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Speaker 1: Also media. Ah, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the

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Speaker 1: only podcast around. If you're listening to another podcast, I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: but you have lost your mind and are are hallucinating

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Speaker 1: whatever crazy characters. There's no such thing as Joe Rogan,

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Speaker 1: not a one in the real world. Just me and

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Speaker 1: of course Sophie, My producer and our guest for today.

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Speaker 1: Ed zitron Ed is a tech industry journalist and columnist

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Speaker 1: with the newsletter Where's Your ed At? One of my

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Speaker 1: favorite people to read on the internet. Ed, welcome to

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Speaker 1: the show for the first time.

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Speaker 2: What's up? Happy to be here. Yeah, now, Ed.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever hallucinated a podcast?

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Speaker 2: I mean I've recorded quite a few and forgotten them

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Speaker 2: almost the imediately, So that's just called a podcast that's

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Speaker 2: broadcasting just experience amnesia in real time. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Fact, we'll have a We'll have people come on our

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Speaker 1: subreddit sometimes and be like you should do this guy,

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Speaker 1: and I'll be like, oh, yeah, that'd be a great topic.

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Speaker 1: And then someone will post like, no, they covered in

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Speaker 1: three years ago, and I'll go, oh, yeah, I remembered

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Speaker 1: that for sure.

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Speaker 2: That's generous. Sometimes it's like, hey, remember that thing you

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Speaker 2: said in the podcast that you recorded yesterday.

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Speaker 1: It's like, absolutely not.

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Speaker 2: I will read my work back sometimes in like laugh

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Speaker 2: at my own jokes. That's one of my favorite tricks,

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Speaker 2: just because I'm like, this guy's great. That. Yeah, I

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Speaker 2: don't remember writing these words.

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Speaker 1: Much funnier than me. Geez got to get him on

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Speaker 1: the show Ed Elephant in the Room. You live in Vegas,

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Speaker 1: but but you come from a little island across the sea.

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Speaker 2: That that that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you feel about the British aristocracy?

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Speaker 1: I feel terrible about them. I do not like them.

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Speaker 1: I think we give them more than one pounds, so

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Speaker 1: that's too many.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I do not see what they do other than

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Speaker 2: take up press and get away with dressing up like Nazis. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and also being related to them in some cases. And

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Speaker 2: I find them a frustrating group, and I find the

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Speaker 2: lionization of them disgusting.

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Speaker 1: Oh, although you're gonna be your opinions, you're gonna love

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Speaker 1: this episode. Then this is going to be a slow burn.

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Speaker 1: The first episode is largely going to be setting stuff

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Speaker 1: up for our listeners, not going to be as much

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Speaker 1: bastardury until we really hit episode two, in which case

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Speaker 1: it's going to come out hard and fast. But there's

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Speaker 1: a lot you have to establish in this episode because

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Speaker 1: we're talking about have you ever heard of a guy

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Speaker 1: named Lord John Aspinall I've not. Have you heard of

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Speaker 1: his close friend, the lucky Lord Luken I have? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this was a big story, right and like.

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Speaker 2: The well, my parents in their house they have this

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Speaker 2: weird space above their washing machine and for years we've

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Speaker 2: referred to it as Lord Lucan's house because in England

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Speaker 2: it's like held Lord Lucan go spoiled the episode, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: ruined the whole episode, given it a way, but.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's a beautiful piece of dry humor. No

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Speaker 1: we can. I mean we'll say up front, right like

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Speaker 1: Lord Lucan is a guy who committed a terrible murder

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Speaker 1: as he's lord obviously and then disappeared, and we will

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Speaker 1: be talking about what happened and how it relates to

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Speaker 1: our subject today. Who is his buddy and the guy

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Speaker 1: who kind of robbed like the the generation of the

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Speaker 1: British aristocracy who came of age in like the forties,

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Speaker 1: robbed them all blind because he was a casino maven.

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Speaker 1: That's Lord Aspinall. And he also helped invent the modern

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Speaker 1: zoo in a pretty irresponsible way but still zoo's. So

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Speaker 1: this is gonna be a fun episode. But uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: I feel like we can get started now. He's not

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Speaker 1: a dude. I think most Americans will have heard of.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of what we'll be doing is kind

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Speaker 1: of setting stuff up, which means we get to talk

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Speaker 1: about the public school system in the UK, which will

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Speaker 1: be fun.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Also, all these people are fascists, like straight up Hitler

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Speaker 1: loving Nazis, as you alluded to at the very start

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Speaker 1: of this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but most of England. That's the thing that I

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Speaker 2: think that people don't realize about. I say, this is

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Speaker 2: a British Jew. I think people don't realize around like

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Speaker 2: the horrors of the Holocaust and such. It wasn't like

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Speaker 2: it was great being Jewish anywhere. Yeah, it's And so

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Speaker 2: it's like when you find out, oh, someone in British

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Speaker 2: history was a fascists, you need to go the other

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Speaker 2: way around, Like who wasn't he has like nine people who.

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Speaker 1: Was on the right side of that, certainly not John

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Speaker 1: Victor Aspinall, who was born in Delhi then part of

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Speaker 1: the British Raj. On June eleventh, nineteen twenty six. His

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Speaker 1: mother was a lady named Mary Grace Horn. She was

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Speaker 1: the daughter of a highly regarded colonial official named Clement Horn.

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Speaker 1: Clement built bridges in India, right, like that was his job.

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Speaker 1: So they're not aristocrats, right, but they are like upper

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Speaker 1: middle class kind of verging on rich, and within sort

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Speaker 1: of the colonial system. They have a lot of clout.

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Speaker 1: Now that's not the same as sort of being somebody

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Speaker 1: who's considered in like the ruling class back home, right,

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Speaker 1: but it's you know, a pretty significant position over in India.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: Mary's father was the kind of dude who was pretty

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Speaker 1: openly disappointed in her for being born a girl, not

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Speaker 1: an uncommon situation in this time. And she grew up

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Speaker 1: knowing that she was going to be basically a child

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Speaker 1: in her father's control her whole life until she married.

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Speaker 1: So as soon as she gets a chance, she jumps

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Speaker 1: out of home and she marries this guy, Robert Aspinall,

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Speaker 1: who is a surgeon who joined the Foreign service to

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Speaker 1: see the world. Their marriage wasn't great. They don't actually

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Speaker 1: really like each other, but they have a kid together

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Speaker 1: named Chip, and after having Chip, Mary starts cheating on

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Speaker 1: him straight away. She meets a young military officer, a lieutenant,

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Speaker 1: and the two of them conceive their second child. Are

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Speaker 1: subject for today, John aspinall underneath the shade of a

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Speaker 1: tamarind tree, which is kind of romantic. That's a romantic

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Speaker 1: tree to have sex under. I feel like a tamarind

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Speaker 1: tree makes.

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Speaker 2: A nice romantic tree to do it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, redwood is probably top of it.

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Speaker 2: I would say the smells are great, mmm, but no

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Speaker 2: fruit anyway, no fruit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, John's a tamarind baby.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: I got two big sources for this series one both

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Speaker 1: of them are biographies of John. One of them is

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Speaker 1: this fawning nineteen eighty eight book by Brian Masters that's

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Speaker 1: literally titled The Passion of John Aspinall.

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Speaker 2: What it's like the eighties as well. So like very

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Speaker 2: history has already described this guy as a monster.

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Speaker 1: I'm guessing yeah, yeah, well yeah, he's a monster. And

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Speaker 1: literally the only he did two things. One of them

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Speaker 1: was run a zoo that killed a shitload of people,

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Speaker 1: and the other of them was run a massive gambling hall.

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Speaker 1: Like one thing I'll give the us and I won't

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Speaker 1: give us much, But when when we have people who

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Speaker 1: build casino empires, we're pretty open about like, yeah, he

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Speaker 1: was just a gangster, Like, yeah, that dude was a

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Speaker 1: fucking gangster.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. But also we lionize pieces of ship all

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Speaker 2: the time. We just don't shure it as directly as

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Speaker 2: we do back home.

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Speaker 1: No, we'll lionize. Yeah, we lionized them for being gangsters,

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Speaker 1: you know, Alex Jones being like Trump is mobbed up

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Speaker 1: and then you should definitely vote for him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, God. I do think that England makes a

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Speaker 2: special kind of bastard though, because you look in American

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Speaker 2: history you've got tons of monsters, and as this podcast

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Speaker 2: that's told, I'm sure, but England makes a certain piece

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Speaker 2: of shit. Yeah, really, we brew them special. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 2: not just enough to defraud people and kill people. It's

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Speaker 2: we need to do so with a little bit of

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Speaker 2: mustard on it. And what better way than a fucking zoo.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that is zoo. And that's it I've been

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Speaker 1: wanting to talk about. There's there's an Adam Curtis documentary

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Speaker 1: called The Mayfair Set that covers a number of the

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Speaker 1: people will be talking about. It's kind of going in

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Speaker 1: some different directions because it's it's a lot broader in

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Speaker 1: its purview. But there's a lot of these because these

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Speaker 1: the guys who are like John Aspinall's friends who will

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Speaker 1: talk about are like sponsoring coups in a bunch of

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Speaker 1: different countries, and I want to be able to talk

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Speaker 1: about more of them, but like, you have to get

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Speaker 1: this grounding in sort of the social society that they

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Speaker 1: come from before you can you can explain much about

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Speaker 1: like why they got to do the things that they

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Speaker 1: got to do. So Aspinall is kind of the center

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Speaker 1: of all that, and that's why we're starting with him

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Speaker 1: this week. The other biography I read about him, it's

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Speaker 1: a two thousand and seven book called The Gamblers by

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Speaker 1: John Pearson, and yeah, the it's a lot better. Pearson

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Speaker 1: wrote a biography of Ian Fleming. He's like as a

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Speaker 1: professional like journalist as well as a biographer, and he

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Speaker 1: does a lot better job of being kind of critical

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Speaker 1: to the subject. But yeah, Masters' book doesn't mention the

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Speaker 1: fact that Mary had her son sort of out of wedlock,

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Speaker 1: because that wasn't really known at the time. But by

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Speaker 1: the time that Pearson writes his book, the evidence we

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Speaker 1: have suggests that, you know, doctor Aspinall learned pretty quickly

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Speaker 1: that John is not his biological son, and to his credit,

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Speaker 1: I guess he doesn't tell him or seem to have

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Speaker 1: taken it out on him in any way. But that's

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Speaker 1: not really a grand gesture because the Aspinall family follows

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Speaker 1: this kind of fine upper class tradition of not raising

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Speaker 1: their kid, right Like, he doesn't disown his son for

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Speaker 1: not being technically his son. But he also has nothing

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Speaker 1: to do with the raising of either of these kids

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Speaker 1: because from their earliest days, John and Ship are raised

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Speaker 1: by a local Indian nanny and they actually kids considered

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Speaker 1: themselves Indian as their mother did. Their early contact with

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Speaker 1: with the UK was was pretty much non existent.

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Speaker 2: Just because they were raised in India.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, in India, born in Delhi, raised, yes, yes, and

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Speaker 1: there their first language is Hindi, right, like that's what

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Speaker 1: they're they're speaking that before they really get fluent in English.

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Speaker 1: So it's not like necessarily and this is you read

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Speaker 1: biographies of like British kids born in India in this

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Speaker 1: time and that's like a pretty common experience. So Master

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Speaker 1: says this about John as a young child. Quote, he

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Speaker 1: said whatever came into his head, even as an infant,

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Speaker 1: he was agreeable company lively and affectionate and very attractive

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Speaker 1: with the shock of blonde hair. There grew between Miss

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Speaker 1: Aspinall and her son a powerful bond, uncommonly close and confidential,

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Speaker 1: which was never to be impaired in any fraternal quarrel,

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Speaker 1: no matter how mild an. Irrespective of the justice of

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Speaker 1: the case, Mary always took John's side. And this is probably,

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Speaker 1: i mean, it's theory by some of the people writing

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Speaker 1: about them, this is because she hated her husband, so

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Speaker 1: she's going to like prefer the kid that she didn't

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Speaker 1: have with him. But yeah, she was something of a

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Speaker 1: wild woman at her time, very independent. She was also

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Speaker 1: an inveterate gambler. So when John spent time with his mom,

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Speaker 1: some of the first experiences he would have had as

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Speaker 1: his mom playing poker or other games of chance with

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Speaker 1: her friends, wagering money on them. Childhood was also characterized

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Speaker 1: by regular close contact with exotic animals. He's got a

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Speaker 1: great uncle over there. Like you know, if you're part

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Speaker 1: of the ruling colonial class in India, you get to

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Speaker 1: spend a lot of time with elephants. And so he

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Speaker 1: had an uncle who would hold these garden parties and

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Speaker 1: just bring out his elephants and the kids would like

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Speaker 1: feed them sugarcane and get lifted into the air by

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Speaker 1: them by their trunks. And one of John's first experiences

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Speaker 1: would be being awed by what he called the power

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Speaker 1: and gentleness of these elephants, which sounds pretty cool, right,

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Speaker 1: Like that's a dope childhood experiences to have.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, she compared to the average British childhood. Yeah

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Speaker 2: time where it was just like being hit with a cane. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: being hit with a cane, learning to be racist the

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Speaker 2: British way, Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And don't forget dying in a coal mine.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, dying three, which was considered old. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So another of his mom's his mom has some boyfriends

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Speaker 1: during this period of time. I don't think John knows

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Speaker 1: that they're her boyfriends. They're just like friends of hers.

