Loremen Podcast - Christmas 2021 - Minisode

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

A few traditions to mull over... We are doing another livestream! For Christmas 2021! At 830pm GMT on the 16th December 2021 (2021) It will be on YouTube.com/LoremenPodcast and twitch.tv/loremenpod Join. Us. Unless you're from the future? In which case all the Livestreams can be found on YouTube.com/LoremenPodcast Plus that sweet sweet merch can be found here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 

Oh, Alistair. Oh, James. Oh, Alistair. Oh, ho, ho, ho. Are you all right? Oh, I thought you were being a really old man. You're being Santa. I'm being a sort of Father Christmas figure.

That explains why I'm sitting on your knee. This time, it's getting to Christmas again, isn't it? It is approaching old Christopher-mas, to give it its full name. Christopher T. Mass. And it's this time of year that I like to get a bunch of silly books out about Christmas folklore from the past. Oh, yeah? Do you have any folklore, not folklore,

but like traditions in your house around Christmas time? My dad usually gets indigestion. Oh. And that spoils the mood. That usually happens. Is there the presentation of the ceremonial Rennies? We leave just a little plate of Rennies out overnight. And in the morning they're gone.

Well, I feel bad for the kids of today because we used to have the traditional Christmas Radio Times-ing. Yes. Which is where you'd get the Christmas Radio Times. It'd be really fat, really thick. You'd go to the film pages and you'd get your marker out and look at what films were on. And now they've just got that, but for YouTube. Yeah. And you're just doing it on your tablet with a marker.

It's not the same. It is not the same. I do remember that. And I do remember circling the films. And it's a weird thing because they put all the classic films, all the really good films on TV during Christmas, a period in which it's, I think in my experience, virtually impossible to watch a film from start to finish without significant distractions.

So it's like wall-to-wall five-star silver screen classics. But the context of it is that it's like a child will be playing with an electric fire engine between you and the great escape what you need to do alistair you need to get your video recorder the vcr yeah you pop a tape in you look at the number on that tape you go to the little booklet and you look up the number of that tape on its page you see what's already recorded on there and decide whether you can sacrifice it so do you have a do you have a log of what's on all of your VHSs? We did, yeah.

I'm sure I've talked about this before. Why not just write what's on the adhesive strip on the front of... Because what if you want to record over it? Scribble it out and write something else on. Get another sticker. Get another sticker. You keep sticking them stickers on,

it's going to be too thick for the little flap to close. They can take three easily. You've optimised all the fun out of this and rather and when you want to browse you recorded illegally by the way this is illegal is it illegal to record films off the telly i'm pretty sure it was illegal to record films probably was there's only one group of people that know your friends of mine yeah friends of the show, the Federation Against Copyright. They're fact. I doubt they'd be friends of the show, actually. No, that music is out of copyright. We're good.

We're good. You wouldn't record The Great Escape off the telly. Write it down in a book with a number that corresponds to the number that you put on the videotape, would you? That's weird. It's all here, Gov. He's kept meticulous logs of his criminal activities. That's what would be our downfall. That's how they got you, like Al Capone.

It was his VHS tape log. It was his meticulous logs. Speaking of meticulous logs, Alistair. Tell me about your meticulous Christmas log. You know the Yule log? Yes. You know that sort of chocolate fondant covered cake that you'd get? That might be called a Yule log, named after the traditional Yule log, yes.

Yeah, I thought that was what a Yule log was. What was a Yule log was, if a Yule log was what was? Good, great question. No, I thought that was what the Yule log was. A cake. A sort of cake that for some reason looked like wood. But no, it was an actual log. Well, I think the way you

know that the yule log is not a traditional christmas dish is that it's delicious because because christmas is the time of year when we eat foods that are either too delicious or too horrible to eat all throughout the year too many raisins so much of it is victorian food and victorian sweetmeats were just rubbish. I mean, I don't think we just don't like nuts that much anymore. Oh, by the way, bread baked on Christmas Eve is great for diarrhoea. As in stopping it.

Is that everyone's big problem over the festive period? I would have thought perhaps a laxative bread would have been a little bit more help. A mildly laxative Christmas loaf would have been welcome. bit more help. A mildly laxative Christmas loaf would have been welcome. But to get back to your Yule... You've segued brilliantly to logs.

Back to me. Yes, speaking of Yule logs. What a smooth movement. It was a full-on treat. Yeah. It wasn't even just what I would consider to be a log. There's an illustration here, and they're dragging home the Yule log.

If you met someone dragging the Yule log in, it was good luck to tip your hat to them. Sorry, I misheard that as kick. Just kick the log. Give it a little kick. It was good luck to not be really rude. But as I mentioned before in a previous episode, it was if you were burning your your log and someone came in with a squint you wanted them out right away that is so in that previous episode were you imagining they were burning a cake i guess so yeah i've burned many cakes in my time anyone coming in with a squint he you're like, well, I don't need that energy in the kitchen while I'm ruining this cake.

It's going badly there, thanks, Paul Hollywood. I'm imagining I'm on a version of Bake Off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. An Xmas Bake Off. I've never watched it, but I have heard of Paul Hollywood. Even though that sounds like a name you would make up if you were stopped by the police.

