Loremen Podcast - S4 Ep2: Loremen S4 Ep 2 - The Stone of Destiny

Episode Date: June 9, 2022

The Stone of Destiny, AKA the Stone of Scone, has been stolen more times than Alasdair has had cold Scottish dinners. In this episode we uncover a daring Scottish heist and a Scotsman's unexplained demise. That's right, unable to compete with James's recent two-parter, ABK has frantically squeezed a couple of tales into a single episode. Learn how to pronounce Scone correctly(ish) and how to pronounce a lot of other words incorrectly. Hear Ian Hamilton's account of the theft of the Stone of Destiny in his own words here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJLosu3SqCs And for gawd's sake, get the suspension looked at on that Ford Anglia. Loreboys nether say die! LIVE TICKETS! https://www.angelcomedy.co.uk/event-detail/loremen-alasdair-beckett-king-james-shakeshaft-27th-jun-the-bill-murray-london-tickets-202206272100/ Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 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

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 we Jamesy. I've got a diptych of Scottish stories for you. Oh, again, this is not a medical podcast, so I don't know if I can help you out with that. I'll just tell two stories then. Oh, yeah, that sounds good.

First of all, I'm going to tell you about the mysterious demise of a Scottish horticulturalist, and then I'm going to tell you about the theft of the Stone of Destiny. Ooh-hoo-hoo. Oh, and listener, stick around afterwards for a live show announcement. Another live show. We're doing another live show in 2022. 2022. I moved house, James.

You moved to a new house? I moved from one flat to a new flat, yes. House is a little bit grand. You've transitioned garret? I've literally moved into a Victorian garret, yes. Oh, wow. And there's no soundproofing, so if I sound a bit echoey other than usual, that's because we don't have curtains or...

Are you collecting egg boxes? I need egg boxes or whatever the vegan version of an egg box is. Oh, I don't know. A tofu hutch. I don't know. A tofu hutch. I don't know. Hutch makes it sound like it's... The tofu lives in there and then you feed the tofu and then you grow attached to it and then you chop it up and put it in a stir fry.

Awful. On a tofu front, have you ever tried natto? No. What's that? Oh, it's disgusting. It's fermented soybeans. Which is also what tofu is, right? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, to be fair, soy does do everything, it seems. You can make a lot of things out of soy, and only about a third of them are disgusting. Well, this one is definitely. It's basically, it resembles small baked beans coated in slime. And it smells like bottoms. It smells like bottoms. Yes. bottoms yes bumholes i'm gonna have a delicious cup of natto when this is finished yuck quick flat update yeah how is it

so far only one ghost what so i live here with my uh lover and confidant yes and um we have both heard each other calling from the other room that That's right, there are two rooms. Not to show off, but we have a second room now. I heard her calling and she heard me calling and neither of us had in fact called. So that's all the ghost has done so far, which has been annoying. Could be a time slip. Could have been a time slip, yeah.

Could have been a much more rational explanation, like a time slip. Yeah, exactly. Come on. And actually, for today's episode, I would like to take you back to a walk I went on on Christmas Day. I was visiting my parents in Argyle and I went to a place called Sutherland's Grove, named after Lord Sutherland, not Donald Sutherland. Are you disappointed? Yes. That it isn't Donald Sutherland's Grove? Or named after a Mr. Grove. In Sutherland's Grove, it's full of pine trees. There's an information sign about the Douglas fir, which is not actually a fir tree.

It's a type of pine tree. I thought he was an actor. He played George Bush on Tinder. Yeah, I was trying to think of another tree related. Jane Leaves, the actress from Frasier, is the only other... Oh, that's good. ...person I can think of with a tree-related name. Yeah, in the biography of Twiggy, the model from the past, who's called Twiggy.

So I was looking at an information site about the Douglas fir, and it explains that the Douglas fir was named after the Scottish horticulturalist David Douglas. John Fir. It said something like, and this is how I remember it being, Douglas Fir, it's a pine tree, here's its Latin name, and it was named after famous horticulturalist, David Douglas, who died in mysterious circumstances on Hawaii. Bye. End of information.

Bye. And I was like, whoa, hold up, information sign. I feel like you've focused on the wrong thing here. I'm not interested in the tree at all, but the mysterious and unexplained death of the horticulturalist, very interesting to me. So I looked it up, thinking that I would solve it here on the podcast as a sort of true crime, law boys investigate thing.

