3: Turning The Tables On Mat: Part Two

0:02Mat Ireland:Hello everybody, it's me Squeaky, welcome back to Mat's Trucking Great podcast. This is part two of an interview with Mat Ireland himself. Firstly, how are we mate, you okay? Yeah, very good mate, yeah, looking forward to this, see what other memories we can bring up. Can you remember our last discussion and where we finished with the seven and a half ton and you being in France and all that sort of stuff? Yes, yeah, I did the Swiss story, I can't remember if I mentioned, I did a cologne in Germany. It was my first time in Germany. I took some magnetic paint once to France. And if people don't know, if you've got ADR on in France, you have to run at 80Ks, 50 mile an hour.

0:42That's just one of their rules. So there I was in my rocket machine having to sit at 50 mile an hour and having everyone come past me getting more and more frustrated. As the miles went along. And I'll tell you, as soon as that paint was off and then boards would turn round. That was, boom, I was gone. I was re-overtising. Everyone would have blown me, come past me, I can tell you.

1:06Mat Ireland:Oh, great. What age was you at this stage now, when you're in the seven and a half and you're doing the European stuff? What age are you at this point? I would have been between 18 and 19. Wow, so that's still quite, that's young, isn't it, for doing European? When I was going to Switzerland in my seven and a half tunner, my mates were at school in sick form. yeah that's crazy that was nuts absolutely nuts yeah i never even thought of that yeah yeah that's crazy yeah what age did you pass uh we will go back we'll go backwards to how you got your class one and stuff like that but at what age did you pass your class one right so i for reasons i still don't quite understand i left i don't because i was thinking about this today i left camax and i went tyre fitting at a company called Fram Tires who I'm still really good friends with and pop over there quite often go and see him and have a cup of tea and whatnot I mean as it happens it turned out to work in my favour because I work with a guy called Mark Lewis or Mini as he's called now not he left and went to work for Trans Am Trucking in the yard so that was a there was a definite link there now during this time I went down to the Run to the Sun Volkswagen Festival well it's not really a car show whatever you want to call it in Cornwall right and on the way back up so I would have been I think I must have been 21 at this point on the way back up I thought I'm just going to pop in and see see pop in the Camax yard see who's about because I haven't seen anybody for you know since I left yeah so I dropped in there's a few people about had a good old chat and whatnot and I saw Jim the boss and you know and the problem with jobs like Tirefit and stuff like that you get so used to earning quite a lot of money as a truck driver because we do a lot of hours don't we there's no yeah so obviously i took i took a big sort of pay cut essentially go and tie fin and i had to work every single saturday morning which is do my head in so anyway i was chatting away with jim and uh he then phoned me the following week and he said right he said i've had a think would you like to come back if you do but i'll put you through your class C and your class C and E.

3:18And I was like, well, there's an offer I can't refuse, can I?

3:21Mat Ireland:Who in their right mind is going to turn that down? Exactly. So I was like, yeah, that's that. So, yeah, I handed my notes in straight back to CAMACS, like into training for Category C. So I did my CAT C when I was 21, intensive course, past that, and I got given the keys to a DAF 75 rigid 17 tonner. And I loved that thing. that was that was so lovely i think i think an eight-speed box and it was just nice and quiet comfy big daft bunk and all that and i just love that truck and then after i don't know how six or seven months might have been a bit longer they told they said right you're gonna have to get your stuff out of that because we're selling that truck and you're gonna have to have one of the p cab scanners and i was honestly i nearly start crying so i love my dad and i did and i didn't want to peak have scanning because they're so much smaller than my daff yeah i was just like oh god so there's a four by two and a six by two and and i can't remember how the wages work but basically i'll be on more money with a six by two so i took that the bigger the truck the more money yeah yeah i can't i can't quite remember how we were paid exactly but that's sort of how it worked and and i and i honestly i hated this thing i just did not like it and we and for some reason obviously didn't have cruise control you put your foot down and you get to 56 and then it would it would sort of cut cut it off but you drift back to about 53 before the throttle kick back in so trying to get past right trying to get past something oh it's just like what on earth is going on here you have to keep checking your foot on and off the accelerator to sort of get it back up to 56 again oh i used to annoy the people behind me trying to get past stuff as well yeah I can imagine.

