War With A Mate - Episode 78: The 13th Month

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

Twins, crab and a lion, maybe? Speaking of written in the stars, the trucks are delivering resources because it’s a truck day! Little in terms of action from the guys today, but plenty in terms of mailbags addressing previous Common Ground, a History Segment that is bursting at the STEAMS and propositions of showing what the very best of us can look like - at our worst.

Stop wasting your nights on a mattress that doesn't get you. Experience the most comfortable mattress in the world. The Sleep Number Smart Bed. At the touch of a button, you can personalize your comfort. Choose firmer or softer. Adjust cooler to warmer. And right now, save up to $2,500 during our massive Labor Day event. Hurry into your local Sleep Number store today.

Because we have your number. Hello, one and all. It is War with the Maytime with me, James. Me, Andy. We are playing the Campaign for North Africa. It's a really long board game, and you haven't got it at your house. you can come play at our house if you want andrew's address is okay a few things don't talk to me that's my gimmick um what a fun gimmick you've got it's a gimmick that adds a little bit

extra time onto my editing sometimes that's also can't help but notice you referred to my house as our house as if you're trying to subtly claim some ownership well i think for a good few hours a week it is my house it's my workspace at the very least it's my studio it's my not happy place you know like a rage room where you can like rent it out and smash everything up it's not that it's like it's a hundred percent not that get that out your head it's that but i'm just kind of assessing what i want to break don't don't assess anything in my house ever again because you've got like usually they charge extra for the tv so it's like what is it 20 pound extra for me to break your tv it's your tv it oh this is my tv i actually donated this to you when i moved house

yes so i'm allowed to smash this up for free no i've had it long enough it's mine under common law yeah under common law though rage room supersedes it means that it doesn't matter about length of ownership i can put a hammer through that at my will this isn't a rage room this table this table as well this table what about the table the table's going first if you tried to destroy that table you'd break a limb and it would just without it moving this table is tougher than you it looks pretty solid yeah it is i don't know i could probably take it apart if i can stand on it to change a light bulb you can't destroy it we sound like the beginning of that army advert where it's like if you if you know how to fix a bike then you can fix a bigger

bike and if you can fix a bigger bike you can fix this fighter jet and if you can fix this fighter jet you can probably join the army too so it's a prerequisite to join the army to know how to repair planes yeah well you don't want someone to join who can't fix planes i'd like them to join the air force yeah well you do a bit of both okay well what we do instead we didn't learn any of those skills i don't know how to fix a bike a bigger bike a jet or how to join the army but i presume that it's it's probably around as complex as it is to play the campaign for north africa in fact we probably have the harder job i mean there's more people doing that one than this one that's what i'm thinking if you look at the numbers and you know i like to look at the numbers

numbers guys we're notoriously data driven i've been crunching the numbers andy and there's more people fixing bikes than there are playing the campaign for north africa and i'll prove it to you maybe even by an entire order of magnitude i genuinely think it is you think up to 20 people are fixing bikes so we've been playing the campaign for north africa for a little while now we're now up to turn five up stage two or i guess the very end of up stage two yeah in five we are we're staring down the barrel of up stage three of turn five which means we are nearly done with the penultimate turn of our practice run a six turn practice run 18 months in the making andy it flies by so fast uh we have different perceptions of time you've got uh time blindness

i won't argue with you and i bet if i spoke to your optician they'd probably say you have just normal mundane blindness bad eyes i don't say that i don't think the tail was blind well you know they'd probably embellish it you know what opticians are like notorious braggarts always after those those cash monies what we're after though is uh well a bit of organization and that's that's what we had to do today truck day after the highs of a very intense combat it's it's the sort of crash out hangover of a truck day yeah and you always have to have that just to mellow us out a little bit remember you know where we came from which is that this is a board game that's mostly spreadsheets yes it's mostly can't let us forget it it's just moving stuff around

and occasionally those things will bash into each other and fight and then spreadsheets will change yeah this whole game is just a means to make the spreadsheets change so that my spreadsheets have more things in them than yours if i'm boiling the game down to its simplest form that is what is happening yeah and today i moved around some of my trucks in familiar places i moved my trucks around the bardia to brook spot to the men around there that are taking a battering from your guys replenish their packs their stores their waters mostly their ammos though ammo big one I will be, of course, focusing on stores next upstage

because that's the big one for the end of a turn. Yes. Need to make sure they're full of food. They've got some food left over, but I'd like to make sure they have enough food to not starve. I've neglected to do that for most of the game, so I thought why not make that end on a high? Make that change. Be the change

you want to be, Andy. I want to get rid of world hunger, so I'll start small with a fictional game. I guess the game's not fictional. Nor is the event it's based on. it's actually like you know the way ours has played out is the way ours has played out it's some sort of fever dream of what history could have been if the italian forces were more unequipped and the british were not well led i mean i mean they were in real life

so all in all it's been a fairly straightforward day for me and i'd hazard to say that it's it's the same for you yep uh it's the same supply line i've used for slightly more of it it has extended so now we've got the city barani supply dump and then that southern one and then i had to supply the uh not the seventh uh the second new zealand uh who were pincering your 63rd yeah although do remember if you can't remember the names of the units immediately then you you don't win anymore you're actually disqualified yeah you hesitated though so that's a DQ in my book

thanks for playing we'll take it to the umpires the court of officials the court of officials is SBI and I'm pretty sure the company disbanded in the early 2000s there's no way of knowing that I've actually done a bit of research get a load of this guy

I've got access to the internet and it's not restricted at all apart from i guess any of the sites in the uk that are restricted considered adult sites yeah so that could be i guess anything that's a rude website or anything with political content because they decided that's adult content a little fun political point for you if you're in or out of the uk that's what they did here wild not a decision i would make but i can't be used as the arbiter of what is a good decision and what isn't. I'm playing this game.

Yeah, in fact, you denouncing that has actually made me rethink maybe it was a good idea. I'm not the antithesis of good ideas. You're close enough that when you align on something I'll at least check it out again. I'll give it another look just to see.

Oh, alright. I'm going to use this against you. I'm going to gaslight you into doing loads of research and becoming a well-rounded person. jokes on me no i'm not gonna do that i don't want you to i don't want you to become that there you go i don't want you to become better than me like i'm not now no right now we're pretty much equal squeakles it's important that you think that i'm looking down on you from my ivory tower you can tell it's truck day yeah just talking absolute nonsense oh but we did

roll weather yes i will say uh are you doing your i guess we've got a bit of talk about it supply wise you just said you're doing your um store resupply on upstage free yeah well for the most part how you've been doing it i've i gave a few guys some stores last upstage because i had a few trucks available to do that and my holdout operation isn't too ammo consuming because usually you wipe out a bunch of guys and i'm like well if i keep them there they'll get smashed so what's the point in committing all of the ammo anyway yes i'd rather have them there for five fights using a quarter of their ammo than using you know all of the ammo over and over and just absolutely wiping them yeah i guess so there's no point in committing the whole thing there's

no point in trying hard is what i'm saying oh yeah nice so yeah i gave them some food so that on the off chance they do survive through to the next op stage, or next turn rather it means that they can actually fight of their own volition rather than just on the defensive. Yeah. I'm just not sure for the main game where I'll try and get it like

get the op get it just back on turn one so I don't have to worry about it. Yeah, do it on op stage one so that nothing can interrupt it on the final op stage. Or can I be confident enough in my supply line so that I can I will be able to supply these guys in two op stages.

I mean I'd love if you tried that because that means that I have the opportunity to disrupt it in the final hour of every single turn that would work nicely for me so I guess you've answered that question for the main game yeah I fear that that's probably what you're going to try and do in the coming off stage

but to do that you kind of have to go to the places you'd be going anyway you either have to strike a lot of trucks that are in cities or you have to get past my line of men at which point the supply lines don't really matter because my men are going to die anyway if you've got past them they're dead that's a good assessment i'm a realist andy well it's good that's one of us i'm

also a virgo what's that um it means i i haven't i haven't done sex no what animal are you um virgo is because leo's a lion virgo is like a beetle i don't know that doesn't sound right there's quite a range on them though yeah i mean you've got i think i'm a centaur you've got crabs you've got sendor you've got twins you've got that one's odd uh well hang on because i do like they're putting twins up with magical creatures and then crab yeah yeah there's a weird eclectic mix it feels like it's you know when a like a novel series gets taken over by a different author partway through oh and the long like spirals yeah i feel like that's happened with with star signs i feel like this started kind of mundane it's like oh you got a crab

um i don't know let's let's get a little bit wacky yeah we'll go we'll go twins fuck it centaur just i need to get out of here biblically accurate angels that that's not one that would be a good one though yeah it's a bit like the idea of the 13th month i think that should be introduced well and they're all what are they if they do that it was all 28 or something 28 days across 13 months every every month would have 28 days the 13 months i propose the 13th month called uh it's called caesar no yeah i think that works with the whole he's already got one no no no why are you giving him two months i just feel like it ties in why don't you call it cool you were so close to being able to make a point that wasn't self-absorbed after saint

andrew the scottish one the scottish one tell me anything more about him a third fact alongside his name and oh yep there it is the fruit zone okay what we what we're looking at peach or pear oh peach pears are shit peach the fruit zone all right um name a third fact about saint andrew you can't hound me like that through the fruit segment it doesn't matter that won't get my mind off of the fact that you're you just brought up prince andrew yeah i don't want to bring that vibe onto the podcast yeah i delivered i just didn't mention them at all oh anyway little common ground there we can argue about the month thing but let's let's change the calendar a bit does it also mean you got like a free day spare for like a big new year's

party yes new year's day is its own day it's it's separate to the rest of the year which makes sense because everything's switched off anyway that day it just means my birthday would move oh probably end up in a shit month would it move at all we would have to i guess no not i guess i'm just telling you that it does move oh yeah you might be earlier in the year i would say your birthday i guess thanks they know i'm a virgo so run with that or that's a bit of an obfuscation that's it's just all it's all bullshit it's protecting your id you know what else is bullshit andy what the fact that you ruled the weather oh yeah and what did you get i got a cheeky little sandstorm a sandstorm and we we checked this time it is definitely a sandstorm

yes we've made this mistake before not a rainstorm it is a sandstorm but it's fine because it's localized it is it's localized on two maps what maps are those andy a and b a and b which is my pair of maps on the left of the game map andy how does it feel to be the worst guy in the room Awesome. Well, I'm glad someone's having fun with that because staring at you right now, it's unpleasant because of the glibness. We've discussed it.

It's one of my traits. Yeah, I know. It's one of my moods. Sorry, not a trait. One of your moods. One of these days, the fact that we've got the celebrity on the couch there and you're the worst person in this room,

that says a lot because I've had it with that guy. He's perfectly annoying at worst, but he's a national treasure. National treasure for which country? Let's not get too specific. That's a good point. You know what?

He's going to be the first thing I break in this rage room. That's fine. I want him out. He's long past the 27 club, so he won't even be famed for that. He's giving too much info. We're really narrowing down who this guy is. We're going to accidentally narrow it to a specific guy.

No one's guessed who he is. No one's gotten in touch. I know who he is. He's even tried. Good. It's a weird bit. Yeah, let's... oh so how are you feeling for turn five uh upstage three general going into it well let me think

you're going first um by your own choice that's generous uh and there's a sandstorm on maps a and b so i can't fly any of my shit because you've taken away my fighters in fort madeleine i am on the back foot combat wise and i won't be able to pin any of them with airstrikes so pretty bad how are you feeling good for all those reasons yeah i thought you might mirror that and some other ones oh please share no that likes plan reasons right cool that's this is great content nah i think i'm really gonna go for you this time i know well i presumed it's been a lot of fun what beating me in the game well so far bearing in mind i'm the only one who's hit a win condition so right now i've still got a bueno on the go you've got one it's gonna taste bad it's gonna

tastes like ash in your mouth. Because you're going to know you haven't earned it. I'm not Barbossa cursed with Aztec gold. as you look across your fields of dead toe. And when Alexander

looked across his domain, he wept for he had lost at the Campaign for North Africa practice scenario. We'd probably beat him at that. Probably, because he doesn't have any dice.

Yeah. So, he's also dead. He doesn't know anything about tanks. He doesn't have the rulebook. What a rubbish commander. He doesn't even have the game. having the game is a very rare feat we've already done far more than he ever accomplished

yeah that guy i've also not cried at beaches that often either why did i just get a team's notification on my laptop i don't have i'm not i don't do teams on my laptop sorry i don't do teams that made me sound like this is a check-in is it telling you that you've just currently paid for another month for you uh no i did cancel that i canceled that the day of the subscription renewing well done um that was that was back when we had uh our pal hewitt on a devoted listener and so devoted he sent me several reminders to cancel the subscription after we had the call with him for the audio mailbag and i ignored it um i didn't heed the advice i didn't heed your advice and i waited until the day of so i only got billed i think it's like 180 pounds or whatever

so a lot of money was close but I'm safe, I'm free so I don't know why teams did that maybe they're trying to get in touch with us to let us know that we have important mail Andy maybe that's what it is maybe it's a message from beyond a message from the mailbag

perhaps let's have a little look inside we can always lean on the mailbag on a truck day get some words from our listeners because we have very few to say ourselves got some words for you alright, who's first? aphan two common grounds both alike in dignity that's the subject hmm and i'm sure we ever have

dignity in common grounds this will be interesting yes hello andy and james the podcast being done in person is very interesting to me not least because uh i am in need of evidence that i am not entirely fabricating the podcast well uh speaking of that athens if you're listening to this episode the day it comes out it will probably be either the day of the day before or the day after the live show so that will very much depend on let that dictate your actions yeah um i guess either uh thanks everyone for attending or we'll see you soon for the most common ground half a house f78 i have two comments this is a solution that would not work thank you to a problem that has already been solved the solution doesn't work because the

cost of building a house is mainly in getting the land not in the materials or labor so the plot size being unaffected would impede it and the pre-existing solution is one used in early post or social housing though it's understandable you don't know about it as the history segments haven't got that far yet where estates would be built with a range of housing options so a person could live there their entire lives in the same estate changing house as needed but remaining in the community uh yes there's two bits i like about that the first is um being vindicated that you had a bad idea because i that's one of my common grounds andy that uh no no i think that was one midway through i was like this is i liked i vote the houses looked cool and then when i was going

through the various options i was like this isn't there's nothing worse than when you start a common ground and realize halfway through you're arguing for something you don't believe in anymore so there's that and there's also a fun little nugget in there that aethon mentioned that we haven't yet got to that part of the history segment so we won't know which indicates athan is concerned we don't know anything unless it's mentioned in the history segment and what it is is he that wrong i was about to say when it comes to history that is actually pretty accurate so there's a lot of stuff about world war ii that unless it's been covered so far i probably won't know about it my fear is that people may think that applies to all parts of life and i'm not

too sure that's wrong i'm learning a lot of stuff in history segments andy so if you could really speed it up to like financial management or emotional maturity that would be great we're not getting there i'm afraid we've got like 20 years i haven't really got to world war ii you're afraid fucking around with the past you're afraid people will talk to you like you don't think i do the history segment and people are like oh can we talk about world war ii history and i'll be like can we please talk about the ottomans isn't your podcast about a world war two board game i look i know a bit about the siege of venice yeah that's that's a good point we we have a we have a bad rep in that sense for we the we need more specific words episode 64 one uh from

a few weeks ago i particularly agree i'm aromantic and find it hard to express the emotion i hold for people because love is so broad in its meaning but it's narrow in its commonly used meaning referring almost exclusively to romantic sexual love uh that it doesn't describe the love that i feel and using adjectives on it makes it feel weaker uh i would also like to suggest a few examples for the other problems um you rose first of all the love side of things that is a perfect example of what i was talking about and i'm pretty sure i mentioned it in the episode about a greek one yeah the greeks i think it was my and then you brought it the greek stuff up yeah yeah like eros is the sort of sexual erotic love yeah um philia's your bros yes uh agape's love of

like god or a more sort of broad general love depending yes you've got you've got a few different definitions there but i guess using those now in contemporary speech would probably feel a bit jarring i feel like if you drop drop dropped an agape or i really feel like you bro people will be like what the fuck yeah we need to we need to contemporize things for for the likes of aethon for people where you need to you need to use these words yeah right now the current ones are the dog shit let's put some context on powerful words yeah exactly powerful words should be able to to sway in the direction that they're heading they're not a sledgehammer they should be a scalpel cut deep so here's some suggested scalpels for other problems we brought up let's

see the scalpels distaste or being averse to for the unoperative slash uninteractive dislike eg i have a distaste for celebrity of your choice so i want to watch film they appear in uh as it is fittingly weak for the effort you put into disliking them you hear that celebrity on the couch i have distaste for you and i'm averse to you i'm averse to you being here i do like the thing of use the weaker word because it does reflect not the level of distaste but the level of effort you're willing to put into the distaste yes i like the i like the semantics within that of it's yeah it's not worth my time if you say like you actually go i hate you it should have an blind finger like oh so you dislike me enough to act on it yeah hey it's like an active thing yeah

you have to really think about hating someone uh enmity for operative uninteractive dislike uh e.g this politician is my enemy because they support a policy that harms you as enemy is impersonal but still represents potential danger you might be in i like that yeah yeah enmity is a it's a great word that i think the only other context in in life that i tend to use that as vow of enmity in dnd yeah i don't think it works for that kind of dislike because i always think of enmity as like a it's like a long-standing it's not like a flash yes like you've got enmity for something you don't feel enmity in the moment necessarily it always feels sort of dutiful in a way it's almost a committed which i'm now thinking is

that because it's been associated with paladins in my head by dnd could be yeah that might that might just be because i play that game too much that might not actually be at all to do with its relationship with the word and we've got despise for operative and interactive uh e.g i despise personal work they're always doing something infuriating as it is harsh uh enough for a personal relationship i am and shall endeavor to remain your most subtle humble and brave servants aphan uh thanks aphan uh some really good options there yes that is uh that's a really good list that is exactly the kind of stuff i was talking about that is a perfect breakdown so thank you very much for that you've really you've really struck that that chord perfectly so i i have uh

i have enmity for any word that doesn't fit within these kind of categories and i have causing you harm it's uh yeah yeah okay then yes it's causing me harm because when i hear stuff like that um you know what actually i despise them i have a personal relationship with with this with words with words i do i'm immediately misusing the ones that have been presented by athan but you know c'est la vie i'm a fickle man and some despise that but thank you very good email ethan and uh it's always good to be vindicated that andy had a bad idea next up we have nova who writes brilliant podcast we've got a got another incorrect email and another one sent destined for another podcast i jest we're pretty fun guys nova writes hey there

james and andy i don't know if you've actually received a mail yet i'm only on episode 14 but until now you've only ever cried about not receiving mail yep early throws of the podcast well nova this was sent a little while ago by you now so you've probably caught up and realized that we have but probably not caught up to this one yet unless you're really hammering the episodes i wanted to thank you two first i always wanted to play this game one stride starting with my mom but we gave up after giving the rules a rough read so still getting the chance to finally experience it in some way is great well we're glad you managed to live vicariously through us because i wouldn't expect this to be a very fun child and mother bonding experience it's certainly

a tight and lasting in terms of like a a parent child hobby it's like well you're definitely going to be seeing them a lot for a long time i guess it depends on the age because i feel like it's definitely something a kid could be into at like maybe 13 14 just a real solid interest of theirs and then they grow out of it well you might need to go through some fallow years it's like you start out and then they're like i hate you i want to go hang out with my friends and then they get into like mid-20s again and they're like oh you guys are kind of all right let's play that game again let's restart the game and the parent whose frontal lobe was developed the whole time does not want to get back into it and well you're quite helping me with my depression i do have a

severe depression phase right now and my 20 year old cat had a stroke and isn't doing too well either i'm sorry to hear that nova that is that is really shit um 20 years old that's good going for a cat that is yeah it's a solid solid cat uh having you two to listen to makes me feel way less lonely without having to put in the energy to actually spend time with a person which is hard enough with my uni classes so now me and my cat are sitting on the kitchen floor listening to you two and both quite enjoying it well it seems we've tapped into the feline community as well so just don't let them listen to it was episode like nine whereas then all cats have to go out don't let your cat listen to that one all about them becoming municipal property yeah yeah i'm

not sure if that was around this episode so we might not get another email there might be a sort of logic bomb in this series for cat people when they jump off yeah the yeah nova's cat might actually be against us now so apologies if that is the case but i'm glad to hear you found a bit a bit of fun in this because we like it to be light-hearted nonsense so if anyone gets a bit of a kick out of that then that's that's really good news for us we're glad to to provide that i'm looking forward to catching up on the rest who knows maybe you're going to be so amazed finally getting a mail you even say it on the podcast but i won't find out until a few weeks when i work my way through continue having lots of fun gaming and don't worry listening to

all the other stuff you guys ramble on about is as fun as the actual game reports you're naturals at this podcasting stuff cheers and all the best a sophisticated wargamer and serious student of history from over an island well thank you very much some very dear compliments in there

which is astounding that you think we're naturals at this in those first few episodes because we constantly get the feedback that contradicts that but it's nice to hear something balancing that out but i know this first few weren't for everyone i think they're real mama in the fist they are they they really were a different different game altogether it's so different from what it turns

into what's actual segmented structured conversation today hasn't really been much of that because i feel like truck days are a bit of a flashback they are they are but it's great that you've had fun with it nova and we will we'll certainly be continuing we've read out the mail and we will not be stopping this anytime soon the gameplay or i guess the tangents so you've got the best of both worlds these days nova and i hope you and your feline friend are doing just fine hopefully you've got up off this kitchen floor though that sounds like an uncomfortable place to listen to this all the places go on a commute maybe that's that's that's more suited for this long form storytelling that's what this is a beautiful narrative which is held put together

every week by you folk you fine folk who send things in you can email us at info at warwithamate.co.uk our Instagram is warwithamate.co.uk which we update weekly and our website is just the other way around

warwithamate.co.uk is the website Instagram is just warwithamate wow, that's bad you don't put .co.uk at the end of an Instagram James, you idiot I'm scrapping the podcast I'm not doing any more episodes no more tangents it doesn't go on forever it's all over you've really taken that badly i don't

take uh constructive criticism well even that was internal i know that was dangerous wasn't it this wasn't particularly constructive well what will be constructive is uh that's a bad tangent it won't be uh we have a live show our first live show um there's a very good chance that this episode is coming out the day of or maybe the day after so so i guess there's no point plugging it It's a toss-up, but 30th of May is our live show. It's at the UK Games Expo, Birmingham, 4.30. Dice Room, Piazza Suite 4. So come along.

If you've got a ticket to the Expo, you can come along. If you're listening to this, wandering around the Expo, hurry, it's about to start. It's starting in five minutes. It's finished 10 minutes ago. Because they paused it to try and get that. They paused it 10 minutes ago. Or, oh, thanks for coming last week.

It was a great time. uh or yeah that that was our first live show that was like two years ago and it was it was good but since then we've had much bigger ones that one pales in comparison or we're really sorry we won't do it again edit this episode according to how you think we did or andy was a dear friend but of course the uh the snowmobile accident that left him unable to uh talk about the game oh you've had some sort of positive head injury i just it was near death and i'm wasting so much time on this it doesn't sound like you need that experience to realize that it seems like you've had a bit of an epiphany i really need like severe physical trauma to like get the epiphany in well

in that case i'm going to prevent you from having any sort of epiphany by handing the reins over to you andy and delving straight into a history segment let's get into it the men of the long-range desert patrols were quite a sight on their return to cairo from a most trip to the contrast between the east and west of the nile is very marked in the east we are absolutely not qualified to share views on history so andy where and when are we we have just finished the july crisis world war one started oh things really did fall off the wagon a bit there yes and we were going to talk about how the ottomans got involved in world war one yes because that was an interesting one they had no

real reason to get involved at all at this stage they could have let this kind of fizzle out and maybe come up on top might be a bit difficult but they could have certainly not ceased to exist Yeah, but we'll zoom in on why they did. But to do that, we're going to talk about a German boat in particular, a ship who, in the words of Winston Churchill, led to more slaughter, more misery, and more ruin than has ever before been born within the compass of a ship. So, not good.

No, descriptions of boats, I've heard that, and that's only second to the unsinkable Titanic. Yes. um we talked a bit about this chase in the abc bc series oh yes uh but we're going to go into more detail uh on it now arrow sent in some stuff uh in particular a document called the chase geobin in the mediterranean 1914 by richard howe so thanks arrow a lot of this is based off big up arrow yes so world war one kicks off with the july crisis which leads to its official start date on the 28th of july 1914 with people drifting into the party over the next few weeks

it'll be known as the great war at the time this was a staggering fact to me part of the reason this is so global is because of european colonialism at the start of the 20th century the european powers controlled 83 to 85 percent of the world's surface that's insane with the major holdouts being the ottomans china and uh japan surface is that are we including oceans no because i guess you can't really yeah so we're talking about just landmass yes but also these colonial powers were naval powers so you could say they owned the entire ocean if you wanted to between britain spain the dutch i was wondering if there was like portions of the ocean that i factored into that and again i'm being pedantic here what about the the arctic is that

included in the 17 that they don't hold or is that excluded oh i didn't see if it was like populated yeah because i'm not sure because that 83 is impressive regardless yeah but i'm thinking like is the only areas that we're talking about is including land masses that are just kind of non-landmasses anyway well in africa the only non-african there's two non-european like countries are ethiopia and i think one of it so to give you a sense of it's most of africa ethiopia in africa is is the only place that's been spared so yeah we're gonna zoom in on a ship we've mentioned the goblin a german battleship one of the most dangerous ships on the ocean at the time early world war one is the peak of battleships the incoming spread of submarines

and air craft carriers will sort of reduce them from the pinnacle of naval might and status symbols to more of a support role but at this time these are the big boys on the ocean yeah so we're in the mediterranean on the 4th of august uh which is the day war would be declared between germany in britain it's in an interesting state because for the first first few days of august like everyone knows war's coming but it's not started as a shooting war yet okay so on the 2nd of august the british uh admiral he gives the order to shadow the goblin right so the goblin's commanded by rear admiral wilhelm uh sushan who has standing orders to either conduct raids on the french navy which is returning french troops that are desperately needed from north africa to europe

because it's by this point they've started fighting the germans are like pushing into yes uh well through belgium into france he's uh highly respected in the navy um but he's untested in war the germans haven't had like a major naval conflict since they started getting the navy like world class oh so this is that first uh first to win yeah so you've got a lot of like very impressive ships like discipline but no like no one's like fought a naval battle at this point for the germans or if they have they're like minor maiden voyage yeah but yeah he's a respected seaman and leader and on the other side of the equation is sir admiral archibald berkeley milm uh who's in charge of the fleet at malta and the west mediterranean he's indecisive and lazy but he

happens to be personal friends with king george v uh and his command before being in charge of the western mediterranean british fleet was being the captain of the royal yacht so it's it's not what you know it's who you know indeed because he was also close enough friends with the queen that she affectionately referred to him as Arky Barky. Oh, that would be such a confidence hit for me.

If I was friends with the Queen. Oh, I was thinking you're an experienced naval officer but you're not up to being Admiral yet. I was like, who's the new guy coming in? It's Arky Barky. It's Arky Barky, the Queen's friend. Yeah, that's why I'd be like, oh shit.

Yeah, I'd be like, oh, people are going to think i'm such a wanker yeah so he leveraged his like aristocratic aristocratic connections to get this post the first sea lord at the time winston churchill accepts the appointment to this command as commander-in-chief of the mediterranean fleet in an effort to curry flavor with the king curry flavor curry flavor yeah ah curry flavored noodles so that's where super noodles got their idea they're part of this yeah uh no he's just sucking up to the king oh admiral fisher who is the sea lord before churchill that's a good name for a sea oh yeah uh describes uh this appointment as a betrayal to the navy this appointment's a disappointment yeah so this is like churchill

trying to get favor than the navy like you've really put a lot of us in like a bad situation So on around midnight on the 3rd of August, Admiral Souchon receives new unexpected orders that he's to go east, not west, and to make for the currently neutral port of Constantinople. Ah, yes. Interesting. I can see the pieces coming together here. Yeah, he's still being shadowed hours later when the British send an ultimatum to the germans on the morning of the fourth demanding they withdraw from belgium immediately or it'll

be war so they're being it's on its way to render view with another battle uh ship the reslau and at 10 30 a.m two british battle cruisers the indomitable and the indefegable caught up uh to the gibbon uh at one point the ships left them less than five miles apart traveling basically in line at high speeds and the but and this ultimatum's hanging in the air they'll be at war by the end of the day oh that's a tense boat ride oh yeah but both sides keep their turrets straight and don't make any moves other than uh the german ship occasionally trying to change course to lose them and the british like keeping the distance so despite appearances uh for these ships uh none of them are like at their peak they've all got wear and tear the indomitable

once crossed the atlantic uh over like 25 knots for most of the journey and it can now only get up to tweet 23 knots for very short bursts oh so lost a real bit of steam then yeah and like staying power for a chase um yeah you want to be able to stay consistent for a chase yeah well um goban uh is an even worse shape as it's been rushed to sea and then it's like never had quite enough time to get fully repaired each time it gets refitted so last time it left port they estimated it having a capability of only 18 knots now he knows the germany aren't withdrawing from belgium he's being ticked uh followed by two cruisers so he essentially is like basically i haven't told the ultimatum expires to get out of here this is this is tense yeah so in theory

the goblin should have been unable to lose the british uh but sushan drove his men and his his ships past their limits the stokers are shoveling uh coal into furnaces while pipes are like exploding around them filling the entire lower decks of the ship with like scalding steam like four people will be burned to death what the fuck while they're like just getting coal in and then like the boiler will explode and we'll move on to the next boiler

while engineers are trying to keep the ship literally together around them so there's just people burned to death lying around the ship while they're powering through maybe they didn't die instantly but that's like severe burns for like

basically everyone on the lower decks that's horrible God, it makes me feel a lot better about the hot weather this week Jesus But it does work despite the issues with keeping the ship together and the physical injuries, the speed

of the ship eventually reaches 22 knots before creeping up to 24 By 7pm 7 hours before the expiration of the ultimatum, the British ships start to lose sight of the Gobon as it goes beyond

out of few except for a single light cruiser called the gloucestershire which is keeping up with it and reporting back on its movements as it heads east so it has a brief refuel at an italian port because at this point the italians are technically neutral so the british aren't a lot like they're saying don't go within six miles of the italian coast to their guys to like not kick things off yeah you don't want to drug more countries in but they are germany is technically part of the triple alliance with italy so they can refuel so there's also like this diplomatic issue with them catching the ships as of as of all of these things seem to have yes it's all just a mess of treaties oh yeah really upheld no until it well they're given like a lot of like

reverence and treatment until a powerful guy wants to break them and then they're like not worth nothing i hope that doesn't happen in the modern day no that wouldn't um so at this point uh of the chase admiral milne who's uh based in malta in the west mediterranean he hands the problem off to an admiral uh true bridge whose fleet stationed in the entrance to the adriatic what they suspect at this time is they think that the goblin's gonna turn up the adriatic and try to get to uh an austrian port in like bosnia but uh and while it's doing all this the gloucestershire is continuing to tail this battleship um and instead of heading into the uh adriatic uh the ship turns southeasterly uh so if this is the the ever going to intercept this ship

uh it kind of has to be now admiral trope two bridge um sends four armored cruisers to turn south uh against the complaints of a second in command who's reported to say are you going to fight sir uh asking uh ray greatly troubled it'll likely be suicide to give you an alternative view of all this this is a view uh from abc who's also involved in the chase yeah that night we joined admiral truer bridge four cruisers and soon after the midnight of the 6th to the 7th we all of course south and went at 19 knots which was about our full speed we heard later that this was because the goblin and the breslau had altered course to the southeast um we were steering to cut them off and during the night had a signal from the defense saying that the squadron would probably be in

action at 6 a.m which thrilled us to the marrow so he's excited he's bite uh chomping at the bit here to get into it yeah two conflicting accounts there different vibes on these ships yeah this is also where a logistical issue does crop up for them, which is basically the coal ships they would need to would kind of be, like, expected to be waiting for them so they can, like, go refuel and keep going. Yeah. They've been

sent to the wrong port, Vafi. Brilliant. Yeah, so there's a bunch of coal like thousands of kilometers away from where it should be. So that is why they start to lose these ships. Partially. But also, there's the

the goblin might have been able to take out these four cruisers if they got into a fight like technically the cruisers have more like tonnage of weapons and broadside and stuff yeah but this is one of the big ones they so it's interesting and then eventually trobich uh reportedly in tears when he does this calls off the chase uh much to his second in command ray's relief who comments that's the bravest thing you've ever done in your life hmm they would both be court-martialed for this okay i guess that's why he's in tears then adwood as would admiral mill they were cleared of wrongdoing but the two admirals would never serve in command again oh god uh of ray uh vice admiral hamilton who's part of the court-martial

had this to say i am of the opinion that nothing more should be now be done in the matter except that captain ray should also remain unemployed because it is decidedly dangerous to have an officer of his opinions in a responsible position we shouldn't do anything else but this guy should never work a day in his life again despite this he will be in command of a ship in the mediterranean by 1915 ah so the court-martial didn't get quite what they wanted in that i think it's sort of a case of like we're a year into this war now we need yeah we can't just sideline guys because of this whoopsie that was really the last opportunity the british had to stop the goburn uh the chase continued but they never really got closer uh sushon used feints and bluffs

sailed in like complete dark at night and avoided any more major issues despite some potential friction as uh the goburn and the breslau um pull up to the dardanelles they're welcomed through the straight and to constant constantinople as honored guests an important piece of context here as well is when france duke archford man died the british claimed two ships they'd been making for the ottomans and we're like well there's going to be a war so we're going to keep these uh which particularly pissed off the ottoman people because when the budget didn't reach enough to cover the ships subscriptions from like taverns local libraries cafe like the public were like we need these battleships we'll fund it so they didn't just take it off the ottoman government

it was like we've directly taken this off the ottoman people oh dear yeah so the germans have just stolen two ships from the ottomans uh two german battleships uh both of which outclassed The ships they would have received from the British have just pulled in. On the 11th of August, Wilhelm Souchon will become the leader of the Ottoman Navy. The two ships will fly Ottoman flags, and the German soldiers will be equipped in fezzes. That's fashionable. Because they're part of the Ottoman Navy now. There's quite a good picture of a bunch of, like, gruff-looking German sailors all wearing fezzes.

For, like, an official picture, it's quite good. Imagine that. It's like, well, you've got the ship. Yeah, that's good. you do have to you have to wear this fez because you are technically part of the ottoman navy uh this is not the end of this ship's story by any means it will continue uh but this is yeah i thought the chase was kind of exciting through the med and also yeah they ottomans get two battleships british have nicked two and ottomans aren't even in the

war yet but it's coming i mean they the feathers are yes i guess they're on the offends but i do like the thing of like well we're just gonna put an ottoman flag up and give the guys on it feathers but we're not gonna like put we're not gonna crew it fully ourselves yeah we'll put the we'll put the headwear on and uh that's that's enough of our contribution yeah yeah they're they're really dipping their toes in here this is i can see how this could start to get dicey yeah i also thought it was an interesting cross between you've got the guys who were in charge of the navy during the colonial era where they never had like any written major like pushback against and then you you lose those like aristocratic royal appointments and abc is

very well off and like from an epic but it's like the vibe of the guy coming in versus the vibe of the guys being replaced when like actual war happens yeah i feel like that wear and tear that it's not just the ships i feel like the guys start to get it's like very good yeah and it's like oh we can't it's not about like keeping things parade ready for when the king does an inspection we're fighting comparable warships we need everyone to be like tip top yeah at that point it can't be okay it can't be about just the optics which would seem the italians lose the notion of in world war two well they never they never work that out yeah that seems to be something their forces didn't quite get a handle on the italians in a lot of ways are like a big sign of

the the fake it till you make it doesn't work in when the stakes are high yeah when it's an actual war you can't actually do that it might deal with your imposter syndrome it won't win you the second world war well no it creates imposter syndrome it's not imposter syndrome it's imposter that's you're just an imposter fake yep well what a what a little dip into the past that was yeah i like a bit of naval adventure you know it's been focused that's another one i knew nothing about before we started this yeah i like finding out about these naval conflicts because naval history not something i've ever touched on also sailors seem like a weird breed yeah finding this um this sort of collective of characters and the that pushes well with the steam bursting out and

yeah that's insane because it's like you take your house to war and it has to like keep it's like a mindset thing i guess it seems like completely alien to like where like deployed somewhere i guess the only other thing i can think of would be like a tank where yeah where you're sort of the base camp for that squad yeah you've got a roaming that's a good point yeah but yeah with a ship it's bigger and also with a tank it's it's you know it's not great if your tank gets blown to smithereens and you survive, you're still kind of out there. But if you happen to lose the ship...

You're not facing hyperthermia slash sharks. Yeah, the ship goes when you're at sea. That's kind of it. So, yeah, that's an interesting delve into that mindset as well. Speaking of mindsets... Interesting ones at that. Today, you've ruined my day.

The sandstorm thing, that rubbed me the wrong way. I feel like I've been battered by the harsh desert winds myself and because of that it's your turn andy well and the fact that we alternate each week to propose a segment for common ground and now for something nicer a little oasis in the war it's time for some common ground i'm trying to intro the common ground i'm recording maybe so common ground is the segment each week in which we find a topic to discuss and agree on

to make sure we stay friends and amongst this war of ours and over to you andy what's your idea well have you heard about these enhanced games that are going on i've i've i don't think so i've heard of games uh enhanced games it's this thing that's happening in vegas at the minute and the idea is that athletes are allowed to do steroids and like performance enhancing drugs right but they have to like disclose what they're doing yeah and the kind of the concept was we're gonna like see what the like limits of humans can be if they're like chemically assisted as well right and the plan was they were gonna be like we're gonna beat all of the like olympic world records like they won't count because that but like just to show the improvement okay yeah yeah i get the

concept then the only one that's record that's been broken isn't even one they might have timed it wrong and two the guy wasn't even on drugs he was just wearing a type of swimsuit that's banned in the olympics sorry there's a super suit that you're not allowed to wear yeah that like reduces the drag by like 23 25 or something like crazy so just quickly then before we get into that why why the fuck is that banned that just seems like it's uh i think the standardize the costume like the so it doesn't turn into like a material science arms race and it's actually about the swimmer themselves yeah rather than it's like oh the u.s are trying to have like labs to create specific stuff so like a guy from another country would never win type deal

well you would you think maybe they just standardize the better version of the suit like the better suit is just the potentially yeah that's what i would do yeah then it makes everyone go faster that's more interesting yeah i think that's the premise with these games but it hasn't paid off anyway my thing is these are these are dumb i'm inclined to agree but what wouldn't be dumb and what i have much more interest in is the enhanced games right okay i don't want to know how much steroids can help someone like run 100 meters i want to know how detrimental like drinking a liter of vodka or eating two sheets of lasagna that have been left out overnight are two running 100 meters and i want to do it with different things with different

sports as well just and i just want to see like what is the peak of bad human performance now this is interesting because there's very few common ground ideas where i could personally be involved because i'm not a particularly um athletic man shall we say no um i mean you you take a look this is a lean guy maybe he's a maybe he's a runner no uh admittedly i walk a lot but if i tried to sprint anywhere occasionally i have to you know run for public transport it takes it out of me like it absolutely knocks me for nine i yeah i can't recover for like half an hour and i don't think i'm asthmatic i think i'm just really unhealthy so i think um between i mean i've i've smoked and vaped for quite a while um my diet is terrible uh although i've been picking

up my diet recently you have you've been on the upswing today i had i had pasta chicken and broccoli for dinner oh good surprising change yeah usually it would be something like four sausage rolls from greg's yes now that would be great i've got a great metabolism but what's going on on the inside absolutely shot you pay the piper eventually oh he's coming so i would i would be interested in volunteering for this because i feel like i could just go a day in my normal life and then they could drop me into one of these events and if i don't need to be can the everyman compete in this or are we taking accomplished athletes well i think there was two maybe there's two versions here okay one i would like to kind of see accomplished athletes where it's like

they're all hammered trying to do the hurdles walk a mile in my shoes i think that would be funny i think the other potential is you go in you do all the events and then like a week later so you've got some time to recover you then go and do them after having got hammered okay and see what we could do then i want to know like what's what's worse just before a race because that if i need to move fast it's more useful to me to know choose between the lasagna and the vodka than it is to be like peptides would have helped you train for this well i like this because what we can do then i'll propose another factor to this yeah is we have we have these two streams we have the everyman and the pro athlete yeah and we take them first of all in the sort of standard

setting where you'll have the the everyman have a very healthy week or month as will the pro athlete naturally yeah and you have them you have them compete in normal olympic conditions yeah so you'll get probably a comparable time for an olympic athlete that you usually would and for the everyman i imagine it'll be significantly worse than the olympian yes and then we put them in the enhanced games and see how much that bridges the gap oh like kind of guy who gets drunk all the time at a certain level outperform an athlete who never drinks because of like they're an athlete yes but they're like small and maybe not even beat them but just how far does that the gap close i like that as an element of this yeah i'd like to see how close you don't want to

like force an athlete to be like completely ruin years of your training so i was thinking the things where it's like yes it's bad but you can like get back on track fairly quickly yeah you don't want it to destroy their career yeah but maybe one who's open-minded enough to be like i'll take a year out yeah by doing a bad month and then seeing how i get on so what what are the conditions can we i suppose let's pick an olympic event and then pick a vice to put in there that's going to really enhance their experience so javelin i think i think with javelin we have to do something with our eyesight no for javelin no i think this is better for javelin you have to eat a tray of bacon with your bare hands just before you go out so you're full

and your hands are really greasy they're not allowed to tell no no no it's part of it this is a grip thing tell you what they're allowed to wipe their hand on their clothes but that's it yeah they can be yeah they can be gross they could be a normal guy i do also think the blindfolded javelin might be good i i think as well um we need to change the environment this like if we were doing a hundred meter sprint this isn't going to be a nice sleek um sort of no i don't think they should let us do this at like an actual stadium for real athletics well i guess one we shouldn't be allowed to it's a disgrace it's and two i think it's much more entertaining if they have to step into the arena of the everyman so instead they're they're running

down the the streets of uh i don't know uh we're going to birmingham for the live show the streets of digbeth in birmingham they have to sprint down there instead uneven streets potholes uneven pavement yeah that's where they have a non-tended environment non-tended environment and you know what there's also pedestrians wandering about yes put them in a shopping center where everybody's constantly getting in your way doing this in a shopping center is the way you do it it all happens in the mall of america or just like a huge like it's also they can't leave while it's on yes they have to stay in there it's like a hunger games type situation yeah because part of it is you're feeding yourself off

the food court oh okay so it's all contained within the super arena yeah like you know how you have the olympic village yeah you have the enhanced mall oh yeah i like this a lot it it does sound questionably similar to a mr beast type video but we don't have any money for people there is no prize to this this is about human performance this is for science this isn't for wealth this is only going to this is going to provide the human race with answers that we need because you always get these people where they live to 100 and it's like what was your what was your secret and it's like oh i just constantly ruined my body with chemicals and toxins yeah i smoked like four cigars a day since i was 12 and i i just i i'm poor pepsi down my gutter

constantly and i live to be older than most of the population so we need to find out how this Brian Johnson guy who wants to be immortal. He looks weird. Like he's turned himself into a vampire. I know Brian Johnson, the lead singer of ACDC. You know the guy who wants to be immortal through science? I know who you mean, yeah. This is the antithesis

of it. I don't know, because I don't know what that guy's doing is particularly smart. No. I don't think it's working. I saw someone repost a tweet of his recently where he was talking about the blood flow of his uh son's penis while he slept why he was like my son has two minute longer night erections than me

so this doesn't feel like science no this this feels perverted yeah this guy sounds like a bad guy yeah i don't know this that immediately it changes the vibe altogether of this guy i think yeah that's it's not in the name of science i think you're just a freak i don't like let's be honest about what we're doing yeah we're having some fun and we're messing with some people yeah well but the best thing is i feel like this isn't something that's sort of laughing at athletes i feel like it's it's bringing them in on a chance to be part of a a wacky scheme oh yeah which is the best part of common ground yes it's where you can get other people in on it it's it's fun to rag on people but it's even more fun when you go do you want

to do this stupid thing and they they strap on the helmet and they go yeah i'm gonna do this i'm gonna jackass my life yeah so javelin with a blindfold with greasy bacon hands for another variant um discus with just like rock not none of these like slick well-made ones you know like when you go to a beach and you try to find a skimming stone you know what it should be because you know how you have to spin round loads yeah should be like two gallons of milk just a nice green capped semi-skimmed four liter just lulling that in the air and i think with that as well you've got to try and spill as little as possible you've got to drink all the milk you're gonna drink it yeah that's what was my thing you drink

the two gallons of milk then just throwing an empty plastic container that's no and then you throw a normal discus but you've got two and you have to spin around fast and you have two gallons of milk in your stomach i think you just want to make an olympic athlete be sick kind of or they may have to spin slower because they're nauseous so it doesn't go as far the effect on performance do you think the the spinning makes it go further why else would they do it flare i guess we'll work that out too at the live show i'm going to or already have span around very quickly before the show it's not going to make me go faster He's just going to be dizzy for the whole show.

I think it'll add a fun bit of flair. It also means that if anything goes wrong in the show, I can blame it on that. Yeah. That's important. Oh, yeah. And that's part of the fun with this performance. It means that you could realistically go in,

and if it goes bad, it's like, well, what did you expect? Yeah. I was never going to do well with this one. This one was fucked from the start. You sabotaged me. It's a bad idea, but it's a good idea. It's a fun one. I like the idea of the DeHaan's Mall.

I like the idea of trapping these athletes in there with the everyman and seeing who comes out I'm seeing if we can bring them not them down and then the athlete the non-athletes meet them in the middle can we bring them both down to the rock bottom

and I also think just to add some stakes to it for every every time one of the everymen beats an Olympic athlete they qualify for the Olympics that won't work the athlete loses one of their medals oh they have to put a medal

on the line yes so they lose they lose a medal if this goes wrong but if they manage to succeed at this they get to take some kind of accolade from the non-athlete even if it's like oh you won a spelling bee in year eight you get to take some kind of trophy or medal off them yeah you get that bonus at work that year or that company car i think this is a great idea i think it teaches humility and i think it encourages cooperation and it'll just it'll draw numbers for people watching it will this is a great bbc if you're listening you've got this hoo-ha about the bbc license fee the tv license this is the way to get people back on board make some real television that the people want oh of course yeah because also if they're in the mall for the month you

can have a sort of reality aspect to it as well yeah you've got in between bits the sort of big brother love island thing yeah in between the events and because they're drinking a lot for this very belligerent yeah uh to hand small after hours it's the after show it's a four hour episode every night and it's them just going about their business i think that would be great yeah we did a common ground quite a while ago now and it was that television studios should have to lottery off the chance for someone to make a tv show every i think it was every year or so yes it was and I think this is one of those opportunities I think this

shouldn't be part of the raffle, I think they should just greenlight this and also do a raffle well I'm going to, if I win that raffle if that raffle ever manifests and I win it, I'm going to use it for this oh nice so I'm combining these two common grounds so there we go, we've got another crossover

we rarely agree this well, we've agreed two common grounds we have, we've put them together I think that's brilliant because we've got a live show coming up Andy, we've got to be together and united for that yeah so i suppose for now we'll we'll head off we'll get our rest we'll get prepared and i've been james i've been andy stay subtle humble and brave in those real queasy deserts of your mind watch out for that milk

We'll be right back. stop wasting your nights on a mattress that doesn't get you experience the most comfortable mattress in the world the sleep number smart bed at the touch of a button you can personalize your comfort choose firmer or softer adjust cooler to warmer and right now save up to 2500 during our massive Labor Day event. Hurry into your local Sleep Number store today because we have your number.