But can this help American soccer take the next step? Will this bring soccer into the mainstream? Simon, I know you have thoughts on that.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think it is.

I mean, these debates are all the same, aren't they? You know, I mean, when the US national team were eliminated, we had a debate about pay to play.

We do that every four years.

Yeah, these are kind of rituals.

And, you know, where does soccer go from here? I mean, I think the World Cup was about as mainstream as soccer could get in the United States, no? I mean, it was everywhere.

I mean, I think from that point of view, you know, and let's not forget, there were some critical voices at the start saying this thing's going to be a flop.

Is that something that makes economic sense? Because that's the argument that Tenorio is making.

You can put it on our appeal if you want.

I-- Well, I've-- Yes, if you spot it.

It's, it is notable because it was a, it's, uh, the Samsung Galaxy S3, which is kind of obsolete, and it was out of contract, but it had the big fat extra battery pack on the back.

Yeah.

You have to.

If you buy in those kind of shops, it's understood.

There's a, it's, you kind of, there's, there's a churn, you know.

If you, if you, if you're actually keeping twenty percent of what you buy at any, any given-

[laughing]

And, um, and that was pretty much how the book ended.

And I remember thinking, "I wonder how that will hold up when it encounters its first significant challenge." And I don't think it's insignificant that that challenge is possibly coming now from Islam.

I suspect a lot of young people are seeing the extent to which Islam provides, uh, not just a moral code, but a sort of unity, a societal organizing principle.

And although we like to think in our post-Enlightenment and post, uh, Darwinian and, and post, sort of, uh, post-war settlement world that religion is a matter for personal conscience, I think actually we all understand at some level that it's a bit more than that.

It's actually a, uh, a way of coming together with some surety, some confidence that we can trust one another, that we have a, in common certain understandings of what life is about and what's-- how we should behave towards one another, and they may be looking for that as well, possibly.

I will also just mention, before my time is up, there's a certain amount of reading I've been doing lately, working my way very slowly through an absolutely enormous book by Dr Iain McGilchrist, a thing called, uh, The Matter With Things.

Into the mic, please.

Yeah.

Well, I was going to say, that's right.

And it's not a distant memory at all.

I remember those wrangles and the extent to which he felt he could leverage the letter of the law, but perhaps against the spirit as expressed by the people.

Well, they always say after a general election, the British people have spoken.

And you go, yeah, and it's just an absolute cacophony of discord.

And, you know, you can't distinguish a single articulate voice in that clamor.

A single one, yeah.

What do you think makes Cars at the Spa special?

Well, it's a classic car show.

And we have ranges of cars who come from an old Bentley, which has wooden spoked wheels, to a fast McLaren car.

And we have various categories from...

Edwardian based cars when they first came out up to cars in the year 2000 so we have an absolute range of different cars last year we had two people who brought their Morris Marinas along through to an Aston Martin DB5 that James Bond used to drive so it's a range absolute range of different cars that people can come along with memories of what they used to be like and they can talk to the the owners of the cars as well.

We have up to probably 300 cars that come along for the day.

Simon, in addition to the cars themselves, what else is going to be there?

Well, we have live entertainment, a number of bands, brass bands.

Uh, but specifically on MLS Next Pro a- and the people that you've talked to, what are they trying to achieve in, in maybe the, the near term with this money, this investment from KKR and Home- Hometown Soccer Holdings?

Right.

That's right, yeah.

Yeah.

We had, we had Tom Glick on, who's, who's the CEO of Hometown Soccer Holdings, former executive with a number of clubs, including, uh, Charlotte, and worked at the City Football Group and so on.

He came on and sort of explained what the strategy was.

And basically, uh, he outlined that the idea of moving MLS reserve teams to other markets, probably quite adjacent markets from what he was suggesting, rebranding them in the way that we've seen with Huntsville, um, in Alabama, which is Nashville's reserve team, of course.

What about the, uh, the private equity backing USL and Pro Rel?

And so it's made of two layers.

Yes.

It has a inner layer and an outer layer, and the reason for that is that across the whole facility, you have what's known as overpressurization in that area.

It's called the annular space.

And you have underpressurization in the main volume of the facility, and the reason for that is that minimizes the flow of contaminated air from the inside to the outside.

Now you've got a huge great hole in it.

That confinement has been destroyed.

To what extent do you think the international community is sufficiently aware of the risk of what's happened in Chernobyl? Also, are they taking into account what could happen with this current war and future wars on other power plants, and are they there to support Ukraine and to support the work that needs to be done?

Any thoughts?

Well, I suppose, excuse me again, I agree with you about the don't care thing, which is a question of framing, right? It's not allowing the other side to choose the frame and to choose the language you adopt.

And that whole Dems are the real racist kind of nonsense is very tired.

I suppose the obvious query is, do you see Restore as having a chance to form a government? And if not, are they more likely to do damage? I mean, this is the big thing now.

As we're moving into a multipolar, at least five viable parties at the next election, what kind of coalitions are likely to be formed before polling day and after polling day? And are we now in sort of continental territory where, again, unintended consequences can...

completely disrupt well-managed campaigns and so on? I think it's

So I think actually the potential is there for quite a significant success.

I think there's a couple of international things that might change over the next two or three years.

Mm-hmm.

... where coming into COP, all of the countries in the world basically put, put out, um, pledges, you know, in w- what were called nationally determined contributions towards cutting emissions.

And heading into, to the summit that year, which, you know, which I remember quite well, it was, it was abundantly clear that those, collectively, tho- those pledges were not gonna be enough to meet the, the moment.

And so they built into the Paris Agreement a five yearly ratchet mechanism whereby every five years, countries have to come back with new pledges that are meant to be more ambitious.

So we're w- as you said, we're 10 years into the Paris Agreement, and so now is the moment where countries are supposed to have been putting forward a new set of more ambitious pledges.

A number of countries have done that, quite a few have done that.

But, um, something like...

I mean, they're, they're there to say, "We're still doing things even if the administration isn't." So, you know, is there any silver lining we can get from that?

In the final analysis, what was your judgment of the way COP29 played out?

First of all, I think there's always this sense, and it- it- you know, it's- it's sort of encouraged almost by people that participate in the COP, that it's, like, this one, big- big bang moment every year where we're gonna sort things out.

And I just think that for all sorts of reasons, you know, not least the fact that you're trying to agree stuff by consensus among nearly 200 countries, it- it just doesn't work like that.

Most of the, you know, genuine progress on the ground comes in, you know- i- in countries th- through- through national governments.

And, you know, actually, COP30's a really good- a good example of that.

Like, it's a really pivotal year for the Paris Agreement because we're meant to be seeing all of these new national climate pledges, nationally determined contributions out to 2035, and they're all supposed to have been submitted by February and they got an extension until September.

And so by November when we're at, you know, in Belém, we'll see what- what those really stack up to.

And Simon, final word to you.