Loremen Podcast - S4 Ep52: Loremen S4Ep52 - The Queen Rat with Tom Mayhew

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

The Loremen are joined by Tom Mayhew (from Radio 4's Tom Mayhew Is Benefit Scum) for one of our stinkiest, sexiest episodes to date. Following in the footsteps of Victorian journo Henry Mayhew (no relation), the boys meet the Battersea rat-charmer Jack Black: mole destroyer by royal appointment. We gawp at the Original Happy Family™, we follow "toshers" into the sewers of Bermondsey and we wince at young man's hairy encounter with... The Queen Rat! Deputy Loreperson Tom Mayhew can be found at the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, performing his new show This Time Next Year, We'll Be Millionaires! Content Warning: Alasdair "sings". Loreboys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 @loremenpod www.twitch.tv/loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shakeshaft. And James, we're not alone. I knew it. I've got a freshly minted deputy law person for you In the form of Tom Mayhew Ooh, exciting

Yeah Now, James, do you remember when you said you'd follow me anywhere to the ends of the earth? Yeah Well, now is your chance to follow me into the sewers of London town Right Again, as I tell you the tale of the Queen Rat. The tale of the Queen Rat. Hmm?

Because rats have tails. James Shank Shaft. Yes, Alistair Beckett King. My tone of voice is serious. Yeah. Please imagine that i'm doing a tearful youtuber apology or or notes app apology i have an apology to make in a previous episode of the lawmen podcast um thereafter referred to as lawmen i got a mythological

character's name wrong oh no it no. It was Persephone. You may remember, to annoy pedants, I pronounced the name Persephone as Persephone. And I thought myself a little rascal. Yeah, lovely stuff. But we were talking, James, about the Odyssey, not the Orpheus myth. Oh.

I wasn't talking about Persephone at all. I was talking about Penelope. Should have said Penelope. My favourite of the melons Cantelope yes so that's it yeah I'm really sorry the listener who pointed that out was well within their rights to delete every episode um I think I'm liable to be thrown out of pedants club yeah I think your role as the peddling pedant is under threat, to be honest. Yeah, I'm going to have to take off my clips, my little bicycle clips. Hand in your spooky-dokies. And I've mentioned Pedants Club, which isn't allowed.

Yeah. I mean, it's not the first rule, but it is one of the rules. A lot of people think it's the first rule of Pedants Club, but it's not. But it is one of the rules. And it gets worse, James. What? I haven't just embarrassed myself in front of you and the listeners. No?

I've humiliated myself in front of a guest law person. Have we got a guest law person? Yeah, there's been a guest law person here in the clubhouse all along. Oh, I thought that might have been a ghost and I didn't want to say anything. It is no ghost. It's the comedian Tom Mayhew. Hello, Tom. Hello.

How are you doing, guys? You good? Hello. Very good. Thank you forhew. Hello, Tom. Hello. How are you doing, guys? You good? Very good. Thank you for sitting through that really nerdy apology. I mean, that's all right. I would have thought the first rule of Petent's Club would be that you have to bring it up every time whenever someone wants to hear it or not, you have to keep bringing it up. It's just we're just trying to make our point, Tom.

You know, facts are important now the listener might know tom you've got two two radio four serieses i do yes tom mayhew is benefit scum now that's not my opinion that's the opinion of the bbc they said that about you it is just pure coincidence that you also share the opinion see i have all the same opinions as the BBC, yeah. Wow, so that's fantastic. So people can go and listen to those if they live in the UK. If they don't, I assume they have to illegally pirate

them from anti-Beeb. Yeah, which I'm perfectly happy for people to do. I don't think I get any money if people listen to it on BBC Sound, so feel free to pirate it and then just send me a quid. Gentlemen, cast your minds back to the 1840s. Oh, remember it well.

Yes. It was not so different from today in many ways. The Houses of Parliament were full of public school toffery. The waterways of Britain flowed with human effluent and it was very hard to get taylor swift tickets yeah that's a topical joke there three weeks ago that that's the most topical i've ever been when i wrote that in my notes i was like that's a joke check it out yep so um that's there's no more jokes from now on so don't bemed. The other thing that happened in the 1840s was that friend of the podcast, Henry Mayhew, published London Labour and the London Poor. And law folk might remember that this Mayhew, not to be confused with Tom, was a sort of John Ronson or Louis Theroux of his day,

interviewing three types of poor people in London, which he categorised as those that worked, those that couldn't work, and your favourite and mine, those that will not work. Oh, the coulda, woulda, shoulda. A lot of them are thieves, which is work. But anyway, and I feel kind of bad. What happened was a listener suggested,

hey, that was a good episode. The next time you do a story from London Labour and the London Poor, you should get Tom Mayhew on because you've got the same name and you have an interest in social justice, Tom. But I realised kind of what I've done in this episode is I've sort of said, speaking of filthy, horrible wretches from the streets of London, take it away, Tom. Which wasn't my intention.

