1:49

quite

2:00

displaced. Richard's in... Where are

2:02

you Richard? I'm in Chorley.

2:04

Which is in which part of this

2:07

septed aisle? Imagine the northwest of England.

2:09

Step with me if you were depressed and

2:12

it's sort of near there. It's famous

2:14

for the Chorley Cake, which is the rival to

2:16

the Eccles Cake as one of the most delicious

2:18

sweetmeats of the region. Chorley Cake made

2:21

of course a shortcrust pastry. I'm happy to

2:23

say with the little Chorley Theatre that

2:25

my dressing room is filled to the gunnels

2:27

with Chorley Cake.

2:28

Have you had any? How many have you had so far? Well I haven't

2:30

had any, but I've been to my mother-in-laws for lunch.

2:33

So I've already had apple, grumble and

2:35

custard. So they're also just giving me a

2:37

pocket to take home. We should do a whole

2:39

row with whole detectives on

2:41

the pocket actually. So I'm getting well stocked

2:43

up with northern food. And you had a bit of Midland

2:45

food for breakfast I think. I

2:48

did, I breakfasted with friends in Northamptonshire.

2:51

And well in fact it was you Carl. I'm

2:53

very fine to accept the offer. Did you have the famous

2:56

scrambled eggs? The scrambled eggs with the late

2:58

egg, adding a little perkiness to the

3:00

dish. Anyway, you seem to have survived. It

3:04

was delicious. It does add a luxurious

3:06

richness to the scrambled eggs. Can I say when I cleared

3:09

the plates after you left, I found a little bit under

3:11

the knife so you'd hidden that. Just

3:14

saying. But it always leaves some for Mr. Miller.

3:16

He was saving space for those cakes, the

3:18

Chorley Cakes. It's an old cutlery trick. What could

3:21

you do with that? Is it, yes. Excellent, very

3:23

good. Well, shall we go on

3:25

to our topics for the day? Yes.

3:28

Yes please. So this week, I

3:30

think actually we've all been looking

3:32

into topics that have been sent into us by our

3:34

listeners because we are getting a little flood of

3:37

brilliant suggestions. And so we actually

3:39

have so many to pick from. We've gone for

3:41

a few. And the first

3:44

one is actually going to be mine and

3:46

it's on famous fakes.

3:49

And I do wonder if this was slightly inspired

3:51

by the pilt down forgery that

3:53

we've had already. I mean,

3:55

this is definitely one for the rabbit hole. So it

3:58

was very difficult to, want

4:00

to pick, obviously if you go down the art

4:02

world and the art history and art fakes, you

4:04

could be there for years really. So

4:07

I've gone for a few, I've gone for a little bit of art

4:09

and I've just picked a few that I think were

4:11

really quite fascinating. Starting

4:14

with one of the sort of greatest

4:16

art forderers actually, a

4:18

very prolific forderer, a Dutch

4:21

artist, probably one of the greatest

4:23

art artists of the 20th century. And

4:26

it's a man called Hans van Meijren, Meijren,

4:29

depending on how badly you want to hear him, I called

4:31

him the Dutch name. So he's a Dutch artist

4:34

who's been described as being of limited ability.

4:37

And so obviously he wasn't getting

4:40

the recognition he wanted, so he decided to

4:42

branch out into forgery. Now

4:44

he was particularly keen on forging

4:47

paintings made by Vermeer.

4:49

So Vermeer as in the 17th century artist

4:52

famous for things like a girl with a pearl earring.

4:55

And he became extremely successful

4:57

in this and eventually pocketing the

4:59

equivalent of about $30 million in

5:02

selling his paintings. And

5:05

it was quite an interesting choice actually that

5:07

he chose Vermeer and it was quite

5:09

a clever one. Because how do you pick,

5:11

who do you choose and who do you think you can

5:13

get away with? And I

5:15

think part of it for him was this

5:17

is the sort of top brand really

5:19

to try to forge. If you can get

5:22

away with that, it's actually showing something of

5:24

your talent. And another

5:26

good reason seems to be that Vermeer didn't actually

5:28

produce that many paintings, only about 35 or 36

5:31

of them, whereas other contemporaries

5:34

created about 10 times as many,

5:36

so someone like Rembrandt, for example, which

5:39

meant that a lot of people were thinking there must be more

5:41

out there. It was quite easy to convince

5:43

people that there would be missing Vermeer

5:46

paintings. Now when

5:48

he decided that this was going to be his approach, he started

5:50

experimenting with how to essentially

5:53

fake them successfully, how to use

5:55

different materials. He actually used

5:58

sort of a synthetic red, mixed in with his

6:01

paints to get the right sort of age

6:03

look in it. And

6:06

he actually came to fame

6:08

in 1937 really, or his paintings

6:10

I suppose, with one particular painting

6:13

that really established him as a very successful

6:15

faker. And it was a painting called Christ and

6:18

the Disciples of Emmaus, and

6:20

was successful especially because it was

6:22

brought to the attention of an expert by the name

6:24

of Abraham Bredius,

6:27

who saw it, was completely

6:29

convinced. He was a familiar expert, saw this and

6:31

was convinced that it was real. He

6:34

wrote an article in the Burlington magazine and really

6:37

explained how wonderful it was

6:39

as this sort of aged art historian being

6:41

confronted finally with a brand new

6:43

painting, an unknown painting by such

6:46

a famous great master. And

6:49

so once he essentially

6:52

had convinced himself that this was an

6:54

original, the rest of the world followed.

6:57

And after the success, the

7:00

Vaudreaux's just kept on coming. So he kept on producing

7:02

more and more and more of them, especially biblical

7:04

paintings and this became one of his specialisms.

7:07

And eventually one of them caught the attention of

7:10

Gerring, Hermann Gerring, the Nazi leader

7:13

or the Nazi figure, who actually traded

7:15

a large number, I think something like 137

7:18

looted paintings for one of these fake

7:21

Vermeers. And it

7:23

was only after the Second World War that

7:25

that painting actually led to his downfall,

7:28

because there was a commission, a committee that essentially

7:31

tried to track down all these Nazi

7:33

paintings and try and reinstate them with their

7:35

ownness. And van Meggen's

7:38

name was attached to this particular

7:40

Vermeer. So essentially the police came knocking on his

7:42

door, and he was actually

7:44

accused of collaborating with the Nazis.

7:47

Nobody at this point realised it was a fake.

7:50

And collaboration at that time was

7:52

a really serious crime. So in order

7:54

to get out of that, he actually

7:56

confessed and sort of said, no, really, it's not

7:59

real. So. Really, I was doing

8:01

something with stories. Yeah, I mean, I don't

8:03

know. Now, like a few others are like sparkling

8:05

into my head. Like there was this one guy who

8:07

told me that I sound like a farmer.

8:10

It was like mid date. We were

8:12

like vibing and he's like, you know, I like

8:14

you, but you kind of sound too much

8:16

like a farmer. Also like justice for farmers.

8:19

Yeah. What's wrong with farmers? Nothing.

8:21

Nothing.

8:22

It was really annoying and bizarre.

8:25

Okay, so you go on some of these

8:27

meh dates, but you meet our

8:29

amazing startup husband. Nowadays,

8:32

do you mind me asking, how do you guys split expenses?

8:35

Great question. So

8:37

we pretty much split everything

8:40

except for he takes me out to

8:42

dinner. You're really a stickler for dinner. Oh

8:44

yeah. You love dinner. So this is less about

8:46

like the principle and more about like

8:49

me continuing to feel turned on

8:51

by him. And I would be like

8:54

turned off if I was paying for our

8:56

dinner. It's like, it would just turn me off. I

8:59

can't explain it. It's just like a thing that

9:01

would turn me off. He also, I don't

9:03

know. I feel like I pay for groceries

9:06

or sometimes I'll put them on our joint credit card. So we

9:08

have a joint credit card and

9:10

then we have

9:10

our own credit cards and

9:12

accounts. Yours, mine and ours. I join them exactly.

9:14

Exactly. Okay. What

9:16

are you guys gonna do? We currently, since

9:18

we own our home together, we do the

9:20

same system. We have yours, mine and ours. And

9:23

then to your point, like things

9:25

like rent and mortgage

9:28

and groceries go on that joint card. But

9:31

you know, it's so funny. My fiance also

9:33

pays for dinner. Really? Yeah. And

9:36

like I'm saying this as someone who like, we have a

9:38

place in Florida and I pay the full rent

9:40

on that by myself, but dinner,

9:43

dinner, he pays for dinner. I think that's really

9:45

hot. Like I don't think that ever goes

9:47

out of style. I really don't. Just like having

9:50

them pick up the check, them sign it, them have to

9:52

do the math on the 20%. And by the way,

9:54

I don't think that that's like just for hetero

9:56

relationships. Like my two best friends like are

9:58

in a gay couple. And one. one of them always

10:01

pays for dinner. And that's just how it is. And

10:03

that's cute, that's what they like. And I think it's

10:05

fine for one person to be like the

10:07

person who takes the other person out every time. I think that's

10:10

fine, I think it's attractive, I think it's whatever you

10:12

want. I like that, I like that a lot.

10:15

And I wanna pivot, I'm not sure if you actually follow

10:17

this person, but there's a creator who lives

10:19

in New York and she does a series

10:22

on where you can meet rich men

10:24

out and about in New

10:27

York City. Are we naming, can we name names? I

10:29

literally can't remember what her name

10:30

is. Okay, okay, we'll find out later. We'll find

10:32

her. What are your thoughts

10:35

about dating rich men going

10:37

back to our gold digger conversation? Like

10:40

what is your perspective, your POV on that? I

10:43

would never look for somebody

10:45

who's rich. That's like not

10:47

my vibe, but

10:50

I want someone who's ambitious for

10:52

sure. And I think that,

10:55

I know that the majority of my friends, like

10:59

that would be important. I think it also depends

11:01

when you meet the person. Like my friends who met

11:03

their now husbands and

11:05

partners in college, like they weren't

11:08

even thinking about that even a little bit.

11:10

I think when you're like a woman or

11:12

man, dating in your late

11:15

20s, early 30s, whatever, it's

11:17

more important to find someone, and I don't wanna

11:19

say rich, but I wanna say on your level.

11:22

If you are someone who has nothing

11:24

going on, you're bringing nothing to the table and you want to find

11:27

someone rich, that's not,

11:29

that doesn't do it for me. Like I'm like, it's

11:31

all about, if you

11:33

have a list of what's important to you, and on your list

11:35

is like rich man, six,

11:37

four, like good family,

11:40

like has all his hair. I'm like, do

11:42

you have all your hair? Are you tall? Are

11:45

you rich? Like, do you have a good family?

11:47

You know, because it's like, I think that finding

11:50

something that you feel is equal

11:52

or that you deserve is one

11:54

thing, but like just asking for

11:57

a rich man because everybody wants a rich man

11:59

is like, well. Like why do you

12:01

deserve this person? It reminds me

12:03

of what, I know you're friends with her too, but

12:05

shout out high tanks, water

12:07

meets its own level. It's like you

12:10

need to find someone who like maybe necessarily

12:12

isn't like that quote unquote rich man in your

12:14

life, but just someone that like can keep up with

12:16

you. Totally, and I think it's fair

12:18

to want somebody on your level

12:21

and I think it's fair for men to want that. I think it's fair

12:23

for women to want that. I think there's always

12:26

so fair in that situation. Have you ever

12:28

dated a man who made significantly less

12:30

than you?

12:32

Yes, actually. Can we know the details?

12:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not that exciting. He

12:37

goes back to startup, he was also

12:39

a startup guy. You really love the startup

12:42

guys. I like my entrepreneurs.

12:44

He was a startup guy, we were 25, and

12:47

I had just started a social media

12:50

consulting agency. And I was making the

12:52

most money I had made so far. I had

12:54

like a bunch of different clients on retainers

12:56

for like anywhere from three to $5,000 a month. And

12:59

I was like thriving. Yeah, that's

13:01

amazing. It was so awesome. And he had

13:04

literally no money. He was taking

13:06

zero salary and he had started

13:09

like a salad shop and. It

13:11

did not turn out to be sweet green. No, unfortunately

13:14

for him it did not, but he

13:16

had nothing. And I will say he had

13:18

like family money. So I didn't like, you

13:21

know, I still was like upset

13:23

that he wasn't paying for anything because I was like, well, you have

13:25

some, but yeah. But yeah, it

13:27

was very, it was very

13:29

much like I was making

13:31

more

13:31

and still actually right now I'm making

13:33

more than my husband because he's

13:35

also still in a startup situation.

13:37

We love a wifey

13:39

out earning her man. I, is

13:41

it the same for you? Yeah. I love

13:44

that. Oh my God, can we have a bottle?

13:46

You guys, we just touched hands over the table.

13:49

But what I will say is like when I met

13:51

my fiance, we were both like young people

13:54

in finance. So we were making roughly around the

13:56

same amount of money over the next like two

13:58

or three years. He significantly. outpaced

14:00

me and earned significantly more. And

14:03

it wasn't until I actually went to tech and

14:05

media and I had a digital media strategy,

14:07

a sales job, that by the end

14:10

of my time in media and tech,

14:12

I was making more than he was.

14:15

And then now with my business, I make more than he

14:17

does. And both of us have kind of like really leveled

14:19

up in our careers. And it feels like we've built

14:21

this little life together, which is why,

14:23

you know, he really does feel like a good

14:26

partner. Because we liked each other

14:28

when we were like living in the

14:30

East Village and like, you know, it was like grimy.

14:32

Right, but my question for you, and

14:34

this is a question that's on my list to

14:37

ask you when you call on my podcast, so I might have

14:39

to repeat it, but do you, are you cool with

14:41

that or do you ever, would you like for it to change

14:43

at some point? You know, I'm actually

14:45

really cool with it because admittedly

14:48

I want to be really honest. I don't know how I would have felt

14:50

about it had he never made

14:52

more money than me. But when he made more money

14:54

than me, never not once did he ever make

14:56

me feel bad about it. When we came to splitting

14:59

things like rent or groceries, we would

15:01

pay proportionally. So it

15:03

wasn't 50-50, he was like, it's fine,

15:05

like I make more money than you. He's never

15:07

ever indicated any sort

15:10

of stinginess. He's always been super

15:12

duper generous, both with like money, but like also

15:15

like his time, his effort, you know, just like his

15:17

brain, like when I asked him questions. And

15:19

so now I just feel like that precedent has been

15:21

set and we've almost been like

15:23

conditioned to support each other in that way. Yeah,

15:26

but do you ever feel like it's harder for a woman

15:28

who makes more money to not be, I

15:31

don't wanna say protective of your money, but like to not

15:33

wanna like give it all to like your joint account? Because

15:36

like, because just like historically

15:38

it was so hard for us to like be the

15:40

breadwinners, that almost like you're like holding

15:43

onto it with dear life, you're like, I, like

15:45

why should I give this to a man? You know, it's just different

15:47

than like a man would never think why should I give

15:49

this to a woman? Cause that's like

15:50

their right or that's what they've been

15:52

taught, you know?

15:53

Can I ask you an honest question? When you

15:56

and your husband got married, did you get a prenup? So I

15:58

saw this on the list and we actually. I did

16:00

not, but I

16:02

have backup of why. First

16:05

of all, the prenup laws in New York

16:07

City are strong, meaning, sorry, the

16:10

marriage laws. If we did get a divorce,

16:12

it would be the standard, right? And

16:17

second of all, it's so funny, because a lot of people

16:20

think this about me. I've read it somewhere

16:22

online, but I'm not coming

16:25

into any sort of inheritance. And

16:28

I think that that's a big- Why do you think people

16:30

think that about you? I think because my parents

16:33

have a house in the Hamptons. People think

16:36

that means I have an inheritance. People are just very,

16:40

you know- Socially judgy. Not

16:42

even socially judgy, but like, what's the

16:44

word I'm looking for? When you take something, you

16:47

know Amelia Bedelia, that old book,

16:49

almost literally literal. They

16:52

just think, okay, this means this, and

16:54

there's no other way that it can mean anything else.

16:57

And so we both were

16:59

coming into our marriage with the same thing.

17:02

And I just, listen,

17:05

it's so funny, because I will say, yeah,

17:08

prenups are good, and I believe in them. And

17:10

I think it's important to have one. I

17:13

just think my husband and who he

17:15

is, he's so,

17:17

first of all, romantic, and

17:19

so sweet. And I

17:22

truly think that even if, God

17:24

forbid, he

17:26

cheated on me, or I cheated on him, or there was some

17:29

horrible, horrific ending

17:31

to our marriage, I still believe

17:33

that he would want a complete,

17:37

down the middle, nothing, not

17:39

try to take any of my money, or vice versa.

17:42

And that's just the history in

17:44

both of our families. There have never

17:46

been prenups. It has always

17:48

worked out. And I think that there was a part

17:51

of him that didn't want to take

17:53

away that romance. And I'll

17:56

tell you straight up, I was like, I think we should have

17:58

a prenup. He was like, I really

18:00

don't think, and it wasn't for any,

18:03

I know how you're hearing it, but

18:07

it wasn't for any shady reason on his end. I

18:14

think if anyone's gonna be a billionaire between the

18:16

two of us, it's him. I

18:18

think if anyone's gonna be fucked by this,

18:20

it's him. But

18:23

he didn't want it. And you know what, and

18:25

I've said this on an episode of my podcast, I

18:27

stand by that. I'm never like, oh,

18:30

I really think we fucked up. It's not

18:32

too late. But by the way,

18:34

we could always get a post-op, but that's

18:37

what it is. Okay,

18:39

I like that. I ask because when

18:42

you were talking about how, as a woman, when

18:44

you worked so hard to get that money, you

18:46

wanna protect it, I do

18:48

wanna say a quick thank you to our partners at AG1,

18:51

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18:53

that supports whole body health. If we're being

18:56

honest, I've been under a lot of stress

18:59

and a lot of pressure lately, and I haven't been taking the best

19:01

care of myself. Sorry, I like eating

19:03

french fries and staying up late and definitely

19:06

not getting enough sleep. But I do do one

19:08

really great thing for myself, and that's drink

19:11

AG1 literally every day. I gave AG1

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19:16

tired of taking so many supplements, and I wanted

19:18

a single solution to support my

19:20

entire body health. But now it

19:22

really is that habit, that routine

19:25

that I lean on, especially when I'm traveling

19:27

a bunch or have a bunch going on with work, and

19:29

can't be perfect in every other aspect

19:31

of my life. I drink AG1 in the morning

19:33

before I work out or before I start my day, and

19:36

it just really makes me feel unstoppable,

19:38

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so I'm not missing out on anything important

19:42

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19:49

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19:51

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19:56

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slash richbff. That's drinkag1.com

20:15

slash richbff. Check it out. I

20:18

want to like be a romantic for a second. Yeah.

20:20

I feel like I would not have been able to build my

20:22

business without my man.

20:25

Because when I had been doing it

20:27

for a year and three months

20:29

full-time, or a year

20:31

and three months while working my full-time job,

20:34

I was like, I can't do this anymore. I need to quit my

20:36

job. And I was like, I don't know what to do. Like,

20:38

do I just stop making content? Do I stop doing

20:40

this? And we sat down and we had

20:42

a very serious conversation.

20:45

And he was like, listen, you

20:47

can quit your job.

20:48

I make more than enough money to support the two

20:50

of us. If you don't make a dollar next

20:52

year, then in the year following

20:55

you have to go back to work, but I can support us

20:57

for the next year. And I would not have been able

20:59

to take that leap or just

21:01

even have the confidence to do that had he

21:03

not existed in my life. Like if I was single,

21:05

I would not have done that. I think that's crazy.

21:07

And now all

21:10

of the things that have gone into

21:12

our relationship before the marriage,

21:14

so like all of the dinners he's paid for,

21:16

the fact that I had more savings

21:19

because he was paying for some of those things.

21:21

Like I put a little bit more money into our house,

21:24

but we're still 50-50 partners in the house. Like going

21:26

into our marriage, everything we want just to be

21:28

50-50. And then we're going

21:30

to have a prenup and ours is basically going to say

21:32

we are 50-50 partners on everything

21:35

if this doesn't end up working except

21:38

for the ownership of my business, which 100% stays with me.

21:40

So yes, I definitely get what you're saying when

21:44

you say you want to protect the business, but in terms

21:46

of like just protecting cash, like maybe

21:48

this is naive of me, but my thought is, is like I

21:51

can always make more money. The thing

21:53

that I have to protect is really the IP. Yeah,

21:55

I get that 100%. So that wouldn't be the

21:58

case for us because I haven't changed. I haven't changed

22:00

my name yet, and I'm curious what you're doing. I'm not going to. Yeah,

22:02

because I haven't changed my name yet, and my business is

22:05

completely in my name, it's my LLC, he

22:07

has no access to it. We actually were

22:10

on a call recently with our accountants,

22:13

and they were suggesting that I

22:15

change from an LLC to an S-Corp, and

22:18

in order to do that, they would need to put his name

22:20

on the business. And he was like, don't put my

22:22

name on it, it's completely hers, and I

22:24

don't want to even be able to

22:27

have that, you know? And

22:29

so he is like number

22:31

one supporter of like, this is

22:33

yours, and I'm so, you

22:36

know, it's so amazing that you have

22:38

this thing, and this is mine, you

22:40

know? For his business, I don't want to

22:42

be on his payroll

22:44

either. And I think that we're,

22:47

especially now as both being entrepreneurs,

22:49

we understand that more than anything. I think it'd

22:51

be one thing if one of us were a stay

22:54

at home, and completely

22:56

relying on the other, but I think, I don't know. And

22:58

like, again, I don't

23:00

need to be convinced that a prenup

23:03

is a good idea. Like, I do think

23:05

that it is. This is just why we don't have

23:07

it, and you know, that

23:09

can always change, it might never change,

23:12

and we'll see how it goes. So

23:14

unfortunately, this podcast is now about

23:16

to take a turn for the negative.

23:19

I want to talk about what happens

23:22

if your name is Ariana, and

23:25

your disgusting, cheating

23:28

boyfriend of 10 years. I was just listening

23:30

to your podcast.

23:31

No, but basically the

23:33

premise is like, you know, when it comes

23:36

to cheating and money, what

23:39

are your thoughts on, if you're not married,

23:41

you don't have a prenup, but like, you know, you're living together,

23:43

things happen, like what are your thoughts around the finances

23:46

that surround that? I feel like

23:48

my take is a bit controversial, but

23:50

I think like cheating and like

23:53

the house you own are two totally

23:55

separate entities. Like, I don't think that, let's

23:58

say Tom and Ariana Souther It's not like Tom

24:00

shouldn't get half of the money because he cheated. You

24:03

know, it's like the same thing as like you should still be able

24:05

to hang out with your kids if you cheated on your wife. Right.

24:08

Like, I don't think it's like binary. I don't know. What

24:10

do you think? You know, I think it's really complicated,

24:13

especially if their finances are intertwined.

24:16

Like if she was investing in, you know,

24:18

their new bar restaurant thing, whatever.

24:20

I don't disagree with your

24:23

concept of like, oh, the house should still be

24:25

able to be split and he should get some

24:27

proceeds of that. But I'm just I guess

24:29

like I'm a little torn. Like I feel like if

24:31

you suck up the relationship, like shouldn't

24:34

you have to suffer a small financial

24:36

setback or, you know, hurdle because of that?

24:38

I don't know. Yeah. I

24:41

mean, I'm curious about it. I know that like when

24:43

there isn't a prenup and somebody

24:45

let's say that man cheats on the woman because that's like,

24:48

you know, what happens, I would say probably

24:50

more often. And then the woman like cleans

24:52

him out for everything like that. Like

24:55

I'm not I'm not mad at that. Like that

24:57

sounds that sounds good to me.

25:00

But that's usually the case where like they've been together

25:02

for 35 years and like she's raised

25:04

their kids. And I think that it's

25:06

so situational, you know, if she

25:08

deserved that she's been a fucking trooper

25:11

and he's just a slimy ass,

25:13

you know, but in the Tom and Ariana situation,

25:15

like it's not it's not that I'm not

25:17

team Ariana. Let me be clear

25:20

and loud and clear. I'm team Ariana. But

25:22

I think that's a different situation than,

25:25

you know, married kids

25:27

have to put XYZ into the relationship. Like

25:30

and I will say she is benefiting.

25:32

She is getting money. Like I don't think we

25:34

have to worry about her. She's in every ad

25:36

on my television. I love it. And like every

25:38

ad I see I'm like, yes, go girl. Like

25:41

I'm not mad about it. Never. So

25:44

speaking of people like Tom Sandoval,

25:46

have you noticed an overpopulation

25:49

like an algal bloom of

25:52

overgrown manchildren in major

25:54

metro cities who I would

25:56

say like stay single, just like a touch

25:59

past their prime. and then basically

26:01

scurry to find a partner. And

26:04

I don't wanna say like use their money to

26:06

like trick someone into marrying them, but like use their money

26:08

into tricking someone to marrying them. I hope they're not

26:11

listening to this, but a lot of my husband's

26:13

friends, a lot of my husband's

26:15

friends, these are guys

26:17

who are very smart, very successful.

26:19

They went to HBS, okay? You

26:22

have to say HBS, Harvard Business School.

26:25

They're now anywhere between 35, 34, 35, 36, and

26:31

they are lonely

26:34

and like they want love. I

26:36

don't think, I wouldn't say that they're using their money

26:38

to get it if they're not, but they are

26:41

like wanting that. And

26:43

the only people around

26:45

like that are available to them are like 25

26:48

year olds. And then the 25

26:50

year olds are like idiots

26:51

and they're like, oh shit, you know?

26:55

So like they are in this predicament for sure that you

26:57

describe. Do you think

26:59

that like having money contributes

27:01

to that though? Like in your 20s, like if you

27:04

have money, you can have a lot more fun. You

27:06

don't necessarily need to focus so intently,

27:08

I guess. I'm like finding a partner because I

27:10

will say finding a partner and moving

27:13

in together like my fiance did with me

27:15

a month into dating me, crazy,

27:17

I can't believe it actually worked. Oh my God, I can't wait to hear

27:20

this story. But basically like, I

27:22

feel like if you have less money, you're actually more inclined

27:24

to date because you're like, oh, I can like save, I can like

27:26

cut costs. But if they have this money, then

27:28

they're like, oh, I'll just like stay single for longer and longer.

27:31

And then they're like, oh shoot, every single one of my

27:32

friends is married except for me. Yeah,

27:34

I mean, it's like mo money, mo problems,

27:37

you know? And I think that that can be the case.

27:39

I mean, I know a lot of them after going on

27:41

all like the crazy business trip vacations,

27:44

which you do and you're sorry, business school vacations,

27:46

when you're in business school, you go and you travel the world,

27:49

like that continued once they graduated.

27:51

Like they were like wanting to go to Tulum,

27:54

they wanted to like go here, they wanted to go there. And I think that

27:57

it was like hard for them to stay in one place.

28:00

and like focus on and maybe that was because

28:02

they had like so much disposable income

28:04

to spend and have fun with. That's

28:06

really nice. Like a good take. Not

28:08

that that's nice. Don't do that. Um,

28:11

but yes, I moved into a one

28:13

bedroom apartment with my fiance because

28:16

it was a backing up

28:18

me and my roommate got an apartment on

28:21

Mulberry Street and It

28:23

was amazing. It was our dream apartment two

28:25

bedrooms very small but quaint

28:27

and it ended up being a roach

28:30

infested Apartment from

28:32

hell. I've heard this from so many friends.

28:34

It's so painfully true to like first

28:37

like everybody knows someone who had this story But

28:40

I was dating my fiance and she was

28:42

dating this guy and I moved in

28:44

with my fiance literally a month into

28:46

us knowing each other and he had a roommate and

28:48

they had like a Sort of like a one-bedroom

28:50

flex into two bedrooms situation

28:53

And I moved in with them and she

28:55

moved in with her boyfriend and after a month we

28:57

found a new apartment We were able to break our lease things like that me

29:00

and my boyfriend well me and my fiance have now been together

29:02

for over six years and she and her

29:04

Boyfriend broke up literally the day after she moved out. Oh

29:07

my god. That was a true test. That was a true

29:10

test And you know, I think

29:12

in certain instances, especially in new york people

29:14

jump to move in with each other Probably

29:17

sooner than they should because of the rent.

29:19

Yeah. Yeah rent's so expensive here

29:21

Yeah, it's just like not a romantic way reason

29:24

to move in with someone at all Yeah, and

29:26

I know we are starting to run out

29:28

of time But I want to end on

29:30

a high note talking of romance

29:33

of all the dates you've ever been on which was

29:35

the best And why I mean obviously

29:38

I have to say my husband. I was literally gonna be like

29:40

what if she does with this? That's gonna

29:42

be so awkward. I'm saying it because it's true

29:45

We went on so many dates in the first,

29:47

you know Few months that we were dating that were

29:50

just like we were vibing on those dates Um

29:53

one of them we went to don angie Which

29:55

was such a hard reservation to get at

29:57

the time especially and we went We

30:00

had the best dinner and I

30:02

opened up about like a kink I had. And

30:05

he like totally played into it and was

30:08

like so into it. And

30:10

the rest of the night we kind of like, I wouldn't say

30:12

role played, but like, you know, did something

30:15

similar about whatever that kink was. And

30:17

we were just like, like loving

30:20

each other that night. It was like maybe our like

30:22

seventh or eighth date. We were just really into

30:24

each other. And we walked

30:26

home. It was like the perfect night. We ran into so

30:29

many people. You know those like New York City

30:31

nights where you just run into everyone

30:33

and like in the West Village like we just ran

30:35

into everyone, every block. And it was

30:38

just like so fun. We felt like the mayors

30:40

like, you know, it was just like this really

30:42

fun vibey night. So that was a

30:44

good one that we'll like always remember. Oh, that's

30:47

such a nice sweet date. And

30:50

as we wrap up, do you have any final

30:52

advice for our listeners to

30:54

be more effective, more financially

30:57

savvy daters? That's

31:00

why you're here. I know. I'm like,

31:02

I'm going to ask you that. I

31:04

would say it's really

31:07

important to have your own thing.

31:10

If you can, obviously, like if you're a stay at

31:12

home mom, like I love that, respect you for

31:14

that. But even so, I think

31:16

like have something of your own. Maybe it's like your

31:18

own like friends independent of your

31:21

significant other. I think just having

31:23

your own thing, especially financially,

31:26

but like in general is very freeing.

31:30

And you should be able to

31:32

and you should feel comfortable spending money

31:34

because you made it. And like that's

31:36

the goal. And I remember I used to like go into intermix

31:39

when I was like 10 and be like, one day I'm going to be

31:41

able to buy something here. And

31:43

like now that I can, unfortunately, intermix

31:46

went under. But like I'm like now that I

31:48

can, like this is like truly the best

31:50

feeling and it didn't just like happen like I

31:52

made it happen. And so I feel like that's

31:54

so cool. And it made me more confident when it came

31:56

to dating and all the things.

31:59

I love that very mom I am

32:02

a rich man. Yeah. Yeah.

32:05

Okay, Lindsay, tell everyone

32:07

where they can find you. You can find me wherever

32:09

you listen to podcasts, we met a doc me or

32:11

we met a document Instagram and my personal

32:13

is Lynn's Matt's amazing. Thank you

32:15

so much. Thank you.

32:19

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of net worth

32:21

and chill. If you liked this episode, make sure

32:23

to leave a rating and a review and subscribe

32:26

so you never miss an episode. Got a financial question

32:28

you want answered in the future. You can leave me

32:30

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32:36

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32:45

See you next week.

32:46

Bye.

32:55

Good because I was getting all these other paintings,

32:58

these sort of illegally obtained paintings.

33:01

And then of course, nobody really believed him. So when

33:03

he was brought to trial, in order to

33:05

prove that he was in fact not a collaborator,

33:08

but a faker of paintings, he

33:10

convinced the authorities that he could paint

33:12

a new one so he could do exactly

33:14

the same thing and replicate it in

33:17

order to prove his innocence, which

33:19

is sort of slightly bizarre because actually it wasn't

33:21

innocent at all. So he did convince

33:24

them in the end. So he got away with his charge

33:26

of collaboration, but he was convicted

33:28

to a year in prison in 1947 for forgery. But

33:32

he actually died two months later of a heart

33:35

attack and hadn't served a single

33:37

day at all. And they said that he was extremely

33:39

proud of having so

33:41

successfully pulled off this great feat of

33:44

being a

33:44

forger.

33:46

So I quite like his audacity.

33:48

Yeah, it's incredible. I

33:50

suppose one of the other reasons he chose Vermeer is because

33:52

they were so valuable. It wasn't just choose

33:56

a great artist who hasn't got many, but they were at the

33:58

top of their value, weren't they then?

33:59

Absolutely. So he was clearly so

34:02

successfully able to obtain really quite vast

34:04

amounts of money as well, as

34:06

well as sort of having had this chip

34:08

on his shoulder for such a long time, having been told that

34:11

he wasn't actually a very good artist. And then

34:13

really, he's up there with the great

34:15

masters. So that was a

34:17

good strategy, I think. Yes, it's kind of interesting,

34:19

isn't it? It's hugely talented. And

34:22

yet, due to the slings

34:24

and arrows of outrageous fortune, he finds himself

34:27

obliged to fake a Dutch

34:29

master with a skill that manages

34:32

to persuade experts of years of experience

34:34

in the field that it's the real thing. There's something kind

34:37

of rather tragic about that, isn't

34:39

there? A little part of me wants him to get

34:41

away with it. I know this is a terrible thing. And Charles,

34:44

I would hate to think that if the painting's hanging

34:46

at all sorts, there might be doubtful

34:48

attributions about... But I bet there are doubtful

34:50

attributions about... Well, there are doubtful

34:53

attributions about everything, really, aren't there? Provenance

34:55

is a very difficult thing to establish

34:58

because a painting might be a bit by someone,

35:00

by school of someone, not

35:03

necessarily something faked by someone to be trying

35:05

to mislead. It's a complicated area.

35:07

Yes. And I think that's always been the case. When I look back

35:09

on my family's collection, which

35:11

they've been adding to for 500

35:13

years, it's amazing how the identity

35:16

of the painters have changed over the

35:18

times. One of the great paintings that

35:21

my family had was supposedly a

35:22

Titian. Well, it really isn't. And

35:24

it hasn't been seen as such since

35:27

it was bought in about 1750. And I imagine top

35:29

dollar was paid for it. And nobody

35:31

was really expert enough to say, well, don't

35:34

buy that. It is not by that person.

35:36

So they weren't fakes so

35:38

much as just wrong attributions

35:41

and people cheerfully going along with that because

35:43

it made commercial sense. It's

35:45

interesting, isn't it? Because I think that the commercial

35:47

part is one of it. And also, I think people want to,

35:49

like this expert, he was so delighted

35:51

to have found a new unknown.

35:54

And people want to see it, don't they? Because

35:56

if you have this is finite

35:59

number of paintings. they're one of your most

36:01

favoured artists. Everyone wants to find another

36:04

one for people I think want to believe

36:05

maybe. Well, Richard's hit on a

36:07

very good thing there as well, which is the importance

36:09

of provenance. So if a

36:11

painting has been hanging in a museum

36:14

or a house for a very, very long time, the

36:16

chances are that it's more likely to be authentic.

36:19

But at the same time, you know, it's easy to

36:21

mess around with the

36:24

actual identity and say, well, it's not Rubens,

36:26

it sounds like. We had one actually, it's quite

36:28

interesting. We weren't sure if it was a Rubens and we sold

36:30

it about 15 years ago to pay

36:32

for a new roof. And it

36:34

had been identified

36:35

as School of Rubens until,

36:37

I can't remember what they're called, some

36:40

collectors used to have their whole collection

36:42

painted in a canvas.

36:45

And it was clear from the

36:47

canvas that this painting

36:50

of ours was featured in from 300 years ago, that

36:53

it was the original and the one that happened

36:55

to be in Detroit in America was

36:57

most likely the copy. And that's

37:00

what convinced the experts that this

37:02

was the real thing. So your man copying

37:04

the Vermeer's Van Meeger and was not

37:07

able to point to that. He was just bringing out

37:09

something that was very, very good. Yeah. Hoping

37:11

that that would be enough in the style of that it

37:13

would convince the experts. Yeah. And Goring,

37:16

I've delighted Goring was completely

37:17

shafted. That's very good.

37:19

Absolutely. He actually comes into one

37:21

of my second phase. I had originally thought

37:23

I'd have, you know, 10 of these or something, but they're all

37:25

too interesting in their own right. And the

37:27

second forgery that I wanted

37:29

to talk about was the Hitler Diaries

37:33

that were, well, allegedly discovered

37:35

in the 1980s. And this came about in April 1983, when the German magazine

37:40

Stern held a press conference to

37:42

huge numbers of television crews and journalists

37:45

all over the world, announcing

37:47

that they had come across this huge

37:49

big collection of Hitler's personal

37:52

diaries that had been lost in a

37:54

plane crash in 1945.

37:57

And they were going to be publishing them. According

38:00

to the magazine, these diaries would completely rewrite

38:02

Hitler's biography and essentially the entire

38:05

history of the Third Reich. So

38:07

again, we have this sort of, clearly this is something

38:09

that people really want, isn't it? Everyone was looking

38:12

for that sort of thing, so it was clear that people

38:14

wanted to believe in it. And they

38:16

did publish a special edition with

38:18

various extracts from it massively

38:21

increasing their circulation, but it

38:23

took only about two weeks before these were

38:26

exposed as fakes and

38:28

attributed to somebody called Konrad Kujo,

38:31

a small-time crook and prolific forger.

38:34

And Konrad was known as Connie. He's

38:36

got a really quite interesting story of why he started

38:38

doing this. He was posing as

38:40

an antique dealer by the name of Herr Fischer

38:43

and was supplying a businessman called

38:45

Fitz Stiefel with a number

38:48

of different Nazi artefacts. So

38:50

he doesn't start with the diaries, he starts with other things,

38:53

manuscripts, artworks allegedly

38:55

by Hitler himself. And eventually

38:58

he introduces one of these diaries, one

39:00

single forged diary. And Stiefel

39:04

then compared this to his other

39:06

forged manuscripts and said, well, they all match,

39:08

they must be the same. It's quite a clever move.

39:11

And eventually Stiefel goes on to show it

39:13

to a reporter for Stern magazine called

39:16

Heidermann. And he

39:18

was exceptionally interested in the Nazis.

39:21

In fact, reportedly, he'd even had

39:23

an affair with Göring's daughter

39:26

after being sent an assignment to buy his yacht,

39:29

weirdly. But he got a wind of these

39:31

diaries and he thought these were going to be a sensation

39:33

and he wanted to know about the rest of them. He even

39:36

went to the East German crash site

39:39

that they were allegedly found in.

39:41

He visited the site, was

39:43

completely convinced that they were found there and

39:46

Stern offered nearly 9 million

39:49

marks, which was around £2.35 million in the early

39:53

1980s, a vast amount of money for these diaries.

39:55

It was a 60 volume set

39:57

and they sold the serial rights to various people.

40:00

news outlets including the Sunday Times. So

40:02

they all thought this was a big scoop obviously.

40:05

And various historians got involved

40:07

as well including the historian Hugh Trevor

40:09

Roper who's written about

40:11

the last days of Hitler for example and

40:14

he had been skeptical originally

40:17

and eventually that skepticism was proven

40:20

true because when they

40:22

were examined properly it was shown

40:24

that they were fakes. And this was

40:26

discovered by things like the signature wasn't

40:29

accurate, the paper and the ink

40:31

were clearly post-war materials

40:34

and apparently the bindings had been aged

40:36

with tea. That's the sort of thing you do

40:38

as a child to create a sort

40:40

of treasure wrap or something. But also lots

40:42

of the facts in there, if you look at what was in there,

40:45

some of the facts wouldn't have been available to Hitler

40:47

at the time.

40:48

But I see it's so funny you say that Cat

40:50

because you were born around this time.

40:52

Richard and I, we can remember this really well

40:54

can't we Richard? I mean it's just one of those things.

40:57

I remember Hugh Trevor Roper being

40:59

wheeled out at a press conference and this very distinguished

41:02

historian destroying his reputation

41:04

with no malice I'm sure. But he was

41:07

totally convinced and it's very easy

41:10

for us to sort of poo-poo people for being convinced.

41:12

But I think it goes with the territory of

41:14

what you said with the portrait. And

41:16

you've mentioned this, it's when you really

41:18

want to believe that it's true. But also,

41:21

questions about attribution. Again,

41:22

complicated aren't they? Lots

41:25

of factors coming to play our desire for something

41:27

to be true. And I guess that very

41:30

rarely would you look at something and

41:32

it would be in an absolutely

41:34

clear case of whether it was or it

41:36

wasn't. You'd have to make judgements about individual

41:38

elements for that. And that might just nudge

41:40

you over the edge towards a decision you might later

41:43

woo. Hugh Trevor Roper, Lord Dacre

41:45

as he was, his sort of reputation

41:47

never recovered. And I remember him being portrayed

41:49

by Alan Bennett in a drama

41:52

relevant to our topic of discussion, sitting

41:55

on one of those drive-around

41:57

lawnmowers and looking rather ridiculous.

41:59

and it was quite painful

42:02

to see a reputation that was once so high,

42:05

reduced to almost a sort of set con proportions.

42:08

As I can imagine. And I keep being

42:10

sent pictures of artefacts, Viking

42:12

artefacts especially, and people saying, is this real?

42:15

I don't go into it at all because I don't

42:18

really want to do that because it is, if you just

42:20

see the object itself, it's, I mean, sometimes

42:22

it's very, very obvious, but most of the time it's really

42:25

not. And you do need a

42:27

lot of expertise and you can really put

42:29

your entire reputation on the line. And so

42:31

I think personally it's not find that

42:33

best avoided

42:33

really. It's a big thing of course in the

42:36

history of the church because of the cult of relics,

42:38

which was so very, very vigorous

42:40

indeed. And the importance and the value

42:43

of a relic that had a respectable

42:45

prominence of an apostle, for example.

42:48

St. Hugh of Lincoln, who's

42:50

one of my favourites, saying it's not little St Hugh

42:52

who's a horrible fake saint, but big St

42:54

Hugh, who's a real faint. He went

42:56

to visit some monks in the, in

42:58

an abbey in France and they had the arm

43:00

of Mary Magdalene and he liked

43:03

it so much and wanted

43:03

it so much for Lincoln Cathedral that

43:06

he knelt down to venerate it and bit off a finger

43:08

and took it home. But

43:11

it was actually, it was for money, wasn't it Richard,

43:13

I think. I remember when Henry I, when

43:16

he founded Reading Abbey, he hoovered

43:19

up, you know, the usual crisis force

43:21

game, which I think there are many, many of, but things

43:23

that people would come, pilgrims would come to

43:25

and then they would leave money for the abbey

43:27

to sustain it. It was equivalent of Madame

43:30

Tussauds in a way. You were having something that people

43:32

wanted to come and see and venerate.

43:33

I mean it's all right now because there's someone

43:36

like you comes along, cat with your

43:38

special sonic toothbrush rubbing, scraping

43:41

the plaque off an ancient tooth and working

43:43

out whether

43:45

Mary Magdalene liked camomile tea

43:47

or not. But I mean it's an interesting reason. It was the feet

43:49

of St. John Chrysostom recently, one of the

43:51

great saints of the Eastern Early Church.

43:54

And there are three people who claim to have his head.

43:56

They each produce his preserved

43:59

head in a way. a relicry on his feast

44:01

day and each claim that it's the real thing. One

44:04

of the claims is based on the fact that the ear

44:07

into which St Paul the Apostle

44:09

spoke, although St Paul the Apostle was long dead,

44:12

is incorrupt and that's held up

44:14

as a very good reason to take

44:17

this relic seriously. Excellent. And

44:19

Cat, what's your favourite fact then?

44:21

Well, I mean there's so many in

44:23

this really I think, but I

44:25

did like very briefly a different, very

44:27

recent fraud which was a Latvian

44:30

meteorite from 2009 where it was reported that

44:32

this fiery

44:34

meteor-like object had fallen in the field

44:37

near the Estonian border in Latvia and

44:40

it apparently left a crater about 20 metres

44:42

wide. But we're talking 2009 so it's very recent

44:46

here and you'd think that people would have gotten onto

44:48

that quite quickly but you have emergency services,

44:50

military personnel coming, lots

44:52

of interest and even scientists initially

44:54

saying, yes, this really was the meteor. Turns

44:57

out it was actually a Swedish based

44:59

telecommunications company that

45:01

had created this entire fraud

45:04

in order to use it as a publicity

45:06

campaign and actually also

45:08

apparently drew attention away from

45:10

Latvia's economic crisis and towards

45:12

something more interesting. Interesting

45:15

reason for doing it

45:17

but they were obviously very, told

45:20

off very quite severely. There was a huge backlash

45:22

against it. So I

45:24

think we're moving on to you now,

45:27

Charles,

45:27

on a

45:28

very important topic again

45:30

suggested by two people

45:32

actually, Karen and Susan and

45:35

something we all think we know, well,

45:37

I don't know if we know the history of but that's

45:40

cutlery.

45:40

Yes, well cutlery nowadays

45:43

would be a sort of problem

45:45

fraught with snobbery and

45:48

social mores bound up in it

45:50

and how you use it. That awful thing of if

45:52

you sit down at a table and you've got an array

45:54

of knives and spoons on your right and

45:57

forks on the left, what do you do? And in fact, you just go

45:59

from the outside. for each course if you're in such

46:01

a setting. But the snobbery around

46:04

cutlery is something that I find so

46:06

intriguing. I mean there's a

46:08

famous scene in Downton Abbey where

46:10

Carson the butler is testing

46:12

a trainee footman on spoons

46:15

and he shows him an array of spoons and

46:18

the trainee butler goes tea spoon,

46:20

egg spoon, melon, grapefruit

46:22

spoon, jam spoon and then he's stumped

46:25

on the last one and Carson's outraged

46:28

because it's a bouillon spoon,

46:29

sort of like a miso soup

46:32

one because it has to be smaller

46:34

because bouillon is served in a smaller

46:36

bowl and this would have been normal to people

46:39

in that era. And well obviously it's

46:41

a Julian Fellow's creation but if we

46:43

look at what we know went down with the Titanic

46:45

there were a hundred grape scissors, four

46:48

hundred asparagus tongs and a thousand

46:51

oyster forks which nestled

46:53

nearer to the oysters and anyone imagined they would I imagine.

46:55

But you're dealing with an extraordinary

46:58

array of weaponry for the

46:59

table and of course I know

47:02

what Richard's thinking. We're thinking of that John

47:04

Betjeman poem which is a sort of an

47:07

attack on Nouveau Ridge

47:09

people which he wrote and it's called How to Get On in Society

47:11

and the very first line is Phone

47:14

for the Fish Knives Norman as Cook is

47:16

a little unnerved. You kiddies have crumpled

47:18

the serviettes and I must have things daintily

47:21

served. So fish knives are seen

47:23

as this very non-ew unacceptable

47:26

addition to the table.

47:29

So fish knives were not

47:31

part of the culinary experience

47:33

for a very long time because fish

47:36

were seen as something you had to be really careful

47:38

eating because the normal

47:40

steel before stainless steel came around would

47:43

turn black if touched by something

47:45

as corrosive as lemon juice which

47:47

is often served with fish of course. So

47:50

it was only with the invention of stainless steel

47:53

in 1913 in Sheffield that

47:55

it was possible to really use

47:58

knives for fish before that

47:59

it would be silver forks. It would be very wealthy

48:02

people would use silver forks because silver doesn't

48:04

have the problems that ordinary steel

48:06

has with going black or rusting

48:08

etc. But if we look at

48:11

original cutlery, I was really interested to find out that

48:13

forks are actually a very recent invention

48:16

as far as European society

48:18

is concerned. A knife was

48:21

always used at the dining table for

48:23

obvious reasons. It was usually a hunting dagger. It

48:25

wasn't a specific piece of cutlery.

48:27

It was something you just carried on yourself and

48:29

you

48:29

used for chopping up your meat on your plate and

48:32

you used it often for sticking

48:34

the cutter piece into your mouth. It

48:37

was actually the great French

48:39

Cardinal Duke Richer who was the

48:41

main advisor to Louis XIII to

48:43

France who decided this was unacceptable. He

48:46

hated bad manners and so he made

48:48

it fashionable. He insisted on it in

48:50

his house to start with but it soon rolled out to be very

48:52

fashionable and then indeed made almost

48:54

compulsory by Louis XIV to have

48:57

rounded knives with blunt edges

48:59

to make

48:59

it all a bit more civilized. Spoons

49:02

we know have always been part

49:04

of human eating or drinking.

49:07

We find them in ancient Egypt

49:10

back to 1000 BC and also

49:13

it's quite clear that Neanderthal cultures

49:15

etc. use very crude spoon-like instruments

49:18

made of seashells and animal bones

49:20

to scoop things up. The Romans

49:23

had two types of spoon. One

49:25

was called the ligula and that was for

49:28

soups and soft foods and then they had

49:30

a sort of sturdier one, a cochleari,

49:33

which was a small rounder spoon and that was used

49:36

for shellfish and eggs. The first

49:38

mention of spoons I come across in England is

49:40

under Edward I in the mid 13th century

49:43

and it's in his wardrobe accounts and

49:45

they've actually been part of the ceremonial part

49:48

of crowning the kings and queens of

49:50

England since about that period where a coronation

49:53

spoon was recorded in 1349 has been

49:56

used really ever since in

49:58

that but it was as

49:59

Part of the tableware, it became

50:03

more popular in the Middle Ages, from about the

50:05

14th century. The

50:07

rise of pewter made it possible. Pewter

50:09

being a much cheaper metal to

50:12

make than silver. And a little

50:14

rabbit hole, I believe, and I was trying

50:16

to check this out, but Putney in England,

50:18

one of the parts of London, was the

50:20

place, the white's got its name, it was the place for pewter

50:23

to be made. And forks,

50:26

that really is a newcomer to the table.

50:28

In Bronze Age China, it was used

50:31

for cooking and serving, not for eating. Most

50:33

diners ate with their fingers and a knife. And

50:36

in fact, it was seen as really bad form to

50:38

use a fork. And in 1003, the

50:41

Greek niece of the Byzantine emperor Basil

50:43

II arrived in Venice to marry

50:46

Giovanni, a son of the Doge of Venice.

50:48

And she arrived with this case of golden

50:51

forks that she used at the wedding feast. And

50:53

this was seen as absolutely disgusting. So

50:57

she was told that when she

50:58

died of the plague, and this chronicler

51:01

saint called Peter Damion suggested

51:04

it was God's punishment for using a fork.

51:07

He actually says that she used a certain

51:09

golden instrument with two prongs and thus

51:11

carried it to her mouth. This woman's vanity

51:13

was hateful to Almighty God. And so unmistakably,

51:16

he did take his revenge and he killed her, supposedly,

51:18

for using a fork. It's really extraordinary. We

51:21

do know that finger bolts were a very

51:23

important part of the culture

51:25

before forks were used. And

51:28

people used sage and rosemary

51:30

and lemon. They all had an antibacterial

51:33

quality, which people were sort of semi-conscious

51:35

of, because using your fingers to eat

51:38

can be a very tricky business. And it wasn't until 1533

51:41

when Catherine de Medici, one of the great European

51:44

icons of the 16th century, married

51:46

Henry II of France and arrived in her

51:48

diary with a ray of forks.

51:51

It's from Cellini, the Renaissance goldsmith.

51:54

So

51:54

we think of the knife fork

51:56

and spoon as real perennials, but they're really

51:59

not at all. And if we go further

52:01

afield into chopsticks, these

52:04

were probably brought about

52:06

originally from twigs that were

52:08

used for fishing out things in a boiling

52:11

pot with safety. And by 400 BC,

52:14

there was a sort of problem in Asia with

52:16

fuel conservation. So

52:19

small pieces of meat were chopped up

52:21

and cooked to save on the cooking

52:23

time. And this meant

52:25

that you didn't need to use a fork and it was much easier

52:28

just to use chopsticks for eating.

52:30

And by 500 AD, Japan, Vietnam,

52:32

and Korea all had chopsticks. It's a very

52:35

important part of their weaponry

52:37

at the table, as I say. But there was a sort

52:39

of folklore around chopsticks.

52:42

Even today, you have this superstition that if

52:45

you have an uneven pair of chopsticks,

52:47

you're going to be missing your boat or plane

52:49

on your travel.

52:51

So there's a lot of mystery and mystique around

52:53

really common or garden tools for

52:55

eating. I did an April Fool this year,

52:58

and I published on Facebook in April the 1st that

53:00

I had been appointed Custos Cochliari

53:03

for the Coronation of King Charles. And

53:06

this is a historic role in which a bachelor

53:08

clergyman of over 60 years of age was

53:11

responsible for looking after the anointing spoon

53:14

for the coronation right, which had to be kept

53:17

in a tangerine silk

53:19

harness around his breasts to

53:21

keep it at room temperature. And after the anointing,

53:24

the vimper, this investment, which

53:26

was ceremoniously burned, ha, ha, ha,

53:28

nearly everyone believed it, including a

53:31

quite significant constitutional expert

53:33

who DM'd me to congratulate me on the post.

53:36

I love that, Richard, because so many of your things

53:39

come together there. You know, the love

53:41

of ceremony and the dashing color

53:43

that you chose for the sack to be holding

53:46

it. No, it's brilliant. And also, people

53:48

were just lapping up coronation facts then,

53:50

weren't they? So you hit a rich theme of

53:52

possibility. Very

53:54

good. I remember

53:55

seeing that, actually. One of the things I always

53:57

wonder about is how the

53:59

fact that you got chopsticks in Asia

54:01

not in Europe how actually those

54:03

utensils affect the food that's

54:06

being cooked and how it's being cooked so things

54:08

like sticky rice which is easy

54:10

to eat with chopsticks as opposed to sort

54:12

of non sticky rice. How do those

54:14

utensils actually affect it and how they at

54:17

the time? I hope that was really interesting

54:19

is that something you came across?

54:20

I did so one of the reasons

54:22

that the Medicis used forks was

54:24

with their puddings or desserts whichever you

54:27

call it because they tended to be very sticky

54:30

and it's exactly that they didn't want to have sticky

54:32

fingers so that's why that came in they

54:34

were particularly into their sweet meats

54:36

and and sticky sweet things

54:38

and so it made sense to develop a tool

54:41

that you know you didn't want to be wielding a fork

54:43

with some dainty little thing so

54:46

that was one of the reasons they came to the fore. It's

54:48

like you know so many topics we've covered

54:50

it really needed a major

54:52

figure to make it

54:54

compulsory so Riccio, the

54:56

Medicis, when these people said this is

54:58

what we're going to be doing then people fell into

55:00

line on that. I was the era of a man

55:02

who had great aunts who were unwed

55:04

because of the lack of men after the war and

55:07

what they seem to do perhaps is a compensatory

55:09

thing was to fill canteens

55:12

with cutlery of esoteric use. Grape

55:14

scissors, I remember grape scissors galore but

55:16

the weirdest ones were special

55:19

knives and spoons for eating grapefruit

55:21

and there was a serrated knife but with a curved

55:24

blade to enable you to separate

55:26

your segments and then you dug into

55:28

it with a spoon with a sort of pointy end.

55:31

I can remember it would be unthinkable

55:33

to my great-aunt Phyllis that you didn't have

55:36

proper cutlery for trying to eat your grapefruit. He would

55:38

have thought that turned him out to the Ravens

55:40

flying away from the Tower of London. Well

55:43

there was a spoof done of Downton

55:45

Abbey going back to that about nine years ago

55:47

where George Clooney visits the set.

55:49

It was a charity thing they did and they had Julian

55:52

Fellows in the corner and he's berated

55:54

by the man acting the Earl

55:57

and he goes you know you kill us all and you

55:59

don't see to care but if someone eats a grapefruit

56:02

with the wrong spoon you go berserk and

56:04

Julian Fellowes goes yes but

56:06

that's cutlery as if it's more important

56:08

than anything and that sounds as though it's in tune with your grapevine.

56:13

Also how dangerous is a grapefruit spoon? Have

56:15

you ever eaten with one of those? It looks

56:18

like a teaspoon but it's got teeth. I've

56:20

got one. You've got to be so careful. If

56:22

you sort of suck on one of those you're going to be in

56:25

an emergency room.

56:25

Do you have any particularly weird, I

56:27

mean you must

56:28

have a lot of cutlery. Yeah we have some odd ones.

56:30

There's a sort of gougy, spoony thing

56:32

for getting bone marrow out of bones

56:35

at the table, not in the kitchen. My

56:37

father was addicted to stilton cheese

56:39

around Christmas time and he had a sort of stilton

56:42

gouge. So rather than cutting

56:44

a stilton which apparently is not allowed, you

56:46

would sort of gouge out the middle bit and

56:48

then the side would just get more and more rotten

56:51

with sort of heaving maggots but he

56:53

would plunge this thing into the middle and pull out

56:56

a gouge of stilton. My

56:59

favourite fact is so obscure. So

57:01

I was thinking, has anyone ever been murdered

57:03

with a spoon? So I looked into

57:05

that and there was advice on

57:08

how to murder someone with a spoon and it said basically

57:10

put the spoon in your pocket and strangle them. But

57:13

then I did come across a film

57:15

from 2008 called The

57:18

Horribly Slow Murderer with

57:20

the Extremely Inefficient Weapon and

57:23

it won five international contests. It

57:25

was made for $600, it's a ten minute short which

57:29

a man called Jack is haunted

57:31

by another sort of demonic looking fellow

57:33

who keeps hitting him with a spoon. And

57:36

Jack has had enough of this after quite

57:38

a lot of being hit with a spoon and stabs

57:41

this figure in the neck but finds that

57:43

his attacker is actually immortal

57:45

and he's known as genosaji which

57:47

means silver spoon in Japanese. Anyway

57:50

Jack, undeterred by the immortality,

57:52

tries to blow him up with dynamite and shoot him with

57:54

guns etc to no avail. And

57:57

the film gets to the sort of final stage.

57:59

with Jack crawling in the desert,

58:02

being hit with a spoon, and the spoon

58:05

breaks and you think, oh great, he's

58:07

going to be saved. But then Gina Sargi

58:09

pulls open his jacket and reveals he's got dozens

58:12

of spoons and that's the end of the movie.

58:15

Oh no. Yeah, the horribly slow murderer

58:17

with the extremely inefficient weapon.

58:19

Excellent, I'm going

58:21

to be giggling that.

58:21

Ten minutes of your

58:24

time. Yeah. But it did win, honestly, it won

58:26

five awards. Amazing. I love that.

58:28

And that's the sort of thing that we would expect

58:30

from you as well, Charles. You have to go

58:32

something gruesome at the end.

58:34

Brilliant. So that leaves us then with

58:36

the last one, Richard. And this

58:39

week you've been looking into a topic that

58:41

was submitted by a listener called Sybil.

58:43

And that is national anthems.

58:46

Yes, national anthems, what

58:48

a useful function they perform. Where would

58:50

we be for sporting tournament,

58:52

whether or not national anthems to be played as

58:55

the athletes, the victors, stand on

58:57

their podiums to receive their gold medals?

59:00

Well, actually, it doesn't go back that far.

59:03

Stirring songs of political

59:06

importance, stirring songs

59:08

to rouse troops to battle. That

59:10

kind of thing has been around for a sort of while, but it didn't get

59:12

formalised until a bit later.

59:14

Now, the oldest national

59:17

anthem in which words and music have

59:19

forever been together is the Wilhelm.

59:23

And it's the Dutch national anthem, the national

59:25

anthem of the Netherlands, I should say now. And

59:27

it goes back to the 1570s. It's a very

59:31

interesting one. And it's a very weird one. William

59:34

of Orange was trying to

59:36

persuade the King of Spain's independence

59:38

for the Spanish Netherlands to be a very good idea. He

59:40

wanted to go down very well with the King of Spain.

59:43

So he kind of ran at his troops with a song or somebody

59:45

ran his trips to a song which expressed

59:48

that aspiration for Dutch independence within

59:50

rather unusual way. The

59:52

tune was taken actually from

59:54

a French musical satire

59:57

on the failures of Protestants to perceive

59:59

The Protestant The

1:00:02

Protestant The

1:00:04

Protestant The Protestant

1:00:08

The Protestant in

1:00:10

order to tip their noses at the French took

1:00:12

that tune and turned it into an anthem

1:00:15

for Protestant supremacy so it

1:00:17

was a sort of attack anthem or

1:00:19

rather a sort of counter attack anthem

1:00:22

but for some reason it was taken up and

1:00:24

then it just became woven into the life

1:00:27

of the Netherlands as its sort of identity

1:00:30

it was only actually formally adopted as

1:00:32

the anthem of the Netherlands in the 1930s caused

1:00:36

a bit of a hoo-ha caused a bit of a stink

1:00:39

why? because it was seen as

1:00:41

being an anthem which gave expression to

1:00:43

royalist sentiments and that

1:00:45

wasn't in keeping with people on socialist convictions

1:00:47

indeed then of course along came

1:00:50

the Second World War and the occupation of the

1:00:52

Netherlands by the armies of the Third

1:00:54

Reich and it became a sort of rallying

1:00:56

song for those who wish to assert

1:00:59

the independence of the Netherlands against

1:01:01

the Nazi occupiers and

1:01:03

so it kind of became dignified again and

1:01:06

continues to this day

1:01:07

its sung with enormous lusty

1:01:09

enthusiasm now the British

1:01:11

national anthem or the English national anthem that's controversial

1:01:14

too but they're always controversial because to express

1:01:16

an idea of nationhood is always

1:01:19

tricky when ideas of nationhood are themselves

1:01:21

contested but God saves the king

1:01:24

as we've got to know it again now we've

1:01:26

got to save the queen for most of our lifetimes obviously

1:01:29

the tune's a bit mysterious nobody

1:01:31

really knows how it's by some say bull,

1:01:33

some say personal but it's never really

1:01:35

been properly attributed

1:01:37

the words go back in one

1:01:39

form or another

1:01:40

to the 18th century and really

1:01:42

it was in response to the threat of

1:01:44

the Jacobite rebellion so in 1745

1:01:46

whenever it was Bonnie Prince Charlie,

1:01:48

the Battle of Preston Pounds the southern

1:01:50

march the Scottish Jacobites

1:01:53

towards England as far as Derby I think

1:01:55

didn't they produced a huge reaction

1:01:57

in England and this patriotic song

1:02:00

in which loyalty to the

1:02:02

monarch was bound up with loyalty

1:02:05

to the notion of the Union, I

1:02:07

think. Another reason why it's a controversial one. And

1:02:09

if you look at the words of our national anthem

1:02:12

in the verses which are rarely sung, you'll

1:02:14

find that some of them are quite eye-poppingly

1:02:17

direct in their insistence

1:02:19

that the Scots should come to heel under

1:02:21

English domination. So that's that

1:02:24

one. It kind of just got worked into

1:02:26

the popular fabric. It was sung in the theatres,

1:02:29

for example, when the king attended. When

1:02:31

George III recovered

1:02:33

from, I think, his first bout of insanity,

1:02:36

he went to Weymouth to take the cure like he

1:02:38

do. And I think it lint-hursed on

1:02:40

the way people were so pleased to see him with

1:02:42

his wits restored that they came out and they sang God

1:02:45

Save the King, according to Fanny Burney,

1:02:47

she writes about in her diary. And they

1:02:49

interspersed the singing of the stanzas with

1:02:51

the words, Huzzah, Huzzah, because

1:02:53

it was seen that somehow the well-being

1:02:55

of the monarch represented the well-being of the

1:02:58

nation. We all wanted a bit of that. Now,

1:03:01

antiquity, we've talked about the Dutch one being the oldest

1:03:03

one, the English-British one is pretty

1:03:05

old too. The oldest component

1:03:07

one is the Japanese

1:03:11

national anthem, the Kimigayo. That

1:03:13

also has the distinction of being one

1:03:15

of the shortest. It consists of four

1:03:18

lines. But the four lines of

1:03:20

the Japanese national anthem were composed

1:03:22

probably around the year 900. So

1:03:24

very, very, very ancient indeed. The

1:03:27

tune, well, the first tune was provided by an Irish

1:03:29

bandmaster because they felt they needed one.

1:03:32

And that was considered to be unsingable by Japanese

1:03:34

people. So there was a bit

1:03:35

of a competition. They got some Japanese composers

1:03:38

to

1:03:38

come up with it. It's very slow

1:03:40

and it's very sad, the Kimigayo.

1:03:43

And it's also very controversial. As

1:03:46

recently as 1999, the government decided

1:03:48

that it should be sung as a sort of mark

1:03:50

of respect for the nation and nationhood by

1:03:53

schoolchildren at the beginning of the school day. But

1:03:55

this was resisted by teachers who

1:03:57

felt that it was an assertion of a kind

1:03:59

of old imperial idea of Japan, this

1:04:02

had very much was contrary to their

1:04:05

sentiments following the Second World War. So

1:04:08

this kind of, to interpret it, pupils

1:04:10

were made to do it, were ordered to do it by local

1:04:12

authorities, teachers went into development,

1:04:14

in the end, some poor school master in Hiroshima

1:04:17

took his own life, and a law

1:04:19

was passed after that trying to regulate the singing

1:04:22

of the Four Line Kimigayo

1:04:24

of Japan. Now, you might be wanting a longer

1:04:27

anthem, I don't know, I'm not quite sure of

1:04:29

myself, but if you wanted a long

1:04:31

one, Uruguay, which is very good,

1:04:34

has, I think, 15 stanzas. Uruguay

1:04:37

is the longest single anthem

1:04:39

in a go, so it's 105 bars of music, and

1:04:43

it can last as long as six minutes. Now,

1:04:45

you might be depressed if you're looking at Uruguay

1:04:48

lining up for a football match, and there's old

1:04:50

Suarez showing his nashes to

1:04:52

sing six minutes of national anthem, but they do a fortunately

1:04:55

shortened version of a performance thing,

1:04:57

mixture. But if you're really looking

1:04:59

for a long national anthem, look no further

1:05:02

than Greece, which has 158 stanzas. Now,

1:05:06

the reason it has 158 stanzas is that

1:05:08

a lot of national anthems really were created,

1:05:10

they're quite recent phenomena, they came

1:05:13

into the 19th century, and it was

1:05:15

really with the kind of desire and the aspiration

1:05:17

for nationhood on those nations which

1:05:19

perhaps have been part of huge empires before.

1:05:22

So Greece constantly fell into the othements and so on. As

1:05:25

national identity began to form, then

1:05:27

an anthem was required

1:05:28

too. The anthem is quite detailed

1:05:30

in its handling of recent Greek history.

1:05:33

There's some stanza interestingly about

1:05:35

the lynching of Patriarch Gregory

1:05:38

V, which is kind of a detail

1:05:40

that seems rather niche, I suppose, for

1:05:42

the purpose of national anthem. Again, when

1:05:44

it comes to a sporting fixture, it's

1:05:46

very, very much shortened. Some of

1:05:48

them

1:05:49

are absolutely lovely.

1:05:52

What's the best? Well, I don't know. The Marseillaise,

1:05:55

I think, is a smashing national anthem. A bit

1:05:57

cracker. Where was the Marseillaise?

1:05:59

posed well, Marseille, you think, were you

1:06:02

wrong? It was actually in Strasbourg, but

1:06:04

it was taken up by the Federer of Marseille

1:06:07

in the revolutionary years in France, and

1:06:09

that's how it got its kind of currency. Again,

1:06:11

incredibly blunt-thirsty. If you look at the words,

1:06:14

is it they were working for the football to begin? It's

1:06:16

a bit where they're talking about the slitting of the throats

1:06:19

of wives and children, so it's kind

1:06:21

of a martial one. Martial one?

1:06:23

You want a martial one? Look, they're further than

1:06:26

Spain. It's an incredibly

1:06:28

jolly tune, and it would be the kind of

1:06:30

thing. It's called the

1:06:31

royal march. Some people call it the march of the Grenadiers,

1:06:34

and it does have a kind of very militaristic feel

1:06:36

to it. Interesting distinction as well.

1:06:39

It has no official words. There

1:06:41

are only four anthems, I think, to which there are no

1:06:44

words. What that means, of course, there are words,

1:06:46

lots of words, but no one could agree on the words because

1:06:48

Franco's words were not suitable for a post-Franco

1:06:51

as well. So often the Spanish national anthem

1:06:53

is not so at all. You asked

1:06:56

favorite ones, and I think that the South African

1:06:58

one is absolutely fantastic. I

1:07:00

can't even

1:07:01

pronounce it, but it's so beautiful,

1:07:03

and it does bring together.

1:07:06

I think South Africa has 11 or 12

1:07:08

official national languages. I

1:07:10

think the disembodied voice can check that out, but

1:07:12

everyone I know... What was the guy's

1:07:15

name? Steve? I never

1:07:18

ask their names. Oh, don't you? I

1:07:20

always do it. They go, you know, g'day hoity jay, bah

1:07:22

bah bah, and I go, oh, g'day, man, what's your name? And

1:07:25

what do they say? Steve! What

1:07:28

have you been watching, Mike? You mind your business,

1:07:30

Casey. Oh, sorry, my bad fellas. Hey, Chase, I've been

1:07:33

watching a TV show. It's

1:07:36

called Smartless.

1:07:39

But it's a documentary, and it's based

1:07:41

on a podcast. Behind the scenes,

1:07:43

look, is Jason Bateman. You're

1:07:45

aware of the accent? Oh, yes, aware of him,

1:07:47

yep. Will Arnett. Oh, that's got a great

1:07:49

podcast, yeah. And the other guy's

1:07:51

name escapes me, and I bet that happens to him a lot.

1:07:54

He was one of the gay fellas off Will

1:07:57

and Grace, if I remember correctly.

1:07:59

Right.

1:07:59

But they've got a podcast where they on

1:08:02

their podcast one of them will bring in one

1:08:04

of the

1:08:05

pretty high profile mates Sean Hayes,

1:08:07

but Sean Hayes thank you and not tell the other two

1:08:09

who it is So it'll be a surprise when that person walks

1:08:11

in yes So we're doing a stage show version of

1:08:13

that and touring it around in South Africa

1:08:16

And I did I live there for five years, but they

1:08:18

can all get behind this beautiful

1:08:20

It's a very African sound but it's so

1:08:23

lyrical and stunning. Yeah, it's

1:08:25

a lovely answer And I think five

1:08:28

of the eleven official languages of

1:08:30

South Africa are used in that Switzerland

1:08:33

has four I think you know often national

1:08:35

and the way you have different groups

1:08:37

of different languages and ethnicities that

1:08:39

becomes a bit problematic Cat I'm sorry

1:08:41

to say this but the Norwegian national anthem is a

1:08:43

dirge. I hope that doesn't offend you too

1:08:45

much No

1:08:48

offense to Norway it is it's

1:08:50

not a lively tune it doesn't really motor

1:08:53

along I'm sure the sentence is very

1:08:54

important. It's you know expressing

1:08:57

our independence and our love of our country

1:08:59

And that don't mean to be rude But it's

1:09:02

a very serviceable anthem and indeed it does

1:09:04

all those things with the tune I'm afraid a bit

1:09:06

of it now who am I talking because I think the tune of the

1:09:08

British English national anthem Is one

1:09:10

of the dreary so do you know why sports people

1:09:12

by the way sing it before sporting games?

1:09:15

You know what now goes back to the singing of national anthems

1:09:18

Well, I can tell you it goes back to

1:09:20

Wales playing the all blacks 1905 and

1:09:25

the all blacks came on the New Zealand roping team and

1:09:27

they did their hacker We're seeing rather starting to

1:09:29

the people of Wales, but the people of Wales being spirited

1:09:32

nation Immediately responded by

1:09:34

singing land of my father's well in

1:09:36

Welsh Go on go on do anything

1:09:39

and so that was really when it became the custom

1:09:41

at major sporting fixtures between nations

1:09:44

where people to start singing their national

1:09:46

anthems Here's an interesting fact by

1:09:48

the way little name fact who

1:09:51

is the only person to have composed

1:09:53

a national anthem Who

1:09:58

composed the anthem the GDR, the old

1:10:01

East Germany, the German Democratic Republic, who

1:10:03

also received an Oscar for a film

1:10:06

when he went to Hollywood after the war and became a film

1:10:08

composer. The loveliest national

1:10:10

anthem of all is undoubtedly

1:10:13

the Russian. Hear it

1:10:15

and be stirred. Hear it and feel

1:10:17

the aspirations of a people who have suffered

1:10:20

unimaginable indignities and

1:10:22

hardships and yet still coming together to

1:10:25

protect the motherland, the fatherland, whatever you want

1:10:27

to call it. So good it was used by the communists

1:10:29

and then they tried to come up with a new one when the Soviet

1:10:32

era ended but everyone like the old one so much

1:10:34

they just wrote some new lyrics for it. They

1:10:37

did quite a bit of that actually the German national

1:10:39

anthem which we knew

1:10:42

a tune so good by Haydn, one of the few national

1:10:44

anthems written by a composer

1:10:45

of note. Deutschland,

1:10:47

Deutschland, Uber, Alice actually adopted

1:10:49

by the Weimar Republic in 1922. Obviously in the Nazis saying

1:10:53

that with great enthusiasm after the fall of the

1:10:55

Third Reich they just went straight to the first

1:10:57

which was all about unity and brotherhood but

1:11:00

they kept the tune. This

1:11:02

is from Gogoruban, do you want to think about it but would you

1:11:04

want a favourite

1:11:04

facts or any favourite facts?

1:11:07

Yes please.

1:11:07

Well it's a sort

1:11:09

of question for you now. I'm going to sing

1:11:12

you and I'm sorry about this don't get

1:11:14

too excited. Here you are war

1:11:17

torn centuries of the 19th late

1:11:20

19th early 20th centuries and the British

1:11:22

troops are rallying of course. God save

1:11:24

our gracious king long

1:11:27

live our noble

1:11:29

king. God save the king.

1:11:31

Well what might the armies of the imperial

1:11:34

German forces be singing? They'd be singing

1:11:36

this. Heil

1:11:37

dear im sieger

1:11:40

kranth, Herr Schö, der

1:11:42

Sverterlandt, Heil

1:11:44

Kaiser Deere. But

1:11:47

then if you were to go to the mountainous

1:11:49

region of Lüchtenstein in the Prince of Pernity

1:11:51

though what would they be singing there is the national anthem. Well

1:11:53

I have now here. Oben

1:11:56

am Jungen rein lein

1:11:59

zich lein.

1:11:59

Liechtenstein, Annalpen-Hern.

1:12:04

Well, let us instead go to

1:12:07

Russia, Imperial Russia. Boge

1:12:10

zar jachrany, slav

1:12:13

no more dojidny,

1:12:16

dine assembly. You

1:12:18

may recognize that tune. Of course, God save the King for

1:12:20

some reason. It's the tune that's been most

1:12:23

enthusiastically taken up by the nations of Europe.

1:12:25

And I turn to you again, Kat, because

1:12:27

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the Norwegian

1:12:30

Royal National Anthem, not

1:12:32

the National National Anthem, but the Royal National Anthem

1:12:35

is sung to the very same tune.

1:12:38

Isn't that right? Yes. Good sing

1:12:40

the Kongan Void. I'm not going to sing it. Oh, can you sing it,

1:12:42

Kat? I'm just saying it for me. No.

1:12:44

I was never a pop star, was I? Sorry.

1:12:49

You can't get me.

1:12:51

There we go. That's brilliant, though. I

1:12:53

think we had a fact earlier from our disembodied

1:12:56

voice as well.

1:12:57

Yes. So South Africa does have 11

1:12:59

official languages and Richard was right.

1:13:01

Five feature in their national anthem.

1:13:04

I believe also there is a famous

1:13:07

American song that also has

1:13:09

the same tune as God Save

1:13:10

the King. Yeah. My country

1:13:13

tis of the sweet

1:13:15

land of liberty.

1:13:17

Why that? Because I think if you're on a dirgy

1:13:20

national anthem, well, now I've heard the dirgy

1:13:22

as to all, but perhaps that's what makes it so

1:13:24

available for other people wishing to express

1:13:26

their own national sentiments. And memorable.

1:13:29

It's a very easy song to do,

1:13:32

isn't it? The real contrast

1:13:34

is with the Latin American anthems,

1:13:36

really. Those anthems that were kind of written

1:13:39

as an expression of kind of the new national

1:13:41

movements for liberation, because

1:13:43

they're very much influenced by opera. So the Uruguayan

1:13:46

one, the Paraguayan one, the Brazilian one,

1:13:48

they all literally sound like opera spirocini.

1:13:51

Brilliant. I love that. So we're going to

1:13:52

have to wrap it up. But I think I just wanted to

1:13:55

ask you, Richard, if you were going to compose the national

1:13:57

anthem, a new national anthem for the

1:14:00

England or for Britain, what would it be?

1:14:04

Gosh, that's an interesting one. I mean, it's not

1:14:06

the original one, but I think it

1:14:08

was Jeremy Hardy who suggested it

1:14:10

really should be the theme tune from The Archers,

1:14:12

which I think is probably right. Some patriotic

1:14:15

words from the tune of The Archers. Excellent.

1:14:17

What about you, Charles? What would you have?

1:14:19

I agree with Richard that

1:14:21

the one we have is a bit of a dirge. I

1:14:24

don't know. I mean, we do have a pretty good

1:14:26

musical tradition, don't we? Not many great

1:14:28

classical ones. I think you would have to go for something more contemporary,

1:14:31

wouldn't you? We'd probably end up thinking things could

1:14:33

only get better or something like that and make Brian Cox

1:14:35

even richer.

1:14:40

Very good. So I'm afraid

1:14:42

we're going to have to get to the bit that, I don't

1:14:44

know, are we looking forward to this bit or are we dreading

1:14:46

it? I can't quite tell really. We're going

1:14:48

to face it with equanimity. Okay,

1:14:50

good. Bravery, I would say.

1:14:53

So

1:14:54

our disembodied voice is now going

1:14:56

to undemocratically declare

1:14:58

this week's winner, please. Well,

1:15:01

the answer might make

1:15:03

Richard break into spontaneous song

1:15:05

once again, but I think I'll take the risk. So

1:15:08

we're going to have to hand it to

1:15:09

National Anthems this week. I

1:15:11

think very brave. Also, the fact that you've sung

1:15:14

it all is really, I mean, there's bonus points

1:15:16

galore there. Fair enough.

1:15:18

I don't know how we can compete with that, Charles. No, I know. We're going

1:15:20

to have to, aren't we? Get my tongue and nose

1:15:22

flew down. I was already there. Yeah.

1:15:25

Well done. Congratulations, Richard.

1:15:27

Thank you.

1:15:28

Very good. But before we go, we

1:15:31

have to let our listeners know what

1:15:33

we're going to be sorting up on for next

1:15:36

week. And Richard,

1:15:38

can you please talk us through exorcisms?

1:15:41

Oh, we're a bit delighted to.

1:15:43

Yes, thank you.

1:15:44

Brilliant. And I think this sort of follows

1:15:46

a little bit on from forgeries

1:15:48

and fakes and things. Charles, stage

1:15:51

disappearances.

1:15:52

Wonderful. Very happy with that. Thank

1:15:54

you.

1:15:54

And I'm going to go with

1:15:56

dragons. I feel

1:15:58

like

1:15:58

there's a little link between all of these.

1:15:59

myself. I don't know how, but we'll

1:16:02

see. So that's

1:16:04

it then for this week.

1:16:05

Thank you everyone out there for listening

1:16:07

to the podcast. And as always, if

1:16:10

you haven't already, please do subscribe to the

1:16:12

Rabbit Hole Detectives and leave us a review because

1:16:14

that really helps other people find us when

1:16:16

they're searching for a new podcast to listen to.

1:16:19

Don't forget you can send us an email if you'd

1:16:21

like, especially if you would like to suggest

1:16:23

a topic. That's rabbitholedetectives

1:16:26

at gmail.com. You

1:16:28

can find us in the Daily Telegraph every Wednesday

1:16:30

in our Rabbit Hole Detectives column discussing our

1:16:32

favourite facts from the show.

1:16:35

So in the words from Lewis Carroll's Alice,

1:16:38

I know who I was when I got up this morning, but

1:16:40

I think I must have been changed several times since

1:16:43

then.

1:16:43

Goodbye. Bye.

1:17:03

It's not available to the screen anyway. So

1:17:05

if you want to know my mate's details, I'll see

1:17:08

if you can borrow it after me and

1:17:10

we'll just get it. We'll get a list going.

1:17:12

We could make a fortune man. Sounds good mate.

1:17:14

We could make a fortune doing this, lending out DVDs.

1:17:16

Well, I'm a big fan of both those

1:17:19

fellas. So yeah, that sounds good. I

1:17:21

watched the

1:17:23

electrical. Sorry. And on the first

1:17:26

episode, the guest was Will Ferrell. Not

1:17:29

bad. Not bad. I watched the

1:17:31

electrical life of

1:17:34

Louis Wayne. Electrical

1:17:37

life of Louis Wayne. And it's based

1:17:39

on a true story about. Is

1:17:41

it about Louis Wayne? It's about Louis Wayne. He's

1:17:44

this kind of eccentric English genius

1:17:47

back in the day who became famous

1:17:50

for inventing things,

1:17:53

but he became most famous

1:17:55

for drawing cats. He was

1:17:57

an illustrator.

1:21:59

Yeah, that'll be

1:22:02

a stipulation I have in my contract.

1:22:05

The Hodaki big show, we take

1:22:07

this full on radio. Hodaki.

1:22:16

Well there you go your man to Backbones,

1:22:18

that's your Monday show done in Dusted,

1:22:21

MOGI. A very important night for you tonight

1:22:23

I understand. That's right mate. As discussed

1:22:26

earlier, it's the last night. The missus is off for three

1:22:28

months from tomorrow. Far

1:22:30

out then. Yeah, so I don't

1:22:33

know, I'll probably go to bed early on. Yeah, yeah. How

1:22:36

often are you going to go out and visit? I'm

1:22:38

trying to go for never. I was

1:22:41

reading something, some

1:22:43

Chinese philosophy. Oh yeah.

1:22:46

Chairman Zhu. And

1:22:49

he said absence makes the heart grow fonder.

1:22:51

Yeah, yes. Where did you read that? I'm

1:22:53

going to give that a bash. Oh yeah. And also

1:22:56

if you love something, set it free. Exactly,

1:22:58

if it comes back to it's yours, if it doesn't it never

1:23:00

was. But also you could go visit her. I mean

1:23:02

she's in Wellington. Well what's she doing?

1:23:05

She too busy to come and see me? Why not? I'm

1:23:07

not working. Sounds like she needs to make the effort

1:23:09

there, Kesey. Yeah, no, fair enough. Yeah,

1:23:12

yeah, yeah. If she wants to see

1:23:14

a kid, she can come back. Yeah, totally.

1:23:17

No, get the finances sorted

1:23:19

mate. So good. Hey, Kesey,

1:23:21

what are you up to mate? Tonight I'm playing indoor netball

1:23:23

and my wife's playing in... My

1:23:26

wife's playing in for us again. Ta-da! Thanks

1:23:28

fellas. What are you up to J? What am I doing

1:23:30

tonight? I'm not sure actually. I'll probably eat something.

1:23:34

Oh God. I'll probably watch something. I'll

1:23:36

probably go to bed and sleep.

1:23:38

Nice. So good man. Hey listen, it's been

1:23:40

a pleasure bringing you the Monday show. We'll be

1:23:42

back same time, same place tomorrow. Check out the podcast.

1:23:45

Also check out our Instagram account. Till

1:23:47

tomorrow. See you later.