Yes, yes. I don't know who did it. Oh. But I've got some things to say to you about it, if you're ready to hear about some Scottish crime. Yeah, I'm well up for it. A murder. Has been a murder.

Well, there might not have been a murder. Has there been a murder? There may or may not have been a murder. There might just have been a falling in a hole. We'll find out. Well, we won't. We don't know. There's been a wee bit of manslaughter.

I refer you to a letter to the British consul at the Sandwich Islands, which we would now call Hawaii and several other islands. We'd now call them paninis, because a normal sandwich isn't just good enough for everyone. We'd call them subs or paninis. This is a letter to the British consul at the Sandwich Islands from Reverends Goodrick and Deal. Dear Sir, our hearts almost fail us when we undertake to perform from Reverence Goodrick and Deal. Tidings reached us when we were every moment awaiting his arrival and expecting to greet him with cordial welcome.

But alas, instead of being permitted to hail the living friend, our hearts have been made to bleed while performing the offices of humanity to his mangled corpse. Oh. Yeah. Wow. That letter goes from dear sir to mangled corpse pretty fast. That's like that Leave Britney Alone video of letter writing. The whole letter is like that. I'm not going to read all of it.

The accounts of what happened all come from missionaries who were on the islands. Reverence Goodrick, Deal, and of course Titus Cone and Sheldon Dibble. Who I've mainly included because of their names. Douglas travelled the world collecting plant samples and bringing them back to Britain.

He was famous for it. He did the Douglas fir. That's just one of them. That's just one. Famously inaccurate. And he often stopped off at Hawaii. He was 35 by the time he arrived in Hawaii, but he probably looked older. Now, my source for this is Gordon Mason's article for the Royal Horticultural Society's magazine, The Plantsman.

Do you take The Plantsman, James? I'd get the online copy. Okay, that's good for the environment. They'd appreciate that. Yeah, you'd think that they wouldn't really go for that. But what year are we talking? Douglas arrived just before Christmas in 1833. It'll be a lovely Christmas. I'm sure he'll have a lovely time. He did not. According to Gordon Mason, he was not looking good. An account of someone who saw him arrive said that he looked about 48. He was actually 35. He had rheumatism, couldn't see out of one eye, and his vision in the other eye was blurred.

Probably really sunburnt as well. Didn't have ambrose soleil. They had no ambrose soleil. Soleil? I don't know. His plan was to hike over the volcano Mauna Kea to Hilo, where he would meet the missionaries I just mentioned. He was travelling with his dog, Billy.

Good name for a dog. And a man supposedly called John, who was a servant of Reverend Deal. Supposedly called John? Oh, I see where this is going, yes. He's a black servant who we don't know much about, who probably is called that because the people involved are too racist to learn his name is going, yes. He's a black servant who we don't know much about, who probably is called that because the people involved are too racist to learn his name. Right, yes.

That guy disappears from the story quite quickly because he wasn't up to the walk. So he drops out and David Douglas continued on his own. Now, one thing you need to know about Hawaii is it's got a real problem with feral cows. Whoa, well, girls, is this the origin of the phrase, let the cows decide? Well, a cow does decide David Douglas's fate. Basically, Captain George Vancouver, annoyingly not Canadian,

British Navy brought over a load of cows and they went feral in the 1790s. Whipped them up into a frenzy and then released them. He just got them excited. He just G'd them off. If you're going to pick an animal to allow to go feral, you'd think cows would take the longest. There were quite a few cow hunters on the islands, which is, I think, the easiest job in the world because they're the size of a wardrobe on its side. They're the size of a cow.

They're cow-sized. One of those cow hunters was a man called Ned Gurney. Now, Ned Gurney was a bit of a wrong-un. He was first convicted of larceny in London in 1912. What I should tell you is that he was born in 1900, so that should give you a sense of how committed he was to larceny. He was convicted at the age of 12 and sentenced to transportation to Australia. Didn't seem to happen, though, because he was convicted of larceny. He was convicted at the age of 12 and sentenced to transportation to Australia. Didn't seem to happen though, because he was convicted of larceny again, later in life and sent to Australia again as an adult. So I don't know how he got out of it the

first time. After serving his sentence in Australia, he got a job in a boat and basically jumped ship and wound up scraping a living as a cow hunter on Hawaii. Hunting cow. We don't really know what happened. There's a map of the area in which David Douglas died attached to the letter I mentioned before. And you'll sometimes hear people say that he died in a place called Kalua Kauaka, which is not really accurate because that means doctor's pit. So it's called that because David Douglas is going to die there in a pit.

