Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep41: Loremen S3 Ep41 - The Boscombe Whale

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

We figured that every man and his podcast would be doing a spooky special in honour of Halloween month, so we've gone entirely ghost-free. James tells the tale of a kooky doctor trying to dispose of a dead body. The twist? It's a whale's body. The other twist? He's really bad at it. (Feat. Gary Barlow)   Loreboys nether say die! ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.twitch.tv/loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shakeshaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-King. This week's episode features some of my many loves. It features people being stupid. It features the county of Dorset and rotten old stinks. Oh, you love a good stink, don't you, James? Oh, yeah.

You're a stink connoisseur. I'm the smelliest sommelier. Behold, the wonder of the deep, the Whale of Boscombe. Hi there Alistair. Hello James Jane Shaft. How are you doing today, of all days? I'm feeling alright. today of all days? I'm feeling all right today of all days. I'm feeling all right this is the first time I think we've ever recorded the podcast in the morning. Oh what a different place the world is in the morning. You have children so

you're used to being awake at this time. Oh yeah. This is ah there's squirrels in the trees there's birds singing it's awful. Yeah we're six hours into my day here. Nope. I've still got one of those little floppy bedtime hats on. Oh, yes. And big bags under my eyes. Are you sort of holding a little candle, a guttering candle? Yes, because I'm a Victorian miser. I watched something the other day. I watched an old film called Kiss the Girls.

Probably couldn't say that these days. Yeah, couldn't make it. It wouldn't make it these days. I know. Oh, no, you can't kiss girls now. Can't call them girls. Probably couldn't say that these days. Yeah. Couldn't make it. It wouldn't make it these days. I know. Oh, no, you can't kiss girls now. Can't call them girls. Probably someone will be offended. Yes.

You can't use the definite article in a film title. No. Mouth touch a person. Sorry, carry on. It's a film for the 90s about a serial kidnapper oh well it's not it's a fiction it's a fiction i mean that sounds arguably worse than kissing the girls but carry on oh yeah he does much much much worse he imprisons them in an underground sort of basement layer thing not appropriate i know we were watching it and kind of weighing up how the 90s were different

to now and it's like you wouldn't have this much space. He's got like 10 rooms underground dungeon. It'll be Airbnb'd out now. And this is set in the 90s as well. But his whole underground bit is full of candles. That's how it's illuminated. And there's one bit where Morgan Freeman sort of gets washed down a well and he climbs out in like a back end of the dungeon and there's still candles on the walls and like candles don't really burn for much more than eight hours yeah so that the serial

guy's been gone in there and gone oh them candles are running down i better relight them and it like honestly there's so many candles he must have spent most of his time just getting candles buying and replenishing candles yeah that's how they would track him down who's coming out of walmart with five trolleys full of candles he's just yeah he's a candle guy with a side hustle in kidnapping um anyway yeah that so that's my topical humour for the 1997 film Kiss the Girls. That's wonderful. My story today, Alistair, has nothing to do with anything that we've been talking about. It's got nothing to do with candle.

Actually, you know what? What do they make candles out of? Wax or tallow. What's tallow? I think it's fat from an animal, isn't it? Could you use whale blubber? In a lamp, yeah. Okay.

There is a reason. The tale I tell you today today i want to talk to you about a massive whale oh actually maybe it's a standard size whale 70 foot long apparently of the north atlantic variety that in 1897 washed up on the beach in boscombe out of luck lost his job wife left him he rolls into town yes literally well, floated into town. Little hat on. Yeah. Briefcase with just his socks and pants. He had a stick over his shoulder which he doesn't have one of.

Yeah, a bindle constantly rolling up and down his back. Oh, I meant to say it washed up on Pokeston Beach and then drifted down the tide to Boscombe Beach right next to the pier. Boscombe of course is now part of Bournemouth in Dorset. Of course I do. I bloody love the place.

Thank you. And it died this way. Oh! Yeah, sorry about that. Way to spoil the ending. That is only the beginning. And it drew a lot of crowds. It was quite the talk of the town.

The source I've got for this is Dorset Curious and Surprising by Roger Guttridge. And he's quoting the Bournemouth Guardian and there's a lot of quotes in this story and they are very good. The stranded whale drew the multitude. Boys took running jumps up its slippery sides and tobogganed down them on the seats of their trousers

gleefully. Tobogganed? Yeah. Earnest school teachers took parties of youngsters and gave lessons in natural history. Farmers from the Piddles poked the thick hide of the beast with sticks. The Piddle is a river in Dorset. The Piddle is a river. And it runs through a bunch of different towns called like Piddle Trenthide, Piddle Hinton, Puddleton, aka Piddleton, Toll Puddle, Aff Puddle, Bryant's Puddle and Turner's Puddle.

Is that Toll Puddle as in the Toll Puddle Martyrs? Yes. The village was home to the Toll Puddle Mart Aff Puddle, Bryant's Puddle and Turner's Puddle. Is that Toll Puddle as in the Toll Puddle Martyrs? Yes. The village was home to the Toll Puddle Martyrs. There you go. Six men who were sentenced to be transported to Australia after they formed a friendly society. Which, if it's not a euphemism, seems like a harsh punishment. Yeah.

Too friendly. Go to Australia. No, we won't have any men being friends here. And it was only six of them. You could even do that nowadays. That's well within COVID restrictions. Yeah. So the people from piddleton poked it with sticks um i can only imagine what the people of pokeston did and and the quote finishes and island folk raised exclamations of astonishment at its length its strength and its thickness well now the problem

is a big old whale like that that's dead is going to start to smell i'd go as far as to say that it might have smelled to begin with while alive because it lives in the sea which is a notoriously smelly place yeah you'd think with all the washing that it might be less smelly but no you know from death onwards it's only going to get worse the quote here is the aroma became a smell and the smell became a fetid stink it's like they put they apparently pumped disinfectants all over it but that that didn't help well disinfectants don't even smell nice no yeah that reminds me of student flats where the house absolutely stank of like rotting meat from the bin that hadn't been taken out in four months and my housemate having one of those sort of room scent sprays

but like a really i think it was a cheap netto one which was orange scented basically it just means that everything now smells of oranges and rotting meat yes because it hasn't the rotting meat has not gone away yeah it wasn't until the febreze technology came along which as we all know wouldn't have applied during the 19th century they They didn't have the ability to Febreze. There was no Febrezing back then. So they just kind of chucked bleach and stuff on it and it still stank because it was 70 foot long and

rotting. And now because it washed up it belonged to the crown. And the crown said, sell it as soon as you can. We don't want it anymore because it stinks. So it was auctioned off and Dr Spencer Simpson

bought it for £27 which is worth about £3,500 in today's money. Yeah, seems reasonable for a while. But he seemed pretty cocky because he was seeking skilled knowledge to cut it up, sell the blubber for £200, so what's that about 30

grand yeah and then display the bones charge people to come and see the bones he's it's basically a license to print money yeah what could possibly go wrong well first of all two days later the clerk of the town said you gotta get rid of this carcass mate it stinks it's stinking up our town and i think boscombe was a spa town at that time. So it's like, you really need to move this 70 foot of rotting fat away from our beach. And they began legal proceedings. I like that. I like the chutzpah of, do you want to buy a whale?

And then it's like, oh, by the way, you've got five minutes to move your whale. Yeah, because it stinks. Get rid of your stinking whale. Because we hate the whale. We hate the whale. The whale we just sold you, we hate it. Dr. Simpson, according to the report here, developed a fortress mentality,

almost living on the beach to try and keep people away from his whale. Like Homer Simpson with his pile of sugar. Yes. And when the sanitary inspector arrived, Dr. Simpson pulled a sword stick out and attacked him. What a day for a sanitary inspector it's not going to be a good score is it he was charged with assault and fined one pound 13 shillings he's throwing good money after bad now with this whale investment oh even more so he got a company to move some of the blubber just chuck it in the sea just and he was just chuck it in

the sea lads so they chucked about half of it in the sea. And he was just, just chuck it in the sea, lads. So they chucked about half of it in the sea. And then apparently there was a later court case because he didn't pay them. He finally managed to get a load of it to pool and auctioned it off. But only one person bid five shillings and they got all the blubber. He got five shillings for the blubber

instead of the 300 quid he was hoping for. I tell you what, this whale is becoming something of an albatross around his neck. As the papers reported, the Daily Telegraph said that this whale is a white elephant. That's confusing. And then there was some blubber left in the fourth week of this incident. And the council swooped down and just got rid of the blubber because it had stunk the whole town out. So the doctor was left with the bones. He had the bones, which he did display on Boscombe Pier.

There's some pictures of that. You can see it from the beach. So I don't think he would have got away with charging people to come and see the bones because you could see them because it was a whale. It's really big. And also, that's where it was only a year ago. People probably aren't that bothered.

You want to take it somewhere where they didn't have a whale wash up on the beach in the past five years. Take it on the road. Yeah. They were just scrapped. They just ended up in the scrapyard, their bones. Dr. Simpson, he needed to make his money back. So what are you going to do in this case?

I'm now seeing him in a similar state to the whale when he arrived. Little hat with the little tin can flap at the top, bindle containing the three shillings he got for selling the blubber. He hit rock bottom. What's he going to do? He's going to put a show on. He's going to do the show right here. He's going to do the show right there at Boscombe Theatre,

at the Grand Theatre in Boscombe. He put on a concert and a lecture entitled Wonders of the Deep. We come to opening night. First on the programme is a nine-part concert by a choir and the Musical Society. It's meant to have sea shanties and a song called The Wailer's Song. The curtains open and Dr Simpson comes out.

There will be no choir. I don't know why. Wait, did he say I don't know why? Yep. He came out at the start of a show and said, there's no choir, I don't know why. Yeah. He came out at the start of a show and said, there's no choir, I don't know why. Yeah.

That is terrible showmanship. Yeah. The next part of the show, which he skipped to, was to be the lecture from Dr. Simpson on whales, the hunting of them, the habitats, their diet, talks about their anatomy. At the start of the lecture, the curtain goes up and Dr Simpson's on stage. There's also men dressed as an admiral, an alderman

and a couple of people in Coast Guard jackets. According to the Bournemouth Guardian review, their duties were not explained. During the whole performance, they weren't called on and they just wandered off halfway through. What? This is terrible. And I have been to many open mic comedy shows. And I have never seen anything as incompetent as this.

I once saw an open mic with three audience members where the compere did half an hour between every act. With three audience members. As many as that. It was a high point. You were lucky, mate. We used to dream of three audience members this is sounds like the worst show on earth okay well here's some of the pull quotes

from the bournemouth guardian review disconnected observations fumbled about it was difficult for the adults present to keep tally with the doctor's vagaries or to see why when or where some of them fitted into the subject matter so he's just muttering about stuff. Apparently at one point the mayor came in, saw what was going on and left. Didn't even sit down. Classic mayor burn. Yeah because he's jingling in. Excuse me, excuse me, jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle. Oh this is terrible. Jingle, jingle, jingle. Oh sorry at the start when he began the lecture he placed a stuffed monkey on the table and said it would keep an eye on the proceedings.

Don't know why. Oh, so that didn't become important later, like in the magic show? No, no, no, no, no. There was a school trip there of like 150 kids because they were obviously going to go learn some stuff about whales. And after the teacher sort of realised after about an hour that this madman wasn't going to teach his kids anything apart from the dangers of buying a whale they got the kids up and started walking them out as they got to the

door dr simpson appeared at the door and ordered them back to their seats how did he i mean that's impressive how did he do that nobody noticed he wasn't on stage yeah exactly his his show was so unengrossing he left the stage walked around the outside without anyone realising. While everyone's eye was on the monkey. Yes. That's why it was there, James. The result was considerable confusion and some risk of accidents. And apparently the story, not so much the show story, more the whale side of it, is immortalised in a local rhyme.

