No Such Thing As A Fish - 541: No Such Thing As A Sycamore In A Silver Coat

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

Dan, James, Anna and Dan Snow discuss throwing shade, protecting trees, inventing fireplaces and exiling Romans. Visit nosuchthingasafish.com for news about live shows, merchandise and more episodes. Join Club Fish for ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content at apple.co/nosuchthingasafish or nosuchthingasafish.com/patreon

Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of No Such Thing As A Fish, where we were joined by the history guy himself, Mr. Dan Snow. If you are a person in the UK who likes to watch history documentaries, you will know all about Dan. If you are a podcast fan, you may well know his podcast, History Hit, which is an absolutely brilliant history podcast that both myself and Anna and Dan have recently appeared on so do look for his podcast and listen to our episodes and indeed all of the episodes of that brilliant show actually while you're on the podcast app of your choice why not find mine and Anna's new podcast it's called quite a good sport and I'll tell you some more about that in a minute because I should also say we're going on tour the tour which we booked so many months ago and felt like it was so far in the future is just around the corner ah if you live

in Edinburgh that will be our first date and we'll be playing there on the 14th of August 2024 You can see a live podcast recording including all the bits that I normally cut out because we can't possibly broadcast them It will all be there in Edinburgh. I really hope you can make it We love doing these shows and we love meeting everyone afterwards if you live in Bristol Dublin Glasgow Newcastle Cardiff London or Manchester or the environs of those cities then do go to nosyutsthingsofish.com forward slash live and find out how to get tickets for the shows that are near you! Anyway just quickly back to that new podcast of mine and Anna's what I think I'll do rather than explaining what happens I'm going to put a little teaser at the end of this week's episode so once the show's finished if you listen on for

another minute or so, you'll get a really good idea of the show. It's basically me and Anna speaking to Olympians and then trying out the sport ourselves. So in the latest episode, we speak to a couple of Team GB's rowers and then we get on the terms and see which of her and I is the best at rowing. I really think you'll enjoy it. It would mean the world to us if you could click follow on your podcast app of choice. It would mean even more if you could find the time to listen and it would mean more still if you actually managed to give us a review. Anyway, stay tuned for the little teaser of quite a good spot. Go to no such thing as fish.com forward slash live for details of our tour and sit back relax and enjoy our latest episode With the history guy Dan snow on with the podcast

Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing As A Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoburn. My name is Dan Schreiber, I'm sitting here with Anna Tyshinsky, James Harkin and Dan Snow and once again we have gathered round the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days. And in no particular order, here we go. Starting with fact number one, that is Dan. When Captain Scott, the infamous British expedition leader, got to the South Pole, he saw in the distance

little flag fluttering and his heart sank. And then he saw a tent. And little flag fluttering and his heart sank, and then he saw a tent. And inside that tent there was a letter, and that letter was addressed very neatly to King Harkon of Norway. It was a letter from an explorer, Roald Amundsen, who had arrived at the South Pole a month before Scott, breaking the record, the first human being to reach South Pole, and he'd left a little tent and a letter saying, hey Scott, would you mind posting this to the king just to tell him I got here? I mean, shade thrown!

That's great. It's a great prank, except it's one of those pranks that have gone wrong because he would have been back at home and they went, you know he died. He's going, oh my god, someone, don't find the letter, don't find my cheeky prank. You're so right. I read one theory, right, that the reason that he put the letter there is to prove that he got there. Because let's say he gets down there and he writes a letter and says, I got to the South Pole and then he gives it to the king. Well, it's just his word against anyone else's. But if he puts a letter there and Scott picks it up and takes it back, then

that's evidence because it's another person who's seen where this letter got to. You're right. Yeah. You got to leave something. I don't know. I think that's an excuse when he gets a down fry, but you know, Scott's dead now. There's a really serious context. I love the fact there's those pictures of it and it's just the Antarctic is a featureless white icy football field. And so they could have taken that picture anywhere. And so, yeah, you're right. I guess you are right. You've got to leave something there.

And also, Scott literally slept there and then went started off the next day. It is the most extraordinary box ticking exercise. You know what? I did that when I went to Bangladesh because I tried to go to as many countries as I can. And I stopped over in Bangladesh, slept there one night and then left. But I count it as going there. Airport hotel? Yeah. I'm not sure that counts.

What? Of course it does. It's kind of like touring, isn't it? I watched a Celine Dion documentary recently and she says exactly that. She says, I've been around the world, I've been everywhere in the world, but I've never seen anywhere. Because she was in and out. Yeah, it's very... She is the Captain Scott of the pop world. She is, right?

Yeah. I really thought you were going to say, I watched Celine Dion documentary and I was able to tick off my hundredth Celine Dion documentary. Only watched a second. Yeah, still counts. The other thing, we in Britain talk about Scott a lot, obviously, and we ignore Amundsen, by the way, who didn't just get to the South Pole first. He's an absolute legend. He was the first man through the Northwest Passage and the first person to get to the North Pole as well, albeit in an airship. Does that count?

That's the thing. Because it was the 1920s, wasn't it? He decided to fly over the North Pole. Do we count that? I think it counts. Well, I think it counts. If I'd been to Bangladesh, then I think that counts. But also, he was going to walk to the North Pole, and then he got news that Pirie

had allegedly done the same, and then that was when he decided to go to the South Pole, is that right? I think so. There was a failed expedition to get to the North Pole for sure. I'm not sure why he turned around. That's a hell of a turnaround in terms of distance. That's well, I believe that's the case. And I believe all of the people who are on the ship thought they were going to the North

Pole. And then they started going down, down, down, and they stopped off at Funchal, which is in, where is that? Portugal, I think? Yeah, one of the islands off Portugal. And they kind of then said to the crew, they said, okay, by the way, we're not going to the North Pole after all, we're going to the South Pole. And it is a dick move, much like the letter.

And yeah, he was a legend. I like him, but he was a cheeky legend. I mean, he really did do that because he'd been told to go to the North Pole, but he just wanted to be the first somewhere. So as James says, thought someone else had got there and turned around his boat just to beat Scott. And the thing was, and again, this could be Lady Duff protest too much after the event, but Scott insisted he was never racing. Oh, I know brilliant, isn't it? It's so good. He was there for a scientific expedition.

He wrote in a letter, oh god I've heard Amundsen is trying to get there before me. That's fine, you probably will. You know he's got dogs, I've got horses, he'll go faster, I'm not interested in that. Cuts a picture of Scott trampling the wheat, hurdling the dead, flogging his men ever further south. I read a history once of Amundsen, it said the trip to the South Pole was smooth and uneventful. Don't bother reading it. And when they got back, they'd put on weight. British expeditions anywhere, be it desert, rainforest, arctic, high latin, the lads arrived back, a shadow of them former to the cells, they've eaten each other, broken. These Norwegians get back, many of their dogs are still alive, and they're just like, all

right lads, here we are. We're actually ahead of schedule as well. I mean, it's too cruel. The thing of saying, does it count? Because it was done by plane. That's a thing that Amundsen had his whole life after that trip, right? People didn't accept, particularly the British. Asterisk.

Yeah, he was like, you didn't do this. You had skis. You did it the improper way. When he got back, he was at a dinner at the Royal Geographical Society. This is in 1912. And the president, Lord Curzon, offered a toast, but not to him, but to the dog team. Because he was like, they're the ones who got there. And also, he did eat a few of his dogs, didn't he?

Yeah, right. I think that's, you know, if I'm gonna die, that's fine. I'm eating my dogs first. Oh yeah, yeah. Anna, I'd eat you. Like it's like... But that was... Okay, that escalated. That escalated quickly. Dan, why did you come back a lot heavier than when you left?

And with none of your friends? You've only been to Exeter. Yeah, one-man podcast from now on, no such thing as a fish. The dogs, to be fair, were mobile food storage unit. I mean, they were meant to be eaten and then fed to a bit of groom and then fed to each other and then fed to the humans. Literally dog eat dog. I think that trip, it also, as well as being an eventful, just sounded quite fun. Like they were reading about it. They did things like guess the temperature contests.

Well, this is not the trek to the pole, is it? This is when they were overwintering. So I think a lot of people don't focus on that bit. And when they were overwintering, they're in a hut. There were lots more of them, not just the guys who then trekked to the pole. And they had plenty of supplies and it does sound super fun. They had hot toddies, cigars, lots of music, they played this fun guess the temperature game, they had lots of puzzles they played. Scott and they overwintering fell out massively with Evans who was his second in command, they decided they absolutely despised each other and that could be the reason that they didn't make it to the pole. Really? Back from the

pole following it because of the kind of terrible divisions within the British. Really? Do we know why? Well it's like, because I think spending a long time in a hut, I mean, you three spend a lot of time together and you all seem to get on fine, but, you know, add an Antarctic winter, no daylight, you know, you might fall out with each other as well. And so I think it would break any team apart, but those two just were just incompatible. And the diarising. Because you would look at Scott going, what are you writing? Stop it! What are you writing? What are you writing?

Whenever Andy's on his laptop, you're always like that to him, aren't you? What are you writing? What are you writing? Oh, eat you. Are you pitching about me? Are you pitching about me in there? I can't help anyone who has a diary that I've ever met. I hate it.

Really? Yeah, writing about you. Yeah, I get paranoid. You are not the main character. You wish they were writing about you. Had some sushi, went home, didn't do much else. That's what's pissing me off. I'm not being ridded about. Didn't see Dan today, that was a shame. Hopefully tomorrow. But yeah, it's why they, it's why whenever they send people to space or on these long expeditions,

they often look for the most boring characters possible. who don't want to talk, who have zero anger temperaments. They're just... Tim Peake is such a pleasant man. We met Tim Peake. Yeah, pleasant, not boring. I noticed you switched. Oh, yes. That's a nice one. I think, Dan Schleiber, is that the application for the European Space Agency? I see you lying in the bin there with a rejected stamp on it. Yeah, apparently they're going to say it's super boring guys.

It's interesting. Oh my god. Well, Amundsen was not boring at all. Obviously he was a character. Yeah. In fact, I think he started his journey to the North West Passage at midnight because he had to escape gambling debts. I think. Really? When he sailed the boat off because the people that he owed were threatening to impound his

boat. But it is funny, we talk about this heroic age of exploration, I mean so many of them were absolute clowns and charmin. Shackleton was astonishing in a crisis, but also he needed to be because he was prone to getting crises the whole time. He best be an absolute legend when everything goes wrong because you're going to make everything go wrong. So he would leave with sort of creditors running on the quayside roaring at him and sort of also cuckolded husbands shaking their fists. It's complete chaos, sure sir.

But he was good leading guys on the ice, I guess they had different skills. And he was the next person to try, wasn't he, after Scott Dabham's? So brilliant, no. So he had a nervous breakdown and then went, you know what, actually it was never about getting to South Pole, it was never about that. It's actually the greatest prize is crossing the continent from one side to the other via the South Pole. So he managed to flog this to a bunch of old airesses, widowed airesses, who then gave him money for his famous expedition to the Trans-Antarctic expedition, which did not set foot on the mainland, but led

to his eternal heroism because in getting them out of the mess he got them into, he obviously won great claim and was brilliant. So his big scheme was like, oh, you know, it's not about South Pole. What I find kind of interesting is Scott and Amundsen got there, you think, right? And then Shackleton sort of said he was going to do his thing, but actually no one else really bothered. Yeah, they took a while. They were like, well, someone's done it now. In a way, why would you? Yeah.

In fact, wasn't the next person to get there, was it the North Pole? Edmund Hillary went to one of them. Hillary was the next person to walk to the South Pole. He was in the North Pole, South Pole, wasn't he? Yeah, there was a guy called George Dufek who flew there and this was in 1956 and he, they interviewed him on the ice so they actually had a video camera there apart from they didn't have any of the images because the film froze solid. Oh no.

Oh really? So they took it home, tried to develop it, actually it was frozen so they got no images. Oh. That's gonna be a great episode for you guys. Pictures that we know were taken and then didn't make it. Yeah. That got ruined, like the famous D-Day shots. The ones that we have are just a fragment

of the ones that he took that day. Yeah, yeah. And the British beach shots were destroyed on the way back as well. That would be great, wouldn't it? Yeah, there's also the photos that are sort of currently sitting held on ice. So Mallory, Mallory and

Irving. Oh yeah. Well, that camera. Yeah. That camera is still missing. Kodak have said that they still think because of the cold conditions that they would be able to develop the film. Should we ever find a camera? Yeah, but I've had some photos sent to Kodak where I was just facing slightly towards the sun and they couldn't develop those. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Um, one, one more point about Scott is that Scott also is technically in that territory of the Mallory and, uh, Amundsen and Amelia Earhart because we don't know where he is, but we, we roughly know where he might be because he was left in the tent.

They packed the tent over with snow and they say it will be something like 20 feet below the surface now with the amount of snow that's on top of it. So we don't know where he is, but there's an estimate that within the next couple of centuries, the bit that he's in might snap off from the side and float down to the sea. So one of his wishes would have been as a captain is burial at sea. And so in 200 years, he might get his wish, which is a little nice. That's nice. And that's how different we are. I thought immediately as archaeologists, finally we and so in 200 years he might get his wish, which is a little nice ending. That's how different we are. I thought immediately as archaeologists, finally we can get a hold of him,

have a good old look at him. Yeah, you're just like, oh, it'd be so nice to see him. I'm like, let's get in there. Get investigated. I only have one thing on letters now. This original fact was about letters really throwing some shade, and I found something I didn't know about Winston Churchill. This letter he wrote when he was imprisoned in the Boer War, so 1899, and he's been taken as a prisoner for, he was only 25 years old, and him and two much older guys in the prison decided they were going to escape. They hatched this really elaborate plan and they didn't really want Churchill with them because he was a bit famous, he was a massive loudmouth and he was quite overweight and not very fit and he couldn't speak Dutch or Afrikaans

or Zulu and they could. Anyway, Churchill was like, I'm going to tag along. And then he just went off on his own and did it on a night that they didn't want to escape. Jumped over the prison walls, had no plan, no maps, couldn't speak any languages. Somehow stumbled into another British guy who rescued him, a classic Churchill always falling into a lap of luck. But the letter he left behind in the prison was so good, he left a letter of apology on his bed to Louis de Souza, who was the Boer secretary for war. And it just said, I have the honor to inform you that as I do not consider that your government have any right to detain me as a military prisoner, I have decided to escape from your custody. Regressing, I am unable to bid you a more ceremonious or personal farewell. I

have the honor to be your most obedient servant, Winston Churchill. Wow. Isn't that great? PS, I always include a little bit about Dan Shriver in my letters and didn't meet him today but I'm sure I will tomorrow. Okay, it is time for fact number two, and that is Anna. My fact this week is that Eleanor of Aquitaine gave us fireplaces.

Nice. Did she? Well, this is my claim and I'm going to stand by it. So I didn't realize how late it was that we really started building fireplaces, chimneys into our homes. But it was certainly after the Norman invasion in Britain. And anyway, Eleanor of Accra, say,

is around in the 12th century. And she marries Louis VII in 1137. And that meant she had to move from the south of France, which is nice and hot, to Paris, the Ile de la Cité that meant she had to move from the south of France, which is nice and hot to Paris, the Île de la Cité where she had a castle and it was all cold and bare. So she refurbished and like really like stripped everything down, redid it, loads of colourful tapestries on the wall, widened the slits, I guess they got arrow slits, she's like what's the point of these arrow slits, I'm going to turn them into big old windows, made it nicer homely and she was really cold.

So she had the masons build in fireplaces and there doesn't seem to be as far as I can tell evidence of places really having these like built-in fireplaces like a proper hearth as we know today. So people would always have you know a fire in the middle of a hut with a hole in the roof or not or might like build a chimney outside a house. But look, it's spurious. And then she married Henry II of England and brought them over here. Is that what we're saying? And then I know that she did extensive refurbishments

on all the places that she lived over here as well, the palaces. So, I mean, she must have. Okay, well, we have a historian on the show. If only fireplace was my specialty. However, I have been to the White Tower, the great, most magnificent donjons in Europe at the centre of the Tower of London.

And there are fireplaces in the Tower of London, in the White Tower. And that was built in the 11th century, almost 100 years before her. Now they could have been... Were they domestic fireplaces? Oh, I see it's domestic. Oh, sorry, do I not say that in my original... Changing the rules here. It's not a race, everyone.

They are. Oh, I see it's domestic. Sorry, do I not say that in my original? Changing the rules here. It's not a race everyone. They are. Listen, I think Ella Racquetrain is one of the most exciting and magical figures in our history and she deserves to be on this podcast. I'm just not sure she deserves to be on In Choosing

Fireplaces. This is the only reason we're talking about her. I refuse to stray from her introduction to the fireplaces. She was, I will allow us to stray into just her being a big interior designer, if you want to broaden the other, in fact same chat, because she revamped so much, I think her mother-in-law refused to live with her, which is kind of sad, but I really liked the idea of her moving in with the king, who she thought was really monkish. This is her first marriage.

Oh, he was a muppet, yeah. I think those were the words, weren't they? That's the translation. And then the mother-in-law just thought, this woman is taking over, making it all gaudy. And she moved in really good musicians. It feels like she really created an interesting, intelligent culture in this palace, which she then brought to Britain. She certainly did. And I love the story about her that she went on crusade with the said monkish husband. And you know, they always say, my grandma used to say, go travelling with your girlfriend before you get married someone. You really see them for who they

are when you're travelling, when you have a bit of doing kind of annoying admin, you got stuck with logistics, you get a bit of tummy problems. And you know if this is the one. Spending one night in an airport hotel just so you could tick off a country. Murdering some non-Christians. Well, in the case of her, of course, he was insufficiently forward in murdering non-Christians because she thought he was wet, she thought he was a bit useless. So they go away on crusade, which is the ultimate sort of travel, get to know your partner,

travel adventure and just comes back and she just goes, I'm dumping you. You are a spectacularly useless human being. And they get it all annulled in the way that aristocrats managed to do. Didn't they? It took a while, didn't it? They kept asking the Pope. They kept telling them to keep shagging each other and try to make an air, I think. And that did not work. The Pope supposedly made them a special bed to sleep in to make them more likely to have sex with each other. No way. What's a bed that makes you more likely to have sex? One near a fireplace, presumably. Yeah. Well, it didn't work because the year she got divorced from him, she married the very hunky young Duke of Normandy, Henry, who then became Henry the

Second of England. And everyone goes, Henry the Second's great empire. And I always think it's odd that we don't call it, perhaps it's not odd given me, it's too short to such an age, but that actually is kind of her empire in a way. She's the one who brings all these massive French possessions. So basically she and Henry end up owning more of France than the King of France. And then her absolutely useless sons just spunk the whole lot of it. But only after she dies. Basically, if you look at the history of that empire, it essentially lasts for the course of her life. And then the most useful son in English history, which is up against the competition, John. Jon. You don't like Jon? Oh, okay.

You don't like Jon? Sorry. I'm fond of Jon. What are we talking about? He gets a bad rep, doesn't he, Anna? My God. Ellen of Arc'teryne was an extraordinary mother, wasn't she? We've got a John Truther on the board. I've always wanted to meet one. Here we are friends. So John of England is of England necessary? He's not from anywhere else.

He doesn't have any other nickname. It's not John. Oh, he does have other nicknames. Oh yes. And you know what they are because you're grimacing. The other nicknames are Lackland and Softsword. Yeah. Basically all that means is poor guy didn't inherit any land and Softsword didn't really want to be too fighty. Does it not mean impotent? Oh. I think all the swords seem to say Softsword genuinely is about his military power. He lost the empire.

He only inherited the throne by possibly starving his nephew to death. He controlled an empire that stretched through much of what is now France, Ireland and England. By the time he died, his empire was the East Midlands. That's a nice part of England. Nice part of the world, don't get me wrong. Nice part of the world. Lucky, I would be very happy to have an empire there. But just before he died, when he contracted dysentery, he lost the crown jewels while crossing the wash to set aforementioned East Midlands.

So he lost the crown jewels, arrived in the East Midlands and died. And then luckily for that benighted family, his dysentery saved the dynasty because his son, they stuck his son on the throne because he was so young and they worked out they could just manipulate him. That's a nice mouthful, isn't it? Dysentery saved a dynasty. The reason I like King John is because we don't mind about owning empires, what we mind is about being good to your mum. I think a lot of sources...

No they got on well. They did and also well done him because her favourite was famously Richard the Lionheart, who everyone loves and Richard the Lionheart dies and she becomes very fond of John and actually I think the only time that he really showed true courage and desire to defeat the opposition is when she was abducted by her grandson, I believe, when she was about 80 and that was when John was like, no way you're not abducting my mum and he properly went and defeated him and rescued her. Because was Richard the Lionheart that good?

Yeah, I think he was less good than his statue outside the House of Lords deserts. I mean, he didn't show any interest in England. He just was off on Crusades. He went on Crusades and then he got captured. I've been to his cave. Well, they kept him. Yeah, it's a 20 minute drive from where my family grew up in Austria. Am I right in saying that?

Or did they? That sounds right. Yeah, yeah. It was down there. Yeah, yeah. It was down there. The Dietmans. And they asked for 150,000 silver marks, which was at the time three times the annual income of England.

And today that would probably be in the trillion. It's about 1.5 trillion. Wow. Something like that. Maybe around two trillion pounds that they asked. So how do you get that money? She basically just had to tax the hell out of the entire country. Eleanor of Aquitaine. Right.

See, good mother. Bad leader maybe. Good mother. Yeah. There's a great quote about King John. He was a very bad man, more cruel than all the others. He lost off to beautiful women and because of this he shamed the high men of the land, for which reason he was greatly hated. Whenever he could he told lies rather than the truth. Yeah, but who wrote this? This wasn't his mate who wrote this, was it? It was possibly not his mate.

Dance, no. I will agree. I will admit it's an anonymous chronicle. Anonymous of betune. I didn't realise how fun bitching about historical figures is. I'm having so much fun. Well, welcome to my world. Just been about dead people, so we do, really. Well what do you think then of our second husband? Because he was more fiery, wasn't he? It was like she went from the monk to the player.

Spunk. The monk to the spunk. Henry the second, almost the great king of English history. He had a young, he had a son called Henry, unimaginatively, and he rebelled against him. Richard rebelled against him. So he was very bad at managing his sons. Well, but they rebelled because Eleanor was very good at managing her sons, right? So Eleanor sort of persuaded all her sons to rebel against him.

I'm basically in a grump, a sort of 700 year, 800 year long grump, because if he'd managed to cement that empire, we'd, can you imagine what a great country this would be stretching from the Pyrenees to Carlisle. Do you think Mbappe could have played for England? Exactly. Oh my god. It would just be glorious. And you know that's why I often, you know it's like Henry V didn't wash his god damn hands, got dysentery and died. You know what I mean? It's like sort it out, Harry England, twat. Boil your water before you're drinking it, you moppet guy. Harry for England, twat. Boil your water before drinking it, you mopic guy. Harry for England, the twat. But also that reminds me of the last chance, the last best chance we had of this glorious

Anglo-French nation, which is the most extraordinary thing when Winston Churchill offered a full union of Britain, UK and France. In 1940 when the Germans were overrun in France, desperate to keep them or particularly their navy and their colonies in the war, Churchill goes, which is always brilliant when the Brexit headbanging is on tour, he goes, Britain and France, full union, bang, one insoluble country, let's do it. And the French said no. Was there any possibility that was going to happen? It doesn't feel like it was a likely

historical... It wasn't likely, but I mean, you know, lots of things are likely. Getting shot in the ear isn't very likely. Like the two most consequential presidents of the 20th century, FDR and Reagan. FDR survived at about a six foot range. He's fired five shots being fired at him, which killed the guy next to him and other people around him. Before he'd even, at the height of the depression, before he'd been in his inauguration to his

present elect, Reagan was killed about two months into his first term. No Reagan, no Roosevelt. He was killed. He was killed. Sorry. He was almost killed. He was almost killed. By a fragment of a, you know, the bullet had been a few millimetres, you know, Reagan would

have been killed. So the two most consequential presidents of the 20th century had absolutely no right to survive. Unbelievable. Pure luck. That's this mad journey we're on, folks. It's crazy. Something about Eleanor of Aquitaine that is not often said. So Queen of France, Queen of England. Not many people have done the doll. Not many people. I think it's the only one. Mary Queen of Scots claimed it, controversially. You know, sort of could have claimed it, controversially. Could have claimed it. How followers might have claimed it.

What do we know about her grandmother? Dangerous. Oh, dangerous? Dangerous. Yeah, her grandmother's called Dangerous. That's all we know, right? Is there much? No one knows the real name.

That was the nickname, I think. Yeah, but no one knows what her real name was. We think it's Amor Bege. Right. But yeah, she was known by everyone I think. Yeah, but no one knows what her real name was. We think it's Amor Bej. Right. But yeah, she was known by everyone as dangerous. So cool. Because she was such a player. Seductrix.

Yeah. And do you know, I didn't know that Elinor just means other anal. So anal is a name. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. No, you said other anal. No, I didn't.

That would be Elinal. Right. So I think her mom the other anal. Yes, no, I didn't. That would be Elinal. So I think her mom was called anal. Is this word you keep saying? So think of how Elinor is spelled. It's alienor is how it's spelled. Knock off the E-L and swap around the A-E. So A-E-N-O-R was a name. And you're called Elinor if you're the other anal. So her mom was called analenor or Aenor.

But now we only have Eleanor. We only have other Aenors. Why the name Aenor? Well, I think we've proved that in this podcast. Why have we now got other people called Aenor? And I guess not as long a debate as I was expecting. When you write it down, when you speak it, it becomes clear. I think it's weird not to work the courts of love. Oh, okay.

Okay. Can we just ask Dan if he believes the courts of love existed? Okay. Okay, so the courts of love was the idea that Eleanor had this special court for women who had, you know, fallen out with their husbands and they would give them advice and stuff, right? Yeah, it sounds great. It's like a problem page. You met the other dad.

I was like, why do you think I know anything about that? You love resolving people's romantic issues. I'm so confused. Yeah, sorry, other dad. I just think it's cool that this is an idea. I think it was written down by Eleanor's daughter and no one knows if it's sort of made up fantasy or if it really happened. And what was it? was written down by Eleanor's daughter and no one knows if it's sort of made up fantasy or if it really happened. And what was it? That a bunch of noble women, including Eleanor, her daughter and some other noble women, would

have nights turn up with their romantic problems like, hey, I fancy this woman, but there's this other woman who fancies me, who should I get with? And they would arbitrate. Have you tried anal? Good God. As someone with a very, very formidable mother-in-law, I can imagine that's the kind of stuff that they get up to. Is that how you were selected according to that? No, I would have never made it through that process, obviously. But no, I think if you're a very impressive, powerful old woman in the middle ages, I can imagine that you would knock heads together and sort out your love lives in your

retinue. Sort out the men. Filthy men in the palace. But I think the jury's out in general, right? Yeah, the jury of the courts of law. Well, that is also medieval history, full stop. It's all just juries out. Really annoying. The only thing we can say with absolute certainty is that Elna of Aquitaine did not invent the fireplace.

Impossible! I cannot believe! And I know that's going to be the ending to this section and I'm furious! Okay, it is time for fact number three and that is James. Okay, my fact this week is that when the Romans defeated barbarian tribes, they would often send them to Britain as punishment. Well, in their faces, because Britain is great. Great Britain, exactly. Yeah.

I'm looking at that in case he's going to say his wrong. Yeah, you're looking at me, this is a nervous look. I mean, it's definitely true. We know, for example, there were Syrians, there were cool things on Hadrian's Wall about the Euphrates boatmen that were brought up to work on the Tyne. Can you imagine? And it's also true that the Romans did regard Britain as the end of the god damn earth. Although there were periods when the emperor was in Britain and it was the heart of the

empire, but for long periods you're probably like, you're going to get sent to the furthest frontier. I can imagine that is true. There's a great line that a poet wrote to Hadrian, he says I don't want to be Caesar, i.e. the emperor, stroll them out among the Britons and endure the Scythian winters. So he's comparing being among the Brits as winter on the Ukrainian steppe. Like those are the two worst things you can imagine as a Roman. What was it like when they got here? Would it have been nice?

Well, I mean, as much as it is now, I mean, it's the weather is average, you know, what can I say? I think the truth is, the only Romans wrote this history, right? The barbarians. And so we have no idea really what stuff was like, but it doesn't mean the Romans hated it. Caesar was really mean about it himself and said, the Brits are the most ignorant people I've ever conquered. And Cicero said they're the ugliest, most stupid race I ever saw. And it also seems to be, I was going through the sources of what Romans said about Brits. ever conquered. And Cicero said they're the ugliest, most stupid race I ever saw. And it also seems to be, I was going through the sources of what Romans said about Brits. It

seems like we were always naked. And that doesn't make sense to me because it's fricking cold here. Well, one Roman source says the reason we were naked is because it was so wet. So this one Roman source said most of Britain is marshland because it's flooded by the continual ocean tides. Barbarians usually swim in these swamps or run around in them, submerge the waste. Of course, they're practically naked and don't mind the mud because they're unfamiliar with the use of clothing. And actually the sense is that wearing loads of trousers and things you just end up just getting wet and muddy all the time.

Totally. Yeah, so that's true. Let it all hang out. I've also been out on a night out in Newcastle in February and they still don't wear clothes up there. Yeah, no true. I guess they were made of hardier stuff. I did swim in the river at the weekend and I thought I wouldn't be able to wade around in this all day every day come rain or shine naked but well done those early Brits. It's as tough as Amundsen.

So there was a thing called Deportatio in Insulin which apparently means exile to an island. Sometimes you go to Britain if you've been particularly bad, Tiberius exiled to Rhodes, which must have been quite nice in comparison. But then Cassius Dio wrote about 5,000 Sarmatian cavalry who were sent to Britain after the Romans had taken them over. Britain was just a nightmare for the Romans. Unending ulcer of pain and suffering. They did not conquer the whole archipelago, right? So you've got Ireland and you've got much of Scotland for much of the period was unconquered. And as a result, you cannot expend the resources required to

fully conquer the archipelago, given its geographical and weather and nightmarish difficulty of doing so. But then it's too embarrassing to leave the bit that you have conquered. But then that's almost untenable because your entire coastline from Cornwall to Carlisle and across to Newcastle is just vulnerable to these unending incessant raids by these lunatics. And then the North Coast exposed to the unconquered Baltics and stuff. So it's a nightmare. And when did they, was it like 300s? When did they finally bugger off? It's sort of pack up shop at about 405, 410. Okay.

The biggest concentration of coin hoards in our history is from that period. It's quite interesting. So you bury your money when you're very, very pessimistic about the immediate future, right? Like, let's get the money. And so we just got this massive spike of coin hoards. Oh really? What, the Romans burying their money? All of these, everyone burying it. Of course, it also means those people didn't come back for it. Now, maybe they escaped, but it often, occasionally, would have meant they would have been killed and stuff. So those coin hoards have been buried and no one's come

back from it. So there's just a sense of just society just kind of collapsing in the early fifth century. The kind of Romano-British that were left, the sort of Roman elite was still there. We get a letter written from the Romans going, please the Romans come and help. And it's like the barbarians push us into the sea and the sea pushed us back onto land so we have to choose whether to drown or be murdered. It's full, full Armageddon. It's crazy. One thing that we still seem to have from the barbarians. Anytime someone says blah, blah, blah, supposedly that has come from the word barbarian itself. So the word barbarian supposedly comes from ancient Greek.

And it was taken- Definitely comes from ancient Greek. Yeah, sorry, sorry. Supposedly comes from the fact that when foreigners were speaking and you didn't understand, you would say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what it sounds like to us. And that has evolved to blah, blah, blah.

So anytime- Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So anytime we say blah blah blah, we're barbarians. Yeah, because it is literally anyone who's not Roman and sort of Greek, isn't it? And it covers a lot. The biggest barbarians of them all, the Goths probably. The Goths. Yes, because they were like sort of stimulating the fall of Rome. Oh yeah, oh sorry, and wore lots of black and already listed

all the time. This is my chemical romance. Oh yeah. We top in Whitby. Yeah. The Goths crossed the Danube, didn't they, in like the 370s and it seemed to work incredibly well, the Roman policy towards barbarians for hundreds of years. So people would knock at the door and say, hey, we want to be part of Rome, please. They might be fleeing, you know, other forces or whatever, just want to be part of Rome. We want to be part of

Rome. And so they'd be split up tribes to be split up, they'd have to abandon all loyalty to tribal chieftains, give some of their military to the Romans. And then it was sort of allowed to stay in mind their own business, I think, basically, they messed it up a bit when the Goths came over, I think they let too many over, then they stopped letting other people, and then basically- All right, Nigel. The four... They didn't have enough food to feed them all, so then they got upset. And then they threw this dinner party,

and I think Rome fell because of a cocked up dinner party. Really? Because it was this Roman general, Lupic Inus, who realized the Goths were coming over, invited a couple of their leaders. He was getting really drunk with them. He told his men to go and kind of besiege the Goths and word got back to the dinner party and it all kind of kicked off. Everyone was a bit pissed by then. So Lupicinus was probably a bit loose with his instructions and started

killing some of the people who'd come with them. And that was kind of the beginning. And then the Goths got together fought against him and that was when the Roman Empire started. When was that? 376. It's a catastrophic battle at Adrianople, one of the worst defeats in Roman history where the Eastern Emperor takes on the Goths. The Western Emperor is coming to help him but he wants the glory for himself doesn't he?

So he attacked too early, just got totally annihilated and then the Goths just went on this rampage all the way through the Western Empire. Right. I think the only time the Romans really got defeated by barbarians until this period was the Battle of Tuteberg. Oh, yeah. Which we mentioned, which is all in this forest. And they basically wanted to take on the Germans. So the Germans attacked the Romans, didn't they, in the forest. And turned out the Romans couldn't hack it basically and were absolutely vanquished. I think they killed 10% of their military and they never tried to go into Germany

again really and that is basically why we have that division today between Latin languages and German languages. Yeah it's one of the most significant defeats. Augustus ran around the palace in Rome shouting, Varus give me back my legions. It was one of the worst defeats. But then they did sort of nibble into bits, but effectively, yeah, that policy of just permanent expansion was sort of brought to a halt at that point. Just like that today. That's why we basically have two big language groups in that moment. And that's, if you ever want to depress yourself, read about that. It was a torrential rain in a dark German wood and the Romans were marching along and their German guide, a guy called

Arminius, he sort of disappeared and it turns out he was actually guiding them into this terrible trap. He had been a collaborator but in fact then turned out to be the leader of the resistance. And they're then just ambushed repeatedly. The general commits suicide. I mean it's just this total annihilation of a once mighty force. I can't bring myself to get depressed about something that happened 2000 years ago. There's just enough today or in the last 100 years. Yeah, I let myself get over that and I think you need to work on it. What's the big one that wakes you up at night?

This is very personal. I mean, I have an overactive imagination. At night, I do kind of read about like the first emperor of China, Qin Shiwen, the most powerful man in the world, builds China, extraordinary dynasty is going to last a thousand years. Within three years, his children and grandchildren are enslaved and murdered in the streets by the coming Han dynasty. And you think, if that can happen to him, it can happen to anybody. I'm just, it's just terrifying. Are you ready for history here to be toppled and your kids attacked by their successors? Indeed. But I just, the horror of somebody, you know, the peak of their powers, like Croesus in Lydia, you know, the richest man in the world, little did he know the fate

that was waiting for him. And we can wait for all of us too. And so you feel you might be now at the peak of your powers, you're the most dangerous man in your life. That's even sadder. This is as good as it gets. Sad indictment of your powers. You're at the most dangerous moment in your life. That's even sadder. This is as good as it gets for me. I'm having a sad indictment of my life. Yes, relatively speaking, I'm probably at the peak of my powers. That's the feeling. And then one day I might be standing there with a kitchen knife defending my house. Yeah, they'll be talking about the fall of San Snows Empire. They'll be talking about sort of the coin hoard of the South Coast as the Danes pulled

up on the beach and it's a... Harland comes over the hedge. I'm there, having to defend my family. Anyway, that's the kind of thing I worry about. I'm glad you asked. I was hoping to share that. Yeah. Okay, it is time for our final fact of the show, and that is my fact.

My fact this week is that America has a witness protection program for their trees. Okay. This is a really cool idea, I think. There's a lot of historical spots in America where battles, civil wars would have been fought and so on, and often when the landscape is done of all the debris of whatever happened there, the trees will remain and they're technically witnesses to history. In many cases, these trees might have taken bullets in

from the wars and the bark would have grown over and embedded in these things. So they're actually literally holding history inside of them that we don't yet know about. And so this was an idea that was set up by the chief of the national Park Services and they decided let's start designating trees a witness protection whereby you can't chop them down, you can't harm them, but they're archived in the Congress Library and so on.

And yeah. That's just a classic American. For something that we have here called a tree protection order, they just have a much cooler name for it. Yeah. When you said that, I did think that they sort of hide them, they get his bird trees and they move them up to Saratoga. Give them a new name. Why is there a bunch of birch trees here and one sycamore tree

in the middle? Disguised, wearing a silver coat. Yeah, his brother. Shut up. Are people trying to harm these trees? I think they just want to be nice to trees, don't they? Yeah, well, I guess we do accidentally hurt trees, I guess. We do accidentally chop them down. Yeah, I've always accidentally... I don't think anyone's ever accidentally chopped out

a tree. But there's a sign up, so the loggers will go around a forest presumably and then there'll be a big sign, it's like this tree is protected. Which we have in this great country as well. Yeah, but we don't have a cool name. So you might be chopping down a load of trees and accidentally chop down an important one. Absolutely. Is an example of that.

Yeah. And do we have it in this country for sort of trees that have witnessed great historic events? Well, we should do. We did chop down the Royal Oak. Yeah. Great story. So there was a Royal Oak that Charles, when he was then Charles Stuart was hiding in and the parliamentarian forces were rummering around beneath the canopy and he died down the story for the rest of his life. Anyway, he then came down, went over to France

and then the Royal Oak became, he came back as king, pubs reopened, lots of pubs called the Royal Oak, sort of it became a meme. And then in the 19th century, lots of people started visiting and chopping bits off and traipsing across this guy's farm. And this lunatic farmer's chopped the tree down. Zero respect for trees or witnesses to history. Trampling his crops. Trampling his crops.

But there is now a daughter or a son of that tree, which was sort of recovered and grown. And then that one was hit by lightning. And Prince Charles, that made him a bit sweaty. So he went and planted another tree. So there's now a grandchild. The main one's looking a bit like it's been hit by lightning. And then the other one's looking quite verdant and fresh. And it's small. it's about six foot high. So there's three or there's two generations there on that spot. Where abouts is it? It's in Shropshire.

Really? There's the Newton apple tree, which is both in the garden of where Newton lived, but they also took a cutting and made a, I guess a daughter or a son of, they say it's a clone. So I don't know if it means it just is the exact tree. I don't know what that terminology is, but it's growing outside in one of the colleges at Cambridge. And I was reading in Merlin Sheldrake's book, he wrote this incredible book about fungi and how it works in the world.

And he said that he wanted to grab some of the apples off it because he was interested in making a cider. And the tour guide said, you are not allowed to take apples off this tree. The apples are here specifically for all the tourists to see them fall to the ground so they can experience gravity as it was first discovered. You're going to be sitting and waiting a long time on you. It's pretty rare you actually see an apple fall off a tree. Pretty cool though to see an apple fall off the tree. On windy days does tourism sort of get to the tree?

I went to a historically important trees child today on the way to work. Did you? Yeah, yeah. And Frank, when she was in her hiding spot, she described a horse chestnut tree that was just outside the building. And in 2005, they found it was suffering from a fungal disease. And so they decided to take cuttings and they planted it all over the world. And there's one of them in Highbury fields

just near my house. So I went to have a look at it. And you saw that today? Yeah, that's amazing. Has her one's toppled, hasn't it? I think it has. Yeah. Not long ago.

It's not long ago. There's a tree and wins a great part. There's an oak tree and wins a great part that they think has been there since before the Norman Conquest. So before... Before Fireplaces. Before Fireplaces. And so William the Conqueror would have passed that tree on the way to Frommyscir.

Oh my god. You see? But yew trees in churchyards are said to be thousands of years old, right? Yes, I think there's one that's claimed to be over 4,000 years old. They're pretty amazing. I've got a friend who eats you berries, sort of like does wild foraging. And the thing about you berries is, which people may know, the seed of the you berry, which is inside the berry is incredibly poisonous.

So he spits the seed out. Absolutely. So I went on a walk with him once and it was me and another friend and him. And you know, my other friend said, all right, I'll taste it, put it in his mouth, chewing around for a while. And my friend said to him, and you spat the seed out, right? My poor mate was like, no, what do you mean? Spit it out, spit it out. And it's, yeah, he just sucks the fruit off. But if you accidentally swallow the seed, you will die. I think we'd like to just say public service to our listeners. Do not eat you berries. That's a metaphor for so much of life, isn't it? The sweet, sweet outer layer with the poisonous death-giving fruit within.

Okay, no more of your weird nightmares on this table. I know, on a workshop, actually. It's interesting that you know about fruit on a yew tree. I've never thought about that because I just think about yew trees as a source of longbows. Oh yeah. Which you say. They are, they seem. They're sort of stretchy and squashy in exactly the right parts, basically. There was a famous tree, the sycamore tree in Tollpuddle, where the Tollpuddle 6 began and started the friendly society of agricultural labors, which eventually led to the beginning

of trade unionism and stuff like that. The story is very interesting, but I'm not going to go into it because the interesting thing is that Tollpuddle used to be called Tollpiddle. I know, I know. They rebranded, didn't they? They rebranded. It just sounds so crap. Were they embarrassed by Tollpiddle? I think, well, we're not exactly sure why they rebranded, but it seems likely. So there was a river Piddle that went by this town and the Tollpiddle is named after there. And then in 1934, locals were

still calling it Tollpiddle. And a journalist from the Daily Worker went there and said, is this Tollpuddle? And they went, oh, nobody around here don't know no such name as Tollpuddle. And it does seem that maybe because it had to be more respectable and because it's such an important place for the trade union movement that they didn't think Tall Piddle was a proper name for it. So they went with Tall Puddle? Maybe. Call it Tall Ocean. Call it Tall Waterfall.

Another theory is that Queen Victoria visited and they changed it for her, but we don't really know why. It might have just evolved that way. You can still go and have a picnic underneath the oak tree at the vine, the house in Basingstoke, where Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn used to go when they were lovers. No. If you want to really condemn a relationship that you have. Just think about the tasty fruit with the poisonous...

Yeah. Does it have like Henry heart? Yeah, it probably does. You know, Catherine crossed out. Have you heard of the Sheffield Chainsaw Massacre? Is that the original title? This was very recently in the 2010s and Sheffield Council basically cut down thousands of trees. Oh of course, it was really controversial. Really controversial. There was like a 450-year-old Melbourne oak that was cut down.

There was loads of historical trees that were cut down. And basically the council signed a contract with an infrastructure company saying every time you cut down a tree, we'll give you some money. Maybe they're too old or maybe they're dangerous or maybe they're digging up the pavement so people might trip over it or something. And then they got another consultancy to submit a report on how many of the trees needed felling and there was a big mistake in that second report. So they cut down thousands and thousands of these trees in Sheffield for no reason whatsoever.

So it is just gross incompetence. I'm afraid so yeah. Have they planted some trees? Oh they will replant them yeah. Wow that's bad. I hope someone's head was chopped for them. I was on HMAS Victory the other day and they are looking, they're doing a refurb. It's like Triggers broom. They're basically entirely rebuilding here every so often. Where is it? Where is it? In Portsmouth. In Portsmouth. And they are using oak from France because there aren't enough old oak trees. They say, I hear you've got loads of oak, mature oak, and you just round them each up now. So I might have to put them in touch.

Wow. I mean, but France basically is England, we've already... Exactly. And the curator there was like, kind of come up with this real sophistry about it. It's great that we're taking supplies from the old... I'm like, look, mate. We're working together now anyway. Yeah, yeah. It's a shocker. We don't have oaks in this country. Come on, just admit it. But yeah, they used to go around the forests when they're building things out of wood

and they would actually find the trees that were the right shape for the bit that they need to build. So if you wanted something called a knee on a ship, which is a sort of vaguely right angle sort of bracket, you'd just go, that tree's got some, that one's perfect. And you'd go and sort of scribble it out and then they'd chop down that tree and then the carvers would be like

that'll be, we'd have to do much work with that. Oh, that's great. You could just cut that mid section where it's already at the end. That's great. Yeah. So there's all these images in the 18th century of people hanging these weird sort of cutouts on the side of trees to show the shapes of people. Makes so much sense, doesn't it? Yeah. And then did they actually, the new forest was just planted for boats, wasn't it? Yeah, a lot of it, yeah. The new forest, yeah, I live there, so my boring new forest fact is that a forest does not designate woodland.

Oh, right. It's just a legal designation of forest, a royal forest is a piece of ground on which certain different types of law apply. There is obviously forestry and woodland within that, but yeah, lots of it's more and more open ground. And that's true of the word forest. It's not just the New Forest kind of means this has this legal meaning. That's so interesting. It's weird, isn't it?

So all the ancient woodland in Britain, tragically, I think has been cut down. So a lot of the trees in the New Forest now were planted at various times of the national crisis, whether it was by Henry VIII for the navy or the Georgians or the second world war, obviously lots of pines put to pit props for when they're running out of wood. The New Forest does commoning, doesn't it? Oh yeah, we do. Are you a commoner? I'm not a commoner, unfortunately, because my house is outside the cattle grids.

Oh, sorry. As I'm often told when I roll about on the common. But yes, you can put your animals out, which is what most of the country used to be like before the enclosures came. All these hedges and fields. That's the man. Everyone thinks it's beautiful English scenery. That's an industrial farming landscape. The man enclosed that. Oh no, I'm after enclosure. And you want to see hedges.

Oh god, I love hedges. We don't mind hedges. That's true. Yeah, so you can still go and you put your pigs out there when the acorns fall. Yes, I think because there are various rights you have and you have to live in the right house I'm so sorry that you're outside the castle What a traumatic episode this has been for Dan I know, tough stuff Dan's down with his pigs in his front room going up

You've opened up something because my wife is desperate to be a corner and we have failed so anyway I think we need more because house prices in the New Forest have gone up quite a lot. So quite a lot of people are buying these houses that have the right of commoning, but they are not interested. They're not real commoners. That's right. You're darn right. I'm going to test you on the rights that you'd have as a commoner then. You've got right pasture, which as you said, is grazing your ponies, cattle, donkeys. You've got the right of sheep which is grazing your sheep. I think you're allowed to pick up firewood. I actually think that they sort of give you firewood because they don't massively want you chopping it down anymore. But yeah, it's called estuers. Yes. The right of Turbury.

Yes. What's that? Is that turbid? Like the fish. The right of catching turbots. No, it's the right of cutting turfs for fuel. Yes, it's turf. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Turf cutting. Not a good idea nowadays, but yeah. No, you're not supposed to do that anymore, actually. And actually the right of turning your pigs out is called mast. Is that mast? Yeah, apparently turning pigs out to... Yeah, it's funny, that time of year there's just loads of pigs all over the roads. Really? In Orrself? Yeah, it's funny. Yeah time of year there's just loads of pigs all over the roads. Really? In Oslo? Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, when the acorns fall.

And what I didn't get is, yeah, when the acorns fall, the pigs are supposed to eat them because they're poisonous to other stuff. But surely the pigs are rushing around as a horse goes towards an acorn, a pig's bit of thing underneath them. Like your mate, if I try and eat a you berry, he's like, raps it out of my hashing. Nooooooo! Okay, that's it. That is all of our facts. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in contact with any of us about the things that we've said over the course of this podcast, we can all be found on various social media accounts. I'm on Instagram on at Shriverland. James? My Instagram is no such thing as James Harkin.

And Dan? The History Guy. On Instagram? On at Shriverland James my Instagram is no such thing as James Harkin and Dan the history guy on Instagram That's just who he is On Twitter on various platforms nice and Anna to get us as a group You can go to at no such thing on Twitter or no such thing as a fish on Instagram or you can email podcast at qi.com Yep, or you can go to our website. No such as a fish.com all of our previous episodes are up there There's a link to our upcoming tour get some tickets for that now and also join club fish Which is our behind the scenes area where we post lots of bonus content Most importantly of all check out all of dan stuff the history hit channel as well as dan snows history hit show

We've been on it. I did an episode with Dan all about mysteries of history. You, James and Anna, you did a sporting episode recently. Yeah, we did, which is better than Dan's. That's not what I've heard from Dan himself. So, uh, not true, not true. He didn't say that. He didn't say that. Uh, but yeah, uh, do check that out. It's all available wherever you get your podcasts. We will be back again next week. We'll see you then. Goodbye. Welcome to Quite a Good Sport, the very first episode. So what are we talking about today? Well, today we're going to talk about the great sport of rowing.

And we're going to speak to Imogen Grant and Eve Stewart, who are two of our Team GB medal hopefuls for Paris. I thought rowing was a stupid sport. It's cold, it's wet, you have to get up really early, you get blisters on your hands and you can't see where you're going. We are going to be chucking in a few interesting facts that we've learned along the way. Because Adolf Hitler was seething from the stands in the despotic way that he does. Oh, moust mustache twitching away. And we will be trying our hand on the River Thames

to see which of you and I is going to be the greatest rower. OK, we're ready to do the first time trial. Ready, go. This is a pretty steady start from Anna. Now she's really getting her rhythm. We're actually going at a proper pace. We're approaching the finish line, the red boy. Who will be victorious? The only way to find out is to listen to episode one of Quite A Good Sport.