CheapShow - Ep 477: Bad Boy William Roy

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

It’s story time this week on CheapShow. It’s been a while since we’ve had a “Dollop-esque” segment and in this episode, Gannon brings along the tall tale of William Roy. In his day, he was one of the UK’s most respected psychic mediums, giving shockingly accurate predictions and personal information to some of the most powerful people in the world. However, it all came crashing down and Roy confessed all… So how did he do it? Paul digs into an old issue of The Unexplained Magazine from the early 1980s to find out about the bold life of William Roy. However, Eli Silverman fans need not fear, as he has brought a load of sauces with him too! He’s got three new discoveries to share with his co-host. There is a Friend’s themed marinara, a Mango Mint cheeky one and one made from bananas, so they could all be awesome, or ruddy awful. You’ll have to listen in and find out the results! See pics/videos for this episode on our website: https://www.thecheapshow.co.uk/ep-477-bad-boy-william-roy www.patreon.com/cheapshow If you want to get involved, email us at [e-mail] For all other information, please visit: www.thecheapshow.co.uk Like, Review, Share, Comment... LOVE US! MERCH Official CheapShow Magazine Shop: www.cheapmag.shop Send Us Stuff: CheapShow PO BOX 1309 Harrow HA1 9QJ

Here's a little song we're going to sing. Join along with me, kids. You know how it goes. Bub, ba, bu, bu, bum. Oh, Eli's turned up ill again and to the poddy sick. Oh, we complain about his problems and it gets our bloody wick. He's got a little sniffle and he's got a little smell coming out of his bough. He's, oh, Eli, Eli, oh, Eli, oh, he.

And welcome to Cheap Show. My name is Paul Gannon and this is a podcast about Cheap. Are you okay, Paul? I'm fine. Mentally, I don't know where we stand no more. But physically, I'm not doing too bad. Yeah, no sniffles. No, you are.

You do seem weller than normal. Thank you. Paul Well, weller. Hey. Well, how did you get the actor of Robocop to tell you more about ancient architecture? You go, weller, weller, weller, oh, tell me more. Tell me more. Did you get very far?

What? The star of Robocop. Give me the... Oh, Peter Weller. Was he called Peter Weller? Peter Weller. Weller, weller. Tell me more.

Tell me more. How did you get that scarf? Well, I said to someone in a shop, can I have that scoff, please? And then they sold me that scarf and I put it in a bag. And that's how I got a scarf. There we go. What a lovely musical introduction to this week's edition of the podcast. I don't feel that sick.

You just spent 15 minutes complaining to me. What's that little bottle of Synex then? Worst flu I've had in two years. Is it? Yes. Worse than the one that you gave me that Christmas. No, that was the worst. That was one of the worst I've ever had.

That's the worst I've ever had. That came on. That came on in a matter of minutes, it felt like. Do you know what I mean? Getting worse and worse and worse. It was like a zombie plague. Yeah. And then I go, oh no, Eli.

Oh, yeah. And then we spent Christmas watching a shit Doctor Who episode on the couch hill. And in the toughest piece of me ever. Bad times. It was all right. It was quite a good times, wasn't it? It was formative. That was before this show had even started, Paul. Yes, that was pre-cheep-show days where you and me just mucking about as kidders.

That's all we were. Chums. Bum friends. I don't know. Kiddy chums. Bum chums. That's the way I was looking for. Bum chums. I haven't said that since like 1997. No, because it's homophobic. Is it? Yeah. It just means you're like bottoms. You're a friend of ass. It's like hitchhiker on the Hershey Highway. Is it? Yeah. Is that kind of phrase? It's a homophobic. phobic phrase, bum chums. Of course it is.

No, they don't. They don't. They speculate. But they don't. And I speculate. I spaculate. There we go. That's the way into this week's episode.

Now is it. Is it really, though? It's going to have to be, unless you've got anything better. You can give me in the next five seconds. I've got no. Nob. I spoke without thinking. Welcome to Cheap Show.

Cheap Show. Oh, that's what I forgot to do. Yeah, turn your phone off. Fuck me. Hello, welcome to Cheap Show. It is another episode of the Economy Comedy Podcast. I am Paul Gannon. And I'm Eli Silverman.

We host this. We host this show, the Economy Comedy Podcast for your ears. Well, we go through Bargabins, Charity Shops, Poundlands, et al of the UK. Et al! At all! And further beyond those realms. To bring you the cheap things that we find that we consider treasure amongst that trash. Little treasures amongst the trash.

Little treasures amongst the trash. And no fucking about this week. No house rent. No foreplay. No, how's your darling? How's your wats fancy a cup of tea, love? Oh, it's cold out. You can't go out in this weather.

Why don't you stay here for the night? Your car's broken. I stabbed your tires. You can't go home. Stay here with me overnight. Come on then. None of that. It's straight into the episode.

Hello? Hello. Paul. Yeah. Someone text you when I asked you to turn your phone off before recording. It sounds like they're doing weed now. They're advertising galaxy buds. Oh my God.

No, no, no, no, no. Go on, that was good, everybody. I mean, all right, I'm going to give you this. It was something funny that you said that wasn't related to your genitals. So, yeah, well done. Yes, well done, Eli. Thank you.

Well done, Eli. Even though you're sick. Even though you're sick, you produce magic. That's what I want to hear from you. That's what I want to fucking hear from you. You're a poet, Eli. That's what I want to hear from you. You fucking poet.

You lift me and this whole endeavor up. That's what I want to hear from you. Eli, Sylvie. you are the wind beneath my fucking wings, mate. Is that what you want to hear? Just throw it away and turn it off. Throw it away and turn it off. How do I do that?

Throw it away, follow it to where it goes. And then with my tongue like a fucking hummingbird. That's stabbing at it. Yeah. Do that. Oh, God, why won't you die? What we got coming up on the show, Paul? Well, we haven't done this in a while.

And we always, I call them dollop lights, even though that's not really fair because they do tons of research and take the time to do it. I just read something from a book. But this week's episode is going to be a deep dive into a chapter from a book

that I have bought in a charity shop. The Unexplained, which was a magazine series that has been put into this compendium. I've got things to say about that. Orbis, and this is Volume 13. I've got things to say. We'll save that because right now

we're going into our first segment, wish-wash-wish, no fucking about sources. I'm loving it. I'm loving what I'm hearing from you, because sauce is very important to me, Paul. As Eli likes to say, source has been a bedrock, a supporting pillar, a load-bearing ballast.

A liquid bedrock. A liquid ballast bedrock foundational segment. Hot liquid core, like that of the earth. Can I just, I need to... Magma! On a technical level, I've realised, Paul, yes. I've got the squeaky chair, and it's doing my head in.

So I'm going to swap chairs now, okay? Okay, I didn't know that was... I gave you the non- squeaky chair. Why did you swap it? It's making its fucking head off. You swapped that because I gave you the hard back one. You did not. I fucking did.

He's lying. I'm lying. What's it doing? He's lying. He's lying. He's heard him. You heard him. He lied.

Why you do that? I'll do the theme. Is that squeaky as well? Take the one behind you. Oh my God. Oh. Grandad, Eli. I've got a gnome knob, nob, Harry on the outside.

I've got a gnie, greenie, nobby, greenie. That's not, mate, I don't, that's not good enough. It's not good enough. It's just not good enough. Just because this podcast has had some sliver of success, there's not been anything that comes out of your mouth is good enough.

I know, I know. That was certainly not good enough. I apologise. I'm a hearing no knob goblin. Just saying. Oh, no, I'm in a good mood now. Well, let's put a stop to that. Come on, let's have some source support.

I need to do the source support introduction theme. Okay. Sauce Report. Hello everybody, I'm Eli Silverman, and welcome to this source report. Sources, we talk about them. Now, is any general news in the world of sauce that you want to help us with? I have nothing. Well, I'm not up on source news.

You're meant to deliver that to me and therefore the audience. Tell you what the big trend in sauce is. What? Hot honey. Oh, yeah. I don't get it. And that's lasted a few years. Before that, it was salted caramel.

Yeah. What do you think is next? No, cheese. In the world of burgers, cheese sauce, because you have the classic, the McDonald's Philly cheese stack, two of the other big guys have copied it. Right.

Burger King, they've got something called like a Philly cheese steak. You know what? It's called a cheap, like a Burger King cheese steak or something. I had it the other day. It's not good. Fucking terrible, man.

I thought I'd give it a go. You know what they had rocket in there? And they put like barbecue sauce on the rocket. So it's sweet and it kind of clashes with the cheese. Yeah, the barbecue sauce absolutely is not. Can we high five? Yes. Yes. He knows what he's talking about.

I know he comes across stupid sometimes, everyone. Duh. But he does know what he's talking about. We don't agree. That was a travesty. Can I just say, the Wendy's Toasted Cheese Burger thing? Oh, that worked. That worked.

That packed me up for a day. Worth it. I feel like that, the griddle, it's a cheese griddle. It's a toasted cheese is what it called. But I feel like that was a reaction to the outright success of McDonald's Philly cheese stack. Yeah. Just the other day, I saw KFC.

They're doing some kind of double cheesy, the cheesy one or whatever they're called. That's going to be fucking... What do you think the next big thing is going to be, Eli? Have you got your ear to the ground on that? I'm not sure, but... You're meant to be the expert, though. I mean, it's sauce adjacent, isn't it? It's a burger.

It's a sort of like... I'm going to go ahead and say, there's going to be more fruit in sauce going forward. More fruit in sauce going forward. Yeah, I just think fruit in general is. You're going to hear like strawberry chili chutney or something, or you're going to get like pear wasabi. You know what? I mean, something like that.

You know what? In the world of ice cream and confection, which is, I don't include sauces for me is kind of a savoury thing because it's a syrup. It is a savory. I would go with savory. You'd get sweet sauces? You can get sweet sauces,

but you know, they're more dessert-focused, aren't they? Jams. Jams. It's the Pissascio, the Dubai chocolate thing. What's that magic freeze? What was that chocolate sauce? You could put on ice cream

and then it goes rock hard, you can snap it off and eat it. Do you like that stuff? Fucking love that stuff. I think that's just normal chocolate syrup. I don't think it's a special property because it faces. Here are.

If people go, oh, what about white dog poo and all this shit? We don't see anymore. whatever happened to the good, individually wrapped block of vanilla ice cream that you could buy. In chocolate?

No. Oh, like a block, yeah. Yeah, you could buy them in like a cardboard box and inside you'd get like, I love that. I love that. 12 fucking individually wrapped vanilla blocks of ice cream. Yeah, because you'd be like a lolly alternative, right? Yeah, because you're thinking between wafers or something.

Yeah, but you could just hold one and sort of unwrap it like a burrito. You could like a chalk ice. Yeah, exactly like a chocolate. Anyway, that's just my point of view to make you think about the past. I'll let you go on. However I do. I'll tell you what it is. Wouldn't you...

No, I'm over-stimulated. The type of ice cream you'd get in those is what we'd call soft serve now, isn't it? No, they were hard. Like you'd get in a tub, like a walls one. Oh yeah, but soft serve is missing that comes out of the whippies machine, yeah. Anyway, that was ice cream report.

That was a trend a couple years ago. Softserve, soft serve, all the hipsters, soft serve. Yeah, but it's harder to sell soft serve when it's not coming out of the spout, you know, mixed straight from the machine. Yeah. I mean, McFurrie is your high street alternative. That is like a soft serve, isn't it?

It is. Apparently they have all sorts of issues with those machines. Yeah. Now, I did source some sources for today's report. Did he source some sauce? Of course he did. But the reason we've convened here in the Source HQ. Palace.

To taste some of these sauces is because McDonald's are at it again. And they have, with their frankly lame new friends meal thing. Yeah. Knock off Funko pops of your friend's characters. Fuck off. Well, people like that. I don't like that funk. that funco look. It's not about what you like, is it? They've done the market research and they've said

grown adults want toys of 1990 sitcom characters. I'm fine with that. Pivot. It's the fact that we were on a break. They've just gone, what's the most cheap factory thing that we can get to make these fucking pieces? That aren't detailed orientated, but have enough detail to remind you of what the thing is you're looking at is. I hate it. I hate the lazy cheapness of that. But these friends meals, which is what you're getting at, yes. Do come with a particular source if you buy the pizza-motrilla and that's what we're going to taste first, yeah? The mozzarella sticks. Yeah.

Which they have those sticks with almost any special they do. Overpriced, I would say. I genuinely think that stuff is overpriced. Like 350 for like three shitty breadsticks. Yeah. Not good enough. Very overpriced. Not good enough.

So, shall we, without any further ado, crack open the first of our sources today? Yes. So, in the sitcom Friends, if you don't know, one of the characters called Monica, if you don't know, was a chef if you don't know. I forgot that. I mean, I've watched a fair amount of friends in my time. That used to actually irk me

The way everyone be like It's not very good It's not actually very good Could you be any more good? Did you enjoy friends Unironically for years and years? Honestly I think there are some episodes of friends That when it's firing on all cylinders

It's like some of the best sitcom writing America's put out there in that period Yeah, I agree Regardless of what else you think of the show No you're absolutely right A lot of the writing was top-top-modge and also the charm of the actors. However, it's not really my cup of tea.

And what I didn't like about it was the whole aspirational cool sort of aspect of it. Yeah, but that's American sitcoms though, in it. Anyway, the point is, is that Monica plays a chef in Friends. So that's the only thing. That's the only connection to food they could get in the whole thing. Yeah, I mean, it's better than nothing. They could have just called it Friend's Sauce. So honestly, this is the Friends Source, Monica's Marinar.

So what's a Maranara source, though, to you? A marinarra is a source. You're right, it is. Well done. a basic tomato sauce for pasta. Would it have herbs? It would have oregano. Basel?

Time. And perhaps sage as well. I tell you what. Yeah, very what? My dad goes on about this cookbook that he's had for years. Cuckella Hazan. Which is all about Italian-American cookery. Yeah?

It's an absolute classic of the genre. I can't remember what it's called, but it's Marcella Hazan's one. Right. And he told me about this dish. Get a nice thick pork chop. Yeah. Brown it and some flour. Right.

Okay. Stick it in the pan. Come on it. Fresh. some leaves, stick it in there, can of tomatoes. Come on it. Close it. Come on it.

Low heat for an hour. That's it. That's it. That's the whole dish. You don't come at once. I'm trying to be serious, man. Yeah, that's trying to ruin it. I've got no knob.

That's better. That's better. That's funny. My teacher, Philippe Golié, who recently passed. God. Fuck him. He did this thing and it was one of the, when I really came out as a clown and found some... You came out as a clown.

My clown. I'm living a lie. I'm really a clown boy. You know what was that? When I was doing it, he told me to do it as if I was one of the other people in the group. Right. And suddenly I had a breakthrough and that's what just happened to you.

You let him come in it like Paul. And then as soon as you were trying to pretend to be me, it all came to life, man. Just do it again. Be me. Be me. All right, let me just do it. Here we go.

I'm an unemployable can. You're right. Extensual. No, the Gnome knob knob, no, no. for realism. Unemployable. Fucking hell. Right. Anyway. Tomato sauce. It says tomato sauce. I know what that

sauce was, everyone. In herbs and spices. If anyone thinks my pork Marchella has that pork chop recipe sounds nice. Please let us know. Here's what get to me about this. So it says herbs and spices. But then when you look for the ingredients, it just has the word herbs. Doesn't they what herbs they are, just herbs.

Well, it's funny that they don't have to tell you. There's garlic puree and onion powder in it. Dehydrated onion. But then it just says spices. So it's got herbs and spices in? I guess you... This is taking too long. I'm getting into it now. Open it up.

It's a nice thick red. I've got my own one. Oh, it does smell like pizza sauce. Very much so. You know what also smells like pizza sauce? Pizza sauce. Generic rich tomato sauce, which McDonald's give you with their

mozzarella sticks when they're not doing the French thing. Right. Here's the thing. Wait, don't open that then. Because if you open that, right, we should keep all of it and then get the rich sauce and compare them. I've got another one. Have you? Yeah.

Because we should do a. Compare and contrast. Maybe it's a Patreon thing, but I think we should do a compare contrast. I've got another one there. All right. Because you're saying this,

but I'd like to put it to the test. Monika's Marinaris, see? All right, cool. Save that one, because I think we should do a compare and contrast to bolster your claim. Yes. So what I claim is,

I tasted this already, spoiler alert everyone. I'm getting into it. Because I got the mozzarella sticks the other day. But I felt like the rich tomato sauce, which we tasted on a video recently, source report video.

Did we? Yes. All right. And we both liked it. We said it was very Italian food-coded, pizza coded. But it's the exact same thing then, but rebranded for friends.

