Do Go On - 470 - The Great Library of Alexandria

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

The Ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria was regarded as the capital of knowledge and learning, all because of the city's great library that held documents from across the world. But what happened to it and where would we be if all of its knowledge hadn't been lost? To answer these questions and more we're joined by our dear friend Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall. This is the 6th most voted for topic of Block 2024!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 15:51 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodSupport the show on Apple podcasts and get bonus episodes in the app: http://apple.co/dogoon Live show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/ Watch Do Go On The Quiz Show: https://youtu.be/GgzcPMx1EdM?si=ir7iubozIzlzvWfK Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/Check out our merch: https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/  Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, it's Matt here just to let you know that yes, we are coming to Europe really soon, but before that I'm going to be doing shows in Geelong and Brisbane, and I would love to see you at those shows. So, Brisbane is on the 19th of October, and Geelong on the 31st of October, and then after the Do Go On Tour of Europe, I'm going to be doing three Who Knew It shows in London on the 17th of November, Leicester on the 21st of November,

and Edinburgh on the 23rd of November. And you can get tickets to all these shows at matstewittcomedy.com. Looking forward to seeing you there. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors. Like when our estrogen levels drop during menopause, causing the risk of heart disease to go up. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca.

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Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnocky and as always, I'm here with Matt Stewart. Hello, Matt. Hey, Dave. Happy Block as always. What are we? Hey, what are we? Week four of Block? Week four, so this is the sixth most requested topic.

Oh my God, I'm so excited. Quickly for people who don't know what Block is, it's our most requested and voted for topics of the year. So we do a huge poll. It had nearly 500 possible topics on it. And we're counting down the top nine through October slash Blocktober and November slash Blovember, which has been annexed now to be a part of Blocktober as well.

To make it even bigger, badder and better. Eventually, if my plan comes to fruition, we'll end up annexing all 12 months of the year for Block. Perfect. Well, with 500 topics in the vote, we could easily do it. Yeah. And as has become a block tradition, we are joined this week by one of Dugong's favorite sons

and he's joining us live from Canada. It's Alistair Trombley-Birtchell. Hello Al. Hello. Am I the sixth most voted for guest? Yeah, count them down. It's funny because the tradition started with when we got you in to tell us about the history of penises.

Yes, that is correct. Because we had this long running joke about Keen for Pain and it ended up getting voted for as a topic. We didn't know what to do with it. So we got our most scientific friend in and then you did a follow up from that, which was a Lit for Clit and then completing the trilogy with Whacker for Clowacka. People, you were so close. I think the from adding to that, I think the 12th or 13th most voted for topic was along those lines. Maybe like, yeah, let me look it up.

But Dave, you talk about Al. Talk about Al or talk to Al? Well, talk about me. Talk about Al with Al. Al, since we've last had you on the podcast, you have moved to Montreal. That's correct, Dave. You are 100% right about that. I am currently a Montrealer living actually off the island,

and I'm not actually a Montrealer right now, but I have been a Montrealer for most of the time I've been away. It's very exciting. Yeah. Because you're doing a lot of stand-up comedy in English, but also in French these days. That's right. I moved to try, see if I could just do stand-up in French and it is working. Like it can, it can be done, even though there was a whole community of people that already were doing it, but I am proving that it can be done.

That it can be done. It can be done by a Scottish born French Canadian Australian. That's right. Yeah. I mean, you know, I kind of stopped speaking French for a lot of that A Scottish born French Canadian Australian. That's right. Yeah. I mean, I kind of stopped speaking French for a lot of that 25 years, 26 years I was living in Australia. So that's where I'm impressed with myself to have kind of brought my French up back

to a good fluid level. And even though I still have the vocabulary of a 13 year old, I do sound like I'm from Quebec. So a lot of the, well, maybe this is appropriate because the topic that came in at 12th, so only three out of the top nine, hankering for wankering, a history of wanking. Wow. That's what, yeah, so, and obviously that's the topic you would have been doing if it made the count. We ended up just picking the one that we thought was the closest to scientific, which was about a library.

I mean, it's very nice. I mean, if you want someone quiet to wank, where do you go? Yeah, that's right. I mean, I you want somewhere quiet to wank, where do you go? Yeah, that's right. I mean, I just like I like that you give me any kind of hole based thing in a reading hole. A library is perfect for me. A nook or cranny. That's right. If you think of think of a Urethra like a nook or a cranny.

Yeah. I think a library is similar. It's basically a knowledge orifice. But so you're in Canada gigging. I'd love for a listener to come up to you at a show and say, hey Al, heard you on Do Go On recently, because this happened on Who Knew It last month. I had Annie Louie join me from Hong Kong and I said, Oh, we've got some Hong Kong listeners. Where can, where are you performing? She said her regular gig and like two days later, Siraj, a listener to this show and

Who Knew It was at the back of the room and it was all on tape. She's like, oh, who's this guy at the back? And she's doing crowd work with him and she's like, oh, what brought you here? And he said, oh, the comedy. I heard you on a podcast yesterday. She's like, what? It was good fun.

Yeah. I mean, I've already had two people who listen to Do Go On approach me. One on the Metro and one after a show. For real? That's on the Metro? I like after the show's the better one. There's like, yeah, I heard you would be on this train.

So yeah, just coming to check you out. I'll be over there having a look. Do you want to like- Somebody recognised me from being on Do Go On, which is an audio podcast. Were you talking at the time? I was being very quiet. Okay. You could just recognise my aura. Much like you were in a library.

Yeah, your orifice. Yeah, my aura. Oh my goodness. That's my seventh chakra is my orifice. Dave, how does this show work? Now what we do here is we take it in turns to report on a topic which is often suggested to us by one of the listeners. We go away, do a bit of research and bring it back with a little report.

The other two people usually don't know what they're going to talk about, but because for Block we had to divvy up the topics, we had to assign one to Al. Matt, now we've already alluded to it a little bit. We know what you're going to talk about Al, but for Block, we had to divvy up the topics, we had to assign one to Al. Matt and I, we've already alluded to it a little bit. We know what you're going to talk about Al, but we have been, I don't know if we mentioned this to you, still asking a question to get us on the topic. Do you have anything to get us on the topic? Which we do kind of know what it is, but you know, it could be tangential. Who knows?

Well, where was all of the world's accumulated knowledge once lost? We've already done Atlantis. Okay. Is this going to be about the first iPhone? Do you think? And then someone forgot the password. Yeah. Oh no.

When those Samsung started exploding. Is this about the Samsung phone exploding thing? It's about the Library of Alexandria. Oh my goodness. How did you know? The Library of Alexandria. I'm very excited to be able to present this to you, you two. If you hadn't have suggested it, I was about to suggest doing it. To be honest, of all the block topics we've had over the last couple of years, anyway, this one's probably the most surprising to us, Matt, that it made the top nine,

because I guess it's because we don't know too much about it. Obviously, the listeners, maybe they know something we don't. Yeah, I'm guessing they must know more because I like the just the topic name in itself doesn't get me excited. Sure. I mean, it's always had a lot of mystery around it. A lot of- Oh, okay. There's a lot of strong beliefs and a lot of like conspiracy stuff around it that- Okay. That we would, that would, you know, if we hadn't lost everything that was there we, you know, if we hadn't lost everything that was there, uh, in the burning of the library, then we, then society and technology would be thousands of years ahead of where

it currently is. Oh, that's it. That is okay. That's, that's, that's exciting. And also I've got to say, pay my respects to the libraries. My mom is a librarian, so I'm a big fan, spent a lot of time in libraries, but yeah, I didn't think we'd be doing a full report on one, but here we are. And I'm very excited to learn. Just for the list, Dave just poured some of his whiskey out for libraries.

That was really beautiful. I thought I was a really good director. That's a tribute. Yeah. No, his laptop is sparking. For libraries. Yeah, but I don't need it. I've got books.

I'm saying library is weird. And now I'm not going to be able to get out of it. How do you say it? Library. Library. Library. I think I say library. Library.

Yeah, it is one of those words. As long as you don't say library, I think you're okay. Yeah. Oh, no, don't put that in my head. That's like another option. All right, Al, before you get onto it, I was trying to figure out, like, is- Oh, usually blocked topics have so many suggestors. But this one, just the one I can find in the hat, I think it must have been a Patreon suggestor over recent years that got a lot of upvotes in my pre block, pre poll poll.

That's right, we got a Patreon first. That's a long system, but anyway, the only official suggestion of the hat is Mel Cleary from Wellington in New Zealand. That's awesome. The Windy City. A beautiful city. Beautiful city and a beautiful name and a beautiful suggestion. And a couple of beautiful Do Go On hosts. Thank you.

Oh, Jess is fine, by the way. Oh, yeah, we should mention Jess is fine. Jess is fine? Okay, great. We'll be is fine by the way. Oh, yeah, we should mention Jess is fine. Jess is fine? Okay, great. We'll be back next week. Yeah, she is crook and she's been having a rough time. So just quickly, pray for Bob. Pray for Bob.

Hey Dave, pour one out for Jess. I'll ruin your laptop as well. All right, ladies and gentlemen. All right. The Library of Alexandria was built on the 16th of October, 2002, apparently to great pump. So there you have it. Thank you very much for having me on the podcast. Wow. Wait, what?

22 great years. Oh, no. There was a recreation that was created in partnership with UNESCO. But let me get into the real stuff now. Wait, was that a classic ATB fake out? Yeah, feel free to delete that. I was, my attention drifted for a second and I came back in and went, wait, what? I thought you were going to get 2002 years ago and I loved the balls.

Oh, that's it. Great. All right. I want you to cast your minds back to antiquity, a time when antique dealers would be in hog heaven. Right? And specifically, I want you to picture yourself in the Mediterranean. Right?

We're talking olives. We're talking olive oil and we're talking olive skin tones. Maybe I don't know if that's true. Okay. But now I want you to picture yourself as Alexander the Great. You know, you may have just heard about him. Yeah, for about three hours last week. After he had defeated the Persian King Darius III at the Battle of Issus, and he had overwhelmed

powerful cities like Tyre and Gaza, maybe Tyr, I'm not sure, on the Eastern Mediterranean shore. I think I sure on the Eastern Mediterranean. I think I said Tire last week. Yeah, we'll stick with that. Okay. It's 332 BC. Alexander the Great, who was being welcomed as a liberator in Egypt. He first went to the capital word, Pharaonic Egypt. He went to the capital city, Memphis, because he wanted to see Graceland, I think. Paid tribute to the king. Yes, the pharaoh of rock and roll, Elvis.

Now, apparently- Wait, is it- so the original Memphis was an Egypt center of power, was it? Yeah. It was the ancient capital, yeah. I don't think I knew that. When did Cairo come about? I'm not sure. Question without notice. I'm not sure when it transitioned, but that's often a trivia question, which is what is

the ancient city- Ah, Memphis. ... capital city of Egypt, yeah. Put that down in the Qantas quiz. Walking like an Egyptian in Memphis. What a great mashup hit that could have been. Oh, that's great. I know. I mean, there's still time. There's still time. There are modern day Egyptians who could write this.

Yeah. The modern Egyptian version of walk like an Egyptian and the film clip is just people walking to the shops. Walk like an Egyptian and the film clip is just people walking to the shops. Walk like an Egyptian, going for a stroll. Exactly. Now, Egypt- Because of course the ancient Egyptians really did walk like they were hieroglyphics. Yeah. That's right. Oh, why else would they put them in stone like that?

