Do Go On - 288 - The Masquerade Treasure Hunt

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

In the 1970's, an artist set out to create a children's book like no other - one that lead readers on an actual treasure hunt! And it was .... a bit of a mess, to be honest. Come to our live screening of The Mummy + Live Fraising The Bar on September 10 :lidocinemas.com.au/mummyMatt’s New TV Show 'The Beer Pioneer': https://youtu.be/ej4TUguJL58 Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPod Buy tickets to our streamed shows (there are 12 available to watch now! All with exclusive extra sections): https://sospresents.com/authors/dogoon Check out our AACTA nominated web series: http://bit.ly/DGOWebSeries​ Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-Topic Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check 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 Thomas REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouvi-fwrfIYhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book)https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-47671776

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. Hey everyone, it's Dave here with a short but exciting announcement. Some of you will know that we do a spin-off Patreon-only podcast called Phraising the Bar,

where we chronologically go through the films of Brendan Fraser. Now, to be honest, we've watched some early shockers and have been counting down to the mummy, which we'll cover in September, and what better way to celebrate, one of the greatest action films of the 90s, nay, all time, by screening the film in its entirety at Lido Cinemas in Hawthorne and then afterwards recording an episode of phrasing the bar about the mummy in the cinema. Until now, that has been but a dream. But we are actually doing that Friday, September 10th at 7pm.

We had a presale for our Patreon supporters and sold a quarter of the tickets in the first day and it's allocated seating so if you want to choose where you like to sit in the cinema, I would get on it soon. And you can get tickets at Lillow. Lidocinemas.com.a u slash mummy or click the link in the description of this episode. The mummy in a cinema and then phrasing the bar live in that same cinema. We hope to see you there. Honestly, it is a dream come true.

Okay, that's it for me. Enjoyed this episode recorded live at the European Beer Cafe. It's the last of the live ones we did in Melbourne. We'll be back with a studio episode next week. And I think Jess will be back to talk to you at the end of this episode. But until then, enjoy. Love you. Fuck yeah, I love how I said Melbourne, like, I'm an international superstar.

I live here. Hello, people I probably know personally. How are you? Great, thank you so much for coming out. Welcome to another episode of Doogne. My name is Dave Warnocky. Could you please put those hands together? Welcome to the stage.

Matt Stewart and Jess Parker! Yeah! Fuck you. Yes. We did it. We did it. We got out here once again. Can you believe it?

Everyone comfortable out there? Matt was... You're saying this from row two. I'm talking about the poor assholes in the back who didn't get a seat. Matt was bringing out extra seats. Did everyone get one? Oh well.

Sucked in. Turn up sooner, fuckheads. That was everyone but one person missed out. Musical chairs, you lost. There's two stools over there. I need that one. Oh. I've gone mean too early

Mean girl This is the end of the festival Can you believe it? I know Matt you're all done You've done 22 stand-up shows this month Yeah I went to every single one It was weird when they

Named the most outstanding show They misspoke And accidentally pronounced my name Geraldine Hickey And it was That's weird I still went up and accepted it Maybe next year.

Yeah. For the people who don't know, I'm not as good as her. All right. They know. Well, I mean, there's an award. There is at least one award to help prove that, which they misspoke my name for. Two people leaving because they had tickets to Geraldine Hickey.

Enjoy, she's great. A couple of spare seats up here. I really hope they are in the wrong show. That would make sense why we're so overcrowded is because those two people... It is warm in here. You're going to take it off? Oh, Jesus, God.

Which, which... Not this again. Which bit? Your pants, obviously. It. You call pants it? Oh, yeah. All right.

Hey, does everyone having a good time? So this is the fourth and final podcast that we're doing. Ever. Yeah. Episode four. We did well. Yeah, we're done. We did well.

But give me a random applause if you've ever heard the podcast before. Thank you. I know you have. Fantastic. Has anyone ever not heard the show? Ever not heard the show? If they don't ever spend any time not listening to the show. No, give me a round of applause if you've never heard DoGo on before.

Few people, thank you so much. Was that the bar staff? Because we have subjected you to many weeks of this shit. Well, usually what we do is one of us awkwardly explains the show. But Matt, we don't have to do that tonight. No, well, Dave, a while back, you put the call out to people to record songs. You fucking nerds. And this morning, I remembered, we haven't got things.

through most of them. For the call out, can we have a 60s style jingle that explains how the show works? Nearly none of them have been 60s style, but to be honest, most of them haven't been jingles. And a lot of them don't particularly well explain the show, but we've got another one. This one was sent in about six months ago.

Hit it, Hulio! One, two, one, two, three, four. One of them starts it by gathering knowledge. So that's chosen by you. They write a report and then ask us a question. And that starts a journey that we all go through when it's due. So that came in from James Sampson. And all he said was, please enjoy.

Well, James, we did, we did. We did very much. So does that explain the show to everyone out there? Great, all right, we can start the show. They felt more confused than before. I couldn't understand a word of it but that's probably a foldback issue it's a technical thing anyway

so we take it in terms of a report on a topic it's Jess's turn to do the report we love JP I wouldn't if I were here um nah everything's fine and we always start with a question Jess has definitely written that right yeah just before

okay um so my question is Which children's book Caused a Worldwide Frenzy? Zygman Freud. He's trying to say someone else. You're trying to think of Dr. Seuss? Dr Seuss.

Matt's version of a Freudian slippers that accidentally say Sigmund Freud. Is it Dr. Seuss? No. May Gibbs. I don't think you're going to know it, but keep going if you like. I'm almost out.

May Gibbs and Sigmund Freud Two great guesses End of list Or Enid Blyton It's not Enid Blyton Don't think you would have known it Have you heard of The Masquerade Treasure Hunt

No Anybody in here heard of it No Golden Hair Treasure Hunt is another Another name for it Golden Books I remember them Yeah that's it Matt

I know nothing about this. Well, you're gonna. Because that's how this show works. Thank you. Let me do this for five years. I still need a theme song to explain it. We can't explain it. Okay, so, in the mid-70s, a publisher by the name of Tom Mashler,

who had previously been involved in publishing the work of many notable authors, including Ernest Hemingway, John Lennon, Ian McEwan, and Salman Rushdie. He approached artist and author Kit Williams and challenged him to create a picture book and do something no one had ever done before. A picture book? Yeah.

Really? This is the first picture book. That would cause it stir. Yeah. So this is before Spot. Bloody hell. This goes a while back. Is this before Richard Scary? Yeah.

Freckin hell, talk about. May I? Please, do go on. So Kit was initially hesitant. He was concerned that he would put a lot of effort into his artwork and people would just flick through the pages and not really pay attention. So he set out to create a book titled, Masquerade, masquerade,

that readers would carefully study rather than just flipping through the pages. He's like, if I'm going to spend all this time working on these very intricate pieces of art, you're going to look at him. You know, because he's bitter. He literally said, if I was to spend two years on 16 paintings for masquerade, I wanted them to mean something.

So he came up with a story about a hair named Jack. Jack Hare. It's his last name. A single follicle, interesting. I knew fucking writing this. I knew. I was like, make some fucking hair joke. All I meant to do is to say dumb things.

And then I've seen. Say it and you're like, oh, look, here he goes. I knew he would. How about a bit of support? I thought that was my whole job. You could try shutting the fuck up. It's funny how hard that is. Jack Hare.

Jack Hare seeks to carry treasure from the moon to the sun. This guy's taking himself very seriously. A little too seriously. Upon reaching the sun, Jack finds. that he's lost the treasure and the reader is then challenged to figure out

where the treasure is. I said that like a pirate, but it has nothing to do with pirates. Just trying to make it interesting. Yarr. He said, I recalled how, as a child, I'd come across treasure hunts in which the puzzles were not exciting

nor the treasure worth finding. So I decided to make a real treasure of gold buried in the ground and paint real puzzles to lead people to it. So that's what he did. Along with the book, he created an 18-carat gold pendant in the shape of a hair, inset with Ruby, Mother of Pearl, and Moonstones.

The pendant was valued at around 5,000 pounds. This is in the mid-70s, too. So he sealed the hair in a small ceramic casket, both to protect the prize from soil and to make it difficult to locate using a metal detector. So he's like, he's trying to make it really hard. Who's the same day? Huh?

This is aimed at children. Yeah, but remember... Don't want them getting out there with their metal detectors. They're kids these days. What are they out there with their metal detectors? I saw a lady last week, an adult lady. So...

Oh, not a child lady. No, in a... Oh, not a dog lady. In a children's playground with a metal detector. Kids are playing all around her. She's just listening. She's got... the shovel out, just starts digging up

the kids playground around them. What'd she find? Probably nothing. You didn't stick around to find out. The hole was quite deep. Did she fill it in? Kids probably fell in there. Who knows?

That was the real treasure. She was building a trap. The real treasure is the kids we heard along the way. It's actually a foolproof plan because the cops rock up. They're like, why are you digging this like three foot deep hole at the bottom of the slide? She goes, oh, I'm looking for treasure.

Really? She's just maiming children. Anyway. Anyway, so he's put this little rabbit in a little casket. Their actually hairs and rabbits are different. I'm going to fucking cut you. One's a follicle. And the casket had a little inscription. It said, I'm the keeper of the jewel of masquerade,

which lies waiting safe inside me for you or eternity. That's weird, isn't it? Yeah, a bit weird. So once everything's ready to go, Kit and a witness. We needed a witness. So they chose TV presenter and author Bamba Gascioni. Is that the guy from the... From the... from jackass.

That's the jackass guy? Bloody hell. that's cool wow bam from jackass wow they secretly buried the hair in its little casket

in amthil park about an hour north of London probably saying that wrong Anfield Park home of the Liverpool no Arsenal Arsenal no

oh there's no there's no sports how many people in this room no one knows that you're thinking of Anfield Okay now what did you say Amthill

Amthill Amthal I wasn't just thinking of Anfield I was hearing Anfield You don't have a microphone Good, yeah no, good one He felt instant regret And it was only because you were looking at him

He's like, I don't want this I saw what happened when you said something That's right I'm shitting myself as well Honestly. I reckon we'll get through this report together, everyone. I really threw you under the bus there. No, whatever you said, Jess was going to fuck you.

Up, fuck you up, fuck you up, fuck you up. What an important bit of that sentence left out. You are going to regret this. I will fuck you. Up, up, fuck you up. So it's an hour north of London. Nowhere near Liverpool. nowhere near it

but is Anfield is Liverpool though yeah great so do you like how I turn on the crowd and they're all going we all know that's in Liverpool but that's a different thing they didn't believe that I was so glad you're in the front row

the jock of the crowd so they've buried it great they've buried it bad Margarra has buried it fantastic great work he did like dacked himself afterwards

It was very cool. Bottle rocket up, the jute. Just coined a turn there. He vomits on the box. They love vomiting those guys. They love it. The drop of a hat. A hat.

They love it. They love it. Bam. His TV show is so open with, What's he going to do next? And he goes, whatever the fuck I want. And I want to vomit on everything. Pretty sure he's been.

to rehab about nine times now, so didn't I work out well for him. Please do go on. So, now that it's buried, Kit publicly announced that his soon-to-be-published book contained clues to find a real-life treasure. He said that the clues in the book were enough

for any person to be able to find the precise location within a few inches, he said. It's a big fan of units of measurements, humour. Honestly, a few inches. That's quite a big amount of... That's quite sizable. Can we narrow it down?

Couldn't even imagine anything that big. The only... The only extra information he provided was that the hair was buried on public property that could be easily accessed. And not wanting to exclude people outside of the UK, Kit announced that he would accept and honour the first correct answer

sent to him by post. So if somebody can't go to that park to dig it up, but if they get it right, they win. Immediately upon release, the book was a worldwide hit, selling tens of thousands of copies within the first few days. An airline even sold transatlantic masquerade tickets, which came with a free spade on arrival. For the dog.

Is that something... I'd have never had a pet. I've heard that said you spayed your dogs. You don't do it. You do not do it with a shovel. Is it nearly anything? No. Nearly something.

New inches away. So pretty far. In total, the book sold around 2 million copies worldwide. It was huge. What followed was honestly quite a bit of destruction of public property. That lady I saw in South Yarra is still looking. She's going. She's like, it's out there.

Oh, in South Yarra. Now I understand why she's digging around. Yeah. Kids will drop their gold foblets. stuff. You know kids in their foblets. I don't realize you're talking. Kids these days with their foblets.

In the affluent, eh? So, every kid's got at least one or two gold foblets. Yeah. What's a foblet look like? Oh, I've never seen seen them, but in my dreams. Beautiful.

Elegant. Yep. Phantasmogical. Thanks for that. It's a great question. I felt well answered. So people just start. of digging up public and private property, usually just based on a hunch. One spot, which is

called Hare's Field Beacon, became such a popular dig site that Kit had to pay for a sign saying that the hair was not buried there. People are like, it's got hair in it. Locations from the painting in the book were searched and dug up to, but to no success. A couple of years went by, no one had successfully located the treasure. Kit Williams, though, was probably regretting his choices as he was receiving more than 200 letters a day from all over the world and had to read through all of them in case someone had accurately cracked the code and pinpointed the location. So he's got to, at a bare minimum, like speed read it, you know?

He's got to skim. Yeah, that's a nightmare. Yeah, it's not good. And he said, I was unprepared. It really got out of hand very quickly. It became sort of a cult. And because of that, people read much more into it than I'd put there, he said.

People felt I'd included their dead grandfather, that sort of thing. It never stops, he said. What does that mean? Just that people are reading way too much into it. And, like, it's like that confirmation bias thing. You know, you can make anything

you think work. I don't know. But they thought the treasure was their dead grandfather? The real treasure is the grandfathers we had along the way. Or are people digging up their grandfathers? His grandpa's got the treasure.

He, if he doesn't have the treasure, he has the truth. Tell me, grandfather. Hello. They're losing their mind. You'll find the treasure down an infield way. Granddad? All right, speaking of as well, let's talk about the code for a second, because it was elaborate.

You want to say a lie. The book contained 16 painted illustrations. Each one had a border which contained words or phrases in it. It gives me, like looking at pictures, it gave me Graham Bass vibes. I was just thinking Graham Bass the 11th hour. Yeah. So this guy was even before Graham Bass. Yeah.

That kind of thing, you know how there was like words or numbers around the outside? Beautiful artwork. Yeah. There's peacocks, elephants, lions, tigers. Bears. Bears. Oh my. So Dave, you're the intellectual here. Well, I mean, by comparison.

Not based on end of schools, so... Okay. And we're literally all here doing the same job. I know. But yeah, good on you. I'm hoping you're doing your economics class, you fucking tosser. I was taking pretty little pictures and dancing around a stage. And I'm still...

I wasted those years. Yeah. And you're wasting these ones. But we're doing it together. Dave, see if you can understand. Or Matt, I guess. As if. See if you can understand.

This is from Wikipedia and this is how it explains how the code works. Okay. In each painting, a line must be drawn from each depicted creature's left eye through the longest digit on its left and out to one of the one of the one of the of the letters in the page border. Then from the left eye through the longest digit of the left foot. The right eye through the longest digit on the right hand. And finally

the right eye through the longest digit on the right foot. Your right or my right? This is done only for eyes and digits that are visible in the painting. The letters indicated by these lines can be made to form words. Does isn't that make sense? Yes, I've got it.

It's in Anfield. Dig it up. Basically, you have to go Left eye, left hand, right eye, right hand Left eye, left foot, right eye, right foot. Draw lines. We're playing twister. Plain twister, yeah.

Left hand red. And then you get like, do you get coordinates or you get words? So you follow that line to the border and whatever letter it points to, you then use that letter to form a word. Okay. To then it makes a whole. big code.

Obviously, we'd all think to do that, you know? Straight away, you'd be like, all right, well, I'm going to draw a line all over it. And figure out the coordinates. So following this method reveals 15 words or short phrases, which together form a 19 word message. That message is... Wait, how many words form a 19 word message? 15 words or short phrases, it says.

That's done. 19 word message. Okay, here we go. Catherine's long finger overshadows Earth-buried yellow amulet midday points the hour in light of equinox look you Oh yeah Come on guys, use your heads

Right We all know where it is Easy, easy-pre-easy My dead grandfather's name is Catherine If you take the first letter of each of these words It spells out close by Amphil. Oh,

wow. There's so many levels. And this is aimed to what, four and five year olds? Yeah. Did a single child read this picture book? God, no. No.

But a lot of adults did. Wow. That is, it's art, man. If you manage to crack all those clues, they would tell you that the treasury is buried in Amthel Park in Bedfordshire near the park's cross-shaped monument. of Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII.

Yes. Also the wife of his brother. A little bit weird. The brother died, but you know. Still, you know. There were less people back, but you had less choice. It's why they're all got the same names. It's like to see that as many options.

He just married your brother's wife. Anyway. You never touch. I hate this. already. I was about to make the mistake of quoting Billy Brownless and I thought better of it. I've noticed during this run

my show, people don't always get when I'm being ironic. I thought you're going to say that people don't always appreciate your Billy Brandless quotes but you live your life by. He famously said you never touch a man's wallet or a man's wife. Said that out loud in public.

Anyway, a bit of fun. Don't touch people, you know? Like in a weird way. Don't go up to anyone and go like, you know? Is that what do you do to wallets? Are you tonguing wallets? The weird thing was to me

that he equated his wife with what I believe to be an inanimate object. The wallet. Because obviously the wallet's worth more... All right, lost a few of you there.

Even with that irony warning, I did moments ago. A couple of edit requests for this week's episode. Yeah, I request you edit out the irony warning. Leave it in. So yeah, obviously, if you've cracked all those incredibly easy clues, you'd know that it's near Catherine of Arrigan's monument at the precise spot touched by the tip of the monument's shadow at noon on the day of either the moment.

March or September equinox. Fucking else. Obviously. I'm a bit embarrassed I've had to explain this to you guys. That park is fucked. People are just getting in there with a bulldozer. Just ripping it up.

I genuinely can picture you as a child. Goggle's on. Pencil on the year. Calculator out. I reckon you would have nod at this. And then in his downtime, reading this one. Once you finish your parents' taxes, then you move on.

Oh, it looks like you're in the rest of it. read again, Dad. We're going to need to work on a budget, young man. So on the 21st of December 1980, almost 18 months after the book was published, the Sunday Times published an additional clue to the puzzle, a drawing created by the author Kit Williams. The drawing needed to be cut out, folded in half,

and then you needed to shine a light through it, and then it could be read in a mirror. Obviously, it's the first thing you do. The message read, To do my work, I appointed four men from 20, the tallest and the fattest, and the righteous follow the sinister. Now, again, sorry to pandering you guys.

You all obviously know exactly what that means. Yes, we do. And it's like, yon, but... Sinister means left hand. Yeah, yeah. All right. There it is. It was there all along.

What does that mean? That coded message. It means. The four men from 20 refers to four fingers and toes out of 20 digits. The tallest and the fattest relates to using the longest digits. The righteous follow the sinister provides a clue to decoding of the letter order. So left eyes through left fingers and toes first, then right just right. Surely the fattest is the thumb.

This guy's on fucking crack. I think they're kind of similar. fatness? Yeah. Does that mean they're all fat or they're all skinny? Not to give myself a complex. I mean, it's not my value, but... Is this message...

Thumbs are famously the fattest on the hand. What are you talking about? This is tedious. You won't stop fucking thinking about it. I think they're about the same. They all look the same. No. Show us, show us.

Is everyone having to go out there or... They literally are. Now my question is, is this backwards code through the mirror stuff? Is that the author has authorised it or the Times have worked it out and then they're trying to tease me? No, no, no, he did that drawing. Oh, okay, right, because no one's got it. It's been 18 months, nobody's got it. But still, even with that incredibly helpful clue, no one found the treasure.

Until March of 1982, Kit Williams received a letter and in that letter was a crudely drawn map, which he recognised to be the location of the buried treasure. Someone had cracked the code. Ooh. Was it Matt? Did Matt? Was it Matt? Yeah.

Are you fucking kidding me? I sent him a picture tracing around. Is that it? Crudely drawn. Crudely drawn. Crudely drawn. Well, it's hard because I was using my wrong hand. Yeah.

Looks quite a lot like a dick and balls, actually. Quite a decently sized one, if you ask me Nobody asked Kit called the person who'd sent him the letter and that was a man named Ken Thomas Kit said the man had correctly identified the location

and that Ken should go dig it up but in talking to Ken Kit got the feeling that Ken actually had no idea what he was talking about he said I instantly realised that Thompson knew where the hair was but not how to solve the puzzle He hadn't worked out the clues.

It was almost like it was a lucky guess. Oh. Nonetheless. Like that many people guessing, it's like the monkeys writing the story thing. You get enough people guessing where a treasure is, someone's going to luck onto it, right? Like the monkeys?

Like the monkeys? For the blust of time. Blurst of time. Blurst of time. Yes. A thousand monkeys writing on a thousand computers for a thousand years. They'll write a thousand copies of Shakespeare. worst of times.

Beautiful is that. Is that right? Someone's groaning real hard, Dave. Can you correct me? Because that was close. Yeah, that's close enough. Yeah. There's something about a thousand monkeys

writing on a thousand typewriters for a thousand. Eventually they'll type it out. They'll type the works of Shakespeare. Or the map to this thing. So your... So your... Your guess early is that it's a monkey. Is she listening?

A thousand monkeys. In fairness, that's always your first kiss. I'll stop you right there. I'm thinking a thousand monkeys on this one. Glenn Ridge. He used to a sale of the century. In that act out there, I was... I buzzed in on 9094 sale of the century.

He wasn't far into the question. I said, I'll hold you there, Glenn Ridge. A thousand monkeys. The question was, who was the fullback in the AFL team of the centuries? Of course, Stephen Silvani, but it was too late. I'd already locked in a thousand monkeys.

I'm going to go have a piss. See you soon. All right. What do you reckon we get through some of the story now? They paid money for this. I know. Thank you so much, by the way. Nonetheless...

So this guy's called up and said... I found it. And then... He keeps talking to him and he's like, I mean, you have, but... You don't know anything. But so nonetheless, Ken Thomas was awarded the prize,

which was a big deal in international media. Ken, however, shunned the publicity. This is from the BBC. It says he was filmed with Williams as he freed the hair from the wax case. All right. But later insisted on covering his face with a scarf and would only be interviewed

from behind a screen. He refused to exhibit his treasure He was like, I don't like the spotlight I get that, you know, I'm shy, so... Yeah, yeah, for sure. You never let anywhere. Anyone know where you are every week for four weeks in a row? Yeah, I would never do that.

Oh my God. We're all wondering. I reckon you didn't even go. We were all wondering? You just went out there, waited for the appropriate amount of time, so you could come back on and get that applause. What I really needed to do,

was a break from talking. I could see how Jess was looking at me. And I'm like, I'm on the edge of ruining our friendship. No, no, no. It's not you. I want to stop talking. Jess, that's nice. That's for the first time in a while when I've co-ordered a friendship and Jess hasn't said,

Colleagues. We're getting closer. To get you up to speed in the story, the guy's found the treasure, but now he doesn't want to be seen with the treasure, the guy who found it. Yeah, he's like, I don't want the attention. Oh, this is sounding a bit monopoly high.

He's doing an interview from behind a screen. Something bit Wizard of Ozzy. Oh, my. He's got a very booming voice. Well, you're right. I mean, fans of the book grew very suspicious of Ken Thomas and later, Kit Williams as well, with many claiming it had been rigged

and they'd been cheated of the chance to win. They're like, this guy, Suss. And now you're Sart. Everyone's suss. That does sound... That sounds a bit suss, right? You're thinking it is...

Well, you know. You're thinking it's Kit Richards pretending to be Kent Brockman? Or whoever they... So close. A couple of substitutions there. But I think we understand what he means. I...

No, I don't think... I don't think it's that suss only because the author said it sounded like He didn't have a clue what he was talking about. Oh, well, if it was his mate, he wouldn't have said that about. Right? Yeah, that's true.

It was a private conversation. Yeah, he wouldn't have said. He would have been like, yeah, he explained all the code to me. And I was like, oh, brother. He sounds like a drunk. Yeah. So soon after Thomas was, oh no, oh no, soon after. Oh, boy.

Because you said Thomas not Brockman. Sorry, yeah. Soon after Brockman was formally awarded the prize, Kit Williams received a correct solution to the prize. puzzle, sent in by physics teachers Mike Barker and John Rosso. They had accurately deciphered the clues but had

failed to find the treasure when they went to dig it up. Some believed they did actually dig it up but failed to see it and Ken Thomas swooped in and managed to find it in the piles of dirt that the physics teachers had left behind. But the prize had been awarded to Ken Thomas and that was the end of that.

Or was it? Oh! Well played audience. I really hope it was the end. Yeah. No, like seriously, guys, so we've got to exit out the back. Thank you for coming. No, so six years later, the Sunday Times printed a story

accusing the winner of the masquerade contest of being a fraud. Ken Thomas was revealed to be a pseudonym of a man called Dugold Thompson. Dugled. Guys, there is a man named Dugold. Listening to this right now, crying. Because you just laughed at his name. It's just a name.

He's used to it. You're a fucking savage. Dugled. He deserves it! I think his name's actually just doogel. And what's happened is this... The society has been doogled by this man. I think that's what's happened.

See, I didn't have to say anything then. Because they said, what? So I've turned... I've turned his name Doogel into a verb. And what does it mean? Well, it means that he's stolen the treasure, which is now why everyone says, oh, you've been Dougal.

Yeah, yeah. That's where it comes from. I'm actually getting sick of having to break this down into baby talk for you, Jess. It's about time you grew up. You're 30 years old. Apparently, apparently. You behave like a child.

I mean, at least I can hold on for a whole hour. Well, that's actually, actually, the more mature you get off. We've got to get the old man into nappies. Yeah, so you're saying I'm immature because my bladder's like an old man? You can have it one way or the other, but you can't have it both. I have a very mature bladder.

So Ken Thomas, not a real person. He is Dougal Thompson. His business partner was a man named John Gard, whose girlfriend was Veronica Robertson. Veronica Robertson was the ex-girlfriend of Kit Williams. What? Boo, yes. The Sunday Times alleged that while living with Williams,

Veronica Robinson had learned the approximate physical location of the hair while remaining ignorant of the proper solution to the book's main puzzle. So she's like, I know where it is. I don't know any of the bloody tricks and little clues, but I know where it is. So they essentially guessed it was probably there so went out looking for it with metal detectors which we know Kit had thought of

and that didn't work so their search didn't really work so they sent Kit a crude sketch of the area and he got back to them and said yeah that's the area so the prize had gone to some dirty cheats in those six years in between can you just for not for me but

for anyone here who missed it could you break down exactly how they cheated The author's ex-girlfriend is involved and she knew where it was. Right. So the author didn't know, but the ex-girlfriend... The author who came up with it did know where it was. So he did the dirty on himself. No.

These ex-girlfriend's passed on some info. So that the money can come... Wait, I don't understand. So the author is in on it or it's not on it? No, no, no. Isn't that what I said? No. What did I say?

No one knows what you said Fucking hell This might be the night That I make some changes Look I'm with you, I'm with you I'm with you on this Matt's gonna start wearing turtle necks

Oh Actually I'm gonna change my voice as well Oh That's fun I'm gonna start a startup We support you But not financially in your startup So

I am taking investors. In those six years between winning... Another piss coming on. In those six years between winning and this article coming out, Dougal Thompson

had founded a software company called Hair Soft. Bit on the nose. Using the hair pendant as collateral to set up his business. The company developed a computer game called Hair Razor.

and offered the golden hair as a prize for completing the game and cracking the code. So it was like its own little puzzle again. The game takes the form of a series of graphic screens depicting grass, sky and trees with occasional text clues. The only interaction is pressing the cursor keys.

You can go up, down, left or right and sometimes the screen changes. A lot of the time it does not. Many believe it to be unsolvable with only meaningless text and graphics. There are no hints as to how the puzzle can be solved. People have looked into it a lot and they're like, this makes no sense.

It's also broken up into two parts, so players had to buy both Hair Razor Prelude and Hair Razor Finale in order to crack the code. The company said they released it in two parts to make it fun. And to enable competitors of all ages to participate because people of all ages can't just buy one game. It was definitely done to make money.

They also claimed that an additional clue was revealed in Harrods by TV personality, Anika Anika Rice. From Jackass. Welcome to Jack Hars. I'm in Harras. I'm going to set fire to this fur coat. Yeah. Yeah, I've been to Harrods one time.

Very expensive. So, yeah, they were like, oh, there was a clue. She revealed a clue, but this appearance at Harrods wasn't publicised or recorded. So unless you just happened to be passing by at that exact moment, it was completely useless. So when was this game? This was in the early 80s.

Right. So this was like early days of video games, I'm guessing. Yeah, that sounds kind of like most video games back then. You can push up, down, left to right, and not much happens. You're talking about it like in today's computering. Well, at least like with Pong, you could score points or something. This one just does absolutely nothing. Funnily enough, the game did not sell well, and the company went into liquidation.

And even funny, no one had managed to solve the puzzle. She's just crazy. So the golden hair had gone unclaimed. So with the company in liquidation, the golden hair was sold in 1988. It sold for 31,900 pounds to an anonymous buyer.

Its creator, Kit Williams, had gone there himself to bid, but was outbid by about 25,000 pounds. So close. He was like, I've got like 6K. Oh, we're at 10? Oh, bye-bye. So for over 20 years, the whereabouts of the hair was unknown.

But in 2009, BBC Radio 4 program, the Grand Masquerade, told the story of the creation and solution of the puzzle. Kit Williams was interviewed, and it was the first time he'd spoken of the scandal in 20 years. He never did any interviews until this time. During the interview, he said he wished he could see the hair just one more time. wants to see it again. Hearing this, the granddaughter of its then current owner

and anonymous purchaser based in the Far East, is all the information they gave. Okay. What year was this? This is in the Far East. 2009. Okay. It was a different time, guys.

Arranged, so the granddaughter arranged for Kit Williams to be reunited briefly with his work. briefly they took it back They got eight seconds Yeah That's what you get And this is what he said He said

I'd not remembered it being as delicate as it is Then when I picked it up And the little bells jingled And it sparkled in a way That I'd forgotten as well They could have given him anything A bit of fun But there was kind of no

No resolution Even once they figured out That the people who had won Had done it in a dodgy way It was just kind of like Oh, there you go. Because I suppose they got away with it. Yeah.

It wouldn't be illegal or anything like that, would it? No, no. I mean, yeah. It's a private competition. Yeah. And so that's the anticlimactic end. I still have not figured out what happened. I reckon go listen to this podcast.

But the author's ex-girlfriend, she just happened to know and she then told the information of this other guy. Yeah. And then he claimed it. They had a vague guess and the author was like, oh, you've solved it. Oh, poor bastard. Without actually solving any of the puzzle part.

Oh, that sucks. Which was the fun, apparently. Which no one was ever going to do. No, no one was ever going to do it. Well, I mean, those physics teachers did. So actually, yeah. But they didn't get the prize. They didn't get it.

They should have got the prize. They should have got it, yeah. This little trinket, which sounds like a piece of shit, to be honest. I wanted to say it earlier, but you seem so proud of it. It sounds like a piece of shit. I didn't. I'm not proud of it. make it.

I didn't want to say to you, Jess, I don't want to break your heart. But it sounds like a piece of shit. A little fucking, it sounds like something you get on one of those, what are those little key chains with little things that people wear? Key chains. Pandora's box. Pandora. A charm bracelet.

Is that what you're going on? Charmed bracelet. He got there through Jess. I loved that story. Me too. That was... Me three. Me as well.

Did you all love that story? Let's give it up for Jess Perkins. It's a great report. All right. Just a glimpse behind the curtain here. I knew what the topic was going to be tonight. So I have hidden a bracelet somewhere in this building. The management has told me you have permission to tear this building apart.

Imagine. It's worth one million pounds. that is not true just in case I was ready to tear this carpet up thank you so much for coming out on this final Sunday night we absolutely appreciate you being here give yourselves a round of applause absolutely yes

thank you thank you and we've got to say a bunch of you out there have come every week for the last four weeks in total so thank you so thank you so much for those people especially appreciate you coming back. I mean, as surprised as you are. Honestly, no, thank you so much.

We'd like to give a big round of applause to the European Beer Cafe. Toholio on the sound, thank you so much. We've got Emma and Vinnie who are up the back filming this thing. Appreciate that. But that, honestly, is all she wrote. All good things must come to an end.

So sorry. We have to go down. now. What? Huh? You signs the contract. That got Blake, sorry. We've had some fun here tonight, but thank you so much.

We'll see you next time. Goodbye. Well, that was our final live show from the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for 2021. We want to say a big thank you to everybody who came out to see the shows. It was so good to be performing live in Melbourne again. It had been a couple of years, so it was really nice that people turned up and were so excited and so lovely. As you can hear from my voice, I've been a bit sick, and I've left this to the last possible second,

hoping that I would be well enough to do all the Patreon read and everything for this week's episode, but I am not. So we'll probably have to skip that this week, unfortunately. I reckon that might be a first, though. I don't think we've ever just completely skipped it, but I won't get through much without having a coughing fit. And nobody wants to hear that. Because even though you know logically,

germs can't get to you through your speakers, in this current climate, you don't want to hear somebody sick just talking at you for too long. So we will be recording altogether again for next week's episode. So we will continue as normal with our Patreon reads, with the fact quote or question with all that fun stuff but for now I will just say again

thank you to everybody who came to the live shows if you're someone who hates listening to the live shows but you did anyway what a trooper you are thank you so much as always you can contact us at do go on pod at gmail.com or at do go on pod on all the social media sites you can suggest a topic at any time

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