My Dad Wrote A History Hit

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Speaker 12 Hello, in aid of comic relief, my dad Rotoporno has teamed up with Dan Snow's History Hit for a very special podcast mashup.

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Enjoy the show.

Speaker 12 Hello and welcome to a very special podcast mashup between my dad Rota Porno and Dan Snow's history hit, all in aid of comic relief. Hi guys, this is fun.
Woo!

Speaker 13 Hey, how's it going? Hi Dan Snow! This is, I mean, an unusual combination, I'm sure you'll agree.

Speaker 11 Well, I'm not sure it is. In fact, I think the Venn diagram of middle-aged, pornographically-minded authors and fans of military history is

Speaker 11 pretty big. So don't worry, I think we might be among friends.

Speaker 13 How has it taken us so long?

Speaker 11 Well, I mean, I've been a big fan for years, guys. I don't know.
I've been waiting for the call.

Speaker 14 Dan, we're looking at you. You seem to be in a hotel room.
Where are you right now? What's going on?

Speaker 11 Yeah, I wish I was there in person with you guys. Although, when I did meet up with you guys in person, I did feel a little bit average the following day.

Speaker 11 So maybe it's best that we're conducting this remotely.

Speaker 13 You all got drunk without me.

Speaker 11 What were you drinking? It was Christmas.

Speaker 13 It was Christmas, and I can't make any further comments.

Speaker 12 We drank all of Christmas.

Speaker 14 Dan was on the baby sham. He was loving it.

Speaker 11 Yeah, we all at a Christmas party together and we all got on like a house on fire, so we thought we should do a little mashup. And here we are.
It's amazing.

Speaker 11 It's one of those bizarrely crap Christmas party ideas. It's actually come true.
It's amazing. Yeah, I know.
The thing about it. I'll definitely email you, mate.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 11 And it's actually happening.

Speaker 12 I can't believe it.

Speaker 13 I bet you were like, there's no way they'll remember. And then, bing, Monday morning.
Cool. So you did kind of verbally promise this one.

Speaker 13 But you're not at home.

Speaker 11 What are you up to? I'm in Cape Town. I'm on my way to Antarctica.
I'm going to... Wow.
Yeah, I'm going on this huge research vessel into the roughest waters on planet Earth, stormy seas.

Speaker 11 And we're going to look for a shipwreck, a famous shipwreck, Endurance, Shackleton's shipwreck.

Speaker 11 which he which sank in the Antarctic and he had to take the small boats on an epic journey of survival back to civilization. And we're going to try and find it on the seabed 3,000 meters down.
Wow.

Speaker 13 That is incredible. And this is your warm-up for that.

Speaker 11 This, this is my this is my Everest actually. That will be easy after this

Speaker 14 for the perverts who listen to our podcast and may not be familiar with yours, Dan, although why would they not? It's huge. What's history hit all about?

Speaker 11 Well, it's basically the good thing about history is everything that ever happened to anyone who's ever lived on this planet. So we go all the way back, but there's plenty of content.
Pen content.

Speaker 11 The problem with you is you rely on the pen. You rely on the pen of overwhelming human beings.

Speaker 13 So foolish.

Speaker 11 I mean, you know, so I go, look, I saw those guys. It looks like hard work to me.
So I can go go Stone Age to nuclear age, digital age, and we just, we talk about history.

Speaker 11 My favorite episodes are kind of ones where we take a big thing going on in the world at the moment, like Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, Boris Johnson being an absolute idiot, and we kind of look at the historical context for those things.

Speaker 11 We kind of, how did that all come to be? But, you know, we go, we talk about sex in Pompeii, we talk about, you know, goodness knows, everything, everything that's ever happened.

Speaker 11 So history in its widest sense. Wow.

Speaker 12 So we really are like the highbrow and the lowbrow here because we just talk about terrible porn.

Speaker 13 Yeah, the explanation the other way is actually harder. So for Dan's listeners tuning into this.

Speaker 11 For listeners that haven't heard of Porno, exactly what do you do?

Speaker 12 Well my dad, he was a builder from Northern Ireland, when he retired he thought that he would be like E.L.

Speaker 12 James and write an erotic novel that would sell millions and he'd become a huge global success.

Speaker 12 He sold four e-books, but one of the people that he sent it to was me. And because it was the most unintentionally hilarious book I'd ever read,

Speaker 12 I just had to share it with my mates, two of whom are here, Alice and James.

Speaker 12 And so we basically just read a chapter of my dad's book every week and critique it, comment on it, try and give it some context, you know, elevate the material if we can.

Speaker 12 And the joke's kind of become on us because dad has become one of the most successful pornographic writers in history.

Speaker 13 Writers, you could say.

Speaker 12 Writers at all, exactly.

Speaker 12 And yeah, so we've kind of created a monster, but a beautiful monster.

Speaker 11 No, you have. I mean, you're one of the biggest podcasts in the world.

Speaker 11 You are part of podcast history. So it's great to have you on history because you have made history on that podcast.
It's absolutely wonderful. Oh, my God.

Speaker 11 Dan will be talking about us one day on his podcast, about the history of podcasts.

Speaker 14 So with this mashup, we thought it would be a good idea to mix sex and history and talk about the history of pornography, sex

Speaker 14 throughout time.

Speaker 14 One thing we wanted to talk to you about is because obviously Rocky thinks he was the first person to ever write an erotic novel.

Speaker 12 And for context, that's Rocky Flintstone for yourself. That's my dad's pen name.

Speaker 14 But is that the case? I mean, how far back does pornography go?

Speaker 14 Is it a fairly new phenomenon or does it go back to the cavemen?

Speaker 13 James is asking for a friend.

Speaker 11 Asking for a friend. You will be surprised to learn that people have been obsessed with sex since the beginning of time.
In fact,

Speaker 11 this is

Speaker 11 like huge if true, is that people, human beings, and that's what's so wonderful about history. In a way, some things have changed so dramatically.

Speaker 11 Obviously, our technology, some of our kind of ideas about the world and religion but amazingly so much of what drives us hasn't changed you know our our passion to reproduce to have sex to you know enjoy the touch of another human for example to to eat all those things have remain consistent and so sure enough wherever you find human beings writing sculpting, carving in the past, you find pornography, you find erotica, I believe is the posh word to describe it in the British picture.

Speaker 12 That's the posh word, yeah. Erotica.
We do skirt away from that word because it doesn't fit for dad, but yes. Apologies.

Speaker 11 We're going to cancel it.

Speaker 13 So in kind of ye-oldie bus stops and, you know, bus shelters, you'll find ye-oldie pornography stuffed, you know, layers and layers into the peat.

Speaker 11 Even before Ye Oldie and before days of yore, actually way back to ancient Rome, which is, you know, the beginning of most people, it's kind of over.

Speaker 13 They were doing it.

Speaker 11 They were doing it then. If you go to Pompeii and Herculaneum, the two cities engulfed by Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago, there is just erotica all over those streets.
Like it's bonkers.

Speaker 11 It's just penises everywhere. I mean, there aren't.
What? See, it's funny that you're laughing because I actually think that this was known. Like, it's just there were just penises all over the shop.

Speaker 12 So, were they all just like 12-year-old boys in maths class? Like, what's the deal? They're just drawing dicks everywhere with everything that they own.

Speaker 11 Well, that's a good point, actually. I mean, historians debate this kind of stuff all the time.
It makes sense.

Speaker 12 And we're glad to join the debate.

Speaker 11 Yeah, some of it's kind of pure ones, some of it's kind of, you know, around iconography and hope at fertility.

Speaker 11 A lot of issues around fertility and people wanting to have babies and people wanting to have, yeah, having sex. So, So, but there are quite a lot of brothels in Pompeii that people have discovered.

Speaker 11 And they show women in a variety of sexual positions. I think you'd describe it as.

Speaker 11 I think Rocky Flintstone would obviously, as the expert, would be able to probably call them all out and describe them in detail.

Speaker 11 But you also get murals with information about services, like specific services that people would perform, prostitutes would perform sexual. Really? Yeah, clients.

Speaker 11 And clients' appraisal of women as well. So clients talking about particular women.
There's one famous bit of graffiti that says thrust slowly, which I, you know, is definitely a take.

Speaker 13 I think that's, I mean, it's

Speaker 13 advice that has stood the test of time. You would hear that now.

Speaker 11 Trust me, I've

Speaker 11 trust me. It does ring a bell.
All right.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 then there's another one. My favorite is Euclid was here with 2,000 beautiful men.
And she apparently were told in the list of prices sucks.

Speaker 11 It costs five, effectively, you know, five of the Roman currency, like five quid basically, for her to suck you off. So we know that.
So good old Euclid. Her name has become immortalized.
Yeah.

Speaker 13 So do you think there was something more respectable about drawing penises and everything than as Jamie says now when you see it on a bathroom door or a textbook?

Speaker 11 Yeah, I think we do, right? I think that because we're so weird about sex, we think of ourselves as really, really kind of liberated, but also we're really weird about sex.

Speaker 11 So it's really funny and interesting that your podcast is like one of the biggest podcasts in the world. But like, why not?

Speaker 11 Everyone is obsessed and fascinated by sex and wants to talk about it and listen to other people talk about it like i find it very emancipating listening to you guys talking about it and you know it's not it's not shame it's not like so and yet everyone's like oh what a surprise oh goodness me like why is that a surprise

Speaker 14 that's mainly us down to bear we're like

Speaker 13 i was gonna say our byline for the podcast should be you think they're really liberated about sex but they're actually just really weird about it i think that probably does sum it up we do try and be uh sex positive and open-minded but throw three prudes in a room and you know you don't know what's going to happen we have been called by the americans the ron Harry, and Hermione of pornography.

Speaker 11 That's prudent. So, you know.
It really is.

Speaker 12 In fact, the Romans are kind of famous for their orgies and stuff. How much of that has been overstated throughout time, or is it just one big, as dad would say, fuckfest?

Speaker 11 It's one big fuckfest. You know, the answer is it's very hard to be sure.
A lot of historians...

Speaker 11 and chroniclers at the time, like they do today, use sex and like sexual deviance as a way of kind of criticizing and trying to destroy someone's legacy.

Speaker 11 There are obviously reliable accounts of the Imperial Palace, people having orgies there.

Speaker 11 But you know, there were those, like in France, there was those big court cases a couple of years ago about that guy from the World Bank.

Speaker 11 He was in, like, there seemed like quite a lively orgy scene among the elite in France.

Speaker 11 You know, I'm reading that as my, like, doing my kids' nappies at five in the morning, thinking something's something's just gone

Speaker 11 wrong here. Like, I'm living in a new forest surrounded by dirty nappies.

Speaker 13 That's a fascinating point, though, about early sex shaming. That's that's kind of a mad thought.
That's that's crazy. We think of that as such a contemporary phenomenon, but that's always happened.

Speaker 11 Oh, yeah, definitely. So, Tiberius, the Roman Emperor, was said by his

Speaker 11 biographer, he used to be a kind of young, virile soldier who, like hero of Roman Empire, he got a bit old and a bit sort of fat and greedy.

Speaker 11 And he used to apparently get young boys to swim in his swimming pool at Capri and nibble on his genitals.

Speaker 11 And that was a sign, like by the by his biography, like it could be true, but it also just could be them saying, Look, he became a sort of depraved old man. Yeah.

Speaker 13 The bit that bothers me is nibble.

Speaker 14 The nibbling, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 11 No, there's no suggestion it was any more. It's this kind of like a little sort of fishy-like kiss.
Fishy kiss? There's one for Rocky.

Speaker 11 He gave him a fishy kiss.

Speaker 11 And so, yeah, and it's tied up with politics. Sex is about politics and control and power.

Speaker 11 And I guess it always is.

Speaker 14 Well, which is a bit like Belinda Blink, you know,

Speaker 14 it's a business tool in many ways to sell some pots and pans.

Speaker 11 So there's some sort of equivalent.

Speaker 14 So I'm just trying to find some equivalent with Belinda Blink.

Speaker 13 James is right. Certainly when we started reading these books, there were lots of discussions around the protagonist, Belinda Blumenthal, who is the sales director of Steel's Pots and Pans.

Speaker 13 For those that listen, and for those that don't, this just sounds like weird white noise. But, you know, she shags away around the world.
She uses her sexuality as a tool. It's something she loves.

Speaker 13 It's something she really enjoys. She's in control of it.
And lots of people were not sure how to feel about that.

Speaker 13 So, yeah, I think it's just something that we're still talking about now, which kind of blows my mind.

Speaker 11 Yeah, it's really difficult with history. And this, but Belinda is a great example of this, but

Speaker 11 we're told that people like Catherine the Great, who, by the way, the whole thing is a complete and utter myth and a disgraceful misogyny, but she was sexually active, like any other monarch.

Speaker 11 She had lovers, usually a monogamous series of favourites of lovers, or of

Speaker 11 a famous French aristocrat in the 18th century. And it was said they were like these women were sexually voracious.

Speaker 11 And what we don't know is whether they were unusually sexually active and happy with that and having a perfectly normal and lovely time, or whether that is just like trying to sort of delegitimise them, take away their power or their influence.

Speaker 11 It's very hard for us to know. That's what makes it so fascinating.

Speaker 11 Is you kind of trying to read these sources, you're trying to work out, nearly all written by men, like what are the men trying to do with that?

Speaker 11 Belinda is just the latest of many high-profile women who've been written about.

Speaker 13 What is Rocky trying to do with that? But I mean, we ask ourselves that constantly. What was he trying to do?

Speaker 12 And on the other side of that, was Elizabeth I's reputation of being the virgin queen to kind of give her more power?

Speaker 12 If being seen as sexually promiscuous or active was to diminish a woman, was this virginal depiction of the queen to elevate her status?

Speaker 11 Yeah, that's really difficult. I think she was trying to say, first of all, I'm marrying England.
I'm faithful only to England.

Speaker 11 Like, so I'm not some, and also the idea of like a foreign prince, because you often marry foreigners. So she's like, I'm not going to marry some French guy.
Right.

Speaker 11 My sister married a Spanish prince, like Philip.

Speaker 11 I'm going to remain chaste and pure for England. Yeah, and I'm not going to be kind of...

Speaker 11 Yeah, it's like the idea that in a court full of men, she remains like untouchable. Like, it's super weird and difficult when you think about it, but it's that was definitely part of her mystique.

Speaker 12 And was it true? Like, was she a virgin, do you think?

Speaker 11 Or do we not know? Well, we don't know. I think she,

Speaker 11 we don't know. She definitely formed really close male friendships, particularly with his younger shed favourites, and she, I mean, she may have done a bit of shagging, but sadly, we don't know.

Speaker 13 I love that we think that Dan will know, like, nobody knows, but Dan knows. Dan's like, yeah, she shagged.

Speaker 11 Actually, she shagged. She shagged.
Unlike her dad, of course, who famously got married six times. And people often think Anne Aates was a great shaggy.
In fact, I think possibly the opposite is true.

Speaker 11 I think he had problems in the sex department. In fact, it's a brilliant story.
Anne Boleyn at trial.

Speaker 11 Such a weird moment. Anne Boleyn's brother was on trial for having sex with his sister, incest, right? And many of the best and the brightest in the land were gathered to watch this trial.
And

Speaker 11 Henry's lawyer went up to him and said, Don't read this out to everyone, but this is apparently something that Anne told you.

Speaker 11 And he looked down and went, what, that Henry VIII can't get it up and is crap in bed? You know, I'm paraphrasing. The entire room just burst out laughing.
Like it was this great moment.

Speaker 11 And that's something that actually happened during the trial. That's utterly, utterly humiliating.
So he struggled to have sex, I think. But many of his forebears didn't, obviously.
Edward IV was a...

Speaker 11 The dad of the Prince in the Tower was an absolute shagger. It was said that he...
Top shagger. I mean, top shagger.
Top shagger. Hashtag top lad.

Speaker 11 Apparently, one of the reasons that the people of London let him back in was because the women of London wanted to jump back in his bed when he thought he was involved in the civil war.

Speaker 13 What services to shagging allowed him back in?

Speaker 11 Basically, basically. I mean he was a beautiful

Speaker 11 young man, but he really let himself go. I mean he went for it.
Fair play. He gorged on everything life had to offer.

Speaker 14 I love the way Dan talks about these people like they're old mates. He's like, God, yeah, he was a great lad.
Beautiful, beautiful.

Speaker 11 Really top guy.

Speaker 14 Well, what a top guy.

Speaker 11 But this is why historians basically gossip about dead people, right? And so just like, you know, when we run out of people to gossip about ourselves, we can draw on everyone in the past.

Speaker 11 That's what makes life so enjoyable. I tell you what, Alexander Great, what a weirdo.

Speaker 13 um, Dan's just down the pub with all his mates, and then you go down, you're like, oh, they're all in his head.

Speaker 14 He's bought pints for five different people, no one sat there.

Speaker 11 All right, let's carry some of the bullion, because that's

Speaker 11 this is getting a little close to the bone, guys.

Speaker 1 Coach, the energy out there felt different. What changed for the team today?

Speaker 2 It was the new game, Day Scratches from the California Lottery.

Speaker 4 Play is everything. Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Speaker 5 Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Speaker 2 Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game. That's all for now.

Speaker 3 Coach, one more question.

Speaker 6 Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

Speaker 8 A little play can make your day.

Speaker 7 Please play responsibly.

Speaker 9 Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Speaker 12 You want your master's degree.

Speaker 15 You know you can earn it, but life gets busy. The packed schedule, the late nights, and then there's the unexpected.
American Public University was built for all of it.

Speaker 15 With monthly starts and no set login times, APU's 40-plus flexible online master's programs are designed to move at the speed of life. You bring the fire, we'll fuel the journey.

Speaker 15 Get started today at apu.apus.edu.

Speaker 11 Ironically, Edward IV, the shagger, kicked his cousin Henry VI off the throne. Henry VI was, poor thing, one of our sort of less alpha kings.
And he and his wife had to be joined by a sex coach.

Speaker 11 They had trouble procreating for years, and they had to get some advice in, I think. And

Speaker 11 both of them would have been virgins, and it would have been quite complicated.

Speaker 11 I actually think my dad says that his dad had to consult a doctor when he got married because he didn't know how to have sex. And I'm sure he's going to be over the moon that you've said that.

Speaker 11 Sorry, dad.

Speaker 13 But we're living in a kind of time now, which is post-Rocky Flintstone, so everybody has the manual they need to work out how to do it. So it's fine.
People won't encounter those problems.

Speaker 13 Public service.

Speaker 14 What were the early examples of contraception, like condoms and things like that? When did they kind of start being introduced?

Speaker 11 People have used the most really difficult condoms over the years. I mean, lamb intestines.
Oh, wow. Oiled paper.

Speaker 13 I'd go the oiled paper over lamb intestines. I mean, that's the thing anyway.

Speaker 11 I think I'd go lamb intestines. It's funny other lads are all like, I think you might get the feels more.

Speaker 11 That's very interesting.

Speaker 13 Maybe because I'm a vegetarian, vegetarian, I don't know.

Speaker 11 That's absolutely it. Maybe, maybe.
The three of us just all went, oh, I don't know about that.

Speaker 11 Peace of meat,

Speaker 13 putrid meat is what you would do for the feel. I guess for his pleasure, yeah, fine.

Speaker 12 You added the putrid there.

Speaker 13 I mean, intestines are never the sweetest smelling of meats.

Speaker 13 We're having too much of a nice time. We should pause for a second.
This is a great sex education/slash/history class, two lessons which aren't usually a hybrid.

Speaker 13 But we are here for a very special reason.

Speaker 12 Yes, this mashup episode is specially for comic relief.

Speaker 12 Other shows involved include The Football Ramble, The Guilty Feminist, Homo Sapiens, Off Menu, Films to be Buried With, and loads and loads of other great podcasts.

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Speaker 14 We have a character in the books called the Duchess, the Duchess of Epsom, actually. Actually, first question: is there a Duchess of Epsom?

Speaker 11 I don't think there is, no.

Speaker 12 Thank God, because there'd be a huge defamation suit coming.

Speaker 14 She, in her country pile, she has a room dedicated full of dildos, different types, different materials, different sizes, anything you can imagine. It's a confection.
We were interested to know...

Speaker 14 what the history is of dildos, kind of what maybe some of the earliest dildos were. I think she has a wooden one.
Were there wooden dildos in the past?

Speaker 11 Things like that.

Speaker 14 Go on, Dan. Talk to us about dildos.
Yay.

Speaker 11 Well, yeah, I rarely talk about anything else, really.

Speaker 11 You know, it's quite because we find quite a few phalluses, penis-shaped things,

Speaker 11 even if we found them from the Stone Age. Although, then again, penises look like lots of other things as well.

Speaker 11 So there is a temptation to like find a little blob of something from the Stone Age and go, there's two people shragging. It's like,

Speaker 11 I mean, it's got lumps and bumps, but I mean, I guess it could be. So we're a bit, it's also really difficult to kind of work it out.
But there have been dildos that are are found through history.

Speaker 11 Amazingly, lots of people seem to make dildos out of bread. Oh, what? Yeah, I know.
Stale bread, fresh bread.

Speaker 11 I think the key thing to remember, folks, is before today, we were a materially poor culture. Like, most people didn't have much stuff.
So you just had to use whatever came to hand, right?

Speaker 14 Danny, you sure it wasn't just a baguette? Yeah, well, yes.

Speaker 11 These archaeologists have found a baguette and went filth. Absolute filth, clearly.

Speaker 11 A huge dildo. Yeah, huge dildo.
Yeah, so dildos are very common, and women would make their own dildos. There's an amazing one I once saw in the 18th century.

Speaker 11 It looks like a egg whisk and it was it was sort of um a vibrator. That's like when the when you get sort of mechanical vibration introduced as well.

Speaker 12 They'd whisked themselves off.

Speaker 11 Wow. Whisked themselves off.

Speaker 13 That sounds like there would probably be a lot of fatalities from the early vibrator.

Speaker 14 Do you mean the end was like a whisk or like the mechanism?

Speaker 11 The mechanism. You know when

Speaker 11 it's fine.

Speaker 13 Okay. We're on the same page.
Good. Okay.
It's a workout and a great time for yourself. I was thinking, I guess it's trial and error but

Speaker 13 the the error involved in the early ones oh wow so again this idea that we're living in our most progressive time perhaps not because perhaps the idea of female masturbation is now more of a taboo than it was in the past yes i think there have been times when it's been very i mean the 19th century i know the victorians come in for a hard time and they they on the whole

Speaker 11 It was both a time of prudishness, but also lots of sexual activity, lots of pornography, loads of Victorian porn.

Speaker 11 But they, like Florence Nightingale, writes extensively about trying to avoid masturbating I mean it was like a it was a fucking sun up to sundown it was her personal Everest and she was like wow yeah it was a it was like it's like Jerry Maguire it is a struggle that you will never ever know

Speaker 11 and so she never succumbed to it well no I think she did that's the problem so she did she sort of and then she hates herself and beats up about it oh god oh flow

Speaker 11 flow just tough

Speaker 13 times fine and you you mentioned Victorian pornography is that just like oh, look at that ankle? Look at that. Is it a real close-up of an ankle bone?

Speaker 11 Do you know what? Actually, this is niche content, but I actually really like Victorian pornography because it's just like, it's just brilliant. It's brilliant photography.

Speaker 14 Dan, we're recording. We're recording, Dan.
Just saying it. It's just live, yeah.

Speaker 11 So it's just photographs of like brilliantly human-looking people.

Speaker 11 They haven't worked out that they need to, like, it's not like modern pornography where it's not what most of us actually look like and the things we do.

Speaker 11 It's just like Victorian pornography is like amusingly normal looking people just like shagging or like going for a bicycle ride and like with nice scenery in a little photographer's studio, or like lifting weights or doing some flower arranging.

Speaker 11 And it's like, you know, they've got loads of body hair and they look like, you know, so it's kind of, it's great. I really like it.

Speaker 13 I just love the idea of flower arranging being a big part of the setup. I'm less concerned about the bodies.
I'm more like, yeah, that's fun for me.

Speaker 13 Like, oh, yeah, we know, we know the classic, the plumber came round to fix a sink, but what about like, I'm arranging my peonies?

Speaker 14 So Alice is googling as we speak.

Speaker 13 Yeah, I'm like, I think this could make a comeback.

Speaker 11 It'll be amazing how many of my guests, when I'm talking to them remotely, end up googling while I speak. It's this is not my first time ever.

Speaker 13 You just see that glazed expression.

Speaker 12 Alice isn't actually googling, she's just setting up her OnlyFans account, which is just her and the flowers.

Speaker 13 I feel like if you're into it, other people are into it. That's all I'm saying.

Speaker 11 Alice, if you think about it, they were using studios because the camera's quite unwieldy and the lighting rig and everything. So they were using studios where you do your family portraits.

Speaker 11 So all that kind of Victoriana that we're used to, like a nice, pleasant countryside scene or flowers or the little pedestal with the little, you know, hanging basket off it that you'd get when your great-great-grandma or whatever went for her family photos.

Speaker 11 They just chuck the porn in afterwards, use the same set, and that's why you get these

Speaker 11 kind of really weird scenes.

Speaker 13 Yeah, okay, this is already the most educational episode we've ever done, and I imagine the least you've ever done, or this is me, it's this top concert.

Speaker 11 Have you noticed that since James started googling Victorian porn, he hasn't spoken,

Speaker 14 damn, just give me five more minutes.

Speaker 11 Can you turn your camera on the porch?

Speaker 13 And also, we can't see. Can you turn your camera on?

Speaker 11 We can't see.

Speaker 13 I'm just beginning to think that Rocky's just hiding loads of Easter eggs in the books that we're not getting.

Speaker 11 He's a historian, basically. Yeah, essentially.
I actually, folks, I've been listening to your podcast for years. I completely agree.

Speaker 12 My dad is a real history buff, actually, because he went to the same school as the Duke of Wellington.

Speaker 13 Do you mean at the same time?

Speaker 12 I think they like missed by like two or three years. He was in upper sixth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 12 He was a lowly year seven, Alice. He couldn't possibly approach him.

Speaker 13 He does pepper pepper the books with references that honestly sometimes go over our heads.

Speaker 11 You see, I giggle at the parts that you guys don't even know is funny. So you're getting a double giggle from me.
That's the thing.

Speaker 11 When you guys are like the siege of Mafeking, you skip over to the next funny bit. I'm still roaring about that.
No.

Speaker 12 Can we talk about that specifically? Because I still am not really sure what the relief of mafeking is. I might just give us a bit of context of how it appeared in the books, if that's okay.
So

Speaker 12 this happens in book two, chapter nine, to be exact, everybody.

Speaker 12 Bella shook her head as her clitoris became wet. Sir James increased the pressure and his fingers slid through her nub.

Speaker 12 Bella drank her chardonnay and saw Belinda return braless from the ladies. Talk about the relief of Mafeking, thought Bella.

Speaker 11 What's she on about, Dan? As ever, I'm not absolutely sure I know exactly what he's talking about.

Speaker 11 The reference to Mafeking, it's always called the Reef Mafeking. Basically, it was a siege in the Boer War in about 1900.
It went on for 217 days. It had everything the Brits love.

Speaker 11 Quite a few tofts, a hopeless stand against the odds. They were surrounded by the Boers, who were these white South Koreans, these descendants of Dutch settlers in South Korea.

Speaker 11 The Brits and the Boers were sort of fighting it out for control of South Africa. And it was very celebrated because Baden-Powell, you might have heard of.

Speaker 12 Oh, yeah, the Scouts.

Speaker 11 The Scouts, yeah. He was in charge.
And through sort of plucky heroism against the odds, the Brits kind of held out. And they were then relieved.

Speaker 11 And because the war was going really particularly bad for the Brits at this time, it was bigged up. They gave out those Victoria Crosses and it was sort of made a big thing of.

Speaker 11 And so for a certain generation, mafeking became a kind of byword for plucky British underdog success.

Speaker 11 And so for someone schooled in that kind of 1950s, 60s, 70s, everyone would have heard about that. It would have been absolutely...

Speaker 11 And then the Boy Scouts were founded partly as a result a few years later. But it's interesting now no one's ever heard of it anymore, right? So it's,

Speaker 11 this is porn written by a certain generation for a certain generation, I would suggest. But I think you guys already knew that.

Speaker 12 So we're just the wrong people to be reading it, is what you're saying. It makes perfect sense for somebody in their 60s.

Speaker 11 Guys, your podcast is listened to unironically by people in their 60s.

Speaker 13 No wonder Emma Thompson loved it so much.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I don't know if you know that, but yeah,

Speaker 11 that's just how prose works for that generation.

Speaker 14 I'm so glad we've cleared that up once and for all. So it's a byword for being an underdog, basically.

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Speaker 14 Well, actually, Dan, while we're on on this train of thought, there's some other stuff

Speaker 14 Rocky's referenced that we wanted to kind of get your take on. A few other excerpts in the book.
There's a very famous one about the Titanic. Oh, yeah.
Jamie, if you'd be so kind.

Speaker 12 Did you want me to read it?

Speaker 12 Okay, this is in book one, chapter 12. Her nipples hardened with her feeling of freedom, and they were now as large as the three-inch rivets which had held the hull of the fateful Titanic together.

Speaker 11 I love that line. It marries maritime archaeology, maritime history together with nipples, which is something that I've, you know, it's so down.
It's so down.

Speaker 13 Algorithmically, Dan, that was created for you, really.

Speaker 11 Literally, it's like the people invented the TikTok algorithm, obviously the best algorithm in the world, have just fed that into my feeds, basically.

Speaker 11 They know me so well. It also, you know, there's a lively debate actually about Titanic's rivets, which I will just, if you've got time, I can share this with you.
Oh,

Speaker 11 please. He's jumped headlong.

Speaker 13 Is this a subreddit? Okay, fine.

Speaker 11 This is, oh, yeah, yeah, in fact, yeah, close your mentions about a week after this one because they're going to save them.

Speaker 12 People are going to go nuts.

Speaker 11 Basically, there's a lively debate about whether the rivets were of a high enough quality and whether the Titanic would have survived if they'd used steel rivets in the bow section, for example, and whether they were like in a hurry and they used lower quality iron rivets.

Speaker 11 And guess what? Lower quality iron rivets, they had too much slag in them.

Speaker 11 Way too much slag. Oh, man.
Wouldn't bunch. Watch out.
They had too much slag in them. And so they were a bit weaker.

Speaker 11 And so the thought is that they've looked at the Titanic on the seabed and she smashed into the iceberg, which carved that huge gash in the hull.

Speaker 11 And some of the steel plates, some of the plates, Alice, some of the plates obviously then loosened because these rivets kind of popped out.

Speaker 11 Now, people in, if you say this to people in Northern Ireland in Belfast, you need to get on a plane and get out of there very, very quickly. But

Speaker 11 there is a sort of a body of evidence that suggests when she was being built in Belfast, they did use these iron rivets, too much slag.

Speaker 11 Wow.

Speaker 12 So really, what dad's saying is that her nipples were hard, but not maximum hardness.

Speaker 13 Or is it a political statement? Because he's from Northern Ireland. So, is he saying there is this discussion, there is this debate?

Speaker 13 And so, is he saying, No, they were rock hard because the rivets that were made were rock hard?

Speaker 12 Don't come for the rivets.

Speaker 11 I think that's exactly what he's doing. And as the expression goes in Northern Ireland, the Titanic was fine when it left here.
Some Englishman drove it into an iceberg.

Speaker 11 And I think your dad's come down hard on that side.

Speaker 11 But I I think for his next draft, he might want to replace that with like depleted uranium rivets or something like that and and use a kind of anti-tank missile reference there.

Speaker 11 But you know, it's up to him.

Speaker 13 I'll be honest, Dan, when he tries to use a contemporary reference or tries to bring it up to date, it doesn't go well. But yeah, we can definitely uh we can definitely suggest something.

Speaker 12 I mean, this is making me really think that the joke is on us, guys, because if there are all these legitimate reasons why dad has put these metaphors

Speaker 12 in his books, then fuck, he is a a genius.

Speaker 13 Do you worry that having Dan here is the first time we've ever fully understood your dad?

Speaker 12 Well, we thought that we'd destroy Dan's podcast. He's destroying our podcast.

Speaker 12 This has backfired horribly.

Speaker 11 You have no idea how often I act as a translator between my friends and their parents.

Speaker 12 I understand him so much more now, Dan. Thank you.

Speaker 11 It's an obscure reference to World War I aviation, but we can, yeah, let's move on.

Speaker 13 I think what he means by that is, I love you.

Speaker 11 Exactly. Well, we were laughing.

Speaker 12 Well, we were laughing like very early in the book when dad wrote that somebody's breasts fell freely like pomegranates, which we found hilarious.

Speaker 12 And the pomegranate has kind of become the unofficial symbol of the Belinda Blink books. But pomegranates actually are quite a well-known symbol for sexuality and fertility, right, throughout history.

Speaker 11 Yes, I hope they are, absolutely. And you think of Persephone and the pomegranates when she's carried off by Hades down to the underworld and she eats pomegranates.

Speaker 11 But we've got so so many slang terms for breasts.

Speaker 11 Your dad, you know, he's in a very rich tradition. And there's an amazing social media TikTok account run by a woman called Kate Lister, who's a brilliant academic.

Speaker 11 And she, the other day, put through a post-a video with a list of things that breasts have been called. We've got the 18th century love hillocks, and Tudor's called them duckies.
Duckies, I like that.

Speaker 11 The one I quite like is Cupid's kettle drums.

Speaker 11 Oh, wow. That's amazing.
Yeah, that's a good one.

Speaker 11 Really unpleasant. 1970s lung warts.
Oh, Oh my god.

Speaker 13 Why would they call them something that is, you know, infected and it's wrong.

Speaker 14 Who on earth was calling them lung warts?

Speaker 11 Well, it's disgusting.

Speaker 13 Somebody that wasn't getting anywhere near them.

Speaker 11 1960s top bollocks. Oh, okay.
Yeah, makes sense. And another one from

Speaker 11 just before the French Revolution. The apple dumpling shop.
Oh, that's nice.

Speaker 14 That's very nice. I think that's nice.
It's better than top bollocks, for sure.

Speaker 14 I'm trying to think what else Rocky's called them over the years.

Speaker 13 Tan of tits, of course.

Speaker 12 Yeah, the money tits.

Speaker 12 He did once describe someone's breasts as falling like the Lehman brothers, which I quite enjoyed.

Speaker 11 Oh, yeah. That was quite a good one for dad.

Speaker 11 It's called

Speaker 13 rapidly, dramatically.

Speaker 11 I think

Speaker 11 that's the best way to get the ball. Bringing down the global financial system.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 13 The power of the breast.

Speaker 11 I like the way your dad is obsessed with the Norse gods. Yes.

Speaker 11 In a big way. I think they're more sex-positive.
I think the idea is, unlike the Christians who we can all agree, I've got an issue around sex, you know, the Virgin Mary and all this.

Speaker 11 Norse gods is his other nearest pantheon of gods that he's comfortable with. He's like, yep, we'll have that.
It's only about a thousand years old. I can borrow that one.

Speaker 11 And I guess he'd say quite sex positive and transgressive and naughty.

Speaker 13 Which would suit his canon.

Speaker 12 Yeah. I was intrigued.
When you said that obviously you're going to the Antarctica to recover a shipwreck, it kind of jogged my memory that my dad did use another famous shipwreck in one of the books.

Speaker 12 And I just want to know if this is possible.

Speaker 12 He said that

Speaker 12 in the Steels Pots and Pans office, one of the brushed antique brass knobs on the door was beautiful. It had beautiful gold threading around the bulb bit and was stunning to touch and see.

Speaker 12 Rumours had long circulated that it had been recovered from the Mary Rose, but who knew for real? I mean the Mary Rose is a Tudor warship?

Speaker 12 I think we managed to discern that from when we did that episode.

Speaker 11 So the Mary Rose was Henry VIII's favourite warship, and it sank famously. They left the gunports open and it sank in 1545 and then was then rose up from the seabed in 1982.

Speaker 11 So again, for your dad's generation, that would have been a kind of absolutely amazing event. It would have been one of the most televised events at that point.

Speaker 11 And for someone of his age, it would be this. amazing moment watching that ship come up from the seabed.

Speaker 14 Just out of interest though, because that's just the doorknob on her office at Steel's Pots and Pans. How much do you think that object would be worth?

Speaker 11 Off the Mary Rose.

Speaker 14 Yeah, given its fame.

Speaker 11 Oh, that's a very tough question.

Speaker 11 I mean, no one's ever, you don't really buy stuff off Mary Rose because it's all been sort of, you know, protected. And so I don't know how you'd end up.

Speaker 11 It's like saying if you could sell a part of the Crown Jewels, what they're worth, I don't really know, but I think it would be worth a brass on.

Speaker 11 I mean, look, brass corrodes in seawater, as we all know, so it's very unlikely to have survived on the bottom of the stone for 400 years. Okay.

Speaker 11 But it is conceivable that that it was buried in mud when it sank, so let's just go with that.

Speaker 11 And then it's conceivable the museum sold it off because they were short of cash and they somehow got around the regulations. And so I think it would go for 100 grand, 200 grand.

Speaker 11 I mean, it'd be, you know, very, very valuable soul. Wow.

Speaker 13 To then use it as a working door handle feels like a bit of a disgrace, really, doesn't it? As you say, it should be in a glass cabinet. Do you know what?

Speaker 11 That is such a good point. I hadn't thought about that.
Yeah, legend has it came from the Mary Rose. Well, if it did, it's one of the most precious items in British history, you absolute maniacs.

Speaker 11 What are you doing?

Speaker 11 He does say no one knew for real.

Speaker 12 I think we know for real.

Speaker 11 It can't have happened.

Speaker 13 You may know this about Jamie's dad, Dan, but he's often covering his back, so he will make these sweeping claims and then put in a little caveat that's like, but you know, it was myth, so you can't have me for it.

Speaker 13 In case the estate of the Mary Rose comes

Speaker 12 exactly, he obviously felt safe having the brand name Mary Rose in there. He normally avoids those like the plague.

Speaker 11 Mary Rose is public domain. It's more than 70 years after the death of the business of designer, right? So he's fine.
Brilliant. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Well, Dan, this has been so much fun and very enlightening. I have to say, we've learnt a lot, as to be expected.
You've probably not learnt anything.

Speaker 11 I've had a masterclass in broadcasting and podcasting here, guys. What can I say?

Speaker 13 I don't doubt it.

Speaker 11 I've learned from some absolute legends.

Speaker 13 If this doesn't spawn a kind of mini-series of porno hit or, you know, my dad wrote a history book, I think that would be a real shame.

Speaker 13 But likely, we'll just see you drunk at a Christmas party, won't we?

Speaker 11 I hope so. But if your dad wants to write Viking warrior porn, I can be a historical consultant.
No problem at all.

Speaker 13 You've got one subscriber.

Speaker 14 Enjoy the Antarctica, Dan. Hope it all goes well.
I hope you've got your stash of Victorian pornography to keep you company.

Speaker 11 Good. I've printed it out.
I'd run out of colour on my printer, but that's fine. Not a problem.
And I'm going to come watch you guys at a live show. So thank you very much for having me on, man.

Speaker 11 It's so great to see you guys.

Speaker 12 Yeah, come to the palladium.

Speaker 13 And as this is your last chance, Dan, anything else you want to say about sex?

Speaker 11 I've just told you every single thing i know about sex and sex and history i'll find out

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