Yeah. It's a beautiful position and very natural, and it doesn't hurt your wrist at all to do that thing, like that. Yeah. It's a beautiful position and very natural and it doesn't hurt your wrist at all to do that thing, you know. Yeah. Now, apparently at the time, Egypt was under the control of some Persian kings, right, who had shown complete contempt for the belief system of the Egyptians at the time, and in particular, the Apis bull deity that many Egyptians worshipped, right? And so, the kings there went so far as to have the sacred bulls, the living incarnations of Apis, slain, and it was a gross sign of Persian contempt for Egyptian religion. But Alexander, the great one, he had read his history and so he decided to come in and distinguish himself from these Persian occupiers

and be like, hey, oh, you like this cow god? Well, how about this? And then he would sacrifice a few things for that god, for that deity and then the the Egyptians were like, you know what? You can become our Pharaoh Wow, I love it. They're like we hate it when you kill like when you sacrifice cows But when you sacrifice stuff for the cows, we love that. Yeah It's it's I love it when you kill things for the thing that we don't want you to kill It would be tricky if what would happen if he sacrificed a cow for the cow? It cancels itself out.

He didn't do anything. Yeah. That's fine then. Yeah. And so, and so without any kind of battle, he managed to take over Egypt and he went to I think Memphis and he became crowned pharaoh. Right. That's it. And then he decided to go to the village of Rakotis to the west and he founded

Alexandria, whose perimeter he drew himself. And then he ordered an architect to draw up the plan and then he left Egypt. And when he said draw up the perimeter, did he like get a stick and go, I want it to start here and keep going to here. You know what? I actually don't know. Well, I'm pretty sure he had one of those things that the, you know, the grounds keepers at a football ground have. The kind of chalk line.

Chalk line. He just rolled out a white chalk line in a big circle. He just drew a tennis court. Yeah. The MCG, that's how big Alexandra is. And then they would just build sort of, you know, houses and stuff like that to just fit within that line. If the line was squiggly, the house had to be squiggly. If you're on the other side of that other line, you lived in the country. That's right. If you've seen Alexandria, you'll see there are some squiggly houses and that's why. Absolutely. Not a lot of people know that.

Now, only nothing like no only like 10 years later, Mr. Mr. The Great died and and and after his death. Yeah, pour another one. Dave, you've got nearly no whiskey left, mate. Do you even like that whiskey? And then a dude named Ptolemy. P-T-O-L-E-M-Y. Is that what you were thinking when you heard it?

Oh yeah, we love Ptolemy. I mean, yes. Ptolemy heads. So he was related to pterodactyls and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we love, we love Ptolemy. I mean, yes. Ptolemy heads. So he was related to pterodactyls and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Putey Barnum. And Helicopter. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah. Now Ptolemy had been like a trustworthy troop commander under Alex the Great. And by the way, I've been wanting to do this the whole time. Alexander, he's great. Anyway. Okay. That's why before, uh, see that's a, that's a, an American ad slogan. Am I right in saying that? That's right. You are absolutely correct. Don't worry. I've seen Frosted. It's a Jerry Seinfeld movie. Oh, great. That's really good. I'm yet to watch it still, but I at least when I know when I'll watch it, I'll get the

references. I think, I think Hugh Grant plays the guy who says great, but he's the twist is he's like a Shakespearean actor. Of course, of course. Well cast. He's been really doing some different roles these days, hasn't he? Apparently he was the only one that asked to be in the film. I think something like that. It's amazing.

Does it show? All right. He put in a bit. He was good. No, he wasn't good. He was great. Okay. All right. He was good. No, he wasn't good. He was great. Okay.

So after Alexander the Great's death, Ptolemy, who was his trustworthy troop commander and also one of his bodyguard companions, he was appointed a satrap. You ever heard of that? A satrap. Oh, I of that? A satrap. Yeah, I've said it a lot. Wow. Oh, good. You're getting all my references,

all my Egyptian references. He was a satrap of Egypt in 3023 BC and later on in 305 BC, he declared himself Pharaoh Ptolemy I. Whoa. Is it? Oh, and he, I think Dave mentioned Ptolemites? Is that like his followers or something?

Oh, it's the dynasty, because they divided it into dynasties. It's called the Ptolemaic dynasty. Ptolemaic. And it ended with Cleopatra a couple of hundred years later. Isn't that crazy just to find that out, that Cleopatra was like Macedonian and not really Egyptian? Yeah. I think that's the biggest even what language she even spoke, which is wild.

I think she was the first of the Ptolemaic dynasty to speak Egyptian as well as- To actually bother learning it. And they've been on in charge for what, 200 years or something by that point. That's incredible. Yeah. I think it was, yeah, maybe over 200 years even. All that timeline has really blown my mind. This is our third episode that's sort of Egyptian related in the last few months

because we did that one. I told that story about. Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut. But who was like, and just how long the ancient Egyptians were like such a powerful. Yeah, because I was a thousand years before all this. Yeah, amazing. Yeah. Australia only managed, I don't know, like we had the Sydney Olympics. I think we had two weeks as a center of the world.

Yeah. Yeah, but it was a good two weeks. a center of the world. Yeah. Yeah. But it was a good two weeks. It was. Best Olympics ever. Best Olympics ever. Isn't that what that guy said? Yeah. And he wouldn't lie.

Why would he lie? Why would the boss of the Olympics lie about something like that? The boss of that Olympics. But I genuinely haven't heard any of those other guys say the best one, this has been the best one so far. Since then. I genuinely haven't heard any of those other guys say the best one. This has been the best one so far. Yeah, probably. Oh, do you think maybe- Well, in part, maybe because you haven't been paying attention, but also maybe-

It's probably. Maybe because the others are like a bit uncouth, mate. Like- Yeah. We've done like 30 of these things. Come on. Why are we- We're choosing favourites now? Yeah. Bit uncouth.

But it seems awful to start saying it and then to stop. Oh, that's true too. Yeah. Athens is like, come on, no one's, no one's going to say it. No one's going to say it. Commonwealth Games, no one's ever said it though. That's right. Another very average Commonwealth Games.

All right. And so began the Ptolemaic Empire. Ptolemy I and his son, Ptolemy II. Then, and then the whole dynasty of Ptolemies developed the city of Alexandria, built numerous grandiose monuments and decorated it in the fashion of both the Greeks and the Egyptians. So they would mix the cultures. There's a pub near the studios here. Al, you'd remember this, the Molland Hotel in Brunswick. And, and the man who made that was like an eccentric millionaire, not billionaire. And if you saw it, you'd probably get that. But I don't know, that's for sure. But yeah, he's like, I really like that ancient Egyptian look.

So and then he says, I like some Greek elements. Yeah, the Acropolis is cool. Yeah. So the lettering is sort of like a Greek style. There's like, like Pharaoh related stuff. And then there's also Roman stuff in there as well. He's like, oh, actually. And he was having these ideas as they were building it, apparently.

Oh, you know what? It'd be cool. And then the designers were like, that's a different, that's a different style. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Yeah.

Alexander's David is in there, right? Or, Oh no, Michelangelo's David. Is that what it is? Michelangelo's David? Maybe. Yeah. I don't know if Alexander's ones made it in there. A long time later.

You're the original. Well, you did say it was a millionaire. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't even know. I mean, to build a pub in Brunswick, it must be a millionaire at least. That's a big one too, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, housing was a lot cheaper back in the day, you know, he could have done it for 18,000. All right. I'm going to, I'm going to take us through this. Let's get a photo in front of it later, Dave. That's a really good idea. I've never been inside either. Should we go inside?

Should we have lunch there? Should we have a pub lunch? Yeah. I think it'd be a really good idea. And I, yeah. Parma? Can you photo, photoshop me in? Yeah. Yeah. All right.

You, yeah, we can hold that. We got it. Great. You got it. Yes, yeah. All right, yeah, we got that. We got it. Great. You got it, yeah, snap. All right. The Library of Alexandria was established in the early third century. I hate the century system, by the way.

That's the three, that's the 200, wait, is that the, it's the 200s. Yeah, it's the 200s. Yeah, it's not a good system. No, under the reign of Ptolemy I or Ptolemy II. Now, some people say Ptolemy I really just came up with the concept and Ptolemy II made it happen. Oh, okay.

So it's sort of like Stan Lee and Steve Ditko with Spider-Man. Almost exactly like that. Wow. We were all thinking that. Yeah. Stan Lee's like, oh, I had the idea, so I created Spider-Man and Ditko's like, if I didn't draw it, it was just an idea. And I think both make strong points.

That's true. Yeah. And now let me just explain here at the beginning, how much uncertainty there is in this thing, because like some scholars believe that like firstly like there's almost no descriptions of the beginning of this library, right? There's almost no evidence of people talking about it. The very first mention of it, people are like, this is actually a forgery. Somebody made this. This is propaganda. You know, and it was made like 200 years after. I bet without a library, why would you bother writing it down anyway?

You've got nowhere to put the scroll or the book or whatever. Genuinely one of the mentions of the library is somebody's like, the library, why would I even talk about it? It exists in all men's minds. Right? I mean, yeah. And so there's actually people who are not even sure that there ever was a library. There's no definitive archaeological evidence that has ever been found. But there

is lots of evidence along the way of it being mentioned. And so some people think that it's part of this, uh, Muzion, which was, uh, which is a house of muses, right? A Muzion. I thought it was going to be a house of cows. No. And apparently there was a, a, uh, library at Pergamum that, uh, in their ruins, if you look at their ruins, their great library is inside their museum. It could have been a style at the time. I'm just telling you this because there's not a ton of evidence. The first few things I read about this was just people going, most of the stories about this, I think are probably bullshit. Oh, that's, I mean, that was the same with Alexander last week, you know, it's so long

ago and he's such a legend that it's like, I mean, I love this. He probably didn't even say this because it sounds super cool, but we talked about it because it sounds super cool, you know? Yeah. And so I'll tell you most of the fun stuff, but I'll also explain probably what actually happened based on what people think these days. And so I'll tell you most of the fun stuff, but also explain probably what actually happened based on what people think these days. Okay. So now the museum, which may have housed the library, also served as a residence for a diverse group of international scholars, poets, philosophers,

and researchers. Now, according to the first century BC Greek geographer Strabo, right? That's a great nameographer Strabo. Right. That's a great name. Strabo. The great Strabo. It's just a mono. What do you call those? One name is?

Yeah. A mononym. Mononym? Yeah, mononym. A lot of those guys, you know, they didn't have regular last names. They just have like, it'd be like Strabo of Athens or something like that. You know, it'd be. Strabo. I reckon Strabo would be so good.

People would be stoked when Strabo rocked up to the party. Strabo's here! Strabo's here! Strabo! Strabo, you dog. Strabo, come on in here. Strabo dog. Can I come in for you, Strabo?

Strabo. Oh, come on, come on. Tell us a story you were telling last week. God, you are so good. Patterson bloody stitches Strabo. Tell us about that library Strabo. Strabo says that these poets, philosophers, researchers were very generously supported but with large salaries, free meals, accommodation,

and tax exemptions. And apparently by 283 BC, there was between 30 and 50 of these learned men, I guess no women made it in, and they dine in a big round hall with a high dome ceiling. And in the museum, there'd be numerous classrooms where these scholars would occasionally teach students, but they would try to relieve them of everyday burdens to allow them to focus entirely on their research and intellectual pursuits. It's believed that Ptolemy II, who had a strong interest in zoology, may have even established

a little zoo of exotic animals within the museum. That's where the cows come in. That's right. Finally, with the mention of the cows. Do you think they're free range, these animals? They're just like, you know, got a lizard wandering around. Well, Isidore of Seville says that among these exotic animals, which had never before been seen and were objects of amazement, was a snake more than 50 feet long.

Such creatures were called boas, he would say, because they killed cattle and oxen, and boves by entwining themselves around the udders and sucking them dry. Whoa. That's how they got them? It's like sucking their life force right out the udders. I mean, I've never heard of a snake drinking milk. That is so funny. On an episode of Who Knew It recently.

My side project, a podcast from this, which I don't know. It doesn't really matter, but it's, you know, it's a wonderful show. I consider it to be a perfect game show. That's so good. It's up there with facty, facty, fact. I mean, no, whatever facty fact was named, name was. That was it. Facty fact. No. No, the whatever facty fact was named, name was. That was it. Facty fact? No.

No, just one fact. Facty fact. Yeah. But yeah, there was a bird who, that's known as the, the large-eared Nighthawk, no in the day, thought that they were basically dragons who would suck the milk of goats. So they were known as milk- goat suckers for a long time. What was it with these old timey dudes who just assumed animals are sucking the milk out of unrelated animals? Yeah. I mean, it's around the same time. Maybe they were just tricked in some way.

Yeah, I don't know. But apparently Aristotle also thought eels just came into being through bogs. Just came out of bogs fully formed. Aristotle, one of the smartest people in the world at the time. I reckon that eel came from a bog. Wow. I actually think it was only a few hundred years ago that people still believed that matter could pop out of nothingness.

Like, they weren't sure where disease and germs and flies came from, and some of them thought that flies could just appear into existence. They didn't really know that they came from maggots and stuff. They travelled from another galaxy and just suddenly appeared. That's a fun world they lived in though, isn't it? Yeah, it's kind of nicer. It's nicer. And maggots are gross, I don't want to think about them.

Yeah, I don't want to think about them. Yeah. I don't want to think about them having multiple lives. No, thank you. All right. So now the Ptolemies would send emissaries and scholars throughout the Mediterranean and beyond to purchase or copy texts, often translating them into Greek, which was the lingua franca of the time, which I would call the lingua greca. But that is just me, right?

Another first century writer with a fun name, Plut Arch, who described how the Ptolemaic authorities would seize books from ships that docked at Alexandria's harbor and the books would be taken and copied and then they'd keep the originals and then give the copies back to the ship owners. Because they'd have, yeah, they had a big Epsom color printer and copy it. That's what they would do. So they'd just take them. You can barely tell the difference once they've copied it. They'll give it back to you.

Yeah. You staple it yourself, but. But you know, Aristotle or Plutarch or whoever, they'd often, they'd photocopy their ass. Bit of fun. That sounds like Strabo to me. Strabo photocopying his ass for sure. Check out Strabo's ass. Photocopying his ass. Check out Strabo's ass. Photocopying your ass back in those days. Of course, when I say books, we're talking

about big parchments. They're not foldable books either there. And so to copy them, they would have a scholar write it out, right? And so if you were getting your ass photocopied, you're just getting a educated man to draw your ass on some parchment and then rolling it up. That is what Strava is like though. That is Strava. Come over here, educated fellow. Parch me ass.

This practice allowed the library to accumulate texts from various cultures, including rare works that were difficult to obtain and would have been lost otherwise, but then were lost anyway. That's so sad. Yeah. Now, other ways in which they would acquire books or parchment and stuff would be they would just get these scholars to just write stuff. And so, there would be just, a lot of these scholars would just be paid to just be writing

and creating stuff, right? Some of the famous things that were created in this, uh, in this very library. I mean, Zenodotus, the library, the library's very first head librarian who's known to have written a glossary of rare and unusual words, which was organized in alphabetical order, making him the first person to have employed alphabetical order as a method of organization. Whoa! Wow! And how do you spell Xenodotus?

Xenodotus would be like Z-E-N-O-D-O-T-U-S. It's up to Xenodotus to the order of the alphabet and he put himself last. Oh my gosh. That says a lot about Xenodotus, I think. Put everyone else first. What a guy. It's truly incredible. I mean, and I don't even know if there is a Zed even in the Greek alphabet. So I mean, think how far down the line he would have been showing up with his, this

Anglo name. He goes, I don't even exist yet. Yeah. But Ian, he has been great. It sounds like he's got all 26 letters in his name. Then there was, look, a lot of these names I'm going to be absolutely murdering. Calamacus. Calamacus, who was never the head librarian, he compiled many catalogues and lists, each called pinnacles.

His most famous one listed authors and their works and thus became the first known bibliographer and the scholar who organized the library by authors and subjects. His work was 120 volumes long and Callimachus' system divided works into six genres and five sections of prose. Rhetoric, law, epic, tragedy, comedy, lyric, poetry, history, medicine, mathematics, natural science, and miscellaneous. Oh, miscellaneous is fantastic. Love a bit of misc. So in each category was alphabetized by author.

So Zenodotus' ideas already catching on. Wow, that's so good. I that's a lot of that's a lot of I don't think my local bookshop would have that many sections. I think they should bring local bookshop would have that many sections. I think they should bring back all of those. Bring them back. Bring back Epic. Yeah, they've taken away Epic. The heck? What the- But you know, when they talk about poems as well, like Homer's Odyssey and stuff like that,

that's a poem. That's supposed to be a poem. It's a full novel, but they consider that a poem. It's also pretty epic. So where do you put that? It is an epic, I think. It might be an epic poem. That's supposed to be a poem. It's a full novel, but they can say that a poem. It's also pretty epic. So where do you put that? It is an epic, I think. It might be an epic poem. That's an epic section. Yeah, straddles the genres. They've got the Harvard sections as well. The fusions. Genre fusion.

Just wondering if, if Dewey Decimal is gonna pop up here as well. I mean, he really is the, you know, Calamacus is the precursor to Dewey. Oh my God. The Dewey of the day. Is Dewey a guy? Is that like a geeky moment? Yeah, I think it's a person. I don't know.

Yeah, it's a person, isn't it? Not that long ago. Yeah. Dewey Decimal. I don't remember much about it. It was numbers and letters. Yeah. Look, should I wait for Dave to tell us about Dewey?

Tell us about Dewey. Ah, Melville Dewey. Oh, it was. In 1876, originally in a 44 page pamphlet, it's since been expanded many, many times to multiple volumes. I think much like how you can't have a poem that goes for a full book. I don't think you can have a pamphlet that goes for 44 pages. 46.

That's the size of a novella. Yeah. Well, this is a grim part of his wiki page. His first bit is all about his three decimal. Although due to his contributions to the modern library are widely recognised, his legacy is marred by his sexual harassment of female colleagues, as well as his racism and anti-Semitism. Jeez.

That's in the opening paragraph of him. Even the Dewey Decimal system, even in the system that organises libraries, we can't have a place where women are safe. Amazing. Born in New York, died in Florida. Isn't that a classic life cycle of an American? Of a perv. Absolutely. All right. So now I'm going to tell you a few more people who had attended the library and were scholars and what they achieved. We got Archimedes. I mean, Archimedes, the inventor and mathematician, he visited the library of Alexandria. And while he was in

Egypt, it is said that Archimedes observed the rise and fall of the Nile, which inspired him to invent the Archimedes screw, a device used to transport water from lower areas into irrigation ditches. Anyway, that doesn't really feel like he did that at the library, but he did go to the library and then see the Nile. How close to the Nile was the library? Since they don't know exactly where it was, I can't tell you, but the one that's replacing it, they're saying it's somewhere close to it. And it probably is close.

You'll know that it's close to the water based on some stories that I have for you later on, but it's pretty close to the water. Yeah, cool. So yeah, maybe you could have done it from the, you know, maybe the balcony of the library. That's right. Looking out over the Nile. Maybe in the Pagola. Maybe they had a Pagola. They had a Pagola?

They might have. I don't know. Maybe in a bungalow out the back. Yeah, bungalow, granny flat. That's where Strabo lives. Strabo's out there. In the bungalow. Let me go get him in the bungalow more like. We had Apollonius.

Strabo you dog. Strabo. Strabo. He comes Apollonius of Rhodes. Apollonius, love that. He was the second head librarian. He's also best known for writing the Argonautica, an epic about Jason and the Argonauts that survived and does survive in full still. The poem showcases

his deep knowledge of history and literature, drawing on numerous events and texts while mimicking the Homeric style. That's Homer that we were talking about earlier. And though some of his scholarly works remain, he is more renowned as a poet than a scholar. According to unreliable accounts, due to the negative reaction to his first draft of Argonautica, Apollonius was forced to resign as head librarian and move back to Rhodes. Wow. How bad can your book be if you can't be a librarian from that point of view? That's right. I mean, this is why you don't show people your first draft.

You guys, oh, I'll work out. You'd be telling them, you'd be like, look, it's not, it's not there yet, but just, you know, and then people are like, this is so bad. You can't be a librarian anymore. And you must leave the city. You can't even store books. Yeah. Go back to where you came from. Apollonius of Rhodes. Probably Rhodes. That's where he went. That's where he came from. That's where he went back. That's probably also how he'd get there.

Yeah. I had a good time with that. Maybe it's because I'm the only one who can see that it's spelled R-H-O-D-E-S. So there was a change there. Maybe for you guys, it wasn't a flip. Okay. We've also got Eratosthenes of Cyrene. He was the first scholar to apply mathematics to geography and map making.

And in his treaties concerning the measurement of the earth, he calculated the circumference of the earth and was only off by less than a few hundred kilometers. Whoa. That's amazing. And that is amazing? I mean, it still sounds like a lot of kilometers, but I think back in those days when all you could, you know, when all you had was just like, you're just looking at the, you're kind of just looking at the world, just going, like that. Like, I think that's so pretty good.

Licking his finger, feeling the breeze. Yeah. Looking up at the sun, looking at the ground. Just thinking about what's your favourite number and writing it down. Yeah, that's right. But also, he just had all day to think about it, because they'd taken away their daily struggles, their grinds. Exactly. I'm guessing they're having food made for them.

Yeah. This sounds great. I don't know why more countries don't do this. They go, we're going to be a haven for the arts. You come here or if not country, city, like small city, states, or whatever, they go, you come here, you'll be looked after, you create, we're going to build up the new library of Alexandria. Why don't we do it? I think if Cuda wins the Maid of Melbourne, Cuda the ex-cult footballer is currently campaigning for the...

I think that's the kind of thing that Cuda, I mean a man with Greek heritage himself. Is Cuda pushing for a new library of Alexandria to be built in the moment? I don't know that for sure, but I assume I haven't read his platform. I don't actually live inside of his, in the city of Melbourne itself. Right, so you won't get to cast a vote, but you are pushing for Cuda. Yes. If he is indeed pushing for the library himself. Yeah, I think he should make the city of Melbourne some sort of a haven for artists.