Okay. Like Back to the Future 3. Yeah. It's like Back to the Future 3. Yeah. It's like Clayton Gulch. Yeah. Clara the schoolmarm death place or whatever. That's what it's called. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're in a Back to the Future 3 situation. I've looked at the diagram and it shows basically the way they used to catch the cows. They're an easy animal to catch. Big net. They dug a big hole, covered it with camouflage and waited for the cow to fall in and then shot it. Dunk. Interestingly, you can use that same technique on Scottish men. Oh no. It would seem.

I've looked at the diagram and the diagram shows the road and then marked on it are the holes. And James, two of the holes are in the road. People walk there. They've dug two cow catching pits in the middle of the road. The cow's like going around in Jeeps or something. I have no idea why you would dig it in the middle of a road. I think road might be a little bit grander than the track in question. Right. Okay. Not like a dual carriageway. It's a bee road at most, with even smaller holes to catch bees. To whittle out

the wasps. You're covering my wasp whittling holes. According to Ned Gurney, David Douglas stopped off with him. He walked a short distance with him, warning him that there were cow catching pits up ahead. And then Douglas seemed pretty confident. He set him off on his own and Gurney returned home. A short while later, two indigenous Hawaiians came to Gurney, shocked and horrified, they discovered a dead body

in one of the cow-catching pits. Gurney ran over and found David Douglas in a pretty unpleasant state with a bullock in the pit with him. So if you ever wondered who would win in a fight out of a half-blind Scottish man and a young cow, it's the cow. Did he fall in first and then the bullock fall on top of him? It is not clear who went in first.

Or did he fall onto the, like, get speared like a baddie in a Marvel film? I don't think the pit had spikes in it. I have been visualising a spikehead pit as well. I don't think they really did spikes. Presumably they're going to want to use that leather as well. They're going to want to sell that on. Unless you want it distressed like those jeans that already have rips in them.

Of course, we're talking about the leather of the cow, not Scotsman leather, which is very, very rare, very, very expensive. You can only use it for kilts. It only comes in two colours, bright white or bright red. Usually you can make out the shape of a T-shirt in the transition from white to pink. The body was eventually conveyed to the missionaries who you heard from before. They were horrified. They were about to bury it. And then they thought, you know, he's got quite a lot of head injuries. He's got like 10 head injuries from a cow, this guy.

And they got a little bit suspicious. So they took all of his stomach stuff out, packed him with salt, put him in a coffin full of salt, put that in a larger box full of brine and shipped the body off to be examined, which is a great plan, except for one point, which is that it was 1834 and nobody had any idea about any kind of CSI stuff. So what you've got there really is just a pickled Scottish guy with no useful information. Well, I'd say he died from salt. From the looks of him, I'd say he died from too much salt.

This guy hasn't even got a stomach. It's all salt. All his insides have gone. Stereotypically, the Scottish diet is quite bad. So you and the listeners are probably ahead of me much much suspicion has fallen upon ned gurney because he was a convicted criminal the double arsonist ship jumping cow hunting cow punching right yeah you're just making him sound cooler james i don't know why you're listing his skills so the letter I started with concludes that it was an accident.

But the general opinion was that Ned Gurney killed him. Another person who David Douglas had stopped off with earlier had seen him with a pouch of monies, which is the kind of thing everyone had in the olden days, which he took to be gold. And no such pouch was found after Ned Gurney had helped retrieve his body. Did they frisk the bullock? Even the cow did it. Maybe. And it was him fighting off that cow.

They both tumbled into the hole. It could have happened. It could have happened. Don't tell me cows can't be greedy. We've got another reverend for you, Reverend Lyons. His granddaughter was actually the first person to write about the accident in her diary. She also wrote in a letter that when some Sydney duck or beachcomber was dying in Waimea and Father Lyons was by his side, the dying man kept repeating in his delirium, I didn't do it. No, I didn't kill him. So Sydney duck there being slang for someone who had been sent to Australia

for crimes. That is generally taken as evidence that he did do it. Although to me, that really sounds like someone saying they didn't do it. Still, Titus Cone's son, also called Titus Cone, Titus Cone II. I mean, when you've got a name that good. Why change it if it ain't broke? Titus Cone II, Titus Boogaloo, who was about 10 when- The legend of Titus Gold. Oh, the legend of David Douglas' gold.

