Cows wearing sweaters, Ubers vs taxis, and garden mazes for the rich.
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Cows wearing sweaters, Ubers vs taxis, and garden mazes for the rich.
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Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Geoff 0:08
And welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I am your co host, Geoff. And of course I am here with my co host, Georgie. Sup.
Georgie 0:20
The sky.
Geoff 0:21
The sky. Speaking of the sky—
Georgie 0:23
The sky, ooh hang on, wait. Did I say “the sky”? Oh, did I say “this guy”?
Geoff 0:31
This guy? This guy’s toast? This guy’s toast?
Georgie 0:35
I think it’s a Jimi Hendrix thing. Like he says in his one of his songs, “excuse me, while I kiss the sky”. And people thought he said, “Excuse me while I kiss this guy”. And he jumped in on the joke. And when he performed live, I think he actually reached in to like, kiss his guitarist, his fellow guitarist or something like that. Anyway, I said the, “the sky”.
Geoff 0:59
“The sky”. Speaking of the sky. Yeah, there’s also this a game called... what’s it called now? It’s called Hearthstone. It’s a card game that’s played online. It’s made by the same people who make World of Warcrafts, which is made by Blizzard. Anyways, they have this announcement that happens whenever you play this one specific card. And it’s actually I don’t know what card it is. But it says “this guy’s toast”. This guy’s toast.
Georgie 1:38
Is it this guy is toast, or is it this guy, like as in, the toast that belongs to this guy?
Geoff 1:45
This this guy is going to be toast, like—
Georgie 1:49
He’s going to be toast.
Geoff 1:49
This guy. Right?
Georgie 1:51
Yeah.
Geoff 1:51
And then everyone, everyone kind of mishears it as “disguised toast”, like a toast which is disguised as something.
Georgie 2:00
Yeah.
Geoff 2:01
And then this guy made his—because he’s a really popular Hearthstone player—he made his his his username, “disguised toast”. So he’s sort of quite a popular YouTuber slash... He doesn’t play Hearthstone. I know. But he owns an esports team now, which maybe, is of interest. But yeah.
Georgie 2:27
Oh, I had a similar thing as well.
Geoff 2:28
Totally.
Georgie 2:30
Another one that is the line from a song. And it goes. “She asks about the cows wearing my sweater”.
Geoff 2:41
“She asked about the cows wearing my sweater”.
Georgie 2:44
Yeah. What do you how do you understand that sentence from that song?
Geoff 2:52
I have no idea. I’m—
Georgie 2:55
“She asked about the cows wearing”—
Geoff 2:57
Something about the cows wearing my sweater?
Georgie 3:00
What visual?
Geoff 3:02
I understand that to be, sweater-wearing cows.
Georgie 3:04
Exactly. Exactly. I thought okay, so I listened to that song for the first time. And I thought, why are the cows wearing sweaters? And then the next line which is not really relevant, but is the next line is “it’s something about the weather” and it’s a very sincere ballad, imagine just like a guy singing this, like, by the way, the song is called When We Are Together by The 1975. But it’s just like this kind of lovey ballad and that kind of thing. And it’s really sincere. And I’m like, why are the cows wearing his sweater? And then I it was not until I watched a video of someone doing sort of reaction video to the album release that he got to this song, and he thought the same thing, and he said, oh, no. She’s asking him about the cows while she is wearing his sweater.
Geoff 3:59
Right, right. I got the lyric here. Just literally, “you asked about the cows”, comma, “wearing my sweater”.
Georgie 4:07
But still!
Geoff 4:07
It should be like, “wearing my sweater, you asked about the cows”? Maybe the other way around?
Georgie 4:13
Maybe, or “you’re wearing my sweater”. Yeah, while asking. But yeah, it’s a song.
Geoff 4:18
(singing) You’re wearing my sweater, you ask about the cows. Or something like that.
Georgie 4:24
So anyway, I still every time I listen to the song, I know what it’s supposed to be. But I’m still thinking of cows wearing sweaters.
Geoff 4:32
Yeah, we I went to a kind of like your Devcamp but not really.
Georgie 4:39
Yeah.
Geoff 4:39
It’s kind of it’s a, what do they call, it base camp. And they get basically everyone who had started in the past six to 12 months to come out. And let’s just call it, re introduce the company values to you. So it was very, very focused on positive and negative behaviours—
Georgie 5:12
By the way—
Geoff 5:12
Based on the values—
Georgie 5:13
The reason I’m laughing is because, and I don’t want to—maybe I shouldn’t say this. (laughs)
Geoff 5:17
Yeah maybe. (laughs)
Georgie 5:18
But there was a, there was a process introduced at work that people were not happy with, which was, I think it was, it was poorly communicated and poorly timed. As in, we were told to do some tasks related to this thing. We weren’t told ahead of time, we weren’t prepared. So we were like, what is this? Anyway. I won’t go into detail about what it is. But it made me think it because it wasn’t like, it was like in line with some company values as well. I was like, hmm, where are you going with this?
Geoff 5:52
Yeah, the like, it’s like a re induction. And I like to joke about how it’s, it’s basically rewashing the brains.
Georgie 6:03
(laughs)
Geoff 6:04
But, but it like kind of reinforces the fact that you know what, most companies they kind of put their values up there and say, Yep, we got them. And then like dust, dust their hands off, or whatever, and say, everything’s cool. And then they go on with like, life as usual.
Georgie 6:23
Yeah.
Geoff 6:24
But like, this one is, they’re really driving that whole fact that, let’s see which one of them is like, on top of mind, because I just got rewashed. Courage, I guess it’s called the courage to be vulnerable. And I don’t think I really liked that one. Take, take, take responsibility or something like that. I can’t remember the exact wording, which is really bad, because I just learned about it again. Anyways. And there are like, positive—
Georgie 6:53
Views are your own, not your employer’s.
Geoff 6:55
Yeah, there’s positive versions of the behaviour, which is, of course, do you take 100%? Now, it’s, that’s actually to say not to take 90%, and you shouldn’t take 110. You should actually take exactly 100% responsibility for something.
Georgie 7:11
OK. Yes.
Geoff 7:11
Which is like an interesting way of framing it. And then the negative one is actually blind, blind trust. Like, it’s basically the negative version of the behaviour is sort of like things that could happen that, that that is taking advantage of, of the of the of the value itself, right. You could say, oh, yeah, we have the value, take hund—take responsibility. So you’re gonna take responsibility, and I’m just gonna go off on my own, and you just do whatever you want or forever. Like, yeah, blind trust. So like, we’re saying they’re saying, this is a good thing to do. But also, don’t take it to the extreme.
Georgie 7:57
Yeah, yeah. I think it’s good to know, like, because then you understand what to do and what not to do. Because we used to have one before we sort of like rebranded, and it was called “do less, but do it best”. And it doesn’t mean do nothing, it means like, you know, to prioritise properly.
Geoff 8:16
Oh right.
Georgie 8:16
Don’t do too much extra, that is not gonna really, like do the job.
Geoff 8:20
Exactly, exactly. So here, here’s the real value, because I completely butched this, it’s called “trust people to make decisions.” So now it kind of makes sense that the positive behaviour is take 100% responsibility, and don’t go out of your scope or anything. And the negative one is just don’t like blindly trust people to make decisions or the best decisions. So I thought that was really interesting. They flew me out to Melbourne for a free night. So it’s like, you know what—
Georgie 8:47
A free night?
Geoff 8:47
A free night in Melbourne. Anyways, so we get this activity, which was it supposed to be something along the lines of... Ah, did I mix up the activities? Anyways, it’s an activity where you’re supposed to, I don’t know. Talk about these values and how they help your situation. Did I really butcher this? Probably butcher, butchered the story. Anyways, someone used Chat GPT to write a song. And they sung it in front of the group.
Georgie 9:22
Was it good?
Geoff 9:25
Yeah, it basically had like a chorus. And he said he initially wanted people to join in on the chorus, but he thought nah, that’s too hard. But it rhymed the woods, like, right, and sight. So like, he would pause before saying, blah, blah, blah, pause, right, and keep our goals in sight.
Georgie 9:49
(laughs) So dramatic.
Geoff 9:50
Everybody picked up on it in the middle, like, after the first chorus everyone’s like, after the gap, they went, “right”. And I’m like oh my god.
Georgie 10:00
That’s very cheesy. But so funny.
Geoff 10:02
Yeah, so they apparently didn’t do the task, but they did get Chat GPT to write them the song. And they sang the song. It was like the last thing on the agenda. Like it was like 4, 3:30, 4pm or whatever. And he, he busted up the song. So, like, reinvigorated the group, I guess, to a degree. What else did we do? Oh does your, does your company have these things called Employee Resource Groups?
Georgie 10:37
What do they do exactly?
Geoff 10:39
Yeah, it’s a really good question.
Georgie 10:41
Maybe I’d know the answer if I know exactly what that means.
Geoff 10:45
Yeah, not to get too far into my company—
Georgie 10:48
Work?
Geoff 10:48
Work. Eh. But essentially, it’s the idea that your company has very specific groups of interest, like, Women of Culture Amp is one of our like, yeah, employee resource groups, and like, caregivers, and parents. So the idea of—
Georgie 11:09
So who’s, who’s in the group, is it people who are in that, belong to that group of who are trying to do better like to—
Geoff 11:16
Oh, it’s a good question.
Georgie 11:16
Yeah.
Geoff 11:17
That’s a good question. So it’s—
Georgie 11:18
Otherwise, it’s just like a club—
Geoff 11:20
...supposed to—yeah.
Georgie 11:21
Is it a book club? Or is it like a library, like people who are like, trying to encourage everyone to read books? You know what I mean, yeah.
Geoff 11:29
Yeah, yeah. It’s supposed to be, like, a way to foster a very specific type of community in the in the company. So Women of Culture Amp, are women of Culture Amp. And then there’s a second thing called allies and you can become an Ally of the Women of Culture Amp.
Georgie 11:49
So it’s separate kind of?
Geoff 11:51
Yeah, it’s quite confusing. So one of the big things—
Georgie 11:54
Why wouldn’t it be just one group, like committee? I don’t know.
Geoff 11:58
Yeah.
Georgie 11:59
I don’t think we have anything like that. We’ve got a Culture Club, where it’s like a group of people where anyone is invited to help, like, organise events and things like that. And we used to have a diversity committee, I was actually on it. Someone nominated me, or a few people nominated me. And we did a couple of things. This was way back, though. And then I think as as the company grew, I think it’s now sort of more taken care of by HR. Don’t quote me on that.
Geoff 12:29
Yeah.
Georgie 12:29
I haven’t checked. But the Diversity Committee I was part of doesn’t exist anymore.
Geoff 12:35
Yeah, we also have a culture one. But essentially, like, they’re having trouble with engagement, and stuff like that. I’m like, Who isn’t having trouble with engagement when it comes to trying to create a community? So like, a big part of the exer, there was an exercise, and I think this was the exercise with the song, but I can’t quite match why they would come up with a song for this. But it’s, it’s to help try and figure out like, all right, how do we solve engagement? And how do we get, I don’t know, quality engagement in these kinds of groups. So, I mean, it’s kind of similar to, to our work where I suppose we want people to be engaged with what we make, because technically, they’re the people we’re making it for. And if they just disengaged with us, we have no idea if it’s working or not working. So yeah, it was kind of like, yeah, we all got that problem when it comes to community. But yeah, it was fun. They got catered food, of course, I flew out at 6:30am something stupid.
Georgie 13:52
Yeah. Was it overnight, one day?
Geoff 13:55
Yeah. One day. They put up, put us all up in one hotel, because they’re trying to, you know, stretch the dollar. So they, instead of everyone like booking their own Airbnbs and expensing it—
Georgie 14:09
They just handled that?
Geoff 14:11
Yeah, they just found a hotel, bulk bought, and made everyone stay at the same place.
Georgie 14:17
That’s, that’s—I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s usually what a business would do. Right?
Geoff 14:24
Yeah, it’s true, actually, hey. And it was a, it was kind of good. Like, we got, I mean, we got to the airport and more like multiple other people were trying to leave the airport at the same time. So I mean, it’s kind of obvious what time people would try and land because it takes about an hour to get to the to the event space. So if people, people were either gonna get there super early, or just about half, one and a half, maybe two hours before before the event itself. So about five, people were at the airport simultaneously so, caught, met up with them because we’re all going to the same place, all got the same cab and—oh, funny thing.
Georgie 15:11
Yeah.
Geoff 15:12
It was in Melbourne. And we booked. I booked an Uber at the airport and usually write anyone who knows how to use Uber. You look at the road map and the car comes along and then you get in the Uber. Not at Melbourne Airport anymore. They are now cab ranks. You line up. You still book the Uber on your phone, but you get a PIN code. And then you line up. And you get given an Uber.
Georgie 15:42
Yeah, okay. Because I I’ve, every time I’ve been to Melbourne, I’ve just taken the Sky Bus from the airport to the city. Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 15:50
Nice. I think the last time I went, oh, was that Brisbane? Gold Coast? I can’t remember, the yeah, there’s one of them that I usually take the bus. Anyways.
Georgie 16:03
You know how Uber has some in some shopping centres and such—like because I went to Bondi earlier—there was like a dedicated space for Uber drop off and pickup. And in the back of my mind, I thought, isn’t it so bizarre? How some massive company creating a rideshare thing has now... Like we now have made spaces for people to be picked up and dropped off. Who are using that service.
Geoff 16:35
Yeah. It was... It was a big question, wasn’t it like the cabs were getting angry that Ubers were given some kind of weird preferential treatment over the cabs, because cabs or taxis have to like designated spots for them, they have to line up. And then here you have this Uber who just like zips past all of them, picks up the person and drives away. And I think that’s a whole weird thing, right? Where they’re like, Well, you can’t have the taxis getting angry at us. And so they they have to make these dedicated spots. And you’re right. It’s kind of strange for the mega corp...
Georgie 17:20
Yeah.
Geoff 17:22
Kind of pushed into the taxi area. But man, taxis have it rough. They have to pay for the taxi license. They have to like It’s like quarter million dollars or something stupid, I think.
Georgie 17:37
Really?
Geoff 17:38
Yeah. Ta... taxi licenses. Australia, New South Wales. Maybe it’s not that expensive here. Oh taxi license, how much is the taxi licence, there you go, $33,000 per year? Okay. Where did the—I dunno, maybe it’s America, taxis licenses, they’re ridiculously expensive. Taxi license. USA. Taxi medallion. How much does it become? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyways, how much does cost, 200,000? There you go.
Georgie 18:18
Oh my goodness.
Geoff 18:18
So medallion can cost anywhere from 200,000 to a million dollars, which is huge investment. This is why this is why Uber is a massive disruption and why cabs hate Uber.
Georgie 18:30
But is that specific to the USA then the fact that it’s so expensive?
Geoff 18:35
Yeah, well—
Georgie 18:36
Surely it’s not that expensive here?
Geoff 18:38
33,000 per year?
Georgie 18:40
Oh. Yeah. Yeah like what the hell.
Geoff 18:42
Each year. Maximum of 10 years operation. So you actually you can’t operate forever as a taxi driver, can only operate up to 10 years. So, so yeah, it’s like, they were like, we paid 200k to be a cab, cab driver.
Georgie 19:01
And you just rock up in your Corolla? Ne ne ne.
Geoff 19:04
Yeah. You get kidnapped you know, all that. How do you know it’s a legit driver? If you don’t, if you just hop into a random person’s car. But that’s the risk you take getting an Uber.
Georgie 19:19
I mean, it’s the same with Airbnb, right? You’re in a stranger’s house. Like the technicalities of...
Geoff 19:26
Yeah, I mean, you can you can also get kidnapped by a taxi driver, look.
Georgie 19:32
Oh yes.
Geoff 19:32
Just because they paid 200k doesn’t mean they’re beyond ransoming you if they know who you are. Actually, was there someone who was... Yeah, in New South Wales. Pretty sure someone was kidnapped. Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 19:51
Recently?
Geoff 19:51
Recently.
Georgie 19:51
So it’s definitely happened. Yeah. I hate these stories because it’s... Well, I mean...
Geoff 19:57
It’s so close to home.
Georgie 19:58
Well, I don’t know if it’s close to home. I think it’s just...
Geoff 20:01
Right.
Georgie 20:02
It’s just terrifying, I suppose.
Geoff 20:05
Yeah. So my partner was telling me this story, like whilst I was driving, so here’s my hot take summary that’s totally possibly inaccurate. So this guy was found in someone’s house, and they, the police had managed to extract this person and bring them and it turns out he has lost some teeth. He was being put up for ransom.
Georgie 20:31
Woah.
Geoff 20:32
This guy is the cousin of a very famous Instagram model, TikTokker, or whatever, the like. And so, so a bunch of, few, a couple of teenagers, I believe a few teenagers, they, I am assuming they saw this TikTokker, found her cousin, found out that the TikTokker’s husband, husband’s brother is wealthy.
Georgie 21:08
So the cousin?
Geoff 21:08
The TikTokker’s—no the TikTokker’s cousin’s, the one that got kidnapped. The TikTokker husband, brother, brother in law—
Georgie 21:19
So a separate person.
Geoff 21:20
Separate person.
Georgie 21:21
...is really rich.
Geoff 21:22
Is the wealthy one?
Georgie 21:23
Okay.
Geoff 21:24
Yeah, so the the brother in law, I think he’s a he’s a famous actor or something in in wherever they’re from Thailand.
Georgie 21:33
Yeah. And he has a lot of cash.
Geoff 21:36
So they kidnapped the cousin of the TikTokker, whose brother in law is famous.
Georgie 21:42
For what? Why, what was the, why?
Geoff 21:45
That’s exactly the problem here. So this is an article, “in New South Wales police are trying to understand motive behind alleged kidnapping, torture”. It’s insane. So I’m sitting there going, wait...
Georgie 21:57
Right.
Geoff 21:57
Wouldn’t you, wouldn’t you kidnap the TikTokker? Wouldn’t you, wouldn’t you kidnap the TikTokker’s husband?
Georgie 22:04
I’m trying to understand this. Like, what do you want? First, like, first, like what do you want?
Geoff 22:10
Yep.
Georgie 22:11
So you know, it’s like so you know, you know, a famous Instagram famous person, online famous person, you know, the that she’s related to someone who is rich?
Geoff 22:25
Yeah.
Georgie 22:25
But then you just kidnap somebody else. Just some other person that is related to them.
Geoff 22:30
Yeah.
Georgie 22:30
For what? Is it? I don’t know. Is it so that she can the the Instagram model, TikTokker, can post online about about the grief or like the stress? I don’t know.
Geoff 22:43
Yeah. It’s like, they go like, you ransom this guy. And you ransom the TikTokker. But you want, you want the money from...
Georgie 22:53
Oh, you...
Geoff 22:54
Rich brother in law, right.
Georgie 22:54
Okay, but so you can’t capture the people you want the money from? Because you’re using the, they’re using the cousin as bait. I guess? Say, we’ll give you a cousin back if you give us money. Maybe.
Geoff 23:08
Yeah. Yeah, I don’t know. It’s perplexing. Here you go. 26—
Georgie 23:15
You know what’s funny? They might actually be cleverer than us. We probably—
Geoff 23:18
Maybe we’re not paying good enough chess, you know. “A 19 year old man found inside the house with the hostage was arrested”.
Georgie 23:27
So teenager.
Geoff 23:28
Teenagers, those are teenagers. So “police will allege the 26 year old small business owner was kidnapped from his bed in front of his girlfriend inside his Smithfield home by a group of six men wearing dark clothing masks and armed with a sledgehammer and fire extinguisher”. This guy was allegedly dragged down the stairs thrown over a gate by the group before bundling him into a car that kidnappers then allegedly demanded a ransom of this guy’s associates. “We set the price at 5 million if you can’t meet up up to our requirements we cut your boy up bit by bit until you give us what we want”. The allegedly sent on an unencrypted device. “Want his body in pieces, get the five mil already you have 24 hours to cover up something nice. We waiting times ticking” and they got found out. Group repeatedly assaulted and tortured this man over a six day period. So that’s like super, super random sounding. Firearms, it says firearms were used, sledgehammers, and the man was tortured but it seems like like, uh, captors placed a gun in his mouth. Oh, he wasn’t kidnapped with a gun. But a gun was utilised in the torture.
Georgie 24:56
Geez.
Geoff 24:56
So yeah, this was super random. Super stupid. A group of nine, group of teens deciding to kidnap. By the way, Smithfield and where they found him—very far apart.
Georgie 25:11
So he’s, he’s from Smithfield?
Geoff 25:14
The guy that got kidnapped is from Smithfield.
Georgie 25:16
Yeah. And where did they find him?
Geoff 25:19
They found him in Belmore.
Georgie 25:22
I can’t remember where that is.
Geoff 25:22
So let’s give people, let’s give people a little—
Georgie 25:26
Get directions.
Geoff 25:27
Get directions from Smithfield, Belmore. So a 32 minute drive on a on a good day, could be up to 40 minutes. So they kidnapped this person, drove 40 minutes away, and hid him away.
Georgie 25:46
Well, I’m sure there’s reason for it.
Geoff 25:50
Yeah. Well, that’s the news.
Georgie 25:55
Strange.
Geoff 25:56
It’s very, very strange. I think it’s the most recent kidnapping. New South Wales kidnapping.
Georgie 26:05
I think there’s a lot more that happens than you think, it’s kind of like missing persons. Like not every missing persons report gets, like, shared or talked about on the news, for example, you can find, you can look in the missing persons database and see a lot of people who have gone missing.
Geoff 26:25
Yeah. Have you ever looked at the safest suburbs in Sydney?
Georgie 26:28
Wait, wait, we can’t doxx ourselves.
Geoff 26:31
I mean, maybe we tell them we’re in the safe suburb or maybe not. But apparently, revealed that more than 200,000 serious offenses are recorded New South Wales 2022 including 81 homicides, 60,000 assaults—holy shit. 33,000 recorded domestic violence assaults. 30,000 non domestic assaults. 18,000 home break enters. 12,000 car thefts and 7000 sexual assault, 7700, sorry, it’s upper end of 7000 sexual assaults. That’s—
Georgie 27:08
But you know what I want to know? I want to know the non safe, the l—the least safe suburbs.
Geoff 27:14
The least safe suburb in Sydney. I mean, I guess yeah, here you go—
Georgie 27:20
Because—
Geoff 27:21
Least safe suburb in Sydney.
Georgie 27:22
I want to know how many are like in Western Sydney or if one of them is actually like, if one of them is actually Merrylands.
Geoff 27:30
Yeah, the Bureau of Crime and Statistics Research, here the latest crime report. You can get like some mad numbers. What are the least safe places? Bankstown? Suburbs having the highest number of automobile thefts, Bankstown Blacktown, interesting Blacktown. It’s pretty rich place. I guess that’s why you would kill you would take—
Georgie 27:54
Blacktown is not that rich?
Geoff 27:56
I mean, the houses are—
Georgie 27:57
Comparatively.
Geoff 27:59
Okay.
Georgie 27:59
Yeah, it’s not like if you want to go, oh if you want to steal rich like—rich cars—if you want to have expensive cars, go to Eastern like go—
Geoff 28:08
Oh true.
Georgie 28:08
Yeah, go to like straight up eastern suburbs.
Geoff 28:11
Anyways, so Blacktown’s like far north, Bankstown’s a little bit far south—
Georgie 28:16
Blacktown’s far west, not north!
Geoff 28:17
Far west, far west. Liverpool.
Georgie 28:20
Southwest.
Geoff 28:22
Auburn is actually really—
Georgie 28:23
Inner west? West ish?
Geoff 28:23
Kind of, it’s kind of you know, it’s more inner west.
Georgie 28:27
And Penrith is way west.
Geoff 28:28
Penrith is west.
Georgie 28:29
Edge of, edge of Sydney.
Geoff 28:31
I actually drove out that, there, yesterday, we went out to this play called, place called, Mayfield Gardens. Have you heard of it?
Georgie 28:39
Wait, Auburn?
Geoff 28:41
Obern?
Georgie 28:43
Auburn. Yeah is this the—
Geoff 28:44
No, not Auburn, Oberon.
Georgie 28:46
Oberon? I have not heard of this.
Geoff 28:48
This is three hour drive.
Georgie 28:51
Oh, okay, that’s far.
Geoff 28:53
It’s past the Blue Mountains, past Jenolan Caves—
Georgie 28:57
No frickin—
Geoff 28:57
Is past...
Georgie 29:00
Oh, wow. That is, so you’re almost at Bathurst, but—
Geoff 29:03
You are, oh we went to Bathurst. To charge the car
Georgie 29:06
Oh okay, well there you go.
Geoff 29:06
But yes, you’re almost at Bathurst.
Georgie 29:09
Yeah. Wow. Did you go there for the giant chess?
Geoff 29:13
No, went there—
Georgie 29:14
It says giant chess.
Geoff 29:14
Gor the giant—where the giant chess? Where?
Georgie 29:20
It says a tree lined valley plus giant chess.
Geoff 29:23
No the chess isn’t that giant, it’s a regular lawn size chess which is bigger than chess boards but not particularly giant, like, I don’t know, Alice in Wonderland giant or what’s the, Harry Potter giant. Actually the one the thing you go there for is the maze.
Georgie 29:45
Yeah, are you like into this stuff, man.
Geoff 29:47
Yeah the hedge mazes, man.
Georgie 29:50
We’ve talked about mazes before. We were talking about the Bago Maze.
Geoff 29:52
Yeah. The Bago Maze. So we went out here for the for the largest private maze.
Georgie 29:59
So you have to book?
Geoff 30:00
You can get it, you got a ticket to go in, $35 per person.
Georgie 30:07
Worth it?
Geoff 30:07
The glamping thing is a total separate thing you pay 400, 500 dollars a night, for glamping. I honestly don’t think it’s really that, that good. The glamping, I don’t know. It rained, so that wasn’t too fun.
Georgie 30:22
Oh shit.
Geoff 30:22
Yeah, we were in the maze when it was raining, it was actually quite good all the way up to when we got to the maze. Alright, so to give everyone a size, a scale of this garden, it takes four hours to complete the garden at a leisurely pace.
Georgie 30:40
Wait, the maze or the—
Geoff 30:41
The garden.
Georgie 30:42
Just the whole—
Geoff 30:43
The whole gardens.
Georgie 30:44
Grounds?
Geoff 30:44
Yeah, the whole grounds.
Georgie 30:46
Four hours at a leisurely—
Geoff 30:48
Four hours at a leisurely pace, If you want, so there’s like 45 points of interest. And if you want to hit all of them—
Georgie 30:56
Get fucked. (laughs) Huge.
Geoff 31:03
It’s huge. So it’s 15 hectares.
Georgie 31:08
I have trouble visualising that but the fact that you said four hours at a leisurely pace.
Geoff 31:12
150,000 square metres.
Georgie 31:17
Wait, that’s fucking massive.
Geoff 31:19
Yeah. Get this—
Georgie 31:21
How many football fields in a hec—
Geoff 31:24
How many football fields in a hectare, 2.47 football fields in one hectare. So we’re talking about 30.
Georgie 31:31
30 football fields.
Geoff 31:33
30 football fields ish. That’s kind of mad, right? This place is 30 football fields. Now... the best thing about it—
Georgie 31:44
What the hell.
Geoff 31:44
Is that this is, this is part of a 50 hectare land. It’s not even half the size of the entire state. What’s, what’s that, like? 15 divided by 50.
Georgie 31:58
It’s very nice of them to offer this as entertainment.
Geoff 32:02
It’s 30%.
Georgie 32:03
Recreation.
Geoff 32:03
Yes, 30% of the total land of this place. It is ridiculous. This is a side project for rich people.
Georgie 32:14
(laughs) Oh my god, I gotta I gotta show you this guy on Instagram. What’s his name? He he looks at these videos of rich people doing things like their, their place is all beige. It’s got like nice things, their children’s rooms are like pristine, and it has a voiceover over them. Imagine this guy’s British accent. And he says he does this thing called, I’m rich and you’re poor, like pretending to be the person, and he’s like, this is my child’s room. And it’s like this, because I’m because I’m rich and you’re poor and you can’t afford that. It’s, it’s more than your grandmother’s pension. What’s his name sha... Shabaz is it?
Geoff 32:59
Shabaz, Shabaz. Nope, that’s not, that’s probably—
Georgie 33:05
Gonna have to... Shabaz says. S, H, A, B, A, Z.
Geoff 33:14
S, H, A, B, A, Z.
Georgie 33:17
Shabaz.
Geoff 33:18
Shabaz says. Oh, he’s a TikTokker. Get out of here.
Georgie 33:25
(laughs) Nah.
Geoff 33:25
Cool, got two people who follow him.
Georgie 33:28
But yeah, he goes, he covers all these videos where it’s like a it’s, so there was like a Prada cafe and he was like, you know, you can’t afford this this croissants are like nine pounds or whatever, these tiny croissants will shine even a full croissant and he just takes the piss out of rich people but mainly to point out that you know, the the majority of people just do not live like that, the majority of people look at that and actually can’t afford those kinds of things. But that just came to mind because you’re just like look at this estate, like they own this entire thing and this is just, these gardens are just like a small fraction of it.
Geoff 34:07
Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 34:08
But yeah.
Geoff 34:10
Have you seen the micro croissants?
Georgie 34:13
They smaller than my fingernail?
Geoff 34:15
Yeah, they are.
Georgie 34:17
Get fucked.
Geoff 34:18
Where is it? I saw it on Instagram. I should have just like snapped it but the micro, micro croissant is small, smaller than your fingernail and, yeah, they’re ridiculous.
Georgie 34:30
And what’s the point? And do they cost like $10?
Geoff 34:32
Probably. Anyway, so here’s the map. I’ll share with people. But essentially, you can see there’s like 41, 40 little, 42 points of things to look at. It as a nice garden. To be honest. If you had the if you’d liked guidance, and you had the didn’t know the gusto to drive three hours out there, it is. It’s a really nice garden and $35 for four hours of entertainment, entertainment quote unquote, entertainment for this. Maybe you’re not into into gardens. It’s quite good. It’s it’s got everything from, I don’t know, like bridges, waterfalls, like lakes. You can—
Georgie 35:19
Is there a duck pond?
Geoff 35:22
Oh yeah, I mean every pond’s a duck pond here. They have an obelisk, they have an obelisk, you can row a boat for free. So this is actually quite fun they have boat rowing you can go there, just pick up a boat, nothing, no, no extra cost or anything.
Georgie 35:34
There’s a flying fox. Wow. Did you try that? No, it was raining.
Geoff 35:38
No, it was kind of raining, we also didn’t quite see it. Yeah, it’s up there, flying fox.
Georgie 35:43
Wow, huge.
Geoff 35:45
You can, you can play croquet, so they have a croquet setup?
Georgie 35:49
(laughs) Yeah I don’t think that’s my thing but yeah.
Geoff 35:51
Version of croquet. But you can see like, like, the maze is like this tiny, tiny thing. Like, oh, this garden. It, it’s like definitely a hiking, oh we saw someone walk in with open toed like slightly heeled shoes. And they were going into this garden. But yeah, it was quite big. It was quite cool. The maze isn’t as good as Bago.
Georgie 36:19
OK.
Geoff 36:19
It’s just...
Georgie 36:20
Basic or something?
Geoff 36:22
It’s it’s quite, it’s quite good, like in terms of like a difficulty. But the problem is that it’s like the pathways are the size for children.
Georgie 36:32
So you’re like squished a little bit?
Geoff 36:34
You’re basically, basically the the hedges actually our height. 160 centimetres.
Georgie 36:39
Oh, okay. So you don’t feel en, like encapsulate like, you know?
Geoff 36:43
Exactly, exactly. And because it’s so narrow. It’s only one person walking. And like 24 people can go in.
Georgie 36:51
What do you do if you—what do you do if you see someone opposite and you’re trying to get out?
Geoff 36:56
Yep. You just squash to the sides. And they were just like, it was as if you were in like an aeroplane, you were trying to get past somebody on an aeroplane, in an airplane.
Georgie 37:05
Oh that’s not very good. Okay.
Geoff 37:07
Yeah, my take away thoughts. after that. I was like, I’m pretty sure that well actually, the history behind this is that they only opened this up in 2014.
Georgie 37:19
Okay.
Geoff 37:19
That’s after the maze was built. So actually 50% 50 to 60% of this was built before they opened it to the public. And this maze was clearly made for like the rich people, children, like you have three or four children and you want to build them a maze because you’re rich. And you just do it, right.
Georgie 37:40
Okay, but with all of this space, why didn’t they just make it bigger anyways? Like.
Geoff 37:47
Well, if we have a look at the map, there’s like the number 32 Is their house? Like that’s the house.
Georgie 37:53
Right okay. Yeah.
Geoff 37:54
So you can kind of get that they made some pathways. They were like, oh, yeah, let’s just make a maze over here and just put some garden stuff and then and then they decided to like really develop more and more and more of the garden and go hey, this is like, this is something you know, big, bigger than bigger than our little courtyard that we decided to, zhush up with a maze. But yeah, like I completely understand that they didn’t think about maze, the maze for scale. They just went, hey, we just need a maze for kids. And here’s a kids maze. I’d probably think of it as like if you made your kid like a, like a cardboard house, and then decided to open it to the public. Of course.
Georgie 38:40
Nah I think, I think you think of like a little tree house, but it’s quite small. You can maybe make one spend some time making one in the backyard, but it’s not going to fit more than like five people.
Geoff 38:51
Exactly. So this to them, a hedge maze to them is as if they just made a little playpen.
Georgie 38:59
You know, what’s funny is you say that, but then you go and stay in a tiny house.
Geoff 39:04
Yeah.
Georgie 39:05
Which is exactly what it says on the tin.
Geoff 39:10
Yeah, yeah. I—
Georgie 39:12
A tiny house is basically a glorified tree house probably.
Geoff 39:16
It is, probably.
Georgie 39:18
No, the thing I like about them. It’s always the sort of clever space saving stuff. And—
Geoff 39:25
Yeah.
Georgie 39:26
Utilising all the nooks and crannies. I always hesitate when I say the word “utilising”, if I ever do, because my friend my friend Chris hates when people use that. He said, just say the word, just say the word “use”, it’s exactly the same thing, It’s like you don’t utilise something, you use it.
Geoff 39:47
Yeah.
Georgie 39:49
Anyway.
Geoff 39:50
I think I’ve hesitated saying the words like “verbose” or—
Georgie 39:57
“Terse”.
Geoff 39:57
“Terse”. Oh, what’s another one that’s super, “expound”. That’s the one—
Georgie 40:05
What the fuck?
Geoff 40:05
Like, to expand. To explain further. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I use that other than to—
Georgie 40:12
Extrapolate, I do, I do say “extrapolate”.
Geoff 40:14
“Present or and expand explain a theory or idea in detail”. You could just say, like, “explain it”.
Georgie 40:21
Yeah.
Geoff 40:21
Like in great, in more detail but like “they expounded on that”, “please expound”.
Georgie 40:27
No, that’s too much. But I get what you mean like sometimes, like, I remember when I was writing essays in school, I would try to find bigger words just on purpose, right to sound better. But then my English teacher was like, you don’t need to say this, like, you just need to get your point across. That’s the important thing, like using big words does not actually make you sound smarter. Like if it—(laughs)
Geoff 40:51
Yeah.
Georgie 40:52
But don’t get me wrong. There are some quote unquote, big words that I love to use. I’m trying to think of one. Now that I’ve like, put myself on the spot. I can’t think of one. It’ll come to me eventually.
Geoff 41:04
But at the point at which I need to say this word I could literally, I could literally not think of a different way to say what I wanted to say other than the word expound, like I don’t—
Georgie 41:16
Well that’s fine. That’s fine.
Geoff 41:18
But I have to explain what it means!
Georgie 41:20
But probably some people say “utilise” without thinking because that’s exactly the word that they’re looking for.
Geoff 41:27
Yeah.
Georgie 41:27
Although, I really think we need to stop saying “cognizant”. Fuck’s sake.
Geoff 41:33
What’s the other one? It’s like um...
Georgie 41:36
A lot of these are like tech, oh not technical, like jargon you probably here at work as well.
Geoff 41:41
Yeah. What’s, what’s the one like? I think it’s something about like, heavy cognisant load or something. What’s it called? It’s when you—
Georgie 41:53
Yeah.
Geoff 41:54
It’s when you overload a person’s—
Georgie 42:01
Yeah what’s the word?
Geoff 42:01
Heavy cognitive load.
Georgie 42:03
Cognitive. Cognitive, cognitive load.
Geoff 42:05
Is it cognitive load? Yeah.
Georgie 42:07
Yes.
Geoff 42:07
Reduce cognitive load. Sorry, when you say in more of a reduced cognitive load, not like increase your cognitive load, nor is it heavy or light.
Georgie 42:16
Speaking of like, those, those, that jargon? There’s another one that I feel like, throw around so much. It’s similar to the oh, it’s, like even just words like “context switching”.
Geoff 42:30
Yeah.
Georgie 42:31
You’re just, just like, “I need to use this word, because that’s exactly what I mean”. But um, there is a guy, I’m, I’m sounding like someone who spends a lot of time on Instagram now. But there’s this guy on Instagram. I assume he’s on Tiktok as well. His name is cham—his username is champagnecruz, C, R, U, Z. And he does a lot of videos where he he, he acts as people from different generations, so, Boomer, Gen X, Millennial and Gen Z. And he goes through a bunch of different like work scenarios. And it’s so, it’s so funny, there was, there’s one where he doesn’t do the generation thing, but he does someone saying all of this discharge is corporate jargon like “moving the needle”.
Geoff 43:18
Oh yeah.
Georgie 43:18
What’s another one? “Low hanging fruit“. I can’t with that one. I just can’t. There’s something about, I think it’s more American, but it’s like, “we need to look at this from a 30,000 foot angle or whatever”.
Geoff 43:31
What 36, I know 360 view.
Georgie 43:34
Yeah. But you know what I’m talking about right? Like, it’s, it’s those kinds of, yeah, common phrases used in corporate America, but they would be used elsewhere.
Geoff 43:45
You know what else is low hanging fruit? Ending this podcast.
Georgie 43:52
No! When I think of low hanging fruit, just think of someone just like, really trying, jumping towards like some fruit hanging from a tree and trying exceptionally hard to like, but then like it’s just out of reach.
Geoff 44:06
If you think about low hanging, it’s like relative, right, to the rest of it. So it could still be high. In which case, like saying, oh, yeah, we can just, you can just complete this thing—
Georgie 44:17
That’s why you have the visual.
Geoff 44:17
...low hanging fruit. Anyways, thanks for joining us. You can follow us on @toastroastpod on Twitter.
Georgie 44:32
And you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts and the big low hanging fruit. What grows on trees anyways? Oranges.
Geoff 44:47
Pears, do pears grow on trees?
Georgie 44:51
I think so? Apples?
Geoff 44:53
Yep. And new episodes every Monday. So...
Georgie 44:58
See you next week.
Geoff 44:59
Bye.
Georgie 45:00
Bye.