A JackAss-ian Figure | Horatio Nelson (Part 2/10)

You must hate the french like you hate the devil. The Napoleonic Wars (Part Two) The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Truther and sign up to the Patreon ⁠patreon.com/fintaylor This episode of Fin vs History is brought to you by Surfshark. Secure your privacy with Surfshark! Enter coupon code FVH for an extra 4 months at https://surfshark.com/fvh Chapters: 00:00 - Who’s That Up There? 05:45 - They’re Noises 09:05 - Captain Suckling 12:09 - Jackass But Drama 16:54 - Dull As Dishwater 20:54 - Solid As A Rock 26:16 - A Ship of The Line 31:05 - He’s A Man Of Action 35:31 - He’s Got Big Balls 39:54 - Such A Bloke Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The wheel had roads. Electricity had the grid. Innovation needs infrastructure. Plaid makes AI work in finance. Visit plaid.com/ai to learn more.

• 0:24Horatio Gould?

  Welcome back to Fin vs History. I'm joined by Horatio Gould. And today we're finally getting to Horatio Nelson.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  My namesake.

• 0:32Horatio Gould?

  The other Horatio.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, one of the three. It's Horatio Kane from CSI Miami, Horatio Nelson and me.

• 0:38Horatio Gould?

  I hadn't heard of that first one.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  It's a big name to live up to, I'll tell you that.

• 0:42Horatio Gould?

  Which are you named after?

• 0:43Speaker 02

  Horatio Kane. No, I'm not named after anyone specifically. I think they actually just liked the name. But I guess Nelson probably would be more in the... Also, Bebe's related to Nelson.

• 0:54Horatio Gould?

  Really?

• 0:54Speaker 02

  You go way, way back.

• 0:56Horatio Gould?

  Well, I, right?

• 0:58Speaker 02

  Go on.

• 0:59Horatio Gould?

  My great, great, great, maybe great, great, great, great, great grandfather was the...

• 1:04Speaker 02

  Had no arms.

• 1:05Horatio Gould?

  He had no arms.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  And was blind.

• 1:07Horatio Gould?

  And was blind. Anyway, no, he was the surgeon on the HMS Victory.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:14Horatio Gould?

  About 15 years after Trafalgar.

• 1:17Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:17Horatio Gould?

  So, yeah. It's really cool and then it's not.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  But when it was a tourist boat?

• 1:23Horatio Gould?

  When it was a prison, I think, a floating prison in Portsmouth, I think. But there's a portrait of him in my uncle's house. And I, this is how creepy it is. He looks exactly like my uncle. And I thought for the first 15 years of my life, oh, that's my uncle dressed up as like an 18th century.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Oh, really? Wow.

• 1:39Horatio Gould?

  And then we were like, oh, no, that's your great, great, great grandfather. And I was like, that's a glitch in the matrix. He looks exactly like my uncle.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Disciplined breeding, isn't it?

• 1:45Horatio Gould?

  Yeah.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  That's like, you've got type. But you still look like your great, great, great grandfather really has not...

• 1:52Horatio Gould?

  Presbyterian stuff, that is. Well, that's Scotland for you.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  You look like my sister, brilliant, let's get married.

• 1:56Horatio Gould?

  Let's get married and then we'll have me and you.

• 2:01Horatio Gould?

  We're talking about Horatio Nelson. It's part two of our epic No Girls Allowed 10 parter on the Napoleonic Wars.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  I think Nelson, I don't know if the ladies in the room would agree. I think Nelson really, and this crosses a bit of the boundaries from even male stuff.

• 2:14Horatio Gould?

  Really?

• 2:15Speaker 02

  I would say so. When you say it's pretty, it's just, it's romantic. It's, I think there's, I don't know, it feels, it doesn't get bogged down in the sort of like nitty gritty. I think the story is, can cross gender barriers.

• 2:30Horatio Gould?

  Naval amputations.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I don't know.

• 2:33Horatio Gould?

  You're saying Bebe's listened to podcasts about naval amputations?

• 2:35Speaker 02

  I think Nelson as a figure is more attractive for women.

• 2:39Horatio Gould?

  People often comment saying, why are you doing this? He's got a fucking column, yeah? And I'm out there every Sunday wearing a Stone Island badge defending it. Yeah? Against anyone, preemptively defending it. I'm there, come on then, come on.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, no one's talking about knocking that down, but I'm defending it.

• 2:52Horatio Gould?

  No, I'm defending it. They're not knocking it down because I'm there.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  My favourite video of a true patriot, a real Telegraph reader, is the, do you know that guy in a flat cap? Who goes, pushes away Churchill as a racist, the car?

• 3:05Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  That guy, do you have that video? Because I just like, that is, this is one of our patrons for sure. There's just something...

• 3:12Horatio Gould?

  Fuck off.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  I've never seen a more right wing man, just like the way that you could just tell.

• 3:16Horatio Gould?

  Dressed as a farmer.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Dressed as a farmer.

• 3:18Horatio Gould?

  Barber jacket, Stone Island badge, flat cap.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Fuck off.

• 3:21Horatio Gould?

  Fuck off, bollocks, get rid of it. Horatio Nelson is, you know, it's weird because I didn't learn about any of this at school. I found all this out myself.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  I did my own research for this as well.

• 3:36Horatio Gould?

  I've done my own research here, right? And I think that's a national travesty that our children are kept away from the Napoleonic Wars.

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Well, Nelson is the most exciting British individual as, from a storytelling perspective, probably.

• 3:53Horatio Gould?

  Until David Beckham, yeah. Who can match him? I mean, Monty, you know, we didn't, we didn't, he's the World War II equivalent, but it's nowhere near as exciting. Horatio Nelson, and also so much of our architecture, you know, is based around this period of history. And yet it's just like...

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Monumental architecture.

• 4:13Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, it's just names, right? And then you find out what he actually did and who he was. And fuck me, this is the best it gets.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Well, I guess because I was called Horatio, I was always interested in Nelson from a young age.

• 4:25Horatio Gould?

  No, not that one. I imagine you said that a lot at school. My name's Horatio. No, not that one.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  But yeah, I was surprised that people wouldn't know about him because that was like...

• 4:37Horatio Gould?

  It's average size, actually. What? Oh, it doesn't matter, not that one.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Nelson's column, Horatio's column is average size, actually.

• 4:43Horatio Gould?

  Yeah. Much smaller column. Horatio Gould's column, much smaller. I'll be your Horatio Gould column. Where's that? I can't see it. No, it is there, it's just, it's more...

• 4:52Speaker 02

  There is normally a man at the end of it, though.

• 4:53Horatio Gould?

  It's a single story thing. There's a man sitting on it, yeah, absolutely.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  There's a man with a hat at the end of it, for sure.

• 4:58Horatio Gould?

  Absolutely, a man with no arms sitting on it.

• 5:04Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, but it doesn't...

• 5:05Speaker 02

  So wait, is Nelson bouncing on that column?

• 5:09Horatio Gould?

  Yeah. Nelson's bouncing on top of that thing. He, yeah, Nelson, I don't know, I feel like, I feel like, why the fuck didn't I learn about this?

• 5:19Speaker 02

  This is a good, to check the stupidest guy in the country, it's a good start. So Trafalgar Square?

• 5:23Speaker 03

  I've been there.

• 5:24Horatio Gould?

  Yeah.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  What's Trafalgar Square named after?

• 5:27Speaker 03

  The Battle of Trafalgar.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Would you know who's involved in the Battle of Trafalgar? You wouldn't?

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Some men.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Do you know that Horatio is at the top of that column, at the middle of Trafalgar?

• 5:35Speaker 03

  I didn't know that. I did, I've heard of Nelson.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  You didn't know he was at the top?

• 5:38Speaker 03

  I thought there was a guy up there, but I didn't, I wasn't sure if it was him. I don't know why you thought it was him.

• 5:42Horatio Gould?

  Nelson's column, who's that, I'll bet then?

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Is that, is that a weird bloke?

• 5:45Horatio Gould?

  Is that Nelson from The Simpsons on top of that? What's he doing there? What's he doing? What's that guy doing on top of there?

• 5:51Speaker 03

  No, but surely he would represent the column and then there'd just be like a, maybe the person...

• 5:55Horatio Gould?

  Listen, we're getting, I don't, I'm just going to stop this here. I don't, this is not what they're tuning in for, okay? Listen, the women are banished, it's men time, okay? We need to tell the story of Nelson and not listen to a fucking spaz behind the computer talk about a bloke on top of a column.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  His life is awesome. It's a perfect story, I think.

• 6:12Horatio Gould?

  It's incredible.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:13Horatio Gould?

  It's, you know, it's a martyr, a romantic martyr.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Yes, and also Monty didn't have the privilege of getting killed in World War II, so he lived to the 17th.

• 6:21Horatio Gould?

  He lived too long to then said that being gay was a French thing and a crime, right? And supporting...

• 6:26Speaker 02

  And that's something that Nelson was saved from.

• 6:28Horatio Gould?

  Supporting apartheid and saying that Africa should be one massive country, right? Now Nelson thankfully was saved from that disgrace.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  By a French sniper.

• 6:37Horatio Gould?

  Although, although obviously he would have said the same thing.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:41Horatio Gould?

  So Horatio Nelson is born in 1758 in Norfolk to his father Edmund Nelson and his mama Catherine Suckling.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  Suckling and that dang.

• 6:56Horatio Gould?

  He has an uncle called Maurice Suckling, which I think is probably the best name we've encountered on the pod.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Maurice Suckling?

• 7:01Horatio Gould?

  Maurice Suckling, good to meet you. Imagine having a business card saying Maurice Suckling.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Sort of, it's quite a toast of London sort of stuff, isn't it?

• 7:07Horatio Gould?

  It is, Maurice Suckling. It's an insane name, but this is the...

• 7:10Speaker 02

  I thought you were dead, Maurice Suckling.

• 7:12Horatio Gould?

  Not Maurice Suckling again. A dastardly Maurice Suckling. But it's the 18th century, you know, this is, it's a very vivid, bombastic, Brian Blessed-esque age.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Fannies, there's a lot of fannies about.

• 7:24Horatio Gould?

  Horatio marries Fanny.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:26Horatio Gould?

  And you're bringing this back, Horatio and Bebe.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  I guess so.

• 7:29Horatio Gould?

  Their funny names, you know?

• 7:31Speaker 02

  They're noises.

• 7:32Horatio Gould?

  They're noises.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Honk honk.

• 7:33Horatio Gould?

  Honk honk and blub blub. Honk honk and blub blub, right? He is born in Norfolk and his mother dies when he's nine. And I think maybe, well, again, like you say, this is where the psychoanalysis has come in.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  It was all because his mum was...

• 7:47Horatio Gould?

  Yeah. But you could say that this is why he maybe feels, or rather he wants to feel things. And he wants...

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Very emotional.

• 7:58Horatio Gould?

  He wants a big, intense life.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:00Horatio Gould?

  You know, he wants glory. And this is from a very young age.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Because he's very similar to Napoleon in the sense that he views himself as a great act of history and he'd like, feels that his life is writing his own story.

• 8:11Horatio Gould?

  Yes.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  But they're temperamentally quite different, I feel.

• 8:15Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, Nelson is not a sweaty, school shooting incel.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  He's a sweaty because he's ill.

• 8:19Horatio Gould?

  He's sickly at the start, definitely.

• 8:21Speaker 00

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• 8:52Horatio Gould?

  So he's famous, he's prone to, quote, nervous weakness. And he's also seasick his entire life, but he just, fuck, fuck that. Plow on. He conquers seasickness with the mind, right? Which is not what, I mean, I went on a boat recently on a family holiday in Cornwall. My daughter loved it, standing at the bow, big cap on, smiling, loving it. My son got on the boat and then got so scared that he fell asleep like those fainting goats.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  Got so scared he fell asleep?

• 9:22Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 9:23Horatio Gould?

  Just, just black, just fell asleep cuddling mummy, just...

• 9:25Speaker 02

  I get incredibly seasick and I've got a very stoic British uncle who, I was at sea in Cornwall.

• 9:31Horatio Gould?

  Uncle Maurice Suckling.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  It was like Uncle Maurice Suckling. And he did the most British, because he's seasick as well, but he was like this, he just went... And then just went like, he opened his mouth, loads of sick came out and then he just went, as if nothing had happened.

• 9:43Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, that's all, that's amazing. Ah! But it's not throwing up, it's just opening your mouth to let the sick out and then carrying on. Yeah, he enters, so he's a sickly child, Nelson. He is also, a very early, a sort of apocryphal tale. He ignores his grandmother's warnings to cross a field containing a dangerous bull. And he says, fear? I never saw fear.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  So yeah, sort of Theresa May sort of stuff.

• 10:06Horatio Gould?

  This is, yeah, he is, this is a long road to Theresa May. Only May can equal Nelson's courage and bravery and wildness.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  At the size of fear.

• 10:14Horatio Gould?

  And we did not know how good we had it when we had May, okay? Who is this Nelsonian figure outside Downing Street? The country I love, you know?

• 10:24Speaker 02

  You know, they both love their country.

• 10:25Horatio Gould?

  They both love their country, they both served their country. One of them defeated the Spanish at Trafalgar, ensuring that in an age of enabled superiority. The other one tried to get us off Brexit through, didn't and had to leave, okay? They're both Titanic figures.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:36Horatio Gould?

  So in 1771, Nelson enters the Royal Navy aged 12 because his uncle, Captain Suckling, good old Uncle Suckling, who's not a pervert, even though it's an awful name.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you're called Captain Suckling, it sounds like you're sort of an archpervert.

• 10:52Horatio Gould?

  If you're Uncle Captain Suckling, I mean, I can't think of more, three more pedo words. Like, you know how, it's what three words for pedos? You know how there's what three words for locations? If you had it for pedos, one would be Captain Uncle Suckling. Uncle Captain Suckling. So, yeah, so he's in the Royal Navy, he gets Nelson in 1771. Shall we play 1771? This is Nelson joining the navy, a huge moment in the history of this country. Charlie, do you want to have a go at it?

• 11:20Speaker 03

  Yes, after Nelson, before Nelson.

• 11:23Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  After Nelson, before Nelson.

• 11:27Horatio Gould?

  Right, after Nelson is born, but before Belsen, the concentration camp.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Was that Horatio Belsen?

• 11:32Horatio Gould?

  There was. Yep, we're pre-Belsen. Not Boratio Belsen.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Allegedly Bolognese.

• 11:41Horatio Gould?

  Allegedly Boratio Belsen. Anyway, no, so, yes, long before Belsen. Belsen is just a twinkle in Hitler's great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather's eye. Anyway, Horatio Nelson enters the navy, 1771, even though he's very, very seasick, but he just goes, fuck it. And he calls himself Horace initially to avoid sounding pompous. Did you ever do that?

• 12:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, Harry.

• 12:05Horatio Gould?

  I remember we first started working together on internet.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:08Horatio Gould?

  You were like, don't, don't introduce me as Horatio. Call me Horace. Because I was trying to trick influencers into thinking this was a real thing. And I was like, if our names are Finn, Horatio and Victoria, they all sound made up.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:21Horatio Gould?

  So it was, wasn't it Finn, Victor and Harry or something like that?

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  Can you talk about your fake secretary?

• 12:27Speaker 02

  I think you've discussed that.

• 12:28Horatio Gould?

  I've talked about it many times, but I pretended to be a woman with a double barrel surname for about six months. And got into it, must flirting with men who are influencer agents. Thank God it's Friday. I was doing stuff like that, you know? Because I never had a job, so I was just like, I never get to do this. Oh, bloody Monday. Hump day, Monday hump day. You know, it was fun. I was COVID, I didn't have any work. Anyway, him and Uncle Suckling are, Suckling remarked, "What has poor Horace done, who is so weak he should be sent to rough it out at sea? The first time we go into action, a cannonball may knock off his head." Well, you're wrong, suckers. Yeah? So Nelson, very early on, is on an Arctic expedition on HMS Carcass.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  I think the key defining attribute of Nelson is he seems to be the bravest man who's ever lived, basically.

• 13:17Horatio Gould?

  Ever, yeah.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  For physical bravery. I mean, it's to a point where it feels like he has something missing in his brain.

• 13:23Horatio Gould?

  Yes.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  That has fear. His life weirdly is sort of like, it's very Jackassian, I'd say.

• 13:30Horatio Gould?

  Yeah.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  It's like Jackass.

• 13:31Horatio Gould?

  Heard that word.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, he lives a Jackassian life.

• 13:34Horatio Gould?

  He's a Jackassian figure.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  But it's sort of like Jackass if it wasn't a comedy. It's Jackass if it's a drama.

• 13:43Horatio Gould?

  Yes.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  So imagine them all doing that, but no one's laughing. They maybe say, huzzah, but it's doing all those things, putting yourself as much dangerous as possible.

• 13:53Horatio Gould?

  It's not for comic effect.

• 13:54Speaker 02

  But it's not funny.

• 13:54Horatio Gould?

  No.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  It's serious.

• 13:56Horatio Gould?

  Well, and he's British.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  So he's sort of like a stevo, a serious, serious stevo.

• 14:00Horatio Gould?

  It would actually be Dirty Sanchezium, because he's British.

• 14:04Horatio Gould?

  So yes, he's a Jackassian figure, Nelson. I like that. So supposedly, now, who knows if this is myth or not, but it definitely gets sucked into the myth. Because we have to remember.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  It is myth. Let's pretend it isn't myth.

• 14:14Horatio Gould?

  Let's pretend it's not myth. It's the end of the 18th century. The Romantic era is dawning upon us.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:19Horatio Gould?

  People love the idea of individual brilliance and heroism, like the Greek tragedies and stuff. So in an Arctic exhibition on HMS Carcass, a 15-year-old Nelson decides to go and hunt a polar bear, supposedly. When his musket misfires, he thinks, fuck it, and attacks it with the weapon's butt to skin it for his father.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:42Horatio Gould?

  Now, supposedly, we don't.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  There's a painting of it there.

• 14:45Horatio Gould?

  There's a big famous painting of him there of a 15-year-old attacking a polar bear with the end of a rifle.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:50Horatio Gould?

  I'm going to go out on a limb and say I doubt whether that happened.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  But he's got, he's the kind of person who would do something like that.

• 14:57Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, if anyone did do it, it was Horatio Belsen. Yeah, absolutely.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, he Belsen the polar bear.

• 15:02Horatio Gould?

  He Belsen the polar bear, completely. But again, now that tactic will come up again and again in.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Smacking a polar bear in the face with a mallet?

• 15:12Horatio Gould?

  No, but as in, he's very, he's very route one tactically.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  It's like absurdly heroics.

• 15:18Horatio Gould?

  But whereas Napoleon is more refined and he's playing 3D chess, Nelson is going, I'm just going to drive it through there. See if you like that.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Seeing as it's mythic and they're both very aware of the classics, both of them.

• 15:30Horatio Gould?

  Yes.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  It feels like Nelson's Achilles, this sort of like, it's courage and will.

• 15:36Horatio Gould?

  Yes.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  And Nelson's more Odysseus. It's more like cunning and cerebral. It's less pure bravery.

• 15:45Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, it's lizard brain versus thinky brain. Nelson.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  What is it, Charlie?

• 15:48Speaker 03

  They know each other exist.

• 15:49Horatio Gould?

  Yes, crucially. Not yet.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  They don't meet though. They never meet.

• 15:54Horatio Gould?

  They never meet, but.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  But he's the Napoleon of the sea and.

• 15:58Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, Federico D'Al. It is a bit like Federico D'Al.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  They're playing different sports.

• 16:02Horatio Gould?

  I tell you a good time to play to places, actually, right? In the 1770s, I believe early in the 1770s, the Falkland Islands.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the 70s.

• 16:11Horatio Gould?

  Is under threat.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:13Horatio Gould?

  Right? And Britain, Captain Uncle Suckling, is going to sail on expedition to go and, you know, not for the first time, relieve our southern border from Hispanic interference.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  And I just want to make sure this is clear, Argentina doesn't even exist at this point.

• 16:30Horatio Gould?

  No.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  So just, just as a little bit of more information, Argentina's not even a country at this stage.

• 16:36Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, but the Falklands are British. So I think you'll find Las Malvinas Son Inglateras. Wankers.

• 16:46Horatio Gould?

  Anyway, right, it's not a political, this is not a political podcast, sorry.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  It's not a political podcast.

• 16:51Horatio Gould?

  So.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  But that semi-final did hurt quite a lot.

• 16:53Horatio Gould?

  Yes, but also that they're all fucking descended from war criminals, so who cares? Now, initially, right, the ship is going to go to the Falklands, but by the time the ship was ready, the crisis had been resolved. Okay? Yet again, the British secure the southern border.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:07Horatio Gould?

  Okay? So to place Nelson's life, it happens between the Falklands crises.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  Right, right, yeah.

• 17:13Horatio Gould?

