Covering some of the events of the week, but mainly skipping over the things everyone else is talking about to create space to talk about things that shook our ficus a little.

• Tractors pulling out of DEI while doing DEI https://twitter.com/TractorSupply/status/1806417863885902217/photo/1 
• The history of boycotts
• Self-censoring ERR
• Bound, handcuffed and forced to listen to a radio show.
• Don’t go to Oslo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vhD59ac7nw
• Black Jobs (Ace defends President Trump on efficiency grounds) https://x.com/fiercefreckled/status/1807520739718762861
• Prime Minister on your doorstep https://x.com/cllr_aston/status/1807467159032901901
• Machiavellian Macron and French Cohabitation
• Perri-Camp: The conversation around masculinity that we’re having by not having it.
• Men playing No2 to Women
• Units of Cultural Inheritance
• Unexpected rocket launches https://www.instagram.com/reel/C85I3XVRIq3/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_li and the dodging bullets on 4th July.
• Zombie soldiers
• Ugly is beautiful?… Nope. Esp for vape stores
• Tools: Knowing the problem you’re solving - Get off my lawn
• Carbon Savings Account: https://scope-zero.com
• Writing an agenda for your social meetings
• Ask your teams “What might you be wrong about?”
• Commiserating in exasperation

This week, we cover:

• Pigeons in airports and frogs in backpacks;
• Snakes on paddle boards and Ace's pumpkin patch;
• Donating blood rather than tweeting opinions;
• Bolshie ≠ Bullshitty;
• Mail Jumpers (not Male Jumpers)
• A single bearing from America to India
• AI "softening" angry Japanese consumers
• Carbon neutral Druids
• Thai gay marriage
• Be rich-adjacent, it's more fun than being rich
• British courtesy (when not in a steel and glass bubble)
• Medieval weapons in modern warfare
• Women special forces
• Murderous velocity electric vehicles
• Backup cameras are the new calculators
• Fist bump or handshake?
• How to celebrate Juneteenth
• Gigglemugs go Juggins Hunting

And then, the usual combination of rants about everything from nationalizing Uber, hot dogs and chestnuts, Ace's weird relationship with turkeys, drowning influencers while birthing stars, delegating vs abdicating, fake waterfalls and access to nature. And it turns out the Amazonian folk have a healthier relationship with their new tech than shallow media wants to report.

Oh, and free Phone Boxes for the first million listeners who write to radio@envoyportfolio.com

• software inflation and white men inflation on AI boards;
• Spotify content with cheap content;
• EV trucks may kill you, but it will be clean power - from Texas;
• Mexican women rise to the top, while Modi is moderated in India;
• Statecraft and stagecraft at D-Day commemorations;
• Paratrooper passport checks;
• Leaf blowers blow (esp for bikers);
• Working from home may be a career killer?
• Scott & Yogi

Some content a little rawer this week. Earbuds around young kids maybe? But older kids, hell let 'em listen.

• Bumbling Apologies
• Sober Hours in Dublin?
• Not Kicking the Kicker Enough
• Things Can Only Get Wetter (British Elections)
• Promiscuous Mice
• Turbulent Coverage, and emergency landings (not in Wrexham, Jamaica would be better).
• Formenting Azerbaijanis
• The Women with the Tanks and Ships
• Rescue the (Nigerian) Hostages! - The news we don't hear.
• Appalling, but Tactically Brilliant
• Scoping out Doppelgängers
• Where Are The Trained Grizzlies?!
• The Death Spiral of Meetings
• Wayne's Wrong (It's a pattern).
• Don't Touch My Apples, Water My Wildflowers

Sort of Safe For Work, Not Safe for Home (if your kids are around).

On the docket:

• Adorable Little Airport Ladies
• Parqhorses
• Pickle Rick Bomb Balloons
• Aid & TikTok
• Industrialized digital exploitation
• Google on going faster
• Rules and regs of brawling in the North
• Dennett v. Bukowski
• And the newest product from the Radio Rodeo Boys, "Crusties for Povvos"

And lastly, a reminder: You're made of stardust, on a flat earth, in a round galaxy. Or maybe it's the other way around? Either way, we'll see you out there.

