Loremen Podcast - S4 Ep30: Loremen S4 Ep30 - The Blue Man of Bedfordshire

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

It's time for a Select Your Own Escapade! (Our non-trademark-infringing alternative to a Choose Your Own Adventure.) James lets Alasdair decide the route through the county of Bedfordshire and the boys encounter four local oddities: from a lost member of the Blue Man Group (AKA the Cerulean Chaps Team) to Henry VIII's most boring mate. Loreboys nether say die! 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.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod

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. And Alistair, I went to Bedfordshire this weekend. Bedfordshire? Of all places. You crazy cat. Yeah, well, that's how I roll. And that inspired me to bring a sort of a little smorgasbord of Bedfordshire ghosts.

Delicious. I'll enjoy them on a water biscuit. Well then, Alistair, hello. Hello. Sorry, you said that as if I'm being abraded for something. Well then, Alistair, how do you explain this? I'm well thenning because I'm quite excited about today's stories. Oh, good, good. I've got a little bunch. And actually, I'm going to be like that current Netflix series

that lets you choose the order that you watch them in, that I've only read headlines about. Isn't that every show on Netflix that you can watch the episodes in any order you want? Are there any shows where Netflix makes you watch them sequentially? Oh, well, apologise, listener. I need to unblow my mind. That's a very good point. Yeah.

And very well made. Shuffle is a big deal when it comes to listen to music but not so much when it comes to tv shows so fair enough yeah well i think what it is is there's a new netflix program about an event and it's usp is that the episodes are all standalone and you can mix them around and that you can influence how the story goes for yourself or something oh so that is an interesting way of presenting another classic shakeshaft grab bag of stories yes yeah and you know what a lot of people are comparing that netflix thing to some of the work of your friend of mine quinnitin and internet not not quinnitin they're very same the terrible child

of french cinema no he's not french but you know what i mean because it's long form and that's what it means yeah it's an annoying phrase long form because whenever i think of like a terrible french child i just get really annoyed it's meant to be a compliment but i'm like oh that sounds irritating if this is a kid that the french think are intolerable how bad is it i'm always amazed when i see kids speak in foreign languages like wow that kid's two and it speaks better french than me that is impressive c'est une bonne bébé un croissant maman s'il vous plaît i mean who knows what they're saying that's french for i am eating my bear

it's french for oh hey my jams on a bear okay so, so the choices I've got for you, Alistair, are... Oh, I didn't realise I was going to choose. This is like a choose-your-own-adventure. This is how I, as a different brand of nerd to you, would have introduced this. It feels like a choose-your-own-adventure, which I've just remembered is a trademark, and they get very shirty about people saying it.

Oh, really? This is like a select-your-own-adventure. I got a letter. Really? From doing a show with choose-your-own-adventure in the title. Blimey neck. Yeah. shirty about people saying it oh really select your own adventure i got a letter really doing a show with choose your own adventure in the title blow my neck yeah okay well they are litigious i would say keep your thumb in this page just in case something bad happens okay and then you can flip back what i've done is i've memorized the pages the numbers that are all death so i just don't choose those ones the one that sticks with me is a mountain,

I think it might be Mountain Escape. And one of the endings that I read when I was eight or nine was you run down a hill, fall over and break your ankle and die of exposure. Oh. Ugh. I thought you'd at least comically roll into a snowball or something. No, you just break your ankle.

You try and walk on it. It starts going green and smelling and then you slowly slip away. Have fun, kids. Enjoy your mountain escape. Another one is you basically get eaten by flesh-eating ants and the picture is their style drawing, which is quite realistic, of a couple of skeletons in backpacks. Oh, the ants left the picture is their style drawing which is quite realistic of a couple of skeletons in backpacks oh the ants left the backpacks yeah but seemingly took the clothes good point maybe

you were naked all along i don't remember choosing that but it would be an adventure no the choices i have for you are thus would you like one of the most boring stories I've ever come across. One of the vaguest stories I've ever come across. A story that will be very confusing for Australians and then I'm going to save the actually good interesting one for the end.

Okay, alright, well. So you can't choose that one. That one's locked until you've completed the other three missions. Okay, okay, i see i see i thought i was in control this isn't an open world adventure you've been directing me from the start yeah well i i'm gonna have to confuse an australian okay then so what happened alistair

is i went to bedfordshire this weekend what sorry i'm trying to do a surprised Australian. Where's that? It's in England, mate. What? And I picked up Haunted Places of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. So any half the book is relevant. And where I was, I had a little cast around for places that were nearby. And they were either, as I've outlined, either boring, vague or confusing for Australians. So we start in Cranfield, which this is kind of a true crime one but it's three centuries old so there was definitely a crime but we're not going to solve this which

sets us apart from other true crime podcasts where they do solve crimes and don't just speculate wildly or they really have a go though sometimes and sometimes actionably speculate that living people committed crimes with no evidence sometimes to such an extent that a court case can't be done because everyone's heard of the podcast that's not going to happen in this case we're safe yeah no one's going to hear about this one uh two no conclusions uh three yeah 200 years old yeah 300 years old so Yeah, 300 years old. So at that time, the manor of Cranfield belonged to Lord Snags. Love this guy. Now, this is where an Australian might get confused.

You what, mate? He's not a sausage. So is a snag a brand of sausage? I think it's just a name for sausage. So they don't call them Lord Snags. They just call them Snags. No. I guess maybe if you've got a really good one.

Here in Australia, we respect one thing and one thing only. Lord Snags, king of the sausages. In Australia, all sausages are equal. There's no hierarchy of snags. So this Lord Snags, despite he sounds a bit of a rummage, something about that name makes him sound like the baddie in a kid's drama that you get shown at school. But he's not.

However, he did marry an orphaned heiress of a neighbouring family who I think was a bit younger than him. Right, you're telling me he's the good guy in this story? Is that what you're telling me? I've read some books and he's not sounding like... He's not the best guy. But he's not necessarily a baddie if she's orphaned she's got no dowry so that's probably in those days

that's probably oh what a great what a great bloke I wouldn't go so far to say he's a great bloke because you know this is a true crime oh okay I'll hold off saying who's a great bloke until someone gets murdered yes so lady snags mrs sausages Okay, I'll hold off saying who's a great bloke until someone gets murdered. Yes. So, Lady Snags.

Mrs. Sausages. Mrs. Sausages to the Australians. I'm always impressed when I hear a kid talking with an Australian accent. It's like, how do they know how to do it? An Australian child, how do they know it? How do they do it? How have they learnt so many nicknames for things? How have they not learnt the third syllable in any three-syllable word? that why it said oh because oh no they're just forgetting yeah yeah yeah so she kind of

as is often the case in these historical stories of an old lord taking a young wife she kind of got ignored and she ended up striking up a romance with one of the handsome young farm hands good for her and one bright moonlit night things took a tragic turn for the worse so the farm hand was waiting to meet lady snags lady sausages at their regular meeting point on wood end road and he waited and he waited she She never arrived, and he just cut across the fields, went home. And the next morning, Lord Sausages, this is subtracting credibility

from what's going to be... You're taking away some of the gravity, I think. I feel like that was about to be the discovery of a dead body, but you said Lord Sausages, so it's a difficult segue now. Good luck. Well, he announced that Lady Sausages was missing. Everyone looked at the dog, and he was like, what do you want from me? going now good luck well he announced that his wife the lady sausages was missing uh everyone looked at the dog and he was like what do you want from me moi the dog's french by the way and

servants went out searching for her a search party was raised and then they found her bloody decapitated oh on wood end road so where he had been waiting? Yeah. She'd got no jewellery on her and it looked like a gang of robbers had done it and you know, she'd stood up to them and then things had got violent and ended in a decapitation which is... Oh yeah, and so naturally they had decapitated her. Ever so violent isn't it? Who goes straight to

decapitation? A street mugger. No one. That's ridiculous. You wouldn't have the tools. So that's the thing, these foot pads are desperate as discussed before a highwayman less likely to hurt you if they're horse-bound but if they're foot-based right they're more dangerous they need to mess you up so suspicions started to arise as they already have with you alistair that this wasn't the work of some criminal gang this seemed like something else.

It had been a warm summer's night, the moon had been up, as I already said, and a lot of the villagers had been out just knocking around in the fields, doing villager stuff. Perhaps making a corn dolly. I've played RPGs. They were just waiting for people to walk past so that they could say things like,

Hello, stranger! And just other sort of video game barks that don't really mean anything. I hear the king is sick. Things like that. Oh, you're up late tonight, sir. Do you think the Dark Riders will reach this place? This place.

I think they'd know the name of the place they were in. Yeah, but that's the thing. You want to make it generic. Just make a note of that for when you record the line that they should know. Oh, yes. Someone had seen that young farmhand cutting across the fields, so obviously suspicion fell upon him.

He'd been walking away from the scene of a crime. Mm-hmm. His home was searched, but nothing evidence-wise was found. Thank you for pointing out that, because if you'd said nothing was found, I would have jumped straight in with a joke saying, there's nothing in his house. What, it didn't have any chairs?

Yeah, but no, okay, you got me. Nothing evidence-wise was found. There were no jewels, there were no blood-stained clothes, there were no sausages, I guess. And the man was let go. The secret affair had come out, and so suspicion fell onto Lord Sausages. But there was no evidence, and no one knows what happened and now

to this day the ghost of lady sausages can be seen on wood end road sometimes with the head sometimes without but she's meant to be looking for her lost jewels now in another version of this story i did read a hypothesis as to how she could have been she could have parted company with both her jewels and her head in a robbery based situation is that the would-be robbers had done the classic thing of stringing a piece of rope across the path to knock people off the horses she rode down there and whoop, head off. What? Pop. So is that someone's actual hypothesis? Yeah.

It just whipped her head clean off? Shwoop. Yep. What? You can't, that wouldn't, no. Where? You can't whip someone's head right off with a piece of rope. Look, I'm not a doctor.

I've not tried it. And please don't, people at home. Good. Okay. Well, that is the first story that will confuse Australians because we were talking about people, not sausages. It was a horrible story. I think you really implied there was going to be some kind of exculpatory evidence, meaning that her husband didn't do it.

But in fact, there just wasn't. There just wasn't any evidence. There wasn't any evidence. Okay. I don't think it was a robbery. What? You don't think it was a robbery? With a decapitation rope? No, it's not a thing.

I mean, it would hurt. You might die, but it wouldn't whip your head off. It wouldn't make that noise. What would you like for your second choice? My... I'm going to have to go with boring. I could have a really boring story. Yeah? Because that one was quite

exciting and more churny. Okay. have a really boring story. Yeah? Because that one was quite exciting, and I'm all churny. Okay. That one really whipped my head off like a rope stretched across a road. What? See, it can happen. Now I want something a little bit more relaxing. A little bit of slow podcast, please. Okay.

Well, come with me to the little village of willington which sounds a little bit like willy town yep but it isn't is that the highlight of the story because i've enjoyed it pretty much i actually went and did a field report here uh it's in the edit at the minute it's one of the most boring things you'll ever see on youtube and youtube includes a video of a fire as in like a fire and a half not a fire you know a fire in the wild that's a bit more exciting to be honest so we're in Willington not Willetown Willington and in the 16th century there was a gentleman by the name of Sir John Gostwick and his family lived around Willington he became one of the most boring gentry you'll ever hear. So he went off to London and used a couple of his contacts

to get on the fringes of the court of Henry VIII. Henry V-I-I-I. And what he did was he just became the dull guy. So if there was some sort of big royal party that happened to clash with a very boring meeting, he'd go to the Lord that was supposed to go to the boring meeting and be like, do you want me to go in your place? And you could go to the fun thing and I'll just go to the dull thing.

And lots of people said yes. And he managed to do lots and lots of little favors for people. And he rose through the ranks in the court through that. He ended up with a lot of people owing him favours and people started to rely on him. What happened was he ended up getting the job of Master of the Hounds to the King. Right. Is that higher status than it sounds?

I don't know. Or is it just above the dogs in the rankings? It does sound a bit dull and probably a lot of picking up poo. 50%. 50% feeding, lot of picking up poo 50 50 feeding 50 picking up poo what kind of a system is that like if you're the master of the hounds but you clean up their poo who's who is really the master in that situation like if schoolmasters picked up the children's poo well they're not going to leave it there to be honest if they came across some it would be their job to pick it up no they'd get the caretaker in with a bucket of sand what they just sand it until it becomes a fossil yeah but the thing was henry the eighth as i'm sure we all know he loved doing the hunting so his hounds were

actually really important to him so it was actually quite an important job and henry would often come and have a chat with sir john about dog stuff. Yeah. Probably dog poo stuff. Yeah. Are you going to pick that one up? Yes. Yes. All right. Yeah.

Great work. Yes, sir. It's my job. Great work. It's half of my job. Basically, Sir John had the ear of the king and the poo of the king's dogs. Unrelated. A big sack of poo.

And so if anyone needed something, you know, they wanted to get something to the king, they'd pay Sir John, he'd mention it next dog session. Mention it over a pooper scoop. And he got a little bit of money and he kept that money and he saved up all his money and ended up buying the manor house at Willington. He had it knocked down and replaced with a magnificent mansion

which burnt down in the 18th century, apart from the stables and the dove cut. And it is famous to this day because the dove cut is quite nice. What a boring twist to the tale. It's famous for the dove cut being quite nice? Yeah. The last one had someone being beheaded with a bit of string. Well, no, oh okay apparently walks slowly around the site of his old home

enjoying the dove cut looking at the dove cut and sometimes walks to the church which is i'd say maximum 200 meters away dragging a bag of ghost poo yeah with a little he's got a little bag on his hand already pushed over like a little glove he's ready he's waiting he's gonna help you yeah it doesn't he didn't as far as any reports i've seen say he doesn't even help people pick up their dog poos doesn't he that's why he should be the patron saint of he should be the ghost who helps people with uh who are bagless in a poop scenario and now i've just thought about you remember the old 80s white poos white dog poos yes they who helps people who are bagless in a poop scenario. And now I've just thought about,

you remember the old 80s white poos, white dog poos? Yes, they haven't been in the pod for a while, the old 80s white dog poos. Welcome back, friend of the podcast, white dog poo. Are they the ghosts of dog poos? So that was the dullest story yet. Check out the video on YouTube. Yep, enlivened by a bit of dog poo.

We did manage to raise the stakes by including a big bag of dog poo. So would you like just a little sort of amuse-bouche of a very vague ghost? Oh, yeah, so this is the bit where I now get the choice to choose the only remaining option. Yeah. A very vague ghost, please. This is a place called Ampt Hill. Ampt Hill? Ampt. Ampt.

Ampt Hill. A-M-P-T-H-I-L-L. Could be called Ampt Hill, but I'm guessing it's called Ampt Hill, because there's a hill there. Up on the top of the hill was a castle called Ampt Hill Castle. Gardens apparently designed by... Oh, what's his name? Thingy Brown.

What's his name? Silly name Brown. I've got it. I've written it down. I've written it down. Capability Brown. Capability Brown. Catherine of Aragon lived in that castle.

Did she? When Henry VIII was trying to work out how to get rid of her. And in fact, Sir John, one of the few in vaguely interesting things so john goswick did was work with henry the eighth on working out how he could get divorced so it's interesting not very nice so so when he was trying to work yeah when he was trying to work out how to get divorced which bearing in mind meant breaking from the church of rome which is pretty big deal inventing his own church yes he would pop down and have a chat with the dog poo guy for advice seems so seems so okay but nowadays there's no castle there it's just a

hill and on the great park great park there is the ghost of a knight in a full suit of shining armor with a big bright shield and a lance lance with the flag coming off the top, you know, like in films. Yeah. And he gallops off the top of the hill, down a road, and disappears near a stream. That's where the story goes. However, anyone who's actually seen it says it's sort of a grey mist

that's probably about the size of a man on a horse. Well, that's equally good good that is the vaguest story to date yeah extremely non-specific but congratulations you have i unlocked it you have unlocked the final level leveled up yes stud ham stud ham or studham probably studham let's go with stud ham stud ham so uh the hauntedaces of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire begins its story like this. Studham is one of those villages that nobody goes to. Okay.

It's noted for its unusual war memorial. Which is on the German side. It's a very odd choice. Very rare. It takes the format of a building. It's like a small brick clock tower. And around it is a small's like a small brick clock tower. And around it is a small garden with a small hedge and a flagpole, which I'm guessing is full size.

It looks full size in the picture. So much full size, you can't see the top of it. So I can't see if the flag is also full size or is a comically small flag at the top of a full sized flagpole. Or is the German flag? We don't know. We don't know we don't well yes where that war memorial is or what that war memorial is next to is studham common and on studham common a very peculiar sighting happened there's the ghost of a short bearded man in a neat blue suit and a tall crowned hat and apparently comes up to walkers on the common as if he wants to ask a question and he doesn't disappear right then before speaking as

sometimes you'd imagine a ghost that comes up goes yeah and then no this guy asks a question the problem is it's in some sort of language that no one knows. He asks this question, and people probably take their earbuds out and go, sorry, what's up, mate? He mutters something, and then he disappears. Is he doing that thing in school where you say something really quickly to try and trick people, that sort of joke? Maybe, and it doesn't work because he doesn't get quite the exact response.

It's got to be says what or something. I can't think of any of those which are non-cancellable in the 21st century. Yeah. Thinking back on them, they were all quite unacceptable. It was never a compliment. No. People with great personality say what? What?

No, it didn't feel like an insult at all. You'd hope kids are doing that nowadays. But Alistair, on January the 28th, 1967, this is where it gets difficult. There were 12 year old school kids so seven times 12 years old school kids right right okay we're on the common in a thunderstorm okay and there was a flash of lightning clap of thunder and a little blue man the size of a six-year-old appeared. Hello. He had a circular helmet. It looked like a bowler hat but without the brim. So it could have been just a really cool quiff.

And he had a black belt with a little box on it. He had a long beard and he had a peculiar glow about him. And he would open the box and smoke come out and then he'd disappear. Look at my smoky box. His little smoky box? I've got a little smoky box. Hello, children. Where am I now?

Where am I now? Get away from this guy. He sounds awful. So clunk, poof, pop. And then he reappeared again. And the kids were like, what are you doing, mate? The kids were like, pedo. Weird little blue men say what?

And he opened the little box, po a little bit disappeared again and then the third time they're like i think the leader of the gang a little kid called alex was like let's not shout at him this time let's try and work out what he's doing and they've sort of heard him just muttering to himself and babbling away and then poof he vanished again and they told their teacher about this and the teacher apparently sat all seven of them down separately and got the story for them and got the same story from each and every one of them which is unlikely if they were fully making it up yeah yeah that's true and that is the more interesting story that is i think because Because some kids lie. When I was a kid, I had a friend who was late for school,

and his answer was that he was crossing the moors, his leg slipped into a hole, and a crocodile bit it off. Bit it off. Bit it off. And that, yes, James, that was where he slipped up. That is bold. Because he had both his legs. So really, his legs belied that story.

Also, why would a crocodile be in a hole? They don't live in holes. Well, it's waiting for kids' legs to come down, to drop from the ceiling for dinner. Good luck. Those are my Bedfordshire spooky tales. You know what, James? While we're here, should we score this?

Yeah, let's do it. Shall we apply the arbitrary scoring system to this one? Break from tradition and do the traditional arbitrary scoring system. Let's do it. Well, first of all, I'd like to be scored on the topic of Supernatural. That's quite a lot. Yeah, loads of stuff. It's a multi-ghost, multi-tale story.

