Fin vs History - A Bad Wicket to Bat First On (with Al Murray!) | The Blitz (Part 3)

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Petition to rename The Blitz to “A Burglar’s Dream”.  Al Murray joins us to conclude this epic series.   The Battle of Britain (Part Three)    The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened.   For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Truther and sign up to the Patreon  ⁠patreon.com/fintaylor  Chapters: 00:00 - The Alternative History  05:09 - Not A Black Up!   10:58 - Shoutout to Mandelson   14:07 - The Populist Thicko   17:10 - The National Sport Of Paedophiles  23:02 - Two Rutting Stags  26:12 - Fin’s German Shit  29:40 -  Never Ration Beer   33:50 - Beckham Free Kick   37:20 - Freddie Piles   41:30 - Cancelled In Hamburg  50:31 - Saville Windfall   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to Finnbrose history. You are listening in on a summer party, a barbecue, three alphas, rusting stags, chatting about World War II. This is the final part in our, I guess what is our summer 1940 series. Yeah, I feel this conversation, ideally it's in the countryside,

it's not gardens that are on top of all the gardens in the centre of London. You can't have these kind of conversations at the central London. It needs to be... These days. You need at least three kilometres clear either side of the house.

Yeah. We're still drawn by Al Murray. the great Almory who absolutely led us round the houses for the battle of Britain turned out it's all bollocks It's all bollocks

Britain was always going to smash the hun Greta Thunberg was in charge He went on this mad rant He made a weird anti-Gretta Thunberg rant from a Ulaz perspective Told me I was amongst friends You are amongst friends Hello to any women rejoining

After the last episode I don't know if this is going to get much better for you They might give it another go, double dip. Give it another go. Pants back on, let's try again. So after the failure of the Battle of Britain, the Nazis have unsuccessfully, they've not succeeded at destroying the RAF.

Far from it. They were never going to. No. What a bunch of losers. They turn their attention to bombing cities. Which they had done in the 30s at Guernica, which gave birth to the most confusing painting of all time. I think he was trying to draw a woman there.

Who knows? You couldn't have been trying to draw his sexual fantasy. Who fucking knows? I think he fucked it. And they were like, yeah, I think it was about, what's going on,

are you going across or something? And people, people go, what a brilliant painting. That is great art right there. Is it? I don't know. You know,

since I've been a child, I've been told that's a really great painting. Same, yeah. And you go, was it? And then you learn that Picasso was a, Hannah Gaddby told us all that Picasso was a paedophile.

And you go, that makes a bit more sense. I can not like that. now. Oh, great. Oh, she has got us off the hook there. Yeah, exactly. Wonderful.

Yeah. A rare victory for Gatsby. From our perspective. I can't imagine there's much crossover with the pub landlord's audience. Or Hannah Ladsby. I mean, not that I'm aware of. The beer snakes and the crowd of the Gatsby gig. But we've got a script here in Al Murray.

The Blitz. Well, as we saw at the end of our last episode, the Germans... God, the broadcast instincts kick in. This is old media. They failed, they failed to overwhelm the R.A.F. Yeah. Fighter Command. So they do switch to night bombing in September of 940 anyway.

The British of Bomb Berlin is the thing. So what I was going to say is, now is this, because the Germans bomb London, is it a mistake? Or is it a change in tactics? It's a change in tactics. So the British retaliate and bomb Berlin, which humiliates Gering, who had said, if the bombers cross the roar, which is a Jewish name.

Yeah. So he's called Maya for the rest of the war, right? Yeah, yeah. And he has to pretend to be Jewish the whole time. He finds out humiliating. Yeah, da-da. When he walks into a room, they're like smashing glass. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they hate that famously. They don't find that funny. So tell us about that early Berlin bombing then that the Brits do. This is what? This is still in September of 1940. Yeah, so bomb a commander out and about. trying to sort of disrupt the Germans.

And at the start of the war, there's a thing where they're dropping a lot of leaflets. Right. Sort of to say, give it up. It ain't worth it. And there's a debate in cabinet in late 1939 about whether they should drop bombs at all because it will damage private property.

Right. Yeah. And they think if they do that, they cross a line and the Germans might bomb us back. And they're right. Exactly what happens, right. But the Germans... Well, give that man a medal.

He was completely right. Exactly. The Germans, the Germans, the Germans, the bomb Gernica leading to poor art. They've also bombed the centre of... They might bomb that painting. It's bombed the centre of Rotterdam, which... With a bomb the centre of Warsaw, which is one of the things that makes the Poles capitulate. And they bomb Rotterdam, destroy Rotterdam.

And that's one of the things that makes the Dutch throwing the towel. So there is this idea that if you attack... On the shit out of someone, they go, right, and forget about it, you know. And so that's certainly in the picture. But they're also trying to strike at British industry and trade. Because this really, World War II is a race about factories. Yes, exactly. That's what it is.

Yeah. It's not thrilling at all. It's a conveyor belt. Yeah. It's a long montage of people putting bolts on screws. The alternative history. The alternative history. It's just that, isn't it?

The montage of how we won the war. Yeah, exactly. Some bloke of the lay. So the Blitz technically begins on the 7th of September, 1940. Does it? Well, yeah, I mean, that's before, and that's even before Battle of Britain Day later in the month. Yeah, it is. So like I say, the Germans start bombing at night, and the big problem is for the British,

just, there's nothing we can do about it. No. Nothing at all. There's no night fighter. The radar covers the sea as the Germans approach, and then it's down to eyeballs, down to the observicle. They can't. Night. It's night.

It's night, right? Yeah. It's night. So military commanders will, well, it's not. I can't do anything about that. It's night. Oh, well. Bombing start, the first one's in London,

then it's Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool. They'd already sort of occurred. But the changing tactics means that suddenly the Germans start dropping fucking loads of bombs. Yeah. Anyway. What I read, I'm sure you can correct me on, was that they...

So it was the accidental drop on... Yeah, the trips it into... a change of tactics. And then Britain goes to Berlin. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Gering gets so hot-headed about it that he changes tactics. And the podcast I was listening to,

it said, because they got hot-headed and started bombing London, it gave much-needed respite to the RAF airfields. But that goes against everything you've been saying. But that kind of cuts against what we were saying. Because I'd also rather not have so many hideous buildings in central London. Yes.

Like that's kind of the big, like the kind of five-story car parks on the Thames, like I feel. Well, yeah, they did their bit for architecture. This is the long road to Covent. It was actually quite a short road to Coventry. They bombed it. They bombed it and then they had to rebuild it.

Yeah. Yeah. So the Blitz is obviously short for Blitz-Crieg, which is what the French and Dutch and the Dutch and the Benny Lux, although I don't know why we're talking about Luxembourg. It's all around to Luxembourg. The key to World War II is in Luxembourg.

They had the biggest, fastest factory there's ever been. The war was won and lost in your policy on Luxembourg. So first off, they bombed the docks. Yeah, East London Docks, Woolwich, West Ham. You can see the argument for that. Still to this day, you can see the argument for that. Much stronger. Stronger argument now.

But yeah, because Britain's this maritime global trading empire. You know, you've got to rethink the way you think about the country as well. You know, we've got the biggest empire in the world. We've got financial interests outside the empire as well. So it's all about trade. And it is a real blow to British prestige that they're attacking the centre of the global. trading. Well, they're attacking West Ham.

I mean, it's not, it's not yet the center of the trade. Is that some park about? The center of the cockles industry crumbles and the blitz. Oh, no. How are we going to Jenny E in crisis? People flying down the apples and pears. This is terrible. So first thing that the Brits do is an institute of blackout, right?

The population of London. Not a black up. We must have made that clear. Probably you were safer if you were blacked up. Again, there's been many times where blacking up helps. native populations. Well, Reggie and Ronnie Cray's dad hides in the coal hole that they've got in the house

for the whole war. Really? Yeah. The coal hole? They've got a coal hole, you know, like where you... He pops in and out. He's not in there for... He pops in that, but he's basically in the coal hole for the whole war, just hides. That's pretty... What's a coal hole? Just a piss at the end of the garden? Yeah, yeah, or next to the house, which you

have the coal in for your fire. Right. Yeah. So the blackout begins upon the Declaration of War, and so no lights are allowed to be seen after dark. Yeah. Windows had to be sealed with curtain, paint, car headlights had to be fitted with slits. Street lights are extinguished. This is all very pre-me too.

I mean, you know, you wouldn't do that nowadays. Shops and cinema. Women need to feel safe at night. Yeah. Crime goes up, funnily enough, because it's now legal to turn a light on. I wonder why. Yes, okay. But also.

That feels a bit of fudging the numbers, though. Yeah. But also actual crime does go up as well. Which is funny because we'll obviously talk about the Blitz spirit, which people think is a real, an actual thing in that there's not as much PTSD as there should have been, given that the city was carpet-bonded. And yet that's the best time that's ever been.

Brilliant, we're being carpet-bond. Yeah. We're living underground. There's a guy playing a fucking accordion for 12 hours. This is the best time of my life. Yeah, the mental health is the British attitude. But this is what wins the war. It's the British mental health.

It's the happiest they'd ever been in their life. You can sit how bad the 1930s were. This is like arguably an improvement. Yeah. So the 30s were not good in Britain. You've had the great depression of, you know, unemployment and things going really badly wrong. I mean, I'm being a bit flip,

but the truth is, is people are being drawn together. But yeah, I mean, the blitz spirit is highly variable in different locations, let's put it that way. And then also after the Second World War. Where are the rats? Where are the absolute snakes? Well, you do have lots of looting. And because Black Friday,

Blackout Friday. Why wouldn't you? Yeah. You know. The lights are off. Yeah, the lights are off. And no one's home, literally. When we did our post-war British Prime Minister series in the three-day week,

that's where the Great British Piedophile, the archetype in the 70s, begins when the lights are off. So when there's no lights, you know, Britain was to sex guys. We're talking, it's a story of factories. I mean, it's a story of factories. Is it not? The paedophilia, it's all. The factory is shut down. And then the school gates.

open and all I'm saying is the answer to British paedophiliers in the factories that's what Hobbesbourne said yes Hobbsborm is a great big exponent thank God we don't manufacture anything anymore what he calls the short We do manufacture pedophiles on Matt actually the only one of the biggest exports

The only thing we have left This country makes nothing apart from Peter Farms anymore so Anyway shout out to Mandelson The allegedly Can a man not have friends? Can a man not put his pants down? Come on. Yeah, to be fair, that is, I don't think I've seen...

Definitely should mean caught with your pants down, isn't it? There's not been a more vulnerable photo of a politician. Yeah, come on. Let's go out. Just try. A guy with his Y fronts and a t-shirt and an iPad. God, I mean... What's he showing there? And also him going, I don't remember that being taken. Come on, man. You're caught. How often are you in that? Well, explain it. Try and explain it. White briefs as well. I mean, surely no one... Doesn't anyone my age wear white briefs? But what's he look? Can we go in hard enough on his glasses to see the reflection of what from the iPad. Is he showing him her?

Looks like he's showing her a 10 minute YouTube video that's incredibly boring. And he says, no, no, the funny bit's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's going to be like a clip from a 70s comedy. He goes, you won't believe it. There's a picture me with my underpants. Him laughing in a bathrobe. Yeah, it's humiliating.

No, but this is all the country has left, really. That's all we make. Yeah. It's pedophilia. That's the industry. Anyway, in the first, a winter of blackouts, Road deaths rise sharply, because people still drive. Because we're British. Fuck off. Yeah, yeah.

Of course I can drive. Yeah. I've had seven pints. I know these roads. Yep. The lights are all off. Pedestrian accident surge. And obviously crime increases.

So, yeah, where's all the looting happening? Who are we ratting out? Well, when the bombing comes, you know, and people have to abandon their houses, there's plenty of looting going on wherever that happens. I mean, the interesting thing is about the blackout is people really hate it, and they complain and they bitch and they moan and they write to the newspapers. and they really... Mental health.

They really don't like it. And so, again, it's that idea we all pulled together and we just did what we had to do. Yeah, but while bitching about it. Yeah, but because it's this country, right? The happiest were complaining. Yeah, well, yeah, and you look at the pandemic.

When the pandemic came along, people go, oh, you know, they all pulled together during the Blitz without complaining. Oh, bollocks. Yeah. There's 100,000 antivaxes marching through the while. It's the same, isn't it, I guess. But you also, with this,

so this is this period of civil defence, you end up with the government not want to spend any money on air raid shelters if it could possibly help here and then and devolving it to local councils yes and depending on the local where the local council sat politically they would either spend money or they wouldn't postcode lottery the post go lottery and if you had if you had like a really pacifist knocking on your door you had a really pacifist labour council yeah um uh before the war they would they would tend to not spend money on civil defence because they thought like if you spend money on preparation for war, that's tantamount

to preparing for war. So an Anderson shelter was an aggressive act in the words of the labour. Or a public shelter. So you end up with this really, you end up with some of the boroughs in London where there's just a completely adequate provision where the moment comes. Crazy. And also the government doesn't want to offer do it itself because then

it looks like... Defeatist. Well, something terrible's going to happen. Yeah. So they weren't open the underground or that sort of thing. It's really weird. We'll just turn the lights off. Well, just turn the lights off. That's all right. Right, yeah. Lights off. So people start carrying torches or white painted walking sticks.

Yeah. Now, what are the Germans doing? Because obviously, when we talk about the Blitz, what's going on in Germany? Are we retaliating at the same time? No, no, we are running bombers over to Germany. But like I said, there's no proper effort to knock German factories out yet. That's coming, right? That's going to happen.

And the thing about the blitz in Britain is it is, terrible. But what we then go and do to Germany, three years later, is on a, like, completely, brilliant. Completely different level. I mean, I mean, don't mean, seriously, it's like, it's completely mind-boggling. No, seriously. It's brilliant. Yeah, seriously. It's fucking brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant. It's just a hard circle to square because it's not, isn't it?

No, exactly. It's like, well, you know. It's a hard, because obviously there's an album people coming back to him, we need to talk about Dresden. But it's just a tricky one. But the difference is, they call Dresden a walk. crime. Yeah. And they eradicate Coventry and Britain

shrugs because it's Coventry. Who cares? Dres in this beautiful city. Was. Yeah. Coventry was. That's a brilliant point.

Coventry was like, well we were going to get, we were going to get round to be able to that anyway. Yeah. We've got some very weird designs for a cathedral we'd like to try out. When they eradicate Coventry, which is a bit later in 40, is it?

Or 41? They, um, they, they then, the verb to Coventry. Coventreren. It becomes a verb to mean to destroy the city. Yeah. Let's Coventry them.

That becomes a word. But we don't say let's Dresden them. No, we don't. Because we're gentlemen. Yeah, that'd be classless. Exactly. We just celebrate it in ourselves. That's good in the Dresden treatment.

Yeah. So they had air raid wardens patrolling neighborhoods checking for light leaks. Nazi propaganda slogans included for Duncan blackout, which appears on posts. It's kind of the same stuff.

Same stuff. Yeah, yeah. But I wonder what their spirit was like. I imagine it. It's just because we only hear it from our perspective. We won the war. Nazis. So you don't really get to hear about any of the human stories

because it doesn't really work in our telling of the war that this was happening in Germany. This is the last, as I was saying in the last episode, you can split World War II into three chapters and the kind of the end of the first chapter, which is also kind of in the British popular memory, the last real fight we're seen to have. Obviously, there's Italy.

No one really talks, no one thinks about it. No, no, I think about North Africa. A little bit of North Africa. No, no, no, none of that comes into it. From that point on, it's the Russians and then it's D-Day, which is really the Americans, in our memory at least. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can feel you tensing up, but I'm just talking about the,

I'm talking about the popular thicker on the street. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm a populist historian. Yeah, yeah, I get that. I get that. I'm looking for the stories in between the cracks that, you know, Britain, yes, we bombed Dresden, you know, is it a war crime?

We'd already committed a dog holocaust, allegedly. I question those numbers, but anyway, I think it was just three poodles. So, now, Britain starts evacuating people. They does this in 39, which is quite funny. When it kills for the dogs, it sends the

women and the children away, when nothing's happened. Yeah. And then the bloke's like, play out, this is quite nice, actually. Oh, that's really bad. And then they get them back. And then is it, when do they send them away again? Well, when the bombing starts. Right.

Because there's no bombing. There's no bombing for a year, basically, until the blitz starts. Yeah. Well, it's the phony war until May, but then there's no concerted bombing effort. And certainly, you know, London cops it first, and then it is everywhere else. I always think the issue with this, you've got to try and put yourself in that time. No one knows what's going on, where it's going to happen next. No.

It must have been genuinely terrified. I mean, it... But we look back at it with such roast-inting to glasses. I know. My Nan's house destroyed in the Blitz. She was five years old. Ever on her street, they all got one piece of furniture out,

lying the whole thing. Like, her talking about it is like, it's such an emotional, amazing thing. Of course, it would be, right? But there's a friend of mine who's, a friend of mine, one of his family was evacuated. They're a family from Catford or whatever. Big, big, big family.

And the kids were evacuated. And one of them basically was, they started trickling back, but one of them stayed away. And at the end of the war, was sent back to London and said actually they're my mum and dad the people I was with

I'm going back to them wow and the family went oh okay it was quite nice had to go with it yeah so there's that I mean there's that going on as well as as well as the destruction

of people being rent apart yeah shocking but that seems quite willing though well yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but if the parents maybe you know pretty keen on that yeah I don't know if you have enough kids you are

I mean, if you're volunteering to tape them, I'm not going to complain. So this is Operation Pied Piper. Again, the national sport is creating paedophiles. The evacuation program is first place, 800,000 school children are evacuated from, is it major cities? Is it just London? Major cities? Or major cities. And they go to the countryside.

Tens of thousands of teachers, they all relocate. Now, they originally start sending them a broad. as well. Yeah. And then a big ship gets sunk. That's right. In the Atlantic, is it? Yeah.

That was naughty. That's quite, that's poor form. Blacked up Nazis, a U-boat. A U-boat kills. People are going to Sweden as well. Right. Because it was neutral. So they're just sort of dispersing.

Anyone going to Swiss? No. No, no, no. You can't go there by boat. Yeah. Of course. It's the thick of it as well. I still don't understand how this day.

It seems very weird. They're just ducking out of it all. Have you met a Swissman? I have. I have. A met a Swiss German. and they're only below Austrians and how fucking weird they are.

Yeah, it's weird. Yeah. The whole thing's weird. Strange place. What's going on? Swiss German. Make it make sense. Swiss German.

That's a tautology. Yeah. Neutral aggressive. Swiss German. Anyway. Charlie, what have you just Googled? I was wondering if any adults dressed up as kids.

To evacuate. Yeah. Yeah. What's sort of like a Titanic sort of situation? Well, or like those kids at secondary school who are actually 35. Do you get every now? Hello!

I'm awfully scared. If you're held back enough years, maybe you can, you know, you can get sent out to the countryside. Yeah, if you're very thick. Our listeners would have been evacuated until about the age of 40. So host families write letters

complaining about their kids, poor hygiene, the lack of manners, urban slang. Yeah. Urban slang in the 40s, yeah, I mean, what's that? I don't know. Blight and bugger?

Damn, god damn, bugger. Christ! Yeah, so all these children are coming from Notting Hill and they're talking about whining ponder cocky and these people in Pembrokeshire are like, what on earth are you talking about?

Shut up, pussy all. And then at the same time, as you're saying, all these evacuees, they're eating better food, country air. Yeah, some of them have the time of their life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some of them aren't. But that age, because they're great times

to go to the countryside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want no one be in a city when you're like, yeah. Yeah, but there are a lot of people who, I mean, one of the things that does happen is quite a lot of posh people go, oh, God,

these work class kids are scum. We thought they might be, but they are. And so it's one of those moments, you know, where different bits of the country bump into each other. Like Brexit. It's a huge kind of realisation of the other half of the country you're living with. Oh, fuck. Oh, yeah.

Christ. But how many... Which sits from either side of the argument. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. How many kids were going, were any kids sent back? Did anyone... Well, no, people did people...

People did say, well, I'm not having them. Really? Yeah, yeah. So that blitz spirit is, it's all, it's so... There's a returns policy, like 30 days. It's not going to sign from A-Fort. It doesn't fit. The blitz spirit does exist, but it's not universal.

No, of course. And it's sort of dependent on the circumstances you find yourself in, you know. So let's talk about... So the shelters, they end up... They do end up giving pretty much everyone some kind of shelter. If you're poor enough, you get the Anderson shelter. You get the Anderson shelter. Yeah.

I mean, I think that costs six. quid or something you have to chip in and that's like a corrugated iron thing you put you you dig a hole you you turf it over and then you've got a shelter it won't and it's this thing again it won't withstand a direct hit but if you're the house falls on it um you'll still be all right inside it in theory and then there's the morrison shelter which is a steel like dining table dining table yeah like sort of cage and you get in that yeah um uh and so if the house falls down the steel cage survive how do you then get out of the steel cage where you have to wait for someone to take you um remove that you're like to remove that you're

House. Right. Yes, of course. So over half a million Morrison shelters are issued, which must have saved thousands of lives. Well, probably, I reckon so. I mean, but again, if you've not gone to the main ship, we've got into public shelter,

but then the public shelters or also, you know, it's the disaster at Ballam where people in the shelter at Ballam, in the tube in Ballam, and the water mains hit, and they all drown. Really? Yeah. And there's incidents like that. There's a stampede at one shelter.

in the East End. What's the Bethel Green one? Yeah. There's a Bethel Green station, they're still that big monument. It's all in the stairs. 150 people died. There's a school in Canning Town as well

that's hit by what they call an air mine, which is a bomb on a parachute. And there's hundreds of people there that have been gathered there because they've all been bombed out. And no one knows many people were killed in that. Like in 1940. Did you ever play the computer game worms?

