Loremen Podcast - S5 Ep31: Loremen S5Ep31 - Gregor MacGregor, The Prince of Nowhere

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

The Loreboys meet the audacious Scottish con man "Sir" Gregor MacGregor. Calling himself the Cazique of Poyais, this charismatic ex-soldier is the mastermind behind a debacle that will make Fyre Island look like Centre Parcs. He's selling land and government bonds belonging to the Central American kingdom of Poyais. The big problem being: Poyais doesn't exist. The year is 1823, and this South Sea bubble is going to pop. Around 170 victims of the scam will die. But will Scotland's biggest hoaxter get off Scot free? (Yes.) Join us for another Loremen Live in Oxford on 25th May: https://oldfirestation.org.uk/whats-on/loremen-podccast/ This episode was edited by Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor. 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 youtube.com/loremenpodcast 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 Shakespeare. And James, I have another piece of Scottish hoax lore for you today. A fraudulent fake stretching from Stirlingshire to the Bay of Honduras. What? Yeah. In fact, it's kind of the opposite of the adventures of William Adams,

because, you know, that was a horrible voyage that turned out okay, yeah? Yes. Well, this is the tale of a voyage that seems okay and turns out really badly. Oh, let's check it out. It's the story of Gregor McGregor. So Gregor, they named him Gregor, the Prince of Nowhere. Do you remember that the giddy thrill of April Fool's Day has worn off now? That was weeks ago from our point of view.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But do you remember I was looking into Scotland's biggest hoax and I decided I thought it was probably the April Fool's Day Loch Ness prank. Yes, a lovely hoax. It was a fine old hoax and no one got hurt apart from a few zookeepers in their feelings. And that bull seal. And one very large seal got hurt, was already hurt. Had previously been hurt.

Had previously been hurt quite badly. Well, in researching that, I discovered not Scotland's biggest hoax, but I think Scotland's biggest hoax-ter. Ooh. Or perpetrator of hoaxes. And there's obviously a lot of Scottish hoaxsters. There's Wee Jimmy Cranky, Scotland's smallest hoaxster, probably.

Not a real schoolboy. Anyone that tries to get an American to go on a haggis hunt. Yes, yeah, that's a classic Scottish hoax. There's Michelle Moan, the Tory Baroness. Is she a big hoax? Well, first of all, I want to pronounce her name Michelle Monet, like Janelle Monáe,

so that's annoying. And I wanted to check for legal reasons that I wasn't going to be slandering her, so what she did was she claimed not to have a financial interest in a company providing what turned out to be useless PPE during COVID, but then it came out that her husband was paid £65 million. But to be clear, for legal reasons, James, when I say that she's a hoaxster, I mean that she also sold fake tan to Scottish people, perpetrating what is, in my opinion, the worst kind of fraud, implying that ginger people can get a tan. Nice.

And of course, the biggest trick the Scottish ever pulled was convincing the world that the bagpipes was a musical instrument. These are just some amuse-bouche Scottish hoaxes. That's a great one. I've got Alan McMasters for you. Have you heard of Alan McMasters? No.

Alan McMasters. Have you heard of him, if I say it in the correct accent? It rings more of a bell, but no, no, I can't say I have. If you search using the search engine of your choice, James, who invented the electric toaster, you might still find websites saying it was a Scotsman named Alan McMasters in Year of Our Lord 1883. Oh, wow.

Tell me what happened. Well, first of all, there is no such person as Alan McMasters. What? At least not in the year 1883. I thought it sounds like an obviously fake name. I've never heard the surname McMasters before. But the perpetrator of this fraud was none other than Alan McMasters in the year 2012,

Year of Our Lord 2012, as reported by BBC News and the Fortean Times. In 2012, a university student called Alan McMasters and his friends were lurking about

as young people are wont to do and they edited Wikipedia to say that he invented the toaster. A good old laugh. Oh, lovely stuff. Yeah.

They just changed, I think originally they just changed one page. They just changed an already vandalised Wikipedia page, but the lie grew. And by the end of it, they'd created a whole page for Alan McMasters, who was born in 1865, with a really unconvincing, fakey, black and white photograph, like torn around the edges in the photograph on Wikipedia. It's not convincing.

Had they put the web page in the oven? I can't remember. Did we talk about that in next week's episode? We did talk about that in next week's episode, yes. But you and me, James, we talked about it in the past, making little treasure maps. They've done the digital version

of making a little treasure map by putting a piece of paper in the oven and then tearing the edges when they're burning them. But take care when you're burning the edges. Even better, the whole gag was busted by a schoolboy, by a Kent schoolboy called Adam. Whoa. Who told a BBC reporter, I don't know what Kent schoolboys talk like, so I'm assuming it's like, It didn't look like a normal photo it looked like it was edited

nice so to begin with adam thought that it was just the photo was fake but once he started pulling on the thread the whole thing unraveled and eventually mcmasters came clean but so many people had been taken in it had appeared in newspapers alan mcmasters even made it onto the bank of england's long list for people to appear on the £50 note. Wow. Admittedly, the long list had like a thousand people on it. It was a very long list, but it's still impressive that someone who doesn't exist got onto the list. Yes.

So I just typed in Alan McMaster's, and then it says Alan McMaster's first toaster as an option. I clicked on it. Heart full of hope. Top line highlighted, Alan McMaster's did not invent the electric toaster boom okay debunked stamp fake wait are you where are you doing the are you doing the fact copyright it sounded like you were doing an impression of someone being cauterized with a no it's the

brand it's the federation against copyright It's the Federation Against Copyright Theft. Fact. So those are just a few Scottish hoaxes, but those are little tiddlers, James. Those are just amuse-bouches if your bouche is amused by a tiddler. None of those hoaxes

compare to Sir Gregor MacGregor, the Kazik of Poyais, or Poyais. I'm not sure how it's pronounced. I definitely understood about a third of that, but two thirds of that third was the word Gregor. All right. There's a lot of Gregor in this guy. It's going to be a very Gregor-heavy

episode. He's not the only guy in the episode called Gregor McGregor, so brace yourself. God, what unimaginative parents. So a cacique is a Central American ruler or prince or king. Poirier or poires. According to Lippincott's pronouncing gazette here, 1856, it's pronounced something like poirier. Poirier. I'm going to say poirier because that's how I would pronounce it. Go on then. But James, we're not there yet.

Let us travel back in time, you and I, just over 200 years. It's 1823. Oh, so we're 70 years away from the first toaster. Ah. No, James. Oh, it's gone in. It's gone in. He did not invent the toaster, James.

You and me are aboard the Kennersley Castle, which is not a castle. It's a ship. That's why I said aboard. Yes. I'm going to need you on the ball here, James. Oh, this is a ship, not a castle. It's only ship. That's why I said aboard. Yes. I'm going to need you on the ball here, James. This is a ship, not a castle. It's only going to get more confusing. Everything is confusing. Every noun is confusing.

This story is set out to bamboozle and bewilder you. I need you to have your wits about you. We're aboard the Kennersley Castle, not a castle. I will question everything. And we are among the 170 British settlers sailing from Leith Roads, which is not a road. It's a stretch of water. Oh, my God. We are bound for the Central American

Kingdom of Poyais, whatever you want to call it. Right. You and me, James, we've got pretty high expectations. According to a passenger aboard this ship called Andrew Pickett, the capital city, St. Joseph, has a fabulous theatre, there's a cathedral, a government house and a national bank. One of the passengers is expecting to become shoemaker to the Princess of Poirier, according to an article from the Manchester Guardian in 1823. And we are sailing with a massive box. I don't actually know how big it is.

I just said it was massive for colour. With a box of poirier dollars that are going to pay our wages when we take up our new positions in this fantastic new colony. Now, we won't be the first British colonists to arrive. A ship called the Honduras Packet sailed in 1822 and took about 50 people ahead of us. Pretty sure Honduras is a country, isn't it, as well? Honduras, I think, is a country, yes.

And a packet is... Is it that a type of boat? Sometimes it means a ship, yeah. Okay, a ship, rather. Sorry. Sorry, seafolk. It's not like a sachet. They're not just in a little sachet.

Right. Good. Not like Texas rub. Texan rub. What's that? It's something you might get in a sachet or tub. It's something you'd rub into your meatet or tub it's it's something you'd rub rub into your meat or vegetables in order to give them a texan flavor i'd never have a vegetable

fair enough we've all read a book called sketch of the mosquito coast and this is going to really upset you james but it's not mosquito in the sense of insect what it's just a it's just a name that sounds similar to mosquito we've all read a book called Sketch of the Mosquito Coast, including the territory of Poyais by a man called Thomas Strangeways, captain in the first native Poyais regiment and aide-de-camp to his highness, Gregor Kazik of Poyais. That's Poyais, pronounced P-O-Y-A-I-S. I think that's how it's pronounced. Right. Okay. I mean, there's a lot of words in there. There's a lot of words here. Basically- What's an aide-de-S. I think that's how it's pronounced. Right. Okay. I mean, there's a lot of words in there. There's a lot of words here. Basically- What's an aid to camp?

I don't know. I think it's a military position. I imagine it's someone who helps around the camp. That sounds, yeah. Basically, that book is an illustrated guide for settlers describing how verdant, fertile, and full of big lumps of gold and silver this place is. This place sounds great. Yeah, we are rubbing our hands together with excitement and anticipation. For the whole voyage? We brought some hand lotion. Yeah, the whole voyage. We are so chafed by the end of it. Get me a packet, get me a sachet of hand lotion. Yeah, so the Mosquito Coast, the name has nothing to do with

the insect. As Strangeways is at pains to point out at the very start of the book, he says, perhaps few countries under the tropics are so little troubled with these disagreeable insects. Oh, this place sounds amazing. I think the name comes from Miskito, which is an indigenous people of Nicaragua and Honduras. I can see how they were confused. The people of Poyer are called Poyers, P-O-Y-E-R-S,

and they were apparently very keen to have British settlers arrive and pay them extremely low wages as farmers. Just absolutely thrilled at the prospect of doing that. Now, I want to stop you there because I can hear your eyes squinting, James, with scepticism. It is normal these days to regard British settlers in a colonial context as the bad guys. Yes, because of all their murders and that. Yeah, because of historical facts.

But James, I ask you, what if this story had an even badder guy? Oh. It's been a long voyage. We've arrived at last in Poyais at the mouth of the Black River. And James, there's no welcoming party what there's no port there's no capital city of saint joseph there's no theater and no locals have ever seen poye dollars before who am i going to make these shoes for absolutely no one james what i'm sorry to tell you, this is Willie's chocolate experience all over again. I beg your pardon?

If you can remember her expression from that photograph, the Oompa Loompas expression, you've maybe got a sense of the expression of the 250 settlers who sailed for Poyais, only to find out that there wasn't really anything there in the way of a settlement. Not even two jelly beans and a quarter cup of lemonade. I don't think you've even got any jelly beans. I don't know how to do this transition because we are having a good laugh about this. But of those 250 settlers, about 170 of us are going to die of malaria or drowning. So there are mosquitoes for a start.

Yeah, there actually are quite a lot of mosquitoes in this place, even though that's not where its name comes from. Ah, but the guy was lying when he said there weren't many mosquitoes. I mean, that's not the biggest lie that I think that person put in their sketch. The guy wasn't even lying. The guy might not even exist. Thomas Strangeways might not be a real person. That's such a legitimate name.

It's a real suspicion-inducing name, but it feels like a double bluff, because if you've called your guy Strangeways, no one's going to think you made that up, because it's too weird a name. A couple of sources here, if you want to know more about what happened to the settlers, you can read Sir Gregor MacGregor and the Land That Never Was by David Sinclair, which is from 2002, I think. And you can read James Hastie's firsthand account of the voyage of the Kennesley Castle. He was a sawyer on board. He's one of the people who eventually came back to England to tell the story. Honestly, the story of a settler struggling to survive without any experience or training or abilities to survive on a sort of rugged coastline with nothing.

They're a bit too miserable to relay in great detail on a humorous podcast, on what is essentially a humorous podcast. Yes, yes. Okay, I think we get the, we can get the gist. They were, it's like an absolute worst case scenario of going to an Airbnb hoax, like that, but also the town that you're Airbnb in doesn't exist. Exactly. And I'm guessing the country doesn't exist.

You're absolutely right. The country doesn't exist. Yes. It's like Tough Mudder meets It's a Knockout meets Taskmaster, but just worse than all of those put together as an experience to go through. Basically, if you've no experience building canoes, it turns out it's very hard to build a canoe to paddle all the way to Belize Inn. So did they get dropped off, or did they at least have the boat they went on? Infuriatingly, they did get dropped off.

Yeah. So the same thing happened with the first ship, the Honduras packet dropped 50 people off and then sailed away. And again, the Kennesley Castle dropped them all off and then sailed away without any of them. Were the captains, I'm presuming this is a scam or possible scamola, were the captains in on this or were they just... I don't think they were, but it's very unclear how many people were in on this or were they just i don't think they were but it's very unclear how many people were in on the scam it might just have been gregor mcgregor himself so here's what i

think was true about mcgregor he's described as being a scottish adventurer which is 19th century code for back he was he he seems to actually have been a descendant of rob roy mcgregor the famous rob roy just because that will be bleeped it wasn't the worst word but it may as well have been it was but well i mean yeah it wouldn't it he deserves it gregor mcgregor he was a descendant of rob roy the rob roy mcgregor off of history one of the children of the mist if you remember that name the mcgregor clan was famously prescribed and banned in scotland mcgregor was born in glen guile on the shores of lake katrine in the tross in the tross i can't know how to pronounce that in a way that makes it simultaneously accurate

and saucy so the mcgregor clan had been banned by king james in 1603 and then finally restored in 1774, thanks to Gregor MacGregor. A different one. This is Gregor the Beautiful MacGregor, who was our Gregor MacGregor's granddad. Right. Okay. So not a big time aristocrat, but he had a fairly classy sounding lineage in Scotland. He'd fought in the British army and in the, I think the Portuguese Army, and in the Venezuelan War of Independence. And George Frederick Augustus I, who is the Mosquito King, the indigenous king of an area in the Honduras Bay.

I'm not sure how much power the kings had, or whether they were sort of symbolic figures that the British colonial forces sort of worked with, but it's not clear. But apparently, George Frederick Augustus I had granted some land to him on the coast. Whether he actually had the power to do that, whether anything was actually signed, it doesn't seem to be clear. But he does seem to have actually said, you can have some of this land. Pretty much everything else seems to have been a lie. So I introduced him as Sir Gregor MacGregor. He was called that because he claimed to have been knighted by the King of Spain. And of course, he was a knight of the Order of the Green Cross

in Poyais. And so in Britain, he was allowed to call himself Sir Gregor, even though he had never been knighted by the King of Spain. Thomas Strangeways either didn't exist or was in on the scam. There's no record of a soldier called thomas strange ways as far as i know and james brace yourself here the manchester guardian again on the 25th of october 1823 described mcgregor brace yourself as a person of whom we do not choose to say all we think oh so they've sort of bleeped themselves yeah exactly that is victorian euphemism for... That's what he said in those days. So he seemed very convincing.

He had all that Rob Roy stuff going on and he had loads of fake documents like that book about the... Nobody would write a massive book describing a place in enormous detail if that place didn't exist. Surely not. He had a proclamation he had written

to the inhabitants of the territory of Poyais, the Poyers, and who, I will remind you, don't exist. But the weirdest thing about the proclamation is that he starts every paragraph with, Poyers! With an exclamation mark. Right. Just to remind people. That they exist.

But I can't help reading it in the sort of the rhythm of the way the village people say young men Poyers I now bid you farewell Poyers on the 29th of April 1820 the king of the mosquito nation by deed

executed at Cape Gracia said the oaths granted to me and my heirs forever the territory of Poyers it doesn't work as well Poyers it shall be my constant study to render you happy

Poyers you definitely exist you definitely exist. You definitely exist. Bam, bam. Please come to stay in my real country. It's definitely a real country. It wasn't a real country. No.

So he was pretty successful, remarkably really, when it came to selling fictitious tracts of land. That said, people buy stars, don't they? And they buy plots of land on the moon. But they don't actually then go there. Yeah, they don't buy tickets. Well, actually, people do buy tickets to the moon. Yeah, they don't just go there.

It started out really well, but he had a bit of trouble when it came to selling government bonds because there was a stock market wobble. In Poya? And investors, well, in South America, in South and Central America in general. So basically nobody was buying anything because they got a bit worried. That some of the places didn't exist? Well, maybe because yes, people were starting to make their way back from Poya and the news

that there was nothing there- It's rubbish. Returned. It's rubbish. Along with the fact that the Mosquito King withdrew the grant of land that he had given to MacGregor. So he left Britain and went to Paris, having told people he was going to Italy for his wife's health.

