Loremen Podcast - S4 Ep38: Loremen S4 Ep38 - Brighton vs Chickens

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

Brighton and Hove: quiet, peaceful, serene... that is until Shrove Tuesday comes round! The Loreboys discover that while Brightonians are a forward-thinking and open-minded bunch, they have real issues when it comes to one particular bird. (It's chickens. You guessed that.) This is a tale of Vikings and fowl play, and it may be our most controversial episode yet. James makes enemies of The Danes, red heads, chickens and ducks. And Alasdair launches phase one of the ABK Cinematic Universe (The ABKCU). Loreboys nether say die! Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen @loremenpod www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod

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, I have got potentially the most scandalous and controversial episode to date. Ooh, is it too hot for the internet, James? I've seen some of the things on the internet and no. But it is pretty hot. It's quite a lot hotter than some of them.

But okay. Oh boy, oh boy. Are you going to blow this case wide open, James? I'm going to blow it open like an earthenware pot with a cock inside. That doesn't make any sense. It will after you've listened to the episode. It will sound less offensive. So come with me to learn about

Brighton and the Danes. I went to Brighton this weekend for a engagement party oh and that led me to look up in my big book of little myths law of the land

end of the show Brighton and there's a lovely story about Brighton in there but I'm worried that this is going to be potentially one of the most controversial episodes i want to talk to you about a shrove tuesday tradition that takes place that used to take place in brighton i'm not sure it does anymore do you know brighton much i've been there many times you're aware of its work you know about the lanes yes i've been to the times. You're aware of its work? You know about the lanes? Yes, I've been to the...

There's lots of little shops and boutiques in the North Lane. Got my mum a little oil burner. Oh, is she a reefer addict? No, there's two types of shops there. There's fancy little pottery items for mums, and then there's shops selling paraphernalia. Fancy little pottery items. Yes.

Similar, basically the same. Pot items, yes. Same shape, just perhaps one more aperture. Yes, yeah. Those little herb things for people who really like grounding up herbs, but with a smiley faced tin. Yeah, it's people who are just really happy to do some cooking. Yeah.

Well, on the lanes, one of the oldest parts of Brighton, aren't they? It's kind of a, I would guess, medieval bit. I, yeah, I don't think the buildings, I don't think the buildings. The ground layout has that feel of like a goblin city. The spirit of the street is, of course, ancient. Yes. So in there, on Shrove Tuesday, because the lanes are so sort of thin and close together, people would suspend between two houses

on opposite sides of the street a large earthenware pot with a chicken in it. Oh, is this going to end badly for the chicken? It doesn't end great for the chicken. Oh! That's not even the most controversial bit of this episode is that not it we're not going to get the the chicken cops after us cluck cluck sound of the chicken cops which is obviously um a different uh wing to the duck

police yeah we've talked about previously yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Their jurisdiction is the land. Yes. But if the crime occurred on a pond... But all of them are part of the flying squad. Can chickens fly? Yeah, for a bit. For a bit. It's an elaborate jump, really. Yeah, they're like the maybe slightly out of shape cop who still gives chase, but isn't really...

He can't really run for that long he looks like he's making an effort but he's hoping that there's a fence coming up that he can run into in twos and the second guy will be quite skinny oh and he would like climb up the other guy yes use him as a sort of platform to survey the land so there's a chicken in this skillet he's saying it's just basic policing james i've had a bit of fun with ducks recently just uh on a little ducky sidebar oh yeah i'd cycle quite a lot and it's been very rainy recently nice weather for ducks i've been frightening ducks because there's big puddles on the route and ducks take over they think it's still the river yeah they don't realize they're not they don't they don't realize they're essentially on land they're out of their jurisdiction and then i bomb through on a

bicycle and they're what noise do they make and then they take off though and start flying but i'm on a bike so i'm going along next to him so they're just like look side eyeing me like how's he still what's going you cycle at the exact speed of duck flies i'd have for a bit cycled at duck speed at duck speed yeah when you said you've been having a bit of fun with ducks it's in a similar way to the people of brighton having a bit of fun with the chicken it's not that fun for the ducks no no the people that you mentioned who are having fun with that chicken in a pot, they've got weighted sticks. And they're, at street level, throwing the sticks at that pot. What? Like a living piñata?

Yeah, it's kind of like a sort of a retro piñata vibe. Whosever stick breaks the earthenware pot, releasing the cock, because this game is called Cock in the Pot. That's the name of the game, is it? That's, because this game is called Cock in the Pot. That's the name of the game, is it? That's the name of the game, Cock in the Pot. I'm not sure it's really a game. Can the chicken win? Because it sounds rigged to me.

The chicken is a pawn. The chicken has never won this game. No, the chicken always loses. That's the chicken version of the house always wins. Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, and whoever breaks the pot, releases the cock, they get to keep the cock. Oh, great.

And I'm guessing release it back into the wild. Probably, yes. You know, the wild where chickens live. The wilds. In those days, in the Middle Ages around Brighton, it was all just chicken-strewn wilderness. It was. Well, that's why they needed to play cock in the pot.

That was a way of sort of keeping the population down, I think. To the weighted sticks being flung into the air. Yes. But do you know why they did this? They played this game of cock in the pot. Just cruelty? Just inhumanity? It was revenge.

Revenge? Yeah. It was an elaborate form of revenge and it was all down to alistair the blooming danes not the danes yeah the danes and i mean danish people not claire danes the star of baz luhrmann's william shakespeare's ramia and julia the danes danish because, as you know, coming from the North East, Danish people, a.k.a. Vikings, the Danes was kind of a sort of a catch-all term for people from Scandinavian regions

who had, at points in the history, invaded and occupied parts of England mostly. I don't think they did really. Did they manage much in Scotland? I don't know. I think there's a Viking influence all around the coast from the northeast of England around Scotland to Northern Ireland. I think there are the linguistic remnants of the old Vikings there.

Oh, yeah. I believe so. But, yeah, they came in famously like they had uh yorkshire sorry york was famously a viking outpost yeah but i think it's i think it was mostly coastal i'm trying to i'm trying to think of um i suppose there's things like the scottish word for church is kirk and that's also the swedish word um yeah church and the norwegian word for probably the danish word for church now that i think about it so how did that happen coincidence vikings i don't know that i don't know if it was vikings blooming danes it's the blooming danes the blooming danes they were just the baddie of a lot of people in england they were just blamed for everything there's a traditional remembrance of the danes in law of the baddie of a lot of people in England. They were just blamed for everything. There's a traditional remembrance of the Danes.

In Law of the Land, friend of the show, there is a double-page spread on the Danes. Yeah. It's within the Northamptonshire chapter, and it talks about in Northamptonshire, if they found old coins in the ground, a lot of it would be called Dane's money. Because basically before there was like a proper good understanding of prehistory, anything very old was basically either the Romans or the Danes. This is pretty much my childhood understanding of history as well. And I found it very confusing because at least the way they were presented to us, and I'm sure this is inaccurate,

And I found it very confusing because at least the way they were presented to us, and I'm sure this is inaccurate, is the Romans were presented as a sort of civilising force. You know, halfway between the bridge characters from The Next Generation and the people in an Apple store. Right. You know, they just arrived and just added roads and had underfloor heating and it was terribly sophisticated. Yeah. And then the Vikings are depicted as sort of marauding monsters. And it's really confusing that the Romans came way before the Vikings, because the Vikings seem more olden-daisy than the Romans. Yeah.

To me as a kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I couldn't get my head around it. Like the Romans have got like woven clothes, and the Vikings are sort of just wearing an animal. Yeah, exactly. They've just pulled out the hard bits of an animal and put it on yes or in the case of a tortoise the soft bits yes good point for a

helmet you mean yeah well if it was large enough you could wear it for an armored balaclava but they can only peek out the sides yeah oh it's uh the more i think about this armored balaclava i've invented the more impractical it sounds another quick sidebar um i'll probably not go into i'm not going to go into it now but uh i just want to get this on record now to kind of copyright it for myself oh yeah yeah car toaster car toaster we'll leave it there toaster for the car sorry sorry how does that relate to what we're talking about it's just it's another idea that i want to copyright you're just purely using the podcast to copyright your brilliant inventions a car toaster would it be in the dashboard like

where the cassette player used to be no but that's a good spot for it because that would avoid your hand slipping down into it when you were going for the handbrake i I think, yeah, on the little, the armrest in the middle. So you're deliberately going to put it in the place where the handbrake is? Just behind the handbrake. Just behind the handbrake. You lift it up and there's like a compartment space that's never properly used. Right, yeah. So you'd lift it up because it would have to be a heatproof cover.

Otherwise you're going to burn yourself every time you lean on it. Oh, yeah, it'd have to be. Have to be. Lift that up, two slices of toast in. I mean, we're going to have to every time you lean on it oh you have to be have to be lift that up two slices of toast in dunk i mean we're gonna have to rename the glove compartment the bread bin but but james think of the crumbs i just don't think you've thought about the crumbs yeah that is what people are saying to me every time a lot of people are saying think about the crumbs yeah about the crumbs think about the crumbs and if you've got one of those beaded seat covers you're're never getting the crumbs out of that.

The parcel shelf will need to be renamed the Dustbuster Enclosure. Anyway, the Danes, those blooming, blooming Danes. Well, another thing to get out of the way, I think the listeners will be sitting on the edge of their seats thinking, ooh, just mentioned horned helmets please mention horned helmets i'm gonna write such an email correcting you and they got itchy itchy twitter thumbs yeah they've probably already composed the email it might interest you to know we both know that vikings didn't really wear horned helmets no war a total turtle with the wet with the wet bits taken out hollowed out tortoise

as an armored balaclava that's an armored balaclava that's what they did as an impractical armored balaclava we know you don't have to tell us they didn't they skewed horned tortoises especially as well because they didn't want to fall foul and that's why the horns that we found were funnels so that you could you would squeeze the funnel into one of the tortoises holes and then pour the mead into the other end of the horn it would funnel into the viking's mouth whether i thought they were practical armored telescopes looking around corners yes so yeah so in the and in the olden days people just blamed stuff from the past on either danes or romans interestingly stonehenge at one point people thought it was a roman theater

like the remnants of a roman theater even though it's as old as before the romans as the romans is to now yeah i think i got the gist of that. Yeah, I can't ever get that idea across, but it's a very strong idea in my head. If you've seen Roman theatres, they look way better than Stonehenge. Stonehenge looks like total rubbish compared to a Roman building. It's a bit, it's more TIE compared to the RSC.

Yes, yeah, absolutely. It's more of a devised piece. I mean, I'm not criticising Stonehenge, it's amazing, but it's very much an upright one, a horizontal one, an upright one, absolutely. It's more of a devised piece. I mean, I'm not criticising Stonehenge. It's amazing. But it's very much an upright one, a horizontal one, an upright one, repeat. Yeah. It's that.

That's the whole, I've described the whole thing. It's like when you're running out of Lego pieces, you haven't got enough for us, and you're just having to make do with two of us. But yeah, so the day, so the Dane's places were named after them just because they were old there was dane's hole in sedgefield dane's hole right at nab hill in sedgefield which was thought to be a danish skulking place a skulking place yeah these are like um prehistoric hill forts or burial mounds and stuff like that.

I guess they just thought they'd hide behind them maybe. They'd just hang out there. It's like in the UK at the moment, they're talking about banning laughing gas. Right, because of the Danes. To stop teens hanging around in parks. They would still be there. We didn't have laughing gas.

No, we still hung around in parks. We had MD 2020. Exactly. Well, I don't know what parks. We had MD 2020. Exactly. Well, I don't know what that was. Mad Dog 2020. Mad Dog 2020. I don't know if MD actually stood for Mad Dog. Sounds like a robot from the future.

What are you talking about? Is that a drink? It was a, I think it turned out it was a, it was a, it was a schnapps based drink or something, but it was like strawberry and Kiwi flavoured. And it was very vibrantly coloured. That sounds dreadful, but it's, it's like,

where do you want the young people? It's horrible. Laughing gas does annoy me though. Cause it's not that funny a gas. I guess it's funnier than the other gases, but it's just, it's a, it's an uncompetitive field.

Yeah. Cause there's like radon and the so-called noble gases. The noble gases, yeah. The only thing that would be funny is if they were going around being noble and then they tripped over. Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing argon fall over and get its head stuck in a bucket. Yeah, into a turtle. Into a tortoise's aperture, yeah.

Like a gas Mr Bean. Yeah, I'd enjoy that. Whereas nitrous oxide, what have you done? Nothing. There's not even a gas called like hard-on or something. It sounds like it could be one. That would be funny. That would be hilarious, James.

Yes. But speaking of things that have been named inaccurately or given an inaccurate history, the Royal White Stones. Oh, yeah. From my neck of the woods. The Royal White Stones. They were attributed to the Danes, apparently, at one point.

And in Northamptonshire, they like to say everything was Danish if they wanted to kind of have a little bit of a pop of it. There's a quote from... Let me... Where's his name? It just says Morton, like they've already said the person's name, and I should know who it is. Well, there's a town called Rainsborough,

and Morton, a historian... I don't know. I don't want to say that, because I don't know if he is. I don't even know if it's a he. Might even not be a he. Could be Samantha Morton. The modern actor.

It could be, yeah. But basically, this is the reported bit of speech which is you can very much imagine it being said with a hand sort of protecting the side of the mouth because it goes there in referring to rainsborough uh it says some gentlemen in the neighborhood would have it danesborough we're not to take notice of them whoa okay that's almost as funny as that gas and alistair yes this brings us to the potentially very controversial bit it's as it says in law of the land living people too were drawn into this pseudo history the other thing is places like Northamptonshire, they were never occupied by the Danes. They were never part of the Dane law, as it was called.

Right. It never spread as far as Sussex, and we'll get back to that. That's where Brighton is. Oh, so is that why... Is that like the way the people who are most worried about immigration often live in the areas that have the least amount of immigration. Yes. Parts of the country that the Vikings never reached were like,

but I'm not a Viking. What's that got to do with a Viking? The Danes were said to have settled in several places in the West Country and their descendants were known by their red hair. Robert Hunt in 1881 reported that in Sennan Cove, Cornwall, there was a colony of red-haired people whom local inhabitants refused to marry. Oh, that's not unusual.

That's not the only case of that happening. In the outlying villages, red-haired people were looked down on, and the red-haired Dane was a term of abuse. Oh. And in the Quantocks, which, again, was supposedly settled by the Danes. Quantocks? I thought it was in America of abuse. Oh. And in the Quantox, which again was supposedly settled by the Danes. Quantox? I thought it was in America, honestly. Is there not a Quantox in America?

I don't know. There's the Boondocks. Oh, I might be thinking of that, yeah. A redhead would be insulted by being called a Dane's bastard. Ooh. Ouch. Yeah. So.

It's been tough for us. It does sound sound it we have had a hard old time when will our story be told well just now i just sold some of it yeah that was it that was that was that is literally the entire history of redheaded oppression it took about 40 seconds there are a bunch of different plants some called dane's blood or dane wort or dane weed which is supposed to be where there'd been battles with these the Danes, and their blood had spilled on the ground, and then these plants would grow from it.

So the Danes were feared, they were hated. They weren't actually in a lot of the places that they were feared and hated. And that brings us back to Sussex and the cock. This is a really challenging, tying it all together you've got ahead of you. Yes. The reason that they want revenge on the cock. This is a really challenging tying it all together you've got ahead of you. Yes. The reason that they want revenge on the cock so much

is because apparently at one point when the Danes had occupied this area of Sussex, reality is they never had, but the story goes that the locals had a plan to slaughter the Danes while they slept. They were going to get up extra early while those lazy, lazy Danes were still asleep and they'd kill them all, thus freeing the area from the oppression of the Danes. Not very detailed, but a good plan, nonetheless.

Well, it's a very easily scuppered plan because that very morning there was a cock that got up early and crowed because weirdly cocks crow even though it's another type of bird yep it went cock-a-doodle-doo which makes more sense woke up the danes they couldn't do the plan oh just do the next day i don't know do it a different day yep do it a different day do it at night do it just when they've just gone to bed don't wait that long yeah any other time don't know. Do it a different day. Yeah, do it a different day. Do it at night. Do it just when they've just gone to bed. Don't wait that long. Yeah, any other time.

Just what I wouldn't do in that situation is begin a centuries-long vendetta against chickens. Well, you've misjudged the people of Sussex. That's what sets me apart from the Brightonians. Yes. Yeah, that's really unfair. That's hardly the chicken's fault at all. many other towns have a um some sort of chicken based a similar tale of heroism they were about to do before a cockerel ruined it yeah yeah yeah there's other

places where they tie they tie the chicken to a steak and chuck sticks and stuff that's oh i'd love to do a really brave thing but but this chicken won't let me. So now I'm going to beat up a chicken. Yes, basically. That seems really unfair. Yeah, and that's what they do. So if you're down in Brighton on Shrove Tuesday, you want to ingratiate yourself with some locals.

Don't bring a chicken for a start. They'll throw sticks at you. I would seek to rescue the chicken. I'd try and interpose myself twixt chicken and stick but how are you gonna you're gonna rescue the chicken by

you're gonna have to join them because you're gonna have to try and break the pot to release the chicken in order to rescue the chicken you're just gonna look like one or the other from the chicken's point of view

yeah but then as the chicken and I go on the run oh yeah over time we form an unlikely friendship James it's like you and me when I rescued you from that pot would the chicken learn that I go on the run. Oh, yeah. Over time, we form an unlikely friendship, James. It's like you and me when I rescued you from that pot. Would the chicken learn that you were just doing it for a bet

and that would be the sort of the second act confusion? Yeah, the low point would be the chicken finding out that I hadn't intended to rescue it. I was just really angry about the Danes. You're just standing up for the Danes. You were actually Danish and therefore loved chickens. But now I've got to know that chicken as an individual.

We're great friends. Oh, that's nice. So in this case, the meat cute is Shrove Tuesday, cock in the pot. Yeah, it's just a classic set up. Boy meets chicken in an earthenware pot. Boy flings weighted stick at earthenware pot to rescue chicken.

Chicken finds out boy might be Danish. Yeah, bit of contribution there, but they form an unlikely friendship. I can already see the poster. It's you leaning back to back with a chicken. Why are we both wearing sunglasses? I don't know, but we are. is that an arm of balaclava you're wearing as well on the reverse of the vhs it's not on dvd just vhs no no it's not on the streaming services you can't get it on the streaming services it will be on youtube but

in a heavily edited aeroplane version it's one of those ones where when you actually watch it back it's quite a lot of bad language for what obviously should have been a kids' film. It's like, why is there swearing in this? Why is the chicken smoking?

Yes, I don't think there should be as much drug use in this film that's clearly aimed at children. What's happened? How did they get

Whoopi Goldberg? They tricked her. It was contractual. It was a trick. It was a trick. So, Alistair, are you ready to score? I would love to score. My little chickeny.

I'd love to score the chicken in the pot. Cock in the pot. Yeah, let's score it. Alrighty. Okay, first things first. Supernatural. Supernatural. Well, it was definitely folklore.

It was definitely fictitious history. Yeah. But it wasn't supernatural, was it? It was a skulking Dane. A skulking Dane? It's not supernatural to skulk. That would be a bit spooky if it was night. Sinister, perhaps.

Supernatural. Flowers springing out of blood. Yeah, but it didn't happen though, did it? No, but there was this, which is just grim. Daniel, no, Samuel Pepys records that when he visited... Daniel Pepys. Daniel Pepys. To his friends, Daniel Pepys, Danny Pepys.

The lesser known brother. Deepizzle. Samuel Pepys, when he visited Rochester in 1661, was told that the west doors of the cathedral were covered with Dane skins. Oh. The skins of Danes flayed alive for sacrilege. Well, that's horrible. Which is horrible and not spooky.

Not really spooky. It's just disgusting. Don't make a door out of skin. No. Like a leather door. it's just disgusting. Don't make a door out of skin. No. Like a leather door. That's ridiculously unacceptable. The same story was told of Worcester Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and several parish churches.

Well, now I believe it even less. No, I'm sorry, it's a one out of five. As many as that. Can we go below one? I've forgotten. I think we could have a zero. Oh, well, I'll make it a one then because i do like the leather door imagine trying to open it by the sound of leather door opening and closing i don't want to know what they made the cat flap out of thanks

great that's good that's out the way second category though naming well i think you might have to lose points for not being able to remember Morton's first name. Yeah, I can't... I mean, the category is naming, and you couldn't remember it. It's like I should know them, or they're mentioned earlier up in the page, and I genuinely can't see them mentioned earlier up in the page. Well, hmm. There's a Thomas Sternberg. Oh, that's a good name, Tommy Sternberg.

Sternberg. Danelaw. Yeah, that's a lovely name. Tommy Sternberg. Sternberg. Dane Law. Dane Law. Yeah, that's a lovely word. Dane Law. Samuel Pepys. Sammy Pepys. Who really only appeared two seconds ago in the previous category.

Yeah. The Game Cock in the Pot. The Game Cock in the Pot is a great name. Yeah. And very descriptive of what happens in the game. Yes. That's very much the start of the game. It's not like Beggar My Neighbour or any of those games which are kind of eu. Yes. That's very much the start of the game. It's not like Beggar, My Neighbour

or any of those games which are kind of euphemistic. It's very literal. What is a blind man's buff? Is a buff not the piece of fabric tied around the eyes of the person who can't see? But the blind man wouldn't need a buff. Okay, all right. Yeah, you're right.

Fair enough. You got me there. What he'd need is an armoured balaclava and then just pop some toilet paper in the gaps dane's hole oh yeah great nab hill nab hill lovely i enjoyed that first time round there was a cornish cliff castle called care dane and that was near paranza below Paranzabaloo. Ooh. Let me try that again. Paranzabaloo. Ooh.

Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah. Castle Andenus. Castle what? Castle Andenus. Andenus. Like Sandemus from Bill and Ted, but Andenus. Andenus.

Ah. Ludgvan. I mean, these are all great names, but I can't help noticing that they didn't appear in the story. You're just whipping them out of nowhere. They're just some Danish names. Well, they're great. Rainsbrough.

Some gentlemen call it Dainsborough. Well, that's rubbish. I'm going to say it's three. And two of those three were names that you absolutely pulled out your back pocket during the category. Fine, then. In which case, my next category will involve a lot of those things again it's oh danes this is all these blooming flowers in this field it's because we

slaughtered so many blooming danes there that's the Bloody Danes Yeah Why is this Church door So kinky I'll tell you The answer is Danes Why is this church door Got a sunburn It's because It's a Blooming Dane

Yeah What does the handle say Mum in a heart Or whatever The Danish word For mum is I'm going to guess It's Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Mum Or whatever the Danish word for mum is. I'm going to guess it's...

Mum. Mum. Do you know what the Swedish word for grandson is? No. Barns, barns, barn. Barns, barns, barns. It's barns, barns, barn. It's son, son, son.

Son, son, son. Oh, like lads, lads, lads. Lads, lads, lads, yeah. And I think grandmother is more, more's more. Mother, mother, mother. More is also Danish for mum. Ah, there we go. So that's the word that we've written in the heart.

But in Danish, moms, that's Danish for VAT. Is it? Yeah. That's really specific knowledge there. Google, it's Google. Oh, sorry, I couldn't hear the keys i thought you're just producing this knowledge i was producing all that barn barns barn stuff just from my brain barns barns barns barn barns barn barns barns barns barns double your discount double your discount i

don't what was i singing there because i think i was singing balls balls balls footy footy footy were you singing you were actually singing more more more or was i singing more more more i think i was doing adam and joe but you're right i think i might have been doing more more more more more more how do you like it how do you like which is a song about something quite rude but swedes must have been listening to that and thinking that the chorus is grandmother grandmother how do you like it how do you like it how do you like my love oh yeah that's really got a different tone. Can't think of a Danish band that wouldn't have covered it.

I have to look up a Danish band. Is it Ace of Base? I don't know. Are they Swedish? Danish bands. Famous Danish bands. Aqua. Aqua.

And that's why Aqua never covered it. Never covered it. Never covered it, unfortunately. Anyway, four out of five. Four for those pesky, pesky Danes. For those rascals, yeah. Okay, so four out of five for Danes. Nice one, Danes.

Thanks, actually. So my final category is Nobody Calls Me Chicken. Oh, very good. Now that is a reference to a film back to the future back to the future two and three does it say in both of them yes because it's a real plot point in two and three and it's absolutely not mentioned in back to the future one there's nothing about his character that's like he doesn't like it being implied that he's cowardly no he doesn't he seems fine with it he's way more concerned with other issues like his mum trying it on with him.

Yes. And then weirdly in the second two films they decide not to lean quite so heavily into the Oedipal thing and way more into sort of fun japes.

And being called chicken. And being called chicken. Ignore Flea. Just don't listen to him. Needles. His name is Needles. You can't impress this guy. It's his actual surname as well.

It's not a nickname. It's not a nickname? No, because when it comes up on the screen... And he's in the future, yeah. Like Fred Needles. Fred Needles? That's not a surname. Yeah, Fred Needles is a bit too obvious a joke as well.

Oh, I don't get the joke. What's the joke? Well, you're Fred a Needle. Oh, Fred a Needle. That's really... Now I'm back on board. That's really good. He's called Doug. He's called're Fred and Needle, aren't you? Oh, Fred and Needle. That's really good. Now I'm back on board. That's really good. He's called Doug.

He's called Douglas J. Needles. Is he? Yeah. Douglas J. Needles. That's not a joke. I'm angry again. So. There were chickens in this story.

There were chickens in it. They were the bad guys, in a way. And they got what was coming to them which is weighted sticks specifically weighted as well i don't know why that detail's in there i feel like just throwing a stick in itself would have been enough yeah just get a heavier stick yeah i think also the people of sussex who didn't attack the vikings are trying to cover up for their own cowardice by concocting a whole story where, oh, we're going to do it, but we couldn't do it because of this blooming chicken.

You think they overslept? Maybe they just slept in, yeah. And then they scapegoated chicken. Yes, the scape chicken. And then they came up with an elaborate game whereby they seek revenge over the course of many centuries against different chickens, not the same chicken, different chickens. So they must have been like, in the first place,

whenever the normal people said to the warriors, like, why have you not done the plan? Yeah. Of slaughtering all those Bloomin' Danes. Yeah. And they'd be like, oh, it was the cockerel woke them up. Cockerel. And they're like, right, we'll get that cockerel then.

And they're like gonna kill the cock crawl and the soldiers and they know what they've done yeah they're looking around all guilty uh why don't we why don't give the chicken a chance to put it in a pot put it in a pot and suspend it from a window and uh maybe maybe give the chicken a chance give the chicken a chance um yeah that chicken a chance. Yeah, that is the only realistic explanation for the events that you've described. Absolutely. So I'm going to say five out of five.

Yes! Oh, and by the way, I've thought of a name for my buddy cop film. Oh, is it now your turn to use the podcast as a rudimentary form of copyright? Yeah, yeah, so I'm just copywriting this now. We're going to print out the podcast and send it to ourselves. Yep. So just for posterity, this was the day that I came up with the idea for the film,

Dude, Where's My Bacar? Bacar. Yep. Lovely. At least we've got three excellent inventions out of this episode. Three excellent inventions out of this episode. Well, James, you used a word in the intro that sounded rude, but then in context turned out to be justified.

Just chatting about chickens. Just about a chicken chat? Just having a bit of a chinwag about some foul beasts. Are they foul? No, they are foul, aren't they? And then ducks are waterfowl. I think they're foul. Yeah, I think so.

I was going to say, for more uncut stuff, check out the Patreon. Patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod. But I, you know, I think we put all the rude stuff in this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This one is raw. It's spicy like a spicy chicken. Yeah. It's like Perry Perry podcast. I think we've got the fourth golden idea there, Perry Perry podcast.

I don't know what it's about, but it's a great name. Oh yeah, if Matthew Perry did a podcast about Perry Perry. It's like a Dane trying to talk about the grandson of Matthew Perry. I was just going to call it Alistair and the Cock. I mean, I think there's some search engine optimisation to be done there. Oh, yeah, I haven't thought about that. Well, fortunately, you spell Alistair very distinctly. Yeah, it should be fine.

So, yeah, it should be fine. I'm just going to Google now to see if anyone's already called that. How to lose a chicken in 10 days. The note, be-kirk. how to lose a chicken in 10 days the note