Podiots - Podiots: Episode 117 - Noel's Wake Party

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

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Oh, well, we made it through a week off because Ben had the big illness. Boo! The big scene. What a selfish prick. I've got little illness and hopefully it won't affect today's recording and I won't be sniffling and snuffling. Mikey, how are you? Don't put yourself down, Peter. It's a big illness.

It's a big, yeah. It's a big, you're only small. Yeah, that's true. I've got a little wooze at the minute. Wooze, that sounds like, I'm a little woozy. You've got the wooze. I've got the wooze, and it's not as fun as it sounds. I just went a little bit lightheaded before we start recording.

It's just the excitement of, you know, posting that blobby. It's, oh, God, I get, I get itchy. It's a big day. And, you know, you had a week away from posting the blobby. Yeah, itching to get back. I spent night, night after night, just looking at images of that. that pink, pink round man. Yeah, I'm waiting for him to return to my.

And it gave you the woos. Oh, Blubby, always gives me the woos. I don't, I don't know how they, I'm trying to think of a way to continue the conversation, but like I just can't. What you have? Change the subject, if you like. What do you have for your tea, this one?

Oh, I haven't had tea yet. Oh, what are you planning? I'm going to have some I'm going to have some roast vegetables and cuscus and hummus. Oh, fuck yeah. It's going to be a pretty healthy one. That sounds good.

In an attempt to fix my woo's, I treat myself to a ball of chips and gravy. Fantastic. It kind of work. It's perk me up a bit, but I think that's just gravy in northern is in it. It's a life force. Yeah, it's medicine for you.

Did you eat lunch today? Could that be part of your woo's issue? I had a porridge for lunch today. Wow, our porridge. A whole porridge. So that's probably like, well, is it healthy? Is porridge healthy? Is it just kind of like nothingy?

Yeah, no, it's pretty good. I think it releases the energy gradually over there, over hours. Apparently not, though. I must have conked out of fuel pretty quickly. Geez. Maybe, yeah. I'm here. I've got my gravy sloshing around my belly.

I'm ready to go. It is basically, like, in the. north that's kept in the medicine cabinet rather than the uh in the kitchen isn't it you feel all got the woo's on some paracetamol or should i heat up the bisto what do you which one is it that's all we have in our medicine cabinets is a debt hole and gravy granules that cures all ailments bisto gummies ready to go yeah for the working man on the moon uh peter do you want to let people know just how much we know about the current blobby situation so that the Twitter assault can stop.

Well, did we get as far as saying we know about the wrestling in the pre? No. No, did we not? No, we said we knew about the suit, didn't we? Yes, yes. But no, we also, thank you, we know about the wrestling. We know that Blobby wrestled. Someone did make the very good point that when Dave Benson Phillips was our thread starter on Podiat's,

he then returned to the, well, went to the wrestling ring and wrestled. So now it's Mr Blobby's turn Because that's how we start our podcasts So basically we have the power To make anyone wrestle By turning them into the thread starter So just name If you want anyone to make a comeback

You know Just let us know Absolutely Additionally it looks at I'm looking at a photo of the wrestling now With Blobby And it looks like they've got a pretty legit suit It doesn't look like one of those cheap ones you buy

It had the creepy voice modulator thing as well Is this the person who bought the 62,000 pound blobby suit Using it's a good measure From the auction Yeah Well it can't be There's sad news there isn't there Yeah their bid was retracted

They were like no I bid as a joke And I'm not going to do it Which is I mean fair enough people who were in inflating the price early on but like how crazy must you be to bid presumably very late in the auction 62 grand or however much it was i think their mistake i was reading in an article that they let first time buyers bid in the auction yeah if you have no bid history their downfall yeah

which is not not good um but you knew someone who listed one right or you knew someone through someone. Yeah, I'm technically very loosely connected to an actual real-life blobby. A former blobby. A former blobby who still had the suit. So I'm not going to say who or how I know them, but I am somewhat connected to a blobby. I do need to get in touch with them and see if we can do anything fun with them. So maybe watch a space when I pluck up the courage to ask the embarrassing questions. But yeah, I think they listed theirs as well for 15 grand. And I think that find it on eBay. Yeah, I've got a feeling that one did not get any bids.

And so they've just taken it off and hidden in shame, sadly. It's sad because the only one I can find on there now is got a starting bit of eight grand and has two days left on it. And they probably listed it for quite a while. And I think this, it was sort of almost creating a false economy, the other one that blew up so much. All the other blobby suit holders were like, oh my God, we can fucking retire. That hideous pink thing in the attic is going to pay for our retirement.

And so everyone got really excited and listed all their blobby suits for loads of money. Nobody wants them. And they look so grotty as well. So we started at what, 60 grand, it went down to 50, now we're down to 8. It's just going to keep plummeting. So if you've got a blobby suit, it's not even worth selling. Hold on to it. Wait for, oh, God, noll Edmonds to pass, and then bam, that's the time to strike.

That'll be the next one. Oh, dear. Big opportunity. Sorry, Noel. I didn't mean to, that just came out. I'm sorry. Don't die. If Noel ends up dead in suspicious circumstances,

we can all point the finger at the people with blobby suits that they're waiting to go up in price. You know, they've got a motive to go out and kill Noel Edmonds now. Do you reckon at Noel Edmund's funeral, there will be a procession of Blobys that will be the blobbearers? And then he comes in and just stumbles through the church. and just knocks into the He falls into the open grave.

There's one of them playing tabs, but it's just it's just humming through the blobby modulator. Yeah. What do they sing at funerals? Is there a song for funerals? Maybe the, what's it called?

What's that show that he hosted? Deal or no deal. Deal or no deal theme, maybe. Well, I can't remember what the theme song for that was. I just want to hear some view there. I've ever watched it. Well, the banker might do a eulogy. They'll just have to hold a phone up for a microphone.

Oh, no. It's just this, what a rich fame that we've stuck across here. There's so many things that could happen at Noel Edmund's hypothetical funeral. Yeah. I imagine that at the, in the solicitor's office when they're sorting out the will. Again, a deal or no deal situation, they have to pick briefcases and they find out what they're going to take home. And also, I wonder how his lawsuit factors into it. Who was he suing?

Is it Lloyd's or something? Yeah, Lloyd's Bank, I think. Oh, what if they, what if representatives of Lloyd's Bank show up at the funeral? And because of this false economy, they repossess all of the blobs with the men still inside them. The bailiffs turned up to the funeral. There's like a whole pew filled with blobbies all crying. What's the collective noun for a group of blobs? Oh, a blob lot, perhaps.

A blob lots, yeah. That's good. Just a blob lot, just shrieking in this horrible, distorted voice. And if you saw them all side by side, you would notice the differences. Like, some of them are probably a slightly different shade of pink. Some of them have, like, much bigger dots than the others. Just different levels of degradation. on the costumes.

Yeah, there's no way that they're all uniform. It just looks so strange. I can't wait for this funeral, guys. I'm really excited. Yeah, this is going to be an event of the decade. My God. Christ.

Well, shall we start the podcast? I suppose. Hello, everybody, and welcome to audience, the official vidiates, video, podcast. It's a conversational podcast where we take some questions from you at home and obey the law of the three urs, where everybody brings a thing along to talk about. I'm Ben. I'm Peter. And I'm Michael. Good evening at the time of recording gentlemen. Welcome back to the pod room. I've named it. It's got a name now. That was spur at the moment. I didn't mean to take that liberty from you. You got an alternative

name for where we are? I was thinking the pod room. Oh, that's pretty good actually. The pod pod. That's stupid. Oh, putt pod. Come on. Silly.

Don't like that one. Oh, sorry. I tried. Sorry, I'm a bit distracted right now. I'm Googling Mr. Blobby voice to see if you can buy, like, just the modulator. Oh, my God, that's a great idea. I mean, if you knew the, if some sort of blob, blobby engineer,

Blobgenia, which doesn't work, had the exact settings. It's basically just pitch shifting, isn't it, really? I think it's like three layers of voice with like higher and lower. If you just know the exact percentages to pitch shift, then you could easily do it. Yeah, I'm going to look into that. There's got to be a way of doing it. Please do. Please make that a future thing.

