I've got any new jobs like since last week?
No.
You neither?
No, couldn't find any.
It's just it's actually been my dream to work here.
Oh, why would you want that?
You think you could do a better job than us?
Well, like you have a job trying to give jobs to people with no jobs.
Do you know how hard it is to find jobs in this town?
I do because I'm here at the job office.
I don't have a job.
Yeah.
Like I got a job giving jobs.
Also, you wouldn't want this job.
You realize how bleak it is out there for the likes of you then.
But like who gives you your job?
Maybe I could be like above you.
Shay.
Wow.
You want to manage a Shay's job?
Yeah.
I don't like Shay.
Maybe it's good work.
Yeah.
He's very good at his job.
He is very good at his job.
He found us jobs.
Good.
Yeah.
Well, who gives him his jobs?
I've never met the big boy on top.
Yeah.
Don't even know who it is.
It must just be jobs all the way up.
Hold on.
We've been, I think we've been doing this wrong.
We've been looking for jobs.
Could we just be making jobs?
We've been giving jobs out.
Is that what Shay did?
Yeah.
We've been looking for existing jobs.
We could make jobs.
Oh, so you're saying instead of going to the newspaper, instead of going to the bracket,
instead of going to Grundles, instead of going to the fire station, we just start making
jobs here in the unemployment office.
It's work to be done.
Yeah.
If it's like work to give work, then give work, give in work.
Right.
Where would the money come from though for you?
I don't want to take it out of my pocket.
I can't afford it.
I've got so many bills.
Yeah.
We already cut back on lunches here to help out Terry with his bills.
I just, I mean, many bad investments.
Yeah.
Well, there must be a way around it because like...
No, no.
The bill collectors will come after you.
There's no way around the death.
Welcome.
Back to Dunbracken.
Oh yeah.
No, he's this one.
That one was released last year.
Yeah.
You thinking about it?
That, uh...
You say it's a sci-fi thriller?
Yeah.
I completed it already.
It's pretty good.
Wow.
Only took you a year?
No, no.
I completed that in like a day.
Oh, wow.
It's a quick read.
Quick read.
I'm looking for something a bit lengthier though.
I want something I can sink my teeth into, you know?
Yeah.
Is this a good cookery book over here?
Oh.
Yeah.
I could literally sink my teeth in.
Yeah.
You could probably read it in like a week or something.
I read that one in a day.
Pence.
I've got to try each and every...
If I buy a cookbook, I have to try each and every recipe in it or else how do I know it's
been worthwhile?
Oh, you try every single recipe?
Every single one.
Yeah.
Even if I'm allergic to something, I'll put it in.
Yeah.
Oh, that's...
Because we got to see what it's like originally.
And then the next time I make it, I won't put in the allergic thing.
Oh, right.
Right, yeah.
I'll put the nuts in one time, try it as it's supposed to be.
Yeah.
If I like it, then I'll...
Oh, yeah.
You got to follow the rules.
Yeah.
Then I'll find substitutes.
No, I do that too.
I do that too, yeah.
I actually...
I do it with all the ingredients both times.
Both times.
Whenever I cook them.
I do every meal twice.
Oh, wow.
You cook them twice?
That's cool.
That's reassuring yourself.
I trust my initial instinct, but that's good for you to do, I guess, a scientific study
almost.
Yeah, no.
I just want to be thorough.
I just think that sometimes it's like initial reactions are stronger and you should trust
your...
Literally your gut.
Yeah, maybe for you.
Yeah, that's quite brave of you.
Yeah.
No, I just...
I stick to the rules.
Yeah.
I've also stuck to the rules, I guess.
We're just interpreting them in different ways and I guess one would argue one's wrong,
but that's interesting.
Yeah, but I hear maybe you like that cookbook, yeah, sort of like for beginners.
So you've tried every recipe in this twice?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And every book in this series as well.
I've done the same thing.
Yeah.
Excuse me.
I was wondering, could I get a refund for this book, please?
Oh, it's too good for you, is it?
