Do Go On - 428 - Antarctica's First Murder?

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

Our first episode of a new year we do a deep dive into what life is like for people who live year round in Antarctica, touching on a darker side when talking about the case of Australian Rodney Marks... possibly the continent's first murder victim. This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 05:29 (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 Live show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/ Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/  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.bbc.com/news/magazine-32481442 https://allthatsinteresting.com/rodney-marks https://www.antarctica.gov.au/antarctic-operations/stations/mawson/ https://www.mensjournal.com/travel/a-mysterious-death-at-the-south-pole-20131125https://www.coolantarctica.comhttps://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180810-villas-las-estrellas-antarctica-base-residents-surgery Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serengy 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. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnocky and as always I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart. Hello, it's me. Hello.

Hi, Jess. I just heard a new listener turn off. What? They're like, nah, bit much. And you know what? If that's the case, if they heard that and went, oh, bit much, they're a soge. They're a soge. It's because I'm a woman.

Okay. Yeah, well. A woman just existing in the world. When I screamed, hello, it's me. We just gained a listener. Yeah, they're like, bravo, sir. Bravo. Another brave man. I'm going to join up to the highest tier of Patreon for that wonderful man.

I'm going to join to the highest tier of patriarchy for that wonderful, wonderful man. And then I dared open my disgusting little mouth. Look, whether a woman or not, that was a bit much. That's all I'm saying. And you are a woman. Let's get that on the record. Yes, and I'm going to tone it down. Thank you.

Can I get either of your sandwich or... Thank you. Look, Jess, these aren't our rules. They're societies, okay? We are mere prisoners of that society. And with that in mind, how good is it to be alive? And more and more than ever, I'm wishing I was never born. Is this our ninth year?

We're into the ninth year. Happy New Year, everyone. Happy New Year. Hopefully you're still feeling pretty dusty from a big celebration. If you count the fact that we did like a month of episodes in 2015, I think this is our 10th calendar year, you know what I mean. Oh my, is that true? 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, amusing fingers, 21, 22, 23, 24.

The 10th finger has gone up unless there's been some sort of rounding error. This is where it always confuses me. So this is our 10th calendar year. Only because we did like a month and a half in 2015. Yeah, we started like November. And now we've done half a week in 2024. Wow. So I'm counting those as two years.

I count it. Happy New Year, everyone. Pleasure to be here in 2024. Happy decade to us. Yes. We did it. Fuck it. Let's round it up.

It's a century. It's our 10th birthday today. 110th birthday. You're going to add those two together. Now, Matt, if people have somehow skipped the last century of this podcast. How do you describe what we talk about here? So what happens is we take a topic of interest from history. It could be a person, a place, a thing, and event, a vibe.

Have we ever done a vibe? A feeling. A feeling, yeah, can I? I want to do a report on sadness. Okay. I have much to say about sadness. And then we go away, the one of us who's researching that topic. Yes.

The other two don't know what I're doing it. It's normally been suggested by a listener. Then we bring back that knowledge. in the form of a report. We write up, you know, usually somewhere between three and 23,000 words. In the case of the St. Kilda Football Club episode. And then we tell the other two the story. And we always get on a topic with a question.

I think, Dave, you're doing the report this week. You're absolutely right, kicking off another year with another question. And that question is, what is the least populated continent on Earth? Your mom's butt. It's got to be Antarctica. That narrowly beats my... mom's butt. I wouldn't tell you mum that.

That was a bit of a misogynistic comment there. How so? How so? Talking about the... I don't know. I don't understand it. Yeah, that's right. You're such a feminist you don't even understand

misogyny anyway. What? He doesn't see a socialistic. Is that what it is? Are you commenting on the size of his mum's butt? Just feels... When did I say anything about size? The size of a continent?

I think in fact you are the one bringing up size. Well, you said it was big enough to be a continent, Jess. So I think that maybe means that you brought up the size. But the lowest population, which would imply it's a rather small continent. Well, no. Well, now you've gone offensive in the other way. Too small. What a beautiful way to start a new year.

The answer is Antarctica. Congratulations. Well done, Matt. First point of the year. And you might think. Which is also what your dad calls your mum's butt. Because it's cold. And unpopulated.

I don't know. But it felt like a pretty good singer from your dad. cop that dad No, not to your dad, from you dad I'm only quoting what he said Okay, well cop that mum, whatever Let me just say this next sentence You might think less people, less crime

Which is true, but it doesn't mean No crime And that is today's topic The Life and Crimes of Antarctica Wow Ending on a particular story that was suggested by And thank you to Drew Paisner From Los Angeles

Thank you, Drew Weller land itself That's Hollywood that's where the big shots are from. Dragon Paisner could be a big shot? I only assume, yes. Paisner, that's a great. Drew Paisner, put it there.

I'd let him exactly produce my movie. Thank you so much. Drew Paisner from L.A. Now, anyway, you don't have to be a big L.A. Hollywood big shot to suggest a topic. Anyone can do that at any time, but via our website do go on pod.com. Let's talk about Antarctica.

Not many, but some people do live year-round in Antarctica. Ugh. The only settlements, so to speak, with long-term residents who stay for months or a year, maybe to scientific research bases. Now, every couple of years, the project, the TV show that I worked on would do a story on Australian Antarctic bases

needing more people to move down there. And they need people for all sorts of jobs, like engineers, electricians, doctors. Do they need comedians or podcasters? Yes, they need podcasters. Is there an Antarctica radio? Because I've got, I can do that. Wow.

And if you get like a 50% share of Antarctica, you've got like 48 people listening to you. bad. You're on 102.5, the ice. Let me just check you weather. Yeah, it's fucked again. All right. Don't go out there.

Beautiful day to head outside. No, it's not. Oh, my God. Why are we here? Shout out to my listeners, uh, penguins. Yeah. A quack, quack to you. Play a lot of Arctic monkeys.

That's good stuff. Is it? I don't know. Well, Antarctic monkeys would be better. I know, but I couldn't think of anything. So anyway, they do this. these stories. They do these stories about needing people and I'd get fascinated about what it's like living down there and every now and then I'd get, you know, I'd look into it a bit. And now I

properly did that because according to my new favorite website, oh my God, coolantarkica.com. Okay. In every meaning of the word. And is that the kind of website that only cool people can access? Absolutely. So I was straight in. Some listeners don't know this, but Dave is very cool. Last year, towards the end of the year, we started putting out some videos on our Instagram and TikTok. Little clips of the show if you want to follow us and see what our faces look like. One of the comments on a video that has come out at the time of recording, the comment was, I can't, what is it? I can't believe how cool Dave Warnocky is or something like that, and then tagged a friend.

Get a load of this. Can you believe it? Check out how cool is. Fact check it. Am I cool? Look us up. God, don't invite that, Dave. Don't say, am I cool?

Please go to Instagram and look at it and then you judge. Don't welcome that behavior. It's basically how Facebook started, isn't it? Oh yeah, I guess so. Yeah, hot or not? Yeah, hot or not, cool or not? And Dave, I don't think you'll like the answer if you open up that question. Because you'll get a big head.

Bigger than it already is. Some of the comments have already pointed that out. You're Paracelden's baby. I know. There are around 66 scientific. bases in Antarctica, of which about 37 are occupied year-round. The remainder are open during the summer and closed down for winter. So there are about 4,000 people living there through summer months and about 1,000 over winter, which is probably more than I would have expected. Yeah. I honestly would

have thought it was like 50 people or something, but quite a few down there. So that's not bad if I can get 50% share of the radio market. That's huge. But then what the fuck are the other 50% listening to? Spotify. Your rival station. God damn it. It's just some penguins. I don't even know how to press their buttons. But their banter is fun and they've got a great energy. And you can hear them smiling through the speakers. Yeah, that's right. You get too political on there.

The penguins, they keep it light. Yeah. I just say, oh, my lefty bullshit. Yeah, come on. Summer lasts from October or November to March, April. The rest of the year is considered to be winter. Sometimes winter is so harsh they can't go outside for weeks at a time. It's brutal.

Wow. The closest thing to towns are the Esperanza base, the all-round Argentine research station, the Chilean Villa Los Astraeus on King George Island, and McMurdo Station, which sounds ominous, a US-run research station on the south tip of Ross Island. And they certainly don't do anything worth looking at there. Yeah, so I wouldn't worry about it. Yeah, it wouldn't even come by. It's not even a nice part, so don't visit.

Go elsewhere, I reckon. not a some sort of a kill igloo. Oh my God. What a funny, what a funny thing to have just thought of over the top of your head is a joke just then. They don't even, igloos aren't even from here. No. So why would we build an igloo to kill people in?

We wouldn't. And they'd be terrible to kill people in. There'd be blood everywhere on the white walls come on. Yeah. Why would we do that? I mean, stylistically, it looked pretty cool, but that's not what we're into. No, no, no. That's not what it is.

So it's just, ah ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ah, it's funny. Anyway, what were you talking about? I think we got away with that. So I won't talk about McMurdo because, like you say, it's top secret shit. Can I just ask, Jess, while you're being in America, and that was a great accent you're doing there. What is ice before it becomes ice? Water.

Oh, thank you. So there's a lot of frozen. Water. Bit of fun. That is, a bit of fun. Ten years, been doing this. And the funniest thing we have is. Me doing a bad American accent.

Yeah, we've peaked. So the Esperanza base has 43 buildings, 56 inhabitants in winter, including 10 families and two school teachers. Oh, wow. And no radio presenters. Seriously. Yeah.

What are the kids listen to on the walk home from school? On their nine-mile trek across the ice. Geez, they're not stuck with their own thoughts. Yeah. They could be stuck with my thoughts. My very political thoughts. Their own thoughts are, fuck, this sucks. God.

Yeah, this is still sucks. This is awful. I also didn't realize that there are eight churches on Antarctica proper, not including the islands, which I now know about from my third favorite Wikipedia page, which I now know about from my third favorite page, which is a list of Antarctic churches, which is a page. Third to list of inventors killed by their own inventions and, of course, list of sexually accurate. popes. Of course. That's my Holy Trinity. And list of Antarctic churches writes, while there are currently only a few

freestanding structures dedicated solely to Christian religions, most research stations have small meeting rooms that are dual purpose partially for religious services. These rooms are also commonly used by adherents of other world religions. The Chapel of the Snows, which is a great name, also host services for other faith groups such as Latter-day Saints and Buddhism. And as far as I could work out, I don't think a person. Pope has ever visited Antarctica. Cowards.

That's weird. Surely one of the popes would have want to tick them all off. But it's also like the... Australia, America, North and South, Dave Moldepa. All the continents. But also the popes are usually really old. It's like, do you want to put a really old person somewhere that cold? Yeah.

Well, maybe you want to keep prolong their lives, you know? Yeah. Also, they wear white, so they probably get lost. Yeah. Where'd we put the Pope? Oh, God. Where'd we... one got eyes on the pot.

They're also only just pop them somewhere. A very great version of Where's Wally? Where's Popey. Where's Popey? Where's Popey? Oh, where's Popey. And yeah, the final page is the Pope in Antarctica. Just lost on the eyes.

Like the yellow version of Where's Wally where he was a whole land of Wally's. And he was lost there. Almost impossible. Pope in Antifax. actually is the equivalent of that. Or the Pope in a haunted house full of ghosts with sheets on. That would also be pretty fun. Maybe every page is hard.

Really hard. Pope level. Should we copyright this? Should we copyright this right now? Yeah, where's Popey? Where's Popey? I think we should. And for Americans, we can call it, where's Pope Do?

Where's Pope Doe? Yeah. Because otherwise I wouldn't get it. I think we should get a crowd fund going to get the Pope to end. Antarctica. And then when he's there, encourage him to invent something and have sex, and then I'll have the Holy Trinity. That's my true. That's your Holy Trinity, Your Honor. Which is what you call the Holy Trinity. I know yours means a lot to you and mine means a lot to me, so you can help me out here. Let's respect each other's opinions and faiths. Now, the claims over Antarctica and

who it belongs to are a real mess. Oh. Seven sovereign states that are Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom have made territorial claims in Antarctica. Then you've got China, India, Italy, Japan, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine, and the United States who have constructed research facilities within the areas claimed by those other countries. There is a treaty. As of 2023, 56 parties have signed it, and it treats the continent as a laboratory open to all and provides that no acts or activities shall constitute a basis for asserting, supporting or denying a claim to territorial sovereignty. They've got something written down, but there are different claims, and they compete with each other.

And despite the treaty, countries have gone to great lengths to improve their stake. In late 1977, Argentinian woman Sylvia Maria de Parma, who was then seven months pregnant, was airlifted to the aforementioned Esperanza base, specifically so she could give birth on the base. and in the Argentine territory so the country could further claim the territory. Right, we've got sovereign-born citizens. Yeah.

Her son, Emilio Marcos Palmer, was the first documented person born on the continent and featured in the Guinness Booker Records. He was given Argentinian citizenship, though. He wasn't a citizen of Antarctica. They're like, sorry, you cannot bring that baby back. Sorry. Sorry, he lives here now.

I was doing you a favour. Sorry. Is he got a passport? Then, I don't know. what you want me to do. You'll have to take it up with the Antarctic passport office. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. That penguin down the road. They're open two days a year and it was yesterday so you're going to have to wait eight months. So that was 1997. That penguin also has 19 other jobs. So he's going to spread him out.

He's going to swap his hat. And he's bad at all of them. He's incompetent. He's very inefficient at all of them. But he's got a great work ethic. Yeah, he's great for culture. And he just applies for jobs. Yeah. He's a personality hire and he really adds to the culture of the place, but fuck he is useless. Pingy, that's a great idea. That's actually an offensive nickname.

Yeah, humans shouldn't call penguins pingu. I think they don't like that. But we like it. We like it. We like them. What? This is Spanish. They would have called him El Pinguina.

That's what they call. That's fucking rules. Can that be my new name in the group chat? It's currently Francois Paine. Francois Pinguino. Now that's a compromise. What's call a treaty? Jess is still at dad.

Daddy. I'm Daddy. Every time it pops up. So funny. So that was in 1977 that they airlifted someone just so she could give birth. Chile went even further. In 1984... Twins.

They fucked on the eyes. Well, you say... They conceived. In 1984, Juan Pablo Camacho was the first Chilean born in Antarctica. His parents were sent there to specifically conceive and give birth to a child in order to strengthen Chili's claim on Antarctica. So, they're like, it's one thing that... Yeah, yeah, yeah, they've got a kid who was born here, whatever.

We're going to conceive and give birth to... kid here. His babies lived their entire life even before they exist. Wow. They wouldn't let that baby leave up. Okay. Yeah, but how on to, how do semen go in the, in the ice? Lost with the popes.

Where are they? Where are they go? Where are they go? This is a nightmare. I don't know how you're getting it to the egg, Dave, but I don't think it should be getting lost in the snow on the journey. Lost with the Pope. Oh, no, my semen is lost with the Pope.

I trusted him with it, okay? If you can't trust the Pope, who can... Yeah, this is where you're going wrong. This feels like you've ticked off one of your three. Yeah, that's right. No, just got to get into invent something. Some sort of incubation. Then we've got it.

