Loremen Podcast - S4 Ep27: Loremen S4 Ep27 – 2022 Almanac Part 2

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

This is the concluding part of the Loremen look-back at 2022 (2022). Feast upon a cold platter of festive leftovers - as selected by you, the lorefolk. This is part two of two, including favourite moments from:  The Legend of Ticonderoga Scratching Fanny of Cock Lane Rushton Triangular Lodge, Northamptonshire The Cerne Abbas Giant The Ghosts of Spokane (it's pronounced "Spo-kan") The River Ribble The Comical Tragedy of Mr Punch - LIVE! Dickie's Screaming Skull - LIVE The Dragon of Norton Fitzwarren with Lexx Education PLUS all-new flim-flam and vintage Loreboy badinage about A Christmas Carol. Join... Us... https://www.patreon.com/Loremenpod

so alistair, welcome back. Thank you. Thank you for welcoming me back. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, because for the purposes of this introduction, I seem to be pretending it's live. Yeah, yeah, pretending that a lot of time has passed since the last episode, which obviously we recorded these at the same time. Yes! You can tell my throat these at the same time. Yes. You can tell my throat is in the same t-shirt. I'm sorry? Huh? I don't know.

Do you normally do a lot of shouting over Christmas? So after Christmas, you sound hoarse. Yes. From yelling, Christmas pig! out of your windows in a Scrooge-like manner. Christmas pig! What day is it, boy?

Boy? It's a pig out there. It's not a boy. It's a pig wearing a hat. So I'm just yelling at a pig. What day is it, pig? What day is it, pig? The oink as big as me what you wouldn't send a pig to get an oink oh no that's the other guy that's the pig's line well anyway what a coherent introduction to part two of of

the christmas almanac yes part two part two should we just remind everyone that there is a live stream tonight in case they simply turn off at the best bits of the last year? In case they're just furiously reaching towards the stop button on their cassette players. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold that finger. Hold that finger, daddy-o. If you're this easily annoyed by our voices,

you're going to want to check out us on YouTube live tonight. Doing a Christmas live stream. Yeah, Christmas Pig. The 29th of December, 2022 at 8.30. 8.30pm. Yeah. On youtube.com forward slash lawmen podcast. And if you don't already, subscribe to it.

Because I think that means you're more likely to get like alerts when we have done things like on youtube i mean yeah yeah yeah yeah it's not a surveillance system he's he's caught the bus again it's not like when people put cameras in next to their doorbells just to see what's going on oh and we turned five five years it's also a happy birthday. Five years old. Wow. 21st of December, 2017. That was back before we used to echo the year. Yeah. And like a five-year-old child, we have gradually learned to speak over the course of that time. Yes, by mimicking. So what have you got for me here, James? It wouldn't be a hand-picked selection of some of our hottest treats as selected by the law folk, it it is exactly that i simply asked the question

on the law folk discord which you can join if you join patreon.com forward slash lawman pod i asked them what their favorite bits of the year was and they replied with a whole bunch as we heard from the previous episode a lot of it was they just looked at the list of the first six episodes and said, yeah, I liked them. Yeah, kind of said those ones. Can you stop bothering me, please? I want to talk about Mr. Blobby some more. But now we're getting into series.

Well, what happened this year, Alistair, is we finally left series three. Yeah, series three seemed like it would never end. It was 107 episodes long. Yes, the classic 107 that everyone is aiming for. It's like that and then you can syndicate and then boom.

Then you're just coasting. I'm sorry, I'm just looking back. How many episodes did we do? Series 1, 8 episodes. Series 2, 13 episodes. 13? Series 3, 107 episodes. 107. Series 4, 25 25 so far 25 so far i don't know if these ones

count extrapolating though this series should run to into the thousands if you were to plot those on a graph oh good point wow maybe series 3 will be the outlier maybe so what was the first highlight from series quattro it was from the 23rd of june it was an alistair beckett king joint ah yes the legend of triconderoga ticonderoga not triconderoga oh i've i've corrected my spelling on the spreadsheet inaccurately i thought that can't be right and now i remember that i'd actually cut and paste it, so it would be right. It's the legend of Ticonderoga. Ticonderoga. The Bogan is perhaps similar to the Manx Bogan.

Ah. It's a goblin. It's an evil spirit. Not the Northern Irish Boke, to boke. No. Which is to throw up. Which is to... No, or the Australian bogan.

Oh, mate. Which I think is a classist slur, I think. Like chav, isn't it? Or redneck. I do believe so, mate. Thank you for bringing an Australian on to answer that question. Yeah, that's good, bud. Cheers for that.

No worries, mate. I'm going to go back to Australia. I travelled all the way just for this little bit of interaction, which is why I'm trying to build up my part right now, mate. Stay for a while and get a job working behind a bar for a couple of months while you're here. Oh, you're just like everyone else. That's pretty xenophobic.

I didn't even mention barbecues. I specifically didn't mention barbecues the whole time. Oh, mate, you've really upset me there. And at this time when we're at a period of national mourning for neighbours. It's so inconsiderate of me. I'm really, really sorry. No worries, mate. All right.

Good day to you. See you. Donald Mann belonged to the House of Kepoch, which you will remember from the Well of the Seven Heads episode. Well of the Seven Heads. You, I think, were particularly keen on a member of the Kepoch family, Ronald McDonald. Ronald.

Yes. Yes. And this is the main reason I'm telling you about Donald Mann of the Boken. He had a friend who was said to have two hearts. Oh. That friend's name? Donald McRonald. What?

