---
title: Episode 155 Van Daygame Review
episode_number: 155
era: late
source_file: Episode 155 Van Daygame Review.mp3
audio_size_mb: 62.6
duration_sec: 2051.9
duration_min: 34.2
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.988
transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T17:04:34Z---

# Episode 155 Van Daygame Review

**Speaker 0:** Tom Torero podcast a 155 from the middle of the North Sea. I'm sitting on a ferry with Troy Francis. Hello, Troy Francis. Hello. Lovely to be here. Lovely to be on a luxurious ferry living the dream with some pensioners as we sail from the hook or the hooker of Holland to the horny hook the horny hook to Essex. So don't you go saying I'm not living a glamorous lifestyle or I've not been doing anything for my month off. I've been going from Ukraine through Poland through Germany where I met up with Troy and then we've been in Amsterdam as you will see in the videos. I'm not sure what's going out first this podcast or the videos probably this podcast. So we are on our way back to The UK. The first part the van tour is finished so Troy said to me why don't you do a review and rather than me asking the questions for the first time ever a guest will ask me the questions that I've pre prepared how how natural it is. No. These are questions that people keep asking me about the van, about the black sheep bandit tour, the plans for the second half of the year, the hibernation go into in another video what I was doing for the month of June but yes the van has been like the grand tour the seventeenth eighteenth century grand tour not the top gear spin off although there's been top gear moments Going through Europe to be enlightened, a second education for a man. What have I learned? That's what we should talk about today. But we should also talk to Troy about his new book and about his plans for delinquency debauchery enlightenment through debauchery around Europe but before we begin I have to say cheers to all the daygamers first of all who've come up to me in all the cities I've been to and said hello I've daygamed with some of you I've had beers with lots of you too many beers coffees with some of you the good ones amongst you but it's been very nice I didn't do an official tour this year I will. Probably the second half of the year, we'll come on to that, where I give talks. I had good intentions: a) to write a book as I'm driving around Europe and b) to give lots of free talks. But when I tell you the countries and the mileage I did, you'll understand why that wasn't possible. And finally before we begin as I tried to promise in previous podcasts a dirty trick of the week this one compliments of Ian and Baxter and also accidentally me so we were in Moscow I think and I took my shoes off in an apartment and I noticed I had one odd sock on. It was a sock with bananas on it. Quite embarrassing really and the other sock was black and people laughed. Yeah. And you think, how's that a fucking game trick? Well, it Ian does it by wearing funny socks or just one funny colored sock. And Bex went, oh, I do that too. Because when you take the girl back to the apartment and you're all in black and you're trying to look so fucking cool and you take your shoes off you say to the girl take your shoes off and she sees you've got one funny sock on or two funny socks and she laughs and it just shows the other side to your character it shows that you don't take yourself too seriously it also shows you're not a goth thank god and she laughs and she's like oh you like banana socks that's quite funny so remove your black socks gentlemen and replace them with some funny socks or at least one but not pink right Troy Francis over to you on the ferry asking some questions and then to be fair to balance out, I will ask you some questions. Thanks very much. Are you putting on your presenter voice? Hi.

**Speaker 1:** Hi, guys. Radio four, Radio Essex. Yes. I absolutely am. And it's a it's a beautiful view, isn't it? Out of the window into the North Sea. Very It's not that bleak, actually, is it? No. Very nice weather. It's briny, salty.

**Speaker 0:** We can smell England coming at us. Absolutely. Essex,

**Speaker 1:** just around the corner. So we're looking forward to looking forward to getting back to the motherland. You must be pretty emotional for you to

**Speaker 0:** It's a huge moment. Yeah. Yeah. I got the Union Jack flag ready. I haven't really been back properly yet.

**Speaker 1:** This is it. This is the end of part one of the tour. Absolutely. So so that leads us in really to the first question, which I've carefully, lovingly prepared before we started this. Which countries, Tom Torero, have you been to during the van tour? I've been to 16 countries, which is ridiculous in four months. That is a lot. That's a lot of countries. Far too many. UK,

**Speaker 0:** France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland without the van, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Russia without the van, Ukraine without the van because I couldn't get it across, Croatia, for a jolly without the van, and then just now in The Netherlands. So Yes. It's a blessing and blessing and a curse which I shall come on to. But that's four months, only four months and 7,000 miles, which again Bloody hell. Was stupid.

