Do Go On - 433 - The Hunt For The Spy Who Betrayed Australia

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

This week we're joined by award winning investigative journalist, Joey Watson, to tell us the tale of his three year hunt for the spy who betrayed Australia. Full of intrigue and mystery, strap in for a wild ride! This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 11:30 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).Check out Joey's podcast 'Secrets We Keep: Nest of Traitors'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 merch: https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/ Check out our AACTA nominated web series: http://bit.ly/DGOWebSeries​ Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just jumping in really quickly at the start of today's episode to tell you about some upcoming opportunities to see us live in the flesh. And you can see us live at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2024. We are doing three live podcasts on Sundays at 3.30 at Basement Comedy Club, April 7, 14 and 21. You can get tickets at dogo1pod.com. Matt, you're also doing some shows around the country. That's right. I'm doing shows with Saren Jayamana, who's been on the show before. We're going to be in Perth in January, Adelaide in February, Melbourne through the festival in April, and then Brisbane after that. I'm also doing Who Knew It's in Perth and Adelaide. Details for all that stuff at mattstuartcomedy.com.

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Oh, Jess, what a pleasure it is to be here. That seemed so genuine. It really is. Very genuine. I'm worried that Dave is missing, but, you know. Missing assumed alive. Yeah, I always like to assume alive. I've got optimism bias and I choose to believe he's alive.

I think he's just dropped his phone somewhere and that's why he's not replying to us. But don't worry. If he was here, I'd ask him the question, how good is it to be alive? And he'd say, yeah, great, because I am. Yes, exactly. I definitely am. That's right. I'm definitely alive. Don't look into it, he'd say. Don't look into it, yeah. Matt and Jess are fine and yeah, do not look into it. Don't look into it. Don't look into me. They, don't look into me. They're not suspicious. They're not- they've done nothing wrong.

They've done nothing wrong. And you can't prove it. How dare you accuse them? Oh, yeah. Where's your proof, he'd say. Where's your proof? Yeah, that's what he'd say. Prove it.

You can't, because I'm alive. And lots of people are already concerned that it's just going to be the two of us, which always descends into chaos, but they don't need to be worried because we are joined by an investigative journalist and podcaster, Joey Watson. Joey, welcome. Hey, Jess. Hey, Matt. Hey, Joey.

Thanks so much for allowing me to play the role of Dave. It's an important role, yeah. Yeah, I've searched high and low for someone who is worthy to fit in his tiny shorts and I reckon you're that man. Now, Jess, she probably undersold you a little bit there, said you're an investigative journalist. Sure, but forgot to mention you're an award-winning investigative journalist. Thanks for bringing a bit of class to Do Go On because we haven't won any awards. Oh, get out of here. I did once get a trophy for mum, so that was nice.

That's nice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's harder to win prizes as an adult. Yes. Did you notice that? Well, what you should do is what we do, and every year we have the Do Go Honours.

It's an awards show entirely based around this podcast where we then just give ourselves a bunch of awards. So, that's nice. You should try that. Yeah, okay. That's really, really good. We've got a team of three here as well, my executive producer, Ellen, and Jake, who's hovering around outside somewhere.

So, yeah, maybe we could do something similar. You don't need to, Joey. You won a Walkley Award. A Walkley Award's like a proper, that's the top journalism award in Australia. That's a good one. Isn't it? It's also one of those awards that was named after a bad person so that he could sort of whitewash his legacy or something.

Is that right? Yes, yes. I do believe Mr. Walkley, he was involved in the oil business maybe. Okay. I may never. Well, like, yeah. That's not that bad. Oil business.

I put essential oils on every other day. Do you? Is that a thing? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's why your skin is burning off. That's right. Pure essential oil. Yeah. I put crude oil on your skin is burning off. That's right. Pure essential oil. Yeah.

I put crude oil on my skin every other day. I find that to be, that's one of my essential oils. Crude. But, Joey, you have a brand new podcast. Before we get stuck into today's episode, you've got a brand new podcast. By the time this comes out, it launched last week. So, congratulations. do you want to tell us a little bit about the podcast? Yeah I'd love to Jess thanks so much so for as long as I've been

a journalist indeed for as long as I've been a human life form I've been obsessed with spy stories. Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, growing up it started with James Bond and the like. You are Dave. You're the perfect Dave Philly. Oh, shit. And then when I became a journalist I wanted to start kind of taking on espionage related stories and intelligence agencies as my kind of line of inquiry, but partly because these are very powerful institutions. They hold a lot of power in our democracy, and they are worthy of scrutiny and public inquiry, but also because these are really cool stories. Like they're full of mystery and intrigue and strangers, everything you'd see in a spy movie.

But in real life, it's even more batshit in some ways, as I've kind of found. So over the last few years, I have endeavoured to tell a bunch of Australian spy stories through radio features and the like, some good, some bad. But as I did so, I started to notice a pattern. And that was that a lot of Australian spy operations, particularly during the Cold War, which is the period mainly in which this podcast is set, ended in failure. There was a pattern of failure. And as I started to probe around for a theory as to why that might have been,

I was presented with one. That was that during the Cold War, Australia's main spy agency, ASIO, had been penetrated by a Russian mole. One of their own spies had turned to work for the enemy, sabotaging the agency from the inside. I also learned that they had never been identified. They'd never been found. The truth might have been buried.

And so about three years ago- That's what moles do best. Bury. They bury. They love to bury. Yeah. So I set out to find this little critter. And when I started, people said, it's a terrible idea.

It will send you around the bend. And I'm fine. I'm completely fine. Everything's fine. That's great news. Yeah. Everything's good. Isn't that like a sign that you're on the right path When people start warning you off

Don't look into this Actually unless Unless it's Jess and I saying don't look into Dave Then that's Yeah That's true Don't look into it because he's fine He's just dropped his phone in a puddle

He's okay Yeah In other circumstances though It's normally like Oh what are we onto here People are telling me not to look into it. It makes me want to look into it. I imagine as an investigative journalist, that'd be just get you all barred up when someone tells you to avoid looking into something.

Yeah. I like that idea. As the investigation goes on, and particularly in the later episodes, people do start to get a little bit upset and they start doing some funny things that maybe we can talk about when they do to kind of shut the story down. And because they were getting upset,

I also got a little bit upset and people were saying to me, no, Joey, you're doing a great job. If you're upsetting people, that means you're doing the right thing. And I wonder how far that you can take that logic. I wonder how many jobs that applies to. I don't think there's many. I think retail is. If people are really, really upset, you're doing the right thing. Yeah, imagine, yeah. No, but I just feel like if I carried that to its full extent,

it could take me to some terrible places. Like I'd just defame the whole country and step on everyone and get every single fact wrong. But I'll say to myself, oh, I've upset you, but that's because I'm doing a great job. I'm doing a great job. Because that's what I was told. Oh, I've really upset this judge.

Yeah. He's sending me away for life. I must be on the right path. I'm doing the right thing. Yeah, good on me. Yeah, no, but that's so you get the idea. But anyway, I think on balanced perspective upset maybe the right people. Okay.

At the right time. And so Putin, we've upset Putin. Oh, he's so shit. He's all the release. Oh, God, he's just, no. This is it. Oh, could my day get any worse, he said. First I spilled coffee on my jeans.

Now jeans. He's wearing jeans, obviously. No shirt, though. No. He's on horseback. Sipping on his coffee. The horse is gone. The horse has bucked a little bit.

Oh, God. What a day. And wait till he hears I've been on Do Go On. That'll really do it for him. He'll be really upset. He's having a bad time. All right. Well, this sounds really intriguing and exciting.

The podcast is called Secrets We Keep. If people want to go check it out. Yeah. Secrets We Keep, Nest of Traitors. Love that. Nest of Traitors. Because this is season two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Season one was a different

presenter, Amelia Oberhart. It was about forced adoptions. It's excellent. It's really, really good. And this is a different kind of season. Well, if it was so good, would they have gotten the ass for season two? Matt really understands how things work, you know. That's right.

Or was it a budget? It was like Brendan Fraser on George of the Jungle 2. They just couldn't afford them for the second season. Yeah, yeah. Matt only knows podcasts that run for 400 plus episodes and never end. He doesn't quite understand that some stories can be contained to, you know, only a number of episodes. Well, yeah. I'm confused.

What are you two talking about? Is it about me? Yeah. Let's just hope for another mole, right, so that I can get commissioned again. Yeah. God. I found one, but here's another one. Fingers and toes crossed for you that there's another mole.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or another, yeah, yeah. So, let's get, like, let's get stuck in. I'm excited by this. We normally start with a question. I don't know if you have a question for us or if you just want to get stuck right into the story. Yeah, we can get into it. Yeah, get stuck right into the story. Yeah, we can get into it. Yeah, get stuck in. Yeah, because you guys, you know a bit about spy stuff

because you've done quite a few espionage-related episodes. So, you've kind of set the scene and maybe your listeners, too, for the world that this exists in. Yeah, they love a spy story, our listeners. So, they're going to gobble this up. They're going to love it. Yeah, especially most of them are wartime spies, which I guess that is most spies, aren't they? Yeah.

They're probably out of work in peacetime. Yeah. They just- Oh, no, but the Cold War- They become gossips. Oh, yeah? The Cold War, Matt. Yeah, that-

Oh, that- You think of the Cold War as being peacetime? Oh, sorry. It's in the title. Yeah. Okay. World War as being peacetime? Oh, sorry, it's in the title. Yeah, okay, so it's 1992, and we're not starting in Australia. We're starting in the fine city of Riga in Latvia. The Soviet Union has just collapsed. Europe is awash with uncertainty.

New nations are forming that were formerly in the Eastern Bloc. Latver is one of them. And this bloke, older bloke, kind of spotted beard, comes in wearing an overcoat to the British embassy. He's carrying a bag of groceries, some salami. He's carrying a bag of groceries, some salami. He asks for an audience with a diplomatic staffer, which he gets, and from below the groceries, he retrieves a sheaf of documents. Those documents were just one little taste of what was probably

the biggest intelligence coup that the West got during the whole Cold War. This guy's name was Vasily Matrokin. He had been an archivist for the KGB, the KGB being the feared spy agency of the Soviet Union. And he'd become pretty disillusioned with the system that he was serving. And over about 30 years, he had put documents, KGB documents, into his shoe and smuggled them out of the KGB archives and hid them under the floor of his suburban log cabin

in the outer suburbs of Moscow. Is he wearing clown shoes to work? And nobody's picking up at this guy's sus? Wow. Yeah. There's some stinky documents. No, no. I do like that he's walked in with a bag of groceries.

Yeah, I was thinking the document might have been his shopping list. Yeah, and he's like, oh, wrong one. Hang on. Milk, eggs. Salami. Don't tell anyone. That's what the Russians are after. Wow. one hang on milk eggs salami don't tell anyone that's what the russians are after wow uh even kgb spies are gonna do their groceries yeah they gotta eat you know there's still people

it's a great cover though no no one suspects the shopper no they don't um no but these documents they were real they were they were good. There was good stuff in there. Like, for example, it gave the clues to the locations of hidden caches. You know this one? I don't know the word. I've never known how to say it. Cache? I think both are accepted.

Cache. Hidden caches. You've got cache. How continental. Stashes. You've got cachet. How continental. That were, like, hidden throughout Europe.

And they went and they dug in the forests in Europe, like in Belgium and stuff, and they found them. Anyway, so there was good material. But amongst the pages which were smuggled out of Latvia to the UK, 11,000 documents or something like that. There was a section on Australia. And in that section on Australia- Oh, man, what a thrill that would have been. What a thrill. What a thrill. They're talking about us?

We love it when they talk about us. We're in it. Really? This is a real world stage coup for the Aussies. Look at us go. They're talking about us up there at the KGB. Isn't that where the Ramones play? Woo! go. They're talking about us up there at the KGB. Isn't that where the Ramones play?

Yeah, that's crazy, right? So a little section on Australia. So yeah, the good folks at ASIO when they found out about this would have reacted exactly like that. They would have been so stoked. Holy shit. Honestly, they would have been so stoked. Holy shit. Oh, my God.

Honestly, they would have been freaked out. Yeah. They know about us. I reckon the guy, like, what are the three guys in there? Kevin would have pulled up his pants, I reckon. Pulled up his pants. He would have pulled up his pants. He was that excited.

Where were they? All around his ankles. I think we might have a different kind of understanding of ASIO than you probably do, Joey. That's how relaxed he was. He had his pants down. He was like, oh, God, I've got to get into gear here. That's actually wildly accurate, almost suspiciously accurate,

Kevin with the pants. And there's a good chance that if he was there during the Cold War, he probably would be pissed. Right. Yes. As well, which we talk about in the podcast. We can get to that. Asia was a big drinking culture during the Cold War, wasn't it?

It did. And so, when we start to ask the questions of how could this have happened, one answer is grog. They were drunk at the wheel. Yeah. You know who I would have been most suspicious of? The guy drinking the vodka. Everyone else has got Bundy and Coke.