Yep. They just rip off. Donald McRonald. Biscuit. Did you play that game? That hand slap game? Two hearts. I've got a boyfriend, a biscuit.

He's such a cute little biscuit. It was mainly a girl's game. You're going out with a biscuit. Ice cream soda with a cherry on the top. Ice cream soda with a cherry on the top. Ice cream soda with a cherry on the top. Down, down, baby, down by the roller coaster. Sweet, sweet baby, I'll never let you go. Shimmy, shimmy, cocoa pop.

Shimmy, shimmy, pie. Shimmy, shimmy, cocoa pop. Shimmy, shimmy, pie. Pow, wow. Ice cream. It was mainly a hand-based thing. You can't really see the hand gestures I'm doing. Are you okay?

Is the heat getting to you? James, what happened, though? I fear you've entered a fugue state. Is that what girls were singing in the playground with their bits of elastic, with the booby traps? You know, those sorts of symmetrical hand-slap games. Slap, slap. Ah.

Is that some sort of elaborate kung fu yeah yeah absolutely it's like tai chi ah it's like the that brazilian one it's a it's a form of dance but it's actually a martial art anyway so they could practice exactly martial arts but people be like oh no i'm dancing and then the master will just shout things like coco pop shimmy shimmy pie ice cream and then you do the move that's the appropriate move. Yes, cherry on the top. Hit someone in the face. That's just a straight punch in the face. It's not very elegant, that one.

So he had a friend called Donald McRonald. Donald McRonald. He's not in the story. I just couldn't skip him. And Pam Hergler. Hold on a minute, James. I thought you'd got to cut to a clip of me doing a bit of brilliant folklore,

not singing a child's playground song, embarrassingly, that probably shouldn't even have made it into the edit. Didn't have anything to do with the story. Or it was made into a viral video. No, great. That, thanks very much, Ropes of Sand and TK2000 for recommending that, for reminding me of that one yeah thanks

lovely also featured the return of Ronald McDonald oh did Ronald McDonald make an appearance a tiny and Alistair you know what

yeah the next episode it's another ABK joint yes ABK knocking it out of the park it's possibly two in a row possibly the rudest named one we've done yep do you want to

say it it's scratching fanny of cock lane series four episode six now what andrew lang does is he goes through several other cases of scratching fanny i'll just do a couple of similar cases. Mm-hmm. He deals with a French case from Saint-Maur. Oh, yeah. Is that how that's pronounced? Saint-Maur. Do you know it? I know that it means without Maur.

Saint-Maur. Saint-Maur. No. That case was dealt with by Mr. Poopheart. Mr. Whatheart? Monsieur Poopheart. Well, heart? Monsieur Poop Heart. He's got a poop for a heart? P-O-U-P-A-R-T

Monsieur Poop Heart. Monsieur Poop Heart. Monsieur Poop Heart. Oh, is he like a poop, like he's going to turn into like a butterfly or something? Maybe, but if you'd experienced what he describes, you might have been a Poop Heart because the victim of the poltergeist, in that case, heard noises and strange things.

But the bed they were in lifted up off the ground and flew around the room. The Mr. Pooper is not taken in by ghosts and comes to the conclusion that it was servants knocking things about and that the bed must have been on casters and things like that. I think the point Andrew Lang is making is that the explanation that the bed lifts off the ground because it's on casters is as implausible as the idea that it was a ghost. Right, yeah. Steve Roud, in his book London Law, provides an incontrovertible case of falsehood from Stockwell. Oh, yes. We're leaving East London for a moment and going south of the river. Oh, so you live in Stockwell?

Did you? Yes. Sorry, I thought maybe you had an anecdote to go with that. We first met in Stockwell, Alistair. Did we? You and I? Yes. Yes, thee and I. At the Cavendish Arms. At the Cavendish Arms, which any up-and-coming stand-up comedian in london will probably know

yeah it's a night that you can get on stage it's a night with a very low bar for a performance yes very very enjoyable as i recall yes we started around the same time doing stand-up and we both did that gig a few times did you ever do a gig with an egg or was that someone else i sure i remember someone coming on stage with a boiled egg. I used to talk about eggs. Did you? Yeah. What was your bit about eggs?

I don't, um, that. Classic Shake Shaft egg bants. They're often kept in the dairy section. And I, that is inaccurate. Because they do not come out of cows.

And if someone offers you a cow egg, don't take it. It's not an egg. I mean, have a look at it. You want to see what they've got? That is classic Shake Shaft. Classic Shake Shaft. Classic Shake Shaft pedantry.

And then I get very angry at eggs. Anyway. Well, in the 1840s, Mrs. Golding was also very cross about eggs. Oh, yeah. She was an elderly lady who lived with her servant, T.V.'s Anne Robinson. From The Weakest Link? From The Weakest Link, yeah. And was she Watchdog?

Yeah, she was on... Was she on Points of View? Yeah, she was on Watchdog, yeah. And Points of View, I think. She had a lot of opinions. Yep. She was the funnel for a lot of opinions. She was indeed.

Now, take that funnel, and I want you to pop that in your little pouch, because that's going to be important later. Okay. We've got a poker in there and we've got a funnel. This sounds like I'm on a choose your own adventure. You're on a choose your own adventure and the destination is horrible. Oh dear.

Mrs. Golding experienced, according to Steve Roud, all sorts of chaos in the flat. Small objects would fly around the room, including eggs. Your friend and mine, eggs. Oh. Water in a pail began to boil. No. Furnitures trembled. Like, wait a minute, what year is this?

It's the year 1772. Because a lot of these things can be explained by electric hobs and massage chairs. TV's Anne Robinson admits that she had faked the entire haunting. What? She used wires and horse hairs to move the objects TV's Anne Robinson, admits that she had faked the entire haunting. What? She used wires and horse hairs to move the objects and sometimes just threw things around herself. Just hoisted egg.

There is a fantastic quote from Steve Roud's book here about how easy it was for her to commit the fraud. Her work was clearly made easier by the gullibility of those around her and the fact that they were so frightened that they would not look directly at objects in case they moved how can you how can you spend any time i mean is there anything that you can look at that isn't an object how do you live and not look directly at objects it's like the people that have their contract they're not allowed to look tom cruise in the eye like where do you look?

Where do you look? I go for the teeth. The teeth. Do you just keep sort of scanning the ground or do you close your eyes and sort of feel your way round? They'd be like, oh no, there's an egg. Look out. She's pelting her boss with eggs.

It's ridiculously outrageous. Shame on you. I think that one is definitely a fraud. Well, yeah, because the person said she did a fraud. But she admits she did it, yes. But in half of the stories, the person admits they did it, and then people go, yeah, but it's still real. Like the Fox sisters and the Enfield haunting.

Yeah, that was just an episode about bad housemates, really, rather than ghosts. That was Heatwave. That was in the midst of the Heatwave, really, rather than ghosts. That was Heatwave. That was in the midst of the Heatwave, if you remember as well. So our brains have become loosened, I fear, as they often do during the hot spells. I think the next one is still within the depths of the Heatwave. It's 28th of July.

It's another ABK joint. A third. Wow, that's three in a row. Oh, too many. I think that means you get to keep the podcast. Yes. It's the Rushton Triangular Lodge of Northamptonshire. Mmm.

My next category, amount of threes. Oh, yes. I realise I've set myself up here for... Yes. I've left myself wide open for a three in one of these categories, because there's a lot of threes. There's a lot of threes. Even Trey's himself, building his three-sided building,

put a few fives over the door, knowing that fives were important. So that is my argument for why I deserve a five. That's very cheeky. It is quite cheeky. Very cheeky. You had a triptych of tales from Northampton. I did. And then you had a triple-sided house and a triple-sided name of a man.

Mm-hmm. But then you did put the fives above the door. Okay, I'll meet you halfway. How about four? All right, I'll take it. My out of three is four because of the fives. Because of the fives. Okay.

Yes. All right. A classic bit of James Shakespeare chicanery there. What? I don't make the rules. I just... Wait, wait, wait. Did you not make the rules?

Oh, no, wait a minute. I did make the rules. I thought you did make the rules for the podcast. I did make the rules. And then I also deliberately, do also later deliberately misunderstand them to benefit myself. What? Outrageous.

Yeah. That's enough ABK episodes. I think it's time for a Jimmy Shakes original. Yes. Oh, now this happened in August, Alistair. Do you know what else happens in August? The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Yes. And you, well, for want of a better word, abandoned me. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Am I not in this episode?

Well, during August, I had to get in a bunch of patsies. Since when? This is the first I'm hearing of this. Did the podcast... What? The podcast carried on. Did it? In your absence.

Me? Yeah. Some of the lowest numbers of the year. Rightly so. I brought in the big hitters. Cantrell. Ah. Collier.

Okay. I like Jenny. Me just sort of rambling for a bit without any music around it or anything. It's weird. Are you sure I wasn't in this episode? Well, that's the thing. I pulled the wool over your eyes a little bit, and I actually recorded an extra episode before you went to Edinburgh

and then unveiled you as the special third guest, guest lawperson. So you were in the episode. I thought so. As a substitute for yourself. Right, as like a backup, maybe. I was getting really angry at the idea that a Cantrell episode might have made the best of. Oh, no, never. Right, as like a backup, maybe. I was getting really angry at the idea that a Cantrell episode might have made the best of. Oh, no, never.

Okay, good. Maybe there should be a rule against that. They do do well in the numbers for downloads. Oh, yeah, yeah. We all enjoy them, but it's like angrily. Yes, yeah, yeah. Because he's not respecting the format. It's not just the format he's not respecting.

Yeah, this is quite disrespectful in general, yeah. It's you and I and the listener. So this is an episode about a big audible giant. I started looking into ley lines, or as the French call them, the lines. I started looking at it in order to do that joke. Okay. Have you got anything else to say about them or did you bring them up just for that joke? No, I've got a couple of order to do that joke. Okay. Have you got anything else to say about them,

or did you bring them up just for that joke? No, I've got a couple of things to say about it. I've got this pamphlet. It's a quarterly publication called Ley Lines. Quarterly, because Ley Line News updates that quickly, that you need four updates a year. Yeah. This one's called The Lie of the Land by Simon Morton,

and it's genuinely really good. He's a writer and cartoonist, and it just looks really cool. He does this thing where he sort of draws over old pictures and stuff, and then it's got excerpts from the book by Alfred Watkins, who was the guy who, it turns out, in the 1920s, is when ley lines were invented, basically. Or the idea of ley lines was invented. Because there's nos is when ley lines were invented, basically. Yeah. Or the idea of ley lines was invented.

Because there's no such thing as ley lines. Sorry, I feel like I'm maybe being overly sceptical here. Well, it depends what you think they are. Am I right in thinking he thought they were roads, like trade routes, rather than magical power axes? Some people nowadays, sure. They think they're either um checks notes uh navigation for ufos or a power source for ufos oh okay but i think that says more about the people that have gone into ley lines than what ley lines are i think the idea that they are

basically a navigation system of getting around the country, it kind of makes sense. Because in the past, you wouldn't have had a compass. You would have had to adjudge things by the sun. And we live in England. You're going to need a little bit more help. Yeah, fair enough. I concede. In thinking about that, it's basically made me realize that Stonehenge is, in essence, just a big motorway services.