**Speaker 1:** Stupid. But Ridiculous. And you were saying you were telling me as well that you were going to you had a list of cities, didn't you? But you were saying actually there's probably even more cities on that list than than you'd written down because you were going to lots of little destinations and sort of coming backwards and forwards. Yeah. I was avoiding the bigger cities simply for logistics

**Speaker 0:** as you saw in Amsterdam. It's a nightmare to park the van in the center and it's expensive. I was stopping in lots of little cities. There were two amazing daygame cities that I shall not name that I never heard of. I just stumbled upon them. Yeah. So there you go. Yeah. If you just go to the main daygame cities. There's loads of cities in Europe but that's that's a problem with the van in that, you know, if you've got an Airbnb apartment, you're there. Yeah. At least for your booking. But with the van,

**Speaker 1:** if you don't like it, you just drive off. Yeah. Yeah. So it encourages this grass is always greener mentality. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, as we were saying, is a good thing and a bad thing. Right? Because Yeah. On the one hand, it's a good thing because you can just, you know, if you're not feeling it, you can go somewhere else. But on the other hand, you know, maybe there's a benefit to

**Speaker 0:** if you stay somewhere a bit longer because the the hidden jewels can come out, can't they, over a period of time? Yeah. The crown jewels come out. The hidden jewels come out. And it's patience and it's not going with your emotions. Yeah. Making an emotional decision is sometimes not you might have had a bad day in that city or it's raining and you go, oh, fuck this city. Yeah. But if you give a gave it a chance. Yeah. Hanover. Hanover. Yeah. We we we had good intentions when we we went Berlin to Hanover. And what we what were your impressions of Hanover, Troy Francis? It was very sleepy.

**Speaker 1:** It was very nice in inverted commas in a sort of middle class German kind of way. Not really a rocking nightlife scene from what we saw. No. It wasn't Miami.

**Speaker 0:** But maybe we caught it on a bad day or a bad night. But Amsterdam was far far far far better.

**Speaker 1:** It was absolutely. It got very very exciting and very debaucherous when we got to Amsterdam. So I think the question on everyone's lips is you went to yes. You went to the 16 countries in four months. So what were the results of this? Did how many did you get laid for a start? And then so the whole thing was a complete a complete waste of time. I did a lot of fishing. Well, that's good. That was good. So yeah. So assuming you got laid, how many lays? And do you wanna talk us through that?

**Speaker 0:** 11 new and I'm thinking of copying Jeffrey's old van. You know when Jeffrey used to stencil on pictures of birds to the back of the van, I might stencil on sheep to the inside of the van. But 11 new notches and kind of cheating because three of them were not in the van so they're not repeat notches but they were girls that I banged in an airbnb or in hers or in a hotel or whatever but the relief was that the van works yes I was I wasn't suspicious but you're nervous you know it's hard enough to bang a girl quickly in an airbnb but the van is next level fear but actually counter intuitively I got less LMR in the van because I had the duct tape and the knife and the gun you know get in the van and none of them said no. No. I think once once I seeded it on the days I showed them pictures I you know I once I didn't in Estonia and I just assumed she was this grungy girl and I walked her back to the van and she went no no. That was the other one but others, I think they they know what they're in for, you know, when you talk about archetypes. Yes. And I'm just playing into that archetype. Yeah. She's like, oh, I've always in her head, she's probably thinking, you know, I've I've thought about, you know, a surfer van or a musician's van or a tour bus or a a builder's van. I've always dreamt of a Welsh builder's van. So when she's in the van and she hears that door shut. And she knows she can't get out. She, you know, the locks come down. Yeah. We had got less on So and and the time when I did and she it wasn't LMR but she was just too fast. It was easy then to seed it and say, well, listen, next weekend, that was the girl I took into the mountains. Right. I said, next weekend, you just wanna go into the mountains. Yeah. And again, if a girl agrees to go with you into the mountains in a van Yes. She's seen the van already. She knows there's one bed. Yeah. So that was you know, she she that was absolutely fine. So If you're thinking about doing it, do it. But I would say test it out first. Maybe hire a van like I did in Canada or hire one in Australia or New Zealand or you know? Yeah. Yeah. Don't just sell everything and get in a get a van. Well, you could do that, but maybe exactly.