I'd actually be a bit scared, to be honest, to have a child there because the nearest major hospital is more than 1,000 kilometres or 625 miles away. But there is healthcare available. The Chilean Air Force Hospital is staffed with one doctor, one nurse, and is equipped with an x-ray, a laboratory, a surgery, an anesthesia machine, steriliser, and pharmacy services in addition to limited emergency and surgery capabilities. Two hospital beds are also available in a dental clinic. But is the doctor doing all of that? Yeah. So he's the pharmacist. And it's a penguin.

It's the penguin. That's one of the 19 jobs, doctor. Honestly, yeah, you really hope you don't get her there. The nurse is a person and she's great. Yeah. But she does a lot of, sorry, the penguin wants to know what seems to be the issue. She's a very patient woman. If you need stitches or something, she's great. But yeah, if you do need medicine prescribed, dude, it's going to be a long wait. Can I translate?

Can I stop you right there? Yeah. Um, ma-bam-m-m-m-m-b-muh. It's a male penguin and he's being a bit of a serge. Just letting you know he's the doctor. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's the doctor here? I'm wearing the doctor hat.

Dr. Pinguino. Can it your name's been Dr. Pinguino? I hope so. That's good. I like that so much. Dr. Pinguino. It's very good. I changed by Deep Pole.

That is a big upgrade. Matt Stewart, yuck. So that's the Chilean base. They've got those facilities, like I said, but this is so wild to me. this, according to this other Antarctic website called Wikipedia that also has my top three Wikipedia pages. As of 2018, all residents of the Chilean base, including children, are required to have

their appendixes removed before arriving as a safety precaution as healthcare services are limited and the doctors aren't trained specialist surgeons. Yeah, wow. I think that's great. It also shows they're committed. Take out a piece of you. How much do you want to come here, kid? Not really at all.

Mom's making me. Yeah? Prove it. Prove it. Give us your panics. You're not listening. I don't want to go. Come on.

With that baby that was born, we're like, all right, we've got to take it. Yeah, cuff it up. That's how it works. Keep coughing. Take a kidney as well while we're in. That's pretty full on. So, sorry, the nearest hospitals are 1,000 Ks away. Yes.

Surely there's parts of Western Australia where that's the case, you know? Yeah, that's true. Yes. So in the winter, the Aurora Flying Doctor's Service finds it difficult to come down to Antarctica and land. That's fair. No, I'm just thinking. Yeah, that's absolutely. Yeah.

It'd be more for some people. Yeah. You'd think? Isn't that crazy? Well, did you know this? Antarctica is actually much like most of Western Shire. It's a desert. Oh my gosh.

Because you normally think it does as being sandy, but. Yeah. I'd love to learn from you. That's what you would think of a desert, but you would be wrong. I'm just recounting what someone was saying to me recently. Is that person, Bill Bryson? Answer him. Was it Bill Bryson?

Probably. The Australian government has an official website for the Australian Antarctic program that lists one of the most common questions people ask. F-AQ, one of them is, do expeditions need to have their appendix removed before going south? And the Australian website says, the answer is no. But doctors who are wintering at Australian Antarctic stations do have to have their appendix removed. This is because there is usually only one doctor on station during winter. and evacuation back to medical care in Australia is impossible for at least part of the year.

Wow. And they can't do themselves. Yeah. If you want doctor there by yourself. And you get it. You go, oh shit. Yeah. And that actually has been history because the requirement dates from the 1950s when an Australian Antarctic doctor got appendicitis on Heard Island.

This meant a very challenging evacuation back to Australia. But probably the most famous appendix on Antarctic story comes from Russian surgeon Leonid Rogan. of. In 1961, he became seriously ill with appendicitis and he knew that he would need an immediate operation. He quickly realized he was in trouble because out of the 12 people on the mission, he was the only doctor. The journey from Russia to the Antarctic had taken 36 days by sea and the ship wouldn't be back for another year. Flying was impossible because of the snow and blizzards, so he was all on his own. His life was seriously in danger. He knew of his appendix burst. He would probably die. And he was in serious pain as this kid. He was in serious pain as this

condition worsened writing in his diary. I did not sleep at all last night. It hurts like the devil. A snowstorm whipping through my soul, wailing like 100 jackals. Oh my goodness. Beautiful. Some poets write better when they're in pain. Yeah.

Normally emotional pain, but sometimes I guess physical pain. Physical pain works too. This has brought something out in him. I imagine not sleeping all night and still coming up with that. Yeah. God, he's good. Because I'd just be writing like, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Oh, fuck, ow.

Ow. Mim, me, mim, mim, mim. Yeah. Now you're talking the penguins language. So this guy, and is that translated from Russian, or is he bilingual as well? That is. That would have been translated from Russian. Because I was about to be even more impressed.

He's writing two versions of it. With a left and right hand. He also added, still no obvious symptoms that perforation is imminent, but an oppressive feeling of foreboding hangs over me. This is it. I have to think through the impossible way out. to operate on myself. It's almost impossible, but I can't just fold my arms and give up. I'd be folding my arms and giving up.

I would be in the fatal position, absolutely. I would be. Ow, oh, oh, wow, oh, wow. What a badass. So, yeah, he decided to operate on himself. Oh, my God. He had to get official permission from the Soviet government as this was the height of the Cold War, and if he died during his operation, it would look bad for the Soviet Antarctic program,

and they were, this is the time when they're trying to outdo the USA in every way. Yeah, it would look a little bit. sort of maybe say it in penguin yeah yes thank you Dr. Pinguino Dr. Pinguino

yeah just it would look it wouldn't look good it's not a good look just look so yeah it's like now we're technologically as advanced as you sometimes our doctors do

die operating on himself So that happens. That happens within any advanced nation. The more advanced you are, the more doctors die, operating themselves. What? Do your doctors need other doctors operate on them? That feels like the last century. That's embarrassing.

According to the BBC, Rogozov worked out a detailed plan for how the appendectomy operation would unfold and assigned his colleagues specific roles and tasks. He nominated two main assistants to hand him instruments, positioned the lamp and hold a mirror. He planned to use the rest of the rest of the work. reflection to see what he was doing, not just look at himself. God, I look good. For a bit of confidence, I'll always have the moneymaker.

Even when I'm screaming in agony, my cheekbones. Oh my God. The station director was also in the room in case one of the others became faint. Jesus. I hope he also had someone there taking down poetry notes from him. Yeah, he'd become out of his best stuff. He's dictating. This next bit is pretty fucked up, so skip ahead if you'd like.

Well, me and Jess can't. We don't have that option. You can't opt out. But again from the BBC, a general anaesthetic was obviously out of the question. You can't put himself to sleep. I wish he did. I just got counting down from taking on. Oh, hang on.

Oh, whatever. I feel great. Yeah. He was able to administer a local anesthetic to his abdominal wall. But once he had cut through that, removing the appendix would have to be done without further pain relief in order to keep his head as clear as possible. So he felt it. No. Just a straight up no.

That's a no from me. Yeah. Hey, I'd just jump into the water. Yeah, same. Bye. I'm like, is anybody got a gun? Yeah. Yeah, no, they'd be nah.

Wait, aren't the Nazis, don't they have a secret base underneath Antarctica? Just go and get one of their guns. Yeah. Easy. Get a Nazi gun. That makes sense. I'm just going out. I might be some time.

I've got to go visit the base. Oh, Rogues I've later wrote, my poor assistance. At the last minute, I looked over at them. They stood there in their surgical whites, whiter than white themselves. I was scared too, but when I picked up the needle with the Novocaine and gave myself the first injection,

I automatically switched into operating mode. From that point on, I didn't notice anything else. Rogozov, like I said, had intended to use a mirror to help him operate, but he found its inverted view too much of a hindrance, so he ended up just working by touch. Get absolutely fucked. Without gloves on, just going...

No! I'll have a little fiddle around in here. And if I'm there, right, because I'm on that mission because I'm a communications expert or something, right? And they're like, actually, Jess, we need you to help with this surgery. I'd be like, bye-bye. I'm going to let you die. I'm so sorry, but I'm here as the radio shock jock. I'll report on this tomorrow, but I can't be here.

I cannot be here. And I will report with journalistic integrity. Hopefully you had the job of the mirror because he's dropped that. Yeah. The mirror, how good, the mirror person going, oh, oh, good luck with it all then. Yeah, if you know the mirror again. I'll be outside. I'll be out in the snow because it's better than being in here.

So all the, they're all wearing white scrubs. There's another scene for the, for the, where's popy? Where's popi hospital? This is writing itself. Wow.

Write this down. This is good stuff. Where's popy? I think this could be big. Yeah. This could be huge. Right. Forget the crowdfunding to get the Pope to Antarca.

We need to get, where's Popey off the ground? I think that might be more realistic than getting the Pope to have sex in Antarctica? Are you listening to the things you're saying? Look, now I've heard it out loud. I'm back on board.

Let's try to get him to have sex in Antarctica. When you hear a good idea said back to you, you've got to acknowledge it. It's like I'm holding up a mirror. Exactly. The mirror is required. Bring it back. So it didn't quite go to plan. He cut himself in the wrong place and had to sew it back up because he was bleeding

profusely. He soon started to feel like he was going to lose consciousness as the bleeding was quite heavy. He wrote, I grow weaker and weaker. My head starts to spin. So he's still writing. I like to think that he's writing his life. Come on.

Bring him in hand. Every four to five minutes, I rest for 20 to 25 seconds. Finally, here it is. The cursed appendage. With horror, I noticed the dark stain at its base. That meant just a day longer and it would have burst. Wow. My heart seized up and noticeably slowed.

My hands felt like rubber. Well, I thought it's going to end badly. and all that was left was removing the appendix. So he's worrying like, oh, I'm bleeding a bit too much. I'm not feeling good. This is not going well. So that's sort of part of the benefit of being put under a general anesthetic by an an ethotist who then manages your blood flow and your breathing.

That's right. And if you never wake up, you just quietly drift off. Yeah. You don't have the thought of, oh my God, I'm bleeding out. Oh, no. God, being put under general anesthetic is so nice. It does feel so good. It's so lovely.

Coming out of it's not that good. No, but going into it, that's nice. But then sometimes I give you a cheese and bicky. Yeah. I had pasta. How'd you chew? How'd you chew? Oh, they would have done that for you.

They did you? The anathetic man, they're really great. They manage everything. They do everything for you. It's amazing. They preach you all your meals. Prude you. Is that pre-chew?

They feed you like a little mama bird. It's beautiful. Eat up. That's you. Why do you think? I think I drive her Maserati. But I've got some good news. He didn't die.

It took two full hours, which according to my research is about twice as long as it usually takes. In a normal hospital setting these days. I mean, that's not bad. When you're not your own surgeon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you haven't cut in the wrong spot and had to sew it back up. That's actually incredibly fast.

It's pretty good, is it? It's pretty good. Finally from the BBC, then before allowing himself to rest, he instructed his assistance how to wash the surgical instruments and only when the room was clean and tidy, did Rogozov take some antibiotics and sleeping tablets. Just had a nap.

The night. You wrapped it up, yelled at him and said, No, that's not how you clean that. Then, all right, now I'm going to bed. Remarkably, Rogazov was back at work just two weeks later. But the nightmare wasn't over. Because there was even worse weather than usual that year, and the ship that was meant to pick them up couldn't get to them,

so they were told they would have to spend an extra year at the base. 12 months. And so three years by the same. first thought, yes my first thought was like, what if you didn't bring enough clothes? Because I sort of forgot for a second you could wash clothes. Then you're imagining somebody who's brought a year's worth of undies. I only brought 300 65 cares. What do I do now?

Or is your inside out? Those you're a big worry that they'll look in the mirror and go, this is from last season. Yeah. I shouldn't be wearing this. I look like an idiot. This is so embarrassing. Oh my God, the penguins are going to judge me. They look good every year.

Very well dressed. They're basically in tuxed. It's timeless. That is a classic look. Black and white, always in. Yeah, always. Can't go wrong. Thankfully, they were soon able to be airlifted out.

So they were told, because you mentally have to accept it. You'd be told, sorry, it's another year and you'd be there going. A year is such a long time. But then they were able to be airlifted out. I'd rather them know it's a year, but just say, like, it might be a month, month or two. And I'd be like, all right, I can get through a month or two. Even if they know it's probably a year. But after a month or two.

Yeah, then they just go, it's another month. I think I'd prefer little bursts. Eventually, I'd be like it's going to be another fucking year. I think when you get told that news. But don't tell me a year straight up. As we'll hear about with someone else later on, when you get that bad news, you do lose your mind. Okay. But in this instance, Rogazov returned home and national heroes.

It was big news because they were like, he survived. So then they were happy to publicize. Yeah. His incredible survival story was a powerful tool for the Soviet propaganda machine, the opposite of their initial worry. Amazingly, he's not the only doctor to operate on themselves in Antarctica. This episode is weird. What is it? You sizzled it at the start by saying there's, there are crimes there, though.

And then we're hearing about multiple people operating on themselves. Yeah, I just got to, I went into a deep dive about what life is like down there. But about 50% of the report is like crime down there. But before we got, I couldn't not talk about that. No, no, so bizarre. That's bizarre. In 1999, American physician Jerry Lynn, Nielsen self-diagnosed and self-treated breast cancer using equipment and medication

dropped in by a military plane and she was able to self-administer chemotherapy. What? I don't understand. Is that harder than the appendix? I think it's more prolonged. It's ongoing. Yeah, rather than get it, get in, cut it out and then instantly start recovery. So she did the chemotherapy. I think she noticed a lump and then did a bit of a, did a biopsy, which she then was able to be instructed by a cancer specialist what to look for to see if it was bad news. Sadly, it was very bad news. And it was too cold to get her out immediately.

So they said, you've got to start chemo right away. We'll air drop it to you. So they parachuted it in. That is wild. And then she wasn't an expert in cancer. No, it's more of a GP. Yeah. So but just noticed and went, oh, if this had been one of my patients,

I'd tell them to go see a specialist. Yeah. I didn't have a specialist. So got on the satellite phone and radioed through. Holy shit. And it gets so cold there that planes can't land because they risk fuel and hydraulic lines rapidly freezing. Imagine the so-called the fuel tank freezes as soon as they land. Despite this risk, an LC-130 Hercules plane was sent several weeks ahead of schedule to pick her up and rushed her home for further treatment.

Wow. How'd she go? She lived for about a decade longer, which is obviously a great extension of life, but sadly she did succumb to breast cancer at the end. Wow. But 10, I mean, a decade. Yeah. And is the thought that if she didn't do that initial chemo herself, that it wouldn't have been that long? I think it was looking pretty bad.

That's why they were very worried. They're like, we've got to get you out of it. That's incredible. And so scary to not have the support of doctors going through something so difficult. But it's just like there's a certain kind of person who just clicks into gear. Like she obviously did. Yeah. Just like cooling a crisis.