Presumably one of the better ones, like a Norton Canes. Yeah, yeah. I haven't done much research on it, but I like the idea that it is basically old paths, because we still use some of the old paths like roman roads are still fully in use yes that's true yeah i have to admit that brings me back to another big lad the long man of wilmington have you heard of this guy no i haven't he kind of looks like he's opening his curtains he's a figure of a man and there's two he's holding two sticks yes yeah he's in the sussex downs yep i've googled him i do know this guy he's even bigger he's like about 50 feet bigger than sir nabas the earliest recording of this is from 1710 and he's never had a face not even eyebrows this one again from the

law of the land friend of the show show, in particular, the long man, unlike his counterpart at Cern Abbas, probably never had a phallus. Oh. And the next paragraph starts, dating the long man

will remain problematic, which I think... Not necessarily. It depends what you're interested in, I think. Yeah, exactly. Come on. I have to say,

his stance, the way he has his arms, you know, there could be curtains, there could be two sides of a door frame it's got a real come up and see me sometime

vibe and I mean again I don't I know everyone listening to this is screaming this at their

at their audio devices but until the technique of optical stimulated luminescence used at Uffington has been used on this. We can't know how old it is.

I think my idea that they were basically motorways for humans is I've got a feeling that's pretty solid. Yeah, roads. Roads is what you're talking about. Yeah, roads. Motorways for humans. Yes, paths and roads. They were roads.

When I say that I don't believe in ley lines, I don't mean that I'm a road sceptic who just will not believe in roads. I believe in roads. Unlike the dock at the end of Back to the Future 1. Okay, all right. Thank you. No, I think when they dig that tunnel underneath Stonehenge,

they're going to find a Costa. The next episode is a second Shake Shack original, and it's the next episode of the year. Oh, yes. The ghosts of, and I believe it's pronounced Spokane. Spokane. Spokane. Spokane. Spokane. Spokane. Is that right? Not Spokane? Spokane. Spokane? Spokane.

Spokane. Spokane. Is that right? Not Spokane? Yes, that features the voice of, like, massive podcaster Forrest Burgess of Astonishing Legends. To be honest, I hope no one listened to that episode expecting more from him than the word Spokane

every time I mispronounced it. That's all we got him in just to say the words Spokane, to correct your pronunciation. He was there purely as a referee. There is a bonus episode where we have a lovely chat, which is available on the Patreon. But I think they retweeted this episode and I was like, oh, there's going to be a backlash.

There's going to be a Twitter pile-on because it's just him saying one word again and again. No, I like it. I think it's good. It's avant-garde. It's like George Clooney doing the voice of the dog in South Park or what have you. Yeah, exactly. It's like a cameo.

It's like bringing Orson Welles in, but just to do hand-acting. I've got a real smorgasbord of things to sink our teeth into this week. That sounds delicious. Well, it would sound delicious if smorgasbords, if smorgasbord was a nice word. Yeah. That is the thing that it's served on, right? I guess so.

I guess the board is a table and it is a smorgasbord. So probably don't sink your teeth into the table. Nah, not the board itself. But do sink your mind into these stories. Well, basically, Alistair, we got sent those books by Kindly Listener from Spokane. No, I've got it wrong already. We're going to be talking about the East Washington city of Spokane. Spokane. That's how it's pronounced. Oh, it's

not Spokane after all. No, the E is misleading. So that's how the word is spoken. Oh, that's a good way of remembering it. Yeah. That's a very good mnemonic. It's another Bond villain, that, isn't it?

Isn't that what M was short for? Well, I called up friend of the show, but the only person I know from Washington state, Forrest Burgess, Forrest Burgess from the old astonishing legends podcast. Yes. Friend of the podcast.

And he taught me exactly how to say it. And I'm going to drop in he taught me exactly how to say it. And I'm going to drop in him correcting me on how to say it whenever I get it wrong. Okay. So listen out for that. It's pronounced Spokane. Spokane. Spokane. Spokane.

Spokane. It spoke like a bike. It spoke like a bike. And then there's a can in that. Spoke. Oh, creating a sort of a rattling sound as you go. Like a clickety-clacker. A clickety-clack.

Yeah, like a... Like a clickety-clacker. Like a clickety-clacker. Like a clickety-clacker. Like a clickety-clacker. Or as they were known in the South, Spokie Doki. Ugh. What?

Spokie Dokies. Spokie Doki? You didn't know Sp-dokie? That's a disgusting word. It sounds like an alien from a 1980s kids show. Spooky-dokie. Quite an upbeat one, though. Oh, yeah.

He's an alien. And his catchphrase is spooky-dokie. Spooky-dokie. I hate that guy. I hate spooky-dokie. I think he was misunderstood, but he was the schnaff of whatever this cartoon is that we've made up Spokie Doki right so we're talking about Spokane

a city in eastern Washington state on the Spokane river and there are human remains dating back 8,000 to 13,000 years ago. Wow. Showing that people have been there that long. Yeah. Quite a big margin of error there, to be fair. 8,000 to 13,000. To be clear, is that 8,000 to 13,000 or is that 8,000 to 13,000?

Because that is too big a margin. That is too big. 8,000 to 13,000. How many people were at your birthday party? Between eight and 13,000. So nine. Is two. Big, big jump now.

Big jump from September to October. Yeah. No good stuff there. No. We were working away, sweating over a hot edit suite. At the law mines. We were like, no, no a hot edit suite. At the law mines. We were like, no, no, it wasn't as good as the first six episodes of the year. But this is David Bowie's favourite episode.

This is David Bowie's favourite episode. And River, the River Ribble. The River Ribble. The River Ribble. And maybe, because we've done five years of the podcast, there's maybe a five more years joke. I can't work it out do you know what I mean five years

five years stuck on law man yeah I don't know forget it yeah no the market square at the beginning of that song

is meant to be the market square in Aylesbury when he says pushing through the market square oh is it near the Costa yeah it's hard to find

damn you Swaffer should have been more specific Bowie Near the Costa. It's hard to find. Damn you, Swaffham. Should have been more specific, Bowie. No, you're almost there. Keep going. It's near a Costa. I'm near a Costa. No, not that Costa.

The other one. Not near the actual Costa, near the vending machine in the Tesco's. Well, no one calls that a Costa, Bowie. Well, that's why I can't find the Bloomin' Burger Square and all. You can get Costa coffee from it, but that doesn't make it a Costa. Bloomin' a cost you in a minute for giving me these bad directions. And the people want to know

where Costas are. Doesn't really work. It's October, the spookiest month. Yes. And I've got a book that is my inspiration for the tales from October. It's called Haunted England by Christina Hole. I believe the K-hole has appeared on the podcast before. Is that right?

It's the C-hole. It's even worse. I'm sorry. But the thing is, Elaine, you know when you get like a mind worm yes for example when i'm watching the football and they say of a tackle it was well in i always finish off garden city whenever they say that yes yes. Whenever I see the cover of Haunted England by Christina Hull. Oh, no. Sorry, I've just worked out how you're reading that. Christ in a hole.

I can't not see it. I had worked it out, but I still enjoyed hearing it. Christ in a hole. Christ in a hole. He was a good man to have in a hole, Christ. He'd be rolling the stone to a side, no bother. He was handy in a hole. You put him in a hole, he'd be rolling the stone to a side no bother he was handing in a hole you put him in a hole he'd be back out of it in three days yeah yeah christ in a hole but in that book she talks about the ghost of the river ribble river ribble

his bank is a mess and it is the ghost of peg o'neill. Now, I'd like to give you some River Ribble facts. Yep. Straight up, River Ribble facts. And for people who are joining the podcast, this is David Bowie, played by the actor Harry H. Corbett. As he would have wanted. It's what both of them would have wanted.

So, the River Ribble, River Ribble, River Ribble? River Ribble. It begins as a confluence of three little rivers or streams. Thorn Gill, Gail Beck, and my favourite, Batty Wife Beck. The original Sugar Babes line-up.

Exactly. And that begins in the shadow of the Yorkshire Three Peaks. Looking this up on Wikipedia, when you search for River Ribble, you know it does the, you know, not to be confused with bit at the top. Yeah, disambiguation. Yes, it helpfully points out it's not to be confused with the River Ribble. What? Thanks, Wikipedia.

There's another river called the River Ribble. There's a double ribble? Double ribble, yeah, which is a foul in basketball. But no, the River Ribble I'm talking about, it's unique because it, well, it's not quite unique. It's in a very small amount of rivers in that it starts in North Yorkshire in the northeast of England. Yeah. And it flows to the Irish Sea, which is on the northwest of England. Impossible.

The Pennines are in the way. Aren't they? It manages to wend its way through the Ribble Valley. The Ribble Valley? The River Ribble's Valley. Delicious chocolate bar. The Ribble Valley. Are you having a caramel Ribble Valley, David?

Yes, I have two fingers of Ribble Valley. Yes, I am. Thank you very much, Hallie S. Corbett. Another live episode next. Yes. Yes, I am. Thank you very much, Halloway S. Corbett. Another live episode next. Yes! Live it in person. I did a lot of prep for this episode,

but I can't remember much about it. This is the comical tragedy of Mr. Punch, alive. I thought you were going to say this is a comical tragedy of my mind.

So I do a lot of work remembering things and it instantly falls out of my mind. Yep, yep, yep. But the highlight, according to the notes in front of me, say, ABK's accent switch. So I don't know.

Am I being made fun of here? No, no, it was a good, it was genuinely a good thing. Oh, okay. This was highlighted in particular by Ingrid on the Discord, in the Law Folk Discord, and it was Alistair's amazing voice switch. Because I think you do a you switch between well let's just listen all right if you wanted to sell something illegal like uh drawings of ladies you know the kind have you ever seen one james an illegal drawing of a lady

i would not admit to it on a live stream. No, you absolutely wouldn't. How can... Okay. If you wanted to sell an illicit drawing, you couldn't. So what you do is you would sell a bundle of straws for a vastly inflated price

and then give the pornography away as like a free... Like a free pamphlet that would come with it. Yes, yeah. I thought you were going to say you would roll it up really tightly and put it inside the straw. And then they have, not only do they have an illicit picture, they've also got a fun puzzle.

Because I imagine you'd have to cut it up into quite small pieces to get it into the straws. I've always thought that users of pornography needed a hobby. And there it is. Often people would be tricked though because it was so illicit. People would buy bundles of pornography, apparently. You shouldn't be buying porn by weight.

Give me a kilo of smutty drawings, please. I've got a busy weekend. No, but they would go away and find that the bundle they had bought did not have any drawings in it and was just old periodicals. Just pictures of straws. Oh, but they would go away and find that the bundle they had bought did not have any drawings in it and was just old periodicals. Just pictures of straws. Oh, mocking me.

That's kind of like, have you seen the illicit pens? Yeah. Do you remember the sexy pens? Sexy pen. It's a woman who's wearing clothes but they turn it upside down

or not so much. Hey. There were man ones. I've seen one with a man one but I don't feel like they were the... There was less to remove. Henry Mayhew interviewed a punchman. These days you would call them a professor, but in those days, yep.

Although many of them do not have a qualification to not teach at a university. Yeah, but they've got a threat, I suppose. You call them whatever they want to be called. They can't really punch you because their hands are covered with puppets. You'll have to excuse me. 1850s was peak, peak writing, working class people, phonetically time. And so the accent I'm about to do is not my fault because it's how it's written. And the punchman who Henry Mayhew interviewed described it thus.

Punch, you may know, sir., is a dramatic performance in two acts. It is a play, you might say. I don't think it can be called a tragedy. Exactly. It is a drama, what we calls it. There is tragic parts and comic and sentimental parts too. Some families where I perform it will have it most sentimental, all in the original style. Them families is generally sentimental themselves. Others is all for the comic. And then I has to kick up all the games I can. To the sentimental folk, I'm obliged to perform it very steady and very slow and leave out all the comic words and business.

They won't have no ghost, no coffin, and no devil. And that's what I call spoiling the performance entirely. It's the march of intellect what's doing this, sir. Is it political? It's political. It's gone mad. It's gone mad.

It's gone mad. Intellect. It's the intellectuals are you, James. So the thing that we haven't mentioned yet is that Mr. Punchy has a very distinctive high-pitched voice. Yes. Which is produced by a little secret device that the Punchman keeps in his mouth called a swazzle. Ah.

And Henry Mayhew, a.k.a. John Ronson. I think you could get your own. Could you get a voc- In here it advertises the vocophone. The vocophone. Subheading, an evening's entertainment in your waistcoat pocket. I mean, that sounds awful.

That sounds really bad. Uh, you can imitate all brass instruments rendering good solos. Mmm. Not great, just good.

I can do that. I don't even need a waistcoat. The listeners... I have to inform you, James is not actually playing a trumpet. He's producing those sounds with his mouth. Just like that Winslow guy

from... Yes, from Police Academy. Police Academy. Henry Mayhew, a.k.a. John Ronson, says, The call, he told me, was tuned to a musical instrument and took a considerable time to learn. He afterwards took a considerable time to learn he afterwards took from his pocket two of the small metallic plates unbound he said the composition they were made of was also one of the sorry i'm about to transition accents there was also one of the

secrets of the profession they were not tin or zinc because both of them metals were poisons in the mouth and injurious to the constitution. These calls, he continued. Oh, wow. Good effort. Thank you. We often sell to gentlemen for a sovereign a piece, and for that we give them a receipt how to use them. They ain't whistles but calls, or unknown tongues as we sometimes call them,

because with them in the mouth, we can pronounce each word as plain as any person. We have two or three kinds, one for outdoors, one for indoors, one for speaking and one for singing and another for selling. Oh, nice. So I think a less good quality one that it palms off. Oh, I thought that was one that like heightened his like marketing skills. Or like it just kind of, it's sort of on the fly, like a Babel fish, like increased his SEO.

Wow. I really am a man of three voices. You are. And you go between like that. Boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom. Yeah. Yeah.

Lovely. That was really fun. That was part of the cheerful earful festival. Yes. I, lovely. That was really fun. That was part of the Cheerful Earful Festival. Yes, I remember that. Which was a podcast festival. We did it in Shepherds Bush, of all places. That was probably the last live episode that was going to make it to the Almanac, right? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, probably. Because a couple of weeks later... No, you can't do two live episodes two weeks apart in the same city. Within the same month. What? One was at the start of October, and this one was on the very last day of October, which you and I know to be the spoopiest day of the year. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's it called? Hallow Stream. Lawmen Hallow Stream Special. Hallow Stream Special, yes. Spooktacular. Dickie's Screaming Skull. Quite a rude name. Pretty rude. Not the rudest, butull. Quite a rude name. Pretty rude.

Not the rudest, but pretty rude. Not the rudest this episode, but pretty darn rude. At least it wasn't Scully's... See how I'm getting at? Anyway. Yes, yes, I do. Yes, yes. Very rude.

Very rude. The Doctor would need to pull that little curtain, at least. But you'd still be able to hear. Yeah, it needs to turn the radio up. This was a lot of fun to do, though, wasn't it? It was a very, very fun episode, yeah. There were loads of law folk in. And it produced many a catchphrase.

Yes! For instance, schools, everyone's got one. Yeah, which has now been tainted, thanks to your scully screaming. Yep, yep, yep. Everyone's got one. some reservoirs some fish it's like a it's like a non-seasonal christmas pig you can say that to anyone at any time yes some reservoirs some fish and then you just sort of do that laugh forever should we hear the genesis of said catchphrases?

The genesis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Genesis. Well, welcome. We've got a terrifying tale for you today. Are you ready to be terrified? Broadly speaking. I don't think they are ready to be terrified.

They look like their mental reserves are solid. I need to put this, my skull has fallen. This is why they aren't terrified, because our terrifying skull is not in position. How's this? Yeah. There you go, that's what was missing. The skull was the problem.

Well, we're going to be talking about skulls today. Everyone's got one. Right? That's the slogan for skulls isn't it yeah everyone's got one if you took this skull out of tunstead farm or dire consequences for example here's a list. Not limited to, but including. Once, a farmer scythed a field of grass, turned around, the grass was unsythed. That's a stick. What he's done is he's picked up a stick. Yeah. A scythe that doesn't scythe is a stick.

Another one, your crops will fail, which is sort of the opposite of the last one. Your cattle might die or wander off. Or be alive too much. Yeah. Because he likes to do that. They're really big.

Some farm workers have had accidents. Now it sounds like I'm doing an insurance advert for small holdings I've seen 1970s public information films

farms are a death trap anyway surely absolutely you can't move for children falling into grain silos

on farms no but fortunately there was a camera there to catch it much like David Attenborough they would not help those kids that was ditchy

what are you accusing David Attenborough of doing? He doesn't help the animals. You want to jump in for an antler? If a polar bear fell into a grain silo, he would not help. Some clown threw it in Coombe's Reservoir. Threw the skull in Coombe's Reservoir

and all the fish died. An actual clown? Or are you just criticizing this person? I was criticizing the person. It was probably a farmer. And all the fish died in the reservoir. So maybe

it was a sort of form of dynamite fishing. That would be actually quite a clever way of doing it. So just fly up to the top, skim them off. You got a load of fish.

Are there usually fish in reservoirs as well? I was going to say that's a bit disgusting, isn't it? Yeah, I think he's doing that reservoir a favour. Some reservoirs have some fish. I think that's what was said. There's some laughter suggesting I misheard, but I'm doubling down on it.

Some reservoirs, some fish. It's no skulls. Everyone's got one. Some reservoirs, some fish? It's no skulls. Everyone's got one. Some reservoirs, some fish. Hold on a minute here. What? The last episode on the list. It's just the last episode.

There's a real recency effect going on here. It was a doozy, though, to be fair. It was a good episode, but can you really include a clip from last week's episode in a clip show? No, because it was two weeks ago now. Sorry, I forgot that time had passed. I think we included a clip of last week's episode in last week's episode. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, yeah. So the final clip is from the Dragon of Norton Fitzwarren. Yes, with special guests. Full stop. Lex Education. Laura Lex and her normal brother Ron, which I would like to point out is how they asked us to introduce them. Yeah, yeah.

We're not dissing Ron. By saying he's a norm. He's really weird. Yeah. Freakish. You know what, Alistair? As everyone will hear, as soon as we play the clip, I do the greatest joke known to man.

Yeah. And nothing gets nothing. Well, have a listen. Hello. I'm Ron. Normal Ron. Hi, Laura and Ron. They're from the podcast Lex Education, which is very funny and also actually very informative.

Is it? Are you finding that? Yes. Yes, I am. Well done, Ron. That's your job. Well it? Are you finding that? Yes, yes, I am. Well done, Ron. That's your job. Well done. Thank you.

He did say funny first, though, so well done, you. Yeah, well, that's to be expected. I'm hilarious wherever I am. But I've not retained a single piece of information from our podcast. It's been six months,

so I love it when people say they're learning because I'm like, well, at least one person is have you learned anything Ron? I've relearned a lot of stuff yeah I don't remember GCSEs being this hard to be honest they go into quite a lot of detail

bloody do I like to think of us as kind of like the science teachers of the podcast school and you guys are like the history teachers the cool history teachers yeah what like the kinds that have a leather jacket the kind and an what, like the kind that have a leather jacket? The kind. And an ex-wife.

The kind. She's going through a difficult divorce, actually. That's why I have to sit round on the chair this way. Now, I've got a confession to make on this story. So, we're here to tell you about the Norton Fitzwarren dragon. Norton Fitzwarren is the village in Somerset that Ron and I grew up in. However, Ron and I remember this dragon very differently. Guys, are we in a Rasharon situation?

What? A Rasharon. It was a pun on Rashamon. A Rasharon. That's so good. That's such a good pun, James. It was too good for you to expect it to go over with slightly dodgy internet. A rash-a-ron situation.

On the recording, that is going to be first class. I'm going to be laughing at that in the end. Would you like to explain this so maybe the listeners can clearly launder it? Could you explain that joke? Well. I don't know what that meant. The chap in the corner of your screen is called Ron. Yep.

Probably bro to Laura. Oh, yeah, or normal bro. And Rashomon is a Japanese story that's told from a bunch of different perspectives. Am I right, Alistair? Because I'm already out of my depth. That's correct. Each character remembers it differently. So that was a really good joke. Okay.

And like all good jokes, it took a couple of minutes to explain. Yes. I thought I'd like done a racist slur by accident or something. Yeah, it went down that badly. It went so bad. Like, I think because in part, because Ron had a little bit of lag on his internet. Yeah.

And Laura, as she says, does not get the reference. You, as you say, didn't quite hear it properly. And then, yeah, I really thought, have I said a word that I didn't know that is one of the worst words? Canceled yourself. Instantly, kunk, cancelled. Like Super Ted.

I watched a British mystery film from 1950 called The Lady in Question. And it's described as a Rashomon-style film. And it is. It's the same premise. But I just thought it was interesting that that's the same year that Rashomon came out. So it wasn't a Rashomon-style film at the time. It's just interesting that, I guess that telling a story from multiple perspectives and it being different each time, I guess its moment had come in the 1950s so that in Japan and in Britain,

people were making a film with exactly the same premise. Just a weird coincidence. What is, so are you saying it's like an Armageddon deep impact sort of thing? I'm saying it's, yes. It's a Dante's Peak slash volcano slash volcano i think was that the name of the other one i don't i think dante's peak won that one it's uh truman show and the other one

that was like ed tv ed tv situation yeah yeah i'm just gonna look up 1997 volcano movies because i will not rest oh it is called volcano The other one was called Volcano. Right. So in Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Hesch, Don Cheadle, Keith David's in it, but none of them, they're no Pierce Brosnan's,

are they? No. The problem for me with Dante's Peak is the idea that you need Pierce Brosnan to persuade you to run away from a volcano because it's got the same sort of Jaws-y thing of like,

we can still swim, but I think with a volcano, it's not really same sort of jorzy thing of like we can still swim but i think with a volcano it's not really negotiable it's like he's saying like you have to get out of town the volcano is erupting and people are like no we're americans we don't have to it's like no you you would i think you would yeah this is the fourth of july i want that mountainside open is that what the mayor says the mayor's like all of our money comes from being on the side of the volcano uh someone pointed out recently that that guy's still the mayor in jaws too that's it's super realistic but also it's a different shark. Like, I know they try to explain it in Jaws The Revenge 4. Do they?