Well, that is how you usually would introduce me when you MC. I should establish that I'm not actually related to this Henry Mayhew person because my girlfriend did when she found out about him go, oh, you're related to this guy. And I was like, no, he's, if anything, he's kind of, he would be like a relation who would just come around and stare at me and not give me any birthday money, I suppose. One of the useless relatives who really don't pull their weight.

Yeah, I don't think he's part of our family tree, sadly. So you're able to comment on Henry Mayhew from an objective standpoint, Tom. That's great. I feel like this is some sort of like accidental nepotism. He's got the same surname. We're not actually actually related but someone's before i was and booked me anyway if you want to get ahead in this industry and i'm not sure what industry we're currently in but that is crucial you got to know it's who you know it's who your name is similar to yeah i thought i was getting a combination of samuel beckett and stephen king how dare how dare you james shakeshaft make fun of my name the the the arrogance of the man i know i'm on the back foot because of that because of that persephone debacle what did you think you were getting when you booked shakeshaft my great

granddad donkey donkey shakes i thought i was getting cockney geezer donkey shakeshaft tossing coppers. Hoying a copper in the canal, yeah. Exactly. And then escaping to Dagenham. True stories, Tom, I'm afraid. To be clear, Tom, yeah, these are true stories. This is not riffing.

This is historical fact. I'd like to tell you, James, about one of the people who Henry Mayhew interviews, and that is no less than Queen Victoria's Ratcatcher. What? The Queen Victoria's The Ratcatcher. What? His name was Jack Black. What?

Yeah. Television's Jack Black. Hollywood's Jack Black was... Yeah, exactly. That Jack Black off of Tenacious D was also Queen Victoria's rat catcher. Was he any good? Was he any good, Jack?

He was Queen Victoria's rat catcher. Nuff said. Does that mean he was also Jack the Ripper or something? I really hope not. Have I spoiled the ending? No, I've warmed to him so much. If he turns out to be Jack the Ripper, I'm going to be devastated.

Because he is called Jack. If you could pass me that red string. Yes, hold on. I'll pull some down from Jack Black, the singer. You've just put a picture of Jack Black, the singer. Who turns out is unrelated. Yeah. How many Jacks have you got on this pinboard?

I've got Jack Black. I've got Jack White for the set. That's the only Jack. It's generally the only Jack. Jack Nicholson. Jack in a box. I've the only Jack, generally the only Jack. So Jack Nicholson. Jack in a box. I've got a Jack in a box, yes. Car Jack.

Yeah, there's a Car Jack there, which was a, that was a drunk Amazon purchase. I'm not saying these are likely, but once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, James. Even if it's a Car Jack. No matter how improbable.

Even if it's a car jack, it must be Jack the Ripper. So Jack Black, if you can picture him, he's a bit slimmer than our Jack Black. He wore a little top hat and a belt across his torso like a sash with embossed metal rats on it,

which he made himself. And the letters VR, as in VR, Rat and Mole Destroyer to Her Majesty, which is how he described himself. VR stands for Very Rats. It's virtual reality. That's how he got the rats. Nice. Now, I don't know if he was actually officially Queen Victoria's Rat Catcher,

because the authority on which he makes that claim is his own. So he was, according to him, Queen Victoria's official rat catcher. Well, yeah, she'd never admit it, would she? Someone's got to catch those rats. She's not doing it herself, is she? In a way, Jack Black, the rat catcher, is the original Tom from Tom and Jerry. Yes.

And also, if you hit him in the face with a frying pan, his face becomes the full shape of a frying pan. Same with an iron. Actually, he did survive some really nasty violence, so i'm not going to go into much detail but this guy is a survivor didn't he claim he was um bitten by a rat all over his body yes he was famous for not being bitten by rats because he was so good at handling them but he was also bitten by rats a lot of times in lots of places and he nearly died twice from rat bites. Now, Rat Catcher, you might say, James,

that's not very magical or folkloric, but Edwin Radford's Encyclopedia of Superstition, edited by Christ in a Hole. It's Christina Hole. Christ in a Hole and Eddie Radford. And Eddie Radford. On the same bill. Gnarly.

