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Oli Pettigrew
20 Plays1 day ago
Welcome to season two! Oli is a truly global citizen who has graced screens big and small across the world, but spent much of his career in Asia. Now settled in the Lone Star State and embracing being That Englishman In Texas, Oli and I sat down and had a great discussion about all things travel, taking chances, and living in Texas.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Outdoorsy Educator Podcast, a place for conversation about travel, adventure, life lessons and making the most out of each and every day.
00:00:14
Speaker
I'm your host Alistair Green and each week I will have a conversation with someone who will not only inspire us all, but give us an insight into living life to its fullest.
00:00:25
Speaker
But before we get started, a quick warrant from our sponsor, Whole Earth Provision Company.
00:00:38
Speaker
Since 1970, Whole Earth Provision Company has been the Texas outfitter for side quests big and small. Whether you're gearing up for the open road, chasing a trailhead, or hunting for that just right gift, they have got you covered.
00:00:53
Speaker
Think durable clothing, shoes that will actually go the distance, gear that's road trip ready, and books, puzzles, and toys that will spark wonder at every age.
00:01:05
Speaker
You'll find Whole Earth in Dallas, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio, or anytime online at wholeearthprovision.com. And hey, because you're rolling with the Outdoorsy Educator podcast, here's a little extra love.
00:01:19
Speaker
Use the code OUTDOORSYEDU for 20% off your next adventure at Whole Earth.
00:01:32
Speaker
Hello and welcome to season two of the Outdoorsy Educator podcast.
Meet Ollie Pettigrew
00:01:37
Speaker
Today's guest is proof that life's greatest adventures begin when you pack your bags and never stop exploring.
00:01:43
Speaker
Ollie Pettigrew has visited and worked in over 50 countries, graced magazine covers and screens the world over, but particularly in Asia as the face of many hit shows like Lonely Planet and Cash Cab, making curiosity his compass.
00:02:00
Speaker
But after years of jet-setting, he's traded tuk-tuks for pickup trucks and the neon city lights of Singapore for the Texas stars. He's now known far and wide as that Englishman in Texas, embracing barbecue, cowboy boots and the wide-open Lone Star lifestyle with all the charm of, well, an Englishman abroad.
00:02:23
Speaker
From London to Singapore, from Bangkok to Austin, Ollie Pettigrew is a true global citizen who somehow found his home deep in the heart of Texas. And trust me, if you've ever wondered what happens when dry English wit meets southern hospitality, you are about to find out.
00:02:44
Speaker
Well, on today's episode of The Outdoors, The Educator, we welcome a man you may know better as that Englishman in Texas, Olly Pettigrew. Olly, how are you today?
00:02:55
Speaker
Great, mate. Honestly, we just press record now because we've been chatting for like 15 minutes. Right. All sorts of cool stuff. We've already made friends. We are. We're good friends and hopefully we'll remember some of it for the pod. But i could I could have sat and talked for hours before hitting the record button.
00:03:11
Speaker
So have to try and be disciplined and and hit the button. But you're doing well, are you? Yeah, I'm doing great, mate. Yeah, it's it's ah it's been such a mild summer in Texas. And Texans keep saying, Ollie, stop jinxing it. But I'm like, guys, it's almost September. We haven't even had any dog days. I was walking outside and my grass is still grass. Usually it sounds like you're walking on cornflakes, you know, crackle and pop.
00:03:36
Speaker
And it's it's absolutely bonkers. So I'm yeah i'm having a great It's been a good day today. Good. Yeah, I am beyond excited. I do a lot of camping, a lot of hiking, but I just can't do it in the summer. It's too hot.
00:03:46
Speaker
And next Thursday and next Friday, it's going to drop about 10 or 15 degrees where I am.
Camping: Arizona vs. Texas
00:03:53
Speaker
um I'm probably, I think you're in central Texas somewhere, right? Yeah, just just south of Waco.
00:03:58
Speaker
okay i know yeah and i'm so i'm what 150 miles farther north so so just down the road down the road in texas town in texas service a day trip no problem so i'm beyond excited about starting to book some camping trips and and i'll tell you what actually i mean it's probably controversial for that englishman in texas to say so but i lived in arizona for eight years phenomenal camping there. Because what's so cool about Arizona is like 40% of the state is federal land and you can just go use it.
00:04:26
Speaker
Whereas like in Texas, I was looking up, it's like it's below 2%. Everything is privately owned. You can't camp anywhere. They'll shoot you. So you go to Arizona, It's hot as balls down where we lived in Phoenix, but you, you know, my buddy and I, Nick, when I was shooting a TV show there, we would escape during COVID and we'd go up to the Mogollon Rim or we'd go into this federal land in Strawberry and Pine or near the the the um the Grand Canyon and stuff. And you just right had an awesome off-roader and a great camping rig. And we'd just go glamping.
00:04:54
Speaker
like But we're glamping on the side of a cliff. you know So he's just got all the bells and whistles. We're sleeping in a tent. But he's like, all right, tonight, we're steaks and lobster? Sounds great, mate. Yeah, it's just camping. Just camping. We'll go with glamping. It's so cool. I mean, there's some some fantastic memories. But yeah, i know I've always loved camping. My dad, one of my earliest memories is being...
00:05:15
Speaker
have five, four or five in Hong Kong and camping like, you know, with my dad and then camping up in Yorkshire when we lived in the UK. And even here, like we, when it's spring break, we'd go out sort of camping by the lake with my wife's family and stuff. I've always enjoyed camping. I think it's great fun.
00:05:30
Speaker
It's a lot of fun. Um, Yeah, we we go, we we're very fortunate to live. There's a ah really nice state park, maybe 10 miles away. So we're up there quite a lot on Friday nights.
00:05:42
Speaker
Enjoy it, unwind from the week. We're back home mid-morning on Saturday. We've still got the whole weekend to do whatever it is we need to do. So did you do you do your camping Texas style? Have you got like an RV? Have you got like a camper? road you Do you throw up the tent?
Cost-Effective Camping Tips
00:05:55
Speaker
I do not. So I have... um modified, I've got an old Ford Explorer. And i've you know I've built a queen size bed in the back with drawers underneath and store stuff on the top. And I've done it in the cheapest way possible.
00:06:09
Speaker
all right You know, the old expression that that the copper wire was invented by two Scotsmen fighting over a penny. You know? I'm not going to spend a lot of money.
00:06:20
Speaker
I'm going to write that one down. There Yeah. thats and So i built it myself with scrap wood. I'll send you some pictures of it later, but it's my home on wheels.
00:06:31
Speaker
That's awesome. I see i used to see people doing that stuff all the time when... um I did this TV show called Right This Minute and it was all sort of like, funny enough, people like me, it's like creators and people like doing videos, all sorts of interesting things. And I was always so amazed and fascinated by watching those videos of people taking an old school bus, an old van or whatever.
00:06:48
Speaker
And like you're saying, building it out and then just yeah hitting the road because that's always something I wanted to do is just, you know, I've already told Mrs. I'm like, come on, man, let's sell it all, live out of a van for like a couple of years. It'd be awesome.
00:06:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny, we've had the ah same conversations here and my wife is always, I need somewhere to put a Christmas tree. That's one of our requirements. um There was a show, I don't know if it's still on and the name will come back to me later on, but it was based actually in Austin and it was a company that did that. You know, people would pull up with their old work vans and a budget and say, I want to live out this van, what can you Oh man, it sounds like pimp my ride, but better. Yeah, exactly. And it was, you know, it's all just big guys with huge beards kind of going, all let's knock something together, you know, and I swear they were working out of like ah like a storage locker.
00:07:32
Speaker
um The name come back to me, I'm all about it. Like you, again, before we started recording, we were talking TV shows and stuff. And he's like, it sounds like the last Overland as well. All these shows, like we've got the same taste in TV, man. Without a doubt. I'm going to rewatch this last. Yeah, it's on, it's on Amazon. think it's on Amazon.
00:07:51
Speaker
Um, cause it was on channel four back home. You know, oh yeah a couple English guys. Um, Yeah, cannot write.
Ollie's Multicultural Background
00:07:57
Speaker
I've literally bought the book this morning, The First Overland, which was written in the 50s about the journey they took.
00:08:03
Speaker
Honestly, it sounds like something my my grandfather did because he was um he was based in India. So he was like serving and like and back in the, e he was even in the Indian army. And um he was telling a story about how he drove back. So he traveled back.
00:08:19
Speaker
to to visit my my grandmother in England. And like there was part that he's on the train. So he's got like a Gurkha guard or a guard with him that's like armed to the teeth, but it's also his like guy that brings him tea in the morning and stuff like that. right He's got grenades with the pins pulled out, but there's part where they're driving across this desert in an old sort of Hillman, I believe.
00:08:36
Speaker
And, um my yeah My grandfather's telling story about how his man is on the front because they had such a weird carburettor that the man had to like sort of tickle the carburettor to keep the engine going while they're driving hundreds of miles across this desert. And I was just like, i think that's where I probably got my adventurous spirit from is like the stories from my grandfather and my dad and stuff like that. Then I'm like, oh, that sounds like a laugh. I'll go do that.
00:08:57
Speaker
Right. Well, on that note, don't you tell us a little bit about you where were you born? Where did you where did the Englishman in Texas start off? Where'd you come from? It's the hardest story to tell people because they're always like, whereabouts in England are you from? And I go Hong Kong and they go, what?
00:09:12
Speaker
So like um my whole family is just their whole history of my family is is the British Empire, basically. So, you know, my children were born in Singapore when um I was living there.
00:09:22
Speaker
I was born in Hong Kong as were my brothers and my half sister. So we're all born in Hong Kong during British rule. My dad was born in an army tent in 47 in Delhi during the Delhi riots at the time when the Brits were splitting off and going, hey, everybody, you go up to Pakistan, right? like And you guys, the Hindus, you stay down in India and everybody get on. Yeah. Is that cool? Worked out really well.
00:09:44
Speaker
Then my grandfather was born in Persia. um Right around the time when the Brits went, hey, Iran, Iraq, Shias, Sunnis, like, hey, everybody, we're just going to spit off into countries and everyone's going to get on. Right. Yeah. That didn't work out. wasted Well, well, I know.
00:09:57
Speaker
And then like my grandfather, great grandfather died as a prisoner of war there. He was born in Russia. So like my history is is very, very international. But I did. at the age of six, moved to the UK.
00:10:09
Speaker
Right. And um we lived not far from Guildford, um and a little little East Horsley, a little village called East Horsley in the British sort of like um country. Very nice. Is it Essex, Guildford? No, no, down in Surrey.
00:10:21
Speaker
Oh, Surrey, Surrey. I'm thinking of somewhere else, Surrey. No, no, no, no. Yeah, it was jolly good. And then um from there, I sort of, I was in the UK until 18. So I went to boarding school in the UK, i went to Cranley, which was again, it looked like Hogwarts, but just less magic.
00:10:36
Speaker
Right. um and And more nouveau riche. And and then at 18, I was um ended up going on a gap year. And at that point, um running up to 18, my plan had always been to join the RAF. I wanted to fly fast jets for the RAF.
00:10:51
Speaker
Right. And um I'd been meeting with the liaison officer and we're exploring the whole, okay, um they'll ah they'll pay for uni, they'll teach me to fly, I'll serve five years kind of thing. i was like, that's it. That's awesome. That's what I want to do. Great.
00:11:03
Speaker
And then I was on my gap year. in Hong Kong. My parents were there at the time they'd left. So my parents is great. They I'm 17 and they left the country. They moved 10,000 miles away. Right. I put myself through boarding school at the end. I had a little apartment nearby and, you know, looked after myself. So it's kind of like on my own recognizance from 17, which is great. Right. um And when I was in Hong Kong, basically, like I was there, turned up, I was doing a little internship. And then my mom basically set me up with them.
00:11:29
Speaker
a meeting with I go see with a modeling agency. think they were called Signal 8 in Hong Kong. And that was on a Monday. um And then on Wednesday, I went to my first casting, which is a very funny story, which I might tell later.
00:11:41
Speaker
um And then on Friday, I was in my first photo shoot. I was doing a photo
From Modeling to TV Hosting
00:11:45
Speaker
shoot and I was getting paid. I was, I'd gone from getting five quid an hour working in a bar in Guildford. I was getting paid 50 quid an hour for people to take my picture. And I'm like, whoa, this is way better. This one, yes. like By the end of that gap year, I'd done like a few campaigns here and I'd done a Levi's sort of shoot. um And then I ended up as a bad guy in in a Hong Kong action movie, which is on Amazon Prime. Don't watch it. It's terrible.
00:12:07
Speaker
But like Paul Rudd was in it, Maggie Q was in it. I was Kurt's henchman number three. And so when I went back after my gap year and started uni, suddenly my life was like back in Asia.
