Fin vs History - Only A True Artist Would Kick His Pregnant Wife Down The Stairs | Nero & the Emperors of Rome (Part 2) with James McCann

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

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Adventurous U owns the road with super all-wheel control. Regular side? Alone time. Adventurous side journeys together with third row seating. The new outlander bring out your adventurous side. Mitsubishi Motors drive your ambition. Welcome back to Finn versus History As ever I'm joined by Horatio Gould Hello there

And we have with us a guest The wonderful James McCann Hello Thank you so much for coming down Australian Renaissance man What a pleasure to be here Which as we said in the last episode It means you don't hit your wife on a Sunday

You are Terrible Is this the sort of prejudice We're walking into To begin the podcast? Yeah Let me ask Is this a C E podcast

Or an AD podcast Because I've just seen the notes And I'm concerned That it's a CE type of podcast I genuinely don't know What the difference is It's definitely an AD podcast But I think

Chat GBT has fucked us That's the woke numbers Yeah what does CE mean CE is common era And then there's a set of BC It's BCE before common era James Because they don't like the year

Of our Lord being there But then they keep the same What's so common about one Well, so hang on, so common era, is it like, you can't say Christmas anymore, you have to call it winter. The festival season, yeah. Is it that? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Is it like, do you know what? There was a, there was a mum at our nursery. Right. Who's quite spicy. And, um. What does that mean? Like a sexy mama?

Sorry. Yeah. I better not be racial. No. She's white. American. Okay. She's white.

One of the Argentinian ones. She has, no, she's, she is white. She went on holiday, got a tan. The issue is she's too white, actually. Right. She has spicy interactions. Spicy in the way you are? Yes, exactly.

Right. No, she's great. Actually, that's the end of the story. No, she complained on a thread that they'd renamed Halloween, like, I don't know, pumpkin festival or something like that. You can't say Halloween anymore. Then she said, but we never hear the end of this all-ar lark. And then she did dancing lady emojis to soften it.

Wow. Which I really like the quite forthright, far-right political opinions. You've got a bit of sugar with the medicine. Exactly. You've got to get the cowpole down. It's where ISIS was going wrong. They didn't have friendly emojis at the end. No, so I didn't realize that C.E., I didn't realize there was a difference.

It's not 57 Church of England. That's, yes, it's a common era. 57 AD. So, but you're a classicist. You're Australian classicist. Yeah, but they were all pushing C.E. They're all. Really?

Yeah. You know. And even with sweet Nero, I've been doing my research into the current position people have on Nero. It's all kind of factual, trying to restore his good name. Really? I've heard that as well, yeah. Well, on the rest of his history, Tom Holland is a big Tiberius stand.

He's the truth of a Tiberius. And all the little fish, all the nibbling the balls, he's like, ignore a load of shit. Sir Tony is churn, shit. I listen to his Nero one. He's a Nero apologist. Really? Yes, he keeps using the word axiurius to describe Nero. Yeah.

You know, he was very fond of his, right up until kicking him down the stairs. And even then, that show. shows investment and passion. That's not a cold, disinterested husband. There's something about the way he says about Tiberius, where it's like, you know, Sam Brooke goes, you know, is it true, the stuff about the tight bum squad and the little fish?

And he goes, well, even if it is, positive or negative, it just shows that this man was a philosopher king. Yeah. And he's like, he exists beyond the realms of conventional morality. You go, hang on. Is that what we can say about R. Kelly and shit? Yeah, but listen, if it's, if it's now, it's evil, you know, If Trump uses a naughty word or something, that's no good.

If a man is kicking people to death, what a big personality he's got historically. It's about time. His personality was too big for his legs. That's the issue. He shouldn't be a football player probably. He was born before most of the kicking sports were invented. Yes. It was wasted.

But you're a big, we asked you what you wanted to do and you said classics. You studied classics in Adelaide. It's why we're doing Nero. The finest place to study the classics that there is. What is the Australian relationship to the classic? The next story? Just mournfully wishing we had some. Yes.

You know? We really get to go back 200 years and then it's just Aboriginal stuff that we feel very sad about. Yeah. Yeah. Do you learn any... There's no recorded Aboriginal history really, is there? Well, I think you burn it.

Oh, boy. I mean, you'll get me into trouble here. There's not like a written history, but there's a lot of talking. Yep. Well, that's Chinese whispers, isn't it? Yeah, who knows? Exactly. That's Chinese accent.

First Nations Wispies has not taken off as a term yet. It's not thin versus gossip. James, it's been That is, you know, difficult Because history has to be written Obviously, in an academic sense. Yeah, history, that can be in... That can be in...

That can be... Who fucking knows, yeah, exactly. No, we... Just she said, she said, that's what that is. But, yeah, so Australia, obviously, doesn't have much history before, what is it, late... Late age of...

Even within the Aboriginal history, they go, it was very peaceful and calm and everybody got along. And it was the white man who destroyed it, you go, well, it's very... hard to turn it into a

captivating narrative about yeah exactly you know if there were no

genocides what are we going to talk about can we do a second people's recognition

of the of the white Australians no recognition that it's in brackets after the

welcome the country and welcome to these guys as well second through fifth we don't

acknowledge the English the Irish you know the Italians we ignore it's the fifth

person's history so we should just for people listening who aren't Australian or the Melbourne and Comedy Festival in particular,

you do your show, and then they, before you go out, they dim the light, so everyone's expecting comedy. Yeah. And then they just remind everyone there was a genocide.

And they're all culpable by association with their right skin. Yeah. And then, and then goes, literally, please, well,

do that music plays. And then they go, we remember the death that took place on this. Now please get ready for the fattest drag show of all time. Yeah, yeah.

It's absolutely wild. And but that's not just... They don't do that in Germany, do they? No, which they really should do it. Sorry! Anyway, here's some comedy.

Can we even enjoy comedy, given what happened here? Yeah. But no, they should have a second welcome to country. Yeah. Shouldn't I? It's like, it's just welcoming the second people's. Yeah, welcome everyone.

Yeah. It's a welcoming place, isn't it? Are you a second person's? I mean, are you English heritage? Sampling, Irish, English. Yes, some hodgepodge. There's a Welsh person in there. Yeah.

We don't know anything about them. No, we're in 57 AD. AD. And by AD, I'm making. a statement. Where is this? Where are we in the world? The Republic has fallen. Right. You know? Republic has fallen. It's done. And there's no even appetite for bringing it back. Right. And here, even though there are overtures to give the Senate its power once. You know what it is? Star Wars, all right? But, you know, Palpatine's gone. Right. Yeah. And then, you know, that second, the empire just comes right back for those new movies.