I mean, doctors are already like that. I think somebody who's taking this kind of position is already. You know, like you're switched on, pretty... Pretty badass D-N-A. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, good in a crisis. I'd say, probably, I'm looking at a couple other people I would put in that category. You know, I'd...

And, you know, if there was a mirror, three people. Absolutely. Cool as ace. Me, I understand. Yeah. Hin? Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm the coolest one here.

I don't know. Maybe you weren't here. But when I knocked my water all over. of my computer. Yes. I'd never seen someone move so fast. Yeah, that's true. It was live on pod.

Yep. A few months back. Yep. And Dave, as it turned out, my computer coordinator Evan Munner Smith, who knows computers would have been fine. But Dave didn't know that. And he snapped into action.

Absolutely would not have been fine. It was like a liter of water. You can't tip a liter. And you still haven't learned. Your drink bottle is fully open next to it when it has the ability to be closed and just have a little lid. No, but, yeah. No, but.

Yeah. No, but yeah. Good point. No, anyway, that's, that's, uh, that's my evidence at Davis. And what? And so the, let me guess. Cold as us. The bad assness that you see in me is that I parked a car one time.

God, that was so bad. I was so bad. Oh my God. If I was, if someone had to park the snowmobile in Antarctica, I'd be calling you. Yeah. For support. I'd get you on the satellite phone. And I'd be like, look, it doesn't look good, but we can do this.

I would also say someone who has chronic migraines. Yes. And who just lives their life. Yeah. We're in an incredibly bright room right now, and I've had six days of migraines. It's insane that you... It's a good time. You'd be great to do this.

It just feels like you're... You can... Soldier on. Soldier on and put... Compa... mental eyes and all that sort of. I feel like, of the three of us, to deal with pain, I think that I'll put you first as the one who could cut their own appendix out. I'll be there going...

Oh, I'm up! No! No! I don't want to do that. I'd honestly just be like, just kill me. I've had a good run. I think we all have appendicitis in Antarctica. It's, uh, we make a pact.

Yeah. Nazi guns. We don't do ourselves. We do each other. Can I shoot Dave? Yeah. What the fuck? I've always wanted to kill Dave.

It would be such an honor to shoot Dave in the face. Oh, wow. But the honor that Dave gets to shoot me, that would be beautiful. So you go first? No, no, we do it at the same time because I don't think it would, I don't think we, I think one of us would be left standing. We'd have to do some real practice. Yeah, yeah. Three, two, one.

Well, luckily we had all those years recording in Zoom. That's right. We're actually very synced up. We're very good at that. We can clap at the same time. Three, two, one, bang. We get the penguin involved. His job is also one day, you're executioner.

It puts on the blackboard. I can't say anything. But actually, that's the only job he is good at. Yeah. It lives for it. A favorite day of the year. He's also screaming. Can I shoot Dave?

Please. Get his little flipper behind the trigger. Sorry, Dave. That's okay. You're putting me out of my misery. You're doing me your favour. I've got appendicitis. It's because I love you so much that I want you to be out of pain.

Could I cut into you and cut out? We could try, but I'll rather shoot you in the face. I've got such hypochondry that every stomach pain I've ever felt in my life. My first thought is always, is that appendicitis? Yeah. So I'd be down there every day going, I've got it. I've got it. And they'd be there.

Dave, the only reason you're here is because we've already removed your penit. Well, it's grown back. You've just infected. Dave, you've just eaten a lot of cheese today. Oh, no. Oh, no. It's a better science I can tell. Got it again.

And now you've learned that the, if the end is black, that's bad news. You're like, I can feel it. The end is black. Oh, it's gone black. I've got one day. I've got one day, best. Best case. God, you're a nightmare.

You're freaking out. I can feel it. I can feel the black nib. Black nib. Oh, the nib. It's darkening. Star going bother me that I can feel it

Right But a big part of going down to Antarctica You think about Would you be bored Yes Yes Well Wait have they got Netflix

They do have internet Okay then yeah I'll be right I don't know how good it is though Could I play my Nintendo Switch You could bring your switch for sure You'd be in there I'll be right

The Australian government website List things to do in Antarctica When it gets too cold to go outside They're right You can play volleyball or basketball Okay Work up a sweat in the gym Okay

Place Nukorod darts, watch movies or TV, listen to music, have a drink at the bar, surf the internet, send emails to friends, or read a book. Okay, it actually sounds fine. It does sound pretty fun. I can play basketball? Yeah. That's my number one spot.

Volleyball? That would be up there. That's a bit of fun. Yeah, all right. Let's go. Let's do it. There's a bar. You love that.

I could get really good at darts. You can get great at darts. I love it. Like, all of these things are the things you do. just assume you could have, apart from basketball and volleyball. Yeah, I didn't know about that. A book?

You can read a book in Antarctica? Right, like, you can have a nap and you're like, I could nap. Where do they get that from? Do they have hammocks? An Antarctic hammock? Wow. Oh, my God.

I'm in. So I really wanted to look into what it's like then there because I used to get this obsession when it would come up on the show, on the project. Australia has four permanent stations. We've got Mawson, Davis and Casey. which are on the continent and Macquarie Island Station, which is in the sub-Antarctic. And this is what Living at Mawson is like, according to the website.

It says, living at Mawson is very comfortable. Everyone lives in the main accommodation building known as the Red Shed. In modern air-conditioned single Dongers, which is... Air-conditioned? What are you doing? Okay. No, I'm fine, thanks. Air conditioning actually means heating and cooling. We're just normally in... It's an umbrella term.

In Australia, we use it for cooling. But in Tasmania, for instance, they're more likely to use their air conditioning on heating mode. You never, once you learn to sell an air conditioner, you never forget that knowledge. I know, I know. It's beautiful to watch him work. Did you also notice that I said that they live in single room dongers? Yep. Which is, they write, is Antarctic slang for bedrooms.

Oh, dona. It's going to go get the dona. Donger. I left something in my dona. Left my dinger in the dunger. We're gonna, we bonking in your dunger? I'll go get my dinger from my donger, and I'll go get my dinger, and I'll go get my dunger,

and I'll go ahead. Almost got it. It sounds like you said bonk in your nonna at the end. Prodien slit. She has a really hot nona. Okay. Every station. If she's around,

then, you know, we could, I'd be rude like to ask her. Well, who do me think is doing the cooking? Every Antarctic station has a non-a. Has a nunner. God, you'd be well fed. And nonnas had needs. and I just think we should ask the question.

Not a needs. The red shed also houses the surgery, lounge, kitchen and dining room. Where's the basketball court? I think the lounge doubles as everything. It's a basketball court plus reading zone. It's just one of those little like, one of those tiny little hoops with a soft basketball. You can play basketball. Yeah, and it's like above the bin.

Yeah. We have fun down here. Can you stop throwing rubbish in, I'm trying to perfect my. Two pointers. My free throws. The ablutions facilities in the red shed consist of two communal bathrooms and a number of smaller bathrooms. Sounds nice.

What's ablutions? Shitter. Is that also an Antarctic slang term? Or is that that more of a fancy term? More of a fancy. I just don't want to say toilet. You don't want to say toilet and bathroom. But do you not want to say toilet?

Why didn't you say toilet? I'm reading from their website. Okay. That is a class. Oh, it's classy. It's a classy website. It's like a four-star hotel. I don't want to say you can shit in anti-secure if you want to.

And you should if you're there for a while. Hopefully you shit at some point. Ablutions. Man. A gentleman never ablushes. See, I don't even know the terms. It's just not part of my culture. Yeah.

That's right. Gentleman never shits. The local supermarket is a walk-in cupboard that they call Woolies, where all expeditioners can browse the shells for soap, linen, and other household requirements. So it sounds like it's just open

all the time. But do they have natural confectionery snakes? Yeah. Oh, okay. Sounds pretty good. Probably. Woolies would be happy with that, wouldn't they? Yeah, Coles are like, what do we ever do? Yeah. What do we do, Antarctica? Yeah.

Geez. Fuck. Yeah. Fuck on. IGA is like, oh, we're not even, I'm not even bothering. Yeah, come on. It could cause, we could have fun with it. It could be ice G.

Come on. And the Acese stand for Antarctica. Yeah, come on. Groceries, groceries, Antarctica. Come on. Come on. What does IGA stand for? Independent grocers.

Australia. Australia. Australia. When Blizzard's inhibit fieldwork, the red shed has an indoor climbing wall. Oh. Pretty cool. a home theatre, a library and several communal sitting areas for expeditions to pass the time. If you can sit quietly, there is a small gym in the green store, as well as sports equipment for volleyball and badminton,

and a range of cross-country ski equipment, a spa and sauna are also available. Okay. Sounds good. This is good. I'll be in the spa or the home theatre all the time. The only thing I'm worried about is the people there. Who are the kind of people who are attracted to these jobs? Nerds. Well, actually, it would be my dream if anyone,

listening to this episode is on Antarctica, please write in, email us, get in contact with through social media, I'd love to hear from you. That would be so awesome. That would be your dream to hear from someone. Well, it's my second dream after making the Pope have sex and then invent something on Antarctica, but you know, I'm being realistic. I'm building up to my dream. Yeah. You can have more than one dream. My second biggest dream is for someone to email for you from Antarctica. What if someone down there was named Pope, you know, like a TV warm up guy, Michael Pope? So he was doing a warm up gig in Antarctica. Would that be enough if Michael? Uncle Pope, TV warm-up man and hosts of children's quiz show are blockbusters in the 90s.

If he had sex in Antarctica, would that be enough? And invented something. And invented something. What if he invented a sex move? That's great. It's a pope. Though, to be honest, it's usually. Sure, it is what I've already called the Pope.

But the problem is it has to be, it's a list of inventors killed by their invention. So the sex move will have to kill you. Yes. Which is, I don't know. What a way to go out. If you get that climbing wall involved. Yeah. And you have an appendicitis and you don't want to operate.

I've got the nib. The black nib. Also, my appendix is sore. They're defunding that my nib is another term for it. Anyway. And what's, why is it black? Why's it going black? You haven't put an elastic band around it or something, have you?

Drop it off like an old, like a lamb's tail. And they tie them off so they drop, go black and drop off? Because Dave. Don't do that, mate. Don't do that. Take it off. We're all learning you today. I know it's not good for aerodynamics when you run, but... I know you want to be the best runner in the world at any cost.

At any cost. I know you're producing a lot of drag in the pool and you want to do the triathlon of the upcoming Olympics. We all know that Matt Shervington would have been the fastest man alive. If you don't have that runner. That anchor holding. it down. Anyway, finally about what life is like there. All expeditioners contribute to the day-to-day running of the station.

Rosters are set up for duties like vacuuming the living area, shoveling snow, cleaning the cold porches. Expeditioners are rostered on slushy duty to help the chef feed the station. So they've got these fun little terms for a lot. Slushy, and that's food. Because a slushy would normally be a drink. Yeah, I would have thought slushy would be like if you're cleaning the porch or something. But no.

Another base, Davis, has a limited water supply, and in summer showers are restricted, often to one every three days, for a maximum of three minutes. So you don't get to wash too much. Yeah, you're not really getting a good shampoo and conditioning. But yeah, maybe because it's so cold, you're not sweating as much. But the temperature indoors would probably be pretty standard.

Yeah, as you would know, the air conditioning. The air has been conditioned. They probably get it to about room temperature. Alcohol is available. The third base, Casey, says on their website, every Saturday night, Expeditioners dress up for dinner, and occasionally a theme night will be organized

with very adventurous costumes. How? What are you packing? Well, they've got 365 outfits to check them. A couple of those are pretty wacky outfits. The Casey bar called Splinters is often occupied after work and on weekends with Expeditioners

playing pool and darts and catching up socially. Okay, that's nice How many people per base, did you say? I'm not sure about the Australian one At least a few dozen I would say Right, so there could be Yeah, it's not like the same people you're working with all day And then you're socialising with at night

And then you're sleeping next door to them How's your day? How was work? You were there, Terry? You were fucking there. You were there and you honestly made my day awful Terry and I told me what to sit and talk to you at all. You were a nightmare at the pub

You're a nightmare at the pub. I hate you, Terry. Living Quarters, Terry. Fuck you. Right, now, I'd prefer to talk to bloody Pingu, okay? Okay. And he's a racist. He's a racist.

And he talks nonsense. I don't care what the others say. You can't translate it. You can't. It's just little beep sounds. And boops. I think we're all gone, man. If you're sitting there thinking,

you can understand that fucking penguin. I'm so sorry, Pingy. He just walked in. That's awkward. You didn't need. So I'm so sorry you heard all that. What an outburst. What does Pingy say?

Well, you're a bigger man than I am, Pinky. To be able to forgive like that. Wow. So after hearing that, do you think you could live down there? No. Do the 12 months stint? Probably. I mean, it feels like the kind of thing would be a great experience.

I just would have to, Yeah, obviously you're pausing your normal life for a year. Yeah. I don't think I ever would, but I could in the right circumstances. Say I wanted to leave Australia suddenly for some reason. Maybe something it had occurred and it would be good to get away for a bit. Yeah. Maybe lay low.

Yes. Then maybe, yeah, great. Where can we go? I'm ready to go tonight. Somewhere it would be logistically difficult for them to get me. Yeah. I don't, I mean, it does sound, it sounds better than I had expected. Basketball court, hello.

Home theatre? Okay. Hello. Hello. But also, anything that is even vaguely challenging, I'm out. And as we were talking about before, I do have chronic health issues. So not having access to, I don't know if I could ask my pharmacist for a year's worth of drugs. There's a penguin doctor.

Some of my drugs have to be kept cold, so that would actually be all right. I have to keep them in the fridge, but it'd be, I'd just leave them outside. But it's not always smooth sailing. You're hanging out at the bar, you're having a good time, you're on the rock wall, you're shooting some hoops. But as you can imagine with all these bases and stations occupied, but there's small groups living in close proximity for months, if not a year, two years at a time. Tensions can build, and although rare, crimes have been compromised. I mean, yeah, if you're stuck in such close proximity with anybody for any period of time,

I think if you were there with your wife, you guys would fight or like it would be really challenging, you know? Not you and I, obviously, we're best friends. Yeah, exactly. They're different. Nothing would come between us. Nothing could. I'd like to see anything try. Nothing would betwixt us.

We should, one and the three of us go down. Do a pod. We just live there for a year. Just is going to do the radio station. Hang on, Jess does drive, Dave does breakfast. Yes. I do overnight. Yeah.

Great. And we play, like, obviously there's a few gaps. We just play tubular bells by Mike Oldfield in between. Yeah. I'll buy it for about 40 minutes. Perfect. You need to go to the toilet, you chucked on tubular bells. I'll be back up these bells.

Got to go a bluish. So there have been some crime. Sorry, I got distracted because I was like, well, of course, nobody can get along. It's such a weird set of circumstances to put yourself in that, yeah, everything's heightened. You can't get along with everybody the whole time. You've got to assume that a few of them at least are on the run from crimes. Surely. Yeah.

You say that people go to Darwin and Australia to get away from their life, but this is even further away. Yeah. Well, under the aforementioned 1959 Antarctic Treaty, ratified by the 53 nations, persons accused of a crime in Antarctica are subject to punishment by their own country Right So whether you're a citizen In 1959 that same year

The Vostok station Then a Soviet research station In Princess Elizabeth Land It's amazing Was the scene of a fight between two scientists Over a game of chess When one of them lost the game He became so enraged

That he attacked the other With an ice axe Oh Jesus Christ I'm so sure you're going to say a pawn. He pawned him. A bishop. And we're like, whoa!

Not a rook. Oh my God, please. Okay, picture this. Where's Popey? But he's amongst massive white chess pieces. Yes. That is so good. Matt, that is so good.

You're just smashing it out today. If we could get like, do go on listeners, we have a lot of artists that listen. Yeah. We could give them one scene each. Yes. And then we could somehow make a book of it. Make a book out of it.

That would be so funny. Where's Pope? Yeah, where's popi. Where, where, where's. And like all proceeds on publishing. Yeah. And all proceeds go to us. Yeah.

So that'd be good. 1% goes to the Pope. No. No, I think he's fine. I feel like the artist would probably make the money out of it. Oh, nah. It's our idea, though. Yeah, that's true.

That is true. Yeah, yeah. And I think they'd want to contribute. Oh, we could pay them with, you know, what do they say to us when they? Exposure. Exposure. Exposure. Exposure.

What are they? say to us? What do they say to us? Exposure. Yeah. You can get, no, it's great exposure. We'll tag you. Pay's not very good. In fact, there is no pay, but, geez, the exposure for me. It's supposed to be great. When you emcee this gig in front of 400 real estate agents, that's great exposure. Great exposure. It'd be really good for your career. What do they say to us? Dave knew. I know, I knew what you meant. So when I SACs got involved, there was mixed reports of what happened and how bad the injuries were, but after this, chess games were banned at the Soviet Russian Antarctic stations.

You can't play chess there. Too heated. Too heated. Because you can't ban ice axes. I guess they're needed. It's too important. Yeah. Why?

So chess. Isn't that funny? Not just banning psychos. They're blaming chess. Chess doesn't kill people. People kill people. Chess is the problem. Yeah.

They've looked at it and gone, okay. If you take chest out of the equation, these people are pretty nice, normal people would have happened. I'm sure this guy, if he was playing a more civilized Yeah, snakes and ladders, fine.

Yeah. Connect for checkers. Then fine, but yeah, chess. Chess. That really gets the blood boiling. Game of killers. Now, remember I mentioned before how some people can take the news badly that they have to stay another year? Yes.

Well, in 1984, the Brown station. Oh, no. Ablution station. Formerly the white station, but could change. Operated by Argentina was burned to the ground. By the leader and doctor of the station after being told he had to stay another year. Oh, so he's like, how can I stay? Yeah.

Or how can any of us stay? Yeah. Wow. The station personnel were rescued by a ship because they had nowhere to go. There's no word on what happened to the doctor. I don't know if he was arrested or something like that, but it was like, no, I'm going home. We have nowhere to sleep. A bit of gasoline.

I mean, it's not bad. He's pretty clear. He gets results. Yeah. If you're one of the others, you're like, like, no, we shouldn't do that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I think there is a can of gasoline over there.

Well, they're kind of going, we can't go ship to you. You've burnt it down? All right, we'll get a ship to you. Yeah. Feels like we've maybe called your bluff there. Actually, here's a ship I prepared earlier. Yeah. It's actually one around the corner.

We'll be there a second. You'd want it to be there pretty quick because where are they sleeping that night? Yeah. You're camping out. Get a speed boat out there. All of a sudden. You picked that boat's speed. David Humph.

He's like, I'll be there in eight minutes. Your whole face is frozen. Still wearing sunglasses, though. I'll be there in eight minutes. Some people there will it on there. Imagine the nipples. Yeah, he's still wearing just red shorts and that weird red plastic thing that they rescued everyone with. His nipples have got frostbite, they're gone.

They're a foot long. It looks like a candle. I'll be there. Help you there. He will in eight minutes. Then we jump to 9th of October 1996 at the terrifyingly named US McMurdo Station. McMurdo. McMurdo.

Imagine if the guy burns it down. They're like, we need a place to stay. And they're trekking through the night. And they see a little light. And they go, oh, great. Sanctuary. We're safe. Knock on the front tour.

Hey, oh, welcome to McMurter Mansion. Oh, okay, I guess we've got no other options. Probably just an unlucky name. And the guy's wearing like a hood and he's holding a flaming torch. Yeah. Come with me. Sorry, a bit in American? Water.

Come. Give me another phrase. Need more than water. Come with me. Come with me. Hey, come with me. It's got to be May. Gotta be May.

Hey, come with me. Beautiful. Yeah. Hey, hey, we got plenty of room in the dungeon. Turns out they actually just have a really sick set up in the dungeon. In the basement. They call it the dungeon. Yeah.

They play a little D&D in there. But they won't push it if you don't want to play. They're actually very chill. They're lovely at the McModa Station. Anyway, what happened? Except on the end of October 1996. A fight occurred between two workers in the kitchen. One worker attacked to the other with a hammer.

Why they had a hammer in the kitchen? maybe they were tenderizing something. Another cook tried to break up the fight and was also injured. Both victims required stitches but were able to fully recover, but FBI agents from the United States were sent to McMurdo Station to investigate. Oh my God, imagine being in the FBI and you're getting sent to Antarctica. I'll be there in eight minutes. Sounds like, I'm pretty sure Mulder and Scully went down there a few times on X-Files.

Really? Yeah. Yeah, oh, there's a really good one. They go down there because what they've done, they've been drilling in the ice, but they've accidentally unearthed like an ancient pathogen that like makes people lose their minds. Yes. That's not good.

That was Antarctica not, well, it's, you know, it's in a frosty place. Oh, there's also, they go down to Antarctica. I think there's maybe an alien ship under the ice. In one of the, I think the first movie maybe they go. Yeah, that's right. There's a few. There's a few. Jeez, I love it.

I mean, it's like Star Wars. There's, how many scapes can you get? We've got forest, the forest planet, ice planet. ice planet, sand planet. If you think about the X-Files, there's three episodes that are almost exactly the same. There's one where they go to,

there's a volcano that's erupted and that's brought up some sort of pathogen and people losing their minds. There's one where they go into the forest and there's some sort of buggy type things. Darkness falls, that one's cool. And they also have to go and investigate

and then they also go to the ice. So like you're saying, they just go through these difference and they also one where they go on a battleship and then the water makes people go old. Oh, yeah. Makes people go old. Yeah, that's right.

And was there one where it's like a time, was that the time traveling one or is that a different one? Because there was one where the ship just like past like through time. Yeah, time traveling one. Is it the black and white one? Yeah, it makes them go old in a different way. Yeah.

What a show. What a show. Love it. I love all three kinds of episodes they do. Yeah, the alien one. The buggy one. Oh, we shouldn't forget the horrible inbreeding one as well. Oh, that's scary that one.

Yeah, that's a grim one. I've only watched that once. Yeah, you don't go back to that as a comfort view. But the mom in that went on to portray Maurice in the new Planet of the Apes films. There you go. And I think through a connection in America, a listener of the show, a Patreon, named Jess, she reckons that I might be able to interview her on primates. Oh.

I'll have to get you on Dave, so she's been on, she's played three different, or multiple different characters on three, episodes of X-Files as well. Oh, that's so awesome. That's cool. So hopefully that, yeah, hopefully we can make that happen. Imagine. Imagine. Imagine.

Morris. Maurice. That's cool. He's the coolest character. Here's the teaching orangutan guy. Pretty sick. I saw the orangutanans it was based on. No big deal.

What are we talking about? Dave, please it go on. Perhaps the most intriguing case. And to be honest, main part of today's report, involves Australian Rodney Marks. Oh, I thought you were going to say Rodney Marsh. Rod Marsh. One of the great Australian wicketkeepers.

I'm afraid not. Imagine if he was involved. Imagine. Rodney, what are you doing here? Can't play cricket here, mate. It's too cold. We got a basketball call. Cricket pitch.

Grouse doesn't grow up here, mate. He's silly bugger. Rodney. Rodney is, I don't think about enough, but Rodney's up there with the great names. I think you could pass for a Rodney. I reckon I could pass for a Rodney. Yeah, yeah, especially when you're older, older than the wind. I think Gary's obviously up the top.

Of course. Then you got Bruce, Rodney, Greg. Yeah. Slaggreg. Gregor. Gregon. Gregon. Gregon.

Yeah, the big four. Keith. Keith. Keith. Right up the five with the five. Keith. Big fan of Keith. And Rod Marsh, see, the one his nickname was back.

Oh, very good. Good stuff. That is good stuff. Jesus, Aussie cricketers are witty. Yes. Famously. And wickety. Gosh, that's good. And you're a cricketer?

That was Australian cricket level wit. I've never played, but I reckon I'd be really good at it. Just based on that. It's like how, um, uh, I don't even remember his real name. Lion. The spinner. Nathan Lion. Nathan Lion.

Nicknames Gary. Because there's an old footballer called Gary Lyon. That's clever. And funny, because it's like he's internationally much more famous than Gary Lyon. But he's nicknamed after that's so good. All right, but we're talking about not Rodney Marsh. Yes. Rodney Marx.

That's right. Marx was born and studied in Geelong here in Victoria. He was an astrophysicist. He'd previously wintered over at the South Pole Station in 1997 to 1998 and having first visited the continent in 1993. He obviously loved Antarctica. I spent a lot of his time down there. According to Men's Journal,

which has a great long-form article on Rodney Marks that I'll link to in the show notes, Mark's specialty was radio astronomy, a highly accurate method of viewing the cosmos that relies on capturing the radio waves that objects in space transmit. And it's obviously, Antarctica is a great place to do that.

Oh, is it? Yeah, because you know when you go to a country town or just out in the bush, how great the stars are? Is it another level in Antarctic? I don't know if it's because you can see the stars or there's less radio transmissions that get in the way, I don't know, but apparently down there, it's beautiful. They do have lovely telescopes, they can see clearly.

That probably helps as well, which also country towns have. That's why you can sit so well out there. There's just every one in the country has a beautiful telescope. And is it true, there's like a, you know, the northern lights, is there an equivalent in Antarctica? Yeah, the Aurora Australas. Yeah, I don't think I'm. heard of that racing that's awesome. See, that's another thing we could go and see when we do a year of podcast.

On our year, yes. You can also, you can sometimes see it in Tazzy and sometimes even South W. Oh, that's awesome. I'd love to see that. Oh, yeah, that's cool. That's something that, uh, when they email you from Antarctica, if someone does. Can you let us know if you've seen Aurora, Australia. Let us know.

Please. Unless you've already sent it on the email, then reply to that email and say, P.S. I have seen. Yeah. Maybe listen to the whole episode first. Yeah. Okay. Because we're probably going to have some more questions.

Third question, who are you and what do you do? Yeah. We should name them just for ease for later on. Keith? Yeah. Keith, is that you? Come on. Come on, Keith.

Be better than that, Keith. Come on, Keith. In the year 2000, then age 32, Marx was stationed at the Amundsen Scott South Pole Station. He was working on the Antarctic Sub-millimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory, a research project for the University of Chicago. So it's right at the South Pole in the southernmost point under the jurisdiction, in brackets not sovereignty of the United States,

and until 2010, the base housed a giant glass dome that truly looks like a James Bond villain's lair. It's awesome. And I'm pretty sure that they've used outside shots of it in episodes of the X-Files. Because it is like in the middle of the snow, this giant glass thing. It looks wild.

It's no longer, it's no longer, you. They've got a new base, but extremely remote, even more remote than the other bases I spoke about. The South Pole has 24 hours of light over many months in summer, and conversely, one day, the sun sets in winter, and then there is complete darkness for several months, which I think I would lose my mind. Yeah, I wouldn't cope with that. I think either of those is not, at the peak of either of those is not when you want to get the news, you're there for another year. Imagine that it's just, you're in the middle of darkness nonstop, and then you hear that.

You're like, oh, I'm already feeling a bit weird. Do not challenge me to a game of chess right now. I'm going to set fine at this station. There was a real culture of drinking under the dome, especially during the long winter months. Staff got together at the bar 90 South. Pretty cool. You do know what's cool, though?

Men's Journal again writes, In 1996, a worker was thrown into detox three times before he was finally forced to live in the medical facility, isolated from the rest of the population. Because he was just drinking so much. In 2001 staff was rumoured to have racked up a $10,000 bar tab. Oh. So you've got to pay for the drinks. No, okay.

I just assumed open bar. I just assumed everything was free. Yeah, but like, you know, how like when you go to places that are pretty remote, the bar prices. Like, I went to the Bahamas during the year, very expensive to buy beer. there. Antarctica, South Pole, what is that, 10 beers? Yeah. Yeah.

But, yeah, no, that is interesting. Who's, so is there a, there's someone down there just running a business? Like, I think someone would be employed to be in charge of the bar. That would be part of their job. I don't know if they're like the recreation supervisor or something like that. 10 grand. And maybe it all goes back into the research. I don't think they're turning a profit from the bar.

It costs millions of dollars to set up. Because that is, yeah, that definitely feels dangerous. Yeah. You don't, you don't want people isolate. The place where people's mental health is fragile. And then there's not a lot of, there's not good medical set up there. So a bit of self-medication. Yeah.

Man, I just, I don't know how alcoholics do it. Like the hangovers? I guess that's how they do it. They just never have one. You never have a hangover. Just keep drinking. Keep the bus color. The crew apparently also made their own moonshine on the base.

Wow. Cheaper way to have it. That's how you do it. Yeah. Rodney Marks, our guy liked a drink and played guitar in the South Pole band. And their name was Fanny Pack and the Big Nancy Boys. That's fantastic. You couldn't even get to say it.

I was like, took a little breath. Yeah. I've got to say this. Here I go. He's there. Fanny Pack and the Big Nancy. Are you sure that it's not Rodney Marsh? Because this does feel, that feels like it could be a cricket all-star team,

six and out style. Yeah, that's right. Do you know about that band, Jess? There was a team made up of a strong. Australian cricketers called Six and Out. Brett Lee and his brother Shane. And, yeah, a couple, I think it was all in New South Wales crickers. Oh, no, I don't know it.

Big in India. Yes. I think they might have had a hit over there. Brett Lee's so big over there. He's huge. So, Rodney Marks, Fanny Pack and the big Nancy boys. Backish. So backish.

So backish. Is that Sean Connery's saying back as much? Backish marks. Bashish Marsh. Mark, do you said batches marks? Bacious marks. Carmox brother, his girlfriend, Sonia, played bass in the band.

Wow. The two fell in love during the summer winter transition, just as she was about to be shipped out at the end of her contract. They wanted to stay together so badly that she quickly applied for a winter position and was accepted just a week before the plane out. Winter position, that's actually the one that Michael Pope came up with. They killed him.

They killed him. Assume the winter position. snapped himself in half. It's too cold down that. What a way to go. So she stayed for love. Stayed for love. And he had purple hair.

She had green. Can I make it any more obvious? Bit of, who was like that? It was almost Averillivine, but not quite. The couple soon got engaged. Beautiful. So they just met before she was meant to leave. That's unlucky.

A few months before she was going to leave. Right. Yeah, but then it got quite serious and she's like, I don't want to leave. I was able to apply to stay. So now they're bunking together. On the 11th of May 2000, Rodney Marks became unwell whilst walking between the remote observatory and the base. He was feverish, complaining of stomach pains and nausea. Turns out he hadn't died his hair.

It was just a symptom. Sounds like Dave, after too much cheese. Should have probably known. My stomach. Yeah, oh, it must. It's the nib. It's the nib. It's the black nib.

Doc, put me out of my misery. I got the black nib. All right, Doc, I'll shoot you. You shoot me. Doctor's like, I'm fine. And I'm not going to shoot you. I think you just might be lactose intolerant. I don't want to live in a world without cheese.

You can take something for it. Jesus, David. How did you pass the psych test? I didn't tell them about cheese. They didn't ask. It didn't come up. I could a turn out, don't tell a policy about cheese. What's happening?

I've got a $10,000 cheese tab. This has been a weird episode, hasn't it? It has been a weird episode of normal? Only in vibe. Yes, okay. I'm enjoying myself, but things are attacking a dark turn here, can I say? Because he's sick. No, but they've just fallen in love.

They're engaged. I'm afraid. Oh, no. Things are not going on because he starts. vomiting blood. That's so good. Clearly is not right. It's not just the cheese.

Something's going wrong. Over 36 hours, Rodney Marks condition progressively worsened and he sought help from the base's doctor, Dr. Robert Thompson, three times. Marks was so sensitive to light that he wore sunglasses around the base, which made him look really cool, but he was quite sick. Purple air sunglasses. I could not get any cooler. He sounds like he could have been a member of a weed hornet.

Oh, he wishes. Well, actually, no, he was the guy who was a member of that other band, right? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Probably kind of band that could have supported Wayne Horton. Funny pack and the Big Nancy Boys. The big Nancy boys. This is the year 2000, a couple years before we don't.

They were a big influence on us. Oh, okay. So medical advice was sought by satellite because he kept going to the doctor saying, I'm getting worse, I'm feeling terrible, I'm vomiting blood. Clearly something's going wrong. So they radioed out for satellite support, but Marx died the next day on the 12th. of May 2000, age 32, with his condition undiagnosed. Holy shit.

It was shocking, fully unexpected, but no one suspected foul play. They just thought, I don't know, just something happened. You just got sick. I didn't suspect foul play either until you said that. Yeah. But now I'll put it in your head. At the start of the episode, he said crime. And I suppose that was an hour ago.

Sorry, I just nerded out about Antarctica. No, I loved it. I loved it. I loved watching you nerd out. Yeah. I'm still not going to Antarctica. Damn it. That was going to be my pitch at the end. When are we going?

According to one of our favorite websites, all that's interesting, the National Science Foundation, which governs all US-based research at the station, issued a statement announcing that Marx had died of natural causes. Doesn't seem very natural. But they were like, I mean, what else has happened to you? She's got some sort of illness quickly died. But because of the remote location, of the South Pole base and the harsh winter weather,

his body wasn't able to be immediately repatriated. Instead, his body was kept in a freezer at the observatory for six months until it could be... Was that necessary? Keeping it on the fridge. Put him on the porch. How much power are they wasting having a freezer? Just treat him as a roundabout.

If you feel like an ice cream, just go outside. Grab one. Grab one. It's got an esk out there. Or cholly bun. Thank you. Well, thank you for the mentioning the Chiliburn, because after six months, his body was flown to Christchurch in New Zealand for an autopsy. Home of the Chili Bonn.

Home of the Chili Bonn. The chilliest of Bond. Both the US and Australian governments agreed to the post-morton being conducted in New Zealand. Because remember, it's very complicated about the jurisdiction because he was working on an American base, but he's an Australian citizen. So technically it comes under the Australian stuff. Yeah. But then the New Zealand base. is the closest to get him back for the autopsy and everyone agreed, fine.

We think you died of natural causes anyway. Yeah, yeah. But you've got to investigate. You take care of it. And also, it's like, is Australia being like, what if New Zealand messes with this? Why would they? Yeah. Why would they?

We love New Zealand. And they don't mind us. They acknowledge we exist sometimes. Yeah. I think of Australia as being New Zealand's Western state. Yeah. I agree. God, we could be so lucky.

I absolutely agree. But there was real shock when the autopsy established that Rodney Marx had died from methanol poisoning. Oh. A highly toxic wood, alcohol-based chemical that Marx may have used to clean the high-tech telescopes. Oh. But it was found in amounts far beyond what would be expected with normal contact

about a small wine glasses worth had been consumed. Oh, shit. So it's not like you accidentally licked your fingers or something after cleaning it. Another curious thing was noticed. Marx had needle marks on his arms, but no illegal drugs in his body. Something was off, and it needed investigating. But this is where the complicated territorial claims in Antarctica come into play. The territory on which the Amundsen-Scott station has built

has long since been a source of controversy between the US and New Zealand. Though it is a US base, and most of the people who work there are Americans, the land on which it sits is claimed by New Zealand and Rodney Marks was an Australian citizen so three separate governments talking about this. Instinctively, I'm siding with New Zealand here. Yeah. I don't need any more info.

My ruling's with New Zealand. For sure. Well, let's find out for years, the New Zealand police attempted to find the truth. If he was murdered, only 49 other people lived on the base. So the suspect pool is pretty limited. But the New Zealand,

investigation was hit by a series of walls from the US government. Can I just check, is that a literal suspect pool at the base? Is that what they make them all? Yeah, there's a soccer court, basketball court, the suspect pool. Olympic size pool. It's been sitting there dormant since we built it. Finally, we get to everyone in, all 49 in the suspect pool place. So stupid. What? And you wonder why we've been here for nearly an hour? enough. Yeah, we're having fun though. We're having fun. I think AJ is going to have fun editing out. A lot of nonsense. Is that why you've been instinctively started with New Zealand? Ah, yes. You want him to be kind to you? Yeah. No, I mean, I do that anyway, but yeah, he does

personify New Zealand to me. Yes. One of the nicest guys. Yes. An angel. True of heart. Yes. And very smart. True of heart and very smart. Someone get me a pen. I'm in pain. I'm operating on myself here. But no, anything that's been left in, I think the listeners should know that AJ is approved of that. Yeah. We agree that it was tedious nonsense. Agreed. But if AJ's left it in, AJ's left it in.

And we trust AJ's instincts. That's right. And who are you to question AJ? How fucking dare you question AJ? Yeah. But if you do want to get onto him, AJ and HD on social media. Follow him on TikTok and elsewhere. And just let him know your thoughts.

Positively. Yes. Yeah, positive thoughts on the police. So they wanted to contact 49 of these people, the New Zealand police. Yeah. Clearly, if there has been a murder, one of these 49 people did it, so let's talk to them. But all efforts to find a list of staff at the base were ignored by the US authorities. Eventually, they were given email contacts for Mark's colleagues.

Police then sent questionnaires to all 49 of Rodney Mark's co-workers, but they received only 13 replies. Interesting. 36 people just ignored them. I'm not ignoring the police. No. I'm scared for the police. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

That can happen. Fuck, I could be ignoring the police right now. Yeah. They might be like going, Jess. Hello. Hello. As per our last email. Come on.

Come on. And I'm just not seeing it. Yeah. Yeah. As per our last email, you owe us $100 in fines. Please play in an iTunes, Gifts Voucher. Yeah. Can I have a quick guess of what's happened here?

36 of the 49 couldn't swim and they were treading water for a little while eventually their body's just floating in the suspect pool leaving only 39 of the strongest swimmers left how many do you think there are 36 have perished and 39 left and there's 13 left 13 left oh my nickname for 13 is 39 right right it's a complicated system but it works for me and one of those 13 survivors killed him Uh, we don't know. Oh, okay. Well, maybe the murderer was a bad swimmer. Wow. We don't know. We don't know, Dave.

Do we know? What nationality was his fiancé? Oh, good question. Not sure? I'm not sure. They always go to the partner. That's always one of the big suspects, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Right. And there's nationalities you trust more than others. No. Can we get a quick list? Oh, my trust. Most trustworthy to least trustworthy. No, I meant more that like... Oh, she was also Australian.

Guilty. DLT. I can't trust the Australians. Well, as long as you, yeah. I think that's okay to. I can say that. I think you can say that. Now we're getting into Dicey territory with the rest of your list.

AJ has edited out the list. Because, yeah, that was. Impassioned. In a word, problematic. No, my... You never believe the least trustworthy country. My thinking was that the Americans were being a little... They weren't being very helpful.

They weren't being very responsive. They absolutely have not been. So I was like, maybe she's American. And they're just protected. protecting her or one of the others nearly everyone else is american so i i presume she is but i don't know new zealand detective grant war mold suggested that some of the people they tried to contact may have quote thought twice about making contact on the basis of their future employment situation uh like because the base is like oh hey maybe don't don't talk to them yeah it looks bad for the base and if you want to

keep getting a job from us yeah yeah you're not going to blank them yeah detective war mold requested the results of lab tests done on what little little evidence was collected in Rodney Marx's room and work area, he got no response. The New Zealand police say that a full investigation into Marx's death had been carried out by US organisations, but they have refused to release their findings. Oh, that's weird. Yeah, it's a bit suspicious, isn't it? Theories have been put forward.

One is that he drank the methanol on purpose. The Guardian writes, he was also known to be a bin's drinker. Perhaps he had distilled his own booze and then accidentally poisoned himself, it was suggested. Yet alcohol was readily available on the base, and yet Marx was an experienced drinker who would have known the dangers of homemade spirits. As one colleague described him, Marx was a brilliant, witty, and steady sort of bloke who drank to excess on occasion. Australian. That sounds like an Australian. It's like if I ever get poisoned with alcohol, people would be like, yeah, well, we know he likes drinking, so he did it himself. Yeah. It's like,

It's wild that, that, I hope, yeah, hope, you know that I won't do that. I don't care what they say. Well, okay. The Guardian or whoever else. But the Guardian is basically saying, that seems unlikely. The Guard, okay, no, good on the Gar, it was a better call them. What do you call it? Old men call it, that's buddy fish and chip wrapping.

Yeah. Got him. Got them. Got them. I don't know how you do that with an online newspaper, but. Got him. Another theory is it was an accident, but this was ruled out because the only presence of methanol at the camp was a diluted form in cleaning supplies for the telescopes.

Pretty hard to accidentally drink it, you'd think. Yeah, and a lot of it. Yeah. Men's journal writes, Detective Warmold would eventually learn that Marx's workspace was notoriously messy. Bottles of lab agents like methanol and ethanol were often strown about alongside a dozen also empty bottles of alcohol. The methanol used at the South Pole is similar to a... cars wind shield wiper fluid, while the less toxic ethanol, a common ingredient in the

base's homemade moonshine, is more like rubbing alcohol. Both are colorless and nearly as odalous as vodka, and almost indistinguishable from one another in taste. Mistaking the two was certainly a possibility, especially by someone under the influence of alcohol. But other people again have said, that seems unlikely to me. And the needle marks. Yeah, that seems a bit sense. Here, the needle marks was suspicious. An inquest was finally held in 2007 where Grant Ormold revealed it was most unlikely, in his words, that the scientist had knowingly ingested the methanol that had killed him, which the Guardian suggests means that Marx had been deliberately poisoned or was the victim of a prank or an act of criminal negligence.

Pretty good prank. Sounds a good prank. Got him. Gene Davidson, who was a colleague of Marx, said, He was too smart to drink it knowingly. If anything, maybe someone else didn't know the difference between methanol and ethanol. and put the wrong thing in his drink, saying, here, drink this, it'll give you a good buzz.

I always come back to the idea he was slipped it, and maybe the person didn't even know it. So someone had accidentally poisoned him. Right. That's their theory. If Rodney-Marx had known he'd accidentally consume the amethanol, he would have likely said something in the 36 hours when he was sick, because he kept going to the doctor saying, I'm sick,

I don't know why I'm sick. And if he'd done it himself, he would be going to the doctor, being like, I drank this. I drank this, maybe it wasn't bad, maybe it wasn't good. I've had this to drink, I've had this to eat. but didn't say anything like that. Yeah. He just said, I'm feeling terrible.

I feel like I'm dying. I don't know what's going on. Tragically, a machine that could have saved his life sat in the corner of the medical room where he died. What? It's called, and I'm going to have an attempt at this, an ectchem blood analyzer, which would have recognized in a normal anion gap in Marx's blood,

the cause for which makes up a fairly short list, including methanol poisoning. Oh, wow. Had his condition been caught in time, reversing the effects could have been a simple matter of running a mixture of ethanol and saline, through his blood. Oh, geez.

Through his body, sorry. Didn't mean blood, through his body. Yeah, they would have hooked him up to a drip. A drain, yeah, yeah. Is it the kind of thing that, like, the doctor on the base would be going, I should have done that? Or is it like, the... Yes, so, Mann's journal notes, the machine's single tiny lithium ion battery had died,

and therefore, the machine lost its calibration every time it was turned on. Once turned back on, it took up to nine hours to recalibrate, because usually the battery just keeps the data going. Yeah. But it was dead. Base physician Robert Thompson had known about the malfunction, had even reported it to the company, Raytheon, but for some reason never attempted to fix it

and decided against simply leaving it on all the time, just plugged into the wall. It was by no means a necessary piece of equipment in the physician's day-to-day duties, but it was there for a reason, they write, emergencies just like this one. Yeah, it's sort of like, I have limited power points. I'm not going to waste.

I mean, I'll keep my phone charged. He survived for more than nine hours anyway. Exactly, yeah. First time he comes in, you could flick it on. If you'd fired it on in the first nine hours. Surely, you're like, you're vomiting blood. There's something in your system that's not good. Let's check it out.

I mean, I'm not a doctor, I should say that. I am a doctor, so I would have straight away. Sorry, I'll defer to you then. I would have straight away been testing the blood. Yeah, okay. And then running a mix of saline and ethanol. Oh, yeah? Oh, you would have chosen to save his life.

Well, that's not a bad. Not a bad option. Because you took the Hippocratic oath. Of course. And not all doctors stand by that. Not all take it. It's optional. Oh, is it?

That's what people don't realize. It's optional. Okay. And you decided to take it? I was like, no, you know what, I'll do it. That is. I think that's great. Yeah, thanks.

I think that's great. I think you're great. Stop flirting with me. I'm a doctor. Okay. You can't flirt with doctors. Love a woman in uniform. The doctor uniform you wear.

Scrubs. A woman in scrubs. Oh my God. I should say suicide was also investigated and ruled out by Grant Warmold as the least likely explanation. Again, because he'd gone in there being like, I don't know what's happening to me. Please help me. I feel terrible. I don't know what it is.

