Loremen Podcast - S3 Ep27: Loremen S3 Ep27 - Chipping Norton

Episode Date: July 2, 2020

Ah, Chipping Norton! A town that sounds like a minced oath from the 19th century, like "Flaming Nora!" Or "Odds Bodkins!" Also the town that produced a podcast presenter utterly determined to get to the bottom of local legends, obscure curiosities and whatnot. (It's James. We're talking about James.) Please enjoy this love letter to the market town of "Chippy" that could have been James' debut Edinburgh Festival Fringe show if circumstances were different.* *Audience's expectations were much lower. Wang us some sweet, sweet dough via here if you'd be so kind... ko-fi.com/loremen @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 James Shakeshaft. And I'm Alistair Beckett-King. And Alistair, it's a very special episode today for me. We're going to be talking about the market town of Chipping Norton. Didn't you grow up in Chipping Norton, James? Big time. There are a lot of tales from Chipping Norton. Not all

of them get covered here. For example, the time a policeman asked if we'd seen a puma. That doesn't get a mention in this episode. And coming up afterwards, we've got some very exciting news. Yes, keep listening at the end of this episode to find out about our 50th episode celebratory live stream 50 episodes too many alistair james how are you i'm all right. Nothing has changed. Good. Are you sitting down, actually, for this story?

I am. I'm perched. I'm in an old vegan armchair. What's that? Yeah, it's made of lettuce. It's the hottest day of the year. You shouldn't be sitting in a food-based chair in front of a roaring vegan fire. Nuts roasting.

Yeah, in this weather, absolutely. Especially on pleather. This one is about Chipping Norton. Whoa. Yeah. This is the town, obviously, that I grew up in. AKA Chippy. AKA Chippy.

Well done. Straight Outta Chippy. Never your first album. Yes. His high street is on the side of a hill, and there's such a big gap between the two sides. One side of the high street's called topside, the other side's called bottomside. Wow. And in the middle, it's middle row. It really is fantastic. I mean, that's not the best thing about it. A uneven street, it's fantastic. It's a wonderful world. Just to be clear, is it running up and down the hill

or does it run sort of contrawise to the hill on its side on its side yeah so you've got a top side and a bottom side it's going around the hill yes right you know when pavement artists do those drawings and they look like a 3d thing from one angle and then you move and it's all stretched out yeah trompe l'oeil i think is the word really beats the eye or something tricks the eye something like that. Not an Irishman talking about Donald Trump's latest speech. Trump loi. That's a Northern Irish accent I think you're doing there, yeah. Well done.

Still Irishman. Alistair, let's not get into that. This is the last podcast to resolve that tricky situation. Yeah, so it's like that if you imagine looking at a high street from down below. It looks like, oh, maybe that's a normal high street. And then you get up and it's, whoa, no, it's like that, if you imagine, yeah, looking at a high street from down below, it looks like, oh, maybe that's a normal high street. And then you get up and it's, whoa, no, it's too wide. That's Chippy. I wasn't born in Chippy, so I'll never be a local.

I moved there when I was about eight from the big city, West Wickham. Not the Wickham with a Y, the home of the Hellfire Club. Have you heard of the Hellfire Club? Yes, I think it was a group of young aristocrats who did a bit of magic. Is that right? Yeah, mostly drinking and carousing. Oh. But they did it in a big cave.

And what is magic if it's not being drunk in a cave? Exactly. It's not that West Wickham. It was West Wickham, the home of Enid Blyton and the drummer from the Levellers not quite the hellfire club then I mean the Levellers are fairly revolutionary Enid Blyton less so yeah she's not problematic not not a staunch left-wing activist Enid Blyton yeah so I was eight and I was making friends at the infant school and i heard a story st mary's church is the church of england church there and i heard a story that if you ran around st mary's church 12 times as the clock

struck midnight you'd see the vicar hanging in the window of the tower oh that shook me yeah i never tried it do you have to make it all the way around the church 12 times within the chimes within the 12 bongs of 12 midnight because that's fast i that can't be possible no i don't think you could do it if you're doing that you're breaking new world records you're probably slipping into another dimension so you you may be able to see ghosts but no there's a whole host of little ghosts around chippy especially on the outskirts as well. There's one called Gran, who's a ghost that haunts a quarry near Pudlicote Lane, which is a lovely name. Pudlicote Lane is really good and makes up for Gran being a terrible name for a ghost.

For the ghost of an old lady. She apparently lived in a cave in the quarry and she had a horde of gold sovereigns. And at the corner of Pudlicutt Lane, multiple times there's been witnesses. Witnesses have seen a white amorphous blob go across the road and pass through a hedge. Well, it is Oxfordshire. So, and I've been there, there are quite a few white amorphous folks in that region. Who have a horde of gold sovereigns. Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. Just a jingling blancmange on one of the other outer roads on the chipping norton to deddington road that's haunted of course and there's a there's a force that causes horses to bolt a horse force there's a force on a horse it's not a force riding a horse but it'll force your horse, of course. And it causes cyclists to dismount. Which for me, as a cyclist, that's not what you want to do when you want to get away from something and you've access to a bike. Yeah, it's sort of the ghost equivalent of a stop children sign that's out of school.

Like just dead slow. A spooky lollipop lady. We could call the film Dead Slow, like a horror movie about a lollipop lady or person. Gran. I genuinely have a memory of being given a lollipop. By a ghost? Not a ghost, but by a lollipop lady. And it's a constructed memory because, obviously due to my childhood confusion.

Because it's really unfair to kids to call them something as tasty as that. Yes, yeah. I can visualise it. One of those washed out ice cream tubs full of lollipops. Didn't happen. They turned to dust, James. Oh. Every one of them, yeah. And what did the ice cream man do? The whole street was dust.

Dust Bowl Days. I mean, these are all great names for films we're coming up with. Dust Bowl Days, yeah. But it's D-A-Z-E. Oh, very good. Sounds like someone's coming of age. So, the Chippin'ord to Deddington Road, I looked it up. It often happens near a tiny, tiny hamlet of Hempton.

And I looked that up and the road there, it's at the top of a bit of road called Steepness Hill. Steepness Hill. Yeah, so I think we know where the cyclists are getting off. They're just tired. All right, so you have an old lady ghost called Gran and you have a steep hill that people don't like to cycle up. Called Steepness.

I'm amazed you can keep the tourists away, frankly. I guess that's why you need the force. To push them off their form of transport so they at least have to go into a pub that's probably called the pub the theater in chippy is called the theater is it yeah like a kid's classroom where everything is just labeled with what it is on it yeah door has the word door on it the top side has top side the steep hill is called steepness yeah the fair is called the mop is it the annual fair is called the chippy mop oh i was um because a mop fair was a an old used to be a thing when um

squires and whatnot would come to hire people and you'd hold up something that represented your trade it used to be an old trade fair and housekeepers would hold up a mop basically and they got the name of mop fairs. Oh. Yeah, it's a nice little curveball. The fish and chip shop in Chippy is called the Arctic Fish Bar. What? It should be called the Chippy Chippy? Yeah, it should be called Chippy Chippy.

Neither of them. At one point there was two. Or Fish and Chippy. Too obvious, I think, for the people of Chippy. The Arctic Fish Bar. Or the Moveable Feast. Are you thinking that might be a burger van no it was a stationary shop all right so the feast is movable because you're allowed to take the food

away that's just oh because it's a take i never realized that as to thanks but that's just the concept of a takeaway a movable feast that's not the usb the hook of your takeaway can't be that you can take the food away especially as this one it obviously obviously, it had no seats. There was no other option. Ridiculous. But I never realised that's why it was called the Moveable Feast. Why did you think it was called that then? I just didn't know. Like, I only found out that mop thing recently.

So you just accepted that the yearly fare was called the Chippy Norton Mop? Yeah, it must mean, like, if everything else is so obviously named, I must just be not getting it. Yeah. We don't need to go into it now. There is the Snuffling Beast of Lidston on the outskirts of chippy friend of the podcast the snuffling beast of lidston yes um i'm still trying to pin down the harding brothers to give me the low down on that and they're they're being evasive yep the beast is hard to find and the witnesses of the

beast what are the effects of the beast do they have they begun to snuffle themselves do they will they eventually transform into the beast um jim's famous for his harding shuffle which sounds like snuffle every day he's shuffling and every day the beast of lidston is snuffling every day he's snuffling i found out some more stories about the pathways i don't know is something about like the they're making up these stories about the pathways on the outside of town makes it seem like they really don't want people to leave yep like um m night shaluramans the village although i've not actually seen it it's quite good so in the folklore of the cotswolds by katherine briggs which is one of my favorite books she recounts some tales from mrs falconer who lived outside of chippy but once a week she had

to go into chippy norton and in winter a shopkeeper said that she shouldn't be going through the forest at night the shopkeeper quote is nothing would induce me to go through the forest again after dark yeah there's an again in there because he'd been doing just that the week before when he had a rustling and a whispering and muttering figure came along the path towards him oh and he like ducked out the way hid off the track and the figure went by and the shopkeeper carried on and then he heard the muttering coming up behind him and he'd ran away the shopkeeper ran away he left the track to find another way home and he lost his way and a shoe and didn't find his way out until

daybreak he lost his way and a shoe wow so just so i can visualize this correctly he was he was walking along and someone was approaching him and so he ducked to one side and let that figure pass and then he carried on his way carried on his way yeah and the person behind him then must have stopped and turned around and started to follow him. Exactly. And then he ran. Oh, no. I mean, I'd lose my shoe in that situation. And other things, beginning with the shoe. Any of us would.

One show minimum. I mean, this is late afternoon in the winter, and Mrs. Falconer, she's got to go back home. She was quite brave. She didn't really believe in this sort of stuff. She had to walk through the woods, and as she was walking through the woods she heard a whispering a muttering noise coming towards the path to water so she hid and a figure passed by and she recognized him oh yeah twist yeah it was an alive person it was an old laborer who'd been let go and had had to move out of his cottage for the new laborer and his family to move into

and he used to go and visit it and he'd turn up every day and like sort of be invited in by the new family and sit by the fire and just sit there all night in his old house oh and what happened is like the family obviously got annoyed at this so they started to pretend to be in bed and then he'd turn around and go home oh that isn't spooky that's just really sad it is really sad isn't it yeah i was hoping he'd be a ghost or the devil no it was or the ghost of the devil or the ghost of a witch no it was a it was a real man who missed his home sort of like a living ghost oh you just really bummed me out james okay there were some mad lights in the sky in 1610 brilliant tell me. A two-headed serpent in 1349.

Whoa, you're going too fast. I don't have time. It's like a mad screensaver over here. The strange and wonderful news from Chipping Norton. On the 26th of July, 1610, at half an hour after nine o'clock at noon... What? ...and continued till 11, in which time were seen appearances of several flaming swords, strange motions of the superior orbs,

with the unusual sparkling of the stars, and their dreadful continuations. There was opening of the heavens, strange appearances, causing great amazement of the beholders. There issued great sheets of flame, or glances of lightning, without thunder. There were strange alternations in the motions of the stars this all sounds normal enough but in the western part of the heavens the skies opened and a perfect flaming sword pointed to the east wow it was of prodigious

size and it twirled round and round amazing there was a similar vision of a nuremberg famously oh yeah in the mid-16th century i think these days people think you people uh ufologists ufologists think that it was uh ufos fighting in the skies but they saw orbs solid orbs of dark colored metal i think moving in the sky for a lengthy period of time and uh dozens of people saw it. I've never heard of the Chipping Norton wonder. No, me neither. I found it in the back of this excellent book, The History of Chipping Norton by Eileen Meads, which I've owned for ages.

And I was looking at the back of it to look at the index, and I found the appendix one, and it was this. It was about that. And in 1349, a monstrous serpent was found near chipping norton uh which had two heads with the faces like women oh yeah one being so shaped as to resemble the new time of those days and the other to represent the old antiquated fashion so what so like the women's faces were just done up in different styles yeah there was a new fangled one and an old-fashioned one.

So one of them had curlers or a blue rinse. Yeah. And the other one had it half all shaved up one side. Yeah, and maybe an eyebrow ring. I don't know what the fashion is nowadays. Yeah, you could hear that I was also struggling to work out what a contemporary haircut is. Yeah.

Asymmetrical. I think it's asymmetrical, but I just don't know. You can't tell these days mostly because everyone's inside um also it had great and large wings like a flitter mouse or bat oh that's the end of that that's all there is on that i and i've looked further into it and i couldn't find anything more part from in another quarry near chippy which uh has the again very very accurate name of stonesfield it's where they found in the 1600s the first and i think only or best most complete bones of a megalosaur oh nice so you know you know down at crystal palace oh yeah the the dinosaurs down

there one of them is what they used to think a megalosaur was. Yes, I do know the Crystal Palace dinosaurs. If the listener doesn't know what they look like, imagine not dinosaurs. Imagine... Yeah, really bad ideas of what dinosaurs look like. Like when a child makes a plasticine dinosaur and you have to go, who is it? It's a T-Rex.

Yeah, it isn't a T-Rex. It looks like a table. They're fantastic, though, but they are chonkoid, I think is the technical term for them. So what it was, in 1676, an ancient bone was found, and it was the end of a thigh bone of a megalosaur. And if you imagine the end of a thigh bone, you know how they sort of look like a knuckle? Yeah. It got the name scrotum humanum. Oh, I think I'm no Latin scholar, but...

That's another very straight down the middle name, isn't it? The guy that discovered it didn't know what it was. He thought it was a beast that was too big to have ever been in Britain. He thought it might have been the remains of a Roman war elephant. Or later, probably one of them biblical giants that the Bible's always banging on about. Nephilim. Nephilim. I think is the name.

There's a Rasputina song called Holocaust of Giants about exactly that, about finding a dinosaur and determining that it must have been a race of biblical giants that all went extinct. There were more excavations. They found more and more of this stuff over the next 150 years. And by 1824, a chap called William Buckland gets involved. He's an oddball, is the best way to talk about him. He was quite smart and had lots of intellectual pursuits. And he tried to eat as many different types of animal that he could.

Charles Darwin did that as well. Just wanted to eat them. He was a member of a club where they pursued that exact interest because he believed then he would gain their powers, I think. That's not true. I'm pretty sure that's an 80s cartoon. Charles Darwin, power of a hawk. Om nom nom nom nom. But no was a yeah a gentlemanly scholarly pursuit eating every different type of thing at one time he said

that blue bottles were the foulest thing he'd ever eaten he ate blue bottles apparently so they live on poo yeah what were you expecting i know i mean it's good it's a fair play like he's not just going for things that sound tasty. That's disgusting and unhygienic. Yep. And he is the person that identified this as a megalosaurus and I think coined the name megalosaurus. Really? Sorry, I didn't realise he was going to swoop in and be the voice of reason. But this is still apparently 18 years before the word dinosaur had been invented. It's weird to think,

because dinosaurs are such a part of childhood for some reason now, that kids all have a favourite dinosaur. It's weird to think there was a time when we didn't know that there used to be giant lizards living on the planet. It's very bizarre. Yes.

Chippin' Norton, it didn't do... There wasn't much going on in the Civil War. It kind of kept out of that whole thing. But around 100 years previously, there was quite the kerfuffle. It was after Henry VIII died. And you know he had a son who was like nine years old and became the king for a couple of years. Edward IV? Edward VI?

I don't know the number. One of the Edwards. Sickly little Edward. Yes. I think. Yes, Edward VI. Is that what you said? I said't know the number. One of the Edwards. Sickly little Edward. Yes. I think. Yes, Edward VI. Is that what you said? I said fourth and then sixth. So edit out the time I said fourth and we've nailed it. Yes.

And you know he had a son who was like nine years old and became the king for a couple of years. Edward VI. Yes, Edward VI. So yeah, he became king when he was nine. What have you achieved, James? What have you done? But he would have been spurned on by an absent father. Yeah, that's true. He have you achieved, James? What have you done? But he would have been spurned on by an absent father. Yeah, that's true. He had more motivation, maybe. It was literally the thing that made him become king.

So obviously there was a protector, and it was Protector Somerset who would kind of ran the country for the nine-year-old. And he pushed through lots of abrupt changes to sort of follow on from Henry's creation of the Church of England. They sort of started messing around with all the church stuff, removing all the fancy pictures.

Apparently you were only allowed two candles max in the church, which before electricity, that made the church from being quite a vibrant place to being very dull. That wanted to take sides when it comes to the Catholic Reformation and the Protestant Revolution. I just feel like if reformers had not been absolutely miserable, they all came in and said, we're getting rid of all the corruption, and everyone went,

by the way, there'll be no fun from now on ever, and you can have one candle a year and Christmas is finished. And it's just, oh, come on, guys. Come on. Yeah, at least make it sellable yeah because also back in them days there wasn't there wasn't any entertainment really the church going to church and looking at the big shiny stuff would have been your only treat for the week in in 1549 it was the implementation of the english language prayer book. Not an English language translation of the Bible, though.

Just prayers. Just the prayers. Just the prayers. Okay. Still, it's a radical, dangerous idea. And people didn't like it. Nah, doesn't have the same ring. And that led to a series of rebellions around the country.

People will kick off about anything, really, won't they? Big time. This was around my way was the Oxfordshire Rising, and they marched on Tame. Four places. Yeah. They marched on Sir John Williams' house. They killed his deer and sheep and ate them.

Oh, yeah. As a vegan, I don't approve, but, you know, sometimes you've got to show people who's boss. Exactly. And Lord Grey was dispatched with over 1,000 German mercenaries to deal with them. Wow, I bet the German mercenaries are laid back. Yes.

And the rebels returned to Chippenot and they camped. And apparently this was a big thing, this camping. It was a key part of this rebellion is they all sort of set up these big camps. And it implies that they were kind of in some sort of communication with each other. And it was sort of becoming quite a well-organized uprising and even like the clergy would start to get involved and to kind of i guess because they're the people who are getting quite badly affected by this they want a few more candles in their place yeah they're the people that they know how to talk to crowds in them days and the vicar of chippinorton, Henry Joyce, is there, and he's talking to the people.

And then, on the 18th of July, Lord Grey's mercenaries attacked and massacred a bunch of people at this Chipping Norton camp. Half of them did escape, but the rest were either killed outright or captured, and most of them were sentenced to be hanged. And the evidence for that comes from King Edward's diary. So that's like a nine-year-old's diary talking about... Oh, I forgot he was nine for a second there. I think he might be 11 by now, but still.

So just writing his news in school. What was in your 11-year-old diary? Yeah, what I did today. We massacred the rebels and then had turkey drumsticks in the shape of a dinosaur. No, they wouldn't have because they didn't know what dinosaurs were. It would be in the shape of testicles. And so they were captured and the ringleaders were made examples of. Henry Joyce, the vicar of Chippenorton, was sentenced to be hanged from his church tower.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, James. Are you tying it back into the first thing you told me? I am, Alistair. Are you beautifully dovetailing the ending to the start? Mm-hmm. The vicar you see hanging in the church if you run around it 12 times at the stroke of midnight. It's a real vicar who was really hanged. Oh, good work.

Now, there is some debate as to whether his sentence was carried out because a few of the other vicars were pardoned. But the records show that in that year, a new vicar started at the church and he got his opportunity because the role had been vacated because the previous vicar had been executed for treason. Right, so that confirms that he was executed. Yeah. And do you know the name of that new vicar?

No. Eddie Large. Do you know the name of that new vicar? No. Eddie Large. One half of the 70s English comedy double act, Little and Large. It may not be the same one. Presumably not the same one, unless he has really been with us for a long time.

Eddie Large. Yeah. Edward Large. Edward Large. Yeah. It really is the last thing I was expecting. Narratively, this has been a masterful episode from you there, James. A whole load of scattered things that didn't seem to connect. Then, foof, foof, you tie them all together in a neat little ribbon.

Yeah. And then, in a post-credits sequence, like one of your Marvel films, you slipped in Eddie Large completely unexpectedly. A celebrity cameo from Eddie Large. Yep. He slipped in Eddie Large unexpectedly. A celebrity cameo from Eddie Large. Yep. Amazing. That's Chippy.

Thank you, Chipping Norton. What a story. Are you ready to score me? I'm ready to score this mother, this gran. Yeah.

I'm feeling pretty confident on this one. So let's go straight in with the supernatural. All right. Snake with two heads. Nice. Just as an aside.

Yeah. With a sort of before and after from a hairdresser's photograph. Heads. Bizarre premise. Really like it. A snake over makeover. Yeah. Huge, huge points for the snake over.

Very impressed with that. You've got a light show worthy of Metallica or any of those fellas. Yep. Pretty good. You've got a ghost that turned out to just be an unemployed man. Yes. That is not very supernatural. No, but it's as sad as a ghost story.

You'd almost rather it was a ghost. Oh, I would be delighted if that... No, I was about to say if that man died. I don't want him to die, but I'd rather it were a ghost. You've got a strange force that may or may not be gravity yeah you can't have that strange force or hill the mystery force that makes people get off their bikes on the hill no not accepting that as supernatural um what about the i'll come on then the ghost vicar ghost of a vicar oh yeah the ghost vicar who it all fits

together and it all makes sense yeah now i'm gonna say it's a three out of five for supernatural i really like the snake really like the vicar um but you can take a hike with your sad man and hill a hill a hill is not a ghost oh darn building a street on a slant is not a ghost okay then naming names um dreadful whoa i think whoa accurate chippy mop it's it's it's not clear doesn't make any sense that doesn't fully describe the excitement and terror of having a traveling fair with rides on a high street that i think i've already pointed out is the side of a hill it's extremely unsafe the dodgems track is on one side held up by beer crates and on the other side is ground level oh that is that is worrying the whack-a-rat shoots out with 40 miles an hour yes

injured several children the eggs in space may have actually ended up in space one year yeah no the names are the what's the chip shop called the movable feast land of chips movable feast what's that they're just rubbish names when the chippy chippy was staring you in the face and the arctic fish bar what even is that i don't know they are arctic fish bar it sounds like a horrible version of a penguin like made from real penguins they'd be disgusting one out of five but disgusting and stupid it does sound like the worst confectionery ever what would you what do you want do you want fries turkish delight or an arctic fish bar but in this turkish delight is made of turkish people and is equally disgusting actually that might be an improvement on Turkish Delight, frankly.

Oh, well, I know. Do you like Turkish Delight? Yeah. Sinister jelly of Satan? Yeah. The weird cubes covered in sugar. Oh, the sugar? Very nice.

No one's knocking the sugar. It's one out of five for names. I'm sorry, James. No, you haven't let yourself down. Tripping Nottingham has let you down. Whoa. Okay, then. Next category, bad names.

It's five out of five for bad names there, James. Thank you. That's a very high score. Some of the weakest names I've ever heard. And my final category is actual history. There was a lot of actual history in this episode, James. There was. I didn't know where you were going with it for a while.

You were doing, like, fact after fact. It was bewildering. Nothing in the podcast up until this point over several years has prepared me for you delivering anything remotely factual. And you just came in with dates and names and important historical events. The founding of the Church of England. The dissolution of the monasteries. Where was it going? It was all leading towards a ghost of a vicar.

To the eight-year-old little jimmy shakes which is what you were known until the age of 21 yeah when you shot up in height yep and lost the tremor at saint mary's infant school and i heard the story of that vicar and you planted it you planted the seed right there it was it was there right in front of us and we didn't know we me and the listener we didn't see it coming maybe the listener did but i didn't dazzling work i just remember that there's a very tangential trompe l'oeil connection to henry the eighth because um there is uh i think there's a famously lost painting of henry the eighth by uh holbein the younger who also did

the much more famous not lost painting of the ambassadors which quite famously has a an anamorphic image of a skull in it what it looks like is that there's like a skateboard like one of the ambassadors is just doing a sort of ollie but it's not an ollie if you look at it from a really steep angle it's a it's the human skull a hidden memento mori in the image oh i thought you were going to say that that painting of Henry VIII, where he looks very fat, was actually a trompe l'oeil and you're meant to look at it from a certain angle.

Yeah, if you look at it right from a steep angle, he's ever so skinny. He's ripped. We've been in lockdown so long, that's for every picture of me, I'm like, it's a trompe l'oeil. Look at it from an angle. Please look at it from an angle.

Every Zoom chat, you're trying to create your own trompe l'oeil with your chin. You have been listening to Lawmen with me, Alistair Beckett-King. And me, James Shakeshaft. And as we said at the start, our 50th episode is coming up very soon, actually. You have to be able to do some pretty basic maths to work that out. And we've decided to do a celebratory livestream episode. Yes, it's going to be the evening of July the 14th.

2020. 2020. And you can find us... 2020. ...on twitch.tv forward slash lawmenpod. So join us then for the 50th Celebration Spectacular. We've oversold it there. Yeah, definitely.

Oh, well. Candy got back in contact, Alistair. Candy, off of the other episode, whose friends didn't listen to it. Yes. Turns out they're a freight train engineer. Wow. Who knew? I didn't know.

They did, obviously. And they say that some of the people they're trying to convince are railroaders, and that might be why they're not that bothered. Because they work the railroads in America and... In essence, that's the subtext. I think they would be interested in the past because the only images of that I can think of are in the past. Yeah, I didn't really...

I thought the trains pretty much looked after themselves these days. Yeah, no offence, Candy. I can understand, though, why people do important labouring on the points, whatever it is, hitting things with railroad spikes i think it probably involves keys and buttons breaking rocks with hammers being on a chain gang yeah i can see why they don't want to hear the opinions of a couple of english wizards in other americans being confused by our podcast news other americans are being confused by our podcast oh come on and they can't they're unable to even describe it to their friends because of the labored pun that we went for with lawmen

oh we have addressed it within the podcast so how many times can we apologize to america for their their accent being wrong yes so i thought what we could do because we gave that message out to candy and candy's friends last time what we should do is because we gave that message out to Candy and Candy's friends last time. What we should do is if we just record a bunch of different American names, then they can just take that message and drop in their own name. Yeah. So that they'll be able to do it. So I've got some American names here.

Craig. I just snip that out and put it in. Randy. I've never told you that I know an American called Randy Pratt. No. Yeah. Randy, you better be listening, mate. What other?

Carl. I like Graham. Graham. Graham. Yes. Surname Crackers. Taylor. Taylor.

Yes, that's it. Yes. Mackenzie. They're just surnames. Your names are backwards. This is Mackenzie Stephen. Do you mean Stephen Mackenzie? That's the correct way around for that name.

Missy. Oh, yeah, yeah. Cracking name. Yeah, so I think that covers all the American names that there are. Yep. You know George Foreman, the boxer? Yes. He's got five sons.

Do you want to hazard a guess at their names? He's got five? Yeah. So they can't be called four men. George Five Men. George? Yes, they're all called George Foreman. They're all called George Foreman.

Yeah. And in the event of an interview it would make grilling them difficult. And just a logistical nightmare. We're looking for five four men. How many do you want? Do you mean 54? 54.