Do Go On - 522 - The Legend of King Arthur

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

The sixth most voted for topic for Block 2025 is King Arthur - man or legend? We find out the truth behind the man at the head of the Round Table (except there is no head at a round table ...) This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 5:00 (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/Jess Writes A Rom-Com: https://shows.acast.com/jess-writes-a-rom-comOur awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present. REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/king-arthur-real-person-180980466/https://www.caerleon.net/history/arthur/page2.htmhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/anglo_saxons/arthur_01.shtmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthurhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_King_Arthurhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv7UDGkFUl8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Big news about our 2025 world tour. Slash Australian New Zealand tour. That's the world, baby. That's our oyster. We have sold out a bunch of the shows. And if you've missed out in Perth or Brisbane, fear not, we've added some extra shows. So you can go to our website.

Do go onpod.com. And soon we'll be in Hobart, Canber, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Auckland, Wellington and Brisbane. Can't wait. Looking for a community that has it all, welcome to Crossings, the urban hub of West Lethbridge. At Crossings, you'll find a vibrant village designed for living, working, and connecting.

With top-notch schools, a state-of-the-art rec center, retail spaces, and parks, it's more than a neighborhood, it's a lifestyle. Enjoy NHL-Size arenas, and aquatic center, an accessible playground, a 55-acre sports park, pathways, and a library with enriching programs. Learn more at crossingslethbridge.ca.

We know you love the thought of a vacation to Europe, but this time, why not look a little further? To Dubai, a city that everyone talks about and has absolutely everything you could want from a vacation destination. From world-class hotels, record-breaking skyscrapers, and epic desert adventures, to museums that showcase the future, not just the past. Choose from 14 flights per week between Canada and Dubai.

Book on emirates.ca. today. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dev Warnakey and as always I'm here with Matt Stewart and Jess Perkins. Hello. Hello to you and hello to you as well. Thank you. And hello to you.

I'm talking to the listeners now. Can I just double check the first hello? Yeah, I went to you first. To me, Jess. I went clockwise. Okay. For the listeners, Jess is sitting left of your radio dial. Yep.

And me? Right in the center. Thank you. And then you listeners, you're to my right. Yeah. So hopefully that helps place you in the room. But so what's interesting, actually, Matt, is that for me and for my listeners,

just looking on my camera here, Dave is actually to my left. Yeah. Well, now you're going to confuse them. No, no, I don't think we should confuse them. And the listeners are right in front of me. Yes, that's right.

So, we're, you know, we're in a diamond, powerful diamond. Yes. You and the listeners, you know, perpendicular points. Yes. Dave and I are also perpendicular, if I'm using that word correctly.

I'm not sure. And, um, yeah, it's blocked. That's the main thing. Yeah. And happy block. Happy block. Quick question, what are you doing for block? I'm going to the Hamptons.

Oh my gosh. I like to block in the Hamptons. You know, people, summer places. Yeah. I block in the Hamptons. I think I've said that every year. I think my brain has one. Well, that's a tradition.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. You're blocking the Hamptons. That's okay. That's so good. So, Dave, what is Block? Well, what I'm doing for Block is counting down the nine-most-requested topics of the year. Matt put together a big poll.

with some of the most requested topics of all time. He went through the hat, found things that have been suggested sometimes dozens of times, and also asked for a few suggestions from our Patreon supporters. And then everyone, and I mean everyone, thousands of billions, millions of people possibly voted for this year. And we're counting down the... Up to billions. Up to billions. But not trillions, we will draw the line.

Yeah, come on. Up to trillions of people, up to billions. Jesus day. I voted, and we're counting down the nine most requested topics in order. This is the seventh most requested topics. topic of Block 2025. Is that right? Seven?

Six. Six? Yeah. Six. Wow. Over 28% of voters voted for this. Wow. That's billions.

Yeah. Are you going to ask a question even though Dave and I know what the topic is? Yeah, I am because I'm quite happy with the question I wrote. Is that okay? Yeah. Is the answer going to be the topic? Yeah. Okay.

Well, can I buzz in now? Okay. But then you won't get the fun. Oh, okay. Well, no, I'll love fun. Do you want fun? Yeah. I want fun.

Okay. Matt already buzzed. He didn't say anything. He's been timed out. It's back to me. Okay. So, for new listeners, we always get up to the topic with a question. Yep.

What? No, no. Here's my question. Uh-huh. In Kingsman the Secret Service, Michael Kane's character is codenamed what? No? Oh. Dave.

Hipot news. Oh, geez, what was he? Well, here's the second part of the question, after whom. So he's not codenamed King Arthur. No, excuse me. It's Dave's turn. Anyway, just for the people. Sorry, let me disbuzz, Dave.

Is it king? Can I, I'm back in, Arthur. After whom? King Arthur. Correct. Thank you. Dan, are you right? That was fun.

We did watch those movies together and bloody loved them. A great time. So much fun. King Arthur, yes, of course, because they're all, are they all knights of the round table? Yeah, yeah. You got Merlin? Yes. One is the wizard of the round table?

Or is Merlin a wizard? Yeah. I mean, just Merlin at a knight as well. Nah. He's a wizard. He's a wizard. And then you've got Galaad and Lance a lot. Yeah, it's very cool. Very fun. How much is he Lance? A bit. Yeah. So I'm so curious as to how you're going to do this.

Because is he fictional? Is he real? I guess we're going to find that out. We're going to find that out. We're going to find that out quite quickly. I watched a guy, Richie movie about him on the plane back from the UK recently. A fiction movie. I don't know. Well, no, okay, yes. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't a, it wasn't a Guy Ritchie documentary.

No, no. No, it was a... It was a film. I think it was like a what you'd call a biopic. I see. Yeah. But yeah, because the bits of magic and stuff, I'm like, a bit far-fetch, but if it is historical, it's historical.

Exactly. Yeah. That's history. That's history, baby. So this has been suggested by a few people. Isaac Bryant from Bristol, Johnny Dawson from Lester and Paige from Warner. And so, yeah, the topic is King Arthur. To kick things off from the BBC,

the King Arthur that we know of today is a composite of layers of different legends written by different authors at different times. He appears in his first incarnation in the history of the Britons, written in 1830 AD and attributed to a writer called Nenius. 830. 8. I don't say 18? Yes.

And I was thinking, that's not that long ago. 8. I also love that you say AD for that too. It was like, because I always referred it this year as 2025 AD. Hmm, you do. I've got through one sentence. Ados Domingos or something? Ados Domingos, yes.

Have they changed AD or is it still AD? Because some people now say BCE instead of B.C. Oh, they just say C E now for Common Era. Well, I added that it wasn't written. I liked it. Okay. I think it's great. Well, you grew up, Catholics.

that makes sense. Yeah, I'm only, my only point of reference is Jesus Christ. Yes. So, and this is 830 years after that, approximately. So that is a long time ago. Okay, it's satisfied that that's quite a long time ago. I'm back in. I'm back in. And you're like 1830s, not that long ago.

It's a pretty long time ago. Can I just say that? Can I just say that? 1830 is a pretty long time ago. My memories of 1830 are like clearer than 830. Right, yeah. You get it. So BBC continues.

Here Arthur appears as a heroic British general and a Christian War during a tumultuous late 5th century when Anglo-Saxon tribes were attacking Britain. Nenius gives a list of 12 battles fought by Arthur, a list that belongs in an old tradition of battle-list poems in Welsh poetry. Some of the names appear in other early poems, stretched over a wide period of time and place, and the list represents the kind of eclectic plundering that was the Bard's stock and trade. So the 12 battles of Arthur are not history. one man could not possibly have fought in all of them.

The 12 battles are, in fact, the first sign of a legend. Oh, okay. Interesting. I mean, they say that a normal man couldn't, but maybe he's more, you know, some men were created more normal than others. That's so true. You know what I mean?

How would you rank your normalcy versus, say, Dave's normalcy? Just as the only other man in the room. Your normalcy. I would say, I would call myself, you know, the mean, the median, the normal. Yeah. On the new normal. Okay.

Dave, I would say, is slightly... So it's either less or more normal than me. I would say Dave is a slightly less normal than me. Particularly if the scale is how many battles you could physically fight. And he did 12 and they're like, well, that's not possible. Matt's average, you could probably do, what, five maybe? Yeah, Matt could survive for. Five tennis.

You know, I'd want to have a pretty good team around me. I'm falling over on the walk to the first battle. And they're leaving me there. Yeah, I don't think you could. Because remember when you were a kid and you couldn't hold a tennis racket? Yeah. I don't think you're going to be able to hold a sword. I had to have a special class before how to hold a pencil because my fingers were too small.

What's wrong with you? They didn't give me a sword. But you can, you could be, you know, writing the jingles, the battle cries. Yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah, you'd be good at that. Yeah. You can be warming up.

Is that I love that? You've just come up with that. Yeah, that's me. That's one of mine. That's one of my hits. You are very good. See? Me and the men's.

What if I was going into battle and I sort of had you on my back like a toddler? That'd be really good. That'd be fun? Yeah, I'd put David a baby Bjorn. I would worry, I would be a bit of a target. Okay. Quick, take out that boy. That little boy.

Take out that beautiful boy. That'd be so beautiful. Jenner's like, a thousand gold pieces to the first man who takes out that boar. That beautiful little boy. Why do you think they're targeting you? You're just straight away. You're like, well, I'm obviously catching everyone's eye. They're threatened by my golden hair.

I assume, you're assuming you're the king, aren't you? In this, he has golden hair as well. I'm a little boy with golden locks. That's beautiful. Such a beautiful little boy. And you're in like pristine outfit. Everyone else is like battle worn. Yeah, they're covered in poo and mum.

You're like, ugh, you're making me carry you so you're above the mud. I don't like it. You've got a tiny little dagger, still a bit big for you, but... It looks like a full sword. It's funny when we started talking about you as being pocket size, and then people saw you at live shows and we're like, oh, he's the same high distress. Disappointingly big. He's huge.

Okay. So the other text that seemed to support the case for Arthur's historical existence is a 10th century annals Cumbria Or say it right Anals Which also links Arthur to the Battle of Baden The Anals date this battle Between 516 and 518

Now a British monk called Gildas Wrote extensively about the history of Britain And was alive and writing in the 6th century Within living memory of the Battle of Baden And his writing makes no mention of Arthur Okay Snubbed him Is it a snub or is he like

We're keeping Arthur for us He's ass. Oh, right. The more we talk about, the more everyone else are going to come and get him. You know how many battles this guy can be in? 12 so far. Yeah. Probably more if other people come and get him.

He's still going. So put him in the secret book out back. Yeah. Secret book out of that. That's for me. That's my diary. You've got to know the code word if you want to see that book. In fact, Arthur is not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or named in any surviving manuscripts

written between 40820. That'll be a very secretive. Over 400 years. Well, that's quite a big open search. Like when you put the search terms in, search for King Arthur between 400 and 800 years, is that enough? Yeah. No results.

Okay, we've got to widen this search a little bit. He's absent from Beed's early 8th century, ecclesiastical history of the English people? The venerable? Beed. He's venerable. Do you know that about it? That's his like, what do you call him?

Nondum Clift or whatever. You know that word you have? An epithet, epithet. What's that word, Dave, that you have? Or you think, for a title? A nondi plume is what you were. No, non-nobloom is, you know, like the, the great or whatever. He's the venerable bead.

Yeah, I'm like it on that word too, but you know. But you know. No, I don't. That's what I've asked you. But you know. Come on, Dave. Yeah, is it an... So you're better than that.

An adjective or phrase expressing a quality or attribute, maybe. So the monarch is often known as the great. Yeah, it's a epithet. That's what that, it's what you said. Yeah. I still think I'm doubting it. Because I said it? Dave.

No, it doesn't ring a bell. Cognomin. Cognomen. That's why. Cognomen. Get fucked. That was why. I think maybe they both mean the same thing, but Dave taught me that word, and I knew it

sounded stupider than epithet. What have I taught you? Epithet. And empathy. Epithet, empathy. And, you know, just the power of no. The power of no. No.

No. Dave told me the power of yes. That's enough. That's enough. So basically they're just saying that there's other people writing a lot at this time. And he does, Arthur doesn't really come up. Okay. So people are saying he should have come up.

You'd think so. If he existed. Another early source. Oh yeah, so this is Bede. He wrote about. The Venerable? The Venerable Bede. He wrote about post-Roman history that mentions the Battle of Bader.

But Bede refers to Ambrosius Orrelianus, incredible, as the leader of the Britons at that battle, whose parents had perished in the storm and who was of the royal race. So people think that maybe that's who others were referring to when they were writing about Arthur. But basically in the texts or writings around the time that Arthur lived, he's never mentioned. Because he was a secret. Because he was a secret. It was a secret. Or he was this Ambrosius and.

man yeah or he was just really shy and he didn't like to talk about it too much my god i get that yeah it's like guys leave me out of the book please oh no i just i just want to go to battle and like win all the battles and i don't want to talk about it yeah i'm not i don't do it to be talked i'm not special i just love to battle yeah i'm normal yeah 12 battles is normal he's the new normal he's the new normal he was back then before i came along do you think you'd survive one battle? With luck. If you're in a tank maybe.

