Do Go On - 424 - William McGonagall; History's Worst Poet

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

This week we are joined by the wonderful Evan Munro-Smith, to talk about a man often referred to as "the worst poet in the history of the English language" - William McGonagall. This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 07:36 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodSupport the show on Apple podcasts and get bonus episodes in the app: http://apple.co/dogoon Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/Check out our merch: https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/ Check out our AACTA nominated web series: http://bit.ly/DGOWebSeries​ Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo 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:https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-mcgonagallhttps://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/william-mcgonagall/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGonagallhttps://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/William-McGonagall-The-bard-of-Dundee/http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we've 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 Perkinsello, Jess. David. For a former this week.

Thank you so much. Good to have you here. No, we're fighting. Oh, okay, not formal. Angry. Yes. What did I do? You'll find out.

Okay, looking forward to cracking this mystery. And joining us this week, a very special guest. So you'll often hear us yelling out on the podcast for technical support. Yes. One of our greatest allies, our greatest mentors. Our greatest of friends Host of the gamey, gamey show Is that many, is there not gamey gamey game?

Gamey game, that's right, because Matt jokes about the name too many times Now I can't say it properly. Yeah, fair. Host of the game game game show It's Evan Munro Smith. Hello, Evan. I'm clapping you.

It's such a pleasure to be here. Oh my God. An absolute pleasure. I'm excited. The Evan Monroe Smith from Stupid Old Studios and Gamey Gamey Game is here. Normally, he's lurking in corners. To be fair, I am usually here.

Yes, in the building, yes. Somewhere. You're usually just like out that door and through the next door. Yeah. But it's a pleasure to be, it's such an honour to be on, you know, on the pod. On pod. Wow. We're stoked to have you here.

Now, Bassey, if anyone's ever seen any video of us that looked good. Yeah. Evan was responsible. And if it looked bad, we tried to do it ourselves. That's true. That is absolutely true. Everything is, this is what happens in the do-go-1 Evan Munro-Smith relationship. We go, Evan, we have a project we want to do.

goes, can you give me any information about it? We go, nah. And then the week of, we go, oh, Evan, did we ever give you any information about that? He goes, no, but I've done it and it looks amazing. And we go, thanks, Evan. And we never learn. We never learn. Well, that's very nice.

He makes us look great and we love him. Thank you. Does this mean I could be up for a Duggan Award? Yeah, yeah. You could be, yeah, I get, oh, no, maybe not. No? Oh, mate, so we often do so. We do this report.

We do our Duggo onus, the annual Golden Shiny Gary Awards for. podcasting excellence. And we do have a category for Best Guest Report giver. Yeah. But we don't usually say Best Guest, unless you want this to be a new category. I think it should be. Or is there a topic you like to... No, hang on.

Let's do a new award called Best Evan. Oh, we'll do it. We'll do it this year. Wow. Best tech support. I guess it would imagine if I didn't win. Yeah, it'd be brutal, wouldn't it? Yeah.

Matt, you know what? It'd be pretty funny, actually, if we have a lot. award for best Evan and we give it to Beck. She's our second best Evan. Agreed. She's pretty good. She's also behind a lot of our great projects. It's true. It's true. Behind every great Evan isn't even great of Beck.

That's how we can go. So in January, on Patreon, we'll be putting out our annual Golden Shiny Gary Awards. Keep your ears peeled. Maybe. We'll have our best Evan award. Exciting. But you just get to sit back, relax and fill the role of Matt Stewart this week.

Beautiful. Which just means, you know, feel free to go on some dog shit riffs. Interrupt a lot. Speak over us. That would be good. Great. Especially me. And if you do interrupt me, go, bu, but, but, but, up, but, up.

That's always good. And, yeah, you just get to sit back and relax and have fun. Be the feminist of the podcast. How good that? Yeah. What a great deal. It's a dream. It's honestly the best thing we could possibly ask you to do.

There's nothing better. Shall I explain how the show works? Yeah. Or would you like me to because you're going to do the report. Yeah, you do it. I didn't want to do it. It's a weird transition if you explain the show, then go into the show. So basically, Evan, and anyone who hasn't listened before, we take it in terms of

a report on a topic, often suggested to us by one of the listeners, go away, do a little bit of research, bring it back to the group, do the report? And we always start with a question. And Jess, like I said, it's your turn to report. Do you have a question? I do. My question is, who has been widely hailed as the writer of the worst poetry in the English language? What a way to find out my poetry.

is that badly received. Now, I'm not sure this is a name that you'll know, but do you know, have you ever heard of anybody being referred to as like a terrible poet? I don't. Does that ring any bells? I don't think so. I don't think so either.

Usually you hear about poet laureates or good poets. Yeah. And even then, sometimes I read it, I'm like, really? That's a good poet. That's a classic. And I'll flag early, but I don't really get poetry. Okay. It's not my thing.

Yeah. No, I agree. I'm on board with this. Yeah. Oh, gosh, Evan, that's why we brought you here. You're the poetry guy. But I am fairly confident. that as I read some of this poetry to you later, we'll all be able to identify that it is quite

bad. Okay. You know? Because I don't think I would know good poetry from bad poetry necessarily. I don't, but I agree. Yeah. Sometimes I'm like, is that good? I don't know.

I guess maybe, you know, if you read a poem, it makes you feel something. I really, I was just saying to Beck recently. I really don't like alliteration. Okay, yep. You don't like alliteration? No. Okay. So if there's any of that in there?

What does it make you feel when you hear some alliteration? I just find, I think it's a, it's a, people use it as a lazy way to sound smart, maybe, or, I'm just like, why, why? Anyone, anyone, anyone can do that. It's, I don't know. Yeah, okay. All right, evil Evan. Is that good.

Got him. Daring Dave. Yeah, daring Dave. I mean, that's fine. Is it? But if, some people will do like a whole sentence that's just like, little sucks with piece. So you're just like, all right, come on.

It feels smug to you. Yeah, I don't like it. Daring Dave's. dog dives deep, that kind of thing. During December. So you hate newspaper headlines. Oh,

awful. How do you feel about puns? I actually love fun. He's back on board. Yeah. It's good to find your level. And I love a portmanteau. Yeah, beautiful.

Yes, you do. Love a portmanteau. That's fun. Very funny. I love a good acronym. Okay, so we haven't got a poet's name for you. No. John.

Oh. We're going back like, not John Grisham. We're going back to like 1800. So. So, um, William. William is correct. Wow. Yes.

I was going to say give me an old-timey name. You've got William. Howard. And then, not William Howard. Franklin. Um, think Harry Potter. Think, head of Gryffindore. William Potter.

Think, uh, Maggie Smith. William McGonigle. William McGonigle is correct. Really? Yeah. I can believe we got it. That was pretty good clue. William so quickly.

That was great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. William McGonigle is his name. He is, uh, infamous. hundreds of years later for his really bad poetry. And it's a lot of fun.

This has been suggested by Tim van der Right from Belgium. And only recently recommended actually, I think only a few months ago, I found this in the hat. I did a little bit of a Google and I was like, yeah, this is a bit of fun. I think if you were a fan of the episode we did

about the Cherry Sisters, who were like a group of sisters who would perform songs and vaudeville and like sketches and stuff, they were terrible and people would go and throw fruit at them and they sucked, but they were so successful with how bad they were. Yeah, I made a great career because people were just fascinated with how bad they were. Yeah. So bad it's good. That's a thing. Yeah, it really is. It's a Tommy Wiseau type kind of, are they aware of it? Are they not? So it's that kind of energy. But poetry.

But poetry. Incredible. It's really, it's really fun. So William McGonagall was born in March somewhere between 1825 and 1830, sort of gave different dates throughout his life. Hang on, they know the months, but they don't know the year? Yeah. Okay. Great. So, he always says March, but the year changed. Great.

So historians dug a little deeper, and they reckon that's 1825, but he kind of said different things. He doesn't want to take a few years off there at all. Exactly. I can see that. He was one of five children born to Irish parents, Charles and Margaret McGonigal. And the family moved around a bit when William was a child, moving to wherever they could get work. According to poetry website, I found, Wikipedia.org. I'm not familiar.

Yeah, it's got everything you need about poets, poetry, etc. It says, throughout his adult life, he claimed to have been born in Edinburgh, giving his year of birth variously as 1825 or 1830. But his entry in the 1841 census gives his place of birth, like his parents, as Ireland. Not very specific. Right, but it is Ireland. But he's trying to rebrand as Scottish. He's like, nah, I'm Scottish.

And young. I'm a young Scott. Yeah, I think that was, I couldn't quite really understand it, but they said it was likely because he would have been treated a bit better in this, like, essentially I think it would have been like government benefits. He would have been able to receive them better if he was fully Scottish rather than being born elsewhere. So he said, yeah, I'm Scottish, of course, yeah. It's believed they spent time in Glasgow before settling in Dundee around 1840.

And once the family had settled in Dundee, William left school. to become an apprentice in his father's trade as a handloom weaver. You know, so fabrics and stuff like that. This would be his career of the next few decades. And despite leaving school and no longer receiving a formal education, McGonagall took great delight in reading and further educated himself by buying cheap copies of Shakespeare's plays. In 1846, he married Jean King, a fellow mill worker from Sterling, which is in central

Scotland. Together they had seven children. Okay. How do you feel about that? Does a question come to mind? Well, I want to know if they know what's causing it, that's for sure. They had five sons and two daughters. Do you feel like seven, that's close enough to ten that you want them to keep going?

No, they should call it at seven. I cannot explain this, Dave. I don't mind seven. Okay. Maybe it should have been six. Yeah. Maybe I'm happier with six, but seven I... It is an odd number.

It's too many. I still think that's too many kids. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. But something about seven feels okay to me, and I can't explain. It's like a lucky number seven. It was much more common back then, right? Oh, yeah, big families for sure.

I mean, this is the 1800s. My mum was born in the 50s and she's one of nine kids. Whoa. The 1950s? 1950s, yes. 1850s, she looks great. So anyway, so they had seven kids and this was sort of during the Industrial Revolution as well, which was slowly making Weavers obsolete by replacing people with machinery.

But somehow, McGonigal still did pretty well. He thrived. He was able to support his family. he was a highly skilled worker and machines hadn't quite taken over some of the more complex tasks so he was able to still work. Yeah, like AI has come for everything.

Except podcasting. That's right. If you're this good. Yeah. The machine can't do it. We're sure we make it look easy. But that doesn't mean a computer could do it itself. You know?

And that's important to know. I reckon you should try it next week when Matt's still away. Yeah. Just get AI to sit in this chair and... Sub in. Sub in. I'm sure it'll have some great hot takes. Do some dog shit riff.

every now and then. Does they have to have the computer voice? I mean, to be fair, some of Matt's riffs do kind of come out of nowhere, so it wouldn't even have to be relevant to what we're talking about. Yeah. Sometimes that's our greatest moments. And he's like, oh, where's he gone? Yes.