Uh, multospectro. It's multospectro, as they say. As they don't say in Spain or Italy. They would if they saw more than one spectro what a zx spectrum yeah two zx spectrums they wouldn't know what they were looking at if they saw it in spain i think they only saw those in the uk didn't they probably wonder what other countries basic video game systems were was that a deliberate play on words because basic is the programming language that the zX Spectrum used.

Would you believe me if I said yes? No. Just checking. No. So when you hear the term, and this is going to have to be bleeped, BASIC. Yeah, I assume they mean like 8-bit. Fair enough. Yeah, it's like 10 print yass Queen, 20 go to 10. Yes, come on then.

All this chit-chat about the fun and the past aside, what are you going to give me supernatural? It was highly supernatural. I think there were even ghost poos at one point. I posited the idea of ghost poo, as opposed to deposited ghost poo. All right, then it's four. If we had a solid ghost poo, if there was solid evidence that the white poos were ghosts, but as it's speculative, four.

Second one, names. Well, what was the boring guy's name? I quite liked that. Sir John Gostwick. Sir John is rubbish, but Gostwick is quite good. It's like Ghostwick, isn't it? Oh, well, you'll appreciate the spice

on this. Sometimes it's spelt with an E at the end. Gostwicky. Implies illegitimacy. Oh, does it? Apparently so. I didn't know that. Yeah, I heard that. But I think that was just someone trying to make me feel less bad about my surname You don't have an E at the end of Shake Shaft

Yeah at the least At least I don't have an E at the end of it Yeah you could be Shake Shaft Day But you're not You're just Shake Shaft Mr Shacka Shaft to computers Have you confused computers with Shaggy? Oh maybe

Pretty certain you did the Mr Bombastic voice Mr Shacka Shaft Roll What voice are you doing? Shaggy. Oh, maybe. Pretty certain you did the Mr. Bombastic voice. Mr. Shackershaft. Roll. What voice are you doing? It's when you get your automated selling telephone calls. They sound like Shaggy to you. They call me Mr. Shackershaft.

Oh, I see. Oh, right, yes. So you're like a ghost wick. I liked ghost wwick, yeah. Like a Ghostwick. What else have we got? Ah, yes, we've got Capability Brown. Capability Brown, who swooped in just to have his name featured.

Although you couldn't remember his name, so I feel like, hmm. Well, I might edit that bit out. Okay, all right. It's fine. Well, then you back up. Lord and Lady Sausage. Lord and Lady Sausage, yeah. A.K.A. Lord and Lady Snags.

Snags. Studham. Tell me about it, Studham. Yep. As they say in the all-pig remake of Grease. It's called Pig Grease. I think it's another four. Yes.

If that's all right with you. Yep. All solid names. Not quite enough to make it up to a five. None that really blew me away. Next category. Make right with you. Yeah. All solid names. Not quite enough to make it up to a five. None that really blew me away. Next category. Make your mind up. Okay. Two.

If you're going to rush me like that, fine. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, sorry. That was the name of the category. I see. I've deliberately misunderstood. Allow me to elaborate. Please do.

The Amptill Knight is either a highly detailed HD, maybe even 4K, knight in shining armour with all the trimmings. Yeah. Or a blurry gas. A smudgy VHS. Yeah. Glitchy little, which is spookier, I don't't know i think they're both quite spooky yeah you're right that's that's quite contradictory make your mind up lady snags lady sausage yes sometimes

she's got a head sometimes she hasn't make your mind up make your mind up the little blue man on the common i'm not sure if that's an alien or a or a ghost i think yeah he seemed to be on the brink of alien it was the 60s or a foreign person or foreigner which is a synonym for alien that is true so john um he really did make his mind up to be very very boring yes he did yeah all right you sit on those ways i think i i think i see what i'm staring down the barrel of again i think it's a four yeah i think it's a solid four but this is good this is good you shouldn't feel bad about all four. Yeah. I think it's a solid four. But this is good. This is good. You shouldn't feel bad about all fours.

It's like a B plus. Well done. I've got a Lawman 2-2. It's a high pass. It's good. That's actually the most employable Lawman score. Oh, nice. That's what employers are looking for.

So they had a bit of fun whilst recording an episode of Lawman. Yeah, they don't want one of the geeks. There's only two of us, Alistair, so I'm afraid. No, I'm the jock. I'm the jock. You're the average, and presumably the guests, Chris can be the geek.

Obviously it wouldn't be me. I think he's geek in a different sense of the word. Well, in the sense of like a Victorian sideshow. Yeah. Exactly that. We have to stop him biting heads off chickens just to get him on the show. I'm glad we record remotely.

Okay, then, final category. Up the wooden mountain to Bedfordshire. That's a phrase I've always disliked. I thought it was going to go either way. Well, it's whimsical. Yeah, it's poetic. It talks of the past, but it's ever so southern. Yes, I think that's what it is.

You're absolutely right. It's the inclusion of Bedfordshire in it that really annoys me. Just the existence of the south of England is a source of constant irritation to me. And to mention it in the form of an idiom. If it was up the wooden downs to the Palatinate County of Duvaland. Well, maybe.

I mean, we don't have downs in the North East. Don't you? I don't think you... You only get downs in the South. I thought you got the Yorkshire Downs. No, they're Dales. Yeah, Dales. Yes.

Oh, I'm so sorry dale please don't write in people called dale up the wooden mountain to bedfordshire if people didn't know which is probably most people is an idiom is it an idiom it's a it's a soft saying isn't it it's a it's a it's a twee phrase people use yeah it's a fruity way of saying i'm going upstairs to bed here's what's wrong about that you don't need a euphemism for that do you know what i yeah it's a fruity way of saying i'm going upstairs to bed here's what's wrong about that you don't need a euphemism for that do you know what i mean it's not um you can just tell people you're going to bed it's not saucy or dangerous in any way it's not criminal it's not like i'm going to drop my kids off at the pool yes that's true although weirdly making people

visualize things plopping into a pool it's worse yes than just saying i'm gonna pop to the loo cutting off some dirty spine what i've never heard that i think that's a viz one these are all worse i think what's wrong with them is if you're not popping to the loo then what it is you're going to do there is vague whereas both of these make it abundantly clear yes but yeah so up the wood amount of purchase to go upstairs to bed i included that because when i started researching this story i found the stories all very very boring unfortunately in the retelling i think i've added a yeah i think i've added an element of spice to them that's going to wake you up yeah your showmanship and pizzazz has lifted them

yeah right the whole blue guy on Stodham Common, there's a thunderstorm and everything in that. So I'm arguing against my own category. That livens things up a lot. You've got a problem here, yeah. So if I give you a high score, I'm basically saying your stories were rubbish. You've got no patter.

This was boring. If I give you a low score, that's a compliment. But you get a low score. So make your mind up. What would you like? Maybe the most boring score, a three? A three. It's a three out of five.

The boringest score of all. The most boringest score. I've actually kept track of my scores for once, and I'm quite glad I did this time. That's a 15. That's a strong 15. That's good. Well done. So James, this pig-based

adaptation of Grease. Go on. Tell me more. Wella, wella, wella. Yes, the pig did put up a fight. Yeah, probably so. The song's called Greased Pig Lightning. So,

I mean, I mean, what more is there to say? What more is there to say? Just tell people to go to the Patreon if they want. Is that where they find

a bunch of extra episodes? Yeah, they would. Yeah. There's bonus material. You get things. Yeah, you get physical items. Mysterious, mysterious items.

Yes. And all you have to do is go to patreon.com forward slash loramonpod. On the internet. Yeah. Very important, that last bit. Type it in Shaggy's voice. Loramonpod. Yeah.

That's also what my parents call it. Really? Because sometimes if you type it in, it's like, did you mean Loramipsum? No! Which is literally the most generic words there can be. I feel that we're getting pass-hagged by did you mean? But I think everyone's

pass-hagged by did you mean? Yeah. Don't stretch a piece of rope across a busy carriageway at this point alistair you've not said that you haven't tried it and you seem very adamant that it doesn't work okay but my instinct is that it would not work