The technology already exists for them to mass-produce Darth Vader helmets that basically do exactly the same thing. so surely we can just get a Darth Vader helmet and tweak it a little bit. God, a blobby helmet would be way more fun than the Darth Vader helmet. Maybe all you need to do is just paint it pink. And then it will work like Mr. Blobby's voice. Put a few yellow dots in it, bam. Yeah. It doesn't sound right.

Can you try removing one of the dots? It's a bit too high pitched. Okay, I'm going to leave us for later because I will end up going down around. Yeah, we'll lose you, won't we? We need you to stay focused. because now it's done... Oh, thank you. Now it's time to talk about Pod Squad,

where for as little as three pounds. If you donate by going to Podiat's.com, you'll get a shout out at the beginning and the end of the next episode of Podietz. You'll really flippin' help us out in the process. And if you want to go one step further, I'm promoting it at the top of the show this week, you can go to Vidyatsofficial.com,

and there's a shop there. Wow. We've got some actual merchie merches in there. I think we'll probably talk soon about maybe putting on a new item, very exciting. Keep your eyes peeled. We might talk about that next episode, perhaps. But Mikey, can you kick us off with the first, what's it called?

What are you called? The pumpy platoon. The pumpy platoon. We begin with Donak 07. Specky Becky, Alexa, the engineer. The generous, happy V-Day, Caroline. They say, making this donation on Valentine's Day because the last several months have been a shit show.

So, Evan, this is your Valentine's present. Hey. I love you so much. And now all our idiotic friends have to hear about it. Not even any snark this time. Kiss, kiss from Desi. Oh, isn't that cute? Hope you married.

Yeah, I hope you're married. Bloody hell. Settled down. We begin with another, I mean, we continue with another generous, a generous donor. The gorgeous Tommy Rico. They say, hello, boys. I would like to shout out my best. friend Tom, who recently was a very nice boy and got me a celebratory wedding cameo from

Ben! Look at that! Congratulations, I do hope you're married. Yeah, God, come on, guys, get us together. He introduced me to your content, and for that, I'm a very grateful boy. Thank you, Tommy, and thank you. Thank you. Tom. Is there a voice for, they're just normal men? Is that it? Yeah, that's pretty good. It's good enough. What do you mean? normal men, uh, but just innocent men. There's go. A tripler for you. Brett shitman shot.

Matt Holmes added you on Skype. Working on. Yeah. That's a deep cut. Wow. Someone with intimate knowledge of, of things donated that. Yeah. Who is that?

Who it was? Make yourself known privately. The far wool. The general. I went to school with Sue Ridge I say I usually donate

a good half dozen times with stupid names so I thought this week I should also do a big boy donation so I can get a message read and leave a sincere and heartfelt message

about what you mean to me but I ran out of SPA Oh Next time Next time You'll get him next time Thank you very much Recall Shilling for Turtle Beach

Not made from come made from Viotz instead of Bix Stephen Scores and Lord Brotovich We've also got Caroline I'm locked in the loo For wear red, Fred Fred, fuck you Finn Tristam

Cheggsit means Cheggsit Simon Miller is All Elite Your boy Milo The very generous Mr Macca Who said damn missed a couple of episodes boys. No, you're not fussed, but have a little extra this time anyway. Of course we're

first, Mr. Macca. It's much appreciated. Yes, thank you. Yeah, thank you very much indeed. One high jocelyn. Tremendous protein value. Regret the shit man fart. Shit games for Trunters. Shit donation for wankers. Yo mammy, sorry, yo mama, my batter. the very generous blobby wrestled Miller who said I don't have Twitter but wanted to join the spam if you haven't seen it I saw it on Simon's YouTube shorts Wait I didn't know Mr Miller

Yeah I forgot to say did you know that Simon Miller was there Ben Yeah he was at that show He was Stone Cold Steve Austin I think Yeah I saw that like after the fact that he was also there Oh my God wow what a collision of worlds Everyone's um it's like however many degrees of Kevin Bacon. We're all like only two steps away from blobby. Mikey, you know someone who is a bloby. We know Simon Miller as well. So everyone's, you never more than six feet from a blobby,

they say. I mean, the amount of costumes that are lying about. Yeah. And if you don't know one, you're the blobby. That's it. Yeah. We've also got 10 minutes into motivate and chill. And he gives you this look we've finally the final group we've got I've got a massive blobby ABCD's nuts Mr. Motorboater

this one's my favourite Sandy Balls UK holiday the very generous I come in the land down under who said good day boys mine verlo What's that, Peter?

Is that girlfriend, partner? Hang on. Boyfriend. I don't know. I think it's Rufflecopter. Okay. My Rufflecopter got us tickets to Empire Stripes Back. Must be Strips Back.

Oh, the thingy. The Bolesk. Yeah. In Sydney, a few years ago, I was apprehensive about going as a burlesque wasn't my kind of thing. I was, however, thoroughly surprised at the clever human. and I think you boys should go. Well, if we're in Sydney or it's nearby, we should go.

Absolutely. We should go to them. Fiancee is for a lot of time. Fiance, lovely. Thank you. This is Mikey, please ignore. This is Ben, please ignore. This is Peter, please ignore. This is Ashton, please ignore.

Thank you. Bop in the Bopopopolis. Jimmy Quig. The wanking was a bit much for me. Jabba the Slop. But, Mr. Maltloaf, Mr. Malt's loatheter, Jesus. Mr. Maltz loafator, Prince Beefcakes, Bartek, Kubitsa, Bafek, Gagitzer. Yeah.

Yeah? Fleckers forgot to donate. Cats lost poster came home. Is that, I think, and then it says thanks again, Mikey. Was that we had a poster problem, right, or something? Yes, yes. I will preface this by saying 99% of orders. got there successfully very quickly but we did have one that got lost in and it just floored around

Europe for a bit but we got it there in the end that's that's the customer service you can expect from vidyatsofficial.com yes wow what a professional the walking pleb i make fart noises i make fart noise with my mouth big tis jesus 42 and kermit zeppog and that is your pod squad for this week remember poddiots dot com three pounds or more to get a shout at the beginning in the end of the show thank you so much everybody for your... Thank you. Jenner Ossity. Who?

Jenna. Jennifer Oastity. Yes. Yes, precisely. Did you have a favourite? Oh, you saved me from myself there. It's the one that killed Michael, I think. Mr. Motibota.

Mr. Motibota. Yeah, Temens, isn't there more of it, and she'll alone. Got me pretty good. Yeah, I mean, that was good as well. I remember us talking about Mr. Mr. Motivator last time, but I have no idea what the context was. I think we accused him of being a drug addict or something. Oh, no, no, no.

It wasn't. He came up, and I think I accused him of being cancelled for some reason. Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, it was revealed that. He might have been a drug person, but it was a fake article. It was.

Everything's good in the world. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. We're all good. Peter, did you have a favourite? I've got to go with either Mr. Motivoter or possibly. The Skype one was good. Yes, it was.

Okay. You guys, would you like a question? Yes, please. Yeah. This is from Dylan McKinney, I think, at Dylan underscore simulator on Twitter. With Lilt being discontinued, what are your guys' favourite

discontinued snacks and drinks? Milky Way Krispy rolls are mine. I used to love those. Those were a real treat. Oh, that's a hard one. Yeah. Yeah, the Milky Way ones were absolutely, oh, delight. Oh, the Mars Delight, speaking of Delights.

Mars Delight was an absolutely king chocolate. It had like little crispy wharfabits inside of it with a crummy, a creamy ganche. Oh, wow, look at that. That looks familiar. Oh, God. I think, like, like, oh, it must be like, what, the mid-2000s? There was like the era of good chocolate. because he had your dreams as well.

Was that before the Americans bought it? It's Mars, not Cadbury, still. I was going to say that although I think you probably can still get Dream somewhere, they removed it from miniature heroes selection boxes. And it was the one white chocolate that used to be in there. It was the one white chocolate that used to be in any selection box, like any popular one. And I used to be able to have it at Christmas or something.

if someone had got some heroes or brought them into school and then they flipping got rid of the dream so then everyone else is enjoying their nice brown chocolate their milk chocolates and their dark chocolates and I'm like no give me the white one bring it back oh bless but also talking of delights

California style sunny delight from like the early naughty oh yeah the fluorescent orange one dread to think what was in it but although you can still get sunny delight now I'm sure like the sort of when it was first popularized in the UK I used to love that stuff it was great oh yeah

yeah god I say savory stuff I'm not thinking yeah I've got a couple I've got one in particular and it's turkey twizzlers and I was looking for a photo

of turkey twizzlers back in the day when they used to sell them in schools you know when you'd get them in a bread roll for some reason wait what yeah like a hot dog I think if we ever had that

Oh really Oh we used to get them in Well as I was scrolling through Someone's made you know Munchy boxes Yeah Apparently this is called a Back to the 90s takeaway

But it looks like just It looks like actual British tapas Let me send you a photo And considering Considering the cost They want 15 quid for this And you know you can get everything in there From Iceland

Under a fibre Well hang on that contains all the constituent parts of the worst games ever meal for one thing does do you want to describe what's in the box I'll put it on the thread we've got some potato smileys and of course we've got beans

and chicken dippers you know that if you're a dedicated listener based on what I just said but on top of that there are curly fries turkey twislers which really do just look like kind of cartoon poos when they're like turds aren't they I used to think they were like pig tails

that were cut and fried up yeah coil up then there's some turkey dinosaurs some mini waffles which are just like the windows logo

potato grids yeah yeah potato grids spaghetti hoops and also is that a pizza like a margarita pizza mini one? A little disc

yeah yeah I love all this food but god what a sad sight the turkey twizzlers are back by the way yeah they are they came back

I think they're just a completely new recipe and therefore, like, legal again in the EU. We must have talked about them at the time because I bought some and it would have been start of last year or even the end of 2021. It's been back for a little bit and they were shit. They were awful. They were probably just as bad when they used to sell them in schools. Yeah. But they probably had more shit in them. that made them addictive and tasty.

Michael, what an image with the inset Jamie Oliver. It'll be in the thread, but Michael Johnson has found a giant turkey twisler on a sort of podium with the words, their back written on it. I'm presuming this was some sort of marketing campaign for their return. Does not look good.

If that's how you market a turkey twisler, it just, oh, is it gold? Yeah, it's a gold stanching. Okay, that's, okay, that's, Okay, that's slightly more appealing. And there's a child pointing at it. They're in some... It looks like they're like a stately home, wasn't it?

It was probably a school. It's probably Bernard Matthew's headgras or something. Could be. But then in the top left of the image is a picture of celebrity chef in the UK, Jamie Oliver, looking a bit sad. He's been like... He's clearly been papped in the street.

And for context, he was... He quite famously or infamously, depending on whether or not you are Bernard Matthews, led a campaign against Turkey Twisler's being in school dinners in the UK. He made Turkey Twizzlers the focal point of his campaign saying the kids deserve better food in schools, but all they did was take out all the nice food from schools. And everything then was just terrible for different reasons.

You guys must have seen, I don't know if it was part of the specific Turkey Twisler's campaign. I know exactly what you. you get oh yeah or something since then it may even been in america i don't know but he's like trying to put kids off the idea of having a chicken nugget from mcdonalds so he gets a chicken carcass he takes off all the good meat and he says that's expensive meat that gets sold to butchers and they make nice things but what they have left is this carcass and it's just cartilage and gristle and he like grinds it all up he puts it in a blender uh he then adds bits of like skin and like connective tissue, blends it all up, he then fries it in front of them.

There's all these kids watching him do it. He fries it, puts it in breadcrumbs, and he goes, oh, look at this. Oh, isn't it horrible? And they are sort of going, oh, yeah, ugh. And it's this pink paste. And then he cooks it up and he says, so who would eat one of those now? And then there's a pause of about two or three seconds, then every child puts their hand up in the air.

And he just looks at them and goes, brilliant. It's nuggets, isn't it? It's bloody nuggets, come on. It's still a nugget. They had to sit there smelling the delicious nugget smell. Of course they're going to eat it. Yeah. Why do we get here?

We're talking about things we wanted to un-bann. I've got another one, or not un-banned. Bring back green tomato ketchup. That was a thing in the 90s. They just died at green. I'm pretty sure that's all they did. They may still do specialty stuff, but yeah. I mean, they probably dye it red as it is.

It probably isn't red. I thought of one. What was it? Oh, yeah. So this is a strange one. It's not like the food that I miss the most, but it's just something that I remember from back in the day. I used to have these little, well, they're quite big yogurts that were called fru-fus, right? What? Yeah, yeah, I know. F-R-U-F-O-O. Give it a Google. And they were this like ring-shaped yoghurt because in the middle there was a little tub

that had a toy in it, like a kind of surprise. Oh. And it was a pink yoghurt. It tasted really good. It was strawberry. According to the label, it was made by Onken. I think they were European. I think they were like German or something,

but they were imported. And yeah, you've got these little like figures that you could build. and there were like pirates and aliens and... Sorry, I just found a YouTube thumbnail of FooFru's in the text on the imagery. I was just waiting to talk about that. It's so good. Das Fru Fru Fru Come Back, 2019.

No way. Are they back? I don't know. That's Das Frufri Fri. Oh, God, that's good. God, they look great. I seem to vaguely remember these. I recognize these, but I don't think I ever had one.

Yeah. What the hell are these toys inside it? It's just animals on skaters. boards. Oh, that's rad. Oh, well, there's the Mario one. Unlicensed Mario at the end there. Oh, is there a slightly problematic one in the middle? Oh, yeah. I honestly can't tell if that is just a very racist depiction of a Native American or if it's supposed to be a goldfish in like a feather head dress. It's hard to tell. That's how bad it is if it is a depiction of a Native American person. There's also apparently a Mexican person who's lying on their back, which is also a harmful

stereotype, I think. Right, now we know why Frufoo went away. Oh, dear. Oh, wow. God, these are horrifying. God. I just remember enjoying them a lot.

Like I say, it's not my number one bring this back, but I'd love to just try one again. Can you still get transformer snacks in shops? I think so. They're not officially branded, are they? They're just like...

No, they're just... Oh, it's golden wonder. You just build a car or something out of them. Oh, yeah. You get, like, like axles and then you just put hoops on them and turn it into a car i remember yeah for those unfamiliar it's it's a corn-based snack and in each packet you get um well some circles and yeah like an axle shape and you get to transform a snack and build a really shit car out of it it's a

very novel but it doesn't look great yeah not really a functional toy either it's not toy it's food oh my god they brought they brought the green ketchup back briefly for shrek Of course But they also did But they also did blue ketchup Which I think is maybe a bit I don't think I'd want that on my food Right

And a purple one Easy squirt is what it was called Oh What were they thinking Says this article The Day ketchup Crossed the line You've gone too far this time

To be fair The purple one does look absolutely Rampson Yeah, that is not a pretty size. It's nasty, isn't it? Was it McDonald's or Burger King that did that black bread? Oh, that was Burger King and it made people's shit black. Yeah, green, I think.

It made people with shit green. Oh, God. Have you ever had your poo change colour? I had a friend in school who ate like a massive bucket of sweets and he pooed green for about a week afterwards. Yeah, I feel like I've spoken about this before as well. Yeah, I had a friend at school who apparently, it was either him or his brother ate, like drank a bunch of food coloring and they were shit.

shitting blue or something. I don't really remember, but sort of half a story, yeah, I recall. I drank a load of grape juice at university. It was basically what I subsisted off for like a few days. And then, yeah, I was, I was shitting like a bird. And I feel like that's a conversation we had in early potty of days. But yeah, it was just like, it's just berries, isn't it? That's basically all I ate for a couple of days.

So that was all that was in my system. Like a bird. It's the magical. Hey, let's move on to a thing. Yeah, let's. All right. I've got a bird-related thing, if you want to go. Sorry, let's go on.

So this was actually submitted to me as a weird capiti. I was aware of this as a story, but I never thought to bring it along. So thank you to Josh Bean at Josh on Twitter on Twitter. So his username is Josh on Twitter with three T's in Twitter. Thank you, Josh. So this is the story of share a me. Oh, so Cher Ami, French for Dear Friend in the Masculine, was a male homing pigeon who had been donated by the pigeon fanciers of Britain

for use by the you, yeah, I can't do that anymore. No, bring that back, am I right? Pigeon fancying. Let's go, yeah. That's hatterful boyfriend, isn't it, the video game? Yes. Zoe, who was donated by... I had more hobbies, like, had to have the suffix, fancier, like trancey and fancier.

Because of the implication, the way the language is, you know why Michael Johnson, language is changed a lot. Why your pigeons get the free pass? Come on. Well, I've always been put off by the phrase animal husbandry as well. I mean, I think lover to the end of anything, like, I'm a dog lover. That even that sounds a bit off today. I guess so, yeah. So, Shetami was donated by the pigeon fuckers of Britain for use of us.

Whee. U.S. Army Signal Corps in France during World War I and have been trained by American pigeoners, apparently. So in America they call them pigeoners, but over here, fanciers, I guess. He is famous for delivering a message from an encircled battalion despite serious injuries during the Muz Argonne offensive in October 1918. Pardon my French, literally. So here we go.

On October 3, 1918, Major Charles White Whittlesey, and more than 550 men, were trapped in a small depression on the side of a hill behind enemy lines without food or ammunition. They were also beginning to receive friendly fire from Allied troops who did not know their location.

Surrounded by the Germans, many were killed and wounded, and only 194 men were still alive and not captured or wounded by the end of the engagement. Because his runners were consistently intercepted or killed by the Germans, Whittlesey began dispatching messages by Pigeon. Pigeon carrying the first message, many wounded, we cannot evacuate, was shot down.

A second bird with the message, Men are suffering, can support be sent? Was also shot down. The artillery batteries supporting Wittlesley's men attempted to provide a barrage of protection for Wittlessey's men on the northern slope of Charlevo the Charlevo

ravine but believed which we'll see was on the southern slope of the ravine resulting in a barrage

inadvertently targeting the battalion So they're under like heavy fire Out another pigeon No not there Leave us alone Cherami was then

dispatched with a note written on onion paper In a canister on his right leg that read We are along the road parallel to

276.4 Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven's sake, stop it. Perfect. Very World 1. As Cher Ami tried to fly back home, the Germans saw him rising out of the brush and opened fire. After several seconds, he was shot down. But he managed to take flight again. He arrived back at his loft at division headquarters, 25 miles to the rear in just 25 minutes. Helping to save the lives of the 194 survivors He'd been shot through the breast

Blinded in one eye And had a leg hanging only by a tendon Oh my God Cherami became the hero of the 77th Infantry Division Army medics worked to save his life When he recovered enough to travel The now one-legged bird

Was put on a boat to the United States With General John J. Pershing Seeing him off The pigeon was later awarded the Quad de Guerre medal with a palm oak leaf cluster for his heroic service in delivering 12 important messages in Burdun. He died at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey on June the 13th, 1919, from the wounds he received in battle and was later inducted into the Racing Pigeon Hall of Fame in 1931. Who else is in it? What are the big names who are in you? That's what I want to know.

Sadly, it's not hyperlinked on Wikipedia. It's strange. Is it a physical installation? Can we go and see it? Well, let me tell you, there is a physical aspect to this story remaining. So he also received a gold medal from the organized bodies of American racing pigeon fanciers in recognition of his service during World War I. In November 2019, he became one of the first winners of the Animals in War and Peace Medal of Bravery,

bestowed on him posthumously at a ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington. The American school children of the 1920s and 1930s sorry, excuse me, two American school children of the 1920s and 30s Cherami was well known as any human world. Will I get this sentence? Welcome to my world.

Yeah. To American school children of the 1920s and 30s, Sherriamie was as well known as any human World War I hero. I made it. I deserve the Guadalda. Well done. Thank you. Sheramie's body was later mounted by taxidermist Nelson R. Wood at the National Museum of Natural History.

When the Smithsonian requested information about Sheramie, the Signal Corps reported they could not find any war record of Jeremy being the pigeon, which carried the message from the lost battalion. now that's like a bit of a strange it's like oh what so it's now in dispute as to whether it was him and then that is never referred to again for the rest of the article yeah but forget about that let's talk about this famous pigeon i think what it maybe what it's meant to say is that like he is believed and known to have done that but there's just no documentation like historical yeah of interest to kind of physical kind of stuff to show that anymore, sadly. Well, I believe it. I believe it. I believe. Me too.

Listing the known details of the bird, the army without explanation, described Jeremy as he and the Smithsonian label reflected the bird sex as a cock bird. Way, fanciers. That sentence had the word sex and cock in it. It's a good sentence. One of the best ones today. In 2021, the National Museum of American History, together with the National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian National Zoo, had DNA samples from Cher Ami analysed, which concluded that the bird is a cockbird. Bui. Yes.

Since 1921, Cher Ami has been on display at the Smithsonian Institution. He's on display with Sergeant Stubby, the presumed Boston Terrier mascot of the U.S. Army's 1002nd Infantry in the National Museum of American History's Price of Freedom exhibit. So there you go.

And the article does continue with his depictions in popular culture and so on. But that is the story of the lost battalion and the pigeon that saved 197 lives, was it? 194 lives saved. Well done, Cher. What a hero. I can't, but I just, I'm actually upset at reading that

because if I, like, stub my tool, I'm done in for like two hours after that and I'm ruined. Yeah. This pigeon gets shot and carries on it and doesn't even understand what's going on. Oh, I need to up my game. What I do. We all need to live up to the expectations set.

Unless one of you has done it already, I am now going to Google the race, the War Pigeon Hall of Fame. But by all means, carry on with the podcast while I'm seeing if anything of interest is in there. Okay, yeah, let us know. I've got a question here. Thank you for your thing, Peter. Thank you, once again to Josh for sending that in. And thank you to the Brave Pigeon as well.

God bless. For his service. Cockbird. This question comes courtesy of Darius Owen Canning at Darius Canning on Twitter. When you were in school, did you have stationary envy? Was there a kid who always had the coolest pens or the wildest rulers and novelty sharpeners? What would your ideal pencil case be filled with? Sorry, what would your ideal pencil case be and filled with?

Hmm. Oh, man. Hmm What did you think of those gel pens Where they had scents You know Smelly gels And some people had loads of them

I had a few I quite liked them Did you? But our year four teacher Told us we weren't allowed to use them Because they gave her a headache When she was marking work Bullshit

They weren't that smell No they weren't There were some really nice ones People would just sort of scribble onto a page And sniff the paper Yeah It'd be like blue blueberries and orange

just to hold them in our nostrils and just give up the little bit of a lift that was a best demonstration and sniff the back of the cartridge where the hole was at the top a generation of substance abuses my my dream

pencil case as a kid which I did eventually get was like a Coca-Cola can but a pencil case but it was like a soft squishy one with it on it I don't know. Nice.

I've still bought my secondary school pencil case, I think. Have you? I can tell you what's in it as well. What? Oh my God. Hang on, it's right here. It's a, I don't know what the brand is. It's still got stuff written on the back of it.

Let's see. What does this say? I can't believe you have this a hand. You're a big daft cock, it says on it. Hi, Ben. What does that say? Oh, there's a bit of graffiti from my French pen pal that I saw a long time ago. This just says England on it.

It's very faded. There's anus is written here in big letters. And it appears to have a couple of, you remember Lonsdale trainers? And when you used to buy them, they had those little like boxing. gloves that were like a key room you remember those yes I've got a couple of those on the on the zip let's see what's in it it's just a load of shit in here I think now old pencil shavings we gotty gum we've got a byro a ipsos mori pen I don't know what that is some tip X uh what's this a pen for

Studentcleaning.co.uk. This clearly came to uni with me as well. Yeah. And a pencil from Jamaica that's got a little Rastafarian person on the top with beads and everything. And where'd you get a pencil from Jamaica from?