Okay. We love it. Let's follow him on this journey. So while working at the loon, McGonigle would entertain his co-workers by reciting Shakespeare. Author Stephen Pyle wrote, William McGonigle's first stage appearance was as Macbeth at Mr. Giles' Theatre in Dundee, in 1858. Realising what a talent McGonigle had,

Mr Giles said that he could only appear if a large sum of money was paid to the theatre in cash before the performance. So you're so good you have to pay to play? I think maybe he wasn't. I think that was maybe a tiny bit of sarcasm. Oh, okay, okay, right, right, right. McGonigal said he considered this rather hard,

but his fellow workers at the Seafield Handloom works in Dundee had a whip around. They heard him reciting Shakespeare at work in his own unique way, and we're keen to see him turned loose amidst professional actors. Amazing. That sounds like they are setting you up. Yeah.

It sounds mean. I know and that's what's tricky is the balance here of like, is it mean-spirited? Yeah. Or are we kind of... We laughing at him or we laugh at him. Yeah. And so that's where it gets a bit hard to sort of navigate sometimes. But I think what's sort of funny with these people is they are so unflappable.

Right. And that they're not bothered by it. Like he... Yeah. People criticise. them to their faces and they're like, oh, yeah, they just don't get it all. Like, they just, they still think they're fantastic.

Yeah, it's that confidence. Something about that confidence kind of makes it feel more okay to laugh because you're like, well, they're fine, they're not bothered by this. And maybe he'll get out there. He'll start speaking and everyone will be silent Susan Boyle style. Yeah. With the incredible performance, another famous Scott having a go. Having a go.

Being very talented. So not only a bad poet, but a bad actor as well. Pretty bad, yeah. When the great night arrived, McGonigal wrote in his diary, my shopmates were in high glee with the hope of getting a Shakespearean treat from me. And I can assure you without boasting, they were not disappointed. When he appeared on stage, he was received with a perfect storm of applause. When he uttered his first line,

So foul and fair a day I have not seen, there was a deafening ovation. The crowd's just going nuts. Amazing. It's all these colleagues just like, The other actors are like, do you like you're talking or? Yeah. Well, speaking of other actors, apparently McGonagall was convinced that the actor playing McDuff was jealous of him and the praise he was getting. So in the final scene, which is a fight between Macbeth and Macduff, which ends in McDuff killing and beheading Macbeth,

McGonigal just refused to die. That's incredible. No, no, Macbeth will win this one. He's just rewriting Shakespeare. He was like, no, no, no. And I actually found, I had already written that, and then I found him writing about this event. And it's beautiful from his perspective. McGonigal wrote, I remember the actors of the company felt very jealous owing to me getting the general applause.

And several were as bold to tell me so. And when it came to the combat scene betwixt me and McDuff, the actor who was playing McDuff against my Macbeth tried to spoil me in the combat by telling me to cut it short. so as the audience, in his opinion, would say it was a poor combat. But I was too cute for him, guessing his motive for it. I continued the combat until he was fairly exhausted. And there was one old gentleman in the audience cried out, Well done, McGonagall. Walk into him. I don't really get that.

And so I did until he, McDuff, was in a great rage and stomped his foot and cried out, Fool, why don't you fall? No man, a woman born, born on. God's sake. Like, no, you're jealous that I'm getting all this praise, and you want me to cut this scene short so that you look more impressive than me? I don't think so.

I'm not going to die. I mean, the end of Macbeth could be a bit more epic. That's awesome. Yeah, I think this would be a genuinely very entertaining show to watch. It sounds like they're having a genuine fight now. Yeah, which is thrilling. Yeah. I mean, I think the end of Macbeth is a bit of a twist, you know,

because Macbeth thinks he's invincible essentially. He's like, I can't be killed. No man of woman born. can kill me. And then McDuff's like, bitch, I'm a C-section baby. I can kill you.

And he does. I think that's a fun twist. That in year nine, I was like, whoa! They do that. Oh, Burnham Wood.

Oh, my God. I get why this Shakespeare guy's like pretty freaking cool. So, yep, he's made his first appearance on stage. I think he made a couple of other, you know,

appearances in like, I think this was almost like a community theater type thing, but, you know, acting wasn't really, main thing. He just liked Shakespeare and he would recite it to his co-workers while he was working as a weaver. And to be fair, like, would you other actors want to be in Shakespeare with him

if they've seen him be Macbeth and not follow the script? It's so funny. It's so funny. Yeah. I'm trying to imagine a modern day equivalent of this scenario where you just like go join a theatre troupe, just like what just be part of a, like, whose role did he replace in it? Like, there was already somebody whose job that was. It's not like there's just a vacancy. Or maybe like they were, you know, the theatre's going to be putting on Macbeth and they hire actors for all the other roles. I don't know, yeah.

Was it a one-off? This is a one-off, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So, yeah. So, yeah. It's essentially, like, paid his way in. Yeah.

It is a bit bizarre. That's a good point. A turning point came from McGonagall in the middle of 1877, but it came in a difficult time for the McGonigle family. The family's reputation was heavily damaged when McGonigal's eldest daughter gave birth to an illegitimate child. And it meant that that impacted his ability to find work as a weaver because it's sort of, you know, the whole everybody in the town knew them and, yeah,

that sort of fun bullshit of the past. Yep. But William McGonagall was instead struck with a new inspiration. And this is him writing about it. I seemed to feel as if it were a strange kind of feeling stealing over me and remained so for about five minutes. A flame, as Lord Byron had said, seemed to kindle up my entire frame, along with a strong desire to write poetry. And I felt so happy, so happy, that I was inclined to dance.

Then I began to pace backwards and forwards in the room, trying to shake off all thought of writing poetry. But the more I tried, the more strong the sensation became. No, I don't want to. It's just so drawn to it. Amazing. It's just come to him of poetry. The Macbeth versus McDuffe of him versus poetry. And he clearly has a way with words.

Exactly right. That's what's so interesting is that like, I'm glad I've found this one particular website that had a lot of his sort of journal entries and some of the autobiographical writing he'd done of himself because he can string a sentence together. He can write. He tells the story in quite an interesting way, even though a fair bit of that kind of weird character comes out in his writing. But he can write, which is impressive.

because he left school at 15. He wasn't formally educated for as long. He just read a lot of books? He read a lot of books and he sort of kept educating himself. So he can write, but maybe not poetry. It was so strong I imagined that a pen was in my right hand and a voice crying, Right, right! So at the age of 52, he'd had this epiphany.

He was going to be a poet. Great. So he's been a weaver for, you know, most of his life. And now he's in his 50s and he's like, it's time. It's never too late. Never too late. I think if my business went under, I would take up poetry.

Do you reckon? Is that your backup plan? It's the backup plan. Yeah. But no alliteration. No alliteration, no. Just for the financial security, I think. I think so too.

You need something to take that check. Pay the bills. If your business goes down and you sort of go, well, look, I tried to pursue my creative dreams. Now, I'm going to give up or not. I'm going to tie back on it. I'm going to go. for something stable, steady, really secure my future, my retirement, I'm going to be a poet. Yeah.

And I think that's smart. Yeah, that's right. Suck it up. Put on a suit. Get your briefcase and head off to the poetry factory. All right. You've sold out, but I get it. You've got to support your family.

Yeah. It's a smart choice. It's a logical choice. It's not an artistic choice. In my house, we call all work the job factory. How was your day at the job factory? It's always fun. That's great.

So he wrote his first poem and it was entitled, an address to the Reverend George Guilfillion. This sounds like a letter, not a poem. It sounds more like, yeah, like an angry. A bit feedback to the neighbour. Hey, the sermons are a bit fucking loud on Sunday. Keep it down in there. Dear Reverend George.

No, so this is the poem. Would you like to hear some of his poetry? I would love to. So excited. All hail to the Reverend George Guilfillion of Dundee. He is the greatest preacher I did ever hear or see. He is a man of genius bright, and in him his congregation does delight. Because they find him to be honest and plain, affable in temper and seldom known to complain.

He preaches in a plain, straightforward way, the people flock to hear him night and day. And hundreds from the door are often turned away because he is the greatest preacher of the present day. It goes on, but you know, you get the idea. Beautiful. Really nice. It's much less colorful than his regular writer. I agree, yes. It's very, his poems are very, how would I describe them?

They're almost like quite matter of fact. Yeah. Like he's just telling some facts. There's no real flowery language. There's no real emotion. There's nothing. There's no imagery. No imagery at all.

It's just very literal. And the easiest possible rhyme you can find. He is very good. When he speaks, he's understood. Yeah, that's right. Okay. That's a good thing, I guess, is positive. Yeah.

So, McGoggle realized that if he's going to truly make it as a poet, like Evan wants to, he was going to need to find a patron. So back in the day, arts patronage was sort of support that princes, popes, other wealthy and influential people provided to artists like musicians, painters, sculptors, poets, writers. Was it possible that this reverend could be one? Is that way he's sort of sucking up to him a bit? No, I think he was just like, okay, well, look, they say write what you know, write what you like? What do I like?

I like that reverend. I'll write him a poem. I think that makes sense. Fair enough? So he needed a rich sponsor to pay him money to write his poetry essentially. So when you're just starting out, who do you go to for patronage? Queen Victoria, obviously. Okay, the big dog.

He goes straight to the top. Easy. I mean, she's got a lot of money. She's got a lot of money. And you know where she lives? Exactly right. Great. That's all you need.

Easy to find. How hard is it? So he wrote to her asking if she'd be a patron of his blossoming poetry. Yeah. And here's a couple of examples. Of course. Yep. When you pay.

Yeah, that's right. And surprisingly, he received a letter of rejection. Oh. I mean, are you surprised because you got a reply at all? I'm surprised. Yeah. Yeah, he did get a reply. It was a very polite rejection letter

written by a staff member of the Queen just saying, no, thank you, but thanks for your interest, which he took as praise for his work. Oh, no. I've got a letter from the Queen. Yeah, they said, thank you for your interest and he said, you love it?

Oh my God, you're interested? You love me? You're thanking me? I'm the best poet you've ever seen. Wow. I love him. The royal stamp of approval. Exactly.

Obviously, she's chosen by God, And now the person chose of my God is saying you're great. So you're basically approved by God to write poetry. I can't fault that logic. No. And I wouldn't dream of it. There you go. So the letter gave him confidence.

More confidence. That is so great. In his poetic abilities. And he thought the best thing to do would be to enhance his reputation by giving a live performance to the queen. No, he was not invited to do so. But in July of 1878, he walked from Dundee to Balmoral, which was 60 miles or 97Ks. Wow.

Over a few days, he writes a lot about it in like tedious detail about all the different places he stayed and all the people that he met who would give him a room for the night and feed him and they were all very complimentary of his work. Let me tell you. As soon as I heard he was a poet, they were like, come on in. It was crazy. It opens doors, poetry.

Yes. So he walked to Balmoral, and when he arrived, he announced himself as the Queen's poet. And the guard said, you are not the Queen's poet. Tennyson is. Tennyson at the time was the poet laureate. Okay. So close, not still exactly the Queen's poet, but similar.

And Bogot was like, no, I'm the Queen's poet. And he shows them his rejection letter that he's received as proof that the Queen loves him. Here it is. But weirdly, that still did not convince them to let him perform for the Queen. So he returned home. Oh, okay. I also read in another source that the Queen was not there at the time. She was not at Balmoral.