Too top of a read for you, this one, was it?
Well, it was a cookery book.
It's not particularly difficult to read, but 101 ways with chicken and it didn't turn out
very well.
I actually...
So how many ways with chicken did you try before you threw it in the tile?
Well, I did try all 101, but the problem is that I'm allergic to chicken, so I substituted
the chicken for beef.
That's where you went wrong, right off the bat.
You've got to try the chicken first off.
Who the fuck's allergic to chicken, by the way?
But it says...
What are you?
It says...
Excuse me.
Don't make fun of my allergies, but it says...
It seems like a choice.
It seems like a weak choice.
A weak choice.
It says 101 ways with chicken, a range of adaptable recipes.
Surely if you had 101 times with chicken, you'd be either dead or be fine by now.
Well, I think, Finneas, we're getting a bit off the subject here.
We're getting right onto the subject of why you're so weak-willed.
Yeah, let's get back to the subject of how you're too weak to finish your 100...
You only had 101 dishes of chicken, too.
There's only 101 in the book.
You didn't even do it twice over?
You tried everything once.
Well, that's a fair and understandable reaction, but...
The worst one, just to give you an example, was the lemon beef soup.
With chicken, yeah.
Well, no, it was lemon chicken soup, but by the time I was finished with it, it was lemon
beef soup.
Oh, so you've been substituting it right off the bat?
Well, yes, as I said, I'm allergic to chicken, so...
You haven't even been putting yourself through it, so that's your whole problem?
It said that the recipes were adaptable, so I thought, well, I'll take 101 ways with chicken
and make it 101 ways with beef.
Lemon doesn't go with beef?
Are you insane?
Are you insane right now?
Well, it said the recipes were adaptable, and you do...
Oh, yeah, let's just change out the main ingredient.
Let's change out the title of the book.
All right, beef potter, did you read that and replace every fucking...
Everyone worried in that with beef?
Beef?
The boy who beefed, eh?
Wingardium levi beefa?
It didn't come into the shop to be abused.
The half-blood beef, I tell you that one does make sense.
That would be a stink.
I'm ridiculed.
You came into the shop looking for a refund for...
On a book you completed.
Oh, no, yeah, you completed it wrong.
It has 101 chickens in the title, and you're saying that it's faulty because you cooked
it with beef.
It's 101 ways with chicken.
Exactly.
It's very clear, 101 ways with chicken.
Well, yes, but just the cow could have been called chicken.
Did it tell you that?
Was there an asterisk on this book?
Well, I didn't get...
You gotta read the asterisks.
Gotta read the asterisks.
Come on.
Well, no, that wasn't actually the case.
I'm just trying to like...
No, we understand.
You're trying to weasel your way out, you weak-willed fuck.
Right.
Don't you come into here.
You come into this bookshop looking for a refund.
When we've sold you a perfectly good book...
Perfectly good book.
You're a weak to follow through.
You're like those reviewers at Amazon who say, I didn't like this recipe with chicken
because I made it with beef.
Wait, no, that's you.
That's exactly what you did.
Sorry.
I'm sorry, but whatever happened to the customers always right?
Maybe finish the statement.
The customer's always right in views of taste.
This is literal taste.
I just think I'm going to have to go on to...
Finish the full statement.
I'm just going to have to go on and leave an online review for this bookshop.
Oh, you're going to leave an online review?
What are you going to say?
I changed every single...
I would like to say in person that I really very much think that both of you have behaved
disgracefully this afternoon abusing a customer who just simply comes in with an issue that
needs to be solved.
So I think I need to post a review online and just let other people know.
We never said we wouldn't give you the refund, sir.
It's certainly sounded as though you would have a problem with it.
We do have a problem with it.
Yeah, I have a big problem with it.
We have a huge problem, but we're honest bookmakers.
You didn't enjoy the book, we'll give you a refund.
We're just...
Bookmaker?
Did you make the book?
No, we did not, but we'd like to call her that.
It's just like the way a kingmaker calls himself a kingmaker.