Yep. And all of a sudden one guy's- One guy's got vodka. Yeah, he's drinking lemon rushkies. He's like, mate, something a little soft's going on here, mate. Got to have a vodka with the lads? No. Yeah, so there's a document that mentions Australia,

and in it it says that it provides pretty comprehensive evidence that Australia, that ASIO, you know, with Kev and the lads, had been penetrated by a Russian mole. One of the Kevs. Wow, I have no wonder his pants are tan. Matthew. Yeah, he'd been working for the other side and potentially sabotaging Asia from within.

Wow. Right? Sorry, Joe. I'm just starting to worry that they're going to take your Walkley Award off you after this. Can I do that? Yeah. If this is the thing that does it, I would be more than happy. I think, yeah, as far as my friends are concerned

This is the most prestigious thing I've done So Thank you The Walkley's for mum This is for the mates And when you brought that up Is it because of the Kev with his pants down Is that the one

I think it's just sort of the general I think you know the general vibe so far. And who's mostly been contributing to that? Well, I don't want to point fingers. I'm going to say it's neither of the J's. I will not name names. I think Joey and I have been very professional so far. Well, you are the two journalists in the room so that makes sense. Do you know that, Joey?

Jess is a qualified journalist. Mm-hmm. What's the qualification? A degree. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Maybe not qualified.

From like 10 plus years ago, never actually did anything in journalism, but do have the piece of paper. So, if you have any questions mate You just come straight to me bud Don't you worry I'll look after you How was it? What did they tell you? They said P's get degrees, that was the

Big one, if it bleeds it leads Obviously you'd know that, you'd probably have that tattooed Somewhere on you Who, what, where, when, when? Who, what, when, where, when? Two whens. Two whens. It's important to reiterate when it happened.

The when. Yeah. And don't defame anyone. That's sort of the main things I took away from the degree. All right, let's hold them closely as we go forth so that I don't have to relinquish said Walkley. Exactly. But there's a mole.

What was the one about bleeding? If it bleeds, it leads. If it bleeds, it leads. Yes. Okay. If it leads, it bleeds is very different. That's all of a sudden anyone who's on the front page of the paper is meeting an accident.

Yeah. Very different. So what they do, right, is it's figured after this realisation from Matroken, who had the documents in his shoe, that ASIO couldn't be in a position to be accused of investigating itself. So the AFP are brought in to conduct an investigation.

The Australian Federal Police are brought in. Some 200 officers, one of the best resource investigations in AFP history comes in, and they call it Operation Liver. Liver being the organ that cleanses the blood supply of the body. Someone spent a lot of time coming up with that one. Or it was a completely accidental perfect title for the operation and the first episode of the podcast that I'm sure they anticipated being made about it by a boy journalist some decades into the future. They said, one day a boy journalist will talk about us. So they need to give it a really good name. So it's a good title, right?

And yes, and so the AFP came in. They set up in ASIO's headquarters. This is like cops investigating spies. I'm told that they drunk the ASIO office bar dry on the first day that they came in. It led to lots of funny encounters. I got told by one AFP cop that he kept a joke book, you know, like of just writing down funny things.

And I don't know. That guy's name was Koshi. But I feel like, yeah, I don't know if it was cop humor, but I got asked him to tell me one, and one of them was like, oh, well, there was one ASIO spy that came over to the desk and introduced himself, and he said, oh, good day, mate. What's your job here? And he said, oh, my job is to keep Russian spies out of ASIO.

And then they said, oh, well, you're fucked then. And he told me this joke like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. I was just sort of looking at him. Anyway. That's a good joke and that's worth writing down. I like it. Jess, that's exactly what I did. I looked at him in silence and then when I realised that that was the down. I like it. But Jess, that's exactly, what you just did is exactly what I did.

Like, I looked at him in silence and then when I realized that that was the joke, I sort of started with the, like, one of those ones. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, that's a thinker, that one. Yeah. Took me a sec to get it. That's good stuff.

Yeah. So, anyway, that didn't end up getting in the podcast, so I'm glad I got to tell it to someone. Yeah, so they come in and they create a profile from the mole around two clues. One is that the mole had a five-letter surname. This is based on other information that they had coming out of Russia in the year previous that I kind of go into a bit later in the podcast.

But they might have five letters surname and had a wife who worked in ASIO. Oh, wow. So they whittled down a list and they start to focus on one guy, and his name was George Sadil, S-A-D-I-L. Yeah, we're both counting. Okay, I was going to say George is at six. Surname, man, surname. This is why you'll never be a spy. You've got no attention to detail.

Well, this was the cops though right the spies the one's getting done i hope the cops had uh set up a a custom guess who board for this got a wife in the thing yes yes yes because you actually you actually studied criminology that's right so i assume this is which we're a good pair for this episode. We used- Really? Guess who was a big part. Dave studied drama. He would have been useless here right now. But you got a journalist, well, we've got a proper journalist, a backup journalist, if you need. And we've got a criminologist.

And if you think your degree's stale, Bob. You're 100 years old. Yeah. Yeah, I'm hoping. Because when you go five-letter surname, sure, ASIO's got a lot of people in it. That's probably a lot of people. I'm seven letters.

I'm out. I'm safe. W-A-T-S-O-N. Yeah, it was some 700. Hello. W-A-T-S-O. That's six. That's six.

Yeah, you're right. Never mind. He's good. He is very good. Never mind. you set him up in a beautiful chapter i've deflected that one before um yeah no um god that would be a great episode seven reveal if i was the mole you've done a whole podcast on yourself and then i realized it was me no but five letters surname would be a lot of people I would imagine,

but I don't think there'd be that many couples. So surely that narrows the list down a fair bit. George was not a spy but a translator. He'd been recruited to ASIO in the late 60s. 60s he um so at the time um uh asio phone did did phone taps and buggings on kgb spies or suspected kgb spies that were scattered around australia usually in the diplomatic staff like ambassador like you know under the ambassador level of of so soviet people in australia and uh and they needed someone to to translate the doc like all of these phone conversations because it was a very white australian um organization at the time much like

australia itself at the time and so george was what they call a white russian he wasn't like an anti-communist russian his dad had fought in World War I. His uncle had died trying to fight against the Bolshevik Revolution back in 1917. He'd ended up in Sydney via Shanghai. And anyway, a fierce anti-communist his whole life. And he'd worked for ASIO for 30 years and didn't really care that much about spy stuff. But it was an honest job. He'd been a cop when he got recruited in the 60s.

Anyway, so George is also, I will say now, a sort of friend of mine. I found him at a Russian Orthodox nursing home, and I originally contacted the receptionist who said that they wouldn't get me in touch because it would upset him. But then I wrote him a letter. I got a nice stamp and I put it on there and shipped it off. And he we met for poroshky and coffee and we've done so many times over the last year. Wow. He's a very sweet older man.

So, you're friends with the spy. You're in bed with a Russian spy. Okay. This has all been a sting operation, mate, and you're on tape. How old is George now? You won't believe this, but I am wearing a wire. How old is George now? You won't believe this, but I am wearing a wire.

He's in his late 80s. Yeah, wow, cool. So, what happened to George was they started to surveil him. They focused, the AFB moved into a house across the road from where he lived in suburban Canberra. They cleared the bushes so that they could install cameras in their front window and film him in his living room. They started tailing him. They put another camera in an air conditioning event above his desk at ASIO headquarters. And what they found was something that was quite strange. So for a long time, George had been listening in to the conversations of a particular Soviet diplomat.

to the conversations of a particular Soviet diplomat. His name was Vyacheslav Tatarinov, and he had been a trade official. And he'd done two postings in Australia in the 80s, and George had spent those postings listening into his conversations. But in the early 90s, when the Soviet Union fell and communism, the Russian Federation was formed, religion was no longer banned, this dude, Tatarinov, started coming to George's church and attending church services. And him and George became really, really good friends. Sunday lunches, despite the fact that George had been listening into his personal conversations for the last 10 years. George says he never told to Taranov that.

But, yeah, but they became really good mates. What a great advantage. Right? In terms of starting up a friendship, you know his likes, you know his wants. I know, but what if you accidentally let that slip? That's true. You're going to go like, oh, what are you telling me?

You're allergic to that? And he's like, I've never told you that before. I've never told anyone that. I think it's a slippery slope. It's dangerous. It takes the Instagram stalk to the next level, right? It's a whole other thing. Yes.

Yeah. But yeah, they became mates. And he even became godfather to Taranov's son when he wanted to be baptised into the church. So, it was very- Yeah, you're right, Bob. It's so stressful. I think about, like, any of those, you know, like Donnie Brasco

or any of those movies where someone's undercover in the mafia or anywhere and I'm, like, just on edge they they make you think all these moments are about to be uncovered yeah yeah that's his life geez but yeah but yeah he he's he thought of himself as a genuine friend as well genuine friend yeah yeah and i asked george you'd seen you got like your new best mate and you friends with the family and everything and you never mentioned to him that you'd been listening into his conversations for the last 10 years? And Joey said, no, it doesn't come up. Wow.

He didn't ask me directly. I never lied about it. Yeah, if he said, hey, have you been listening to my phone conversations? I would have said yes, but he never asked. So why would I tell? I've never thought to ask that. Just a couple of quick questions. Joey, Jess, have you been listening to my conversations privately?

Yes. Yes, I have tapped your phone. Okay. You are very dull. It's just a lot of me not answering. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot of you not answering and a lot of just like logistics chats, you know, like- Oh, he's onto the bank again.

Yeah. Begging for more money. Please. It's so sad. I'm good for it. Oh, God, I can't keep listening to this. It's so embarrassing. Yeah, wow, that's fascinating.

So, they became good mates. Yeah, they became good mates. Yeah. They became really good friends, right? And so that was really, really sus for ASIO and for the AFP who were investigating George. And so after a period of close surveillance, they came in for the arrest. George was arrested in late 1992. And when the AFP got to his house, they found a whole bunch of classified ASIO documents laid out in his living room, which didn't look good for George.

No, I don't think- It's not the kind of job you should be taking homework with you? Is that right? Yeah, I think you're supposed to leave the files at home. I mean at work. Okay, that's where you get mixed up. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it didn't look good for George because he didn't have a good work-life balance. Yeah, exactly. That's why it didn't look good for George. George, at five o'clock, mate, you've got to just leave it behind. Go spend time with the kids. Yeah, otherwise it was completely fine. That's the end of the story.

The moral is. Yeah, have a bit of a balance. Switch off at the end of the day. Yeah. Go hang out with your Russian friends some more. Get some hobbies, yeah. Wow, okay. All right, so this isn't looking good for George, if I can be honest.

It's not looking good for George, right? So George is arrested and over the, like, you know, a few months later the investigation, sorry, the committal trial, the committal hearings get underway. It goes to court. And what the AFP basically needed to prove was, firstly, so they found evidence that George had taken documents home. That was illegal.

But in order to prove that George was a traitor, they firstly needed to prove that he'd been passing those documents to Tatarinov, that Tatarinov was a KGB spy and that this KGB spy Tatarinov, because his cover was just being a trade official, and that that KGB spy Tatarinov was therefore like taking the documents back to the Soviet Union and sabotaging the national security of Australia. To do this, they brought in what might be one of the strangest witnesses I've ever heard in the history of Australian courts, which I don't know that much about. I'm not really

qualified to make that statement, but it's certainly strange. It's a dog. Please tell me it's a dog. Okay, so I tried to get the court documents for this committal hearing. And it was a bit of a hassle. We kind of had to go through Canberra Magistrate's Court. You have to pay a researcher in within the court for their time. And, you know, we wanted transcripts. We wanted stuff like that to be able to tell it properly. I did it with my editor, Claire, and when they came back,

the file was empty. There was nothing there. There was no record in Canberra other than in newspaper reporting from the time that this ever happened, like what I'm about to tell you ever happened. So I had to kind of reconstruct it by talking to the people that were involved, like the prosecution, the lawyers, all this sort of people. Again, this must feel like you're onto something big when you're finding evidence deleted, right?

That's right. Well, there's that old conspiracy or cock up. But let's just say this isn't the only time that documents seem to have mysteriously disappeared over the course of this investigation. So there you go. Yeah. So basically what happened is they bring in this guy who they refer to only as Witness A. Witness A is a ex-KGB spy, Russian defector.

I'm told that he had to wear a mask. George says that he had to have his nails painted and they built a kind of circus tent. What George described as a circus tent i think it was just a screen in the court um so that he couldn't be identified so he was like a voice appearing from behind a screen in court um and uh which is which is strange it's just it's a strange thing to happen in an otherwise relatively open court setting. That was really weird. Also a bit of a sad reflection on what George thinks of as a circus.

Yeah. Just a screen, a shape. He goes to the doctor and there's like a privacy screen. He's like, oh, the body circus is here. Oh, here we go. This just reminds me of childhood. Here we go. Fun the body circus here we go this is just from our childhood here we go fun and games here we go yeah but think about the joy that that would bring to everyday life that's true actually yeah possibly a circus anytime you see a curtain every wall every screen

you'll be taken back can i just go back one minute there as well? Why did he have to paint his nails? Yeah, that's what I was interested in too. Maybe he had really identifiable nails. Yeah. I didn't interrogate that one. Maybe that's for another podcast series. But, look, that's just what George said.

