Loremen Podcast - S4 Ep5: Loremen S4 Ep5 - Major Andre and Benedict Arnold

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

The Loremen lived again! James tells our live studio audience a tale stretching all the way from the Peak District to the good ol' US of America. This episode was recorded at The Bill Murray in London, and streamed on NextUp. Expect:  - Poets! - Dreams! - Benedict Arnold! (Whoever that is) But above all, expect the joyous bonhomie of a gathering of loyal lorefolk. (The collective noun is a "pedantry" of lorefolk.) 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.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 James Shakeshaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And this episode is an edited version of a live show we did in actual real life. I know. I was there. I was there too. What a coincidence.

And there was an audience. Stuff like that freaks me out. Audiences. Oh, yeah. We had Mike Reeve. Actual Mike Reeve. Your PE teacher from when you were a kid. Which is pertinent because this story features Americans.

It also features a patented Shake Shaft flash forward, a little like your Quentin Tarantino. I don't think I signpost it well enough. Yeah, well, try and keep up, listener. Hey, should we do the intro bit? Probably should do the intro. By a quick cheer, who is here because you listen to the podcast? Woo!

And who is here by mistake? Woo! That's actually a worrying parity between people who know what's going on and people who have no idea what's going on. Well, 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.

Yeah, you can cheer again if you like. James' notes look a little bit thin today, so any cheering is welcome just to pad out the time. Please. We are here today to talk to you about the American War of Independence. There's an actual swear. Now that swear may not have come out on the tape. It sounds like someone is very unhappy about the American War of Independence. Which side of it were you on? Can you remember that? The re-invasion of America by Britain is on.

Yeah. As of now. This is the sort of reverse Boston Tea Party. Yes. Here. Where we take tea out of reverse Boston Tea Party. Yes. Here. Where we take tea out of water? I don't know. You're like, oh, it's much saltier.

This is almost too salty to drink now. Obviously, as you all know, I don't need to remind you, but the Boston Tea Party was one of the events that started. It was kind of a catalyst for the War of Independence. I keep going to call it Civil War, by the way, which I suppose technically it was for a little bit, but then it became very much an independent thing. Of course, in England, we call it the War of...

I don't know. It's not important. The Boston Tea Party was when a load of Americans threw 9,659 quids worth of tea, was hoid in the harbour at Boston, which is, in today's money, that is $1.7 million worth of tea. Wow. And that was done to annoy the British.

And it worked, to be honest, because you put the tea in, then you put the water in. You don't put the tea into the water. I can't stress that enough. You don't put the tea in, then you put the water in. You don't put the tea into the water. I can't stress that enough. You don't put the tea in the water. That's the Boston Tea Party joke you told me about that you were going to tell on the way here. You said, I've got one joke for the show. It was a good one.

It was not bad, I thought, yeah. I'm worried for the rest of the podcast, but that was really good. I'm sure no one even did it at the time. We also want to talk about a chap who I'm sure you guys are going to know, a chap called Benedict Arnold. Benedict Arnold. Benedict Arnold. Benedict Arnold.

He was an American man from the past. Sorry, yes, I sometimes need to translate the accents. But I think the thing is, we don't really know who Benedict Arnold was. I thought he was a type of eggs. This will probably alarm and panic some of you, but sometimes I watch Murder, She Wrote. Yeah, it's a great show. It's better than you remember it being.

Angela Lansbury is a tour de force. Really, she can do it all. Singing, dancing, acting. She's wonderful. Very good American accent as well. And she's a pretend American because she's actually from London. Yeah, is she Irish?

Yeah, I was Irish. We've got an Irish there. I think she's English. Can anyone resolve where Angela Lansbury's from? Or bring a third nationality into the game. Jamaican. There's one episode of Murder, She Wrote, which is all about Benedict Arnold.