That book regards rat charmers as faintly supernatural entities, a bit like the pied piper. Thanks for being pied. Yes. As in two colours, not a meat pie. Right, like piebald? Like piebald, yeah, exactly. The rat charmers could supposedly handle rats without being bitten,

and Mr Black could do exactly that. I'm going to quote from the book, and as before, I'm going to do a dodgy John Ronson impression. handle rats without being bitten and mr black could do exactly that i'm gonna i'm gonna quote from the book and as before i'm gonna do a dodgy john ronson impression lovely for sorry mayhew because i can't do louis through and some might say i can't do john ronson but it's not gonna stop me also double sorry tom i thought he was your relation again and so that's why i apologize there but now i'm apologizing for thinking he was your relation carry on alistair he's not related to tom mayhew no they've just got similar sounding names it's just the same word no yeah their surnames just sound the same because it is the same surname yeah they sound exactly the same it just sounds the same because it has the same letters in it

i mean my middle name is james it doesn't mean i'm related to you does it james my middle name is James. It doesn't mean I'm related to you, does it, James? My middle name is James. What? Twinsies. Oh, really? Yeah. Good work, your parents. Alistair Beckett, James King. Is it also James's middle name as well? His name is James, James, James.

Shake James Shaft. I am James Shake Shaft III, and they misunderstood what that meant. So, hold on, you're James Shake Shaft III? I am, of course. I'm the son of Jimmy, East End Gangster, who is the son of Grandad Jim, my Grandad Jim, who is the son of Donkey. I will never know his real name.

Well, I did ask my dad before he died what his real name was, and he said he didn't know. Really? So, it's literally lost to the myths and he will forever be known as donkey shakeshaft he's the one who threw the policeman in the canal um so maybe it was a pseudonym I really hope that you didn't ask your dad that on his deathbed and that was the last question you asked and his last question I don't know and he just died and you go oh okay wasted that question to be honest

should have asked about the gold the legend of donkey's gold very strict your dad about number of questions like a genie in that respect like no you've had your question yeah we're just gonna sit it out three years before he died couldn't ask him a thing hey dad no no i can hear the rising inflection

this is gonna be a question are you doing an australian voice or is this an actual question henry mayhew writes go on and i've got to say i think that was the the longest gap between me trying to secure a quote and getting to actually say it. I mean, do you want us to make it longer? He writes, The first time I ever saw Mr Black was in the streets of London at the corner of Hart Street. He had a kind of stage rigged up on which were cages filled with rats

and pills and poison packages. Here I saw him dip his hand into this cage of rats and take out as many as he could hold, a feat which generally caused an awe of wonder to escape from the crowd, especially when they observed that his hands were unbitten. Women more particularly shuddered when they beheld him place some half dozen of the dusty-looking brutes Again, the rats. rising up on their hind legs like little kangaroos and sniffing about his ears and cheeks. But those who knew Mr. Black better

were well aware that the animals he took up in his hand were as wild as any of the rats in the sewers of London and that the only mystery in the exhibition was that of a man having courage enough to undertake the work. Wow. What a legend. Just knock him about like blind kittens, they said. He didn't just catch rats.

He had been known to partake. Mr. Black informed me in secret that he had often, unbeknownst to his wife, that's an inverted comma, so I assume it's pronounced in that cockney voice. Again, I'm not to blame for this cockney voice. It's just how it's written.

He had, unbeknownst to his wife, tasted what cooked rats were like. Oh, okay. And he asserted that they were as moist as rabbits and quite as nice. Mm. If they are sure rats, he continued, just chase them for two or three days before you kill them and they are as good as barn rats. I'll give you my word, sir.

Chase them? Yeah, chase them. For two days? James, simply chase the rats for two or three days until they have sweated out the poo, basically, I think. They've got a lot of sewer in their system. Yeah, that's the implication. Yeah. You want to just sweat it out of them.

Where are you chasing them? A circuit, I would hope. That's a good point. So you're back where you started at the end of two or three days. You want to plot a circular route. You don't want to be like, oh, I've finally got my rat. My now extremely lean rat. But I'm three days chase from home.

