Bonus Episode 46 PREVIEW: 2011 Oban Fireworks Display

We have been fucking up.

This is my fault.

Right.

You asked me to help with the Catholicism bonus episode.

It will take about 500 years.

I'm sorry.

What we have instead.

And that's just the recording time.

Also, the Sagrata Famia is coming, folks.

Not an episode.

It's just related to the Cathedral.

It's officially.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But so

this, I guess.

I think Alan Parsons Project song.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now about to witness the awesome lethality of the Alan Parsons project.

It's kind of like an inverted, it's like an anti-Catholicism.

I don't mean in the sense of like being against it, although it is.

But like, it's a kind of a Catholicism adjacent little tale we have tonight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And are we going to do the Reformation here in this pod?

I mean.

I summarize it with one word, which is

England got major divorced guy energy all of a sudden.

And you kept it ever since.

Yeah.

And has that shit?

Graham Linner.

Who else you got over there?

That's trash.

He's not here anymore.

He's going to be English.

Not even English.

He's Irish.

I mean, granted.

He's a betrayal of my people.

Well, granted, he ended up making his career in England, but still.

Also, the only reason Father Ted isn't cultural appropriation.

I have to say the thing about how it's the first episode of 2025.

Unless Devon has pulled off some miraculous feat of editing and decided to eat into their own own holiday, which I, you know,

would never ask them to do.

This is the first bonus episode of 2025.

Welcome to 2025.

I hope you're enjoying it.

We're not there yet.

Things have not gotten better.

Well, we don't know.

They could have been

like

January 5th

of 2025.

Trump could have died.

Elon Musk.

Elon could have gone.

I'll take him with him.

Yeah.

Murder, suicide.

Yeah.

We're by the paywall.

I can do whatever the fuck I want.

Sign Trump

2025.

Caution.

The moving walkway is ending.

Please hold on to the handrail.

Welcome to 2025.

Caution.

The year of Linux of the Death.

The Moving Walkway is ending.

What else is going on in 2025?

Well, it's going to be the Jubilee year, which is why

we had to put off the Catholicism episode in order to release it in 2025 for theological reasons.

Yeah, we're going to be.

So I'm not going to be able to do that.

Season is coming.

We're sorry.

We are doubling up bonuses.

Thank you for your patience.

That is an ecumenical matter.

Actually, it is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Bang.

This is the subject of the bam.

Wham.

Wham.

Bang.

It's a very quick one, largely the product of Gareth.

But I'm willing to interpolate and improvise.

Oh,

that's a total team effort.

That's a total team effort.

I put this together in a fever dream about two hours ago.

So, yeah, we're cooking.

We're going to talk about an explosion.

And in particular, an explosion that happened in Scotland.

So that's exciting.

Oh, did you guys get 9-11?

Well, yeah, this is Oben's 9-11.

Scotland's 9-11.

Obens 9-11, I guess.

Yeah, Oben's 9-11.

Yeah,

we've got to set ourselves into the perspective here.

This is the worst thing to ever happen, probably, to Oben

since the ferry terminal opened and/or closed.

I haven't been to Oban.

This is going to be a real philosophical quandary for me now because I've been to lots of places like Oban, but I don't know if I've been too.

Oh, it looks very pretty.

I know Oban the Scotch.

We'll talk about Oban in due course.

There's some very, very nice whiskey in Oban as Lee is exploring out.

It's very, very good.

Yeah, you might know a bit about that.

Yeah, so.

Wait, but it's a bonus, isn't it?

So we just

thought it was a regular one, so there's news in here, but we're going to skip it and put it in the next free one.

Okay, yeah, you're getting the fun news.

I like that you've you've just zoomed.

That was fun.

Yeah,

but actually, Roz is starting this one off because

I needed uh Ross to give me a leg up.

So we're Roz, you're kicking this one off.

Tell us about what the fuck is going on in our screens.

There's many colors and shapes.

Here's my very lethargic explanation of fireworks.

What are fireworks?

Fireworks are when bang and pretty colors.

Pretty much.

Yeah.

Potassium.

And also a pop-hawk band from Detroit

who released O Common Life, which is a hell of an album.

Encyclopedia checks that you make sometimes.

It's all in there.

It's all in there.

It's all floating around in some sort of.

Why do I remember the name of a boxer called Contact Mike?

But yeah, it's some kind of pyrotechnic.

It makes a bang.

It makes a bright light.

It's for entertainment.

Here in the United States, you can buy them quite freely.

Yeah,

that's insane to me, by the way.

Like,

I remember watching Simpson's episodes where the availability of fireworks or illegal fireworks was a plot point and being like.

This is the only time that I have felt like this is a foreign culture to me.

Back when you could buy a quarter stick, you can't even get those illegally anymore.

That's because of Joe Biden.

No, that's actually earlier than Joe Biden.

You should change it to AFT for absolute fucking tyrants.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

ATF should be a convenience store.

Yeah, I mean, you know, there's the fun thing we have in the United States where

a lot of states, it's illegal for residents of that state to buy fireworks,

and you can't bring them in, but it is legal for out-of-state residents to purchase fireworks.

So there's just this.

You have a bunch of like state line fireworks.

Yes, exactly.

At every state border, there's just suddenly, you know, 50 fireworks stores right there on the interstate.

And then, you know, you just have to make sure the cops don't see you drive back in.

That's like when PAC police used to pull you over for returning from New Jersey with liquor in your car that you bought out of state.

Oh, yeah.

That that and the Claymont total wine.

Yeah, you know,

sometimes the American Kleinstadteri

really like heads home, you know, to be like, yeah, you guys are global hagamon, but you're also like 50 little feuding prince-bishoprics, you know?

Think the whole

princely states, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Roz is Prince of Pennsylvania.

Pretty nice, you know, like pretty, pretty, it's, it's very nice to look at.

You know, look, There's what I believe is referred to as the Eiffel Tower.

Yeah.

In its native French.

It'd be a cool bonus episode in itself, in its own French.

That'd be a fun one.

Gustave, you son of a whore.

Let's get this out of the way now.

Eating lunch in the Eiffel Tower every day because it's the one building in Paris you can't see the Eiffel Tower from.

It's a bit like Appleton Tower in Edinburgh, actually.

I eat a lot of lunches in Appleton Tower for very similar reasons.

Shout out to everyone who knows where the fuck I'm talking about.

Yeah, I used to to get my lunch in the Boyd Ore for the same reasons.

Yeah, the problem is now you see La Defense.

And what's the other one?

Two Mompanas.

Yeah, that's the one I was thinking of.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, that's where you go eat lunch because I think that's the tower is a grim fucking building.

Good God.

I'm so pleased you've googled it, Liam.

It's just horrifying, isn't it?

Liam, stack Boyd Or building on there as well.

B-O-Y-D Space O-R-R.

Okay, but oh,

Oh, okay.

Uh-huh.

All right.

And now imagine that you were paying thousands of pounds a year to be around

near that building, chewing on the asbestos,

etc.

Delicious.

Maybe the woman I am today.

Oh, dear.

Anyway, pretty explosions.

Sorry, Ross, we're derailing you already and we're all going to be.

We're going to need some derailments because I didn't write down down much because i'm tired seeking derailments is that i mean seeking derailments yeah you've heard of seeking arrangers now get ready for seeking derailments yeah hey we all collectively need a rest after the last mainstream episode where we we were all cooking so uh you know it's it's time to rest our little comediat chops

absolutely this is this is like the pre-holiday one where like it's it's like last day of work before the office christmas party we're trying not to phone it in this is that this is exactly this is sort of uh this is sort of uh i mean well that last episode, you know, we were all laughing so hard.

We all have rock hard abs now.

That's not

the phrase I would use.

Okay.

Yeah.

I was wondering where I got these from.

Stop feeling like Darren Lyons.

So this thing, gunpowder, right, is

possibly in the early first millennium AD

in China.

China.

China.

Chilean boys.

Stylian the boys.

The Trump gets worse every time.

It gets further and every day we go further and further from Donald Trump's.

Trump's light.

Yeah.

As soon as a pregnant pauses.

We got another four years for our Trump impressions to get worse.

Go fuck yourself.

I really like.

Well, he's got another four years to get worse as well.

Like, he's going to get older and worse.

Super COVID, baby.

Let's do it.

When he gets COVID again and then gives all the the Secret Service guys COVID again,

he's going to get H5N1 is what he's going to say.

That's true.

Whatever pandemic 2 is, he's going to be right there on the front lines getting it.

That would be hilarious if Trump has to do a second lockdown.

All the second round of stimulus checks.

And yeah, and all the Freedom Eagle guys are like, Trump is the greatest president of freedom ever.

i

really once again had all the restaurants shut down

i i don't want to do another lockdown i don't want to do that either yeah no i think we should probably try lockdown round two pandemic too i agree let's

that's why we elected donald john trump

um it's kind of like his middle name is john honestly I really like figure five here, where a guy appears to be hanging a big thing of mistletoe from a a like a big lampshade.

Oh, God.

This is an early European depiction of Chinese fireworks.

Oh, boy.

Yeah, I mean,

really well.

Yeah, I mean, fireworks, fireworks have been kicking around in China for ages.

One of the four great inventions is gunpowder, after all.

And

it's of like sort of

some military use, but it's also just like, it's a lot of fun.

Once you just have gunpowder ready to go, you can just like make little firecrackers and like uh explode things for fun and profit you can make people think you're cool that's what you exactly

this is the thing i'm gonna enumerate an anthropological principle here about 90 of the shit that happens is due to the human drive to do something cool yes therefore about 90 of the history of china is also due to the drive to do something cool.

Country shit, yeah.

Yeah, thus, I mean, honestly, tick tock was great for that in the early days yeah you should see like chinese peasant shit like chinese rednecks old man um

brothers redneck shit is the like war you know war changes so war changes rednecks don't fan

you want to you want to you want to see 10 000 videos of someone lovingly washing an animal and then slaughtering it um

i don't know why those things keep coming up on my feet i really don't like them just keeps

prophecy.

The algorithm or whatever.

If it's 80% wash and you're watching the wash, because you know, it's nice to see an animal having a wash.

The sentence I just said, I kind of got to the end of it and thought, no, that's a strange thing to say.

You're doing all right.

Yeah, we're okay.

We're okay.

I'm going to do one thing here, which is which is find, which is going to

read into the record two facts that I learned from Wikipedia.

Because this is my research process.

And it is now time for the first fact about Chinese fireworks, which is that there is one source that said that during a like large fireworks display in the Song dynasty, a rocket-propelled firework called, I'm not going to try and pronounce the Chinese, but an Earth Rat went off near the Empress Dowager and startled her.

This was one of the earliest examples of rocket propulsion.

So it's a straight line from Earth Rat startles startles the Empress to RPG-7.

Yeah.

This is also, it took a solid thousand years between the invention of gunpowder and figuring out how to make a little rocket with it.

So they did not move fast and break things back then.

They probably

writes, you know.

Oh, God, did they write slow, boring?

Oh, God.

Ancient Chinese.

I mean, can you imagine ancient Chinese managers?

If you had to summarize confucianism as a value system i would say it tries very hard to be the opposite of move fast and break things because

move as little as possible and preserve things i should you try just get just just try and do really well on the civil service exam

um

thank you also also you are never free of your like grandpa who is still judging you yeah and then then you get to be a eunuch i don't

be a eunuch, man.

Well, you know,

there are some who are.

Who are born eunuchs, some who are made eunuchs, some who have eunuchs thrust upon them.

That's almost a Bible quote.

At the Emperor's Court, of course.

Yes, obviously.

It really does feel like last day before holiday break, the teachers have wielded the ancient CRT and have put in one of those eyewitness videos.

Yeah.

I'm really enjoying the

complex object of like ritual significance that also looks like a shitload of TV aerials and birdhouses.

I was about to say, yeah, this is,

yeah, nice.

Very good.

Some kind of early fireworks display before they had rockets.

They just, you know, you got to string it up and make a bunch of noise.

Everyone gets excited.

To be fair,

if you lived in a world that is lit only by candlelight and the sun,

this shit's going to blow your mind.

Good point.

Very good point.

At the very least, they did have computers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Abacus guy moves one to the left.

Yeah, no, they roll.

We'll get to those.

That's

comprehensible.

Is this kind of

kind of like courtly punishment we're going to sentence you to for this?

I think I had that in 2024.

I'm an American citizen.

I will protest that.

Have you immured?

No, I can't.

They can't.

They're going to have to ransom me or something.

Yep.

Great General Roz, will you return to the front?

He's just like, one second, please.

I have to go take a poop.

Fetch me my brown pants.

Fetch me my pooping pants.

Yeah.

So wait, so we've had a thousand years from gunpowder to fireworks.

Rocketry?

Okay, cool.

Rocketry.

Rocketry.

You know, initially, again, these are sort of primitive firecrackers.

It develops over time into rockets, mortars, with fancy colors, with chemical additives.

So now mostly like alchemy in a lot of ways.

I've seen

fucking around with the salts that kill you.

And it's been the time before they kill you.

Oh, you go, oh, wow, that makes a weird colored flame.

And then you die, and your notes pass to a guy who is trying to make fireworks.

And he goes, Yeah, potassium.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, now there is presumably a Chinese guy who also boiled a vadapiss for several months.

So, you know, and discovered, oh, I can change the color of the flame with this.

Still haven't figured out lead into gold yet, but we'll get to that.

Who cares?

Look at all the tits I boil.

Alchemy is so funny to me, given it's like 100% fatality rate.

Like,

every alchemist of of note until they started being chemists instead of alchemists

died of like potassium piss.

Basically, yeah, of like incredible poisoning.

Just stuff that we've talked about in previous episodes, but absolutely self-inflicted and via skin.

Just lovely, lovely, lovely.

Searching for the Philosopher's Stone and discovering HF.

Not every way, but enough ways to make the opposite of the Philosopher's Stone.

The opposite of the Philosopher's Stone is just a tub of HF.

Yeah.

Yeah, the opposite of Philosopher's Stone just kills you instantly.

We've invented the stone that kills you instantly.

Oh, you want an immortality?

Oh, I thought you said mortality, boss.

I mean, it makes sense why, like, Chin Shi Hong would be, like, drinking mercury, trying to prolong his life and stuff.

That was like the state of scientific

reasoning at the time.

Yes.

Well, I haven't died of this yet compared to some of the other stuff I've been doing, you know.

Yeah, compared to the cesium I rubbed on my skin earlier, this is good, right?

Exactly, get like a cobalt radiation source.

It's also fun how many, like, particularly like heavy metal poisonings, feel kind of good.

Lead tastes delicious.

Yeah, you can, like, actually, like arsenic, uh,

really good foundation until you die.

Um, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uh, antimony as a as like a food additive, you know, you get a lot of like.

Yeah, Liam and I, for the benefit of um, for the benefit of the listeners, Liam and I are just shaking our heads in confusion at this point.

It's uh, yeah, antimony.

Oh, my God.

Okay.

You can, you can just fuck around, right?

And like, until you actually die,

a lot of poisonings feel okay.

Yeah.