I felt like this was weaker. Weaker. But the smell, the smell is exact same, right? I'm having a tiny pinch of it now. Here we go. Oh, God. It's incredibly sweet.

Yeah, it's more sweet. Isn't it like an artificial sweetness almost? A little bit, but not too much, not in an off-putting way, but fuck me, that's incredibly sweet. I think the smells quite nice.

I know ketchup is sweet, but usually, like, there's enough flavor there to round it all out. But this is, it's almost like a candy. That's way too sweet. I'm getting a spa tame as well.

There is little bits of it, but I don't know if that's the herbs or not. That's crazy sweet. That's way too sweet. Sweet. Honestly, that is. It's like syrup or something. Yeah, it is. Wow.

It's too sweet. And I get the herbs and everything, but it's really muted at the end. Yeah. You know what I mean? And it's just overwhelmingly this sort of, to me, it's like a sweetener taste, like stevia or something like that. Whatever it is, it's overwhelming, whatever flavour you had. It's just punched to death by the sugar.

Yeah. Do you feel like the rich tomato is less sweet and has more balance? This is what I'm saying. We'd have to put them back to back. I remember enjoying the rich tomato dip more. I think we did in that video, if I'm remembering rightly, have not too many negative. The herbs were higher. We didn't have anything negative to say about it.

Put it that way. The sweetness is way too high in the meat. It's at the front, in the middle. The herbs that come in right at the back. After you've been totally overwhelmed by a tidal wave of sugary, saccharine, sugreness. It's like the weight of the sugar, like overpowering. you push you to the ground. And then there's little herbie fingers tickle your arseller right at the end.

How many herbie fingers? Little tingle of your arseal right at the end. Do it like I would do it though. Oh, I'm not enough of a DJ job. Anyway. Right, so. I'll give it a one and a rough. Oh yeah, no, one.

I wouldn't use that on anything. No. Too sweet. Too sweet for chips. Too sweet for dips. Too sweet for the mozzarella sticks with which they were designed to a compliment. It's a cash in just like this whole friend's thing. And as I've said to you, Paul,

I'm not against that, though. It's a gimmick. McDonald's have come up with some amazingly fun promotions in recent years. I'm thinking of the heist, the world heist, where they have dishes from other parts of the world. Yeah, but this isn't that, though. And also the secret menu, which is really fun. Yeah, but this isn't that.

This is what they're doing here is an adult happy meal. Yeah. And the source is a postscript to that thought. What I mean, compared to those promotions, these, the Grinch and this just feel like, oh, we've got the IP. Yeah, no, you're right. There's no innovation. But that's a menu, right, that you're talking about.

This is a meal deal. And the subtle difference is like you're buying a package, which comes with a toy and the sauce. And whereas they're going, here's a whole line and identity for this line of food. Yeah, but the Grinch was like a menu as well. No, no, no. I mean, yeah, but like, it was just fries and shaky dip.

And then the burger was normal. So does Friends have, doesn't Friends have a whole range of coffees as well, doesn't it? They have a coffee. I think you can buy. I think there's two coffees. Even so, I don't think it's going to make a big fucking difference. Do you know what I didn't fucking taste on the, secret menu that I really wanted to try.

No, it was the espresso milkshake. Oh, we should have done that. We should have done that. Oh, by the way, if we're talking noodles, cousin Emma has located the Nishin chicken wings thing. Well, can you pick him up when you go to America this one? Yes, I'm going to get them. Good.

Right, on to the next sauce. We are travelling to the Philippines. Are we? I haven't packed me bag. Oh, I've got my passport, though. My new passport. Oh, you have got your new passport. I was going to ask you how, what's the photo is bad? What is it?

Is it really bad? You know what's weird as well? So I had the, you know, you go to the booth and you take your picture and blah, blah, blah. But what was weird was like, I would sit there and I had a shave and everything and that my hair was cut. So it wasn't like I was a complete shambles. And I sat down and I looked at it and you go, here's a test. You do a test, right? So you see what you look like.

So I went, beep. It showed me on the screen what it looked like. And I was like, that will do. That looks fine and presentable. Yes. So I sit there and I put the money in. Bing, bong, bing. Wait two minutes.

The photographs come out, and I look like a fucking drug addict. It's like my eyes are deep set, and you can see every wrinkle in my face and like my goiter. And I was just like, that's not the picture I took. Cameras are too, are too fidelitous these days, aren't they? They seem accurate. They show too much of the truth. So we are eating some sauce from that region. And it's by a company called UFC.

Not the wrestling. Not the fight, not the wrestling. Oh, not. Is it wrestling or like extreme mixed boxing facts? Cage fighting. They call it mixed martial arts or something. Because you can cratty chop and kick him in the balls at the same time. And this is a Philippine O sauce.

Hello. Forgive me, I'm just going to attempt to read what it's called. It's called Tamis Anghang. How did you spell that? T-A-M-I-S-A-N-G-H-A-H-N-G. Ang-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-E-H-H-H-E. Okay, right. So what is it?

What is it you're presenting? It is banana catsup. Catsup, another word for ketchup, of course. But it also tends to refer in the West now ketchup, the word ketchup, to almost any source. You have a mushroom cats up, a mushroom ketchup, weird. And this is banana. But it's red. But it's red.

And what is this big red dick shape thing? Can you get red banana? I don't know, man. Can I have a little look at it? Yeah, oh no, that isn't a thing. That's just a bit of art design. That's a splodge. It looks like a balloon.

I know, but that's a splodge. You can tell by the way it's got shading and a little droplet. It's meant to be a splodged sauce. Let me see. Let me see. It looked like that droplet was like a twist. Yeah, no, you're right. But when I inspected it closed it, it's just a splodge.

It's like a smear of the sauce. Mate, as a man who is well-versed in splodges. Yes. And smears, stains, spatters and drippage, I know a splodge when I see one. And mate, that's just like the inside of my pants. That is a splodge. It's a banana-shaped splodge. And I also do skiddies.

But that's kind of like... But this is, it's confusing. That's a Sunday thing for me. It's a confusing... So we just taste it because no one really cared about us talking about the splodge. Okay.

So this, it says cook it, heat it, eat it, cook it or something on the front, doesn't it? Oh yes, it says, cook it, dip it. Love it. And on the front it's got some kind of noodle thing

with an egg on. Oh look, it's got a banana-shaped barmaid. No, bar code. There you go, everyone. Although a banana-shaped barmaid is actually quite interesting. It's a barcode shaped in a banana

and yellow. Banana Barca bait. It's got a nice little design elements, including the cap has got... Nice little wrapping on. A nice little design wrapping with the UFC logo. Don't worry if you can't imagine what we're saying. We've got images of this stuff on our website, the cheapshed at co.com. This is freshly bought, Paul.

So I'm not going to bother checking the very smallly written. Smallly written. Best before day on the lid, smallly written. Yes, that's a... I'm not going to complain. Don't complain about the things I say in accident. We're both. We're both got a monkey mouth today.

We're going for a nice walk next week, Ely. So that'll be nice, weren't it? So I'm almost there. Should I give it a shake? Because it looks like there's a little bit of... What is the word for that? Look at the little liquid... It's like the separation, isn't it?

The separation at the top. That actually has a word in ketchup manufacturing. Does it? Yes, because the people... Sediment... They hate it. No, what's it called? I wish I remembered what that was called.

I thought you were the expert, mate. It's a great word. Give it, give it it. Oh, that's why. It's a thick fucker. Look, I'm holding it upside down, everyone. And there's no spillage. And it's not moving into the area.

Can I have a shake of it? No, you know what you want to do? Left to right side to side like that. Oh yeah, now it's gone. Yeah. You're right. Mate, I know spodges. I know how to get sauce out of a bottle.

Okay, now. What do you expect this to taste like then? I think it's going to be like, have you ever green banana? Yes. It's savory. It's sort of like the banana flavor profile, but with the sweetness dialed right down. Well, anyway, let's just what I think. Yeah, let's find out.

I'm going to go for this. Because we spent seven minutes doing anything but talk about this fucking sauce. A lovely, a lovely smell. Have a look. Savory. Like a dry fruit.

Water, sugar, banana, stabiliser. Spices, vinegar, preservative. So there's nothing going on too fancy. I can't smell the banana, but there's definitely a kind of a characha note there, I think. There's a chili, yes, but I've got,

there's a sort of savory banana. Oh, look how splodgy it is. It's very, put it in the little ramekin. Oh, it's quite chunky. It's quite chunky. I'm slowly beginning to. to regret taking this on. But let's, I'm going to take it from here.