Yeah. Where stuff would arrive on a parachute. Yes, I have actually. Yes. Not unlike that. I'm just thinking. of our listeners. Someone's got to.

Yeah, it's not, have you got worms? We know you've got worms. Obviously you've got worms. You know that game you got into when you had worms to try and make yourself feel better about your ass worms.

So yeah, so the underground... Wash your hands for Christ's sake. To the underground, the government said, we're not going to use them as public shelters. Initially, yeah. Because that would say like, yeah, it's encouraging panic, I suppose.

Yeah, yeah. And they generally think people are going to go underground and never come out. Well, they're going to form, they don't think they're going to start plotting to overthrow the government on the ground? Or just never come out. Decide I'm not going to work in the morning.

Yeah, they think, yeah, it thinks it will introduce slovenliness amongst the population. Yeah, yeah. But initially, they're locked out, but then after two weeks of bombing, people just start queuing to go in, right? Yeah.

And they just go, fuck it. Yeah, yeah, they have to let them in. Because the bombing, I mean, what doesn't happen is that the population rise up and the government has to sort of capitulate, but the population is having a, a really bad time of it. So, you know, they've got to do something.

So, but... And is it every night? No, it's not every night. It's when the Germans can muster it and where the weather's... Because the weather things, the weather... Yeah. The weather, you know, throughout the Battle of Britain, the weather isn't... It isn't glorious blue sunny days every day.

You know, the weather... The weather is why it's an English story. It's cricket. There's another factor. There's the gods. There's weather. It's like Dunkirk. It's like Dunkirk. It was only possible, the evacuation because the seas were unnaturally carable or whatever on the weather.

And the cloud low. clouds that stop the stuccas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at these two rotting stags, racing. Racing to say the word stucke. Stoog. This is not unlike silverback

gorillas getting together. We're fighting out primacy of the pack. Basically, one of you young bucks is going to bash my brains here with a log. And then I start hosting a podcast with James Holland. Yeah, exactly. And I get to drive Spitfires. And I get to go on the D-Day beaches.

Her ratio craps in its hands and hurls it out. Yeah. It's the law of the jungle. It's straight male bingo. You know, bingoes for the gays and the girls. This is our version.

It's Stuka! House! Anyway. So by September 40, 150,000 people are sleeping in the tube stations. And at this point, it's mainly London? Or is it, when they come over, is it... Because they don't they move up the country gradually? It's mainly London.

Because we're talking between September and May. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So they start hitting Bristol, Sheffield, Liverpool. Hull gets it. And Hull's bombed. Have they not suffered enough? Well, one of the reasons is...

It's on the coast. It's easy to find. Yeah. Right? It is part of sort of the war industry. So it's, you know, petrochemical, ICI there. It's worth hitting. But also the other reason Hull, and this is terrible,

the other reason that Hull gets it is because if they can't find where they're going, when they go into England, the Germans over England, if they can't find Sheffield or Leeds or York or wherever they're trying to hit, their bomb hull on the way home. Yeah. Because they can't come home.

Is that like getting like a KFC on the way home from a gig? Yeah, almost. Yeah, they've got to get rid of the bombs. So they bomb hull on the way home. That's very funny. That is very funny. Just unloading. Just, ah, fuck it.

It's bad. I mean, it's... So, Holly's basically the bin for German bobbess. Yeah. Well, sometimes like, if you're out, do you sometimes have a shit out as a bit? post it before you get home because it's better just to get it out. It's always better not to do it at home.

Yeah, it's better. If it's a public toilet, it's brilliant. Well, I don't know about that. I think when you want to split the difference, you need to find a nice toilet. A restaurant, hotel toilet. Exactly. Yeah.

You know your own hotel room? You know that row of toilets underneath the Pleasant Dome? Yeah. Oh my God, yeah. That's my fewer bunker. When I'm in Edinburgh, yeah. When I'm in Edinburgh and I'm out and about,

I need a purism. The peacefulness, because you're a complete anonymity. They can't, they don't know who it is. No, there's only people in there. anymore. Finn doesn't have complete anonymity anymore. Who's like, God. They're going, hey. Finns is taking his shit in our toilets again.

Oh, Finn's in the toilet. Your traps run your anger. Yeah, getting the toilet paper like this. Like that. Anyway, so, but, so people are leaving in tube stations, they're in the shelter. 60% of people simply stay at home because there are stories of like, you know,

old, stubborn old fuckers. were like, no, fuck off, I'm not, you're not getting me out of my armchair. Yeah. And then they just evaporate. Some fatalism. Fagalism creeps in. And you're kind of playing the same odds. Yes, I suppose it is, yeah.

But in every war zone there's this. There's these Ukrainian babushka ladies, right, who all just stay in war zones. You don't even know what's going on. Yeah, I'm not going to fucking ladies. Yeah, there's that woman who still lives in Chernobyl in Pripyat in like a trailer park. Yeah, there's always people who are like 80s. Fuck off. Fuck it.

Yeah. It's like, you have no neighbors. Yeah, but she's an eight-year-old woman who lives in. you know, former Soviet, the shit she's seen. I know, but then you think about, I don't know how she's got so old, because you think about blue zones, you think about Japanese and Italian people, have, Bollocks is what she's saying.

Mate, she's saying, bologna, she's saying, I live in a fucking nuclear, nuclear holocaust wasteland, and I'm still 80. Yeah. Look, this is her garden. It's all mine. Fuck it. Nothing grows.

This is all mine. Fuck off. Maybe she walks up hill a lot. I don't know, what's the... I know, she's got a mate, he's got one mate. He's got one mate. He's drinking. And they've got booze.

Got boo's. Yeah, you know. beer, do they? No, they don't. Again, one of the key... You absolutely can't go doing that. No. Or tea. Or potatoes, actually. Or fish. So there's... Fish and chips and beer is still... Yeah. So...

But beer, importantly. When you're sheltering underground, the trains are still running, are they? Yeah, everything's still... Everything's still kind of going. So you're sleeping in a tube station? Well, no. I mean, they're not running at... They're not running at night during a rate. No. They're pausing. But everything, everything, the idea is they try and keep everything running. Because it's about

factories. Because it's all about the factories. So. Guy, you're learning this stuff. It's really good. Eric Hodgbourne is so delighted.

Interestingly, he says the short 20th century from a paedophilia perspective is 1973 to 2008. Which was kind of a very groundbreaking

innovative. It is. I'm just trying to think of the vent diagram. People are going to get that. Yeah, I know. I don't think there's many. Anyway

So popular songs And this, to me this is a nightmare It's not Shaggy Bombastic No, Charlie, they're not playing bumbastic in the In the 2000s I think Yeah So it's way later Anyway, so I have

I really can't stand Baskers on the underground Because it's like trapped There's no air Yeah You know every now and then you see a guy Absolutely shredding on a guitar And you think that's fine

I'm into that. That's quite funny. I'll stop and look at that. An accordion underground, I think, is a war crime, personally. It's worse than what was going overground, if that happened. Genuine, I'd be like, get me back up there. Fuck this. You've got an accordion.

