Do Go On - 524 - The British Post Office Scandal

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Between 1999 and 2015, over 900 British subpostmasters were convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting. The thing is, they were all innocent and were the victims of faulty accounting software. This is an astonishing story of a year's long cover up and extreme miscarriage of justice, and the fourth most voted topic of Block 2025!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 08:11 (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.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-scandal-explained-everything-you-need-to-knowhttps://www.postalmuseum.org/about/our-history/https://thehistorypress.co.uk/article/a-short-history-of-the-post-office/https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/dec/23/im-a-pain-in-the-backside-an-awkward-sod-alan-bates-on-love-justice-and-the-post-office-scandal https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/specialfeatures/the-real-people-and-cast-of-mr-bates-vs-the-post-office/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35225183https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/09/how-the-post-offices-horizon-system-failed-a-technical-breakdownhttps://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cev4mw43w13o Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Happy Block. Happy Block. And what better way to celebrate Block and 10 years of Dugawan than hitting the road? We are doing some shows around Australia and New Zealand. All the shows have sold out. So we've added extra shows in Perth, Brisbane, Auckland and Wellington. Yeah, it's so exciting. So exciting.

You know, you never know. You never know people are going to want to come. And people are coming all over Australia and New Zealand for us. That's right. And if you want to come to go to dogoonpod.com. We'll see you there. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go One. My name is Dev Warnocky and as always, I'm here with Matt Stewart and Jess Perkins.

So good to be here. Quick question. How good is it to be alive? It's Block. Oh, Block. A beautiful time to be alive. The only time I wish I was born. Yes. Block, the time of the year where we do our biggest, bestest topics, the most voted for, the most requested, the ones that have got people up and about, really just up about, you know, really rock hard, so to speak. We're a rock out for block. Blockard. Block hard. Oh, my God. That's like it in, what, eight years ago? Eighths together. And Dave, you said how low instead of hello. Was that a nod to the classic Nirvana song, smells like teen spirit?

Yes. Hello. Do you remember when talking about an age ago that in a documentary, that was a musicologist, he's like, just the way he could just work with words, you know. He said, hello, hello, hello. It was, it was so good. That musicologist really spoke to me. Can I be the first to say, that's good writing. That's a good talking heading.

Now, we're up to the fourth most votable topic of Block 2025. Can you believe it? I can't. Top four. That gives it the white ribbon. If it's like my primary school, athletics, you'd get a blue ribbon, blue ribbon for first, red for second, green for third and white for fourth, maybe. Something weird like that. Okay.

That wasn't universal, I'm realizing? It's a vague memory. I just got blue, so I can't remember what the others got. I think. So I'm like, oh, I think the person next to me might have had red. What? ribbon. There you go.

It was very painful. They pinned it on. Oh, I remember saying that. Oh, ho! Do you remember before we started recording, we said,

we've got a really tight turn around here. We need to... Yeah, let's get straight into the topic. No fun, we said. And our mass balls are getting pinned with blue ribbons. Because he's got blue balls. Yeah, best in show. Never in doubt.

Always number one. The Melbourne show, you've never exhibited. your balls at the other show? Walking around that farm exhibit. It's just like an hour with the balls dangling over. People that clip around, hmm. Oh, yeah, you know what it's, you don't have to be biased. They can't see any other party.

It's just the ball. It's a bar test. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Oh, yes. Making a few little notes. Very good.

Very good. For the fourth year running. Best balls in show. Best balls. This guy. He's got the bluest balls in the world. Anyway. Right, so it's the fourth most popular topic.

Yes. A lot of people voted for this one. Very excited for it. And I'm going to get us on the topic, as we always do with a question. Matt might be remembering what the topic is. Jess, I think, are we going in blind here, basically, for you? Yeah, I don't remember what it is. It doesn't matter too much because it's an abstract question.

You can both have a go with the question. Okay. And the question is... I was always going to have a go. Have a go, man. I was all a go, I was all a go, go, bye. How much does it cost? $3.80.

Currently, to send a postcard. In Australia. Because I'm old enough to remember when I worked at the post office, newspaper, news agency slash post office. Yes. I believe it was 45 cents. Am I remembering that right? I don't know.

We were not alive. We can't fact-check your memory. Does that ever been the cost? I mean, probably. I suppose. What the fuck do you mean? But I reckon, I feel like it's probably a dollar now. Easily a dollar.

$1.20. Oh, my gosh. I wish it was a dollar. $1.20. Or am I closer with at $3.80? You're not closer. I'll offer $2. $2.50.

It is closer to $2.50 now. It is. $1.89. $1.95. Less, less. $1.80. $1.70. $1.70.

Got it in one. $1.70. My height. And can we say to the people that were sending Christmas cards, which are like about a couple thousand of you, you're welcome. We're crippled. That's for Australia. Yeah.

The overseas ones. Some of those cost more than the card was to. And last year, they'd been sent off And then all mail to Canada stopped And those postcards didn't have a return address on them So they just probably went in the bin And they're still having issues I think recently

I didn't even know that happened Alistair who's just come out to do some Two in the Think tank a couple weeks ago He couldn't send out his caps Because there's something going on with a Canadian postal system Oh my goodness Hope it's all good over there But maybe this year by

December. It'll be okay. Next month you'll be getting your Christmas Christmas. Fingers crossed for you. Come on. What's the guys now? Is there a present?

Do they go? Come on, Chudeau. Pull your fucking finger out, mate. Come on, Carney, mate. Khan, Karnie. Can't, Karnie. Pull your fucking finger out, mate. It's fucking Christmas.

That's my favourite. That's my favourite. So a buck 70 is quite a bit, but I'm trying to do something you. Nice. But in the UK, it can cost people much more. their reputation and their entire livelihoods. That's right. The fourth most phototopic for Block 2025 is the British post office scandal.

Oh, I love a scandal and I love office drama. That's always fun. And not working in an office anymore, like this is my office. And you guys are pretty drama-free. That's why I try to stir so much. You're trying to get shit. I'm having an affair with everyone. Everyone?

Everyone? But I love to hear when my friends who have proper jobs, I love to hear their office goss. Well, there's a lot of goss and a lot of scandal in this topic. It's been suggested by a bunch of people. Thank you to Alex Waite from Essex in the UK. Amelia from Brighton in the UK. Grace Brooks from Adelaide. Zoe Folkstone, also from the UK.

Harry Green from cows on the Isle of Wight. And also my friend Jace and my dad, Martin Warnocky. Whoa. Hang on. This is something that your friend Jace and your friend. Martin Mornike. Yeah. My two best friends.

Did you know that? Did you know that they'd... They've both suggested it to me in person. Okay. So I'm not sure if you're across this, there's a... Well, that's not allowed. Yeah, do you reckon they've got to be official? Yeah, put it in the hat.

I'll redact everything I said. No, they can be in there, but they have to have it in the hat by the time this episode comes out. Otherwise, we'll edit it out. Yeah. I think that's fairly fair. Now, I've got to say up top, a big reason that this topic is quite famous, particularly in the UK, is I'm not sure if you're familiar with.

at the start of 2024, a TV drama D or not even just drama there's no common here cut the D

drama minus the D Rama aired in the UK are called Mr Bates versus the post office It's about this story

It was a huge Mr Bates Mr Bates That's a comedy Oh Oh Mr Bates Oh

They can't Even when they're based On real people Like ooh Oh but Oh bye Oh, you're naughty, you are.

Oh, you're bad. Oh, pardon, Vicar. So that aired, it was a massive hit over there. It also aired on Channel 7 here, and my dad watched it. My friend, Jace, watched it. Oh, I see. And at the time, they both said, this is a wild story. You've got to talk about it.

The two kinds of people that are watching Free to Wear TV. Yeah, that's right. Your dad and Jace. Your dad and electricians. Jayce, take that however you want to take it. A retired teacher and a plumber. They're both watching. So, thank you very much to everyone that suggested it.

You haven't heard of that TV show or the topic. Do you don't know anything about this? That's cool. Well, I know there's a scandal and it's something to do with the post office. And how long have you known that? Oh, minutes. Yeah? You rounding up? Yeah, I always do.

So the British Postal Service, as you can probably imagine, has a very long history. Oh. According to the Postalmuseum.org. Okay. They've got their own museum. We are visiting on our next tour. I'd love to go. Of course you would.

fucking nerd. I still want to go to the Birmingham Penn Music. Every time I think, I've got to go, but I missed it every time. The Postal Service has been going for more than 500 years.

Wow. Since Henry VIII tasked Sir Brian Chuk with establishing a national postal network to surf his court. The General Post Office, the GPO, was officially established in England

in 1660 by King Charles the 2nd. And here are some of the highlights over the centuries. Highlights of the Postal Service. Yeah. Welcome to Blonde. That is, I mean, what a sentence, but 500 years of postal history is interesting.

Yeah. What, is it the kind of thing that you wouldn't know what the original post office was? Like it evolved slowly from like... Well, originally it was to serve just the court, so like it was just for royal mail. That's the English, right? But before that, there would have been, surely there was some sort of service for delivering things before that. Yeah, of course they were.

And even like, it goes back to ancient Egypt, they had a service where they would deliver things. I was thinking about going back, how far back do I go with the process system? Well, I'm pretty disappointed you didn't. You know if it was me, that's where I would have started. The ancient Egyptians, and we were going, fuck. Oh, God. I love it when we're 45 minutes in and you go, oh, that's what the topic was.

So, in 1793, I start three days into the report. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, so this is that, but don't worry about it now. So, they're on the moon. Yeah, that's right. So, he's been killed. How do we get here? So 1793 saw the first uniformed postmen hit the streets. Oh, great.

Slutty little uniforms? Yeah, real shards. Real slyly. Before this post boys had carried male and horseback between towns since the 1500s. I didn't say anything about the boys. Oh, Jess. I didn't ask how the boys were dressed. Just the men.

Male started to be transported by train with the creation of the Liverpool to Manchester route in 1830. The first adhesive stamp was invented by Sir Rowland Hill in 1837, and a few years later, the iconic Penny Black stamps featuring Queen Victoria came out. So you go back far enough, Matt, you get a stamp for a penny. Yes. You probably remember that. Well, there's a pub around the corner called the Penny Black. There you go.

So it was around the corner at our old studio. Yeah, now it's down the road. Down the road, yeah. Still pretty close. Speaking of icons, the post office pillar box was introduced in 1852. And you know, there's the classic male, the British post box. There's actually a bunch of variety of designs, and it will say on the side of it, who was the king or queen when it came in?

And that becomes sort of their reigns design. Oh, that's fun. Pretty cool. According to the history press, less than 20 years later in 1868, the first military links to the post office were formed as the 49th, the middle six rifle volunteers corps, known as the post office rifles, came into being made up of GPO. employees. So you signed up to be a posty, you're also in the army. Sure. Okay. I feel like very different jobs. Yeah. By the outbreak of conflict in 1914 for the

first World War, the post office employed over 250,000 people, and nearly a quarter of these were enlisted with the army. As well as the 12,000 men who fought with the post office rifles regiment, some 35,000 women were employed in temporary positions during the Great War as the GPO played a pivotal role in maintaining communications throughout the conflict. They sent millions of letters. Wow. Mostly just smut, though, right? Oh, so much smart.

That's how old technology really kicks off, right? Yeah. The internet wouldn't have come as far as it has come as well. Exactly. If it wasn't for, shmut. Other people wanting to come further. How can I have sex with this thing? I get the stamp out.

Okay. Seeing a few options. Yep. That Alastair wrote a sketchy years ago that, I think, spoofed that beautifully. idea. He was playing a scientist to an invented teleportation, and he's demonstrating it with a carrot through it. He's like, so yeah, you can, now you don't have to, you know, travel your dick and balls

around. You can just put it up on the other. And then the straight man, he goes, he wrote it, though, so I'm not taking any credit. He goes, why don't you just make it big enough so that they could travel through their whole body? And I was like, well, then the sex wouldn't be anonymous. He spoofed that idea real good. Yeah, he spoofed it very good.

He spoofed it far and wide. To celebrate the coronation of King George the 5th, the first scheduled air mail service flew. I don't wait. I'm going to emphasize air, not male. Air mail. Oh, pardon, Vickle. I meant to say air mail service, which is still weird. You were emphasizing the air.

Yeah, that's what I want. I want you to both be like, oh, wow, early on, they were flying. letters around, but really, I've really fucked it up. Mail. Service flew from Hendon to Windsor in 1911, so that's pretty early. According to the BBC, in the 1930s, German rocket engineer Gerhard Zucker, which is so, is that top 10 of the year? That's got to be right up there.

Suggested mail could be delivered by rocket, but he failed to persuade the general post office because the test rockets exploded before reaching the intended. Oh, and I saw that, what? They're so easily dissuaded. Just give up. Do you see how quickly it got there? Yeah. Did you say how quickly it exploded?