George said he had to paint his nails and wear a wig. But the reporting at the time definitely says that there was a screen. But I don't know. Anyway, there's some inconsistencies there around that particular detail but like the the the takeaways they they didn't want people to know who this guy was yeah they really they really didn't want people to know that um anyway so he he was the guy that could, because he was some KGB apparatchik, he'd been at the KGB headquarters in Lubyanka in Moscow. And he could say that Sotaranov, George's mate, was a KGB spy.

And so he came to the stand. It was a kind of a big deal. And they started interrogating him. George's defense lawyers started interrogating him, cross-examining him. And he said, well, if you know Zatarinov so well, what does he look like? And he's like, normal.

And then he's like. You know, he looks like a good guy. Normal guy. Normal guy. Yeah. Average-ish. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then the defense lawyers say, you know,

can you say anything more? Does he have glasses, a beard? What color is his nails? Yeah. What color is his nails? What color is his nails? Yeah. What colour is his nails? I stand by that question. Yeah. And then he's like

normal. He was normal looking. Right? So you kind of get where they're going here, right? It didn't really sound like he knew him. Yeah. At least in the eyes of the court that day. And so that evidence, which was pretty crucial, was dismissed.

So Tatarinov, I mean, at least in the eyes of the court, was probably not a KGB spy. at least in the eyes of the court, was probably not a KGB spy. Although, in the following year, six diplomats, Russian diplomats, were very quietly expelled from Australia, and I'm told that Tatarinov was one of them. I'd heard theories. I tried to track Tatarinov down so that I could kind of try and investigate this a bit further. I had heard one story that he had been in LA after the Cold War. Tried to make it big in Hollywood.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd been approached by a studio. No, he'd been approached by the Russian mob. Oh, wow. He'd been approached by the mafia and when he declined to work, he was sort of knocked. I couldn't prove it.

I'd heard that theory from a few different sources, but I couldn't prove that to be true. I did find a number for his daughter and called her, but she didn't want to relive this episode. So, yeah, so we don't know whether he was a KGB spy or not, but to use that to try and pin George for treason, it didn't really cut it. Yeah, but okay.

Yeah. So there was no, yeah, okay, there's nothing sort of tying. If that guy didn't know what this supposed spy looked like, he's probably maybe not a spy. Oh, it's very interesting. But then why did George have all the documents? Yeah. So he's still in trouble for that, right?

That's still illegal. Yeah, he did. So he was convicted for that in the end. Wow. But he was let off for being the mole in ASIO, for being the traitor. It was ultimately decided that he didn't fit the profile. Yeah, because he didn't meet one of the two things they needed him to meet. He didn't have a wife in there.

Yeah. Like, that was what- they had two boxes to tick. Yeah. And they ticked half of them. And I'm not convinced that it's surname being five letters anyway I reckon Kevin's the guy K-E-V-I-N Yeah

Kevin Kevin's over there with his pants down Why are we investigating Kevin? Yeah He's a lucho I'm just blowing this thing wide open I think I'm going to have to re-script some of the later episodes. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, shit. I hope Kevin doesn't go to ground when he hears this podcast we've scooped ourselves. George contends to this day over Poroshki and coffee. Your friend George, by the way. My friend George. So, you're in this too deep, to be honest. I mean, is that ethical for you to become friends with the key player in this story?

Yeah, it's a kind of professional friendship. He's very charming. How suspicious. He seems to have a way of kind of, yeah, he sort of charms the Russian ladies at the Poroshti stand at his nursing home. It's very warm. Anyway, yeah, but George sort of contends to this day that the documents on his living room floor were just documents he needed to try and plan his retirement and that they weren't classified national security documents. I still haven't been able to confirm that.

But ultimately, in the eyes of the court, he was not the mole. And in the eyes of me, he was certainly not the mole. And as I get towards the end of episode one, I start to think that maybe George Shedill was just a patsy, a cover-up for a much bigger story that then consumes the last few years of my life. And yeah, that's sort of what I came to think, that he was sort of hung out and after that, it was a very public embarrassment.

It was very embarrassing for ASIO. It was sort of like quite a highly publicized trial. It got attention from overseas. And the trial itself was like kind of an advertisement. We have a mole. And then not being able to pin George to deal was an advertisement for we haven't been able to find them. And so after that, ASIO took the mole investigation to ground. They did everything that happened after that point.

Don't take it to ground. Now you're playing on the mole's home. They've got the home advantage. If anything, you want to take the mole investigation to the skies. Yeah. They should. They went in the opposite direction. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah, that's a good point.

That's a good point. That's in ASIO, I reckon. Yeah. Yeah. ASIO started digging. Yeah. No, so that's what happened after that, and that's sort of where I followed it from there on.

You're not leaving us with a hangover. A hangover. A hangover. A cliffhanger. Cliffhanger. on. You're not leaving us with a hangover. A hangover. A hangover. A cliffhanger. Cliffhanger. Tell me you're not leaving us with a cliffhanger. So, George Sedil, he's not our guy. He's not- he's a good guy.

He's your friend. I feel he's my friend. I'm still not sold on him. Matt takes longer to warm to people. Where did ASIO go from here? What do they do now? Okay, so they've got a bit of a dilemma on their hands, right? There's sort of a lot of pressure from overseas. Part of the story here is that ASIO has access to all sorts of material from the CIA and MI6 because of our

intelligence sharing networks called Five Eyes. And so, there's a lot of pressure on ASIO to kind of do something, right? And it's really actually political pressure. So the prime minister at the time is Paul Keating, and it falls to him to act. Paul Keating appoints a guy named Michael Cook to conduct a top-secret investigation into ASIO's mole problem. Michael Cook had been Australia's ambassador to the USA. He'd also worked in intelligence briefly, so he kind of knew that well. He was extremely well-connected.

His daughter had uh dated obama at one stage oh okay yeah brock that's apparently the obama yeah it apparently went on to become quite successful so i've heard it's definitely a name i know um but i'm not super politically engaged so um but yeah i've heard the name heard the name. Yeah, he played AFL in the 80s, I think. Yeah. Ah, that's right. Ah, that's right. Couldn't quite place him.

That's right. Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's like the Demons or something, I think. Barack Obama. Yeah, the big O. Center half forward or something. Yeah, that's right. Is that a footy position?

I don't know. Definitely a center half forward. Yeah. From that guy. definitely a center half forward yeah um from that guy um yeah so so michael cook comes in and uh he gets to kind of hand pick who he's going to work with because by this stage as you has no idea who can be trusted um there's possibilities after the failed trial of george and possibilities that i find out in the podcast kind of go way back into the Cold War that the mole probably wasn't working alone and that there was probably more than one. Wow. overseas to get access to all the intelligence that they got over in the US and especially stuff that might help with Australia's mole hunt, like Russians that are defected to the

US from the KGB guys who defected to the US and might be able to tell him something about Australia that would help to build more of a profile. And he produces a report and it's called the Cook Report. and it's called the Cook Report and it might be one of the most secretive documents in Australian history. Everything is redacted. Because more, more, more. It's never seen even briefly the light of day. I'm told that only one copy was made and it was circulated

with Keating and some of his senior staff. And like under the Archives Act, it should have been public 2014 or something. I think it's 20 years after it was created. So, 2014 would be 20 years. It wasn't. There have been legal cases mounted to try and have it released. It's such a funny name for a secret report by a guy called Mark Cook. Yeah.

I'm calling it the Cook Report. Yeah. You can call it anything you want, Cook Report. Cook Report. Yeah, so people have made legal action to try and get this public as it should be and still nothing. That's right. And so I'm kind of like over here being like,

what's in the Cook Report and what's it going to say about ASIO's mole problem? And you got to listen to the... No, no. And I'll tell you what I think it says. So, there are kind of theories out there and I centered down, I whittled them down to one source. And I can't say who that source was, but he's a guy that worked in intelligence. And in the podcast, he has the codename Wasp. That's a good codename. Which is great. He has the codename Wasp.

That's a good codename. Which is great. And he lives in Melbourne, not completely unlike yourselves. Holy shit. Yeah, okay. Okay. Let's not give any more details. I can't say who he is, but he has a red beard and is known to wear hats. Yeah.

What does Wasp stand for again? White Anglo-Saxon Protestant? Protestant. I grew up Catholic, so boom. You're fine. You're fine. I'm a Wasp. He's also got an apartment full of orchids.

Oh, okay. Orchids have a special place in the spy world. They are in some ways a spy's favorite flower. This goes back to a CIA intelligence chief who kind of lost his mind in the early 60s named James Jesus Angleton, not part of the podcast. But they love orchids because orchids rely on deception to survive. What do you mean? How does a flower rely on deception?

Yes, indeed. Sexual deception. Oh, no. The orchid gives off false fragrances that mimic the pheromones of a female wasp. And then the male wasp is attracted to it, comes and starts to get kind of tries to, you know, get it on with the flower and gets pollen sacks stuck to its feet and then flies to another orchid and deposits the pollen there. Because it's not like with other flowers where the wind can do it because they're kind of separate to each other.

Whoa. Yeah, and there's an orchid. You can look it up. I think it's native to the UK. It's called a bee orchid, and it's got like this petal in the middle of it that looks exactly like a bee, and bees, they try and – you got it? I've looked it up, and it does look like a bee. Yeah, that's awesome.

Wow. Yeah, and so they're coming in, the male bees are coming in trying to stoop it and then they end up just accidentally repollinating. Wow. This is the most interested I've ever been in a flower. Yeah, me too. Yeah, and it's made orchids like one of the most successful flowers in the world. Like they exist on every continent except Antarctica.

So the good old-fashioned, like, pollination through wind. And the guy codenamed Wasp loves them. He's got an apartment full of them. Yes, yes, yes. And he's fucking them. He's tricked by them. And he can't stop fucking these orchids. I wish you'd warn me before I take sips of water that you're about to say stuff like that.

No, that would be ridiculous. Yeah, okay, so now we know where he gets his nickname from. Yeah. Fucking orchids. Yeah. No, so now we know where he gets his nickname from. Yeah. Fucking orchids. Yeah. No, he's good. But anyway, so a lot of the reporting around what's in the Cook report, I kind of trace back to him.

And he is an eccentric fellow, if that's not already apparent, He is an eccentric fellow, if that's not already apparent, and has been described in many ways as a conspiracist of sorts. So I met him and the orchids and his cat, and he told me that the Cook Report contains the name of four suspected moles. And when Michael Cook identified them and handed it to ASIO, instead of trying to prosecute them, because they'd seen how messy that had been with our collective friend, George Shedill, they instead retired them. They kind of let them go out of the organization with full pensions. And as one former intelligence officer puts it, dispersed them around the Commonwealth, which made the investigation even more difficult than I thought it was going to be.

Jeez, that sounds like the way to go. Can you accuse me of something so I can retire on a full pension? You don't want to know what I'd accuse you of, mate. Okay. Is it orchid related? I would ruin it. Yeah, it's orchid related. You get home and there's just hundreds of orchids at your place.

Oh, no. Yeah. And a knock at the door. AFP. Matt Stewart, are you in there? And I've paid for the orchids on your card. Yeah, and my pants happen to be down. This was a set up.

I know. This was all a set up. The second you walk in your front door, the pants are down. Pants are down. It's all I can do in public to keep them up. Honestly, this belt's not too good So they find four moles And just they don't They don't punish them in any way

They're just like off you go They're like we failed once It's embarrassing we can't do that again Okay okay So But here's the thing this is coming coming from a conspiracist, right? Sure, okay. So, when you say conspiracist, that's like a conspiracy theorist.

Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry. Yeah, conspiracy theorist. Like people have sort of said, you know, I have much affection for Wasp. He reminds me of members of my own family. And we both like Bob Dylan. Sure, say no more. I have affection for him too. And we both like Bob Dylan. Sure. Say no more. I have affection for him too.

But anyway, but I can't obviously just sort of take everything he says because of- His eccentricities. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. So you're taking it with a bit of a grain of salt. So then I go on a quest to try and prove this theory. And what I do is I try and contact, for example, Michael Cook.

He's dead. Okay. I try and contact Paul Keating. He is alive, but he still hasn't called me back. Okay. Good as dead. I've good as his number dead to you i've saved my number dead to me dead to me i'm dead to him uh i say i've saved his number in my phone with a brain emoji and i hope that it will ring yeah wouldn't it be good if it rang now actually i'd be like i'm sorry you going to have to answer that on speaker. You're live on air.

Yeah, so Paul Keating, not willing to talk. Imagine you get to talk to him and he gives you one of his classic put downs. He was the king of zing in question time. Imagine being on the end of one of those. Yeah. I want to do you slowly. That was one of them. Called. Yeah. Oh, I want to do you slowly. That was one of them. Called John Howard. It doesn't sound good in that context.

Something like is, yeah, the spine of desiccated coconut or something. That is pretty good. If you just cover up with that on the spot, that's pretty good. Yeah, yeah. It's good. No, it is good. Yeah. But not, alas, a response.

So Keating's in a circle. I kind of speak to them. One of them says, gives me the old, I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you. I think it was joking, mostly. And so then I have to get creative to try and confirm what this wasp has told me. Please tell me you catfished someone.

Oh, my God. I don't think ethically as a journalist you can, but tell me you tried. Oh, God. You found out the kind of ladies Paul Keating likes? That was some horrendous storytelling from me. I literally just, like, maximum intrigue to tell you the most boring thing i could possibly tell you it was like so i did something unbelievable that you'll never you'll never expect um it it was to uh read asia's official history

how does his mind work he's good he's good. That is creative. Look, it's what I would call a particularly – it's quite dense. It's three volumes. They're quite dense, and they were vetted by ASIO. So, there are kind of allusions to the mole question, which even I'm told was controversial in the last chapter of the last volume. They have a chapter called Looking for Moles, but it doesn't really give me anything that I had already known.

But when these chapters came out, these volumes came out, maybe five or six years ago, they were promoted by the authors saying that they had unfettered access to ASIO's vault and all of the documents that ASIO had. And I wondered if that included the Cook Report. So you catfished the author. As Michael Cook. I said, hey, did you read my report?

What did you think? Would love some feedback. Did you try the ghost the ghost of michael cook oh that's right he's dead i went i went full hamlet oh you read my obituary yeah that was a work of fiction that was a sigh of me yeah go full hamlet i love this what aop mean? Did I use that anywhere near correctly? I don't know. Yeah, psychological operation. Okay. Say no more.

That is in the podcast. It was very stressful, that part of it. Psyops are in the podcast. Disinformation, it's bad. But anyway, this particular part that I'm telling you about now is true, and it remains true right to the end of the podcast. Yeah, it's true. So I contact one of the authors, a man named Professor John Blacksland,

a fine professor at the ANU of international relations and history. He's ex-military, which is why he was allowed to have the security clearance. It allowed him to go into the vault to write the history. And he gives me an hour to come and interview him at his office in Canberra. And I – lovely guy. Another friend. Let's – you know, John Blackson, a friend. You're just making friends everywhere you go. Honestly, is this- You're too trusting. You're not jaded yet, are you?

I reckon there's- Young and fresh still. There's Walkley Award winners who are like 60 years old and they're grizzled. They're not making any new friends with their interview subjects, but you're making friends with everyone you meet. We gotta catch up, Ant. We have to do this again. Follow me on Instagram. Let's get lunch. Love you. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not sure if John Blackson thinks the same way. I message him a lot. He's often traveling. Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what he says.

I message him to catch up a lot. He's often traveling. Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what he says. I message him to catch up a lot. He's often traveling. Let's just say that. I'm traveling. But I love John Blackson. I think he's an austere professor. I listened to him on all his – when he speaks to different podcasts. I heard him on a podcast last week.

I loved it very much. He's smart. And so, I go to see Professor John Blaxland and I ask him the question, have you seen the Cook Report? And John Blaxland says, yes. And I say, what does it look like? And he says, it's a hefty tome.

And I say, it's a comprehensive work. He says, Michael Cook was a fastidious officer. And then I say to him, I've heard that Michael Cook identified four ASIO officers. And there were four ASIO officers that were suspected moles, suspected of working for the KGB. And instead of going after them, they let them go quietly. And there's four ASU officers that were suspected moles, suspected of working for the KGB. And instead of going after them, they let them go quietly. And John Blacksland says, more. More.

This is like a movie. They never just give straight answers. It's always like a riddle or, you know, yeah, you're looking in the right direction. Well, why don't you just tell me the exact direction? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, he says more.

He says they had to get the tentacles. They had to go after the circles of influence. And so there was more than four that were quietly retired. And then I said, why didn't they try and prosecute them? And he said, the evidence wasn't there. They suspected them. They had a bunch of evidence that suggested that that would have been them. But they were worried that it wouldn't stack up in court.

And so they covered it up. And he's gone on the record saying this. It's in the podcast until this comes out before the podcast and then we get an injunction from ASIO. Wow, so we've got the scoop here. We've actually scooped your podcast. You've scooped your own podcast here. That's awesome.

Oh, man, I'm quite literally on the edge of my seat here. I'm loving this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love- That's good. Oh, man. The drama of him saying more. Yeah.

That's exciting. And then him actually, like, filling in more details. I'm like, oh, that's so good. Don't tease us. Yeah. What's his name? John? Don't tease us, John.

Don't tease us, John. Yeah. The use of the word tentacles. I loved us. Yeah. What's his name, John? Don't tease us, John. Don't tease us, John. Yeah. The use of the word tentacles. I loved it. Yes. And then circles of influence. Is he talking about the little circle plunges on the tentacles? Yes.

Yes, that's what he's talking about. And there's heaps on his tentacles. There's heaps. So, phew. Jeez, they got a lot of work to do. Whoa. A lot of complicated animal metaphors going on. Yeah.

It's a bit of a theme. We got wasps and orchids and tentacles and circles. Yeah, there's a lot happening. Ah, the beautiful circle. My favourite of the animal kingdom. Yes. So, that, yeah. And so, then I kind of think even more that going back to George

Shedill that that was not the real story. Yeah. That was more going on there. And so then I go and I hunt for names. That's absolutely freaking wild. So great. So then I guess you go on the hunt, you go looking, did you find any moles? Or more friends.

Or more friends. Did you make any more friends? Okay, okay. So, I realised, mole friends, I realised that that was the extent of like my lines of inquiry had ran dry in Australia, in our country, that is, for a democracy, very secretive. And so, I felt like I had enough ammunition to kind of paint where I saw the story sitting. It was a bit of a nightmare. I thought one was hard, but multiple, extremely hard.

Also, ASIO didn't have enough evidence to prosecute them. They also probably thought it would look a bit ugly. You know, I'm just a boy. What am I going to do? Like, how am I going to find evidence? We should tell the listeners that Joey is 13. Sorry, have we not mentioned that? Yeah, this is a school project.

Joey is a little boy. He won the school boy Walkley Award. I have, like, a Scooby-Doo complex. I don't know. Like I've just- I've like identified- You're always high. Mystery ink.

Yeah. I would be if I wasn't chasing spies. It's a great way to keep you off the grass. Yeah. Wait, no, but you're that damn kid. Yes. They would have got away with it too if it wasn't for you. This damn kid.

Yeah, but like I feel like, yeah, that's going to start. I'm going to keep using it. I'm just a boy. But as I, you know, get older. You'll be 52 going, well, I'm just a little boy. I don't know. I'm just a little boy looking for friends. I'm just a boy journalist. If friends. I'm just a boy journalist.

If it wasn't for you meddling man. Yeah. Passage of time. Okay. We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth.

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When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. True heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. So, so, so, so. So then I would think, well, I've got to try a different line of inquiry.

I need to go overseas. I need to speak to people who have worked for the enemy, people who have worked for the KGB. Very difficult to get into Russia these days. That's tricky. A lot of those sources had tried up. We do try. We have quite a bizarre experience in Episode 7 trying to do that.

It involves the Honey Badger. Sure. Nick Cummins, the former Bachelor contestant. Anyway, I just dropped that one there. Was it- And did he- He played rugby union for Australia or not quite? Yeah.

He did? No, he did. Yeah. Yeah. What an interesting story he is. Should we do a report on him? He ended up as the Bachelor and now a jock salesman. He's done it all. Yeah, in the non-rugby states, he's more known for his jocks, I think, than his

playing as a wallaby. But yeah, I remember that. I forgot he was also a bachelor. Yeah. He's done it all. The big three. He really has. Triple threat. The egot. It's the egot of Australia. He really has. Triple threat. The EGOT. It's the EGOT of Australia. That's right. That's right. So, wait, how was the honey badger involved in this story? Well, it's a bit of a sideline to what happens to me next.

But I'll tell you just quickly, the honey badger comes into it because my leads tend to focus, start to narrow in on a particular former KGB spy who'd been stationed in Australia in the 80s. His name's Lev Koshlakov, and he was quite a fierce operator, from what I understand, around Canberra. And he was KGB resident. So he was like the head KGB guy in Australia in the 80s.

And he became quite successful when he went back to Russia. He became the deputy director of Aeroflot, the Russian airline, you know, kind of oligarch vibes, if you will. What was his cover story in Australia? He wasn't here like in his own little KGB office. He was a press attache. Right. That was his cover story in Australia. He wasn't here like in his own little KGB office. He was a press attache in his cover story. Yeah, so he was a media guy. But he wasn't really. He was a spy.

So there you go. Anyway, I sort of see that he's talking to Russian opposition media, to Russian opposition media, which there's this one guy, the Echo of Moscow is a big radio station and that's been shut down by Putin, but some of the podcasts still exist. And I see that he's talking on some of those podcasts, including kind of dropping some hints about his time in Australia. And then I find his Facebook, Western Facebook, not VKontakte, the Russian Facebook, the Mark Zuckerberg stuff.

Western Facebook, not VKontakte, the Russian Facebook, the Mark Zuckerberg stuff. And he's posting a bunch of kind of subtle dissent about Putin, like very subtle because he's like living in Moscow. Putin's a great president, I guess. Very subtle, but I'm picking up on it. I don't think he does think Putin's a great president. You guys would do great in Moscow.

Have you considered? No. Anyway, I'm going through his Facebook and there's a post about his Labrador that has to wear little booties in winter. He, like, posts, like, odes to his Labrador. And then, like, I'm just, like, scrolling down. And then there's just, like, a post, like, that he shared of the Honey Badger. Jock Salesman, Bachelor rugby player rescuing a baby lamb. Okay. And you're like, okay, I'm making a note of this.

I've seen that video. This feels relevant. Yes. The Honey badger. This is like- Quadruple threat. That's where it got the ego. This is like pretty late.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Like, this is pretty late in the story. And by this stage, I've, like, started to kind of lose it a little bit. Sure. Because I have been existing in a world of deception for quite some time. And I decide that that's the bat signal to me. You're in deep.

Yeah. Gee, yeah. I did not expect the honey badger to be getting involved. No. Neither did I. I'm glad we went down that tangent, though. That felt right. That felt good. Yeah. I did not expect the honey badger to be getting involved. No. Neither did I. I'm glad we went down that tangent, though. That felt right. That felt good. Yeah.

So, anyway, to go after the names, back to the Cook Report, to go after the names, I go overseas. I contact some KGB sources who are defected to the West. Most of them don't reply because, you know, Putin's resurrected an old KGB tradition of poisoning people in the West. And he's gotten kind of even more intense since the invasion. And so a lot of them don't reply. But one of them, you know, I won't take it personally, but one of them does.

And he's anonymous, but he points me to a former British parliamentarian, a retired Tory MP named Nigel West. It's not his real name. His real name is Rupert Allison. And he says you should look into an upcoming book of his. And Nigel West, so Rupert Allison was a politician. His name now is Nigel West, and heupert Allison was a politician. His name now is Nigel West and he publishes novels about spycraft. They're kind of very dense. They're dense academic reads, but buried in an upcoming book,

which is now no longer upcoming. And I find some names of suspects. And he then kind of gives me some more names. And I get a very neat list of four that kind of corresponds with what I've heard about the Cook Report. And then I start tracking down those four names. And I find out that at least one of them is still alive. And I go to speak to them to try and find out more. You met the moles?

a mole who was suspected, a former ASIO officer who was suspected in Nigel West's book of being a mole. But I can't name them and this is something else that I have to navigate because under section 92 of the ASIO Act, it's illegal to name a former ASIO officer without authorization. We're fine on George because he's your friend. He's my mate. But yeah, but I can't name him.

And so that becomes the sort of, yeah, that's sort of where the investigation goes to see what I can find out. Look, I can imagine that at the end of, like, you know, this series of podcasts, seven parts, there's still a lot of, like, things that we don't know. A lot of, like, there's still things that aren't quite tied up neatly in a little bow. Yeah.

Surely. Yeah, well, real life rarely does- Yeah, that's right. Tie up neatly, but wow. Yeah, and it- How did it feel? How did it feel? I imagine there were times of super frustration, but really exciting moments, highs and lows. Yeah, absolutely, and times I wondered what I'd gotten myself into.

Yeah. Yeah, I've used the words world of deception too many times in this episode. Thank you for allowing me to do that. But it is because- World of deception and dense reads. Yeah, it's been a couple of those too. That's what journalism is all about.

Wow, that's good. I should get both of those tattoos somewhere yes and it is it's like it is a um spies are masters of disinformation the kgb is masters of disinformation at one stage i have to engage with the possibility that the mole question itself might maybe maybe it was a kgb tactic to paralyze asio because if asio thinks that it's penetrated then everyone inside asio becomes a suspect and people just victimize people that they don't like and it makes them makes it very hard to conduct their spy business yeah i do not i do not think that that is the case, but I am kind of confronted with that possibility

at least once in the podcast. And so, yeah, so definitely unresolved questions, but we definitely like sort of speak to people that have never spoken before and kind of find out things that- And these interviews you're that are not otherwise known. Sorry. And those interviews you've been talking about, they're on tape in your show?

Oh, yeah. We got spies in the podcast, yeah. Do you have to make their voices like... Or are they happy just to sound like they sound? We got voice actors. We got voice distortion. We got that. Yes.

Yeah, we got a great voice actor for one of the spies, a former spy named Swamp. His name is Swamp. If you need- Oh, Swamp's not as good a name as Wasp. I like Swamp. It's got a lot of similar letters. Huh. Swamp, Wasp. Yeah, I thought it was an anagram. I like Swamp. It's got a lot of similar letters. Huh.

Swamp. I thought it was an anagram. I thought it was a clue. It wasn't. It's not the same. The M. But the Swamp, yeah, I thought it reminded me a bit of Shrek. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Of course. That's what we all think of Swamps now. And draining the Swamp. And draining the Swamp And draining the swamp. Isn't that what Trump's going to do? Oh.

If he gets in. Drain the swamp. In 2018 or whatever it was. I think that was all about draining the swamp, I think. The swamp is Washington, D.C., I believe. I see, okay. I don't know. I've read a couple of headlines.

I'm not reading dense texts. I'm not even reading brief texts. Unless you count headlines. Then, yes, I am reading those. Thank you. Thank you, headline writers. No more questions. I will not be taking further questions at this time.

Look, this sounds absolutely wild, and I really want to listen to the whole podcast now. I do too. And, Joey, can Jess and I really want to listen to the whole podcast now. I do too. And Joey, can Jess and I be voice actors on the next one? Yeah, let us know if you need voice actors. Oh, please. I can do really deep.

I can do deep. I can do high. I can do high. I can do average, real average. Yeah, I can do very somewhere in the middle. You know, if you need that guy in the tent saying, oh, just average looking. Yeah, you need that.

Yeah, real average. Speaking of like if you're doing- If you want somebody to sound like they're an announcer for The Bachelor, for The Honey Badger. Oh, yeah, great. I can do that a bit like, this week on The Bachelor. You know, stuff like that. And I could be The Honey Badger.

Hey, check out my balls. They're nice and tight in these jocks. Yeah. So, you let us know if you need us you've got our email now that was uncanny yeah here if you need at any time second there i thought i was talking to the honey badger himself we are mimics yeah you're that good many talents many talents that um yeah well we had a bit had a bit of some chats amongst the team about voice distortion because I'm of the opinion

that voice distortion, very cool. Yes, agreed. And my supervising producer, Jake, who I love very much. Would you call him a friend? God, no. Absolutely. Not as close as George, but, you know. He said that when he hears voice distortion,

he laughs so hard that he spat his tea. Right. But I surveyed a bit. I think, like, you know, it's a spy podcast, right? Yeah, you've got to have a bit of it, I reckon. It's not about cyberbullying or, you know, it's good. You want to close your eyes and picture them as a silhouette. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, the magic of audio. So the podcast is called Secrets We Keep, Nest of Traders. It's out now. There's seven episodes coming out. Joey, is there anything else you want our listeners to know? Anywhere else they can find you, follow you online?

Anything else you want to tell them? Yes. I want to tell them that it's called Nest nest of tray um ters with a t because i've been like speaking to a lot of people about it and it's become a bit of a thing in the team that people think it's nest of traders oh because of yeah because of the aust accent? Yes. And, like, people that have, like, actually worked closely on the project have kind of been, like, cow's nest of traders going. And it was just something I picked up on.

Okay. Good call, yeah. And we have a lot of American listeners as well, so it's good to make that clear to them. Traders. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's something I've been working on. I've been working on that tea.

Anyway, that was, what else do I have to say? No, I think I just have to say thank you so much. This has been a really, really fun time. You guys are funny. Thanks. That's what we contribute. Um, while you do all the work, you do three years of investigations and we sit here going, this, this guy probably has sex with an orchid and that's how we get paid the big bucks.

So happy, happy to help. Yeah. With your. Yeah. I'll make sure I, I'll put that in my allegations to ASIO. Joey, was your, your, um, Walkley award for your, everyone your everyone wants to be furor is that what you won for yeah oh yeah yeah and that was about what um what like oh it was about a a guy's um journey to radicalization in and out of the far right. Right. I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it.

He's my friend. Joey, you've got to be a little less trusting, mate. But that said, let's catch up for lunch. Yes. Add another friend to the list. Sorry, Joey, I'm travelling. friend to the list. Sorry, Joey, I'm travelling. No, but Joey Watson, thank you so much for being on Do Go On, bringing us this story. It's, yeah, like we were saying,

it's really unique to have the person who's done all the investigation telling us the story. It's really exciting. There's some cliffhangers, but I reckon our listeners will have loved that. So, thank you so much. Please come back after your next three-year investigation concludes. Yeah, we'll see you in three years. Yes, I'm going to try and find out what happened to Dave. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

No, no, no, there's nothing that happened to him. He's just at home. He's just in his home. Have you checked his home, Dave? We wouldn't want you to waste your time, mate. Don't waste your time. That won't take you three years, mate. That's three minutes. Yeah.

And it's open and shut. It's not really worth it. Wait, actually, here he is now. Oh, I'm Dave and I'm fine. Don't look into it. There you go. There you go. So, no need on that.

Anyway, sorry, Joey, we're losing you. I think we're losing you now. All right. We've said goodbye to Joey. We just had a brief pause then to really cement our friendship with him. Yeah, we exchanged phone numbers. We had lunch. It was fantastic. It was beautiful.

I did joke during the episode at some point that he was 13. I was exaggerating there. Yeah. But I forget the listeners can't. They can't see him. And he did keep referring to himself as the boy journalist. Yeah, we want to clarify that he is an adult. Yes.

A young one. Yes. But an adult. YA. He's reading young adult fiction. He's a YA, for sure. He's reading dense YA. At what point- Am I middle-aged yet?

Well, I think that all depends on what you see as your end point. But I think technically you're on the cusp. Do you reckon? Yeah, I think- I would think late 30s to 50s, probably middle-aged. Yeah, okay. You can't say 50s is old age. No. And that's the next step, right?

Yeah. But 60- I think 65 is what they do as, like, you know, elderly insurance, seniors insurance. Right. Which to me, my folks- at least my dad has crossed that line. I think my mum- no, actually, mum has as well. Yeah, dad got kicked off his life insurance because he was too old now. So, wait, what? Yeah, yeah. They're like, you know, you don't need life insurance anymore

because you're definitely going to die. Yeah, you need death insurance, mate. And I'm giving you a death assurance right now. It's happening soon. You're going to die. Clock's ticking. Sooner rather than later. People younger than you, technology might catch up

and they might live forever. But you, too late, my friend. I don't know why I asked if I was middle-aged. I think because we were saying that Joey was YA. And to him, he looks at you and me as both being old, and that must be brutal. That hurts. Because there is a difference between us. Yeah.

A big one. Yeah, yeah. Canonically and non-canonically. If you count centuries as being a lot of time. But I think non-canonically, we are of the same generation. Yes. Yeah. Non-canonically, not that far, but enough.

Well, you know, I'm an elder. You're a younger. Our ages start with different numbers now. Yes. So... Well, mine has three digits and yours has two. I think that's nuff said. Nuff said.

Anyway, I really enjoyed that episode a lot. I think it was different to what we normally have. But I think that's really fun. Yeah, I thought it was really fun. I think people will enjoy that. And, you know, it like... It was a lot messier than a normal episode in the way that it didn't all tie up neatly. Yeah.

But things rarely do when you're directly digging it up. Exactly right. Like, we usually are picking a story that has a- Not always. There are mysteries. Yeah. But usually have some sort of satisfying ending. But I was satisfied at the end of that.

It was really fun. It was a really intriguing story. I can't wait to listen. Yeah, I'm actually really- I'm keen to listen as well. I want to hear this John guy say more. Yeah, that chills. Full body chills. I was like, oh.

I also meant to ask Joey when he was at ANU if he saw my Uncle Jeff. Oh, Jeff Perkins? No. Oh, my God. That would be too good. Mum's side of the fan. What's your mother's maiden name? I nearly said his full name.

Then I was like, he probably doesn't want me to dox him. Yeah. And Jeff's a very common name. We have new listeners for sure. Down to. Anyway. But if you do bump into a Jeff. If you bump into a Jeff, just say, you got a niece?

And then see how it goes from there. And he says more. He does have two. He does have two nie say, have you got a niece? And then see how it goes from there. And he says more. He does have two. He does have two nieces. Do you have a niece? More. More. Two nieces?

Yes. Yes. Why do you ask? Jeff, I think. No reason, Jeff. Sorry. Sorry for all your time and runaway. Jeff is a great name.

I forget about Jeff, but I'm going to put that on my list. Jeff. Have I been building that on this show? Bruce. Frank. Yep. Brian. Mm-hmm.

Jeff is in there. Yep. Greg. Gary, of course. Fuck, these are good dad names. Maybe that's what it is. They're dad names. Which I think to Joey's generation, they're granddad names. Yes.

Oh, I've got a granddad called Jeff. What the fuck? What the heck? Joey, what? It's crazy. What? What? When I was a kid, not when I was a kid, when you were a kid, there was a show called Joey. Was there? No, I was thinking of Joey Lawrence, but no, it was Joey. There was a spinoff from Friends called Joey. Oh, yes. I was thinking of Joey Lawrence, but no, it was Joey. There was a spinoff from Friends called Joey. Oh, yes. I was confusing my Joey's. Joey's back, obviously.

What are we doing? What we're doing? We need Dave. We need Dave. Even Joey was probably keeping us more on track than this. Even Joey was like, oh, these guys are a bit tedious, aren't they? And yes, correct. So, what we do here is, of the final 30 to 40 minutes of the episode,

we thank some of our great Patreon supporters, because they're the ones who make this all happen. We're so thankful for all of them, and each week we take a little bit of time out to get to know them a little better. Yeah. And shout them out, give them their moment in the sun. Yeah. And this is why It's everyone's favourite

Section of the show I know Probably most listeners Just skip to this bit Anyway The first thing we like to do Oh I should say If you want to get involved

Go to patreon.com Slash do go on pod Yep This is the first episode We've recorded since 2023 So We are rusty We're a little rusty

Anyway So If you sign up there There's a bunch of different levels. You can get three bonus episodes a month, soon to be four bonus episodes, I reckon, sometime this year. We're getting so close to our target. And there's also the nicest corner of the internet in our Facebook group. You also get to vote on topics.

Your episode next week, Bop is just is the votes on it's been voted on right now it's already been oh it's been run and won because sometimes you put up a vote and it drags on so long yeah because it's level for ages but this one's got a definitive winner yeah and this one as well it's like anybody can vote from like two2 onwards, so you get a lot of votes. Right. So, those ones tend to have a- A blowout. Yes. Or it's clear quickly who's going to win there. But the Schoenberg level, obviously, it's a more exclusive vote.

It's a smaller pool. They consider it more. They think about it. Or you think of them as a higher quality of voter. They go, hmm. You love the 1%. No, essentially, a lot of them ignore it because they're just really generous people who just want to give us money. We should change the name of that level to the 1%.

The 1%. That'd be good. Anyway, so yes, your point is my next topic's been voted on. Yeah, that's right. And so there's a bunch of different things you get involved with. You also are the first to know about live shows. There's discounts to tickets and all sorts of stuff as well. And we've always got live shows coming up anyway. The reason I bring it up is because people on the Sidney Schoenberg level or above, they are involved in this section of the show we call Fact, Quote or Question.

It has a little jingle. It goes something like this. Fact, quote or question. Ding. Oh, I always remember the ding oh surprise even me and uh she always remembers the jingle and the sing cool cool um so for this one if you're on the sydney schoenberg level or above you get to give us a fact a quote or a question or a brag or a suggestion or really whatever you like and then i'll read them out

on the show for the first time so they haven't been vetted at all. So far, no one's really taken advantage of that to make me say anything libelous because, of course, our fantastic editor, AJ- Would just beep it all out. He'd beep it all out. Yeah. Maybe even cut it. No, just beep the whole thing.

It's just minutes of beep. It's just AJ and his awesome Kiwi accent saying, Redacted. That was not a good Kiwi accent. I would love that. Redacted. That's redacted. All right.

So, the first one this week comes from Pete Holburton. One of the many lovely Patreon supporters. Yes. We love Pete. Catch up with Pete at a lot of live shows. The man loves to party. And now Pete has given himself the title of President of Being Happy. I never have to do that again.

Ooh. That's intriguing. I know what this is going to be about. Right. And I'll explain after you've read it how I know. Okay is going to be about. Right. And I'll explain after you've read it how I know. Okay. That's interesting. I wonder if it is the thing he never has to do it again is telling me he doesn't work

for NASA. Because whenever I bring it, I always, in my head he works for NASA, he's a rocket scientist. Right. But apparently he's told me at the last live show i saw him he's like i don't actually work for nasa uh i'm i just have a it's my big interest i love uh and i said oh sorry uh so what's your job and he goes i'm a robotics engineer or something like that i'm like okay you work for nasa it's the same thing. It's not the same. You know something I don't understand?

You work for NASA. I thought he was going to say I was a butcher or something. I'm a primary school teacher. They're like, okay, we're about to get a job. So what you're saying to me is you work for NASA. Anything that sounds like kind of interesting to you, you're like, I'm hearing NASA. I'm hearing NASA. I'm hearing NASA. Am I saying that right?

NASA? NASA. Okay. So, he's offering us a brag. Yep. We love a brag. Writing, on Newsday, I ticked off something that's been on my bucket list for years. I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

It's the highest mountain in Africa at 5,895 meters or 19,341 feet for our American friends, Wow. It felt it. There's less than half as much oxygen in the air at the summit as there is at sea level. It was pretty tough, but exhilarating to get it done. And I made some great friends in the process. I wonder if Joey was there. Imagine. I met this boy journalist.

We're doing lunch next week. A great friend now. He says, Matt, I wore my primates beanie for the climb. Yes. I'll post some photos about it in the Facebook group when this goes out. So cool. Primates has been to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Very cool.

Amazing. Pete, love that so much. That's a great brag. It's a great brag. And last week we came back into the office and I had some mail here at the studio from Pete and he sent me a letter and a little Mount Kilimanjaro magnet. Oh, man. That's awesome.

And he said, I don't remember if you want to collect them of just places you've been or if you like when people send you ones, but here's one. And he said, and it just might have something to do with an upcoming fact spotter question. I was like, hmm, I wonder what it might be. That's fun. So, I have a Kilimanjaro magnet on my fridge Courtesy of Pete And Dave mysteriously Because he's still definitely alive and kicking

He's fine Dropped off a couple of magnets for us today as well From the Bahamas where he was, what, six months ago? Yeah, was that where he swam with pigs? Yeah The only thing I took out of his whole trip is he swam with pigs The thing is Dave travelled so with pigs the thing is dave traveled so much in the last couple of years that i lost interest in his holidays like you know

normally you come back and i'm like tell me all about it where'd you go what was the highlight with this trip yeah the most recent i was like i don't care i don't care mate whatever just get back to work so i think you went to the bahamas He might have gone to New York. I don't care about the rest. I wonder, because he is missing, presumed, a lot. I wonder if we can start a new version of the classic old saying, he's sleeping with the piggies. He's swimming with the piggies. He's swimming with the piggies.

Let's start that, yeah I like it On this week's episode of Who Knew It I wrote, I accidentally wrote Greg Larson was on and he called me out on it Because I accidentally wrote for one of my fake answers That the guy ended up swimming with the fishes And he's like The saying's actually

That just sounds like a nice song It just seems like he went for a swim In an open water swim And he's like, the saying's actually- That just sounds like a nice song. It just seems like he went for a swim. Yeah. In an open water swim. I don't know. That broke me when I realised the mistake I'd made. That's very good.

Pete finishes by saying, as always, thanks for all the joy and the various do-go-on pods bring. Hey, Pete, thanks for all the joy you bring us. Yeah, thank you, Pete. Thank you for the magnet. And that was not- I wasn't fishing for people to send me magnets. Don't do that. Shipping's simply not worth it. But that was a nice little treat to get from Pete, who we know quite well.

We see him at all of our Melbourne shows. He's a friend of ours. At live shows, of course. Bring Jess magnets. Bring me anything you want. Skittles? Yeah, snacks. In a sealed pack.

In anything you want in a sealed pack. Nothing home baked. No Tylenol. No Tylenol. I've got enough. Yeah. Oh, it looks like all four this week are people I've met at live shows. Ooh.

The next one comes from Swibesy himself. Swibesy. Andy Swibes, who's got the title of newest footy fan in Chicago. Wow. I hope you mean of the Saints. And Swabsy has an appreciation. Oh, that's cute. Is that a new one?

Yeah, I don't think we've had an appreciation before. Fantastic. That's nice. Swabsy writes, hey all. So, sorry, kind of long. Don't apologize, Swabsy. Don hey all. So, sorry, kind of long. Don't apologise. Don't you dare apologise. We have so much time for you.

And then he writes, now that Matt has done all his Matt Remembers series on the Patreon bonus feed, he says in brackets, join to listen. It's worth it. I mean, we've done like over 200 bonus episodes. I wouldn't be joining just to listen to an old man talk about a holiday. There's a lot of good stuff on there, including an old man talking about his holiday. Over two episodes. And I say at the start of it, now let's just stick to the highlights here, Matt. We don't need to hear what you had for lunch.

I said that as a joke. And then he goes on to say, yeah, and then that night I had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. And then, oh, is that a Mexican restaurant? And I was ready to stab myself in the eye. It's a show about an old man remembering. You don't think it'll meander a bit? It's, you know, it is what it says on the package. But it is what it says on the package.

So, he says, I can tell a little more about our hat swap we did. Oh, great. So, yes, I think I probably talked about for about half an hour the fact that outside Guinness in Chicago, Swibesie and I swapped hats. And honestly, I reckon Swibesie maybe got a raw deal there because the hat you got from Swibesie is possibly one of the coolest hats I've ever seen in my life. I'm a big fan of that hat. It's so cool. Featuring Seattle Mountain. Beautiful. Great colour scheme on it.

Yeah. It's all good. Browns and greens. Yeah. Who would have thought? Beautiful. Just works. But the one he got off me was, at the time, my favourite hat.

Okay. So, I think it was a fair swap. Yeah. Corduroy Retro Saints hat. It was pretty good. Oh, that is a good one, actually. Yeah. All right So, I think it was a fair swap. Yeah. Corduroy Retro Saints hat. It was pretty good. Oh, that is a good one, actually. It was a good hat. Yeah.

All right. That's a fair swap, I reckon. But anyway, he says, first off, when Matt and I swapped hats, I was so pumped because me and Hoogsy, my wife, which Hoogsy was such a legend. Hoogsy. So, it was just, in the end, it was just the three of us there. And we did a hat swap, which is a classic thing when a couple of guys and his wife were out for a drink.

And I said to him, what do you think about doing a swab? And I winked a lot. And he took off his hat. And he took off his hat and said, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hat swap. Hats. Yeah, of course. Hats.

Hoogsy. But he said, me and my wife Hoogsy were chatting about how cool it was all night. Getting this stick man Saints hat has for sure pushed me over the edge, and I've been watching highlights and downloaded the team app to keep up to date. Might even get a membership next year. Love to hear that, Swabsy. But I did, oh, I should say, Swabs, if you want to learn more about the club, there is about a five

and a half hour episode of this show that you could tune into. No pressure, but- If you want. If you wanted to, like, really immerse yourself in it. Yeah, nominated for a Do Go On Award, but- Yeah, for longest episode. I don't know. Best episode, I think.

But I did want to talk about how- About the hat Matt has now. Oh, great. Love this. Great. It's cursed. Sucked in, Matt. I shattered that hat.

It'd be so funny. I'm like, oh, my God, so many things make sense. I took on your curse. I got that hat on a solo trip to Seattle and Tacoma in 2019 when I was really confused of what my next steps in my life were going to be. That trip was the first step in finding out who I really wanted to be. That trip and hat always served as a memory for that first step and process for me. Oh, no.

I've taken away this important part of your. But that's so nice. Now I just wear it, you know, wandering about. God, you're a piece of shit. No, I've taken away this important part of your- But that's so nice. Now I just wear it, you know, wandering about. God, you're a piece of shit. I wonder if it'll help me figure out my next step. Yeah, all right. Yeah, it's a magic hat, isn't it?

You're beyond help, mate. No hat can help you. Fast forward to when Hoogsy and I were at Guinness with Matt. Those few hours kind of felt like the true end to that who am I and what do I stand for process. Because months after that Seattle trip, I met Hoogsy and she introduced me to Do Go On. And this pod has been a constant in my life this whole time. And the three of you and the Patreon community has shown me all the good people in the world that are out there. And that I know I'm doing the right things in my life. So, I could not be happier for Matt to have that hat that meant so much to me and my growth over the past few years.

It truly feels full circle. What a lovely message. Swibesy. That is so nice. Swibesy and hoogsy. is so nice. Swabsy and hoogsy. What a great reflection to have on your own life and

have this thing that's a marker of a really transformative time for you. That is so lovely. You're such a valued person in our community, Swabsy, and that hat is really cool. I don't think it can help Matt. He's beyond help.

Even therapists have given up on him. It can't hurt. He's beyond help. Even therapists have given up on him. It can't hurt. He's not going to make anything worse. Right? That is so lovely. So glad it wasn't a cursed hat. Imagine. That hat is actually cursed. Yes, you can only get rid of it

if someone offers you to swap with the hat they're currently wearing. Thank you so much, Andy. What a lovely message. That's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. That's so nice. The next one comes from our great friend, Murray Somerville.

Murray? Oh, my God. Yeah, this is just a who's who of people we know personally. People who follow us on social media will know him as Muzz Doodles. He designed my ding poster for my stand-up show last year and also the Who Knew It artwork. He's done a Christmas card for us before. That's right.

Yeah, we love Muzz Doodle. Yeah, I met him after a Brisbane show last year, I think. Maybe after a Who Knew It even. Anyway, Murray has the title of Triptych Club Glassy, keeping tables clean one glass at a time. That's an important job. Thank you. Thank you so much, Murray.

And Murray's asking a question. Also, isn't Murray the one who kicked off the Agony Arts bonus episode because he asked the question about his neighbour and the rubbish? Yes, you're right. Anyway, I wonder if it'll be an update on that. Let's see. He's asking a question, writing, confession time. I mastered the art of riding a motorbike many, many years ago, but a car?

Nope. I never went for my driver's license. I never went for my driver's license. Let's just get my- End of sentence. Intonation right there. Got it. Without a car license, I sometimes feel like the only penguin in a flock of flamingos.

What a beautiful image. That's beautiful. But to me, both. They're two of the top birds. Agreed. Yeah. Is there a basic life skill that you've mysteriously managed to avoid learning while everyone else seems to have gotten the memo?

Jesus, this would have been a great one for Dave to have been here for. Because he can't do anything. I think he surprisingly, yeah, hasn't. But he started. He's really, he's really started. He's cooked a few meals. Yeah, that was honestly partnering up with his now wife. She really fixed him up.

Yeah, yeah. You know. She saw a fixer-upper. And she said. She bought him for bargain price and prices. She got him cheap and she's done him up. She's done him up. He was the worst house on the best street.

That's right. And now she's made him, you know, average. Yeah. An average house on a nice street. Yeah. When asked what does her husband look like, she said, I don't know, average. Normal. Normal average house on a nice street. Yeah. When asked, what does her husband look like? She said, I don't know, average. Normal.

Normal. Just a normal looking guy. I don't know what a- Yeah, it's like a normal guy. Yeah. I've definitely met him. He's a normal looking guy. I'm a real woman.

I'm a real woman. I'm not a broom. And he is normal. Things- Well, I can't drive a manual, which is sort of related. Yeah, because I think anyone can drive an auto pretty much. Yeah, that's really easy. Can't drive a manual.

No idea how to. Okay, what are other sort of basic skills? List some basic skills. I'll tell you if I can do them or not. Doing your taxes. Nah, can't do that. I haven't accounted for that. What about, you know, programming the VCR?

Have to get the manual out. Yep. Have to get the VCR out. Yeah, have to get the VCR out. I don't have one anymore. No, me neither. I held onto one for ages. I only got rid of it maybe a couple of years ago.

Yeah, right. Because I occasionally brought what I'd tape out To look at Very very occasionally and realised that It's hard to watch The quality's like we've gotten so used to The quality being better now that You can't it's hard to watch them

I can't cook an egg Because I don't eat them I think that makes sense So I don't know how to cook them I can't ride a motorbike Because I don't eat them. Yeah, yeah. I think that makes sense. So, I don't know how to cook them. I can't ride a motorbike. No, I can't ride a motorbike. I mean, I feel like I could. I can ride a bike.

I don't have a license. Yeah, I don't have a license, so I could give it a crack. But I can ride a bike, but I don't anymore for, I thought, obvious reasons. But yesterday, my partner suggested a bike ride, and I said, no, thanks. And he went, why? And then I had to remind him that a couple of months ago I was hit by a car and he had forgotten. He had forgotten.

I still have bruised ribs he'd forgotten. Yeah. He thought they were from someone else. He was like, wait, were you- not rugby injury? I could have sworn that was a rugby injury. Can't play rugby? Can't play rugby? My old man had a similar-ish thing.

He was taken down by a car riding a bike, and he had to have his face reconstructed and stuff. Jesus. Yeah, his nose was ruined and stuff. You can't tell now. It must have been good surgery. No, it was a long time ago. It must have been, yeah.

It feels- Time over the last little while has lost all meaning, but I feel like maybe eight, ten years ago. Yeah, right. Shit, no, I didn't know that. You'd never know, beautiful, handsome man. If anything, looks better than before. No, he looks the same.

