Do Go On - 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.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there. Canada, we are visiting you in September this year.

If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. And welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dev Warnikey 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 Block toba 2024. Oh my God, it's happened. 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 latest here, Dave?

Off the top of your door. Off the top of your head. Don't lift open that lid. Yeah, okay. 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? The drama degrees coming out. Look at him pretending to think. Oh, there was the spooky one, the Amadaville murders and subsequent hauntings. Yes, that's right. Then I took us back very far in history to Alexander the Great. King of Macedonia, of course. What a guy.

Then we kind of backed that up with a... Pretty bad guy? He killed a lot of people, didn't he? Killed a lot of people. I mean, name me a world leader that hasn't, though. Part two, basically, was the great library of Alexandria in the city that he found with Ellison Trambley. Zuming in from Canada.

Always great to have him on. Then we had The Illuminati confirmed. We learned about that. It's funny that you're reading him out in the way that they were... Not even as the episode. were eventually named. You're calling them 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, is the pitch I seem to remember. Yeah. 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 on my number three was, of course, uh, Jenghis Khan. I am regretting. I was kidding. I thought this would be really quick. You did this. I don't know what.

Number two. I've just realized that this is taking a long time. Oh. Anastasia Romanov and many impostors. It was number two. But 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 Blovember, 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 came in,

And 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 about two months ago now. You know what, Matt, 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 the type of topic it is, but not the possible answer. Well, the answer is a question. And I've put it in a mathematical terms because the answer is a year. So my question to you is, what is 8 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, yeah. Because I'm not even going to try. Right. But Dave's trying. But it's a year. You can just guess a year. Yeah, 18.

Yes. Oh, I've said too much. Have you got it? Have you doing the maths? 18, 16. Oh, that's right. That's exhilarating stuff. Wow.

Dave, were you on the path? I was on my way. Whoa, whoa, whoa. That has woken me right up. And I was already really awake. You were. It's a two-coffee day. It is, yes.

Except 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. 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 year's... Whoa. So, okay, 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 18, 16. 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. Um, okay, so there was no summer.

There was no summer. Sounds like torture to me. This is only, this was actually not even in the hat, which is funny because this, this whole, The 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 to come up? The patrons also get to do, they do a pre-poll poll where they suggest topics

and they're upvoted. 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. Isn't that 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. Yeah, that's really good because obviously I remember a couple of weeks ago when I was doing Jenghis Khan. We spent about 38 minutes reading out and suggest it because there's so many. Do you think when you suggest the 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, wama lama, wama, chino.

And then a few thousand people have said, I'll have what he said. 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 year of 1816. And this story begins on the evening of the 5th of April, 8th. 1815. What? Okay. The annexed part of 1815? I've annexed part of 1815. This is, it all begins.

You know, I know we're in 2024, but really, 20204 began on the 5th of April of 2023. Agreed. 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 the year mean to you car people? Wow. That's a good point. 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.

They're like, oh, geez, it's from the future. What? Mitsubishi, you need your head red. And then they go, wait, 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-off. 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. Do you ever heard of it? That's a really full-on thing to say.

when 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. Yeah. 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 Year Without Summer, 1816.

which I'll be referring to a fair bit, Thomas Stanford 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 neighboring village was under attack, so troops were dispatched to repel the invaders. Officials along the coast took the sounds to be ships signaling their distress, and rescue boats were sent out to search for survivors. So everyone's hearing these loud sounds and they're interpreting him in their own ways.

The crew of the Benares, a British East India company ship, reported hearing a firing of a cannon on April 5th, and as the Kingerman's riot, 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 slight reports between. Assuming that pirates were in the area, the Benares 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 Tannate

heard, quote, several very distinct reports like heavy cannon and sent another cruiser, the Tane mouth, to investigate it. It too returned empty-handed. Some people are losing their minds and what's happening? We've got to do something about this.

Yeah, this is clearly some sort of aggression or a cry for help. We'll think it's something bad, don't they? Yeah. No one's heard that have gone, oh. Fireworks! Yeah! I love for it.

fireworks. 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 NFL grand final?

Yeah. It's the only place in the world that does fireworks and daylight. But anyway, as it turns out, they were all mistaken. Oh. 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. Mounts and Hellens, you call that a volcano? Whatever. Genuinely, like, it's, uh, if you had a graph, you'd need binoculars to see Mount some hell. It's that much bigger. This is the one that's 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. Yeah. What about, um, where does it sit on the scale of,

noise. So is this louder than my neighbor who comes home at 11 p.m. every night and is always on his phone on loudspeaker. And he's, we're 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 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 that.

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 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 11 o'clock? I think it's always the same person. Uh, there, well, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, it's always the same. I could find out a lot of information. That's really, so loud every time. All right, back to the Kiggemans. Uh, 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, whom mistakenly thought it was. cannon fire heard the eruption from more than 800 miles away. Wow. So that would be what... I reckon you could probably hear my neighbour from about that. I've heard him. I've heard him.

Yeah. And you're not 800 miles away. That's the equivalent of hearing something in Brisbane. Shit. That's great. Thank you. That is actually very helpful. That's insane.

Or for New York is 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 Kingerman'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 plagued 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? 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?

Uh, well firstly, it was the French, uh, who'd taken 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're just got to cut them loose. Exactly. This is not, yeah, this is not making, uh, making me the cash. I want it to. Apparently it was Raffles's dream that they create a British maritime empire. throughout South Asia, as it would, as the Kingerman'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. Hmm. 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. Minty, come on. Yeah, 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. I'm going to really, jeosh this place up. I'm a real Marie condo, okay?

I'm going to like, I'm going to 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. Which is sort of, it's funny because you're like, well, that's real bare minimum stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah.

But also, just wild that you have to do it. Before me, eight-year-old slaves were five. Yeah. Okay. 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 peak. when the explosions continued through the night. He was thinking something wasn't quite right. Weird that these cannons are just going, you know, no one stop. That seems old. 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've 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, is drooling. Drip. Bit by bit. He does make some interesting sounds in the line of it. Yeah.

Let's have a dreams. So yeah, he was thinking, something wasn't quite right, and 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 king of emins right,

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, Marapi, Clut or Bromo. Bromo. So everyone's like, oh, that's so loud, it must be our local. It's ours. That's obviously ours. You heard it too.

You had our one. Geez, that's pretty good for us. Bluely hell, that's good on us. Good on us. Good on you, Bromo. 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's sort of set up 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. It's sort of slowly clearing the air is 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 8.00 miles. 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 Kingermans 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 such a bit confused.

Maybe could have got that right in dress, mate. Yeah, so you look, you had no idea what you were doing up there with all those. Well, that lava. I can see what you're trying. to do, but it just... It didn't quite work. It 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. Pumas... Is it Pumice or pumice? I thought I've heard pumice stone. Pumice. Pumas. I think I like Puma.

Pumma pants. Wait, now, say it again. Pumas. pumice stones, some walnut size 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 Jesus That's a big fist Twice the size of those first And 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, the darkness hid the fiery mountaintop from view. Oh, thank God, it's over. I can't see it. I can't see anything. 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 manned cattle and horses. Like a lot of people die I'm not going to 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 Yeah for sure Yeah yeah People animals Everything is Because a lot of people live near it

Yeah there are like 10 to 12 thousand Depending on reports Yeah so wow And they all pretty much die instantly Because it's that destructive and amazingly powerful well. Yeah. Cascading lava slammed into the ocean, destroying all aquatic life in its path and created

tsunamis nearly 15 feet high, which swept away everything within their reach. Violent explosions from the reaction of lava with cold seawater through 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 2,000 miles west, southwest of Tambora. The crew initially mistook the ash for seaweed. When they approached it, they were shocked. And quote, they found it composed of burnt cinders, evidently volcanic. panic. 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 Pummus could have traveled that far, the crew attributed the field to an underwater eruption of unknown location. They're like, obviously this is, this happened somewhere around here. Yeah, it's just so far away. We're so far from land, how could this possibly be from? Yeah. The Kingermans continue. At 10 o'clock, the magma columns, which now consisted almost entirely of molten rock and ash, most of the water having bought oiled away and evaporated, collapsed under their own weight. The eruption destroyed the top 3,000 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, sounds like the biggest victim is itself. Just hurting yourself. Yeah, you're just hurting yourself. Just relax. Yeah.

Okay. Take a deep breath. Okay. Yeah. So it went from looking like a big mount to almost like a... Small mountain. A crater that an asteroid has created or something. Yeah, wow.

But the carnage continued as the Kingerman's right. Propeled by the force of the eruption, grey 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. Wow. 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. If you live at the base of it, you're being hit on all sides. Do the water coming at your heart? Yes. Ash coming down. Oh, my God.

There were people who did survive. who were far enough to survive, they thought it was, you know, the devil or, you know, gods and, you know, does 1816? No, 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 cloud spread,

clumps of ash fell from the sky. The Benares, 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 Kingermans. Finally by noon on April the 12th, a faint light broke through and the captain was struck by the thought that the Benares 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 they're going underwater, you know, like they're bailing out water, but they're doing it with ash. Ash and stone. Yeah. That would be, it 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. True. Yeah. It would feel like, like proper, you know, the reckoning. Yeah. The King of Mons 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 like it's not just zig-warked. It's not just zigzagging a little back and forth. You're like having to go like a kilometre left,

a 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 to measurement we get. Yeah. That's big.

That's big. The Kingermans used Australia as a measurement there. I'm like, but how many MCGs? Come on. Break it down. Come on. Help me out here. Pools.

How many? pools. 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. Westerly. According to the King ofans, 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. Fuck, that's a meter thick. 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 2,000 years. Whoa. It is, it's hard to get your head around it. Yeah, you can't really imagine that. 100 miles square and it's 12 foot deep, like the whole square. Yeah.

That's gross. Like I just can't. No, I can't picture it. The Kingermans helped me understand a little bit. better 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 mountains and Helens in North America and Vesuvius. Vesuvius. Vesuvius. Which was also number one, was it number one? Yeah, a couple of years ago. Yeah. Wow.

Two years ago for Blockbuster Tobia, yeah. Vesuvius and Pompeii. Amazing. Yeah, people love these sort of catastrophies. Yeah. Yeah, they all. also thought, what the hell is happening? So yeah, this is how the Kingermans 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 1,000 times more powerful than the Icelandic volcano, which disrupted transatlantic air travel in 2010. Yeah, that was a big deal. Yeah. So it was a thousand times that one. We still wouldn't be flying. Yeah.

Even up in that region. Because that one rated a four. 100 times stronger. So the tambora eruption was 100 times stronger than mounts and hellens, which was a five. Wow, okay, move over. That is where. Yeah. And 10 times more powerful than Crackatoa are six.

Wow, that's the one. I thought that's the one you were referencing. Yeah, that's the more famous one. Because I thought that is like the loudest sound that, you know, ever record it. And I, um. But this is obviously, this is obviously way bigger. Well, yeah, this, Robert Evans writes for the Smithsonian. why Cracketotaur might be more widely known,

saying Cracketatire is more widely known, partly because it erupted in 1883, after the invention of the Telegraph, which spread the news quickly. Word of Tambora travelled 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 started to work for decades in geology. and he didn't know it. Which is... Whereas now it would just be tweeted. Yeah. You know, or exed.

Yeah. People would say, did you hear that? What was that? Can it? And then you Google like, loud noise just now, Melbourne. And you go, oh, it's grandfinal day. Candy 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 hundred centuries. Whoa. Which other was a time. hypo. Oh, like 100 centuries. What are you talking about? Was that 10,000 years?

But the, yeah, the king of men say that scientists can measure past eruptions using layers of volcanic debris found in ice cores, lake sediments and other undisturbed soils. So they're able to, like, figure out what scale other going way back. That's what they've found anyway. A hundred centuries. Hundred centuries. No. It's one of four of those.

Yeah, I'm like, it's like, that's 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. 100 centuries, I'm like, oh, you mean 10 centuries? But even that, you'd say 1,000 years. That's more than they have in the last 36 million days. Okay, we do have other words. Yeah. What are they talking? This is like people talking about their babies in months.

Yeah, yeah. We have better sisters. When they get to like, yeah, she's 84 months. You're zero up to one and then you're one up till two. Okay? 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 4-turn. Just a baby. 4-10 baby. One thing I looked at, Matt, the eruption of Krakatoa was louder than the eruption of Mount Tambora. Oh, here we go. 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 a song but deadly. Yes, but apparently had more material to eject after the explosion, so it is much bigger. It's just like a fart. It's, yeah, exactly. More of a sharp, tampora. Yeah, Cracketell is a fart. Tambora is a shot.

And then 100 centuries ago, that was a full-on diarrhea explosion, apparently. And that's why you come to do go on to learn things. Put in her terms that Jess understands. We've got our own scale for Jess. She doesn't understand. But I don't. Fart or poo? Fart or poo.

A new segment, 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.

So how was your day? No, we are, we are point of discussion. So they're listening to this. I hope they're pausing it and then have a conversation. That was interesting. Yeah, they'll pause and then say, fart or poo-poo. May I be excused, father? Fart or poo-poo.

There's other options, Papa. Homework. Okay, poo-poo. It's 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. Yeah. 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. Yeah. They're not seeing a volcano.

They're just going, what the hell is happening? I know it's saying, 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 smoggy and quite red here. And that was kind of spooky and unnerving because you're like, wow, 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 and stuff.

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. Nuh. And it was massive, not in sound, but in scale. I wasn't trying to.

But it's also. It's not a big dig this thing. Oh, don't worry. Okay. I guess it's pretty big, but I've heard louder. Yeah, I guess, the largest in what way are we talking? Sound touch, smell? What do we say?

Sound touch or smell? That's our other segment. Sound touch or smell. You get to choose. I'd like to touch this. Taste. It was the tastiest. So you've picked poo-poo and taste.

Okay. Not the best combo. I would suggest. Now I'm sorry if you're eating dinner. So it's, yeah, massive and scale, but also the deadliest volcano eruption in recorded history. As the Kingerman'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. Carbonized 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, because it travels at like, what, 150K an hour or something.

Which I think... Not even in a car, our drive is crazy. I think often in... Sorry, sorry, sorry. In these sort of things, it's almost like the, that's the best way to go than the slow. Oh, yeah, yeah. Aftermath death that many others are about to experience. Yeah.

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. Yeah. Put that final puzzle piece in. and I'm good. I can go in peace now. Back to the Kingermans. 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 back to the Kingermans. Another official found that the era surrounding Mount Tambora, quote, the cattle and 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 Sengar 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, it 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 80,000 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, all right. You've made it, yeah, you've made your point. Yeah, you've thrown a little tantee.

Now, knock it off. Clearly got anger issues. 90,000 people are dead. Yeah, just like gone from 1 to 100. Hold it in like the rest of us. Yeah. Burry it deep. Maybe that's what they'd done.

