Do Go On - 371 - The Destruction of Pompeii by Mount Vesuvius

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

In AD 79 Mount Vesuvius violently erupted, destroying and Pompeii other nearby towns. Pompeii lay hidden under metres of ash for 1500 years, preserving much of the city and even the people that had died in the eruption. This is the number one topic for Block 2022!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 09:47 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report). Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodLive show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/  Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/ Check out our new merch! : https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/  Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail]  Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader Thomas Do Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present. REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:youtube.com/watch?v=gpv8BK_zgoY https://museum.wa.gov.au/pompeii2010/daily-life/index.htmlhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/pompeii_portents_01.shtmlhttps://www.wired.com/2014/07/fantastically-wrong-doctrine-of-signatures/https://www.world-archaeology.com/great-discoveries/great-discoveries-pompeii/https://igppweb.ucsd.edu/~gabi/sio15/lectures/volcanoes/pliny.html https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-eruption-of-mount-vesuvius-in-79-ad-and-the-destruction-of-pompeii Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. And welcome to another episode of Do Go One. My name is Dave Warnocky and as always, I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart.

Hello. I wanted you to speak exclusively in horns to the whole episode. I'm trying to find a new kind of, I don't know, like a catchphrase or like a, you know? Like you were like, yeah, I'm with Jess and Matt and Jess always says the same funny thing. Well, not everyone can have one. But isn't it good to be alive? and thanks so much for being here with me today, Dave and Jess. See, he's got one.

Dave and Jess. Dave and Jess. Dave and Jess. Now kiss. Who, me and Matt or Dave and Jess? Dave and Jess. I mean, give me a kiss. Dave.

Oh, it's very wet. You two are sitting right under the block mistletoe. Oh, that's right. We are rocketing through. We're blocketing through. Come on. Come on, Dave. It was right there.

It was right there and I. Podcasting jokes of mushing words together. Thank you for. And you missed the opportunity. Thank you for educating me. We've both just had ice coffees. We're a little excited. We're rocketing through block.

We're blockering through rock. Whatever. This is the most exciting part for a time of year. But it's also a sad time of year for me because it's also, this is the last week of block. Yeah. Can you believe it? Blomber has blown by. As it always does.

Quickly. Yeah. It feels like we're in Chicago or something, huh? Not a slow wind. No. A brisk one. Yeah, yeah. Blowing a gale.

Like Oprah's friend. And Oprah's from Chicago at some point. God, that's good. Now, Matt, do you want to explain for people that may have just tuned in for this topic, why this is so special this week? Well, Block is the most special time of the year. It's the Blockingest time of the year. Yep.

And it's the time of the year where we take October. and now we also take November, blocktober and Blovember, and we count down the most requested and voted for topics of all time. Not of all time of all year. If this is the first time you're listening to this podcast, look, welcome, but sorry.

The show starts soon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is, it's so thousands of people have voted. We've counted them down the last eight weeks. This is, we had a top nine because that's how many weeks in October and November there are. And this is the number. Talk to Gregory.

Okay, don't look at me when you're saying that. Gregory, you know, Pious Gregory or whatever's name is. Gregory Weekday. Of the Gregorian calendar. Gregory Calendar, obviously, it's right there. God, you're an idiot. Now, this is the most voter for topic this year, so it's a big one. It's a bad one.

Oh, it's a bad one. They voted poorly, have they? Oh, wow. Bad is in good. Do you understand? Oh, like, like, um, Yeah. Yeah, like bad as in good.

I was going to say like Michael Jackson. But then I was like, but that's a bad analogy because... That's just bad as in bad. Yeah, that's just bad. Great. We've established what bad is. Great. Now, this is good.

What is good? Now, the way the show works is we usually take it in terms of report on a topic, often suggested by one of the listeners. It is my turn this week and we always start with the topic. With the question. Here it is. We always start, sorry. Oh, no.

We've been doing this for seven years. This is the messiest start we've had in ages. Is it seven years? More than, I think. 2015? No, it's seven years. Seven years. Almost, we've just passed our seven year birthday.

Happy birthday, everyone. Happy birthday, Matt, give me a birthday kiss. Oh, tickled. I'm sorry, I haven't shaved. Oh, my God. We always start with a question to get us on the topic. My question is, which blockbuster Tobah topic.

Oh, okay. Did I visit in July this year? Okay. It's in Europe. The penis hospital. Was I visiting a patient or was I checking it? You were checking it. It's too big.

The Virgin Islands. Oh. Huh? Yeah? I know you wrote a camel eating a pie in Africa. That's right. That was in... Is the topic Africa?

It's not... That's a very big topic. Yeah. Well, it's blocked over. It is. No. Exactly. This is in...

Mount Vesuvius Volcano? Yes. I was going to give you a clue, but you didn't need it. Can I have the clue, please? This is in Italy. And it's near a volcano, Jess. Name of an ancient city. Pompeii.

Pompeii. Damn it. Is that the same thing? And Mount Vesuvius is the name of this story. So we get a point each. Point each? Dave, I need an official ruling. Matt, Matt, I'm getting an official ruling.

Okay. Do we get a point each? Bing, Bing, Bing! That's no. That was the third one for me. Points all round. Points for all. That's nice.

So Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius is the same thing. Yes, Pompey is the city that was covered by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. And 79 AD, and that's what we're talking about this week. 79 AD. That is a very long time ago. Mount Vesuvius exploded all over Pompeii. Like literally. Yeah.

Head to toe. Yep. Leaving a lot of people encased in its ejaculate. Don't you turn your head and regret your jokes privately? Can I just say at the end of this report, we will discover how Matt is very much getting into the mindset of a Pompeian with that kind of language. Oh. Let's keep that to the back in mind.

Okay, I will, but I'm confused. If you see the end of the world coming, what are you doing? You're coming. You're coming. I'm going, so I'm coming. I wonder what you would do. I think about that often. Would I just panic or would I just, yeah.

Be at peace. Be it peace, would I, I don't know, finish an episode of something on Netflix? I feel like, yeah, I feel like I'd attempt to run or get out. Yeah. But just go for a run. Yeah. Go for a run. Yeah.

One last run before heaven. I want to leave behind us. A run before I fly. Sveled corpse. Yeah. Oh no. I've really put on a couple of kilos. Now, so I went to Pompeii in July.

Visit the city. Fantastic. I wanted to go there and get a photo and have. a pie and caption it more like pom pie. Oh, that's good stuff. But they didn't have any pies available. That's where you are the pun master. So it's very disappointing.

Why don't you B.YO pie? I should. You got to start BYO pying, Dave. BYO P, P, the second P's a typo. So there was no Pompuy, but it was a fantastic visit, and I'll talk a bit about that. Hang on, does that also mean that your entire six-week trip was tax deductible now? Yes, absolutely.

Here I am research. Yeah. And then I had to go to Morocco. To Morocco. I'd go to do further research. You also did a live podcast, like literally doing all. Yeah, you're writing all that off, babe. So we've topped and tailed with work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fantastic. This is all research. Yeah, you've nailed that. Unless the tax man's listening. How well was that timed, though? Because you didn't know any of the block topics what were coming up. No, we just divvy them up in the order that they come up and the fact that I've been given it.

I've actually tried to put it up for the vote twice this year. Really? Both times it lost. The second time was one of those. second chance, you know, for people at home, our patron supporters often vote for our topics. I put three up. It came second. And I said, I'll give it a second chance.

It came second again. And now here it is as the most voted for topic of block. Wow. So there you go. But I think because it's a slightly different kind of vote. In the normal votes, you can only vote for one topic. But this one, you can vote for all the topics you want to hear. So I think it just gives it a different result in the end.

It'd be too brutal otherwise. I think there's over 100 options. Yeah, just picking one. Oh, too much stress. This topic has been suggested by a bunch of people, and you can do that. Suggest the topic any time through our website. Thank you to Bree Finlay, Lucy Smith, Devin Bruns, Chris Beaumont, Amy from the Philippines, and Lisa Honeyford, who suggested four topics within a 28-minute period in October 2018,

and we've now done three of them. Wow. It's a great work, Lisa. That's a hot hand she had there. The Dancing Plague, Tarara, who ate everything, and now Pompey and Mount Vesuvius. What will the fourth and final one be, Lisa? Well, you surely know one of it is. And it sounds like she suggests good topics.

Yeah, very good topics. I hope you're still listening. Hope you haven't given up on us. Hey, Dave, you totally lied to the audiences before, though, obviously. He said that this just happened to fall to you, the number one topic. But we purposely switched the order around so you could do it because you begged us. You said, if Vesuvius ever comes up, I want it. I've been there.

Give it to me. People aren't going to look at this order and say, oh, it's weird that Dave did two reports and three, weeks and not get it, you dog. Then why did you set me up before and say, oh, it's amazing that this topic fell to you? You fucking idiot. You started it and then rebutted your own point. Well, I'd say edit that bit out then, Dave. Keep the magic alive.

Usually we never know what the topics are. No, block it's a bit harder. But, yeah, that's normally, I think the block questions are normally not the topic. Because it's like, now I'm going to pretend. I don't know the answer. And I'm not good at pretending. I'm a bad liar. You're a terrible liar.

You're a terrible person. Yeah, I was weird. Okay, let's talk Pompey. Do you guys know much about it? Have you been there? You've both been to Italy. I've been to Italy. I haven't been to Pompey.

I've been to Milano for half a dayo. And I went to the McDonalo and no Irish bar there. No, I was just there. Just a change. changeover on a train trip or something. That's the only Italy I've ever seen. Oh, really? Well.

I've done Rome, Venice, Pisa. See, this is your generation to a T. I've done Rome. I've done. Just items on a list to you. Yeah. Whereas I experience Milano by the McDonald's. How do they do a junior burger here?

Oh, slightly differently. Oh. And then I tick it on my list. And I get back on a train. The site of the ancient city of Pompeii is found near modern-day Naples in the Campania region of Italy. It began life as a small coastal settlement which covered about 10 hectares. It wasn't too big at the start. But by the 6th century BC, the town had expanded to more than six times its original size

and it only continued to grow when it fell under the Roman Empire around the 1st century BC. Latin became the official language and a Roman constitution was imposed on the new colony. And wealthy Romans desired living in the Bay of Naples, which was extremely prosperous due to its fertile agricultural land. But Y-O-W was the land so fertile? I guess they'll never find out. So volcanic earth is particularly fertile?

Very fertile. And even to this day, that region's famous for tomatoes and beautiful fruits and vegetables. What region did you say it was? Campania. Campania. So that's famous for tomatoes and stuff. So maybe like if I go home tonight and have a look at my cupboard, crushed tomato can.

If I have a look, Campania is probably on the label. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100% locked in. Nowhere else grows them. And yeah, they'll all be from Campania.

Campania. But it's very, very fertile. They grow beautiful fruits and vegetables there. They probably don't even put them in cans. That's how good they would be. You don't need to can them. Oh, that's like spitting on a tomato. Yeah.

Like people who are refrigerated. their tomatoes. Remember my Nana once said to me, gets rid of all the flavor. Refrigerating a tomato. Yeah, don't refrigerate the tomato. You'll lose all the flavor. Well, what if some of us like flat, flavorless tomatoes? Well, obviously, you refrigerate everything, though.

Yeah, exactly. I don't like to taste my meal. Can we blend that up, get in some sort of a slop? Tomato slop at a can from Campania. So it became a very wealthy and sophisticated place to live. As in any growing place, it began to gentrified. and houses were subdivided and upper stories added to make room for the newcomers. So it was a boom in time.

Cool. Now a bustling town, it was home to about 10 to 12,000 people with as many again living in the surrounding countryside. Bars and restaurants lined the streets and shopping in the city was apparently world class. Oh. I wonder if they had like a Colin Street type set up.

Will they have Jimmy Chew? Oh, of course. Harry Winston. Coco Chanel. Did they have Coco Chanel? Yeah. That would be a pretty good name for a nail salon. Yeah.

Because they're always puns. So Coco Chanel would be pretty funny, actually. I copyright that one. Nah, it's probably already exists. Yeah, it's too good to not exist. Shanael! Coco Chanel! They're honestly always punny and it's always lame.

So Coco Chanel isn't that bad. There's a few industries that do that. Hair dishes. Thai food? Yes. There's a lot of. Thai puns and foe as well, even though I think faux is not even pronounced like that, but it's like photo is one around nearby to here. I think on Sydney road, there's a photo.

But it should be like fur toe. Yeah. And that is different, isn't it? That's why language is beautiful to me. Hairdresses do it a bit. Nail cellons do it a bit. What's a good hairdresser one? Um, snip, snip. You know? Oh yeah. And what's that playing on? Cissors. Oh, okay. I think you might misunderstand puns more than me. You know what I am very good at?

Impro. Yeah. Well, I mean, you're playing with a heavy way here. I did two semesters. Yeah, that's right. You know, and that probably still shone through. Snip, snip, snip. I think that's good.

Personally, I'd go there. About 10 years ago, I used to a podcast of the Dave Gorman Radio Show, and they were obsessed with pun names for places, and there was a hairdresser's called, Salon Lebon which I did not get that to explain was a pun on the Duran Duran singer Simon LeBond

Salon LeBon That does need to be explained I'm like this must be a pun in French or something No So good That doesn't work I don't think Salon Lebonne's not close enough to Simon

No at all I like it That's more like what you do For puns in the Patreon shout out bit later on That's right But more like Pompai, that's pretty good. That's good.

Come on. Yeah, and you're setting it up as well. You're saying Pompay more like Pompai. Yeah, yeah. Out of context, maybe people would be like, what's that referring to? Like if I call my Pai shop Pompuy. Yeah. What?

It's confusing. So it's a world-class shopping, lots of places to eat and drink. And it's also very advanced. Using Roman aqueduct technology, the city was supplied with fresh water flowing from the hills over 40 kilometers away. Oh, wow. This is 2,000 years ago. To quote from the Western Australian Museum, which in 2010 had an exhibit on Pompeii.

This water flowed into a roofed reservoir before dividing into three large lead pipes which ran under the pavements. Six metre high towers with lead tanks, lead's not great, but anyway, on top, we're built at intervals along these three pipelines. The 35 metre height difference between the Castellum, which is the name of the tank,

and the lowest point in the city meant that the water in the pipes was under pressure, allowing smaller pipes to carry water up to the tanks, then back down to the towers to support. public fountains, houses, shops and facilities like baths. It sounds like heaven. At first I'm like, take me back and now I'm like, ah, but my phone. How would you stay in touch with people?

How would I stay in touch with people? Well, my next sentence, they also had phones. Do they have Nintendo switches? Yes. Can I play my little bear and breakfast game? I'm afraid that game hasn't come out back then. Yeah, that comes out the next year. I have to wait.

You have to wait through an eruption. But what have I told you that? They do have toilets. Okay. While decidedly rare in other parts of the world at this time, toilets were commonplace in the sophisticated Pompey City and often occupied a small room off the kitchen. Off the kitchen.

Off the kitchen. Yeah, I don't think they say occupied. They say occupied. Do you want to shit next to the kitchen? Well, you never, a gentleman never sheds. But do you want to piss right next to the kitchen? Well, no. And I think there's real regulations about you can't have a toilet off a

kitchen, at least here in Australia. I don't know what they're doing in Pompeii. Yeah, true. Obviously different rules. We so want to tell that to whoever built my house. Anyway, bathing was a popular public activity and Pompey boasted three public baths. Oh, beautiful. The city also boasted advanced use of medicine with doctors and surgeons. The Roman medical system was so advanced that some say it remained unsurpassed until the 19th century. Wow. Pretty amazing. That is amazing. The city also claimed world-class entertainment.

Oh my God, have they got it? Tina Arena. Ricky Martin? I was already improvving. You don't have to improv over the top of me improvving. No, that's not me doing over the top. That's me thinking at the same time as you, but your mind works quicker. So you say it about five, ten minutes earlier than me.

Something said, not good. In about half an hour Matt I'll just say, Ricky Martin. Yeah, that's good, mate. Well, genuinely, I think we were both going. aiming for the same pause there. You just got to it so long before me. Well, they didn't have a Tina Arena, but they did have a... Ricky Martin.

They did have a Tina Ampitheatre. Oh. No relation. It's the oldest known amphitheatre in the Roman world. Actually called Tina? Yeah. Oh my God. Can you imagine?

I nailed that. And is it true? You've seen Bronwyn Cusses a bit about Tina Arena's real name as Tina Pina? Oh, no, I didn't. I haven't seen that bit. I've never looked up to see if it's true. It's a very funny bit. No, well, no doubt.

Bronner-encast is a very funny comedian. Yes. Tina Pina. That's funny. Again from the W.A. Museum, the contest Pompeians enjoyed were ultra-violent, ultra-violent, even by today's standards. That's so different. But I love that.

Even by today's standards, it's like, yeah, these people fought to the death. Yeah. By today's, what violence are we doing like that? Yeah, that's right. Our is more macroviolence, death from above and stuff. Back then, they at least killed people face to face. All about microaggressions and macroviolence. But it got quite rowdy in the amphitheater.

And our microviolence these days is even bad, you know, for Roman times. Yeah. Back then, people say stuff like, huh, you're wearing that today. Yeah. Is that a microviolence? And now what would we say? Now we'd say, huh. You're wearing fucking that today.

Yeah. That's an interesting choice. Matching that eyeliner with that blouse. That hurts. Matt knows so much about fashion. Are people still wearing blouses? Of course. Blouses will always be in.

Violent, you were saying. Got rowdy. He got rowdy in the stands. And one time there was a riot afterwards. And then to show them all, the emperor went, Okay, fine. I'm closing down the amphitheater for 10 years. Now nobody gets an amphitheater.

You happy? Cop it. Wow, that's a big... Ten years, I know. Dad's angry. That's it. I'm going to turn this amphitheater around. No, Dad!

Please, Dad. We love watching Gladiators fight animals. Gladiators, we're very popular amongst all of society. Both men and women idolize the fighters who are often foreign slaves. One piece of surviving graffiti in Pompey reads, Saladus, the Thracian, makes all the girls, sigh. That is so good.

Now what are they sighing about? Two thousand years ago. What are they sighing about? Maybe he's really dull. Maybe he says really problematic things and all the women go, have you thought about that? Saladus, the Thracian, shut the fuck up.

Because I've never seen a man so attractive that I've sighed. Well, you haven't seen Thelitus Thracian. But I wouldn't sigh. I'd go, Amuga! Humber, hubber! Humber! But that's written

Saladus the Thracian makes all the girls go Arruga. Si might have, you know, language is always evolving. Si back then might mean aruga now. We don't know. I'm not how all of us have done that very differently. It's very fun to do though. If you put like a sigh into Google Translate

from Italian to English, it does give you aruga. I wish I could roll R's like Jess did. I didn't roll ours. Dave rolled ours. Arruga. I can't roll my dad. I get you too confused. I know.

I went for that sort of like grunt that always makes you laugh. Beautiful sound. Beautiful sound. Our delicate lady. Satisfying. Love to hear it right in my ears. We're in these headphones. Ooh.

You know what? When you do that sound, it makes me think, well, it did hurt my throat a little bit, so I'm just going to have a little break. Worth it. So I'm trying to paint a picture of this city, though. So it's very advanced for the time, especially. and would remain that way on any scale for a long time in terms of advanced. Isn't that wild that it was until the 19th century?

Yeah, for medicine, yeah. That's so cool. I love that our century, our couple of centuries have really taken the world forward. I think that was us, you know, collectively. The modern Romans. You've been around for most of that time. That's right. I've seen a lot of that stuff being done.

I'm just a whittle baby. Yeah. So I haven't had much of an opportunity to make an impact on the world. Maybe you've played your part. Well, I've tried. Dave had a medical condition named after him. If I'm remembering that anecdote correctly, I'm not, I'm guessing. Which one?

No, that was someone else. All right. How many people are you podcasting with? Oh, my God. That's a very personal question. This is how we find out. Yeah, hang on a second. I don't really do body counts, Jess.

I think they're a bit uncouth. Yeah, I think so too. Potty counts. Ponging is back. Now, there's debate as to how many people live there in 79 AD, the year in question, but most historians estimate it's about 20,000 people. Yeah, right. That's a decent size town.

Yeah. A nearby to Pompeii was the smaller town of Herculaneum. It had... Oh, my God. It was pretty awesome, isn't it? Holy shit. Herculaneum. It had about 5,000 residents.

Hydrogen, helium, Herculaneum. That would sound like the strongest medal ever discovered. Sorry, Dave. Sorry, we were interrupting it a lot. I'm going to pipe down. It had 5,000 residents. It's a bit smaller, but it grew to become a holiday resort and luxurious retreat for the wealthy landowners who built and bought estates there.

So it's much more wealthy. It's very exclusive. A little enclave. Sounds like where I'd want to live. I think you would. The largest villa known as the villa of Papiri is widely believed to have been owned by Julius Caesar's father-in-law, who I only bring up because he's got an incredible name,

which is Lucius, Kelpernius, Piso, Cizoninus. That is a beautiful name. Four boy or girl. I'm going to need that one more time. Lucius.

Calpurnius. Piso. Piso. Neas. Oh, that is good. What would he does nickname be? Nina's the penis, sure.

Yeah. People, you know. Yeah. Back then. They hear what they want to hear. They heard Nienes the penis. There's also a couple of other places nearby, including Stabier and...

What? Stabier. It's a fancy place. to get stabbed. That's the nickname of Cork or Limerick. I forget. One of the Stab City in the island. Right.

You can never remember which one. I can never remember which one it is. And the people from the other city, I imagine, don't appreciate that. Stabiae and also Torre Anunziata. Are the two other places nearby. Okay. And they all had one thing in common. They were overlooked by a giant.

Oh. I'm actually, I'm talking about Mount Vesuvius, but in fact, in Greek and Roman mythology, giants were said to. have been defeated and then buried under mountains where their tormented shivers were said to cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Oh wow. So you could say it's a giant, yeah. That's sick.

I kind of like that. We defeated the giants, but they haunt us. Yeah. They fuck us up every few years. Every time they shiver. Tormentedly. We got to rebuild. God, these fucking giants.

Even after death giving us grace. Jeez Louise. Mount Vosuvius does really loom over the whole area, though. And even today, when driving down the highway, you can see it from miles and miles away. You're like, holy shit, there it is. And it really looks like a cartoon of a volcano. Right. Like what you're imagining.

It's like, bang, there it is. Wow. Got a bit of steam coming out, that big hole in the middle. May as well. Yeah. Pomp. That's a no. No, it doesn't.

But we can talk about why that's important. Okay. Hey, Dave, is Pompey, is that where Pompus comes from? Any relation there? I'm not sure. I'm not sure that comes from Pompey the Great, maybe. Pompus meaning. Pompey the Great

Geez, you can throw anything at Dave and he'll have an answer Thank you for never doing that to me Even if you were like Hey Jess, what is your middle name? I'd be like, oh, I'm frazzled Can you ask Dave? Snip, snip snip!

Jess, snip, snip, perkins Oh, that could overtake Bop I reckon No Snip, snip, snip No, I've had Bop personalised on so many things, I can't start again You know the only way to ensure a new nickname is to deny it.

Yeah, you're right. I love it. Call me Snip, snip, snipp, everybody. All right, snip, snip. No! Call me Simon Le Bonn. That's a great name. What a great name.

Now, Pompas, I'm looking up. It's late Middle English, so not from here, from this period of time. From old French Pompo, which means full of grandeur. Oh, yes. That's nice. And from late Latin, Pompus from Pompor or Pomp. There you go.

I love the word, though, pompous. It's fantastic. Pomp, all of that is great. So fun. Great fun there, great fun. So Pompey was located just five miles away from Mount Vesuvius, and by AD 79, it hadn't erupted in four centuries, which is quite a long time. And the longer the time between eruptions, the more catastrophic the eventual eruption will be. So that's why it's important.

That volcano's got blue moor. So if steam was coming out, that would actually be good because it would be venting a bit. Oh yeah, having a wank. But it ain't wanking. Wet dreams. The Giants having a wet dream. The chastity belt is padlocked on at this point. I'm so sorry.

My parents listen to this podcast. Do they really? Sorry, guys. It's a bit funny though. So it hasn't gone off, so to speak, in four centuries. So to speak. They had no idea, but they were living directly underneath a ticking time bomb. Oh, no.

Now, two of the most famous people connected to Pompeii and Vesuvius are two people who are also very well known in their own time in the Roman world, Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger. Oh, yep, that makes sense. No, they are. Are these? No, they are. They love that younger and elder thing in the Olden days.

They didn't have as many names, so you sort of had to name your kid after yourself. And it's a bit like senior and junior now. Yeah. You know, we've just made it way cooler. Yeah, yeah. The younger, the older. And the older is a bit hurtful too, because I had kids younger back then as well. So you're like, what?

I'm 20 and I'm the elder. Come on. I got my whole life ahead of me. That's on you for naming your kid after yourself. Yeah, true. I got my whole life ahead of me. I got like seven or eight years left. Seven or eight good years left.

And then I'll die of old age. With dignity. Thank you very much. Pliny. It's also even worse, I think, though, when you're Pliny the younger, your whole life you've been the younger. But when you're an old man, they're still calling you the younger. That's like you with master.

Take me seriously, bank. Dave, those don't know. The credit card still says master instead of mister and he's tried so hard to get him to judge it. They refuse. They say, little boy, get your mother to call us back. Your Dolomites account is doing very well. Aren't you a good whittle saver?