00:12:18
Speaker
Like, cause Asia has always been like where my heart is and I'd made all these friends and I started dating a girl. And so what I was doing is I spent like the three years of uni, you're only really at uni for like four and a half months in England. The rest of the time I was back in Asia. And when I was in Asia, I'd do part-time modeling and stuff like that.
00:12:35
Speaker
And then um it wasn't until I was 23, I went to Singapore on a two week trip and I left 11 years later with a wife, two kids and a TV career. It's funny the way things work out. You just sometimes got a jump. But yeah, my I'm from everywhere. So people like ask where I'm from. I just right now I say Waco.
00:12:53
Speaker
Right. And then they cock their head to the side and say, really? And they just give me that funny lick. And then I start doing the Texas accent and then like, all right, OK, never mind. Yeah, once in a while, if I'm feeling feisty, somebody will say, where you from? And they'll say Arkansas with a straight face. Yeah, I do. i Mine's Poughkeepsie. I do Poughkeepsie. yeah I've got the same thing. It's like you just to mess with them. go, yeah, I'm from Poughkeepsie. They go, you you're at y'all at, your accent's not from around here. And I'm like, that's It's from Poughkeepsie, mate. Poughkeepsie. That's right.
00:13:21
Speaker
The most American and random sounding place I could think of off the top of my head. That's yet the only thing I know about Poughkeepsie. I'm a big, you probably see behind me, not obviously good podcasting. I'm a big fan of the show Friends and Ross ends up going to Poughkeepsie. It's the only thing I know about it.
00:13:36
Speaker
um That's so funny. So what how did you get into TV? Was it really through the modeling? Yeah, it was honestly, um you know, as you may have noticed, I don't shut up.
00:13:47
Speaker
I like to talk. um And so when I was modeling, um they were just like, I got into sort of doing some commercials. So, you know, I did like, you know, like there's a is ah Axe commercial. So Lynx, always wanted to do a Lynx advert because they're so funny. I had my own Axe commercial. It's very funny.
00:14:03
Speaker
And so these sort of um, these production companies, as they're growing up, they start sort of developing from from doing commercials to making television products and projects. And they just remembered this model that like had a lot of energy and like to talk. And so one of those sort of production companies reached out to me and there's this guy John Moore, actually, he's one of ah he's one of my very first directors.
00:14:24
Speaker
um he He's still a good friend of mine. And he reached out to me and he's like, look, come in to do this casting. And my very first job was doing World Cup primetime, I think. um So it was the World Cup was going in Germany, 2006, I want to say. yeah And right I was, ah you know, I was hired as the secondary host. So there was a lead host, Singaporean guy. i think his name was Tim.
00:14:46
Speaker
And I was supposed to do like, 10 of the 22 days as a co-host. And um on day two, I got promoted to the lead host. And that was it. And that that was the next 17 years of my life from the very first TV show I did until the end of right this minute in 2022, I was never not working on a TV show. So I had a 17 year straight run of employment in television, which is pretty ridiculous and unheard of.
00:15:13
Speaker
I was going to say, I'm assuming that is incredibly unlikely. You know, it doesn't happen often. I was like, it was just a kind of thing of like, I was the only real um white TV host in Asia. So I was working on international TV.
00:15:26
Speaker
So back then um there was a sort of Asian cable. So you had like Star and you had like AXN, so Sony and Fox. And I was working for HBO Asia, Cinemax Asia. You know, I was doing Lonely Planet, Asia, Food Network, Asia, TLC. I was driving the cash cab. I was a cash cab Asia driver. So like as the I kind of had this is kind of interesting, actually. Like said, I was the only white guy.
00:15:48
Speaker
doing it, but like I had, I was good. You know, I just naturally was quite quite a performer. And like John, he's the one that taught me how to take my energy and to focus it into TV. And then I just got like, honestly, it was all that all the stuff I did at college had taught me, because I say college now, because I lived in America, uni.
00:16:06
Speaker
But like at uni, everything, like 80% of my uni course was um presentations. So I was really good at talking and taking information in and remembering it. I had a lot of confidence. I'd done plays and stuff at dance, at boarding school.
00:16:20
Speaker
So I had no sort of like fear. And I just blew up. I, you know, like I had five TV shows at one point all going at the same time. I had two shows on the same network happened back to back.
00:16:31
Speaker
So there was the only Pettigrew hour on AXN. And then you could turn over, you know, so I did Cash Cab and Sony Style. And then you could turn over to HBO and I'd be doing the daily hostings. And on Cinemax, I had ePad and then you'd be on Discovery Channel. I'm doing Lonely Planet. And it was, they were all broadcasting at the same time.
00:16:46
Speaker
And it was just absolutely bonkers. this is such a ah weird full circle moment because lonely planet we talked before we started recording about michael palin and how that just lit the fire for both of us a lot travel but lonely planet or globe tracker was the other one for me so now i'm wondering yeah if if i if i watched you at some point oh without realizing it there's a chance i did well i know lonely planet six degrees so i did lonely planet six degrees um i did six degrees china so i did chungdu nanjing and um
00:17:17
Speaker
what was my other one Shanghai and I know that that broadcast all over the world so I've had people reach out from South Africa i had people reach out from South America Australia I had people from the UK reach out had seen my my food network stuff um so I did these like shorts for the food network that was the show actually that got me into America right but um but yeah there's a there's a chance I mean like because we were talking like said right before we started the weird thing about doing that Englishman in Texas now is that I chose that Englishman in Texas because my whole career, know, 18, 19 TV shows that are broadcast everywhere in the world, except for maybe Antarctica. So every other continent I've been on TV and people would always kind of clock me. Like when I was in Asia, I was pretty famous in Asia.
Becoming 'That Englishman in Texas'
00:18:00
Speaker
Like there were certain countries like I go to, I would get mobbed, you know, like Philippines and things like that. Right.
00:18:04
Speaker
But it was always like when people would recognize me, they'd be like, hey, you're that guy. You're that guy from that show. I'd be like, oh, which one? You know, like Cash Cab? I'm that guy. I'm the Cash Cab guy. And so even here, I did eight years on a national show called Right This Minute.
00:18:18
Speaker
And I got recognized three times in Texas. Like I was in HEB and people that come and go. Hey man, you're that guy from that show, right? And I yeah, right this minute. And they go, yeah, yeah, how you doing? But now since I'm doing that Englishman in Texas, like I get recognized everywhere, everywhere.
00:18:34
Speaker
I get recognized multiple times a day. And it doesn't matter if I'm in San Antonio, it doesn't matter if I'm in Eastland, it doesn't matter if I'm just on a fishing pier down like in, so um where was I? Freeport the other day, Surfside.
00:18:47
Speaker
I got out of the car on Buc-ee's and someone clocked me getting out of the car and it's no longer you're that guy. Hey, it's Oli, you're Oli Pettigrew. You're that Englishman in Texas. And it's bonkers to me. It's like now I've got the name recognition. Everybody knows who I am. Like in Texas, it's it's really, really crazy to me now that like of all the stuff that that doing that Englishman,
00:19:07
Speaker
you know, has really sort of brought people in. But I think it's because I'm a very open guy. I think so. And you came up organically in the conversation. It was actually my daughter's pregnant, as we discussed again before we got in the air, at her baby shower.
00:19:19
Speaker
A very good friend ah on the other side of the family. ah She's from here, but lived in England for, I think, I think, Her husband was in the Navy.
00:19:31
Speaker
So she's American from Texas, but lived in Bournemouth, I think, for 20 odd years. That's where my brother lives. Oh, is it? Oh, lovely. but they and And she was just talking about different kinds of food and we're getting an HEB near a relief where we live. and she was like Oh, you're getting an HEB up there? It is.
00:19:48
Speaker
The nearest one is It's probably a 30 to 40 minute drive. getting we're getting We're getting one not five minutes from our house. I always feel so bad bad for people. gee I've got one six minutes away. and yeah And I live in the country. I've got 2.6 acres, right? I live in proper country, but I just go the very road that I'm on becomes the road that becomes HEB.
00:20:08
Speaker
And it's an HEB plus as well. And and so so i I did a video because I'm ah actually because i'm an HEB ambassador now, which is basically like getting an infinity stone. And if if I can get Whataburger and Buc-ee's, I'm going to come governor.
HEB Ambassador Experience
00:20:21
Speaker
um But like ah someone was like, y'all y'all got an HEB near you. And I i just like I just went dot dot dot. I have four. And they were like, what? this war Oh, yeah, I can get to four in 15 minutes. So it's absolutely wild. But I know is that I remember 20 years ago coming to to Waco where you couldn't find an HEB north of Waco.
00:20:41
Speaker
You know, i I remember what it was like. And so all of my sort of followers who were up in like, you know, Dallas area, something like that, they were all celebrating because i think one opened in Prosper. Was it Prosper? Prosper, which is not all that far. It's a lot of traffic. Like it's too far fast us to go really big. Yeah, there's.
00:20:55
Speaker
Are they going to declare like a citywide holiday when it opens? like I think because we're getting two at once in Denver. Oh, wow. There's one on the south side, one on the north side where I live and they've got land and they're building them both.
00:21:07
Speaker
I mean, people are, I mean, it is going to be like a national holiday. that can Well, H-E-B are a fantastic company. I got invited down um to like ah an influencer conference, the very first one. So they they bought like 15, 20 of us down to San Antonio and we got the tour of the place and we got presentations and we met people, we even met the CEO.
00:21:26
Speaker
And we're like... um It's such a great company to work for. Everyone loves working for it. um And I really like working with them as well because they're very just, they're just our kind of people. They're good people.
00:21:37
Speaker
i' Like everyone knows HB is awesome because they have their like disaster disaster response team and stuff like that. right And um they're just like, I was talking to the CEO and I was talking about that, the expansion of it. And basically he's like, look, we own like, we've got land for like 20 or 30 HEBs in Dallas, but we only open, we open one or two and we make sure they're working.
00:22:00
Speaker
And then we move on to the next one. We don't over expand. We don't, We want to maintain quality. We want it to to be the HEB experience. So we just need people to be patient, but we'd rather it be good than it just be there. And I'm just like, this is, again, what i think people like about HEB.
00:22:15
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm sure they've got, to it just reminds me, this is completely off the topic. ah friend a um I'm a college professor now. I was a teacher. And years ago, I taught a kid and he had to move in the middle of the year.
00:22:28
Speaker
And his dad works for a petrol company, guess a gas petroleum company. And he but helps purchase the you know the corner lots, you know the bits of land that they hold on to.
00:22:39
Speaker
And then you know when when the timing is right, they put the filling station on that bit of land. But he literally carries fake IDs and checks into hotels under different names because there's people for all these companies, Exxon, Shell, Quick Trip.
00:22:55
Speaker
all of them all vying for the same let so they look where the competitors are staying it's like espionage was about to say that'd kind of like a fun sort of like comedic espionage tv show it'd be amazing because I said oh that's a shame you're late where are you guys moving he's like I'm not allowed to say it's like it's amazing it's like an NDA you've made the tv show and like the tagline is it's a gas There you go. That could be, you'll be back on TV in no time. Oh, I'm great at branding and taglines. That is just like stuff. I'm always like, oh, this is what we do. And then go, how did you that? go, don't know.
00:23:29
Speaker
My brain just does it automatically. It just does it. I just wonder if hey cheap if they're like that, if there's that kind of secret underworld of oh they must purchasing the land and not telling the high ups at Kroger or Albertsons or Well, that's the thing. I mean, H-E-B, it's like, it's it's not culty because it's, but at the same time, it's because it's actual love. Like, it was so bonkers to me, like when when I first came, like again, going back 18, 19 years, my wife brought me to Texas. She goes, oh, what we're going to H-E-B. And I go what? She goes, we're going to H-E-B. And I go, what's that? Because it's it's a grocery store, but it's better.
00:24:00
Speaker
And I was like, you know, it's my first introduction to how much people love it. But honestly, I agree. I think it is, I remember going, this is the same one I go to now. It's a banger. It's so great. And it's like, I can even my honestly, yeah I swear, I swear this happened. But I started doing videos before, like for a couple of years before, like I got the ambassadorship, but they came to me for some stuff. But not long after I started doing videos from my HEV and telling stories about the whole thing, the British section got bigger.
00:24:28
Speaker
Isn't that beautiful? I can get all like this the the all of the classic British and all my favorite British like you know chocolates and stuff like that are there. And i was like, they've been watching my stuff. They know. They know. But the fact that I can go and like get like chocolate digestives and hobnobs and stuff like that from H-E-B just down the road is every now and again, is like, oh man, a little taste of the UK will go nicely. Thank you very much. That's right. See, that's what I'm looking forward to. We had...
00:24:55
Speaker
um Our Kroger, another supermarket right here, did have British things, but they got rid of that. and They were expensive and didn't sell. We have we have ah specific British store, but it's quite far.
