- 2 days ago
Visiting London, post Brexit vote, Bourdain finds comfort in classic British cuisine including roast bone marrow at chef Fergus Henderson's famed restaurant St. John, and Scotch eggs at Princess Victoria Pub with Nigella Lawson, plus a meeting with revered artist Ralph Steadman at his studio.
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00:07I feel completely destroyed.
00:09I didn't think we'd go through with it.
00:11Now it's a lot of uncertainty.
00:12It's a shock.
00:13We're all in deep shit.
00:15Better the devil you know than you don't.
00:17It goes on.
00:19It feels like the end of the world.
00:21It feels pretty bad.
00:22It's the ramifications of it all.
00:24There doesn't seem to be a plan for what we're going to do now.
00:27You don't know what to do because they're all arguing.
00:30Well, a little open on them, but, um...
00:35I think human beings are still stupid.
00:38And ego gets in the way.
00:42I took a walk through this beautiful world
00:48Felt the cool rain on my shoulder
00:52I found something good in this beautiful world
00:58I felt the rain getting colder
01:26I believe some things to be true about England.
01:29Other than that I know I can always find friends there.
01:32Yeah.
01:32It's where you can find some of the best restaurants in Europe.
01:36It's beautiful.
01:37It's, I don't know, sophisticated.
01:39They're old.
01:40They've been around.
01:41But on this last trip, unexpectedly,
01:44the mood in London became darker
01:47more uncertain about the future.
01:49The British people spoke last night.
01:51A little wake-up call.
01:52It turns out that it was about immigration.
01:55More than half of Britain's immigration comes from outside the EU.
01:59Disaster.
02:00Calamity.
02:00The young are very, very angry
02:02about what's happened
02:03and the gamble that's been taken with their future.
02:08Few in London, anyway, went to sleep
02:10thinking that England would leave the European Union.
02:13That was for the rubes.
02:14The people from the sticks.
02:15The country people.
02:16Old, white people.
02:17People who felt pushed out.
02:19Neglected.
02:20Disenfranchised by the new.
02:22The young.
02:23The foreign.
02:23The decidedly less white England of today.
02:26The votes were tallied
02:28and the majority had decided to Brexit.
02:30New York, I guess both England.
02:33The ramifications were unclear
02:35but the financial markets plummeted.
02:37The nation's credit rating was downgraded.
02:39The Prime Minister resigned
02:41and both political parties' leadership
02:43basically disintegrated overnight.
02:54In uncertain times,
02:56I always look for the comforting and the familiar.
02:59The things that always, for me, made England great.
03:02Like one of my favorite restaurants on earth
03:04and one of the chefs I like and respect most.
03:07This restaurant helped make a persuasive argument
03:11that there is some kind of merit to British cooking.
03:17It's absolutely true.
03:18Fergus Henderson,
03:19the most influential chef of the last two decades,
03:23even though you have likely never heard of him.
03:25He changed everything.
03:27It seems an instinctive thing to cook old-school,
03:30simple, proud English country cooking,
03:32but it started a quiet revolution.
03:36St. John, I love you
03:38and I need you now more than ever.
03:41It's about the single ingredient on the plate
03:43speaking for itself in that classic Italian sort of way.
03:46And so you can get lost.
03:48Roast bone marrow with parsley and caper salad.
03:52Sourdough bread made here.
03:53A dish that would become absolutely iconic.
03:56If you've ever eaten bone marrow anywhere,
03:59it's very likely because they did it here first.
04:02My dinner companion is food critic and author Jay Rayner,
04:06a man never with a shortage of opinions.
04:09Bones.
04:11Yes.
04:12Salt.
04:14And there you go.
04:15Give us your oil.
04:16It's a simple good thing,
04:17but it's one of the most influential dishes
04:19like in the last 20 years.
04:20It's a good thing.
04:21You see his imprint everywhere.
04:24It's true.
04:25What's interesting is that the aesthetic gets passed down
04:27in other ways that you don't expect.
04:29Yeah.
04:31As I've become older,
04:32I've noticed the food that I yearn for
04:34is food that I react to in an entirely emotional way.
04:37The problem is that it's so very, very rare.
04:41I'm looking for a suspension of logic and reason.
04:48This is something that I got here from the beginning.
04:53Pickled calves tripe with radish, shaved carrot, and watercress.
04:57Lovely.
04:57Wow.
04:59There are some tripe dishes that are just uniquely wonderful.
05:01It's a tricky ingredient.
05:03Once you're cooking it, it smells like wet dog.
05:05The way we smell things and taste them is very different.
05:08All the best foods stink.
05:10Yeah.
05:10And it's an extraordinary thing.
05:12These foods, there's a faint whiff of death about them,
05:15are the ones that remind you that you're the most alive.
05:18The scent of your own mortality.
05:23Skate poached in court bouillon with fennel and green sauce
05:26of fresh parsley, herbs, and anchovies.
05:28Mmm.
05:29That's nice.
05:33Savory crete in the form of kidney.
05:35Oh, yes.
05:35The form of kidney.
05:36They're so pretty.
05:38And how are these kidneys done, sir?
