Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep65: Loremen S3 Ep65 - The Isle of Thanet

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

Ah, the Isle of Thanet! A place of great antiquity. Some say its name comes from "Ynys Thanatos" - the Isle of the Dead - a folkloric curio which James totally neglects to mention, and instead spends most of the episode talking about rollercoasters. But the ups-and-downs of Thanet don't end there. We also have an over-hyped hero, a touchy ghost and someone called Erminburga. Plus at least one "fun fact" and minimum two murdered princes. (The standard Loremen ratio.)  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 James Shakeshaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-King. This week, Alistair, we're going to Kent again. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the Garden of England. The scrubby front garden of England. Yeah. It's actually been paved over.

Yeah, but it's a lot easier to maintain like that. A little bit of astroturf for the grandkids. With one of them holes for a rotary dryer. Lovely. Right there, there is a little island called the Isle of Thanet. It sounds like a magical place, James. If you think salt marshes are magical, you've got about the right level

of expectation to really enjoy this podcast. I love a salt marsh. We're going to be talking about the Isle of Thanet. So, should we get on to the real deal? Absolutely. Real deal was an unintentional pun on this one because deal is in Kent and this story's happening Kent. Oh, yeah. I've been to deal. I've been to deal.

It's a pleasant seaside town. Great gig. I think I've gigged in the golf club. It was not great. I think I gigged in a sort of cafe bar. I've had a nice gig in a cafe bar there, yeah. But that does have an unbroken route, and you can walk straight out the door unbroken into the sea

if it goes really bad. There's nothing between you and the sea. I agree, like a comedic King Canute. Just go out there, defying the audience to laugh, defying the waves to turn back at your command. And I tell you what, a slap on the back for both of us not doing a joke based on King Canute's name sounding like a swear word.

The C, the C. The C word. Yeah, exactly. But no, we're not talking about Deal. We're talking about Thanet. Ah, Thanet. Spiritual heart of Brexit. Or as it used to be known, Tenet.

But I'm not going to do another Tenet-themed episode. I'm so pleased. Because that was... Imagine if that film had been called Thanet. Hey, Christopher Nolan was Tenet as well. Tenet is the name for Thanet. And you're saying that Thanet is the spiritual heart of Brexit. I am saying that.

And he also did that big film about British people leaving Europe and that being a good thing. Dunkirk. Yep, yep. Coincidence? Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah, it is. Anyway, Isle of Thanet. The Isle of Thanet. A.K.A. Margate. Margate. Margate is the Isle of Thanet. It used to be a little island with salt marshes all round, but as we'll learn later on, they've been drained and filled in.

So it stopped being an island and just started to be part of the mainland? Yeah. Oh. Oh, that's a good reversal. Mm. Mm, interesting. Good for Margate. It's nice to see an island work its way up to mainland through sheer gumption.

Yeah, it's good to see an island like to be part of a mainland. Yeah, well done. Rather than trying to cut itself off. Alright, just leave it, Jack, leave it. We lost, alright? You Ramona. The bums won. I want to tell you, first

of all, I want to tell you about the abbey, the Minster in Thanet. Because there used to be an abbey there. And this is the story of how that abbey came to Minster in Thanet, because there used to be an abbey there. And this is the story of how that abbey came to be. In 670, the past, pre-1000. The past, thank you. Thank you for that bit of context there.

The King of Kent, King Erminred, he was dead. He died. Oh. Had two kids and they were assassinated. Oh. Bad luck. By their guardian and they were assassinated. Oh. Mm. Bad luck. By their guardian and cousin, Egbert.

Never, never trust an advisor. Never trust a grand vizier. Never trust a regent. Just, how do people, Egbert? Mm. That man's got betrayal written all over it. Come on. So he's just Richard III of the Little Ones. Ermin Red's nephew

Egbert assassinated Ermin Red's children. Ethelbert and Ethelred. Wow. Yeah. Presumably this is not Ethelred the Unready. Although, can't have been that ready. He was not. He was deaded. Ethelred the Quite Deady. It's sad

because it was a child. Yeah. But it was in 670 yeah so it was ages ago like is that is it okay yeah it's there and it's all right probably not true well that makes me feel a bit better about taking the mick to be honest yeah but it wasn't egbert that did it he had his man do it as as all posh people do. Oh. These malcontent manservants, they're always the one. Is Lieutenant Thunor. Thunor? Wow, that name doesn't begin with egg at all. No. You can tell

he's not related. Thunor thought, I'm going to need to bury these dead children. And it's at that point where you'd start to reflect on whether your plan was great. I'm sorry, not only have you murdered them, but you didn't even plan how you were going to dispose of the children's bodies. Come on.

He buried those bodies underneath the throne. It doesn't scream plausible deniability, does it? No. How did he get the throne alone with the throne for long enough? He was found out because a light from heaven pointed at the very place where the royal infants lay. And Egbert confessed. So, on the advice of the Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury...

Ah, yes, the younger of three brothers. Alvin and Simon of Canterbury. Yes, yes. The Arch Chipmunks, yeah. The Canterbury Chipmunks, yeah. And then the Pope was Dave. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he could have played it off at that point

when he sat on the throne and a golden light comes down yep he should have gone yeah that's god saying i'm the right king and air and everything ignore the freshly dug dirt around this chair which is now two children higher than it was last week a little bit skew if pay no attention to that i'm the flipping king so they sent for the boy's elder sister, Erminberger. Half rodent, half sandwich. And said, look, I feel really guilty about killing your two brothers.

Is there anything I can do for you? And she said, all I want's a nunnery. So they said, you can have some land for your nunnery. I'm going to release this deer and you can have all the land to the east of it where it runs. Yeah, you've got to be near the coast to pull that kind of a stunt. Yes, so they all agreed to that and that was fine. And then the deer ran off and Thunor noticed

that the route the deer was running was going to leave Ermenberger with some pretty sweet land. So he rode off on his horse to try and stop that deer and bring it in and basically muddy the deal. While he was doing that, thanks to God... Friend of the show. Friend of the show. Actual God.

The ground opened up and swallowed him and he went down alive into hell oh yeah and now that place is called thunor's leap or thunor his sleep and afterwards it was called heggigdale what do you want i don't know if i can say it heggigdale hegg hegg hegg hegg hegg hegg hegg hegg hegg hegg hegg hegg hegg hegg hegg hegg as if to back that up Hegdag. Hegdag. Heg-heg-dag. Heg-heg-dag. Heg-heg-dag. Wow. Heg-heg-dale. Heg-heg-dale. As if to back that up. As if to back that up. As if to back that up, there's no place on the Isle of Thanet that goes by the name of Thunosleap.

Or even Heg-heg-dale. Oh. There's a chalk mine that might have been this hole that they're talking about. Okay. That's about it. So proof. Proof there. Yeah, yeah.

Proof if proof be need be. Well done. So that's one story. Another story. Do you want to know about the hero of Thanet? John Dandelion. Do you know, by the way, fun fact. Do you know what dandelion means? No, I don't know what dandelion.

I mean, yeah, yeah, hold on. Yes, I do. It's a type of flower. Do you know why it's called a dandelion? I've always assumed because it's kind of yellow, like a shaggy lion's mane. Yeah, and it sort of bops around in the sun and that looks like a little dandelion. Like a happy little lion. Yeah, bopping around like a lion would. No.

What? It's from the French and it means dents de lion, the teeth of the lion, because the leaves look jagged. Oh, dents de lion. Sharp little teeth. Ah. So that's what I've taken to calling them this summer. And, oh, it annoys my family.

Yes. Yes, I imagine it would. It's my new whopping. This platform's not even big enough. Lion's Teeth. Yeah. That's a much more dramatic name than Dandelion. Yeah.

So John Lion's Teeth. Johnny Lion's Teeth. With this powerful sword he can save the earth from Kent without really leaving Kent. With a temporal pincer movement. I'm seeing him as a kind of

Brexit He-Man character. Yeah. Skeletor representing the liberal metropolitan elite. Skeletor's blue with stars all on him. Yeah, exactly. Who will serve me coffees if not Romanians and Poles?

No! No, John Dandelion! In History and Antiquities of the Isle of Tenet or Thanet. Banger, absolute banger, that book. From 1723 by John Lewis. Not that one. The shop. Yeah, what about the guy called John Lewis who people keep tweeting at when they have a John Lewis complaint and he's just a guy called John Lewis, not that one, the shop. Yeah, what about the guy called John Lewis who people keep tweeting at

when they have a John Lewis complaint and he's just a guy called John Lewis? Yeah, the one that gets inundated when the advert comes out. Yes, that man. I like that guy. Not him either, I assume. No, no, no, different guy. A couple of hundred years earlier than him, 300 years earlier minimum. Was this person ever knowingly undersold?

Well, I think John Dandelion was a little oversold because he's referred to as a local hero and the only stuff written about him in Law of the Land is that he gave the church a bell and he had a big dog. Yeah. That was immortalised on his brass as lying at his feet. And that's it. You know, I also had a really large pet?

Mm-hmm. He-Man. Lion he roved around on. Cringer? Was that his name, Cringer? Cringer was when he was normal, when he belonged to Prince Adam. Yeah, oh yeah, and he was sort of... Yeah, yeah.

Battlecat was his name when he got... Battlecat. I should have known that you would be fully versed in He-Man lore. When he had the power Cat. I should have known that you would be fully versed in He-Man lore. When he had the power... In Castle Margate. In that church. The bell's not there anymore. Oh, gone.

A chap called Cousins wrote in his book, A Tour Through the Isle of Thanet, he said the dog just looks like a mound of earth or something. What? Is that a word-for-word quote, or is that you putting your spin on it? Okay, I'll give you the quote. I'll give you the quote. It's just if that's what hefor-word quote, or is that you putting your spin on it? Okay, I'll give you the quote. I'll give you the quote.

It's just, if that's what he wrote in his tour, the dog just looks like a mound of earth or something. That probably marks him among the worst writers. He calls the shape at John Dandelion's feet a grassy mound. A grassy mound. Okay. A grassy mound. Well done. You've got to stay in character. Yep.

I must continue to pretend to be Northern, yeah. I'm just giving you little tasters about Margate, because what I really want to talk to you is about Dreamland. Do you know Dreamland? Yeah, it's a mattress shop, isn't it? No, Dreamland Margate. Do they sell beds? No.

Yeah, it's like in the out-of-town shopping area. No, no. There's a Big Tesco, there's a B&M Bargains, and there's a Dreamland. There is probably all of those things nearby. I'm talking about... There isn't McDonald's, but there is a Burger King, so... A Taco Bell. Americans might not know, Taco Bell only just arrived in the UK,

and I've never heard anyone mention it once. I saw one when I went to pool in Dorset and I had to go in. Yep. And what was it like in there? Was there a bell? No, there are no bells made out of taco or otherwise. It's a John Dandelion situation. It certainly is.

Is that what you just said? Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. Yeah. Once again. Yeah. Once again, the listeners to this podcast who came here looking for bells have found themselves sans bell. Anyway, Dreamland Margate.

No, it's not a bed shop it's now closed oldest theme park in england it dates back to 1870 where an area of the salt marsh of thanet had a restaurant built there called uhful Food. Grimmy's Grim Shack. You better like slime. It was The Hall by the Sea. That's a nice name. It's good. Yeah, it was a little sort of cafe restaurant

that had a couple of rides out the back. One of them, weirdly, being a sort of a boat simulator, which seems a bit needless when you're right by the sea yes a little superfluous perhaps you've got to admire the um the vision of that and i'm going to use the word correctly restaurateur because i just discovered that the word restaurateur doesn't have an n in it and it's not restaurateur oh yeah look it up apparently restaurateur oh crazy i know that's we've all been saying literally every single person has been saying restaurateur oh crazy i know that's we've all been saying literally every single person has been saying restaurateur not the word apparently by the way it's soured cream

not sour cream really yeah so the cream itself has grown bitter it wasn't born like that it was made that way which sound that's got more of a dark history i think yeah i like that's like a gritty reboot of sour cream soured cream the dark cream rises all cream rises it does it does yeah dark or otherwise i've got to admire that restaurateur for having the vision of first of all building a restaurant in a salt marsh and and then thinking no no not only i'm going to do that i'm going to invent a whole new thing yeah he, he was a colourful showman called, quote marks, Lord, end quote, George Sanger. And you'd like to think

that he sort of was the working class equivalent of the Earl of Sandwich. That took me a while to get there. Baron Sarnie. Lieutenant Sub. So then, in 1919, John Henry Iles bought it and turned it into a proper theme park.

He installed the Scenic Railway in 1920, which is the oldest roller coaster in the UK. He bought the usage rights from an American man, LaMarcus Adler Thompson, who was born in Ohio, a town called Jersey, in Licking County. Nice. Nice. Ohio seems like the friendliest state, don't you think? Yeah. Ohio? It's Japanese for good morning.

One of my pet peeves is the inaccurate depictions of roller coasters in cartoons because invariably in a cartoon, a roller coaster car will fly off the roller coaster for some reason and then people will drive around in the roller coaster car like it's a bumper car. When, as you and I both know, James, as we both know as men of the world, the whole point of a roller coaster,

the whole point, it's in the name, is that they are rolling and then coasting. There's no engine in the carts. There are rollers in the tracks moving the carts up and then they roll down thanks to friend of the show, gravity. These old, old roller coasters designed by LaMarcus Adner-Thompson,

the father of the American roller coaster. Daddy Rolls. Yeah, Papa Roll. Yeah, he invented this technology and what it was it was the carts would get pulled up to the top of the hill. By farmyard animals? by a sort of machine a sort of crank right a cranking machine and then they would coast on down and then there was a guy on the front with a brake and he would manipulate that brake in order to go around and maintain the

speed that had been built up at the beginning so they there was actually a sort of a driver fun fact oh yes the original jimmy shakeshaft granddaddy shakes the original granddad jim the the beginning of the jimining donkey's son the jimining that's the prequel they used to go my dad and him used to i've been as well to dreamland margaret i think it's a rite of passage uh for the shakeshafts and he used to go and he was such a wag my granddad he would get off he would marry a footballer walk up the side walk up the side and tap the driver on the shoulder and give him give him a little fright he would get out of the while it was moving while it was moving jog along and then tap the driver on the shoulder and like give him a wave being

hilarious being hilarious and then there's just breaking a variety of health and safety guidelines that are there for his safety he was quite the spider-man of his time he had a job is one of his jobs after the war was taking photographs of spider-man yes yeah because they had a lot of stuff that needed demolishing in london after the war because it had been blitzed nice the germans to help out with that then get the ball rolling yeah but they wouldn't finish the job no that's what us good old british bulldog spirit did yeah was finished knocking down our buildings so what like when they had one like just one wall left and they couldn't really push it down because it might hit one of the other buildings that hadn't been bombed next to it. What they had to do, and this was what his job was, was he'd go on the very top of the wall,

like a couple of bricks thick, with a big hammer, and just kind of walk along the wall, knocking it away like a brick at a time, sort of like a video game. Like reverse Tetris. And then he'd turn around and go back along the wall, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and back, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like an old printer.

That was his job. Wow. It was Donkey Shake Shaft that was getting the bricks off the boat. Yeah, so he was knocking the bricks off. Donkey was catching them. Chucking them up. Juggling them. Chucking a policeman in a river.

Do you have any special brick-based abilities that you've inherited? I don't know. I haven't tried. You haven't found your powers yet. It's the sort of thing that I'll just find myself in a pile of bricks and then... You've just built a barbecue. I'd be like Iron Man, but bricks. Like a Flemish Bond Iron Man. I think so.

Flemish Bond is a type of brick. Oh, is it? OK. Yeah, of all people, I thought you would have known that, James. Yeah, I'd have like an exoskeleton made out of bricks and i'd fight crime yeah by chucking bricks at criminals very slowly fight crime yeah that's copyrighted now we'll print out the podcast this out onto a cassette and mail it to ourselves also uh had a problem with authority this granddad jim well he obviously did because he was tapping the driver of a roller coaster on the shoulder. So that has marked him out in my book as a troublemaker. And he did this job as well in Portsmouth when he was in jail there.