Have you been to Boscombe? Have you seen the whale? Have you smelt his fishy smell and sat upon his tail? That's nice because it covers up the disastrous financial choices made by Dr. Simpson subsequent to the whale's appearance. Yeah. Poor guy. That whale was the breaking of him. This reminds me of the exploding whale in Oregon in 1970. Oh, that was like when the internet first happened. Yes. That was like one of the two videos. The video intermittently goes viral. Yes.

And it was Florence, Oregon had the exact same problem. And their local council, instead of selling it to a rube, which is what they should have done, which would have been the more American response, wouldn't it? Just privatise this problem. Let's put it in the hands of an entrepreneur. But instead they thought that blowing it up was the solution i think that is a bit more sort of american let's do the big budget remake of wonders of the deep we're going to start with

an explosion maybe it's easy for us to say this because we live in a post-exploded whale world you know hindsight's 2020 and all that but But I would have thought it would have been quite obvious that blowing up a stinking, rotting carcass of a whale, rather than getting rid of it completely, would have spread rotting whale meat across a large radius. Yeah. James, it'll shock you. This is exactly what happened.

Yeah, it seems like... I remember that very funny video, because they're like, everyone's really excited, up until, what is it, about two seconds after the explosion? The explosion is very much the turning point. Yeah. Everyone's really pleased with themselves. And then it's raining blubber. It's like a seven-year-old came up with that idea, isn't it? Yes. It's a terrible, terrible idea. My favourite bit of moby dick is um

there's a really long bit about what whales are like full of inaccurate statements and there's a bit where he says a lot of people argue that they're mammals because they reproduce the way mammals reproduce but they're not oh and then just leaves it oh yeah just just drops it it's like yeah they were mammals though sorry herman melville that is that's what makes them mammals yeah and he's like yeah they're they're fish-shaped. Sorry. Live in the sea, looks like a fish, smells like a fish. Sorry, is it fish

or is it mammals? I'm sorry, maybe I'm being an idiot here. But, flappy flappy tail, wet body, underwater. I think I know a fish when I see one. You'll be telling me fish can fly next. Does he have a few good ways of getting rid of whale? It goes into incredible detail about how you hitch it to the side of a ship

and the specific way that you peel the blubber off in a really long ring and then fold it into a barrel. It's incredibly complicated and disgusting. It does sound grim. But they do act fast. They don't spend three weeks mulling it over. Do they put a show on, though? So, yeah, that's the tale of the Boscombe Whale.

Incredible. Shall we score? Let's score this whale. Okay. First category, then. We're going to go with naming. Names. Yes.

Okay. Mr. Simpson is quite good because he's sort of like a simpleton. Spencer Simpson as well. So we've got alliteration. Spencer Simpson. He sounds like a Marvel character, but Simpson as well. So we've got alliteration. Spencer Simpson. He sounds like a Marvel character, but his power is making bad choices. The Darth Doctor. We've got Piddlington, Whittling on Sea.

We've got the Piddles. We've got all the Piddles. The Piddles, the Puddles. You've got Pokesdown. Pokesdown. Yeah. Very good. Did the whale have a name?

That's my question to you. Like the Boscombe Beermoth. No, I don't think it did. The Dorset Devil. How could they not have given it a name. That's my question to you. Like the Boscombe Beermoth. No, I don't think it did. The Dorset Devil. How could they not have given it a name? It's just called the Boscombe Whale. It was reported in a publication called The Pick Me Up,

which sounds like an old version of those TV magazines, like TV chat. Like Take a Break. Yeah, Take a Break. Some of them have got really happy names, but they're all about incest on the cover. Yes, my favourite favorite one is that's life because it's so unsympathetic it's always things like nazi dog ate my grandma that's life what you can plan it about grow up could have happened to anyone that's life get over it magazine deal with it monthly yeah no we've got we've got the Receiver of Wrecks,

which is the person who the Crown instructed to sell it. Oh, you didn't even mention the Receiver of Wrecks. Yeah, that's capitalised as well. And that's bringing it up to a four. Yes. Because I was about to go three, because just it's a whale. I mean, not coming up with a good name when you could have had Beast of Boscombe or something.

