The Luke and Pete Show - Episode 1: Japanese Ghosts and a Surplus of Molasses

Episode Date: June 4, 2017

In the very first episode of Luke and Pete's Summer, our two eponymous heroes take a rip-roaring tour around Pete's favourite Japanese ghosts (including one that performs a horrendous act upon its vic...tims), suggest the type of correspondence they want from you, the listener, and bring their ideas to the table for an all-new encyclopedia CD-Rom, including a frankly ridiculous incident that befell the poor people of Boston in the early 20th century.Say hello! hello@lukeandpeteshow.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Own each step with Peloton. From their pop runs to walk and talks, you define what it means to be a runner. Whatever your level, embrace it. Journey starts when you say so. If you've got five minutes or 50, Peloton Tread has workouts you can work in. Or bring your classes with you for outdoor runs, walks, and hikes, led by expert instructors on the Peloton app. Call yourself a runner.
Starting point is 00:00:24 Peloton all-access membership separate. Learn more at onepeloton.ca slash running. Hello there. I'm Pete Donaldson. I'm joined by Mr. Luke Muir. Hello, Luke. Hello, how are you? You're looking good, Luke.
Starting point is 00:00:43 Thank you very much. I'm feeling well. I've turned the heating down in the studio, it was very hot, I was worried that we were going to have to disrobe at some point but we're not going to. Noted, accepted and encouraged. This is Luke and Pete's summer. You'll probably know us from the football
Starting point is 00:00:56 ramble, there's no sugarcoating that, there's no getting away from that. Basically this summer is the first summer we've had off for ages so we thought, no we've paid for that studio, we'll be damned if we're not going to do something with it. And on the show today, we're going to have a little bit of show and tell, we're going to be adding things to
Starting point is 00:01:11 the 90s CD-ROM encyclopedia in Carter, and we're going to get to the bottom of life's mysteries. For example, who buys perfumes on planes? Who puts that little square of carpet in hotel safes? And I'd first like to introduce our sponsor, Hot Child Care. If you've tried hot yoga, now treat your offspring to the world's first
Starting point is 00:01:28 28 degree nursery. I didn't sign that off. It's happening though, isn't it? Yeah. You alright, Luke? Yeah, I'm pretty well, thanks. We're just going to spend our summer messing about, trying to throw things at each other that fascinate and enthrall us each. I mean, put it another way, you mentioned earlier we've paid for the studio
Starting point is 00:01:43 time, we've got a summer off. And I might just add to that, if you don't mind, we've got no other interests. No. So we might as well just be together. My wife's accepted it. She's endorsed it.
Starting point is 00:01:53 She's just happy of the time away. You haven't even got a wife. I know. Maybe I'll find a wife over the summer and we can talk about it on this podcast.
Starting point is 00:02:01 Is this what that vehicle, is that what this vehicle is? Find my wife. Sponsored by findmywife.com. Well, listen, coming up first, I believe, Peter, is the section we very, very creatively called Show and Tell. Maybe a hark back to your school days. And, you know, it's not one of those things that people talk about in school days, which is a cliche, oh, show and tell. As far as I'm aware, I mean, I definitely did show and tell. You must have done it too. And what did schools in the north of England do? Well, I, oh, show and tell. As far as I'm aware, I mean, I definitely did show and tell. You must have done it too. What did schools in the north of England do? Well, I didn't do show and tell
Starting point is 00:02:27 because I wasn't part of an American high school. What is wrong with you? What were you up to on the south coast? We definitely called it show and tell, and we definitely did it more, I think, more commonly first or second class or day back after a holiday period. We would just fill our time with writing diaries. Which in my school we'd call a vacation.
Starting point is 00:02:53 Where we'd go to palm springs or uh before we start the new semester i know we would spend most of our time doing like little diaries of what we've done at the weekend yeah we did that as well yeah i would always lie because i had such boring weekends every weekend i'd go to my nan's or every holiday i'd spend like a week at my nan's or something or a few days at my nan's and I'd come back and I'd make up these fantastical stories about going to Woolworths for example yeah and getting there at half past eight when it opened and the staff being so impressed with me getting there so early that they gave me three free video games complete lie yeah the teacher knew it I knew it but she enjoyed my uh thoughtfulness could i ratchet that up a notch um and one of the stories i did when i was a kid at junior school i can remember actively i had a friend good friend of michael james weren't lovely chap uh he lived opposite
Starting point is 00:03:34 me and i was such good friends with him i really you know when you get you're at that age i really want him to be my brother oh but he wasn't obviously i didn't have a brother and i still don't um and um i'm your brother yeah yeah quite yeah and i wrote a story saying that he was my brother but he went to another school oh but the thing is the thing the problem with that is you don't really think of your parents and your teachers actually knowing each other because they're separate they're separate they're what they were called in in the great philosophical theological debates at the time non-overlapping magisteria right but obviously they're not in reality so straight away i mean the first thing that the teacher's going to know about you if you've got a brother or sister or something
Starting point is 00:04:07 and so yeah that fell on deaf ears and i was probably quite embarrassed at the time but i think what that does show pete is that you and i have got quite creative minds but yeah we invent brothers so my my the scale of my lying ambition was probably a bit greater than yours yeah mine was capitalism mine was just getting more than i deserve. I could make up anything I want. Three video games at Woolworths. I think I named each one of them as well. One was Ghostbusters. One of them I think might have been Jet Set Willy 2.
Starting point is 00:04:34 And the other one, I can't remember what the other one is. Well, those two are very solid games. What platform are we talking? Is that X-Pectrum? I'm sure it's CBC 6128. Okay, I had a BBC Micro. Oh, school kids. I know, I know.
Starting point is 00:04:44 Did your mum and dad get it off the school? Yeah, they did. For education? Yeah, because we were poor. Yeah, we were poor, but my dad favoured video games and computers more than... He sold his motorbike for his first computer. A few minutes in,
Starting point is 00:04:57 we're already talking about who was the poorest growing up. So British. Right, shall we move on to the first part of the show? All right, then. Do you want to nip in there first, mate? Like the fox and the box striker that you so regularly are? So this is Sean Taylor. This is me showing you something,
Starting point is 00:05:12 or basically explaining what I've got in my hands. Yeah. Well, basically, you know how I properly bum Japan? I'm back and forth like you wouldn't believe. Well, last time I came back, I bought a book i bought a book rather about um japanese ghosts okay fascinating and like the the japanese idiosyncrasies the craziness didn't just start this century it's been going on for centuries it's crazy it's insane the japanese love ghosts they're obviously a spooky nation they're obsessed with death are there any main differences in what
Starting point is 00:05:42 you would call maybe a japanese type ghost in the sort of ghost traditions we have in the West? I think they're a little bit more creative. Okay. They're certainly a little bit more cartoony, and a lot of Japanese kind of manga and anime and stuff like that are kind of based on these kind of stories. Right. So it's all very historical, and it's all very...
Starting point is 00:06:01 There's a great tradition to storytelling in Japanese culture, as there is obviously in ours as well. But i think it's probably got something to do with the fact that there's a lot of like shintoism in in in their lives and and um heaven is actually quite a glum and like horrible place to be in shintoism it's it's like hades what's the point of that well what do you mean what's the point so why would you aspire to go there i mean well because heaven heaven obviously is a place you aspire to go there, I mean? Well, what... Because heaven obviously is a place you aspire to go to, and therefore it has to be good.
Starting point is 00:06:29 There's just a lot of grieving. Yeah, I don't think... No, I don't think there is an aspirational thing. I think it's just kind of like when you die, you spend the afterlife protecting the people who you know on Earth. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. It's not right.
Starting point is 00:06:42 So Japanese ghosts, then? Yeah, Japanese ghosts. There's just a lot of really creative ghosts. And they each... Are they sort of like Indian-type gods? Like there's many of them? There's billions of them. There's absolutely billions of them.
Starting point is 00:06:53 They're like Pokemon. That's probably what it's based on, to be honest. But they spend their time just doing naughty things or little jobs and stuff like that. But I've sort of isolated two that are really, really fascinating. Okay. The Tenjon Name, right? It combines Tenjo, ceiling, and Name, lick, right?
Starting point is 00:07:14 Yeah. I mean, this is exactly as I'd expect it to go. What do you mean? With Japan. Because that's probably prejudiced, but my idea of Japan is just that I've never been, I've never visited, I know you've been a number of times, I've never been. It is that it's crazy, lots goes on that it doesn't necessarily have any logical explanation to westerners and that to me you've got a japanese ghost stories book there the first one you've brought to the table is one that translates literally to
Starting point is 00:07:35 to ceiling liquor yeah okay that's exactly what this man does so basically uh it licks ceilings uh it comes out of the darkness on cold winter nights and just licks away any accumulated frost or dirt on the ceiling. It's very specific, isn't it? It is very specific. And they're very specialised. They only have sort of one... Yeah, they've all got little jobs. Okay.
Starting point is 00:07:56 It's very strange. So it's almost like a patron saint type vibe, isn't it? What, the patron saint of licking ceilings? Well, there probably is one. There's a patron saint of everything else. There's patron saints for everything, isn't there? When you get a bit of steam in your room, maybe you're having a hot bath or whatever,
Starting point is 00:08:10 and there's steam on the ceiling, it's the saliva of the ceiling liquor. And it's a very nice-looking book. It's essentially a compendium of listing all of the books, all of the ghosts, sorry, that are knocking about. And some beautiful 16th-century drawings of said ghosts as well, that are knocking about. And some beautiful kind of, like, 16th century drawings of said ghosts as well. I definitely recommend it. And, yeah, it just licks away at the ceiling.
Starting point is 00:08:31 If you catch sight of the Tengen army, though, while it's licking away at your ceiling, you die. Right. See, that's another thing I associate with this type of stuff. It's like, I mean, obviously, admittedly, and I will totally sort of admit to this, it's all based on the film I've seen called The Ring. Right, yeah, well, so, you know...
Starting point is 00:08:50 You watch it, then you die. Well, they... Is that the same with all the ghosts, or just this particular one? I think just Japanese literature seems to be filled with... There's a certain word that's not available in any other language, and it's literally testing out your sword
Starting point is 00:09:04 by killing a merchant. Right. And that's it. It's just a word that isn't used for any other part of life, just the act of killing a merchant on a lonely dark path during the dead of night with a sod. I feel like other nations, other languages... Could learn a lot.
Starting point is 00:09:22 Well, yes, but also other languages do a much better line in these really specific meanings of words than english like obviously a classic example be schadenfreude with german the you know taking joy from someone else's misfortune is not as specific as you've mentioned there but we don't really have that we don't we're not really as adept at that in english i think the the foreigners they sort of sit back and take things in don't they we're so mouth-dragging so kind of like we're like oh we the foreigners they sort of sit back and take things in don't they? We're so mouthy and so kind of like we're like
Starting point is 00:09:46 oh we know what's going on this and that this is our language but the other people go well let's find a word for that but we just think we're too good for that
Starting point is 00:09:54 I think. Yeah, no absolutely. The whole point of the ceiling liquor is that if you're tucked away at bed at night and you hear something crawling
Starting point is 00:09:59 along the ceiling just keep your eyes shut tight because the ceiling liquor may get you. Turn his tongue on you. I actually googled the ceiling licker, the, what's his name, Tenjin Army, and the first comment on an article basically detailing the Tenjin Army,
Starting point is 00:10:14 and I'm having loads of pictures, it said, interesting article, do any of the legends say exactly how the Tenjin Army is able to reach the ceiling? That's the first question, isn't it? Did he climb up there i'm on board with a post-death apparition yeah that's only reason for being about is licking the ceiling yeah let's talk logistics let's talk logistics he's got a little cherry picker i mean he could technically since he's a ghost just stick his head his or her I guess
Starting point is 00:10:46 just stick his head through the roof he can stand on the roof or float on the roof stick his head through move his neck you know 180 degrees
Starting point is 00:10:54 and lick away baby yeah second this is taking a turn already I thought it would take a turn but it's taking a turn so quickly get ready for this one I am ready
Starting point is 00:11:03 you have a magical ball in your butt and the kappa want it. Right. Right. Basically, there's two versions of this little ghosty monster, this demon. What's it called? The kappa. Okay. In modern stories, it's actually quite cute and quite harmless.
Starting point is 00:11:21 You'll see it in cartoons quite a lot. But during the Edo period, there were monsters who had a particularly vicious method of killing their victims. It's said that human beings have something in their body called the shirakodama, which translates as small anus ball. Okay.
Starting point is 00:11:38 The ball is nestled either immediately inside the anus or deeper inside the intestines. Either way, the kappa... Wants it. ...have a preferred method of extraction. Right. They basically... This kappa is spitting bricks for this thing to blow up your bum.
Starting point is 00:11:54 Oh, it really wants it. So the kappa consider the shurikodama to be a delicious delicacy, and they eat it as soon as it's removed. And, I mean, there's various kind of depictions of this shurikodama, but, yeah, I mean, there's one that kind of extracts the shurikadama and holds it far away from his face and clearly is disgusted by the item why he's pulled it out in the first place
Starting point is 00:12:14 if he knew it was going to be like that he's like a man who's bought a load of pickled eggs and went oh yeah pickled eggs this is disgusting you feel like you want to say to the capper is this your first one? because if you knew about this are you trying to acquire a taste capper, is this your first one? Because if you knew about this... Are you trying to acquire a taste for this? You've got no one to blame but yourself.
Starting point is 00:12:29 It's like me and snails. Every time I go to a really posh restaurant, I go, snails, please. I hate them. I think everyone says, oh, they just taste of butter. They don't taste of butter, they taste of grass. I would say garlicky grass, yeah. It just tastes like grass. It's disgusting. To go back to your pickled eggs thing, I'm a man who has a voracious appetite for fish and chips i'll go right there's a great one near
Starting point is 00:12:48 i live in south london there's one in my building called um one of your building i know that was the worst thing ever i was like this better be disgusting and i walked in bought a fish supper it was delicious i like you bastards yeah i mean i mean i've i've moved on i'm a homeowner now so i don't worry about that sort of stuff. But... What? You're saying... I wouldn't buy a property with a fish and chip in it, is what I'm saying. Yeah, it's very much your brand, though, isn't it? It would be very strong for my personal brand,
Starting point is 00:13:13 but I've thankfully not gone down that path. But the one near me, down in South London, I should name-check it, really, Kennedy's, is fantastic. Shout-out to Kennedy's. Yeah, but... You're not getting free chips, mate. Well, we'll see.
Starting point is 00:13:24 I'll get free chips anyway by the time I go in there. The thing about fish and chips is that there used to be a tradition when I was younger. When I was sort of young enough, too young to probably go out with my pals on Saturdays,
Starting point is 00:13:35 Saturday nights, I would go to the football and I'd go back to my nan and granddad's and my granddad would always get fish and chips and ever since I absolutely loved them, right? But then, as is now, I've never had any sort of hankering for a pickled egg.
Starting point is 00:13:45 I can't understand that. I do like eggs, but I'm not a pickled egg man at all. If you... No, because you grow up a little bit, and you sort of... You like eggs, obviously. Who doesn't like eggs? But you start to admire pickled things.
Starting point is 00:13:59 Oh, I completely agree with that. The gherkins, do you like gherkins? No, I absolutely love pickled onions. Right. Yeah, I don't particularly like gherkins, no. I think pickled onions might be all right to eat. Like, they're quite good for you. Yeah, well, I imagine...
Starting point is 00:14:11 They're quite low, they're quite sugary. But my granddad used to also pickle his own onions, and that's not a euphemism. Is he a shirakodama? Yeah, the way I said that... Is your granddad a shirakodama? The great thing is, I said my granddad used to pickle his own onions,
Starting point is 00:14:23 making out like he's passed away. He's not passed away, he's got his balls anymore. He just not going to have the sugar of Shiragodama. The great thing is, I said my growling used to pickle his own onions, making it look like he's passed away. He's not passed away. He can't be bothered anymore. He just doesn't do it anymore. I've pickled my last onion, son. Yeah, but he used to pickle them with, obviously, a lot of pickling spices, vinegar and sugar. Right.
Starting point is 00:14:34 So I think they might be quite sugary. Yeah. But other than that, I can't see anything wrong with them, personally. Do you not? And yes, I am a medical professional. Do you not who, which famous person used to pickle onions
Starting point is 00:14:44 and they once sent us a bit, a bit, a jar, and they were really nice. No. He is a film reviewer from the 80s and 90s. Oh, not Barry thingy. Barry Norman.
Starting point is 00:14:55 Barry Norman, yeah. Barry Norman, and I think to this very day still pickles onions, if indeed he still will. He's quite a bit free of that. Maybe he'll stop pickling onions one day.
Starting point is 00:15:02 I hope not. We all hope not. Anyway, those... They are delicious. Those two ghosts, it's an excellent... You set the bar very high for Sean. So one guy's just basically
Starting point is 00:15:09 just jamming his hand in... Up your bum. Up your bum. But apparently it comes from the most commonly accepted origin is that drowning victims often have an open or extended anus looking as if something's been taken out of it.
Starting point is 00:15:21 Right. So bodies that drown in a river or an ocean and then washed up on shore might have looked like something had been forcibly extracted from its anus. Right. So bodies that drown in a river or an ocean and then washed up on shore might have looked like something had been forcibly extracted from its anus. Right.
Starting point is 00:15:28 And there's actually quite humorous cartoons of Japanese chaps lifting up their kimonos or whatever the male version of a kimono is and showing his bum to the ocean
Starting point is 00:15:36 and it's called Fishing for Kappa. Fishing for Kappa. Kappa, of course, is the popular sporting brand. That's what I'm saying. They must be thinking
Starting point is 00:15:43 they're just a sporting brand. Did you ever, when you were at school and obviously you covered up one of course, is the popular sporting brand. That's what I was saying. They must be thinking they're just a sporting brand. Did you ever, when you were at school, and obviously you covered up one of the legs of the people, so it looked like it was a lady spreading her... showing her shirikata armor off. Didn't you have to cover the top of the logo? Yeah, so it looked like it was just one person. Yeah, I do remember that, yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:59 See, if only the teachers knew how filthy Kappa could even get. Even worse than that. How creative their students could be. It wasn't just inventing video games and brothers. It was making terrible, terrible icons out of sporting brand manufacturers. So, I mean, Kappa is now like friendly mascots and stuff. You see them on the front of buildings or accompanying food items. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Pokemon was based on this stuff.
Starting point is 00:16:22 I mean, in my rudimentary understanding of both of the things, I wouldn't be understood at all. That's an excellent... You set the bar very in my rudimentary understanding of both of the things, I wouldn't be understood at all. That's an excellent... You set the bar very high there, Peter. Oh, do you want one final one? Yeah, go on. A cheeky one. I thought I had two, but I've actually got three.
Starting point is 00:16:31 No, go on. Beto Beto-san. People know this one quite well, so if people are listening, you probably know this one. Am I right in saying San is like a term of endearment? It's a person, yeah. Okay, so if I said Pete-san, it's like... Yeah, I think San is person.
Starting point is 00:16:44 Kun, I think, is a child. Because Kun Aguero, the football player, comes from his similarity to a Japanese cartoon character, doesn't he? Is that right? I think so, yeah. And one of the things that used to be quite annoying to my smug sort of 15-year-old self is that I found out about that San thing quite early.
Starting point is 00:17:02 And it used to really annoy me when people used to think in the film Karate Kid that he was saying Daniel San. Right, okay. But he's not. He's saying Daniel San, isn't he? It's an honorific term. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:17:10 So, yeah, so Beto Beto San. It's an onomatopoeic word, Beto Beto. Yeah. And it's literally just the sound that footsteps make. Beto Beto Beto Beto. So if you walk... Strangely, that's the most terrifying way. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:23 Well, if you're walking down a lonely road at night and you hear footsteps behind you, don't be alarmed. You've probably attracted the attention of the yokai, the ghost, Beto Beto-san. Right. What's he going to do? So basically, all you do to get rid of him is you just step to one side of the road
Starting point is 00:17:39 and say, oh, please, Beto Beto-san, you first. And with that said, Beto Betosan, he just walks on. So how many people have been sort of confused for Beto Betosan? It's just a person. Oh, so you walk down the street. Beto Betosan, oh, it's Dave. Call me a sceptic. You walk down the street on your own.
Starting point is 00:17:57 You hear footsteps behind you. I'm going to say nine times out of ten it's a person. Or rapist. They're still people. Whether you like to admit that or not, they're still people. Oh, what's this? I didn't know this was the rapist outreach program podcast.
Starting point is 00:18:09 If I was walking down the street and I heard a, if I heard a footstep behind me, I'd look around, no one's there. Yeah. If I was in Japan, I would say,
Starting point is 00:18:17 please better, better sign after you. Yeah. And that's fine. And then you get rid of it. It's good to know that a terrifying ghost holds politeness so highly.
Starting point is 00:18:25 Yeah, exactly. Have you ever seen a ghost in real life, IRL? No. The nearest thing I can think of to that question, that rather obvious question you were about to ask me since the start, is that when I was... Because I thought, oh, but you asked me this. When I was...
Starting point is 00:18:39 I grew up in a town near Portsmouth, and it's a military town, and as a result... All the ghosts had guns. Yeah, there was a lot of dead people. No, as a result, there's all... I don't know if you had them
Starting point is 00:18:50 where you grew up, and I'm not sure if it's specific to my area, there's all these little sort of quite small brick Anderson shelters. Right, okay, yeah. Air raid shelters, essentially,
Starting point is 00:18:57 because it was so heavily, heavily bombed in the Second World War. And to an extent, you'd find them dotted all over the place. So you'd find them down back alleyways, you'd find them dotted all over the place. So you'd find them down back alleyways,
Starting point is 00:19:06 you'd find them in parks. Great place to take heroin. Well, absolutely. And that is essentially what a lot of them have been used for and remain useful to this day. Utilitarianism, mate. Yeah, indeed. But what used to happen is, as a result of this, we would... people would say
Starting point is 00:19:21 they're haunted. Do you know what I mean? Because if you're listening to this and you haven't seen seen one of these it's essentially like a three or four four foot high brick building with a little roof on it which and half of it is underground so it's actually say six or seven foot in depth yeah three or four like a pillar box slash bus shelter slash basically yeah but set into the ground and you'd have to go downstairs and have doors on them yeah so essentially what used to happen, as you just said, people would shoot heroin in them,
Starting point is 00:19:46 or people would, you know, just, I don't know, whatever. And people would say, oh, they're haunted, they're haunted. And when you saw one during the day, it was perfectly normal. And sometimes we used to go for sleepovers around each other's houses
Starting point is 00:19:56 when we were, like, 13 or 14. And of course, like, you would nip out and go for little night walks and stuff. And you'd always sort of dare each other to go into these little... They were chilling, though. I mean, there'd be nothing in there apart from, like, pornography and all that And you'd always sort of dare each other to go into these little... They were chilling, though. I mean, there'd be nothing in there apart from, like, pornography and old cans.
Starting point is 00:20:07 It would always be, mate, it would always be old empty cans of beer and porn mags, basically. But you'd be... At night, you'd be terrified, absolutely terrified. But I can't honestly say I've ever seen anything... There was...
Starting point is 00:20:19 I went to a school which was quite big on performing arts, and as a result, there was a stage, and they used to put on productions like three or four times a year. And the guy used to... The teacher used to run all those result, there was a stage, and they used to put on productions three or four times a year. And the teacher who used to run all those insisted there was a ghost on the stage. He would say, every stage has got a ghost.
Starting point is 00:20:31 But I've never, ever seen it. And I'm a sceptic on this. I'm a complete sceptic. But I'm not one of those sort of snooty scientist sceptics who's like, oh, don't be so stupid. Get over it. Get on with your life. I am interested in it, but I've never seen anything at all
Starting point is 00:20:43 to sort of sway me beyond scepticism. I know about you i'm i'm definitely in the um science i can't be arsed so you're not you won't even entertain it no well i just feel complete maybe i just feel a bit left out i'm not enchanted by magic or magicians when a trick happens you go that's pretty impressive you know but i realize that it's just lying magicians have a tough tough time for these days because you have to be urban or you're just considered a paedophile. You have to be urban, don't you?
Starting point is 00:21:10 They've got Dynamo, David Blaine. They're the successful ones because... If you watch Dynamo when he first started, he just looked like... He just always looked damp. Do you know what I think? He always looked a bit damp. He's very small.
Starting point is 00:21:21 Very skinny and slight. He was more like training jogging bottoms and stuff. That's right, yeah. He just looked like the lad down the road. But I don't know why you're making that connection, because that's just sleight of hand, like, clever, clever work. It's not, no one's saying to you, no one's saying to you, Pete, honestly, oh, by the way, that thing I just made you look like happened. No one's actually saying that happened. No, but I'm just, well he is, that's exactly what he's saying.
Starting point is 00:21:44 Yeah, but no one actually thinks it's happened, it's happening just isn't that clever that he's made it look like that people do though some people do believe in magic and they believe people who watch itv pretty much but uh no the only time i've ever been the last time i was really spooked out was actually in japan i was on the island of the rabbits you know in the second world war uh there was testing on this island uh just off the coast of it's near it's off the coast of osaka i think but either way um myself There was testing on this island just off the coast of... It's near, but it's off the coast of Osaka, I think. But either way, myself and my mate went on this island and basically, back in the day,
Starting point is 00:22:11 they did a lot of testing on these rabbits and at the end of the war, they just let a couple of rabbits free from the... They were testing like chemical weapons. Did they go out like rabbits? They went out like rabbits and so the entirety of this island
Starting point is 00:22:22 is just covered in rabbits and they call it Rabbit Island. Right. Why do they call it Rabbit Island? Say again? why do they call it rabbit island second why do they call it rabbit island i can't is it okikashuna or something like that i don't know either way but you you buy bags of feed get the ferry over that's encouraging i know well as you know it's a charming little there's nothing really on there but there are a lot of like air raid kind of sheltery bits where they you know store munitions and stuff like that and I went down there and even though
Starting point is 00:22:47 it's all blocked off but there are certain chambers you can walk in, even during the day there's just something the ghosts of like you know anything a bit militaristic, anything a bit like that isn't used anymore anything disused is just absolutely chilling but at the same time quite exciting
Starting point is 00:23:04 I think there might be something in the fact that human beings can sense something that's perhaps gone in the past, it's got a little bit of a sort of... It's something we don't fully understand. I'm not saying it's always just old, you know, old auntie Jackie or whatever who's died and come back to tell you that, you know,
Starting point is 00:23:18 you should look after your mum or whatever. I mean, like, it's just the presence of something. To me, it seems perfectly reasonable that would exist because there's lots of things in the universe that we don't know about that will always be the case I think stillness
Starting point is 00:23:30 and quiet are two big things as well and something and it being quite warm and then suddenly getting quite chilly because you're underground
Starting point is 00:23:37 yeah that's temperature's got a big part to play in it you know something when you talk about the rabbit iron the first thing I thought of when you were talking
Starting point is 00:23:43 about the way it sort of manifested itself and what it's like now it's, the first thing I thought of when you were talking about the way it sort of manifests itself and what it's like now, the first thing I thought of was it would just be three or four foot deep in rabbit shit. And it's not, though, no? No, it's big enough to hold a lot of rabbits. The reason I say that is because my uncle is a Victorian military historian,
Starting point is 00:24:00 and he spends a lot of his time sort of researching and looking into all the Victorian forts along the south coast. Yeah. There's loads of them, isn't there? They started out when there was music venues and Airbnbs and that. Some of them are hotels and private homes
Starting point is 00:24:13 and that sort of stuff, and some of them are military facilities now. But the reason they built them is because I think the British government for a while were convinced that Napoleon was going to invade the south coast, so they built all these fortifications.
Starting point is 00:24:22 Anyway, there's still there a lot of them. And my dad used to go along with his brother my uncle um when they would find one that would necessarily be falling into disrepair and he'd cut and he'd go away for the weekend help renovate it and um and um and that's what mom said he was doing now but anyway no but he would come back and say what was it like and he would say to be honest it was like six feet deep of like pigeon shit yeah just pigeon shit everywhere yeah and sometimes it's so bad they can't go there they have to get environment health in to do it first and that sort of stuff so i thought that's what rabbit island near the uh near the uh time bridge there's
Starting point is 00:24:51 this corner of the time bridge where there's always just birds just shitting off the tide of it and on certain days certain warm days it's you puke in your mouth it's disgusting yeah it's just it's just a big sheet thick sheet of uh pigeon shit something for everyone to get behind there pigeon be shitting first of all um first of all it's japanese ghosts and then it's uh It's just a big sheet, thick sheet of pigeon shit. Something for everyone to get behind there, isn't it? Pigeon be shitting. First of all, it's Japanese ghosts, and then it's literally shit. Indeed. I've got something for show and tell as well.
Starting point is 00:25:13 Do you want to hear it? Get it out. Right, so what I happened upon a number of months ago, I used to work with a guy called Mike, good guy, but I'll protect the innocent, I won't give you his surname. Lovely chap, and I worked with him for a while, and he left, and he moved to New York City. Well, he'll be fine on your Facebook.
Starting point is 00:25:28 I'm going to do that right now. Mike's not a common name, is he? Yeah, but if he's in New York... I don't mind you knowing him. I just don't want to open him up to the literary tens of listeners we're going to have. Anyway, so he's a very generous chap, very nice man, and he left me a great book when he left. He said, look, this is a fantastic book, you'll
Starting point is 00:25:43 enjoy it. And it's the Guinness Book of Military blunders by jeffrey regan um and what it does i'll run you through it really quickly it just goes through time um in memorial really um all the way back through to to sort of um to sort of not prehistoric times but thousands of years ago about all the known things about mistakes that have been made by the military over the years pete it really does contain some delicious blunders. Does anyone pull anything out of someone's bum? No. They're not going to switch off.
Starting point is 00:26:12 As I suspected, we reached a creative high point earlier in the show. I actually earmarked a page here which I've actually lost. I need to find it now. What it does is it separates it into sections. Here it is. Very few pictures, I'm not having it there's a few pictures and obviously some of the
Starting point is 00:26:29 battles and the mistakes within those battles happened a long time ago but anyway, there's a great part that I really wanted to share with you guys about a guy called Major General Sir William Erskine he served under the Duke of Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars and this particular tidbit of his occurred during the Peninsular War,
Starting point is 00:26:47 which is a military conflict between Britain, Portugal and Spain and the Napoleonic Empire in the early 19th century. We never talk about these wars, do we? No. We've only got the major two that we got upset about. Because there was a clear good and bad. We never talk about anything else, do we? No, we are going to now, Pete.
Starting point is 00:27:04 We're going to wrap it up now. So anyway, the Duke of Warrington never wanted Major General Sir William Erskine as one of his senior commanders because as I believe, the appointments were made by people other than him at the time. And when he heard that he
Starting point is 00:27:17 was getting him as a general, he said, I don't want him. As far as I'm concerned, he's certifiably insane. And the secretary replied to his letter saying, no doubt he is a little mad at times, but in his lucid intervals, he is an uncommonly clever fellow and I trust that he will have no fit during the campaign,
Starting point is 00:27:36 though I must say he looked a little mad as he embarked. You're literally saying, yeah, it might be all right, but it probably won't be. He's on his way now. I'm not calling him back. His fit might be finished by the time it goes. Anyway, so one of his, in quotes, greatest achievements was at the Siege of Almeida
Starting point is 00:27:55 where his actions completely thwarted the Duke of Wellington's plans and caused even a man as mild as Wellington to explode. This was the most disgraceful military event that has yet occurred to us. Right, but it gets better than that right there was one point where a besieged french garrison was allowed to escape because erskine failed to guard a bridge he was supposed to to guard apparently he was dining with a comrade at four in the afternoon when wellington's all the to guard the bridge reached him uh requested to send some cavalry and a force of
Starting point is 00:28:23 infantry his initial response was to send a cavalry and a force of infantry his initial response was to send a corporal and four men right his fellow diner broke in sir william you might as well attempt to block the bridge with a pinch of this snuff all right then i will yeah which which he which he didn't send that along he didn't do we won't even waste the four men yeah anyway to cut a long story short he thought better of it thought i'll send the whole regiment but um he put the order for his colonel into his pocket and forgot to send it, right? This is brilliant. So later on he realised at midnight
Starting point is 00:28:50 and said to one of his colonels, right, get out there now, because this has gone wrong, right? Unfortunately... Get that snuff out of my sight, it's bad memories. Of course they arrived way too late, the French retreated successfully. And I'll finish this little tidbit about Sir William Erskine by saying, probably not a laughing matter, but it's very funny to me,
Starting point is 00:29:06 he eventually committed suicide by jumping out of a window in Lisbon in 1813 and found dying on the ground by onlookers. His last words as he asked bystanders were, why on earth did I do that? Oh, that's brilliant. I thought you might like that. So, yeah, here's to you, Major General Sir William Erskine. When you sort of think about constructions back in the day as well,
Starting point is 00:29:28 if you just jumped out of a window, what's that, four floor maximum? Yeah, I don't know. We didn't have tall buildings back in the day. 19th century, mate. Oh, sorry. Yeah, 19th century. We're not going all the way back there. I'm sure he could have found a building.
Starting point is 00:29:38 Oh, he died, so it worked. Yeah, after uttering a brilliant... Not only he died, he found time for some pittiness. There was a guy who I was telling you about who thought he was going to die. He was taking a ski jump, but he took the wrong jump, basically. Right. And just as he went over, someone saw him mouth a word,
Starting point is 00:29:54 Bye! Because he genuinely thought that was him. That was his goose cooked, so to speak. And he survived? He survived. Was it on Channel 4's The Jump? How is that TV show still allowed to be on? With Davina McCall, yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:05 It just seems to hurt everybody, but people seem to be up for it. I think it's probably the challenge of it, isn't it? Because to me, in my amateur opinion, reality TV shows have run their race now, but what's happening is they're finding more and more risk, aren't they? Yeah. I guess manageable risk, because a lot of people get injured on that show. I mean, one of the things I found crazy about it is that Sir Bradley Wiggins was on it.
Starting point is 00:30:29 Right, yeah. And he's achieved everything he can achieve in this discipline. I don't understand what his motivation for doing it was. He wants to just say goodbye to his knee joints. He just goes, yeah, you know what? They've been so good to me, I'm going to grind them into dust.
Starting point is 00:30:43 If I don't smash these knees in, I'm going to get convinced to ride a bike again. That's what he's thinking. This is the easiest way I'm doing it. I want to be in stirrups the rest of my life. I could earn a few quid while I'm doing it. Well, Eddie the Eagle Edwards basically said about the TV show that the celebrities that are involved,
Starting point is 00:30:56 they don't really spend a lot of time practising, they just spend their time drinking schnapps. What do you call them? Like a chalet? Yeah, I guess so. At Price Key. But the other thing that really disappointed me about that jump when I first saw it is how low the jump is.
Starting point is 00:31:12 Well, it gives you more respect for people like Eddie the Eagle Edwards, who wasn't very good, but goodness me, he certainly... He was crazy enough to do it. Yeah, he did some massive leaps. I think I'm right in saying that the Winter Olympics and stuff, they're jumping 100 metres. Yeah. 100 metres.
Starting point is 00:31:24 Absolutely huge. Have you seen the, again, I think I'm right in saying in the Winter Olympics and stuff, they're jumping 100 metres. Yeah. 100 metres. Absolutely huge. Have you seen the, again, I think it's Japanese, the guys who basically take off a ski jump, they roll different tyres. Right. So these guys just spend their time
Starting point is 00:31:36 just sort of rolling tyres and see how far the different kinds of tyres go. So like monster truck tyres, big tyres from a truck. And these things, they're like, they could knock a house down with the velocity.
Starting point is 00:31:46 Well, they can't be asked to jump off them themselves. They just chuck tyres down. Yeah, they just roll them off. What is the point of that? See how far the tyres will go. Okay, right. Gotta dream big, baby. This is a safer way of doing it.
Starting point is 00:31:57 Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you just sort of, just on the side of a tyre, just wrote Sir Bradley Wiggins, would that be much... Put a little helmet on it yeah would that be much
Starting point is 00:32:06 much different really put a sideburns on it I think he's a bit of a misery gut yeah I'm not a fan I'm not a huge fan I don't think he's a great nah I'm not
Starting point is 00:32:15 I'm not a fan I'm not on board with him I'm not on board with Wiggins mania if that was ever a thing I'm not on board with it I prefer the other fella Chris Froome I don't know him to be honest
Starting point is 00:32:24 nah I'm not a fan I think that might be why I prefer the other fella, Chris Froome. I don't know him, to be honest. No, nor do I. I think that might be why I prefer him. OK, Luke, don't gunge me, mate. Pipe down, Pete. I told you never to argue with the customers. So this is the point in the Luke and Pete show where we are planning on doing something called Agony Uncles. It's the first episode.
Starting point is 00:32:41 If you've got a problem in your life and you need a little bit of help, get in touch because we can help. We've lived a little, Luke. Yeah, we have lived a little. And it is the first show, so we haven't had any correspondents because we're just telling you about it now. It will be churlish to assume that you guys would have got in touch. What makes you qualified, Pete?
Starting point is 00:32:58 I own a mortarboard. So what I've done, Luke, is compile some of the more exciting more salacious agony ant letters from the world of agony antry on the internet do you want to know what makes me qualified? I've got four different weather apps on my iPhone have you actually? yeah I have
Starting point is 00:33:15 so I've basically got a load of agony ant letters that people have sent in to agony ant sort of dee and deedry sort of stuff and this is the sort of thing we Deirdre sort of stuff, yeah. And this is the sort of thing we'll test even the hardiest advice givers. So we're basically just testing each other out here. See what level we're at.
Starting point is 00:33:32 Yeah, see what level we're at. Okay. This is from the Mumbai Mirror. Okay. Possibly previously the Bombay... Bad boy. Newspaper. Bombay Express. Bombay Express.
Starting point is 00:33:43 I am a 63-year-old married man. Are there any medicines to sexually excite a woman? I'm laughing because you're never going to be married. Rude. Are there any medicines to sexually excite a woman? Is that the question? I'm a 63-year-old married man. Are there any medicines to sexually excite a woman?
Starting point is 00:34:00 I have a 50-year-old neighbour who could benefit from it as she has lost her desire to have sex. What? How do they even know this? I know! They must have had a chat over the wall. This is authentic. This is authentic, apparently it is, yeah. Okay. I can only go off what I've been given. Um, I, I mean, do you want me to give my
Starting point is 00:34:17 advice to that, or does it continue? Well, the advice that this person from the My Mirror said, her gynaecologist can help her. I'm curious to know why you're so concerned. Yeah, that's absolutely fair. But I'm absolutely fair on the behalf of the agony on there. But I will say, it is rude to answer a question with a question. I guess it is, yeah.
Starting point is 00:34:36 So, accept it. You don't want to pull that thread. Also, I would sort of say, if a woman is not sexually excited, go straight for the medicines. Yeah. Are there any medicines? I mean, if we're talking about women who aren't sexually excited, I think you should probably leave on this one. Here's the next one.
Starting point is 00:34:50 I am 43 years old. OK. I'm donning a lot of hats here. Yeah, you are. My wife believes that I'm having an extramarital affair, but it's not true. Can we just crib a jingle of you to say, I'm 43 years old?
Starting point is 00:35:01 I am 43 years old. I'm 43 years old. My wife believes that I'm having an extramarital affair, but it's not true. Every day she applies nail polish on my penis to check if I'm being unfaithful. I feel a burning sensation and it hurts me. Please help.
Starting point is 00:35:15 That is, I mean, there's a lot to unpack there. I don't know why that would prove or disprove whether you are being faithful. It's nail polish. I'm not a particular expert in it, but nail polish isn't something that comes off very easily. Only if you use nail polish remover. Yeah, right. Even worse. You want to put something
Starting point is 00:35:32 on the penis that's easy to remove. Yeah. Because any activity at all is going to remove it and then you're going to know. Oh, is that why? I don't know. You're thinking like exactly you're in the same kind of headspace as this crazy woman. But the thing is, anything that's easy to remove from a penis
Starting point is 00:35:48 is going to be removed by either a pant or a trouser. So, I mean, she's barking at the wrong tree there, I think. Right, OK. You might as well just go down the road just following him. Just follow him out? Yeah. She's got things on. She's a busy woman. Yeah, you're much more experienced in nail polish than I am, Pete, I would have thought.
Starting point is 00:36:04 Not on the winky. No, no, no. I used to very occasionally apply it when I thought I was Brian Mulcair. Yeah, I think we went through that phase. Yeah. Yeah, we went through that stage. Hartlepool, did no like it. Yeah, doesn't go down well in the old hometown.
Starting point is 00:36:20 So if you can beat that, do get involved. If you can beat that. Beat that. Just keep it good. Keep it good. Keep it on the... Keep it on the down low. What newspaper was that last one from?
Starting point is 00:36:30 I just... You said the Mumbai, whatever it was. It was copyright John Hamblin. I don't know who John Hamblin is, but... Okay, well, good luck to him. Good luck, John. Good luck, John's John. So if you can beat that, if you can do better than that,
Starting point is 00:36:45 if you've got a problem at work, if you've got a problem at home, if you just want to say hi. If you've got a problem with us. Just delete the podcast. Unsubscribe. Hello at LukeandPeteShow.com. We could probably see him on Twitter or something. Maybe I'll make the DMs open or something.
Starting point is 00:36:59 Okay, yeah, let's open our DMs. You can make it as easy as possible. Send it over if you want. Go to Pete's house if you want. Put it through my letterbox. Yeah. It's around about the time of the show where I think we need to start a new feature.
Starting point is 00:37:11 Luke. Yeah. I've come up with something. Go on then. Mencarta. Like it? Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all.
Starting point is 00:37:24 And one small step for man. You don't understand. Willie was a salesman. Say simply, very simply, with hope, good morning. I mean, it's a pun immediately, so that gets me going. Well, basically, for those of you who are too young to remember, in the mid-'90 90s there was a famous compact disc rom cd-rom uh it was an encyclopedia that you put into your computer there was one in
Starting point is 00:37:51 the library at my school and it blew my tiny mind because i had the video on it and everything yeah well it's called in carter it gave you videos it gave you photographs it was a it was it was a digital encyclopedia yeah but if you revisit inarta, Encarta 95, Encarta 97, I think they stopped after Encarta 98 and it all went online. If you sort of revisit that, it's quite basic. Of course it is, because the last 20 years it's happened. Yeah, I know, but it was not exhaustive in the first place. It didn't predict anything.
Starting point is 00:38:20 Well, back in the day, the only thing that really used to enchant me was the Maradona goal, the Hand of God goal. It was a great thing on basketball. You talked in basketball and they played a video of a basketball game. Yeah, and I once got thrown out of a lesson because I copy and pasted the picture of David Bowie they had several times and printed it out on the printer and I wasted so much print drink. Right. And Mrs. Wilkinson said, get out. Actually, no, she first said, what the hell is that?
Starting point is 00:38:41 And I said, it's David Bowie. She said, get out. Could have been more embarrassing for you, that. David Bowie is very, very cool. Yeah, I know. Let's dance, Mrs. Wilkinson. I mean, he wasn't quite so cool in about 1995, but he was still very cool.
Starting point is 00:38:50 No, he was very much like Little Space Boy kind of era, Thursday's Child. But the reason it was basic is because they had to fit it on a CD-ROM. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's essentially, it's had to be specialised. It's 650 megabytes. Max. Max.
Starting point is 00:39:01 If that. Max. I mean, we didn't have Blu-rays or DVDs back then, so. So with Men Cut, are we going to do things that we would add to it. Yeah. So basically, in the spirit of the fact that Wikipedia is full of absolute, it's full of some good stuff, but it's full of absolute nonsense because everyone's just got involved. Like most of the internet has been ruined by people like us.
Starting point is 00:39:15 Yeah. So we're only going to specialise and go with the really good stuff and add it to Men Carter. Yes. And we'll call it Men Carter 2017 or something. All right, let's call it that. Cool, okay. What have we got? What have we got?
Starting point is 00:39:26 Are you familiar with the gloopy substance is uh molasses yes i am molasses yeah do you want to tell people what it is if they don't know it's a byproduct of um sugarcane refinery it's like a i would call it like almost a um very thick dark brown uh syrupy type um almost like treacle it's like uh it tastes a little bit like licorice. It's like thick spreadable licorice-y treacle. It's sweeter than that though, isn't it? Yeah. Not quite as bitter. It is delicious. I used to have it on bread
Starting point is 00:39:54 every now and again. That's bad isn't it? Yeah, it's quite bad. And that's why I have diabetes. And no teeth. So you're putting molasses into the men's carton? No, I'm not putting molasses. It might already be in there, to be fair. I'm putting the Great Molasses Flo of january the 15th 1919 well tell me more because i might like i genuinely know nothing about this and my interest is bloody peak so basically great molasses flood in boston yeah in 1919 on that fateful day obviously very cold there was an
Starting point is 00:40:21 unholy 26 million pound worth of molasses uh that flooded the entirety of the north end of uh of boston uh engulfed in molasses traveling at 35 miles per hour ripping houses from their foundations uh it killed 21 people injured uh hundreds more uh people just suffocating mol molasses and obviously the rescue effort of trying to rescue people out of what is basically black quicksand is almost nigh on impossible how did this even happen?
Starting point is 00:40:52 so basically there was a company that was in the business of creating medical alcohol but then obviously a prohibition was coming in and so they tried to outpace the prohibition order which was actually ratified the next day with good cause obviously prohibition was coming in. Yeah. And so they tried to outpace the prohibition order, which was actually ratified the next day with good cause, obviously.
Starting point is 00:41:08 Right. And they overstocked, I think it was from Puerto Rico, they just brought a whole load of molasses in to refine into medical alcohol because they wanted to beat the ban. But the tank they chose to put the molasses in was not even worth the word tank. It was dreadful.
Starting point is 00:41:24 It was a dreadful tank. A travesty of a tank. It was dreadful. It was a dreadful tank. A travesty of a tank. It was a travesty of a tank. And it basically just killed a lot of people, spread it into subway platforms. They tried to make out that the tank had been blown up by anarchists, but what actually happened was fermentation. There was colder, older molasses in the tank in the first place.
Starting point is 00:41:40 Where was the tank? On land? Yeah, it was on land. I've seen pictures of it. I was thinking of like an oil slick, like a ship had turned over. No, no, no. It was literally just, it was quite close to the course, but it was on land.
Starting point is 00:41:52 Imagine the Battersea gas tanks, you know, those big kind of like tanks that go up and down at the old gas works. And yeah, the walls of the tank were way too thin, and apparently it was due to the fact that the iron steel mix contained non-manganese. Right.
Starting point is 00:42:09 So it was all manganese's fault. The tank, in the first instance, would constantly leak anyway, and that's why they painted it brown, so no one would notice that there was loads of molasses being leaked. And people would actually... It was a lot more sort of fast and loose back then, wasn't it? Yeah. Well, or slow and goopy.
Starting point is 00:42:21 Well, yeah. Well, you said 30 miles an hour. That's quite fast. Well, yeah, apparently. I think some MIT students, about two or three years ago, they tested out how fast molasses or things of that viscosity would suddenly start rumbling down the street. And apparently, yeah, that's about accurate, 35 miles an hour.
Starting point is 00:42:36 Bloody student. The famous Boston Elevated Railway was twisted up by it as well. Right. It's just very hard to clear the entirety of Boston from the molasses, because obviously it's very sticky. It's merely sugar. Well, I had two questions. One was that, so I imagine the answer is...
Starting point is 00:42:53 Seawater was the answer. Apparently normal water wouldn't do it. Right, okay. So the fire brigade had to bring in seawater. And the second thing I'm sort of fascinated about is that was the tank of molasses so big that people of of boston or that area of boston knew oh shit it's those molasses or did they just think what the fuck is that what is that apparently the people who used to live near the molasses uh tank and i can't believe we're talking
Starting point is 00:43:17 about molasses tanks this early in our run of shows i know um they would go over to the tank and where the big bricks in the tank... The bowl of porridge. Where? We'd come and collect it and take it back home for their house. I think they would refine it into their own alcohol and make their own illegal alcohol. Speaking of that train at Boston, Boston's a fascinating city for a number of reasons. I've been there many a time. But one of the things that's just reminded me of is that, do you know that they had such bad traffic congestion in Boston
Starting point is 00:43:41 that they took one of the highways and they just sunk it into the ground. What do you mean? They basically just dug a massive trench and sunk it into a tunnel and just built over the top of it. Oh, that's clever. So they put it through, they basically put it in the ground
Starting point is 00:43:53 to relieve air congestion. It's like the Shibuya canals. Stop going back to Japan. Sorry, I was just, you know, well... Did the molasses reach Japan? No, wrong coast, it's the wrong coast. Well, I'll tell you what, I'll be more than happy
Starting point is 00:44:04 to put the great molasses flood of 1919 into Menkata 2017. I think it's a worthy entrant. Apparently, for years afterwards, the whole area smelled of molasses. It could be worse. I mean, it could be worse than that. I mean, it would get very sickly.
Starting point is 00:44:16 Do you know, I'll tell you what that reminds me of. There is a town in Scotland, and I want to say Ullapool, but I don't think it is Ullapool, although it might be, where the Tonex factory is based. Oh, lovely.
Starting point is 00:44:26 And apparently the whole town smells of Tonex caramel the whole time. The chocolate is terrible on those things, but for some reason it's greater than the sum of its parts. That's just delicious. They are as delicious, if not more so, than some of those military blunders in that book. They are delicious. Stop trying to get your military blunders into features.
Starting point is 00:44:44 Listen, there'll be some more next week, because some of those blunders are delicious. Stop trying to get your military blunders into features. Listen, there'll be some more next week, because some of those blunders are delicious. All right, cool. Soft and spongy. Dip it in your tea. I know, right? Can I give you an entry, then? I've got a couple here lined up.
Starting point is 00:44:54 Yeah, we'll see if it'll... Pass muster. Okay, right. Would you be interested, Peter, if I were to potentially regale you and hopefully entertain you with talk of the euthanasia Rollercoaster. Do you know about this?
Starting point is 00:45:08 I think I might have heard this, you know, or heard of it. Listen, let me bring it up to speed in case you haven't. The Euthanasia Rollercoaster is and was a rollercoaster designed in 2010 by Royal College of Arts student Juli Honas Obonasus which is a great name huli honas abonas yeah who which which is essentially designed to kill its passengers right okay it's a roller coaster designed conceptually um specifically to kill people in a state of uh prolonged elegance and euphoria associated with cerebral hypoxia so so what it
Starting point is 00:45:43 does and if it's a diagram that accompanies this story, which of course is absolutely no use on a podcast. There are many loop-de-loops. There are many, many loop-de-loops. It starts off at a height of 500 metres, and you descend, obviously, rapidly, and then essentially you go through loop-de-loop after loop-de-loop, and they get smaller and smaller and smaller.
Starting point is 00:46:05 So essentially you're killed through, like I say, cerebral hypoxia, where you can't get any oxygen to your brain. And the great thing about it is that there's extra loops on the end to take into account particularly hardy or robust passengers. Because some people... What we're talking about here is essentially death by g-force, right? So when you get to like 10 g or something, 10 times the force of gravity on your body, your body can no longer pump blood around your body until your brain, you die.
Starting point is 00:46:30 And your innards start to liquefy, to imagine. But of course, some people are much more capable of dealing with that, hence they become astronauts or air force pilots or whatever. And so there's just loops and loops that go smaller and smaller and smaller. And I just thought it was fascinating. If you look at it, it's almost like, the design of it, the loops, it goes smaller and smaller and smaller. And I just thought it was fascinating. If you look at it, it's almost like it's... The design of it, the architecture of it, it's like at one point, in one way, just absolutely beautiful,
Starting point is 00:46:51 but on the other hand, just horrific. And I don't think you really see stuff that often which you think, that is beautiful and horrific at the same time. Yeah, I mean, like, you know when you say... Like when you're naked, basically. I have many loops, and they get smaller and smaller. And, yeah, you know when you see, like, astronauts, they're on the G-Force testy machine thing.
Starting point is 00:47:11 Yeah. And they spin around. And you know when you see someone, like, falling asleep, like a dog falling asleep, you go, oh, that's adorable. Yeah. When they just can't get their eyes open. Yeah. When you see the astronauts or astronauts-to-be or pilots-to-be
Starting point is 00:47:23 sort of start nodding off it's lovely to watch it is they can't help themselves and they just go sleepy time now sleepy time now yeah I know what you mean
Starting point is 00:47:32 absolutely I've never felt the kiss of a of a G-force the closest I've ever been was there was this flight simulator in NASA
Starting point is 00:47:39 what were you doing there? just messing about what were you doing in Cape Canaveral were you going as a tourist? no I went to Houston Oh, okay I guess it's kind of like a museum of NOSO
Starting point is 00:47:49 But they gave you like this flight simulator thing And you can control the flight sim And basically it's you and a core pilot And you can spin the plane, the fighter jet that you're controlling upside down Right So you actually experience So you actually go upside down as well Yeah, so you actually go upside down.
Starting point is 00:48:05 And I hilariously timed it so that my friend's head was in the right position and I'd spat my chewing gum out in his hair. Which I think is the sort of banter that you get as a pilot. You are a dreadful friend. But an excellent pilot. Well, speaking of that, they say...
Starting point is 00:48:22 This is probably apocryphal, but I'll regale it anyway, just for fun. They say that a good pilot, a good passenger pilot, airline pilot, can barrel roll a plane without you even knowing about it. Because if it's dark and it's night time and you can't see out the window anyway,
Starting point is 00:48:37 they can do it at perfect 1G the whole time. Oh, so you stick to your... So you basically just stay exactly where you are and you never know. So I think... A wall of death. I would doubt heavily that it's ever been done. Yeah. Even Denzel
Starting point is 00:48:49 Washington in the film Flight couldn't pull that off. If there are any... But in theory, apparently it's possible. Charlie Sullenberger couldn't fly that off. Exactly. The great Sully. I mean, what I would say is that, like, if there are any airline pilots listening, maybe do it in the sim. Do it in the sim. Yeah, see how it goes. Maybe spit your chewing gum out. Eat someone in the head. Yeah, see how it goes. Maybe spit your chewing gum out.
Starting point is 00:49:06 Eat someone in the head. I've got one more that I thought you might be interested in. Yes. It starts with two words, Peter. Right. Bat bombs. Okay.
Starting point is 00:49:15 Do you know about this? No. Right, good. Because I was a bit disappointed you heard of these. But hang on, a bomb in a bat? No.
Starting point is 00:49:23 A bomb that looks like a bat? Well, sort of. Halfway there. Okay. Basically, this is an experimental weapon developed by the United States to attack Japan in World War II. Stop bringing up Japan. Well, listen, it's comeback time. Stop bringing up bat bombs in Japan.
Starting point is 00:49:40 Basically, the idea being, and if you look at the photo, it's fascinating to see there, they look like little bat houses, but shaped like a bomb. Oh, the idea being, and if you look at the photo, it's fascinating to see, they look like little bat houses, but shaped like a bomb. Oh, oh. So hundreds of bats would be put inside each bomb-shaped case, and dropped from a bomber at dawn, I don't know why at dawn, but at dawn, the case would deploy a parachute in
Starting point is 00:49:55 mid-fly and open to release the bats, each of which would have a small incendiary charge attached. The bats would then fly into houses, I guess because it's dawn, so they would want to get somewhere dark. And their tiny bombs would explode and here's the key thing, which would then in theory start fires everywhere
Starting point is 00:50:12 because so much of Japanese cities were built with wood. Right, okay. And they trialled and tested it and invested two million dollars in doing this before the plans were shelved in 1944. War's going to be over in a minute. Is this going to go or not?
Starting point is 00:50:27 I mean, I just think they were a bit more creative back in the day, weren't they? They had to be, yeah. They thought laterally. Necessity is the mother of invention, that's basically why. Yeah, when was this? Well, they were sort of trialled and looked into and invested in for a while, but they were shelved in 1944.
Starting point is 00:50:45 I was said 1994. Some of those mad kind of tanks they made and stuff, like apparently Hitler had loads of different kind of crazy designs. Yeah, the Nazis are well known for all that stuff. I think they experimented with like UFO type ships as well. Apparently one of the ideas was to get the Allied forces on a roller coaster. Shut up! You're in for a lovely rollercoaster.
Starting point is 00:51:07 Luke to Luke over and over again. You know that Uniflagia rollercoaster that you haven't designed for another 60 years? 2010 that was designed. How many people can you get on it? How many million people can you get on it? Good Lord. No one would have expected to go out that way, Pete.
Starting point is 00:51:24 Anyway, I think the Great Molasses flight of 1919 is the standout candidate to go into Mencarta to 2017. And bat bombs. Bat bombs. Well, listen, do we need bat bombs at this stage, at this early stage? It might be a bit chaotic. What was a bag bomb?
Starting point is 00:51:37 Because when I was a kid, that was how to do a Scouse accent. Oh, no, it's a bag bomb. I don't know what that is. No, I don't know. It's good to know. Oh, no, it's a bat bomb. It's good to know that even people in inner city Hartlepool were still trying to do Scouse accents.
Starting point is 00:51:49 Because people in the South were as well, because we were fascinated by accents, because in the South we didn't have an accent. You do have an accent. Not really. We'll both look off the loop. We'll both look off the loop. If he feels sad about mum and dad,
Starting point is 00:52:01 we'll both look off the loop. Oh, no, it isn't you, kiddie It's Pete You're too soft-hearted with that boy Well, this has been a trip, hasn't it? A journey A journey We've had
Starting point is 00:52:13 We've had molasses We've had molasses It's been very edible It started with a licky ghost Yeah If you want to get in touch with the show and say hello We do have an email address We've set it up.
Starting point is 00:52:25 Hello at LukeAndPeteShow.com for Agony Uncles, Men Carter 2017. Anything you want to get in touch with and we'll... If you've got problems with your landlord, if you've got problems with your mam and your dad, if you've got problems with your kids even. Yeah. If you've got...
Starting point is 00:52:37 Maybe you've just stolen some trousers from a witch. I don't think we should be talking about how to bring out kids. Other than that, I agree. Okay, right. Pete, please say goodbye to the lovely listeners. Goodbye to the lovely listeners. Don't steal a witch's pants. And it's goodbye from me. Outro Music

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