Do Go On - 502 - The Beaconsfield Mine Collapse

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

For two weeks in 2006, Australia held its collective breath as a huge rescue effort attempted to save two men (Todd russell and Brant Webb) trapped nearly a kilometre underground at the Beaconsfield Mine in Tasmania. Joining us to hear about this incredible story of survival is our dear friend Evan Munro-Smith!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 06:44 (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:I Was Actually There (ABC):https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/i-was-actually-there/beaconsfield-mine-rescue-2006-todd-russell/103939258Head Game:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCgyZB9Bf-Uhttps://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/foo-fighters-make-good-on-word-to-miners/news-story/2c8f6a5f84bedf8aa6fa4a0f7541e9c3 https://www.smh.com.au/national/rock-to-rock-foo-fighters-message-to-miners-20060506-gdnhjn.htmlhttps://web.archive.org/web/20081010054932/http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/07/2384587.htmhttps://www.chortle.co.uk/review/2009/01/01/35955/beaconsfield%3A_the_musicalhttps://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-02-26/beaconsfield-gold-rejects-inquest-findings/1602592 60 mins:https://youtu.be/IbAx4eis2qo?si=jCNgyG63DsX-WM2n60 mins (2016);https://youtu.be/LXC-LYD-4LU?si=mkbz_mr4HtLej0Er Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. And welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dev Wonki and as always I'm here with Jess Perkins.

I love you. Thank you. No, that was to the listener. Oh, thank God I was about to tell. You are on thin ice. No, I was about to say, you too. Thank God I would have fallen for that one. So close.

So embarrassing. Don't ever tell your friends you love them. Why would you do that? That's so embarrassing. Never do that. Let your friends die not knowing how you feel about that. So we will not be telling this next person that we love. them because they are our friend.

Our dear friend of that, it's Evan Munro Smith. Hello. Hello. Hi, Evan. I'm so excited to be here. Hello. I've never told Evan I love him. That's a lie.

That's a lie. Not once. You tell me every time you see me, you tell me. Yeah. You said it more to him than probably any other human being on her. Yeah. Every time he leaves a room as the door closes, I yell, I love it. It's true.

It's one of my favorite bits. And sometimes I say it back. Yeah, you often do because you've learnt that if you don't, I'll reopen that closed door and chase you down. That's all. Your day will be ruined. So it's easier just to comply. It's easy just to say it, yeah. I'm happy being that person in my friend's lives.

Oh, God, it's just easier if you just go with it. It just shuts her up. Jesus Christ, she's insuffable. Yeah, hi, Jess. Evan, we're so happy to have you here. What a treat. Yeah, what a pleasure. No Matt Stewart this week.

He is still missing. Still fine, is what you meant to say. Oh, he's fine, he's fine, he's fine. Evan, you know, he's fine. You've heard of that. I genuinely, I don't know why he's not here today. Mm-hmm. I mean, it could be because he's not.

dead, I don't know. No, no one said that. Jesus. No, but would anybody tell me? He's fine. No, I would tell you. How would I find out? Someone would tell you.

Someone would post on Instagram or something. That's how you find out. If that's how you found out that Matt Stewart died, would you not be a little bit miffed? Yeah, yeah. Somebody would tell you, I reckon. No, Matt's just on road show. Yeah. He's just doing some gigs in regional Victoria.

That's right. Yes, he's out there. Dead to us. He's walking the board. He's dead to us. He's dead to us, but he's killing it. I say that, like, just. I just mean compared to being dead

He's not dead He's at work essentially But it's also a great gig And we're very happy for him I should mention if you live in country of Victoria Or like he's doing a bunch of dates With the Melbourne Comedy Festival Roadshow Go out there, see him

Yeah And you can find out details The comedy festival website If you look up a road show And even if it's not Matt Roadshow's always good That's right I've done it

I've done it I've done it So I've done a bit of running around Like filming and you know On those road show things There are always a lot of What a fun.

Awesome. Go see him. Go check it out. Now, Jess. Yes. What the hell are we doing here? What is the show? Oh, my God.

It's been 500 times. How do you not know yet? I don't listen. This show is one of the three of us. Research is a topic, often suggested to us by our wonderful listeners. They go away. They live it. They breathe it.

They watch a doco. They listen to an audio book. They read the Wikipedia page. It's all true. And they bring it back to the other two who, throughout the story go, huh, or I've heard of that, or that reminds me of something.

And it's a lot of that. It's just a lot of fun. And it's Dave's turn, and we always get onto the topic with a question. David, do you have a question for us? Yes, I do. My question for you, Evan, a few, Jess, is, with what event are Todd Russell and Brant Webb associated?

Beaconsfield Mine! It's a Beaconsfield Mine! It's a Biggestfield Mine collapse, you are correct. How did you know that? Because that story, gripped a nation. Oh my gosh. Do you remember Evan?

Those names are burnt into your head from when it happened? Yes. Absolutely. I was watching the news. I've read about it. Oh, a harrowing and amazing story. This is great for me because I only vaguely am aware of this. I don't know anything much about it.

We've got a super fan. I can I feel weird being a super fan of a pretty full-on event. Yes. I might cry. Really? I don't know. I wonder if my, I have a favorite bit of this. this story and I wonder if you'll include it.

I wonder too. Let's find out. If I don't know when we get to it. Obviously, don't say anything because I feel stupid that I didn't look it up. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. Just keep it to yourself. Cool.

I bet this has been suggested by a few people, has it? Yes. So the Beaconsfield mind collapsed. It's photo for by our Patreon supporters. I put up four Australian topics and this one, only won by five votes out of nearly a thousand. So it's very close. But the one that came second, also a great story that I'll get to one day.

But the people that suggested this topic, and anyone could do, do so, there's a link in the show notes. And these people do that. Gabe Hager from Fargo, North Dakota. Also, Rachel Johnson from Melbourne, who is one of our Patreon supporters. And I always ask people to comment, hey, what, of these four options, what are you voting for and why? And Rachel wrote, I suggested it.

That's a good reason to vote for it. I love that. I'm glad that you voted for it, too, Rachel, it got up. Georgia from Belorat and Sophie Kime from Maitland, New South Wales. Interesting, because I was going to say, I wonder if this is a story that's known internationally, but there was a South or North Dakota. Yeah, there's a North Dakota and everyone else was from Australia. Yeah, I'm interested to see if international listeners heard of this story.

It was a big news story in Australia when it happened. Yes, it was like all anyone could talk about it. It was all over the news for however long it went for. It was a long ordeal. And yeah, it was huge. And then even after the fact, it was in the news for a long time. So Australia-wide, it's very well known. Except at Evan's house.

Yeah. Yeah. I have so many questions, but I don't want to preempt the thing. But when, what year was it? 2006. Okay, all right. I mean, I had other shit going on in 2006. Yeah.

Why was I so interested? I was in high school. 2006. Yeah, I was in, that was my last year of high school. So many, Evan, there was just too many babes. Too many babes. I had exams. Splighting off the bades.

I had to go to form. I had to go to prom. I was the king. That's so interesting because I was like, I was going to say to you, Evan, I reckon I was probably so engaged in it because I was studying journalism at the time, but I was not. I was in year 10. Yeah, wow. So that's interesting. I thought it was later. Maybe this is what got you into journalism and that's what got you into podcasting, kind of. Kind of. And here we are. Not really using the degree, but kind of.

But kind of. And we're talking about that thing that you love. Well, I say I love it. It's like, oh, now I'm nervous that I don't know much. I don't have to. I don't have to. It's genuinely fascinating. I spent the week sort of deep diving on it and I was like, oh, I didn't know anything about this. Really. I knew the story, of course, because it was, like you said, big news. But let's jump in. Beaconsfield is a small town in the northeast of Tasmania, about 40 kilometres north of Lonsestin.

These days, the population is only about 1,300, but back in 2006, it was about 3.5,000. Gold was first discovered in the area in 1847, which, of course, started a gold rush. Underground mining began in 1879, with the sinking and development of three main shafts to access the gold reef. They were the heart shaft, the main shaft and the grub shaft. The grub shaft. Because for a second I was like, why is you mentioning these three shafts? Is this relevant?

It's because he wanted to say grub shaft. Oh yeah, we've all got a grub shaft. It's so funny. Is there any explanation to what? No. I'm going to wipe the grub shaft. It's full on. I couldn't find out why it's called that.

But grub with the double B. What is it, heart, main and grub? Yeah. Okay. Main kind of sucks, doesn't it? You've got hearts. I was going to say Maine makes sense. I was going to say heart almost makes sense.

You'd have like it. Maybe that's your vessels and stuff. Maybe there's a, yeah. Yeah, you can see. Yeah, there's like, into the little mind bits going off at, yeah. But grub, it's double B. It could be named after a person. Yeah.

Or a witchety grub. Christine Grub. Christine was great. She was one of the reception girls. Oh, she's a good laugh. Yeah. Top. get a shaft to her.

We love Chris Deezer. We named this grub. Love you, Chris. Good on you, Dale. Those old blokes are called all women darl. Yeah, good on your dale. Good on your dahl. Thanks, love.

The area was worked on and off throughout the 20th century, and in the 1990s, deep drilling with the grub shaft resumed after a permanent water pump was installed. Basically, I think the deeper they went, the more water they were encountering. So the weather it got, the deeper you go. Yep. Helping pump out the water. as the miners went hundreds of meters underground meant that with the pump they could now go back and go real Dave.

Yep. Okay. I didn't expect her to go this way, really? I didn't. So, Anzac Day, April 25th, 2006. That's when this all kicks off. 34-year-old father of three. Todd Russell had come off a night shift where he'd noted

the ground of the gold mine was pretty noisy. How old was he? 34. Right. That's right. Young. How old are you just? Young.

Equally young. And which one is this? This is Todd Russell. Todd, thank you. Todd Russell. He means that it was spitting and cracking whilst they were underground. Right. A rock actually fell and knocked his helmet off during this shift.

Whoa. You know, could be a bad omen, bad sign of a bit of movement, but, you know, just another day in the mine. It's not easy work down there. No. After his shift, he had to sleep, watched the footie, and then thought about... Pull on a sickie. So, you know, I've got to go back tonight. I've been working a lot.

I can't be bothered. Yeah. He was super tired, but after the thing he got over, he decided not, not to pull a sickie. This is such a classic thing. Isn't it? It was just like, I wasn't even going to be there that day. Yes, it is really like that. Yeah.

Yeah, I was this close to not, you know, not taking that train or whatever. Yeah. That's the one. And so, you know, he decided, no, I'm going to, I'll go to work, as always. He went along, getting there at 5.30 for his 12-hour shift. 5.30 a.m. 5.30 p.m. Sorry.

Because he's worked all night. Oh, right. Slept a little bit in the day. Working up, what's the footing going on? I can't be about going back again tonight. You know what I'm saying? It's like that day, whatever. So he was a shot fireer, which is a specialist in mining who prepares positions and detonates explosive

to break down rock and soil. So he's the explosives guy. Cool. Yeah, man, that would be a stressful job. Yeah, but also kind of fun. Yeah, kind of fun and cool. But every time. Blowing shit up?

Yeah. Sick. Like being allowed to blow shit up. Yeah. But being close to the shit, being blown up, you might be a bit more scared of that. Yeah, but no one's mad at you for blowing stuff up. Yeah, that would be pretty cool.

Yeah, the principal doesn't yell at you this time. Yeah, that's like, you get obsessed with fireworks, and you're like, all right. I fucking love fireworks. Fireworks are awesome. Let me tell you. When we were young, like my dad had a friend for who. Young girl, you're still very young.

Thank you so much. But when I was a child, like eight, nine, including the year 1999, of course, welcoming the millennium. Dad had a friend that had a pool and he would have everyone over. on New Year's E's for a few years in a row and a couple of times someone had brought in a bunch of fireworks set off in this guy's big front yard and it was freaking awesome.

That's the best. Especially when you're like nine years old and you're like right next to someone like obviously I'm not setting it off but I'm like, oh my God, it's over there. We did fireworks as a kid, a lot of fun. It's so awesome. They give it such a professional name though, shot fireer. Shot fire up, yeah. It should be, I don't know, blowing stuff up guy.

Yeah, the big boom man. Yeah, boom man. Boom, boom. So modern mines are extremely deep and they're big enough to drive large trucks. Like they're way, I was looking at videos. It's not like the mine shaft stuff of the gold rush with mine carts. Yeah, I was going to say, I've been to mines. I don't know, where do you go to Ballarat?

I mean, at Ballarat, yeah. You can go down the mines, right? Obviously not active anymore. But they're like, they're big enough for, they're tight though. Like they take, you know, small groups through and they're pretty tight to get through. But these are big enough to drive a truck. Yeah, drive a truck down. And what they do is a, and this is what he, this is what he did.

And you get a truck. I guess you drive the truck into it. Yeah, you drive it all the way down. It's not like a, because again, when I, when I've been in mine shafts before, I'm no, by no means an expert. But you get a lift. It's a vertical, you know, hole in the ground. Whereas this, I suppose, is like a diagonal hole. It's actually, no, so you can, you can get a lift down and that's how most of the workers get down.

But to get the truck down there, there's a series of like kind of spirals. Yeah, it has to be. Like an airport car park. There was one. He just got like, oh my God, surely there's got to be some spots on this level. Sometimes like a motion sickness trying to get out of the fucking airport. Level five, no spots on the six. Oh my God.

Weaving our way down. I'm zooming down. Let me tell you. Kind of like that. With one of the, another gold mine that I was just watching a video of how it worked, they, um, some guy's job is to drive the truck all the way down, pick up whatever they've mined and then drive it back.

And it's a two hour round trip. Wow. Because you've got to drive pretty slow. Yeah. But also you wind around around around about eight or nine miles of, of like round around around and then they try and do it maybe four times in a shift yeah so they're just driving up and back in the dark in the dusty it's I'm also imagining that it's it's big enough for the truck but like only just so he

drives all the way down but then he has to reverse it back how does he turn away out am I doing back there just hands over the back the whole tongue out just getting air That's exactly it. So Todd slowly drove a loader about eight or nine kilometers spiraling down until he was 925 meters below the surface. And they call that level 925. Okay.

So that's about 0.57 miles underground. Right. For anyone overseas. So it's steep. Yeah. Once there he met up with his assigned team for the shift. There was 44-year-old Larry Knight, who he already knew. and the guy he'd never worked with before that night,

37-year-old Brant Webb. So they were sort of, you know, teamed up for the first time. And they were all going to work in a teleloader, also known as a telescopic handler, a teleporter, a reach forklift, or a Zoom boom. We're going to go with Zoom Boom. Thank you. Sorry to speak on your behalf there, Evan,

but I've made an executive decision. I like to teleport it, but, yeah, Zoom boom is great. Zoom boom is better. So basically, it looks. like a typical digger, like one guy sits in a cabin and drives the thing. And on the front is a long arm with a basket where the other two can sit or stand in. And the arm extends like a cherry picker so you get close to the walls or the roof of the mining or whatever. Larry Knight and Brant Webb flipped a coin as to who was going to be driving and who was going to be in the basket with Todd.

Larry turns out got to drive and Brant got in the basket with Todd. Fuck sake. And this coin flip would be extremely fateful. Another one of those, you know, Do you know what kind of a coin it was? Was it a gold coin? Oh, my gosh. They have special gold coins, made of pure gold. I just saw Evan's regret face. They never seen it before.

And it wasn't warranted. No, it was good. No, I don't know. I don't back it. Okay. Well, it's in forever now. You can't take it back. So, Larry's driving.

Todd and Brantner in the basket, which, like a cherry picker, is completely open at the top. It's only waist deep. Okay. at 9.26pm, a small earthquake struck. It only had a magnitude of 2.3 on the Richter scale. It was barely felt on land at all. But one kilometre underground and close to the epicenter, it triggered a rock fall.

Wow. And it only lasted a second, but it was catastrophic. 14 others who were in the mind at the time were able to escape, but the rocks fell and buried Todd, Brant and Larry. Everything went dark. And I'm in underground pitch black dark. And everyone who talks about this story kept reiterating that unless you've been underground like that, you don't actually know what proper total darkness is.

I'm not sure if they turn the lights off when you're in one of your many minus campaigns. They did not. They did not. Like they say, like you can't see two millimeters in front of your face. Like your eyes just never adjust because there's no light at all. Like it's dark, dark. Todd's, you know, he's conscious, his cap lamp wasn't working, which is that typical light on a minor's helmet. And he started screaming out to Larry to get that.

them the fuck out of there, you know, Larry's driving. There was no response from Larry, and there's also none from Brandt, who seconds early was standing next to him in the basket. He's like, Todd's like, what the fuck's going on? It's dark, where's everyone? No one's responding. It turns out, Brandt has been knocked unconscious. He came to, and fortunately, his cap lamp still works.

They had light that they used sparingly to save the battery. Brant discovered that Todd was covered by and pinned under many rocks. Right. He was buried up to his head. and apart from that only his forearms were free. Jeez. It's a genuine nightmare. Like it's just a feeling of like the thought of being that far underground and trapped.

It's like next level claustrophobia. Yeah. In the dark. Dark. Oh man. And like it's hot under there as well. Yeah. And it's moist.

Hot and moist. Oh man. I just assumed it would be really cold underground like that. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

And even even when you're talking about like going to the minds in Ballarat and doing a tour, I'm like, fuck no. Absolutely not. Don't. On the tiniest. I don't like, I don't like being underwater. Yeah. Like, I like to have access whenever I want it to air and outside.

Yeah, you just need to not, you need to put out of your head how deep underground you are. Yeah, absolutely. And it's hard when you're surrounded by rock, when you're in a mine. It's easy when you, like, if you drive through a tunnel, it's really easy to forget that you could be like quite a ways underground. Yes. You just don't think about it. It's like being on a plane, like you don't think about the fact that. you're hurtling to the area.

That's true. An ungodly speed. And you don't notice because it's such a gradual, like I'm thinking of like the tunnels at the freeway here. Like, yeah, it's such a gradual decline. Yeah,

you don't feel like you're traveling underground. It's only you start to feel it as you come back up and it's mostly because other cars forget. And so they don't realize you're on an incline now so they don't accelerate. So everyone slows down a lot. And you're like, why are we only going to 60? It's like, well, because you've slowed right down

because you're actually going, yeah, you're right. You go deeper than you think. Wow. Like if you were to block eyes. exit now would be pretty deep. Yeah. Yeah. So Todd's pinned.

Being a strong miner, he thought he'd be able to push it off. But every time he tried to heave himself up to get the rock off, he would then, like, struggle and then relax and breathe out after the effort. And each time the rock would get tighter and tight on his chest. Awful. Compressing him to the point that he struggled to breathe and he started to vomit. Because he's like so pinned. It's actually on his, on his chest.

Todd, he... I'd be panicking. Yeah. Yep. Oh, me too. Big time. I'd be freaking. Freaking. Yeah.

Todd, it's lucky these guys are quite experienced in being underground at mining. And Todd himself had worked in mine's rescue. Right. And he knew that he had to get out before he suffered a full-on compression injury, which could turn life-threatening pretty quickly. So with Brand's help, they got the rock off slowly. It took like four hours. Wow.

But they had nowhere to put it except in their already confined basket, which was only 1.4 metres square, or as they describe it, about the size of a typical dining table. So it's 1.4 meters long and 1.4 meters wide. Yeah, right. That's not very big. But then they're completely surrounded by rocks. So once they take the rock off them, they can't put it to the side. Yeah.

So they have to put it somewhere inside the basket with them. With the extra rock, they had even less room. It now measured 1.4 meters long. And for width, they only had 70 to 80 centimeters or about 28 inches across. Right. So they can't really move. And they're not small men. Yeah, these are big dudes.

Like Todd was, you know, a big mining guy said at the time, he was 116 kilos. Yeah. And he's also very tall dude. Yeah, they're both tall and broad and like round men. So like two Dave size people could make that work. But these guys are big. Yeah, 70, 80 centimeters. Yeah.

Yeah. And what is that in miles? 0.0.0. Yes, 28 inches across. This amount they only had enough width for one. man to line his back, whilst the other had to lie on his side. Right. And moving was very painful as the quartz walls that they were mining were like razor sharp.

Jeez. So if you have to, whoever's lining on their side and moving is like pinned against this wall. And then if you're doing the switch to being on your back, now you have to scrape down the wall. This sounds horrible. Yeah, it's awful. Why are they doing this? Get out of there. Just yell.

Larry, get us out of here. I'm a celebrity to get me out of here. That's all you have to say. It's all you have to say. No, they won the $100,000. Yeah, that's what. Also, the roof, which was made up of precariously balanced rocks that had fallen on top of them, was just above, so that only about 30 centimetres above their face.

Jeez. It's like, you can't really stand up, you can't really sit up, you can either line your side or line on your back. Yeah. The two options. And I guess it's just nothing, you can't do anything. You just, you just trapped. You just have to wait. Yeah.

Wait for someone to hopefully come and find you. Yep, that's, I mean, honestly, that is all they could do. So it was hot, it was wet, it was dark, but for now they were relatively safe. They took their helmets and belts off and tried to get as comfortable as possible. And they passed the time by chatting. Like I said, at the start, in the 70s working there, living in this tiny town, they'd never worked to shift together before. Yeah.

That's crazy. And now you're like, well. Tell us me. Yeah. Who do you ever follow in the footy? Yeah. Honestly, it was questions stuff like that. They discovered pretty quickly that they were quite different people.

Todd was quite serious. Brant was a bit of a joker, a comedian. One man liked Ford or the other liked Holden. Oh, my God. One man liked hunting, and the other one, he preferred fishing. Oh, God. Opposites. The regular odd couple.

One thing they did have in common was their love for their families. Speaking about who was waiting for them back at home, kept their spirits up, and their morale, well, you know, kind of high, relatively high. Yeah. That's nice. They were both married. Brant had 18 year old twins and Todd, like I said, three younger kids. They were six, ten and twelve.

And of course, it wasn't easy. They were very aware that the rocks above them were super precarious and I only needed one shock or extra tremor to hit. And it could shake the whole... There's always aftershocks, right? Yeah. And it could shake him down on top of them and they'd be buried. Oh, man.

Also, not surprising, there was a bit of bickering. Todd got pissed when he smelled that Brant was smoking in the basket. What? He was like, not bloody smoking. That's pretty funny. Eventually, however, he gave in and despite not being a smoker, he decided to join him being like, well, we're probably going to die in here anyway.

Yeah. One good thing was the lighter also meant they were able to work out the direction air was flowing in and they had no need to worry about oxygen levels. That's clever. Despite the rock being on top of them wasn't airtight, so they weren't going to suffocate. They knew there was air. Okay, yeah, that's great. So that's one less thing to worry about.

Because again, I'm panicking. So I'm not thinking about, I'm not logically going, oh, well, I can see. coming in here. I'm not thinking. I think the other guy would have to knock me out because I'd be freaking out so much.

I'd be so unhelpful. Yeah. Yes, you would. No. You might surprise yourself. You never know. I don't want you to ever be in a situation

where you have to find out how you'd be in a life-threatening situation. Probably fortunately for them they don't know how long they're going to be there. That's right. They're like, well...

It could be a few hours. They know something's happened. You know, they're on their way to help. I won't spoil that few of them, but if I'd told them this is how long you're going to be they probably would have freaked out.

Yep. Right, okay. Yeah, I have no, I keep fighting the urge to ask you, how long are they down there for? I don't even know if, I assume they get out because we're hearing about all this. But yeah, it sounds like quite, they're in for quite an ordeal.

Yes, it's a lot. Because the mine was so wet, they had access to dripping water and used one of their helmets to collect it. Oh, wow. Although this was slow. They got bloody everything you need. They got air, they got water.

They got a bed, kind of. They got a razor sharp rock water. Bad rock? You got a mate? What more do you need? What more do you need? You're not doing any chores down there. Yeah, geez.

You don't have to clean a toilet. Oh yeah, good to get back to the blood of kids. They're probably still getting paid. Yeah, oh yeah. Surely getting overtime to this. Surely. Surely. Though it was painstaking and slow to collect the water

because it took about two hours to get a single mouthful. Oh my God. It was like a classic slow drip. Stellic mite style situation. Still like tight, stealth tight, stilic might. That's actually. in the rhythm of one of Matt Stewart's jokes. Yeah.

He's talking about man caves. Yeah. Check it out any stand-up special on the stupid old channel. That's a bloody good joke. Yeah. Full of Stelic Tarts and Stelich Martson, bloody Ostrichristian. Making fun of man caves. Good stuff, Matt.

We miss you. And we wish you well. We wish you well. Wherever you are. So that's what, remember they got two helmets. In one helmet, they're collecting water. In the other, they collected their piss. Just in case things got desperate.

Oh, wow. Okay. But you don't want to get your helmets mixed up. piss in the water and it's very dark fortunately they say they never had to drink the piss thank God they would say that that's what I would say that I'd take that to my grave I would

yeah no no no no no no no no no no no no nope definitely not so the thing I knew this story and that they were trapped for a while I didn't realize that they were in this tiny little area I thought that maybe it's like the entrance is over there a rock's fallen down there They're in a, you know, a bedroom and they can walk around, they can lie down, they can stretch. I didn't realize that it is literally claustrophobia on steroids.

Yeah, it can barely move. Yeah, I didn't realize that that's how bad it was. It was bad. Yeah, so bad. Because they're still in the cage of the... Yes, it's just a cage. It's still in the cherry pickers. It's a small cage.

Cherry pickers aren't big. Like, you know, and it only goes up to their waist. That's not very big. Yep. And so they don't know what's happened to this other, the driver. No, they've yelled out to him. They can't hear anything back. Yeah.

As for food, it was pretty slim pickings. Brant had a musli bar with him, which he offered to... Oh, wow, that's lucky. Offered to cut in half and share with Todd, which is very nice. Very nice. You know what? I'm not a big musli bar fan. So I'm okay.

You're really? It'd be wasted on me. Yeah. Don't like it. I wonder what kind it was. Yeah. I don't know. 2006, it wouldn't have been any of those...

It wouldn't be like one of the Carman's ones with the 10 grams of protein or anything. It's probably a pretty crappy Uncle Toby's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you get those ones that, like, oats and chocolate chips. You're like, this isn't healthy. This isn't really... We've got oats. Yeah, they're nice, though.

They are not, yeah, yeah. Is there genuinely anything that you'd be starving underground? You'd be like, I don't want to eat that. I hate that. Honestly, yeah. Musley bar. Most things. Most things.

Yeah. Most things. Most things. I mean, there would be, there's some stuff that I just, I just can't get, like, I'm not big into, like, seafoody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not very adventurous with food. Imagine if it was like oyster? Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, God, thank goodness. I've just remembered I've got a bag of spaghetti marinar in my pocket. That is the funniest choice you could have made. Spaghetti maranara. Look, I would probably go for that. But like, I watch, I mean watching Alone Australia. Yeah.

You guys watch that? But I, I don't know, the idea of just eating like a raw animal meat or like cooking, you know, like processing animals. You found a half a rabbit's carcass or something. Yeah, I'm good. I wouldn't be, it'd be a while before I'd get that desperate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't eat meat.

But I love Jess's standards. It's so high. She's like, Musley Bar. Yeah, I know. Because, again, I'd be assuming we're here for a couple hours. Yeah, I'll be hungry. I'll get out and be like, I really regretting that. Musley Bar.

I can still, it's still in my teeth. Have you got any floss? I hate the, bleh. That's so funny. I wish I like them. I don't like the, like, I don't like oats. I hate the taste. Really?

Yeah, I know. It's, really? really annoying. I love oats. I hate them. I love them too. Me and Matt used to get our like lunch when we were at work. We would always go to the cafe down the road and we get, they did like porridge with honey and banana. Great. Big fan. Yeah. And then they stopped doing it. What? What did you do that? So you're in there like every day getting that. And then they took it off their menu. And there was a little while there where we were like ordering off menu because we knew them. We were like, can you still get it? You know, can you still do the porridge? And they did for a bit.

But. And then one day they have to be like, you can't be bothered doing it. Well, ultimately they went out of business, and I think it's because they took the porridge off the meeting. Yeah. But it's also like, do you think at any stage they were like, we're kind of sick of these two dickheads coming in?

Even they were trying to get rid of us. Yeah. I'd take that personally. And then they were like the only way to get out of this. We've got to pack up the whole business. We've got to fake a bankruptcy. We've got to go. Let's just move.

I'm still friends with one of them on Facebook. That's weird, right? Send a message. Do you know if they own another cafe now? I don't think they do. Go find them. An order of porridge. Yeah, all of the porridge.

Yeah. Go ahead and that place. Chosey down. Porrin. Um, so they've got one musli bar split and half. Initially, they agreed to wait 24 hours to eat it. That's smart.

I was going to ask how long until you pull it out. I'd be like, you wait until you hungry. A couple hours to food. They waited 20, so 24 hours. They said 24 hours, but they continually extended the time until they decided to finally eat it four days later. Four days. Four days. On April 29.

Oh my God. We're in line there for that food for four days. Four days. Then they ate small pieces of the bar at a time to make it last as long as possible. However, Todd Russell later lost a large portion of his half when it fell out of his pocket. That would be devastating. Oh, man. He'd be so upset.

And Brand would be like, he just lost my fucking musloor bar. Oh, my God. I mean, I feel devastated if I'm just eating like a normal meal and I drop a little. bit and the dog's got to eat it off the floor. Yeah. That hurts me. But the dog is stoked. The dog couldn't be happy.

But does it hurt you to see the dog enjoy it? Yeah. Evan hates that dog. That's why I got the food. I want to eat all the food. Yeah. That's my food. Yeah.

This is all the food you have in the world. Yeah. And you're hungry. That would be four days without eating. Man, that'd be soul crushing. Harrowing. Yeah. Almost as soul crushing is the rock crushing you.

Yeah. That's right. I. Oh, man. four days. Evan, let me tell you, it's going to get worse. Four days. I still, I mean, I still have no, I can't, I still have no idea how long they were in there for in the end.

But four days sounds, I mean, I really didn't think it would be that long. Four days, yep. All right. Well, they also extended their light by taking the battery out of Todd's smashed cap lamp and carefully fire, they used a lighter for lighting this and then putting it into Brantz. So they had another, another battery, which is clever. Whatever, yeah. They're good at, like, obviously, surviving as best they can.

It's good problem solving. Mm. For six whole days, they lay there. Wow. They could hear man-made explosions going on knowing that that was the rescue effort. Yeah, okay. You'd be pretty pissed at it. I thought that was still mine.

Just carry on. Now, that would be encouraging. Like, you can, you're hearing, if you heard nothing, you'd eventually, you'd just go insane, right? But if you're hearing something, you'd be like, all right, that's progress. Someone's coming. There's hope, right? It gives you hope. They're yelling out there.

banging on the metal cage with tools just trying to let people know that, hey, we're over here, we are alive. Also, they wanted them to be careful to not trigger another collapse because they're hearing explosives and they're like, holy shit, man, we're like in a house of cards here. You can't be sending off explosives. Using a pen to write on the legs of his overalls, Todd wrote down the time and date from his watch of every explosion so that if rescuers did trigger a collapse and later found their bodies, they would know how long they'd been alive for and what had triggered there. Wow. He's very smart.

Wow. Yeah, right. Okay. So, oh, right. Okay. Wow. So it'd be like, you know, April 29, 1043 a.m. explosion. And they'd later find his overalls and be like, holy crap, they were still alive until the 29. Yeah, wow. On his other leg, Todd wrote a goodbye letter to his family, which was understandably one of the hardest things he ever had to do in there. To keep up morale, they sang a song. Remember they're pretty different?

pretty different guys. I don't have too much crossover with what music a lot. There are only one song they both knew the words too and just seems to be trying to remember it. Do you know what it was? No, I don't. Maybe if you gave me a clue. It is a Kenny Logan's classic.

They kept singing the gambler. You got a nowhere to hold them. Now where to fold them. That's the only song they both know all the words to. Yeah, wow. So they just start seeing it like just blaring at the top of their lungs, having to be a fun. I like that they're going through, like, their little catalogs in their brain of, do you know this song?

Yeah. Do you know this song? How long would it take to get to that? Yeah. Don't know if there's many songs I know all the words too. Mary had a little. Surely you know this one. No, nothing.

Nothing? Don't know that one. What was your childhood? Do you know Missy Higgins Scar? I know that one. Oh, no, I know the special too. Oh, damn. Two great tracks.

I'm trying to think of songs. I know all the words. too and Scar is one of them, I think. Right. I can't think of many at all. Even if you just be like, hey, do you want to do the chorus of, I don't know, Mr. Brightside? We all know that. Just to do the chorus.

We don't have to know the verse. And honestly, if my husband's taught me anything, it's that you don't have to know the lyrics to songs. Make it up to a bit of like a that, blah, blah, but, you know. In fact, you don't have to hear any lyrics to songs. And then you go, oh, Brandt, freestyle. Dave, I'd love to be stuck underground of you. Your sucker's on whose hobby is beatboxing. Let me show you what I can do.

Sorry, when I get nervous, I beatbox. Oh, my, come, we, go, we, go, go, okay. Oh, that would be great. So they're like over and over, they're singing the gambler by Kenny Loggins over different times throughout the day, which I love it. It's such a great visual. Really ruining the song for themselves, though, in the future.

Oh, my gosh. If they do survive this, you'd be like, I never want to hear that song again. Yeah, it would really bring you back there. What they didn't know, and probably fortunately for them or all at this stage, is that a remote-controlled Earth mover had been clearing the rock underground on their level. And on day two, the body of Larry Knight had been discovered and retrieved.

Oh, I could have forgot that Larry. Yeah, tragically, he was only 44. Oh. And I remember they'd done the coin toss and... Yeah. I thought what you were going to say was what they didn't know is that they could hear their singing. Yeah. Oh, right.

And they were toned there. I had a really vague memory of them finding Larry and he was having some sort of medical episode and they got him out, but he did not make it. No, Sadd. I think he'd been killed in the end. initial rock fall. Oh, which, I mean, horrific. The whole thing is awful and such a tragic loss.

But in some ways, you go, if he went quickly. Yeah, if you want to, if you are going to go in this situation, you want it to happen. Yeah. At the start. Like, not that he was there in pain, slowly dying. Yeah. That would be horrific. Yeah, so.

Oh, I'd forgotten that. That sucks. And they both, so they didn't know each other, but they both knew and it worked with Larry. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. So it's, it's a very sad, very sad for them in particular. After his body had been found, the area was turned into a crime scene for investigation,

just standard protocol. So mining inspectors were put in place throughout the mine. Uh-huh. And basically, it sort of slowed down the rescue a little bit because they had to sort of now treat it as a crime scene as well as a rescues. Because someone had died. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

So, and I guess they're doing like a, someone dies at work. There's an investigation. Sure. Get work safe down there. Yeah. So on the 925 level, which is where they'd entered. and Larry and Todd and Brandon have been working, one of the mine inspectors was stationed to prevent anyone going in at that level

because that's where they found Larry. A couple of miners who were mates of the trapped men were pretty keen to get in and have a look. Now, they weren't allowed in there, but the miner who was the inspector said he was having a coffee and I'll be back in 15 minutes, sort of a wink wink. Yeah, right. Now you, boy. Yeah, you don't, don't you go in there? Not allowed down here and you know that.

Now, off you go. Off you go. I'm going to the tea room and I'm going to have a cup of tea and a bickie. Maybe use the little boys' room. No one's going to be here looking for about 15 minutes, so don't you come in. Now, I don't want to come back and find that you're having a little cheeky gander. Off I go. That is exactly what.

And then one of them turns the other and goes, well, I guess we can't look. Gosh. You heard him. You heard him. The other one's like, you are the densest motherfucker. So meanwhile, he's off for a break. Two miners at their own extreme risk went into 925 to investigate and, quote, do a risk assessment. So they described it.

They were about to do another blast. And they later found out that this possibly could have killed Todd and Brandt because they were getting closer and closer. And that they've got this precarious rock situation above them. But they know that, like, they know Todd and Brand. didn't come out. Yep. So, yeah, why would you be so cavalier with more explosives?

I guess because they found Larry dead and it's been several days. I think it's been four days and they're starting to think. I think that part of the logic is we're really running out of time. We have to find these men. If they're in there, I guess it's a calculated risk. At this point, they're sort of, they're expecting to recover bodies not, it's not a rescue. I mean, you know, at the time you'd be like, this is pretty unlikely that they're going to find these guys alive, right?

Yeah. You wouldn't necessarily assume that they've got air and most of a musli bar. Yeah. And water. Like, you wouldn't assume that they're... Yeah. I mean, the chances that they aren't crushed to begin with, and then the chances that they've been able to survive this long is pretty slim.

Yeah. It's pretty amazing, really. Yeah. It's actually unbelievable. Yeah. That they all to survive. So, and they're oblivious to people being so close because they're surrounded by so much rock. They're basically in what they felt like was a soundproof room.

Yeah. It must be just a few metres away, right? Yeah, they're just a few meters away. And they were lying there loudly singing the gamblock. You got to know when to hold them. When Todd thought he heard something, so he told Brent, shut the fuck up. And Brand's like, what? He's like, I think I heard someone.

He yelled out, is anyone there? And these are the rescuers that have come closer. Yeah, yeah. They couldn't believe it. And they reportedly collapsed with joy when they heard the trapped men's voices respond. Like they were both yelled at, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me?

Oh, my God. So they know that they're alive and that the people have found them. So one of the rescuers yells out, can we get you anything? And Todd responded, can you get us the fuck out of you? Not a bad point than Todd. That's great. And Todd's the serious one. He's the serious one too.

Oh, yeah, I'd love a Pepsi Max and to get the fuck out of here. That's good stuff. That's great. There was quite a bit of humor like that, sort of ribbing, you know, gentle ripping each other. Yeah. Because it'd be, I mean, obviously the whole thing's just horrific, but that would be a moment of just elation that someone can hear you and that you're talking to your mate and they know you're alive.

So it was great news. The two men were safe after six days, particularly for their anxious families waiting at home. Six days. And a later interview with one of their wives had talked about, it must have been Todd's wife because he's got three kids. Like there was a mixture of in the family. Some of them were like, dad's alive.

Another one was like, I don't think dad's. there anymore and it was like this extremely emotional six days one of the kids kept going to school because they needed a distraction from the round-the-clock worry yeah but very long uh very long six days for them in particular and they were informed that hey they're alive in there and by this time the media storm outside the mine had exploded yeah now if you weren't in australia at the time it is hard to describe but it was huge news and it's all anyone could talk about front page of all okay this is how i know it was 2006 because i was about to say front page of newspapers.

Yeah. And you do that's a big deal. I'm not looking at fucking newspapers now. So I must have been living at home where newspapers were. Yes. Yeah, front page newspapers, main story and probably the only story on most news channels. Yeah, like, you know, the morning shows are all now based in Tasmania to be, like, covering it. Everyone went to Tazzi.

Great for Lonseston. Oh, huge. Interviewing all their old, like, you know, people that know them, that kind of stuff. Yeah. All that sort of bullshit. And now they've been found against the odds alive after six days. came worldwide news. Yep.

Like it was, you know, now worldwide coverage. And I'm wondering if people from overseas do you remember it? Yeah, maybe from that point on, yeah, where they were found alive. Were the media like, they were, I guess, up at the surface level, they weren't like down there. No, they couldn't get down there. And they weren't communicating with them. No. But at the top of the mind, like, you know, there's all the satellite trucks.

Yeah. Broadcast trucks are all there. Yep. Like it became like a mini city. Yeah. Some people estimate that the town population had like basically doubled from three and a half thousand. Huge. Huge news.

Caravan Park couldn't handle it. They're licking their lips. Yeah, like, oh, bloody hell. I think there were three pubs back then. Now there's only one left in the area. But everyone was asking how are they going to get them out? Yeah. And knowing they were alive actually.

And you really don't want to kill them. And that is the exact. That's such a good point, Evan. But that is exactly what happened Because knowing they were alive Actually ground the rescue to a halt Because authorities were aware That if they made the wrong move

It could cost them in their lives Yeah I mean it's the kind of thing where like If it's like well they might be alive Or they might not be Yeah You're there blowing it up They're like well What can you do?

Exactly We gotta try It's like this is Now we've got to be really careful Yeah we've got to get there before they starve And now we know they're there Okay let's all relax a bit Yeah

Let's fine Let's slow this down Let's do this proper And they had 25 people in a control room On the ground Painstakingly going through all the details of potential rescue plans, all the pros, all the cons,

trying to figure out the safest way to do it. Yeah. But that takes time. Of course. Yeah. Later, they're doing DROs, dynamic risk assessments. Yeah.

Okay, they're ever changing. Wow. It's pretty interesting stuff. Thought have had so many engineers down there. Right? Geological. A room full of bloody engineers. Fantastic.

And some people are like coming up with crazy plans. Like, all right, what we need is a nuclear weapon. We need to explode this mine. Okay. What we're going to do. do is we're going to put a Captain America shield in, hand it to them, they just hold it above them and then we just blow the shit up. Yeah, they'll be fine. They will be fine. I've seen

the movie. It's made of uranium or whatever the fuck it's made of, I don't know. Oh, man. Later on, one rescuer found a direct route to the trapped miners across the rubble in the side tunnel. It is actually able to get close enough to the basket of the telehandler to shake Todd Russell's hand. This was where a remote control loader had got to the back of the teleloader, but the route was deemed unsafe for rescuing them. Because there was just too much rubble around that could potentially collapse on them and the rescuers. Yeah.

So it's like, we can get close here, but if I move this a little bit here, the whole thing you collapse. Yeah, you don't want to put a whole bunch of other people at risk. Yeah, mine manager, Matthew Gill, told the media, we have carefully and seriously considered the option of going through this way to get Todd and Brandt, along with all the other options, attempting to come through the back of the telehandler seen as a very, very unsafe option, both for the rescuers and for Todd and Brand.

So that's pretty frustrating though. You can literally shake a hand. Yeah. You're close enough to touch another human. Yeah. But you just can't get through that wall. Brutal. Todd and Brand had passed on as many details of their position as possible,

including how far the basket was extended during the collapse so the rescuers could calculate exactly where they were. The rescuers then drilled five metres below the men and then created a narrow shaft up to them, which they fitted with a PVC pipe so they could send supplies up to them. Yeah, right. It was so small, everything was sent inside a Mount Franklin 600 mill plastic water bottle. And it would just go up and down. It's got to go up, so you've got to like put the bottle in and then go like,

who! Like on a mini golf course. Yeah, I assume. How else would it go up? Yes. I think it was the series of pulleys. Pulley, pulley, pulley, plush. slash someone going,

huh. So they were sent medical supplies with which Brandt was able to treat the injury to Todd's leg with advice from paramedics. Oh. And they were able to communicate because the telephone was sent through in pieces in a plastic bag

with a screwdriver and instructions on how to put it back together. Oh, my God. And from this point on the best, they had one of them on the phone at all times. Yeah. So one might lie down for arrest and the other one would stay on the phone.

Sadly, they couldn't call home and speak to their families. Oh, that was going to be my question. Yeah, I assumed that you would. Part of the reason, this is what they say, is that they were worried the media were tapping the lines. Fuck. Well, just give the wives the other phone.

Like, you're speaking to them mobile to mobile. I reckon the girls probably aren't at work. Probably bring them down and hand them the phone for a sec. Yeah, yeah. That's just my idea. Bizarre. So they sent letters back. I'd be, if I was one of those wives, I'd be fucking storming that place.

I don't give a shit of the media hears this. I don't need to go talk to them because they die. They also sent letters. So they sent letters back and forth to their families instead. And these were monitored by psychologists before they went down to make sure there was nothing that would trigger them in. And my theory is actually that they can control a letter, but they can't control what like, you know, your six-year-old says on the outside that might cause you to have a bit of a mental collapse. True. Daddy, I miss you so much or whatever, and you're like, have a panic attack.

That's my theory. No, you're right. Okay. Yeah, you're absolutely right. But with a letter, they can read and go, this is too much. This could really upset them. Them even speaking to their wives, even a step before the kids, the kids would break them, but even talking to their wives. Can I tell a quick story?

Yeah. My mum's best friend was in Christchurch at a medical convention when the earthquake hit. And we're watching it on the news like, oh, wow, earthquake and Christa. That looks bad. And my mum just goes white and she's like, Kay's there. Oh, we're like, fuck. get on to her husband. We had eventually heard from her she was okay.

Kay is a very, like, tough, no bullshit woman. I absolutely adore her. And she eventually got extracted. She got out. And mum and dad were at the airport when she landed back in Melbourne. This was like several days later and it was a horrific time. The hotel she was in was destroyed and it was terrible. Yeah, wow.

And like some of her colleagues had to, there was a story of somebody at a urologist amputating someone's leg to get them out of rubble and they were a urologist they were not a surgeon but she was small and she could get in to do it while a surgeon was on the outside

instructing and they saved the person like it was a horrific time that's not a surprise to anybody particularly New Zealanders anyway she gets back and she's this very tough stoic woman but as soon as she saw her husband she just broke, right? Because it's like you're holding on for so long.

Yeah, yeah. And then there's this person that represents like safety to you. And you know you can just let go because they've got you now. And so it would have to be, from a psychology point of view, why they would withhold speaking to their family because you're still stuck. And then you hear your kids, it would be awful. Yeah. Yeah.

It would be so hard to hear. Yeah, it would. Yeah. But on a logical level as humans on the outside, we're like, let them talk to their families. Please, this could be the last time they ever speak to them. Right. But yeah, it's like, is it going to do more harm than good? Because we don't know how long they're going to be in there for.

It's interesting. I said earlier that I've been watching alone. Yeah. Australia. And so many of them end up giving up because they just miss their family too much. It's like, you know, they go in there being like, I can do this. I'm going to stay the longest. I'm going to stay for, you know, three months.

I was there for a year. And I think all of them would go in being like, well, as long as I've got food and water, I'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. But some of them, even if they, you know, it's not the, it's not, it's not the food thing. It's not, it's not, you know, they've got water and they've got shelter and stuff. Like it's hard, but like, they've, they can survive.

Yeah. But so many of them are just like, fuck this. I need to see my family. I need to see my kids. I'm, I'm, you know. And I guess that's a situation, obviously, where they're making the choice to be there. They have the option to just be like, no, I'm out of here. These guys don't get to just leave

Yeah That's usually what it is Is that they just miss their family so much I don't know if it would help If they could talk to their family I feel like it would make it worse Maybe yeah I really do think it would make it worse

If you could if you could talk to them I did a real 180 there Because I was like get the fucking wives on the phone And I'm like ah actually yeah I can see that I felt mad I'm like just because I was thinking What if it is the last time they ever

And they missed the opportunity to say Oh man it's a tough call I don't know I would be storming the place They're actually really, like, monitoring them to the point that Todd asked for a photo of his family, is they'd recently taken family photos. And when he was first crushed, he said the thing that gave him the will to live, he was at first he was like praying, he was in so much pain covered in rock.

He was like, I hope I go soon. And then he sees the image of the family photo that they'd taken recently. And that went, that's when he started, like, trying to break out. Stop this. But a psychologist wouldn't let him have the image worrying how it would affect his mental health. But they did get fresh clothes sent to them every day. and on the rescue... In Mount Franklin.

Yes. It's not wild. You can really... See that's... It just proves, you know, people say, roll your clothes when you're packing. They say that. They say you get more space out of it

and I think they might be right. I did say six and a meal now. Maybe it was a big Mount Franklin, but still like... 1.25 later was on. It must be a big one, right? But on the rescue team was one of Todd's close mates. A guy called Dean McRill,

that he calls Macca. Who one day... I love Australian. So good. Who got on the phone after sending through some fresh fresh track suit pants and Dean told Todd to check his pockets and inside he'd smuggled in a small photo of the family and then uh yeah Todd put it about 30 centreders away from his face up on a rock and he and this it actually did the opposite of what the psychologists was worried about it gave him

strength he would look at the photo of all right we've got to stay calm here's the thing too these are minors in their 40s or whatever like late 30s 40s 40s you know these are the guys down the Like, yeah, no, it's completely like surface level conversations or, yeah, now, Macca, he's a good bloke. Yeah, whatever. But then, like, that is so sweet and thoughtful. So nice. Yeah. I'm like, fuck there's guys.

He needs a picture of his kids. Yeah. That's really nice. Yeah, what a legend. Macca. They're also later sent a digital camera to take some photos of their surroundings so the rescuers could see what they were dealing with. And some of these photos survive, which is crazy to see them just sort of surrounded by rubble.

Yeah. Yeah. They also got a torch, magazines, deodorant, toothpaste, and iPods, which included requested music from foo fighters and the Australian musical comedian Kevin Bloody Wilson. Which is so funny. Okay, so that tells you what we're dealing with. Yeah. Do I look like I give a fuck, delicaph.

He's like, I've got to keep the spirits up. Yeah. It's so great. I'd be like, put Carl Barron on one for me. I'll just listen to one of these sets. When Dave Grohl of the footh fighters heard of the miners' requests to have the bands, music sent down on MP3 players. He issued a personal message via fax.

What? It's 2006. Wow. So great that they can't talk to their wives, but you can take a fax from Dave Grohl. Grohl's note in part read, though I'm halfway around the world right now, my heart is with you both. And I want you to know that when you come home, there's two tickets to any foo's show anywhere, and two cold beers waiting for you.

deal question mark that's very nice and then Brent put that up 30 centimeters for his face over the offer the family photo said those that cold beer that promise of a cold beer is got to get me through I've got to tell you that the fact stayed surprisingly is silent from Kevin Bloody Wilson wow speaks volumes doesn't it as for food dietitians decided on what they could and couldn't eat to keep them healthy underground Todd, who was a hunter, remember, remembered that there were some homemade venison sausages in the fridge at home, and he requested some of them, along with his mother's homemade relish.

All right. He was told he couldn't have them, and he joked that he'd be pretty pissed if someone else at home they did. That's what I mean, then when I get back. But the dietitians were like, no, it's not the right kind of protein for you right now. Todd also joked that if he didn't start getting what he wanted, he'd have to go on a hunger strike. It's so funny.

Todd's really. They're a good spirit. Yeah, he's lighting it up. Yep. The rescue team eventually negotiated some chips and gravy for the guys. They were really keen on that. Oh, that sounds great. But they sent the chips down first, and they were so well received that when the gravy arrived,

a few minutes later in the next drink bottle, the chips were all gone. They were left there dipping their fingers in gravy. Did they not know the gravy was coming, or they just couldn't help themselves? They described themselves as being like seagulls, being like, I was going to have a bloody chip. Hot chips. Hot chips, yeah. Yes. And they also loved lemonade artsypoles, I hear.

They went down a treat. Oh, they would do, yeah. They were bloody popular. Especially it's hot down there. That's refreshing, that is. Chuck us a splice. That's nice. Yeah.

Oh, I love a splice. Love a splice. Point line. Delicious. I'm trying not to think about what they're sending back in these Mount Franklin bottles. It can't be a pretty picture, right? Yeah, true.

Apart from the pissing in the helmet, I'm not sure. I was going to go into that detail. I didn't find that information anywhere. And I was Googling. I think there's, this is a vague memory, so apologies if I'm wrong here. But I think there were things that they both agreed to never speak about. Yeah. In interviews or anything like that.

And that might have been one of them, I think. Yeah. If I mention where we shut. Yeah, and they've been very, like, stringent on that. And fair enough, because that would be quite traumatic for them as well. Yeah, for sure. And we laugh about it now, but, you know, there would be plug. They're not awful.

Yeah. And to have that conversation too about, hey, we've been here for six days. Yeah. We've got to talk about this. Okay. I'm a pretty regular guy. I get quite a bit of fibre.

Okay? I'm a, I'm a twice a day kind of guy. I love musily. All right? So we're going to have to come to some sort of agreement. That's why the dietitians are like, you can't have venison sausages. Yeah.

That's going to be a rain. That's going to go straight through you. Yeah. I'm looking after brain here. They're doing that thing that they're rumoured to do on planes where they're like sneaking emodium into their food. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amodium?

You know, anti-diarrhea stuff. Oh, right. There's stories about, like, you know, that apparently they do that on planes. Kind of clogs you up. To clog people up. So they keep out of the toilet. It's fair. Keep out of the toilet.

Can't clog me. Good luck. I'd like to see you try. Like, like clockwork. I've had 14 of your passes and I feel fucking great. Now, excuse me, I need to get out to the bun. As I board a plane, I make eye contact with the pilot and I say, you cannot clog me. You cannot clog me.

You cannot. You cannot. You will not clog me. Welcome aboard, ma'am. That's row 42B. So that's them underground. Of course, the rescue efforts going 24-7. It was decided to use a raise-borer, just like a boring tunnel machine, to cut a horizontal tunnel, one metre, or three by three feet in diameter,

cutting horizontal with this machine had never been attempted before anywhere in the world. Perfect. Now's the time. Let's try. But I think it cuts a hole, but also it's wide. You know how they're able to pretty easily do the one for the tube to go up

so they can, but that's only small enough for a drink bottle to go to. I think they need like a proper one metre square. Yeah. I'm picturing what they used to to bore tunnels for trains. Like, you know, they're building a new metro. in Melbourne at the moment, like those sort of like tunnel boring machines, like a mini version of

of that, I guess. Yeah, totally. And again, these aren't small men. And it hadn't been done so what? It's been used to, I just drill down into the ground or something. Usually that this thing apparently is going, going down. Go on down. You want to get deep. Um, yeah, right. Okay. I wonder, I wonder, yeah, I don't see why it wouldn't be able to go sideways, but all right. Yeah. I think that's one of the thing too. They're like, I go. Let's give it a crack. Let's give it a go. The plan was to ball horizontally from 930 meters, so five minutes below them, come and then come up underneath the guys and extract them from below. Yeah. Because surely the biggest risk is, is messing with whatever's on top of them and causing that to crash down more. Yeah, because they're on the ground they're on,

that's solid. Yeah, okay. Because, you know, they've driven in on that, but the walls and the roof, that's like rubble. Yeah. So you don't want to disturb that. So we'll go on below, go through the, what's the floor, then the roof for us, and we'll bring them down. Cool. This sounds smart, I reckon. I'm on board for this. I'm always picturing like tunnels that you can only just fit in. So then I'm like, okay, they've kind of up behind underneath them.

How do you maneuver? Yeah, how do you get? Is it like a slide, but then do you get stuck at some point? I don't want to think about it. Oh, yeah, that's scary stuff. It was painstaking and constantly the guys were told they'd be out in about 48 hours. But this 48 hours just kept ballooning out. I mean, even 48 hours is a long.

I know. If you got told that, I'd be like, holy shit. settle in, you know. I think that was also a psychology thing to be like, it's only 48 hours, and then 48 hours would go and they go, guys, it's only going to be another 48 hours. Yeah. And that just kept ballooning out.

According to the Beaconsfield mine manager, Matthew Gill, the quartz rock, which was drilled through, was five times harder than concrete. Yeah, quartz is, that's one of the hard ones. So it's, yeah. You have been in a mine. This guy, I'm glad we got on this episode. Harder than diamonds?

Couldn't be. Couldn't be. You know, this. Couldn't be. This week, I've been drilling through concrete. This is something I've never done before in my life. What for? To put in...

Ships and gigs? Yeah, it's just as fun. No, I've been doing it to put in some more, like, security cameras around the building. So nobody break into stupid old studios, okay? Yeah, that's right. We got concrete. If you're not just in crooks. We're secure. We got cameras.

I just needed to run a cable through the concrete wall. I needed to drill through concrete. And it's hard. Were you just using like a small, how thick was it, a small drill piece? So I was normal, I started off using like our regular drill that we had and I was just like, I'll just get like a bloody cement, like a concrete drill bit. Yeah, perfect. And drill through.

And it's not, you just can't do it. So I had to go out and buy a hammer drill and like a proper like, you know, a, yep, a drive or something. Yeah, like a hammer drill and then you can get proper drill bits that are much bigger and. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. And then you put your whole. weight behind it. Well, apparently you're not supposed to.

Oh, right. This is where I was reading the guide. You let it do the work. Because it's, I guess, like, hammering and drilling at the same time. Yeah, okay, right. Maybe I don't want to slip with that thing. You're like leaning on it. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes, though.

Like, what was taking me, like, several minutes and I ran out of battery trying to do it, like with a regular drill. You get the proper gear and it's just like out through. I used it for like five seconds. I'm like, well, that's the job done. Oh, wow. I spent like $100 on a hammer drill. I'm like, well, that's.

Can you return that? No, I'm addicted to it now. I can drill anything now. You're like walking up to concrete and just having it to go. Yeah. I mean, she probably shouldn't be doing that. We don't own this building. But it's, yeah, it feels so empowered now.

Yeah, you feel like, you feel powerful. I can put anything anyway. And it's satisfying when you get like you get DIY done. Yeah. Very little, but you know, even when I've painted something, I'm like, I did that. Yeah. I used to have to pay someone else to do this. I used to have to pay someone with all the proper gear and all the proper.

proper bloody, you know, the ear muffs and the eye goggles. Yeah. Turns out you don't need any of that. You can just do it yourself. It's crazy. Evan just did it shirtless with thongs on. I've just googled it and diamonds are harder than concrete. But again, it's the AI overview, so that could be wrong.

No, they are because sometimes you have concrete-tipped drills. I never had any doubt that diamond was harder than concrete personally. And then, yeah, because you used, isn't that one of the, like, practical uses of diamonds because it's the hardest substance that you can? Yeah, that's why you get like diamond-tipped drill bits and that sort of... And they can, like, drill through a safe or something. Yeah, yeah. But so what is...

It's cool, isn't it? But diamonds's harder than quartz? Do you know if... Let's find it. Well, then I had to change it to is moistenite harder than concrete. Moistenite? Yeah, my ring is moistenite, not a diamond. Oh.

And I wanted to know if this was tough. Okay. And it is also harder than concrete? But is it harder than diamond? No. Okay. It's just under diamond. Diamond's got to be the...

Diamond's like, yeah. Is it the harder substance? I think so. Well, there you go. Probably that is it the hardest natural. Yes, it'd be one of those. Is diamond harder than quartz? Quartz, yes.

In terms of the Moes-Mose hardness scale. I was going to say, there's got to be some scale for this. Moes-Maws, I can't remember how you say it. Diamond is actually 16 times harder than quartz. Good Lord. Well, lucky they're not stuck in a diamond. Wow. And quartz is five times stronger, thicker than concrete.

Wow. So 16 times five. Oh my God. Oh, it's a lot going on. This is 80 times. Yeah. Diamond is 80 times. Diamond's very hard.

The concrete. I wonder if they're using diamond-tipped tools to cut through this quartz. Yeah. Yeah, maybe they were. I'm not sure what the, yeah, the drill they're using is made of. But the drill was capable of drilling through it at one meter per hour. Okay. Okay.

But it was going much more slowly because of the danger of further rock falls. They had to back it off a bit. They only did about half a meter per hour. Okay. And they drilled for something like 90 hours straight. Oh, so, okay, so they're quite far away from them then, I suppose. From the edge of 930, yeah. Yeah, okay.

Because they've gone down. Yeah, they've gone down, and they're drilling all the way across underneath them. And then they're going up. Oh, yeah, shit, okay, gotcha. Yeah, yeah. And on the 7th of May, the rescuers reached a belt of hard rock that they found difficult to penetrate. As the jack hammers, they were using had little effect. they decided that they were going to have to revert to using low-impact charges.

That is, little explosives. Exploices. Fuck. Todd and Brant were told of the plan and were not happy about having, quote, explosions under their ass. Yeah. Especially Todd being the explosion guy. Yeah, they'd know about this shit, right?

He's like, what the fuck? But after having the process to explain to them and being reassured that it was low impact, they agreed, but only if they could count down the explosions themselves so they could brace for impact. Yeah, right. Oh, that's smart. Yeah. So they agreed to it 20 minutes later, the charge was ready, and Todd, being the explosions guy,

counted down on the phone, three, two, one, fire. And they both braced. And there was a tiny explosion. He said, fuck, my shotgun's got more energy than that. But the rescue was freaked out because they had a live camera watching the guys at this point. All right. And dust filled the screen. And for a second, they thought that they'd just killed them.

Jesus. And they're on the phone being like, are you all right? Are you all right? And like, yeah, guys. It does, it's all right. That was the weakest piss. It would be so stressful. Yeah.

Did you say 9th of May? Yeah. And when did it start? So this is the 7th of May, this explosion. I'm sorry, yep. On the 25th of April. Anzac Day. Wow.

So it's been 12 days. Oh, man. Evan. Yeah. It's fucked. It's been 12 days. I guess at least they've got, I don't know, sandwiches now. Yeah, they're getting food now.

You don't want to come out. Now you've got fresh trackies in a, A bucket full of gravy. You're okay? There's blood living. Yeah. And just keep thinking of that over time, man. Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Hey, I haven't clocked off. I'm being paid for this. So, they needed more explosions. And all in all, they counted down 79 detonations. Oh, my God. And just thinking, like, every, each one of them could have been like... Yeah, they have to brace every time. And each time underneath them, a guy has to, like, rig it up.

Yeah. Get out of their say, you're ready? Ready. Three, two, one. explosion. Wait, get up there, rig another one. So this also takes hours. Yeah, yeah. Not getting any sleep through that. No. No way. Finally, after 14 nights. Wow. So they were there for two weeks lying down. At 4.27 a.m., rescuers Glenn Burns, Donovan Lightfoot. What a great name. My God. And Roy Skill.

Finally reached the man, one of them yelling at, I can see your light. And when he broke through the ground which was separating him from the miners, the minor replied, I can see your light too. Oh, man. I can see your life, buddy. It's too much. They like starts at like a tiny little pinprick. Over the next 45 minutes, the whole got bigger and bigger until it was big enough to get the men out. Wow. All in all, they'd been underground for 14 days, 321 hours or 1.5 million minutes. Okay. Too far, Dave. Too far. Someone had done the math as long. Yeah. 14 days. Yeah.

That's too many days. It's a lot. Two full weeks. Yeah. Honestly, two weeks of a holiday I'm getting bored. You know? Two weeks are this. Fuck, out.

Yeah. Two weeks. Dave, would you like to be stuck underground with me for two weeks? Who do you recommend to crack first? Me? I'd kill you. Both just die. I'd murder you.

Oh my gosh. We'd have a bit of fun, though. Yeah, it would be fun. There'd be moments. They'd be funny moments. Yeah, yeah. You're very funny. I'd say.

I gotta take a shit. Yes, I have to shit. And I'd say, Dave, I already have. I've done like four. Whatever. Only now you have to shit? Told you I was regular. I'm very regular.

You cannot clog me. Thinking about that, I feel like on the one hand, maybe it's better that they didn't know each other. True. I don't know, if they're real close mates, that might, it'd be hard. The thing, because we're not like, you know, around, like, friends and family, I can really be myself, but, like, in public or whatever, I'm always, like, overly polite.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't want to, like, cause a scene or whatever. So I'd be there, be like, I'm happy. No, I'm fine, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm my legs broken, but it's no big deal. I'll stay with my wife. I'd be like, what the fuck?

Yeah. I'm freaking out here. I'm freaking out. You're seeing the real me. But with the strange, I'd be like, anyway, no, I'm fine. You're okay? No, I'm not hungry. I'm good.

I'm fine. You can finish the rest of that music, bar. It's all good. Yeah, I think I would prefer to be with somebody I know. Yeah? Yeah, I think so. Because then, yeah, I would just let loose. He can be yourself.

You can just relax. You can be your awful self. Dave's gotten as close as anyone outside of my immediate family has gotten to the real me. Yeah. Yeah. And it was awful. I said, can you put that away? Dave said, please, this is a professional relationship.

Can you please bring it back up, please? I'd love a fake smile. I asked how you were. I didn't expect a real answer. I don't want to know. Oh, man. So they broke through when they got to them. So Brant went out first, leaving Todd all alone for eight minutes.

She said it was the longest aid of the ordeal. But shortly someone would have waited with him. Yeah. Right? Don't leave him there alone. That's scary. Maybe, but maybe there wasn't room. There's three rescuers.

I think that maybe they all have to help. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then it was Todd's turn. And as he left the Holy, he reached for his bag of letters.

family and sent as well as the photo that it got him through. Wow. Stop. They were then taken back to the crib room, which is like a portable office, usually like a shipping container size sort of thing, which is 325 meters below the ground. And this is where they started their whole shift. You go down to this first. Oh, yeah.

And their injuries were assessed by paramedics and they were given a makeshift shower with warm water and barrels. The paramedics didn't want them walking out of the mine and even wanted to, sedate the men and put them on stretches. Right. But the men were adamant that they walked into the mine on Anzac Day and they'd be proudly walking out of it now. Right. Okay.

Especially because it was a media circus. Yeah. So there were cameras. It was crazy. They didn't want to be wheeled out and looking, you know, vulnerable or injured or unwell. And maybe also for their own pride, but maybe also for the kids. Yeah. And for their wives and stuff.

not looking unwell if they're well enough to walk. Also, just like you've been stuck there for so long. Let me move my legs. Yeah. If you're able, you know, like if you're physically able, I think that would be all you would want to do, right? Yeah. Yeah, stretch.

But it was eventually agreed that they could use wheelchairs. But when they got in, and they were like, fine, fuck it, whatever. But when they got into the lift to go back up to the surface, it was only big enough for Todd and Brandt in their wheelchairs. So as soon as the gate closed, they stood up and stacked them in the corner, Which is so good. So good. Do you like, fuck this.

Yeah. And when they got to the service, they emerged back wearing a new set of mining gear. They'd been given brand new work gear. Okay. And they were pumped up purely by adrenaline. They walked out with their arms above their heads. And you can do this footage of this online. Obviously, about 5,000 cameras captured this moment.

They walked over to the mine. First thing they do, they walk out, arms up, they walk over to the mine board where everyone checks in for work and they mark their name tags as safe. Because you take it off one board and put it off. another, so everyone knows who's underground. Yeah, yeah. They're safe. They were then embraced by their families.

That's my favourite bit, when they moved the tags. Yeah. They discussed doing it and they did it and it's a really cool moment. Yeah, watch it back. It's cool. It's really nice. Very symbolic. And then the families rush over and they have a beautiful moment.

But this was not a private reunion. After two ambulances had been called to the mine, word had gotten out and what felt like the whole town had gathered to cheer them on. Yeah. And they weren't the only ones waiting for the two men. they were told that there was some media interest before getting out, but they did not expect the extent of what they saw. Hundreds of journalists arrived in town to cover the story,

transforming Beaconsfield into a busy town. I mean, it's pretty big news if, I mean, you said two ambulances. If the two ambulances in Tasmania are both called, like, it's pretty big news. Yeah, good luck having a car accident at that time. Sorry, we're busy. I'm having a heart attack. Sorry. When they got out, they saw dozens of Winnebago and broadcast trucks, and they were like, holy shit.

They had walked in two regular miners and it walked out, like, world famous. And in Australia, like, just remembers their names 18 years later. Yeah. 19 years later. I'd recognize them in the street. Really? I reckon, maybe. Wow.

Yeah. It's been a while. They probably look a bit different. Both were then transported to Lancaster and General Hospital just after 6 a.m. Local time, this is May 9 now. Todd had an injured knee and a damaged vertebra, which put pressure on his sciatic nerve, while Brian had injuries to both knees,

several vertebrae and his neck. So they both had some, you know, they weren't 100% by any stretch. Of course. Yeah, those are long term issues. Yeah. They said the lowest point of being in the mind was on about just after they'd been contacted a few days later, they were told Larry didn't get out.

Yeah. Oh, right. Yeah, of course. So they did tell them while they're under there, and that was like they were really upset by that. The family of their friend Larry Knight, who had tragically died in the collapse, had postponed his funeral in the hopes that his colleagues would be rescued and be able to make it. Stop it. And incredibly, they scheduled it for that day, less than six hours after leaving the mind, both Brent and Todd were able to attend and pay their respects.

That's so nice. Absolutely crazy. And again, like, it's sort of that same stoicism of, no, we'll walk out. I don't think much would have stopped them from going, even if the doctors in the hospital were like, you really shouldn't. They'd be like, no, we're going. We have to go, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Wow. I didn't know that. That's nice. Afterwards, the media didn't abate, and there was a bidding war to be the first network to interview them. Of course. Yeah.

In the end, the nine network, 109 secured a deal for $2.6 million. Wow. I think I split that. Wow. For a two hour special in the night of Sunday, the 21st of May called The Great Escape. Huh.

And there was outrage at the time, and there were a couple articles I found from the time written about this, the men had to pay tax on their earnings. They're like, it's on Australian. They should keep it all after what the boys had been through. Australia is a funny place. We love rules, but also, oh, my, no, that's not on. That's very funny. The men were in demand.

It was a big adjustment for these two, like normal guys, with the media following their every move and paparazzi, literally appearing at their homes over the first few weeks after the rescue and just taking fat of them in their front yard and stuff. Yeah, instant celebrities. Leave their families alone. There are at least two interviews with Australia's 60 Minutes that I found online. In October 2006, Dave Grohl from the Food Fighters, came through on his word,

and he and the Food Fighters met Brant Webb and his wife, Rachel. Todd was unfortunately unable to be there, but I think Brant was the big fan. Yeah, right. He also played Brant an instrumental song he had written called Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners. Amazing. Crowell later said, after the show, we went and got fucking wasted in the hotel bar, and I was like, dude, I promise I'm going to put this on the record. And he came through on that promise too. It was included on the 2007 Food Fighters album Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace, which won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.

Oh, wow. Yeah. But it's just like a couple of acoustic guitars. I later read that he played it to Brant, and Brant was like, man, it was so cool, but like, it wasn't. Just imagine just a guy, you're in their dressing room, and he's just playing you on acoustic. Like, instrumental song. This one's about you. Beam-bum, bim-bim-bib.

Because I knew that he'd written a song. I knew that there was a song called Ballad of the Beaconsfield Mind, as I remember that. But I didn't know that it was instrumental. Yeah. Actually, I just never heard it. The lyrics are about that. It's just so funny. It's just guitar.

I'm just playing it to him, sort of making weird-oic guitar. Have you heard? Have you listened to it? It's a good track? Yeah, it's like sort of two dueling acoustic guitars. Right. Yeah, it's cool.

Yeah. Okay. It doesn't have the signature foo fighters sound, I guess, because he's not singing and it's not rock. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's a nice little song. That's nice. That's a little ditty.

Huh. Then there was the novelty song, 3-2-1, which wasn't really a novel. It was just recorded by the Adelaide band called Unitopia. Todd Brandt and their wives contributed backing vocals to the song that commemorates how many hours they spent underground. Wow. That's also on Spotify, 3-2-1 by Unitopia.

That definitely has some very literal lyrics. Okay. They were trapped on the ground. The names were Brandt and Todd. I'll play it to you after. Not far off. That's great. Then, of course, there was the telly movie.

Yes. Also for the Nine Network. Shane Jacobson. Shane Jacobson and Brant Webb and Lockheum as Todd Russell. Premiering in 2012. It was a ratings hit. That's like the peak of Australian cast. Like you couldn't get better than that, right?

Yeah, two big guys. At that time, Shane and Locky were, yeah. Oh, big. And it was a ratings hit, an audience of over 1.6 million tuned in. Wow. kill for that these days. I know, you couldn't even dream with that. I think it's a state of origin to get that. Do we need

another tragedy, do you reckon? Hmm. Nah, we'll just go straight to Stan now. Yeah. Wasn't there a Bali not, no, a Bali bombing thing on Stan? Oh, there was, wasn't there? Yes, a dramatization, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't need to watch that, thanks.

In 2008, a comedian, afraid of the show and now host of the Irrational Fear podcast, Dan Illich premiered, Beaconsfield, musical for the Melbourne Fringe Festival. This is what I thought about when you mentioned. Oh, you've been, for some reason, the only thing I know. Oh, right.

When you mentioned the Beaconsfield Mine. You've been around comedy too long, I forgot about that. That does ring a bell. It was originally titled Beaconsfield, a musical in a flat minor. Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty good wordplay. That's pretty good, but I didn't realize someone died.

Yes. So there was backlash from the family of. If everyone lived, if everyone lived, if everyone. If nobody died, you could get away with it, but you can't. Yeah. So there was backlash at the time, and the ABC wrote an article which I found saying Illich reportedly made the change out of respect to just a, that Begginsville the musical. Had a great cast. It starred.

Eilich himself, Kate McLennan, Robbie McGregor, Toby Truslove and Amanda Buckley. Yeah, wow. Also went at the Melbourne Comedy Festival the year after. So that was, what, 2008? 2008 for Melbourne Fringe, 2009 for Melbourne Comedy Festival. It's only a couple of years later. Yeah. But you've got to draw that line of like, yeah, it still has to be relevant and in people's memories.

But, uh, so the thing about the show was, which I didn't see at the time, I hadn't started seeing many shows at that point yet. But I read a review of it saying it was less about making fun of the mind. It was actually more it took the piss out of the crazy media response. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was like the media hype at the time. So that is what they were. Yeah, good. charity rather than the plight.

Yes. According to this review anyway. I mean, I can only imagine like the Today Show, Sunrise, all of these for two weeks. Yeah. Being, you know, there's not much to talk about. We've got hours of air time to fill. We have an exclusive interview with Todd's dentist. Yeah.

I honestly think it was like that. Yeah. I can imagine that the families would be harassed from day one. Absolutely. The wife and kids and stuff would be just like, I don't know if they were doing. I presume they weren't doing interviews with the family. Like, I imagine they weren't talking to the family. media. I don't know, maybe they were. Yeah, yeah, maybe. But yeah, they'd be hounded.

Yeah, horrific. It was, it was, it was, the young kids, too. Like, it's awful. And you're just like, yeah, the poor producers who have to come up with content. I know. Around all of this for just days and days and days and you don't know when it's going to end or how it's going to end. Yeah. It would be, yeah, there would be, there's plenty there to take the piss out of. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's more what they were going for. But of course, there's headlines, probably from the similar media people being like, outrage. There's a comedy musical making fun of the miners. But it's like, oh, actually, we're making fun of you. Yeah. It's not the minors. A flat minor, though, is pretty funny. It's a good joke.

Oh, it's very funny. But yeah, when you go, no, someone died. And it was only a couple of years ago. Yeah, I can see. I can see both sides. Yeah. It's, even when you think about it, it's a real shame that someone died. Yeah. So they couldn't do that joke. Yeah. That's the real tragedy here. Because it's a great wordplay. It really is. Yeah. From our perspective is comedy creators. That's the real tragedy. Long term, it should be noted that Todd Russell especially has been very open about suffering PTSD and depression since being rescued and he's had a lot of help from psychologists. You can hear the story and his personal struggles in his own words on the ABC podcast. I was actually there where he was recently interviewed on the Nova podcast Head Game as well.

So you'll notice that there's lots of other articles that I've referenced as well there in the show notes. But that's probably more why I say more from Todd's perspective than Brand. He seems to have done less media over the years since. Yep. That's Brandt, so. So Todd did, I was actually there, but Brandt didn't. No. Yeah, right?

Yeah. They shot that show here. Oh, really? Yeah. I love it. Maybe not the episode is for the same guys that too, you can't ask that. And so it's like the set is like just a backdrop that they can set up anywhere. Yep.

So for Melbourne ones, they shot here in a studio. Awesome. But I'm not sure which episodes. Oh, right. Yeah, so there's the TV show and then they also added that long because they obviously interviewed in for many hours. Yeah. They've cut together this podcast.

It's like, it's like in his own words. Yeah, yeah. No interview questions. It's just, so that's fascinating. Yeah. I should listen to that. So yeah, that's definitely a great listener. I assume they didn't work again.

They're getting like more than a million dollars out of these like interview deals and stuff. They would never have to work again. Surely there's got to be like a work cover thing involved. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's. I feel like did they go back to work? I think that they didn't definitely didn't go back mining.

Yeah. One of them in the. in the years after it'd been back down once since. But in one of the 60 Minutes interviews, Brandt was like they take them back to the top of the mine and they're having a chat to them. And he goes, even standing here, I feel uneasy. Yeah, fair enough.

And I'm like, yeah, I totally get that. But then there's a few kind of gross articles that I didn't want to, like, from like the Daily Mail about like, what are they up to now? Yeah. It's like, uh, Brant's like, he's working for jobs. He's delivering food. He's doing all this sort of stuff.

But I, you know, you never want to, you never want to, You never know if they're actually telling the truth. Yeah. But I believe that they've both done a bit of motivational speaking. Yep. And they're in, and they've also written a book as well with another writer. Yep. So.

I thought I had heard probably slightly more recently that they, they aren't really talking to each other. There was another article about on the Deli Malonews.com. Oh, Delamel, don't worry about that. They said, like, they're no longer mates or something because there was like a 10-year anniversary like celebrations slash dinner and drinks

kind of thing and it said they arrived separately and it was all these things and I was like trying to read between the lines like are they actually not talking or are they just

they don't live together why would they arrive and also they weren't friends beforehand but they both lived they both spent the money they made like that they were paid

for the interview at the time they both built houses in the area they didn't move away they were both like they bought a bit of land outside of Beaconsfield, but they both stayed local.

Yeah. Yeah. At the time anyway, but, you know, obviously, it's still 20 years now. They don't have to live in each other's pockets forever. Yeah. But they've shared something hugely traumatic and, yeah, there'd be a bond over that. Yes. But they don't have to be best friends.

And they give each other a lot of credit for getting through it because of they had each other. But also imagine like, yeah, okay, you've got very understandably PTSD and a lot of trauma around being in such a horrific setting. there could be comfort in each other, but also probably a bit of a reminder. Oh, of course. The only association you have with that person is that horrible traumatic experience,

the worst experience of your life. It's probably also fine to be like, love you, mate, so glad you're okay, do need some space. Your face is actually very triggering for me. Like, that's fair enough. Yeah. But yeah, that's why I was like,

oh, I thought I'd heard they weren't talking, but then you go, it's a daily mail thing. You go, oh, don't worry about it. It's bullshit. Yes, I couldn't, yeah, because I was, you know, too, I was, fascinated to know what their relationship is like, but yeah, it was hard to see what it's actually like. Exactly. The whole affair also put future politician at the time and almost prime minister

of Australia, Bill Shorten on the national stage. He was national secretary of the Australian Workers' Union at the time, and he played a role as a negotiator and commentator on developments in the immediate aftermath and the ensuing rescue operations. And he had a real rise in profile in the media during this time. He was doing lots of interviews, is out there every day, talking to the media. And he was elected to Parliament the year later after this raise in profile 2007, and he only retired a few months ago. So there you go.

Really changed this trajectory. Yeah. Yeah. Just finally, after an inquest in 2009, the Tasmanian coroner Rod Chandler ruled that no one person or company was responsible for the death of Larry Knight in the Anzac Day Rockfall. But he says there were, quote, serious deficiencies in the mine as risk management, end quote, in the lead up to the collapse.

The mine itself closed in 2012, which is a big reason that the population has gone from 3.5,000 to less than 1,500 now. But there is a museum and cultural centre there that still gets 44,000 visitors a year. And I believe it, part of it is about this story, but also the 150 years mining history in the region. Yeah, yeah. Going back to that original gold rush. So you still can go there. Wow. And every now and then, apparently, this is still also years ago,

Todd Russell might be there to give a talk. Wow. That also might have just been for the 60 minutes interviews as I said that. Yeah, right. Ah, that's interesting. I mean, of course, I mean, of course, I wouldn't think that someone would be responsible. It's an earthquake, you know? Yeah.

And, you know, unless they're negligent and their safety and stuff, It's like, what can you do? It's an earthquake. Yes, there was some thing about like the type of, I don't know, I don't want to say it too much because I don't want to get any company in trouble, but about maybe the type of mesh they were using for reinforcing something was kind of question.

But yeah, or I'm not sure technically, but there were some question marks over some procedures, but you can find. If you want to look it up, Evan, the coroner's findings online, but it was hundreds of pages long. Yeah, if you want to go into that, Evan, you are welcome to. I mean, I, uh, no,

I'm not going to be delving deep into that one I'm not going to be mining that document for God, Evan, stop it, wow. Stop it, stop it at once. So after me going through all that, did any of that, like, jog your memory at all, Evan, like off the time? No, I just, I just wasn't following it at the time.

Yeah. That it's, it didn't unearth any... Sorry, I'm going to stop trying to... I'm so mad at you. No, I just don't. You had me all along. I did, yeah, I didn't know anything about this, really. Fascinating.

Yeah, I just need sort of the headline stuff. And like I said, I didn't know that they were basically lying down. Like, it's just so scary. Yeah, it must have been horrible. I really want to go and look at some of the stuff now, like the interviews or try and find, what would you recommend? Oh, man. I'm going to bring up them coming out of the mind. Yeah, watching the video.

That's an awesome video. I thought I might cry. And the podcast version of I was actually there is a great listen, yeah. Yeah, cool. Really brings it home. So were they down the grub? Yeah, did you just bring that up because you wanted to say it? I just wanted to.

I don't know which shaft they were down. I don't know which shaft they were down. I don't know. It was the grub or the heart or the main. Or the main. My favorite is definitely the grub. Wild. Terrifying.

Yeah. Awful. Um, yeah, I wouldn't want to be a minor. It's a tough job. Yeah, it's, uh, it's, it doesn't seem fun. No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't enjoy it. I think one side effect was, like happy side effect is that it did really improve safety. Yeah.

Yeah, anything like that. It's like, well. There's always a review. Yeah. It gets better for future people. Yeah. But it shouldn't take something like this to, to make that happen. But it tends to.

Um. Wow, what a story. Well, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I found it. I'm sorry. All right.

That's them walking out, arms over their heads, waving, straight over to move their tags over. They're walking, like he's walking pretty well for somebody who's, and then the wives come in, but they're both moving pretty well for people with back and knee injuries. Yeah, that's right. Oh, man. That feeling must have just been. And it would just be the most incredible feeling in the world. That's got to be the freshest air you've ever. Yeah.

Yeah, you'd be going out to the party. You'd be going out for dinner somewhere. Oh, apparently this is another fun thing he says in the ABC podcast is that, media are handing them everywhere and Todd Russell, you want a bit of alone time with his mates and to thank people that are rescued and whatever. So he said, he yells out to one of the media trucks, Hi, I'm Todd Russell.

I'm going to do an interview in 25 minutes down at any names the location. and everyone goes there and he snuck in the back room of a different pub Oh, that's so good That's good I like that With the people that had risked their lives

to save him Yeah A lot of them's another part of Is a lot of them are the people He knows Because they're like the local mining experts And he's worked with them Yeah

They've all worked together So Those are your mates Which is like, yeah Imagine Obviously it's the worst for them Right And their family's obviously the worst

But two weeks Of going to to work to do these rescue missions or going to work knowing that two of your mates are stuck. Yeah. Once they realize they're alive and they're so happy, but then it's still so tricky, it would be so incredibly emotionally draining. Yes. For their friends and their coworkers.

And you would know more than anyone else in the world, how dangerous it is like the likely scenarios, what's the outcomes. And in those first four days, they've probably been assuming their friends are dead. Then you find out they're alive and you'd be so happy, but then you're living in fear that they're going to die. Yes, and your actions. Yes. If you do the wrong thing, you blow the wrong thing up, you drill the wrong thing.

Even when you find them alive, it's like the chances that they're going to come out of this alive. Yes. It really is like an incredible survival story. It's amazing. Against all odds for sure. Yeah. Great story. Cool stuff.

Evan, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for letting me sit here for that story. That was so cool. And if we want to hear more from you, want to see more of you. You know, I'm sure people do. I'd love to see more of Evan. See more of Evan. Hosting up a storm on Gamy, Gamy, game.

Yeah, yeah. It's a bit of an irregular release schedule at the moment. There's a lot of episodes up there. And you've both been on. Yep. Yes, that's right. A lot of fun. So you do like video game stuff.

Yeah, it's a comedy show. We don't take things too seriously over there. Yeah, it's ostensibly a show about video games, but it's really just a silly comedy chat show. So if you want to go check that out. It's on YouTube, stupid old channel. There is a podcast version as well. if you're not into looking at things. You can just listen if you like.

I have to say, one of the hardest laughs I've had recently was a clip from Gamey, Gamey Game of you talking about how you think you could be an optometrist. I didn't see that. Sounds good. I laughed so hard the whole way through because I was like, I understand what he's saying and it's insane. Yeah. It's great.

It's true. I know. I get it. I genuinely do understand. But then just hearing everybody else lose their minds. hearing better. They don't think I could be. No, I don't think so either.

They doubt you. They doubt your ability to be an optometrist. I mean, you know, you've got your charts. Yeah. Get people to read the charts. Oh, let's not get him riled up again. You look at the charts. How hard is it?

How hard could it be to be an optometrist? Better or worse? One or two. There you go. Done. Yeah. Recently I got my eyes tested and they said my eyesight has improved. All right.

And I don't need to wear glasses anymore. And I was like, are you an optometrist? Is they just getting lazy? What are you talking about? That was me. I'm sorry. Evan was like, I don't know how to build glasses. You just tell everyone.

You're fine. You don't need these. No, your eyes are great. Maybe they were confused and they were an optimist. Gosh, he's good. He's that good. Is that good. Evan, Romero Smith, thank you so much.

Thanks so much for having me, guys. And as we say goodbye to Evan, we say hello to you. The listeners, I'm assuming you've jumped ahead to just start listening right here. Welcome. Welcome to everyone's favorite section of the show where we like to spend a little bit of time, you know, giving credit where it's due. Can I say that? Yeah, I think you can. Because this podcast would not exist without you, the listeners, and our wonderful Patreon's, people who support us at patreon.com slash do go on pod and get a whole bunch of rewards for different levels.

Dave, what kind of stuff can they get? Well, the big one is, well, the new one, actually, ad-free listening. True. That's absolutely one of the key ones. Also, four bonus episodes a month. We put out one nearly every week, unless it's five Sundays. But we put out. Those pesky months.

No, no, darn you. We want to put one out of real, but we can't. We can't. We can't. We can't. We're only putting out, we've already put out 250 plus bonus ones in the back catalog. There's literally hundreds of hours to unlock instantly. You can be in the Facebook group, which is a beautiful corner of the internet.

you hear about live shows for anyone else, you get discount tickets, and you also just get the sense of satisfaction knowing that this show is going, going to continue to go because of you and people like you. Keeping the lights on. That's right. So thank you very much. We have turned some of them off. Yeah, we're saving power.

That's right. And so a few things we like to do here. First off, we like to start with the section where people like to give us facts, quotes, questions, brag, suggestions. anything, it can be anything. That's right. And this section has a jingle, and I believe it goes something like this.

Fact quote or question. D-D-H! Ah, you always remember Mr. Ding? I always remember the sink. You said dink. Yeah. I loved it. Thank you.

Never change. Oh, that's many thing. I'll never not do it. Fantastic. You'll forget. And so, yes, people are here. They get to give themselves a type. they can give us a suggestion. Recently we had a promise. Thank you.

It can be anything. So, first up, we have Adam Trapchinski. Adam's giving themselves a title, Future Guest on Who Knew It and Do Go On? Oh. Huge get. But not book cheat. I've said no. Your agent gone in contact and I said, never.

No way. Adam's given us a suggestion. And here it is. Oh, a long one. Okay. Hey guys, hope you're doing well as I have a suggestion on a possible bonus episode. I want to preface that if this was an early bonus episode, I just straight up don't remember as I have the memory of Jess when it comes to this pod.

I also want to say that even if this was a previous episode, I want it known that I came up with the idea and if it is used without my likeness, you will hear from my lawyers, plural. I mean, you won't really, but the threat is on your mind. Anyway, you ever wonder if someone just uses a fact-quoted question section to waste your time? I sometimes do, I wonder who would do such a thing. You know, writing in and expecting them to get to the point, but they drift off and you can't remember what the original thing they wanted to write in was.

Anyway, long story short, you guys should do reading Reddit stories. I don't read Reddit myself, but I love listening to crazy stories and honestly debating if they're even real and hearing your opinions on various situations. I love the idea of reading stories but not the type of person to take the time to look for stories to read. Well, I never really know how to sign off of the fact quote or question, but I hope you appreciate my short and precise suggestion of reading Reddit stories. Thank you and go get some Matt and go get some Matt and Jess with each other doesn't count. What about me?

I need all the encouragement I can get. No. So thank you to Adam. That was a mouthful. That was a mouthful. That was a journey. Reddit Stories, how do you feel about those? You ever on Reddit? Nah, but I see screenshots of Reddit stories or retellings of them over cooking videos on TikTok a lot.

Okay. What's the combination there? Why are they combined? I don't know. People, our attention spans are fucked. And so it's usually a Reddit story over like a Minecraft game or something. Oh, and you watch the video? Well, I'm asked of at some point And now I get them a fair bit in my algorithm Okay So I don't have to go looking on Reddit

They come to me I don't get you internet It's a strange place and I'm scared I'm very frightened Next fact to order question comes from Kevin West And Kevin West has Has given themselves a title

Misplacer of the Chill Pills Oh-oh Brother me too That's why I'm feeling it Feeling really anxious Kevin is given us a fact quote and question, but not necessarily in that order. That's in parentheses. All right, Kevin.

Okay, so a quote I love by author and poet Richard Broughtigan is, reduce intelligence and emotional noise until you arrive at the silence of yourself and listen to it. That's nice. Reduce intelligence and emotional noise until you arrive at the silence of yourself and listen to it. I like that. Kevin goes on. I love this as an idea, but the first. The fact is it's hard to reduce stress and remain in a place of calm, especially as an American in 2025.

Should I exercise? Meditate. Do yoga. Pet my furry friend. No, that is not a euphemism, but maybe I should slap on a dinger and have an awkward tumble with my partner of 20 years. Hang on, that sounds like more trouble than it's worth. So in this beautiful sentence of that you can remain calm. Like, you know, you should remain calm trying to find your end in place.

Should I just get a root? Yeah. Have a bit of a roll in the hay. But too hard. Yeah, too much effort. I've had to have a shower after that. So my question is, what do you three do to help reduce stress? Certainly not that.

For me, there is one very unorthodox method that seems to help lately. Put on the headphones, lay down, and listen to do go on. Thanks for being part of my mindfulness. Do go namaste. Oh, do you go namaste to you. What do you do to help reduce stress? Mine is... You don't strike me as it.

as a very stressed person. I can get stressed when things sort of... No need to be defensive of it. I can get stressed, okay? No, when things I can, I guess, ramp up and you're like, oh, I've got so many things to do. Yeah. Got to do this.

Love having a little walk. Run the block. Fresh air. Yes. Look at the park. Hot girl walks is what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, love that.

Listen to a podcast, trying to think about something else. Listen to an audio book. Listen to some nice music. That's definitely my most What are you laughing at? What are you laughing at? Just a weird thing popped into my head, that's all. And what is it?

Like that you're going for a walk And I was like, and I go out and punch Nazis. That's what popped into my head. And that comes you down? Yeah, it comes to me down. Yeah, it settles my nerves. Because that gets me, like, go on. No, yeah, I love a bit of fresh air.

How about yourself? To help reduce stress, I have regular appointments with a therapist. Okay, that's good. And I exercise and I pat my dog and I avoid stress. No, I don't. I can't. I try.

It's hard. It's everywhere. It's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, look, there's lots of different things. I've been trying to get a bit more into yoga and Pilates again, but more just because my body is sore. Yeah, okay, sure. And you're doing classes or doing it at home?

Yeah, a bit of both. Yeah. I've had an interesting job. journey with exercise. Turns out it's been making things worse in terms of migraines. I've been telling that for years. I know. Exercise, it will kill you. So now I'm starting again. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you, Adam. We really appreciate you so much. Thank you. The next thing we need to do is shout out some of our fantastic listeners. We just, we play a little game with it and we shout them out. And, and what kind of game could we play? Because I've just remembered the heaviness of this topic.

Yes, that's right. Being trapped underground for two weeks. It's a difficult situation. Yeah, because obviously my brain goes straight to where are they trapped. Yes. Does that feel poor taste? We could, uh, what band has written them a tribute song? The food father's wrote that song.

That's great. Should I get band generator? Yes, random band generator. What band? Were they listening to it in a stress? situation and then the bands found out and gone, you know what? I'm going to write you a track. Here's the thing. We were just talking before we started recording about AI and how like full on it's getting and how we're going to be out of a job soon. And I'm like, oh, I hate AI. But here I am.

What the fuck do I think these random list generators are? Though if someone just input at the like, there's 500 bands and it's cycle suit? Is it just a, it's an Excel spreadsheet with 500 or are they? It's hard to say. Who knows? You're right. I know. You're right. I know. Hadn thought about the, the, the random generators. But here we are. I think the ones where it is combined, when it's coming up with new things. I used actually, I did assume that it was like when we've got, create a wizard name.

It's got a combination of three things and it just smashes them together. But maybe it is artificial intelligence. Well, nowadays, probably. But anyway, I like that. This is a band that's written them a song during a very stressful situation. They may or may not be trapped somewhere. Yeah, they just needed a track. They've made the news, though.

Something's happened. Yeah, and now they've had a tribute. Yeah. So maybe I'll read the people in their place and you give us the band or the artist that's written a song about them. You got it. First of all, thank you to, from Barnard Castle in Great Britain. Doesn't that sound beautiful? Beautiful.

From Barnard Castle, it's Laura Kennedy. Bruno Mars has written you a ballad. Really? Yeah. And you know, that's going to get billions of streams. Exactly. And you're not going to see a cent on Spotify. Yeah, you're not going to watch.

You're not going to see a cent to that. Yes, exactly. He's taking your trauma. To be honest, Bruno is probably not saying heaps from streams. No, I don't think so. Even when you have billions. He's not sharing that with you. Laura Kennedy.

Bruno Mars. What a co-lab. Huge. Yeah, it's huge. Next up, I'd like to think from a location unknown to us, which means they haven't shared it, but that's okay. Because we assume that means they are deep within the fortress of the moles, and that is Nick. Nick getting a big star. Ariana Grande.

Whoa. What a voice. Huge. Huge voice. Huge voice. Tiny woman. Exactly. Where does it come from?

It's crazy. It doesn't make any sense. She must be 90% lungs. Yeah. You know, I don't think there's other organs in there. They can't be. Just from an anatomical perspective. She can't get in there.

She has enough liver. No spleen in there. Don't need it. What a waste of space. It's all lungs. It's all lungs. She's like a balloon. Nick, NICK and your last name looks like it starts with an H.

Did you just spell Nick? Well, because I guess that really, it would have been better if it was just NIC, wouldn't it? Then it might have been worth spelling. Yeah. But NICK is default Nick. I've ruled out maybe 0.5% of NICs. You're absolutely right. I cop that. Sorry, I can't. I just can't let you get away with it. I know. I appreciate it. You keep me honest. From Brighton in Great Britain. Thank you to Camaloonie. Camaloonie. Another big one. Are you ready? Another big voice, big, celebrity, big artist at the moment, tiny person, Sabrina Carpenter.

Sabrina Carpenter, wow. Yeah. This is huge. Massive. Again, all lungs, surely. So teeny tiny. Pocket size. And you get these three people,

these are people in their prime as well. Yeah. So these new hits coming out, people are going to hear them. That's right. This is huge for you. And this one's for you. I'd like to thank from Cleveland in the USA.

Thank you to Jeremiah. And I don't think it is Cleveland, Ohio, It looks like it's Cleveland in Mississippi. Oh, wow. They have a Cleveland in Mississippi. I love Mississippi. I'm so a love. I accidentally said it that way, and I'm obsessed with saying like that.

Mississippi. From Bigger old Mississippi. Oh my God. Home to the Grammy Museum, Mississippi. David, you've gotten distracted. History of the Grammys? You haven't even said the person's name. No, well, they're...

This is bigger than you, okay? This is about Mississippi. Now from Cleveland, Mr. Sipper, thank you to Jeremiah Smith. Speaking of Grammys, Billy Elish. That's a truckload. That's a lot. I was thinking you meant grandmas at first. Speaking of grandmas.

Yeah, wow. Billy Elish. One accomplished singer. Yeah, huge. Now writing about you, Jeremiah Smith. Love it. Do you know two Academy Awards? I know.

Two? Unbelievable. Bizar. From Shoreham by Sea in Great Britain. Beautiful standing places as well. Meg. Meg. Spelled M.E.

Thank you for letting me know. Meg, huge, has had a song written about them by Florence and the Machine. Whoa. One of the best live gigs I've ever seen in my life. Really? Another great voice. Such a great voice. Huge.

Poor. The energy in that arena was electric. I love to see them. So good. Would you be standing in action if they said this one's for Meg? No. Meg's been in the news. I don't like the Meg song.

Not my favourite. I love to think that it's also called the Meg. It's called the Meg song. And everybody else is standing ovation, but I've just standing there sitting down and going. I've got my purse on my lap. Play the second album. I'm checking my watch. Yon!

No offense to Meg. I just don't write the song. Yeah, fair enough. Thanks, Meg. And thank you to location unknown to us. We can issue him this person's also deep within the fortress of the malls. you to Angelina Allen. Angelina Allen has had a song written about them by Blake Shelton.

Really? Yeah. Blake Shelton. Blake Shelton. That's a, is that an American Idol guy? Yes. Maybe if he had country, that's why I do know. Yeah.

And is he an idol? I think so. Maybe it's just a... One of them? He's debuted in 2001. Maybe not. Okay, maybe it's just one of those American. Oh, no, sorry, no, he's not on, um, he wasn't on American Idol, but I thought he was a, he's a judge.

Oh, sorry, I'm now scrolling down. He's a coach on the voice. Coach on the voice. For many seasons. Yeah, there you go. For 12 years. I'm married to Gwen Stefani. Oh, okay, that's another reason I know that.

Brilliant. Well, Angelina Allen, he's a new country and Western hit just for you. A couple of a go here. Thank you so much from Edinburgh. One of our favorite cities in the whole wide world. to Jeremy Juan. I've been listening to this track a little bit, actually. About Jeremy Kwan?

Yes, because it was written and recorded by Chapel Rhone. Chapel Rhone. Oh, my gosh. Love it. Huge. This, some, random music artist, a generator is quite pop-heavy. It's really going through, yeah, a lot of... I'm just choosing the ones that I know.

And... So I'm coming up, you don't know? Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah, big time. I'm just going to read the next one, Because these guys have come up multiple times, so I'm just going to read it. Okay.

Now, next up from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Thank you so much, which I believe is the capital there, to Hanuf Makhbal. And... Out of Nashville, a duo called Florida Georgia Line. Florida, Georgia Line. Yep. Okay. Who I think broke up.

No, but surely they're back together? I don't know. I've never heard of them. No, for this situation. Yes, they're back together. They're back to write a track for Hanuf Mukbel. There you go. Oh, yeah, it looked like they a couple of years ago.

Anyway, they're back. And their new hit is all about Hanuf in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Love it. Thank you so much. Great to have you supporting us. In the last few weeks, there's been a couple of people from Saudi Arabia. We're really starting to crack that Saudi Arabian market. About time.

Thank you, Hanuf. And finally, I would like to thank bringing it closer to home from Broadford, in Victoria, hello, thank you to Sarah Hollis. Who has had a track written about them. It's already got awards buzz. Really? Lady Gaga. Oh my gosh.

Wow. Huge. Because what I love about that is you know there's the Sarah Hollis single. There's also the Sarah Hollis dance moves. Exactly right. Yeah. And an iconic outfit that Gaga is wearing in the video clip that people will know about it. People might say this is.

She's in a Sarah Holness era. Exactly. It's pretty big. It's exciting stuff. Love it. So thank you again to Sarah, Hanuf, Jeremy, Angelina, Meg, Jeremiah, Camaluni, Nick and Laura. Well, there's only one thing left to do, JP, and let's check if there's any inductees into this week's Trip Ditch Club, our Theatre of the Mind, Clubhouse Hall of Fame, where people that have been supporting the show

on the shoutout level or above for three consecutive years, we're going to shout them out one more time by welcoming them into the Hall of Fame. We high-five them as we yell at their name. They go on in, and inside there's food, drink, entertainment, places to sleep, places to...

Do whatever else you need to do. Whatever you need to do. Do your ablution. Yes, we've recently just upgraded now. We have toilets. We have toilets and, yeah, we took the feedback back, people wanted toilets. And we said, oh, okay.

Wouldn't have thought that, but okay. So there are a few inductees this week. Dave, I am behind the bar, as you know. I handle food and drink, which is, no, I think about it, quite sexist. That that's my job. Hey. You're literally saying to the woman, get back in the kitchen. We've tried to wrestle those utensils from your hands and you have, honestly,

given us a couple of black eyes. Well, it's often on theme And this week I've gone a little bit crazy If I can be honest with you Dave I've gone a bit wild Oh my gosh, what have you got? I went to Costco And I bought a palette of musli bars

A palette of musli bars Yeah, yeah Yeah Which is crazy because you just mentioned before That like the guys While they were stuck in a hole They're like they've got a musley bar And then they were like

All right, well eat on day one, day four Yeah. And then they dropped it. Well, I've got so many musli bars. So you don't have to ration it. You can just go nuts. Go nuts. Yeah.

Hey, drop it. Who cares? It's a variety pack too. Grab a new one. Grab a new one. I don't give a shit. Gosh. Any with coconut?

No. Chocolate? No. What kind of variety? We've got berries? Mm. What we got? Plain.

A variety pack of plain. Yeah. Oh, hey, enjoy everyone. And you also book a band today. Yes, you're never going to believe it. What? You are never going to believe it. What?

Here to perform an entirely acoustic set. They will not be singing, but who cares? He's also a great of guitar. Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters is here. Why won't you sing? Because he's only playing his instrumental tracks. Oh, okay. Like Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners.

Gotcha. I'm sure there's others. There's bound to be others. But do you reckon we could sway him a little bit to sing a couple of the classics? No, he did say he will do some Nirvana songs, but only on the drums. Okay. Okay. So there's that bit it smells like teen spirit that

that we all know that how it starts and then from then on everyone's going to sing along and hope they're up to the right bit. Yeah, and some people have to go, da-la-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-ha. Yeah, it could actually be a bit of fun. It could be a bit of fun. All right, so we've got three inductees.

Matt's usually here to like lift the velvet rope, let people in. I'll do that this week. Dave, you then hype them up. I will hype you up. It's just going to be a big old hype fest, okay? and I'm not here to shit on you like Matt usually is. Thank you.

I love and support you. May I touch your tush? Please and commence touching. Okay. First up, please welcome into the Trip Ditch Club from Tampa in Florida, Samuel Oskow. From Tampa, and I love to pamper, Samuel Ozco. Yeah, we're pamperia. Put some cucumbers on your eyes unless you're allergic.

Just let us know. So let us know. Should have felt out of form. We'll use something else. That's fine. But you should feel pampered. Next up from Ashford in Washington. It's Brendan.

10 out of Brendan. Yes. Like 10 out of 10. Yes. 10 out of Brendan. 10 out of Brent. And next up from what is this place? Is that Finland?

Oh, wow. No, surely not. Sorry, I got immediately distracted. It is in Finland. Wow. From Kangasala, definitely said that wrong and I apologize. In Finland, it is Sanda Rebane. I love to pander to Sanda Rebane.

So Sanda, Brendan, Samuel, welcome in. Finally, we've been waiting for you. Dave Grohl is just setting up on the stage over there, so just give him like 10 minutes. Bing, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. He's just doing a little tune. But please feel free to help yourself to as many musli bars as you'd like. Take some for later.

Not that you can leave. And ablutions just over to your left. Make yourself at home. And thank you so much for joining us in the Triptitch Club. Yes, well done. And welcome. One and all. Well, that about brings us to the end then, Dave.

That's everything we need to do. Just a reminder for the 500 of the second time that if you want to suggest a topic, you can. Anybody can. You don't have to be in this Patreon section to suggest a topic. There's a link in the show notes. it's also on our website which is do go onpod.com and you can find us on social media at do go on pod. But apart from that, Davy Boy, boot this baby home.

Hey, we'll be back next week with another episode. But until then, thank you so much for listening. And goodbye. Bye! Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester.

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