  After the Arctic, he goes to India and the East Indies. This is on the HMS Seahorse. He gets malaria.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  He gets sick. He picks up every illness. At every point he can pick up an illness.

• 17:25Horatio Gould?

  He's a fucking bug chaser, this guy. Or is it basically, where did he? At one point, I think it's in the Caribbean, he sits under some tree that's like a poisonous tree. The Manchinil tree. So this is during a San Juan expedition. He accidentally sleeps under this tree. The sap drips onto his skin, giving him severe blisters. And he drinks river water poisoned by the leaves. And he barely survived, but is nursed back to health by a local woman using a mixture of herbs and boiled snakes. So he gets, he gets ill everywhere. And then in 1778, he's promoted to commander on the HMS Badger. Badger! And now in Quebec, this is missing from a lot of the history, right?

• 18:05Horatio Gould?

  Do you know this? In Quebec in 1782, at age only 24, Nelson falls obsessively in love with a 16-year-old. Haw- Haw- Haw- Woo!

• 18:17Horatio Gould?

  That's my 18th century word.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  Haw- Woo!

• 18:18Horatio Gould?

  Huzzah! Haw- Woo! Let the dog see the rabbit! Ha-ha! Mary Simpson, say her name, in Quebec. He's so horny for this 16-year-old that he basically has to be restrained from getting off the ship. Otherwise he's going to desert it. He's just trying to get to the 16-year-old on land. So he very nearly has a meltdown, just leaves the navy.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  He feels things very strongly.

• 18:39Horatio Gould?

  He's romantic.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  He's a romantic figure.

• 18:41Horatio Gould?

  In 1787, Nelson is in the Caribbean and he marries a woman called Fanny Nisbet.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:51Horatio Gould?

  He had survived severe tropical fevers. He got ill everywhere he went. And he also, I think in Norfolk in 1780, he just got, he was hunting, got shot in the face by his mate with like grape shot. Just wiped the blood off, went, oh, well, and just carried on.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:10Horatio Gould?

  So he marries this woman, Fanny, who is, is she, is she an old widower like Josephine?

• 19:18Speaker 02

  No, I think she's just.

• 19:19Horatio Gould?

  She's got a son as well, right?

• 19:21Speaker 02

  Does she?

• 19:21Horatio Gould?

  She does have a son, yeah. So their lives are quite similar in this point.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  But she's like a real Middle Englander, right?

• 19:26Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, she's fucking dull by all accounts.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  Dull as dishwater.

• 19:28Horatio Gould?

  Dull as manky dishwater. 1787, Nelson marries Fanny Nisbet on the Caribbean island of Nevis. At their wedding, the future King William IV is his best man. And he gets wildly drunk and then makes inappropriate jokes during the ceremony. And then says that he's marrying a woman too cold for his quote volcanic nature.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Right, it's not a good start.

• 19:48Horatio Gould?

  I mean, who, I mean, that's, that's what you want a best man to do, I think.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:51Horatio Gould?

  When you're looking for your best man, you're looking for someone who during the ceremony is like, oh, she could have made an effort. Like, is that what you, is that what you want or?

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think you want a little bit, or you want some talking points to come from the speeches.

• 20:02Horatio Gould?

  You want some stories.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, because you want good speeches, but you do want some clangers, to be honest. I do think that's the perfect gamut.

• 20:09Horatio Gould?

  You need a clanger.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  You want an emotional one that brings everyone up, but you do want like a disaster class.

• 20:13Horatio Gould?

  Oh, man.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  It's great to watch.

• 20:14Horatio Gould?

  I've seen some absolute car crashes. Never put the best man last. Never, unless it's me and I did a great job, but it was also in Italy where half the room couldn't. I did the best job, but I was at a wedding where the best man's speech was last and he just went. So funny thing about him, yeah, we went to Thailand and, well, yeah, he likes them with big, with big dicks, it turns out.

• 20:42Horatio Gould?

  Didn't mention, didn't mention the bride once.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  It's hard for the bride to get a look in, I've realised. If you go traditional, if you go groom father of the bride and best man.

• 20:51Horatio Gould?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  It is just about.

• 20:52Horatio Gould?

  Awesome.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  It's just about the groom having sex with prostitutes.

• 20:56Horatio Gould?

  Yes.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  And it's like the bride, who's special there, doesn't really get a mention.

• 20:59Horatio Gould?

  She may as well be on a leash, but with a muzzle. Yeah?

• 21:02Speaker 03

  How did that go down?

• 21:03Horatio Gould?

  Badly. Badly.

• 21:05Speaker 03

  Tears?

• 21:06Horatio Gould?

  Uh, no, but just, just awkwardness and then, but then, you know, as you're saying, it gave us someone to talk about on the way home.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. I was at a wedding two days ago and one of the fathers of the bride, he kept walking into feedback. So it sounded like a Kristin Nolan trailer. And then when he stood backwards, the wind would get the mic.

• 21:24Horatio Gould?

  One of the fathers of the bride.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, there was two fathers. Oh, sorry.

• 21:28Horatio Gould?

  My God, a London wedding, is it?

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Sorry, there was a father of the groom.

• 21:31Horatio Gould?

  Burnt in a stand.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  And a father of the bride.

• 21:33Horatio Gould?

  Two dads. Christ.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, burn is Britain.

• 21:36Horatio Gould?

  Anyway, we, people think that Nelson and Fanny actually liked each other. Although it seems like his entire life will be trying to get away from how boring she is. Whether that be through affairs or his own death. So they settle in Norfolk after he finishes in the West Indies. And then he just is rattling around for five years, basically unemployed.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Winjing. He's a big winj as well. He moans a lot.

• 21:59Horatio Gould?

  Cause he just wants action. And I guess that's what.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  And he's got a lot of self pity as well, which is something that's quite interesting to his character that you don't really see in the battles. He's like, he's very insecure and self pitying and.

• 22:10Horatio Gould?

  But he's a frustrated romantic. And if he doesn't have anything to do, yeah, he, he comes across quite morose.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  The rest of history said on land, he's like David Brent, kind of. So it's like, cause at sea, obviously he's, there's this absurd hero. But I think if you, if he has nowhere to go, these men shouldn't be picked on land in the home counties.

• 22:28Horatio Gould?

  So, so who, who are the men nowadays that shouldn't be on land?

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Well, I guess the Thai cave divers, people like that.

• 22:34Horatio Gould?

  Yes, that's true. They should be underground. Yeah, yeah.

• 22:38Horatio Gould?

  And Middleton, yeah, again, shouldn't be on, uh, can you, who's that? Who's that woman there you've got up? That's Fanny.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  Christ.

• 22:46Horatio Gould?

  Yeah. She doesn't look like a laugh, I will say. She's not, um, you know, she's not doing white wine seltzers with the girls.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  She's cheating on you though, Fanny.

• 22:53Horatio Gould?

  Oh, she's not. Solid as a rock. But you know, if Napoleon's got Josephine with her black stinky mouth to chow down. Fanny's not, I don't think Fanny's giving you much of a sniff. No.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Fanny doesn't have to do the zigzag, zigzag.

• 23:06Horatio Gould?

  No, Fanny's not doing the zigzag.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Just zag.

• 23:10Horatio Gould?

  What's, what's Fanny doing? Just straight, straight and narrow. Missionary once a month.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  Doggy, but just in a really sad way.

• 23:17Horatio Gould?

  Can you do doggy sad is my question? Can you do breakup doggy?

• 23:21Speaker 02

  She's a doggy, but her back's like that.

• 23:23Horatio Gould?

  I don't think.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  It's arch, completely arch.

• 23:25Horatio Gould?

  You stroking a cat the wrong way?

• 23:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. So the mid, the, the small of her back is higher up than any part of her body.

• 23:30Horatio Gould?

  Right, right.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  She ain't throwing it back.

• 23:33Horatio Gould?

  No, she's not. Fanny knows, but it's not, it's not throwing the backpack. No. Fanny, I'll say this now, never had her back blown out.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:41Horatio Gould?

  A Dow woman.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  She blew her own back in to stop it getting blown out.

• 23:44Horatio Gould?

  Exactly. She looks like she works in a charity shop, which I think are the least sexy people in the country.

• 23:53Horatio Gould?

  No?

• 23:53Speaker 03

  I don't think always.

• 23:54Horatio Gould?

  Yeah. Yeah. Because you'd start having sex with someone, the Bernardo's stopping and going, this is such a mess. What are we, what are we doing? How do we get here?

• 24:02Speaker 03

  Crisis Finstry Park has got some nice, nice people.

• 24:05Horatio Gould?

  You're saying, you're saying there's some good totty in the Crisis Finstry Park? You're saying, go and check out the tale in the Crisis Finstry Park? Anyway, so, uh, in, yeah, he's stuck unemployed. Uh, apparently he's just digging holes in the garden.

• 24:20Horatio Gould?

  But again, he does not have a 10 part series on the Napoleonic Wars to listen to. So what's he doing? Now, 1793, Britain and France are at war. Okay. Britain is alarmed by French expansion, as always. And so Nelson is back in command in charge of the HMS Agamemnon.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Another Greek myth, mythic character.

• 24:40Horatio Gould?

  So, uh, he, much like Napoleon, has a very distinct style of warfare. Now, uh, it might be good chance to, time to go into naval warfare. Ladies, I told you, you weren't welcome here, but if you're still here, wear three pairs of pants. We're getting into naval warfare in the 18th century. Okay? So it's all about how many cannons a ship has.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Yes. But we should also talk, we're going to talk about what the Royal Navy is at this point.

• 25:05Horatio Gould?

  Please.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Because the Royal Navy, the, the kind of the beginning of the British Empire, it's all come from this kind of naval review that happened in like the late 1600s, early 1700s. When we lost the naval battle to the Dutch and we're like, we need to sort this out. And then we basically invented the naval, a naval service that ran the most efficient bureaucracy anywhere seen in the world. You know, in Greenwich, that's where it all started.

• 25:28Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  And then basically the Royal Navy became arguably the healthiest place to be in the world. Like the, it's the height of all technology, the best diets, biohacking. So.

• 25:40Horatio Gould?

  Limes.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Limes is a huge thing. We, British people got called limeys because we discovered that you got scurvy from a.

• 25:47Horatio Gould?

  Captain Cook, I think you found that.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Vitamin deficiency. But it's basically like the Royal Navy is the height of all technology.

• 25:54Horatio Gould?

  It's Silicon Valley. It's like the, it's the centre of the industrial world.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's, there's nothing that can really compare to the quality of the Royal Navy, which is one interesting thing about Nelson's victories. It's as amazing as they are, they are also the best man crewed boats. And I don't, I wonder if we would have won those battles without him. It would be interesting.

• 26:15Horatio Gould?

  Interestingly, a lot of the battles were outnumbered, but we have so much better equipment and training, as you say, because the Royal Navy. Yeah. It's a bit like in, when Germany had that review after what? The 2002 World Cup? They got lost in the group stage and then they just start dominating again and they changed their style of play.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  This is what St. George's Park was meant to be.

• 26:33Horatio Gould?

  Yes, exactly. The original St. George's Park was a naval review in the 17th century.

• 26:39Speaker 02

  And all we have is the, we're not a great land power. We've never, never have really been. So there's no point.

• 26:44Horatio Gould?

  No.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  We're fighting Scotland and Wales, our whole history, really.

• 26:47Horatio Gould?

  It's holding a midget like that. But the navy.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  An angry Scottish midget. You're just holding Gimli like that.

• 26:56Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, just fuck off. And then Wales like that. There you go. Fuck off. But the navy, as you say, is the.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  It's all of Britain's national security. It's empire as well. Everything is the navy.

• 27:08Horatio Gould?

  Yeah. And Britain, uh, the Spanish navy has subsided at this point. It's still big. Spain and Portugal are still players, but they're not the powers they once were.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  And this is the most important navy, this next hundred years is the most important navy has ever been and probably will ever be for global power. Cause as soon as air power came in, in World War Two, and even arguably World War.

• 27:29Horatio Gould?

  Would not have been reclaimed without the navy.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  It's true, but it's not, that, uh, running the navy doesn't mean you run the world anymore. But at this point, this is the golden age of naval warfare.

• 27:39Horatio Gould?

  Right. So you have, uh, several different types of ships. As I say, ladies, your final warning, okay? Four pairs of pants minimum. Uh, you're going to go through them quickly now.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  You've added another pair of pants.

• 27:50Horatio Gould?

  I can't stress how devastating this is going to be. If your pelvic floor is weak, pause. Do some squats, then start again.

• 28:01Horatio Gould?

  Right.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  If you have dry perm, this, you could, this might be the thing for you.

• 28:06Horatio Gould?

  Hey.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  They might awaken something.

• 28:07Horatio Gould?

  If you have dry vag, all right, just pause intimacy. Skip to this bit, right? I'm going to discuss ships of the line.

• 28:17Horatio Gould?

  A ship of the line, right, ladies, is, this is the sort of major ship that you judge a fleet's strength by. This is, uh, sort of multi-story ships that have a, a large number of cannons.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  But this is the, the most complicated, the most sophisticated weapon in the world?

• 28:33Horatio Gould?

  This is like, uh.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Nuclear weapons, basically?

• 28:35Horatio Gould?

  I guess so, or it's, uh, maybe it's satellite technology. It's, so the first rate ship of the line, which would be HMS Victory, which my head, my ancestors.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  When fat American tourists fell down the stairs, you're.

• 28:49Horatio Gould?

  My, my great, great grandfather was there to pick them up and put the sippy cup back in their mouth and send them on their way.

• 28:56Horatio Gould?

  Right. So the ship, the, now, uh, if you had a hundred or more guns, you were a first rate ship of the line. All right. Second rate, 90 to 98 guns, blah, blah, blah. Now, then you had a frigate, which was a much more fast, maneuverable ship, which would be for scouting reconnaissance. That would still have about 20 to 30, 40 guns. Then you had briggs and cutters, which are much smaller for dispatches, maybe getting food on board, et cetera. But really, when you're talking about a fleet size, you want to know how many ships of the line they have. All right. Ladies, go to the other room, get more pants, come back. Now, uh, because we're now going to get into the mechanics of warfare.

• 29:36Horatio Gould?

  Have you changed them? Here we go. A broadside is when, uh, is a simultaneous attack using all the cannons on one side of a ship. So naval warfare until Nelson is all about turning the ship so that your cannons are all on one side. And that's when you fire at an opponent. So it's again, similar to how Napoleon disrupts on land.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  It's two firing squads looking at each other.

• 30:00Horatio Gould?

  It is. And it's an agreed time. And basically it's kind of who rides the swell of the sea better so that their aim doesn't go. And they just fire at each other, fucking loads and loads of guns.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  Master Commander captures this probably best than any film.

• 30:16Horatio Gould?

  Yeah. When it decides to be exciting. Yes.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  But it does seem like one of the worst places to be.

• 30:21Horatio Gould?

  I think when, when you're in a naval battle, you have to remember a lot of people are dying from massive splinters.

• 30:30Horatio Gould?

  I mean, I don't.

• 30:30Speaker 02

  Think how annoying a splinter is.

• 30:32Horatio Gould?

  Yeah. It's that, but like all over your body, the splinters are quite big. Ah. So there's people just with like a big splinter in their head like that. And like, should I get it out or?

• 30:41Speaker 02

  But also when you're at the front of the cannons, you're, I'll just, the whole time I'd feel like, I don't know, like I'm about to get fucking, you're about to get smashed up. Like, I don't know how they.

• 30:50Horatio Gould?

  Did you know this? Did you know that, uh, so an officer or an admiral on the ship was not allowed to, um, duck?

• 30:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 30:58Horatio Gould?

  Or even flinch. So someone like Nelson, when he's in command and, you know, there are cannons firing everywhere. Huge splinters of wood and fucking metal and masts staying down. You have to just stand there like, ah, yes. And if you go, oh, fuck, then you're, you're completely abandoned. You lose your command. Yeah, exactly. It's all aura.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  And then also he's wearing the, a different coloured suit to everyone else. He's got all his medals. He's got a massive hat on.

• 31:23Horatio Gould?

  He's got a massive arrow saying, I'm the, I'm the king. Get me.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  So it's a Johnny Knoxville sort of challenge, isn't it?

• 31:29Horatio Gould?

  He's a Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack Arcean figure. So the flagship is the biggest ship in the fleet, which carries the flag and the senior commander. This is also kind of the, it's how you communicate with the other fleet. So it's, you know, ladies, we're getting into semaphore. You're going to have to go out and buy new pants now. Okay. Semaphore is where you use flags to communicate signals and even like words, sentences. I imagine at some point they put the pride flag up.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:02Horatio Gould?

  When they all want to have a bit of a ding dong downstairs.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:04Horatio Gould?

  Okay, that's the nosing off flag.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 32:07Horatio Gould?

  And then even though it's all broadsides and cannons, at a certain point, there'll be grappling hooks to swing onto another ship and then start fighting with swords.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:16Horatio Gould?

  It's awesome, right?

• 32:18Speaker 02

  It's good stuff.

• 32:18Horatio Gould?

  Now.

• 32:19Speaker 00

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• 32:49Horatio Gould?

  The objective of naval battle was not always to sink the ships. It was merely to destroy or capture them, which would then force the fleet to surrender, which would be more important because you could then take the ships and add them to your navy. So, but Nelson ultimately will pursue a different tactic of annihilation.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 33:08Horatio Gould?

  Right. Of trying to wipe the fleet out.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  Which hadn't really been done before.

• 33:13Horatio Gould?

  And that's also what Napoleon's.

• 33:14Speaker 02

  Naval battles of annihilation.

• 33:15Horatio Gould?

  That's also what Napoleon's doing on land is annihilating forces rather than just sort of trying to get them to surrender.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  Getting a handshake from them, but it's more like, yeah.

• 33:22Horatio Gould?

  With that in mind, Nelson is an ambitious young officer, right? And he fucking hates the French.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  He's a real patriot, this guy.

• 33:29Horatio Gould?

  This guy.

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Because Napoleon uses France as a tool to leverage his own power. And Napoleon is loyal to Napoleon above all else. But Nelson is a.

• 33:38Horatio Gould?

  And his wife's stinky slut, Black Mabes. Yeah, yeah, let's not forget that.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  Napoleon.

• 33:43Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, can't forget that.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  And, and his wife's Black Minj.

• 33:46Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, which is her mouth. Yeah, but the lowest hole in her face.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  But Nelson is quite, he's a bit himbo-ish in this way. He's quite like, I don't know, he's, he's not thinking deeply about things. He loves, he loves God and his country. And action.

• 34:01Horatio Gould?

  Yeah.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  You know?

• 34:02Horatio Gould?

  He is a man of action.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:03Horatio Gould?

  Well, let's just do it and work it out.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:06Horatio Gould?

  So in 1793, as war breaks out, you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil. French are nothing but thieves, murderers, oppressors and infidels.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  It's good stuff.

• 34:17Horatio Gould?

  I would not have a Frenchman in the fleet except as a prisoner. I put no confidence in them. Forgive me, but my mother hated the French.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:25Horatio Gould?

  In 1793, as we said, he is in Naples and he meets a lady called Emma Hamilton, who he's sure to return to. But he's trying to gather Neapolitan support to take on Napoleon in Toulon.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  It's a shame Neapolitan being used in a military context doesn't really work, seeing as this is actually like a function of the Mediterranean front.

• 34:44Horatio Gould?

  Yeah.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  Neapolitan is an ice cream or a.

• 34:46Horatio Gould?

  Pizza.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  Or a pizza.

• 34:47Horatio Gould?

  Yeah.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  So it does sound.

• 34:48Horatio Gould?

  Well, that's why it wouldn't have helped.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  With modern Italy, it doesn't really work in a military sense.

• 34:52Horatio Gould?

  No.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  The Neapolitan front.

• 34:54Horatio Gould?

  Oh, we're going to get the fucking Bolognese in. What do you mean? What do you mean you've allied with the Bolognese?

• 35:01Horatio Gould?

  No, the Bologna, the Bologna army. Yeah, the Bologna. Now, what the fuck are you all about? He's got like fucking ragu. That's not going to help. We're going to pour ragu on them. And we've got the Von Gley. What the fuck are you all about? Idiots. Right, so in 1797.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:18Horatio Gould?

  We get to his first sort of hero-making story. Now, in 1796, Spain had allied with France, right? Which was a real doo doo.

• 35:28Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 35:29Horatio Gould?

  In, he is sailing from Gibraltar to report intelligence on the Spanish warships. He then is told to blockade a larger Spanish fleet that's just off the coast of what would be Portugal, I think, is Cape St Vincent. It's 1794, at the siege of Calvi in Corsica. Debris from a ship blast scratches his face and it causes the permanent loss of vision in his right eye.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. So this is the first of his iconic injuries, would it be?

• 35:59Horatio Gould?

  Yes.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:59Horatio Gould?

  He's like a Paralympian superhero.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  Loves an injury.

• 36:02Horatio Gould?

  Oh, he wants nothing more.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  It's a huge part of the branding of him. It's a real like, I guess it's quite disability forward.

• 36:09Horatio Gould?

  Very, yes, very.

• 36:10Speaker 02

  Interestingly.

• 36:11Horatio Gould?

  Well, why isn't.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  This is like, this is not, all disabilities are visible is not what they're saying. All disabilities should be visible is more the, the edge of the time.

• 36:19Horatio Gould?

  And they're heroic.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:21Horatio Gould?

  You know, but now there's kind of a like, oh no, don't, don't, um, don't make me a superhero, you know? I'm just normal.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:29Horatio Gould?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Oh, I see.

• 36:30Horatio Gould?

  Whereas he's like, no, I'm better than you because I'm doing this and I've not got an eye or an arm.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah. I can do this with my eyes closed because they're forced closed because I'm blind.

• 36:38Horatio Gould?

  Because I'm blind. I can't see. I have to do it with my eyes closed. David Blunkett could be home secretary with his eyes closed.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:44Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, he had to be. But he refuses to wear an eye patch because he thinks that's ridiculous. And also his eye's not actually shredded or anything. It's just a bit milky.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  Milky eye.

• 36:53Horatio Gould?

  Milky eye. So then we get to the Battle of Cape St Vincent. Now, this is just off the coast of Portugal and he is ordered.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  Where, where was Ronaldo born?

• 37:04Horatio Gould?

  That's Madeira.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  Madeira. So it's near, in those, that neck of the woods, right?

• 37:08Horatio Gould?

  Madeira is a bit, is closer to Africa, I think. Anyway, at the Battle of Cape St Vincent, Nelson breaks orders.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:17Horatio Gould?

  Right. Which is a recurring theme. He's told to stay in a line, right? To blockade the Spanish fleet and he goes, fuck this. And he breaks out and basically picks off a couple of ships himself. He boards the San Nicholas shouting Westminster Abbey or glorious victory. I basically mean.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  What does that mean?

• 37:37Horatio Gould?

  Means he's going to be buried in Westminster Abbey or, and at this point he's not because he's just a, whatever.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  But he does seem to have almost suicidal ideation. He's so obsessed with his own death.

• 37:46Horatio Gould?

  With glory, glorious death.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Every, every battle, he's like, I hope I fucking die in this one.

• 37:51Horatio Gould?

  Yeah.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  And every time he survives, he's like, well, we've got to get another one.

• 37:54Horatio Gould?

  Next one. Let's start another one.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:55Horatio Gould?

  In 1797, right, another shard of wood causes a severe scrotal hernia.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  Scrotal hernia.

• 38:02Horatio Gould?

  Where his bowel slides into his groin.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 38:06Horatio Gould?

  And they have to treat it by manually shoving his intestines back up. So what this is, right?

• 38:12Speaker 02

  And taping heavy lead weights to his groin.

• 38:15Horatio Gould?

  So basically the bowel goes into his scrotum.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  I actually didn't know about this one.

• 38:19Horatio Gould?

  Yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  This one is less, he doesn't use this in the paintings.

• 38:22Horatio Gould?

  I don't think, if you look at the back of Nelson's column, I don't think you see his, his bum in his balls. Can you, what is that? How does that work, Charlie? Can you find out what a bowel hernia is when it goes into the, it's your scrotum?

• 38:32Speaker 03

  Think you put it out of your balls.

• 38:34Horatio Gould?

  No, no, that's not what's happening. No, I think it's intestines going to your balls. So you have massive balls.

• 38:40Speaker 02

  That's so confident.

• 38:41Horatio Gould?

  I think, I think it's where, yeah. A bowel scrotum and yeah, an inquinal hernia where the loop of the intestine drops down from the abdomen through and opening the groin muscles enters the scrotum.

• 38:53Speaker 03

  I think I'd kill myself if I.

• 38:55Horatio Gould?

  Really? But that's what I mean. Nelson just thinks, fuck it.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  Brilliant.

• 38:58Horatio Gould?

  Fuck it.

• 38:59Speaker 02

  So he must be just in pain the whole time.

• 39:01Horatio Gould?

  It's big balls, I guess.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  He's got big balls though.

• 39:04Horatio Gould?

  He has got big balls, but that's because his bum was in his balls. Fucking hell, he's got balls. No, no, no, you don't understand. His bum is in his balls.

• 39:16Horatio Gould?

  Anyway, Nelson gets a knighthood. He says a knight of Bath. I don't know what that is. Is that, is that not just a knighthood? Anyway, he's then promoted to rear admiral. Oi, oi. I mean, all the ranks are very.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Oh, go on.

• 39:28Horatio Gould?

  Royal rear admiral Horatio's here. Now, it's fascinating because if he, if he had not won this battle, then he would have basically just been court martialed. But because he does win it, I mean, he completely breaks rank.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:41Horatio Gould?

  So he's starting to get a name for himself in naval circles. And then we get to possibly the funniest of his expeditions.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Well, when he goes Tenerife.

• 39:50Horatio Gould?

  Yeah. He's basically awful on land.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:53Horatio Gould?

  So in 1797.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  In the same way Napoleon is awful on sea, Napoleon has no idea how sea works.

• 39:59Horatio Gould?

  Yes. In 1797, he has this idea off his own accord to basically intercept one of the Spanish treasure fleets from the New World. When they're docking at Tenerife, because I think they've blockaded Spain, so they have to go to the Canary Islands. And so he basically is like, right, if we, if we nick it, if we, it's not El Dorado. If we, if we nick it, if we get the ship and get all the treasure, there's like a naval rule where if you find, it's like finders keepers. Like if you get it, you get a percentage of it. So they would be, they would be millionaires overnight, right? So he basically attempts a knight assault to seize Tenerife.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  When, when did you last go to Tenerife?

• 40:37Horatio Gould?

  I went in May.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:38Horatio Gould?

  Yeah.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  You've been to Tenerife, big water park, right?

• 40:40Speaker 03

  The best in the world. 12 years in a row.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  What?

• 40:43Speaker 03

  12 years.

• 40:44Horatio Gould?

  It's one best water park, 12 years. He's not been 12 years in a row.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  I went with somebody who had, who had the logo on her body.

• 40:49Horatio Gould?

  Tattooed?

• 40:49Speaker 03

  Tattooed, yeah.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  And it's, it's wicked.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  It's unbelievable.

• 40:52Horatio Gould?

  Cyan Park, yeah, shout out.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  And this is pre, before that though.

• 40:55Horatio Gould?

  Yes, this is, well, this is where they got the idea from. Nelson, yeah, you think you can do a ride where you try and attempt to seize the Spanish treasure fleet.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 41:02Horatio Gould?

  Anyway, so this is a bad idea because Tenerife is just a sort of rock. And it's full of just drunk people from fucking Margate.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 41:12Horatio Gould?

  Busting fags and watching big tallies on a strip. But he, so he goes, right, we're going to seize the actual Canary Islands because the boats are poor. There's no, he hasn't really got a plan because he doesn't really do plans. So he boards the beach and then they like march up a hill. And then they get to the hill and they realise that the hill's pointless. It's not where they thought it was. So they march back down and then people spot them and start just shooting at them. And he gets hit by a musket ball that shatters his right arm and he is right-handed.

• 41:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:43Horatio Gould?

  We must always remember he was right-handed.

• 41:45Speaker 02

  The worse it is, the better he feels.

• 41:47Horatio Gould?

  His humerus was fractured in multiple places.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Right. He lost his funny bone.

• 41:52Horatio Gould?

  He lost his sense of humorous. So he's taken on board the HMS Theseus. He refuses to be helped on board, going, let me alone. I've got my legs and one arm.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:02Horatio Gould?

  This guy's a fucking bloke.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's, it's the Monty Python.

• 42:06Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, tis but a scratch.

• 42:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:07Horatio Gould?

  Yeah. Let's get into how his arm is amputated on board a ship at night. All right, ladies. Uh, no, actually ladies, this is for you. You'll love this. You're sick fucks. So, uh, amputations were always happening.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  This is true crime and what Dad was doing to one of the victims.

• 42:26Horatio Gould?

  Yeah. So amputations were always happening on ships at this time. And we're going to enter the details. It's pretty, it's pretty gnarly stuff. So a surgeon would get a screw tourniquet and clamp it.

• 42:40Speaker 02

  It was anesthetic though. They just had a swig of rum.

• 42:42Horatio Gould?

  Yeah, there's rum. Yeah, yeah. So Nelson refused to have any rum.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:48Horatio Gould?

  He was like, no, no, no, just cut it off.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Because he's like, I'm in bad enough health at the minute. I don't want to.

• 42:52Horatio Gould?

  I don't want to fucking, I don't want to hang over tomorrow as well as this. You cut my arm off. I don't want to think, oh, fuck it up.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  What I did last night, fuck me.

• 43:01Horatio Gould?

  So a screw tourniquet, which I guess is like a vice, is clamped around the arm to crush the tissue and stop the blood flow.

• 43:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:09Horatio Gould?

  Then a long cold knife is used to slice through the skin and muscle down to the bone. Then the surgeon, if you can call him that, swaps, he pulls, he pulls the muscle back with a linen cloth and gets his bone sore out.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 43:25Horatio Gould?

  Then cuts through the bone. Arteries are tied shut with silk threads.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  That's nice.

• 43:32Horatio Gould?

  And then the skin flaps are folded over the exposed bone and stitched, and then the whole thing is soaked in vinegar, which must really sting.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  Right. Is that antibacterial, basically?

• 43:42Horatio Gould?

  I guess so.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:43Horatio Gould?

  Right. They had surgeons had attendants that were called lobbly boys.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  What?

• 43:48Horatio Gould?

  Lobbly boys.

• 43:49Speaker 03

  Lob lolly.

• 43:50Horatio Gould?

  Lobbly boys. Lob lolly.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Lob lolly boys.

• 43:54Horatio Gould?

  Lob, why are they called that?

• 43:55Speaker 02

  Lob lolly boys.

• 43:56Horatio Gould?

  Did the first person try to say lovely and they got it wrong?

• 43:58Speaker 02

  Lob lolly.

• 43:58Horatio Gould?

  Lob lolly boys. Look at those lobbly boys.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  Something's underwater. Lob lolly.

• 44:03Horatio Gould?

  Lob lolly, lobbly boys are named after lobbly, which is a thick bubbling porridge or gruel, traditionally fed to sick sailors to help them recover.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  That sounds delicious.

• 44:12Horatio Gould?

  Oh, lovely bowl of lobbly.

• 44:15Horatio Gould?

  Right, anyway, so Nelson, when he goes under the knife, the thing he notices is how cold it is.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:21Horatio Gould?

  So he then institutes a practice where they'd have to heat up the knife.

• 44:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 44:24Horatio Gould?

  On board.

• 44:26Horatio Gould?

  So he, he cuts his left arm off. He's now, he's then in agony for like five months because they don't, they leave a bit of string in or one of the.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:34Horatio Gould?

  One of the threads doesn't heal properly. Yeah, oh yeah. That's it. What is it? The surgeon accidentally ties a major nerve into the silk ligature along with the artery.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  Because the nerves are where you're going to get, the pain's all going to be.

• 44:47Horatio Gould?

  Yeah. So basically every time he like move, ah, fuck, ah. So every movement of his stump sends shocks through his body until the thread eventually rotted.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  Christ.

• 44:59Horatio Gould?

  But within half an hour, he's back on board giving orders, soaked in his own blood.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 45:03Horatio Gould?

  He's a fucking hero.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:05Horatio Gould?

  But he was obviously right-handed, so it meant that every wank he had from then on was a stranger one.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 45:12Horatio Gould?

  Very interesting.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Wow, I wonder how good he got at it before he died.

• 45:15Horatio Gould?

  Well, it's also, think of poor Fanny. I mean, how's he meant to go, how's he meant to, you know, go around the back at all?

• 45:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 45:23Horatio Gould?

  You know?

• 45:24Speaker 02

  What do you mean?

• 45:24Horatio Gould?

  Put my fingers in my mouth, well, fuck, I can give you a minute.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:27Horatio Gould?

  One at a time.

• 45:29Horatio Gould?

  He can't one man band his wife.

• 45:31Speaker 02

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 45:32Horatio Gould?

  Anyway, he doesn't really care, tis but a flesh wound. And so he's back on the dock, orders, and very quickly, the injury becomes, you know, he's the one armed, he's the one armed captain. But, but Nelson, Nelson has failed to board Tenerife. But as 1798 approaches, there is a new mission for the heroic, one armed, one eyed bandit that is Nelson.

• 45:58Speaker 02

  Because this is when it's hard to get across just how scared Britain was at this point because Napoleon's on the rise, Britain is not, doesn't have control of the seas fully at this point.

• 46:10Horatio Gould?

  No.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  And also, our position in the Mediterranean is very spurious, basically.

• 46:15Horatio Gould?

  Yes.

• 46:16Speaker 02

  So we feel, it feels like we feel vulnerable at the moment.

• 46:19Horatio Gould?

  Yes. And so Napoleon is, is not yet the ruler of France, but he's a rising general.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:24Horatio Gould?

  And talk is getting back of this, this whiz kid.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:28Horatio Gould?

  This smelly autistic whiz kid.

• 46:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:30Horatio Gould?

  With his stinky wife.

• 46:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:32Horatio Gould?

  And into that maelstrom.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:34Horatio Gould?

  Nelson will go looking for Napoleon's fleet.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 46:38Horatio Gould?

  In our next episode, the boys will go to Egypt.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:42Horatio Gould?

  And we will deal with the first Titanic clash between our two protagonists.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah.

• 46:48Horatio Gould?

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:48Speaker 02

  This is history 101.

• 46:50Horatio Gould?

  If this isn't history, then you can fuck off. I don't know what is.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:53Horatio Gould?

  That's all you have the Patreon where for three pounds a month, you get instant access to series, the first five parts of this epic Napoleonic Wars series are already there.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  But until then, goodbye.