Imagine if it hadn't exploded. You know, that's just the, that's just the next step we have to come up with is how to make it not explode. Can you just use a bit of imagination? Yeah. Fucking hell, you give up so easy. Ugh, this is why mum hates you. They're siblings. Zooker's brother.

Yeah. In 1941, the general post office approved women's trousers. What? named Camerons after postwoman Jean Cameron who requested their introduction. Why did they have to have a specific name for trousers? You go to the shop, hire one pair of trousers. Men's trousers?

Wait, for your husband, I assure you. What? Why would you need men's trousers? You need Camerons. Oh, Camerons. They're technically not trousers. It's okay. They're very effemirate.

They don't have pockets. They're open at the bottom, like a skirt. They have teeny tiny pockets. They're fucking useless. Yeah. We don't want you getting anything. out of here. If you're ever going to do a Shoreshank Redemption style breakout, we don't want you

dropping too much into the yard. Yes, right. Rubble. I'm talking about rubble. Rubble. You're always talking about rubble. In 1969, the GPO was abolished and the assets transferred to the newly created post office corporation, and it's a bit complicated because it's split off into a

couple of different groups. But before this, post office branches, along with the Royal Mail delivery service, were formerly part of the general post office, and after the passage of the Post Office Act, 1969, the Post Office became its own statutory corporation. It's its own thing. So that's all the highlight to the post office. But the lowest and most controversial point started in 1999 when they introduced a new retail software called Horizon, which would end up affecting and ruining thousands of lives. Wow. It's like when SkyNet went live in Terminator. You know what I mean? Yeah, I definitely know exactly what you mean, yes, yep, when Skynet went live in Terminator.

Yeah, it's just like that. Yeah, it's like that. Yeah. You've got to do yourself a favour in watching one or two are so good. No, we have, and that's how we know that we're in Skynet. Do you have a favour, live in Terminator. Do a re-watch. That's my favorite.

Okay, yeah, I mean, I guess we could, I feel like we just watched it recently, but because we're very familiar with the concept of Skynet going live in Terminator. Terminator. Great. The film. Mm-hmm. Which we know. We know.

And love. And love. Great. By the end of the 20th century, there were more than 14,000 post office branches around the UK. Too many. Would you prefer to 15? I don't know. Sounds like that's exactly what the Tories thought.

It feels like I would have shut down. I don't know that much about... No, but it feels like something they do. that feels like the stories and shut down the post officers and people go actually it was the

neo-liberals inside of the Labour Party who went I look forward to not understanding what that message is about I don't understand the thing you're saying

now so the message that's going to come in back on actually I think your photo was Ed Miliband you know this guy's name makes me laugh

that's a great name people running many of these post offices were called sub postmasters basically they were contracted out and they were franchises.

Yep. They had a contract with the post office but weren't employees and were technically self-employed and the most common setup was the sub-postmaster would have their own retail shop and having a small post office attached as a way of getting more customers in the door. So you've got a grocer, you've got a cafe or whatever, there's a little post office attached in your village. Yeah.

Great. Easy. Get a bit more through the door, make a couple extra bulb. Sounds like the news agency post office I worked. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And the one that's near my house where most of my packages go. It's like the worst, shittiest newsagent ever.

It's just one guy who works there in the post office bit. Love him. Okay. Doesn't need my ID for anything. Okay. Yo, what up, Perko! Just kind of grunts at me hands on my packages. I'm like, love you, man.

So it doesn't need your ID because he recognises you? No, he's probably not doing his job very well. Because no one needs ID. Yeah. Love him. Hey, man, you got any packages that look valuable? Yeah, right here. Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, I think they're mine. Yeah. There were also crown branches, larger post offices owned by the actual post offices. And these had branch managers, which were employees. Okay. But that's not where we're focusing today. We don't care about them. No.

They're kind of like the people who didn't care about Skynet and Terminator. Yeah. Great reference. Thank you. Wow. How good did you look in that leather jacket? Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. That chopper, that motorbike? Yeah. Yeah. So good. Yeah. Is that what he meant? Is that what that's from?

That's not from. Okay. Yeah. No, we know that. Good. Pass. Pass the test. That's from another Arnie movie.

What was it from? kindergarten cop I think it might be Commander Commando I was I was No it's Predator

Predator Tricture Get to the Of course it is Get to the chop So Computer Weekly Also have a great overview article

Written by Car Flinders that I'll link to Flinders for the Computer Weekly writes Horizon is software that was originally developed by UK software company ICL

which was acquired by a Japanese IT giant Fujitsu in 1998. Tubby Tava. I've got a little bit about him in a second. The system has an electronic point of sales service, known as an EP OWS, an EPOS, that enables sub-postmasters and branch workers to key in sales on a touchscreen,

with the accounts being automated in the background. At the time of its rollout in 99-2000, it was the biggest non-military IT project in all of Europe. It was huge Holy shit Really big rollout But you know the kind of thing You type it into the thing

And the computer now stores all the data You don't have to have these paper receipts anymore It's all digital, easy Now I didn't really know that much about Fujitsu I've written here other than the air conditioning ads That ex-Australian cricketer Mark Tubby Taylor fronted in the 2000s Yeah

Australia's favourite air Oh my gosh I always felt like he could barely pronounce The company's name Fujitsu Yeah I think that's probably fair But let me just say he nailed it, much like the commentary that he did of the diving at the Olympics last year.

Brought to my attention by Roy and HG, they loved the fact that they, because it was on Channel 9 and they pledged to cover every single sport, but they obviously don't have that, I have an expert on retainer in every single sport. So he's their cricket guy. Yeah, they had excess cricket commentators. So they got him to commentary, to commentate the diving, and he'd say stuff like, oh, nailed it or, oh, not much splash there. And, yeah, Ryan H. She had played, and Roy would say magnificent commentary there.

Great insight from Tubby. He's saying whatever, you know, people say he doesn't know what he's talking about. That's rubbish, age me. That's rubbish. Honestly, even if you don't like their regular show, which is mostly about rugby league, it's worth going back and they did a daily show, a podcast. Their podcast is called Bludging on the Blind Side. Brought to you by ZigZegh Tears.

Honestly, worth checking out. Just the Paris Olympics stuff they did last year. So funny. Anyway, so Fujitsu are Japan's largest IT services provider and have been around a long time, founded in 1935, which makes them one of the oldest IT companies in the world. Wow. Really old.

I also read this, I didn't know. In the 50s, they also founded a professional football club that the company still owns, the Kawasaki Frontal, and they compete in Japan's top soccer tier, the J-League. Whoa. So if you work for them, which hundreds of thousands of people in Japan do, you're like, that's our team over there. That's cool.

Fujitsu was when I was selling air conditioners, my installation company, that was one of their preferred brands. But it's not anymore. Oh, no. Yeah. They moved over to probably the main competitor in Japan, Dakin. Wow.

Did you just look to see that we've got a Dakin in the studio? Yeah. I think maybe they put this one in. Oh, nice. Didn't do it as a great deal, so I won't plug them. No, good on, on there, great, great people down there, Mercury and Maravan, give him a call. Talk to Scott and say, I sent you on Matt. I still get calls from people going, hey, you still, Mercury.

I haven't worked there for like eight years, and I'll still get calls like, oh, I think we're ready to. We're ready to go through that point you gave was eight years ago. Is that still good? I'll pass you on to Scott. I think the price might need to be updated. That's so funny. You remember, you remember in the 60s we met? He came round.

You said, put a fan in. I'm ready. I'm ready for it. Give us the fan. So Horizon, the Fujitsu system. Now I've stuffed up saying it. Fujitsu system. I'm sorry, Mark Taylor.

It is how to say. How does he say it? I just feel like he would just sort of go, Fichisu. Fichisu. Maybe that's exactly how it's meant to say. Yeah, you probably had like someone from the company off screen being like, this is how you're saying.

And then all of Australia gone. I couldn't say Australia. All Australia is saying. Doesn't know what is for him on about it. So, anyway, the Horizon Fujitsu system was rolled out at post offices starting in 1999. The Guardian has a great article by Alex Hearn that breaks down the technology and how it all works. Hearn writes what the system was supposed to provide. Replacing paper receipts with an electronic database should have saved post office operators time and effort,

allowing them to manage their accounts at the push of a button. At the simplest end, for instance, the Horizon system could collate all the transactions over the the course of a month and calculate how much cash was still expected to be in the post office's coffers end of the quote there unfortunately it was not up to scratch when it was implemented in fact it had hundreds of bugs oh that's bad that's bad from my understanding because again from her and who breaks it down for the guardian if it was hundred of hundreds of easter eggs that's fun they're sneaky little things you meant to find bugs are like the opposite of that yeah bugs are the opposite of easter eggs yes no further questions

Hearn writes, the post office knew as much about the bugs as early as 1999 when trials run in preparation for the launch revealed, quote, severe difficulties being experienced by sub-postmasters. Despite this, they continued the rollout. At a later inquiry, one member of the development team, David McDonnell, stated that of eight people in the development team, two were very good, another two were mediocre, but we could work with them, and then there were probably three or four who just weren't up to it

and weren't capable of producing professional code. Oh, I reckon probably, yeah, maybe find other people for those. Yeah, I would think, yeah. They blagged their way into the gig, obviously. It's great that he's of the development dance and said, he hasn't said if he's one of the good ones on it. I had no idea what I was doing. It's a real gold, real Goldilock sort of scenario, isn't it?

Two? Too great. Two were great. Two are fine. And three, it was just really cold porridge. Wow, so kind. Not edible. I don't even know

It was porridge They didn't put oats in it It was just kind of like sludge They made porridge out of wheat bits It was horrible It was broken of wheat picks There was a piece of broccoli in there It didn't make any sense

I only didn't know there was broccoli in the fridge Where they began from What's out of? He's gone I'm frightened The guy crying Told you didn't out of code Sturring broccoli into milk

So there were hundreds of bugs and a full list hasn't been released, but as two examples of what these sub-postmasters were dealing with, one was called the calendar square bug after the branch in Scotland, where it first appeared, calendar square, due to an error in the database underpinning the system, in the records, it would create duplicate transactions. So at the end of the day, the transactions listed were wrong.

It said that the post office branch had made more sales than they actually had that day. And expecting the extra money that hadn't actually been made, the higher-ups would ask the sub-postmaster, where's this extra money? Are you stealing from us? Right. Another example is known as the Del Melington bug,

as it first occurred at a branch, at a village, Del Melington in Scotland. The Del Melington bug would see the screen freeze as the user was attempting to confirm receipt of cash. Each time the user pressed enter on the frozen screen, it would silently update the record, but the screen would stay frozen. Again, making it look like the branch had made more sales.

Yeah, right. So this started happening all over the country. There would be discrepancies, and the sub-postmasters found they had a shortfall in their takings. Under the old paper-based system, they could track down or track back and find the cause, but they couldn't do that with this supposed whiz-bang digital system. That's going to simplify everything. They don't have access to the back end to the records, but they don't need it because it's full-proof. According to Computer Weekly again, while the technology had changed,

the contract between the post office and sub-postmasters, who owned their own businesses, but where agents for the post office, remained the same. It stated that any accounting shortfalls were the responsibility of the sub-postmasters unless they could prove otherwise. But without the chain of evidence created by paper-based accounting methods, proving their losses were not their fault, was near impossible for many. Yeah, they're like, can you go into your back end and have a look? And they're like, no, you have to prove it.

It's not our responsibility. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're using your new system. Yeah, yeah, but you used it, so you touched it last. You told us it was going to be better. No, it takes back. They need to get the human. computers in, I reckon.

And it wasn't a choice I made. Like, I didn't choose to use this new system. I had to. Yeah, frustrating. Geez, it would be so frustrating. Oh, man. So frustrating. The, um...

Yeah, frustrating, I reckon. Well, I haven't read enough about it. But, you know, in Australia, there was the, um, the, uh, what was the, those automatic, oh, I can't remember what it was called. It was a scandal of similar sort of... Robo debt. Robo debt. Yeah.

Which was like... Also, ruined lives. Yeah, fully ruined lives. That was like our social welfare system, people being told that they'd taken payments that they weren't entitled to and then asked to pay them back. And people were saying, I never had that money. What are you talking about? And some people were told, you owe tens of thousands of dollars. And these are people who already, in many cases, were struggling.

Yes. So it led to, like, lives ruined, people ending their lives, like horrific stuff. Yeah. Awful. Similar situation, you I'm afraid to say. Now, this happened to thousands of people. So I, of course, can't go into all of them. But here are some examples to show you the wild stuff happening to everyday people across the UK.

PBS writes about Joe Hamilton. In 2003, Joe Hamilton was appointed Sub Postmistress. Saw that written the PBS article, but I love that title. Yeah, so they're also a Dom postmistress? A bit of fun. Appointed in 2003 at the Hampshire Village Shop she'd been running, since 2001, while working for its post office, Hamilton and her husband set up a tea room

and a delicatessen in the shop as well as selling groceries. Oh, that sounds so sweet. It's so wholesome. Are you about to break our hearts, Dave? Yeah, and you see this lady, and she is so wholesome, so sweet. It's a little tea room. This is in a beautiful little village. Everyone knows each other's names.

Soon the Horizon System began creating shortfalls in her account, and believing that it must have been her own fault, she paid the differences from her own pocket even remortgaging her house twice to pay for the alleged debts oh that sucks so she's just thinking that the business is doing horribly yeah she's going oh we put this in to get more business but something's gone wrong here i must have made a mistake

i'll just pay it back quietly on one occasion she rang the post office helpline on finding a discrepancy of about two thousand pounds only to see it double while she followed instructions from the helpline operator. Like, she saw it go up. No one's buying anything. Why is this going up?

Yes. She was then told she was liable for the whole amount, which would be taken out of her salary. Now, I'll tell you what, people, you know, on the helplines, just you can sometimes believe that the system is an error. You know, the frustrated they're like, no, that couldn't be. I'm literally looking at it now. No one's buying anything.

Why is it going up? Well, yeah. Basically, all I can say is, you're loving. It's so sad. Despite trying to do the right thing and pay the money back in 2006, she was fired from her job and charged with theft for Horizon Korea had 36,000 pound shortfall because she's been paying back these smaller amounts, but she just can't afford that. When she was taken to court, 74 people from her local community showed up to support her. Wow. Wow. And like give statements about what an upstanding citizen she is. And villagers helped her pay back the amount, which she agreed to

in a plea bargain that additionally required that she accept post office's charge of false accounting. So they were like, you can keep going through this expensive, like, legal dispute, or you can just accept, and we'll stop now. Wow. And she was like, okay, I'll just take the, even though she knows, I don't, I don't know where this money's gone. Yeah.

Jesus. But because of this, she got a criminal conviction, and she was unable to obtain regular employment or even help at her granddaughter's school. Oh, no. Her police officer's son had to declare his mother's conviction when he took on a new role. I had to explain it. Awful stuff, so that's Joe. Is that we hear from her again?

Maybe some sort of cummuppance? Well, you will hear from her again. Great. Great. I don't want to give away too much about the commuppance, but there's a lot to go, I'm afraid, before it gets any better. Lee Castleton and his wife bought their East Yorkshire Post Office branch in 2003. And within a year, he spotted a 26,000-pound shortfall in the accounting. He called Horizon's IT helpline 91 times.

26,000 pounds. 26,000, like 50 grand for us. That's not, it's not, it's not, you know, five bucks here. Yeah. It's huge sums of money. That's insane. So he called the helpline 91 times, knowing that the error could not have been his own, yet he received no help.

The post office audited and suspended. him ordering him to repay the money, which he refused to do, then they took him to court. Unable to afford a lawyer, he represented himself, and when he lost the case, the post office pursued him for legal costs of £321,000, despite knowing he had no assets, and he had to declare bankruptcy. And has the post office caught on? Like, that's coincidental, this has happened a lot. Are they still...

They are fully rug sweeping. Yeah, I was just thinking that of whether they go, like, okay, we brought in this new system, and we're having a lot of these court cases. But I wonder if they're like, wow, this new system's really showing us how dodgy people have been this whole time. Can't trust them with the paper. Yeah, we got him. Now we got him.

I wonder if that's it. Well, the post office later admitted during the post office Horizon IT inquiry that will come in many, many years, that they had brought the case to make an example of Lee Castleton to defend the Horizon software and to deter other sub-postmasters from bringing legal claims against them. They were like, we know this guy's got no money, but we're going to go in for all the,

the cost as much as we can to ruin him, so other people will see it and go, it's not worth suing these guys. Monstrous. It's like, unbelievable. Yeah. I do think it is good to privatise, like, public assets like this, because I think what capitalism will do, it'll make, you know, the profit motive will lead to more efficient sort of lean, slender operations that work better.

Yep. You can't do that. It's too much fat if it's left to the, you know, the public, the bureaucracy. Well, the crazy thing is, I don't think it was private at this stage. Oh, really? Yeah. It's just... Wow.

Because they're a law into... I'll talk about this later, but they're a law into themselves. They actually can criminally pursue people without the police. They've got their own jurisdiction. Well, that seems good, too. Yeah, what a great system. Yeah, perfect. Okay, so they need a privatise.

Sorry, it's all right. PBS also profiled Jess Corr or Jess Cowr. From the cause? Is that why you go? It's K-A-U-R. Nah, it's on the cause. Unless she's using a non-convincing nom de plume. Call was accused of stealing 11,000 pounds from the West Midlands.

11,000 prawns. Yeah, they start seeing theft everywhere. I swam at Christmas tree was taller last year. Where's it gone, Jess? Where's it gone? You monster. So they accused her of stealing 11,000 prawns and pounds from the West Midlands post office brands that she operates.

When post office auditors turned up at her business with the police, she was brought to the police station, and as she told the BBC, she was told during a break in her interview, you're the only one it's happened to, admit it, plead guilty, and we'll get you back in your office the next day. And that is a fucking lie. Jesus. Aware of her innocence, but scared, she pleaded guilty. So every part of that was a lie, was it? So, because it had happened others. Had happened to other people. And they weren't going to let her back to work? I don't know, because we actually don't know how it would have turned out because she was. was aware of her innocence, but scared she pleaded guilty, but the stress was so overwhelming that it prompted a full breakdown and an attempt on her own life. Oh, my God.

She was hospitalized, but the post office didn't believe her, and they sent their own doctor to get their own second opinion. Oh, what the fuck. Crazy. This is, this is, like, like. This is, like, worst of humanity sort of stuff. Yeah. I mean, there's worse.

Sure. But this is where you go, like, fuck, humans are awful. Yeah. Yeah. Who's, like, these are people hiding behind. this corporation. Yeah, because it's huge. And also, I think it's complicated because, like I said, the system changes quite a bit.

I don't think ever, it's not clear exactly who is in charge of what bit. And just imagine, I'm just imagining like the lawyers before who were like, yeah, we know this guy can't actually pay us any money, but let's ruin him. So, to make an example of him. Yeah, that'll stop others. Go to my, I'm going to, all right, that's a good idea. I'm going to go to my fancy apartment and sleep well tonight. Like, fuck you.

Yeah. How do you live with yourself when you're making decisions like that? Horrific. The calendar square bug, the example that I mentioned earlier that duplicated transactions and made it look like they had made more sales than they actually had, that sub-postmaster was held responsible. Wow.

The Dell Melington bug that created a 24,000 pound discrepancy, the post office again tried to hold the post office operator responsible for that. So they're seeing this huge pattern. That's so crazy about it, and it's years long. And at no stage do they go, Could this be on us? They keep thinking, no, at least early on, I think they're thinking, no, the system's right and they're told by the IT people, no, it's fine.

And there's not enough people who, like, these aren't all making the news or something, like no one externally seeing a pattern for a while? Yeah, big part of it is that because they're, like, they're all franchises, they're all separate from each other. Like a lot of them don't communicate with others to be like, oh, that's also happening to me. So for a long time, for many years, they're able to just tell people, no, you're the only one. Yeah.

And they would go, oh, okay, it's me. They didn't have a Facebook group. Yes. That's what they need. To all chat to each other. That's why I think Zuckerberg has really changed the world for the better. Yes. See, he's one of the good ones.

Yeah. Why, great proof. Proof of the, you know, the capitalist experiment as a success. So this is privatise it with the Zuck. Yeah. I think if we could, I mean, privatize everything. Why not privatize? I mean, wait, you know, we're on the way, privatized government.

Yeah. You know what I mean? We're basically, you know, we're on the way. Yeah. Just go all the way. Yeah. Just have, and you know how expensive elections are? Yeah.

You know what I mean? Let's get that. We could cut the fat right there. Yeah. Save millions. Yeah. Billions. Trillions?

Yeah. Just have Zuckerberg as world president. Yeah. I trust him. He wears a little chain. I trust him. Yeah. So they're just a few examples of the miscarriages of justice, again, from Computer Weekly.

For 15 years after the wrong. roll out of horizon. The post office, which has private investigation and prosecution powers with no need for police involvement, prosecuted more than 700 sub-postmasters for crimes such as theft and false accounting. At no point do you think, maybe where the problem? These people weren't stealing before. They're not master criminals. They're everyday people running very small businesses. Nah, they must all be guilty. They're all stealing from us. That's wild. Computer Weekly continues Hundreds of sub-postmasters were sent to prison

and many more received punishments such as being forced to do community service and having to wear electronic tags. Ugh, yuck. Just like... Community service, ugh. Just imagining that you've gone to jail and you're like, maybe I made an mistake?

I'm not like, I don't think so. I don't remember stealing 25,000 pounds, but maybe. What a nightmare, bizarre sort of feeling. Yeah, if I did make a mistake, do I need to go to prison for it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If I made one little whoopsie, would it have resulted in that much money?

Yeah. Many were given criminal records, were bankrupted, forced to pay back money they didn't know, and shamed in their own communities. Awful stuff. And despite thousands of discrepancies all over the UK, where suddenly previous upstanding citizens,

like I said, were suddenly stealing thousands of pounds from the business, did the post office and Horizon think they could be the problem? Well, probably yes, but that is not how they acted in frankly what is the most unbelievable all part of this wild story, they acted incredibly maliciously and lied through their teeth to their subcontractors when they attempted to point out issues or defend themselves against

incredibly false accusations. One of the ways they did this was they instructed staff in its call centre, which was the first contact point for subpostmasters having problems, to tell callers they were the only ones experiencing problems, making people feel they were the ones at fault and importantly not reaching out to other subpostmasters to create a case against the post office. What the fuck? So you're telling you, you've probably just heard someone else in tears saying that, I've lost 25,000 pounds, I'm not sure what's going on. You say, you're the only one, next call.

I've lost 30,000 pounds, you're the only one. Like, crazy stuff. And let me tell you, call centre workers get paid incredibly well. They're trained really well. They're really made to feel part of the business. So you'd feel good doing that, I reckon. I think that would feel, you'd feel right. Yeah.

Yeah, and I guess they're all having a not whistleblow for this. sustain. Like, it's not sustainable. They must know that it's coming out eventually. Totally. They also use their deep pockets and legal teams to defend against any accusations, taking multiple people to court. Computer Weekly again, right, which I've got to say, it's a perfect article if you want

to know fully about this. Perfect article. Jeez. Not a letter out of place. Wow. The only other thing he's ever said that about is, that's... Your breasts. I'd love that you what Jess was going to say and compare the two comments.

I was, I just think that's where you were going, but which would have, honestly, that was better than what I was going to say. But also, how funny that I'm like, Jess is going to say this funny thing, I better say first. Oh, Jess is going for a joke, better get into it. I'm a real piece of shit. But that would have been a funny thing. How are you a piece of shit? You're saying I have perfect breasts.

Not what Dave said. That's just a nice thing for friends to say to one another. I said they're the perfect article. That's what Dave said. I thought you were also remembering that time. Dave said that. He was taking words out of my mouth. What were you going to say?

It's not really worth it now. Was it about my balls? It was about the perfect article. Matt's balls. I'll extend it to three things. No, I was going to say the substack I wrote about side characters in rom-com. Oh, you've written a substack. Yeah, I've got a substack.

Could your director sort now, please? Yeah, substack. Okay. Forward slash Jess Perkins, probably, or something. I don't know. Link in bio. Okay. Jeez.

Check it out. I've written like three things on there. Really? Maybe four by now. I'm drafting one right now. And you hate subs? I love subs. I hate stacks.

Oh. I get that confused. Stack Marines. Other than stacks on submarines. Oh, submarines. I say what you were doing there. Well, I thought that's, I like stacks on stacks on cash. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Computer Weekly write in their perfect article. Perfect article. Oh, we-wee. You have to get the video on Patreon if you want to get that. Chestlist, it lifted a top. You got to pay extra for that. Computer Weekly right.

It bragged about stopping. So this is like them taking people to court, spending a thousand pounds. It is in Horizon. Bragged about stopping subpostmasters from, quote, jumping on the horizon bashing bandwagon when it silenced them. It also lied to journalists, politicians and anybody else who questioned the robustness of the horizon system.

Computer Weekly then gives an example of some of the legal tactics they employed. For example, if a sub-postmaster being blamed for an unexplained shortfall sought expert IT advice, like a third party, the post office would often back down because they would know that if you look into it, they're being dodgy.