It's just, you said bookmakers and I thought...
Because they make the king.
Not like the books that you read, probably say the beef maker.
I feel like we're getting off the subject here.
Can I get my refund?
Hang on, just let me write a review here.
Who am I?
Ha!
He just wrote beef over and over and over again.
I would have been happy with a store credit, but I now feel as though just like I would
like my money to go and spend...
We don't want you in our store.
I don't think I want to come back.
The way I've been treated, ridiculed.
Yep, taken the weak root.
My allergy.
Never gonna come back to...
Never gonna better yourself.
There's a full self-help section that you'll never see.
Is it any wonder this shop's empty?
I mean, this is the way you treat all your customers.
Jingling.
I wouldn't come in here if I was you.
Well, sorry, I was just looking for a refund for this book that I bought.
It's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but it's actually in French and I can't read French.
So I was hoping...
You haven't completed French yet?
Wow.
You think you're just going to forget the entire people's language?
You're just going to give up?
I just don't understand French.
It was just a simple mistake of a purchase.
There's no point in me trying to read it if I can't understand French.
There's no point in him even trying.
What a weak will.
There's no point in even trying.
Do you hear the words that just came out of his mind?
Really?
It's the same book in French, even though you don't read French.
I didn't know the word Frankenstein is...
Well, so you go and learn it.
It's the same in French as it is in English.
So you just sit there not making any challenges for your life.
You sit there wallowing through, just hoping that someday the Malayas will end.
What's Malays?
No idea.
Wait, hang on here.
So you're saying you haven't even read the dictionary?
I'm saying I'll leave out certain letters that I don't agree with.
Man, this man just makes up his own rules, taking the cheap way out.
I'm not sure I want to return my book to a store like this.
Do you like chicken?
Yeah, I really...
Would you like to exchange books?
No swaps.
Read the sign.
No swaps.
Read the sign.
Well, no, that swaps with you, but there's nothing to stop us swapping with each other.
If you want to swap, you write the book out again yourself.
Yeah.
What?
Sorry.
We could do this outside.
You want to swap?
I could swap you 100 ways with chicken with your French copy of Frankenstein.
Can you read French?
Yes, a little.
Oh, yeah, okay, that works.
But I would just really love to circle back.
You said if we want to swap books, we have to rewrite the whole book out ourselves.
Rewrite the whole book in front of us?
There's no shortcuts here.
I don't think that's enforceable.
Not if we go outside.
It's very enforceable.
It is in the parameters of these rules.
In the parameters of this bookshop, we can force what we want.
He does have a holster around his...
I think you just better start writing.
Here's your pens.
I don't know how to...
You know how it starts?
Jumepelle Frankenstein.
If I had a job, I wouldn't get my unemployment benefit.
Oh.
So then there'd be more money in this system.
Would you be willing to work for your unemployment benefit here?
So would I be unemployed or employed?
You'd be employed by us, but getting paid as your unemployment benefit.
That's £400 we give you would be your payslip.
No holidays.
Would I then have the authority to raise the benefit?
That would be Shay's domain, but you could plead your case, I suppose.
But if I could take Shay's job...
Oh yes, of course, you'd be working at Shay's job.
Well how will we get rid of Shay?
Because me and Terry, we don't like him.
Are you nice to be around?
Extremely.
What would your previous underlings have said about you?
I like to bring in donuts on Fridays.
Like to bring in donuts on Fridays?
How were you working previously?
It was in a different unemployment office.
Oh wow.
What happened there?
What happened?
Well, I had a dramatic breakup and I had to leave town.
I was banished.
Oh no.
That happens to us all really, doesn't it?
One way or another.
So many of us end up here.
Yeah, you get banished from one thing, a relationship, a town, a life, a job.
Running from debt.
Here I am, one town over, out of a job.
From as most things stop when you move the town, but the debt comes with the banishment.
It doesn't stop.
So I can take the job, maybe fire Shay and then raise my pay?
The thing is we would have to work out a way of getting rid of Shay, who is very good at
his job.