Can I just check? Did you say this guy had a wife? Yeah, yeah, he had a wife. How? And that's his main hobby. Oh, how was your day at work darling yeah you know just chasing the rats again oh okay why am i with you um yeah i think it holds a hope for any of us that if jack black the rat catcher to be fair though he did conceal from her the fact that he ate sewer rats sometimes i don't i think a relationship is based on trust i don't think he should have done that i know i'm making it sound quite glamorous but he had had quite a hard life like tom says he

had been bitten a lot he'd been hospitalized or whatever the victorian version of hospitalized which i think was just lying on a pallet with straw on it and waiting to see if you died being given some brandy i would argue, considering he basically seems to spend his time juggling rats, it's kind of his fault he gets bit a bit. Oh, oh, and now Tom's true colours are on the spread. Left-wing stand-up comedian victim blames. This is how... Oh, you don't get that on Radio 4.

Yeah, I'm going for that big, you know, GB News spot. Jack Black, he used to have a pub on Regent Street. Things had been going very well for him. He's kind of on his uppers by the time Mayhew finds him. He had a... I don't think it was called the Rat Catcher's Arms, or maybe I've invented that, but I would have called it that. His daughter served behind the bar as the Rat Catcher's Daughter.

It's spelt Catcher, because that's how they say it. She served behind the bar as the rat catcher's daughter it's spelt catcher because that's how they say it she served behind the bar and they had matching velvet outfits which sound really nice but sadly the brewery shafted him which is exactly what happens to pubs these days and uh and his outfit was in porn by the time mayhew came so he didn't get to see the rat catcher outfit oh p-a-w everyone p-a-p-a-w just making sure everyone knows yes yeah yeah yeah it's a yeah it's not if it's not launched a second career um when mayhew called um black told him that business is bad for rats which i think which for the city might have been good news but for jack black it was bad news so he had had to diversify and he was mainly catching sparrows because, as he put it, sparrows is the rats of birds.

So argue with that. Fair enough. Not only pigeons. I think it was sparrows in those days. He said they would huddle together like rats in a cage. I don't know how he caught them because they're so small, but he was a talented fish tickler. Hey, good.

I'm called down here the Battersea Otter, he went on, for I can go out at four in the morning and come home by eight with a barrel full of freshwater fish. Nobody knows how I do it because I takes no nets or lines with me, even though Matthew does see nets or lines with me even though Mayhew does see nets and lines when he's at his house

but you know he doesn't mention that but like a paragraph up it's like he walked me past loads of fishing equipment but anyway I assure them

I'll catch him with my hands which I do but they only laughs incredulous like that's how it's spelt I know the fish's aunts

and watches the tides. I've caught near the Wandsworth Black Sea, as we call it. Half a hundred white sometimes, and I never took less than my handkerchief full. And Mayhew says, I was inclined, like the inhabitants of Battersea, to be incredulous of the rat catcher's hand fishing, until, under a promise of secrecy, he confided his process to me. And then, not only was I perfectly convinced of its truth, but startled that so simple a method had never before been taken advantage of.

And what was that method? Did you just sort of grab him? Grabbing him, I think, yeah. It doesn't say in the book, because obviously he's sworn to secrecy. But even the description of the method was so convincing that he believed it. So it must be pretty, it must be slightly better than just grab them. Just grab them.

Just grab them. They're eels, they're massive. Grab them. I mean, that's one thing, because Jack Black, he's described on Wikipedia as a rat catcher and also a mole destroyer. A mole destroyer.

Was that another sideline? Yeah, he doesn't mention it at all in the interview, as far as I can tell. But it's a lot easier to kill moles, I think, sadly. It sounds like he's taking them down mentally as well. Like, he's not just killing them, he's breaking them. There'll be a YouTube video like, Jack Black to destroy his mole. Your house is so inconsequential people use it as a comparison to some big problem

mountain out more yeah we know we understood just in case just in case it's for the same people that thought they were using the costume in porn yeah thank you yes yeah uh now i'd like to take you to the opposite end of the rat spectrum now briefly and tell you a little bit about the original Happy Family, because it's possible that Jack Black sold his rats to a Mr. John Austin, who invented and exhibited the very first original, genuine Happy Family. Now, what do you reckon that is? Is it the card game? It's not the card game Happy Families.

That'd be quite the twist if it turned out they were all rats. They were originally printed on rats and it was really hard to play because they'd be scurrying about the whole time. It's like the Victorian version of an inspirational TikTok, basically. It's loads of animals that normally would kill each other in a cage together having a whale of a time.

And you could look at them not killing each other, you know, like cats and mice and ferrets and rats, all larking and frolicking happily in a cage. A happy family. Like a live, like a zoo kind of thing. Like a zoo, but they're all in the same cage. Being friendly. Crucially, that's absolutely crucial. Being friendly to each other. Because you know that if you let the lions and the ocelots in the same cage,

it'd go badly for the ocelots. How did they make them friendly though? Why are they not eating each other? Great question. A lot of people thought that he drugged them, that he gave them opium, but he didn't. It was pure training. His secret, and the book does reveal this secret, his secret was loads of animals dying while he practiced teaching them not to kill animals.

So it's just a really revolting story, to be honest. He says that one ferret cost him two pounds worth of birds. Now, I don't know if that's money or weight. Either way, in those days, that's a lot of birds you got through. They don't weigh much, famously. Stop killing birds! Just giving it another bird until it gets bored of slaughter, and then sticking it in a cage.

That sounds like just some full animals. At one point, he had two monkeys, rats, cats, dogs, hawks, owls, magpies, ferrets, and a coati. All in together. Happy family. Mr. John Austin, at one point, at the height of his success, before everybody started ripping him off

with their own happy families, he even exhibited in front of the Queen. Queen Victoria herself. She's back in the story. Did she recognise some of the rats? Well, wouldn't it be annoying if you were a rat who had been caught in Buckingham Palace by Jack Black, sold into a happy family,

barely survived the gruelling initiation, only to revisit Buckingham Palace in an acting role. It's so weird for the rat. Well, maybe the rat would see that as, like, coming full circle and, like, finally I can prove myself. Like a homecoming gig. Queen Victoria bobbing interview there. It's like, oh, so now you want rats.

Make up your mind. How did even John Austin come up with such a, frankly, silly idea? He loved animals so much that he... Not that much. ...killed loads of them in pursuit of a ludicrous ideal. Did no one at any point go, I don't think anyone would go see that? Even the first time he showed it to someone. He was like, look at that.

Cat and a rat. Cat and a rat. Look, they're not killing each other. It's very difficult to show the absence of a thing. It was really popular. It was so popular that he had people plagiarising his material.

There were knock-off happy families all over. But where did he get the animals from? Because surely, like, once you've bought, like, 50 birds from a pet shop and then you come back in next week and go, oh, I can have 50 birds, they'll go, why? What did you do with the last ones? Are you the guy who bought three coarties last week? This is England in 1840.

We don't have a lot of coates. How happy are these families, John? They are eventually happy. There's a strong survivor bias in that name. How happy is your own family, John? That's what I want to know. Shuffling out bird corpses every day. Is it a Tolstoy quote that all happy families are the same?

You're talking nonsense, Tolstoy. This one isn't. It's got a monkey in it. If it's not Tolstoy, I apologise to the pedants. To be honest, I missaid it as Toy Story. Buzz famously said that, didn't he? So that's two appearances of Queen Victoria but I've got

another better queen for you to close off this tale listeners might remember James you could

remember Tom there's very little chance of you remembering that a race of sewer pigs lives in Hampstead sewers

oh yeah yeah the Hampstead sewer pigs the Hampstead sewer pigs we all know about the Hampstead

sewer pigs let's not bang on about the We all know about the hamster sewer pigs. Let's not bang on about the fact that the race of pigs lives in the hamster sewers. How long would you have to chase them before you could eat them, though? Wait, wait. What on earth could you have a question about at this point, Tom? Sorry, Tom, we've got another question there about the race of sewer pigs that live in Hampstead. Carry on. Are you sure that's not like a Pixar film or something?

Race of sewer pigs that live in Hampstead. Carry on. Are you sure that's not like a Pixar film or something? Listeners who remember our Christmas pig episode might remember that the Toshers of London, who were people who went round the sewers collecting stuff, you know, flotsam jets and metals, anything they could sell, lived in fear of the race of sewer pigs, which were supposedly very scary.

But I think I can top that. I think I can beat a race of sewer pigs today. Let's get out of the hoity-toity North London Hampstead sewers and travel to the sewers of Bermondsey, not so far away from Battersea, where we started. Probably a short rat chase by sewer. Yeah, by the time you get there, your rat is going to be delicious and tender. from Battersea where we started. Probably a short rat chase by sewer. Yeah, by the time you get there, your rat is going to be delicious and tender.

