Loremen Podcast - Loremen S7Ep26 - Cult Classics with Hannah Platt

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Comedian Hannah Platt shares her obsession with cults, from our friends the Agapemonites to the tragic case of the Heaven's Gate comet-botherers. Meanwhile, James falls down an unusually rude rabbit hole. In a miraculous feat of bleeping, he dives into the origins of the F-word. You know the one. Hannah returns to the Edinburgh Fringe with Cult Classic at Pleasance Courtyard, The Attic from 7th to 31st August at 7.15pm. Get your tickets here. Content Warning: This episode contains references to mass suicide and bleeped swearing. 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

Introducing Bon Bonn Number Five. Get a little bit of mystery in your life with scandal on the stage. The fifth murder mystery who'd done it for kids and maybe grownups. Written by me, Alice De Becket King, from Lawmen. You know me. Please buy it or pre-order the audiobook. Thank you. Bye.

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 Alistair, we got a deputy guest law person this week. We've got Hannah Platt. She's ever so funny. On her way to the Edinburgh Fringe with her show, cult classic. Before you'll start listening, listeners with younger ears,

or easily startled ears, I do do a sort of potted history of the use of the F word. There's lots of bleep in. But you'll probably understand from context it's a rude word. I don't want to teach your kid that. They can learn that on the playground like everyone else. What's the topic? Well, Alistair, it's a bit of a cult classic.

Because we talk about cults. Hey Alistair. It's another whispery beginning. It's a whispering time. It's the whispery. It's a whispery start. We're in the whispering. It's not long before Edinburgh, the most whispery time.

of the year. It's the most wispery time of the year. Yes, because that's when we get loads of guests on. For some reason, coincidence. We don't know why. We don't know why. At all. But yeah, we've got another guest this week, Alistair. I'm dropping the whisper at this point once again. Great work. Will you please welcome to the podcast? Brand new old person. Will I welcome? Yes. Yes. Yes. I. The audience listening. Let's all welcome. There's all welcome Hannah Platt. Please. Wonderful comedian. Welcome. Hi, Hannah. I don't know why you said that so sort of pass-ag, James.

Let's all actually, welcome Hannah, please. Yeah, I was like, who's coming in? Who's angry at me? Everyone's furious. It feels like you've presumed antagonism towards Hannah on the listeners part. That's completely unfair, James. It is. I'm sorry.

Let's wait until it comes out to find out what they really think. Let's wait until the comments. Let's just dive into those comments on Spotify, which I didn't know were there and have started to read. That was a mistake. Uh-oh. We got one terrible one recently.

Like, a genuinely bad one that shook me to my core. It said... Bad as in like mean or bad as in like grammar. No, no. Oh, there's plenty of that. Like, like in the sense of Michael Jackson's bad. No, this is really...

That's confusing, actually. Yeah, yeah, I did. I jumped to the wrong one, but I think I know what you were going for. Yeah. What was the... What was that one, Jane? Actually, first of all, I want to walk back my grammar comment. Our listeners are very good grammarists.

Even the ones who hate the podcast have a very good grammar. But this one said, I gave it a go, but I had to turn off because one of them sounds like he's doing a voice. That's fun. That's nice and vague, because you don't know which one. How do you know it was you? I mean, it was you who sounds like you're doing a voice. It does sound like I'm doing a voice. It must be you.

Because they can't have thought. Nobody would put on my voice. It could be either of you. Uh-oh. Sounds like it could be both. Maybe they were listening to an episode with Chris Cantrell. That's the only explanation. That'll be definitely it.

Yes. He must have been there. But he doesn't even talk like that. You went to Randa. He's from Surrey. That's Christopher Cantrell. Christopher P. Cantrell. I created the character of Chris in order to parody,

people from Bradford. I don't know where Chris ends and I begin. Before we start, I've got your Wikipedia page open because whenever we talk about historical figures, I like to go to Wikipedia and then scroll straight down to controversies and personal life. Yeah, yeah, I've not got controversies. You don't have any controversies, that's fine.

You do have personal life. Are you aware of how short and concise your personal life sections? Yeah, my friends sent it to me and said, this would be an amazing Edinburgh poster if you did a show about being gay. It just says Platt is queer. On this podcast, we read so many 19th century accounts of ghosts that it's hard not to read that and sort of Platt is queer

in a sort of something terribly strange about this one. Something uncanny. I'll take either one. I quite like the word queer. That's the word that I use as well. Is it citation needed? Is it on there? No, it's cited.

Where is it cited too? What's it cited? I think it's citing you. It's citing you being interviewed by Bruce Desso. That's it. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, where I just went on about being gay. I don't think I said anything.

Yeah, that is funny. Yeah, citation needed and it's a video. Terrifying. I mean, you also describe yourself as weird. He describes you as weird. So it could have just said Platt is weird and then cited the same source. I'd take that. That'd be fine.

Yeah, yeah. Personal life, Platt is weird. That's not really, that's not personal life, is it? I guess it is. Platt makes up her own voice. Like, there's lots to go off. Just hate comments in the personal life bit. I wonder if other people's hate comments are a reliable source from a Wikipedia point of view.

Are they sightable? Yeah. They can be cited, yeah. Look at this joke, it was awful. Are you? are comedianing actively at the moment. Are you doing an Edinburgh soon? I am doing an Edinburgh soon in the month of the August, yes. And what is it about? It's about cults. It is, isn't it? Yeah, so it's called cult classic and it's kind of about the idea that when I was younger,

I went down a lot of weird internet rabbit holes and I was very obsessed with like strange and macabre things and I always felt like, oh, if my life didn't work out when I get older, I could always join a cult and that takes away some of the, you know, it's not your failure. I was sure you were going to say start a cult, but you're so unambitious, even in your own imagination that you just joined a cult. Well, I talk about this in the show, right, that I, like, I don't want to assume that I'm like, all that to be like, you know, like, you are all here, but like, some of you will have your coats on while I'm doing the show, you know, being like, we might, oh, no, no, this wasn't Catherine Bowart, what's happened?

And I did ask my friend if they thought I was charismatic enough to start a cult, and she did say no. That's awful. That's my pal. I think you could start like a humble cult, like the humble children, for slightly less showy cult leaders. Yeah, I was thinking, like you can't be an insecure cult leader. I've been really trying to, I was really trying to work on a bit,

and it just didn't work, just about being like, You know, when like push comes to shove and it's like, we're going down, it's all hands on deck. And none of them have ever gone, yeah, it was me, to be fair. It's my fault is completely on me. You know what? You guys go off, I'll take the fall for this. It's never happened. When the comet goes past and we all get picked up by the aliens on the spaceship,

everyone needs to join me and get on that spaceship. Brackets, no worries, if not. I was all drink at the Kool-Aid. No, no, you please. Please, please. I'll get you a new glass. Someone's actually having to that. Oh, it's dirty.

It's dirty. Sorry. That's embarrassing. I was just going to say that that's my favorite call is Heaven's Gate because, like, when they did start, they did go to university campuses and do, like, NAF lectures to about five people. And it's like, that really feels like getting your start in open mics. Yeah.

They've done the legwork. They've paid their dues. They've earned it. Yeah, like when they get big on TikTok, everyone's like, well, they did, you know, they deserved it. Yeah, there's nothing worse. These modern cults that started out with just people on TikTok, and they don't really know how to work an actual in-the-room audience of convicts. They got a follow-in immediately, but they don't have any of the doctrine.

They haven't got their chops. There's a BBC podcast called a very British cult, I think, And that was the most recent bit of cult media I consumed, for want of a better word. And I think perhaps the worst cult I've ever heard of, not in terms of the awful things they did, because they took people's money, which is quite bad. And all you seem to have to do in the cult was be on really long Zoom meetings. And this happened during lockdown. It's like, that was everyone's job during lockdown, was you just got paid to be on a really long Zoom meeting.

I couldn't work out what made this a cult compared to every other cult. It's just that the meetings were boring, apparently. Log off. Just don't. I can't believe people would. I suppose, yeah. No, no way.

It's the opposite of a job because you got paid. I've just remembered what a job is. Your job, you got paid to go on Zoom, whereas these guys, they paid to go on really boring Zooms, the opposite of a job. This sounds like more when everyone on our street randomly got really interested in the local council during lockdown.

So we'd all like, is everyone watching the council meeting tonight? And we all watched it. I can't, for the life of me, remember what?

Alistair, that can't have been the only bit of cult-based media that you've had recently because we did a cult-ish, a set.

Of course, yes. I suppose they were on that fine line between sex. Whereas in the case of the episode about the Agapemnonites, I didn't consume that. I was,

I regurgitated, whatever the opposite of consumption is. I was in that. I made that podcast with you. Oh, yeah. Okay. You created it then.

Yeah, because I don't know, Hannah, if you know of the Agapeninae. Agapenites. Agipenna. Agapenai. But yeah, so I wanted to look back into the Agapamanamonites. Based in Somerset near Bridgewater in the sort of, I think the last, person died in the 50s. But they started in the 19th century, didn't they?

They did. Yeah. And they were kind of free love Christians, I think. Is that right? Yes. There was two different leaders. So there was one leader that started it off, and they passed the leadership on to another one. A fun fact about them was that they were buried standing upright so that when the second

coming happened, they could simply walk out of their graves. Ready to go. Just ready to go. Ready for Jesus. As opposed to how everyone sleeps lying down and you get up of a morning. Yeah, you're never ready to get up. Well, maybe sleeping will be better if we did it vertically. And then you could just step right into the morning.

So, yes, I thought I'd look into that. And I'd do the classic Wikipedia thing of looking to related things. And all the related things were just people that had been in this group or the one church that they had outside of London. It was a really tight little loop. wasn't introducing me to anything new. Well, so I couldn't find anything in this Wikipedia rabbit hole. It wasn't a rabbit hole in the end. It was just a little divot.

And so I went back out to the top level and just searched for Bridgewater, Somerset, ghost. Well, actually, no, I found the name of the place where this had been, the place where it was, which is Barford Gables in Somerset and that became a old people's sort of home slash care home. And someone had talked about a personal experience was that their grandmother entered there in 1985 until 1996 and towards the end of her time there, she would regularly comment upon the two children dressed in old-fashioned clothes she saw playing in her room. A girl dressed in finery and a boy in shabby clothes. The person sort of saying, she was pretty sharp considering she was based nearly

100. So they didn't just dismiss her. And they mentioned it to the owner, Dennis, Dennis May, and he had no surprise at all. He said he believed the place to be haunted. He'd heard banging on the walls and had regularly caught the glimpse of a figure that disappeared and was even slapped by an invisible hand. Hmm. This is Barford Gables, is it?

This is Barford Gables. Barford Gable. Great name. Sounds like an actor. It does. It sounds like something someone would use as a homophobic slur. In another article, Dennis May said that he described the ghost in a little more detail, said there's a woman coming in and out of the kitchen, but she's not there.

Sometimes you feel a presence behind you, sometimes just catch her in the corner of your eye. When someone else, one of the kitchen stuff, brought it up, he thought, thank God it's not just me. And one night when he was laying carpet, not a euphemism. Is it doing that at night? It's the best time. Look, we're taking everything he's saying at face value and then he's going around laying carpets at night. I don't think he's all there. He's a night carpenter.

That does sound like that's a slur Absolutely Yeah someone slapped him on the bum Another night he thought his wife was Very flotatious ghost here in Barford Gables Slapping him about a lot Another night he thought his wife was I'm going to read it verbatim

He thought his wife was banging on the wall From their bedroom But went in to discover her asleep And she was confused by his inquiries and then the knocking started again from the outside wall, which was 22 inches thick and on the top floor. So there's a few things here. And so I sort of thought I'd dig a little bit deeper into Bridgewater Area ghosts.

And I came across an article which I think, to be honest, it had a purple sheen to its click, as in I've already clicked on this article and been sent to me before. When I tell you the headline, you'll know why. It's from metro.co.com. 15th of February 2022. Podcaster has unrealistic voice. Ghost hunters on mission to find Phantom

that keeps telling hikers to F off. Wait a minute, someone sent me this link as well. I've read this story too. Was it you, James? Did I send it to you? Someone definitely sent it to me. My friend Chris said that to me. It's not a surprise.

So, yeah, 6.2 miles from Barford Gables in the Quantic Hills is an area of land known as dead woman's ditch. That's actually quite progressive, isn't it? Because normally it's dead men who get curves and bends and ditches named after them. So it's nice for it to be named after all. Yeah, that's something for the women. Is that why you covering it while I'm on? Yeah, yeah, exactly. We've got something for you.