Again, even if you decided, no, this is awful. I would love to live. You'd say, I've drunk this. Can you fix this? Exactly right. He was just in complete confusion. Men's Journal that has a long-form article on this, like I said, seem to think that the reason the US and the base didn't want to cooperate

with any of the investigations was to avoid the PR nightmare of having one of their workers murdered or dying accidentally, ingesting poison, and not having the medical equipment in working order to save them. I think they've got the priorities in the right order there. Well, that's just a theory from Man's Journal. Because it is a bit sus that they have not played along, apparently done their own investigation, never released, the results.

Isn't it just to me that feels wild that it's not like you figure it out and then you fix your system. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I do. But I'm not an American administrator in whatever department that would be. Oh, okay. Well, that's the difference.

Yeah. The Department of Cover-ups. The Department of Cover-ups, yeah. I don't work in that. Actually, I wouldn't even if they wanted me to because I don't like cover-ups. No, you like the truth. I like getting it all out there. I like getting the truth and I like getting it all out there

because I believe the truth is out there but I want to get it right out there. So yeah, men's journal posit that they already knew that alcohol had a problem at the base and this would not have been a good look at all. That's what they think. Men's Journal also put forward a new theory in 2017. Harry Marha, South Pole Health and Safety Officer at the time,

mentioned to investigators that he saw an unusual shaped bottle of liquor he'd heard that Marx had brought back to the base from an R&R trip to New Zealand just before the start of winter. Colleague and friend Darren Schneider remembers the bottle too and says it was among several empty ones found behind Marx's computer after he died.

He recalls it had an exotic-looking black-and-white label with writing in Portuguese or a similar language and a picture of a shrimp. He believes that it was thrown away with all the other bottles when they cleared out the room. But one colleague who remembers bottle but wishes to remain anonymous, told Men's Journal in 2017 that as soon as he learned Marx had been poisoned, it hit him that this bottle could have played a role.

Oh. He had a theory, and he shared it at the time with a fellow crew member and investigators, but it was roundly dismissed as wild speculation and was never investigated. His theory is that there have been many reports on liquor in Southeast Asia being souped up with methanol, and that sometimes people die after unknowingly ingesting the poison. And in fact, the World Health Organization reports as many as many as well. 300 deaths per year relating to lack of quality controls, especially in the preparation of illicit liquor. And they happen all over the world, and all these deaths are the result of

acute methanol poisoning. But it is just a theory. But his theory is that he brought back this alcohol from a trip. But it was from New Zealand, which I imagine has pretty strong regulations. He's had it to drink, hasn't realized, oh my God, this is actually poisonous, diet 36 hours later. I would say that does sound like. like wild speculation. Yeah, it is. Because he's like, I haven't seen that bottle before,

probably poison. Yeah. Yeah. But it's quite a specific description as well, though. Yeah. You think you'd be able to find a... Find the shrimp bottle. Yeah.

I should also note that you might be thinking, the moonshine they drank tested negative for methanol. So it definitely wasn't the moonshine. But we're left with many questions. Why are the stonewalling from the US? Are they covering up something? Sadly, we don't know what happened to Rodney Marx,

and it's likely we never will. We don't know because that's right. It's a mystery episode. Oh my God. I really think we should get Mulder and Scully onto this. They love Antarctica. Get them down there. Get them back down there.

And Mulder will go in and they'll say, he'll have a look around and say, you know what? There is a chance that this is an alien dust that came down from her planet in another cell system. Oh, my gosh. And it drifted down and it landed in this shrimp bottle. Yes. And I think aliens got inside the bottle. The bottle.

Yes. And they started a colony in his body. And in their renovations, they had to dig up a lot of stuff, his organs. Yes. And that resulted in bleeding, which was sort of like mouth ablutioned. Yes. and now he's probably, you know, an alien colony. And what would Scully say to that? I don't know, Mulder.

And then it would turn out that he's 100% right. Every time she'll never learn. And then her medical background, the fact that she's a trained doctor means nothing. Yeah. The fact that she does autopsies and she somehow misses it. She misses the aliens. They were waving at it. Come on.

Oh, hello, welcome. Welcome to a new colony. They're actually very nice. Yeah. It was just a whoopsy. They didn't realize they were creating their colony inside a man. They were mortified. They were like, oh my God, I was so embarrassed.

I didn't realize someone already lived here. That's so embarrassing. I have repainted. I painted his liver. Oh, it's so embarrassing. Does he need that? He's dead. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Can we stay here? Can we stay here? We painted the nib of his appendix black. Is that an issue? Everyone, that. Rodney Mark's legacy and memorial does live on on the continent. Mount Marks, a mountain in the Worcester Range of Antarctica,

where the height of 2,600 metres or 8,500,000 feet is named after him. A plaque was erected at the base at the site of the South Pole in January 2001, and it is marked by a memorial to him. That's nice. Jeez, it is such a sad story. It is really sad. No closure for friends and family. Yeah, I read an interview with his dad who said, I've given up on finding out the truth.

She's so sad. That's sad. Just, yeah. And what about his girlfriend? Yes, and she had to stay on the base after, you know, because it was in winter. No one was going home. So you're there with, and your colleagues have to keep working. Everyone knows such a small, small thing.

She's so sad. Knows each other. Fanny Pack have to keep playing without him. Yeah. What was his role in the band? He played guitar. Yeah, this is a pretty important role. She played bass.

Yeah. Oh, man. But I do want to end on that down note because it's certainly not the most recent crime to occur in Antarctica. Oh, wow. Are you going to leave on an uplifting Antarctic crime? Well, in comparison, on the 9th of October,

October, it's a wild time of year. 2018, a stabbing occurred at a Russian research station. Dave, none. Let me finish. I can win this back. The victim was a Nazi. Sergei Savitsky, a 54-year-old electrical engineer, stabbed Oleg Beluguzov, a 52-year-old welder in the chest multiple times.

But the reason for the stabbing was reported as being because Belagazov was giving away the endings of books that Savitsky was checking out of the station's library. This recently got posted in the Patreon group of Facebook. Yeah, that's right. I'd already researched so funny. That's amazing. He was arrested, but was remorseful, and his victim forgiving him. From the Great Beyond?

No, he lived. Stad multiple times, but he forgave the stabber. So when it went before a judge, the case was dropped. Wow. So it really was a victimless crime. And did the victim stop spoiling endings? What a weird thing to do. So weird and so funny.

Yeah. That was uplifting. Oh, yeah. I feel uplifted. It's just one of the things that, like, spending months, if not years of your life down there in close proximity, weird things are going to happen. You just go a bit nuts. Yes. Yeah, and he would think it's pretty funny, just winding him up a bit.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, honestly, please stop doing that. Maybe it's funny, like, once. Even then, it's a bit of a dog act, but to keep doing it. And he's like, I just want to read a fucking book. Yeah. Please, it's our only joy and pleasure. He'd be clever to start reading books.

inside books so he's spoiling the wrong book. Yeah, he's spoiling little women, but it doesn't matter. I'm reading something else. Little women too. I couldn't think of a single other book. Name a book. Hunger Games. Great. I saw a little bit of an episode of Friends recently, and someone spoiled Little Women for Joey. Yeah. That wasn't a coincidence? That's possibly why I thought of it. I'm like, that is wild. Yeah. Because I was about to call Mulder and Skellia. So how is this possible? How did this happen?

I think aliens. But that is it. That's my report. My deep dive into Antarctica. After all that, I've decided I'm probably not going to go. Don't want to get stuck. So now I'm going by myself. Sorry.

I'm out. Well, at least I'll have two empty seats next to me on the plane. I can stretch out. How do you get there? You either take a boat or they fly you in like on a military plane. Oh, wow. And you have to wear like, you know, full on stuff to protect your ears. a boat.

Oh, there you go. Yeah. My dream is to do one of those cruises down there. Yeah, wow. I loved it, but they cost literally tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah. So I don't think I'll ever get. I get seasick.

And again, chronic illness. It's just simply not worth it. Okay. You can do flyovers. My parents during COVID when you couldn't fly anywhere, went to the Melbourne airport, then they do like a 12-hour flyover at the top of Antarctica here, and they, you know, make sure that everyone has the window seat for a bit

and then you swap. Have a little look. A year and tens of thousands of Ayes? Well, no, these flights didn't cost that. Quantus were like, we're making no money. This is our only way, only flights we can do right now. So they took off, flew over it for 12 hours. You get a meal or whatever, and then they fly you back and you land back where you were.

And technically, you haven't traveled anywhere. So it was allowed during COVID, yeah. That's cool. They said it was pretty cool. Yeah. It wasn't the same thing as traveling. Yeah, looking out those tiny. So it's 12 hours in total?

Oh, maybe even a little bit longer. Wow. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it takes longer to get to L.A. Yeah. You may as well go check out Antarctica. Yeah, do a flyover. That's pretty cool.

You get to see some cool stuff. Like, the scenery's pretty amazing. I'd be like, go lower. Lower. Land it. Land it. Land, you coward. I want to see a penguin.

Dan Andrews can't get us from here. Let's start a whole new life down here. This is outside of the ring of steel. Some very, uh, very well-bid. Regional references there. Killing in the regions. Great report, Dave.

Well done. A bit of fun, new year, new me. Are you going to be fun now? Yeah. Okay. I was cool the last nine years now. Yeah. Let's be fun.

No, now fun. Yeah. It was cool, now fun. Yes. Thank God. You've been a real stiff shirt. Stuff shirt? Chully bun.

You've been a real chully bun this whole time. What's a stuff shirt? Isn't that like a someone being like a someone's a real stick in the mud they're a real stuffed shirt just say stick in the mud then right if that's what you mean

deep down I don't know well you know what that actually brings us to everyone's favorite section of the show which is where we thank some of our great Patreon supporters

if you want to be one of these go to patreon.com slash do go on pod and I dare you why double dare you oh wow Dave do you want to explain to people what what goes

on there. Patreon, this is the way that we keep the show going, the way that you can support the show whilst also getting a bunch of bonus rewards, including access to live shows before other people,

discount codes, we've got a lovely Facebook group that is honestly such a nice part of the internet. You can get bonus episodes. We put out three a month and you get access to the back catalogue which is about 200 bonus episodes.

So a lot of stuff for you to discover that. We send out Christmas cards once a year and yeah, I guess you also get the satisfaction of knowing that we can keep doing this show week after week. Yeah. That must be.

That must be pretty satisfying to you. And also, as you're about to hear, we do shoutouts to you on the show. We thank you. And we also have a section called the fact quote or question. That's right. And I think we're even getting quite close to doing maybe a fourth bonus episode a month. That's right. We are going to do a Dungeons and Dragons campaign that will be a monthly ongoing series.

Which, to me, and maybe it's just to me, very exciting. Yeah, because we've done one before with Adam Cunner, It was very fun. From St. Spence Radio. And we had a great time with him. And we're going to get together again and, you know, become wizards and orcs. I'm a barred. Yeah, I'm a casino must graves.

Because we have done a previous campaign before, which is a lot of fun, which you also listen to on Patreon. Yeah, do you think, and we think we're going to stick with those names? Because I was Gary Gregson, I think. But maybe now I could be... Greg Garrison. Rodney Middle Name. Rodney Middle Name. It's very creative of this guy.

God, he's good. Okay, that's, yep. Rodney middle name is very funny. Can I have that? That's literally what you said. I know, but I was saying adding Rodney as the middle name to what you said. But I didn't make that clear enough and that's on me. Rodney middle name it is.

Sorry, I've already locked it in. So the first thing we like to do, as we think some of our great supporters, is go through a section we call the fact quote or question section, which I think has a little jingle, go something like this. Fact quote or question. He always remembers the ding. Huh. She always remembers the sing of the jingle.

And in this section, people on the Sydney-Shanberg level or above get to write in. Give us a fact, a quote, or a question. They also get to give themselves a title and then I'll read them out for the first time on the show. That's really just me excusing any fumbles or stumbles along the way, or if they say anything awful. Then it's not us saying it. Or untrue or whatever. I haven't.

Exactly. That's right. There was, I'm just, we're reading out quotes. I haven't, I haven't vetoed any of this. If it makes it through and if it's awful,

that's on both the person who's written it and A.J. Who hasn't edited it. That's right. So everyone is legally responsible except for people in this room. Correct. We have nothing to do with it. We have but a vessel. Dave,

am I right in saying this is episode 428? This is episode 428. Correct. My goodness. Can you believe it? I barely can. So first up this week, we've got one from Patrick J. Ealy, who we heard from back in November with that great jingle. I don't know if you recall it.

Oh, yes. Great musician. Oh, yeah, of course. And Patrick has given himself the title of Vice Chairperson of Do Go On Related, Laughter Induced Asthma Attacks. Wow. Okay. Finally, that role has been filled. and Patrick has a question writing

Hey mates What item that you have with you regularly Would you use for self-defense We're joined by a special guest Broden Kelly We are recording absolutely You had a fresh cut there bro And you're looking very sharp

Turn on that mic Dave Hi guys, thanks for having me Last time you came on Someone commented that It was obnoxious Yeah Someone didn't like it Well if they thought that was obnoxious

get ready for this. What do you got? Nothing. No coffee. I was walking down the hallway and I heard Jess on the phone to someone. Yep. And I went, Jess is here. And then I got closer and closer and I realized, I got to that door and I realized that you were mid-record.

Mid-record. Mid-record. And I walked and I was like, oh, I've missed her. And then I thought, something in me just went, go in there. Yeah. You were that desperate to see me. Well, you're at the perfect time because we got a question from Patreon Patrick.

We're like an hour and 40 in. Yeah, we're like I feel less obnoxious. Nah, it's a Patreon section. They're cool. The diehards are come this far anyway. No one. The drop off, you've seen the stats here on like the average podcast.

The people who stick around here are about 1%. Yeah, yeah. They are the 1%. And we do it for them. Yeah, they are only the richest people in the world listen to this part. Keep us going. So Patrick's question, Broan, is what item that you have with you regularly would you use for self-defense?

Yeah, and that's for you guys. That's not for me. That's for all. They paid their good hard money to hear what you three would. I reckon it's for you. It's just your fists. Yeah, my brawn. Yes.

My answer is. Drink bottle. Yes, 100%. Mine's even bigger. Frank Green. I could fuck you up for that. You'd kill me with that thing. Well, firstly, I think this is a leader.

Okay. So it's going to be heavier. Yeah, I think I'm in the 700 mill territory. Yeah. So you're fucked, mate. Do people at home know that you have two Frank Green waterboards? Yeah. Like two waterboards?

Like two waters? Well, this one had like electrolytes in it. Oh, I don't. Because I'm actually deficient in amino acids. Isn't that fun? And electrolytes have amino acids. Some do. This one does.

Wow. But for self-defense, you could go dual like one in each hand, which would be pretty, like, like you've got two swords. You should get a connecting chain between them and have them as like a nunchuck. Fuck, yeah. That would be very cool. The hydration nunchuck. Yeah, you've been hydrated.

I'm the hydrator. Yeah, you're the hydrater. Oh, that's cool. If I was a, I am a listener to do go on, and I think the listeners at home would be interested to hear how much detail goes into the questions you've put, you're like, they are, you've got a really comprehensive, beautiful Google sheets. Yeah. Like where the breakdown of everyone's question is there, you've got, you know, the question up

the top, there's, you're on, on column 836. Yeah. With questions here? Yeah, yeah. And you've highlighted the blue. It's really thoughtfully done. You've got a separate sheet up. Yeah.

So I'm ready for the next step, which is the shout-out. So that's on row 1061. Fucking hell. And that's the second. That's an updated spreadsheet. There was an old one. We clocked Google spreadsheets earlier. We filled it.

Can I ask a Patreon question? Sure. How is your audience feeling about since you've gone to using these Canon 4K cameras and you've been out putting more regular socials content out? How have they responded to that? They're loving it. Yeah. They're loving it sick.

A few months ago, someone commented on one of these videos that they couldn't believe how cool Dave is. Yeah. Genuinely? Genuinely. So. We couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe how cool Dave is. We know that your audience are very, like, they're on the button as far as that.

They know I'm obnoxious and they know that you're cool. I should say a lot of people came to your defense. No, no, no, that's fine. Under that comment. I think it is. I was, what kind of fucking self-centered? asshole walks up to a closed door that says recording and walks in. Yeah.

Like, that's a fucking asshole thing. No, I think I had your number. Yeah. Obnoxious. I think it was about time. Do you remember that time you wanted to come to our LA shows and you showed up a day early and then left and never came to the show? Yes.

I flew in. I bought my ticket for that day because I'm like, I've got to leave at some point. I've got to get there by early November and you were doing a show on the 23rd of October. I'll just go then. But yeah He messaged me a day earlier I was in I think somewhere like Seattle or Vancouver or something

And he said hey man Here to get ready to do it And I was like I hope you mean ready to do it As in tomorrow you're ready to do it Yeah you're ready for 24 hours from now Start warming up And I said oh no Oh I've made a mistake

Low voiced men going Oh dear Oh what have we done It was because it was the first thing I booked in After that I figured out the time difference And I never went back and figured out to check the first thing that I booked it. Yeah.

Like four months earlier or whenever it was. It was a blessing in disguise. You didn't have to watch our bullshit and you got on the right schedule. Sorry to that fan for being obnoxious. Love to you, the rest of you. Jack the Hat Mickvittier. Yeah, yeah. That's what it is.

He was a low level criminal in the olden days. You could do an episode about Google sheets. We could. Like the journey from spreadsheets, that in the Microsoft Word, I guess. Yeah. Are you ever going to come back and do another report? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Well, if I'm wanted. I think you, yeah. I think there's so, we've done, since then, we've done a lot of plane accident-related episodes. But you're the expert in that. Not anymore. Do you know, apparently, though, they're creating a new triple-decker. Triple.

That's the talk is A380 is the double-decker buses. Yeah. And they were designed, and we can do an episode about it, but they were designed to large hall people to major, like to hubs. So to like, you know, Abu Dada. Barbie and then Sydney kind of won. Anyway, and then the vibe was they were financially unviable. And then they've doubled down and gone triple decker.

So more people on the fucking farm. Yeah. Get more and more in there. Bye. If they're double decker's... No, he's gone. He's gone. I've got a question for when he comes back and does an episode about it.

Yeah, great. Awesome. I'm so sorry. Bye, bro. Thanks so much, Bron. Thanks so much, Broden. trick answers his question like we always hope so you're both going to the bottles i think so maybe i'll think of something else because dave had bottle even though i would fuck him up with i july so i genuinely think

about how i could because i've got a good little a lid that's attached to the bottle by this little rubber thing and i feel i could really swing that's good it depends on where i'm yeah i would normally think keys keys yeah that's the one that i would you know if i'm in a thing in an environment that's feeling unsafe. Keys in the pocket. Keys, keys in between your fingers. I'm unlikely to have the water, depends on where I am.

I have the water bottle when I've got my backpack. Yeah. So I'm working. Could he use your backpack? Backpack, yeah. Backpack, yeah, backpack. Maybe my dog. He's not always with me, but in my heart he is.

So you could swing him on a chain. I could swing him. Oh, imagine if you. He's about 15 kilos, so it's going to be even heavier than the drink bottle. You could connect your two dogs with a chain. Yeah. And make some sort of a dog nunchuck. Dog,

Dog nun trucks. It's quite a difference in, like, size. You'd probably hold, you'd want to hold Humphrey. Yes, and swing goose. In swing goose. Yeah. But there's only about three kilos more, Humphrey. Yeah, right, yeah.

But I think it too cumbersome to be swinging around. Yeah, he's got long legs. He's gangly. You could, like, I don't know, slap them across the face with. Now, this is the kind of talk that dog lovers are okay with because it's a joke, right? Or are there dog lovers out there going, how dare they even a joke about this? I think they're fine with it. I speak for them.

Yeah. Just think of friends who post about, comedian friends who post about their pets sometimes. And no matter the post, I don't know if you guys get this, no matter the post, there will be feedback based on, well,

they're probably behaving that way because they're not stimulated enough. Yes, 100%. Emotionally. Yeah. You're a bad pet owner. Yes. I'm like, oh, that would a nightmare.

The post was just a fun. thing. Taking the dog out for a walk, look how happy he is. Imagine if you were a parent. Yeah. Oh, I'm taking the kid out for a walk. Look how happy is. Well, actually. He looks, uh, his eyes looked malnourished. And that hat is not wide-bripped enough. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Good point.

Do you reckon parents are worse than pet parents? Yeah. Okay. In every way. In every single way. In every single way. In every single way. Uh, so we're going on keys, water bottle, Bob, what are you going with?

Or do you want to hear his first? Oh yeah, yeah. So it might inspire you. Let's see. No, it looks pretty specific. All right, this is what Patrick writes. I work as a smoke alarm technician, so I'm often within arms reach of dozens of nine-volt batteries.

Oh, yep. I reckon they'd do some real damage if you copped one to the head. Plus, they can heat up and become explosive if you connect the terminals of two batteries together. Whoa. Love yours and stay safe for the holiday season. I mean, there's your next song. Patrick. I don't think you just like tell the story of you taking down some sort of a,

I'd make them a pretty bad person because it feels like that can't be someone who's like brushed past you at the pub. Yeah, that's too full on. They've got to be the aggressor. Yeah, yeah. It's got to be self-defense. It's got to be self-defense. I'm just looking, I was just thinking like what else is in my bag and all else.

The other thing I have is like an ID on a lanyard, so I could strangle someone with that. Good one. Oh, that's good. So that's good Oh you should change over the The chain that you used to be like piano wire Yes Or just like chain

Yeah oh yeah razor blades Razor blades The most Aussie blades Yeah, pizzarea Pizzeria What is razor blades meant to be Oh no it's Rise Up Lights Rise up lights

Rise up lights Potsarea Potsorria Thank you so much for that question Patrick So we got the lanyard We got the keys We got the bottle I don't think anyone's taken off.

What a gang. The next one comes from Mr. Justin McCain. Belize the Sierra League game. All the kids in the street. I'd like to do the same. And Justin McCain is just a regular old mailman and is offering us a brag. And I'm pretty sure Justin McCain is one of our earliest patrons.

Am I right in thinking that? I feel like Justin McCain's been around. Yeah, absolutely right. I think I even check for something about who the, he might be the oldest. He's 150 years old. Wow. So he's offering us a brag, Justin McCain, writing one time at about 14,

I won a wrestling match by tackling the kid and pinning him in under five seconds. Whoa. I was so stunned and proud of myself that I forgot all my training promptly and lost my very next match. I won a trophy for the fastest pin of the tournament and never won another match again. Still have the trophy to this day. Wow. That is a good brag. That's pretty cool.

I like it because it, And Justin McCain must be, it feels like an Australian kind of brag, because you can't, it can't just end with, yeah, it was the fastest ever. That's pretty cool. It has to end with, I lost the next match, never won again. I suck. Certainly not tall popping myself. That's just hindsight too, you know?

Yeah. That's just like, that's a nostalgia brag, you know, like I was Year 7 high jump champion against all the tall girls. Were you? Yeah. Were you flopping? Yeah. Or a scissor kicking.

Naf, I was a flop. Yeah, great. I think all the best too. I Justin McCain's from Pittsburgh Okay, wow Well, he'd fit in here Fit right in

Maybe that's just another one of those All-People things No, it couldn't be Like coffee We couldn't have things in common Um Oh yeah Talking about the Fosbury flop

Apparently on one episode I said he was an Australian Which he is not He's American So I apologize for that But I was flopping And you know I like to claim Maybe you visited here once

That's enough for me. That's enough. Thank you so much, Justin McCain. Next one comes from Alec Ruiz Guarero. Alec Ruiz Guerrero. And Alex's title is Frye Cook at the do-go on diner. P.S., can I have Friday morning off? I have a doctor's appointment. Oh, my God. Well, it's Thursday afternoon now. Yeah, so. Very late notice. Yeah. I would have liked a little more notice. You can, and you're lucky. But honestly, you're lucky that Jess is a good boss. And I'm a great fry cook.

I'll do it. Yes. But honestly, I would just appreciate a little bit more of a heads up. And I'm sorry, I spoke to you in an angry tone just then. Jess is a lot of my plate. The Pingu of the Dugo on workforce. Okay. It's so funny you say that because you know how Pingu, like, his lips go out fully.

They're almost like trumpet lips. Yeah, yeah. I have said very recently wandering around my house that I wish I could do that. just like fully like Yeah Placin lips would be great It'd be so good Well you know

Bit of Botox Or a lot of Botox A lot of filler I think A lot of filler Yeah You take that to the plastic surgeon I'd like to look like Pingu Please

I'm just showing a picture of Pingu I said this I bet there there's got to be someone out there Anyway I'm not I'm gonna Google Pingu lips I think it'll be fine So Who's was this

Alec has a question writing, Hi y'all, if there was a do-go-on restaurant, what would your signature dishes be? Oh my God, look at those lips. I found a little gif. Oh, wow. Did I say Pingo?

I meant Pingu, who was our very non-copyrighted, new character of the Every Man of Antarctica. That's right. Alex's question, if there was a do-go-on restaurant, what would your signature dishes be? as tradition, mine would be a turkey club. I think this is not all one sentence.

Mine would be a turkey club, much gracious. Okay. But I think that's the sign off. Yes. Can I answer for Dave? Let's answer for each other. Okay, great. Let's do it in the order that you said.

You kill Dave. Okay, you do Dave. Dave does me. I do you. Perfect. I think Dave's would be a shepherd's pie and a garlic bread. Don't mind if I do. I think Matt's would be mushy.

peas with gravy. Oh, hopefully. And Jess's would be soup that is too hot. You cannot eat it. I'm so sorry, it's too hot. Yeah, there you go. There you go. We did it.

Dave, if we could out and mush my peas, though, if it's not too late. You don't want to mush him? I don't want to mush him. I'm so sorry. I want to eat the peas as God made. Can I say that this is an incredible meal? You start with a soup. Sure.

It's why too hot, though. So you've burnt your mouth immediately. It's a dessert soup. You have to wait for it to cool down. A dessert soup. Then you have some garlic bread. That's melted ice cream, mate. They have garlic bread.

Yes. Then you have shepherd's pie with garlic and peas on the side. Holy moly. Yeah. It's not a bad meal. We call that the signature Dugo on dish. Yeah. Just, we'll get the Dugo on.

We'll get the Dugo on for the table, please. Like a Digger station? It's like a Dugo on station. Yeah. Which for a long time I thought was Digger Station. A Digger station? Because I had never seen a written down. Digger station.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Digger Station. Digger station. Where all the old army vets get off the train. Thank you so much, Alec. The final one this week comes from Colin Wright, aka former silly child. Oh, not anymore?

Not anymore. That's sad. And this one, it's only about a month late, but I did ask for Christmas-related ones a while ago. It's okay. We're still in this sort of Christmas New Year season. Yes. and it is a silly Christmas fact

writing can I decide it was a silly fact or will the do-go-on fact designation union give me a beat down. No, I think you can do that. I'll beat you down. Absolutely not. How fucking dare you. I think me and Dave don't really,

you can call anything fun or whatever, but Jess might have a problem. Are you guys calling stuff fun behind my back? Yeah. If you're not in the room, I think I, yeah, I think I can do that. Matt stepped up. I'm sorry, if I'm not here, you think you're second in charge for fun?

No, no, I just like, I just, I'm not afraid of you when you're not right in front of me. Goes on to say, when I was a silly church-going little kid, my friends told me that Santa wasn't real. I told them they were wrong because Santa was in the Bible. Putting aside that something being in the Bible is actually not exceptionally strong evidence for its real and literal existence, I was devastated to learn that Santa was not in the Bible. Oh my God. Good news for all the kids listening. Santa is in fact real, even though he is not in the King James version of the Bible. Merry Christmas. I love that Santa's real. I love Santa. I love Santa. I love Santa. I love Christmas. But put him in the Bible. I will say we're recording this before Christmas. I haven't thrown my Christmas tree into the bin yet. Thank you so much to Colin, Alec, Justin and Patrick. A couple of years ago, we took our dog to get a picture with Santa. And he, who loves everybody, Goose hated Santa. Well, no.

Yeah, he was confused. He doesn't like when people are wearing gloves and he got really weirded out. I think what happened was he doesn't like fakes. That's right. Well, that was one of Santa's helpers that was at a shopping center. Yeah. Shopping Santa. Shopping Santa.

But you can't really reason with a three-year-old. He's a dog. So what is he? 21? 21, yeah. I know. He's growing up. They grew up.

No, no. The next thing we like to do is thank a few of our great supporters who are on the shoutout level or above. Yeah. And Jess, you know, we come up with a bit of game based on the topic at hand. What if we give them a job in Antarctica? Okay. Lighten a load on Pingy. That's right.

Pingy's doing too many jobs. Pinky. But don't you dare take executioner off him? No, executioner we leave. He lives to kill. We leave execution for Pingy, but there are a few other jobs that maybe we get like doctor. We could take off him. You know, something, we could take off some of the roles that he's not qualified for.

Yeah, yeah. He is absolutely qualified to execute. That's right. We'll take him off his. Thumbs. Yeah, thumbs. Anything with thumbs. Yeah, anything with thumbs.

I'm not taking over any of the roles. If they involve elocution. That's right. Is that the wrong with? Electrocution. That's one of his roles as an executioner. If I can kick us off, I'd love to thank from Bournemouth in Great Britain, Joe Plant. Great name.

Beautiful name. The obvious, of course, would be... Nursery attendant. Oh, yeah, I was thinking comedians are in the audience. A place in the audience. Yeah, I couldn't think of a way of saying it without using the word plant. Yeah, yeah, it's... I think nursery attendant.

Yeah, selling little pots of... Go get yourself a little cactus. Because there's not that many comedy shows in Antarctica, I don't think. I don't think so. Well, not since we've now ruled out that Dave and I aren't going, but you could try. But there is a lot of plants, so. Yeah, that's right. It's a lot of growth.

He's got a little greenhouse. And Joe just, you know, they actually do have a greenhouse. And I know what kind of plants Joe's growing. Like under like lights. Yeah. Hydroponic set up and they grow their own plants. Like fresh. Hydroponic, yeah.