5:04It's not my fault. And then, yeah, when I was 22, yeah, I'd been back about a year. He then put me through my C plus E, which had passed first time. I've got three minor faults. One was for having the incorrect lights on. And the reason for that is it was July time. It was chucking down with rain. And I couldn't see whether the dashboard lights were on or not at all. So I wasn't sure if the lights were on. so I was sort of fiddling with the light switch and the examiner said you know what you're doing so I can't see if my lights are on or not and he said well what have you got on and I said side lights and he said well what should you have on and I was like well dip bing so he gave me a minor I was like that's a bit harsh and my my cup so when we're driving around little story let's say it's July it's chucking down with rain because it's July I don't have my coat because I didn't think I'd need it so anyway as we're driving around I said to the examiner I said I really hope this stops before we get back because I don't want to be like a drowned rat doing my couple uncoupled.

6:05Because for some reason you did that after you've done the forward drive. I did the reverse test, then went out on the road. And then when we come back to the couple uncoupled, no idea why it was done that way around. Anyway, my test route was the easiest test route in the world. If people know it, where the test centre is or maybe was in Chelmsford on an industrial state, you come out and then basically a couple of roundabouts and then you've got the old a12 out past roses calf so down the old dual carriageway to the a12 all the way down the a12 to the m25 junction come off there back through brentwood to do like your town work like uphill downhill start gear i see yeah gear exercise because you had to do that as well you know starting first and work you out to fifth or whatever and back down yeah and then back on the a12 all the way back back up past the calf so i spent most of my time on dual carriageway it was brilliant brilliant so uh anyway we pulled back in the test center and the exam would turn around and the very first word i heard was unfortunately as a oh i've blown it anyway unfortunately it's now time to be like a drowned rat because i do a couple uncoupled just oh flipping egg my instructor lent me his coat and i can't remember what i did but i've done something in in the order that he didn't want to see it done i think i think i took the lines off and then put the hat as a ratchet handbrake as well and then put the handbrake i think i did it that way around i hadn't pulled the pin or anything like that and he gave me a minor and i remember afterwards my instructor going over and arguing with him saying you know why did you give a minor there's nothing wrong with it you know because the pin wasn't pulled it couldn't go anywhere and he's basically well i'm the man with the clipboard and and that's that and i think i got a minor on i can't remember what the other a minor is i've still got my test sheet somewhere i kept it and that was it i was i was away c and e over the moon i got back to camax a lot of pass like brilliant right you know what truck you're having and i was having the newest arctic in the fleet because no one else wanted it there's only why i don't i was thinking about this as earlier as well so ali had a euro cab merc so that was ginormous left-hand drive gert had a left-hand drive four by two one one free top line and then And there was a couple of other three series top lines.

8:22And I was just having a flat roof four series, 420, and nobody wanted it. And I didn't care. And they were all happy for me to have it because none of them wanted it.

8:34Mat Ireland:It's a brand new truck. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't brand new. It was second hand, but it was the newest one on the fleet. T810 JBJ, this registration. New to a guy, an owner driver called Richard Driver from around this way. and um his name was what sorry his name was richard driver this owner owner operator and he was an owner operator owner operator richard driver yeah what a name this guy was born for that job definitely so yeah they're like right you can go and load at subbury keith the fortniff driver will go with you just to as you know you haven't done anything and obviously i've learned in a 30 foot flatbed with windows in the back of the cab now i'm in a full size one so yeah so off we went went and load had come back and Keith said no it's really good he said because I am a really nervous passenger and uh I didn't feel nervous for you as well thank god for that so away away we went so off we went on the arctics unfortunately by this time as what happens in the world train I can't remember what happened to train I think they got bought out and then a company called Edwards Logistics started doing their European work who were then bought out by Willie Betts so basically all the camax european work had gone by the time i got into the arctic so right there was just none of it about unfortunately but you know i was just happy trucking along i used to do quite a bit of uh dock work i used to do a fair bit for norfolk line affair work had gone quiet but it used to annoy me because they would just get you up to himingham as quick as they could and then just do day work out of himingham so i just wasn't getting my hours in i was getting a I'll get a night out because I'm up there, but it's just like run across like tip Manchester, reload Bradford, back to Immingham and park up.

10:16Yeah. It's just like, well, you know, it's work's work. And it's just, but I used to make more money off selling straps because there's always heaps from in there. And they would always say there's one strap in the trailer. It'd be about 11. It's like, right, there's 10 for me and one for the trailer. Yeah. That still goes on today.