Paul Hollywood? Johnny San Francisco. That's my name. If you were in Hollywood looking at the sign. Yeah. Any other alices? I used to be known as Hollywoodland. Dr. Mulholland.

I've looked at Mulholland Drive enough, but it's abbreviated on the sign, so I've made it Dr. Mulholland. That is very nice. That is actually too quick thinking. That is good work. And it depends on you knowing what the sign to Mulholland Drive looks like. nice. That is actually too quick thinking. That is good work. And it depends on you knowing what the sign

to Mulholland Drive looks like. Carry on. One last Yule Log fact. Also bad luck if a barefoot or flat-footed woman comes into your house.

When you say barefoot? Oh, I mean, yeah, shoe and sockless. I mean, I think it would be bad luck for anyone if someone came in on bare feet

slash paws. Also, it seemed to have been tradition to do a bit of begging on uh christmas time you're thinking of wassailing wassailing yes there's some great rhymes for your wassail here we come a wassailing so fairly to be seen i can't remember the words that was a wassailing song. I've got a couple of Oxfordshire ones here. Holly and Ivy mistletoe bow, give me an apple and I'll go now. Give me another for my little brother

and I'll go home and tell father and mother. Very nice. And then this one, which I think ends a little abruptly, but it's abrupt, but it's to the point. I wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, a pocket full of money

and a cellar full of beer. A good fat pig to last all the year. Please give to me a New Year's gift. Oh, that is a very abrupt ending. Yeah, that's the end of that begging song. What I like about the Wassell songs is they're all a bit passive aggressive. I'm looking at the Wassell song as the Wattersons sang it. So the lyrics are, we know by the moon we are not too soon. We know as the Wattersons sang it. So the lyrics are,

We know by the moon we are not too soon. We know by the sky we are not too high. We know by the stars we are not too far. And we know by the ground that we are within sound. We know you can hear us. There's our Wassell boys growing weary and cold. Drop a bit of small silver into our old bowl. And if we're alive for another new year,

perhaps we may call. And see you do live here. The implication being that you also might die before next year. Is it a threat? Is that a threat? They're quite threatening, yeah. And that also ties into a lovely email we got. I don't know if you saw through our contact email. I mean, that's what it's there for.

It's simply a link and a sentence. The sentence is, there's a horse ghost. I guess I did see that. And it's a link to the Marie Lloyd. The Marie Lloyd, which we have talked about in the past. I assume that listener has forgotten

that the Marie Lloyd has come up. I didn't really appreciate the eyes of the Marie Lloyd, which is what I think makes it. If you don't know what a Marie Lloyd is, it's basically a Welsh horse skull. So yeah, imagine a horse skull and then make it Welsh in your imagination.

And it's got like a sheet around it. It's part of a peculiar British tradition of hooded creatures. At certain different types of the year, people would get just the skull of a creature and hold it up, wrap a big sheet around them so it looks like it's a big giant walking around the town. It's essentially an early version of the Muppets.

Yes! Because the mouth opens and closes, and it goes around and it sings songs and chases people. The Marie Lloyd in particular, it either comes around on All Saints Day or around Christmas time, and it goes to people's houses and it sings to them for them to give it money or treats. Sometimes beer, in my experience. And the person in the house has to sing back in order to deny it.

They have to sing their refusal, which seems like, I mean, if you go into as much trouble as to join in with the singing bit, you may as well join in with the rest of it. But there's all sorts of these different hooded creatures around. My favourite, I think, is the Kent one, which is known as the Hoodening. It sounds like a sort of the sequel, the Hoodening. It sounds like a process whereby circumcisions are reversed. Around the Cotswolds, they have the Broad,

which is a bull's head mounted on a pole. I bet he gets up to all kinds of antics. Mostly just bullying people into giving it money. So it's the version of those sort of people in tabards that want to talk to you about charity. But way more fun. Can't pretend you're on your mobile. You'd really have to up your game

if someone's coming at you with a bull's head on a stick. And with that in mind, we've got a live stream today, Alistair. Incredible segue. This very evening. This evening. Please join us. It'll be on YouTube at youtube.com forward slash lawmenpodcast and on Twitch at twitch.tv forward slash lawmenpod.

It's different to make it easier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We wanted to make it easier for everyone. We've come with a different different to make it easier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We wanted to make it easier for everyone. We've come with a different one to make it simpler. Yeah. Please join us. What time is it, James? Oh, that's a great question.

8.30. Have we decided? 8.30. And would that be Greenwich Mean Time? Oh yeah. Gumpt. Gumpt. We're talking GMT.

So join us. Join us. Fun. Join us. Join us. It's very hard to whisper join us in a Northern accent. Because you say, join us, in a Southern accent. But join us.

Join us. Join us. Oh, it sounds like you'd want people to become part of your horse. Or just fit it back together. Which maybe that's what the people with the horse colour are trying to do. That's what they're trying to do, yeah. So I'll just finish with a poem. I wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year,

a pocket full of money and a cellar full of beer, a good fat pig to last all the year. Please do join our Patreon at patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod.