Triforce! - Triforce! #240: Frontline Magic

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

Triforce! Episode 240! Magicians were our fighting force in World War 2, Elon won't shut his stupid mouth and we're covering some strange news from around the world! Go to http://expressvpn.com/triforce today and get an extra 3 months free on a 1-year package! Support your favourite podcast on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2SMnzk6 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pickaxe. Now through April 15th, get 30% off all Sephora collection. Also, for beauty insiders, get 10% off the rest of your purchase on brands like Glow Recipe, Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez, Amika, and more. Don't wait. Shop at Sephora today. Exclusions and terms apply. Discounts not combinable. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do.

Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly hello everyone welcome thank you welcome thank you back to the trifles podcast thank you for joining us yes right uh we're back you. It's pushing into late November.

Oh, my God. The weather is setting in. Yeah. It is rainy and cold, but we are snug inside with a warm cup of vanilla honey chamomile tea. Oh, God. That sounds wild. Yeah. Period.

He's just gone full Karen mode here with his special blend of herbal tea and his thick-bramed glasses and his hot takes on local politics and stuff as well. I've been combining tea bags lately. What, like for like to cut your costs, the cost of living crisis. No, I just be mixing it up because I've got like, I've got loads of fruit teas, but they're all too weak and like, I don't know. I think that's the big problem I have. I know you're supposed to brew them for longer, but.

Can I make a suggestion? What? When was the last time you just drank like black tea, like a Yorkshire Gold or something like that? Well, there's the Yorkshire Biscuit Brew. I drink that sometimes at the office. Sometimes I don't want the caffeine, you know, when I'm. Come on, man.

You don't want the caffeine. I don't think there's much caffeine in tea. Get it in you, mate. Come on. I'm not worried about- this is a joke, but, you know, it's starting to get to the point where you stand up when you're dizzy. You know, you're like- the caffeine is like making you shake more. What are you, 40?

You're 40 next year, right? Yeah, I'm already frazzled from all sorts of things. I don't know. I only really need caffeine when I want to actually wake up or be higher energy. There's a lot of stress, stressy things happening at the moment. So, you know, as we approach Jingle Jam, a lot of weird questions to deal with, a lot of like awkward scheduling and gentle poking um in uh in your average serving of coffee there's nearly 100 milligrams of caffeine

jesus and there's one fifth of that amount in tea not green tea still a little bit pretty it's definitely i i don't drink coffee very often uh i might have a cup today because i'm tell you what i'm fucking knackered already i've done nothing and i'm bloody knackered i don't know why mrs f has covid oh no yeah so i think her coughing at night we reckon might have been subtly waking me up without me realizing so i might be tired from that obviously i'm that's I'm not saying I'm having it worse than she is. She has COVID. I'm just suggesting why I might be tired. She's had it for about three days now. I've tested negative. I don't know how, but I basically haven't got it. You were patient zero, though, of COVID. Yeah, you're the first person I knew to have it.

If there's a disease, I will get it. That's just the way it is. to to have it if there's a disease i will get it that's just the way it is um i've had it all ebola hiv um what else have i had um leprosy leprosy i was going to say the one that makes bits of you rot off yeah it's uh mrsa super bug riddled with that i'm sure i'm just one of those people germs so i read i read actually today this morning for the podcast that scientists have been researching leprosy and they found a good hot topic for them to get their teeth into well what it does is it like keeps you alive like what it does is it like regenerates some of your organs like dead you alive longer are you saying that pool is a letter so it can spread the le leopard are you sure yeah does

it does it does it regenerate them in in hideous and twisted new forms i don't know terrifying to the mortal mind i think it they found it was regenerating someone's liver um which is obviously great for great news for york's cast people in the future judging by how much everyone drinks do you reckon they're going to start giving people leprosy just as a way of regenerating tissue? Well, I mean... Just a dose. I'm going to California for my advanced leper treatment sesh.

It's going to last a couple of days. Like a leprosy and Pilates course. Yeah, like you get some leprosy implants into your... Drink your leprosy tea. It's caffeine free. Don't worry, Lewis. And sit back and relax. Take a deep breath of that leper air that we've cultivated here at Leprosy Pilates.

And then downward dog and into upward dog. Oh, sorry, Mr. Jones, your leg's falling off. I'll get that for you. It will grow back. It will grow back. Yeah, I don't know it's i don't know i feel like this is cool though i like this i like science that finds stuff like that the good things from bad you know it's it's good it's inspirational right um motivational yeah sure motivational

yeah makes you think makes you think what's our sign are you lewis he's gotta be a uh wait sagittarius uh sagittarius uh when's your birthday october 22nd october 22nd it's not you are a libra you're right it's not germany you're right on the libra scorpio cusp would you like today's horoscope this is incredible yeah. Yeah, but you're going to also have to give me the Scorpio cusp. I'll give you both, don't worry. I'll give you guys your horoscopes. There must be a name for people who are on the cusp. There is.

They're called cuspians. They're called cuspies. November 2017. Your plane is fuelled, your bags are packed, and you have clearance from the control tower. But for some reason libra you just can't seem to get off the ground perhaps there are details of the trip that you haven't taken into account people are firing questions at you and you don't have all the answers this

is especially true when it comes to matters of love and romance you are down to earth but you need to believe in something more there you go wow scorpio feels like it's very apt i know it feels like it's that's how I know. Scorpio. That's how they're written, though, isn't it? It is. But that one didn't apply to me. Scorpio, the person who is most organized and stable will win the race, so let it be you. Scorpio, be careful, though.