Winky, winky, winky. Yeah. Uh, thank you so much, Joe. I'd also love to thank from Ventura in California, yeah. In the United States, it's a list of LISA. California year. California, yeah. Yeah.

California no, yeah! Alyssa. What's Alyssa up to? Guitar technician. Yeah. Somebody's got to do it. Fanny Pack, they've got guitars. Yeah.

Who's going to keep them in tune? Yeah. We're going to tune their own guitars? No, thanks. Alyssa's here. Yeah. Fanny pack and the big mama's boys. The big Nancy boys.

Big Nancy boys. That is Alyssa's job here. This is going to set up the martial stacks. Yep. They've got a full stadium set up. And actually the sound. improves instantly. Pingy did not know what he was.

And finally for me, from the windy city itself, Chicago in Illinois, it's Frank Akalab. Ikenalb. Frank Ekenalb. Frank Ekenalb. What an incredible name. Frankie E. Frank Eichenlaub.

Frank Eichenlau. Frank Eichenlau. Is, well, sort of an introductory role in the bar. He's sort of, he's the, is the, the glassy. Oh, right, yes. For now. He's going to learn how to make cocktails soon, but you start by just, you're going around collecting all the glasses, washing them.

And a lot of them at 90south. That's right. So, but hopefully in time, Frank will, you know, learn to make some of the, the cocktails and, uh, and, you know, be a full bar moment. And I've got to say, jeez, the glass wastage has just dropped big time. Oh, I was one and done. It just, yeah. I mean, Pingy, the way he got about the bar,

he was like basically using him as one-use glasses. He was just flipping them straight off onto the floor. And then he didn't work as the broomman until the following week. So people are cutting their feet up. It's a real mess. Now, Frank's involved. He's just picking him up with his opposable thumbs and the other fingers. Rub it, rubbing it in.

Yeah. Bob, do you want to think of you? I would simply adore to thank a few. I would love to thank from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I would love to thank Sarah White. Penguin Country, of course, Pittsburgh. And Sarah White. Sarah White is snow.

Yeah, going to be a real Pope situation. Oh, yeah. Just disappearing. Yeah. Sarah's role is what, Matt? Sarah White's role is she's the one who makes sure that women go to finishing school. She's the one that makes them put books on the top of their heads.

Right. Oh, right. Because in Antarctica, they think, sure, you can come here as young girls, but you will leave as ladies. Yes. She's like the matron of the finishing school. Yeah.

Yeah. She's teaching elocution, table manners. You know, don't wear anything that exposes your ankles. That's right. Especially in Antarctica, it's bad. Yeah, it's cold. Cover up for your safety. not for a shame perspective.

No, it's just basic sort of survival techniques. Which is lovely. And we thank you, Sarah White. And they've got this library and they're like, what do we do with all these books? Yeah. We know that when people read them, stabbing's occur. Let's forget reading them. Let's start doing that thing where they put them on their heads.

A bit of posture. More reading. We ban it. It's unladylike. Chess and reading is banned. Bouncing books, being ladies. Nothing wrong with that. That seems great.

So thank you, Sarah. I'd also love to thank from, location unknown. We could only assume deep within the fortress of the malls. If you keep digging you get to Antarctica. I'd love to thank. Catherine.

Catherine. It seems to be with a surname H. Yes. Catherine with the sea, absolutely right. Catherine is in charge of official merchandise. Whoa, Antarctica merchandise. What are we talking?

People are writing in they want hoodies. Snow globes? Magnets? Yes. South Pole magnets. Plush toys? Yeah, a little plushies. The magnets do play havoc with certain things down there.

It's because I keep sticking them all the equipment. But I've run out of space on my fridge. Yeah, that's true. So, yeah, people will write, obviously, how are you going to keep... T-shirts. How do you get that research going? Catherine makes merch. Yeah.

And sends it anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the world. And she does that great, that pun slogan. Dave is the... The pun guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't remember. What do I call you?

Pun king. The fun king. Yeah. That's the pun king What is it? Well, I would defer to a pun master, of course I think it's the other way around I think you call me pun king

You're the pun master But anyway, I don't know what a pun is So I'm going to have to throw it over to you Any South Poles a goal Okay, that's a pun Jesus I really Is that something?

I guess it is something But I don't like it Because that one to me I'm more confused than ever About what a pun is Well, you're a pun master, sir Yeah, you don't get it No, that's what I'm trying to tell you

Thank you, Jess. Catherine. Oh, Catherine. Did we give it, Catherine, a merch? Merch, yes. And finally. Any of South Poles of God say? Finally for me.

I would love to thank from Taranga in New Zealand. Wait, can you just say the state's abbreviation? Bop. From Bop. Oh my gosh, Bop in New Zealand. That rules. From Bop in New Zealand. Yes, I would love to thank Kate.

Kate. Kate. Kate. Kate. Kate. So what do we go? What do we go left? Oh, president.

President of Antarctica. President of Antarctica. Oh my gosh. I can't believe we. Yeah, easy. Because Pingy was hopeless at that. Yeah, I'd say it was too busy. You want the president to really be focused on the job at hand.

Yeah. And Kate brings that to the table. So thank you so much, Kate. And God bless Antarctica. God bless. Oh, my gosh. these United Antarcticas. I would like to thank some people if you don't mind.

Please. I would like to thank from Omaha in Nebraska. It's Ellen. Cornhuska Territory. Cornhuska territory, maybe. Nebraska? We talk about this sometimes, don't we? I'm thinking of, no, it's Lincoln, Nebraska, sorry.

Sorry. Oh my God, you do. Geez, I just riled up some Nebraskaans there. Sorry, everybody. They got really mad at you for a bit. And you deserved it. Are you thanking? Ellen.

Ellen. Ellen. Oh my God. Wait, I think we're hungry. We're losing our minds a little bit. Ellen. But Ellen deserves our full attention. Yes.

Okay. Alan is in charge of Piratechetics and fireworks. Oh, for all the big occasions. All the big events. There were fireworks going off at my place last night. Last night at the time of recording, which was nowhere near New Year's. Well, I could. Imagine if this was released on New Year's Day and you were like,

I couldn't believe it. I could not figure it out. They went for ages and my neighbours wouldn't just go to bed. 9pm and then approximately midnight. It was ridiculous. What the bloody hell's going on here? I said, shut up. Everyone's got work in the morning.

Omaha Mavericks. Omaha Mavericks is also where Conor Obest and Briders are from. There you go. Ellen, what a town. And a great job. I love fireworks. So thank you, Ellen. That is a big one.

And it will help people find you when you've burnt down you. accommodation. That's right. I mean, the firewood as well. Good for morale. Firewood. Is that a pun day? I don't know.

I would also like to thank from Harrisonburg in Virginia. Emily Pace. Emily Pace is of course in charge of Emily's bakery. Oh, yeah. It's one of the most popular hotspots. In Antarctica, everybody's lining up out the door. Cheezingy Mite Scrolls. Some of the best donuts in town.

Oh, my jelly slice. Only donuts in town, jelly slice. And it's not just that it's like... Fruit flan. Fruit flan. But also like custom cakes for events and stuff. And yeah, everybody loves Emily's stuff. Any pies?

Yep. Oh, yeah. My foot... And a bit of a rotating roster. Like, you know, always got the basics, the classics, I should say. Yep. But always... Emily's always coming up with something kind of fun and a bit different.

I love her veggiecoma curry. Yeah, pie. Pie. Yeah, really good. I'm currently on five continents for pies. Wow. For South America and Antarctica to go. I think it's going to be hard to do Antarctica, but if I can, that is my third biggest stream.

Yeah. Well, sorry, Keith, if you are still listening in Antarctica, can you let Dave know the pie situation as well? Yeah. Please, what's it like if you have a pie? Is there a 7-11? Could he at least get like a... Exactly. And I'm not fussy.

Any sort of pie. Any pie will do. Even a sweet pie I'll take. Sweet pie, we'll do it. Apple pie, come on. Yeah, come on, Keith. Any South Pole pie is all right by my. God, he's good.

God, he's good. Yeah. Jeez, you are the pun master. No. Is that a pun? Do not put me on to the... I don't want to be part of this pun bullshit. Well, I don't want to be part of it either.

Well, you started it because you're so good at pun. I don't know what they mean. Don't shun your gift. Yes. Don't shun the pun. Oh my God. You are good, Jess. That's not a pun.

Well, that's what he did before. He said, that was a pun. Well, I also don't know. All right. Any polls are gold. I look forward to many explanations on social media this week. We should make merch that says any polls are gone. I don't think we should.

It'd be confusing for converts to Australian football. They'll be like, wait, you hit the pole and that's a go? Any of them? I still think the Wes Popey is a good idea. Oh, Wes Popey is a fantastic idea. I think we have to do it. It's so funny. Any artists, get in touch.

Finally, I would like to thank from Dundee in what I believe is Scotland. Yeah. Correct. Big shout out to Martha of Sealand royalty. Oh, my liege. My lady. Well, I would say that, but you obviously recognise fellow royalty. Oh, yeah, that's true.

Are we royalty, though? Yeah. We're a lord and lady. I don't know if we're royalty. We're nobility. Oh, okay, right. But I'm butter peasant. You're a peasant.

You could have bought yourself one, but you didn't. I'm a sea land speck of shit. That's right. Dundee in Scotland. And that's where Stewart's Scotch comes from. Stuart's Dundee, decanter. Really? And spelled in the correct way?

Spelt in the correct way. Fantastic. Yeah, the Scottish way, not that French way. And I don't care any of you, Stuarts with a you out there listening who think that it's the other way around, it's not. You were second and you remain second best. Yeah.

Okay? Except the second. Except take the L. Take it. And by the way, so much better than Perkins and Warnicky still, Second best is great. Warnocky's like 10 millionth's good get best. Top 10 million.

Ten millionth good get best. Is that fun? Those Brits know how to speak, don't they? God, they're so good. So what's Martha in charge of? What's Martha's role? The Nazi. Oh, so it's royalty.

She's in charge of finding the Nazi base. Oh, okay. To destroy it or? Yes. Okay, good. Oh, my God. Dave, what do you think? Martha's going to do?

She's there to take down. Nazis. Martha Sealand royalty slash Nazi hunter. Wow, it's badass. Yeah, real badass. Um, oh my God. You'd think she can get any cooler and then I made up a thing that made her cooler. All right. Thank you so much to Martha, Emily, Ellen, Kate, Catherine, Sarah, Frank, Alyssa and Joe. And the last thing we like to do is welcome a few people into the Triptitch Club. And I've heard no one explain this better than Dave Warnocky himself. Wow. This is kind of like the Antarctic base slash clubhouse of the show. Once you come in, you can't leave, but there's nowhere to go. But why would you want to? Basically, this is our... There's no flight coming for you. No, no one's coming. Another 12 months, at least. Yeah. And it's fireproof. And I'm the doctor. And I am squeamish.

Basically, this is our Hall of Fame where we induct people that have been supporting this show on the shoutout level or above for three consecutive years. We've already shouted them out previously, but now we induct them. into the Hall of Fame. The name goes up on the wall. We welcome them in with a big welcoming ceremony, which is weekly. But it doesn't get old. It gets fun. It gets more fun every week. And we have a live band.

Jess organizes snacks, drinks, cocktails. And inside there's activities. There's a, you know, like they had a rock climbing wall, a basketball ring, both full size and mini over the bin. We're fun. We're fun over here. So much fun. Yep.

And anything you can imagine, we'll get it together if you wanted to. because we are also people pleases and we are very anxious to make sure we have a place that seems cool. Exactly. We don't like confrontation, so we will back down. That's right. There's four people coming in this week, and I'm going to read out their names. I've got them on a door list, clipboard, I'll read them out, lift a velvet rope. If you hear your name, run on in.

Dave will be on stage hyping you up with some pretty weak sort of word-plan puns, I think. We don't really know. Possibly rhymes. We don't know. Hard to say. Just behind the bar. She's only got a cocktail going. Yeah, it's called the penguin.

Oh, yeah. Cool. And it's Black Sam Booker. Yep. And milk. Hell yeah. Mix it together. What do you got?

You got a penguin. Curdle by a penguin. It's very bad. Enjoy. I love two. Dave, you've normally booked the band. I love both those things individually. I've been trying to book this band for over two decades.

Very influential on me growing up in Wheat Hornet. I can't believe that we've been able to book none other than Fannie Pack and the big Nancy boys They're here alive Are you serious? That's a big get That's huge It's huge

So they have obviously Do they fill in the spot of the league guitarist Or? Yes and each night There's a song dedicated to Rodney's That's awesome That's very nice Yeah

Nice touch So nice He's got a mountain and a song each night It's so good From Fanny Pack and the big Nancy boys That did That did It did such a sad story

But for some reason the fact that he's got a mountain named after him, I'm like, that's pretty nice. Yeah. I hope his folks are like, that's, you know, that's kind of nice, a nice thing. Yeah. Because the rest of it is horrible. Not good. All right, so four names.

You ready to go, Dave? Dave's up on stage. Here we go. He's going to really hype you up. He's going to get the audience in a lather. Here we go. In the palm of my hand, that will be. First up from Cardiff South in New South Wales, Australia.

It's Ryan Davies. I'd be crying with it. that Ryan. Yes. Thank you. Took me a sec. I'm sorry, yes. Oh, yes.

Jess also. Woo. It's after Dave. From Peoria in Illinois in the United States. I'm more than saying Peoria, right? It's Chris Smith. The night would be amiss without Chris. Yes.

Do you any idea how Peoria would be? No, never. Peoria. I've never seen it before. From London in Great Britain, it's Chris Heather. I'd be pissed with that Chris. I'd be pissed without Chris. And finally from Anchorage in Alaska in the United States, it's Margaret Crop.

We'd be fucked up with that Crop. Yes. Can I have a go at one of them? Yeah. Okay, what about stiff as a board? Light as a Chris Heather. That's actually really good. That's really good.

Just never misses with this. Are we sure we shouldn't be swapping around? No, I don't want to do it. But I did, I just had to go on the theme of whatever their first name is we've been about. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. Life is light as a feather.

Stiff as a Margaret Crop. crap. That's right. Doesn't work for all of them. Doesn't always work, but it is fun. Welcome into the club. Please make yourselves at home, Margaret, Chris, Chris and Ryan, grab yourself a penguin. Grab yourself a penguin. Enjoy. Enjoy Fannie Pack in the Big Nasty Boys. Codels in the cup, not in your gut.

That's the slogan of the penguin. Wow. And yeah, really, pretty much that's all we got. That's all we need to do. That's all we need to do. That's all we need to do. Jess, anything we need to tell me before we go? A reminder that you can suggest a topic. Anybody can. There's a link in the show notes. Also on our website, do go onpod.com.

You can find us at DoGoOnPod across all social media. And remember to wash your butt. Hey, we'll be back with another episode in this new fantastic year of 2024. But until then, we'll say thank you again for listening. And until then, bye. Later. Bye! Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are

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