Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep21: Loremen S3 Ep21 - The Fraternity of Vagabonds

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

The 16th century was a dangerous place, kids. Con artists, knaves and robbers roamed the land, causing mischief. If the pamphlets Alasdair has uncovered are to be believed, there was a vast underground crime network with its own secret language. It was a lot a lot like the John Wick franchise. And, like the John Wick franchise, it's a load of old nonsense. Still, bit of fun, innit?   @loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod @JamesShakeshaft | @MisterABK

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And I'm James Shankshaft. And in this episode, I'm going to initiate James Shankshaft into the fraternity of vagabonds. Ooh. Yeah, how do you like that? It sounds good. Uh, have I got to do anything?

You're going to need a long stick with a hook on the end. Whoa. Yeah. Whoa now, I've got some of them. All right, then let's go. Cool. So Alistair, do you have a story for me? Well, in fact, I've got a collection of tiny little stories, which are all part of a big bundle of weird legend.

How does that sound? Excellent. That is right up my alley. James, I would like to tell you about the Fraternity of Vagabonds. Ooh. This comes from a series of pamphlets that were published in Elizabethan England about basically an entire criminal subculture that was believed to exist, which was the fraternity of vagabonds. So this is everything from beggars to con artists and all that sort of thing. They were all working together and had their own complex society with its rules and regulations.

And a few people published complete taxonomies of all the different types of vagabond there was oh yes and then i read it yeah and i'm going to summarize it for you is it ongoing today well that's it's genuinely very interesting because it's very daily mail the whole thing's incredibly daily mail because they're convinced that there's a whole criminal degenerate world just outside of view you know threatening respectable society in a very sort of daily mail way and also a lot of them are immigrants they're specifically said to be welshman or irish oh so it's super super tabloidy and daily mail in the way it's written. And incredibly judgmental. But also just so clearly nonsense. Brilliant.

Has it got like a glossary of terms? Oh, it's got... Just get ready. It's got absolutely no supernatural. But what it lacks in supernatural, it makes up for in its really long glossary of terms, which I will come to. Yes.

I'll start with the bit of it which isn't nonsense, which is Jemini Salgado published a book called Coney Catchers and Boardy B bawdy baskets good on him or her it's a collection of uh about four of these pamphlets uh which is the the source that i've been using here it starts with one called a manifest detection of dice play probably by gilbert walker and that one is fairly accurate and it's just a description of all the different scams that the uh the coney catchers would play so a coney is like a rabbit but it also means a naive man really yeah so like if a if you were a rich young gentleman um you know as you know as you as you were once james an educated young man walking around london town i was young once you could have been walking around cheapside looking to have a

chat with a young lady oh yeah or play a game of cards with some other fellows. And you might have met one of these coney catchers if you'd done it in Elizabethan England, and they would have taken you away to a house and one way or another got all of your money out of you. And they were very clever about it. They have all kinds of things like ways of marking cards. He describes all the ways they do it with a tiny dot of ink

or with tiny little nicks on the sides of the cards. One of the ones I like is the dice that they use. They have names like cater tray, which I guess is four, three. So it would only show up a four or a three because it was slightly wider on one side. My favourite one is the dice that had a little hog's bristle glued into the dot of the one. So it would never roll a six that's pretty good isn't it my favorite scam i think of all the scams that people used to pull is called half part and that was carried out by uh by ring droppers they're called um so you'd be walking along you know near saint paul's you'd spot a ring on the ground and just as you were going to pick it up somebody else would shout half part meaning i have also spotted this ring and therefore we have to split the value of

the ring because we both spotted it at the same time seems fair yeah they would say oh i'm pretty much a ring expert and this ring looks very valuable you just need to take it somewhere and sell it and you'll be rich i tell you what i've got to be somewhere why don't you just pay me for half of the value of the ring and then you can keep all the ring and that seems like a great deal yes so you you do that and then what happens james it's not worth anything that is an excellent grift i was listening to a podcast the other day and they literally described that happening to them quite recently yeah in the present day yeah i mean not the present day obviously um it would definitely be quite clearly a scam if it happened right now yeah someone came into your

house oh i spotted that as well someone pops a ring through your letterbox it's got to be a hard time for grifters but the the nicest thing about that as with all of the most elegant grifts is it relies upon your greed so you have to have been thinking you were getting a pretty good deal yes in order to fall for it. Which makes it hard to report, because you have to admit that you were being greedy or doing something nefarious. And all the best grifts have that sort of moralistic element in them, rather than just being a trick. It sort of makes you feel a bit guilty,

so you sort of maybe slightly think, like, I kind of deserved that. I'll take my lesson from this. Yes. There's sort of two ways of categorising the vagabonds. The first is in the 25 orders of knaves. Whoa. I won't read all 25 of them, but they have names like Troll and Trollby.

Trollwith. Trollhazard of Trace. Trollhazard of Tritrace. Obloquium. Obloquium. Munchpresent. Munchpresent. Munchpresent.

Geoffrey Godsfoe. Ooh. I feel like if you were Godsfoe, Geoffrey is quite a low-key name. Unthrift, ungracious, chop logic, and ingratus. Ooh. Oh, and dingthrift. Hey. A dingthrift, though.

I just think that's someone who's got a bell but doesn't want to wear it out. A dingthrift is he that will make his master's horse eat pies and ribs of beef and drink ale and wine. Such false knaves oft times will sell their master's meat to their own profit so what he's just selling the meat the ding thrift essentially yeah yeah uh other ones try and eat their master's meat a lot of it is about the policing of meat so that's a list of the different ways in which servants can misbehave and a name for each different type of misbehaving servant but the fraternity of vagabonds themselves have apparently different orders and these these work strictly sort of within the like the thieves guild and their names like tinker which we recognize peddler jarkman patrico a demander for glimmer oh a bawdy basket whoa a walking mort an autumn mort and an upright man

upright man is like the enforcer of the vagabond so like if you were let's say you were starting out as a as a trainee beggar an upright man might come up to you

and ask who had stalled you into the the thieves guild right and if you couldn't name the upright man that did that

he would get a quart of booze and pour it over your head and say so if it was me I would say I Alistair beckett king do store the james shakeshaft to the rogue and that henceforth it shall be lawful for thee to cant

i.e speak the beggar's tongue also known as peddler's french oh it's coming yes it's coming but i'll move on to a couple of other types of vagabond i guess i guess it kind of makes sense that we've only heard of like the sort of the lower down ones like the peddler the rogue and what was the other one hooker is the one i was about to tell you oh well all those sort of ones we know because they're like street level but then the other i guess the upper echelons or lower echelons i don't know which way around it would go because it's probably go downwards wouldn't it like the circles of hell yeah yeah the bosses would be at the bottom those ones are more like you only find out about them once you get in yeah yeah like scientology yeah it has weird rules like um they

have their own marriages a patrico or patriarch co is their priest and the priest will marry them until death do they part and what that means is when the married couple come upon a dead cow or horse they're divorced you what and that's the end of the marriage yep you're married until you see a dead cow what that's how that's how it works apparently don't blame me if you're a thief and you're married and it's date night and your partner wants to take you to the abattoir it's a really bad sign yeah that's a deal a deal breaker. Yeah, yeah, it really is. And this is Elizabethan England, because we can only assume dead horses and cows

were basically littered all over the place. Yeah, I imagine there was a few, or you knew where to find them. So if you were a married woman, you'd be called an autumn mort. Autumn meant church, so a church woman, autumn mort. But if you were an unmarried woman,

you'd be called a walking mort, i.e. up for grabs. Mort unmarried woman, you'd be called a walking mort. Right. I.e. up for grabs. Mort like death? Yes, that's how it's spelt. Okay. So yeah, this is a somewhat misogynistic world. It sounds like it's quite the patriarchal-cassé. Oh, very, oh.

Very nice. Feminist wordplay. So here's a little story about a hooker. Yeah, anyway. It's a different meaning to the modern word of hooker oh okay man with a long pole that he would walk with with a little hole in the end that he could screw a hook into and he would use the hook for stealing oh that sounds fun though you might think how's someone gonna get all that stuff i've put in a tree he's ready for you why

does he not just have the hook attached at all times yes i i assume it's so that if you come along and say look a hooker you can go where's the hook it's no hook that's just a stick yes i'm a stick mate i'm a whole stick man you got a hook in your pocket yep yes i do that's for different purposes what you've never had a hook in your pocket okay so the writer says i was credibly informed i'm reading now uh a quote i was credibly informed that a hooker came to a farmer's house in the dead of night and putting back a drawer window of a low chamber, the bed standing hard by the said window, in which lay three parsons, a man and two big boys. I just really like the phrase, two big boys.

I think it's two big boys. Two big boys. Is that separate to the three parsons? I think it means persons. I'm just reading it as parsons i think they it means persons i'm just reading it as persons because that's how it's spelled because it's elizabethan english oh okay i thought yeah no three people in the bed right and with his hook he hooked off all of the bed clothes and all of their normal day clothes they were using to keep them warm and left them

completely naked that is some sweet hooking skills yep. It's a bit like, do you remember the Mr. Man books, Mr. Tickle? It's kind of like Mr. Tickle Nights. Is that after the model of Hollyoaks Nights? Yeah, or Baywatch Nights or Corrie Nights. I don't know. I was just thinking, do you remember Thunder in Paradise? Yeah. The TV show.

With Hulk Hogan. Was it Hulk Hogan? Because it was obviously made to mimic Baywatch. Because the theme tune to Thunder in Paradise, if you remember, was Thunder in Paradise, the girls are pretty, ooh, they look nice. Which is the worst piece of writing ever. But the thing is, that is the reason everybody watched Baywatch. But the show didn't admit that was the reason people watched Baywatch.

Baywatch insisted that people were watching it. For hints and tips on health and safety on a beach. It's sort of like The Archers. Really? Started out as it was actually, you know, sort of educational farming. Is that right? Yeah, I think it was like to let farmers know when you're supposed to do things throughout the year.

And now it's just degenerated into a soap opera. Yeah, it's all boobs. Yeah, you can't tell, but everybody is topless all the time in The Archers. I'm going to check that. Not the boobs thing. The origin of The Archers. This is from Wikipedia, so I might have

just written this in myself, to be honest. Originally produced with collaborative input from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, The Archers was conceived as a means of disseminating information to farmers and smallholders to increase productivity. James, the Archer's is compromised. Oh, yeah. The government has its hand in this pie as well.

It's nothing pure. It was actually originally invented as a farming Dick Barton. I don't know what that means. A farming Dick Barton. Okay. A farming Dick barton i don't know what that means a farming dick but okay a farming dick barton i'd like to hear what rogues used to get up to yes sorry it's very dnd they all have very specific categories and very specific qualities and different outfits two rogues who looked very

similar and claimed to be twins were in a an inn and they got chatting about the local parson and they asked about they said we're the nephews of the local parson and they asked about, they said, we're the nephews of the local parson. Where is he? Is that actual parson or not person? This is an actual parson, yes. Yeah, a local priest.

Thinking they were his nephews, the innkeeper, she gave them all of the information about the local parson and they went to the parson's house to rob him. But their building was made of stone and the windows were all sort of mullioned, which is a lovely word, but I never quite know what it means. It meant there were

no big openings that you could get through. Yeah, it means hook proof. I always visualise a sea creature of some kind. You know what I mean? Covered with sort of barnacles. Yeah. First of all, these guys were rogues, so you probably could have got a hook in through a mullion, but these guys were not hookers, they were rogues, so they needed to get into the building themselves. I'm so sorry. So what they did was uh they they knocked on the window right and they begged the parson for a for a little bit of uh change right and being a parson he went okay here's a few pennies and when he reached out to give them the pennies they put a horse lock which is like a big padlock i think onto his arm so he couldn't get his hand back in

his own window and they said we're gonna chop your arm off unless couldn't get his hand back in his own window. And they said, we're going to chop your arm off unless you give us all the money in the house. So he had to shout and wake the woman upstairs and they gathered all the goodies in the house and they had to parcel them out through the tiny little mullion and the rogues headed off. And they said, we'll unlock you

on the condition that you go to the inn tomorrow and spend 12 pence in the inn tomorrow because he promised to do it and because he was passing, he inn tomorrow and spend 12 pence in the inn tomorrow. Because he promised to do it and because he was passing, he went and spent his 12 pence in the inn. And he said, what's going on? Two people robbed me. And she went, oh, you mean your nephews? And he went, they aren't my nephews.

