularly interesting is it's very like daughter like mother. If you know what I mean, that this is what worked out for mom and maybe this is what will work out for me. I think he's a kite surfing instructor. And not that that necessarily is hugely important. No, why did you mention that so, Emma? I just just saw my sheet and thought, yeah, like I was looking into that earlier going, yeah, like I mean kite surfing instructor, why not? And there's nothing wrong with this. 20 years is a significant age gap. No matter what way you look at it, I do think a 22-year-old has very different interest to a 42-year-old. That's just my opinion. But no laws being broken and both adults making the decision. Again, what is very interesting is that it's the mother who's in the exact same situation in that one I think is interesting. Yeah, what you make of this, Norken?

17:26Bit of a... You're stuck for words. That's not like it. It's a bit of a non-issue, isn't it? I mean, look, I suppose it's probably on the face of you know, kind of interesting because because of the link there. But I mean, ultimately it's a non-issue. It is an unissue and there's a significant difference between 15 and 22 in terms of the direct comparison of the circumstances. And I do think that I'd say if we went looking we could find 20, 25 turkey examples of the genders being the other way. That has never been commented on and you have to go look for, except for Leonardo DiCaprio. But that's because he keeps changing. Well, that's true. That's true. But actually in a way I find this kind of refreshing because we always talk about, or like you said, we've just had Norken, like we've normalized so much of being the other way around, that it's like, okay, well the girls can do too. Yeah, but in fairness, isn't Leonardo DiCaprio now been widely mocked? Oh yeah, this one. For a D.H. Capitalist age. What age is he in his 50s? I've never gone over to anyone under the age of 26 and so on like that. Yeah, I think that's why he's mocked about it though. If it was one relationship with somebody with that age gap is the fact that it's the country, the turnover and it's younger.

18:26The joke is obviously, oh, I just turned 26. No longer have a chance with Leonardo DiCaprio, you know, which is ridiculous. Of course, the other one is the former US press secretary who's just left Karolina Levit is a 28 and her husband and father as a two children is 60. Oh wow, I did not know that. Come on. Yeah, you didn't know that. No, yeah, property developer. And there is a 32 year age gap between the two of them. Wow. So there you go. Right, thank you very much, Lorken 9, head of training at the communications clinic, M. and Olin presenter of Spin Breakfast.