But he- yeah, there was quite a while where he's become- he's got right back into writing again. But yeah, there was quite a while where it was just like, I mean, you can understand it. Yeah. It's not nice. I'll say that. Yeah. Being hit by a car isn't nice. And it just all of a sudden you would feel like the things

that are nice about riding are taken away. It doesn't feel like you're nervous. What? I'm saying. That's what he told me. You just start to feel. Yeah. Very self-aware. It's, you know, like a nice free thing, riding down the road,

wind in your hair, but all of a sudden it's like. It's terrifying. Every car, you know, he's hyper aware of everything. Yeah. Skills we can't do. Skills we can't do. Reign it in. Yeah, we can't do that.

I know what you mean. Like when you've left it so long Not being able to drive It must be hard to sort of pick it up Later in life It's normal to be learning In your teens Or early twenties But then letting it go beyond that

It must feel strange to have to like learn a skill then Yeah I can't speak another language no uh which i would love to be able to do yeah can't play an instrument i could play the most basic like bass guitar riff yeah i can't read So, yeah, there's a lot of things I'd like to be able to do. I think most of the sort of standard day-to-day skills I can do. I can't do anything car related. I really tried to be- I tried to pay attention when Dad showed me how to do stuff because

I wanted to be capable and I just have so little interest. It just is in one ear and out the other. I don't care. Yeah, yeah. Is it running? Cool. Yeah. If not, there's people one ear and out the other. I don't care. Yeah, yeah. Is it running? Cool. Yeah. If not, there's people that can fix that for me.

I don't know. RACV? Yeah. Yeah, I think I can do the very basic car things. I wouldn't be able to fix a problem, you know. Yeah. Apart from oil checks, changing tyres and stuff. I can put water in the windscreen wipers.

Yeah. You can do that. So, there are other things. That's easy peasy, mate put water in the windscreen wipers. Yeah. You can do that. So, there are other things. That's easy peasy, mate. There's day-to-day things. But, and if not YouTube. Yeah. There's a tutorial for everything on YouTube.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I don't know. There's got to be heaps. Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah. And it's what do you consider like a basic skill too? I'm not, yeah, yeah, I can't. I don't think I, because I don't really drink tea either. So, I find it a bit stressful if I'm making a cup of tea for somebody else because I know tea is something that people are very

particular about. Oh, yeah. So, I find that a bit stressful because I'm not really a tea drinker. I'm an herbal tea, if anything. They have a, and I never look at it until recently, but my folks were around last week and we were drinking tea and I just noticed on the packet that it had steeping. Is it seeping or steeping? Steeping. Steeping time. I'm like, oh.

I said, set a timer and steeped them for the right amount. And they're like, oh, this is really nice. I'm like, you know what? It's possibly because I read the instructions. I actually made it how it's intended to be made. Yeah, yeah. Not just sort of dunk it for a bit, leave it in too long or not long enough. Yeah.

Yeah. Great question though, Murray. Jeez, I wish Dave was here. And never too late to learn to drive if you want to. But if you don't want to, you don't have to. I mean- I feel like if you can ride a motorbike, you know how the roads work. Yeah, exactly. It's got to be easier than that. I think I could learn to drive a manual now because when I was learning to drive, you're learning how to navigate, how to move

a car, how to read the road. You're learning everything at once. It was too overwhelming. Now I know how to drive. I think I could pick up manual. I just don't have the opportunity or the care. I taught myself because my parents' car was an auto. Their first one when I started learning was manual. So, I learned for the first couple of months in a manual, but then that was when I was 16. But by the time I went for my license i didn't get to

i was 20 i'd only learned in autos so i just got an auto license but you're illegally allowed to drive a manual uh once you're off your p's yeah it's got a full license so i i i got a manual car all of a sudden i'm like you know it was just it was my i think i got it for my sister real cheap uh my younger sister. Is this the car that you had until recently, the silver one? Yeah, yeah. And so I took it to a car park and I just taught myself sort of just- And it didn't take very long. Yeah.

But, yeah, I don't have a manual car anymore, so I'd probably have to relearn. But I think it's still in there somewhere. It's got to be. Jeez, Dave would have moved to somewhere now thanks so much for that question murray um yeah i hope everything's going well with your neighbor in the rubbish um final one this week comes from nathan damon aka group dad jess i want to say sorry to Dave. I want you to say sorry to Dave. No, like you mean it. Dad. Well, he's not here, so. Can't say sorry to a dead man.

I mean, a live man. Who's just not here, that's all. He's just not here. Just not here. And Nathan's got a quote writing, Hi guys, I've come to realise that this segment has been missing something lately, and that's hearing from everyone's favourite Gary. So, I reached out, and the following is a quote from Gary J from the UK. Wow. And Gary says, Question, is it okay to teach your child to speak a different accent?

Because when I play with our little girl, all her soft toys, puppets and dolls have different accents. And also, sometimes I need amusing, so I say some words in different accents, like down in Scottish. Dune. Dune. Nat's not that happy about it, but we're exploring the world in play. Not that happy about it, but we're exploring the world in play. So, Gary hasn't been writing to the Facts Quota questions lately because he's gone full dad mode. He's saying dune to a child.

But it's great to hear from you, Gary J. from the UK. Gary, it feels fine to me. It feels fine to me, but you've got such a great accent. Yeah. It'd be a shame. Look, you do you. But also, once it feels fine to me. It feels fine to me, but you've got such a great accent. Yeah. It'd be a shame. Look, you do you. But also, once a kid goes to school- Yeah.

They'll just pick that accent up anyway. Apparently, when I was little, because when we were going to the US when I was like seven, eight years old, I asked my mum one time, like, what do they sound like there? How do they speak? And she was like, well, they speak the same as you do when you're playing make-believe. So, like, if I was playing pretend with friends, we would speak in American accents. Right. Because you would have learned it from TV.

Exactly. And now I don't speak with an American accent other than whiter. So, I think it's fine. It's fun. I was reading with my ears a Bill Bryson book at the moment about the summer of 1927. You know, there are other authors. I just want to blow your mind for a second that other people write. Great to disagree.

But at one point he's talking about how movies went from silent to talkies and he basically said, and with that, all of a sudden, America basically just quietly took over the world, like, culture-wise, because they made, you know, Hollywood movies. All of a sudden, they were all silent, so people would put their own accents into their head. But all of a sudden, American culture was just spread around the world. I'm like, it's a really interesting way to think about it.

Yeah. Because, like, it's, yeah, we consume probably more American than Australian media here. Yep. And, yeah, it's so fun having a bunch of American listeners American than Australian. Absolutely. Media here. Yep. And, yeah, it's so fun having a bunch of American listeners listening to this. It's wild. It's like bloody bizarro land. Bluey's the same.

Bluey's a big, like, one of the big kid shows overseas, apparently. Apparently, like, people, particularly in the States, have started, like, buying Bunnings merch. Oh, that's funny. Because of Bluey. Yeah, right, because, yeah, they have Bunnings in it. Like, they're really into our hardware store Bunnings. That's funny.

Because it features in Bluey, which I think is so funny. And, yeah, I've heard there's some American kids that are starting to say stuff like Dunny and different- Probably using thongs in the correct ways in the footwear. That's right. Correct way. Not the G-bangers. Anyway, Nathan ends by saying, and to answer Gary's question, I think it's fine. I think it's fine. Whatever makes them laugh. Well, until next time, it's bye from me and Gary J. Thank you so much, Nathan. That's nice, Nathan. I think, Gary, you could be potentially raising a world-class actor.

You don't know. And so, great to get them started early on accent work. Yeah. You know, you look at your Margot Robbie's. She's great with an accent. Mm-hmm. And she's, I would argue, quite successful. Yeah.

So, get them doing accents early. I think that's right. I think, yeah, get them in the Margot Robbie slipstream. Yeah. Yeah. You hear Margot Robbie talk out of character. She's like going to the Donny this. Yeah, hey, again.

Pozzarello. Yeah, stuff like that. Stuff like that. Thanks so much to Nathan, Murray, Andy and Pete. Hopefully see you all at a live show soon. All from Perth, Brisbane, Chicago and Melbourne. Yeah, all from Perth, Brisbane, Chicago and Melbourne. That's crazy. Well, if you'd let me finish, they're all from a different place.

Yes. Next thing we like to do, oh my god, this one's going to go really well. I said 30 to 40 minutes. This one's going to be pushing it. I reckon anyway. Hey, I'm having it. I reckon- Anyway. Hey, I'm having fun. I'm having fun. I've got nowhere to be. She got her money. I got my rocks off.

Hey, how good is this? I don't know what that is. That's a Rex Hunt quote that a small percentage of our audience will remember from Get This. It was really weird. He genuinely said that? Yeah. Get this, it was really weird. He genuinely said that?

Yeah, there was some controversy because I think he was married and it came out that he was having a relationship with a sex worker. Right. And he was like, you know, I got my rocks off, she got her money. How good is this? Yeah, no, we understand how it works, Rex. Tony Martin played it a lot on Get This. And another one from him was about- He was talking-

He got really riled up. He did this address to the nation, and he talked about the thugs in the scallop industry. And they've just played- What? Yeah. Do funny stuff. What a character. Get This.

I mean, talking about great Australian media. You can still podcast it. Anyway, now we like to shout out to a few of our other great supporters. You normally come up with a bit of a game based on- Has it got to be something like Wasp? You know, their code name? Oh, yeah. Okay.

Yep. I like that. But don't make me come up with convoluted backstories as to why it's a codename. Okay. Because I'll get lost in that. Should I read out the names and you give the codenames? I'm going to see if there's a codename generator. There's got to be.

KGB. KGB? Codename generator. Oh, my God. I missed generators. Let's go on fantasy name generators. Yeah, great. All right. Well, Here are nine of the best

Firstly If I could Thank From Eugene, Oregon In the United States Eugene, another fantastic name Piper Gallagher

Piper Gallagher A.K.A. Shiny Saturn. Oh, that's so good. How good is that? Yeah. Saturn's obviously the best planet. Yeah. Oh, I thought you said Saturn.

Saturn. That's even better. I love Saturn. Yep. Piper, because on a recent episode, I let people know if you feel like you should have had a shout out and you've missed it, please DM me on Patreon. Yeah. And a bunch of people did and a lot of them I had just, they'd slipped through the cracks. So, be like Papa, get in contact. Everyone was very apologetic. You don't have to

apologise. It's our mistake. And also, if it's not a mistake and we haven't missed you and you're coming up, that's still okay. It's still okay to ask. I'll let you know. Yeah. But ask. Yeah. Give me a few days or sometimes, depending on what I'm up to, I won't be that quick. But sometimes I'll be so quick you're like, Maddie, you all right?

Matt, what are you doing? What are you doing? I've checked the time and it's 3 a.m. in Melbourne. Yeah. What's going on? 100% that I will do that sometimes. Anyway, Piper, Gallaher, shiny Saturn. Shiny Saturn.

Next up, I'd love to thank from Colorado Springs in, I believe, Colorado in the United States. It's Lisa Olsen. Critical Maple. Critical Maple. Maybe I'll just go- Should we go one words? One words. Or are you liking the two? Oh, I think you've got the keys. Okay, great. Because Maple could be kind of fun there too, I reckon. This is an automatic car. You can drive it. Oh, okay, great. I think Maple is fantastic.

Maple's good. Let's go with just Maple on that one. Okay, great. I like that. It's quite cute too. It's cute and sweet, but it'll kill you. And Lisa as well. She got in contact just a lazy 15 months after she should have got her shout out for that one.

Wow. That is patient. She's like, I wasn't going to message, but you said I- Oh, Lisa. Love that from you, Lisa. Very patient of you. And so sorry that you slipped through the cracks. It happens, and we're not entirely sure how sometimes.

Yeah, it's just the Patreon system. It's a little clunky at times. It's a little clunky for what we need it for, but, you know, it caters to a lot of different kinds of things. Yeah. So, it can't be perfect for everyone. But, yeah, that's why I kind of, in some cases, I'm relying on you to remind me and I apologise for that.

But that's probably like 1%, 99% of the people get read out. Yeah, just every now and then we miss some people. So, thank you for letting us know. From Roseville in California, it's Kelly Zachrisson. Ooh, Kelly Zachrisson, aka Stinger. Oh, yes. How good's that? Stinger's so good.

Because isn't the show Stingers, the Melbourne cop show, that was about undercover cops, wasn't it? I think so. I never watched Stingers. With Phelpsie. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't think I watched Stingers.

Did I? What's the one where they were, oh, never mind. It was a rescue show. Was it Police Rescue? Probably. Angel? Was Angel in that? Oh, it was with- Gary Sweet? Gary Sweet. Yeah, show was it police rescue probably with angel was angel in that oh it was with uh gary sweet gary sweet yeah that was it yeah gary sweet there was a character called angel

his last name was angelopolis as a kid again i didn't realize what a great name gary sweet is until right now i grew up it's just a normal name it's just gary it's gary sweet the actor gary sweet but now i'm like that is one of the most perfect names ever. Gary Sweet. Holy shit. Incredible stuff. And then when he released an album covering, including the cover of Most People I Know, I think that I'm crazy.

I'm like, could this guy get any cooler? You full on swooned. I did. I had sweet fever. I had sweet fever. Next up, I'd love to thank from Empire Bay in New South Wales. Here in Australia, it's Riley Giffen. Riley Giffen's codename is Bagpipe. I love it.

Singular. How good is that? Yeah, that's great. Bagpipe. Bagpipe. That's another standard skill I don't have. Can't play the bagpipe. Can't play the bagpipe.

And I don't know if you know this, Bailey. Stuart, that's a Scottish name. Yeah. Thank you so much, Riley. Riley the Bagpipe Giffen. Oh, that's so good. From Cramlington in NBL, the National Basketball League in Great Britain. It's Maddie Renton.

Maddie Mustang Renton. Oh, that's really good. That is so great. It is funny because we are starting to lose the reason for a codename. Like, imagine this, like, what's your codename? What's your secret codename? Well, it's my full name with a cool nickname in the middle. Yeah, good point.

And that gets- puts you right off the scent. Good point. You'll never know that I'm Matty Renton. I'm not Matty- Matty Renton. No, no, I'm not Matty Renton. I'm Matty Mustang Renton. Totally different person. Very different.

So, I can see why you got confused. Yeah, it happens, but you're wrong. Should I thank some people? Oh, yeah, if you want. And you want me to come- I'll come up with some. I can- Here, I'll send you the code names. I'm just going- What I'm going to do is I'm going to Google a random word. I'm going to Google horse.

Maybe I'll just keep doing them then. And I'm going to just- And I'm just going to look at the page here and I'm just going to- Off this about horses page, I'm going to pick out random words. Cool words, okay? I've just sent you look at the page here and I'm just going to, off this about horses page, I'm going to pick out random words. Cool words, okay. I've just sent you the code names generator if you want to use that. No, I've got some great ones here. Well, sorry to everybody coming up.

I'd love to thank from Oklahoma City in Oklahoma, would you believe it? Joshua Midgley. Hoof. Yes. Hoof. Joshua Hoof. No, no, no,. Hoof. Yes. Hoof. Joshua Hoof. No, no, no, just Hoof. Just Hoof, sorry.

Remember, you just explained why we shouldn't be doing it in that format. Hoof. Hoof. I don't mind Hoof. Yeah. It actually reminds me a bit of like all of these remind me of code names in like Top Gun. Yeah. You know how just last week i was telling you

how much i love top gun top gun maverick specifically as in last week as in the episode that came out last week it was recorded last year or oh no on who knew it this week was it no it was on a bonus episode yes i remember it was on phrasing the bar that's right because we didn't want to talk about the movie because it sucked. So, we just started talking about other stuff. Anyway. Wait up. Publicly, we always support the work of Brendan Fraser. Loved the movie. Loved it.

It's only people who were listening to the bonuses that know. Some of the movies, never him. Some of the movies aren't that good. Brendan, perfect. Brendan always perfect. Movies, very bad. Sometimes. More often than not.

Unfortunately, yeah. More often than not. Buddies yeah, more often than not. Buddies, that's all changing. It's all changing. Apparently, we haven't got that far yet. We're so close. Thank you to Joshua. I would also love to thank from Provo in Utah.

Give me two. Is that Utah? Sure. Yeah. How could it not be? I would love to thank Eve Johnson. The veterinarian. That's good. that is good that sounds like a serial killer name like that's that's kind of menacing yeah yeah that seems

sounds like the like the the torturous torturous for the you know like the mafia boss or whatever i want to ask americans as well sorry i've Sorry, I'm off on something here. Yeah, no. I only ever really hear Americans refer to veterinarians as veterinarians, whereas in Australia we'd never say the full word. No, it felt weird out of my mouth. I hate it. I would say I'm taking the dog to the vet, which they must say too,

when I think about it. But they use vet a lot over there for army vets. Army vets, exactly right, which isn't really a word we use. And that must become quite- So- Yeah, we'd say veteran. I reckon you would probably say I'm taking the dog to the vet, but if somebody says what do you do for work,

you would say I'm a veterinarian, because if you say I'm a vet, they might think army vet. Please let me know if I'm right there. And that actually reminds me, Bob, we had a similar thing like this recently where we're asking americans and you know how sometimes we're asking a question and then the answer will come so far later that we forget the context we have no idea what they're talking about uh but uh one of our great patrons qjk uh, I was just listening to the Nutshell Studies episode

and you all were asking what we dumb Americans call electricians. I work in construction. I don't think we were saying dumb Americans. That's what I replied to him. Haha, not dumb Americans. I think just the fact that we call electricians sparkies, which is fantastic, and we thought, do you have, do you shorten that at all?

I don't think of Americans as dumb at all. No. I love Americans. Not publicly. Well, you've put a little doubt in their mind. What do you mean? What do I think in my own head? He goes on to say, I work in construction and we do use Sparky, mostly guys in the field, but I would say we more commonly say EC, which is electrical contractor i bet non-trades people would say would just say electrician or the name the name of the ec they work with yeah uh and i don't need to read this bit out but i will um also you guys are super

funny never change nice to just put in a little bit of praise for ourselves there uh but yeah uh so yeah let us know about vet and veterinarian thank you and please give context like that person did because we will forget even though we've only recorded this less than a week ago when this comes out yes but our brains nothing stays um so thank you to Eve, the veterinarian. I'd also love to thank, from Concord in North Carolina, Courtney. Oh, yeah? Old Billy. Old Billy. Who was a 19th century horse that lived to the age of 62.

Wow. I wonder who was born Old Billy. Talk about nominative determinism. That's amazing. It's funny. Thank you, Courtney. This horse Wikipedia page, I've got too many options here. I'm loving these.

Yeah, you should have gone for the codename generator. No, that's not enough options. And finally, I would love to thank from Santa Rosa in California. Tracy, scarf. Blade. Are you kidding me? Blade. That rules. That's really great.

That's from the sentence. And ligaments that attach the shoulder blade to the torso. Oh, you could have gone for shoulder. Shoulder, torso. But blade was a good call. Blade, pretty great. So, thank you to Tracy, Courtney, Eve, Joshua, Maddie, Riley, Kelly, Lisa, and Piper. And again, if you think- if you've been on a Patreon for like- what's the- what should

it be, roughly, the wait time? At the moment, the wait time's about five months. Oh, right. Okay. So, if you've been a Patreon for longer than that and you think maybe we've missed you, please get in touch. Send us a DM on Patreon. That's the best place.

And Matt will double check it for you. Yeah, that's the one place that I can methodically go through a wall. It can get lost in the wash on social media and stuff. Yeah. So, send it there and don't feel like you have to apologize. It's not you. It's us. Yes.

And we appreciate you. So sorry this has taken forever. We do have one more thing we need to do. The last thing we like to do is open up the Triptych Club and welcome in a few new inductees. We've got three this week, which is appropriate for episode 433, is it? And Jess, can you explain what's going on? What is this?

Well, the Triptych Club is an exclusive club for people who have supported us at Patreon for three consecutive years. On the shout out level or above, which is the ass prod or above. And when you're in, you're in. You're here for life. You're a lifetime member. Matt's behind the velvet rope. He checks your name off the the door list that's right he lifts the rope he lets you in i'm behind the bar dave's usually

booking a band well i'll do that this week and i'll also uh be the mc um you're gonna welcome the people in i'm welcome i'll welcome them in oh hang on no i gotta you'll welcome them in. Oh, hang on. No. You'll welcome them in. You hype them up. I'll hype them up. Because you're much better. Oh, hang on. I'll do the other way around. All right. And, yeah, I have booked a band. Well, not a band.

And you'll never believe this. It is sort of coincidental that we've got a double header tonight. You won't believe this. Yeah. Because this is pure coincidental. Dave booked these bands a long, long time ago. Before he disappeared. But it's a double header.

We have Snow playing his hit song Informer. Oh, yes. And also ASIO. Yeah. And they're not a well-known band. No, 19 monthly listeners on Spotify. But their name is ASIO. It looks like they have one song, and so I assume they'll be playing that a few times,

but I look forward to it. I cannot wait. I cannot wait. I cannot wait. Redgum have a song called ASIO. I know, I just saw that as well. How about that? Hmm.

And Jess, what have you whipped up behind the bar there? Vodka. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Was there other stuff I was supposed to? Well, I was just wondering what temperature it was at. It's actually a little too hot.

I thought it might be nice like a mulled wine type thing because I thought, hey, it's summer here in Australia. Yep. What more do you want on a hot day? A hot drink. A hot drink, yeah. So, I thought mulled wine is nice. Maybe vodka could work in that way as well. But I didn't actually add anything to the vodka.

I just heated it up. Yeah, mulled vodka. And it's very hot. Oh, right. It's quite bad. Okay. We'll let it cool. I've left it out for about eight hours now and it's somehow getting hotter.

What? What have you done? I don't know. It's like some sort of a nuclear reactor going off. Honestly, I think we might need to do some renos to the kitchen in the Trip Ditch Club because this stove, it's making everything too hot. It's like it goes zero It goes zero to a hundred Yeah

And there's nothing in between You look stressed You cannot simmer anything in this kitchen Are you okay? No I've got hot vodka everywhere Oh no Is it burning?

It's everywhere Oh my god What do we do? I don't know We need Dave We need Dave and a mop His wife I don't know. We need Dave. We need Dave and a mop. His wife.

All right. So, I think that's everything we need to do now. All we have to do is bring him in. Yes. I'll bring him in. Okay. You hype him up. Okay.

Because you always have a go at Dave for this. And I'm regretting it right now. Now you have to show him how incredibly easy this is. So, please welcome in to the Trip Ditch Club. From Round Rock in Texas, it's Melissa Shook. Oh, Melissa Shook me all night long and rocked my world. Welcome in, Melissa Shook. Okay, that's not bad. That was a lob, actually. That one really-

It's not bad. Had Shook and Rock in there, but I'm so stoked it was you, Melissa. Where is this place? This is exciting. I should say, Melissa also should have been in the TripDitch Club years ago. I'm trying to find where this place is because- I think it's Indonesia. Ooh, is it?

Yeah. From- Yeah, okay. From, yeah, okay. It says from Bogor Barat in Jawa Barat in Indonesia. It's Riz Azaf. Riz Azaf. We're going to laugh at Azaf when we have the time of our lives.

Welcome in, Riz. Oh, that's very good. You're the biz. That's very good. How dare you? Dave, never come home And finally welcoming into the triptych club this week From location unknown so we can only assume Deep within the fortress of the moles

It's Kirsten E Kirsten E I'm so excited to see you E Welcome in Kirsten E Well good stuff Kirsten Riz and Melissa What a beautiful triptych of triptych inductees Yeah we welcome them we love them

Please have some hot vodka Have some hot vodka take it out of our hands Please Please if you know a way I know it doesn't Vodka can't freeze I didn't realise it could boil I didn't think it could boil either

I just wanted it to warm But it is boiling You assume if it can't freeze, it can't boil. That's what I thought safely assumed. I thought it's a middleman. It's an average thing. What does it look like average? You can't do it.

Anyway, I'm in a lot of trouble. I think that we really need to wrap up and see what we can do about this. We've got to get out of here. Thank you so much for tuning in. What do we need to tell people before we go? That we love them, that they can suggest a topic. Anybody can. You don't have to be a Patreon.

There's a link in the show notes. It's also on our website, which is dogoonpod.com, which is also where you can find information about the other podcasts we do and any live shows coming up and merch, if merch is available. That changes every now and then. Yes. Can we say, I don't know if we say it on pod enough, but thanks so much for maybe the last year or something. We've had AJ from Cult Popture editing our shows,

and he's so lovely to work with. And, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I don't think we have really given him any shout-outs on the pod. Yeah, he's just, yeah, the best. We're a big fan and he's an important part of our team. Yes, you'd know him from the Barbie episode, but also, yeah,

you can check out his podcast as well, called Popcha. But don't, like, make him too successful so that he's like, I don't need to do this anymore. Yeah. Because we've actually become quite used to having an editor. Yeah, we're very dependent on him now. We're very dependent on AJ. Okay, we can't dependent on him now. We're very dependent on AJ. Okay, we can't do this without him.

I won't live without AJ. Okay, that's what Dave said. And AJ had a short break and all of a sudden we don't- We've lost Dave. We don't know where he is. No, we do. Of course he's at home. Of course we know where he is.

Everything's fine with Dave. He's fine. Don't worry about it. Don't look into it. Please. But yes, anybody can suggest a topic You can find us On social media

At DoGoOnPod And as always Remember to wash your butt Great advice Do you want to do What Dave usually does And boot at home? What does

Yeah sure Until next week Until next week Thanks so much for tuning in This has been DoGoOn I'm Dave Warnicke Goodbye Laters

Bye Nailed it tuning in this has been do go on i'm dave warnicky goodbye ladies nailed it we can wait for clean water solutions or we can engineer access to clean water we can acknowledge indigenous cultures or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future.