Would he be eligible for a banishment?
Maybe?
Oh, I didn't think of that.
We could look into his financials.
Or, what is it they say?
There's four things that can banish a person.
There's four things, of course.
We all know the four things that can banish a person.
It was debt.
Debt, yeah.
It was ruining a town function.
Ruining a town function?
Curse?
Curse.
Or like me, ending up on the wrong side of a breakup.
On the wrong side of a breakup.
And being run out of time.
Every breakup has a winner and a loser.
Of course.
The loser's banished.
And the winner stays.
They keep their friends.
Yeah, and it's how the town gets stronger, loses, leave forever.
That's why we have so many divorced men.
Why, is that, do you think, is that a judicial problem of bias in our system?
That the divorced men are winning?
No, I don't mean to speak bad of Dunbracken, but I think they lost.
Oh, so we're the loser's paradise in some other situation.
I think so.
Right, right, right.
But presumably banish people from here.
You can't be a complete society of people who've been banished.
Well, there's no reason, just because you've been banished from one place, doesn't mean
you can't be banished from another.
You can keep, there's levels of banishment that can keep happening.
There's one guy out on a jetty in the middle of the lake and no one can touch him.
Statistically, it must mean there's somewhere worse than here.
Well, sometimes you get upgraded by banishment.
Yeah, we don't know where people go when they're banished.
Yeah, we don't keep in touch.
Yeah, if we could banish Shay, that job opens right up.
Right, so do we know...
Yeah, let's go through the four again.
How does one get banished?
What's most likely?
Probably a curse?
A curse is pretty good.
What were the other three?
Rude in a town.
Ruding a town function.
Losing in a relationship.
Losing in a relationship, and I cannot remember the first one.
What was the...
Oh, debt.
Debt.
Yeah.
Of course.
Yeah, you, you're the reason.
Yeah.
All right, so Shay, don't think he has any debt.
Financials, great.
Oh, well, I know, what about win-win?
We embezzle money from him.
From him, yeah.
Then we have more money and he's in debt.
And as a fail-safe, one of us should date Shay and then...
Oh, well, no, I've recently flown close to the sun with that one.
I can't risk...
Wait, oh, I thought you were banished here, so you won.
No, no, that's what I mean.
I can't risk losing.
Right, yes, all right.
So what if Shay wins the break-up?
Yeah.
So you've lost break-ups before then.
That's why I'm here.
That's tough.
You've got a recent trauma.
I have been cursed.
Yeah, and I got into debt, ruining a town function.
So we'll both curse and date Shay and maybe also embezzle some of his money.
Yeah, I'll get in contact with my curse guy.
Nice.
And we'll embezzle him.
We'll do a double, yeah, because Shay's a good talker.
We don't want to risk him talking his way out of embezzlement.
Yeah, yeah.
You can talk your way out of a curse.
He could probably talk his way out of a break-up, could we?
So that's too risky.
That's too risky.
And I could date him, but again, I'm cursed, so I'd probably lose that.
Yeah, you'd probably be better.
Okay.
If I were to date him, I would want to do it with the intention of getting married.
Would that encourage him to leave his job?
I hope not.
Oh, you can make him a stay-at-home.
I would never ask someone to pick between a career and me.
That's very good of you.
Yeah.
Okay, fair.
They really need their career because you're so in debt.
All right, all right.
No need for that.
Sorry.
I'm just, yeah, just saying.
Okay, so curse?
Cursed is.
Yeah, I like curse, yeah.
Should we get a particular type of curse or just say, let my cursed guy just pick what
he wants?
Well, like how much do you like this Shay?
Well, we want to banish him, so we said we don't.
I would love it if he was haunted by an albatross.
Haunted by an albatross?
Oh, that's good, yeah.
That's good.
It just feels like it would upset him.
I was going to say like maybe to curse him to be unlucky in love so then he would keep
getting banished again and again from other places, but an albatross is pretty good.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess yours is more like an actual source.
No, no, I don't know that.
I just think albatrosses are too big.
Mines would have been never ending to be fair.
So unlucky in love, that could mean he never dates anyone and never has a breakup.
Yeah, that's true.
That's ambiguous.
Yeah, let's take the strong albatross.
It's a safe bet.
It's unambiguous.
You may say something about my lack of creativity, but my descriptions are unambiguous.
Are you tired of all these fancy coffees?
Why not go for something a little closer to home?
Hello, we hear from ex coffee roasters to tell you that you don't need to pop your
little taste buds on a plane to Ethiopia or Brazil to get a delicious coffee.
You just need to ask the driver nicely if they can hop on that number two bus into town
for a simple coffee that's grown and roasted right here in Dunbracken.
How is that possible, you may ask?
Well, we are purchased outside of the old landfill.
A humble patch of fertile dirt that is perfect for the growth of our coffee beans.
You may also ask us, where did all of that trash go?
But that is not our issue.
Long gone are those overwhelming feelings of choice for what flavor I should go for
and what roast is right for me.
We have planted and grown an artisanal amount of 100% robust coffee beans using the very
active Tyre Fire, which was previously part of the landfill but included in our purchase
of the land, to roast those little suckers into their darkest and most perfect selves.
Again, we don't know about the rest of it, so please stop asking.
Did you know that the flavor profile of coffee beans is heavily influenced by the soil they're
grown in?
Our head roaster and master taster, Phil Thor, had this to say.
I've truly never had a coffee like this one.
Every cup's completely different.
One moment I'm getting notes of raw egg bits mixed with broken bedside lamp, next it's
Donkey Carcass and one of those little tables you get in pizza boxes that stops the pizza
from hitting the lid.
Sometimes I get the pizza too.
I truly think Dunbracken is going to get absolutely swept up in this new coffee craze and I can't
wait to see it.
I just wish we could grow the beans a little quicker to meet the demand.
I've had to taste every bit of yield so far just for safety concerns, but after taking
five weeks off there for a bout of unrelated food poisoning, we have a nice big surplus
just waiting for the locals to sink their teeth into.
So why not jump on that bus to the site of the old landfill, just across the street from
Dunbracken's newest theme park, Trash Mountain, and support a local business.
Ex coffee roasters, put in the ex in espresso.
So if we're all caught up, we'll start off with Kevin.
You want to show your favorite website from the past week?
Uh, yeah, I guess.
I'm sorry I didn't expect you to start with me, Reggie.
All right, well, I'll just put it in the search bar.
This is a website that I found that takes used candle wax and then it makes little figurines
out of it.
And you can paint them or you can just leave them dry.
You know, and you can use the figurines for whatever you want.
For children.
For Kevin.
For Warhammer.
Did you set up this website yourself?
No.
But I can see your ring in the pictures.
What do you mean?
I didn't set up Kevin's wax figurines.
Kevin, you can't do this.
I didn't expect to be first.
What would that have changed?
I would have had more time to change maybe the name.
By a new domain?
Like that?
Yeah.
Okay.
But what do we think about it?
I'm interested.
Yes, we.
But I feel like this goes against the rules.
I'm sorry.
I won't do it again.
You really annoyed me.
Sorry, Reggie.
And I know your words carry weight.
Okay.
Who wants to go next?
I really like this one.
I was hoping I could go next.
Oh, sorry.
Okay.
I was just waiting for the page to load.
Darryl wants to go next.
Yeah.
This is my daughter's YouTube page.
She's been struggling to make friends and skill, but now she like records herself reviewing
movies and the classmates are really enjoying it.
So it's nice to see her come out of her shell.
She came up in my album.
I don't like that.
I'm into movies as well.
She has bad opinions on movies.
Some of the classics she said are not colourful enough.
They're in black and white.
Yeah.
Look, it's.
Also, you're showing us YouTube.
I'm looking for niche websites.
My daughter, she only has 12 followers.
It's nice.
That doesn't change anything.
If you had bought a domain that was like...