Other people may try to distract you from your work. You may be in the middle of an important project and decide to take a break. Before you know it, the phone rings and suddenly you're trapped with no escape. The break that you hoped that would take no more than five minutes has turned into a big interruption. That sounds like the Triforce podcast. Yeah, it sounds like it. Interestingly, they're both about work.

They honestly sound like they're both about work, which is funny because if I'd read either of those to you, you might have thought that they were applicable, which is, of course, the whole point. I'm Ares, so I got there's an advantage to joining people in a social or family situation if possible aries your role today is to bridge communication gaps be aware of details that need doing but don't feel like you have to do them all yourself this is a good time to delegate responsibility keep track of who is in charge of what you

or you could end up taking up the slack for a job that someone else is supposed to do. Okay? Wow. These are all very, like... Dog shit? Do mine, do mine. They're all very good pieces of generic advice. Yes, they are. Exactly.

That's literally it. And you could just rotate these. What you could do is next month just move them all one to the right. And, you know, because how often do you read other star signs, stars, zodiacs? You never would. What's yours, sips gemini gemini you've reached a climactic time of year

regarding love and romance oh yeah this is the time when your dream finally materializes you realize that all your efforts are failures it all depends on how you played your cards over the past few months very this is one of those moments of reckoning when you face reality. You must bring your craft to the landing strip and check in with mission control. Fucking hell. What on earth does any of that mean? What a load of bollocks. I don't know, but I'm going to get on the horn to mission control ASAP.

Just to make sure that all my T's are dotted and my I's are crossed. Absolutely. Yes, man. that is startlingly i mean they're startlingly vague but also i'm surprised i'm genuinely surprised by how they're just they're not harmful though are they right they're not like no the advice is the advice tends to be like karen-ish advice it's kind of boomer advice. Pick up the phone. I mean, the reference to the phone. The phone rings. It's obviously, it feels like that's been copy pasted from 20 years ago.

Yeah. And maybe they do. They just, because they're all so like that. People still pick up the phone. You got to pick up the phone. That's not going to change. No, I haven't struck it in my head. Pick up the phone.

No, no, no. I mean, you do pick up your phone to answer it. People slide into each other's dms more so now i think yeah all right before the phone pickup happens i wonder if there are any non-boomer horoscopes out there like boomers for for the youth horoscopes yeah but it's just gonna be junk right it's gonna be like aries today is gonna be poggers like uh it's just gonna be all fucking like uh twitch or internet speak scorpio bro today's gonna suck no cap for real for real on god bro i feel like this this this is like com it feels actually it feels like self-help book advice right about how to people or people the thing

is that they're so vague off that task you've been doing for a while to do, you know, you'll feel better once it's done. That's it. It's so vague in general that it can apply to anyone and everyone, right? Like you can convince yourself that it applies directly to you. It's like, you know, it's like tarot card readings and stuff like that as well. Maybe there are things that everyone does, though. Like maybe you could do do more specific ones like be careful when you're doing a poo because uh i'd like a really specific one like

yeah 1 53 p.m you can expect an acorn to fall off of your house and land on the third brick on your driveway you know what i mean like then i'd be impressed i'd be like holy shit but uh especially if you didn't have an acorn yeah yeah the general vague stuff is just kind of like you know you know it's just like it's like it's just like magicians you know just uh just just magicians trying to it's like uh it's like david blaine you know like the the levitating trick but it was really just like the angle that you looked at him from and, you know, like the levitating trick, but it was really just like the angle that you looked at him from and as, you know, he lifted his other foot and it looked like he was levitating.

The Balducci levitation. Yes. It's one of my few party tricks. That's a good one. But you know what I mean? It's not what it claims to be. No, but so he would do that, but then they would cut to a wide shot of him literally levitating like five feet on the ground with a wire.

Yeah. And people going, whoa. And it's like, no, no, come on. You can't just cut between the two. That's silly. Like they show the reaction of a very simple trick. If you look, they're all looking down at his feet. Whereas on the wide shot, it looks like he's fucking floating in midair.

He's a bit of a nutter. Yeah. He was an incredible magician. I just wish he stuck to the magic and not the I'm gonna live in a box for a month shit just do magic yeah i guess like once you've done the magic though where do you go from there you know you gotta it's it's showmanship you gotta one-up yourself all the time you can't just do the same goddamn routine like over and over and over and over again people get bored so he should stretch the bounds of magic not do these big sort of, I'm going to live in ice and chaos. I mean, it's amazing PR.

Yeah. And I'm sure he made a bunch of money out of it. But all I'm saying is that it doesn't feel like a magic trick. You just feel like you're being tricked and it's almost certainly that he swaps out for someone else. I mean, when he lived in the glass box, I don't know how he did it, where he just lived up there with no food or whatever. It's just like, who cares? It's not...

I mean, you saw how... What did people think of it? Who gave a shit? Nobody really gave a shit. Nobody gives a shit. People threw stuff at him and shone lasers at him and shouted abuse. Yeah.

It's just, don't hang yourself there, like, look at me, look at me. Just do the fucking magic tricks. There have been a ton of magicians out there who are legends and amazing magicians and you don't need to suspend yourself in a fucking box at that point i think it's ego more than stretching the bounds of what you can do with magic personally speaking i found them dull yeah i think the the survival stuff is it was a fad though it was definitely a long time ago those stunts yeah i haven't seen them

17 one for ages and ages what about what about darren brown mind tricks and uh all that stuff i like that stuff i never watched any of that there were some really good ones um i've seen some mentalist stuff live and it can be very impressive i went to one in vegas i think a mentalist uh show i think you were there, Lewis. Maybe. You and whoever we were with at the time. I'm sure it was one year we went to BlizzCon. We went to Vegas after.

