The Luke and Pete Show - Medieval Blacksmiths Of The World Unite!

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

Thursday's here! And that can only mean one thing, a new episode of The Luke and Pete Show. Rejoice! This time around the boys are ruminating on the artwork on rides at travelling funfairs, reminiscing about their time spent at amusement arcades, and talking about their favourite brands of bread.There's also time for more of that classic question you ask your mates in the pub - what job would you have if you lived in a medieval village?Send your battery brands/nonsense/offers of the freedom of various cities here: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Thursday, it's the Luke and Pete show. We're talking batteries, we're talking boys, we're talking bread. Are we? That's how I'm introducing the show this week. I don't know, I don't know, it's not on the list, but we may turn our attention to someone who has been, or continues to be, a boy boy and bread is the food of life. We might touch on it. What is your favourite type of bread? If you go to the supermarket

and you buy a loaf of bread, what do you normally go for? Because I'll tell you right away, straight away now, I'll go for Hovis Seed Sensations. Now, that is Sarah's favourite bread. You can tell we're recording this after the Eurofinal.

Bread. We're talking about bread. But yes, bread, the seed sensation she's very into. I am personally someone who doesn't eat a lot of bread, so I don't really care. I'll get what she wants, to be quite frank. I'll have, if I see a very specific kind of cheese bagel, like four cheese bagel, I'll go for that.

But I'm not a big bread guy. You won't have a loaf of bread on the go as a matter of course in the house because in case you want to make a sandwich or have some toast or something? When I lived alone, never had bread in the house. Never. It's just not something that...

I had a lot of noodles. But when you lived on your own, basically you would only really eat noodles and takeaway? Yeah, yeah, pretty much. And how have you changed that since you started cohabiting? How has that changed? My partner just cooks a lot of potatoes. I don't eat quite as many noodles, quite as much rice.

It's been replaced by potatoes. And let me tell you, there is a cost to that when it comes to your belly. So basically, your home life then at mealtimes consists of your lovely lady partner who you have access to cooking a nice meal and thinking, I'll just chuck Peter a potato. Are you like one of the dogs?

You're just sat there, give Peter a potato. He'll have a potato. Yeah, she's got one of those. You know those, you just sat there give peter potato he'll have a potato yeah she's got one of those um she's got one of those you know those you just never see them anywhere else but you see those um potato ovens in cafes yeah and that all they do is is do baked potatoes or they did they display baked potatoes i keep them warm the baked potatoes i'm not really sure what why they exist they always look the same and They look like nice potatoes. The skin's very dark, but I just don't know.

It just has limited use, that thing. How many baked potatoes are you selling? Baked potatoes is a meal, a staple, that is so not in vogue at the moment. And I don't think it's ever going to get back to where it was, to be quite frank. A lot of those purpose-built baked potato ovens, I think, I get the impression that the new generation have essentially eschewed those for in favor of the uh the home pizza oven

yes yes that's true yeah yeah the ones those silver ones you see in the garden i just look at that and it it sort of puts in mind a yogurt maker my dad bought when we were in in the when i was like five. Right. Um, it was, you know, everyone was talking about how many different yogurts we're going to make, how exciting it's going to be. The,

the, the range of yogurts we were, we were going to create our own. Um, and, uh, we used it like twice and then it just went in the cupboard. And every time you'd open the cupboard,

you got, there's a fucking yogurt maker again. And those pizza ovens kind of put in, put me in mind of that. I don't, I, I just can't see if you've got a pizza oven at home do you use it regularly or are if you sort of email in at hello

at look and picture.com or at looking picture on twitter are you just saying that because you're upset how much it cost yeah i also feel like um the yogurt maker is very niche i mean i i understand the pizza from people come over it's quite fun to make pizzas. You've got a kid in the family, they want to make pizzas with you, that's a thing. It'll be,

it'll taste really nice because it'll be cooked in that traditional way and it's in the garden, generally speaking, so it's not taking that much space. I get all that.

The yogurt maker is very niche. It's the first I've ever even heard of it. I didn't even know you could buy them. How does it work? I thought yogurt

was just essentially fermented or kind of some weird state of dairy so it's not like an ice cream maker is it? I think it was just like a little mini refrigerator I want to say

but I remember you had limited pots, you could make four pots at a time in a line. And, yeah, we just never really... But do you know how it actually works? No, no, I don't know how to make yoghurt. I mean, I presume yoghurt's just not like, you know, temperature-controlled milk, old milk.

I don't really know what separates rancid milk with yoghurt and stuff like that. Same with cheese. There's a whole... I was about to say say there's a whole array and range of dairy products that are essentially moldy dairy that i don't feel i've got my head around like cheese and also yeah if i if i was like you know sent back to um olden times um and and i was going to introduce the people to cheese i wouldn't know how to make it i'd kill generations of people i'd kill entire villages because i don't know how to control it properly mate they ain't putting you near any of the livestock in medieval times no way yeah but i

think people fully i think people fully under appreciate how important the livestock was to a medieval community they're not putting anyone but the most trusted people near the animals and i'm sorry to tell you mate but you are not one of them you'd probably be doing the joinery mate you'd probably be putting the old wooden huts up i'd be making the um a friend friend of the show murray um sent over the uh dorodango a japanese art form uh in which earth and water are molded uh carefully polished to create a delicate shiny sphere resembling a billiard ball basically you get a handful of soil a handful of dirt

or even a handful of poop mix it with water just keep squeezing the water out of it over and over again make it put it in a carrier bag make it sweat

so all of the fluid is out of it and it becomes this very soft malleable kind of rock it sort of reminds me of that a little bit just like a little

like a soil-based yoghurt maker. And then you just start polishing it slowly. And it's kind of this idea of, you know, you can polish a turd. You can, like, Dorodango. It's worth a Google. Shiny, bowling. Well, it's just you're creating something out of nothing. It's very,

it's a very calm, kind of meditative discipline. Just shining a ball of soil, a ball of dirt. I can see why people get off on it. Would you be doing that? Are you doing that in a medieval village? Is that what you're saying? That's what I'm doing.

I'm the guy who gets rid of the poop from the latrines and I create little balls of poop. Would you be... I mean, because presumably in that, I mean, we've obviously been very vague with our eras here for no other reason than the fact that we know what we're talking about, but would you be a warrior? Everyone's going to be expected to fight probably,

so are you going to be front and centre there? No, I'd be a blacksmith's assistant and I'd be feckless and useless and not a real man, and I'd just be a bit of a worm. I'd be dead by 18. I'd fall in a fall. I quite like the idea of you as a blacksmith's assistant, actually. Yeah, but not like...

I'm sort of thinking like a really... Is it Podrick out of Game of Thrones? Was he a blacksmith's assistant? No, Gendry was, wasn't he? Podrick was the man at arms kind of thing. They look quite similar, though. Yeah, Gendry was the blacksmith. But you've got to be tough.

You've got to have big muscles to be a blacksmith. No, exactly. Yeah, that's why by the assistant, I'd just be carrying swords over to the big man while he whacks away. And by 40, which we both are now, we'd both be dead, right? Because people die way before that by then. Asthma, mate. Asthma. Oh yeah, asthma. I wouldn't have got out like childhood. I don't think I'd be able to do anything.

I can see you as a blacksmith. You're quite good with your hands. You're interested in that kind of tech and back then I guess that was tech. And you can do stuff practically. I can't do anything practically and I'm not brave and I'm not strong. So I think I'm not clever. So I'm not sure I wouldn't be anything practically and I'm not brave and I'm not strong and I'm not clever I wouldn't be a man of letters

I'd end up doing I'd end up being one of those terrible people back in medieval times who'd have to dress like a woman to avoid going to war or be the assistant of someone who runs a brothel or something Yeah but you

back in the day though, everyone was a bit shorter, weren't they? So you'd be regarded as a giant. I'd be Hodor. Like a wrestler or something. Yeah, exactly. Even Hodor's brave. Hodor plays a seismic role with his strength and his bravery.

By the way, changing trains, I was going to say I saw that you put in the... No trains in Game of Thrones. No, it's true. I saw that you put in the uh no trains in game of thrones no it's true don't be invented yeah is i saw that you put in our little shared dot um and this piqued my interest because it's one of my favorite video games of all time um a copy of super mario 64 has sold for 1.5 million dollars that's right isn't it and is that is that because it's never been opened is that the only reason never been open i think it's it i think it's uh it's never been opened? Is that the only reason? Never been opened. I think it's got a really high quality rating in its condition.

It's never been opened. There's only four or five other ones that are identical. What I found interesting about this is, like, I'm used to sort of seeing games on, like, the NES or the Super Nintendo kind of going for this amount of money. But, like, I regard Super Mario 64 as being um quite a modern game if that makes any sense it's polygonal you know it's n64 um so yeah an unopened uh package of of mario 64 which is incredible really you never really know what is going to capture people's imaginations you never really know which

game uh is going to be the rarity, the one that nobody knew about. And so you do sort of think it's people who have got a lot of storage space, usually in America, people who have got access to barns that they can keep their shit in, are the ones who are going to capitalise on this sort of thing. But you do obviously have to wait 30 years before it's important. 25 years ago it came out in 1996.

I remember it. I remember playing it and thinking, fucking, this is blowing my mind to bits. Because, as far as I remember, it was one of the first games to be properly 3D, right? Yeah, certainly on the Mario side.

Does it still stand up now, Pete? Because I remember playing a bit of Goldeneye about, I don't know, a month or so ago, and it was poor. No, yeah, I I remember playing a bit of GoldenEye about, I don't know, a month or so ago, and it was poor. No, yeah, I think GoldenEye doesn't. Mario 64, I think, very much does. I'd never really played it on the original architecture. I played it on the PC about 10 years ago. But yeah, I just sort of think, have I got any valuables? And then I look around my unlovable little grief hole and sort of go, no, I don't think I do have any valuables.

All your valuables are in the garage, aren't they? Exactly, they're all in the garage. Mimi's got Super Mario 64 on the Switch. It's been released on the Switch now, so it's quite cool that you can play it in that way, go back over the old... Well, they released... Somebody managed to find... Did they

reverse engineer it, or did they... They got the source code, basically, which meant that you could make your own Super Mario 64, if that makes sense. You could make it on the PC, so there could be a native personal computer PC or Mac or whatever Linux version of Super Mario 64. So it's completely device independent.

There's some really interesting stuff happening in the Nintendo fan spheres, a point that obviously Nintendo find very problematic because they're very litigious, that company. Are they? Why? For what reason? They're very protective about their copyrights, as everyone should be with their copyrights, but they are known to be incredibly aggressive

when it comes to chasing people who are, you know... There's a guy who got sued, I think, for editing a Zelda save file so that you could have more items and stuff so you could get, like, more amazing items earlier. And all he was doing was editing the save files with, like, a hack and then selling them to people. It's obviously the selling that's problematic

because Nintendo should be making the money by writing that. But, yeah, they are very, very aggressive. What does that mean for those of us that run travelling funfairs with the hastily painted characters on the side of, say, a rollercoaster? Well, look, it depends on how big it is. If you've got a little super mario or a kobe on the side of your waltzes um how big is it compared to the terrible um airbrush painting of angelina jolie from tomb raider like how like because it's always those characters isn't it

it's always and then they'll be and and a lot of them have got more sexual over time yeah i think like the abitha uncovered the uh no nonsense kind of like you know the the the the the the sort of jackass style sexy kind of suicide girls kind of nonsense like sort of round about the turn of the millennium everyone got you know everything got hyper sexualized and uh yeah the the paintings on the side of uh waltzes and and stuff big dippers it's quite quite offensive i think you could do I think you could do a pretty good job of painting the side of waltzes. You're quite good with the old paintbrush.

I can see that as your job. You look a bit like you could do that. I could see you with a vest on early in the morning, roll up out your mouth, painting Dizzy on the side of a waltzer. Sooty and sweet. Sooty and sweet fucking.

It should be Dizzy, right? Because Waltz does make you dizzy. Why are they putting Kirby on there? Put Dizzy Egg on there. Good point. Dizzy Egg. The Oliver twins. It's always either those kind of video game characters

on those travelling fanfare rides or really poor renditions of Disney characters. Yeah, or Tom Cruise. Or they never look. Arnie is a big one there. I went down, I didn't realise, but I'm like seconds

away from Southend Pier. I mean, I live next to Southend and I'd never actually been down to the arcades on Southend Pier. Fucking brilliant. It was so popped in for an hour. Played a bit of Outrun, played a bit of Mario. If I'm like, you know, if I fall out with my partner,

I'll just sort of go there for a couple of hours and sink some pounds. You're an Asbo teenager. If you fall out with your 40 years old, you go to the fun fair. People are going to ask questions, mate. Don't go there on your own. It good man it looks good but i can't get over there with my scooter now because the the license plate's been nicked is the outrun one the one where you just stand up with the steering wheel is the one where you sit in the big car uh it was outrun two actually um it was one where you could uh you sit there's two steering wheels in one car which you would not get in a Ferrari Test Dros so let me make that very clear

but when one person crashes the other steering wheel becomes active and you kind of just swap over every time you smash into someone it's a nice idea there was one on Leon Solent Amusement Arcade obviously near where I grew up

you alright? sorry I spilt coffee on myself earlier it was horrible you knocked your paintbrushes over called shoot the cup

now if anyone's listening to this get in touch because there's an amazing game called shoot the cup it was almost like you know the gun

you get in Resident Evil at an arcade it was like that but it was like it was stylised this super American like firearms

training game where you'd hold the gun and it would give you a finite amount of bullets obviously if we had to reload

and it would give you a lot of different challenges so one minute you're walking into a room and there's some hostages and some

terrorists you've got to shoot them then it'll flip to another game and you've got to shoot the cup off someone's head

and at the end the final game always used to be shoot the cup right and it always used to say shoot the cup right and they always used to say watch your ammo

for ammo even though no one in America says ammo which is so weird but anyway it was an amazing game I've never seen it

anywhere else ever maybe it was like a Japanese thing with the Japanese arcade cabinets you sometimes get some absolutely

bizarre pronunciation there's also a game that was featured in the third in arcade cabinets, you sometimes get some absolutely bizarre pronunciation. There's also a game that was featured in the third, whatever the most recent series, I think it's the third series of Stranger Things, that they're playing in one of the arcades.

And it's an amazingly, beautifully rendered cartoon game that looks nothing like anything else. I want to say it's called Dragon Quest or something. It's called Dragon's Lair. Right, and it looks amazing. Why is it so much more advanced than all the other games around in the early 80s?

It first came out on Laserdisc, I believe. There were some home conversions. It was the guy who left Disney to start his own animation company, Don Bluth, who did that, and they did Space Ace as well. I preferred Space Ace than Dragon's Lair. I used to find that very, very compulsive viewing. But it all used to run off Laserdisc,

and it was really, you know, obviously graphically... Very advanced. Very advanced, you know, beautifully animated cartoon. But the only problem is it was a bit of a shitty game. Right, so it was all show and no go, basically. Yeah, you'd sort of, if you wanted to go up a ladder, for summary, you would go, oh, well, I've got to press up here at this point.

And you had to do it within three seconds that the computer allowed you to do it in three seconds. It was really interesting. I played it on the Amiga on like seven floppy disks. Yeah, because the other games were so basic in comparison. Yeah, it looked terrible. But yeah, anything, the sort of laser disc video games of the 90s, early 90s, it looked like nothing else.

And walking around the arcades, the thing that surprised me was like, back in the day, the arcades was where the best graphics were. The video games looked better than all of the rest. Because they were in these massive cabinets, right? Yeah, yeah. And walking around now, the processes are a little bit slow.

So you're watching something that's actually quite herky-jerky and not very good. So that's kind of sad a little bit. I was a little bit upset. I was like, oh, this is where the good stuff used to be. And now it's a bit wonky, to be honest.

Also, the attraction, and I'm probably just about old enough to remember it is that the people didn't have home video game consoles that often and if they did they were really basic and so you'd go to an arcade and you'd i can remember going on holiday to the us with my family in like 1992 or something my dad got made redundant and then my parents i think i told you before my parents spent inexplicably spent all the money on a holiday to America. She's like mad. Anyway, in the hotel we stayed at,

I had this video game arcade and it was like the best thing ever. You get all these quarters, you convert your dollar bill into like four quarters and you play these games. And it was like astonishingly good. It was like a wrestling game, which was a four player game.

And it was nothing like anything I'd ever seen before. But now you're right. I i mean everyone's got these i mean look you play um you play some of these games on ps5 and stuff it's absolutely unbelievable how good though you're never gonna be a replica of that arcade because probably they can't put the same they can't afford to have a cabinet it's just one game because you know obviously the whole point of a ps5 for example or a console it plays loads of different games, right? Yeah, I mean, they'll have like, you know, PCs and arcade cabinets that run pretty much the same way that PCs do, which would cut down on how much that's going to cost, I suppose. But the arcades are dying, man.

I mean, they've been dying, obviously, for a very, very, very long time. But certainly in Japan, a lot of the straight-up arcades rather than the pachinko gambling parlours and the rhythm games and stuff. The only games that have really been played in Japan are the rhythm games. What's a rhythm game? So there's no... Well, like a rock band, but more advanced. Like DDR, kind of dancing, waving your arms around, hitting.

And the Japanese are very good at that. But I think a lot of the Teto arcades and the Sega arcades in Akihabara in Tokyo, nobody's going because it was so reliant on foreign visitors. And now they've sort of closed up shop. They're finding it very very difficult but I mean when I went down the arcades down there £2

to play Outrun, £2 for one life in Outrun and I'll say one thing for Japan like 100 yen what's that 75p per go, not bad, much better than here Pete let's have a quick break and when we come back we'll do some battery brands

and maybe squeeze an email or two in as well, shall we? Yes, please. It's Thursday, so it's battery brands on the Luke and Pete show. If you've got a battery that you've found in an unlovable piece of Chinese tech, let us know at hellotlukeandpeachshow.com with a photograph, if you would. And you can also get in touch on Twitter and Instagram at LukeandPeteShow.

Yes, indeed. Stuart Burchett, hello to you. He's been in touch with a PK Cell asking if that's a new player entering the game. It is not, I'm afraid. No, sorry about that, mate. And James E refers to himself as James E on their social media. He's sent in a Pear Deer Ultra Digital. That's also not a new player. But I'm excited to say that Matthew Slater

has given us pause for thought because he sent him, Pete, a Toy State. Toy State battery. I don't recognise it. I looked at the picture. I think it's new. I am still astonished that after all these years, we are still finding batteries we've never seen before.

I think, Peter, if you agree with me, Matt has successfully entered a new player into the game. I think he's in there. I think he's in there with Toy State. Very, very enjoyable. Well done, Matthew Slater. Well done to you. Keep them coming in.

Emails, hello at lukeandpete.com is the address. Pete, do you want to step up and do one? Because I did one on Monday. I'll step up. I'll step up, yeah. I got a message from Steve in one of my favourite emails of recent weeks. It has to be said, Morning, lads.

Just listening to your recent episode about your grandad selling bread and getting free cinema tickets. I was born in South Africa because my dad was transferred from Belfast to Johannesburg to look after a factory manufacturing knock-off TV. My dad clamped down on wastage in the manufacturing process, only to find himself confronted by the foreman wielding a gun. The wastage in question was a long-standing verbal agreement that the workers could take a TV off the line

in exchange for not throwing grit in the machines and holding up production. Being from Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles, my dad was ultimately sympathetic to the situation and reported back to head office saying that the production line was inefficient and losses were to be expected. The former did fire the gun into the ceiling, cementing the continuation of the deal. Oh, my goodness me.

Oh, lordy. Yeah, I was born in Johannesburg, and three months later I got to fly back to London on the flight deck of a British Airways 737. It's a shame I can't remember this. Keep up this inane shit Stephen and he also throws in a PS as well which is very interesting. My gran had fought

in World War II in Cairo. He failed his driving test with the army and had to spend three months in the glass house because he was asked to move a tank and backed it into a market stand. I later found out that this is true but he got the three months for stealing beer from the officer's mess. Stephen, more of your stories, please. Can I have more from Stephen, please?

That is a lot of action packed into one email there. I mean, it's got everything, really. A man shooting a gun, a foreman of a factory shooting a gun into a ceiling, threatening to throw grit into the machine. What machine is this? Less of negotiation, more economy. I'm going to do this as a threat if you don't give me what I want. That's incredible stuff.

Good for you, Stephen. Fantastic. I've got an email here from, I want to find it. It's from, oh, where is it? It's not left his name, the idiot. Oh, it's Michael. It's Michael. He has left his name, but he's put it in the body of the email,

which for those of you who don't present podcasts to a middling level, won't know that it's quite confusing. Anyway, Michael's been in touch. It's, hey, Luke and Pete. It's Michael here from Miami, Florida. Referring to Thursday's episode last week when one of the listeners accidentally ate a poisonous plant.

That was a yew, wasn't it? A yew. Listen, we won't refer to it as the yew tree incident because of what's gone on before in this country, but it was very much a man in trouble to do with a yew tree. Michael says, can I refer you to something I looked up to when I was listening to your show?

The place is called the Poison Garden in Ann annick i think it's pronounced annick in i presume the north of north of england north umberland um beautiful on its website it states that if you visit you must be very careful not to touch anything um though as it also mentions some visitors actually do pass out from inhaling the toxic smell from some of the plants. He's attached a brochure here for it. It's called The Poison Garden, and the title is Do You Dare to Enter? Thanks for sending that in, Michael. I'm not really sure what the point of going to this place would be.

Hmm. I mean, yeah, it's nice to sort of know that they're there, and maybe you can identify them in your old... But it would be a needless risk for me, I think, going to a poison garden where everything's poison. And you're allergic

to quite a lot of stuff, aren't you? True. And your asthma might play up. It'd be a bit of a nightmare. Tell you what we'd do. I'd start eating... I'd absentmindedly

start eating something like a giraffe and I'd just end up killing myself. Drop you off at the... I'll tell you what I'd do. We'd drop you off at the arcade on the way.

Yes, please. Pick you up on the way back. I'll tell you what I'll do. We'll drop you off at the arcade on the way. Yes, please. Pick you up on the way back. I'll have to stop at that. Rather than getting into some toxic trouble. I also want to squeeze in this last email from Nate, who's emailed us all the way from Wisconsin, a state in the United States that you've visited, I believe, Peter.

I think I have, yes. You've been to Milwaukee, have you not? Yep, correct. Milwaukee. Nate says, Dear Luke and Pete, starting you not? Mm-hmm. Yep, correct. Milwaukee. Nate says, Dear Luke and Pete, starting with the usual stuff, long time listening to a first-time email.

I don't have a TV remote, but the closest batteries are Sony Stamina Plus, which come from the manufacturer of a lightsaber prop made for full-contact sparring. Very serious start to the email. Nate goes on to say, Getting to the point, I've been working my way through the back catalogue of episodes slowly but surely.

And in episode 154 or 155, an email read out by Pete mentioned something about a man who collected hats along the highways. And Pete asked how they end up there. This has probably been answered already, given that I'm well over a year behind, but just in case, I've actually witnessed a hat fly out of someone's window on the highway at speed and almost lost a hat of my own the same way. Sometimes people stop to go back for them,

but usually traffic is too busy to safely stop and grab your item back from the road. So that's how they get there. Also somewhere in that same episode, Pete mentioned chewing on various things as a child, a fake poo and i found that relatable as i tended to destroy the collar of t-shirts as a child by chewing them uh for hours and to this day i have no explanation why uh keep up the good work cheers nate from wisconsin i don't remember you chewing a fake poo although i'll tell you, it's very on brand.

No, I think it's like chewing bitumen. We were talking about that, weren't we? But yeah, I'll chew, I will chew anything. I will chew anything. But it's good to know that there are other people out there who are collars of t-shirts. Oh, the idea of chewing cotton. Oh, I just absolutely put my teeth on it.

I think Nate should be fully aware of the fact that he is talking to a man in you, Pete, who has tried every different type of your pet dog's food voluntarily. Just want to know what's going on, mate. In the words of one of the characters from Red Dwarf, now I know

why dogs lick their balls, because it takes away from the flavour of their dog food. Pete, you were very much, some people have adopted the darkness. You very much were born in it. The dogness. The dogness.

Let's get out of here. Thank you very much for listening to Luke and Pete Show again for another week. It's been great. We will, of course, be back on Monday. If you have an email for us, please do get in touch and let us know by emailing hello at lukeandpeteshow.com.

We will read out our favourites as we do every episode. At Luke and Peach Show is our destination on Twitter and Instagram as well. All that's left for me to say is thank you very much indeed, Pete Donaldson. And thank you very much to you listeners. See you again soon. The Luke and Pete Show is a Stack production and part of the ACAST Creator Network.