FACTORALY - E62 HALLOWEEN

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Halloween is a holiday that kids love, but it used to be more of a grown-up holiday. Find out all about the spookiest festival in this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Bruce. Hi Simon. How are you today? I'm feeling scared. Oh no, why are you feeling scared? Oh, because there's all these strange things happening. Things going bump in the night. I don't mind things going bump in the night.

Okay, but when it happens during the day you want to worry. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, hello everyone. How are all of you lovely folk today? Hello. Shame we can't hear your answers. My name is Simon Wales. My name is the ghost of bruce fielding i thought you were going to say the ghost of christmas past for a minute there i thought we're too early for that so that's who we are we happen to both be professional voiceover

artists we use our voices to sell things to narrate things we do e-learning we do training we do things that involve people listening to voices and when we're not being professional voiceover artists we are here hosting this podcast which is called factorially how would you describe factorially bruce uh a waste of time excellent very good waste time. If you've got time to waste, this is the way to waste it. Yes, indeed. By listening to two voiceovers just rabbiting on about various interesting things for about half an hour. Yep, that sums it up. We're your weekly dosage of random facts.

Yeah. Wasn't there a song that had the lyric, you're my something waste of time? Because you're mine, you're my favourite waste of time. So we hope to be your favourite waste of time. So we pick a different subject each week. What is the subject that we happen to have landed upon on this day in particular, Bruce? Well, it says on the internet that it's all about today. It does.

Which is Halloween. Yeah, see, we're voiceovers. We can do that stuff. And we can apply the effects that you just heard to it as well. Insert spooky, echoey Halloween effects here. Yes, Halloween. When I was growing up, it didn't exist. Right.

It was something that you sort of saw on American TV shows and American films and American everything. But it wasn't a British thing at all. Not at all. I remember it was, well, I think it still is less popular in Britain than in America, but it's becoming more and more popular. Yeah. I remember going trick-or-treating as a kid, but it wasn't massive. It wasn't, you know, it was still very much an Americanized holiday.

You are a lot younger than me. Oh, a couple of years um but yes now this is interesting because it's it it does sort of seem to be something that we've adopted from america because we do that yes we do we appropriate america is cool we're dull we appropriate yes but actually halloween is one of those one of those things that takes a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a little bit of the other and slaps them all together to make what it is. But largely speaking, the main things that make Halloween what it is all come from traditions that were founded on these British Isles. So it started with us. It went to America.

It changed a bit. And now it's coming back so it's mainly the irish diaspora kind of moving to america wasn't it and you're taking their traditions with them that's right i learned what it was called originally oh go on okay let's see how you pronounce it okay so dear listeners here is a lesson in how to be a voiceover artist okay so this word is pronounced sir wayne interesting so given that it's pronounced sir wayne and it's irish a bit like siobhan yes it's naturally got an m in the middle well how would how would how would you pronounce so how would you spell sir wayne sir wayne if i were doing this phonetically yes i'm thinking of a knight in Camelot called Wayne. So I would say S-I-R-W-A-Y-N-E.

Yes, as opposed to S-A-M-H-A-I-N. Yes. So when I first saw that, I thought, oh, it's called Samhain. Yes, exactly. The pronunciation varies from place to place. It was Irish and it was Scottish and it was Pictish and it was Celtic. So every area has a different pronunciation. The one I picked up on was pronounced a little bit more Samhain. Oh.

Sort of accentuating the first bit. Okay. Different pronunciations. So you pick whichever one you fancy. But it's the first day of the Celtic New Year. Yes, that's right. And the Celtic New Year used to start on November the 1st? That's correct, yes.

So this goes back a very, very long time, obviously. But apparently, I didn't realise this, but back in ancient Celtic times, their day used to start and end at sunset okay rather than midnight or rather than the first thing in the morning so their day ended at sunset and that was the start of the new day so when it came to this particular day Samhain which was sort of a celebration of the beginning of winter you know we've just done our harvest. Yeah. Days are getting darker, shorter, colder. Let's have a bit of a celebration. And this took place at sunset on the night of October 31st, you know, morning of November 1st. And a lot of feasting and partying and revelry took place around Celtic tombs at sunset on this day.

Right. Okay. And it was sort of a commemoration of family members previously gone by. Yeah. And allegedly on this particular occasion, the border between this life and what they called the other world. Oh, the other world. Was a little bit thinner. Okay.

And they could escape through it. They could escape through it. They could commune with the spirits. They could sort of, you know, the pagan gods would come and feast and dance and party in their presence. They would leave a spare space set at the table for the spirits of relatives to come back and have a good old afterlife shindig with them. Yes. Yes. have a good old afterlife shindig with them. Yes, yes. But I think kind of other things have incorporated themselves into this festival, haven't they?