I don't think his wife's health was even in Italy. So basically he acted like a very innocent person would. But he was surrounded by seemingly respectable military men. His charge d'affaires, or deputy ambassador, was Major William John Richardson, and he was closely associated with Captain Gustavus Butler Hippersley, who ended up being arrested with him in France. More scam, same scam. This time in France. I think he might have started styling himself as president of Poyer by this time rather than cazique. Either way, he was arrested by the order of the famous criminal turned criminologist Eugene

François Vidocq. I'm not aware of them. Neither was I, but he's a whole podcast in himself. He was the inspiration for various literary characters, including Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin. Oh. Yeah. So he invented the concept of the detective.

French for summer bread. He arrested McGregor, and McGregor was charged with fraud for committing fraud, really. Presumably selling people tickets there. He was given a lot of credit because the men who were travelling did have to pay you know for committing fraud really presumably selling people tickets there and i don't he didn't he was given a lot of credit because the men who were traveling did have to pay the women and children were allowed to go for free he paid the fares for the women and children going there so he was regarded as very generous at the time after a lot of legal wrangling in france he was eventually

acquitted after solemnly giving his word that he'd done nothing wrong. And that seemed to be enough for the magistrate. That seems, I mean, maybe more people should do that. Basically, I think he pinky-sweared his way out of prison in France. So David Sinclair, who wrote the book on this, reckons that John Richardson and Gustavus Hippesley were genuinely unaware of the fraud and were taken in by McGregor, even while Hippesley was arrested

and incarcerated with him in France. Not the comedian John Richardson. He was not involved as far as we know. No, Major William John Richardson, sorry. The charge d'affaires Richardson. The charge d'affaires. Which is French for price of affair. So it sounds implausible that these guys could not have known that it was a scam.

Until you read James Hastie's account. Do you remember James Hastie, the sawyer who was with us on the boat? He was the actual eyewitness sort of thing. He was the guy who was actually there throughout the whole thing. He had a terrible time. He made it back to Britain, still feverish with malaria, and testified in front of the Lord Mayor, shivering with, I want to say ague, I don't really know what ague is.

Malaria. Malaria. I thought it was pronounced egg. Maybe it is. No, it isn't. I had to say it in a play, and they didn't tell me until afterwards that it wasn't pronounced egg. It was pronounced ague. The next day when the stories appeared in the paper,

Hastie was incensed by how bad they made McGregor look. Right. So James Hastie, who went through all of this, was convinced that Gregor McGregor had done nothing wrong. What? He, yeah, he and the other settlers signed and published an affidavit insisting that McGregor, His Highness the Kazik, was innocent of any wrongdoing.

They blamed everything on General Hector Hall, who was the man who was supposed to be the governor of the settlement when they arrived. And there wasn't anything there. Probably imaginary. No, Hector Hall was a real person. And I think he died in Belize after they were rescued and taken away from the coast. So was he on one of the boats? Yes. So he went there totally convinced, just like everybody else, but quite quickly twigged that they had been defrauded.

Scammed or possibly scamulated. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But a convenient person to put the blame on since he was dead. So Hastie was convinced that, you know, the person who told us about the theatre was Andrew from the ship. So it wasn't actually the Kazik. Gregor McGregor didn't actually personally lie to us. So he believed that it was all a genuine attempt to settle a Central American nation.

So nobody was a more staunch defender of Gregor McGregor than James Hastie. And few people had been so badly wronged as James Hastie. So maybe the people he was working with did believe him as well. He was obviously a very convincing kind of a guy. It's extraordinary. Then he's at the very least, like, unfit to do the job, whatever it is this job is of him, of trying to get people to go to a country, to settle a country.

Some of the worst caziquing I have ever seen. Yes, yes. His cazique technique leaves a lot to settle a country some of the worst kazeking i have ever seen yes yes his kazik technique leaves a lot to be desired kazik technique yeah a phrase i just invented to describe being a kazik that's a good first album well if this were a true crime movie then it would end with a montage of all the main players and you would find out what happened to them it would like freeze frame i'm guessing by now fingers crossed no offense they're all dead they are thankfully all dead it was 200 years ago otherwise they're they're they're in a lot of pain yep if there's any justice uh so freeze frame on the mosquito king george frederick augustus the first yeah murdered possibly strangled to death

by one of his wives oh in an unrelated murder. Good for her. Fair play. Eugene Francois Vidocq, the criminal turned police chief. What happened to him, freeze frame? Did he start a little bistro and then kind of solve crimes on the side? Kind of. I think you're describing the plot of Pie in the Sky. Yeah. But in actual fact, yes, he left the police force

and became a private detective after he was sacked as far as i can tell on suspicion of committing the crimes that he was solving oh because he was a criminal turned police officer and he hired loads of other criminals to be police officers and the people who were accused of those crimes said that they were being framed by the criminal turned police people right so, so it wasn't the sort of the Rags to Riches redemption story, it was a tale of horrible corruption. A mysterious and interesting fellow. I can't possibly do him justice in this story.

End of freeze frame. Gregor McGregor, freeze frame. What happened to him? Well, after France, he returned to Britain, where he was briefly arrested without charge and held in Tothill Fields Bridewell. So, he was briefly arrested in Tothill? He was

briefly arrested without charge and held in Tothill Fields Bridewell, but they let him go. There is a humorous, political, satirical cartoon of him in prison going, and his shadow looks like the devil. Yeah, imagine he's trying to tell his cellmate that there's another,

there's an extension to the cell. It's got an en suite. He retired to Venezuela with many people still believing his lies. And when he died in 1845, he was given a war hero's burial. James, he literally got off scot-free. And he was Scottish. So that's a bit of wordplay for you. Yeah, that is good.

That's good. I appreciate the wordplay. I appreciate the wordplay. Do not appreciate that man's crimes. It kind of makes you think, what if all the other colonial enterprises were in some way immoral? What kind of world would allow that to happen?

So that is the story of Gregor MacGregor, the Prince of Nowhere. That's a lovely name and a lovely story. Thank you very much. Horrible story. Quite good name. Well, it's horrible

because it's true, but it was nicely told. It's horrible because it's true is what you say when like a horrible comedian is doing jokes. It's horrible because it's true.

So yeah, there's loads, loads of detail I haven't gone into there. If you want to read it, listener, you can check out David Sinclair's book, but it is sad.

There's some sad bits. I've skipped, I skipped over those. Do you want to do the scores? Yeah. All right. Unfortunately, and annoyingly,

this was all, this was historic fact. Aye, aye, aye. And lies aren't supernatural, but I'm going to go with it, first category, supernatural. This is history. This is very much the obscure history bit of our remit. Yeah, it's an obscure curiosity.

It is from days of yore, but it is not actually magical or full of ghosts. No. Is there, I mean, was anyone at any point say that it was one of those places that vanish or, you know, like a fairy kingdom or was it just too grimly real? No, I don't think it's a fun kind of vanishing kingdom.

I think it's more of a kingdom that was made up. Yay, yay. So, have we ever given naught before? I don't think. I don't know. I don't know if this is going to be a naught. I think it has to be. I think it has to be. It has to be naught. There was nothing supernatural in it.

There was nothing supernatural in it. No. Yeah. I'm sorry. I think that is a naught. Okay. All right. I knew it going in. I wanted to do it. I, and I, yeah, I'm sorry. I think that is a no. Okay, alright. I knew it going in. I wanted to do it and I knew it didn't have anything supernatural in it. I brought this on myself. Alright, second category, names. Right then.

Okay, yes, lots of... The Mosquito King. Eugene Francois Vidocq. Gregor McGregor, grandson of Gregor McGregor. Gregor one and two. Gregor McGregor two grandson of Gregor McGregor. Gregor McGregor one and two. Gregor McGregor two. Two Gregor, two McGregor.

Uh, Tommy Strangeways. Yes. Gustavus Butler Hippersley. Lovely. And not the- Hoyas. Yes. William John Richardson, not John Richardson the comedian. Yes.

Uh, there's a lot. And of course, really the rudest name you can call someone, a person of whom we do not choose to say all that we think. The wildly inaccurate names from the beginning, of course, which led, you know, the Leith Road. Quite, yeah, Leith Road, the castle. That castle that was also a boat. I think it's good.

Alan McMaster's. Alan McMaster. And a lot of them were created, which kind of... Janelle Monáe. A lot of them were made up. So that kind of, in a way, that gives it a bit of an extra edge because they were intentionally created. Yeah.

I mean, obviously parents intentionally create names for their children, but that's not the point I'm making. So it's going to be a four. A four? I thought after the zero you were going to give me a sympathy five. I feel bad about the – well, I mean, there wasn't anything hilarious, so I was thinking that's a sympathy four. Okay.

I mean, I didn't even mention Lippincott's pronouncing gazetteer. I still can't say it. It's such a hard publication to say. Lippincott's pronouncing gazetteer. I still can't say it. It's such a hard publication to say. Lippincott's pronouncing gazetteer. All right. All right. Fine. You're being so tough with me this time.

Yeah. Well, it's hardened me, the tale. Yeah. You're cynical now, sceptical. It's made me feel a bit sad. Leery. I'm trying to get the justice that the cond deserved by giving you a bad score on a podcast.

It's the least, it's literally the least. Yeah, that could be done, yeah. All right, next category. Gregor, he enchants. Oh. Wordplay on, like, Gregorian chants. Gregor, he enchants. Thank you. I could see in your face chants. Gregor he enchants. Thank you.

I could see in your face that you hadn't got that. So like Gregorian chants type of singing listener and Gregor he enchants. That's the name of the category. That's very nice. And I haven't really got much to back this up, except I thought that would be enough to carry me to a five. Well, he managed to enchant the very barest minimum,

two boatload of people. 250 people, yeah. Uprooting their lives and moving to a place that didn't exist. I mean, it's not enchanting when you tell it back. Believing him while he was in prison for being a fake. Yeah. He still seems to have believed him. Even one of the direct victims.

Even the victim came back and said, no, leave him alone. No, I think it was probably one of the direct victims. Even the victim came back and said, no, leave him alone. No, I think it was probably one of the other conned people that I fell out with on the boat. Well, yeah, it is a five. He clearly had a talent for something, didn't he? Yeah, they didn't even mention the scam in the papers when he died. Yeah, it is a five.

Definitely. Yes, finally. Well, I dedicate this five to the evictions. Final category. It's like NFTs if NFTs could give you malaria. Yeah. Yes. That's a very good point.

I hope they weren't all dressed as grumpy apes. As annoyed monkeys or whatever it was. Do you remember it was such a big deal? Everyone was like, oh, it's the future was. Do you remember it was such a big deal? Everyone was like, oh, that's the future. On both sides, it was such a big deal though. Like people going there and other people going, this is, what are you doing? Like really going on about, it was ridiculous,

but it was kind of the people going on about it. Ridiculous. Didn't help. Don't right click and save my imaginary Central American nation. Oh dear. Oh nation. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, yeah. I mean, it is 100%.

I can't say anything less than a five for that. So what would 100% be if you expressed it in terms of an out of five, James? It would be a five. All right. Thank you. And you can right-click and save on that five. I tell you what, I'm giving that five to the world. Thank you.

I'm locking it away in the blockchain. It's an open source score. Oh, wow. What a terrible man. Really, yeah. Very unpleasant Scottish man. Is there any idea about his motivation or anything? I'm paraphrasing the summary from David Sinclair's book here,

From Memory, but he reckons that Gregor McGregor didn't leave an awful lot of documentation of his internal thoughts. Most of his writing is sort of in-character writing and also things that are like anonymous letters to the newspaper in defence of himself and things written by Thomas Strangeways and other things, you know, which are all probably written by him. Like fake Twitter accounts. So we don't really know. Yeah, like sock puppet accounts. We don't really know what he was like as a person internally. We know he seemed to stay loyal to his wife who followed him around even when she wasn't really ill and was having to go to Italy

and that sort of thing. She wasn't really in Italy. She wasn't in Italy. She was with him. But, yeah, we don't really know what. She wasn't in Italy. She was with him. But yeah, we don't really know what his motivation was, except that he quite liked people giving him money. Just scammed. Just a scammer.

But he can't possibly have thought it would work. That's the thing. He must have known that when the boats arrive, ships, I know they're called ships, he must have known that when the big boats arrive, people would say, hang on. They would start to rumble it at that point did he think that if he it was like well if i tell him someone will have

some you know some now so they'll build their own city like a sort of fire festival thing i think maybe he thought yes if he'd managed to keep selling bonds and raise loads of money maybe the idea was fake it till you make it maybe he was going to like Theranos his way out of this situation. I don't know. There is an advert on YouTube. For the island? Don't, Alistair, don't buy it. There's an advert for the Republic of Poyais saying come to the Republic of Poyais,

go to www.republicofpoyais.org. But that website doesn't exist. Is it not Rickroll? Is it like the ultimate, is it Rick Astley's website? Well thank you for listening to that horrible tale. If you would like disgusting extras

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