Well, she gave him some quite sensible advice. She said, by my troth, never speak more of it. When they shall understand of it in the parish, they will but laugh you to scorn. And that was the end of it. And then he never told anyone. Although how that story came to be recorded recorded bearing in mind that both people in that conversation agree never to speak of it i don't know rogues bragging or maybe they told a

bragger i've got one more story of a type that i think is quite good this is the story of a walking mort i.e a normal woman standard woman so she was pregnant oh yeah didn't know the father the writer is extremely judgmental about that and she had cravings for oysters so she went out to the coast and she was just digging up and eating raw oysters straight out of the beach that's quite a craving yeah fell in a hole didn't she oh right up to her middle and couldn't get out yeah wedged is the word i would use and a man came along and said he would help get her out of the hole if she would lie with him. Oh. And she wasn't particularly averse to lying with him.

But she'd been in that town before and she knew that man's wife. And so she was loathe to betray his wife by lying with that guy. So she said yes. She made a deal to come by his farm later on that day. But before that, she went and found his wife. She told her, thank you for telling me. Come by later on, as you said, and then wait until his pants are down, wait until his trousers are off, and shout, now fie, for shame, fie.

That will be the watchword. So she did exactly as she was told. She came by later that evening, and when his pants were down, she shouted, and I'm going to quote now. Now fie, for shame, fie, saithith she aloud which was the watchword at which word these five furious sturdy muffled gossips flings out and takes sure hold of this betrayed person soon plucking his hosen down lower and binding the same fast about his feet then binding his hands and knitting a handkerchief about his eyes that he should not see and when they had made him sure and fast,

they laid him one until they were windless. Oh, bloody hell. Yep, so five old ladies beat him up. Oh. And she came back to that town a year later, and the report was that he had become a very good and loyal husband. Right. And that was reported by that walking mortars as the one good deed she had done in the year.

Good? I guess. I don't know. It's quite the tale, isn't it? So they were gossips, did you say? Gossips, i.e. old women. Oh, okay. It wasn't like they're going to do this

and they're going to tell everyone. Well, gossip comes from god-sib, I think, as in god-parent. Sib as in sibling. Excuse me? So I think it means person of a god-parent's age. But how does that relate to telling tales? Oh, just because it's a characteristic of old people

to chatter and tell tales. So that's where it comes from. Well, I never. You learn something new. That's the kind of thing an old person would say. Eee! Eee! That's the big noise in the North East

for old ladies. Eee! Is it? Yeah, if you do anything slightly unexpected like go to London for a day or have thoughts above your station or gain a qualification of any kind, it would be... Get Huel delivered. Now, fair enough, fair enough on that one.

Which brings me to the pelting speech, the cant of the beggars, Peddler's French. Oh, la la. I've got a glossary here. I can't possibly read you the whole glossary. There's a couple of interesting things, like a few words in it we would recognise, like booze for alcohol, for instance. Oh, yeah.

A purse is called a bung, which we would understand as meaning like a bribe, but that's pretty close. Yes. High women were called snafflers. That's lovely. And you were telling me before, you snaffled a few biscuits, so we still use the word snaffle. Yes, definitely.

Duds means clothes. Oh, yeah. The best one, by the way, is night and day are lightmans and darkmans. Nice. it's so we still use the word snaffle yes definitely duds means clothes oh yeah oh the best one by the way is night and day are lightmans and darkmans nice oh and uh wine is called rome booze nice the upright man speaketh bene lightmans to thy quorums in what libkin hast thou lived in this darkmans whether in a libbage or in the strummel which means good morrow to thy body in what house hast thou lain in all night whether in a bed or in the strawummel, which means good morrow to thy body. In what house hast thou lain in all night, whether in a bed or in the straw?

The rogue replies, I couched in a hog's head in a skip of this darkman's. I laid me down to sleep in a barn this night. The upright man says, I tore the strummel trine upon thy nabcheat and togman. I see the straw hang upon thy cap and coat. Why hast thou only lowered in thy bung to booze? Why hast thou any money in thy purse to drink? And so it goes on like that.

And they mainly talk about drinking and crimes. Yes. Because these guys have a habit of saying their criminal plans aloud before doing them. It's necessary for them to encode it in some way. Yeah. Yeah. We have a similar thing because we've got children. You have to develop a like a sort of code language to be able to talk about things.

Because like when you've got like a one year oldold if they hear a word of a thing they like like banana they're just going to go on about bananas until they get a banana so we started calling it a yellow dog that's very nice there was a sort of an in-family language on my wife's side which was a sort of version of pig latin but not quite the same and i've looked it up and its literal definition is gobbledygook oh nice now i hope my child doesn't listen to this podcast because i'm going to tell you the format uh turn off now if you are listening go and have a banana shut up i'm in a yellow dog it's basically before every vowel you say egg.

Oh. So I'm not very good at it, but it would be... Say go and have a banana. Gago, agand, hagav, agay, bay, gay, nay, ga, nay, ga. Yeah, that's really confusing. I would have no idea. I would not realise. Do I slept in a barn?

I'm not very good at it. Agay, slay... Gept. not very good at it. A guy slay... Gept. Slay, get. A gin. A gin, a gay. Bagan, yeah. Wow, that's hard to do.

And if you're talking about a gay baby, it just becomes a freestyle rap. It's funny you should mention rap, James, because as you know, I'm an expert in hip hop. It's one of your favourite things. One of my favourite art forms. Your name is Alistair Beckett King and you're here to say you talk about rap every single day.

Yep. Thank you. Thank you for rapping my love of rap. What I thought I would do is to try and bring... Because I was worried that this wouldn't be that relevant to the kids. Well, I think I've covered the kids. The very youngest kids. Just give them a banana, they're happy.

What I've done is I've tried to translate a hip-hop hit into peddler's french for you oh in order to just make it relevant excellent anyway i've chosen sir mix-a-lot's baby got back yes that's 30 years old 35 years old yeah it's pretty pretty one of the more recent hip-hop tunes joints i'm not going to properly wrap it, because the meter has been somewhat damaged by translating it into Peddler's French, but I'm going to do my best. Alright? I wean great Prats be

most bene ship, and I mourn cut benally. You brother Peddlers plant the wids. Should a doxy being hereby, with an elfin girdle and a round thing hard by your glaziers, thou gettest sprung. You would fain take rubs. Tau taquorum couched in the drawers she be wearing. I'm trining on the chats. That's good. That was as far as I could get. It took about three hours.

That's, yeah. Should I do the intro in the gobbledygook? The bit where Linda is talking to Becky? Yeah. The bit where Linda is talking to Becky. Yeah. A go, may guy, gay god. Lay gut, a gat, they gat, they gut.

Oh, it's oh my god, look at that butt. I don't need to tell you that. No, no, of course. I've read it in quite a lot of detail over the last few hours. It's very difficult to get the meter right. It starts well. I ween great, prats be most beneship, and and i mourn cut benally that's where it messes up but you brother peddlers plant the wids i really think that works should a doxy bing hereby with an elf in girdle and a round thing

hard by your glaziers thou gettest sprung i couldn't find a translation for sprung ah there wasn't a word for it in the past. No. So it literally translates as, I believe great buttocks be most excellent and I must speak well. You brother peddlers do not speak amiss. Should a woman come here with a narrow waist and a round thing very near your eyes, you get sprung. thing very near your eyes yeah you get sprung you would do hard shifts see her body asleep in the trousers she is wearing i'm hanging on the gallows and i cannot stop watching that was the best i

could do what you're doing there as well as you're providing the service for any criminals who do want to fully understand the hip-hop of the 80s. I see myself as a bridge between those two groups. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a brief tour of the Fraternity of Vagabonds. Oh, that's great. Which I've now made you a part of. You're going to pour beer on me, Ed?

I will at the next opportunity. Some Rome booze. Oh, nice. Oh, Rome booze. I might try and bring that in. Delicious glass of Rome booze. Mmm. Try the Rome booze. I might try and bring that in. Delicious glass of Rome booze. Mmm. Try the Rome booze.

It's very good. There's some other good ones. Mm-hmm. So, of course, a smelling cheat is a nose. A prattling cheat is a tongue. Fambles are hands. How is this... Stamps are legs.

How is this part of a criminal plan? A cackling cheat is a cock or a capon. A roger or tip of the buttery, is a goose. A jigger is a door. To cut bene wids is to speak good words. And to cut queer wids is to give evil words

or speak evil language. It's quite a lot of crossover with Polari in that, isn't there? Benny's Polari. Which began among travelling and circus folk as a sort of criminal code before it moved into the Navy and became part of gay subculture. Because no one wanted anyone to know

if they thought something was good. It does feel like you don't really need a code word for good, yeah. Like, because if you're saying, it would be Benny, should we rob that bank? They've got a Benny amount of money in there. Oh, there is a really rude bit.

James, I completely forgot to read you the really rude bit. Go on. This bit's so rude that it isn't translated. Wow. Can we have a guess? Listeners, write in. There was a proud patrico and a nose gent. That's a proud priest and a nun.

Is this like when the rap album had parental advisory explicit lyrics? He took his jockham in his famble and a whopping he went. Well. What could that mean? Famble means hand. Jockham means it's Google-able. He took his jockham in his famble and a whopping he went. He docked the dell, he prigged to prance.

He binged a waste into the darkmans. He filched the cove without any filchmen He got up to some stuff He's on bing I think it's time for some scores Yes, certainly First category, let's just get it out of the way Supernatural

Zero Okay, are you sure? I don't think there's anything supernatural in there, is there? There's some lies, but there's no ghosts. I can't find any spooks. There's probably some scams that would involve some sort of supernatural element. Perhaps putting some fear into a parson? No, there isn't anything supernatural.

No. I'll take my one, then. None? See, I tried to get you there. I tried to get you with one of the classic scams. The miss here? A classic hustle. And I tried to do it to you there tried to get you with one of the classic scams. The miss here. A classic hustle. And I tried to do it to you there and it didn't work.

You did. I'm too wise for you. Zero points. All right. Second category. Names. Yes. Okay, then.

There's a lot of names here and all of them good. I haven't even read all of the names. No. What was Bloquium for a dream? What was that about? Oh Bloquium. Oh Bloquium. And a Bloquium is he that will take a tail out of his master's mouth and tell it himself. Oh. That is, that's

not cool man. A munch present will eat your food. Yeah. If you send him somewhere with your food, he'll eat a little bit on the way. Oh. It would be hypocritical for me to damn people that did that. Are you a on the way-way nibbler? I'm a hungry man. You're a munch present.

I guess so. You need a little bit of walking around food. A curry favel is he that will lie in his bed and curry the bed boards in which he lieth instead of his horse. I don't know what that means. Have you ever curried a bed? I hope not. That might be why I lost my deposit on them. In case I went there to do bricks then.

Well, on that occasion you were a curry favel. The word for the mark in a scam is a barnacle. That's good. Because normally it seems to be that they're almost normal people's names because you've got a John, a Patsy. Oh, yeah. And a Mark. Yeah.

They're just standard names. It's like when I realised there's quite a few haircuts that are just people's names. The Bob. The Turney Tail. Yes, it doesn't work. It's just Bob, isn't it? It is just Bob.

Or Jerry Curls and the triplets Shortback and Sides. Mo Heekin. Maureen Heekin in full. So what's the score for names? Oh. Because it has every single name you could dream of. Five. Thank you.

Yeah, definitely. It's a Benny Five. I bet there's a word for five. Sank or sink. Oh, so it's a little bit French. Benny Sank, thank you. Next category a little bit French Bene sank thank you Next category World building

World building Oh yes Yes I have been your dungeon master I have lured you into this space The rogues The upright men The brotherhood of vagabonds The autumn morts

The kinshin morts Oh yeah The sideways men I made up sideways men But I could easily have not I imagine that's definitely a thing A sideways man Because a curry fowl is lying down fully horizontal an upright man's fully up we

need someone at the 45 degree point yeah a slanty pete yeah i'd like the idea that you hear about it with um during the great depression there was the like the code the hobo code hobo code yeah that's cool isn't it that's a neat little thing is the hobo code real i don code, yeah. That's cool, isn't it? That's a neat little thing. Is the hobo code real? I don't know, but I read about it because people were thinking that it was happening again. Reasonably, like within the last couple of years, there was like stuff about like, oh, if people have drawn this on the pavement outside your house,

it means this. And it was like someone from Serco or something, like the building company was just like, no, it just means there's a gas line there. It made me so annoyed because it's like, oh, if they've drawn this, it means that your house has got good stuff to steal. Well, who are they telling? Why not just either steal it yourself,

at which point you have stolen it and it's not there anymore. Or just remember. It's just nonsense. But people are so ready to believe that there's a secret network of thieves. They're all trying to steal your stuff. There's another sort of version of that to do with like the gangs of London, the postcode battles, graffiti

signs on road signs and that means different things. Is that true? I don't know if it's true or not. I'm not in a gang. What's your postcode then? Probably can't put that in the podcast. What's your mother's maiden name? It's King. Oh yeah. Part of my surname.

I love it. I imagine it's nonsense. I'm almost completely sure it's nonsense. I think it's almost a conspiracy theory. It just gives you an excuse not to feel sorry for anyone. Oh, I suppose. Because whenever a beggar comes you go, oh, this is one of those people feigning the crank, which is epilepsy.

Oh, another one was the freshwater mariners whose ships were wrecked on the plains of Salisbury. It's just a way of allowing you to create a whole fantasy world so that you don't have to ever feel sorry for someone. It's also quite a lot of effort to go to all this stuff. Yeah, and it keeps referring to them as idle. At one point it says, these idle men who walk from town to town. Like, you try walking from town to town. That is tiring.

They've learned how to play cards really well. That isn't easy, making a little fake cater tray dice. They've got a second language. They're bilingual. I'm going to have to take a point away because it's a bit inherently, it's kind of prejudiced. You're knocking a point off for bigotry. Yeah, this time.

This time. I'm not saying you might get one. You might get an extra point for bigotry later on. Depends on the nature of the score. The next category is bigotry. No, it isn't. My final category is furious, sturdy, muffled gossips. Oh, of the kind that beat up that chap.

The kind that beat up that chap, of which there were five. Count them. I can't count them because I'm blindfolded. Yeah, that's true with ankerchief. So I guess you get five. Yes. I just, I want them to get their own spin-off. What's it? The five furious? Five, it's the sturdiness of them.

Five sturdy old women. Five sturdy old women who fling out and attack people. You've just invented the Golden Girls. I haven't watched Golden Girls. Is that what it is? It's like a bunch of old women in America who are quite sturdy and funny. Are they sturdy?

Yeah. I think they're all either widowers or divorced. Would they pluck a man's hosen down and bind it fast about his feet? I think it was on pre watershed but they, yeah I think Blanche would definitely. I'm going to have to watch this Golden Girls. What is

this Golden Girl? Did it come before and after the last cultural thing of which I was aware, Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-a-Lot? At a guess I'd say it was concurrent with Quantum Leap. Oh, okay. But it wasn't part of the extended Quantum

Leap universe. Most TV programs weren't. Most things weren't. I'm glad we're talking about Quantum Leap. It's a while since we've talked about Quantum Leap on this podcast. And maybe our next episode will be the Leap Home. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da- And maybe our next episode will be the leap home. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da Party, party to everyone you know. You could see the biggest gift would be from me.

And a cut of touch would say, took you for being a... I wean great, prats be most beniship, and I mourn cut Benally. You brother peddlers plant the wits. Should a doxy being hereby with an elfin girdle and a round thing hard by your glazius? The lawman Medley. Well, there you have it, James. Benny. Benny podcast, I'd say. Yeah.

Have they got a word for podcast? Hold on, I'll just look through the book if you enjoyed the podcast you can like subscribe or chuck us a couple of quid on coffee.com you could cut

Benet Wids in the review section on iTunes if you want how would they say retweet it's just retweet according to this

it's the same I hope you've enjoyed listening to it with your hearing cheats Benet ship lightmans to you all. I think we need to have another little clarification and potential apology about last week's episode, Alistair. Do we?

I was looking up Sherburn. Oh, yeah? Place origin. And everywhere I'm seeing it, it's saying that Sherburn means a nice clean stream or brook, not what you described as a brook. Yeah, that's what they want you to think, James.

That's why they renamed it. That doesn't mean that it wasn't a f***ing burn. They used clean water to sluice the poo away. If your town's called f***ing burn, you're not going to rename it to crap burn. You're going to rename it to really nice clean burn. Clean burn. I just can't believe you've bought into the propaganda, James.

It's so obvious. I think you're a victim of propaganda against those good, honest, upstanding people over the propaganda, James. It's so obvious. I think you're a victim of propaganda against those good honest upstanding people over the scrambles. You haven't met them, James. You haven't met them. You don't know what you're talking about. All of them smoke. They all smoke. Okay then. Well

I'm saying that's what I found out. So if you want to stick by your yeah. I do. Okay. Fine. Never let it be said that I changed my opinion when presented with new evidence.