So it started off with Celtic New Year, and then you get the Romans bobbing along. Sure. I mean, talking of bobbing, they have a thing called Pomona, I think it's called, which is a Roman festival of apples. Oh, right. Which is about the same sort of time.

It's like a harvest festival. So it's about the right time for this. And they introduced apple bobbing. Oh, did they? And also how apples and the other vegetable that we'll go into, I'm sure, in great detail later. Or is it a fruit? Actually, it might be a fruit because it's got seeds, hasn't it? It's got seeds, yeah. But we're also going to mention the one which is it a fruit or is it oh actually it might be a fruit because it's got seeds hasn't it it's got seeds yeah but we're also going to mention the one which is definitely a vegetable

oh yes we definitely vegetable yes the original one this is too confusing anyway that thing right so the romans came along and added their bit so so yes so the the romans added added apple. Right. What else was added on? So around the 9th century, the Christians went and added onto this very same day, the 1st of November, they had a saint day called All Saints Day. You know how you have certain days in the church calendar that are dedicated to individual saints? Yes. This day was dedicated to all the saints at once so you sort of commemorated and celebrated all the the saints and martyrs that had sort of gone before um and this was called all saints day on the first of november okay and the evening before that 31st

of october was all saints eve evening another word for a a saint is hallow back then. So All Hallows Day, All Hallows Eve, All Halloweven, Halloween. So that's where the name actually came from. So addition of this, this, this, this, this makes what we've got. So it's all incorporated. I guess it's sort of part harvest festival as well because yeah it would have made sense yeah um so i guess we should uh i guess we should talk about the elephant in the room yes the big orange elephant will you say orange not always orange because they come in lots of different colours, don't they?

They come in white, blue, green, purple, black, all sorts of colours. Either we're not talking about the same thing, or I have not seen the same range that you have. Have you not? Have you never seen a purple one? No. Oh, let's just say the word. This is getting agonising, isn't it? Oh, we're talking about pumpkins. Right, so pumpkins then. But before we talk about pumpkins, we should talk about turnips. Oh, yeah, go on.

Because originally the thing that you carved was a turnip, which Baldrick would have approved of, no doubt. Oh, I love that's where your brain went. That's where mine went as well. I'd like a great big turnip in the country. See, they're quite hard to carve, turnips. Oh, I would imagine. Yes, I've never tried. But yeah. They're sort of solid, Joby. They're quite hard to carve turnips oh i would imagine yes i've never tried but yeah

they're sort of solid they're quite solid yeah so when the turnip went out the window uh pumpkins came in through the door right yeah they're bigger they're fleshier they're easier to carve they're talking i mean talking of carving have you seen some of the pumpkin carving things they're incredible aren't they they're amazing i saw one with a mona lisa on it yeah i know in my day you just cut out a pair of eyes and a jaggedy smile yes you put a little candle inside the hollowed out pumpkin yeah and that was that but these days they they sort of make wafer thin carvings in the skin that are just trans they're not even hollow they're just translucent yeah incredible it's sort of art and it's it's it's a work of art hmm definitely

so pumpkin lanterns hollowed out pumpkins with a little jack-o'-lanterns jack-o'-lanterns yeah exactly ah is that what a jack-o'-lantern is it's an american term you know yeah a carved out pumpkin with a candle inside it uh with a handle on top is called a jack-o'-lantern. Right. And these are sometimes sort of carried around whilst trick-or-treating. Turnip lanterns are mentioned as having been used all the way back in those Celtic origins. Part of the Samhain festival was something called mumming or guising, which is sort of the forerunner to trick or treating i know about mummers who used to go from place to place singing that's it yeah that's it um so they

had mumming or guising or souling and you would go around knocking door to door and you would uh sing a song or you would recite a poem or you would do something pleasant yes and then they you know the person to whom you were doing that would give you money, essentially. Not entirely dissimilar to wassailing, which eventually became caroling. Yeah, or wasn't there a thing called soul cake or something as well? Oh, yeah, there is. I don't know anything about that. I haven't researched that.

So, yeah, so soul cake was effectively like a biscuit, like a large cookie. And it was like divided up into slices. And so when you sang, you got like your piece of the soul cake. Ah, how interesting. So, yes, there are records of people using turnips as lanterns whilst they went round mumming or souling or, you know, guising, whatever you wanted to call it. And then, as you say later on, they used pumpkins instead. But the term jack-o'-lantern, I only just found this out whilst doing this research,

there is actually a character called Jack-o'-lantern, where that name comes from. Yes. Sort of like a sprite-like thing that jumps and dances and makes mischief. Yeah. So this fella, Jack O'Lantern, meaning Jack of the Lantern, otherwise known as Stingy Jack,