//

This one's probably not safe for home if the kids are around.

Scott apologizes to Ryan Gosling.... how interagency collaboration probably saved lives on a bridge in Baltimore... doubling down on the art of just hanging out with no agenda... success in running computers with only our minds (is this more transformative than AI?)... security clampdowns in Hong Kong - will we see an expat evacuation?

This week's Involuntary Sponsor - Sly Clyde Cider

Suitcase curling, cheese, Trtls, middle seats, marijuana rats and marijuana, invisible nukes, the art of doing nothing, and other things.

PS Scott was wrong about the Oscars. He’ll say sorry next week. But he’s still angry about Ken.

• Little Ace.
• Doubling the black population of Montana.
• "Prompt Engineering as a new career option.
• Roe vs Wade driving the French constitution.
• AI for protection of children.
• What is World Class (through motorcycle maintenance).
• German leaky lines.
• Non-obligatory running.
• What's too political?
• A little gratitude for the women that dominate our world.

Said "Other Things":

• Locally roasted, small-batch Nespresso
• Billion $ (Power) Women
• In an era when we're supposed to care about everything, what gets relegated to the Island of I Don't Give a Shit?
• Our Short-Lived "Retail" Segment: Buc ee's, Amazon Cars, Dollar General Broccoli, & Party Towers.
• Is LA on the road to being the city of the future (again)?
• Scott as janitor, Ace as accountant, neither cool.

*cues "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan*

• Scott asks for proof he's not American.
• Ace makes a case for Sex Ed.
• Are Black folks allowed in country music?
• Drones, tanks, and how Call of Duty is now official battle readiness training.
• The Epidemic of Loneliness rears its lonely head (again).
• Our thoughts on Taylor Carlson and Star Belly Sneeches.
• Whose physics are worse and how do they apply to organizational change?
• Book burnings are back!
• Flags, circular rooms, and Jimmy Carter's Warhol.

"I, I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone..."

-Grammy quoting Luke Combs quoting Tracy Chapman

Other specific thoughts on random topics:

• Universal Basic Income
• Easy side hustles?
• Culture tools
• Monumental conversations

Give it a spin. We’ll see you next time.

• wonder if they have to be as mad as everyone expects us to be about Open AI
• admit they maybe made a bad call on a thing
• talk about campfires as a function of innovation
• give ERR listeners permission to NOT be rested after the holidays

If you're stateside and need fodder for your Thanksgiving road trip or an excuse to hide from festivities, feel free to blame the Brit for not knowing it's a holiday week. If you're elsewhere in the world and want to listen to us blow literal and figurative smoke at each other for a bit, you're in the right place. Enjoy.

Questions or comments for next week always welcomed. Critiques not so much, unless it's about Scott, in which case send directly to scott@envoyportfolio.com.

*unless it's not

• Casino (Battle) Royale.
• The low knowledge bar for having a strong opinion.
• Let's switch Veterans Day with Memorial Day.
• Pre-meal or pretentious?
• Tools for tools: Meeting Agendas.
• The Feds aren't welcome (at this training, at least).
• All Black Virgin flights.
• Sleep suits and face-down alarm clocks.
• Saying sorry to Hasan Minaj
• Tool Awards.
• King William the Last

This week's Involuntary Sponsor: Oransi - enter code Envoy15! - for 15% off their home and office air purifiers.

Getting Away with Airport Curling

LinkedIn Getting Weird

Anglo Angle-Phobia

Making the Case we Know Nothing About the Supreme Court

Banksy is BoJo?

The Hazards of Parking

Talking into Your Jacket for Upgrades

Involuntary Sponsor of the Week: Away

• Wishing for Ace to fall down aircraft stairs.
• Being wrong on team offsites.
• Garden-fetes for states
• Florida being the home of new high speed train-spotters.
• Fabricating racism. Is Hasan Minhaj right or wrong?
• The planet is going to be fine, humans though....
• Articulate headwear.
• Transforming "they" to "we".
• Polish-Ukrainian spats and why they matter.
• Highest compliment; It's not about something, it's also not about nothing.

• Whether Austin-the-Giant is a customer or a passenger.
• Bicyclists on taxiways.
• Scott trying to justify language imperialism.
• Ace teaching how to apologize correctly.
• Alternate perspectives: America on the Wrong Side
• Right to free speech vs. right to be safe at night.
• Ace begging forgiveness from a security camera.

And Meta, turn down your radios. Off to Indy...

• The importance of being rubbish to avoid selling out.
• Being a large black man in a truck.
• Spending billions to prove a friend wrong.
• The wealthy folk northerly of Richmond, smoking Fudge Rounds.
• The Mary Poppins of Envoy
• Are you a "Yesander"?
• Slashers: back or forward?
• "Innovators" suck at innovation.
• Ace's CPA fan club.
• Francofailing in Africa.
• Solving queues in women's bathrooms.

This week's involuntary sponsor: Scout Motors

• King Louie the Cat
• Pets over parenthood and the economics of relationships
• How the Marlboro Man is a bad example and nobody talks about Tonto
• The art of being alone without feeling lonely
• Mates from home, social media buddies, and "disinvitations"
• Conferences: Education or Boondoggle?
• Remote Work: Chapter 458
• Perri's missing microphone
• The history of the Kalimotxo
• Breaking bread and reverse (reverse) innovation on restaurant menus
• AceJob again
• Are people with large heads more charismatic?
• And lastly, Alan's questionable airplane etiquette

• He who sets the colour tone settings...
• Your most worthy skill for friends.
• Clarifying arrest records.
• Phone-free pubs.
• Child denial
• Signal to Noise Ratio: We Make Kids Tired
• No Whining - It's not an effective negotiation tactic.
• Abseiling (rappelling) from Twitter to Threads.
• The DNA of engineering teams.
• The magnetism of AI without guardrails.
• AceJob
• The hotel where you can take home almost all you experience.
• Trapped on Mars, in Texas.
• The Book of Scott vs. The Book of Ace.
• When is winging it, appropriate?
• The poetry of being out of one's depth.
• We live in a wobbly universe.
• Global glue sniffing.

• Ozempic changing ideas of what bodies should be and reducing exercise.
• Shifting focus from "shape" to health.
• Can we make incrementalism hot (probably not)?
• Former presidents as worm warriors and cracky uncles.
• Running teams at 85%: Breaking through the contradictions of flex work.
• Scott as the worst corporate employee.
• Rewarding the undramatic.
• Depression in the highest performers.
• The "cheering" experience.
• The best stories are no fun.
• Missing wads of cash.
• Totalitarian jerk scores.

See you next week, maybe.

• Ace's love of Dutch hotels and their language.
• It’s not your fault if your dad is rubbish.
• Juneteenth: Freedom from the Free.
• (Economic) dominants in subs.
• If you just “think” an experiment, does it count?
• What will we do with the time freed up by AI?
• 5 Rants in 6 minutes.
• Blowing Maltesers.

1. Why are we always the a**holes?
2. If you had to choose to die right now or live forever, which would you choose?
3. Is there a god and where do they live?
4. Which cryptid is most likely to actually exist?
5. Did it feel weird at the beach last week?
6. Snap your fingers and solve one societal issue, but you don’t get to design around any unintended consequences, what issue?
7. If you could be any nationality other than American/British, which would you choose and why?  Would you choose that over being US/UK?
8. Do you hug your mates?

This week's edition, sponsored by Bud Light, maybe.