I feel like people haven't listened to me.
I set this up to find some new websites because I go on this in four websites like every day.
Well.
Oh, fuck.
Reggie, have I got the website for you?
Okay.
I've set up my own website.
But it's a webcam of this Internet Cafe.
So even when we're not here, we can see which of our friends are enjoying the Internet services.
I don't want to be monitored.
I don't want people to know when I'm here.
Well, the camera does have a good spread.
It's just up there.
It has a good spread of everyone, probably.
I think we're all in frame at the moment.
What's that box that's around my head?
Has this identified me?
This feels very invasive.
So it's open source.
So people can interact with this website and edit it as they see fit also.
Tracking me.
There is a comment section also, but I'd advise don't look there.
There's a lot of slurs.
It says here you're 85 and has your last three known addresses.
I feel violated.
The comments are calling your daughter a racist.
She just doesn't understand Green Book.
But I thought it was something that was fun, interactive.
And when we're missing being in the Internet Cafe, then we can check in with the gang.
How come whenever there was a project three months ago where we were going to make our
own websites and none of you did this.
And now when I asked for a new website, you all managed to do something.
More from you, you just showed your daughter is doing reviews.
I was proud of her and I helped her set it up.
And it's hard to do.
She edits it as well.
There's no cuts in it.
It's just a recording.
There's not even like.
It's called audio balancing and I don't know what it is, but it's important.
Well Reggie, if you're going to be such a naysay Nancy, what website did you find this
week that you liked?
Bible passages.org.org.org.
It's an organization and it's not so much passages from the Bible.
It's just your passage through the Bible.
You know, as you read it, like people will just be like, oh, I found page thirty four.
Interesting.
Like it's choose your own adventure.
No, no, completely wrong.
I hate that.
None of you really appreciate my faith.
I mean, I tried to appreciate it last week when I introduced the choose your own adventure
Bible and you were very offended.
I was the fact that Jesus wasn't crucified.
Like turn the whole thing.
75.
In my adventure, Jesus made wax candles from Kevin's wax candle figurines.
That was not an option.
It was not an option.
We had some sponsored content.
How about you in the corner?
I just like to start by saying thank you for letting me return to the group after my previous
mishap.
You set up a lot of phishing websites.
I do.
I was trying to get credit card information off of.
I kept getting caught.
You thought you had a nerve fryer on the way.
I'm very, very sorry about that.
I meant to exclusively target people outside of the group.
But you got caught in my net.
I have a new website for you.
Okay.
Would you like to hear about it?
This looks like a banking website.
I'll just fill it in here.
The bank.
The sort code and the I ban.
Reggie, I'm so sorry.
This wasn't even the website I was trying to show today.
This is just another one of my scams.
Actually, I was going to show you a website where you could take any two dog breeds, put
pictures of them up and see what the babies would look like.
But it seems like I've already got all of your credit card information.
I don't see the dogs.
All right.
Well, also, I'll let you in on a little trick if you promise not to tell anyone involved
in animal rights.
Okay.
Promise everyone this room.
Promise your promise.
I would like to remind you that you're on a webcam feed, but proceed.
Okay.
Well, all right.
Well, I'll take the risk.
I want to love him.
You can actually you can actually take any two animals in the world and put the pictures
together and see what the babies would look like.
I put Kevin in.
Just look at my daughter.
Oh, there's nothing like it.
What?
This photo.
You know, it's nothing like it.
We put in a picture of me and my wife.
Incompatible.
Oh, no.
One of us cheated.
Back to Dumbraken is created, produced and edited by Connoth McVeigh.
For more information and podcasts, you can follow us at Dumbraken pod on Instagram.
This episode featured Patrick Meyer, Laura Conlon, Gerda Donley, Cairnsands, Eddie Goodwin,
Rachel Coulter, David McCauley and Connor Reddick.
The opening and closing music was created by Connor Mallon and you can check out his
entire album Unearthed on Spotify now.
Thank you for listening.
We look forward to welcoming you back to Dumbraken very soon.