Yeah, make Melbourne Alexandria again. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, Kuda, Kuda is a beautiful name for like an ancient Macedonian scholar. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Strabo and Kuda. Strabo and Kuda. Kuda. It's all named Kudafeedes, but- Oh, there's Anthony Kudafeedes. Anthony Kudafeedes, yeah. I thought it was going to be Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda.

Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda.

Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda.

Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. Kuda. I got one more guy who worked there and then I'll just talk about a little bit. We got Aristophanes of Byzantium. That's a big one. He, during his time there, he edited poetic texts and I can tell you what, he probably did one of the most amazing things. He introduced the division of poems into separate lines on the page.

Oh my God. Doing God's work. Yeah, that makes it much easier. Previously they had been written out just like prose. They're just like, here you go, here's a blocker poem. Oh, that's not good. As in it was just prose. It was just prose.

Yeah, yeah. And then, well, that's probably why they call the Homer, the epic poem, because they just hadn't learned how to, but then imagine printing that with, with all those line breaks. Um, and then just the amount of pages. Had the full stop been invented yet? I don't know. I don't know when the full stop... I mean, I used some in this document that I wrote out. Yeah. But I don't know if it's history. But we don't know between now and then when it came in. Could have been yesterday.

Yeah. I have no idea what the punctuation the ancient Greeks had. They probably... The Egyptians... They probably... The Egyptians might have had just like a photo of a dog. I have no idea what the punctuation the ancient Greeks had. They invented the space bar. Well, the Egyptians might have had just like a photo of a dog and that meant stop, stop end of sentence. You know, like a pharaoh or something like that. And that meant, oh, this is the beginning of a sentence. Which is where the saying get a dog up here comes from. It means, well, I'll put a stop to this.

That's right. I think that's what put a dog up, you come from, it means, well, I'll put a stop to this. That's right. I think that's what put a dog up, you mean? Yeah, Egyptian phrase. Yeah. I don't think the space, he didn't invent the space bar either, he invented the enter button. Yeah, enter.

The other one, otherwise, if he invented the space bar, that is an inefficient way of going about it. Return, return, return. Neil Armstrong invented the space bar. Is that true? I guess he couldn't have done that from Earth. Are you sure it wasn't Yuri Gagarin? The first man in space.

It could have been, yeah. Well, but he didn't speak English, so that's probably... Oh, true. This was probably a Cosmo bar. Yeah, but it's that epiphany that astronauts have when they go up into space and they see the Earth as a little marble by itself like that, and then they have an epiphany that astronauts have when they go up into space and they see the earth as a, you know, as a little marble by itself like that. And then they have an epiphany. It's often just new forms of punctuation and ways of writing and things like that.

I think Qwerty was up there, wasn't he? Gary Qwerty? Gary Qwerty. Yeah, he went up with John Dvorak. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

All right. Well now, so the library just was just collecting books and books and books and books, right? And so they would, they were trying to get, they were, I mean, this was, they had basically, they had invented the idea of the universal library, something that would have all the knowledge. And so they would have like, they would try to, they tried to acquire all of Plato's writings, Aristotle's works. They had some of Euclid's stuff. I was hoping to do another episode which is lit for Euclid. That's next year.

It's a foundational text in mathematics. We got Pythagoras's works, Hippocrates's medical texts. They had the epic poems. A lot of this stuff was just poems. Like, you know, like they were like at some point they're like, oh when this new head of the library came up, it just advanced the the world of literary criticism by, you know, centuries. Like this is the kind of stuff that they would that would happen here. So they would have, you know, Homer stuff, Hesiod stuff, you know, they would have...

Eventually they got all the scrolls from Pergamon's library. They have, you know, works from the Persians and the Babylonians, Egyptians. Do they have any of John Grisham's novels? They had a couple of Grishams. They had a couple of Tom Clancy's. Yeah, great. Oh, they're going to have some popular stuff too, you know, to get people in. Absolutely, yeah. Grishams. They had a couple of Tom Clancy's. Oh, they got some popular stuff too, you know, to get people in. Yeah, absolutely. Epics. Jurassic Park. Come on.

Yeah. Yeah. Michael Crichton. Michael Crichton, there. I think at the time, I don't know if it was open to everybody. I don't think that this is the way that it was. I think they were like trying to collect all the knowledge, but I don't know if just anybody could go in and borrow a book or borrow a scroll.

Oh, they hadn't figured out the card system yet. Exactly. Yeah. They hadn't invented the card. They hadn't figured out the drop-off slot yet. Yeah. Yes. The library forgot about the drop off slot. After hours returning. We need to figure out a system. As soon as we can figure out after hours returning, we're going to start borrowing. But at the moment, and that's when Pythagoras came up with Pythagoras's slot.

Of course, that turned out to just be him sort of bearing his buttock and people pushing scrolls into it. But he's got, he's got weird methods, but he gets results. Yeah. But he could hold one scroll at a time. And so we could, at that point, I could lend one scroll every day if, if Vythagoras was available. Um, and so it also wasn't.

Yeah. And so, yeah, I guess you get the point. Which he also wasn't. And so, yeah, I guess you get the point. They were trying to collect a lot of books, right? So they aimed to collect all known knowledge, gathering works from Greece, Egypt. Now after the Battle of Raffia or Raffia in 217 BC, Ptolemaic power began to weaken. Uprisings among the Egyptian population and disruptions in Upper Egypt became more common in the first half of the second century. That's the one hundredths, right? BC, BC, second, BC. In response, later Ptolemaic rulers increasingly emphasize their Egyptian identity to try to maintain control.

No, I'm like you, I'm Egyptian. That kind of stuff like that. Look, and that's the thing. I love the- They're hugging cows? Look, look. I love this. Hugging cows.

Hey! Like you! They're going to- They're getting tablets of them standing in front of the pyramids or with the sphinx and all that kind of stuff. They're saying all this stuff in a different language though. Yeah, it's all through translators. I also love cows. Tell them that. Tell them that. I love your culture, Dad. It wasn't until... Tell them. Yeah. And then consequently,

many Greek scholars left Alexandria for more stable regions with better patronage. for more stable regions with better patronage. So, several of the later Ptolemies used the position of head librarian as a mere political plum to reward their most devoted supporters. So, Ptolemy VIII appointed a man named Cytus, one of his palace guards as the head librarian. So, you can see now like there's been a heyday. There's been a heyday. There's been a golden era of the library. Right? And then suddenly, you know, it's like that thing when you kind of, when, when you go

to a cafe that you really love and there's a sandwich or a meal that you love to get and then somebody buys the cafe and they, and they still have that on the menu and they still make it, but they don't know all the reasons for why it was made exactly in that way. And they're just, they're a new business person maybe. They're thinking, maybe there's some ways that we could save some money instead of like halloumi cheese, I'll just put in some cheddar or something like that. They find there's something like that. There's things like that. And the thing that you loved, you just slowly see it change as it does.

The Halloumi cheese. But you know what I mean? It looks kind of the same, but it slowly becomes shitter and shitter and that's kind of what's happening is the people who had created the library and had the passion for this knowledge and had the passion for building this thing and whatever pride they had that it would make them look good next, you know, compared to Athens and all that kind of stuff. Those people are gone and they're, you know, they're like a hundred, 200 years ago. And now the people who've got it are just like, whatever this fucking library that we got, we'll just put the, my palace guard as head librarian who gives a shit. Yeah. So the

palace guard wasn't like secretly a book lover. No, I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. People who didn't even give, give, give a shit at all. Right. And then in 48 BC, so a lot of time is passing. Julius Caesar enters the story. A guy called Pompeii and Julius Caesar were fighting as part of a, like a larger power struggle within the Roman Republic, which culminated in a civil war. Now, after the Battle of Pharsalus, Caesar pursued the defeated Pompeii to Alexandria. His army had lost, Pompey had, and he went to Alexandria to try to escape.

When he arrived in Alexandria in the late 48 BC, where he hoped to find sanctuary, however, the political situation in Egypt was itself unstable with a young Pharaoh Ptolemy the, oh, is that the 13th? And his sister, Cleopatra the seventh, were vying for power. Right? So upon arriving, Pompey was betrayed. He was met by Ptolemy's advisors who feared Caesar's growing power and saw an opportunity to curry favor with him. So they deceived Pompey into thinking he would receive assistance. And then on September 28th, as Pompey stepped to shore, he was attacked and killed by Ptolemy's

soldiers. His death was brutal. His head was severed and presented to Caesar, who was absolutely horrified by that act. Was it really? No, thank you. I don by that act. Was he really? No, thank you. I don't want this. That's so funny. No, no.

It's like a cat bringing you a mouse. Yeah? For you. Yeah. For you. Because I love you. Oh, thank you. Thanks.

Thank you so much. I guess I'll put this in the bin. Yeah, Caesar's response to Pompeii's assassination was one of shock and disapproval. Although they had been rivals, Caesar had respected Pompey as a military leader and a former ally. The presentation of Pompey's head did not win favor with Caesar. He reportedly turned away in disgust. After that, Caesar found himself caught between Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy who were

vying to control Egypt. And so then Caesar sort of sided with Cleopatra. And now the Egyptians who under Ptolemy the 13th command made efforts to seize Roman ships in the harbor threatening Caesar's ability to receive reinforcements or supplies. So In response, Caesar ordered the burning of these ships and other ships in the dockyards. This action was partly defensive as his forces were too small to protect the entire harbor area. But it was also during this episode that some sources like Plutarch and Cassius Dio suggest that the fire may have spread potentially damaging parts of

the Library of Alexandria. Whoa. No, Julius Caesar, no. The extent of it's... That's a powerful fire. Yeah. So part of the city, they say, started to burn after the boats were burning. Now, some people are saying that it's just like some parts, like, I mean, this is where when people talk about the Library of Alexandria was burnt, this is when they think it happened.

This is when they think the whole thing was destroyed. But according to written evidence that's left over, it may have just been abridged, the library, right? So, it was just made smaller. It just- A bit of a singe. Yeah, it was just made smaller. It just- A bit of a singe. Yeah, it was a bit of a singe. You know, they might've lost like 40,000 books. So, it might've been a budget thing. It's the newer bridge version of the library. Yeah, he's just shown up. He's like, I'm making

a few changes. I mean, he's not even leader of this area. He's just, I mean, he's the leader of the Roman Empire, but anyway, he's there. They're still, they're still Macedonians and you know, sorry, when you said Cleopatra the seventh, that is like Cleopatra Cleopatra. I believe that that is the, our, our girl Cleopatra. Yeah. We did an episode on her. I didn't remember that she was Cleopatra the seventh. Oh, I remember last week on the Alexander the Great episode, his dad married a Cleopatra and then there was like, there's so many Cleopatras. Yeah, I didn't realize that was a direct bloodline or something.

Yeah, but it's funny, a couple of thousand years later, we say Cleopatra, we think of that woman. Yeah. Yeah. Back then you say Cleopatra, they're like, which one? Which one? Be specific. Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, we're talking 13 Ptolemies you say Cleopatra, they're like, which one? Which one? Be specific. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I mean, we're talking 13 Ptolemies and seven Cleopatras. I don't know if they had a lot of creativity in the names there. But also, yeah, this one is the one, you know, because whenever they show Cleopatra, they talk about her engaging with Caesar and Mark Anthony and stuff like that. So this is our, this is our gal. Now part of the reason that we know- Mark Anthony is a bass player from Van Hyland.

I may have got the name wrong, but I think that- No, no, I think you got it wrong. No, Mark Anthony. Mark Anthony. I think it's Mark. Mark-o-Anthony maybe is the bass player from Van Hyland. Yeah, Mark Anthony. His bass has Jim Beam in it. Really? Wow.

Yeah. Wow. Whoa. Was it from Dave pouring it out onto? Really? Yeah. Whoa. Was it from Dave pouring it out onto his guitar? I was trying to ruin his back. And he did. So, part of the reason that we know that the library survived is because a guy called Didymus Chalcentorus, a scholar, Chalcentorai. Some of those names are so good.

Who was a scholar in Alexandria. He earned his nickname Bronze Guts. That's great. For his amazing stamina and dedication to writing books. And he apparently wrote between 3,500 and 4,000 books, making him the most prolific writer of antiquity. Wow. Yeah, I mean, that must have sucked. books, making him the most prolific writer of antiquity. Wow.

Yeah, I mean, they must have sucked. I mean, yeah. What is he writing? And today I'm sitting on a chair. Done. Next. Next book. Well, but they also nicknamed him the Book Forgetter because he couldn't recall most of his works. The Book Forgetter, because there's too many. And three and a half thousand that's just unbelievable.

Yeah, but just quickly on that's going to be Van Halen heads out there furious. It's a Jack Daniels base. Oh, right, right, right. Thank you. Thank you for fixing that. What do you think as a bass player, Dave? What do you think of that? That looks like it would sound awesome. It's like the bottle is the bit where the pickups and where you play and then a neck

just comes out of the bottle and extends along. It's very, it's very good. Is it just a Jim Beam body? Like, I'm sorry, a Jack Daniels bottle body. Yeah. It's so funny. I pictured it having liquid bourbon inside of it. It does not. It's just an illusion. Oh my God. I feel betrayed.

Yeah. It's just a branded thing. I feel betrayed by my bad memory. It's okay. It's a, I mean, like maybe it, maybe it's full at the beginning of the night and then he drinks from his guitar throughout the night. Would that be the most badass thing ever? Yeah. I don't think it gets much badder ass than that. I bet, then like a straw coming out and just sipping through a straw whilst playing.

He's sipping on Wally's- while he's doing a solo with his teeth, you know what I mean? A boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. Lava Bay solo. Hey, they happen., boom, boom, boom, boom. Lava-based solo. Hey, they happen. I mean, Primus. No, I don't. They do happen. I'm being a bit facetious there. That was very facetious.

I've been a little too facetious. I love a bass solo. There's some really good ones. I've seen some of them live with my own eyes and ears. What about the one in Always Steal My Kisses in the Ben Harper one? Oh yeah. That is a good one. That's awesome. Yeah.

What about the intro to Metallica song from the Metallica song from the Metallica album. The Lightning. Well, you know, that one, it starts with the, it starts with the bass side. Do that one. Go on. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Write in if you know, if you recognize that from the description, I'd love to hear. Yeah, so old bronze guts, part, one of the reasons that we know why the library wasn't destroyed from that fire, Caesar fire, is that parts of his 3,500 or 4,000 books, the commentaries have survived and are key sources

for modern scholars on earlier Alexandrian scholars. Because it's like a lot of the stuff that we know about the library comes from things that people have written and then other library has been copied and gone to other libraries, right? So there's not like this is where all knowledge was. There were lots of libraries all throughout sort of the Hellenic or Henelistic Empire, right? And so all these places, you know, in Athens, in Asia Minor. Oh yeah.

I don't know. You know, I don't know why I find that to be funny, but I think it's just Turkey. Anyway, so then there's that. And then one of the most famous acquisitions attributed to the Library of Alexandria was 200,000 scrolls from the Library of Pergamum. According to Plutarch, Mark Anthony supposedly gave Cleopatra these scrolls in the years leading up to the Battle of Actium, although this is also debated.

The Pergamum Library was a major rival to the Library of Alexandria, and its text presented a highly prestigious addition to Alexandria's holdings, and may have given- have been given because Caesar had accidentally burned a bunch of the collection. All right. That's nice for a rival library to be like, hey, we heard about the fire. Here's 200,000 scrolls from our library to bolster your collection. Exactly. I think it's a really nice thing. Now, you can see the kind of things have started to fall apart a little bit more. There's more uprisings. There's more like, the Romans are

starting to come down, right? But then there's also other reasons why a library would start to be in decline over time, right? Firstly, the scrolls are made of papyrus. Now, papyrus as a writing material from days long past comes from a plant of the same name, right papyrus plant was cultivated along the Nile Delta region in Egypt and was collected for its stem, which had a central pith that you could just slice up into thin slices and then mush it together and then dry it out to form a smooth, thin writing surface. But these things, they're really fragile. Even though that they still find some occasionally that have survived somewhat, but they can only really read through x-rays and that kind of stuff like that. Those were found in really dry places. Alexandria is

super humid. It's right on the river. The library was likely right on the river itself as well. So these things would just like, in order for this to keep existing, they would have to continuously be copied, which means that if the funding wasn't coming in to hire scholars to keep funding it, then this stuff wasn't getting copied. And so at most these things would last like a hundred years and then they would just deteriorate. And then like there was even like a story about like when Aristotle died, he obviously bequeathed his own library to Theophrastus, who then bequeathed his thing to, who did he bequeath it to?

He bequeathed it to Nelius, who bequeathed it to Sepsis, who bequeathed it to his heirs, just regular people who then kept the books all locked up, but not even carefully stored. So then at some point when they heard that like the Adelaide kings were coming to the city, were searching for books to build up their library, they hid their books underground in a kind of trench. And then much later when they got the books out, they were all been damaged by moisture and moths. And so then, and then, but then their descendants sold them to, to somebody for a large sum of money, but both the books. Dimmix.

Dimmix. Yeah, that's right. Borders, Borders, which eventually filed, unfortunately. And they were lost forever. Yeah. And no, but then he, he sold them. them. And then this guy, a Pelican who got it, who's a bibliophile, but not a philosopher. And when he found them, they were full of holes and stuff. They'd all been eaten. And so then he tried to make new copies of the text, but he just filled up the gaps incorrectly. He didn't- He just had a go.

He just had a go. And so then these were then copied and then used in the future, but they were published and full of errors. So this is the other problem with these kinds of things is that they're perishables, right? And so then- Yeah, and every fourth word is absolute gibberish. Yeah. And so then what are you keeping?

You're just keeping this thing that is like a barely indecipherable or barely decipherable kind of code. So then after Egypt fell under Roman rule, it's- things are even less known about the library of Alexandria and what happened as it gradually declined alongside the city. Emperor Claudius is recorded to have added to the library a bit, but after Alexandria came under Roman rule, both the city and the library's prominence waned. So membership of the museum was no longer based on scholarly achievement, but rather on just political or military distinction. Again, it's just giving cushy gifts to guys that you like. The last known head librarian during this period was Tiberius Claudius Balbilis, a politician with no scholarly background.

Other libraries in Alexandria and throughout the Mediterranean gained prominence, further diminishing the library status. By the second century AD, Alexandrian scholarship lost its former renown and the term Alexandrian came to imply dullness and lack of originality. Whoa! Yeah. Isn't it funny the cycles things go through? Yeah, it was like the center of world knowledge and later like, ugh, dull. But it always comes back.

That happens like in life cycles of bands and stuff, you know, they go through that dip. They're on cool like 20 years out, but 30 years out, they're legends. You know what I mean? Yeah. And this is kind of like- And they start touring their albums in full. Yeah. And this is kind of like 500 years after this thing was started. So I mean, like, they had a good run. I don't know any libraries that have really lasted that long. Of course, I live in very young countries. So, but that's, you know,

that might, maybe there actually, maybe a lot of libraries. No, no, there's no libraries in destroy that are 500 years old. What am I talking about? All right. Sorry, this has gone back a moment ago, but is Tiberius one of the great names? It's such a powerful name. It's so good. Yeah. And it's actually quite amazing that it hasn't made a huge resurgence. Like that is one of those names that has got to be on the cusp of being used a lot because people will realize it's like, this is a strong and an incredible powerful name like that

and nobody uses it. That's right. And it'll be the right person will do it and it'll come back with a flood. Yeah. But like the, I mean, it could be one of those like, if that's your name, you don't need to have a last name. Yeah. You're known.

It's a mononym. You are, you're Beyonce. You're Rihanna. Which- You're Tiberius. Tiberius. God, that's awesome. Ty is a- I think Ty is a pretty good shortening for it if you need it to sound, you know,

if you don't want to be so, um, out there and obviously powerful. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, if you want to blend into the university, um, shoot, you probably go by tie. Yeah. Um, but if you want, if you want to run for student body council, which I think they do in Canada, is there a Tiberius Vote one Tiberius. I mean, you know, because we almost gave my kid his first name, almost called him Augustus. Oh yeah, that's in the same world.

It is in the same world. But then I was like, it's kind of, it's almost too powerful. Put it in the middle name. Oh yeah. So we made it the middle name. I put the name that I don't have the guts to give my kid as a first name. I put that in the middle name. The second kid, his middle name is Duke.

Duke is fantastic as well. That's great too. That's the bar that, um, Duke's is where, uh, Fraser's dad would go to. I'll be, I'll be at Duke's. Just going to see the fellas down at Duke's. Yeah, that's cool. Is that where you got it from. Yeah, that's cool. Is that where you got that?

I'm sure you got it from them. Yeah, so I picture people coming, just being having a couple of drinks with my kid. Because your second child's first name is Frazier, is that right? Frazier Dukes. Dr. Frazier Dukes. Dr. Frazier Dukes. I think I think Tiberius is also it's it's untainted by the work of Roald Dahl and like Augustus Gloop.

Cause I think when I hear Augustus, I think Gloop. Yeah. Well, Gloop was the other name we were trying to choose. Gloop is fantastic. I really, Augustus Gloop, but I think that's maybe why Augustus is so good. It can go both ways. Yeah. It's like, wow, Augustus is so powerful and big, but it's also gloopy.

Yeah. Yeah. It gets more German with the gloop, I think. Yeah, that's right. Augustus, boop. Yeah. You can see the lederhosen. You can hear it. Yeah, that's right. Augustus Gloop. Yeah. You can see the lederhosen, can't you? You can hear it, yeah.

I think I'm picturing- the name Augustus Gloop, but I'm picturing Uda from The Simpsons. Yeah, me too. Yeah, that's good. That's how powerful that name is. The library's reputation continued to decline, and references to it disappeared by the mid third century AD, that's to 200s. Oh man. And isn't this, this is, this is the worst thing, right?

They'd be like, oh, actually it was better when you were saying bad things about it. It better be talked about badly than not at all or whatever. Yeah, that's the worst thing, isn't it? And isn't this a weird time for a library to decline? The Bible should be, the Bible's, you know, isn't it? And isn't this a weird time for a library to decline? The Bible should be. The Bible's, you know, all that stuff's happened now. New Testament's out. I would have thought that would have been a bit of a revival.

Bringing new people in, like when Harry Potter first came out, you know, it's bringing in the new readers. Yeah, I assume the New Testament came out about 34 AD. I think it came out pretty quick, didn't it? Yeah, they brought it out. They probably had a year to work on it. Straight on the presses. Yeah. To just polish it off. I mean, there was it? Yeah, they bring it out. They probably had a year to work on it. Straight on the presses. Yeah.