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Speaker 1: But one of these guys who he comes to like idolize,

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Speaker 1: has two pet tigers, which is why John idolizes this

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Speaker 1: guy because got pet tigers. So he gets to like

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Speaker 1: play with these guys tigers. Now, this idyllic childhood doesn't

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Speaker 1: last long because, as I noted, parents don't raise their kids.

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Speaker 1: And when John was six and Chip was I think

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Speaker 1: like a year or so older, the Aspittalls decide it's

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Speaker 1: time for their kids to get out of India and

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Speaker 1: go off to a boarding school. This was the fashion

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Speaker 1: at the time. It was also a social necessity. Again,

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Speaker 1: they're not aristocrats, but they're wealthy and they want to

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Speaker 1: be in the aristocracy. And if you're going to do that,

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Speaker 1: if you want to fit in with those people, you

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Speaker 1: have to go to the same schools they do, which

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Speaker 1: are our public schools.

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Speaker 2: But ideally your child is put aside so that you

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Speaker 2: can focus on being rich. Yeah, you also don't want

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Speaker 2: to deal with them. Yeah, you want to have a child,

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Speaker 2: but you don't want to have a child, yeah at

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Speaker 2: that time in history.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to know them when they're a cute baby,

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Speaker 1: and then when they're eighteen and have graduated, Yeah, just

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Speaker 1: in time for you to hate them. Yeah, yeah, for

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Speaker 1: you to really grow to resent them. We are talking

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Speaker 1: about like very fancy boarding schools here like that. That's

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Speaker 1: like we're talking about Eton, which is where the basically

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Speaker 1: the ruling class has sent their boys for forever.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and I think he's going to go to John's

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Speaker 1: going to go to a school called Rugby, which is

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Speaker 1: named that because that's where rugby comes from, Like it's

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Speaker 1: the it was where Yeah, rugby got sort of started off,

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Speaker 1: I guess, which I hadn't realized came from an institution initially,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, there you go.

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Speaker 2: That doesn't surprise me. Yeah, yeah, I mean the country.

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Speaker 1: I like rugby, though I don't know. I wouldn't play it,

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Speaker 1: but I feel like it's more more honest than football, Like,

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Speaker 1: let's get those pads on.

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Speaker 2: Out of there. Are you talking about American football? Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I was going to say, yeah, I was. I was

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Speaker 2: a large boy in a British private school known for

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Speaker 2: sports and drama, and let me tell you, that's the

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Speaker 2: worst place in the world to be overweight. And that

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Speaker 2: was pretty how I was like three hundred and fifty pounds.

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Speaker 2: And had I grown up in America, I always think

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Speaker 2: I would have made an offensive lineman, a deeply offensive person.

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Speaker 2: I'm very hard to move, would have been great. But no,

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Speaker 2: I was in England where I was just called various

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Speaker 2: insults around my size and the speed I moved at

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Speaker 2: it wasn't enjoyable at all. Ah. Nevertheless, I'm I've learned

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Speaker 2: absolutely nothing from that, so just other than that the

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Speaker 2: self loathing, but that's what being British is. That's the

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Speaker 2: core of it. I mean, yes, that's the British identity

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Speaker 2: is hating oneself.

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Speaker 1: Yeah that's uh. I guess the American identity is loving

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Speaker 1: oneself and then hating everybody who's similar to you.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, exactly, or having no loyalty to anyone, including

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Speaker 2: yourself somehow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, deeply deeply betraying your past self in

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Speaker 1: the hope that it will benefit your future self something

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Speaker 1: like exactly, yes, yes, yeah, yeah, there we go. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he goes to this fancy this fancy like boarding school,

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Speaker 1: and this is this is the this is like the

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Speaker 1: tradition for kind of the ruling class. Like if you

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Speaker 1: are like, part of why you go to a school

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Speaker 1: like eton is so that you can learn how to talk.

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Speaker 1: There's like accents that are kind of associated with the

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Speaker 1: very oldest of these schools and how to fit in

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Speaker 1: with the people who are kind of ruling the empire.

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Speaker 1: And part of the way in which kids, these children

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Speaker 1: who go to these schools are molded into that tradition

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Speaker 1: is by basically a system of hazing, right, Like that's

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Speaker 1: a huge and how you makes these kids and this

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Speaker 1: brings us to a difficult topic to discuss. That's going

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Speaker 1: it's going to sound like I'm using a slur here.

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Speaker 1: I'm probably not. We'll deal with that because the kind

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Speaker 1: of tradition that rules both the school that John Aspinall

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Speaker 1: is going to go to and eaten all of these

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Speaker 1: schools that like produce upper class you know, ruling types,

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Speaker 1: is called fagging. Now I have to again go in

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Speaker 1: to explain where this comes from, and I'm going to

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Speaker 1: quote from the online Etymology Dictionary here. Hey everyone, Robert here,

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Speaker 1: I didn't make this clear. The definition I'm quoting from

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Speaker 1: is the definition of the slur, because that relates to

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Speaker 1: what we're about to talk about. American English slang probably

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Speaker 1: from earlier contemptuous term for women fifteen nineties, especially an

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Speaker 1: old and unpleasant one, and reference to faggot a bundle

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Speaker 1: of sticks as something awkward to be carried compare baggage

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Speaker 1: worthless women fifteen nineties. It may also be reinforced by

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Speaker 1: Yiddish fagel homosexual literally little bird. It may also have

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Speaker 1: roots in British public school slang, which is the term

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Speaker 1: that we're talking about here, a junior who does certain

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Speaker 1: duties for a senior. So the term fagging is to

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Speaker 1: refer to this relationship in these public schools where junior

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Speaker 1: students are made to act as servants for senior students,

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Speaker 1: and the use of the actual word they use both

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Speaker 1: comes from the fact that because the original word means

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Speaker 1: a bundle of sticks, especially like in the eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: part of what these these younger kids are doing for

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Speaker 1: older kids is like stoking the fires in their rooms

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Speaker 1: and stuff. And it also comes from these kind of

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Speaker 1: derogatory terms for women, and it may come from this

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Speaker 1: Yiddish term for homosexual as well. And there's a couple

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Speaker 1: of reasons for this. One of them is that there's

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Speaker 1: not uncommonly sexual relationships often with a lot of coercion

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Speaker 1: between seniors and juniors. So you know, this is a

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Speaker 1: messy tradition. Americans will be familiar with the bones of

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Speaker 1: this if they've read the Harry Potter books, because the

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Speaker 1: system of like prefects and head boys and shit and

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Speaker 1: like the Magic School in that book series is a

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Speaker 1: sanitized version of how culture works in these like boarding schools,

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Speaker 1: right like that is like rallying kind of adds girls

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Speaker 1: to the mix and removes the hazing and the sex abuse.

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Speaker 1: But she's writing about the same kind of system which

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Speaker 1: I had only started to realize like a year or

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Speaker 1: so ago when I started reading about how some of

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Speaker 1: these schools worked. It's pretty wild. I don't think most

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Speaker 1: people are kind of aware of how this stuff started.

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Speaker 2: Outing is like a big part of school in England,

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Speaker 2: and teachers do not And really, I finished two thousand

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Speaker 2: and four, Christ wonder if when I graduate secondary school

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Speaker 2: bullying has always been a big deal. It's always fucking happened,

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Speaker 2: And the teacher's like, well, you know it's bad, but

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Speaker 2: what are we meant to do about it? Stop the child? Now?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely not. Then you're like and eventually, just there was

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Speaker 2: a period of time where I was bullied so consistently

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Speaker 2: I just stopped showing up to school and they called

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Speaker 2: my parents and my parents are just like, is he

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Speaker 2: still being bullied?

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Speaker 1: Well?

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Speaker 2: And then and that actually stopped it for a little bit.

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Speaker 2: But it's just I genuinely think England to its bones

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Speaker 2: is just they think abuse is good. I think England

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Speaker 2: British school systems like we have prefects so that we

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Speaker 2: have miniature fucking police walking around the school. It's just

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Speaker 2: an insane system. And thank god we actually have gun

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Speaker 2: control in England because the anger and resentment in young

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Speaker 2: kids in England is brewing constantly because teachers are fucking

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Speaker 2: useless and so if they create little monsters in England,

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Speaker 2: that's why. It's because it's part of British blood. You

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Speaker 2: must be subject to abuse from school. That is, they

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Speaker 2: genuinely think that, they believe that to this day.

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Speaker 1: I mean that is actually literally what I'm about to

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Speaker 1: read from this and this is from like a nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty one study, because like the system arises that part

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Speaker 1: of the idea is that we are we are molding

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Speaker 1: the minds who are going to run the empire, right,

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Speaker 1: and if you're going to lead, you need to learn

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Speaker 1: how to follow. So that's why we set these kids

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Speaker 1: underneath each other, right, so they can learn how to

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Speaker 1: exist within this hierarchy. There is this belief that putting

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Speaker 1: them in this system will make them more compassionate because

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Speaker 1: they'll have been sort of governed cruelly by kids who

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Speaker 1: are older, which is insane. The idea that like, well,

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Speaker 1: if we let kids abuse each other, it'll make them

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Speaker 1: kinder adults. Why would you think that?

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Speaker 2: But that is.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to read this quote. This is from a

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Speaker 1: n A nineteen sixty one study by Paul Nash in

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Speaker 1: a History of Education Quarterly, and he's writing about again,

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Speaker 1: it's hard to read this sometimes because the name of

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Speaker 1: this system that I've described is called the prefect fagging system.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: There's like a little dash between the two of them,

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Speaker 1: which I know, guys, but like this is what it's called, right.

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Speaker 2: Quote.

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Speaker 1: Under the prefect fagging system, senior boys are given a

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Speaker 1: major role in governing the school, wielding discipline and carrying

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00:21:25,520 --> 00:21:30,200
Speaker 1: out responsibility. They are called variously prefects, monitors, or prey posters,

404
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Speaker 1: chosen according to many criteria, including physical and intellectual prowess.

405
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Speaker 1: The principal consideration in their selection, apart from seniority, has

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Speaker 1: traditionally been character Usually the prefects are members of the

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Speaker 1: sixth form, and while in some schools all members of

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00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:46,040
Speaker 1: the six they're granted privileged status. The two bodies are

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Speaker 1: not customarily identical. At the other end of the scale,

410
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Speaker 1: new boys entering the school begin by serving as fags

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Speaker 1: for senior boys. Their duties consist of almost anything the

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Speaker 1: fag master cares to impose, from cooking and running errands

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Speaker 1: to blacking shoes and kindling fires. And since public school

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Speaker 1: kids these are like the future ruling class. This is

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Speaker 1: like you're training these kids to follow and part of

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Speaker 1: the goal here, there's this real system, especially in the

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Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, there's this particular

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Speaker 1: understanding that smaller boys are weaker and less valuable, right,

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Speaker 1: and they need to get used to the idea that

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Speaker 1: they should be subservient to larger and better bred boys. Right.

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Speaker 1: There's some flexu if you're a small boy whose dad

422
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Speaker 1: is a really highly placed member of the aristocracy, you

423
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Speaker 1: can get some sort of like wiggle room there. But

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Speaker 1: that is how it works a lot of the time,

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Speaker 1: quote with teacher authority unable or unwilling to protect the

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Speaker 1: rights of the weaker. Life for the small boy in

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Speaker 1: the early nineteenth century public school was frequently one of

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Speaker 1: servitude and fear. The Westminster Review complained that the experience

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Speaker 1: of starting off as a fag and graduating without any

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Speaker 1: reference to merit to a point of having fags of

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Speaker 1: his own, courage the public school boy to see life

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Speaker 1: in terms of tyrants and slaves. Fag masters often treated

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Speaker 1: their fags with great cruelty and imposed unreasonable tasks upon them.

434
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:11,320
Speaker 1: When James Gaskell was a fag at Eton, he was

435
00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:14,120
Speaker 1: sent by his fag master out of bounds on errands.

436
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:16,480
Speaker 1: If seen by a master, he was reported to Doctor

437
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:20,119
Speaker 1: Keat the headmaster and flogged. One sixth form boy at

438
00:23:20,119 --> 00:23:22,560
Speaker 1: Eton in Coleridge's time ordered his fag to eat a

439
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:25,679
Speaker 1: tallow sandwich by way of acquiring an extra relish for

440
00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:28,159
Speaker 1: his own cold mutton at the sixth form supper table.

441
00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:32,520
Speaker 1: And what that means is that like they had mutton sandwiches, right, yeah, Yeah,

442
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:34,360
Speaker 1: he just pulled all the fat off of his took

443
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:36,880
Speaker 1: the other boy's meat and gave him a sandwich that's

444
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:40,119
Speaker 1: just like stringy bits of fat in a Yeah, it's

445
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:41,880
Speaker 1: this is hazing, this abuse, right.

446
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:45,200
Speaker 2: It's disgraceful because there are people to this day who

447
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 2: would hear the system and be like other than the name,

448
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:50,080
Speaker 2: which is of course we can't say anymore. Yeah, which

449
00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:56,680
Speaker 2: we stopped saying that in twenty eleven. Yeah, it's going

450
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 2: like being in a British private school. I'm not saying

451
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 2: that you had like institutional abuse, but also you had

452
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 2: a great deal of ignorance from it. Toward it even

453
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:09,719
Speaker 2: and there was genuinely I still believe to this day

454
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 2: there is still this instinct within British schooling, private and public,

455
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:17,000
Speaker 2: but especially private, that boys must be made to learn

456
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:19,560
Speaker 2: about the real world by giving them this very bizarre

457
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 2: prison system that they will never participate in again. But

458
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 2: the other thing you say about, like compassion, Back when

459
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:28,840
Speaker 2: I was bullied in school, that was kind of the thing. Oh,

460
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 2: it would make you a stronger person. And when we

461
00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 2: tell them, when we tell them you talk to the teacher,

462
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 2: which I never wanted to happen, they will feel bad

463
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 2: and be more compatterent. No, they will be angry they

464
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 2: got in trouble and bully you more. It's just the

465
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 2: actual way to deal with it is just to kick

466
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 2: the little fuckers out of school. By the way, you'll

467
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 2: be a bully. You don't go to school anymore. But

468
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 2: this is back in the time when England did not

469
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,439
Speaker 2: care about this stuff. Yeah, this is back when England

470
00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 2: was like, this is just how we make a little

471
00:24:57,480 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 2: army of fascists.

472
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:02,159
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this is like this is both if you

473
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:05,960
Speaker 1: kind of are reading through the height of the empire

474
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:08,399
Speaker 1: and then sort of its dissolution and you come across

475
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:11,679
Speaker 1: these stories of some of these really crazy decisions people

476
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 1: will make about what to do had to crack down

477
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:16,200
Speaker 1: on things. Well, it's being made by kids who went

478
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:19,440
Speaker 1: to these schools and who were brought up in this system.

479
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 1: This does explain a lot, yes, And while this school,

480
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:26,120
Speaker 1: this system was very much supported by the men who

481
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: controlled the government at the time, the system we're talking about,

482
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 1: this prefect fagging system is not certainly, not nearly to

483
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 1: the same extent. This has largely been dismantled, which doesn't

484
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:39,960
Speaker 1: mean there's not still abuse and bullying. It's just not

485
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 1: set up in the exact way that it used to be.

486
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:43,440
Speaker 2: Right.

487
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 1: But you know, while this is kind of supported by

488
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 1: the people in power at the time, there are regular controversies.

489
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: By the time that John is going through it, right,

490
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: it's one hundred and fifty or so something like that

491
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 1: years old by the time he is in school. This

492
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,400
Speaker 1: kind of starts in the early eighteen hundreds, and there

493
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: are some controversies because obviously, not every kid is going

494
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:08,680
Speaker 1: to survive a system like this, right, and it's there's

495
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:13,480
Speaker 1: also difficulty because since these prefects are being relied upon

496
00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 1: to manage large chunks of how these schools work. These

497
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:20,439
Speaker 1: kids who are made prefects actually have a lot of power,

498
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:23,119
Speaker 1: and they often clash with the headmaster and with the

499
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 1: school administration because like you actually can't force them to

500
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:29,200
Speaker 1: do some things, because you're reliant upon them to run

501
00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 1: the school, and because not just that, the other dynamic

502
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 1: is that you may want to punish some of these kids,

503
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:38,160
Speaker 1: but if their dad is like the prime Minister, you're

504
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 1: going to have some trouble.

505
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't do anything. Yeah.

506
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:44,840
Speaker 1: So obviously, as I noted, bullying and abuse is extreme

507
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 1: in the system, and often sexual. Now, some of this,

508
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: to be fair, is just boys who are close in

509
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:54,640
Speaker 1: age who are like engaging in consensual relationships. But that's

510
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:58,000
Speaker 1: not the only thing that happens. And because these boarding

511
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: schools are also so oh like locked down socially, boys

512
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:06,480
Speaker 1: are trained not to complain, not to respond to abuse

513
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 1: with anything, but like you know, going along with it.

514
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: It presents an opportunity for some of the adults in

515
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 1: this system who are pedophiles, and pederaste is very common

516
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: in this system. Suicides are not unknown. In nineteen thirty,

517
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 1: Charles Fairhurst, a fourteen year old boy, killed himself during

518
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 1: break because he decided he couldn't run, and I think

519
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 1: he's an Etonian. He just couldn't return to the school,

520
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 1: and his dad said that he had done it because

521
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: of the fagging system. Right that nineteen sixty one article.

522
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:38,199
Speaker 1: I think it is a pretty good overview, but it

523
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 1: also avoids discussing some of the more prurient details, which

524
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: is like the rampant molestation of kids under this system.

525
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 1: Masters and Pierson both avoid this topic while talking about Aspenall.

526
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: But I found a good twenty fourteen article by a

527
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: survivor of abuse in these schools, Alex Rinton, who discusses

528
00:27:57,119 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: his experience in the sixties and seventies. One of us

529
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:02,920
Speaker 1: new boys I still don't know who had complained about

530
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 1: the regime and dormitory five to his parents. This was

531
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 1: the cardinal sin. What happened in school stayed in school.

532
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:12,200
Speaker 1: Billy punished us all we didn't tell tales again. Some

533
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:15,120
Speaker 1: of the key locations have shrunk absurdly small. The brick

534
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: Chapel where Billy gripped the Bible and harangued us with

535
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 1: the backing of his three trusteest prefects, Jesus, the Holy

536
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 1: Ghost and God just as tiny now as the assembly room,

537
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: where daily one hundred and twenty boys aged seven to

538
00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:29,439
Speaker 1: thirteen were ranked on wooden benches. Here the diatribes, the

539
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 1: mass punishments and the public humiliations happened. This is where

540
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:34,399
Speaker 1: he would detail who had cried under the cane the

541
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 1: previous night. Jones and Smith took it like gentlemen, but

542
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: Rinton blubbed like a baby. Rinton recalled vividly how he

543
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: used to look at the picture of the Queen in

544
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: their playroom and beg in his mind for her to

545
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: visit and save them all from this horrible system. As

546
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:51,600
Speaker 1: per usual, the Queen did nothing. Rinton would go on

547
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 1: to experience as well sexual abuse at the hands of

548
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: a teacher, and yeah, it's a pretty awful story. It's

549
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: one of those things you will encounter stories like this

550
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: from some pretty famous people. Over in Britain. Richard Dawkins

551
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 1: has talked, and it's often kind of odd. He's talked

552
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:15,400
Speaker 1: obliquely about the sexual abuse he encountered, calling it mild

553
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: pedophilia and saying I am very conscious that you can't

554
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 1: condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours,

555
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:23,840
Speaker 1: which I think she can.

556
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 2: In this tis done right now.

557
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, the physical abuse is also something that some people

558
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: will talk about. Eddie Izzard specifically has talked about this

559
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 1: quite a lot. Quick update as of June of twenty

560
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: twenty three, Eddie Izzard has made it clear that she

561
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 1: prefers to go by Susie, although she says you can't

562
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: go wrong by still calling her Eddie or using other pronouns,

563
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 1: but I'm still going to re record this bit. Izard

564
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 1: has spoken about how she was sent to a boarding

565
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: school at age seven, shortly after her mother's death. She

566
00:29:56,400 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 1: cried relentlessly for about a year. Quote my housemaster help

567
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 1: me along with beatings when he could fit them in.

568
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: And because John Aspinall is I think one of the

569
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: people who grows up sort of taking a weird degree

570
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: of pride and going through this system, he doesn't complain

571
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 1: about this experience, and there's certainly not complaints baked in

572
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:20,959
Speaker 1: Like his biographers don't talk about this as abusive, but

573
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: they do talk about the abuse that Aspinall suffers in

574
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 1: this system. It's just sort of normalized. It's like, well,

575
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 1: this is just part of what you go through here.

576
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: This paragraph from the master's book is typical John's first

577
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 1: year was spent in Cottonhouse, where he shared rooms with

578
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:39,720
Speaker 1: John Straddling Thomas, later to be a Tory MP, a knight,

579
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 1: and a government whip. Within days, he was almost constantly

580
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: being whacked by Head of House Hardy for minor but

581
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: regular infringement of rules. Far from being abashed, John would

582
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 1: show off the strokes he had received, throwing Hardy into

583
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 1: a fury of indignation, eventually announcing that he would whack

584
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 1: aspinall no longer, Hardy sent him to the butler Ellsworthy,

585
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: who devised devilish schemes for punishment, such as moving hundred

586
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 1: weeks of coke, cleaning the floor beneath it, and moving

587
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 1: the coke back again. Anyway, I guess we'll go to

588
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 1: ads right now and we're back. Yeah, and you'll hear

589
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:19,479
Speaker 1: A lot of the punishments are like weirdly collective, Like

590
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: all of the kids have to paddle you like you

591
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 1: run down a gauntlet or like down a staircase as

592
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 1: they hit you and stuff. It's a yeah, A lot

593
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 1: of thought goes into how to hit kids.

594
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 2: Deep sadism runs through a lot of what a lot

595
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 2: of British history, a lot of the world's evils come

596
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 2: from England, and a lot of what England taught was

597
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 2: a form of punishment driven success that you could It

598
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 2: was very much a freedom through work. Yeah, I mean

599
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 2: eugenics comes from England. The Eugenics Club was formed in England. Yeah,

600
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 2: England has and to this day, i'd argue I realized

601
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 2: my experience with the school system in England. It still

602
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 2: as they can't physically abuse you anymore. They certainly can't

603
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 2: sexually abuse you apparently, but they can certainly mentally abuse you.

604
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 2: That is very fucking common. And what infuriates me about

605
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 2: this is hearing this stuff and this is horrifying and

606
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 2: it's terrible. But England has not advanced as far beyond

607
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 2: this as they really would love to pretend. I am

608
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 2: still scarred from my time in the British private school system. Yeah,

609
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 2: like I have friends who are still fucking mentally scarred

610
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:30,719
Speaker 2: from it. And it wasn't anything physical. It was the

611
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 2: aiding and a betting of abuse by teachers. Teachers helped

612
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 2: teachers would join in. And it's funny because they'll now

613
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 2: claim England's like this progressive nation, and to an extent

614
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 2: we are, But then you really look at long and

615
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 2: hard at what we do in our school system here.

616
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 2: If bullying happens, but parents are litigious, parents will do

617
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 2: Like there is genuinely a sense of oh that you

618
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 2: don't really want that smoke. As a school in England,

619
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:01,239
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, boys will be born boys? You have

620
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 2: any idea? How many fucking times about that? Upon must

621
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:06,719
Speaker 2: sudden rant this subject? No, no, no, no no.

622
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 1: I mean that's the that's the point of it, right, Like,

623
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:10,160
Speaker 1: that's this is stuff.

624
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 2: I don't think.

625
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: It's certainly not widely known over here about like the

626
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: way that because there's I think part of it is

627
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: because when most Americans encounter information about these schools, it's

628
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 1: through like fiction. And I'm not just talking about Ralling here,

629
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: but like her books are based on the fact that

630
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 1: like for generations there have been a lot of like

631
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: fictional stories about British boarding schools that have been very

632
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 1: popular reading around the world, right, Like it's a genre.

633
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 2: If Harry Potter was an accurate telling, Harry would have

634
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 2: been a mass murderer.

635
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 3: He was a.

636
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:46,480
Speaker 2: Viciously bullied kid at a boarding school constantly and the

637
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 2: institution did nothing. He'd have fucking killed someone. He had

638
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 2: magic like, yeah, that'sd by his professors. Yeah, he's professor

639
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 2: physically abused him and it's like like any of them

640
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 2: and he and he loved it and he was, oh,

641
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 2: it's this lovely kid. No, he would have been a

642
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 2: violent like he would have been made violent by a

643
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 2: violent system, like a lot of school boys in England.

644
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 2: And it's just I remember reading it while I was

645
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 2: in school and being like, this is fucking stupid. I

646
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,319
Speaker 2: don't even mean the magic. I mean the fact that

647
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:25,720
Speaker 2: he's just like, oh I can shoot, my one can shoot.

648
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:30,360
Speaker 2: We all have guns and we're not using them. Not

649
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 2: a single truly violent child in there. Yeah, and no,

650
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 2: it would have been horrifying. It's just it's so stupid

651
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 2: because England could actually deal with this by having laws

652
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:46,840
Speaker 2: and regulations that stop this sneak, could have punishments for

653
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 2: teachers to aid in the bet in this instead you

654
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 2: get the occasional limp piece in the newspaper with another

655
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 2: school does not stop bullying, and nothing goddamn happens. So, yeah,

656
00:34:57,080 --> 00:35:01,279
Speaker 2: this this sounds awful. They have improved the physical side

657
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 2: in the Yeah, Pederasti's side kind of Yeah, disgusting country.

658
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 2: I'm so glad I left. Yeah, now I live in America,

659
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:17,760
Speaker 2: a normal country. Finally. Yeah, good news about that. Yeah.

660
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:21,399
Speaker 1: So you know, this is John's experience here. He's one

661
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 1: of these kids he has targeted a lot early on

662
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: his attitude. He's kind of this naturally rebellious person. And

663
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: I will say, to his credit, John is one of

664
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:34,320
Speaker 1: these kids who, despite what he goes through, doesn't seem

665
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: to be like mentally or physically aggressive to others. One

666
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 1: of his classmates later said he was never cruel throughout

667
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 1: his time there, and there are very few people about

668
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:47,359
Speaker 1: whom one can truthfully say that. So like most kids

669
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:49,399
Speaker 1: who go through this turn out worse than he did.

670
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: So I'll give him credit for that.

671
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:54,960
Speaker 2: That takes something. And yeah that's something.

672
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:59,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's for sure something. So John Aspinall's mother

673
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:02,399
Speaker 1: is again usually noted as sort of like favoring him,

674
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 1: but if this is true, she still didn't prefer him

675
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 1: to not having a kid around, because once he and

676
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:11,120
Speaker 1: Chip are off in these boarding schools, they don't really

677
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 1: see their mom or their dad very much during summer break.

678
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 1: He doesn't live with his parents. He lives with this

679
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:20,439
Speaker 1: like family of farmers that his parents pay to take

680
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:20,919
Speaker 1: them in.

681
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:23,840
Speaker 2: Which is very common during that time. They just like

682
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:26,840
Speaker 2: ship the fucking kid off, ship one way or the

683
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 2: other way, right, Yeah, yeah, you don't have a kid,

684
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:31,280
Speaker 2: so you raise it.

685
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, anywhere but here. And this is good for John actually,

686
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 1: because he loves animals, so he spends a lot of

687
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: time on this farm getting to take care of and

688
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 1: raise animals. He kind of idolizes this farmer who helps

689
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:46,920
Speaker 1: to raise him because he's really good with animals, and

690
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:49,840
Speaker 1: this is just kind of John's passion from an early age.

691
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 1: He also spends a lot of time with his grandparents,

692
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 1: who are are pretty strict authoritarians. And yeah, he basically

693
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 1: just does not see his parents, and he kind of

694
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: grows up very independent and notably unwilling to take any

695
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,160
Speaker 1: shit from adults. Like that's a thing that people will

696
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: notice about John from a pretty young age. He has

697
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:14,839
Speaker 1: his own ideas about the world and he's not really

698
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 1: willing to bend on them. As a teenager, he is

699
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 1: a member of it's like the Cadet Training program or

700
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:27,839
Speaker 1: something at his at his boarding school, it's basically an ROTC. Yeah, yeah,

701
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 1: although they do I was a ROTC and we didn't

702
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:34,239
Speaker 1: like do anything like we marched around and shit. But

703
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 1: like apparently his ROTC equivalent, they like do wargames and

704
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 1: stuff where they will like do fake attacks on like

705
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:47,799
Speaker 1: houses and buildings and stuff. John recognized this as kind

706
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:51,360
Speaker 1: of like LARPing and refuse to participate during these actions.

707
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: He would like go to sleep nearby. He'd just be

708
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:56,239
Speaker 1: like napping with his other boys, because he was like,

709
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: this is pointless, I'm not going to do it, which

710
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: you have to spec.

711
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:04,359
Speaker 2: Like yeah, yeah, but also was that not a time

712
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 2: when that might actually have happened. Conscription was a real

713
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:11,920
Speaker 2: threat at those times. It's it's just very weird that

714
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 2: like the one time, like he wasn't actually correct in that.

715
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 1: No, you were right because a lot of his his

716
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:19,880
Speaker 1: well they're all a little old because he's going to

717
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 1: join the military, like in forty five is when he's

718
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 1: going to start.

719
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 2: Yes, but they could have, like they they very were

720
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:27,320
Speaker 2: in England, loved wars.

721
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 1: We were going to have a few rules one, yeah,

722
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 1: they he very well could have, but he doesn't. He

723
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:37,920
Speaker 1: was kind of indifferent in athletics. He was not particularly

724
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: interested in dating. From what I can see, he probably

725
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 1: would have been considered kind of a nerd for his day.

726
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:49,400
Speaker 1: Now there's not a lot of great, you know outlets

727
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: for that as there are today. So the kind of

728
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 1: nerd he is is he he spends all of his

729
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: time reading colonial adventure stories by guys like h writer Haggard.

730
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:02,320
Speaker 1: John's face book by Haggard was called Naa the Lily,

731
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: And it's this book about the Zulu king Shaka, who

732
00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:09,799
Speaker 1: was this like very good military commander who leads this

733
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 1: kind of uprising war against the British Empire in Africa,

734
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 1: kind of his winning for a while before you know,

735
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:23,360
Speaker 1: tragically loses, and it's one of these things that happens

736
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 1: a lot in the history of the Empire. Well, they'll

737
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: they'll have this local like leader who fights against them,

738
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 1: kind of comes close to winning and then gets massacred

739
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:34,479
Speaker 1: along with all of his people and then has turned

740
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 1: to a hero. Right like afterwards, like people like within

741
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:39,879
Speaker 1: the empire will be like, oh, what a noble man

742
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 1: that we kill. That's a real shame that we had

743
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 1: to wipe that dude.

744
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 2: Out only had been born somewhere else.

745
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:51,959
Speaker 1: Yeah, quote Aspinall, and this is from a masters' book.

746
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:55,200
Speaker 1: Aspinall continued this tradition and throughout his school days, enthralled

747
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 1: other boys so much with Zulu lore and accounts of

748
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 1: battles and personalities that even the those who can remember

749
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 1: nothing else about him recalled the Zulu obsession. He even

750
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 1: went so far as to claim his mother was a

751
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 1: Zulu princess, and some of the younger boys, perhaps unaware

752
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 1: that his blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin were

753
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: inconvenient evidence, believed him.

754
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:13,840
Speaker 2: So there we go.

755
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 1: That's good. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean it's kids stuff too.

756
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 1: I guess lying about who your family is so that

757
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 1: you sound cooler. It's this weird mix of like.

758
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 2: Back then, you could probably make up anything. Yeah, it's

759
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 2: a lot easier. It wasn't really an Internet for some much.

760
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,839
Speaker 2: To know, check just have to be a complete fantasist.

761
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: You'd have to go to the library to prove that

762
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: this kid's life in Scott's time.

763
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:42,840
Speaker 2: For that, I will not be doing that. No hazing

764
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:46,399
Speaker 2: to see too. Yeah, I've got kids to hit. As

765
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 2: they grew nearer to adulthood, John started to show an

766
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 2: aptitude for making money as well. He and his brother

767
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 2: started dealing guns. While they are like teenagers and Jesus Christ,

768
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 2: it's easier back then, right, I don't think there's like

769
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,319
Speaker 2: laws really about it. So they're just like buying old

770
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:05,359
Speaker 2: these are hunting weapons. They're buying old hunting weapons and

771
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:07,720
Speaker 2: like fixing them up and selling them for a profit.

772
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 2: They're also like doing hunting and stuff and kind of

773
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 2: basically selling the game. They get to rich people who

774
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 2: don't want to be arced to do it themselves. But

775
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 2: when I have like a trophy and kind of in

776
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 2: the middle of doing all this, the two boys basically

777
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 2: invent the entire modern industry of internet scams and analog

778
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 2: form And this is fascinating. I think you're going to

779
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 2: enjoy this. Chips was the more resourceful entrepreneur of the

780
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 2: two at this stage. It was he who made the money,

781
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 2: John who did his bidding. John was too dreamy and idealistic,

782
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:42,760
Speaker 2: too much the romantic to grasp the practical steps towards profits.

783
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 2: One of chips ruses was to advertise in The Times

784
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:48,800
Speaker 2: inviting interested parties to send in one pound in return

785
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:51,360
Speaker 2: for which they would receive enlightenment on the mysteries of

786
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,360
Speaker 2: how to make soap. Hundreds of letters arrived at prep school.

787
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 2: They were answered with a page copied from the Encyclopedia Britannica.

788
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 2: That's like he's running like a kind of a chat

789
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:05,400
Speaker 2: GPT scam, right, they're just copying directly from the encyclopedia.

790
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 2: I I approve all like British scams in that era

791
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:13,640
Speaker 2: because it was such a rotten country, such an inherently

792
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 2: corrupt institution. It was such a Britain was such a

793
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 2: natural scammer. The things they did, the things the British

794
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 2: Empire did in every other country were so disgusting that I,

795
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 2: of course we can have this happen. Of course we

796
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 2: invented that.

797
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. It is a weirdly modern scam though,

798
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:34,480
Speaker 1: like it's it's just like this is you know, they

799
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: would have they could have gotten so much further with

800
00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:40,160
Speaker 1: it if they'd had the internet, you know, chat GPT

801
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 1: would have really been a wonder to these Kidsins. Yeah,

802
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 1: early Crassensteins. So after graduating, yeah Krassenstein, Yeah, Crassen's Steen. Yeah,

803
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 1: that's probably right.

804
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 2: So after graduation.

805
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:02,160
Speaker 1: Stems he joins the Royal Marines. He's got to do

806
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 1: his time in service, which I think is about three years.

807
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:05,320
Speaker 2: He gets really lucky.

808
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: He comes in right at the end of World War two,

809
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:10,239
Speaker 1: and he doesn't have to do any of the war part,

810
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 1: which is great. You would prefer to avoid that if

811
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:15,840
Speaker 1: at all possible. Not a great war to have to

812
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 1: fight in. So he demobilizes in forty eight and then

813
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:22,439
Speaker 1: applies to Jesus College, Oxford and was accepted. And again

814
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: for Americans, Oxford I think is like actually five universities

815
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 1: when people refer to Auxford's a couple of different schools there,

816
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: and they're all nice, right, They're all like side of pristigeous, no,

817
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:37,239
Speaker 1: but Jesus is like sort of the least of the

818
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:39,439
Speaker 1: prestigious of them, at least at this time.

819
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:41,799
Speaker 2: I don't know where it stands today, maybe that time,

820
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 2: but it's still everywhere is good.

821
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:48,399
Speaker 1: Now, everywhere's yeah, these are all very good, right, And

822
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 1: so he goes there, but he doesn't fall in love

823
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:54,759
Speaker 1: with it, right. He kind of is is disillusioned very

824
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:56,799
Speaker 1: early on part of it because he doesn't know what

825
00:43:56,840 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 1: he wants to do. At this point. He thought he

826
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 1: wanted to be a writer, and then he thought he

827
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 1: wanted to be a journalist, but he doesn't actually like

828
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 1: to write, and he's like, wow, this is a hard

829
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:07,720
Speaker 1: job and it doesn't make much money.

830
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 2: So he would be a perfect modern journalist. Then, yeah,

831
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 2: he'd be a perfect modern journalist.

832
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he drops that ambition pretty quick, and he

833
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: just decides to dress like Oscar Wilde for a while

834
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: and try to build a reputation as a poet.

835
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 3: Yeah.

836
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got this like purple velvet suit he wears everywhere.

837
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,760
Speaker 2: Just a dandy now, uh huh, andandy pilt.

838
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 1: And he gets away with that for a while, but

839
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:33,319
Speaker 1: he like doesn't actually like writing poems or making art

840
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 1: in any way. And you know, you can only kind

841
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:38,279
Speaker 1: of keep up that lie so long before you get

842
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:41,279
Speaker 1: kind of bored of it. And while this is going on,

843
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:44,959
Speaker 1: well he's kind of finding himself in Oxford. His mother

844
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:47,760
Speaker 1: was off partying and eventually she hooks up with another

845
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:52,279
Speaker 1: army officer. His luck would have it, this guy, Colonel Osborne.

846
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: Like they marry, she becomes lady or she becomes you know,

847
00:44:56,239 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 1: missus Osborne, and then he inherits a baronetcy, which which

848
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 1: is like I believe that's kind of on the lower

849
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:04,840
Speaker 1: end of the aristocracy, like a baron.

850
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 2: It's baron.

851
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:09,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe the middle class of the aristocracy.

852
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:12,440
Speaker 2: I don't know, any kind of aristocracy. We have to

853
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:14,240
Speaker 2: explain why it's good. Is not great?

854
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:17,640
Speaker 1: No, no, no, But this works out great for John

855
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,320
Speaker 1: because he inherits a baronetcy. His mom is now the

856
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:25,680
Speaker 1: Lady Osborne, and this kind of lifts them all up, right,

857
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: so he gets to be on more of an even

858
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 1: footing with the other with the kids at Oxford who

859
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,480
Speaker 1: are like members of the of the nobility. And this

860
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:35,400
Speaker 1: is why he's as an adult, is going to be

861
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 1: Lord aspinall right, because he this baronetcy goes to him eventually.

862
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:43,799
Speaker 1: That makes socialization at Oxford a lot easier. And he

863
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: falls in with a crowd of wealthy young men who

864
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: are real aristocrats with family fortunes that gave them basically

865
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:52,840
Speaker 1: endless trust funds. They are all his friends at school

866
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 1: or all these rich boys. None of them have ever

867
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:57,359
Speaker 1: had to do anything on their own, and their whole youth,

868
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 1: as we've talked about, was this mix of like psycho privates,

869
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 1: school bullying and these you know, outside of that when

870
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: they're with their families, these kind of interminable rituals that

871
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:07,920
Speaker 1: you have to carry out as members of the aristocracy.

872
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:11,239
Speaker 1: So these are rich kids, they are kids who have

873
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 1: suffered some psychic damage as a result of their education,

874
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 1: and they are permanently bored, right, and so the only

875
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:21,360
Speaker 1: thing in their life that lends them excitement is gambling.

876
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:25,040
Speaker 1: That is the joy that these kids have is to gamble.

877
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, beautiful, Yeah.

878
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:33,320
Speaker 1: Great situation and this is yeah, so John learns to

879
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:35,919
Speaker 1: play poker with them, and he does not have He's

880
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 1: one of these kids, not the only one. This is

881
00:46:38,040 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 1: a period where kind of the upper crust is opening

882
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: up a little bit and there's some room for these

883
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:46,799
Speaker 1: kids who are born to just rich families to kind

884
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:50,719
Speaker 1: of move in and out of it. And John is

885
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:52,480
Speaker 1: one of these kids who is kind of welcome in

886
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:55,800
Speaker 1: these circles, even though he doesn't really have a family fortune.

887
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:59,080
Speaker 1: But the fact that he's not rich. He's rich compared

888
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:01,359
Speaker 1: to like a normal person, right, but he's not rich

889
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:03,879
Speaker 1: by the standards of these guys. He's certainly not rich

890
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:05,279
Speaker 1: enough to gamble like they do.

891
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 2: Right. So we actually this is like the beginning of

892
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 2: new money.

893
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:12,720
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. He is one of the first new money

894
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 1: people to really like ascend, right. But he doesn't have

895
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:17,960
Speaker 1: that money at this point, which means he has to

896
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 1: actually be good at gambling, right. He can't just waste.

897
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 2: Money for simple weeks.

898
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:27,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and this is from Pearson's book The Gamblers.

899
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:27,880
Speaker 2: Quote.

900
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:30,239
Speaker 1: He said later, from the first time I settled down

901
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:33,040
Speaker 1: to play, I felt at home as I never had before.

902
00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 1: The excitement invigorated him, the risk challenged him, and he

903
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:38,800
Speaker 1: relished the company of gamblers, which came as a relief

904
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:41,839
Speaker 1: from those earnest Welshmen back in college. Later he used

905
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:44,840
Speaker 1: to claim that gamblers formed a superior race to passive,

906
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:48,360
Speaker 1: tedious humanity, and he rather shocked the journalist Compton Miller

907
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 1: by telling him he regarded people who don't gamble as

908
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 1: emotional cripples. To be able to count himself among the

909
00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:57,239
Speaker 1: emotionally elect must have been more satisfying than dressing up

910
00:47:57,239 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: his Oscar wild or studying Beowulf for Chaucer, and nobody

911
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:03,400
Speaker 1: could doubt his dedication to his chosen field of studies.

912
00:48:03,719 --> 00:48:06,319
Speaker 1: Soon most of his waking hours were spent gambling in

913
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 1: one way or another. The stakes rose, some of his

914
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:12,800
Speaker 1: early partners, like John Lawrence, the future Lord Oaksy, became

915
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 1: worried and dropped out. It was getting too hot for

916
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:16,840
Speaker 1: me to handle, and it was obvious that John was

917
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 1: heading for the dangerous world of big time gambling.

918
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 2: I just think it's marvelous. You found another kind of

919
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:27,360
Speaker 2: British eugenics. Yeah, yeah, gambling, superio. They found another way

920
00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 2: to be xenophobic. Yeah, innovats us.

921
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:34,880
Speaker 1: It is really innovative. And you know, I mentioned that

922
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 1: Adam curtis documentary The Mayfair Set, which is about Aspinall

923
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:40,840
Speaker 1: and his friends. Curtis will draw a direct line with that

924
00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 1: between a lot of these guys who are sponsoring coups right,

925
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: who are doing shit, who are like behind a lot

926
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 1: of like the military actions in the Suez Crisis, These

927
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:51,799
Speaker 1: guys who build private armies and use them to like

928
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: change the nature power and at they're all gamblers. They

929
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:58,240
Speaker 1: all gamble with Aspinall, and He's like, gambling is crucial

930
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 1: to understanding why the people who are running a lot

931
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:05,720
Speaker 1: of foreign policy for the Empire in the like latter

932
00:49:05,719 --> 00:49:08,319
Speaker 1: half of the twentieth century do the shit that they do, right,

933
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:11,680
Speaker 1: because they're gamblers like that, they're willing to kind of

934
00:49:11,719 --> 00:49:14,240
Speaker 1: take these big wild risks of chance.

935
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 2: They don't fear losing, Yeah, or at least they the

936
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:21,440
Speaker 2: idea of risk for them is a little more valuable.

937
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:25,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, they fear losing less than they fear not rolling

938
00:49:25,560 --> 00:49:28,839
Speaker 1: the dice. Yes, I think is probably an accurate way

939
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 1: to see it. So aspinall is a pretty good gambler naturally, right,

940
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 1: And when he does lose, you know, because these games

941
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:40,440
Speaker 1: are all between very rich people, there's like IOU systems, right,

942
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 1: so you can kind of float for a while if

943
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:44,319
Speaker 1: you have a couple of bad nights by kind of

944
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:47,040
Speaker 1: like rolling those IOUs forward until you win some So

945
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:49,359
Speaker 1: he's able to kind of hang on. There's some like

946
00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:52,319
Speaker 1: tight moments there, but he's he's able to hang on.

947
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:54,719
Speaker 1: But he realizes, like, I don't want to just be

948
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: gambling like this and potentially lose eventually. The real way

949
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 1: to like get ahead and to kind of build a

950
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:05,160
Speaker 1: place for myself in the society is to start hosting games. Right,

951
00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:09,480
Speaker 1: So he starts to draw a network of close friends

952
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 1: to him who he uses as almost like this is

953
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:16,040
Speaker 1: almost like a corporate enterprise, except for it's just purely

954
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:18,920
Speaker 1: bonds of friendship here, right, friendship and sort of like

955
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:22,240
Speaker 1: mutual need. The first guy that he kind of attracts

956
00:50:22,239 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 1: to him as this fellow Lord Maxwell Scott, and I say, Lord,

957
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 1: he is the Lord Maxwell Scott he's also like eighteen

958
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 1: at this point, right, these are all still kids, and

959
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:33,759
Speaker 1: Maxwell Scott is so addicted to gambling. He's one of

960
00:50:33,760 --> 00:50:38,719
Speaker 1: these guys who he's got perfect noble credentials. Right, so

961
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:41,359
Speaker 1: he's really good at making friends. He can make all

962
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:44,120
Speaker 1: of these connections to other members of the aristocracy. He's

963
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 1: inherently welcome at every party. Right, There's no event that's

964
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:49,600
Speaker 1: closed to this guy because of how highly placed he

965
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:52,360
Speaker 1: is within the system. But he is a god awful

966
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 1: gambler who is terribly addicted to it. Not only does

967
00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:59,440
Speaker 1: he play games of chance, he said to gamble, Like

968
00:51:00,239 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 1: people will see like a crow flying in the air,

969
00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:04,000
Speaker 1: and he'll bet on them as to whether or not

970
00:51:04,040 --> 00:51:06,120
Speaker 1: it's going to like land in which tree it's gonna

971
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:08,680
Speaker 1: land on. He'll put money on this shit, or like

972
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 1: which drop of rain is going to make it to

973
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:13,640
Speaker 1: the bottom of a window first. Like he's that kind

974
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:16,320
Speaker 1: of like there's nothing going on in this man's soul

975
00:51:16,680 --> 00:51:19,840
Speaker 1: other than the momentary thrill of placing a wager.

976
00:51:21,160 --> 00:51:26,319
Speaker 2: It's like a cartoon character. Yeah, it is really. I

977
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 2: love that love I love that there are guys like

978
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:32,880
Speaker 2: this that existed in history. Just just completely insane dibshits.

979
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, guys like living versions at the success memes that

980
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 3: you find on Instagram posted exclusively from like India and

981
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:43,799
Speaker 3: the Philippines.

982
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:45,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

983
00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:48,400
Speaker 1: By the way, India gets a huge version of the

984
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:52,200
Speaker 1: of these, like this boarding school system with like kind

985
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:55,040
Speaker 1: of carbon copied over to it. That's a British another story.

986
00:51:55,160 --> 00:51:55,879
Speaker 2: Disgusting.

987
00:51:56,360 --> 00:52:02,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, so between the two kingdom Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Hey,

988
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:04,920
Speaker 1: it's we all come from horrible countries here. You know,

989
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:07,279
Speaker 1: this is a this is a safe place to work

990
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:11,080
Speaker 1: through it. I come from Oklahoma, boy, Like I can

991
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:17,400
Speaker 1: tell you some stories. Speaking of Oklahoma. This show was

992
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:23,040
Speaker 1: sponsored by the state of Oklahoma. Oklahoma, we banned something

993
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:25,360
Speaker 1: else completely an a dye today.

994
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:29,719
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm angry about the law. That was

995
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 2: not a good one, not a good one.

996
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 1: Yeah. But you know what's illegal in Oklahoma right now?

997
00:52:35,040 --> 00:52:38,880
Speaker 2: Not much abortion? Yeah. Well, oh no, a lot of

998
00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 2: stuff is illegal. It's just not the kind of stuff

999
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 2: that should be illegal. Books.

1000
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:47,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, books, Yes, we have definitely been banning some books

1001
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:48,480
Speaker 1: back in my old home state.

1002
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 2: Come to Oklahoma, you can also leave.

1003
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, come to Oklahoma a great place to exit.

1004
00:52:54,480 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 2: Anyway. Here's some other ads we're back.

1005
00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:07,360
Speaker 1: So the second friend that he draws that Maspinal draws

1006
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 1: to him is this guy Dominic Elways. Elways is a

1007
00:53:11,320 --> 00:53:15,560
Speaker 1: mediocre gambler, but he's incredibly handsome and charming with the ladies. Right,

1008
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:19,560
Speaker 1: So between Maxwell Scott and Elways, aspinall can get all

1009
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: of like the really rich kids to his parties, and

1010
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 1: he can get women to his parties, right, which is

1011
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 1: sort of like the two ingredients in this social set

1012
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 1: for being able to have a good gambling party.

1013
00:53:29,760 --> 00:53:29,960
Speaker 2: Right.

1014
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:33,480
Speaker 1: I should also note, as a fun aside, this is

1015
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:36,600
Speaker 1: just like in Pearson's book, which is Pearson as a

1016
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:40,360
Speaker 1: journalist is very much kind of close to this community.

1017
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 1: So while he's sort of critical about them, you get

1018
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:44,920
Speaker 1: these lines from him where it's like, oh, you just

1019
00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:47,640
Speaker 1: come from a different world. And as like a fun aside,

1020
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:52,360
Speaker 1: Pearson's like Elways's friends had a term for him NSIT,

1021
00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:55,799
Speaker 1: which means not safe in taxis, and this is like

1022
00:53:56,480 --> 00:53:58,440
Speaker 1: portrayed as a funny anecdote. What that means is that

1023
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:00,840
Speaker 1: like you can't put Elways in a taxi with a

1024
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:04,400
Speaker 1: young woman or he will just assault her, right, Like

1025
00:54:04,440 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 1: that's that's what that's what that means, Yeah, that's that's

1026
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:11,840
Speaker 1: not just English, I'll give you that, but yeah, that

1027
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:14,400
Speaker 1: is particularly this kind of guy, Like that's what it

1028
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:17,360
Speaker 1: means to be a ladies man at this period of time. Yeah,

1029
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:20,239
Speaker 1: so that's cool. John seems to have decided that the

1030
00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:23,120
Speaker 1: life of a gentleman gambler was the life that he

1031
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 1: wanted to live. So he drops out of Oxford. He

1032
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 1: actually on the day of his exams, like he's so

1033
00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:32,080
Speaker 1: close to graduating that it's like exam day, and instead

1034
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:34,400
Speaker 1: of going to take them, he fakes an illness so

1035
00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:38,440
Speaker 1: he can gamble on horse races, which I do respect

1036
00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 1: to be honest, like that Bridge British man.

1037
00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:41,759
Speaker 2: That's commitment.

1038
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the boys start, you'll learn more at the

1039
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:49,680
Speaker 1: horse trap.

1040
00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:53,640
Speaker 2: He doesn't understand.

1041
00:54:56,040 --> 00:54:58,440
Speaker 1: So the boys start renting rooms at the Ritz Hotel

1042
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:02,200
Speaker 1: and hosting poker parties. These are very popular parties, but

1043
00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:05,719
Speaker 1: they're also expensive because like aspinall, he gets a little

1044
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:08,200
Speaker 1: bit of a cut from like each pot, but he's

1045
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 1: also he has to pay for food, and he has

1046
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:13,280
Speaker 1: to pay for alcohol, and like these are very rich people.

1047
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 1: So that's not cheap food and alcohol, right, You're not

1048
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:17,959
Speaker 1: throwing together some ham sandwich isn't beat you know.

1049
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:21,120
Speaker 2: Like appealing to the upp across you actually had to

1050
00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:22,080
Speaker 2: like make an effoot.

1051
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:26,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they have trouble breaking even Aspinall is often

1052
00:55:26,040 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 1: reliant upon his rich friends in order to like keep

1053
00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 1: floating the games to the next week. And he's like,

1054
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:33,080
Speaker 1: this is not gonna wor I'm not gonna get rich

1055
00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:36,480
Speaker 1: doing this shit, right, And so while he's kind of

1056
00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:39,000
Speaker 1: trying to puzzle this out, he comes upon a new

1057
00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:41,440
Speaker 1: game of chance that is going to open the world

1058
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:44,160
Speaker 1: up to him. And this game is called Shamanda Fair.

1059
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:46,480
Speaker 1: Have you have you heard of Shamanda Fair.

1060
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:47,799
Speaker 2: No?

1061
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:51,719
Speaker 1: I learned about it from a Warren Zevon song. But

1062
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:55,120
Speaker 1: it's remarkable. It's the heroine of games of chance. That's

1063
00:55:55,120 --> 00:55:58,080
Speaker 1: how it's described by some people who were both heroin

1064
00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:01,400
Speaker 1: addicts and gambling addicts. Right, And I'm gonna explain this

1065
00:56:01,400 --> 00:56:05,120
Speaker 1: because I don't think it's widely known anymore. But yeah,

1066
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:07,400
Speaker 1: the way he finds out about shamand A Fair is

1067
00:56:07,440 --> 00:56:10,080
Speaker 1: his friend Elwiz kind of wangles him in invitation to

1068
00:56:10,120 --> 00:56:13,759
Speaker 1: this regular game held by the vicar, who's this guy

1069
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:16,560
Speaker 1: who pretends to be a vicar but is really just

1070
00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:19,759
Speaker 1: a degenerate gambler, dressing like a religious figure in order

1071
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:22,240
Speaker 1: to make people trust him so he can take their money.

1072
00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:24,920
Speaker 1: And aspinall has known this guy for a while, but

1073
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:27,200
Speaker 1: he comes to his house to this shamand a Fair game,

1074
00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:29,759
Speaker 1: and he's like, your house is much nicer than it

1075
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:32,600
Speaker 1: should be. Where are you getting all this money? And

1076
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:35,160
Speaker 1: the Vicar's like, well, there's this new game that's blowing up,

1077
00:56:35,239 --> 00:56:38,279
Speaker 1: and if you're the dude running the house that night,

1078
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:42,040
Speaker 1: you make crazy money off. And it's called shamand a fair. So,

1079
00:56:42,080 --> 00:56:45,719
Speaker 1: as I noted earlier, the guys who are gambling in

1080
00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:48,839
Speaker 1: this right are these rich kids, most of whom inherited

1081
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:51,920
Speaker 1: huge fortunes from their parents who died during the war years.

1082
00:56:52,280 --> 00:56:54,200
Speaker 1: And in this period of time, this is like the

1083
00:56:54,840 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: early fifties the English aristocracy, there are historic levels of

1084
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:02,239
Speaker 1: cash on hand, what's called ready cash. So you've got

1085
00:57:02,239 --> 00:57:05,360
Speaker 1: all these young people who have not really been seasoned

1086
00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:07,640
Speaker 1: by the world, who are very naive, and who have

1087
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 1: what seemed to them to be endless piles of liquid assets, right,

1088
00:57:13,480 --> 00:57:16,400
Speaker 1: and they have this kind of equally historic desire to

1089
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:18,800
Speaker 1: throw this money away to feel alive for a second.

1090
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:23,120
Speaker 1: And so The most popular games among the aristocracy are

1091
00:57:23,120 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 1: not things like poker where there's skill involved, right, where

1092
00:57:25,640 --> 00:57:28,640
Speaker 1: you're actually you're competing, right, You can be good at

1093
00:57:28,640 --> 00:57:31,240
Speaker 1: poker and it matters, you know, Yeah, there isn't.

1094
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:33,320
Speaker 2: Exactly You're not losing because you were bad.

1095
00:57:33,360 --> 00:57:36,600
Speaker 1: You're losing just the roll of the dice whatever, and

1096
00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:41,440
Speaker 1: because that's more thrilling, right, you want to hear chance? Yeah,

1097
00:57:41,480 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 1: So the games that are like popular among these kind

1098
00:57:44,560 --> 00:57:47,600
Speaker 1: of self destructive rich kids are are the ones that

1099
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:50,560
Speaker 1: have the purest amount of chance in them. And Shamanda

1100
00:57:50,680 --> 00:57:53,760
Speaker 1: Fair it's beloved and its addictive because it's the most

1101
00:57:53,840 --> 00:57:57,080
Speaker 1: random game around and it's very fast. Now I'm not

1102
00:57:57,120 --> 00:57:59,640
Speaker 1: going to go through the rules of Shamanda Fair here

1103
00:57:59,640 --> 00:58:03,440
Speaker 1: because silly, and also I don't really I'm not a

1104
00:58:03,440 --> 00:58:05,400
Speaker 1: game of chance guy, but the point about how it

1105
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:07,600
Speaker 1: works is that it's very fast and it's very random.

1106
00:58:07,920 --> 00:58:11,080
Speaker 1: Within these games, the standard bet is one thousand pounds,

1107
00:58:11,800 --> 00:58:14,880
Speaker 1: which is about twenty five thousand dollars in modern money,

1108
00:58:15,200 --> 00:58:18,240
Speaker 1: and these games are played every thirty seconds. So these

1109
00:58:18,280 --> 00:58:21,520
Speaker 1: people are putting down twenty five grand in modern money

1110
00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:25,680
Speaker 1: every thirty seconds, or so, right it is they are

1111
00:58:26,040 --> 00:58:28,280
Speaker 1: they love this because it is the fastest way to

1112
00:58:28,400 --> 00:58:31,880
Speaker 1: light money on fire. Like that's why shimand affair is beloved, right,

1113
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:33,040
Speaker 1: just another.

1114
00:58:32,800 --> 00:58:33,920
Speaker 2: Form of doing drugs.

1115
00:58:34,280 --> 00:58:36,240
Speaker 1: It is, it is, And in fact, one of the

1116
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:38,760
Speaker 1: people that Pierson cites is like a member of the

1117
00:58:38,800 --> 00:58:42,560
Speaker 1: aristocracy who was a heroin addict who is like describes

1118
00:58:42,600 --> 00:58:45,920
Speaker 1: it as the heroin of gambling. And another guy says, famously,

1119
00:58:46,200 --> 00:58:48,320
Speaker 1: you don't give up on Shemy, which is kind of

1120
00:58:48,360 --> 00:58:51,720
Speaker 1: the nickname for this game. Shemy gives up on you, right, Like,

1121
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:53,840
Speaker 1: you never quit this game, you just run out of

1122
00:58:53,880 --> 00:58:57,520
Speaker 1: money because it's so addictive. So aspinall. The best thing

1123
00:58:57,560 --> 00:58:59,760
Speaker 1: about this from his perspective is that if you are

1124
00:58:59,800 --> 00:59:03,360
Speaker 1: the house, the house gets paid twenty percent of the

1125
00:59:03,400 --> 00:59:06,440
Speaker 1: pot in each game. Right. That was just sort of

1126
00:59:06,480 --> 00:59:08,800
Speaker 1: the cultural sort of understanding about how this was going

1127
00:59:08,840 --> 00:59:11,280
Speaker 1: to work. And the idea is this compensates the host

1128
00:59:11,280 --> 00:59:14,880
Speaker 1: for running the game. But because every member, everyone who's

1129
00:59:14,920 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 1: putting into a pot is putting the equivalent of twenty

1130
00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:21,520
Speaker 1: five grand and you make a fucking fortune running chimney game.

1131
00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:24,040
Speaker 2: So wait, is the So does the person running the

1132
00:59:24,080 --> 00:59:26,880
Speaker 2: game get a is they like a vig?

1133
00:59:27,280 --> 00:59:29,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the vig right, that's like you get twenty

1134
00:59:29,520 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 1: percent of the pot automatically goes to the house.

1135
00:59:32,760 --> 00:59:35,800
Speaker 2: Oh boy, I gotta run one of these. Yeah, yeah, right.

1136
00:59:35,960 --> 00:59:39,480
Speaker 1: It's actually explicitly illegal in UK law to do this

1137
00:59:39,640 --> 00:59:44,320
Speaker 1: now air where it's extremely illegal to run any kind

1138
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:49,640
Speaker 1: of gambling yourself. Yeah, that's a shame. Thank god, we

1139
00:59:49,680 --> 00:59:54,200
Speaker 1: can go to Caesar's palace and anyway. I don't know,

1140
00:59:54,240 --> 00:59:57,720
Speaker 1: at least it's democratized, right, They're they're robbing everybody here.

1141
00:59:58,000 --> 00:59:59,600
Speaker 2: I don't know. I guess it's better the way that.

1142
00:59:59,560 --> 01:00:01,720
Speaker 1: He's doing it because the only people in these games

1143
01:00:01,760 --> 01:00:05,600
Speaker 1: are rich, right, I will say Aspinall's version of running

1144
01:00:05,600 --> 01:00:08,520
Speaker 1: a casino is much more ethical than any other version.

1145
01:00:08,920 --> 01:00:09,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1146
01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:12,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the only time where that's the case, where

1147
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:15,680
Speaker 1: like excluding people is fine because the people you're excluding

1148
01:00:15,680 --> 01:00:18,640
Speaker 1: are poor and can't afford to gamble like this. So

1149
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:21,480
Speaker 1: I'll give him that. So Aspinall he brings in his

1150
01:00:21,640 --> 01:00:23,680
Speaker 1: you know, they start making money with these games. He

1151
01:00:23,760 --> 01:00:26,320
Speaker 1: brings in his mom to curate the meals because she's

1152
01:00:26,440 --> 01:00:29,680
Speaker 1: you know, knows some great cooks. Maxwell Scott, being this

1153
01:00:29,760 --> 01:00:33,480
Speaker 1: kind of impeccably mannered guy, picks the wine and John

1154
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:36,120
Speaker 1: sort of in order to dress this up, they're going

1155
01:00:36,200 --> 01:00:38,960
Speaker 1: they're running it out of different houses each week. But

1156
01:00:39,040 --> 01:00:41,200
Speaker 1: he has to like make it look nice. So he

1157
01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:44,440
Speaker 1: needs some fine art. These pieces like originals by like

1158
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:47,640
Speaker 1: guys like Panini and Cantiletto. And he's able to get

1159
01:00:47,800 --> 01:00:49,920
Speaker 1: fine art by sort of going to different art dealers

1160
01:00:49,960 --> 01:00:53,520
Speaker 1: and saying, I'm totally gonna buy this piece, but I

1161
01:00:53,600 --> 01:00:55,600
Speaker 1: need to take it home and try it out for

1162
01:00:55,640 --> 01:00:59,240
Speaker 1: a couple of days. Right, And because he's a lord

1163
01:00:59,520 --> 01:01:02,880
Speaker 1: and you know, in good with the aristocracy, all of

1164
01:01:02,880 --> 01:01:04,720
Speaker 1: these places are like, well, of course.

1165
01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:07,959
Speaker 2: Well you need to try a piece of artwork at home.

1166
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 2: That's how that works.

1167
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:13,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, take it for a spin, Jesus Christ. So his

1168
01:01:13,680 --> 01:01:16,280
Speaker 1: first few games are hits and he just starts making

1169
01:01:16,640 --> 01:01:20,600
Speaker 1: piles of money. Right now, none of this is strict.

1170
01:01:21,040 --> 01:01:23,560
Speaker 1: This is a legal gray area at the time. Right,

1171
01:01:23,960 --> 01:01:26,880
Speaker 1: England's gambling laws make it a crime to run a

1172
01:01:26,920 --> 01:01:30,680
Speaker 1: casino or gambling house. You can't do that legally, But

1173
01:01:31,480 --> 01:01:36,200
Speaker 1: private homes are allowed to host gambling games, right you can't.

1174
01:01:36,240 --> 01:01:37,840
Speaker 1: I think it's if you do it more than two

1175
01:01:37,920 --> 01:01:40,880
Speaker 1: or three nights in a row it becomes illegal. So

1176
01:01:41,400 --> 01:01:44,840
Speaker 1: basically every week they switch locations, right, and that way

1177
01:01:44,840 --> 01:01:48,400
Speaker 1: they're not running a gambling hall. Right, these are independent games.

1178
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:50,720
Speaker 1: Well this is this man's game this week. But they're

1179
01:01:50,760 --> 01:01:54,600
Speaker 1: all run by Aspinall right, and he's using kind of

1180
01:01:54,640 --> 01:01:58,000
Speaker 1: his buddy Maxwell Scott, who is this guy that any

1181
01:01:58,120 --> 01:02:01,600
Speaker 1: anybody who's rich in fan knows Maxwell Scott. So he

1182
01:02:01,640 --> 01:02:03,800
Speaker 1: can just go to all these other people with mansions

1183
01:02:03,800 --> 01:02:05,640
Speaker 1: and be like, hey, you want to host a game

1184
01:02:05,720 --> 01:02:07,920
Speaker 1: this week? You know, I think they're usually kicking them

1185
01:02:07,920 --> 01:02:11,040
Speaker 1: a little bit of the Big Two, but the money

1186
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:11,480
Speaker 1: is crazy.

1187
01:02:11,480 --> 01:02:12,000
Speaker 2: They are making.

1188
01:02:12,120 --> 01:02:15,400
Speaker 1: Aspinall's generally making something like thirty pounds a night off

1189
01:02:15,400 --> 01:02:19,520
Speaker 1: of these games, which is this period of time an

1190
01:02:19,520 --> 01:02:23,080
Speaker 1: insane amount of money. Now his expenses are high too,

1191
01:02:23,160 --> 01:02:25,400
Speaker 1: but he's still making a lot of money, and in

1192
01:02:25,520 --> 01:02:28,560
Speaker 1: very short time he is rich. And the best thing

1193
01:02:28,560 --> 01:02:31,280
Speaker 1: about being rich is you can get totally devoted to

1194
01:02:31,360 --> 01:02:35,560
Speaker 1: insane hobbies that poor people cannot afford. In John's case

1195
01:02:36,240 --> 01:02:39,320
Speaker 1: being this kind of lifelong animal lover, the insane hobby

1196
01:02:39,360 --> 01:02:44,760
Speaker 1: he chooses to get into is adopting exotic animals and yeah, perfect,

1197
01:02:45,040 --> 01:02:49,400
Speaker 1: Oh it's going to be good gets so British, Yeah,

1198
01:02:49,440 --> 01:02:51,160
Speaker 1: and that is legal at this point. It's like not

1199
01:02:51,280 --> 01:02:54,280
Speaker 1: till seventy six that the UK makes it illegal to

1200
01:02:54,400 --> 01:02:58,720
Speaker 1: just like buy lions or whatever. Like, yeah, in part

1201
01:02:58,760 --> 01:03:01,280
Speaker 1: because of this guy. But I'm going to read another

1202
01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:04,120
Speaker 1: quote from the gamblers here. Aspinall never said what took

1203
01:03:04,160 --> 01:03:06,360
Speaker 1: him to mister Palmer's pet shop in North London in

1204
01:03:06,400 --> 01:03:09,080
Speaker 1: early nineteen fifty seven, Still less, what made him buy

1205
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:12,000
Speaker 1: a small capuchin monkey. If you live in Eaton Place

1206
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:14,240
Speaker 1: and want an unusual pet to amuse your guests, you

1207
01:03:14,280 --> 01:03:16,720
Speaker 1: could do worse than a capuchin monkey. They're small and

1208
01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:19,200
Speaker 1: affectionate and have a zany sense of humor all their own,

1209
01:03:19,520 --> 01:03:22,160
Speaker 1: Livelier than a Pekinese and more affectionate than a Siamese.

1210
01:03:22,400 --> 01:03:24,760
Speaker 1: They take their name from the monklike hood around their head.

1211
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:27,840
Speaker 1: This particular monkey was a great success with gambling friends

1212
01:03:27,840 --> 01:03:31,640
Speaker 1: who visited the house. One of them christened him Dead Loss. Thereafter,

1213
01:03:31,720 --> 01:03:35,760
Speaker 1: he was always known as Debdi Deddy's popularity turned Aspinall's

1214
01:03:35,760 --> 01:03:38,640
Speaker 1: thoughts to other animals. Like many people with childhood memories

1215
01:03:38,640 --> 01:03:40,640
Speaker 1: of Teddy bears, he seems to have regarded bears as

1216
01:03:40,640 --> 01:03:43,480
Speaker 1: friendly creatures, and from mister Palmer bought a pair of

1217
01:03:43,520 --> 01:03:47,280
Speaker 1: young Himalayan bears he called them Esau and Ayesha, took

1218
01:03:47,320 --> 01:03:49,040
Speaker 1: them home to eat in place, and for a while

1219
01:03:49,080 --> 01:03:51,800
Speaker 1: did his best to make them socialize among his guests.

1220
01:03:52,280 --> 01:03:55,760
Speaker 1: Legend has it that a shortsighted peer once mistook Esau

1221
01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:58,600
Speaker 1: for another member of the House of Lords. But Himalayan

1222
01:03:58,600 --> 01:04:01,160
Speaker 1: bears are not as sociable as they appear, and before

1223
01:04:01,200 --> 01:04:03,960
Speaker 1: long Aspinall reluctantly confined them to a cage that he

1224
01:04:04,000 --> 01:04:07,200
Speaker 1: constructed in the garden. This did nothing to deterear him

1225
01:04:07,200 --> 01:04:09,680
Speaker 1: from trying to make friends with other wild animals. Rather

1226
01:04:09,760 --> 01:04:12,160
Speaker 1: the reverse, and his problems with Esau and Ayisha seem

1227
01:04:12,200 --> 01:04:14,240
Speaker 1: to have convinced him that if only he had bought

1228
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:16,240
Speaker 1: the two bears young enough and brought them up to

1229
01:04:16,280 --> 01:04:18,800
Speaker 1: have no fear of him, this would have been quite possible.

1230
01:04:19,120 --> 01:04:21,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's the problem, mat that's the problem. You

1231
01:04:21,840 --> 01:04:25,880
Speaker 2: didn't get those bears. Yeah, I got the pet. He

1232
01:04:25,920 --> 01:04:28,560
Speaker 2: tried to bring it back, got pet shown it. Told

1233
01:04:28,600 --> 01:04:29,440
Speaker 2: you need to get early.

1234
01:04:29,840 --> 01:04:32,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is his his his. The only thing he

1235
01:04:32,520 --> 01:04:34,880
Speaker 1: learns out of any time, like the reason why he

1236
01:04:34,920 --> 01:04:37,480
Speaker 1: has to cage them is that they attack people, and

1237
01:04:37,840 --> 01:04:39,960
Speaker 1: the only lesson he learns from this is like, these

1238
01:04:40,000 --> 01:04:43,360
Speaker 1: bears would be my friend if I'd gotten them younger, right.

1239
01:04:43,320 --> 01:04:47,400
Speaker 2: Of course, that would That is the that's the lesson

1240
01:04:47,440 --> 01:04:47,960
Speaker 2: I've learned.

1241
01:04:48,120 --> 01:04:52,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's from this. Pearson will kind of note

1242
01:04:52,480 --> 01:04:55,360
Speaker 1: that if you are running a gambling operation like this,

1243
01:04:55,480 --> 01:04:57,760
Speaker 1: if you're sort of the master of the casino, it's

1244
01:04:57,840 --> 01:05:00,320
Speaker 1: kind of like being a cult leader, right, in part

1245
01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:03,400
Speaker 1: because people are really reliant upon you, especially the ones

1246
01:05:03,400 --> 01:05:07,040
Speaker 1: who are gambling too much, and that sort of deranges John.

1247
01:05:07,240 --> 01:05:10,480
Speaker 1: Like he's already grown up in this very rarefied, strange

1248
01:05:10,520 --> 01:05:14,120
Speaker 1: world of high society. He's become more deranged by being

1249
01:05:14,160 --> 01:05:17,480
Speaker 1: this kind of gambling maven, and something strange starts to

1250
01:05:17,520 --> 01:05:19,520
Speaker 1: happen to him as he starts get it. Taking on

1251
01:05:19,560 --> 01:05:23,000
Speaker 1: these exotic pets, he becomes so fascinated by them that

1252
01:05:23,080 --> 01:05:26,480
Speaker 1: he starts to grow irritated and enraged by the pedestrian

1253
01:05:26,520 --> 01:05:29,640
Speaker 1: pets that middle class people have. It makes him angry

1254
01:05:29,720 --> 01:05:32,040
Speaker 1: to see someone with a dog or a cat, right,

1255
01:05:32,560 --> 01:05:35,040
Speaker 1: and he starts to hate people who have less and

1256
01:05:35,080 --> 01:05:38,600
Speaker 1: extends this to their pets. He hates animals that aren't exotic, right.

1257
01:05:38,920 --> 01:05:44,680
Speaker 1: He thinks it's disgusting, which is fascinating. Mentally, what's going

1258
01:05:44,720 --> 01:05:47,880
Speaker 1: on there is fascinating. I don't know how else to

1259
01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:48,560
Speaker 1: describe it.

1260
01:05:49,240 --> 01:05:52,439
Speaker 2: Love that this is such a British story. We hate

1261
01:05:52,520 --> 01:05:55,800
Speaker 2: in a completely different way, so that the average person, our

1262
01:05:55,800 --> 01:06:00,440
Speaker 2: brains are capable of loathing someone for the petsiest threes

1263
01:06:01,200 --> 01:06:07,520
Speaker 2: they yeah, you piece of shit I have. I can't

1264
01:06:07,560 --> 01:06:09,400
Speaker 2: go to three rooms in my house due to the

1265
01:06:09,440 --> 01:06:14,160
Speaker 2: pumas plural. Yeah, I get bitten by a bear every

1266
01:06:14,200 --> 01:06:17,560
Speaker 2: single day. You cowered. There are eighteen timer and monkeys

1267
01:06:17,560 --> 01:06:20,520
Speaker 2: in my garden. I can account for eleven, but I

1268
01:06:20,560 --> 01:06:25,120
Speaker 2: see seven evidence of another seven. One is pregnant. I

1269
01:06:25,160 --> 01:06:27,000
Speaker 2: don't know how they're all male.

1270
01:06:29,240 --> 01:06:32,600
Speaker 1: So, because he's so angry at the idea of normal pets,

1271
01:06:32,880 --> 01:06:35,320
Speaker 1: in order to like both trump all of the cat

1272
01:06:35,400 --> 01:06:37,960
Speaker 1: and dog owners in the world, he buys a tiger

1273
01:06:38,000 --> 01:06:40,800
Speaker 1: cup named Tara, and he raises her like a kitten.

1274
01:06:40,840 --> 01:06:43,680
Speaker 1: She sleeps with him in his bed. He'll take her

1275
01:06:43,680 --> 01:06:47,439
Speaker 1: on walks at night, and one evening a family's dog

1276
01:06:47,520 --> 01:06:51,320
Speaker 1: attacks Tara, or perhaps he says that the dog attacked Tara.

1277
01:06:51,840 --> 01:06:55,120
Speaker 1: We don't know that, we have no idea who attacked.

1278
01:06:55,160 --> 01:06:59,720
Speaker 1: To trust him, yeah, perhaps Tara attacked him, but whatever

1279
01:06:59,760 --> 01:07:02,200
Speaker 1: the case, says, his cat kills this dog with a

1280
01:07:02,240 --> 01:07:06,560
Speaker 1: single bite. Obviously it's a tiger, Like, of course, this

1281
01:07:06,640 --> 01:07:10,520
Speaker 1: is how it goes. Sure, So aspinall this, I think

1282
01:07:10,520 --> 01:07:13,280
Speaker 1: this dog is like gotten out of someone's yard, right,

1283
01:07:13,320 --> 01:07:16,120
Speaker 1: So aspinall it finds himself in the dead of night

1284
01:07:16,160 --> 01:07:18,920
Speaker 1: with his tiger and this like mauled corpse of a

1285
01:07:18,960 --> 01:07:22,400
Speaker 1: family's dog, and he just hurls it down the basement

1286
01:07:22,480 --> 01:07:23,880
Speaker 1: stairs of a stranger's house.

1287
01:07:24,320 --> 01:07:26,600
Speaker 2: That's like, that's how I'm gonna deal with this problem.

1288
01:07:26,720 --> 01:07:27,600
Speaker 2: Where this shit goes?

1289
01:07:27,720 --> 01:07:33,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's just quite an amazing guy.

1290
01:07:33,600 --> 01:07:35,080
Speaker 2: Trust me, how animals work.

1291
01:07:35,120 --> 01:07:37,560
Speaker 1: This is what you do, this is where you put them.

1292
01:07:37,920 --> 01:07:40,640
Speaker 1: So in short order, it becomes obvious to him that, like,

1293
01:07:40,920 --> 01:07:44,000
Speaker 1: I want more wild animals than he's living in London, right,

1294
01:07:44,120 --> 01:07:46,280
Speaker 1: he already has. He has a tiger and two bears

1295
01:07:46,280 --> 01:07:49,000
Speaker 1: and several monkeys. That's too many animals for a house

1296
01:07:49,040 --> 01:07:52,200
Speaker 1: in the middle of London. Yeah, that's fine. It's getting

1297
01:07:52,240 --> 01:07:55,400
Speaker 1: a bit crowded. So he buys this kind of decrepit

1298
01:07:55,440 --> 01:07:58,680
Speaker 1: country mansion on a bunch of acreage called Howlits, and

1299
01:07:58,720 --> 01:08:01,080
Speaker 1: he pays a lot of money. He has rebuilt and refurbished,

1300
01:08:01,120 --> 01:08:03,840
Speaker 1: and he starts setting up habitats for his bears and

1301
01:08:03,880 --> 01:08:07,240
Speaker 1: for Tara, and soon more animals will join them. And

1302
01:08:07,280 --> 01:08:09,560
Speaker 1: we're going to tell that story and what happens next

1303
01:08:09,600 --> 01:08:12,120
Speaker 1: in part two. But before we kind of move on,

1304
01:08:12,880 --> 01:08:15,160
Speaker 1: I want to tell another story that kind of sets

1305
01:08:15,240 --> 01:08:18,759
Speaker 1: up and explains a bit what's happening with his gambling

1306
01:08:18,760 --> 01:08:20,320
Speaker 1: halls in this period of time. And to do that,

1307
01:08:20,439 --> 01:08:22,160
Speaker 1: we've got to pull back a century or so to

1308
01:08:22,160 --> 01:08:26,160
Speaker 1: the early eighteen hundreds and discuss John Aspinall's predecessor, right,

1309
01:08:26,400 --> 01:08:29,040
Speaker 1: the gambling maven, who comes a generation before him and

1310
01:08:29,120 --> 01:08:32,800
Speaker 1: kind of sets up the board for him. So, after

1311
01:08:33,000 --> 01:08:35,559
Speaker 1: kind of in the early eighteen hundreds, after eighteen twelve,

1312
01:08:35,800 --> 01:08:38,960
Speaker 1: you've got this situation that's a lot like the UK

1313
01:08:39,080 --> 01:08:42,200
Speaker 1: after nineteen forty five, and that you've had this long

1314
01:08:42,360 --> 01:08:46,200
Speaker 1: series of wars. They've devastated the whole country, right, But

1315
01:08:46,280 --> 01:08:48,640
Speaker 1: the aristocracy, a lot of the sons of the aristocracy

1316
01:08:48,680 --> 01:08:52,240
Speaker 1: have died in this war, and suddenly there's this period

1317
01:08:52,240 --> 01:08:55,280
Speaker 1: of peace, and so you have this generation of aristocratocrats

1318
01:08:55,360 --> 01:08:57,519
Speaker 1: come of age. A lot of them have lost their

1319
01:08:57,560 --> 01:09:00,240
Speaker 1: parents in these conflicts, which means they have all of

1320
01:09:00,280 --> 01:09:03,000
Speaker 1: this money and there's no war to fight, right, so

1321
01:09:03,040 --> 01:09:07,040
Speaker 1: they're all bored as fucking hell. And that creates the

1322
01:09:07,120 --> 01:09:11,000
Speaker 1: situation about a century before Aspinalls rise, where gambling is

1323
01:09:11,040 --> 01:09:13,799
Speaker 1: going to flourish, right, because there's all these rich kids

1324
01:09:13,840 --> 01:09:17,519
Speaker 1: with ready money looking for an adrenaline fix. John is

1325
01:09:17,560 --> 01:09:19,120
Speaker 1: going to be the guy to take advantage of this

1326
01:09:19,160 --> 01:09:21,719
Speaker 1: in the late forties and fifties and a century earlier.

1327
01:09:21,760 --> 01:09:25,479
Speaker 1: His predecessor is this dude named William Crockford. One thing

1328
01:09:25,520 --> 01:09:26,840
Speaker 1: they have, they have a couple of things in common.

1329
01:09:26,880 --> 01:09:29,000
Speaker 1: One is that, you know, John is the son of

1330
01:09:29,000 --> 01:09:31,880
Speaker 1: a doctor and the daughter of a colonial officer. They're comfortable,

1331
01:09:31,880 --> 01:09:35,320
Speaker 1: they have money, but they're not the ruling class. Crockford

1332
01:09:35,560 --> 01:09:38,800
Speaker 1: is like a fishmonger by trade, right, which is he's

1333
01:09:38,840 --> 01:09:39,719
Speaker 1: a business owner.

1334
01:09:39,840 --> 01:09:40,040
Speaker 2: Right.

1335
01:09:40,640 --> 01:09:42,680
Speaker 1: He comes from like he inherits this business, I think

1336
01:09:42,720 --> 01:09:45,759
Speaker 1: from his dad, which means he's kind of solidly middle class,

1337
01:09:45,800 --> 01:09:46,960
Speaker 1: maybe upper middle class.

1338
01:09:47,040 --> 01:09:47,240
Speaker 2: Right.

1339
01:09:47,600 --> 01:09:49,519
Speaker 1: So these are both guys who come from this position

1340
01:09:49,520 --> 01:09:52,720
Speaker 1: of like they have a degree of economic privilege, but

1341
01:09:52,760 --> 01:09:57,759
Speaker 1: they're not. They're not inherently, like naturally going to ascend

1342
01:09:57,840 --> 01:10:00,439
Speaker 1: to the ruling class. They have to work for that, right,

1343
01:10:00,479 --> 01:10:03,120
Speaker 1: and they both pick gambling as their way to get there.

1344
01:10:04,280 --> 01:10:07,600
Speaker 1: Like John Crockford discovers as a teenager he can calculate

1345
01:10:07,680 --> 01:10:10,320
Speaker 1: odds in his head, making him a good gambler, and

1346
01:10:10,360 --> 01:10:12,560
Speaker 1: he starts out just sort of gambling, but by the

1347
01:10:12,600 --> 01:10:15,439
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds he's made enough money that he buys this

1348
01:10:15,520 --> 01:10:18,559
Speaker 1: sort of facility in an upscale neighborhood and he starts

1349
01:10:18,560 --> 01:10:21,080
Speaker 1: catering just to the rich. And he's kind of the

1350
01:10:21,120 --> 01:10:25,439
Speaker 1: first guy to do this. Prior to Crockford, most gambling

1351
01:10:25,439 --> 01:10:29,520
Speaker 1: halls had been disreputable places where violence was common. Crockford

1352
01:10:29,720 --> 01:10:32,640
Speaker 1: locks doesn't allow the poor in doesn't even allow you know,

1353
01:10:32,720 --> 01:10:36,320
Speaker 1: people who aren't aristocrats with money in other than himself generally,

1354
01:10:37,280 --> 01:10:39,320
Speaker 1: because he wants to create a safe place where the

1355
01:10:39,400 --> 01:10:42,400
Speaker 1: very rich can throw away their fortunes and splendor. And

1356
01:10:42,439 --> 01:10:46,360
Speaker 1: there's differences between the periods. The gamblers of Crockford's day

1357
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:49,639
Speaker 1: like stuff like poker, where there's an element of skill involved,

1358
01:10:49,760 --> 01:10:53,479
Speaker 1: right because and he recognizes that this is not because

1359
01:10:53,520 --> 01:10:55,240
Speaker 1: there's a big difference in odds, but they want this

1360
01:10:55,280 --> 01:10:58,160
Speaker 1: illusion of control, which I guess shows a difference between

1361
01:10:58,200 --> 01:11:02,000
Speaker 1: these two generations of of the ruling class that I

1362
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:05,440
Speaker 1: think is kind of interesting, and Crockford kind of culminates

1363
01:11:05,520 --> 01:11:08,800
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty eight, starting this place called Crockford's, which

1364
01:11:08,840 --> 01:11:12,200
Speaker 1: is frequented. Lord Wellington, the guy who defeats Napoleon is

1365
01:11:12,200 --> 01:11:15,240
Speaker 1: a regular there. Lord Byron is a regular there. Like,

1366
01:11:15,280 --> 01:11:17,879
Speaker 1: that's the kind of people who are sort of yeah,

1367
01:11:18,040 --> 01:11:20,960
Speaker 1: very much so, and yeah, it's one of those things.

1368
01:11:21,000 --> 01:11:23,120
Speaker 1: A big part of why Crockford he makes a decision

1369
01:11:23,160 --> 01:11:26,840
Speaker 1: early on. I don't want to host small businessmen or entrepreneurs,

1370
01:11:26,920 --> 01:11:30,000
Speaker 1: common people who have fortunes because they're smart, right, I

1371
01:11:30,080 --> 01:11:33,200
Speaker 1: just want to host idiots who inherited all of their

1372
01:11:33,240 --> 01:11:36,120
Speaker 1: money because they will gamble it all away. We don't

1373
01:11:36,160 --> 01:11:39,200
Speaker 1: know how much money Crockford ultimately fleeced out of the

1374
01:11:39,680 --> 01:11:42,559
Speaker 1: rulers of the British Empire, but it's generally agreed upon

1375
01:11:42,600 --> 01:11:45,839
Speaker 1: that he helped kind of clear out a generation of wealth,

1376
01:11:46,160 --> 01:11:48,920
Speaker 1: bankrupted a number of families, and altered the map of

1377
01:11:48,920 --> 01:11:49,639
Speaker 1: British power.

1378
01:11:49,800 --> 01:11:50,000
Speaker 2: Right.

1379
01:11:50,240 --> 01:11:53,880
Speaker 1: The aristocrats who like become wealthy and powerful after this

1380
01:11:54,040 --> 01:11:56,559
Speaker 1: point are sort of the people who weren't gambling it

1381
01:11:56,560 --> 01:12:00,680
Speaker 1: all away at Crockford's, Right, that's going to be the

1382
01:12:00,760 --> 01:12:03,759
Speaker 1: case with Aspinall, Right, he's kind of clearing the way

1383
01:12:04,520 --> 01:12:07,639
Speaker 1: for a new generation of people. And in the folks

1384
01:12:07,640 --> 01:12:10,920
Speaker 1: that kind of get rich and take the reins of

1385
01:12:10,960 --> 01:12:13,840
Speaker 1: power often don't come from the same sort of like

1386
01:12:14,040 --> 01:12:18,000
Speaker 1: rarefied noble house backgrounds right before. This is new money, right,

1387
01:12:18,200 --> 01:12:20,240
Speaker 1: That's what Aspinall is going to clear. I think it's

1388
01:12:20,240 --> 01:12:22,599
Speaker 1: just interesting to talk about Crockford because this is apparently

1389
01:12:22,680 --> 01:12:25,040
Speaker 1: kind of a pattern. Right, every one hundred and fifty

1390
01:12:25,120 --> 01:12:28,360
Speaker 1: years or so, you'll have this gambling freeze that kills

1391
01:12:28,720 --> 01:12:31,559
Speaker 1: a chunk of the old aristocracy's wealth and kind of

1392
01:12:31,560 --> 01:12:34,760
Speaker 1: facilitates the transfer of that wealth to new men, to

1393
01:12:34,800 --> 01:12:40,000
Speaker 1: these business moguls and stuff in the gamblers Pearson Wrights quote.

1394
01:12:40,600 --> 01:12:43,080
Speaker 1: More and more people were becoming vastly richer in that

1395
01:12:43,200 --> 01:12:46,320
Speaker 1: prosperous decade. As city institutions like the Stock Exchange and

1396
01:12:46,760 --> 01:12:49,880
Speaker 1: Lloyd's opened their boardrooms previously reserved for members of the

1397
01:12:49,960 --> 01:12:53,080
Speaker 1: upper classes to the sharper offspring of the growing meritocracy,

1398
01:12:53,520 --> 01:12:57,439
Speaker 1: takeover bids and property speculation offered others golden opportunities for

1399
01:12:57,479 --> 01:13:00,200
Speaker 1: acquiring a moderate amounts of wealth. A new class of

1400
01:13:00,200 --> 01:13:02,880
Speaker 1: moneymen was now appearing, and the richer they became, the

1401
01:13:02,920 --> 01:13:05,320
Speaker 1: more of them attempted to assume the habits and pretensions

1402
01:13:05,360 --> 01:13:08,920
Speaker 1: of the vanishing ancient aristocracy. In the early forties, George

1403
01:13:09,000 --> 01:13:11,559
Speaker 1: Orwell wrote that no country under the sun is more

1404
01:13:11,600 --> 01:13:13,200
Speaker 1: obsessed by class than England.

1405
01:13:13,439 --> 01:13:14,160
Speaker 2: It still was.

1406
01:13:14,479 --> 01:13:16,880
Speaker 1: Class obsession had been endemic among the English for so

1407
01:13:16,960 --> 01:13:19,320
Speaker 1: long that it wouldn't go away, And in the sixties

1408
01:13:19,320 --> 01:13:21,519
Speaker 1: the very rich appeared, if anything, to be more class

1409
01:13:21,520 --> 01:13:24,559
Speaker 1: obsessed than ever, as they infiltrated one by one the

1410
01:13:24,640 --> 01:13:30,160
Speaker 1: former strongholds of the old nobility. And that's who John

1411
01:13:30,280 --> 01:13:34,200
Speaker 1: is going to be, right, He is a new money

1412
01:13:34,280 --> 01:13:37,080
Speaker 1: guy who is not just infiltrating but going to shape

1413
01:13:37,720 --> 01:13:41,680
Speaker 1: kind of the next generation of power brokers, right in

1414
01:13:41,760 --> 01:13:44,720
Speaker 1: part by like who his casino robs and who it

1415
01:13:44,760 --> 01:13:45,760
Speaker 1: transfers money to.

1416
01:13:46,000 --> 01:13:49,000
Speaker 2: It almost feels like it's just a chain of exploitation,

1417
01:13:50,160 --> 01:13:55,200
Speaker 2: Like the British aristocracy exploited England, exploited overseas, and now

1418
01:13:55,240 --> 01:13:57,080
Speaker 2: someone found a way to exploit them.

1419
01:13:57,320 --> 01:14:01,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is beautiful. That's exactly what's happening.

1420
01:14:02,080 --> 01:14:02,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's England.

1421
01:14:03,080 --> 01:14:06,280
Speaker 1: It's a nice circle. So that's what we're going to

1422
01:14:06,400 --> 01:14:08,880
Speaker 1: end for today in part one and in part two

1423
01:14:09,040 --> 01:14:11,599
Speaker 1: we're going to have some more gambling and a whole

1424
01:14:11,600 --> 01:14:14,000
Speaker 1: lot more Zoos stories and then kind of end on

1425
01:14:14,040 --> 01:14:14,519
Speaker 1: a murder.

1426
01:14:14,560 --> 01:14:16,439
Speaker 2: So that's all exciting. That's good.

1427
01:14:16,760 --> 01:14:20,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well pull little Cliffinger there, Robert, little Cliffhanger there.

1428
01:14:21,600 --> 01:14:25,240
Speaker 2: Ed, you got any pluggables to plug here? Just read

1429
01:14:25,280 --> 01:14:27,720
Speaker 2: my newsletter it where's your ed don't eh? And if

1430
01:14:27,760 --> 01:14:30,280
Speaker 2: you need public relations services, EZPR dot com.

1431
01:14:30,040 --> 01:14:34,120
Speaker 1: Please excellent ezpr dot com and where's your head at

1432
01:14:34,400 --> 01:14:36,040
Speaker 1: It is one of my favorite people to read on

1433
01:14:36,160 --> 01:14:39,479
Speaker 1: the tech industry. And uh yeah, we will be We

1434
01:14:39,520 --> 01:14:42,080
Speaker 1: will be back on Thursday with a little bit more.

1435
01:14:46,320 --> 01:14:49,280
Speaker 2: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1436
01:14:49,400 --> 01:14:52,000
Speaker 2: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

1437
01:14:52,080 --> 01:14:56,040
Speaker 2: Zonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1438
01:14:56,120 --> 01:14:56,439
Speaker 2: Apple

1439
01:14:56,479 --> 01:15:01,360
Speaker 1: Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast