What has AI ever done for us? | James O'Brien - The Whole Show

Three minutes after ten and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC. It's still me

I have not yet been replaced by, what do we have to call it these days after Donald Trump

Super! I have not yet been replaced by super intelligence. How could I be replaced by super intelligence

How do you replace super intelligence with super intelligence? I have not yet been replaced. I am less confident than I was

Does anybody know? Does anybody keep track of such things? Does anybody care about when we first discussed this? And you sent me AI generated versions of my opening monologues and they were appalling. They were hilariously bad. And then every time or almost every time we've turned our attention to this territory subsequently, they've got better

They've got better and better and better. To the point where I could still tell

I wonder whether the hardest thing for AI to fake is actually the fact that none of this is prepared in advance

and I have no idea what's going to come out of my gob next. One day I will tell you the identity of the LBC presenter

who arrived here after a long and glittering career in television and asked me

you know those monologues you do at the top of your show? And I said, yes, blank

and they said, do you write them yourself or does your producer write them for you

And I thought, oh dear, how are we going to break this? How are we going to introduce you to this slightly different world

that you're moving into? But that's probably the hardest thing for AI to copy authentically

You can go off at segues. You can go off on weird tangents. And let's be clear, I've already gone off on three

But you have to have some sort of thread, some thread of humanity

that combines the tangents with the meat and drink of whatever it is that you're discussing

So the reason why, why on earth, when we turn our attention to this subject

do I find myself thinking about Swiss hedgerows and Ernest Hemingway? I'll tell you

The first is, or rather the second is easy. Ernest Hemingway famously in one of his novels, I forget which

has a line in which a character describes bankruptcy as happening first quickly, then

all at once. And I suspect that we are, well, I think we can probably all agree that we

are going to be contemplating something similar when it comes to jobs being replaced by artificial

intelligence, that very specific angle on this story. You know, I'm a sucker for this

It's in The Sun Also Rises, the 1926 novel by Ernest Hemingway

And it's a character called Mike Campbell. And he's asked how he went bankrupt

How did you go bankrupt? Bill asked. I am available for West End Productions

I'm available for all the great American works, Arthur Miller, whatever it may be

How did you go bankrupt? Bill asked. Two ways, Mike said. Gradually and then suddenly

And that is how I think AI is. I'll do that again for you in case there are any casting agents listening

Gradually and then suddenly. And that is, I think, how AI is going to replace jobs

And today's story about 5,000 people being replaced, essentially because of the use of AI

is, I suspect, very much a taste of things to come. And it's happening at Barclays

Now, you know, irredeemable leftist that I am, I feel duty bound to point out to you that Barclays revealed that it made £2.3 billion in profit in the three months to September alone

Now, please, violins at the ready. It was slightly less than forecast, although a little bit more than the same period a year ago

So can we all now just spare a moment, thoughts and prayers for Barclays Bank shareholders

whose £2.3 billion profit in the three months to September was slightly less than forecast

5,000 people losing their jobs at a company that just posted three-month profits of £2.3 billion

And I know that I am naive, but I just think that stinks

Which brings me to the Swiss hedgerows. Special prizes for anyone who can work out why

Are we ready? I daren't check whether or not this is true, because it is something I have clung to since childhood

I have no idea why it landed so powerfully with me and why it continues to resonate so much

I love the people who are correcting me on quoting the Ernest Hemingway, which I went to the trouble of looking up

Everybody thinks that it's first slowly, then suddenly, or first slowly, then all at once

The correct line, I can categorically assure you because I checked with AI, is two ways, gradually and then suddenly

But I digress, because we're supposed to be talking, obviously, about hedgerows in Switzerland

So when I was a kid, Switzerland was one of the first foreign countries I visited, you know

I went on camping holidays to France, but I went on a school trip, a ski trip, would you believe, to Switzerland with schools abroad when I was about 11

I remember learning, reading, being told that in Switzerland they had legislation in place that protected hedgerows

and the reason this was so interesting is that it was a counter to the idea that everybody should be

free to pursue as much profit as they possibly can so if you're a farmer and you own four fields

and they are currently separated by hedgerows then if you get rid of all the hedgerows except

the very outer ones the ones that actually demarcate your land from other farmers land

then you can not only plant more crops obviously but you can till the land and sow and reap the

crops more easily because it's one massive field as opposed to four smaller ones. And Swiss

legislation demanded that they left the hedgerows in place. Do you know why? Because they look so

lovely. This, I think, was even before the economic value of hedgerows as ecosystems in which all

manner of creatures can thrive was fully understood, before we understood the importance, perhaps

of pollinators and other wildlife, flora and fauna, contributing to the broader ecosystem from a micro-ecosystem level

It was simply because as you drive around the Swiss cantons, as I think they might be called

you drive around the Swiss cantons, you see beautiful, beautiful countryside. Get it from trains probably more than cars

certainly in this country, bombing up and down to Birmingham quite a lot recently

or to Worcester, depending on the timetables. And the Cotswolds, the bits that you see from Trump, beautiful

And the fewer hedgerows there are, the less, I don't know, the less cared for things appear to be

So I like that story in the context of AI, if you're wondering what on earth I'm gibbering on about

because it's about deciding that some things are worth more than money

how pathetic does that sound hey in an era where we're constantly being told that the most greedy

and rapacious characters on the planet deserve our protection support and admiration because

they are wealth creators but some things are more important than money unless of course you a shareholder So billion of profit but we got 5 people over there

getting paid to do something that we could do with AI. So let's get rid of them. And then this time next year, there'll be even more profit

and even fewer workers. And there's a sort of ineluctable logic to it

There's an irresistible gravity to this argument. It is capitalism in its purest form

But it's sad, right? And we don't know where it takes us

slowly or rather gradually, and then suddenly it will go. I think AI still divides into this category

I think this still works. You either marvel at how amazing it is

and you possibly might goggle at how amazing it is. You might be slightly cowed by how amazing it is

or you're still very much in the foothills. or, well, let me, a better ogy

you're still very much not even on the train and some people are not even on the platform waiting

for the train. So you are either choo-chooing full speed ahead with varying degrees of fear or excitement

about where the train may take you, but you have a grasp of its capabilities

because of things that you have asked it to do, things that you have asked it to do for you

or you are on the platform waiting for the train, aware of a general vibe

but not really that clear on what a big deal it is or certainly no idea of where it's going to go

or you have never even visited the station and you're not entirely sure what everybody else is talking about

I'd like to try today to make at least an hour of radio

that has something for everybody. It has something for the people who get it to the point

where they are either evangelical about its advantages and its excitement, or they are terrified about where it is taking us

But the precursor for both of those positions is knowledge and understanding. The second, of course, is the category of people into which I fall

where I'm either just pulling out of the station or I'm waiting on the platform

I'm aware of it. People keep telling me stuff. I haven't really used it much myself except as a glorified search engine

I'm not asking it to answer questions. I'm asking it to find me the stuff I need to answer the questions myself, if that makes sense

And the third category of people, the complete, what would the correct word be

I don't want to use a pejorative like ignoramus, but the complete innocent, the AI innocent or the AII, if you prefer, which makes everything suddenly sound a little bit Geordie

The AI innocent, the person who knows nothing about it. 10.14 is the time

Nick had a very very good phone in this morning about people whose jobs are AI proof

and we may actually return to some of that territory although I'm not sure anyone's going to be able to beat the woman who rang in

to tell him that her son is a priest I wouldn't be so confident madam actually

I think AI could, I mean AI can do therapy some terrible stories about people, young people in particular

putting far too much weight on their so called relationship with AI

If there isn't already an AI priest taking confession, then there almost certainly will be soon

But it was a lovely conversation and it was a lovely answer to the question. I'll ask the opposite question first this morning

Are you next? Genuinely, or has it already happened to you? So have you already been replaced by AI or are you conscious of the fact that it is imminent

And the broader the range of jobs that we can collect under this umbrella, the more interesting the conversation will be

So that's it. It's as simple as that. Are you next? Which jobs are the most vulnerable? And you know this. Perhaps you're one of the people at Barclays, in which case you may even get a Ray Liotta, albeit that there are 5,000 of you. 03456060973. People who have already or who are fearful of losing their jobs to AI. 03456060973

But for the people in categories two and three, I want the people in category one to answer this question

Imagine you are talking to somebody who knows nothing about this, right

I mean, they are aware just about of the phrase artificial intelligence

They keep hearing people talking about AI. They keep hearing people in their inner circle or their outer circle or just some gob on a stick on the radio describing AI

Everyone's talking about AI. It's AI this and AI that and AI the other

And they sit there and if they're anything like me, they'll try and nod along looking as if they know what you're talking about

But if they are more modest people, then they will be looking a little bit baffled

or they'll be sort of looking a little bit blank or they'll be poised to ask, what does it do

But the longer this goes on, the further down the tracks the train goes

the more wary we will be of admitting our own ignorance. You know

What does it actually do? I want you to imagine you're talking to that person

that person right there. I don't really know what it is. I don't know what it does

And I want you to tell them what you have used AI for

that will make them go, wow. That's it. That's question three. What have you used it for

What have you got it to do that will make people, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to include myself in this category

despite my very best efforts to keep up, I am taken by surprise when people tell me what they're getting AI to do

Probably most powerfully by a barrister friend of mine who recently became a king's counsel

Well, you can tell it's recent because he became a king's counsel, not a queen's counsel

And he reckoned that about 90% of the work in a chambers

in a barrister's chambers that was previously done by clerks or paralegals

would now be done by AI. So when he is preparing a case, AI, someone else will operate the AI, but they will take a fraction of the time and the bodies that were previously necessary

I know it makes mistakes. Listen, I don't want to sound condescending, but don't waste Tuppence sending me a message telling me that it makes mistakes and it's fallible

I know all that. That's not the question we're asking. The question we're asking is, are you next

03456060973. And tell us something amazing. it can do. Tell us something amazing that it's done for you. Any Monty Python fans in the house

Shall we do it? Shall we go there? Yeah, all right, then. What has AI ever done for you

James O'Brien on LBC. 20 minutes after 10 is the time. It is that time of year again. I don't know

if it's cyclical. Is anyone keeping count? We should have made a note of the very first time

And we did it. Our sort of ongoing examination of the ongoing impact of AI

Today, it's 5,000 jobs at Barclays that have gone as the bank introduces more artificial intelligence

That's about 5% of their global workforce. Tomorrow, of course, to paraphrase the old lottery slogan, it could be you

Do you think it going to be Or perhaps it already is I heard from three translators already this morning via text Christina and two others that I haven earmarked So I have the names in front of me who say they have already been rendered more or less redundant by AI

You'll always need human oversight, but one human can probably oversee 100 translators where previously there would have been 101 jobs there

there. And then the second question, the one which, if I'm honest with you, I kind of find

quite exciting, is the revelations or the news of what you have used it for, but not like

oh, I planned a lovely holiday. I know all that. The thing that will make us go, wow

I saw something on the tube the other day. I saw something on the tube the other day. I think it was called Harvey, and it said this is going to completely change the lives of lawyers

Up by Chancery Lane. So I can't imagine that they've got adverts in many other places

That's where all the lawyers congregate in London, around Hoban, Chancery Lane, near the temples

And I just thought, I found myself thinking, I haven't looked it up yet, but I found myself thinking, what's that going to do

What's that going to do? How's that going to work? And how, I wonder, or who is it actually going to replace

There's a lot to get into. And plenty of time to do it. Mystery Hour on the way, of course, at 12

Adrian is in Western Supermary. Adrian, what would you like to say? Good morning, James. Glad you're well

Yeah, so my very, very best friend is at a very senior management level

in one of the biggest tech companies in the world. And they provide security for banks, etc

And he runs a team of people who are actually making agents, they call them

to replace themselves. Yeah. So they're building these things. That's kind of dystopian, isn't it

That's kind of sci-fi. It's a little bit like the technological equivalent

of being sent to the subcontinent to train people to replace you at some point in the not-too-distant future

And, of course, that's already happened. And now an awful lot of people that were trained to replace British-based workers

working remotely from areas where wages are much lower, even the people on the lower wages

are now probably facing redundancy as a consequence. of... Yeah, but he already

knows he's out of a job soon. He's planning to retire in next year sometime anyway

But he already knows they're building agents now that are going to replace him at his level of management, which is right up

there. They'll need one person to oversee. Yeah, but it won't be him. It'll be his boss

No, it'll be his boss. He knows he's out of a job. But every time I talk to him about it, he absolutely

blows my mind with what he tells me. Most of it flies over my head. I drive

lorries for a living, so I don't think AI's going to catch up with me anytime soon. Of course it is. Of course

I saw a driverless car on Charing Cross Road a month ago

Yeah, but an AI bot at the moment for quite a few years, at least until I retire, is not going to go to an oil terminal

pick up oil and deliver it to a garage. Do you want to put a few quid on that? Yeah, go on then

Well, I'm not allowed to place bets on the radio, but this is what I mean

Hang on, don't interrupt me. Don't interrupt me while I'm interrupting you. This is why I love that Hemingway line

How did you go bankrupt? Two ways, gradually and then suddenly. So I think we can sit here

I sat here probably only two years ago reading the monologues that someone had asked AI to produce and sniggling, you know, very much in the style of 30 P. Lee

I was sniggling away. And now when people say, do me a monologue on the subject of Jackdaw gas field being cleared by Andy Burnham in the style of James O'Brien, I'll read it now

And I won't think, crikey, that could be me. But I'll read sentences in it and I'll go, crikey, that could be

I might actually use that one. That's extraordinary. and that's two years. So I don't think any of us, hardly any of us

can say anything with full confidence, unless you're planning on retiring next week

in which case scratch everything I've just said. I wouldn't count any particular chickens on this

Well, maybe not, but do you know what blows my mind about what you've told me? Go on. You know like you've got people working on a system

or something somewhere and people make mistakes, right? Yeah. Well, these agents that they're building also make mistakes

Yeah. So what they're doing is they're building agents to watch the agents to correct their mistakes

It's mind-blowing. Isn't that a Thompson twin song? Is it watching The Detectives

I think it was. I'm not a fan, but yeah, awesome. It absolutely blows my mind when you talk to me about it

Well, I'll tell you something else that's going to blow your mind. Aurora Innovation and Kodiak Robots

operate driverless and human-monitored heavy trucks on fixed highway routes, such as the corridor between Dallas and Houston in Texas

Yeah, no, I get it. Robot lorry drivers and autonomous semi-trucks are moving from experimental trials

into active commercial freight operations, particularly on long-haul highway corridors. They're coming for you, Adrian

Beep, beep! No, listen, I work on fuel, right? And every petrol station is different

So to do what you're saying they're going to do, they'll have to standardise every fuel station in the country

That's just massive. They will. They'll do it. Especially if there's a few quid to be saved

and a few more millions to be pumped into the pockets of the richest people on the planet

I'm sorry, the wealth creators who must be protected and honoured at all costs

Adrian, thank you. Catherine's in Wigan, from Weston to Wigan. Catherine, what would you like to say

Good morning, James. Hello. First time caller. Why have you taken so long? Do you think I'm here for my own amusement

Perhaps at first, but 18 months in and I'm hooked. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. Go on. Perfect answer. Lovely stuff

okay okay so ai james i'm delighted excited and terrified at the same time that sounds good

i don't know about that um i mean for the purposes of listening to what you have to say

not necessarily for the safety of the planet or our general well-being but in terms of an

interesting conversation those are the kind of um adverbs that i want okay well here goes that the

The first thing that made me pick up the phone is what I'd say to other people

if they'd never used AI before, is what interests you? What do you like

Talk to AI about that as a starting point. Disused railways. Disused railway stations and cranes

Crane? Well, disused railway stations. Where are they? Have they significant historical interest

If you're interested in railways, I am, that's a perfect example of what you could talk to it about

And you could lose yourself in that world. But that's glorified search engine stuff, isn't it

That's not like, wow, drop my mode. It's not a marmalade dropper, as P.G. Woodhouse described it

Give me a marmalade dropper. Okay, well, that was the start of the term. So I have an interest in psychology

And AI is very good at talking about concepts, identifying my own biases in my thinking

fact-checking, it's superb for that, and understanding the biases that I'm bringing to the table

It's very good for sharpening my own awareness of how I think and come across

And it's also... So that's a good point. It's a good tool for learning

Why are you terrified? Because I use it for work. Ah, and that means soon we'll be using it for you

Well, I think... What do you do? Can I ask? You don't have to tell me

No, no, it's fine. I do a lot of audits and inspections, so my job requires me to be physical and present on site

Right. But my report writing doesn Yeah And this is the danger I don make mistakes anymore in my report writing It a bit like my broadcasting

I use AI to check it. Ah, wow. We have two... Why is that terrifying

Because you don't necessarily need... It's like having your own technical checker

your own personal checker. Somebody does that, an expert does that, you know

Oh, I see. So it's replaced the expert. So it can potentially

So it goes up and down. That's the mad thing about AI. Normally when we talk about replacement of humans with technology

we all go a little bit Luddite, don't we? And we're all thinking about the things we studied in school

like mills and looms and things that replaced humans, and therefore the Luddites came in to smash them up and things like that

But this replaces pretty much everybody, right up the food chain, right up the chain of command to the point where you only really have jobs in most sectors as AI supervisors

And they're probably replaceable eventually as well. Well, the supervisors, well, the AI are the supervisors of the people in my role in a way

And ultimately, just because I can't picture now how I don't need to be, how I need to be physically present

I can see myself in five years time being physically present on site

That might change, and I think it probably will. I can't see that far ahead

No, well, a bit like our last fella, a bit like poor old Adrian in the soon-to-be-completely-redundant business of haulage

I mean, I'm teasing Adrian. Comfortably and confidently saying, I'll be all right

I'll be okay. I listened to Nick's show this morning, and some of the people ringing in

very confident, oh, we'll always need dog walkers, we'll always need groomers. I walked through Charing Cross Station some mornings

and they've already replaced the cleaners with a robot. You've just tied a few dogs to the robot cleaner in Charing Cross Station

Bob's your uncle. Save a fortune on dog walkers. Don't text me to tell me about all the extra gubbins you provide as a human dog walker

You'll be next. Half past ten is the time. Who is safe? Probably nobody

But I want to know who knows that they're not. So who knows that they're next

And I still haven't had a marmalade dropper. I want a marmalade dropper of the things that AI did for you

Meanwhile, here is Dominic Ellis with your headline. James O'Brien on LBC

10.34 is the time. Would you ring in to talk to a bot

Maybe that will save us. Just the knowledge that you're not talking to a real person

which means they'd have to fool you into believing that you were. But would you be able to tell

I don't know that this day is that far off, to be honest with you. Two of the great titans of American literature

are very much running through today's show. I've already told you why Ernest Hemingway is

and that famous line about bankruptcy. and Kurt Vonnegut. And it's important to get this one correct

This is one of my all-time favorite pieces of writing, and it becomes more powerful with every passing year

It begins with Vonnegut, the writer, talking about how he is going out to buy an envelope

His wife says, where are you going? Do you want more accents? Any agents listening

I'll go a bit New York now. Where are you going? Says his wife, who has a very deep voice for a lady

And he says, I'm going up. well, I'm going to buy an envelope. I'm going to buy an envelope, he says

And she says, well, you're not a poor man. I'll stop doing the accents now. She says, well, you're not a poor man

Why don't you buy 1,000 envelopes? They'll deliver them. And you can put them in a closet

And this is from way before Amazon or anything like that. This is just when you could order 1,000 envelopes

and the stationary company, Adrian, would turn up in his lorry. Admittedly, it's full of petrol at the moment

but, you know, the point stands. And this is beautiful. They'll deliver them and you can put them in a closet

And I say, oh, hush. which is a little bit patriarchal, isn't it

But this is very much of its time. And then Vonnegut writes, So I go down the steps here

and I go out to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationery

I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them

The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it's my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately

I get my envelope, and I seal it up, and I go to the postal convenience centre down the block

at the corner of 47th Street and 2nd Avenue, where I'm secretly in love with the woman behind the counter

I keep absolutely poker-faced. I should have done the accent. This is so American, isn't it

I keep absolutely poker-faced. I never let her know how I feel about her

One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it

Anyway, I address the envelope to Carolyn Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a box

in front of the post office, and I go home. and I've had a hell of a good time

And I tell you, we are here on earth to fart around and don't let anybody tell you different

I don't know why. I always think of that, not least because my friend Scott sends it to me

every time we talk about AI. But I always, always think of that

when we have this conversation. There it is. and that's why it feels both sad and exciting at the same time but that's not really what we're

talking about today i just take any opportunity i can to share with you some of the greats of

american 20th century american literature we're talking about who's next and we are talking about

the amazing thing it can do that will make a relatively well-informed person who's not fully

clued up on ai yet go wow sean's in chipping norton in the cotswolds sean what would you like to say

oh hello james i i've written a book called stop the clock which is the impact of ai on leap on the

legal profession okay and it impacts any professional services or organization really

that charges by the hour because if ai could do in 10 minutes what it used to take you 20 hours to do

how are you going to charge your clients for it and the answer is not by the hour and so the legal

profession and other professions like um accounting architecture people are charged by the hour

it's not a tool that you bring in your to your business as purely as a tool it's something that

is going to change your business model and that's what you've got to do if you think about the

lawyers firms at the moment they're a pyramid you've got equity partners at the top of the

pyramid and as you go down you've got lots of junior lawyers doing lots of hours well ai is

replacing those junior lawyers. This is your industry, this is your sector, is it, Sean

Absolutely, yeah, I'm a lawyer. And how, I mean, how far down the road has it already gone

Because everybody I know is still being billed by the hour, even though the work won't be done in the way that created the system

under which everybody was billed by the hour. Well, there is a movement towards fixed fees

and that is gaining pace. Lots of lawyers will say, oh, no, you can't

you can't give me a fixed price for doing work and I say that's absolute

nonsense, yes you can. So you're a pioneer? I'm not a pioneer. An early adopter then

An influencer? You're an influencer Sean. Oh god I wouldn't say that, my kids would weep but

I work with law services to get them off the crack and

to present clients with choices, gold, silver bronze here are three options here are three prices what do you want not linked to time

because that is how i mean so many things are priced historically and law is as i've touched

on before law feels to me to be at the vanguard of some of this stuff and this is one of the

reasons why isn't it because it's so closely allied to man hours and even if you're even

if you mow lawns for a living you're going to probably charge by lawn rather than by hour

but lawyers always always always hourly rates billable hours but if you think of what lawyers

have got to change their mindset and start billing for the outcomes because clients don't go to

lawyers they get frightened by the billable hour and what they want is an outcome can you help me

achieve my results and if the answer is i give you three prices or one price i give you a price

and you think, yeah, that's good enough, that's good for me, and it's a yes or no, it's a fixed price, you'll be happy as a client

When did you wake up to this? I went to America in 2017 to a conference in Dallas

and it was led by the value-based pricing guru, a guy called Ron Baker, who's written eight books on the subject

Right. And I went there, and there were 100 people there, lots of lawyers, lots of accountants

I was the only British in the room. Wow. And I then kept in touch with lots of lawyers who were doing this

value-based pricing, not charging by the hour. And I nagged them for years

How do you do this? How do you do that? So that at my firm, I could roll it out as a pilot

And then guess what? You get clients that are happier. You get lawyers that are happier

And you get business owners that are happier once you can get off the billable hour

Still quite a lot of resistance to it, though, because you're asking, Mo

There is a lot of people that are thinking, the resistance is it's a change management project

It's not, oh, could we all do this for Monday? It is, how does this impact our business

And lawyers dislike change, naturally conservative, argumentative, risk averse, that's our nature

But you've got to take these people with you on a journey. And in a workforce of 100

how many will be left in a few years' time? good question it depends there are there are already firms that you know depends how well

you adopt ai and i'm working with some law firms who are all over this like a right then the best

case scenario from from from their point of view the people who adopt it perfectly the people who

i'm just looking at the uh the publicity material you you could look to cut your workforce

extensively. Give me a number, mate. Oh, it depends on the... There are already AI

automated law firms already who take the instructions from a client. You can go online

put your details of a debt recovery matter into a... Or a ticket you shouldn't have got

That's it. And it will do the litigation for you. It will present the brief to a barrister

You still need a barrister to do the advocacy. you're not going to get rid of that straight away

but all of the work leading up to that was AI generated Cost versus value based pricing

and your book is called Stop the Clock, How the AI Law Firm

Moves from Billable Hours to Value Based Pricing Oh bless you, thank you for looking it up

I can't plug my own books as mercilessly as I do Sean without giving yours a quick push

can I? That would be hypocrisy personified thank you and I don't know why my instincts

drew me to the legal profession almost first on this subject, partly because of my friend

who shocked me with the tale of not needing junior lawyers or rather, you know

AI being able to do. In fact, I think Sean addresses it directly. AI can now do in minutes

This is on the publicity material for his book. AI can now do in minutes

what used to take a junior lawyer hours. And there it is. Hannah is in Richmond

Hannah, what made you pick up the phone? Good morning, James. I'd like to bring it a bit closer to home for you, perhaps

I work in broadcasting and AI is finding its way into quite a few different areas of business

But certainly much the way the gentleman before described, time-saving measures. Case in point, researchers

We have systems now that can take every single piece of media in your archive, watch it, tell you whose faces are in every second of it

transcribe every word of it, make it all searchable. So for example, you know, celebrity passes away

and you need to find the back catalogue and make a nice reel of their life. It can take minutes now

rather than days of hard work. You know, junior researchers would be the ones sent to the archives

to dig through all the tapes. Part of the reason why there's such a jobs crisis or such an employment

crisis among people with in some cases long and glittering television careers so much more is

now being done by ai and the other thing that you that occurs to me i don't even know if they make

programs like this anymore but when i worked in norwich for anglia television with with matthew

right um on the right stuff a million years ago the next door studio was trisha and they were

constantly trying to find people with with extraordinary stories to tell and it was really

hard to find them and they'd have to leaf through sort of magazines the kind of magazines you find

in the dentist's waiting room and try and get subscriptions to all the local paper early days

of the internet but you'd have to know what you were looking for to find it whereas now you could literally say find me someone who married their mum and and it would find you

everyone who's ever been reported who married their mum yeah exactly and which puts people

out of a job that could have been a week's work for somebody to dig into that now it's a matter

of moments and there's other areas that aren't ai exactly they're more of an automation thing i

I think in some cases, things that are just doing a job for someone aren't always AI

You know, they're just clever programming. So, for example, if you think about a newsreader who has an autocue in front of them and the text is rolling

traditionally that was a person with a scroll wheel that would time it to how the presenter is speaking

That hasn't been a person for some time. Now, first of all, it used to be the presenter would do it themselves with a foot pedal

But now we have a computer that can listen to the words they're saying

and match them to the script and match the speed that they're speaking at

And if they pause, it will pause. And it's using clever programming, basically

to listen to their voice and track the motion of their voice

So it's, in some cases, a little bit better than the presenter because the presenter can... Excusez-moi

Excusez-moi? Show me an AI that could interject with an excusez-moi at that point

in such a comical and charming fashion. Yeah, so with a foot pedal

the presenter might have to go back to the top of the story and then somehow do that with their foot

whilst keeping it together. Whereas if they just begin the next story

the software can tell that they've started a new script and gone to the next story

and it will jump straight there. Can we put numbers on it? Like I pushed Sean to do

and he gallantly refused to tell me out of 100 jobs How many are gone

It's very hard to put numbers, but what I definitely can say is that it has massively reduced the entry point The number of places that are an entry point to broadcasting have reduced because you know going and being even a runner is the number of jobs for a runner to do have

reduced because some of those are now taken up by automated systems. You know, the joke

is, oh, go and get me a coffee. But there was a lot more that runners would do than get

coffee. You know, they'd be getting scripts and printing things and doing lots of jobs

that introduce them to the world of broadcasting. And there are just fewer places for them to do that now

And maybe they are only getting coffee instead. And that is just one sector

We spend an awful lot of time talking about NEATs. And of course, we probably don't spend enough time

talking about the number of entry points for so-called NEATs that no longer exist

Hannah, that was brilliant. Thank you. It also reminded me of a runner

who once asked me what I wanted for breakfast. And I'd just arrived from newspapers in television land

And I said, oh, don't be silly, I'll get my own breakfast. And so for a couple of days I got my own breakfast

and then they took me to one side. I think after they'd realised I wasn't some sort of ogre

and said, look, could I please get your breakfast? Because if I'm not busy, I don't..

My job is not guaranteed. And I thought, crikey, I'll have seven bacon sandwiches, please

James O'Brien on LBC. It's 10 to 11, I owe you an apology

There is no evidence whatsoever that P.G. Woodhouse had anything to do with coining the phrase marmalade dropper

It's a sort of Fleet Street tradition to describe the story that makes the person who's reading the newspaper

back in the days when people read newspapers, drop their toast. I think the American equivalent is either coffee spitter or muffin choker

But here in good old Blighty, it's a marmalade dropper. And we haven't done the marmalade droppers yet

although I'm minded to stay with this conversation because, let's be honest, it's probably the most important

in many ways that we have. I'll read you Jacob's message in full

because it adds to the idea of this being a lot more important than perhaps we allow when we simply say

oh, are you about to lose your job? Or who thinks their job is AI-proof? This is really, really serious

James, you're infuriatingly missing the elephant in the room, writes Jacob. This caller just said it's about replacing junior lawyers

That's going back to Sean, isn't it? I have friends in game development, game dev and software development

They're no longer hiring junior developers. The AI does all the junior jobs

and then the seniors fix the issues and check the work. You're always talking about NEATs

but this is why there's no work for them. Nobody wants to train anyone

so eventually we won't have anyone to supervise either. Listen, I'm going to patronise you slightly

while apologising for missing the elephant in the room in that nature will right itself

So you might be right. That might occur or that might appear on the horizon

that possibility. But not least because of the capitalist imperative. If companies or CEOs or shareholders begin to fear

that they are rendering themselves redundant and they will bring humans back to make sure that the supervision is going ahead

But yeah, this is why I keep asking for numbers and nobody wants to give them to me

It's going to decimate, quite possibly literally, as in the correct use of that massively misused word singular

It is going to much, much more than decimate almost every industry you can think of

And there is a, I'm going to say a complacency rather than a smugness to an awful lot of the people who think their jobs are safe

Adrian, as a lorry driver, thinking that he'd be safe. My friend Wayne, who's a milkman, is adamant that milkmen are going to be absolutely safe

Mate, are you mad? I'll be delivering milk by drones by Christmas, probably

I would have thought that milkmen are particularly vulnerable to this. As soon as you get driverless vehicles, you're going to have pointless milkmen and women

But what is already going? What's already gone? And what are the marmalade droppers

What are the things you've used it for or the thing it can do that will make everybody else go, wow

Did I already correct the other mistake I made this hour? Elvis Costello was responsible for watching The Detectives

Thompson Twins were responsible for We Are Detective. Both absolute classics. So far as I'm aware, my Hemingway and Vonnegut references are bang on the money

Dan's in Mary. Mark, another little thing I do as well, which I shouldn't do

I started saying Mary LeBone a while ago. Apparently, that's just really pretentious and wrong

You are supposed to pronounce it not as it is spelt, but as everybody else pronounces it except pedants and idiots like me

Marleybone. Dan's in Marleybone. Dan, what would you like to say? Hello there

So I started my own business about three months ago. I branched out

I'm a chartered building surveyor. I do project consultancy and building surveying

Without AI, I've started using AI not to advise clients, but to build the structure of the business

And I haven't had to employ anyone yet. It is unbelievable. I am light years ahead of where I should be, I feel

You're gobsmacked. Even things like I've set up like 30 parameters on it

Every morning I want you to do a search of all of the government tenders with all of the criteria and tell me which ones are available now

which ones would suit me. And you imagine that could take a morning for a human to do that

And it's sitting there waiting on my desk every morning. All of my invoicing, you name it, I've set up systems

And it's replaced any need for a PA or admin assistant at this stage as I'm growing

Fair enough. Do things change? Obviously, the need for an admin assistant or a PA won't change

I will need one eventually, but not yet. I hope so. What might change in a slightly different sphere

when everybody in the sector is doing what you're doing? Say it again, sorry

What might change when everybody is doing what you're doing? So, I mean, at the moment

it sounds like you might be getting a little bit of a head start on applying for a tender, on applying for a contract

because you've got in on... Absolutely, yeah. But when everybody is doing it

we're back to where we are now. It's all the same number of troughs, the same number of noses in the same sized trough

It's allowed me to get a few years ahead of where I think I should be now. Wow, you'd say years

You'd say years. I'd say about a year or so, yeah. What I've got behind me now

what has been created with AI. But one of the things is I can't stop now

So I'll be laying on the sofa on Sunday night and I look up and it's one in the morning and I'm still on my phone building templates

and systems and things like that. I can't get away from it. It's better than some of the other stuff you could be doing

Are you self-taught as well? You didn't bring someone in to do all this. You've worked it all out for yourself

Yeah, I've sat here for the last couple of years whilst I was still employed, figuring it out

It knows my business inside out, so I think eventually... It knows everything inside out

That's the thing people don't realise. It could package up a business, though. You could say, right, I am now a lawyer

I am this. Okay, for £50,000, I'll give you the whole package of a business

and tell you how to run it. I mean, I can say to it, right, this square mile here

give me all the potential clients and all their phone numbers and all their email addresses

Flipping it, yeah. I mean, simple but striking. That's another phrase I should have used alongside Marmalade Chopper

And I'm bringing them up and trying to be charming. Can I have a free plug, James, because I'm struggling

Can you have what? A free plug. Yeah, of course. Well, I thought you weren't struggling

Well yeah Christmas is still coming Of course you can have a free plug because you asked But before that as in you asked rather than tried cynically to try and smuggle it in without any permissions or warnings

But before that... I would only ever ask permission. Yeah, go on. How old are you, if you don't mind me asking

I'm 47. Right, perfect. Go back to when you were 37. You were in the same sector, right? Yep

If you'd set up then, how many people do you think you would have needed

Presuming you had the money to do it. I'm doing the work of about four people

Myself being the only, let's say, professional advisory senior person, but three office staff

Yeah, that's what I thought. So that's extraordinary. It's just a buck of incidents I've started now

and I feel blessed I didn't do it five years ago. Yeah, of course. So, yeah

Well, that's it. That's three jobs. And then next week, we'll be talking about NEATS again

and we will forget or I'll try not to forget that one of the reasons why there are no jobs

for so many young people, let alone older people who are struggling as well, is because the jobs

are literally in real time ceasing to exist. I've got a theory though, I mean, you know, so

taxi drivers used to have a human being doing the knowledge and

learning every street in London now you can give a man or a lady

an app on the phone which would do the same job, but they still earn the

same money, they still do the same job, they just didn't do the training. Yeah, no

I mean, this is what I mean by nature will right itself. There's a more powerful

phrase to describe what I'm trying to describe, but I can't actually remember what it is. If only there was

AI presenting this program. There's a phrase to describe the fact that the system

kind of self-repairs and changes as the world changes. And you're right up to a point, although

a lot of black cab drivers will feel that you have offended their professional honour

What is the name of your chartered surveying company for anyone looking for a building chartered surveyor so if you want to save money and you're

a leaseholder leasehold blocks we're castle elm associates castle elm associates there we give you

the best advice and try and save everyone money yeah all right yeah all right mate i said you

could have a free plug i didn't say that you could like a couple of minutes you could i did not say

you could have a couple of minutes you said bypass the entire you can listen back on global player

to establish whether or not i said he could have a couple of minutes you bypass you can listen back

and hear his plug he's good at this isn't he no wonder he's decided to strike out on his own

instead of feathering somebody else's nest uh good luck with it all dan cut what is it again

go on castle elm associates castle elm associates in marley by there you got it look as up he's

almost got a slogan there if he had a little theme tune i think he would have sung it um it is coming

up to 11 o'clock we'll stay with elements of this conversation nature finds a way is that the phrase

I'm looking for, nature finds a way. I think it might be. Staying in tech matters

There's genuinely a global scramble on. How do I know this? My wife sent me a link to a fashion website yesterday

asking my opinion on what I thought about a jacket. And when she, as often happens in these sort of scenarios

checked back in with me later, I said, oh, the website was down. And she said, yeah, yeah, whatever

And I said, no, really, the website was down. And she said, well, it can't be down. It's one of the biggest fashion companies in the business

And I said, come and see. And I went to my phone and I clicked on the link that she'd messaged me with the jacket

And it said, sorry, we are experiencing some technical difficulties. And that is how I learned that there was a global scramble on to fix a critical cybersecurity flaw with many websites being taken offline

LBC's Will Guyot will join us at about half past 11 to explain why I couldn't access a picture of the jacket that my wife might buy

and some other elements of that story as well. James O'Brien on LBC

It is four minutes after 11. You are listening to James O'Brien on LBC

Let's sort of dial up the seriousness, perhaps, of the conversation now with a side order of marmalade

as in the jobs that are definitely doomed, the jobs that are already doomed

I haven't spoken to anybody yet who has been replaced by AI

and that is what I would like between now and Mystery Hour at 12 noon

So you have been or are about to be replaced by AI

0-3-4-5-6-0-6-0-9-7-3 is the number that you need. And the thing it can do

that will make relative innocence go, wow. I think that is one of the best ways

to turn people on to just how enormous and immense the technology is becoming

So the thing you got it to do, The thing it's done for you, a last caller, very strong on this, you know, set up a business from scratch three months ago, would have needed four staff, has done it all on his own

That's huge, right? It's not necessarily good. It's good for you. It's good for him

But it's not necessarily good for you if you're looking to get a start in the chartered surveying world or you're, you know, you're an office worker looking for a gig

that's what many points being made by many people but underpinning lots and lots and lots of them

is the um that the gnashing of teeth and the wailing that we do about so-called needs without

often mentioning just how many entry point positions are no longer exist sam makes a

brilliant point in kent i know you're using this as an into ai but if 5 000 manual jobs were going

in a car plant or an oil rig, there would be government talks and bailouts, etc

Is that not happening now because profits are the be-all and end-all rather than it being

due to green issues or Brexit? No, I think actually, Sam, not to pop your balloon, it's because these are 5,000 jobs

worldwide, as far as I know, as opposed to 5,000 jobs in one town

So the reason why governments get involved in factory closures and the like is because

They take such an enormous economic bite out of a self-contained community that it becomes a matter of national interest at the very least and of politics indubitably

So you're right. It's hard to imagine a kind of campaign to look after the bankers. Well, except after the 2008 financial crisis that was caused by bankers when there was a very powerful campaign led by right wing mouthpieces and client journalists to stop bashing the bankers

So you can have a campaign designed to protect bankers, but not when they're in danger of losing their jobs, more when they're in danger of being blamed for massive international problems that they caused

And of course, that's when the Daily Mail and their fellow travellers stepped forward to try to pin it all on Gordon Brown

I like this from Fraser. I recently used it to pass an exam to get a job. I would never have passed it without AI

Now, that worries me, Fraser, without more detail. It's not Fraser Knight, is it

He hasn't got a job in the LBC newsroom as a consequence of using AI to pass his journalism exams, I hope

Because if you are being completely straight with me, does that mean that you're not actually qualified to do the job that you got as a consequence of using AI to do the exam

Or does the fact that you used AI to do the exam mean that you can use AI to do the job and nobody's got anything to worry about

You know I point out to you sometimes that when people come on the show or the station it happens with everybody and they a bit nervous they sometimes say the presenter name instead of their own name they sometimes say oh hello James Oops It just one of those weird things that happens Ian has taken it a step further in this text from Ian in Surbiton who writes hi Ian

OK. I mean, there are a couple of Ians on LBC, but I'm not mixed up with them very often. I'm

retired, but my old job as a golf greenkeeper already has AI controlled robots cutting grass

other jobs within the golf industry will go soon as well quite a few people who think that because

their work is manual it will be okay in which case join me at charing cross station at eight

o'clock in the morning watching the rather hilarious robot cleaner chugging across the

concourse and remember i've already suggested you could tie a few dogs to it and then you've got an

ai dog walker what else could that robot sort of double up as could deliver drinks probably right

around the station um so it could also mow the lawn if you stuck a few blades on its bottom

might need to rephrase that uh rob writes there's a knock-on effect the people not going into those

jobs due to being replaced by ai other industries rely on those people going to work as in you're

talking about your sandwich shops your dry cleaners all the things we talked about quite a lot during

lockdown if the number of people in that building there is reducing or at least the number of people

in that business there is reducing, then what about all the businesses that essentially feed those workers

They're doomed as well. Another translator who has already lost their job

because of what you describe as IA, but I'm sure that was a typo

and not an indication of how reliable you would be as a translator. And this is really interesting from Abby

I do admin for a trade union. As you can imagine, we are all about the preservation of jobs

but AI could absolutely do our jobs And they could do the job of advising people and eventually representing them

Our union is pretty anti-AI. But every time we try to negotiate our own terms and conditions, for example, a four-day working week, our General Secretary says that won't be possible without introducing AI

So it's almost a threat. I think it's awful and will destroy so many jobs eventually

That's fascinating. I mean, trade unions charged with protecting jobs, even at the extent of the capitalist imperative

It's one of the great tensions of humanity, really, isn't it? It's the pursuit of profit versus the protection of workers

We're living in an era now where the pursuit of profit has massively, massively outweighed the protection of workers

If you go back to the 1970s, there were examples where perhaps the protection of workers had trumped the pursuit of profit to such a point that companies became unviable

There's always a balance to be struck between the two principles, the protection of the worker and the pursuit of the profit

But there is an organisation dedicated to the protection of the worker whose work could be done by AI that exists chiefly as a consequence of the pursuit of profit

School leaders, Mark tells me, are inundated with AI-generated parent-carer complaints, often with unclear desired outcomes

It's the elephant in the room when it comes to headteacher retention. The amount of time you just get AI

So it might be great if you're getting it to challenge a parking ticket or a planning application or something like that, because it will cut through all of the noise and give you exactly what you need to submit the thing that you want to submit

But if you're mischievous, if you are a pest or even if you're just misguided, you're going to be bombarding schools with complaints

And it takes time and money to deal with them. had teacher retention being affected, Ofsted, funding, pupil behaviour, all cited as triggers

for those leaving the profession, says Mark. But the time taken up, responding to AI complaints

means that leaders can't concentrate on teaching and learning and helping pupils flourish

I could go on. I could go on. But I won't. This one simply says, please don't share my name. I've

been working in IT for over 30 years. Myself and dozens of colleagues are now losing our jobs

due to AI. 12 minutes after 11 is the time. More of this, but also the marmalade dropper

The conversation that will make the rest of us go, what, it can do that

03456060973. Ash is in Milton Keynes. Ash, what have you got? Hi

Yeah, I'm going to take this into a slightly different direction in the sense that I think AI does have the ability

to essentially, you know, spark the creative spirit. Do you? Let me give you an example

That's interesting. I'm a singer-songwriter, and I've written many, many, many songs about 20 years ago

And I recorded them, and I produced them, I mixed them, I put them on a CD

There was no way of distributing that stuff. And then it kind of died for about 20 years

because I had children and work and all that kind of stuff

but very recently have resurrected a song. And I then decided to create a video for it

And the video is absolutely astonishing. It's incredible. I did have the ethical question

AI did the video. You used AI to do the video. To make the video, yeah

I did obviously put some prompts in. Yeah, sure. But it allowed me to do something

that would never have ever happened in the sense that, have I taken somebody's job away

no because i wouldn't have thought of outsourcing creating that video but it has it has somehow

made an abstract idea that i had in a song and put it into images and it is absolutely phenomenal

give me an idea of what you asked it to do if you can and remember that you pretend it shouldn't be

too difficult that you're speaking to a complete ignoramus okay so i i i put my song in um and it

scanned lyrics, so it would kind of find the narrative of the song, but I asked it to do it

in the style of things that I was interested in. So I put in things like David Lynch, Yang Svankmeyer

I asked it to do, sort of look for, to create it in a way that was slightly distressed

so it wasn't so shiny and polished, and I asked it to use sort of puppets and dolls

and it just put it all together into a narrative that really encapsulated what the entire song was about

And, I mean, you're better qualified than anyone to say that because you wrote The Flipping Thing

Has it carried your work to a bigger audience? Not really, because I haven't really advertised it

Well, let's get some. I'm going to have to get you to just tell Eleanor if you want

because I'd like to see it, to check. Absolutely, I think you'd love it. I think you'd absolutely love it

There you go. I hadn't heard of Yang... What was his name again

Yang Sankmeyer. Yang Sankmeyer. What did he make? He's a Czech sort of abstract puppet theatre

Oh, that's why I haven't... I mean, I've got nothing against puppets, but when you said David Lynch

I thought, oh, you're going to mention some directors I really dig now, and then you said Yang Sankmeyer

and I thought, I've never heard of Yang Sankmeyer. Well, I'm sure you will dig him out

Well, I will, I will. So stay on with Eleanor, just in case what you're doing is mischievous

and you're about to introduce us to puppet porn, which no one really needs in their life

and then I will give it a shout in a moment, Ash, and drive some traffic so that other people also can see

what happens when AI meets genuine creativity because that's a fascinating... Factor, isn't it, in this conversation, which we haven't touched on before

We talk about AI replacing creativity, but this is what happens when AI meets genuine creativity

I don't know why I keep saying creativity. It's creativity. It's also, this isn't an opinion, this is counting, 11.15

James O'Brien on LBC. It is 18 minutes after 11. You're listening to James O'Brien on LBC

That touched the nerve, that message from Mark about AI-generated complaints. We haven't even touched on this in the past, have we

various people in touch with similar. Paul, who's in the Metropolitan Police

says that you wouldn't believe the number of AI complaints that are submitted to the police every day

And of course, you don't... What's the word I want? Spurious? Is that the word I'm looking for? You've got no way of knowing whether they're spurious or not

but if it only takes a second to do what would once have taken hours, then a spurious or an inauthentic, you know, a dodgy complainant

is going to be able to take up loads of time. And the system, of course, demands that every complaint is dealt with

particularly if it's going into a public body. So if it's going into a school, it's going into

a police service, then the system demands that the complaint is dealt with. And I imagine

that if they deployed AI to deal with the AI generated complaints

then there would be quite quickly outcry about the fact that a really genuine complaint

had been dealt with by AI. Whether AI made a mistake or not, it feels a little bit remiss

to say, here's a complaint about police brutality. It's been dealt with by AI

So there's an awful lot here that we're barely addressing, which is why I said that thing

It's why I started with that Hemingway quote about bankruptcy, which I've now been so patronizing to other people for misremembering

that I'm terrified of misremembering it myself. How did you go bankrupt? Bill asked

Two ways, Mike said. Gradually and then suddenly. And yes, I am available

you know, rehearsal schedule and radio show permitting. I am available to play small roles in West End

Place. I imagine my next caller is as well, Dom Jolly. Is it the Dom Jolly or are there two

Dom Jollies? Is it Dom Jolly as in Penzance in Corwall? Dom, what do you want to say

Hello, James. I am actually, despite what you think, a first-time caller. I wasn't the angry farmer

Charlie. You were, you liar. You weren't the angry farmer Charlie, but you

were Humphrey in Wimbledon. I was Humphrey in Wimbledon. Yeah, so you're not a first time

caller, you liar. No, I'm a first time caller to you, to your show. Oh, well you tried

to get on this show as Humphrey in Wimbledon, but we saw through your

ruse, Don Johnny. Yeah, you did. Anyway. Okay. But I'm on tour. I'm driving down to

Penzance at the moment. I'm listening to you talking about AI. Yes. And

yeah, it is panicky. Like, I write books. I got it to write a

fake chapter of my book to see what it looked like. And it was frighteningly

like, I mean, it wasn't great, but it was like pretty good but i'm thinking about comedy like i mean i'm starting to see ai comedians being

shown and they're sort of sucking up other people's jokes and telling them i can't see how an ai is

ever going to replace a live comedy experience i know there's the abba you know uh atavad or you

know but that would be you could you could have a tommy cooper um live experience with a hologram

if they'd filmed enough if he was still with or a comedian who is so it would be a different thing

It's a simulacrum, if that's the correct word to use. It's not the same

And what is it? Because we're talking about a sort of quiddity, an essence of humankind that can only be conveyed by humans

And every time I hear people say things like this, I kind of silently add the word yet

We can't imagine it yet. But I think it's the difference between

well, I suppose this is what freaks me out, between sort of pure originality, and I suppose if you're sucking up

every kind of comedic thought in the last 50 years, maybe you do get to some weird originality

But I don't know, I'm thinking, you know, I'm on tour at the moment, I'm driving around, I'm thinking, well, it'd be great

if I could AI myself somewhere. But of course, in the end, they go, well, we don't need you

We'll just, you know, that's it. Well, I don't know how it's going to be replaced. And there's the magic as well

I mean, you might be able to write jokes, probably not very good ones yet

but they could do that or they could just memorize every one-liner that's ever been written

and just chuck them out machine gun style, which, of course, some very good comics do

But what you're never going to have is the ability to respond in a moment to a heckler

or respond in a moment to, I don't know, something falling over on the stage behind you

I don't quite ever imagine that being something that you can... Well, except the skill in comedy, which I certainly don't have

but it's to sort of fake spontaneity. and it's like, you know, a heckler response

is often you've got like 30 of them just sitting there. Yeah, yeah, yeah

And actually, if you're AI, you're going to have 600 of them waiting. So it might be better with hecklers than real comedians

Also, it doesn't have the ego. So it just yses the heckler

and chooses the heckler kill and goes for it. So I don't know

Horses for courses. Where are you tonight? I am. I'm on my way to Penzance

I love Penzance. I'm in Cornwall for three days. Budenway Bridge, which is a

nice bit of the tour, actually. It's lovely. Good. Enjoy. Still a couple of tickets

available if people want to come along? I don't know, actually. I haven't looked, but yeah. If there are, they will be

If there are, they will be. Dom, thank you. Take care. Humphrey in Wimbledon. I don't know

if you ever heard him ringing Tom Swarbrick. But now you know the truth. This is like

The Wizard of Oz, where Toto pulls the curtain back. And Charlie the Farmer

an awful lot of people did. I had a moment it's one of the maddest calls I've ever taken

do you remember when Mr. Angry was on Steve Wright do you remember that

I mean you have to be of a certain age to remember that Dom Jolly will remember it

Steve Wright I miss him such a lost beautiful man and he had this character

Mr. Angry on his Radio 1 show and I think it carried on when he moved to

Radio 2 as well and I took a call a couple of years ago from a

farmer called Charlie who was what if Mr. Angry had a son who became a farmer that that would have

been chart you find it on YouTube in fact oh no I can't tell you about that yet I can tell you

about something very exciting next week and everywhere a significant number of people because

he was so bonkers he was so cross so cross that a lot of people thought it was fake um and quite a

few people who thought it was fake were adamant that it was actually Dom and he had to intervene

online and clear up the fact it was a genuine person. I don't know whether it was a genuine

farmer or not, but it was not a parody. I think at one point

he said he was an electrical engineer. Perhaps he's related to Kemi Badenow

Anyway, Carolyn is in Barnes. Carolyn, what made you pick up the phone? A call you had

a couple of calls ago about some dude saying he was being creative

and not stealing jobs by making his own music video out of AI slot

I am a filmmaker. I'm a writer and a director and I can tell you

people like him are taking jobs well he couldn't have a fool

I don't want to have a fight between the two of you I don't want to referee a fight

but I think his point was there's no earthly way he ever would have been

able to afford or commission or make a video for his song but what of course he opens the door to is the possibility of people who can afford to hire somebody like you not doing so

because they will use AI instead. But I think that chap was probably not guilty

of anything other than naivety. Well, yeah, I agree with that. However, I will say that when your prompt is

give me something like David Lynch and that Czech guy and whatever, the way AI..

Hang on a minute. I wrote it down. Yang. Oh, no, I can't read my own writing

Yang somebody. Yeah. We shouldn't be so dismissive of him. He's an auteur

He's an artist. He's a genius. Yang Schlangmeier. Yang Sankmeier. He's a puppet man

Yeah, the puppet guy. Regardless, what's happening is the way AI is able to reproduce those is because AI has stolen from the work of those people

It's also very true. Yeah, I mean, everything AI gives you has been stolen from a creative like me, like Yang, like David Lynch, like anyone

I mean, it's gotten so I'm terrified to have my stuff online because AI is just going to steal it

And I have already experienced, you know, scripts being taken so that they can be written by AI

I've received AI notes from a producer who didn't even read the script

Are you serious? A script that I wrote. Yeah, yeah. And this is becoming more and more common

So there's one little niche of my industry that's losing work is people who read scripts for a living

And there's a lot of those people. It's called giving coverage. Do you know, I find that quite surprising, actually

because I'd have thought the one area where you would need the human touch is the sort of mercurial nature of artistic magic

But what they're looking for is prompts, right? They're looking for the next so-and-so

So here is a very successful show that did X, Y, and Z. You ask AI to read something and say, does it do X, Y, and Z

And they come back and say, no, it doesn't, and they send it back to you with an AI-generated note

Yeah, and I'll tell you, ask yourself why there's so much rubbish on Netflix

and et cetera, et cetera. Well, Netflix is in, I read yesterday, is in financial peril

precisely because it isn't coming up with enough hits. Yeah, and because people are also

many people, not all people, of course, but people are willing to settle

for the same garbage that hits the same AI-driven notes rather than having that genuine spark

of human creativity. It's entirely derivative and we overlook at our peril

the fact that if something is derivative, then it is by definition derived from something else

Yeah, people don't understand what that word means. Are you the 2024 winner

of the BAFTA-Rowcliffe New Writing for Comedy Award? Yes, I am. Well, there you go

With my son, Sean Stevenson. Oh, that's lovely. So you're Carolyn Saunders

I am indeed, yeah. And it was Hells Bells, a script that you co-wrote with your son that won the award

You've won lots of awards, actually. And even somebody like you, well, I know it's a devil of a business yours

but you already feel the hot breath. You can have this line if you want, Carolyn

I'm going to go a little bit poetic seeing as it's you. You can already feel the hot breath of AI upon your artistic neck

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's like a cause celeb for me now

I'm livid. I'm livid about what is happening. and I'm livid about the number of filmmakers who are being told

there's no turning back, you've got to use it, it's just a tool

I mean, there is now a whole movement in my industry of people who want to, you know, have a note at the end of their film

that says this is completely human-made. Yeah. Yeah, well, I think that will become a badge of honour

I mean, it already is, of course, but it may become more and more prevalent. And there's something really, I don't know, there's loads of words you could use here, clinical, anodyne, surgical

There's just something feels wrong if it hasn't got that organic input, that organic combination

Thank you, Carolyn. That's actually really important. I apologize almost for jumping up to defend the lad with the song

But you're right. It does. If you're saying make it like so-and-so, then you're kind of stealing from so-and-so

Will Guy, it's up next to talk us through, I mean, it's quite a big story, but my introduction to it was my inability yesterday to look at a jacket that Mrs. O'Brien wanted to buy

but which she wanted my opinion on first. Obviously, a global meltdown of Internet access is considerably more important than that

but sometimes it's quite helpful to provide the entry point, there you go

it's a phrase that's popped up in the course of today's program, to a much bigger issue

That's the macro and the micro for you, the meta and the not meta

Half past 11, and Dominic Ellis is here with your headlines. James O'Brien on LBC

It is 33 minutes after 11. Donald Trump has been expressing admiration for something

I thought we would have a little bit of fun with working out what it is. You may not already be aware of this story

So has Donald Trump been expressing admiration for, A, Vladimir Putin's war crimes, B, the muscular bottom of a Republican senator, or C, Kim Jong-un's holiday home in North Korea

So has Donald Trump been expressing admiration for Vladimir Putin's war crimes in Ukraine, for the muscular bottom of a Republican senator, or is it C, Kim Jong-un's holiday home in North Korea

I will reveal that to you shortly. But first, there I was yesterday, minding my own business

when my phone pinged with a message from my beloved. What do you think of this? The message

said. I've still got it here. So I clicked on it and on the message and then I clicked upon the link

and I discovered that the website of a ridiculously overpriced clothing company was

unavailable, and indeed it still is. Patience, please, it said. It'll be worth the wait

We're just fixing a few technical issues before we welcome you on the site

And then a little catchphrase that would give away the company that I'm talking about

And given that they haven't paid me or sent me any free clothes, I'm not going to do that. Although if they were in the business

of sending out free clothes, there is rather a nice suede jacket available at the moment

that I would quite like to have a look at. So when I got home yesterday evening

and Mrs O'Brien said to me, what did you think of that jacket? I said, oh, I'm terribly sorry, darling

I haven't been able to look at it. And she said, oh, yeah, why not? I said the whole website was down

And she said, what, the website of blank? And I said, yes, and I showed her

And I was actually, for once, telling the truth as to why I hadn't done the thing that she had asked me to do

The more important question, though, and Will Guy is here to answer it, is what is PHP

and why did it spark a global cybersecurity scramble? What a great question to start with

PHP is a coding language that's used on the internet and it powers about 70% of the world's websites

And you wouldn know that unless somebody told you Quite a lot of places and organisations use it So for example if you a user of a blog for example maybe you got some wedding photos in an album online

Or maybe, like me, I started a James O'Brien fan site on the internet in 2014

Those sorts of things could potentially be impacted by this. And what's happened here

This is one of the first examples. You know they were saying that AI could start finding the flaws

and vulnerabilities in stuff. This is a very real world example of that

So about a week or so ago, these two big vulnerabilities were found and they were major vulnerabilities

which essentially meant that people could take over these web servers without even having the password or anything

They'd be able to start extracting information from them. Now, normally what happens in this situation, the company, the developer gets time to start making a fix that they put online

but what seemingly happened here was the information leaked or somebody else got it

the same time from the very same chatbot that was being used to test this in artificial intelligence

so um the vulnerability was big we knew it was coming and then this morning we've had confirmation

it might have been late last night that amazon were actually hit by this four days before it

was announced so it was clearly out there in the domain of hackers and nefarious individuals

Who would have been looking for it? Who would have charged the, what's the correct word to use, bot

Yeah, so a security researcher, I think, chucked. But anywhere, we don't even know where

No, we have no information as to where that was or who that was or was it somebody working with other companies

But they would have set it on PHP. It would have said, go into the source code of PHP

Find vulnerabilities. And find vulnerabilities. And it came back and said... Ways we can exploit it

And it said, here you go, here's two things you can do. And those things have existed in the code for over a decade

So this could have happened a decade ago. And that's why there's a huge problem because, like I said, so much of the Internet uses this code

And it's not just, like I was saying, the James O'Brien fan site or the wedding photos

It's Amazon. My example is going to seem weird, but I was trying to get the bin day for my house today

and I couldn't get onto the swindon.gov.uk website because that was taken down for a similar reason

You mean, just hang on a minute, this is important stuff, you mean you couldn't remember which bins it was

Yeah. Yeah, because it hasn't been a bank holiday or anything like that, so there's no mystery about what day they're coming

I didn't know if it was the blue one or the green one. Yeah, thank you. I just think it's important. So just to clarify that information

Can we clip this bit up for the awards entries and the hard-hitting John, the interviewer of the year stuff

I messaged the bosses at LBC yesterday ahead of this happening and saying at the moment, I don't know if this is a really important LBC story or it isn't a story for anybody

But what has become apparent is the speed that hackers and nefarious individuals are using these exploits and essentially taking over websites

And the biggest issue at the moment is knowing what's fixed and what's not

You can assume that most big websites are being fixed right now. But if you're somebody like the owner of a ghost website

like I said, it was in my best intentions in 2014 that James O'Brien fan site was going to be the most up-to-date source

of James O'Brien information on the internet. All seven members of that fan site remain eternally grateful to you

But I might have lost interest. The point is I might have lost interest in developing that in 2018

and then it's still live and that's not patched, and somebody might turn up at the fan site

put in their details to get my latest email about what you're up to, and find themselves in a situation where they've been hacked

or their information goes to somebody. Oh, wow. Okay. Gosh, yes. These things are often written, James, in a way that's infathomable

or really hard to understand. But when one cybersecurity group of experts have a severity rating out of 10

they gave this a 9.2. So it's about as big as it's got so far

Is there, I mean, people who are worried can't really do anything, can they

I mean, stay off websites for a while or, I mean, particularly ones that, as you say, have kind of sunk to the bottom of the Internet sea and been forgotten

You end up accidentally on one of those. You could give your details to somebody

But yeah, this is this is the challenge at the moment is it's like we don't know what's fixed and what isn't fixed

And given that you've been talking about AI and everything else, this is the beginning of these problems

because last week it was declared by Amphropik that there's a new thing coming called like an AI worm

And essentially that's code that might copy itself. Let's say it might copy itself onto your dodgy fire stick

that somebody might have to stream those 3 p.m. football games on a Saturday afternoon

And it will take itself off the internet and infect all of these devices for a period

of when it might want to unleash something. And there's this sort of whole level of control

that we've lost as humanity because the computers are better than us now

at finding the errors. Wow. You've written a piece on this, an explainer on the LBC website

What is PHP and is my old website, my old wedding website

a hacking risk by LBC's tech correspondent, Will Geyer. I like that figure

You know how I like things to be distilled down to easily understandable numbers

but a 9.9. Have we had one of those before? No, it was 9.2

9.2, forgive me. We haven't had one of those before. And the challenge of all of this is how many times

how many 9.2s do you get when people are still listening? Because we talk about data breaches so regularly, you know

another day, another day, data breach, another warning. How long till people switch off to the severity of this stuff

And that's the problem. Oh, wow. Do we know if the NHS is affected at all

I don't think they've been impacted with this one. There will be some websites which we'll have

I'm sure they've got some websites with PHP, but some of their services were impacted earlier this week

when Google's cloud services went down. So that was several days ago

when the big server warehouse in Chesham went bang temporarily. That stopped various bits of the NHS

and even court service video links stopped working as a result of that

So as a society, we need more internet resilience. I think that's something that we need to push for

because obviously as fewer companies run this stuff and people rely on open source coding

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's what we have to do. Yes, I wasn't rounding you up then

I was signaling to Eleanor that I want the clip of Donald Trump admiring something ready to play next

Sorry, did I say that out loud? Before you go, on the long list of things I do on the radio

that have no business being on the radio, you've been zooming in and out of your own face during the course of this conversation

Or was that AI? I've got a technical problem. That should be switched off

My computer tells me it's switched off. It don't look really good. It was really effective, because when it zoomed in, I thought you were about to say something huge

I thought you were about to go, and we could. We're all... There it's gone again. We're all doomed

And the second question is, why are you wearing Nick Ferrari spectacles? He lends them

They're not rose-tinted. Will Guy, LBC's technology correspondent. Thank you very much indeed for that

And you can read Will's round-up of this story on the LBC website, lbc.co.uk

What is PHP? And is my old wedding website a hacking risk? Now, the multiple choice question was, has Donald Trump been expressing admiration for, A, Vladimir Putin's war crimes in Ukraine

B the muscular bottom Americans call them asses don they Do they call them bottoms Anyway ass the muscular ass not doing an accent of a Republican senator

Or C, Kim Jong-un's recently revealed holiday hope. Now, I have enormous sympathy for everybody who responded to that question by answering all three

which is a possibility. but the correct answer was actually B. So he's over here, I'm over here

and I'm studying his body. I've never studied the body of a man before

It's not my thing. Nothing wrong with it, of course. Nothing. I always proceeded by saying nothing wrong

but it's never been my thing to be honest with you. But I looked at his ass

and then I looked at his legs and it might i said his ass it's like it's like a pile of muscle then i looked at his legs

and i said man his feet are big thank god old joe biden didn't get elected because sometimes he'd

go off on tangents that made absolutely no sense whatsoever i've got to play that once more because

he does this thing that he's too stupid to realize that he's doing he says i've never done this

before and then he says well I always do this thing so whenever I'm talking about how much I

admire a man's ass I always start off by saying there's nothing wrong with this this is the first

time I think that buttocks have been brought into the assessment of Ohio lieutenant governors in this

case John Husted the lieutenant governor of Ohio and there is the crowd so you often wonder what

happens when uh this was at a rally in north carolina when the absolute faithful are presented

with incontrovertible evidence that at the very least their hero's feet are made of clay

and at the very most that he has gone completely round the bend they can never admit it unless this

is we should have got dom jolly back to yze whether or not this is comedy genius and um the

problem lies with all the people who don't get this hilarious joke james o'brien on lbc

It's 11.49. Okay, laughter aside, Donald Trump admiring the buttocks of a Republican politician

Steve Wyckoff was also expressing admiration yesterday, in his case, for Vladimir Putin

So far, so diplomatic, perhaps, you might argue. But I want to just make you aware of a few things before I..

You may already have heard this, but the clip that I'm going to play you

But before we play it, I should probably tell you that yesterday, the families of six people killed in a drone strike in a park near Kharkiv were still holding funerals

The youngest victim of that attack was a one-year-old girl. I think the number of children estimated to have been abducted by the Russians currently stands at 35,000

the Guardian recently reported a Russian strategy document it actually got hold of it

showing the Kremlin's potential to black out Ukrainian cities this winter cutting off about

90 percent of electricity to cities like Kiev and Odessa and Kharkiv it looks as if they are

moving forward with that plan that would create what can be categorically described as a humanitarian

crisis. We know about the bombing campaigns in Chechnya and in Georgia and in Syria

We know about the thousands of Russian citizens jailed for dissent. We know about the murder

of Alexander Litvinenko in this country. We know about the murder of Alex Navalny in a Russian

jail. We know about the violent deaths of prominent opposition journalists and politicians in barely

disguised assassinations and poisonings. And we know that Donald Trump has struggled to disguise

his enormous admiration for the man responsible for all of that, or the politician that Nigel

Farage admires most in the world. Of course, we should always remind ourselves of that. It's easy

to get confused. Donald Trump is the bravest man that Nigel Farage has ever met. Vladimir Putin is

the politician he admires most in the world. And the latter is responsible for that catalogue

of criminality and cruelty that I shared with you a moment ago. And of course, I've barely

scratched the surface. I barely scratched the surface. So when Steve Wyckoff, a sort of fellow

real estate tycoon who Donald Trump has appointed alongside his real estate tycoon son-in-law to

negotiate peace everywhere really Russia and Ukraine but also Iran and elsewhere not exactly

overburdened by success it's fair to say but the more Donald Trump reveals himself to be all of the

things that his harshest critics have long been convinced that he is the more you wonder whether

the concept of success in Donald Trump's inner circle is remotely similar to the concept of

success in the civilized world, I suspect not. And Wyckoff was with Putin yesterday

And something's happened in the last couple of weeks. If Simon Marks was here, he would

almost certainly put it down to the imminence of the midterms, whether or not Putin has

decided to call in as much as he possibly can, because Trump is likely to be wounded

by the midterms or because American democracy could be completely upended by Trump's response

to failure in the midterm elections, whether or not Trump is desperate because he can see

humiliation on the horizon. So he's desperately writhing in search and wriggling and searching

for something that he might be able to offer to the American public as a success or victory. I

don't know. But I think the imminence of the midterms is relevant to the sense that in the

last two weeks that masks have completely slipped. Donald Trump is a Russian asset

Whether or not it is conscious or not, he is on Russia's side against Vladimir

against Volodymyr Zelensky's Ukraine. He is on Vladimir Putin's side. And who gets to be surprised by this? Who gets to be surprised? I don't think we'll be seeing any

mayor Kulpas from British politicians and pundits anytime soon. The people, the long, long, long list

of people who told us that Trump was going to be great, or they loved him because he upsets all the

right people, or the woke karate would be quaking in their boots. I don't think you'll be getting

any apologies, mayor Kulpas, any more than you did with Liz Truss. The Daily Mail, incidentally

has moved effortlessly from describing Liz Truss as the answer to the country's problems and an

economic genius who should be feted on every street corner to describing Kemi Badenow as all

of the same the coverage of Liz Truss and the coverage of Kemi Badenow are interchangeable

I don't think I need to remind you what happened when Liz Truss actually achieved power but the

Daily Mail have apparently learned absolutely nothing from cheerleading for her. are deploying exactly the same tactics and even the same language when cheering for

Cammie Baden-Og. So don't expect them or their columnists anytime soon to be apologizing or

accounting for the fact that they have disappeared, they long disappeared so far up Donald Trump's

fundament that you could barely make out their shoelaces. But this is the grossest yet from one

of the cronies, one of the acolytes, one of the overpromoted inadequates that make up his inner

circle. This is the worst yet, because of those things that Putin has done, will continue to do

and will always do for as long as he remains in power. You talk so much about my president

President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir. I salute that. I commend

you and I thank you again. What do you do? I mean, how do you yze this? The free world

the United States of America, I can't use some of the language that I want to use. I very rarely

feel frustrated by that. It's part of the skills that you need to do this job in that you can

express strong opinions without having to use strong language. But very, very occasionally

and I mean like not even once a year, very occasionally I want to go full Chaucer

I want to go absolutely Anglo-Saxon on these people because I don't have the vocabulary to express disgust without using disgusting language

But the idea of the United States of America as represented by Steve Witkoff

sucking up to the war criminal Vladimir Putin in such an egregious and unctuous fashion

it turns my stomach. It curdles my consciousness. It is one of the most disgusting things we will

ever witness on the world stage. And we are so used to it by now. We're so accustomed to the

depravity that it registers but it doesn't register like it should and it doesn't register like it

would have done five ten fifteen years ago even perhaps six months ago you sir are a humanitarian

35 000 abducted children god knows how many dead schools bombed children being buried a little girl

in a pushchair blown to smithereens in harkiv just this week the funeral's still ongoing and this man

stands there as a representative of Western values. Western values that people like him will tell you were under threat

because there are too many kebab shops in South London. The representative of Western values

cosying up to the war criminal in terms that would embarrass a teenage poet

Absolutely pathetic. And I don't know, because Simon's not with us today

He'll be on tonight at 10. I don't know what the American media does with stuff like this anymore, but I do know that an awful lot of them look the other way

And an awful lot of them are so on board with the regime that they will pretend not to acknowledge or appreciate the horror of what we just heard

And an awful lot of them are on board with it. They won't be pretending

They love it. I'll leave you to wonder what British commentators and politicians like Nigel Farage and Dick Littlejohn at the Daily Mail do in circumstances like this

But I'm afraid that expecting a human response of the kind that you might have would involve them possessing anything that remotely resembles a conscience

Cheerleading for a war criminal. That's Steve Witkoff. Cheerleading for the man who can't suck up hard enough to the war criminal

that's Donald Trump it's 11.58 nearly 11.59 sorry I didn't realise that was going to take me so long

so apologies to Wayne and Bill and Boris not that one and Steve and Danny and others

we will obviously return to the AI conversation probably sooner rather than later and

I think we need some light relief I really do I think we need some light relief

and that is good because it's Thursday and it's very nearly 12 noon

and that means that it is time for Mystery Hour, your weekly opportunity to achieve the sort of satisfaction

not available anywhere else on your radio. If you're not familiar with this feature

I think I can safely say that it's rather different from anything else that you have heard on this programme

It is silly. It is hopefully funny. But it is also illuminating

Because someone rings in with a question on any subject under the sun

except motoring, he says, Soto got shake because occasionally motoring questions do sneak through the net and sometimes

even turn out to be quite interesting but any subject under the sun and then somebody else

rings in with the answer and somehow between those two relatively ordinary things the extraordinary

happens James O'Brien on LBC three minutes after 12 is the time who why what where when where for

wither whence whichever interrogative pronoun you prefer your question will be welcome on Mr

unless it's about motoring. You ring in, seriously, and you say, why does this happen? What's that about

Where does that come from? Whither, that's whence that, wherefore the other? Art thou, Romeo

And someone else rings in with the answer. The only real rules are that you're not allowed to look stuff up

It's a weird one, that, isn't it? If you followed this for a while, it used to matter

People used to do it. They would Google something and then ring in an answer

and we could tell that they'd rung in having Googled because you can always tell when someone's reading

I don't know why it became a thing. And then I had to point out that that's a really silly way to behave

And now, of course, it never happens. But just in case you are new to this and you were thinking

oh, I'll get myself on the radio, I'll look it up on the old internet. Don't, because you will be banned from listening to this programme forever

And that's it, really. I mean, there's no real rules for what is and what is not permitted

You've got repetition used to be frowned upon, but I mean, we're all getting on now

So who can even remember what we talked about in the first hour of the program, let alone what's popped up on Mystery Hour over the last few years

There's an archive, I should tell you, Global Player or the LBC website

There's loads of old Mystery Hours that you can listen to, particularly good family listening

And of course, there's games, two games. I got a message off my own daughter last night

and she had taken the travel edition of Mystery Hour to the pub with her friends

and I got a message. I admit that it was slightly unpleasant to realise how surprised the message was

and also that she hadn't played it before. We played the big game a few times as a family

but she took the tin, the travel edition, to the pub last night and got in touch to say how much they were all enjoying it

with photographic evidence. and if you want to get your hands on a mystery hour game either the original board game or the

travel edition which is in a tin very neat very compact you can carry it to the pub with ease then you need to submit my favorite contribution of the day or indeed the week So my favorite contribution of today of the week of the hour gets a mystery hour game

of your choice, either the board or the travel edition, which comes in a tin

I think that's it. You can, oh, well, the full terms and conditions, because this is a proper grown-up radio competition

can be found at lbc.co.uk. And if you don't fancy trying to win it, but you really want one anyway, great news, you

can buy one. Or two. Or 27. simply by going to mysteryhour.co.uk

And I think that covers all of the sort of homework, doesn't it

It's six minutes after 12. And have I done everything? I think, yes, but should we start

Should we crack on? That's quite an early start. Six minutes after 12 normally takes me 10 minutes to get my teeth in

No, we're off. Lauren is in Manchester. Lauren, question or answer? Question, please

Carry on. I'm wondering, why are some people more photogenic than others

Well, that's an uncanny question. Yeah, I mean, I'm wondering if it, is it in our genetics

Hang on a minute, you don't know why it's uncanny. Well, yeah

Do you? No. No, it's uncanny because I'm having a photo shoot this afternoon

Well, I have heard you over the last few weeks talking about updating your photo, and that's what got me thinking about it, actually

Well, that's even more uncanny, because the boss came over yesterday, and she said, we've got a new photo for you

this one has been approved. Are you all right with it? And I looked at it, and I can't lie to you

I went, four. That's a really flattering picture of me. And she said

very kindly, she said, well, but that is what you look like. And I said, it's not, because usually in photographs

I look like a right old dog's dinner. And not just because I'm a scruffy git who never brushes his hair

but because I am not photogenic. I am the opposite of photogenic. But obviously this photograph

and I'm having some more done later today for a very exciting new thing that I'm not allowed to tell you about yet

But this photograph was makeup and lights and a professional photographer in a studio

But that looked like what I see in the mirror, Lauren. Yeah. And yet, usually when I have my photograph taken

I think, who's that ugly git? What's he doing where I was standing

when that photograph was taken? So are you photogenic? No, I don't think so

And I was thinking, is it mental? Do we think we look better than we actually do? Yeah, I've often wondered that

Is it actually all in my head? Or are we not quite as good looking as we think we are

And the photograph is telling the truth, but somehow our brain... I hope that's not the answer

I hope that's not the answer as well. Like the mirrors in some fitting rooms that are a little bit tinted or a little bit shaped

so that you look a little bit slimmer or a little bit more tanned and you sort of walk out in the clothes and then catch your reflection in a normal mirror

and you say, oh, flipping out, I don't know why I've bought this. Maybe that's just me. You're on. I like this question

Why are some people more photogenic than others? It doesn't really make sense that when a photograph is taken

Some people are rendered in flattering terms and some people are not really flattered at all

03456060973 is the number that you need. Rick's in Ells Court. Rick, question or answer

Question, please, James. Carry on, Rick. OK, so I've owned dogs all my life

I've got three at the moment. Oh, yeah. That's a lot of dogs. Yeah, I've had more

Never mind. I've noticed something really strange when dogs walk past butchers

I've had dogs that have obviously, obviously to perhaps you and I, without thinking about too much

obviously rather enjoyed the... The meaty aroma. The meaty aroma. That's the name of my first band

But on the other hand, I've also had dogs that are scared. Of butcher smells, of the smell of a butcher's

And pull me to try and get me to go on to the other side of the road

really um absolutely so i kind of noticed this when we had a um bernie's mounted dog and a golden

retriever yeah um and it's a theme that's that's kind of carried on there was a time up until

a month ago when i had two golden retrievers oh i'm sorry one one died tragically let's leave that

let's leave that for the moment of course but the the the one was a what's called the one that died

was what's called a working line dog. And the other one is a show line dog

And the working line dog was the one that would want to pull me to the other side of the road

And the show line dog, who's one of the most laid back dogs I've ever had anyway

was just, you know, quite more than able and happy to walk past the butcher

And with the other dogs you've had over the years, could you do it by breed

Were you able to... Look, kind of. I had something called a Putty Basset Von Deen, which is actually quite a small dog, but they were, in their DNA, they used to be used to take a deer down if somebody had been stalking a deer and not got a clean shot

Good Lord. And they'd set this breed, probably more likely with the Grand Basset Griffin Von Deen, which was slightly bigger in size, but the same one

They'd send that one off. I don't know what it is about the Bernese

mounted dog that made that nervous still less do I know why there might be a difference between

I've got a question for you though it's a long while since I lived in

Earl's Court but I don't think there are any butchers in Earl's Court well I've pulled over

I've been in the car your research assistant said where are you, where are you close to

and I said Earl's Court so that's probably and most simply answers your question

My knowledge of London butchers second only to my knowledge of London pubs. But there aren't any butchers in Earl's Court

You'd have to go all the way to Old Brompton Road, I think, to Parsons Nose to get to..

Which, I mean, anyway, I digress. I love that. I like these sort of questions

because a lot of people listening will be responding. I mean, here's one

Martin says, my staffy won't go anywhere near a butcher's. He's absolutely terrified

And yet it is, to continue the dog's dinner theme that came up when I was describing to Lauren how unphotogenic I am

It is a dog's dinner. So how can they be perturbed by the smell of what they desire

What is to them in a slightly different context absolutely delicious. Why do some dogs appear to be frightened of butcher's shops

while other dogs absolutely love them? And I am, Rick, genuinely sorry for your loss, mate, seriously

Mind how you go. Two questions on the board, both I think quite good, actually

Dean is in Sunderland. Dean, question or answer? It's a question, James

Yes, mate. When you go for a wee, when a man goes for a wee

probably he's worked with a woman as well. Yeah. During the wee, if you sneeze

the wee automatically stops. And when the sneeze is over, the wee carries on

Why is that? I mean, have you... How often has this happened to you

Oh, any time that I sneeze, Jim. Yeah, but I mean, are you a big sneezer

Are you like that girl on Roy Castle's Record Breakers, all those who couldn't stop sneezing

No, I am quite a big sneezer. And generally in the morning

generally if I wake up early in the morning I sneeze quite a lot And when you wake up early in the morning the thing you do is go to the toilet innit Yeah So you go for a wee and you sneeze and it stops I mean it muscles innit

It's got to be a kind of... It's like a spasm, isn't it? A sneeze

And so everything... Yeah. A reflex, a reflex, everything. But you want a little bit more than that

Yeah. So what do you think? Is it the reflex of the muscle, which I refer to as a trapdoor muscle

Yeah. I like that. That's the technical... That's the correct technical term. Yes? No

Or is it something else going on? Is it further up the system? Is it your brain saying

oh, you know, I'm a man, I can't multitask, I can't do two things at once

I can't think of any evolutionary advantage to stopping when you sneeze

I mean, I imagine it's just a sort of biological reflex, but someone might know the answer

But there's a strong chance no one will. I would think so

I just think it's quite amusing that it kind of automatically... when it starts to begin once the sneeze is over

And if you sneeze several times... And it stops and starts and starts and starts and starts and starts

It does, yeah. You're easily amused. There's a lot of things in Sunderland, you know

Yeah, exactly. Especially if there's nothing on the telly. Thank you, Dean

That's the thing now, isn't it? What are you going to do? Wait until you need a wee and then try and sneeze

Or wait until you need a sneeze and then dash into the loo and try and have a wee? Just to take Dean's theory

Of wheeze and sneezes. Snoozes, if you like. It's coming up to quarter past 12

Squeezing one more, I think. Alison is in Bury St Edmunds. Alison, question or answer

Hello, James. Question, please. Carry on, Alison. So mine is about books, specifically Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters

Yes. 18th century. Watched lots of dramas, films. Their books are always produced in volumes of three

As in three separate publications. Yeah, for one title, like Emma, whatever

But when I look at my book case, I have one book. Yes

So my question is, why volumes are free in those days? And when did it, well, it's two questions

When did it change to just one book from Waterstones today? I think it's pretty obvious

Oh, not to me. Well, I mean, it's the cost of producing books was much higher in those days

and so you would buy Eleanor's giving me a look and she's got a degree in English you know

you would buy, I mean it's not the same question as Dickens, a lot of people have probably already

fallen down that rabbit hole where Dickens as you know Alison was writing

serials for magazines so most of his novels, it's why so many chapters

end with comparative cliffhangers and you would then go out and buy the magazine the following

week in order to find out what happens next like a kind of early soap opera but I think with the more literary

fiction. I think it was to do with the cost. So the

three volumes became much more affordable. You could afford a volume and then you could afford the next

Now, obviously, producing books is relatively cheap. You can knock them out

for 99p in some cases. I think that's the reason. I wanted it to be something more romantic

Well, it might be. It could be. I'm not taking the round of applause for that

But I think it would probably be that but i'm going to put it on the board why were novels published in three volumes

and the brontes as well was it was it the same with the brontes uh i just watched a brilliant

film they walk invisible and there are scenes in that where obviously they printed under mail or

yes of course not their own names but there are scenes in that where when they present them to

their father they are all in these volumes of three and when you've got them i haven't read

one for a while. Is our modern version split accordingly? Does it say volume one, volume two, volume

three, albeit that they're all in one book, or do they just run through the chapters normally? I can't remember

Can you? Well, the last one I read, Emma, it was a normal book. Yeah, just chapter after chapter

with no demarcation of where the original volumes would have separated. But why would there be

Because they don't serve any purpose, any literary purpose. I think it was a commercial

thing, but I don't know for sure, so I will leave it on the board. What a lovely question. 0345 6060

So 973 is the number that you need. So to recap, why are some people more photogenic than others

Why do some dogs love the smell of butcher's shops while other dogs appear to be terrified by it

Why do you stop weeing when you sneeze? Thank you, Dean. And why were 18th century novels originally published in three volumes

03456060973, if you can answer any of those. Or if you've got a question of your own

It's 1217. James O'Brien on LBC. 12.19 is the time you're listening to James O'Brien on LBC

where Mystery Hour continues, your weekly opportunity to achieve the sort of satisfaction

not ordinarily available anywhere else on your radio. Have you achieved it yet

Well, just be patient then. James is in Gillingham. James, question or answer

Oh, hello, James. It's a question, please. It's a question. Yeah, I always wonder what makes the sea and the ocean salty

What is... If you went off the coast of Brighton, took a cup full of water and then you went half a mile down in the trench i can't remember what

it's called in the miriana trench or something and took us i took a cup full of water there

they'd both be salty and it's a massive volume of water worldwide so what is it firstly that makes

it salty and why how can it be so kind of consistently salty does that make sense yeah

you're only really allowed one question so why no sorry well that's all right don't worry why

why is the sea salty? Yeah, what makes it salty? Andy's tasted to say it's all the sea salt

Oh, very good. I thought so. We should know this, shouldn't we

Isn't this kind of like kindergarten geography? Probably. I don't know what it is

I mean, all the salt in all the world, you had to walk in

Why is it salty? But what's the word I'm looking for? not consistently, but all the way through the sea

Yeah, consistently salt. Yeah, I do. I mean, the Dead Sea is saltier than other seas

but that's because it's technically a lake, isn't it? And it's not so much a mystery

Once you've got salt in a body of water, then it is going to be evenly distributed

So the level of saltiness in a body of water that is linked through various channels

But there's so much salt, isn't there? Yes, so much. And it's not evenly distributed

unless it's in the same body of water. So more or less, some seeds will be a little bit saltier than others

But yeah, generally speaking, you're very rarely going to go for a swim and not taste salt

All right. Why? Why is it salty? I like that. I've got just a weird little niggle in the back of my brain that either I should know it or we have done it before

But it doesn't matter. Can't remember. It is 22 minutes after 12 and Damien is in Windermere, which is not salty

Damien, question or answer? It's a question, James, please. Carry on. Why do fighter jets have the pilots' names on the side of a jet

if everything's supposed to be quite secretive and they've got call zones

Well, I actually know this. Oh, nice one. It's so they know which plane to get into

That would make perfect sense I not even joking they come out of the mess

or the dormitory or wherever it is they hang out and they rush out onto

the runway and they all I don't know if you've ever noticed this Damien

but they all look the same these planes from a squadron level they all look the same

and they sort of think well I can't remember my call sign it's AFG

something or other. Do you know your own car's registration number? Of course I do. Yeah, alright. That's not a

very good example. Do you know your national insurance? That's not a very good example. Do you know my car's registration

number? Absolutely not. There you go. So you're rushing out. You rush out onto

the... Do you know your phone number? Do you know your wife's phone number? No? Yeah, alright. Okay

These are all very bad examples. But it's not easy to remember your call sign. But everyone remembers their own name

Also, Damien, they're often quite drunk. So they They can't remember their call sign

because they're often quite drunk fighter pilots. They rush out onto the runway

and the only way they can be sure that they're climbing into the right plane is because they've got their name written on the side of it

Yeah. You're not taking that, are you? No, no, not at all

I didn't think you would. Are we sure it's true? I mean, it's not just something that we get from films

I'll tell you what I was thinking. I was watching a film and there it is full on

well, I left it top going, full on Pete, Maverick, Mitchell. And I'm thinking, if that plane crashed

and obviously they knew his name, but everything's supposed to be... Yeah, I'm not as worried about that bit of it as you are

I mean, I think if you get captured by enemy forces, it doesn't really matter what your name is

I don't know, but I didn't know if it was like, I don't know, superstition or... I think it's more likely to be that

some sort of tradition or... But I mean, that's working on the presumption that it's true

It's true in that film, but I don't know, I don't remember seeing names

on the side of Spitfires, do you? no no alright you're on

I like this question nice one Steve why do they put the names on the side of fighter jets

if brackets they do close brackets nice one it is 24 minutes after 12

because some things happen in films I don't know if you've watched Slow Horses

it's on Apple so I fully appreciate not everybody has the subscription

my god it's good Mick Heron's been on the show a few times

been on Full Disclosure as well he's just a genius And another mate of mine, actually, Edward Dox, has written one of the episodes for this series

I think the best series yet, series six of Slow Horses. But something happened last night, no spoilers, that was so well observed that you sort of almost did a double take

There were two things I noticed last night on Slow Horses. The first was there's a character who's an oaf

He's quite a likable oaf some of the time. And the rest of the time, he's not a likable oaf at all

He's pure oaf. but he thinks he's Rambo and he's a sort of rubbish spy

is the best way of describing it and at one point in the final episode

of Slow Horses he has to try to shoot someone and it's not

despite his self image as Rambo it's really not part of his

natural skill set, he's a geek, he's very good with the computers but he thinks that

given the right opportunity he'd be James Bond crossed with Rambo and he

shoots the gun sideways, you know when you turn your hand you turn your hand side like that which nobody who's ever got any firearms experience

whatsoever would ever do but you see it happening in hollywood movies you might see someone like i

don't know um eddie murphy do i don't even think eddie murphy did but it's a it's a complete

hollywood mythology that you shoot your gun sideways you can't aim properly if you shoot

it sideways anyway and and the character does it i don't even know if it was in the script

But it's exactly what that character would have done in real life

He'd have watched so many Hollywood movies that he'd think he was shooting. So no spoilers there

So it might be that the names on the side of fighter jets are the same

It's just something in films, not real life. The other thing I noticed last night, I don't know if anyone else noticed this

that there's a scene where the camera pans over an abandoned toilet, an abandoned public convenience

And there's loads and loads of graffiti on the facilities as it makes its way towards a sort of Russian spy who's trying to recover from a terrible car accident

Again, no spoilers. And one of the words in the graffiti is B-O-E-H-M, or possibly B-O-E-H-M, or possibly B-O-E-H-M in the graffiti

and Mick Heron's other great series of books which were published before Slow Horses came out

before he was famous really but they've gone back to them and they filmed it also for Apple with Emma Thompson

are the Zoe Boom thrillers I love stuff, these Easter eggs are these what you call Easter eggs

I love stuff like this so there's just this graffiti and my brain, my lizard brain went ping

and I thought why is my lizard brain ah there's a little nod there to Mick Heron fans

because that's the name of his other major character in his other series of brilliant books

And it was just written in the middle of a wall full of graffiti. And the other amazing thing about the new series of Slow Horses

is it's got Lenny Rush in it, who is such an incredible talent

I would watch him in absolutely anything. Seriously, the lad is an acting genius

A joy to behold. Anyway, that's the end of this week's recommendations

Steve's in Crawley. Steve, question or answer? Answer, please, James. And thanks for the spoiler on last night's one

There was no spoiler there. There was no spoiler. I'll let you off

You don't let me off. I was absolutely painstaking to ensure there was no spoiler

Someone shoots a gun, Steve. Someone shoots a gun in an espion

Anyway, go on, answer, answer, answer. Answer, answer. The photographic, why are some people photogenic and some not

Yeah, I'm a photographer, have been for nearly 20 years, and people often come up to me when I'm mainly a people photographer

I'm literally sitting here editing last week's wedding as we speak. And they say, will you teach me how to pose

I said, no, but I'll teach you how not to. The people who are photogenic are the ones who can relax in front of a camera

You don't need to look like Charlize Theron or whatever your favourite model is

You just need to be able to relax in front of the camera and not have unrealistic expectations

I do get those occasionally. I mean, that's not true. I mean, it's true

No, it's true. obviously being relaxed helps but I have been how can I put this diplomatically

I have been incredibly relaxed in some of the photographs that have been taken of me

and I still look like a right old munter well yes I mean

when I'm shooting at someone who isn't used to being photographed I'm not using the word shoot it doesn't sound right

when I'm working with someone who's not used to being photographed I sometimes spend 20 minutes

or so just finding them there's one look one look or something that is really them

I've got one absolutely stunning model I work with, but I only like shooting her from her left-hand side

There's something not quite right when I shoot her from the right-hand side. Right

And you just see it. When you see it, you see it. Yeah, okay. So it might be something to do with facial symmetry or it might have..

Yes, the golden ratio. The golden ratio could contribute to it. Okay

I mean, I don't think that this is a comfort to me and Lauren

I think because you're suggesting we could learn to look better in photographs

I don't know how old Lauren is, but I'm hard though it is to believe in my 50s now

And I have never learned how to look better. In fact, I've lifted my chin

I've put my chin down. I've tried to relax. I've leant forward. I've done the bird

Do you potentially think you've got unrealistic expectations? That is another possible answer to the question

Because I've seen really good photos of you. Well, exactly. Because then one comes along, you see

And I look at it and I go, hello, sailor. But it just doesn't happen very often

Yeah. That's your look. All right. Qualifications? As good models, people are professional photographers for nearly 20 years

There you go. Round of applause for Steve. And to answer your question, Steve, I don't really have a favourite model

but I am quite a fan of Senator John Husted, the Republican for Ohio

I don't know if you're... Yeah, OK. Never mind. It's 12.31, and Dominic Ellis has your headlines

James O'Brien on LBC. It's Top 34, you're listening to James O'Brien on LBC

I've still got room for some more questions, actually. So we've answered the photogenic one, that's pretty much it

Have you had dogs in your life? Have you ever walked past a butcher's

Sounds like I'm doing an advert, doesn't it? Have you had dogs in your life? Have you ever walked past a butcher's

Did you notice how the dog responded? Do we know why some dogs are apparently spooked by the smells

emanating from a butcher's shop, while other dogs are absolutely entranced by them

0345 6060973. Why were novels in the 18th century and possibly elsewhere, but certainly not now, published in three volumes

Novels that are now published in one by, for example, Jane Austen would originally have been published in three

Do you know why? If so, 0345 6060973. Why is the sea salty

And why do fighter jet pilots write their name on the side of the plane, given that it could, at the very least, be some sort of security risk

if you can answer any of those or if you've got others that you would like to ask then the number

you need remains the same 03456060973 and just i don't want to sound uh um chippy uh or or moody

perish the thought but i didn't give any spoilers away when i was talking about slow horses i

literally just revealed that someone got shot and that an actor is in it there was absolute so stop

it with your moaning and your complaining. Otherwise, I'll stop doing charming asides

into my cultural life. And then you'll be sorry. Bessim is in Seven Kings. Bessim, question or answer

It's a question, James. Carry on. I'm wondering which language has most unique words

Blimey. How do you mean? Well, being bilingual, I noticed that in English, you've got

takeover, take in, take up, take down. Yeah. And in Serbo-Kroat, which is my second language

we have a word for each of those, not to mention hair dryer, screwdriver, nail hitter

or you've got a nail hitter, it's a hammer. But there are also different hammers

like you have club hammer, pin hammer, which again, we have words for

So the Google will tell you that English has most words, but I'm kind of doubting that with my experience

I mean, what language has the most words? The most unique words

But all words are unique. Either object or like a verb, that sort of thing

rather than coined words like take up, take in, that sort of thing

Well, do you mean... I don't... Oh, I see what you mean

But they're not really coined. All words are coined. At some point

Take up and take in are completely different words. Yeah. Well, take in is not a word

Take in is two words. Yes. But it refers to a single item, if you like

Yeah. Take in is the action that you do. Right. I don't understand the question, Basim

It's my fault, not yours. Well, if we concentrate on coins with take

take up, take in, and so on, I would class that as one word in English

But in Serbo-Kroat, it would be a separate word for each of these actions

Take in, take up, take over. Okay. Take down. Yeah, take away

Take away, yeah. that is actually one word there you go I'm putting it on the board

because I'm sure that other people listening understand it better than I do right

because I don't quite get what you mean I don't understand the difference

say a hairdryer I don't think this is going to, alright, a hairdryer

yeah, we've got a word for that which is a single word, not something

that dries your hair, but it's a word same as the nail clippers same as a head streamer

So English language being the one that Google says has most words in a dictionary

I'm kind of wondering, is there a language that would have more unique words

than English, if that makes it any clearer? Not even a tiny bit

But that's all right. It's my fault. I mean, it's on the board. We'll try it. Someone will know. I mean, I don't know

I mean, the Inuit have like 28 different words for snow. But that's only one word that they've got 28 different words for

Yeah, yeah. That feels like it might be relevant, but I don't know

All right, you're on. Well, I mean, we probably won't, but we'll try to find an answer to that question

Which language has the most unique words? 03456060973 is the number that you need

Who put that through? Yeah do they understand what that question was in a way that i didn or are we am i missing oh okay oh how convenient paul in tottenham paul question or answer

question please james great show by the way thank you very much it's all right carry on

okay my wife and i are both right-handed our parents were both right-handed we have two

children, they're both left-handed. How does that work? I don't know, really

I mean, it's... Thank God for that. I thought this was going to be like a Jeremy Kyle episode

so I actually broke one of the great rules of Mistry, and I googled it, mate, because I thought

this could be a terrible thing happening live on the radio, but two right-handed parents can have a

left-handed child. It's a 9 to 11 percent. I thought I was going to be asking about, you know

when the milkman delivers the milk, does he lift them out of a crate with his right hand or his left hand

Yes. I had the same idea. Yeah, well, sure. Oh, I'm honestly relieved that

I just had a right old moment because I know what the people who listen to this programme are like

and their minds would have gone to exactly the same place that I went to. So, yeah, all right

How does that happen? It means that it's not a sort of genetic dominance, doesn't it

It's not a dominant gene, so we need to know what it is. How can two right-handed parents have left-handed children

It's funny as well, I suppose, because you can't really help them deal with the difficulties or the differences of being left-handed

Do you have a selection of implements in the house? Do you have, like, left-handed scissors in the drawer for the kids

and right-handed scissors for you and your wife? No, and I'm not allowed near scissors either

No, that's fair enough. On reflection, it's probably just as well. I like that

How does that work then? Because we'd have always thought that it was somehow genetic, but apparently not

0345 6060 973 is the number you need. 1241 is the time

James is in Horsham. Question or answer, James? Question, please, James. Carry on

So what I want to know is where does the term he's a dead ringer for someone

or someone's a dead ringer for someone else, where does it come from? I think I read this quite recently, man

Because I thought it might have, you know the thing of a dead ringer in Victorian

times they had like people were buried in coffins had a bell to ring

in case they weren't dead how does that become a copycat or someone who looks exactly

like another person it's a dead ringer I've read it recently I think

I've read it recently in a novel that I'm reading about a

police officer in 1950s Brighton who teams up with a magician to solve crimes

and it came up I'm sure it came up in one of those books

so that yeah I've got this going round and round and round and I can't answer it

you're on why do we say dead ringer to describe like a sort of carbon copy

or a splitting or a splitting image thank you James 03456060973 to join in with any

or to answer any of these questions Shah is in Ilford Shah question or answer

was originally for one answer but while I've been No, no, no

Half an hour? I've got to answer for two. No, you're not allowed to, mate. Only one. The one you cleared with the people that put through Bessim's question

about which language has the most unique words. No, no, that wasn't me

No, I know, but I'm just pointing out that the person you cleared your answer with are the same people that put through the question about which language

Oh, I see. Fair enough. So I'm not exactly overcome. I'm going to have more than an inquest, mate

It's going to be P-45s flying around the studio. Go on, what have you got

What have you got? Which one do you want to answer? Okay, the question regarding when you sneeze, why does the urine stop

Yes. And you were pretty much right on the ball with it

Your urethra goes through the pelvic floor for both men and women to go out and urine

and from the bladder to the outside to where it's a penis or the vagina

And when you sneeze, your pelvic floor, which is basically a sheet of muscle that holds your abdomen together

that contracts and that contracts and that squeezes the urethra and your urine stops for that fraction of a second

Perfect. Why then did so many women get in touch with me

to describe the opposite happening, i.e. when they sneeze a little bit of wee comes out

That's also to do with the pelvic floor, but that's generally... Now you're making me answer two questions

I'm sorry about that. That's okay, I can answer three. No, you're not allowed to answer three

I know the answer to the salt C as well. No, you're not allowed to answer three

but you are somehow allowed to answer too and that is also the pelvic floor so as the pelvic

floor has become weaker women of a certain age absolutely and it normally it happens to women

who have gone through natural childbirth yes and that the the birth c is also the same

um opening through the pelvic floor that the urethra comes through so when the pelvic floor

when you have natural childbirth that widens that aperture in the pelvic floor and hence why

women are advised to stop and start urine when after child was a try to you know get the muscles

back in shape get the muscles back and so then they're not incontinent they don't have so many

incontinent issues there you go we heard you heard it well not first um but you were spot on you were

pretty much yeah i mean kind of self-evident but it's nice to hear well i presume you're an expert

i haven't established that yet what are your qualifications um i'm a biological scientist i

I work for a pharmaceutical company and I spent around about four years

within the urology therapy arena to do with incontinence. Very well. That's about as qualified as you can get in this kind of conflict

Great stuff. Thank you. No, thank you. You too. 12.45 is the time

James O'Brien on LBC. 12.48 is the time. And here are some words to soothe even the most furrowed brow

Mark is in Barrow-in-Furnace, which means there must be a word-based question on the board

Mark, question or answer? It an answer to the question about English and Serbo with the types of words that are common Blimey Go on then Well a lot of languages have compound words in large numbers

and English is a good example of that. So when he said unique, you think he meant non-compound

I think he's meaning that in Serbian and Croatian there are more non-compound words

with the same meaning as a compound word in English. Oh, I see

Now, the compound word in English... Sorry, Besson. Sorry. No, I'm sorry, I'm apologising to Bessim for not understanding what you managed to understand very easily and quickly

I said it was my fault. I did say it was my fault. It is Chris to mine, I suppose

True, true. It doesn't mean you can always easily tell what the two parts mean when put together

So, for example, understand, meaning comprehend. But it looks as if it should mean stand under something

But it doesn't actually mean that. And it may once have done

In ancient Greek, the equivalent word is literally overstand. Of course. When you mean understand

And a lot of the Indo-European languages have this, and Sanskrit has so many that they have a terminology

for different types of compound in their ancient literature. In the grammar by Panini, for example

big account of all the different types of compound word. Now, the Slavic languages, which include Serbo-Kroat

probably have less of that than most Indo-European languages. They have more unique words, as your speaker said. Wow

and I mean the Slavic language I know most of is Russian

and I think Russian doesn't have it quite to the extent Serbacoat does

I think there are more compound words relatively speaking in Russian but certainly

that group is known for having a lot of as we said

unique words where there's a word which is a single word a single morphine

which corresponds with a compound in a German has loads of compound words

Some of them are very long. Yeah, of course. Do we know why? Do we know why Serbukrat has this status

I don't think we do know, partly because this probably goes back into the mists of time

And at one stage, these languages weren't written much at the top

So the records are mostly quite recent. So we often can see a pattern

but we don't know the remote past well enough to know how that pattern arose

But it has to go one way or another, that. This is called language typology

Languages of different types in different respects. And very often it's so

deep-seated that it would apply to a whole language family, and if

there is an explanation, it's in the far past. Good Lord. What a brilliant answer

Do you know the Serbo Kraut word for beer? It may be Piva, which that's the Russian

It'd probably be similar to that. Piva is Russian for beer. Yeah, well done

That was it. That was my contribution to this conversation. well you know it's uh but the thing the thing is these languages you know they have because they

have close close common ancestors the slavic languages they're similar to each other so you'd

notice any cases where there is a small difference ah yes which is why he was alive to it in a way

that i was too dozy even to understand what he was talking about besim you got an answer i mean we

can't put a put put a crown on a single language but you were quite right to think that serbo

was particularly unique, unique heavy, unique word heavy. Reminders of your qualifications, Mark

I'm a longstanding professional linguist. I was going to add very briefly that those Slavic languages are so similar

The main language non-Slavic they've been in contact with is German. Okay

And Slavic words for Germans are the people we can't talk to. Oh, wow

Oh, that's lovely. Gosh. They get the gist of each other, you know

Yes, of course. but not German because it's so different it is measurably different

you always do this absolutely charmed by your answers Mark thank you

it's pivo anyway the serbo crack word for beer but he was near enough

here's a word you've never heard me say I learnt that on pilgrimage

there you go I was on a pilgrimage in Yugoslavia when I learnt the word for beer

also I did a 24 hour fast while I was on pilgrimage in Yugoslavia

the former Yugoslavia. And at the end of the fast, I thought that I would order a nice glass of schnapps

And I ordered it in fluent Serbo-Croat and they brought me a pork sandwich

Tony is in Eastbourne. Tony, question or answer? It's answer. Answer, James

Carry on, Tony. It's names on the aircraft for the fighter planes and bombers

Yeah, there is a reason for that. is because modern day fighters

they're very sophisticated aircraft, lots of technology. They're tailored to the pilot

So when they're scrambled, they need to be able to find their plane straight away

And they know it's theirs because it's got their name on it. Thank you very much. So I was 100% correct

You were. That's incredible. And it's presumably also the bit I missed was that, you know

it's a bit like if I get in the car after Mrs. O'Brien has been driving, I don't want to be faffing about changing the chair

and all that kind of stuff. Exactly. So the specifics in the cockpit are tailor-made

because you might have one pilot who's six foot two and another one who's four foot one. Well, there is a height restriction

Well, you know what I'm talking about, Tony. You know what I'm talking about

Qualifications? I was ground crew for 12 Squadron in Scotland in the 90s

Fantastic. And a big round of applause for you. Thank you. And obviously I was lying when I said they were often drunk

That has absolutely nothing to do with my life. No, go on. What? No, I'm not going to comment on that

But it would be interesting to do some breath tests on them before they go out and do the job

It can get very cold out there in Scotland. Thank you, Tony. I think we're going for a full board

If we can just get an answer. No, we haven't got the Jane Austen one either, have we? But why is the sea salty

0345 6060 973. Lewis is in Putney. Lewis, what have you got

Left-handedness. Why? Well, so basically, if we were going to make it simply

Imagine you have two sets of chromosomes obviously in each cell and so your parents can give you one of those two genes shall we say So you got four genes you need left handedness if it was one gene which it isn it multiple genes

but you need the recessive genes. So you so from that four, you would need the recessive one from

your dad and the recessive one from your mother. And then that would be like a one in four chance

in the example I've given, because if you got one recessive and one dominant, the dominant one

is gonna take over but in reality it's multiple genes working together so it's it's you need so

basically why would two right-handed parents have a left-handed child like my both my right-handed

parents and i'm left-handed um it's because in you know somewhere in their ancestry there is

left-handedness has come into the uh into the that could be almost any chain as it were yeah it's uh

It's also environmental, as like Catholic schools used to force people not to be left-handed

They did, yeah. And so you get other things like that. And like they've done studies where two identical twins have been separated for whatever reason

And one has grown up and become left-handed, and one has grown up and become right-handed. So there's many factors that go into it

And it's also, it's like a spectrum. Because you get some footballers, like Iron Robin, for example, who's very left-footed

You wouldn't ever use his right, but he was very good with his left. And you get some footballers who are sort of in between

and can use both equally well. Yeah, we've got a goalie at the moment who's on loan from Manchester City

who I'd noticed that the second or third time I watched him could take goal kicks with either foot

He's only 18. He's an absolute star of the future, I guarantee it

But it took me a while to spot that he was actually capable

of hoofing it all the way up the park with both feet. Qualifications? I have a degree in medical genetics

and I'm left handed round of applause for Lewis thank you Jack Wint is the goalie

I don't do this very often with football because it's not really my field of expertise

no offence to the lads but it's not often that I see people

who I think might play in World Cups one day but I would not be surprised if that lad does

he's saved penalties this season like he was doing it in his sleep

extraordinary goalkeeper and still, as I say, only 18 or 19 years old

Paul's in Selby. Paul, question or answer? Answer. Carry on. It's the dead ringer

Oh, yes. So, you're going to know this as soon as I start. I'm not. You are

I'm not. In the olden days, they used to drink out of tankards

pewter tankards, and they had a high lead content. Yeah. So, mixed with the alcohol

it used to make people appear when they were drunk as if they were dead, and they'd bury them

alive. So that's where the wake came from. They used to leave

them to make sure that they'd wake up. They'd then bury them, they'd put

a bell, when they found out they were burying people alive, they

used to put a string and a bell into the grave with them, just

in case they came alive, they could ring the bell. That's where the graveyard shift came

from, because somebody used to walk around doing the graveyard shift and looking for, listening out for

the bells, and then they'd dig them up, and then you'd see them. They'd had

a funeral a couple of days before. You'd see them walking down the street and go

you are a dead ringer for Caesar died last week. It's not right

I like it. It's just not right, mate. How do you mean it's not right

I just mean it's wrong. I've known this for years. No, it's not. It's got something

to do with horses or something. It has. It's not. Lots of what you said

is true. They used to have little bells in graves in case someone got buried alive

It was a big Victorian fear. And maybe there's even something true about

lead tankards causing lead poisoning, but it wouldn't make you look dead. I know there's a whole

story. It's got something to do with horses. It's definitely got something to do with putting a horse

in a race that was not the horse. It just looked like the other horse. No, it was people. It was horses

It was horses and then it became people. I'm not going to, I mean, I'm not having it. Okay. I'm not. Well, now I feel

bad. No, you don't have to feel bad. Hey, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. There's something that I used to go around telling

people. You can have the game. No, you can have the game. You can have the game. What, if you're wrong

Yeah, well, just for being charming. Right, okay. That's it, you've won the game this week. Oh, really

Yeah, you have. We've won the game. Are you kidding me? Well, no, I'm not kidding you, because you brought

it with your full chest, and you were really chuffed to be on. I was so excited

I know you were. I was 59 years old, I was skipping around the house. And then I'm here, I am

raining on your parade, weeing on your chips. We did get an answer to that question

And it's not fair. You deserve the game, even though it's not true

about what you said. Right. So you've got the game. You've got disappointment in one hand

and you've got joy. All human life is here, Paul. You have cheered me

I can't tell you how much you've just cheered me. It's a win. What a bad time I've been having

I'm glad to hear that, seriously. Honestly, I'm going to cry. Oh, stop it. Seriously

I mean, it's good, this game, but I don't want you to get your hopes up too high. I can't explain it to you

Oh, Paul, you're a sweetheart. Well, stay safe, won't you? Promise me you'll stay safe

I promise you. Give him two. Give him two. Stay on the line. Tell Eleanor which game that you want

Sorry, I'm getting heckled. OK. Stay on the line and tell Eleanor which game you want

the travel edition or the box, and look after yourself and have things that are never as bad as they feel

It is one o'clock. you have been listening to James O'Brien on LBC. I got told off yesterday for not doing this bit properly

If you missed any of today's show, you can listen back on our free Global Player app or the LBC app

where you can also stay up to date with all the latest news, videos and opinions. You can listen to a range of podcasts

including James O'Brien Daily, the best bits from my LBC show every day. So do download the official LBC app for free

from your app store now. Ben Kentish in for Tom Sawbrook at four, Simon Marks in for Ben Kentish at ten

Sheila Fogarty in for Sheila Fogarty at one. Right now, thank you very much, James

What a lovely call. Wasn't that nice? Yeah, it was the full arc there. When I came in, you were telling him off

And by the end of it, you had him in bits. I know. That's how I roll. You got it all, James

I got it all, kid. I got it all. James O'Brien on LBC