And you go, there's no one really wants these rebels running the show. That's where we are. People have given over to, we've got to have some sort. We got a centralised power system. Hans Solo has literally got a bear cross with a dog running the fucking tax system. You were having Jai Javis in the Senate. This wasn't working. It's not a decision-making body. Yeah, yeah.

It's a fucking little green guy. It's true, the Death Star spotless, wasn't it? Yeah, amazing. It looks great. It was really well maintained. Yeah. Do you get upset that it was all English people running the Dead Star?

Not at all. It's brilliant. Even in space? Even in space, you're beautiful guys. It doesn't paint us in a bad way. It paints us in a good way. The whole thing's American-Iran-I-N-I-N-Alegrary, isn't it, supposedly? Yeah, sort of, but George Lucas, I don't think he thinks too deeply about it.

Like, who's the guy, Peter Zeravinovich, Winovich, or whatever his name is, who played Darth Moore. He said the only note he got from George Lucas was, just make it like evil. That was it, just kept saying, can we just do more evil, please? That was all he had. So I think he's a very, like, I guess, Cowboys and Indians' view of, you know.

So 50, Nero. is emperor, 56, 57. He's a big showman. He likes his arts, music. He's a Nancy boy. Well, that is sort of the tilt that's given to it at the time, that it's inappropriate for an aristocrat to be. He sings, he performs. He's a one-man band. He races the chariot. He's a one-man band. He's got symbols of twins and knees. Yeah, and he's also got a knife in his hand, and when he closes, he sort of stabs people as well. So he, and the main, I think, he begins an affair with Poppea, Sabina, who's the wife of maybe his brother?

Is it also his brother? I don't remember. I think Otho maybe is his brother. But then everyone's got the same. There's four names in circulation at this point, so who fucking knows. Anyway, he begins an affair with her, and then we get to possibly one of the big,

the big founding myths of the guy. The thing that really turns him from a fat-faced ginger, you know, to see the reconstruction of his face, you'd say Down syndrome adjacent man. Sure. into the baby-faced assassin that he becomes known as.

Oh, he's coming on with a minute to go in the European Cup final. Does that mean anything to use on the street? Not a thing. No. Soccer, no.

No. It's boring. I love that you love it. Yeah. You like cricket, right? We love cricket, yeah. Okay, so he's sort of... I guess this is like Ben Stokes'

origin myth. Wasn't that his father committing suicide? I think Ben Stokes father committed suicide. Who's the ginger man who's someone committed suicide? That was Johnny Berto. Oh, I'm so right. Anyway,

but I would watch an origin story of Johnny Birsto. Yeah. Berto. Berto. Berto. Be great. We should do an episode on Birsto. We should do a whole episode on the,

whether it was out of the crease or not. Anyway, Agrippina. Agrippina is Nero's mother. Yeah. She's like Judy Murray. Yeah. She's pushy. She wants him to be, she doesn't really care.

who she burns as long as her son rules the world now Nero's at this point he's what like 20 or something his mum's a bit overbearing you know she's walking in on him doing some weird shit sexually I imagine and that kind of fucks him up a little bit he's fucking a bit yeah he decides to

he's wanking with headphones on yeah and then he sees oh it's a nightmare yeah it's the worst nightmare noise casting headphones than he you know he realizes the door slightly ajar his mother's been in she must die yeah we've all been there it comes up with some kooky weight

So I think the first way he tries to kill her is try and gets a roof to collapse on her. Like he wants an inventive, humorous way to kill her. The boat comes second, I think. First he tries to set it up so she's in a special room where a roof falls down. That doesn't work. And then he puts her on a boat that's going to explode.

Well, so he's watching the theatre. He loves the theatre. And he sees this stunt where a boat, they're recreating maybe the battle of, what's that fucking boring? Salamis? Yeah, that one. The salami battle.

Hide the salami. he sees a recreation of that where a ship basically they recreate it so that it's on the waves and then it like capsizes and somehow it reforms and he goes oh that's a good idea I'm gonna put my mom in those and collapse it

so then he books his mom a yacht trip what is online is you booking that yeah yeah right yeah and then fill out a form yeah travel agent it's time slot travel agents are a thing now travel agents stop being a thing maybe 10 years ago but can I am

book uh my father not also used as travel agents does he crazy like visiting your bank manager and they can tell you where you go on holiday he literally goes into to book a holiday he goes to the high street it's absolute madness he goes to the high street and goes i want to go to america you do it right basically it's what it is i mean it's a great system i can't be asked for there's something quite classy about it yeah you do it you know well hang on what you want to do i don't know if you do it's like going to the dentist but yeah it's a very protestant holiday i need to relax i can't you do it tell me what to do it tell me what to do You go on the holiday, I'll do your job.

See ya. So Nero Books, his mom, yeah, like a yacht trip. I want to say, I want to say. I think it's to get her back home, right? No, no, they're in the Bay of Naples for some kind of festival. Right, right. Anyway, he then goes, I built a, as James said, collapsible ship. And it's got like a seat on it with a roof that's going to collapse.

Yeah. So he sends her a clown thing. Yeah, it's like a clown car. It's saying, smell this flower and then squirting water in their face. So he sends her off and then the roof collapses. Yeah. she survives there because the sofa is too high so she goes like that and the roof hits the arms of the sofa

so she's fine apparently one of her handmaidens to try and make sure that the guard saved her said I'm agrippina they all beat her to death eventually they did have to beat her but they stab her is the first thing yeah I believe when she says stab me here in my womb she has to get back to the sea so she's in the sea she gets back to the land they beat her on the boat no that this is one of so one of her servants says I'm Agrippina

So they thought The ship capsizes Get her out Instead they're like Brilliant And they just be And Agriena sees that And goes

Well I'm not gonna say Who I am Yeah So she gets back to sea Gets back to shore And then she Then she goes to her house And then

She sent a message to the son Saying really weird thing I think The weirdest thing happened That yacht trip you books I don't know What that travel agent Was doing

But the fucking Seating collapsed Then the What his hit squad come Yeah And they Yeah they basically assassinate her

But She says Put it, just take it right here. Oh, I'm really full. If you could just, just put a little bit of air out. So they stab her in the belly because that's where Nero came from. Yes, yes, yes. Also, I like that the artistry disappears.

Like he starts off with some, like with Rasputant. You come up with, oh, we'll poison the mufflers. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we'll come to him in the night. And then eventually you just go, just throw him in the water. Yeah. Just fucking stab her in the belly, would you? Just end it.