05:41Well, season fair.
05:42Nice.
05:43And then the sauce.
05:48Sizzling.
05:49Chicken stock.
05:51Butter.
05:55Toast.
05:56Done.
05:59Good.
06:00Eat well.
06:11Pig's head and potato pie.
06:14The head brined, slowly simmered until tender, stripped away from the bone, and seasoned then
06:19baked in pastry with potatoes.
06:21Yes, please.
06:23A traditional dish that exemplifies everything I believe in.
06:28Wow.
06:29Nice.
06:29Thank you, sir.
06:31All right.
06:34Oh, look at that.
06:36New joy.
06:37That's working.
06:38Is this a hot water pastry?
06:40No, it's puff pastry.
06:41But somehow the trenches of fats sort of picks him out and the buttery in makes itself crust.
06:47It's gorgeous.
06:48Indeed.
06:49Oh, God, that's good.
06:51Extraordinary.
06:52You look at this pie and it's almost like something out of a children's book.
06:55Right.
06:55The pie tradition is something very, very special.
06:58If you go back in history to the Hogarth painting, the roast beef of old England.
07:01Yeah.
07:02You'll realize that actually we were far ahead of the French in the preparation of beef and the roasting
07:06of meats.
07:07A lot of it was over our side of the channel.
07:09Yeah.
07:10Which is no reason for leaving the European Union.
07:15So they call it Great Britain.
07:18What's great about Britain?
07:20I can refer to a certain literacy and a wry sense of humor and a political tradition of democracy,
07:27which ironically, the referendum that's caused so many of us so much pain, is a perfect example of.
07:34Also, a weirdly welcoming environment in which the history of immigration into the country has defined a far more open
07:43culture.
07:44Until this point, I was very, very proud.
07:47But that I wouldn't be here.
07:48You know, my great-great-grandparents arrived as shtetal Jews off the boat into the East End of London.
07:53And here I am still to this day.
07:54And that's a very, very important thing.
07:56A very tolerant country.
07:58This is a very traumatic moment.
07:59Will it all work out in the end?
08:01I have no idea.
08:03It's the only truth.
08:04Nothing is certain.
08:10You know what I like?
08:12A good pub.
08:13Like the Princess Victoria in West London.
08:16And stuff like this.
08:18Do you like pork scratches?
08:19I do.
08:23Oh, that's insanely good.
08:24Maybe you wouldn't think that the legendary cookbook author Nigella Lawson and I could be friends, but we are.
08:30We are admittedly very different.
08:32She is the very definition of kindness, elegance, grace.
08:36The woman who taught England to cook.
08:38Delicious.
08:39What do you get here ordinarily?
08:41Scotch egg.
08:41All right.
08:42Scotch eggs, please.
08:44Some white bait and some chips.
08:46White bait?
08:46This is like the greatest thing ever, really?
08:48I know.
08:49White bait is so good, isn't it?
08:50Would you go to a pub and get white bait?
08:52Well, I'm sure in Dickinson they used to have white bait then.
08:56Many of them used to have voices too, so.
08:58I can't hear you over the crunch.
09:00I can't hear myself over the crunch actually.
09:02I lost interest in what I was saying.
09:04White bait.
09:05Tiny baby herring, lightly battered, whole and fried.
09:09Tossed with a little bit of lemon juice and salt.
09:11The perfect bar food.
09:13These are slightly crispy.
09:15Do you have this in the state?
09:17You're starting to see them, but almost never.
09:19Beautiful though, aren't they?
09:21And fat chips, always important.
09:23What is the appropriate condiment with chips?
09:25Being an old-fashioned, I think vinegar and salt.
09:27Mm-hmm.
09:28If I'm in Brussels or Holland, I'm fine about mayonnaise.
09:31Only there.
09:32I'm with you there.
09:32Yeah.
09:33And what is it?
09:34Chips with curry sauce?
09:35Fantastic.
09:36Sorry.
09:37It's really a matter of how many Guinnesses you've had.
09:40A soft-boiled egg, wrap it in minced pork,
09:44then roll it in breadcrumbs and what?
09:45Deep-fry it?
09:47It's like a supernova of unhealthiness and deliciousness.
09:50This is the important thing, the softness of the yolk.
09:53Right.
09:53Who invented this?
09:54It's just fiendish.
09:55One of the explanations,
09:57Scotch used to preserve eggs and send them to England.
09:59What would happen is that they would do sort of some sort of lime on them,
10:03and it would discolor them, so they then covered them to hide that.
10:06This is just right.
10:08When I grew up, they were very low rent,
10:10very cheap, rather spooky sausage meat, rock-hard egg
10:15that sort of tinged like, you know, uranus.
10:18Right.
10:18Uranus, as they prefer to call it now because they get embarrassed.
10:21And then deep-fried in those cheap red breadcrumbs,
10:24and then it got rehabilitated.
10:26Very good eggs, very good pork.
10:28All your basic food groups.
10:29Mm.
10:29These are really good.
10:31Mm, really good.
10:32Salt and fat.
10:33Nothing better.
10:34Oh, yeah.
10:37This is nice.
10:38It is nice.
10:39Strangely calm.
10:40It is an argument from England.
10:42Really?
10:43Yeah.
10:43A good pub?
10:45Yes.
10:45And if you're gonna have a pint, this is the perfect time.
10:48It's quiet.
10:49It is.
10:50We can pretend all is right with the universe.
10:53I'm going to pretend.
11:13England, as the anti-Brexit forces found out to their dismay, ain't London.
11:18It's different out there.
11:20And a lot of it is very, very beautiful.
11:24As we get older, we start to look backwards in our life and reflect.
11:29When we're young, we only look forward.
11:31We don't think of our past.
11:33Our past has such a small value.
11:37I'm of an age now.
11:39We've become nostalgic.
11:40We've become philosophical.
11:43One can, if a successful gentleman of many accomplishments, for instance,
11:47with a little bit of money to spend, make, as Emerson advised,
11:52your own world, far from the madness.
11:54We're in North Wiltshire.
11:56And there's Bath in the distance.
11:59It's really beautiful.
12:00Oh, yeah.
12:01Nice view.
12:02You'll see how it just drifts away.
12:06So that's about five miles as the crow flies.
12:09There are few chefs who set the world of chefs aflame, like Marco Pierre White.
12:13As young cooks, looking at his incredible rise from working-class boy
12:18to the youngest three Michelin-starred chef in the world, we were inspired.
12:22Not just by his accomplishments and his food, which were amazing.
12:25No great chef had ever looked like him before or talked like him.
12:30We were not, it appeared, alone.
12:32I want to turn Rudlow into a house, not a hotel.
12:36So when you walk inside, it's personal.
12:40Once obsessed with nothing but working the hardest, the longest, being the best,
12:45Marco has transferred his obsessive nature to the more pleasurable task
12:48of making the Rudlow Arms his perfect place.
12:52What's important about a restaurant is the feel, not a look.
12:57You could go to the best restaurant in the world tomorrow, and you could serve the best food.
13:02But if you don't feel comfortable within that environment, you'll never enjoy it.
13:06Inside is as much a project as the grounds.
13:09Every detail.
13:11Then you can be yourself.
13:14Number one, environment.
13:16Number two, service.
13:17Number three, food.
13:21A pan-roasted filet of beef with escargot.
13:25Whoa.
13:26It's beautiful.
13:28Who do you want to come here?
13:30Do you want to enjoy themselves?
13:31I like a mixed demographic.
13:33I want a bit of everybody.
13:34Mm-hmm.
13:35I don't want to just target one market.
13:37Food should be affordable.
13:41Very, very good.
13:43Has your food always reflected your aspirations and dreams rather than where you came from?
13:48I was born and bred on the outskirts of Leeds on a project housing estate.
13:52Even though I was born into very humble beginnings, I used to cross my road, walk over the golf course,
13:58and there I was on the Harwood estate, designed by the great Capability Brown, the stately home of the Earl
14:04of Harwood.
14:04That was my playground.
14:08I was fascinated by the countryside.
14:11I loved the rivers, the streams, the brooks, the fields, the woods.
14:15What was within them?
14:17That's all captured me.
14:19It was a dream.
14:21That was my escapism.
14:24My mother died when I was six.
14:26Mother Nature, she became my surrogate mother.
14:29And so therefore, I had this amazing love affair with nature.
14:35But look, once you go into a high-end restaurant, you're about as far from nature as you can be.
14:40I mean, it's hard.
14:41To rise up the ranks of a good fine dining restaurant, particularly in the time that you came up, shit
14:48was not easy.
14:49Everybody in the kitchen that I started in came from a housing project.
14:54They were working class.
14:56They were tough.
14:57They were hard.
14:58Really hard.
14:59The flip side of that coin was nature.
15:06It was all those beautiful ingredients.
15:09That beautiful contradiction.
15:16Go see my family.
15:21Piggies!
15:21Come on, piggy, piggy, piggy.
15:23Holy crap.
15:24Come on, piggies!
15:26Piggies!
15:26What do you think?
15:28They seem very well-groomed.
15:30They're beautiful.
15:30Donnie, those are genes, not food.
15:32They give you love bites, trust me.
15:35Piggies!
15:35What do you think of all our friends from America?
15:37Yeah.
15:38What breed of pig?
15:39These are Oxford, Sandy and Black.
15:41They're a traditional Wiltshire pig.
15:42In four months, this is how big they've got.
15:45Wow.
15:47They remember your voice and your smell.
15:50They're really, really affectionate.
15:52Naturally living woodland.
15:53Indeed.
15:55Beautiful.
15:56Almost self-sustaining here.
15:58Well, we will be for bacon.
16:01Bye, pigs!
16:02Piggies!
16:04Piggies!
16:06I've never been happier here.
16:09I've found some where I'm really happy.
16:10Nice!
16:13The legendary classic on Marco's original menu back in the day, pig strotter a la Pierre Kaufmann, an homage to
16:21another great chef and mentor.
16:23It is perfection.
16:24Oh, my God, that is beautiful.
16:27When I was a young cook, we would look at photographs of this dish of my comrades and colleagues and
16:34gape at it with wonder.
16:37First, we'd say, oh, my God, that's gorgeous, and how did he do it?
16:40It's got all of the textural things that every great cuisine around the world understands to be, wow.
16:47Pig strotter has got 24 bones, so you have to remove all those bones.
16:50And then you braise it for four hours.
16:52Right.
16:53It's very simple.
16:55People think it's more complicated than it is.
16:57No, this is tricky.
16:58It's a tricky dish.
16:59The hero of the dish, really, is the skin.
17:03Yes.
17:04It's just one of those great creations.
17:08As the French say, we never grow old around the table.
17:12They also say only the first bottle is expensive.
17:18Cheers.
17:20Cheers.
17:27So this is my big project I'm working on.
17:31As I've fallen in love with this little part of England.
17:37I put myself out to graze, I suppose, Anthony. I've retired.
17:42And I like doing what I do here.
17:44If I look at the amount of nature we have here now, since we've done what we've done, it's enormous
17:48compared to what we had.
17:49Right.
17:49And I like seeing the increase of songbirds, the hens with their young chicks, the geese, they're my...
17:59Fabulous, aren't they?
18:01Amazing.
18:01They're nuts.
18:03They are beautifully, beautifully nuts.
18:07There's no guarantees how long we're going to be here.
18:09Just enjoy life.
18:18The mood in London is like a collective, nervous breakdown.
18:23Drinking seems appropriate.
18:25But first, a proper base must be established.
18:28Some food.
18:31All right.
18:32You have saltfish callaloo, right?
18:34I'll have some of that.
18:35And then vegetable patty.
18:37Saltfish.
18:37I think I'll have one of those.
18:39And the mutton would be good.
18:40This is what happens when I come off tour.
18:42Straight here.
18:43Stuff my face.
18:43Then half a Guinness.
18:45And then the night's good, you know?
18:46Jamie Hintz is half the creative alliance that makes up the band The Kills.
18:51Maybe you know them from such shows as this one.
18:54And this, Peppers and Spice in Islington, is his favorite local joint for Caribbean food.
19:00I'm enjoying your currency lately.
19:02It's suddenly become very affordable since yesterday.
19:05I know.
19:05You know, we've got a long history of taking back control of our country, you know?
19:09Getting in the driving seat again.
19:11And then we get in there and we just let the handbrake off.
19:13And that's it, you know?
19:15Thank you so much.
19:16I'm insanely hungry.
19:17I'm very excited about this.
19:19Yeah.
19:19Everything's good.
19:20The best Jamaican this side of Ocho Rios.
19:23Damn, that's tasty.
19:24I spent so much time hanging out with people where you just eat really posh gourmet food.
19:29And when I come off tour, I just start salivating when I'm on Essex Road.
19:32Mm-hmm.
19:33It is a shame they don't have a bar here, though.
19:36Right.
19:37You have to drink a lot, don't you?
19:38I know.
19:40It's...
19:40It's...
19:40It's my job as well.
19:41It's hard.
19:41People don't think about that, you know?
19:44Right.
19:44How much I have to drink...
19:46Bastard.
19:46...just to do this.
19:47I mean, you should be more sensitive to that.
19:50They should be.
19:54It's been one of the nastiest campaigns.
19:56So much lying, so much dissembling.
19:58Catastrophe.
19:59So far, the reaction has been, well, chaos.
20:01So, yesterday, the Prime Minister resigned.
20:04Yeah, yeah.
20:05And England leaving the European Union.
20:07Honestly, it kind of makes me feel like I don't believe in democracy anymore.
20:13How quickly the pound is reacting to political news.
20:17We're entering a very dark, dangerous period.
20:19Politics where things are decided by people.
20:21People were talking about just dumb having a central government in Brussels.
20:25We've got nothing in common with people from Romania.
20:28Right.
20:28And Bulgaria.
20:29So we haven't got anything in common with people from Sunderland or Wales, you know?
20:33It's like, they haven't got anything in common with people from London.
20:35Why don't some old people in Great Yarmouth get them to decide the budget?
20:39Give, like, the foreign policy.
20:41Get the people from Sunderland to decide that.
20:45London's a lot different from the rest of the country.
20:48Right.
20:48It's wealthier for a start.
20:50It's way more cosmopolitan.
20:52I mean, people complain about it all the time.
20:53Between the people that are struggling and the people that are doing well.
20:56It really shone a light on how divided the country is.
21:00People don't just look at it as a financial thing.
21:02It's an issue of cultural identity too.
21:04You're being citizens who have lived here for 10, 15 years
21:06for the first time ever being the victims of racial abuse.
21:09Are you able?
21:11British drinking patterns seem to be driven by the fact that pubs close at, what, midnight?
21:16Yeah.
21:17I noticed as we approached last call, people start, like, jumbling up.
21:22Drinking starts to accelerate in a mad panic.
21:24Load is bedding in.
21:27Do you think if you extended drinking hours that would improve behavior or make it worse?
21:32Yeah.
21:32I mean, let's face it.
21:33Your country may have a bad reputation as far as...
21:35Drinking.
21:36Yeah, sensible drinking.
21:38Do you think that's a function of, uh...
21:40Whatever.
21:59You know, when I was 14, 15, Fear of Loading came out in Rolling Stone.
22:05And I think it was the artwork first.
22:07It spoke to me in a really transformative way.
22:15It captured perfectly all of my rage, all of the absurdity,
22:19all of these things that I didn't think anybody else was seeing or responding to in the same way.
22:22It was unlike anything I'd seen.
22:26Artist, author, icon, Ralph Steadman continues to make art every day.
22:32He was the visual expression of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's finest works.
22:37When Hunter came, 1991, too, I brought it down the pub here.
22:41Oh, Martin, this is Hunter.
22:44Hi.
22:44Hello.
22:45Here would be Ralph's local, the Checkers Inn in Kent.
22:49Hunter, what do you like, Hunter?
22:50Uh, she was regal, please.
22:52Oh, I said, okay, Martin, uh, could you make Perf's bank data double?
22:56Well, these optics, you know what they have, they've got nothing in them.
22:59Yeah, that tiny little chiclet-sized, yeah.
23:01So, he did that twice with it.
23:04Put it down in front of Hunter.
23:06Hunter looked at me and said,
23:07What's that a sample?
23:14Where are you from originally?
23:16Uh, well, I am Welsh.
23:17My mother's, she was Gwennie Rogers.
23:20From Roastlanagug.
23:21Uh-huh.
23:22Don't ask me to spell that.
23:23No, no, I can't even do it myself.
23:25So, how English do you feel, given that you grew up in Wales?
23:28Well, in a way, you know, it was, uh, not from Liverpool.
23:33The food is pub fare.
23:34A runny egg wrapped in Parma ham and breadcrumbs.
23:38Prawn cocktail for the man.
23:40I think it was the Scanlan's article,
23:42the first you worked with Hunter Thompson?
23:44Kentucky Derby?
23:45Uh, yeah.
23:45I mean, before that, would you say that you were a respectable figure,
23:49making a living doing your work?
23:51I mean, because you kind of were transformed very quickly
23:55into a counter-cultural figure.
23:57I think a lot of people will, appropriately or not,
23:59see you as an outlaw artist.
24:01Yeah, but I didn't start off wanting to be an artist.
24:03I wanted to be an aircraft engineer.
24:06I didn't like factory life,
24:07but I had to go every week to do technical drawing,
24:10and that's where Alliance and Circles began.
24:13Right.
24:15I've been doing a book of critical critters
24:18with beastly sneers and callous observations
24:21by Kerry Levy.
24:22He's writing about a thing.
24:23Particulated bum lice?
24:25Yeah.
24:26I don't know whether it exists, but...
24:28I'm pretty sure they do.
24:30What?
24:30Yeah, I'm pretty sure they do.
24:31Really?
24:32Some sort of...
24:33There's definitely bum-seeking insects
24:35that I've encountered.
24:36He thinks that I'm obsessed with things to do with,
24:38you know, laboratorial humor, but...
24:41That's kind of an English thing.
24:42Is it?
24:44I saw an adverb.
24:45You, too, can learn to draw and earn pounds.
24:48I took the course while I was doing a military service.
24:52I was drawing the guys in the billet playing cards,
24:55blankets on the bed, boots on the bed.
24:57Very simplistic stuff.
24:58Nevertheless, it got me started.
25:00Have you heard of an echidna?
25:02I have not.
25:03This is a hedgehog type of creature.
25:05There aren't many of these left, you know.
25:07They reach critical stages, and this is going in, too,
25:10because, excuse me,
25:11we're collecting for the endangered species.
25:17We can all learn to do this first.
25:19Not this.
25:20Right.
25:21But this.
25:25That is very difficult.
25:28I don't think I could do that.
25:29I'm quite sure I can.
25:30My basic motor skills are not so good.
25:32We've got fish and chips.
25:34Oh, blimey.
25:35More old school on the main courses.
25:37Fish and chips with mushy peas over there.
25:40Steak and stilton pie for me,
25:42because any mystery meat wrapped in pastry at a pub
25:45is pure crack for me.
25:46Thank you very much.
25:47Oh, you've got the pie.
25:49Wow.
25:49Oh, yeah.
25:50Hmm.
25:51We don't do this back in America.
25:54So many people have said to me,
25:55do you pencil it in first?
25:57I said, no.
25:59You just start drawing.
26:01But don't you make a mistake?
26:02I said, there's no such thing as a mistake.
26:04A mistake is an opportunity to do something else.
26:07Do you have to leave it?
26:08Let nature take its course.
26:10Oh, my God.
26:11Now, isn't that lovely?
26:13That is...
26:14I like that.
26:14I'm impressing myself.
26:16It's so good.
26:17Oh, nature's impressing me, actually.
26:19But it's just so wonderful how it works.
26:22It's a kind of natural process of evolution, isn't it?
26:28It's what we're doing all the time.
26:32Certainly, your depiction of politicians, early on,
26:34seemed filled with rage and disgust.
26:36Deservedly, I think.
26:37There were some epic depictions of Nixon.
26:40Was it Nixon as Godzilla?
26:42Was it...
26:43Yeah, he was a great subject.
26:44I mean, I've done him as a flying Nixon,
26:46a vampire Nixon.
26:48Did you ever get an official reaction to your work
26:50from the White House?
26:51Never.
26:51Oh.
26:52I am not a giant shitting Godzilla.
26:54Yeah.
26:55You don't want to deny that.
26:57No, it's funny how that was.
27:00Boris Johnson here.
27:01I think the hair, in this case, is just...
27:03It's an irresistible impulse.
27:05Well, to do it, I've got to come out with it more...
27:08But it's perfect.
27:12Boris is our Trump.
27:14Well, they both...
27:14It is a supernova of incredibly bad hair.
27:17Yeah.
27:18I mean, the two of them together.
27:20What's happening?
27:21What's going on in this country?
27:22Is it going to be okay?
27:24Not at the moment, no.
27:25Does it say anything about the country as a whole?
27:28I think it does.
27:29Perhaps there's been a secret desire to really say,
27:32wait a minute.
27:32What would it be like to be in the great British Isles again?
27:37I was doing this last week just because I can't stand snakes.
27:41So I said, okay, I'll do you one.
27:43I did one snake last week.
27:45I started to do this.
27:47St. Lucia racer snake.
27:49Ugh.
27:51Like that.
27:51And then the next day we had the referendum.
27:55Friday morning when people realized what did happen.
27:58It was a terrible gloom as a scent.
28:01We all felt it.
28:02This desire to restore England to its former glory as the British Isles,
28:06and certainly given a revived and very powerful urge in Scotland to reconsider whether they want to be a part.
28:14Oh dear.
28:15I think it's only going to get worse before it gets better.
28:17And I'm certain that what we are experiencing at the moment is a kind of rather large hangover from something
28:23that we've still got to come to terms with and get over.
28:28Do you think some of your stuff, is there anger in there or exasperation?
28:34I think so.
28:35Look, I said, oh, I don't know, 50 years ago that I wanted to change the world.
28:41And I think 50 years later, I succeeded.
28:45It's worse now than it was when I started.
28:48So I changed it.
28:49I mean, that was.
28:50This is great.
28:51It's kind of emerging.
28:52You know, it's coming.
28:54I mean, this guy, he demands a Stedman.
28:56He really...
28:57Something...
28:57He was born to have you, uh...
29:02Trying to lighten it up a bit.
29:24The sea.
29:25The sea where a man could forget his troubles and the troubles of the world, commune with something infinitely larger
29:32and more powerful than himself.
29:37Where he could find himself locked in an epic struggle with a creature of the sea, plumbing the depths for
29:42that most primordial of needs, food.
29:47Well, let's hope we hit them quick.
30:21Get off.
30:21Get off.
30:22Go.
30:25Let's see.
30:27Oh, my God.
30:28That's the Portman, look.
30:29Oh, my God.
30:31Look.
30:31Oh, my God.
30:32No, Portman.
30:32Gun it.
30:33Oh, my God.
30:34He got the bait.
30:37Nature. It's overrated.
30:42The middle of being this champ.
30:44We are designed to find, kill, tear apart and devour the food we need to survive.
30:50It is why God, in his wisdom, gave us legs upon which to run,
30:53eyes in the front of our heads to seek out prey,
30:56fingernails and thumbs with which to tear apart our victims,
30:59teeth to smash flesh and bone between our mighty jaws.
31:20Here in the coastal town of Weymouth at the Marlboro
31:23is where I'll be smashing deep-fried haddock between my freaking jaws
31:26with something called a chip.
31:28Slice white bread and butter so we can make a chip butty.
31:31Do you like a chip butty?
31:32I don't know that I've ever had one. I've heard of them.
31:35Delicious.
31:36All right. You're an easy man to please.
31:38The chef suggests lay mushy peas infused with butter and cream.
31:43I have such fond memories of Weymouth.
31:45My sons went to school just down the road.
31:47I used to bring them to the Marlboro for lunch and that.
31:49And they weren't big fans of fish and chips
31:51because they were sort of 13, 14.
31:53And they preferred meat to fish and chips.
31:55But this is the best restaurant, in my opinion, in Weymouth.
32:00Thank you. Thank you. That's very kind.
32:02Put the mushy peas in the middle.
32:03All right.
32:04See, this is how we do it in Yorkshire.
32:06A little taste of mushy peas without vinegar.
32:08All right.
32:08Go on, I'm see.
32:09They're all right.
32:10Now, put the vinegar on.
32:12All right.
32:13So working class, as I say in Yorkshire.
32:18Mm.
32:18Do you prefer them with vinegar?
32:20Transforms the whole thing.
32:21Completely different, is it?
32:24Love buttering my bread.
32:26Now, this is the best bit.
32:27I can't believe you've never had a chip butty.
32:30Well, today's the day.
32:31When I was a kid, this was one of my favorites.
32:33The only fish I ever ate as a child was fried haddock.
32:36I wouldn't eat any of the fish.
32:38And then the vinegar.
32:40Oh.
32:40Quite generous.
32:42And then the salt.
32:44And this is what they call a chip butty in Yorkshire,
32:46where I come from.
32:53I like the cheap bread
32:55because the bread turns into the same texture as the potato.
32:58Right.
32:59That's why it's perfect.
33:01If you have posh bread or crusty bread,
33:04it's not the same.
33:06How's your haddock?
33:07Good.
33:09But it's proper working class food, is fish and chips.
33:12You know, when I was a kid, we'd eat them twice a week.
33:14They cook fish and chips in dripping beef fat, not oil.
33:17It makes a massive, massive difference in the flavor.
33:21Yeah.
33:23It's quite good.
33:25You were hungry.
33:26We worked hard out there.
33:28Not keeping warm.
33:30I mean, it's big.
33:32It's too big.
33:33Look, I'm done.
33:35Yeah, me too.
33:35That's my problem.
33:37I go for the chip butty before the fish.
33:41It's the child within me.
34:01Hidden away safely behind the walls of a former Victorian-era schoolhouse,
34:05insulated from the moronic inferno blazing outside,
34:09is Rochelle Canteen, a green idol,
34:12the unpretentious brainchild of Margot Henderson
34:14and her business partner, Melanie Arnold.
34:17How long have you been up and running here?
34:19Ten years.
34:20Ten years!
34:20I can't believe I know.
34:21What is wrong with me?
34:22You were a chef before Fergus, yes?
34:24Yeah, but I started cooking in restaurants when I was 12.
34:27Yeah.
34:27But this is Fergus, Pete and their pods.
34:30We met when I was working at the Eagle
34:31and I said straight away to him,
34:33we should open a restaurant together.
34:35And he said, well, that's a good idea.
34:37But let's be lovers as well,
34:38which I always thought was quite good.
34:40And then we had a restaurant.
34:43The whole area has changed around here.
34:45It's very sure-ditch, groovy guys,
34:48little motorbikes, handlebars.
34:50What was the neighborhood like before?
34:52Quite a large Bengali community.
34:54Before that, it was quite a strong Jewish community,
34:57but then they moved out, next group move in.
34:59It was a poor area,
35:01a lot of people working in the fabric, clothing industries.
35:04The bandstand in the middle is all the rubble from the war.
35:07I think the gardeners still find, you know, children's shoes and things.
35:12Really?
35:12It is a very interesting area.
35:15Just how beautiful these blocks are.
35:18There's quite a lot of building works going on at the moment as well.
35:21Everywhere in London.
35:22The whole city seems to be kind of transforming.
35:25It's certainly expensive.
35:26My daughter, she's moving because of what happened today with the EU.
35:30She's going to either live in Scotland or New Zealand.
35:34And she's so embarrassed and ashamed to be English.
35:38Is it the end of the world?
35:40It feels right now, it feels like the end of the world.
35:42We're separated.
35:44We're a little mean island saying,
35:45when the going gets tough, we want to get out and just look after ourselves.
35:49It's so selfish and disgusting.
35:53It's also, out of London,
35:54there's a lot of people who are really struggling
35:57and have lost their way and don't believe in what the government has done.
36:01So I don't blame the people either,
36:02but they've been fed sort of lies, I would say.
36:06Anyway, it's autodepressive.
36:08We must change the subject.
36:10Vitello tomato.
36:11Cold roasted veal, thinly sliced and covered with a creamy sauce of tuna and capers.
36:17Oh, this looks good.
36:18These are good.
36:20Mm.
36:21So what's going right?
36:22I mean, it's a bad day to have.
36:23Well, there's lots of great restaurants opening in this city.
36:25London and the U.K. in general has gotten just better and better every year.
36:29It's brilliant, isn't it?
36:29It's so exciting.
36:31Great chefs.
36:32The people who voted for,
36:33was it a sense of people who feel like they've been screwed?
36:36I mean, young people, unemployment in the North, it's dire.
36:40Right.
36:40People haven't got jobs.
36:42But, I mean, everyone's looking for chefs.
36:45Right.
36:45We should set up some great big new cookery schools in Britain.
36:50I mean, no one can get enough decent chefs.
36:52Some more encouragement.
36:53I mean, there is work to be had,
36:55but it's just how you find it and where you come from.
37:00Lamb chops with lentils and green sauce.
37:04Mm.
37:05So good.
37:06Where'd this little lamb come from?
37:08From Wales.
37:09Welsh lamb.
37:10People who dine out now,
37:12do they want food simpler and more stripped down,
37:14and with less bullshit,
37:15or do you think it's going the other way?
37:18Simple, but with a sort of twist.
37:20They've got a story about where it's come from.
37:23Right.
37:23It's very interesting.
37:24You know, they're all coming up with new dishes.
37:27Should I be buying pounds now?
37:29Yeah, that's what I kept thinking.
37:31What do we all do now?
37:32If I were a cruelly, cynical, exploitative...
37:35They'll all be working it out now.
37:36What would I be doing?
37:38Are you selling or are you buying?
37:40Yeah, I...
37:41Master of high finance.
37:43You do that so well.
37:45Well, thank you.
37:46You're making me feel much better about this meal
37:48and the wine, I have to say,
37:50your company has made me feel much better
37:51about the world than myself.
38:12Can you reinvent yourself in England or in London?
38:15Because it's, uh...
38:17I mean, maybe you can.
38:18I'm sure you can,
38:19but people are obsessed with class here.
38:21Still? Really?
38:23Yeah, absolutely.
38:24It's our measure of authenticity,
38:26so people are always trying to bust people.
38:28He's a tough, you know?
38:30What is a tough one?
38:31An aristocrat.
38:32An aristocrat, yeah.
38:33Right.
38:34My friend Adrian wrote a book called The Angry Isle,
38:38and he talks about how the British are famous
38:40for being polite and apologizing a lot,
38:44but that that actually masks a deep anger.
38:47Do you think there's any truth to that at all?
38:49Well, I think...
38:49I've been spending a lot of time in California,
38:51which is, you know...
38:53It's like, when you come to London...
38:55If you come to London for a month...
38:56Right.
38:56...you won't make any friends,
38:57and you probably won't find anywhere to go.
38:59But after that,
39:00the best people you've ever met in your life.
39:02When I went to L.A., that first month,
39:04I was so popular.
39:05Everyone was...
39:06I started, like, six bands,
39:07and then nothing comes of it.
39:08There's a kind of real first impression thing.
39:12Right.
39:12It doesn't go anywhere.
39:14In London, it's just...
39:15Get your head down and deal with it.
39:16Right.
39:19See, here we go.
39:21Closing, closing, closing.
39:23Get Tony some.
39:25Staggering news is now sinking in.
39:28Markets are giving a brutal reaction.
39:30When the world seems like it's spitting out of control,
39:33and the inside of your skull
39:34feels like it's being gnawed on by angry wolverines...
39:37The sun has risen on a completely different UK
39:39and a completely different EU.
39:42When you wake up still tasting tequila,
39:44feeling shame, fear, and regret in equal measures,
39:47it's good to have a friend.
39:49Europe's weaker, Britain's divided.
39:51Where do we go now?
39:52Who, without judgment,
39:54gives you a shoulder to cry on
39:55and maybe a simple good thing.
39:58Like some eggs and sympathy.
40:01I'm horribly and savagely hungover.
40:03It's very unlike you.
40:04I was feeling shame and regret and mourning.
40:08You're not the anyone.
40:09I don't know what's happening.
40:10Okay, I'm going to give you some eggs and purgatory.
40:12Why purgatory?
40:14Because they're in chili sauce and tomatoes.
40:17Special hangover cure.
40:18I know you need it.
40:19Yes.
40:19Now, do you know about the delicacy of fried slice?
40:23Oh, no.
40:24English delicacy, which is like British bruschetta.
40:27You fry plastic bread.
40:29Mm-hmm.
40:29I've got some really good beef dripping.
40:33Oh, kind of magical.
40:35Pure grease.
40:36That's what I need right now.
40:38Yeah.
40:41I think that's how everyone felt a bit after the referendum, too.
40:44There's something very strange about you,
40:46because you look normal.
40:47Mm.
40:48But it's all going on inside.
40:49Yes, you have got a slight pleading look in your eyes.
40:52I do.
40:52It's a...
40:53Okay, the whole point of this is the plastic bread soaks in all the fat.
40:57Right.
40:57So when you eat it, it bursts with grease in your mouth.
41:01It's that good.
41:02I like the noise.
41:06Here, I'm going to give it to you.
41:07It may still be a bit runny, but...
41:08I like runny.
41:09I need runny today.
41:10Okay.
41:11I'm going to try a bit dry first, so you can just get the facts going into your mouth.
41:16See this.
41:16Mm-hmm.
41:18There is light and hope in the universe again.
41:20That's what I aim to provide.
41:22Spice, runny eggs, and grease.
41:24Just what I needed.
41:27Mm.
41:28It's so good.
41:29I have something absorbent.
41:30You know that thing The Simpsons wants when he wants to put on weight so he doesn't have
41:34to go to work?
41:35Yes.
41:35And he allows himself to eat things that when you rub it on something, it makes it go see-through.
41:38Your window to weight gain.
41:40Yes.
41:40Yeah.
41:41Yeah, just make this turn see-through now if you want.
41:45I can see myself in about six months.
41:48I do feel quite pleased that we can be a corrupting influence.
41:50That's something that we can be proud of.
41:56These are frightening times for many.
41:59The world is changing, and there is no stopping those changes.
42:02But in such times, there are always two ways to go.
42:06Run and hide.
42:07Build walls.
42:09Cower in fear and suspicion.
42:11Point the finger at our neighbors.
42:13Look like desperate, frightened people do for someone to blame.
42:17Or stand up and try, at least try, to build a better world.
42:21To look for, instead of a man on a horse to save us, or a wall to keep us apart,
42:26to our
42:27better angels.
42:29Come side to help.
42:30Walk.
42:33Walk.
42:42Walk.
42:44Walk.
42:44Walk.
42:49Walk.
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