Well, it actually is. That's really good. This is, yeah. The legend of Furry's gold. Because Douglas Furr. Imagine his mates called him Furry. Is he the original Furry? Was he dressed as a cow and that's why he fell in love?

That's how it happened. It was just an unfortunate accident between two furries and a big hole. If there's cow hunters around, just don't dress as a cow. Don't dress and act like a cow. Do what you want. We're not going to judge, but please take appropriate precautions. Yeah, don't do it in cow season. Cone has no doubt in his mind.

Ned Gurney killed him with an axe, took gold, and gave out that he had found Douglas's body under the hoofs of a bull in a pit. And for 60 years, most people believed that a skilled mountaineer had walked into a trap. But my father, among others, knew from the first who had committed the murder and Gurney raved about it on his deathbed. So that's Titus Cone's conclusion. What makes the death of Douglas a little bit suspicious, is that his dog wasn't there when his body was found, nor was his pack. And the story we heard from Ned Gurney is that he had forgotten them and walked on without them, then realised he'd forgotten them and on his way back, fallen into the hole. And that sounds like a lie. Who forgets a dog?

The dog would follow you. But it remains unsolved. Ned Gurney, he may have left Hawaii or he may have lived out the rest of his days there. Nobody really knows. Nobody bothered asking any of the indigenous Hawaiians what happened as far as I can tell. So we just don't know what happened. That may be the end of David Douglas's story, but it's not the end of my story because I wanted to dig into where David Douglas was from, and he is from a town in Scotland. Now, I've got a quick question for you, James.

Do you pronounce it scone or scone? Scone. The cake, the little cake. If we're talking about the little cake, I also pronounce it scone. But twist, I wasn't talking about the little cake. I was talking about the Palace of Schoon. Schoon? Spelled S-C-O-N-E.

So it's spelt scone, but it's pronounced schoon by Scottish people. A third competitor has entered the arena. Schoon, yeah. Because traditionally it's scone or scone, isn't it, for the little cake? Big argument. And then there's do you put jam and cream? But we're in Scotland now, so there's no no jam there's no cream and there's a completely new pronunciation it's battered how dare you how dare you suggest the scots would batter a schoon

david douglas is from schoon and so i thought i would dig into a little bit of supernatural related to scone. And I found another unsolved mystery. With strange and interesting connections to the story I just told you. This is the story of the Stone of Scone. That's quite famous. Oh, yeah. I've heard of the Stone of Scone. Is it the Stone of Scone or the Stone of Scone? It's the Stone of Scone.

It's got other names. It's also known as the Stone of Destiny or Leophale in Gaelic. If you're British, you're probably aware of it because it's quite an important stone. By stone standards, it's one of our more famous stones. The legends are many and varied and obviously nonsense. Supposedly, Jacob, off of the Bible, used this stone as a pillow as he slept in the town of Bethel. And if you've ever seen it, it does actually look like a memory foam pillow. It's like a big square stone and overly firm. For a stone, it looks comfy.

Yeah, but by pillow standards, awful. It went to Ireland via Spain and then Fergus Moore, or Big Fergus, legendary leader, took it to Scotland. If you believe the Scottish, if you believe the Irish, it's still there. Oh. Because the Leofale is still there on the Hill of Tyre in County Meath. But the Scottish version says that the Stone of Scone is in fact the real Stone of Destiny, and it moved to Scotland. Right. According to Sir Walter Scott, there was a message engraved in metal on it,

translated thus, Unless the fates be faulty grown, and prophets' voice be vain, where'er is found this sacred stone, the Scottish race shall reign. It's a magic stone. Basically, the kings of Scotland would all sit on it and be crowned. We're talking Fergus More, we're talking Macbeth, all the big guys.

Until Edward I nicked it and took it to England in 1297, I think, and it stayed there until 1950. Now, he put it in his coronation chair. Now, I hate, I hate, I hate to topically tie this in to the platyjubes. Oh, yeah. The Platinum Jubilee, what we just had. Oh, yes. I don't know if you heard about that. Yes.

On every single media platform there is, just constant Queen stuff. The Queen sat on that self-same chair, and that chair is designed, it's got a slot underneath it, like for an Xbox One. Like a decent TV table. Yes, like a TV table.

Yes. But it's not for a VCR or an Xbox One. It's for the stone of screen. An Xbox Oon. It took me a while to understand that. Now, I told you it stayed there until 1950. Queen Elizabeth was crowned in Lizzie 2. She was crowned in 1953.

What happened in between times? Yet another Scottish crime. It's Christmas morning. Tying it back to Christmas. It's 1950. Ian Hamilton, Kay Matheson, Alan Stewart, and Gavin Vernon are about to pull off the biggest heist in the history of Westminster Abbey. A building that has not seen any other heists. They're four students.

Ian Hamilton's a law student. I imagine them as they're like a Scottish, the young ones. I imagine as they're walking to the Abbey, madness are playing in the background. It's like a montage. They are Scottish nationalists and their plan is to steal the stone of scone and take it back where it belongs. They may be, in Ian Hamilton's own words, daft, but they're not foolish.

So he went there the day before to case the joint. Good. He was caught by a guard, but luckily the guard assumed he was drunk and let him go. Because of the Scottish. Perhaps because he was Scottish. We just don't luckily the guard assumed he was drunk and let him go. Because of the Scottish. Perhaps because he was Scottish. We just don't know.

But while he was there, Columbo-like, pretending to be less smart than he is, he noted something. Most of the doors were made of oak. Our English oak, James. Our proper oak. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But one of them was made of pine. Treacherous, treacherous pine. I don't know, but just maybe that door was made of Douglas fir.

Maybe. Maybe David Douglas's discovery 100 years earlier laid the groundwork for this most audacious of thefts. Do I have any evidence for that? No. Oh, it's a lovely theory. If I did... It would really make these two disparate stories seem related. It would make these two completely separate stories dovetail together quite neatly.

Yeah. So it's Christmas morning. They break in. A quick crowbar makes short work of the pine door. They pull the stone of scoon out from Edward I's coronation chair. Instantly drop it. Yes, a stone! It breaks. Itantly drop it. Yes, a stone! It breaks.

It cracks in two. I think you get some sense of Ian Hamilton's character because his immediate response is, no, that's actually great news. This is ideal because it's going to make it easier to carry. Good, good, good.

Glad that's broken in two. No, actually, I wanted it broken. And also it smashed one of my compatriot's toes. His two broken toes. So this is going really well. It did actually make the stone a little bit easier to handle. They quickly got it into the back of Kay Matheson's Ford Anglia.

Right, which I imagine was very low on its 50s suspension. It is the vehicle of choice for the heist, the Ford Anglia. Just as they were about to make their getaway, a policeman rounded the corner and they did the classic thing. Ian and Kay kissed each other and pretended to just be a couple who were just having a passionate kiss near a Ford Anglia. On Christmas morning. On Christmas morning. Classic Christmas tradition.

This account of the story, by the way, comes from Victoria M. Lord's, the infamous theft, the Stone of Schoon. And according to her account, they made out that they were looking for a B&B. They were just a couple of young lovers who hadn't stolen a priceless antiquity a couple of young lovers with a four danglia with knackered suspension it's just like this yeah you want to have a look at that so it's like this is just a massive stone in your back seat like you've got a giant stone in the back yeah and also you've got two mates with you. What is going on here? Oh, I forgot to say, when they pulled the stone out, if they were the young ones, Neil would have said,

heavy man. Yeah, he would have. He would have said that. He definitely would have said that. They got it back to Scotland, though. Fair play to them. In a Ford Anglia. In a Ford Anglia, as far as I know.

Well, first, they buried one half of it in a field in Kent for a while, but eventually they managed to get it back to Scotland and to a Glaswegian stonemason to repair it they crossed the border to scotland doused the stone with whiskey as part of the traditional celebration when you steal a stone yeah and the police were hot on their tail and the police do proper detective work detecting they find out who checked out books about the stone of scoon from the library so they just sort of followed the line the exhaust would have made in the tarmac, just grating along the tarmac all the way to Scotland.

Just follow that trail. And a faint smell of whiskey. It turns out Ian Hamilton has checked out every book there is about the Stone of Scone. And so they're all interrogated by the police. None of them crack. Unlike the Stone. But they come to realise that the game is largely up. They've made their point. You know, they've made the news. It's come to realise that the game is largely up. They've made their point.

They've made the news. It's become an international story. So they decide to make a trade, naturally, in the ruins of the Abbey of Arbroath. They carry the stone to the Abbey of Arbroath, and it's handed over to the custodian of the Abbey, as well as two local councillors, who obviously have some sympathy with the nationalist cause, because when the police later ask, none of them are able to identify the thieves. And it was returned to London in time for the Queen's coronation in 1953, but happily returned to Scotland at last in 1996. It will return to Westminster Abbey on that day, which we all hope will never come, when her marriage pops her clogs. you know one of the one of the you can't say that I'm interrupting myself

mid-sentence there one of the other royals that we've definitely not slandered off mic is crowned yeah just bleep all of the words

in that and people can fill in the gaps themselves yeah they're going to bring it down in a ceremonial Ford Anglia

in the ceremonial Ford Anglia. Good. Yeah. Would you think they'll do the thing like they did with the, because the Queen didn't turn up for quite a lot of the stuff. Do you think they'll do

what they did on her carriage where they sort of put a hologram of her up on the inside of it so it looked like she was there. So do you think they'll do that for like a couple of necking Scottish people

in the back of this Ford Anglia as they ceremonially drive it. I'd love that. And another man complaining about his toes. I don't know how you get to that point where you think, well, the Queen's not feeling very well at the moment because she's 400 years old. The only reasonable thing to do in this situation is create a hologram of the Queen from the past.

That won't be an absolutely nightmarish image. They've had that hologram knocking around for a few years. I think they perfected the technology using the Queen Mother. So I think she was a hologram for the last five years. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, she was a hologram. Very, very racist hologram. According to Victoria Lord, years after the infamous theft, Ian Hamilton said, when I lifted the stone in Westminster Abbey, I felt Scotland's soul was in my hands. As far as I know, he didn't go on to say, and I then dropped it on my mate's toes and it smashed in half. Classic Scotland.

Absolute weapon. None of them were prosecuted. Hamilton went on to become a criminal defence lawyer. It is possible, this is my last sidebar of a sidebar, that they were all of them deceived. There is a theory, James, that none of the stones of scone so far are in fact the real stone of destiny. Go on. According to a letter to the Morning Chronicle in 1888, some men had been digging on Dunsinane Hill. Oh, by the way, I've been mispronouncing everything so far, probably. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing that. I'm sure I mispronounced all the Hawaiian words, but you'll recognise that from Macbeth. That's Macbeth's gaff digging in the hill beneath what might once have been Macbeth's castle. According to the letter

from the Morning Chronicle, what happened was, part of the ground they stood on suddenly gave way and sunk down about six feet, discovering a regularly built vault about six feet long and four wide. None of the men being injured, curiosity induced them to clear out the subterranean recess when they discovered, among the ruins, a large stone weighing about 500 pounds, which is pronounced to be of the meteoric or semi-metallic kind. This stone must have lain here during the long series of ages since Macbeth's reign. Maybe the real Stone of Scone was hidden away in Macbeth's basement and Edward I took a ringer. We just don't know.

How can you mistake one stone for a different stone? A different, similarly sized stone. So that's the story of several Scottish mysteries, several Scottish crimes, and the legend of the Stone of Scone. That was an excellent pair of stories. Oh, you noticed that those two stories were separate stories, did you?

There's not enough magic in a story where a Scotsman falls in a hole. So I had to get a legendary magic stone in there. A blind Scotsman. He was from Scone. Gets pushed in a hole. So I had to get a legendary magic stone in there. A blind Scotsman. He was from Scone. Gets pushed in a hole by a child criminal. He was a man by then anyway. You're already passing judgment.

So are you ready to score the story of the Stone of Scone? The Stone of Scone, yes. Okay. My first category is naming. Not only were there wonderful names. What was he called? Titus? I don't pronounce it wrong.

It's on purpose. Titus Cone. Dog called Billy. Lovely name for a dog. Yeah, a dog called Billy. But also, their tree was named after him. The stone was named after the scone, the cake. I'll tell you what, whenever I do baking, I end up with scones of stone.

Now we're good at baking. Very good. I did actually lift my glasses as I told that one. Of course you did. I could hear. I could hear. Sheldon Dibble, Shelley Dib Dibs. Oh, Shelley Dib Dab.

I think it's a four. Okay. I think it's a four out of five because of the inaccurate name. Just nudges it down. All right. Okay. Fair enough. My next category is supernatural.