And we went to one of those shows. And it was okay. I don't know. It was impressive. I mean, it's a magic trick. It's a magic trick under a different name. I guess so. Which I like.

But there is suggestion and stuff like that that you can do. I mean, there are certain tricks that people use. Let me see if I can find one for you guys. You guys talk amongst yourselves for a sec. I feel like there's obviously different aspects of magic, right? One is this incredibly immensely prepared magic where someone has something that that's been you know put put so much effort into something but you don't realize it it just looks like it's just a throwaway thing right it's just like oh let's just put this orange here and it's but but actually there's like a whole

rigmarole there's like a there's like a stooge who grabs the orange from behind your back and like you know someone's in on it and someone else is like passing it around. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think there's a lot of like, a lot of work to make something, a simple trick work sometimes. And sometimes it's just skill, like sleight of hand, like someone has practiced and practiced and practiced and are so deft that they're able to vanish something. left um that they're able to vanish something or special cards especially card tricks like people just remembering able able to remember the order or put things in the same order you know i think that's the thing about those those types of magic that it's just humans being amazing right yeah um a human who has taught themselves or spent their entire life playing with a pack of cards to the

point where they and they have their routine down they have it's like um it's incredibly practiced you know the distractions and the jokes and the delivery even to the point where they have this almost like this character that they've composed which is you know either either stupid or oh like like i really love the the clumsy attitude like the clumsy magician you know who is oh i've dropped everything you know actually it's incredibly well controlled um i really yeah i really have a lot of time for that stuff because it just it is it is amazing it is it is yeah i'm a big i'm a big fan of of uh of that kind of sleight of hand magic because it's just like like anything when you're witnessing the the results of of literally years of practice and expertise and i think it's it's exciting to

see people who are very very good at something especially something that i mean if you see someone who can do the long jump really well it's impressive and you're rooting for them but i don't really know how hard it is to do the long jump but when you see someone able to do all kinds of card tricks i've shuffled cards i can do the riffle shuffle i can fumble i can fumble a pack of cards together yeah and when you see them do you're like holy shit how have they done that you think well because i know that when i learned to do the riffle shuffle it took me quite a long time just to learn that yeah and they're learning to do that thing where you hold the deck in one hand and rotate different parts around yeah but they they probably worked in a casino and stuff you know like i think a lot of

magicians there's like a not like a set path but there's definitely you know like places that they can work where they can hone their craft you know yeah they can work at a at a casino and practice their dexterity and agility you could just do it without having to work at a casino as well no no i think you'd have to you need the experience where else are you gonna get the cards from exactly exactly and where else are they gonna pay you to sit around and fart around with cards for like you know 12 hours a day or whatever? You know, like you need the time investment and stuff too. I think that's like one of just one example of a place where a aspiring magician could work leading up to them becoming a full time paid magician.

You know? Yeah, possibly. Yeah. All right. I want you to think of a number between one and 50. Okay. You can both do this. Now a number between 1 and 50. Okay. You can both do this. Now, it has to have two digits. Right. And they have to be two

odd digits. So, each digit has to be odd and they can't be the same number. Okay, I thought of one. Is the number 37? It is, actually, yeah. Okay. Well, the reason you can do that is because the numbers 1 to 10, all of the 20s, the 40s and 50 have been removed. So, basically, you're reduced down more. So,

people aren't going to pick 11, they're not going to pick 19, apparently hardly ever. And basically, it's going to be 31, 35. Well, they can't be the same. Yeah. 31, 35, 37 or 39 are the ones that are most likely going to be picked. Yeah. I just went through. Like, after you gave me all the parameters and narrowed it down, I was just like, my first... There weren't many left.

Yeah, the first place I went was 37. But you don't anticipate that as being the case. You just think you've been given any number from 1 to 50, but, of course, you have not. It's much sneakier than that. So a lot of the mentalist tricks are things like that, where they guide you. There's a certain number of things that you'll think of. Derren Brown uses suggestion and he'll make people think of things and he'll touch them when he says

things. You'll see he just holds their wrist or he just, he taps them on the shoulder or he sort of, he just, you'll just notice if you watch him, he touches you, and that changes the way you're thinking, and you're more open to suggestion when someone touches you. So it's weird. It's sort of not hypnosis, but that sort of planting an idea in someone's brain with the things that you say. He also does things where he puts giant fucking billboards outside their house that have something on it

that they're meant to think of later in the day. I wonder how much of that is just for show, though part of the illusion because i think with darren brown he does want to distract even the audience from how the trick was done and sometimes these you know i think the idea of him subliminally implanting ideas into people's minds with billboards and things sure sure i think it's i think it's true true. I think it's true for us as people. I'll have a conversation with you. I'll see an article about leprosy. I'll mention it to you guys. You'll mention it to someone else later on or whatever. You'll listen to a podcast and you'll tell people interesting things you've heard from that. There is definitely this viral effect of people and i think if you can get into someone's

life and talk them around philosophically or or interest you know if you can figure out ways to infiltrate someone's life you can definitely manipulate their behavior in a sort of CIA spy way, you know, in a sense, which is these tactics have been, have existed for a very long time. But I think that they are magic in some ways, like because you don't know at the time that you're being manipulated. And so when you are forced to choose a thing you think it's an independent choice but they know because they've done the homework of implanting these you know laying the seeds for your decision you know and so and i i don't know if i but i'm always

skeptical about darren telling me how it's done because, you know, especially things like micro movements. It's like, Oh, you know, think of a number. And then he's like, I can know,

I know exactly what number you're thinking of because your mouth micro moved the word 42 or whatever. Right. Right. I'm like, is that real? And like, and how practiced are you with that?

