Two In The Think Tank - 475 - 1816: The Year Without Summer

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

Here it is, the number one most voted for topic for Block 2024! On the evening of the 5th of April, 1815 the sounds of massive explosions rang out across modern day Indonesia. This lead to1816 becoming the year without summer!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report about the murders begins at approximately 06:31 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).For all our important links: https://linktr.ee/dogoonpod Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present. REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:The Year Without Summer: 1816 by William K Kingaman and Nicholas P Kingamantheconversation.com/how-a-volcano-in-indonesia-led-to-the-creation-of-frankensteinbritannica.com/place/Mount-Tamboratheguardian.com/music/2016/jun/16/1816-year-without-summer-dark-masterpieces-beethoven-schubert-shelleynps.gov/articles/000/1816-the-year-without-summerhistory.com/news/bicycle-history-inventionhistoryofinformation.com/detail.php?id=2054smithsonianmag.com/history/blast-from-the-past-65102374/history.com/topics/inventions/history-of-cholerairishtimes.comenglish-heritage.org.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matt and Dave, that's me, are doing our stand-up shows this December, 2024 in Sydney and Melbourne. This is the final time I'll ever do these one hour shows, Monday, December the 2nd at the Chippewa Hotel in Sydney, and then Friday, December 13th, live at Stupid Old Studios in Melbourne, and that's when we're recording our stand-up specials, so we'd love to have a friendly crowd in that night

to record the hours for posterity. Tickets are just $25 for both shows back to back, or $15 if you're on our Patreon, and you can get tickets at dogoonpod.com. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dev Warnocky and as always, I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart. Hello. Hello and welcome to you too, too. Thank you too.

And thank you to everyone who voted for Blocktober 2024 because this is the moment where we find out what topic took out the number one coveted spot for this year. It was, man, it's been so great. You want to quickly run us through the eight that led us here, Dave? Off the top of your head. No, no, no. Don't lift open that lid. Put the lid down, Dave. Top of the dome. The lid is down. We started with the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Am I saying that right?

God, the drama degree's coming out. Look at him pretending to think. Oh, there was a spooky one, the Amityville murders and subsequent hauntings. Yes, that's right. Then I took us back very far in history to Alexander the Great, Macedonia, of course. What a guy. Then we kind of back that up with a- Pretty bad guy?

He killed a lot of people, didn't he? Killed a lot of people. Killed a lot of people. Name me a world leader that hasn't though. Part two basically was the great library of Alexandria, the city that he founded with Alison Trumley-Birtchel, zooming in from Canada. It was great to have him on. Then we had the Illuminati confirmed.

Mm-hmm. We learnt about them. It's funny that you're reading them out in the way that they were, not even as the episodes were eventually named. You're calling them like what they were in the vote. I remember the vote. That's how good your memory is. Then we talked about Prohibition Era in the USA in brackets. No booze for you.

There's actually heaps. Uh-huh. The pitch I seem to remember. Yep. God, he's good. You are really good. Then number four. No, number three.

Number three from there. That's right. I'm counting down. Number three was of course Genghis Khan. I am regretting, I thought this would be really quick. You did this. I don't know what- Oh, number two. I just realized that this is taking a long time.

Oh. Anasetha Romanova and her many imposters, that was number two. But what's left? What's left? We've been doing this block for, this is the seventh annual countdown, for those who don't know what it is, we put out a big poll of our most requested topics and every October slash November, we count them down in order. Whoever gets the most votes that year.

And we're up to number one. Up to number one. This one, yeah, this one came in and it was, it was a strong winner. Now, do either of you remember what it is? Because we do tally up the, we divvy up the topics at the, about two months ago now. So. You know what Matt, I'm going to, I'm going to answer your question with a question. Do you think I remember what it is?

No. No. But I was really asking Dave and I didn't want to be rude. Dave, do you remember what it is? No, not exactly. I remember like the type of topic it is, but not the possible answer. Well, the answer to the question, I've put it in a mathematical terms because the answer is a year. So my question to you is, what is eight times 227? So just before, I'm going to let Dave just do the maths in his head for a bit there. So just to fill some time for you, Dave.

Now, I understand why just before we recorded, you said this question is a little unfair to you. To me. Yeah, yeah. Because I'm not even going to try. Right. But Dave's trying. You can just guess a year. Yeah. 18. Yes. Oh, I've said too much. Have you got it? Have you done the maths?

1816. Oh, that's right! That's exhilarating stuff! Wow. Dave, were you on the path? I was on my way. Whoa, whoa, whoa. That is working me right up. And I was already really awake.

You were. It's a two-coffee day. Well done, Jess. It is, Jess. Sipping on the second cough. I must have subconsciously vaguely, but I don't actually remember what the topic is. I think you must have subconsciously done maths. No, don't start that rumour. We don't want people thinking I can subconsciously do maths. You were doing long multiplication.

That's crazy. If that's a thing. So this topic, the number one topic, as voted by the listeners, is 1816, the year without summer, aka poverty year, aka 1800 and froze to death. That's what the years. Whoa. So, OK, I don't I didn't remember all of that. I must have remembered that it had a year in it and just somewhere deep in the back of my head was 1816.

I still want the point. I still want full credit for it. That was amazing. One of those numbers is your favourite number, right? 16. 16, there you go. OK, so there was no summer. There was no summer. Sounds like torture to me.

This is, this was actually not even in the hat, which is funny because this whole premise of block is the most suggested topics are then put up to a big vote. So you might be going, how is one that's not in the hat? The patrons also get to do, they do a pre-poll poll where they suggest topics and they're up voted. This one was put into the poll by James Edwards and it got upvoted so much, then went out to the public vote and yeah, won in a, not quite a landslide, but it was the clear winner. Wow.

This is amazing. That's fascinating. Oh yeah, I was expecting some elements of this. I Googled it, I searched the hat for different elements of the story, but yeah, nothing really was in there. Wow, well done, James. story, but yeah, nothing really was in there. Wow, well done, James. Yeah, that's really good. Because obviously, I remember a couple weeks ago when I was doing Jengis Khan, we spent

about 38 minutes reading the suggestions because there were so many. Do you think when you suggest a topic, obviously you're excited when your topic gets chosen, but then if you hear 50 other names, do you feel like you're a bit of a basic bitch? Yeah, all right. So James is the opposite of that. James is the only person who thought of this. He's the one ordering a really obnoxious coffee at the cafe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm getting a flat white. He's getting a Chubba Lubba, Wamalama, Chino. Uh-huh. And then a few thousand people have said, I'll have a tea set. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Huge. All right.

Let us begin. It's a pretty big one. I mean, it's a year. The whole year. A lot happens in a year. Yeah, the. Yeah. Huge. All right. Let us begin. It's a pretty big one. I mean, it's, it's a year. The whole year. What happens in a year? Yeah. The year of 1816. And this story begins on the evening of the 5th of April, 1815. Okay. The annexed part of 1815. The annexed part of 1815. This is, this is, it all begins, you know, I know we're in 2024, but really 2024 began on the 5th of April, 2023. Agreed.

Don't you reckon? I'm already in 2025, if I can be real with you. Since the 5th of April this year. Yeah. It's basically like car models. They always, they're always saying it. It's like, what does, what does the year mean to you car people? Wow.

That's a good point. Do you know? Yeah. Yeah. Like I'm driving a 2032 Mitsubishi Lancer right now. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Like I'm driving a 2032 Mitsubishi Lancer right now. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't make any sense. They're like, oh, Jesus, it's from the future. Mitsubishi, you need your head read. And then they go, well, you got the 2025 model. That's old. Yeah. How embarrassing for you. Are you poor?

That's what they say. And you go, poor, that's a bit full on. That was a full on thing to say. But that is sales technique. In this, like we're in a financial crisis. Cost of living crisis, you ever heard of it? That's a really full on thing to say. And they're like, I don't give a shit.

I don't give a shit. Really full on. Yeah. Yeah. And then they do that pong. You pong. Oh, stink. You pong.

Okay. So on the evening of the 5th of April, 1815, as the sun was about to set, the sounds of massive explosions rang out across modern day Indonesia. It was interpreted differently by those who heard it. According to William K. Kingerman and Nicholas P. Kingerman, in their book, The Year Without Summer, 1816, which I'll be referring to a fair bit, Thomas Stamford Raffles, the Lieutenant Governor of Java, heard the blast at his residence and assumed it came from cannon firing in the distance. The commander of Yogi Kata in Central Java, believed a neighbouring village was under attack, so troops were dispatched to repel the invaders.

Officials along the coast took the sounds to be ships signalling their distress and rescue boats were sent out to search for survivors. So everyone's hearing these loud sounds and they're interpreting them in their own ways. The crew of the Benares, a British East India company ship, reported hearing a firing of a cannon on April the 5th and as the Kingamans write, the explosions appeared to come from the south. As they continued, the reports seemed to approach much nearer and sounded like heavy guns occasionally with slighter reports between. Assuming that pirates were in the area, the Banaras put to sea and spent the next three days scouring nearby islands for any signs of trouble, but found nothing. Nearly 500 miles farther to the east, a British

resident on the island of Tanate heard, quote, several very distinct reports like heavy cannon, and sent another cruiser, the Tainmouth, to investigate it. It too returned empty handed. Some people are losing their minds going, what's happening? We've got to do something about this. Yeah, this is clearly some sort of aggressor or a cry for help. We all think it's something bad, don't they? Yeah. No one's heard that and gone, oh. Fireworks!

Yeah! I love fireworks! Well, they must be having a sale down at the shops. Oh, let's go to the shops and support the local economy. Exactly. Nobody's thinking any good stuff. Why aren't they thinking that? I think that's a state of mind thing.

I hear loud banging. I'm like, ooh, because I love fireworks. Yeah, yeah. I love them. Yeah. But you'd be thinking, what's a bit early? The sun's only just about to set. Wait half an hour. Yeah. What is this, the AFL Grand Final? It's the only place in the world that does fireworks and daylight. But anyway, as it turns out, they were all mistaken because the noises they heard were in fact from a huge volcano eruption. That's right. This story is another one in our series. What is this? Maybe a third episode about a huge volcanic eruption. That's right. And I believe this one to be bigger than all the others that we've ever talked about. All right. The others were still pretty big. That's

pretty rude. That were puny in comparison. It's just the big one. Oh my god, that's got real car salesman energy. Oh, Mount St. Helens, you call that a volcano? Whatever. Genuinely, like, it's a, if you had a graph, you'd need binoculars to see Mount St. Helens. Is this the one that's like, is it like the loudest thing ever? That kind of that territory of like, holy shit. Yeah, I think it's equivalent to like the Saint when Goddard took that screamer in the

2010 Grand Final and put the Saints in front. It was similar to that level of noise. Wow. What about, where does it sit on the scale of noise? So is this louder than my neighbour who comes home at 11pm every night and is always on his phone on loudspeaker and he's on the third floor. Well, no, this is- No, hang on, I'm not done.

He's on the ground floor outside people's bedrooms. You can hear both sides of the conversation really loudly because they're both like yelling into their phone and then he stomps up two flights of stairs still yelling on his phone. And then he gets to his front door and concludes his conversation by yelling on their phone and then he stomps up two flights of stairs still yelling on his phone and then he gets to his front door and concludes his conversation by yelling on the phone some more before he goes inside. Is it louder than that? Not quite, not quite, but it is like it's just one back from it. Yeah, wow.

That's very disruptive. Yeah. You've sent out ships, haven't you? Yeah, I was like, what's going on? What's going on? He must be dying. He must be dying or a pirate. There's no reason to be that going on? He must be dying. He must be dying or a pirate.

There's no reason to be that fucking loud every night at 11pm. Have you ever like, do you ever think about who's on the other end there? Can you hear enough of them to find out who the second person that's on the phone to this weirdo every night at 11pm? I think it's always the same person. Well, yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah, it's always the same. I could find out a lot of information. It's so loud every time. All right, back to the Kigamans. What they all heard was a

massive explosion that shook the volcanic island of Sambawa in the Indonesian archipelago. For two hours, a stream of lava erupted from Mount Tambora, the highest peak in the region, sending a plume of ash 18 miles into the sky. To illustrate how loud it was, raffles, who mistakenly thought it was cannon fire, heard the eruption from more than 800 miles away. Wow. So that would be- I reckon you could probably hear my neighbor from about that. I've heard him. I've heard him. Yeah. And you're 800 miles away. That's the equivalent of hearing something in Brisbane.

Shit. For us. That's great, thank you. That is actually very helpful. That's insane. Or for New Yorkers hearing an explosion in Jacksonville, Florida. Or if you're in London,

like hear an explosion in Krakow, Poland. So you get the idea, long distance. Yeah, huge. The Kingman's right. British authorities might have been excused for assuming that the threatening sounds came from potential enemies rather than the earth itself. They were not yet accustomed to the frequent volcanic eruptions that plague the Indonesian islands. Britain had gained control of Java and the surrounding islands less than four years earlier when British troops overwhelmed a vastly outnumbered band of French defenders who themselves had held Java for only a short time, having taken it from the Dutch when France conquered the Netherlands in 1794.

By the spring of 1815, neither the government in London nor the British East India Company was entirely certain that they even wanted to keep the island since the expense of administering and defending it had outweighed the commercial benefits thus far. Actually we don't want it. You know what? What? It's such a, I mean, yeah, it's such a wild time ago. Oh, they took this Indonesian island.

Who did they take it off? For firstly, it was the French who'd taken it from the Dutch, obviously. Yeah. It's an island in Indonesia. It all makes sense. Who else would have had it? Yeah. Weird time.

And then they go, you know what? You know, and like all investments come with risk. Sometimes you just got to cut them loose. Exactly, sunk costs. Yeah. This is not making me the cash I wanted to. Apparently it was Raffles' dream that they create a British maritime empire throughout South Asia,

as it would, as the Kingman's right, provide new markets for English cotton and woolen textiles and a profitable supply of coffee and sugar to Europe. It was Raffles who had persuaded the Governor General of India, Lord Minto, to seize Java in the first place. He's like, come on, let's go seize Java. It'll be fun. Come on, Minto.

Minto. Come on, Lord Minto. You used to be fun, Minto. Minto, baby. Come on, Minty, come on. Come on, let's have a bit of fun. Apparently Minto advised Raffles that while they were there,

they should do as much good as possible. You know, while you're colonising far off lands, be good to the local people. Real classic colonial mindset. We're here to help. Hey. We're actually doing, if anything, we're doing you a favour. This place is going to get way better when I'm done with it. Trust me. Trust me. I'm going to really zhuzh this place up. I'm a real Marie Kondo, okay? I'm going to like, I'm going gonna give this place a new life. And apparently they did do some good, such as limiting the importation of slaves

under the age of 14. What a guy. Okay. Okay. Okay. It's sort of, it's funny cause you're like, well that's real bare minimum stuff. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. But also just wild that you have to do it.

Before me, eight year old slaves were four. Yeah. Okay. No, no, year old slaves before me. Yeah. Okay. No, no, no, no, no. Let's let kids be kids until they're 14. Until they're 14. Then obviously if they need to be slaves, they need to be slaves.

I'm not unreasonable. Raffles also had an interest in science and apparently his curiosity was peaked when the explosions continued through the night. He was thinking something wasn't quite right. Weird that these cannons are just going non-stop. That seems odd. I cannot sleep.

Yeah. It's just really annoying. It's like when you hear a buzz or something in your house, you're like, I thought I could drown it out, but I can't. I've got to go find what it is. Got to go find that dripping tap. Yeah, you got to find it. Oh good, it's just the fridge.

So I can't do anything about it. Fantastic. You find it's Humphrey, Dave's dog, just like he's drooling. He does make some interesting sounds on the nose. Yeah. It's having dreams. So yeah, he was thinking, some wasn't quite right. And this, this thought was confirmed the following morning as ash started falling

from the sky, point of the fact that a volcano probably erupted somewhere in the region. Despite this, the Kingamans write, few suspected Mount Tambora. It was generally believed that Tambora was extinct, although natives living in the nearest village had reported rumblings from deep inside the mountain during the past year. Besides, few on Java believed that such powerful sounds

could have come from a volcano several hundred miles away. As Raffles subsequently noted, quote, the sound appeared to be so close that in each district it seemed near at hand and was generally attributed to an eruption either from the mountains, Merapi, Clut or Bromo. Bromo. Bromo. So everyone's like, oh, that's, that's, it's so loud. It must be our local. It's ours.

That's obviously ours. You heard it too. You heard ours. Oh, geez. Wow. That's pretty good from us. Bloody hell. That's good on us. Good on too. You had ours. Oh, jeez. Wow. That's pretty good from us. Bloody hell, that's good on us. Good on us.

Good on you, bro-ma. As fog of ash drifted across Java, the sun faded and the warm, humid air grew stifling and everything seemed unnaturally still. The oppressive pressure, Raffles noted, seemed to forebode an earthquake. Over the next several days, however, the explosions gradually subsided and volcanic ash continued to fall, but in diminishing qualities. Relieved, Raffles returned to his routine

administrative duties. Oh, right. You're like, oh, thank God, that's over. So everything sort of settled back down for the next few days. Right, I mean, it sounds like a very unsettling time for lots of people, but it's getting better. Yeah, it's getting better.

Things slowly, it's sort of slowly clearing the air. It's clearing. It's not nice, but it's on the improve. But as it turns out, that was just the first little bang. What? The little bang was heard over a hundred miles away. Yeah. So at around 7pm on the 10th of April, Tambora erupted once more, but this time in a much, much bigger way. I'll let the Kingamans describe the scenes. Three columns of flaming lava shot into the air,

meeting briefly at their peak, in what one eyewitness termed a troubled, confused manner. Imagine that, you're having your big day, you're an eruption, you're a volcano going off. Someone's like, oh, a bit confused. You maybe, maybe could have got that right in dress, mate. Yeah, so you look like you had no idea what you were doing up there with all that. Well, that lava.

I can see what you're trying to do, but it just. Didn't quite work. Didn't come together on the night. Kind of just fizzled out at the top. Almost immediately, the entire mountain appeared to be consumed by liquid fire, a fountain of ash, water, and molten rock shooting in every direction. Pumice, is it pumice or pumice? I've heard pumice stone. Pumice.

Pumice stones. Pumice. I think I like Puma, Puma pants. Wait, now say it again. Pumice. Pumice. Pumice stones, some walnut sized and others twice the size of a man's fist, rained down upon the village of Sanga 19 miles away.

What age is the man? A fully grown man. What does he do for work? He's a carpenter. Oh, that's a big fist. Twice the size of the fist. And then how mature was the walnut tree? It was fully mature and it was a carpenter.

After an hour, so much ash and dust had been hurled into the atmosphere that darkness hid the fiery mountaintop from view. Oh, thank God it's over. I can't see anything. I can't see anything. So I'll assume everything's fine. I'm going to take the dog for a walk. As the ash clouds thickened, hot lava racing down the mountain slope heated the air above it to thousands of degrees.

The air quickly rose, leaving behind a vacuum into which cooler air rushed from all directions. The resulting whirlwind tore up trees by the roots and swept up men, cattle and horses. Like, a lot of people die. I'm not gonna talk about that heaps because we are a comedy podcast, but yeah, it is a fucking disaster. You go a volcano of that size, people are dying. For sure, yeah, yeah. People, animals, everything is-

Because there are a lot of people living near it. Yeah, there are like 10 to 12,000, depending on reports. Yeah, true. Everything is a lot of people live near it. Yeah, there are there are like 10 10 to 12,000 depending on reports Yeah, so well, they all pretty much die instantly because it's that yeah I'm amazingly powerful. Well, yeah cascading lava slammed into the ocean destroying all aquatic life in its path and created Tsunami is nearly 15 feet high which swept away everything within their reach tsunamis nearly 15 feet high, which swept away everything within their reach. Violent explosions from the reaction of lava with cold sea water threw even greater quantities of ash into the atmosphere and created vast fields of pumice stones along the shoreline. These fields, some of which were three miles wide, were light enough to float and they

drifted out to sea where they were driven west by the prevailing winds and ocean currents. Sort of like these giant pumice icebergs. Whoa. And these remained a hazard to ships for years after the eruption. Wow. The British ship fairly encountered one in the South Indian Ocean in October of 1815, more than 2000 miles west, southwest of Tambora. The crew initially mistook the ash for seaweed. When they approached it, they shocked and quote, they found it composed of burnt cinders, evidently volcanic.

The sea was covered with it during the next two days as there was no land for hundreds of miles and evidently being unable to believe that pumice could have traveled that far, the crew attributed the field to an underwater eruption of unknown location. They're like, obviously this is, this zapping somewhere around here. Yeah, it's just so far away. It's just, we're so far from land. How could this possibly be from a... The Kingamans continue, at 10 o'clock,

the magma columns, which now consisted almost entirely of molten rock and ash, most of the water, having boiled away and evaporated, collapsed under their own weight. The eruption destroyed the top 3000 feet of the volcano blasting it into the air in pieces leaving behind only a large crater three miles wide and half a mile deep. So I went from like this big tall mountain volcano and it lost a huge chunk of its height in its own eruption. Wow. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like the biggest victim is itself.

It's just hurting itself. Yeah, you're just hurting yourself. Just relax. Yeah. Okay. Take a deep breath. Okay. Yeah.

So it went from looking like a big mountain to almost like a- Small mountain. A crater that an asteroid has created or something. Yeah, wow. But the carnage continued as the Kingamans roared. Propelled by the force of the eruption, gray and black particles of dust, ash, and soot rose high into the atmosphere,

some as high as 25 miles above the crumbling peak of the mountain, where the winds began to spread them in all directions. As they moved away from the eruption, the largest, heaviest particles lost their momentum first and began to fall back towards the ground. This gave the ash cloud the shape of a mushroom or an umbrella, with the still erupting tambora as the fiery shaft. The lightest particles in the cloud, however, retained their momentum and remained high in the

air. Some even continued to rise. A rain of ash poured down upon the villages, heavy enough to crush the roofs of houses, including the residents, rendering them uninhabitable. Waves surged in from the sea, flooding houses a foot deep and ripping fishing boats from their moorings in the harbour, tossing them high up onto the shore. In place of dawn, there was only darkness. By this time, Tambora's umbrella ash cloud extended for more than 300 miles at its widest point. It's like apocalyptic.

Yeah. If you live at the base of it, you're being hit on all sides of the water coming at you. Yes. And I'm coming down. Oh, my God. There were people who did survive and who were far enough to survive. They thought it was, you know, the devil or, you know, gods and, you know, does

1816 know what people like no one knew what was happening scientifically necessarily. I mean, the people close to the volcano had a pretty good idea, but further out when you're just seeing this cloud and darkness coming like, holy shit, what's happening? This is end of days. Yeah. I think a lot of people thought the world's coming to an end for whatever reason, whether it be religious or just, you know, the sun's dead or whatever.

The sun's dead. The sun's dead. While the clouds spread, clumps of ash fell from the sky. The Bonaire's, that ship I was talking about before, was covered by as much as a foot of it. And the sun was so completely blotted out from the sky that the ship's captain later wrote, quote, the darkness was so profound throughout the remainder of the day that I never saw anything equal to it in the darkest night. It was impossible to see your hand when held up close to the eye, which I can't get my head around. You can't see your hand right in front of your face. Wild. Back to the Kingamans. Finally, by noon on April the 12th, a faint light broke through and the captain was struck by the thought that the Banaras resembled nothing more than a giant calcified pumice

stone. For the next three days however he noted that quote, the atmosphere still continued very thick and dusky from the ashes that remained suspended. The rays of the sun scarcely able to penetrate through it with little or no wind at the whole time. So they just like having to like shovel off Yes, they're literally like like they're going underwater, you know, like they're bailing out water. Yeah, they're bailing out ash and stone. Yeah That would be a scary place to be if you can't see anything. It's on a ship. Yeah, you want to be back on land Yeah, it would

feel like proper, you know, the reckoning. Yeah. The Kingamans continue, a Malaysian ship from Timor sailing through the region also found itself in utter darkness on April the 11th. As it passed by Tambora, the commander saw that the lower part of the mountain was still in flames. Landing farther down the coast to search for fresh water, he found the ground covered with ashes to the depth of three feet and many of the inhabitants dead. When the ship departed on a strong westward current, it had to zigzag through a mass of cinders floating in the sea, more than a foot thick and several miles across." Wow. It's not just zigzagging a little back and forth. You're like having to go like a kilometre left, kilometre right just to get around.

The ash cloud continued to expand and 24 hours after the eruption, it had grown to be approximately the size of Australia. Okay. Now you're talking a measurement we get. Yeah. That's big. That's big. The Kingamans used Australia talking a measurement we get. Yeah. That's big. That's big. The Kingamans used Australia as a measurement there.

I'm like, but how many MCGs? Come on, break it down. Come on, help me out here. How many are like the pills? Yeah, how many pills? Air temperatures in the region dropped dramatically and a breeze slowly moved the ash cloud to the west and southwest or northwest. I'll just say west.

Yeah, great. Westally. According to the Kingamans, by the time the cloud finally departed, villages within 20 miles of the volcano were covered with ash nearly 40 inches thick. Those 100 miles away found 8 to 10 inches of ash on the ground. That's a meter thick. 100 miles away getting a meat like... What? A hundred miles away getting a meat like… What? Even a small quantity of ash could devastate plants and wildlife. One district that received about one and a quarter inch of ash discovered that its crops were completely beaten down and covered by it.

Dead fish floated on the surfaces of ponds and scores of small birds lay dead on the ground. By the time the volcano finally subsided, Tambora had released an estimated 100 cubic kilometres of molten rock as ash and pumice, enough to cover a square area 100 miles on each side to a depth of almost 12 feet, making it the largest known volcanic eruption in the past 2000 years. Whoa. It is, it's hard to get your head around it. Yeah. You can't really imagine that. A hundred mile square and it's 12 foot deep. Like the whole square. Yeah. That's crazy. Like I just can't. No, I can't picture it. The, the Kingamans helped me understand a little bit better the, the scale of it by just comparing it to other famous eruptions.

They explain it like this. And you may have talked, because I think you've done all the other volcano episodes in the past Dave. Yeah, we've done Mount St. Helens in North America and Vesuvius. Which was also number one. Was it number one? Yeah, a couple of years ago. Two years ago for Blockbuster Toba, yeah.

Vesuvius and Pompeii. Amazing. Yeah, people love these sort of catastrophes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They also thought, what the hell is happening? So, yeah, this is how the Kingamans explain it. Geologists measure eruptions by the volcanic explosivity index, which I'm sure you probably talked about.

That's awesome. And this uses whole numbers from zero to eight to rate the relative amount of ash, dust and sulfur of volcano throws into the atmosphere. Like the Richter scale for earthquakes, each step along the explosivity index is equal to a tenfold increase in the magnitude of the eruption. Tambora merits an index score of seven. So it's just one short of the maximum, making the eruption approximately 1000 times more powerful than the Icelandic volcano, which just disrupted transatlantic air

travel in 2010. Yeah, that was a big deal. Yeah. So it's it's a it was a thousand times that one. We still wouldn't be flying. Yeah. Even if in that in that region. Because that one rated a four.

One hundred times stronger. So the Tambora eruption was one hundred times stronger than Mount St. Helens, which was a five. Wow. Okay. Move over. That is what- Yeah. And ten times more powerful than Krakatoa, a six.

Wow. That's the one I thought that's the one you were referencing. Yeah, that's the more famous one. I thought that is like the loudest sound, you know, ever recorded. And I- But this is obviously way bigger. Well, yeah, this- Robert Evans writes for the Smithsonian, why Krakatoa might be more widely known, saying Krakatoa is widely known, partly because it erupted in 1883 after the invention of the telegraph, which spread the news quickly.

Word of Tambora traveled no faster than a sailing ship, limiting its notoriety.' He says, "'In my 40 years of geological work, I had never heard of Tambora until a couple of years ago when I started researching a book on enormous natural disasters. So he worked for decades in geology and he didn't know it.

Whereas now it would just be tweeted. Yeah. Or X'd. Or people would say, did you hear that? What was that? And then you Google like loud noise just now, Melbourne. And you go, oh, it's grand final day. Katy Perry's playing.

Yeah, that's why there were jets flying overhead. Got it. The score of seven, which it had only four other eruptions, have hit that score in the last 100 centuries. Well, which other was a typo? Oh, like 100 centuries. What are you talking about? Was that 10,000 years?

But the the Kingman say that scientists can measure past eruptions using layers of volcanic debris found in ice cores, like sediments and other undisturbed soils. So they were able to like figure out what scale other, going way back. That's what they've found anyway. 100 centuries. 100 centuries. It's one of four of those. Yeah, I'm like, you might have made a good guess there, science.

That hurts my brain. I don't like that. I mean, we have other ways to measure time. Why don't they use that? Say 10,000 years. Yeah, that would have helped me out a lot. Yeah, a hundred centuries. I'm like, oh, you mean 10 centuries?

But even that, you'd say a thousand years. That's more than they have in the last 36 million days. OK, we do have other words. Yeah. What are they talking about? This is like people talking about their babies in months. Yeah. Yeah. We have better systems. When they get to like, yeah, she's 84 months.

You're zero up to one and then you're one up till two. Yeah. OK. Easy. I want to know how many months old we are. This is what I like about the volcanic explosivity index. You're zero or you're one. There's no half way. Oh, they don't do 1.5. I don't think so.

Oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. We're 410 months old. Really? It's pretty cool. Happy four-tons. Just a baby. Four-tons, baby. Just little babies.

One thing I looked at, Matt, the eruption of Krakatoa was louder than the eruption of Mount Tambora. Oh, here we go. I don't think, no, because that's one of those facts is like it's the loudest thing ever because of the fluctuation in air pressure it caused. Sort of like when you fart but you're sitting in a chair. Tambora's more solemn but deadly. Yes, but apparently it had more material to eject after the explosion, so it is a much bigger. It's just like a fart. Yeah, exactly. More of a sharp Tambora's more of a solemn but deadly. Yes, but apparently it had more material to eject after the explosion, so it is a much

bigger- It's just like a fart. Yeah, exactly. More of a shart, Tambora. Yeah, Krakatel's a fart. Tambora's a shart. And then 100 centuries ago, that was a full-on diarrhea explosion, apparently. And that's why you come to Dugaon, to learn things.

Put it in a term that Jess understands. We've got our own scale for Jess. She doesn't understand. But I don't- what is it? Fart or poo? Fart or poo poo? What are you saying? Fart or poo poo? Sorry if you're eating dinner.

Why are you listening to a podcast while you eat dinner? Some, I know, we've had feedback that some families sit down for dinner and listen to the podcast. Honestly, talk to each other. No. We're on the wireless right now somewhere. Talk to each other. Say how was your day? We are point of discussion. So they're listening to this. I hope they're pausing it and then having a conversation. That was interesting. Yeah, they'll pause and then say fart or poo poo. May I be excused, father? Fart? Fart or poo poo? May I be excused, father? Fart? Fart or poo poo? There's other options, papa! Homework! Okay, poo poo.

It's poo poo. Too embarrassed to say? That's okay. You're at that age where you're embarrassed about poo poo. So it was massive in scale. It sounds, like you say, unbelievable, unimaginable in scale. And when you've got no telegraph to tell people what's going on, people must be just freaking the fuck out.

Because it's like, people are seeing the skies darkening hundreds of miles away. They're not seeing a volcano. They're just going, what the hell is happening? And I would say, relax. It's only Tambora. Do you remember the bushfires a few years ago that weren't in Melbourne? They were nowhere near us, but there was a couple of days where it was really smuggy and like quite red here.

And that was kind of spooky and unnerving because you're like, wow, that those fires are far away and that the smoke has made it all this way. Like, yeah, yeah, we were being warned to not breathe the air. Yes, we were absolutely safe. So it's yeah, it's unbelievable to be so far away to hear it. And then for the sky to be going black would be really scary. Yeah. I can't get my head around it. No. And it was massive, not in sound, but in. But it's also... I've done a big dig this year. I'll tell you what, okay. I guess it's pretty big, but I've heard louder.

Yeah, I guess, well, largest in what way? Are we talking sound, touch, smell? What do we think? Sound, touch, or smell? That's our other segment. Sound, touch, or smell? You get to choose. I'd like to touch...

Taste. That was the tastiest volcano I've ever... So you've picked poo poo and taste. Okay? Okay. Not the best combo. I don't know what I would suggest. Okay.

Now I'm sorry if you're eating dinner. So it's, yeah, massive in scale, but also the deadliest volcano eruption in recorded history. As the King of Man's right, before the eruption, more than 12,000 people lived in the immediate vicinity of Tambora, and they never had a chance to escape. Nearly all of them died within the first 24 hours, mostly from ash falls and pyroclastic flows, which is the rapidly moving streams of partially liquefied rock and superheated gas at temperatures of up to a thousand degrees, hot enough to melt glass. Our carbonised remains of villages caught unaware

were buried beneath the lava. Fewer than 100 people survived. So pretty much everyone there was killed pretty much instantly. Wow. Yeah, cause the travels at like 150 K an hour or something. Which I think- Could not even in a car, our drive was crazy. I think often in these sort of things-

Me driving, yeah, it's almost like the, that's the best way to go than the slow aftermath death that many others are about to experience. You'd rather have the, what's that? And you're gone. And you're done. Yeah. It's not quite dying in your sleep, but it's, yeah, it's better than like slowly, maybe, who knows? Who knows? Maybe you've got a little bit of things to finish and you can do that while... Finish your cross stitch? Yeah.

Put that final puzzle piece in and I'm good. I can go in peace now. Back to the Kingamans, an official at the time reported, the trees and herbage of every description along the whole of the north and west sides of the peninsula have been completely destroyed. This is back to the Kingamans. Another official found that the area surrounding Mount Tambora, quote, the Catalan inhabitants were nearly all of them destroyed and those who survived were in such a state of deplorable

starvation that they would unavoidably share the same fate. One village had sunk entirely, its former site now covered by more than 18 feet of water. And the Raja of Sanga confirmed that, quote, the whole of his country was entirely desolate and the crops destroyed. The survivors of his village were living on coconuts, but even the supply of that food was nearly exhausted. And yeah, that didn't end. The death continued. By May, thousands more would die from drinking contaminated water and breathing in the Ashfield air and having, you know, respiratory, dying from respiratory conditions. And then crops were also ravaged,

leading to many starving. As the King of Man's right, in the end, perhaps another 70 to 80 thousand people died from starvation or disease caused by the eruption, bringing the death toll to nearly 90,000 in Indonesia alone. Can I just say this eruption? Yeah. What a dick. What a massive dick. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like the fuck? Yeah. Like, the fuck?

Yeah. All right. You've made it. Yeah. You've made your point. Yeah. You've thrown a little Tantie. Yeah, knock it off.

Now 90,000 people are dead. Yeah. Just like gone from one to a hundred. Hold it in like the rest of us. Yeah. Bury it deep. Deep. Oh, maybe that's what they've done.

Yeah, they've done for several thousand years. No, no, no. Cause I think if you just like really bottle everything up and repress it, I think that's fine. I think it just disappears. But what if you do that for a hundred centuries? Yeah, yeah, it's just gone. I don't think that would like cause any other outbursts or anything. So they just had a weak moment, you reckon?

Yeah. If they were holding it down. Unbelievable. Tambora. Dag, do you want to have a go? There we go. Oh, good one. Fart or poo poo? That was a fart.

So yeah, 90,000, just wild. No other volcanic explosion in history has come close to wreaking disaster of that magnitude. Wow, but it wasn't that loud though. Yeah, there has been louder. It's been pretty quiet, silent but deadly like you said. Matt, why are you talking about this boring quiet thing then? But yeah, tens of thousands die, maybe up to towards a hundred thousand, but that wasn't the end of things.

Because we're not even up to 1816. Yeah, you're right. That's right. You're months away. So, yeah. So I'm going to keep from the Kingamans here as they explain the environmental fallout from the volcano.

So obviously the immediate disaster is horrific, but it just, the flow on effects go on and on. In addition to millions of tons of ash, the force of the eruption threw 55 million tons of sulfur dioxide gas more than 20 miles into the air into the stratosphere. There the sulphur, this is, I was thinking as I'm, you might understand why I'm quoting this. I'm like, this is the episode we should have got Alastair to do really. This is like easily the most scientific of all the nine. We're like library. That'll be him. Yeah.

So yes, they go on. There, the sulfur dioxide rapidly combined with readily available hydroxide gas, which in liquid form is commonly known as hydrogen peroxide to form more than a hundred million tons of sulfuric acid. The sulfuric acid condensed into minute droplets, each 200 times finer than the width of a human hair, that could easily remain suspended in the air as an aerosol cloud." So the tiny little bits of- Really fine particles. 200 times finer than human hair.

Yeah, which again- I had very fine hair. So- Not that fine. Maybe 100 times finer than mine. But it's like, it's fun. There's parts of this story is like, I can't understand the magnitude of this scale. I can't understand how tiny that is. No, I can't.

I don't understand that at all. But is the idea that you could just be walking along and be like, ow, and you're in a cloud of... I think it's up pretty high. Oh, okay. You could be flying along and go, ow, and you're in a cloud. Seagulls are like, what the hell's that? Yeah, yeah.

I guess that's why there's birds on the ground. We got birds on the ground. They go on, the strong stratospheric jet streams quickly accelerated the particles to a velocity of about 60 miles per hour, blowing primarily in an east to west direction. The sheer power of the jet stream allowed the aerosol cloud to circumnavigate earth in two weeks, but the cloud did not remain coherent.

Variations in the wind speed and the weight of the particles caused some parts of the cloud to travel faster or slower than others, and so the cloud spread as it moved around Earth until it covered the equator with an almost imperceptible veil of dust and sulfurous particles." So it's just because they're so light and unable to float up high, but they're different weights, the air is spreading around differently. So it's gone from one big cloud

to just like a belt around the whole world. What? I love the idea of a cloud not being coherent. Yeah. We cannot understand what you're saying. Stop, think about what you wanna say and then tell us. This is all, you're coming at us, It's all jibba-jabba. Yeah, slow it down. Slow it down. Maybe write it down. Maybe go over it in your head first.

The Kingamans continue. It also began to spread north and south, albeit far more slowly. While it took only two weeks for the aerosol cloud to cover the globe at the equator, it was likely more than two months before it reached the north and south poles. Rather than a slow steady broadening of the equatorial cloud into the northern and southern hemispheres, the cloud expanded in fits and starts. As some pieces of the cloud were blown away from the equator, they were quickly caught up in the dominant stratospheric jet streams which in May blow east to west in the Northern hemisphere and west to east in the Southern hemisphere. The clouds soon began to resemble streamers or filaments with small portions regularly pushed off the equator

and into the middle latitudes in each hemisphere. Eventually these filaments coalesce into a single coherent cloud that covered earth." Oh my God. Whoa. So it's, I mean, that's all very sciencey and I don't know if I really understand it. I don't understand that. It's covered earth. But it's, it's just slowly spread out. Yeah. For scientific reasons.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't understand the science of it, but I understand it's everywhere. Yeah. And would it look like a cloud? Like if you look up, is it like white cloud? Everything's white. No, it's dark. It's sort of, it's so thick, it's sort of blocking the sun.

Whoa. Oh, my gosh. That's spooky. The year without summer. Yeah, Dave, you fucking idiot. Yeah, if it's overcast, that's not summer. Yeah, that's right. Oh, it's cloudy. Where's summer? I want a beach day. I want a beach day.

No clouds in summer. It's not full dark. It's. But it is a lot darker. Yeah, you can't you can't see the... You gotta turn the lights on during the day, you know? Who wants that? No, when you're like, you got all the blinds open, but it's just, it's still a bit dark in the house, you're like, this is bullshit.

It's like that. But in summer. In summer, in our precious summer. Exactly, we only get one per year. Do you want another little chunk before we move into like... No, I'm good. Okay. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

One more chunk for the scientifically minded. Dave. Dave. I'm struggling here. This is still with the King of Mons. So that cloud that covered the earth, that's where they remained. Had the aerosol cloud ascended only into the lowest part

of the atmosphere, the troposphere, where clouds form, rain would soon have cleansed the ash from the air, but in the more stable stratosphere, conditions mitigate against the formation of clouds of water droplets." Ah. So it was just, it was just, it's all about the weight of it and stuff.

Yeah. And apparently, like, there's all these little things. If it was, I think I read somewhere that if it wasn't quite as big of an explosion, it could have been even worse. Like, you know, these weird sort of, it just happened to sit in a certain spot. The perfect storm. But it was pretty bad as it was.

But even if it got like washed away by rain, wouldn't that just mean that it's pushing it down onto people anyway? Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Bit of dirty rain. Yeah. Nothing worse. In summer? Come on. In our precious summer. of dirty rain. Yeah, ugh, nothing worse. In summer, come on.

In our precious summer. Our precious summer. I just washed the car. Yeah. The coldest air already at the bottom of the stratosphere with warm air above it, so air rarely rises from the troposphere into the stratosphere.

With no rising plumes of warm air to carry moisture into the stratosphere, clouds almost never form, and the stratosphere is drier than most deserts. So with no clouds, there could be no rain to wash away the stratospheric aerosol veil. Only the slow action of gravity and the occasional circulation of air between the stratosphere and the troposphere could drag the droplets back to the earth. And so the extraordinarily fine sulfur particles from Tambora that reach the stratosphere remained suspended in the air for years, freely transported around the globe by the winds. By the northern hemisphere

winter of 1815-16, the nearly invisible veil of ash covered the globe, reflecting sunlight, cooling temperatures and wreaking havoc on weather patterns." So it made everything sort of a bit topsy turvy as well. Although it sounds like the northern hemisphere was way more affected than the southern hemisphere. Yes. Yeah. Finally something for us. Yes. Down under is on top.

Yeah. Evans writes, researchers today are careful not to blame every misery of those years on the Tambora eruption. My wife left me. Don't make the Tambora eruption. My wife left me. Don't make the Tambora eruption feel bad. Because by 1815, a cooling trend was already underway. It's known as a little ice age, I think. That decade was meant to be one of the coldest on record. Also, there's little evidence that the eruption affected climate

in the southern hemisphere, like I was saying. But in much of the coldest on record. Also, there's little evidence that the eruption affected climate in the Southern Hemisphere, like I was saying. But in much of the Northern Hemisphere, there prevailed rather sudden and often extreme changes in surface weather after the eruption, lasting from one to three years. America's National Park Service writes, "'The cloud blocks sunlight from reaching the earth

and change the global climate from two to seven degrees Fahrenheit, about one to three degrees Celsius.'" Which until, you know, you start to learn more about global climate change and stuff like that. Yeah, we've got to keep it under two degrees like two degrees. Who cares? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It makes a huge difference. Yeah. The effects of which devastated much of the world in what should have been the summer of 1816 crops failed across Europe and the US due to the cold and the lack of sunshine. So this one volcano in Asia, which was actually relatively close to us. Yeah. Indonesia's close.

Had huge effects, Europe and the US and through a lot of Asia in the Northern Hemisphere, especially China and India, which I'll talk about in a bit. The Center for Science Education writes, this caused food to be scarce and caused farmers who were able to grow crops to fear that they would be robbed. So there was a lot of crime as well that year. Oh, shit. The lack of successful crops that summer made the food, which was grown more valuable, and the price of food climbed. Because the price of oats increased,

it was more expensive for people to feed their horses. Horses were the main method of transportation. So with expensive oats, the cost of travel increased. Horses are suddenly millionaires. Fuck. Look at that horse, he's eating like a millionaire. That's $58,000 that bucket. Is he eating out of?

This is why Sharad left. She said, horse eats better than me, I've got to go. I've got to go. And this is why some people say that the volcano may have put into effect a series of events that led to the bicycle. Because horses were so expensive all of a sudden, this German man named Karl von Dreis. Ugh, his name isn't even bicycle. Come on, mate, we should be riding the dry-cycle.

Oh my God. Really? Yeah. Somebody will tweet, um, actually the bike is because of the two wheels. And to that we say, have a bit of fun with us, would you? Come on a journey. Come on. Just have some fun.

That was a good joke. It was a bit of fun. Settle down. Come on. Come on. Shmoom. I mean, it wasn't quite the bike. I mean, it was the beginning of the journey to the bike.

OK. But without this, we might have got there. Yeah, Carl Von Drayse didn't... He didn't have pedals. For instance. Didn't have wheels. I didn't have handlebars. He walked around.

He had a broom. He wandered around. He had one of those little horsies. According to Evan Andrews, writer for history.com, a German baron named Karl von Dreis made the first major development when he created a steerable two-wheeled contraption in 1817, known by many names, including Velocipede, Hobby Horse, Dreisene. It's pretty close to you. So it was a Hobby Horse.

And Running Machine. It was basically like, I didn't have them when I was a kid, but you know, those bikes that you see some little kids on now, that's like them bikes to learn on, but it doesn't have pedals. And they're sort of standing and walking. Yeah. It was like just an adult version of that. And yeah, according to Andrews,

this early invention has made Drace widely acknowledged as the father of the bicycle. According to Jeremy Norman's history of information, the invention was also known as the dandy horse, which is my favorite of the names. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Yeah, I think I might even call bikes that from now on.

Agreed. I'm just gonna, I'll get over there on my dandy horse. You think that could take off? Mm-hmm. Norman writes, the dandy horse was a two-wheeled vehicle with both wheels in line propelled by the rider pushing along the ground with the feet as in regular walking or running. The front wheel and handlebar assembly was pivoted to allow steering. Andrews continues, while Drace's Velocipede only enjoyed a brief stint in the spotlight

before falling out of fashion. Poet John Keats derided it as the quote, nothing of the day. Oh, savage. Keats goes bang. Cut that. Cut that. Cut that. Keats does not hold back, does he?

He's a poet. Shut the fuck up, Cates. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up, Cates. I hope you die young. And I know you do. Jeez, do you? Okay, that was a rollercoaster.

I didn't know where we were going. I was along for the ride, but I am frightened. Yeah, I don't know anything about kids. Get on your kids, do you? Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. He's having a go at our boy, Drace. Come on!

It's a new episode of ride, but I am frightened. Yeah, I don't know anything about kids. Get on your kids. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. He's having a go at our boy, Drace. Come on. It's a nothing of the day. The dandy horse. You haven't even put fucking pants on today, kids. The nothing.

What would you say is the nothing of our day? What is the nothing? The nothing. It's like he invented a brand new thing. Yeah. I write words down. Yeah. Hmm. Thanks for the nothing of the day. Let's be honest. Podcasting is the nothing of the day. Yeah. That's what he'd say. We're the poets of today's society. Yes. Yes. Only in a pejorative way.

Certainly not in a way that poets think of themselves. No, yeah. This is the poetry of today. No, I don't think we're the po- I think we're the mimes of the day. You know, people say like miming is the lowest art form. I think that's us. Do they say that? I don't. You know what? I don't care anymore. I've given up on the sentence. Miming, the lowest art form. These mimes. Can't even say words. Yeah, we're doing the on the miming the lowest art form. These moms.

Can't even say words. Yeah, we're doing the opposite of miming. Yeah. Oh, fuck. Give up. Are we reverse mimes? We're reverse mimes. I don't know anymore and I don't care anymore.

No, I think we're right and I think you do care. I don't. According to Norman, a drawback of the device, the dandy horse, was that it had to be made to measure, manufactured to conform of the device, the dandy horse, was that it had to be made to measure, manufactured to conform with the height and the stride of its rider. As none of its manufacturers are known to have built an adjustable version. So it's not that hard. So yeah, I think that probably didn't help it get take off really as well.

You have to get a, they're all custom built. Other inventors would go on to improve Vendrace's design over the years, as Andrews writes, beginning in the 1860s, several different French inventors, including Pierre Lalimont, Pierre Michel, and Ernest Mejal, developed prototypes with pedals attached to the front wheel. These were the first machines to be called bicycles, but they're also known as bone shakers for their rough ride. Which I think maybe Jess told us about bone shakers in a bonus episode, didn't you? About a woman who rode a bike or something. Is that ringing bells?

I have no idea. Yeah, she rode a bike around the whole world. Yeah, I do remember that. I think you brought up bone shakers. Bone shakers. Yeah, I'm sure I'd heard that term before. I probably found that delightful at the time. Yeah, Ted was always talking about rough riders and bone shakers.

I thought you, when you were like, Jess, I thought you were going to say, because riding a bike did cause my bones to move. Oh, yeah. When I was hit by a car. Look, forgive me for getting you about that, because you never bring it up. I'm very quiet about it. I'm very quiet about it. I'm very private about it. I don't like talking about the time I was hit by a car.

We did have a one year anniversary over there, didn't we? Where we had to get together. We had to get together. You said, can we all get together? We had a cake and stuff. Yeah, it was a bicycle shaped cake. I thought that was pretty poor taste, to be honest. Why did you get it then?

Well. I thought it was weird, but I'm like, Jesse, you okay? Otherwise it would be like a broken rib cake and that just wasn't as appealing. Oh, I don't mind that. Don't mind that at all. All right, well next year, second anniversary. Yeah. I shook on the slice with a broken rib.

Okay. Anyway, short detour there, but this isn't an episode about the history of dandy horses. What is it about again? It is interesting to me at least that the eruption of Mount Tambora may have led to the invention of the bike. Eruption. Skies go black. Crops die. Oats become expensive. Horses are expensive to use for transportation.

Bike. Necessity is the mother of invention, baby. All right. Let's get up with that. Yes. That's nice. I there's a lot of pressure on me. I was, you know, and it necessitated me to come up with a new phrase. And I thought, hang on a second. How would I use this? I write what I know.

That also makes sense because invention is the baby in that scenario as well. Invention is the mother of... I just asked a yes or no question. This is what fucking happened. You boys. I'm sorry, slight detour there. All right, back to the destruction. It was an awful time to live on planet Earth in general, by the sounds of things as the NPS writes.

Torrential rains flooded crops in Ireland, novel strains of cholera killed millions in India, crime became rampant and people starved in many countries. Another really quick side track here. According to academic Matthew J. Genge, the wet weather in Europe has furthermore been noted by historians as a contributing factor in the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo. Some suggest that the weather affected his ability to win that famous battle.

Well, he would say that, wouldn't he? It wasn't me. It was the weather. Yeah. That's what I say. He didn't say that's what historians have said more recently. But yeah. Whose side are you on? Freedom. Napoleon does this period, like a lot of people are saying everyone's blaming the volcano, but a lot of the misery in Europe was brought on by the Napoleonic Wars as well. Like things were already a bit fucked, but this volcano and the weather changes also made things even harder. Well, yeah, you know, like it's hard enough to like be at war. But then, you know, when

it's winter and you're like, like, like war stops for summer so we can all enjoy summer. Exactly. And you get back to work. Depending where you are, we get four weeks off at summer from for a war break. But other countries don't quite get as much time. Some get more Scandinavian countries. They hardly go to war at all. But yeah, Napoleon is this period of history in Europe, obviously, Napoleon looms large, but I'm not

really going to go into any of that. The book by the King of Man's talks about Napoleon a lot. And I think it's a really interesting book. It's like 18 hours of interesting stuff if people do want to hear more. But I figured we'll probably end up doing a Napoleon episode of his own at some point. That feels like a block topic. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Feels like a Dave topic. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Feels like a Dave topic.

Yeah, Dave block topic. Right next year. Vote for it, everyone. Going to take us through, sort of relatively briefly, take us through some of the destruction around the world now. So China, the King of Man's right, the eruption of Mount Tambora, disarranged weather patterns in Asia, although the scarcity of available contemporary records makes a detailed analysis difficult. Evans writes, In China and Tibet, unseasonably cold weather killed trees, rice and even water buffalo.

The Kingamans write, Summer snows struck south-eastern China and Taiwan and destroyed much of the rice crop in China's southern provinces. The East Asian monsoon too was disrupted, leading to floods in the Yangtze Valley in southern China and also extreme drought to the north. So everything was just out of whack. Perhaps even more devastating than this, Ritchie writes, in the Chinese province of Yunnan, where harvests were ruined for three years, they planted poppies as a more robust and profitable alternative to rice, which became one of China's main sources of opium with devastating and enduring human consequences at home and abroad.

So he's sort of suggesting that the volcano led to a lot of opium addiction around the world. Wow. Right. And then they have those opium wars later on. It's like, does any of that happen without this volcano? This fucking volcano, man. This volcano, I'm telling you, what a dick. Yeah, a real piece of work. Fuckin' hell. I hope the end of this, somebody goes and kills that volcano.

Yeah, are we going to nuke the volcano? Yeah, I think we should. Yeah. I think this, if this was a movie at the end, the president of the United States pushes a button. Bruce Willis rides a bomb all the way to the top of the volcano. Problem solved. Somehow he survives. It looks like he's going for all money. As I mentioned, India was quite badly affected, specifically their monsoon season, as the Kingman's right.

Unusually low temperatures greatly reduce the summer monsoon rains, which typically arrive in June and last through September, and provide up to 90% of the annual rainfall. The monsoon winds that bring warm, moist air from the equatorial Indian Ocean to India arise from the temperature difference between the ocean and the subcontinent. The land warms more quickly than the ocean under the summer sun when it shines directly overhead at India's latitude. The veil of stratospheric sulfuric acid from Tambora cooled land temperatures around the world much more than ocean temperatures, at least initially, and this would have prevented

the Indian landmass from heating up in the spring and summer of 1816, reducing the temperature contrast between the land and the ocean. All of this basically just led to the fact that the monsoon season didn't really happen as it would have otherwise. And like China, it was sort of flipped. So southern India, which is often wet when the rest of India is dry and vice versa, experienced several torrential late season downpours. So where the monsoons would normally be, it was dry and where it was normally dry, it was wet. Everything was just out of whack. Tropsy turvy. Harvest failed, leading to a combination of famine. There was also a lot of internal migration,

which happened around the world because people were trying to find a more appropriate climate. Trying to get away from the volcano. Hang on a second. It's everywhere. And all of this led to the world's first cholera pandemic. Although a disease similar to cholera had long plagued India and Indonesia, in the winter of 1816-17, the illness broke out of Northeastern Bengal, where it killed 10,000 people in the course of several weeks and spread rapidly across the peninsula. This is again, this cholera epidemic or pandemic happened because of a volcano. As history.com writes, the first cholera pandemic stemmed from contaminated rice. The disease quickly spread

throughout most of India, modern day Myanmar and modern day Sri Lanka by travelling along trade routes established by Europeans. So volcanoes in Europeans led to this big colour outbreak. By 1820, it had spread to Thailand, Indonesia, where it killed 100,000 people on the island of Java alone and the Philippines. From Thailand and Indonesia, the disease made its way to China in 1820 and Japan in 1822 by way of infected people and ships.

It also spread beyond Asia. In 1821, British troops travelling from India to Oman brought cholera to the Persian Gulf. The disease eventually made its way to European territory, reaching modern-day Turkey, Syria and southern Russia. The pandemic died out six years after it began, likely thanks to a severe winter in 1823-24, which may have killed bacteria living in water supplies. But can we thank the volcano for that severe winter? Finally helping us out here.

Yes, the volcano giveth cholera, the volcano taketh cholera away, as the saying goes. I never knew where that was from. No. But yeah, it was it. Max, it's fun to learn. Thanks Uncle Tambora. I think it was like that was so many people die from that in India as well. Like it was just such a deadly thing that as pandemics can be.

Yeah. Let's head to America. NPS writes, early European settlers were drawn to the temperate climate of the eastern US as spring rains and summer warmth created the perfect recipe for productive farming. Plentiful yields fed them throughout the bitter winters and were key to their survival. But in 1816, summer never came to the New England states. According to Evans, the weather in mid May of 1816 turned backward as locals put it,

with summer frost struck in New England and as far south as Virginia. In June, another snowfall came and folk went slaying. So this is the middle of summer, it's snowing because a volcano happened on the other side of the world. Wow, a place they probably can't point to on a map. Yeah. Back then or now.

Got em! Cop that, Virginians! Uh, NPS continues. Mayfrost killed off most of the crops in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Go Creamies. Hopefully there's enough cows left for the Creamies. Yeah, do they need, I guess you cows left for the creamies. Yeah. I guess you need crops for the cones, right?

What are cones made out of? True. That's when- From the waffle crops. Maybe that's when they started putting them in cups. Oh yeah. That's- Waffle crops. Waffle crops. That's really cute.

Just all these little waffle cones growing on a bush. Oh no, no, the waffle crops. Oh, this has been a dire year for our waffle crops. The waffle family may never recover from this. In June, you know, middle of summer, heavy snow smothered the ground in Albany, New York and Denny'sville, Maine. Not Denny'sville. Not Denny'sville.

No. While frost persisted for five consecutive nights in Cape May, New Jersey. The relentless cold weather extended into late summer in what would have normally been harvest season. In July, lakes and rivers remained frozen as far as Northwestern Pennsylvania, while frost remained in Virginia until late August.

Temperatures dipped from above normal summer temperatures to near freezing within mere hours. So now we're starting to, we can relate to this. This is Melbourne. Yeah. Four seasons in one day. Yeah. We didn't even have a volcano do this. You'd be at the beach one afternoon?

Yeah. Oh, that night, mate, get your trackies out. Yeah, and a brolly. Get a brolly, because it is cold and wet, my friend. And that's just something that's pretty unique about us. That's something we have. Or, you know, during big disasters in America. The two times this has happened.

Even recently retired president Thomas Jefferson wasn't immune to the effect of the volcano. Aw, TJ. As Evans writes, having retired to Monticello after completing his second term as president, he had such a poor corn crop that year that he had to apply for a thousand dollar loan. Ah, the president. The pres. The president. Come on.

Come on. I mean, if he can't make it, who can? Yeah. Just, I mean, he should have- Aren't they paid pretty well forever? I think now. This is back then. Back then though, you know, when America was great before.

Is that when it was? Hard to say. Hard to say. Probably subjective. Yeah, I think it's true. I think some people probably during this massive disaster, it wasn't that great. But for others it would have been. I think Jefferson says it wasn't that great as he's standing in line at the bank.

Please. Please. Come on, I was the president. Come on. My corn's not good. Come on. Guys, come on. Is that your Jefferson?

That's my Jefferson. Jefferson Ford, the Ford dealership here in Melbourne. That's what Jefferson sounds like. Come on, buy a Falcon. Come on. Future president Abraham Lincoln would have also felt the effects according to NPS who wrote Lincoln's family lived at the Knob Creek farm. Did you know that the Lincolns lived at Knob Creek?

Knob Creek, no. you know that the Lincolns lived at Knob Creek? Knob Creek, no. Man, so good. I mean, we've got great listeners from Knob Hill, I think. Okay. Did you meet the Knobhillions at the Chief of the Earth Hall? Peter and a partner? I don't think so. I wanna say Will, but I won't take I won't. I won't take that risk.

But is Knob Hill near Knob Creek? Is that above Knob Creek? I think Knob Hill is in Queensland and Knob Creek Farm where Lincoln lived, I think is, yeah, probably also in Queensland. Yeah, I thought he was a Queenslander. He's got the look. That's why his eyes are in the hat. It's so sunny up there.

I remember he was always yelling, Queenslander. Queenslander. Big, yeah. Love State of Origin. Yeah. Huge on it. He's a big fan. I think he has an Alfie Langer tattoo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's really one of the Queensland thing. Yeah. Crocs. Crocs. Yeah. Yeah. I love them up there. Love his Crocs out there. I love crocs. Yeah. So yeah, so Lincoln's family lived at the Knob Creek farm in Queensland during this time. So they would have experienced this climatic event as well.

The lack of sun, freezing temperatures, and frost would have likely damaged, if not decimated, the Lincoln's crops. This would have made for a very hungry winter. There's no documents of this where they're like, it would have happened. It would have though. He was alive during this time, so he must have been affected as everyone was.

Yeah. It makes you think, doesn't it? Link? Without this, but he maybe never, but he never been president? Without this eruption? Could have been. The hardship made him think, I need to change this place. Wow. I need to look after my fellow man.

Yes. I think that very much is what happened. Plus the guy who would have won it otherwise died of starvation. Definitely could happen. These conditions in New England led to a large migration west for better conditions. So this volcano in Indonesia led to a lot of the Midwestern states just getting loaded up with new citizens. There you go. As Evans writes, failing crops and rising prices in 1815 and 16 threatened American

farmers. Odd as it may seem, the settling of the American heartland was apparently shaped by the eruption of a volcano 10,000 miles away. Thousands left New England for what they hoped would be a more hospitable climate west of the Ohio River. Partly as a result of such migration, Indiana became a state in 1816 and Illinois in 1818.

So the volcano was responsible for the great state of Indiana, home of Gary, being formed. And is that why they call Chicago the Windy City? Because it was so windy there, it blew all the ash away. Yeah. So you could see the sky in Chicago. That was yeah, that was the one spot. Let's stay here. Yeah. This is good. Yeah.

Feel the Illinois and Illinois. They were like, you know, that volcano wasn't that loud. We're more Krakatoa people. You call that Illinois? Yeah, I guess I heard it. It sounded like cannon fire from a while away, I guess. Crack a toe on that. That I heard.

That was a bloody crack. A toe. So the populations of these states boomed during the decade, according to the Kingmans. Ohio's population jumped from somewhere around 230,000 in 1810 to slightly more than 400,000 in 1810 to slightly more than 400,000 in 1817. The increase in Indiana was even more spectacular, rising from 24,000 in 1810 to nearly 100,000 seven years later. In the year 1816 alone, Indiana gained 42,000 new settlers. So in 1810, there was 24,000 people. And in 1816 alone, 42,000 moved there. And in the territory of Illinois,

the population rose 160% between 1815 and 1818. So yeah, just all these weird, like certain cities wouldn't exist. It's just really strange, the flow-on effects. It's like I've just learned of the butterfly effect or something. One thing, like things happen, and then other things are effect. It's, have you guys?

It's crazy. It's, woof, woof, woof. It makes me want to make this noise. Woof, woof. And this noise, woof. Let's head over to Europe. Okay. Ireland and the UK.

I'm imagining Australia just chilling out this whole time. Yeah. We're just fine. 1816. Melbourne didn't exist yet. Whoa. What about the laneways? Ah, they were probably there.

They were there already. Yeah. The coffee? Coffee would have been there. Ah, good. The art? The art would have been there. The band rooms.

Okay, yeah. Melbourne's underground rock community would have been there. the band rooms. Okay, yeah. Melbourne's underground rock community would have been there. Just not the city itself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you think the city's built on, mate? Yeah. Built on rock and roll. Built on art and coffee and rock and roll.

Thank you. AZAC lived here briefly. Okay? Let's give them a line. They lived in nearly every city in Australia, but briefly they lived here. So they're out. They're one of ours. So they're out.

They're one of us. They're our boys. We're a bit desperate, aren't we? No. Jess, no. We're actually really chill. We're really cool and chill. Yeah.

Things were bad in Europe too, according to Evans. In Europe and Great Britain, far more than the usual amount of rain fell in the summer of 1816. The widespread failure of corn and wheat crops in Europe and Great Britain led to what historian John D. Posters called, quote, the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world. Whoa. That can't be right, can it? Has there not been a great subsistence crisis since then? Dave? Jess, come on. Geez, I'm racking my brain. Subsistence crisis. Going through the Rolodex of subsistence crisis.

And they're talking about a couple hundred years. Yeah. You haven't had a subsistence crisis? I mean, isn't there the Irish potato famines after this? Yeah, there is actually. Isn't that during Queen Victoria? Pretty amazing timing there. But yeah, you're right.

That is correct. But I'm guessing that guy's probably English and he doesn't count Ireland. Sure. Because, you know, they have traditionally have not treated him so good. Right. Or anyone, really. But thanks so much to the English listeners. We would have just been there and had a great time.

Had a great time. Yeah, we loved it. Thank you for your culture. We love you. We had a great time in Ireland too. Your king is our king. Yeah. Ireland, they were able to, why could they go Republican?

I just don't understand why we are so, why it's such. Yeah, I don't know. It feels like- We're very obedient, I think. Yeah. We're an obedient people. It feels like- We're very obedient, I think. Yeah. We're an obedient people. It feels like we're moving further towards Republic. It seems like every time they do a little, a little, like ask people,

it feels like more people are going, yeah, Republic. You know what I reckon will happen? What? The UK will get there first. They'll become- They'll become a Republic. King Charles will move down here and then we'll go, all right. Nah.

Now that you're in our faces, we're going to... I don't know. It doesn't... It feels like we're just as likely to hang on as long as England does. Pretty sure Scotland's generally, it's pretty close to them wanting out, right? Yeah, it was very close when they did it. Yeah, they did have a shot. I was over there leading up to that. Yeah, very. It's I mean, Irish bars. I'm probably making people furious at the dinner table.

Probably. But again, just talk to each other. Pause. Now have your own conversation. What do you think of the monarchy? Yeah. Yeah. I'd also say, like, and I've said this before, we're just sitting here talking for a while. Don't worry about what I say too much. Oh, surely.

Unless this is somebody's first ever episode. Yeah. Surely anybody who's listened for longer than 15 minutes is like, oh, I'm just going to disregard Matt. Yeah. I'll listen to Dave, but and Jess, who needs it? But Matt, I won't. I'll tune it out. Do you hear Seinfeld recently?

He took back how he said that the extreme left has ruined comedy. He's like, I said that, I didn't really mean that. I was surprised, anyone was like, okay, like I'm just talking. But I don't believe that. No, I don't believe that at all. But it is very funny. It is funny. I'm like, yeah, sort of get that Seinfeld.

I say stuff all the time, but later I go, I didn't mean that. I kind of wish it was just like a microphone. Men of your age. Yours and Seinfeld's age. We're muddled. Yeah, we're muddled old fools. You're talking because you love the sounds of your, sound of your voices. I really hate the sound of my voice.

Well, you're in the wrong fucking industry for that to be true, my friend. I'm not in the listening industry. I'm aware. Huh? Brian May writing for the Irish Times says, there was continuous rain in Ireland for eight weeks during that non-summer. Crop failure and famine followed. The famine led to a major typhus epidemic occurring between 1816 and 1819.

Typhus as well, God. And it is estimated that up to 100,000 people died. So it's just, yeah, it's not a nice time to be around. Typhus is a bad one. That's a bad one. Yeah. So yeah. That's a question that I just said as a statement. Oh, right. I thought you were saying. Typhus is a bad one. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, they all are, aren't they? They what? But yeah, like that crop failure, that was a bit of a potato famine. It wasn't the big famous one, but I think it was like a precursor to it. Dean Ruxon, also writing for the Irish Times says, a disappointing grain yield and particularly wet weather in the period before the onset of the epidemic created the perfect conditions whereby the disease would ravage an already vulnerable population. It spread quickly, particularly among the poor. Typhus fever is transmitted by lice. Headaches, chills, high fever, coughing, and severe muscular pain accompany an infection, along with dark spots on the body after a number

of days. A number of factors were blamed. Prominent among them was the abundance of wandering beggars and the popularity of holding of wakes for dead typhus patients. Gathering in cramped places with corpses was a needless hazard that helped spread the fever quickly among affected populations, doctors concluded a few years later. A needless hazard. Some people need to say goodbye though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a wake. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't do that. Just don't do that. It's fine. Yeah. Just don't have a wake. Don't get any kind of closure about the loss of a loved one.

And then you won't fucking die. You're welcome. Such a cold medical aid if you will. Maybe do it outside or maybe don't do it open, coffin. Yeah, close the coffin. You don't have to kiss great Aunt Beth on the face. On the lice. Give your Aunt Beth a kiss on the lice. Give her a little

kiss. What are those black spots on your face? Don't worry about that. What about the Arctic? Surely they're fine, right? Well, it was kind of like everywhere else, things flipped. Oh my God, fine. Many traditionally war places cool. They got their summer finally! It was the reverse in the Arctic. Everyone went north for a bit. Have you seen Frozen? No, I actually haven't.

Oh man, alright, I know what we're doing for Movie Club, next time it's my turn. You gotta see Frozen. Frozen, okay. There's a whole number about a snowman who just wants to experience summer, but he doesn't know, Dave, what will happen to him? Oh no! It's a bit of fun.

That doesn't actually sound good. Oh, he doesn't know that he'll die because of it. Yeah, he doesn't know. That is fun. It's fun. That's fun. I imagine that'll be a really humorous part of the film. Yeah, I think you'll love it.

The song I've heard is like the 80s power rock ballad. Okay. I can't remember how it goes, but it's a banger. Okay. But in my head now, all I'm hearing is the Ken song from Barbie, which is also a banger. Yeah. Yeah. I saw that.

It's a bit of fun. Have we talked about this? What? I saw Barbie. Bit of fun. I liked it way more than I thought I would. As a feminist, I'm not surprised you did like it. Well, no, it was just like a movie about...

I just, you know, it just feels like there can't be a movie in this. But it was good. It was fun. It was fun. Uh, so yes, the Arctic. Oh, yeah. Could you want to sing a bit of Frozen? Nah.

Can you sing the song that I can't think of? Well, I don't know. I can't because I don't, because, yeah. I think if you're thinking of the big song from Frozen, it's not an 80s power ballad type thing. So I'm like, it must be a different song. So I don't know what you're thinking of. Okay. Well, that'll be making someone yell at their iPod or not. And again, pause it.

Yeah. Just get on with your life. To those people, we just asked them to just let it go. Okay? Let it go. Yeah, just can't think of the name of it. So yeah, about the Arctic, watch a bit of a good video essay on YouTube

on a channel called Weird History. And this is what they had to say about the Arctic. Arctic ice melted and formed new pathways into the uncharted frozen landscape. The British Navy, hoping to find a northern passage, prepared multiple Arctic expeditions. So they're like, what a great opportunity to explore the Arctic. Yeah, our time has come. Ice is melting, we can get in there. Taking advantage of the shifting weather patterns to cut through the frozen territory

no one had previously been able to navigate does sound like a great idea. But it didn't quite work out. The first of these expeditions launched in 1818 and headed by Captain John Ross arrived in the north only to find that weather patterns had stabilised and their potential path had disappeared. However, in the following years, British explorers and other nations continued to launch Arctic journeys as we know, but they just took too long to get it going. Oh, because I mean, honestly, that's a better case scenario than getting there and then

the path closing behind you. Yeah. And then you're just like, okay, how do we get back? You're trapped behind the looking glass all of a sudden. I want to get back out there. Aww. I'm trapped. Yeah.

Science wasn't ready to explain exactly why things were so weird and so bad as they enrich your rights for the Guardian. Nobody at the time understood what was happening to the climate. It was only in the 1960s, quite a while later, when scientists were able to explain the causal connections between volcanic activity and the weather. So all these things I was talking about before, particles and whatnot, stratosphere, et cetera, and all that stuff that was explained really well. The science stuff, yeah, yeah.

They didn't really get a handle on that for, you know, over a hundred years later. I feel like that's where educationally I am. Yes. About 200 years ago. Yeah, I'm further back. Because that's when I went to school. But yeah, so people around the world attribute it to all sorts of various gods or devils or, you know, just real stabs in the dark about the science. Like, yeah, there was some like,

like electricity in the earth. Someone, some people thought it was, yeah, the electricity has been destroyed, disturbed. It'll take a couple years to get back to normal. And people are like, yeah, right. It's not so funny that people could tell it to me now with enough authority. I'd be like, really? 200 years ago, the electricity in the earth. Okay. 100%. I mean, yeah, I still have no idea.

You know, you go, hold on. Yeah, no, but it's like, obviously, just people do the research and then tell you, and most of us are left here going, oh, okay, cool. It's like, you know, that Nate Bogartzi bit where he talks about time traveling. He's back in time. He's like, I don't even think I could convince anyone. They're like, he's like, oh, you know, like, uh, yeah, I got a telephone back home. Oh, how does that work?

I think there's a satellite. I literally saw that clip yesterday. Came up on my TikTok. So you can butcher it less bad than me. Yeah, I helped. Or more good. By saying satellite? Yeah, yeah.

So, it's a team effort. It's probably worth just talking to. It is true that we don't know how anything really works. Yeah, I wouldn't be able to like cure a disease. I don't know how vaccines work. Oh, like in the apocalypse, if something breaks, I'm like, well, like cure a disease. I don't know how I don't know how vaccines work Oh like in the apocalypse if something breaks, I'm like, well, that's broken now. Yeah That's Jeff go to JV as Jeff rolls off a cliff Yeah, so there's an apocalypse but Jeff something's hitting the earth I'm like fantastic

Great. I mean, maybe you'll talk about it, Matt. How likely this is to happen again. I like it. We can't stop it. I mean, science is a bit better now. We can, you can explain to everyone what's happening, but at the same time, like, Yeah, what do you do? If the light was blocked out for two years, what do we fucking do? Yeah, I mean, are we like the small version of it 14 years ago in Iceland.

Yeah, that's what made me think about when you're like, it's a hundred times more than that. Do what? We just waited it out, didn't we? Yeah. Was there anything they actively did? I think they rerouted a few planes and cancelled a lot of flights, that was about it. Needed like, you know, a space ball style huge vacuum in the sky to suck it all up. Maybe that's something we could invent. What if everybody just put their fans on?

Oh. Just and turned them up at the sky. Good idea. Blow it away. Blow it out through the stratosphere and beyond. Yeah. Let someone else deal with it. The moon or whoever. Fuck you moon. Fuck you. Cop that moon. We don't give a shit. I don't care. You don't do shit for us. Yeah. Fuck you. Yeah. Fuck you moon. Cop that. Cop some sulfur. Dickhead. I don't care.

Hey Mars. Cop this you fuck. Yeah, yeah, you think you're so good up there? Shut up. Shut up, we don't care. We don't give a shit. Have this. So yeah, things were weird. People didn't know why,

but I like how Dr. Harry Cliff writes about it for it. Oh, I thought I had a roller. Dr. Harry Cliff writes about it. Oh, but I want to roll off. Dr. Harry Cliff's like, oh, no, not like that, doctor. I want to roll off, you're not on you. Fucking hell. Dr. Cliff, Jesus. This is what he writes for English Heritage. The strange haze dimmed the sun and monstrous sunspots spread across its surface like black bile.

So the people have seen these black spots in the sun as well. Like, this is not good. Were they actually on the sun or is this the perception of? I think they were on the sun. I think they were. Whoa. So I think this was, I don't think, oh man, this is going to make scientists furious, but I don't think it was actually the two were necessarily connected. Oh, this is not.

Yeah. What a shit year. Yeah, they're not having a good time. Gosh. Apparently the spots were so large that they could even be seen without a telescope just by looking through a piece of coloured glass. And so people were scared and people were saying this. The sun's running out of fuel is what they're worried about. They're like, it's about to die. It dies. Earth needs that sun.

That's where we get warmth and stuff from. Yeah. Cliff continues, as people search for an explanation for these frightening events, an astronomer in Bologna blamed the sunspots and said they signaled the imminent death of the sun. According to his prediction, the sun would go out on the 18th of July, 1816. That's so specific, isn't it? Like he would have done sums or something.

Yeah. Yep. There it goes. I've made a lot of guesses to get us going. And from there, I've done some pretty strict math and yeah, I figured it out. 18th of July. Rumors of this spread through Europe and England, stirring further hysteria among populations already pushed to their limits by famine, disease and civil strife. I mean, you've got to give yourself a bit of wiggle room. Like when you predict the second coming of Jesus or something, you can't be specific. You got to be like, in the next decade, sometime.

Yeah, and ideally... Maybe if you name a date and that comes and goes, you look like a fool. Yeah, and sometimes those cults get to do it again. And they go, well, sorry, didn't carry the two. Another day. That one's going on. Funny thing happened. I trusted Gus with the maths on this one. So I met on it myself.

Gus always forgets to carry the one. This one is locked in. But if you're going to do it, I would say do it outside of your expected death date. That's great. Yeah, like 2145. That's what I reckon. You're not going to make the through the 40s? We'll see. That's not that far away. 2145. Okay. You're not going to make it through the 2140s? Come on Dave. See Matt is so old that doesn't do that. He's like, that's only a bit of a century away. Yeah. Dave, you don't realize it, but that'll be here before we know it.

Yeah, blink and you'll miss it. We're still with Cliffy. While several newspapers attempted to calm public fears of the imminent end of the world, others explicitly described the connection between sunspots and weather patterns. An article in the Perth Courier stated, "'It is an undoubted fact that, during the whole season, "'the weather has been uniformly coldest, "'at least in this country,' Scotland." I'm guessing that's the Perthages.

"'When the largest spots were turned towards the Earth. "'And indeed, if would be admitted that the sun is the principal source of heat to the planets, which revolve around him, that whatever affects the splendor of his atmosphere must affect in a corresponding degree, the temperature of these bodies." This is like, when the black spots are looking at us,

it's pretty scientific. I mean, again, if you were there and someone said this to me, I'd be like, Oh yeah. That totally makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. The black spots, you're right. They are there when it's hot. Yeah. Yeah. But then it gets cold at night and the black spots aren't there on the sun. Guess. Can't, mustn't be there. I love referring to the sun as he too. Yes. His spots when he's looking. Never heard that before. But let's think about it. The sun is hot, right? Oh yeah. What else is hot? Women. Correct. Her black spots are very hot. I think her nips. I think ships and the

sun are women. Yeah. I think we've decided. Yeah. The moon can be a boy. Yeah. Moon boy. Moon boy. Yeah. If you want the moon, you can have it. Yeah. Like Mighty Bush moon was a boy. But I think the sun's a lady. I think cars are often ladies, aren't they? Depends. If it's pink, yeah. Or like a two door. Yeah.

That's a that's a chick car. Automatic. Oh, automatic. Yeah. But if we're talking like we're're talking like, fucking like a wagon type thing, like a big, you know, monster truck. Like a donker under the hood. That's a boy, that's a man car. Do you think, but do you think those kind of guys

are driving a man? Well, yeah, they're not getting inside a man. You know what I mean? True. No, no, no, my car's a woman. Come on, look at. I'm not getting inside it. You know My cause a lady and I treat her like what I treat her or her I treat her like I take her out for dinner on Sundays the rest of the time she's in the shed under a cover. All right? All right?

She's beautiful. She's beautiful and I love her. I love her. I don't care, I can't see my kids anymore. I've just got my beautiful car. My beautiful car wife. My beautiful car wife. Dr. Cliff continues. Car wife?

No, car life. The idea that sunspots could influence the climate had been advanced by the astronomer and discoverer of Uranus, William Herschel. Herschel. Yeah, un-Herschel's like little chocolate drops as well. Makes sense, Uranus. In 1801, Herschel... Fart or poo poo.

Fart or poo poo. Fart or poo poo. Which is it? It's just unbleached. In 1801, Herschel had presented a study to the Royal Society that compared grain prices from Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations to his own 40 year record of sunspot activity. I love these kind of studies. I'm just going to compare these two. It's like financial stuff he's doing there.

Yeah. Grain prices, sunsp these two. It's like financial stuff he's doing there. Yeah. Grain prices, sunspot activity. Let's see. Let's see how they correlate. He concluded that there was a probable link between the number of sunspots and the harvests. Though ridiculed by some of his peers, Herschel's ideas remained popular for much of the 19th century and may have influenced the response to the events of 1816. As 18th of July approached, the panic

reached fever pitch and riots broke out across Europe. In Austria, troops were drafted in to control anxious crowds, while newspapers speculated that the prophecy of the death of the sun had been spread to provoke revolution. The French government was so concerned by the public mood that it produced pamphlets explaining that the sunspots were harmless in the end. And also said, and so are cigarettes. And don't worry, you can just climb inside an X-ray machine. Don't worry about it. It's fine.

It's actually it will make you better. And if you're pregnant, help yourself to soft cheese, some wine and a cigarette. That's fine. We don't. Treat yourself. Treat yourself. You've got it's it's tough. You should take the edge off. You just like they're just like, we just don't want you to anyone to panic about anything.

Everything's fine. Always. No matter what it is. Yeah, everything's fine. And the government, we're still in control. Yes, we're in control. That's the main thing. And my car's a woman. That's the main thing I wanted to say. Put on the pamphlet. Put on the pamphlet. Pretty important people know that.

My horse and cart's a woman as well. People have been saying my car's a boy and I will not stand for it. But in the end, of course, the 18th of July, this is you're sitting on the edge of your seat there. Yeah, what happened? What did happen? It came and went and the sun continued to shine. What? Yeah. Fuck, I thought the world ended.

No, I'm afraid not. Oh, God. All right. Well, let's finish on maybe a slightly more positive note. Um, because there was a lot of negative stuff caused by this volcano, but there were a couple of- There's a bit of positivity coming up. Sort of, yeah, kind of. Um, you know, the bicycles one. Yes.

Like Danny horse. Um- Bicycle. But it's believed that the eruption may have also inspired other creators as well as Richard Gunderman writes for the conversation. I would not be poets or mimes. That's right. Don't worry.

All this death is so worth it if we get a couple of good rhymes out of it. Oh my God. Okay. Well, maybe I'll just skip this bit. The best one. Here we go. The best one. Marcel Marceau. No, you're going to be like, and John Keats had a great one. Hey, Marcel Marceau invented the glass box.

Wow. He felt trapped by society. But hang on a second. No, I wouldn't be, I vaguely knew about this story, Dave. So I wouldn't be surprised if a bookish boy like you might have heard it as well. Probably not me. Yeah, he didn't even look at you. Well, Jess probably has, she just remembered.

It's true. You've probably heard every fact ever. Yes. I've heard every fact ever, you reckon. I reckon, you know, like all the answers to- like you could- someone could tell you all the conspiracy theories, like all the real stuff, could someone could tell you all the conspiracy theories like all the real stuff All the lizard people truth and you'd be like great You'd got a better wake up and it would be gone.

Absolutely gone. It's like if you're in one of those you know those movies where someone's accidentally overheard some criminals talking they have to get taken out You'd be like I'm the Civ mate. Don't worry about me. I'm already forgetting the details. What you just the Civ Perkins. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. I'm already forgetting the details. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know where my keys are. I'm just like, what? You just received Perkins. Correct. Don't worry about it. Have a great day. I'll say thanks so much. Who are you?

Why are we talking? So this is what Gunderman writes, In the summer of 1816, an extraordinary group gathered at a house at Lake Geneva, expecting to enjoy fresh air and sunshine. What are doing to these people? Its members included the romantic poets, Lord Byron and Percy Shelley,

Percy's mistress, Mary, then 18, Byron's personal physician, John Polidori, and Mary's step-sister, Claire. You know this story, D-Dub? Oh, some of it. Mary was, it feels like I kind of still think, I'm not going into huge detail. I still kind of think

this would be a great episode in itself because there's a lot more to the story, but I just knew that we couldn't talk forever. Anyway, it goes on. Mary was no ordinary teenager. She was the progeny of two of the most notable figures of her age. Her father, William Godwin, was a writer and philosopher well known for his promotion of utilitarianism and anarchism. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, penned perhaps the greatest work of feminism in the English language, and that was until I came along. I've just got a diary at home where I jot down a few ideas. And it is incredible. It is incredible. It is put forward the rights of women.

He calls me every night and just reads me a passage. And I go, this is the best thing I've ever heard. He says, Jess, put yourself on mute. I don't want to hear. I don't want to even hear your congratulations. I'm not finished. Her work, which I think is also pretty good, was called a vindication of the rights of women. The effects of Mount Tambora's eruption made outdoor activity

unappealing. So the Lake Geneva party stayed indoors, reading to each other from a collection of German ghost stories. When they finished the book, they found themselves at a loss as to what to do next. So Byron challenged each of the group's writers to devise their own ghost story and share it with the others. Rising to the challenge, Polidori started what would become the world's first published vampire story, The Vampire, which went on to inspire Bram Stoker's Dracula and all that. Mary, however, suffered from writer's block. At last, an idea came to her in a waking dream, most likely inspired by discussions of the discoveries of Italian scientist Luigi Galvani who had shown that electricity could cause the leg muscles of a dead frog to twitch.

As Mary reports, she saw this in her waking dream, quote, the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing that he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Thus was born Frankenstein. Initially envisioned as a short story, but as Mary worked on it over the rest of the year and into the next, it evolved into what is sometimes regarded as the first science fiction novel. The book was published two years after that gloomy summer of 1816 as Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus."

So that's, and Byron also wrote a poem called Darkness, which I'll mention in a second, but isn't that as wild that that trip spawned such? Yeah. And people say that because of just the, I mean, firstly, they were sort of inside because of the weather, but also just the gloominess of the weather. Yeah. Maybe inspired their creative mindset. Do you think? And they were like, they were out of things to do.

It's like, you could have done a puzzle. Yeah. Could have had an orgy. Instead they're like, oh, let's have a rioting competition. You know? Like what a pack of... What better foreplay? I mean, the Lord Byron's there, they probably are having some sort of orgy.

Yeah, I imagine a bit of that was going on. But you're saying, so some of the gloomy weather inspired it, but it was like beach weather, dragging like Frankenstein's monster could have been like a beach babe. Well, I think it would have been, it took a lot, a while to get to it, but Weekend of Bernies was sort of the what it would have been. Which is basically Frankenstein of the beach, isn't it? I haven't seen it. One of those things that's referenced so much, I've also never seen it.

I've never seen it. But I feel like I know it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It feels like it'll be a waste of my time now. I get it, I think. That is very precious at this time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As mentioned earlier, many people fear that the world was facing its apocalyptic end. And this is Richie writes, was depressively reflected in Byron's poem,

Darkness, also conceived beside Lake Geneva during the particularly bad storm that same month. Darkness begins. Let me read a little poetry to you guys. Do an accent. Who's English, right? Lord Byron. Is he English? Yes. Lord Byron. Okay, English? Yes, he's English. Hello, hello, I'm Lord Byron. Oh no.

Okay, just do it in your voice. I had a dream, which was not- Susan Boyle. Which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished and the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space, rayless and pathless, and the icy earth swung blind and blackening in the moonless air. Mourn came and went and came and brought no day and men forgot their passions in the dread

of this their desolation. So yeah, pretty, pretty good stuff. You're not bad to come up with the third best thing written in the house that weekend. Pretty good. Yeah, and it was his competition. He must have been shattered. Yeah, they've gone away and come back with like genre transforming novels and he's like, I've written five or six stanzas.

I've written a pretty grim, that's depressing, which is pretty cool. Something to cheer us all up. Painters were also inspired as Zachary Hubbard writes for Virginia Tech. The world of art changed in 1816. Paintings representing the brightest of scars of the European landscape now revealed the dark sun that seemed to take heat away from the world.

Artists of this time did not understand why, but the atmosphere they were trying to depict was darker than that of their past. The dawns and sunsets that were the main focal points of their art and provided light and hope became redder and darker. A sense of perpetual darkness is shown even with the light of the sun or the shine of the moon depicted in the skies above. Regardless, artists still looked to the heavens for inspiration, and their depictions have become snapshots of history in this, the year without summer, showing that life, though hard, continued under a depressing atmosphere. Paintings of similar European

sunsets from before and after the eruption have been compared with the difference in colours striking. As May writes, particles of volcanic dust in the atmosphere can cause spectacular sunsets. And the celebrated artist J.M.W. Turner captured these colorfully for posterity in paintings such as Chichester Canal, or Canel from 1828 and the Lake Petworth 1829. Although Dr. Cliff, it's so funny because Turner's paintings are referenced everywhere as like great examples of these landscapes and sunsets shown in the time where everything was a little darker and all the colours would change, it was gloomier.

But Dr. Cliff adds a bit of an asterisk about Turner's paintings saying, they could also be the result of the eye damage that Turner suffered from staring directly at the sun. A practice thought to help relax the eyes. Oh no. Oh God. He just had damaged vision. Potentially. Well, everyone looks like, could see the world like this. It's like, no, he didn't know. It was actually really nice.

Anyway, I'm going to conclude with a quote from Richie before giving a final little bit about what Tambora has been up to since. But yeah, I like this from Richie. He's like, he's really searched for the silver lining. A lot of people die, remember. This is a massive disaster on a world scale. But as Richie writes, something was in the air. Mount Tambora, in a cataclysmic self-destruction, put more than just a vast cloud of volcanic

ash into the atmosphere. She fired up the imaginations of artists to interpret their environment, reflect the climate and capture the spirit of the age. Hashtag worth it. Um, I like, he calls, uh, Matt Tambora. She that's a bloody, that's the other way she went off. That's what they're like out of nowhere. They're bloody exploding. Where'd that come from?

Yeah. Oh, what? What? What? I just asked where the, where the toilet paper was. Jesus Christ. Where did that come from? Well, it lived here for 10 years. I couldn't find it. What the bloody... Jesus Louise.

So yeah, just a final, final para about Mount Tambora. This is from the Kingamans. It's actually the last paragraph of their book as well. Skipped over many chapters in the middle, but Mount Tambora erupted again in 1819, albeit on a much smaller scale, registering only a two on the volcanic explosivity index. Pathetic. Hardly even worth bringing up. Subsequently, it has erupted twice more, once sometime between 1847 and 1913.

Isn't that an amazing amount of time? They're like, oh, it must have gone off. We just missed it. But we found the, you know, digging up. We found it or something, right? Right. It was confined to the caldera. So I guess that's just like inside the- Oh, OK. It's rebuilding. Yes. And again, in 1967, it is still active.

A series of earthquakes on Sambawa in 2011 led the government of Indonesia to warn that Mount Tambora may be preparing to erupt once more. Although experts believe it is very unlikely that any explosion would approach the magnitude of the volcano's eruption in April of 1815. So we're safe and I think we're fine to be complacent. Great. Good, because that's my sort of default and that's how I want it to stay.

We don't have to worry. I think the environment's pretty good now. I think it would, yeah. Smooth sailing from here I think. We can just go on as is. Yeah, yeah, coast. Coast, yeah. I mean, what would we do about it anyway?

Yeah, we'll probably write it, invent a new genre of... Yeah, yeah, coast. Coast, yeah. I mean, what would we do about it anyway? Yeah, we'll probably write it, invent a new genre of... Yeah, exactly. Looking forward to that bit. Yeah. That's, I think everything would be worth it. Yeah. If we got a good book out of it, a couple of good paintings. Yeah.

So that is, that was the number one most voted for topic. Wow. People wanted to hear about that very specific year. And I understand now, because it is very, like a lot happened. And I'm really surprised that I'd never heard of the volcano itself. Yeah, same. Because it is so, such a big global influence. And it, like, honestly, I still, if you ask me tomorrow,

the name Mount Tambora is not sticking in my head. Yeah. No. Not like Krakatoa. Why, that not sticking in my head. Yeah. No. Not like Krakatoa. Why? That's so in my head. Which I think is not pronounced that way, but.

So do we? Yeah. Is that true? Okay. I mean, we went the other week about Genghis Khan. Yeah, that's right. But so the way we remember it is we think of Bon Jovi, Richy Sambora, Richy Tambora, Mount Richy Tambora, Mount Tambora.

Okay. Will we be able to remember? Bon Jovi Explosive Rock and Roll Band. Yeah, I think that's it. Yeah, that feels right. Yeah, Tambora. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it all works. Locked in.

Jess, what was it? Who knows? Well done, Matt. That was an epic report. I think you've done the last, at least last year, knows? Well done Matt, that was an epic report. I think you've done the last, at least last year, maybe Pompeii was the year before that I did the number one, but you've done a fair few number ones and you always do them, a lot of justice I know, you do even more research than usual because you feel the pressure building

within you, volcano style. Yes, until I explode it all over you too. I feel covered in lava. And you go, man, that's a lot of science talk that had been edited down. I think Jess would have probably summarized those three pages in a word. It was fucked. It was actually fucked. Like, oh.

And people would think, yeah, go, that would have been better. Oh, I feel really sane. Just want to summarize it. That, it was fast. It really was. It spread around the whole world. It sounds like, I mean, I'm going to put on the long list of places, speaking of time machines, not to go back to.

It sounds like nowhere on earth, except possibly that lake in Switzerland, was it, or Italy, where were they? Lake Como? Like Geneva. except possibly that lake in Switzerland was that where Italy, where were they Lake Coma? Geneva. Where anywhere else in the world, it sounds like it's not worth visiting for a good couple of years. On either side of this volcano. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was grim times.

Not good. I'd just probably blank out what mid 1700s to the mid 1800s. Take all that out. Maybe just blank it all out. Yeah, honestly. Just go forwards.. Maybe just blank it all out. Yeah, honestly. Just go forwards. Actually, just stay here. Yeah.

Some people remember 2019 fondly. I can't really remember it. Can't remember it at all. I'm sure we were complaining about something else then. No. I just got to say one thing. I really hope that this isn't the kind of episode we're in a few years time. Yes.

We're all very aware of what a volcano and how it can disrupt the world and all the stratosphere, the troposphere you're talking about. And we're like, sorry, could we just Google what is this again? And then, yeah, because we've all been affected by a very, very big eruption. Yeah, just like it's the kind of, you go, man, you think, oh, unlike that happened, but I have no idea. Yeah, just like it's the kind of you go, man, you think, oh, unlike that happened, but I have no idea. Yeah. No one was thinking about it in 1915.

Yeah, they weren't expecting it. Do we have any volcanoes here? No, we don't have any active on the mainland here in Australia, do we? But we are very close to Indonesia. Yes. Which that has all, that's the most volcanoes anywhere, right? So we're very, I imagine, susceptible, but it sounds like if it's big enough, everyone is.

Depends on which way the wind's blowing though. Imagine if it's just going north. You gotta northerly. You wanna be up wind, much like you, like from you after you've popped off. Faddle poo poo. Faddle poo poo. Pop up or poop up. Like from you after you've popped off That's better that's better pop up a pop-up Alright well that brings us to everyone's favorite section of show where we Thank you great supporters from patreon.com such to go on pod people there and we got a bunch of some of the coolest people I've ever met a supporters there. I love doing live shows and meeting the patrons afterwards

Month or so back in in Brisbane At the time of recording we're about to meet a bunch in the UK and Berlin, if you don't mind. Yeah. Yes, please. And Ireland, of course. Can't wait to get to Belfast for the first time and Dublin, just his favorite city in the world. I love that place. But yeah, so if you want to be involved, go to patreon.com slash dogo and pod. There's

a bunch of different things you can get involved with including four bonus episodes per month. There's now something like 250 bonus episodes you'll get access to once you've signed up on the dreamboat Cooper level or above. You also get to vote for topics. You get to get discounted tickets to live shows, which you'll hear about ahead of time. You get probably the big one, the Facebook group, the nicest corner of the internet. Such a lovely place. So nice. Yeah, but there's heaps of things. We did some Stupid Old Studio tours for Patreons a few months back as well.

Like all sorts of just little fun things and Patre who are in there feel free to suggest any Any ideas you might have which we you know depending on the time may ignore or? Enact is that a word you could use it Yeah, yeah, and act ideas. Yeah, let's enact it I'm the inactor Dave's ignore. It's very good at ignoring things very good. He can just block you out He's very good at ignoring things. Very good. He can just block you out. Yeah, I'll put you on the back burner. Come around later.

But one of the other things you can get involved in, if you're on the Sydney Schomburg level or above, you can give us a fact, quote or question. In this section of the show, we call it fact, quote or question, which has a jingle that goes something like this. Fact, quote or question. He always remembers the ding. She always remembers the sing. And the way this section works is our great supporters on the Sydney Schomburg level or

above get to give us a fat quote or a question or a braggart or a suggestion or really whatever they like. They also get to give themselves a title. And the first one this week, we're doing three this week. The first one comes from Matthew Husband. I wonder if he's a, what do you call those guys? Husband guys? No, what do they call them? Wife guys.

I wonder if Matthew Husband is a wife guy. Matthew Husband's title is unpaid intern. And they're offering a question slash suggestion. Writing, hi team. Hello. Hi. Long time, listen to First Time Caller. Me and my wife.

Whoa, wife guy. Wife guy. Bringing up the wife in the first sentence. Classic wife and my wife. Oh, wife guy. Wife guy. Bringing up the wife in the first sentence. Classic wife guy behavior. Hey, from one wife guy to another, you're saying? Yeah, you meet my husband, you don't know for months he's got a wife. Me and my wife, Bridget,

have loved listening to you guys for years. My question for each of you is, do you have an all time favorite comedy special? Wolf. Would you be interested, would be interested to hear your favourites as comedians yourselves? I would say mine is probably Rory Scoville Tries Company for the first time. I love that one so much. Which we watched together once years ago when we were on tour and it is still quoted in

my household. It is so funny. I've watched it. It's probably one of the few, maybe the only one I've ever watched more than once, to be honest. I mean, and I'm just counting filmed ones. I think of it in Australia, you're almost more likely to have done it as a live festival show is probably our equivalent of the special.

But yeah, I'd say that's probably, that's the first one that comes to mind. I reckon that's probably mine. What do you reckon, Boppa? I'm thinking probably because I don't love stand up specials. I think because... Matt and I will be filming ours in Stupid Old Studios in December. And I'm very busy. No, no, no, but I don't watch a lot of comedy.

I think it's like chefs don't cook at home. Yeah. No, no, no. I've even seen, I saw a clip of Amy Poehler talking about this recently where she was like, comedians make the worst audience members. Not the worst, but it's like, not big laughers. Instead you see them there going, that's funny. Yeah, yeah. That's good. So I don't watch a you're sitting there going, that's funny. Yeah. Yeah.

That's good. So I don't watch a lot of comedy specials because they don't make me lull, but I did love John Mulaney's The Comeback Kid. I think it was The Comeback Kid. I don't love him anymore, but I did like that special a lot. Yeah. Which one was that? I think that, if I'm thinking of the right one, it wasn't, oh, maybe it was Kid Gorgeous at Radio City.

I'm just looking, yeah, Kid Gorgeous. I think it was. Was that the one with Mick Jagger, which we still play? Yeah. No! Not funny! Working with Mick Jagger on SNL. So good.

That must have been it, I reckon. Probably. It was one of them. Anyway, that I very much enjoyed. Stuart Lee had this great, I mean, most of his are really good, but yeah, there was, I can't, I'm struggling to remember the name of it, but yeah, one of his are really good, but yeah, there was, I can't, I'm just trying to remember the name of it, but yeah, one of his ones where, and he finished it. Anyway, I'll find, I'll figure that out. Dave, what about you?

I'm going to say the one that made me want to get into comedy and I still, still love it. So good on CD. Yeah, nice. My high school girlfriend had it. It's from 2006. It is David O'Dowdys, Giggle Me Timbers, or- Giggle Me Timbers?

In brackets, or Jokes Ahoy, because he kept talking about he couldn't decide on the title and he's dressed as a pirate on the cover. That's good. And it was recorded live in his flat in Dublin. He's like got an audience of like 30 or 40 crammed in and it's got his great song FAQ for the DOD. Oh, FAQ for the DOD. Oh, FAQ for the DOD. That's a good song.

So back in the day, I listened to that heaps in the car. Freakily Asked Questions for David O'Dority. Yeah, it's so fun. It's so great. That's great. So yeah, he's the best. He's still the best. Love David O'Dority and it's funny because seeing him in the gala so many years in a

row always sitting down in a little keyboard and then seeing him around the festival and being like, he's really tall. He's six foot seven, he's massive, but you only ever saw him sitting down. I will say as well, Michelle Brazier, Average Bear has been on a few different streaming services at different times and is incredible. But it feels silly to say that because you're like, well, you're friends with her, but also it's an amazing show, as are all of her shows. Yeah, there's a bunch of also like stand up shows that I'm like, wow, that is one of the best shows I've ever seen, but maybe there's no recording of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, um. Like Jess Perkins. Ah, Jess Perkins. Yes, yes. Almost. Yes, almost. Nearly. Almost.

What did you end up calling it? Almost maybe. Almost maybe, yes. Almost existed as well at some point. Yeah, one of Laura Davis's shows years ago, I was like, that's one of the best shows I've ever seen, but I don't think there's any records. So I don't know if you call that a special, but I saw it at the Comedy Festival, like maybe three times. It was so good. Yeah, wow.

Yep. Nearly all Alistair Trombeau virtual shows. Yeah. I think the one. Neil Potenza. I think the Stuart Lee one I'm thinking of was. So good. 41st Best stand up comedian. But yeah, a few of them blur together, but they're all very good. Yeah. So many. I mean, yeah.

Lots, yeah. Dave Quirk, so many great shows. Yeah. I mean, but yeah, but I don't know. We filmed actually, we filmed one at the Old Streetibuya studio, which is probably still available somewhere. That looked really cool. Yeah. That looked really good.

But yeah, lots of, I mean, yeah. Great question. But I would say also Matthew Husband, our wife guy friend here, answers his own question, which we always think I love. Oh great, love that. Love that. Says, to answer my own question, my wife and I... Oh there he goes again.

God, he's obsessed with his wife. You've already, you've told us her name, now just call her Bridget. She exists outside of you. You know, she's not just your wife, she's Bridget. Next time he's gonna refer to her as Bridget, and you're gonna be like, who the fuck is Bridget? Exactly, you can't win here.

Their favorite would have to be Bo Burnham's inside from 2021. Oh, no, of course. Yes, I did like Bo Burnham's inside from 2021. Oh no, of course. Yes, I did like Bo Burnham's lockdown one, but he's done others before that, which were amazing. I do like Bo Burnham a lot. Yeah, I enjoyed that. Very funny. Yeah, we were in lockdown when that came out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I do recall enjoying that. There's still songs that pop into my head a lot from that. That's cool. You're cool! Thank you. You're welcome. Says, although not at all like a traditional comedy special and very depressing and existential at times,

the songs, themes, and imagery of Inside has stuck with us for a long time and we have rewatched it many times. Definitely the best piece of art to come out of the pandemic in my humble opinion, which is funny because it's art coming out of a disaster. And we can say it all together, hashtag worth it. Hashtag worth it.

Obviously Matt Stewart at Live at Stubb Rell Studios is a close runner up for our favourite special, Good Selection. Nice. Love you and your wife. Love your wife, whatever the fuck her name is. Bridget, Bridget, Matt and Bridget. Thank you so much, Matt and Bridget. Really appreciate it.

Just having a bit of fun, guys. Having a bit of fun. We're just trying to have fun. We're trying to have fun. Is that OK? We think you're fantastic. We think you're fantastic. You keep the show going. You should be proud that Bridget is your wife. She sounds amazing. Yeah, can I just ask you though? Yeah. Who here has tried anal?

Um, that's how Rory's how Rory Scoville starts his special. It is so funny. It's a hot start. Thank you, Matthew. Husband. Next one comes from Amber. I think another, maybe first timer here. Amber. Amber. AKA. It's nice. The Duggo on Sponge who is really quite fun at parties, no really I am, please believe

me and let me tell you all about how orphans played a role in the eradication of smallpox and about how it lives rent free in my head 24 seven. So interesting. What a title. Another reference to a worldwide bad time. And a previous episode. Yeah. We did it.

Uh, Amber is offering. Yeah. We did it. Amber is offering. Umber. A brag. This is from Umber. For Jess, just clocked 2,647 hours, 57 hours, sorry. Or 110 days, 17 hours. Total of Sims 4. What?

I started playing Sims when I was very young and then I had Sims 2 Deluxe Plus Pets. Oh yes. That I played obsessively because of course I did. My dad bought me an old tower and monitor to play but it mysteriously broke and he gave it to his colleague to see about fixing it. Very soon after he started making comments like, I never see you anymore and you always

hold up in your room on that game. Well if he could see me now, proud owner of way too many expansions and game packs who definitely didn't spend all weekend holed up in a room playing while her husband, oh, we got a husband guy here, her husband and dog, oh, we got a dog owner here. Oh, good, here we go. Dog owner, we're in the other room living life. Disclaimer, I've played Sims 4 since June of 2016. I don't spend my whole life on the game

and I've actually just been playing catch up for all the time I couldn't play as a former college student. I graduated too, but I don't care about that. Who cares? I'll check back in 343 in-game hours for a party. I expect to be held on my behalf. Thanks. Huge.

Hitting the 3,000. Yes, kept us posted. I wish I knew that my hour's on it. It tells you. Okay. I was going to say Amazon logging that in. It tells you. Imagine like a little stopwatch and go. And begin.

I'm back on. Thanks so much. That rules. Will you look it up or have you played on too many different devices so it won't actually be accurate? I have played. Well, it used to be, oh, this is dull, but it used to be because you, I've like, I had the disc and then they moved it to like a hosting site. So it

would have reset then. So, but my numbers will still be pretty good. Yeah. But is this an impressive number? Yeah, that's pretty, I mean, yeah, that's a pretty high number, isn't it? An impressive number? That's an impressive number. I'm impressed. But I wonder, I assume Amber's like me because I think most people are, um, in that you don't play The Sims. The Sims plays you. Whoa. Whoa. It wasn't. And let the woman speak. So you don't play The Sims for like six months and then you just have this, this urge to play and then you play it solidly for like a week, maybe two and then you're over it and you don't play again for several months. Yeah.

I was sort of feeling like maybe I was, I was due for a, but I think I'm going to wait until we're back from our tour and then I'm going to just really get stuck into it for a week. Oh, you worry that we wouldn't see you on the tour if you started playing. Yeah, it'd be dangerous. I don't have it on my laptop, so you're safe. I have to bring my desktop with me on tour and that's- I'd love to see what it's be dangerous. I don't have it on my laptop, so you're safe. I have to bring my desktop with me on tour. And that's...

I'd love to see what it's all about. I've never played it. Wow. But Jess, you can tell them what you have brought for us to play on tour. Oh yeah. I've got, I've got... Well, I don't know what games we're going to play. Probably Mario Kart.

Mario Kart. Do you have any... Sorry, Jess has bought us an extra... Set of Joy-Cons. Joy-Cons, couldn't set of joy cons. Joy cons, couldn't think of the word. Yes, for her Nintendo Switch so we can play multiplayer games on the tour. Yeah.

So you got Mario Kart. I've got Super Smash Brothers. Do you have that one? No, but I do have Moving Out where you have to move furniture and it's quite chaotic. Can we get Battletoads? Sure. Sick. He'll forget.

You got a B.Y.O. Battletoads. Yeah. Can't you just order it on the thing or do you have to bring a thing? Does it actually exist? I assume so. I assume so too. Doesn't everything exist? Yeah.

Nothing ever goes well. Are we both Googling the same thing though? Yeah, Nintendo Switched Battletoads. What song is this? That's Tetris. I don't know if it's possible, but we'll see. All right. The last one this week comes from Nick Vederosa, a reality star to the pod with a brag and

question writing, got a brag that leads to a question. Is that allowed? Of course. Yes, it is. Good. Great. Grand. What's that from again?

Good. Oh, Billy Madison, right? So Chris Farley on. You are lucky enough to have a Patreon that was a contestant on a reality show called Endurance, essentially the teenager version of Survivor. The brag ends. The break ends there as I lost in the first episode and may have thrown a tantrum with you all having done live shows and other productions,

what's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you on a show or production? Regret faces or being drunk on a pod don't count. Okay. Well, instantly what comes to mind is the last time I played Santa Claus, my pants fully fell down. That's hard to beat that. That's good stuff. Yeah. I was wearing the extra, the only, I was booked late for this gig. I usually had the extra small Santa costume because this is when I was 19.

Uh, but the only available one. You would still be the extra small Santa. So I think, well, maybe I've upgraded to small now, but that was, the only one available was extra large and the, and the boss said, don't worry, we'll just get you some suspenders. It'll hold the pants up real good. I've bent over a little bit, pants fully down. You don't wear jocks.

Cause I don't think Santa does and I like to play the character. He's a method Santa. Did the suspenders springing off go booyoyoyoyoy? Well, let me just say, thankfully it was my last ever gig because they did complain. It wasn't planned to be. No, I knew I was on the way out. I just got a job hosting pub trivia, so it was all going to be OK. Yeah, that's pretty embarrassing.

Jess hasn't done anything embarrassing. I genuinely can't think of it. Well, it's- I'm sure something embarrassing has happened and I've repressed it. But as we've discussed, my memory's not good. So I don't think I or I just have never done anything embarrassing over before. I'm just always very cool and suave. Yeah, always really, really cool. I've thrown up like while we were recording.

Yeah, but that wasn't embarrassing. No, I was quite proud of that. That wasn't my fault. Yeah. And I made it to the toilet. Yeah, throw up all over you. So yeah, so jeez. Freaking out. Yeah, come on. So yeah, I don't do anything embarrassing ever. Hmm. I think. Have your pants ever fallen down? No, I don't think so. I

There was one time when we were filming So, there was one time when we were filming our Fresh Blood thing 10 years back or whatever it was at Stupid Old, we did this series called Australia Think Tank. And each episode we had a thing to solve, it was all scripted. But like one episode, I can't even remember what it was. But I think maybe we were deciding it would be the sportswoman of the year. I can't remember. There was some for some reason I needed to say the phrase black caviar was the sportswoman of the year. I knew. Yeah. And I couldn't I couldn't hit the

I couldn't hit it. Probably I still don't know what I did wrong. But you just said it before how you said it in the show. Right. As you were explaining. And he kept being like, no, that's not right. That's not how you said it in the show, right? As you were explaining. Andy kept being like, no, that's not right. That's how you say it. Sportswoman of the year. I remember watching long bloopers of this. Yeah, there's like a, like I say it a hundred times,

sportswoman of the year. And I, he's like, no. Yeah, it's not quite right. And I'm like, I don't understand what I'm doing. I'm still a sportswoman of the year. That was fine. Yeah. I'm, which I'm sure that's kind of what, you know. Nah, you've had a lot of therapy since I haven't.

I think it was an anti-Matthews problem, to be honest. Most emotional on speech. I'm like, honestly, my monotone, how different could it be? That and the second gig I ever did, I just forgot what I was, I had drank a couple of beers before, thinking that was the right amount of nerve settles after the first gig. But I was on earlier than the first time.

So I had to have two pints really quickly because the first one went up. I was on light two pints. I'm like, and it went well. Yeah. It's the pints. Yeah. Could have two. That's the rule.

But then I was on early. Smash. I smashed two pints and I'm like, I just could not remember. Did you recover or just go, I've got to go? No, I did recover and it went okay. And that's good. But yeah, there was a long moment where I was like, I don't, I don't think, I don't think of words.

I was, I didn't even have those words. I just was blanking, couldn't think of the English language. Right. So you just literally, you were miming up there. Yeah. I just, yeah. The one that does pop into my head sometimes, and I think you might've been at the gig, is I had, I did a gig at Local Laughs one time and a guy heckled me and I, I yelled

back at him and called him the C-word. And I regretted it a little bit, but also he kind of deserved it. It's quite an intimate space. Yeah. People are sitting on lounge chairs and stuff. And an older crowd generally, and sort of like a bit more of a posh crowd. And I, I yelled back at this man, called him, called him a c-bomb. Shut up Clarence or just straight up Clarence?

Oh, it was worse than shut up too. But I won't say it on the pod. Or F off and D? Definitely the D part. Jesus. D Clarence. We're getting closer. That's one of those things that no one else will ever think about but you. I mean it was a gross kind of sexist heckle that he chatted out.

Oh, yeah. Okay, I love that. I love that context is what I mean. He deserved it. Back on your side. But I do just think I made the vibe weird for the rest of the audience. Yeah, yeah. And then he came up to me afterwards and said,

I was trying to help. Of course he did. Of course he did. I was trying to help. I said, I didn't need your fucking help, did I? Was it your dad? No. No.

What? What, I was trying to help. Darling, I was trying to help. What? What? Has he caught you, darling? Absolutely not. I think he just can't remember my name.

What do you mean, Geoff? Thank you so much, Nick, Umber, and Matthew. I have a quick little update for you, and I think you're going to enjoy this, Matt. I looked up Battletoads Online, and just last month, at the end of September, there's some news from Nintendo.com. If you're a Nintendo Switch online member which I believe you have a membership you can play a lot of old school games on there and last month Battletoads Double Dragon was released

do you know that version? It's a crossover between Battletoads and Double Dragon. I mean you know those games are so similar. Vegas can't be choosers if he got battle toads, he's got battle toads. One of those games is two guys in like jumpsuits and the other game, it's humanoid toads. Yeah. But it's pretty much the same. Both games you can do like spin kicks and, huh, huh, huh. And you can sort of mash the keyboards like, huh, huh, huh. So we can play that. This is the tagline. The dragons join the toads to form the ultimate team. I reckon yeah I'm into it. Huge. But unfortunately it won't be a game

I can play from muscle memory which is what I was hoping to do just looks sick. That's like you spent one summer playing the same level over. Yeah yeah. Well the next thing we like to do here is thank some of our other fantastic supporters. Jess, you normally come up with a bit of a game based on the topic at hand. Yeah, this one was about a year that didn't have summer, but it did have a lot of devastation. So it is hard to find a game in that. What about a thing they create in a bad situation where they create a cool art thing? Do you know what I mean?

Sure. Okay. Yeah, I think we can do that. Okay, great. Should we go back to the old way of reading three names each? Great. Just so that we all have, you know, it's not all one person to come up with a catastrophe and art. I mean, I feel ready to do it. All right, great. Matt can do it. Dave, you and I can read the names and he'll come up with the catastrophe and the thing they've invented out of it. Went very quickly to okay-ing that. Taking you off the hook fully. Yeah, we were trying to share the load, but no, fantastic. So do you want to go one for one, maybe Dave?

Yeah, great, I'll kick yourself. I'm treading on mine. First of all, I would like to thank from Duluth in probably Minnesota? Hey man, or Montana. We never know this one. Let me look that up quickly because I don't. Is it Duluth? Duluth in Minnesota? I think so. You never know this one. Let me look that up quickly because I don't. Is it Duluth?

Duluth in Minnesota? Yeah. Isn't that where, that's where Maria Bamford's from. Duluth in the house. That's why I knew that. Duluth, Minnesota in the house. Port City in Minnesota, Duluth. And thank you to Maddy Glatzel.

Maddy Glatzel, the great cherry tomato drought. Wow. Backyard drought. I'm growing cherry tomatoes at home. And the crops failed. But out of that, Maddie came up with the jingle for Installer Ream. Installer Ream. That's a good jingle. Yes. I'm sure it's international. Look it up. For the hottest of hot, hot, what do you've ever seen? Ream comes on steady, hot and strong. Just goes on and on. Install a ream. Install a ream.

That's nice. What up, Maddie? Thanks, Maddie. From Berlin, where we are going to be in a week from recording. But the time this comes out, it's already, we're back. What a time we had there. Crazy, loved it. My first time, loved it.

I would love to thank Patrick, Constack, no, Conchack. Berlin, hard to think of a tragedy. I'll say when I was on the boat that got shat on by Dave Matthews band. Whoa. And in that came up with a limerick, sort of an anti-Dave Matthews limerick. It goes a little something. No, no, no, there's no time. There was a man. I just don't remember how limericks were.

What did limericks go? Was it a two, two, one scenario? Was that the rhyming? Once was a man from Nantucket whose boat went under a mistimed bucket. A shit bucket. It was full of poop. It threw him for a loop and now they've decided to chuck it. First draft, first draft, first draft.

Incredible. That is so good. And can I just ask, a fart or a poo poo? A poo poo. Yeah, definitely. Unfortunately? Are poo poo. Yes, definitely. Unfortunately, are poo poo. That was honestly, that was great. That's good stuff.

You've done fantastic work there. And thank you Patrick from Berlin. And I'd like to thank now from Bristol, in the greatest of Britain's, a lot of these people I think have signed up for a pre-sale for the shows that we announced. So hopefully we'll be seeing a lot of these people. Again. And you know, we've seen you in the past by the time you've heard this. I'd like to thank from Bristol, it's Ryan Britton.

Ryan Britton. Ryan Britton was there when, fortunately in 1913, the rules stated that the top team could challenge St. Kilda even though they won the premiership and that was Fitz Kilda, even though they won the premiership. And that was Fitzroy and Fitzroy ended up winning the premiership. That's the worst rule ever. You've won it. Great. I challenge you. Wait, what? But we just won it. Yeah. Challenge.

Could any team do that? Just the top team. Yes. Anyway, so that was a tragedy. But it did leave Ryan or Devon. Ryan. Ryan from Bristol. Don't know where I would have got the name Devon from. It led Ryan to creating the theme song for Captain Planet. Wow! Captain Planet, he's a hero, gonna take pollution down to zero, gonna help him put a thunder, bad guys who like to loot and plunder. You're in for this Captain Planet.

The power is yours. Really so Ryan co-wrote that with Chuck Lorre. In 1913. The two and a half men creator. He also co-wrote that song. I know. Yeah.13. The Two and a Half Men creator. He also co-wrote that song. I know. Yeah. No, they were seen as being Nunes and Turtles.

Yeah. So thank you to Ryan from Norwich, also in the UK. Oh my god, this is so crazy because Matt just said Devin and this person's name. Norwich isn't in Devin though. Is Devin Williams. What? Devin Williams, Williams. Wow. Wow.

Williams, obviously the tragedy that Devon created out during was the blackout of 82. Wow. Where were you? Yeah, there was about three hours where the power went out. Was it at midnight, though? So most people didn't realize. Yeah, yeah. But unfortunately, Devon was having a hot shower on it with his electric hot water. Oh, classic.

And also... Go install a room, Devin. Yeah. You see how wild my mind works. This weave, this web it weaves. Anyway, and Devin during that time, he's like, oh, I'm wet. I'm damp. I'm damp. I've got shampoo in my hair. Yeah.

Could I just ask? Shampoo fart or shampoo poo? But in that time, he actually, he wrote the pilot episode of Neighbours. Wow. That's amazing. So he created all sorts of characters. Was it like some inspiration because like a neighbour came and helped? Yeah, I think so, yeah.

And her name was Helen Robinson and he's like, I'm gonna Helen Daniels. Can I use that Helen? Can I use that? Can I use that name? So yeah, pretty cool actually. Well done Devan. Well done Dev. Well done your Dev, eh? I would like to thank now from a location unknown to us,

we can only assume they're in deep with the Vortices of the Moles. Hopefully they still made it to the tour anyway. I'd like to thank you, Chris Williams. To Williams back to back. Chris Williams. Chris Williams was unfortunately taken down by the great Bindi-eye plague of 63. They got in his socks. made it real itchy and stuff. So he was down picking those things out of his socks for days.

But while he was out of action, he actually came up with the idea of a hoedown. Oh, really? People haven't hoed down before that. Some people hoed, some people hoed up even. He said, well, what if we flip that around? Yeah. And he had the first hoed down. Wow. And what was the, was there a topic of the hoed about? The original hoed down was about hoes. Wow. Yeah.

That's fascinating. So that's how it got its name. It makes sense. Yeah. He just, he was, he had a jug. He had one of those, what are they, clay jugs or whatever? Yeah, wow. Yeah. So pretty cool. Thank you, Chris.

From Cambridge, also in the UK, Daniel Spanolo. Oh my God, that is a fantastic name, Daniel Spanolo. Daniel, I'm so sorry to bring up this memory because it's not a good one. The writer's strike. And he's from Sagafra, or whatever it is in America. Sagafra. Yeah. So he wasn't allowed to write any TV or film or anything at the time.

So instead he finger painted a script for Jurassic Park. Really? Yeah. He found a loophole and he finger painted his way through it. Yeah. It was just like a lot of dinosaurs, you know, going, and that was even on the edge, like the speech bubbles that said, was that writing? You're writing that? Is that right? He said, no, no, I'm painting it the speech bubbles that said, was that writing? You writing that? He said, no, no, I'm painting it.

I think of that. I think of that. I think of that dinosaur. So it's fine. So it's fine. Yeah. It gets you out a lot of situations if you just say the words, I think of that dinosaur. Don't worry, I just think of that dinosaur.

Not many follow up questions. Daniel, great work. Thank you. Yeah, amazing. Love it. Love it. All of them. They're. Great work. It's a great movie. Amazing. Love it. Love it.

All of them. They're great. Yeah. I think it probably started strong. Yeah. Yeah. But it came from your fingers. I would like to thank from Aberdeen in Scotland.

I would like to thank Cameron Milne. Cameron Milne. Milne. This is a little known disaster. The Bushfire of Antarctica 1866. Wow. Yeah. Gosh, it's very dry down there.

Well, yeah, that's right. So the forest down there, which obviously doesn't exist anymore, it went down. Yeah, it just ripped through there. So he retreated to his station. Yeah. Because at the time it was climbing trees for science, but they were gone. For science. For science. So he had to go inside and instead what he did was he wrote an acrostic poem.

Oh. Titled Tree. And it went like this. Tremendous. Reminiscing. Elongated. Eek. So yeah.

Really? Yeah, yeah. That was his. That was his. That's a real thinker, isn't it? That is a thinker. I know at least three people have got that tattoo. Yeah, that one that's more familiar pops up on Instagram with lovely font.

Yeah, yeah. And it makes you think every time. Every time. Because he's never, he's never explained it. He's like, you know, art is up to font. Yeah. I think every time. Every time. Because he's never he's never explained it. He's like, you know, art is up to the audience receives it however they want to. It's not mine anymore. Yeah. It's yours.

And that's amazing. And I receive it with pleasure. Yeah. I think more artists should be like that. I think so too. But I'm not. This podcast is for me. Yes.

And fuck you. And this is what it means. So thank you, Cameron. And ultimately, I would love to thank from stall here in Victoria, Evie Morrissey. Evie Morrissey lived through the time when Jim Johnson slipped in a puddle

and he took out the local town. What town was it? Stalls. Stalls. He took out the whole town, because it was a supermarket. He took out the whole town supply of Milo. What? Every tin of Milo exploded. What? Yeah. Like puddling aisle nine or something. Yeah. So it was the great Milo explosion and shortage of 93. Oh.

Yeah. Evie was there actually to get Milo because that was the treat. And Evie was looking forward to it. So Evie had to find Joy in other ways and did so actually by- other ways and did so actually by- Of course, I mean, we all know where I'm going with this, but Evie brought Joy to herself in another way. And that was by being the first Talkback Radio caller. Whoa! Caller, right? Evie was actually the first to call in and say, well, I don't, I'm not so happy about

this. And the this that she was talking about, of course, was. Milo, yeah. Yeah. When was the next shipment of Milo coming into store? It was, I tell you, it had just come in the day before. Oh, classic. It was the worst time of the cycle.

Wow. Classic. Worst time of the cycle. So it actually took ages. Yeah. Oh, sorry for that, Evie. But now, talk back. We wouldn't have had Talkback Radio.

And we need it. Yeah. So thank you, Evie. Honestly, the shock jock was like, thank God. I was running out of things to say. And now they sort of, they really lean on it. Probably a bit too heavily. Yeah, too much, eh?

If anything. But Evie, well done. Dave, final one. Finally, from Montreal all the way over in Canada. Thank you to Vincent Stacy. Vincent Stacy was there when the ozone layer got a big hole in it. Shit. Yeah. So it was very sunny, mainly in Australia, but Vincent was in Australia at the time.

So, yeah, Vincent was there right, like right at the time where it was at its worst. Oh. Which was a shame because Vincent really wanted to work on a tan, but it just was not safe to do so. Yeah, don't do it. So Vincent went inside and this is going to excite you. Yeah. Because I do know this story. No. About Vincent Stacy this story? No.

About Vincent Stacey? I don't. Yeah, well, sit back and get ready for it. Okay. Because it is a it's a big one. Vincent Stacey, what they did was they actually wrote the first Riddle. Whoa. Really? That's a big one.

That's huge. That's genre changing for sure. Yeah. Do you remember what it was? No, no. No, you don't? No. No riddle.

Riddle made this what, wasn't it? Do you? Yeah, I mean, I do, of course. I just assumed you'd know. I don't know the- I can't remember the answer to it. I don't know if anyone's actually ever solved it, but the riddle is- That's a good riddle. What do you call a big head that's got balls

all over it? I was trying to give you an opportunity to say, no, I don't know the riddle. No, I don't. No, no, no. I know the answer. I know the- I know the- yeah. I heard what you said though. Yeah.

What do you call a big head with balls all over it? God, that's a thinker. Yeah, no one knows. I would have said ball head, but that's too obvious. Yeah. Vincent Stacy can let us know. Yeah. But great work. I mean, you really turned that, you know, environmental disaster into a real positive

art-wise. Thank you. Thank you so much to Vincent, Evie, Cameron, Daniel, Chris, Devon, Ryan, Patrick and Matty. The last thing we need to do is welcome a few people into the Triptych Club. We've got five inductees this week. Dave, what is this all about? This is our- what is this all about? What is going on?

What are we doing here? This is our Hall of Fame. Our Triptych Club is our clubhouse where we welcome people in that have been supporting the show on three consecutive years or above. We already shouted them out a couple of years ago. We already did some bullshit about their name, but now we are welcoming them into the club to say thank you and here's a place to live. We give you the keys.

We actually don't need the keys because once you're in you can't leave. It's actually a real bargain. For five bucks a month for three years, you have a place to live. Exactly. Yeah. We've solved the housing crisis. Yeah. Yeah.

And all it will cost you is five bucks a month for three years. That's pretty good. That's very cheap. That's good value. Pretty good, pretty good value. And once you're inside, we've got food and drink. You get bored as well. Oh yeah.

And we've also- That is USD. Yeah, five USD. Yeah. Sorry. So. Obviously, do your own conversion. Yeah, five USD. Yeah, sorry. So obviously do your own conversion. Albanese was about to get us on the blowers. Oh, hang on. Hang on a second.

I thought you're talking about our D. USD. You're talking about my D. We're never talking about your D, Albanese. Albo, get your D out of our mouths. What? And we also have music, food, entertainment. There's a trivia night that I put on Mondays. I know we talk about that that often, but it's a great fun in there. It is great fun. It's really fun.

And we often end with a riddle. Yeah. Which is good. We all work on it together. And I know that Jess, she's barred the bar with an ever changing or ever growing menu of food and drink. Yeah. With this week we have pancakes. Oh. I just really felt like pancakes.

Man, I'd do it all of a sudden as well. Yeah. Fantastic. Like nice, like good ones. You can have berries. I love pancakes. I love pancakes. You can have cream, you can have chocolate.

Can I have butter? Nope. You can have maple syrup. Lemon and sugar? Yep. You can have cream, you can have chocolate. Can I have butter? Nope, you can have maple syrup. Lemon and sugar? Yep, you can have that. I just want butter. You can't have butter. Surely there's a bit out the back

from one of the other things you've cooked. I do not have butter. I mean, I'll take a spread, is there a like a- Nope, no pancakes for Dave. Yeah, we have a Nut-A-Lex? No. A Marge? Nothing, no spreads. Maple syrup? Yeah, I literally already said thatA-Lex? No. A Marge? Nothing.

No. No spreads. No. Maple syrup? Yeah. Okay. I literally already said that. Well.

Jeez, Dave. I like butter and maple syrup. You got butter in your fucking ears? Sick of you. I wish I had butter in my ears. I'd put it on the pancakes and eat it right. That's disgusting, Dave. Dave, no good, mate.

Come on, mate. What else do I have? Milkshakes. Oh, fantastic. Do you have lime? No. Blue heaven? Yes. Chocolate? No. Banana?

Yes. Don't say that's fucked. What else would you like? Strawberry? Nah. You don't have chocolate or strawberry? Caramel? Yep.

Plain? Nah. Just like a vanilla. Egg flip? Yep. Ugh. You're gonna vomit over here. You hate egg. I don't have to drink it.

OK, Dave, some people aren't selfish. Yeah, Jesus Christ. Jesus. Let me think of a flavor. Think like orange, like Jaffa. No. Dave, thank God it's not. Come on, mate, think of other people.

Yeah. But of course, we do have mint. Yeah. Choc mint? No. You like choc mint? And so does he. Once again it's not all about me. I don't like choc mint I wanted Matt to have it. Dave it's not all about what we like. It's what's available Just if you I mean there's a list behind us and you're clearly saying all the things that you know are not on there To be a pain in the arse. I mean that does make sense if we If we don't have chocolate, it would be hard to make chocolate mints. So I actually understand. Dave, have you booked a band?

I have booked a band. Are you never going to believe who I've booked this week? What? Who have you got? They were inactive for the last decade, but I've got them to reform from Wisconsin Volcano Choir here. Oh my god. Volcano Choir? Which is Justin Vernon, who went on to make Bono Ver's band before.

Whoa. Huge. Volcano choir. That's... Yes. That sounds explosive. Yeah. And beautiful.

Bono Ver and collections of colonies of bees, members of that band formed volcano choir. So looking forward to them reforming for the first time in a decade to play our little club. Amazing. The after party is going to be sick tonight. Five names to bring into the club. If you hear your name, come on through the velvet rope. And yeah, here Dave, hop you up in front of the crowd and get ready to party with some pancakes and volcano choir or whatever that was.

Yeah, it was volcano choir. All right, are you ready to go? I'm going to read out the names. Dave's gonna hop you up. Here we go from Flitwick in Great Britain. Please and thank you and welcome Lindsay Olds. You don't make me feel old you make me feel young. Lindsay Young. From Barry Street Edmonds or Barryson Edmonds probably in Great Britain. It's Nell Hall. Welcome to the Nell Hall of Fame. Yeah. You're the first entrant, Nell. From Edinburgh. Edinburgh. Yes, Edinburgh.

What? I thought I said Aaronsborough, but I said Edinburgh. From Edinburgh, where we were just before. In Scotland, it's Chris Devine. Honestly, this is a tricky one. It's hard. This is a tricky one. I was feeling Chris poorly,

but now I'm feeling Chris DeVone. As I shake Chris's hand, that's what I mean. From Reid in the Australian Capital Territory, thank you. Thank you. Emma Drumgold. They say Emma Drumsilver. This is Emma Drumgold. Straight to the podium. Number one.

And finally, from Prague in... Is it Czechia now? What's the Czech Republic known as? Yeah, I believe they say Czechia. From Prague in Bohemia. Let's be more specific. Oh, that's cool. That's Balbinda Batiá.

Oh, Balbinda. Balbinda is the one who keeps track of who's... Bob, Belbinder's Bob? Oh my gosh. Bob is Belbinder Batia? Okay. Belbinder is batting a full 10 out of 10.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you so much, Belbinder. And how Bob? First, we had bagels, so that was the first place I've had a bagel was in Prague. Wow, really?

On memories. Where were you when you first had a bagel? Thank you so much to Belbinder, Emma, Chris, Nell and Lindsay. That brings us to the end of the episode and the end of Block. Whoa. It's a sad time, but it's a beautiful time. It's only 10 months away to Block once more. Yeah.

That's way better than Christmas. Christmas, you've got to wait another 12 months. But now it's like it's now that block's over, it's nearly Christmas. That's right. So that's fun. Yeah. Is it? I can't wait. Our Christmas special will be coming out soon. Yeah. And a whole bunch of other really fun live episodes from the tour will be coming out and a few other things as well.

Yeah. So. Yeah. Get ready. Get ready for it. And, you know, start thinking about Block next year. What would make a good topic? I think Napoleon's a great idea. Yeah. And think about it now, because I think some people are like, I can't under the pressure at the time, but think ahead.

Put them in the hat. Put, like, do some of the work. You know what I mean? Stop putting everything on us. To like, think of all the topics. You know what I mean? Stop putting everything on us. To like think of all the topics, like you do it. Don't put everything on future you either. Yeah. You know, you might, you don't,

we normally put the call out in August. Yeah. You give yourself these eight months. You gotta give yourself these eight months. Just come up with one good block topic idea a day between now and then and you'll have a bunch. You'll have heaps. 70, 80 of them probably.

Jess, anything we need to tell people before we go? You can find us on social media at dogoonpod or dogoonpodcast on TikTok. And if you want to suggest a topic, you can. There's a link in the show notes. You don't have to be a patron to suggest a topic. Anybody can. We welcome them. Dave, boot at home.

Thank you so much for joining us for another Block 2024. What a year. What a year. Can't believe it. It's been one for the ages. Thank you so much for everyone who's ever suggested a topic. Can I just sing gently behind you? Do you mind? I'll just back away, but you just keep talking. Thank you so much.

As we go on. We started with Block. We remember. Then we wanted to blowvember, and we've had some great memories, some friendships that will last for eternity. But until next year, this is Do Go On signing off, and Dave Warnocky in particular saying thank you and goodbye. La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la you should come to Manchester. We were just in Manchester. But this way you'll never, you'll never miss out.

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