So he just returned home, somehow undeterred. He just walked from Dundee to Belmoral. The confidence. The confidence is incredible. I wish I had that. I mean, like, I don't really feel like I'm laughing at him. It's just, it's just water off a duck's back. He's bulletproof.

I think I, I think I admire him for, his poetry is not good, but his confidence. Yeah, there's something about it. And, like, at 50-something years old, he's just kind of like, he's out on, some adventures and I kind of, I respect it. Yeah, these days he'd be posting some pretty wild Facebook statuses, but back then, back then he's just going on a big walk. Exactly. Yeah. Who's got a problem with that? So he was a member of the international organization of good Templars. It was one of those fraternal organizations which promoted abstinence from alcohol and other drugs. There's his problem. So throughout his life, he campaigned against excessive drinking,

and he would use his poetry to do so. Great. That's what's going to get people. People across the line. Yeah, but the problem is he would appear in pubs and bars to give these poems about the evils of strong drink. Much to the anger of publicans and patrons who on occasion pelted peas at him while he recited his polls. Oh, my God. Obviously, that's, you know. Very specific. Of all the food, that's the most merciful, I can imagine.

I agree, unless they're frozen. Oh, you're right. That could hurt. Did they do frozen peas back then? Probably not. Don't. Do they have freezers back then? Probably not.

Probably not. Not for peas. Not for peas. So they would have just been fresh peas. So they're mushy. Yeah, and they love a mushy pee in Britain. That's why you love Britain. I love all their mush.

If people are throwing mush at me, I'd just be opening my mouth. Thank you. Over here. Yeah, he's singing as a compliment. They're trying to feed me. Thank you so much. They don't have money to spare for my work, but they'll pay me in peace. But they love me.

He's a glutton for punishment and peas. Yeah. In some of his later writing, he seemed quite paranoid and bitter about publicans. He blamed a lot of the poor treatment he received on them. That's a bit unfair. My dear friends, this is him writing. A publican is a creature that would wish to decoy all the money out of people's pockets that enter his house. He does not want them to give any of their money away for an intellectual entertainment.

No, no, by no means. Give it all to him and crush out entertainment altogether. thereby he would make more money if he could only do so. So he's like, he doesn't want people to pay money for my art because they should be spending it on booze, that evil drink. And it's like, no, you suck and you're killing the vibe. The way he speaks, I'm now imagining the succulent Chinese meal man. Yes.

Being dragged out of the pub. What's the charge? Yes. Giving some poetry. A hundred percent. I think it's the same energy. Throughout his life, McGonogles seemed oblivious to the general opinion of his poems. even when his audience were pelting him with eggs and vegetables.

Oh, God. He persevered despite constant money struggles. He earned money by selling his poems in the streets or reciting them in halls or theatres. Sometimes if things were really tough, his friends would help out with donations. His most infamous poem was called the Tay Bridge disaster, written in 1880,

which recounted the events of December 28, 1879, when during a severe gale, the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, collapsed as a train was passing over it. All 75 people on board were killed, and McGonigal wrote his piece the following year in what has been referred to as the worst poem in the English language. Oh, wow. I won't do the whole thing because it's long. Of course it is.

But it starts. And remember, this is a tragedy. Yeah. And a recent one is a very sensitive topic. Where 75 people died. Yeah. And he's decided the best way to write about it is through poetry. Okay.

And his intention is to honour the... I guess. Hard to say. Let's see if we can infer from the text. Beautiful railway bridge of the silvery tay. Alas, I am very sorry to say that 90 lives have been taken away. It was 75. He rounded up.

It's not dramatic enough. On the last Sabbath day of 1879, which will be remembered for a very long time. Good, good, good. T'was about seven o'clock at night, and the wind it blew with, all its might and the rain came pouring down and the dark clouds seemed to frown and the demon of the air seemed to say I'll blow down the bridge of Tay oh no it goes on and on and on and then this is the end oh ill-fated bridge of the silvery Tay I must now conclude my lay by telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay that your central girders would not have given way

at least many sensible men do say had they been supported on each side with buttresses At least many sensible men confesses For the stronger we our houses do build The less chance we have of being killed Oh my God Wow It sounds like the structural engineers report

Is this getting a bit flowering Why the fuck are you including that in a poem About a disaster Being like, okay well A lot of the experts say If we had supported on each side with buttresses then the accident would have happened because, can I just say, if we build our houses a bit stronger, we're not going to get killed? Like, what the f? That's how the poem ends.

Incredible use of the rhyme, buttresses with confessors. Very, very good. That's advanced. And here's the thing, we know that poems don't have to rhyme. No. And he seems to think they do, but sometimes they don't. He seems to think that that's all that there is to a poem. Yeah, that's right.

Just the, you're right, it's so matter of fact. Yeah. But, but in a way that rhymes and that's it. There's no, that's all he's got. There's no imagery to it. And yeah, but they also, he doesn't also, he also doesn't follow certain rhythms. Yeah, like, like, just came out of nowhere then. Yeah.

And sometimes there'll just be an oddly long sentence. It doesn't flow. It's, but it's so funny. It's, it's bizarre. Does it, so does he go in at all into like the victims of this tragedy? The poem is quite long. Right. Because that feels like that's where the heart of this issue is.

Yeah, but he just sort of goes on and on about, you know, as they are approaching Dundee and stuff like that. It's really, it's quite strange. And here's the thing, that isn't the first or only poem he had written about that exact bridge. Okay, right. That bridge is his muse. He loves it. The first time he wrote about it, it was actually written before the disaster occurred. And it had a passage that says,

Beautiful railway bridge of the silvery tay. I hope that God will protect all passengers by night and by day and that no accident will befall them while crossing the bridge of the silvery tay. Oh my gosh. For that would be the most awful to be seen nearby Dundee and the Magdalene Green. Is it possible that he exploded the bridge? Well, really sounds like he did. Maybe he really believed that it needed buttresses.

Yes, all his poetry is so powerful that it foretells the future, and we really should be looking at Nostradama stuff, a little clues for what could happen going forward. But the fact that he's written this poem about, like, I really hope nothing happens when a train's crossing it. Yeah. And then something did happen when a train was crossing it, and then he immediately follows it up with a new poem.

Because what he's done is he's looked at it and gone, if I knock that down, I reckon I could rhyme buttresses with confessors. And that's too good to not have the age. Does it rhyme in a Scottish accent somehow? Buttruses. Now do confessors. Not really.

Not really. Unless you're Scottish and you're like, yeah, of course that rhymes. Please let us know about it. Let us know in the beautiful. I mean, maybe he's great. Yeah, maybe he's incredible. And we just, it doesn't work in the Australian accent. Yeah, yeah.

And like I said, I'm not a poet. I don't know anything about poetry. Maybe I'm reading it wrong. But you didn't know a lot about buttresses. I know a lot about buttresses. I definitely know what they are. I understand it. So about this first poem that he wrote, saying, like,

Oh, hope nothing happens. This is him writing about it. He said, the reading of the poem abroad calls the emperor of Brazil to leave his home far away incognito and view the bridge as he passed along en route to Inverness. The poem about the bridge was so evocative that the emperor of Brazil left Brazil in disguise just to see the bridge. Does Brazil have or did they have an emperor in 1880? The Emperor of Brazil. I've never heard of an Emperor of Brazil. Maybe.

Maybe. And this is the poem about it might fall down. The Emperor's like, I've got to see this. The poem about I hope it doesn't. I hope nothing happens to it. That's incredible. So evocative, as we know from his writing, that the Emperor of Brazil was like, I must see this bridge.

This I got to see. What? I've been one. wondering, where, are these being published somewhere? How are people reading these? Where is he putting them? He often sort of prints them and will sell them in like little books or just sell like just sheets of poems. People on the street would just buy a poem.

Yep. It's a different time. They didn't have TV. Yeah. I've just found Dom Pedro the second, nicknamed the Magnimonious, was the second and last monarch of the empire of Brazil. That's a great nickname. reigning 58 years between 1825 and 1891,

so Dom Pedro the second could have gone all the way from Brazil, all the way to Dundee, to see this bridge that could potentially fall down. Yeah. In disguise. We can't confirm or deny that that happened. Wow. Fantastic.

I mean, luckily he wasn't on the, when it collapsed. That's right. He didn't want to cross the bridge. You just want to look at it. That's lucky. Yeah. Incredible stuff. So McGonigle made a couple of attempts to make it big of the poetry bits.

In 1880, he traveled to London, to seek his fortune. But how he got the money to go to London is a bit of a wild story as well. And I got this directly from him. So, who knows? So he'd received a letter from Dion Boussico, a famous Irish playwright. Dion Boussico, very Irish name. And Boussico invited him to have lunch with him at a restaurant to discuss a tour of performances

in towns throughout Britain and a promise of a great salary. So McGonle was like, hell yeah. He goes to the restaurant to meet up with Boussico. And McGonigal writes, I was received very kindly and shown upstairs to a little room. I think it was the smoking room and I knocked at the door

and it was answered by one of the gentlemen. Of course I knew him and he introduced me to the gentleman who was impersonating the character of Dion Boussico. So straight away he's like, you're pretending to be Dion Boussico but you're not. Right.

But he knows. And he asked me how I was and I told him I was very well hoping to find him the same. Then he told me he had heard so much about my histrionic abilities and he would engage me and give me a salary of 20 pound weekly, food included, and the other gentleman present said it was little enough for a man of my abilities, but all the while I knew he was an imposter. So a fake Dion Boussico has sent him a letter to come meet for lunch. And offered him a job? Yeah. And when refreshments were served,

McGonigal decided to psych out the imposter Boussico. Oh no, he's going to grab the fake beard. Turns out it's real, that kind of thing. Oh, yeah. He says, I laid it down. So he's talking about like the food that they'd served on a little round table beside me and screwed my courage to the sticking plate and stared the imposter Boussico in the face. And he felt rather uneasy like he guessed I knew he wasn't the original Boussico.

So he arose from his seat and made a quick retreat. And before leaving, he bade me goodbye, telling me he would see me again. Then I kept silent and I stared the. rest of my pretended friends out of counternance until they couldn't endure the penetrating glance of my poetic eye and they arose and left me alone in my glory. So he just sort of sat there in silence staring at them until everybody else left. I'd leave. I'd think I'd go down.

If you were having dinner with someone and previously they'd been talking and suddenly they'd just gone into death staring you. Yeah. I'd leave. I'd get up. I'd go. So McGonigle then goes to the Theatre Royal, speaks to the theatre manager there. shows him the letter that he got from the fake Boussico.

And he goes, when he looked at it, he said it wasn't his handwriting and how I had met with the great disappointment, no doubt, and asked me if I would allow him to make an extract from the letter, and he would send it to Boussico. So I said I would. So he, okay, it's not a lot of punctuation. So he made an extract, essentially he copied it, telling me he mentioned my poor circumstances in it,

and he would no doubt, but Mr. Boussico would do something for me by ways of consolation for my wounded feelings and for using his name in vain. I was hoping to get like a signed headshot or something being like, sorry to hear you met the fake Boussigo, but here, have one of these. Yeah. So the manager at the theatre

sends a letter to the real Boussico and a few days later gets a reply and a check for five pound. In the letter, Boussico felt for me very much saying practical jokers were practical fools, which is my opinion. Which in my opinion is really true. So, my dear readers, it was through me getting the five pound from Busiko that I resolved to take a trip to London.