And like, you know, you know, it's Penn and Teller, isn't it? I like to, I that real? And how practiced are you with that? And like, you know. You know, it's Penn and Teller, isn't it? I'd say they're probably some of the most famous sort of classical magicians. Stage magicians, for sure. Yeah, proper magician magicians. You know, they do magic tricks. The cleverest part is that they show you what they're doing while they're doing it.

And they still surprise you. Like like that's the cleverest part is it looks like they're showing you all the stuff that it's not right yeah and they're sort of deconstructing the trick before your very eyes and you think oh they're letting us in on some big secret but they're not they're still tricking you i think that's my favorite it makes it more exciting right Because I think partly because a lot of stupid people are like, oh, yeah, well, the gun's not real, is it? You know, so obviously they have to convince you that the gun's real. And then the next group of people are like, well, he's probably got some sponge in his mouth or something.

So what? Yeah, the old mouse sponge. People come up with these really stupid suggestions suggestions for what it could be so i think by laying that groundwork it makes it but also you know when in a sense you really have to if you just did the trick it would the show would be over in 10 seconds right right you have to you have to have this build up you have to have this show right where it is it becomes exciting and and also people love solving problems you know look at like detective mysteries or stories or and even if you're not actively sitting down taking notes when you're

watching you know a murder mystery right you are in the back of your mind thinking oh it might be this guy i wonder what happened there you know you're doing little bits of putting the little things together it's nice to see the mystery unspooled, you know, before you and think, oh yeah, of course, of course that thing happened.

Oh yeah. And it's the same thing with magic tricks. Like once you know how it's done, it's like, oh, of course that's how it's done. Right. You know,

it's, I would say that there are certain giveaways that like for any magic trick, it's almost always either a fake, whatever they suggest it is a fake ball or a fake deck of cards or a fake gun or whatever like that's that's number one is they have trick versions of pretty much everything sleight of hand is the other like guaranteed it's almost certainly that like you thought they gave you this one but they gave you a different one like that that's the other one like anytime they ask you sign this card and then put it back in the deck,

they've almost always palmed it off. As soon as you put it in the deck, they know exactly where it is. I feel like what we're doing here though is possibly being just punters, right? We are just speculating wildly. We don't know. We're not magicians.

We don't know what their secrets are. And even magicians have their own secrets. A lot of magicians don't know other other magician's secrets but but there is a whole wealth so have you ever watched uh uh fool me with pen and teller yes that's exactly what i'm thinking right so on there the guy goes on and the magician does the trick and pen and teller watch and then they come up and they say we think you used the... We think that there was some Saskatchewan shuffle taking place, if you know what I mean. And they're like, yeah.

So they're like talking about some specific technique that other magicians would know. And then if they say, was that part of the trick? And they say, no, it wasn't. Then they're like, ah, then you have fooled us. And as I understand it, they then have to show the trick to pen and teller subsequently how they did it sort of thing yes but but but sometimes they they can't say oh you used sleight of hand necessarily and it's like when it comes to card tricks you know they can't be fooled by someone who's just got a really good memory or this this

like that guy i mentioned with the cards i think he was on there he you know like i think there's there's a few of them and it's hard to because they don't use obvious techniques they're just just human skill you know it's like showing it's like someone who's a very good juggler right they just but if you have amazing sleight of hand if you have amazing sleight of hand there is still a sequence in the trick where you do that and i think some of those things they will mention as being like techniques and this guy may do it better but the main thing is these magicians coming up with new ways of doing old tricks so they they'll say, ah, this is this technique. And when the guy says, no, it wasn't that, they're like, well, then you fooled us because we didn't see how it was done other than that. So that's the clever part.

But some of the people that go on there, like you can look up on YouTube subsequently. How was this trick done? And I always watch those videos because I really want to know how it's done. And there are people that like the whole magic circle thing, as soon as the internet came around, it was done. It was done because anybody can just anonymously reveal how magic tricks are done and remain in the magic circle no problemo. Because previously, in order to explain how tricks were done, you had to put a book out and everybody would know who wrote the, and you'd be booted out of the magic circle,

and these secrets are not allowed. But you can look up how any magic trick is done now on YouTube, which has kind of taken some of the fun away from it. But I still enjoy the skill. Oh, absolutely. Like I said before, I'm still quite skeptical of that, because I think magic is all about misdirection. It's all about putting out a false narrative,

either seeding it in your audience or in the world you know about your style of trick and so when people google it are on their phone in your audience how is this trick done they don't not that they not that people are doing that i think a lot of people are willing to enjoy it right and not think too hard or i don't think that's a fun game you don't sit around necessarily plotting to the downfall of this magician or or like or like getting up on stage and poking around at the back unless they specifically ask you to do it you know ladies and gentlemen i believe this man is tricking us. This glass case has a false back. Gasps in the crowd.

Arrest that man. I love the idea that you set up a magic trick where you've got these props and they've all got like magic things in them, like secret mirrors and hidden kebabs. You invite someone up to the stage and they just find them all. And you're like, oh, oh shit. It's just like a swinging door on the back of this cupboard and

you know all that stuff oh magic's got this kind of hammy charm right but that's the thing is like the classic magician style with the uh the beautiful assistant wearing the tutu or whatever is kind of a really dated style of magic i don't i don't think you see that so much anymore no not anymore but it's almost a cheesy meme though like in a sense like some people use it as a setting in the same way that you might use like um like a like a like a horror set or like a you know theme your theme your act up in a halloween or any kind of a creepy way or you know some sort of some sort of i don't know like some glamorous way you know there's definitely i i there's different types of people doing different kinds of magic and yeah it's i remember like i said you still see it

sometimes and it's and it's cute i like the also really like the idea of during World War II, people asking magicians to give them advice on how to disguise tanks or something, or how to vanish. That's classic. Yeah, they did. There was a lot of that sort of stuff. Because they're like,

oh, this magician's managed to make a whole harbour full of ships vanish into thin air. How could he do do that for could he work for the military in some ways you know so there was definitely hilarious and i think they helped create camouflage and things like this right and um magicians stuff like that yeah i think so yeah come on there was there was like you know i cannot for one minute believe that there's no way magicians came up with that, right? Like, that had to have just been a natural sort of like- Evolutionary thing. It makes sense for us to blend in with our surroundings.

But you've got to think that some of these techniques that are usable might be helpful, right? Because when you're thinking, damn, this guy, I can't see any ships in this harbour. It's obviously a whole rigmarole of giant mirrors suspended at an angle from exactly where you are that you can't see anything, right? But you could also imagine that they might have some, if you know what the answers are, maybe one of those tricks is useful for making a gadget or you know some form of technology that might have a use certainly reading about what the brits the sort of things the brits did during world war ii is fascinating because they had this one guy

jasper maskeline was a british stage musician he was was also used by the military during the Second World War, claiming to have created large-scale ruses, deception, and camouflage in an effort to defeat the Nazis. There you go. They should make a movie about this guy. They should. I'm about to pull off my biggest trick. Get me the giant mirror.

The head of the A-Force deception department Recruited Maskelyne to work for MI9 in Cairo But there is no MI9 Exactly He created small devices intended to assist soldiers to escape If captured and lectured on escape techniques These included tools hidden in cricket bats Saw blades inside combs

And small maps and objects such as playing cards. Maybe he's the guy who came up with the idea for hiding inside a cardboard box. The Nazis hate cardboard boxes. They'll never think to look for you there. Just a box.

They were here a moment ago. That's right, my friends. He's hiding. We must look for this man.'s very cunning he's just in a box solid snake style moving across the ground so he claimed to have done a lot of things

his contributions are either absolutely central if you believe his account on that of his biographer or very marginal if you believe his account on that of his biographer or very marginal if you believe the official records oh man uh he claimed all kinds of things he claimed he um made like boats disappear he conjured up um surprise submarines that tricked the germans and all kinds of stuff like that he had some inflatable tanks um and things like this. So they actually did that ahead of D-Day.

Because there was a lot of... It was all part of a big intelligence scam. Someone will write in and say that I'm wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure I'm correct. They had this big scam where they basically

fed misinformation to the Germans for a very long time that the attack was going to come somewhere else. That it would be from Dover to the nearest point of France. And of course that it would be from Dover to the nearest

point of France. And of course it didn't come there. I think they were expecting Calais and they had a lot of forces around Calais. But the Germans were completely convinced that this was an assault taking place somewhere else. And they even had inflatable planes and inflatable tanks on the ground so that when... And like with camo netting over them so that when the German spy planes would go over, they would see this and go,

ah, yes, the invasion force is in Dover. It's just like Hitler said it would be, but it wasn't. They were much further down the coast preparing to invade around Normandy, of course, and around there. So that was a real deception. There was a lot of deception in the war.

Operation Mincemeat and all this kind of stuff. So there's this Operation mincemeat i think we talked about this before there was just a movie about it so yeah that's why i think was there all right so yeah this was when a um we wanted to we wanted to provide the nazis with some fake allied information so we dressed up i say we they dressed up a, they found the body, but they needed to find like a dead body to leave it on. So they found this dead body. A recently dead homeless person.

Yeah. Yeah. And they dressed him up as a member of the Royal Marines and made him a fictitious Captain William Martin. They made a completely fictitious life for him. Everything on him, you would look and you would think, think yes this is a real person's life everything pictures of his sweetheart uh postcards uh his bag was like weathered um you know his handwriting was a specific way everything so that you would not look at it and think this is a clever ploy but as a british you would think oh we fucking got lucky here and they dumped him off the coast of spain in what looked like a plane

crash and of course he was recovered by the spanish and the spanish apparently according to the movie that i recently watched were determined to give him back to the british they were like we weren't don't worry don't worry we're remaining neutral in this here's your dead officer and of course the whole plan was the germans would take it so they had to go in there and convince the germans somehow to go and get this body and they managed it and the they were sold they thought it was real and they thought the intelligence was real and uh yeah apparently it helped in in some way i don't actually remember that bit about giving him back to the brits but certainly um well that might have been an invention of the film i don't know yeah. Yeah, I don't think the Spanish were particularly on side.

No, but they also weren't actively in the war. Sabotaging. No. They weren't sort of... I mean, they'd had their own civil war and all the rest of it. They were fascists, but I don't think they were like, yeah, we'll help Hitler. They were sort of trying to remain relatively neutral.

Spanish handling of the corpse. It was handed to a naval judge. Officially informed by the Spanish report about the Admiralty had been found. So they told the Admiralty. I think they wanted to give it back. Oh, well, there you go. Oh, crikey. Well, again, it's like one of these lies where you then have to keep lying afterwards.

You have to prepare the lies. They're going to tell us about the body. Right. And if they do, what are we going to say? You know, oh, we want them back because he's got secret information on him, you know. So, yeah, there's like a whole bunch. But yeah, give it like, I love that, that sort of stuff where there's these people in this room coming up with ways to deceive the enemy. It's very clever yeah have pretty big impacts you know relatively speaking on the outcome of operations of battles

of of of things of of i i love that you can i love that that war the intelligence war yeah and it's hard it's very hard to um uh the the thing with uh oh the imitation game i think it's called which is about the alan turing movie with with uh benedict uh cucumber in it which is it's a really good movie and the the problem that they hit of course is that if once they crack enigma they can't actually use it they have to use it as infrequently as they can get away with because if you used it all the time the germans would know it had been cracked so they crack it and then they realize oh shit we can't intercept every convoy and every u-boat and

all the rest of it because then they'll know so we actually have to continue knowing that something bad's going to happen let it happen for the greater good those are the decisions where i think having to do this kind of stuff and then realize that you have to use it correctly must be heartbreaking to know. Shit, this convoy is going to get sunk, but we can't do anything about it because then they'll figure it out. It's tough. Yeah. I wonder like, I wonder what the right amount is, you know,

and obviously it had a huge effect, you know, it saved like millions of lives, didn't it? You know, knowing, knowing, shortening the war and, you know and obviously it had a huge effect you know it saved like millions of lives didn't it you know knowing knowing shortening the war and you know knowing the tactical troop movements this kind of stuff yeah fascinating fascinating time it would be so different now obviously with modern you know it feels like feels like now it's we just got such different different ways though we got satellite information instead. I mean, yeah. It's like, can you imagine for D-Day, the Germans didn't know it was coming, right?

They knew some kind of attack was coming, but they didn't know where or when. So you suddenly have this huge drop of paratroops, and you have all these ships and all these things, and they're calling up saying there's an invasion. They're like, oh, it's a feint. It's a clever ploy. They're going to invade somewhere else.

Like, that was a big thing. Yeah that the germans didn't commit all their forces to normandy because they thought oh no it's a it's a faint they've been tricking us because all their intelligence for some time have been pointing to it being somewhere else which was a big part of the deception was convincing them that the intelligence they had was wrong i mean the best thing you can do is give the enemy the real information and then think it's false like then they they ignore everything that points to that but they think now this is all part of that deception you know it's it's very it's all mind games um but yeah I think it was uh nowadays you just have a fucking drone or a satellite you'd know straight away oh they're there

and I mean if you look at this but certainly to be topical, the war in Ukraine, it's interesting that how many of the deaths are just artillery, very long range artillery and missiles and rockets. It's hardly any actual people being shot. It's almost entirely, unbelievably long range, like dozens and dozens of miles away, super pinpoint accuracy artillery and rockets and stuff that's the number one way that people are getting killed um i don't know if that was always the case in war maybe it's always been artillery but i certainly feel like there was a lot more uh people getting shot in world war ii than there is nowadays it's all just long range crazy technology i've i feel like yeah

war is is so like scary in a sense because it's just so much luck. You could be the most well-trained foot soldier in history and you just get blown up by a stray bomb from your own side. Right. And I think it's always been that way to some extent. And you really have to roll the dice. I mean, that time in history was absolutely wild. And then following on from that obviously

all of the I've been watching a bit of For All Mankind which is this TV show on Apple it's quite good set in this alternative timeline where the rocket scientist who was building the Russian moon rockets doesn't

because in reality I can't remember what his name is but he died unfortunately Sergei Korolev I think his name was oh really and so that really scuppered their moon they never really managed to get their moon program together after that and so it was kind of a done deal but in this timeline he survived and so the soviets were the first to land on the moon well but that and also nasa was more afraid They'd had some other accident. Yeah. And that had, like,

I think it was the one that Gus Grissom died in. It might have been Apollo 1 or something like that. There was some mission where they burned up on the launch pad. Apollo 1, yeah. Yeah.

So that mission, in real life, that didn't slow them down. And they didn't say, we're going to have to be 10 times more cautious because in the the whole point of the first episode of uh for all mankind no spoilers is that it opens with the moon landing and it's it's this is in the first five minutes so this

is not a spoiler the russians are landing on the moon and all the americans are watching and this guy turns to the camera and he's holding the the soviet flag with the hammer and sickle and he's like moon and they're all like boo this is awful and but nasa had been there ready to land but had aborted um just a week prior or whatever because they were playing it safe and they were just being more cautious yeah right so they were ultra cautious at the time and rightly so because i mean look at and it's such a fascinating time in history because their their kit and their technology was so i want to say kind of basic right yeah and as a result like there were all these different things that were going wrong constantly and i mean look i mean apollo 13 as as a story is is obviously a brilliant story um and a classic movie as well to depicting all the things that went wrong and could have well gone wrong in that first apollo

mission but just happened not to um and and so yeah like it was kind of a roll of the dice in many ways but but yeah i mean and this is again like this is like it very early on in the series. The idea really is that the Soviets land a woman on the moon, right? Right. And so that leads the Americans to adopt... Because every Apollo astronaut from all of them, they were like 20... No, I think they were like 10 moon landings. They were all men.

I don't think there have been 10 moon landings. I think there have been three. There have been quite a few Apollo missions. Three? Really? Something like that. Oh, okay. List of missions to the moon.

I didn't think there had been that many. I didn't think there was more than one. I thought there was only one. No, they went back. We got to go back. I'm going to Google how many people have walked on the moon. 12. Okay, not that many.

12? Yeah. So what is that? Is that four or five missions? 24 astronauts made the trip from Earth to moon. And Neil Armstrong, Ed Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11. So two on Apollo 11. Yeah.

Two on Apollo 12. Yeah. Two on Apollo 14. So two on Apollo 11. Yeah. Two on Apollo 12. Yeah. Two on Apollo 14. So 13 obviously failed. Two on Apollo 15. Two on Apollo 16 and two on Apollo 17. So Apollo 13 was the Tom Hanks movie, right? Five, six.

Apollo 13 was the one where they were on their way there. Yeah. And a tank blew, blasted the side of the ship off. It was the oxygen. They were leaking oxygen into space. Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise and who was the other guy guy well gary sinise was left behind because they thought he had measles oh that's right yeah kevin kevin bacon went in his place and phil paxton was the other guy yeah so how okay so they would have been they would have made up uh an extra what i think they

would have been the third or fourth 15 that would have been 15 in total had they made it. Yeah. Well, there's gonna be more in the next few years. Artemis 1 launched the other day. It's on the way. Sent a picture back of Earth looking like a blob. And once it's gonna go there and put some robots or something down there and have a poke around and then we're gonna send some more people up there.

Yeah. Because I was like, why are we going back to the moon? And it's because they want to get practice of building a moon base at Mars. Yes. You want to do it when you're just a few days from Earth. But they also want a stage from the moon. They're building a space station to orbit the moon and that's where they will go to first before they go to Mars to refuel and get their stuff ready and whatever.

So can they, are we at the stage where there's any way to make the fuel on the moon? Because I know that was a thing in the show where they were talking about, they can dig stuff out from the moon and make fuel. So you can have a much more fuel on something that has to take off from the moon because it's one eighth gravity. Yeah. You don't need to use so much fuel just getting into space. You hardly have to use any. So, I mean, I think for a long time, the dream has been to build everything either in orbit

or on the moon. And I mean, the moon would be easier because it's on the ground. I think even if they can't make fuel in space, they can certainly like- they can do unmanned missions to just deliver resources, right? To a staging point around the moon or whatever, you know what I mean? But if there's water on the moon, they could make fuel. Sure. Like they could do it.

So, you wouldn't need to schlep all the fuel but if they're if they're years and years away from that um certainly in the meantime they can just uh you know like the the frequency at which they're launching rockets into space now from from earth at carrying you know all sorts of stuff means that they could probably just you know almost get like a convoy going you know like leading up to whatever the mission is they could probably just you know almost get like a convoy going you know like leading up to whatever the mission is they could you know they could just send resources over there either leave the stuff there like land it on the moon or or whatever you know what i mean like that like obviously that technology all exists now right like with the boosters coming back down to and landing on a

platform in the sea and all that sort of stuff so like yeah there's lots of options it's exciting but um most of it seems to be um um sort of like spearhead pioneered by uh a madman uh who bought a social network so i i don't you know what i mean like it's as exciting as it is there's always going to be like a bit of a sour taste to it all too, right? Because it's just like, oh, come on man. I mean, I like to think that even though I do think he's a nut. I know that I think people go overboard either way. I don't think he's the end of the world. No, no, no, no. I think he's just kind of a putz.

He should just not really speak that often. He needs to stop talking. That is 100% a thing he needs to do stop stop talking stop tweeting keep your dumb opinions to yourself and uh you know like that that applies to a lot of people as well you know like me but i've been watching uh i'm not a billionaire i've been watching father ted recently uh like we just started re-watching it just because we haven't watched in years and it is hilarious it's still still very funny but you the the entire time you're watching it you just can't help but um feel like uh kind of kind of bad for the fact that you know one of the guys who wrote it is kind of like an outspoken knob on uh on social media as well and like and you think of like jk rowling and all these other people that have just can't fucking shut up basically.

And you just think, why did you bother speaking in the first place? Like, okay, we get it. You have some shitty, terrible opinions. Just keep them to yourself.

Like everyone else does. Like, why, why, why do you have to make something that everybody likes and then turn out to be a massive fucking knob because you can't shut up for two seconds. You know what I mean? Like it's a real shame, but, uh, the show is still amazing it's so fucking fun before we continue

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and protect yourself in your online browsing and activity. Yeah. So, a couple of things happened in the news this week. We've got eight billion humans on the planet. Yes. Yeah.

Eight billionth human has been born, which is exciting. I'm responsible for what feels like maybe a billion of them at times. God damn. which is exciting. I'm responsible for what feels like maybe a billion of them at times. Goddamn. It's you and that doctor that donated his sperm. Yes. The one that Lewis has no problem with. I did it the traditional way, though, with the delivery mechanism. The old baby mechanism.

My boner. I'm sure. my boner i'm sure the uh speaking of billionaires or dead ones an apple fan has paid 218 000 for an old pair of steve jobs's sandals that's right apple cult fans are weird uh so that's what that's what you get maybe they were queuing outside the auction for it. I don't know. I wonder if they stink. Or do you think they just are a bit leathery smelly? Like all the bacteria is probably gone now.

God, imagine. He probably went through a pair of them every day. He was that rich. You know, he could have. Anyway, the Amazon MMO, I think New World. Yes. They've raised the tax rate in game. Right.