In 2003, when the post office was suing a sub-postmaster, who was blaming Horizon shortfalls at her branch in Lancashire, a judge ordered it to appoint an expert IT witness. When the expert revealed problems with Horizon, the post office paid the sub-postmaster and forced her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. So that's another reason it's not getting out,

because any time someone, like twigs, they go, all right, you can have money, but don't tell anyone. Yeah, yeah, so you're having to go. Just fix the problem. Yeah. I don't understand, just fix the bugs. You know, that guy who found the problems, that IT expert, employ him, you know, the one who the judge a sign?

He's already looked into it. Get his number. He's already looked, he knows the problem. Yeah. Just fix the bugs. That's insane. Like, you're going to have to keep doing this. I mean, I guess the good thing is, if they fixed the bugs,

everyone who was in jail probably would have stayed there, would never have, might not have ever come out. Far out. But Jesus, cross. Speaking of prison, they weren't also afraid to send people to prison to silence them and hopefully deter others from making a similar, Fas. An example of this is Seema Misra, who ran the post office in the village of West Byfleet in Surrey from 2005 until 2008, when she was suspended and then wrongly prosecuted for shortfalls

detected by the Horizon Software. In 2010, after being convicted of theft and false accounting, she was sent to prison when she was eight weeks pregnant. Again from Computer Weekly, after she was convicted, former post office head of criminal law, Jarnal Singh, wrote a celebratory email to colleagues claiming this result would stop others from, quote, jumping on the horizon bashing bandwagon. Oh, she was celebrated sending the pregnant woman a prison? Yeah. Oh, that feels cold.

It is actually, well, I know they have made a TV movie out of this, but if that, if, like, all this evil stuff was fictionalized, you'd be like, that's a bit evil. Yeah, that's a bit, far. All right, we get, you're trying to make a point about corporations being evil, but that's a bit much. Oh, no, this is real. Wow. That's diabolical.

Have I said that multiple times today? I'm going to think I'm going to bring it back a few more. Yeah. Well, there's a few more diabolicals coming up. Great. The most famous sub postmaster who found himself accused of financial discrepancies is Alan Bates, aka Mr Bates, from the title of Mr Bates versus Post Office. Oh, pardon, because I was actually like, oh, not that famous, I haven't heard of him.

Yeah, you have. Oh, yeah. Earlier before, yes. Oh. Oh. Alan Bates was born in Liverpool in 1954. Liverpool. He studied graphic design in Wrexham.

We met and I went and had a beer that time. Well, it's actually, we went down to Raxham after visiting Liverpool. Oh, that wasn't very good. But we went Liverpool to Reksham. That's true. And then we went to, where do we, we ate at like a Nepalese restaurant or something? Oh, yeah, in the town where... It wasn't Nepalese, was it?

Where Charles Darwin is from. Yes, and it's something like Thurn Thistle. Shastis Stuffinson Flanderpan Snickety beep Shnickety beep Shinnity beep Shrewsby Shropshire

Shrewsby, yes Shrewsbury Shrews right Oh great Shropshire Oh wonderful Oh man Monty Franklin

An Aussie comic Who lives in America was on Who Knew it this week He's about my age old as a wind and I brought up an ad

and he could say it word for word and I'm like it is so nice oh I'm so glad somebody could be that for you yeah this is so and he's like oh I know all the ads are like

I'm so sorry you you have to work week after week with these two little whippersnappers yeah because Frankie McNeil was on as well and she's like I don't know any of it no nope nope so in the late 1990s

Bates and his partner, Susan Circum, a special needs teacher. Susan Circum's great now. Susan Circum. I decided on a career change and began looking for a post office branch to run. This is not a good time to do that. I know, but I don't know because there's no press about it. Late 90s is terrible. And there's all these positions opening up, I suppose.

Like regularly. Also, history will be glad that this guy signed up. Okay, great. It was a plan to give them both time to spend on things outside work. In Bates' case, this was walking in the hills for Circum, arts and crafts, all while still working. Nice. Oh my God.

They just, yeah, a bit more work-like balance. Is this one of the more wholesome couple? Oh, wholesome. From what I read about them, beautiful couple. In May 1988. Have you ever said that about me and my husband? My husband. Have you?

Have you? Have you ever said that? I have said that about your breasts. Horsome. I do like how you were. I felt like you were. You did a regret, a regret mid. You know what it was?

It was like, I'll regret if I don't say this, but I will regret it. So much ways on Jess laughing. Please find this one funny too. The perfect article. A wholesome guy. Dave, you're finished. Jess is like, well, you can't say that. There's just a really hard cut in the audio.

And then the rest of the, like, people are watching the video. We're all just kind of, like, very quiet. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Dave's sitting with a minder. That's a kind of suit. So I just said it, and every time you look at anything. No. Sorry.

No, we can't have that. Dave, you were right to say it. You would have regret it if you did it. Exactly. I probably would have messaged you tonight, be like, hey, actually, for the future reference, is it? So, Jess has got us scared. That's the message here.

What a way? Jess has got us so scared. We're walking on eggshells around her. Can we even mention her breasts? Oh, you can't even mention her friend's breasts anymore. What's happened to this? What's happened to this country? I heard a kid say the other day, a kid.

Oh, no. Like a tiny kid. Yeah. Would have been, I don't know, like, somewhere between three and ten. Sure. Yeah, young. And he was down outside this house with unmoed lawns. He says, that's Australia for you these days.

You're kidding. He said, oh, yeah, point of the lawn, that's Australia for you these days. What the fuck? Australia's unmoaned lawns? Yeah, that's where, we go on the dogs. People aren't even mulled their lawns. You can really, can imagine where. what he's hearing.

Yeah. The compose he's hearing. Fuck, that's funny. Like, that's real proper boomer, boomer talk coming out of a time. Like, like, you would have been, you know, knee, oh, probably taught a bit, you know. Yeah. You know, short. Short.

A child. A child. That's insane. Hang, I'm just thinking, was it just a small old man? They do shrink, don't they? Could have been anywhere from four to seven, four to ten or 98. Yes. Yeah, it's one of their nappy ages.

Yeah, but it was a nappy age. All right, so in May 1998, they being Alan, Susan, the beautiful couple. A wholesome couple. A wholesome couple took over the wallpost, a post office and haberdastery shop in Craigie Dunn in Landudno, Wales. I'm sure I'm saying that wrong. Yeah, I think you've nailed every word of that. Craigie Don is one of my favour. So they're crafters, their hill walkers, and their haberdashers.

Yeah. Habitashry is a great word. Amazing word. I don't know if I could explain it. Makes sense that she's into craft and haberdashery. When I worked at a supermarket as a teen, there was a section, you know, like people go, oh, do you have scissors or some sort of thing? I'd say, oh, it's actually, oh, for the haberdashery section.

And I loved when people asked and I got to say haberdashery. Oh, you just find it in the habituary section, which was like, you know, one tiny bay with, a few things of cotton. Habedashry. Habedashery. Oh, yeah, why are you? Sorry, I'm somewhat of a haberdasher myself. I frequent that part of the supermarket often myself.

What are you dashing? I'm having. They invested 65,000 pounds in the post office side of the business. It's a bit of an outlay, but they're thinking it's going to give us more time to do what we love. So when they took it over, it had the manual paper-based system. But of course, this all soon changed when the Horizon Accounting was soon rolled out in 1999 and 2000. Bates was interviewed in The Guardian, which writes, Alan believed it would make life simpler and more efficient.

He said, I thought it was great when it came in. We revamped our premises and built a huge extension. He's like, this is going to make things easier. We're going to be printing money. It was in October 2000 that Bates received the quote, unquote, upgraded system. And by December, the system was showing an unexplained £6,000 shortfall. That's huge. So almost immediately it's going wrong.

He later said, the system was so badly designed you couldn't interrogate it easily. There's another reason that they were able to hide it for so long because you can't just go into the back end and work out what's happened. Yeah, everything's doubled. Like, it would be, if you could see, if there was some sort of way to log in and have a look, you'd be like, oh, there it is, every single thing doubled.

Everything. No, someone came in and bought two of everything. Yeah. Case closed. You owe us 50,000 pounds. Have fun in jail. Every single customer came in, paid for the thing and then said, I'd like to pay for that again.

Again, exactly. Every single customer did. And they paid in cash, because where's the cash? You must have taken it. You crook. You crook. They're pulling up floorboards at all the shots? Where is it?

Where's your money? You drive a Ferrari now, don't you? Not really, no. Not really. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm flustered. Bates complained repeatedly to post office management that the horizon system was unreliable, that its reporting facilities did not allow tracing of events behind shortfalls

and that it was wrong that operators were obliged to make good on shortfalls caused by the software. Over a two-year period, he and your staff made 507 calls to the post-office helpline 85 of which were related to Horizon. So there's obviously a lot of other problems going on in there. Did they have time to start taking paper receipts, you know? Like someone's going to have to do that eventually, I guess, to...

Yeah, so that's what he started doing. So they demand he pay back the shortfall, he refused. So he went through everything manually, account by account, and found more than £5,000 of that money in duplicated transactions, proving to him that there was something very wrong with the system. It wasn't him or his workers or anything. Amazing. He had kept a record of all the inconsistencies in a suspense account and refused to pay back the shortfall.

He wrote to regional offices to explain his problems and never heard back. He continued to refuse to pay in in August 2003. He received a letter from the post office terminating his contract. No reason was given for the termination and he was absolutely flabbergasted. And any attempt for him to try and work, say like, why am I being fired? No. I mean, they have accused him of like being sure. short by a thousand pounds and he refused to pay back he must have an inkling yeah but i guess that

they're not they're clever enough to not put that in writing yeah yeah as uh alan partridge said in one of his books my flabber was gassed it my flabber was absolutely gast it or something i butchered it i've read classic alan i stuffed it so he was given three months notice and he and susan used that time to tell their loyal customers about what was going on and asked them to sign a petition. Alan started a post office victim's website and made a banner with the website that he hung from the front of his shop and he can see photos of it. Because he was certain there were problems with the system, he was confident that others must be experiencing similar things. So his contract was terminated and the 65,000 pounds that he'd paid to the post office to set

up the shop was not paid back. So he's down a lot of money. He later discovered in post office notes that he was referred to as unmanageable. So they're keeping records. about his complaints. Yuck. But if they thought they had got rid of him so easily, they had no idea just how unmanageable this man could become. Yeah, that's basically they're saying, hey, we can't, we can't, like, make things stick with him.

Yeah. He's not going to be one of those guys that we can get money out of and get. We should have to get rid of it. He will fight back. We need him to shut up and go away. Yeah, we just pretend he doesn't exist. Yeah. That seems like a lot of this is them going, kicking the can down the road.

Yeah. It's like, oh, shit, that's weird. Yeah. Ignore it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chuck that in the bin. Have we thought about ignoring? Have we? Yeah. Get the shredder going. It already is. Great. Hit some more letters.

Unlike hundreds of others, probably because of how unmanageably was what we're saying there, he was never charged with theft or false accounting. I think that was scared of him. Right. But he and Susan had lost their business and the future was scary. Yeah. He later told Simon Hattonstone from The Guardian, I thought, how are we going to survive financially and do what we do business-wise? If something's thrown at me, I normally attack the problem. I like problem solving

adding about the post office I was always annoyed with them don't get mad get even in it yes honestly they had crossed the wrong man because he told Simon at the Guardian in 2014

years but this is what the Guardian writes years before the scandal when he had been sold a holiday deal and when he got to the airport he discovered the flights on offer never existed it meant that rather than flying at a respectable time of day they'd have to fly through the night

it was an inconvenience and an annoyance, but little more. Alan said, I took it to the trading standards. That case took five years. The company got fined a couple of thousand pounds, then to recover the cost of the flights we had to go to another court, and they fought it again at that place, but I wouldn't let go of it. And that was just to get back 100 pounds. It was just the principle of it.

So if I was going to be like that for five years over 500 pounds, the post office had no chance. It kind of feels like even if the post office tried to sort of pay him off to shut him up, the principle of it would mean he'd fight them anyway. That's right. They could have offered him 10 million pounds, reckon he would have been like, no. Yeah. No.

Because he knows at this point, he's certainly twigged that they're probably screwing over others as well. Yeah, he's like, I'm going to take these bastards and say now. I asked to describe himself in the garden article. He said, pain in the backside. Describe himself. That's funny, because you know other people will say harsher things. The only thing the post office cared about throughout Bates thought was saving money

in reputation. He added, there were just thugs in suits. All they care about is the bottom line, whether it's the bottom line for the post office or the bottom line for their bonuses. They don't give us stuff about us. So he started fighting back. The website was a big success and led to them discovering that like Alan Bates had thought, they weren't alone. They found out about others bankrupted and convicted. They scraped by financially and Alan basically went full time on managing how to take action against the post office. And Susan did shifts at an after school club and worked as a cleaner to subsidise their campaign. What was the website called?

Did you say that? Post Office Victims, I think it was dot org.uk or something like that. And yeah, unfortunately, I wanted to go on there just because it would have been pretty old school looking, I imagine. Being as old as it is. It's a good get, though. Good, good name. Yeah, they got in. You got to get in quick with those sort of things.

He also went back to school to study more on computer sciences, which later became useful in the campaign, because he's sort of complaining about how the computer stuff is dodgy. Bates campaigned at events such as the National Federation of Sub Postmasters an annual conference. He was approached by more Sub Postmasters who were experiencing similar problems and they formed the Justice for Sub Postmasters Alliance, the JFSA. In 2009, Computer Weekly first featured the story with Ellen Bates and five others' experiences were profiled and from their media slowly picked up about it.

Well, with their JFSA, he decided to set up a meeting in November 2009. Remember, he'd been fired in 2003, so he's already six years in. That's so, that's great. Bates chose the village hall in the Warwickshire village of Fennie Compton as the meeting venue, picking a place in the middle of England at random, being like, oh, that'd be easy for everyone to get to. About 20 to 25 former sub postmasters attended, many bringing partners, I don't know why they said it, and discuss ways to see...

Put-gays in the bowl. Yeah. It was a great night. Tomorrow we get down to business. And then we talk about all this episode. They discuss ways to seek redress from the post office. And at this point, MP, that's a member of parliament, James Arbethnot, James Arbethnot, got involved when his constituent, Joe Hamilton,

that lady who owned the delicatist and that we felt very, very sorry for. Oh, yes. And she'd remortgaged a house to pay the payments. she'd been charged by this point and someone had gotten in contact with him and because she was a member of... Where he represents... He was like, well, this is crazy.

This is a lovely lady. I've got to get involved here. So, James Arpenter... And I love hearing about the times where politicians seem to do that, which... It doesn't feel like it happens as a lot, or at least it's not publicised a lot,

so it's nice to hear. Yeah. He became a major campaigner in Parliament for the sub-postmasters, alongside Labour MP Kevin Jones, whose constituent Tom Brown, a former sub-postmaster in Newcastle, also suffered problems with Horizon. Now, with MPs beginning to raise issues, the government-owned post office was forced to take concerns seriously. In 2012, the post office launched an external review and mediation scheme to look at cases where sub-postmasters were alleging problems.

Back to Car Flinders at Computer Weekly. As a part of this, the post office appointed and paid forensic accountancy company second site to investigate cases. There were fears this would be used to sweep the issue under the carpet. But if this was the post officer's plan, as many suspected, it backfired. It soon became apparent to second sight that the sub-postmasters were not thieves and fraudsters, but hardworking people struggling with the computer system and an organisation that cared for the reputation of that computer system and over the very welfare of its sub-postmaster network. So they started looking into it and they were like, oh, oh, this is bad? Like straight away.

It's not like the horizon or the post system had, like, hidden anything. No, it's just that the sub-postmasters had no access to it to prove it themselves. That's insane. In 2013 Second Site, this who were investigating, produced an interim report that revealed serious concerns about the system. But then in March 2015, on the eve of the second site publishing its report, their work was stopped by the Post Office and the mediation scheme was closed. They were about to report it was possible that there had been many miscarriage. encourages of justice in prosecuting people, and the post office did not want that getting out. So they just pulled the whole thing.

And the report that had taken a couple of years was just scrapped and no one got to read it. Get the shredder going. Which is absolutely crazy that you can do that. The shredder's already going. Great. Great. Here's some more reams for you to chuck into it. We fell over and it fell in the shredder. There was only one copy.

It can happen. So, yeah, that doesn't sound good in itself. So that's really dodgy. So Alan Bates had to find another way to get the truth out there. So he took the post office to court in a group action. The group had 555 claimants in the case called Bates and Others versus Post Office Limited. In November 2018, which is, remember so many years after he'd been let go. 2003, he was let go?

2015 years later. Incredible. The first of four planned trials began with evidence from Bates himself. In December 2019, after two trials, the first examining the contract between the post office and sub-postmasters and the second focused on the horizon system itself, and the post office tried everything to get out of it, even attempting to have the judge, Peter Fraser, recuse himself accusing him of bias. Have you not ever posted before, Judge?

Well, I don't know how you can profess to be a neutral judge in this case. Step down, sir. I'll run you through, sir. And he said, no. So this failed. By the time, Judge Frazier issued a draft judgment on horizon issues, which found the system contained many bugs, errors and defects, the litigants unfortunately had run out of funding

and accepted a settlement of 57.75 million pounds from the post office, which sounds like a lot. Yeah. But after legal costs were deducted, the settlement left only 12 million pounds for the clinic. They spent 45 million pounds in court, which was not enough to provide realistic compensation for many of the people. How are legal costs so much? Jess, once you start looking into legal costs, my wife who started studying law, she said on the first day of law school,

basically one of the things they say to you is never sue anyone. It will ruin you. It will cost too much. Don't do it. What the fuck. Because it just, it costs a phenomenal amount. Anyway, so they only had 12 million pounds left, which is not enough, but the judgment had proved them right.

And this opened the way for a public inquiry, which Alan Bates calls for the, called for the inquiry to be statutory, meaning it would have legal powers to compel witnesses. In the UK, there's two types of inquiries. And the first one, I think if you get called up and it's not statutory, you can say, I'm busy, I'm not coming. But it's a legal requirement for you to turn up. So the post office people can't just say, oh, I'm away or whatever. It's like, no, you have to come back or you'll go to jail.

Because they would try to do that. Oh, sorry, I'm not home. I'm not home right now. Oh, sorry, no. The inquiry was split into seven stages and ran for three years. Fuck. Alan Bates personally gave evidence for it in April 2024. That's last year.

Keeping in mind that he was let go by them in 2003. 20 years. Yeah, no, it's crazy. Love this guy. He's nuts. He's not giving up. The inquiry revealed that the post office had knowledge that the Horizon Software had bugs when rolled out. Prosecution witnesses changing their statements when prompted by the post office, and lawyers hid evidence during trials of subpostmasters because it would have made their prosecutions unsafe. So, dodgy practice after dodgy practice was revealed. Part one of Judge Wynne Williams,

which is such a great name, came out in July this year, 2025. William said, the picture which has emerged and is described in my report is profoundly disturbing. Now, Computer Weekly write about part one of the report. In a 162-page report, he said at least 10,000 people have been impacted to different degrees as a result of the flawed horizon IT system and the post office's response to phantom losses falsely attributed to sub-postmasters. The report revealed that 59 victims have contemplated suicide as a result of their suffering and that although he, quote, cannot make a definitive fine.

that there is a, quote, causal connection between the deaths by suicide of 13 people. He did not rule it out as a, quote, real possibility. Williams reported that 10 of the 59 people that contemplated suicide attempted to do so, some more than on one occasion. Oh, my God. Williams' much more substantial Part 2 report will cover the remaining six phases. It does not have a specific publication date, but will be completed in 2026. So this is still ongoing.

Wow. Just fix the bugs. I know. Just fix the bugs. That's insane. Every new, like a rollout of a whole new system is going to have issues. Of course it is. Yeah.

And at the first sign of issues, people are going to go, hey, there's an issue here. And you go, oh, yeah, there is. We'll fix that. And they go, thanks. Yeah, no, it's, but, you know, we'll iron it out. Yeah. You know, like, what, just fix the fucking bugs. Yeah.

That's insane. They just double down at every turn. Oh, but just like you say about, just kick the can down the road like that. And the problem just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah, and not even just like, blind. It's not even just, like, blindly defensive, just, like, being cruel and malicious and evil about it. It's so evil. Oh, my God.

Dare I say, diabolical? Yeah. It's like Disney villain evil. Yeah. Like, it's, like, over the top, mustache twirling stuff. Yeah, mua. Yeah. And you're like, okay, man.

Jesus Christ, these are people. These are nice people who are just, like, running a cute little business. Yeah. These Dalmatians deserve to see adult dog life. Agreed. You know what I mean? I do know what you mean. You're talking about Bambi?

Yeah. In total, there are now four schemes for different groups of victims, the overturned conviction scheme for those who were convicted, the Horizon Shortfall scheme for those who suffered losses but were not convicted, and the Geo Lo scheme for those who took part in the group litigation with Alan Bates, because so much of their compensation was eaten up by legal costs, the GLO, the Group Litigation Order scheme, was set up to ensure they received extra money to reflect the gravity of their situation. So they will end up getting more money than that.

and just the 12 million pounds, they had to split between 500. Yeah. The scheme is funded and managed by the government. As of the 11th of January, 2024, approximately 153,000 pounds had been paid to over 2,700 claimants across the three schemes, with 64% of all those affected by the scandal having received full and final compensation. But that's only two-thirds. There's still a lot missing.

What was the total, sorry? 153 million pounds. But that's only a drop in the ocean because the most recent figure I could find was from a BBC article in July 2025, which states a total of 1.098 billion pounds has been awarded to just over 7,900 subpostmasters across all four redress schemes. There's a fourth one now. The latest monthly figures showed that was in July. But because it took so long, many people died whilst waiting for any compensation at all. It's been like 20 years. 20 years. A lot of people and their families have since been told that they can apply for compensation in their place.

But I think that's ongoing as well. Man, that's just something a family carries forever. that this business because they try to extend their business a little bit Yeah and it's but not even in like a really greedy way Do you know what I mean? It's not like they really took a big gamble

Or did something really reckless And now the family's paying for To go for more walks in the hill Yeah Like most of these shops are like super wholesome stuff Yeah yeah It's just adding it oh we'll add a little What a dream, we'll add a little post office

To our to our delicatia Be fun we can help send Christmas presents and stuff Yeah exactly Spreading joy around the world And even if they are like It'll make us more money that's business, that's how it should work. And in a way that, you know, the post office, people need posts.

Exactly. It's not a thing that is evil in any way, but it's become so evil. It's a necessary service. Fuck, that's insane. In January of 2024, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak referred to the scandal as, quote, one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation's history. And honestly, the scandal is widely considered to be the most widespread miscarriage of justice in UK history. I had no idea about any of this.

Oh, I didn't really either. Okay, that makes me feel better because you're smarter than me. No, I only knew about it because Jason and my dad were like, you're going to look into this thing. This TV show is amazing. They're talking internally, I'm guessing, because there's some big miscarriages of justice that they did externally.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Internally, to ourselves. Later in the year, the government introduced a new law that overturned all convictions linked to the scandal resulting in hundreds of more people being becoming eligible for redress. Wow. For those people whose convictions were overturned by the new legislation, they can register for the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme.

I think that's the fourth scheme. Okay. And they were offered they could take a, this is if you've been to jail, you can take a fast-track 600,000-pound settlement or enter into, or into, into negotiations if you want more. Go straight to jail. Yeah. But only the opposite, I guess.

Go straight to not jail and money. Go straight to home. Go straight to home. Or wherever you want. to go because you're not in jail now. I'm not your boss. Am I your boss? And you wouldn't want me to be.

I was really bad at it if I'm still the post office guy, which I won't be. I assume I've lost my job. Surely. Surely a lot. Do you have anything on that? Like the decision makers and the... Well, I'll get to that, but one insane sentence that I have to read out is as of

2025, the post office continue to use the horizon system. Although they state there have been several reversions of the system and they have continued to make improvements to it. But they still use it. Oh, my God. Answer you to your question, Matt. As for those responsible for the wrongful convictions, no one has been convicted yet,

but investigations are still ongoing. In June this year, the Guardian reported the criminal inquiry is investigating more than 45 individuals with seven formally identified as main suspects. What about the asshole who sent the email celebrating a pregnant woman going to prison? Like, just chuck them in jail.

It's great. I mean, so you've got their name, right? Let's go get them. That's a public. I imagine there's seven. at the least face some backlash. Yes. How about our main man, Alan Bates?

Call him by his full name. Master Bates. Master Bates. Let's finish with some good news on this story of lives being ruined. Well, he shot to nationwide fame when he was the main character in the four-part dramatization, Mr Bates, versus the post office. Is he played by Colin Farrell? He was portrayed by Toby Jones.

Oh, his name's like Connell. He's a name you... I reckon a face you would recognize. He voices Dobby in Harry Potter. Oh. Oh, no, Mrs. Is that him? But he's going, ow!

He's a real character actor. I'm Dobby. He sets up on that. Is he praised Dobby? Can you show me Dobby? Toby Jones? Toby Jones. Oh, yeah.

He's like a Nazi in MCU. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's in a lot of stuff. And he plays... Had a great career. Him and Philip C. Seymour Hoffman played the same writer about the same time, the Intrue blood guy. In true blood?

Trimmed Coppody. Yeah. In cold blood. In cold blood. I think he played Capote. He was the other one. Well, Philip Simov won the Oscar, but anyway. And, you know, the Ants, like his life sort of thing.

Yes, yes, yes. Well, he shot to Nationwide Fame because the show was a critical hit, and each episode was watched by 13 million people in the UK, bringing his story to the mainstream, and bring the whole story to the mainstream. It aired on Channel 7 here, and that's when my friend Jason and Dad saw it. For his tireless campaigning for justice in early 2024,

Alan Bates was offered the honour of an OBE, appointment as officer of the Order of the British Empire. But he declined because Paula Vennels, a former CEO of Post Office Limited, was still a member of the Order. Wow. Any club that wants them in it, you know, like they're saying, only slightly different.

Yeah. And she was the CEO and a big part of this part. And he said that should be taken off her. Well, Vennel's honour was formally revoked in 2024 for, quote, bringing the honour's system into disrepute, and Alan Bates subsequently accepted the offer of a knighthood, meaning he is now Sir Alan Bates.

And he said, this is not just for me, it's for everyone. Like, I've been the face of this, but like, this affected so many people. Sir Master Bates. He's like such a legend. No, it doesn't really work. I don't need to put the master in anymore. In fact, was there ever a master? It was probably Mr.

Hmm, makes you think. And just finally. in September 2024, Alan Bates and Susan got married after 34 years together. The ceremony took place on Richard Branson's private Nekker Island in the Caribbean and was officiated by Richard Branson himself. A few years earlier, Alan had said in an interview that the couple had only had a couple of camping holidays in 20 years. He said, quote, at the end he said, offhand, I wouldn't mind a holiday of Richard Branson

fancy throwing one hour way. And after that, Branson got in touch and invited them to Nekar Island, where Alan proposed and they quickly got married. That's pretty fun. That's so nice. That rules. Oh, that's a nice sort of happy ending. It works it really hard.

A billionaire comes in at the end and saves the day. Yes. Where would we be with Adam? Thank you, billionaires. Yes. I think a lot of, like, the prime ministers and that are just millionaires. I know ours is only a multi-millionaire. Yeah.

Embarrassing. Come on. I think the same, like, our English ones are often that way. So if we could get the billionaires in, I think then we'll have leadership. Yes You know, tell us what to do, Daddy, that sort of stuff Yeah, we'll call you Daddy if you want If you want, even if you don't want

If you're a billionaire, I'll call you daddy I'll call you whatever you want to be going Dave, fantastic report What a story It's so wild It just gets crazy and crazy You're like, they just got more and more evil basically Yeah, you're right, Disney villain level

So, I mean, yeah, you took us to a really dark place But I love how it ended Yes I mean, we of course have to forget about all the people who died without seeing justice Exactly right It's horrific Yeah

Awful and but yeah I'm glad it had a bit of light at the end It's that thing of like Like we were saying you can see how awful humans can be And then there's also just that Richard Branson At the end really covered in the same as a day Thanks Richard Branson And also the like the criminal stuff like we said is ongoing

So who knows well watch this space to see if anyone actually is ever brought to justice On the other side You did have an idea that we could try doing some old episodes with listen to them and recap and maybe this is... Oh yeah, that's right. In a couple of years, this might be.

10 years time, this story will be ongoing. Oh, Dave, that was a fantastic report. It's now a couple days later. Jess has left the building. She's home sick. Pray for Bob. But she's fine.

She's fine. Yeah, she's fine. I want to make that clear. So fine. Yeah, she's so fine. She's so fine. I'm in a singing mood today. I'm going to try.

try and I'm going to try and repress that feeling just before we started recording I was awfully singing some classics Matt's your poochers are classics you were singing a real big fish song

which is a scar band that you did not know any of the words just some of the sounds that were vaguely making and then you said that next time next time at karaoke we should just do

SCAR songs and then you said a SCAR themed karaoke SCARIO let's make it Let's make it happen. I don't know. I think it could be a really great idea.

Oh, no, no, no, no. Stop me right there. I'll stop you right there. You can't. You either sing or you do your trump. You get to pick one. Okay. I sing badly or I trump badly.

Okay. Well, I'll try not to do either. But, yeah. So, yeah, there's a couple of days later if you're watching the video, I have teleported out of the studio to Canberra, because we're doing our live show up here tomorrow night. time of recording. So that's why I'm in a completely different location suddenly on the video.

And I, yeah, I'm on my lonesome. I'm my lonesome tonight. Bring Trump back. Are you lonesome tonight? Yeah. I just, oh, Dave, how's this for a, I mean, is this an interesting anecdote? This is the last thing that happened to me before I came in. I went to get my bike checked up, because it's been just sitting idle for six months, probably.

After I briefly get into it, and then the smallest hiccup, like, tires that are going down flat too quick, and the gear's sort of being very clunky. I'm like, I've got to take, I've got to get this looked at. Six months go by before I. But anyway, I took it in this guy. He's a European man. Can't be more specific than that. and he um he's from europe i believe he's from europe based on his accent maybe french or italian or

something like that and um he took the bike i said i'd love you to have a look at it he'd had a look at it before and i liked his vibe and he goes i'll take it for a quick ride i'll pump up the tires take it out for a quick ride because i'm like i think the inner tubes might be i might have knacked them somehow by like pumping it to i thought my theory and i don't know anything about bikes My theory was that I'd pumped it up too hard or something. Yeah, that's your style that you always pumped too. I got a heavy pump. So I thought maybe that I'd like, I'd wrecked the join between the little knob

that you pump air into and the inner tube itself. He goes, I'll pump it up and take it out for a quick ride. And he comes back in and he goes, it's like a Swiss watch. and I'm like, I guess he meant Swiss cheese. That's what my head goes. I guess he meant Swiss cheese. I'm like, oh, lots of holes.

And he said, no, no, it's perfect. Running like a Swiss watch. It's running perfect. Like, oh, okay. Well, I might have just sounded insane. Lots of holes? You know, like a Swiss watch. Like a Swiss watch.

Did you recover, do you think, or not? You can't go back. I don't think I recovered, but I did show him my workings out. I said, oh, I thought you said Swiss cheese, lots of holes. And there was another guy in there as well, and they're both like real bike guys. This guy came in who was like a unit, you know the bike riders, but he had huge biceps as well, just a tank. And it was lovely, because I'm like, I was like real noob energy going, that pump you pumped up the tires with. that looks great. Can I get one? So I'm getting one of those. And I'm like, so when do I have to

pump it up? Because he goes, oh, every few, you got to pump them up regularly. I'm like, I did not know that. I thought you just, I thought if they've got a hole in it, you pump them up. And if they don't, you know what I mean? But, and the other guy goes, whenever you feel like you're getting unfit, that's when they need to be pumped up because they've got a bit flat. It's hard to work. I'm like, that is a good tip. Huge, huge muscle. man thank you so much was the huge muscle man there when you said your theory was that you pumped it up too hard no i don't think you i don't think he was i think you walked it up there he would have been laughing at that this little run but you think you could pump too hard do

why yeah i'm not not in a way that i'm like oh oh pump it's hard more like i don't know when to stop pump you know what i mean i'm like like a guy who knows what he's doing he'd go oh this is when you stop, I'm like, I'll keep going until I can't pump anymore. And maybe that's overpumped. But also maybe a bit reckless. So the bit, you know, that little, the knoblet maybe, you know, comes, comes loose at where it's, uh, it's been joined. Anyway, because it got, this would be fun to listen to. I know we've got some cyclists, uh, listeners who will be having a lot of fun with this, just absolutely tearing their hair out. But, uh, you're on the buck right now. I've just They're like, I don't want to live like this anymore.

They're ripping their buds out of their ears. Yeah, it's quicker just to go off the road than to rip the butts out. Yeah, they're stacking in a way that they go like iPod first. They want the iPod to hit, hit the bitumen before they do just to smash it for a little sweet relief. All right, so this part of the show, Dave, we think. thank some of our great Patreon supporters. These are the people, without them, the show ceases to exist. Exactly.

We're so lucky to have them. We appreciate them so much. That's why we dedicate something like half an hour, give or take at the end of each episode to... You ever take one bike anecdote? Show them some love. That bike anecdote was dedicated to the Patrions. I liked it. I did enjoy it.

Swiss cheese. I just, I'm like, you know what? When you're also like, oh, English is it, it can be a tricky language. I think you meant Swiss cheese. Like you're being, you don't mean to be, but you're being a little bit patronising. It's like, no, no, you're wrong. Yeah, we, if you want to be involved in this, sign up on any level of our Patreon.com slash do go on pod. I say any level, because, yeah, if you read it up, each level's got different rewards.

uh like you can start with the rooknama rooknama and that gets you some you get to vote for some topics uh and that's about it on and you get into the facebook group so you get to hear about uh all the deals and that sort of stuff then you go up to the next level which is the ars prod level that is you get all all the rooknamas stuff plus shout out abilities and the uh christmas card each year go up another level to the uh dreamboat cooper level you can now you can add everything you got plus add free feed over something like 300 maybe bonus episodes closing in i think yep you also get the video uh episodes now uh and um there might be someone else there and then you go up another level to the sydney schanberg level you get all that plus uh also you get to be involved

in the fat quote or question section which is this very section we're about to do now I actually think it has a jingle, which I'm going to warm up the pipes. I'm in a singing mood, so I think I've got this. I think the jingle is something like this. Widget the World Watcher. No, that's not right. Dave, can you guys? Well, I haven't been warming up the pipes like you with a real big fish, but here we go.

Fact quote or question. The SCAR edition. The SCAR ding. I always remember the thing. He always remembers the SCAR ding. I always remember the SCAT. Sorry, the SCAT. Yes.

We could be scarring the scatting. And, you know, the patrons who are watching the video feed will see me scatting right now. Skanking. Sorry, skanking. So, oh, you are sitting down. I am sitting down, yeah. It's all happening below the table. A seated skank.

Now, Dave, this part of the show, how does it work? Remind me again. So these people, they write in a factor, quote, a question. Sometimes it's a brag, a suggestion, a recipe, it's anything they want. We absolutely open it up. They also give themselves a nickname, and I believe you've got two or three this week. Is that right? Yes, I've got two.

I had three. but I've dropped the third one off because it was very Jess-specific. I see. So I thought, you know, we'll save that for Jess's ears. Now, the first one this week comes from Katie May Westgate, who I saw a few times on my recent UK tour. Always a pleasure to catch up with Katie May. And Katie's nickname or title is, honestly, my hotel is just a short walk away.

sorry Matt now who was I think it was me Saraj who's the international man of mystery of the patrons

and Gary J from the UK and it was after a show I can't remember which city we were in but

we're all saying different hotels and you know I was late at night Katie was walking back to her hotel she said

oh your mind's just a little further up so like oh we'll walk you, shivery's not dead, no worries. Or, you know, whatever. We're just, you know, walking each other home. And, yeah, the walk was so long. They just kept going.

We kept torn and turning corners. It was like a 40-minute walk or something. And you had to go back the other way. I had to go back, yeah. An absolute pleasure, Katie. But, yeah, it was so funny. She's just like, yeah. It's just around another corner,

Just another, it's just a little bit, hang on, a little bit further. That sounds a little bit like she was trying to lose you, maybe. Yeah, which she could have easily done by saying, no, I'm good. I'm good, I'm good. That is very true, though. Maybe, yeah, maybe it was just politely trying to lose us. Anyway, I got my steps up. I think that I don't really track, but still, you know, I don't, well done.

The steps don't go away. Does a, yeah, a watch clock never. Is that right? Swiss cheese. Oh, Swiss cheese, thank you. Now, Katie has a suggestion writing, as the number one episode of Block 2026 falls on my birthday, I love that you're looking ahead.

I'm proposing that it gets retitled the Katie May golden blocktacular, flocacular episode in honor of my 50th birthday. Oh, okay, that's a big one. Holy shit. I'm not good with ages I would have guessed Katie was like I don't know

younger than 49 anyway but I would have said somewhere between 30 and 45 I reckon that's about as narrow as I can get and I would have been wrong even then You got a 15 new window and you're wrong So Katie says If this is agreed on

fellow patrons should know my favorite episodes are ones where Matt speaks French. My other suggestion is that you should come to Norwich next time you're over. See you soon. Uh-huh. Uh-huh, Norwich. I would love, I would love to. I'm so deep in Alan Partridge right now. I watch the new series.

I'm listening to the books at night. and I'm also up to, I'm going from the start and I'm up to season two of I'm Alan Partridge where he's living in a caravan, which I thought I'd seen, I haven't seen this season before. You got to the James Bond one yet? No. It's so good. But wouldn't it, it would be so great to go to Norwich. They should if they don't have a statue of him there.

They got who, they got her. He's a legend. He is a legend. Is the new TV series? Is that Mid-Morning Matters or is there something else? No, it's a new one. I think the last one before this one was where he was hosting a, like, a BBC show again. He sort of co-hosted because, you know.

Oh, yes, sorry, that's what I'm thinking of when I said mid-morning matters. Oh, right. What's that called again? Yeah. I'm blanking. Basically, it's a breakfast show. Yeah, yeah, like a TV show, yeah. That's what I thought.

So it's not a new series of that's another one again. No, it's a new one just out like last month. And he's exploring mental health. What better man? Because there was an incident where he collapsed in the lap of someone he was interviewing. And they show it again and again in slow motion, which is a bit of fun. Anyway, got to be one of the great comedy characters all time. That is so great.

I think he might be number one. Roy in HG right up there. Absolutely. So anyway, what am I talking about? Oh, yes, we should go to Norwich. I'd love to go to Norwich. Yes. I would absolutely love it.

Even though he's like, he's from Manchester right, isn't he? Steve Coogan himself. Definitely we've come across when we've been in Manchester a few times, places that he performed at when he was coming up. Yeah. But yeah, that's pretty much all I know about Norwich's is him, but I would love to go. Is the travel tavern real, for instance, that we could stay there? Like, you'd be smart to cash in on that, wouldn't you? Yeah, actually stay there, go to the BP.

Yeah, oh my God. No, Michael. Michael, who died in the book? He refers to, I haven't got up to the bit where he dies, but. He keeps going on about, luckily, no one was injured. Apart from Michael, who died? Michael the Jordy. My fact about that guy is the actor that plays Michael.

He also voices the, you know, those meerkats compare the market that were massive. He's like Sergei, the voice of those guys. He's really good at a voice actor. So is he not actually a Jordy? No, I don't think so at all. he's bloody hell it's good he had me convinced um so thank you katie i didn't realize you're from norwich unless i did then i'd and then i'd remember it well now next up from or not from i'm not doing great dave next up you're doing great thank you so much there's only one

more next up is lauren joiner aka it's a birthday girl what this is another birthday related I'm taking a real swing here. My birthday is on a pod release day this year and I think I'm timing it just right to land my fat quota question on my birthday. Lauren, I really hope so. I've got the calendar open. You let me know if it's listed there and I'll see if this is timed outright. All right. So, so far Lauren hasn't told us what a birthday is, but anyway, Lauren has a question writing. While I do have a question, I'm going to start with a brag. I recently got the wordle in one after using the same starting word since pretty much the game's inception. I posted in the nicest corner of the internet as soon as it happened and I'm still talking about it

because I will ride this high forever. Being an American in this day and age means I have to hold on to any little thread of joy I get. Anyway, now for my question, what is your starting word in wordal? And if you're not a wordler, that sounds dirty. Are there any other similar games you play and or recommend? My starting word was always ideal because I liked that I could get three vows out of the way. Now I've switched to Least. I also love the New York Times crossword, and I'll throw another brag in. My fastest solved time was four minutes and 42 seconds.

It was a Monday puzzle, but still, I did it in under five. I love all the New York Times puzzles with word all the crossword and connections being my faves. Happy puzzling. Is that a word? it is now well I'm as Dave well knows I'm all over

he's deep he's deep in I do yeah I don't do all of them but I do most of the the New York Times games I love the crossword I reckon I wonder what my record is I got a Monday one

like I reckon under five a while back I couldn't believe it I just you know I just flowed out of me. But Pips is a new one, which I really like. It's like a little domino's sort of puzzle. Is it from New York Times? From New York Times as well, yeah. The Wurdle's great. So this I do in the morning with a cup of L-Gray tea, I normally do the Wurdle, then the connections,

then the strands, then the mini, and then of an evening, I normally do the Pips and the crossword. And then if, you know, if I'm really desperate for a hit, I'll do the letterboxed. Tiles is almost more like a meditation. I don't do that a lot, but I'll do that occasionally. And I never got into Sudoku. Mainly I do these stuff for a relax, you know, relax in my mind. It's Sudoku does the opposite. It really frustrates you at.

Frustrates me, yeah. And the spelling bee I'll occasionally do, but very occasionally. Occasionally. I did it a couple weeks ago. I got to Genius. I haven't done it since. They're going to retire on top. Yeah, exactly. And then I'll do a waffle as well. Have you done a waffle? I don't know a waffle. Waffle's like another, it's like a word puzzle where you switch letters around. You get a certain amount of goes. Oh, I switches. And then, Dave, you got me on to the Saturday quiz as well, which I do. Oh, yeah, there's an Australian one called Saturday Quiz Time, which is every Saturday. they email out a quiz you have to sign up for it and it's free to sign up but they've also

they're experimenting with like a geography game I like the yeah it's like a wear in the world sort of thing yes the list one you get like eight things it's like here are eight James Bond movies put them in order yeah I like that's that's fun yeah I'm right in I'm right into that as well um and I like that it's weekly and I like a lot of these they're all limited. Like I'll, I'd burn out on a, and I have before on apps where it's like you can play it as much as you like. Ah. Like the Yatsy app. Yeah, you went deep on Yatsy. I went deep on Yatsi. Spelled slightly different from Yatzi, I guess, for some sort of copyright reasons. But yeah, I don't have a starting word on wordle. I, yeah, I think it would be come too monotonous

for me like that. So I like to, I just freeball it. I try and do a different word every time. Okay. Have you ever got it in one? I have not, no. But annoyingly, my stats,

man, this is going to be a tedious conversation for people who don't give a shit about this sort of stuff, which I would assume is the majority of people. But the people who really care, really care. So let's give them that time. Yeah, my stats say that I have got one, but I think what happened was that there was like it failed and I just wanted and I obviously yeah I must have just plugged it back in or something

but yeah there was some sort of glitch which says that I got one in one would I never ever actually have um but I also I used to do it I used to try and get it as quick as I can and I'm more like I just want to get it by the end it's a morning relaxation thing yeah not to make it too competitive or whatever. I like that I don't have a stopwatch on it like some of the other ones do as well. Yes. One that does have a stopwatch that we got into for a while last year, Matt, was the Britannica quiz, the tightrope.

Oh, yeah. I used to have that as part of my morning one as well. But I think because it's in a different app, it's easier to forget about. I did like that one as well. You'd find some good facts out doing that. Yeah, I feel like probably because we use Britannica. I thinker as a source quite a bit, like, you know, there's always at least one do go on sort of topic reference to them.

Yeah, and it's multiple choice, I think. Yeah, multiple choice and timed, and the quicker you go, the higher your points are. So there is that pressure of trying to think quick. Miss three, you fall. It's like you're trying to walk the tight rope across. Yeah, and I think it gets harder throughout the week. So Monday is the easiest, and by the end of the week, it's quite difficult. Oh, I didn't realize that.

Which is, yeah, that's similar with the crossword, which I like. I think it was someone in the Patreon group who mentioned that they really like the Thursday crosswords. And I hadn't picked up the, like, the cycle, but the Thursdays is normally more of a, like, a hidden sort of wordplay-ish kind of theme in it or something. Which is, yeah, they've been pretty far. Like, because I was like, oh, these are weird. I don't understand these. And now that I understand what's happening a little bit more, they're more fun. Um, thank you so much, uh, for opening up, uh, an opportunity for me to talk about my deep dark, deep dark secret.

I am a puzzler. Uh, Lauren and Katie, great messages. And happy birthday to you both. Um, um, whether or not this, this episode comes out on the 5th of November. So I really hoping, remember, remember that that lines up for you. Oh my God. And if it is, it's so close to our birthday, which is the 11th of November. so soon next week we're turning 10 everyone 10 years next week it is wild to think about uh you know that if we were a person we'd be we'd be in school by now oh yeah we're almost old enough to be doing the level of reports that we do don't say that uh yeah by the time we're like 22 we really need to be up to, you know, like, PhD level, I suppose.

All right, we'll work on it. We'll start improving now. We've flatlined for a long time, but we've really got to get better now. I feel like we've improved, I would like to think. All right, thank you so much to Lauren and Katie. Now, the next thing we do is shout out to a few of other great supporters. Jess normally comes up with the game. Dave, do you want to come up with the game for today?

Well, obviously it was about the Postal Service and it was pretty grim going for a fair bit of the episode. A lot of people's lives being ruined. But what do I sort of keep it tied, but a bit more jovial with like, they're delivering a package. They're in the post. What are they delivering? Oh, okay. So it's, yeah, you're shaking the box. What are you opening up? Do you, do you want to do names or objects? I feel like I could just freeball. If you want to do names and places, I can do objects. Oh, great. Okay, here we go. I'm going to blank my mind. I'm going to open the package in my mind. Yeah. And I'll just say what I see. Okay.

Okay. All right. You blank? Well, yeah, that happened quite quickly, yep. Yeah. First up from a location that is unknown to us. So they're probably deeper than the fortress of the malls listening right now. It is Cameron Joe.

A toy giraffe. Oh, a toy giraffe. A toy giraffe. A toy. That's moving. I know, it's a miniature giraffe. Oh, mini. How small is it?

Well, it's small than a human. So small than a baby giraffe, I guess. You know, probably about up to, you know, knee-hot. Okay, take that. Yeah. Cameron, good luck raising your giraffe. Yeah, I don't know if it's fully grown. Maybe it's like one of those teacup pigs.

It ends up being huge. Next up I would like to thank from Gothenburg in Sweden. Hello, and thank you to Natalie Alt. Natalie Alt Natalie Alt It's a It's a really big ice block Is it melting?

It is like it's got it's got a You know that sort of wet sheen on it It's not fully melting But it's definitely It's touched the temperature It's touched the temperature Lower than itself If you know what I mean

So there's a bit of a wet sheen on top So hopefully Yeah They like to do a bit of ice sculpture because I think it's, it's primed ready to go. Oh, thank you very much. Natalie, next up I'd like to thank from Seattle in Washington. Hello, and thank you to Zane Franklin.

It's a pizza pie. Is it warm? Yeah, it's hot. I think it's, yeah, it's just, she just had a pizza delivered, Zane. So enjoy. Hopefully that was expected. Enjoy that piece of pie. But if not, what a great surprise.

Yeah, I like how Americans call them pizza pie. Pies as well. Me too, but it's a bit confusing for someone who loves a pie. Yeah, I mean, they're not pies. I think we can agree on it. I don't think this is one of the rare circumstances where we've got it wrong. I think we're pretty spot on with language over here. We know.

Yeah, I think we know what we're talking about. Come on. A pizza pie. I love pizza pie. That's an idea. Enjoy your pizza pie. Next time, I'd like to thank from Portland in Oregon. Hello, Ray.

Bradley. Ray Bradley, opening up the box. Oh, there's a lot of those sort of foam, what do you call it? Like peanut foam things. What's in here? Oh, okay. You're sifting. It's a, it is a beautiful glass world globe.

Wow. Yeah, just pure glass, but you can see all the countries and continents on it. Beautiful, I guess it's some sort of. of a mahogany base. Oh, this is a beautiful piece. Those little peanut things have done their job of broken. Yeah, it's unbroken. It is perfect.

Thank you, peanuts. Thank you, Ray. Next up I'd like to thank from Spanaway. Also, we're back to Washington. It's Tim La Fuente. Dave, am I right? I'm thinking that we're all up in the Pacific Northwest, the last few people. So far.

And I don't know if this is, this has entered my, my mind because I'm saying it's a toy bigfoot like a you know fluffy toy bigfoot you know what mean yeah beautiful this is like high quality stuff the craftmanship oh top level this ain't cheap no this is this is top of the line style I think this is handmade yeah this is custom actually I'm just reading the label it says made from real bigfoot fur. Whoa. Tim La Fuente.

Wow. Is that their name? Yeah, Tim La Fuente. That might be one of the best names I've ever heard in my life. La Fuente. Tim La Fuente. Like, yeah, Tim is, you know, no offense. Tony Tim's out there.

It's in the exact same world of Matt. Very dull. Yeah, but really punched it up with La Fuente. But it's like a perfect name to lead into La Fuente. Tim La Fuente. Holy shit. I think you could do too much with it. It was like, Eduardo Lefonte, it would be like,

all right, tone it down a bit, mate. Yeah, that's too much. Yeah, but Tim Lefonte, holy shit. That is fantastic. Are we going to stay up in Bigfoot Country now, Dave? Well, I mean, it's a different part of Bigfoot Country, but I'm sure there's sightings in Birmingham, Alaska. Ooh, Birmingham, Alaska.

And that is a big hello and thank you to Carol Fisher. Carol Fisher. Oh my God, my mind is very easily swayed because all of a sudden, it switched into a goldfish bowl. As soon as you said the name. Oh, okay. With living fish inside. Beautiful. It's like a big round one, but the front and back are flat. You know what I mean? So it's like a round on the sides, the fish bowl. and then flat, big, beautiful bit of glassware. One of it was made by the same people who made the globe. You're deep in glass territory today. Hey, I reckon I'm going to take you to possibly another bigfoot country over in Canada in Saskatoon.

Hello and thank you to Michael Heary. Whoa. I don't know this for sure, but Saskatoon feels like they're, do they call them Sasquatches there? It just feels right. Feels right Saskatoon I think it's one of the great city names All time

Yeah one of the best What was the person's name? Michael Heary Michael Heary Oh my goodness I've opened up the box It is a gavel and wig You know like judge's wig

Oh wow I don't know if he's just been accepted Into the judge judge society or or maybe I love that and also like you get the wig

and the gavel on the same time and can I just say the craftmanship on these products is exquisite is exquisite is the

the gavel made of glass I think well actually you know what it's a closer look at it now yes I think it is a glass gavel and it's

a horsehair wig. Oh, okay. Horse hair. That sounds itchy. Yeah, they look itchy, those judge wigs. Yeah, they do. Do they still wear those wigs in Australia? Oh, yeah.

Yeah? Oh, yeah. How strange. It's ridiculous. Michael Good on you. And finally, from Middletown in Pennsylvania. Mm-hmm. It's Travis Crane.

Okay. It's a Tonka truck Again, where did you get that? I think the crane maybe Might have Yeah Did Tonka trucks make cranes? Yeah, they would

They'd have a crane Surely I remember my cousin when he was little And he was like a real country boy And he would have been You know, hardly talking And I said, oh, that's a great, great digger. He had like a tonker truck.

And he goes, it's an excavator. It rings through my head of it. It's an excavator. All right, man, I'm sorry. Fucking, Jesus Christ. How dare you? Thank you so much to Travis, Michael, Carol, Tim, Ray, Maureen, Zane, Natalie, and Cameron, Tim La Fuente.

What a batch of names, by the way. All fantastic. Beautiful names. Can't speak highly enough of them. Now the last thing, I believe, that we need to do is welcome some people in our triptage club. Dave, you explained this so well. Couldn't explain it better if I tried. Well, I'm going to give it a crack.

It's our Hall of Fame, our clubhouse, where people have been on the shout-out level or above for three consecutive years. They've had a shout-out earlier, but they've never dropped off since. And to, in trying them forever, we'd like to welcome them. into our clubhouse put their name up on the ledger once you're in you can't leave but why would you want to because we've got everything you want and all need food drink entertainment there's a new street fighter machine and it is freaking awesome really they still make a new updates or just like a new one with the classic game yes a new one for us oh my god this should say yeah that's right still classic still classic who are you who are you picking for probably

Zangief. Love that big guy. Love that big guy. Have you picked it? You got a guy? I reckon when I was a kid and I don't think it would be the same anymore, but I like, there was a guy with like a blonde flat top. Who was that guy?

Gile. Gile. Was he like one of the big ones? I think at the time I thought flat top haircuts were sick. He's like the leader of the goodies. All right. So it's a real, that's a real lame choice. Well, I mean, the most famous ones are Raiu and Ken.

Ken. Ken, he's the American guy with the long blonde hair. And then the bad guys, M. Bison, which is a freaking great name. Yeah, wow. Oh, is it, there's the lady with the blue dress. She'd do, like, twists and, like, spins and stuff. Oh, is that Chun Li? Chun Li.

And then the guy looks like a troll doll was pretty sick. He was a pretty famous one. yeah i've gone blank on his name he's electric is it got it there what's his name uh all right let's have a look here i also like the uh the sumo looking guy e honda with his very fast hands e honda e honda is very cool there are so many characters um uh i'm typing i'm typing i'm typing Blanker, by the looks of it. Blanker. It doesn't ring a bell.

I thought I was going to... No, it's Blanker. Yes, it is Blanker. I blanked. I can't believe it. Yeah, Gile, he was a very... That name comes easily. But where would you have played this?

I probably only played it a handful of times at a, you know, at like a time zone or something. Ballrod. That's cool. Oh, yeah, Bell Rock. He's on the boxing guy. Yeah, I played a bunch at my friend growing up Nick's house. he had a Super Nintendo with Street Fighter 2 on it and we were so into it.

So good. So who was the guy I said with the blonde flat top? Gile. Gile, yes. That definitely, what a hack, sure. Oh, he's like Mr. America. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's the main character in the Street Fighter film, if you ever saw that.

Oh, I didn't. Is that with Calammono? Carl Mnoke and Jean-Claude Van Tav. Jean-He plays him. He plays the American. He's got in the, on the wiki page, the picture. of him he's got a stars and stripes tattoo on his on his arm that's why you went for him and he's wearing like camo pants and a green tank top oh man that's great yeah how do we even get

on to this oh this street fight this new street fighter two arcade machine in the trip ditch club uh shotgun zangev but you can have any other character yeah i'm i'm going uh what's the one i said gyle no no gole's i'm i'm i'm chanley oh chanley oh yes Chun Lee, please. Chun Lee's kicks were unbelievable, unbelievable and unbelievable. She turned into a helicopter sort of. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And maybe there was Cammy is the other one of the original female characters. I thought she was cool too. Man, we could just keep going all day. Yeah. Do you reckon there's a report in this? Is that what they're making a new one of or is that the other one, Mortal Kombat? They're making a new movie, I think. Oh, they're probably in talks, I reckon all the time.

Yeah, right. Um, okay. So, Dave, is it true that you've booked a band for the after party? Yes, you're never going to believe it. You're never going to believe it. I, sometimes, I use my power for good. And sometimes I use my power, well, to meet one of my heroes, or some of my heroes, for good for me. Yeah, yeah. And this week, I can't believe that they've said yes to this week, this week's topic. It's the postal service here. Can you believe it? Oh, my. my gosh one of my all-time favorite bands and that is that coincidence because i don't know if you picked that up but it's it's sort of relevant to the episode topic oh no i was just stoked

that they said yes at all but you're right it is relevant one of the chances that's really interesting um and uh jess is behind the bar um she she's she's running late but she'll be in in any moment and normally comes up with a cocktail based on the topic and the what's the topic what's this episode going to be called do you think dave uh probably just the the british post office scandal and the british post office scandal cocktail uh it's really it's just like uh you know the scandal part is the fact that it's um it's a knockoff gin it's not it's not proper british gin it's like you know bathtub gin yes and you drink it out of a miniature british Post box.

Oh, I love it. Yeah, so it looks cool, but yeah, it tastes pretty nasty. Yeah, come on. So what have we got here today? We've got, geez, we've got a few inductees, do we? And the way it works is I'll read out their names. Dave hypes them up. And then, yeah, we all hang around in this sort of theater of the mind clubhouse

for the after party with the Postal Service, sort of, I guess, rocking out in their sort of depressing kind of way. Yeah, we're all feeling stuff. It's great. Are they, are the band that your tattoos from?

Yes, they are, yeah, that's right, my little zebra keyboard. All right, so we've got four inductees this week, I believe, Dave. Okay. Are you ready to do a little... Are you going to hype me? Because usually Jess is here to hype me up.

Okay, okay, thank you. I think I helped you up last week, but you were actually deserved it in a rare occasion. I'll try and earn your respect again. But yeah, I'll do what just does and I'll hop up no matter what you do. Um, all right, first up, welcome into the club. Make yourself at home. Let's party from Irwin, Pennsylvania. It's Tommy Isherwood. If I need, uh, good luck I'd knock on Tommy Isherwood. Oh, yes. He did it from Escondito in California. Welcome in Daryl and Atkinson.

I'll give you a Patkinson on the Backkinson. Oh, and I'm giving you one, Dave, for that fantastic word work there. Oh, from Address Unknown can only shoot from deep within the fortress of the malls. Please make them welcome. It's Sophie Houston. Sophie, we don't have a problem. And how does he do it? And finally from Dublin in Ireland.

And welcome Conner Kirby McGill. McWill. McGill. It's an honour. Oh my God, Dave. You've done it again. Welcome into the club. Connor, Sophie, Derelyn and Tommy.

Let's party. Grab yourself a cocktail and hit the dance floor. We're about to tear it up. But before we get there, for the first time ever, Dave. What? We are opening up finally. People inside the TripDitch Club would have seen this work's been going on for 12 months here. Yeah, we've been digging a big hole.

Finally, they'll see that we're about to open this beautiful glass door with a mahogany trim. And it's weird they couldn't see what was on the other side of it because it is glass, but it's a classic one-way mirror, I'm afraid. Oh, one-way window, whatever you call those things. And you can't see in it, but you can see back out it. It is the TripTrip Trip Ditch Club in here. If you have been signed up on the shoutout level or above for nine straight years. Is that true?

That is true. And these are genuine OGs. First people to welcome into the TripTrip Club. What's in there so far, Dave? It's full of rare art and antiquities. So we've got, there's the Venus de Milo. You might have heard about the recent, might have heard about the recent Louvre heist.

That was us, sorry. We've got, we've got, we've got a bunch of diamonds in there. Did the Venus de Milo gets stolen? Yeah, they didn't even notice. That, is that true, have they found it? We grabbed her. We grabbed her. Dave.

In the words of Homer Simpson, she can't have got too far. She has no arms. Now, uh, we've got six. inaugural inductees and yeah we we haven't really thought too much about this i mean come and enjoy the art are we just going to read them out is there anything you want to how do we honor these people dave i mean is a salute enough oh that is do you want me to salute yeah i think a salute pretty good because uh we know that they'll all have access of course to the um actually no Yeah, all these guys do have access to the video feed.

Okay. So they will be able to see your salute. So I'll read them out and you'll give them a salute. You might need to do something audible as well when you salute. Maybe something different each time. Just see what happens. Okay, after each name. Yeah.

All right, welcome in. First name into the Trip Trip Trip Club. Thank you so much for your support for all these years. very honored to welcome you in from Wesley Chapel, Florida. It's Adam Stoltz. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Next up from Bo Morris in Tasmania, it's Jess Newton. I love you.

Salute. From Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it's Mr. Justin McCain. I play is a silly game You're the best From London in Great Britain Welcome in a place to hang your cape Hello, David Mollofsky You're the best

From Ridge Park in Queensland Welcome in Another fantastic name, Becca Buck Thank you, thank you And thank you, salute And finally in our first batch of triple triptitch club members

who get to put their eyes on the venous tomorrow. First people have been able to see it in weeks from Elliott City in Maryland, I reckon, MD. Could be just be doogiehouser. Welcome in Michael Lardieri. Michael, I would die for you. Salute. Welcome in and absolutely make yourselves at home.

Michael Becker. David, Justin, Jess, and Adam. Wow. Really, fully, I mean, I'm pretty blown away by that, Dave. I don't know about you. Nine years. That's amazing. Thank you very much for staying with us.

Wow. They must have been really early on from when we started, I think. Because I think we launched the Patreon on the first anniversary of the show. We said, hey, we've been going for a year, do you want to, like, for a bonus episode or whatever, do you want it? Yes. I reckon they're all, I mean, yeah, they all. Yeah, they all pretty much joined at the very beginning. Yeah, and now next week we're celebrating 10 years.

It's amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Absolute legends. I'll tell you what. If we can, we'll see if we can get like a Leonardo type to paint each of you as well. And we'll put those up in the museum as well. Our Hall of Legends.

Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, that brings to the end of the episode, Dave, I believe. Yes. Thank you so much for everyone for sticking with us during Block and, you know, the most magical time of the year. I'm so excited that we've got just a few more to go. We've got three. We're into the top three next week, which is very, very exciting. Yes. The big three. These ones got so many votes. Yeah, so hopefully they're the topics that you want. In the meantime, if you want to get in contact with us or get details about our Patreon or go to any of our live shows, you can get, you can, you can. go to our website do go onpod.com or follow us on Instagram, Facebook at do go on pod. And on TikTok, we're putting out the videos now, a couple of videos from each episode go out

on TikTok and Instagram, and that's at do go on podcast. So good. Check out all our other shows well. Jess has got a show now called JustRot to Romcom, which is all focusing on rom-coms. You probably figure that out. Dave's book sheet is maybe back now, is it currently? Just about. This month, yes, I've started recording episodes, so sometime in November.

So hopefully, but soon. New episodes, but also a whole back catalogue of nearly 150. Who knew with Matt Stewart is starting to push towards 200 episodes. It's a comedy quiz show with all your favorite comedians as guests. Primates is there. Listen now, still sitting there. Gathering a bit of dust. But, yeah, so, you know, you shouldn't be short.

on a pod, if you like hearing our stupid voices. I was going to say dulcet tones. Dulcet tones, that's what I meant. Sorry, I stumbled on that word dulcet. All right, Dave, boot this baby home. Hey, we'll be back next week with another episode, like I said, top three of Blockbustertobertober slash November, trying to get it out there, 2025. But until then, I'll say thank you so much for listening and goodbye.

Later. Nice. 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.

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Ha ha ha ha.