My guest today made a chicken sandwich. It took him 6 months and cost him $1500.

Now, this wouldn’t usually be cause for inviting someone onto a podcast to talk about globalisation, but Andy George is no ordinary maker of chicken sandwiches. He runs a YouTube channel called How To Make Everything, which, at time of writing, has 1.74m subscribers. Andy’s premise is simple, he makes everything but he makes it from scratch. He procures everything straight from the source, and then works backwards to try and turn it into a viable product. The sort of products we’ve become used to buying in every supermarket in the country. His most successful videos involve making chocolate, an American football, a root beer float and a pair of glasses.

His story about making a chicken sandwich – which was my point of entry to Andy’s world – has over six million views, and went viral against recently on Twitter. Part of its appeal is, I think, a demonstration of how hard life has been for most of humanity’s existence, and how much we’ve come to take for granted the conveniences of modern life. In a moment you’ll hear my conversation with Andy, which I hope gets you thinking about some of these questions about supply chains in our globalised world, and also makes you marvel with renewed appreciation for the miracle that it human evolution. There’s not a monkey in the world that could make a chicken sandwich, let alone create a mass-market version for consumption by a thousand hungry commuters every day, but humans have taken it in their stride. Anyway, here’s Andy…

The Ned Ludd Radio Hour is a Podot podcast, written and presented by me, Nick Hilton.

The theme music is Internet Song by Apes of the State, used with their generous permission. The artwork is by Tom Humberstone.

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