Do Go On - 272 - Franklin's Lost Expedition
Episode Date: January 6, 2021Kate Eschner in the Smithsonian Magazine, writes: “In 1845, Arctic veteran Sir John Franklin departed Britain in command of two ships, the HMS Terror and Erebus, to seek the fabled Northwest Pa...ssage in the Arctic. They were last seen by Europeans in Baffin Bay, off the coast of Greenland. Then both ships disappeared, seemingly swallowed by the ice and never heard from again, at least not from the explorers themselves”. This is the mysterious story of Franklin's Lost Expedition!Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodBuy tickets to our streamed shows (there are 12 available to watch now! All with exclusive extra sections): https://sospresents.com/authors/dogoonCheck out our AACTA nominated web series: https://www.youtube.com/user/stupidoldchannel Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-TopicTwitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: dogoonpod@gmail.comCheck out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasREFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expeditionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rae%E2%80%93Richardson_Arctic_expeditionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Franklinhttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/heres-how-amc-producers-worked-inuit-fictionalized-franklin-expedition-show-180968643/
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you.
And we should also say this is 2026.
Jess, what year is it?
2026.
Thank God you're here.
Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the
Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun.
We'd love to see you there.
Canada, we are visiting you in September this year.
If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto
for shows.
That's going to be so much fun.
Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online.
And I'm here too.
This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network.
Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.
As always, I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart.
Hello, I'm Jess Perkins.
Oh, you are.
You know, I never forget a face, but I often forget a name.
Do we ever see each other?
More than weekly for five years.
Yeah.
Give him my time.
What is it?
I know you from somewhere.
I know you from somewhere.
We do a podcast together.
She's looking at me like, I'm supposed to know it.
I don't.
Hello.
Mate.
Hey, mate.
Hey, is it 2022?
No, still 2020.
I wasn't sure at a long nap and I wasn't sure how long the nap was.
Or is it 2021?
It's 2021 now.
That's right.
We are, can you tell, recording these out of order.
I think this is the first one of the year.
You're out of order.
but you're out of order.
This is the first one of the year.
Happy New Year, everyone.
Happy New Year.
Hey, how was your new year?
Do you have a good time?
Can you have some fun?
I'll tell you what I did.
Have a nap.
All right.
How long I went for?
Is this?
Has it happened yet?
Just I don't want to, I don't know if you know, but we're recording this out of order.
So I had a great new year.
It was fantastic.
You're recording this out of order.
You're all.
This old studio.
Yeah.
Yeah, but New Year's Eve was fantastic.
disappointing as ever.
Yes, always a bit of both.
But it's a new year, a new chance for you to explain how the show works, Dave.
Shoe works.
Yeah, tell us how shoes.
Talk us through the shoes.
Talk us through the show.
You still drunk from New Year's?
Yeah.
That hasn't happened yet?
Are you pre-drinking new years?
Pre-drinking?
Pre-nap and pre-drinking.
I'm doing it all.
All right.
New Year, new us, new explanation of the show.
Thanks for tuning in if it's your first time.
What we do is we take it in turns to report on a time.
topic often suggested by a listener and it is Jess's turn to report on a topic this week.
Matt and I, we have no idea what she's about to talk about, but to get us onto topic,
you better believe we start with a question.
My question is, who was the captain of the HMS Terror?
HMS Terror.
I don't know, but I'm scared.
Isn't that an incredible name?
Is it like William Terra or something like that where it's not even scary?
Because that is, that's a legit boat.
It's not a pirate ship or something.
No.
It's a HMAS.
Yeah, that's right.
HMS, Terra.
Her Majesty's ship.
Ship.
Her Majesty's a ship.
Oh, wow.
And we bow down to thee.
The lady.
Terra.
Well, someone we've heard of.
Captain Cook.
Captain.
That's in Dera, isn't it?
Captain.
Is it a captain?
It's not a captain.
El Capidano.
Sir.
Sir.
Could it be?
John?
John.
John.
Franklin.
Yes.
Is it really?
Yes.
Oh, this is a wild story.
Someone said, but I don't know it.
But apparently it's a wild story.
It is a bit wild.
It sounds like you know it.
No, I saw it in the hat and it was in the block vote.
So I read very briefly through those hundred topics just to make sure they're okay.
And yeah, this one sounded.
Like in the, you know, the one sentence synopsis was like, holy shit.
I'm worried you're overselling it.
It is an amazing story.
However, I have put this report together very hastily.
So it is a good story.
And I'll tell it.
All right.
I know nothing about it except that Matt has really sold it well.
No, I don't know it at all.
But one of the people who suggested it, I think, said it was,
it's in the world of shackled and sort of epic adventure with a ship.
Slugs are probably involved.
The difference is that we don't know exactly what happened.
Oh, wow.
Oh, that doesn't bode well.
You need survivors to tell stories.
You do?
Oh, no.
So this has been suggested by a bunch of people.
And under a few different sort of topic headings,
most of them have sort of said Franklin's Lost Expedition.
Okay, that gives it away a bit.
Does a little bit.
So it's been suggested by Florence Jones, Zoe Helena, Ryan Campbell, Ben, Baylor Robert Barnard, Keith Ross, Clara Louise, Tim Randall and Blake Wilde have all suggested this topic.
Thank you to all those people.
And this is how Kate Eshner starts the story in the Smithsonian magazine.
In 1845, Arctic veteran Sir John Franklin departed Britain in command of two ships, the HMS Terra and Aribus.
Aribus, really the fucking...
Aribus.
That's the shit one there, isn't it?
Named after its horn.
Arribus!
What was the other one?
Tera!
To seek the fabled northwest passage in the Arctic.
They were last seen by Europeans in Baffin Bay off the coast of Greenland.
Then both ships disappeared.
seemingly swallowed by the ice and never heard from again, at least not from the explorers themselves.
Oh, right.
That's how she starts.
They never heard themselves.
Oh, my God.
Were they wearing headphones or something?
Yeah.
They were having a silent disco.
Sorry, I can't hear you.
What?
Can't hear you.
What?
Turn off the silent disco.
I can't hear you.
What?
I mean, we're in real trouble here.
What?
There's a lot of us.
The men haven't eaten in weeks.
Sorry, but I am absolutely banging one out to the backstreet boys right now.
Backstreet's back, terror!
It's just the captain, grooming it up, silent disco.
So the Europeans had been exploring by sea for centuries at this point.
Christopher Columbus was out having a look around in the late 1400s.
This is the mid-18-100s.
Oh, he's old news.
Yeah, snooze.
Captain snooze.
There was a massive amount of expedition over that.
time added greatly to the and it added greatly to the sum of European geographic knowledge about
the Western Hemisphere, particularly North America. It was essentially like, we've done it all.
So eventually they were like, yeah, yeah, we know all about America. Let's head to the Arctic.
Let's check that out. So in the 18th century, a bunch of explorers made discoveries in the area
around the Canadian coastlines and the interior and adjacent Arctic seas, including James Cook,
who was often said to have discovered Australia, but I like Wikipedia's description.
better in that he achieved the first recorded European contact made with the eastern coastline
of Australia.
That's a bit better.
You can't really discover a place when there's lots of people already living there.
In 1804...
I just discovered your wallet.
And its contents.
And they're mine now.
Thank you.
In 1804, Sir John Barrow became the second secretary of the Admiralty, a post he heard held for over 40 years.
Oh, that's a guy who doesn't have a lot of ambition.
Because he's his second secretary for 40 years.
He's just waiting for the first secretary to die.
Yeah, and they are like, I'm sticking this out for 50 years.
He's 91, surely, it's my time to shine.
Any day now. Come on.
He began pushing for the Royal Navy to find a Northwest Passage over the top of Canada
and to navigate towards the North Pole.
Over his four-decade career, he sent out numerous expeditions,
and they covered a massive area.
By 1945, the combined discoveries of all these expeditions
had reduced to the unknown parts of the Canadian Arctic,
which might contain a Northwest Passage,
to an area of about 70,000 square miles,
or 181,000 square kilometres.
So they've narrowed it down a little bit,
but it's still a big space.
That sounds like a lot.
So that's where the next expedition was going.
Now Barrow's in his 80s by now
He got the position in his 40s
He's in his 80s
Waiting for that guy to die
He's nearing the end of his career
Imagine
Nearing the end of your career
You're 80 which for that time
Surely was very old right
Yeah
Like life expectancy wasn't what it is now
So he's still working in his 80s
It'd be ideal
If they could make this discovery
Before his retirement
That's what he said to the boys
Boys
We're going to send you out there
I know it could be long and perilous,
but what you need to think about is,
I want to have a party for my retirement in May.
Can you wrap it up before then?
Because if I leave it to...
I promised my wife a trip to Africa in June.
We're going in June.
The tickets are booked.
And they are non-refundable.
You know, you get a discount if you choose a non-refundable.
Yeah, that's right.
You know, I saved about 25% on those.
So if you could wrap it up, that would be fantastic.
You could find a Northwest Passage.
That would be ideal.
I think that's how he sounded.
Yeah.
He was a really bloc-ozy bloke.
So he wanted to get some of that sweet, sweet glory.
So he wanted to make sure he put his best man on the job.
His first choice was William Edward Parry,
who 18 years earlier had attempted one of the earliest expeditions to the North Pole.
He set a record for human exploration farthest north
that stood for nearly five decades before being surpassed
by Albert Hastings Markham in 1875.
So William Edward Perry are very successful and competent Arctic exceptional.
explorer.
Great.
Parry was a bit sick of Arctic exploration and politely declined.
Right.
I can understand that.
I always surprise when you hear of people who get obsessed with it.
Yeah.
And it's just brutal journeys.
Sounds awful.
You go home, you get a bit of love there for having some success and you go, you know what?
I want to go back out to the roughest conditions in the world.
I want to go lose a different limb to front spine.
I want to roll the dice on another thing.
I don't even particularly like going on a hike.
You know, on a nice day.
I'll go for a walk if it's flat, but a hike.
I go over a stroll down the shops.
Sure.
Yeah.
Do you get a six-pack?
Yeah.
I'm picking something up.
What do you need in the shops?
I'm going.
Oh, I'll go down in the bottle.
Yeah.
So just to confirm, are there any bottoloes at the North Pole?
Well, I've not been, so I can't confirm nor deny, so I will say yes.
But I do love that he's gone, I need the best man on the job.
What?
The best man said no.
Okay.
Who's your second best man?
Oh, Dave.
That happens a lot more times.
Barrow's second choice
was a man named James Clark Ross
also declined because he'd promised his new wife
that he'd finished up with polar exploration
So Barry's third
You promised that's a funny thing that he's
Not me
I'd love to go
But I promise the old bloody bald show
So I'm sorry about that man
Said to the misses
All right love
That was my last one
And tell you what
I do not want to be sleeping on the couch for a month
Yeah and I'm in the bloody dog house
It's a no from me, thanks.
Oh yeah, I reckon I'll be doing that.
Bloody, I won't hear the end of it.
I get enough bloody trouble at home
without going on another Arctic expedition.
I'll tell you that.
Honestly, the Missa hates the Arctic exploration.
Like, oh, what lima you come back missing this time, hey?
Another one of the useful ones.
You can't take out the bins anymore.
I'll tell you what, she's right.
Last time, nearly lost my dick.
It's the most useful lemma I've got.
And she said, that's it. That's enough.
Yeah.
If anyone's frostbiting your dick, it's me.
Now get the ice tray.
Get the ice cubes.
Here we go.
Happy anniversary.
It's just an anniversary thing.
Oh, it's so cold.
Only once a year.
Once a year.
Keep it fresh.
Anyway, so he says, no, that's the second choice.
Barrow's third choice was a man named James Fitz James.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, you see why it's the third choice with that name.
He was rejected by the higher-ups because he was a bit too young.
He was 27.
Not really. He was seven years old.
He's too young.
It was very qualified, but a bit too young.
Let's see who else we've got.
Older. Could be shit up, as long as they're a bit older.
A bit older on that.
He considered a man named George Back, but thought he was too argumentative.
Oh, yeah.
That would be bad on an expedition.
Yeah, especially the leader.
Do I see?
Or leader.
Leader.
You've got to be able to take some constructive feedback.
Got to be able to give constructive feedback.
You've got to be able to communicate in multiple different ways for different personalities,
different communication types.
His go-to was no fuck you
Every time
I was just asking him
How you want your toast
No fuck you
Come on
Please argue with me
He just pudges him
Can I get you a cup of tea
He was argument
He was also a little bit violent
Honestly
He was just an asshole
He also considered
Francis Crozier
But he was Irish
And of humble background
So Barrow thought
Nah
I don't want humility
On a boat
You don't want Irish
What a great name
That's the best
name so far. Francis Crozier?
Yeah.
Chris Crozier. I'm saying it like
the Irish
musician, Hosier.
Crozier.
Fantastic. I think that adds up.
I think it works.
So reluctantly, Barrow offered the
expedition to his sixth choice.
59-year-old John Franklin.
I mean, nothing like being in the top
six. Yeah. He's older. He's
definitely older. Yeah. He's got more
than double buddy young
young McGee back there.
Pretty good.
James Fitz James.
James Fitz James.
That baby.
So despite being the last pick,
Franklin had really fit a lot into his 59 years.
I mean, he was the last pick,
but whoever's picked is going to be the last pick, right?
That's true.
If he said no, he would have been the second last pick.
But if the first person had said yes,
they would have been the first and last pick.
Yeah.
You're my first and last, baby.
You're my everything.
I'll tell you everyone.
You're my third and last.
Please say yes.
I keep making these calls.
Don't make me a liar.
So Franklin had served in the British Royal Navy for over 40 years,
and in that time led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic in 1819 and 1825,
and was appointed lieutenant governor of Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, in 1837.
There's a statue of him in Franklin Square in Hobart,
and the town of Franklin and the Franklin River both get their names from him.
As to several places in Canada, Greenland and Antarctica.
Oh, wow.
So he got it.
He's done quite a bit.
Got around a bit.
Yeah.
So the expedition was to take two ships, HMS Aribus and HMS Terror.
Franklin was given command of Aribus.
I mean, he's still like the man in charge, but you can't be on two boats at once, can you?
That's the thing, isn't it?
You can't be in two boats at one.
I've tried.
And then Dave split so many pants.
Honestly, he was like Jean-Claude Van Damme on top of that thing.
Yeah.
And then we said, Dave, pick a boat.
In what way were you like John Claude Van Damme?
My limbs were absolutely parallel.
That's all righting the two chips.
Yeah.
And you had a six-pack.
Exactly.
And an accent.
And an accent.
Which we explained with a complicated backstory.
And you...
Oh, why did he got his Belgian accent?
Oh, okay. Great.
Oh, that's why.
He's raised in a convent taught by French people.
Okay.
All right.
Fair enough.
So it makes sense.
Couldn't do an American accent, you say.
Yeah, absolutely not.
So yeah, Franklin's in command of the Erebus, and the Irishman, Crozier, was appointed his executive officer and was made commander of terror, a ship that he had commanded on previous expeditions.
He knew the ship.
So who's second in charge?
The Irishman, Crozier.
Oh, right, so they trusted him with that.
Yeah.
But he can't be the leader.
Because he's a little too Irish.
He's a bit too Irish for me.
Too young to lead the old thing.
No, he was too Irish.
Not too Irish.
The one who was too young was appointed second in commanding.
of a rebus.
Oh, so they're all on there.
Or the ones who didn't reject the other one.
Yeah, yeah.
They're still allowed to come, but they're not in charge.
Right.
For being Irish or young.
So James Fitzjames, he's appointed second in command.
I mean, none of this will really come up again, to be honest.
I'm just letting you know.
I like to paint a picture.
Yeah.
Or I like a picture painted for me.
You can't pay me a picture.
Paint me picture.
I can't sleep with that picture.
You paint.
You paint for me.
What a weird reason to not be able to get to sleep.
I just can't sleep.
I can't sleep.
I mean like, yeah, this is a live piece of art.
And if you could sign and date it in the corner,
so it would be really good.
But it needs to be like very, very good, but done in like 20 minutes.
Okay.
Yeah, thanks, because otherwise I will fall asleep.
Oh, hang on.
Oh, no.
Now, these ships were state of the art for the time.
Both were over 300 ton.
They fitted, they were fitted with steam engines.
And they could reach 7.4 kilometers an hour on steam power
or travel under wind power to reach higher speeds
and or save fuel.
So they've got, I wouldn't have even thought steam engines back then,
but I have real no concept of time.
Yeah, when did steam get invented?
I don't know.
I didn't realize steam was around that far back.
Yeah.
What year is this?
1845?
I mean, is it sort of like an 18, mid-century type thing, I think.
And it came from, like, they used the steam engines from trains, I believe.
So trains were around for a lot.
Oh.
That's when the kettle, that's, kettle's done.
Oh, hey, I did my Jess was a man of a thousand noises as well.
I am a man of a thousand noises.
Thank you.
The ships also had reinforced bows.
Is it bow?
Bowels.
I shat themselves.
Yeah, you got to reinforce that thing.
Bow.
Bow, bow, bow.
Bow.
I know, but I got so in my head and I kept reading as bow,
and I wasn't going to say this,
but I wrote next one in brackets,
little bow wow,
to remind myself of how to say it.
Oh, wow.
And then I laughed when I saw it.
Because you're like, little bow wow or little bow wow?
Yeah.
And then you're going to run another thing in brackets.
Little bow woe?
Little bow woe.
Reinforced boughs.
I mean, you've got to do it.
Wows.
Constructed of heavy beams and iron plates.
And they also had internal steam heating systems
for the comfort of the crew in polar conditions.
They had heating.
That's nice.
Neatheating, lovely.
Isn't that nice.
They also had.
libraries of more than a thousand books
and three years worth of tinned food.
This is probably the
most prepared expedition I've come across.
Yeah, I mean the books.
I mean, the books seem unnecessary, but
it's obviously quite luxurious.
Usually, like, you know, they're living in horrific conditions.
Yeah, I don't know what their living quarters are like,
but, I mean, if you've got a library,
it's probably not completely shit, is it?
You probably got a bed, not just having.
But imagine that being told,
I'm afraid there's no beds on this boat.
All the budget went to books.
Yeah, but I mean, we've got the complete works of Shakespeare over a thousand times.
So you could all have 50 copies each.
Weren't many books in back then.
Enjoy.
There were 134 men in total,
68 men on the Erebus and 66 on terror.
I also want to mention that Franklin being the lieutenant governor of Van Demonsland
isn't the only link to Australia that was on this expedition.
Commander Henry Levescant was the first cousin of William John Wills,
the co-leader of the 1861 Burke and Wills expedition.
Wow.
Blood relative.
Yep, as his cousin.
To John Franklin.
No, to Henry Levesant.
Oh, I did hear you say that.
The other name, I said.
Yep.
And also, so that, I mean, the Birken Wills was after this anyway, a few years later.
but there was another connection as well.
William Gibson, who was a steward on the terror,
was the elder brother of Alfred Gibson,
who disappeared just a year earlier on an 1874 expedition
led by Ernest Giles to cross the desert of Western Australia from east to west,
and was honoured in the naming of Gibson Desert.
So there's a few fun links there to Australian tragedies.
And disappearances on expeditions.
Foreshadowing.
Yeah.
So on the morning of the 19th of May 1845, the expedition set sail from Greenhithe in Kent.
They stopped briefly in Stromness on the Orkney Islands in Northern Scotland,
and from there they sailed to Greenland, a journey which took them about 30 days.
On their trip to Greenland, they were accompanied by a transport ship called Barreto Jr.
And once they got there to a place called Disco Bay...
Oh, man, the silent disco was absolutely pumping that night.
How good is that?
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
So that's on the west coast of Greenland.
Do you think these guys will be staying alive?
Absolutely not.
So when they get to disco bay, they kind of stop
and their transport ship stops with them as well.
Ten oxen that the transport ship had been carrying
was slaughtered for fresh meat,
which was then loaded onto the two ships.
So rather than taking all the meat with them
because they can't, they don't have frigidious,
They can't store it.
So just kept the meat inside the ox.
Yeah, on a different ship and then slaughtered it.
And they go, okay, now we've got all the meat.
Now we can start the proper journey.
Sounds complicated, but I guess that makes sense.
I guess it does.
But, yeah, like keep them alive as long as possible.
But then why not keep, I don't know.
So then they were about to head out on the actual expedition part of their journey.
And so the men wrote their final letters to family.
five men were discharged due to sickness and sent home,
reducing the final crew to 129 men.
And those guys be stoked in hindsight sort of thing?
Probably.
Shout at the time.
Oh, I get the guy.
I see on this.
Death crews.
Death crews.
Now, it said the trip to Greenland took them 30 days,
which should mean it's like mid-June when they leave,
like when they leave Disco Bay.
But late July of 1845,
two whaling ships called Prince of Wales.
I mean, fantastic.
That's very good.
And Enterprise came across Terra and Erebus in Baffin Bay,
which is the northwest of where they'd stopped in Disco Bay.
And the expedition were waiting for good conditions to cross to Lancaster Sound.
So they were just kind of like hanging out in this middle of a bay
waiting for conditions to open up for them.
But it seems like they were waiting there a little while, maybe a month or so.
A month or so.
And the expedition was never seen again.
Wait, what?
By Europeans.
Okay.
Oh, okay.
So that was the last time that Europeans saw them.
So the two whaling ships saw them.
Yeah.
Check them out over there.
Anyway.
They're like, oh, there they are.
Okay, yeah, cool.
And then they were never seen again.
Whoa.
Until now.
Here they are tonight.
Come on down.
John Franklin.
Look at him.
He is looking west for wear.
He is.
Gross.
Oh my God, you are so old
And you've been cold for a long time
Old and cold
After two years with no word from the expedition
Public concerns started to grow
What about that bloke who's been like
I really need you to do this before I retire
Yeah, he's like
No nah give him a couple more days
Couple more days
All right
A couple more weeks
A couple of months, alright
It's not that easy what they're doing
So you know, got to give them a chance
The Admiralty was urged
by members of parliament as well as John Franklin's wife to send out a search party.
There's been a couple of years. We haven't heard from them. We've got to go look for them.
The Admiralty was like, it's cool. I'm sure they're fine. But they did put together a three-step
plan to go looking for them. They sent one party on an overland search led by John Richardson
and John Ray down the Mackenzie River to the Canadian Arctic coast. They also sent two
search parties by sea. One entering the Canadian Arctic through Lancaster Sound, the same way the
original expedition had gone, and one search party entering from the Pacific side. So it's like they're
trying to go, we'll catch them in the middle. A 20,000 pound reward was offered to any party or
parties of any country who shall render assistance to the crew of the discovery ships under the
command of Sir John Franklin. That's just over $2 million today. That is a lot of money, isn't
Just to help them.
Two mill, 20,000 pound, crazy.
So the sea search parties were not very successful,
but public interest just continued to grow.
Like it was in the papers, people were talking about it.
There were even songs written about the event,
including Lady Franklin's lament about Lady Franklin,
worried about her husband not being alive.
You know, fun, topical stuff to write songs about it.
It wasn't written by her, though.
No, imagine.
She ghost wrote it, obviously.
Yeah, yeah, of publicity going.
So the search continued, though.
In 1850, 11 British and two American ships cruise the Canadian Arctic.
Several converged off the east coast of Beechy Island,
where the first relics of the expedition were found,
including remnants of a winter camp from 1845 to 1846,
and the graves of John Torrington, John Hartwell and William Brain.
No message from the Franklin Expedition's,
were found at this site.
So they've,
like they found a bit of a camp
and they're like, okay, well, they were here.
Yeah.
And they found some graves.
But they don't know anything else.
There were several other expeditions to try to find them,
but this passage from Wiki made me laugh a little bit.
In 1852, Edward Belcher was given command
of the government Arctic expedition in search of Franklin.
This was unsuccessful.
Belcher's inability to render himself popular with his subordinate,
was peculiarly unfortunate in an Arctic voyage,
and he was not wholly suited to command vessels among ice.
Four of the five ships were abandoned in pack ice,
for which Belcher was court-martialed but acquitted.
Oh dear.
They sent him out with five ships, and he wasn't good at ships.
Or leading.
Yeah.
Or just being liked by anyone ever.
But I make a mean roast.
Doesn't that count for something?
That's how I got this job.
I applied to be the cook
And they said
mate you're the captain
Yeah I said captain of the kitchen
They said no
Captain of it all
Yeah captain of all the kitchen's on five ships
I'll do a lot of the scheduling
The meal planning
The grocery shopping
Do the invoices no worries about it
He said I'm the best Captain Cook
You've ever seen
They were like oh you're great
Yeah okay you're great
Yeah you're as good as Captain Cook
Wow fantastic
You can run the whole five ships
No no no no
You think you're misunderstood
I can do a grilled cheese
and they're like, sorry, mate, and they just push the boat away.
I know how to open those tins you got in there.
That's all.
I can warm them up with the steam.
I've got a tin opener.
You forgot to pack one, and you've got like 3,000 cans more than that.
That's a lot of cans.
That's a lot of cans.
So I think you need me on board.
Through multiple search parties over many, many years, bits and pieces of the puzzle were able to be put together.
Like, this is what was so fascinating about.
Other reports we've done, whether it was Shackleton, or we've done other, like, Arctic ones as well.
Is the Arctic balloon expedition?
Yeah.
That was also ill-fated.
Yeah.
But there were diary entries.
Yeah, that's right.
We knew, like, 90% of the story.
The end part was like, how do they go?
But we knew where they'd been, yeah.
Yeah.
Whereas this one is like, yeah, we don't, we have no, we have one piece of evidence from,
from people on the expedition.
The rest is just, like, stuff they found over the year.
and as technology and science has progressed,
they've been able to learn more about it.
But we know nothing, there's nothing from them.
It's possible that John Franklin never even existed.
Yeah.
No one's ever actually seen him.
Whoa.
Looked him up.
He's a weird looking dude.
Well, there hasn't been a John Franklin around these five.
Since 1845.
Yeah, okay, so we can put bits and pieces together.
So basically what we know is that,
Franklin's men spent the winter of 1845 to 46 on Beachy Island,
where three crew members died and were buried, which we mentioned before.
Beachy Island.
Three members died.
Yeah, the death isn't great.
After travelling down Peel Sound through the summer of 1846,
Terra and Erebus became trapped in ice of King William Island in September of 1846,
and I thought to have never sailed again.
It just got stuck in ice.
They didn't have slugs, obviously.
Oh, okay.
To release.
You don't want to die with slugs still in the barrel unreleased.
That's right.
You may as well, I mean, let them do their thing.
Yeah.
Slugs travel by barrel?
Yeah, barrel of slugs, you know.
You know the famous phrase.
Barrel of slugs.
Get out the barrel of slugs.
That's where that comes from.
Yeah, do you know that?
I mean, something you use every day and you never even knew the origin.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Get out the barrel of slugs.
As you pour your cornflakes into the bowl.
Yeah.
wonder where that come from.
The only written information from the expedition itself is a note found with two entries on it
around a year apart between the two entries, but one bit of paper.
I think the first note was written by just a crew member and sort of hidden away,
and then it was found by a couple of like the higher-ups on the expedition and then move to a
different spot.
Right.
But I'm not going to read the whole letter because it's that old language and it's very
hard to follow.
But the note was left on King William Island by Fitzjames and Crozier.
The first entry said where they'd spent winter, that Sir John Franklin was commanding
the expedition and that all was well.
The second note said Sir John Franklin died on the 11th of June 1847.
So this is the only, like they're about a year apart these two notes.
first one's like, this is sick.
We're having a great time here.
I do not miss anyone.
Now they're like, the captain is dead.
And a total loss of deaths.
Your captain's going to be crushing our cube.
Please go to act your cube.
Is it about my cube?
Total loss of, total loss by deaths in the expedition had been to this date,
nine officers and 15 men.
The remaining crew had abandoned the ship.
The remaining crew had abandoned the ships a few days.
days earlier and now plan to walk over the island across the sea ice towards back
river on the Canadian mainland beginning on 26 of April 1848 right so now they're
like I mean a few people have died but don't worry we're gonna walk home so quite a
yeah we've got a plan yeah the plan is we're going on foot yeah and how hard can it
be to walk across an ocean oh yeah all we got is walk back to London easy done great and
then when we get there you know apply for a job
set up in your life
set a new life
it's great
you can be anything
you want
I haven't seen my family
a couple of years
whatever
you can go back to cooking
like you want it
exactly
that's all I wanted to do
I just wanted to make
baked beans
oh the dream
oh bleak sentence
next
the rest of the crew
died on the march
most on the
it says the rest of the crew
died on the march
but then the next thing
is 30 or 40 men
reached the northern coast
of the mainland
before dying
hundreds of miles
from the near
outpost of Western civilization.
And this is in the letter.
This is like stuff that we've been able to figure out from there.
Oh, right, right, right.
Yeah.
So the Overland Search Party had a little more success in getting more details,
but in a way that information served as a detriment to them.
So the Overland Search Party had set off in 1848,
and by the following year they decided to split the party.
Oh, I mean...
I'm going to split the party.
What are you thinking?
What are you bloody doing?
John Richardson returned to Liverpool by November of 1849,
while John Ray continued over the next several years.
So the split the party.
Some of us are going home.
One of us isn't.
The rest of you are continuing on for several years.
Yeah.
Wow.
I would have taken Liverpool.
Yeah, I think, well, I'm not 100% sure.
It sounded like John Ray kind of stuck around by himself.
Right.
And so I think most, I don't think it was a huge.
huge exhibition overland, but it seemed like most of them turned around. Something that Ray did
a little differently was that he spoke to the Inuit people and got their help and information.
In the spring of 1853, so this is like four years later, he encountered, in the spring of 1853,
he encountered an Inuit in possession of objects. He recognized as,
belonging to the Franklin expedition.
There was stuff like spoons and it was like cutlery and little bits of silverware and stuff
that he was like, oh, that's very British looking.
And he sort of had a look at it.
He purchased as many of the objects as he could.
And they were later confirmed to belong to Franklin, Fitz James, Crozier and other members of the crew.
Wow.
They had like coats of arms and stuff on them.
So it was easy to sort of go, oh, yeah, that's.
So he basically, he had them and he like drew up.
out sketches of what they looked like and stuff and sent it off and be like, this is what I found.
Interviewing others in the area revealed that the Inuits had encountered the remnants of Franklin's
crew in the spring of 1850. So they'd found or seen, and I've got more, I've got like his
letter here, which really explains it a lot. The following April of 1854, he met another Inuit who
told him that the party of 30 to 40 white men had died of starvation near the mouth of
Back River. So he sent word back to the Admiralty. This is a whole, this is a big sort of
chunk from his letter. He wrote subsequently, further particles were received and a number of
articles purchased, which placed the fate of a portion, if not all of, the then-survivers of
Sir John Franklin's long-lost party beyond doubt. A fate terrible as the imagination can conceive. In the
spring four winters passed.
Love that.
That's a good sentence.
So it's spring 1850.
A party of white men amounting to about 40 was seen traveling southwards over the ice and dragging a boat with them.
From the appearance of the men, all of whom except one officer looked thin, they were then
supposed to.
There's one fat guy up the back.
It was like, Tim, are you sure you're not hiding food?
It's okay if you are.
Just say now.
But honestly, the rest of us, we could do with a bit.
Tim's like, do not search my backpack.
He's jingling the whole way.
Clunker, clunker, clunker.
He's like, it's got the rustling of like chocolate wrappers.
We just had cans.
Where'd you even get that?
Yeah, that's that.
I can smell a ham sandwich.
So they all looked thin.
The letter sort of continues.
They were then supposed to be getting short of provisions
and purchased a small seal from the natives.
At a later date the same season, but previous to the breaking up of the ice, the bodies of some 30 persons were discovered on the continent and five on an island near it.
Some of the bodies had been buried, probably those of the first victims of famine.
Some were in tents, others under the boat, which had been turned over to form a shelter, and several lay scattered about in different directions.
This is all still from the letter.
from the mutilated state of many of the corpses and the contents of the kettle,
it is evident that our wretched countrymen had been driven to the last resource, cannibalism,
as a means of prolonging existence.
So, yeah.
But it obviously didn't keep many of them alive, but very long.
Yeah, it didn't work very well for them, did it?
That's the main thing.
As long as you resorting to cannibalism,
as long as it doesn't actually pay off in the end,
I mean, you may as well have a little nibble.
Yeah, what all the fuss is about before you die.
After that, no harm, no power, you know.
Like the miracle in the Andes.
Yeah.
But that worked for them.
That worked for them.
I mean, nearly every time we've encountered cannibalism on this show,
which is quite a few times now,
it's usually worked out.
So you could go, well.
Oh, that's true.
Because some of the Donner Party.
Yeah, the Donner Party and also the Essex,
the real life Moby Dick people that had to eat each other.
Oh, I forgot about that.
Yeah.
God, I forget a lot of this show.
Yeah, you do.
Perch last week or a couple weeks ago.
The perch that were released into...
Perch, they will eat...
Oh yeah, they eat themselves.
To survive.
Yep.
They will eat other fish and their own fish.
So that was in April that he sent that letter back.
And he returned to England in October,
only to find that his findings had been released to the press
and were published in the London Times like days after he got home.
So he's like, I'm famous.
causing a lot of anger and distress.
Oh, okay.
All right, he didn't like that.
People are really mad.
He had a lot of backlash for his claims of cannibalism,
and he was publicly spurned by Charles Dickens on behalf of Franklin's widow Jane.
Oh, Charles Dickens had a crack.
Yeah.
Which is just fucking crazy.
Other people who would search for Franklin's party were awarded knighthoods,
but John Ray was not.
Even though he found out a lot more information than anyone else.
So because he was too honest, they didn't want to know that truth.
Yeah, I mean, he was never forgiven for delivering that news.
They really, they shot the messenger.
Wow.
I mean, the whole thing was we want to find out what's happened.
Like, ideally find them and save them if they're in strife.
Or second to that, if they are dead, figure out what happened to them.
And he did that.
And they were like, oh, this is, this is bullshit.
The people who tried and didn't find anything, they're going to.
night hoods.
You, you fucked up.
No, no, no, no, mate, we didn't want a result.
No.
We went, did you go out there for a little bit?
Then come back and say, ah, or nighthood.
Yeah.
Just maybe paint a nice guess picture.
Yeah.
Or go, look, I got their spoons back.
Oh, nighthood for you.
Oh, we like a spoon.
You like the spoons?
I think he did get a small amount.
Oh, I say small amount.
I think I read 10,000 pounds or something, which I guess is still a
million dollars or something.
Oh, yeah.
But he was essentially just kind of like...
Yeah, just go and enjoy your million dollars,
you loser.
You dog.
He was just kind of shushed.
Yeah, exactly.
Millionaire dog.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, a millionaire dog.
Now that.
Shun me all you like if you give me a million bucks.
You know, so you can punch me in the face in the street
if I get a million dollars.
Yeah.
What day is it, boy?
Yeah.
Punching me in the head day, Sir Charles Dickens.
You, sir?
Probably are.
They seem to give them out to anyone.
They give them out to anyone who finds a friend.
fucking spoon.
Oh, large spoon collection,
Nighthood for you.
So searches for information and answers
continued over the next 170 years.
Whoa.
That's like till now, right?
Yep.
Evidence suggested that a combination of cold,
starvation and disease,
including scurvy, pneumonia and tuberculosis,
all made worse by lead poisoning,
killed everyone in the Franklin party.
Now, lead poisoning, you might ask.
Oh, they're painting.
with lead paint?
No, the tinned food.
Oh no.
Was supplied by a provisioner named Stephen Goldner
who was given the contract
just a few, like seven weeks before they set sales.
Curse by their well-stocked fridge.
It was this really big order and he was like,
oh, this is great for my business,
but he had to like really work under the pump.
So he worked frantically on a large order of 8,000 tins.
The haste required affected quality control
of some of the tins,
which were later found to have lead soldering
that was thick and sloppily done
and dripped like melted candlewax
down the inside surface, is the way.
So their three years' worth of food
was slowly poisoning them.
Oh no.
But a 2013 study indicated
that the lead levels in their bones
had been consistent throughout their lives
and if they'd been getting poisoned,
there'd be a spike.
Right.
I don't know how you tell that from bones.
What's just the bones are much like,
trees.
You can tell a lot from them.
Oh, lead rings.
Depending on how many lead rings, you've gotten, how thick the lead rings are.
That's fascinating.
Check the farmer.
I'm a bone scientist.
You're a bone man.
Some people call me a bone doctor.
I call you a bone boy.
Bone doctor's here for business.
That's what I say when I'm entering a boudoir.
Doctor bone.
It's funny when I give Jess regret face.
Yeah, that is impressive.
Or one of the bone yard.
What I had to the boudoir?
So, yeah, this study in 2013 was like, actually, it's probably more to do with malnutrition.
Um, actually.
Um, actually.
But still, just the idea when I was reading that, that, like, they had food and you're like, okay, well, that's good.
But then the food is getting lead poisoning.
That's a real monkey, poor thing.
You get a free, pre-proget.
Free frozen yogurt.
That's good.
But it's cursed. It's also cursed.
That's bad.
But it changed potassium benzate.
That's bad.
Ah, good bit.
One of ours that we came up with.
Wow, one of the many.
God, we are.
How quippy.
In September of 2014, a Canadian team announced that it had located one of Franklin's two ships.
The ship was in good condition at the time, was about 11 metres of water,
under about 11 metres of water.
I thought they found it like, he's in good condition.
We just found it like, you know, it was just on gum tree.
Yeah.
No one just selling it.
Crazy.
I reckon I have that shit.
We actually just googled it.
Yeah, just chipped old boat for sale.
Franklin.
Franklin keyword search.
Oh, there it is.
And all they wanted was 15 grand.
Easy peasy.
So here I am at the bank asking for a line, please.
So it's under 11 meters of water.
There's 36 feet.
It was the bottom of Wilmot and Crampton Bay.
A month later it was confirmed that the ship that had been found was the HMS Aribus.
So they found it in 2014.
They left in 1845.
That's a long round trip.
Crazy.
Well, two years later, in September of 2016, it was announced that the Arctic Research Foundation expedition had found the wreck of HMS Terror.
No.
South of King William Island in Terra Bay.
I don't know if that's, you know.
End relation?
I think.
Let's say, yeah.
What are the chances?
I know.
It was in a depth of 24 metres, so it was a bit deeper, and it was in pristine condition.
Which is baffling, because it probably wasn't made of wood.
I was thinking like a pirate ship, like wood.
No, he probably was made of wood, right?
I don't know.
Sometimes the water is so cold around those things that they sort of preserve better maybe.
Yeah, I'm guessing.
Maybe they made it with hew and pine.
Yes, that's right.
From Andy Matthews of that is basically just doesn't deteriorate.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
It never rot.
So maybe.
but yeah so only a few years ago
they were found
and do they bring them up?
I'm not sure actually
No they never mention them
That's a good point
I didn't actually even look at that
I was just like wow they were found
I'm not sure what they've done with them now
I wonder if you could transport them
But yeah so this is probably why a lot of people suggested it
Because it was pretty big news in Canada especially
Right it's amazing that both of them were found
I know yeah
But still a lot of mystery
around so like yeah there's there've been so many since the late 1850s to now when they
found the ships and probably still looking for information looking for what happened you know but
forgot where I was going with that point but you know etc fill in your own conclusion here
I was just saying that like
if you look at the Wikipedia page
for example there's just like
every few years there's another expedition
that's gone and they've looked for something
and maybe they've found like a small detail
but there's still nothing that's like really
yeah we don't fully know what happened
or how they got stuck.
But finding the ships
and finding them in those spots
do that give anyone any more
closure or oh why were they in this area
did that help? Well it seems like it was a bit weird
because of the allegations that, well, I mean,
they're true, about cannibalism and stuff like that,
the story was still really widely popular.
And like, that kind of got brushed over in time.
So, like, Franklin's wife, Jane, was furious at that.
And there was also sort of like,
the way that people are looking at it now,
or more recently, is that a lot of it was fairly,
racist, like Dickens in particular, sort of saying, like, you can't trust the Inuit people.
It was sort of like, yeah, it was this weird kind of imperialistic kind of thing where it was like,
well, we'd obviously know better.
And it's like, whatchie?
You weren't there.
You weren't there.
Okay.
And these people have died.
I think my guess is a little better from over here than the people were there.
I've read a letter about what happened.
So I think I know what didn't happen.
Okay.
When they found the ships, did they find diaries and stuff?
I guess in 150 years under salty water, that paper's not going to last?
Yeah, I wouldn't think so.
So, no, not that I read.
You would have mentioned, I reckon.
I probably would have mentioned it, but as I said, hastily put together.
I didn't think this is important.
I didn't think it was important to tell me that there was a whole diary that said page by page, what happened?
Yeah, actually.
Puller point by bullet point.
They're really written in plain, modern English.
And one of the guys was there.
like, oh, thank God.
Yeah, there was a home video camera footage.
That's right, that happened in it up.
That place is covered in security cameras.
Every little bit.
I watched.
You walk in and he's like the guy's like just spurning out the last bit.
He's got food all those shows.
I was like, oh, thank God.
Thank God to hear him because I was really running out.
This is really good timing.
I've read every book here.
I was the non-sin one.
I'm Tim.
Hello, I'm Tim.
There was one sort of fun theory as well that I wanted to share.
In 2017, Douglas Stenton, director for heritage in the Nunavut Territory in northeast Canada,
suggested that four sets of European human remains found could possibly be women.
He initially suspected that DNA testing would not offer up anything more,
but to his surprise, they registered that there was no Y chromosome element to the DNA.
So Stenton acknowledged that women were known to have served in the Royal Navy in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries,
but he also pointed out that it could be that DNA had simply degraded as further tests proved ambiguous.
But he also stated that whilst the probability of four disguised women aboard the two ships was very, very low,
he could not rule it out completely.
It was a mystery episode.
And so, yeah, that's a mystery.
We don't know if there were women on board.
But yeah, it's kind of a wild tale.
And there is a lot more to the story as well.
but you could go on so many different tangents.
You could talk so much about John Ray's expedition
and the time he spent looking for information.
You could talk more about Franklin himself.
You could talk about so many different things,
but I just wanted to like get the, I guess, like the bones of the story.
Oh, poor taste there.
But, you know.
Did you examine the rings for those bones?
Yeah, I checked the rings.
But it does sound like a lot of it would be further, would be speculation, right?
It feels a bit that way.
No one really knows.
Yeah, which is kind of fascinating because so many years after we don't know, we still don't really know.
And it's interesting that people are still really curious to find it out.
Like it's obviously a mystery that's got a lot of people's attention.
Yeah, exactly right.
And yeah, it was huge news.
I remember a couple of people in the hat were like, this story was massive.
When, yeah, and then finding the boats would have just, yeah, brought it all back up again.
Yeah, exactly right, yeah.
And so I assume people are probably still looking for information.
You know, it just keeps going.
It's crazy.
But yeah, that is my story on Franklin's Lost Expedition.
Great report.
That was a fascinating story.
Thanks so much to telling us, Boppa.
A pleasure.
Thanks to those people who suggested it.
Yeah, heaps of them.
But we'll be wrapping up in the studio now.
I think we're going to throw over to Jess,
who back at her home, probably in a home studio,
maybe a boudoir.
Definitely not in my boudoir.
The bathtub.
Doesn't that just mean bedroom?
Yeah.
Oh.
I'm just saying I won't be my bedroom.
My microphone's connected to my computer and study.
I've been saying someone's fucked.
I mean, I kind of was, but I didn't know.
It just means bedroom.
Does Bidwa mean asshole?
Realistically, I like you there.
I'm probably going to be recording this from inside of an asshole.
It might sound a little funny in there.
So we'll throw over to Jess now.
Thanks, past Matt.
Yes, I am coming to you live from my study.
Not in the Boudoir.
as Matt promised, and as I quite clearly pointed out, that is because my microphone and computer
in the study, which is a very logical place for a computer to be. Anyway, anytime I have to do
one of these by myself, I end up stopping and starting a lot, which I'm refusing to do today,
because I've been talking all day, just got back from work at Triple J. I've been doing breakfast
for the last few weeks and I'm kind of sick of talking.
So I'm not going to stop and start this a million times.
I'm going to back myself and I'm just going to bloody do it.
So that brings us to everyone's favorite part of the show,
the fact, quote or question.
And I believe it has a little jingle that goes something like this.
A fact quote or question.
Ding.
And our first fact quote a question comes from Nathan Damon,
who's given himself the title,
senior fairy light installation engineer for the dogo on mansion.
Nathan, I really could have used your services recently.
I put fairy lights around an archway in my house.
And to be honest, looked pretty damn cute,
but I think it could have been better.
But it doesn't matter now because the dog chewed through the wire.
So those lights are now obsolete.
Anyway, Nathan has asked a question.
Nathan says,
I don't think I've asked a question on here before,
so I thought I'd give it a go.
clear's throat how are you Nathan thank you for asking I am tired no I'm doing pretty well thanks
yeah breakfast radio and a new puppy doesn't it's not the perfect combo I've got to be
honest not the perfect combo but it's been a lot of fun I'm enjoying both immensely so I'm great
and as for Matt and Dave I don't normally like to speak on their behalf except that I love to
as we go on their behalf.
So I will say Matt is great and Dave is fine.
I will text them both after this and confirm,
but I'm pretty sure Matt, great, Dave, fine.
Our second fact, quote or question comes from Joe,
oh hang on, Joe's given Fleischman.
Joe, thank you for giving a phonetic spelling out for us.
Really appreciate that.
I know that's for Matt's purpose.
I probably would have said flashmen anyway, but, you know, I know that's for Matt, but it was helpful for me anyway.
Joe has given himself the title of official Twin Cities Director of Distributing Bags of Rags to New Fathers.
Yes, dads have bags of rags.
So many.
My dad's just got so many rags.
And every time I go over, not every time, but quite often when I go over there, he won't say anything or ask.
He just cleans my car and then just wipes it off with a rags.
man, my dad. Anyway, Joe has given us a quote, and the quote is, fact. Okay, well, it's not a
quote then, is it? The three main characters of the show Anamaniacs are the Warner Brothers and their
sister Dot. Dot got her name from period, dot, that follows brothers when it is abbreviated
to Bros. Okay, that's a bit cute. It's not a quote. Not a quote at all. It's a fact, as you
stated. It's a fact.
But I'll allow it, and it was interesting in itself.
Another fact quote a question here from Jessica Gillette Sheetah.
Jessica's given herself the title of Jesse Jess, Jess, Queen of the Donut People.
And I, for one, bow down to you, my queen.
And Jess has asked a question,
so that I've been inspired by the Great British Bake Off recently and started upping my baking game.
but I've begun to run out of ideas on what to make
that isn't something overly complicated.
So what is everyone's favourite sweet and savoury-based baked good?
Oh no, and you've said looking forward to Dave's inevitable pie answer,
but I am answering by myself.
Again, I'll answer for them.
So I've been watching a little bit of Great British Bake-off.
It's so soothing for the soul.
It's so fun to watch.
baking-wise, I've been getting very into ginger biscuits last year.
My father's mum, so my grandmother, always used to make these chewy,
just delicious ginger biscuits when I was a kid.
And we've never really been able to recreate them because she was just one of those cooks
or bakers where she wouldn't measure anything.
It was just like, bit of this, bit of that, bit of this.
I don't know, she probably just knew the recipe so well.
she didn't really need to check it.
So we never really had them once she passed away when I was like nine.
And over the past couple of years, I found different recipes and some were sort of cakey.
These ones that I found recently, I was making them last year.
I made them for Christmas.
They are so goddamn good.
They're like chewy and just delicious.
They're so yum, but so, so bad for you.
Like you have to cream together a cup of sugar.
and like three quarters of a cup of butter.
And that's just two of the ingredients.
It's just so bad for you.
So I've banned myself from making them now just for my own consumption.
That's why I made them for Christmas because I was like, at least that way,
I will share them with people.
And I still ate the bulk of them myself.
And as for a more savory, a croissant savory, they're still kind of sweet,
but I would say they're my favorite sort of pastry.
Going through a real phase of them on the weekends,
go get a few little pastries, have a coffee.
Oh, heaven.
I'm officially 30.
Dave, I would definitely say pies for him, savory or sweet.
Matt's going through a bit of a donut phase, I've got to say.
Yeah, we'll catch up, when I say catch up, we'll meet to do the podcast.
And it will have said that over the weekend he'd ordered some donuts,
trying lots of different flavors.
I reckon he's going through a bit of a donut phase.
I hope that answers your question.
If it doesn't, I mean, feel like that.
feel free to ask that again at a later date if that hasn't satisfied your information need.
I'm very tired.
Okay, last one.
I've got Nathan Damon here twice, so that's a bit confusing.
I will go on to Jacob Giron.
And Jacob's giving himself the title of Head Detective on the case of Matt's Auburn-Obbin-Lox.
You're on the case of it, the mystery of Matt.
hair. Okay, sure. I'm glad there's a head detective in charge. That indicates that there's
a team involved. So that's fun. And Jacob has given us a fact. Says in the city of Hollywood,
California, it is illegal to drive more than 2,000 sheep down Hollywood Boulevard at one time.
Oh, come on. That feels like one of those outdated rules, it just hasn't been updated for ages.
what if I need to get
2001 sheep down Hollywood Boulevard?
Well, you know what I would do.
I'd kill one of the sheep.
Leave one behind.
I'd leave one behind.
2000 is very reasonable.
Why are you cutting sheep through
Hollywood, California anyway, you know?
Anyway, so I don't want to rattle on
too much by myself because that's
a bit weird. So I've done
four factor quota questions there.
And now it's time for everybody's other
favorite part of the show.
where we give some shoutouts to people who support the show over at patreon.com
forward slash do go on pot.
And kicking things off today.
Again, I'm only going to thank like four people.
Normally we do three each.
I'm not going to sit here and do nine.
I'm already sick of the sound of my own voice.
I can only imagine you are as well.
So I'm going to do four.
And we always come up with a little game.
I was thinking I would give you your own ship to be the commander of.
a big responsibility and you know don't let us down but i believe in you so first ship off the
rank from glasgow i would love to thank matt con and matt con is the captain of the
hms convict nothing to do with convict ships though weirdly enough yeah uh it was just a you
Matt co-bought the boat with a guy whose last name was Victor.
So they put their names together out of there.
HMS Convict.
So there you go.
Thank you, Matt.
Secondly, from Fruit Heights in UT, which has to be Utah.
I'd love to thank Brandon Castanida.
God damn, Brendan.
Brandon has proudly just paid off the fine.
final installment on his loan to purchase the HMS.
I was really hoping something would just come to me there.
All right.
Look around the room.
Look around the room.
You can do this.
The HMS globe.
I don't have a globe on my desk.
I want to make that quite clear.
I have a like a weird little light thing that is like I was going to say light globe.
But we'll just go globe.
Brandon, HMS globe.
And you know why?
That's because you, my friend.
are going to travel the entire globe in that beautiful, beautiful ship.
It's got 14 bedrooms and one bathroom, so make sure you put your name down on the waiting list.
Okay, I'm losing it.
Okay, next we have from an unknown location.
The sea?
I assume, because it's Dermot Karni.
Dermit Kani.
Obviously, your ship is called the HMS apricot.
But don't let the cute name fool you,
because Dermot's going to fuck you up.
You're going to get real close and be like,
look at that cute little boat.
Oh, HMS Apricot.
How lovely.
And then your ship is going to get taken over by Dermott's crew,
and then he's adding another ship to his fleet, and you're a prisoner.
And he's pretty nice to prisoners unless you give him sass,
and then straighten the seat.
with you. So I'd behave if I were you. Maybe you'll give you a job on his new ship, which is
your old ship. But don't be bitter about it, okay? He won it fair and square. Sorry for making
you a pirate there, Dermott. And finally, I would love to thank from Woodford, New South Wales.
Ashley Foley. Ashley, I reckon you are the captain of the HM.
HMS Tim Burton.
So congratulations to you, Ashley,
an honour that not everybody gets to enjoy.
HMS, Tim Burton, far out.
This is why, if any young people are listening,
you need to sleep.
So, okay, finally, the last thing I need to do
before I put us all out of our misery is thank a few people, welcome them in,
lift up the velvet rope, and welcome them in to the Trip Ditch Club,
where it's a special club.
I always imagine it as like an airport lounge, but better, you know.
Like we've got fancy bathrooms and stuff with showers and you can hire out little pods
that you can have a nap in for long stopovers.
But we just have like nice food and drinks and fun stuff.
stuff. And so I'm going to thank some people. Fuck, I've got to do it all. All right. Okay, think of a band. Think of a band. Think of a band.
The Cooke's. I played The Cookees on radio today. So the Cooke's are going to come in and play
the music of the Cooke's, but also Elton John. They're going to do some very Cooke's
sounding covers of Elton John classics. It's going to be a lot of fun. And food,
Obviously, obviously we're going to have canned beans, but these ones don't have any lead poisoning in them.
And on toast.
We're going to have some beans on toast.
Simple, classic, effective.
And we've got a few people that we need to thank today.
I'm going to be completely honest.
And I highly doubt this is the part that you're the most excited about.
I think maybe just being invited into the club would be good for you.
but I can't hype the way Dave hypes, you know?
Like, I hype him just by believing in him.
But he does a lot of the hyping.
I guess I'll, no, I'm not even going to say I'll try because it will be terrible.
I just saw one name and the only thing I could think of was deeply inappropriate,
so I'm not going to do it.
But if it's incredibly important to you that Dave makes some sort of odd pun on either where you're from or your name,
and you don't get that this week because it's me.
I mean, get in touch and we'll make it up to you.
But I'm guessing for most of you, like with Matt and I,
it is not your favourite part of the Trip Ditch Club.
Okay, so with that further adieu,
I would love to welcome Ian to the Trip Ditch Club
from Carlton Victoria, Erica Steele.
From Queenby and New South Wales, Ebony,
Cummins from Glendale, Arizona.
Luke Hensley, sorry, was reading to the wrong way around.
Luke Hensley from Glendale and from Paris in France, Joseph Deanna.
So thank you so much to all four of you and everybody else who supports us on Patreon.
We've been really, really appreciative over the past year, especially,
when things got really tough for a lot of people
that, you know, a bunch of you stayed on
or you joined Patreon or you upped your pledge,
whatever, we just really appreciate you.
So thank you so much.
I think that's everything.
As always, if you want to get in touch with us,
you can do so at do go onpod at gmail.com.
Got our website do go onpod.com,
which has links to everything you'd need,
merch, shows,
the podcast, other things.
So yeah.
And do go on pod on all social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.
Don't have TikTok.
And I think, honestly, Matt's far too old for me to try and explain TikTok to him.
I don't understand TikTok.
So look, until next week when we'll all be in the same room and I don't have to do this alone again,
God, it's awkward.
It just sounds and feels shit.
Um, until then, Dave would say goodbye.
Matt would say ladies.
And I say, bye.
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