I mean, because they kill Jaws the shark at the end of Jaws. So, of course, it's got to be a different shark in the second one. It's on the same beach, isn't it, in Jaws 2? So it's like, well, maybe it's some sort of migration thing. Jaws 3, it attacks sort of an underground underwater theme park thing. Jaws 3, it's in the, it attacks sort of an underground, underwater theme park thing. And Jaws 4, it's like, oh yeah, the shark's family doesn't like our family and they just come for us. It's a shark vendetta. Yeah. It's a shark blood feud, which I suppose they could smell out from over a mile away.

Yeah, from a great distance, yeah. Yes, yes. And the last thing in the recommendations is as one-off quotes go, to sum up Lawmen, the phrase, I'm sorry I ruined that with pedantry from Series 4, Episode 18, recommended by Vanessa. Now, something tells me, while I don't remember that quote, that I said it. Yes.

What was Series 4, 18? I haven't got my list. I can only be bothered to look at the first six. There was the X-Math summoning, which I still don't remember what the episode was about based on that.

It was a law student who randomly rocked up at a trial and managed to prove a carpenter's innocence because he had a carpenter's pen in his pocket.

It doesn't prove anything. It just proves that he's got a carpenter's pen. he had a carpenter's pen in his pocket. It doesn't prove anything. It just proves that he's got a carpenter's pen. You're just holding a pen. Pencil. Pencil. Pencil. Pencil. Sorry, James, you ruined that with pedantry.

Double high five. Oh, yes. Which would be a high ten. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Well, I've had a lovely Christmas pig. Oh, yes. I've've had a lovely Christmas pig. Oh, yes. I've had also a lovely Christmas pig. I hope the listeners have too of that little look back on 2022.

I hope they've enjoyed it. So let's just dance. Let's just take the pig's trotters in our hands and just dance the night away. As is tradition. Dance, dance dance dance you know at the end of a christmas carol they show scrooge the the ghost of christmas yet to come show scrooge the gravestone yeah it's like well of course you're gonna be dead in the future yeah you can pretty old scrooge he's so surprised that he's gonna be dead but like it's a given that you will die

so like there's no it doesn't it's not like he's dead he's just dead that's it and he's like oh well i'll have to do something then i have to change why you knew that that's the only piece of information you knew isn't it that the graves untended or something is it and no one likes it but it's all covered in snow so you can't see is there graffiti on it so has someone drawn a big CNB on it? No, they haven't. That would work, yes. I'm not here giving notes to Charles Dickens,

but yeah, it needs something like that. Has someone put Enos on the end of RIP or something? And he's like, oh, if I was a better person, I'd have a higher grave so that school kids wouldn't be able to come and draw on it i tell you what james because it's scrooge you could just use the o's of scrooge oh and then put yep a dante's peak and then and you know half the work has been done so just a couple of ideas for you there, Charles Dickens. Yeah, yeah. As I thought at school,

I could improve school textbooks with the addition of a C&B. If you don't know what a C&B is, I don't know how you're going to find out, really. Go to a boy's changing rooms? Yeah. That's bad advice. Yeah, right. You're not young enough that you didn't have textbooks at school.

I imagine they don't have textbooks anymore. It's all holograms and robots these days, James. It's all PDF files. It was avantage. What was that? Your French textbook. Ours was Tricolet. Oh,

Tricolet. Yeah, we had those too. And that was like, it was sort of like an anthropomorphic French flag that took you through it. Then there was the German one. I can't remember the name of it, but I don't know why they thought this was a good idea.

The anthropomorphic character that took you through the German language as a teenager was a big sausage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every single page, he'd been joined by a couple of nugget friends and seemed to be sweating profusely my god why did they do it why did they do it i do i do think some of the science textbooks i don't think

i've laughed harder at some of the images i've seen in those not just c's and b's but other things like i think there was one where it was like a prof it was taught it was talking about like diseases if you didn't have the right vitamins or something yeah and it was like a profile of someone who had like a big swollen like throat because of whatever what is it that you get when you go? I don't know. It sounds like goiter you're describing. I don't know.

Yeah. Someone had a big old goiter. And so it was a profile of that against the black background. And what someone had done very subtly with a black pen adjusted the silhouette of this goiter. So it was just like a face. So it had a second face. Yeah, basically.

So it was like, it was, you sort of see a chin and a big neck, but then you just realise, wait a minute, that's got the silhouette of a face on it. I don't think I've ever laughed harder. That's definitely the end of the podcast now. It's finished.

Yeah. Yeah. I can't wait until the next four episodes which will all be the best episodes of the year yeah well we're on for a treat

it must be that the winter like is it in Pratchett is it in Discworld that the trolls think better at different temperatures

it might be that or it might be just having a single week off over Christmas rejuvenates us yeah maybe well we'll find out Christmas pig to you James

and pig bless us everyone