The Luke and Pete Show - Do you know where Alaska is?
Episode Date: April 14, 2022The two “fashion gurus” we have access to are back! And they're tackling a major problem: how do you dress fashionably as a 40-year-old man?Elsewhere, Pete gets confused by the concept of Alaska a...nd Luke reads a dramatic email that at first glance is about a sofa but hides a whole lot more...Do you have a dramatic tale to share? Email: hello@lukeandpeteshow.com or you can get in touch on Twitter or Instagram: @lukeandpeteshow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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It's the Mother Flippin' Luke and Pete Show!
Heading into what can only be described as Good Friday.
Luke, are you planning to have a good Friday?
Yeah, I mean, I love the time off, to be honest.
Right, OK, we don't really get the time off though
do we i know in our game it depends doesn't it i mean if you're booked in to do what you're booked
in to do then you know the the the um listen mate the world of um endless entertainment that is
stacking podcasting means that you know you just gotta take the rough with the smooth but sometimes
you get a time off if it's a bank holiday.
And I think we've got another big bank holiday weekend coming up.
Is that for the Queen?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What's the Queen doing?
Big Jubilee, my friend.
Big Jubilee.
I mean, she's very old now, isn't she?
Yeah, she's done very well.
I mean, you've got to be honest.
I mean, whatever your feelings on the constitutional question,
you have to really take your hat off to someone who served for that amount of time doing anything.
You know?
It's like, you know, Bruce Forsythe started doing stuff,
and he was doing stuff for so long that you wouldn't even be able to find your elderly relatives
saying that they remembered him when he was before, remember TV before he was on it.
Like, David Attenborough's like that.
David Attenborough basically invented modern TV, didn't he?
He was like the commissioning agent of the BBC in like 1920.
Yeah.
Not 1920.
He created it effectively, didn't he?
Yeah.
So like some of these people have just been around forever.
Do you think you'll be around forever, Pete?
No, God, no.
I'm on the way out.
I've gone to seed already.
Gone to seed. I've just to seed already. Got to seed.
I've just googled
five facts about Good Friday.
And I would just like to... Look,
Christianity gets us a kick in a lot,
right? I'm just
saying, guys, you need
to work on your SEO, because none
of these fucking sites talking about
five facts about Good Friday and Easter
are interesting. they're so
boring give us some interesting silly facts that i can meme or tell my friends i don't i don't care
about maundy thursday i mean this is the day that the show comes out maundy thursday um it's derived
from the latin word mandatum the commandment and the term refers to the commandment
given by Jesus at the last supper
I mean, just
give us something sexy, give us something
interesting, I'm sure it is interesting to a lot of
people, I'm just not, where the
words come from, I don't care, I want to know
about the man who only ate eggs
for a month and died, that's what I want
I want to know it
you won't believe what John the Baptist looks like now.
Exactly, that's what I want.
I thought, could I just say,
I'm not very versed in this world at all.
I know a bit more than you do
because you didn't even know that Jesus was crucified.
But I thought that Maundy Thursday
was something to do with the washing of Jesus' feet
before he was crucified.
Right, okay.
So they did it on...
I mean, he's going to scuff up his feet before it gets to Friday, no?
Yeah, I mean, maybe the last thing Thursday before he went to bed.
Washed his...
Was it the...
Was it...
Mary, the other Mary was washing his feet
and wiping the oil away with her hair or something like that, wasn't it?
Do you remember how Jesusesus um was um born pete do you remember what happened at the jesus at the um
at the birth of jesus christ i think a log flume was involved
three wise men what do you mean yeah i remember that what did you learn about it at school when
you get to do like a nativity play right? What did you learn happened? Riding on a donkey into town.
Hey, riding on a donkey into town.
What a sight to see the boy of Galilee riding on a donkey into town.
There are people everywhere who are absolutely delighted
that you've turned that into some kind of
End of the Pier type, like George Formby style rendition.