A steerage return passage at that time was one pound. So I purchased a ticket and made up my mind to go. Wow. That's how, that's, that, he writes for so long, and it's just how he got five pounds to then go to London. I mean, that's a weird way to get five pounds. Yeah, that is, to me to fake Busiko. And say, I, I, I, somebody is using your name in vain. and I'm quite wounded.

My feelings are wounded. I'd get five pounds. Pretty good. Well, that's been a lot of money if a trip to London was a pound. Yeah. Five pounds, not bad, is it? Seems pretty good. I guess this job wasn't real that either, right?

Surely not. But then who the fuck was this person pretending to be Buscault? Yeah, what's the scam here? I don't get it. But now, just now, I'm thinking, did he make that up? Oh. To then get some money out of the real Busiko. Oh, that's a good one.

Honestly, if he's done that, that's a masterclass. That's really clever if he has. That's complete speculation on my part. I don't know. There's got to be more of the story. If somebody said, hey, somebody was pretending to be you and offered me a job, and they weren't you and I'm pretty upset about it, I wouldn't be like, okay, well, I owe you money. Yeah.

Yeah, like if someone contacted you with a screenshot of the fake Jess Perkins on Instagram and said, hey, I sent this person 10 grand for Bitcoin thinking it was you, you're not going to be like, all right, sorry, that wasn't me, but I'll replace the 10,000. Yeah, I'm like, that's kind of on you, babe. Yeah, sorry. Call the police. I'm sorry that happened. I truly am, but I'm not, I don't think I'm liable for that.

But that's the difference between you and the great Boussico. That's right. That's why he's the great Boussico. That's why he's... That we've all heard of. Exactly. A household name. And I'm nothing.

Dion Boussico. Deon Bucico. I wouldn't even know how to spell that. Beautiful Irish name. It is B-O-U-C-I-C-A-U-L-T, obviously. A-L-L-T? What? Yep.

Wow. Yeah. There you go. So then he goes to London And he writes of seeing the sites And seeing some performances at the theatres But didn't see much But I didn't really read much about him

Actually trying to perform or make money So maybe he was just seeing the world Maybe he was just like wow It was just a trip to London Yeah, that's fair He went to some theatres That was kind of nice And off he goes

He tried again a few years later in 1887 This time travelling all the way to New York City Wow And but he didn't have much luck in terms of making money. He writes about Americans at that time not wanting to read or buy writing from people in the UK. That was his problem. Yeah, that was... I mean, I didn't like Charles Dickens or anything like that. Yeah. This is quite long, but again, it just shows like, it shows a bit of his personality, which I love more and more. When I couldn't get an engagement,

I thought I would try and sell some of my poems I had fetched with me from Dundee. Well, the first day I tried to sell them, it was complete failure for this reason. When they saw the royal coat of arms at the top of the poems, they got angry and said, To juice with that, we won't buy that here. You'll better go home again to Scotland. Well, of course, I felt a little angry, no doubt,

and regretted very much that I'd been so unlucky as to come to New York and resolved in my mind to get home again as soon as possible. Just one day of somebody going, no, he's like, I'm going home. And it took like weeks to get there, baby. It took like three weeks. For a day, a day trip to New York. When I came back to my friend's house, where he was staying.

I told him how I had been treated when I offered my poems for sale and he said to me, I tell you what to do. You'll just cut off the Royal Coat of Arms and then the people will buy them from you. And when he told me to do so, I was astonished to hear him say so

and told him, no. I said, I declined to do so. I am not ashamed of the Royal Coat of Arms yet. I don't know why they yet. And I think you ought to be ashamed for telling me so. Is this because he's the Queen's poet? Oh, true.

Or is it just because he's from England and that he feels like, or he's from Scotland. Yeah. He feels like he needs to have that. Yeah, maybe. Maybe it's a different time. Maybe it's because he's like, the queen loves me. He's a patriot, I suppose. Yeah.

But he's so angry at his friend for saying, just cut it off and sell your poems. He's like, how dare you? I think you ought to be ashamed for telling me so. I will still adhere to my colours wherever I go. So he just, you know, he has a strong code of ethics. Yeah, I'm not the problem. They're the problem. right. So once again, he saw some

sites and wrote home to a friend to buy him a ticket home. He didn't have enough money. Oh, no. And a friend back at, like, one of the who ran a pub or something was like, I'll let me know and I'll get you home. So he's then gone home. He hit up Busika and said, look, mate. Busikar, maybe. I need to get from New York.

You won't believe what happened, but I got another letter from you. And, uh... Yeah, they won't let me put the British coat of arms. You're Irish. You don't understand. You get it. You love this. He did, however, find some success performing his poetry at a local circus. This is back in Dundee. Great.

He would read his poems while the crowds were permitted, encouraged even, to throw eggs, flour, herrings, potatoes and stale bread at him. Wow. So who encouraged them? He did. The circus. Oh, okay, okay.

Oh, dear. For this, he got paid 15 shillings a night. The events became... How many shillings in a pound? I don't know. I don't remember how... I can never remember either, because we never had to bloody... years.

Thankfully. Oh yeah, it's probably boomers listening and you bloody kids don't know. 20 shillings equals one pound.

Oh, so okay so almost a pound. And obviously it makes sense because 12 pence is one shilling. So 240 pence this way you remember it,

240 pence is one pound. Oh. Do you know that? 24 hours and one day. 10 pence for every hour equals one pound. Perfect. Yeah.

Straight up. So 15 pence is what? 15 shillings? Uh, three quarters of a pound. 75 cents. Yeah, okay. Or pence. I guess. No, no, well, pence now, because now there's a hundred pence.

Okay. But back then, 240 pence. I'm sorry, I asked. So, 15 shillings. It's 180 pence in their money. Okay? Okay. Three quarters.

What's pence to pound? 240 pence to a pound. Yeah. So he's really not making very much money at all. But he's making 15 shillings. Shillings. So he's, which is three quarters of one pound back then. Okay.

She's almost so that wasn't almost enough to get to London. Yeah, yeah. So it worked for a couple of days you could get to London. Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah. Plus, he gets to probably keep the stale herring that hit him across the face. Yeah, that's fun. But it's the short.

But these, yeah. Just open up, over there. In between the second and third stanza, just open up. He's just catching the eggs. That's my breakfast. I like bacon as well. Who are these people that are like going to the circus with pockets full of eggs? I know.

To throw stuff. What else are thrown at them? Um, potatoes. Flower is a weird one. Flower. Yeah, how do you throw flour? You're just getting the person in front of you. Yeah, you're getting yourself.

You're getting flour everywhere. Potato sounds like you could kill someone. Potato could hurt. Yeah. That could do some real damage. But here's the thing. These shows became so wild and rowdy that the city magistrate put a ban on the shows from happening, which you would think that McGonogood would be happy about,

seeing as he was being pelted with eggs and vegetables and fish. But he was outraged. No, but he's willing. Like that's, he's turning up. every night to come and do this. Exactly. He's suffering for his art, right? Is that what's happening?

But he's causing riots almost. Yeah. It sounds like he's really... It's getting rowdy. So, but he's angry about it. And so he was so outraged that he wrote a poem. And the poem... Of course.

The poem is entitled, Lines in Protest to the Dundee magistrates. He's very literal in his titles as well. Honestly, that could have a bit more alliteration, in my opinion, but Evan probably likes it. Fellow citizens of Bonnie D. Dundee, are ye aware how the magistrates have treated me? Nay, do not stare or make a fuss when I tell ye they have boycotted me from appearing in the royal circus.

Oh my God. He rind fass and circus. And then like, but missed like the time where it should rhyme by about three sentences. It's gone way too long. Which in my opinion is a great shame and a dishonour to the city's name. So he's like, what? Can you believe the magistrates aren't letting you throw through through to me? The magistrate would feel like.

a bit of a fall. Yeah, as they should, through the power of poetry. In 1890, to help him get out of some serious financial trouble, his friends funded the publication of a collection of his works. He's got some great friends. He's got some really good friends. So he must be an okay person, I guess. Yeah. He sounds like maybe he's fun to be around, but then his poems just maybe aren't too good. Just a little bit of a kook. So the book called Poetic Gems sold enough for McGonagull to get by for a while. But by 1893, he was fed up with the way people in Dundee treated him. I don't fully understand.

Too many benefactors looking after me. So what did he do? He wrote a poem. Of course. Yes, he wrote an angry poem, threatening to leave Dundee if people didn't start showing some respect for him. From Wikipedia, one newspaper quipped that he'd probably stay for another year once he realized that Dundee rhymes with 1893.

A newspaper wrote that. Wow. Just taking the piss. This guy's like, I'm going to, I'll leave it. I'll leave it. Like, he'll stay once he realizes he can make an easy pulp. Oh my God, it's so funny. He's like, actually, yeah.

Actually, that is pretty good. That's really good. That's really good. Oh, my God. How much of his catalogue is angry poems? Not all angry. Okay. Mostly quite factual.

Yeah, some of that this beautiful bridge might fall down. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. He wrote one about the queen one time. Yeah. But she loved her head. She loved it. She was a big fan of it.

she said, you're my poet. By 1894, William and his wife, Jean, moved to Perth, which today is about... What? In Scotland. Oh. I know. For a second, I was like, oh!

Because I love any link to Australia. He's Lodby. We can clean him. He's not. The old Perth. The old Perth. Right. By today, I mean, it was probably more of a journey back then.

But today, apparently, it's about half an hour drive out of Dundee. It's not that far. But he's moved. And back then... This guy just walks most places. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. He's like, I'm getting out of Dundee.

I'm going to Perth. birth. Oh my God. Oh, this is great. Colth. Gertth. Did you already say GERth? No, but that's a great one.

That's a good one. What else? Worth. Yes. You could probably like rhyme words that almost runes like turf. Yes. That's good. Surf and turf in Perth.

Yes. Oh, okay. Okay. Sorry. Can I just write this done? Now we're talking. Are we going to business? The business of poetry.

Soon after this move, some good fortune, came McGonigle's way. He received a letter from a representative of King Thebor Min of Burma. In the letter, McGonigal was informed that the king had knighted him, and his title was now Topaz McGonigle, Grand Knight of the Holy Order of the White Elephant Burma. That's incredible. Huge. That's the biggest title he's got yet.

It's beautiful. Now, most people these days know that when you get an email from a Nigerian prince asking for money, it's probably a scam. Yes. Can you find that out the hard way after trusting too many princes? Yes. Yes. And even back then, a letter from the King of Burma saying, hey, guess what I knighted

you, was quite clearly a hoax. What? But despite this, McGonigal, knowingly or otherwise, referred to himself as Sir William Topaz McGonigal, knight of the white elephant Burma, in his advertising for the rest of his life. Oh, man. I mean, it's hard to resist, right? Topaz.

title. Topaz. This is like buying that like a patch of land in Scotland and calling yourself a lord. Yes. What did you know that Evan, you're currently having a conversation with Lord, sorry, lady Jessica Perkins of Sealand. Sealand? Yeah.

And you're currently filling in for Lord Matthew Stewart also of Sealand. Yep. Okay. Where's Sealand again? Middle of the ocean. Well, middle of the ocean. Basically, we just did a fantastic, one of my favorite ever episodes of the show. Of the show.

You did a report on Sealand, which is like this island that declared itself, like a man-man island that declared itself a country. Yeah, a micronation. A micronation, that's right. And now you can buy titles from a website that I actually bought for Matt and Jess. Amazing. All right. What did we make you? Was it the pie competition?

You allowed me to spook my pie competition on here from Brumby's. And I got our listeners to vote me as Brumby's gourmet pie guy. Okay. And in fairness, I did win 10,000. thousand dollars pretty good that's so good so we're like you're buying us some titles so with some of the pie money i bought bought titles they came for their frame certificates yeah incredible well and so and you're using this in all your advertising now yes yes of course yeah it says lady jessica perkins lord matthewett and bobby's gourmet pie guy don't want to you 10 grand is a good chunk of money to

wear it's so good it's so good you have a good you have good luck with competitions yeah you got to be in It to win it. Where did you go? You want a trip to Mexico? To Mexico, yeah. Through Taco Bill. How did you win that one? It was their 50th birthday, Taco Bill.

This is maybe six or seven years ago now. And they wanted you to share your best Taco Bill memory. And I wrote a story and sent it in. And they chose mine. Wow. Was it a poem? It wasn't a poem. It was just a little tale that I sort of, to be honest,

bullshitted. Pumped up a little bit. Sure. Sure. As my dad says, never let the truth ruin a good story. Exactly. And that's why you'd never listen to a thing my dad says. That's why I took the John Perkins approach.

And I put a bit of mail on a story. And they loved it. And they brought me into the head office after I won to take a photo and give me a certificate. And then they said, what we loved about your story was it just felt so genuine. You said, yes. There were all these people writing in stuff like, oh, I tried to propose my wife with a target, but she ate the ring. Can you imagine they're like, clearly this is bullshit. But yours was just so genuine.

He is a trip to Mexico. Amazing. Incredible. Yeah, you have had some good luck, but you've got to be in it to win it. You're right. Exactly. I have a friend who enters like every competition. Do they win?

Yeah, she wins a bit. Yeah, you're just statistically. Exactly. But you go like, well, she wins a lot of competitions. When's the last time I entered one? My tip for people is you can largely for me ignore ones where it's a game of chance. Like, just put your name in the drawer. We'll put one out because like they're so easy that more people enter.

But as soon as there's a hurdle, like, you've got. to get people to vote for you or in 25 words or less, 50 words or less, or you have to write an entry. Yeah. Yeah. People go, I'll get to that. Oh, I can't be bothered. So the pool is already smaller.

Yeah. And if you can come up with something a little bit funny or a little bit unique, you're more likely even stand out then. Yeah. So that's how you can win it. Was it quite a short story you had to write? Like, was it 50 words or less? No, they didn't have a word count.

So I wrote a page and they actually published the story in their website. And then there were a few angry people in the comments being like, I can't believe this one. I thought it was 25 words. I didn't read the website properly And I'm pissed That's my other tip Always read the terms and conditions That's great

Yeah we should start entering some more competitions Evan You and I as a team Okay Let's go to Mexico Yeah Let's write some poetry Let's write it All the other night

Just drove me home from the podcast And I said Look and I'm already pushing my luck But can we please stop for milk I need milk And you did And then I came back to the car With two litters of milk

and also a $1 scratchy, and I pledged that if we won the $10,000 on that scratchy, we would split the money. And I'm pleased to report that the cereal the next day tasted fantastic. We didn't win, but the milk was absolutely worth it. Yeah, great. Can you split that feeling of the great tasting breakfast? No, but like, I feel like,

I don't know if I'm putting words in your mouth, yes, but it was worth the excitement of us sitting there in your car, scratching it under torchlight. It was so funny, watching Dave, like, hunched over in my car going, oh, no, no, oh. Yeah, or strawberry. Yeah.

Strawberry, pear. Fuck. I always try again. There's another one here. God damn pair. We didn't win, which is crazy, isn't it, Evan, but whatever. That's right. I do encourage people to gamble responsibly.

Of course. And more importantly, enter competitions. You've got to be in it to win it. Yeah, that feels less like gambling. Yeah, exactly. They're fun prizes, too. It usually only costs you time. Exactly.

And so you feel like you earn it. Who cares about my time? You earned that jet ski. That's right. Anyway, that's a little. Detour, but that was a lot of fun. William Topaz McGonigle. The McGonagall's only lived in Perth for a little under a year.

William wrote that while the people there were very kind to him, the city itself was too small for him to make a living. So the next year in 1895, he and his wife moved again, this time, to Edinburgh. Here, McGonigle met with some success, becoming a bit of a cult figure, and he was in great demand. Oh, wow. Sorry, is that in his own words? Because I can't trust me.

Potentially, and look, it's always short-lived, but he had a bit of a cult following and he got to, you know, perform in some places and make a little bit of money. But the mild success only lasted a few years. And by 1900, he was once again broke. But this time he was quite old. He was about 75, which isn't that old, but back then, ancient. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, he was too frail to walk the street selling his poems.

And once again, some kindly donations from friends kept him afloat. And sadly, all good things must come to an end. And William McGonigle died in 1902. So he would have been, what, 77? Seven, yeah. Depending on when he was actually poor. That's right. Well, yeah.

We think he was probably 77. He was buried in Greyfriars' Kirkyard in Edinburgh in an unmarked grave, but a plaque was mounted on a wall there in 1999, 97 years after his death, which reads, William McGonagall, poet and tragedian, I am your gracious majesty, ever faithful to thee, William McGonagall, the poor poet that lives in Dundee. I don't know if he wrote that. It's beautiful. So a career spanning some 25 years, and widely regardless,

one of the worst poets in history. But the fun thing with these stories is the question that remains, are they in on it? Like, was he aware that his writing was bad and he just didn't care? Was he a master of satire and taking the piss the whole time? Was he just terrible, but ignorance is bliss? Yeah. Hard to say.

But more than 120 years later, we're still aware of him. his work is still printed and available to modern readers. Wow. What a legacy. I know. Like, he's lived on quite a lot in popular culture and he's been referenced in a lot of sources over the years, particularly in comedy. A character called Magoonagal frequently appeared in the British radio comedy program,

The Goon Show, ultimately played by Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. Two big names in British comedy. And The Goon Show was huge. Yeah. Very influential. And Milligan also occasionally gave readings of McGonner. Like he would read his, Spike Milligan also recounted McGonigall's life story in, in the pastiche novel, William McGonigle, the truth at last.

That's fun. And Spike Milligan must have been obsessed with William McGonigle because he also portrayed him in the 1974 movie called The Great McGonagall. So I think he really latched on to the comedy side of this writing. An episode of Montepathons Flying Circus featured a McGonagall-esque poet called Ewan McTeagel, whose poems were actually prose requests for money. A collection of 35 broadsheet poems of McGonagulls, the majority signed by him,

was bought for 6,600 pound from an auctioneer in Edinburgh in 2008, for six grand. How many shillings is that? It's a lot of shillings. And Terry Pratchett referenced him in The Wee Freeman, where a character is a battle poet or a, Gonigal who repels the enemy through the awfulness of his poetry.

Training up a... It's so good. This is from Wikipedia. Training up a successor, the old bard congratulates the young one. That lad, he said proudly, was some of the worst poetry I've heard for a long time. It was offensive to the ear and torture to the soul. A very commendable effort. We'll make a gonagull out of you yet.

That's great. So the character of a gonagal is a terrible poet. Yeah. It's like a Stephen Bradbury or something. I think this was my favourite legacy, though, in that I think it sort of sums up the playful admiration people have for him. So in 1965, a competition was organised to find poets of McGonigall's calibre with cash prizes being offered to winners. Again, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan were involved. They were judges.

Amazing. After careful deliberation, the judges decided to reject all entries and declared that no poet can yet compare with William McGonogical. Oh, that's beautiful. None of you are bad enough. And Stephen Pyle, he has written a book called The Book of Heroic Failures, and he sums it up quite nicely, saying McGonagall was so giftedly bad, he backed unwittingly into genius. And it is that sort of thing you saying before of like, it's so bad, it's good. Yeah, it is. It is like the room.

It's like so many other, it's the Cherry Sisters. I enjoy it. Me too. I really like it. And I don't like it in a mean-spirited way. I like it in a, yeah. And it's sort of I admire that type of person. Yeah.

But I think it's... I don't know. I find it... I actually find it entertaining to read. I think I'd genuinely would enjoy reading that more than good poetry. Yeah. So at least he's... I understand it, you know?

I'm getting what all these words mean together. It's so funny. I liked his... The way he actually wrote stories and stuff, I think was quite funny. It's, yeah, I just think it's very funny. This is a little part of one of his poems called Attempted Assassination of the Queen. God prosper long our noble queen and long may she reign. Maclean, he tried to shoot her, but it was all in vain.

For God, he turned the ball aside. McLean aimed at her head and he felt very angry because he didn't shoot her dead. It's just so literal and so... I was worried if he would go with head, dead. Yeah. It's like a lot of his writing as well feels a bit poor taste. It's that sort of... Yeah, why is he picking this stuff to write about?

I don't know, but he's just... Yeah, he misses a few social cues and stuff. When did the limerick take off? Because I feel like he would have really been very good, excelled at writing a limerick. A bit of fun, a bit naughty, maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he really would have shone. Getting the rhyme.

But I love that. So giftedly bad, he backed unwittingly into genius. I think... That is good. Yeah, and so I hope that the spirit of this has come across as laughing, but somewhat. with admiration. Of course. It's not really mocking somebody.

You gotta respect the guy. Totally. And just the, like, I think I respect people who are just so unfazed and so unflappable that they're like, this is the thing I do. And I don't care what other people think. I think that rule. It's not hurting anybody. I know what other people think.

They think I'm great. Exactly. I think that's just so, there's something really funny and endearing about that. And I love these kind of stories. So I had a lot of fun writing that. Thank you to Tim for suggesting that topic. I loved it. If you've got others in this sort of vein, please let me know because I'm all for it.

I was sitting next to you whilst you were writing that. And you couldn't tell me what you were laughing at, but you were laughing a lot throughout the report. I was. I'd keep laughing and that I'd want to read Dave a bit of the poem. And I was like, no, I can't. I've got to keep it a secret. It was yesterday. So I didn't have to wait long.

Yeah, yeah. You're like, oh, I just found another funny bit. He's done something else a bit silly. But there we go. So that's it. That's the story of William McGonagall. I realize I've been to that, the Greyfriars Kirkyard. Have you?

Yeah, in Edinburgh, it's right near the Greyfriars Bobby statue. You know that little dog that's a statue that people rub it. Oh, shit. I've been there there. And there's a little behind the pub there. There is this little cemetery. And that's where it is. I do know that little dog.

