Cuckolded by Mr Tumble | Claudius (Part 2)

Tumble's had a rumble in the jungle! Claudius (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 - The Nonce Cuck 04:23 - Enter Brave Salmon 07:28 - Prophet Mohammed Superstar 12:09 - Ancient British Moustaches 14:27 - Beter Bandelson 21:06 - Bonnius Blues 27:16 - Mr Tumble 29:52 - Chads Or Cucks 33:44 - Uno Reverse 37:31 - Gandhi-ing It 42:34 - Pick A Team 47:03 - Hisslapped Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:41Speaker 01

  Welcome back to Finver's History. I'm joined by Horatio Gould. This is part two of the Claudius story. We're back in ancient Rome. Now, we left off with a quivering disabled man who'd been flung from behind a curtain as Caligula lay dead on the floor. His baby had been taken off the stumps. And he is made emperor by the Praetorian Guard, much to everyone's surprise. And this is where now Claudius truthers, Claudius conspiracist theorists would say that he had a part in Caligula's demise.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  Well, we have no idea what happened sequentially in this event because it sort of reads a bit like a myth, right? We don't know how much is true. All we seemingly do know is that he bribed the Praetorian Guard loads and loads of money.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  But he had cash ready to go, which implies that he was in on a plan to murder Caligula. The disabled, nonce uncle. But he's not nonce.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  We've got to give him his dues. He's actually a cuckold.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  He's a noncuck. Now, that is a combination that's very, very rare.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  I want to watch you commit paedophilia.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Is that what it is?

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Who are you here to watch me?

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Are you watching me meet someone here?

• 2:13Speaker 01

  That's just fascinating. The nonce cuck. Wow.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Who are you here to watch me?

• 2:18Speaker 01

  You're here to watch me meet someone?

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Let me, let me meet, let me meet someone in peace. That's great. If you're a nonce cuck, let us know in the comments. I've not, I've not even heard of that concept. The nonce cuck.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Can we get different pictures of different cuck seating arrangements? Cause it's one of my favourite things on Twitter is in like new hotels or like hotel rooms where you find different, like the cuck, cuck command centre.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  I've seen the cuck command centre.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. So there's always the classic where you put your feet up, but that's a bit more too leisurely.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. This one's great. This one's great where you can.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  So that's, that means that you can get also, yeah, that, that means that you're taking it very seriously. An executive cuck chair. Yeah.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Yes. Well, that's when you've got business to do whilst being cuckolded. And that's part of the great thing about being a cuck is that it does open up time for you to get on with other things.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Exactly, yeah.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  I don't have to, I can, you know, my wife is being satisfied and I'm being satisfied watching it, but at the meantime, I'm dealing with my emails.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  As we've said before, the female equivalent is a cuck queen. I can't remember what, what part of this we came up with, the, what episode this was on.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  I guess that doesn't get talked about as much.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Queen is the wife of an adulterous husband, the gender opposite of a cuckold.

• 3:32Speaker 02

  I guess because the cuck, when it's a man, it attacks your masculinity.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Yes, it's very gendered, it's very gendered, the notion of the cuck, isn't it?

• 3:39Speaker 02

  But a cuck queen, it doesn't feel to attack someone's femininity because it's almost built into femininity, you're getting cheated on. Or like, do you know what I mean? It doesn't seem to be a, an attack on your gender.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Being cuckolded if you're a woman compared to if you're a man.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  But I guess if you're being cuckolded as a man, what is that doing to the woman? It's kind of irrelevant almost, isn't it?

• 3:58Speaker 02

  It's all about the male experience.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  The woman's a prop for your, what is it Charlie?

• 4:03Speaker 03

  But in cuckqueening, the male is known as the hot husband and the other female is known as the cutcake.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Cutcake? The cutcake?

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, still pretty objectifying, I think it's called the cuck.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  Cuckqueening is often known as.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Wait, hot husband, is that like hot desking?

• 4:16Speaker 01

  I guess it is actually, yeah. I'm hot husbanding.

• 4:20Speaker 03

  You're renting out your husband.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  For cuck cakes.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Cuck cakes. Cuck cakes is a strange. It's too close to cupcakes, which is a child's cake.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Let's be honest.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Or cut the cake.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Cut cake.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  We're not talking about that. We're talking about one of the great cucks of all time.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  One of the great cucks of all time.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  The cuck goat.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  He was the cuck goat. He was not a nonce cuck.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  No.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  But that has whetted my appetite to try and see if such a man exists. Charlie, little task for this episode. Find me an example if one exists of a nonce cuck.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Anyway, Claudius bribes the Praetorian guards straight away. Who make him emperor straight away? So there's clearly some kind of arrangement. And so he gives them 15,000 cestas.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  What's that in modern money?

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Don't give. Charlie's looking for a nonce cuck. Okay, we can't, we don't know. We, I think at one point we found out it was pretty much equivalent to pounds, but I think that's, I doubt that.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  That's bollocks.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  The first thing he does as emperor is, and I devastatingly sad, he invades Britain.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  He conquers.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  Stop the boat.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  He, yes, he conquers Britain. He is the, you know, the whole, when we were at school and we learned about the Romans in Britain, it's Claudius.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  It's, he's our enemy.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  For sure. But the reason why he does it is because he's got an insecure route to power. His lineage is a bit wishy washy. He's a loser who drawls and laughs inappropriately.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Running nose.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  He wants to open his kind of tenure with a big alpha male win.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  And he depicts himself in pictures as a sort of rapist. There's like, you've seen this, there's like posters of, would be of him of like Britannia as this woman who's trying to get away from him and he's raping her. But then politically, that was seen as like a brilliant thing. That was seen as like a cool, that's like, that's good PR.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Well, again, this, you know, this is the opposite of today, as we've said, in that rape is a positive PR move.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Brilliant.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  You know.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  I can't, he's not, he's not anywhere near, he couldn't rape a fucking fly.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Is that Claudius raping Britain?

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Where's, oh, right. See nowadays, you know.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Nowadays, that's fucking.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Not fucking these days. These days, that's nowadays, except Claudius is Sadiq Khan.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Raping London.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Right. With gang bannock banging London with a series of emissions policies.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Anyway, no, but nowadays, obviously, any public figure is, you know, has PR teams to try and distance themselves from any hint of rape.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. You don't want a hint. It's not a politician with a hint of rape. You really don't want any of that. You don't even.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Enter this brave salmon swimming upstream. Oh, no, I rape. I'm a rapist. Vote for me. Maybe it will work.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  It's a single issue party.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Vote for, yeah. He's using rape as a propaganda tool. It's extraordinary, actually. Extraordinary. I mean, we're barely 10 minutes in and the concepts we've uncovered, nonce, cockery, rape as a positive propaganda tool.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  It sort of implies that there'd be like a debate, politicians debate when you go for power and everyone's saying, oh, he's not a rapist. No, I'm a rapist. No, I'm much more of a rapist.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Vote for me, I'm the rapist.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  No, I'm a much more of a rapist than him.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Look, look at my manifesto. I will rape.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  He says that, that is lies. You'll get into power, it's all talk.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  He will disappoint you. He's all mouth and no trousers, and I mean that. The trousers are staying on.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  So, yes, he paints himself as a rapist and Britain as his victim. And Romans like this.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  It's a different time.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  So let's get into the conquest of Britain. Okay, so he, and at this point, the Roman Empire was, they've, Gaul is under Rome, I imagine.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  That was Julius Caesar.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yes, of course. So Caesar conquered the Gauls.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Germanicus, his brother, had done Germany.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  So the next stage is to go into Britain. Now, Britain at this point, Britain is a complete backwater.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's crap.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Yes, it is.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  It's the north.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  It's unmet to get to crap. Yeah.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  It's north of Oxford and Cambridge is what the whole of the country is basically.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. We're in the toilet.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  But for that golden era, from you'd say 1815 to 1945, we have mainly been in the toilet.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. We must not forget that we.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  We had an hour in the sun, but really we're stinky toilet dwellers for most of the time.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  But the reason they attacked Britain as well is because it's not, it's not that important a country for anything. It doesn't have many resources. It has a couple of pearls, a bit of tin. That's kind of it. They're doing it because it's terrifying.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Fish?

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, a bit of fish. But they're doing it because it's terrifying and you can gain a lot of honour by conquering. It's basically the way that they write about Britain in the Roman Empire is the way that the British wrote about the Congo as this sort of like exotic, wild place that they, they used to write.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Heart of darkness.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  It's ba- genuinely.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Britain is heart of darkness.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Genuinely. And in the heart of darkness, that opens when he, they're leaving Gravesend on the boat. Cause it's going from one mouth of the river to the other mouth of the river.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  He talks about the same of the Romans coming into the Thames.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 9:35Speaker 02

  He actually makes that link. So very much so.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  So people in Rome are hearing of this sort of, this jungle of Essex, you know?

• 9:43Speaker 02

  Surrey. Kent.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Oh, shivers going down the spine. You know, this, this, this hot, moist.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Scary place. Dengue fever.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Semi-detached new builds.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Oh, shuddering. Have you had your jabs? Are you going to Suffolk? You know, it's, so the invasion begins in 43. Should we place this? We haven't placed any.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Yes, 43.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  43 AD. It is, well, it's 10 years after the death of Christ.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  And then it's before the first time.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  It's before biscuits become part of the Christian church.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Before Jesus Christ Superstar?

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yes, that's nice. Yeah. It's 10 years after Christ dies and you'd say.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. When was Jesus Christ Superstar? We have to check first to make sure.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  I think it's the seventies.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Cause it wasn't in that small window after he died and 43 CE. I'm sure of it.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Jesus Christ Superstar. I'm pretty sure the original is in the seventies.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Right. So there's a long, a long wide berth.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  1973. Yep. That's a lovely cushioning actually. So yeah, it's 10 years after Jesus was crucified and it is 1,440 years before the first performance of Jesus Christ Superstar. That's how long it took for the story of Jesus to become a gay musical.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Okay, which I think is a good enough time.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Now, how long will it take for the story of Mohammed? The sequel to Jesus Christ Superstar?

• 11:10Speaker 02

  Well, we're not, in this great scheme of things, we're not that far off.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Really?

• 11:15Speaker 02

  We're only, yeah, really.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Well, I'm just saying, we didn't get a cartoon. We didn't get, really?

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Really. I think we're about 500 years off.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:23Speaker 02

  Mohammed Superstar.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Mohammed Super, Prophet Mohammed Superstar.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Type in Prophet Mohammed Superstar. I want to see if there's any short-lived productions, because they would be short-lived.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  They would be.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  It's not a long-running, there's no way.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Much as the author, the playwright would be quite short-lived as well.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Prophet Mohammed Superstar.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely a more controversial but better probably experience in the Prophet Mohammed Superstar.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a good question. Phoebe, our researcher, has just asked, how tough would auditions be for Mohammed?

• 11:49Speaker 02

  I mean, you.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  They'd be closed. They would be behind closed doors, I'd say that. They would not be open.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  You could do some creative staging, a lot of silhouette.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  It's not X Factor.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  No.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Yes, shadow puppets, I'd say, probably. I saw a production of His Dark Materials, where they had a lot of shadow puppets. That's not what I call the Quran. Don't chop our heads off.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Please.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Please, we're trying, okay? I'd love to go to Mecca if I was allowed.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  I'm not allowed, apparently.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Apparently.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Apparently, these days.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  But don't worry, Mecca's coming to London, so it doesn't matter.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. I open my door when I'm in Mecca nowadays. I open my front door.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Right, anyway.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  Let's get back to it.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  It's the first conquest of Britain before the Islamic Empire, which we are under now. This is the Roman conquest of Britain in the year 43. So Claudius sends 40,000 soldiers across the English Channel. Well, you're not reading the paper. This was happened 1,000 years ago.

• 13:17Speaker 04

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• 13:32Speaker 04

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• 13:40Speaker 04

  That's Origin Story, kicking off with a two-part special on Rupert Murdoch on all podcast platforms now.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  And they're led by Aulis Plautius.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  They Romans, you know, I mean, we fold like a, you know, house of cards, really. Because we're all just very thick and ugly and smelly.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Yes, we are.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  And we're wearing rags and we're like the trolls in Frozen, you know, we're just little people with wide heads.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  So I think that they're terrified because we look mental.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  We're Ooga Booga at this point. We are Ooga Ooga Booga.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  The things that shock the Romans about us, they think are completely barbaric is.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Ooga Booga.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  Ooga fucking Booga. Was it Stacey Do- Stasis Doulas?

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Stasis Doulas, yeah. Essex, Ooga Bo- Ooga Booga, oi.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Pete Wicks and.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Oh, you're mugging me off?

• 14:27Speaker 02

  You muga booga me off?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Ooga booga maga, Ooga booga me off? That's how they sound, you know?

• 14:32Speaker 02

  The things that are completely barbaric about us, the Romans, is we wear trousers. They've never seen trousers before.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  The Romans?

• 14:37Speaker 02

  But that's, yeah.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  They're wearing skirts, of course.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  They're wearing skirts and they're saying, who are these?

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Fascist skirts. What a phenomenal way.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  Fruity fairies wearing trousers.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  These gay boys wearing trousers.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Because that's like a, it's an ancient Britain thing to wear trousers, pyjama bottoms, basically.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Is it?

• 14:50Speaker 02

  And then also.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Are trousers this old?

• 14:52Speaker 02

  Let's check, check ancient Britain trousers. It feels like quite a rare thing. And then we have blue tattoos, blue hair. We all look like the white brigade, to be honest.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  600 B.C.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Wow, trousers are very old.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Ancient Britons, yeah. And then moustaches. We all had the ancient Britain moustache.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Really?

• 15:11Speaker 02

  They don't have moustaches. They saw it as very unman- they were quite clean-shaven, the Romans.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Well, there's the ancient Greek beard, which is without the moustache.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  And then I guess we're the opposite in so many ways.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Moustaches.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Did Britons have moustaches?

• 15:23Speaker 02

  And they used to bleach their, I mean, that's still happening in Essex now. They used to bleach their hair and beard.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  But I'm, do you know what, I've, because I've always struggled to feel connected to Britain in this day, in this time we're talking about.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  Why?

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Pre-Roman.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  Pre-Norman, really?

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Pre-Norman, yeah. Well, pre, pre-Nelson, let's be honest. But the idea that we had moustaches and were wearing trousers. When the Romans invaded.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Suddenly I feel slightly more connected to the country.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  You know?

• 15:52Speaker 02

  A Bruin.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Anyway, so they-

• 15:54Speaker 02

  Thick and ugly people, for sure.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  No, we haven't changed that much, I suppose. Now, the Romans quickly gain control of southeast England. You know, the D-Day landing beaches for the Romans.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  You know, Margate.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  What else? Fucking, I don't know.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Burgess Hill.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Whitstable, Burgess Hill, these names that echo down the centuries, you know, these slaughter sites.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Claudius wants the conquest to finish quickly.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  He goes to Britain himself.

• 16:22Speaker 02

  Wivillsfield, Plumpton.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Say their names.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  He arrives on the front at the Thames with a herd of war elephants to begin the final march on Colchester. I think this is a good time to do a soundscape.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Of the elephant herd.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  I'll be the elephant.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Arriving in Colchester, okay? Oh my fu- oh! Oh my god, what?

• 16:48Speaker 03

  Take them.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Take them. Take-

• 16:53Speaker 01

  George, Oga Boga, excuse me. Alright, oh my days!

• 16:57Speaker 03

  Wait, this one's on the floor.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Is that, what the fuck is that? Is that like a fucking big dog?

• 17:01Speaker 03

  Big on the floor.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Oh my!

• 17:04Speaker 03

  Now you jump on him.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  What?

• 17:07Speaker 03

  Take him.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  You're trying to make it rapey again, aren't you? You're always trying to make our soundscapes rapey.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. I thought I saved the elephant, because I knew what was gonna happen.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  No, but then Charlie was like, you're right, you rape him.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Fucking Weinstein stuff from behind the desk there.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  I know why we keep doing these soundscapes, it's always the same thing.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  But normally he rapes you.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Right, it's a great subversion on the form.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  So, elephants storm Colchester. I mean, you know, they're still doing that.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  I don't know if you've ever been there on a Saturday night.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  Is Colchester-

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Good lord.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Is it a good town?

• 17:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  No.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  I'm on tour there. Am I? Don't know, maybe I'm not. Colchester Arts Centre, shout out.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a good, that's a good venue, Colchester.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  It's not a good venue.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  Colchester Arts Centre, I thought.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  It's up there with Swindon Arts Centre for me.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Right, well, with Thicky's behind, in the tech base.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Some real Clauduses on the decks.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  There's a few Emperor Claudius is working in the Colchester Art Centre. It's a church, it's an off the curb gig and yeah, no, it's not my favourite. Also, the car park situation's atrocious and the city's a bin. Anyway, what is it Charlie?

• 18:14Speaker 03

  There's no public records of pedo cucks, but I think Beta Bandelson probably was one, to be honest.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Beta Bandelson?

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Say his name.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Say his name.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Beta Bandelson.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  The nonce cuck. Well, ladies and gentlemen, there's a first time for everything.

• 18:29Speaker 03

  I mean, there will have been some.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  But they haven't put the word out.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Yes, I guess.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Very humble, the nonce cuck.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Well, it is. It's a strange fetish to want someone else.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  Is it worse?

• 18:42Speaker 01

  To assault a child and to be you to feel cuckolded by that.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  Is it worse?

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Is it worse?

• 18:48Speaker 02

  I don't think it is worse.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  I don't think it is. No.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  There's something more fucked about it.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's certainly deaths down the line.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Eh?

• 18:55Speaker 02

  It's certainly harder to get your head around.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  It's more terrifying.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  It's a complicated concept.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I suppose we shouldn't think about it too much. Listen, Colchester is pillaged. Eleven tribes surrendered to Claudius and Colchester is then called Camulodenum. It's the first Roman capital in Britain.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  And so Claudius is then given the title Britannicus, which does not mean encyclopedia at this point. It means conqueror of Britain. So Britain has fallen. Colchester has fallen. There are elephants parading the streets of Colchester. And Claudius then starts carrying on. He goes, the king of Judea dies in 44.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  And was he the king of Judea when Jesus died? Pretty similar times.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  I guess so. Now, is Judea, is that Israel?

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  On the map. Where is Judea? Charlie, give us a map of ancient Judea because this is probably where Israel will be in the next 100 years, I imagine.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  And then this would be King Herod.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  Okay, so it's a small section away from the coast, but between the river, not the sea.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  So it's.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  But Jerusalem is in that.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  It's sort of just bordering, I'd say, modern day Gaza, you'd say.

• 20:13Speaker 02

  But it's interesting here, not to get too political, the Kingdom of Israel is a kingdom.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  But that kingdom does not stretch into Jerusalem or Judea or the kingdom, the Philistine kingdom.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is where Gaza is.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  And I imagine Palestine comes from Philistine.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Does it?

• 20:30Speaker 02

  Well, it seems so.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Are you pro Philistine?

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Well, it's interesting that Philistine becomes a slur.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  If it's for somebody who doesn't read. Is Palestine from Philistine?

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Very, this is fascinating stuff.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  This is good stuff. But it is interesting for the territorial claims of Israel, that even in their 5,000 year old claims, they are northern, what is that region ever? You know, Judea is still not.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  That's fascinating. Pro Philistine.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Free the people who can't, don't read.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  Now, what does Philistine mean? It does sort of just mean idiot, I believe.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  I think he's uncultured, isn't he?

• 21:05Speaker 02

  A person who is hostile or indifferent to art culture.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Intellectual pursuits.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  A big hostile to art is quite funny.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Well, I am a Philistine.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  I am pro Philistine. I am actively hostile to art.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  So yeah, free Philistine is get me out of this play.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  So you're free Philistine.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  I will bomb the National Gallery in order to free, to liberate Philistines.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Why, where's the etymology of Philistine? Why are they calling these people Philistine? Sorry, just to get this.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  A guy at school said I was the least cultured person in school.

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Who said this?

• 21:36Speaker 03

  A guy called Nikola Stojanovic, I will name him.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  Do you think, did you agree with that?

• 21:40Speaker 03

  No.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  But you don't consume, I mean, you do, you go to a lot of festivals.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  In the last episode, he just did a deep dive on how he's going to go to the anal action series on a porn conference.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  The biblical name is enemies of Israel, because they're enemies of Israel. So they've always been enemies of Israel.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  So it becomes an English insult for an uncultured, anti-intellectual person through 17th century German slang.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  But we do need to do the history of.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Israel.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's a long one, but seeing as that in the Bible, the Philistines and the Israelis are fighting each other. That's pretty extraordinary.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  So it's basically.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Is what Jewish people are calling their enemies.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  It's Philistines.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Phenomenal.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  Good stuff.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Well, an unnecessary tangent, but a fascinating one. And just to reiterate, I am pro Philistine. Get me out of this art gallery now.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Herod dies and Claudius annexes the king of Judea and puts the province under direct control of the Roman Empire. He has a similar thing in Thrace. I don't know where that is.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  Why is Thrace? I feel it's, yeah, northern Greece.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Turkey.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  By Turkey.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Yes, please.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  Oh, so it's Romania, maybe.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  Bulgaria. It's from, you're going from hair transplant into sex trafficking.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  On the kind of, on the map that we can understand. Yeah. So you've got spicy, spicy Jerusalem stuff.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Closing your eyes.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Haircuts, sex trafficking, not today, a little cabbage, you know, I can, I can, yes, it's the Braille map of the world. I know where I am. It's a bit of Greece as well. So it's lazy, it's lazy sex traffickers. It's the nonce cuck. So after the successful campaign in Britain, the elephants in Colchester, Claudius is at the height of his power. And so he passes a decree, decree, reducing the authority of the Senate because actually the interesting thing is that seeing his Caligula and Nero, these tyrants, everyone kind of thinks that Claudius maybe was going to bring back the Republic and that he was going to empower the Senate, but he doesn't. And so there is an increase in political violence, but he's, because he's sandwiched between these two

• 23:45Speaker 01

  absolute Gaddafi-esque madcuns, he never gets the credit for being bloodthirsty.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  As a prime minister, who is Claudius? Cause he's sort of like a, like a bureaucratic pen pusher. Is he a bit of a major underrated, you know, or is there not one that tracks?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Well, you've got Augustus is Blair. I guess Tiberius is, Tiberius is Heath because of the nonce allegations. And then I suppose Caligula is, is trust. It's this frenzied sex, sex crazed period in our history that, you know, we just went, we just went mad for a couple of years and we just elected an absolute sauce pot. Um, then, uh, who is?

• 24:28Speaker 02

  Maybe it doesn't track.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Well, who's our most disabled prime minister?

• 24:31Speaker 03

  Gordon Brown?

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Douglas.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Brown?

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Maybe it's Brown.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, Brown, because Brown is a technocratic, you know?

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  He's a numbers guy.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  And people underestimated him and he kind of rose through the ranks, even though Blair should have purged him.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  What's fascinating, that documentary, is where Blair is kind of, Cherie, the puppet mistress who did 9/11, let's us not forget, wearing Tony like a puppet.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  There's weapons of mass destructions in Iraq.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  We need to be with America whatever cost, right? She says you should get rid of Gordon.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Cherie.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  She does. Of course she does, Lady Macbeth.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Fucking minx.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Well done. I'm erect.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  No, I have done it now. You've got me under Cherie Blair now. Like, I've got to pause the episode. We're going to have an intermission, I'm going to bust one out next door. Because you brought up Cherie Blair again, how many times? We need to have a sign this year saying, don't mention Cherie. Then even that would make me think of Cherie Blair. Christ. It's a good thing I've got, wearing my gunt bulging trousers.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Well, you're Cherie, you're anti-Cherie busting pants.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Powerful erection down there, but you can't see it for the amount of girth they give me.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Because you've got the iron dome.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  The cord, the cord dome around my missile system. Fuck me. Now, speaking of Cherie Blair, and minx-like puppet mistresses.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Yes, my god. Because we've actually got a lot to get through.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  We've got so much to get through. What is it, Charlie? This is important.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  Just quickly, Gordon Brown's favourite main is rumpled thumps and his favourite pudding is crumble.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  That's not relevant.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Rumbled thumps?

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Rumbly thumps. Rumbly thumps is a Scottish dish, but we don't have time.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  He also likes, um, Kit Kats.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Four finger or chunky? No, come on.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Last episode, we brought you breaking news about Eamonn Holmes' stroke. This news, this episode, breaking news, Gordon Brown likes Kit Kats. Anyway. And there has been no recorded evidence of there ever being a nonce cuck. More fascinating insights from the scholars at Finfosters History. Now, listen, Claudius, the increase in political violence seen under Claudius is actually the doings of his wife.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  His bitch-wife.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  His bitch-wife, Messalina. Now, we need to get into Messalina. By the way, he is the first emperor to introduce frisking.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  What is that? Is that what, stop and search?

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Stop and search.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Is this a racial thing?

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Well, as you say, there's no real racial dynamics in the Roman Empire. So I guess it's just, it's just stop and search.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  But it could be ableist, couldn't it? Do it to the doors.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Not if he's doing it.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Because he's collapsed.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  The disabled prime minister.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  The Gordon Brown.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Let's get to the, let's get to the, the wife.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Right, the wife, Messalina.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Okay, we, we need to get into Messalina, who she is.

• 27:19Speaker 02

  What number wife is this?

• 27:20Speaker 01

  I think this is number four, I believe.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  Is it?

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Or is it three? Just double check what the wife is.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Because he had one who died on the wedding day.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  He had another who he left because she was no longer.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Politically relevant, but also their son had choked to death on a pear aged four.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  And now she's got this third one who's an eighteen hot piece of ass.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  She's an eighteen-year-old scheming.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think he's going in saying, I'm fifty, she's eighteen.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  I'm fifty, she's eighteen.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  I could control her. The, the power dynamics very much in my favour. This is an old man taking advantage of a naive girl. He's wrong. But it's complete, it's a reverse owl, because she completely.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Drives him like a Sherry Blair puppet.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  She's the dog, he's the rabbit.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  So, Messalina is renowned for her political scheming. Wildly promiscuous. Apparently she would compete with the famous Roman prostitutes to see how many men they could sleep with in a night.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  So she's Bonnie Bleu.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Bonnieus Bleu.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, Bonnias blew, the original Bonnias blew us.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  It's sex as sport.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Now Claudius supposedly is a bit of a horn dog, as we said.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  He's always horny, tough, tough pocket to be in.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Hawking us.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  But he's also very passive and easily dominated by women in his life.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Both politically and sexually.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Much like Blair.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  So now, Messalina, she, she attempts to marry her lover, the senator Gaius Silius, that's his actual name.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  He's Mr. Senator Silius.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Senator Silius.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  Which, which is insult to injury.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  To Claudius, I think.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Yes, that is a step too far. If I'm being cuckolded by, cuckolded by a man called Senator Silius.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like, it's like me being cuckolded by Mr. Tumble.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  You know? Yeah, Mr. If you, if you, if I'm, my wife leaves me with Mr. Tumble, I'm like, well, I can't.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  This is, I'm gonna face anything, with any respect.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  My kid's stepdad is Mr. Fucking Tumble. I can't, I can't compete with that. Right? He's like God to these kids.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Mr. Tumble.

• 29:29Speaker 03

  I don't trust him, though.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Hoya!

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Wait, has Mr. Tumble shacked up with a young piece of ass?

• 29:35Speaker 01

  He has. He has recently, he's been asexual for a while.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  Tumble's been having a rumble in the jungle.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Tumble's rumble in the jungle. He's had, he's been asexual for a while and he has been mate, like, bull, like Neo in The Matrix dodging nonce accusations, right?

• 29:46Speaker 02

  But also being a children's entertainer for that long, over that many different eras, is a tough picket.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  And she's 21. Hoo-hoo, a wolf!

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Oh!

• 29:56Speaker 01

  That's an excellent Mr. Tumble, just so I tell you.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  I haven't really watched a lot of Tumble.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  A wolf! She's 21, I'm 55!

• 30:04Speaker 02

  Now, your kids love him, Mr. Tumble.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Obsessed with him.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  Really?

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  I don't think I ever watched, Tumble was Tumble growing up?

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Why would you? You don't have kids.

• 30:10Speaker 02

  No, but when I was growing up, how long's he been going?

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Fuck, if you're, if you're watching Mr. Tumble.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  He's like the, he's like the Messi of kids TV.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  He is the, he is the goat.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  Really?

• 30:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. No one's gonna like Tumble.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Tumble, tumble, tumble, tumble, tumble, go!

• 30:24Speaker 02

  It's him where he's gonna bring out a big, big, pink hat or something.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's 34, okay, but still 21 years junior.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Still a daub.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  How long has he been at the top of children's television, Mr. Tumble?

• 30:35Speaker 03

  Do you think he's got an anger inside him? Do you think he gets?

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I think what's quite sweet about this Awu relationship is it, they both have a love of performing and they both, they both share the stage. It does feel like.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  It's John and Yoko.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  She will tear him down, I think. He started September 2003. So were you, how old were you in that? Were you nine?

• 30:54Speaker 02

  Was this before or after the Iraq invasion?

• 30:57Speaker 01

  This will be six months after. Iraq is March 2003.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  There's maybe a link there.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  What is the link? Explain it.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  I just think that it's post-Iraq Britain.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Right, so we need it sort of, our innocence has been shattered, you know, it's not worked like it did the three times.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  Things only get better, have stopped getting better.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Release, release, release Mr. Tumble.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  So Messalina is having an affair with Senator Sili.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Claudius, as if, you know, one thing is to be cuckolded, but to be, but by Senator Sili. So he learns the marriage, he orders the execution on both Messalina and Silas immediately.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, this is, so I, when I was doing the research, I did ask ChatGPT, because it didn't really make sense why anyone would do that. And basically, it's still a mystery. And there's no historical record because it's such an insane thing for her to do.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:45Speaker 00

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• 32:15Speaker 04

  He built the first planet-wide media empire.

• 32:18Speaker 05

  He monetized the paranoia and resentment that led to Donald Trump and Brexit.

• 32:23Speaker 04

  He ruined his own family in his obsessive quest for money, power and legacy.

• 32:27Speaker 05

  This is the story of Rupert Murdoch, the real-life succession.

• 32:31Speaker 04

  Join me, Dorian Linsky.

• 32:33Speaker 05

  And me, Ian Dunst, for season 10 of Origin Story, the show that uses the past to explain the present.

• 32:39Speaker 04

  That's Origin Story, kicking off with a two-part special on Rupert Murdoch on all podcast platforms now.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Because I can't really understand why you would do something as reckless as that.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  It was forbidden to marry, to big me was forbidden.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Well, he's the emperor. You can't.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  But she's so drunk on power because, we hadn't quite said, all the political violence supposedly she orchestrates. So she is the, she's like Cherie Blair with her hand up Tony's arse. She's orchestrating, she's drunk on the power.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  But what's that wedding like?

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Cherie.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  The emperor's out of town and you get a wedding, like, is there a stag do? Is there like, what's the reception? Like, this is not gonna last. If you're a wedding guest, you're like, you're the fucking, you're gonna, clearly, he's gonna chop your heads off. The only reason for it has to be that they're planning to overtake, surely. Because otherwise it's completely insane.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Yes. So her execution is orchestrated by Claudius's freedman Narcissus to prevent the emperor from forgiving her.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  Because he's such a cuck.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  He's such a cuck, they would have gone, oh.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  His mate has to come in and be like, I'm gonna have to do this because he's such a pussy cuck.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's such a weak guy.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  What I think is interesting about Claudius is he's underrated his whole time. And yes, his love life is humiliating throughout his whole life. I mean, his life is always humiliations pretty much, but being the kind of bookish nerdy ruler, he does manage to get things done that the nerds do.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Gordon Brown saved the world.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  All leaders are either kind of chads or cucks really. And there needs to be, sometimes you need a cuck, sometimes you need a chat. For peacetime, cucks can get a lot done, you know? Macmillan built a lot of houses.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Because they've got desks. They've got desks watching their wife get railed.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  Yes. Churchill, you need him for war, you know? Macmillan, domestic policy. You know what I mean?

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Yes. You never had it so good.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Never had it so good. But he, I think, he was such a nerd and scholar about things like hydraulics and stuff like that. So he did mad stuff, like he dug a, what are you getting?

• 34:40Speaker 03

  Nothing, just Cherie law.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  What? Cherie law?

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Cherie law.

• 34:44Speaker 03

  Tony was under Cherie law. Cherie law.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Cherie law is in L O R E?

• 34:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, interesting.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Very interesting.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Cherie Blair law.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  I mean, I will happily live under Cherie law.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  Well, your hand's chopped off.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Chop my hands off because I can't, I can't stop touching myself.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  You've chopped your own hands off because you can't be trusted.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, but yes, let's get into what he actually does.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  He builds a deep sea harbour in Rome.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Is this in Ostia?

• 35:12Speaker 02

  No, but they already have a port in Ostia because they don't have a deep sea harbour in Rome.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  So basically, it's all about the running, running Rome is all about can you get grain from the rest of the empire into the city and the provinces? That's, that's the main logistical issue of running the Roman Empire.

• 35:28Speaker 02

  And all his engineers says, you are fucking mad. We can't, we've got shovels. They don't have any technology.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 02

  But he says, I'm the Emperor Gerdan. And they do, they build, they basically just, I don't know, how do they dig a deep sea harbour? Is it just hold your breath with a spade, go under and dig?

• 35:42Speaker 03

  That's what I think about the Rotherhithe Tunnel.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Which you walk through.

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was Brunel, right?

• 35:47Speaker 03

  But how do you get under it? How do you get under the water? It's fucked.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't understand that either. We're getting into science.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  But that was Industrial Revolution. This was.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  The Channel Tunnel.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  This was 2000 years from that.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  The Channel Tunnel makes my fucking head hurt. I don't, I don't know.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  But I guess you'll start, you can start underground in England and then you can go.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  But then it's just everyone drown. I don't, I don't understand it.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Rather than starting in the rough sea, engineers dug out a large natural coastal lagoon and plot of land inland.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  They let the sea flood in. So, yeah.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Anyway, so they build a massive floating harbour, but this takes like 100, you know, yeah, but he starts it.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  He modernises the aqueducts.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  He's quite religiously tolerant.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Intolerant.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  He restores many old religious practices and festivals, but he gets, he's not, he's intolerant of astrologers, which is fine.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  He, he is quite like, he wants to, he thinks Romans are losing their way because they're getting too much into eastern practices.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Oh, I see. Right. Okay.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  He hates Druids as well. So he hates any of the hippie bullshit.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  And in the year 50, he decides to oust all Jews from Rome.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  It says the reason behind the deportation remains unclear. I will help you out. They're Jewish. That's the reason.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  The reason is it's a time in history.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Exactly. They're Jewish and it's a time on planet Earth. That's why they've been kicked out. Okay? It is the one constant through every era that we talk about on this show is that if there are Jews there.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  They'll be kicked out.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Shortly they'll be kicked out. They'll be asked to leave.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  In many ways, the modern day era is the great pivot.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Is, as you'd say, is Bibi Netanyahu's reign.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  Is the Jew saying, now you get out.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  He's Uno reversed it.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  He's Uno reversed 2000 years of history.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Netanyahu, yeah.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  Netanyahu, yeah, no Uno reversed. Fair play, you know. So, let's get into his government reform. Some of this stuff is quite boring, but we'll just mention it. He builds a big aqueduct.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Brilliant.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  Brilliant.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  He increases the role of ex-slaves. He serves.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  He has like, this is like, this is like renter's rights almost, where he says, if your slave is ill, you can't just kill them. Which is funny that this is like, I like, you can imagine The Telegraph.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Oh, I can already picture that.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  Being like, well, how can I?

• 38:05Speaker 01

  What's the point in having a slave?

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Squeezing slave owners.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  Like, I can't afford, my slaves are always getting ill. You basically have to make sure that they get better.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Being on a hundred grand a year is actually, you're the poorest in the country. Because of the tax, because of the tax deficit, you know, you lose your personal allowance.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  I'm collecting Telegraph headlines and sending a lot to Finn. We will do a breakdown of some of the best ones because they've been, they know their audience.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  They're on a roll recently.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  No other paper knows its audience better than The Telegraph. They're in complete harmony with the people who read it. And they're not trying to get anyone else.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 38:40Speaker 02

  It's so clear, clearer than even The Guardian. It's clear who reads The Telegraph.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Oh, The Guardian are tripping over themselves to not offend people. The Telegraph couldn't give a fuck. They're saying if you earn a hundred grand a year, you're the real victim here. The cost of living crisis affects you.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  So.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's amazing. They've got articles where it's like, it'll be a family, collectively make 250 grand a year. We now can only go on three holidays as opposed to five.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we have to hire ski stuff. We can't even own our own ski stuff.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Keir Starmer stan. Now, Claudius was issuing many edicts, supposedly on average about 20 a day.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Right. So it's quite Trumpian in that sense, just firing them out.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Um, yes, the slave, the slave one is that if a master abandoned a sick slave, the slave would go free. And if a master killed a slave, instead of treating his illness, the master would be brought up on charges of murder.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  This is disgrace.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Woke nonsense. Absolute madness.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  It's also funny, the idea, what will they do before, like, you have a cold, ah, fucking.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, you can't work today.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  You have to like pretend that you're not ill, you'd be terrified.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  It's the opposite of today, where, you know, you get a medal for having long Covid. Anyway, um, the other, the other, the next, the funny one is the fart.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  You get knighted if you have longer.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  A rise to the longest of Covid Shire. Uh, you should, the meek, the sick will inherit the earth. Anyway, what, he issued the fart edict.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Which allows people to fart in public. And it was sparked by concerns over the health risks of holding in farts.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  I guess the counter argument is the health risk of letting out gas. You have to really balance that because it's bad for the internal, but if everyone's farting, it can be bad for the external.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  And this is before the Protestant Catholics split, which really resolves that.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Protestant, I hold it in. It's my relationship with my own fart. Catholics let it all out, the whole place stinks and no one works.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, people are dying from passive, passive me.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Dying, passive, passive fart inhalation. It's, they should not be allowed to fart in pubs, there are kids around there, okay? Um, what have you char, what have you searched, Charlie? This is, I suppose this is your area of expertise.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  If you're holding a fart, it can come out as a burp, unfortunately.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  That's fascinating. Gas can go both ways.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  It causes your gut to reabsorb some of the trapped gas, which then travels to your lungs.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  But does, the burp does not smell as bad as the fart, so it is still.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Speak for yourself.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  Oh, what are you saying?

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Come back to me when you're age 35.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  I'll call you in the dead of night, Finn, I shouldn't have doubted you.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. My girlfriend's just turned 30, she's burped and it smells like a sewer in here.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  How quickly does the, uh, does the fart, the trapped fart become? Cause in my head it's like, oh no, can't go around the way, oh.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Well, it got to come out somehow. And also, do you know where farts come out if you don't fart? It's all in your sleep. So you're like the Blue Man Group in your sleep. It's like Stomp the Musical.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  It's just, cause you think about Queen Elizabeth, who's probably must be one of the greatest holders in those of farts.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Prost and Hero.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  She is. She's like, you cannot imagine her ever passing gas.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  But that does mean that when she goes to sleep, it must be a fucking.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Well, the separate beds, isn't it? That's why Prince Philip's three doors down. Anyway, yes, Claudius, uh, has quite a relaxed attitude to public flatulence.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  But we need to get, we, we, we are racing, we need to get through this. So, um, supposedly he, he greatly expands the number of Roman citizens during his reign. Aqueducts, infrastructure. What's the thing about, there's a disaster when he tries to drain a massive lake. Lake.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  He's obsessed with.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Fuchini. He, um, tries to build a, tries to create more agricultural land by draining a lake. So excavates a big drainage tunnel, which takes 30,000 workers, 11 years to complete, but pretty much quickly. Pretty quickly the tunnel just sort of collapses.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  The success of the harbour, he got cocky, Blair in Kosovo, you know, one success. Hubris.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  No one to quit, Tony.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  So the tunnel is opened and the water starts to drain and it causes a major tidal wave and, uh, everyone has to flee for their lives at the opening of the tunnel. Uh, so now his fourth wife, this is where we start to get into the Nero prequel. Because his fourth wife is his aunt? No, his fourth wife is called Agrippina the Younger, who is his niece. Oh.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. So he's gandying it.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  He's gandying it, uh, but much like Gandhi, I can't control myself. Whoops, the test failed. Uh, I had sex with my niece. I tried to see if I couldn't.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  And if that's a crime, it is a crime, Gandhi.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Are you joking? He, it's an avunculate marriage. God, the things we're learning.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's amazing, this podcast.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Isn't it arranged marriage? No, it's an avunculate marriage.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  I've married my uncle, okay?

• 43:38Speaker 02

  Get married, avuncular, yeah.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  I'm a big proponent of avuncular marriage. So this, his new wife is, uh.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Remember, Caligula, he's Caligula's uncle.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Yes, so he marries Caligula's sister, who's his niece, Agrippina the younger. She's 25 years younger than Claudius. I mean, he is an absolute hound dog.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  He's walking through.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  Now, she'd already been married twice and she had a son called Nero. Now, she's very politically savvy.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  She came up a lot in the Nero episode.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  She did. Well, uh, this is where we will tie in, much like Rogue One, the prequel to Star Wars, Episode Four. This, this now ties into the beginning of our Nero series.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  This is a real fascinating series for the fans here. Right, Easter egg upon Easter egg. So, um, the couple married publicly, uh, in the year 49. So the Roman people view this as incestuous despite the Senate giving it their approval. Now, she wanted.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  incestuous.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Hey?

• 44:40Speaker 02

  They view it as incestuous.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  It is incest, like.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Yes, but the Romans, you know, their, their tolerance of incest is much higher than ours.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Okay. Avuncular marriages are, are not what they were.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  But it wasn't as much as I thought. They're not into incest. I thought they were, but they, they do think that's dishonorable.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it still happens.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  Fine, fine.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  It's, you know, it's, uh, Schofield.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Unwise, but not illegal.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  She obviously wants her son Nero to become the next emperor. Uh, because she's Caligula's sister, she maybe feels like she's been cheated out of a sort of line of succession. Uh, before Claudius's own son, her new stepson, Britannicus, named after his successful invasion of Colchester with some elephants. Uh, so Claudius adopts Nero as his own son. But he then starts to regret this because he's worried that he's not, uh, he's neglecting his own son Britannicus. So, um, as he begins to age, he starts to realise Nero might be a fucking psycho.

• 45:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Uh, and so he overlooks his own son and he feels remorse about this. Uh, because Nero is sort of placed, uh, as Claudius's successor.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Cause he's older.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Now Claudius is approaching his sort of mid 60s, which is very old for these, these days. Uh, and there, everyone is anticipating Nero as the next emperor because he'd entered public life when he was only 14, right? So.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Claudius begins to show more favour towards his biological son Britannicus, which infuriates Agrippina, his new wife.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  He also names them both as joint heirs, which is, you can't do that.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  So this is where we started the Nero series. He named, he named them both joint heirs.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  So.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  But you can't do that.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  No, you've got to pick a team. So Britannicus was about to come of age, which I guess would mean that he would become officially, was he older than Nero?

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Nero was older.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Nero was older, interesting.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  That's why Nero has.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Ah, okay, right. So Nero's about five years older. So on October the 13th, 54, Claudius is found dead at age 63. Now supposedly what happens is that Agrippina feeds him a plate of poisoned mushrooms, in which he's in cahoots with a eunuch.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Because Claudius's eunuch taster fed him a poisoned mushroom.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  But then there's a report that the mushroom didn't work and so Agrippina tasked Claudius's doctor to finish the job.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Michael Jackson.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Alan Matthew Perry, Michael Jackson. So apparently, and this is very kinky, the doctor puts a fucking feather laced with poison down his throat.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  That's kind of like, that's Fifty Shades of Grey stuff.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  Don't like that.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. My gag reflex.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  I couldn't, yeah, I can't be doing that.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  So his last words as he dies, 63, is, oh dear, oh dear, I think I've made a mess of myself, because he pooed himself as he died.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  Which is a fitting end for Claudius.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think this is.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  He's lived a remarkable life, but at every turn has humiliated himself.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Has, has been a pretty innovative emperor with a lot of things to be proud of, but at every single point in his life, he's been utterly humiliated.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  He was only ever a year away from either being cuckolded or shitted himself. And he's a sort of tragic figure, but.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  But he's a man of my own heart.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  There is, well, he's been kind of rehabilitated now as someone who actually.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Oh, you think it's revisionism?

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Well, no, I think it's revisionism to say he actually did a lot of things that, and he didn't, doesn't get the.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  A lot of boring stuff.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  A lot of boring stuff.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Brown, doesn't get the headlines that Caligula and Nero did.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  You know, in, when the history books of, of our lifetimes are written for a hundred years from now, you know, trust will get all the headlines. But below the water, the calm sturdish of a brown.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Eating a Kit Kat and his rumbley thumps.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Probably, knowing him.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  And his apple crumble.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  Probably.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  You know, and he's finding it hard because he's got no depth perception. Anyway, so Agrippina successfully deposes Claudius. Yet again, it's another change of power where it's not peaceful. There's an assassination. I mean, it's just assassination after assassination. It's why the Roman emperors are so great.

• 48:59Speaker 02

  And what's interesting is Augustus gets talked about as the greatest politician of all time.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  And stabilising it, but after he goes, it's a fucking nightmare. Like, he doesn't set out that.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Need I bring another Labour Party analogy to the fore? After Blair goes, you know, it just the arse falls out of it.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  So Claudius is given a funeral in the style of Augustus. He's interned in the big Augustinian mausoleum and he becomes deified.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Which is like, so this is slobbering, fucking, cerebral palsy kind of like.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Snotty.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  Becomes the, a god.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Yes. A couple of years after he dies, the philosopher Seneca writes a biting political satire.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  So he gets in his lopped.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  He gets his lopped.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  He gets his slapped.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  His slapped.

• 49:48Speaker 02

  He got Ian his slapped.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can get hitch slapped or you can get his lopped. And he got his lopped. The title, Apocalypsenotosis, is a pun on the word apotheosis, which is the Greek process of becoming a god.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  God, yeah.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  This is a pun by basically saying he became a pumpkin.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  Which is a, this is, this is a savage.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  And stay down.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  Have I got news for you, this is as rye a pun as you can do.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  We should say, have I got news for you is in its third series at this point in the year 54 AD.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  This is one of Merton's puns right here.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  But.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  Well, has he become a pumpkin, has he?

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Live. 81, 9 o'clock.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  Apathiosis, the act of becoming, we wouldn't get it.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  We had to become a pumpkin. Oh, I'm not waiting for a pumpkin.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  And my father-in-law's lapping it up.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  Pumpkinification.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Lapping it up.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Of Claudius.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Oh, he's probably genius, this guy. Absolute genius. Oh, they don't make them like that anymore. The master.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  Couldn't say that these days.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, the master.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  You could call him a...

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Couldn't call my pumpkin these days.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  Or do you think you'd call him the master?

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Hey?

• 50:55Speaker 02

  Would you all...

• 50:56Speaker 01

  No, who's it? Uh, no, it's, uh, Jack Barry's, uh, mum called Marcus Brigstocke the master. Just to, to, he just mentioned him in a story and he, she just looked off in the distance and just went, "The master."

• 51:11Speaker 01

  This is actually sort of Brigstocke getup, actually, this.

• 51:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Called stuff. Anyway, um, now, uh, instead, so the, then becomes a myth, right? Claudius becomes kind of written into lore, supposedly, instead of a glorious ascent to Mount Olympus, which is what happened to Augustus and when you become a god, after you die, he's depicted as this kind of bumbling, physically disabled figure who the gods can't understand because he's suffering and dribbling so much. "Hello, can I come into heaven? Fuck us." And then in the story, Hercules is approached by this sort of dead Claudius, who's trying to get in, but Hercules can't understand him and is, quote, "confused by his strange noises." So Claudius gets rejected from heaven, uh, after Augustus himself delivers a speech saying how shitty he is.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  So...

• 51:56Speaker 02

  I mean, this does sound like an all right play, though.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  The narrative ends with this, him going to the underworld. But we think that Seneca's motive was personal revenge because Claudius had exiled Seneca to Corsica. So as ever, as, whenever we talk about the Roman world, you know, it's, uh, like, we've got one source and it's hugely biased and compromised, really. But it's an awful lot of fun.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  But seeing this play, I'm thinking, you couldn't write that nowadays.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  No, you couldn't.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  Do you know what I mean? It was a different time.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  Nah.

• 52:24Speaker 02

  You couldn't call the leader a pumpkin nowadays.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  I mean, if I, if I called Sid Khan any kind of good, you know?

• 52:32Speaker 02

  Hands chopped off.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Hands chopped off.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, can't even start the car, let alone drive it.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Weirdly, do you remember when we did the Greek god series? Do you remember Hephaestus, the blacksmith, the ugly one? Do you remember that?

• 52:46Speaker 01

  When was this?

• 52:47Speaker 02

  Did we not do a Patreon on Greek gods?

• 52:49Speaker 01

  I don't think we did.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  We must have.

• 52:50Speaker 03

  There was that massive cow.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  That's the Norse mythology.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  Norse one. But one of the gods, Hera and Zeus have a child who's born in so ugly.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  We did Roman gods, not Greek ones.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  They're the same.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, but.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  They're the same. So when Hera and Zeus have a kid, one of them is born so ugly that she immediately drop kicks her off Mount Olympus.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, I do remember this, yeah.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  And it's this hideous guy, and then he's the only one who can save her, and eventually he becomes the god of blacksmiths. But it's basically Claudius.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  The whole story, basically.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  At the end of it all, Nero takes power and will, you know, become another tyrant, who supposedly plays the violin while Rome burns. And we had James McCann on, the great James McCann, to do that.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  It's a great app.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Great app, you can find that. And so that's the end of Claudius, really. The hipster's choice for Roman emperor. I guess scores on the doors. Yeah, he's a very unique figure in history. And how, you know, the great unknowns are how aware, how in on the plot to kill Caligula was he?

• 53:55Speaker 02

  He's Tom's one scam. He's like, him as a narrative archetype is quite, I don't know what you'd call him, is the underdog, the, yeah.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  The man who sort of, who understood that people were underestimating him.

• 54:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  And maybe weaponized his own disabilities in order to progress.

• 54:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  It's a very, very relevant story to nowadays.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, in politics, you see it all the time. As you keep the people close, you think, aren't going to stab you in the back?

• 54:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So on the Patreon, this week, we're talking about Hercules, the 12 labors. That's great stuff. And you can sign up for £3 a month, where there's an army of Claudius's, except they're not weaponizing their disability, they're just giving us a proportion of their allowance.

• 54:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're a burden on the state.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  Yep, and a burden on us as well. Anyway, that's on the Patreon. But if not, we'll see you next week for a brand new topic from all of us here at Fin vs. History. Goodbye.

• 54:44Speaker 02

  Goodbye.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, theHouseMajorityPact.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.