Can I emphasise how magic the stone is, James? You could have. Jacob had to dream on it, and then everyone else just said it was special, and it didn't do anything. I know you like ghosts, and maybe you don't like magic stones that much, but you've got to realise what an insult to the people of Scotland it's going to be if you say that this stone's not magic. And Ireland, and Spain, and where Jacob lived.

Bethel. Bethel. Bethel. The town of Bethel in Israel, in the Bible. Bethel. I've had a bad dream. Bethel. Chuck this pillow out, it's rubbish.

Bethel. Classic Israeli accent there. I mean, and there's zero supernatural about a blind man falling in a hole slash being killed by a multiple child larcenist. Okay, that's not as big a mystery as I may have made out. But the possibility of the actual stone being discovered in a dank hole beneath Macbeth's castle where Duncan and Macbeth were both crowned. Yeah, someone found a stone.

Someone found a stone underground? Yeah, explain that. Yeah. Someone found a stone. Someone found a stone on the ground. Yeah. Explain that. Yeah. Two? All right. It was one point, but then I dropped it on my toes and it turned into two points. My next category, scone. Very nice. That's the word scone, but pronounced so it sounds the same as it's gone it's gone it's gone that's good lots of things have gone yes that guy's gold in the first story scum his innards absolutely out of the way out of the picture don't appear again in the story yeah the stone itself did they not even like have a fake stone like to pop in indiana jones style i think they wanted people to know they were committing the crime because it was sort of a political statement

more than... It was like they took it out and then the throne just like sank into the ground and Westminster Abbey turned into some sort of booby-trapped Indiana Jones opening sequence. Yeah, and they raced away from a boulder in a

Fiat Punto or whatever it was. In a Ford Aglia, scraping along the ground as a boulder rolls towards them. I think it's got to be, I think it's a five out of five. Five out of five for scone. Everything went. And the fact it was the stone of scone. Yes. Scone.

The stone of scone. The stone of scone. It's very offensive every time you do that. I accept your five points by way of apology my final category is scott free oh nice because they everyone got away with it if indeed ned gurney did the crime he got off scott free if he did if he did old douglas though didn't get out of that hole you can imagine him going now help help me i've fallen in the hole help and then like pick it up in the hole help and then like picking

up in the sunshine like oh someone's come to help oh they got a odd hat on it looks too hot oh no it's a cow it's getting bigger oh no but in a way he was a free scott because he traveled he traveled the world yeah that's true he could barely see but he nobody could stop him what could be more free than that? What is freedom if not belligerently doing the opposite of what is advisable? I do really like The Stone Heist as well. I think that is a Netflix miniseries. Yeah. I guess you'd call it Scott Free, in fact. That would be the name. That's a good name, yeah. Because they all got away with it. They weren't prosecuted. Stone Heist. I think the thing is, when you stole the stone in the first place,

in the 13th century, it's very hard to get really, oh, you can't steal stones, when you stole it and just put it in a chair. Does the actual seat have a hole? The throne have a hole, so that your bum goes onto the stone? Your bum doesn't go directly, your bum goes above the stone. You're not sitting, I mean- Just near the stone. No, think of the Queen's poor flanks. No, you wouldn't ask a- It's not got like a lid, like a toilet seat. You lift it up and then your buttocks go directly on the stone. I think you've overestimated the significance

of placing buttocks directly onto the stone. Okay. A little gap is fine. It still has its powers. I thought it was like a bum-based Blarney stone. So what do you reckon, Scott Free? Oh, five out of five. Yes!

That is 100% match on my Netflix. Yes, I'm punching the air like that shot shot putter guy on the porridge oats box you know the hot guy in the kilt was he hoeing the other halfback from kent well that's how they got it back to scotland one scottish man threw it single-handedly ever so slowly he shot put it the whole way back still doing better than the for Anglia, I'm guessing. You know what? I did a little bit of research into your so-called Palace of Scone. Yeah.

Which is not the lovely tea rooms that I hoped. But it is the birthplace of a chap called William Murray. Oh. And that is the name of the venue that we're going to be doing our live at. We're doing a live at the Bill Murray is what I'm trying to say. Securitas. On the 27th of June, 2022. 2022.

If you are able to be in London at that time, just Google Angel Comedy Lawmen, then you'll find tickets. If you aren't able to make it to London to look at us live, then there may be another thing, but I'm not allowed to talk about that at this stage. That's extremely cryptic of you, James. Yeah, that's how I roll. Or do I?