Jack the Smith, Drunk Jack, or Flaky Jack. Goes by several names. But there are a number of different stories as to who this chap is. He's of Irish origin. The one thing that's mutually agreed is that he gets into a bit of trouble with satan on the high street one day as you do like you do yeah they have um a bit of an

argument uh they try to out trick each other stingy jack is sort of known as being a bit of a stingy miser and satan tries to test his stinginess. And through various happenings, Stingy Jack is essentially doomed to walk the earth for the rest of time, neither being let into heaven nor into hell. Oh, not even purgatory, just on earth. Yeah, he was just these sort of bets and wages and challenges that came up between him and Satan. God wouldn't let him into heaven because he was too stingy and Satan wouldn't let him into heaven because he was too stingy

and Satan wouldn't let him into hell because he was too crafty. So he just ended up roaming the earth. Right. With nothing but a piece of coal that the devil gave him inside a turnip lantern to light his way. Okay. And so that lantern bore his name, Jack O'Lantern, Jack of the Lantern. Jack of the Lantern. Who's Jack of the Lantern?

And so that's why Americans call lit-up pumpkins Jack-o'-Lanterns today. Very good. So that's the fruit and veg out of the way. What about this dressing up lark? So this goes back, I mentioned it briefly, that practice of mumming or guising. Guising being short for disguising. Oh, right. And this goes back to the 1500s, again, in sort of Celtic regions.

People would go knocking from door to door on this day of Samhain, which is associated with the spiritual realm. So people would go around dressed as ghosts and ghouls and things. And it's just kind of carried on from there and it's gone in and out of fashion it's always involved dressing up it hasn't always been called trick-or-treating yeah it's gone through sort of many variations from help the halloween party to any apples or nuts okay um but apples, from the Romans. Got that. Yep, yep, yep. Or just, oi, give us some chocolate. Yes. But the general premise is, hello, we would like you to give us sweets.

Otherwise, we will perform some terrible trickery upon you and your household. Okay. Which is the complete opposite of what it used to be. You used to perform poetry and sing songs and do a little dance. And then you would get the treat in return but uh but apparently the the phrase trick or treat uh was first recorded in canada okay in 1917 oh wow so we have the canadians to thank for for the term itself do you have a favorite halloween dressing up outfit no i don't really do it i do so my favorite halloween dressing up outfit is i

have this very large monk's cape with a with a habit sort of with a hood right which i pulled mostly over my face and then i put like a skull mask on my face underneath the cowl so when you look up and underneath the cowl it looks like there's a skull there wonderful and then people say oh who's that behind the mask? And you take the mask off. And what I've done is I've actually made my face up to look like a skull underneath the skull mask. So it looks really weird, which is great. I love it.

I love doing that. But the idea of dressing up spooky, I mean, we wouldn't have the film Halloween, would we, without somebody dressing up spooky in a mask? No, I suppose that's the entire premise of it. Yeah, I mean, Michael Myers goes around dressed up in that very spooky mask. Yes, he does. Do you know the origin of that mask? No, I don't. So they were looking for a mask that they thought would be spooky enough and they thought they would get something.

And they found like a $12 mask in a fancy dress shop. And they just basically chopped off the various bits of it. But originally, it was a Captain Kirk mask. It was a mask of William Shatner. So the original Michael Myers, if you look at it closely, you can kind of see it. I can actually, I can picture that. There's something around the cheeks and the eyebrows, isn't there, that is a little bit Shatner-esque. Yes.

Well. So there you go. There's a link between Halloween and William Shatner. And he gets asked about this. I'll put a link on the blog, which is William Shatner talking about the idea of his face being used for scary purposes. That's fantastic. It costs nothing. I mean, there have been lots of Halloween films since.

But the first one cost about $300,000 to make. John Carpenter raised about $300,000. It's basically made $47 million. Good grief. From that since. What a return on investment i know well the other thing about john carpenter is he's got this thing hasn't he where he he writes it produces it directs it and writes the music for films that he does right i'm not a horror fan i've never seen any of the

halloween films nor elm street friday the 13th none of those those. None of those. Do you know what? Neither have I. Fair enough. Going back to trick-or-treating, you said that it wasn't a thing at all in your day, and I said it was only becoming a thing in my day. Apparently, some sources suggest that et is responsible for halloween and trick-or-treating becoming popular in this country wow because of that scene where the kids all go trick-or-treating and et himself has a sheet over his head yes looking like a kid

dressed as a ghost yes and it was such a a big movie everywhere, but we were lapping up anything American at the time over here. And apparently there was an increase in trick-or-treating directly after that film was released in this country. Okay. So do with that as you will. Yes. One thing I did notice about Halloween, which is something I'm sure you noticed as well,

is that there are a hell of a lot of Guinness records around the pumpkin. Yes, there are. Masses of them. Yeah, yeah. What's your favourite? Mine is pumpkin paddling. Pumpkin paddling. So basically you hollow out a pumpkin, you sit in it with canoe paddles, and you paddle for 100 metres.

Right. Sitting in a pumpkin. Okay. In 2013, which is when the record was set, the original pumpkin weighed 272 kilos. Good grief. That's a lot of pumpkin, isn't it? That's a lot of pumpkin, isn't it? That's a lot of pumpkin. And the person hollowed it out, sat inside it, got onto a piece of water, and paddled 100 metres in 2 minutes and 0.3 seconds. That's...

Which, there's only one question you need to ask. Go on. Why? That's a good question. But then that question could be asked of several of the other records around pumpkins. For example, Simon. For example, the largest jack-o'-lantern. Okay.

Or carved pumpkin. How heavy did you say your pumpkin was in the boat? 272 kilos. 821. What? You could light up a house with that. I'm sure you could. You could probably live in it yes

there was a gentleman called scott cully who owns the record for growing and carving the heaviest pumpkin so this is 821.23 kilos which is an astounding 1810 and a half pounds but not the world's largest pumpkin well no there's the world's largest jack-o'-lantern which is to say the world's largest carved and lit up pumpkin so there might be another record for maybe an even larger pumpkin that's just a pumpkin do you have one nope do you not oh i thought we're gonna have i thought were going to have a contest. Okay. So, my heaviest pumpkin is a record that was set in Italy. And it weighed, are you ready for this? Yes.

1,222 kilos. That's... 1.2 tons of pumpkin. That's more than a car. In one pumpkin? In one pumpkin. Are pumpkins particularly dense? Or is that just particularly large?

They're water. They're mostly water, so water is very heavy. I suppose. I mean, that would be... It's equivalent to 17 men. Good grief. A pumpkin as heavy as 17 people. Have we got any photos of this thing?

We do. I'd like to see the scale of it. Oh, yes, we do. Oh, good. We've got it actually sitting on a scale. Oh, yes, we do. Oh, good. We've got it actually sitting on a scale. Oh, great. Just where you want it. Wow.

My second favourite, how far do you think you could throw a pumpkin? Depends on the size of the pumpkin. And depends what you used to throw it. Yes. I don't know. 20 yards. No. No?

So, in America, they specifically build air-powered cannons oh and the furthest that a pumpkin has been fired from an air cannon yeah was in 2010 in moab utah that pumpkin went are you ready i think so 1.6 kilometers no yeah good great i mean we talked in our episode on potatoes about using potatoes yes i was thinking of a spud gun yeah yeah to fire people but yeah so so i bet that made a mess when it landed i think it makes a mess as it leaves the barrel yes yes there's probably just pumpkin spray all over the immediate area yeah there's one tiny little nub of pumpkin that made the full 1.6 kilometers uh i found a record for a particularly fast pumpkin carver a fellow called stephen clark um whilst on holiday at a at in Atlantic City. Okay.

Because there's nothing better to do. There's nothing better to do. It's a casino to carve pumpkins. Clearly. This was in 2008. He decided to try and break the world record for how fast one can carve pumpkins. But very specifically,

how fast one can carve a ton of pumpkins. Well, that could just technically be one pumpkin. According, yeah, exactly. They could have just carved the world's heaviest pumpkin. So this gentleman managed to carve, you know, and carve well, you know, quite beautiful patterns and designs into this one ton worth of pumpkins

in three hours and 33 minutes. What do you do with them afterwards? Presumably, you put them on display in the casino. My final record, I don't think we've ever had a subject that's garnered this many records. I know. This is fantastic.

People are obsessed with getting pumpkin records. They are. The last one I have is the largest number of lit jack-o'-lanterns in one display. Okay. And this was achieved in the the city of keen in new hampshire most of these records are american aren't they they're all american bruce they're

all american yeah that's that's where they do halloween the best so it makes sense doesn't it um this was a particular display of 30 581 jack-o'-lanterns on this massive, massive structure, like a framework of lit pumpkins. Oh, my word. Don't know how the thing survived. It's a fire hazard, surely. Yeah, exactly.

You would think so. And this particular city, Keene, in New Hampshire, has broken its own record eight times. This is a thing that it does every year. Goodness me. That does complete my total knowledge about Halloween. Yes, it does.

I also have run out of Halloween-related facts. I was going to say pumpkin-related facts, because we've spent the last quarter of the thing talking about pumpkins. So there you go if if you've enjoyed listening to us chat about halloween for the last half an hour please come back for the next one please go back and listen to previous episodes they're all just as good as this if not better but not as spooky not as spooky no so you're probably already subscribed so thank you very much for doing that. If you're not, then hit the subscribe button, please.

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