So Pliny the Elder was a Roman author, naturalist, natural philosopher as well as a naval and army commander. Naturalist meaning he goes nude? Yeah. He's a nudist. Never wore pants. man. I get it.

Plenty of the elder and he called his... Don't do it. Okay. Nah, go on. He called his. Well, he's always out and about and he called plenty of the smaller or something. So you had nowhere to go. You didn't know where you were going with it.

No. So I almost helped you by saying, don't do it. I'm sorry for making you do it then. Dave will add it around that and make it tidy that up a bit. Yep. Where did you think I was? ago when you said don't go there. Penis.

Yeah. Yeah. We knew you were naming the wang. It was very clear. You were going to name a penis. Yeah. I just think if you, I think it's a beautiful naming, what do you call that naming thing? Convention?

Convention. Thank you. I think it's, yeah, I think it's an honor that all, all young men, they get to a certain age and they get to name their penis. Yeah, they get to know, naming dogs. But if you're, you know, you get to call everything. Just plenty the, you know, call your hand, plenty of the fingers. Plenty the finger, finger.

I don't mind that. Plenty the finger. Plenty the toe. Yeah, plenty of the toe. That was the nickname of his penis. Plenty the knee. Not good. Oh, the toe.

Yeah, plenty of the toe. Big toe, little toe. Little toe. The knee would be plenty of the leg bendy. Okay, mine was better. Plenty the knee, but, okay. I mean, it's a knee though. Yeah.

Okay. Dave. Dave. Dave. Dave. Dave. Dave. Dave.

Dave. Do go on. Dave. Dave. Dave. Do go on. The BBC describes Pliny the Elder as possibly the most well-informed living Roman on matters of natural science. His 37-volume, Natural History, is the longest work on science in Latin that has survived from antiquity,

and is described by Britannica with semi-praise. Natural history and encyclopedic work of uneven accuracy that was an authority on scientific matters up to the Middle Ages. Uneven accuracy. But I mean, to even be accurate a bit, back then. Yes, this is 2,000 years ago. Yeah. When they're thinking that giants are buried under mountains and stuff.

Yeah, it's not bad. It's pretty good. In the 37 volumes, he had a crack at astronomy, zoology, botany, agriculture, medicine, minerals and geography. Whoa. He was a very influential writer, although he didn't get everything right. He believed heavily in magic and superstition. And this helped shape scientific and medical theory in subsequent centuries for better always.

Right. He was a... You got to go to your... GP and they're like, have you tried magic? Have you contacted a warlock about this? Yeah, take a couple of eyes than you and have a bit of rest. Definitely had medical experiences worse than that. Like when I went in with a, like I was getting like a reaction where I was getting like

boils on my skin and I went to the doctor and he goes, what do you think it is? Oh my God, I've had a doctor do that. What do you mean? The childhood doctor I went to for a very long time when I started getting migraines. Like I'd seen him, we did some tests. I came back two days later and he was like, what can I help you with? And I was like, it's been two days.

Look at your chart. And then he had a look at the chart and then went, hmm, so what should we do? And I was like, I don't know, Rex. I'll come to you, mate. That's why I'm here. I like it. You dropped the doctor at that point. It's like, you're just Rex.

His name's Rex. He's just some guy. Exactly. You've taken back. Far out. Don't see him anymore. This guy ended my $70 consultation by saying, oh, hang on. got onto his computer started typing saying, how do you spell it?

How do you spell it? And then he wrote down on a post-it note and slid it across the desk and all it said on it was Zyrtec. Good. The anti-histamine braided. How do you spell it? How do you spell it?

And yeah. Like it sounds, actually. Pay that man $70. Good. Was that helpful? Is Zertek help with the skin irritation? That's fun to know that we're basically all doctors already. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I can remember an ad. I can do that too. I can almost remember that. Almost remember that, yeah. I might be overqualified for this one. So Pliny had some theories. One was, he was a big proponent of the doctrine of signatures,

which I'd never heard of, but it's the belief that plants display characteristics or signatures, such as colour, shape, or a common name that are indicative of the disease that they can cure. Oh. The idea that God or a high being has given us clues as to what stuff can help our bodies with. A common name. God gave us all the names.

And this belief was actually widespread throughout many cultures in the world for a long, long time. Some examples include walnuts, which were considered to be shaped a bit like the human brain. Maybe they could help with brain disease. Blood roots. They also look like testies. Yeah.

Brain disease. Brain disease. Your ball brains. Yeah, lower brain. As upper brain, there's brain the elder. Plethe the lower. That's what I should have said before.

Damn it. It's good to workshop these things. Plithy? Plithy the lower. That's what I call my balls. Plithy. Plithy. What was his name?

Pliny. Pliny the lower. Pliny the dangling. Some other examples of the doctrine of signatures include blood root, which has a red extract, was theorized it could fix problems with blood. Or rooting. Maybe. the plant saxophage.

A little saxophones. And Brendan Fraser. No, it breaks apart rocks as it grows. Okay. Because it's like a plant that breaks the rocks. So they thought it could cure help. It could help kidney stones. Oh yeah, yeah.

They could break them apart. The herb called Elkenet has a viper shaped seed. So they thought that could treat. Pieness. Damn it! They could help penis. Well, this one. Hello, doctor.

I have a sick penis. Well, they might give you ginseng root, which was used to assist male sexual vitality due to its resemblance to the male reproductive anatomy. Are you kidding me? I just said penis for the other one, and you couldn't have said, just hang on one, go have a guess of this one.

You couldn't let me have a guess of that one when I just yelled penis. Come on. Let's just yell penis again. For the last 3658 episodes, you've just yelled penis over and over again. That's true. I'm a delight to work with.

Ginseng root is still used today, though. Penis. Oh, sorry. That's true. Yeah. Today, the doctrine of signatures is considered to be pseudoscience and has led to many deaths and severe illnesses. Oh, boy. Whoops, anyway.

Still pseudoscience? Hasn't been fully taken off the science. Yeah, science is still in there, isn't it? Yeah. Makes you think. There you go. So obviously, it wasn't too far off the mark there. Pliny.

Plithy. No, you're right. Just fucking with you. Anyway, I just found that interesting. I don't want to paint Pliny the elder to be a complete quack. He was, and he was one of the most educated people of his day. Yeah. Unlike many of the sources, his writings were based on his work survived and became sort of a default text and wasn't properly challenged for about 1,500 years.

Wow. So good on your Pliny. That's pretty good. Pliny also held a number of positions of influence in Rome. His last assignment was that of commander of the fleet. And he was also a social media influencer. Yes. He was commander of the fleet in the Bay of Naples, where he was charged with the suppression

of piracy. The Bay of Naples is very close to Pompey, and his job would mean that he would be very nearby on that fateful day. Now, was he the elder or the younger or the dangling? That's the elder. The younger slash dangling is his nephew, Pliny the Younger. Oh.

Not even his son. But he was adopted by Pliny the Elder. He grew to be famous and influential in his own right, becoming a lawyer, author and magistrate, holding many positions of power, including console and head of the military and senatorial treasuries. How are you doing all those things?

I hope he was a lawyer and magistrate at the same time. I'll allow it. Objection. Overruled. What? I'm me. Fuck you. Sustained.

Sustain. Well, that's slanderous. It's important that I show impartiality. Don't make me throw you out, Penny. Many of the letters he wrote survive, including to emperors and historians like Tacitus, give us a snapshot of Rome. at the time, including a certain fateful day in Pompeii in AD 79.

Did you say 1879? AD 79. Oh, AD 79. I'm like, whoa. The Roman Empire was around much more recent than I realized. No, it's a long, long time ago. And because that's one of the reasons there's debate to this day as to whether the eruption happened in August, as recalled by Pliny the Younger, or in October, based on the

fact that fresh pomegranates and olives were found in. houses in Pompeii and seasonally for that to be possible it would have to be it's more likely to have been later in the year. So you say August or October? Yep. No, not September though. Well, Pliny says August and then science is October. And then how was fresh fruit found?

How was it found? Yeah. From seeds and the like. Okay. Because remarkably it's been very well preserved as we'll talk about. But we do know it was AD 79. That's important. During the period leading up to the eruption,

there had been many tell-tale signs of what was to come. For days the region had been rocked by tremors, but the townsfolk carried on with their lives as small earthquakes were common across the Campania region. They were only concerned by large earthquakes that happened from time to time, including 17 years earlier in 62 AD when Pompey was rocked by a seismic activity that almost destroyed the entire town. And there's evidence that they were still rebuilding stuff

when the volcano erupted 17 years later. Is it possible? I know this will help prove my delayed brain thing. But, you know, we're talking about October and August. Here we go. I thought you were going to say because... Ricky Martin. Because October is the 8th, which got bumped back, right,

because of some Pope or someone added a couple more months in. So August is actually the 8th month. I thought you were going to say it was some confusion about it. it being the eighth month? No, I think it's mostly because of bad handwriting, they think. Okay. Probably Rex scribbled down something. Honestly, I think your theory there is too intelligent.

That's too smart. That's too smart. It's bad handwriting or the fact that, as we'll talk about, Pliny described the events 25 years later. Right. So his mind might have just been a little bit off. Right. Because he was alive for 25 more years.

Holy shit. It's like a person's entire lifetime. Yeah, well, he was a baby at the time. It's like living to 200. now. His memories of a baby. So then I started crying. Yeah, I normally did that around August.

Oh, was it October that I cried? I can't remember. Did I cry twice that year? Now, so in the days before the eruption, there's lots of earthquakes going on. Small light tremors, but they're ignoring them. Life is normal. Who cares? They happen, whatever.

Yep. Now, educated Romans knew what volcanoes were and plenty of the air. elder had written about lava flows in Mount Etna in Sicily. But most Pompeians had no idea what was going on underneath the earth beneath their feet, but now, thanks to modern science, we do. I didn't... Giants. I knew so little about volcanoes.

I didn't even know the word volcano is derived from the name of Volcano, which is V-U-L-C-A-N-O, a volcanic island in the Aeolian Islands off of Italy, whose name in turn comes from Vulcan, the god of fire in Roman mythology. Shit, and Vulcan was my favorite gladiator. Yes. It all comes back around. I preferred tower, but Vulcan was still pretty cool. Tower's great.

Delta was probably my other favorite. Tai Pan. Tai Pan, pretty good. Good stuff. They're all great. Let's be honest. Russell Crow as well. But Volcano is an island that has a big, like, very stereotypical looking volcano on as well.

So it's named after that. But this didn't come into use until the 1600s. So a long time after the eruption in 79 AD. So they didn't have a word for volcano. They just used to be angry mountains or something. Yeah. They'd seen lava and been like, oh, I guess that's to do with the giants underneath.

What they also didn't realize is underneath the volcano is a magma chamber filled with molten rock. Some volcanologists estimate the tank of molten rock underneath Vesuvius to be three kilometers deep and five kilometers in diameter. It fills up over time and causes earthquakes and heats the local ground water. Over time, the ground above the tank's split. and the thin column of magma makes its way to the surface via a small fissure or a crack.

It's sort of releasing a bit of the energy. Usually... Pre-come. Yes. Thanks for putting it into unsettleable terms. Usually it leaks out slowly in the form of a lava flow. Leaking out slowly. You want it leaking out fast?

The tank underneath is overflowing and a bit just flows out. It releases the chamber, you know? Every now and then. you've got to let it go. But in 79 AD, the magma couldn't make its way to the surface to vent because it was covered by dense rock formations that trapped it all inside. The pressure of the gases created by the magma built up underneath the rocks for hundreds of years until it could no longer hold.

Someone lightly touched the giant's leg. Oh, no, stop. Oh, my God. Oh, dear Lord. Oh, there's going to be an interruption. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, wow, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, okay. Got to think about something unsexy.

Dead puppies, dead puppies, dead puppies, grandma, grandma. Oh, imagine you, imagine the giant does that and all of a sudden is coming, thinking about dead puppies and grandma. Oh, that's going to lead to issues down the track. So eventually, after hundreds of years, it can no longer hold, and eventually it cracked. That's not a bad weight. How long?

400 years. 400 years. Eventually it cracked through the cone of the volcano. Talk about edging. Yeah. Now, this type of eruption is, it's ultimate edging because it's only seen every 2 to 5,000 years and it's much, much more destructive. In this case, this was Vesuvius's biggest eruption for 2,000 years.

Wow. But the Romans had no idea about this, and they had no idea that in many ways this was history repeating itself. Because in 2001, archaeologists unearthed remnants of a brookylus of a broodian. Bronze Age Village, just 25 kilometres from Pompeii in Nola. Oh, wow. Which had been abandoned after Vesuvius's eruption 2,000 years before the 79 AD eruption. So this was, so this whole area had a history of settlements being taken out by the volcano, being

buried, totally forgotten about, and the new people would come along. Wow, how rich is this soil? Yeah, the soil's so fertile here. Wow. Fantastic. Why aren't people already living here? Yeah, so we don't claim this land. It's great.

It feels like it's like nature setting a trap, you know, like a, a, you know, like a, Venus flytrap or something. Hey, come in here. And they wouldn't know that it's so fertile because of the repeated eruptions and then history would repeat itself and then things would just get buried in and start again. That's just the earth just eating humans. Yeah, yeah. Reclaiming them.

Er. So in 79 AD, it all came to a head, so to speak. It erupted and molten rock that was previously trapped, shot into the air with incredible force, and then fragmented and cooled into billions of fragments of dust. and pumice. The cloud above the volcano quickly reached kilometers into the air. 10,000 tons of material was ejected every second. Wow.

So it just goes, every second. Holy shit. And the town just hear this massive sort of explosion, and they're looking up at this now kilometers high cloud going, what the hell is that? Winds up at high altitudes above the volcano, blew the cloud southeast,

which unfortunately, for the Pompeians, put their city directly at the center of the deluge. So a lot of things have gone wrong at the same time And it's a lot of molten lava like spewing up Yeah So at this time it's like sort of more ashy type stuff So you're not being burnt by it But it is like what the hell is that?

And how far away are they again from they're not far? Five miles That's not far at all Yeah, yeah hoping they're reading this as a warning Yes Maybe start running You'd hope that wouldn't you? Oh no

Panic set in as dust and pumice began to to rain down, the noise must have been absolutely incredible. Fortunately for the people being covered in it, Pommas is quite a light volcanic rock. Described by Britannica as a very porous, froth-like volcanic glass. It's lightweight and floats on water. It's debated, but a lot of scientists believe that the volcanic matter that initially fell on Pompeii wasn't heavy enough to kill people, but it fell at a rate of 20 centimetres per hour. So it quickly began to bury the city and cover all the roofs.

Pliny the Younger wrote about people fleeing, he wrote, After weighing up the risks, they chose the open country and tied pillows over their heads with cloths for protection. That doesn't feel like it's going to be all that much protection. No. So a lot of people are running. But I honestly, first thing I'd grab is my pillow. I love my pillow. You do love you.

You've bought it up on a trip recently. Yeah, yeah. I brought a bigger suitcase than I needed for a three-day trip. Did she take the pillow? So that one half of it was my pillow. And you know what? I was happy with that. It's a good decision.

I've never done it, but yeah, I hadn't seen it done before either. but that could be a real game changer. Love my pillow. I got a great pillow as well. I got a bad back and a bad neck. I need my pillow. I've got one of those pillows that's got, you can flip it depending if you're on your side or on your back,

and it's got different sort of ridges. Sort of like a low half pipe kind of pillow. Yeah, that's good stuff. It's real good. Dropping in and in your sleep. Yeah. Oh man, I had a dream. I know dreams are so tedious,

but I had a dream last night that I had a huge muscular vex. And I'm like, I don't know what I've done. How has this happened? The rest of you exactly the same. Your legs just really muscular. So I almost looked like one of those half-man half-beasts. They were that muscular.

Yeah, they were real. I'm like, holy shit. Wow, like the horse legs. I was in my dream looking in the mirror, just flexing my legs going, this is awesome. This guy never skips leg there. Oh, no. Did you wake up disappointed?

Did you check your legs? Oh, no. These little spindles. These little pins. They're still in proportion with a resume. Me, it sucks. Yeah, I thought I had the legs of Jess for a minute. Wow, imagine.

I don't have to. So a lot of people use their muscular legs to run away, but not everyone did. Some decided to wait and see shelter in place, as it were, like they did during an earthquake. They'd set it out before and been fine. For many, this decision would cost them their lives. So people made it out if they ran. Yeah, if you left early, a lot of people did get away. I didn't know that.

And if you stayed and defended, you did not get away. It's hard to defend something like that. Yeah, this isn't a bushfire. Yeah, a fire blanket isn't going to protect you. Over the first few hours after the eruption, material began to fall at an increasing rate. The eruption became more intense,

expelling more and more magma. The falling materials increased from 1 million kilograms per second to 10 million kilograms every second. 10 million kilos every second. I can't even... No, it's impossible. I don't even fathom that, yeah. You can't imagine it.

But it's a lot. All I'm just imagining is a lot. Dave, I know you're going to know what question I'm about to ask. How many Olympic pools fall? Every pool ever. Wow. Even the ones that have been filled in. Holy shit.

They dig him out and then. Holy shit. That's how big this is. The eruption column eventually reached a heart of 32 kilometres into the air, which is 105,000 feet. Whoa. Is that high than like a bird flies? Yeah. Yeah, even a really big bird.

Like a plane? But not big bird. Okay. Who doesn't fly. Little wings. Not in proportion with the rest of him. Yeah. Great pins though.

Oh yeah, great pin's a boy. I think so. There you go. I mean, you know. Probably doesn't really matter. Gender is a construct. Yeah. Much like the costume is a construct.

So, you know, big bird can be whatever they want to be. I don't care. You know, I love Big Bird. I love Big Bird. I'm glad. that Big Bird wasn't there that day. I think I always saw Big Bird was a woman. Not a girl.

A woman. Or is Big Bird meant to be a kid? I have no idea. Oh my God. How big is Big Bird going to get? Oh my God. Big Bird's like six months old. Holy shit.

Oh my God, Big Bird. Big Bird will crush us all. If I Google. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. What is the age? Oh, yeah. Of Big Bird.

So look. Big Bird is male Is Big Bird a kid? Is Big Bird a kid? The second thing. Big Bird is a six-year-old Walking Talking Yellow Bird. Holy shit.

Standing 8 feet to 2 inches. 8 feet 2 at 6. Holy shit. It's got 10 more years of growth probably. Wow. Assuming it's sort of... Well, I don't know. Animals are a bit different, aren't they?

Yeah, that's true. I'm thinking of it as a human. My dog's fully grown. He's only 2. Right. Well, there you go. He's not going to get any bigger. And this is a big bird.

That is a big bird. So... You know how like giraffes are born pretty big, but they do get quite a lot bigger. Yeah. Anyway, Dave, back to... I've also looked up the highest flying bird species on record is the endangered Rupples Griffin Vulture. Oh, wow. Which fly...

I might borrow that for who knew it with Matt Stewart. Rupples Griffin Vulture. It flies at 37,000 feet, which is the same as a coastal, as a coasting commercial aeroplane, but this is 105,000 feet. So it's smoking all the birds. A bird's never flown this high. No. It's higher than planes? Way higher than planes fly.

Whoa! We fly really high. It's so, I think it's... Is it high than a rocket's ever gone? Yes. Was this lava to the moon? The moon is covered in lava. Whoa!

This is getting intense. It's almost, it's like, remember I said the Concord was fly super high? That's only 60,000 feet. So it's so fucking high. The whole area was blanketed in darkness. And as the column reached the sky... Well, yeah, because the sun's covered in lava now.

Yeah. Sorry, son. The sun got burnt out that day. Oh, no. I'm supposed to be the hot one. Stop her So how do they know these things? These are obviously

solid guesstimates No one was out there with a tape measure on the day It's to do with now they can study Like where the ash flew and all that stuff Yeah, there's sort of the splatter zones Yeah, splatter zone, how thick it was Yeah But it's so, and based on other volcanoes of this size

It's like how they know which rows of the splash zone At SeaWorld Right Yeah, it's something you're estimate. Some of you, in this zone you will get wet and the other zones, you may get wet. That's right. Kind of stress this enough. So the whole area, blanket in darkness, as the column reached for the sky, it connected the earth with the upper atmosphere causing continuous lightning strikes. It must have felt like the end of the world of these people who have no idea

what's going on. They've got no scientific knowledge of this is. Are they religious people? Yes, they've got many, many gods. So you might be thinking some version of the rapture. Yeah, a lot of people are thinking this is end of days. That's why I think a lot of people also don't leave because they're like, well, I'm sure this is happening all over Earth. Yeah, right. It's not just here. Yes, of course. Whoa.

Yeah, where will I run? Yeah, where's... Even the sun is coming. Yeah, that's right. Oh, no. The eruption kicked off around noon and by 4pm, Pompey was buried in a blanket of Pommis a meter deep. So then for a...

And that's a coincidence as well, Pommas and Pompey. When was it named Pompey? Was it before after the Pommas? Before. Wow. Wow. What are the odds?

What are the chance? But imagine that there's a meter of like ash and, this glass like rock has buried, buried everything. And we know a lot about the eruption because of two of Pliny the Youngers surviving letters. In fact, they are the only firsthand account of the eruption that have survived.

So they're very important to history. So he's in the bay trying to suppress pirates and he looks over his shoulder. That's his uncle dad. Right. Duncle. Duncle. So this guy was there and he was one of the fleas? No, so I'll explain where he was.

How about I'll let you explain it? Wait, so he was on a horse. Yes? Matt, do you want to take a room here? The match you would question hour. I'm a nightmare after half a coffee. Oh my God, don't finish the rest of that coffee. So he's written two letters.

Even then, as I said before, they were written 25 years later to Tacitus, a famous historian who contacted his friend Pliny for his account of the eruption. and Tacitus was doing a bit of research and he said, oh, you were close by that day. What was it like? And he wrote two letters describing it. Tacitus himself is now thought of by many to be one of the greatest Roman historians. So that's how they survived. Have you heard Tacitus quoted by the great man? The great man, Dan Carlin.

Yeah. It does seem like a tacit. But he would say Tacitus. Tacitus. Unquote. Plutarch. Right. You lost Plutarch.

The letters have been translated into East. English in many different ways, but this translation comes from the Cecil H and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. I trust that. Me too. I didn't do too much research, but they seem trustworthy. Yeah, it seems legit to me. The first letter describes the journey of his uncle Pliny the elder, and is the reason that for hundreds of years people thought the date of the eruption was the 24th of August. But there's a chance he either got it wrong because it was 25 years or the writing was hard to read and has been mistranslated over the years.

I heard someone blame his scribe. Brutal. He's like, write this. Yep, October 24, 79 AD and the guy's written it really quick. I've cut it down a bit, but this is most of his first letter about his uncle Pliny the Elder.

He writes, at that time, and then he writes 24th of August, AD 79, my uncle was at Mycenae, which is not far, well, I've added this in it, which is not far around the bay from Pompey.

Okay. He's close by. in command of the fleet because memory's taken on pirates about one in the afternoon my mother pointed out a cloud with an odd size and appearance that it just formed from that distance it was not clear from which mountain the cloud was rising although it was found afterwards to be vesuvius the cloud could be described as more like an umbrella pine than any other tree because it rose high up in a kind of trunk and then divided off into branches so he says it's like a pine tree coming out of the mountain. More of a pine tree than any pine tree. Yes. Or any other tree. Right. And this is the first

ever description. It feels like such a bad description of it. It's from 2,000 years ago. Okay. Good point. Thank you. And you think this is a bad description. This is the first ever description of such an eruption. And because of this type of eruption is now known as a plinyan eruption. Because he's the first guy to ever describe it. Wow. And Matt's like, what a shit description. I would surely it would now be known as a pine tree and eruption. No. Amazingly not. Another recent example of a pliny an eruption includes my previous report topic,

Mounts and Helens when it erupted in 1980. You've become our explosion expert or our volcano. You're a volcanologist. Thank you. What am I? Well, you, what have you? You've got a few. You do a lot of serial killers in the past.

So I'm a serial killer. Colts, maybe. Is that you? No, that's me. That's you. Okay, we'll find my thing. Musicians. Dolly Parton.

Dolly Parton. Freddie Mercury. Elton John. The Beatles. Yeah, okay, yeah. You might have done Bowie. I'm our musician. You did Bowie.

Okay. Okay, yeah, great. Mine's actually the coolest. Yeah. Mine's volcanoes. L loser. Lame. Lame.

Lesser. Pliny continues. Like a true scholar, my uncle saw it once that it deserved closer study and ordered a boat to be prepared. He said that I could go with him, but I chose to continue my studies. Nerd. What a freaking nerd. A volcano is erupting and he's like, I have homework to do. Just as he was leaving the house, he was handed a message from Rekina, which is a great name. The wife of Tascis, whose home was at the foot of the mountain and had no way of escape except by boat. She was terrified by the threatening danger and begged him to rescue her. He changed plan at once

and what had started in the spirit of scientific curiosity, he ended as a hero. He ordered the large galley to be launched and set sail. He steered bravely straight for the danger zone, that everyone else was living in fear and haste, but still he kept on noting his observations. Oh, that's heroic. He's really big enough his uncle in this.

Yeah, there's nothing more heroic than noting observations. In the face of possible disaster. Suddenly the sea shallowed where the shore was obstructed. Oh, my God. The sea shallower. where the shore was obstructed. Oh my God, that was, you made that sound easy.

Have a go. The sea shallow where the shore was obstructed. Oh my God. You nailed it. Holy fuck. What a thrill. Suddenly, the sea shallowed where the shore was obstructed and choked by debris from the mountain.

He wondered whether to turn back as the captain advised, but decided instead to go on. Fortune favors the brave, he said. Take me to pomponianus. What is this a Bitcoin ad? Hey, that's too much for me to remember. She said, what if it adds? And then you said, you just kept going.

I can only think I can remember all that. You don't remember Pomponianus? Who is... Pomponianus is fantastic. Who is an unfortunately named Roman senator, and I've only included because his name made me laugh so much. Pomponianus. I'd say fortunately named.

Fortunately favors the brave and naming rights. Pomponianus. Ponyanus. Is that two names? That's all one word, pomponianus. Pomponianus. Beautiful name for a boy or a girl. Could I suggest that?

Even as a middle name, you know, if you're like, oh, we don't want to have a real, you know, look at me name. Yeah. Pomponianus. Just bury it in the middle. Call them like Richard Pomponianus. Yeah, Perkins. Dickie Perks. That's nice.

He's nice. So he makes it to shore to stay with these people. But then, unfortunately for him, the wind changed because of the volcano. And they weren't able to get back into the boat because the wind was blowing to where they were rather than from. So they couldn't escape. So they decided to stay the night and shelter in place. He even went to bed bravely apparently is.

Everything is big up. Bravely, I went to bed at my regular bedtime. In the face of danger, I put my head on my pillow. I had a cup of tea and I read a book for a bit until I was quite sleepy. And then courageously, I shut my eyelids. one after the other, as I tend to do. And I dropped peacefully into a brave slumber. A mighty slumber.

Yes. I face my nightmares without fear. Or reproach. But actually, he's saying I face my nightmares without fear, but then you see him sleeping and he's going, ah! Bats, I hate bats! Oh, my legs are so big! Ooh, ooh.

I courageously cleaned the shit off the sheets the next morning I wasn't going to let the housekeeper have to deal with that No I am a man And a man cleans up his own shit That's a bit of fun That's a real catch-22 Because a gentleman never shit That's right

But a man But also a gentleman never leaves shit for other people to clean up It's tough isn't it Yeah it's like Strodinger's shit That's right If nobody sees the gentleman's shit Does he shit? I think in...

You know what I mean? I think, I can't remember why I started saying. I just find it so funny when there's rules like that. Well, the gentleman never does whatever. So it's sort of meant to be like a taking that to the end degree. But someone tweeted one at me recently. It was a gentleman never wears gouty socks. And I was from an old newspaper.

And it was like a genuine article with these sort of quite outrageous socks. But a gentleman never does that. I'm like, that's exactly what I'm talking about. It's so funny. Toxic masculinity. That's toxic masculinity? Fuck, I don't understand anything. I know.

Pliny the Younger finishes his description of his uncle saying it was daylight everywhere else by this time, but they were still enveloped in a darkness that was blacker and denser than any night, and they were forced to light their torches and lamps. My uncle went down to the shore to see if there was any chance of escape by the sea, but the waves were still far too high. He lay down to rest on a sheet and called for drinks of water, bravely. Then suddenly flames and a strong smell of sulphur, giving warning of yet more flames to come, forced the others to flee.

He himself stood up with the support of two slaves, and then he suddenly collapsed and died, because I imagine he was suffocated when the dense fumes choked him. When light returned on the third day after the last day that he had seen, his body was found intact and uninjured, still fully clothed, and looking like a man asleep, than dead. How do they know all that? Oh, because some people did escape.

Right, and they watched him die. Unrelate that story. Some people say he either had like an asthma or he was either gravely unwell already and just had a heart attack because he lived a very excessive life. That was Plethe? That's Pliny the Elder. Pliny the Elder. But does that mean, is his nephew son filling in some blanks there?

So remember his nephew son, he said to him, do you want to come with me? He said, oh, no, I'll stay here and study. Yeah. So he's safely away from the flames. So he's got the, but how do people know all this stuff if the guy died and he couldn't tell his own story? Oh, because other people that were with him did survive. Right, okay.

Who didn't have a heart attack on the beach and die. Bravely. Bravely. Not that way to go. So that's his first letter. No, because then like you die on a beach. You know when you go to the beach and there's just sand everywhere for like a week? That's your eternity.

You'd be in, yeah, in heaven, presumably. Yeah. Sand in your cracks still. Every time, it's got it all. You didn't. You never had it all. It's like glitter.

You know, like the many times that we have glitter. Not enough. So that's the first letter describing what his uncle did and it ends up like changing the name for what we call eruptions. His second letter details what Pliny the Younger himself was up to at Mycinum. He's 18 miles away from the volcano on the other side of the Bay of Naples. He was 17 years old at the time.

but he's written this letter 25 years later. He said, Meanwhile, my mother and I had stayed at Meissenham. After my uncle left us, I studied, dined, and went to bed, but slept only fitfully. We had earth tremors for several days, which are not especially alarming because they happened so often in Campania. But that night they were so violent that everything felt

as if it were being shaken and turned over. We were followed by a panic-stricken crowd that chose to follow someone else's judgment rather than decide anything for themselves. So they all started to flee, because everyone's panicking at this point. Then we saw the sea suck. backed back, apparently by an earthquake, and many sea creatures were left stranded on the dry sand. And this description makes many people think that possibly a tsunami had also occurred that day.

Wow. But they're not sure. Can a volcano cause a tsunami like that? Yes, because of the seismic activity underneath, underneath the ocean. Holy shit. Which is crazy. It would be pretty amazing to see just an ocean empty, and all of a sudden you can just see... See, like sea creatures just left there going, oh my God.

Where's the water? Yeah. That would be very surreal. He writes, We could hear women shrieking, children crying and men shouting. See, women shriek, men shout. And children cry. That's right.

That all adds up. See, we're not so different, them and us. That's right. Nothing's changed in 2000s. What is the difference between a shriek and a shout? That's just the person doing it. The pitch. Oh, okay.

So like, ah! And oh! Oh! That's a shout. That was a shout. That was a shout. Demanded it. But this is a shriek.

Ha! That's a shriek. Yeah, he's shrieking. Oh, stop. Yeah, that's a shriek. Oh, stop it. That's a shout. Oh.

Shout. That's a shout. Shriek. Fun game. Shriek or shout? I think I'm around the hang of it. You get it? So this.

Is a? Shriek? Correct. This. Uh. Is a? Shout. Correct.

Now do a cry. Oh no, that's a, what's that a shout cry? Yeah, that's pretty good. What's that? That's a shriek. What's a shriek? What's that? That's a tree.

That's a sea creature that, that's how the sea swept from them. That's a mollusk. It's a mollusk in its last legs. I don't even have legs. What are my legs? So you guys, we can hear women shrieking, children crying and men shouting. Some were calling for their parents, their children or their wives, and trying to recognise them by their voices.

Some people were so frightened of dying that they actually prayed for death. Does that make sense? Many begged for the help of the gods, but even more imagined that there were no gods left and that the last eternal night had fallen on the world. So I think it's the end of days. A glimmer of light returned, but we took this to be the warning of approaching fire rather than daylight. But the fires stayed some distance away. The darkness came back and ash began to fall again, this time.

and heavier showers. We had to get up from time to time just to shake it off, or we would have been crushed and buried under its weight. Wow. I could boast that I never expressed any fear at this time, but I was only kept going by the consolation that the whole world was perishing with me. Is that consolation, mate? Yeah, as long as everyone else is dying.

We're all in it together. I love that sort of boast, though. I don't even feel fear. I don't feel fear. I don't even sweat. After a while, the darkness paled into smoke or cloud, and the real daylight returned, but the sun shone as wainly as during an eclipse.

We were amazed by what we saw because everything had changed and was buried deep in ash like snow. We went back to Mycinum and spent an anxious night switching between hope and fear. Fear was uppermost because the earth tremors were still continuing

and hysterics still kept on making their alarming forecasts. The world is coming to an earthen. Yeah, but it sounds like a terrifying terrifying scene. So, but we're, We know a lot of what it was like because of those two simple letters. Right.

Oh, that's great. Wow. Luckily, someone asked the question. Yeah, hey, man, what was it like? And then he said, I'm glad you was. Let me tell you. I'll feel this one. My uncle.

I should get my scribe to write that down. Write this down. Uncle, a hero. Me, never feared. Dad, uncle. Very important that I stress. Yeah, you can imagine that he's covering something up there. Yeah.

I definitely never pissed my pants. I'm very defensive. I didn't cry to my mummy. All right, nobody was accusing you of that. Okay. The roofs of Pompeii began to collapse under the pressure of the pumice and ash that blanketed them. People had been evacuating and almost all of the 20,000 people in the town had left.

Those that stuck around, which have commonly been estimated to be around 2000, were met with one of the most terrifying things nature ever produces. A pyroclastic flow. Fortunately, this phenomenon is quite rare, but if you face with it, it's terrifying. Does it happen quickly? Like, because people were frozen in their spots, right? Yeah, so thankfully it is quick. So when volcanoes have a pliny an eruption, which we know comes from plenty,

it's a bit like a jet engine with the power that the eruption generates keeping the whole eruption column in the air. Wow. But when the crater at the top of the volcano starts to cave in on itself, the flow of power is interrupted and the column briefly collapses. The collapsed cloud of hot gas and volcanic rock hits the ground at over 200 kilometers per hour and just starts crashing down the mountain. The gases can reach temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius

or 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit and are the most deadly of all volcanic hazards. So usually with lava doesn't flow that quickly, usually. You usually outrun lava, but you cannot outrun a pyrocholastic flow. So you can outrun lava though. In most circumstances. That is fantastic. There are sometimes where you can't, if it's really, really quick.

You can at least out drive it, for example, but you can't out drive a pyroclosic floor. Side note, do you think we'd be good on the show? The floor is lava. Ooh, I haven't seen it, but I assume yes. Could we climb on your back and then your legs are so strong? They're volcanic and fireproof. I was actually going to use you.

I was going to, like, throw you in. Oh, like grandma in Dante's Peak style. Use me to paddle the boat. Yeah. Do you remember that? We've talked about that before too much. I think there should be some sort of easy rhyming thing

to help us, Dave, between lava and a conoclastic blow or whatever. Pyroclastic. Because, you know, like, isn't there one about if the bear is brown, stare it down? And I don't, I think this is bullshit. No, no, that's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, kind of stress this enough.

It was a bear, if it's brown, lie down, it was black fight back. Right. Man just staring it down. Come and get me, you fuck. That's a bit of a problem with these rhyming things. Other words do rhyme as well. But can you come up with a rhyme for the larva versus...

Paraclastic flow. You got it. We better go. Lava flow, you're good to go. Right. That's the same fucking thing. Acastic flow, you're dead. Paraclastic...

Oh, pyroclastic flow, heaven you go. Yes. Lava flow, run for your life. How about that? Yeah, that's good. I love it. And black bear, make yourself big and yell at him. Is that what you do?

And brown bear, stare him down. It's browns. But says lie down. Do you just stay very still? Yeah, I think so. I think maybe it helps if they think you're dead. Oh, they'll leave you alone. Hey, we don't have bears here, so if we're saying bad advice, don't, don't listen to us.

Don't act on us. We only got the drop bears. Yeah, I saw someone recently talked about it. They're like, don't take that advice. That rhyme is very. Not safe. It's not necessary. it's hard to tell. Some, like, bears are of different colors and stuff and they all react

differently. Right. Here we go. The rhyme could be, if it's brown lie down, if it's black, fight back, if it's white, good night. That's what someone written. Oh, okay. Polar bears, nothing you can do. I think there's nothing you can do. Or albino bears. So, pyroclastic flow, it's fast, it's hot and there's pretty much nowhere to escape it. You just have to hope that by the time it reaches where you are, it's run out of energy. Wow. It doesn't make it to you. It's tired. They happen in surges and it's been calculated that Pompeii was hit by multiple surges each stronger than the last first at 1 a.m remember it started at midday this is now 1 a.m then 2 15 a.m and then 630 a.m thankfully these surges only made it to the outer walls of pompey so the people who had sheltered in place

probably still okay but for anyone who was unlucky enough to still be there for the fourth surge at 730 a.m it was game over they were almost certainly killed by the extreme heat and choked on hot ash and the dusty air that they inhaled. Right, even before the flow got to them. Well, that is the pyroclastic flow, yeah, so because it's gas. Oh, I see. So it's not another version of lava. No, no, it's gas and ash, basically.

Right, oh, that sounds. But it's just so hot that... It's gash. It's gash. And, yeah, it cooks you so quick that you die almost instantly. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the heat was so extreme, one of the bodies that was later found had parts of... of its brain turned into glass.

What? That is hard to fully understand. So the heat had vitrified it. Vitrification is the process by which material is burned at a high heat and cooled rapidly, turning it into glass or a glaze. So the liquidy bit in the brain had been cooked so quick and then... Holy shit. And it cooled down.

It became glass. When was that discovered? In the last 20 years. Wow. Whoa. Incredible. Absolutely wild stuff. These poor people fell to the ground in an attempt to shield their bodies from the burning hot wind,

but it was absolutely no use. They were unfortunately killed almost instantly. Well, at least that's some consolation that it would have been very quick death. Yes, rather than lingering. Yeah. Even though at this point it's been a few days, is it? No, so it started midday and this is about 7.30 the next morning is the knockout hit. Still, yeah, you're saying they had time to run.

They had time to run, but they also had time to think about it. It's not like they... True. If it was just like they didn't even know it was coming. You went boom and then, yeah. You've had a day of sheltering freaking out. Yeah, you're right. It's not a nice way to go.

At 8 a.m., a final giant flow consumed Pompeii, Herculaneum and beyond. It caught up with some that thought they'd escaped into the countryside and the sea. This is a tragedy bit. Some people that did escape because it traveled 30 kilometers across the Bay of Naples. Right. Yeah, so there's a lesson there to keep going. Don't stop running. Yeah, yeah.

volcano, no, don't look back. It went 30Ks into the bay. Yeah. So it sort of depended on which way the wind was going or something? Yes, that did depend on, yeah. Wow. So, yeah, you'd think, like, we're out in the water. We're fine.

If there was ever a volcano in Chicago, could go anywhere. Could go the way. Windy city. That's good stuff. And you're talking about the wind there, Jess, at 1am, a surge-headed west and pummeled Herculaneum, because of wind direction, had mostly been initially spared from falling ash and debris,

because it had blown towards Pompeii, and they'd gone, oh, we're actually even closer to the mountain than everyone else, but it's not blowing on us. We're okay, but at 1am, it blew back on them. Fortunately, many of the residents had evacuated when they saw the eruption, but like its neighbours at Pompeii, when the flow hit, those that stayed behind were instantly killed, exposed to 250 degree heat or 480 degrees Fahrenheit, which had likely killed residents within 10 kilometres, including those sheltering inside buildings. It was just too hot.

Like Pompeii, Herculaneanian was completely buried under metres of volcanic material. In some places, it's thought to have been as deep as 20 meters. Wow. 65 feet, so completely buried. Whoa. All in all, the eruption lasted about 24 hours and ultimately released, this is mind-blowing, 100,000 times the thermal energy of the atomic bomb. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I can't get my head around that at all, but that's obviously a lot of energy. So like bombs that were big enough to flatten an entire city. Yeah. They released 100,000 times that energy was released. I know, it's unbelievable. Can you put it into Olympic pools? No. MCGs?

Can you put into the MCGs? Yes. Well, MCG holds 100,000 people. Yes. This is 100,000 times. Okay. So each person represents how much more powerful the volcano was than, Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Imagine like Collingwood supporters. Yeah. Maybe playing against Richmond. They've packed it out. Packed it out. Grand final or something maybe when they pack it out. Yeah.

A lot of corporates in there. Yeah. There's still a lot of people there, isn't it? They're still people though. Bums in seats, isn't it? Yeah. You know, whether or not they care about the game and that maybe money's ruined what was once a great day. Yeah.

So these people have died really suddenly have their day. Really suddenly. And it's impossible to know the exact death toll, but the BBC notes the Romans were accustomed to losses mounting to tens of thousands in battle, and even they regarded this catastrophe as exceptional. Shit. I've seen many estimates, but History.com writes about 2,000 Pompeians died in the city, but the eruption in total killed up to 16,000 people in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other

towns and villages in the region. Because remember, if people escaped, then they also got caught up with later. This makes it one of the most deadly volcanic eruptions in history. That's brutal for the people who think they've got. in a way. I know, and it just catches you. It was normal practice to rebuild the cities of this region after even the most massive earthquakes,

but neither Herculaneum nor Pompey was reoccupied. Over the centuries, Pompey lay underneath the meters of volcanic material. Tunnelers came through and looted parts of the site, but it was never fully dug out. Looted it. Yeah, people came through and stole the stuff that was left behind. Because most people just left with the clothes on their back, so there was households full of possessions underneath there.

But they would have all been caked in like yeah wouldn't things melt or burn or well some of the stuff lasted amazingly well even for 2,000 years wow underneath if they looked hard enough

they could have found some cool glass brains beautiful on a shelf imagine that little conversation start up for your next dinner party bit of decor that coffee table that's made of brains okay

I have to go That's not a conversation about how I need to go. I think I left the oven on. I have to go. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Pliny never mentioned the towns of Herculaneum and Pompey in his letters. It's debated us to whether the existence remained somewhat, unknown until the late 16th century.

Some say locals just referred to the lost city as the town or the settlement. So Pompeii was sort of lost to history for at least a while. According to Archaeology World, which is the only world I want to be apart. That might be one of the labest things you've ever said. That's the only world I want to be a part of it. Okay. Archaeology world. So awesome.

My favorite theme part. Oh, yeah. Archaeology World. Every ticket comes with a free trow. In 1594, workmen employed to dig a tunnel designed to divert waters of the River Sano, uncovered Roman wall paintings or digging in this area. They were working for architect Domenico Fontana, but the site uncovered could not at the time be identified.

They're a bit like, oh, there's Roman stuff here, but we're in Italy, there's Roman stuff in lots of places. We don't know what this is. Again from Archaeology World, in 1689, an inscription was found which referred to Desireon, a town councillor of Pompeii. Even then, uncertainty remained. Many assumed that the site was the villa of a Pompeian councillor rather than the town itself, because they found just the house.

And they went, huh, cool, there's a house here, but they didn't realize that everywhere around there is a whole city. Wow. More time passed, only when the Bourbon kings of the two Sicilies, Charles III ordered the site to be excavated, did the truth emerge? Charles III. Isn't he our current king? Yes, but we don't have a bourbon king.

Yeah. What's he? He's more of like a... He's like a gin. I was going to say a gin. Gin and tonic on that one. I don't know. He's probably like a...

I was going to say a weak glass of water. Yeah. Just a weak glass of water, please. Not like Dave, tall glass of water. This guy's a weak glass of water. So I'm a strong, tall glass of water. Crisp. So this was about the mid-1700s,

and they found it was pretty easy to dig it. out because of the light volcanic material. Around this time, the study of ancient and classical art took off across the world and became quite fashionable. Wealthy aristocrats of the time would visit the site and return home with expensive souvenirs. Class brains. So they're like kind of wealthy, modern grave robbers.

Yeah. It's okay. Like it's cool and classy if you're very rich. If you're already rich, stealing is very different. Isn't it funny? I know. Then you're just an eccentric collector. Yeah.

It's the same with everything. like tax evasion or you know like yeah there's welfare cheats but if you're poor you're a welfare cheat if you're rich hey i'm a businessman yeah yeah hey i'm working with the government i'm creating jobs trickling down that's right makes you think doesn't it rich pricks don't make you think i love saying things like i've thought of them yeah just a little thing i've been mulling over wow is that one of yours yeah that's one of mine he's an idea i've had the steward original yeah shit.

With the unification of Italy in 1860, the legal status of Pompeii changed from being a royal possession from which monarchs could use the site to obtain antiquities for their private collections or gift artifacts to illustrious foreign guests to property of the state. So it became property of Italy. But before that had been like, yeah, yeah, you can have some of that. You're my rich friend. You can have a bit of that. But it wasn't just antiquities and treasures that were found on the site.

Archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli. was named superintendent and he began to manage the excavations in 1863. He noticed that the skeletons that were discovered at Pompeii were usually found inside hollow cavities. Buried under meters of ash and other volcanic material, the soft tissue of the body had long ago rotted away, leaving only the bones surrounded by a hollowed out shape. Wow. Where like, you know, your skin and stuff had been. He decided to pour plaster into the cavity.

When the plaster was poured in, the bodies were seemingly brought back to life, showing an exact hollow impression of the corpse. He created the first plaster fun house. Yeah. Wow. And then kids got to go in and paint them. They were big in the 90s, weren't they? Yeah, I used to, I had a crocodile from a plaster fun house for so long.

Oh. I reckon I'd painted when I was seven. Proudly sat on my bookshelf of a desk or whatever in my room, till I was probably an adult. You'd still give it a little pat every day as you left your room. Goodbye. Goodbye. I love you, Crocodile.

This was my best friend. This plaster method is known as the Fiorelli method or the Ferelli process. It was able to show a new and much more human side of the bodies, showing what they were wearing and how they looked in their final terrifying moments. And what was his name? Giuseppe Fiorelli. That's such a great name. Incredible name.

It doesn't say, and he was a superintendent. Sounds more like a Super Nintendo, Mario Brothers guy. There was a third guy, I reckon. He would have been called Giuseppe. Super Nintendo Giuseppe Ferrelli. Mario Luigi and Giuseppe, yeah, you're right. The forgotten triplet.

You're right. Suck shit warrior. Some of them, the bodies are covering their faces. Some look like they're screaming out and images of the cast fascinated people at the time, and it really put Pompey on the map. Dave's screaming or shrieking? Depends.

It's hard to say. The women, shrieking. Yes. Men yelling. Yelling. It's hot. I'll bravely yell you down, you. See, men yell.

Women nag. Some of the women can be seen to be nag. You should come away from the window, please. Whose doughty socks are these? Don't you want to dye and clean socks? Just left on the ground, huh? Oh, okay, the maid will pick him up, will they? Are you born in a tent?

Huh? Shut the door, mate. Come on. So you can see the plaster casts of bodies as well of those of her pig, a cat and a dog. Wow. And the dog's got a collar on it. Really? Yeah.

That's the best thing so far. Yeah, that's amazing. A fascinating story, but they found a pig with a collar on it. A dog with a collar on it. Okay, not quite as fun. It's not fairly normal. These days you see that all the time. All the time.

Dave was saying I was very gentrified this city. Yeah. That's the biggest proof yet. People out walking their cats. Yeah. Crazy. By 2003, a thousand and forty-four bodies had been recovered. These days, they don't, new ones don't have the plaster injected into them.

It's very much an old-school thing, but they survive and they're still a very famous part of the site. So many bodies were discovered in Pompeii, but they were also made a discovery they weren't quite expecting. And that is Pompeians were horny. Very, very horny. What do you mean? Circling back to... But wait at the start of the episode. At the time, Rome had been a very sexualized society,

but over time it had become more and more conservative. So for a city to be frozen in time during its horniest period was quite a shock to the Prude Victorian era that unearthed piles and piles of erotic art. Ah! It's all over the place. The massive wanged god Priapis was a common good luck symbol and can be seen all over the city in frescoes, mosaics,

penis shaped wind chimes and oil lamps Apparently his huge dick had little to do with sex It served to scare off thieves That's how big it is It's like a club year to death of this thing Wow And there were sculptures of dicks everywhere But it wasn't about sex grow up everyone

Depictions of the fallas Could be used in gardens To encourage the production of fertile plants Sure You gotta understand You got to Yeah well it's still getting over the prud eras aren't we?

Because it used to be like, you know, it doesn't matter. Free the dick. Free the nipple, free the dick. Back then, they didn't have to worry

about that sort of stuff. It was just like, it's the body is the body. Who gives a shit? Now we're all like, in these straight jackets of clothes, I just want to rip it off.

You right there? Your face just did something I've never seen it do before. That was amazing. And I think really, what I'm describing there is you finally being vulnerable with us. And if you want to get naked, now's not the time.

Yeah, because of society. That's right. And we're at work. So, you know. Well, this is my point. Yeah. Work and rules. Yeah, yeah, true.

I'm part of the problem. Is this still the Victorian era? Victorian era more like it. There's also erotic paintings depicting many sexual liaisons and orgies. But these weren't sexual. Grow up, it's about plants. These orgies were not sexual, okay? It's about fertile land.

Everyday objects such as mirrors and serving vessels were decorated with erotic scenes. The sex is everywhere you look. In 1819, when King Francis I of Naples visited the Pompeii exhibition with his wife and daughter, he was embarrassed by the erotic artwork and ordered it to be locked away in a secret cabinet. Oh yes, that only he has the keys to. Accessible to only people of mature age and respected morals and also only men. He was embarrassed that he got a stiffy. Oh dear.

Known as Gabonetto Segretto, the secret museum or secret cabinet. It was reopened, then closed, then reopened again, then closed again, with the entranceway being bricked up in 1849. It was too hot to handle this stuff. Wow. It was off limits for nearly 100 years. The secret room was briefly made accessible. again at the end of the 60s, before finally being reopened in the year 2000.

Since 2005, the collection has been kept in a separate room in the Naples National Archaeological Museum. I'm spewing, I didn't go. One of the most famous pieces in the collection is a statue of what looks like a devil-like creature fucking a goat. Wow. Okay. That is hot. And Dave's disappointed he didn't get to see that.