Want a sight to see the donkey out of wee?
Can I just say, speaking
of George Formby,
absolutely
problematic.
Okay. I don't know this.
Did he... No, it's just
the song he's most famous for
when I'm cleaning windows.
When I'm cleaning windows, right? The lyrics.
Is it like,
is it like what the butler saw kind of song?
I've seen Miss Thompson in her flat
take off her shoes,
her coat and her hat.
I've seen her take off more than that
when I'm cleaning windows.
Oh, okay.
Right.
But do you think,
so do you think it's just
because it was so long ago?
Do you think it's just a bit,
it was just like a little bit of harmless fun?
Or do you think it's genuinely, that's quite sinister like a little bit of harmless fun do you think it's genuinely that's quite sinister isn't it like it reminds me of the video you sent me
recently of a google map the guy going through google maps uh going down the street on street
view turning around and seeing a man with his penis in his hand in his living room it's like
it's a bit like that but in like the 1940s it's very public that one isn't it i mean if you like
it because my dad
sent me it was like a just a little facebook thing sort of saying look for this hotel on google maps
and then go two doors to the left and there's a person in the window have a look but by the time
i'd done that someone at google had clearly censored it um which is funny because like
we all know what's under there now it's a man having a bit of afternoon delight.
But it's a very public road.
It's a very open road.
Just him by himself.
Yeah, I think the guy has to be a pervert, surely.
Whacking away.
It's probably why he's moving house.
What, is there a for sale sign?
Yeah, it's a for sale sign, yeah.
This is my last will and testament to this residential property.
He's a pariah he's disgusting
yeah
it's a shame
I
yeah it's a shame
really
it is a little
George for me
when I'm cleaning
windows
I thought you said
he was going to be
problematic in his
private life though
I have no idea
about that
it's not
he died
he literally died
in like the 60s
I think he died
quite young
so
I just find it quite,
to me it's quite interesting to put yourself in the mindset
of people who would enjoy that song
because ostensibly it's quite a good song.
It's quite catchy and stuff, right?
And I just think to myself,
I can't remember, I don't know when the song came out.
It must have been in the 30s or the 40s.
What do people,
how do people react to that at the time?
Do they think, okay, that's just funny, isn't it?
That's a perk of being a window cleaner.
Because there was all those movies in the 70s, weren't there?
Yeah.
Like Confessions of a Window Cleaner and stuff.
And it's a bit like...
But really, when you look at it, it's...
Really, it's just one of those movies.
So, for example, Confessions of a Window Cleaner.
All you've got to do is change the lighting and the poster,
and that's a horror movie.
Yeah, exactly.
And, you know, the Mum Out of the Bisto advert was on it as well.
Was she? She was.
Linda Bellingham, is that her name?
Linda Bellingham. Yeah.
She was in it, I didn't recall, one of them. And wasn't...
Oh, it was
Sherry Blair's
dad was in A Lot of the Money.
Really? Yes.
I've never heard that. Is it Sherry Booth?
What was his... Yeah, they were Sherry Booth what was his yeah
Anthony Booth
I think he was in
a lot of them as well
yeah
he was in
he was in
Till Death Us Do Part
wasn't he
oh right okay
yeah again
that's problematic
fucking hell
speaking of old men
on the telly
the weird thing
so before the
Oscars we're still talking about this fucking thing
before the Oscars
the thing that reminded me about the Chris Rock
and Will Smith thing, the day
that that happened
Will Smith, because I saw
this in my timeline, the day before
the actual Oscars thing happened
the slap happened
somebody pointed, there's a Twitter page
that's one foot in the grave, Victor Meldrew.
What was the guy who played Victor Meldrew?
His name was Richard Wilson, wasn't it?
Richard Wilson, yeah, Richard Wilson.
Basically, Richard Wilson was surprisingly young
when he started doing that TV show.
One foot in the grave.
One foot in the Grave.
So Will Smith, who's about
50 maybe?
If that, he
was the same age. He was on the site
basically saying, congratulations Will Smith, you've
just made your
One Foot in the Grave age
in that you are the same age as
Richard Wilson. That's mad.
When he started
that TV show. I just looked it up when you were saying that. So Richard Wilson was That's mad. It's absolutely mad. When he started.
Yeah, because I just looked it up when you were saying that.
So Richard Wilson was 53 when he started.
53.
And Wilson was also 53.
Yeah, crazy, isn't it?
Absolutely crazy.
Yeah, I think there's definitely something about like,
so I'll see pictures of my granddad when he's like 25, right?
Just come out of the army or whatever, or whatever it'll be.
And he's dressed like for a formal occasion and he just looks
he looks fine
he looks great
but he just looks
really old
is it kind of selective
that we sort of see people
dressed all nice
and dressed all formally
because you would
you know pictures
were quite expensive
back in the day
and you'd only take pictures
when you were dressed
all nice and that
now it's so disposable
there's just a load of
you know
there's something about that generation's just a lot of, you know, cock shots and hammer shots and stuff.
There's something about that generation that always did kind of dress quite smart, right?
Yeah.
So I can remember when my granddad got his first pair of jeans.
And it was a big...
It was like a big debate.
Big street party.
Yeah, so I must...
Yeah, we all took the day off.
I must have been probably...
I think I was at uni.
Right.
So it's probably 20 years ago, right?
And my nan had always used a United Nations style veto in the family
to stop anyone buying him jeans for Christmas.
And he really wanted a pair of jeans, right?
Yeah.
And so at this point, he's going to be probably pushing 70.
Let Grandad wear jeans.
So anyway, he eventually got some, and he was all about that.
But my point being that people used to dress a lot differently then.
But it's about perception as well.
Because when I was...
So when I first moved to London, I was 23.
And I'm doing...
I had a job, and there's a lot of young people working there
but you'd get like a manager
who would be
maybe 28, 30
and you'd be like fucking hell they're old
but you wouldn't see yourself as the same
as them
I bought a new
when I was away and I had a couple
of tequila drinks
someone flagged up there was a lot of JLeague stuff going on eBay and I was away and I had a couple of tequila drinks I someone flagged up
there was a lot of
J. Lee stuff going on
eBay and I was like
oh shit
oh shit
here we go again
and I bought
like a couple of tops
and a jacket
right
I'm wearing that jacket now
it's orange
bright fucking orange
right
I can see that yeah
and
I'm worried that
no one has
taken the piss out of it
yeah which makes me think that people are just doing that And I'm worried that no one has taken the piss out of it. Yeah.
Which makes me think that people are just doing that themselves.
No, but that's the thing, isn't it?
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If I could get away with it,
people would happily take the piss out of it to my face.
But since no one's mentioned it, I'm like,
oh, fuck, it's one of those ones where...
When I see you, I'll probably will, though.
Did you see what Pete's wearing?
I probably will.
When I see you I probably will
you would get involved but you're a peer and I don't
value your opinion
so that's absolutely fair
Stackers are gerontocracy
I find that
I'm always quite conscious of the idea
that our team at Stackers obviously
all of them are a lot younger than us
and I'm under no illusions at all that when we're
not around they're kind of doing their thing and you know you're probably taking a piss and i've
obviously got no problem with that whatsoever but it's kind of interesting isn't it because
what what i don't think what's talked about i said what's not talked about enough i mean there
are far more important things to worry about so it's probably why that you know when you're when
you're a guy of our age it's actually quite difficult to dress
in a way that people aren't going to take the piss out of you because like i'll tell you why
because so you can either go down a couple of different routes you can go on the really kind
of smart all the time formal i'm almost like a shitty member a shittier member of the peaky
blinders and that's a little bit tragic in its own way but also really admin heavy yes because
you've got a lot of ironing yeah you've got clean you yeah you've got to try clean your clothes you've got to make sure they
fit you well you know all this kind of stuff goes on and you've and it's really you've probably
taken off half hour each morning out of bed just to start that out yeah or you can go on the total
like kind of trendy route which obviously comes with its own pitfalls street what the fuck is that
41 year old man doing dressing like that?
Or you can go on the complete schlubby kind of Mark Zuckerberg
always wear the same thing every day thing,
which apparently makes you a complete maniac.
So I don't really know if there's many options
that are good options for blokes of our age.
It's the least bad option that you go for, I think.
Won't anyone think of us for crying out loud
i do think obviously we have it great and i'm not complaining because you know there's loads
of great things about it and there are far more important things to worry about but for you it's
a bit different because you're a little bit more eccentric than me but when i walk down the high
street or my menopause yeah it's been going on for quite some time now peri menopause
yeah but when you walk down the street looking to go buy some clothes
or you go online to try and find some,
I mean, what shop am I supposed to go to?
Well, I used to just go, look, I know my size and top, man.
There are some less tragic stuff.
That's too young, mate.
It's not too...
If you're just buying daft T-shirts and stuff,
like, you just...
You know your size.
Buy some T-shirts.
Go and get some trousers.
You know, their tailored stuff was alright, but then that
fucking disappeared, now you've got to do everything online
and that's a nightmare. Listen, the three
options you've got, formal tragic,
trendy tragic, maniac
tragic. You've gone trendy
tragic. I've gone trendy tragic. I've kind of gone
maniac tragic, and there's no
good options here. It's impossible.
I've gone mothball eBay tragic.
Also, the other thing I've thought is that
I'm not the fattest man in the world
and nor am I the slimmest.
I don't think anything in Topman fits me anyway.
No, you get the
biggin' area, don't you?
I'm not going in there. I'm not going in the
what's it called? The small biggins. Go for the small biggins.
What do they call it? High and Mighty or
something? High and Mighty.
I'm not going in there.
But when you get to What do they call it? High and Mighty or something? High and Mighty. I'm not going there. For real, High and Mighty.
But when you get to our edge and you're talking to young people,
I was talking to Sarah's niece and nephew,
and the nephew's like 18, and I can kind of understand him,
but there's a younger one who's about 14, a young lass, uh it's hilarious because she looks exactly like sarah it's really funny she looks like sarah's daughter um and uh i i just
feel completely useless to that generation that kind of age so i've got nothing not just that
i don't know any of your references i I don't know who Machine Gun Kelly is.
I know who he is, but I just don't know what he does.
I just don't know what you're all about.
It was only when she said,
oh, I've got to do a PowerPoint on Hitler's rise to power.
I was like, right, I'm there.
Six million unemployed.
The collapse of the Renton Mark.
The first World War. General love of anti rent mark. The first World War.
General love of anti-Semitism.
I had everything.
I had it all there.
Bang, bang, bang.
At the end of that, she just went,
Crystal knocked.
At the end, she just went,
I just want to use your photo.
Oh, dear.
So I can do that.
So look, if any of you kids are listening,
if you need a PowerPoint done
about Hitler's rise to power,
the Backstairs Intrigue, the Reichstag fire, I'm there.
Anything outside of that, nothing.
Can you just stop this, please?
I'll tip a toe on Robert Peel's corn laws, if you want.
The Peel massacre.
The Peel, yes, please, i would like some help with my project
did she turn you down or say yeah that'd be great thanks for your help i think she was just
confused at the ferocity of which of which i was able to sort of recount it all yeah she she she
thought i don't think he's been that energetic for about 15 years what what i thought you were
a big um help help kids with their computer man.
That was your thing, wasn't it?
Well, I mean, the person next door,
his mum texted me going,
there's something wrong with the computer
at like 10 o'clock on Saturday night.
I was like, I'm not going to be that person.
I'm not tech support, man.
I'll build your computer.
I'm not going to fix my terrible work.
It's easy for me with my niece and nephew
because one of them is a baby
and my niece is six.
You'd have to explain who Hitler was first,
wouldn't you?
Well, I don't do that
because she's six.
But we should get away with that.
She's great at this age
because I can just say to her stuff like,
hey, do you know what we should do?
And she'll be like, what?
And I'll be like, why don't we replace all the food
in your mum's cupboards with bogeys?
And she'll think it's the funniest thing ever.
Oh, that's a nice technique.
Do you know what I mean?
Just anything ridiculous like that.
Where the punchline is bogeys.
Yeah, or you just go, I look in your ear
and I can see your brain and your brain's actually a poo.
She thinks it's the funniest thing ever.
And she's going to grow out of that at some point
and then I'm going to be completely bereft.
I'll have to move straight on to the nephew he's young completely
disagree yeah that's basically a couple of the questions and when when you job interview here
at stack yeah exactly it's your brain or bogeys anyway on that note which while we check pizza
brain uh let's take a quick break when we come back, Peter, we are going to do that email
that I promised a while back.
It's a really good one about, yeah, it's essentially
at first glance about a sofa, but it becomes about
a lot more than that.
So we'll see you just the other side of this.
It's Luke and Pete Shaw.
How you doing?
It's a Thursday, so we're doing batteries.
Oh, yeah.
I forgot about batteries.
I didn't even pre-prep the batteries before the fucking break.
Yes, Lukey Moore falling off the admin mountain.
Yes.
Is it a mountain?
Just a mountain of paper.
Just a mountain of paper.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
We found three new players last time around, didn't we?
We did.
Yeah, we did.
All right, actually, yeah.
Are you ready with the old search bar?
I am ready.
Tell people what happens if they haven't heard this before.
Just tell them how we do it.
I think explaining it
diminishes it, to be honest.
Batteries. We've all got them.
We've all got them in our lives, unless you're some kind of outdoor
woodsman, or woodswoman,
or woodsperson.
Just find them. Have a look at them,
read what the brand is,
and if it sounds a bit obscure and a bit cool,
send us an email, helloatlookandpeachshow.com.
Take a picture and we'll figure out
whether we've featured the brand in question before.
That's what we do every Thursday on The Luke and Peach Show.
Heather's got in touch. Hello, Heather.
Hey-o! I am a long-time listener,
first-time emailer, blah, blah, blah,
writing to you from interior Alaska.
So you could have been,
could have been an outdoors person, Heather.
As I struggle through another dark and cold March morning
at a balmy minus 17 Fahrenheit, minus 23 Celsius,
the remote for the literal light of my life,
my 10,000 lux four sun lamp
that keeps me sane throughout the winter died.
I found these little bra sonics inside.
Maybe they are a new player
or maybe they are actually incognito tiny brassieres for sound.
Whichever, I hope you are both having a lovely spring
in the land that spring is actually a season.
Heather, hang in there, mate.
I hope you manage to get some batteries for your sun lamp.
I hope you don't have the...
I mean, presumably if most of the seasons are the same
and then there's one season in the middle that's quite warm,
presumably you wouldn't get seasonal affective disorder.
You'd just be like, that's just one big season, isn't it, really?
Pete, the sun doesn't come up, you fucking idiot.
What do you mean?
It's dark all the time.
That's why she's travelling.
Yeah, but in the summer.
Yeah, but I mean, it's dark all the time, mate.
Yeah, but it's another dark and cold March morning.
It doesn't stay dark, does it?
It doesn't have to.
I realise there are places in Sweden and places in Norway
and places in Finland up the north, that that happens, fine.
But that doesn't necessarily have to happen all the way in Alaska.
We don't know where Alaska is.
We don't know where in Alaska this person is.
But we do know where Alaska is.
It's like when I was reading that wrestling card
that they had all of the catchphrases of the wrestlers
and, like, you know, Macho Man Ravi Savage is like,
hey, I'm Macho Man Ravi Savage.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And all the others had all their catchphrases
and then General Adnan who says,
untranslatable because it is in Arabic.
It's such a 90s thing to do.
It's very disrespectful.
How are they going to translate it?
Oh, wow.
Anyway, Heather,
I am very sympathetic about your part,
even if Pete isn't,
and I hope you get through.
Yeah.
Pete, it's a mad mad mad place to live depending on
exactly where she is in Alaska but I think
I'm right in saying it'll be 24 hours darkness
for six months of the year and then 24 hours light
for six months of the year. I am streaming
a webcam
in Alaska let's see if it's dark
or whether it's light
it's actually quite dark mind you
should be shouldn't it? It's about 4am it's dark or whether it's light. Oh yeah, it is actually quite dark. Mind you, should be, shouldn't it?
About 4am. It's 3am.
I'm in the Lake Hood
seaplane base in Anchorage in Alaska
and it looks bloody beautiful
to be quite frank. So I can't
give Heather good news I'm afraid. So you are the
sixth person to send in Brasonics.
The most recent of those before you
was on March the 30th of last year.
Our friend Dean sent them in, Dean Hudson.
So keep trying.
Sorry about that, not to bring you better news,
but it would be great to know if you've seen a moose
as big as the one I was talking about earlier in the week in Alaska
and what the most amazing animals you've seen are
because I'm led to believe it's an amazing place for that.
So hopefully that will be a bit of a salve to the wound
that you've not got a new player entering this particular game.
Yeah.
Sorry, I was just looking at bears on the webcam.
Fair enough.
On the webcam, live.
That's amazing.
Live bears.
They always seem to be in frame.
It's amazing.
It must kind of follow them around or something,
but it's wonderful.
Yeah, Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, Alaska.
Interesting.
Started in 2021.
All right, got a message from Ben.
Even the Pete and the Luke I have access to.
I had to buy an automated fly spray today
and found these beauts.
Look like a Duracell, but last like a four well.
F-O-R-E, well.
Not sure I've heard of these ones being brought up before.
Thank you, Ben, for your four wells from New Zealand.
Congratulations to you, Ben.
They are indeed a new player,
all the way from the South Island of New Zealand.
We have never had anyone send four well batteries in
to the Luke and Pete show.
That is a new player entering the game.
Congratulations.
Smashing stuff.
Let's move straight on to Aaron.
Hello, Aaron from Louisiana.
I've got a new scale in the mail today.
A lot of people with these scales.
I hope they're using them for good, not evil.
I was blessed with these bad boys.
Now, I don't know whether they've been submitted already,
but here's hoping.
I'd love to have an addition added to the ever-growing list
of out there brands.
Love the banter.
Take care, guys.
Kendall, do we indulge in banter?
Kendall is the battery brand you need to be searching.
Kendall, listen, you're going to have to stop wasting our time, Aaron,
because Kendall, this is the 14th time that Kendals have been sent in.
They've been sent in as recently as February
and twice in January of this year.
So there's new players
and there's ones that just miss out being new players
and then there's this.
I'm afraid it really is as stark as that for you, Aaron.
Not a new player.
Aaron, sorry.
Get back to, yeah, get back to Church Point.
Get back to Elton.
Get back to Bazil, Eunice, Williams, Evangelich.
It's just names, isn't it?
New Orleans.
Outside Lafayette, there's just loads of reddle.
It's just names.
They've just taken
a load of people's names
and went,
well,
that'll be the town.
I find it,
do you think it's interesting
that like,
in the US,
they had so many
new places to name,
but then they just named them
after existing places.
I guess it's as love letters
to their previous towns
or whatever,
but it's a bit of a shame,
isn't it?
It feels like it could have
just been a little bit
imaginative.
I don't know, I quite like it. I love a lafayette or a baton rouge they're crackers yeah yeah i'd love to go there i've never been anywhere around
there it'd be great um anyway thanks for sending your battery brands in we'll do some more of those
next week i do want to do this email that i've been pre-promoting peter that's okay it's quite
a long one but i'll try and get through it as coherently as i can bang it it's from our friend uh actually i can't say his name so i'm not going to do that uh you know who you
are uh and it starts a little bit like this it says hello to luke and the pete your recent
discussion of pete's misadventure with a tv stand on facebook marketplace reminded me of the time
the wife i have access to and i chose to turn
informants for the united states postal inspection service wow at the time we were living in
williamsburg virginia where we met and the home of colonel sorry colonial williamsburg the place
many american children are brought to during the miserably hot and humid virginia summer
to see how colonists lived you can shoot a musket spin yarn step in a frankly astounding amount of
horse manure and possibly contract a mosquito-borne illness or suffer heat stroke just like the early
american colonialists colonialists um the wi-fi have access to and i were trying to sell our white
leather couch brackets i know on a marketplace app called Let Go
when we received an answer from a potential buyer
in North Carolina, which is less than three hours away.
I was a lowly line cook at the time
and my wife had just begun her studies to become a counselor
and the dogs we have access to
weren't really pulling their weight in terms of contributing.
So the $750 we were hoping to get from the sale
was an unexpected boost for
us and when the potential buyer told us he would cover the transportation and throw on an extra 500
for the trouble of us being available when it got picked up it seemed even better it was agreed he
would mail us a certified check for the amount in question and when the funds had cleared a mover
would come back to pick up the couch imagine Imagine our surprise then when a week later, a certified check for $15,000 from the Bank of Southern California appeared at our house with a letter from our potential buyer.
The letter informed us that he, the buyer, had been forced to deploy early to his army posting.
So it's a star, isn't it?
Yeah, and as such was arranging the move of
household uh remotely he asked us to do him the favor of paying the moving company for the job
on his behalf and for our trouble would pay us an additional 750 bringing the total up to two
thousand dollars which would have been more than a month's rent and utilities at the time
i was to deposit the check and pay thirteen thousand dollars to the moving company and keep
the other two for myself at this point confronted with a check from a bank and the buyer now unable to be contacted or verified by means anything else other than email,
both I and the wife I have access to began to grow suspicious.
But our desire to be rid of this object and the possibility of putting a bit away for a rainy day
since we were moving to a much smaller apartment in DC were strong,
so I decided to see what my local bank branch thought
of it. I spoke to the bank manager and she told me immediately it was likely a fraudulent check
and then indeed confirmed there was no Bank of Southern California. She offered to dispose of
it or told me that occasionally state or federal government offices offered rewards for turning in
checks or scams that led to fraud indictments we figured why not after calling the
fraud hotline for the virginia department of commerce we were directed to the local office
of the united states postal inspection service or us piss um i know it seems easy to take the piss
out of them it is they are basically the u.s government equivalent of the europa conference
league they did however seem excited i've been able to make actual contact with the buyer
as we had texted a few times and asked me to come to the office to file a report after taking down the
report the agent in charge asked if i'd be willing to further assist them in their case as i was not
the first to bring this activity to their attention so after a brief call to my wife i told her we
were going to be part of a sting and made sure she was okay with that as she agreed and then we made
contact with my buyer via email to confirm deposit of the check and settled in to wait for the reply
which would hopefully help them in some way and result in our collecting the reward the agents
explained to me that often the scheme is to get the seller to deposit the check and then pay out
the funds as soon as the account is credited before the fraud is noticed they said it's a
fairly common grift and can be run from almost anywhere in the country after waiting about an hour they asked me to get in contact with them to see how he or she
re-established contact and they sent me on my way sadly the individual never contacted us again and
the case was never closed ending my career as a federal informant hopefully for good
but on the positive side the wife and i were rewarded for our honesty and were given a check
for 250 from uncle Sam and the letter
of appreciation from
the Postmaster
General.
From the Bank of
California.
Yeah.
We were never able
to sell the bloody
couch and after
staring down the
six flights of
stairs it would have
taken to move the
nine foot monstrosity
I pushed it out of
our third floor
window.
Railing over the
railing after
warning our
downstairs neighbours
and crucially while
the Wi-Fi I have access to wasn't home. It's basically what I did with my Christmas tree. So good on you. railing over the railing after warning our downstairs neighbours and crucially while the wifi
I have access to
wasn't home
it's basically
what I did
with my Christmas tree
so good on you
keep up the great work
appreciate the shows
I should probably
disguise my name
in some way
to prevent a backlash
from the hardened
and still at large
fraudster
but Pete will probably
read it out anyway
all the best
Anonymous
so that is
John Smith
in Virginia
no I'm only joking
in Little Bartley or I forgot'm only joking in Little Bartley
Domingo in Little Oakley
these grifts are still very much prevalent
whenever there's more money on offer
than something is worth
or whenever there's like
for your trouble kind of thing
it's always just bullshit mate
nobody does that
I mean I probably would do that
probably people think I'm dodgy.
But yeah, people really do not go the extra mile
and give you extra money.
Didn't you end up giving something away for free
because you scratched it?
That wasn't at the TV stand?
Yeah, TV stand on the Fissett Marketplace.
But that was for free.
You lost your bottle, didn't you?
You lost your bottle, mate.
Absolutely lost my bottle.
But it reminds me of...
I just like the idea of writing a check
for a bank that just doesn't exist.
It's wonderful, eh?
When the Americans were moving out,
like transitioning the post-war kind of peace democracy
in sort of inaction that was the Japanese,
the island of Japan.
Obviously, after the war,
the Allied or certainly the US service people were over there and occupying it.
And people were just on the fucking grift all the time.
A lot of people in poverty and stuff.
And a lot of ex-American Marines and stuff
would just make up fucking...
Because converting yen to dollar was so rare and so difficult,
people would just make these fake cheques
and just sort of go, it's the Bank of Texas.
Here's a $30,000 cheque for the Bank of Texas
and they'd just sell it to a Yakuza member or a gangster
for like 10% of the actual financial worth of that 30 grand.
And they'd know that it was fake,
but they understood that they could sell it onto someone else
for the same amount, for more money,
because yen to dollar conversions were illegal at the time.
So it was kind of really...
So dollars was obviously the only stable financial token around.
And it was just really funny that
people would just
make up these banks
and sell
sell their own checks
sell this to your niece
for her homework
she'd be loving that
and the only
and the only person
who gets screwed
it's like
it's like airline seats
it's a Ponzi scheme
you know
the first person
who gets them
he enjoys the sit down
and the next person
enjoys the sit down
and lay back
and then the person
in the back of the plane
they get fucked
yeah
the trick is to not
be the person
in the final row yeah exactly the person holding the check at the end of it plane, they get fucked. Yeah, the trick is to not be the person in the final row.
Yeah, exactly.
The person holding the cheque at the end of it,
a £30,000 cheque that's absolutely worthless,
they're the ones who are in trouble.
But there we go.
Fantastic story.
And I hope you're safe in your location right now.
Yeah, give us an update on how it's going
and witness protection after that.
Exactly.
High stakes fraud investigation states witness.
Let's get out of here
Peter.
We'll come back on
Monday of course.
We hope people have a
lovely weekend don't we?
Just how good a weekend
do you hope people have
Pete?
Medium.
Easter isn't it?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Probably a lot of you
will have an extra day
off so don't go crazy.
Don't hurt yourselves.
Alright?
Good tip.
Coming from you that is. In that jumper. Don't hurt yourselves. All right? Good tip. It's coming from you, that is.
You're in that jumper.
See you next time.
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