You've got ukuleles. The Stucca bomb is a less terrifying sound than your accordion. Generally, I could sleep to Stuccabombes over at the sound of a ukulele. You know, you see, like, a new act playing a ukulele. I just think just kidding. At Desjardin, our business is helping yours. We are here to see. support your business through every stage of growth, from your first pitch to your first

acquisition. Whether it's improving cash flow or exploring investment banking solutions, with Desjardin business, it's all under one roof. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us, and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk. Kill me now. Just absolutely kill me.

I cannot stand comedy ukulele. Anyway, that's what people are singing on the platforms of the tube stations. Is it? Yes, they're doing run, rabbit, run. But these are all like cockney altogether songs, right? Knees up mother brown. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This stuff I, no, it's too rich from my blood, I can't. It's too twee. Jauntie. Yeah. I'd rather just silence. I'd rather just sit there and just stare at a wall and just cry. No, I'm not crying. I'm going to get a lot of that.

I'm Presbyterian, I'm staring at a wall, waiting for it to blow over or blow up. but this is where we'll meet again which is obviously what the Queen invokes during COVID this is where that song is top of the charts virulent all that and the Blitz spirit has been over-mythologised but supposedly there's much less PTSD

than some people had predicted but then this isn't you know this is decades before British mental health exists before we knew you were allowed to feel that no one had separated being sad from being British yet no that happens in like the 90s latest and it's a

I think it was Blade terrible error exactly it's Blair it's the woke nonsense of Blair years what do you mean you're sad well yeah is I mean the sort of dire predictions that everyone's gonna lose lose their shit yeah don't come true no even though they're essentially defenceless and you know even with like so Bristol's really badly bombed

and one of the interesting things is the newspapers can never quite aren't allowed to say where's been bombed because the Germans are reading newspapers So... Sneaky like that. Large city in West attacked is what the papers say about Bristol being bombed.

And the people in Bristol like, that was us. Yeah. Why don't we make... Why are we not in the papers? Yeah. And during the Bristol bombing, they discover that...

They send fire brigades from elsewhere and they discover that everyone's got different equipment so they can't help. And that's the... Or like different nozzles. Literally different pipes, different fittings. And so...

Is that many USBC charging? Exactly. So they have to standardise it all. Yeah. Because up to this point, everyone's had their own fire brigade with their own nozzle and their own... Well, just regionally, it was all just... Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was all whatever, yeah. So this is when men joined the Home Guard in there by the drove, the auxiliary fire service.

Yeah. And then women joined the women's voluntary service, the WVS, the motto, we never say no. You couldn't say that nowadays. But pass as another country. Now they say no means no and that's fine. So they are helping with evacuations and shelters for the displaced, salvage, recycling. Many claim that the mental health of the nation improves. Yeah, but...

Again, I don't really know how, if you'd say the same for like Gaza or Ukraine. Well, they say suicides go down, but I've just absolutely no idea how they measured that. Yes, I thought. If you're being bombed, you're like, I don't know if I'm sad or I'm just being bombed. let's wait to that. I'll wait it out. Oh, no,

it was just me. Turned out as me. Yeah. The bombing stopped, but I'm still sad. Yeah. So by October 1940, it was becoming exclusively night attacks.

And so, Al, do you want to talk us through, do you want to talk us through some of the, you know, what bombs are dropping? When do they start dropping incendiaries? Well,

it's kind of right from the, right from the off, incendiary is a big part of it. And what is an incendiary? Well, that's like a, I think it's like, it's like a magnesium strip.

You must have set fire to magnesium. to magnesium in chemistry. So it's strips, magnesium strip bomb. They also put aluminium, I think, in their high explosive, which gives it a greater blast potential.

And so the British do this too. You do this thing where the idea is you like blast a hole in a building and then fill it, drop in centuries into it to set it on fire. Right. And so, for instance, So that all been a cluster all dropped at the same time. Well, kind of dropped to the same time.

And they're not dropping big payloads of bombs, but I mean, this is the thing is this is completely, this is totally unprecedented, because the bombing of Warsaw and the bombing of Rotterdam and Gunnaker are one-offs. This is like a sustained thing. So the Germans are, you know,

getting to London's easy. They sail up the Thames Estuary, which you can see at night below you, the water. So they find it easy to hit. And then they're bombing, they're bombing with these high explosives with incendiaries and these things that float down,

delayed action fuses as well. Oh, that's a good one. That when you're clearing up, bomb rubble, it might go off. That's a nasty one though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's double, that's not cricket.

That isn't cricket. No, it isn't cricket. But we are talking about... Bob me on the head, don't like go, oh, what's that? Yeah. Like that's humiliated.

Don't hide it under like a pot of honey. So I'm like, oh, yum. Oh, fuck. So when you open up your Nans box of biscuits has got drill bits in there. But you've done that? No, my...

No, that's not happened to me either. That's like a classic thing is that there's like a box of biscuits your grandparents's house. Yeah, look, I'm getting nods from the, from the galli over there. drill bits in.

Yeah, there's always a box of biscuits. This is brilliant. You're open it up and it's just drill bits. You're all really young. That didn't happen to my generation. So this is where I mentioned this last episode, but they had the radio base navigation,

which the Germans would call the Nicobine. Yeah, the Nicobine, excurate, yeah. And yeah, X great and Y great. And basically this is a radio system. If you go too far left, it gives you one single. If you go too far right, you get another.

It's free fast, yeah. You fly down the middle. Not a knickerbock of glory. You get a clean thing. Yeah. And then there's an intersection, a point where you drop, where you drop your bond. So there's a beam to fly down on a beam that intersect that. And when you get to there, so Coventry, for instance, when you get to Coventry,

all roads lead to Coventry. Yeah. And this is affected by the curvature of the earth. So it only reaches so far because it'll, I mean, I've gone and done that, just done, I've just gone and done that. Oh, you're in the right place. Zoom in on that when you did that. Clip it up, clip it up,

getting out there. The British do what they can to bend the beam to misdirect the bombers. Yeah. Beckham free kick. Yeah. Completely.

Send them to the wrong place. And they're also building, they're building, there's a fake city outside, like fake neighbourhood outside Bristol. I heard about this. This seems a lot of effort. They're building like a whole fake city

and then setting it on fire to make it seem like it's a city. Yeah, yeah. Because the Germans, because the thing is no one knows, no one knows where they're going at night. I mean, the navigation is hard enough during the day

at this period, but during night it's really, really difficult, which is why they're using those beams and stuff. It's really difficult. So how fake is this fake? It's very rudimentary. People aren't getting caught up in the role play. It's like a model village.

Or we need a brothel in this fake city. Fake prostitutes fake fucking me right now. We need this, right? They won't believe it. Got any believable. It's the oldest profession. But basically if there's a fire and you're flying and you've got bombs dropped,

You know, well, there's a fire. I'll drop it where the fire is, because that's the right place to drop it. So they're trying that, and it kind of works, kind of doesn't. It's amazing to they got any bombs away, isn't it, really?

Yeah, it is. And there's always that thing, people go, oh, that place wasn't bombed because it was being saved as a headquarters, quarters for Hitler or for... Yeah, like the pavilion.

Yeah, the pavilion is the whole day home. Bullshit. No one could hit it. He would hate it. He would, yes. I mean, that's not the place for Hitler to stay. I mean, if Ernst Rome was in charge, then maybe.

Maybe. Maybe. Or gay guy in a bathhouse. Yeah, Brighton's the place for you, Ernst. Gay sauna, yes, please. But yeah, but the idea that they could choose not to hit somewhere, they can't choose where to hit. It's just, it's sort of daft, really.

And what are these, what are these? So, obviously the Brits, as we mentioned, they've got these ACAT guns, the anti-aircraft guns that are firing, and you hear stories of people who are in the underground hiding, and they were waiting for those guns to start, and they knew that they're never going to hit one. Maybe one gun hit one plane once?

They're firing thousands of rounds. And it's the lieutenant general Frederick Pyle is the guy in charge of anti-aircraft defence And he's through the whole war Piles is so quickly brought up I've actually met Sir Frederick Piles quite a lot since I started going to the gym You've been an intimate relationship with Sir Frederick Piles

He won't leave you alone He keeps giving me a boiled eggs And it's very agreeable man If you're habitual about dealing with Frederick Pyle Frederick Pyle does go away in the end Does he? Well that's good to know Yeah, absolutely He's got a very firm handshake

Mr Piles. But yeah, they have to fire the guns so people hear the guns so they think, well, they're actually trying to defend us. I can't remember what episode or series we were talking about. We're talking about when people fire guns in the air and bullets come down and that does kill people. Yeah.

The amount of ammunition and trace of fire in the sky, surely there are... Yeah, smashing roofs up and setting fast things. People just miles away just getting taken away. Is that out of the head? They're in shepherds, huh? Just, shoo. Well, yeah, but they're in shelters, aren't they?

So... Yeah, yeah. But then I guess it's never been a... there's never been a braver burglar than during the Blitz. Well, or it's just a perfect time, right? Right, yeah. You know? Exactly.

No one's going to catch you. Yes, exactly. It's coming after you, no. Yeah. But they're firing guns and then they also have a night, they have a night fighter effort of airplanes going up. But to start with, they've just got no way of finding the place. So they just sort of go and hang around and...

They have bat lights, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're bat lights, yeah. They go up and follow the search. lights but basically they can't shoot anything down they can't see anything yeah and there's but there is one hurricane pilot as a guy used to fly with this cockpit open with a canopy back who who was unnaturally gifted with night vision and he'd uh he'd have his crew walking out to his airplane like blindfold so it's as dark as possible so it's really yeah and then out he'd go and he'd what he'd do is he'd go up just on on his own like looking and then see if the see if the see

where a city was on fire or whatever and he'd fly over there and he'd pick the Germans out and he was shooting Germans down at night just on his eyesight alone. It's crazy. He ate a lot of carrots. He spent the whole day with a blindfold.

I think so, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's just one, but the problem is, it's one guy. Yeah. Right. And they start, they start bringing up radar and putting it on night fighters and all this sort of stuff. But really, by the time it's ready, the Germans are starting to sort of quit. Yeah.

Who drops more bombs And each other Britain on Germany or Germany on Britain? I mean is the blitz bigger in Germany than it is here No it doesn't bear comparison We we in Hamburg raids In July of 1943

See you later Hamburg Where the British Hamburger in the bin Bomba Command and 8th their force put in a So three day maximum effort A thousand bomber raid We kill more people in that raid Than the Germans do

In bombing force stop. Allegedly. But do you know what I mean that we just it's not talked about at all? It's crazy that they got

so much more than we ever did. It's like if they make a, we make a, you know, there's a fire storm in Hamburg which is like

where the fire feeds itself and draws air in and it's like it's just the most insane. And it's the way it happens is so horrifying. Dresden.

People just melting on mass streets. Yeah. Yeah. And fourth time as well roughly the same time as Dresden. And Dresden's like

pre-atomic bomb the worst bombing of any city. Is it February 45? Yeah, yeah. And so that's the worst bombing of any city ever before. Yeah, kind of. Although Hamburg's up there with it, because there's an argument about how many people killed at Dresden, like one of those depending on whose side of the

argument you're on, you say more people. But, you know, yeah, it's horrendous. It's diabolical, but it's lots and lots of planes, unlike the atom bomb, which is, you know, more bang for your butt. Yeah, yeah. But as in, you know, Britain psychologically needs to have the Blitz spirit rather than the Dresden spirit.

Yeah. Which is, I mean, Dresden spirits, like when we beat Germany 5-1 in Munich, Hesky and Owen. Yeah. What's that? What do you mean? That's an anomaly.

Right. Our main national story is being defeated by the Germans on penalties. Yeah. And then having these few victories that are all the sweeter because the main narrative is that we're the Blitz. Whereas like America, it's like number one, we're the best. And they don't need underdog stories. Then they have 9-11 as the little aberration.

Yeah, exactly. And they overreact because they're so angry. We can't deal with being the best. We're the other way around. No. We have to be the worst but overcome insurmountable odds.

We're fallen. We're a social media platform no one uses anymore. Incredible focus group this. It's a brain trust. Yeah, I mean the thing is is what the British then do to the Germans

in terms of bombing is like it's in a completely different league. They were asking for it. Well, they're asking for it. They started it. They started it. They started. They fucking started.

You hear that? So, so the... Pop landlords coming out. Well, well, no, but seriously, you've got, you've got people in, you've got fuck them all in there. You've got Harris, bomber, Harry. The guy, you know, he's up being called Bomber Harris or butcher Harris, right? Yeah.

And it's his other nickname. He says there, he says, someone says to him, oh, you know, about the blitz. What do you think about this? He says, oh, the Germans, they're going to, they're sowing the wind. They're going to reap the whirlwind. We're going to give it back to them far worse than they gave it to us. And that's exactly what happens. I mean, it's the destruction of, if you go to Essen in the roof,

there's like one building left from the whole city from the from the from the from the from the wall that wasn't completely destroyed it's the IKEA by the way and everywhere everywhere you know I can't remember we were James and I were over we went to where the dams were the dam buster dams we went into those and flew over them it was really good fun I can't remember where we stayed but basically we were in the hotel

reception said where do we go for dinner can we go to the alt-statt and she goes there is no outstatt yeah yeah it was very right you blew up and and and And that's, but they're not allowed to complain about it. No, they're not. No, they're not. Because then it'd be like,

oh, you killed my grandma. Well, your granddad was a Nazi. I'm sorry. What's your granddad doing? Yeah. That's exactly it. No, sorry, sorry. It's like someone tries to cancel someone on Twitter.

And it's like, hang on a minute. Aren't you a pedophile? Well, hold on. It's the ultimate milkshake duck moment. Yeah. When you go to Hamburg, there's a bombed out cathedral there, which is a similar thing to. Sir Luke's in Liverpool.

Yeah, yeah, and Coventry. Yeah. You go in the crypt of that is a museum about the bombing and it basically has a whole thing of we started it. Yeah, quite right. You know, what's the origins of what happened here in Hamburg? Well, we started it. Notism and we started the war and we bombed. So you can't even

grieve it properly because there's no like national monument to the loss of your ancestors. And how traumatic it was to do. It's like the German guy who went on a forum and asked for someone to if anyone wanted to be eaten because he was a cannibal. And some guy went, yes, my consent to be killed in Eaton.