It was a hard time to be a tosher in 1840 because A, your job was sifting through sewage. It's an appalling, appalling job. And it was illegal. It was banned in 1840, which I think makes it kind of cool and edgy. Yeah, they ruin all the fun, don't they? The so-called nanny state with their political correctness gone mad

banned sifting through human waste for coins. It's all bloody health and safety, isn't it? This is why we left the EU. It's health and safety and subterranean pigs gone mad. It's health and safety And subterranean pigs gone mad Brussels bureaucrats And sewage were not the only problems Faced by the Toshers

They lived in fear of The Queen Rat Now Henry Mayhew Who was a serious journalist Never mentions the Queen Rat at any point in his book But that's not going to stop me The reason for that is that her story didn't break until the 1990s what according to friend of the podcast law of the land this tale was told by liz simpson a descendant of a tosha named jerry sweetly nice

one and he died in 1890 as well as having a name that makes him sound a bit like maybe a lounge singer. Jerry Sweetly sings very sweetly. That would be his first album. I'm visualising him in a sort of crocodile suit. But you look closely at that crocodile suit and it's pig. It's so a pig. The Queen Rat was a, well, she was Queen of the Rats, but she was able to appear both as a rat and as a beautiful woman.

She was a rat, but also a woman. Yep. Like the top half rat, bottom half woman? She wasn't a mer-rat. She could transmogrify, as far as I know, fully. That makes a lot more sense. Yeah, okay. Would you prefer top half or bottom half rat just

something to think about it'd be nice to have a tail i suppose more wear out the murderer yeah yeah she's a she's more of a wear rat good point james yes she may have had a tail i don't think she did she had eyes that reflected like an animal's eyes you know like a cat or a rat's eyes will sort of flash green and she she still had claws on her toes but apart from that she looked like a beautiful woman. Or perhaps I should say a conventionally attractive woman, because it's 2023. And what did she do for fun?

Well, she loved to seduce young Toshers, like our friend, Jerry Sweetly. Jerry Sweetly. Who in the story, and this is, I mean, it's about to get very unpleasant. He's 15, but I invite you to think of him as if he were an adult based on what's going to happen next in the story and also the fact that the age expectancy for a tosha in those days cannot have been high jerry had had an argument with his pregnant girlfriend and he struck off in a silk to the boozer and started going on the lash. In the pub, he met

a lovely lady and he'd had a row. You know, this isn't good behaviour, but he goes back with her to a barn to engage in shenanigans. Now, this isn't Lawmen Lates, so I can't describe it. Also, I don't want

to describe it. Because that beautiful woman was the lady of the sewers the queen rat the queen rat in her human form the queen rat and while they were getting up to whatever it was they were getting up to she bit him upon the neck now apparently this is good look yeah it's full of twists um being bitten on the neck by the queen rat will offer you protection from rats so it's very a very handy thing for a tosher to have yes perhaps that's what jack black had maybe that's how he was able to handle them we don't know this yeah this sounds like very weird logic like oh, oh, I've been bitten by a rat, so I can never be bitten by another rat ever again.

It's not chicken pox, like... She bit him on the neck. He didn't know what was going on. He lashed out. And suddenly, there was no woman at all. Just a huge rat on a beam, glowering down at him with a scrap of cloth in its mouth. Huge like the size of a person, huge. Or big for its mouth. Huge like the size of a person, huge.

Or big for a rat. Huge like the size of a big rat, I think. Big rat. It opened its mouth to speak and it said, You'll get your luck, Tosha. I'm doing my best EastEnders acting here. Yeah. But you ain't done paying me for it yet.

As the rat spoke, the piece of cloth fell out of its mouth and fluttered down and, of course, matched a hole in Jerry Sweetly's shirt. So it was indeed the rat who had bitten him on the neck in the form of a lady. And the curse came true. It was that Jerry Sweetly was forever cursed with bad luck in love, which actually means it mainly affected his partners, not him. Like his partners kept dying. But he seems to have been fine and gone on to live for several more decades.

That'll teach him, yeah. Playing away with a rat, are you? Well, I curse your girlfriend for no reason. And you'll be fine, actually. And also, rats won't bite you from now on. Bye! I think you could argue that the bad luck in love probably started with sleeping with a rat woman.

Yes, that's a very, very good point. From that day onward, there would always be an odd-eyed girl in every generation in his family. One blue and one grey. Oh, OK. Thought you meant like three. No, not an odd number of eyes. Not an odd number of eyes, right, right, right.

And that continued right up to liz thompson the teller of the tale presumably to a tabloid newspaper in the 1990s but i can't i can't find out where she actually told the story and that is the story of the queen's official rat catcher and her counterpart the queen rat that's a oh what a lovely set of stories i mean i did imagine it was jack black from the music throughout yes and i hope all the listeners did too bearded jack black latter day i mean i'm calling him tv's jack black he he's he's more known for his uh for his music and his uh silver screen work than his short-lived hbo tv series but carry on are you ready to score this tale

james i am i've got a sash covered in silver rats oh yeah and i'm gonna give you an amount out of five of silver rats okay oh nice well the first category is names right great jack black destroyer Jack Black. Destroyer of moles. Bane of mice. Squasher of sparrows. I mean, he's known by all of these names. He's like Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. The Battersea Otter. This is the same guy. The Battersea Otter.

That guy could tickle an eel. No, that sounds like a nickname that he wanted to get started. A lot of these are self-applied nicknames, I think. Yeah. The Queen's Rat Catcher. She went a bit to it, don't ask pashinos jerry sweetly jerry sweetly i'm gonna have to give it a four because there were some great names but we just needed a couple more to tip it on the edge oh i have the same surname as uh yeah we've got two meh hues in the house two meh hues it's four silver rats from my sash i'm unpinning them now clink clink clink clink fair enough are these rats still

alive have you just dipped them in silver paint yeah they're spray painted silver you gotta chase them for a couple of days um when they drop you get the spray come out. Ticka, ticka, ticka, ticka. Tsss. Ticka, ticka, ticka, ticka. Tsss. They are as docile as a blind kitten. Mmm. Yeah, one of them. Second category, Supernatural. Mmm.

Okay. Pretty low on the Jack Black side. We got a shapeshifter in a barn. However, yes. I was going to say in the house again. When Jerry Sweetly comes along with his weird tales that he told his granddaughter about his i think possibly we might be in great great territory here great great granddaughter territory also i think you could say that jack black was supernatural

because he could clearly control the minds of rats yes yes well the encyclopedia of superstition edited by christ in a hole it's christina hole treats rat charm as a supernatural and yet he demonstrates exactly those abilities to handle a rat without being bitten once apart from all those times he was bitten again this is the man who was bitten multiple times and nearly died twice like the happy families thing where he just got rats that had bitten him so much they couldn't be bothered to bite him anymore. Just full rats. They're just tired of it. Full of his blood. To be fair, I think judging him on being bitten by rats

is like judging a comedian on their first gig. It's like, yeah, he was bitten by rats before, but look at him now. Yeah, you've got to pay your dues, James. Come on. He's on live at the Apollo with a shirt full of rats. He did all those open mic gigs where the rats bit his face off, but look at him now.

He's got no face. It's just rats. It's a three. It's a three. Even though a woman shapeshifts into a rat. Yeah. Or vice versa. Yeah, it could have been.

To be honest, I don't know this Jerry Sweetly's story. He might have mistaken that rat for a woman, for all I know. James, the rat bit the thing. It bit a fabric out and the fabric matched the hole. That proves the woman and the rat were the same. That proves that he was kissing a rat. Oh, okay. All right, yeah.

Just to be clear, it had gone beyond kissing, but carry on. I think if you don't give it a four, then you might be haunted by the queen rat. Yeah, you don't want the curse to fall upon you, James, or fall upon someone else. That is a risk I'm just about willing to take. If I've learned anything from the Happy Families scenario, she'll get bored in the end.

Oh, you arrogant modern man. You're like the protagonist of a 1960s science fiction story written by a British author, wandering through life, confident that your rational worldview can explain everything. Well, I just hope you get your myriad, James. Fine. Next category. I'm afraid I have to sing this one.

Killer Queen. Whoa. I'm not sure that was singing. No, that was more like a shock. It's like you're being surprised by the queen. That's if I died and I wanted to let you know that the queen did it. Yes. Killer Queen. I'm trying to and i wanted to let you know that the queen did it yes killer queen i'm trying to do that queen song you know dynamite to the lizard oh it's like freddy's in the room

amazing wow that's that's my that's my category rate the category on just the phrase queen and not on abk singing please oh yes tom i thought you were in my corner. And suddenly, now that it's about the scores, you immediately throw me under the bus. Hey, no, no, I would buy your album. But at the same time, I think James is more cynical about your singing. Yeah, true. And you're right, it is about the scores. At the end of the day, it's about the scores.

So there are a number of queens. There are a number of killers. There's a lot of killers. And there is at least one killer queen. How can there not be five? I'm saying we've got Jack Black. He's definitely killing those. I mean, he's definitely killing the moles.

He's destroying them. He's breaking them. Yeah, I mean, I've skipped over loads of animals being poisoned in order for us to have a lighthearted and fun podcast, but he poisoned quite a lot of rats. I'm sure he's panging sparrows out the sky with a frying pan. No, he's...

You've forgotten, he's the Tom character. So the sparrows would have the frying pan and he would run into it. He's getting panged. And... With a big gong face. Well, there's...

The Happy Family Murderer. The Happy the happy family family murderer yes it's actually a great title for a novel yeah the happy family murders yeah uh it's five it's got to be five thank you and i think we all know what it was that tipped that up from a four to a five and it was my passion and killer queen i'm not trying to do it in a general melchert kind of voice but it just goes that way oh are you not oh okay that's how i sing along to all queen songs in that voice fat bottom girls you make the rocking world go round. Where can I pre-order this album? It sounds amazing.

ABK sings Queen. Or it'd be Queen featuring ABK live at Wembley. Yeah. Or Alistair Beckett Queen. There's so many possibilities here. Oh, yes. Alistair Beckett, Colin Queen's so many possibilities here. Oh, yes. Alistair Beckett, Colin Queen. Anyway, we'll work it out.

I really hope you have listeners out there who are good enough at sampling your vocals into a ball-ass track. A little Queen medley. We need maybe two more Queen songs then for a medley, don't we? Have you got a favourite Queen song, James? Well, I'd like to hear Alistair Beckett King's take on Flash.

I'm talking about how does Flash start? Flash! Gordon's alive! That bit of it is kind of the same. He can save with a mighty hand, every man, every woman, every child, with a mighty flash. This is all taking place in a drawing room in my mind

my singing is so accurate we're going to get takedowns when this goes on YouTube they're going to be like nope you can't just post unedited wind tracks to YouTube thank you very much I'm actually sweating with shame.

Our final category for you, James. Go on. Sparrows is the rats of birds. Sparrows is the rats of birds. Argue with that. That's just facts. I can't. I can't argue with facts.

That's just the way it is. Sparrows is the rats of birds. Sparrows is the rats of birds. Eels is the sparrows of the Wandsworth Black Sea. The queen rat is the siren of the sewer. She's a pooey siren, essentially. I accept a five out of five. Yeah, I can't argue with that.

It has to be five out of five. Yes. Yes. I'm not even bothering to undo the silver rats from my sash. I'm just taking the sash off and putting it around both your necks. He's de-sashed. Also, the rest of his velvet rat cap outfit just slumped to the floor. Yeah.

We all know where that's going to end up. Wow, what a stinky, sexy and unexpectedly musical episode this has been. Yes, unexplainably musical episode. Tom Mayhew, no relation to Henry Mayhew. Thank you so much for joining us as a deputy law person. Yes, thank you. That's all right. Thank you very much for having me.

Would you like to plug your doings? We've mentioned your Radio 4 show. Tom Mayhew is benefit scum. Again, not my opinion. that's just the fact of the bbc said it so it's that's an objective fact what else would you like to plug you're going to the fringe yes i'm doing a show at the edinburgh fringe 2023 2023 it's laughing horse three sisters at 6 30 called this time next year will Millionaires. And that's going to be really, really fun. So if you're in Edinburgh, come along.

If not, you know, I've got the Radio 4 stuff. You can subscribe to my YouTube or follow me on Twitter, all that stuff. Thanks very much to Tom Mayhew. Do check out his show in Edinburgh. And if you simply can't wait and want more content, then, well, Alistair, what can they do? Yes, we never normally mention it, but it's www.patreon.com forward slash rawmenpod

and you can get goodies and bonus episodes and access to the King's ear on our discord the alistair beckett king at my ear and james's ear I'm going to catch you, vats. Yeah, you create something. Like N-Word singing. That Jack Black.