It's definitely a vinegar note, like almost a stale vinegar note on there as well. Yeah, there is definitely that vinegar note. It's going to be quite vinegary. He's gone in. Oh, oh God, it's really gelatinous. It's like jelly. Here's the thing.

Flavor-wise, I'm not getting much. It's quite watery. Texture-wise, very genitalous. Shut up, gelatinous. I put it right up at Janaticus. Hello, I'm Professor Gelatikus. I've come to snow your fanny Brilliant

Have a fanny sniffer Hoist your skirt up darling Oh my God Professor I thought we weren't doing characters This week Can I taste this? Oh delightful

Like a meadow Professor go with the others Please Oh I liked him He's the fanny sniffer He's a doctor Who could sniff out If you're ill or not

With your fanny It is very gelatinous Really gelatinous Almost jelly like Oh God, that's grim. Isn't it? Oh, that's horrible. But do you see when I say more than the flavor,

it's a texture that sets me off? It's watery shit. Yeah, it's watery. Watery jelly. Oh, the smell was much nicer than the tank. The smell implies there's going to be a stronger flavor there. There's nothing. It's watery, watery sweet jelly.

Gooky jelly. God, that sucks. What would that even be nice with? Well, on the package, it says a... It's got rice and egg, doesn't it? Yeah. I like a fried egg. Right, that is another.

That is a terrible source. That's a 0.25 for me. That was unpleasant to taste. I never want to do that again. Unpleasant mouth feel. A really bad mouth feel. Really bad. Maybe it's like not meant to be like that.

Maybe it was hot. I think it is meant to be like that. But here's the thing. It's like you dollop it on the side. It's still going to be a lumpy gelatinous mess. I can't taste any banana. No, no. There's none of that banana, not even like an artificial banana.

I think the banana there is for texture, not flavor. Must be, yeah, banana. Bonata. Bonata. We're doing well this week, everyone. I was going to say banana gelatin. But I got to the tin bit. Batartin.

Batartin. Let's go into our third fucking sauce. Hello. Gelatinas potato, Nana. Right, last one. Thank you for joining us on this source report. Gibby, Jimmy. What's the last one?

This is a source I picked up on the way over here, Paul. Nice. Buy a company called Wakefield. Oh. Rick sauce brand, is it? Rick Wakeman, you're thinking of. Nah The keyboard is from yes

Nah He's the keyboard is from no Is there a band called no Yes No Who's on second What's on first Why?

No No the what Who? No No not who Yes No Bread

Wakefield Now this is I believe An Indian company I've tried Their products before Because I've had Their green chutney

Yeah And their Their coconut chutney Did we try coconut chutney on this program? Yeah. That's them. They did that. I loved it.

I don't know, actually. It's sort of dry, like mashed up coconut. It's dry. I don't know if we have then, actually. It's lovely stuff. So what's this then? This is Wakefield mango mint sauce. Mango and mint.

Mango mist. Interesting. I've never tasted that. I'm funny on mint sauce, mainly because I just don't like it. And it reminds you of bad Sunday dinners. Yeah, I don't like that sugary mint sauce that you get with a nasty, fatty bese of lamb or something. Because when my nan used to do a roast dinner,

from the family and she set out all their crockery and stuff. The mince sauce was always served in one of those terracotta pots. I had like a troll's face on the lid. Yeah, and it looks like a sort of pond or something in there. And then like the tongue was the spoon handle. So like it was a troll's face with a gap for the spoon handles like that. And that put you off, did it? Well, it was part of the aesthetic of like weird design of the 70s hangover and then the

mince sauce. In my head it's got this weird kind of, I know, fairy folk weirdness. With lamb. Yeah, I would not go for it. I don't like the sweet. But this is mango as well. Where do you stand on mango in a mango pressing plant? Hey, hey, hey.

What, where do you stand on? Where do you stand on mango in a mango pressing plant? Like a wine factory. If you make one mango wine. Mango wine factory. Well, there we go. Well done, mate. Thank you.

He's getting into this sauce now. There was a trio of different wheat-filled sources. They also had a piri-piri, which I believe is like a South African chili. And they also had just a hot sauce. But I thought we haven't actually tried one of these. And you were saying that the new trend in sauces might be fruit. What? B'Blobblah, in here?

Oh, baby Gannon's got his finger on the pulse. Oh, it comes with a little plastic caper on the top, to seal in that freshness. I think this is going to be our favourite source of the trio. Well, to be fair, even if this is... Wouldn't have to do much, no. Yeah, this could be... That odious red jelly of that last one.

Christ. Terrible. Ooh. What's the sniff like? Weird. It's grassy? Yeah, very grassy. I'm going to try and pour this on without spilling it on me.

I don't know how thick it is. It's a little bit. I'll tell you how it's progress down there. Down the old pipe. It's fine. It'll be fine. I think it's going to be nice and smooth. Oh, yeah.

It's just, yeah. Here it comes. Here it comes. Come on, love. Don't let me get Professor Gillack. The turtle's head is poking through the room. It's fucking winking.

There you go. It's quite thicker than I thought. It is quite thick, actually. It's not going to be like chunky jelly. No, I mean, look. Oh, I'm going to have to clean my spoon. You're going to have to lick it. Oh, that's why I went deep in when I had mine.

Oh, ah. So I didn't have to go back. I just ate a bit that banana. So I'm honestly, there's a tiny mint note there. Can you smell the mint? There's a tiny mint sauce note there. Right like in the midst of it all. Ah, but there's chili.

There's like a, there's a spiciness. Yeah, there's a spice there. But I'm getting no mango to the nose. No, but it must be green mango, which is quite a different flavour from the ripe mango. Green mango is sort of savour. Does it say on the side what mango it is? No, but it's, let's see.

I mean, I'm going to go ahead and taste it. It's a product of India. Oh, fuck hell. No, I don't like that either. It's got a weird dust mold notes to it. There is. It's something on the nose. There's a mold. That is, you know what I said?

I couldn't smell mango. Yeah, you can taste it. You're going to fucking taste it. All right, but you don't, that's why I asked you where you stand on mangoes. I don't mind mango, but I'm a bit picky about what I have it in, for example. I don't like it. It's my favourite fruit of all that. Is it? Yeah.

Anyway, go on on, Eli's turn now. Have some of that. There's a lot going on. It's got a granularity. It's a little gritty, yeah. That's not a problem. Don't have a problem with that. The flavor's really.

Funky. I like it. Yeah, I'm not a fan. It's got a funky taste. There is, yes. A mossy. There's sweetness there. There is.

There's spiky chili notes. There's a tingle. I've got this little tingle on my tongue. It's definitely the most nuanced of the three. It's the best of the three. It is the best of the three. But not your competition. What would you have that with, though?

With some meat, with some tandori meat. Yeah, no, you're right. Yeah, it would have to be an Indian tandori kind of meal, wouldn't it? Yeah. It has got chukny notes. Yes. It definitely is, I mean, I bet you they could market this. This is a chutney, couldn't they?

If it was a bit more lumpy, it could be a chutney. Just so you know, all this says is raw mango 24%. That's what I mean green mango. So it's giving it green chili, lemons, vinegar, sugar, water, ginger. Yeah, that's the other thing there. Coriander. I'm getting coriander. Salt, garlic.

And then, what's this word? Fenugreek. Fenugreek is another one of those spices. Yeah, I really like this, I have to say. I'm not a fan, but I also don't think it's awful. I just think it's not for me. No, it's not for you. I would give that a...

Personally, a... three. I'll go for four. It's really, it is actually much more sophisticated than the other two sources. It's got a lot of, well,

not going on there. And those notes, I can, when you were reading them, it's like I could feel those in my mouth because it's lasting on the palate. Yeah,

no, it's lingering. I guess they'll get that spice going on. There's an evolution to that. And that would be, I'm going to take that home and eat that on some milk. Good.

Because unlike the first two, this doesn't make me want to fucking pour my teeth out with pliers. I'm going to go 4.2. Eat it with anything. Cheese, other things. Other things.

Things in general. If you're a fan of chutney, sauces, condiments in general. If you're a fan of adding a chutney or a sauce to a meal, then you're going to have a good time with that. Do you do that? You don't often do that. I don't often overwhelm my meal with sauces. Like if I make a meal, I'll be disappointed if you add a sauce to it.

I love mustard. Unless I'm making chips. Chips, what we go with that? Anything you like? I like mayo with chips, personally. You like mayo of chips. Or a nice mix of red ketchup and mayo. Make your own Mary Rose.

Do you have any final thoughts? My favourite was definitely the Wakefield Man. Mango and... Mint. Mint wasn't that high there, was it? No. A little bit there, but not really there. It was like almost...

There enough. Almost the fenugreek and the garlic and the ginger, almost sort of level pegging. Anyway, I am now bored of this, so it's time to roll on to the next segment of the pod. Thank you, Eli, for a wonderful source report. One of your best, and by that, I mean, the bar's so low,

I've lost track of what the actual quality of these segments is. Paul, the bar's so low, lucky I'm a fucking midget. I'll get a drink there. The bar's so low, mate, you'd be the world's greatest, uh, I forgot the name with that fucking thing. It just popped out of my head. Oh, brilliant, Paul. What was it? Limbo dance.

Yeah, the bar's so low, mate. I've mastered the art of limbo dance. That's how bar low it is. Even at my low. Gary Barlow. Paul, even at my lowest point. I was still the champion of, uh, still a limbo champion. That's one of my good gags that, isn't it?

I came up with that. And let's all remember that as we go into the cliffs. Such a maniac. It's Cheap Show story time. Bing bong, bibble-bubble, it's story time. Oh, good. Those are the story-time noises you've made? They're the story-time noises I've made, Eli.

Bing-bong! God. Whipple-bibble time, Eli. It's like a drill into my skull. I've been waking you up with my intense vocal sound waves. Like that. That's how you're sucking someone off. We both know what that noise is, Paul.

The sound of sucking someone off is more like... No. Oh, that's horrible. That's like a pig. That's like a pig. Yeah, there you go. That's it. That's more like it. Anyway, it's story time. Do it like I would do it. Oh, my car got girlfriend. Brilliant. God. I love it. Funny because it's true. Right. So, we are doing a story time now. I'm in control now, Daddy. Oh, fine, because I'm very sick. I know. So we are doing a story from a magazine that was released in the

80s, early 80s called the unexplained. I need to talk about this, though. Go on. I used to get this. Did you? Yes. It ran for 156 issues with 157 being an index to the collection, just for the record. And the magazine covered things like 14 topics.

It's very much 14. UFOs, murder mysteries, sometimes ghosts. Bigfoot. Yeah. I think one of the earliest things. All cryptototology. Cryptozoology. And I had like number one.

And there was a whole thing where you got them and you collected a bunch and then they'd you a folder, a binder, to put them all in. Which is where... Which is what you have. Stories coming from, because I've got volume 13. Wow, so that's way along the line. I would have had early ones. But how do they get them into that book?

I think it's been reissued like that. I don't know. Could I have a little look? Yeah. I'll keep your place, yeah. So look, it's obviously of its time. It's very 70s, early 80s and its design, you know? And some of the stories, what I find interesting about these kind of magazines is that

you listen to a lot of podcasts now about ghosts and the paranormal or mysteries, unsolved mysteries. And there's like the usual suspects always roll up. But then you look at books like this and there are stories that I've never heard of. 65P, yeah, apparently back in the day. That is like you said, the index mag, 157, is at the back of this edition. I'm just quite fascinated about how they did this. Because look, that is the story we're reading is page 3,026 or something.

Oh, it's all one great big thing. Right. So like, you know, like Britannica books. It's like an encyclopedia. Yeah. An encyclopedia of the unexplained. I basically agree. That's basically what they're going for.

It's very nostalgic for me. There were two main sources of... We've done sources this week on Cheap Show. Two main sources of Fortean media that I perused as a child. Usborn. Yeah, the books, the ghost books and stuff. Yeah, we've tackled that. Basically.

I used to be well into that kind of thing. UFOs. Yeties, cryptozoology, ghosts. Yeah. But these days... Laylines. These days, all of that stuff has a real... How do I put this?

Stink to it. Fascistic vibe to it. Do you know what I mean? No, no. All of those things used to be like... I think... Fascistic is going too far. Less right-wing coded. Put it that way.

No, here's what it is. I've said this in my book. We're not getting into that right now. But in my book, I kind of say, back in the day, ghost haunting was for the privileged, right? Ghost hunting. Yeah, in terms of as a field of study, it was kind of something like posh knobs or scientists would do at their weekend kind of thing.

People who had the time to, yeah, the money to take time off work and just sit in a house all night in the middle of the week or whatever. But as time develops, right, the democratisation of all those tools become, It's got a very long story short, what you see on YouTube, the most haunted ghost adventures model. Yes. Of people using tools, they don't understand how they work and often use them wrong. And so now it's got into this dramatic Broville kind of anti-thinking, close to conspiratorial thinking. You know, flat earthers, it falls closer into that than it does the academic, posh, hmm, parapsychology 14 elements to it.

Yes, I see what you mean. I would argue it's more because of the nature of the internet and social media. It's more prevalent. I think those notes always existed there. I just think you hear a lot more of it now because of the proliferation of it as a brand. Now this, the unexplained, for example, doesn't have any kind of political...

It feels conservative because it's from an earlier period. Do you know what I mean? It doesn't seem to... No, but the tone here is... Doesn't seem to have a political point of view, really, you know. But the other thing I would say about these books are is that they're written to be more sceptic averse. So while they may put a few question marks on the end of sentences,

they're actually positing that these people have these powers or this story is... They don't question it so much. No, it's like, here's the story. What do you think? Yeah. Which is kind of like what uncanny does really these days. Or the coast-to-coast podcast, it's that whole world.

Yeah, it's like, you know, all opinions are open to us. I always just used to find Yetis. I was well into those. Yeah. I've noticed you're into Yeties. That's come up as a cheap show through line. Yeah, I like the idea of Sasquatch Bigfoot Yeties. Anyway, here's the story we're going to tell from this book.

Because there's a load of them. Some of these articles are quite fucking long. So I've picked a story, which I think is good. for Cheap Show called The King of Deceit. It is the story of this guy called William Roy, a medium who, you know, did all the things mediums did. But he was one of the few that was caught out from doing it. Caught hot reading.

Yeah, well, it's interesting. We'll get into it in the story. But this is the story of one of the greatest frauds in the psychic medium. And we're going to get into it right now. Right, okay. So this is from the unexplained. Obviously, this is going to be from issue. a late issue, so I'm guessing this is like early 80s, 82, 83 this story.

Did it start in the 70s, did you say? At 80 it started. Yeah, because I got it like at the beginning, and I was only 5 in 1980. Well, yeah. I must have been six or seven when I got it. How could you even understand off the stuff that's in this? Because even me as an adult reading it, I'm like, I don't get this shit. I just looked at the pictures because I didn't learn to read or write until I was eight and a half, as we both know.

So you just like the scary weird pictures. Yes. Yeah, I get that then. Fair enough. Here we go. So, when William Roy died in August 177, Psychic News said of it. him, in spiritualism's long history there's never been a greater villain.

He is now in a place where he cannot cheat. Can I have the name again of the guy? William Roy. William Roy is the man we're going to be talking about today. Yet there are many who would still not accept that verdict. For over the years Roy had raised so many false hopes amongst his victims that a great many of them would never face the fact that he was a fake

and some even believed him even after he later confessed. Sounds like someone we know. Yeah, like most psychic mediums who are on TV these days. What, like Derek Cora and stuff? And people like... Cult leaders. Oh yeah, cult leaders. Yeah, cult leaders, no matter how exposed they become.

Some people won't ever accept it. Yeah. So one of those big... Sorry, I'm getting to say. No. One of those big prominent members of society at the time was this guy called W. L. McKenzie King. So McKenzie King's involvement began during the Second World War

when he was a prime minister of Canada. It was a post he had held before, but war brought extra responsibilities and he became a part of the war cabinet would have to come over to London to confer with Churchill and whatnot. It was on one of those hush-hush visits that he consulted William Roy,

the then famed, in the 40s, then famed Britain's most outstanding medium. And he was, he was a big name of the time. Derek Okora of the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, there were loads of people doing this kind of shit back in the day. But effectively, he was one of the big names.

So, like, you got your money's worth, basically. But it all became from his reputation because he was just like a slow, like a low-level medium. But, like, this guy we're about to talk about now was the guy who kind of propped him up and made him more... The Prime Minister of Canada.

Yeah. So because of the nature of his visit to the Britain, King thought it was wise to not give his real name in advance because it was all hush-hush and his travel plans had to be kept in the war. Yeah. So on the surface, it looked like Roy had no clue as the real identity of his client. And yet when Roy was able to meet the Canadian Prime Minister, he passed along some convincing messages,

all from people who in real life been ahead of a government. But effectively, what he was doing is, recently the party, well-known people began talking to this... The medium. The medium. And they're saying, He wouldn't have known that these people who were dead already. No, no, he would have known they were dead, but they were famous dead.

Because one of the people who came through in this first session between William Roy and Mackenzie King was Queen Victoria herself. Oh, cool. She's always coming through. And apparently, they had a nice long chat for ages, and the Prime Minister was thrilled to be talking to Her Majesty. Which is like, oh, I love tea. Oh, how are you all today? I'm not amused. What else did you fucking say? I don't remember. I like cock rings. Something like that. More thrills came. when Mr Gladstone came through. Gladstone was another Prime Minister

who departed and gave a message of hope just the kind of thing to cheer someone up in the dark days of war. It was all satisfying and comforting, so much so that the Prime Minister went back for further sessions and was overwhelmed when his dead brother and sister began speaking to him as well.

So he's hooked. He shouldn't be in office. He sat down with the queen. Credulous, basically, you know? Yeah, but again, we're talking about different parameters now. Different time. We're like, certainly in this period,

The rise in parapsychology or belief in the paranormal always rises during times of economic or war. Yes, economic problems, war, yeah. So like after the war, first world war, times a crisis, yeah, yeah. When faith is pretty low in terms of that, it's an alternative. When you want something, some spiritual sucker. Yeah, the same can of laws. I agree with you, but you don't ever get, if you go and say you give confession in a Catholic church. Yeah.

That priest there doesn't say, well, your dead brother told me. No, no, no. Through Christ or whatever. There's none of that. Condiment to the, you know what I mean? They're like, they're there. I thought we were done with the sources, Paul. Oh, Bing, my, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, is it good stuff?

I know. Conduitt. You said condiment. I know. And then I came out of it. I know. It's good. Anyway, McKenzie King returned to Canada overjoyed and without any suspicion

about Roy whatsoever, completely unaware that he'd been completely deceived by a scheming rogue. Roy's psychic gifts were non-existent. His sessions involved nothing more than play acting using fake voices, stage effects, while his revelations or personal messages for the bereave, We're in fact due to heavy and meticulous planning. So, Eli, you're probably thinking how, if he didn't know who he was meeting, did he know all this stuff about the prime minister? Can I guess?

Yes. He had like a radio set or something and he had like, well, we'll get into the library. We'll get into this, but no. Someone at a newspaper who. No, no, no, because here's the thing. Remember, he was told he was going to meet someone. Get into it right now. Let's get into it right now.

Okay, sure. So his tricks were usually based on the techniques that had been all the rage during this. I just want to say it's definitely going to be some kind of hot. Read. Effectively. Yeah. Yeah. But it shows his boldness, I think, and his confidence.

He wasn't doing anything that wasn't already popular in spiritualism at that time. He was just doing it very, very fucking well. Right. He ended up finding a book called Behind the Seams written in 1907 by a guy called David Abbott. The book was super rare to get hold of. And you couldn't get it in the UK unless you bought it from a magic shop or an occult practices shop. Wow. I bet that's worth a pretty penny to this day that book.

I don't even know if it's still in publication. I think it was like even back in the day. It was still, you know, like a real rare one. But as a result, it meant that the secrets that you found in that book were pretty much his secrets because not a lot of those books were going about. Right. So a lot of it's handed down or passed over or tort or blood. This was one he was like delving into.

At the time, he set himself up as a medium. He had already mastered all the tricks in the book and worked out refinements. His clients innocently walked into every trap they visited when you went to his home. This is where things get interesting. So we're going to go back to the McKenzie King bit. Yeah. But basically, if you rocked up to his place we're reading, this is what would happen, right?

Cool. You'd go into a room and you'd be asked to leave your coats and bags in a separate room before you go into the seance room. That meant his accomplices because he had a lot of accomplices

would go through their bags and coats and look for like receipts and names and cards and whatever was in there to piece together the basics, right? That is nefarious. I love the way that that dovetails the taking this stuff off. Dovetails with the spiritualism.

Like you always, you know, when you enter a temple, you take your shoes off. There's a sort of ritualistic, you know, legitimacy to that. But then you've got their stuff. It's like it's so elegant.

And it's even more elegant because it's basically doing the same kind of thing magician will do to say, well, here's what I want to do in the trick. But I need you to look over here right now because I don't want you to see this. So that whole thing. Ritual is distraction. It's distraction, but also feed into the mysticism of the process. Very clever. A very clever trick.

So then they would go into the next room where the seance was and they'd be waiting there for ages. And the reason why was because, A, they wanted to go. for all the pockets and figure out. And B, they had microphones in the room as well. So they could be sitting there going, oh, I hope Barbara comes through. Who's Barbara?

Oh, me auntie. Second removed. Yes, to call her Twiggy, but no one knows that name. And they go, whoa, it's just fucking good. So they go in pairs. I mean, it only works if you,

not if you're doing a single reading. I think it varies, but I think in most cases. Trying to get clues from the mic, anyway. They would be sitting around this room for ages before they turned up. And there's a microphone listening to everything.

So if conversation did come up. Oh, I hope. by specifically, you know, named person. Person comes up. Then, yeah. So this always meant that Roy knew, he knew more than they thought going in.

Because as far as Eugust said, they were meeting for the first time in the room. But by that point, yeah, they've just gone in a room, yeah. He's been sitting there for maybe an hour, 90 minutes, going, yeah, having a good old fucking time. When Roy eventually ran out of any authentic tip bits, he would then stop whatever hot reading ran out,

the cold reading would walk in. And this is, I fucking love. That's the distinction. That stuff is hot reading. Would you call hot reading, wouldn't you? Looking at the through their stuff and trying to eavesdrop on them. That's heart reading, right?

I mean, it's the same when you go to see psychic Sally and they go, oh, put your name and address and a question into this bowl was someone you'd like to speak to, and then, like, they're running through the letters later. Anyway. But this is the thing. The tricks don't change,

the technology that helps the tricks work do. Yeah. That's what makes it fucking mad. But do you know what I mean? That's less elegant than saying, well, if you, he's a spiritual man, you have to take your clothes off and go and see him. Do you see the elegance again of that?

Yeah. And also the whole... The pageantry of it. Yes. And the whole, you wait in the room and when he's ready, you know, and you can... When he's finished going through your pockets, then it'll come in. And listen to you.

Yeah. The ritualistic nature of the tricks works so well. Much better than... I'll just put your email address in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When he went out of all the hot reading things, he went on to Cole reading, and the easiest way he could do this

was by having spirit guides. The best example of a modern version of that, Derek Okora, Sam, that was his spirit guide. Spirit guides allowed you to get away with saying any old shit. He had one spirit guide called Joey. Another called Dr. Wilson. I like him.

And the best of the lot of this guy's spirit guide was one called Tinker, the Red Indian. And at the time, though, red Indian kind of stuff was really popular. When America was having its whole greening of the desert, whatever it was called, the genocide of the indigenous people of America. The trends that were coming back to the UK

made things like Red Indians very popular as well. Very, oh, exciting. Exotic. Yeah. So they were in fashion. So if you had a Spirit Guide, Red Indian, Indian. Oh, that was the good shit.

Yeah. Wouldn't explain why it would be thousands of miles away from its place of origin back in America, but whatever. But what it meant was, if he was ever asked a quest that was too awkward and he couldn't answer, Tinker would just say this. Me no answer. Me just simple Indian. Ah, right.

He played the stupid cards. Yeah. He played the racist stupid card. It played the racist card to get out of follow-up questions. Oh, my God. Me no speaking English. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all that shit.

microphones and searches of coats and bags were not however the only preparations once Roy knew the names of his clients he checked on their families in the register in Somerset House or looked up death notices or entrances and who by calling would you phone up some set house yeah make a booking oh he's very he's very

he hasn't got much time he's very busy he's so popular what's your name John Smith where do you come from we book you in for November that gives him plenty of time Oh right months in advance potentially because if you're the hot red hot shit That's hot reading. Yeah.

But again, we're talking about a time when you didn't have instant access to that information you needed that time. And those were the elements that were available to you. You know, Doomsday Records, all those kind of things, whatever.

In the case of McKenzie King, the Prime Minister of Canada, he had no opportunity to go through the Prime Minister's pockets and obviously listen into conversations because he was just literally brought into a room. And it's top secret, all top secret. Exactly.

All he knew in advance of meeting this person was that it was going to be a distinguished person. He was told this person you're going to be is distinguished. And all he knew about the booking was that it was made by a member of the Duke of Connought staff.

That was little enough to go on, but he had to start somewhere. So he studied everything. In the time that he had, he looked up everything he could on the Duke of Connort, and he discovered that the Duke had been

the Governor General of Canada from 1911 to 1916. As soon as he read that, Roy just made a deduction. He took a gamble, basically, and guessed that any distinguished friend of the Duke would probably be the Prime Minister of Canada,

who was also quite embracing spiritualism at that moment. Oh, he knew he was into spiritualism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also the Duke was. So the Duke had gone to this Prime Minister. This fucking guy's great. I sat in a room for ages,

talking about my dead nan. And then when I went to see him, he was talking about my dead nan. He was great. But I won't tell him who it is. He's going to be fucking good. Yeah. So that's what he did, basically.

He took a gamble. I mean... All his eggs in this basket, and it paid off. Roy was so convinced that his deduction was right that he began practicing passages in the voice of Gladstone and Victoria,

specifically, to King's character. The Queen's high-pitched voice was something of a stray, but by the time Mackenzie King turned up, it was good enough to fool him. Oh, my fan is so dry. You sound just like her, Mom.

I remember, because let's do the other thing as well. You probably wouldn't have heard her voice in real life. Maybe it might have been on acetate or wax cylinder. Isn't her voice recorded? I don't know. I believe it is. But even back then, the odds are... Maybe it's not.

But she did have a high-pitched voice. That's why everyone, to this day, goes, Oh, I'm a bloody queen. Victoria! He could have done any fucking voice, really. Because no one really would have known what she sounded like unless maybe he turned up for a few public appearances back in the day, you know, before she died.

She died in like 1901, right? I can't remember. It is 1901. But either way. So he was alive during, before that. Yeah, he didn't have to do the voice. I think that was just in fucking having a laugh. Oh, I've got the queen coming through.

I'm the queen. He's very good. He's very good. I'm Queen Victoria. I can't believe it. It's like when people are possessed. They say, oh, you're possessed by Marilyn Monroe. It's like, well, not Bertha from fucking robber room.

You know what I mean? The whole thing's so stupid, isn't it? But Roy was famous for more than the messages he gave. It was also the drama in which he delivered them. He could make a trumpet levitate in the air in a dark and seance room, induced spirit voices. Sometimes there would even be two voices coming through him simultaneously at the same time during seances.

But how did he do all this crazy shit, Eli? They weren't literally simultaneous. Yeah. There was someone else with a loudspeaker somewhere. Basically. Yeah. So he started doing public media. where he worked in even more baffling stunts in 1947 in Kingsway Hall London.

His hands were tied to a chair, his mouth was filled with water, and his lips were sealed with sticking plaster. Yet, during the seance, he still produced spirit voices coming from him. This is like Houdini-style shit, isn't it? Yeah. It's almost like an element of magician's escapology in this. Yeah, and then after the plaster was removed following the end of the seance, his mouth was still full of coloured water.

So it wasn't just water. They would dye the water to prove... He hadn't swapped you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was impressive. Yeah, but this is the thing. It was impressive.

But also, it was kind of a very easy trick for him to do it. It tells you now how he does it. So what would happen is he'd be sealed up, mouthful of water, taped up, hands tied, right? Lights go out. Seance begins. In the darkness, it was easy for him to bend his head down and loosen the plaster with one tied hand. Then the water was ejected through a rubber tube into a small container in his breast pocket. At the end of the evening, the water was sucked back up through the tube and the plaster was smooth back onto his mouth.

And then, when the lights came up, he was still tied up. and then with a thing. Simple kind of when you're thinking about it. But in the moment, I bet you're thinking, how the fuck is voices coming out? This man sitting next to me, who I know is his mouth sealed. Yeah, yeah.

These rooms were designed to fall into pitch blackness, heavy curtains, but also a lot of the tricks used primitive illuminants, so they would smear... Radioactive paint. Mold, or certainly whatever luminous paint that was used in, like, watches and things like that. That was heavily toxic.

But they would smooth on, like, brass instruments or props and tambourines. So, so it meant that you could hold one in the light. So poised. But also it meant that you could hold one in the... the ear and shaking it out and no one would see you. These are similar to the, you know, like stuff you see in a ghost train. Yeah, you know, none of this, again, is any different from an illusionist.

It's just that the framework around it is all about convincing someone they're speaking to the dead. Private seances were a different matter altogether. That's him, yeah, the picture there is demonstrating. Yeah, demonstrating his little trick. Cool. For the private seances, most of the voices were produced by Roy, but some were provided by his assistants, while others were from tape recordings.

In that way, Roy was able to produce more than one voice at any one time, and the methods he used, apart from the tape recordings, were all drawn from the book he bought in all that day. So that book, age old, I guarantee you people are still using the same plays from that guy. That all came from that, yeah. First, a trumpet flew through the air, and then the assistant in the next room passed information to Roy by telephone. Now, you're thinking, how would you get away with having a telephone in the middle of a seance room?

Well, there's no bell, obviously. No, no, no. But this is 1940s, right? Telephone line. They are earpieces. There are earpieces. Way more elaborate. Listen to this fucking setup.

It's crazy. And I'm sure something similar happens today, but more Bluetoothy, right? The telephone connection was made without cords. That would have given the game away. Instead, Roy wore copper plates on the soles of his shoes that were soldered to thin wires that ran up the legs of his trousers through his jacket to a small earphone on his wrist. To link up with his assistance, all he had to do was put his feet onto the metal carpet tacks for the wise to all connect up running from the room next door

through to him and his earpiece in his wrist. So he'd do that, he'd hold his wrist to his... Well, somehow he would, whatever, at some point. But why does he need... Is the voice coming out there? This is what I'm not quite sure about, but all we know is that the earpiece was in his wrist and somehow he got away with it.

But to make the connection, you have to stand in a certain place in the room which had these bell attacks. You make the connection, yeah. And then it becomes a phone line. Which is fucking crazy, yeah. The system worked beautifully, especially as the earpiece could also double

as a miniature loudspeaker. That's what I was thinking, yeah. But it had its limits. A second connection to the other room was called for. This was provided by a dummy power socket on the wall, which is wide, not to the mains, but to an amplifier. So Roy could plug a cable into it and energize a miniature loudspeaker fixed on the tip of the telescopic rod,

which also had a microphone on. So that meant his voice could come through the rod when he touched it and make it sound like the voice is coming from somewhere else in the room. While his assistant's voice came through the speaker, Roy imitated one of the guides and threw in the occasional comment of it in his own voice. But he's basically confounding where the sound was coming from. Roy's trickery was eventually exposed in 1952

when he fell out with one of his assistants. They had a row about money. Ah, he was a fucking skinflin. Always the way, in it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the assistant man, oh, well then, fuck you. Not you.

Walked into a magazine of the time called Psychic News with a suitcase, opened it up and took out every bit of apparatus. However, the weird thing is this. He went to psychics. There's a newspaper at the time called Psychic News. But they're not skeptical. They don't want this. Do you see what I mean?

No, no, no. The worst thing a believer in psychic abilities could have is a known faker, ruining the fun for everyone. Runing it. Even if they know it's all fake, they want someone being exposed to bring the whole deck of cards down. Well, that's what I mean. They don't want him being exposed. So why wouldn't they kick this guy out of the office?

Because exposing one proves the real realism of others. It's like saying, oh, we caught this one. So we are mindful about this. We are doing due diligence. Because Sally the psychic and She's not using microphones She's not, she's real But this cunt, we've struck them up proper

Do you see what I mean? Why you wouldn't really want to Because if you're exposing all these tricks Because if you expose one trick Then you go, oh hang on Mary the grasshopper Yeah, no I know who make the grasshopper The Bils from psychic insect

You could see, you could notice If you know the trick You could notice it in other psychics Yeah I'm just surprised That they wanted to run this story Is what I'm saying Well here's the thing though

because they're showing it from a technical point of view. Psychics are meant to be all mind sensitivity. When you pull out a box of tricks, then all of a sudden becomes an illusion act, right? Yes. And that's what they're exposing, the tricks, not the gift, right? Yes.

When I was on tour with psychic science and I was hanging out with Derek Akora every other week and all these other psychics, you do begin to see very familiar patterns of how they behave and how they engage in their audience. So, yeah, you're right. Do you think Derek Akora ever read that original book? I don't think he would have needed to by that point.

Because he was never very... Where did he learn his trade? Vamped it. Honestly, he never did anything as technical as this. No, it was always just human talking, wasn't it? I'm sure there was hot and cold reading going on. He must have done a load of that, yeah. But I think he was more cold reading and bullshit than hot reading. And charm or whatever, he did, yeah. However, there was a problem with this exposure. For some reason, the assistant did not want

the matter to go any further. So the story wasn't published, which makes no fucking sense. I don't know the ins and out to that. Following this, Roy promised to give up mediumship and leave the country, saying that he wanted the new start and moved to South Africa. In fact, he did leave England and then started up as a psychic in South Africa. Yes, I'm going to go do this in the other side of the world, but they've not heard of this.

No one knows a fucking thing about me. Yes. However, old habits die hard and within a few years, Roy was organising seances in South Africa, but then he had the supreme cheek to turn up in Britain and start over again.

So he built up his reputation of South Africa and then came back to England. Is it all over again? Is it a con man? However, this proved to be too far and now the spiritualism movement turned against it.

Right. was a magazine called Two Worlds. There was a lot of fucking sidekick and paranormal magazines back then. Well, there was no TV. Well, yeah, you're right. No TV. I mean, there was TV.

It was just coming through, wasn't it? So the Two Worlds magazine decided to finally expose him and then published it. But then, because William Roy's a cunt, he decides to get the head of the game again. So, dramatic scenes followed this newspaper report. Roy's wife went up to the newspaper editor,

whacked him in the face of the riding crop. Right? Ooh. Just went up to him. Basically, you can't, and whacked him one. His wife's like an attack dog for it. Oh, yeah, because that's the moneymaker, right? You protect your, you protect your fucking income.

Roy's wife was fined three pounds for the assault, but Roy could afford it and paid the fine with a smile. That's like gangster stuff. Yeah, it is. But Psychic Sally did that. Psychic Sally would have her family go up to people protesting and basically threatened to break their fucking legs. Fuck.

Psychic Sally is not a nice human being. Crime. And when she's exposed, she turned into an attack dog. Fuck. When I was doing psychic science, she was a... Was she on it? No, but she was exposed as a hack and a con with the earpiece debacle thing

that happened in the daily mail, whatever it was. And then what? A Cora has to go, oh yeah, those fakers. Well, we had to go on and say, no earpiece. I had to have only one wearing an earpiece on stage and stuff like that. Doesn't mean he wasn't faking it.

He was just talking shit. He just wasn't wearing an earpiece. So he knew that basically he could pay the fine and then he decided to start a lawsuit because when he started the lawsuit, it means he could prolong the outcome and keep riddling people of their money. These patterns are always the same.

Yeah. With these. comment, aren't they? So he kept the lawsuit going for as long as he could, because he knew exactly that they would take years before a case was brought to court, and in that time he can make as much fucking money as he liked doing whatever he wanted. And that's exactly

what happened. And then he kept on the fakery until, for whatever reason, in February 1958, he dropped the lawsuit because he knew he could never win it, right? Yeah. And he agreed to pay the costs to the editor two worlds for the fine. But by then, it's way out of the public. Yeah, no. It's not like a, yeah. And then, he went to the newspaper

the Sunday Pictorial and gave a tell account where he basically said, yeah, I'm a fake and here's how I do it. It's like fucking OJ Simpson, if I did it. If I did it, isn't it? And I'll tell you how, by, I don't know, telling you how I did it. But isn't it? It's like fucking just the cheek of it. His expose of himself was published in five installments.

Crazy. And readers marveled at how he achieved his way to fame and fortune. At the end of the series, Roy wrote this. I know, even after this confession, that I can fill seance rooms up again with people who find the comfort to which they believe I can generally give them. But that's just like, you know what I mean? Yeah, the cult of it. It's exactly the same thing. They know because they want to

believe, don't they? Yes, they want to believe. They can't believe it. They can't. Yeah. And then finally, so at the time, that sounded like hot air or bavardo, but Ray went on to make his boast come true. He set up shop under the name of Bill Silver, and for years he ran his old racket without challenge.

But astonishingly, he numbered among his clients, people who knew full well his real identity and were fully aware of his history and didn't care because he gave them exactly what they wanted. Well, they maybe then, those people might think this is like an entertainment.

This is sort of a... Mate. You know, it's about my dead relatives. There are people who will watch Most Haunted, watch all the ghost haunting channels, see videos on psychics,

read a newspaper article that Psychics Alley is fake and still the next day go and buy tickets to see them live. Yeah, because it's entertainment. It's not just entertainment. No, it can't be just entertainment. Because if it was,

the fraud would be more blatant and they wouldn't care about getting caught. These people protect their lies viciously. Yeah, but why? And so people go because they want it to be true. But they want it to be true. Yes, yeah. It's not about whether I tell you it's not real or not.

It's about whether you come to that decision or not yourself. And some people don't want to do that because it's a source of comfort. It stops them asking complicated questions about shit. It leads to dissonance, doesn't it? Because there's some part of them that does know that it's fake. Do you see what I mean? There's some is getting paid better emotionally, whatever. Yes, it is.

That overpowers the rational. You know, like, and it's, but that can't be sustained forever. Yes, it can. You start to break down as a person. You can sustain it forever by just burying the truth. Yeah. But it doesn't make you function well. No, and I've seen the people go to these fucking ghost-making shows.

And some of them shouldn't be allowed their own coloring. Yeah, exactly. It's honestly. Yeah, yeah. But at the end of the day, guys like William Roy will always get the last laugh, unfortunately. Because even if you expose them, on their dying day, someone, another psychic will go, oh, William Roy's coming through to me. Yeah, William Roy, oh, yeah, hello, William.

Oh, I'm the fucking queen. Yeah, it's obviously William. Yeah. And the scone just goes on down the road. That was excellent, Paul. Do you think we'll be able to mine any more stories from this? Yeah, there was a few I wanted to do. I was with you when you bought this in Mind in Camden,

not the official mind. It's not official mind. It's the cat piss mind. It's the cat piss mind. But that's our favourite line. It's brilliant. It's weird with that trove of pin badges. Yeah, there's loads of great stories.

Like Freud, Sigmund Freud. Guilty secret. May he's been a believer in the paranormal. Oh. He was definitely a cocaine addict. And Young comes up in this as well. Jung, yes. Young actually posited the morphogenic field or whatever.

He said that there was a collective unconscious that actually was... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and that was, you know. No, there's loads of really good stories. Some of them are really long articles, though, so you know what I mean? It's really good. But, like, we will come back to this. I've got a few stories that I picked out of there that we could come back to.

This hardback compendium... Killer Monkwith. You can see that in relief are these little... Jigsaw shapes. Jigsaw pictures. And I think that's meant to imply that this is made up. of separate magazine editions. But also, it says puzzle.

It says mystery. It says, it says, unexplained. What a great thing. What a lovely thing, and we hope you enjoyed that story. But now it's time for me to close the story book up. Say Big Bong again. Wibble, wibble. Sign off with Paul Gannon's mature, sensible, rational.

Story book word. Story book word. You come for it. You had to see that one of the thing. Jesus Christ. wrap this up. Right, that's Cheap Show done for this week. Sorry if I interrupted more than...

No, you didn't, I think that was a nice balanced. Okay. Chitty-chat story time moment. Go on do the thing. Cheap Show story time. I love you guys, scritchie, screey. Anyway, look, you're on Stop Shop for all things Cheap Show is the Cheap Show. com. Go check it out.

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It's our first official walkabout episode of the year and we're keeping it spooky. Ooh. We've gone from spooky psychics to spooky woods. We're going to spooky woods next week. Spooky woods. It might be a two-parter.

I've got spooky wood. It's when a smell of... Doesn't that just mean you've got ghost dick syndrome? I love I've got spooky wood. I thought... It's going to say something about the smell of fish coming out. The dick smells of cobwebs. Yeah, well done, everybody.

Well done. We'll see you next week out and about. Until then, remember... I'm great looking here. I'm great looking here. Bye.