00:25:08
Speaker
Is that the one in Grapevine? That's the one in Grapevine. People have told me to go visit that one. i was in Grapevine, but I was drinking wine. Yeah, that's what people do in Grapevine. Grapevine is twinned with, oh, it's twinned with the town of Scotland. I forget which one. Somewhere in West Lothian, I think.
00:25:23
Speaker
um But yeah, the one that in Grapevine, the British Emporium, it's kind of, if you are from the UK and you live in Texas, you live in North Texas especially, you know it.
00:25:35
Speaker
like It's almost like a community gathering place. Do they do Cornish pasties though? Because that's what I want. That's like, you know, if you talk about like the British thing I miss the most, like a It's like, well, one, it's the two o'clock in the morning quality Donner Kebab from the band from Abdul. you know It's like proper pubs. But I did discover like the Londoner up in Addison. yes I got invited up during like an England game. They they promoted it and I did a video for them.
00:26:01
Speaker
But it was like walking through ah like a wormhole into the UK because I walked into the pub. Everyone's wearing England shirts. Sorry. I know you are English. It's okay. Right. But everyone's there. Everyone's speaking English. they There was a huge population of Brits in the Texas, I've discovered. Because, I mean, I've got three friends three British friends right here in Waco. But like um it was just that vibe. It looked like a pub. It felt like a pub because it's got weird dimensions and low know low ceiling and an unsettled floor. Yeah. And you got dartboards and we had like scotch eggs. And I was just to my wife, I go, this is amazing. This is like, this is like being back because Americans don't, I did a video about this. I always talk about it. Honestly, it's like they don't understand pubs
00:26:49
Speaker
And it's like, I had to explain, a pub is a public house. Everyone is welcome. You are welcome to come. And it's like, I said, usually the landlord back in the day, they'd be living upstairs, downstairs as the house for everybody else to use. And the community would go in, you know, everybody.
00:27:04
Speaker
And it's the kind of place you can go when it opens at 11 o'clock in the morning. And you would stay sometimes until 1130 at night when they threw you out. There's no limit. No one is bringing you the bill. That is the thing I hate in America. Like you they go, and here's your bell when you're ready. I'm not ready. I'm going to be here for three hours. Take that. right Take it away.
00:27:22
Speaker
and ah used to irritate me because like in Singapore, dinners would be like with my wife, these two, three hour affairs where we go out and you socialize and you meet your friends. right And here you go out with my like my Texan friends. Sometimes it's like all my family.
00:27:35
Speaker
And it's a 45 minute thing. And I'm like, look, guys, no, sit down, pop another bottle. We're not in any rush. You're going to get a better tip if you leave me alone. Right. We're not trying to turn this table over as quick as we can. I've got this for the evening.
00:27:50
Speaker
Like that. And that's what a pub is. It's like you'd sit down, I'd take a book and I'd go and spend hours at the pub and I'd just have a couple of pints and order some food, get some chips, sit by the fire. that's that's you know because honestly like i like i said i've spent almost if i spend one more year i think here in the states i will have lived here longer than i lived in the uk which means the uk will be where i lived the least i did like 25 years in asia 11 years here i think it was 12 years or something in the uk so it's weird that yeah i'm like i'm like the worst british person ever like i'm so out of touch people what's it like in the uk i don't know
00:28:25
Speaker
I don't know. Since 2003, since, until I took that trip in 2022 that we talked about right before we started recording, did a two week trip to the UK with my family because my, neither of my kids had been and my wife hadn't been for decades.
00:28:37
Speaker
And so they were like, dad, can we go to your place? I'm like yeah, okay, come on we'll go. And we had a great time. We had a fantastic time. But until then, in the, since 20, since 2000, I think three, I'd spent nine days in the UK.
00:28:49
Speaker
Isn't that just wild? Because I've just been living my life elsewhere. I've just been traveling, traveling the world and just hopping from, you know, living from Hong Kong and then we're living in Singapore and then we're back in Hong Kong and then we're in New Zealand for a little while. And then suddenly we moved to America I'm in Texas, I'm in Arizona, I'm in Texas. And it's like, you know, that's what I mean. That's i just I've lived so many places and moved so many times that it's like it. I always even when I lived in the UK,
00:29:17
Speaker
I always considered like people say, where you're from? and go Hong Kong. And I remember, but you know, I remember the first thing I remember is in Cha Su Bao. And I remember growing up in Clearwater Bay and seeing the fishing trip like boats. i My school was Boundary Junior School and it was the final approach for the Kai Tak.
00:29:33
Speaker
So, you know, all these old photos of Hong Kong with planes yeah just touching the top of the building. That's my school was there. Right. and So much of my core memory was was Hong Kong. So when I went back, I started smelling the place and just all became so familiar to me again. Like,
00:29:47
Speaker
I went back when I was 12 to visit my dad for a while. But yeah, i mean, I, you know, when people ask, they go, where's home to you? I mean, I say home is wherever I am, really. right But like my heart, is whenever I'm back in Asia, I just, everything is so familiar to me. And I just, I love the vibe and the food and the smells and the people and and everything. It's it's awesome.
00:30:06
Speaker
I absolutely love it. I love that you, of again, small world. When I first moved here, I went to the Londoner in Edison every Saturday morning. Oh, good, man. Because we would...
00:30:17
Speaker
I'm a Rangers fan for my sins. It's a tough, it's a tough situation right now. You know, we're we're, we're in mourning a lot, but we were the first supporters group of a team to meet in the Londoner every, cool every week.
00:30:31
Speaker
That was our thing. We helped purchase the satellite dish because that's what was needed. This was just before NBC bought all the rights and football exploded here. Um,
00:30:42
Speaker
So it's fun because it's now gone to one of the premier football-watching pubs in the entire country. They've got plaques, they've won awards. um There's now three Londoners in the Dallas area. Yeah, I've been to two of them.
00:30:54
Speaker
Right. But honestly, if I lived closer to that Addison one, I'd be there every weekend too. I mean, that's my goal. I always said to the missus, I said, look, the ultimate goal of that Englishman is to open that Englishman's pub in Texas. Oh, that's good. That's good. You know, that's that's the one. but like ah And it would be a proper pub.
00:31:11
Speaker
You know, right it would be a proper pub. Done properly. and Come on in. It's funny, i watch I follow a guy online who's almost the opposite of you in a lot of sense. He's from, not sure where he's from in the States, but now lives in London.
00:31:23
Speaker
And just makes a lot of videos, musings, observations. about the differences and he's like of all the stuff of all the things and you brought this up he's like the thing I love the most is being able to go into a pub at 11 30 in the morning like and he said there's always an old man with a book sitting by the fire with a pint and it's normal and it's like that's the the cut like that sums up the culture in one person he's like that's what he misses when he leaves the UK yeah when we did that trip every single day it was a pub lunch every single day whatever city we were in york it didn't matter we were in bath we were in glasgow edinburgh it didn't matter london different boroughs of london where are we going for lunch pub crisiss right bangers and mash pint you know whatever it is but just like you know proper chips and like you know it's just that was it and my wife again my wife she's um
00:32:15
Speaker
She's a Texan girl, country girl from Texas, but like she is also a world traveler. She's been to like 50 countries just like I have. We met in Singapore and she loves pubs. Like the pub that we had in Singapore was this place called Number Five.
00:32:28
Speaker
um right It's just off Orchard Road. It's magical place. And there was one day where we spent. 12 hours there. We did a full 12 hours where we turned up after our castings and then we'd let we put the word out to sort of our little modeling crew and then more and more and by the end of it, there's like 18, 19 models have taken over the whole back of the pub, which is where you can They had rugs down and low tables so you can sit on the floor kind of vibe.
00:32:52
Speaker
And then the next door pub, which was owned by them, would come in and it gave free steak sandwiches every few hours that you could like take little nibbles. And I was like, one of the best days I've ever had in my life. We just spent 12 hours in a pub with my friends and my future wife, you know, awesome.
00:33:06
Speaker
I absolutely love it. It's funny. you One of my core memories of being 18, 19, I was in Dublin. And this is, I'm sure things have changed, but I would i was backpacking and then i was with an Australian guy, a Canadian guy and a Danish guy. It sounds like Englishman, Irishman, Scotsman. I was about to say. And we did the tour of the Guinness.
00:33:28
Speaker
i I assume it's a distillery. um you know don't want to get the the technical term making Guinness, but we did the tour and in the wee pamphlet they gave you, there was two... It was like vouchers to get two free pints in ah a pub at the end. but There's no money changing hands and all they do is give you free Guinness, but it looks like a pub.
00:33:47
Speaker
So we discovered that a lot of people don't like Guinness and would leave their second voucher on the table. So we all chipped in and we paid the barman. We said, how much are we going have to give you for you not to kick us out?
00:34:00
Speaker
You know, and he's like, you know, he threw out some very cheap nominal figure because I think he just respected the fact we asked. And we were going to be well behaved, you know. Yeah, again, he it was polite of you to do that.
00:34:11
Speaker
Yeah, we all slipped in. I think it was still Irish pounds or whatever was before the euro, you know, and we all gave him some. And we just sat there collecting the vouchers for the rest of the day and the night. That's the way to do it i did the I did the Texas version. I mean, you might know he's got my Shiner Bock hat. Yes.
00:34:27
Speaker
Like I did it um about 15 years ago, but they invited me down because I did a video. It was one of my biggest videos I've ever had actually on Facebook where right Like when i when I started doing that Englishman, i wondered how many videos can I do about Texas? I thought maybe I could do like 15 or 20 videos or something like
Love for Shiner Bock Beer
00:34:43
Speaker
that. And the top first two I wanted to do were I did HEB.
00:34:46
Speaker
um I said, there's something about Texas you need to know. And it's an HEB video blew up millions of views, Facebook, TikTok. That's where like, and that's where HEB found me. But it took me six weeks to see the message because I didn't have enough followers to be able to read messages from businesses.
00:35:00
Speaker
But then the other one I wanted to do was Scheinnebock because my very first trip to the States, um we came to Texas and the very first place we went to was like we went to Cheddar's because my wife really loves their Monte Cristo sandwiches and we walk in and there's someone's pouring this like this red pint. I go what's that? And I go, oh, this is a Scheinnebock. And I'm like, oh, I have one of those, please.
00:35:19
Speaker
I've tasted it and I go, well, that's my favorite beer I've ever had in my entire life. And so I'd always wanted to tell that story. And it just like I'd never found the right time. And I wanted to make sure I did it right.
00:35:30
Speaker
And it was about, I guess, about 18 months ago, maybe. Yeah, about 18 months ago. And I was just sitting in a bar downtown Waco. Really? It's a place called Crickets, but like it's got a great beer selection and it was a beautiful day.
00:35:43
Speaker
I was sitting up on the balcony. I'd just been just hanging around and I was having a day for me. I'm having like, dad's taking a few hours for himself. And I had a couple of, a couple of pints of Shiner book. And I go down to get my third one and they pour the perfect pint.
00:35:57
Speaker
It looks like it's a commercial, right? It's just, oh, wow. And so I come back up and I'm just like, I'm just two beers in, which means I'm feeling great. I'm on this balcony and I'm alone. The lighting is great. And I just started rolling with no plan.
00:36:12
Speaker
And I tell that story about, and i so and then i as I get to that point, I bring it in. I bring in the pint, the best beer in the world. and I take it and I take a drink and I was like, cause I, when one of my things I do when I travel, you know, when I was working on all these travel shows and stuff is that whenever I go to a country, I would order whatever their local beer is, you know, right Thailand, it's singer and like, or it's Qing Tao when I was in China or whatever, like all these different beers, Tiger in Singapore, you know, like Hong Kong San Mig, um which is great. i used to love that one. But yeah,
00:36:43
Speaker
It was just I told that story and it's got, I think, like, oh, my God, like eight million views or something like that on Facebook. It just absolutely blew up. I still get comments every day. And like, you know, that's where Shiner Bock were like, hey, man, want to come and do a tour?
00:36:56
Speaker
And they got the the master brewer, ah gave me a personal tour. um Like, it was awesome. um And like, he even said, you want to have the best, like freshest beer you've ever had in your life? I go, yeah. And he goes, he runs down, pulls these bottles off that haven't even gone through.
00:37:12
Speaker
So they haven't done the actual sort of whatever, like they do the specific, it's not pasteurization, but it might be, but they have to go through this, like they have to be sort of baked in a sort of way. He goes, no, no, this is just fresh. Oh my God. Incredible. And then, yeah, they just gave me all this merch and they send me stuff. They send me Christmas presents.
00:37:27
Speaker
um They invite me down to Shiner Fest and stuff like that. So it's like, I was like, they even got tight T-shirts made, custom T-shirts that I gave away in a competition, but I've got a couple. But it says, Shiner Beer, the best beer in the world. right you know Quoting myself. And I was just like...
00:37:43
Speaker
So cool. It's funny. We discovered this, that we went to Belgium a year and a half ago and Holland. We did little Northern European on the continent kind of jaunt and going to breweries.
00:37:58
Speaker
It's great because like, don't like a beer as much as the next guy, but may you find out about like the history of the town. Yeah. So much stuff. It's so interesting. It's not, it's like, it's all about the beer, but it's not about the beer, you can know?
00:38:10
Speaker
I mean, China, I mean, the whole town, I mean, if you've ever been, I highly recommend you go actually. It's like, take, take the road trip down to China. It's just below the highway in between Houston and San Antonio.
00:38:21
Speaker
It's great little town, but it's great little community. They've got such a cool brewery now. Their tour is so modern now. It's all iPad controlled and things open. It's got a great story. But the story that I loved was Jimmy. And I said, the master brewer was telling me about the story because, yeah, I went to school over there, you know, like on the other side. And I remember as a kid, the master brewer of China coming to talk at my school for like career day. And I'm like, cool. One day I want to do that. And look at me now.
00:38:48
Speaker
And I was like, he was such a nice guy. he had so many great stories, but they quite literally there is like his sweat is in the staircases of the he before like modernization. He was showing me like he goes, you want to see something no one gets to see him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, great.
00:39:03
Speaker
And so he showed me this old sort of storage area and he goes, yeah, we had to carry the bags and they weighed 120 pounds. And it's like, we had to carry them up this wooden staircase. And that's where he was. He worked his way all the way up. He, he is Shiner beer.
00:39:14
Speaker
and Like if you've ever had a Shiner, you're drinking shot Jimmy Shiner. And like, it was just, it's his life and he will work there until he retires. And then he will drink there until he dies. And was like, Jimmy, you're living the dream, man. Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:27
Speaker
Yeah, to know your purpose. Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. Yeah, so cool.
Showcasing Texan Friendliness
00:39:33
Speaker
Yeah, we be lucky. I stories like that though. Yeah. And that's kind of what I love about like getting out and traveling.
00:39:38
Speaker
And that's what I like about getting out and driving around Texas to find these places is like, you you know, I'm really trying to become kind of the unofficial Texas ambassador. Because I'm like, one thing that when I started doing that Englishman is like, you know, I realized that it's a very...
00:39:54
Speaker
misjudged place. People think they know Texas because they read headlines and they think they know Texas because they see what politicians are saying. And I often say that, like, honestly, the the loudest and the stupidest among us are usually the ones that get a microphone put in front of them.
00:40:09
Speaker
And it's it doesn't reflect who Texans actually are oh or what this place is. It's actually a really special place. And one of my, again, first biggest sort of videos I did was I asked the question, do you know what the state motto of Texas is?
00:40:23
Speaker
Do you know what the state motto of Texas is? A lot of people don't. So don't worry. A lot of Texas is 95%. My immediate gut would be, well, I'm guessing the official one might be that don't tread on me, but it's a friendship.
00:40:34
Speaker
yeah friendship Friendship. There you go. That's it. Now, how do you think it through? Yes. Boom. Yes. yeah So the official state motto Texas is friendship, but it gets even better. That if you trace the etymology of the word Texas, you go from Texas to Tejas and everyone goes, yeah, Tejas means ally and friend. And I go, oh, yes, it does. But Tejas comes from Teysha, the word that the Caddo nation, the native people of this area before settlement had for friend and ally. So the etymology of the word Texas quite literally means friend. And i there's no hyperbole when I say this.
00:41:03
Speaker
I've been to 50 countries in the world. I've lived all over the world. The friendliest place I've ever lived is Texas. They are the friendliest people I've ever met. And it's like, and I like, so I did that video telling that story, but that's why I do it. It's like, I know you need to see who Texans really are.
00:41:19
Speaker
And like you you get to see that with things like, you know, what happened down in Kerrville with the flooding. You get to see that when I use the example because it's also a real example because I read this in the news, but I i used to use it anyway before I'd even read the story. i go, no, you could move to Texas tomorrow.
00:41:34
Speaker
Right. um And you could move into your house and there's a storm that night and a tree falls down on your house. You'll wake up in the morning to a knock on your door. with a bunch of neighbors and they've got chainsaws, pickup trucks, and they've baked you a pie and they'll fix the problem.
00:41:49
Speaker
And that's who Texans are. And so I've just took taken on this responsibility of telling these stories, but also everything online and so much of America, I mean, since like 2016, since I've been here since like 2014, everything's become so divisive and it's all about it's all about pushing people
Positive Online Content Creation
00:42:07
Speaker
apart. And the algorithm online is all about fear and anger.
00:42:11
Speaker
And if you can separate and sort of make people afraid and make them angry, you can control them and you can make them do what you want and make them vote the way you want. And I'm like, I do specifically, I'm bringing people together.
00:42:24
Speaker
So like I never talk about that kind of stuff. But what I love is I'll do a video and I'm just reminding Texans about what they love about Texas. I didn't realize I was making videos for Texans. I thought for everybody else. But Texans love talk about Texas.
00:42:36
Speaker
Right. And they love it when you love Texas. But you get into the comments section underneath my videos, like on Facebook or something like that. And people live very loud in their profile pictures about who they are on Facebook. And you'll see...
00:42:47
Speaker
just as many people from like, you know, with the right and pictures of guns and stuff like that. And just as many people with rainbows and all this kind of stuff from the left. And they're all in the comments and they're agreeing.
00:42:58
Speaker
And I'm like, right that's something that I learned from my world travels is I could be in Oman and I'm sort of like, you're meeting this family. You don't speak the same language, but we're sitting out on the floor and we're sharing food there's three generations.
00:43:09
Speaker
Or I was on, the Mekong Delta with a former Viet Cong soldier in Vietnam, or I'm in this little village in Nepal or whatever. It's all the same things. We all love friendship and fellowship and family and food and sports and music and all this other stuff. And that 2% of shit that they tell you that matters.
00:43:31
Speaker
Right. Doesn't matter, but you're so obsessed with it. And so... That's so I'm trying to be like the positive place on the internet. And I just I got another message today. ah People literally tell me this. They go, I follow you because you're always so upbeat and chipper and positive about things. And I'm like, good, because I want to be the only place because I feel like I'm the only place that is, you know, opens so much negativity. I yeah have a sort of love hate thing social media.
00:43:55
Speaker
And I have to be very conscious and very deliberate about blocking, getting rid of not following negativity. Oh, yeah. A place of happiness. I just deleted Twitter that was like, you know, like that had to go And then like, you know, for me, I think the one that sort of saved me like during the pandemic and just when things were just so bad.
00:44:15
Speaker
And I was kind of like, like you, I i was going on, sometimes you just, you're doom scrolling and you're how has the country come to this? I'm like, what is going on? That I went to Reddit.
00:44:27
Speaker
yeah and the I didn't understand Reddit for the longest time. I still don't. yeah so so this is the So the thing is, right, as I would say, go to Reddit. Because there is a Reddit for anything. Aviation. I like planes.
00:44:38
Speaker
I like friends. There'll be a friends Reddit. There'll be Funko Pops Reddit. There'll be, you know, I like the things called positivity and things like that. So it's just r slash and that's what the thing is about.
00:44:49
Speaker
So I went in and I curated Reddit of just... positivity and cool things and planes and Land Rovers and stuff like that. And absolutely no negative stuff, no news, no nothing.
00:45:05
Speaker
So that when I needed to cleanse my soul, I would go and positive scroll on Reddit and I would see people being good people. And I would see cool things and i go, that's delicious. And look at that little kitten.
00:45:17
Speaker
And it was like, cause yeah you're just exactly, I i cut myself out. I now allow myself, I'll go in. I'm very, like, I keep myself very well informed. But I just give myself like, all right, Ollie, you've got 45 minutes to read the news and digest and then get out.
00:45:31
Speaker
Just get get out. And for the love of God, do not read the comments because people suck. yeah And then I go, okay, I'm going to go into a video and I'm going to do something really positive. And every everyone in the comments is going to feel really good. And I can do that. And that's what makes me feel good at the end of the day. Absolutely. Because I know I could be divisive and it annoys me no end. that If I picked a side or I just decided to be controversial,
00:45:54
Speaker
I'd have 20 million followers and I'd be making all this money. And I'm like, that's just not who I am. I just can't do it. And I'm like, no, I'm going to do it the right way. I'm going to be positive and I'm going to get there. Cause like right now it's still a lot hustle. I've got 300,000 followers. Right. But that does not translate to being able to just,
00:46:10
Speaker
exist No, most of my time is spent hustling, hustling, hustling, right trying to find deals, working with cities, working with businesses, well doing what I can. But I would love to just add a zero to my followers where I'm making enough ad money in the background, then I can just be Captain Positive.
00:46:26
Speaker
like i just I've just launched a Patreon. I've got like ah nearly 100 Patreon supporters now. And it's like... if I could just get a thousand Patreon supporters, 0.3% of my followers just to give me $5 a month in support, I could get out on the road and just tell all of the realist, most real teeny tiny town stories. Cause that's what I love.
00:46:49
Speaker
I go to the small towns where they've got, you know, a Kalachi festival. I go to the small towns where it's like, this is where Dublin Dr. Pepper came from. And I just tell these small town stories and find these people. And,
00:47:00
Speaker
even for Texans, they're like, I had no idea that was there. Like you mentioned Gainesville, right? I i tell Gainesville, one of the best kept secrets in Texas, because no one goes because it's the very last stop before you cross the Red River and you get into Oklahoma where the casino is, right? And they've all been driving. I-35 for like an hour, they've been dealing with the traffic, they've come through Denton, right? And it's like, they don't turn off. And I'm like, turn off. okay Even if you're going to the casino,
00:47:26
Speaker
stay in Gainesville. I stayed at the Shady Lady B&B. It's a former b brothel. Right? i like And everything downtown is owned by Steve and Anne. And you know what mean? It's like everything is just community There's no Starbucks and McDonald's and stuff like that.
00:47:40
Speaker
That's by the highway. But I loved it. And then I took my wife back and she loved it too. And i I was honestly, I said to the guys, that when I was working with the city, I said, oh no, guys, I i would move here. This is a wonderful community.
00:47:52
Speaker
And so it's like, it's stuff like that. That's why I like doing what I do is I get to discover these kinds of things. Yeah, I, it's again, because it's so close. I've not really, I've i've driven through Gainesville. i've one the One of the things, that two things that I know and I like, I've got, we've got a good friend who used to be a neighbour and a fellow co-worker was from Gainesville, moved around and went back because she's like, it's just, it's just a special place.
00:48:16
Speaker
Okay, you want a recommendation? That's it. Croutes Brewing. Croutes Brewery. K-R-O-O-T-Z, I believe. But it's a brewery right next to like this little park that they've got.
00:48:26
Speaker
um Mrs. and I went back. Their food, ah just i there was no wrong answer. I'll try and find you the video of when we went there. Because they just like they laid, their whole bar top was all of this food. And we just started making friends with people sitting next to Guys, come in.
00:48:41
Speaker
They've given us all this food. Come and share it. And we're just... it was It was so good. that We've been meaning to go back, but like they've got quality drinks, but like incredibly good food. And it's like, that's why like I like, I'm like, I'm this British guy, but I know all these random little secrets about Texas. And I know all these random things about Texas history now that it's like, yeah, I've become like this Texas dude. It's it's absolutely, deb bought I mean, like I'm wearing a Texas shirt with a Scheinabock hat. Honestly, I should be riding a horse, holding a gun.
00:49:07
Speaker
and that would be pretty much like just complete the whole thing. you there's so much that you do that reminds me again you said there's a lot of british people in north texas two doors down is an english guy really nice my friend kes and when he first moved to the states i think i've got this story right his wife went to uni in london where they met and then they came back here she is from midland which where's west texas so his first job was working as a newspaper reporter in west texas Wow. And and so he was here was this English guy in the 90s and he was covering like the rattlesnake roundup.
00:49:40
Speaker
Yeah. And that kind of stuff. And he was he was, you know, just he felt like a fish out of water, but loved it. Loved every bit of it. i like The fish out of water is the way I like to be.
00:49:51
Speaker
yeah You know, I found, um like I said, no diss on England, no diss on the UK. But it's just like, It's I just whenever i remember just being on a I had an hour and a half commute when I lived in Hong Kong because I was at the time in Hong Loo Yun. I had to take an hour train ride to get to the Kowloon Canton Railway.
00:50:12
Speaker
So Kowloon Tong and then I get off and get on the MTR and I go across the this sort of like underneath the um to the island. And that's where I was working. So it was an hour and a half commute. But I'd be on this train.
00:50:25
Speaker
And I'm looking out the window at Hong Kong and these bays and these things going by and I go, Pete's doing this in the UK. You know i mean? It's like, right it's just, I've always kind of thought that way. It's like, is I love the UK and I had a great time and I miss the pubs, but I want to see something new. I want to go somewhere new. be different think, you know, our next plan we think is maybe Panama.
00:50:46
Speaker
My wife's half Panamanian. We took a trip down there during COVID. That was one of the only places where you could travel, but they were really, really smart about it. They made it really convenient that they would even like, They would wear whatever hotel you were at, they would come to and test you two days before you left so you could get back in. It was very, very clever. Everyone was following the rules.
00:51:03
Speaker
There was no arguments. There was no anti-vaxxers, no anti-maskers. They just followed the rules, but it meant that their country had tourism and they were making money. And I fell in love with it. Panama is fantastic. I just couldn't get it. I've never there. would love go. It's such a secret.
00:51:19
Speaker
It's such a secret because like, you know, we ended up on this beach and it's like this half volcanic sort of beach and you've got the black sand
Interest in Moving to Panama
00:51:25
Speaker
and stuff. And it was like this long beach and there was one resort, eight miles that way.
00:51:30
Speaker
And the resort we were in. And I was like, man, if this was Mexico, there'd be 120 resorts. Right. You know, and as far as the eye could see. Yeah. And then 25 minutes later, we're up in the mountains. She's always talked about this place to me for 20 years. We finally went and she goes, Ollie, you know and that like the the clouds come down off the mountains, you're swimming in the clouds. And it was exactly as she described.
00:51:51
Speaker
And I was like, this is where we're going to buy a house one day. Like it just, it was amazing. So cool. And I'm like, that you know, that Englishman in Panama, that'll be the next one. That'll be the that'll be it.
00:52:01
Speaker
But it's a wonderful, wonderful place. Well, I've scribbled down three things that I just wanted to mention about Texas being friendly. um So we talked a little bit before we got in the air about sort of hiking and camping and all of that.
00:52:14
Speaker
And there's this movement. There's a couple of people who are heading up to make what's called the XTX trail. And it's basically going to be the Pacific Crest Trail, the Appalachian Trail, but going across the longest part of Texas.
00:52:26
Speaker
So down north of Houston, all the way, and then ending kind of in Big Bend, where it meets New Mexico. Yeah, you know what? Hang on. wait. Name that again. the they're calling it the xtx trails across texas these guys reached out to me no way yeah yeah they reached out to me about like trying to do a story and that's that's so funny i need to follow these guys follow up but yes it was it was that i was like oh man that's so cool that's like you know the pacific coast highway you like trail and like the appalachian trail and stuff that i was like oh wow that sounds awesome that's right up my alley yeah that's so trying to make one that's you know could be done in the winter when the other ones because they go so far north
00:53:03
Speaker
um But again, something you brought up, I think, before we started recording was Arizona, lots of public land. yeah Texas is less than 2% is public land. yeah So they assumed that this this trail would be a non-starter because it'd have to go through so much private land.
00:53:20
Speaker
the guys which is very british right exactly so they started reaching out to all these landowners and said look we're wanting to cut through just the tiny bottom bit of your wrench your 50 acres what do we have to do to convince you to let us to do this and they said to a person every single person said you don't have to do a thing we're in that's amazing is a to a soul no There's part of the the, and I don't even think this is skeptical, but part of them was like, well, we can build a small shelter, but you know run out run some water down there, bring some food and charge people 20 bucks a night just to camp at the end of our land, make a little money.
00:54:00
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with that. But the other side of it is they're like, no, this is Texas. We look out for each other. That's literally just land at the very end of our acreage. Why would we, as long as people don't leave Yeah. yeah you I mean, he in the pack out.
00:54:14
Speaker
What's the problem? ra Rambling rules, man. It's like trying to explain like that's my wife loves it. yeah And it's like trying to explain that to sort of like, you know, like Americans and stuff like Texans, especially. yeah No, no, no. We've got in the UK, we've got these rambling routes that have existed for thousands of years. You know, it's just they are there. And it goes like, so there are farms, but there'll be a, you know, there'll be a, what do we call them? Styles, right? To get over the electric fence that keeps in there.
00:54:40
Speaker
And all these different sort of ones that you could do. And like, no, you can walk. Now, you can't go off the trail, but you're allowed to walk on that trail. So you can go and walk around the countryside. The countryside's there for everybody.
00:54:50
Speaker
right And they're like, what? Like, that's crazy. So I'm loving that side of the story because yeah I always joke. I said, that's the shame about Texas. Like, you know, you get on someone's land. It's like, get off.
00:55:01
Speaker
yeah And it's like, I love that the people are up for it because, you know, I think that would be such a cool idea. And you're damn right. Is that, the yeah, the enterprising Texan like, no, man, we could like build a shack down there. and that we can run the power no time. We'll get some water. And it's like, yeah, you can bunk. And it's kind of like when I was as trekking in Nepal.
00:55:19
Speaker
With my my dad and my uncle and my cousin. And you' you're you're on the side of these sort of like, we're in the Himalayan lowlands. One of the most incredible experiences of my life is like camping, like do like just walking among...
00:55:30
Speaker
like these mountains that are as high as planes fly. And it's just like, you've just like, you've never seen mountains till you've seen the Himalayas. But it's just that we go, all right, you start here and we're going to walk, you we're going to do a few thousand feet and then we're to end up at this place. But when you get there, someone's built like a like a stone bunkhouse with a bed and you can get a beer and they'll make you some fried rice and you can put your head down and then the next day move on to the next lodge.
00:55:55
Speaker
And it was just, oh, I mean, i when I talk about like, Because people always ask, they go, what's the best place you've ever been? And I go, it's a three-way tie for my favorite places. It's Vietnam, Oman, and Nepal the ones that I just still just remember. And it's like, you know, you asked me, I mean, like, I can name another, you know, 48 places that I think were incredible as well. But...
00:56:19
Speaker
They're the ones that really stuck in my memory. Oman for the people and just feeling like it was just such a wonderful culture, wonderful people um felt like the real Middle East in um in so many ways.
00:56:31
Speaker
like ah like Istanbul is the best long weekend city I've ever been to, by the way. um But Nepal is the, this um seeing the mountains was incredible. And then I went to Tiger Tops before it shut down, but it was like elephant back safari, you know.
00:56:44
Speaker
trying to find tigers, incredible. And then Vietnam, Vietnam, I got to do, I got to do Saigon. I got to do the Mekong Delta, Hanoi, I love with all the French influence. And I even got to do like Ha Long Bay, which are these big like limestone cliffs that come out the water. And I got to do deep water soloing. So climbing without ropes.
00:57:02
Speaker
And then run it once you get, the only way down is to jump into the water. Awesome. And like, so those are the ones that just the memories for me are just so, so incredible. And just so like, man,
00:57:13
Speaker
You know, my wife and I joke that we lived our life in reverse. You know, everyone's like, well, you got to work your whole life. That, hi dad you know, he's old, you know, no, a lot of just the old way of thinking, no, go work for a company, you know, put in your, your 35 years, um, and then retire and travel the world. And I'm like, yeah, well, you retired. You're too old to travel.
00:57:32
Speaker
you know So my wife and I'm like, no, we're young and we're fit. Let's go. And so we both did like 50 countries. She was a top model for 28 years. I met, she met me when she was 29. So she'd already lived a life before she even met me. I was 23 when we met.
00:57:44
Speaker
I was just in the middle of getting started on this adventure. And then we both got into TV and modeling and We did TV shows together, but like we just, I mean, I i sometimes try, i sometimes photos pop up on our screensaver on our TV because it's connected to my wife's Google photos. And we're like, oh yeah, we went to that country. I've been literally to so many countries I can't remember.
00:58:07
Speaker
um You know, that's- What beautiful thing, a beautiful quote unquote problem to have. Yeah, well, that's the thing is that my wife, yeah, yeah it's definitely, my wife and I say that the one thing is that, yeah, you know, if we if we die tomorrow, we'd,
00:58:19
Speaker
we would have no regrets. with There's nothing like, I wish we'd done that. There's so many things we still want to do. Of course. But I've i've just, i've we've both been so lucky and lived a life and seen so much. And it's like, it's something where I hold these have these conversations with my nieces and nephews to to try and just inspire them. And like, you know, some of them they have, they've really sort of taken it on board and they've become quite adventurous and want to go and see. And then my two kids as well, they want they're taking gap years We're going to send them to my parents live in Thailand.
00:58:47
Speaker
Most of my family lives in London. They've got fathers. They've got godfathers that live in Singapore. And I'm like, and my daughter is Singaporean. So we adopted my daughter when she was three. And so, you know, it was like, guys, just trust me.
00:59:01
Speaker
Take a gap year because Americans don't do that. Right. And it's like, you know, and I try to explain to them. I go, look, look at it this way. you've always lived in the same sort of town.
00:59:12
Speaker
Like most of my wife's family still live in the same town and most of them have never left, right? My wife saw the world. She's like the black sheep of the black family, right? So that's the the family name. And so, but you've grown up in this town, you've gone through from kindergarten, middle school, high school with the same kids.
00:59:29
Speaker
um working around the same town by the end of that you know where you're going to college if you're going to college or you're going to go and work for your family's business and this is what and then you now you know you're married and now you've got kids and this is it and you're live here and i go look there's no problem with that in fact it's a wonderful life it's just not for me but it's like but i like i told you i was going to join the raf and fly jets until i took a gap year right and i just jumped into the unknown And I went to a place I didn't know.
00:59:55
Speaker
And I just, I've always been a yes, let's do that. And my wife's the same. It's like, why not? Let's go. And so I fell into modeling, which then fell into television, which then took me around the world, then got me to America and then brought me to Texas. And then it's become, you know, creating videos and telling stories. And it's just like, you've got to say yes.
01:00:17
Speaker
You know, my nephews would be like, you know, They'd be asking me questions. I go, well, where am I going to stay? I go, you figure it out when you get there. Like if you have to have every answer to every question you can think of before you go somewhere, you're never going to go. i said, you should buy a ticket is what you should do.
01:00:35
Speaker
And you should have a list of things you want to do. But as far as like land, figure it out. You're young, you could go backpacking. Like you said, you could be staying in dorms. you could And when you go backpacking, who are you going to meet?
01:00:47
Speaker
A whole bunch of people doing the exact same thing you're doing. And so now you're making friends with a bunch of adventurous people. And now you're going off on
Gap Year Advice and Singapore Stay
01:00:54
Speaker
adventures. And that's going to be like, I said to my kids, I said, look, you're going to take a gap year. You may not come back.
01:00:58
Speaker
right you know You might find a country, you decide, well I'm going to stay here for six months. Like I said, I went to Singapore for two weeks. I had a two-week trip planned. It went 11 years before I went.
01:01:10
Speaker
Isn't that just because, and it's like, you know, my wife's thing, this is her mantra that she tells the kids and anyone else goes, what's on the other side of fear? Everything you've ever wanted. to
01:01:24
Speaker
I love it. And it ah it reminds me of, um there's probably some people who say, use the word lucky when they describe your life.
Mantras and Opportunity
01:01:31
Speaker
And I don't claim this by any means because I've read it somewhere, but I wish I could remember where.
01:01:37
Speaker
And it said that luck is simply where preparation meets opportunity. That's the one. That's the one. And it's like, i I think about that a lot. So that's part of the reason for doing this podcast is, I want to put myself in a position. I want to learn how to do this. um So if an opportunity ever comes around, I'm prepared.
01:01:54
Speaker
You just go, I mean, you know, that's honestly, I used to call myself lucky a lot. And it was somebody else that I was doing some sort of interview or some talk. like um I can't remember who it was, but they are the one that taught me that they said, no, Ollie, you're not lucky.
01:02:08
Speaker
Luck is just preparation and opportunity. And was like, It was a very freeing thing, actually, because I guess I hadn't given myself any credit. I go, well, I guess I'm just you.
01:02:20
Speaker
And they're like, no, Ollie, you work very hard at what you do and you're very good at doing TV and you get these jobs because of these reasons, but also because you go, yeah, I'm always like, yeah, I'm up for it. Well,
Life in Singapore vs. Texas
01:02:31
Speaker
let's go for it. I mean, we moved to America.
01:02:34
Speaker
My wife and I were the husband wife couple. We were like big TV celebrities. We were like front rows of fashion, you know fashion week. We like Gucci would send us Christmas presents. We like just free stuff and any event. I didn't pay for a glass of champagne for over a decade.
01:02:49
Speaker
um You know, you're just meaning like, oh, wow, like like big celebrities would come in and up doing the Formula One and she's interviewing Lewis Hamilton and I'm, you know, I'm in the Red Bull pits, all this kind of stuff. Right. what What a life. But Singapore is like the most expensive place in the world to live in with foreigners that my wife figured out that she brought brought the past piece of paper to me basically.
01:03:08
Speaker
We are, you know, a quarter million dollars is zero. That's where we start. If once we've made a quarter million dollars, we're at zero. Right. And then everything else is up. So I was like, we always wanted a home.
01:03:19
Speaker
We wanted a place to live. And so we were like subsistence celebrities. We made we made enough money but to to live a life and live in Singapore, but we're paying rent. The kids kindergarten was 60 grand for two kids.
01:03:33
Speaker
A Toyota Prius brand new off the lot in Singapore $150,000 because you have to pay for 110 grand for permission to buy a car. If I want to buy an apartment, it's $5 million, 20% down. If I want a house, it's $20 million, 20% down. I'm like, where am I going to get that kind of money? right We moved to Texas 11 years ago and bought a house with 2.6 acres for less than a Toyota Prius cost.
01:03:58
Speaker
Isn't it just wild? Yeah. So like, you know, because I wanted my kids to grow up in a house. And this is... My wife and i live in like a dream house. Like, it's just... It's a lovely little... It's a little... It's just...
01:04:10
Speaker
but it's got culture, it's got character, it's got a wraparound porch, it's on a back road, off a back road, off a back road. It's got trees, it's got land, I've got a long drive where you can't even see my house from the road.
01:04:24
Speaker
And it's kind of like the Texas version of where I grew up in the UK. My wife finally got it when we went to the UK. She's like, this is where you grew up in a house? like I go, yeah, it's kind of in the country. And like, I know, she goes, I thought you were a city boy. And I go, I mean, I get it.
01:04:36
Speaker
I'm born in Hong Kong and we met in Singapore and I'm very good in cities. But actually, I grew up in the English countryside. And so this is actually a lot more a lot more my vibe. And so it's just I could still be in Singapore now. A lot of my friends still are. They're still working in the industry. And I would be I would still be working TV shows. I would be traveling the world, but I wouldn't have anything to show for it.
01:04:59
Speaker
Right. Where it's like here, it's like, no, well here I've got a family and I've got a home. Right. you know A place to come home to every night. you yeah yeah Yeah. Yeah.
Quick Move to America
01:05:08
Speaker
But we made this decision to move at the peak of our career.
01:05:12
Speaker
And we made the decision in 30 seconds flat and we were out of the country in five weeks. Isn't that amazing. We liquidated in our lives. And like I say we, but we made the decision. It was to do an an insurance thing about like, um,
01:05:25
Speaker
So my son's on the spectrum and like, you'd never know now. He's like, he's crushing everything right now. Just crushing life. I'm so proud of him. But he was pretty like, he had a lot, of it took a lot to get him there and he worked really hard, but as a kid, and it just, we found out it wasn't going to cover anything.
01:05:41
Speaker
And basically if we figured out that the plan had been to move in April and this was in December and we're like, if we move in the next four weeks, we'll save $70,000. Right.
01:05:53
Speaker
So we just went, so we came out of a meeting, we looked at each other and so I guess we're moving to America? Yep. Right. And I was like, well, okay, baby, um I'm off for four weeks of overseas shooting because I had three TV shows to go and do. So I was gone.
01:06:06
Speaker
I come back and she has either sold or packed up everything in our house and shipped it by herself. She is a wonder woman. that woman That's amazing. um But that's what we did. And then we we just leapt.
01:06:17
Speaker
I mean, honestly, the first nine months, I didn't even still have my green card. It took 18 months to get my green card. So I spent nine months living in Texas, working in Singapore. I still was doing my TV shows. So I was flying every 10 days or so, 33 hours each way um to Singapore and back
Life Changes Due to COVID
01:06:33
Speaker
just to work. And it was was saving us... It saved us $19,000 a month doing that. just to I commuted from Texas to Singapore. Right. How many people can say that? Yeah. That's wild, right? I don't know. Honestly, I sometimes...
01:06:47
Speaker
i We tell our stories and then when I start actually listening to myself and I go, are we out of our minds? You know, like in retrospect, like, are we crazy? And I'm like, well, maybe. Maybe, you know maybe. it's not it's It's definitely not been boring, I'll tell you that much.
01:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, I've got currently an 11 minute commute door to door on my bicycle, which is very un-Texan of me to ride yeah to ride a bicycle to work. I think my easiest commute ever was COVID because my my show was very, right this minute, we saw the writing on the wall. We shut down, i remember, Friday the 13th, March 13th, 2022, 2020. When was COVID?
01:07:23
Speaker
twenty twenty right yeah really yeah Yeah. So, um but we were back up and running within two weeks. In fact, all the equipment I'm talking to you on camera, laptop, screen, I've got all this. This is how we made the TV show with this.
01:07:36
Speaker
And I even had a little green screen that I could pull up, right? get this all All this kind of stuff. But we we did the the show lasted the whole of COVID. So we were back up and running before most shows even shut down the first time.
01:07:47
Speaker
And then they shut down and they couldn't figure it out. We figured out how the show to be almost exactly the same but we're doing it through, we even get more efficient. So it went from being seven hours of production to two hours of production. So I'm only working two hours a day. And my commute was in like comfy pants, walking up the stairs the to the spare bedroom, making my TV show and then coming downstairs and hanging out with the family. And honestly, like,
01:08:09
Speaker
Like we were so lucky during COVID because we actually like each other as a family. And my children were like, you know, 13, 14 could be a troubling time. And we sat them down right at the beginning of COVID that day, March 13th. And we briefed them.
01:08:22
Speaker
And we said, all right, guys, anyone that says you're going back school in six weeks lying. So there's going to be a vaccine in about 18 months. Well, how do we know? Because of every pandemic in history. We just took the history of the Spanish flu from the early nineteen hundreds ago This is what's going to happen.
01:08:36
Speaker
Things will probably get back to normal in about two years. And the way I explained it to them was we just watched Lost in Space on Netflix. You know, so it's a family on a spaceship. And it's like the whole point of the show in a way is that everyone on that ship has someone to bring, something to bring to the table.
01:08:51
Speaker
And I said, guys, we're on the spaceship Pettigrew right now. And every single one of us, every single one of us has something to bring. And so we're going to help each other. We're going to respect each other. Like we're going to learn from each other.
01:09:03
Speaker
And, that you know, fast forward two years, two years of COVID with two teenagers in the house, right? Not one raised voice, not one slammed door, not one argument, not one fight, nothing.
01:09:15
Speaker
Just beautiful. Just amazing children. At the end of COVID, was guys, I mean, I brag about them all the time, like about this, but i was like, guys, like just from... I couldn't have done it as a teenager. I was terrible. Why do you think I was in boarding school?
01:09:27
Speaker
Right, right. From me to you, from a dad to my children, thank you so much. You you guys crushed it. I love that. Yeah, my wife and I are both in education. So our commute was, yeah, one to the office, one to the dining room, so we could teach virtually.
01:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, oh that must have been tough, man. it was It was a challenge because both we're both in elementary school. Oh, yeah. We both were in elementary school. So, you mean you've got I was teaching third grade at the time, so eight-year-olds.
01:09:53
Speaker
You know, it's it's it was... Herding cats, mate. Oh, virtually, yeah yeah. It was really something, you know. I'm glad, you know, obviously, wish the pandemic didn't happen, blah, blah, blah.
01:10:04
Speaker
But it was an experience, you know. So it's something that we look back on as a family and go, man, I get, like you said, did we really do that? Yeah, what a wild time to think about. And, you know, just the kids every now again and again bring it up and just like, yeah, remember?
01:10:17
Speaker
Remember when we stayed inside for 18 months? I'm like, yeah, man, wild. And things that seemed normal, I guess, rapidly, they were normal. You know, like the way we would shop and the way we would do things.
01:10:29
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's like the way you adapt. Exactly, you adapt. yeah it's the way It's the way you see people going about everyday life, you know, like in war zones and stuff. It's like, right, I'm going to go shopping, going to dodge the sniper.
01:10:40
Speaker
It's like human beings are very adaptable people. And it's crazy what a sort of a new normal can be. And it's like, sometimes it seems like the world's moving so quickly. And I think, you know, sometimes it feels like it's not changing at all. it's It's wild.
01:10:53
Speaker
We had and a chap at our school, the last elementary school that I worked in. And this sounds like ah a sort of sordid or weird story, but it's got a lovely ending. There was a guy, taking and we didn't know who he was, and he was taking pictures of kids as they were leaving school.
01:11:08
Speaker
Right. And a teacher came in and found me and said, would you go talk to this guy? Because that's creepy behavior. That sounds weird. We're not doing that, you know. So I went outside and spoke to the guy. and yeah it almost makes me choke up sort of talking about it he was a him and his family were refugees from ukraine and he's like look he's like i forgot that you can't do this he said i'm just sending pictures back to my family showing them my kids are safe and look at this wonderful safe place they can walk outside they can actually walk out of the building and we can walk home together and i just wanted to show my parents that my kids are safe
01:11:47
Speaker
And I was like, oh, ripped my heart out. He's like, of course, let me, I'm going to show you, I'm going to delete the pictures now. You know, and the pictures were all of his kids with other kids in the background. There was nothing sordid or weird about it.
01:12:00
Speaker
But it was like, it's amazing the things you take for granted. yeah well I mean, I think yeah that's another part of what travel taught me. Is that, you know, i have, like said, you know, at the beginning when we're talking how we all have so much in common is that there are people when you don't leave anywhere, you never leave your town or you never leave your country, you can you can just lose any kind of sympathy, empathy or understanding for other people and their
Cultural Understanding Through Travel
01:12:24
Speaker
way of life. And it's only when you sort of travel and you realize, oh, just because someone is Muslim does not mean they want you to die.
01:12:30
Speaker
you know, Hindu doesn't mean anything from a different country. Like I said, these people are just that just like you. And they're human beings, you know, and it's like it does. It's like the demonization of the other is something that, um you know, like but I've always been the other.
01:12:46
Speaker
You know, when I was in Hong Kong growing up, you know, everyone around me looked different from me when I was around the city. Right. And then I'm in England. Well, I'm the other because I'm the kid from Hong Kong.
01:12:57
Speaker
You know, Singapore, right I'm an expat, I'm an immigrant. Here, I've been an immigrant. i've like I've spent more of my life as an immigrant in other places than anything else. And so, you know, that's the thing is that, you know, the one thing I didn't like, you know, I didn't like in Singapore when people would say this, and, you know, honestly, people don't really say it here in the States, very rare. It was more common in Asia, but it still is implied a lot that they go, you know, i say, well, I'm an immigrant. They go, yeah, but you're one the good ones.
01:13:25
Speaker
And I'm just like, you know, to be quite honest, what they're saying is you're a white guy. And then they're they meant the same in Singapore. You know, honestly, it was so bonkers to me that the Singaporean Chinese were most like racist towards the Chinese Chinese.
01:13:39
Speaker
The mainland Chinese is ones that they would, they just and like say, no, no, you're cool. You've got, you're, you're right. I'm like, no, well, but I just don't, that's not my mindset. You know, I'm, right I'm always like, like said, I've always been in the other, I've been around the other my whole life. and But another part of what I say is that when you do move to a country or a place,
01:13:58
Speaker
that you have to embrace it and become a part of it. Don't try, like it's nothing that drives me crazier than when I see like protests from ah immigrant communities in a country going, this country shouldn't do this. Well, hang on.
01:14:16
Speaker
You came to this country, this is how the country works, deal with it. That's why you came. No, we're not we're not going to cater to to this because you brought, no, no, no.
01:14:27
Speaker
And that's maybe the most controversial thinking or that I have, because I'm a pretty open guy. But like, you know, when I moved to Singapore, We learn the culture and the people and the the language and the food. And then we moved to Arizona and we got into the lifestyle and the camping. When I came to Texas, I'm like, like I said, I'm like a walking Texas like history book now. Right. Like look at how I'm dressed. Right. And I drive the pickup truck and I've got a blue heeler and I've got a shotgun and I live in the country. And I was like, no, man, I lean. youve got to lean into it.
01:14:57
Speaker
You know, you've got to learn from the cultures that you live in, because that's that's what's so wonderful about the world is that the variety of it all. It's you remind me, and you probably if you've only heard of him, you may well have read, you know, Bill Bryson, the author. Yes, Bill Bryson. I've read a couple of his books. Yeah. yeah And he he's talks in one of his books. I forget. I've read.
01:15:16
Speaker
I love his work. i've read all those books. I forget which one it is. He talks a lot about kind of being stuck in the middle because he was raised in Iowa. His dad was a baseball reporter.
01:15:27
Speaker
So he, were you know, the most American of American pastimes, he went from baseball stadium to baseball stadium. You know, his core childhood memories are riding his bicycle around Des Moines, Iowa.
01:15:37
Speaker
Yet he moved to the UK when I think he was 20 or 21. So like he bought his first house, his first home repairs, all this kind of stuff he does in in a British way. So he uses the British words for things because, you know, stuff like yeah household repairs, when you learn the terminology for the stuff under a sink, he learned those as an English guy because that was his dad's responsibilities when he was growing up. So he didn't learn that those like that language.
01:16:07
Speaker
And so he's he's always felt like a hybrid of both.
Accents and Cultural Identity
01:16:11
Speaker
Yeah, which is the funniest thing to me now. i i I often say is there are certain words that are pronounced American or British, right? You know, I mean, like adversary, adversary, things like that.
01:16:21
Speaker
I cannot remember. Which is which? yep Yep. So like, so it's like, I genuinely can't. People ask me, go, I don't know. You know, this is what I say now. And then I talk to my brothers and they're like why are you saying it like that? And i go, oh, shit.
01:16:37
Speaker
yeah So it's like, if I ever move back to the UK, I don't think I ever will. But if I did, right i people are just for the longest time and going to be like, where are you from, man? i go Yeah, you're that American guy. We'll be the next thing. yeah I mean, I've got the hard R's now.
01:16:52
Speaker
Like R. Right. Like if i'm not if I get lazy. And my wife hates it. She's like, man, I'm already a British person. um like so But I used to have such a posh British accent because I was a British boarding school. We played rugby quite literally against Prince William. You know what i mean? I was on the sidelines.
01:17:07
Speaker
I was like, well played, sire. Good tackle, mate. And then I saw the the security guys looking at me and I go, I'm going to go that way. That's right. so but a bow out of this but But quite literally, like i said, Prince William would come and play rugby at our school. And so, you know, I used to, I, if I,
01:17:21
Speaker
If I concentrate, I think I can get my English accent back. It was very English. Isn't it funny? But it's like, but I just think my accent is just reflective of my life, you know. And there's something beautiful about that, I think.
01:17:33
Speaker
yeah and And the way I see it, you know, I'm on a couple of... like british people in texas or the u.s facebook pages and man swear nothing really grinds my gear in a very shallow way this is not a serious thing at all that people going oh that's the way americans say it oh i hate the word soccer because that's an american thing but of course if you look in the entomology into all the word yeah right war yeah i i did a video about it yeah it's all the same especially association of football yeah Right. yes Otherwise it would have been ass. So they were yeah sort of the next three letters.
01:18:09
Speaker
So let's go with sock. It would an asser. Could you imagine that? Let's go play some asser. So soccer sounds better. But yeah, I've forgotten so much. Tiresome, I think, like aluminium and aluminum. I'll never give up aluminium, though. That is the hill I die on.
01:18:25
Speaker
no they are spelled they are spelled differently. Yeah. yeah and then aluminum did come from the uk as well but yeah it's aluminium it always will be yeah that's the one but i say pants instead of trousers i said you said you've had me say college you know all these kind of things and like you throw out a z earlier you maybe didn't realize it yes oh yeah yeah i do too yeah yeah and it's and and then something the things that sometimes i lie awake thinking about is like is it me or is it the fact the world is now so small because even my sisters and things back home they swear that kids these days like kids these days young kids will have almost american accents in the uk because they're being raised on tick tock or this yeah i i talked about that very thing to my daughter once and i was talking about the homogenization of society with yeah you know with the prevalence of the internet and social media and she's like what do you mean i go man when i was a kid you could have spot a french kid
01:19:21
Speaker
by their haircut and the the the way they dress, right? And the way Germans dress. And like, you know, so you, I explained to them, i said your country's culture was all you grew up in. And if you were in a country and you only lived in that town, that town was all of the culture that you got.
01:19:37
Speaker
Now you got access to certain things by watching BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, Channel Four. You know, and we'd watch Michael Palin travel the world, but every country he went to, and he's in Sudan, it looks a certain way. He's in Egypt, they dress a certain way.
01:19:49
Speaker
Like, you know, everything in Korea and Japan, everything's so different. Whereas now they're seeing, you know, my daughter is fans of all these K-pop people, right? I was just thinking of K-pop, yeah. And it's like, so you've got this vibe and the music that there's like people all around the world, because again, music would be regional.
01:20:06
Speaker
And so, you know, back when people wouldn't, it was so hard for British acts to cross over, you know, to the States, they didn't like it. um they They rejected Robbie Williams. They rejected differently, you know, but the Beatles did it. um And it's again, so you'd be in France and they'd have this whole sort of like, oh, you know, they've got French rap and all this kind of stuff. But now you've got global Beyonce's, you've got Taylor Swift's. And it's like, the in it's much like you said, is that that is something I find a little sad is that,
01:20:33
Speaker
the The homogenization of of society means that when I go to a place, it's a little less its place and it's a little more global, which is a good thing and a bad thing. Ups and downs.
Digital Age Exploration
01:20:46
Speaker
You bring that up.
01:20:47
Speaker
This is almost going full circle back to our pre-recording conversation about this um book and TV show about the first Overland and the last Overland. And again, I'm not claiming this because I've read it somewhere, but it's really the the era of being able to explore somewhere completely new is gone. Yeah, the frontier. Yes. Yeah, there is no final frontier anymore because everywhere is is a click of a mouse away.
01:21:11
Speaker
And that's a beautiful thing in so many ways and we're well-rounded. But. It's like it's like all of these and it's yeah all of these incredible places that you had to sort of buy a guidebook.
01:21:22
Speaker
ah to know about. And then you go to a country and you'd be there and you'd hear about it and you'd know, oh I know how to get there. And now it's like, it's now it's Instagrammable. And it's like, you go to these places that used to be secret or you used to have to put the effort in to find and you turn up now, like you see these videos of these, like, it's just a line of people waiting to take their Instagram picture.
01:21:44
Speaker
Right. And just to post it. And I'm like, oh, man, like I said, you know, we I so you and I are part of this micro generation that I think is one of the like i we're called Xennials. And it's like we were raised Gen X, but we speak fluent millennial.
01:21:58
Speaker
And so we are the crossover generation. We played Pong. I was at a Commodore 64. We were at the beginning of the computers and the internet. But then the internet was a thing by the time we're going through college. And then, you know, we had the first cell phones and everything.
01:22:12
Speaker
So like we came, we were analog kids that became digital on the way. Like millennials were like digital kids. from you know from what they can like you know they were pretty much digital and i think it's kind of like it's the last sort of best of it i think because i there was still there was still adventure it was still weird you know to come to go to a country like when i was 12 and going to hong kong or going to france the south of france or spain and stuff like that and it's still there i mean it's still wonderful and travel is an amazing thing but
01:22:44
Speaker
you know hearing my dad's adventures in hong kong you know in the 70s before there was like tunnels and stuff and if you got trapped on the island if you left missed the last car ferry or listening to my my grandfather like he did a bunch of recordings for the imperial war museum and then we've actually he wrote a memoir that ah my uncles and my cousin worked on and sent to every member of the family it's him it's called it it seemed very ordinary it's called And it's him at the ages of 18 to 25 on the Northwest frontier and in India, just serving you know as as an officer and how long it took to go through the Red Sea and all the way around and having to turn the ship sideways and open all the doors to vent it and turning up in India and it just being all very interesting and strange and
Family Adventure Legacy
01:23:27
Speaker
adventurous. And it's so cool reading that book. And sometimes he's saying words that I've said myself and just going, oh man, it's just like, it's so cool to be, you know, this family, we have such an adventurous spirit.
01:23:38
Speaker
I love that. And just to to see it go down from generation to generation to generation and see my children sort of having the same adventurous spirit as well is really cool. um But it's like, yeah, just reading those, what a time, you know, back then, you know, you need you send a letter, it'll take six weeks. If you need to travel home, it'll take two months.
01:23:57
Speaker
You know, you can't just jump on a plane and do it and you just had to go and see it. And I feel like I got a lot of that experience working in TV and going to these places and, you know, I'm in jungles, I'm in rainforests, I'm on the side of mountains, I'm...
01:24:13
Speaker
I'm just like going, wow, I can't believe I'm here doing this. How cool. You know? Yeah. Do you ever sometimes get that feeling? I feel like you do like this once in a while I'll go, I'm just ah i'm just a a wee boy from Glasgow.
01:24:25
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm here. Yeah. All the time. the Yeah. Even just fishing on the Gulf this past weekend. And it's like, oh, what a cool memory. Caught my first fish after 44 years. i caught a Spanish mackerel out on the ocean. Cool. Hick.
01:24:40
Speaker
thick You know what mean? Take that on the box of things that I've done in my life. Right. It's like, I was going to like last week, my truck died. He's come back. The Texas was very invested. Steve, the truck.
01:24:52
Speaker
It's on my, it's on my list of last things to ask you is how Steve he is. Steve is doing great. um he He had a terminal diagnosis, but actually came back from the brink. He's not giving up. He's a Toyota.
01:25:03
Speaker
right um So he's back up and running. But it happened the day before I was planning on, i just was getting the jitters of, I'm going to go. And my wife, Zen, she's like, where are don't know. I'm either going to drive that way to Amarillo I'm going to drive that way to Caddo and I'm going to see what I can get into and I'll find a place to stay and I'll see how many days I'm gone.
01:25:22
Speaker
And, you know, then the truck died and so I've had to deal with all that. But it's just sometimes I get that that sort of thing and I go, all right, well, what are you going to I'm just going to drive on this road and see where it goes. And then I'm going to take a turn and see where that goes.
01:25:34
Speaker
And by the time I get tired, I'm either going to sleep in the truck or I'm going to find a little motel. And it's like, you know, it's definitely the the privilege of being like a man. yeah you know, and 44, like, I don't care if I sleep in some shitty little place, you know, like on and the side of this road in El Paso, which I have done, cost $30 for a reason, but it's like, right I'm fine.
01:25:53
Speaker
You know, I can make it through this. Would I ask my daughter to do the same thing? No. Not a chance. yeah so I would like, no, baby, you're going to spend a little bit extra money and you're going to go into the city and you'll be much better. But it's, that's just, I always have that sense of adventure. And the best thing I think with my wife and I is that so does she.
01:26:10
Speaker
Isn't that perfect? See, my wife is not, she's more of a homebody, but what we've discovered is a perfect blend of things we can do together. and it And it actually brings out the best in both of us. um Your story kind of reminds me of, you comedian Craig Ferguson, Scottish guy, of course, but been here for decades.
01:26:27
Speaker
But he said that he used to, when he first moved here, really, you know, started getting work. I think he moved and failed, quote unquote, into the States twice. um had to go back penniless back to glasgow made it the third time and then he would always build he had to go back from l.a. to new york a lot doing one but built into his schedule whenever he could to drive it and he would always take a different route and he o made a policy to not stop and refuel um within 10 miles of the highway
01:26:58
Speaker
Oh, cool. Because he just, he was like, I'm going to see these different places. So don't just pull off and back on 10 miles off, 10 miles back on. That's cool. Which I love that. that's That's kind of like, you know, it's amazing how many times I go to a place or do a story about Texas and Texans are like, I had no idea.
01:27:16
Speaker
I live 30 minutes from this place my entire life, never heard of it. And I'm like, yeah cool is like the just start driving on farm to market routes you know take lunch i've got a video coming next week you know talking about this very thing because i had a meeting down in burnett so i drove 100 miles to take a meeting and drove 100 miles back just taking country roads say that to a british take tell that to me like even like 10 years ago what are out of your mind right and now it's like no no and like i used to be driving on the motorway at 120 miles an hour and get my journey done as quick as possible whereas now i'm like no no
01:27:48
Speaker
taking farm to market roads i'm gonna tootle along at 60 miles an hour and see what i can find and just have a nice drive and it's just we did that uh two years my wife's from new jersey and we're sat in this times we'll fly it but the the the negative thing about being a teacher is the salary the pro is we have time off in the summer So a couple of times we've you know we've driven up and two or three times we've just gone a to B, it's 20 hours.
01:28:13
Speaker
But the last time we drove up, we took a week getting there and we drove a completely different route. And one of my favorite memories is we went i be way off the beaten track. Again, this farm road in the middle of nowhere.
01:28:25
Speaker
And it was where, I'm going to get the states wrong, Michigan, Ohio, and Michigan. What was the other state? Indiana, I believe. yes, well done. The only place where the three of them meet.
01:28:36
Speaker
And it is this, I mean, the tiniest of tiny country roads, and there's just a little stone plaque in the middle of the road. Oh, we did the This is where the three meet. It's at four corners. Yeah, yeah, but I've done the four corners. It's like that.
01:28:49
Speaker
But like there's nothing that a GPS didn't work. We went down the wrong road. We used to park the car and just walk up and down the road and look for this square. And we found it. And so we took a picture of the two of us in three states, as you do.
01:29:02
Speaker
you have to do that. And it's like, that's one of my favorite memories. like it was We did the same thing. We were driving to Colorado for July 4th. And we had to go, of course, you're going through, um I want to say, It's native land. I was going to say Navajo, but I don't want to commit to it. But it was native land. And then Four Corners is right in the middle of it, where you've got Colorado and Arizona and the other two. I forget. New Mexico and one other one.
01:29:23
Speaker
And I remember my son just like going, i mean i mean you know I'm in Arizona. I'm in New Mexico. i mean It was just a fun, but they made it like a stop and it's got like stores and stuff. So it's kind of fun to me that that one is like, no, you've got to find it.
01:29:35
Speaker
yeah Exactly. I've been when I did the Four Corners, I was so disappointed because it was I think it was an early Sunday morning and and there was all the little stalls, but there was nobody there. Yeah, because it was too it was it was empty.
01:29:47
Speaker
But yeah, this one is it's the same, but completely different because you like the rose line in Paris, those little markers. My son was really interested in finding those when we were in Paris. Yeah, I love that stuff that's kind of hidden in plain sight. My son is obsessed with history. He loves history. Like, that's the coolest thing. He spends a lot of time online, but he's like he's a creator himself. He's got his own monetized YouTube channel.
01:30:08
Speaker
Like, is you'd know he would know he wouldn't say two words to people, but he produces hour-long videos where he's doing all the voiceovers and stuff. but Whenever I'm next to him, he's watching just history and learning history and doing all this cool stuff and interesting facts.
Cultural Exchange Through Media
01:30:21
Speaker
And he's like, comes in, goes, dad, did you know this? I i had no idea.
01:30:24
Speaker
I mean, something we did, like, I know we' got we've been going long, but I'll tell you one last cool story. yeah This is my a tip that I give to people who have got kids. um It's something we used to do during the pandemic, but we started doing cultural exchange days.
01:30:37
Speaker
So we would sit down on the sofa on a Saturday afternoon and we would all connect our phones to YouTube and we would just show videos. So to start with, like my my wife and I were showing like, all right, guys, we're going to show you like back when we were kids, MTV showed music.
01:30:54
Speaker
And so you'd sit around all day and watch music videos. And I know you can do that on i on ah um you know YouTube now. But like said, You know, we were going, but we'd start playing like, oh, this is Madonna and this is, you know, like Guns N' and Roses. And then our daughter was like, okay, well, this is a K-pop band I like. And we're like, okay. And then we're like, oh, these guys are cool. And so we start learning about her K-pop bands. And then my daughter, like, she's like really into things like the Deftones and things like, she likes all this old school music.
01:31:19
Speaker
And then my son was trying to put these videos, like these Minecraft videos. And we're like, okay, buddy. But there were this, like, he teed up this video. It was like, like an hour long, 45 minutes long. Like, no, no, buddy, buddy. Like something like, like five minutes long, something like, i you know, so eventually, like after a couple of laps, like, all right, buddy. Okay. Bang it on.
01:31:38
Speaker
All right, cool. Watch your 45 minute video. All right, we're going to do it. but Just afterwards, you get it. All right. So we sit down. It's this channel called Oversimplified. It's an animated history channel that tells the whole everything, the Napoleonic War, the Pig War, the American lake Civil War, um just, I mean, everything. Waterloo, you name it, right? It's done animated It's done quite quickly, but it's very good.
01:32:02
Speaker
It's very well done. It's very informative and it takes you through all of it. It's just oversimplified in a way, but it's got this sort of sense of humor to it. We watched that one and we're like, all of us, that's great. Put another one on.
01:32:14
Speaker
Right. That's great. We did six hours of just watching Oversimplified. We've now watched every single video on that YouTube channel. It takes nine months for a video to come out. So we're all now eagerly awaiting this next one to land.
01:32:27
Speaker
But it's like, but that's what I mean is that we did this cultural exchange and like, no, we listened to my son. He's like, no, trust me, we did. He was right. And it's like, so sit down with your kids. If you've got, you know, you've got kids, sit down, take like, all right, guys,
01:32:39
Speaker
You know, get some snacks and popcorn. Everyone log in to on your phones to YouTube. Everyone gets a video. Everyone gets a video. And you'd be surprised where you all end up because it really helped us connect as a family and learn from each other.
01:32:52
Speaker
That's a beautiful, beautiful thing. I love it. Well, I've got three quick questions to ask you. I could sit and talk to you for hours and I hope we can do this again. yeah we going to ask you three quick questions as we wrap this up.
Dream of Visiting USS Enterprise
01:33:03
Speaker
um If you could visit a fictional place, what place might it be? Wow. gonna cast you off guard here no i'd say you know honestly let's say okay i know the answer because my wife and i say this is what we kind of want it's sort of quasi-fictional but yeah no visit a place honestly i would actually want to visit the uss enterprise i would like to live in space on a ship that goes to find new things
01:33:34
Speaker
You know, that's love that that's what I would want do. And like I'd also like to live in that society, a, you know, post scarcity society with holodecks and, you know, all that kind of stuff. But my wife and I love Star Trek. We love Lower Decks. The animated one is so fun and so funny. And it just, it treats Star Trek with such reverence at the same time.
01:33:54
Speaker
So that's, ah yeah, that's that's kind of what I would do is actually, i would I would bounce into that crazy future and I would live on that spaceship and I would go in on adventures and see the world. The universe. That is one of the best answers I've had. I love it.
01:34:06
Speaker
um All right. You've just won $10,000, but no adulting is allowed. You're not allowed to pay bills, put it in the kids' college fund, and all that stuff. None of that stuff. got to do something that qualifies as fun.
01:34:19
Speaker
What are doing with that $10,000? I was like, $10,000 isn't quite enough to do what I would want to. I bet. Yeah, no, because, like, honestly, the first time I ever have any play money ever in my life that what I want to do is buy the Trans Am from Smokey and the Bandit.
01:34:33
Speaker
I love it. It's just... You'll know, or I've always said like, or, well, you'll know when I've won the lottery because I'm suddenly going to have all these cool cars from movies and TV shows. But I've always said I want to buy the 1976 Dodge Charger from Dukes of Hazzard.
01:34:49
Speaker
yeah But, you know, instead of having the Confederate flag on top, I was going to put the British flag. yeah And instead of calling it the General Lee, I'm going to call it the General Lee. The General Lee. that has if i ever win the lottery i'm helping you with that yeah i would just like i mean just turning up at car shows with the generally the general boys wanted to do that but um god no ah no adulting 10 grand uh you know what i do i'd um go and get my uh skydiving license i've always wanted to learn to really to be like not just jumping out of planes but how to jump out of planes properly so i'd go to skydiving yeah right but yeah the landing that's the important part right or
01:35:29
Speaker
or I'm not sure if 10 grand's enough, um it'll be my pilot's license. You know, it's, that's, it's weird. That's come up more and more in my life recently. like um A friend of mine's daughter is doing it.
01:35:41
Speaker
And then the university where I work, they just opened a ah program to get your pilot's license and set through the university. milling said It's becoming a thing. i wanted to be a fast jet pilot, you know, so I've been flying. um I've been lucky enough that, you know, I've been up in a,
01:35:55
Speaker
um acrobatic biplanes. I went in in a Red Bull Air Race plane with a Red Bull Air Race pilot and he just threw me around the sky for 15 minutes. Best time my life. He's like, you sure you want me to keep going? Because everyone else is sick. And I go, no, man, do is whatever you want. um And then I was really lucky once that I got to fly my friend Christiane, one of my co-hosts from Right This Minute.
01:36:13
Speaker
She learned how to fly. She had a friend who used to be an F-16 pilot that's got a ah World War II Stearman biplane. And he took me up and he let me fly it. But he also, he goes, hey man, want to do a barrel roll?
01:36:23
Speaker
I'm like, yeah. Yeah, you do. And so he's got cameras set up and everything. And I've got this, one of my favorite pictures in the world is I'm upside down. I'm flying upside down in a World War II biplane, looking up at the ground with the biggest smile on my face, just getting the best. I love it.
01:36:36
Speaker
It's one of those things that sounds absolutely terrifying, but in the moment you've got to, you got send it. You got to go all in. Oh, absolutely. it's But that's what I've been saying. how If you, adventure is all about saying Yes.
01:36:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. The only thing more terrifying than that stuff to me is the having the regret of not doing it. You know, that's exactly right. I don't want that regret. yeah Exactly. I don't like living in that that state of mind. So I never have. Yeah. Beautiful.
01:37:01
Speaker
Well, the last of these three questions, if you had to choose or what book, movie, piece of art, piece of music would you say has had a huge impact on your life and in what way?
Impact of 'Smokey and the Bandit'
01:37:15
Speaker
You know, funny enough, I joked about it like earlier. Yeah. Like just now about buying the the Smoking the Bandit car. But yeah it's, I talk about it a lot, is that everything, I'd say Smoking the Bandit in a way.
01:37:27
Speaker
Because um I kind of grew up American. by watching American movies. So it's like my, like my mom's like, you know, I've got like three boys, that's Simon, Chris, and this is Ollie. He was born American kind of thing. Like that kind of vibe of like, I've always just kind of had that American vibe.
01:37:45
Speaker
And so that was that one I just watched obsessively as a, as a kid. And, you know, like, living where I am. And i I came here and I bought my American V8 and it just sounds like a Corvette. And it's like, like I said, no joke, if I had the money, that's the first thing I do is I buy that car.
01:38:01
Speaker
And I've got the cowboy hat. I've got everything. Like I said, I just need the car. Right. um So I'd say, say that. But I would also say just like, my favorite book of all time is The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.
01:38:13
Speaker
It's a book in the middle ages about building a cathedral and it sounds like the most boring thing ever, but I tell you what, that's a really, really good book. All right. well I'm to write, I've got my little list of books to read. So that the pillar pillars of the earth, the pillars of the earth. I read it in two days. It is 1100 pages long. Wow. And I know that the way I described how good it was is I lived in Bath at the time. And this is like before cell phones were really yet cell phones, but you weren't scrolling. They weren't smartphones.
01:38:38
Speaker
Right. So I go to bed and i read a book. And I started this book and I read till about 1.30, 2 in the morning. And i'm like, okay, I've got to go to bed. Close the book, put it down, lay in bed for about half an hour thinking about the book, picked it up, read till seven in the morning till the sun came up and eventually like, okay, I've got to sleep.
01:38:53
Speaker
And the next day did exactly the same thing. I read that book in two full nights. I read through the night until the sun came up two days in a row to finish that book. And it's like I said, it's a book set in the dark ages about building a cathedral. It's called the Kingsbridge series. I actually just, the last two books I read were, uh,
01:39:09
Speaker
the third sequel and the prequel. so now there's five books. So this starts in 700 AD and it goes all the way to like 1780. um And it's set in this place called Kingsbridge, which is set near um Bristol.
01:39:21
Speaker
And it just tells the entire history of how Kingsbridge became Kingsbridge, how the cathedral was built, and then what happened in that town afterwards. Fantastic. historical love it it's one of my favorite like low-key euphoria is when you have a book you just can't put down yep like it's it's such a wonderful feeling yeah so that's the one i always recommend to people i go trust me it sounds ridiculous but it's brilliant i love it and my final question for you i feel sad almost bringing this to a close but where can people find you if they've enjoyed this podcast and like i want to connect with ollie where's the best place
01:39:53
Speaker
ah So you can find me on Facebook as Olly Pettigrew. ah You can find me everywhere else as that Englishman in Texas. And if you enjoy movies, you can also follow my movie podcast, The United States of a Movie, where every week we try to find one movie to define each ah state in the United States. We've done one trip around the States. we're currently on our second. It's a lot of fun.
01:40:12
Speaker
And we're watching a lot of bonkers fun movies. So if you're a cinephile, come along. And it's also, if you like crap movies, come along because we watched a lot of those ones too. Well, I'll stick a link to that stuff when we post this podcast.
01:40:24
Speaker
But Ollie, I cannot thank you enough for your time. This has been a wonderful conversation. Yeah, it's been great. Honestly, if you want to come on United States of a movie, we'll pick a we'll pick a state and we'll see where we can do. All right. I'm in. Ollie, thank you so much for your time.
01:40:37
Speaker
My absolute pleasure. will We'll meet in the Londoner sometime. Done. ah
01:40:43
Speaker
Thank you again to this week's guest and I hope today's episode was as enjoyable for you as it was for me and perhaps even inspired your next adventure. If you did enjoy the show, please be sure to subscribe, leave a review or follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
01:41:00
Speaker
You can find more information at theoutdoorsyeducator.com or follow us on Instagram, TikTok or Facebook. Until next time, thank you so much for listening to The Outdoorsy Educator Podcast.