**Speaker 1:** So you'd actually had a bit of experience of van life before then. You've the stuff with Craig, hadn't you? You'd you'd Not not slept with Craig. No. Really? I was

**Speaker 0:** But in close LMR, was it? I tried all my tricks. Close proximity to Craig, but, yeah, we hired a a real scruffy camper van in in Canada. And again, the lays were quite easy. Right. So there's a report on my blog from another guy that did it in Australia, and he got laid, I think, first night in the van on Gold Coast. So, yeah, play into the archetype, play it use words like adventurous, you know, open minded, spontaneous, have a guitar in the van, obviously have something in the van, you know. Not just a Not just a mattress and and chloroform. No. Gosh. It's a lovely view. Look. Look at all that. Have you seen a porpoise yet? Saw something floating past. I think it was just litter for messes. Anyway

**Speaker 1:** What did because it's great. It's great. I mean, obviously, I come in on the the the end of the tour if you like, but it's just awesome the way in Amsterdam you were able to just I mean, we were that was a quite an expensive looking street. Wasn't it quite classy. Stanley, that was the poshest area. Yeah. So we we land up in the poshest or Tom lands up in the poshest area in Amsterdam, parks up the van, and he's just able to spend two nights there. I mean, if you got an Airbnb over there, would it would be expensive, wouldn't it? Yeah. Go in stealth was the correct thing to do. You know, I could have sprayed it as a hippie van,

**Speaker 0:** as the a team van, which I kinda wanted to do. But the fact that it looked like a builder's van, I just parked up next to builders in Amsterdam, so no one knew anything. You know, the high vest vest in the front has really helped and the gloves. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not not in front of us. Yeah. I've I've been in some lovely areas in very posh parts of cities. And Yeah. There was Troy in a seedy

**Speaker 1:** hostel. Shout out to the Orange Tulip hostel. Yes. It was a beautiful place. It was that was it was very seedy. I mean, actually, it was okay because I had a room. I got a room to myself, which was alright with a couple of bunk beds in it, but it was very sort of dodgy looking like a dodgy sticky staircase going up into the You couldn't have chosen a more

**Speaker 0:** touristy area. You know, between the train station and square, there's that strip where you see zombified people staggering around and Troy goes, yeah, I just booked up these stairs here above a kebab shop. I'm like, well, good luck, mate. Ninety nights. Yeah. They were good kebabs though. So

**Speaker 1:** so it kind it worked. No. It was good. It was good. I mean, I just wanted to be somewhere in the middle of the seedy action and, you know, that that seems to do the trick. So I just I've just seen your socks, mate. They're perfect for that trick I was talking about. So if I wear that one and I get a black one. That's quite Damien Hirst. He's got a skull

**Speaker 0:** with a monocle on his socks. Yeah. I just wear one of them because it's even funnier. It looks like you've not Yeah. Put too much thought into your outfit, which is precisely the point. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I said on Twitter the other day, I like to imagine when I get dressed in the morning, like to imagine that I'm Dudley Moore and Arthur waking up

**Speaker 1:** waking up drunk, about to lose all his money because of because of his love for a woman. Pimping it. Pimping it. Exactly. Exactly. So we've kind of touched really on the difficulties of of getting laid in the van, haven't we? And you said actually Well,

**Speaker 0:** good and bad. I've said the good, which in in the that it's polarizing. Bad is that nothing to do with the van, it's to do with you. Again, you're moving too quickly. Right. And it's it's it's a hard thing to do. So if you're just starting out, you know, a week's hard enough in an Airbnb, two weeks is hard enough for beginner. But to turn up in a city which is small and try and do it in three days and just do it first date lays. It's a tall order. So I left most of those cities with loads of empty numbers, stupid loops and you'd get to another country and then girls would be texting you from another city and it it felt like a lot of wastage. It was very frustrating. The journey was great but as I'll come on to, definitely slowed down. You know, definitely slowed down and have a city base.

**Speaker 1:** Yeah. Because I didn't really do any repeats except one polar city. So Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Rushing rushing around. Yeah. Would you follow-up on any of the old leads that are left, you think? Or just It depends?

**Speaker 0:** Yeah, possibly in The Baltics. I have plans for The Baltics. Yeah. But no, I'm going far far away quite soon. I'm going to South America then maybe The USA and I'm getting out of Europe. So by the time I get back those leads would have

**Speaker 1:** Truly evaporated. Evaporated. Shriveled. Shriveled like Yeah. Like me and a naughty. Yeah. Yeah. So what were some of the best moments then overall from the trip? Would you say? Obviously, apart from when I turned up in Berlin and we I thought, oh, fucking hell. Here we go. And we had a schnitzel. Oh, I can see land. Is that is that England?