And I wasn't really sure who Benedict Arnold was. And there's an English guy in it who is obsessed with Benedict Arnold because Americans imagine that we British really like Benedict Arnold. And know who he is. And know who he is because he was a... Well, he was a traitor. Slash hero. Yeah. Depending know who he is. And know who he is because he was a... Well, he was a traitor.

Slash hero. Yeah. Depending on who you ask. He was the ultimate turncoat. He was a general in the... Well, the thing is, right, he was a general in the American army very successfully for five years.

And then for one year, he became a general in the British army. And that's the bit that everyone concentrates on. He had a vibe. He was the the bit that everyone concentrates on. He had five. He was the guy that fought Ticonderoga. From the last episode of the podcast. From the last episode of Lawmen. Ticonderoga.

What a wonderful phrase. It means the area where two rivers meet. It doesn't mean no worries for the rest of your days. It does not mean no worries for the rest of your days. Good to know. Good to know. He is a descendant of a chap called John Lothrop, It doesn't mean no worries for the rest of your days. It does not mean no worries for the rest of your days. Good to know, good to know. He is a descendant of a chap called John Lothrop,

who is a vicar from Etten in Yorkshire. Etten. Etten. It's like what you've done with your tea. Of Etten. And he emigrated to New England. His two main claims to fame are that he was one of the major proponents of the separation of church and state. As a vicar, that's odd. Did you just not like the state? He was lazy. Just want to do

Sundays. I don't want to do the rest of the week. Thanks. Actually, I say lazy, he was quite busy. He's believed to have over 80,000 direct descendants. What a player. Absolute player. And a vicar as well. No wonder he didn't want to do any business interfering in the state. He didn't know he was busy elsewhere. Yeah. He had 13 children in his lifetime, but his descendants are believed to include,

citation needed, four presidents, Ulysses S. Grant, because Ulysses Grant was taken, obviously. When he joined Equity, yeah. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Same joke again. You can put that one in, right? George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

That's a twofer right there. He was also related to a lot of the early leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter-day Saints. I think that's how you pronounce it, right? Sarah Palin. Mitt Romney. Wild Bill Hickok, because Bill Hickok was taken, I'll say on it. In what order are you doing these names?

Dr. Spock. Not Leonard Nim doing these names? Dr. Spock. Not Leonard Nimoy. No, Dr. Spock, the baby Dr. Man. Oh, I just remembered, of course, he was Mr. Spock. I'm confusing him with bones. Also Clint Eastwood. He's related to Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jake Gyllenhaal. Because it's Maggie Gyllenhaal.

That's how you remember. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jake how you remember Maggie Gyllenhaal Jake Gyllenhaal it's an easy mnemonic and he's related to both of them and he's related to both of them incredible and

Kevin Bacon from the phone advert I had to check with James whether that was a joke but that not being a joke means that six degrees of Kevin Bacon

works for literally anyone this is the reason that's probably why the game came about I think because of that. Because he's related to that top lad from the olden days. Absolute player. What was his name, the absolute Yorkshire player?

Reverend Pull It Away? John Lothrop. It's not, it's not, you want something there, don't you? You want a sexier name. You tied it back to Ticonderoga in the last episode, where I told the story of Ticonderoga as told by Andrew Lang. And when you told me we were talking about Benedict Arnold, I wondered if Lang had written anything about it.

And Andrew Lang has not. But Mrs. Andrew Lang has. That's his wife. But she tells a nice story about how sad Benedict Arnold was, because she wrote a history of Benedict Arnold's wife. Mrs. Benedict Arnold. Peggy was Benedict Arnold's wife. And while she was giving birth to William,

the Arnold's youngest son, Benedict Arnold was trying to travel to the island of Guadalupe, and he got as far as Falmouth, which is nowhere near us. Could not catch a break after you betray America once, and then it's just bad luck. So he was hanging around in an inn in England. The innkeeper, who was aware that he was an American general, but didn't know who he was, put him in touch with a bishop called Talleyrand, who he thought might like to meet him because Talleyrand was travelling to America.

And Benedict Arnold was a little bit sort of, no, no, thank you about it. Like, I'm one of the sad generals, but I can't say why. And Talleyrand tried to say, oh, oh, oh, we've had a lovely chat. Maybe you could write me a letter of introduction when I get to America. I could, the Americans are like. And the English are like, who's Benedict Arnold again?

He the breakfast guy? And not to accuse Benedict Arnold of being dramatic, but his response to the request for a letter of introduction was... No! Burst forth the stranger with a gesture of despair. That I cannot do. I am perhaps the only American who cannot give you letters to his own country. The ties which bound me to it are broken. I can never go back. I am Benedict Arnold.

And with bent head, the unhappy man quitted the room. What did the Englishman say? Who was that? Who's Benedict Arnold? Literally never heard of you. But I want to talk to you about Major Andre. One of the top Andres. He's right up there. He's a Major Andre.

Yeah, he was visiting the Peak District. He was visiting his friend, Miss Anna Seward, who was a poetess, according to this book. She hung out with other poets. They were the bards of the peak. She was hanging around with Major Andre, riding around Litchfield, showing off the Peak District, and they were going to visit their friends,

Newton and Cunningham, who were the peak minstrels. Bitter rivals of the Peak Bards. It's going to kick off. It's going to be like West Side Story. They're all like a little poet off. They're going to do a stanza off. Yeah. Your arms are going to be broke like enjambment.

Nice. That was a classy poem. That was a really good reference No? Because it would be broken Yeah, yeah, yeah I don't know enough about poetry It's when the line breaks

In the middle of the line Forget it It's not important It's just clever So yes They went to visit Newton The peak minstrel At his house in Tideswell.

Wait, just to be clear, is this man a frog wearing human clothes? Because that's what I'm visualising. No, I think he's a human man. Okay. And she's a poetess. She's a poetess. A Mrs Poet. So, Stuart and Major Andre are riding along through the Peak District to Tideswell to visit Newton, the peak minstrel, and another peak-based poet, the poetical village curate,

Reverend Cunningham, has arrived early, and he meets up with Newton, and, well, this is how the story goes. I need to borrow your man-from-the-past voice. The olden days man voice! That's quite a long passage, so maybe a slightly toned-down version of the olden days man voice. The olden days man voice. That's quite a long passage, so maybe a slightly toned down version of the olden days man voice. The olden days man voice. Ah, the olden days man voice. There we go. Okay, so

Cunningham comes in. That was stage direction, I didn't need to read that in the acting. So why didn't the acting pan out with you, James? Why did you end up doing this? We'll cut that. You don't say the edits, you just do things, James.

You made the same mistake again. So Cunningham comes in, and after having sat a few moments, abruptly said, Newton, I place no implicit faith in dreams, never scarcely bestowing a passage of thought on them, at least my own. But last night I was troubled by a dream which still haunts my mind

with an unaccountably tenacious impression. He's a poet. He just comes in and says this with no warm-up. No, he sits down for like a second and goes, well, he's not asked me how I am, so. I had a bad dream. I thought I was in the midst of a dense and darksome forest, and he goes, well, he's not asked me how I am, so. I had a bad dream. I thought I was in the midst of a dense and darksome forest,

not altogether of wood, but composed in part of thickets, impenetrable and bogs impassable. He's a poet. Because when someone tells me they're in the woods, I'm like, yeah, 100% wood. Zero thickets, unless I'm told otherwise. I looked around and at some distance, I beheld a man on horseback approaching me in great speed.

Even at a little distance, I perceived something in his physiognomical expression that greatly interested me. Skeleton face. He never explains what that was. Why interested? It's really... Oh, come on! Poets!

Not a skeletal rider. Bloomin' poets. He had nearly reached me... We know what proportion of the wood was thicket, but we don't know what was it with this guy's face. He had nearly reached me when there sprang from an adjoining thicket three savage-looking men who seized the horse's bridle in stanta after some little conversation the young man on the horse turned pale and deadly in

countenance and i felt an expressionless sympathy for him as i beheld them take off his boots and other portions of his clothes and then hurry him away and then newton butts in so i'm gonna need a slightly different man from the past voice do you want me to read newton oh yeah slightly different man from the past voice. Do you want me to read Newton? Oh, yeah. A slightly different man from the past voice. This is like a play. And what of this? Replied Newton. Poets are dreamers, awake as in sleep.

Stop, stop. I have not done yet. Is that my part over? Yep, that's it. Poets. that's it poets so he basically woke up and then fell asleep again and and in a dream

I stood on a plane beside a city or town and from which there came forth a murmuring like the death wail of a thousand tongues blah blah blah

and they led him to a summit on the plane and suspended him by the neck on a towering gallows tree. I approached the place and lo, the thousand assembled all wept. Never will the seeming courage of the suffering man be erased from my mental tablet. Was that all wept or all wet? Wept.

Wept. Yeah, sorry. I thought he was all wet. There werept or all wet? Wept. Wept. Yeah, sorry. I thought he was all wet. There were thousands of them all wet because they'd been trying to get their tea back out in a blimmin' mortar. And that was kind of the end of the dream. So this man was hanged.

That's what you ran in here to tell me is a dream, is you just had a dream. I had a dream about a man on a horse. It looked interesting, but I'll not tell you why. And then he was killed. And then he was hanged by three men. Yes. And that goes back to your friend of mine, Major Andre,

because Major Andre was the guy that brokered the deal with Benedict... The other Benedict. He brokered the deal with Benedict Arnold to buy West Point, which was a very pivotal fort near New York or somewhere in America. He turned Benedict Arnold's coat, basically. Major Andre went to get away on his boat with Benedict Arnold, but his boat had been attacked and sailed away a little bit. So they were trapped on the shore of America, a country

they'd very much just betrayed. That is the last situation you'd want to be in. That is embarrassing at the least. It's like when you say goodbye to someone and then you realise you're walking the same way as them. Yes, yes, yes. But if you had betrayed them in the American War of Independence. Yes. It's almost more dramatic than that now that I think about it. Yes. Benedict Arnold managed to get Andre some civilian clothes and a horse and Andre was trotting away

when he came across three men. John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart and David Williams. Sorry and David Williams. Sorry? David Williams, not Walliams. This is not another slander case brewing. But wasn't that, isn't that his name before he changed it to be an actor?

Yes, because he was trying to shed some of the shame of what he's about to do. David Williams, yeah. To Peter Andre. Major Andre. Major Andre. So Major Andre saw these three guys and he thought they were Tories because of their coat. So what does Tory mean in this context? It's basically the British, the King's men, the Royal Army were called Tories at that point. Because the word used to mean an Irish bog-trotting thief. So in the American War of Independence,

anybody who supports the English side is a Tory. Yes. And so Andre went up to them and said, gentlemen, I hope you belong to our party. And one of them replied, what party? And he replied, the lower party. Wink, wink, meaning the English. And they said, we do.

And so Andre told them that he was a British officer who must not be detained. He was on very important business. And then they said they were the American army, actually. And he said, no. No. And he said, yeah, me too, actually. I was joking on the bit where I said I was English one

and you've passed the test, well done. That didn't wash with them. Their suspicion was somewhat aroused and they searched him and they searched his socks and they found his papers that he'd hidden, that Benedict Arnold had given him some papers. I imagine they'd be wet because if he's anything like Peter Andre, he was always standing up to his waist in water.

Yeah. All greased up. Maybe the grease repelled the water. Yeah, that explains it. That probably explains it. Basically, he tried to offer them his horse and his watch to get free, but they were having none of it and he was arrested. And later, he was hanged.

Aww. Not the reaction I was expecting. No. I think what you were getting at was, that's the dream, isn't it? Yes. Do I have to do the voice again? James, if you could just read those four pages again in full.

The young man on the horse turned pale and deadly in countenance and I beheld him take off his boots and a portion of his clothes. Yeah. Dreamed it. That's pretty good. Flashback to Tideswell, the residence of the poets, the bards of the peak, the peak minstrels, and... This is peak minstrel.

Cunningham and Newton are there, and Seward and Andre turn up, and as Andre walks in, Cunningham whispers to Newton that he, Andre, is the anti-type of the man in my dream. And the other guy said, what the hell do you mean by anti-type? Yes. Literally no one has ever said that word. I think it means the guy. He's the guy man in my dream. And the other guy said, what the hell do you mean by antitype? Yes. Literally no one has ever said that word. I think it means the guy.

He's the guy I'm a dream. Newton, a little flustered by the remark, put a stop to any further interruption with a significant wave of his hand. Shush. And Andre, he left them and he went off to America and all those things happened and he was hanged and the dream came true.

I didn't realise that that had happened first. I didn't realise the dream had happened before he was hanged. Well, it would be much weirder if he turned up post-hanging, to be honest. No, there was a lot of flashbacks in there. There was a lot of flash-arounds. It'll be obvious in the edit. Are you going to take out the bit where I'm confused? Yeah, probably. And I'll lot of flash arounds. It'll be obvious in the edit. Are you going to take out

the bit where I'm confused? Yeah, probably. And I'll just say, I understand. You can just drop that in wherever. As it says here, time passed and Cunningham often talked about this dream. He just wouldn't stop banging on about it. He was so tight lipped, a character. And Miss Seward, the poetess, wrote a poem. She published a book, a political effusion, entitled Monody on Major Andre. Monody. Monody on Major Andre. Put a couple of extra syllables in there that were not necessary. Is it monodonous?

The monody on Andre? Yeah, it was basically a poem that was just having a right old go at George Washington. She wrote a strongly worded poem including the rhyme Oh, Washington I thought thee great and good

Nor knew thy near-o thirst Of guiltless blood That doesn't rhyme. Good and blood rhyme, don't they? Good and blood. Oh, you're a southerner. Yeah.

Good and blood. I should have read that they do rhyme yes um yeah you don't get many complaint poems nowadays i think people don't seem to take them as seriously anymore and that's probably why my ejection to the neighbor's planning permission was ignored south oxfordshire town council I thought thee great and good. But by granting this planning permission, you go against your own plan for the neighbourhood. I've got a number of complaint poems here that I've prepared, mostly in the form of haiku.

Eurovision is a word that does not relate to song or contest. And then maybe in the live stream we'll just cut to like a frog plopping into a pond and the ripples. I think we should be trusted to call the biscuit its name, Speculoos. Yes. And a little limerick. think limericks uh the probably the punchiest form of complaint yep dear councillor i think you can see if we were to cut down this tree that in this field this proposed new build encroaches on our privacy so you're mocking the idea of writing a complaint poem,

knowing full well that my mother wrote a complaint poem in real life. I did have a memory that maybe your mum had written a complaint poem. Yes, well, I'm sure this has come up on the podcast. My mum wrote a complaint poem about the guy who did her driveway. This would have been 10, 15 years ago. He didn't finish doing the driveway and he wasn't coming back and so she wrote a poem and I think I may have said that she published it in the Durham Advertiser.

She, in fact, the mere threat of publication was enough to affect a completed driveway. And I can read the poem now. Are there any Irish people in the room? I can read the poem now. Are there any Irish people in the room? I don't think it's overly offensive. But it's like when you're telling a story about someone you don't like and you mention their nationality for no reason.

It's seen and isn't related to the story. Or poem. I tell you what, what I'll do to avoid embarrassing Cathy, who did not want me to share this on the podcast. What about the live stream? She doesn't know what a live stream is. She's happy with that. Thank goodness. What I'll do is I won't mention the nationality of the person who did

the drive. I'll just skip over that. And that way, I don't think anyone can be offended. But it is a specific personal complaint about him and doesn't reflect on his countrymen on the Emerald Isle. Which could be any of them. Loads of countries agree.

Would Angela Lansbury be annoyed on their behalf, potentially? Let's get Lansbury in here. The salesman at the door, promising the earth, no suit, no samples, but honest dirt and stir. This person of a particular nationality has kissed the stone to be sure.

I don't think I can go on. I think it's obvious that... Anyway, he finished the drive. It's the important thing. He finished the drive. So maybe, yeah, complaint penalty does work. That's not the only time that to be sure appears in the poem. It's in the next three words.

It's in the next three words, to be sure, again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, Kath. So that's the tale of Major Andre and his premonition, the premonitions of the peak minstrels. Well done, James. That was a lovely story. Thanks very much.

Shall we segue smoothly into the scores? Yeah. Now we've got an assembled group of law folk here who i think might be able to provide us with the numbers what is your first category my category the first is i'm getting out the way supernatural zero hardly super one do i hear one this is not an auction it's getting alternate there are no ghosts unless you are Alistair at the bit where you didn't understand the timeline of the story. Yeah.

In which case, there's a very big ghost. The Americans are right. We do have a premonition. What was that about socks? Shoes aren't socks. Shoes aren't socks. An unusual heckle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's accurate as well. That's one of them annoying heckles. It's like, they're right, to be fair. You know what? I'm not coming to your work and slightly correct you. Politely, at the point where you've said that we can shout out. They're right, shoes aren't socks. Yep.

Can't argue with it. Yeah, so there was a premonition, even though, as the person in the back Indicates Shoes aren't socks It wasn't as accurate As it could have been It was closer than

Derek Okora We're hovering around A two Do you think Three Zero I've never heard so much Support for zero James

It was a premonition It was a dream It came to him In a dream One Give me one It's a one We can give him one

Give me one Okay then And a one. We can give him one. Give me one. Okay, then. And what an enthusiastic clap it was. The threes were angry. The zeros were angry. We've satisfied nobody. Right then. Right then.

Category the second. Names. Come on. There were names. There were names. Benedict Arnold. Need I remind you of Benedict Arnold? Yes, I must.

The Breakfast Guy. John Lothrop. Shit. Big Andre. Peter Andre. Peter Andre, yeah. Major Andre the Giant. Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Hold on, that was just a list of people. Talleyrand. I had a figure called Talleyrand. That would have been a better name for John Lothrop, I think. A Talleyrand. A poetess. Yes, a poetess. The Minstrels of the Peak.

Oh, I forgot about those names. The Minstrels of the Peak. The Bards of the Peak. The Bards of the Peak. They are all titles, but titles are a form of name, please. I don't know how this podcast attracts pedants. Every time we do a live, the cool hip people don't come.

And it's just... It's just nerds. It's just pedantic nerds. Wall-to-wall pedants. It's very weird. The audience is thick with pedantry. Well, pedantry is naturally a substance, so it can't be pedantic. John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart.

Nice. Litchfield. Well, I was feeling generous until you tried to squeeze Litchfield in there. Although, a lich is a type of supernatural monster, isn't it? Or it's a lich. A lich. Lichfield was believed to be named after the site of a mass grave, but that was discredited.

A lich meaning dead. Yeah, a field of the dead. Should have said that for supernatural. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are we thinking? I think it's a three from the people who were impressed by... Oh, hello. Three.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's stop debating. That's a decent three. It's a decent three. Don't feel bad about that, James. And I'll go to my third category, Poets. There was an eye roll there. James did an eye roll. It's very difficult to practice an eye roll in the mirror. You really can't tell if you're doing any good. Honestly, you have to take a

little video of yourself. And now I've got loads of really useful gifs. And I think maybe I am going to win that planning permission case now. So you're trying to get a high score by being unimpressed with your own category? Yeah. I'm like poets. What are they like? Eye roll again for the audio, sorry. I want to score on poets. Oh, I'm live.

Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay, wow. They've turned around. They have. Do the people hate poets as much as you hate poets, James? Yeah. Yes.

Do we have any poets in? I wouldn't want any poet to feel marginalised or despised. Or to write a complaining poet. Oh, please no. I'd be gutted. Another eye roll there for the pod. Andre, in the few days before he was to be executed, wrote a poem.

Did he? Called The Cow Chase. Sounds quite fun. Did he know he was going to be executed? It sounds like the kind of thing that you would only really get involved in if it was a surprise. Yeah, so what have we got? We've got the three poets of the peak. Seward, Newton, Cunningham.

We've got Andre's poem. We've got Cathy King. Cathy's poem, yeah. We've got my poem. I've become a poet? Become the thing I feared the most? Yeah. Yeah, so what's the score for poets?

Come on, it's got to be five. I mean, really? It's five. It's five. People are even doing a hand gesture. Okay, then, final category. Final category. This is insurmountable.

My final category is degrees of Kevin Bacon. I'm pushing for a six. It's a six. Pushing for an unprecedented six. Oh, no. But we can't have six, James. The scale, the arrow on this thing only goes up to five. Pop.

It'll pop through past the red. And steam will come out of the machine. So what am I getting? A maximum of five? Are we doing board game rules? Where it's like when you bounce back. Oh, back down to four. No, not four

that's too far or it cycles around to one no yes why did i say that it's like i don't know if i mentioned this but the scores are written on a morbius strip so it's one and in a different dimension now it doesn't even count we could roll it over like a jackpot to a future episode and you can have a spare. Does that seem reasonable? Yes. James can have a spare. Well, okay.

I'm writing an IOU out now. Can I trade that in on my Supernatural now to boost those points? Can I take that extra degree of Kevin Bacon and move it back over to Supernatural giving me two? I'm going to throw it up into the room. Can James do that? No! Strong, Nixon, strong. I don't think he had a premonition of it.

There was general support for that with some very loud no's. It's the poets in the crowd again. I think you can do that. So I'm going to let you do that. So what are the final scores there James? I didn't write them down I think it was now

two for Supernatural, three for Names which is low because I forgot a load of names and Poets was definite five right and then five plus one degrees of Kevin Bacon making me the winner. It's not a competitive podcast.

There's no winner here. We're all losers. Thank you very much, losers, for coming to see. No, we're all winners here, actually. Yeah. Well, no, that implies that, like, we're going to here, actually. Yeah. Wait, no, that implies that we're going to give away prizes or something? Oh, yeah, we haven't got any prizes. So we are not all winners here.

No, no. Thank you very much. Sorry for the lack of prizes, although we never implied there would be any until the last second there. I feel everyone's really disappointed now. Yeah, I feel like the lack of prizes... Shall I read another poem? prizes. Shall I read another poem?

No! Shall I read another grumpy poem? Stop him! Stop him! To prevent this from happening. I think that was a triumph, James.

Yeah, me too, actually. Thank you to everyone who came and everyone who watched it on NextUp. Yeah. If you enjoyed the podcast, you could go to patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod and get access to all sorts of bonus episodes. And if you just want a fancy new t-shirt, go to tpublic.com and search for Lawmen Podcast. And if you want to look at us, go to our YouTube at youtube.com forward slash Lawmen Podcast. And if you go there in time for the 12th of July,

I'm going to be doing a little live on location stream. I'm going to go hunting a snuffling beast. All right, we'll let him do one. This is a complaint haiku. I am pretty sure there's no way I would order diet Coke. And that's available from James' collection, Is Pepsi OK? A monodony on Pepsi. Thank you very much. I've been Alastair Beckett-King.

I've been James Shakespeare. We are the Lawmen. Good night.