I didn't get to go. I can't even picture it. What would it look like? I'd love to know. Please. Let me in. Bang it on the bricked up door. I'm of mature age and a man.

So far it's estimated that only two-thirds of Pompeii has been excavated, so who knows what they'll find over the coming decades, maybe more dicks. Wow. More orgies depicted. And just to finish up, the threat of Vesuvius has not gone away over the millennia. In fact, in the last 2,000 years, it has erupted about 30 more times. Really?

Starting in 1631, Vesuvius' Entecated. a period of steady volcanic activity, including lava flows and eruptions of ash and mud. Violent eruptions in the late 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s created more fishes, lava flows and ash and gas explosions. These damage still destroyed many towns around the volcano and sometimes killed people. The eruption of 1906 had 100 casualties. The most recent eruption was in 1944 during World War II. It caused major problems for the newly arrived Allied forces in Italy when Ash and Rock from the eruption destroyed planes

and forced evacuations at a nearby air base. So it erupted not that long ago, which is probably a good thing because you want it to be steady, small eruptions rather than hundreds of years of nothing. Yeah. Have scientists tried to like manipulate it at all

or they're just letting it do what it does? Well, it's closely monitored by scientists, thankfully these days. So hopefully next time it erupts, everyone will be able to escape safely. A Pierce Brosnan type. That's right. Pierce Broson and his grandmother. Today, Vesuvius is the only active volcano in mainland Europe, although there are others on islands in nearby Sicily and Santorini, and has produced some of the continent's largest volcanic eruptions.

It is regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the population of 3 million people living near that would probably be affected by an eruption, with 600,000 in the danger zone. Holy shit. Making it the most densely populated volcanic region in the world. I always think it's wild. People, you know, like just on the outskirts of Melbourne, real bushfire prone areas. Where people live there and it's just their life. They just know every summer there's a chance their house might burn down.

They've got a plan and it's all worked out. Somehow it feels even more full on to be living, even though it's less likely to happen and it's not every year, but it could be any time. Yeah, exactly. And it could be big. They don't know. These things are difficult to predict.

The destruction of Pompey has been the basis for paintings, poems, TV shows, movies, songs and books. Pink Floyd filmed a famous music special in the Ampie Theater there in the 1970s, which is pretty cool. Wow. It's fascinated people for centuries and at this point, it's been the longest continually excavated site ever found. And I'm sure it will continue for decades and centuries to come. That's such a funny record to have. The longest continuously excavated site. Yeah. People are just over 300 years. They've just been digging out bit by bit. Non-stop. Is there a queue there? Discovering new stuff. I think for a while there, they decided to back off on discovering, on digging out new stuff and conserving what they do have

because UNESCO designated it like in danger of being overdug. Overdug and also the fact that I think it's one of Italy's most visited tourist attractions. Did you see? Yeah, you can walk through it. It's amazing. And you did all that? Yeah, you walk through. God, it was hot though, but it was fantastic.

Yeah, it's really, really cool. I don't think you get to complain about how hot it was. You're right. Oh, been hot for me. What, 38 degrees? High 30s, yeah. Oh, you're walking part. The corpse is.

People who died instantly from how hot gas was. And you're like, bloody hell, that sun. Yeah, fair call. At first I thought you meant it was hot as in sexy hot because you saw a dick. And there are some, there is inside, they've got like a cooled part of the exhibit where you go in, which was lovely. They would have loved it. They would have some American conditioning. And they have a lot of erotic art.

Were you, the photo you posted around that time when you're over there and you look like a character from Poirot. I will be... Were you wearing that outfit? I'm wearing that outfit because Qantas had lost all our baggage and I had to basically wear what I could buy in a small Italian tale.

So I'll be posting a photo of myself there with the famous Vesuvius in the background and it's right there. Looms over you. So if that was erupting, you can imagine how terrified they would have been. One day we should do, like Led Zeppelin,

we should do a live podcast there. What do you think? I think that's a great plan. I'd love to do that. time it with an eruption. That'd be sick. That'd be absolutely the sickest thing ever. We said, we'll see you next week.

Goodbye. Arupt. Yes. Yeah. And we all run. Yeah, we all run into the danger zone. But that's my report. That's the final episode of Block 22.

Wow. How about a round of applause for Block. Block. Block. Block. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.

Kiss. Kiss. Oh, Block. You're so sexy. Well done, Dave. That was awesome, Dave. What a story. glad to have heard that tale told.

Finally, I was able to report on it. Very happy. Wow. I can't believe Block is over. Dave, how are you feeling? Well, I feel like it ain't over till it's over. There's still more to go. That's true. We're still blocking it out. Jess, unfortunately, didn't realize that and she's left.

We went, hang on, Jess. Oh, okay. Well, I guess we'll be talking to our Patreon supporters there. And the beauty of Block, as opposed to other festive seasons like Christmas, after Christmas, it's nearly a full 12 months towards Christmas again. That's right. Less one day. Yeah.

Whereas Block, it's only 10 months till the next block. That's nothing. Isn't that a beautiful part of Block? About 300 odd days. 300 sleeps till the next block. And you can just keep listening to these nine episodes from Block 2022 until next block. Or check out a couple of the previous blocks. Some people live like it's Christmas every day.

You can live like it's block every day. Yeah. But we at the end of the show love to thank some. of our great supporters without them this show would not exist and if you want to be involved there with them you can do so by signing up at patreon.com slash do go on pod and there's a bunch of different rewards you can get there dave including what are some of the things there we put out three bonus episodes every single month and as soon as you sign up you get access to the back catalogue and that's over 150 bonus episodes at this point so cool so that's one level but there's

also other different levels where you can vote for topics decide what the show's going to be about Join the Patreon group on any single level, and it's a lovely, lovely place to be. On any level, you also get to write the questions for Who Knew It with Matt Stewart now, my new comedy quiz show. So if you listen to that show, you'll know there's seven questions every week, and they're all written by you fabulous Patreon supporters. And a great job they do. They do a fantastic job. But the first thing we normally like to do in this section of the show is the fact quote of question section, which I think has a jingle go, something like this. Fact quote or question.

You remember the ding, ding, ding, ding, and the jing, jingle. And, uh, which is very appropriate. As we end block, we are coming into the festive kreish time of year. Absolutely. Another beautiful time of your second greatest time. The jingle bells are ring ding dingling all of a sudden. Um, but in this section of the show, people on the Sydney-Shonberg level of our Patreon get to give us a fact, a quote, or a question, or a brag or a suggestion.

Oh, or a recipe. Whatever they fricking well like. It is up to them. They get carte blanche. Am I said that right? Maybe. And this week, we have some fantastic facts, some fantastic quotes, some fantastic questions. Anna Bragg in there as well as I looked down the list.

The first one comes from Tessa Chilcott, who's given herself the title of Director of Moving Furniture around the house for short periods to see how it looks there. Oh, fantastic. Well, Jess will tell you that she recently moved her dining table, flipped it over. hasn't looked back. How good does her dining room look now? Oh, game changer. Oh my goodness.

So much more room for podcasting, as is the most important use of a dining table. And Tessa has offered a fact this week writing Elephants can recognize themselves in the mirror and mirror. The marrow. Oh, Mara selfie. Amazing, Tessa says. I can barely do this sometimes myself.

They join humans, apes and dolphins. And of course, humans are apes, but, you know, I don't know. I'm actually there, Tessa, but I also host a podcast called Primates About Primates. Yeah. And, yeah. You're well within your rights. And their closest living relative is the Hirax.

Seriously, look it up. It is insane that this is the closest to an elephant. I've never heard of a Hirax. Have you heard of a Hirex day? No, that's their closest living. Closest living relative. Tessa finishes by saying, Anywho, thanks for the last.

You're an amazing bunch. Hey, Tessa, right back at you. I've never heard of a hyrax. H-Y-R-A-X. What is a hyrax? Oh, they're like a little, they look like a little marsupial or something. Yeah, they're very small.

They're a rock rabbit. That's fun. How could they, how can they possibly be related to elephants? Says they're closely related to elephants and sea cows. What is it, what's going on? This feels like we're in an alternative universe where these things exist.

Yeah. Never heard of a hyrax or a sea cow. Sea cow. Cyrenia, there's two families of which, one of which is the dugong. Right, okay. I've heard of a dugong. And then they're now extinct Stella's sea cow. But these animals are all completely different.

A dugong, a little rock rabbit and an elephant. Amazing. And have you confirmed that? Close the relative to an elephant? Yeah, I just googled it saying rock hyracks. I can't get my head around that. That is a wild fact. Tessa, you've outdone yourself.

Thank you so much. That's great. I mean, they're between two and five kilos. How many is an elephant? Yeah. At least double that. Yeah, at least. Possibly double and a half.

The next one comes from Nathan's swap. Okay, wizard's cartwright in brackets. In brackets, it will make sense, close brackets. Good. Nathan's got a question, which reads, What is an item or prop from a film that you love and would like to own? Oh. Nathan has answered his own question, saying,

in the first Lord of the Rings movie, the wizard Gandalf arrives to the shire in a two-wheel horse and drawn cart. Or just two-wheel horse-drawn cart. And I love it. It looks so well built and cozy. I would love to travel around through forests and fields

in it wearing a big pointy hat while smoking apart. That sounds like a dream. Yes. I mean, I love it. That's a real elaborate prop or item. Yeah, I don't know What do you think of Dave? Anything coming to mind?

I've seen replicas online for sale of In The Mummy, Fantastic Brenda Fraser movie that we all love. They've got the Book of the Dead That they only opened with a key Which is that thing that sort of like clasps open Like it looks like a little box And then it opens up and then that turns out to be a key

Do you remember that little metal thing in the movie? Yes And it looks like a star when it's split out I've seen people have replicas of that for sale online I think that's a very cool little thing. I think if I could choose anything at all, and that one's already been taken,

I'll go with my second pick, which is the Ford XB Falcon hardtop featured in Eric Banner's 2009 documentary film, Love the Beast. Love the Beast, of course. A beautiful automobile, and it's very close to my dream car.

Probably technically would like the XC, the next model, but very, would be very happy with X. You're happy with that? I'd also be happy with the mansion from the Adams family. Kind of cool. Do you get, would you get thing and cousin it and everyone? Cousin it, Lurch.

You rang. You rang. Oh, you be a perfect lurch. Give me the role. Get him in there, everyone. Get him in. Get him in. You could, oh, you destroy Lurch.

Uncle Fester. I feel like you do a great fester. I love Uncle Fester. The original cartoon, not cartoon, but the live action show, loved it so much as a good. Yeah, fantastic work. Didn't, um, was it Doc from Back to the Future played Fester in the 90s films? Oh, did he?

I think. That's a vague memory I have. Christopher Plummer? No, but Christopher Plummer is, it's Christopher Lloyd. Christopher Lloyd's the dad from Santa Music, I think. Thank you. He'd also make a great Uncle Fester in his old age. Oh, yeah, man.

Get him in there? I mean, Christopher Lloyd's fucking up. You sometimes you take a punt and you're like, that's, I think that guy's name. But the funny thing is, you could. could be right. Maybe that's who did play it. No, it was Christopher Lloyd. Imagine if it was Christopher. Oh man. That would have been fantastic. He would have been good. Christopher Lloyd's so funny. Um, great question. Thank you very much. Nathan Swap.

Uh, I think that I gave you probably more of an answer that you were looking for than me. I just couldn't think. The first thing I thought of was that beautiful automobile. I mean, if they were real, a lightsaber would be fucking cool. Yeah, that's true. Just go, v-cut, cut through toast. Oh, imagine. I think you could say that in this, in this world here. The next one this week come from Drew Foresburg, aka Viscount of five-finger discount. Fy-cout of five-finger discount.

That's real good stuff, Drew. And Drew's got a brag. I can only assume this brag is going to be about him stealing something. Let's read. Okay, it's related to a brag because I'm proud. I thought of it. Here goes. Did you hear about the fella who was distraught over the limited scope

of his out-of-body experience? he was just beside himself. Says, cheers from God's country. Keep up the brilliant work. Hey, you too, Drew. Did you hear about the fellow who was distraught over the limited scope of his out-of-body experience? He was beside himself. Any joke that features the phrase limited scope is very funny.

And finally, this week, this comes from Sophie Choo-Chututor. So I'm guessing, is that Sophie Teller? us that it is Tudor, not Shooter? Because you correct me saying it was shooter. You wouldn't say Sophie Shoo-Shoe-Suter, would you? Or is she buying into the gag? I don't know, Sophie. I'm so sorry.

But Sophie writes, her title is Group Mum. Jess, finish her homework. Well, maybe that's where she rushed off to. And Jess, sorry, Sophie is offering a suggestion. Geez, we've got four of the different options in one week. Love it. Collect them all. Sophie writes, may I suggest at some point today?

You take five minutes to yourself. Take three big breaths. In. Let's do it now, Dave. Out. In. Out. In.

Out. Not in. In. In. Out. Out. Not. I guess.

Okay. That was it. Yeah. Okay. Close your eyes. Relax your shoulders. And let out a big. deep, long, fart.

I was going to do whatever she said. Dave, Dave, can't even fart on command. Damn it. What a loser. Thank you very much, Sophie, Drew, Nathan and Tessa for these great facts, quotes, and questions. If you are on the Sydney-Shineberg level, don't forget to get them in. Some people get them in really frequently, including, I think, the four people we read

out today. Some people very sporadically. So stop what you're doing right now. Go give us a fact quote or question. It could be whatever you like. matter. It could be telling us to fuck. Get them in and then let them out.

Let it out. But we appreciate all those great people. I'll be taking that advice later on, Sophie. I'll be doing it every day. The other thing we like to do is, I think a few of our other great supporters. Jess normally comes up with a bit of a game based on the topic at hand, Dave. That responsibility falls to you. What should we do with these people here today?

What about what they were doing when the eruption started? Oh, okay, great. and we're talking about the volcano eruption. Can I ask you, and I hope you've done this, so it's a bit confusing my request, but can you take out a lot of the sexual stuff I said in this episode when you had it? Well, if people are hearing this and it doesn't make sense, I've done what you want.

Thank you so much. Well, maybe I'll kick us off. I'll do the first five, you do the second four. We normally do three. Okay, great. First off, I would love, if I may, to thank from Kuhnoregan in the Australian Capital Territory, I love to thank Mac Noble.

Mac Noble. What about? Mac Noble was doing a magic show. Oh, yeah. And then for a couple of seconds, thought, oh shit, have I done this?

Oh, no. I've summoned the beast. Oh, no. So he's frozen in time with a rabbit halfway out of a hat. They're going, oh, shit. Oh, that's great.

Noble. Mac Noble's pretty good magician. Yeah. Please welcome. Mac Noble. The magnificent Mac Noble. That's good. I'd also love to thank from Austin, Texas.

Stay weird, or remain weird, or whatever it is. Alex Hill. Alex Hill. Alex Hill was baking pies. Oh, yeah. And, annoyingly for Alex, they'd realize, shit, I miscounted. Five people are at home. I've only got four.

And they were freaking about what to do, what to do. Then the eruption started. They thought, yes, I've gotten out of it. No one's going to be. noticing this anymore. At first he's like, oh, what did,

temperature did I set the oven to? Shit, and then, hang on, we're all going to be horribly killed. This is great. I've only got four

parts for five people. Thank you very much, Alex. I'd also love to thank from Kiraville, also in the Australian Capital Territory, Zach Arkley Smith.

Zach Arkley Smith. As always, fantastic name. Zach had just finished mowing the front lawn. What a way. Sorry, Zach.

Shit. Yeah. I mean, and depending on how long the grass was, I don't know for sure, but maybe that could have blocked out the lava. Thank you very much for your fine work, Zach. May I thank from Inverness in Great Britain. Inverness would be in Scotland. That's in Scotland, absolutely.

I would love to thank Jordan Taylor. Jordan, Taylor. Drop the Thomas. I can only assume this is JTT. Jordan Taylor Thomas. I forgot, absolutely. the radar. Oh my God, Jordan Taylor Thomas.

He dropped the Thomas and added the Orden. Yeah. And also dropped the Onathan. It kept only that very specific name, Taylor. Jordan Taylor. Thomas? Could it be? Could it be?

What are the odds? Yeah, nice try. Yeah, you're hiding in plain sight there, JTT. JTT. What did JT? What was he up to? JT. was actually playing kick to kick in the park with their child.

Yep. Aussie rules in Scotland? Yeah, Aussie rules. Well, this is in Pompey. It's a Scottish person in Pompey. Oh, of course. Playing Aussie rules. Jack in the pack.

The real global game. Yes. So you kick it. And honestly, Jordan was a bit like, I'm actually a bit bored of this, but the kids wants to keep playing. He does Oz kick. He wants to keep practicing. Okay, all right.

An hour, is this enough? The eruption starts. Again, Jordan's off the hook. They've got to run for their live. lives. And Jordan purposely left the footy to be covered in parochlastic flow, so didn't have to even worry about playing key to kick it wherever they ran to. Fantastic work there, Jordan.

Got away with it. And finally from me, I'd love to thank from, I want to say, how. Is that how you pronounce a word like that, Dave? In maybe Belgium. Hell in Belgium, that's pretty cool. I'm sure we're saying it wrong, but hey. I'd love to thank Alison M. Hell in Belgium.

It is a city in Belgium, looking it up. Does it give you a pronounce there? No, it's a small population of 31,000. Not far from Waterloo. 31,000, not far from the population of the place we talked about today. Pompeii. Pompeii, which is where Alison M was during the eruption, obviously. And Alison M had just finished doing a news cross.

Alison, of course, being a local reporter, live on TV. It finishes, and they'd just done a very boring. boring, like, cooking segment. Nothing interesting happened. The director had yelled, cut, we're out, and then the eruption started, and they thought, fuck, we've just missed our moment. Damn it. Sorry, Alison.

Get the cameras rolling. Oh, no. They're gone. Yeah, but they're like, oh, we never got to capture this moment on camera for posterity, but they were actually just captured exactly what they were doing. Yeah, exactly. The moment frozen in time forever. There was a, yeah, someone holding a camera.

In 2018, I didn't mention this in the report, but a video sort of went, sorry, a photo went viral of a skeleton in Pompeii, and then there was a big rock over the skull, and it looked like the person had been absolutely killed. I'll show you. By a boulder. It just looked like the boulder, it just landed on their head.

But, and then it went viral. People thought it was very funny. You know, people thought that was funny. Yeah, people had a lot of fun with it. That's so weird. But it turned out that they weren't crushed by the stone. It just looks like that. So, but yeah.

Oh, fun spoiler. The internet went wild with this thing. I missed that. I obviously had a day off the internet that day. Dave, would you like to thank a few of our great supports? Hey, I would love to thank from Manasher in WI. Where's WI? Wisconsin.

It is Wisconsin. Well done. It's from Manasha. It's Sam Dimal. Sam Dimal. Sam Deamel, unfortunately, was just filling up their diesel engine with unleaded. Oh. So, yeah, their last moments were going, oh, shit.

It was a higher car. They weren't used to it. Oh, no. And they were about to siphon out the unleaded to start again. They're going to suck it out. So what a way to go. Frozen in time forever. Sucking out.

Sucking off a car. Oh, no. Yeah. Sam. So I wanted to do it. I would like to think now from Carlisle in Illinois in the United States. It's Nikita Pruitt. Nikita Pruitt was picking some fruit off the tree, an apple tree.

Oh. So up on tippy toes on a ladder. It's frozen in time on a ladder, on tippy toes. The tree, the apple, it just was magnificent. I think a rich person from a few hundred years ago now has it in their courtyard. The whole scene. I'd like to buy this scene.

Yes. But it was a magnificent scene. You can picture it, little step ladder, tippy toes, just plucking off the perfect apple. Oh, beautiful. Dangling off a high branch. Not going for any low fruet. Going for a high fruet. High fruet.

Wow, the higher up the fruet, the better. You knew it. I would like to thank also from Brunswick West here in Victoria. Jessica Hewittson. Jessica Hewitson. was, of course, one of the great, great, great, great, great ancestors of Ian Huey Hewitson. Oh. Even though the names, I think, are spelled differently, but that's what happens over time.

Hew, of course, a famous TV chef. Yes. And he obviously was a big cook, but he got all of that from Jessica's jeans. And Jessica was cooking up a strudel at the time. She was working with Nikita expecting a delivery of fresh apples from Nikita at the time She was waiting

So she's frozen in time Looking at her wristwatch Of course at the time Wrist Watches were not invented But she did come up with the joke What's the time? It's a hair past a freckle Which is a classic bit

What a great joke that is It doesn't seem that funny now But back then in 79 AD Oh this is killing It was, that was cutting edge, Yuma. Well done, Jessica, and thank you so much for your support. And finally, I'd like to thank from a beautiful sounding place, Pleasanton.

Pleasanton in California. George Pascoe. George Pascoe was just settling down to a romantic bath. Had just lit the 200th candle in his surrounding his bathroom on the floor, on the shelves, everywhere. And it was just about to. settle into the bath when it hit. So did all the prep work, but didn't get to enjoy the relaxing scented candles for long, unfortunately. But, uh, I mean, like most of life, a lot of the joy is found in the anticipation. And George did get to enjoy that into anticipation. Absolutely.

Forever. Forever. He was stuck in that beautiful spot of dipping your toe into the spa bath. Beautiful. Thank you so much to George. Jessica, Nake. Peter, Sam, Alison, Jordan, Zach, Alex and Mac. We appreciate your support so much. I don't think I can even put it into words, so I won't bother trying. Dave, can you? I love you. That's basically it.

That's it should have been able to find those words. Yeah, come on, mate. Sometimes love is the hardest word to say. Or is that sorry? And that brings us to our final section of the show where we welcome in our trip ditch club members, our new members in the TripTage club, only one inductee this week, Dave. The way this works is if you're on the shoutout level

or above the three straight years, you get welcomed into the club. It's a bit of the theory of the mind. The club is ever expanding every week. And Dave normally books a band for the after party. Dave also emcees the show. He's hyping up the crowd as we speak. They're all in there, all the previous inductees.

He's hyping them up. They're so sick of me. I'm there every night. Get someone else. And Jess is normally behind the bar, but she's got an RDO this week. So I'm jumping in behind the bar as well. And she normally has a cocktail named after the topic. This week, the Pompeii, what would a Pompeii cocktail be?

I feel like it'll be hot. It's one of those lit ones. So maybe it includes, where's Pompeii and what's an Italian spirit? Fangelico? Is that Italian? Yeah, or like, Chenzino? It's Chenzino and Fragelico. And if they're not flammable, a flammable liqueur, and they're mixing together, lit on fire, and you get to enjoy those.

Don't forget to breathe in those toxic hot gases. Yes, that authentic Pompeii flavor. It's Chinzano. Sorry, everyone, I don't mean for you to yell at your iPods. Vubbani, Vubi, Vibni, Vibn. Vibh, Vibn. And Dave, you normally book a band for the Alphi Party. Who've you got this week?

You're never going to believe it. I've obviously booked these months out because all these high-profile acts have big tours and stuff. but we've actually got the band Bastille, famous for their hit song, Pompeii. Oh, Pompeii. Is that a big song? Yeah, about 10 years ago, they're an English band. So they're sort of like pop rock stuff.

Great, fantastic stuff. That'll really get the crowd going. Absolutely. So just one inductee this week. Please make them welcome Dave from Hawthorne in California in the United States. It's Michelle. Michelle! Not much to work with him.

My bell. Michelle, my bell, I will sell my soul to welcome you. You know, Hawthorne in my side, you are now a rose between two thorns. Is that me and you? I think we're the thorns. Okay. And California, here we come. Yeah, Bastille start playing.

Thanks, Bastille. Appreciate that. Welcome in, Michelle. Make yourself at home. Really do appreciate it very much. That's really all we need to do. and that closes up block once overall. Really, I just want it to keep going on forever.

But Dave, we really should let people move on with their lives. We really, really should. But in the meantime, if they want to get in contact with us, they can hit up our website, do go onpod.com, with links to Patreon, merchandise, both of two great ways to support the show as well as tickets to our live shows. You can get in contact with us, do go on pod at gmail.com. And we're on social media.

Do go on pod. Jump on board. And check out all our other podcasts. If you've up to date with Do Go On, there's book cheat, which there's nearly 100 or more than 100. Yeah, closing in, I think we're 70-something of them. So Dave does a show where he...

It basically do go on, but instead of historical stories, they're fictional stories from classic novels. I've also started a new podcast called Who Knewit with Matt Stewart? It's a comedy quiz, kind of based around the old olden days game when my mom was a kid, I think of that as the old days, called Dictionary. So it's a game of bluff. It's a quiz, but the guests also... help write the questions.

We call it the quiz where the guests write the wrong answers. That tagline was suggested by Patreon. I wish I could remember who it was so I could send them a bouquet. Oh, that'd be lovely. That was a bluff. That's all part of the game. There's also Primates, which is a show where we talk about primates, of popular culture, done recent episodes about movies like Nope,

and the Hit Monkey series on Disney Plus, and all such things like that. So check out all those shows as well. a lot of fun to be had. A lot of fun to be had. All right, Dave. Want to boot this baby home? Hey, we'll be back next week with another episode.

It won't be block anymore, but it will be a great episode. I can assure you of that. The quality will not drop. We never drop the quality. Never drop the quality. And we'll be back with another episode then. But until then, I'll say thank you so much.

And goodbye. Later's. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to, Manchester. We were just in Manchester. But this way you'll never,

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