Yeah, or even like a silly name like Wally. Yeah, Wally the Whale. Or Stinky, Stinky Pete. Anything's possible. Yeah. Moby Dick is a good name for a whale. Is it? Yeah, because it's got a surname.

Like, how does a whale need a surname? Yeah, that is... How many whales do you know? It's like, oh, no, I'm Toby Dick. Yeah. I know, you've confused me with my cousin. Yeah, Mr. Dick. Oh, Mr. Dick's my father's name call me

moby what was mr blobby's first name do you think oh um alan alan blobby i think it was actually uh blobby blobby so that was just he was saying his full name blobby blobby blobby yeah like edward woodward but but blob yeah ed bl Blob. American listeners wondering who Mr Blobby is, don't Google it. Please don't find out. Preserve yourself in this state. Our national shame. Don't look at us. Yeah, whatever your opinion may be of Britain, Mr Blobby will lower it.

Yeah. So it's four out of five for names. Yes. Go on. Okay, then. And now we'll get this out the way. Supernatural. It's a zero. It's a hard zero. Yeah names. Yes. Go on. Okay, then. And now we'll get this out the way. Supernatural. It's a zero.

It's a hard zero. It's a hard zero. I love the story, but these are the rules of the game. I feel... It didn't have anything supernatural in it. I feel bad that I've done that in October, the traditionally one of the spookier months. But what could be spookier than a really awful smell?

Yeah, a stink. A fetid stink. Okay stink okay then we've got nothing in supernatural how about this next category the stuff of actual nightmares oh yeah allow me to explain have you ever had the anxiety dream maybe it's just a performer's thing but have you ever had the anxiety dream when you are about to go on stage and you realize you've no idea why you're going on to that stage yeah all the time all the time near constantly i often get the one where it's like i sort of realize oh this is a shakespeare play okay what i'll do is i'll wait till someone speaks and i'll work out which one it is yeah and i reckon i've got a decent enough command of shakespeare's plays to riff my part

and i get out and go on stage and then everyone's looking at me and i realize i've got the first line oh i've had that one a couple of times and i'm always like kicking myself like thinking like why didn't i just learn the script what why did i think that i didn't need to learn the script you're never asking the real questions like why is there a dual carriageway running through the theatre between me and the audience? Yeah. Why have I got an apple instead of a skull? And my teeth have turned to cream cheese. That's my favourite of my dreams

is the one where I bit an apple and my teeth were made out of toothpaste basically and smeared all over it. I know, you mentioned it in last week's episode. I mention it all the time. It really made an impression on me, that dream. I'd just like to colour this section with a little story from my take, the Gary Barlow story.

We all know who Gary Barlow is, right? I've heard of Gary Barlow. He's a tax-dodging former member of Take That. A current member of Take That because they've reformed. Have they? But they're down to three. Well, I'm sure the exchequer

will not notice the difference. Yeah, but they're down to three. Oh, well, I'm sure the exchequer will not notice the difference. Yeah, but they're claiming for five. What does that mean? They're down to three, but they're still claiming food expenses with five dinners. This is after Gary's gone solo after Take That Split. He presents an award at the Brits. It goes quite well. He comes off stage and there's a telephone call from a hotshot American

fella who says, I want you to play at my pre-Grammy party. Phoning in from the 1920s, was it? Yes. An American bootlegger phoned in. I got a lot of moonshine needs shifting. I hear you got a van. I hear you got one of those

cars with running boards on the side. I want to hang off it with a tommy gun i need you to drive gary barlow what we're gonna do is we're gonna blow up the blubber i got 20 sticks of dynamite whale blubber is worth 300 simoleons i'm gonna flip that whale for a few clams it turned out he actually was worth clams that's the problem with the whale it just turned out he was an innocent fishmonger and then gary barlow's oh no but the the grammys are the day after tomorrow get the voice concord over here so gary barlow gets on the concord flies over gets on the 1920s biplane yeah amelia airheart gives him a lift lucky lindy yeah they're both right wing yeah the spirit of the saint louis

he goes into this guy's office and the guys plays him a remix of a recent song of like an album cut from gary barlow's solo album and gary barlow hears it and he's like i vaguely remember recording this song but this was one of the filler ones from the album and this is also a remix a dance remix he's not a fan of it and the guy looks at him and says gary that's what i want you to sing and he's like oh no i don't like it i don't know the words to the song and he goes no that's what you're gonna sing tonight they go to the sound check he sort of hears half of the song and then he's whisked away to being interviewed by mtv bearing in mind he's got to perform it in a couple of hours he's saying i need a tape i need a tape copy of the song quickly fellas he doesn't manage to get a copy of the song and he basically finds himself on stage in front of bobby brown whitney houston aretha franklin shaka khan george michael and he has to dance along to

a song and this is gary barlow dancing yeah And sing it, and he doesn't know the words. And I just, as much as I dislike Barry, Barry Garlow. We actually wanted Barry Garlow. Yeah, I thought you were Barry Garlow. You made a mistake. That is a horrible, horrible thing to have to do. Poor Gary Barlow. Poor Gary Barlow. Poor Gary Barlow.

Oh, no. That is the stuff that nightmares are made of. And that, I think, is what happened to poor Dr Spencer Simpson when he realised his choir hadn't turned up and he would probably anticipated using the choir time to just finalise his notes for his big speech. Yeah. I mean, I slightly hold him responsible for not

booking the choir as the promoter. Yeah. My worst gig story doesn't compare to Gary Barlow's. Whitney Houston wasn't even there.

No. She wasn't even present to witness it. Do you think she ever heard about it? I mean, maybe George Michael told her, but probably not. A 1am gig

at the Edinburgh Fringe in espionage. Isn't that opposite Major Weir's house? Yes, it is opposite Major Weir's house from a few episodes ago. It may well have a similar curse. I remember just getting very confused on the steps in there a lot of times in Edinburgh. So the audience make-up of Edinburgh shows is usually quite mixed

and it's quite international. But on weekends, that's when the locals go out and they go out and have you know they go out have a few drinks and then when they're drunk they decide you know what i might ruin a drama student's evening and so they go to see a show and when i arrived at this gig it was already underway and the audience were all chanting the name of a comedian over and over and again which i thought to begin with i thought was a good sign he wasn wasn't on stage, which was weird. Oh. In fact, he wasn't present in the room.

Oh. I went over to the person running the gig and said, what's going on? And they said, oh, they're all chanting the first act's name, even though that person left the room quite a while ago now. They're still chanting that person's name. And I said, well, did he do really well? And they said no.

Oh, the opposite. The opposite. I think the audience was sarcastically chanting the name of somebody who had done quite badly so i so i was closing so i had no idea what i was going to do and it's one of those things where they're so drunk even if you say something witty back to what they have said it doesn't land because nobody's listening yes everybody's talking and no one's listening so so you can't even do basic banter yeah i had 10 minutes to do had you brought your stuff monkey no but my semi-scottishness is what is my one asset i'm half scottish nice no you didn't bring your a game you brought your ig exactly and so i just sang i would walk

500 miles and i would walk 500 more just to be the man who walks 5,000 miles to fall down at your door. And when they said, back at that point, I knew it was going to be all right. You charmed them. Yes, like a Scottish snake charmer. Like a siren. So I just sang a series of Scottish songs. I sang, O float of Scotland,

when will we see? And those are all the words I know, but luckily they joined in. And I got away with not knowing any of the words. And it closed on Auld Lang Syne. Nice. And got out of there before any of them left the building. Wow.

And still I think that was a better performance than Gary Barlow. James, this is a five out of five. It is, isn't it? I've forgotten the category. It's the stuff that nightmares are made of. It's a recurring five out of five that'll wake me sweating. Yeah, it's a five out of five that you tap on the shoulder, but when it turns around, it has no face.

Yes. Oh, and you realise it was still a five. You're still in the five. Yeah, well done, James. Thank you. Okay, final category which i suppose is kind of related stinking up the place oh yeah oh yeah i've done that at gigs as well yeah um absolutely what a smelly whale and mr simpson going on stage dr simpson sorry

he didn't go to incompetent medical school to be called mr simpson by me it's not the stinkiest story no it's not the stinkiest story we've ever covered on the podcast it's no everything about hull it's no hull but by dorset standards is very very smelly but it's also stinky in more ways than one i think it's a four i'm gonna give it i'm gonna give it a four because the show was so very bad i bet that stuffed monkey must have honked a bit if he's shown this level of incompetence at just moving something, I don't think he's got much taxidermy skills. Yeah, no, they probably killed the monkey by blowing it up in the first place.

And then just stitched it back together. Don't ask him how much you paid for the monkey. I think it's a four out of five. Okay. For stinking up the joint. Stinking up the joint. Okay. That's good.

You should be very pleased with that. I don't... I can't see how it could have smelled anymore. They could have blown it up, James. They could have blown it up. They could have spread that smell over a wider area. Yes. Talk to Florence, Oregon if you want to know what a really stinky whale smells like. What does she know? Also, I'm reading the Wikipedia page for

exploding whale, and there's a lovely little other note which, just at the bottom, says whale corpses are regularly disposed of using explosives. However, whales are usually first towed out to sea. You can just see people slapping their foreheads, like, of course, you'd blow it up at the sea. Oh, why didn't someone say that? so yeah that's the old uh boscombe whale i think we all learned a lot there well not his talk we didn't we learned how not to pretend and talk on whales

absolutely dreadful don't bring a stuffed monkey to a whale talk you've been listening to lawmen with me alistairair Beckett-King. And me, James Shakeshaft. And if you've enjoyed it, you can like and subscribe, send us a tweet, recommend us to a friend, or give us some money on ko-fi.com forward slash lawmen. So we could all buy stuffed monkeys, or we could buy stuffing and just hope a monkey dies near us.

That was the two sort of original viral things, wasn't it? It was blowing up the whale and the story of the man with the gerbil up his bottom. I've never heard that story. Oh, basically, it's a guy trying to tell, like a newsreader, someone is rushed to hospital with burns up their bottom, in the inside of their bottom. Ooh. And their partners rushed to hospital with a broken cheekbone.

And it was basically that, using a tube, they'd inserted a gerbil into the man's bottom but the gerbil had refused to come out so they tried to tempt it out with a flame why would that tempt it out i don't know that's where it falls apart and it ignited the methane in the man's guts uh caused an explosion which fired the gerbil out into his partner's face. Didn't happen. No, that didn't happen. Didn't happen. At this point, I'm confident that that didn't happen. Fine.

Okay, then. Bums aren't guns. Oh, there's the birch. I know this isn't a sceptics podcast, but no, I don't believe it. You're not having that one. Don't believe it. Of all the things we've covered on the podcast... Yeah, that's the one that went too far.

The gerbil-firing bum gun is where you draw the line. The anal rodent cannon is... I do not believe that. The ARC. If there is an incident involving a bum-based gun, we're going to have to pull this podcast. I'd hate that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If someone did ever manage to turn their bum-based gun, we're going to have to pull this podcast. I'd hate that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If someone did

ever manage to turn their bum into a gun, I don't want people to think that I would laugh at that. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to get emails saying my uncle was bum-gunned to death. I suppose you think it's funny to turn a bum into a gun, do you? I suppose you think that is a topic for

humour. It's people firing animals out of their bottoms. I suppose you think that is funny, do you? Cancelled. I'm sorry, we let everyone down. Bums don't kill people. People kill people. They're trying to take our bums, James. The Democrats are trying to take our bums.

The right to bear bums.