Because on a different job that he did, he was handcuffed to the suitcase that had the company's wages in it. Right. And he was given a gun. Wow. And some bullets in case anyone tried to steal the wages from him i don't want to jump ahead in the story but is the person that they should have been worried about jimmy shakeshaft himself it wasn't an inside job they got to the place where

they were taking the thing him and one of the bosses and you know he was pretty nervous because they'd given him a gun so it was obviously yeah yeah and also he wasn't allowed to have it loaded oh you weren't allowed to carry a loaded gun so he had a gun in one pocket bullets in the other was handcuffed to a briefcase but was expected to be able to load a gun under pressure so anyway he got to the location that they were taking it to they opened up the case it was just full of newspaper the boss man he was with opened up his jacket and he had all the money sort of like what attached to him in some sort of so the boss man granddad jim was the decoy he was the patsy yeah they set him up and so he can't believe they did this i retract everything i said about grandpa jim now and then he just punched the boss man in the face and knocked him out yeah fair enough fair play and then yeah went to prison but

but did a bit of wall knocking down in prison. But I think that was part of a job, that they had a wall that wanted to be knocked down. It wasn't some sort of escape. OK. I think we need an in-depth podcast about exactly what went down on that fateful day. Oh, yes. This Thanos life.

Yes. This Kentish life. Ooh. No one would listen to that. And, of course, Dreamland is haunted. Not just by the ghosts of my past. Not just the memory of an elderly gentleman

behaving irresponsibly. Very irresponsibly. On Britain's oldest rollercoaster. There is a ghost. It's not just the ghosts of my childhood and all the rides that are no longer there, such as the log drop. The ghost of a circus strong man and the sex worker that he's supposed to have murdered oh but oh it's the ghost of that woman her unfinished business is pointing out that she wasn't a sex worker oh Okay. In around 95, they were refurbishing the river caves.

Oh. Right. Not as good as it sounded. Very smelly. Just scraping a whole layer of stink off of everything. Accumulated Victorian grime. Or applying stink. I don't know. Or putting on new, modern stink. Yeah, and there was a ghostly goings-on, and they brought in a psychic, and the psychic said that it was a ghostly goings on and they brought in a psychic and the psychic said

that it was the ghost of this woman who was trying to kind of point out that she wasn't actually a sex worker thanks if a psychic said it wow yeah has any story ever been improved by the phrase and so they brought in a psychic has the next thing ever been and then the case was solved i don't think so unless it was they were bringing someone in for fraud. I like the satirical bent you've taken there. But I suppose police are baffled is one thing. Yeah. People repairing a fairground are baffled. It's not the same headline, is it?

Just finish your job. Just finish descaling the limpid pools. Or rescaling. Or rescaling the limpid pools. No, they wanted to check out what was going on. Fair enough. That story, I can find almost no evidence of it, apart from remembering there being a plaque on the wall

when I went in the mid-90s, saying that they think there's a ghost in this tunnel. And I think my dad said something about he knew one of the cleaners and he said there was a tunnel that was scary. Oh, yeah. Scary tunnel. So that's the end. So that's your little whistle-stop tour of the Isle of Thanet. I thought you were going to tell me about the Margate shell grotto.

What? What do you know? Who told you about that? It's sort of a mysterious corridor decorated with shells embedded in plaster all the way around. But nobody knows who made it. Really? It was discovered, yeah, it was discovered in 1835. But nobody knows who made it. Really? It was discovered. Yeah, it was discovered in 1835. And nobody knows when it was made.

There's like an altar there and there's a dome. If you Google Margate Shell Grotto, the pictures of it are fantastic. Wow. But if you have like trypophobia where you don't like holes, which I have, they're a little bit disgusting. How did... And you sort of want to go there and just smash every single shell. It looks like the French catacombs in Paris, where there's all skulls.

It's like that, but with seashells. I've been to a place in New Zealand. Oh, yeah? There's a recreation of this house that this guy covered with shells all inside. I started to cover my house with shells? Oh, yes. I live on a beach. I was bored.

I love in the shill hills you just have to do the wrong vowel and hope it comes out as a new zealand accent that's what i do i'm i'm the shill house guy thing is he didn't really need to sort of point his house because he's like the only house for miles be like i'm that house over there oh i don't know it the shell house oh yeah that one the only house Why do you do it, grotto people? No one knows. If you haven't been in a grotto, it's not nice. Grottos aren't nice.

Something magical about a grotto. They're terribly dank. Yes. The idea of them is magical. The reality of them is bad cave. What about Santa's Grotto? Is Santa's Grotto dank? Or do you mean like in the internet,

it sounds like dank memes? Even when you go to Santa's Grotto, it's a little bit, if you've been to one recently, there are multiple Santas in there. What? Yeah, if you go to a garden centre, which is where they all seem to be nowadays, you realise there's like five little doors and they probably have multiple Santas on the go at any one time. Well, you've got to understand that Santa is really busy around that time of year, James.

He's not going from room to room. If a fire alarm went off, five Santas are bursting out of there. I like the way, rather than thinking that Santa's grottos have always been disappointing and shabby, you think the Santa grottos have got worse since you were a child when they were imaginable, wonderful things. Yes, when it used to be populated by the real santa yes the single real santa was there whereas now he's he's subcontracted well i think if you go to margate grotto i think you'd be

impressed all right then there is a depiction of what is believed to be god you know the way when children do sort of glue pasta onto a page as a drawing of your face yeah yes it's that sort of a tribute to god in that he looks like a triffid oh with a balloon for a face two shells and half a life ring for a smile yes exactly i can't space raiders for a tongue i've got a kiss no can i leave the grotto now? It's Pickled Onion. A pair of Pringle tube legs emerge as he walks towards you. This, God, sounds like a match for Brickman.

Yeah. In an epic fight that will destroy multiple shells. OK, you ready to score? Yes. Number one, names. I love them all i love the old kentish names egglebeg ed begley jr erminberger erminberger eggbert yes all great names not even a name just say a noise beginning with e and there's probably a royal named it yep no they're all great and of course john dandelion johnny lion's tooth yes it's it's a five out of five i'm not prepared to negotiate yes five out of five for names didn't even need to mention

olvid adner thompson from licking county oh i forgot about licking county he was the father of the american roller coaster from from licking county oh yeah i forgot about that guy the moistest town. Daddy rolls. And supernatural. Supernatural. It's a low score. So we've got very defensive ghost. I really tried to bring a lot in. I tried to bring as much in as possible. We've got a god.

We've got a god. We've got, once again, god playing detective. We've got Columbo god. Pointing the finger. Just one more question. What's under the throne? My wife, Mary, she loves you. I've just got a question. We've got a hole straight to hell. Oh yeah,

I forgot about that. Someone got sucked straight to hell. Someone straight to hell. Alright. It's a hearty two. Okay. It's a beefy old two for you. We've got a missing bell. Fine. The past. Okay, that two for you there we've got a missing bell fine uh the past okay that is cheeky i guess all of the stories did take place in the past i think it's a metaphor for the lord sanger yeah who created a boat simulator at the beach i'm really trying to sell you something that's been there all along.

Well, if the category were shabby salesmanship, you would be way out in the lead. But for past, I'm giving you a one out of five and consider it a warning. A warning shot across the bow. The place where dreams are made. Oh, yes. Kent. Kent, yes. The land of dreams are made. Oh, yes. Kent. Kent, yes.

The land of dreams. Some people had a dream, James, that they would be able to buy their produce in pounds and ounces. You know, that they'd be able to have their bananas as bendy as they want without your Brussels bureaucrats interfering with their freedoms. Yeah. Without Jean-Paul Juncker literally kicking them in the face the moment they woke up.

Yeah. They had a dream. We were good British heroes like Jean d'Anderleon. Yeah, exactly. And Najil Farage to kick them in the face. That was the dream. And that's what Thanet, the Isle of Thanet, has given us. Five out of five. Yes. Although thele of Thanet, has given us. Five out of five.

Yes. Although the value of British fives has dropped dramatically compared to the Euro five. The recently refurbished roller coaster had the wrong type of wires and was shut down. That's true. Did that really happen? Yeah. The wrong type of wires wires you know when something feels like a lie it feels like that isn't what happened it's got the ring of a lie about it i was read it

was this was all about the financial troubles of the reopening of the park in the mid 20 2010s and it there was a thing where it was like and and yeah, the roller coaster had to be shut down because it had the wrong wires. And the only person who could fix the wires, they couldn't get them until after the summer. So they had to close the roller coaster for the summer. Because there was one person who could fix the wires. Yes, yes.

And they had to fly them in all the way from Likki country. Okay, right. I was thinking he lived in like a shell house in New Zealand. Yeah, that's Likki county. Oh, yeah, yep, yep. I was thinking he lived in like a shell house in New Zealand. Yeah, that's Licky County. Oh, yeah, yep, yep. It's actually Licky County. That's just how they pronounce it in New Zealand. I might make a shell grotto.

I might make a walking around the countryside simulator in a field. Just in a nearby field. field you've been listening to lawmen with me alistair beckett king and me james shakeshaft and alistair i wanted to do a special little shout out the current holder of the title granddad jim uh has been a bit ill recently and he's been up in hospital in Kent. And there's this nurse, Christine, and he won't stop banging on about her. Oh, that's very nice. Son, mention her on your podcast. Thank you, Christine.

Thank you very much for your excellent work. Long live the NHS. No suggestion that Christine is a listener to the podcast, though. No, no, no. I think she will be listening to this one section of this one episode. Seems reasonable. The listeners might not know, but sometimes James and I have conversations before we start recording. Sometimes.

We'll say things like, should we start recording? Are you recording? And that sort of just sort of top banter, basically. Tip top bants. And just before we were recording in the before time, a moment ago. Yes. We were talking about Paul F. Taylor, who is a fantastic stand up comedian and a sketch performer who lives quite near me. Yes. Not to be confused with Paul F. Tompkins, who doesn't live in South London. And he lives near where you used to live, James.

Now, the listener might think that you live a sort of quaint sitcom existence where amusing coincidences keep happening to you. Could you please dispel that by telling me what you were just telling me? Well, when I used to live near where Paul F. Taylor lives, a comedian who has a similar look to me. He does have a similar look to you. He's a white man. He's tall.

He's got curly hair. Facial hair, dark curly hair beard yeah yes a baritone voice deep bass baritone yeah deep bass baritone dbb that's the name of the band that the two of you were in yep the deep bass baritones the dbb's uh barbershop duet but both baritone one's called Barry, the other one's called Tone. I went to a barber, which is evidently the same barber. It wasn't, it was hairdressers, actually. I went to hairdressers, which was evidently the same hairdressers as Paul F. Taylor, because the barber carried on a conversation that he'd had with Paul F. Taylor, thinking that I was Paul F. Taylor.

So did he give you Paul F. Taylor's haircut? I guess so, yeah. It was one of them ones where you go in and I just sort of said my normal mutterings for what I want for my haircut. And he was like, yep, yep, cool, yep, yep. And he said, the usual? And you went, what? And it was too late.

I just thought he meant a normal haircut. He asked me, I think the penny dropped when he asked me when I'd started wearing glasses. Ah, yes, the one thing that separates you from Paul in the game Guess Who? Yes, in the Superman world. Like, this guy would absolutely know that Superman was Clark Kent, this hairdresser.

Yes, he would. And to be fair, he has never seen the two of you in the same room at the same time. That's true. And if he did, he'd probably just think it was one of the mirrors. And he often finds me undressing in phone boxes that was the reason you left south london i remember now you were driven out yeah they replaced all the red ones with those half height ones it's not the same that's happened at a gig as well when i was gigging someone

someone complimented me on the last time i'd been there when I'd just come off rather than the time I was there. Is that the implication that the previous time you had been there was better than that? I felt that was the subtext, yes. Oh, that's not a desirable subtext. But great news for Paul. Yeah. Well, not good and bad.

It's like, oh, he used to be good. He's gone off the boil a bit recently he's just been travelling around lowering his reputation he needs a haircut yeah so that's the episode for the week hope you enjoyed that

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