Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep64: Loremen S3 Ep64 - Robin Ince - Grim's Ditch

Episode Date: April 15, 2021

Robin Ince (R4's Infinite Monkey Cage & The Cosmic Shambles Network) takes the Loremen for a meander along Grim's Ditch. On the way, they encounter everything from 1970s horror films to 1970s folk horror films. Plus some very lazy ghosts, a prophetic river and a film franchise that will doubtless rival the great trilogies (Back To The Future, The Godfather and Big Momma's). Loreboys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod 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 Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And in this episode, we're joined by comedian, podcaster and self-proclaimed beatnik Robin Ince for a psycho-geographical tour of... The Chilterns. The Chilterns. Which sounds like a sitcom.

It could be a new one, The Chill Town. Oh, cool. The young people will enjoy that joke, James. What, the ones that don't listen? Shut up! Shut up, they'll hear us. With their pin-sharp hearing that young people have. I broadcast this at the Mosquito Pitch to keep youths away from my house.

It's the story of Grimm's Ditch. One of the Grimm's Ditches. There's more than one. Hello, James Shakeshaft. Oh, hi, Alistair Beckett-King. I love the surprise in your voice there. I know. Very sort of afternoon special. Oh, hi, Alistair Beckett-King. I love the surprise in your voice there. I know. Very sort of afternoon special. Oh, hello there.

Oh, hello, Alistair Beckett-King. You've come to see me in my shed. Yes. Do me a favour, James. What I'd like you to do is I'd like you to stand up, walk out of the shed, and you should see a little grotto in front of you. Can you see that?

Yeah. Okay, now just walk north into the grotto. Yes. Okay, and on the floor you should see a knapsack in front of you. Have you got it? Yep. Yep. There's what appears to be an out-of-work actor dressed as a jester here.

Shall I just ignore him? Yep, try not to be distracted by that. Certainly. And don't step on the blue tiles. Okay. Inside the knapsack you should find an obsidian mirror. Can you see that? I don't know what obsidian means.

It's not important. It's a black volcanic rock. Okay. What happens is, is i mean i shouldn't have to go into this james but what happens is when magma cools very quickly crystals don't have time to form go on and so you get a very smooth glass like rock right okay so that's what obsidian is and it's used in scrying mirrors and that's i don't know what scrying is either all right well look i'm just trying to introduce the guests and you're making it very difficult. Look into the mirror, James.

I'm making it difficult. You've built a grotto in my garden that contains an obsidian mirror. I've done my bit. That's crying. Obsidian? Obsidian. Look in the mirror, James. Oh, it's like when your phone runs out of batteries.

There's a guest law person in the mirror. Can you see the guest law person? Oh, yeah, I'm making him out now. It's the law person in the mirror can you see the guest law person oh yeah i'm making him out now it's the fairest in the land it's the incredibly patient robin ince who's remained silent during all of that absolute piffle hello robin thank you for being a guest law person what i loved about that was when you did that knowing obviously that i'm overly verbose that the fact that you said we're doing an intro't worry, it won't take long, because you could already see, oh, God, is he going to be able to be bloody quiet

for one minute and 12 seconds? I'm entirely uncertain whether that's possible. I'm in the mirror, Drew. Tap, tap, tap. I was worried you were going to jump in and correct my explanation of how obsidian forms, to be honest. Oh, no, don't worry about that. I've got a man who does all my science for me.

So I named all that. I'm sure the geologists on Twitter will be all over me. Oh, no, not geology Twitter. That's the worst kind. We did an Infinite Monkey Cage, the Radio 4 show I do, we did one on geology. When the two geologists talked about the fact that sometimes you just chew on a rock to get a sense of what the rock is.

What? The audience found it hilarious. And they were going, no, no, no, you really do. I mean, you don't chew hard. I mean, especially if you're 52 like me. I can't even have one of those little eclair toffees, let alone a piece of obsidian or anything else. But there's just a little...

So you kind of just play with it in your mouth and you will get a sense of what form of rock it is. It's obviously 100% accurate, but it will manage to narrow down to some extent. If you're in a cat-heavy area, you find out that's not a rock. Oh, yeah, never. I mean, if you're actually buying cat litter and you want to know the quality of the cat litter,

that's a disaster. Certainly not used cat litter. I think Gwyneth Paltrow recommends it for something or other. I think you're meant to pour warm cat litter up your bottom or something and it's probably good for halitosis. I don't know. But if you are chewing cat litter, there's no better way of getting a sense of the absorbency.

This is low-dusting. I think if John Waters did the Home Shopping Channel, there would be a bit where the ghost of divine would appear. I just watched that. Pink flamingos. No, I'm thinking of the... The shopping channel?

QVC, that's the one. Very disturbing. Disturbing, outlandish, garish. And expensive. It really challenged what I thought about a lot of things. Yeah, amazing. But I have a great pen. If anyone needs any cans pierced i'm your guy i'm confident that

the listeners to our folklore podcast will be familiar with your infinite monkey cage output and the cosmic you are the overlord of the cosmic shambles network yeah that is where i reign in my mystical land yeah which is it's so much i mean it's one of those things which i'm sure as you found as well during lockdown trying to just things, because if you don't create things, that's all we are. That's all we are, isn't it? We turn up to gigs or we make something, we film something stupid. It doesn't really matter. The audience are secondary, useful should they wish to pay us.

But the main thing is that I think it's an interesting division that you see in times like this of just how much some people creating is a very very necessary part of their existence it's not in any way uh a game plan for a job it is and i think it's it's an act of kind of trepanning i always think you know which is you know even though i know trepanning probably actually wasn't about getting out the bad thoughts and there's a lot of new evidence about trepanning and what it actually but using the traditional sense that trepanning was, I will drill a hole in my head and all the devils are coming out. I think you're right.

I think there's a sense in which we're all, we're trees in the woods looking around and going, well, there's nobody here, but I'm going to fall anyway because that's my thing. I might as well do it. I mean, that's what I love about the cosmic shamesty. It's an excuse to have conversations with people who just have knowledge which is way beyond me.

And I think that's why I'm lucky about ending up doing stuff in science as well, is to have on kind of quick dials and go, I don't seem to understand black holes today and the idea that we might all merely be holograms. Hang on a minute, I've got someone's number in my phone. I think they've studied that. Which I guess is why we've come to you as the the metatron of all knowledge the um the cosmic shogun correct me if i'm wrong but you you grew up on the cusp of hartfordshire and booking i'm from the northeast of england so all of these places are just meaningless

naughty towns to me um where are you from robin? Well, it is, I mean, the thing that makes it easier is it is the kind of place where Midsomer Murders is filmed a lot. Yes. So it's not far from Great Missenden, I think, which is, I think it's also where Roald Dahl had his house. I think it was Great Missenden. There's a small museum there, I believe. So I'm not far from there.

That was where I was born. Sometimes I've been touring. I remember being inbane and turning on a tv at like 11 at night in the hotel and going oh that's where i was born because it was a midsummer murders where there'd been some kind of rivalry over a herbaceous border that led to you know uh canny use of a scythe and uh so yeah it's just on that kind of border just around around the Chiltern Hills. Dirty Dozen was filmed here. The Dirty Dozen? Yeah, the Dirty Dozen with Lee Marvin and Ernest Bork. I possess some quite poor quality photos of the backs of their heads in a Jeep.

Dirty Dozen was filmed before I was born, but apparently my sister, who would have been five, did have her picture taken with Lee Marvin, but no one knows where that picture is. That is one of the great folkloric traditions of the Chiltern Hills area, is those who apparently met Lee Marvin, and yet there is no evidence for it. It was said that Lee Marvin could be seen, but never the front of his face, so the back. Whoever saw his face would die the very next day.

What's that rumbling noise in the distance? Is it Marvin's Jeep? Yes. This is the home counties. I suppose this is not that far from your area, is it Marvin's Jeep? Yes. This is the home counties. So I suppose this is not that far from your area, is it, James? We're just the other side of the Chiltern Ridge where the rest of Midsomer Murders is shot.

Tame, where the high street is the high street of Midsomer. Is there a big east side, west side rivalry? I don't know. We've definitely got a Midsomer walking tour and I think you can see the area where Michelle McCutcheon was crushed by a cheese that time. And let's be clear, that is the plot and not a

production accident that you're making light of there. Do I need to explain what Midsommar Murders is in case non-British listeners aren't aware? It's a worldwide phenomenon. I genuinely can tell you from being someone who watches television at you know kind of midnight in various different places in the world eddie peppertone do you know

eddie no i know of eddie certainly wonderful uh american comic and i highly recommend uh um if any if anyone listening this has not seen the documentary the bitter buddha is a brilliant movie about about him and very very very funny um comedian. And he and his wife in LA, they just sit and they watch British Murder Mysteries the whole time. So while we feel the exotica of Columbo on Channel 5, he feels the exotica of Lewis, unfortunately, is a no-go area now, which is, I just can't watch it now because of that silly man being silly. Yeah, Kevin Waitley.