You go, well, his family are like, well, we can't fucking mourn it. You're a fucking idiot. He agreed to be eaten in the bathtub. Buy a German, funny enough. So you go, you know, how are we meant to mourn this? So could have gone. So tell us about Dresden then. This is a thousand British bombers.

It wasn't necessary at this point in the war. Oh, God, was it necessary at this point in the war? Ah, man. Or was it? Was that a pleasurable? Was that a pleasurable noise? No. No.

No. No. No, that was one of those disappointing organ. No, right. One of? Is there any other kind? No, the thing is, so the Germans at that, right at the end of the war, are going, could you please stop bombing? Why are you doing all this? And Eisenhower is the head of, the Sheaf, is the Supreme Allied commander, goes, surrender.

Yeah. If you want this to stop, surrender. Yeah. And that's the sort of, that's actually the calculus involved. There's a period in the last five months of war in Europe. where basically the allies are going, you're fucking lost. Come on. Yeah. Come on.

We're tired. Stop. Tap out. Tap out. Exactly. And you can, and you can any minute. And you can right now if you want to. And they're in what the Ardennes at this point on infantry or?

Well, no. So, so. What episode of Bandler Brothers are we in at this point? Oh, we're in the sort of, we're in the one where they're, you know, there's that one where they're basically is obviously where those episodes where David Lewis is having his week off. I right.

Yeah. Where they cross the river. Yes, yeah, yeah. And there's the replacement. So they're on the Rhine, basically. Tom Hanks, his son is in it for some reason. Colin Hanks, yeah, yes, yeah. And they cross, yeah, it's that phase of the war.

And basically, the Lefuffle can't answer anything that the British and the Americans can do in the sky. And they just bomb a shit out of the place. Yeah. And destroy the railways, which comes to Germany up completely. But it really is like, it's a spiteful war. It's a bit petties. It's the Simpsons, isn't it? Stop it.

He's dead already. It's that meme. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what... They didn't have to do that because Germany was already... They wouldn't surrender?

Yeah, and he would lose British and American lives. Until Hitler kills himself. So Arthur Harris, allegedly, he may be... He may have been in Brazil, we don't know. The Nazis entered this war under the childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody else and nobody was going to bomb them. That's Harris, yeah.

I mean, it's not... It's hard to come back from that. Yeah. Yeah, you started it. Yeah, they started it. I mean... Yeah. Fair play.

And they did, right? But is there a level of bombing... Is there a level of mommy that's like, well, that's not. Was Dresden cricket? Is the question? It's bads ball. In stereo. Alfit's in perfectly here.

We just get you back again. When it's working, that's what it is. First summer. Yeah. Bairsdough against India. It was not. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. They had no answer to it. Have you been to, have you been to, I went there years and years ago. They've rebuilt it quite well, they've done the read on the centre. And I went there basically expecting it to be sort of black and smouldering still.

Yeah, like 60 years later. Wanting it to be still in room. Yeah. Gram zero. Well, this is an interesting question that you brought, which is a great point, is that so Germany won the piece. And the way they rebuilt their country

was seemingly much more affected than ours. And you basically said, we weren't bombed enough. Well, if you look at Germany and Japan and Italy and how their economies grow, whereas ours essentially we become in hock to the Americans who say we'll rebuild your economy on the proviso that you get the nuclear bomb which costs this much to maintain so immediately you're in layers and layers of debt

we still have an infrastructure that we had in the 40s the tube you know so restart but you're making a leap there but it's in Germany you're saying HS2 you could have done half the job in 1940 if you just bombed all those rail lines yes you could you could I'm saying, I'm saying,

Japan had a blank slate, sent to bed, May, 48, night night, August 45, go to bed, lights off, done.

Restart. Restart. Hard reset. Yeah. And now they're, you know, they were a warrior culture, and now they're,

hoo-ho-ho-ho. And that's because the, bang, start again. Britain was hanging on to, is still hanging on to an infrastructure. The whole post- Post-war consensus

and the whole problem why we get into Thatcher is because we sort of... It's still Victorian. Yeah, we're Victorian railway. To your usual podcast It's

I'm all the service Will resume Am I wrong? Well no Thatcher obviously Leans into Exporting Pedophiles Yeah

It's the only thing We have left At that point She needs to get the economy Going Sir James Saville Send him in It was like finding

The North Sea Oil Windfall Was finding The Saval windfall Finding the Peter Files at the BBC Yes

We've broken through To New Ground Let's get them Worldwide Rolf Harris The other butcher Yeah, but Jestan Justen is one of those places you go there

And you can't It's all you can think about When I was it's all I could think about And Hamburg to an extent Were you've been extra polite when you're there? Like more so, was that any noticeable thing? Sorry, Hamburg has so much post-war history With the Beatles

The Beatles and bombing basically Yeah But in Justin, I'm just saying It's my dad's favourite place Oh yeah Beatles bombing He's just buzzing in Hamburg And the Reaper Barre

Yeah exactly But but Rotterdam I've played at There's a great club in Rostom. You've done Marcel's going in Rostown, club have. Brilliant gig. But walking there,

it is a very depressing city because it's literally started in the 50s, 60s. So it's like flat roof. Milton Keynes on Canal. It's like a flat roof pub in Holland. Do you know what I mean? It's something a bit eerie about it. Anyway, so let's get to...

Go on, sorry, go on. Dresden, look at, Charlie, can you get up Dresden now? so they've rebuilt it and they've rebuilt beautiful buildings what I kind of baffles me about Britain is rebuilding the things we're like well it has to be the ugliest building ever met

yeah it's the only thing we can do it has to be the ugliest possible building but the way they've rebuilt Dresden is it's like it's kind of amazing like that's new well I mean the thing is is the the Soviets when it was in East Germany Dresden they left the middle smashed up for quite a long time to go see that's what the that's capitalism right yeah yeah

But it's interesting, it's like, seeing this, I was like, oh, I thought it had to, for some reason, I was like, oh, no, it has to be the most hideous building block ever. Yeah. But it doesn't. You can, but this is what Coventry is now. Christ.

I went to uni, basically next to Coventry. Went to Warwick. Which is actually not in Warwick. Yeah, I know. Because Coventry's so hideous. I looked round Warwick and I said this is a trick. Yeah, it's Coventry. This is Coventry.

It's just bad branding. It's a lot. It's just bad branding. It's a massive IKEA and that's it. It used to be a CKP-K-Pig on the roundabout. Do you ever do that gig? No. That club.

Anyway, let's talk about the end of the Blitz. We've been rushing ahead and getting excited about Dresden because they deserved it. And if they started it, ours words. They had it coming. They had it coming. They did start it. They did start it.

Yeah. They lost the toss. They did lose the toss. Well, they chose to bat first. It did you chose to bat first. It was a bad wicket to bat first time. Because we love a chase. So the last major attack on London is the 10th of May 41.

Yeah. Now, by this point, you know, Guring has been orchestrating the Blitz. Kesselring's nowhere to be seen. He's been taken off and sent to Italy yet? Yeah, yeah, but he's not really part of this. No. So for Guring, it's all about London in flames, I want to terrorise the population.

We're going to try and bring them to the table, or is it still just terrorise them? Well, they don't really... Do they think the population will rise up? Well, they don't know, really... they're in the stage of the war, they've got to do something. And the Luftwaffe,

because Germany's all, you know, because going as political as well as head of the Luftwaffe, what he's trying to do is get the Luftwaffe to win the war to bring it to the table. So he gets the status out of it.

But the issue is, is that what's lurking, what's coming is, Barbarossa is this attacking the Soviets. And so this is why the Blitz draws down. I mean, aside from the fact that the knights are getting shorter, so you're... Of course, it's a winter war.

a winter campaign. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's easier to do at night with longer nights, right? But the days are getting, the days are getting longer, and also they need their aircraft for, for Russia. attacking the Soviets, yeah, for Russia. And Hitler claims that all this,

the tail end of the blitz is all just a distraction because he's about to rip up the snow and not Soviet Pact and go east. Yeah, it's to look willing, like he's looking in our direction. But they're kind of stuck in a, they're kind of stuck in a, you know, doom spiral, Look busy.

Look at busy. Do something. The last major attack is where Westminster Abbey in the House of Parliament are damaged. The raid has an escort of 63 fighters, which is kind of in a testament to how effective. The night fighter efforts got better, yeah. It's not just that one bloke. No, not anymore. No, no, because they've got aircraft with radar and stuff.

Yeah. Okay. So they shoot down 38 bombers in May alone, and by the end of the month, Hitler starting to look east. So between June 1940 and April 41, scores on the doors, the Luftwaffe lose 2,200. 165 aircraft over Britain with at least 3,300 men killed and about 5,000 injured, missing. And if they lost 600 bombers, which is the higher end of the estimates, then that represents 1.5% of all sorties flown. Yeah.

And a sortie is a individual flight of an aircraft. Yeah, there and back. Yeah, there and back. So, I mean, as a percentage, that's not, I mean, that's not great for the RAF, is it? Not a little salt. Not a little sort, no. It's not Danny Dyer. seeing a woman he likes.

Who's this little salt? That's cockney for attractive woman. Yeah. Yeah. As the evacuees would say. Yes, exactly. You're all in the salt, aren't you? What's your mouth, aren't you?

So in total, they drop more than 40,000 tons of bombs on Britain, but Britain takes it. Yeah. You can have Coventry. Yeah. You know? London can take it. Well, because they don't hit the Spitfire factory outside Coventry that they're aiming at. Oh, is that where they go to Coventry?

Right. And people are sleeping, like families are going to sleep in the fields and the countryside, like in hedges. Yeah. Well, in Hull it becomes organised. They actually have, they have like big campsites outside Hull. And everyone, when they come off their work shift, they trek out. They call it trekking. They trek out to the campsite.

Spend the night there and then go back into work in the morning. Christ, that's pretty bleak, isn't it? Yeah, it's quite bleak. That's like some people when they can't afford their fringe accommodation, they do that. That's exactly what it is. Tony Law cap on Arthur's. for a month. So this is, so the end of, yeah, spring 41, you know, to sum up,

our, let's, because we've done a, we did a series on the rise of the Nazis, we've done Dunkirk and now we've done, you know, Battle of Britain, let's just sum up where we are in the war. Everyone says this is sort of the turning point in the war. Yeah. Is that a bit of a myth? Is that British exceptionalism? Is that soothing to the British psyche?

No, the thing, you know, the elephant in the room is the Germans attacking the Soviet Union, which is the point of which they throw any possibility of winning, whatever that means in their own terms out of the window. They cannot defeat the Soviet Union, certainly not if they haven't knocked us out of the war. And then the thing that seals it is Pearl Harbor and the Germans declaring war on the Americans. Which they didn't have to do, did they? No, they didn't have to do it. There's a logic to it, but they don't have to do it. No.

And also, isn't there a moment where Poland then declares war on Japan? And Japan went, ah, you're right. We know you're just doing that. You don't have to do. I think it's Poland. What's Poland going to do? No, but that's what Japan say. They go, no, you're right, last.

It's fine. Don't worry about it. No, but I would. No, no, but it's right. You're literally getting fucked from every angle. But if I could stand up, I would. Japan are actually quite nice to Poland. They go, no, you don't mean that.

It's fine. Yeah. But the beginning, it's, you know, is there all that Churchill's not the end of the beginning, being in the end and all that stuff after Elamane? But this is the sort of, it's the end of the beginning when the Japanese entered the war, and you're into a next phase.

Yes, the next film. Yeah, exactly, but it's Barbara Rosser. It's June, 941, that's the moment where the Germans basically, they've locked themselves into a set of events that means there's just no way out of the situation they're in. They make a bloody good go of it, though, for a bit of Barbarossa, right? Yeah, but it's one of those sort of too much winning situations where they get too far in and they can't sustain it.

And this is where the Brits realised that if we're going to actually engage the enemy on the ground, it's going to have to be in North Africa. Yeah. And then it switches to the eastern Mediterranean. Yeah. But the real moment was probably more Dunkirk and Churchill's speech. That was the hinge more than Battle of Britain. It's Churchill turning the cabinet in, what of a better phrase,

at the end of May 19th. You know the story about him and, I think it's him and Noel Coward? It's the story about Winston Churchill, Noel Cowder. He says to Noel Coward, I want you chaps get up to. Oh, yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't know this story? I think we talked about it, is it?

Yeah, you know what you chaps get up to? Yeah. Show me one afternoon. He says something like I don't. He's a curious man. I don't care. I don't care what it is, is just sort of do it over there kind of thing.

Yeah, but the story is he, you know, spends an afternoon. with Noel Cowd or somebody. Oh, has a look. And afterwards goes, no, it's not for me. Really? Really? You know, it's nice. Britain with the lights off is a different country.

Even Churchill's getting involved. And he was ginger. It's the other thing to remember about Winston Churchill. But Churchill was having a look. Our great hero. But what's you trying to apply there? Ginger pubes. Anyway, on that note,

that's the blitz and the battle of Britain. No, we were saved by the ginger pubs of Winston Churchill. No, that's a ginger jihadi. out it's been an absolute pleasure what a privilege pleasure has been mine gentlemen we've got to have you get you back because we're going to do the World War II series bit by bit it's going to be over many years and what we should you should get James in here and you could be like fucking it well maybe on either side and just get absolutely polanded by both of you why don't we get strapped together and you can just war on two fronts we can just get

double team by we have ways anyway have you got anything do you like to plug you're you're on Tour, you're still on tour? I'm on tour. I'm on tour all year, really. Genuinely, some of the best. I know crowd work is a different thing in this era. Crowdwork clips. Al Murray, are you at the Bloomsbury maybe?

Or somewhere, Sharfby. Yeah, we'd have been like somewhere like that, yeah. There's videos of it on YouTube. It's so, so good. It's so funny. No one better at crowd work than the pub landlord. You're on tour. What's the name of your show?

You always have good titles. All you need is Gov. Lovely stuff. It's all year. And you can buy a premium ticket to wear a poncho and get beer pulled over. Splash zone at the front. Yeah, in the splash zone. I was going to stick around and we're going to do our Patreon where we're going to talk about Goerings, our heists.

But thanks so much for coming in. And join the Patreon for that. And if not, we'll see you next week for a new topic. Goodbye. Goodbye. Cheerio. Cheerio. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything.

Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis hubline. It's good to know. Just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada.