4:00

young son. During the

4:02

first week, so I understand, the

4:05

mother died suddenly and mysteriously,

4:08

and the little boy was so scared by

4:10

something that he had to be taken to

4:12

hospital. Next

4:14

morning, the father was

4:16

dangling and dead, in

4:19

the same upstairs room. That

4:21

was the last of regular residents at

4:23

the place. Muriel

4:25

drew up her shoulders, I don't wonder.

4:27

What about the poor little boy? He

4:31

didn't entirely recover. The

4:34

grocery man down at the village says he's

4:36

at the state hospital. Mental

4:38

case, can't rightly remember who he is

4:40

or how he got there. Quiet,

4:43

harmless, but they don't dare

4:45

leave as much as three feet of rope where

4:47

he can get to it. And

4:50

nobody's lived in this house since, prompted

4:52

the girl. Well, not

4:54

lived in it, McCormack told

4:57

her. Once a convict escaped

4:59

from the prison camp and ran away

5:01

through the woods. That was

5:03

the year before last. I was

5:05

spending the summer at my cabin. The

5:07

state police tracked him to the house and

5:10

cut him down from the hook where

5:12

he was hanging. Ooh,

5:14

gasped Muriel with shivery relish.

5:18

In the upstairs room. In

5:21

the upstairs room. McCormack

5:24

lighted his pipe. Its

5:26

bowl sent forth a soft

5:28

rose-colored glimmer that relieved

5:30

his strong bony features with an

5:32

impression of whimsical gentleness. The

5:35

night was strangely still, except

5:38

for the footfalls and respirations of

5:41

man and woman. No

5:43

insect chirped or creaked. The

5:47

autumn leaves did not rustle on the

5:49

branches. McCormack

5:52

thought that cold perspiration was

5:54

starting on his forehead, but

5:57

perhaps it was the condensation of the

5:59

mist. "'I dare

6:01

hope that nobody knows we're out ghost hunting,' he

6:03

remarked. Some heavy-handed jokester might

6:05

dress up in a sheet and come

6:07

to call." "'Have

6:09

you brought any charms along?'

6:12

his companion asked. Wolfbane, a

6:14

crucifix, a holy water. Anything

6:16

of that description?" McCormack

6:19

shook his head. "'I'm out

6:21

to see ghosts, not drive them

6:23

away,' he replied, and smiled. He

6:26

had an agreeable smile. But

6:29

with his pipe-fire half-screened in ashes,

6:31

his face looked like a clay

6:33

mask in the blue dimness." Muriel

6:37

Fisher felt less cheerful than she had

6:39

at the beginning of the walk, and

6:42

far less sceptical of ghosts than

6:45

when she and McCormack had shared

6:47

sandwiches and coffee in his snug

6:49

cabin. That

6:52

cabin seemed far away just now.

6:55

But she refused to wish herself back. She

6:58

had come out here expressly tonight

7:01

to see a haunted house. "'Where's

7:04

the scene of all these gothic horrors?'

7:06

she asked after a time. "'Almost

7:09

directly ahead,' her companion informed her.

7:11

Yes, here's the creek and the

7:13

road ends. There was

7:15

a bridge once, I dare say, but

7:17

not now.' The

7:19

trees shrank away from this spot, and

7:22

the fog-strained moonlight was almost

7:24

strong around the two adventurers.

7:28

Before them, set deep

7:30

between rocky banks, ran

7:32

black, swift water. McCormack

7:35

stepped cautiously to the very edge,

7:38

peered down, and then across. "'It

7:41

looked narrower by day, I must confess,'

7:43

he remarked. "'However, I think I can

7:45

jump it.' He flung

7:47

his walking stick to the far bank,

7:50

gathered his body suddenly, and straddled his

7:52

long legs into a skipping leap. He

7:56

seemed to swing across the stream, gained

7:58

the rough-looking rocks beyond, and

8:00

turned back. His

8:02

thin face was like a genial skull

8:04

in the moonlight. "'If

8:07

you go only a little way down,

8:09

it's narrower,' he called to Muriel. But

8:12

she, too, flung her stick across. "'Don't

8:14

coddle me,' she cried gaily. "'I can

8:16

jump as far as you can.' She

8:20

suited the action to the word

8:22

and bravely, but her stride could

8:24

not match McCormack's, and her skirt

8:26

hampered the scissory thrash of her

8:28

legs. One blunt Oxford

8:30

touched the edge of the far bank.