I think it's an odds game. A medieval battle in a tank. I think those kind of battles, it's all about odds. Yeah. Where do you get, you know, if you get plonked next to one of those bad, bad-ass killers, then you're fucked. But if you get plonked in a spot where, you know, Dave's the guy opposite you. You're probably going to survive.

Dave's carrying behind the tree. You see me running towards you, like, oh, thank God. Get the poll out In this, it's just like one-on-one And then you're done? They're not playing zone defence here So you battle one person And then just sit out the rest?

Well, no, there'll be, that probably be another But I'm just asking because I don't know They never send the girls to battle Once I've taken out Dave Yeah Then you've got to face the big boss The others will flee They'll go, wow, if you've taken out

Our Golden Locked boy Holy shit What's worth fighting for We've never seen Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it'll be chaos. Yeah. Okay.

So there's no evidence of him, but can I just say, is it possible that he was so good that the kings that came after him were like, don't mention that guy anymore. He's set the bar too high. You know when like Egyptian pharaohs would come along that often like chisel off the old person's name and put their name over it? It'd be like, don't worry about them. I built this.

Yeah, right. So this guy's been in 12 battles. You know the next king, I'm the next king going, fuck, I can't even do one. Yeah, 13. Yeah. And then, like, getting all the history books are on this, kind of throwing him on the fire. Arthur, Ambrosius Anil, who are you talking about? Yeah. Don't record. Don't that is possible. Is that possible? It's possible. It's possible. Okay. Just saying. Is it possible the beads not so venerable after all? Yeah. What does venerable mean? Where does this phrase venerable bead come from?

That's just what he's known. Like, that's, you'll, if you hear of, I've never heard him just called bead before. I've only ever heard him called the venerable bead. I love it. I haven't come across. Accorded a great deal of respect, especially because of age, wisdom or character. Oh, he's venerable. No doubt about that. Yeah. Can you start calling me the venerable Matt? Absolutely not. Okay.

Well, I guess... Ask and answer. I guess are you accorded a great deal of respect? It does say especially because of age. Mm-hmm. So you have that, but it's... It's, I don't know, it's sort of like... You still have to earn respect.

Yeah, come on. It's not just a time thing. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know about wisdom. or character. Okay. You're pretty dumb and you've got a shit personality.

Mm-hmm. So. But almost to an endearing sense. Yeah, that's true. Because I could come back around, given another couple of centuries. Yeah, cool. All right.

Well, it's got a list of similar words, if you want to try any of these, respected Matt Stewart. No one's fine. That. Worshipped Matt Stewart. Jesus. Esteemed?

I think Venerables is good because a lot of the people don't, they're like, I don't necessarily know if that's true or not. It kind of. Worship people like, is it a worship. No. Venerable also, it kind of sounds like you might have a, like a sexually transmitted disease. Yeah, okay. So I think that does work.

Yeah, yeah. The V and VD is. Yeah. Venerable. What is that disease? Venerial disease. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

That's the. So you're the venereal, Matt. Yes. Okay. Venerial, yeah. Can we compromise on that? Yeah, I think, deal, happy with that? We'll happy with that?

Put in writing. The venereal Matt Stewart. That's beautiful. Here he is. A new name in the group chat. The group chat's getting updated pretty frequently lately. Anyway, so the literary persona that we still know about today of King Arthur began with Jeffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-historical text, History of the Kings of Britain, which was written in the 1130s.

I do. purposely left it off because I got bullied last time You didn't get bullied I got bullied I got bullied I'm a victim of bullying Go to the tape I'm a victim of bullying His work was so influential in the story of Arthur

That textual sources for Arthur are usually divided into those written Before Geoffrey's Historia Which are known as like pre-Galfridian texts And those written afterwards And what's after? PGT Post So anything written after sort of couldn't help but be influenced by his writer.

I tell you what, that is true. You know, PMS? I'm like, gun on my head, is it post or pre? Pre. Gundy head? Appreciate you not putting a gun to my head and just answer it. It's just pre. Yeah.

Happy to help. Yeah. Any other questions? Whoa. No, that's all today, Your Honor. You just let me know. let me know you have any questions at any time so yeah as i was saying that if anything written after uh geoffrey of monmouth's writing kind of inevitably was influenced by it it was hugely

popular um and just accepted as history he's the guy do you think of your life uh as break you know broken up into PMS and PMS pre-mats short post-mats shoot In so many ways, yes. Do you love it or hate it? I can't tell. Oh, he loves it. Yeah.

Winking at the camera. Bit of fun. Bit of fun. Yeah. It was like, in my mind, it was, the world was sort of black and white PMS. Mm. You know?

And then there was a quick shock of red came into your life. Yeah. Yeah. In a way. In a way. It was like a flood of red. Yes, yes, came along. And that was your PMS?

Yeah. Post-Met Stewart. Post-M-Sute. And at times PMS makes me furious. Yes. Sometimes it makes me really emotional. Yeah, just my life PMS. Yeah.

Is... Are you now living in MS? I'm not living in Matt Stewart. Okay. CMS, current Matt Stewart. Oh, yeah. Yeah, MSE, Matt Schott era. Matt Stewart era. I'm in my MSA.

Yeah. I'm trying to get out of my MS. We all thinking that AJ's got a bit of work to do. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the BBC gives more context on the impact of Geoffrey's writing, saying, in the turmoil of the period following the Norman invasion in 1066, Celtic literature experienced a flowering.

Much of it concerned stories of the Welsh and other Celtic Britons in glorious triumph against their new masters. A shower of new histories also sprung forth, introducing the Normans to the culture and the past of the Celts. All such stories needed a main protagonist, a hero to lead the troops, and this was where Arthur fitted in. Already known in Welsh poetry and in Ninius's history, Nenius's history, he was an obvious contender. And with that background, it is perhaps unsurprising that it was another Welsh writer who propelled Arthur from being just a Celtic warrior to being a mythical superstar. So that writer was Geoffrey of Monmouth, who spent his life working in Oxford and produced his momentous work, the history of the kings of Britain. Geoffrey claimed that the work was based on a secret lost Celtic manuscript that only he was able to examine.

I mean, there are a whole religion spills around this exact thing. Whoa. BBC says, but it's really a myth masquerading as history, a fantastical tale of the history of the British Giles, which concentrates its key pages on King Arthur and his wondrous deeds. So, yeah, so Jeffrey, he's kind of like, yeah, so I've got this book and only I can look at it, but I'm just, I'm translating it for you because you probably don't know the language, so I'm just translating that for you. And there's no point in seeing the original, because I'm doing my own version.

I'm doing it. It's fine. Yeah, you don't need it. It's invisible. You can't see it, only I can see it. Yeah, I've got special glasses. Yeah. And they're only for my prescriptions.

So you put them on, you'd be like, whoa, is this what you see? Whoa. And no, because it's correcting my vision. So when I put them, I see perfectly. Okay. And it's on my fault, you don't understand glasses. That's wild, I have to explain all this. Frustrating.

Anyway, if anyone wants me, I'm in my bedroom. Yeah. Jennery of Monmouth out. Jimry? Gemmy. What was his name? Jeffrey. I thought it was my gibberishie.

Jeffrey's really held on, hasn't it? Yeah, and it's the spelling with a G. Yeah, right. How about that? Yeah. Because so many of the names back then are pretty wacky. Arthur. That's crazy.

Well, Arthur, I mean, I don't know if you've been reading between the lines. Arthur wasn't real. That's not what Jeffrey says. And that's not the point of what I'm saying. But have a look at the other kings from around that era. Athel Swed and Stappelstop. Yes.

And a lot of these names are Welsh as well, which, you know, it's a different, a beautiful language, but not one that I can pronounce easily. And what about Nenius? That's pretty bloody good. Yeah, Neneas is fun. Ninius is fantastic. So through Jeffrey's writing, for the first time we get Arthur's whole life story, not just tales of Battles One.

According to Jeffrey, Arthur's father was King Uther Pendragon. Arthur's father. That's fun like Arthur's. And Arthur's father took arson classes. Have a go. Arthur's father took arson classes. It's got to be faster. See?

See? See? What do you mean see? See? See, it's fun. You got it wrong. Fun for me. Watching you.

Fuck it up. Arthur's father took arson classes. That's good. And he shoved it up his asses. Uther Pen dragon. You had no interest in Uther Pen dragon. I was hooked on that, but then. Arthur's father took over.

His dad's name was Uther Pen Dragon. Yes. That's pretty good. That is so good. This is Jeffrey of Monmouth being like, no, this is real? Yeah. I've got it over here. I'm just translating.

His name was Uther Pen dragon. He's looking around the room. There's a dragon in his room. Who, with the help of this, so this is his father, Uther, with the help of the sorcerer Merlin, disguised himself as the Duke of Cornwall to enter the fortress and father Arthur with the Duke's wife. Oh wow. Father Arthur.

That's not very good. No, and there's a bit more of that later too. Oh, okay. That's a recurring theme. Again, a few minor references to King Oothar appear in old Welsh poems, but his biography was first written down in the 12th century by a writer called Geoffrey of Monmouth. So his whole sort of backstory was also first written and discovered and uncovered and translated by Geoffrey Monmouth.

At the end of the book, it says, other books by Jeffrey Monmouth. Maybe you'd like to read about Uther Pen Dragon From Wikipedia Uther's epithet Pen dragon literally means head dragon In its original Britonic Though it was used figuratively

To mean highest commander Head leader top of the command chain The pen The pen Geoffrey of Monmouth misinterpreted it As the head of a dragon And invented an origin to explain it away Uther acquired the epithet

when he witnessed a dragon-shaped comet, which inspired him to use dragons as his symbol. So in pictures and paintings of King Uther, Pendragon, he's often got like a dragon on his clothes. Yeah, okay, right. And do we think that he actually exists? Well, no. Oh, okay.

Well, there's mention of him, but it's in poetry, old Welsh poems. Right. So he's more likely, like, folklore type stuff. interesting to be like, you've got that so wrong. That fictional man, that's not where I got his name from. Everyone knows he got fire this,

the comet. He saw a comet that looked like a dragon. That's the real thing. And then another guy would be like, no, my fictional tale of events. Yeah. Because dragons are pretty popular

in like British folklore. Was this the beginning of it or is it already been around? I think maybe it must have already been around. If he's writing this in the 1100s, like, and it's based on much older the Welsh poetry and stuff like that.

I'm guessing they've been around longer. Because when did dragons go extinct or lie dormant until? It's been a while. It's been a while. It's been a while. Yeah. Yeah. 80s?

Right. So we just missed him. I think you just missed him. Or 1880s. Either way. Yeah. Just missed it. Just missed it.

According to Dave, 1830 is not that long ago. Jeffrey claims in his dedication that the book is a translation of an ancient. ancient book in the British language that told in orderly fashion the deeds of all the kings of Britain. So this is the book that only he could read. And he said it was given to him by the archdeacon of Oxford. But modern historians have dismissed this claim. It is possible and even likely that the archdeacon gave Geoffrey some materials in the Welsh language. Jeffrey was a cleric and he knew the archdeacon. So it would have been a bit bold to lie publicly and say, yeah, the archdeacon gave me this when the archdeacon could find that out and go, no, I didn't.

You know what I mean? So it's probable that the archdeacon gave him some books. The archdeacon's a witch. That's not the real archdeacon. That's the devil. He's a shapefifter. It's a devil. Kill it!

The only way to know is if we put him at the bottom of a lake. Oh, it turned out it was the real one. You could shake shift into a fish. That is a shame. What is the shame? It was a shame. Oh, well, still everything you were saying was crazy and wrong. Everyone's wrong now and then.

This is my time. My one time. My one time. And nobody's mad at me for it. You've been wronging before. He's a witch. Kill the witch. A lot of his writing had roots in even older texts like Historia Britonum, a 9th century

Welsh-Latin historical compilation. And I've forgotten, what's Beads? Venerable. The Venerable Beads, ecclesiastical history of the English people. And then Geoffrey has kind of embellished the story with his own imagination. So it's rooted in truth or like rooted in history, but he's kind of added. Honestly, there should be more of that in history, in my opinion. Couldn't agree more.

Punching it up. Punch it up. And you leave it for enough time and then his book becomes fact. Yeah, Tarantino, eventually in glorious bastards, people are like, can you believe how Hitler went down? Yeah, they machine gunned his face. Interesting, interesting. Now that's history. Can you believe Hitler was just the imaginary friend of a little boy?

I love history. I love history. I love history. I love it. Over time, his fictions became embedded in popular history, as other writers used his text as a reference to write their own. So it's exactly what we're saying. The history of the Kings of Britain is now usually considered a literary forgery

containing little reliable history. This has since led many modern scholars to agree with William of Newburgh, who wrote around 1190, that it is quite clear that everything this man wrote about Arthur and his successes or indeed about his predecessors was made up, partly by himself and partly by others. Jealousy. It's a curse.

It is a curse. It's a curse. Sometimes it strikes decades, if not centuries later. Bad color on you, William of Newberg. So he called that pretty early. I assumed it was sort of just bought for a little while. Yeah, and it kind of was, but also I don't know how seriously people, took it or I did read somewhere that it was like people were a bit less skeptical

back then too of like, you know, if he's writing this and he's a reliable person and he's writing it and saying this is what happened. We're so jaded these days. I know. Yeah. We're just like, we're so terrified of being sincere. Or did they read it more like, you know, the myths of places, you know, like you're not meant to take it literally. It's... Yeah, maybe. And yeah, like a couple of writers have sort of spoken about, historians have spoken about, like it was a bit of a, it was a challenging time for people and so having this like folk hero was uplifting or, you know, so I think people just sort of got on board with it. And it's like a time before books are commonplace in everyone's house. So you just hear, and not everyone's even literate.

So you hear about these stories and you go, oh yeah. Yeah, they told orally or through music and stuff about that guy. Yeah, yeah. So I don't really know how literally people were taking it at the time, but it definitely did sort of permeate into the retelling of that time of history. So interestingly, though, a lot of the law and canon we know about King Arthur mostly came from the writing of Geoffrey of Monmouth. In fact, Arthur really only became a king in the writing of Geoffrey of Monmouth. He was that powerful. Any other early texts, he was like a warlord soldier type. But now, thanks to Jeffrey, he's the king. So here's a bit of a summary of other parts of the story that have been expanded on over the years. So,

This is like some of the stuff that you, when you think of King Arthur, like, what are we thinking about? So you might associate King Arthur with Camelot. Camelot was his stronghold slash castle, kind of like the HQ for Arthur and his knights. It eventually became, came to be described as a fantastical capital of Arthur's realm and a symbol of the Arthurian world. How often did it Cam? I don't know what I said. A lot. Doesn't matter. No, you said it right. I was just making a bad joke.

Oh, Camelot. Fuck me. No, fuck me. Fuck me. Yeah, fuck you. I only feel okay about it if we move along quickly. Wallowing this makes, this is no good. I'm sorry, Jess. No, I'm sorry, Matt. But do you understand it yet, Jess?

No, but I think what I misheard him when he said, how often does it come? And I was like, wait, what? Oh. If AJ can't help us out. Yeah, no, edit that one out, AJ. That was embarrassing for everybody. I'm so sorry, Matt. You deserve better. No, that's what I deserve. Of me going, what?

What? Huh? Because writing this broke my brain, so now reading it, I'm like, what's happening? Okay. Medieval texts locate it somewhere, this is, where is Camelot? Medieval texts located somewhere in Great Britain, and sometimes associate it with real cities, though more usually its precise location is not revealed. Most scholars regard it as being entirely fictional.

It's unspecified geography being pretextual. perfect for chivalric romantic writers. Nevertheless, arguments around the location of the real Camelot have occurred since around the 15th century and they continue today in popular works and for tourism purposes. I've been like, honestly, the real Hogwarts is around here somewhere. We just have to keep digging. I mean, how could they, they couldn't have, they couldn't have been a set. It's near Atlantis, I think.

Yeah. You find it? It's probably under the water. If you find Atlantis, you're getting real close to Camelot. Very close to Camelot. Some associated it with Calion in Marlon. Wales. Others think, others think perhaps Cadbury Castle and Somerset. Cadbury? I know. Is that where Cabri's from? And Somerset. I know. I was like,

I had to include that because it's got Cadbury and Somerset. But is Cadbury from, is that where Cadbury's from? I'm actually not sure. Because Cadbury's English, right? Yeah. Yeah. Cadbury. Here we go. Chocolate. Where from? Where from? originates from the Cadbury brand, which started in Birmingham. Oh, of course. Brum. That's from the AI overview on Google. Okay.

But it was, oh, because it was founded by John Cadbury. Okay. John Cadbury's. And what was his castle? Where was his castle? And where was his castle? Who was John Cadbury and where was his castle? That's fun.

All English people had a castle. Back then, yeah. Back before, you know, the trouble that's occurred lately. That's how they talk about it. Yeah. We all had castles before people came from overseas, took all of our castles. And it's like, really, England, you want to talk about people going overseas and taking stuff? Really?

You know what I mean? Because they colonised, like, most, like a lot of the world. Oh, my God. Including Australia. That's actually, if you think about it, it's a bit of a funny line to take from them. It's been funny, isn't it? Anyway, I hope they reform in whatever. That's the name of the party that's really taking a lot.

advantage of this sentiment. Nojel Farage. You've taken this joke too Farage. I don't know if you saved it or made it worse, said, Dave. Neither do I. It's exciting. Anyway, English people will be enjoying that riff, no doubt. Oh, yes.

50% of them. 50% of loving it. What else might you associate with that? Round table. Nights of the round table is my very next stop point. Because there's no head of a table. Table and a roundtable. Correct.

He was real egalitarian. Yeah, it was very democratic. So the first mention of the roundtable was in the writing of French writer Wass in the 1100s. Wals? Woss. The knights of the roundtable were legendary warriors serving King Arthur, known for their chivalry, bravery and code of honour. The roundtable itself symbolises their equality as it had no head. You're absolutely right.

And they were tasked with defending the weak, upholding justice and embarking on quests. Oh, yeah. That's pretty fun. What a great spot to head out on a quest from, do you know? Yeah. Who's sitting... So nice. Who's sitting at the head of the table, right?

All of us and none of us. Let's go, Quest. You're the funniest Camelot. You got me again. Or whatever, not Camelot. What's the lot? Lancelot. Do you reckon that there's still probably preferable positions, like one closer to the door,

so when they're coming with the food, you get served first. True. So it's like, like, fight over. Oh, I want to sit there. I'd want to be near the toilets. Yeah, that's fine. I can keep tabs of where everybody else is going. There's one with like, you know, like the sun comes through,

you sit and you get to bask in that. Oh, yeah, but I get sunburn easily, so you don't want that one. But also if you're, I mean, these are pretty brutal times and you're close to the door, your backs to it, get the food first, but also if anyone broke in, you'd also get this. That's true. I think the only way to do it is if they made some sort of lazy Susan type thing, but attach the seats to us, so everyone's constantly spinning like a gravitron.

Yes, like a 20th century nightclub in Frankston back. in the day. Just constantly spinning? The dance floor was spinning. Oh my God. That feels like a bad combo. I never went there, but it was infamous. Do they call it the roundtable?

They should. I wonder if, like, I don't know the last time you guys were in a classroom, but... Or a club. Or a club. But, and I don't know if we did this at school, but we must have because, like, you'd, wherever you sat on the first day, you sat there forever after that. Like, it was strange to just move seats all the time. So I wonder if, like, yeah, there's no head, but there is an order where we sit.

Yeah, I reckon there was anything you'd be like on day one, fuck. Yeah. This is next to the toilet. It smells terrible here. It smells so bad. I'm stuck here. I'm the opposite of King Arthur. There's no head of the table, but I'm at the ass.

Yeah, that's right. Because really, wherever he's sitting is the head of the table. And he's like, no, no, it's not. No, we're all equal here. But everyone's staring at you and you're leading the conversation. I think you're the head of the table. His name is king. Yeah.

And he's sitting in a golden throne and everyone else is on a bar still with terrible back support. Yeah, yeah. So I think there is. No, I'm just having to sit here on the first week. If you'd been there, Galaad, you would have been here in the throne. If you don't like the chair, feel free to bring in your own. Yeah. That's fine.

What, do you want to take, you want to take my chair? Go on. Go on. Do you want to? Sit in my chair. Sit in my chair. If you want, I mean, it's anyone's chair. It's not my chair.

Well, there is one chair that you don't want to sit in there. Or, you plenty do, but. there is one specific chair at the table that has a very, it's very significant. Oh, it's like the one that has a trapdoor under it? Yeah. So you don't have to go to the toilet, you can just. Oh, yeah, that's easy. Is there also a kids roundtable?

No. But if there's a bit of overfoil the couple of adults have to sit there and it's a bit awkward. Oh, they should do that like baby Muppets, only baby King Arthur and the, what's his crew called again? The Knights of the Roundtable. Knights of the Roundtable. The Baby Knights of the Roundtable. That's quite cute. That would be really cute.

I think I just came up with a million-dollar idea. Should we copyright that? Honestly, that is going to be, that'll be a big cartoon or whatever. That's an ex-bluey. I just want to say, on the record, we are recording this on Thursday the 9th of October 2025. Jess is holding up the newspaper. Okay. Baby nights is the round table.

That's us. That's us. And if that gets made, we will sue. Yeah. So it's, what is it? Like Prince Arthur? Fuck, that's cute. You know, that sort of stuff?

Yeah, yeah. Prince, maybe, and it's always better if it's like not the direct. some but like the uncle so the nephew or something you know right yeah if they're like like i like um i watched a show in the 90s called shirley homes and she was sherlock homes as uh great great grand niece yeah she solved crime great great great grand niece yeah yeah that's great yeah that's good great show so i guess so like that but so like but original so mycroft is so she was related to microft then i guess so i don't i don't remember them ever mentioning him that's so weird well great great niece niece yeah does that mean

you're off, you're niecing it off right off the bat from that branch or you're going down like direct, direct, direct and then niece. Yeah, I'm sure. Well, because, okay, so we say, I'd say Scullin, the former Prime Minister is my great, great uncle and he was my grandmother's uncle. Yeah. So that's nice straight off the bat. Right.

That's good. There you go. You can make a TV show then. Yeah, I could. I could do. Yeah, it starts off. We all remember Prime Minister. skull and then there's a needle scratch we do well let me tell you about him okay we are

recording on Thursday the 9th photo but this is good stuff the other thing is it the other thing that I think is the first that comes to mind is the sword out of the stone is that the next thing you're going to talk about probably I can't remember the exact order I wrote these in but that is him though isn't it yeah because Guy Ritchie definitely used that okay great to great effect. He'd be a fool not to. He'd be a fool not too. So, Knights of the Round Table, the number of the knights, including Arthur, and their names very greatly between the versions published by different writers. The figure may range from dozens to a dozen, maybe, to as many as 1,600. That is a huge table. How big is that table? That's a big table. You can't hear what anybody's

saying. Honestly, and that's, honestly, if there's a dozen, round is okay. But you need to start going for an oval, as soon as you get more than a couple of dozen. Yeah, because you just get further and further away. It's ridiculous. What's the biggest wedding you've ever been to? Maybe a U-shape? Only a couple, a couple hundred, yeah. 200, maybe.

Three to four hundred for me, and that was, that's big. Huge. That's so big. And that was all at a round table. Yeah, and I couldn't hear anything. I think the only way a round table would make sense is if the centre was cut out, so you had either side of the round table. Oh, that's not bad, yeah.

Oh, good, yes. To get into the middle, you do have to crawl under, but it's, you know, still good. Maybe it's a horseshoe. Oh, that's too many people. Yeah, I pictured it being like eight or something. I know, yeah, a dozen, maybe, okay, it's 12. That makes sense, I guess, but 1600 is too many. Do we know all the, what are the other classic names?

I will read all 1600. Here we go. Come on. And it's going to be the name that have really nice. Greg, uh, Doug, Terry, Trevor, Stuart. Schmow. Schmow. Schmow.

Shmah. Within the first five, we're just making noises. Shmow. You couldn't think of my fifth name. It was a common name back then. Oh, shmmy. Shmow, shmow. There's triplets.

My grand uncle's name was Shmow. Uncle Shmow, we called him. Oh my God, that's a TV show. Uncle Shmow. Okay, 9th of October. Most commonly, however, there are between 100 and 300 seats at the table. What the fuck? Isn't that crazy?

You have to Eden sessions. Often, with one seat permanently empty. This is the seat I was talking about. This is called the siege, perilous, also known as a perilous seat, and it's a vacant seat at the roundtable reserved by Merlin for the knight who would one day be successful in the quest for the Holy Grail. That's cool.

And I'll talk about it a little bit later, but the story kind of is that other people, knights have come along and gone, yeah, I'm the one to get the Holy Grail, and they sit in that seat and they die. So it's kind of like... Die in the seat. Yeah. Sort of like it's a real chosen one. Right.

But if you, yeah, if you are wrong, it kills you. And they're saying that I'm, I'll get the grail. Yeah. Mate, I'd wait until I get the grail, then I'd take the seat. Okay, well, I wish they'd thought of that. Are these people who are already at the table, like they're one of the other hundreds? Yeah, I think so, yeah. You don't need an extra seat then.

Exactly, just sit down. Why do you need two? Yeah. Oh, I wouldn't put your feet up. Well, don't be an asshole. Come on. Put your feet up on a servant like the rest of us. I'm getting the holy grail.

I think I can put my feet up. Yeah. I'm pre-resting. Okay. I deserve an ottoman. Some people, they'll put their feet up after achieving the goal. Well, I'm pre-feed-up. I'm not going to be able to achieve the goal if I don't rest.

Yeah. Okay. Jeez. So some of the most famous nights of the roundtable have been honored by being namesakes for characters in Kingsman movies like Galahad, Lancelot, Mark Strong, aka Merlin. Mark Strong is one of them. Look, honestly, I read through, there's an extensive.

list. There's a whole Wikipedia page for it, and I didn't recognise a lot of the names. Yeah, the ones you've said I recognise, but I have seen Kingsman. Yeah. But I feel like I recognise them watching Kingsmen. They rang a bell already. Totally. They're the big ones. Then there's like, there's Bedivir and Percival, those are big ones. But yeah, Galahad, Lancelot, Merlin, those are sort of, yeah, characters that really had a lot of, like, people would write stories about them as well. So their law and their stories are really built up to. Dave's having a Google. Oh, this is one that I can't, that I'm trying to remember the name of, but I'll, oh, you know, don't worry about it.

Well, we're going to worry about it now. We'll wait. Tick-tock, tick-top. Yeah, Gawain. Yeah, Gawain. From the Green Knight. You remember that movie? Gawain.

With Dev Patel. Oh, yes, yep. I mean, no, I don't remember the movie, but I remember Gawain because I've read about this topic extensively over the last week. I've never heard of Gawain. Gawain. I think he was, like, related in. some stories he's related to King Arthur. That's, uh, there's the nephew.

There we go. Okay, Gawain. Gwain's Manifesto. Does that mean anything to you guys? Gwain's World. Gawain the Rock Johnson. Does that make something to you? Yeah, I got all of the references.

Okay, we didn't get Gwain's Manifesto, though. Why you missed out then, didn't you? Damn. It was a great kid show in the, in the Aughties, I think, called Wayne's Manifesto with Bronson from Round the Twist. That does, I do know that. Great show. I do know that.

It was 90s or noughties. Wayne's Manifesto is a strange choice of... Oh, yeah, I do. Australia is always high achieved on kids' TV. Yeah, doing it very well. Australian children TV series that aired in the ABC based on the children's book. Wow.

But yeah, Gwain is so... Because Dwayne is such a funny variation of Wayne. Yeah, Dwayne. Gwain has taken it to another level. I prefer Gwain. The Dwayne. Wayne is better than Dwayne growing up It would be Welsh so like yeah

I like Gwain way better than Dwayne I like them all Dwayne there was yeah growing up we had a family friend and his neighbour that was someone was play with us was Dwayne and even then we were like This is a funny name This kid's name is Dwayne Dwayne

Is it also Welsh Where are you now Dwayne? Dwayne So all of these Like I was saying These knights have very intricate and complex backstories Like, I didn't know this, but Galahad is the son of Sir Lancelot.

Did you know that? The illegitimate son. Really? Of Sir Lancelot and Lady Elaine of Cabenic and is renowned for his gallantry and purity and as the most perfect of all knights. Really? I don't think so. And just like Arthur.

Had a wedlock. Illigimate. Well, that's not his fault. He's pure. Don't think so. Okay. Can you start pure when you've, you know, you've come out of such a. A bastardy beginning?

Can you? Can you? A question people were asking for century. I ask questions. I don't answer them. I'm a question asker. You know how much I believe in sanctity of things? Yes.

You love sanctity. Can you love things? I'm one of the most sanctimonious bastards around. The sanctonious Matt Stewart. Oh, okay. I think we got it. Yeah. No, I think Vaneria was right.

So this is the... As long as that venereal disease is received in wetlock. So I'm okay with it. Yes, yes, please. Then it's a venerable venereal. Proudly. Yeah, it's an honour. I carry this.

It's an honour. Not even going to get treated because it's an honour. Not fully sure how it got into the wedlock. I'd be questioning maybe the other person inside the wedlock. Yes. How the, the moat was breached. I was trying to think of, you know, like a castle defence. system.

Yeah. Moat. It's a very wet. A very wet barrier. Do you think it's the most moist defense of all? The most moist barrier, yeah. The most moist barrier, yeah.

The most moist barrier, the moat's the most moist. What about like a big bucket of water that you tip on someone is trying to climb up? You get pretty wet from that. Well, yeah, and they used to do that with oil. Yeah, that's pretty wet. In Guy Richie's King Arthur, they use that as it. It's got a wet movie.

No, I'm confusing. I'm actually, because I also watch Russell Crowe's Robin Hood I think I'll on the same flight and I'm merging the two together. I think they used oil in that. Moat heavy back in those days. Oh, yeah.

It was moat heavy back in those days. Oh, my word it was. Yeah, very wet time, defensively speaking, very wet time. Sopping wet, really. Yeah. I thought you'd be interested that Gala had was the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot.

I didn't, yeah, I didn't know. I've got a bit of the story here. I've got to tell you, was my mind was elsewhere when you said that the first time around. I assume that'd be the same age. No. So, just like Arthur, his conception is a bit of a fucked story. This is from Wiki. It's also like a soap opera.

So much of this reading it, you're like, what is happening here? So his conception takes place when King Arthur's great knight, Lancelot, mistakes Princess Elaine of Corbynick with his secret mistress, Queen Gwynneville. Who is King Arthur's wife? It can happen. Well, hang on. Confusing. Hang on.

Hang on. Hang on. Yes. A bit of shape shifting going on here. Correct. Oh, okay. Okay, so shut your fucking pie hole. If you're okay with a mission impossible, you're okay with this, all right?

And I'm okay with it. Good, I know. But I think technically... Can I just finish this sentence I was trying to say because it's important? Yes. So he mistakes Princess Elaine of Corbynick for his secret mistress, Queen Guinevere, who is King Arthur's wife. So, Lancelot is having an affair with King Arthur's wife.

Oh my gosh. He's a bad boy. Lady Elaine's father, King Pellers, the Fisher King, has already received magical foreknowledge that Lancelot will give his daughter a child and that this little boy will grow to become the greatest knight in the world, the knight chosen by God, to discover the Holy Grail. Pellas also knows that Lancelot will only lie with his one true love, Gwynnevere. So Pellis seeks out one of the greatest enchantresses of the time, Dame Brousen,

who gives Pellas a magical ring that makes Elaine take on the appearance of the appearance of Guinevere and enables her to spend a night with Lancelot. On discovering the deception, Lancelot draws his sword on Elaine, but when he finds out they've conceived a son together, he is immediately forgiving.

Wow, that's a quick... Like, the pregnancy tests were quick back there. And gave you gender immediately. Wow. Very impressive. Well, I think, I don't know if he was right to kill her, but he definitely had been sexually assaulted. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that was really fucked on all counts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wild stuff. We come back to Galahad a little bit later as well. But I thought that was kind of interesting that he's the son of Lancelot. I didn't know that. Yeah, and that they're all like, yeah, cheating on each other. Like even the king's wife is with like one of his right-end men.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, I think it sounds like it was the round table. everyone was leaving the keys on it, you know what I know. Everyone chucked your keys on the round table. 1600% of keys. Let's see, here we go. I was talking about four or five hours to work out of who, too.

Sorry, I actually, I need mine. It's got my house keys on it. Yeah, sorry about that. Jess, can I ask you what is probably a silly question? Sure. What is a grail? I'll get to that. Thank you.

But it's a cup. Okay. Yeah, like a chalice. Right. But I will talk about the Holy Grail. Right. And I guess it's like going to be the cup that Jesus did something to. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Just leaving that in. A bit of sizzle. A little bit of sizzle, people can think, what did Jesus do to that cup? We'll find out.

What did you do to it? drank from it. Yeah, let's find out. Is that not how you sizzle? Tell them the answer. Well, did he? Well, the question is just lying. Yeah.

Yeah, did you drink from it or was it something else? Was it something more? I'm clicking on that title. What did you do after you drank from it? Probably. If it was like the church I went to as a kid, you have the Eucharist, a little wafer. That was Jesus' body.

And then you could have a sip of the wine. And back in the 90s, they were very wary of germs and that sort of stuff. So they wiped it with a cloth, in between each person. And you're a bacterial cloth? No, no, but I think it was a blessed cloth. Oh, okay, great. Which is better. That's ended up too.

Which is one grade higher than death hole. Yeah. Hospitals use those, yeah. Hospital grade. Hospital grade then holy grade. I have never in my life taken the wine at church. No, neither. Because I go, I've just seen eight other people who drink from that.

Eight, small church. Yeah, I'm always up early to get the Eucharist. You're trying to push people out the way. I'm pushing the little old ladies out. out of the way. No, no, I want to eat a snack. I'm hungry. I don't want any backwash.

The priest when I was a kid, I'm sure I've told you before, he had an iconic way of saying, because they have to say, say, body of cross, he'd say, body of Christ, Body of Christ, you've got to make it fun for yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And it's fun to have, he's got a thing. Yeah. Father Fines.

And you still remember him. Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember how Father Mackay said it. Chain Smoker. The two things you knew about him. he just chained smoke around, buddy of Christ. No, I remember what he's doing it with a cigarette

hanging out of his mouth. Yeah, and he was not like, he didn't seem to be loving the job. I don't know, but he was, he seemed angry. Yeah. Yeah, that's the vibe of priests in the 90s. Yeah. So I will talk about the Holy Grail, but I want to talk first about Merlin. Yes.

So another, you know, character synonymous with the King Arthur story. He gets almost as much screen time now as King Arthur himself. He's quite a famous character. He was essentially brought into the story by Geoffrey of Monmouth when he was fleshing out the story of Arthur's life. There was a reference in earlier Welsh literature to a Merlin-type figure that historians believe Jeffrey was probably elaborating on.

He's best known as a magician, along with several other main roles. Peter H. Goodrich wrote, According to authorial and cultural interest, Merlin assumes seven primary roles. Wow. Wild man. Wonder Child.

Prophet, poet, counsellor, wizard and lover. Oh, yeah. Wild man and lover, they go together. Dave, they just. Dave, your ears ringing? I'm only five of those things. Yeah. You're a Wonder Man.

You're a wild man, wonder child. Oh, yeah, of course. Prophet? No. Poet. Poet, yes. Counselor. Yeah.

You give me a lot of advice. And then wizard or lover. Oh, lover. Lover. Yeah. Because I'm also a magician, so I've got that covered. Yeah. Matt, do you want to pick which ones you are?

I had the other ones. The other two. You're a prophet and wizard. Profit and a profitable wizard. That sounds like your D&D character. With that beard. Yeah. Do you reckon he'd be probably number one most famous Merlin?

Number two, the one who protested in Big Brother by taping his face. Oh, yeah. And then number three would be the tech at the... At the monkey barrel. Monkey barrel in Edinburgh. Yeah. They're the top three for me. And then four would be Mark Strong in the Kingsman movies.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he's fictional. Yes. Yeah. And he sees country roads in his Scottish accent, and it's really fun. And his name, his real name's better than Merlin. 100%. Mark Strong.

Mark Strong. Are you kidding me? He's so good. He's so good. Could watch him in anything. And her. And will. Anyway, continuing about Merlin.

Most literature about him is selective, emphasizing and elaborating on one or more of these features, and deemphasizing or eliminating others. Right. So, and Sam, he's like, great laba. Sometimes he's like, you know, virgin. It's sort of like Josh Earl's four burners. Yeah. This is Merlin's seven burners.

Which are you turning on. Lover? Wildman. Yeah. I'm turning down poet. The Lover flame is up high. I'm turning down proffin poet. When you turn up poet, lover goes up.

Oh, you better believe it. Yeah, those two are on the same knob. Who's got a seven burner stove, you know? Merlin. Merlin. Classic Merlin. From Wikipedia again, Jeffrey seems to have combined earlier Welsh tales of Middin. Mirdin and Ambrosius, two legendary Britain prophets.

Ah, Mr. Aynel. Mr. Aynel, with no connection to Arthur. Sorry, did you just say my name? Like, half me three. The nickname into the group chat has changed again. He's now Mr. Aynal. Okay, that actually feels important. There's going to be the venereal.

That's true. He's currently cock of the north. Well, skips straight through to Mr. Aynel. Mr. Aynel's my father, isn't it? Your cockillorum. You could call me. What is that from again? I was from who knew it.

I was from the good cheerful earful. Oh, that's why we did. Who knew it with Matt Stewart recently at the Chiefle Earful Podcast Festival? That would be coming out, I imagine soon. I'm still snappy little fecker. Cool. It just feels right. Yes.

Mr. Anil. I can't wait for you to send a message to the group and it lights up. That's so... Could you message us? Come on, send us a message. I just wanted to flash up. Mr. Anel has messaged the show. He's the thing, too.

We're fully grown adults. Oh, it's like, but you know. That's just funny. Like your priest, you've got to find you find somewhere. Body of Christ. Body of Christ. Just got a message from Mr. Ail. Mr. Able in brackets, man.

That's great stuff. Who here loves canals is the message. Bit of fun. That's Mr. Anel. That's so good. Okay. So, unfortunately, I have to bring him back up again. Jeffrey seems to have combined earlier Welsh tales of Mirdin and Ambrosius, Mr. Anel,

two legendary Britain prophets with no connection to Arthur. But what was he legendary for? To form the composite figure that he calls Merrillonis Ambrosius. Ah. His rendering of the character became immediately popular, especially in Wales, later chronicles and romance writers in France and elsewhere expanded the account to produce a more full, multifaceted character, creating one of the most important figures in the imagination and literature of the Middle Ages.

So again, it started with Geoffrey and other people kind of expanded on it. People just loved him straight away. Yeah, people really liked him. This is a cool character. Yeah. Is he like the archetype that led to Gandalf and... I don't... I wouldn't say so. because Merlin is

he's not always a good character. Right. Yeah, so his traditional biography casts him as an often mad Cambian. A Cambian is born of a mortal woman and an incubus, which is a male demon in human form, from whom he inherits his supernatural powers and abilities. So we heard earlier about how he assisted Uther introducing a grain,

which leads to the birth of Arthur. Later stories have Merlin as an advisor and mentor to the young king, which I'll talk about a bit more in a sec. But at some point in the stories, he kind of disappears. A popular version of the French prose tells of Merlin being bewitched and forever sealed up or killed by his student, the Lady of the Lake, after having fallen in love with her. Sometimes he just, he retires or dies, or he can, sometimes he's a bit creepy.

Like, there's often a relationship between him and the Lady of the Lake. lake sometimes it's like they're in love and then she she tricks him other times it's that he's coming on a bit too strong and sort of sort of save herself from him she traps him in an oak tree oh god there's a lot that doesn't sound good no the lady of the lake will come up again as well so just quickly it's a it's a title used by multiple characters it's not there's some sort of contentioners it's not always just the one woman um there's a there's a bunch of characters in Lots of ladies, lots of lakes. Lots of ladies, lots of lakes.

A very wet place back then. Very red. So in the medieval literature and the mythology associated with the legend of King Arthur, there's this title's given to multiple characters. Sometimes she's a fairy or a fairy like human enchantress. And these characters pop up a bit in these stories, often playing important roles. Like a fairy-like character raises Lancelot after the death of his father

and later aids him during his knightly adventures. That's sort of in stories written in the stories written in the, 12th century. By the 13th century, she's retrospectively identified as the fairy Vivian. There's also two other names that she goes by sometimes, and is introduced as a young teenage noble with supernatural origins. Okay. She captures a wizard Merlin using the very magic that he himself taught her out of his love for her. So these are just like all different stories where different things happen.

The Lady of the Lake is around. These days, I think she's mainly just an arm poking out of the lake giving the sword back. Another unnamed Lady of the Lake bestows the magic sword Excalibur From Avalon to Arthur That's correct Like I reckon you see yeah I've seen it in like at least

Three or four movies where it's just And I'm the first time I'm like The fuck's going on there Yeah yeah And I don't figure it out that that's like part of the mythos Yeah That she is the one who gives Arthur Excalibur This is one hell of a plane flight

You're on a watch four King Arthur movies Back to back You know they often packaged it up Like the Harry Potter collection Yeah yeah The King Arthur Collection Watched the Monty Python's Holy Grail. Oh, so good.

That's also where I'm getting a lot of the references from. It's a great one. I like to measure plain trips in what movie franchise I could watch. Oh, yeah. On that, you know, you go, I could definitely do all the maze runners. Yeah, yeah. But you couldn't do James Bond. That's crazy.

Whereas the UK, pretty much James Bond. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. All the Harry Potter's, for sure, if you don't sleep. Another one I watched, I can't remember if it was on that flood or another one that was called like the boy who became King, and it was King Arthur, but it was like a modern-day school kid. But all the same sort of stuff.

There is so much, and I'll talk about it right at the end. There's an entire Wikipedia page, it's this huge Wikipedia page of, like, things that are different bits of media based on King Arthur, and it's enormous. Like books alone, you're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, movies, TV, it's huge. And probably more stuff sounds like it comes out every year. Exactly right. Yeah. So the Lady of the Lake, she's also, yes, she is presented as a mysterious early benefactor of the young King Arthur, who is led to her by Merlin.

Appearing in her lake, she grants him Excalibur and its special Scabbard after his original, also unnamed sword, breaks in the jewel against King Pelinor. So she's a character that comes up in a lot of different versions. And speaking of Excalibur, we'll go into that in a bit more detail as well. It's a mythical sword of King Arthur that possesses. magical powers. In later versions of the story, the swords scabbard is also said to have powers of its own, as any wounds received while wearing it would not bleed at all, thus preventing the wearer from ever bleeding to death in battle. Oh, that's good, but you still probably get looked at. Like, if I can see your lung, it's probably not a good eye. Yeah, but you won't bleed

to death. That's good. So, you can't breathe because your lung is punctured, but you won't bleed to death. Okay. You might suffocate, but you won't bleed. That's good. So for this and Merlin chides Arthur for preferring Excalibur over its sheath, saying the latter is the greater treasure. There are a lot of characters, and the family tree gets really confusing at times, and again, it feels like a soap opera. This is the sentence that follows what I just said about the scabbard with magical powers. Am I saying it right? Scabbard. Scabbard. Scabbardababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababababab. I'm a scat-a-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-ttack-old. It's it. It's inefficient to say the full name every time. We'll be here for a while.

Yeah. Okay, so this is a soap up of it. The scabbard is, however, soon stolen from Arthur by his half-sister, Morgan Le Fay, in revenge for the death of her beloved Ackalon. He, having been slain by Arthur with Excalibur, in a duel involving a false Excalibur, which Morgan also secretly makes at least one duplicate of Excalibur during the time when the sword is entrusted to her by Arthur. During Morgan's flight from the pursuit by Arthur,

the sheath is then thrown by her into the deep lake. and lost. This act later enables, spoiler alert, the death of Arthur, deprived of its magical protection many years later in his final battle. Oh, really? So it's all, it's batchy and messy. And this is all, this is Jeffrey? I think so.

Oh, no, probably, maybe not, actually. It's just, that's in later writings, it sort of, that story gets really elaborated on. And have we found the scabbard in the lake? The scabid, the, the, the, the scabidi, the scabid, scabid, scabidi, I'm a scaw it. Are they still looking for that? I believe so, yes. Wow, imagine we found it. Big lake.

Big lake. You've got to drain that lake. Dren the swamp. So Excalibur was given to Arthur by the lady in the lake, but that's not the only famous story involving Arthur and a sword. The sword in the stone, which Matt mentioned, is a sword that will tell people of Britain who the next king will be. And the sword and the stone was not Excalibur. The two do become conflated in later stories. I'm not told you it was.

There you go. But originally, and look, and yeah, in plenty of versions it is. But originally, there were two different swords. It is amazing how much of this you know from popular culture. Yeah, isn't it? I don't think I've ever seen a King Arthur movie, full one. No, and I'd completely forgotten about the sword and the stone, actually. And then sometimes it's an anvil, not a stone.

Really? Like, he's got to pull a sword out of anvil. Whoa. But, yeah, I'd forgotten about that. And then as soon as it said it, I was like, oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, right. But it's a different sword originally. Mm.

Okay. In these stories, the ones about the sword in the stone, Uther Pendragon has been killed, and there's a question of who is going to be the next king. Arthur, who was kind of hidden by Merlin to protect him, doesn't know that he's the son of Uther. Merlin tells everyone that the sword, which is stuck inside a stone, or sometimes an anvil, can only be removed by the true king of England. Young Arthur is a squire, an attendant for a knight, for Sir Ector, who is also basically

his foster father, and is attending a tournament with Sir Ector and Sir Ector's son, Kay. Kay realizes he's forgotten to bring his sword, so Arthur goes to find a Find him one and effortlessly removes the sword from the stone, not knowing the significance. I found one. He's one. He's one? Yeah. It's a real Thor's hammer kind of thing.

And everyone's like, holy shit. He's like, what? Yeah. Did I do the wrong thing? So have I stolen this? Oh, I'm sorry. I just, my friend needed to borrow it. And everyone's like bowing down.

He's like, oh. Oh, I've really stuffed out. Oh, I'm so sorry. They're all fine in their knees. Yeah. So, Ector's amazed. He asks Arthur to. put the sword back and pull it out again, and nobody else can budge the sword, Arthur just

easily takes it once more, confirming his royal lineage to everyone. And it seems from the writing that he's basically thrown straight into a coronation, and he is king. And Jeffrey, of course, is writing about what a great king is straight away. He's generous. He's a great leader. I'm pretty sure he's like a teenager at this point, but they're like, wow, our beautiful king. Good for him. So yeah, that's where the story of the sword and the stone comes from, and it's not originally Excalibur. Isn't that interesting? Is it? I think it is. I think gobs have been smacked all around the world right now. Yeah. A couple more points. So Holy Grail is one Matt mentioned before. That's obviously

one of the most famous stories associated with King Arthur. So the Holy Grail is a legendary mystical object. Most famously, the chalice that Jesus used at the Last Supper, which became a central motif in Arthurian literature. Although I've also, one historian I was watching a video, she was sort of saying that's not what the Holy Grail, like it had nothing to do with Jesus at first, but a lot of these writings, King Arthur's a Christian king, it became, oh, it's the chalice that Jesus used at the last supper. The Grail was believed to have possessed powers such as healing wounds, granting eternal youth or life, providing infinite sustenance, bestowing happiness and fulfilling desires, though these powers vary depending on the legend or

fictional interpretation. So it's, you know, if you find it, if you've got it, You can do a bit of everything You could do a bit of everything So we come back briefly to the story of Galahad The soap opera of Galahad So this is a quote Upon reaching the medieval definition of adulthood At 15 years old

Galahad is finally united with his father Lancelot who had never met him before that Oh they don't hang No he was like Galahad was taken And raised by like an aunt Okay Lancelot knights Galahad after having been bested by him in a duel The first and only time that Lancelot ever ever

lost in a fair fight to anyone. So his son comes along, beats him in a fire. A 15-year-old beats him. Embarrassing. Galahad is then brought to King Arthur's Court at Camelot, where he's accompanied by a very old knight who immediately leads him over to the roundtable and unveils his seat at the siege perilous. Oh no.

An unused chair that has been kept vacant for the sole person who will succeed in the quest of the Holy Grail. For all others who have aspired to sit there, it has proved to be immediately fatal. So they've sat down, their asses on fire. Oh, no, they're lying. To death. Oh, that's going to be a smelly chair. Galahad, though, survives this test.

Oh-oh. Witnessed by Arthur, who upon realizing the greatness of this new night, leads him out to the river where a magic sword lies in a stone with an inscription reading, never shall man take me hence but only he by whose side I ought to hang and he shall be the best knight of the world Whoa

So again they've put a sword in a stone again That's how people used to communicate back then Yeah It's a good test Just putting swords in stones Because it's a more positive version of the death chair Like the death chair is like

You can check if you want But you'll die if you're wrong But this one's like Couldn't take out the sword You've put him in the chair And he hasn't died Go straight to the sword. Oh, true, but I'm thinking, like, it's already proven that he's the one that can get the grail.

Sometimes you've got to double-check things. So you go and get the sword. But also, he's going to need the sword. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So why would we go down to the sword smith when there's a really good one in the lake over there that you'll be able to get? Probably rusty. And Gallaghan accomplishes this test with ease. He gets the sword.

Arthur swiftly proclaims him to be the greatest knight ever. All he's done so far is sat in a chair. Well, he did beat his dad. Galahad is promptly invited to become a knight. of the roundtable, and soon afterwards, Arthur's court witnesses an ethereal vision of the grail. So they're all sitting around the table, probably doing shrooms. They see the grail. It's like hovering there in front of them, and they all, they know what this sign means. They were hiding in the snow. They know what this means. They know it's go time. We're hunting for a

grail. It's go time. So many, many adventures ensue. We've got to go get a cup. boys get the lads together we're getting it come and they go skipping off through the forest okay after many adventures galahad and his companions find themselves in the mystical castle of corbinic at the court of king pelas

that's galahad's granddad oh his grandfather and uncle bring galahad into a dark room where he is finally allowed to see the holy grail galahad is asked to take the vessel to the holy island saras wait they had it they had it his granddad freaking had it the whole time i assumed i had to go get it well i guess they did but i thought they

maybe had to get it you know indiana jones style yeah which i haven't seen but i you know thought it might be yeah there's a series of tests do they do that is that one of the ones in indiana jones yes the last crusade that's one with sean connery is the dad right now i can't wait to watch these films it is that one is so good man so good and you missed out we did raiders to the lost arc last month on the movie club and you weren't here yeah we're Why did you do it without me? Because we had to put out bonus episodes. Yeah, the Patreon had already voted.

Yeah. And you left us for England. Pretty rough. Well, I just needed to check if I could get the sword out of the stone. And? Yes, I did. Sorry to bury the lead, but yeah. Crazy.

Yeah, got them both. Did you bring it back or to customs take it off? Customs already took them off. Oh, my God. Are you serious? Absolute nightmare. You went all that way? Boots off, belt off, no swords.

What the fuck? Oh, come on. Every systems. Every country is different. Laptop in the bag, laptop out of the bag. Yeah, and then, well, you start to take your laptop out and they go, leave it in the bag. And you're like, okay. It says up on the screen above you that you take it out.

Oh, well, the screen's wrong. Oh, okay. And I'm an idiot. Infuriated. They love just telling you that you're wrong those people. Yeah, they love it. They love it. Power hungry.

You've seen the new Mitchell and Webb sketch series? No. There's a sketch about that, how they're pretty full on. Oh, yeah. Which I think it's a... A bit of fun? I think it's a bit of fun So I just told you that somebody's found the Holy Grail

Yeah Holy crap man it was at Granddad's house How did they not find it? Well they had it Okay well right now I don't have my dog with me So if I was to go get him Yeah I think that's a great example You haven't found it

You got it He's lost At your granddad's house Yeah he's lost But you know where he is No But they knew where this thing was No they didn't

They didn't know They didn't know. He just had it and they went and got it. Did the granddad know? They went on many, yeah, but he has never, like, spoken to his granddad. Right. It's not like he was just like, oh, I've seen that before granddad's got it. Was it the kind of thing where granddad's like, what, this old thing?

Yeah. It's just been in the back room. It blows the dust off it. A genie comes out. Yes. And you wish for more grails. Oh, infinite grails. Infinite grails.

You know, you can't wish for more wishes. Could you wish for another genie lamp? You could win, oh, that's a good one. You wish for 1,600 grails and then everyone has their own grail. Yeah, everyone gets their own grail. That's nice. Yeah. That's quality.

I wish for a holy grail that never runs out, and it's just always full of wine. Oh, okay. Like Cape Blanchard and the Tim Tamad. Oh, yeah. Was that Kate Blanchett? Yeah, that was. Fuck yeah. Young Kate.

Young Kate. Our Kate. So anyway, he's asked to take the, uh, the grail. to Saras, and so he and his buddies, they travel there to the Middle East where the Grail truly reveals itself to Galahad. In a moment of divine fulfillment, Galahad experiences a glorious rapture, asks for death, and is taken by angels to heaven, leaving the grail behind. Holy shit.

Whoa. What a way to go. Yeah. There's something about, like, I think in some stories, other knights like Lancelot, for example, can't see the grail. because he's impure, but Galahad's like this perfect pure so he can see it.

I swear it's here and he looks like he's miming with a cup. Yeah. And then he floats in a space. Yeah. Can people see the angels? The companions that he's with a couple other nights like see him ascend to heaven.

Because is this... It's a strange. I don't really know. They changed angels by that stage so it'd be like winged people? Because didn't they originally? in the Bible they were like weird multiple-eyed freak shows. Oh, I didn't know that. I think that's right. Wow. And they've morphed over the years and the popular consciousness

to beautiful winged women. Winged women in white robes. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if they're beautiful. John Travolta in a movie. Yeah. Michael. Michael. Michael? Michael. Michael is that you? Michael. Um, anyway, so Galahad's pure heart allowed him to achieve the grail and be worthy of ascending to heaven. A fate denied to others due to their imperfections. Denied. He was so perfect and pure that he could get the grail and then go to heaven. And he was happy with that. Wow. There's obviously a lot more to it and it's written a million different times in a lot of different ways. But my goal here because there's so much information was like to just fill

you in, fill some gaps. See, where does everything fit in? We know you love the thought of a vacation to Europe, but this time, why not look a little further? To Dubai, a city that everyone talks about and has absolutely everything you could want from a vacation destination. From world-class hotels, record-breaking skyscrapers, and epic desert adventures, to museums that showcase the future, not just the past. Choose from 14 flights per week between Canada and Dubai.

Book on emirates.ca. today. So, okay, final thing, there were several factors that contributed to the fall of the roundtable. No, it wasn't structurally supported for 1,600 members? I know. They weren't good carpenters back then. Although Matt knows why. Yeah. Oh, they should have got my mate on it.

Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, he does good work. Jess's brother? Yeah. My brother. Great carpenter. Measures twice, cuts once.

So these are some of the factors Like the affair between Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevee was uncovered Oh no Arthur goes off to fight Lancelot Really shit Which causes a divide in the round table Because some of the knights are on Arthur's side Some are on Lancelot's side

Oh no they've cut the round table in half That's not good A couple of oval A couple of semicircle tables Yeah now there's multiple heads of this table Yeah it's really confusing And while Arthur's out His illegitimate son Modred

who is also his nephew because he fathered Modrid with his half-sister that apparently they didn't know they were related at the time. Okay, great. That's fine then. Modrid is usually a villainous character in these stories and he sweeps in and tries to woo Gwynnevere and take over the throne.

Arthur returns and a civil war is sparked by Modrid's rebellion after Arthur has entrusted him with the kingdom during his absence. Several battles take place. This is a huge big civil war. All these battles take place. both sides losing some stories say like tens of thousands

like it's this enormous battle how do you count like those big battles I never understand like the estimations are always so broad because you're like how hell would you know and who's making everyone's uniform yeah

10,000? I think they're mums oh yeah because I guess they probably all have mums yeah and they do a head count on the way single file one two three three four five Like at a nightclub? Jess, Jessica, please.

I'm going to have to start again. One, two, three, four. Counting like a mum, one. Is that what I was doing? Yeah, it's cute. I thought I was counting like a teacher, but my mum is a teacher. Same. Same.

Same. Same. Same. Same. All moms are teachers. Right. All dads are businessmen. I don't know what to tell you.

My dad's also a teacher. Yeah, the education business. Okay. Okay. He was a businessman briefly. Do you have a briefcase? He did briefly. That's a businessman.

Really? Did your dad ever have a briefcase? No, more of a satchel kind of guy. Oh, well, that's a modern, that's a modern briefcase. Yeah, that's what I'd call a soft briefcase. Yeah, soft briefcase. A floppy case. My dad had a hard case.

Yeah. Anyway, so eventually, so these battles are taking place, both sides losing tens of thousands until eventually Modrid decides that he's kind of like, they'll fight and then he flees. He decides to stop fleeing. He's going to make a final stand, and either defeat his uncle slash dad or die. The final battle is known as the Battle of Cam Lan, and it was fierce and especially bloody.

Eventually, Arthur took a detachment of his men and pushed through to part of the battlefield where he knew that Modrid himself was. Thomas Mallory's Lamorte d'Arthur features the now iconic scene where the two meet on foot as Arthur charges Modrid and runs a spear through him. Whoa.

With the last of his strength, Modrid impales himself even further to come within striking distance and lands a mortal blow with his sword up to Arthur's head. That's badass. That's pretty badass. Was that in any of the movies that you saw? I run you through, sir. Something like that.

It seems like the kind of thing they'd say. Yeah. That was exciting. I feel like you think I'm taking the piss, but that was really exciting. You kind of disappeared for a sec. I was like, whoa! That was fun.

But I don't think so. I run you through, sir? I don't think I've heard of Modra before, apart from Tony Modra, the... Modrid. The flashy, high-flying Adelaide Crow. Yeah. Nicknamed Godra.

That's good. That is good. God, that's good. That is good. Yeah. That is perfection. You name in the group chat. No, Mr. Anil's perfect.

Mr. Ail. So, so Arthur has killed Mottraud. But Modrid has very, very badly wounded Arthur. Oh, by stabbing himself so he can just get closer and closer and closer. And then that is so badass. You've really got to want to kill someone, don't you? Because you're like, well, I'm going to die. So I don't really, whatever this hurts a lot.

Yeah, the benefit of this was killing him. But you're already impaled, would it hurt to be more impaled? Well, I don't know. But once you're already dying, is he thinking it's like a righteous thing to kill Arthur? I don't know, he's a villain Well, they're mortal enemies Yeah Yeah, so as Arthur

Even though it's his dad His dad slash uncle As Arthur lies dying He commands his loyal knight Sir Bedivir To return his legendary sword Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake Chuck it in, just pivot back in the lake

Chuck that time to get a refund Aye Aye Is that this? The receipt obviously is very wet still From when you gave it to me It's what, you know The Inca's run

But you remember me Remember me? Come on Come on Lady the Lake, remember me Remember me? I'm the one who got a scullabre How many of these? I got a scolabre

You don't give out on a scalper every day do Come on, mate You don't remember You got to get a scalabre And you're like, I didn't give it to you I gave it to Arthur Well, fuck You fucking got me there

Oh gee Thanks a lot Lance a lot Oh gee Lance a lot Oh gee Lance a lot Oh gee Lance a lot. Oh that's funny I need a three or four people, I reckon.

We're three or? Yeah. That's, yeah. Oh, gee, that's a lot. So after the battle, Arthur's body is placed on a boat and taken to the mystical Isle of Avalon, where he's expected to be healed. Avalon Airport. Avalon Airport.

Just like the airport, Avalon is a legendary magical island. In the middle of nowhere. Again, first mentioned by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and that's where Excalibur was forged. It's often called the island of Apple. and it was ruled by the enchantress Morgan Lafay, who is King Arthur's half-sister and Modrid's mum. Oh, okay. Confusing.

And it served as a place of healing, magic and the other world. And this lends itself to the motif that occurs throughout a lot of tellings of the story, which is that Arthur didn't die and will one day return in the role of a Messiah to save his people. Gotcha. Are we still waiting? Or is he come? Yes, we are still waiting. waiting but any day now.

And we're thinking, his people are the Welsh. Yeah, yeah. The, or they don't call themselves the Welsh, they call themselves. Welsh don't call themselves Welsh. No. Welsh means, I think Welsh means foreigner in like. Yes, yeah, you're absolutely right. So they, their word is, it's spelled like C, I, Y, M.

It's C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C, yes. You are absolutely correct. And that they, yeah, they don't. Because they were the Britons or whatever. And they got pushed into that, into where they are now. They used to be spread all across the island. Yeah. And then the Normans came over and the Vikings.

The Normans, like Dave calls them the Normals because that's his people. So French, this guy. So French. So French. Le normal. I am a le normal little boy. Okay, I'm nearly done. I've got like two paragraphs.

I won't let you get through them. I'm aware. So from the Smithsonian, just to wrap it up, there's something in the Arthur legend for everyone, says Leah Tether, a professor of medieval studies at Bristol University and former president of the British branch of the International Arthurian Society,

which regularly brings together scholars and other enthusiasts interested in Arthurian literature. The story of King Arthur, she says, has got flawed characters with whom we can empathise, quests to achieve impossible goals, and an adaptable storyline that fits the sociopolitical landscape of the time. It's a very, like, deep and complex story because it was written about at different times over hundreds of years and is still being adapted for stage and screen. So, yeah, like I said, I was going for, like the general story and the big parts of it, the most famous parts.

But I'm sure if you're a big King Arthur fan, you'd be like, oh, you didn't tell this particular story because there's millions. But there is, like I mentioned, list of works based on Arthurian legends and they're, like, you just scroll forever. and I haven't even gotten to TV yet. That's a big list. It's a huge list. There's so much stuff. I mean, there was that Merlin TV series. There was...

Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's so much, so much writing on it. You know, there's a guy in England who claims to be the reincarnation of Arthur. Wow. And he leads a bit of a crew and they go to the Stonehenge. They see that as a sacred site. Right. It was in the news a few times.

Oh, I didn't know. Yeah. Does he look like I'm imagining? Yeah, I think so. Like he looks a bit old. He looks old-timey. I think he was an army vet. Medieval.

And now he's a bikey. Okay. But, you know, his, on a steel horsey rides. So sweet, you know. Sure. Did it allow? Yeah. A still horsey ride.

So that's sort of the story about King Arthur. Wow. It's fascinating that's lasted so long, isn't it? Yeah. And like, it must be, my kind of. guess as a historian is that there was someone who these stories were based on, that sort of that warlord soldier, you know, but then it's just been really expanded on ever since. Or Dave's theory, he was so good.

He was so good. The others were jealous of him. The next king's come in and go, let's expunge everything about this guy. Is that I would expunge? Yeah, expunge. Expunge. Yes, redact. It's Arthur Eurasia.

Yes, it's Arthur Eurasia, and we will not stand for it. I won't stand for it. As the first and only podcast to talk about King Arthur. This guy who says he is Arthur now. It was born John Timothy Rothwell, but is now officially Arthur Uther Pendragon. And he's a neo-druid leader. There you go. Self-declared reincarnation of King Arthur.

Self-declared. A name. He also goes by. Oh, he'll answer to King Arthur? He'll answer to King Arthur. So if he does a fish and chips shop order. King Arthur? Yep.

King Arthur, Flake, small chips? Minimum chips. King Arthur? Okay. Yeah. Great. That makes sense. He does look like I was imagining.

Yeah. That's the right vibe. Here you go. Here's him in his robes. I mean, I would love to know what it would be like if Geoffrey of Monmouth over a thousand years later. Wow. He's a very robe heavy there.

over a thousand years later if Geoffrey of Monmouth would be like like yeah that's about right or he'd be like holy shit people are still talking about it and it's hard to know how like it's hard to know what Geoffrey of Monmouth's

kind of intention was whether he was just like yeah so I've got this and this so that must be what that is or whether he was like and then ah like he's just having fun making it I'm an entertainer yeah yeah what he's writing was like

he was writing a historical text so he must have thought at least a bit of this was I mean a thousand years later there's someone who thinks he is that guy so people do believe things yes they get very into them people do believe things yeah you can't argue with him on that and it does you know people are trying to bury the truth yeah good luck yeah here's a picture of an angel oh nope I don't enjoy that at all it looks more like a spider I prefer John Travolta lots of wings in a trench coat it's very wing heavy

very wing heavy spider wow bob you took us on a journey there that was that's great a wild ride that's a very interesting tale and thank you for distilling it because it is very difficult

to break into that when it's been going for a thousand years and there's like millions and millions of adaptations exactly like thousands of at least thousands of different writers have written versions of the story and then that's been picked up and that element has now been put in the canon and so it's huge um is there anyone anywhere near reputable who believes there's

a bit of truth in it um i think it's still something historians are kind of discussing and debating a little bit but i'm not really sure yeah in um in david mitchell's book about the king's unruly he's like he was like pretty clear that it's not he's like wasn't a real person he's like Yeah. If you really want, he could have been based on one of these kings. He wasn't. Oh, yeah, yeah. But if you want a clutch to it.

If you want, sure. Yeah. But maybe it's more fun that he's fictional because then you can give him all these attributes that are superhuman. Mm. Because he isn't human. He's not real. I didn't go, Richie's film, The Excalibar is powerful. Whoa.

It, like, lights up. Like a lightsaber. It makes it go, phew. When everyone just goes, whoa. Yeah, it's crazy, man. Whoa. Yeah. Dude, that sounds sick.

It is sick, actually. Do that for movie club. Okay. That sounds freaking sick. It's actually really badass. It has made me want to rewatch Monty Python. Yes. That's probably the one we do for movie club, maybe.

But then we just sit here being like, and that bit was pretty funny, wasn't it? What do I only said that bit and sort of badly quoted? I haven't seen Holy Grail for ages. Yeah, neither. It's my favorite one. Yeah, that all off of Brian. They're the two, aren't they? Yeah, I was going to say Life of Brian's probably my number one.

King Arthur Legend of the Sword is the one you're talking about, yeah 2017 Wow Jude Law's in it Yes Fuck yeah Eric Banner's in it Who's Eric play

He plays Uther Really Wow He's Uther and his Is Jude Law like So he may be Modra He's King Vortigern And David Beckham is in it

Yeah A small, very small part He plays trigger So that's fun Yes Hello, I'm Trigger Hello, I'm Trigger Et cetera

Anyway, let's move on Well that brings us everyone's favourite section of the show Can you believe that? Whoa! I can actually, yeah And I know a lot of people just start here And then decide whether or not they want to go back And listen to the other bit

And fair enough, you're right to do that And to those I say welcome to the show This is where we thank some of our great supporters If you want to be one of these supporters Go to Patreon.com slash 2G1Pod Which is linked in the show notes and then you can get involved on a bunch of different levels there, different levels, different rewards.

I mean, it's a weird way to put it, but I guess that's what it is. Dave will explain further. Over to you, Dave. We've got so much, so many things, bonus episodes for per month, including our Dungeons and Dragons campaign. We do one report a month. We do some quizzes. We do our movie club, which are this month that we have watched Palm Springs.

God, spoiler, I loved it. Anyway. Oh, okay. Great. We never able to fucking record that. We haven't recorded it yet, Dave. All right, spoiler, I hated it. Oh, that's confusing.

Spoiler, I don't want to record it. All right, spoiler, I didn't even watch it. Take your pick. And you can also hear about life just before anyone else get discount. Tickets, we are touring Australia and New Zealand still, and we are hoping to see you there. You can get a big discount on tickets if you are part of the Patreon group. Yeah, which is also the Facebook group we have, which is so nice. And we organise catch-ups and stuff like the patrons before the cheerful earful festival.

We did a tour of the studios. They came in here. They were right here where we are now. They were breathing this air. Someone sat in your chair, Jess, and took a photo and I said, you're Jess Perkins. And they said, oh, which chair do you sit in then? I'd like to change. They said, yeah, she's the best one.

Yeah, sure. I was like, yeah, and I backed away slowly. Because a person like that is not stable You never know what they're going to do That's dangerous So one of the other things is You get shoutouts and whatnot Depending on the level

On the Sydney Shineberg Deluxe Memorial level Which is one of the higher levels You get to give us a fact of credit or question In a section of the show we call Fact Quote a question Which has a jingle go something like this Fact Quote or Question

Always remembers the sing, always remembers the shing. Shing. Shing, shing, shing. Always remembers the showing. Showing. Dwayne's world. And the way this one works, the way this one works is if you give us,

if you're on the Sydney, Schoenberg level, we get to give us a factor quote or a question or a bragger or a suggestion or really whatever you like. You also get to give yourself a title. And yeah, we just read three out each week. and you get to keep giving them to us.

Keep giving them. Some people are prolific in the fact quota question. Others, not so much. If you're in the Sydney-Shaunberg level, why don't you still, whatever you're doing right now, click on that link that I would have sent you in your DMs, and, you know, give us your thoughts.

Yeah. We want to hear from you. We want to hear from you. Yes. Anyway, three great ones this week. First one comes from Madeline, or Madeline, perhaps. Madeline Murray Baker, MMB, aka the Vice President of Wise Precedents.

And Madeline has a question. What's an album you recommend people should listen to in full and why? Oh! What a fantastic question. My answer, Madeline writes, and we always encourage question askers to question answer. And Madeline's answer is, Royal Blood's self-titled debut album is my answer.

It might as well be a sausage factory pumping out banger after banger without a skip in sight. Highly recommend. Thank you so much, Madeline. I think the first one that came to mind is maybe circus animals called Chisel. It's just got, you know, some of their greatest hits. and then album tracks that are absolute bangers. You may as well call it a sausage factory, in fact, because all the members are men.

But yes, that would be, that's the first comes one. What about you? That's a good one. I would probably say, come on over the album by Shania Twain. Okay. Speaking of sausage factories. Come on over, baby.

That's bangor after bang. You hear, honestly, I think you put that album on and it's like, was this, this, what, all of these singles? It absolutely freaking slaps. Really good stuff. I was just looking through my albums and that's on there and I'm like, I rediscovered that maybe earlier this year late last year and was like, fuck it all, this album's good.

Fucker now. Good fun stuff. For me, it would be, I have a little, how about this little game I like to play. Sometimes when I'm writing a report and I want to put on some music to listen to and I often want to discover something new. I get a random number between 1 and 500, and then I go to the list of Rolling Stones' 500 greatest albums of all time. And I go, all right, well, let's discover something.

Clearly, this is going to be pretty good. And the one that I listened to most recently that I've had on rotation for the last couple of weeks is the Elvis Costello album, album This Year's Model. And it's awesome. I've never given Elvis Costello a real go before. Wow. And it's punky, it's pre-new wave, and I've got to tell you, it's a real sausage factory. I love that game.

What a great way of discovering new stuff. Yeah, you discover something like you put on country, then you'll have a rap album will come on. And then, like, you know, some sort of 60s thing, like maybe by a band you've barely heard of. Yeah, yeah. Oh, this is cool. Yeah, it's fun. That's awesome. Love that.

Great question, too. Great question. Yeah, great question. I just look at, yeah, so many good ones. Oh, yeah, of course. Russ never sleeps nearly young crazy horse is another one that is Cover to cover bangers.

And like mostly live too, right? Yeah. Awesome. Man, it's a great question. I'll be thinking about that. Yeah, maybe we should, Madeline, if you're in the Facebook group, you should pose that in there.

Yeah. Love to see a bit of it. Love to see that list. A thread going. Totally. Thank you so much for that question. Pete, Olberton, the steely-eyed missile man himself.

Oh, great to see him with the chief of the earful recently. I didn't get to say hi to him. I saw you chatting to at one point and I went, oh, Pete's here. I think he sat in your chair and said you're his favorite. Was that him? I didn't even say hello. Say it was him, please. I need this.

He heavily implied you his favorite. We started at the tart shop, sweet Nata, across the road. And, yeah. Who opened just for you? He opened just for us on the Sunday, which is very nice. That's very nice. nice man nice man nice coffees nice tarts yeah nice mustache oh fantastic great great twirl don't mind if i do now pete's title is wannabe steely-eyed missile man get that wannabe out of here

there pete we won't stand for it pete's offering a fact writing hi legends hi pete i know plenty of people in power promote their pets but this tickled me thailand's king rama x probably the 10th, made his dog an officer in the Royal Thai Air Force, making it Air Chief Marshal Foo-Foo-Foo-Hop you're all well, bring on block, Pete. Well, Pete, you're in it. We're in it, baby. We're knee-deep. Dave, your prime minister, what job are you giving Humphrey?

Oh, great one. Probably, probably, which is probably how he'd say it, treasurer. Treasurer. Treasury, Humphrey. We have a bit at our house. where Goose is the treasurer and he keeps wanting to allocate more money to treats. Oh, really? As is Humphrey's head of security at her house.

Oh, I like that. Humphrey is one of the yes minister names characters? I don't remember. It sounds appropriate. It does. So Humphrey Appleby. Oh, that's good. Old school pompous English.

Love it. So you were thinking that you would also be treasurer for Goose or if you were the PM? Yeah, I couldn't really trust him with March. Probably don't give him the money. money then. Okay. What did he good at?

I think Goose would be a really good, like I sometimes say he'd be just a supervisor of some kind because he loves to just oversee. He loves to just watch what you're doing. Yeah. Not sure. Maybe, yeah, maybe what's our version of the FBI? ASEO. He'd be an ASEO for sure.

He's just watching. He's always lurking and watching. Okay. Great fact. Thank you, Pete. Fufu really brought it home. Fufu is great, great name. Air Chief Marshal, Fufu.

That's so good. Last one this week comes from the Great Suraj. He's giving himself a... What is it? A condominium. A condominium. He's giving himself a condominium to say... What's that word you said before?

Cognomen. Cognaman. And Saraj, we've got to say, celebrated a milestone birthday recently. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Suraj. That's part of Block. It was a Block birthday. What a gift.

What a gift. Happy birthday. What a gift to us. What a gift to the world. He's given himself the title International Spy, though as I'm reading this, I'm pretty sure someone else has written it. He's not calling himself the great Saraj international spy. Good point. Under fact quote a question, he's written Love for Others, writing,

Did You Know All the Best People Have Their Birthdays during Block? Oh, I'm blushing. Oh, my God. Okay. Our wonderful, funny and kind mum, Sophie Shooter. Our loveliest man alive, brilliantly dry-witted Gary Jay. Wow. Our tiniest ever Patreon, Penelope, and our bearded weirdo, Matt.

Sorry, Jess and Dave. Tell you who isn't born in Block? It's me, Saraj. Oh, not Born in Block. And I will never be as good as Gary or Sophie because of it. Now I've probably got a flight to catch. Bye! Yeah, so that's clearly Sophie's written that.

Yeah. Happy birthday. to all those beautiful people. Wow. Or maybe Gary wrote it and Sophie punched it up. Yeah. Yeah. Because they're both on the Schoenberg level as well.

So it makes sense. You guys are cheeky. Don't start, don't start this sort of nonsense. It'll get out of control. You cheeky devils. Thank you so much, the great Sarage for all your support. Yeah. He even came to my show on Bendigo.

What a guy. Which really, after having just been, shows throughout the UK. I don't know why I was equally surprised to see him in Bendigo as I was to see him in Manchester, but still. Still surprising. Bendigo? What a gun.

The next thing we like to do is shout out to a few other great supporters on the shout out level, which I believe, or above, so the ass prod level or above, I believe. And Jess only comes up with the game. That's true. And I thought of one while we were. doing the report and now I've forgotten it. I will say that it looks like a bunch of these do not have their addresses and we're getting pretty close to the point where we're going to have to cut off Christmas cards if we haven't

already, but it, you know, fix it for next year otherwise. If you do want to get the Christmas card and you're like, well, don't I ever get the Christmas card, it's a good chance that you haven't entered your postal address into the Patreon. Yeah. And if you don't know how to do that, you can Google it and say, how do I change my address in Patreon, a how-to guide comes up. People ask me, and then I Google it, and then I send them the link. That's sort of...

Yeah, yeah. So if you want to cut out the middleman, you can just do the Googling yourself. Now, Jess, I've given you a bit of padding there to think of something. Yeah, no, I was just listening to you instead. Well, why don't we just give them a spot at the round table? Okay. And a specialty, because, you know, we had, Merlin had seven. Oh, yeah.

So we can just give, I don't think they're greedy. They just need one. Like a, one strong specialty, lover or whatever. Yes, sweet. Or whatever. Great. Love it. And we're just making up the names.

Are we assigning them one of the 1,600 names? Well, I just thought we, maybe we could give them a condominium for their real name. Okay. Love it. All right, Dave gives them a condominium. Just gives them their specialty. I'll read out the name and place. Great.

Let's start. All right. From. Oh, my God. I've accidentally got their, I've got this not quite right. I've got their street address. I won't be reading those out. From 14. All right, first up, from Danville, California, it's Peter Millam. Peter Millam, the splendid, splendid. The splendid Peter the Splendid.

And their specialty is witchcraft. Oh, yeah. Whoa. Splendid witchcraftery. I'm here, Peter. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your support. Next up from Address Unknown,

can only show him from deep within the fortress of the moles. Surname based on the email address, looks like it starts with a T. But the only name given is Amy. Oh, Amy the Dangerous. Oh, specializes in. What's that weapon that's a boss? spiky ball on a stick. Oh, a mace.

A mace. Is that the one or is flail? I get the two of them confused. There's one on a chain one. But you're thinking about just, it's on the end of a big pole. Oh, no, I was thinking like a chain like she could whip it around. That might be the flail.

And I think that is fucking cool. Great. Love that. Flail is fun. Is that where the term flail about comes from? Do you get hit one of those? You're flailing. Oh, that's sick.

Amy, that's badass. Next up from Arras in maybe Denmark, D.K. Or Donkey Kong, maybe. So, I'm beginning with C. It's Gabe, known as punk rock Gabe. Oh, punk rock Gabe specializes in sick guitar riffs. Blu-l-l-l-l-l-l-da-o.

Like those three. Do you reckon D-Ks Denmark, Dave? Yeah, let me look at where that is. Just to triple check. City in Denmark. Next up from... Second Larger City. Wow.

There you go. After... Out of... So close. For our Madress I know, can only assume from deep within the fortress of the malls. Thank you so much to Jazz Oz.

Jazz Oz, the Hungary. Oh, the hungry. Perfect because they're their roundtables chef. Oh. Merci Baku. From Berlin in... Oh, C.I. What would C.I. be?

I would have assumed that was going to be in, in, in, uh, in, uh, in, uh, that's in Cote d'Avroix. Cot de Vois. Cote d'Avoire. The Ivory Coast. That's freaking cool. Uh, from Berlin in the Cote d'Ite d'I. Is my closer? Can you give it to me one more time?

German. Cot tovoire. Cotte d'Ivoire. From Berlin in Cot d'Vois, it's Andreas M. Andre M, maybe. Oh, Andreas M. What about the, um, the poor, Andreas M, the finger clicker.

Jesus. Yes. No, I just, when you started saying finger, I was like, where are we going? Finger clicker. And their finger clicking good. And their specialties being. rude to rate waiters. Yeah, come over here.

Come over here. I need to tell you about this fish. Gason. Gason. It's funny you say fish. I was going to say great fishermen, but I changed my mind. Oh, okay.

To being very rude to waiters. And fingers made you think of fish, fish fingers. Fish fingers. Not any other reason. Yep. Again from address unknown. Again, another mole person.

We've got to assume. Thank you so much to Kylie Oldroyd. Carly Oldroyd, aka the big toot. Big toot, and the specialty is weightlifting. Wow, that's good. So I want to do a big toot when you're deadlifting. Well, if that's what you need to do to get that extra lift, so be it. Never trust a fart.

I remember if I said this before when I was a kid, I was playing golf with some cousins, and they had a big night the night before, or up in the country, and on the first tee, one of them just did the loudest fart I'd ever heard. And he turned to me and winked and he goes, put on the afterburners. I'm like, that's really funny, I think. It had the rhythm of a joke.

I'll get it when I'm older, maybe. That's great. Give it a little someone extra. Afterburners. From again, Address Unknown, another mole person. Thank you so much, Isaac Dick. Isaac Dick, the quietly confident. Quite confident, and their specialty is negotiation.

Oh, yes. You always want to the last one to speak, they say. And that confidence really helps. That's good. On you, I dick. So good. Isaac Dick. I sack dick.

Wait, is this a Mo Cis-Lak sort of crank call? Isack Dick. Because your email address has an entirely different name. Isack Dick. Is that what you've done to us? Isack Dick. You wanted us to say, I sack, dick. You don't have to trick us.

And if that is your real name, then a beautiful name. And I'm sorry. Because I, yeah, I wonder how, like, if an American, I don't think they'd say it, like, ISAC. Yeah, they'd say Isaac. I suck dick. I suck dick. They were quietly confident they'd get us for that.

And they didn't. They didn't. Isaac Dick. Either way, you got us a beauty. Is there an Isaac Dick? Stop giving it to AI Day. Isaac Dick Isaac Dick

Dave, stop Isaac Dick Isaac Dick Isaac Dick Hello Isaac Dick here I suck dick here Yeah

Let me break it down for you I suck Dick Okay Are you here Why you're little I'm telling you what to be Hang on a second

Isaac If I ever get your address From Rogers in Maybe Minnesota in the United States, so-name, potentially son with Kay. Welcome in Josh. Josh, the artist's artist.

Wow. And Josh is really good at restoring art. Whoa. Very important in medieval times. Yeah, how else is it going to last for centuries like we need it to? Correct. Great work, Josh. Thank you, Josh.

You're doing some fantastic work. Thanks so much for touching up many of my classics. And finally, again, Again from address and own, again, deep within the fortress of the malls, please welcome in Ben-San. Humongous Ben-San. Whoa. It's a Ben-san or Ben-San? Ben-San?

Is it like, you know, what's the Japanese singer you say, Ben-San? That's Ben-San, isn't it? Ben-San, is it? Ben-San. I don't know. Anyway, humongous, Ben-San. Humongous, really, really good at wrangling horses. A bit of a horse whisperer.

Yeah. Well done. Can you do that with steel horses? Okay. Okay. You're a mechanic. All right. A bit of fun there. Thank you so much to Ben, Josh, Isaac, Kylie, Andreas, Jez, Gabe, Amy and Peter. And that just leaves us with the Triptitch Club, which is, as Dave describes it, it's like our Hall of Fame, almost. But it's a bit of the theory of the mind. We've set up a club for people who have been on the shoutout level or above for three straight years. Once you're in, you never leave. But why would you want to?

It is paradise in there. It's whatever you want it to be. Yep. We got it all Dave's emceeing the night. He's going to get the party started. Oh, yeah. Once I read out your names, he'll really pump you up with some weak word play. And after the party, Dave's got a band booked to play into the night.

who you got this week, Dave. You're never going to believe it. You are never going to believe it. What? I'm going for 1960s flamboyant theatrical singer Arthur Brown is here. Whoa. We got AB? A B is here.

Known for his powerful, wide-ranging operatic voice, in particular, is high-pitched a banshee scream. So look forward to the banshee. Yes, very excited to hear some banshee. Also, it wears extreme face paint and a burning helmet. That's awesome. That is fucking awesome. Okay.

That is fucking awesome. Well, that was my costume plan. Oh, sorry. I mean, he will need some backup singers. No. If you wear the same one as well, you can be like, sorry, mate, could I get a lot and you touch your heads together? That's fun. That's fun and cute.

We could look like little matches. Just showing a photo of what this singer looks like. Oh, wow. 1960s. Yeah. That feels way ahead of his time. It's like, he's got a full Olympic cauldron on his head. That's how I described.

It's so tall. And Jess, you normally. Sorry, I just want to say, he's number one single from 1968, fire. Oh, wait, is that that song that we know, that goes like, fire and stuff? I wouldn't say we in that instance. We weren't around back then. Was it a big hit? Number one in the UK and Canada, number two in the US, so yeah, big hit.

I reckon I know it. I reckon at some point he says, fire. Following the success of the single fire, the press would often refer to Brown as the God of Hellfire. in reference to the opening shouted line of the song, a moniker that exists to this day. There you go. And I'm so excited to see the Fire Imperson. Huge.

So, Jess, you got a cocktail? Yeah, I went for like a medieval theme, so I've got Mead. Oh, yeah. And like some bread and stuff. Venerable Mead? Venerable Mead. And also, I thought it'd be pretty fun.

Like, I got a knight costume. Like, so I'm dressed up like a knight. but yes it is a slutty one Slutty night Yeah I accidentally got the Slutty Night costume again

Yeah they're like tits are fully coming out It's just no pants Oh So you're Winnie the Pooing Yeah That's quite dangerous on the On the battlefield Do you have no pants

Yeah I don't think this costume Was for Battlefield Unless that's what you call The Boudoir That's my work bench It's where I get my best work done mate All right.

Because I'm asleep. Yeah, big time. Man, I fucking love to sleep. Love sleep. So we got eight inductees this week. Dave, are you ready to pump them up? Woo-hoo! Jess, you ready to pump me out?

I need a big pump. Okay, I've got you. Okay, thank you. Thank you for letting me know. I'm glad I'm a safe space for you. Yes, I just need. And you could communicate that you needed that for me. Open and honest at all time.

That's what matters. Communication, dialogue. You, me. Bit of chat. Bit of this. Bit of that. From Provo. in Utah.

Give me two. Welcome in Lauren Lyons. I think it's provo. Lauren Lyons, I'm happy to have you here and I ain't lying about it. Woo! Tell the truth! From Folkestone in Great Britain. Love it.

Welcome and thank you, Zoe Scandrette. I'm happy to have you here and I ain't scammedretting you. Oh, no. The opposite. No scam. Woo! I don't understand, but from Belpar. The name is Scandret.

Yeah. Sounds like scam. Oh. I'm not scam. you. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. It sort of sounds like a scam, I guess.

Okay. From Belpar. It's one letter different. It is one letter different. Well, then there's all of Drette as well, but it's quite a bit different. From Belper in Great Britain, welcome in Guy Steamson. The knight's got a little steamsony, am I right? It's humid.

See, that works better. Thank you. We don't need live notes. From Lincoln, also in Great Britain. Welcome in Hardy the Cat. Matazesesky. Matazesky, the cat, I hardly knew you. He!

From Nass in Ireland, welcome in Gene Temple. When I got to pray, I go to the Gene Temple. Yeah, forgive me, father. From Calumpton in Great Britain and Devon, I believe, where they do scones right, it's Rebecca Lee. Welcome in. Well, like Rebecca, free, my mind. Woo! From Seattle in Washington.

Welcome in, Mason Waller. I'm not going to waller, I'm not going to waller around in my own crappulence when you're here, Mason. Yeah, Mason. And finally, from Thornbury, just up the road here in Melbourne. Welcome in Millie Grieve Putland. I ain't grieving because Millie's here. Yeah, I'm celebrating. Welcome in Millie, Mason, Rebecca, Jean, hearty guys.

Zoe and Lauren, what a fantastic batch of names. Make yourselves at home. Grab yourself a mead and get ready. And don't look at my legs. Yeah. And don't get that alcohol too close to our musical act tonight. Yeah. But get ready to have fun.

Get ready for Arthur Brown. Yes. Now, Jess, do we have to tell anyone anything before we go? Just that we love them so much and that they can suggest a topic. Can I do this to the camera? Yep. Probably have to get the microphone on. I did.

Oh, good. Sorry. That's why I said, can I do this? And I said yes. Well, don't say yes, because then it'll go back to you. How about this? Does that look like a heart? What about this?

What about this? You play with my heart, got lost in the game. And they can find us on social media at Do Go On Pod. Do Go On Podcast on TikTok. And our website is dogoonpod.com. Thank you so much for giving me that space. Yeah. Oh, baby, baby.

Don't forget, we are on tour at the end of this month. We're in Canberra. That one sold out, but there's still some tickets for the next night, Saturday and November the first in Sydney. We would love to see you there. And then we've got shows in Adelaide, also almost sold out. Perth, that's sold out. We've put it on an extra show.

Then we're in Auckland and Wellington, also with extra shows. And Brisbane, also with an extra show. Thank you so much for selling out our shows. Crazy. But if you can't see us there, You will see us here next week. Thank you so much. And until then, also thank you.

We love you, Block. Goodbye. Ladies, happy block. Bye. Later's. I said that? Yeah. Great.

We know you love the thought of a vacation to Europe. But this time, why not look a little further? To Dubai. A city that everyone talks about and has absolutely everything you could want from a vacation destination. From world-class hotel. record-breaking skyscrapers and epic desert adventures to museums that showcase the future, not just the past.

Choose from 14 flights per week between Canada and Dubai. Book on emirates.ca. today. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester. We were just in Manchester.

But this way you'll never, It will never miss out. And don't forget to sign up, go to our Instagram, click our link tree. Very, very easy. It means we know to come to you, and you'll also know that we're coming to you. Yeah, we'll come to you. You come to us. Very good.

And we give you a spam-free guarantee.