Yeah, they've done for several thousand years. No, no, no, because 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 have you do that for 100 centuries? Yeah, yeah, it's just gone. Okay. I don't think that would.

like cause any other outbursts or anything. So they just had a weak moment, you reckon. If they were holding it down. Unbelievable. Dumbora. Dag, do you want to have to 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. been louder. It's been, it was pretty quiet, silent but deadly like you said. Matt, why are you talking about this boring, quiet thing then? But yeah, tens of thousands, though I may be up to

towards 100,000, but that wasn't the end of things. Because we're not even up to 1816. Yeah, you're right. That's right. Yeah, months away. Yeah. So I'm going to keep reading from the Kingermans 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 through 55 million tons of sulfur dioxide gas more than 20 miles into the air into the stratosphere. The air, 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 Alistair to do, really.

This is like easily the most scientific. speak of all the nine. Oh, gotcha, yeah. We're like library. That'd be him. Yeah. So yes, they go on. There, the sulphur dioxide rapidly combined with readily available hydroxide gas,

which in liquid form is commonly known as hydrogen peroxide, to form more than 100 million tonnes of sulphuric acid. The sulfuric acid condensed into minute droplets, each 200 times finer than the width of a human hair. they 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 I have very fine hair. Not that fine. Maybe 100 times finer than mine. But it's like, it's fun. Part of this story is like, I can't understand the magnitude of this scale. I can't. I can't understand that is. No, I can't.

I don't understand that at all. But is the idea that you could be walking along and be like, ow! And you're in a cloud of... I think it's up pretty high. Oh, okay. So you could be flying along and go, ow! And you're in a cloud.

Seagulls are like, what the hell is 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 cause 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 sulphurous particles.

So it's just because they're so light and able to float up high, but they're different weights, the air 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. We cannot understand what you're saying. Stop, think about what you want to say, and then tell us.

This is all, you're coming at us, it's all jibba jabber. Yeah, slow it down. Slow it down. Maybe write it down, maybe go over it in your head first. The Kingermans 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 a 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 cloud 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 well. It's covered earth. But it's just slowly spread out for scientific reasons. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't understand the signs of it, but I understand it's everywhere. And would it look like a cloud?

Like if you look up as 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. 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 true. Oh, it's cloudy. Where's summer? No clouds.

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, yeah, you can't see the. You got to turn the lights on during the day. Yeah.

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. This is bullshit. It's like that. But in summer. In summer, in our precious summer.

Exactly. We only get one. Do you want another little chunk before we move into like... No, I'm good. Okay. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Just one more chunk for the scientifically minded.

Dave. I'm struggling there. This is still with the King of Men's. 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, um, I think I read somewhere that if, if it wasn't quite as big of an explosion,

it could have been even worse. Like, you know, these weird sort of, it's just, it just happened to sit in a certain spot. It's like a 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 to people anyway? Yeah, yeah.

A bit of dirty rain. Yeah. Oh, nothing worse. In summer, come on. Our precious summer. Our pressure summer. I just washed the car. The coldest air already at the bottom of the stratosphere with warmer air above it.

So air rarely rises from the troposphere into the stratosphere with no rising plumes of warm air to carry moisture into this 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 reached the stratosphere remain suspended in the air for years, freely transported around the globe by the winds.

By the northern hemisphere winter of 1815-16, the netherly, the netherly, the netherm, A 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's on top. Yeah. Evans writes, researchers today are careful not to blame every misery of those years on the tambour eruption. My wife left me. Don't make the tambour eruption feel that. Because by 1815, a cooling trend was already underway. It's like known as like 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 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 I, until, you know, you're starting to learn more about global climate change and stuff. Like, oh, is that big deal? Yeah, we've got to keep it under two degrees. Like, two degrees, who cares? 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, you know, relatively close to us. Yeah.

Yeah, Indonesia's close. Had huge effects, Europe and the US and, you know, through a lot of Asia in the northern hemisphere, especially China and India, which I'll talk about it a bit. The Centre for Science Education, 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 a millionaire. Look at that horse. He said it's like a millionaire.

That's $58,000 that bucket, is it now? This is why Sharon 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 Carl von Dr. Snobie isn't even bicycle

Come on, mate We should be riding the dryicle Oh my god Really, yeah Somebody will tweet Actually the buy 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 Shimon. I mean, it wasn't quite the bike. I mean, it was the beginning of the journey to the bike. Okay. But without this, we might have got there. Yeah, Carl Vondrace didn't, he didn't have pedals. For instance.

Didn't have wheels. I didn't have handle bars. He walked around. He wandered around. He had one of those little horses. According to Evan Andrews, write of history.com, a German baron named Carl von Dres. made the first major development when he created a steerable two-wheeled contraption in 1817,

known by many names including Velocopied, hobby horse, dracine. It was pretty close for you. So it was a hobby horse? And running machine. It was basically like, they 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 up.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like just an adult version of that. And yeah, according to Andrews, this early invention has made Drace widely acknowledge 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 favourite of the names. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I think I might even call bikes that from now on. Agreed.

I'm just going to, I'll get over there on my dandy horse. Do you think that could take off? Mm-hmm. Norman writes, the Danny 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 Velocopied only enjoyed a briefs in the spotlight before falling out of fashion, poet John Keats derided it as the quote, nothing of the day.

Oh, savage. Cage goes back. Cop that. Cut that. Cates does not hold back, does he? He's a poet. Shut the fuck up, Kate. Shut the fuck up, Kate.

I hope you die young. Jesus, did it? And I know you do. Okay, that was a roller coaster. 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 Keith. It's good on you, Keith.

Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. He's having to go on our board. with Drace? Come on. The nothing of the day? The dandy horse? You don't even put fucking pants on today, capes?

The nothing. What did he says 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.

you say? 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'mes of the day. You know, people say like, miming is the lowest art formed, 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 these sentences. Miming, the lowest art form. These mimes. Can't even say.

words. Yeah, we're doing the opposite of miming. Yeah. Oh, far, I've give up. Are we reverse mimed? 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 of Danty Horse, was that it had to be made to measure, manufactured to conform with the height and the stride of its rider. Oh, wow. 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 takeoff really as well.

They're all custom built. Other inventors would go on or improve Vondres' design over the years, as Andrews writes. Beginning in the 1860s, several different French inventors, including Pierre Lelliment, Pierre Michel, and Ernest the Mijal. 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. a 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?

It doesn't ring any bus. I have no idea. Yeah, she rode a bike around the whole world. Yeah, I do remember that story. I think you brought up bone shakers. Yeah, I'm sure I'd heard that. I'd probably found that delightful at the time. Yeah, Jess is 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 forgetting about that because you never bring it up. 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 of it, though, didn't we? Where we had to get together. We had to get together. 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, you know, Jess, are you okay? Otherwise, it would be like a broken rib cake and that just wasn't as appealing. Oh, I don't mind that. I don't mind that at all. All right, well, next year. Second anniversary. Yeah.

I shuck on the slice with the broken rib. Okay. Anyway, short detour there, but this isn't an episode about the history of dandy horses. What is it about again? But 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 another invention baby all right let's come up with that yes that's nice there was 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 but also it makes sense a bit because invention is the baby in that scenario as well invention is the mother of all right I just ask a yes

a no question this is what's fucking happened you boys sorry a 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 sidetrack 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. That's what historians have said more recently. But, yeah. Who side are you on? Freedom.

Napoleon does look. In this period, like a lot of, you know, 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 oh yeah like war stops for summer

so we can all enjoy summer exactly and you're gonna 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 yeah scandinavian countries they hardly go to war at all um but yeah napoleon is this period of history in Europe is obviously Napoleon looms large but I'm not really going to go into any of that. The book by the Kingerman'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, 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 Kingerman'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 Kingerman's right 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, Richie writes, in the Chinese province of Yunnan, where harvest 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 opian 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. Fuck, I know. 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 into 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 arrived. 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,

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. Topsy-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, you know, more appropriate climate. Trying to get away from the book. Yeah. 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 dot com writes, the first color of pandemic stemmed from contaminated rice. The disease quickly spread throughout most of India, modern day Myanmar, and modern day Sri Lanka by traveling along trade routes established by Europeans. So volcanoes and Europeans led to this big color 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, in Japan in 1822 by way of infected people on ships. It also spread beyond Asia. In 1821, British troops traveling 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 the 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 then, yeah, is it. Max, it's fun to learn.

Thanks, Uncle Tambora. I think it was like, that was so many people died 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 rights, 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. What? So this is the middle of summer. It's snowing because the volcano happened on the other side of the world. Well, a place they probably can't point two on a map.

Yeah. Back then or now? Got them. Cop that, Virginians. NPS continues. May Frost 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 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 him 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 Denysville, Maine.

Denny'sville. Oh, Denny's now. 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.

Now we're starting to, we can relate to this. This is Melbourne. Yeah. Four seasons in one day. Yeah. And we didn't even have a volcano do this. You're at the beach one afternoon. Yeah.

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. Uh-huh.

The two times this has happened. Even recently retired President Thomas Jefferson wasn't immune to the effect of the volcano. Oh, T.J. 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. Oh, the president. 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, they, you know, where in 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. Come on, I was the president. Come on. My corn's not good. Come on. Nice, come on. Is that you, Jefferson? That's my Jefferson.

Jefferson 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 Lincoln's lived at Knob Creek? Nob Creek, no. Man, it's so good. I mean, we've got great listeners from, great listeners from Nob Hill, I think. Okay. Did you meet the Nob Hillians? at the cheerful,

Peter and a partner. I don't think so. I want to say Will, but I won't. I won't take that risk. But is Knob Hill near Nob Creek? Is that above Nob Creek? I think Nob Hill is in Queensland

and Nob 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 he's always around the hat. It's so sunny up there. I remember he was always yelling Queenslander. Queensland.

Big, yeah. Love state of origin. Oh, huge on it. He's a big fan. I think he has an Alfie Langer tattoo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those other stuff about him. Yeah, that's really one other Queensland thing.

Yeah, Crocs. Crocs, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they love them. I love Crocs, 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 damage, 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. They're assuming he was alive during this time, so he must have been affected as everyone was. Yeah. It makes you think, doesn't it? Lincoln? Without this, but he maybe never, but he never had 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 the 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 that it blew all the ash or. 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 Illinoises, they were like, you know, that volcano wasn't that loud. We're more crackatoa people. You call that Illinois. Yeah. I guess I heard it. It sounded like cannon fire from Wallaway, I guess. Crackettoa. Now that.

That I heard. That was a bloody crack. Atoa. So the populations of these states boomed during the decade of. under the Kingermans. Ohio's population jumped from somewhere around 230,000 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 of the, like, things happen and then other things are affected. It's crazy. It's crazy. It makes me want to make this noise. Let's head over to Europe. Okay. I'm imagining Australia just chilling out this whole time. Yeah.

We're just fine. 1816. Melbourne didn't exist yet. Whoa. Yeah. What about the laneways? They were probably there. They were there already.

Yeah. The coffee? Coffee would have been there. Oh, good. The art? The art. 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 art and coffee and rock and roll. Thank you. I said East, they lived here briefly.

Okay? Let's give them a lane. They lived in nearly every city of Australia, but briefly they lived here. So they're out. They're one of ours. They're a bit desperate, aren't we? Uh, 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. They can't be right, can it?

Has there not been a great subsistence crisis since then? Dave, Jess. Geez, I'm racking my brain. Oh, subsistence crisis. Yeah, it's going through the roll-a-dex of subsistence crisis. Yeah. We're talking about a couple hundred years. Yeah.

You haven't heard of some... I mean, isn't there the Irish potato famines after this? Yeah. There is actually... Isn't that during Queen Victoria? Pretty amazing timing. 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 traditionally have not treated them so good. Right. Or anyone, really. But, no, 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 your potato chips. You're a great time on Ireland, too. Your king is our king. Yeah. Island?

They were able to, why could they go Republican? I just don't understand why we are so keen. We're 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 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? The UK will get there first. They'll become... They'll become a Republic. King Charles will move down here and then we go, all right. Now that you're in our faces, we're going to...

Yeah. I don't know. It doesn't, like, it feels like we're, 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. Yeah, they did have a, have a shot. Hmm. I was over there leading up to that. Yeah, very, it's, I mean, in Irish bars. I'm probably making people furious at the dinner table. Probably. But again, just talk to each other. Yeah, pause. Now, have your own conversation. What do you think of the monarchy? Yeah. I'd also say,

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, 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 is on comedy. He's like, I said that. I didn't really mean that. I was surprised anyone was like, I cared. Like, I was just talking. But I don't believe that. No, I don't believe that at all. But it is very funny. It is fun. I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I sort of get that Sunfield. I say stuff all the time. But later I go, I didn't mean that. I kind of wish you didn't say that. It's just like 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 sound of your sound of your voice. 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. 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. 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? There was, but yeah, like that, a 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 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, yeah. It's awake. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't just don't do that. Just don't do that. It's fun.

Yeah. Just 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 interview. Maybe do it outside or. Maybe don't do it open coffin. Yeah, close a 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, give you a little kiss. What are those black spots on your face? Don't worry about it. Don't worry about them. What about the Arctic?

Surely they're fine, right? Well, it was kind of like everywhere else. Things flipped. Many traditionally wall places. They got there summer, finally! It was the reverse in the Arctic. Everyone went north for a bit of... Have you seen Frozen?

No, actually haven't. Oh, man. All right, I know what we're doing for movie club. Next time it's my turn. You've got to see Frozen. Frozen. There's a whole number about a snowman who just wants to experience summer. But he doesn't know, Dave, what'll happen to him?

Oh, no! It's a bit of fun. That does actually say... He doesn't know that he'll die because of it. Yeah, there's a no? That is fun. It's fun. That's fun.

I imagine that would 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 can song from Barbie Which is also a banger

Yeah yeah Yeah Fine I saw like a bit of fun Have we talked about this? What? Funn't saw Barbie, a bit of fun I like to wame on the throat. 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's fun. 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, no, I can't because I don't. Because, yeah, I think if you're thinking of the big song from Frozen, and 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 their iPod or not.

And again, pause it. Yeah. Just get on with your life. We just ask them to just let it go. Okay? Let it go. Yeah, just kind of 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 of time.

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 stabilized 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, yeah. And then you're just like, okay. No. How do we get back? You're trapped behind the walking glass all of a sudden. I want to get back out there. Oh, trapped.

Yeah, science wasn't ready to explain exactly why things were so weird and so bad, as they in Richie Wrights 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 this thing I was talking about before, particles and whatnot, stratosphere, etc. You know all that stuff that was explained really well. The science stuff, yeah, yeah.

Um, they didn't really get a handle on that for, you know, over 100 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, um, yeah, so people around the world attribute it to all sorts of various gods or devils or, uh, you know, just real stabs in the dark about the science. Like, yeah, there was some like, like, like, uh, electricity in the earth.

someone, some people thought it was, yeah, the electricity in the earth has been disturbed. It'll take a couple of years to get back to normal. And people like, yeah, right. It's just so funny that, like, 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, I have, yeah, I still have no way, you know, you go, oh, no. But it's like, obviously, you know, just people do do the research and then tell you, and most of us are left here going, oh, okay. Cool. You know that Nate Begatzi bit where he talks about time traveling? He's back in time. He's like, I don't even think I could, you know, convince anyone. They're like, he's like, oh, you know, like, 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 by saying satellite. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it's probably.

Team effort. It's probably well. 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, I don't know how vaccines work. Oh, like in the apocalypse, there's something breaks. I'm like, well, that's broken now. Yeah.

I don't know how to fix that. Yeah, you have to get a new one. As Jeff. Go to JV. As Jeff rolls off a cliff. Goodbye, Jeff. Yeah, as soon as there's an apocalypse. Bye, 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. We can't stop it. I mean, science is a bit better now. You could explain to everyone what's happening,

but at the same time, like, if the light was blocked out for two years, what do we fucking do? Yeah, I mean, 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 waded it out, didn't we? Yeah.

Was there anything they actively did? I think they've re-routed a few planes and cancelled a lot of flights because that was about it. I need it like, you know, a spaceball-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.

It's a good idea. Just blow it out. Through the stratosphere and beyond. Yeah, yeah. Let someone else deal with it. The moon or whoever. Fuck you, moon. Fuck you, come that moon.

We don't give a shit. I don't care. You don't do shit for us. Yeah. Fuck you. Fuck you. Moon. Cup that.

Cup some sulphur. Dickered. I don't care. Hey, Mars. Cop this, you fuck. Yeah, ugh. Yeah, you think you're so good up there? Shut up.

Shut up. We don't care. We don't get to shit. Have this. So, yeah, things were weird. People didn't know why. But I like our Dr. Harry Cliff writes about it for it.

Oh, that 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 people are seeing these black spots in the sun as well. They're like, this is not good. But they're actually on the sun or it's just the perception of... I think they were on the sun. I think they were on the sun. 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 enough... 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. Cliff continues, as people search for an explanation for these frightening events,

An astronomer in Bologna blamed the sunspots and said they signalled 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.

But from there, I've done some pretty strict math. And, yeah, I figured it out. 18th of July. So rumors of this spread through Europe and England, staring 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 in the next decade sometime. Yeah, and if you name a date, and that comes and goes, you look like a fool. Yeah, and but sometimes those cults get to do it again. And they go, well, sorry, didn't carry the two. Another date. That one's going on.

Funny thing. happen. I trusted Gus with the maths on this one. So I've done 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. Yeah. 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 2140? Come on, Dave. See, Matt is so old that doesn't see that.

It's like, that's only a bit of a century away. Yeah. That's nothing. Dave, you don't realize it, but that'll be here before we don't. You're blinking, you're missing. 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 perth it is, when the largest spots were turned towards the earth. And indeed, if it 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 all the sun. I can't see them there. I love referring to the sun as he too. Yes. His spots when he's looking. I've never heard that before. But let's think about it. The sun is hot, right?

Oh, yeah. What else is hot? Women. Correct. Ah, 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 Boosh Moon was a boy. Yeah, yeah. 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 chick car. Automatic. Oh, I'm talking about it, yeah, yeah. But if we're talking like, we're talking like a wagon type thing, like a big, you know, monster truck. Like a very, I don't 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? Or, yeah, they're not getting inside a man. You know what I mean? No, no, my car's a woman. Yeah. Come on, look at. I'm not getting inside of a man. Not going to inside a bloke.

Come on. She's a lady. Great point. My car's a lady. And I treat her like one. I treat her like one. I take her out for dinner. On Sundays.

The rest of the time, she's in the shed under a cover. 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 will love. Dr. Cliff continues. Car wife. No, car life. The idea that sunspots could influence the climate had been advanced by the astronomer and discover of Uranus William Herschel. Herschel.

Yeah, un-Herschel's like little chocolate drops as well. Yeah. Makes sense, Uranus. In 1801, Herschel. Farno poo-pooh. Fah-a-poo. Which is it? It's just unbleached.

In 1801. one, Herschel had presented a study to the Royal Society that compared grain prices from Adam Smith's the wealth of nation to his own 40-year record of sunspot activity. I love these kind of studies. I'm just going to compare these to. Where'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, it also said, and so were cigarettes. And don't worry, you can just climb inside an x-ray machine. Don't worry about it. Don't worry, it's fun.

It's actually, it will make you better. And if you're pregnant, help yourself to soft cheese, some wine and a cigarette, it's fine. Treat yourself. Treat yourself. You've got, it's tough. You should take the edge off. 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. 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 pamphlets. Pretty important people know that.

My horse and car's a woman as well. People have been taking 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 here on the edge of your seat there? Yeah, what happened? What did it happen? It came and went and the sun continued to shine. What?

Yeah. Fuck, I thought the world ended. No, afraid not. Oh, God. All right. Well, let's finish on maybe a slightly more positive note. 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.

Yeah, kind of. You know, the bicycles one. Yeah. Yes. Bicycle. But it's believed that the eruption may have also inspired other creators as well, as Richard Gundamundman writes for the conversation. I may not be poets or minds. Yeah, that's right.

Don't worry. All this death is so worth it. 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. The best one. Marcel Marsso.

You're going to be like, and John Keats had a great one. Yeah, Marcel Marsot invented the glass box. Wow. He felt trapped by society. But hang on a second. No, I would. I vaguely knew about this story, Dave, so I wouldn't be surprised of 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 wouldn't remember it. It's true. You've probably heard every fact ever. Yes. I've heard every fact ever you reckon.

You know, like, all the answers to, like, you 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 go to bed, wake up. Gone. Absolutely gone. If 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 sieve, mate. Don't worry about me. Don't worry about it. I'm

already forgetting the details. Yeah, yeah. I don't know where my keys are. What? You just the sieve Perkins. Correct. Don't worry about it. Have a great day. I 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. do know 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 Walsdencraft, 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 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. And 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, it 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, you know, 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 a 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 true. And Barron also wrote a poem called

Darkness, which I'll mention 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, maybe inspired their creative mindset. 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 writing competition, you know? What better for play? I mean, if lot of Warren'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, I reckon like Frankenstein's monster could have been like, A beach babe. Well, I think it would have been, it took a lot while to get to it,

but Weekend of Bernie's was sort of the, what it would have been. Yeah. Which had basically frankestine of the beach, isn't it? I haven't seen it. One of those things that's referenced in my time, I've also never seen it. But I feel like I know it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it feels like it'll be a waste of my time now. I get it, I think. That is very precious for this time. Yeah, yeah. As mentioned earlier, many people fear that the world was facing its apocalyptic end. And this is Richie Wright's, 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 Barron. Is English? Yes. Hello, hello. I'm Lord Byron.

Well, 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. Morn came and went and came, and brought no day, and men forgot their passions in the dread of this, their desolation.

So yeah, pretty good stuff. You're not bad to come up with the third best thing written in the house that weekend. Yeah. 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. So I'm going to cheer us all up. Painters were also inspired as Zachary Hubbard writes for Virginia Tech. The World of Us. Art changed in 1816. Paintings representing the brightest of skies 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,

JMW Turner, captured these colourfully for posterity in paintings such as Chichester Canal or Canal from 1828 and the Lake Petworth, 1829.

Although Dr. Cliff, it's so funny because Turner's paintings a reference everywhere as 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 painting 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, you 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's 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 her 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. He calls Mount Tambora she.

That's a bloody, that's the way she went off. You know what they're like out of nowhere their body explode. Where that come from? Yeah. Oh, what? What? What? What?

I just asked where the toilet. paper was. Jesus cross. Where did they come from? We've only lived here for 10 years. I couldn't find it. What the bloody? Jeez, Louise.

So yeah, just a final, final para about Mount Tambora. This is from the Kingermans. 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 explosive index. Pathetic. Hardly 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, okay.

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. 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 we, yeah, we can just, you know, 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, 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, like, honestly, I still, if you ask me tomorrow, the name Mount Tambora is not sticking my head. Yeah. No. Not like Crackatoa. Why, that's so in my head. Which I think is not pronounced that way, but. So do we?

Yeah, is that true? Okay. Probably. I mean, we weren't the other week about Jenghis Khan. Yeah, that's right. But so the way we remember it is we think of Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, yes. Richie Tambora, Mount Ritchie 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, yeah. Yeah, Tambora. Yeah, yeah, yep, that it works.

Locked in. Jess, what was it? Who knows? Well, well, I done, Matt, that was an epic report. 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. 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. Could that have been edited down? I think Jess would have probably. summarised those three pages in a word. It was fucked. It was actually, it was actually fucked.

Like, oh. And people were sitting here going, that would have been better. Oh, I feel really sane. Just would have summarised it. That, it was fucked. It was. It's 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, or Italy, where were they Lake Como? Geneva. Where anywhere else in the world, it sounds like it's not worth visiting for a good couple of years by the side of this fork. Yeah, yeah. It was grim times.

Not good. I'd just probably blank out mid-17-100s to the mid-18-hundreds. Take all that out. Maybe just blank it all out. Yeah, honestly. Just go forwards. Actually, just stay here. Yeah.

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. 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. Yeah. I'm like, sorry, go with this Google? What is this again? Yeah. 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. No one was thinking about it in 1815. 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.

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. Yeah. You got a northerly. You want to be upwind, much like you.

Yeah. Like from you after you've popped off. Fadopo pooh-pooh. Pop-up or poop-pup. Oh, that's better. That's better. Pop-pop or poop-pup. People were just serving up dessert.

God damn. They're talking about poop. Not again. All right, well, that brings us to everyone's favorite section of show where we thank our great supporters from patreon.com slash toGronPod. People there, and we've got a bunch of some of the coolest people I've ever met are supporters there. I love doing live shows and meeting the patrons afterwards. A month or so back in Brisbane, at the time of recording,

we're about to meet a bunch in the UK and Berlin, if you don't mind. Yes, please. And Ireland, of course. Uh-huh. Can't wait to get to Belfast for the first time. And Dublin, just his favourite city in the world. I love that place. But yeah, so if you want to be involved, go to patreon.com slash dug on 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 patrons a few months back as well. Like all sorts of just little fun things and patrons who are in there, feel free to suggest any ideas you might have. which we, you know, depending on the time, may ignore or enact. Is that a word you could use there? Yeah, yeah. Do you enact ideas?

Yeah, let's enact it. I'm the enactor. Dave's the ignoreer. 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-Shaunberg level or above, you can give us a fact-quota question. In this section of the show, we call fact-quot a question, which has a jing jingle, it goes something like this. Fact quote or question. He always remembers the ding. She always remembers the thing. And the way this section works is our great supporters on the Sydney,

Schaumburg level or above get to give us a fact quote or a question or a bragger or 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? Life guys. I wonder if Matthew Husband.

He's 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 a first time caller. Thank you.

Me and my wife. Whoa. Wife guy. Wife guy. Bringing up the wife in the first sentence. Classic life guy. That's classic wife. Hey, from one wife guy to another.

You're saying. Yeah, you met 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? Oof! Would you be interested to hear your favorites 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're 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. Like, 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 that's probably, that's the first one that comes to mine. I reckon that's probably mine.

What do you reckon, Bopper? I'm thinking, um, uh, Probably, because I don't love stand-up specials, I think, because... Matt and I'll be filming ours in Stupid Old Studios in December. And I'm very busy. No, no, no, but, like, I don't watch a lot of comedy. I think it's, you know, like chefs don't cook at home. Yeah.

No, no, no, I've even seen... I saw a clip of Amy Poller talking about this recently, where she was like, comedians make the worst audience members. Not the worst, but it's like, we're not big laughers. Instead, you're seeing they're 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 Mullaney's The Comeback Kid. I think it was a Comeback Kid. I don't love him anymore, but I did like that special a lot. Yeah, which one is 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. It was not the one with Mick Jagger, which we still. Yeah.

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 strongly to remember the name of it, but, yeah, one of his ones where, and he finished, 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, still get on CD. Yeah, nice. My high school girlfriend had it. It's from 2006. it is David O'Dowardies, giggle me timbers, or giggle me timbers, in brackets or jokes a hooy, because he could talk 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.

That's a good song. So back in the day, I listened to that heaps in the car. Freakly ask questions for David O'Donotie. Yeah, it's so fine. That's great. So, yeah, he's the best. He's still the best.

Love David O'Darty. 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 something. He's massive. But you only ever saw him sitting down. I will say as well, Michelle Brasier, average bear has been on a few different

streaming services at different times and is incredible. Oh, yeah. 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 Jess Perkins. Yes, yes. Almost. Nearly? Almost. Almost. 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 record. So I don't know if you call that a special, but I started at the Comedy Festival. like maybe three times it was so good yeah wow yeah nearly all alice there trombly virtual shows yeah

i think the one i think the one i think the short lee one i'm thinking of was so great so good 41st best stand-up comedian but yeah a few of them blur together but the um they're all very good uh yeah so many i mean lots yeah dave quirk so many great shows yeah i mean but yeah but i don't know Oh, no, we filmed actually, we filmed one at the old Shibrov studio, which is probably still available somewhere. Yeah. That looked really good. But yeah, lots of, I mean, yeah. Great question, but I would say also Matthew Husband, our wife-goy friend here, answers his own question, which we always think I love it.

Love that. It says, answer my own question, my wife and I, there he goes again. He's obsessed with his wife. You've already, you've told us her name. Now just call her Bridget. She exists outside of it. you. You know, she's not just your wife.

She's Bridget. Next time he's going to refer to her as Bridget. And you're going to be like, who the fuck is Bridget? Exactly. You can't win here. Their favourite would have to be Bo Burnham's inside from 2021. Oh, no, of course. Yes, I did like Bo Burnham's, like lockdown one.

But he's done others before that, which were amazing. Like, I do like Bo Burnham a lot. Yeah, I, I, I enjoyed that. It was, yeah, we were in lockdown when that came. 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. It says, although not at all like a traditional comedy special and very depressing and existential at times, the song's themes in 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 like art.

Like art coming out of a disaster. And we can say it altogether hashtag worth it. Hashtag worth it. Obviously Matt Stewart at Live at Studio 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. We're just trying to have fun. Is that okay? We think you're fantastic. We think you're fantastic.

You keep the show going. You should be proud that Bridges your wife. She sounds amazing. Yeah, can I just ask you, though? Who here has tried angle? That's how Roy Scobal starts his special. It is so funny. It's a hot start.

Thank you, Matthew. Husband. Next one comes from Amber. Umber. I think another, mate, first time I'm here. Umba. Umba. Okay.

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 24-7. So interesting. What a title.

Another reference to a worldwide bad time. At a previous episode. Yeah. We did it. Amber is offering a brag. It's from Amber. For Jess, just clocked 2,647 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 hold up in a room playing while husband. Oh, we got a husband guy here. Husband and dog. We got a dog owner here. Oh, God, here we go. A dog. 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. Hit the 3000, yes. I wish I knew that my hours on it. It tells you. Okay, I was going to say Amber's not logging that in. It tells you. Oh, like a little stopwatch and go.

Yeah. And begin. I'm back on. Thank you so much. Are you too? 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 I, 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, is this an impressive number? Yeah, that's a pretty high number, isn't it? An impressive number? That's an impressive number from umber. That's an impressive number from umber.

I'm impressed. But I wonder, I assume Amber's like me because I think most people are in that you don't play The Sims. The Sims plays you. Is that what you're going to say? Whoa. It wasn't and let the woman speak. So you don't play the Sims for like six months and then you don't play the Sims for like six months and

you just have 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 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 all about. I've never played it. Wow. Jess, you can tell them what you have brought for us to play on the 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 an extra, a set of JoyCon. Joycons, couldn't think of the word, yes, for her Nintendo Switch so we can play multiplayer games on the tour. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 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

He'll forget You've got to BIO Battletotes Yeah Can 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 away online Are we both googling the same time? Yeah Nintendo Switched Battle Toads What song's this?

That's Tetraise Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na- Dan-da-da-tun-tun I don't know if it's possible But we'll see All right, the last one this week comes from Nick Vederosa, aka reality star to the pod with a brag and question. Okay.

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?

It's a Chris Foley one. You are lucky enough to have a Patreon that was a contestant on a reality show called Endurance. Essentially, the teenager version of Survivor. However, the brag ends, the brag 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's comes to mind is the last time I played Santa Claus, my pants fully fell down. It's hard to beat that.

That's hard to beat that. 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. But the only available one. You would still be the extra small Santa. I think, well, maybe I've upgraded to small now, but that was the only one available was extra large.

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. And you, you don't wear jocks. Yeah. Because I don't think Santa does. and I like to play the character. He's a method set.

Exactly. Did the suspenders springing off go boi-o-yo-yo-yo-y? 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 okay.

Yeah, that's pretty embarrassing. Jess hasn't done anything embarrassing. I genuinely can't think of it. Well, I'm sure something embarrassing has happened and I've repressed it. But as we've discussed, my memories. not good. So I don't think I, or I just have never done anything embarrassing of it 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 was of my fault. Yeah. And I made it to the toilet.

Yeah. And throw up all over you, so. Yeah. So, geez. Freaking hell. 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. There was one, when we were filming our fresh blood thing 10 years back or whatever it was, that's 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, I think we maybe were to say, starting 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. You just said it before how you said it in their show. Right. As you were explaining. Andy kept being like, no, that's not right. That's how I say it. Sportswoman of the year. I remember watching long bloopers of this.

Yeah, there's like a, like I say it 100 times sportswoman of the year. And I, he's like, no. Yeah, it's not quite right. I'm like, I don't understand what I'm doing. I'm still a sportswoman of the year. That was fine. Yeah, which I'm sure, that's kind of what, you know. No, you, you've had a lot of therapy since I haven't.

I think it was an Andy Matthews problem, to be honest. 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, I drank a couple of beers before, thinking that was the right amount of nerve settlers 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 late, 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. You got smashed them down. 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 in the end. Oh, that's good. But yeah, there was a long moment where I'm like, I don't. And it feels. feels like an eternity. Can't think of words. 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 have been at the gig, is I did a gig at Local Laughs one time, and a guy heckled me, and I yelled back at it, but I called him the C word. And I've regretted a little bit, but also he kind of deserved it. Quite an intimate space, like for us.

People are sitting on lounge chairs and some of them. An older crowd generally and sort of like a bit more of a posh crowd. And I yelled back at this man called him, called him a C-Bond. You're like, 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. Oh, F off and D. Definitely the D part.

D Clarence. We're getting closer? Yeah. That's one of the things that, yeah, no one else will ever think about. I mean, it was a gross kind of sexist heckle that he'd shout out. Okay, I love that. 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. I was trying to help. I said, I didn't need your fucking help. Was it your dad?

Oh, no. What? What was trying to help? Darling. I was trying to help. What? Does he call you darling? Absolutely not.

I think you just can't remember. name. They, what do you mean, Jeff? Uh, 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, Battle Toads Double Dragon was released. Do you know that version? It's a crossover between Battle. tween battle toads and double dragons. I mean, you know, those games are so similar.

Begus can't be choosers. If he got Battletoads, he's got Battletoads. One of those games, there's 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, hit, hook, hit, hook.

And he sort of mash the keyboards. It's like, hit, hook, hit. 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 look sick. That's like you spent one summer playing the same level over. Well, the next thing we like to do here is thanks to 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? 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. It went very quickly to okaying, mate. Take 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 us off. Great. First of all, I would like to thank from Duluth in probably Minnesota. Amen? Or Montana? We never know this one.

Let me look that up quickly because I don't. Duluth? Duluth in Minnesota. Yeah, isn't that where, uh, that's where Maria Bancford's from? Duluth in the house. That's why I knew it. A port city in Minnesota. Duluth,

and thank you to Maddie Glatzel. Maddie Glatzol. 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 Rim.

Wow. Install a ring. That's a good jingle. Yes, I'm sure it's international. Look it up. Maddie. For the. Hottest of hot, hot water you've ever seen.

Ream comes on steady, hot and strong. Just goes on and on. Installer ream. Install ream. That's nice. What I'm Maddie. Thanks, Maddie. From Berlin.

Where we are going to be in a week from recording. Wow. 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 Constak.

No, cons. conchak Billin How to think of a tragedy I'll say when was on the boat

that got shot 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 limelicks were. Oh, the limelmix go? Yeah.

It was a two, two, two, one, so no, is that the rhyming? It once was a man from Nantucket whose boat went under a mistime 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.

Incredible. That is so good. And can I just ask, uh, fart or poo-poo? Yeah, definitely. Unfortunately, a-pipu. That was obviously, that's great. You've done fantastic work there. And thank you, Patrick for Berlin. And I 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-cell 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 Britain. Ryan Britain. Ryan Britain 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 Fitzroy, and Fitzroy ended up winning the premiership. That's the worst rule ever. You've won it? Great. I challenge you. Wait, what? We just won it.

Yeah, challenge. And could any team do that? Just the top team. Yes. Anyway, so that was a tragedy. Yes, but something good. It did leave Ryan or Devin? Ryan.

Ryan from Bristol. Don't know where I would have got the name Devin from. It led Ryan to creating the theme song for Captain Planet. Wow. Captain Planet, he's a hero. Gonna take balloons. Damn to zero God is helping

Put asunder Bad guys who like to Loot and plunder You'll burn for this Captain Planet The power is yours Really? So Ryan Co-wrote that with Chuck Lorry

In 1913 The 2 and a half men Creator here also co-wrote that song I know Yeah No they're seen as meeting as turtles Yeah So thank you to Ryan

from Norwich also in the UK. Oh my God, this is so crazy because Matt just said Devon. And this person's name. Norwich isn't in Devon, though. Is Devin Williams. What? Devin Williams, wow. Devin Williams, obviously the tragedy that Devon created archering 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. Classic.

And also... Go install a rain, Devon. 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've got shampoo in my hair. Yeah.

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

And her name was Helen Robinson and he's like, I'm going to, Helen Daniels. Can I use that, Helen? Can I use that? Can I use that name? So, yeah, pretty cool, actually. Well, on Dev. What on Dev? On your Dev, I.

I would like to thank now from a location unknown to us. We can only assume they're in deep with the vortures of the moles. Hopefully they still made it to the tour anyway. I'd like to thank you, Chris Williams. Two 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 itching 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 hoe down. Oh, really? Yeah, people hadn't hoed down before that. Some people hoed, some people hoed up even. He said, well, what if we flipped that around? Yeah. And yeah, he had the first hoedown.

Wow. And was there a topic of the, about the hoed about? The original hoadown. Well, it 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 a one of those, what are they, clay jugs or whatever? Hmm, who, who, who, who, who, who, yeah. 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 Saggathra, whatever it is in America. Saggathra. 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? Whoa. He found a loophole, and yeah, he finger-painted his way through it. Yeah. It was just like a lot of dinosaurs, you know, going, blah. 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. I fingered that. I fingered 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 fingered that dinosaur.

Don't worry, I just fingered that dinosaur. Not many follow up questions. Daniel. Great work. Great work. It's a great movie. Amazing. Love it.

Love it. It's great. Yeah. I think it probably started strong. Yeah, yeah, but it came from your thing. fingers and we love that. I would like to thank from Aberdeen. In Scotland, I would like to thank Cameron Milne.

Cameron Milne. This is a little known disaster. The Bushfire of Antarctica 1866. Wow. Gosh, it's very dry down there. Well, yeah, that's right. So the forest down there, which obviously doesn't exist anymore, but 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 acoustic 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 for me to pops up with Instagram with lovely font. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 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 the audience receives it however they want to. It's not mine anymore. Yeah.

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

me and fuck you. And this is what it means. So thank you Cameron. Penultimately, I would love to thank from Stahl 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? Stahl. Stoll. He took out the whole town, because it was at the supermarket,

he took out the whole town supply of Milo. What? Every tin of Milo exploded. Was this, 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 tree. And Evie was looking forward to it. So, Evie had to find. joy in 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. 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... It was Milo, yeah. When was the next shipment of Milo coming into store? Oh, it was... I'll tell you, it had just come in the day before. Because the worst time in the cycle. Wow.

Worst time of the cycle. So it actually took age, yeah. Oh, I'm so sorry for that, Evie, but... But now, talk back... We wouldn't have had Talkback Radio. Yeah, and we need it. Yeah. So thank you, Eadie.

Honestly, the shock jock was like, thank God. 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, if anything. But, Avey, well done. Dave, final one. Finally, from Montreal all the way over in Canada.

Thank you to Vincent Stacey. Vincent Stacey. 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 at the time where it was at its worst. Which was a shame because Vincent really wanted to work on a tan, but it just was not safe to do so.

It's not, yeah, don't do it. So Vincent went inside and this is going to excite you. Yeah. Do you know this story? No. About Vincent Stacey? I don't. Yeah, well, sit back and get ready for it.

Okay. Because it is a big one. Vincent Stacey, what they do. 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. Ritle me this what? Do you? Yeah, I mean, I do, of course. I just assumed you 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, It's a good riddle. What do you call a big head that's got balls all over it? I was trying to give you opportunity to say, no, I don't know the radio. No, no, I don't. I heard what you said that. Yeah. What do you call the big head with balls all over it?

God, that's a thinker. Yeah, no one has to sell it. I would have said ball head, but that's too obvious. Yeah. Yeah, Vincent Stacey 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 Evey, Cameron, Daniel, Chris, Devin, Ryan, Patrick and Maddie. The last thing we need to is welcome a few people in at the Triptitch Club. We've got five inductees this week. Dave, what is this all about? This is our... What is this all about? What is this going on? What are we doing here?

This is our Hall of Fame. Our Triptich Club is... 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. Yeah. It's actually a real bargain. Yeah. For five bucks a month for three years, you have a place to live. Exactly. Like we've solved the housing crisis.

Yeah. Yeah. And all it will cost you was five bucks a month for three years. That's pretty good. That's very cheap. That's good value. Pretty good value. And once you're inside, we've got food and drink.

You get bored as well. Oh, yeah. And, um, that is USD. Yeah, five USD. Yeah. Sorry. So. Obviously, do your own conversion.

Albinese was about to, um, get us on the blower. Hang on. Hang on a second. I thought you were talking about our D. USD. Because you're talking about my D. We're never talking about your D, Albanesey. Albo.

Get your D out of M. mouth. What? And we also have music, food, entertainment. There's a trivia night that I put on Mondays. I know we talk about that like 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 by the bar with an ever-changing or ever-growing menu of food and drink. Yeah. This week we have pancakes. Oh.

I just really felt like pancakes. Man, I'd do it all of a sudden as well. Yeah. Like nice, like good ones. Yeah. 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. Lime and sugar? Yep. You can have that.

I just want butter. You can't have butter. Surely there's a bit out of 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. No pancakes for Dave Yeah, we have a Nautilex?

No. A marge? Nothing. No. No spreads? No. Maple syrup? Yeah.

I literally already said that. Well, geez, 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 and put on the pancakes in your crave. That's disgusting, Dave. Dave, no good, mate.

Come on, mate. We also have milkshakes. Oh, fantastic. Do you have lime? No. Blue heaven? Yes. Chocolate?

No. Banana? Yes. Don't say if 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. Oh.

You're going to vomit over here. You hate egg. I don't have to drink it. Um, okay. Dave, some people aren't selfish. Yeah. Yeah. Jesus.

Christ. Jeez. Um, let me think of a flavor. I think, uh, like orange, like Jaffa? Nah. Oh, Dave. Thank God it's not. Come on, mate.

Think of other people. Yeah. But of course, we do have mint. Yep. Chalk mint? Nah. You like chock mint? I know, mate.

Once again, it's not all about me. I don't like chock 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 ass. I mean, that does make chocolate. If we don't have chocolate, it would be hard to make chock mint.

So I actually understand. Dave, have you booked a ban? I have booked a band. Are you never going to believe for a book for a sweet? 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. Which is Justin Vernon who went on to make Bonnever's band before. Whoa. Huge. Volcano choir. That's, uh, yes. It sounds explosive.

Yeah. And beautiful. Bonnever and collections of colonies of bees, members of that band formed Volcanoes. 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 in to 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, you ready to go. I'm going to read out the names. Dave's going to 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 Barry St Edmonds probably in Great Britain. That'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 Aronsborough,

but I said Edinburgh from Edinburgh, where we were just before in school. It's Chris Devon. 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 Devon. As I shake Chris's hand, that's what I mean.

From Reid in the Australian Capital Territory. Thank you. Thank you. Emma Drumgold. This ain't Emma Drum silver. 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 he says, Dave? Yeah, I believe they say Chechia, Chechia. From Prague in Bohemia. Let's be more specific. Oh, that's cool. That's Balbinder Batia.

Oh, Belbinda. Belbinder is the one who keeps track of who's... Bob. Belbinder's Bob? Oh my gosh. Bob is Belbinder Batia? Mm-hmm. Okay.

Belbinder is batting a full 10 out of 10. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you so much, Balbinder. We had bagels say it. It was the first place I've had a bagels in Prague. Wow, really? On memories.

Where were you when you first had a bagel? Thank you so much to Belbinder. Emma, Chris, Chris, Nell and Lindsay. That brings us the end of the episode and the end of Block. Whoa. It's a sad time, but it's a beautiful time. Yeah. It's only 10 months away until 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. Isn't it?

I can't wait. Our Christmas special will be coming out soon. Yep. 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. 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 of 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. 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. Give yourself these eight months.

You've got to give yourself these eight months. Just come up with one good block topic idea a day between now and then, and you'll have, you'll have a bunch. You'll have heaps. You'll have 70, 80 of them, probably. Absolutely. Jess, anything we need to tell me before we go? You can find us on social media at DoGoOnPod or Do Go On Podcast 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 Patreon to suggest a topic. Anybody can. We welcome them. Dave, booted home. Thank you so much for joining us for another block. What a year.

What a year. Can't believe it. It's been one for the ages. So 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.

We started with Block. Then we wanted to blow Vemba. And we've had some great memories, some friendships that will last for eternity. But until next year, this is DoGo on, signing off. And Dave Warnocking in particular, saying thank you and goodbye. Be later. Bye.

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

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