**Speaker 0:** Start the chanting, Troy. England.

**Speaker 1:** Here

**Speaker 0:** we go. No. It might it might not be. Don't know. Might be a mirage, I think. We're that hungry for land yeah we've been at sea for six hours now and what was it quite highlights well things like this I know it sounds cliched and cheesy but the lays were good especially the last lay but they weren't the highlights the highlights were being in that van in beautiful places so people always go oh why do you start off in the snow well that's retarded but that was the best bit for me being in in in the cold Baltics when it was snowy and having the fire on and being in all these forests that's exactly my kind of men to land landscape yeah and then taking which is in the last episode of black sheep bandit taking taking that girl into the Slovak Lower Tatra's and it was just like waterfalls and peaks Europe's very beautiful stumbling upon all these small tiny cities not busy Prague and not busy you know Riga just just small little gems so yeah yeah it sounds cheesy but nature's a wonderful thing that's what the vans for the van in a city it's it's okay but you wouldn't live in it it's it's because you have to be hidden yes and therefore you have to kind of be stealth and it's it just feels like you're creeping around a little bit not creepy but creeping around yeah but in nature, open up all the doors and you have a fire. We're on the beach. That's what the van is for you. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And of the countries that you went to out of interest, did you have I mean, we talked about we talked a bit about Germany.

**Speaker 1:** We didn't stop off in Berlin as we sort of we might have done. We actually drove straight on to Hanover, which I think was because I think Berlin, you know, we can do another time because it probably takes a little bit more Without the van. Yeah. It takes a little bit more time probably to to crack that particular nut, but That's a bad nut. But were there any favorites or were there any places that you saw where you saw, you know, different areas that you hadn't seen before and you thought, wow, this is amazing or

**Speaker 0:** That list is too much to go into I think for for you know specifics of cities but the the the most shocking country for bad roads and dirty cities I hate to say it was my father's homeland Czech Republic. Really? It was a bit of a dump. Slovakia obviously lovely. Poland I knew very well. The Baltics for me is just it's my perfect combination because it's it's a it's a little bit Russian and a little bit Scandinavian and it's it's quite mystical. A city like Vilnius is is a dark magic. Yes. So some people wouldn't like it because it's forests and it's cold and wooden houses I loved it and obviously Russia but that wasn't really in the van that was a separate thing and I've just had a great time in Croatia doing Sodal and so yeah, too many cities to go into by I will I promise I'll break down the trip. Yeah. And my breakdown in a separate case. Yes. And any worse moments? Any

**Speaker 1:** talking about breakdowns? Any sort of dark moments of the soul? Do you want to Yeah. Week number one was tough because

**Speaker 0:** it sounds nice just buying a van and selling everything, but you wake up in a van, you know, in in a car park or something and it's very odd and you're very sensitive to noise in the beginning. Did you just think what the what the hell am I doing? Yeah. It's a fucking shock. It's different from hiring one because you know this is it and I've cut a lot of ties to do this and I dedicated a lot of time and money yeah so you couldn't just say oh actually sold it on no you you were in it weren't you you had to yeah going the other way when I did over to Calais and arriving in France and then thinking what the fuck yeah that's the first week was a bit dodgy and then every year like I tell you I always have two day game hatred moments like little mini meltdowns just after doing too much day game and after four months of day game ish what what do you know I got to Ukraine, it's boiling hot, I hadn't got the van with me so I was you'd you'd think I'd be happy in an Airbnb but I I was longing for the van and it was yeah. It's just

**Speaker 1:** can't sleep outside it.

**Speaker 0:** Yeah. It's just I thought right okay enough. Gotta take a break from the project and that's when I went to Croatia. Yeah. And anyone that does anything intensively, you gotta be careful, know, and and daygame up for four months straight and traveling to 16 countries, you know, you you gotta you gotta you gotta take a break. Yeah. I've written down I've I've noted things that guys asked if the van was okay. Well, right now, the van is somewhere on the lower decks with a cracked cracked windscreen from a pebble I heard it go on the motorway and I've got a nice big crack in the corner I didn't tell you that Troy they could shatter at any time alright don't worry worry lucky it was alright the water pipe bursts so I haven't been able to have a shower through the usual means I have had a shower don't worry boys have just been using a jug on my head yeah yeah in Amsterdam yes there there were some sizable jugs on my head. Absolutely. I flooded the floor many times once it with ice water that was in like minus 10. I dented the side door very early on pretty badly in Lithuania. I broke the fan. I've blocked the drainage tank. I met a very intoxicated, inebriated, violent man in in Slovakia. In the middle of wilderness actually, I was just filling up my filling up the tank. And I turned around and there was this massive dude just like looming clearly out of it threatening and I did a bit of misdirection pointed him Yeah. And drove off. But that was the only violent incident I've had. I had I told you I had some junkies shooting up behind the van Yeah. In Czech Republic. So nice. They were using my van as cover. I've been stopped by the police, I'd say in 10 of those countries just for a search because it's a British white van. We were. They asked to look in the van didn't they in The Netherlands but they're always quite impressed. Yeah. Yeah. Particularly the poles. The poles admire DIY and they loved it. It looks great in the van by the way. Mean having having experienced the interior,

**Speaker 1:** it's it is awesome and it's quite You haven't been sleeping in a van, Troy. We should we should clarify that. Yeah. We should absolutely clarify that. So I I booked airbnbs on all of the nights. But

**Speaker 0:** It's gonna be a comment, and it says Yay. Yeah. Yeah. But

**Speaker 1:** it's it's quite small. It's, you know, as as obviously, but it's really really well kitted out and it looks good. So when those guys,

**Speaker 0:** you know, at the border They even like the bottles of alcohol and the cigarettes. They don't mind it at all. They get it. You know? I

**Speaker 1:** think he he was having a bit of a wry chuckle, think, wasn't he, after he'd Yeah. Threw it. Yeah. Because because that shows that it is stealth because from the outside, they always think Yeah.

**Speaker 0:** You know, I'm I'm bringing in lots of people across the border or I don't know crates of booze or cigarettes. Yeah. I've had parking tickets neither of which I paid from advice from locals they said because you live in the country but I did pay a speeding ticket. Very early on I got a stupid speeding ticket in Lithuania and I thought are they're not going to send that to The UK and within I think two days it arrived at right in The UK with everything written in English about how to pay it so god bless Lithuania very efficient I paid it. Yeah. Come on, mate. We gotta get on to you. We got ten minutes left. We have. I've been rattling on. But just in case you wanna know what I'm doing with the van, like I said, for July and August, Europe, I will be going to South America maybe via The US of a and day game seasons anyway kind of over in Europe, the girls have finished university, people are at the beach, some cities work like Berlin, like Prague, there are summer cities but not my favorite city so in September I don't know I might do Balkans but I really don't want to do the craziness again or I might do Scandinavia I might do Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki. But anyway, ten minutes to go. Torero Francis, I take the microphone, you sit in the hot seat.

**Speaker 1:** I'm relaxed sitting back.

**Speaker 0:** It's because you you tell people you don't drink. They know why you don't drink. Yes. Amsterdam let you off very lightly mate because Troy didn't have any weed or any booze. So every day you turned up looking quite fresh. But how was Amsterdam the dam for you in terms of libertarian

**Speaker 1:** enlightenment through debauchery? I I really feel like I've found a a new understanding of life through having spent that couple of days in Amsterdam. Did you see Jesus? I think I did in a way. I certainly saw something divine when we were in that last

**Speaker 0:** establishment last night. We joke about it, you're being kind of serious. Yeah. I mean,

**Speaker 1:** as we were saying, were on the trip. I think people go to those places to try to there's always there's a search, isn't there, with everything. I think there's a search with with alcohol. There's a search in narcotics. There's a search in sex. You know, I mean, obviously, you've got the the short term pleasure hit of those things, but I think underneath that, people are looking for something. They're looking for some kind of meaning. And we were talking about this actually in terms of daygame, weren't we, or in terms of game? Because is it just the sex that people are looking for, or is it actually something kind of more profound than that? And I think really it's something a bit more Yeah. More meaningful really, isn't it? But you also you there's a there is a beauty. There's an appreciation

**Speaker 0:** of of that the noir, the neon, the seediness that we that, you know, we've spoken about another podcast, which is hypnotic. Yes. We we were we were in some fucking dodgy places and just admiring the beauty of it. Yeah. Yeah. It's really sort of

**Speaker 1:** you sit back and take it all in, and it's not because, you know, there are stunningly attractive women there or anything because there there weren't, but it it was just sitting back in that sleazy atmosphere. And the neon lights, particularly, you know, when the sun goes down over the canals, look absolutely fantastic over there. On the other side I would say it is obviously very touristy it's very yeah yeah the Red Light area is very touristy it's obviously very well known so it's not as if you're going to some sort of undiscovered gem and there's a sort of a stag do kind of feel to it a bit, isn't there? It's got It's guys paying for sex and it's more guys and girls. Yeah. And that was interesting actually because when we were walking around, we saw we hardly saw any girls on their own, did we? No. Hardly very very few girls in pairs. It was literally just groups of big groups of lads carrying around Pissed up lads. Pissed up lads carrying around sex dolls. That's why

**Speaker 0:** Troy was carrying out a sheep, which you shall see. That's no joke. You shall see that in the video. It was a very beautiful sheep. It was. You bonded intensely, intensively. But, yeah, I stopped doing boot camps in Amsterdam for that reason. You can find odd tourists, and there are odd Very odd. Yeah. But it's not it's not that, you know, it's certainly not pussy paradise. And if, like myself and Troy, you don't pay for sex, then you gotta think, why am I going there? Well, listen listen to the Sin City podcast that I I have a fascination, you have a fascination for the hypnotic quality of, like, honest sexuality.

**Speaker 1:** Yeah. Well, that bar that we went to where the girls were dancing on the bar, I mean, that was amazing looking, wasn't it? It must have been untouched. The girls were horrendous. Yeah? Yeah. Terrible. But it must have been untouched since the eighties or something it just yeah but it was rare it was all reds and neons and

**Speaker 0:** original

**Speaker 1:** very Tarantino yeah just fantastic and it as you say we keep coming back to this word hypnotic, but it just the atmosphere in those places just draws you in and you you just watch thinking what the hell is going on, you know? Yeah. I like it when you feel like what the hell is going on. Yeah. In that final venue yesterday,

**Speaker 0:** you just said, what the fuck is this? But that's good to be out of your depth. Yeah. Yeah. People being honest about their Yeah. Fetishes and sexuality. Yes. Minutes to go, Troy. Four minutes to What are you doing now? So Where are you going after Essex? So after Essex, I'm going back to London for

**Speaker 1:** for a few a few nights. I'm there for about a week and then I'm going on to Budapest where I'm gonna stay for two weeks. Good summer city? Absolutely. Yeah. So I'm really looking forward to that. Then going on to to Berlin. So when I get to Berlin, I'm staying with a friend for a week and then my apartment is available. So I'm then gonna gonna go and be based from there for the foreseeable future. So I'm really looking forward to that. Budapest is a I've been to quite a number of times usually with girlfriends or I was seeing a girl who lived there for a while. Kind of keen to just go on my own and and well, I've got a friend who's gonna be there as well, but sort of just to check it out as a solo traveler. It's a beautiful place. It should be really hot. I love the spas and everything there. It's fantastic. So So you get is the summer festival. Daygamers are mostly in agreement that it's weirdly not a day game city, but Yeah. Bar game and night game and

**Speaker 0:** the

**Speaker 1:** sheer beauty of the city. It's it's Yeah. I mean, was looking at doing Prague again, but I thought I'd Good. Good. I'd fancied doing I don't fancied since last year doing Budapest on my own, and I'll get some work done there and everything, but hopefully get to go out and, you know There is a game there. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Get get to go out and enjoy some of the fruits of it. I mean, it's just a place I've had a really positive feel about when I was there before. So with all of these places like you would, you know, you sort of look at a city and you think could I potentially live there? Could I live there for a bit longer? Yeah. You know, so I'm gonna sort of scope it out Try it. Yeah. On that basis. And then, yeah, over to naughty Berlin.

**Speaker 0:** Yeah. Which is a sad city. Yeah. Because even though university's gone, Berlin is Yeah. Like Prague. It's just flooded. Yeah. People go, there's no hot girls in Berlin. Well, you you're into the as we said last time, you're into the the night scene as well. Yes. And oh, what's that sound? It's the sound of a new book. I said, come on, mate. We gotta do a podcast, and I promise you, you can plug your book. But what's