No, he seems like a decent guy. I think he is. I'm pretty certain. I've met him a couple of times and he's all right. Waitley's all right. The balance of the universe, in fact, the all-rightness of Waitley is so great due to the un-all-rightness.

Yes. And, of course, neither of them could exist without the other. No. It's like the Dark Crystal. Only one of them looks like a grotesque No. It's like the Dark Crystal. Ah. Only one of them looks like a grotesque puppet, so that's unfair to Kevin Waitley. I did do a little bit of folkloric research on this area.

Do you know the River the Misborn? Yeah. It goes through Misenden. Apparently at points the river goes underground and then when it rises up and when it's in flood, that's said to be a bad omen. According to Forgotten Folklore of the English Counties, which is collected by Ruth L. Tongue,

and L is her middle initial. She's not like a Spanish wit. It's a bit of a stretch to say that a flood is a bad omen. Like, you could say that about any natural disaster. Like an earthquake's happening, you're like, oh, bad omen. No, it's just a bad thing currently happening, isn't it? It tends to foretell houses falling down

these earthquakes. This river has predicted the fire of London, the plague of London, the death of King Edward VII and the First World War. And this was reported in 1939 when the river was in flood and the person to whom the thing was told

rode home after a long day, stabled their tired pony, and the sirens began their first eerie warning wail for the first blitz. Yeah. It does say a lot, doesn't it, about that kind of patriarchal and reasonably, I suppose, oppressive society that existed that the availability of water was seen as a curse rather than...

Because, as you said, it's not even flooding. It's literally if the river can be seen, if water is available and therefore the market for water that is sold by your local lord is destroyed, it's a bad omen. It's a bad omen for the markets. My understanding is that you know some creepy stuff has happened down your manor. I mean, one of the things that's very beautiful here

is the local manor house, which also, for fans of The Crown, doubled up as Churchill's House Chartwell. You know when you see an oak tree or a large tree that you cannot believe it's still alive because so much of it, it's this incredible hollow. So the whole of the centre is gone. It's a very, I would say it is probably, for an average adult human, it's probably about one and a half arm spans in terms of the girth of the trunk. And that was apparently where, when Queen Elizabeth I visited the manor house, she hid in that tree and jewels were hidden there. Or indeed her jewels merely fell off.

I heard that she lost her jewels. Why was she hiding? Within that oak. Do you know what? Back in the old days, there were a lot of oak trees. And the Virgin Queen, I'll tell you what, I don't know an oak tree where she didn't lose her jewels. For the listener's benefit you took a little sip of tea there after that one just black coffee mate i'm a beat nick okay i beg your pardon you don't read this much carawack

and have tea at this time of day but yes so it's got and also there are lots of things like there's a a series of of what are kind of considered to be passages where monks would have hidden during the Reformation. Oh, we love a monk's tunnel. I love a priest's tunnel or a monk's tunnel. Yeah, and they're great. There's a few of those, though apparently my dad, sometimes this manor house is now actually open to the public, but it used to only be open on very special occasions. If the sealed knot came, for instance, to reenact the Battle of Naseby or similar.

And the sealed knot, by the way, because I think that is, though Midsummer Murders travels, I would imagine anyone listening in, say, Idaho will not know about the rich tradition of battle reenactments in the UK. Oh, I don't know. Oh, really? They know about battle reenactments but probably not that the tradition of reenacting civil wars came from over here yeah i suppose because they

haven't yet reached the point where they're distant enough away from a civil war to actually start reenacting it does feel it's being lived it feels like in america there's a real risk that a reenactment of the civil war could just start a new Civil War at the moment. And it's probably just not worth the trouble. We all enjoy costumes, but come on. Just a bit of cosplay. But my dad, when he would sometimes be asked to volunteer to take people around the priest holes, would explain that

they were mainly actually sewage. Some monks did have to hide there, but they weren't hiding in apparently purpose-built priest holes. They were making use of the sanitary equipment that could fit a man and his hessian. So there's a sort of a teleological error that we've assumed design in seeing a priest in a hole.

We've assumed that the hole was made for the priest rather than that the priest has simply made use of a pre-existing hole. I've done this, because I've never thought of it from a teleological perspective, but it's quite clear you're right. So yeah, that's the kind of thing and the house that I was brought up in was built on the site of an old inn, the Goat Inn. So when I was a kid I would have the great excitement

if you went digging in the garden you'd find lots of bits of clay pipes as I'm sure people have enjoyed that kind of thing. So it's that there's nothing though in terms apart from the fact that the Peter Cushing film Trial by Combat was made here, which is a Peter Cushing film which very few people have seen, very similar to George A. Romero's Knight Riders,

which is a George A. Romero film that's very rarely seen. It turns out that actual battle reenactment movies are not very popular. I don't know if you've seen either. Have you seen Knight Riders? I have not, James. If it's got nothing to do with the David Hasselhoff TV series, then no. No, Night Rides is about...

Ed Harris is in it, quite an early outing for Ed Harris. And it's about a bunch of people, and Tom Savini as well, the make-up artist for George R.R. Mayer as well, who acted in stuff as well. And they go around from town to town doing various things with lances and all of that stuff, but on motorbikes. So they're kind of medieval knights, but on motorbikes.

So they're kind of medieval knights, but on motorbikes in the 20th century. And Trial by Combat, the Peter Cushing movie, has a similar thing, but obviously without the motorbikes because British film industry did not have that kind of budget in 1976. But if you want to see a guy on a tricycle with a lance, that's the film. We haven't got a lance, but we have got a little bell. So this fight scene is...

It's not so much a fight scene now. It's you just going round the circle here in this farmyard ringing the bell. But at each other. Yeah. One of you has tinnitus. There's a lot of jeopardy. There's a lot of jeopardy here. The manor house you mentioned, is that Chaney's Manor?

Is that the name of it? Chaney's Manor House, yeah. You didn't say the name. You're trying to keep the village a secret. Would you rather I didn't broadcast the name? No, name no no no it's far too late for that now i mean it was there used to be a mist around it and we called it luffville which of course was an anagram for ghoulville and uh i will throw in any chance where i can use a reference to the monster club any you've seen the monster club i don't think so right i know this is not technically an

obscure niche 1970s culture show, but I would like to apologise. Anything I appear on will eventually become that. The Monster Club is the first film that I ever saw from a video rental shop. It's Vincent Price and John Carradine and James Lawrenson, who is a brilliant actor who is in it, wait, I forgot. And it's about the club where the monsters hang out. Vincent Price tells three stories, three terrifying stories.

One about the Shadmock. The Shadmock, which whistles, has a very powerful whistle. Oh, I had a mate like that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this one's not an annoying whistle. This is a whistle that kills. It's a very different thing. Which is a little annoying.

Yeah. More than annoying. To be killed by a whistle. Yeah, that's the thing. It's more than annoying. Yeah. There's a whistle that gets on your nerves. There's another that actually eats into and ultimately melts all your physical structure.

I had a mate like that. Is that the tagline for the film? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me tell you about a whistle. Are you sure this is going to sell? We'll have the whistle on the poster and everything. Sorry, I can't remember what you asked me at the beginning of the show, and this has really not gone into any direction that's usable for you.

Just wondered if you were recording. Yeah, I'll delete it now, shall I? Yeah, it's probably for the best, isn't it? I think eventually there's going to be a podcast I do where someone will finally go, I've been listening. Can I diagnose you now? Can I? You're listening to What's Wrong With Robin Ince. I think I asked you about Cheney's Manor.

Oh, yeah, the manor house, right, so yeah. Cheney's Manor, or as I believe it used to be called, Cheney's Palace, which is quite exciting, even though there is no person called Cheney's because Cheney's is the name of the village. Originally, Eisenhamstead or Iron Homestead. There we are. And it has a very beautiful church, St Michael's, which has the Bedford Chapel, so the Bedford family, the Russell family,

who, Bertrand Russell, sadly, who's the member of the Russell family, was not buried here, but most of the Bedfords were, who are now at Woburn Abbey. And I believe that in the Bedford Chapel, one of the people who's buried there was beheaded and then pardoned, and so their head was then sewn back on.

In looking into Cheney's Manor, I found a fantastic book. So in the mid 1950s, the Duke of Bedford, his family by then no longer lived in Cheney's Manor, but they had. And he was, my understanding is that according to the book, that the Duke himself was basically penniless. Now, I don't know what the Duke version of being basically penniless is, but there's a little sort of about the author thing where it tries to win your win you over to the duke and it says how he had to go off to south africa and become a fruit farmer because

what could endear you more to a white british aristocrat than having been a farmer in apartheid south africa what hardship he must have undergone but the the book itself i just i really like the cover so oh yeah silver plated spoon yeah both of these covers to a silver plated spoon which i The hardship he must have undergone. But the book itself, I just, I really like the cover. Oh, yeah, Silver Plated Spoon, yeah. Both of these covers to A Silver Plated Spoon, which I hope we will be able to tweet out, fill me with enormous delight. Yeah.

Especially the caption on one of them, an enterprising young duke. I mean, if you look at the picture of him, young is a stretch. And I think enterprising is also a stretch. Yeah, but you also know that young thing, you must sometimes watch Talking Pictures TV or something like that, and you see some actors who are all in their late 50s, and then you look them up on IMDb and go,

wow, they were all 24 years old. There is something very interesting. Genetics doesn't really seem to have found out yet. But then also then they stay at that age. So there's a kind of point of adulthood turning directly into middle age but they're not really passing beyond that either is it meant to be sort of a bad thing that rather than having a silver spoon he's only got a silver plated spoon he only got a silver plated spoon yeah i've got it for you mate we didn't even have

a spoon yeah we have to share it but he tells the story of the Rye House plot, which is where you got the beheaded William Russell, who is in the fabulous mausoleum. The Encyclopedia Britannica refers to the Rye House plot as an alleged plot, which is really hedging their bets for something that happened in the 17th century, I think. Well, do you know what? Yeah, libel laws when that was put together. I don't think that passage in the Encyclopaedia Britannica

has actually been updated since 1814. So that would be some things people go, things have changed. You know what? We have to change the chapter about how sawdust ultimately creates mice babies. Whereas, yeah, I think some things are unchanging and therefore left untampered with. To be fair, he did have his head sewn back on. So perhaps it was an alleged plot.

Maybe this is it. Supposedly, a group of nobles, including William Russell of Professor Yaffle Heritage, well, the ancestor of the cartoon bird, Professor Yaffle, he and others plotted that when Charles II was riding past Rye House, he was to be executed. But that didn't happen. How were they going to do it? The old wire?

The old cheese wire across? I don't know. I don't know what the plan was. Just shove him. Give him a shove. Alleged plan was, obviously. And they were found out, and he was beheaded. But his head was sewn back on,

and now he, head and all, are buried. And the tomb is meant to be one of the finest in England. It's very beautiful. I've never actually been into the chapel. It's opened very rarely. You can get into the... We used to be able to get into the main church. There's that sheet of flames that comes up every time you try and go in as well, isn't there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need the gold key, James. Have you not found the gold key yet? But yeah, it's very beautiful. You need the gold key, James. Have you not found the gold key yet? But, yeah, it's very beautiful. And it always used to excite me as a child to think that there was someone beheaded who had then... I mean, I presume now, sewn back on, that won't have made any difference.

Because whatever was... You and your rationalism, you and your pessimistic scepticism. Have a dream for once, Robin. Well, I don't know what the medical world was at the time. I don't think it would have cured it. Yeah. Is it called re-heading? Recapitation, I think, is the technical term.

And Cheney's manor is supposedly haunted. And this shocked me. I can't find a single corroborated account of the haunting there what one tour guide has a long passage about the house and ends by saying that the attic is all one open floor full of ghosts and that's all the information just it's just full of it's known for having some of the laziest ghosts that's the thing what used to draw people there was its incredible laziness not very far away from you is Grimm's Ditch also known as Grimm's Dyke also known as Graham's Dyke not as good much much worse a name and there are a lot of Grimm's Dykes James you told me there's a Grimm's

Ditch near you yeah there's one we've got a little bit of something called Grimm's Ditch it seems that's something that cropped up all around the country. Yeah. According to the book Records of Buckinghamshire, 1858, which I daren't ask Robin if he's read because he probably has. I haven't. I'm quite excited by this. It's a catalogue of the landscape and antiquities of Buckinghamshire.

Grim's Dyke. It's called both Ditch and Dyke. And, of course, it is both. It's a ditch and then it's called both Ditch and Dike. And of course, it is both. It's a ditch and then it's a dike, depending on which side you're approaching it from. And it's still there. It's not that deep, but it goes on for quite a long way. And according to the book in 1858, even at that time, the country folk of the region believed it to stretch all the way around the world, which I thought seemed a little bit fanciful. But then thinking about how flat earthers still exist now, I suppose it is plausible that you could find one person

in Buckinghamshire who thought that... Who just couldn't be bothered to go all the way along. Who just couldn't be bothered to check if anything was on the other side of the dyke. Probably around the world or something. I'm going back to bed. Records of Buckinghamshire says that Grahams, Grahams or grim's dyke is believed to have been executed by lollius urbicus lollius yes he was one of the most amusing roman generals uh son of roffelius urbicus and lamauius urbicus we all

remember them there was their annoying cousin IIRC. Apart from Lollicus, the other person who is credited with having built it is, of course, the magician Guy de Gravard or Guy de Gravard of Tring. Oh, yeah. I have to say, just over the border in Hertfordshire, there's some fantastic names.

We've got Gubblecoat, Bullbeggers Lane. I know that very, very well. A Bullbegger is one of the oldest names for a type of fairy. Watford. Oh, yeah. Amazing names. The book records that they believed the Great Dyke was more than a match for the sea, and like the sea serpent, drags its length along beneath the surface.

And the name Grimm's Dyke, it might have been named after a Graham, but the connection made by this book is the apparently Saxon word for magician, Grimma, which also sometimes means devil. The writer says, we may fairly interpret Grimsdyke as the ditch of the wizard. And from this point on,

basically everything about it sounds like a prog rock album. It's a weird or wizard spot, and upon its bank, nothing of good omen happens i've been told in perfect good faith by one who dwelt near it that on grim's dyke the unhappy jane shaw perished being starved to death by king richard's order now uh jane shaw was the mistress of edward the fourth who fell out of favor and you know that thing in game of thrones where one of the ladies had to

walk around naked i haven't seen it. Do you know the scene I mean? I've not seen it. I've not seen it. Are we the three people who haven't seen Game of Thrones? Jane Shaw was the inspiration for, I think, Cersei Lannister, apologies listeners, being humiliated. She was forced to walk the streets of London wearing only a shift or something like

that. And the story is people were forbidden to help her and her baker who gave her a penny loaf or a halfpenny loaf was executed for having given her that loaf upon Grimsdyke. Although I've checked, and that happens in a play called The Tragedy of Jane Shaw by Nicholas Rowe, 1714, and not in what we would usually think of as reality. I was thinking that because Grahamsdyke is kind of the antithesis, because sometimes finding out that Grimsdyke might be Grahamsdyke is the opposite of Bunhill. Because Bunhill, you go, oh, Bunhill, a fun name, Bunhill, Bunhill. Oh, it's Bonehill.

Oh, it's the hill of bones for the destitute and lost. All these mixed messages. So now to the scores. Are you ready to score this I was about to use the word ramshackle but it's negative this somewhat meandering episode of Lawmen okay our first

category is naming naming okay what do you think of the names well I love Grimms Ditch Graham's Ditch but I less like Graham's Ditch okay I like the devil it's also the devil's ditch or the devil's dyke as well yes but i don't think the devil's ever been called graham the silliest name i heard for the devil was roger recently oh yeah yeah roger's storms or something

um tornadoes were called something like roger storms because you weren't really you don't really want to say the devil's name so you said said Roger instead. So they called him Roger. I don't think he's ever been called Graham though. Well, there used to be a serial called Golden Lucifers. And then they changed it. So I think there was... I prefer Choco Beelzebubs. We've got the village of Tring.

Come on. Gobblecoat. Bull Beggars Lane. Guy de Gravard. The Alchemists. His mate, I think his mate is John Bond as well. He had a sidekick called john bond and they vanished a house which um sometimes appears as a ghost oh our first ghost house

of the podcast oh very nice yeah i it's strong on naming and of course we've got every every british actor from the 1970s every male british actor from the 1970s because they didn't they didn't have women in films in those days. There would usually be one, but that was considered the limit. That's what the posters used to say. They'd say Vincent Price, Nicky Henson, a woman. That was it. I'm going to go with

a four. A four out of five? I like Grimm's Ditch. It's got a good feel to it. Nice. Okay, I'll pop that in the ledger. Thank you very much. I'll just inscribe that on the vellum. The second category that we're pitching towards you is supernatural. A ditch, James. Explain that.

That might have been made by a wizard or Graham. I'm going to go three. I'm going to go three because we've basically got a devil or wizard called Graham and there was an attic full of ghosts. So you're going to get just a three as a job lot for your attic full of ghosts. Your open plan ghost house. There's also, let's not forget, the beheaded recapitated

and that haunting possibility. That sounds like pure science to me. Fair enough. Three, that is completely unreasonable, but we haven't time to complain. So, for the sake of the listener, we're a little over time. Next category is

The Postgate Always Rings Twice. Which is... A.K.A. 70s oddities and miscellanea. Well... Now, come on, James. I mean, if I could give you 70 out of 5, it would definitely be the score. I think...

This reminds me very much of the Iron Cloak from 1976 with Steve Trousers. Have you seen that? No. It's a classic. Steve Trousers, John Trousers, no relation, and a woman. Oh, a woman out of the Vincent Price films. Yes, yes, you have seen it. Yeah, it's got to be five.

It's got to be full marks. Fantastic. It's a whiz bang. And our final category, Recapitation. Oh, yes. How many times did it happen? Oh, come on, James.

It happened once. No, I, yeah, no. It was fully recapitated. I'll give you a four, but I'll take that little extra one and I'm going to screw it back on. I'm pretty sure that's how they did it. Like a bottle of matey.

For American listeners, Google it. For American listeners, you're on your own. Yeah, soz. Robin Ince, thank you so much for being a deputy law person. It's been wonderful to have you on the pod. We've wanted this for such a long time and COVID got in the way. And now regretting it for even longer afterwards, which I think is good. Absolute nightmare

come the edit, but recording it was a delight. Editing it... If you want me to... I can come back. I can script everything I've said. I'm sure we can work an in and out that will work. I'm so sorry. No, this has been wonderful. I don't think we have time for you to plug everything you're up to,

but I understand that you've just finished writing a book. Is there anything you'd like to plug to the flaming nerds who listen to our podcast? That's fine. I mean, if they want to go to CosmicShambles.com, I've had a lot of nice times doing a new series called Tips for Existence, and I've got an episode with Neil Gaiman

that's coming up, which is a lot of fun, and Tim Minchin and Andrean, and Francesca Stavrocapullo, who, if you've not had on this, you should, who's a great atheist Bible scholar from the University of Exeter. I haven't even read the Atheist Bible. Do you know what? It's not that much shorter, it turns out.

The footnotes kind of make it a lot clearer. And also I do a series now called Uncanny Hour, which is me talking to people like Stuart Lee and Alan Moore and various others about some of my favourite kind of odd films. I suppose the folklore one that we've just done is about Derek Jarman's Jubilee, which of course has John Dee and Queen Elizabeth I coming into the kind of dystopian vision of a collapsed London, but also things like Death Line and John Carpenter movies. So they're all over at CosmicChambers.com. Thank you so much, Robin. Thank you very much. Keen-eared listeners might have noticed a couple of references to this episode being somewhat freewheeling, but I think you can't really tell in the edit.

No, I think it's like Robin didn't really know how ramshackle we normally are. And if anything, he brought a slickness and cohesion of thought that has never been there. That said, our Patreons are in for a treat because we're going to upload a mega-chunculus extra from the outtakes of this recording. I think it's going to be longer than the episode.

So if you want to hear all that, it's patreon.com forward slash RawMenPod. We will have to cut the bits where I've planted a Saturday night TV host. Thinking of folkloric films, the film The Shout, based on a short story by Robert Graves with Alan Bates and Susanna York and John Hurt. Have you ever seen that? No. That's a really great, for a folklore, it's about Alan Bates

is someone who is in an asylum and his thing is he has learnt, I think it's in Australia, with one of the Aboriginal tribes that he spent time with, a shout that is so terrifying and so powerful, it will destroy your enemy. Oh, well, that sounds annoying. It is. Yeah.

Just when you think we've got over the whistling. Yeah. Even worse. We just have to take out two of his front teeth, it turned out, and he can't whistle anymore. Oh, he can shout, can he? You didn't mention his other superpower. Wow.

And then even at night, he's got the snore. He drives people to insanity. What a trilogy of films. Well the great thing is those second two haven't been made so I think we can... I think it's a three way on this isn't it really? Oh definitely. This is copyrighted

now by being on the podcast. Yep. We just have to print the podcast out and post it to ourselves and then in comes the money.