10:33Mat Ireland:That still goes on today. Yeah, I'm not surprised. I don't know why there's such a shortage of straps I've no idea Where do they all go? I haven't got a clue Oh man So did you eventually move on to European work In a class one as well then? Yes So after I've been driving there A couple of years On C &E a couple of years roughly And again my mates at Fram Tyres We used to do all the tyres for a company called Tannin Transport, who was still going. There was a guy in the office there who got the sack not long after I started. He used to get European work just because he couldn't be bothered to look for more stuff for them to do.

11:16So he put them on Mike Beer, and I don't think it's paying particularly well. So anyway, now this job came with a house. So I was like, right, well, this is – I know Jim put me through my licence and all that, but an opportunity to get a tied house with a truck driving job is pretty few and far between, really, I would say.

11:34Mat Ireland:yeah i wouldn't have heard of that before no so i went went out of chat and this chap in the office said about european works yeah yeah we're doing that and like the week before someone had been down to tours i think and someone else had been somewhere else i was like oh brilliant right here's my chance to get some european work so yeah so yeah i very sadly left canax to go go to work for tannins and i got out my t reg 124 and i got i got into a s reg erf ec 11 and i I looked around and I thought, what on earth have I done here?

12:10Oh, no. God. So, yeah, I had to learn the way to the car college.

12:15Mat Ireland:Yeah, go on. Can you describe that cab for people at the inside? So was there a lump in the middle of the bunk, the height of the cab? A lump in the middle? I don't think you could climb over it so high. I used to hit my knuckles on the dashboard changing gear. I think it was a fuller gearbox. Yeah, you should hit your knuckles on the dashboard. It had white curtains. Now, who on earth thought a white curtains in a truck was a good idea? So I'd pull the curtains at night for a night out, and it'd be lighter inside than what it was outside. But I didn't have that for too long because they bought some daffs, and they gave one to a guy who didn't want nights out.

12:56And it came to a head when he was meant to go to Western Supermare, and he phoned in sick the next day. because he didn't want to do it, basically. So they said, right, well, you're out of that truck. They offered it to someone else who actually turned it down because he wanted a brand new one and not one that was about six months old, even though it was absolutely immaculate. So they said to me, do you want this daff? I was like, God, yeah, put me in it. So, yeah, finally back into a daff. And then, I mean, at this point, I knew that all the European work was clearly gone.

13:24Mat Ireland:Yeah. And so in 2006, I had a chat with my mate Min, who I used to work for Fram Tyres, about maybe getting a job at Trans Am. He sort of told me the best sort of time to ring them at the time. So I gave him a ring about April time, something like that, give or take, because I'm local. They said, oh, yeah, well, if you're passing the office, pop in for a chat. I said, all right. So I went up the office, went out a day off for whatever reason, went and had a chat and got on really well with them. And Timmy, who's still there, he said, yeah, we can give you something to do. He said, right, that's either going to be Elton John or the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

14:04I was like, yeah, no problem. I said, to be honest, if I can do the Chili Peppers, that'd be brilliant because they were playing Ipswich that year and a load of my mates had tickets. I said, that would piss him right off if I'm on it getting paid. He laughed his head off and he said, right, you're on the Chili Peppers. I was like, hey, brilliant. so yeah 2006 I think it was June off I went on the Red Hot Chili Peppers that was three weeks in Europe and then came back came back there's a I think it was about 10 days or two weeks gap in between but they asked for volunteers to go and do about a week on Guns N' Roses so because I'm really keen so yep I'll go and do that that was just a few shows in the UK back on the chilli peppers for three weeks around the UK.

14:49And then it sort of went quiet because how it used to work, you'd get to the start and the summer when it's really, really busy. And then as the work tails off, because I was in a rental, so to start with, I did three weeks away in a Mercedes Axel to begin with. Yeah. Which definitely not the most ideal truck for it. But when you rent a 4x2 tractor unit, people just have those axles, Volvo FMs. There wasn't anything special. I mean, luckily, for the second leg, I got a DAF XF rental. I was the only one with it. Everyone else had a Lurx again.

15:29Mat Ireland:That's a small improvement. Oh, yeah, a big improvement on an axle. When you did the tours and stuff like that then, what was the job role? What did that consist of? did you get to meet any people any famous people on that job so you did uh over time yeah so you're there obviously primarily as a driver you are it's weird because you're you're expected to load it or help load and unload even though there's crew there that will help or assist in doing it so but if you if you're working with americans americans got a very different work effort because of their the drivers in america don't get involved whatsoever they literally turn up i don't think they even open the back doors they're not allowed they just do nothing so the americans quite often wouldn't want you helping and she's like no no i want to get this no no no and so i end up doing a lot of work with you too and they used to tell me off for trying to help getting getting the gear in and out oh really and i kid you not terry terry lawless he's an unnamed musician in u2 because i used to do their backline which is if people don't know what back That's all their own instruments and amps and stuff like that, the bits that are on the stage.

16:41Terry plays keyboard out of sight for you two, and he's there loading my truck. And he's like, you get out of here, Matt. I was like, yeah, but I've got to help. He's like, if you get injured, who's going to drive a truck? And I was like, Terry, if you get injured, who's going to play keyboard? Because I can't do that. But that was just their work ethic. So you just sort of, you just get stuck in really. Can you imagine that?

17:08Mat Ireland:Can you imagine like going to an Aldi distribution centre now and just sort of like pulling up and going, well, no, I don't touch. I'm just going to sit here. You need to do that. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's just, yeah, the whole different mindset. It's crazy. So you do, sometimes you get to meet some of them. It's more the ones that are the smaller tours that you're likely to see. You see, like, Elton John would come in quite late on, generally go to his dressing room, go out on stage, and he's gone. You know, you never – I never met – I would say never met him. Whereas, like, Sting, he's a brilliant bloke.

17:46He would come and sit in Caterham with you, have a chat with you. I had a very surreal conversation with Sting on stage during his sound check about hair clippers, as you do. Wow I just I just I got Well I got to see I think it's Dano His guitar tech For whatever reason And I got on in And they're on stage Poptering around Doing whatever And I see Seth The stage manager And said I'll look for Dano He's up on stage I'll wait He said no no Just go up there And I was thinking I don't really want to You know I feel a bit awkward So anyway I got up on stage And Sting saw And Sting saw me He went Oh you've cut your hair I was like yeah yeah Because that's obviously Got a bit long even though I've got a crew cut he's like oh what clippers do you use oh I've just got these remit and ones and at the time he had one of these ball shavers not as in your balls but a round head shaver which cost an absolute fortune he's like oh I'll use this one and I just stood there thinking what on earth am I having a conversation with Sting about blooming razors shaving your balls yeah very surreal and then it's just like, yeah, I better get on.

19:02That's crazy. Yeah, and his tours were fantastic. Such a good little crew. And the destinations where you went were just what I wanted to do. They were fantastic. And Bill Bailey as well. He was amazing. Really lovely guy. Obviously just around the UK with Bill. But again, another small crew, only four or five of them. Just fantastic fun.

19:28Mat Ireland:the smaller the smaller the the the sort of like the crew and the production and things like that and and not so much the star but i bet yeah i can imagine elton john i mean he's probably not even got the time of day to even sort of look at you as he walks past you has he i don't think not really no and there's there's quite a lot like that and especially if they're quite a newer star and it gets to their head a little bit they don't yeah understand whereas like um my ex-girlfriend And she was on the Rolling Stones. And Ronnie Wood, he just had a kid at the time. He came into catering with his kids and just sort of plonked himself down next to her.

20:07Hello, how are you? Just had a normal conversation. Because he's been around forever doing it. And he's not sort of stuck up himself sort of thing.

20:16Mat Ireland:Yeah. As humans, we're more attracted to people like that, aren't we, I think? Yeah, definitely. You think a lot more of people like that. I think so. Yeah. So what was next for you after the gig in and all that sort of stuff? So 2006, I then started doing a bit of the double manning work for Trans Am, just to sort of keep my name in there and get a bit of experience and so on and so forth. And I just got lucky and just started getting more and more work as such. I did my first ever trip to Russia in 2007, and that's where I wanted to go because that's growing up seeing like Ralph Davis and Kepstos in the magazines it was just uh I just thought wow you know and you look at it on a map and it's like yeah trucks are still going there that's like the furthest I can go I want to go and 2007 Metallica uh I had to go to Austria first for a show and then it was Oslo Stockholm Helsinki Moscow and then back.

21:22Mat Ireland:Yeah. And I just remember being, and it's funny because every other driver there who'd obviously been to Russia, none of them wanted to go. They're like, oh, bloody, hope it gets cancelled, blah, blah, blah. And I was just like, no way. I want to go. I was so keen and excited. And I just remember when we finally cleared customs and we got through the border, I was just like, this is so different. just even though like the board is not very big we're through like the scenery looks similar but everything all the signs are in Cyrillic the cars look different the cars and the vans the russian-built stuff it was kind of like uh looking at a version of grand theft auto with like a vehicle that looks like a ford transit but it's not it's a mass you know it's just like a yeah it was just and then it starts then it's like there's an english truck there and it's like well no it's not it's left-hand driving it's got russian plates on it so i had no idea loads of old english trucks got exported out convert to left-hand drive and because i think the first one i saw was a matlock transport ivico eurostar but it was oh really convert to left-hand drive on russian plates uh just were they was that the one that had the the little plastic window at the top bunk uh that's yeah yeah the eurostar was the bigger one yeah that's right and then there's Eurotech as well.

22:45Mat Ireland:Yeah, so the Eurostar had the doors. Yeah, that little window. Window, yeah, that's right. I remember that, yeah. Yeah, and so, yeah, off we went to Moscow, and the driving, I mean, people have probably seen the videos on YouTube and whatnot of these Russian drivers, and they just are like that. It was just insane, and I loved it every single minute of it. And I was just like, I'm coming back. And I just made it very clear in the office, like, any job going to Russia, I want to go. I'm up for it. just send me and I just end up started going back to back. They then started getting me a multi-entry visa.

23:21Everyone else would just get a one entry one. So also that way, if someone fell ill or anything, they could get me out there to go and take over. And it was just, oh, I was just in my element. Ukraine, Belarus a couple of times as well. And just that was mostly Moscow and St. Petersburg. But just even that, it was just, I absolutely loved it. I couldn't get enough.

23:43Mat Ireland:That's great. What were the people of Russia? What were they like? Oh, friendly. Yeah, definitely friendly. Yeah, they're quite hardcore drinkers, some of them. Yeah, the furthest trip I ever did was with Sting. I did, that was four shows all in Russia. I went down to Switzerland to pick the PA up and then up to the border through. So started in a place called Kazan, which is 800 kilometres east of Moscow. But from there to Samara, then to Chelyabinsk, and then up to Ekaterinburg. And then from Ekaterinburg back to Switzerland took me a fortnight. It was a week back to the border, and I actually was, I think, six minutes over my 90 hours driving when I got back to Clare Brothers at Aish because I got held up in a bit of traffic trying to get through Switzerland to their place.

24:36Mat Ireland:Wow. That was just – that's my favourite trip ever, ever, ever. I crossed the Asian border to the Asian side of Russia. And again, I was just in my element, absolutely loving it. That's crazy. Yeah. Isn't it? Yeah. So did you go back several times, I assume, because they got you there? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd quite often go four, five, six times a year, if not more, just depending on how long the jobs were that I was doing. and stuff. And one particular year, I went out with, I think, I went out with Kasabian, I think it was. I did St. Petersburg, Moscow, or it might have been Lincoln Park.

25:21St. Petersburg, Moscow, straight back. And then I tipped, reloaded, and then straight back out for Elton John for a show about just about two weeks before Christmas, I think it was. So, yeah, just didn't even go home, just turned around reloaded straight back out covering the same ground again one more show in moscow straight

25:41Mat Ireland:back home for christmas that's crazy yeah oh i loved it absolutely would you say would you say that that was out of all of your driving career out of all the different jobs um would you say that that was the best one that you've that your best driving job i would say so yeah yeah it could be really hard work be under no illusion if you're i'm funny enough i've just been writing about a deftones tour i did i think i thought it was 19 shows but i think it was only 17 we so i think we did 17 shows through 23 countries the truck did 20 000 kilometers i think it was and that was in four weeks jesus so it's double and triple manned most of it um so yeah like for argument's sake i did i did um reading and leeds festival i then drove single man down to ashford truck stop i got out my mates dave daniels and steve mcclure got in the truck they then took it to paris i flew to talon had my 45 hour break they did paris they double manned up the talon dave got out flew home i jumped in with steve we did rigast petersburg moscow back to switzerland dropped pa off back to heath row and that's like the end of the tour so i had the truck to myself for about six days and in a month the rest of time it was wow and like one of the one of the early drives we did budapest Bucharest overnight, which is about nearly 900k, I think it was.

27:06Then we went down to Burgas on the Black Sea. Then we double-manned back up to Budapest, which was like a full-on shift for us. Again, we got out. Dave got in. He did like a nine-hour drive to Warsaw to get there in time for loading. While Steve went home, I went to Germany. It was just bonkers, absolutely bonkers. That is literally non-stop. Yeah, and you're trying to sleep in a black truck in the daytime, in the summertime it's it's not easy yeah it's not easy and a noisy festival as well it's yeah it can be it can be incredibly hard work but then when it's when it is easy it makes it so much more pleasant and you've got time so like some of the best tours like i did Cirque du Soleil i did a Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson the Immortal tour it we started it in 2012 i went out in October 2012 and we finished in April 2013.

27:58We were out for six months, never come home, got home, had 10 days off, went back out for three months on Bon Jovi. But when we were on Cirque, from January to April, we were only doing one city a week. So we were everywhere for a whole week.

28:14Mat Ireland:Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, so you've got all this time to go and explore and do all the sightseeing and just really immersing yourself. or you know so we we'd rent a car go off go and go look at somewhere else just yeah have a while yeah make make the most of don't just sit in a damn truck so how does the pace how does the pay structure work with something like that so obviously you are there you are physically yeah just paid you paid every day you're out in the truck really yeah so so yeah you're whether you're whether you're doing like a 21 hour overnight shift or uh you know sitting about for doing nothing, you're getting paid because you're out in the truck.

28:53Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah.

28:56Mat Ireland:That sounds like a proper rock and roll lifestyle, doesn't it? In the driving world. Yeah. It definitely appeals to certain people. But again, you've either got to be single or have an extremely understanding partner. I mean, like, let's say we went out in October. We had Christmas in Madrid. when midnight struck for new year i was actually driving around the bordeaux ring road because we were doing the furthest ever point-to-point drive i've done we left madrid and we went to kazan in russia that was my second time in kazan and that was that was that drive there was further than e katerenberg back to switzerland well by a little bit so but we had two weeks to do it but it was a long long way to go that's some serious some serious mileage yeah when um so when you when you when you arrive somewhere we've established you don't you don't necessarily have to help unload it and all that sort of stuff yeah um are the facilities there for you to use such as a shower and stuff like that or do you have to go off to like a local swimming bath so no there's because because generally speaking it's an arena um or a stadium there's always toilets and showers there's catering um on most tours so you'll get three meals a day so you're fed and watered sometimes the caterers will buy your beers and stuff like that as well you you do get looked up looked up but then sometimes look the way some of the tours are getting so big trying to get a shower became quite an issue because as you've i mean the i think the beyonce tour was like 64 trucks or something or other it's just ridiculous and then so obviously most of these changing rooms are then going to be used for various staff and whatever so as soon as they're unloading they're then taken up then all of a sudden there's nowhere to get a shower so the really big stuff it could become a bit of an issue yeah yeah i was never i mean although i did the u2 stuff a lot and they were i mean we had 54 trucks i think on 360 but i was it was a bit like being on my own because i would unload on show day everyone else would load in the day before so when i'm when i'm tipping at eight o 'clock on show day morning there's just me and the backline guys and there's no one else about it was it was quite pleasant really yeah so but yeah it was just it was yeah i mean you you have that job is your life you have no other life you know i've missed so many like weddings parties you shows you name because you're just not especially in the summer you're just not about yeah you're not getting home like like if you're just doing uk stuff like what i do if something i know is coming up whether it be a parents evening or you know a school play or whatever i can put that into the office and say i need to be home on tuesday blah blah blah because of it and you know and they'll try the hardest to get me back you're not got you know you're not getting that on that job are you no definitely not so yeah i need to need to make a dentist appointment so well good luck with that because uh yeah when are you going to be home So, yeah, I mean, like I say, it was your life.

32:02It really was. But I was loving it. I absolutely loved it. What ended it for me was COVID. COVID came along. Obviously, it just stopped dead, sadly. And then I went, so Trans Am did start doing a bit of general haulage at the time, and I was one of the very first, because me and my ex were asked for by name, by a chap called Chris Cooper. He wanted us doing some work for him. So we're doing a little bit for him. But then that went quiet. So I then went to work for another company and I've just never been back. All of a sudden I've got a bit of a life. And it makes a pleasant change, really. Well, that fast forwards me to the next question, which is so obviously you've left there.