That was Disco Girl by Ben Kai.
And you're right, Oscar.
It's one of those relaxed Sunday driving songs.
You get into the car, you're going to, I don't know, the mall or something.
So a 10 or 15 minute drive and you turn the song on.
And the drive passes quickly and easily.
Yeah, yeah, that's why I like it.
so sundays we were talking about your typical sunday oscar like watching a bit of football
maybe going to the pub what does sunday brunch look like
um sunday brunch sunday brunch probably um going to a caf to avoid having to to cook on a sunday
and getting some, you know, just some nice healthy breakfast
and just chilling out.
Yeah.
Are you much of a cook?
Not really, no, not really.
I would love to be, but I'm just not too,
I don't have the creative ability to come up with interesting things.
But there's a few things I can cook.
I can cook a good, I'm all right with Thai food.
So Thai curry, you know, pad thai, stuff like that.
But other than that, not really too much.
How come? Is that something self-taught or did you spend some time in Thailand?
I spent some time in Thailand, yeah.
I've been a few times over the years, but yeah, love Thai food, love the country.
I actually went just before COVID lockdown.
That was, yeah, I went there to do some Muay Thai training with a friend of mine who lived out there.
And yeah, it was a really cool experience.
And then it was literally on the way back.
I remember COVID was kicking off and people were already wearing masks in the airport and stuff.
So kind of a shame I didn't get locked down in Thailand and had to come back to London.
Yeah.
I think the lockdowns were brief but brutal out in that part of the world, if I remember correctly.
Do you mean in Thailand?
In Southeast Asia, yeah.
Yeah, I'm not sure, to be honest. I don't think they went on as long as the UK, although we were more of a stop and start lockdown here in London.
Oscar, we were talking earlier about football, and you're actually a pretty good football player, amateur football player.
I've seen you play as I said that uh that day in Madeira um what what happened with the with the
aspiring well actually was there ever an aspiring football career and if so what happened
not really no not really I played a lot as a kid as I said I played at uh Highbury the Arsenal
stadium but that wasn't really like a kind of precursor to the actual arsenal team it was more
just like a summer thing for like kids in the local area so i don't think there was ever a you
know i wasn't ever that good at football it's more i actually more just enjoy it as a hobby just
because it's a lot of fun you get to play with your friends and it's kind of if you compare it to
other exercise like running or swimming or going to the gym or anything like that
it's I find football is more it's easier to totally switch off your brain if you're going
for a run you might be mulling over some problem that you need to deal with or if you're in the gym
you might um you know receive a text from somebody that you look at in between a set
um whereas if you're playing football there's just nothing to think about and it's very fun
it's competitive it's a team sport and yeah also it's you know it's football I love watching
football as well so it's linked to something that you watch as well and a team that you follow so
So yeah, it's more just something that I've done later in life.
I think the advantage with playing it as a hobby is you don't have to go through, you
don't have to train.
Yeah, exactly.
And therefore avoid the injury stuff that happens to so many football players Because I mean it the training It just takes a toll on the body right
Yeah, exactly.
And, yeah, if you're just playing with mates, you know,
five a side, eight a side, whatever it is, then it's much more chill.
And, you know, occasionally you'll come across a team or a player
that, you know, is a bit too aggressive, but mostly you can avoid injury.
so have you lived in london for most of your life yeah pretty much yeah pretty much my whole life
how would you say london has changed in the last five or ten years i mean i guess pre-pandemic
immediately post-pandemic and now and and the reason i'm asking is i you know living in america
you read all sorts of
things in the media
about things that are happening in the UK
things that are happening in London
and I visited London
for the first time in 20 years
I met you in Manchester
but it was that trip
I was in London for a couple of days
before that
and I loved it
the food was great
it wasn't too expensive
especially coming from New York
things were half the price
really high quality the transit system i mean largely worked like a charm
things looked clean for the most part uh i mean you know i went in with one image based on what
i'd been reading in the news and found something completely different i was pleasantly surprised
how have you found the evolution of london in the last few years
yeah it's a great question um i mean i would agree i'm glad you had that experience because i
i do agree that there is this kind of like you know portrayal of the decline of london that you
see on uh social media um because that's what you know gets attention on these uh social media
algorithms these days but it's not the case and obviously there are issues in london like there
are issues in any western city whether that's you know homelessness um or you know drug addiction
and stuff but that exists in every city and actually compared to somewhere like you know
san francisco the situation in london is you know a million times better so yeah i i think it's it's
it's pretty good um it's it's an amazing place it's there's so much going on here you've got the
history which is amazing um there's so much to see so much to learn about um and yeah great food
there's lots to do so yeah i love it here i've lived here my whole life and this this narrative
that london has become you know like a terrible place to live is just in my view it's totally
false there are a lot of issues here um that there are and we need to deal with those issues and
you know the people in charge here are uh not doing a good enough job but the narrative that
london is kind of this terrible place is totally false so i'd encourage anyone to come here and
yeah i'll take you around and show you the place i think the other thing that i would say though
is and it's and it links all the way back to um bitcoin really is that the in the uk
there is a cost of living crisis and everything is very very expensive and the salaries
have not gone up um outside of a very few you know select industries um like the tech industry
salaries have not you know gone up at all so i i get the sense that many people in london
are struggling um financially because of the cost of food the cost of just living and the cost of
you know energy so i'd say that is one thing that i notice people just seem to be a little bit more
kind of like on edge and stressed um so i'd say that's the biggest change but overall it's still
a great place to live and yeah come and visit it's interesting you talk about the cost of living
uh and i did get that sense from just from taxi drivers uh when i was taking ubers there but
the funny thing was what i found going to restaurants both in london and manchester and
you know we'd had as we do when bitcoiners tend to meet we tend to have fairly uh
you know, elaborate meals, let's just say.
And I, well, I mean, during conferences, right,
we tend to let go a little bit.
And I'd look at the bill at the end,
and it would be it far less than what it was in New York Close to half the food especially Even the Ubers were about 20 30 cheaper This mind you factoring in the fact that the pound was when I was there
factoring all of that in, compared to New York at least,
it felt a lot, food was almost half,
taxis and other things were 20, 30% cheaper.
and in fact we had friends shortly after i got back from london had friends from the uk visit
and we spent a couple of days in new york and they were just saying this is insane how do people live
with this cost of living um so that is a that is curious that and and perhaps that that has to do
as you said oscar with salaries not going up more than anything else yeah i i think it i think it is
the salaries i think if you look at the equivalent salaries in the u.s you know it may be maybe food
uh and and the stuff you mentioned is you know 20 30 cheaper but if you look at equivalent salaries
in the u.s they're you know way more than 20 30 percent um so i think it's just that yeah many
people in the uk just that the costs have just massively outpaced their salary growth over the
past you know five ten years and that's why people it's subtle but that's why people just feel
uh in a in a difficult position
and london has the cypher monk house that was one of the high points of my trip i just
i i loved visiting that place yeah in in an only i got yelled at for for just uh disclosing the
location on a previous podcast so in an undisclosed location in a beautiful part well i think i'm
allowed to say bloomsbury um bloomsbury clerkenwell area which is a very nice part of london
southern london um and it's this beautiful four-story victorian home um and and you know
the BitConers have taken it over.
It's mostly an art space.
They do have a little bit of co-working
and they have workshops on Lightning, Noster, and what have you.
So if anyone's in London,
they should definitely check out the Cypher Monk House.
Is that something you've looked into, Oscar?
Well, first of all, have you visited the Cypher Monk House,
being in London?
But secondly, given that there is that potential element of co-working,
have you thought about doing some of the fountain,
work from there and that'll be there's a nice osmosis with the other bitcoin and nosta companies
that are operating out of there as well yeah i actually haven't been uh i feel bad saying it but
it's been one thing on my list for a while definitely need to get down there so yeah
hopefully hopefully you can do so soon i know they they have like regular meetups there and stuff but
yeah i haven't actually been down and this do you work out of home or i think i heard you say you
have fountain has an office space or yeah we have space yeah we have a we have an office space in a
in a co-working in in central london how many people are on fountain now yeah so we are uh
Four full-time people and we have one person that helps us part-time, you know, two days a week, particularly on the music side, actually.
So, yeah, small team, but we feel like we have, you know, we have the team in place to do what we want to do this year.
And obviously the hosting part of what we do was a big change last year.
um dovidas from rss blue joined us and uh he's been an amazing addition to the team and has um
you know helped us make this transition into also uh serving content creators directly with our
hosting product um and and we knew that would be the case because we've worked with him for many
years but um yeah that's been a big change and we're I feel like in 2025 that was our main focus
was you know designing building launching and you know onboarding our first customers on the hosting
side we've done that now and um it's really good to go into 2026 with that kind of baseline
product and now we can you know start thinking about more exciting new features on the listener
side because ultimately you that's what you want you want people that don't care about bitcoin or
the technical fundamentals of NOSTA just to come to an app like Fountain because it an amazing listening experience And in 2025 although we released a whole bunch of really really I think
solid quality of life improvements to the Fountain app, we were more focused on hosting.
So yeah, excited for this, yeah.
yep likewise uh so oscar well let's move on to your last song and this is hosanna by
what is the artist's name yeah uh i'm not 100 on this pronunciation but this song is hosanna by
Banzi Banero and yeah the reason that I picked this song this is quite an old one it's it's hosted on
Wavelake and I think it was one of the early tracks that was uploaded to Wavelake and it just
happened to be when we were first working on um the music features in the fountain app
there was a very small selection of music available i think wave lake had just um kind of launched
their you know their kind of artist upload feature there are a few um independent
music feeds out there self-hosted feeds out there but there was very little music
available to actually test the development of the music player and the music features in the
fountain app and this was just one of the songs that I came across and really loved the song it
was a song that didn't really get boring I could just listen to it again and again
similar to the Disco Girl song
it gave me like a certain energy
but not a relaxed energy
kind of like a
you know
an energetic energy
and yeah
I just think it's
it's a great
great song
it's a fun song
and
yeah
I think everyone will enjoy it
well let's give it a listen
this is Hosanna
by Banzi Bonero
I
I'm not getting here.
My voices in my head telling me to surrender.
If I should surrender, water go chop, oh my brother.
Inky, tiki, tiki, I dream many days, but we never say never.
Negative thoughts in my head saying make a justice like a war.
Many things my eyes are seen.
My mouth no the do complaining.
I got wounds on my body I'm healing
Spiritually battles I'm facing
With a trap trap in the bandeau
With a fight like Taekwondo
Bruce Lee in the commando
Now we see we fall a show
Oh I keep hearing voices
Weeding, weeding
Asking me do I trust them
Believe, believe
Better this a dear
T-Sera, Sera
We not give you no brother
No give you no brother
Ozy, Ozy, Ozy
Ozy, Ozy
Oh, I'm not getting here.
Oh, Z, O, Z, O, Z.
Oh, I'm not getting here.
Love me every day, they will stay change.
Sometimes get up and change your seat.
Watch who you call your homies.
Cause some homies tend to zoom.
Vampires on the roof, they walking.
For your blood, they wanna be suffering.
Are you praying or you joking?
You praying or you joking?
Where they sing melodies to kill our sorrows.
Acts busy, we stand and toast.
I realize we don't fold
D2D will speed on the road
Better days I get in there
Yeah the best thing he knows
Talk to me, you're listening
Talk to me, I'm listening
Why keep hearing voices
Weeding, weeding
Asking me do I trust them
Believe, believe
Better days I get in there
He said, I said
We not giving up with her
No giving up with her
Ozy, Ozy, Ozy
Ozy, Ozy
Thank you.