**Speaker 1:** the theme? So I've got a new book coming out depending on when this goes out. It will either be Beginning of July. Fine. Okay. So it's it will probably be out by the time this is out, but it's called 10 times happiness zero bullshit. And this is really a book about happiness, as the title would suggest. It's the thing is right. We've talked about this. I mean, we live in an incredible time, really, in human history. I mean, famine is down, war is on the decline, poverty is falling, technology technology is is incredible, incredible, the ability to travel over the planet is amazing, and there's all of these stats that that back this up. And if you read, I think, Pinker's book Yes. It's Pinker or Ridley? Think Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's so evidence out there that we're living in this incredible world and yet so many of us are unhappy and some studies show that actually unhappiness is on the rise. What can we do to combat that? I talk in the book a lot about my experiences with alcohol and with drugs and other substances and sort of behaviors about where I came from a very unhappy place to a place now where I'm actually really happy and I'm doing work that I love and I'm getting to travel and you know my life's completely transformed. Now it might be that obviously not everyone listening to this is gonna have had exactly those same problems but I think many people today have a sort of gnawing dissatisfaction about life. Know they don't feel quite that things are going as they want. Maybe they don't like their job. They don't like where they live. They don't like the, you know, the relationships they're in or whatever it is. So what I've done is laid out a seven step program which I used myself to get from a place of being unhappy with my life and disappointed with the way things were. So now where things are really good and Now you're just this incredibly cheesy Tony Robbins. Absolutely. Day is fucking Yeah. You're never unhappy. Absolutely. I get up and do my morning routine.

**Speaker 0:** Yeah. You lift and, you know, you do your cold showers. Phenomenal. Yes. I lift. I meditate in the sea. Well, joke jokes aside, why is this not a cheesy American ish kind of Tony Robbins it's

**Speaker 1:** really gritty and it's really raw. So I've gone to some pretty dark places with some of my personal anecdotes about the some of the stuff that I suffered. So I suffered that sort of sounds melodramatic, but you know we're talking alcohol misuse severe depression you know there's scenes in doctor surgeries there's sort of there's some pretty dark stuff there because I wanted to really bring it home to people reading in a sort of visceral way this is what was like. This is how low you can get, but it doesn't have to be like that. You know, there are there are ways out. There is help out there. You can change things around. And ultimately, it's it's not about just going for you know, going to walking around whistling and having a smile on your face. It's actually going on to having a fucking amazing life and being able to Well, you define it also as contentment and well, freedom.

**Speaker 0:** Yes. You know, it's a this concept of Disney happiness is

**Speaker 1:** Yeah. It's not I don't I don't buy it at all. Yeah. I mean, you can get fleeting pleasure and we saw a lot of people getting fleeting pleasure in Amsterdam last night, but Relating pleasure. Yes. But it's not really it's not about that. I mean, you can be happy doing that for, you know, a a couple of hours or a night or whatever, but it has to be something that is more sustainable than that. And I think that comes through finding meaning ultimately. Yeah. It's finding meaning in your life and then it's and then beyond that is finding a way to build your life around that meaning. So if you wanna be a writer, if you want to play tennis if you want be a musician it's like okay I've now found the thing that gives my life meaning and how then do I link it so that I can do that as my job oftentimes

**Speaker 0:** people who give these lectures and seminars and write books exactly like that haven't taken a radical step or taken the plunge. But recently, as we know from your other podcasts, you quit your job and Yeah. You know, you quit everything and and pursued the writing and ended up with some dodgy Welshman in a van in Amsterdam. So I mean, it's not like someone can say, this is just a cheesy book. No. Absolutely. Absolutely. No. It's always very much lived experience and it's very much I saw aimed at Troy living at large. Let me tell you in Amsterdam. Yes. Large breasts. Not Troy's breasts, but fucking now they were big enough. They're alright. They're alright. I'm looking the other way. And with that ladies and gentlemen, father time is upon us as we sail across the North Sea. This is quite emotional Troy for me. You know what I mean? It's like It really is. It is just beautiful. If only this was Wales, I'd really feel Yeah. Stirring in my loins. I feel like we should play some music, some stirring music. Elgar perhaps. Yes. Yeah.

**Speaker 1:** I won't be gone for three days. I mean, I'm But even It it it's actually sunny. The sea is calm

**Speaker 0:** and we are probably ten minutes away from arriving back in The United Kingdom. So that was the end of part one. I shall say of the black sheep bandit. Part two will be in this in the fall, in the autumn and we I don't know but no I'm not selling the van onwards we go but at a slower pace to lick the lid of life cheers to Troy Francis cheers mate thank you very much and I shall speak to you I'm back once again with this podcast weekly on iTunes and YouTube. Speak to you next week. Tada.