I don't say Jamaica. From my aunt who visited Jamaica, I believe. Oh, brilliant. Yeah. So that's a little case study there. Pencil case. Very good. A case study.

There we are. I, uh, the main thing that I liked about, um, pencil cases was the graffiti. I quite liked the, the, you know, having people sign and scribble and doodle on your pencil case and you on theirs and you on your own. So I, one maybe for, I don't know, it's probably for about two years running. I had a pencil case that on the back of it, uh, the whole thing was a, um, it was like a, uh, a side on view of a VW. camper van but it was all in white and it was it was the kind of printed um kind of transfer plasticy thing that you could draw on um so that ended up just slowly over a couple of years

getting covered in people's names and doodles and probably you know several cocks um and i or cockbirds perhaps um and nothing's changed really because uh something that for some reason me and maybe two other friends would often draw either on our pencil cases or on each other's like folders or whatever was a little cartoon warruses. So, and I still, you know, get sent walrus doodles today by all kinds of people.

So that goes right back to probably year nine or something. And we all thought it was terribly funny to say walrii instead of warruses. And that was, you know, really, really clever. It's pretty funny, though, to be fair. Yeah. You could build a career off that. You could.

Yeah, I don't think I was much of a stationary man other than my fake can one, everything else, I think, towards the end of school, especially just ended up lumped in the bottom of my backpack and just dug around and try to find anything that would work when I got to my lessons. In terms of actual stationary, contents of the pencil case, one thing that I always wanted

was one of those ultra-flex rulers that... Oh, the bendy ones? Yeah, a bendy ruler. And our physics teacher told us not to have them because he said, there can be some plastic defamation. And so he thought that they weren't as accurate as rigid rulers,

which I'm sure they probably weren't, but did it matter? No. You could put it in your bag and not worry about it snapping in half. And you could play with it. Yeah, you could play with it. Wobble it all over the place. We had a kid who... had one of those and the corner of it he just slowly

chewed down this this was you know like a sort of 14 15 year old boy but he would just like bite a little bit off it every so often and eventually it would just you know be missing an entire corner brilliant

yeah I've tried doing that with a standard ruler I've been desperately googling do you remember in the late 90s they did these big stationary sets that you could buy, and they were often themed around popular franchises. So I think I might have had a Darth Mall one, and it was in the shape of sort of the bust of Darth Mall, and it was quite big, and you popped it open, it was filled with felt-tip pens and all sorts of other things

like that. Do you remember that? I don't even know what to search to find it. 90s Art Station? Uh, without work? No. I don't know. I don't even know how to look such a thing up. I know someone listening will know exactly what I'm talking about because I think fairly recently I saw someone post about it saying, wow, these were shit, weren't they? But letters on a postcard, please. Letters on a postcard, please. Is that what they say? Yeah, no.

Wait, what is the phrase? What was it quick, Charles? Answers on a postcard, please. Yeah, not letters on. Wow, God. that's the picture of sheremy by the way i forgot to send it to you that's the mounted oh yeah very good pigeon i can't easily find members of the hall of fame so uh it's not going to happen i did i did find one pigeon hall of fame i don't know if it's the same hall of fame

but i'll share it anyway there's lots of um the word cock on the screen for the sexes but it's a good little gallery of birds oh wow look at those Why are the humans holding trophies and not the birds? Yeah. Doesn't seem like that. These pigeons are immaculate. Look at them. These are the supreme champions that says at the top.

The very best cockbirds going. Bloody hell. Well, I actually have a thing that's related to France. So we can continue the vaguely related things. Let's go. this is I've got a couple of sources here for this one of them is a right green ketchup no

one of these is I'm so glad I took took the time to process what you said there so I could understand it one of these is from cracked.com but I hate the way they've written it up because it's super like hey we're just we're just we're cracked.com and we're hanging out you and I I'm going to address you like you're a buddy of my I hate it so I'm instead going to read this

photo of a book that I don't know where it's from. I found it on Twitter a while ago, this not even screenshot. It's a photo of a real book. It's a page shot, I suppose. So here we go.

In France, a splendid duel was fought in 1400 between a suspected murderer and his accuser, a dog. I'm going to let that sink in for a second. Accuser? Yes. How did it accuse?

Well, you'll find out. We'll find out. The Chevalier Marquis, I think, killed Aubrey de Mont Didier in the forest of Bondi near Paris and buried the body. The only witness was Mont Didier's greyhound. The dog went back to town to a friend of his masters and led the friend to the spot where he whined and scratched the ground. The body was recovered and reburied and the greyhound moved in with the friend. Shortly thereafter, it met up with Marquis and attacked him. him viciously. Three men had to pull it off him. The dog was an otherwise gentle and amiable sort,

but it kept on flying at Marquis whenever it saw him. This was reported to the king, who decided it was definitely an accusation and arranged for the single combat trial. The fight took place on the Isle of Notre Dame in Paris, Marquis with a lance, the greyhound with its natural weapons, it says. The dog sprang on the man with amazing ferocity and clamped its teeth around his throat and couldn't be shaken off, Marquis screamed that he'd confess if they pulled off the dog. This, in contemporary eyes, proved the justice of combat trials pretty conclusively, and Marquis was hanged and strangled on the gibbet at Montfoucon, maybe. Lovely.

Yeah. So the article goes into more detail, but this was doing the rounds on Twitter a little while back because there was a trial by combat between a man and his victim's dog, which is extremely unusual. His accuser, I think you'll find. Sorry, his accuser, the dot, woof, said the dog. There's a little more info in the article about it, but that's basically the gist of it. I think we all know that trial by combat doesn't necessarily prove who's correct,

but certainly back then, the way they saw it is that if the defendant prevailed in the fight, that meant God supported his defense, otherwise God judged him guilty. Of course. Because that's naturally how it works. And also, upon further further inspection, in a much more wordy and grown-up article, which I didn't bring, it was actually purported that this is more of a fable than an actual story,

because there are numerous accounts of this from the 14th century, or at least pointing to the 14th century, but they're from subsequent records years and years later, and it's more of a, I don't know, what's the term I'm looking for? A message with a story. What's that? A story with a message.

A parable? A parable, thank you. Yes, it's more of a parable than anything else. You know, I don't know what that would be. Don't bury your friend in front of his dog. Yeah. That could be it, potentially. I know the word parable, but I'm not very good at making parables.

Not very good at making parables. Yeah, working out the moral of the story. Oh, I see. I wasn't very good at what. working out the moral of that sentence. Well, that was a very short thing, but that was literally it. I just enjoyed the story of a trial by combat between the man and his victim's dog, his accuser. It's just as well, because I nearly brought a shorter thing this time.

So maybe next week I'll do that or next fortnight. But that's great. I don't mind a short and sweet one when, you know, it involves a greyhound engaging in trial by combat with a man after accusing him. of murder. Exactly. And it may not have even happened. So not only did I bring this news to so many people today, but I've also got to tell you that it actually might not ever have happened.

We do live in the age of misinformation or disinformation. Or Mr. Information. Yeah, that's true. Depending on who you're talking to. But yes, if you see this doing the rounds on Twitter again, it may not actually have happened, but it is fun. There's also a little bit of art. It's fine.

Oh. Can we see the art? I don't know where this was taken or if it's just a somewhat relevant photo that was found and put in the article. Oh, nice. There appears to be a man engaging in some kind of combat with a dog. I don't really know. It's hard to read into it. It's too zoomed in.

Yeah. It's been a lot of fun being a lawyer back then. Just let God decide who's the right one here. Have a fight and whoever wins. It's great. Thanks. It's got a dinner. The good old days, eh?

The good old days, yeah. But you could always full. fall of foul of the same logic though in the same rules you know like what if what if you're like well this is ridiculous but I'm tired and I can't be bothered so you guys go ahead and do trial by combat with a dog but then what if a dog starts acting weird around you maybe it's a drug sniffing dog and then the king says well you're clearly guilty of a crime so you're not you've now got to fight this dog and you could have spoken up earlier you could have spoken up earlier and said Hang on, guys. There's got to be a better way to do this. And no, you've now got to fight a dog.

I'm not going to disrupt the status quo. It's, you know, everyone, everyone gets to watch the fun unfold. And sometimes the audience becomes part of the spectacle and that's just luck of the draw. It's all part of the system, baby. If dogs are being treated in that, that kind of equitable way where they're pretty much on a level with a human, what I would do is if I was a murderer and I had killed, you know, say I'd murdered Mikey for good reason. What I would do, Ben, is I would find a dog that I would think I could be in a fight and either accuse that dog of killing my friend Michael Johnson or just try and get it to just act aggressive with me

and then I would have the fight and then I would be exonerated. So what you're saying is you're going to find the smallest, most dainty dog he can find and then pummel it to death. Gizmo. Gizmo after he's already been half eaten and dropped by a seagull.

Yeah, he's only got fresh ice. You're going to kill Michael Johnson and then say well, I think it was this dog and then you divert or not only do you draw a massive of my attention to yourself for no reason, but then you kill a dog. and shift all the blame onto the dog, posthumously.

Just on the Nicotama Siegel comes in and swoops him away yet again. I like it. I think this could work. I think we're on to something there in 1400s, France. The perfect crime. Absolutely. So look out, Mikey. Oh, what's going to happen to you?

Keep your cute dogs inside. Peter's coming from to pin a crime on them. Jesus. Have you guys just thinking of that? Did you guys see, it was also doing their rounds on Twitter? This was ages ago, like four or five months ago, of a graph of, it had the US and the UK, and it was animals that people think they could beat in a fight. Can you see that?

Good, good, yeah. No. And it was, oh, I'll have to find it. Again, if you'd like to carry on, by our means, please do. And I'll finish you in a minute when I found it. Okay. Well, I do have another question here, if you guys are ready. Yes.

Oh, yes. Jamshed at Mighty Jamshed on Twitter says Your convention guest level famous You've been invited to sign a bunch of autographs for some Veoites and then it says in brackets the Vidyats fan base And someone asks you to sign your most famous line on their Vidyat's merch What's the line you write? I guess I just fart on a card and give it back to them

I feel like Peter has a video. few actually I couldn't immediately think of two I couldn't I was trying to think of one for me earlier and I couldn't really do it

what do you think mine would be your vagina is beautiful yeah the ones I read out at your wedding shut up Cheggis your dead would be the other way

would go on what's that then possibly yeah yeah I would probably want consent to write your vagina is beautiful

but anyone who wanted me to write that on card i could quite happily quite happily do that did i ever say anything worthwhile all through videos you've definitely have mike and you know what we can get a little bit of backup on it uh because we're on the yogs cast wiki and the person who did each of our things does have a couple of quotes on here um okay well mike did just say i don't if you i'm mikey just said the ones at my wedding um because the viewers won't know that at my wedding

My father-in-law, his speech partly involved, I think he googled my name and found the Yogscast wiki entry and read some of the quotes to the room of 80 people, including the quote, Your Vagina is Beautiful, completely out of context. I feel like we might have mentioned that on the podcast at the time. We possibly did. It went down a storm, as I'm sure you can imagine. It was unexpected. Yeah. What are your quotes on there? Well, I'm looking at Mikey's now.

Mikey doesn't have any quotes listed, but it does say that one of his aliases is Farty Boy, or one word. God, I really have a one-trick pony, aren't I? Still to this day, I never evolved. I was more of an action man than a word man, you know. I was known for what I did, rather than what I said, scroll, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, because you contributed many, many good laughing. Many good laughs, yeah.

Oh, I like... Yeah, I was just a little... I believe it's on the Margaret video where you say, I'm going to be sick because you're laughing so hard. I'm going to be sick. Or the... Tell your friends after the Stoke-on-Trent

worst game selection with the farting. That was a good one. The quotes that it's got for me, are kind of generic ones, really. Nerds? No, that's not on here. It's Bobby Babylonie. Not the worst, just worse the most.

Boys or girls. Hope you're married. I want to die, and die is in bold and all caps for some reason. Whoa. Peter Austin, welcome to the BTA. I don't know what that is. What the hell is that? What about the annoying cup, or is that just all of them?

What's up? I'm Dick My Chinco, which is not, that's not from, And that's not from idiots anyway, I don't think, is it? No. So I don't know if any of those are remotely. The annoying cup. Do you know what that is? The annoying cup, cup. Yeah, what's that in reference to?

It must just be from a worst game episode, perhaps. Yeah. How strange. We really should, ahead of the next person among us to get married, change these courts to more glowing, shining things just in case to get read out again. Well, maybe that's what we request now.

is that the pod squad for next week, if you can fit it in the dis... Oh, no, I don't know. I don't know how you do it because you've not got many characters to do it. You could just update the wiki for us and add some new quotes. Yeah, people can just...

Don't go and sabotage it because I don't want to see it sabotage, but add actual information based on videos and podcasts if you'd like to. That would be fun. It would actually be really helpful because, yeah, I can't remember anything. I can't remember literally a thing than I said in 2018.

No. Not one thing. So, yeah. It is beans time. That's a dad. That's true. That's you, Ben. I think you said it, and I did the card for that.

Yeah, so that must, yeah, okay. It was a real, it was a good, I don't have to say this at the time when we're doing Bean's time recently, but that was a real three-person, whatever the word. It was a real team effort. I think it came out of your mouth. Mikey had made all the assets, like the 80s, 90s kind of retro stuff. And I think I did the edit and used that card

and wrote It is Beans Time on the thing. And it all came together to Beans Time. It wasn't even a, we didn't even really enjoy it at the time. It was only last year. No, we just said it. Yeah. It was only last year that we really enjoyed it is Beans Time. Yeah.

So who knows. knows. Hey, a lot of people listening to this podcast or watching the video version, well, they've probably watched a lot of idiots. And some of you still do watch videos regularly, the old stuff from 2018. So consider yourselves on a mission now from the three of us to pick out some quotes and add them to our wikis. We doth you the official archivists of idiots. Please go forth and document our ramblings, please. Yeah. But do not, as Peter said, don't abuse your privileges on the wiki. Don't be messing stuff up.

No point. Because it'll just be removed. So, yeah. So help us out, listeners. We love you. Thank you. Mikey? Yes. You got a thing?

I do. Continuing on the animal theme, I've got a fun little oddity from history to share with you all. Good. I have found the graph, by the way. So maybe when you're done with your animal stuff, I'll tell you. Give us the graph. Give us the graph. Okay, I'll send it to you in the chat, and we can break it down between us.

Yeah, I'm trying to think what animals I could beat up now. Oh, okay. Brilliant. So the blue dots are what the Americans think they could beat, and the red dots are the Britons. And consistently, Americans are more confident in every possible animal that they think they could be in a fight. It ranges from a rat where 60, I think this is percentage.

Must be percent. 67 to 72 percent of people think they could be a rat in a fight. And two to six percent at the other end believe they could be a grizzly bear in a fight. Six percent of Americans believe they could beat a grizzly bear. Eight percent believe they could beat an elephant in a fight. What? Do they know what elephants are? Like brick houses, Jesus. Guerrilla is the scariest one to me.

there's something almost comedic about trying to fight a lion or an elephant or a grizzly bear because it's like absolutely not but a gorilla i think is it's just a wall of muscle you're sort of eye to eye with it yeah it would it would oh god weirdly enough the the one that everyone thought they could be on that one the rat is probably one that i would say i couldn't i i just i'm tricky yeah exactly a tricky house cat fine i could slap around a house cat but a rat yeah that's a whole them are. A goose as well as the third most popular I could be in a fight

that's well it's a big range though only 45% of Brits could they say and 61% of Americans could I could quite happily fight a goose if I really had to I mean with all of these things it's like you don't want to harm an animal so that would probably

factor in to a certain extent like I wouldn't thoroughly enjoy kicking a cat in the head but if I really if it was life or death I could just grab a goose by the neck and I could just turn it into a hammer. Yes, flail that shit around. Flail it around.

You'd break its neck almost immediately if you used its own weight against it, surely. So I've just clocked at the bottom here. This is an official you gov, Paul? Yeah, it was apparently YuGov. I don't know if it really is if someone's just added the logo, but... It's important research.

Oh my God. You need to know your sources. As Aldous tells me, is that Americans are too bald? overly overconfident in their abilities and Britons need a little bit of a pep talk, I think. Well, all of those, most of those should read zero, to be honest. None of them, there shouldn't even be two

for grizzly bear for the UK. No, that's silly. That's very silly. The people who answered yes to any of these should have then been forced into a room with said animal. Go on then. Send them to the Coliseum.

Make them fight for the fucking Emperor's approval. Oh, dear. Anyway, shall we resume my story. Please do, Mikey. Sorry about that. Oh, that's all right. No, that's a very worthy interjection. Thank you, Peter. When Philip II, the King of Spain, visited Brussels in 1549, he made a grand entrance,

complete with wild animals and flames. Still, by all accounts, the most impressive part of this procession was an organ that played, quote, the most singular music you can imagine. the quote unquote organ comprised of 20 narrow boxes each containing a cat a cat whose tail was tied to a specific key and when anyone played the instrument the cat's tails were pulled quote producing a lamentable meowing each time so yes prince philip the second had a cat organ at his disposal Oh, God. This is the very first documented mention of a cat piano in history, or the cats and clavier, if you want to get German about it. But it was far from the last.

This torturous instrument popped up in philosophical. Philosophical? Oh, my God. Philosophical. That's right. Yes. I can do this. I just said the same word three times.

Oh, dear. What percentage of words could Michael confidently beat non-apparently. Philosophical, scientific and psychological texts until the 19th century. So once this kind of appeared in the zeitgeist, it popped up for like over 400 years later. Most people today wouldn't find cats screaming in pain very amusing. But early modern Europeans had a very different attitude towards cats. Cats were frequently associated with the devil and loose morals and weren't held with the same regard as they have in today's world. It would easy, it would be easy to write the instrument off as eccentric or odd. But if that's all it was,

why did it crop up again and again throughout history? It's no coincidence that the cat piano made its first appearance in a royal procession. Royal spectacles were all about testing the limits of possibility. And at a glance, everyone could see that the king could accomplish the unthinkable, which is quite great. He's got a box full of cats and hitting them. That's an imaginable. My God. and the king's power wasn't subject to the usual restraints of money, imagination, or nature. Essentially, these kinds of displays were just there to make kings look like gods. And there's all these all-powerful beings who could do whatever the hell they want. By parading his bear-powered cat piano through Brussels, yes, it was a bear that was playing the cat piano, apparently.

My God. Sorry, that's just a little footnote there. He was in a fight? apparently yeah if you beat the bear in a fight you get to make it play the instrument of your choosing and he chose cat organ yeah i think the whole scene here was it was just like a whole calvcade of animals um all doing random stuff and i guess the star the show was the bear playing the piano and with this philip the second showed the world that he was on daunted by convention

what a weirdo he wanted people to marvel at the one at the wonders his reign could produce The same went for French king Louis VI, who made his own spectacular pig organ, I think, a similar setup where pigs are made to emit sounds. By making fantasy reality, kings could draw symbolically closer to God. Yes, I'm sure God is smiling down on these kings with these torture machines. But what made animal music such a potent symbol in these times? absurd as it may seem, the cat piano proved that these rulers had tapped into the underlying rules of nature, the harmony of the spheres. Harmony of the spheres is an ancient concept, which maintained that the universe is all governed

by this like harmonic mathematical relationship where basically everything's the same and there's this energy flowing through everything that kind of dictates everything. And while the harmony wasn't always audible, for centuries, philosophers, argued that certain sounds could elevate humans bringing them closer to this divine order and cats were a litmus test for how deep the celestial harmony could go. So cat piano creators wanted to show that these mathematical harmonies permeated all of creation. If out of tune meows could be synthesized into music, surely anything good. What other natural harmonies had escaped humans notice. Cat pianos

as a result inspired generations of music theorists. So not just a weird one. It's got people thinking. I mean, I'm sure it got people thinking. You don't just leave that room and go, oh, it was fun, wasn't it? No, you ponder that for weeks. What began as means of accessing the divine

glided easily into farcical entertainment for common people, though, however. In the 18th and 19th centuries, cat concerts were all the rage. Take. What a sense. sentence. Cat concerts, all the rage. I'd so good at a cat concert, a modern one. Wow. Take, for example, the Parisian, oh, it's French and I'm crapping my pants. Please, boys, help me. How do I say this word?

Malik? Milleikie? Meow. Oh, it'll be meow as in meow. Oh, concert. Miao league, I guess. Take, for example, the Parisian concert, meow, I guess. That's a good name. That's a lot better now I know what it means. so in this in this uh concept of meows in the middle was a monkey who kept time while the cats made cries on meows that were altogether quote unquote laughable for some reason again twisted twisted messed of people in these times uh in london in 1758 the animal trainer samuel bissitt staged an immensely lucrative cats opera and more than a century later enthusiasts reported that cat stage companies were still all the rage I can't believe this is, I try to dig from my info and got cat opriment. There's not really a whole lot out there. I imagine it's, it's just animals dicking about on stage and screaming in pain, most likely, sadly. But yeah, for centuries, the dog had been the top dog, to pardon the pun, in upper class families, they were the animal of choice. But cats were kind of slow to catch on in Europe, often seen as transgressive and wild,

suitable only for killing rats. Crueler it was, the cat piano may have paved the way for changing perceptions of cats. Over time, it's possible that the anthropomorphic entertainments like the cat's opera helped and dear felines to a wider public.

You go to a nice evening out with your party. You know what? A cat singing the opera. Maybe cats aren't so bad, eh? It must have just been a cacophony, though. Must have been awful. Howls and screams. Yeah.

I mean, they must have done well enough, but... Yeah, people kept going. I mean, I guess it wasn't much else on the TV that time, so you were stuck with the cat opera, whatever that may it be. But this ancient idea of curative music, like music helping people gain some traction during the early modern period, and in 1650, the German scholar Anasius Kircher reported that the cat piano

was an excellent cure for melancholy. He cited the example of a depressed Italian prince who couldn't help but laugh at the cat's frantic music. Aw, a little pick-me-up. That's what they say, isn't it? When you've got depression, just laugh. That's it. It's gone now. Have you tried being happy?

Have you tried just smiling being happy? Wait, let me wheel out the cat piano for you. This will do the trick. This observation predated the discipline of psychology entirely. So this is people thinking about how to change the psyche before psychology was even really being thought about. But later writers took note of the cat piano's therapeutic potential. One of the 19th century founders of psychiatry, Christian Real, argued that the cat piano could help patients who were lost in constant reverie, daydreamers in another word. Daydreamers,

he argued, had trouble paying attention to objects in the real world, but the bizarre jarring nature of the cat piano could jolt them back to reality. I mean, it sounds about right, yeah. According to rail, mental illness was an affliction of the nervous system and all psychological problems could be traced back to the malfunctioning of the brain and nerves. Sensory jolts, like the cat piano, brought the mind back to itself, and they held a vital key to mental health.

That was a common trailer thought for a little while. But in spite of all these numerous sightings and stories of the cat piano, there's no actual hard evidence that they ever existed other than in stories over 400 years of like it's just 400 years of people writing and talking about the cat piano

there's not one single shred of evidence of it ever actually happening I want to believe that the story of the prince with the bear and the cat piano is true but shit there'd be something concrete about that that'd be written about for centuries afterwards

it's like the dog duel all over again yeah I know oh no we've disappointed twice I'm sorry but at least if you want to hear a kind of modern equivalent to the cat piano there's a very good video of Nora the piano cat this is wonderful it is just basically the owner recorded the cat kind of just tapping about on the piano and then a full orchestra came in and accompanied it and played it to an audience with projections of the cat playing the piano on the screen and it It's actually quite moving. It's very good. It's just these sorrowful little peep, peep, peep, peat on the piano and a full orchestra swelling behind it is very good. And in more recent times, if you want a less cruel alternative to a cat organ, someone made a cat organ out of soft toys, and it is an absolute sight to behold.

I assume most people have seen this video before, but it's someone playing the song from Wizard of Oz over the rainbow with just this... this, I'll send a picture of it, is just a bunch of cats taped to a box. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He just runs around. I've not seen that.

Oh, it's very good. Guy plays a cat organ, it's called on YouTube. I highly recommend looking it up. It's actually quite good. Yeah, that's a brief history of cat organs, be it real or fake. That's for you to decide. But I love it anyway.

I don't love it. It's horrible, actually. It sounds pretty cool, yeah. Yes, that's a terrible thing. Leave it in the history. This is not for modern day. Yeah. Wonderful.

Amazing, that's interesting. Thank you so much, Michael John Sean. It's just interesting that something reported on so many times there's no hard evidence. Like people at large don't say it's real, but why is there all these stories about it then? Where do they go? Why isn't it on the NHS for melancholy? Yes, should be. I'm right.

Excellent. Well, it's time to do a couple of plug-a-roos here. If you'll indulge us and listen to the end of the podcast, don't you flipping go anywhere yet? Don't you go anywhere. Don't do it. The good material is still to come, starting with, Michael, there's a shop, right? You're damn right.

If you go to your web browser of choice and type in the magical words, videosofficial.com and head over to our little shop section. You'll be greeted with a bounty of goodies. Oh, actually, we hit 100 orders now on our shop the other day, so thank you. Oh, brilliant. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you want to get us closer to that one million order number, which we're aiming for, you can jump on the website where you'll find t-shirts, cap, stickers, mug, and hoodie. What a delight. It's got all your favorite Vidyat's things on it, like Meet Face, the PS1 logo, and that's the two, that's the two best

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poddiots.com. Join Podsquad for next episode. We appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Peter, what's out on Vidiots this week five years ago? Well, this week and including the extra week that we've got to deal with here, because we're doing an episode a bit late. We have launched the channel. And we're like three weeks into it. So we began with Worst Games Ever, Prison Break, the Conspiracy, which is now on limited ads. Welcome to Vidyat's.

In the spotlight, Crossing Souls. Vidiates, welcome and Q&A extravaganza. That's the one that's got loads of views because the thumbnail says, Why Did You Leave What Culture? Yes. Post some tat number one. Prove it. Cooking,

Number 3, Part 1. We've got the Paris vlog. What's Next DeFocus, 2018. Memory cards for February the 12th, featuring State of Emergency, Aliens, Colonial Marines, Game Boy Advance SP. We've got Prove it, Cooking Mama 3, Part 2. In the spotlight, Vampire, which is one we saw at What's Next, DeFocus. Did that game ever come out? What's that?

Vampire? Yeah, I did, yeah. Or vampire? Yes, it did. It did come up. I think it was fine. It was always. It was fine.

It was fine when we went to see it as well. It was just fine. I remember being sat in that dark room playing the game. I had very little interest in it. And so I just tried to like fuck around and break the game. And the creators looked at me quite sternly. I don't think they were happy with me dicking around with their hard work. Anyway, post-on-tapped number two, we've got stickers in the spotlight greed fall.

Nintendo Labo is brilliant. creative fun for all ages. That was a good trip. Still, that was a very fun one. It was. I enjoyed that day. It was a good day. Oh, and we had that fancy car.

We went in a really nice car to London. It had water bottles in it, didn't it? It had water. I mean, now you get that in all Ubers, but back then it seemed quite fancy. We got to ride in the fancy car three times in the end, didn't we? It was BAFTA, the Lara Croft, Tomb Raider thing, and Labo. oh yeah i was thinking i think it was actually bafta my what i'm thinking of for the fancy car but maybe it was the same fancy car always i don't really remember um yeah uh then we've also got

in the spotlight call of cathulu the official video game prove it cooking number three live action challenge where we made the pizza our first cooking foray uh in the spotlight a plague tale innocence all these in the spotlights were from that paris event uh then we have memory cards for February the 19th, which was the PS4, Star Fox and Metal Gay Rising. And then finally, five ways to know if Toad from Mario is secretly seeing your wife. Yes, a crowning moment of the channel. That was one. That was certainly a video that we produced while we were there.

Wow, what a promising start to a great channel that still lives strong today. Are you able to see on the dashboard, Peter, how many subscribers we've lost? in the past 28 days. Let's see. Can we guess? Can we guess? Can we guess how many? I want to say 250.

I think we've lost 57. I'm trying to find... Where is it? We're not saying on the dashboard? It doesn't say on the front page. Oh, here we go. Well, I tell you, it's better than the last 28 days. We've got an upwards green arrow.

What? because we only lost minus seven, we only lost seven subscribers. Yes, that's not bad. That's not bad. For a channel that uploads twice a month and it's a static picture, we're doing okay. It says that our subscriber count has increased 86% more than in the previous 28 days. I think what that means is... The losses are that much better.

It's 86% smaller, yeah, the loss. Jesus. Oh, fucking Christ. I want to see how many we've bled since the channel. Oh, you're going to get sad. It's going to make you sad. No, this is funny. That's not bad, actually.

Do you want to take a guess since 2019? How many we've lost? Three or four k-k-k-eat. Peter was bang on. 5,000. Whoa. That wasn't me peaking, I promise. Peeping.

Yeah, that's not bad. I can live with that. Yeah, that's not too bad We continually lose Twitter followers as well For a similar reason, I think Because we just post random shit on there now But even so Just post photos once a fortnight

Yeah The real ones, they know The real hardcore You know, not those fair weather Listeners or viewers or followers We don't need that People were saying in the comments of a recent episode Where we talked about

Where people switch off at the outro We said, If you listened, I think it was the secret question. We were saying, if you listen right to the end, let us know. And there were a bunch of comments saying, I do. I guess it's a slight bias in the sampling there because everyone who doesn't didn't know to say the comments that they don't. Well, there were so many comments saying that they didn't.

Nobody said that they don't. Nobody said they didn't listen to the end. Because I'm guilty of that. I know my podcasts that I listen to and I know when they're starting to wind up and I know even the sections I'm not interested in. It's just a time thing. It's no disrespect to the person making the podcast. There's just too much content out there.

But it's all important metrics. It's good to know. Wonderful. Well, Mikey, where are you on the internet? At Parrot Boy on Twitter, where I also continue to bleed subscribers. You can go and check it out. What have I got on there?

Oh, just me screaming at a building. That's nice. Go to check out a video of me shouting at an art installation. For context. Yeah, there's a light festival in Bristol, and one of the installations was someone put a microphone in front of a building and the building, each window of the building had, like, lights in it.

And the building would light up and react to what you were saying. And everyone was like, going up, saying little phrases, and I just chose to scream down the mic. Brilliant. How loud can I be in this building? It's art. It's actually art this time. Peter? Yes.

Where are we on the internet? We are at Team Triple Jump, both Ben and I and also Ashton Matthews putting together video game related content and also various bits of silliness. But you can also follow us separately on social media on Twitter at Confused underscore Dude and at That Peter Austin. Excellent stuff. Well, why not leave us a five-star review on your platform of choice? It helps something to do with Al Gore's rhythms.

We would really appreciate it. It does help a lot, I think. And that feels like the right thing to say, doesn't it? It helps a lot. It's all good. It's all like healthy internet stuff. And it's free to do that. That would be really great.

You know, we know times are tough. You maybe cannot support on Pod Squad or through the shop. Leave us a five-star review. Yeah, if you like. That'd be great. We'd really appreciate that. Do we have a final question before we fuck off? What animals could you be in a fight?

if you go on the thread or just do some Googling you'll find the full list let us know where down the list you draw the line that's a good one where do I draw the line I already drew the line at Rat didn't I

so I fell at the first hurdle I think I could take a gorilla I think I could do it I've been thinking about it I think I could do it rip that costume off that thing yeah there's a man in there I feel like if I really worked on my technique

I could probably beat a king cobra if you did the right thing but if you made one false move you would be dead and also above King Cobra as in arguably easier to fight is chimpanzee which I would absolutely not define

no no terrifying no thank you well thank you so much for listening slash watching everybody we will see you in a fortnight's time look after yourselves goodbye

bye bye goodbye goodbye Thank you.