To just polish it off. I mean, there was like 12 of them working on it, right? Yeah, I think that's right. Oh, there was like a group project, like, oh, I'll write a couple of books. You write a couple of books. So it's just, they're all writing like a pamphlet. But their problem was they were all like meekly named Thomas and Paul and Matthew. You know, they needed a Tiberius to grab it by the balls.

Yeah. Probably was that a Judas, which is probably the strongest name. But he was, yeah, he had his own thing going on. The ancient Hebrew Bible was translated at this library into Greek. And you know how earlier I was talking about that maybe some of the stuff that was the earlier references to, of the library were maybe made out of like propaganda. There was an element in which that is linked to that. It was trying to get, it was like written by Jewish people pretending to be sort of like, you know, not like, you know, be like a pagan or, you know, whatever.

And trying to convince sort of Greek, Macedonian Jews who are embracing Greek lifestyle to try to like follow the rules of sort of the Jewish Bible a bit more strictly. the rules of sort of the Jewish Bible a bit more strictly. So it was like writing of, hey, yeah, so I don't believe in the whole Jewish Bible thing, but I've just read and they're writing this. But you know, I think it's got some really good ideas in there. Yeah. It's like a super important book. Yeah. I don't even care about this stuff. And like, it's like such a good book that I think that we should like abide by its dietary rules really strictly.

I'm literally like a thing like that. It was written like 200 years. Like me putting up a blog going, Hey, yeah, I don't really follow any football teams or anything, but they, this St. Kilda football team, I think they got some really good ideas. And I think that might, I think you should, if you don't have a team, I think they got some really good ideas. And I think they might, I think you should, if you don't have a team, maybe they're a good team to barrack for.

Yeah. It's, it's like something that I would have done like, you know, 15 years ago on Reddit and been like, man, I just found this great comedian. And he's like, he's like doing cool stuff on the Melbourne scene. You know, and then just post a video. I see you're like a few years in. I think he's, yeah, he seems to be going around the open marks a bit. I'd keep my eyes peeled for him.

Yeah. That wouldn't even been one year. And that would have been like, I would have been like five months in and- Yeah. You wrote the first joke the same day you started marketing yourself. Exactly. I was, I performed it, recorded it and was ready to blow up. Sent it straight to Lorne Michaels.

I do remember a guy I met in Melbourne one time telling me, yeah, I tried comedy, did it for a month, but I couldn't catch a break. So I quit. Very funny. Anyway. All right. So I hope he's gone through his whole life like that. Yeah.

I tried studying medicine, but, uh, yeah, I did it for a month. They wouldn't let me do surgery. So, so forget it. Try something else. me do surgery, so. So forget it. Try something else. But he's since thrived in real estate. Hey, bit of fun. That is good. This message comes from BetterHelp.

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Saline understood. Available wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. Good. The library's reputation continued to decline and references to it disappeared by the mid third century AD. The meditation continued to decline and references to it disappeared by the mid-third century AD. The library and the museum were likely destroyed during the Roman Emperor Aurelian's recapture

of Alexandria in 272 AD with further destruction during Diocletian's siege in 297 AD. Now whenever they say that they've destroyed this thing, they don't, you know, there's never a record of whether or not they saved the books or they saved the, you know, like they saved the scrolls and stuff like that. I think maybe even at this period, there would have actually been books now at this point, now the Romans are there. Like regular books that you would recognize that open and close, that kind of thing. But- That even you would recognize. You would recognize as well. But- Is that even you would recognize? You would recognize as a book.

I feel it's time like you. But also like Alexandria had multiple libraries. Two of them were great. One was the great Library of Alexandria that we've been talking about. And that one kind of has like a daughter library that is known as the Serapium, which was just a smaller thing that was also maybe like a pagan temple. And so, things may have been moved into there. And then later on, when Alexandria was like invaded by the, I think the Byzantines, the final fate of the library of Alexandria remains uncertain, but with several theories about its destruction, one of the most notable incidents was a decree

by the emperor Theophilus. Ooh. Ooh, Theophilus Thyssel? The Thyssel Thyssel. It must be. Sibing, siming, siming, siming, siming. Do you remember that song? Siminus.

I love it. Three thousand thistles. Theophilus Thyssel. That's the second time that song's come up in the last month. I can't believe it. I can't believe Theodore lives on, but Theophilus doesn't. Yeah, Theophilus, another fantastic name. Bring it back. Tiberius and Theophilus.

If I have twins, I'm committing now. And you know what? Agamemnon. Beautiful name, boy or girl. Agamemnon. Agamemnon. Aggie. Little Aggie.

Aggie. Aggie. Little Aggie. Aggie. Aggie. You know, there are definitely people listening right now, late stages of pregnancy, running through their lists. And I reckon they're putting lines through everything they've got so far and starting again. That's right. Eric? No way. Eric? Why have Eric when you can going to have Agamemnon? Exactly. Or Iphienia.

Oh. So one of the most notable incidents was the decree by Emperor Theophilus in 391 AD, which led to the destruction of many pagan temples, possibly affecting the remnants of the library. The accounts point to later invasions and political upheaval contributing to its demise. By the sixth century, little remained of the once great institution. There's this idea that they keep getting hit and they're like, no, we think that there's still a bit left. We think the books might have been saved. We think, you know, things like that. But despite its physical loss, the library's intellectual legacy lived on through the works and ideas preserved by scholars elsewhere, influencing future generations of learning in both the Islamic world and the medieval Europe.

And this account, it went in, went in 642 Muslim troops took over Egypt. I believe this was the Byzantines. The conquering general was told by a Christian man of letters of the needs to protect the books. The general said, well, if their content is in accordance with the Book of Allah, we may do without them. For in that case, the Book of Allah more than suffices. If, on the other hand, they contain matter not in accordance with the Book of Allah, there can be no need to preserve them. Proceed then, and destroy them." Heads you win, heads I win, tails you lose. Alright, mate, this guy.

Yeah. Why go through the speech? Just say we're burning. Yeah. And then, and then like, this, I, this is considered a myth. I'm not sure, but they say, and then the books were sent to Alexandria's 4,000 bath houses there. They say that it took six months to burn all that mass of material. Hot baths for everyone. that mass of material.

Hot baths for everyone. I think, like, do you think they were sent there to protect them, to stop the invaders from burning them, or they just divvied up and said, take them to the bathhouse and then burn them there? Like, to heat the baths, heat the water. Yeah, I think that they were- that's what the- that's what the general was saying. Oh, he's like, guys, we've got kindling for months. This is awesome. I think, Dan, is this papyrus? is that a good, is that a good burner?

I mean, I guess if it's been dry for a bit, but unless they've been really, they're really wet scrolls. Oh, yeah. You know, you got your wet scrolls. I mean, you know, but yeah, I mean, I imagine most plants do burn pretty good if you dry them out. Although I did see somebody put a hot metal ball on a pineapple skin and it couldn't burn through. I'll tell you this, I've seen someone put a hot metal ball on every possible surface

or object. Okay, is this a series? It's just in the algorithm. You watch one of them, you're going to get all of them. Some of them are so unsatisfying, like that pineapple one. I'm like, I guess I've learned something here, but it wasn't satisfying. Yes. It's like there's a red hot ball.

And the dream... Versus... Ah, the dream outcome is that it will melt through it. Yeah, like if they do it on a candle, bloody satisfying to watch that. Colorful candle. Good fun. Okay. Or they put it in a thing of oil and it bubbles.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. Or like in something that like some chemical that you don't know and it just foams and it just does all sorts of, it does that. Yeah. And then people will comment things below like, me after I had a certain restaurant's food recently, or I miss a better caller, stuff like that. Yeah.

Everything makes me think of her. And that's the thing about, and that's, they do those two jokes under everyone basically. And every time it's fantastic. It's really funny actually, every single time. It's actually one of those few jokes that works even better every time. Yeah. It is like he's put it in a quite a thick thing. It kind of that makes it like a kind of like-

Yeah. That one is so good. That's always good. That is the best. So in conclusion, you know, like all things- I just want to think that people like real academic types are going, oh, interesting. The history of the great library of Alexandra.

Yeah, this might be the one I listened to. They wouldn't have got this far, but it would be fun to think of them finally turning off when Al's doing that sound. What a that sound. What a farty sound. I do hope that if humanity has to end and there's only a few documents that do survive, if this is the only document of the great library of Alexandria that has just gone from this hot ball, it melts heaps of stuff too. But not porn. Yeah.

Then it makes a farty sound. So in conclusion, it genuinely like, it seems like all the stuff that they say about, you know, this thing being burnt and destroyed and they lost the world's knowledge, like it seems like the whole time knowledge was being swapped with other libraries. Scholars that were there went to other libraries. While things were, buildings may have been destroyed, you know, documents may have been saved. I think a lot of stuff was probably lost.

I mean, we don't have that much recordings, that many recordings of information about the library itself, but it wasn't because it was burned. Mostly it was just because things deteriorated. That's so long ago. Yeah, the funding went away. People didn't care and things are just, information is just lost nonstop along the way. We just didn't have the ability to store things and save things properly. So, unfortunately, it's not some big conspiracy and it's not a fun story.

And we may, we may not have been even ahead. You know, I mean, we have the, we have the Archimedes screw and it's just not helping. Just not getting this thing. And we have the bot-thaggerer slot. You know, a lot the world have that. But that does help. That does help, yeah.

But yeah, it is like, like with most things like that, if that, if everything was brought on by a thousand years, we wouldn't be here. Nothing would be the same. Yeah. So, is that better or worse? I don't know. Yeah. Well, you'd be doing, if you would be doing something else right now, not

listening to this very podcast. That's gotta be worse, surely. You know? I meant we wouldn't be alive, but yeah, we certainly wouldn't be here. Yeah, yeah, you meant like humanity would be completely different. Like your mum and dad wouldn't have met. Yeah. Probably they wouldn't have been alive because their mum and dad wouldn't have met.

Yeah. You know, it's almost like a butterfly flapping its wings. Okay. So you're glad that a lot of the scrolls got burned? I don't know. That's why I'm not sure. I mean, if I never existed, maybe everything would be better than this. Okay. I don't know. But you've just got to accept what it is. And this is what it is.

It is Al making fart noises down the line from Montreal to Melbourne and into your beautiful ears this block, dear listener. Dear listeners. It's interesting, Al, that you said that some people think that it never even existed, but it sounds like there's so many references to it over the centuries. Like surely it's got to have at least been something there. Yeah, they think that maybe there was just no individual building. It might've just been all the museum and you know, and like, you know, the scrolls might

have just been held a lot in just like storage, you know, bunkers of some sort. Right. So they're like, it's, uh, technically the library never existed. It was the museum of Alexandria. Yeah. I think like that old definitions of Greek word, the bibliotech, um, you know, can just mean a collection of books and bibliotech is the word for library. Right. That we use, yeah.

Is it possible that there was an Alistair-like person back then on Reddit going, "'Geez, what a great library we have here in Alexandria. Yeah, we should all check that out, that library.'" Part of the reason that the rulers were creating it, these Ptolemaic people was so that they could like gain, you know, make their city look incredible and make themselves look good compared to, you know, Athens and the Greek Empire that was around at the time

and things like that. So there is, I think elements of that where they do try to make themselves look good. Yeah. And if that's true, then it's true, right. It did make it look good. And if it's not true, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know what's true. You know? I mean, they had all that knowledge at their fingertips, you know, all the world's knowledge and they still couldn't come up with that many kid names. It was all just Ptolemy and Cleopatra. Yeah. So what good is it?

Cleopatra's fantastic. Ptolemy, I don't know. Don't know about Ptolemy. Ptolemy, yeah. It's a weird one. Wow. What a tale, Al. Thanks so much for telling it. Al, thank you so much. I mean, it's been such a great opportunity to tell you this tale from my parents' bedroom. And Al, you, um, you are gigging regularly in, in Montreal and anywhere else.

Any, any gigs coming up that you want to tell people about where, uh, would you like people to come apart from on the Metro? Where would you like people to come up and say, Hey, I listened to you on Do Go On recently. I mean, they can approach me on social media. They can approach me in person. Everybody's been very nice. If you run into me, approach me, it's fine. Approach with caution.

But you can just find, you can just come and listen to me on the Two in the Think Tank podcast where I'm there with Andy Matthews and we're just, we keep plugging away at this, just finding sketch ideas, you know. Have you got a count on how many there are altogether? No. I guess that wouldn't be too hard to find out because it's five per episode. Well, it's way more than five most of the time. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Yeah, but we can come up with a minimum. We can come up with a minimum. Just a quick like elevator pitch or whatever of what the show is for people who don't know it. like elevator pitch or whatever of what the show is for people who don't know it? It's me and Andy Matthews and we're mostly talking, but we're so we're, we do talk about everything, but we're also, our goal is to come up with sketch ideas. We are like these gentlemen who are here with me, we are creators of comedy and this is the fun part where you come up with ideas and when the ideas could be anything.

And it's a fun journey. We have a lovely fan base and Discord that also like to participate on there as well. It's just a fun little, little old time. It's become, you know, at first it was just a dumb little thing, but I feel it's almost like my life's work now. Yeah, yeah. This is your bibliotech. This is your bibliotech. This is your library belly to Andrea.

Exactly, a bunch of stuff that at some point, some network will crumble, will go out of business, and then I will lose everything and I'll go. Pfft. In conclusion, I'm dead. Well, as we say goodbye to Alistair, it's so nice to say hello, Jess Perkins. Hello! Woo!

So good to have you here. You were feeling poorly when we recorded with Al, but a few days have gone by now. Yeah. And you were back in the saddle. I'm better. You've had a rough trot. I've had a little bit of a rough trot, but that's all entirely my fault. It's bad karma for being a not good person.

I thought you were going to say for having a beautiful holiday, but no, you were, cause you were allowed a holiday. I'm allowed a holiday. That's fine. But you're not allowed to be a bad person. But then I came back from holiday and we sort of, we got back into the swing of working and stuff. And then one day we all got here to work, ready to record. and I was like, I have to go, I'm really sick.

And then I got sick again after that. So that's karma. Is that our smell that's making you sick? Well, I was vomiting violently, so I think yes. It definitely wasn't a reaction to new medication. Okay. It was definitely your stench. The only person we could get to replace you was from Canada.

Yeah. The only person that could stand to be in a room with us wasn't in the room at all. Yeah. So yeah. You were meant to be on with him. Well, it's going to be all four of us, but luckily, we can operate at three. Yeah. That's how versatile we are.

We cannot operate at two. Two is probably not enough, unless it's a Patreon bonus. Patreon's are fine. And they can handle it. Yeah. And I often find those episodes really fun when it's just me and you Jess, or me and Dave, or Dave and Jess, and I'm asleep. You love those ones.

I love those ones especially. All right. Well, Jess, if you've forgotten in your absence, this is the part of the show where we thank some of our fantastic Patreon supporters. And if you want to be one of these supporters, you can go to patreon.com slash dig on pod sign up on any level and you supporting this show, you're keeping it going. We really appreciate everyone who does that. Literally, there's no show without you.

And that's, I mean, that's also true for the listeners who can afford to do that. I'm not trying to put the hard show without you. And that's also true for the listeners who can't afford to do that. I'm not trying to put the hard word on you. No, no. So in this little section, we spend 20 to 40 minutes, sometimes longer, to thank our great Patreon supporters. And the first way we do that is for people on the Sydney Schomburg level or above. They get to give us a fact, quote or question. This section of the show is actually called Fact, Quote or Question. I think it has a jingle, go something like this. Fact, quote or question.

He always remembers the ding. You have been, Sue. Well, she always remembers the sing. It fell off a bit there. It was flat and then it just fell away. It fell off. You thought, I can save this. I can save this. With some fell away. It fell off. You thought I can save this? I can save this.

It's a vibrato. That saves everything. All right. So for this one, if you're on the Sidney Schomburg level or above, you get to give us a fat quote, a question or a braggart suggestion or really whatever you like. And then you also get to give yourself a title. The first one this week comes from Drew Forsberg. Okay.

Oh, please. Mr. Hands is my father's name. Just call me Hands. Incredible. And Hands has a fact writing, contrary to conventional wisdom, UGLY has been successfully utilized as an alibi in an innumerable number of court cases the world over. How about that? Do you know that? Really? Wow. Hands. That is fascinating. Thank you so much for bringing that. I really, I took that song as gospel. Yeah. You ain't got no alibi. Yeah. You ugly. You ugly. You ugly. Yeah. Thank you so much for bringing that to our attention. Murray Somerville comes in next, aka Triptych Club Artist Liaison,

with a question writing, Hey legends, first off, massive thanks for all the laughs over the years. You lot are the best. Hey Murray, quick thank you back to you for your great artwork on our Christmas card last year and for the Who Knew It with Matt Stewart logo. And our Europe Tour poster. Yeah. Oh my God. That's Murray's fantastic work. Murray's a very talented artist. Thank you so much, Murray.

And those are Murray. And we've already got your permission for this. Those posters will be for sale at the live shows in Europe. Yes. It's a piece of art. You want to frame it. We're going to frame it and put it on our office wall for sure. Absolutely. Jess has already suggested getting white markers for the signing.

Is that right? Yeah. Or silver, white. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. I'll go to Officeworks. I'll figure it out. Yeah, love your work, Murray. Murray's got a question.

Do any of you have a dressing room or catering rider when you tour? If not, what would be on your dream rider? Murray, thank you so much for assuming we're at a level where anybody gives a shit or that we ever have dressing rooms. The times we've done London in the past. Oh yeah. That place is like an actual theatre and it's got a grand piano. Dressing room's bigger than my apartment and it has a baby grand in it.

It's got a kitchen. It's got like, I think three separate dressing areas, such toilets. It's awesome. Very nice. We're not there this year. This year we'll probably have an even fancier one. Yeah, the Grand is an even bigger fancier venue. So I'm really hoping that that...

And I'm wondering, no one's asked me yet about our rider. Well, if you need any thoughts or anything to inspire, Murray has written, mine's pretty straightforward. A custom neon sign that says,'re killing it mate. Yep. That's good. And a jar of vanilla jelly beans because why settle for less, right? Vanilla jelly beans. I don't know they exist, but I like the sound of them. I'd have peanut butter M&Ms. They're my favorite too. I love a soft drink. So, you know, whatever soft drink I'm going through a phase of at the time. At the moment it's Sprite Zero. Oh, really?

Yeah. I'd ask for a sampler pack of the local craft beers. Yep. And yeah, maybe, can I have some of your peanut M&Ms? No. Otherwise, all right, I'll get it. It's peanut butter M&Ms. I've heard that it's bad for your voice, but I would love a cheese board.

Yeah. I've heard like your dairy is not great for the vocal cords, but I would love a cheese board. Yeah, who'd go cheese board? I've heard like your dairy's not great for the vocal cords, but I'd love that. Or if we're going to extravagant enough to get our own signs, thinking away from food. Do you think, Jess, how do you feel about this? If we got in each city a dog that's the same breed and size of our dog. And that way we could maybe, you know, like feel like we're without. So like I get a groodle that's about, you know, between 15 and 20 kilos about this

shade of colour. Yeah. I don't know if that's going to make you feel better or worse. I actually think I think that's a really lovely idea in theory. And then I think I'm just going to love more dogs. Now I'm going to get to this venue and I'm going to meet this dog and be like, you're not fucked. Yeah, that's right. All right, do you tricks?

Which you have none, but okay. I think you'll both fall in love with these dogs and it'll make every city leave even harder. Also, on the list is we get to keep the dog. Oh, yeah. So just piling up these dogs. By the end of our tour coming up, we'll have nine dogs. Nine dogs.

Nine Grootles and nine Frenchies with us. Perfect. And nine craft beers. Nine sampler packs. It's a great question. I love that. Yeah, it's a great, it is. Uh, Sophie Tudor is up next saying, not telling you how to say it, Matt, you've got this.

Yes. And I do know how to say it. Dave always tries to correct me saying it's Tudor, but it's Tudor. I'm confident of that. Although the way Dave's looking at me, I am doubting myself again. You're right. Back yourself. Sophie Tudor, aka Group Mom, also has a question.

We'll see you soon, Sophie. Or will we already be seeing you? No, we'll see you soon. This question is specifically for Matt. So if he's off today, please back out of this slowly and say it before he's back. Well I'm here, Sophie. Matt, we are all we all know your version of Stuart is the correct spelling and that Stuart with a U is just wrong.

But what do you think of my dad, whose first name is S T E U A R T? S T E U A R T. It's like it's so close. It's a mix between the right and the wrong way. Oh, all right. My brain filled in like the missing U. Hmm. My brain went W. Yeah. So it's exactly right. No, it's S T E single U.

Single U. This is what they should call them. And I think that's what if I ever run for government, that's going to be my single issue policy. Yep. You should be renamed single. What is this in French? Double V. Double V. Oh, that's what-

Oh, that's- For a W. Oh. Not a W, it's a double V. Interesting. Not sure how I feel about that. Anyway, Sophie continues, it's definitely not unique, but it is far more interesting slash frustrating than having a standard spelling.

You might need to spell some of these out. Otherwise you'll just sound like a crazy person. Yeah. Can't wait to see you slash have seen you on tour happy block or blow or Christmas, depending on how long this takes to get read. Well, I'll accept happy all of those. Yeah, I think you're right.

I think that would be very frustrating to have that as a name. Yeah. You'd have to, you'd probably eventually just be like, yeah, whatever. Or literally employ the use of single U, like when you're spelling it over the phone or whatever. E, single U, oh my God, you're right. Because they do, they always ask me one or two T's if it's over the phone and I'm spelling my name or with an E, W or U. Right. You imagine he'd say it and they'd still write the W like you did, your brain auto corrected.

Yeah. But yeah, I like it more than the other one because it's slightly more correct. It's getting there. You know, the French have still bastardised the classic spelling, but, you know, you've taken a little back for the good guys. From the French. The Scots. And yes, Sophie, that was the final one there. So thank you so much to Sophie, Murray and Drew for your fantastic tax quotes and questions. We appreciate you and we love you.

Next thing we like to do is come up with a bit of a game Jess normally does, which might be harder for you as you didn't hear that report. But we read out nine more patron names and you normally give us some- it's a library. There was a lot- the library, I think it, Al said it had a lot of different sort of sections. Yeah, okay. I like that. So maybe- Oh, yeah. The one was- we missed a lot of different sort of sections. Yeah, okay. I like that. So maybe- Oh, yeah, the one was- we missed this from the bookshop. Epic.

Epic. Oh, that's good. So it's like drama, comedy, epic. Yeah, I like that. Let's give them like a section of the library. Yeah, niche. A niche category. Yeah, love it.

Or niche. Or like what people are looking for. People coming up to them at the front desk of the library. So I'm looking for a book on this. Yeah, great. All right. Fantastic. Dave, how about for the first time you read out the place and I'll read out the name. Hey, let's do it. I'd like to thank from Athens in Georgia.

It's Zander Avery Wilson. Holy shit's Zander Avery Wilson. Holy shit. Zander Avery Wilson is looking for a book on house plants, specifically pet friendly ones. Oh. Ah. Do pets sometimes eat the plants? Yeah, and they can be poisonous.

Oh, so they're friendly for, I thought it was, I was thinking of the side of the plant. For the pet. For the pet's health. I'm like, yeah, you was thinking of the side of the plant, but it was- For the pet. For the pet's health. I'm like, yeah, you don't want any sort of plants that the dogs are just going to eat. If dogs are going to ruin. Yeah.

Yeah. That's so funny. I think that really does say a lot about you and me. I've just bought some plants for the spring. Got a couple of tomatoes, got a strawberry. Gorgeous. Got some corn and some parsley. Interesting. Got a strawberry. Gorgeous. Got some corn. Oh. And some parsley. Interesting. Good combos there.

Yeah. Would love to come over when you harvest. Yeah. Oh yeah. Come over for the harvest day. We were looking for a sacrifice, so that works out well. I would like to take now from Leeds. It's Teagan Foley. Teagan Foley is looking for a book about how to maintain a 1965 Chevy. Oh, yeah, that's that's pretty niche. But the great Library of Alexandria, if it did exist, has that book ready.

Wow. That's a spoiler for me. We say book, but really it's a... Scroll. Scroll. Scroll. When my mum worked in a library, they would have like car manuals for like common cars, you know, Unison Skyline, yeah, Mitsubishi Lance or whatever. But one day someone came in and said, do you have one for a very specific Ferrari?

Whoa. And my mum was a bit like, no, we don't have that. And honestly, if you can afford a Ferrari, you should probably pay a professional to look at it rather than just do your own work. Or buy the book. That's not a bad point. As a middle-aged man, Jess, when you said maintainer, I'm like, it's one of two things. And a classic car was one of them. Who's like- Are you calling me a middle-aged man? No, no, when that's what mine, you said a maintainer. No, no, but you said I thought the same thing

that you, a middle-aged man, thought. Well, I didn't mean it like that. I may not actually be a middle-aged man, but I'm thinking like one. No, that's not what I meant, but yeah. That's how I took it, and I'm offended. I think you might be. Did you think she meant car when she said Chevy?

I thought you just maintained a Chevy. No, it's not something I dream of. You think she meant car when she said Chevy. I thought you just maintained a Chevy. Something I dream of. Anyway, I'd like to thank now from Coffs Harbour in New South Wales. I don't get it. It's Taron Payne. I was saying that a Chevy is a nickname for an erection. Got it. So Taron Payne.

Taron Payne, let's give you a full moment. I'm sorry. I spoke of you. Dave has a heavy Chevy. I spoke of you, Taron, with the word erection. So I want you to have your time in the sun. You are from Coffs Harbour. Your name's Taryn Payne.

You're fantastic. And you're looking for a... Now I've lost it. I had it. Oh, a book on first aid for dogs. Oh, and is that from the plant's point of view? It's from the plant's point of view. Once the plant has poisoned the dog, how can it help the dog? Yes. OK. Oh, that's great. Are you thinking about your dog right now?

Yeah, I miss him. Who else we got, Dave? I'd like to think from location unknown. Oh. Probably deep within the fortress of the moles. So they do look like they have a UK email. It's Noah Pomfrey. Forgot our system. Yeah. Noah Pomfrey looking for a book on Dutch cooking.

Oh, yeah. Dutch ovens, that sort of stuff. Dutch ovens. Fantastic. Puppetees. Pancakes, et cetera. Yeah, Dutch tilt. Yep.

Which is like the camera angle you might use to capture you eating some Dutch cooking. Uh-huh. Going Dutch, that's when you order one piece some Dutch cooking. Uh-huh. Uh, going Dutch. That's when you order one, uh, one piece of Dutch food. When you want to go on Dutch, it's like if you have a beer in between shouts, I think. Having a Dutchie because you're drinking faster than the shout. That's never a clever idea. I don't think.

Uh, who else we got, Dave? I'd like to thank from London. Oh, London town. Please. And thank you, Catherine McGinn. Catherine is looking for a book on ancient Egypt. Whoa. Wow. Which they called Egypt. They just called it Egypt.

Nah, nah, nah, nah. Honestly, that's how old Egypt is. By the time the library came around, they already had an ancient Egypt. They just called it Egypt. Nah, nah, nah, nah. No, honestly, that's how old Egypt is. By the time the library came around, they already had an ancient Egypt. That's how old it is. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. Hey, I'd like to thank another person from Leeds, Leeds, Leeds, Leeds, Leeds.

It's Joe Tabana. Joe Tabana is looking for a book on coaster design. Whoa! Wow! doilies. Yeah. Non-doylify. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Resin. Resin.

A cork. Cork. A classic, yes. Acrylic. Yep. Silicon. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's huge.

The options. Joe, you've got a lot of fun reading. Yeah. Volume one. I'd like to thank from Ipswich in Great Britain. It's Jasmine, Emma. Jasmine is looking for a book from the For Dummies series. And it's Excel for Dummies.

Oh, yeah. That's tricky. That is hard. That is hard. I saw an ad for when Excel was launched recently. It was pretty fun. There's guys in an elevator going up to a meeting and there's one guy, he's got his big laptop out. He's going, I've almost got this grid to show it out at our meeting and then other guys going,

you'll never make it look meeting ready. It's not possible. We don't have time. He's like with, and I touch these buttons. Man, you're crazy. That's bail. Let's say you're sick. Tippity tap, tap, tap. Going up the layers, the levels. I call them layers in a building. Yeah, it's like a like a sponge. He does it in time. He formats this one tiny little grid.

It's so that's real fun to see how far we've come grid wise. How exciting. What a thrilling ad. That was. It was high octane. Now looking back at my grid of names here from Wallington in Great Britain. It's Paul Blaney. Paul Blaney. Paul Blaney. Blaney is looking for a book on...

Where's Wallington? No. He knows he lives there. He's looking for a self-help book. Yeah. To find where he finds himself. On how to connect with a troublesome teenage son. Oh, yep.

The book is called He's Gonna Be Okay, which is a book my mother-in-law had when my husband was a teen. Doesn't need it anymore though. Really funny. And he's okay. The book works. But so the book was true. So don't you worry, Paul. The book's going to be really helpful for you as well. On you, Paul. And finally from us this week, we'll have to thank, from Nottingham.

Nottingham. It feels appropriate. Their name is Not Now Jordan. Not Now Jordan. Not Now. Not Now. John's looking for a book on patience. You know? Yeah, comes from within. Again, it's like a self help book. Sadly, sadly there's a three week wait.

Not now, thank you so much. Not now, Jordan, Paul, Jasmine, Joe, Catherine, Noah, Taryn, Tegan and Xander. The last thing we need to do is welcome a few people into the Triptych Club. We've got five inductees this week. Dave's really good at explaining what the Triptych Club is. It got five inductees this week. Dave's really explaining what the Triptych Club is. It is our theater of the mind.

You gotta imagine yourself there. It is our clubhouse, our hall of fame where people have been supporting the show on the shout out level or above for three consecutive years. Never really had a shout out, but now to enshrine them forever, we welcome them in. They run on down, everyone's high-fiving them. We're going wild.

Then they go inside, their name gets put up on a wall and they're in for life. That's new. Food, drink, beverages, accommodation. It's all covered. Food, drink and beverages. All three. And even pet food. Bring your pets. Why not? That's right. Jess, you're behind the bar. What's your great library of Alexandria cocktail this week? We have got a drink called Araq, which is a distilled spirit in the Anise family. So it would have a real good liquorish kind of. Love it.

Bit of Galliano-ish. Yeah, but different. But different. And then I've got like a falafel and- Oh, I love falafel. Yep. Dave, have you booked a band? You're never going to believe it.

What? I have booked- You got the Bangles? No. Finding Alexandria or whatever that- What's that band called? Something Alexandria? Oh, they're asking Alexandria?

Asking Alexandria. Unfortunately, they said they're busy, but I've had to go with the Librarians. Power Pop Band from Berkeley, California, formed in 1999. According to Wikipedia.org, this is why I booked them. The group was famous mostly for their raucous live act. Oh, that's going to really get people going. This is a description. His performance is truly horrifying in its cheesiness, and yet it's unnervingly mesmerizing.

That sounds great. I love the sound of that. I'm keen. I'll definitely be hanging around as I always do. The after party. So, five inductees this week. I'm going to read out your name. If you hear your name, head on in through the velvet rope and hear Dave really hyping

you up. You ready to go, Dave? I am so ready. Jess also hypes Dave up because he doesn't always do great work and he needs a bit of help. Oh my god, Matt. He's fantastic. Shut up. I can hear you. Oh, sorry. First up, welcome from Caloundra West in Queensland, Australia. It's Emily.

Ten out of Emily. Yes. Ten out of Emily. That's better. That's better. There it is. From Mechanicsburg in Pennsylvania, Brennan Dickerson. Welcome in. Tannen out of Brennan. Yes. From Worcester in Great Britain, please and thank you and welcome to Kevin Sanders.

Tannen out of Kevin. Woohoo. Jesse is still maintaining his job. I'm having a great time. Okay, from Upper Chichester in Pennsylvania, please and thank you Nina and Brian Burkhardt. Tina out of Nina! Woohoo! And Brian, thanks for trying. Come on in. Before you, I was crying.

Now I'm feeling good. Okay, that's incredible. And finally from Sydney, Australia, welcome in and thank you and please, Bradley Williams. Ten out of Bradley. Bradley, Bradley, I love you. These people waited three years for that and it was worth the wait. It was absolutely worth the wait. Yeah, I mean, they're all ten out of tens.

Yeah. Thanks so much to ten out of Bradley, ten out of Nina and Brian, ten out of Kevin, ten out of Brennan and ten out of Emily. I believe Emily's surname based on her where on email is maybe begins with a G. Oh, pretty cool. If that helps, you know who you are, because there might be heaps of Emily's in Caloundra West. Probably could be on the shout out level for three years. Yeah. Now, Jess, anything we need to tell people before we go?

That we love them and that you can set us a topic and find us on social media at dogoonpod. Please follow us. Please. Please. I'm begging of you. Please. It's so embarrassing I have to keep asking. Yeah. Just do it. Dave, bring this home. Please. Please. Stop asking, it's embarrassing. We'll be back next week with another fantastic block slash blow Worthy episode, but until then also, thank you so much for listening and good This message comes from better help Can you think of a time when you didn't feel like you could be yourself? Like you were hiding behind a mask? BetterHelp online therapy is convenient, flexible, and can help you learn to be your

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