Loremen Podcast - Loremen S5Ep43 - The Uffington White Horse

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Join Alasdair and James in a hot air balloon of the mind and gently float over the actual rolling hills of the cotswolds / Vale of the White Horse area. Quiet, peaceful, serene - wait what on earth is that on the side of that hill? Is it a horse? Is it?? Really? Have a look at the graphic for this ep - Have you seen a horse before? This episode was edited by Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor. Come see us LIVE Again! https://www.angelcomedy.co.uk/event-detail/loremen-live-again-18th-aug-the-bill-murray-london-tickets-202408181730/ LoreBoys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 @loremenpod youtube.com/loremenpodcast www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Shop smart with one car and check everything off your back to school list all in one place. Now that's some smart shopping. Conditions apply. See in store or joefresh.com for details. some smart shopping. Conditions apply. See in store or joefresh.com for details. Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shakespeare. And I'm Alistair Beckett King. And Alistair Beckett King, if I could I would commission a balloon and take you up in the sky over South Oxfordshire, the Vale of the

White Horse, to see the White Horse. Gosh how splendid it would be to be in a hot air balloon with you James looking at a big horse. Or maybe a weasel. Could be a weasel. Yep. Or one of many creatures. Or something else as we will learn as I tell the tales of the Uffington White Horse. Oh, hey there, Alistair. How are you doing? I'm fine. Thank you, James. Good.

Good to hear. It's difficult to spring a surprise topic on you because I have to give the place that we record these, the computer place we record these, a name. Yes. And as you can tell, but you're in the same boat as the listener, the podcast episodes have to be given a name. So you kind of know what's going to happen now, don't you? You know what I'm going to talk about, don't you? Yeah. James, I don't want to spoil the whole thing for you, but sometimes when we record

the intros to this, we already know what the episode's about. Yeah. What? Yeah. So sometimes when you tell me what it's about and I act surprised, sometimes that's acting. That is very good. You're very good at acting actually, Alistair. What? That's how it's just pretending to be surprised. Oh, pretending to be hard of hearing. Hey! What? Excellent acting chops, I'd say. Very realistic.

Thank you. Acting. But yeah, we're going to talk about the Uffington White Horse, AKA the White Horse of Uffington. White Horse, AKA the White Horse of Uffington. Now I think we've alluded to this horse, this chalk outline of a horse rather, before. Yeah. My understanding is it's not a real horse. No, it does. It does look like a horse a bit. I'm going to pop a picture for you.

I'd suggest the listener too, gets, gets their eyeballs on what the Yuffington Whitehorse actually looks like. Oh, sorry. You've already sent that. I just realised I was waiting for a new thing to appear. Oh yeah. Well, that's a link. I'm just trying to send the actual picture. I can see it. You can see it? I've got it. I've got the picture and I've got the drawing of it as well.

You've got a drawing of it? Yes. I've got WC Plenderleath's drawing of it. Ooh, that's a good name. That's not come up in my research yet. So let's add that on. WC Plenderleath. Sounds like a great toilet. Do you want to save that so you introduce it? No. Well, there is the drawing of the Uffington White Horse by WC Plenderleath, which is a bit more fulsome and chunky than the modern day aerial photo. What's happened, James?

James McAllister Well, the thing is, the Yuffington White Horse is regularly cleaned. It used to be it was cleaned every seven years on Midsummer's Eve and there was a big old party when it happens. But now it's kind of slightly more ongoing. Mason Harkness That's exactly what it's like, isn't it, when you move from your sort of student days into adulthood, when you're a student, it's once every seven years and there's a big party. And then eventually you just get around to cleaning every fortnight. Yeah. Once a month.

There was a big cleanup recently and archaeologists got involved. This was, it was in the news and that's why I'm wanting to talk about it. Cause it was brought back to my attention. Is this breaking news James? Three weeks ago it was in the paper that Uffington White Horse was restored to its original size because over the years as they cleaned it, it had sort of slightly warped and gotten smaller. That explains the drawing I was looking at was from the 1890s and it was much chunkier. But there doesn't seem to have been any dispute over the Willie in this case. Wait, what? Oh, that Willie. No, I don't think that's a leg you're looking at there, James. That's a second leg.