So it's higher than Jeff Bezos pays IRL. Right. It's a shame. I think that's to stabilize the economy. That game had like a lot going for it, but it just, uh, I don't know. Like, I think they just focused on some of the dumbest aspects of the game rather than just making the bits that were fun. Good. That's weird i think they had like a like a server reset or something recently and people

people were there was a little bit of resurgence people wanted to play it again but uh it quickly just everybody left it again not interested uh games master the classic uk show is going to return next year i know who's going to be the host of that. Who is? My friend Frankie, I think. Oh, really? Not Clarkson? Really?

I think it's going to be her. Not Clarkson, no. Clarkson. I think it's Trevor McDonald. What the hell else are you going to do now? I think Trevor McDonald might be the Games Master. Like the big face. Frankie is.

Frankie Ward is. Trevor McDonald. Like the new Zuzi, Trevor McDonald. might be the games master like the frankie is frankie is frankie ward is like the like the new zuzy um trevor mcdonald that from itv i think so it already came back yeah in 2021 yeah that's not really she filmed the whole series um i didn't watch the last series so who cares sorry frankie apparently rockstar yeah had a a conversation with Eminem about doing a GTA movie. Right. But it never happened. Eminem has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as well.

See, now, do they just let anybody in? Because that's not rock nor roll. No, no, no. It doesn't have to necessarily be rock and roll. It's just the name of the association it's it so why call it the rock and roll hall of fame if you're just gonna let rappers in no well isn't it why not have a rapping hall of fame that's what i'm saying because it would then it would just be like you know i i think this way like it's an old name but it still applies i think

it's just based on like record sales uh popularity the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is irrelevant, and they're trying to stay relevant, that's all. KFC put out an app alert on Wednesday saying, it's Memorial Day for Kristallnacht. Treat yourself with some tender cheese on your crispy chicken. Now, for those who don't know, Kristallnacht is the night of broken glass, where the Germans, I think, tookis no no they smashed all the windows of jewish shopkeepers brilliant brilliant so they went around and smashed all of these windows and

it was like the start of them saying you know we're here now and we basically we can do whatever the fuck we want uh so crystal nacked was obviously especially for german jews is like you know not something you want to commemorate with say cheesy chicken a big bucket of chicken crispy crispy cheese on your chicken yeah it's pretty clear they didn't know what crystal nacked was that sounds nice and it does well i think they just look at the calendar events and are like automated calendar anniversary it's some 15 year old social media fucking idiot who's like crystal knight that sounds like fun a night of crystals yeah sure we're kfc big bucket challenge how many of you are crystal knight your 15 year old uh intern uh impersonation just sounds like head massive. Like every time.

It's just him. Oh, by the way, talking of KFC, I've been playing a lot of Football Manager lately, unrelated to the story, but it means between games and stuff while the game's processing, I have a lot more time to fart about. And in addition to looking around a number of British towns and realizing

how dogshit most of our country is once you get into the urban areas, I looked up about the history of KFC and Colonel Sanders in particular. It's a very long story. It would be a triforce in itself, in all honesty. He led a very, very odd and

mazy and meandering career before he became Colonel Sanders and his chicken became this global phenomenon. So if you're interested, we could do it next week or you could just look it up. It's a Wikipedia article. It's, it's pretty long. Um, and he had like a million fucking jobs and tried a million little businesses and he was never, he never got like super, super rich off KFC. Uh, that all came, you know, afterwards with all the franchising and the big, the way that big companies

are run these days but it is interesting he wasn't even a real colonel not true he was an actual colonel not true not true he was not a military colonel but he was a different kind of colonel so you can begin all right well i'm talking about the colonel that most people will be familiar with which is a military colonel um so he was commissioned as a Kentucky colonel. And the Kentucky colonel is the highest title of honor bestowed by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It's like an honorary colonelcy. So if you're saying that that's not sufficient colonel-ness.

It's not for me. I'm sorry. What is? Well, think of all the actual colonels out there who have had to earn their rank, like from being in the military and stuff. And then this guy just comes along. He's like, hey, try my chicken and becomes a colonel. No, thanks. Like, that's not how it works.

That sounds like a free pass to me. I don't think that's fair. It sounds like a free pass. What if I get to be a colonel in peacetime and I never, ever fire a gun or see action, which definitely happened. Some people get to be kind of without doing any fucking fighting yeah they just get promoted yeah yeah well yeah but they're still a colonel apparently they're a better colonel than colonel sanders i'm just saying that's so sure apparently kentucky in 2008 was issuing as many as 16,500 colonel ships per year. That's dumb as hell.

I didn't know that. All right, well, I retract everything. I thought it was a rare- So basically, colonel- like the entire Sanders family, probably all colonels. It's not even just him. Papa colonel, we got mama colonel. You can literally just pay five grand and you'll be a colonel. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not hard. It's like buying that lordship for Scotland or whatever. Cash for colonels. Yeah, cash for colonels. This scandal's going to end. Cash for chickens, I don't mind. The cash for colonels has to stop. Oh, man.

Well, there you go. I didn't even know that that was a thing, but it's fascinating. I think you can always get around. I think if you ask anyone about that, I think they'd assume he was just a military colonel, but just a weird sort of guy. There you go. Fascinating stuff.

That was Triforce today. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. I've got to go and let the plumber in. Nice. I've got to go, but we'll pick this up next week, so stay tuned. Thanks, everyone. We love you.

Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.