Loremen Podcast - Loremen S6Ep46 - The Man-Faced Pigs of Brussels

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Who is that, judging me from afar? Why it's the Man-Faced Pigs of Brussels (Wisconsin), the pickiest swine the Loreboys have encountered to date! With a sprinkling of Christmas Pig magic, here is a festive little tale to warm you from your snout right down to your curly, curly tail. ⁠⁠⁠⁠See Alasdair On Tour in 2026!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the LoreFolk at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ko-fi.com/loremen⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check the sweet, sweet merch here... ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @loremenpod ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/loremenpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.instagram.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.facebook.com/loremenpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, hi there, listener. It's Alistair from Lawmen. I just wanted to let you know that tickets are on sale now for my 2026, 2026 tour of the UK. It's called King of Crumbs, and I'm bringing it to a town near you. If you live in Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury, or Shrewsbury, Portsmouth, Lester, Lestor, Pry, Portsmouth, Oxford, Oxford, Portsmouth, Oxford, Oxford, Liverpool, Barnard, Newcastle, Canterbury, Manchester, Cambridge, Swindon, Salisbury, Aldershot, or indeed, London Town, Old London. for King of Crumbs, or go to abetckettking.com forward slash gigs. Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from Days of Yore. I'm James Shakeshaft. I'm Alastair Beckett King. And Alistabekett King, it's the most Christmas piggy time of the Christmas piggy year. It is the most wonderful pig of the year. Yes, I've got a Christmas pig.

pig tale for us. Oh, as a mixture of a gasp and a grunt. The sort of noise that a man-faced pig might make. What? Settle in for the tale of the man-faced pigs of Brussels. Alistair, Beckett, King, hyphen King. King, hyphen King. Hi, James.

I had to retake it halfway through. How's it going there? Very well. It's Christmas time. I've had a mince pie. Ooh. How was it? It was fine, yeah.

Fine, I mean, not fine, because Rachel made it. My lover and confidant made the mince pie, so it was excellent. Fine in the sense of the fine. Silks. Yes, exactly. Not fine in the sense of the finest silks, they're fine. You're fine like Bing Crosby's fine in the Bing Crosby David Bowie mashup. It's, I guess, fine and quite, both have opposite meanings, don't they?

Because they can mean extremely or, yeah. It's quite good. He was quite mad. Doesn't mean he was a bit mad. It means he was very mad. Yes. And I had Greg's vegan sausage roll, which I think the wise men had, didn't they? on their way to Jesus.

So I'm feeling very festive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was gold, frankincense, Greg's vegan sausage roll. Greg's vegan sausage roll. Yeah. And nom-noms. Yeah.

And nom-noms? Nom-noms. Do you mean yum-yms? Yeah, maybe I do. Uh-oh. Is this why I'm banned from Greg's? Yeah, that's why you were getting all those looks. Oh, dear.

Unless there is a second product called a nom-nom-nom that I don't know about. Oh, no. Oh, no. I really did try to order that in a Wendles What's a Wendles? What's a Wendles?

They're Greg's adjacent Right, okay But sort of From their name It feels like they're trying to go For a bit more of a Germanic vibe Okay The Wendles

The Wendles Fraulein Bring me My numnums I'm mucked as Wee nom nom For dick for you

I want numnums for you yeah yeah I'm trying to get I'm trying to buy them numnums oh dear see I'm starting to see why these are almost exclusively

behind the barriers of train stations it just keeps the Hoy James Shakespeare Poloy out oh dear James James do you think you can redeem yourself

with a Christmasy tale for the listener well I do have a Christmasy tale and Alistair that tale is curly I thought we'd run out of pigs, James, but there's another pig at the bottom of the stocking. I thought we'd reach the bottom of the pig barrel, but it was actually the top of another pig.

Those scrapings were actually pork scratchings. Yeah, I was really hurting a pig. Alistair, I thought we'd run out of pig-related tales. So did I. And I thought that this year, Christmas pig was cancelled, but... I put a little shout out into the lawfolk discord if anyone had any X-mas pig tales for them to email me with a subject line Xmas pig, and I got one with the title, Man-Faced Pigs of Brussels.

Let's do this. Sounds good, right? Yeah, because also Brussels, Brussels sprouts, so it's very Christmassy. No, Alistair, this doesn't take place in Brussels Belgium. No. This takes place in the other Brussels. Yeah, is an equally famous Brussels? Yeah, Brussels, Wisconsin?

Oh, I should have known it would be America. In America? Yeah, Brussels, Wisconsin, like Paris, Texas. Yes. This is the third largest Belgian settlement in the US. Dear didlid, dear didlid, here's the top five. Green Bay Town, Wisconsin. Dear did litre.

Lincoln, Wisconsin. Dear did litre. Third place, Brussels. The first two do not sound Belgian at all. That was fifth and fourth. Second, Red River. And number one is Union. What?

Yeah. None of these places sound Belgian apart from Brussels, which sounds too Belgian. Brussels is the only one that sounds Belgian. That's too Belgian, if anything. I wonder like Gentsville or Flanders Town. Flanders, yeah. No, they didn't. They said Red River and Union.

Rubbish. Do you want the census results? I've got 2000, 2010 and 2020. 2000 is going strong with 1,112 people. In 2010, it's got 1,136 people. Is that more or less? Because I've forgotten the amount that you said previously. It had gone up by 20,

people. They gained 24 people in 10 years. Yeah. In 2020 though, it had lost 11. It would drop back down to 1,125. We can only guess how many there are nowadays, because there is another census for a few years. This town was created on the 12th of November, 1858, and the settlers were Walloons, who were the French-speaking Belgians, and they're not to be confused with balloons. Okay. As much as you might see a balloon that looks the shape of a person, balloons are not people. God knows, I've seen some human-shaped balloons in my time.

Are those guys who wave their arms outside petrol stations? They're not really balloons, aren't they? They're balloons that are in a constant state of being blown up. Like as an inflated, I think. A horrible sort of living nightmare. That's why they're shaking their hands. They're not waving. Wow, horrible.

And so those guys from petrol stations, they live in Wisconsin, you're saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They settled in 1858. Those guys are Belgians, right? Those inflatable guys. They're the balloons, yeah? Yeah, they're the balloons. And actually, you know what, Alistair?

It's a balloon that looks like it's going, woo. Yeah. When they look like they're going, woo, they're actually in distress. Oh, no. I've been enjoying that. Did I ever tell you about the time I saw a hot air balloon? to scale Dora the Explorer in a pram. A hot air balloon to scale Dora Explorer?

Not hot air, sorry. What's the other one? A helium balloon. A helium balloon. Oh, it's like a full-sized Dora the Explorer. Yeah. I thought you meant like a human-sized Dora the Explorer in a hot air balloon. That's such a child.

Yeah, that's just a live-action door of the explorer. That's just a child in a hot air balloon. It was a helium ballooned door of the explorer in a pram. And it was just a dad pushing around. I think it was at the county fair in Brixton. You know, in the park, they have that big county fair sometimes. And this guy, I couldn't see the rest of his family, and it was really freaking me out that... He was just pretending to have a Dora the Explorer child.

And then the mum might have come over and she would have been one of them petrol station guys. You don't want to use a helium balloon in that situation because they're going to keep floating out of the pram. Exactly. You're going to have to strap it in. And that is perhaps why, Alistair, you've neatly segmented. guade into my next section, which is pointing out that the county that this place is called, well, it's indoor county, as in the county is called door. Door, it's indoor county.

Yeah, we're not an indoor county, although if they were all hot air balloons, you would want to be indoors, really. That would make sense, because they'll blow away. Yeah, yeah, that's very sensible. If they're out of doors. No, it's called Door County, this place. And this place is where we find the man. face pig legend.

Indoor, is it? Is it on? You're all going there? Indoor is it? Of course, I would. I bloody love the place. It's nearly a joke. That is nearly a joke.

That's good. My only source for this story is Pine Barrens Institute.com. A fine journal of opinion. And this happened in the late 1800s slash early 1900s, but it definitely happened no later than 1920. And what happened was,

A local farmer was angry because he found out he'd been removed from the will of a wealthy relative back in Belgium. So he cursed the clergyman who read the will. Whoa. Shooting the messenger, yeah. Big time. And any other clergyman in Brussels. He cursed all Belgian clergymen. Oh, no, no.

In Brussels in America. It was not confused again. Every time he's at Brussels, I'm thinking of the one in Belgium. Because I think he was one of these Walloons. which I guess is the noise they make who was in who had settled there because it's within a couple of decades of it being set up as a town and the will was a wealthy relative back in Belgium

I see yeah the clergyman told him he cursed the clergyman he cursed in fact all clergymen in Brussels but I think Alistair the curse had a similar issue to you as in it got confused, because the curse did not take to the clergyman, the curse ended up on the farmer. It rebounded off the clergyman's, possibly the collar. Yes. It reflected off him and hit the, well, that makes sense because it was just, it was stupid, it was stupid to curse the reverend, the vicar, the pot, the holy man.

What was the word you used? Parsons. Parsons? Parson. Parson. I just said clergyman. Clergyman. But that's the thing, you know, when you point a curse at one.

at someone three curses are pointing right back at you in a way yeah good point and that you know what that phrase you know when you point at someone the three fingers point back of you

have has led me to start pointing with all my fingers at once bam yeah like an aughton in Doctor Who yes I'm good at pointing too too no fingers are pointing back at me thumbs not even pointing up at God

I've bent that down as well bam wow shake shafts pointing with all five at once yeah I'm gonna patent my point and sell it on the internet. Yeah, you could do like cameo for pointing. You know the way people get like Nigel Farage to wish their racist uncle happy

birthday? That could be, if someone wants like someone to accuse someone of something, they can get shake shaft, shake shaft five fingers to just be out. He makes a good point.com. Could that be an website? How to make a... Imagine if I'd set up like a... self-help book that was like how to make a great point and it was just a series of

photographs of my hand just like in bits from from a normal point and then just like pinging out all the fingers to show look this is how you do it. Yeah, the different stages. Step one. I did bookmark a web page for my reading list which was called something like and it was a proper web 1.0 website, you know, visit account, that sort of thing. Mine would be Web 5.0. Yeah, exactly, all the points. And the O would be the person I'm pointing out going, oh. The website was something like Andrew's shoelace website.

Because Andrew has come up with an innovative new way to tie shoelaces, which is better than the way we're all doing it. And I read that and thought, I need to know this, but not now. And so I don't know. I didn't read it. I just bookmarked it for later, because one day I'm going to learn the correct, I sort of admire the kind of a visionary who can be like, I've come up with a new way of tying shoelaces and it's better than anyone else has ever come up with. Time to create a website.

Have you told me this before? Or have I somehow also stumbled across... I don't think I've told you. Someone's saying that there's a better way to tie shoelaces. Maybe the word has got out thanks to this website. Wow. And what is that way? I don't know. Yeah. Didn't actually read it. I vaguely remember it was something about like you put the loops the other way round or something. Or you just use Mobius loops or something. I. I don't know. So they know, so that your shoelaces become infinite. There's some of my cool dance tracks, don't they?

Mobius Loops. Well, actually, a dance track that never ended would be bad. Eventually, you'd get sick of that, wouldn't you? For the record, James, and I'm sending you this link in case you want to look into this yourself, it's actually Ian's new shoelace website. Ian's Secure Shoelace Not is the name of it. Right. Ian's secure shoelace not.

That sounds like it's kind of. the 90s, doesn't it, and it's a bit of a dis. Also known as the double slip knot, this is a secure shoelace knot with a simple symmetrical method of tying. Cross two loops and pass them both through the quote's hole in the middle. This is a shoelace knot

that won't come undone. That's bold. That's not my editorialising, that's in bold. It won't come on done on its own. So there you go. Check out Ian's shoelace site for more information. Wow. Incredible. Incredible stuff. So as I say, the source

for this, the only source I managed to find is Pine Barrens Institute.com and before we get back into the story, I just want to point out it's very difficult to find out folklore from Brussels because you just, everyone assumes that you want to know about the mannequin. Do you know about the mannequin? That's the little boy. That's the little boy doing a way.

It's a fountain of a Belgian Brussels boy doing a wee-wee. And there's a few different origins for it because there's a few different legends. One was that the city was under siege and a bomb had been placed in the wall and the fuse was burning up and then the little boy did a wee on it and put the fuse out. And one of the other stories is that there was a two-year-old duke in control of an army and they put him in a basket and hoisted him up a tree during the battle to keep him out of the way. Fair enough.

And then he did a wee on the opposing army. Okay, I think he was not really out of the way enough if he could wee on the opposing army. Yeah. I think he was too near the battle. I don't think you should bring your two-year-old general to the war at all. At all. He was in charge. This two-year-old was in charge.

He carries the bookstomps with him. Because the little boy is the famous one. They've also got a little girl doing a wee sculpture. Oh, yeah, classic gender pay gap situation, because we haven't heard of her. She's called the Genie Kippis, which translates as the little gene. And there's also a dog Zinnakenpiz. Okay. I just feel like maybe Belgian sculptors need to get a second joke.

Not yet. Presumably there's a cat one on the way. You know what? In Japan, they've reproduced it. There's two versions in Japan. There's one on a platform in Tokyo, and it gets dressed up in different clothes. And there's another one, which I've actually seen, which is in the Ia Valley in Chicago,

which is really, really beautiful countrysidey bit, all mountains and that. And it was built in 1968 and it was inspired by tales of locals and travellers who would wee off this cliff to demonstrate their bravery. So they put a little statue of a kid doing it. I guess to discourage people or something. I'm not sure that discourages it. I don't think so. Alistair, you don't sound too enamoured by it.

I've also checked the Google reviews. Okay. I'm just going to read one. The scenery is just as described in the guidebook. However, there are no shops or toilets, so there's nothing to see. There's nothing to see. Apart from the beautiful view of the like famous Nana Magadi seven curves. Yeah, but you've read that in the guidebook, and it's just the same.

There's nothing to see like shops or toilets. And then the pee from the man. Anakin Pizz is not flowing. Disappointing. Very disappointing. The gas money spent on the journey will be wasted. One star. Incredible.

It's not even real wee coming out. That's outrageous. Disappointed. And he was disappointed. Holiday ruined. Husband crying. Thanks. Do you know what, Alistair, actually.

When husbands are crying, it shows that they're distressed. I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of that format of joke, you know. And when I do get tired of it, you know, I'm distressed. Anyway, back to the Pine Barrens Institute.com. So, yeah, he did the curse. It bounced back on him. And late that night, he began to experience odd noises and phantom music from a fiddle. Who do we know who plays the fiddle, apart from Nigel going to do?

The devil himself, themselves. The devil themselves. And the furniture in his house started to levitate and swirl around the room, as if dancing to the music. And it says the livestock outside began to change in frightening ways. And of all the animals affected, the pigs changed the most. What do you think happened? Well, I wouldn't want to second guess the direction the story is going in, but I have read the title of the episode. Yes.

I'm going to say human faces on those pigs. They were distorted into horrifyingly angry. and somewhat demonic human-like faces. They didn't just put a human face on this situation, Alistair. The pigs started to follow him around and just stare silently at him. This is the most distressing pig business since the trailer for Andy Circus's Animal Farm. Have you seen that? No, I haven't.

You haven't seen it? No. The trailer or the film? The film isn't out yet. Of course, we'll all be racing to see it when it does come out. And they just released the trailer. Just in time for Christmas pig, presumably. Yeah, absolutely.

So it's like a funny Seth Rogan-y Pixar-esque take-on Animal Farm with some sassy, wise-cracking pigs. I'm not kidding. That's what it is. It's like a sassy, funny like a zootopia. Get what it's about.

I don't know if anybody has read it. Yeah. It's utterly incomprehensibly. It's like a joke film that would be in 30 Rock. That would be mentioned in 30 Rock. The fact that it's happened is incomprehensible. I suppose, like, Big Brother, as the TV show, Big Brother is like,

you really didn't get Night and A-4, did you? Yeah, it feels like there's an element of sort of conscious irony with Big Brother that somehow, I just, they should do like a fun, heartwarming down and out in Paris and, down and out in Paris and London. Isn't that, is that trading places? It's like cute, homeless guys. Yeah, maybe, maybe. So it gets more unheimlich to, to quote. you and...

Even less Heimlich. Yeah, this manoeuvre is getting even less Heimlich. Oh, no. The pig judgment, it followed him around everywhere he went. It says here,

there would always be a man-faced pig somewhere within his line of sight. Wow. Just staring at him. Scowling. Just staring. Like an angry emoji. Just a...

Just a piggy judgment. Oh, my little red. And this went on for days. And it's, as it says here, the farmer began to mentally unravel, which... Understandable, yes. Yeah, very understandable. So he went to his elderly female neighbour, and he did quite a long walk with pigs watch, man-faced pigs watching in the whole way.

And he went to her, because she was kind of, I guess she was kind of like a local wise woman. And he told her the whole story. He told her that he was, you know, he was jealous about the will. and he'd cursed all the clergymen and now the pigs have all turned into hideous monsters and they watch him every minute of the day and he asked for help. So she said, I can't help you.

But you might be able to help yourself if you pray to God. You know, you know, Christian God. You probably want to apologize for cursing all those clergymen. Yes. So she suggested he builds. a small shrine on his land to worship at

and ask for forgiveness and so he built a little as it's described here he made quick work of building the prayer house which is kind of a I mean it's what a church is I suppose

and he fell to his knees and begged for forgiveness it's called a prayer house in America but in the UK it would be called a prairie castle a prayer

praying castle yeah that's all right they called them bounce house and we call them bouncy castle Oh, no. I thought it was because of Englishman's prayer house is his prayer castle. He could work. Yeah. Americans' bouncy houses.

The Englishman's bouncy houses is his bouncy castle. Yeah, that's all right, yeah. So he prayed and he prayed and when he looked at the pig, he had a normal judgmental pig face. Oh, good. And not a human's face. Not a human's face. So I'm getting the impression that maybe the pigs didn't actually transform. and perhaps it was his perception of the pigs.

Mm-hmm. Yeah? And his guilt for his behaviour. The man-faced pigs are the friends we made along the way? I think that's what I'm saying, yes. If you do also search man-faced pig, there are a lot of hits. A lot of pigs keep getting born with human faces on them. What is happening?

Come on. A lot of people are trying to curse vickers, I'm guessing. People, their kids are too much on their phones these days. and a lot of pigs are getting born with human faces. I'm just joining the dots, you know? Now this is from September 9th, 2011, and it is on the NBCNews.com, under the section of science news.

The NBC News. Piglet born with humanoid face. Okay. On September 3rd, a Guatemalan news channel reported the birth of a misshapen pig, which has a face that looks more human than swine. Have you got pictures? I don't know.

The night before the pig's birth... Villagers say they witnessed Unexplained bright lights hovering in the sky Oh So they attributed the piglets bizarre features To foul play by aliens And there were no pictures There's no pictures

Aw, I did not go You reeled me in with a promise of a human-faced pig And then you didn't deliver No Oh Oh I can watch a video of a humanoid piglet Or I can sling me the link

So I can also see this pig Oh, Error 1016 I haven't even Didn't even know Everyone could go that far. It's not available in your territory, James. The pig knowledge is not for you. Why can I not be allowed this pig knowledge?

The forbidden pig knowledge is not for the likes of us, James. Those pigs are just, those human face pigs are staring at me from the other side of a firewall. They're laughing mockingly at you at all times. What a sinister Christmas story you've told there, James. Yeah, it's the, it's the spooky Christmas pig just before. Yeah. Christmas pig. So yeah, Alistair, I think we've all learned a lesson there.

We really have, yes. Don't curse every vicar in Brussels. And that applies to either Brussels. So are you ready to score me? I am indeed. Yes. I'm going to judge you like an American settler would judge probably a lot of things because they seem quite judgmental from what I've seen in plays.

I just, you know, as a little tip, don't forget my, if you are going to be pointing anything at me, Don't forget the five finger. Yep, great tip. And also the general tip that if you're buying something at a bakery, try and say the name of the item itself. I have forgotten. Not just noise with the same number of syllables.

That sounds a bit rude. Oh, no. Oh, no. Right, okay then. Let's go with the score's first category naming. Walloon is great. Walloon. We got Brussels, but it's not your mama's Brussels.

No. It's just a different Brussels that you weren't expecting in Wisconsin. The Pine Barron's Institute is a lovely name. Yes, a lovely name for an institute that I'm deeply sceptical of the authority. Uh-huh. They start the story by saying, I don't think this is a cryptid about the man-faced pig. Okay, all right, which implies that they do believe that cryptids exist. Yes.

Okay, good, though, good title, the Pine Barron's Institute. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I think there are no other names apart from Manikin The dog one It's called Zinnikin They got a real theme going there

They got stuck in a run Yes, very much so Still good names Yeah, I'm going to say I'm going to say it's a three for names Some good names there Respectable Thank you very much

Then let's go for Supernatural Well, I think it's more of a sort of psychological parable isn't it? I think maybe the farmer's guilt was manifesting in a kind of vision of judgmental human face pigs, because even if the pigs had gained human faces, how could

they follow him everywhere? Pigs don't have that kind of freedom to roam. No. Even in America, the land of the free, it's not the land of the free pigs. No, the free, judgy pigs. No, I don't think so. No. They have us a judgy, though. The pigs are, yeah.

Yeah, just always in your line of sight. Just the judgy pig, just I think the story of a farmer having a breakdown because he was cut out of a will. He was cut out of a will and then quite impiously cursed every clergyman in Brussels for no reason at all. For telling him about it. Yeah.

Which is actually helpful. He has more information. Yes. That's a good point. Yeah, so it's a good story. And I like it a lot, but I think it's a two for supernatural. Oh, Alistair. you look out your window now and there's a little

judgy pig out there. What's that? Why are you judging me? Human's face. I thought it was just a human initially, but now I realise this is a human pig. Human-faced pig judging me. Yeah. It wasn't just a porco-rosso cosplayer. No.

That's the studio Ghibli film about the world. It's a pig with a man's face. It's a porco-homo. Poco-homo? Yep. Nothing that works. Yeah. Maybe. Happy with that. I don't know how that word has come out.

Okay, then. Category the third, put in the loo in balloons. Ah, because of all the weeing. Yes. There was accidentally a lot of weeing in it. There was a lot more wee in this episode than I expected for a Christmas episode. Mm-hmm. Weed on the army, the little two-year-old, general, possible idea for a film. Duke a two-year-old, it's going to do something like that.

Duke Baby. Oh, yeah. Three men and a Duke baby. Yes. Okay. Great idea. All right. Okay. We're working here.

We've got some ideas. Okay. I'm going to say to four then, because there's a lot of really strong toilet business. Just, yes, just by the fact, there's none of that of the actual story that I was meant to be telling. Correct. Yeah. That just contained the word walloons.

But you could say that this farmer's relative was taking the whiz. Yes. Yeah. I thought we could need to bleep again. No, I was ready for, I was ready for myself at that time. In the context of it. In the context of this episode as well, the bleep is, it's not helpful.

Hopefully you can work out which word is we're bleeping, otherwise it's way worse. What are these statues doing? Come on, Belgium. So, yeah, I'm going to say it's a four. Ah, yes. I'm going to say to four because, of course, there were two clear cases of non-toilet having.

Fair enough. So it can't be a five. All right, then. Okay, then my final category, as it's Christmas pig, it's got to be a mount of pig. A traditional festive category for us, James. But I think you've walked yourself into a trap.

Why? Because a human-faced pig, James, is less pig than a regular pig. What were you thinking, man? It's not a hondo, a hundred percent pig, is it? It is not one hondo pig. No, it's only 70% pig. So how could I go above four out of five for a mountain pig? When you've said yourself that the pigs have human face,

This is, James. I feel like you've ruined Christmas. It's ruined Christmas pig again. You've ruined Christmas pig. Christmas pig is cancelled. Again, it's re-canceled. It's re-cancled. Until next episode, which is also Christmas pig themed.

No spoilers, but there's pigs in it. Oh. Wow, this really is the darkest hour in our story. Yeah, I'm really going to have to write a groveling Christmas pig letter to whatever we've ever ever decided that the Santa Claus of Christmas pick is. Yeah, get into the prayer house, James, and apologize. I'm going to have to build myself a plurring prayer house again. Get into your bouncy prayer castle.

I'm now forcing that riff back into the edit, even though it wasn't good. Mm-hmm. And apologize. I'm going to, I'm on my knees bouncing in prayer. This isn't a house of bouncing. This is a house of prayer. This is a bouncy house of prayer. Jesus, with the money lenders tipping the tables over and the tables are bouncing in the temple.

Why is this so bouncy in here? There's money going everywhere. That is probably why they never made churches out of bouncy castle material, isn't it? They made it out of just normal stone and that. Yeah. And there's that famous bit when Mary loses the young Jesus and then she finds him in the church and he says you should have known I would be in my father's bounce house. She saw his sandals on the floor outside of the bounce house.

It can be hard, though, because, of course, his father's bounce house has many rooms. Also, I'm from the Bible. The bouncy Bible. It'd be fun for weddings, but it would undermine a funeral. It is, though, for the record, what I would have wanted. All churches to be made out of bouncy council. if you could. Well, we'd better end the episode and enact that.

Yep. Christmas pig to you, James. Christmas pig. A Christmas pig to all those who celebrate. There we go. Christmas pigs back on track. Don't worry, everyone. It's not cancelled.

It's not really cancelled. And if you would like to hear more from that episode. There will be some bits and bobs available to people who join us at patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod. And as a special Christmas gift to me, really, you could buy yourself tickets to my tour next year or buy one of the Montgomery Bonbon books for a child or adult or stranger. I'm honestly not bothered. And thank you very much, Lawrence, for editing this episode. Thank you, Lawrence. Christmas pig to you. And we will see you next time. Listeners, Hi, A.B.K. here. So I was sure I had a pun while we were recording that episode. And then by the end of the episode, I couldn't remember what it was. And it came to me after we finished recording, Walloonly, this Christmas. And so I texted it to James. Well, I thought I texted it to James, but I actually texted while loonely this Christmas.

Christmas with no context to my agent. So a real nom-nom-nom moment for me. Really, really put a human face on James's Shake Shame. James Shamshaft? Hmm. Oh, hi there, listener. It's Alistair from Lawmen. I just wanted to let you know that tickets are on sale now for my 2026, 2026 tour of the UK. It's called King of Crumbs, and I'm bringing it to a town near you. If you live in Shrewsbury or Shrewsbury, Lester, Brighton, Portsmouth, Frum, Ockon. Cardiff, Exeter, Taunton, Plymouth, Bristol, Coventry, Glasgow, Belfast, Liverpool, Barnard, Newcastle, Canterbury, Sheffield, Chelmsford, Birmingham, Maidstone, Norwich, Leeds, Manchester, Colchester, Cambridge, Swindon, Salisbury, Aldershot. Or indeed, London Town, old London. Search for King of Crumbs, or go to abacketking.com forward slash gigs.