That's a leg. That's definitely meant to be a leg. What do you mean? I'm thinking of the big guy with the club. What's his name? Oh, the Cernabbes Giant. Yes. Oh, you're just reducing him just to his massive phallus.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Cernabbes Giant. My weird staring eyes are up here, says the Cernabbes Giant. Would you, for our listeners who've never upped a white horse before, would you explain how these great hill carvings work in case Sir Nabus Giant and Uffington White Horse sound like gibberish to the listener? That's a good point, Alistair. Thank you very much.

So what you do is you get a hill, you get a simple hill, that's got grass on it, and underneath that grass, not too far down, is chalk, and then you just pull the grass off, and then you've got white, bright white chalk staring through underneath, and you just make a shape of whatever you want. You know, there's the long man down in Kent who looks like he's opening his curtains

and becomes surprised. There's the Cernabbus giant who carrying a big old club in his hand. And that's the main thing you notice about him. And he's pleased to see you. There's a bunch of horses of varying quality. There's what there's, I've saw one that has like a full rider on it, which is quite impressive, but the Uffington white horse is kind of unique in these hill geoglyphs as they're called. Wow. Yeah. I was not ready for you to drop geoglyph.

Oh, there's going to be some other choice phrases dropped during this that you were going to love. It's in that it doesn't really look like a horse. It does not look like a horse. It's got a head like, I was going to say brontosaurus. Do they still exist? Are they the ones that turned out not to exist? Diplodocus? Diplodocus? Diplodocus slash Diplodocus slash Brachiosaur.

Yeah, I don't think a Brontosaurus. Yeah. Well, we'll come back to that later. It's Brontosaurus. Nevermind. It looks like, it looks like kind of quite an artistic impression of a horse. Yeah. Now they've sort of really cleaned up the face.

Well, he's got a beak or two cigarettes on the go. Wow. That's, that's pretty cool. A horse smoking one cigarette would be cool, but two lights, both of them and hands it to another giant, weird horse. Well, pretty romantic. Once again, Alastair, it's funny to another giant, weird horse. Well, where? And pretty romantic. Once again, Alastair, it's funny you say that because this horse is first referenced directly in writing 1100 AD by Ralph de Diceto or Diceto or Diceto

or Diceto, if you want to go for a hard C there. In De Miriabilis Britannii, the one from Britain. Ralph, Ralph De Dicito. Ralph De Dicito. I'm sure it can't be pronounced like that, but I wish it were. Yeah. Mirabilis Watius. Mirabilis Britannii.

Britannii. And it's referenced as being the white horse and it's foal. Oh! But there is no foal. Wither the foal? No, that's the only person that references it having a foal outside of legend and it's not there. There is another marking on a nearby hill called Dragon Hill, which the very top of

which is bare, but it's not really done really look like a horse. It's just looks like the top of a hill without any grass on it. I suppose it could be in a placental bag. Potentially. The foal. Or you could be looking at it from a very precise angle. I would like to cite my sources.

So I've got three books on the go on this one. One which is a new book, which I just bought today. It's Britain's Landmarks and Legends, colon, the fascinating stories embedded in our landscape. National Trust book, pretty fancy. We've also got, oh, Mysterious Britain.

Oh yes, yes. The classic by Janet and Colin Bord. The 19, when is it, it's Paladin Press, first published 1974, I think this edition is 77. And not only those two, we've also got a third book, The Veiled Veil, Strange Tales from South Oxfordshire by actual friend of the show, Mike White. Mike White again? Mike White again, yes, of the Oxfiles fame.

And he was there at our live show in Oxford. A welcome return for Mike White's literary works. Now as Mike points out, the White Horse of Uffington has actually only been in Uffington since 1776. It ran there from a different hill. Incredible. And as we will discover, it might not be a horse. And if it wasn't for the fact that it was cleaned every seven years, it

would also not be white and Mike refers to it as the off white horse-like shape of Woolstone. Not as catchy Mike, I have to say. As he says himself, but I had to credit that joke because he's an actual listener. I couldn't have it for me own. But I'm surprised almost that this has such a long history because there's always rumours around these hill carvings that they were just done by some eccentric landowner in 1773. But this one has actually been around for a long time. Yeah, it was first alluded to at all in 1070.

There was some paperwork in a church that said about Godric Child, who inherited some land near Whitehorse Hill in that area. Then you've got the 1100 Ralph de Dickey toe. Alfred, Ralph Dediccito in 17th century, John Aubrey, Jawbree, Jawbree wrote about it and he posited it was the work of Hengist, a fifth century Saxon warrior. Oh, so Hengist is a guy. Hengist is a guy.

Cause it sounds kind of like a faction. When I heard Hengist, I thought, oh, the guys who make Hengists, like Hengists. Yeah, so did I. Committed fanatical Henge makers. No, this was a Saxon warrior whose battle standard bore the image of a white horse. In 1738... Should have gone with a hen. I would have had a hen if I was Hengist.

In 1738, Oxford academic Francis Wise published a paper. In 1738 Oxford academic Francis Wise published a paper. He thought it commemorated a victory by King Ethelred and his brother Alfred over those Bloomin' Danes in 871. So it's old as flip. Old as hell. In 1789. It's foal would be another horse by now. Easily.

In 1789, it's mentioned in the Reading Mercury, which seems in Congress for 1789, but that's what Mike says. That's what Mike White says. Okay. It says, the white horse on the side of the downs in the white horse veil has been lately recut so that at a distance of three or four miles, it is perhaps one of the most lively representations of an elegant shaped horse, except that the horse's back is rather too long. Yep. Otherwise it is now one of the best delineations of the animal I ever beheld.

That's critics for you. Yeah. You restore a carving of a horse, a turf carving of a horse, and they're just on you. Well, the back's a bit long. That's not how I would have carved it. Well, in 1896, friend of the show, Augustus Hare. The eccentric Augustus Hare, yes. Said that it is far more like a weasel than a horse. Me?

Ow, Augustus. Wow. And it is kind of funny looking. Its general vibe is cave painting-y, Augustus. Wow. And it is, it is kind of funny looking. Its general vibe is cave painting-y, I think. Yeah, it does have that. But it's much more recent, I assume. In the veterinary record in 2010, retired vet Olaf Swarbrick expounded the theory that the figure might represent a wolfhound. Yeah, it's got the long back. It looks like a yes.

Hmm. I can see it. Paula Broderick, the children's author claimed that it had originally been a unicorn and the horn was removed during the middle ages. Did she claim that in a children's book? It sounds like she might've done. Yeah. Some people think it could be representative of the hen headed steed associated with the Celtic goddess, Keredwen.

I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right at all. The hen headed steed. It does look like a hen headed. It does look like a hen's head. So maybe, maybe Hengist asked for a hen and they just got carried away around the neck and just tried to sort of work it into a horse as they went. In the 1920s, H.J.

Massingham, that's where our money came from, we amassed ham. In country life, posited that the figure was supposed to be an ichthyosaur, which is that fish dinosaur, fish looking dinosaur. Yeah, swimming dinosaur It doesn't look anything like that, but I guess it's it's sinuous curves are vaguely aquatic Well Alistair, have you got that on your phone that picture? I'm looking at WC Plender Leith's drawing Okay now turn off auto rotate So you want me to flip it upside down? And turn it actually upside down.

And Mike White, friend of the show, posits that from an upside down angle, it looks very much like a pterodon. So yeah, it could be a pterodactyl wearing a hat. A little cap. Wearing a small sombrero, yes. Or one of them sort of top hats from the Great Depression America, where the tops come up like an open tin can. Yeah, yes, could be that.

Could be one of them, easily. It could easily be a pterodon from the Great Depression. Yeah. A drawing of that. A hobo pterodon with a tin can top hat, yes. Exactly. So easily it could be that, but it's not. There's an element of Rorschach about this, I think. I don't think it really looks like any of the things we've described. Rorschach? Rorschach? Rorschach? I don't know if I said

that correctly. That's the thing, Alistair, I think whether you say Shack or Shark, that tells a lot about you. Doesn't it? about you. It is definitely, I mean, it's definitely something. And in 1994 slash 1995, do you know what they did Alistair? No. Well, I'm going to tell you, they did some optical stimulated luminescence dating. Wow.

Is that like speed dating, but a bit more intense? It's the, it's a classic OSLD. It measures how long the stone beneath it had been hidden from sunlight. And the date they came back with was between 1400 and 600 BC. That's quite a range. It's a range. Even the closest end of that range is still very, very far away from what it originally was thought to be, which was 800 AD. That was the old, previous oldest guess by anyone. But there are also some legends about it, Alastair. No way.

Yeah. Because it is right by a hill known as Dragon Hill. Now I'm reaching for mysterious Britain now, cause this is where things get fruity. Okay. Which is where on dragon hill is meant to be where St. George slew the dragon. And you remember I mentioned there was a top bit of the hill where nothing grew. Yes. That is meant to be where the dragon's blood was spilled. And to this day, according to mysterious Britain, so until 1977, still nothing would grow on top is thought that the horse is something to do with King Arthur.

And when King Arthur awakes from his slumber, then the horse will dance atop dragon hill and set in celebration. No, just not going to get involved in whatever King Arthur's up to. Yeah. So will it turn into a real horse and dance in three dimensions or will it just sort of dance in situ in a kind of 2D way? Like a big art attack really is what it is. I'm imagining it creepily dancing, sort of peeling off the hill and still being a sort of two dimensional series of lines.

Yes. So you wouldn't be able to see it if it was charging right at you. You just hear the hooves, the chalky hooves. What's that? And then you lean to the side. Oh, uh oh. Trample over you. I've just been trampled by some kind of place or wearing a fedora. I've been trampled in two dimensions. Though the horse actually goes down to drink, it is said, at Wollstone Wells, the springs, which are supposed to come from its footprints, those springs, which is kind of gross if you had to drink water in your own footprints. Yeah, that's disgusting.

And in fact, the horse and its foal are supposed to go down there. That's the only time the foal appears outside of Demiriaba, Lesbittan Eye. And Alistair, do you want to know how you could get any wish you wanted granted whilst using this horse? Would I? Yeah. Yes, yeah.

Well, you see that eye, you see it's got its mad staring eye. Yes, terrifying. The eye of a hen. Yeah. You go in that. In the eye? So how big is that?. You go in that. In the eye. So how big is that?

The little circle of chalk represents the eye. Well actually, I'll give you some, I'll give you some, uh, stats. The whole thing is 374 feet slash 114 meters long and 110 feet slash 34 meters high. Wow. I think I heard you slam your facts down there, James. That was very dramatic. So pretty big, way bigger than a horse. It is big.

It's been, and it's, and it's been reinstated to its former big glory in recent times. Cause I think it was just becoming more, more hunched over as time went on. Just whittled down to a tivetaniest twig, twigglers of a horse. So yes, so I'm standing in the eye. You turn around three times whilst making a wish and you will have that wish granted within a year. And nowadays, if your wish is to be banned from all national trust sites, then boom. Are you not allowed to go wandering around on it these days?

No, I think it's fenced off unless you're cleaning it. And over to the right of it is something called Uffington Castle, which was an Iron Age hillfort. And according to Mysterious Britain, it would provide very little means of defense. It is a shallow ditch with earth bags on each side and covers about eight acres. Your Iron Age hillfort really needs to be raised from the ground. You can't have an iron age hillfort in a ditch. Come on fellas. This is basic stuff.

Exactly. There is a little area next to it called the manger, which is the location of a cheese rolling race. Which used to, that used to happen when they do the scouring of the hill figure every seven years, it was part of the fun. So they roll, they roll cheese. They just, yeah, bung some cheese down the hill figure every seven years. It's part of the fun. So they roll cheese. They just bung some cheese down the hill and then sort of run after it, I think. Presumably not soft cheeses.

No, it needs to be a reasonably solid round cheese. No. You can't just frisbee off like hamburger cheeses. You could do dereli, but you'd need the full circle. You you have to work together with people to collect all the segments probably beating several mini bosses to create the full philadelphia wheel and then you could take part. You cut the philadelphia slash laughing cow slash dairy lay. They do, no, Philadelphia do do, but Philadelphia does traditionally come in a pot. But you can get a wedge. So my Zelda related gag is still valid. If not technically funny.

I went for the more, the Trivial Pursuits version, but I think all, all are valid in this, you need to work to earn your cheese. Well known saying. Put four of them together with just like a slab of a menthol in the middle and then you could make a sort of cheese cart with a little pineapple drive in it probably. You're a bit hungry, James. Yeah, I mean, I'd like to be invited to an 80s cocktail party, please. So yeah, that's where you go if you want to roll your cheese. There's also a natural,

or reasonably natural, or made ages ago, little whispering cave where there's like this tiny little bit of a hill that is formed in such a way that you could hear someone just having a normal chat on the horse. They used to say in York that if the wind was right, you could hear a conversation in the courtyard of the Old Star Inn from the top of the Minster. Is that, are those two things far away? They're quite far away. One of them is the top of a building.

So they're a couple of streets away. It's further than you would expect to be able to hear. Now do you want to know something a little bit sinister that might quite unearth? Please. So there are a couple of digs on the Uffington Castle. There's a Neolithic longbarrow there and a round barrow and that was excavated twice in 1857 and then again in 1993. In 1993, they unearthed a buried copy of the book Demonology and Witchcraft by Sir Walter

Scott. No way. Friend of the show, I think. Yeah. That doesn't surprise me really because my perception of like 19th century excavations was that it was just a guy with massive mustaches, just whacking spades about, grabbing skulls, shoving them into a bag and then riding off. My opinion of that quality of archaeology in those days is low, but I'm surprised they missed something as obvious as a spooky book.

And in red ink on the inside of the front cover, someone had drawn a pentangle and written the words, demon duffing. And it was clear the book had been there for some years, but in potential, I mean, it could have been put there by the 1857 people as a sort of- Oh yeah, I hadn't thought of that. Yes, I hadn't thought of that. Like a sort of a, like a blue Peter Garden. But it would reinforce my opinion that they didn't take it seriously enough. Yes, they were having a bit of a laugh and a joke, or they found out something very sinister. So that's the tale of the Uffington White, it's not really a tale, that's the Uffington

White horse fax. Hey look, the tale is way better drawn than the head, so. Ha ha ha, tails are easier than heads though, come on. Okay, you ready to score this massive horse type thing? Yeah, I'm getting my little cards with numbers on ready. I assume that's how you score horses. Yeah, probably, right then. So first of all, let's do supernatural.

Well, it's real. It's there. It is real. It's been there for a long time. Oh yeah. And the legends are implausible, I would say. I don't really see it moving. I don't think that's realistic. But if it did move, that would be supernatural. So it's supposed to go down to drink at the Wollstone Wells Springs with this foal, or it'll dance, it'll have a little boogie when King Arthur rises again, or sometimes it goes to the manger, which is where the cheese rolls and has a little bite to eat. Yep, it has a little cheese roll. And it might be a dragon. It might be a dragon.

No, it's a hen headed horse. There's the bit of ground where the dragon's blood spilt, which will never grow. All right, though that might be the foal. And what about the copy of Demonology and Witchcraft by Sir Walter Scott that says Demon to Uffing? Probably the work of some classic 19th century lad banter. I think it's quite low, I'm afraid, James. Oh, it's good as far as geoglyphs. Is that the word? As far as geoglyphs go, it's very good. But I simply

don't find it spooky. I think if a standing stone goes down to the river to drink, I think if a standing stone goes down to the river to drink, how does it go? You know, you can sort of picture it and then you turn around and it's not moving. Oh, that's very frightening and mysterious. But a big flat horse like flat Eric. No, not scary. So I'm going to say it's a two. Fair enough. not scary. So I'm going to say it's a two. Fair enough. My wish would be to get more points.

Well, in the course of the next year, I'm sure you will. Okay. Then second one, second category naming. Oh, great. Well, there's WC Plendoleth for one thing. And I came up with that. Yes. There's the Mirabilibus Britannii. Easy for you to say. I mean there's a bunch of poems. GK Chesterton wrote the Ballad of the White Horse. I think Terry Pratchett referenced it. He was a fan of GK Chesterton as well so that might make sense. H.J. Massingham, Optical stimulated luminescence dating.

Augustus Hare. Augustus Hare, friend of the show. The Redding Mercury. Really good name. Very, very 1920s, wearing a little cap with the word press, stuck in it in a card, kind of a name for a newspaper. What was he called? Henwood?

Henwig? Hen-Twood? What was his name? Hengist. Oh, Hengist. Hengist. Great name. Ralph Dedicito. Godric Child. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You've done well. You've done well. I'm going to say it's a four. A strong four.

Strong four. The strong fours. Then we will move on to my third category, optical stimulated luminescence dating. Yes. That's my next category. James, you're trying to baffle me with scientific mumbo jumbo. Yes. Yes, I am. I'm trying to, I'm trying to stimulate you with optical and luminescence enough to get a date.

Oh, that sounds weird. Surely you shouldn't be shining them directly into my eyes. If that's what you're hoping for. I want to know how long you've been hidden from sunlight a long time since the early to mid eighties. Firing a laser at you because there's just so many dates involved in this. I see. Yes. There are a lot of dates.

Because it is, I mean, I mean, people thought it was from the fifth century. People thought it was from King Ethelred. People now think it's in a range between 1400 and 600 BC, which is 800 years. BCE do we say these days? Oh yeah. BCE. Sorry. I'm looking, I'm looking at a book from the past.

I mean, there's so many, it's been written about for literally a thousand years, almost literally a thousand years. 50 years, just under a thousand years, it's been written about. Yeah, but not nonstop though. Yeah, good point. Good point. But there were a lot of dates, easily more than five. I have a thing where I tend not to listen to numbers. So I ignored all of them as you were saying them. So it really didn't make much sense to me, but I'm going to say I tried to do them in some sort of order. Fifth century. If I said fourth century, it's fifth century for Hengest 1400 and 600 BC.

Well, I'm going to say it's five out of five for, what was the category? Optical stimulated luminescence dating. Well, I'm going to say it's five out of five for optical stimulated luminescence dating. Optical stimulated luminescence dating. On the grounds that I wasn't really paying attention to the dates and was overwhelmed by numbers. Brilliant.

Brilliant. the dates and was overwhelmed by numbers. Brilliant. Brilliant. Then my final category is, is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the Uffington White Horse. How very good because what it looks like is in question because it's quite weird looking. It could be a pterodon. It could be a plesiosaur. I mean could it could easily be the off white horse like shape of Woolston. It could be.

Thanks Mike. It could be a weasel. It could be a weasel with a goose's head. It could be a hen headed horse. It is a hen headed horse. That's the one it is. And if you turn that picture upside down to make it look like a bird, it really does like a little chick that's just fallen out of a nest.

It's got a proper muppet's mouth. Kind of a face to it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm inclined to score highly because I've forgotten what the category was, but I've enjoyed making that noise. It's a bird. It's a plane.

It's the Uffington White Horse. Yes. And the only person who could really have seen it is Superman because you'd have to be in the air to really enjoy it. Maybe that's why it looks weird because it's just hard to draw a massive horse from the ground. Have you ever tried to draw a horse? I've never. They're very hard, as I've told you. Not on the side of the hill. I can't do it on paper without the camera, without the Neil Buchanan Art Attack camera, big Art Attack camera, obviously. How could you do it? Jason Vale I don't know. Janet and Colin Baud posit in

oh mysterious Britain. Could it be, as some have suggested, that it was intended to be seen from above? A signal from Neolithic man to his gods in their airborne craft, who would then land on Dragon Hill. And the message is help our horses have gone weird. And my horse is melting. It's two of its legs aren't attached. Help, help us kindly Spacemen. Its head looks like a bird going It looks like it's head's on backwards and it's upset or its head looks like a bird going, whoa. It looks like his head's on backwards and it's upset. Or his head looks like a, yeah, either way, it's got a very bird like head. Well, James, I want to give you a five for this category. I want to give you such a big five that I actually carved it so badly.

It's come out looking like a four. I'm sorry. Sorry. Classic hillside error. So it's a four. That's the hot air balloon. Oh, from the intro. I totally forgotten about that.

From the intro that everyone's forgotten about. Yeah. Well, that's how they work, really, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You go up, you go up, you go up, then you shoot a hole in it and come down. Well, wasn't it fun learning about the Uffington White Horse? It certainly was, James. Before we go, next week we're gonna have a little break,

but we'll pop out some bonus material. Yeah, just sling up a few bonus episodes, I'll be fine. And that'll get you all ready to come and see us live on the 18th of August, 2024, at the Bill Murray in London's Angel. Just Google all those words, Lawmen Live, Bill Murray, and you'll find tickets or have a look in the episode description. Sorry, I got distracted while you were talking there, James, thinking about how Mr. Blobby changed the way he looks.

What? I don't know why you said they changed it back to how it used to look. And my first thought, my first thought at the very top of my brain was they should do that with Mr. Blobby because the modern Mr. Blobby doesn't look like the original Mr. Blobby anymore. No, because the modern Mr. Blobby is just like, it's like a shop or one isn't it? Corporate. Where was, yeah.

The original was really distressing. But I assume it burned down or was burned. Yes, in order to stop it. To destroy it. But you cannot destroy an idea.