Good afternoon and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eater's episode 1,373. I'm your host Harry,

joined today by Dan and Firas. And we're not going to be looking at anything contentious or

noteworthy today, really quite boring, actually. We're going to be asking why America is at war,

whether this is a just war, and I'm going to be asking how the

MI5 potentially vetting candidates for the Reform Party UK, spelled Y-O-O-K-A-Y, will help save Britain.

And before we get into that, I would just like to remind everybody that we do have a live event,

the first one in over four years,

coming up on the 11th of April. It will be held in Swindon at the Maca Theatre.

It'll be live from 7 o'clock till 10 o'clock, so get tickets whilst you still can.

You'll get the chance to see me, Firas, Dan, Josh. I don't know why. He shouldn't still work here, but he does. I think he sleeps here. We'll be getting the chance to see plenty of us live and in person and have good time with us. So get those tickets whilst they're still available. Anything else we'd like to say, Ched? Are we actually going to speak to the people that turn up at this? Well, I mean, it would be manners.

Ah.

It would be nice to meet some of them, find out who they are. I think it'll be fun. Yes. It'll be a good fun. It'll be a good time. But yeah, with that, I think we should get into the news. Well, I don't know if it's news. It's more of a question. So, I mean, I've been sort of offline for two weeks, not away.

Go you.

Yeah, good man.

Up in the... is more of a question. So, I mean, I've been sort of offline for two weeks, not away.

Went away. You? Yeah, good man. Up in the, um, jungle mountains of Central Asia,

my coterie of fresh-faced attendance and three bowels of rice wine and, uh, no internet during that time.

So I come back and, um, I get nobody to tell on you then. No, well, there's that.

And I get back to the airport having no idea that there's anything going on. And there's all

these sort of signs and announcements coming out basically saying some version of don't panic.

Which is never a good sign.

What was the price of fuel before you left compared to when you got back?

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