Yeah, you run out of ideas eventually. You can't. Yeah, I do want her dead. The spectacle. Yeah. I mean, end. We were, like, just fucking smash a head in. Just hit her head with a hammer.

See what. I mean, it's weird how he's kind of like, he's basically, it's like if Danny Boyle tried to do, tried to assassinate JFK with like a, you know, like the 2012 opening. Like a collapsible thing. What pushed the Stonehenge rock. Yeah.

You've got everyone in the Olympic Stadium and then pushes the Stonehenge rock onto a. Bill Clinton's like, he's not even in power anymore. Like, this is what are you doing? What are you doing? This is an old man. This is for Monica. So he dies, and then basically he feels free to bin off Octavia, who's his first wife, who's boring and probably quite ugly.

Yes. Well, no, he finds her very, no, it's the second wife that he finds sexually so exciting. This is, yes, so, so, so Pompeia. We're going to get to the gay marriage stuff? That's very exciting stuff. That's the best bit of the story. Ah, that's towards the answer. It's going to take so long to get to the first ever gay marriage.

So Papaya then is, they get, they married. and I think he maybe he jails he like trumps up charges and jails his first wife I think accuse her of incest stuff like that as a classic move yeah but that but it must be more than incest because incest is fine

I think if it's like actual incest or like if it's a great legal what's actual incest? No no sorry if it's not if it's like here we go we're just we're just tapping into the subconscious no no no I mean obviously they're all doing incest

I'm all having a look yeah but it's sort of like you know like I do this is one of the few things I did hold from my classics education is that what cousin marriages you can continue doing for generations and you'll be it's like a hundred generations until you get really deformed type of raise but if you go brother sister it's like three you get three generations down and people are i think it's really isn't isn't it one isn't it just like short you can trace it through the uh the uh the ptolemies

because they go brother sister and you so you can really see in real time when they get who the ptolemy's the rlexander's generals who are in egypt so the greek the greek rulers of Egypt post Alexander the Great. I'm outnumbered by a fucking ancient history, autists. But the family tree looks like the two towers. Boy, there's one thing we're looking at, it's... How long can you have sex with your sister before things go bad? We've got that one down, Pat.

Yeah, yeah, that is what... Charlie, Google, how long you can have sex with your sister for before. A cousin lives like four or five, it's a while. Right. But this is also a way the church would give you a wave. You could... The church would have people's family trees throughout medieval periods. Yeah.

You could get a dispensation to have sex with your... were to marry your cousin for sex. But only if there wasn't a previous cousin further enough the change. It's like, you know, it's a sometimes food. Right. So if you're first to do it. That's fine. Yeah.

You know? If that becomes a trend, then we've got to put a kibosh on that. Yeah. But how many cousins could be in? We all knew you could marry your cousin. I mean, you know, let that. How many intergenerate, how many generations of cousin love is necessary to. To really fuck up the jeans?

I wish I knew a bad place in England that I could say there would be. Oh. The Isle of Man. I don't know. Yeah, that's quite a good shout. It's legal to marry a cousin now, though, isn't it? No, there was a big thing in parliament about this where I think like Somali communities

or somewhere like that wanted to marry their cousin and it was like this big debate about... I am the cousin now. So what's the context of that? What would they... What situation would that be that they would say that? I am the husband now, you say. Yeah, they probably was...

Yeah. And the cousin now. I was the cousin. I am the husband now. Yeah. And who would have discriminated against this beautiful way of life? I don't think you can marry a cousin. It's a hijacking.

Maybe second cousin. It's a cousin hijacking a marriage. Right. I am the cousin. The boat is the marriage. Right, right. First cousin marriages in Pakistani communities leading to appalling disabilities among children.

That is a telegraph article. So, um... This is a big right-wing talking point. You hear this all the time. It is. Yeah. It is. But then they don't...

They seem to leave the Orthodox Jews out of it. You're not. No, I was on, I don't know if I should, I was on the, I was on the tube today to come here with like 16 Orthodox Jewish people. And they did all get out at bank. I thought that was, as it was happening, I was like, no, why? I don't know if I can never tell anybody about this,

but this is very funny. Fuck me, they got me, they've got me. They back me to a corner. But charming. Yeah. Beautiful, charming, yarmaca wearing children. Yeah. I didn't know you had so many Orthodox Jews in London.

Yes. Well, they're Stoke Newington area is kind of where... North London is a lot of, yeah. But it's not small, they have an invisible circle around where you're not meant to leave. No. They're four... They're doing about that, the strings.

They have forse fields. Yeah, they're four... Yeah, but you get a bus up Stoke Newington High Street. Yeah. No orthodox shoes, no other shoes. So many orthodox shoes, so... And then none again. It's just literally...

Because they have... Yeah, they have a thing... Half a mile. They have that... In New York as well. I've been, Crown Heights. Yeah. And a lot of...

It's all black people and Jews. You know, it's a good. place to buy a wig. The, uh, the important thing is I found out about the Jewish tunnels there. Drag queens. Do you know the secret? Because people said, oh, the Jewish tunnels. So they thought they had a Messiah who was a guy in Brooklyn. Uh, and there were rum, and then he died. And people go, maybe he's coming back. Yeah. But, uh, he said the world will, you know, we'll enter into the messianic phase when the Jews are strong again. Yeah. Only when my house is big enough that it touches all four corners of the city block. And so, you know this? No, no, no. That was like,

His prediction that he made. I saw all the videos of the tunnels, the people lose their mind. I didn't know this was why. So the reason they were doing it is the same thing about having the strings bordering off an area. They were trying to dig a tunnel from his old residence

to the four blocks. Rather than having the house fill up the full block, just dig a tunnel getting to the corner of the four... That would be enough. That would sneakily be... That's the house big enough for all the four corners. It works, logically. No.

You know, because a lot of people think it was a strange blood magic or something, but it's not. It was just trying to get a bigger house. Yeah, I thought it was a really racist to AI when all those shoes were running out of the sewers. I'm like, guys, this is not a great look. This is a terrible look. What are you doing? Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue to discover all the world

has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with stellist lenses for myopia control. Learn more at SLOR.com. And ask your family eye care profession. for Esselor Stelis lenses at your child's next visit. Anyway, back to Neo. I've been reading so much about these Hasidic Jews. Do you know they believe in reincarnation? I just found that out. Jews?

Hasidic Jews. It's a cabawa thing. Now, do they come back as races that aren't Jews? Sometimes they come back as, it depends what you've done. If you've been very naughty, you don't get to be a Jew again. Oh, right. I was going to say if it's the other way around, it'd be quite funny. If it's a promotion.

They're like, oh, great, we're not persecuted anymore. God's chosen people. Yeah. I know that anti-Semitism is cool here in London now. I've been hearing a lot about that, how hip and groovy anti-Semitism is here. You think it's hip and groovy now in Nero's time. In Nero's time.

So there's a thing I heard about how there's a cult of Syrians. You know this? There's a cult of like Syrians where they basically all castrate themselves and they have blonde dreadlocks. Right, which I think is very problematic. But what is incredibly funny, Yeah, white people with dreadlocks is awful. But what's very funny is that it was so popular that men making,

concentrating themselves in the name of whatever, Syrian God, that we're doing this for, that they Rome bandit, the Senate bandit, and then it was still so popular, they had to go, right. It's allowed, but it's tightly regulated. And it's essentially like, it's essentially like drugs. Because men, they just could not stop people, cutting their balls off, putting a dress on, and having blonde dreadlocks. Are you not doing this in London now? with tight regulations over children who are trans

and getting them to go to a therapist a couple of times before you let them go through with the good stuff? I think what gets fed over to America is to paint London is quite a bizarre place. Of course, because Musk says that we're sort of a communist. You see Tucker Carlson, he says, you say one bad thing about the government, you get locked in jail for like 30 years.

It's like, they think this has become like the Islamic State in London. It's quite funny. That is the news stories coming out. I just want to do the Jewish thing one more time because it's an exciting Neo-Jewish thing. Go on. There is a rabbinic tradition that Nero becomes Jewish and has Jewish children and that he's like a good guy. Did you read about this?

No. That's a big section on the Wikipedia page. Right. Is that in a certain rabbinic tradition, Nero is heralded as like a mensch. Really? Good dude. Well, but he convert to Judaism during his reign? Secretly.

Yeah. Fuck. What, that's mad. He's the forefather of a rabbi. A forefather and rabbi In the one he is evil In the other So he's either evil or

Fucking out The Jews do like to claim people Though don't they Right Go on Tell me what you mean by then Well it's in because there's like The whole mother

Your mother's You're only Jewish If you're through the mother's line Yes But then if someone's doing really well And it's their dad They're like well he's a bit Jewish Yeah

You know what I mean It's similar to Scous Yeah They were like oh he's Well he stay there once Or the Irish Yeah The Eastern Orthodox

Do that with 1060s Right. They say that that was a Catholic invader. I know we'll go back to this in a moment. But the schism happens in 1,000, the East, West, Catholic Orthodox, system. 164. Schism? The schism.

You want to call it a schism? It's the great schism. We talked about it at first crusade. Yeah, no, no, but he's saying schism. The great big split. Yeah, I know, I know. I'm just, I'm worried if I was pronouncing it wrong. I'm worried that I'm pronouncing it wrong.

I know we're all worried we're pronouncing it wrong. Let's say schism, fucking schism. Who is your king at the time before the Normans take him out? Is it? It's Harold. King Harold So in the Orthodox tradition It's Harold

So Harold is an orthodox king Who the Catholic snuff out But he's a saint He's considered to be a saint By the orthodox Yeah Because he was like really a Russian Orthodox guy They just

They nab him We were a Russian orthodox before Bloody hell There's no proof of this This is Russian It's really reaching for it So Nero's killed his mum Yes

Which I think's not on You can't be doing that No That's about I just yeah I just don't really like I think it's a massive red flag In people

We've all thought Yeah, we've all thought about it We've thought about it Yeah We've all, listen, we've all thought about fucking our cousin We've all thought about killing our mum But to actually do both

Yeah I think is a bit weird Young pal Yeah Yeah I think you're just killing anyone Just kill everyone But your mum's the last person

You should be killing You know Also wife and child All generations of family Neuro Yeah But the way that he kills them Becomes less flamboying

I guess he's sort of like An insults all races so there's like a level of like well everyone's getting insulted yeah he does kill himself at the end so he's really yeah yeah i mean it's a very self deprecating and a it's the perfect circle really yeah so he kills his mum um and then he really starts to just become an absolute fucking lunatic right sure of her influence and her puppeteering he's now he's proud of killing his mum as well like he holds a festival after killing him yeah there's graffiti saying nero killed his mom and he's like make it bigger yeah yeah bigger Bigger font.

He invades Britain. I think Claudius starts the invasion of Britain first. He gets involved in Britain. Because Budica happens during this. And he wants to give it up. Britain? Yes, he's like, it's far away. There's no money there.

What are we doing? Is this lady? She's causing problems. It's terrible for the Roman Empire, the British thing. It's just... Weirdly, what they're talking about, the way they're talking about Britain these days is similar to how they talk about Britain

in the States now. It's this backwater. You've got no idea how bad it is over there. Yeah. It's awful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're complete lunatics. Yeah, yeah.

And they, the out, the general out there goes fucking apeshit and, uh, kills the king and then, like, lashes his wife. Rape's his daughters. Rape's daughters. Lashes his wife. And his wife is Budaqa. Yeah. She then goes completely.

Hell knows no fury like a woman scorn. Like a woman scorn. Um, this is a fun bit of her story. Yeah. She, uh, goes apes shit. And then the Romans find that any highborn Roman woman. woman, her head's been cut off

and a severed breast has been sewn round her mouth and that's been put on a spike. Was that like a symbolism?

Is that like a banksy? What's the breast on the mouth meant to mean? It's just quite fun image, isn't it? All right, okay. It's not like a

general to put in the mouth type. I don't think you're seeing this in the New York Oh, fine. But even then, the satirical influence

of the British is strong. Yeah, it is. I think the first you had just started at this point. Yeah, he and his lot was around.

He was taking all this in. He's a young boy. he's taking all this in. What does this mean? But they would basically, there was no real resources there. They all hated it in Britain. You'd just go there to...

I think they have pearls as well. Tin fish. But you'd go there to prove how manly you were. It'd just be like a frontier because it was just the unexplored, you know? But then there's the great fire of Rome. Yeah. Which this is what kind of,

you'd say, starts to forge his reputation as a tyrant. So Rome is made of wood, famously a lot of it is and then something happens and basically a third to about a third of it is just gone yeah he's on fire for like six days

he's away at the time but then he comes back and he helps all the crews he comes back and he goes well this something must have someone must have done this there's someone to blame here and he blames the Christians which is a sort of mad sect

at this point with all the other mad sects and what he does is he then finds ever the showman he finds quite fun ways to persecute them so the greatest showman would be a very different film if this is what it's about human porch in the garden is my yeah so he you want to explain what he does he sets them on fire and he puts them out in the ground

and he goes we can look at these beautiful lights lighting up our pleasure garden that's a man it's like it's cute gardens right but every 30 feet there's a man burning to death and he's just stood there and he's tied and he's a human torch

So you're an active Christian How's this viewed In the Christian community? You know we don't love him No Yeah Quite central But then this is

You know You're Tom Holland's Yeah Love Tom Holland Wouldn't it be nice to meet Tom Holland But really a part of that I don't know if being on this podcast To make no easier or harder

Tom I'd love to have you on my podcast Where we'll treat you with dignity and respect But here's a big problem with Tom Holland And all the people who go on the Melvin Bragg podcast and talk about it. The reaction is so strongly against the Christian thing. And the Christians are so strongly against Nero that they feel motivated to exonerate Nero

and make him, you know, so they go, well, he, you know, okay, maybe he burns down. Maybe he's the one who sets the fire and burns down a third of rhyme and blames it on the Christians. And we have enough Christian history to know that burning down half a city is not, it's not our thing. That's other people's thing. Anyway. Sometimes we have to do that. but probably not this time. And then he, you know, just to drive home that he's not a good guy,

he builds a golden palace. That's his plan to build the huge golden palace over the third of Rome. And this then has to be defended by all these people who are doing the revisionist history against, you know, to say, well, the Christians have got it wrong. The defenses these people have for building a golden palace on the slum that he's probably burnt down are insane. Yeah.

They'll go, well, you know, some of the commoners would have been able to see the golden palace and that would have been very excited for them. And perhaps they could wander through the glens. It's shining. When the sun shines, it's shiny. A feast for the eyes. His mom was a cunt. Yeah, his mom was famous.

It shows that he was passionate. It was paying attention. His mom smelled and his house was needed extending. How many things do we have to have come out about this guy to go? He was a bad dude. Yeah, I think he was a pretty crummy guy. Well, the whole revisionist thing seems to kind of hinge on him being a tortured artist. actually and actually

all this mad sex murder stuff I mean some of the other ways you'd persecute the Christians there's a human torched thing he'd also put them in animal hides and then release them from cages and set wild dogs on them so they'd run through the street

and everyone's cheering yeah but I mean to honest if you're just if you're a Roman peasant the entertainments you're getting in this period are unbelievable because there's no blood on your hands

really we have to say the government has stopped trying to entertain people in the way they did back then. Yeah. I mean, arguably Trump's doing that. Yeah. People get annoyed rather than find it.

But you think about it, a Roman president, there's no blood on their hands. They have nothing to do with that. They're a victim of circumstance. So that means that they are complete, you're completely allowed to, just go out there and enjoy some of those amazing blood sports ever thought of by man.

Are they not essentially complicit by their tax dollars, though? So, no, but also how can you blame like a, someone who's on two fucking deerium, whatever it is a week? Yeah. Like, it's not really there.

No, I'm not saying. They're barely educated. Yeah. And there's like loads of them. Yeah. These have been done for them, though. I mean, people know that they like that. But basically, I would like to go back

and be a Roman peasant and just the fucking mad shit. What's he going to come out of next? This is absolutely brilliant. If you're not the one in it, it's on spectacle-wise, it must be fucking unbelievable. He did things where he would hang people from like a height and just drop them just to see what happened. Brilliant.

I mean, no, take away ethics. Oh, they did. They were actually good odds on there. So he's a scientist as well as an artist. You want to bet the over and exploding. Doing experiments. Yeah, so it's like an episode of Brainiac. So they do, they say he was a tortured artist

And yeah I mean really though He's got another gig He's got a main gig And then he's pushing the music on people You know this is like when Russell Crow Says do you want to hear my band It's very annoying

When someone leverages their success in one area To try and get you to listen to their music and another There's nothing more annoying than that guy Yeah it's true That is really bad Also he's vicious about everybody else's artistic So he goes and wins the lyric games Or something

He says there are all these statues to the people who've won it before. He says, you're going to be destroying the other statues. I'm the only one that you're going to remember here who had the beautiful voice. Yeah. He races in the chariot race with a 10 horse chariot. He falls off during the race, and he still wins the race

because they say, well, right up until the point you fell down, you were winning. Yeah. And you got back on, to be fair to you? Bravery. And also, apparently, you're only meant to race with four horses. Yeah. And he was like, I'll do it with 10.

Fuck it. Yeah. And it's way harder. Yeah, and that's why he fell off. Yeah. It must be quite bizarre watching that So it would be I guess it would be Keir Stama

At the horse races And then he's on a Much bigger horse He's the equivalent He says Lewis Hamilton He's in a Formula 1 car He's in a Formula 1 car flips No he's in a Fiat 500

He's making it harder Then the car flips Everyone's gone I've got a Mercedes whatever And he's like I'm a man of the people I'm a Labour politician Right

I'm in a feet of 500 Yeah And then he crashes he likes Sebastian Grosjean's flips fire and then they're like well they just go and wave the flag by him he goes we'll eat one yeah it's just kind of awkward I imagine

that point it's just strange But then we have a very different relationship to politicians Yeah I guess so I guess so Because they were putting on these insane blood sports I also and I loved in Dynasty by Tom Holland

So we actually listened to He's written a book about this Which is different to the rest of history Because obviously he's reading his actual writing So you can really get under it But the way that he talks about some of these crimes hearing Tom Holland talk

about the paedophilia and the stuff like that he stops caveating it quite early because otherwise it and at one point he's just saying there was nothing

fresher than a young boy the beauty of a young boy is the fact that it does rot and it is a fleeting pleasure like an oyster you can only enjoy it on a very fleeting moment he says spring like

yeah and it just keeps going and he at once said this is what the Romans thought and then just a chapter of boy you'd never get that from Sandbrook as he's just grinding out the snooker championships of 1979 muscular Sanbrook what are you doing that sickos? He thinks everyone's a sicker

The way he talks about so we should probably move the story along he basically is he marries Papaya yeah now she has one daughter I think the daughter dies quite soon she's then pregnant with another one and she one night Nero, now what Nero likes to do as Emperor is he likes to go into, he likes to basically go into skies,

go into like brothels and like pick fights. Yeah, yeah, yeah, be like a real boy, but he's in disguise. Which is part of what, where his ability to connect with the people come from

because he's one of the only people doing this. He's out there, he's out there all the time. And at one point, he gets in a fight with a senator and the, and the senator finds out who he's beaten up. Yeah.

And he gets, he has to kill himself. He just gets a message saying, by the way, can you kill yourself? Yeah. There's also the other. I'm actually getting that letter.

You're like... The whole practice of requesting suicide. Yeah. That's amazing. So far in the way. Oh, all right. Fine then. Fuck.

That's what you look like. There is. Take a look of that. Yeah, I mean, it's... Look, it's notable. The chin strap beard, this is fresh. This is an innovation and the beautiful Hispanic haircut that I'm emulating as well. I'm sort of going for a narrow thing at the moment.

I mean, you're not a million miles away from... It's a good-looking man. Yeah. Yeah. But he, you know, we would say, you know, Tom Holland View would be, that's not an ugly man, that's a man making bold, aesthetic choices that had never hitherto been seen in Rome. Even if he is ugly, doesn't it just show?

The force of personality capable. But so he then, he then, he then, so he's out one night with the boys on the piss up, comes back, his pregnant wife is like, I'm, we're quite pregnant now. Do you mind, maybe have a night in, Nero? We've all been there. And again, we've all been there. he again Does he Roberta Carlos her and

No do you know what he does He Palo de Canio Right You know you don't know Can you get this girl like Charlie Palo de Canio versus West Ham West Ham versus Chal Is it?

It's not Chelsea It might be Sheffield This is what I imagine he does Right This is one of the great Premier League goals by a Roman fascist Yeah ironically Ironically

Pirate DeCaneo a big Latzio fan So this is what it says 96 97 Look at this bang Oh that's good Good stuff. Let's get it again. Let's get it one more time.

Zoom in. Zoom in. Forza, forza. Let's go one more time. So it's nice to see a bowling sports. Full screen. So Nero's at the top of the stairs. Okay.

His pregnant wife is is nagging him for being out late. And she just sends over that final nag and he just bangs her down the stairs. Incredibly. Have you seen Toby Green? You won't have seen Toby Green.

And bang. Oh, lovely stuff. Can you bring that Toby Green kick? Give me my sports best kick Tomy Green kick And this is a guy who plays For Greater Western Sydney And the football

They had to introduce new rules To stop him doing this Is this Aussie rules? It's Ozzy rules But gee, he was a good kicker Is it this one? Yeah, here we go Bang

Oh Wow He's done He did a bunch of those And then they did have to say You can't do that anymore, Toby That's with cleats Christ

We love Toby I really I really don't know What's going on here It's men dressed as women Is this part of the game Yeah I don't know

It's just Is it rugby dressed as women? Is it Rugby? It's Australia. Is there another little kick here? I don't know what's going on. Let's have a look. Oh, wow. So the Emperor Nero's. So Nero, all this is to

say, that Nero, Paolo de Kanios, his pregnant wife down the stairs. And she is, after that, she's no longer a pregnant or a wife. She's dared. Did he divorce? Oh, no. In a way. The old Indian divorce. But you know, I don't know if he regrets it,

but he feels sad that she's not. around anymore. He does, I have to do it now. He got, goal! And he goes, oh, fuck.

Well, by his remorse. But it wasn't, it wasn't straight away, though. I think he was just there. He's that, where's that? Where's that? There's a woman who was always there.

He was passionate. He does start to feel guilty. I think Nero was a, suffered from a narcissism personally. No, that's, see, that's a reactionary, I think,

that's a small-minded way to do with one of history's great men. I think he's a artist. I think he's a racist. Well, he has a very creative response to having kicked his wife to death, is he finds a boy, a beautiful boy. We should just say that he is looking for a lookalike. He says there's nothing more precious than a young boy.

He's beautiful for a fleeting moment. Possibly had to look alike been a girl. He could have gone down that avenue. He was looking for girls. But you know what? He's authentic. So when he gets the look and it happens to be a boy, he castrates the boy.

That's the first step. He makes the boy a eunuch. Wait, is this like a cooking video now? Yeah, yeah. First step. That straight the boy. And then he marries the boy In the first gay wedding

He marries the boy And he dresses him up And he goes on tour Is it actually the first gay wedding? I tried to look up An earlier gay wedding I couldn't find it Right

But I don't see this on Pink News In gay history No I don't remember that being part Of the yes campaign But then after the That's quite a good middle ground actually We can all come together over there Very creative

Just take your best mate He cut his balls on Well See, this is, this one, though, he marries as a girl. It's a gay winning, but he gets married. He goes, words up, my. Sorry, is it constration only your balls? Yeah.

But do you know what he does? Oh, you'd have no fan at all. And this is what Tom Holland does, which the passage in dynasty is incredible because he taught, the way Tom Holland talks about boys and their sexual worth is it's like he's discussing transfer fees for Premier League. Like, it's like, this boy has never, there's never been more precious than this boy that he finds. Or it's like a young.

Michael Owen burst into the sea we haven't seen it's important to understand where they're coming from right yeah exactly and I will say

if Tom Holland you know he does this to say what a gift Christianity has been that we don't look at boys because that's probably without Christianity

the way we'd all be looking at boys now and so we've been given the cultural gift of not looking the boys like that anymore I'm practicing Christians yeah

we're practicing pitophiles go back here castrated but it's the second castration that is I don't know if he castrate the second one

I don't think he does because the second marriage is to a boy and he says I didn't know there's a second one and he says but this time I'm the woman oh he castrates himself he doesn't castrate himself but he says I'll dress up like a lady and now I married my husband right he's playing with it he's got a creative approach he's a drag king yeah sort of yeah he's a provocateur yeah he's testing the like the boundaries of society as Tom Holland will say but also Tom Holland he's hosting a drag ping guy he's hosting brunch for a drag guy There's a passage where Holland basically goes on about how, you know, Nero probably thought seriously about trying to carve a trench into this boy's groin. Yeah. With which he could fuck. And you're like, you're, you've been on the BBC, Tom. I don't think you should talk.

Stop nosing around. There was no NHS at the time to pay for that to happen to somebody. Right. Yes. The Tavostok's not there. Yeah. You know, all this system's not in place. but basically he

I guess kidnaps a boy forcibly makes him trans marries him as his wife is that what we'd say in today's my understanding is that that is what is taking place yeah and that boy is called spousa spouser he does what

Tucker Carlson thinks all teachers in the UK is right now this is what this is a British wedding known for being castrated marriage to the emperor yeah he's playing the role of his wife who had died the previous previous year, which is, again, it's quite a revision way of saying had done.

Action historians generally portrayed the relationship between Nero and Sporos as an abomination. Scholars have deduced that Sporos was likely an epithet given to him when his abuse started, considering it to be derived in the Greek word sporos meaning seed or seaman. Right. So you called him come. That's my come boy. Come. Come.

Come. Come, come, come. Come. Come, come. Come, come. That's where it comes from. Come, come. So, yeah, I mean, I guess

there's not really much modern equivalent. I guess this is when the Trump analogies start to run a little dry. This is what I've seen the last episode. I'm like, if Trump is whatever leading a republic. I mean, look at next, sorry. I'm like, can we redo the coins, please?

How's he not killing the person who made that coin? Well, he wants to talk back then. He's insisting that they, he thinks this is, no one's done this before. This looks like a mouth tape advert where they're trying to tell you what happens If you keep breathing through your mouth. That's the before photo on a jewelry reconstruction.

It's a sleep apnea machine that you require if you have that. So he marries this boy who he's made of a woman. The sweet boy. At this point, he's also engaging in Holland goes on about these floor shows, which are sex games. He does love talking about the floor shows. Can you Google what a floor show is, Charlie? He gets some boys and girls and he ties them to stakes and then he dresses up as a wolf. Yes.

And he sucks them all off or nibbles at their genitals and it's kind of this... He dressed up as a boar, yeah, and they... He dressed up as a wolf. Wolf and they're boars. No, they're boys. But they're dressed up as bored.

In a way, the whole point is like, after the Great Fire... It's the sucking off. It's the difficult part of this for me. Yeah, we shouldn't really be arguing over... Regardless of the costume. Yeah, yeah. I don't know that there's a costume

that makes that great. But the whole point is that after the Great Fire of Rome, he's like, I'm reinventing it, I'm rebuilding it, just as, Romulus did and he was he sucked yeah because he had the Romulus thing but he's doing his own

twist on it maybe it's not suckling a mother's milky tit instead it's sucking a point well then this is this is done with the reverse well I don't know how much you went into detail that but is it with Tiberius where he is the you know his penises of breast

yeah we did that did do that dreadful stuff I guess it's a pretty unoriginal now those are called the tidalers his squad of babies that he I didn't know that there was a special name he had three squadrons The tidalers, the little fish Squadrons?

The Tiddler's the tight bombs and the little fish. Now you'd say the tightbombs are getting the raw deal in terms of names. Anyway, that's... Here's my last Holland criticism when he's defending him

on the pod. And this will drive, I expect a lot of traffic to this episode. People can say where I'm wrong. He uses the word neuronian to defend him. He goes, well, it's a very

neuronian thing to have done. I mean... Yeah. It's not as though there was anyone Neronian before Nero to make an adjective out of it. You can't go, well, you know, Hitler was being a little Hitlerian.

Within the realm of Hitler ethics. This Hitlerian, you don't hear that. I think we can just condemn monstrosities. I think that's okay. I reckon so. I don't know. There's two sides of... I say I'm not taken into account

all the history of how beautiful these boys were. We also clearly don't know what these boys tied to spikes were wearing. Do you know what I mean? We don't know what kind of... Some of them may be more a t-shirt saying please time me to a spy We just don't know.

We just don't know how irresistible these precious kids these days they grow up to slow. Spring like oysters of porous

which reached a far yeah so it's a tie up so Nero's going properly absolutely cuckoo and he then just fucks off he leaves Rome

and he says I'm going to be a touring artist He goes to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for three years and he decides to he basically gets obsessed as winning best newcomer and he goes to Greece

and yeah, competes in all these like artist games Olympic games whatever other games many of them he wins well you think he wins

all of them but amazing yeah funny that that's incredible well it's just sort of it's like a like a North Korean dictator with all the military medals

you know it's like any dictator with all the medals that they haven't won yeah but like today he'd be on bakeoff he'd be doing crafts

like anything that there's a vaguely compensative online And he'd be doing Love Island They'd be doing all the reality shows Starma's just doing all of them It's like I fuck this

It's boring I want to go on Love Island I want to go on maths Fuck it'd be great to see a topless Starma when it pans on Love Island Oh yeah Let me guess You've won again But anyway he wins all of them

So I guess in there crap Me and Starma just gets to fuck my jammer I don't know Yeah I think that's the rules Anyway so he wins them all He comes back And he holds a procession For his victories

And apparently the people are going absolutely apes shit. Because to be fair, if your prime minister went and just won everything and then came back, you'd be like, it's fucking sick.

It'd be, it'd be, it'd be, fuck yeah. It's like him, Phenis Jr. Rotary all waiting, like,

and then it goes to Kirsta, he also played kick to ball. It's like, hang on, sorry, this guy has just cut disabled people's benefit. He's won the ball on door. Fuck yeah.

That's my guy. I didn't vote for him, but fuck yeah. He won the battle door. it's like even a professional footballer. You know what it is? Because you can't win the Ballandoor if you're not playing top level, but you can win the Pushcast Award,

which is the award for best goal. Right. And you can submit that from whatever level. Yeah, Sunday League. Well, the primary school. Primary school, Irish, you know, whatever form of the sport takes, you can win that. Irish. It's been such disgust.

You can be... Primary school, Irish. Irish football. There's some weird stuff going on there. The Irish League. You're probably watching Gaelic football and just getting confused. Yeah, that's not a goal

But you can't pick up the fucking ball You don't pick up, you idiot Have we taught you nothing? But Kirstama could win the Pushkus Award For like one of his five aside goals And I do think the country would go absolutely ape shit Yeah, it's true I love him

I thought, and I had only on one podcast And maybe I'm wrong But I thought the real turning point For his loss of the people Was the amount of time he spent in Greece Because the reason why he managed To maintain such a populist love of the people Is that he was putting on shows

he was a public figure but the fact that he was spending three years in Greece away from Rome that's when the that loses him the people in Rome maybe but the people in the provincial areas continue to love him so much that even after he dies they have pseudo Nero's who pop up oh right Nero is not truly dead he is here okay over and over again all these Nero's still he never died yeah we just keep finding fat guys yeah it's the only fat guy we've ever seen but also there's the whole idea of him Fiddling while Rome burns is said about Nero But I for some reason think that's slander

I don't know enough about it I feel like we don't know anything But firstly the thing to say is the fiddle wasn't invented Yeah But it was the liar or something Plakey but that could have been a mistranslation It's not right because he's not he's not in Rome when it happens Yeah

As opposed to Tiberius I guess was kiddie fiddling while Rome birds But he's Nero is supposedly moved by the flames That he gets artistic inspiration and just starts playing a song. He's an artist. Yeah, exactly. And there's a Roman history of that

that you recite a little homer when you're doing what you've got to do. It's a bit of, he's jazzing it up, you know? So then there's something, we should probably try and tie up the story. There's a Pisonian conspiracy in 65. Right. Which he, that's how he gets rid of Seneca and Burrus.

Yes. Or Burris is forced to commit suicide. Well, was Seneca worried about his student getting out of control? He's sort of. helping to potentially fun. Not a running influence. Well,

but is he trying to like get him killed, Seneca? No, Seneca's sort of trying in this, in this kind of in betweeny world where people are coming to him

going, and this is towards the late 60s, this is really getting out of the hand. Yeah. This is like 68, 669.

You know, Manson and family stays too much. The swinging 60s have gone too far. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Seneca's like, I know, but my name,

my whole thing is attached to him. Yeah. I can't really be the guy. Yeah. But if it were, to happen that would be fine like yeah yeah yeah yeah and then I think what happens is that a guard

he's been communicating with the with one of the Pisone and conspiracy guys and the guard finds that and then Seneca kills himself now Seneca suicide is very funny yeah it's funny I don't know about it right so he gets that letter saying by the way you got to kill yourself yeah which is like your kind TV license letter but it's like jury

duty but suicide everyone gets it at some point you come to be oh fuck I got to do that and you can't postpone it so Seneca goes right I'm going to kill myself then and he cuts he gets a knife and he cuts his ankles and his wrists and behind his knees and then he waits and nothing happens so he takes some poison it doesn't work yeah it's probably gone off or something's gone off or something uh he's kept it in there for ages because he knew this day might yeah so it's like his top draw but then he's not he's clean not cut himself properly and he's cut but he's you know really

painful places like the by the knees why you find the knees so you knee capping yourself yeah but also you're probably saying things when you think you're about to you're getting all these, like, quotes out. Yeah. And then it's just, like, kind of awkward. You know, you said all these things. I've always wanted to fuck my sister. And then 10 minutes later, going,

ah, um, you cut me again. So then his, his slaves, um, his slaves carry him to a steam room. Yeah. And he gets in the steam room and the hot baths. And that opens the veins up. And then he slowly bleeds out. But he's riffing till the end. I think he's trying to get as many.

He's firing off bars. Well, he's a funny guy. I think his Oedipus is the best one. I think it's better than the Greek one. What? He does an Oedipus, does he? He has his own Oedipus. It's very funny.

He really has fun with the mother, son stuff. Oh, right. Whereas in the original, in the Greek one, it's just sort of like, oh, no, that's my mom. And in the Seneca, he's really being playful with the language. Yeah. I recommend it. I haven't read it in 10 years. Does he blind himself at the end?

Yeah, but it's a bit more showy, I think. Because we talked about The problem with Oedipus If I found out I'll shagged my mom for 20 years Like the last thing we'd want to do is blind ourselves Because then you just That's the last thing you remember And not only if you fucked your mum

But you're blind So we thought it'd be better if you If I found out I'd fuck my mum I would get a frying pan And hit myself on the head till I You know, had a brain injury Because you know when you close your eyes And you think of the last thing

The last bad thing you did Yeah It just feels like a terrible move You haven't solved anything No But he did love I mean So now you're thinking about this in the conventional morality.

Right, I see. Right. But within the combination of mother and spousal love, why wouldn't you want to... Why wouldn't you want to what? Man, Tom Holland's doing a difficult thing trying to stand up for these outside attacks. He's doing it well, to be honest.

Yeah. So in 68, there's rebellions in Gaul. There's also rebellions in Paris. The student revolts happening. Of course. Chicago's ablaze. Martin Luther King's been assassinated. There's several revolts because he's not really been present.

He's been in Greece, doing the Edinburgh Fringe for three years. There's always revolts in their own empire, of course, occasionally. So the Senate revolt, and Nero basically escapes from Rome. He gets wind of what's happening, and he gallops away on his horse, and he has to go through something like back entrance to his mate's house in wherever the fuck. Yes, I did, yeah, yeah. And he's in like a servant's quarters, which has no furniture. It's quite funny.

He's just a room. And he's really sad. And then he gets a letter from the Senate. But there's nowhere to sit because there's no furniture. You can't be sad, sat down. What? He'd put you sad on the floor. Yeah.

Yeah. Rubbish. So he gets a letter from the Senate saying we, we think you're done, basically. Kill yourself. So it's sort of like the kind of Instagram request we get. Yeah. Yeah. And, but he actually has to do it.

You think you're done. Kill yourself. Imagine every Instagram DM you got, you had to. Click my horny pussy camp for fuck All right then Christ Yeah that's another laptop gone So then he's like right

And this is again It's very funny as a suicide goes So he keeps sort of pacing around the room Going What an artist dies with me What an artist How awful that an artist should die like this He's sharpening his blades

And he tries to stab himself But he can't He's too much of a pussy But then he hears hooves And he's like oh fuck They're coming in a they're coming to get me anyway yeah so then him and his uh one of his butlers or something they get the the knife and they stab in his neck and his eyes bulge out and then a

centurion arrives and literally goes we were just going to say actually we've forgiven you oh and they were saying he was bringing a letter from the senate saying do you know what actually we've decided to reinstate you and he's like but his last words then are not so he has the bit where he says what an artist does with me or like What a workman. He's either aggrandizing what a great artistry was or he's saying what terrible depths I've fallen that I don't get to be a great artist.

But apparently the last thing he says when the centaurin comes in is, you are late. He was late. Yeah, yeah. That's fair. So Nero dies 68 and then what happens? There's like four emperors.

It gets too complicated, no one really knows. I think we should leave it there. I really enjoyed this and I want to do the other emperors now. I think there's a lot of. juice on these bones. I think what we'll do is that we're going to get James to stick around

and he's going to do a patron where he's going to tell us about some other heena shit that the Empress did. If you want to sign up, you can become a truther and you get access to the episodes

all on a Monday and you get a bonus episode every week. Anything for you to plug? James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan. It's out now. Three books of poems. New album.

I'm like Nero. I'm really pushing the other stuff. Wimble Dog. Coming out soon. beautiful graphic novel about a dog who plays tennis amazing. Patreon

YouTube when is this coming out? You got a special out? Do you know? Hey America? Well, James is brilliant. You're absolutely loving. Thank you for having me.

This is a real course. Checking stuff out. Thanks for coming. Do you edit this? Yeah, yeah. Great. Yeah. Don't worry.

We'll edit this. Look after me. Scroll down. Yeah, yeah. Delete that. Stop getting porn up. Either way, thanks for watching. Stick around on the page

and see James. Some more James. And we'll see you. you next time.