• When should we resist normalisation?
• Ratings are meaningless - we give five stars to be left alone.
• Apple Vision Pro - how to overcome looking ridiculous.
• What if 2nd amendment rights only applied to women?
• A school shooting doesn’t count if graduation is off-campus.
• If AI can precisely predict the life of our spouses, is it logical to hedge?
• Black language dictionaries.
• App improvements that will never happen.
• Wisdom to children from Uncle Ace and why he hates San Francisco.
• Will the backlash to Bud Light supporting trans influencers have stamina?

Every image on the page, every geotag, every statement is fake, presented as a primary source. The “Post-Truth Era”? Yes, we think we’re there already.

We discuss access to generative AI, along with coffee invitation etiquette… unisex bathrooms like the one in your house… drone warfare via Alibaba.com…. ignoring advice from those who offer it… and clone sex on this week’s Envoy Recorded Radio. 

If you don’t listen to the whole thing, listen to the last minute of the sounds of Kiev at night: a soundtrack appropriate to the week of Memorial Day

• The killer trailer.
• The Penguin Rule.
• Chasing specificity (and stop with feedback sandwiches).
• Scott the racist.
• Cash as the next innovation.
• Subways and machetes - when is offense actually defense?
• Selfie fences... only the "right" type of tourists please.
• Digital cretin factories.
• Swinging too far... let authors be authors.
• Turns out Ace is a decent (rant) date.

• Generating “primary sources” and faked real moon landings.
• The hotel you can’t stay in and AirBnB having to live in economic reality.
• YouTube links and LinkedIn (don’t do it) and surviving Ace on a first date.
• Etiquette: devices on planes and trains and Americans at food buffets.
• Something slower, please: Flickr is back, maybe Tumblr too.
• Trigger Warnings… well intentioned, but missing the mark.*
• On the radar: the collapse of great American cities. 
• And, of course, Penguin love.

*We may need a trigger warning for the codename of the source.

• Bow-legged cowboys.
• When losses become celebrations (Alamo, Pearl Harbor, Dunkirk).
• Switching protagonists on historical stories.
• Illegal American immigration into Mexico.
• Embracing AI hallucinations to break groupthink.
• What if CERN hadn't given away the web for free 30 years ago?
• The worst newsroom movie... Slacking in your pajamas.
• Reverse Innovations: soap and shower gel.
• Is a corporate social impact campaign cleaner than funding a charity?
• Empowering up vs. Empowering Down (Scott's going to be even more unpopular...)
• Selfish leadership might be best (Ace may be more unpopular).
• Peeing Personas.
• Copyright traps and manifesting destinations.
• Robert Rogers Rules of Ranging, rules.

• Intended exploding starships and lessons for corporate innovation.
• Airlines living in a parallel reality.
• Locomotion cultures.
• Hiring for potential vs current capabilities.
• Servant-Leadership is borderline abusive (we just lost all our HR clients with that line...).
• Drop the gift cards, embrace the red envelopes.
• Grammar class: less dignity, fewer friends.
• American sneeze protocol.
• SNAFU vs FUBAR.
• The No-Mow Movement (and Scott's clover obsession).
• Ace's camp cup rant and his delicate knuckles.
• Searching for eudaimonia in Oxford (Professor Kringlebach's cat?).
• We're done with lame episode closes.

What you should be listening to instead of this.

Murder of nuance and the manslaughter of context.

Transgender nonsense and is any issue binary?

Thrashing Lawrence of Arabia.

Ace advocates to start smoking.*

The career case for Ozempic.

Ace discovers the difference between American and British Suspenders.*  

Ace visits Pity City and defends CEO bonuses.*

Indian is a company, rather than a country,* but its digital payments are incredible.

Bunkbeds on planes.

Psychological reactants and fingerprints on the Elgin Marbles.

*Not a good week for Ace

• Failure and self-flagellation (hit the red button).
• The (prisoner's) dilemma of pausing AI research.
• Unverified NY Times on Twitter.
• Time Starvation as a Factor of Innovation.
• Bottom dwellers of the elite.
• Driving over iPads in trucks.
• America: Almost the Most Powerful Country in the World
• Bust Virgin Orbit.
• The Nuclear Family Was Made Up by Madison Avenue.
• Breaking the Les Bobos Bubble

• Bald hair care. With an (unrequested) product plug for Mountaineer Brand
• “Advantage Introductions” (wrestling with the whole “self-made” thing)
• Ford x Sydney Sweeney (x Ace Callwood?…)
• The nonsense economics of electric scooters.
• The viability of making social media illegal for teens (Utah’s giving it a try).
• But maybe we need betting syndicates to bribe our kids.
• Words that white American men cant say but foreign white men can. To black men.
• Unpacking Scott’s need to unpack (into Mason jars).
• Liberals and conservatives agree more than we’d like to admit on immigration (regardless, it’s families - not boats - we’re stopping).
• The art of being offended and the Lear-ish circle that connects left and right.
• Do we need to nudge gender out a circle on the Diversity Wheel?
• Shock and War: Behind the scenes on decisions on Iraq 20 years on.
• Disagreeing about JK, sans Harry Potter joke. (suspect we’ll revisit this disagreement)
• The shortest etiquette section about the tallest.

• F'ing Fungible Tokens (why everyone loves vinyl).
• Variable movie theatre seat pricing - and why people hate it
• Why Starlink matters in Ukraine, and soldiers on front cover of Elle Magazine.
• Ikea and it's second-hand furniture store.
• Single Event Upsets (it's a space thing, or a dating thing).
• How to capitalize (capitalise) a title properly.
• Where Gerrymandering comes from - it's not a jury.
• Formal vs functional translations of Biblical proportions.
• Scott's a secret Swifty
• Why we should let people fall on their ass during trust falls.
• And, Ace sets fire to the studio.

• Ace’s case against breweries.
• Does bandwidth in a disaster zone affect charitable donations?
• Data metrics and web analytics don’t work for executive influence.
• First-person accounts the war in Ukraine - from White House, to Ukrainian homes.
• Intolerance in the name of tolerance.
• The “slash generation”.
• Taking citizenship away.
• Mali or Molly?
• Is innovation better, or just the new thing?

Ace & Scott are joined by guests, Elizabeth Byland and Alan Dow M.D. to discuss...

• Snogging, Tipping, and Deconflicting
• Ventilators in hospitals "sighing"
• Imposter Syndrome vs Being an Imposter
• Taking America Back, with Wolves
• Banksy's Freezer and Jobsworthiness
• Male Answer Syndrome in AI

And, the gift of being a mug.

• Leaving room for whatever you want in your coffee, just not while “DePlaning”
• Emotional Kevlar - should we only bring in 75% of us to work?
• The Overcorrection Theorem
• Energy crisis solved? Does that solve the water crisis?
• Adderall for 350 million people
• Standing under wind turbines
• Your orbit of matter
• Catch ups with mates are different now. Making space.
• Is being a square a prerequisite to being a doctor? (Ask Alan)
• Chasing UFOs with helicopters

• Retiring queens
• Sartorial camo
• Feeling "hit on both sides" through Tyre Nichols reporting
• The temperature on Mars
• Technology and HBCUs
• Ballooning costs

Among, well, other things.

The desensitization of America.

The preciousness of the left.

De-escalation techniques. The positive feedback loop.

The manslaughter of nuance and murder of context.

Theory of the leisure class.. When doing nothing is doing something.

Chancellors not gaining benefits of tanks and not saying sorry for dodging taxes.

The consequences of innovation.

The Dr that smells Like leather-bound books.

• Unwilling sponsors.
• Snowpluffs.
• Are we really rested after the holidays?
• Americans having secret time-off.
• White men rule the comments section, apparently.
• Cogent sources.
• NATO tank negotiations - the gift of the blur.
• Is university worth it?
• The behavioral economics of WFH.
• Layoff first timers.
• Why brainstorming is rubbish.
• Pirate money

Producer: Perri Young

A Rogue Media Production www.loyalrogues.com