Walk past it many times. Yeah. And this is very old cemetery there. And I've walked past that plaque without even knowing. Yeah, cool. There you go. Well, Evan, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me.

To hear about the poetry, obviously your career, your backup career has been locked in forever now. You know that you can excel at poetry. You know how to make the money now. You don't even have to be good. Yeah, absolutely not. You have to be confident.

Yeah, that's all. Yeah. And I think you could be that if you just worked on it a little bit. Yeah, okay. But I don't think you won't need the backup career, because everything's going so well for you. Yeah. Hosting gamey, gamey game that people can check out a,

a comedy panel show that you host on stupid old channel about video games and gaming stuff yep you guys have both been on it you can go search for it on YouTube yeah

yeah a lot of great guests a lot of previous guests of the show also on there definitely check that out and stupid old studios is available what to hire

oh yes it is people I'm just trying to spruce what people want to buy it no no no no no I'm on my mind if you need to do a podcast a video podcast if you need to do a

production in a studio or have something shot? Yeah, swing by. We're in Melbourne. That's important. Australia. That is important also, yes. But yeah, if you're local or if you know people who are local and spread the word, we're a brand new studio here and it's all good and we do good things and we're nice people.

That's true. And it's so great. Man, this place rules. I want to be buried here. Have you thought about that? Stupid old symmetry. There's some space. Like in the car park, there's a patch of.

Right. But I'd actually be, like to be buried in the podcast studio. Okay. Which is on the second level, obviously. Yeah. But I still think you'll be able to. There's a little bit of like a roof cavity. He's small.

Oh, great. So go up. Yeah. Bobby in the roof. Okay. Or also the walls, there is like an air gap in the walls. Perfect. Perfect.

It could, we could probably, I think we can fit you in. Love to be. I think I'd like to be buried underneath my favorite car spot, car park. Oh, yeah. Jess has a really good car park out there. Which one? Right at the door. The one with the yellow pole.

Yeah. Oh. I park right at the door. Okay. I'm a real pain. Yeah. Yeah. I block the driveway.

I see. And I want to be buried there. So you have to park on top of me. I mean, we only just redid the cement in that section. Okay. So you're saying, I'm not dying anytime soon. Okay. All right.

This would sound crook if people listen to these later and I'm dead. Oh, right. But they'll know where to pay their respects. That's right. Next to the yellow. Stupid old shit is. We know your wishes. Yeah.

But yes, Evan, thank you so much for joining. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. And as we say goodbye to the great man, Evan Munro Smith. Love you, Evan. We say hello to everybody's favourite section of the show. The fact, quote, or question section, which I believe Jess may have a jingle.

That sounds something like this. Fact quote or question. What I did there was, I remember the singing the ding. You remember the singing. I remember the thing. I put the inflection on the question too early and then had to ask a second question. I honestly, yeah, you did. And you knew because I.

in the past have thrown a tantrum if you don't say and it sounds something like this. Yes, exactly. I knew exactly what was happening there. I remembered. Oh, got to do that. Or she will be a diva! Correct. Yeah, we've been together too long now.

We know each other too well. There's no surprises here. No surprises. Now, this is everyone's favourite section of the show, as we say, where people, you know, who support the show on Patreon, patreon.com slash do go on pod, get their time in the sun and also just you know, get to contribute to the show and we have a bit of fun with them. And it's good for them to get some time in the sun because they are a pack of nerds.

So they are inside constantly and they're all vitamin D deficient. So it is nice. We give them this little time in the sun just for their health, really. That's right. Led by me, I'm extremely pale. Yes, you are. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with pale, but you are sickly. Yes, and there's definitely something wrong with that.

That's not good. It's not ideal. So yeah, this is where we get to thank some people And they get to give themselves a title And give us a suggestion A fact, a quote, a question, a brag, a compliment A recipe, a complaint Have we had complaint before?

I don't want to open that up. I don't want to encourage it. It does feel recently we had a couple where it felt like they'd maybe joined the tier Yes, on Patreon. To give feedback. Feedback, but you've got to pay. Yeah, maybe it's okay to put a complaint behind a paywall.

But if you're going to complain, make it something like, I'm really mad. There isn't more because I love you so much. Stuff like that. I'd be okay with that. But then actually, no, I wouldn't because then I'll spiral of like, there's only so much of me. I'm doing my best. Yes.

I think. Maybe just keep it positive or I'll have a breakdown. The great man and former guests of the show, Luke Heggy, I think on his website you can submit a complaint, but you have to pay for you to get the complaint to him. That is so. that is so funny and so Luke Heggy. Yeah, great.

I love it. And then maybe there's like a drop-down menu of what you're complaining about, and then he's pre-written a bunch of really funny answers. Oh my God, that's so good. Yeah, we both go into Luke Hegge's website right now. Lookitjee.com. Let's go on it. Let's check it out.

Let's make a complaint. I think it used to be a dollar per complaint. Yeah, complaints. I see that. It's got a turn tab. I was most offended by swearing even though I'm an adult. The one thing that was mentioned that applies to my life, but nothing mentioned that other.

complainers may find offensive to their insignificant lives. Oh, man. It do yourself for favour. It's very, very funny. It looks like it's free these days. Maybe he's opened it up because it's, but for a while that I think it was a dollar per complaint. Wow, that's good stuff. He also does great merchandise like pencils.

Far out. He's very funny. Yep, looking at his merch. I don't know how we've gotten derailed, but. One we've got to mention is Fort Jocks. Have you come across this before? No. This is.

Let me read the description. There's $20 for Fort Jocks. Jox, of course, is an Aussie slang for underpants. Australia's premier beach security device. Send potential thieves packing with a pair of large men's whites, complete with a pocket for your valuables, and laboratory designed printed skid marks in the gusset. Relax at the ocean with peace of mind this season

as crooks raffle through other unsuspecting bathers' belongings instead of yours. So basically, it's a pair of type. Whitey-whidey's with a skid mark printed on it that you put your wallet and your phone in and at the beach no one wants to touch him. He is a genius. He is so funny. That's great.

So, yeah, okay, so maybe if you have a complaint for us, just take it to Luke Hagee instead. Yeah, because it's funny that way. Let's keep this sort of positive. So without Matt here, how are we going to do this this week? Do you want me to read the fat quota questions? Okay, you're happy to? I'm happy to. Great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Now, have you read these before you read these? Matt always promised as he hasn't. I have not read these before I read them. No pre-read. But I'm a fantastic reader. I read at a year-eight level.

That's incredible. Yeah, and I'm only in year six, so it's very impressive. Does that too ahead? Yeah. And I know that because I'm year eight, Matt's. I was so fucking smug when we would do like, we would do testing in school. And my reading comprehension was usually a few years ahead. Congratulations.

Thank you so much. What a brag. Maths was always, well, yeah, roughly where you should be, I guess. Like, it was never good. Everything else was very average, but I could read fairly well. And I would be like, I'm so fucking smart. I was so smug about it. What an asshole.

Don't worry. I need to know that I was also smug about it. Mine was maths. Of course. And which is funny, because I never didn't commit to it in high school or anything like that. But in primary school, my math, so they'd give you a graph. You're talking about the thing where it'd be like, you should be in the middle of this. chart if you're at a grade four level.

Yep. And then it'll be like, but if the black dot moved to the right, you're at a grade six level. Yeah. My one, it was literally off the page. Oh my God. And I got sent to Gateways, the nerdy. I went to Gateways. Never for maths, only for English.

So there you go. And then I didn't end up really even doing maths in high school, so there you go. Gatewayways was like a... Wasted talent. I feel like we've talked about Gateways at some point. It was like an out-of-school sort of, you'd go off to do these sort of extracurricular days. a lot of mine were obviously English related so you'd have to read a book and then there'd be activities around that or something

or yeah, it was just sort of extra education and usually you were selected to go there because you were gifted in a particular area or, you know, excelled in an area, not gifted. I'm not, it was not a child genius, as you well know because you know me as an adult. I know a lot of child geniuses fail spectacularly, so claim it. I haven't failed spectacularly yet. There's time. Anyway, our first fact-quoted question this week It started for a bit of dramatic effect

And that I actually needed to clear my throat Our first one is from Dave Loring Who has given himself the title Unofficial Promoter of Okay, of the pod Just says of Great No, I'm sure if Dave just ran out

Or if that's part of it But let's just see Anyway, and Dave is giving us a suggestion. Love a suggestion. Okay. The suggestion is, hey friends, just thought I'd throw out a suggestion slash shout out to a musician I like a lot. He's called Pedy on the socials as PD underscore USA. And he's got a big following for his very amusing comedy skits, but he's also a really good musician, which not many people are aware of. He's touring his new album in a few shows around Australia in Feb, so I thought I'd do my part to do a little unaffiliated signal boost.

If you're after good places to start, the song I'll Wait and Family of Six off the newest album are incredible, as well as don't tell the boys and lean into life off his first. Also, I'm flying up to Melbourne to see and play, so if you all could just organize a little live show of your own the same weekend, that'd be very handy, thanks. Oh, is it December the 2nd? No, it's Feb. Do you listen? Do you ever listen?

You're already looking up up PD underscore USA, aren't you? Yeah, I'm looking it up. Well, I was just saying that's the only live show we got booked in Melbourne in the moment, so I was just thinking that might be incredible.

I'm looking at PD underscore USA. I feel like I'm... No, I don't know. I was thinking of somebody else. PD underscore USA. Very cool. Great suggestion. Yeah.

Love using your fact quote a question to raise somebody else up. That's so nice. So thank you, Dave. We love you so much. Good one. Dave came over to Melbourne for the Comedy Festival to see all of our shows, as in our individual shows at the Comedy Festival.

Came over from Tasmania. From Tasmania. I knew it was, I, obviously I remembered Dave was from Tazzy, but I had a moment where I forgot and he said I've flown up. And the only place to fly that Melbourne is up from is Tazzy. Antarctica. Antarctica. Godd!

Anyway, we love you, Dave. Thank you so much. And a beautiful shout out to Pedy. next up we have a fact-crotic question from Donna Zyber. Rhymes with cyber. Donna has given in. Oh, right. I love that.

Thank you. Ziber. Donna's given themselves the title, High Priestess of Bad Influence on the Youth of the Mole People. Wow. High Priestess of Bad Influence. That's the kind of person I want to hang out with. That's an authoritarian role, but for cheeky shit.

I love that. I love it a lot. Donna's given us a quote. Quote is a quote from Baudelaire. Genius is nothing more or less than childhood recaptured at will. Genius is nothing more or less than childhood recaptured at will. I like that. That's very good.

And apt that Baudelaire is a French poet and we were talking about poetry on this one. Oh, we were. So very apt. But Baudelaire is a good poet. I mean, even just the fact that that sentence, sort of makes you think a little bit and has sort of imagery to it. It's very good, is it?

That's good poetry. Not just like, you know, something happened on this day. Something happened. Here's a near rhyme about it. It's so tedious. I love him so much. Thank you very much for that beautiful quote, Donna. We do love an inspirational quote.

Love a quote. Our next one comes from Stephen Edmonds. He's giving himself the title, Recipe Liaison. Stephen has sent us a couple of recipes before. And I'm guessing maybe he's done it again. Let's find out. Let's find out.

He sent us a recipe. Yes. Okay, here we go. Everyone pens at the ready. Get ready. I will not repeat myself. One of my favorite television shows of all time is an American cooking show called Good Eats, which was created and hosted by Alton Brown. It went into the science behind the cooking, often illustrated with props and puppets.

One recipe from the show that has become the dish I take along to Christmas lunch with my family is a baked ham. while you can go buy a brined leg of ham from the supermarket that's ready to eat this recipe proves that a long slow bake and the addition of a crust makes it so much better I love a Christmas ham do you love and I love the days afterwards Loft and the day to New Year's we just go to the fridge you get out the ham bag ham in a bag yep cut off a little slice which you can either eat cold or put it in a toasted sandwich I love it I love the time between Christmas and New Year's yes it feels like this Like it's not real time.

Yeah. You just get lost for a week. No responsibilities usually. Okay, these are the ingredients. One brined, half-leg ham. Hock End. Okay. Quarter cup brown mustard.

Two cups dark brown sugar. Bourbon in a spray bottle. That's great. Love that. Two cups crushed ginger snap cookies. I fucking love ginger snaps. Love a ginger snap. Love a button up, snap.

Yep. Steps. Heat oven to 120. degrees Celsius or 250 Fahrenheit. Oh, not that hot. Okay. Yeah, it's a low and slow. Prepare ham by scoring the skin in a diamond pattern and tenting with foil.

Cook for three to four hours or until internal temperature reaches 55 degrees Celsius or 130 Fahrenheit. Remove skin and fat from ham. Heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Now we're talking. Okay. 350 Fahrenheit. Apply thin layer of mustard, pat on layer of brown sugar.

sprits on bourbon, cover with crushed cookies, cook until the internal temperature reaches 60 degrees Celsius or 140 Fahrenheit, approximately one hour. Rest for half an hour and then carve. One downside is that for this to be ready for lunch, I do need to get up at 6 a.m. on Christmas morning, but the results are delicious. The episode this is featured in is Season 4, Episode 6 titled Ham I Am. The other recipe in that episode uses a whole salted ham. ham leg that is baked with Dr. Pepper.

I would like to try that one day, but that is a lot of ham and a salted ham leg is a specialty item here in Australia. There you go. Very interesting. Good one, Stephen. Thank you, Stephen. That was fun for me to read as a vegetarian. Do you like the bit where they were patting down the meat? I loved it.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to Christmas ham. Maybe. Honestly, I'm never trusted with doing it, so. No, no, no. But I could put this recipe forward to whoever it is. We were talking just the other day, some friends and I, about how in our extended families, all of, it's always the aunties in particular, but all of the aunties have like a signature dish they're known for. And how we were kind of like, you start to look forward to like, oh, is Auntie Mary bringing that?

Oh, yeah, she makes fantastic. Yeah, she making a cheesecake. Yes, her cheesecake's rule. My grandma was famous for Pav. She made an incredible Pavlover. She had. Big fan. Ten grandsons.

two granddaughters and you would think being of that generation she would pass it on to the granddaughters no she chose two of the grandsons and they got a lesson and now they make the pav it's beautiful oh love it but yeah it was like grandma's made a pav get out of my way we team up it was beautiful um so it's i like that stephen's famous for the ham yeah ham i am ham i am okay last but not certainly not least harrison and rebecca ellis who have given themselves the title, Work from Home Professionals. We respect it. I love that.

And they've asked a question. Oh, okay. And the question is, just Harrison here for this one. Okay, well, I've shouted out both of you like an idiot. I'm actually double dipping and starting my question with a brag. Okay. My sister recently got married. Hooray.

Her husband, now my brother-in-law, is an awesome guy. We've gotten along great. We're both huge fans of Pokemon. And every time they come and visit, he brings his cards. over and we play for hours. It's so cute. Not where I thought this is going is so adorable. It's so adorable and it's so funny that your partners are like, let's take that. Let the boys have a play date. Yep, that's right. Let them bring over Starme.

Even if it's the four of us, Rebecca and I and then my sister and her husband have plans to go out to eat or hit the town and hang out, we still find time to squeeze in a game of Pokemon or two. My question for you, do you have any traditions with a friend or family member. Oh, I see. That's really cute. I love that. It's always so nice when you get along really well with a sibling's spouse. It's a relief because you hate, like, it doesn't always happen. So it's nice when you're like, oh, I really like my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, whatever. So I love that you play Pokemon together. That is so cool. Love it. Any traditions with family, friends or family members? Growing up, me and my cousin Jackson, he and my grandma lived in the country.

J-A-C-K or J-A-X? J-A-C-K. Of course. From the old school. Yeah. And we would play cricket and grandma's front yard. Yep. From like dusk till dawn every summer.

Yep. You know, we'd go out there, stay there for a week or something every day, all day. So that was the thing I looked forward to so much playing cricket in the front yard. Yep. That's a good one. Christmas, um, with my... My, with mum's side of the family, with all those cousins, was always cricket in the backyard. My grandparents' backyard, not very big, but we would always play cricket.

And then if Christmas was hosted at my auntie's place who lived on acreage, she lived on a farm. Oh, man. The cricket games got crazy. Yeah. But yeah, I looked forward to that too. That was always really fun. And I don't like cricket. I'm not good at it.

But it was just like, I don't know, it was just fun to go play again. Yeah, have a go. The last couple of Christmases at my sister's place, we've played Monopoly on Christmas night. Which is risky. It's dangerous. But it went down well. It was fun. Yep.

That is good. Yeah. I mean, we spoke just, was it last, we've spoken recently about, or a little while ago, about the Christmas traditions my family have, of buying ridiculous presents and really making a game of it. There's usually at least one in there that is some sort of group activity that we can play.

Like one year it was like inflatable bowling pins and like an inflatable bowling pins. And like an inflatable bowl. And so my parents have this really long corridor in their house. So, of course, that was now a bowling alley. And other times, one time there was all, we all got remote control cars. But because the budget's quite low for this game, the remotes were attached to the car. So you had to sort of follow the car around. I had to run with it.

So there's like six adults running around the house with our cars. Very stupid, but a lot of fun. So there you go. That's our fact quota questions. Harrison, Stephen, Donna, and, Dave, thank you so much for those wonderful fact quotes or questions. Thank you so much. And that brings us to the next thing that we like to do,

which is to shout out some of our wonderful patrons, again, who support us over at patreon.com slash do go on pod. Well, we should mention, you can get bonus episodes of the show. This is the kind of thing you want to hear more of our voices. There's nearly, I think it's 194 at the time of recording, plus bonus episodes that you unlock instantly at the bonus episode level. And we put out three more a month. Yep.

So there's a lot to listen to. There's a lot to listen to. It's a lot of fun. Legit hundreds of hours of bonus content up there, as well as access to like pre-sale tickets, the Patreon Facebook group, which is a lovely place. And then also this bit where we shout people out. And before I rudely interrupted, Jess, I'm sure you're about to say that you usually come up with a game based on the topic. Yes.

Any ideas? I thought it could be, you know how William McGonagall, his most famous or infamous poem, was about a bridge? I thought it could be the subject of their most famous poem. Oh, I love it. It can be an event, an object, a building, a person, a feeling. It can be anything. Yes. Do you think that's good?

I love it. Because these are all poets in my eyes. Absolutely. I think in so many ways we are all poets, dare I say. Wow. And by saying that, you yourself have become a poet. Holy shit. That's amazing.

It's good stuff. So, yeah, I think that'll be a bit of fun. So shall I go first? I'll kick it off. We want to do half each? Yeah, let's go. All right, great. Firstly, I would like to thank from San Diego in California, Chad Chittister.

Chad Chittister. Would you say Chittister? Well, I might say chidster, just because I like the sound of it. Chidster. Chad Chidstah. Chadstah. Doesn't that sound American? If you turn around, you can watch it as well.

I think we've absolutely known. I would call into like, what's that? TRL, Total Request Live with Chad Chaitstere. Chad Chatsdh. I love that. But I'm really hoping it as your name is Chad Chats. Chad, 100% not laughing at you. No.

We love you. Laughing with you. We love you. And Chad's most famous poem is about trimming hedges. Yes. And how to remember, especially the ABCs of how to have. to remember. But it's also, it's interesting you say that because it sounds like it would be like almost more like a pneumonic device or like a fairly dull poem, but it's actually really moving.

Yes. You know, it's about trimming hedges, yes. Yeah. But it's also about so much more. That's right. It's on the page anyway. Yeah. But there's a few hidden messages. You dig deeper and you're like, holy shit. Chad, chitster. It's about the relationship between a father and a son. It's gorgeous. A beautiful poem, Chad. Thank you for it. I would also love to thank from deep within the fortress of the moles. I address unknown. Kev William. Kev William?

What's Kev? What's Kev poet poising about? Kev's most famous poem, obviously, a prolific writer. Kev's most famous poem is about the feeling of anger. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very angry poem. Is Kev? And again, when you dig a little deeper, you go,

what's the relationship between a father and a son? Wow. It's amazing. A lot of our patrons have... Daddy issues? Big time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On your, Kev.

Thanks for your support. But Kev, an incredibly like sweet, kind, gentle person, teddy bear. So it's interesting. Gentle Kev. Most famous work is about anger. Yeah. It's beautiful. Also, from Port Melbourne in Victoria, I would love to thank Pat Ron.

Patron. Who was a patron of ours? Holy frickin shit. Is that what... Honestly, I can't tell it. a joke because it's P-A-T R-O-N. Are you just a patron of ours? Are you don't want to give us your real name?

Or is your real name Patron? And you are on our Patron. Patron rules, if that's name. Patron is a great. Great, great name. Or you're just protecting your own privacy, which honestly in this day and age makes so much sense, and we respect the hell out of it.

Just hope you know who we're shouting out, and you probably do. So Pat Ron's most famous poem, Dave. Is about George Clooney. Yes, big fan. Called an ode. Specifically the Nespresso ads. Yes, an ode. the clone.

Inspirational stuff, Pat Ron. It's beautiful stuff. Also, for me, I would love to thank from San Jose in California. Evan Mers. Evan Mers. Great name. It is good. Evan's most famous poem is actually about Evan, Monroe Smith.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. From one Evan to another. It's called Ode to Evan from Evan. And it's quite moving. From one Evan to another. And it's interesting because I've known Evan Monroe Smith for close to 10 years, I reckon,

long time. We've had a working relationship and dare I say a friendship. And only in reading Evan Merz's work about Evan Munro Smith, did I really feel like I began to know Evan Monroe Smith? I think that's really powerful. Yeah, that's right. You think you know someone. Then you read about them in poetry form.

And you're like, wow. Wow. I'd never noticed how his eyes sparkle. I've never noticed that Evan Monroe Smith is basically heaven Monroe Smith Yeah, that's the power of rhyme

That's good stuff We've got an odd number here Do you want to take over Do you'll me to do one more Well we can go half and half Because this is a double name Fantastic idea, yes Well, from again deep within the fortress of the malls

Address Unknown I would love to thank Jordan Kinsley And I would like to thank Lauren Davis Oh, Jordan and Lauren A joint work Can you believe it? Oh, yes. They've worked together, maybe line by line.

Yes. So it is an interesting read because the styles are very different. And about two different subjects. Two different subjects. Do you remind us what's Jordan subject about? Jordan is writing about childbirth. Right, and Lauren is writing about magpies. It's very different.

Yet somehow at the end you're like, oh my God, it all ties together. It all ties together. And it's all about dad? And the poem is called Dad. question mark. Dad? Dad? Do you want to take over?

Thanks and people. I'd love to thank from Chirm Side West. Because we've got Churnside, Churn. Churn. This is Chirme. But they've got Chirm Side West in Queensland. It's Caitlin James. Caitlin James.

What a great name. Caitlin James, of course, quite famous for writing about cacti. Oh, beautiful. Yeah. And it's a difficult word. to get close to. You want to reach out, touch it, but you just can't. You can't.

It'll prick you. I'm so glad you picked up where I was going there. That is so funny. Thank you so much. That is so funny. Thank you so much. Possibly the highlight of the podcast, everyone. Whoa, I take offence to that.

I wrote this whole thing. We peak late. You've got to stick around a long time to get the good stuff. Hey, I would like to thank from Address Unknown. I can only imagine they're also deep within the fortress of The Moles. It's Clint Broadwood. Clint Broadwood. Clint Broadwood has an odd obsession.

Yes. But it's quite a beautiful obsession. Okay. With witch's hats. Witches hats, yes. Different sizes, different shapes. Traffic cone. Whatever you want to call them.

Water. Watch out there's too much water on this road. I better put down a traffic cone. Yeah. But what is a witch wear? Does a witch wear a traffic cone? No. They wear a hat.

They wear a witch's hat. Yeah. And again, a beautiful. Like, you sort of go, that's an odd. Yeah. But it's a metaphor. You would basically, you'd see the subject and skip over it. But don't be so naive.

Don't be naive. Read it. It'll change your life. Read it. That's what I'm saying. There's a reason it's Clint's most famous work. Exactly. And Clint's got a lot of great work.

I would now move to London. And, well, I'd like to thank Meg Budgin. Meg Budgeon. Or Meg. Budgen. I think it's Budgeon. I'm thinking it's Budgeon. Budgeon's an incredible name.

Budgeon. That fucking rules. Imagine if my name was Jess Budgeon. Can you imagine? Should I change my name? To Jess Budgeon. Well, you were going to change your name to David Zest. That's a powerful name.

A Jess Budgeon, is it? It's okay. Can you remind me again what Meg's most famous work was, though? Oh, Meg. Mm-hmm. It's called budgeon with the best. Yeah. And it's about budgery gars.

Love them. Great bird. But again, you look into it and it's about living in a cage. Dad? Dad! Living in a cage. You're feeling like you're living in a cage. Exactly.

Being a caged bird. Yeah. Budgeon with the best. That's beautiful. Meg Budgeon. Jess Budgeon. You're like you can pull off of Jess Budgeon? Well, apparently not.

Well, take it from David's est. Okay. I'll know when we find the perfect name for you. It could be this. It could be this from Seattle finally in Washington. I would like to thank Pope Brack. Pope Brack. Pope Brach, B-R-A-K.

Pope is an incredible first name. Pope. Are we allowed to have that in Australia and have some... Yeah. She can't have Sir or Admiral and like little ranks. I doubt it. Is Pope one? I don't think we can be called

Can You Name a Child Pope? Yeah. In Australia. Love to know. We can Google some weird stuff. Religious titles for first names such as saint, bishop, goddess, father, sister or pope, and the complete names of religious figures such as Jesus Christ, God, Satan or Dalai Lama are prohibited names. That's in Queensland.

Oh, okay. So no, we can't be named Pope. Can't be a child's sister. Or goddess. Right. Hmm, interesting. Well, Pope Brach, you've broken all the Queensland laws there to call yourself Pope in Seattle. Yeah.

Where your most famous work is, of course, about... Satan. Satan, yes. A lot of imagery there. A lot of imagery. A lot of imagery. Fire. Yeah.

Pain. Evil. Evil. The battle between good and evil. Wow. It's really quite beautiful. A child called Damien. Yes.

Yeah. I don't get it. I think there was a movie. Oh. And then maybe the 80s with a kid called Damian. And it's like the kid is the devil. shit. Okay.

Am I making that for everyone? No, I don't know. I believe you. I just, I don't do scary movies, mate. I didn't watch Jumanji for about 20 years because I thought it was scary and then I watched it. I was like, Jumaji rules. Ah. Oh.

1970. Yeah, I know the Omen. Do you actually? Yeah. Oh, stouring. That's quite a famous movie. Yeah, but the, and then the franchise, the second movie is called Damien. Gotcha.

Omen 2. Okay. Now I'm with you. And there's the Omen series. Let me tell me how many there are. Horror film franchise beginning in 76th. Series centres on Damien Thorn. Child Born of Satan.

There you go. There's quite a few. And then they made another movie called Damien in 20... Sorry, a television series called Damien in 2016. I've never seen any of them. I don't like horror films either. But I do like Jumungi, both the original and the one with The Rock and Jack Black. It's so fun.

We watched that together. That's right. I haven't seen number two yet, though. Have you? I have. Oh, damn it. It's pretty good. It's not as good.

It's a lot of the same, but it was still fun. Yeah, I think the best part about it was we watched it in London, I believe. Yes. And we all had very low expectations, and then it was pretty damn good. So it seemed really, really good. Yeah, we had, yeah, we were beyond tired and just having a really fun time. But I digress. I would like to thank Pope, Meg, Clint, Caitlin, Jordan and Lauren, E, Evan.

Not E, not E, E, Evan. I was going to say EVE, but I realized it was Evan. Pat, Kev and Chad Chaitster one more time. Thank you so much. Chadster. I think that you could pull that off. Do you think I could be Chadstead. I think you could be Jess Chidster.

I don't think that's true. Come on. Say hi, I'm Jess Chidesdry. Hi, I'm Jess Chidster. Hi, I'm David Zest. Nice to meet you. I think I'll stick with Perkins for now, but thank you so much for your input. Stick with David Zest. The last thing that we need to do is welcome some people into the Triptitch Club.

We have one, no, two people being welcomed in. to the Triptich Club this week. And for anybody who doesn't know what that is, if you support us on Patreon for three consecutive years on the shoutout level or above, you are automatically brought in to the Triptitch Club. It's an exclusive club. Once you're in, you cannot leave.

And it's a cool, like, clubhouse sort of vibe. We have food and drinks and Dave books a band. Matt's behind the velvet rope. He checks off your name on the clipboard, lets you in. We hype you up. up. We go absolutely wild. Obviously, a Scottish-themed episode this week with William McGonagall. Yes. Being Irish, but, you know, raised in Scotland. Exactly. A lot of Scottish references. Exactly. So we've got haggis. We've got deep-fried Mars bar. Big fan. We've got an iron brew.

That's culture. That's culture. And Dave, you normally book a band. Have you booked a band this week? You're never going to believe it. What have you done? I mean, I'll say that a fair bit here, but you're never, genuinely you're never going to believe this because I've booked a band maybe six, seven months ago. Yeah, there's no way you could have known. I didn't know what this topic was until yesterday when I wrote it. No, exactly. And I've somehow booked both a Scottish band

that is called The Poets. No. That's right. The Scottish Blues Freak Beat and Psychedelic Pop Band from the 1960s, managed and produced by Andrew Lou Goldham, famous for managing the Rolling Stones in the 1960s. The poets are here, famous for their cover version of Baby,

Don't you do it? Please welcome the poets. Huge. Absolutely huge. What a great get. Thank you so much, Dave. I was hoping you'd get the proclaimers. Sorry, they were busy.

Typical. So, yeah, that's really exciting. So then the only other thing that we do is that I will read the name because Matt's not here. You can hype them up and then I'll hype you up. Oh, thank you. We cut out Matt, Mr. Negative, who's always having to go at your fantastic puns and hype-ups. There'll be none of that here. I'm full of positivity.

So are you ready? Uh, yes. Well, you're going to have to do puns based on their names because they are both from Deepwater and Fortress of the Moles. No addresses list here. Okay, no addresses to work with you. So first and foremost, I would love to welcome in Robin Anderson. Robin Anderson of my favorite son of my favorite person.

Yeah, Robin! Robin Banks. more like Robin my heart Oh my heart's gone Oh my gosh But you know I'll let you keep it Robin Yeah

You look after it I trust you You've gone too far And finally I would also like to welcome in Jennifer and McKay Look I'll give you Not only the benefit of the doubt

I'll give you the Jennifer of the doubt Is Jennifer and MacK Or Mackay Could be Mackay The Mackeye's the limit Like sky's the limit Oh that's good Is that pretty good yeah

Yeah I got it Well you know Well, you did pause. I did go blank. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You mouth, what the fuck are you talking about? I did stare at you with a blank expression.

And then you're like, I know what you mean. That's mostly just because I got bored and uninterested. So thank you to Jennifer and Robin. Welcome into the Trip Ditch Club. Please help yourself to some haggis and some iron brew. Enjoy yourself. I mean, you've been supporting the show for so long. You've got to kick your legs up.

Yeah, enjoy. You've been in that line for three years. It's been a long time. Yeah. We do have little sleep pods and showers out of the back if you need them. Yeah, thank you. And then join the party. of you do need them.

And I'm not going to say who, Jennifer. I'll give you the Jennifer the doubt. It's not you. Now that brings us to the end of yet another fantastic episode and what fun we've had. Another thank you to Evan Monroe Smith for coming in and filling in for Matt for us. Yes, definitely check out gamey, gamey game. Evan's such a busy man. We were so delighted he could actually come and join us.

So big thank you to him. And yeah, if you want to suggest a topic, you can head over to the, I was going to say the triple website. That's not true. That would be difficult to suggest a topic. Yeah, don't do it there. You can head over to our website, which is do go onpod.com. You can find us on social media at do go on pod. We are posting little clips of the show now as well. So if you want to see what we look like, which some people are horrified by. Yeah, but some people are liking them. Some people like it. Other people are like, oh, that's not how I imagined your faces. And it's like, okay, well, I can't do anything about that. So that feedback hurts. And that's both on Instagram and

TikTok. That's right. We're doing. go on podcast on TikTok. Remember we're in our all in our mid-30s, so we're not great on TikTok, but it's not for us, you know? Yeah, we're trying our best. We're trying our best. So Chuck us a pity follow, maybe. Would you?

You can mute us if you want, but just follow us. And yeah, as I think I said, you consider us the topic, and we love you. Dave, boot at home. Hey, we'll be back with another episode. You know what, next week? I reckon next, let's do it. Let's do it weekly at this show. What do you think?

I think I'm free. I think I can do that. seven days from now. But until then, I'll say thank you so much for listening and goodbye. Bye! 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.

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