It'd be respectful. A woman died. Well, yeah, that is what it is. It seems that it's named after, it's associated with a murder that happened in 1789, but the name actually predates the murder. Right. And it was on an earlier map.

Yeah. Can I retract me saying that murdering women is actually feminist then? Because I realize that's the implication of what I said there, which I don't think I stand by. I don't think you stand by that either. it was it's not like women be shopping

it's not exactly the same kind of observation no no this is my version of it women be murdered that's

the Edinburgh fringe from the start of August the end of July always through to August hey I'd see it I'd see that show but this area

is is the area that is haunted by the ghost that tells people to wharf and it was noticed most during

lockdown in 2020 and a local ghost hunting team. I'm going to read some of the quotes from the article. Paranormal investigators Christine and Dave Thomas told Somerset Live they themselves have been shouted at and rudely told to leave the area by the nasty evil spirits. But it has sparked a mixed reaction amongst locals online. One posted, my kind of ghost. Another said, probably just a Bluetooth speaker hidden in the Bush's. Philip King said,

given the behaviour of many visitors to the hills and the vast numbers, I can understand why she's ticked off. And then Valerie Moss comes in with summer. And this is a very good point. She says, I wonder when the F-Bom made it into current usage might help to date the ghost. So.

That's a, yeah. Well, she's picked it up from hikers. Yeah, maybe. She's probably heard it on a Bluetooth speaker, probably. that's the kind of thing you would have in a bush. I think it's an old ang, it's like it's an Anglo-Saxon word, I think. Well, Alistair.

The F word has been around for a long, oh, sorry, you've done the research, go ahead. This is the rabbit hole that I ended up in. Right. So. Because a lot of people say that it's an acronym of fornicating under consent of the king, which is nonsense.

And if you were the listener didn't immediately say aloud, that's nonsense when I proposed it. I've lost all respect for you. So the earliest, known use, recorded use, is from 1310, according to medievalists.net. Paul Booth of Keel University spotted the name. Now, it's a name, so are we going to need to beep it? I think you are based on what the warm name has in it. It was the name Roger by the navel. Wow, that's great. That's his surname. That's his surname.

That's his surname. It's not even hyphenated. He was in the Chester County Court plea rolls for November 3rd, 1310, part of a long list of people that was supposed to be arrested by the authorities but could not be found. Over the next year, he'd be named in the record six more times and still not found. So he was declared an outlaw that had to be arrested. What was he doing?

Well... What was he doing by the naval? So the final mention of Roger by the naval. is September 28, 1311, where he's still at large and just as just checked on. To this day? Well, I mean, could be.

Could be, could be. I'm aware of the wind, which is a castral. It's the old name for a castral, I think. Is it? Maybe a castral a castrol you really didn't like, maybe.

But I think it's like beat is what it means. So, you know, like it beats the wind. Yes. Maybe that's what she's saying. Also, is it a female voice that they're hearing? They seem to have settled on it being a female voice. I was going to ask, because is that, yeah, so is that her? That's the dead woman.

I guess that's what's implied, yeah. Just for anyone wondering, there is an earlier name from 1278 of John Lefucker, but that's probably a typo. Or just a French guy. You don't know. Yeah. The commonly thought first usage is from 1475 in a poem, which satirizes some... A romantic poem?

No, it satirizes some friars from Cambridge. And in fact, it's written in kind of Latin, and then even the bit with the swears is in code. Oh. So it says, nonsense in coli, queer, and then it's Gizdibov. And it's just like messes of letters. And they decipher the phrase by replacing each letter by the previous letter in the alphabet. Right. So it was rude.

It was rude already by then. It was so rude. Enough that you had to encode it. They basically, they pixelated it out in manuscript format. That's how rude it was. So they only did that because it wasn't like they did that for everything. No, it's just this bit was so real. I just thought they had a lot going on.

They didn't have a lot going on, so they were like, we'll make a little puzzle. They made the puzzle, which it said an apologies to any Latin in Latin listeners, because I guess we won't bleak the Latin. It says, non-suntin collier, quite f***ing vivies of Haley, which translated means, and we will bleak this bit, they are not in heaven because they fuck the women of Eli. Ely, sorry. Ow. Yeah.

Wow. incredible. That's pretty old stuff. That is really slamming those friars. But according to girls.orgspot.com, which did a bit of a deep dive. I got to say that your references, sometimes we do like heavy tomes and your references in this episode have been each one more authoritative than the last. Geocities.com forward slash real ghosts. Sorry, so we're saying girls. is not good.

That's a really good point. Yeah, I look bad now. If it was Mandock's blog spot, would we be like... It's just got a certain vibe about it that seems more true. I can't explain it. What is girls dot blog spot? Well, they were doing a deep dive into the history of swears. And they cited the book, the F word, which seems quite a good authority.

If you want to find out more about this sort of stuff, they say that F-1. They say that F offers the command was used throughout the 40s, and F was quite a common phrase in wartime, World War II time slang. I'm not surprised. It was quite stressful. You can't just be going crikey the whole time. Crapes. Cripes.

Have you heard snafu, that sort of thing? Yes. Now, that one is an acronym, I think. That is an acronym for situation normal all effed up. That's what a snafu is, and it comes from the Second World War. The phrase was in used to mean runaway in the 1920s, as in let's F off out of here before we get into trouble. Like cheese it.

Yes, exactly. And the ultimate authority, your friend of mine, Miriam Webster, says the first use is recorded in 1929 to use it. to go away as an angry command. So that ghost is unlikely to be the 1798 one. Very well done there, James. Yeah. You did what that commenter on metro.com.com.

On metro.com.com. UK was not prepared to do. You went the extra mile. Yes, exactly. Mm-hmm. Well done. Yeah, there you have it. So that was my bit of research about English cult.

So I might have got slightly sidetracked. Yay. Weirdly, I don't touch on that in the show. Hannah, do you have a favourite cult that you, well, I don't want to use the word favourite cult? Do you have a... I mean, I do have a favourite cult. That's such a relief. Of course I do.

Tell us a wee bit about your favourite cult. I mean, I love Heaven's Gate. I love Heaven's Gets. They're the ones that drank Kool-Aid. Are the classic Kool-Aid drinkers? The Nike trainers. They, I did like those trainers. not that much.

Yeah, very well-dressed. Did we, did we talk about that on the podcast about the Kool-Aid thing? Because it's not actually Kool-Aid. I think it came up on a previous podcast. It was another dilution-based drink. Oh, that's a Kool-Lade brand. I know. And even worse for the forgotten drink, which was good enough for Heaven's Gate,

but not good enough to be remembered. But I like Heaven's Gate because, like, they really believed it. like Marshall Apple White who started it, a queer icon, by the way. He really believed... Hold on, I'll check if he's got any controversies on his Wikipedia. You just keep talking.

I think he's clean. I think he's clean. Okay, good. I just like the... We were talking before we started recording about how a lot of the cults are just like men abusing all of their followers. And it's like...

Whereas he was part of it. He was originally a follower. And then the leader died. And he took... over. Right. So he really believed it. He wasn't just...

Because I see most of the cult leaders know they're pulling a scam. Yeah. Because how else are you pulling a scam if you don't believe it? Exactly. And they're kind of like, you know, they're taking advantage of everybody and they're getting the best life possible off the backs of all of their followers. Whereas he... It was him and a woman called Doe and when she died, he took over and he kind of went a bit

mad in grief because he believed that she was speaking to the... that she descended already and that that was their cue to be like, oh yeah, we do all need to go because it is real because she's talking to me, so she hasn't actually died. Yeah.

Wow, so he really believed that. I didn't know that. That's horrible, actually, that part of it. I mean, I don't know why. I knew they all died, so I knew it was horrible, but that was actually really horrible. Thanks Hannah. There's a little part of me that's a bit like,

you're the good guys. You're the good guys. out the cult. Yeah, the sort of the low bar of believing it. Yeah, yeah. But which most cults don't manage to limbo under or, no, wait, a low bar is, you go over it, don't you? If the bar is low, you have to get over that bar. Yeah, if the bar being low is an easy thing.

Yes. Yeah, it can't be doing limbo. A high bar, but it's limbo. Yeah, exactly. They said a really high bar, but then I limboed. and that's confusing now. Limbo rather than high jump competition. Yeah.

You've got to specify what sport it is before you use high or low bar as a figure of speech. Yeah. Is it Olympic or is it beach? Yeah. I can now liken this to all of my friends when I say something like, oh, the bar for them is on the floor. And they can be like, yeah, but I like to limbo. What a great comeback. I don't know what, I think you should judge.

I think it's time for judgment. Yes, I'm ready to pass judgment. First of all, on everyone who starts a cult, I judge you. And slightly, and I don't feel good about this. I slightly judge people who join cults, because I know they say anyone could join a cult, but I don't think I would fall for a cult. So I am slightly judgmental.

I think walking around with that attitude means you are prime. to get. People will be like going for you now because he won't even realize. No, I would know, I could never, that said, I have gone to the Edinburgh fringe time and time again, losing money every time, each time thinking,

yeah, it's time it could be it. Yeah, have you ever joined an improv troupe? I know, I haven't, but I, they do seem to have it really together. Those improvisers. Yeah, yeah. Improvizers and polycules, I feel like are the most accessible ones.

I think it's too late for me to join a polycule. So let's just move straight onto the scores. What's your first category? Okay, first up, right, Hannah, we're going to go with name in. The first category is naming. Okay. What was Barford Gables? Barford Gables.

Now I'm afraid I am going to say a slur because you've put that in my mind, Hannah. Yeah, I mean, don't get, but also don't guess. Probably like big gay lord or some of it. Barford Gables. Barford Gables. What, yeah, so that's a good name. What else have we got name-wise? The Agapemnonites, obviously, they have been counted in a previous episode, but it is a really good name.

So I feel like I can count that again. If you want to call them that, then, yeah. The Agamememonites and all the other names, James said. Acaponites. Yeah, I mean, it is a good name, but also neither of you have been able to say it without doing this. your face, like straining your face. Yeah. Well, it's unusual that the guest tries to lower this court.

I do appreciate you're a commitment to honesty. Much like Heaven's Gate there, you really, you're really committed to the concept. Everyone says that about me. You're just like Heaven's Gate. Heaven's Gate is also a good name, maybe for a club and a cult. Yeah, it'd be a good, like, band name or something. Cult names are normally quite... decent.

They punch through. They don't go for it. They don't go as punny as the Beatles or anything like that, but they do work as band names. They've missed a trick there, haven't they? No cults have got like pun names. Like that would be, there's so many, like, why haven't they done that? You know, have a bit of fun with it. Don't take yourself so seriously.

Perhaps the Agapapaminates is a, pun. Well, it does mean love, doesn't it? He means something like that. It's the Church of Free Love or something like that. The Church of Free Love. Well, we had some of the bleep names. We had Roger Fri for the Naval.

Sorry, I'd forgotten about him. I completely forgotten about him. Okay, it's going to be a high school. Or as the French know him, John the fucker? Or is the French know him, John? Little Popper the French. Yep, yes, there's the wind fucker, quinned. Could look bleeping this.

Now, that's a metal band there. Yeah, absolutely. Wind, fire. Earth, wind and fire. I don't know. I don't know. Very hard to bleep. Dead woman's ditch.

DWD, yep. It's got a bit of a back to the future name. Like, isn't that old dead woman's ditch? But I saved this woman. Yeah, but you travel back in time and kill them. an old lady. Yeah, that was the original draft. Now normal ditch has changed its name to the dead woman's ditch.

It was called normal ditch. Can anyone drink me to a live woman's ditch and they're like, there's no such place? What? Yeah, I think that's all we got really. Well, look, it's, it's slim pickings, but, which is an actor's name also. But I think it's five out of five simply for, for Jimmy, trousers or whatever he was called from the olden days. He's in there as well.

He got that exactly right. It was Jimmy F-Trowses. One 13th century man with a hilarious name. It's five out of five. What's your second category? The second category is supernatural. Thank you. I feel like it's low.

I'm not completely convinced that a ghost don't be able to f*** off. I don't know if that really happened. I'm imagining, right, this might sway it is, do you remember in lockdown when they had the handful of parish council? Yes. Zoom meeting that went viral. And as everyone logged on, there was just a little voice that went, yeah. That's what I'm imagining it is.

I don't think it's like a big, I think it's just a, it's just a whisper. Yeah, yeah. And someone's like, did you just, what did you just say? What did you just say to it? A lot of kids are getting in trouble. Yeah. James, do you think that's why your neighbours were logging on to the parish council meetings in the hope of getting another sort of you have no authority here moment?

Yeah, probably, you know, we had a lot of time to kill. Just desperately trying to go viral. I don't think it's that supernatural. I don't really believe. I don't think any real ghost story has appeared on metro.com. Oh, what? Are you going to tell me next that a Bluetooth speaker can slap a late night carpet layer on the bum? Not a euphemism.

carpet at night. That's very super dapsed. I forgot about the guy. That's the album as well. That's the first. I forgot about the midnight carpet layer. I'm a midnight carpet layer. Yeah.

Now, I would put on a voice to do that. I was just going to say, I don't want to join in in case it's like, now the guests are putting voices. And that's the latest joint from the midnight carpet layers. Yeah, and there was the 22-inch thick wall. The 22 inch thick wall? Yeah, about the thickness of your grand telly, probably. There was knocking.

Yep. All right. Up in the sky. All right, it's a three. It's a three out of five then. How about that? Bang average. All right.

All right then. What's next? What are we up to? The next category is, what a bunch of cults. Okay. That was bleeped, but that was cults. Yeah, it wasn't rude, but we still bleeped it, proving the, proving, as we've said many times, that whatever you bleep, sounds rude.

There was a lot of bleepable stuff in this episode for a clean episode. And I say that with full confidence that you won't miss one like you normally do in the edit. Yeah. I'll probably listen to this at half speed. Yeah, if you're listening to the first version of this before James updates it, three minutes after going live, congratulations on hearing a swear. Sorry about the swear. I've been really like aware that I can't swear and then you guys have been it's been part of the show

it's been like a structural part of the show. That's really unreasonable. We've put you in an impossible position there. Because I was like it's going to be work. I don't want to be work. I want it to be easy. Yeah, yeah, that's very reasonable of you. Yeah, because of course you started that low-key, low self-esteem cult for the thing.

people who are that confident about running cults. And then we've put a awful lot of pressure on you. I'm sorry. It's okay. I can handle it. I'm just in my bedroom. Yeah, well, it was, it was full of bleepable things. It was one of the most bleepable episodes we've ever had.

I would guess that was more than five. We had a lot of cults and a lot of wrong ones as well in this episode. I think it's probably got to be, well, I'm going to say five, but will you bleep it? Yes, bleep out of bleep You don't even want to know what he said then So Hannah, I'd let you into a little peek behind the curtain About two or three months ago In the Discord

Some of the kind listeners revealed that they were Kind, good listeners Keeping a proper spreadsheet of all the scores And since that date, every episode, one of the scores has been something that you can't put on an Excel spreadsheet For example, a beep Yeah, we are really trying to bleep with them at this point.

I think one was just somehow one of the scores ended up being a big swan. Out of five, though. Out of five, yes. What's the final category? The final category is living a lie. Okay, break it down for me. Who's living a lie in this story? I think the people on the metro claiming to have seen a ghost are living a lie.

Wow. Don't think it happened. The person saying probably a Bluetooth speaker Living a lie Yeah, because it definitely was a ghost And you know, Bluetooth speaker Where would it be transmitted from? How far do you think Bluetooth goes?

Someone's crouched behind another foot Well then it doesn't need to be a Bluetooth speaker They could just say It doesn't need to be a Bluetooth speaker there There's so many people on this hike And then someone else with a battery pack Just plugging into to charge the speaker Yeah, yeah

And then there's like a big car a van with a load of mains in it. Just one of those generator vans that really hums. And it's really warm. Those people all living a lie. James. Yeah.

Yes? Is that your real voice? Is it his real voice? Or did he start putting it on when he wanted to become a hit? I don't know if I want to use the word hit podcaster. A long-running podcaster. How can...

How can this be put on with this level of consistency? No, I mean, maybe they were listening to a Neil Ion episode and they were listening to you doing the Neil Ion voice. Oh yeah, maybe, yeah. Although, to be fair, Richard Iowadi has managed to keep that voice up for quite a long time. So it is possible. Also, are you on other podcasts talking about, like, your technique and, like, you know, the process behind the character of James doing the voice.

Yeah, I am Christopher Cantrell normally. This is the bit where I pull off the face mask. That's the big twist. Wow. I was Cantrell all along. The most Christopher Nolan ending of all was that you, it was Cantrell pretending to be you or you pretend to be Cantrell? I'm confused.

Like I am at the end of most Nolan films. Is Christopher Nolan going to be doing a Scooby-Doo? A Scooby-Doo. Is Christopher Nolan going to be doing a Scooby-Doo? Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Christopher Nolan's Scooby-Doo.

There was a couple more living a liars. Who else was, well, the Heaven's Gate people, I suppose. Yeah, the people of Heaven's Gate were living a lie. Some of the ones, oh, the Agamimimimimits one was a second generation cult leader as was the Heavensgate one. But then they may be, oh, they were unknowingly living the lie. And wasn't the second leader of the Agapamanites? Didn't he claim to be Jesus? Yeah, probably.

I think they all did at some point. Did they? Right. Well, that's a lie as well. And, well, the guy laying carpet was living a lay. Oh, that is a lot. I can't work out. No, I think that's just.

It's nearly wordplay. No, I think that's fine. Blip it. Blop it. Yeah. Yes, bleep it. Just bleep that. So, I think it's four out of five then for living a lie.

And the reason it's only four out of five, James, is because I believe you. I believe that you are the real James Shake-Shift. Thank you. Also, it ruins your impression if this isn't my actual voice. You're incredibly accurate impression. Oh, hello. Hello, down there, children. I don't know why you'd be addressing children.

It's like Santa. What are you talking about? That's the same voice as James has. I'm just really glad that we've kept the video on just for us, so I can tell who's speaking right now. Yeah, that is good. That's handy. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Hannah.

Oh, thanks for having me. Remind the listener for ticket buying purposes how they can catch your show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It's on... Yeah, yeah, it's called Cult. Well, like, it'd be crazy if they were listed another year. I don't know. It's called Cult classic.

It's on every day from the 5th to the 30th of August, and it's at Pleasant Attic. I'm in the attic. I love the attic. It's very warm. But, you know, like, you can have a little sleep there. I'll take you. You can do whatever you want in there. Come have a little nap in the attic. At quarter past seven every day. Oh, lovely time for a nap. Oh, expensive nap. It's appropriately gothic for you to sort of lure people into an attic, I think. That's very gothic. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, they can all be there. And then once they're in there, hey, there's no leaving that really much. I think there's, I really like your poster for this.

It feels like the new trend, just a few people doing sort of folk horror-infused posters. Like Frenommy of the show, Chris Cantrell's poster, is also very folk horror. There's just a few of them around, and I really like it. And I'm glad that people are using that. Because is it you in like robes with fire? Yeah. Or is that from the shoot? I can't remember which one is the actual poster shot?

Yeah, well, they were all taken in Rams Bottom with lots of like Ramblers wore. walking round and I had a fire pit and a fire staff and it was all like real fire. And I'm wearing like a 70s wedding dress that looks like I'm being betrothed to Charles Madsen. And yeah, I was worried because like it was, it was funny when people were walking past because I was just constantly like, are they going to think I'm doing like a run fair? Are they going to think I'm doing a reignatement? No fear that they would think you were doing a satanic ritual, just that they might think you're doing Historical reconstruction.

August 2026, 715pm Attics. Attics, Pleasants Attic. That's the one. Well, thank you very much, Hannah. That was amazing. Lovely stuff. Cheers. Thanks for having me.

Thank you for coming. I don't know why I said coming. You're at home. I'm at home. Thank you for clicking the link. Great work, everyone. Yes. Good stuff.

I really learned a lot. I think I've really ruined my search history there. Mm-hmm. Yep, absolutely. But I enjoyed an extended etymology corner. That's fun. That was, it was like an etymology octagon.

Probably going to be a bit cut out of that, which hopefully is also bleeped, which you can enjoy at, if you join us at patreon.com forward slash lawmenpod. Thank you very much to everyone who already does support us of why that means. Thank you to everybody who's written us a review. We've been asking for reviews lately

and thank you for the people who've done that. That's very good. No thank you to the people who haven't done that. Or the one that said I was putting on a voice. Or the person who thinks James. His voice is fake. Please leave us a review telling us who you think is the most fake. I've heard him say that on more than one occasion whilst crying.

No. I haven't. He's not here to defend himself and that's for the best. That means we can keep going. Yeah, let's just lay into him. Thank you.