8:33

Rock crunched and crumbled

8:35

beneath it. She felt herself

8:38

falling backward. McCormack, moving quickly

8:40

for so big a man, shot out her

8:42

hand and clutched her by the wrist. With

8:45

a mighty heave he fairly whipped

8:47

her to safety. "'Thanks, Scotty,'

8:49

she gasped, and straightened

8:52

her spectacles, then the bandana that

8:54

was bound over her head and

8:56

beneath her chin, peasant-style. "'You spared

8:58

me a cold bath,' they

9:00

both smiled and breathed deeply in mutual

9:02

relief. "'I take that

9:04

escape as a good omen,' she went on.

9:07

"'Now, is this the haunted

9:09

house? It looks to be.' They

9:13

had come into a larger clearing, but

9:15

here the mist had thickened to a pearly

9:17

cloud. In its

9:20

heart rose a great cliff-like structure,

9:22

with towering walls and a flat

9:24

roof. The walls

9:26

had weathered to a gloomy

9:28

night-gray, in which shuttered

9:31

windows formed in distinct

9:34

deviations. A

9:36

porch had once run the entire width

9:38

of the front, but the

9:40

roof was collapsed, the pillars fallen,

9:43

and the floor all but in

9:46

ruins. "'Isn't that

9:48

a lightning-blasted oak in the front

9:50

yard?' asked Muriel, pointing with her

9:52

recovered stick. "'I suppose owls hoot

9:54

in its branches to foretell the

9:56

death of the air.' There

9:59

aren't any air." as McCormack reminded

10:01

her. All of them

10:03

died, though were hanged. Come

10:06

round to the side, there's supposed to be an open

10:08

window there." He

10:10

led the way, up a rise

10:12

in the overgrown yard and through

10:14

thick-set brambles that may once have

10:16

been a bank of roses. Three

10:20

windows were ranged in line on the right

10:22

side of the house, and the

10:24

rearmost showed blacker than its fellows. McCormack

10:28

pushed close to it,

10:30

knee-deep in rank shrubs that

10:32

showed one or two wax-petalled

10:34

flowers. "'No shutters,'

10:36

he reported, "'and the glass is all broken

10:39

out of the sash. Where

10:41

are you, Muriel?' "'Right with

10:43

you,' came her reply from just behind

10:45

his arm. He turned, set

10:47

his hands to her waist, and lifted

10:50

her lightly through the opening. "'Ooh,

10:52

it's dark,' she cried in protest

10:54

as her feet came to light

10:56

on the dully echoing floor. At

10:59

once she struck a match. It

11:01

gave blotchy glimpses of a big crumbling

11:03

room, apparently running all the way from

11:06

front to back of this part of

11:08

the house. McCormack

11:10

struggled in through the gap where

11:12

the window had been. His bracing

11:14

fingers found the wood spongily dry,

11:17

as if the house had

11:19

been decaying for six centuries

11:22

instead of sixty years. "'I

11:24

brought no flashlight,' he informed

11:26

Muriel, "'only a candle.' "'You

11:28

did exactly right. Why chase

11:30

away spirits with electricity?' She

11:33

watched as he ignited the fat,

11:35

tallow cylinder, which yielded a clear,

11:37

courageous tag of flame. "'Nowhere,'

11:40

she asked him. "'There

11:42

should be stairs leading upward,' he said,

11:44

and moved across the room. Its

11:47

boards creaked and buckled under his shoes,

11:50

and crumbs of plaster fallen from

11:52

the shattered ceiling made harsh, crunching

11:55

noises. The candle

11:57

showed them a doorway through which

11:59

they walked. For

24:00

some reason they don't want us to send books to each

24:02

other. I think they must

24:04

have shares in PDFs or something. Anyway,

24:06

let's say something about

24:08

the story

24:10

and about

24:12

him himself. So it was

24:15

first published in March 1939, where angels

24:17

fear by manly Wade Wellman. And

24:21

it's been anthologised because it is

24:23

a scary story in various collections,

24:25

including in the notable Hauntings Tales

24:27

of the Supernatural, edited by Henry

24:29

Matteo and illustrated by Edward Gory.

24:31

That's the one I've got. Now,

24:34

the illustrations are really cool. When you used to

24:36

get books in the old days, they had black

24:38

and white illustrations in sketches. This

24:41

one has. It's fantastic. So anyway,

24:43

let's talk about manly Wade Wellman. Apparently

24:46

very handsome. Born on

24:48

May 21st, 1903 in Camondongo,

24:50

Portuguese, West Africa, now

24:52

Angola. He was a prolific

24:54

American writer and renowned for his works in

24:56

the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror.

24:58

I thought we'd done another manly Wade Wellman,

25:00

but when I looked, I couldn't

25:03

find it in the contents. Let

25:05

me just have a quick look on my computer in

25:07

case I've recorded it and not actually posted it anywhere.

25:10

Maybe I haven't. Maybe I have. I

25:13

bet you thought that I was going to be away for ages. I

25:15

bet you thought, if you don't know much about

25:18

computers, that there's big boxes of files

25:20

and I was just going to have a rummage

25:22

through those and I was going to take ages

25:24

to do it. But the

25:26

one thing about technology is I

25:28

was ages, but you don't

25:30

know that because I cut it

25:32

out. Anyway, back to the

25:35

point. The

25:37

point, the point being the story. I

25:40

was telling about him. So he

25:42

his early years were marked by

25:44

an international upbringing. His father, Frederick

25:46

Creighton Wellman, was a medical officer

25:49

in Africa and young Manly spoke

25:51

the local dialect before English. The

25:53

Wellman family later moved to the United

25:55

States, where Manly pursued his education, earning

25:58

a BA in English from Wichita. Municipal

26:00

University, now Wichita State

26:02

University in 1926, and

26:05

a Bachelor of Literature from Columbia University in

26:07

1927. Despite

26:09

early discouragement from teachers regarding

26:12

his writing, we've all been

26:14

there, Wellman's determination led him

26:16

to publish his first professional story in Weird

26:18

Tales in 1927, marking

26:20

the beginning of a long and distinguished career. This

26:23

is a lesson, of course, a bit too late

26:25

for me, but if you're just young listening to

26:27

this, you know, your teachers and

26:29

stuff tell you stuff, they don't know what they're talking about. They

26:32

say it with great authority, ah, you will

26:34

be this, you will never amount to that,

26:37

your strengths are in this, they actually have

26:39

no idea. I was kicked

26:41

out of French, for

26:43

example, and I was told I have no

26:45

facility with languages, and

26:48

later for a period of some years I learned

26:50

my living as a linguist, so flippin'

26:53

heck, eh? They're

26:55

no-nout, don't listen to them, listen

26:57

to me, pick yourself up, get

26:59

out there, positive pants, and

27:02

all those other tropes that you

27:04

see on your Instagram feed. Yeah,

27:07

they say positive pants, there's a picture of underpants

27:10

usually. Anyway, phew, how

27:12

we got there, I don't know.

27:15

Wellman's body of work spans multiple genre,

27:18

see, I totally was a linguist, including

27:20

detective, he wasn't French though, including detective

27:22

fiction, westerns and non-fiction, but he's best

27:24

remembered, I did A-level French, he's best

27:26

remembered for his contributions to supernatural and

27:28

Appalachia and folklore literature. I don't know

27:31

if you ever do go on, and

27:34

there's a young woman who lives in

27:36

a holler in Appalachia, and she just

27:38

speaks in this accent, she is so

27:41

funny. She's got loads

27:43

of followers and well deserved, she's just naturally

27:45

funny, so I now know

27:47

it's Appalachia. Anyone would

27:49

tend to say Appalachia, I think

27:51

I've heard people say Appalachia, but Appalachia. Right

27:55

back at you. He spent much of his

27:57

life in North Carolina, this is Manly Wade.

27:59

Wellman drawing inspiration. from the region's rich cultural

28:01

heritage. Wellman's most famous creation,

28:03

John the Balladeer, a wandering minstrel battling

28:06

supernatural evil with a silver string guitar,

28:08

it sounds fantastic, I haven't read any

28:10

of those, encapsulates his unique

28:13

blend of folklore and fantasy. I

28:15

should say I'm obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons at the

28:17

moment. I've been playing on a Monday night with my

28:21

daughter and her boyfriend and so I'm like,

28:23

oh everything, I'm writing a Dungeons and Dragons

28:25

scenario so that's going to be my new

28:27

career. I know I'm 63 but

28:29

come on, it's not too late, never

28:31

too late, positive pants, come

28:33

on. John the Balladeer,

28:35

silver string guitar, get back to the

28:37

point, encapsulates his unique blend of folklore

28:40

and fantasy. Throughout his

28:42

career Wellman received numerous accolades

28:44

including the World Fantasy Award

28:46

for lifetime achievement in 1980,

28:48

an induction into the North

28:50

Carolina literary Hall of Flame,

28:53

not flame, that's Dungeons and Dragons

28:55

again, Hall of Fame posthumously

28:59

in 1996. So teachers, leave

29:02

them kids alone, you don't

29:04

know what you're talking about. If you're a good teacher listening

29:06

to this because there are good teachers, I

29:08

had some great teachers, I had some

29:10

rubbish ones as well, but I had some great ones

29:13

who were fantastically inspiring to me going

29:15

through life and were positive apart from the

29:17

fact I was really lazy and

29:19

talked too much in class and put in detention a

29:22

lot. But teachers,

29:27

remember the power you have, I suppose you

29:29

do, there's me telling my grandmother to suck

29:31

eggs, my grandma never sucked an egg, I

29:33

never saw her suck an egg, she

29:36

used to fry them, mainly

29:38

fry them, not poach, she

29:41

never sucked them. So

29:43

I could possibly have told her how to suck an egg because

29:45

I don't think she knew. She

29:49

didn't have her teeth, she had dentures, potentially,

29:54

anyway, sucking eggs and grandmas, did your

29:56

grandmother ever suck eggs? I

29:58

don't think they really know how to do it. So

30:00

Sheila's a grand man now. I'm gonna go downstairs a minute.

30:02

I'm gonna say Sheila I just want to ask you a

30:04

technical question as you're a grand man now. Can

30:07

you suck an egg? See what she says?

30:10

She might surprise me anyway

30:14

That was a hymn where angels fear

30:16

by manly Wade Wellman I

30:18

think we've already made that point is a

30:20

story that expertly crafts an atmosphere of dread

30:23

and suspense It does making it deeply unsettling

30:25

and genuinely scary This is true.

30:27

The fear begins with the setting itself

30:29

bang on gothic Decrepit

30:31

haunted house. Yes steeped

30:34

in the dark history of suicides and

30:36

mysterious death deaths. That's a Tabasco sauce

30:38

going on there Wellman's

30:42

vivid description of the decaying structure he

30:44

does do that and it's eerie oppressive atmosphere

30:46

Yes, he does immediately immerse the reader in

30:48

a world where danger lurks in every shadow

30:50

what he did really well Was that it

30:52

wasn't he what didn't write it in first

30:54

person? It was third person, but he still

30:56

led us We were right

30:59

there with them weren't we walking

31:01

through the wood? Starting

31:03

off cheerful with reference to a cozy

31:05

cabin and sardines that wouldn't have made

31:08

me cheerful mind, but Whiskey

31:11

whiskey and sardines. It's not

31:13

a diet To

31:15

to to thrive upon it. Well Apparently

31:18

modern drinking is good fear and sardines are good for

31:21

you So maybe you could live on whiskey and sardines

31:23

and eggs apparently I was reading about

31:26

man it ate only eggs all his

31:28

life He's 96 had all

31:30

his teeth I thought I made that last bit up because

31:32

I don't don't remember if you had all these teeth But

31:34

I would imagine he would because it's sugar that gets rid

31:36

of your teeth and there's no sugar and eggs Yeah,

31:41

I thought it was really good They

31:43

this Muriel Fisher and Scotty McCormack Decide

31:47

to confront the house's malevolent reputation.

31:49

Yeah, they do you see and

31:51

of course remember I've said many

31:53

many times that in

31:55

a horror story which

31:58

this is There is

32:00

usually a sin which is punished because

32:02

remember stories are moral engines, their

32:04

purpose is to get us to

32:06

act according to the morality of

32:09

our society. So a great

32:11

sin is pride, pride cometh

32:13

before a fall and

32:15

that's exactly what this story is

32:17

about. They were two fancy

32:19

pants for their own good, they were two and

32:22

you know in a way, let's

32:24

speculate on the relationship between these two. Do

32:27

you think he's trying to impress Muriel? Do

32:29

you think Scotty who is tremendously

32:32

handsome is gallically broad

32:36

about the jaw and the forehead?

32:40

I may be that myself

32:43

and one would be too modest

32:45

to say that when one was

32:47

young it was commented

32:49

that one was perhaps handsome,

32:52

it's all gone now though. I saw myself in

32:54

a full length mirror the other day and he jumped out my skin

32:56

and said I don't know what that is but it needs ironing. Anyway,

33:01

horror, back to horror. So the room

33:03

shrinks, that's great because some horror stories

33:05

are written. I don't think they're massively

33:08

strong but some people

33:10

are scared by the basil

33:12

coppers, the spider, arachnophobia and

33:16

the magatina laschis, the tower which

33:18

is vertigo and there are a

33:20

couple like that to build on

33:22

specific phobias. There

33:24

was one that somebody couldn't, it was a spider

33:26

one they couldn't listen to, rats as well, there's

33:28

some of the rat stories that people can't listen

33:31

to. So you know he's building this specific phobia

33:33

and if you're going to create it, I remember

33:35

going to create it right in the course of

33:37

years ago and they said yeah use these classic

33:39

phobias. The only trouble is if people aren't scared

33:41

of them, it doesn't work but I

33:44

think this does work. When I was a little boy

33:46

I used to hide in the tiny cupboard, I

33:48

used to do it to impress my grandmother who

33:50

was not sucking eggs at the time but she

33:52

had a tin, I've

33:55

never said this before, it was

33:57

an old biscuit tin full

33:59

of buttons. And I do

34:01

have said before because somebody commented this was really common

34:03

and She

34:05

and I would sneak into

34:08

this and play with the

34:10

buttons even when I was actually too big and

34:12

I struggled to get out Of it, but so

34:14

I'm not actually claustrophobic. I suppose that's the point

34:16

of that story Yeah,

34:19

so I should have said

34:21

at the very beginning I Spoilers

34:25

some people are prissy aren't they prissy?

34:27

I understand you don't want us I've

34:29

never been bothered by spoilers really but

34:31

some people Comment

34:33

quite Bruce Klee if somebody has made a

34:36

comment on on the podcast and it lets

34:38

the cat out of the bag As it

34:40

were some people are quite

34:43

forthright and blunt in their tone Calling

34:47

them in fact jerks, which I believe

34:49

is a North American term of this

34:52

approbation I say North

34:54

American. I'm actually on Reflection

34:56

I'm not current if I'm not sure if the

34:58

term is current in Canada or

35:01

whether they have their own As

35:04

we do, you know, we have all

35:06

sorts of words that mean the same thing But

35:09

you know come from different sources and the

35:11

Canadians may have They

35:14

may have their own term. So I don't want

35:16

to be too broad brush with that. So yeah,

35:18

anyway, I've been a bit mad today not

35:22

not insane maths just silly

35:24

and Skippy

35:27

in my brain, but again

35:29

if you've got this far and this isn't

35:31

the first of my so-called

35:33

monologues That you which in fact

35:35

is that what they are? which

35:37

you Isn't

35:40

it funny how we say so-called we

35:42

call into that so-called professor? You

35:44

mean he's not really professor. Whereas

35:46

Russians I remember coming across this

35:48

Russians learned English There's it so

35:51

called just means it is thus called

35:54

So so-called professor means

35:57

he is called a professor because he is a

35:59

professor. Whereas in English It means, yeah, I'll tell

36:01

you another funny story. Talking about

36:03

linguistics, and then I'm going to finish. A

36:07

number of languages use a double

36:10

negative. The ones I can think of are

36:13

French, of course, Nispe, you

36:16

know, you use both the n and the pa.

36:21

In Welsh, it's the duíðim,

36:24

not nid or duíðim. You use

36:26

it twice. In Afrikaans, it is

36:28

extremimitjó samní. So again, you use

36:30

ní twice. You don't in Dutch,

36:32

though, apparently, from what I'm my

36:34

Dutch, I learned. And

36:37

so, yes, so a number of languages

36:39

will use a double negative to reinforce

36:41

a negative. And I remember there

36:44

was a class being taught, and

36:46

the professor made this point. And he

36:48

said, interestingly, he said, there

36:53

is no case of a language that uses

36:55

two positives to make a negative, all right?

36:58

And then one of the students went, yeah,

37:00

right. It

37:02

was funny, wasn't it? Well, I thought it

37:04

was funny. Anyway, this is about time

37:07

I was off before I descend

37:10

into madness. Somebody said, another comment

37:13

I had was, this

37:15

made me laugh, somebody put, yeah,

37:17

Tony Walker, he was brilliant in

37:19

the beginning, but now he's

37:21

gone off his rocker. As

37:24

if. So

37:27

tomorrow we're going to Morcombe. And

37:30

if you've got this far, you're

37:32

one of those people who likes

37:34

to hear these little anecdotes, personal

37:36

anecdotes. So Sheila's doing a crystal

37:39

fire healing, Reiki

37:41

thing at seven o'clock.

37:43

So she said, we'll go to Morcombe and

37:46

we'll walk to Hesham. Now Hesham, the St.

37:48

Patrick's Chapel, he's in Lancashire. And

37:50

it's got these rock cut tombs that

37:53

of St. Patrick's Chapel, which overlooks the

37:55

Irish scene, whether it was an Irish

37:57

monastic settlement, but it's a splendid place.

38:00

lovely village. She was nice cafes there

38:02

as well. She said, we'll walk from

38:04

Morcombe. Now I like Morcombe. Morcombe's

38:07

a bit like a down at heel

38:09

seaside town, but it's, I just really

38:11

like it. And, um, I

38:14

like going to the bookshop there, which

38:17

I think is a peer, peer bookshop, the peer

38:19

bookshop. And anyway, she said, I said, what

38:21

time's this thing? You go on and she said seven o'clock. I said,

38:23

what am I going to do? I'm taking the dogs, three

38:25

dogs in the car. She says,

38:28

well, you can go to the pub. I said, I can't

38:30

really go to the pub with three dogs. I said, what

38:32

I can do is sit in the back at, I'm not

38:34

going to be driving back. I

38:36

can sit in the back with the dogs

38:38

drinking cans. That's not a good

38:40

look, is it drinking cans of beer, sitting in the back with the

38:42

dogs, back at the car with dogs. That's probably what's going to happen.

38:45

And then on Saturday, um, we're

38:48

going to, no, Ambleside, we're

38:50

going to Appleby to

38:52

a, to a market. It

38:54

so happened we were out some months ago and she

38:57

was like, oh, that's a nice Buddha. I said, look,

38:59

man, we've got enough Budders

39:01

in the house. We've got, she just buys Budders. And

39:05

I'm like, you know, we've got

39:07

the Budders. Why? We need something else, don't

39:09

we? And there's a helicopter flying overhead. It

39:12

would be one of those, somebody's falling off a mountain helicopters,

39:16

which is very sad and I hope to get them to hospital really quickly. Um,

39:19

let them go by. I mean, I could stop this, couldn't

39:21

I? But I'm just doing it for, um, atmosphere

39:24

allowing me to slow down,

39:26

collect my thoughts. So,

39:30

so anyway, she's okay. There's a green

39:33

man. You know, that carving of the guy made of

39:35

leaves and trees and things. And I said, yeah, okay,

39:38

we'll go there. And she said, it's, um, we, we've

39:40

got to go to the market. She said, the

39:42

green man is the guy who sells it. It's

39:46

a hippie. I mean, yeah, really? He lives in a

39:48

van. He ever, I'm not

39:51

actually, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm

39:53

not actually surprised. Uh, I

39:56

don't know whether she thought I was going to be surprised. I'm going, yeah,

39:58

of course he does. And. And she

40:00

showed me a picture of me and he had like

40:02

them baggy trousers and sandals and a big long beard

40:04

and I thought, yeah, I'm not surprised.

40:07

He makes green men for a living. You know, of

40:09

course he looks like that. I don't know what I

40:11

should look like. Anyway, that's going to be Saturday and

40:13

then Sunday I'm going down to Loweswater in

40:16

the Lake District to see my daughters because

40:18

it's Father's Day and we're going to have

40:20

a little bit of a walk. I'm not

40:23

taking my dogs because Catherine's

40:25

got her dog Cosmo who's a

40:27

spaniel and Jasper and Cosmo are

40:29

kind of teenage boys and they

40:32

can be all right and sometimes they can be

40:34

all testosterone driven. So I thought it's just easier

40:36

and also, yeah, just easier. I'll go down and

40:38

have a walk around with my

40:41

two lovely girls and Cosmo

40:44

and then we're going for

40:46

a meal at the Kirk style Inn, which Catherine

40:48

has booked. So that's good. It's

40:50

a lovely, if you ever need a Lake

40:53

Lindeen, I mean, there are a few of them, but

40:55

a lot of them are being modernized to be kind

40:57

of modern. Whereas what I want

40:59

is old fashioned, you know,

41:02

Dickensian. I'm not saying

41:04

Dickensian, but with the feel of the old

41:06

country Lake District thing and the Kirk style

41:08

really preserves it. I think another one is

41:10

the pheasant back bar at Bass and Thwaite.

41:12

There are others, there are others, but

41:15

some of you may know them anyway. So that's

41:17

my weekend. I'm going to be very, very busy.

41:20

I'll be very tired on Monday because

41:23

I'm getting on a bit now. Anyway, there's

41:25

a scrap man. I don't know if you can hear that.

41:27

We've had the helicopter, the scrap man. If I'm recording a

41:29

story, I have to stop when they

41:31

do this. That's why it takes me ages. Also, I

41:33

make lots of mistakes. Okay. I

41:35

think I'm going to wind down a little bit now.

41:38

Good night everybody. Or good day wherever you

41:40

are. Everybody

41:44

dies,

41:48

don't they? Let's

41:53

somehow back them. Isn't

42:00

that something?